67Burger: A Better Brooklyn Burger

67 Burger is a burger joint that has something tasty for everyone— including you chocolate lovers out there. We stopped in while they were celebrating National Chocolate Milkshake Day to chat with the chef Jeff Maslanka and brand manager McKenzie Mahoney. They even taught us how to make a really, really juicy and delicious burger!

67 Burger first opened its doors six years ago and now has locations in Fort Greene and Park Slope. Their menu offers 13 “artfully crafted burgers” as well as salads, sides and shakes. The signature 67 Burger comes topped with bleu cheese and bacon while the wildly popular Oaxaca Burger includes avocado, chipotle mayo, Cajun spices and cheddar cheese.

With such an array of burgers, we asked Maslanka when he gets his best ideas for new, creative patties, and he responded, “At 5am. When I can’t sleep anymore or wake up wondering if I ordered the beef for the day!”

Maslanka was nice enough to give us a lesson in the importance of properly seasoning your burger, something many people do not do. “You have to season it liberally with salt and pepper—once it gets on the grill, some of that seasoning will fall off so you need enough to allow for that.” He went on to show us how to make the Pastrami Burger, a monthly special at 67 Burger, which incorporates a traditional pastrami spice mix.

He toasted coriander and mustard seeds, then added them to a combination of black pepper, white pepper, salt, smoked paprika and brown sugar and ground the mixture in a spice grinder. After that, it’s ready to go on your beef patty (or turkey, chicken, veggie or tofu)!

We love how excited they are about great burgers and great food at 67 Burger—and we are excited to try the special slider they will be preparing for Brooklyn Bounty. “We like to be involved in the community so Brooklyn Bounty was a no brainer for us, ” Mahoney said. “We were born in Brooklyn, a Brooklyn burger joint.”

To sample 67 Burger’s creative concoctions, purchase your tickets now to Brooklyn Bounty held on October 25th at the Brooklyn Brewery.

by Leslie Gordon

Brooklyn Bounty intern

Fort Reno BBQ: Cooking up Brooklyn-style flavor

Photo courtesy of Fort Reno

You may recognize the name of the chef of Fort Reno BBQ, Jacques Gautier.  That’s right, Brooklyn Bounty is lucky enough to have two restaurants from Gautier participating!  Click here for our blog post on Palo Santo.

We talked with Gautier in the rooftop garden above his home and Palo Santo, and he explained how Fort Reno came to be.  “There are no Barbecue places in Park Slope, not even anybody who delivers in Park Slope.  So we thought, why don’t we open up a Barbecue place then?  Everybody loves barbecue.”

We couldn’t agree more!  We love BBQ and cannot wait to try what Gautier decides to serve at Brooklyn Bounty on October 25th.

Photo courtesy of Fort Reno

When our own Georgia-born BHS staff member asked Gautier what base he uses for his barbecue sauce, Gautier responded, “People ask us, and I always tell them we do Brooklyn-style barbecue. It definitely takes influences from different places. Our pulled pork has the Carolina-style mob sauce with vinegar and peppers. Our ribs have a sweeter, thicker, mustard molasses sauce on them, so we do a variety of sauces. Brisket doesn’t get sauce but it gets a rub that’s made with chocolate and chilies – kind of a mole rub, but when you taste it, it just tastes like good fatty brisket. We make our own hot sauces… the hot sauces may be the only Latin influence that has found its way in.”

Is it just us, or is anyone else salivating?

Not to mention, because Gautier has the rooftop garden, he’s able to toss in some more Southern flair with collard greens to serve with his BBQ at Fort Reno.

Reserve your Brooklyn Bounty admission today to enjoy Brooklyn-BBQ and other delicious chef tastings, paired with your beverage of choice at host venue Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. See you there!

-by Jennifer Garvey

Brooklyn Bounty Intern

Madiba: Bringing a taste of South Africa to Brooklyn

Madiba restaurant in Fort Greene has become a neighborhood institution during its 13 years on Dekalb Avenue. We stopped by to talk about what they’re preparing for Bounty and to meet the Chef-Owner, Mark Henegan, who welcomed us with gracious hospitality. After trying the prawn dish, spiced with Peri Peri oil — trust us, you do not want to miss Henegan’s plate at Brooklyn Bounty.

