To make an egg cream is to take a stand. Not a stand in favor of refreshing, chocolaty drinks–everyone is in favor of that. An egg cream is such a drink, but it’s also an embodiment of the kind of endless argument that Jews love to engage in. Chocolate syrup first? Milk first? What proportions? Is the brand of chocolate syrup important?

If you’ve never had an egg cream, I can tell you two things. First of all, it’s a drink consisting of a little chocolate syrup and milk and a lot of seltzer. Second, my way of making it is the correct way. Just kidding. I basically bumbled through it based on egg creams I’ve had at newsstands in the past. But mine is definitely a good way.

I am not doctrinaire about the ingredients. I do prefer whole milk, but I use store-brand chocolate syrup, not Fox’s U-Bet, and sometimes I use club soda instead of seltzer. If you haven’t had one of these before, do give it a try, but don’t think about milkshakes or ice cream sodas while you drink it. This is their svelte cousin.

Have all your ingredients in the fridge. A warm egg cream is a bad, bad drink. Get a 12-oz pint glass or other tall glass. Pour in about an inch of milk. Add a five-second squirt of chocolate syrup (this will feel like a lot) and stir well to combine. (Basically you’re making chocolate milk that’s half syrup. Don’t you wish you could have gotten away with this when you were a kid?) Stir vigorously with a spoon while adding the seltzer, until the creamy head reaches nearly the top of the glass. It’ll probably bubble over the first couple of times you do this.

Here’s the most important part. You have to drink your egg cream with a straw, and you have to keep the bottom of the straw at the liquid-foam interface so you’re sucking up equal parts liquid and foam as you drink. Neither the liquid nor the foam is very interesting by itself. It’s the synergy that makes this a special beverage.

After you finish drinking the egg cream, a bunch of people will show up at your door for the discussion period.

**Update 11 May 2008:** I no longer use store-brand chocolate syrup for egg creams. I make my own, from [Alice Medrich’s recipe](http://bakingbites.com/2005/04/alice-medrichs-cocoa-syrup/).

When parents and toddlers go to war at the dinner table, I’m guessing it’s usually over vegetables. I’m working on a long post about the second rule of baby food, but here’s an enticing tidbit in the form of another broccoli recipe. It illustrates a key point about vegetable cookery: most vegetables taste best when cooked with plenty of fat. Parenting magazines totally don’t get this, and every month they print recipes for low-fat vegetable dishes that will be pushed to the side of the plate by kids and parents alike.

I made this broccoli tonight, and Iris not only demanded more broccoli after it was gone, but she was only satisfied when we let her eat the sauce out of the serving bowl with a spoon. This is kind of the opposite of the previous broccoli recipe I posted–that one has no sauce and lots of pure broccoli flavor; this one drenches the broccoli in sauce. But broccoli can take it.

**BROCCOLI WITH PEANUT SAUCE**
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated, May/June 2002

*Your local Thai restaurant probably makes something like this with assorted vegetables and calls it Swimming Rama or something similar. This version is most likely less sweet, less thick, and more delicious.*

**For the sauce:**
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
1 tablespoon light brown sugar or palm sugar
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter (I like Jif)

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 pound broccoli, cut into 1-inch florets
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger

1. Whisk together the sauce ingredients in a bowl or a 1-quart Pyrex measuring cup.

2. Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high. Add the broccoli and stir-fry until bright green and slightly browned, about two minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry until fragrant, about ten seconds. Add the sauce, stir, and reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer 5 minutes or until broccoli is tender and sauce is slightly thickened. Serve with jasmine rice.

There, with the big messy polemic out of the way, let’s talk about endive.

The Wednesday Chef made an awesome looking endive gratin from the New York Times. I wanted to make it, too, but by the time I got all the ingredients home, I realized that endive gratin alone didn’t really sound like dinner, although with some crusty bread…but anyway, I decided to convert it into creamy endive pasta sauce.

Using a recipe from Biba Caggiano’s Italy al Dente as a guide, here’s what I did. I’ll put it in gossip column form because it’s really simple. (The original recipe called for Worcestershire sauce, but we didn’t have any, so I substituted fish sauce.)

Heat several tablespoons of **olive oil** in a large saute pan. Add 3/4 pound shredded **belgian endive**. Cook until wilted. Add 2 ounces diced **black forest ham** and cook a couple more minutes. Add 1/2 cup **white wine** and 2 teaspoons **fish sauce**. Add 1/3 cup **heavy cream** and 1 cup **low-sodium chicken broth**. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer until reduced to pasta-coating consistency, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in 1 tablespoon **butter**, 1/4 cup grated **Parmigiano-Reggiano**, and salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, boil 1 pound **penne rigate** in salted water until al dente. Drain and add to the sauce, cooking them together in the saute pan until the pasta is well coated. Serve with additional grated Parmesan.

Iris absolutely loved this. She ate all the noodles and scraped her bowl to get all the endive and ham. Maybe next time I’ll make the actual gratin.

I cook broccoli all sorts of ways–boil, steam, stir-fry, braise, roast. Everything short of blacken. But a recent issue of Fine Cooking introduced me to an entirely new way of cooking it. I couldn’t find the issue last night, but the recipe is so simple I recreated it from memory and it was totally fine.

The author, Tasha DeSerio, calls this method “slow-cooking,” but that suggests that you’re going to dump the broccoli into a Crock-Pot and leave it all day. Really you’re only cooking it for an hour, but it comes out transformed, like broccoli-garlic candy. Okay, that sounds gross. It’s like broccoli as Smoove B would serve it. It’s broccoli confit.

**SMOOVE BROCCOLI**
Adapted from Fine Cooking Dec 2005/Jan 2006
Serves 2-3

*The amount of oil may sound excessive, but don’t cut back or it’ll end up dry. Besides, it’s olive oil, right? The garlic will turn into irresistible brown, chewy slices by the end.*

3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups small broccoli florets and peeled, sliced stems (about 1-1/2 pounds)
2 ounces pancetta, diced (optional)
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
crushed red pepper flakes
salt

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet (not nonstick) over medium heat. Add the broccoli, pancetta, garlic, a healthy sprinkle of salt, and crushed red pepper flakes to taste. Stir well.

2. Reduce the heat to low. Cook uncovered one hour, stirring occasionally.

3. As you approach the hour mark, taste a piece of broccoli. If it’s still crunchy, put a lid on the pan and cook covered for five minutes or until broccoli is tender. Season with additional salt to taste and serve hot or warm.