The hot dog has long occupied the same realm as the chicken nugget: Both are mystery meats that taste delicious as long as you don’t know where they come from or what’s in them. But there’s nothing to fear in Red Apron’s kitchen. Nathan Anda, the former chef at Tallula and EatBar, crafts dogs with a non-scary blend of local dry-aged beef and pork fat that’s encased in sheep intestines. Unlike many grocery-store varieties, the hot dogs contain no nitrates or preservatives, but smoked paprika, roasted garlic, and coriander all get added. Anda’s hot dogs are currently sold at Planet Wine (2004 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria; 703-549-3444), the Penn Quarter FreshFarm Market (Thursday 3 to 7 on Eighth St., NW, between D and E sts.), and the Ballston and Crystal City farmers markets (Fridays 11 to 3 in Welburn Square; Tuesdays 3 to 7 on Crystal Dr. between 18th and 20th sts.). Anda works his meat mastery out of the kitchen at Tallula, but he’s currently looking to find Red Apron its own location. A sign he means business: He says he won’t cut his hair until it happens. Watch the video below.
When a reader requested the recipe for BLT Steak’s chicken-liver pâté, our food and wine editor, Todd Kliman, confessed he’d like to make it himself. “That pâté is one of the richest, most luxuriant things I’ve ever eaten,” Todd wrote in his Kliman Online chat last week. “I’d rather eat the pâté than the steaks.” The spread is served free at the downtown DC steakhouse alongside toasted ciabatta. The recipe comes from New York-based chef/owner Laurent Tourondel (the “LT” in BLT) and is featured in his cookbook on American bistro cooking.
When this rainy season ends, you’ll be anxious to light up the grill. That doesn’t mean you have to torch your budget. Rocklands Barbeque & Grilling Company’s John Snedden shows us how to do barbecue for four for less than $15.
John Snedden studies a big package of jalapeños, looks at the rest of the items in his cart, and does a quick tally. Turning to one of the store’s employees, he asks if he can take just half the package. While the employee unwraps and re-wraps the jalapeños, I ask Snedden how he found this market.
We’re standing in the produce aisle of the Panam International Market on 14th Street, Northwest, just north of DC’s Columbia Heights. The market is in a nondescript building and lacks any of the frills of the chain stores. The aisles are tight, the ceiling is low, and the food is jammed onto the shelves. But the selection is surprisingly varied and the prices are phenomenal.
The miso-glazed sablefish at the Penn Quarter wine bar Proof is so popular that chef Haidar Karoum actually worries about selling too much of it: “It’s like, ‘Enough already! Order something else.’ ”
Nonetheless, the self-proclaimed fish fanatic says sablefish is one of his favorites. His miso-glazed recipe is a take on the classic Japanese preparation of miso with black cod. The miso is sweet and earthy, the sablefish is buttery. Karoum, who uses sustainable wild Alaskan sablefish from wholesale distributor Prime Seafood, says the freshness and quality of the fish is the secret to the dish’s success. “It doesn’t matter what you’re glazing it with,” he says. “The fish is the most important thing.”
There’s a special place in our hearts (and stomachs) reserved solely for crabcakes. Lucky for us, crab season is under way. And lucky for you, we have a crabcake recipe. Equinox chef/co-owner Todd Gray, who has a fondness for the Chesapeake delicacy, shows you how to prepare his version in the video below.
Get the recipe after the jump.
Is there a restaurant dish you’d love to get the recipe for? We’ll track it down. Today we tackle Acadiana's sumptuous shrimp and grits.
Want to bring some Southern comfort to your kitchen table? At one reader’s request, we tracked down the recipe for the decadent shrimp and grits served at the downtown DC restaurant Acadiana. The recipe, made with Gulf shrimp, Hoppin’ John’s grits, and tasso ham, traces back to Chris Clime, the restaurant’s first chef de cuisine, who now heads the kitchen at sister restaurant PassionFish. He came up with it while working in Charleston, South Carolina, and now the $15 dish is one of the most popular with the lunch crowd.
Get out that recycled tote bag—this summer we’re taking our video camera to farmers markets all around Washington. We’ll have local chefs show you around their neighborhood markets, then we’ll give you their shopping and cooking tips about whatever’s in season. For our first installment, we asked PS 7’s chef/owner Peter Smith to take us on a tour of the Penn Quarter FreshFarm market, where he shops every week. Armed with ingredients from local vendors, Smith prepared a grilled cheese with bacon, arugula, and in-season strawberries for a market demo. See how he did it in the video, then try it yourself with the recipe below.
Tons of Fourth of July parties, fireworks, pool parties galore, a pig roast, the closing of the Folklife Festival and Artomatic, and lots more in this jam-packed weekend guide.
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Though Ann Limpert graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in art history and creative writing, she spent most of her time in New England debating the merits of warm, buttery lobster rolls vs. cold, mayo-y ones. She spent two years covering the internet for Entertainment Weekly magazine (highlights include interviewing the Beastie Boys and dancing to "Livin' la Vida Loca" with Penn Jillette), then left to hone her kitchen skills at the Institute of Culinary Education. She has worked as a cook at several New York restaurants, researched and edited cookbooks, and now writes about food and restaurants for the Washingtonian.
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Kate Nerenberg
Kate Nerenberg started as an editorial intern at The Washingtonian in January 2008 and became an assistant editor in September 2008. A native of West Hartford, Connecticut, she spent the first half of her writing life as a sports reporter, and was the editor of the athletics section for the newspaper and student-run magazine while at Middlebury College. A joint Spanish and Art History major, Kate graduated in 2005 and took off on a year-long journey around the world. After tasting everything from fried crickets to lavish Turkish breakfasts, she realized she wanted to devote herself to writing about food, a lifelong passion. She lives with three roommates just east of Logan Circle in a house that's often filled with the smell of sauteed garlic, warm banana bread, or fried bacon and eggs.
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Rina Rapuano
Rina Rapuano's English degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond put her on the path to becoming a managing editor of a weekly business magazine; a freelance copy editor; and assistant managing news editor—and later the lifestyles editor—at a weekly paper in Maryland. But she realized her true calling when her descriptions of meals to friends and colleagues always seemed to end with the same statement: “You're making me hungry.” Frankly, it was making Rina hungry, too. She chucked her day job in 2006 to become a full-time freelance writer focusing mainly on food, and now works as assistant food and wine editor at The Washingtonian.
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