Five Guys Burgers and Fries

Fast food is bad. The last time I ate at a McDonald's, it was the year 2000. McD's was right around the corner from my office. I had a burning hunger in my stomach and 1.07 in my pocket, just enough to get a dollar double cheeseburger. The burning hunger quickly turned into a burning pain, and I didn't think I'd make it on the 20 minute subway ride in time.
I will never forget that pain, so as a result, I only eat burgers from places that have fresh meat. Like Five Guys! I know it's a chain. Those places are all about profit not nourishment, but 5G seems different to me. The product is good and it's not too expensive. The employees don't seemed disgruntled. The interiors are clean. While you wait for your order, they provide peanuts on the shell to munch on. It's a nice touch. The ingredients are real. I saw whole potatoes in bags, ready to be cut for the fries. The patty is thin, but the meat tastes fresh and it's cooked on the griddle using the smash method. The price isn't dollar menu, but it's still under ten bucks.
I've been to Five Guys in DC and was always glad that they weren't in NYC, because I love Burger Joint and Shake Shack. But those places are always soooo crowded, and if I'm alone and craving meat, I just can't wait that long! Besides, I'm usually looking for something quick before seeing a movie, it's nice to have the option of the midtown and downtown Five Guys.

Located at 55th St. bw 5/6th Ave in Midtown, this 5G is perfect if you're going to see something at the MOMA, the Ziegfeld or the Paris. If your movie is at Lincoln Center, go to Burger Joint because it's closer. I'm sure Five Guys is a mob scene at lunch, but I've only been there on off hours, and they still cooked the burger to order and the fries were fresh from the fryer. In my opinion, the burger at Burger Joint is tastier because it's better seasoned, but Five Guys has the benefit of free toppings like jalapenos, sauteed mushrooms and onions, green peppers and a choice of condiments. Be careful if you get the "little" single patty burger, though. I ordered too many free toppings and they overpowered the meat, but if you slide them off the burger it makes for a sort of salad. As for fries, BJ has the thin shoestring type for 3 bucks, while 5G hand cuts for a meatier fry and it's a quarter cheaper. The fries are dumped into a styrofoam cup and then into a brown bag, so there are actually at least 2 servings in there. For price, 5G wins because their one patty "little" hamburger is 4.25. Burger Joint's one patty is $7. Pictured is Five Guy's cheeseburger. It's 2 patties for 6.25. Downtown at 496 Laguardia Place between Houston and Bleeker, that Five Guys location is good for a quick bite before a movie at the Angelica or even Film Forum. I revisited an old technique for getting hamburger taste without the actual ham. Back in the day at the Dobie Theater in the mall, we were right across from the Burger King. Our cleaning guy, Alberto worked there, so we would get food there, but we would never order the meat. They thawed the frozen patties and kept them in water before they threw them on the grill. Nasty. So we'd order a cheeseburger without the meat. Essentially a processed cheese sandwich it was not terrible tasting and very cheap.
Last night, I really only wanted the fries, but then I saw the veggie or grilled cheese option. Grilled cheese on a bun sounded boring, but melted cheese with the sauteed mushrooms, peppers and onions sounded good! I'm a big fan of melted American cheese, it acts like a glue that keeps the veggies in the sandwich. Ordering a sandwich is key because it's wrapped in foil. You can use that foil to top the cup of fries to eat later. There's enough fries in the small order that falls into the brown paper bag to eat with the sandwich. Then the next day you can have french fry salad! Yes folks, for health and frugality, reheat the fries in the toaster oven and throw them in your salad at lunch. That's literally what I ate today. Kind of like a salad Nicoise without the tuna, olives, greenbeans, tomatoes all I had was lettuce, hardboiled egg and carrots (yeah, i know no carrots in Nicoise) in the fridge. Sad but true and still kind of good. Heehee!

