Author: Elizabeth Keyser

Brazilian BBQ, Buffet & Bar in Bridgeport

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Yes! We’ve found a new place for Brazilian churrascaria in Bridgeport, Rancho Pantanal Restaurant and Bar.  Fitting for a place that specializes in grilled meat, it has a ranch theme, with dark brown tables and banquets with fence-like backs. Rancho Pantanal Restaurant and Bar is almost on the Stratford line. It’s nicer than the other Pantanal in Bridgeport, which I wrote about for CTBites here.  Parking’s easier at Rancho Pantanal. Rancho Pantanal’s salad buffet is filled with enough fresh and healthy foods to counteract the splurge of grilled steak. I chose mango salad, pico de gallo, fresh melon, pineapple, and cucumber. At the warm buffet, I showed restraint: yellow rice, black beans and fried sweet plantains. (The warm buffet serves daily specials, stews of beef, chicken or fish, pork belly, vegetables, okra, yucca, plantain, rice, beans, pastas and lasagna. ) At the meat station, I asked for rare steak, and guy removed a skewer from the brazier, pulled off a steak pierced through its thick cap of fat to form a self-basting bundle. He sliced the meat quickly with super sharp knives and …

Bistro Cooking at Home

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Moules Frites at Home Mussels are one of the easiest, healthiest, sustainable and economical ways of enjoying a bistro dinner at home. To tell the truth, I’m often disappointed by the mussels in  restaurants. So often the essential bath of broth seems separate from the mussels. Too often, cooks add too much butter, taking away from the refreshing taste of the sea. I like classic preparations, like Rive Bistro’s moules, pictured above. You can see how parts of the sauce catch in the shells, to flavor each mussel. Here’s the piece I wrote about Rive Bistro in Westport, CT for the Hartford Courant. As a restaurant critic I’ve had to endure abominations like mussels in gorgonzola sauce. It’s the kind of dish people say, “It was really okay,” but really it’s not. Writing about beer for Yankee Brew Magazine brought me to Mikro, a beer bar in Hamden, CT, where I had a memorable mussels dish in a very good way. They use Belgian witbier, with its notes of coriander and orange peel, and orange juice, garlic, chili, thyme and parsley. Mikro’s mussels were the jumping off …

The Hamburger I Crave

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Chilibomb makes one of the best hamburgers in Fairfield County.  I order it medium rare, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, raw onions, pickles and a little mayo. See that meat? It has a nice sear. It’s juicy. Juices run from every bite.  The bun is griddled, see the brown crusty parts on the top bun?  The soft bun embraces all the ingredients; the hamburger doesn’t fall apart. Each bite brings forth the flavor of the whole.  It’s not a burger to linger over, but to lean over. Chilibomb’s fries are also on my one-of-the-best lists. They look and taste like potatoes. They’re cut in-house, and skins add to the potato flavor. The only challenge with Chilibomb’s burger is those juices that catch in the paper dish make the bun soggy when you put the burger down to attend to the fries.  My solution is to place a bed of French fries in the paper dish. The burger can be propped sideways on the bed of fries, reducing possible sogginess, and the fries absorb the juices. My husband prefers his fries crisp from the …

Surprising Baking Tips from Dorie Greenspan

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Dorie Greenspan doesn’t know why people tell her that baking is difficult. After all, she already created the recipe. “I did the work,” she laughs, “Just follow the recipe.” Greenspan has created 300 cookie recipes and they are in her new book “Dorie’s Cookies.” The cookbook author and baking guru came to Sherry B’s Dessert Studio in Chappaqua, N.Y., recently to talk about her new book and share tips for making her favorite cookies. The woman who once measured ten cups of flour in metric to come up with an average of 136 grams per cup, says precision is not so important. “There’s a margin of error,” Greenspan says. “It’s not as precise as we all thought.” Recently she discovered that she and her recipe testers had been using different methods of measurement for the same recipe. And all the cookies tasted great. It’s a thought that helps Greenspan “sleep better at night.” She firmly believes in the metric system. As she spoke, members of Sherry B’s studio passed around plates of adorable little cookies – jam thumbprint, …

Where to Have a Cocktail in SoNo

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Room 112 in SoNo is a clubby place for a cocktail. With a black-and-red color scheme, a pool table, and lots of sofas, it has a dark and decadent feel. Open to the public Wednesday through Saturday from 5 to closing, it’s also a private event space. Downstairs, there’s a smaller bar and a game room, featuring pool and darts. We were invited to sample some cocktails on a quiet Wednesday evening. The cocktails other guests were drinking were layered and garnished with fresh fruit and herbs. My friend cast a needed light upon the cocktail menu (the room is dark). Overwhelmed by the lists of ingredients, we chose an old favorite,  caipirinha.  At Room 112, the Brazilian drink traditionally made of sugar-cane rum, limes and sugar, gets a mixologists list: cachaça, lemon bitters, muddled lemons, limes and sugar. The Tom Old Fashioned is an aromatic blend of gin, vermouth, muddled tangerines, sugar and bitters. It’s garnished with a slice of orange and cherry. The Magic Mule is served in a coppery pineapple vessel. The Magic Mule shakes up lemon-grass-infused vodka, ginger liqueur, fresh …

Who Makes the Best Chiles Rellenos?

