Eater - All |
- The Best Dinner Recipes, According to Eater Editors
- For Fancy Fish at Home, Frozen Is the Way to Go
- Is the Future of Restaurants Grassroots Funded?
| The Best Dinner Recipes, According to Eater Editors Posted: 25 Apr 2022 07:37 AM PDT  These six recipes will help end the dinner deliberation dilemma Breakfast: simple. Lunch: not much of a labor. Dinner? Sometimes smoke can pour from your ears just thinking up an idea for what to cook. If you forgot to take something out of the freezer, or feel worn out from the struggles of daily life, you may frequently think, I guess I'm skipping dinner tonight. In a word: Don't. With the following recipes, Eater editors fill you in on their evening meal go-tos, weeknight-approved. Gochugaru Salmon with Crispy RiceEric Kim, NYT Cooking It's no secret that Eric Kim's cookbook Korean American is a favorite of Eater.com — in particular, these smashed potatoes with roasted seaweed sour cream dip. Real Kim-heads, though, still turn to his plethora of recipes on NYT Cooking for dinner inspiration, as they now feel like the first underground album before the band blew up. ("Oh, you're an Eric Kim fan? Name three songs from his first record.") This recipe for gochugaru salmon is one of my favorites to cook on a weeknight because salmon is too often boring and bland, whereas Kim's simple take invites gochugaru, maple syrup, and a healthy amount of butter to the party, all with little-to-no extra fussing about. Crispy rice and cucumbers: great sides. — Dayna Evans, Eater Philly editor Black Pepper Tofu and AsparagusSarah Jampel, Bon Appétit As a person who loves 1. dinner that comes together in less than a half hour and 2. black pepper, this recipe is basically a dream. I love that it only requires a small number of fresh ingredients (asparagus, fresh ginger, and garlic) and a bunch of pantry staples (rice, tofu, soy sauce). Plus it's a simple enough recipe that refusing to use actual measurements won't really throw things off — sure, you could measure out the soy sauce and rice vinegar, or you could just splash it into the pan based on what feels right. My only suggestion would be to completely disregard the measurements for garlic (go on and double up if you want, who's stopping you?) and cornstarch; I've found that to get a truly crisp coating on each cube, you might just want to generously sprinkle it into the bowl and toss with your hands. — Lauren Saria, Eater SF editor Chicken PieSylvia Rosenthal and Fran Shinagel, How Cooking Works Every winter I make a chicken soup, and after fishing the parts from the stock and peeling the flesh from the carcass, I use the dark meat to make this chicken pot pie out of an absolutely shredded copy of this cookbook, which I think my mother got at one of her approximately 70 bridal showers. What makes me so fond of this recipe is, it has lemon in it, and now every other chicken pot pie bores me. No secrets; I just like it. Here is a dish that could not possibly be eaten outside of the hours of 8 and 11 p.m. during the months of January and February, without the lights dimmed and a profuse number of candles lit — that's not lunch and it's not a dinner party; that's just dinner. Serve with a green salad, Lost Larson limpa rye, and a rambling anecdote about which recipes all the pie components are leftover from. — Rachel P. Kreiter, senior copy editor Mushroom StroganoffSabrina Synder, Epicurious Campbell's cream of mushroom soup formed the basis of some of my favorite foods growing up, so it's only natural that when I don't want to think out of the box with dinner, I go back to my most basic cravings: creamy, salty, mushroom-y. Though the canned stuff isn't a regular item on my shopping list, mushrooms and sour cream or Greek yogurt are. Stroganoff is the simplest way to turn those things plus just a few more staples — like flour, butter, alliums, and stock — into dinner (I usually skip the wine, since I rarely have bottles sitting around). Tired on a weeknight isn't my favorite way or time to mess around with new dishes; on those nights, a bowl of stroganoff always feels like exactly the right choice. — Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter Chicken Lo MeinCJ Eats In the brief period of time when I was sucked into the TikTok vortex, I found myself captivated by a food blogger and TikTok-er known as CJ Eats. CJ's recipes range from baked mac and cheese to copycat Benihana fried rice, but I was particularly enamored with his Chinese American recipes, many of which he inherited from his grandfather, a Southern Californian chef and grocery store owner — dishes like honey walnut shrimp, General Tso's chicken, and beef and broccoli that really taste like what came out of a red-and-white '90s Chinese takeout container. Cooking through his recipes, I've learned the techniques and ingredients that are key