Back when the Econopolypse was still just a suspicion in the mind of the grim, I remember hearing this anecdote on a Serious News Radio program.
"The United States is like a rich man on a desert island. Other countries- China, India, the developing world- are the people on the desert island, bringing the rich man food, drink, other goods. The problem is that the people working for the rich man can't stop working, and the rich man can't stop eating."
I remember when I first heard this analogy, I pounded the roof of my car with my fist and screamed, "ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO YOURSELF!?". Looking at it dispassionately, there is no way a functional human can make that analysis in sound mind and still manage basic potty functions. If China already makes goods it does not need to pay for them. The status quo is functional for China. If the U.S. does not have goods it is stuck. The status quo is not functional for the fat man. You can not actually eat your own debt. I chalked up the lack of analyst consciousness to blackberries and iPhone porn. The economist was probably glued to his internet appliance during the interview, Latvian teenagers dancing in his head.
Do you know what is almost as good as Latvian teenagers? Baklava. In my advancing age I would argue that baklava might actually be better than Latvian teenagers. Baklava does not make 3 A.M. calls to Братва handlers after it walks out on you, nor does it steal all your stuff or invite its violent alcoholic relatives to camp out in your living room for months at a time. Its only job is to be cooked and eaten and to make you happy.
The key to baklava is phyllo dough. I've never made it from scratch and have no desire to. It comes rather cheaply from the freezer section in the local supermarket, from the same area as the frozen fruits and pie doughs. The thing you do need to do is follow the thawing instructions precisely. The stuff is hard to work with in the best of circumstances. If it is thawed too little it will break and shatter as you handle it. If it is thawed too much it will mush apart when handled. Follow the thawing instructions precisely, and if you have to take a break from working with it, cover it as instructed or it will dry out and become brittle in minutes. That said, once you get the groove of the stuff, it's a rewarding tool to have in the freezer; salmon, sausage, and other meats love to get wrapped up in the stuff (who wouldn't?), and with not a lot of extra work spanikopita and even pizza rolls are cheap and easy (although I prefer to make my own shortbread dough for homemade pizza rolls). Anyway, end of phyllo sermon.
In a pot, put 2/3 cup water, 2 cups sugar, the juice from 1 lemon and 1 orange, a teaspoon of cinnamon. Dump in the fruit halves you just juiced, as well. Bring to boil, stirring, until everything dissolves. Stir in 1 cup honey until incorporated. Strain out solids and allow to cool.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of your food processor, put 3.25 cups almonds, 2.25 cups walnuts, 1 cup sugar, 1 tbsp cinnamon, 2 tsp nutmeg, .25 tsp ground clove, and .25 tsp salt. Whir until the nuts are finely chopped, but stop whirring or they'll turn into flour. If you do accidentally get the spiced nut flour, you can still make your baklava, it'll just be incredibly dense. It's a forgiving recipe in some ways. It's just the phyllo that's a tricky bitch. It's the culinary equivalent of the stripper that set your motorcycle on fire with the cops goddamn watching from like a block away.
Melt a stick or two of butter in a little saucepan under low heat. Get out your fine bristled brush, and brush down a 13x9 inch Pyrex or similar baking dish with the butter.
There is a lot of butter in this recipe. You might need more butter, you might not. I always make sure I have a pound on hand before I start baklava; you can melt some more if you need to. Interestingly enough, I've also made baklava with good old fashioned vegetable shortening. It doesn't brown up as much in the oven, but it is a mite bit crispier. I prefer butter.
With the package of phyllo perfectly thawed, as per instructions, gently lift up a single sheet of phyllo and lay it down in the buttered baking dish. Try to achieve coverage. Once it's down, brush it with butter until transparent (or as close as you can get). Lay down another layer of phyllo, brush. Don't get frustrated if a layer or two isn't as pretty as you like. There's a lot of layers, so as long as the average is good, you're doing fine. The corners and edges of the phyllo probably won't fit exactly into the pan, but that's okay. Just sort of wedge them down with the butter brush, soaking them with butter in the process. It results in a somewhat higher phyllo-to-nut ratio around the edges of the dish, but some people seem to like that.
Repeat this process until you've put down ten sheets of phyllo. Put down a third of the nut mixture, then ten more sheets of phyllo, then another third of the nut mixture, then another ten sheets, then the final third of the nuts and the last ten sheets of phyllo. Have a big drink while you chill the baklava a bit to facilitate the cutting.
We cut baklava before it is cooked because it would be a holy mess and a suicidally depressing tragedy to ruin so much careful work if you tried to cut it after it was cooked. Now that it is cooled somewhat, take the sharpest knife you own (a straight razor would be awesome here), and cut into 16 rectangles. The official recipe says to cut these into triangles, but I've only just been able to do the rectangles. If a piece is too big for someone then they can share, dammit. Make sure to cut all the way through to the bottom.
Slide the baklava into the oven and bake until deep golden brown, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Pull it from the oven and allow it to cool, then pour the syrup you made in all the cuts. It might seem like too much, but the nuts will pull that syrup in and sweeten the pastry.
Try not to cover this thing with anything impermeable- it will make the layers not as crisp as they'd be otherwise. Same can be said about chilling. Takes the crunch right out. Same can be said for freezing. It will freeze and be quite good afterwards, you just won't cry after eating it like you did the first time.
A nice slice of baklava is pretty fine with some good vanilla ice cream.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Stories from Galina
“Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some day in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside like the animals here, and still looked like men, so you’d never know which were which?”
Lucy in Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis, 1951
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Displaced persons camps after war not always safe. Safer than prison camp where Papa was, putting him in farm work camp where he not know which end of carrot goes in ground, but not safe. You have to watch (Grandma makes shush-ing motion with one finger against her lips). One day, English officer come in, calls all the kadets and so. Reads names, and those who hear names smile and say, hooray, the English come to take us. They step forward and are taken off- but they are given to Communist man who-poo- off to Siberia. My brother, one of these.
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We saw many different Germans in Yugoslavia. Many different ones. One in the camp was SS man (Grandma gives a stern, slit-eyed SS officer look), and he was always looking for kollaborator. Others different, one, a German officer, Schafenhammer (sp?) I saved. I tell you. He always watching for us, making sure we had spek and vegetables, same as his men. We and others, all the men over fifty- other men go to front- we work in cartographers. Once we make him little card, has him with his great coat, and all of us huddled underneath. Over the drawing we write papushka, because he always was watching for us. Anyway, one day, we were all there in Belgrade, and we can already hear the Russian boo-boom. Papushka grabs us and then, long way, to Austria, and then we are in displaced persons camp. Papushka they take for trial. Later he writes and asks for any good thing I can say about him, or else they hang him or worse-poo-off to Siberia. I write letter and you know, years later, I get letter, him saying thank you. Papushka got enough good said about him he was safe through trial. I have picture of him, in his big coat with us. His daughter committed suicide, they say.
#########################
So many things were changing. The prince, some says is going to overthrow. Some say prince is going to be killed.
Suddenly they say Germans are coming. A great man on horseback comes through the town, waving his sword, his horse in the fountain. We are going against the Germans! We never see him or the soldiers with him again.
The next night we hear big engines and Stuka. Next morning, here, there, some buildings gone. Here, there, big tanks, Germans in them in big coats. Sprecht du Deutsch? Ja, Ja, I say. Here my languages are very handy.
But with Germans is very clear. Partisans shoot the German soldier, they take list of ten names. Who shoots the German soldier? they ask. If no one says, they shoot the ten names.
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Talking with Gramma Galina is always interesting. She is a very special lady. She listens and speaks with equal interest, an uncommon quality in people a third her age. It is interesting hearing her first hand accounts of wartime in Yugoslavia and comparing against my far less detailed overview. -Ed.
Lucy in Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis, 1951
#########################
Displaced persons camps after war not always safe. Safer than prison camp where Papa was, putting him in farm work camp where he not know which end of carrot goes in ground, but not safe. You have to watch (Grandma makes shush-ing motion with one finger against her lips). One day, English officer come in, calls all the kadets and so. Reads names, and those who hear names smile and say, hooray, the English come to take us. They step forward and are taken off- but they are given to Communist man who-poo- off to Siberia. My brother, one of these.
#########################
We saw many different Germans in Yugoslavia. Many different ones. One in the camp was SS man (Grandma gives a stern, slit-eyed SS officer look), and he was always looking for kollaborator. Others different, one, a German officer, Schafenhammer (sp?) I saved. I tell you. He always watching for us, making sure we had spek and vegetables, same as his men. We and others, all the men over fifty- other men go to front- we work in cartographers. Once we make him little card, has him with his great coat, and all of us huddled underneath. Over the drawing we write papushka, because he always was watching for us. Anyway, one day, we were all there in Belgrade, and we can already hear the Russian boo-boom. Papushka grabs us and then, long way, to Austria, and then we are in displaced persons camp. Papushka they take for trial. Later he writes and asks for any good thing I can say about him, or else they hang him or worse-poo-off to Siberia. I write letter and you know, years later, I get letter, him saying thank you. Papushka got enough good said about him he was safe through trial. I have picture of him, in his big coat with us. His daughter committed suicide, they say.
#########################
So many things were changing. The prince, some says is going to overthrow. Some say prince is going to be killed.
Suddenly they say Germans are coming. A great man on horseback comes through the town, waving his sword, his horse in the fountain. We are going against the Germans! We never see him or the soldiers with him again.
The next night we hear big engines and Stuka. Next morning, here, there, some buildings gone. Here, there, big tanks, Germans in them in big coats. Sprecht du Deutsch? Ja, Ja, I say. Here my languages are very handy.
But with Germans is very clear. Partisans shoot the German soldier, they take list of ten names. Who shoots the German soldier? they ask. If no one says, they shoot the ten names.
#########################
Talking with Gramma Galina is always interesting. She is a very special lady. She listens and speaks with equal interest, an uncommon quality in people a third her age. It is interesting hearing her first hand accounts of wartime in Yugoslavia and comparing against my far less detailed overview. -Ed.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Fallin, Fallin, Falafelin in Love
You can buy the box mix but when you're feeding a bunch of people it is laughably expensive to buy a crapload of falafel mix. This recipe feeds eight people for ten bucks, and is a bit better tasting.
