Author: John Fladd

Corn Chowder

It’s been a week.

You don’t even have the brain cells to describe what kind of week it’s been. You just want to go home and eat something hot and homemade. Unfortunately, that involves thinking, which you just can’t do at the moment. You feel cold, hungry and stupid. That’s OK. Here is the easiest impressive food you’ll ever make. The only things you’ll need to measure are the seasonings, and you’ll use the same amount — a teaspoon — for each of them.

You’ve got this.

Corn Chowder

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter

1-pound bag of frozen corn

1-pound bag of frozen chopped onions – if your supermarket is out of frozen onions, there will almost certainly be half-pound containers of chopped onions in the produce section; just grab two of them

1 pound (half a 2-pound bag) frozen diced potatoes, usually labeled as “hash browns” or “O’Brien potatoes”

1 half-gallon container of whole milk

1 teaspoon salt – I like coarse sea salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Put a large pot on medium heat. I have a 3-gallon soup pot that I like a lot, but anything you have that holds more than a gallon will work fine.

Unwrap the stick of butter and toss it into your big pot. I say “toss,” and that’s fine — there’s something very satisfying about the dull thud it makes as it hits the bottom of the pot.

Take a couple of minutes to pour yourself a glass of wine. If you have a bottle of something bubbly in the back of your refrigerator for a special occasion, this might be a good time to open it up.

Check on the butter. If it’s melted and foamy, or just melted, or almost melted, cut open the bag of frozen chopped onions. If the bag gives you any trouble at all, use your kitchen scissors or a wickedly sharp knife to slash it open. Don’t worry about making a nice, neat cut; you’re going to use the whole bag anyway. The onions will make a satisfying hiss as they hit the hot fat. Let them cook down until they are translucent and maybe the tiniest bit golden-brown. Stir from time to time.

When your kitchen starts smelling like fried onions, turn on the fan above your stove and empty the bag of frozen corn into the pot and stir it. Let that cook down for a few minutes.

Drink some more wine.

After a few minutes, add the potatoes. Don’t bother measuring them. I mean, you can, if you want to, but the whole point of this recipe is how undemanding it is. Stir them from time to time.

This is the only thing that you’ll have to measure: Add a teaspoon each of salt, pepper and smoked paprika. Stir them into the corn mixture.

Add the entire container of milk. Stir your proto-soup, then reduce the heat to a simmer, and go into the other room and do something for yourself. The key here is to shout, “I’M MAKING SOUP!” if anyone tries to make any demands on you.

After an hour of simmering, your chowder will be ready to eat. It will look a little pink from the paprika, but a quick stir will bring everything together. Ladle it into cups or bowls, and eat it with bread and butter. Just plain bread and butter. And more wine, if there’s any left.

This is a hearty, comforting, delicious chowder. It tastes like — surprise! — butter and corn and sweet onions and potatoes. It is perfect for dunking bread and butter into. Pretty much any adult will like this a lot and will grunt with satisfaction. It’s good, but not fancy enough that they will feel obligated to make a big deal out of it. Nobody has the energy for that this week.

Will children like it? There’s absolutely nothing in this chowder that a child would not like. Therefore, one of your kids will decide that they don’t like it. In which case, just tell them to eat their bread and butter.

John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.

Featured photo: Corn Chowder. Photo by John Fladd.

If you listen to Irish Coffee Enthusiasts, you will be taken aback by how complicated the process for making one is. The ICEs will go on at some length about how such-and-such a bar makes a pretty good Irish Coffee, considering it isn’t a real Irish Coffee. Apparently, an Irish Coffee isn’t legitimately authentic unless:

(1) it is made by an old, gnarled bartender with an actual Irish accent and a list of stories about growing up in a thatched hut.

(2) who pours the whiskey from an otherwise unmarked jug with three Xs on it,

(3) into a mug with coffee so strong, vaporous little ghosts float screaming from it as he stirs it

(4) while three or four drunk guys at the bar sing “Danny Boy” and weep openly.

The truth of the matter is that making good Irish Coffee isn’t particularly difficult, and it’s definitely not complicated. It is simply a matter of paying attention to details.

Making a Very Nice Cup of Irish Coffee

Fill a glass coffee mug with boiling water. Leave it to heat while you brew the coffee.

Brew 1 to 2 cups of very strong, good coffee. It doesn’t have to be expensive, single-source, hand-picked beans that have passed through a civet. Chock Full o’Nuts will do fine. Make it a little stronger than you normally would. Wash a couple of dishes or watch the prize task on Taskmaster while the coffee brews and the mug heats up.

