Special Edition Mac & Cheese Pancakes, rev. ed.

Remember when we made Kenny Shopsin's lemon-ricotta pancakes a few months back? At the time I noted that we had found the recipe in the New York Times Magazine alongside Shopsin's infinitely more delirious Mac & Cheese Pancakes, but when it came time to choose, "it really wasn't much of a decision" because we had farm-fresh ricotta on-hand. What I didn't mention was that at the time, we couldn't for the life of us imagine what the taste and textural qualities of Mac & Cheese Pancakes might be like. We certainly were intrigued, though. So intrigued, in fact, that when we got back home, we made picking up a copy of Shopsin's Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin a top priority. Not because we needed the Mac & Cheese Pancakes recipe--it was right there in black & white in the New York Times Magazine--but because we wanted to further acquaint ourselves with the philosophy behind the Mac & Cheese Pancakes and the rest of Kenny Shopsin's ridiculously huge and hilariously inventive repertoire. And if we happened to learn the origin of the Mac & Cheese Pancake, all the better.*

fig. a: before

fig. b: after (accidents will happen)

Not only is Eat Me one of the best-looking cookbooks we've seen in quite some time (maybe ever), but it's been one of our absolute favorite reads of the last few months, and, perhaps not surprisingly, Shopsin's Mac & Cheese Pancakes were among the very first recipes that we tried out. All I can say is that--I admit it--I was a little skeptical about the Mac & Cheese Pancakes, but now, when I think of pancakes, I think of these first. I'm not even kidding. And I don't care if it's Lent and to even dream about these pancakes amounts to impure thoughts. Just mention the word "pancake" and these are all I see.

The funny thing is, the first time we made them, we read the recipe in Eat Me carefully, but somehow, unconsciously, we ended up making them not as the recipe actually instructed, but as we imagined they'd be made. [Later, I was reminded of a story: In describing Kenny's Egyptian Burrito, Calvin Trillin once wrote: "An Egyptian Burrito is a burrito, and inside is sort of what Kenny thinks Egyptians might eat."] You see, Kenny's original recipe calls for cooked elbow macaroni tossed with olive oil, with the cheddar cheese added separately. We, on the other hand, began with a pretty deluxe batch of leftover mac & cheese. Anyway, this was totally accidental, but our Mac & Cheese Pancakes ended up being at least twice as cheesy as Shopsin's, and quite a bit more savory. Problem? I don't think so. Having now read Eat Me, we know all too well what Kenny thinks of bacon in pancakes. We have a feeling he'd give his blessing to our Special Edition Mac & Cheese Pancakes.

What you need:

fig. c: leftover mac & cheese

1. leftover macaroni & cheese, preferably leftovers from a batch of E & D Special Mac & Cheese.

fig. d: pancake batter

2. pancake batter, such as this one:

Pancake Batter

7 tablespoons butter
1 1/3 cups whole milk
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon plus 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt.

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, heat the butter and milk until the butter melts. Set aside until lukewarm. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Slowly pour 1/2 cup of the warm milk mixture into the eggs while stirring. Stir in the remaining milk mixture.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture, a little at a time, stirring slowly, just until the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be lumpy and will start to bubble.

Makes about 3 1/2 cups.

fig. e: cheddar cheese

3. a block of medium-sharp cheddar cheese

What you need to know:

Special Edition Mac & Cheese Pancakes**

butter for the skillet and for serving
3 cups pancake batter
1 heaping cup macaroni & cheese, preferably E & D Special Mac & Cheese, at room temperature
1 heaping cup grated cheddar cheese
medium Grade A (or B--Kenny prefers B) maple syrup

Heat your skillet over medium heat. When it's hot, add the butter and run it across the skillet surface, then use a small ladle to pour the batter on the skillet. When small bubbles cover 40-50% of the surface of your pancakes (after about 2 minutes), drop about 1 tablespoon of the mac & cheese on each pancake, and then, as if that wasn't enough, sprinkle a layer of cheddar on top, before using a thin spatula to quickly and artfully flip the pancakes. Turn the heat down a little, use the spatula to press down on the pancakes a bit, and when the undersides are golden, about 2 minutes later, use the spatula to transfer the pancakes to a plate, mac & cheese & cheese side up.

Serve with butter and maple syrup. Makes roughly 12 4-inch pancakes.

