New York is a wonderful place to find new ideas about almost anything, but especially about food. There’s always a new restaurant, an old market and a potential adventure.
Bar Breton, a small French restaurant in the Flatiron district, is known for its galettes, but I found an unexpected delight. The décor should have given me a clue. Light and airy, the high white walls are decorated with old black and white family photos – the kind all of us have except for the berets.
The odd note is the whimsical mobile suspended in the front window, not over the bar where it would be useful. Four layers of multicolored drink glasses hang upside down from the ceiling. That whimsical touch, which adds a warm and cheerful air, should have prepared me for fried deviled eggs.
I wanted to try the warm green bean salad, but how could I ignore something called fried deviled eggs? The waiter explained the cooking process: the eggs are boiled, shelled, breaded and fried, then served with spicy aioli. I had to have them.
Presented on a thin black plank, overly soft boiled eggs sat in a thin, crisp breading. I prefer my eggs hard boiled, but I loved the idea. Yes, I also love Surrealist and Dadaist Art for the same reason – it’s fun, playful, inventive.
Why has food become so pragmatic and burdensome? Does no one ever have more 30 minutes to throw together a basic dish and slam it on the table?
Here’s food to have a little fun with. I wandered into Ferran Adria territory when I searched for ways to inject more flavor into the eggs. And I briefly thought about an injection. Would it be possible to actually inject aioli into the eggs before boiling? But where would I get needles?
So I decided to boil the eggs a little longer, add spice to the breading and turn up the aioli.
I passed up dessert at Bar Breton and walked over to Momofuku Milk Bar in the East Village. Chef David Chang was recently the subject of a long interview in The New Yorker, called out for the number of times the “F word” was used, and a short sketch in The Washington Post, where a local boy (he grew up in Arlington) talked up his favorite Chinese restaurant in DC. His Momofuku cookbook was released last week.
Tempted by the Dulce de Leche cake, I was seduced by the Pistachio Cake with Lemon Curd. I passed up the Cereal Milk Soft Serve (the sample tasted exactly like the milk leftover from a bowl of cornflakes) in favor of the Caramel Apple, which probably would have been perfect for the Dulce de Leche cake. It was overshadowed by the pistachio cake, dominated by an exquisite lemon curd with the freshness of lemons grown in a land of sunshine and the smooth depth of a butter like Perugia.
If I hadn’t drunk three cups of coffee at Bar Breton, I would have tried another cup of Stumptown coffee. The milk bar is one of the distributors in Manhattan. This morning I stopped by the Ace Hotel to try out what The New York Times called “New York’s first farm-to-cup café” at the only Stumptown Café in the city.
Freshness is so important to Stumptown that they refuse to stockpile decaf. The coffee in the carafes, medium-sized instead of the institutional barrels used in other cafes, is made with a French press, which “has a shelf life of about 25 minutes,” according to a barista. Decaf doesn’t move that fast, so Americanos are served as their decaf.
Having exceeded my daily coffee allotment, I packed up my pistachio cake and walked over to Lafayette to catch the 6 train uptown to Kitchen Arts and Letters, the Upper East Side destination for cookbook lovers. Small and packed with popular and esoteric cookbooks and journals, the store is run by people who know their market. This was the kind of place where I expected to find Nigel Slater’s new vegetable cookbook, Tender, published only in the U.K. in September. But I did find a beautiful hybrid, part cookbook, part art book and part biography, Van Gogh’s Table, which gave me an idea for my signature apple cake and soothed me with the beauty of Van Gogh’s exquisite restaurant paintings.
Back home I came up with ideas for Fried Deviled Eggs (My nieces and nephews love deviled eggs. I hope this variation will make them laugh and ask for more.). I started with a French version, infused with Middle Eastern ingredients, and a classic yet new dipping sauce, Lemon Aioli. I was determined to make it by hand instead of throwing everything into the food processor, but aioli can be temperamental, so I looked at several recipes and decided on Daniel Young’s technique in Made in Marseille. His thorough explanation of the early steps made it a success.
Lemon Aioli
Adapted from Made in Marseilles by Daniel Young
2 egg yolks, at room temperature
5 cloves garlic, smashed
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 ½ lemons)
Smash the garlic cloves into the salt with a pestle in a mortar. Add the egg yolks. The yolks must be at room temperature, the same as all the ingredients. Mash the yolks into the garlic with a circular motion until emulsified, at least 2 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes. This step is the key to the success of the aioli. If the ingredients are slowly blended, they are more likely to emulsify.
Pour in a drop or two of oil and slowly incorporate with the same circular, mashing motion. When the oil is completely integrated, pour in another drop or two. Repeat for a few times until you are sure the aioli has thickened, then begin to add larger quantities of oil until the aioli is thick enough that the pestle can stand on its own.
When the aioli is securely emulsified, begin to add the lemon juice a little at a time, alternating with oil, until it reaches the taste and consistency you want. The aioli can be refrigerated, but allow it to return to room temperature before serving.
Parmesan Za’atar Fried Eggs
Greg and Lucy Malouf gave me the idea for the breading in their sumptuous Saha.
Six boiled eggs, either as soft or hard boiled as you like them, peeled.
The breading recipe will cover 6 eggs, but you may cook them when you want. If not mixed with olive oil, the breading ingredients will keep for several days in a covered container and the flavors will blend even more.
Parmesan Za’atar Breading
1 cup breadcrumbs, regular or panko
3-4 teaspoons Parmesan, depending on taste
3 ½ tablespoons za’atar*
Zest of 1 lemon
2-4 tablespoons olive oil. Use lemon flavored oil for a stronger flavor.
Flour
1 egg lightly beaten with a little water
Vegetable oil
Make the breading while the eggs are boiling. Add Parmesan one spoonful at a time and taste after each addition because it can easily overwhelm the other flavors. If you are trying za’atar for the first time, follow the same tasting process. If you are a za’atar addict, add more.
Line up saucers of flour, egg wash and breadcrumbs. Roll the eggs first in the flour, then in the egg wash and finally coat them thoroughly with the breading.
Fill a heavy saucepan, large enough to comfortably hold the eggs, with vegetable oil and heat until sizzling. I used a small, deep pan and fried two eggs at a time. When the eggs brown, after a couple of minutes, turn until browned all over, another minute or two, and remove with a slotted spatula.
Serve sliced in half with the lemon aioli. The presentation is very impressive with either soft or hard boiled eggs.
*Za’atar is available at most Middle Eastern groceries and at Rodman’s in the DC area.