Take a 1 lb bag of garbanzo beans and put in a pot of water overnight. Next morning, drain the garbanzos and put them in a food processor. Whir until it's a mealy paste. Put the mealy paste back into the pot (why dirty another dish?). Trim the stems off a bunch of parsley and a bunch of cilantro (when I say "a bunch" I mean about 9 tbsp minced each, which is about the same as the bunches they sell at the supermarket). Put the greenery in the bowl of the food processor with 1.5 onions, 4 tsp salt, 2 tsp red pepper flakes, 12 cloves garlic, 3 tsp cumin, and 3 tsp baking powder. Whir until pureed. Mix the herbage paste with the garbanzo meal. Thicken with flour until it is able to be formed into small 1" balls (about 1.25 cups flour). Proceed to make lots of little 1" balls. This is going to take some counter space. I recommend putting some saran wrap on some cookie sheets and using those as a falafel-forming-and-staging area.
Take a quart of canola oil and heat in a pot until a drop of water crackles in it. Carefully plop in six or so falafel balls at a time and deep-fry until dark brown. Take them out with a slotted spoon and place in serving receptacle.
A word about frying falafel. These little guys are not so durable when they're first dropped in. They'll sink immediately to the bottom and, if left there, will char on the bottom where they are in contact with the metal. At the same time, if you agitate them right when you put them in they'll fall apart and you'll just have amorphous masses of falafel matter. The trick is to plop them in, let them develop a hardy crust (about 15-30 seconds), then gently pop them off the bottom with a metal slotted spoon. By that time the proteins and starch on the bottom will have begun to loosen its grip on the metal of the pot, and the crust around the balls will be tough enough to take a little prodding. Once so popped, they will then sort of float around in the oil and you can proceed to cook them to dark brown.
Serve with middle eastern style accompaniments, like pseudorissa, sort-of-anchoiade, tsatsiki, and hummus. Some chopped up tomatoes, feta cheese, red onions, and bell peppers are nice too. If you get pita bread for God's sake get it from a middle eastern bakery. The Tofuyan brand pita from the supermarket is horrible and probably deserves a death fatwa from the Foodie Ayatollah, if such a thing were to exist.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Smokin Chipotle Hummus
Until I met middle eastern cuisine, the skills I learned in the restaurant business were enough to get me by in the private kitchen. Searing, grilling, baking, sauces, frying . . no hot line skill would make a bowl of hummus. Thus hummus was the first recipe I researched, and have continued improving and adjusting depending on what I have on hand and the tastes of my guests. I personally believe the tahini-rich recipes yields a tastier, creamier product, while my wife prefers lighter, somewhat grainier hummus with less or no tahini. I'm gun-shy of the low-tahini recipes, I admit. My worst batches of hummus are the ones where I screw with the tahini ratio. I drop the tahini, the lemon flavor leaps to the forefront, then I start feebly compensating with salt, cumin, and sugar, and then I end up with Saladin's Revenge. Which is still good, just not great.
When my wife requested chipotle-flavored hummus I didn't want to take any chances and went with the normal tahini ratio recipe, which is what I show here. I was pretty happy with the results, but for those of you that dislike tahini, feel free to tinker with the recipe as needed, at your peril. The sequence of ingredients is, however, important. If you ignore everything else about this recipe just remember to not thrash the olive oil in the food processor. Add your extra virgin at the end.
Put a can of garbanzo beans, 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp salt, and a whole chipotle in the bowl of your handy dandy food processor. You can do this with the eensy weensy food processor but it's a lot faster and generally better if you haul out the big one for this. Er, I mean, if you live in a house with two food processors.
As previously mentioned in this blog, canned chipotles en adobo are available in the ethnic section and at least one can should live in your pantry at all times. If you want more fire crank it up to two chipotles. I think that would drive this dish around the corner of Cuisine and Sadomasochism, but hey, whatever floats your boat. If you don't have canned chipotles, you poor, poor person, you, toss in a few shakes of cayenne.
Whir the flavorants with the garbanzos until there's no large bits. Add 1/4 cup water and 3 tbsp lemon juice, whir until smooth. Add 6 tbsp tahini, whir until incorporated. Add 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, pulse a couple of times just to get it incorporated. Remember that extra-virgin olive oil has some fragile fruit compounds suspended in the oil that will oxidize heavily if they are hit too hard with the food processor, making nasty bitter oil. So just pulse a couple of times to get the oil in there. If you're really shy of bitter oil (and I know I am), just swirl in the olive oil with a fork after the hummus arrives in its serving container.
Thow a few sprigs worth of chopped cilantro on top, if you have some handy.
Serve with crunchies.
When my wife requested chipotle-flavored hummus I didn't want to take any chances and went with the normal tahini ratio recipe, which is what I show here. I was pretty happy with the results, but for those of you that dislike tahini, feel free to tinker with the recipe as needed, at your peril. The sequence of ingredients is, however, important. If you ignore everything else about this recipe just remember to not thrash the olive oil in the food processor. Add your extra virgin at the end.
Put a can of garbanzo beans, 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp salt, and a whole chipotle in the bowl of your handy dandy food processor. You can do this with the eensy weensy food processor but it's a lot faster and generally better if you haul out the big one for this. Er, I mean, if you live in a house with two food processors.
As previously mentioned in this blog, canned chipotles en adobo are available in the ethnic section and at least one can should live in your pantry at all times. If you want more fire crank it up to two chipotles. I think that would drive this dish around the corner of Cuisine and Sadomasochism, but hey, whatever floats your boat. If you don't have canned chipotles, you poor, poor person, you, toss in a few shakes of cayenne.
Whir the flavorants with the garbanzos until there's no large bits. Add 1/4 cup water and 3 tbsp lemon juice, whir until smooth. Add 6 tbsp tahini, whir until incorporated. Add 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, pulse a couple of times just to get it incorporated. Remember that extra-virgin olive oil has some fragile fruit compounds suspended in the oil that will oxidize heavily if they are hit too hard with the food processor, making nasty bitter oil. So just pulse a couple of times to get the oil in there. If you're really shy of bitter oil (and I know I am), just swirl in the olive oil with a fork after the hummus arrives in its serving container.
Thow a few sprigs worth of chopped cilantro on top, if you have some handy.
Serve with crunchies.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Tapas
A friend asked me to bring some little nibblies to a memorial day celebration, and I suppose I got carried away. My wife is out of town for two weeks and I am having serious kitchen withdrawal, so when the chance came to make something I suppose I lost control of myself.
Eggplant rolls stuffed with a chicken and goat cheese mixture, chorizo in phyllo, tsatsiki and punjabi papadams, and french onion toasts all conspired with other appetizers to completely fill up the party attendees before anything could be barbecued. Next time, when I make tapas, I will concentrate on a single tapa.
The only truly original recipe here is the french onion toast, which is basically french onion soup that you eat with your hands. A friend also requested the recipe for the eggplant rolls. The tsatsiki, the papadams, and the phyllo-wrapped chorizo, well. The tsatsiki you've seen before here:
http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/02/provisioning-lone-male-opa.html
but instead of using 16 oz of sour cream I used a half cup of Greek yogurt, which surprisingly is available at Publix. Papadams are "Creepy Rabbit Brand" papadams, punjabi flavored, available at your local Indian (dot not feather) grocery.
Supposedly you deep fry them, but a couple of seconds under the broiler do a fine job delivering crisp, delicious papadam. Since they're made from chick pea flour, they're also great for folks watching their insulin sensitivity. When you're doing the broiler trick keep an eye on them. They go from brown to black incredibly fast, and when the Punjabi flavored ones burn they fill your house with pepper fumes.
Sausage in phyllo, well, maybe I'll cover that with a more genteel recipe. This one was pretty slapdash, just cooked chorizo bits in layers of phyllo pastry. When you eat one you can actually feel your gall bladder explode. It's nice.
French Onion Toast
Make your caramelized onions as per the recipe here:
http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/04/oven-onions.html
but don't go on to make the soup. Take the caramlized onions, add 2 tsp Tone's beef soup base, and dissolve the beefy goop into the caramelized onions. On to the toasts. The toasts are baguette sliced thin, about .25", brushed with olive oil on both sides, placed on a cookie sheet, then baked in a 400 degree oven for fifteen minutes, until dark brown on the bottom. Top each of the toasts with a tablespoon of caramelized onion placed on the browned side. Why the brown side, you may ask? Well, because the onion mixture still has a lot of moisture, and we want to guarantee that our toasts stay crunchy and delicious even when pre-assembled hours before serving. Shred about 4 oz of Gruyère, sprinkle on onion toasts, and put under a hot broiler until the cheese is melted. I liked these things an awful lot.
Eggplant Rolls with Chicken and Chevre
Heat some olive oil in your handy dandy pressure cooker until almost smoking. Brown 2 14 oz chicken breasts in the oil, then add .25 cup balsamic vinegar and .5 cup white wine. Lid the vessel and cook on high pressure for 45 minutes. What we're doing here is basically turning the chicken into an easily shredded mass that will almost fall apart under its own weight. This texture is important when making a stuffing for something as delicate as eggplant. If the stuffing has chunkies that are too big or too jagged, they will tear right through the eggplant as you're rolling it.
While that chicken is softening, take 8 oz chevre and combine with .25 cups chopped walnuts, 2 heaping tbsp prepared chopped cooked bacon (bagged bacon bits are fine, but not the soya ones), 2 cloves crushed and minced garlic, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, a sprig of rosemary minced fine, a tsp of liquid smoke, and 4 green onions sliced thin on the bias. When the chicken is done, shred it, then add to this mixture. Mix until it is a firm paste. If it does not have enough body, chop up some salad croutons fine and mix them in. They will absorb excess moisture.
Grab an eggplant and slice it lengthwise as thin as you're able to get nice full slices. No partial slices, though. I managed slices between .4 and .25 inches in thickness. Brush these slices with olive oil, place on a cookie sheet, and cook in a 400 degree oven for 4 minutes, until just soft. If they overcook you will have a hell of a time rolling them, but it's still possible. Just make sure to handle any overly soft slices by the flesh at the stem end, where there are fewer seed chambers. Grip a slice by the seedy end and it's good night gracie- the slice will just disintegrate.
Place 2 tbsp of stuffing at the seed end of a cooked eggplant slice. Shape the stuffing into a log shape, then roll it up in the eggplant. Chill in refrigerator for a couple of hours, or put them in the freezer for a bit. Once they're firm from cold, slice into, er, "bite size" pieces. They're still huge, but less embarrassing than trying to eat a whole roll. Serve with napkins.
