Hope the new decade heads in forward direction
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- December 31, 2019
- 937
It was hardly a posh New Year’s Eve, but I’m happy to dig right in to the 2020s. It was just 100 years ago Americans were waking up to the reality that the Volstead Act had taken effect and Prohibition had arrived.
The act was supported by many Americans, but most, it turned out, assumed the ban would only apply to hard liquor. When working men found they could no longer get a pail of beer after work and families were forbidden from having a glass of wine with Sunday dinner, support evaporated rather quickly.
Over the next 13 years, Prohibition became extremely unpopular, gave rise to a whole new class of criminals, caused the poisoning of thousands with tainted moonshine, and at the end of it all, the consumption of hooch had gone completely mainstream and upscale with far more people imbibing than at the start.
Banning booze worked so well that the government has been hard at it ever since, banning things as fast as The Committee of Concerned Citizens With Nothing Better to Do spots them, with equal success.
So here we are a century later, with producers barely able to keep pace with demand and the craft of cocktail creation a remarkable and developing art. At least for now, I like the looks of 2020 better than 1920, even though the latter kicked off a decade of unprecedented social change, modernization, greater freedom for women and some of the best art, music and literature ever produced.
Let’s hope the coming decade heads in a forward direction as well and stops with the backward nonsense.
Thankfully I paid attention to my own Christmas gift-giving advice and bought my wife a cookbook, “Bobby Flay at Home.” The appetizers I had at a Bobby Flay restaurant in Nevada are still the very best things I’ve ever tasted, anywhere, the kind of food that is so good you can’t imagine how on earth it came to be. So I have high hopes for some of these recipes, one of which is already a “why the heck didn’t I think of this before?” mashed potatoes with a cheese and green chili sauce.
You know it’s amazing before you even buy the ingredients. Remember: don’t use skim milk.
MASHED POTATOES WITH CHEESE AND CHILIES
Serves 4-6
3 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, washed and cut into chunks
Kosher salt
2 cups whole milk
1 stick unsalted butter, in pieces
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 poblano chili, roasted, peeled, seeded and finely diced
1/4 cup minced cilantro leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup heavy cream
Cover the potatoes with several inches of water in a large pot and add 2 tablespoons salt. Bring to a boil and cook until a knife pierces them easily. Meanwhile, bring the milk to a simmer in a small pan.
In another large sauce pan, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and add the flour, whisking until a pale roux forms. Add the hot milk and keep whisking until thickened a bit, then remove from the heat and add the Monterey Jack cheese, stirring briskly until melted. Add the Parmesan, the poblano, cilantro and pepper. Keep warm over low heat.
Drain the cooked potatoes and set them over low heat to dry out. In a small pan, heat the cream and the remaining butter until the butter melts. Pass the potatoes through a ricer, then add the cream mixture, stirring gently. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer the potatoes to a large serving bowl and pour the cheese sauce into a well made in the center.
(Recipe: “Bobby Flay at Home”)