Froggy Bottom

This big guy is a Smokey Jungle Frog. He's got big thigh muscles (hamstrings?) that allow him to jump, but that's also what makes him so tasty. I saw the National Geographic frog exhibit in Washington DC and the reference to mountain chicken reminded me of the first time I had frog legs at Raoul's. This particular kind of frog is native to Central and South America. According to the exhibit info, a species from the Caribbean island of Dominica is now endangered because of frog leg lovers. I just don't think about frog that much because I don't eat them much?! I see them in Chinatown during the summer months, and when they're purchased, they're just stuck in a plastic bag. Cooking them live is probably annoying because they could be noisy unlike lobster. Perhaps if frog legs were mainstream, Red Lobster might have a sister restaurant named Green Frog. Thinking about frogs reminds me that Carissa's friend's documentary, Manda Bala came out on DVD last month. It's a fascinating look at Brazilian society set against my favorite Brazilian pop songs from the sixties by Jorge Ben and Os Mutantes.

Pork as a Condiment with Kale and Tofu

The NY Times has a great series of articles about the global business of food. It seems to be on everyone’s mind, the higher prices of food these days. I’m lucky to live in a town that has a lot of competition. Between the Farmer’s markets and Chinatown, I’m able to get great food for great prices.
Monday I had no food in my fridge, so the first thing I did was go down to Union Square to see what’s new for spring. I saw some nice asparagus, but I felt like I needed more hardcore roughage. I needed kale. Kale is great because it’s healthy, lasts for at least a week and cheap. I got a big bunch for $2.50.
Then to Chinatown for some pork—I was thinking about how greens used to be cooked with some fatty piece of pig but now most restaurants used smoked turkey because it’s healthier. I felt lazy and always frugal, so I thought it would be yummy to get some roasted pork from any one of the hanging pigs in the Chinatown vendors. I bought a plastic dish full of mixed pork for only $3.50 at the Deluxe Market. I love that place because you can order a pork bun for less than a buck and eat it as you walk out with your other purchases.
I saw the tofu lady’s daughter near the 6 train station south of Canal, but didn’t buy any tofu because before I went to Baltimore, I had to throw the week’s tofu into the freezer. When you freeze fresh tofu, obviously the water within the soy freezes and becomes ice. When you defrost it, the water can be squeezed out and it leaves a drier spongy product that’s good for holding sauces. My plan was to slice some of that and throw that into the kale and pork mix. The point was to use the fattier pieces of pork to lube the pan so the tofu wouldn't stick and to flavor the kale just a bit. The plan was to eat a ton of kale because it’s lower in fat and the tofu would be the main source of protein. I threw in some diced carrots, because it needed another color and I had some edamame in the freezer that needed to be used.
But man! That pork skin was so crispy and savory, especially delicious with the dipping sauce made of oil, ginger, scallions and salt that was tucked into the container. Yeah, I ate the healthy kale and tofu stir fry, but the pork was so good, I had to eat those crispy bits on the spot because later, they’d end up soggy.
So while I aimed for healthy and cheap in this meal, it became unhealthy as my will power waned. Oh well, at least this session of pigging out was cheap and I have plenty of leftovers for at least another two meals. I could even stretch it out further by cooking up some rice.