Eggplant rolls stuffed with a chicken and goat cheese mixture, chorizo in phyllo, tsatsiki and punjabi papadams, and french onion toasts all conspired with other appetizers to completely fill up the party attendees before anything could be barbecued. Next time, when I make tapas, I will concentrate on a single tapa.
The only truly original recipe here is the french onion toast, which is basically french onion soup that you eat with your hands. A friend also requested the recipe for the eggplant rolls. The tsatsiki, the papadams, and the phyllo-wrapped chorizo, well. The tsatsiki you've seen before here:
http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/02/provisioning-lone-male-opa.html
but instead of using 16 oz of sour cream I used a half cup of Greek yogurt, which surprisingly is available at Publix. Papadams are "Creepy Rabbit Brand" papadams, punjabi flavored, available at your local Indian (dot not feather) grocery.
Supposedly you deep fry them, but a couple of seconds under the broiler do a fine job delivering crisp, delicious papadam. Since they're made from chick pea flour, they're also great for folks watching their insulin sensitivity. When you're doing the broiler trick keep an eye on them. They go from brown to black incredibly fast, and when the Punjabi flavored ones burn they fill your house with pepper fumes.
Sausage in phyllo, well, maybe I'll cover that with a more genteel recipe. This one was pretty slapdash, just cooked chorizo bits in layers of phyllo pastry. When you eat one you can actually feel your gall bladder explode. It's nice.
French Onion Toast
Make your caramelized onions as per the recipe here:
http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/04/oven-onions.html
but don't go on to make the soup. Take the caramlized onions, add 2 tsp Tone's beef soup base, and dissolve the beefy goop into the caramelized onions. On to the toasts. The toasts are baguette sliced thin, about .25", brushed with olive oil on both sides, placed on a cookie sheet, then baked in a 400 degree oven for fifteen minutes, until dark brown on the bottom. Top each of the toasts with a tablespoon of caramelized onion placed on the browned side. Why the brown side, you may ask? Well, because the onion mixture still has a lot of moisture, and we want to guarantee that our toasts stay crunchy and delicious even when pre-assembled hours before serving. Shred about 4 oz of Gruyère, sprinkle on onion toasts, and put under a hot broiler until the cheese is melted. I liked these things an awful lot.
Eggplant Rolls with Chicken and Chevre
Heat some olive oil in your handy dandy pressure cooker until almost smoking. Brown 2 14 oz chicken breasts in the oil, then add .25 cup balsamic vinegar and .5 cup white wine. Lid the vessel and cook on high pressure for 45 minutes. What we're doing here is basically turning the chicken into an easily shredded mass that will almost fall apart under its own weight. This texture is important when making a stuffing for something as delicate as eggplant. If the stuffing has chunkies that are too big or too jagged, they will tear right through the eggplant as you're rolling it.
While that chicken is softening, take 8 oz chevre and combine with .25 cups chopped walnuts, 2 heaping tbsp prepared chopped cooked bacon (bagged bacon bits are fine, but not the soya ones), 2 cloves crushed and minced garlic, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, a sprig of rosemary minced fine, a tsp of liquid smoke, and 4 green onions sliced thin on the bias. When the chicken is done, shred it, then add to this mixture. Mix until it is a firm paste. If it does not have enough body, chop up some salad croutons fine and mix them in. They will absorb excess moisture.
Grab an eggplant and slice it lengthwise as thin as you're able to get nice full slices. No partial slices, though. I managed slices between .4 and .25 inches in thickness. Brush these slices with olive oil, place on a cookie sheet, and cook in a 400 degree oven for 4 minutes, until just soft. If they overcook you will have a hell of a time rolling them, but it's still possible. Just make sure to handle any overly soft slices by the flesh at the stem end, where there are fewer seed chambers. Grip a slice by the seedy end and it's good night gracie- the slice will just disintegrate.
Place 2 tbsp of stuffing at the seed end of a cooked eggplant slice. Shape the stuffing into a log shape, then roll it up in the eggplant. Chill in refrigerator for a couple of hours, or put them in the freezer for a bit. Once they're firm from cold, slice into, er, "bite size" pieces. They're still huge, but less embarrassing than trying to eat a whole roll. Serve with napkins.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Oven Onions
Caramelized onions are one of the highest forms the noble lily can take, but are generally so tedious we skip recipes that use them. America's Test Kitchen introduced me to a method that, while not trimming any time off the preparation, does spare me the constant stirring. Not unimportantly, the resulting caramelized onions are dark and fully developed, which is something I never have the patience or stamina to pull off on the stovetop. Needless to say, these are spectacular for such things as French onion soup.
6 onions, peeled, sliced into halves, then thinly sliced into half-rounds
3 tbsp butter
some salt
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cut the butter into 1 tbsp hunks, put in bottom of largish dutch oven.
Sprinkle the onions over the butter, making sure the half-rounds separate from each other. You can do this by "crumbling" the sliced onions in your fist, as if you were crunching saltines into chowder. Midway through adding the onions, sprinkle them with some kosher salt.
Lid the vessel and put in oven for 1 hour.
Using oven mitts, remove vessel from oven, unlid and stir the onions. They should be very moist but still largely uncolored. Make sure to scrape onions bits off the side of the pot, because they will burn there.
Put vessel back in oven, but with the lid slightly ajar. Cook for another hour.
Using oven mitts, remove vessel from oven, unlid and stir. The onions should be medium brown by now, sort of khaki colored. Put vessel back in oven without any lid, cook for 30-45 minutes. When this step is completed, the onions should be dark brown.
These are caramelized onions in my book, but let's take this just a step further for one of our favorite soups, since we're pretty much there.
For french onion soup, you would stir these onions until they are dark brown or chocolate colored. If they start crusting on the bottom of the pot, add some wine- champagne, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or Gewürztraminer work well here- and stir until the crust dissolves in the wine. Keep this up until you have something that looks like thick, dark, chunky porridge. About ten minutes.
You'll want to use at least a cup of wine in this process, or as much as 2 cups, depending on how much you like sweet/tart and what the flavor balance of your wine is. All wines will add sweetness and acidity to the final soup, but the combination will be different with the wine, and some wines will bring unique flavors (champagne adds savory in the form of yeast, for example) so taste as you go.
Now that you have your thick onion porridge, add 6 cups mixed broths of your choice. Half and half beef and chicken is traditional. I love it with beef and lamb, but it's not so often I have lamb broth available. With the onions as dark as they are, a good vegetable broth can also work here if you are serving vegetarians.
Stir the broths into the onions, add a couple of sprigs of thyme, maybe a rosemary sprig, and let simmer for 30 minutes. Stir, remove herbage twigs, and eat.
Since I can hear you hollering for the cheese from here, okay, okay, okay, we'll do the cheese thing.
Preheat your broiler and position the rack so the top of your soup bowls will be about 3 inches from the heat. Ladle the soup into oven proof bowls. I've used normal bowls and gotten away with it since the time under the broiler is so brief, but don't come cryin' to me if your bowl breaks and showers your oven in shards of glass and burning onion goo.
Grab a good heavy baguette, slice some rounds .5" thick. Place baguette rounds on soup in bowls.
A brief cheese discussion. Provolone is tasty and convenient as a topping. They sell it in slices and sometimes by this point you just want to get the dish in peoples' mouths. Shredded Gruyere is my favorite but is pricey, at least in the States. It goes really well if you use the lamb broth. At home I often use a half-and-half mixture of mozzarella and Parmesan, since I always have those cheeses on hand.
Put the shredded cheese of your choice on the slice of bread in the soup, then put the prepped bowls under the broiler. Cook until the cheese is melted, then -carefully!- plate them up and serve.
At some point you should warn your guests that the bowls are burny hot.
Be warned that this is heavy duty stuff. A tiny little bowl satisfies even a hearty appetite, so making it as a starter would probably be a mistake unless you were having, I don't know, cucumbers as the main course.
6 onions, peeled, sliced into halves, then thinly sliced into half-rounds
3 tbsp butter
some salt
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cut the butter into 1 tbsp hunks, put in bottom of largish dutch oven.
Sprinkle the onions over the butter, making sure the half-rounds separate from each other. You can do this by "crumbling" the sliced onions in your fist, as if you were crunching saltines into chowder. Midway through adding the onions, sprinkle them with some kosher salt.
Lid the vessel and put in oven for 1 hour.
Using oven mitts, remove vessel from oven, unlid and stir the onions. They should be very moist but still largely uncolored. Make sure to scrape onions bits off the side of the pot, because they will burn there.
Put vessel back in oven, but with the lid slightly ajar. Cook for another hour.
Using oven mitts, remove vessel from oven, unlid and stir. The onions should be medium brown by now, sort of khaki colored. Put vessel back in oven without any lid, cook for 30-45 minutes. When this step is completed, the onions should be dark brown.
These are caramelized onions in my book, but let's take this just a step further for one of our favorite soups, since we're pretty much there.
For french onion soup, you would stir these onions until they are dark brown or chocolate colored. If they start crusting on the bottom of the pot, add some wine- champagne, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or Gewürztraminer work well here- and stir until the crust dissolves in the wine. Keep this up until you have something that looks like thick, dark, chunky porridge. About ten minutes.
You'll want to use at least a cup of wine in this process, or as much as 2 cups, depending on how much you like sweet/tart and what the flavor balance of your wine is. All wines will add sweetness and acidity to the final soup, but the combination will be different with the wine, and some wines will bring unique flavors (champagne adds savory in the form of yeast, for example) so taste as you go.
Now that you have your thick onion porridge, add 6 cups mixed broths of your choice. Half and half beef and chicken is traditional. I love it with beef and lamb, but it's not so often I have lamb broth available. With the onions as dark as they are, a good vegetable broth can also work here if you are serving vegetarians.
Stir the broths into the onions, add a couple of sprigs of thyme, maybe a rosemary sprig, and let simmer for 30 minutes. Stir, remove herbage twigs, and eat.
Since I can hear you hollering for the cheese from here, okay, okay, okay, we'll do the cheese thing.
Preheat your broiler and position the rack so the top of your soup bowls will be about 3 inches from the heat. Ladle the soup into oven proof bowls. I've used normal bowls and gotten away with it since the time under the broiler is so brief, but don't come cryin' to me if your bowl breaks and showers your oven in shards of glass and burning onion goo.
Grab a good heavy baguette, slice some rounds .5" thick. Place baguette rounds on soup in bowls.
