Food Shop Links, Holiday Protein Edition

I'm finally posting about two shopping trips I made in Manhattan, getting specialty food for my family's Christmas breakfast last year.   And by "last year", I mean "Christmas 2016"  (Yikes).  In lieu of splurging on chocolate or other candy for stocking stuffers, I splurge on meat, cheese and fish.   Which do not go into the stockings, because Ew.

I started at a food shop in what I call the "Little UK" (I think no one else calls it that at the moment), a group of shops in the West Village near 14th Street.   There is a tea shop and a for-reals chip shop, about which more another day, on Greenwich Avenue.   My goal on this day, however, was Myers of Keswick, a food purveyor on Hudson Street near Horatio.  They have an array of imported shelf stable foods, Christmas crackers every December, and a deli counter full of sausages, Scotch eggs, pasties and pies (displayed on the website as "Fresh Goods").   I haven't tried everything there, but I have yet to try a sausage / pie / etc. that I haven't enjoyed.  I usually get the Cumberland sausage and Bangers to cook at home.   They also sell scones, and according to the website they'll put (clotted) cream and jam on them for you.   I shall report back.

http://www.myersofkeswick.com/

In nice weather,  it's not too arduous a walk down to Bleecker Street and Murray's Cheese Shop.  In dreadful weather, it's one stop from the 14th St. A/C/E to West 4th Street, with a little walking on both ends.  In addition to the bewildering array of cheeses and "specialty foods", they have a charcuterie section with sausages, pates, terrines, hams and smoked duck.  I will sometimes get the smoked duck breast, but I keep coming back for the fresh cheese curds, which may or may not be up to dairy farm standards but I like them just fine.  The West Village branch has a kind of lunch counter called "Murray's Melts" that offers grilled cheese sandwiches, and there is also Murray's Cheese Bar down the street from the shop (I will have to visit and report back).   The website also mentions "classes and private events" including cheese tastings and mozzarella pulling.

http://www.murrayscheese.com/

http://www.murrayscheesebar.com/

From the West Village, we now go WAAAAAAAAAAAY up to Yorkville on the Upper East Side (any NYC resident will tell you how maddeningly, ridiculously difficult it can be to visit two non-adjacent neighborhoods in one trip, although on paper it's Take the F from West 4th, Change To The Q At 34th).   This neighborhood doesn't have the same size German population it used to have, but on Second Avenue, Schaller and Weber butcher shop is still offering wursts, landjaeger, cured meats, and imported German foods including sweets, spaetzle, potato pancakes, and coffees (I used to be able to get Tchibo here for someone I loved who got the occasional yen for it).   When I cannot find butterkase (German butter cheese) elsewhere (even the cheese shops have not always heard of it), they usually have some in stock.  Several years ago I came across a kind of ham there called lachsschinken, which looked interesting and tasted delicious.   I brought it to the family Christmas breakfast, and lo and behold, one of the fussier eaters liked it very much, and a tradition was born.

https://schallerweber.com/

The proprietors have opened a tiny space next door to serve hot food (mostly sausages) called Schaller's Stube.   They also serve fried chicken and potato pancakes, which I enjoyed very much.  I want to go back and try a wurst or two, but the sauerkraut and condiments all contain vinegar, which I can't eat, so I have to ask them to make it plain, which I don't always have the energy to do.  The "Teriyaki Brat" looks interesting...

https://www.schallerstube.com/

FOOD LAB -- Brazilian (GF) Cheese Bread Edition

Finally migrating this post over from social media.   In the months since I first wrote it, I have located both standard and mini sized muffin tins which serve to bake pao de queijo very well indeed.

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I fell in love with a GF product called BraziBites -- mixed and frozen cassava (tapioca) - flour batter based on Brazilian Pao de Queijo. One thing I loved was the variety of flavors. Cheddar. Parmesan. Asiago and garlic. They're not cheap, and not easy to find (Costco used to have them for a while, otherwise it's Whole Paycheck or Wegman's), but they scratch a particular "warm bread" itch for me.

brazibites.com

I had also discovered a baked and frozen product called "Against The Grain" which has a similar recipe. Those (larger) rolls NEARLY scratched the same itch, but they got tough sooner than wheat-flour bread. Reheated in the oven, they could quickly turn into rocks. They cost too much to pay for potential rocks. They do have other products besides the rolls. I may revisit them to try the wraps.

http://www.againstthegraingourmet.com/

I started looking for copycat recipes, and the first / only one I found (for a frustratingly long time) looked...insanely complicated, to be brutally honest. The author swore that the brand of tapioca flour made a tremendous difference, Bob's Red Mill would NOT do. The cheese must be low-moisture mozzarella. You MUST use a food processor. The rolls MUST be baked on parchment.
I never attempted a bread this tetchy when I was eating wheat, why would I start now?

Fortunately for me, I have since found a couple of other, simpler recipes which had simple proportions, could be made with whatever tapioca flour your store carries, could be mixed with a blender (or a stick blender), got poured into mini-muffin tins and LET YOU CHOOSE THE CHEESE! The author has had good results with feta. I used the sharp cheddar in my fridge. When mixed, it's like slightly thick pancake batter.

Then I remembered I have no mini-muffin tin.

No biggie. Muffin batter can be baked in a cake pan, those I have. I lowered the temperature and added baking time in case of oops.

The corners rose and the middle did not. Fortunately, the thing was cohesive enough to flip over, and the center baked until it caught up with the corners.

It's better than the frozen ones. I won't need to make a special trip for the commercial brands. Go me 8)

The author of the recipe I used mentions the batter will keep up to a week in the fridge. I am experimenting with creating my own "bites" with an ice cube tray in my freezer. Will update.

UPDATE: They freeze, thaw and bake with little to no impact on taste and texture. Win!

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_brazilian_cheese_bread/