No-Knead Bread

It's taken me a year and a half to finally bake the no knead bread recipe from the NY Times. Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery's recipe for no knead bread ran in paper on November 8, 2006. After making the Jamie Oliver bread last week, I figured I should try what tons of bloggers say is the easiest and tastiest bread out there. Seriously, just google no knead bread and there are tons of thoughts about the process.
You start by mixing 3 cups of all purpose flour with 2 tsp. of Kosher salt and 1/3 tsp of dry active yeast. Then pour 1.5 cups of water into the mix. The recipe doesn't specify warm water, but I used it. The dough is really sticky because of all of that water, so use a spatula to mix it and then leave it for 12-20 hours. Yep. It's a long wait. Don't expect to eat the bread until the next day. at night.
Apparently all that time causes that tiny bit of yeast to create the delicious flavor and those terrific bubbles. When the first rise is up, the dough will have an almost beery odor. It's good stuff, but sticky stuff. I used parchment paper (instead of cotton towel as instructed) with a lot of flour tossed on it to prevent sticking to the counter. After watching some of the you tube videos, there are a few moves you need to make, but it's not kneading per se. It's really pulling the dough, the way Kathrine Helmond's face is stretched in the movie Brazil. Fold the stretched sections over itself a couple of times. Then prod it into a ball and wait another two to three hours. Half an hour before that second rising time is up, stick the oven proof heavy pot into the 500 degree oven. I used Ted's Le Creuset pot. I don't have a big one, but when I get home, I'm going to try using my little mini one and halving the amount of dough. Because the recipe uses so little yeast and I just bought a 5lb bag of flour, this recipe is going to save me money. I'm going to replace a cup of whole wheat flour for the white and maybe add flax or something to add more health.
The part that I messed up was plopping the dough into the pot. I had planned to just throw the dough on the parchment paper into the hot pot, but I feared the hot pot and the dough flipped itself over. The parchment was on the top instead at the bottom. So I had to peel it off, thus losing a little bit of height on the bread. I should have also put the bread it a smaller container during the second rising so that the dough would have created more height. Also, my dough was in more of a blog than a ball. Better shaping would have helped. The bread baked with the lid on for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. I only put it up to 500 in the preheat stage because I figured I'd screw around with the potting. After the half hour, remove the lid carefully, the knob on the top will be red hot, so use a pot holder! Bake for 15 to 30 more minutes. I was practicing my knot tying, so I wasn't really paying attention. It took about 30 minutes to burn it a little bit on top, so don't wait that long. The bread actually develops its crunchy crust as it cools, you can hear it crackle as the cooler air surrounds it. Do not cut into it for another half an hour. Some people report a gumminess to the dough if you don't wait. It's really worth it! I made a fantastic egg salad and cucumber sandwich with this bread. It's so good I can't wait to finish it and make another loaf.

Since I've been in an allergy ridden haze, I went to the library to borrow some movies to watch inside. The best find was the set of Oliver's Twist dvds. I watched all of the episodes and knew that I had to make something from that old Jamie Oliver cookbook I got ages ago when I worked at Esquire. Bread kneading is good upper arm exercise as is walking home with heavy groceries, so I skipped working out and instead bought a 5 lb bag of bread flour (2.49), 1 lb of semolina flour (2.49) and three packets of yeast (2.29) from Fairway. The Red Star active dried yeast package says that approximately 2 1/4 tsp equals one 1/4 oz packet of Red Star. Three 1/4 oz packets equal the activity of one 2 oz yeast cake. This confused me. Jamie's recipe for basic bread calls for 1 oz fresh yeast or 3/4 oz active dried yeast. So if one packet is 1/4 oz, does three packets equal 3/4 oz or since three packets equals 2 oz, should I just use one packet and then split a second in half?
I didn't know what to do, so I just used 2 packets. Then the other part that worried me is that Jamie says use just over 2 cups of tepid water. To the uneducated me, tepid means warm water, but the internet says that tepid is two parts cold water to one part boiling water. The 2 cups part was easy, but then I ended up needing more water because the first kneading resulted in a very dry crumbly dough. Jamie says not to get scared and to add more water, but I ended up adding another cup warm from the tap. It still seemed too dry, but then I didn't want it to wet. I'm not sure why because Jamie even says that it's a moist dough. I lost my confidence, even thought Jamie says in stage 8 not to lose it.
But hey! The bread turned out fine. I ended up making two loaves as there was a ton of dough, next time I'll freeze one ball of dough straight away for baking later.
Here's the recipe. Oh man. I just read the online recipe and the amounts are smaller than the book's measurements. Oh right. This internet version is from his first tv show, The Naked Chef. As is my book. Interesting that it differs, but the book calls for 1 lb of durum semolina flour in addition to the 1 lb of bread flour. Oh and it calls for 3 packets of the active dry yeast! Well, like I said the bread was fine. Now that I think about it, it might be considered a bit dense, but like my bread, so am I!