A brief cheese discussion. Provolone is tasty and convenient as a topping. They sell it in slices and sometimes by this point you just want to get the dish in peoples' mouths. Shredded Gruyere is my favorite but is pricey, at least in the States. It goes really well if you use the lamb broth. At home I often use a half-and-half mixture of mozzarella and Parmesan, since I always have those cheeses on hand.
Put the shredded cheese of your choice on the slice of bread in the soup, then put the prepped bowls under the broiler. Cook until the cheese is melted, then -carefully!- plate them up and serve.
At some point you should warn your guests that the bowls are burny hot.
Be warned that this is heavy duty stuff. A tiny little bowl satisfies even a hearty appetite, so making it as a starter would probably be a mistake unless you were having, I don't know, cucumbers as the main course.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Board Dinner: After Action Report
I've made basically the same mistake every time I cater the annual board dinner of my wife's non-profit. What I try to do is branch out. I cook some things that I've only made one or two times, or worse, things I've never made. Even if the recipe is followed bang on it often turns out that you just don't like the result. This year, my fifth of catering this event, I resolved to make food that I not only knew mostly by beart but also loved eating.
Appetizers were goi cuon (Vietnamese salad rolls), samosas, and chicken satay.
For the goi cuon, I was warned about the difficulty of working with rice paper, but in actual use the stuff was surprisingly easy to work with: dip a sheet in hot water, put down ingredients, roll tight. I filled the rolls with red leaf lettuce, thin slices of tofu, thai basil, mint leaves, and shrimps sliced in half lengthwise. Goi cuon are one of those rare foods that are both nutritionally perfect and completely delicious. Dip in some chili and some nuoc mam and you've got one of the finer tasting foods on the planet.
Samosas, well, when you're cooking for 24 people you choose your battles. I got some frozen samosas from India Bazaar, the Indian market (dot not feather) in Bradenton. One box of spinach and paneer and another box of potato and pea. This was only the first of many dishes to get deep fried- by the end of the cooking process I had completely fouled 1.5 gallons of peanut oil.
Chicken satay was actually the first thing made, mostly because a) it was marinated, and b) I wanted to get any grilling over with early. The night before, 3 lbs of chicken breast were sliced into thin strips lengthwise, then set into a giant ziplock with .5 cup soy sauce, .5 cup sesame oil, .5 cup rice wine vinegar, 4 tbsp sugar, 4 tbsp minced garlic, 4 tbsp red pepper flakes, and 4 tbsp chopped cilantro. Next morning the marinated strips were then skewered and grilled over a hot hot hot fire for 2 minutes per side. The peanut sauce was a bit of natural peanut butter with sesame, brown sugar, rice vinegar, and some nuoc mam.
Some of the entrees on the menu have appeared in these pages before. The Pad Thai was covered in Pad, Thai, and Tempting (http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/01/pad-thai-and-tempting.html), and the green curry was was more or less the Curry from Story (http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/02/curry-of-story.html). Both dishes got a bit of a makeover for the big event, mostly in the form of ingredients I don't usually splurge on when cooking informally. The pad thai sauce got a hit of paprika for more redness and a couple of handfuls of pulverized dried shrimp (AKA tam kho thuong) from the oriental market, as well as the addition of 2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar. The green curry got a handful each of kaffir lime leaves, chopped lemongrass, thai basil, and cilantro. Both additions added an incredibly amount of flavor to the respective dishes. I can finally hold up my pad thai and compare it with the better thai restaurants, which is something I've been trying to do for the better part of a decade.
Both pad thai and the green curry got tofu, but I deep fried the tofu before adding to each dish, adding to the general squalor of the oil pot.
The third main dish was kari kari, a Filipino dish written for chuck but which I modified to use beef short ribs. I love both cuts, but for a formal event I felt short ribs were a bit more exotic and prettier in presentation in two-rib portions. I also learned from my experience cooking this for my friends, and omitted some of the more obnoxious ingredients. Slice 4 lbs of beef short ribs into 2 rib portions. Short ribs were browned in batches in a large Dutch oven and reserved. 4 chopped onions and 4 tbsp minced garlic were sweated in the fat rendered from the meat. Once the onions were sweated, 2 tbsp nuoc mam, 4 tbsp tamarind extract, 4 tsp brown sugar, 2 bay leaves, 4 thyme springs, 2 tbsp tumeric and 2 tbsp paprika were added. Once this mixture is incorporated, insert the ribs, pushing each portion into the onion mixture. Lid the dutch oven and put into a 250 degree oven for five hours. At the end of cooking time, remove the ribs and put on a platter. Skim the fat from the top of the braising liquid, then add 2 tbsp peanut butter and 2 tbsp rice vinegar to the reserved braise liquid. Boil until concentrated and thick. Spoon over the rib portions and scatter some deep fried scallions over each portion. Serve.
Deep fried scallions are basically like those fried onions in a can your Aunt Bessie puts over her string bean casserole at Thanksgiving.
Dessert was pretty simple, coconut ice cream and fried bananas with honey. For coconut ice cream, whisk 2 cans full-fat coconut milk with .75 cup sugar and 1 tbsp vanilla until sugar is dissolved. Put in ice cream maker and run until you get ice cream. The fried bananas were just banana portions wrapped in rice paper and deep fried.
The great thing about this menu is that I hardly needed to consult my recipes for most of it. Even the kari kari is cooked pretty much like any meat braise you might put together. So I was relaxed, which helps a day of cooking go by a lot better. Also, I couldn't keep my hands off the lettuce wraps or the pad thai. I'm pretty sure I only served three quarters of the lettuce wraps I actually made.
Appetizers were goi cuon (Vietnamese salad rolls), samosas, and chicken satay.
For the goi cuon, I was warned about the difficulty of working with rice paper, but in actual use the stuff was surprisingly easy to work with: dip a sheet in hot water, put down ingredients, roll tight. I filled the rolls with red leaf lettuce, thin slices of tofu, thai basil, mint leaves, and shrimps sliced in half lengthwise. Goi cuon are one of those rare foods that are both nutritionally perfect and completely delicious. Dip in some chili and some nuoc mam and you've got one of the finer tasting foods on the planet.
Samosas, well, when you're cooking for 24 people you choose your battles. I got some frozen samosas from India Bazaar, the Indian market (dot not feather) in Bradenton. One box of spinach and paneer and another box of potato and pea. This was only the first of many dishes to get deep fried- by the end of the cooking process I had completely fouled 1.5 gallons of peanut oil.
Chicken satay was actually the first thing made, mostly because a) it was marinated, and b) I wanted to get any grilling over with early. The night before, 3 lbs of chicken breast were sliced into thin strips lengthwise, then set into a giant ziplock with .5 cup soy sauce, .5 cup sesame oil, .5 cup rice wine vinegar, 4 tbsp sugar, 4 tbsp minced garlic, 4 tbsp red pepper flakes, and 4 tbsp chopped cilantro. Next morning the marinated strips were then skewered and grilled over a hot hot hot fire for 2 minutes per side. The peanut sauce was a bit of natural peanut butter with sesame, brown sugar, rice vinegar, and some nuoc mam.
Some of the entrees on the menu have appeared in these pages before. The Pad Thai was covered in Pad, Thai, and Tempting (http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/01/pad-thai-and-tempting.html), and the green curry was was more or less the Curry from Story (http://philoculture.blogspot.com/2009/02/curry-of-story.html). Both dishes got a bit of a makeover for the big event, mostly in the form of ingredients I don't usually splurge on when cooking informally. The pad thai sauce got a hit of paprika for more redness and a couple of handfuls of pulverized dried shrimp (AKA tam kho thuong) from the oriental market, as well as the addition of 2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar. The green curry got a handful each of kaffir lime leaves, chopped lemongrass, thai basil, and cilantro. Both additions added an incredibly amount of flavor to the respective dishes. I can finally hold up my pad thai and compare it with the better thai restaurants, which is something I've been trying to do for the better part of a decade.
Both pad thai and the green curry got tofu, but I deep fried the tofu before adding to each dish, adding to the general squalor of the oil pot.
The third main dish was kari kari, a Filipino dish written for chuck but which I modified to use beef short ribs. I love both cuts, but for a formal event I felt short ribs were a bit more exotic and prettier in presentation in two-rib portions. I also learned from my experience cooking this for my friends, and omitted some of the more obnoxious ingredients. Slice 4 lbs of beef short ribs into 2 rib portions. Short ribs were browned in batches in a large Dutch oven and reserved. 4 chopped onions and 4 tbsp minced garlic were sweated in the fat rendered from the meat. Once the onions were sweated, 2 tbsp nuoc mam, 4 tbsp tamarind extract, 4 tsp brown sugar, 2 bay leaves, 4 thyme springs, 2 tbsp tumeric and 2 tbsp paprika were added. Once this mixture is incorporated, insert the ribs, pushing each portion into the onion mixture. Lid the dutch oven and put into a 250 degree oven for five hours. At the end of cooking time, remove the ribs and put on a platter. Skim the fat from the top of the braising liquid, then add 2 tbsp peanut butter and 2 tbsp rice vinegar to the reserved braise liquid. Boil until concentrated and thick. Spoon over the rib portions and scatter some deep fried scallions over each portion. Serve.
Deep fried scallions are basically like those fried onions in a can your Aunt Bessie puts over her string bean casserole at Thanksgiving.
Dessert was pretty simple, coconut ice cream and fried bananas with honey. For coconut ice cream, whisk 2 cans full-fat coconut milk with .75 cup sugar and 1 tbsp vanilla until sugar is dissolved. Put in ice cream maker and run until you get ice cream. The fried bananas were just banana portions wrapped in rice paper and deep fried.
The great thing about this menu is that I hardly needed to consult my recipes for most of it. Even the kari kari is cooked pretty much like any meat braise you might put together. So I was relaxed, which helps a day of cooking go by a lot better. Also, I couldn't keep my hands off the lettuce wraps or the pad thai. I'm pretty sure I only served three quarters of the lettuce wraps I actually made.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Peas in Summer
A variant of potage ambassadeur, this is an easy, cheap dish that tastes way better than it should. This dish is sort of unseasonal right now here in Florida, but I've included a chilled option, which I almost like better than the original. I'm a sucker for cold soups, though.
