In 2009, Chef Anita Lo had a terrible year.
In February, her restaurant Bar Q went out of business. A few months later, her mother passed away. And then, in July, her flagship restaurant, Annisa, a West Village staple and critical darling, burned down to the ground after an electrical fire. “It was a really bad year,” she tells me when she recounts the story.
But Lo didn’t give in to the misfortune. Instead, she used the time between the fire and the restaurant’s reopening (almost a year later) to develop new dishes, to reflect on her career, and to travel. “You don’t have a choice,” she tells me in Annisa’s basement, where there’s a second kitchen and a walk-in refrigerator. “That’s life.”
Lo wears a perpetual game face; she seems ready for anything and everything, as if she knows disaster’s likely to strike again any second and this time she’ll be prepared. When we start cooking together, she also seems to invite danger: she cooks a Japanese eggplant on an open flame.
“Isn’t that hazardous?” I ask.
“There are hazards to cooking,” she responds matter-of-factly.
The Japanese eggplant is part of a dish that reflects Lo’s style: eggplant two different ways, smoked over an open flame and steamed.
The steamed eggplant, which remains a magnificent purple color, gets cut into mini-towers and then stuffed with a mixture of red onion, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and a sweet Turkish seasoning called maras-biber; the smoked eggplant gets stuffed with fried shallots, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, and a smoky Turkish pepper called urfa-biber. Lo staggers the smoked eggplant with the steamed eggplant on the plate and tops everything with yogurt mixed with lemon zest and garlic; she uses yogurt water (which comes out when she strains the yogurt) as a broth. The finished plate is quirky and vivid, the flavors big and bold and memorable.
Lo embraces multiculturalism in her food. “I once had a Turkish girlfriend,” she explains when I ask her how she got the idea for this dish. “And I wanted to use some Turkish flavors.”
Her curiosity about the world is what feeds her culinary ambition, though sometimes she goes for the familiar. “This is something my mom used to make,” she explains later as she makes an almond jelly, stirring milk, almond extract, and sugar together on the stove. The resulting dish, served with candied fennel and segmented grapefruit, is probably a far cry from anything Lo saw in her childhood kitchen.
And though Lo’s voice is somber and sad when she talks about the recent tragedies she’s been through, she’s clearly been invigorated by them too. Her food is energetic and exciting and, most important, future-focused (the reopened Annisa earned a solid two stars in The New York Times).
Some restaurant food merely shows off a chef’s knowledge; Lo’s food shows off her wisdom. Heaven knows it was hard-earned.
“It’s all about esoteric ingredients. I’m always excited by new things I’ve never had before.”
Serves 4
Why is it that we gladly eat raw fish at restaurants but rarely do it at home? I suspect it has something to do with trust; while we trust a restaurant to carefully purchase its seafood, we don’t trust ourselves to do the same. That’s a shame, though, because if you track down sushi-grade tuna from a local seafood shop that you trust, you can serve this cooling, surprising carpaccio at home with very little effort.
1 kohlrabi (or, if you can’t find it, fennel or radishes), julienned (it helps to use a mandoline)
3 mint leaves, cut into a chiffonade*
1 clove garlic, very finely minced
Juice of 1 lemon, plus more to taste
¼ cup dried currants
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 pound sushi-grade tuna or Spanish mackerel*
Hawaiian pink salt (see Resources) or other coarse sea salt
In a bowl, mix together the kohlrabi, mint, garlic, lemon juice, dried currants, kosher salt and pepper to taste, and the olive oil. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Slice the fish against the grain into ¼-inch slices. Arrange on chilled plates and drizzle the fish with olive oil, squeeze on a little more lemon juice, then top with the slaw and some coarse salt. Serve immediately.
Serves 4
Warning: this recipe asks you to do a lot. First, the shopping. You must track down two obscure Turkish spices, maras-biber* (a hot and sweet bright red spice) and urfa-biber* (the blackened, smoky version of maras-biber). Lo builds the dish around these two spices, pairing the maras-biber with steamed eggplant and the urfa-biber with charred eggplant. It makes for a dish so unusual and so worth the effort, you’ll never look at eggplant the same way again. Be sure to strain the yogurt the night before you make this.