to nailing those dishes: how to velvet chicken, how to use just the right amount of MSG, and which specific soy sauces work for which recipes. The recipe I most often revisit his chicken lo mein, which comes together quickly and is easily adaptable based on what I have in my fridge. I often use a few different varieties of locally made noodles, usually swapping the traditional lo mein for Umi Organic's yakisoba. I've also been known to add a little extra shaoxing wine or sugar to make it a touch sweeter. But the resulting lo mein has that nice touch of char from the wok, that hit of salt from the oyster sauce and soy sauces, and the satisfying crunch of not-overcooked vegetables. — Brooke Jackson-Glidden, Eater Portland editor SpanakorizoSarah Jampel, Bon Appétit My toddler still happily eats green foods, and I'm convinced that part of the reason why is that we regularly have green versions of kid favorites like pesto pasta and green smoothies. When I saw this recipe I was immediately excited by the prospect of adding "green rice" to our rotation. I've made this recipe a handful of times, but somehow never when I've had all the ingredients. It has never mattered that I didn't have the right number of scallions, or that I subbed garlic for scallions, or that one time I didn't even have a lemon. That's why it's quickly become a dinnertime staple in my household; it's functionally a pantry recipe. This spanakorizo has proven to be an adaptable, comforting, and delicious staple of our weeknight menu — and it's not particularly challenging to cook, either. While not called for in the recipe, I highly recommend getting some high-quality feta to crumble and mix in before serving. And, if you do happen to have some leftover chicken, add that too to make this more of a complete dinner. — Hillary Dixler Canavan, restaurant editor |
| For Fancy Fish at Home, Frozen Is the Way to Go Posted: 25 Apr 2022 07:06 AM PDT  A number of specialty seafood companies are making it possible to have high-quality frozen fish delivered right to your door In 1912, a food-obsessed Brooklynite named Clarence Birdseye moved to Labrador, Canada. There, he noticed the Indigenous Inuits' fishing practices: letting their catches freeze on the spot in the frigid, 30-below-zero air, preserving the ocean-fresh flavor. After returning to the U.S. in 1917, Birdseye went on to develop the modern flash-freezing process. His obituaries would call him the "father of frozen foods." Food production had already been industrialized — consider that Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, a harrowing account of the meat industry, was published in 1906. But frozen food was by and large awful. "When it thawed it was mushy and less appealing than even canned food," writes Birdseye's biographer Mark Kurlansky. Birdseye aimed to make frozen food that was second only to fresh. Today, this sounds like a paradox — food that's been frozen tends to be associated with convenience rather than fine dining. But perhaps that's changing. In November 2021, Kurt Oriol started Campo Grande, a company that specializes in high-end Spanish food products. Raised in Madrid, Oriol noticed a hole in the U.S. market for the Spanish foods of his childhood. His company sources a range of items from artisanal producers in Spain, from Iberico pork to vaca vieja beef, and to bring American consumers some of the classic seafood of Spain, Campo Grande offers a fish box with flash-frozen items like European hake and Mediterranean baby clams. Oriol hopes to sway customers on frozen fish. "People have a lot of prejudices about frozen fish from a bygone era," Oriol says. "But when you bring a fish back to the dock and it's butchered and frozen in the moment, it locks in all of the freshness. It pauses time." Campo Grande joins a growing number of specialty seafood companies offering curated selections that are sustainably sourced and of exceptional quality. Their seafood products may differ but they all aim to convince consumers of frozen fish's many benefits: It's high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids; it's sustainable; and with a (freezer) shelf life of up to a year, it's convenient for both everyday cooking and dinner parties — planned or impromptu. Unless you're buying straight from the docks or reeling them in yourself, frozen fish is usually the freshest option on the market. It can be practical and aspirational; impressive and effortless. If pantry-friendly tinned fish was 2021's hot girl food, maybe frozen fish is next. "Fresh" fish tends to be a misnomer anyway. Explains chef Erik Slater, "Many people don't realize that almost all seafood in the marketplace is frozen or previously frozen — from what's served at restaurants to what's sold at the seafood counter." At Slater's restaurant, Seward Brewing Company in Seward, Alaska, wild local