Henegan grew up in South Africa. He and his wife, Jenny, opened their restaurant to share their heritage and also pay homage to their hero Nelson Mandela.

Today, Madiba is more than just a restaurant; it’s “a local hub and an educational platform for the community.” Henegan is politically conscious and encourages others by welcoming local activists and politicians to the restaurant.  The restaurant also partners with Exalt, a Brooklyn nonprofit organization founded to transform the lives of court-involved youth by equipping them with the skills and experience necessary to become self-sufficient members of society.

Aside from Madiba’s community involvement, Henegan has worked hard to create a cozy feeling in the restaurant, installing a “Homesick Store” with shelves of South African items they grew up with. You can find bags of samp, a traditional cracked corn and kidney bean mixture that’s served as a starch, and pap, a starch staple of the Zulu.

The restaurant menu is stellar, offering curry dishes, seafood and other typical South African plates. Our visit showed us that Madiba is more than just a place to grab a meal. “People come here and feel loved,” said Henegan. “It doesn’t matter who you are, everybody’s welcome.”

by Leslie Gordon

Brooklyn Bounty intern

Iris Cafe: An Instant Classic in Brooklyn Heights

Iris Café is a Brooklyn Heights neighbor and we are thrilled that they have a table at Brooklyn Bounty. We walked over to Columbia Place to meet with the owner, Rachel Graville, and asked how this local favorite came to be.

“I had been to a lot of cafés with good coffee and standard pastries and a lot of restaurants with great food and mediocre coffee…so I created a place that would have both,” said Graville. She had held casual cooking jobs prior to opening the cafe, and most recently worked for Edible Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The café offers breakfast and lunch all day and has recently added dinner service from 5:30-10pm. Iris is known for its incredible avocado toast, ham and cheese biscuit, and hearty sandwiches — these items reflect Graville’s food
philosophy of simple, homestyle dishes that showcase high-quality ingredients. (For the record, it’s been published that the biscuit recipe she uses was her grandmother’s, but it’s actually her father’s recipe!) She uses Finger Lakes Family Farm in upstate New York for local ingredients; Finger Lakes sends a truck around to different farms to pick up fresh eggs, dairy and produce and then delivers the items to the café.

Another interesting tidbit about the café is that it only has an electric kitchen. That means that they are limited to certain methods for preparing dishes, applications you would use at home such as boiling, braising, roasting and baking — no frying, grilling or sautéing. “We put in an electric kitchen because a full kitchen was cost prohibitive, but something that was born out of necessity has now become a part of the identity of the café,” Graville said.

Iris Café has developed a loyal following of customers and continues to expand, adding a to-go “bodega” and dinner service this year. “I like being able to offer food at anytime of day or night. It’s more of a European mentality.”

And speaking of offering food, she’s happy to be a part of Brooklyn Bounty this year. “Bounty has been on my radar for the past three years as something I wanted to get involved in; I first heard about it when I was taking a course on food policy at The New School.”

And here’s a Bounty sneak peek: Iris Café will offer an Indian-inspired tasting plate of lamb on a pappadum cracker with a yogurt garnish—trust us, you will want to try this. See you on October 25^th!

by Leslie Gordon

Brooklyn Bounty Intern

By Brooklyn: True Brooklyn Loyalty

For all the proud Brooklynites out there, we have the store for you: By Brooklyn in Carroll Gardens. The owner, Gaia DiLoreto, showed us around and told us how she made the transition from working in IT to opening a Brooklyn-centric, fine goods gift shop. By Brooklyn even carries some of the same local foods and vendors that will be featured at Brooklyn Bounty this year, including  The Jam Stand, Brooklyn Brine, and Spoonable LLC.

DiLoreto moved to New York City in 1998 “without a job or a penny.”  She landed a job at Merrill Lynch, then switched over to IT work. Her original plan in moving to NYC, however, was to go to culinary school — and once she realized that she didn’t want to continue along the IT track, that’s exactly what she did.

“I went back to my roots,” said DiLoreto. “Food.”