Pour the water out of the mug, thanking it for a job well done.

Mix 1 tablespoon of brown sugar in the mug with a little of the hot coffee, to dissolve it, then add 2 ounces of decent Irish whiskey. Again, you probably don’t want to use your $45-a-bottle top-shelf stuff, but a good, self-respecting Irish whiskey like Paddy’s will do nicely.

Top off your mug to within half an inch or so of the top with more coffee. Stir gently.

Finish the mug off with two dollops of lightly sweetened whipped cream.

This drink will be hot, so unless you’re a professional you probably won’t be able to swig this down, but you should definitely attack it with enthusiasm. If you don’t give yourself a whipped cream mustache, you lack commitment.

Classics are classics for a reason. This is delicious. It tastes of coffee, and caramel, and dairy, and whiskey, and something else — maybe destiny. It will take a great deal of adult restraint to not pound this down far too quickly and then make another. And conceivably many more.

For that reason, here is your guide for drinking good Irish Coffee:

Drink it at brunch. The very best time to drink Irish Coffee is late on a cold, damp afternoon, while reading a good book and thinking of a lost love. Unfortunately, by the time you’re old enough to have any really juicy regrets, you won’t be able to drink coffee that late in the day. Drinking more than one of these in an afternoon or evening will give you more opportunity to reminisce than you were really looking for. Flipping through old photographs and crying at 2 in the morning is not compatible with your New Year’s resolution to be more productive.

If you decide to dive into the Irish Coffee pool with a bunch of friends on a Sunday morning, your boyfriend or Carlos, your Uber driver, can get you home in time to sleep it off before you have to Skype your parents that evening.

1 mug of Irish Coffee: You will feel more positive about life.

2 mugs: You will tell at least one of your friends how much you love them. At this point, your wife or friends should keep you away from Facebook.

3 mugs: There will be singing and uncontrollable laughter.

After this, you will probably forgo the coffee and drink directly from the bottle. There will be more singing, and probably crying.

After this, things get a little murky.

John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.

Featured photo: Irish Coffee. Photo by John Fladd.

This is not an authentic Mardi Gras King Cake. An actual New Orleanian would sneer at this hard enough to sprain her lip. But a real King Cake is actually a member of the bread family and takes about five hours to make. This is a delicious, dense, moist almond cake that will serve you in good stead.

Cake

• 2½ cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ cup (162 grams) whole milk
• ½ cup (120 grams) sour cream
• 2¼ cups (450 grams) sugar
• 7 ounces (1 tube) almond paste – you can find this in the baking/spices section of your supermarket
• 2 teaspoons orange zest – the zest of one large orange
• 1 8-ounce package cream cheese
• 4 eggs
• 3 Tablespoon (45 grams) amaretto
• ¼ teaspoon almond extract

Glaze

• 2 cups (227 grams) powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• pinch salt
• 2 to 3 Tablespoons milk – enough to make a spoonable glaze

Garnish

• Gold, purple, and green sprinkles or sanding sugar – you can find these online or at a craft store

A small plastic baby that you will bake into the cake for luck. You might or might not actually have a small plastic baby to hand. If you do not, you can substitute some other small non-poisonous object in its place, such as a foreign coin, a marble, or one of those small ceramic figures that are sometimes included in boxes of tea.

Bring all the cake ingredients to room temperature. This recipe will work if the cream cheese and almond paste are cold, but they will be temperamental and will require some persuasion to blend together gracefully.

Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Prepare a large Bundt pan — I brush the inside with a mixture of equal parts shortening, vegetable oil and flour.

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients — the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

In a jar or measuring cup, combine the milk and sour cream. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, or using a hand-held electric mixer, combine the almond paste — cut into small pieces — and the sugar. Mix at slow speed; the mixture looks like damp sand. If you do not cut the almond paste into small pieces, it will fight against its fate and throw plumes of sugar out of your mixing bowl in protest. If this starts happening, cover the bowl with a tea towel and be careful that it doesn’t get sucked up into the beaters.

Add the orange zest and cream cheese. Mix to combine. Again, this will go more smoothly if the cream cheese is at room temperature.

Mix in the eggs, one at a time, then add the amaretto and almond extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to. Once everything is thoroughly mixed, beat at a higher speed, until the proto-batter is a little fluffy.

Add the dry ingredients and the milk/sour cream mixture a little at a time, alternating between the two, until the batter is smooth and battery.

