The latest from Twitter: @Peace_Coffee plays cupid with “Caffeinate Your Cutie,” @triplerockmpls is serving @surlybrewing Mild at $3.50 a pint, @bittercube celebrates the long-anticipated opening of Eat Street Social, and @Masu_NE will feature a suggestive little Valentine’s Day roll through Tuesday.
by Susan Pagani on January 25, 2012
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
Visiting a restaurant supply is dangerous. Once you get in there, and expose your predilection for kitchen gadgets to wall-to-wall stainless steel, ceramic, and glass, you will suddenly need a robot coupe, a hummingbird-sized ramekin, a pizza warmer, a fake wheel of Wisconsin cheese, a 60-gallon stock pot, and a set of candle-heated butter warmers. So here’s a word to the wise: Leave your wallet in the car. You will inevitably fetch it, but out in the fresh air cooler heads will prevail, and you may only spend half a paycheck.
Restaurant supplies are the restaurateur’s hardware store; in fact, many won’t even sell to folks without a license. Those that do are less consumer friendly than, say, Cooks of Crocus Hill. You’ll find them in ill-marked and often abandoned-looking buildings and, once you’re inside, there’s no sampling salty chocolates or browsing cookbooks. In many cases, you’ll be left to wander blissfully alone among metal shelves, piled high with wares, some new, some used, some still in boxes, and most without a price. As one fellow told me: It’s a rare occasion that a new restaurant owner walks in and outfits their shop in one fell swoop of brand new. So the small wares we consumers love are mainly there to be tossed gratis on top of a charbroiler as a restaurant owner hauls it out of the building; they make their money on large kitchen equipment and design. Still, suppliers are proud of their wares and, where you and I see a cheap white plate, they see an inexpensive 12-inch, rolled-edge dinner plate made of dense, vitrified china fired at incredibly high temperatures to be able to withstand the hungry public, the occasionally clumsy waiter, and 17 trips a day through the washing machine.
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
In the mini reviews below, we tried to look at roughly the same items at each establishment, choosing middle-of-the-road options that were basic but of good quality. However, it’s hard to formulate an objective comparison between restaurant supplies because they are so variously stocked and, as we mentioned above, many maintain an old-school approach wherein price is based on the whim of the seller, how much you buy, how frequently you buy, and (one sometimes suspects) your character. They are also unquestionably a competitive lot — we had to show identification to be allowed to take photographs — so a little polite haggling is sometimes permissible.
It’s worth noting that nearly everyone offered to order us whatever we needed, and they all seemed to be ordering from the same catalogs. Also, in all cases, a version of greater or lesser quality was available.
Courtesy of Hockenbergs
Hockenbergs recently moved into a brand new warehouse in Eagan. It is a clean, well-lighted place filled with eager staff people ready to help you find whatever you need on the vast sales floor (see photo, top) or in a catalog. If you’re looking to browse a broad range of quality, shiny new stuff – from glassware to giant woks and industrial toasters to ice cream scoops in every size — this is probably your best bet.
As a national chain, Hockenbergs may offer the largest selection of small wares of any of the restaurant supplies listed here and the closest thing to a “normal” retail experience. Yet their focus is really on kitchen design and large equipment. When asked, they will say that their super power is leveraging their presence and knowledgeable staff to find whatever big equipment the restaurant owner needs, quickly and at a good price – and then delivering it with their own truck to ensure it arrives in one piece. “I recently found a used six-burner convection oven in 15 minutes!” one fellow told us.
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
How does that help the consumer? Not at all. Apparently, Hockenbergs’ buying power doesn’t translate to great prices for the home cook, since most items were a bit more expensive there than elsewhere. That said, it’s still a better deal than your average cooking store, and browsing the racks and racks and racks of stuff is great fun. Bonus: It’s all priced, so if you want to shop in anonymity, you can.
12 balloon wine glasses: $41.39 Libbey Vina
12 white, rolled-edge dinner plates: $64.54 China World
12 stainless steel bouillon spoons: $9.08 World Tableware
13-quart stainless-steel mixing bowl: $8.68
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
Random stuff:
30-cup rice cooker $503.00
Gallon of snow cone syrup $5.99
28-inch iron wok $50.17
Hockenbergs
2015 Silver Bell Rd
Eagan, MN 55122
612.331.1300 | hockenbergs.com
Monday-Friday 8am-5pm
Saturday 10am-1pm
The second place we visited — St. Paul U.S. Foods Culinary Equipment / Superior Outlet Center / Next Day Gourmet — has more names than Prince, and is a whole lot less recognizable if you aren’t paying attention. Apparently, U.S. Foods bought Superior Outlet Center, which is also called Next Day Gourmet. Turn into the driveway marked “Superior Outlet Center” and then, once inside the building, enter the door marked Next Door Gourmet.