4 oz split peas
1.5 cups chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 slices bacon
OPTIONAL
.5 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp chopped mint
Croutons or toasts
In the cooking chamber of your pressure cooker or your friendly medium-sized pot, saute the bacon until crisp. Remove and reserve. Sweat the onion and carrot in the bacon grease, then add the chicken broth, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen caramelized baconness. Add the peas. Crumble the cooked bacon back into the pot, then lid and cook on high pressure for thirty minutes. If using a pot, lid tightly and cook on low for an hour, watching the fluid level carefully (the pressure cooker does not allow any moisture to escape, so it uses less water than the stovetop version). The peas should have decompiled and formed a thick porridge. This is your hot split pea soup.
In the summertime, I highly advise pureeing the finished soup, chilling, and finishing it with a bit of heavy cream stirred in and a handful of chopped mint. Top with croutons or toasts or crusty bread product of your choice. You'll be glad you did.
4 oz split peas
1.5 cups chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 slices bacon
OPTIONAL
.5 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp chopped mint
Croutons or toasts
In the cooking chamber of your pressure cooker or your friendly medium-sized pot, saute the bacon until crisp. Remove and reserve. Sweat the onion and carrot in the bacon grease, then add the chicken broth, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen caramelized baconness. Add the peas. Crumble the cooked bacon back into the pot, then lid and cook on high pressure for thirty minutes. If using a pot, lid tightly and cook on low for an hour, watching the fluid level carefully (the pressure cooker does not allow any moisture to escape, so it uses less water than the stovetop version). The peas should have decompiled and formed a thick porridge. This is your hot split pea soup.
In the summertime, I highly advise pureeing the finished soup, chilling, and finishing it with a bit of heavy cream stirred in and a handful of chopped mint. Top with croutons or toasts or crusty bread product of your choice. You'll be glad you did.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Ocala Walkabout Thanksgiving 2008
Many years ago, as a child, I saw a black bear overlooking a picnic site. It was one of my very first bear sightings. I wanted to hide in the car but such cowardice immediately met with paternal scorn. I left the car and observed as safely as I could from inside a bush. It didn't seem to be heading towards me. It seemed to be having some sort of internal argument. The bear went a few steps down towards picnickers, then stopped, tossed its head, returned to the woods. It repeated this for some time. You could almost hear that bear thinking, agonized between the rewards of picnics and the repercussions of tangling with rangers. Hot dogs and Star Crunch are almost as good as getting tranked and hauled across the state isn't.
I do almost exactly the same thing every time I head out to the woods. I used to ascribe my pre-hike pussyfooting to simple alcoholism. No longer. It's more complicated than that, with a more subtle expression of emotions than the simple lust for getting bombed. Subtle emotions involving running water and cushions to sleep on. After doing my hiking shopping I must have cruised past the same fleabag motel five or six times. It sure is late, I said to myself. And there's a Taco Bell. But you have dinner in your food bag, I replied, and it's not like you can't hike at dusk. For God's sake you can put up your tent in pitch black, you know the thing better than you know your own scrotum. The latter voice won with it's ol' 'but you walked to Maine' argument, the same way it wins arguments about going to the gym or getting out of bed in the morning.
I drove into the Ocala National Forest and got my car settled in at Juniper Springs for ten dollars a night, then packed and headed north on the Florida Scenic Trail, exactly opposite the direction I planned to travel the next morning. The reason for this little sidetrip was the general hunting season, in which the Thanksgiving holiday is regarded as the opening bash. Hunting is prohibited in the Juniper Prairie wilderness, but to get into the wilderness you have to leg a mile or so north on the trail from the Juniper Springs entrance. Back in the day I'd hiked farther to get to an AT shelter, so it was no big deal going a mile the wrong way to find a place to sleep. I found a nice campsite just inside the no-fire zone and was chewing and reading inside my faithful tent by dark. Hopefully this year in Ocala would go better than it did last year, a hot, hung-over slog that ended when my food bag was stolen at Hopkin's Prairie, possibly by the enigmatic Rainbow People, whom we'll hear more of later.
Waking up I went south, zapped my cell phone at Juniper, zapped my gut with some microwave food objects at same, and bore down the trail. Using the verb bore here is a bit of a laugh when you see how much mileage you're covering according to the signs in the national forest, which apparently thinks you're barely managing a leisurely stroll. On a memorable hike through this stretch in 1999, my friends Byron and Michelle were similarly perplexed by the apparently random numbers on various signposts. We were all going a little crazy, literally jogging down the trail for hours to see a sign telling us we'd come three miles, which was patent horsepucky, as that mileage would have been covered in half an hour at our pace. We ascribed this problem to the mysterious stations on the map marked "horizontal control". Agents of Horizontal Control included the indefatigueable deerflies tormenting us. Besides drawing blood, we determined that the deerfly were also agents of Horizontal Control and were responsible for manipulating the fabric of space and time. It was hilarious at the time, but then to this date I am amazed at what passes for hilarious to hikers. The adjective "delirious" is all sorts of applicable here.
Years later, I asked a ranger about the horizontal control stations. "Horizontal what?", she asked. I pointed them out on my map. "I have no idea," she said "That's peculiar". Perhaps our theory from 1999 was the correct one. The ranger did give me a phone number of local trail enthusiasts Jan Trail, who give rides to FTA (Florida Trail Association) members, which was fantastic. A lot of the trauma of last year was caused by my inability to find a shuttle back to my car and being subsequently bilked out of eighty bucks for a cab ride.
So I hotfooted it for eight hours, coming- according to the signage- nine fricking miles. Which is preposterous, but they were a good "nine" miles. I like the southern part of the Ocala National Forest a lot better than the northern part, even though it's less pristine. The trail is better maintained, for one. Then there are places where the land goes up and comes down again, a thing I hear are called "hills" by outsiders. There are clear spring-fed ponds, open pine forests, and tunnels through palmetto scrub. I was nearly run over by deer and I saw a dozen little piglets snurfling around on the edges of Geary Pond, ridiculously adorable. Large, smart mammals to have such big litters; I'm not entirely sure how pigs aren't yet running the world. On the down side, this was the free-fire zone, and I was completely dependent on my orange-blaze t-shirt to keep me from experiencing high-speed exploratory surgery at the hands of some half-drunk fatty up from Orlando proving to his Fox News Friends how Republican he is. It probably wouldn't happen far from a road. Most hunters don't walk anywhere, but most hunters don't bring home any fresh meat, either.
Did I mention that most hunters don't walk anywhere? In some places, there were so many two-stroke engines the national forest sounded like a beach popular with jet-skiers. No actual hunting taking place, but a great deal of driving around and shooting. To be the devil's advocate for a moment, I did run into a couple of actual hunters and had a pretty good time talking to them. We seemed to be wired a lot more similarly. I think the difference is between outdoor/non-outdoor people rather than being between hikers/hunters.
Returning to the straight linear narrative, yes, there were a few miles of ATV hell, but the stretch down to Farles Prairie was pleasant. Ran out of water the last two hours and however many miles, then came into the picnic area at Farles. I made a beeline to the water device, cranked out two liters of water and drank almost all of it in one chug. Then I sat down. I had shade, a water source, was moving along pretty well, and had a great book- more on that later- and an afternoon with some real nap possibilities. Deliciously exhausted. This loitering thing is really what hiking is all about.
There was a pleasant little old lady coming out of a Mad Max looking conversion van, coming over in my direction. She looked concerned. I felt great, but I suppose I must have looked pretty ragged. I had a blowdown come down on top of me about three miles previous, so I was a tad bloody from gouges in my legs and head. Clothes torn from same, and there's the normal hiker state of being stinky, dehydrated and tired. So what I thought looked like "cheefully worn out" might look like "terminal collapse" to other people. I remembered looking at my AT pictures from on the trail, and marvelling at how incredibly dirty and tired I looked, even though I remember being ridiculously happy at the time. I got up and was ready to be very polite.
"Hi there. You walkin' the trail?"
"Just from Juniper to wherever in the forest. As far as I can get"
We talked a bit more, about whether or not the water should be treated, whether the site had a spot for me, how safe the forest is. Turned out the little old lady was the Farles camp hostess. The inevitable warning about the Rainbow People came up, and I had to ask:
"I've been hearing about these Rainbow People for the better part of a decade . . what's the deal with them? Are they real?"
She looks a bit horrified. "You don't want to go looking for them," she says.
"No, no, I don't. I was just wondering if they're some sort of urban myth."
"No, they're very bad people. Last year . ." and then enter the murders, rapes, and other sundry crimes of the Rainbow People. Oh boy, here we go again. I've gotten the same stories from every single local since 1995.
I've always taken tales of the Rainbow People with a grain of salt. On the one hand, they're basically freegan hippies, a type I don't generally identify with or like . . much. On the other hand, having known and loved a lot of freegan hippies, I know how cosmically unlikely it is that a roving band of them would go on a rape and murder spree. They just don't have the motivation. Before last year, I've always felt the following scenarios to be far more likely than the Rainbow Rape Holocaust so dramatically spoken of by the Ocala locals:
1) crazy repressed little local girls go out to the forest people to get crazy, high, and drunk, find themselves in flagro delecto with person(s) they would rather not be with, and run into town with lurid tales of molestation at the hands of hairy, unwashed 60s leftovers. Just the thing to get the AM talk radio folks riled, who, in case you couldn't guess, are all armed.
2) crazy repressed little local boys bring girl out to the forest, get her trashed, violate her while she's blacked out, and return to town with vile tales of violent, horny hippies and Democrats. The story matches the consensus reality much better than confronting the possibility that Bubba McSumbitch, high school football hero, is a scheming rapacious f*#$head. Result, see 1), above.
3) crazy little local boys go out into the forest and kill bunches of hikers, return to town with tales of gun-addled hippies mowing down outdoorsmen. This was actually the defense used by some loser kid from Ocala who got nabbed for plugging hikers with an AK-47. "They were comin' straight for me!"
So as she's finishing up with the Rainbow stories I'm beginning to wonder if maybe some genuine criminals are using Rainbow events as cover for other activities. After all, I did have my food bag stolen in the supposedly Rainbow-infested Hopkins Prairie campsite last year, the epitome of uncoolness for a traveller on foot in the wilderness. For God's sake, I can walk two thousand miles up the eastern seaboard and never have a single item missing, yet I can't go ten miles in Ocala without having my food stolen? It made me question, deeply, the state that bore and raised me.
So the jury is out in my book on the Rainbow People and the locals. I do know that *someone* stole my damn food in the middle of a multi-day hiking trip, but I also know the locals, though nice, creep me the hell out, and I've yet to meet a single one of these elusive Rainbow people.