Although she did not want to get into the restaurant business, she loved checking out all of the local farmers markets, flea markets, and food events. That’s what led her to create her own shop— a place to access all of the products she loved in one place, all made in the borough of Brooklyn.

By Brooklyn has now grown even bigger than she anticipated. The store carries items from over 150 producers, it has an online store, and DiLoreto is thinking about opening stores in other parts of the country. But don’t worry, DiLoreto insists that “everything will continue to represent Brooklyn, to in fact be made in Brooklyn.”

Not only does DiLoreto support Brooklyn entrepreneurs, innovators, and business-owners, she also decided to join the Brooklyn Bounty Committee to help us put on a fabulous event. “I love celebrating Brooklyn, as you can see through my shop, but I also love Brooklyn’s rich history of production and manufacturing.  It seemed a perfect fit for me to get involved with the Brooklyn Historical Society’s food-centric fundraiser, Brooklyn Bounty.”

She hasn’t once regretted taking this leap and opening By Brooklyn. “I have so much more of a life now, knowing that I have a place that draws people, but I can also give back,” she explained.

You’re sure to find something that catches your eye at By Brooklyn whether it’s artisanal foods, housewares, jewelry, or even terrarium making classes! If you can’t make it to the store, make sure to say hello to Gaia at Brooklyn Bounty on October 25th.

by Leslie Gordon

Brooklyn Bounty intern

Brooklyn Brine shares their “weirdo pickles” with Brooklyn Bounty

At Brooklyn Bounty, we’re proud to say our chefs and food purveyors are growing and producing their unique creations within the borough of Brooklyn, making it the place for artisanal food products. We sat down with Shamus Jones, the founder and owner of Brooklyn Brine in the Gowanus neighborhood, who showed us around his pickling factory and told us what he’s concocting in Brooklyn.

He’s most proud of his latest project, the “hop-pickle”– a collaboration with Dogfish Brewery in Milton, Delaware that resulted in a unique and tasty pickle. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get a taste of it at Brooklyn Bounty this year!

“I was game to play around with this so they sent over a whole line, a bunch of hops,” says Jones. “We made some terrible pickles, but finally got the right combination.”

That combination uses Cascade Hop Oil to give the pickles a fantastic, hoppy taste that might remind you of your favorite India Pale Ale.

The basic brine recipe for a Brooklyn Brine pickle calls for apple cider vinegar, sea salt and evaporated cane sugar. The cucumbers (or whatever produce is being pickled) are hand-chopped and packed into jars—they heat the brine, pour it into the jars and then boil the jars. This expands the contents of the jars and releases oxygen. They then use a high-power fan to cool the jars and constrict them, preventing any contaminants from causing fermentation and spoiling.

But Jones never wanted to make regular pickles– he started jarring up “weirdo pickles” a few years ago when he was working as a vegan/vegetarian chef. This eventually led to the founding of Brooklyn Brine in 2009 and his combinations like spicy maple bourbon, fennel beets and chipotle carrots. He is also experimenting with lacto-fermentation– fermenting seasonal ingredients from the farmers market in whiskey or bourbon barrels which gives them a lot of flavor.

And, customers have responded with enthusiasm. The company has grown 400% every year, and they just opened a retail store at the front of their factory.

Plus, they have exciting partnerships on the horizon. Brooklyn Brine will be “THE pickle of the Brooklyn Nets” at the new arena, and Jones is already brainstorming new projects and partnerships. In fact, he just submitted a recipe for preserved lemons with gin and rosemary to Bon Appetit.

Not to mention, they will start offering classes soon! So anyone who wants to try their hand at pickling should keep an eye out.

Come to Brooklyn Bounty on October 25th and make sure you try out Brooklyn Brine’s “weirdo pickles” and find out how to create your own.

-by Leslie Gordon

Brooklyn Bounty Intern

Industry City Distillery: Brooklyn’s First Sipping Vodka

Brooklyn Bounty is all about promoting chefs, food purveyors and our amazing local distilleries who are creating one-of-kind products in this diverse borough.  This year, Industry City Distillery will be serving up historic cocktails with the help of mixologist David Wondrich.