1 cup plain yogurt
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 shallots, peeled and sliced thin
Kosher salt
4 large Japanese eggplants of relatively equal size and thickness, stems removed
2 tablespoons maras-biber
¼ cup red onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Olive oil
2 tablespoons urfa-biber
Chives, sliced into small strips
The day before you make this, line a sieve with cheesecloth and place the sieve over a bowl. Pour in the yogurt and place in the refrigerator overnight, allowing the yogurt to strain*.
Heat the vegetable oil in a small frying pan on high heat until you see bubbles around the handle of a wooden spoon when you place it in the oil. Carefully add the shallots and fry until crispy, stirring them as they cook. Remove them to paper towels, season with salt, and set aside.
Set up a steamer by filling a pot with 1 inch of water, bringing it to a simmer on medium-low heat, and placing a steamer basket with a lid on top.
Cut off the ends of two of the eggplants and slice them into rounds about 2 inches wide. Season with salt and place in the steamer, covering with the lid. Cook until a knife goes through them easily, about 10 minutes. Remove to a plate.
One at a time, using tongs, cook the other 2 eggplants over an open gas flame on your stovetop. (Be careful! Sparks may fly.) If this makes you nervous, or if you have an electric stove, you can also use the broiler or a grill, but the point is to get the whole exterior of the eggplant black and the interior cooked. It takes 10 minutes or so and you should rotate the eggplant around as you do it. When the eggplant is limp and blackened, set aside. Allow to cool and then, using your hands and a paring knife, remove the skin and slice the eggplant into rounds the same size as the ones that are in the steamer. Season with salt.
To make the filling for the steamed eggplant, in a small bowl, mix together the maras-biber, red onion, 1 clove of the minced garlic, 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice, and enough olive oil to make a runny paste. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
To make the smoked eggplant filling, mix the fried shallots, 1 clove of the minced garlic, the urfa-biber, 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice, and enough olive oil to make a runny paste. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Using chopsticks, poke holes through the centers of all the eggplant pieces. Spoon about a teaspoon of the appropriate filling into those holes (maras for the steamed, urfa for the smoked), pushing down with a chopstick, so that there is filling in every bite.
Mix together the strained yogurt (reserve the water), 1 tablespoon lemon zest, and the final clove of minced garlic. Adjust for salt and acid.
Serve in bowls. First pour in some of the reserved yogurt water. Stagger pieces of the smoked eggplant and the steamed eggplant on each bowl and top with a dollop of the yogurt mixture and the chives. (Lo serves hers with a fried eggplant chip, but that’s not necessary at home.) You can serve this warm, at room temperature, or chilled.
Serves 6
The most challenging thing about this recipe is the name. When I told friends that I was serving “Almond Jelly” for dessert one night, they looked at me worriedly as if this required some explanation. It’s noteworthy, then, that Lo also calls this recipe “Blancmange,” which sounds much more appetizing. Trust me, no matter what you call it, this combination of gelatin, milk, and almond extract is a terrific canvas for the unexpected combination of the candied fennel, the grapefruit, and my favorite of all liqueurs, St-Germain*.
FOR THE JELLY
2½ cups whole milk
2 teaspoons almond extract
1½ cups water
½ cup sugar
A pinch of kosher salt
2 tablespoons powdered gelatin, bloomed in a small bowl with ¾ tablespoon warm water
FOR THE CANDIED FENNEL
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
A pinch of kosher salt
1 cup fennel, cut into a small dice, with the fronds reserved
TO FINISH
⅓ cup St-Germain liqueurb
1 pink grapefruit, supremed*
To make the jelly, whisk together the milk, almond extract, water, and sugar in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, whisking every so often and watching carefully so it doesn’t bubble up. Once you see active bubbles, whisk in the bloomed gelatin and strain into a separate bowl. Pour into six 4-ounce ramekins that have been prepared with cooking spray. Refrigerate for 4 or 5 hours, until they’re set.
To make the candied fennel, place the sugar and water in a pot and bring to a boil over medium heat to make a simple syrup, stirring occasionally. Add the lemon juice, salt, and fennel and simmer until the fennel is cooked through and soft, about 5 minutes. (Test by removing a piece of fennel to a plate, letting it cool, and then tasting to see if it’s tender.) Allow to cool and then strain, saving the syrup. Set the candied fennel aside.
Mix the syrup with the St-Germain and pour over the grapefruit segments in a bowl.
To serve, run a knife around the edge of each ramekin and invert onto a small soup plate or bowl. Surround each with the pink grapefruit and a small amount of the syrup* and sprinkle with the candied fennel and the fennel fronds.