seafood is a menu staple. He often cooks fish straight from frozen, especially during certain species' off-seasons, to offer his signature dishes year-round. Because the so-called fresh stuff is more susceptible to harmful bacteria and unsold stock is usually tossed, resulting in food waste, flash-frozen fish is often a safer and more sustainable alternative. Add the convenience of home delivery, which most of today's companies include gratis, and opting for frozen seems a no-brainer. One thing's for sure: The global seafood market is booming. At an estimated $113.2 billion in 2020, it's projected to reach $138.7 billion by 2027, and frozen seafood is driving some of that growth. According to experts, old methods like air blast or cryogenic freezing have been impediments to quality, due to slow freezing rates and the formation of ice crystals, which in turn damages muscle tissue and changes a fish's color and texture. But now, emerging methods like pressure freezing, ultrasound freezing, and electrically assisted freezing stand to vastly improve the industry. Some companies are already capitalizing on the latest freezing technologies to offer the highest-quality frozen fish. Here, a few to consider. Frozen fish purveyors to tryCampo GrandeCampo Grande's Spanish fish box reads like the menu of a Bilbao seafood restaurant: thick filets of bacalao, meaty monkfish, juicy lubina, and more, all from the waters surrounding Spain. Founder Kurt Oriol hopes to show customers that similar to meat — think Japanese Kobe or Scottish Angus beef — a fish's heritage makes a huge difference. "When you try a Spanish monkfish, it's different from the monkfish you get in the U.S.," he says. "The same with the bacalao and the merluza — they're different subspecies." Fish FixeFounded in 2017, Fish Fixe, which made a splash on Shark Tank, offers choose-your-own-adventure flexibility. Its customizable boxes come with both raw and premade seafood items, from Norwegian salmon and wild-caught Gulf shrimp to jalapeno crab cakes and Creole-remoulade salmon cakes. SizzlefishSizzlefish founder Rob Mayo had been supplying fish to fine grocery stores like Whole Foods for three decades when he decided to channel that experience into direct-to-consumer sales. His subscription service delivers a variety of sustainably sourced fish, like American red snapper and wild Chilean sea bass, in reusable, recyclable coolers. True FinTrue Fin will particularly appeal to fans of New England seafood. The Portland, Maine-based company sells sashimi-quality, fully traceable seafood, like marbled bluefin tuna steaks and flaky pollock filets, from the Gulf of Maine. Marky'sMarky's is a Miami- and New York-based caviar and seafood company that specializes in flash-frozen sturgeon (source of the ultimate underwater delicacy, caviar). Founded by Mark Zaslavsky, a Ukrainian immigrant who moved to Miami in 1980 in pursuit of free enterprise, as he tells it, Marky's offers a range of whole sturgeon, from extravagant beluga to more affordable sterlet. The fish are raised in Sturgeon Aquafarms (Zaslavsky is also managing partner), a Florida facility that opened in light of the declining wild sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea, to offer a more sustainable alternative. Wild Alaskan CompanyKnown for its salmon, Alaska has some of the best-managed fisheries in the world; the state constitution mandates sustainable fishing practices. Explains the Wild Alaskan Company, "we only take what nature can naturally replenish." Founded by Alaska-born Arron Kallenberg, Wild Alaskan Company is a subscription-style delivery service with sockeye salmon, coho salmon, Pacific cod, Pacific halibut, and Alaska pollock. Salmon SistersFellow Alaska-based company Salmon Sisters, founded by Aleutian Islands-born sisters Emma Teal Laukitis and Claire Neaton, offers sustainably harvested wild fish like sockeye salmon and Pacific cod. The sisters also give a portion of their daily catches to the Food Bank of Alaska "to support healthy Alaskan communities connected to traditional and local wild food." Freezer-to-table cookingLike frozen fish itself, cooking with frozen fish is subject to misconceptions. Contrary to popular opinion, "there's no need to wait for frozen fish to thaw," says Slater. "In fact, cooking from frozen is often easier than cooking from fresh because it's harder to overcook. This makes cooking from frozen a great way for new or inexperienced home cooks to get comfortable with cooking seafood." If you do choose to thaw the fish first, he recommends removing the fish from its packaging and transferring it to a resealable plastic bag, then allowing it to thaw in the refrigerator for at least six hours, or placing it in cool water for 30 minutes or so. Slater says you can poach, air-fry, bake, grill, or pressure-cook frozen fish. It's a matter of