"We've pretty much gotten them out of the southern part of the forest now," said the sweet old lady, "Now we've got ATVers, lots of family people, people that believe in family." Her eyes harden as she takes in my hairy face and stinky body. I nod and try to look very conservative, very stern. She seems reassured. "Good people. We'll go after 'em in the north next year".
I noted to myself, also, that it's impossible to get a place at a campsite in the southern "family" part of the forest. The good family people book everything, even when they're not actually there, and they arrest everyone else, as the sweet old lady was happy to tell me.
I realized that staying too close to Farles campsite would be risky, besides being a violation of the law far too close to where the law drives around. Now, I could always say to a ranger, "hey, you said you had campsites on the phone, and then there were none (because you gave all the reservations to your peckerwood relatives), and I'm on foot, and I've got to sleep somewhere". I'd prefer not to do this, obviously, but I kept rehearsing the sentence in my mind, knowing that it would not come out nearly so well when woken in my tent by big flashlights at 3 AM. I passed the blue blaze to Buck Lake, which I remember as being beautiful in 1999 but was warned against approaching this time. The sweet old lady at Farles had told me a private family event had reserved the entire campground, and that they weren't too keen on hikers. I took the bypass trail around the lake and pushed on. There were two or three ponds between me and the highway, and it turned out that Dora Pond had a great campsite. Sign saying lake named in memory of a Dora. Thank you Dora. It was actually one of the prettiest ponds in the forest. Tent up, stove going, shoes off. Still had 4 liters of water from Farles. Zatarain's Jambalaya and then to bed with my book and to sleep. One thing I got from long distance hiking is the ability to fall asleep almost immediately in a tent. It used to be a lot harder. Now . . home. I'm home. The thought fills my eyes with stinging, silent tears. And then I'm asleep.
Of course, in a real home you are not usually woken up by a giant deer crashing through strings holding the walls up. "SCRAM," I say. The deer snorts and hangs around. Maybe he associates backpackers with safety. This is a terrible behavior to encourage among Ocala deer, because eventually it will get hikers even more shot at than they are already. Eventually he tires of my screaming and yelling. "Huff!", he says, then jumps over the brush towards the next pond over. I start falling asleep again and dream of big dogs. Except I'm not dreaming; there is a big old hound nosing at my bug screen, like he wants in. Hey human, he's saying, I'm done chasing these damn deer. It's cold. Let me in. No, I say. "Go home!" More negotiation. Eventually he wanders off. I hope that poor hound found his way home. I finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road so there nothing left to do but doze til morning.
Speaking of which, what the hell? I go through this tome of misery and I don't ever find out what happened to the goddamn planet? Also, all life is wiped out? How did this miss the humans? It also apparently missed the bacteria, since cans swell when they go bad, and you can still get botulism. A large exchange of nukes would do some of what is described in the book, but would also render a lot of surface water deadly poison, which is not the case in The Road: the characters regularly drink the water and walk unprotected in burned zones without ill effect. Another possibility is some unknown future weapon that shuts down photosynthesis, but in that case the gas exchange in the atmosphere would rapidly change to one that could not support humans. Yep, lots of things could have happened, and guess what? Keep wondering, sucker, because you never get to find out. Also, why in the heck did the characters ever leave the bunker? I turned their decision every which way I could and couldn't come up with any reason except that the novel was called "The Road", not "Huddled in a Survivalist's Cave". The ending is also hilariously pat. You can almost hear his editor telling him to please give a book a not-entirely-depressing ending for once in his life, because this happy ending reads like it was written on pain of torture. So much for the bad. McCarthy does have the most beautiful, poetic prose voice I've ever had the pleasure of reading- I mean *ever* reading- and the language is mixed with a leisurely grim wisdom that couldstand on its own.
The next morning I crossed 19 after dodging past a couple of pretty lakes with houses, then into the pine scrub, then out into the open pine woods I remembered so fondly from ten years ago. Those open woods are very unique, hilly, with almost prairie-like line of sight through the sparse sand pines. I rolled into the Alexander Creek drainage and thicker foliage, then into the visitor center of Alexander Springs and then a call to Jan Trail. I didn't feel like walking in the coming storm, so it was time to go home.
Jan and her friend were the opposite of the taxi ride from last year. We talked AT, Florida Trail, various hiking get-togethers. Sometimes I forget that other people like doing this stuff, so it's always wonderful when I connect with other crazy people that hate cars and houses. I got lots of brochures and am now a happy card carrying member of several hiking organizations, which I suppose I should have been years ago. It made me think of Thanksgiving 2009, and where in Ocala I'd find myself then . .
I do almost exactly the same thing every time I head out to the woods. I used to ascribe my pre-hike pussyfooting to simple alcoholism. No longer. It's more complicated than that, with a more subtle expression of emotions than the simple lust for getting bombed. Subtle emotions involving running water and cushions to sleep on. After doing my hiking shopping I must have cruised past the same fleabag motel five or six times. It sure is late, I said to myself. And there's a Taco Bell. But you have dinner in your food bag, I replied, and it's not like you can't hike at dusk. For God's sake you can put up your tent in pitch black, you know the thing better than you know your own scrotum. The latter voice won with it's ol' 'but you walked to Maine' argument, the same way it wins arguments about going to the gym or getting out of bed in the morning.
I drove into the Ocala National Forest and got my car settled in at Juniper Springs for ten dollars a night, then packed and headed north on the Florida Scenic Trail, exactly opposite the direction I planned to travel the next morning. The reason for this little sidetrip was the general hunting season, in which the Thanksgiving holiday is regarded as the opening bash. Hunting is prohibited in the Juniper Prairie wilderness, but to get into the wilderness you have to leg a mile or so north on the trail from the Juniper Springs entrance. Back in the day I'd hiked farther to get to an AT shelter, so it was no big deal going a mile the wrong way to find a place to sleep. I found a nice campsite just inside the no-fire zone and was chewing and reading inside my faithful tent by dark. Hopefully this year in Ocala would go better than it did last year, a hot, hung-over slog that ended when my food bag was stolen at Hopkin's Prairie, possibly by the enigmatic Rainbow People, whom we'll hear more of later.
Waking up I went south, zapped my cell phone at Juniper, zapped my gut with some microwave food objects at same, and bore down the trail. Using the verb bore here is a bit of a laugh when you see how much mileage you're covering according to the signs in the national forest, which apparently thinks you're barely managing a leisurely stroll. On a memorable hike through this stretch in 1999, my friends Byron and Michelle were similarly perplexed by the apparently random numbers on various signposts. We were all going a little crazy, literally jogging down the trail for hours to see a sign telling us we'd come three miles, which was patent horsepucky, as that mileage would have been covered in half an hour at our pace. We ascribed this problem to the mysterious stations on the map marked "horizontal control". Agents of Horizontal Control included the indefatigueable deerflies tormenting us. Besides drawing blood, we determined that the deerfly were also agents of Horizontal Control and were responsible for manipulating the fabric of space and time. It was hilarious at the time, but then to this date I am amazed at what passes for hilarious to hikers. The adjective "delirious" is all sorts of applicable here.
Years later, I asked a ranger about the horizontal control stations. "Horizontal what?", she asked. I pointed them out on my map. "I have no idea," she said "That's peculiar". Perhaps our theory from 1999 was the correct one. The ranger did give me a phone number of local trail enthusiasts Jan Trail, who give rides to FTA (Florida Trail Association) members, which was fantastic. A lot of the trauma of last year was caused by my inability to find a shuttle back to my car and being subsequently bilked out of eighty bucks for a cab ride.
So I hotfooted it for eight hours, coming- according to the signage- nine fricking miles. Which is preposterous, but they were a good "nine" miles. I like the southern part of the Ocala National Forest a lot better than the northern part, even though it's less pristine. The trail is better maintained, for one. Then there are places where the land goes up and comes down again, a thing I hear are called "hills" by outsiders. There are clear spring-fed ponds, open pine forests, and tunnels through palmetto scrub. I was nearly run over by deer and I saw a dozen little piglets snurfling around on the edges of Geary Pond, ridiculously adorable. Large, smart mammals to have such big litters; I'm not entirely sure how pigs aren't yet running the world. On the down side, this was the free-fire zone, and I was completely dependent on my orange-blaze t-shirt to keep me from experiencing high-speed exploratory surgery at the hands of some half-drunk fatty up from Orlando proving to his Fox News Friends how Republican he is. It probably wouldn't happen far from a road. Most hunters don't walk anywhere, but most hunters don't bring home any fresh meat, either.
Did I mention that most hunters don't walk anywhere? In some places, there were so many two-stroke engines the national forest sounded like a beach popular with jet-skiers. No actual hunting taking place, but a great deal of driving around and shooting. To be the devil's advocate for a moment, I did run into a couple of actual hunters and had a pretty good time talking to them. We seemed to be wired a lot more similarly. I think the difference is between outdoor/non-outdoor people rather than being between hikers/hunters.
Returning to the straight linear narrative, yes, there were a few miles of ATV hell, but the stretch down to Farles Prairie was pleasant. Ran out of water the last two hours and however many miles, then came into the picnic area at Farles. I made a beeline to the water device, cranked out two liters of water and drank almost all of it in one chug. Then I sat down. I had shade, a water source, was moving along pretty well, and had a great book- more on that later- and an afternoon with some real nap possibilities. Deliciously exhausted. This loitering thing is really what hiking is all about.
There was a pleasant little old lady coming out of a Mad Max looking conversion van, coming over in my direction. She looked concerned. I felt great, but I suppose I must have looked pretty ragged. I had a blowdown come down on top of me about three miles previous, so I was a tad bloody from gouges in my legs and head. Clothes torn from same, and there's the normal hiker state of being stinky, dehydrated and tired. So what I thought looked like "cheefully worn out" might look like "terminal collapse" to other people. I remembered looking at my AT pictures from on the trail, and marvelling at how incredibly dirty and tired I looked, even though I remember being ridiculously happy at the time. I got up and was ready to be very polite.
"Hi there. You walkin' the trail?"
"Just from Juniper to wherever in the forest. As far as I can get"
We talked a bit more, about whether or not the water should be treated, whether the site had a spot for me, how safe the forest is. Turned out the little old lady was the Farles camp hostess. The inevitable warning about the Rainbow People came up, and I had to ask:
"I've been hearing about these Rainbow People for the better part of a decade . . what's the deal with them? Are they real?"
She looks a bit horrified. "You don't want to go looking for them," she says.
"No, no, I don't. I was just wondering if they're some sort of urban myth."