ICD is a vodka distillery in Sunset Park where they are crafting “Brooklyn’s first sipping vodka.”  The idea was created by Dave Kyrejko, engineer and distiller,  and soon enough, a team of four guys joined him to build a distillery that uses precise science to create a vodka so tasty, you can drink it straight-up.

BHS visited for a tour of the distillery with Peter and Zac taking us through each step of distillation, starting with fermentation, where beet sugar is introduced to immobilized yeast bio-reactors and is converted into alcohol. Then comes distillation where they take a sample every 14 minutes, giving them 30 samples from each still run. “Some cuts taste like seashore or boots,” says Zac. “Which isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just a set of all different flavors.”

The team then tastes each to figure out which cuts they want to combine for the finished product. Customers greatly appreciate this level of care– Industry City can’t keep up with demand — every batch sells out right away! ICD explains this is why they are ramping up production from about 800 each to 4,000—and they hope to achieve this by January 2013.

What is truly impressive about ICD is how each of the five founders brings an essential and unique skill to the operation, whether it’s Peter who’s in charge of Sales and Marketing, Zac who is a machinist and fabricator, or Rich who works with the labeling robot.

Beyond science and mechanics, Industry City also understands the importance of unique branding and creates all of their labels in house via their “printshop.” They’ve chosen a simple bottle and label for their No. 2 vodka that has a “ sort of a pharmaceutical, apothecary look.”  We just love this look and the vodka inside speaks for itself.

“We want to be the bartender’s choice for Brooklyn… and for New York,” says Peter.

And they are well on their way.

– by Leslie Gordon and Jennifer Garvey

Brooklyn Bounty Interns

Allswell: Your home-away-from-home in Williamsburg

Nate Smith of Allswell

If you ask Nate Smith, chef of ALLSWELL, what he plans to make for October 25th’s Brooklyn Bounty, he’ll tell you he has no idea yet.  His favorite time to cook is the period between two seasons, because you get to use ingredients that don’t normally “cross paths,” as he put it.  

A California native, he loves the climate of New York, especially fall. He plans to base his Bounty dish (he hinted at braising) on whatever’s in season at the time, and is very excited to see what October weather, and the restaurant’s first anniversary entail.

After moving to Brooklyn from San Francisco with a group of friends who were more like family, he worked at the Spotted Pig with April Bloomfield. Working with April was an incredible learning experience for Nate, giving him the tools needed to open his own place. After months of construction and lots of stress, he opened ALLSWELL, the homey gastropub in Williamsburg. Smith uses seasonal ingredients, getting biweekly lists of what’s in season from farmers in Lancaster.

The name ALLSWELL was chosen in part because it reflects the desired mood, “all is well.” The ‘well’ in ALLSWELL, Smith mentions, is also a reference to the extensive bar, custom built for the restaurant. Smith believes that great food should not just be for special occasions, especially in a city where so many people don’t cook. Smith wanted to create “a breakfast, lunch and dinner place. It’s fun to have a place that you can stay late at night and drink at night and then come back in the morning for breakfast.”

Amazing french toast!

He’s at the restaurant every day, working to create a place with “a soul that’s more than four walls.” Smith has always worked with food, beginning in pizza joints when he was a teenager. His whole family is involved in the restaurant, although his kids are still picky eaters. Smith loves the community of chefs in Williamsburg, calling it “another generation of the neighborhood” and is thrilled that food is no longer a fringe interest. “When I started cooking,” he explained, “I had no friends that were into it. It was this weird thing that I did.”

In addition to a commitment to seasonal ingredients and everyday goodness, ALLSWELL makes everything from scratch, from sausage to bacon to bread (they have plans to wholesale it down the line). When we visited, the homemade bread was transformed into delicious French toast topped with seasonal peaches. The waitress joked that everything but the peaches were made in-house. ALLSWELL may not have an orchard but it does have a patio, brunch (a recent addition), a bar with late night service, and perhaps most importantly, a chef who loves every minute of what he does.