preference. But to prepare a filet, he recommends first rinsing the fish in cold water and patting it dry with a paper towel, then brushing both sides with olive, canola, peanut, or grapeseed oil before cooking in whichever method you choose. (Slater advises against butter, sunflower, or corn oil, which burn at higher heats.) Despite biases against frozen, the products often speak for themselves. "Even our chef customers who previously would never buy frozen seafood have found that our frozen products are the quality they're looking for," says Jen Levin, president and CEO of True Fin. "Awareness is growing that when a perishable product is frozen using high-tech methods when it is at its freshest, the quality can beat fish that was never frozen." Melissa Harrington, founder and CEO of Fish Fixe, echoes that sentiment. "Many of the early adopters of Fish Fixe were already fans of frozen seafood and knew the convenience and 'freshness' of it. But as we've grown and customers have found us in different ways, the product bags, recipes, instructions and dinner results were validation that frozen fish was indeed fresh and simple." In some places, people have already fallen for frozen fish. Where I live, in France, frozen food has been popular for some time, due in no small part to the ubiquitous frozen food store Picard. Be it strip steaks, salmon filets, or pigs in a blanket, Picard products are generally regarded as high-quality foodstuffs. Recently, I invited a friend for dinner at my apartment in Paris and pan-seared a couple of frozen Pacific Ocean albacore tuna steaks, Picard's finest, finishing them with a drizzle of olive oil and a few pinches of flaky salt. We opened a cold bottle of Loire Valley chenin blanc and sliced into the meaty tuna steaks. It was restaurant-quality good and as fresh as it comes — nothing paradoxical about it. Caitlin Raux Gunther is a Paris-based freelance journalist with words in Bon Appétit, Saveur, T+L, Food52, and more. She's worked in restaurants in Bilbao, Paris, and New York, and is currently working on a memoir about her time in Spain. |
| Is the Future of Restaurants Grassroots Funded? Posted: 25 Apr 2022 06:23 AM PDT  Regulation crowdfunding allows people to directly lend to businesses they want to see grow — and earn profits from having done so When Reesa Kashuk was ready to take the next step toward growing her Bay Area bagel business, she knew that she'd need to raise some money. A former account manager at an advertising agency, Kashuk started making bagels under the moniker Poppy in 2018, but only pivoted careers during the pandemic. Initially, she missed the New York-style bagels she grew up eating and over time, she created a local brand known for its chewy, heavily seasoned bagels with a touch of malty sweetness. Currently, she takes pre-orders for bagel deliveries across the Bay Area and serves composed "sandos" — including a popular spicy and sweet number with jalapeno-serrano cream cheese and local honey — at Oakland's Grand Lake Farmers Market on Saturdays. Like many other successful pop-up operators, Kashuk's goal is to open a brick-and-mortar shop. As she worked to secure a lease for the bakery (which will be in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland), she projected she'd need $150,000 to complete the build-out of the space, buy equipment, and upgrade her website. Then she started exploring her options to secure the money. Even though it seems like the obvious first step, getting a loan from a bank wasn't really an option for Kashuk: It's difficult for nascent businesses (particularly restaurants, which are considered risky) to secure a loan. "They'll talk to you, and they might get your hopes up, but they do not want to lend to businesses of this size," Kashuk says. She also considered the crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and GoFundMe, but not for long, because she felt uncomfortable asking her friends and customers for money without a tangible sense of what she owed them in return. Although Kickstarter allows its creators to issue rewards in return for money as opposed to GoFundMe's donation-based model, "it's hard to value them and know how much they're worth both for me as a business giving something away and for the people on the receiving end," she says. When she heard about SMBX, a platform that would allow people to invest in her business and get paid back over time, she was immediately drawn to it. SMBX stands for Small and Medium Business Exchange and works by issuing bonds (loans that come from individuals instead of a bank) from business owners to everyday investors in increments of $10. Anyone with a credit card or a bank account can buy bonds in local businesses on SMBX, which entrepreneurs like Kashuk are then required to pay back with interest over time. Kashuk first heard of the exchange