Once we found them, the folks at U.S. Foods were nice and helpful, and, though not specifically catering to the home cook, empathetic to our cause. They told us that the sales floor offers a small selection of the things most restaurants need starting out, including prep and bar ware. They also told us that the dish, glassware, and silverware selection is small, but they have catalogs. And then they kindly pointed us to a door at the back of the room that leads to the clearance goods. Continue reading Twin Cities Restaurant Supply Roundup — For the Home Cooks »
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
It’s always an open question whether a new holiday tradition will take root. One that’s worth cheering on is the Lift Bridge Brewing Co. Biscotti Release and Bake-Off, which debuted Dec. 17 at the brewery’s Stillwater taproom. The event combined a release of the brewery’s holiday Biscotti Belgian-style ale (reviewed here) with a juried cookie baking contest overseen by a panel of judges that included our own Becca Dilley. As was appropriate to the setting, contestants were encouraged (but not required) to use beer in their recipes.
Among the best of the cookies were the Chocolate Cherry Lambic Crinkles, which were sufficiently addictive to persuade even beer- and cookie-logged judges to come back for a second and even third bite. Tender in texture, deep and complicated (but harmonious!) in flavor, they accomplished the difficult trick of getting the tartness of fruit to play nicely with the depth of coffee and chocolate.
With the permission of the contestants, we’re pleased to share the Crinkles recipe here today, along with the People’s Choice award (Cranberry Hootycreeks) and another highly ranked recipe, Molasses Porter Spice Crisps.
Chocolate Cherry Lambic Crinkles (Judges’ favorite)
by Laura Maupin
Ingredients
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons instant espresso or very finely ground espresso beans
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons cherry lambic, reduced from approximately 2/3 cup
Confectioners’ sugar, for coating
Directions
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, espresso, baking powder, and salt. With an electric mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg until well combined; mix in cooled chocolate. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture; mix in reduced lambic until just combined. Flatten dough into a disk; wrap in plastic.
Freeze until firm, about 45 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Pour confectioners’ sugar (about 1/2 cup) into a medium bowl; working in batches, roll balls in sugar two times, letting them sit in sugar between coatings.
3. Place on prepared baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake until cookies have spread and coating is cracked, 12 to 14 minutes; cookies will still be soft to the touch. Cool cookies on a wire rack.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
Cranberry Hootycreeks (People’s Choice)
by Amy Kuelz, adapted from an allrecipes.com recipe
Regarding her modifications, Amy notes: “I combined dried tart cherries with the dried cranberries and combined this with roasted salted and unsalted pecans.”
Ingredients
5/8 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Directions
Layer the ingredients in a 1-quart or 1-liter jar, in the order listed. Continue reading Recipes from the Lift Bridge Biscotti Bake-Off »
Katie Cannon / Heavy Table
Hanukkah is either the festival of lights or a holiday dedicated almost wholly to a difficult, messy, unhealthy way of cooking — depending on how Grinch-y you’re feeling at any given time.
Frying can stink up the house, splatter grease all over the stove, use up all the oil in the larder, and result in leaden belly-bombs instead of fluffy treats. To say I was once not a fan of frying is an understatement.
But more than a decade of Hanukkahs (Hanukkot?) under my belt have taught me to stop worrying and love the oil. Here’s how.
1. Pick your pot. You don’t need a specialized deep fryer, but take a look at what you’ve got: The heavier, the better. Cast iron is great. It will hold heat well and help keep the temperature of the oil more consistent. Go for narrower over wider and deeper over shallower. Less surface area is good.
2. Pick your oil. You want to balance flavor, price, and smoke point. And that leads you to refined canola or corn oil, which both have smoke points above 400˚F. Peanut, grapeseed, and sunflower oil all have high smoke points, too, but when I’m filling a big pot or two with oil, these are too pricey for me. Vegetable shortening (like generic Crisco) is cheap but has a smoke point below 375˚F, which is the magic frying number.
