Boston Comfort Notebook
Here’s how Boston chefs fed themselves during stay-at-home mandates.
A TALE OF TWO PIZZAS
During such a chaotic time, few foods provide comfort like the noble pizza. It’s also a great way to utilize that sourdough starter that many chefs took home to feed like a class pet during the lockdown. “My wife’s favorite food is pizza,” says Pastry Chef Brian Mercury of Puritan & Company. “We could eat pizza every day and not be upset.” But after being furloughed, Mercury decided to avoid delivery fees by creating his own pies. For hours, he watched YouTube videos of heavy Italian men tossing dough, and settled on a Roman-Sicilian hybrid. The 24-hour fermented dough becomes focaccia-like, but thinner, more sour, and with an airy, open crumb. Assembly: cheese first (ricotta, parm, mozz), followed by San Marzano tomato sauce, and lastly, basil and garlic. Now that Puritan & Co. is back in service, guests can order Mercury’s pizza every Thursday. While Mercury’s pizza was a want, Chef Marc Sheehan’s pizza was a need. “I struggled with not having been home to cook dinner in ten years,” says the Loyal Nine chef. With limited equipment anf ingredients, Sheehan turned to the upside-down cast iron pizza. He Starts with the toppings, like leftover cabbage and potatoes sautèed in beef fat, then adds mozz (or whatever), and caps it with a yeasted rye dough, just ‘cause. Bake it. Flip it. Slice It. Eat more pizza.
A HANKERING FOR DIM SUM
With a home pantry full of lacto-fermented produce and a little free time, Chef/Baker Kat Bayle was in search of a new project. “I was looking for something that takes a lot of time and has a lot of steps,” she says. After a sudden craving for dim sum, it hit her: dumplings. Although Bayle has made dumplings in the Field & Vine kitchen, doing it at home, with no fancy equipment, is a whole new ball game. She starts by making a basic dumpling dough, rolls it out, scales, divides, and rolls again into small rounds. With the help of her boyfriend, she fills the dumplings with whatever she’s got on hand. Ultra-fragrant lacto-fermented ramps, for instance, were combined with Szechuan-style shrimp for a play on shrimp and chive dumplings. “They were the fastest we’ve ever shaped because they were so fucking smelly, but the flavor was amazing,” says Bayle. Dumplings are not only a quarantine hobby for Bayle, they have become a blank slate for flavor experimentation — flavors that will join upon her return to the Field & Vine kitchen.
FROM THE GROUND UP
The mandated closure of restaurants forced Stillwater Chef/Owner Sarah Wade to furlough the majority of her staff. This left Wade running Stillwater’s delivery and to-go program on her own. During the little time she spent cooking at home, she’d rely on her box of Walden Local Meat. The farm co-op delivers monthly collections of local meat, from ossobucco to ham hocks. But what really comes in handy was their assortment of ground meat. Wade grabs ground pork, beef, and veal — whatever’s in the freezer — for quick and easy meatballs. I can always put a fun twist on [the meatballs],” says Wade. “I love ground lamb and feta with oregano, and buffalo chicken meatballs are always delicious.” she zhuzhes them up with white wine sauce, throws them over some rice, or eats them plain — whatever she has time for. Meatballs wait for no woman.