from other local businesses already using it, specifically the famed San Francisco ice cream brand Humphry Slocombe and the Salvadoran pop-up Popoca. "I was looking for a way to raise money that was relatively affordable and flexible, and SMBX fit that bill," Kashuk says. "The bonus was that my community could get involved in a real and tangible way." The ability for anyone to financially invest in a small business and earn passive income is called regulation crowdfunding, and it's beginning to gain traction with its promise of transparent, equitable, and collective investing in local businesses. Regulation crowdfunding didn't exist until 2017, when Title III of the JOBS Act passed, making it permissible for businesses to publicly raise capital, including from individuals with less than a million dollars in net worth (otherwise known as non-accredited investors). Previously, investments in private companies had to be solicited directly, and only from wealthy citizens. "You couldn't post on Facebook, 'Hey, I'm looking for investors. Invest in my company,'" says Nick Mathews, the co-founder and CEO of Mainvest. His Massachusetts-based company is one of several SEC-registered intermediary platforms that launched in the aftermath of the new legal framework. The difference between investing in a project on regulation crowdfunding platforms as opposed to making a donation through Kickstarter and receiving a reward with financial value (such as a free meal at a future restaurant) is the potential to earn a profit. Crowdfunding in general enables people to support the creative and business efforts of their peers, while regulation crowdfunding is also a way for individuals to diversify their investment portfolios outside of stocks. Mohammed Khonizi, a YouTuber who covers how to build passive income through financial technology companies on his channel Wealthy Panda, has invested in several businesses on SMBX (including Poppy), Mainvest, and similar platforms such as Honeycomb Credit and Republic Local. His reasoning for these investments, he says, is two-fold: to "help more businesses achieve their goals and help diversify my portfolio." For Chris Haugh, an author and friend of Kashuk's, investing in Poppy was his first experience with regulation crowdfunding. He says his decision to invest over $1,000 into Poppy was not only about supporting Kashuk, but also because he believes in the business and thinks it will be a meaningful addition to the community. "Look no further than [Berkeley's] Boichik Bagels selling out by 11 a.m. on the weekends, they just can't meet the demand," he says. "Not to mention Poppy did a pop-up in the same area that the store is going to be and there was a line three blocks long." Furthermore, since business owners who fundraise on SMBX and other regulation crowdfunding platforms are required to provide their SEC filings, business statements, and financial records, Haugh was able to understand the potential for Poppy's economic success. "I would like to think that I would donate as much as I did to her business regardless, but the fact that it's going to make me some money makes it a lot easier to allocate the pool of cash [to Poppy] that I would have been investing elsewhere, whether an index fund or real estate venture," he adds. For her bond offering of $150,000, Kashuk received an interest rate of 7 percent from SMBX to be paid back over five years. She had also considered a loan application through the Small Business Administration, but ultimately decided on SMBX because it was simpler, more affordable, and more flexible. For an SBA loan, she says the interest rate would've been variable and higher, and that her use of funds would be more highly regulated. By timing her SMBX raise launch with some local press, Kashuk was able to meet her target in just 11 days. There were 173 people who invested, many for the minimum amount of $10. Her largest investment was $20,700. "[A] $100 investment would yield $119 at the end of the term [for the investor], while a $1,000 investment will yield $1,188," Kashuk explains. The final return is a compounded amount of the principal investment plus 7 percent interest, but SMBX bonds are designed to be paid back equally on a monthly basis — for example, $19.80 per month for a $1,000 investment — so that businesses can have (and investors can expect) consistent payouts. An investment in Poppy or another food business by way of regulation crowdfunding is low-interest compared to other financial investments, albeit one that has the primary goal of supporting one's community. On Kashuk's SMBX page, she laid out how the funds would be used: 78.5 percent for the build-out of the bakery, 16.5 percent for equipment, and 1.5 percent for website upgrades. The other 3.5 percent went to SMBX, which is the percentage that the platform takes to generate its