Pour half the batter into the prepared Bundt pan, which has been patiently waiting for you.

Drop your small plastic baby into the Bundt pan. “Godspeed, my friend,” would be a good sentiment to express at this point. Extra points if you say it in French.

Pour the rest of the batter into the pan, covering your Cake Baby.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean or it reaches an internal temperature of 200ºF.

Cool on a rack for 20 minutes before inverting onto a plate. Let it cool thoroughly before glazing and decorating it. Decorate a third of the cake in each of the colors of sugar or sprinkles. This is not a time to exercise restraint. “Garish” should be the absolute minimum level of decoration you are looking for.

This is a first-class snack cake. It is meant to be shared. A traditional King Cake is supposed to be eaten with friends. Whoever finds the baby in their slice is supposed to host the Mardi Gras party the following year. You should feel free to set the stakes to work with your particular group of friends, relatives, or co-workers.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Featured photo: Not King cake. Photo by John Fladd.

I have to admit there have been a lot of cookies over the past month or so.

And cake and homemade ice cream as well.

And, of course, beer and wine and cocktails.

And, now that I look back on it, a truly injudicious amount of melted cheese.

In fact, for the past week or so there has been a herd of angry wildebeests rampaging through my digestive tract. If I don’t eat something green soon, I’m not entirely sure I can control them. I’m long overdue for a salad.

Looking for an authoritative expert on salads, I consulted a tragically overlooked seminal treatise on the subject, Thomas J. Murrey’s 1885 classic, 50 Salads (By the author of 50 Soups). Mr. Murrey clearly took his salads seriously.

“Of the many varieties of food daily consumed,” he writes, “none are more important than a salad, rightly compounded. And there is nothing more exasperating than an inferior one. The salad is the Prince of the Menu, and although a dinner be perfect in every other detail except the salad, the affair will be voted a failure if that be poor.”

He continues, “It is therefore necessary for those contemplating dinner-giving, to personally overlook the preparation of the salad if they wish favorable criticism.”

The Prince of the Menu, indeed. At this point I’m with him on Team Salad, although I have to imagine his cook or his wife was not impressed with his personally overlooking their salad-making to make sure there were no salad shenanigans going on.

His actual recipes, however, seem to be of extremely variable quality. There is a Cherry Salad, for instance, which sounds delicious — fresh cherries marinated in three types of alcohol. But others, like Pigeon Salad and Frog Salad, are clearly of a particular moment in history. And yet others really seem to have been phoned in. Eels Mayonnaise calls for two ingredients, eels and mayonnaise. His Mint Salad calls for adding fresh mint to a salad.

I seem to be on my own here. What I want is a proper tossed salad — not a macaroni salad, or a Jell-O salad, or a lobster salad — a simple tossed, green salad.

At the risk of sounding Murreyesque, I also have some strong feelings about salad:

(1) A tossed salad shouldn’t have more than six ingredients, including the dressing. Any more than that, it gets too busy and the flavors get in each other’s way.

(2) A good tossed salad should be exactly that: tossed. Individual bowls of lettuce with dressing poured over the top are clumsy at best, and at worst depressing and a sign of poor moral character. The salad should be made in a large bowl, dressed, then thoroughly tossed with a set of tongs.

(3) Lettuce: There are two tribes in Lettuce Nation: crisp lettuce and tender lettuce. I fall strongly on the side of tender lettuce, but if you are a Romaine enthusiast, could I ask that you chop it reasonably well, so your guests aren’t left gnawing on Romaine stems?

Here is the salad I made tonight:

My six ingredients are Bibb lettuce; canned diced tomatoes (obviously, fresh tomatoes would be better, but there won’t be any good ones for another eight months); a diced avocado; shredded, mixed Italian cheese; sesame sticks, and a maple Dijon vinaigrette.

Maple Dijon Vinaigrette

• ¼ cup (80 grams) maple syrup
• 3 Tablespoons (32 grams) finely minced shallot
• 2 Tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon Canola oil
• 1 Tablespoon whole-grain Dijon mustard
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 garlic clove, finely minced

Put all ingredients in a bowl and whisk vigorously. If you have a miniature blender — a Magic Bullet, or something similar — that will work even better.

In addition to flavor, the mustard brings lecithin, an emulsifier that ties everything together. The maple syrup brings sweetness, and the vinegar brings acid, but the star of this dressing is the shallot. This is worth making once a week.

Featured photo: West 75th. Photo by John Fladd.