3. Use lots of oil. Lots. You may think shallow frying is healthier somehow, but the more oil you use, the less heat it will lose when you add the food. A consistently high temperature (about 375˚F) will cook the food quickly and prevent it from becoming saturated with oil. A full quart of canola oil comes within three inches of the top of my cast iron pot. That’s about where you want to be; any closer and you risk splatters. (The latkes are shallow-fried rather than deep-fried because the batter is too loose to hold together well in a deep fryer.)
Katie Cannon / Heavy Table
3. Work in small batches. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Recipes always say this and then you cram as much stuff as you can into the pot just to get it over with. There should be ample space — an inch or more — all the way around each individual piece you’re frying. Keep batches hot while you cook in a 200˚F oven. Line a rimmed cookie sheet with newspaper, put a cooling rack on top of that, and put it in the oven, then just slip your cooked treats onto that as you work.
4. Use a thermometer. A probe thermometer with an alarm is good, but a cheap candy thermometer works just as well. These have a clip that goes over the edge of the pan. Maybe our grandmothers could look at the shimmering surface of the oil and accurately gauge its temperature, but that ability has been bred right out of modern humans.
5. Maintain a consistent heat. The temperature will drop as you add food to the hot oil. Keep a very close eye on the thermometer and adjust as needed.
Now, turn on your exhaust fan, go close those bedroom doors, and start frying!
But, what to fry? Potato latkes and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) get all the attention, but the frying itself is actually the defining characteristic of a Hanukkah treat. Fried chicken. Tempura. Deep-fried Mars bars. Okay, not really.
Continue reading Alternative Hanukkah Recipes and Frying Tips »
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
Editor’s note: This pie triumphed over 10 bakery-made pies in our blind tasting of 11 pumpkin pies, so we thought the recipe was worth sharing.
I love pumpkin pie, but most pie recipes downplay the flavor of pumpkin. While preparing to make a favorite snack (pumpkin pie without the crust, or, as my family calls it, “pumpkin pudding”) I noticed we had a can of dulce de leche my mom had given me in the misguided understanding that it was an ingredient in “cafe con leche.” The can had ideas for using dulce de leche, including a pumpkin rice pudding and pumpkin cheesecake, and this recipe was inspired by them. The dulce de leche replaces the milk and sugar from most recipes, and because it has a thicker, more caramel-like consistency, it provides a firmer texture. You can, of course, use a homemade crust instead of a store-bought crust, but I’ve found that for a quick and easy pie like this, the store-bought crust works out just fine.
Becca’s Dulce de Pumpkin Pie
1 can pumpkin (15 oz)
1 can dulce de leche (13.4 oz), usually available in the Mexican aisle of supermarkets
1 egg
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cloves
¼ tsp salt
1 Pillsbury pie crust ready to bake (usually available in a pack of two in the refrigerated section of the grocery store)
Preheat oven to 375°.
Place pie crust in 9-inch pie pan. Use a fork to poke some holes in bottom. Place in oven for approximately 10 minutes, or until the crust begins to look cooked and starts to puff up. Remove from oven.
Mix together all other ingredients until smooth.
Pour mixture into par-baked pie shell and return to oven for approximately 40 minutes. Filling will be slightly jiggly when removed, but it should be dark brown and burnished looking.
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
I’ve never been the kind of hostess who’s into theme menus. Unlike my friend Ariela, who once added a heaping spoonful of cayenne pepper into her brownies so they would “match” with the Mexican-inspired entree (causing our other friend to ask “What’s wrong with having just plain brownies and ice cream?”), it’s just something I don’t think about doing. Honestly, I often don’t plan my menu until the day before the guests arrive. But if there is one ingredient that could get me to change my laissez-faire culinary ways, it would be the fall favorite — the apple.
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
Visiting an apple orchard always is on our fall to-do list, and we usually come home with more apples than planned, so rather than just keep them on hand for snacking, I try to put the blushy beauties front and center on our dinner plates. The first dish is a kale salad studded with apples, raisins, nuts, and red onions. You’ve probably seen a version of this recipe floating around the Internet as “massaged kale salad” or “rubbed kale salad.” I got the recipe from my sister last year and have made it about once a week since then. Rubbing salt into the raw kale helps relieve it of its bitterness, making it a healthy, chewy bed for the sweet apple and raisins. I often toss in feta and some leftover salmon to make it an entree, but it’s an excellent starter as well.
Our entree, braised chicken with apple and sage, yields some of the most flavorful and tender chicken you will ever taste. After the first bite of this dish, it was the first time I’ve ever described a piece of chicken as “silky,” and wow, what a game-changer. The meat drinks up the creamy, apple-tinged sauce, and the apple slices cook down to almost a chunky applesauce. This dish looks and smells like fall, and it’s easy enough to prepare that you might be inspired to serve it long after you use up your haul from the orchard.
