Michelin Guide Apps for Apple

Michelin (yes, the tire company) has been putting out their famous Red Guide, the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant guide, since the turn of the last century. In 2005, Michelin came to the US with the publication of their first New York Guide, and later added San Francisco and Chicago to their repertoire.

The books are fantastic, but people on the go might appreciate the new phone apps. While they're not available for Android users just yet, Apple users can check out the new Michelin Guides 2013 for San Francisco, New York, and Chicago on their iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads by downloading the new Michelin apps from the iTunes store.

Normally $4.99 each, this week only they're available for $.99 each.

Once you've downloaded your apps, make sure to like the Michelin Guides on Facebook to participate in a Virtual App Tour this Friday, December 7th at 12pm EST. The tour will focus on each city's app and how it functions. There will also be a daily Instagram contest, starting today, with 10 free apps given away each day.

Speaking of Michelin Stars, congrats to one-time Next Iron Chef contestant Dominique Crenn for the two-star rating of her San Francisco restaurant, Atelier Crenn. This makes her the first female chef in the US to earn two Stars - quite the honor.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Tyler Florence in Baltimore

Food Network's Tyler Florence has a new cookbook - hot off the presses yesterday - and will be in the Baltimore area to promote it. In Tyler Florence Fresh, he shows that using fresh, unprocessed foods, whether from the farmers' market or the grocery store, is easier than one might think.

Tyler will be at the Williams-Sonoma in Annapolis at 12pm on Saturday, December 8th, and at 6pm that same evening, he'll be at the Wegman's in Hunt Valley.

To whet your whistle, here's a recipe from the book. As soon as I get my hands on some smoked olive oil (even if I have to do it myself) I'm trying it.

SMOKY ROASTED CHICKEN AND CITRUS SALSA
serves 2-4

Chicken
1 whole (3-1/2-pound) free-range chicken
1/2 cup smoked olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
1-1/2 pounds baby creamer potatoes
in assorted colors

Citrus Salsa
2 limes
1 navel orange
1 grapefruit
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
6 breakfast radishes
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives

Flowering cilantro buds
Fleur de sel

Roast the chicken. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Using a sharp knife or kitchen shears, cut along both sides of the backbone and discard it. Flatten the chicken and cut it in half through the breast so you have two halves—each with a leg and breast. Rub all over with some of the smoked olive oil, ensuring it gets in all the crevices. Season all over with salt and pepper.

Set the chicken in a large roasting pan over two burners and heat over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the chicken halves skin-side down and sear for 4 to 5 minutes. Turn the chicken over, add the potatoes to the pan, and drizzle with more smoked olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the joint between the thigh and drumstick reads 160° to 165°F. The potatoes should be golden on the outside and tender in the middle. Remove from the oven and allow the chicken to rest for 5 minutes.

Make the citrus salsa. Use a sharp knife to cut away the rind and pith from each of the citrus fruits. Holding the fruit over a bowl, carefully cut between the membranes to free the segments. Let the juices and segments fall into the bowl. Add about   cup extra-virgin olive oil to the bowl and season with salt and pepper. Cut the radishes into very fine matchsticks on a mandoline or with a sharp knife. Fold them into the citrus salsa, and add the chives.

Serve the roasted chicken with the potatoes and citrus salsa, and garnish with flowering cilantro. Season with fleur de sel.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Safffron Rice and Beans

Here's another quick weekday recipe from Mr. Minx.

Probably half of the dinners I cook during the week are pieced together from leftovers. One of the things I always hated as a kid was when my mother would serve reheated leftovers in the same form as they were served originally. Nine times out of ten, the meal was a pale imitation of the original, so I always prefer to reinvent the leftovers into some other type of dish. Besides, there's almost never enough food left over to serve exactly the same way. Case in point, a meal I put together the other day.

When I opened the fridge, our leftover inventory consisted of a container of steamed rice, some tomato sauce, and four thin slices of pot roast that Minx had ordered at our favorite diner a few nights earlier. My usual plan when I'm confronted with rice is to do a Chinese-style fried rice dish, but we had eaten Chinese food the night before, so I thought about other cuisines that use rice. That's when paella popped into my head.