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The best chiles rellenos are a dream of melted cheese within a meaty, soft Poblano pepper cloaked in airy egg-white batter covered in fresh tomatillo sauce. I maintain that it’s difficult to find really good chiles rellenos in most Mexican restaurants around here. Making them involves a number of steps, and short-cuts can ruin the dish. Over the years, I’ve been served chiles rellenos that bummed me out, with tough unpeeled peppers, a thick clump of cold cheese, heavy, eggy batter tasting of the frying oil, and canned sauces. Abominations! To get the best chiles rellenos, I had to make them at home.  I’ve made them so many times, I no longer use a recipe. This is the process.   I broil the poblanos directly on a rack placed at highest level. Beneath them place a pan of water. The water adds steaming action, and catches any liquid that might be released from the pepper, and makes cleaning the pan easier. When the peppers are blistered and wrinkled on all sides, put them in a bowl and place a plate over the top. Let them sit. …

Thanksgiving Pies

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Much to my childhood disappointment, I didn’t have grandmothers, and my mother didn’t bake. So I came to pie-making later in life, and had a frustrating time learning. I started with Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French cooking, but it wasn’t until I actually saw a person make pie dough in my kitchen that I started to be less afraid I’d screw it up.  For a decade, I followed Julia’s rigorous by-hand method of mixing the flour and butter. But making pie dough in a food processor is a snap and fool-proof and that’s how I do it today. I make all-butter crusts. My other tip: use the refrigerator. If the dough starts to get too soft at any point in the process, put it in the fridge for a bit. (That’s how to avoid some of the woogey edges you’ll see in my pictures!) Then take it out and continue forth. I’d love to achieve perfection. I haven’t. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. This pie crust was puffy, crisp and buttery. Apple pie is one of the …

Thanksgiving Hits

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We used to go to friends’ for Thanksgiving, and it was a lot of fun, but we really missed cooking Thanksgiving dinner. So, the day after Thanksgiving, we’d spend the day making another Thanksgiving dinner.   One year, after a heavy morning of cooking, we paused for Cranbellinis. I made cranberry syrup by cooking cranberries, sugar and water and straining out the berries. A simpler method is to use cranberry juice. If you buy unsweetened, you’ll have more control over the sweetness level.  We used Cristolino cava, inexpensive, yet made in Spain using the methode Champenoise. Roasting rutabagas and turnips brings out their sweetness. Here’s a tip we learned from watching Lidia Bastianich. Add some water to the roasting pan and cover with foil. This will start some steaming action when you put the pan in the oven. When the vegetables start to get tender, remove the foil and let them get some color. I’m thoroughly tired of Brussels sprouts on every menu, and all the ways chefs try to make them sweet, and all the …

Thanksgiving Veggies

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Thanksgiving is only a week away. Got my turkey order in at the very last minute. Now I’m thinking about vegetables. I’ve been making these little turnips for Thanksgiving, ever since I discovered that my local farm, Sport Hill Farm in Easton CT, grows them. They are sweet and crunchy. I slice them in half and brown them in a cast-iron skillet. They also pickle well. I like the quick pickle recipes in David Chang’s Momofuku cook book. And they also are quite nice roasted with other root vegetables, like parsnips, rutabagas and orange and yellow carrots. Time to start thinking about the pies…

Delicata Squash Casserole

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Like its delightful name, the delicata is the most delicate of squash. So delicate you can eat the skin. No peeling needed. Here’s one of our favorite ways of cooking it, a warm and comforting fall dish. This is based on a dish my husband had when he was a kid at his friend John Paul’s house. He went home and told his mother that he’d just had the best dish ever — “zucchini and cheese.” So Michael’s mother called John Paul’s mother and got the recipe and started making it for the family. What a great Mom. We’ve adapted “zucchini and cheese” to delicata squash, which is in season now. Cut the squash lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds. Slice squash and place in casserole. Add the liquid. You can use milk, almond milk, or stock, or our decadent favorite, coconut milk, to cover the squash. Toss a little flour over the top so the sauce will thicken as it bakes. Top with grated cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 till the squash is tender and the cheese is golden, and good smells are …