Finally, we round out the meal with peanut butter apple chunk cookies. Adapted from a beloved cookbook, the recipe swaps in applesauce for half of the butter and adds in big chunks of peeled apple for a burst of freshness. Thanks to the applesauce, the resulting cookie feels and tastes lighter than a traditional peanut butter cookie and remains remarkably soft days after baking. It’s also impossible to eat more than just one — every time I’ve stuck my hand in the jar, I’ve gone back for seconds.
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
Apple Kale Salad
Yield: 4 servings
1 bunch kale
1 tsp salt
¼ c diced red onion
⅓ c currants or chopped raisins
¾ c diced apple
⅓ c toasted nuts or pumpkin seeds
scant ¼ c olive oil
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
⅓ cup crumbled cheese, such as feta, goat, or blue
Pull kale leaves away from stems, wash, and spin or pat dry. Cut leaves into thin ribbons. Put kale in a large mixing bowl. Add salt and massage into the kale with your hands for 2 minutes.
Stir onion, raisins, apple, and nuts / seeds into kale. Dress with olive oil and vinegar. Taste for salt and vinegar, adding more if necessary. When at desired flavor, toss in cheese. Continue reading All-Apple Fall Menu »
Aaron Fenster / Heavy Table
As summer ebbs and flows through the city, one may start to feel that there are often more movie screenings (both indoor and out) than people to attend them. City folk dwell in an embarrassment of riches: they will be entertained, whether they’re seeking refuge from the heat in a temperature-controlled movie theater or braving the twilight mosquitoes at the park. But after your second, third, or — let’s be honest — fourth movie within a week, you may start to get weary of eating the same old buttered popcorn.
The solution: season it yourself! (If you answered, “Bring healthy snacks such as fruit and celery,” you are incorrect.) Embrace the inherent nerdiness of bringing your own seasonings to the cinema and just go with it. More often than not, this kind of thing sparks conversations with fellow moviegoers and theater employees and fosters the kind of community spirit that makes going to movies so fun in the first place.
Let’s start with the basics. If you’re going to bring your own popcorn to an outdoor screening or somesuch, it’s best to make it from scratch. You can get bulk popcorn kernels from the farmer’s market or the grocery store, and it’s often less than $1.50 per pound. Yield will vary from brand to brand; for this article, we used white popcorn from Whole Grain Milling (Welcome, MN) and got about a gallon of popcorn from a cup of kernels.
Aaron Fenster / Heavy Table
Get a large pot on medium-high heat with about a tablespoon of coconut oil. We found that a nonstick pasta pot, which came with a perforated lid, worked great. If you don’t have a lid, use foil and punch some holes in it to let out the steam. Test out the heat with a single kernel of corn — when it pops, the oil is ready to go!
Pour in your popcorn kernels and shake the pot frequently. From this point on, it’s basically microwave popcorn procedure: just wait for the popping to slow down. When it’s done, take the pot off the range. Here comes the fun part.
Aaron Fenster / Heavy Table
Seasoning popcorn is easiest and cleanest with a brown paper bag, Shake ‘n’ Bake style. While some seasonings won’t work too well with that method (grated cheese will just sink to the bottom), most of the spice-plus-fat combinations will. Speaking of fats, also make sure to clarify your butter if you can. Taking the water out of the butter prevents the popcorn from disintegrating into a mushy mess.
These are a few of the seasonings we tried out:
Aaron Fenster / Heavy Table
(Clockwise from top left: garam masala and clarified butter; truffle oil with porcini mushroom salt and Parmesan; Old Bay seasoning; berebere spice and ramp butter. The popcorn at the top of this article is seasoned with chili oil, Chinese five-spice, and pork floss.) We also tried out furikake, cinnamon sugar with butter, and grey sea salt with pepper. Unsurprisingly, we found it really hard to go wrong — especially since we started with a popcorn that tasted great unadorned. In terms of simplicity, the Old Bay won by a landslide. As it turns out, the definitive flavor of Atlantic crab boils goes great on fries, popcorn, and all manner of snackery. The pork floss / chili oil combo came in a close second, with its tastiness being dragged down by its impracticality.
I mean, you can bring your entire spice cabinet with you to the movies…
Aaron Fenster / Heavy Table
Tags: popcorn
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