– by Abigail Koffler

Brooklyn Bounty Intern

Mazie’s Bites at Dekalb Market

Get ready for some International Soul food on October 25^th!  Chef Shana of Mazie’s Bites will be preparing three appetizers for Brooklyn Bounty — all based on the seasonal options at the farmers market in October.

We sat down with Chef Shana at DeKalb Market to discuss Mazie’s Bites and what International Soul food means to her.

“We’ve been here as long as the market has been here and we are on season two… We term our food ‘International Soul’ and that’s because it’s a mix of Creole, Latin food, Caribbean food, and American soul food…  Just to give you an idea our most popular dish is our crispy fried fish tacos, which is our take on the Baja fish tacos.  So it has a little soul in it- but very heavily Latin.  And then you compare that with Lobster Mac and Cheese- they’re our two top sellers.”

At DeKalb Market they use recycled shipping containers as their store fronts.  Shana explains, “The whole idea of the market is that we’re occupying a lot that is going to eventually be developed on.  And so- we’re temporary.  When you’re talking about temporary but you still have to follow weather conditions and cook and things like that- it was the perfect solution because when it’s all said and done- at the end of September, they’re going to pick these up and move them to a new location.”

DeKalb Market is located in Downtown Brooklyn right off the R train DeKalb Stop.  Shana describes the neighborhood saying, “Downtown Brooklyn has a nice mix, so we get Fulton Street, Metro Tech, LIU students, and then on the weekends it’s a different mix because we get the condo residents and Fort Green with the baby strollers- so depending on the day we can have such a variety.”

Mazie’s Bites is currently looking into Fort Green, Clinton Hill, and Bed Hill (a term Shana used to describe the area in between Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill) to open a restaurant and full bar.  Keep an eye out for it, and make sure you make it to Brooklyn Bounty on October 25th to try Mazie’s three International Soul food appetizers!

To learn more about our support levels click here or to purchase advance tickets click here.

Regular tickets will go on sale September 10th. 

– by Jennifer Garvey

Brooklyn Bounty Intern

Palo Santo Restaurant

Most salsa comes from a jar – not at Palo Santo!  You can sample this amazing salsa and their taco surtidos at Brooklyn Bounty – Jacques Gautier is one of the chefs providing a delicious tasting this year.

On October 25th, Brooklyn Bounty guests will be treated to salsa with a rooftop twist — all home grown ingredients. Jacques Gautier, chef and owner of Palo Santo cooks Latin food with a dedication to seasonal foods. And yes, we mean dedication. We took a tour of the three-level rooftop garden atop the Park Slope restaurant and were seriously impressed. Take note patrons, everything grown on the roof is served in the restaurant.

Chatting near one of his several rabbit cages (more on that later), Gautier explained his reasons for rooftop gardening, “we’ve had this project, the rooftop garden for about as long as I’ve had the restaurant. It keeps expanding and growing and a few years ago we added rabbits which you can see.  In a nutshell the easiest, simplest explanation for why we do this, why do we have a rooftop garden, is sort of an effort to re-sensitize people to where their food is coming from.”

Now about the rabbits (we were curious, too).  They’re raised for Gautier and his family for his personal use. At the end of every summer, he serves a rabbit feast to his friends, family and fellow industry people.  Why can’t he serve them at Palo you ask? Brooklyn has certain restrictions on what animals can be bred and raised (chickens can be kept but not bred- roosters, they would keep the whole borough up at night) which is why Gautier chose these furry floppy-eared friends to breed, raise, and ultimately- eat.  While a staff member cleans cages, he takes the rabbits out and places them in an enclosed green space on the roof where they hop around and graze (pictured-right).  It truly gave us a new concept of urban gardening and farming.

Continuing our tour, we venture onto the third level of the roof where Gautier re-uses styrofoam containers to grow chives, parsley, basil, tomatoes, squash, strawberries, eggplants, mustard greens, collard greens, and more. It is a beautiful sea of green among gray Brooklyn rooftops.  We also got to see the MANY types of tomatoes growing on the roof.  Needless to say, this salsa will be delicious. See you in October, Jacques. We’ll be hungry!

– by Jennifer Garvey & Abigail Koffler

Brooklyn Bounty Intern