Of course, paella is way too complicated, and I didn't have all the ingredients for it anyway, but I thought by adding saffron to the rice, I could build on the paella inspiration. Digging through the pantry, I found a can of black beans and, in the freezer, our usual stash of frozen peas. Rice and beans are a classic, and saffron rice tastes great, so this could actually work. Cooked all together with onions and garlic, the dish was homey and comforting, while having a touch of the exotic thanks to the saffron. I sprinkled the chopped pot roast into the dish for meaty goodness, but the recipe below excludes the pot roast because a) not everyone will have leftover pot roast in the fridge; and b) the recipe works great as a vegetarian dish.

Saffron Rice and Beans

2 cups cooked rice
1 medium onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of butter
a few strands of saffron bloomed in 1/2 cup of warm water
1/2 teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped
15 oz. can black beans
4 oz. tomato puree or tomato sauce
1/2 cup frozen petite peas
salt and pepper to taste
cilantro and scallion for garnish

Place a few strands of saffron in 1/2 cup of water to "bloom," or turn the water into a nice yellow color. While that's going on, open a can of black beans, dump them in a colander, and rinse the starch off under running water. With that prep work done, chop a medium onion and saute it in a pan with olive oil and melted butter. Once the onions are translucent, dump in the cooked rice and mix together. Add your garlic and the saffron water. Mix everything together well so that the rice takes on a yellow color. Add the tomato puree, and then add the black beans and the petite peas. Once everything is incorporated and heated through, season with salt, pepper, and the fresh oregano. Once on the plate, sprinkle some cilantro and chopped scallion on top for garnish.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Mo's Seafood

My family had been going to Mo's Fisherman's Exchange on Joppa Road for years. It was one of my mom's favorite weekend dinner spots, and while there was little or no ambiance, it was a good place to get tons of food for relatively little cash.

Mo's closed that dreary location earlier in the year and opened a new place a bit further west on Joppa Road, in the revamped former home of the Orchard Inn. The menu isn't that different, but there seems to be more (and younger) clientele, plus two outdoor dining areas - the combination of which spiff things up considerably.

One thing I really like about the new Mo's is that the menu offers "small" and "large" portions of many items. A single fried soft shell crab with a single side dish costs a reasonable $12. Two soft shells cost $20. The same pricing applies to their backfin crab cake (jumbo lump cakes are also available). I asked nicely and received one each of the crab cake and the soft shell for $20. My choice of side dish was a seemingly bottomless bowl of cole slaw.

The crab cake was heavily flavored with mustard, and had a decent amount of breading, but it was also full of crab lumps. While perhaps not the best crab cake in town, it was pretty good. The soft shell was presented within pieces of buttered toast, which made for a silly-looking, but tasty, sandwich.

Mr Minx had ordered the broiled seafood platter on a prior trip to Mo's and decided to change things up by ordering the fried version, which came with a crab cake, scallops, shrimp, and a plethora of clams. That's a lot of fried food. Needless to say, I had fried clams for lunch later in the week.

MinxBro ordered a much abbreviated version of Mr Minx's dinner, the crab cake and four fried shrimp from the "lite fare" menu. I don't understand what is particularly light about fried seafood, but at $13, the price was right.

Dad bucked the trend and ordered the "crunchy burger," topped with cheese and onion straws. The hefty burger, with uninteresting fries, was only $7, and according to Dad, nicely done.

But that's not all. We also ordered onion rings, a fried calamari appetizer, and coconut shrimp. Yes, entirely too much fried food. The portion of calamari was huge, more than enough for the four of us (especially since Dad won't touch the stuff), and perfectly cooked, with a generous portion of tender tentacles. The coconut shrimp were nicely crispy, but the coconut-flavored dipping sauce is too sweet and a bit overkill.

As was the whole meal. But I dare say we'll be back to this new location far more often than we visited the old one.

Mo's Seafood
1528 E Joppa Rd
Towson, MD 21286
(410) 823-3030



Posted on Minxeats.com.