"No, they're very bad people. Last year . ." and then enter the murders, rapes, and other sundry crimes of the Rainbow People. Oh boy, here we go again. I've gotten the same stories from every single local since 1995.
I've always taken tales of the Rainbow People with a grain of salt. On the one hand, they're basically freegan hippies, a type I don't generally identify with or like . . much. On the other hand, having known and loved a lot of freegan hippies, I know how cosmically unlikely it is that a roving band of them would go on a rape and murder spree. They just don't have the motivation. Before last year, I've always felt the following scenarios to be far more likely than the Rainbow Rape Holocaust so dramatically spoken of by the Ocala locals:
1) crazy repressed little local girls go out to the forest people to get crazy, high, and drunk, find themselves in flagro delecto with person(s) they would rather not be with, and run into town with lurid tales of molestation at the hands of hairy, unwashed 60s leftovers. Just the thing to get the AM talk radio folks riled, who, in case you couldn't guess, are all armed.
2) crazy repressed little local boys bring girl out to the forest, get her trashed, violate her while she's blacked out, and return to town with vile tales of violent, horny hippies and Democrats. The story matches the consensus reality much better than confronting the possibility that Bubba McSumbitch, high school football hero, is a scheming rapacious f*#$head. Result, see 1), above.
3) crazy little local boys go out into the forest and kill bunches of hikers, return to town with tales of gun-addled hippies mowing down outdoorsmen. This was actually the defense used by some loser kid from Ocala who got nabbed for plugging hikers with an AK-47. "They were comin' straight for me!"
So as she's finishing up with the Rainbow stories I'm beginning to wonder if maybe some genuine criminals are using Rainbow events as cover for other activities. After all, I did have my food bag stolen in the supposedly Rainbow-infested Hopkins Prairie campsite last year, the epitome of uncoolness for a traveller on foot in the wilderness. For God's sake, I can walk two thousand miles up the eastern seaboard and never have a single item missing, yet I can't go ten miles in Ocala without having my food stolen? It made me question, deeply, the state that bore and raised me.
So the jury is out in my book on the Rainbow People and the locals. I do know that *someone* stole my damn food in the middle of a multi-day hiking trip, but I also know the locals, though nice, creep me the hell out, and I've yet to meet a single one of these elusive Rainbow people.
"We've pretty much gotten them out of the southern part of the forest now," said the sweet old lady, "Now we've got ATVers, lots of family people, people that believe in family." Her eyes harden as she takes in my hairy face and stinky body. I nod and try to look very conservative, very stern. She seems reassured. "Good people. We'll go after 'em in the north next year".
I noted to myself, also, that it's impossible to get a place at a campsite in the southern "family" part of the forest. The good family people book everything, even when they're not actually there, and they arrest everyone else, as the sweet old lady was happy to tell me.
I realized that staying too close to Farles campsite would be risky, besides being a violation of the law far too close to where the law drives around. Now, I could always say to a ranger, "hey, you said you had campsites on the phone, and then there were none (because you gave all the reservations to your peckerwood relatives), and I'm on foot, and I've got to sleep somewhere". I'd prefer not to do this, obviously, but I kept rehearsing the sentence in my mind, knowing that it would not come out nearly so well when woken in my tent by big flashlights at 3 AM. I passed the blue blaze to Buck Lake, which I remember as being beautiful in 1999 but was warned against approaching this time. The sweet old lady at Farles had told me a private family event had reserved the entire campground, and that they weren't too keen on hikers. I took the bypass trail around the lake and pushed on. There were two or three ponds between me and the highway, and it turned out that Dora Pond had a great campsite. Sign saying lake named in memory of a Dora. Thank you Dora. It was actually one of the prettiest ponds in the forest. Tent up, stove going, shoes off. Still had 4 liters of water from Farles. Zatarain's Jambalaya and then to bed with my book and to sleep. One thing I got from long distance hiking is the ability to fall asleep almost immediately in a tent. It used to be a lot harder. Now . . home. I'm home. The thought fills my eyes with stinging, silent tears. And then I'm asleep.
Of course, in a real home you are not usually woken up by a giant deer crashing through strings holding the walls up. "SCRAM," I say. The deer snorts and hangs around. Maybe he associates backpackers with safety. This is a terrible behavior to encourage among Ocala deer, because eventually it will get hikers even more shot at than they are already. Eventually he tires of my screaming and yelling. "Huff!", he says, then jumps over the brush towards the next pond over. I start falling asleep again and dream of big dogs. Except I'm not dreaming; there is a big old hound nosing at my bug screen, like he wants in. Hey human, he's saying, I'm done chasing these damn deer. It's cold. Let me in. No, I say. "Go home!" More negotiation. Eventually he wanders off. I hope that poor hound found his way home. I finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road so there nothing left to do but doze til morning.
Speaking of which, what the hell? I go through this tome of misery and I don't ever find out what happened to the goddamn planet? Also, all life is wiped out? How did this miss the humans? It also apparently missed the bacteria, since cans swell when they go bad, and you can still get botulism. A large exchange of nukes would do some of what is described in the book, but would also render a lot of surface water deadly poison, which is not the case in The Road: the characters regularly drink the water and walk unprotected in burned zones without ill effect. Another possibility is some unknown future weapon that shuts down photosynthesis, but in that case the gas exchange in the atmosphere would rapidly change to one that could not support humans. Yep, lots of things could have happened, and guess what? Keep wondering, sucker, because you never get to find out. Also, why in the heck did the characters ever leave the bunker? I turned their decision every which way I could and couldn't come up with any reason except that the novel was called "The Road", not "Huddled in a Survivalist's Cave". The ending is also hilariously pat. You can almost hear his editor telling him to please give a book a not-entirely-depressing ending for once in his life, because this happy ending reads like it was written on pain of torture. So much for the bad. McCarthy does have the most beautiful, poetic prose voice I've ever had the pleasure of reading- I mean *ever* reading- and the language is mixed with a leisurely grim wisdom that couldstand on its own.
The next morning I crossed 19 after dodging past a couple of pretty lakes with houses, then into the pine scrub, then out into the open pine woods I remembered so fondly from ten years ago. Those open woods are very unique, hilly, with almost prairie-like line of sight through the sparse sand pines. I rolled into the Alexander Creek drainage and thicker foliage, then into the visitor center of Alexander Springs and then a call to Jan Trail. I didn't feel like walking in the coming storm, so it was time to go home.
Jan and her friend were the opposite of the taxi ride from last year. We talked AT, Florida Trail, various hiking get-togethers. Sometimes I forget that other people like doing this stuff, so it's always wonderful when I connect with other crazy people that hate cars and houses. I got lots of brochures and am now a happy card carrying member of several hiking organizations, which I suppose I should have been years ago. It made me think of Thanksgiving 2009, and where in Ocala I'd find myself then . .
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Pasta Greco
Conversations about barbecue side dishes- indeed, all "classic" American side dishes- can be troublesome and often violent. I've heard vicious exchanges over mayonnaise versus Miracle Whip (sp?), yellow versus brown mustard in potato salad, and just about anything in tuna salad other than the tuna itself. Potato salad was a perch I dare not tread. So with my pasta salad I abandoned classic for flavors I knew and loved well. Greek pasta salad it is!
The trouble was, I knew what happened from bitter experience when I pre-prepped greek salad. The salt in the feta/olives/anchovies drew out the moisture from the veggies and turned my salad into a cold soup course. I resolved that this would not happen this time. Taking a queue from traditional sauerkraut preparation, I pre-salted the veggies and set them in a colander to draw out excess moisture. As a by-product, this process also:
1) produced a delicious flavorful liquid that I (currently) have no use for
2) enhanced the color of the vegetables
3) lengthened the salad's shelf life. This stuff was quite edible after a week in the fridge.
1 cucumber, seeded and sliced
4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
4 tbsp kosher salt
8 oz sheep milk feta, cubed
1 bunch green onions, chopped on the bias
4 whopping tablespoons pepperoncini rings or banana pepper rings. I can't get enough of these things, so add to taste.
A couple of handfuls pitted Kalamata olives
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp minced fresh garlic
Splash red wine vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
3 cups rotini or penne or some such handy pasta
To slice the first four ingredients, I seriously endorse using the slicer attachment on your food processor. That thing is darn handy.
Toss the first five ingredients together, then put in a colander set over a bowl. Wrap and put in fridge for a few hours. Fluids from the veggies will drip down into the bowl, so try and lay this contraption flat. Every hour or so turn the veggies around to re-distribute the salt and drain the bowl if needed. The orange fluid that collects in the bowl is awfully salty but really tasty; I have yet to figure out a use for it. Perhaps make it into a condiment? This must be akin to how soy sauce was invented. Perhaps I've inadvertently invented Philoculture's Salad Sauce.
As serving time draws near, set a gallon of water to boil. Put pasta in and cook as desired. Drain and refresh with cold water to stop the cooking process.
Combine the remaining ingredients in the serving bowl
Get your salted veggies from the fridge and scoop them into the serving bowl with your hands, squeezing each handful as you go to get any free liquid out. Add the pasta, then toss to combine. Chill until serving.
The trouble was, I knew what happened from bitter experience when I pre-prepped greek salad. The salt in the feta/olives/anchovies drew out the moisture from the veggies and turned my salad into a cold soup course. I resolved that this would not happen this time. Taking a queue from traditional sauerkraut preparation, I pre-salted the veggies and set them in a colander to draw out excess moisture. As a by-product, this process also:
1) produced a delicious flavorful liquid that I (currently) have no use for
2) enhanced the color of the vegetables
3) lengthened the salad's shelf life. This stuff was quite edible after a week in the fridge.
1 cucumber, seeded and sliced
4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
4 tbsp kosher salt
8 oz sheep milk feta, cubed
1 bunch green onions, chopped on the bias
4 whopping tablespoons pepperoncini rings or banana pepper rings. I can't get enough of these things, so add to taste.
A couple of handfuls pitted Kalamata olives
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp minced fresh garlic
Splash red wine vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
3 cups rotini or penne or some such handy pasta
To slice the first four ingredients, I seriously endorse using the slicer attachment on your food processor. That thing is darn handy.
Toss the first five ingredients together, then put in a colander set over a bowl. Wrap and put in fridge for a few hours. Fluids from the veggies will drip down into the bowl, so try and lay this contraption flat. Every hour or so turn the veggies around to re-distribute the salt and drain the bowl if needed. The orange fluid that collects in the bowl is awfully salty but really tasty; I have yet to figure out a use for it. Perhaps make it into a condiment? This must be akin to how soy sauce was invented. Perhaps I've inadvertently invented Philoculture's Salad Sauce.