own revenue. Along with money to spend, regulation crowdfunding also gave Kashuk a way to make investors out of her customers, who are now intimately interested in her success. "I really felt like it's a true win-win for the investor," she says. "They can help support a business, they care about helping it grow, they're eager to get involved, but they also get to make money at a competitive rate." That's not to say there is zero risk involved for Poppy's investors. If Poppy were to go bankrupt, SMBX says they would work with Kashuk to try and recover as much investment as possible, but investors would likely still lose money. Mainvest's website informs potential investors that investments on their platform are "inherently risky" since "it is very likely that some of the companies listed on our site will fail to repay their loans." While SMBX and Mainvest do provide potential investors with information on how regulation crowdfunding works, there's still a long way to go when it comes to educating the public and making this way of investing mainstream. Many people are confused by financial terms like "bond" and "securities" and are taken aback by the fact that you have to give your social security number as a means of protection to invest in companies on SEC-regulated platforms. Kashuk says she had to do an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") on her Instagram and field a barrage of DMs to explain how SMBX worked. "As I started explaining it more and more, I saw more people from my community invest as they learned what it was," she says. As the regulation crowdfunding space grows, it's important to note that there are differences in the way that each platform has designed the financial framework of the investments that they power. For example, Mainvest issues revenue-sharing loans for a minimum of $100 as opposed to SMBX's $10. It also enables entrepreneurs to issue equity to investors if they want to, meaning that investors would be granted an ownership claim in the company's profits — instead of their money paid back plus interest — and could stand to make a significant profit if the business became a runaway success. Granting an equity stake in the business is a common deal structure when wealthy individuals give money to restaurants. A big reason that regulation crowdfunding is appealing to small food business owners like Kashuk, though, is that they aren't required to surrender any of their ownership. "I own 100 percent of the business and I never considered giving up equity," she says. Benjamin Lozano, the co-founder and CEO of SMBX, says that he has found that "most small businesses do not want to give up equity in their company, they want to borrow money at reasonable rates, pay off that loan, and walk away." Another draw of regulation crowdfunding is the lack of barriers that exist in more traditional methods, such as bank loans and venture capital. Racism is prevalent in institutional lending. Lozano, the son of a first-generation Mexican American, says that while working for his father's boutique accounting firm in Santa Ana, California, he saw firsthand how minorities struggle to gain the same access to financial opportunities that people of more privileged backgrounds can acquire more easily. By contrast, SMBX doesn't even require a credit check for those looking to raise money on the platform. As Lozano points out, Americans already lend to small businesses indirectly through their banks, which borrow money from customers to support businesses in need of loans, and then reward those customers with minuscule interest payments. "The only difference is that we don't have any say in who [i.e., which banks] lend it to, in what our money is being used to support and create — and then the bank keeps the profits," he says. Regulation crowdfunding gives people a way to directly lend to the businesses they want to see grow, and earn profits from having done so. This notion of built-in community validation is promising for the future of regulation crowdfunding, especially when it comes to restaurants and food businesses. That feels true for Kashuk at least, who is hopeful about how her investors will engage with her business in the long term as they continue to receive payments, whether that engagement is encouraging others to invest or simply getting others to buy some bagels. "They're going to be constantly reminded that Poppy is earning them money, and maybe be more invested in my success, telling people about the business and coming to support," she says. Emily Wilson is a Los Angeles-based food writer from New York. She has contributed to Bon Appétit, TASTE, Resy, the Los Angeles Times, Punch, Vegetarian Times, Atlas Obscura, and more. Carolyn Figel is a freelance illustrator and animator living in Brooklyn, New York. |
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