[inspired by Kenny Shopsin's Mac n Cheese Pancakes, Eat Me]

If all goes well they should look something like this:

fig. f: the finished product

And they should taste outrageously good. You see, our E & D Special Mac & Cheese has a copious amount of thick-cut bacon in it, so what you end up with is a Mac & Cheese Pancake with bacon built right into it. Then, with a knob of butter and a little maple syrup... As Kenny might say: "It's really very sexy."

aj

* We did: it was a dish specially invented for a regular customer who only ever ordered one of two dishes at Shopsin's, the mac & cheese or the pancakes, and who one day asked Kenny to decide which he should have.

** Now with extra cheese!

New York Odds & Ends 1

fig. a: Egg

Egg

Ever since I was taken to a restaurant in Reykjavik that operated as several different restaurants during the course of the week (there was a rotation at work, so it'd be a hippy vegetarian restaurant every Friday, a Pakistani restaurant every Saturday, and so on), I've liked the idea of restaurants sharing a space as a way of minimizing overhead costs. Of course, the fact that both visits to that Reykjavik resto were successful certainly helped. In theory, rock bands sharing a rehearsal space can be a pretty cool thing too, but in practice the results aren't always all that, well, noteworthy. Anyway, when we heard about the breakfasts at Egg, which started off by sharing its space on N. 15th St. in Williamsburg with a nouveau hot dog and hamburger joint named Sparky's--Egg by morning, Sparky's by afternoon and evening--we were intrigued. When we heard the folks at Egg were serving Col. Bill Newsom's legendary Kentucky country ham, we were more than intrigued: we got downright excited. We'd been dreaming of Newsom's hams for some time, and we even looked into getting a Newsom's country ham shipped to AEB headquarters in Montreal at one point, but we're sorry to say free trade ain't what it's cracked up to be.

It was a little too blustery to dine seated at the outdoor table for two you see pictured above, so we stepped inside and joined the short queue waiting inside the door of this slender, minimal restaurant with the short, minimal name. Ten minutes later we had our table and our menus and it took about 2 seconds to make up our minds about our order: country ham biscuit with fig jam and aged Grafton Village cheddar for her, eggs over easy, cheese grits, and artisanal bacon for him. The grits, from South Carolina's Anson Mills, were quite possibly the best I'd ever had. They weren't really cheese grits, they were more along the lines of "grits with cheese," but I couldn't have cared less because the grits themselves were truly awesome. The bacon was ridiculously good too, and cooked to tender perfection--such a rarity. But that country ham biscuit was simply out of control. What it lacked in volume--it's fairly compact and is easily dwarfed by its plate--it more than made up for in complexity of flavor. That ham, that cheese, that jam--we're talking a veritable symphony. I can't say I'm a connoisseur when it comes to Southern hams (sadly, I might add), but it's hard for me to imagine a better-tasting ham. Dark and smoky, with an almost crumbly texture that reminded me of a fine Parmigiano Reggiano, this was a ham with character to spare. Michelle enjoyed every last morsel. And when she'd made it disappear we ordered a generous side order of Newsom's ham for the road. Pretty much the best $4 we've ever spent.

From there we crossed the bridge

fig. b: Brooklyn as seen from the Williamsburg Bridge

and made our way into the Lower East Side.

Essex Street Market

We paid a visit to the Essex Street Market for the first time since its make-over and while we were at Saxelby Cheesemongers sampling some cheeses and having a friendly chat with one of the cheesemongers (eventually we bought some artisanal butter), we both couldn't help but notice an odd-looking café just to the right of the cheese counter. A few tables, a short-order cook behind the counter composing his short orders, an informal, open setting--nothing too strange about that, right? Aside from the fact that there was a waitress, the format was pretty much the same as any other North American food court operation. Except that we found ourselves looking at the plates that were getting served, trying to figure out what kind of food they served, and, try as we might, we just couldn't pin it down. Some plates looked vaguely Mexican, others vague Southeast Asian, but none of the plates looked entirely like one thing or the other. Then we noticed their hot sauces. This place had a massive selection, and, again, they spanned the globe (Mexican, Caribbean, Southeast Asian, American, etc.). And then there was the grizzled beatnik manning the kitchen. After puzzling over things for a minute or so, we both came to the same tentative conclusion: "Shopsin's? Here?" And so it was.

We'd been having elaborate Shopsin's fantasies ever since we read Calvin Trillin's "Don't Mention It," his in-depth account of the Shopsin's mystique, in The New Yorker a few years back. We knew Kenny Shopsin had reopened his namesake restaurant in Greenwich Village sometime after his original "general store" was forced into retirement--we had no idea that he'd picked up and moved the operation yet again. Unfortunately, as brisk as our walk across the Williamsburg Bridge had been, it wasn't quite brisk enough to work off the country ham and grits we'd just finished wolfing down, so all we did was admire Shopsin's from the periphery. Correction: all we did was admire Shopsin's from the periphery and grab one of Shopsin's thoroughly unhinged menus,

fig. c: detail of Side 1 of Shopsin's menu

the better to prepare for our next trip to New York.

fig. d: one of #1 Dumpling House's #1 dumplings

#1 Dumpling House

Minutes later we had just enough room to run a little QC on #1 Dumpling House, and we're happy to report that their pork and chive dumplings and their sesame pancake with beef are both just as dazzling as ever.

fig. e: Saigon Bakery

Saigon Bakery

Post-#1 Dumpling, we were back to having no room, but that didn't stop us from following up on another lead and checking out Saigon Bakery in search of mind-blowing banh-mi, and as soon as we did it was clear to both of us that this was an opportunity that we couldn't possibly pass up on. Saigon Bakery is tucked away in the back of a jewelry store, but, make no mistake, this is a serious banh-mi joint. We ordered one of their massive--and I mean massive--meatball subs and promptly got our minds blown. These were luscious pork meatballs, they were hefty, they were packed into a big sub that was slathered with pork pâté and mayo and absolutely overstuffed with Saigon Bakery's fresh, flavorful (and spicy) fixins, and they forever changed our notion of what banh-mi means. You could have fed a family of four with that thing. You could have fed a family of four and made them very happy indeed. Definitely the best $3.75 we've ever spent.

Joanne Hendricks

A couple of hours later we were on the western extremity of Greenwich Village. We'd gone there in search of out of print, antiquarian, and unusual cookbooks and behind this handsome door

fig. f: Joanne Hendricks

that's exactly what we found. We knew from experience that New York's cookbook specialists could be very impressive, and Joanne Hendricks was just such a bookstore. We'd already had our minds blown by Saigon Bakery's meatball sub--now we found our minds getting majorly expanded by the curiosities at Joanne Hendricks. Like a good museum, or a sprawling flea market, a store like this exposes you to so many things you never even knew existed. We spent about an hour just browsing, each of us lost in our own little culinary world. Then we started talking to Joanne Hendricks herself--she was almost as excited about our impending pizza tour as we were--and the next thing we knew another hour had elapsed. In the end, I only picked up one book, but she's a beaut: Judith and Marguerite Herman's Cornucopia, a book I'd once pored over at my friend J.'s place some years ago (and had been coveting ever since). Here's a seasonally appropriate scan (complete with Mrs. Acton's Christmas Plum-Pudding receipt [courtesy of Tabitha Tickletooth]) to give you a small taste of Cornucopia's considerable charms and its striking two-tone printing:

fig. g: Cornucopia on plum pudding, holly, and mistletoe

The Strand

Our mandatory visit to The Strand only turned up one real gem and Michelle found it in their Rare Books department: The Merle Armitage Book of Food. I mean, what can you say about a book that combines some pithy food writing, a collection of recipes that includes everything from Lapin au vin blanc to 'Possum and Sweet 'Taters, celebrity recipes from the likes of Lewis Mumford, Edgar Varèse, and James M. Cain, and "Four Vegetables," a four-page portfolio by Edward Weston? Beautiful layout, too, including, some more fine two-tone printing:

fig. h: Merle Armitage on food as art

Egg, 135 N. 5th St., Brooklyn, (718) 302-5151

Essex Street Market, 120 Essex St. (at Delancey), Manhattan

#1 Dumpling House, 118 Eldridge St., Manhattan, (212) 625-8008

Saigon Bakery, 138 Mott St., Manhattan, (212) 941-1541

Joanne Hendricks, 488 Greenwich St., Manhattan, (212) 226- 5731

Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), Manhattan, (212) 473-1452

aj