As serving time draws near, set a gallon of water to boil. Put pasta in and cook as desired. Drain and refresh with cold water to stop the cooking process.
Combine the remaining ingredients in the serving bowl
Get your salted veggies from the fridge and scoop them into the serving bowl with your hands, squeezing each handful as you go to get any free liquid out. Add the pasta, then toss to combine. Chill until serving.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Tartiflette
I had read about this potato-cheese-bacon type dish and decided to try it and and see if it was as good as it sounded. Unfortunately, I could not find the recipe from America's Test Kitchen that I wanted to try. I was forced to rely on my culinary savvy and managed to come up with a passable tartiflette. When I do this dish again I will try a pastry crust on the bottom, as I think that might sop of some of the grease- I thought the gratin was a little on the heavy side.
12 oz camembert
2 onions, sliced
2 Idaho potatoes, sliced into rounds 1/8" thick.
10 oz bacon
8 oz sour cream
Salt and pepper
Fry the bacon until crisp. Chop it up coarse
Fry potato slices in the bacon fat over medium-high heat until light brown on both sides, reserve.
Fry the onion slices over medium heat until blondeish-brown, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Some darker spots are OK, black is not. Combine with sour cream, reserve.
Slice the camembert wheel in half the long way, so that you have two camembert rounds with a rind on top and cheese on the bottom. Slice the rounds so that they will evenly cover the top of the casserole.
Start building your casserole: lay down a layer of potato, a layer of sour cream/onion mixture, a layer of bacon, repeat. I was able to get two and a half layers out of it, but mileage may vary.
Finish the casserole by covering the top with the camembert slices, rind side up. This will allow the camembert to get obscenely gooey and wander south into the potato/onion/bacon stuff below. The rind will also toast nicely.
Put in a 350 degree oven until bubbly. Turn on the broiler, and put casserole under hot broiler until cheese is lightly browned.
As with most casseroles, tartiflette is better if you let it rest outside the oven for a half hour or so. You certainly don't need to, though.
12 oz camembert
2 onions, sliced
2 Idaho potatoes, sliced into rounds 1/8" thick.
10 oz bacon
8 oz sour cream
Salt and pepper
Fry the bacon until crisp. Chop it up coarse
Fry potato slices in the bacon fat over medium-high heat until light brown on both sides, reserve.
Fry the onion slices over medium heat until blondeish-brown, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Some darker spots are OK, black is not. Combine with sour cream, reserve.
Slice the camembert wheel in half the long way, so that you have two camembert rounds with a rind on top and cheese on the bottom. Slice the rounds so that they will evenly cover the top of the casserole.
Start building your casserole: lay down a layer of potato, a layer of sour cream/onion mixture, a layer of bacon, repeat. I was able to get two and a half layers out of it, but mileage may vary.
Finish the casserole by covering the top with the camembert slices, rind side up. This will allow the camembert to get obscenely gooey and wander south into the potato/onion/bacon stuff below. The rind will also toast nicely.
Put in a 350 degree oven until bubbly. Turn on the broiler, and put casserole under hot broiler until cheese is lightly browned.
As with most casseroles, tartiflette is better if you let it rest outside the oven for a half hour or so. You certainly don't need to, though.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Ribs of the Proletariat
You know what I'd like? I'd like to see some support for people that are debt-free and work hard at staying employed at their fartsucking day jobs. Yes, we exist, and Merciful Buddha on a Harley do we get pissed when we see that laws are apparently only written for the irresponsible or massively fraudulent. Ooh, if I lose my job the government will pay my mortgage for six months! What if I do not have a schlocky fake mortgage and have instead been saving real money, You Authoritarian Clods? You better start worrying about keeping those people fed while you pay for their suburban scatshacks because eventually their credit cards won't work and you can't skylift Big Macs without having the USMC pilots eat them all. Trust me, I know. You could skylift pigs, I suppose, and even Special Forces Marines would pause before devouring a feisty and very much alive pack of swine, unless they were Muslim Marines, which is probably illegal or at least severely hazed at the Marines Murder Mansion or wherever it is they learn how to kill people.
To this end, I raise up the Ribs of the Proletariat. Not to aid in the hazing or the murdering. That would be just wrong. This is to help feed America with the pork to be dropped from military helicopters. It's like a Berlin Airlift for suburbia, but with less Nazis and more rustic antics!
This recipe could feed America probably all at once, because when I make ribs there's only one quantity to make and that's Too Much. It's the perfect balm for a nation huddled around 60" LCD screens watching American Idol on stolen A/C power. Enough with the proselytizing, I know why you came here, all five of you:
Mix up 1 cup packed dark brown sugar, 6 tbsp kosher salt, 2 tbsp chili powder, 2 tbsp onion powder, 2 tbsp paprika, 1 tsp each of cayenne, and maybe 1 tsp of some thyme, sage, or other resiny spice- just make sure it's nicely powdered. No whole leaves. Whole leaves will char and we'll have enough of a problem with that during cooking.
Go to Sam's club and get one of those packages of spareribs. 3 slabs to a pack. That's a lot of ribs but I am feeding a lot of people. Smear the rub you just mixed up all over those ribs, then wrap them VERY WELL in saran wrap and put in a deep tray. The salt and the sugar will draw some of the moisture out of the meat and exchange it with flavored moisture, but that means porky liquids will be sloshing around, and that means you want some sort of wide bucket-like device to catch anything that escapes the saran wrap. Put in the fridge overnight.
On the morning of the big day, soak a bag of wood chunks in a big bucket right near your smoker. Don't use mesquite, as it is overly bitter (in my opinion) when used for long smoking projects like this.
4.5 hours before scheduled eating time, get the charcoal ready for indirect heat. I use a drum smoker, so I make the fire to one side. Rack up your ribs in a rib rack, making sure there is adequate space between the ribs. DO NOT USE ALL THE RACKS. They are too close together. Instead, space the ribs out to every other slot in the rib rack.
Put some wood chunks on the charcoal, put the ribs on the side of the smoker where the fire isn't, and close the lid. Open all the vents and let the temperature come to 225. Close the vents. Now, for the next four hours, make sure this temp stays between 200 and 225. It's harder than it sounds. Add wood chunks at appropriate times, approximately every 30 minutes.
4 hours at these temperature will cook these ribs. Longer is always better. When you're satisfied, pull the rib rack into your kitchen and hack the slabs into two-rib sections. Serve with bottled BBQ sauce, because some people like the stuff.
Feeds a bunch.
I served this with a greek-style pasta salad, but hey, that sounds like another post.
To this end, I raise up the Ribs of the Proletariat. Not to aid in the hazing or the murdering. That would be just wrong. This is to help feed America with the pork to be dropped from military helicopters. It's like a Berlin Airlift for suburbia, but with less Nazis and more rustic antics!
This recipe could feed America probably all at once, because when I make ribs there's only one quantity to make and that's Too Much. It's the perfect balm for a nation huddled around 60" LCD screens watching American Idol on stolen A/C power. Enough with the proselytizing, I know why you came here, all five of you:
Mix up 1 cup packed dark brown sugar, 6 tbsp kosher salt, 2 tbsp chili powder, 2 tbsp onion powder, 2 tbsp paprika, 1 tsp each of cayenne, and maybe 1 tsp of some thyme, sage, or other resiny spice- just make sure it's nicely powdered. No whole leaves. Whole leaves will char and we'll have enough of a problem with that during cooking.
Go to Sam's club and get one of those packages of spareribs. 3 slabs to a pack. That's a lot of ribs but I am feeding a lot of people. Smear the rub you just mixed up all over those ribs, then wrap them VERY WELL in saran wrap and put in a deep tray. The salt and the sugar will draw some of the moisture out of the meat and exchange it with flavored moisture, but that means porky liquids will be sloshing around, and that means you want some sort of wide bucket-like device to catch anything that escapes the saran wrap. Put in the fridge overnight.
On the morning of the big day, soak a bag of wood chunks in a big bucket right near your smoker. Don't use mesquite, as it is overly bitter (in my opinion) when used for long smoking projects like this.
4.5 hours before scheduled eating time, get the charcoal ready for indirect heat. I use a drum smoker, so I make the fire to one side. Rack up your ribs in a rib rack, making sure there is adequate space between the ribs. DO NOT USE ALL THE RACKS. They are too close together. Instead, space the ribs out to every other slot in the rib rack.
Put some wood chunks on the charcoal, put the ribs on the side of the smoker where the fire isn't, and close the lid. Open all the vents and let the temperature come to 225. Close the vents. Now, for the next four hours, make sure this temp stays between 200 and 225. It's harder than it sounds. Add wood chunks at appropriate times, approximately every 30 minutes.
4 hours at these temperature will cook these ribs. Longer is always better. When you're satisfied, pull the rib rack into your kitchen and hack the slabs into two-rib sections. Serve with bottled BBQ sauce, because some people like the stuff.
Feeds a bunch.
I served this with a greek-style pasta salad, but hey, that sounds like another post.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Double Mega Cheesy Steak and Bean
The core component of the world's most addictive fast foods is slurry. It is the stuff that you think about when you are about to drive into the Super Burger Taco Fryer Thunder drive-through. The delicate sauce on the bottom of the burger bun, a slurry of mayonnaise and meat juice. The substance in Taco Bell products- mysterious red sauce and chopped onion intermixing with melted cheese and bean stuff- again, gushy, delicious slurry. Even the sandwich chains exploit this marvelous substance: think about the mush formed in a Subway sandwich by the oil, vinegar, and vegetable/pickle juices, or, way better, Firehouse Subs, with their slurry of piquant sauces and discharge from fatty cooked meats.
Most comfort foods are thick liquids of some kind, but since fast foods are hastily assembled the fast food slurry is almost always composed of ingredients that have just met each other. Compare this with a thick tasty slow food like potage ambassadeur, where the bacon and the peas have been dating for several years before they even began the long, slow simmer of marriage. Fast food slurries are anonymous drunk sex in a club bathroom by comparison. Still, they're both tasty thickened liquids- why does the fast food version incite such wanton lust?
I hypothesize that the big draw to the fast food slurry is a roguish human attraction to opportunity. Journey back in time for a moment. A prehistoric fast food item is basically what you would have gotten if you nipped a bit of food from every person in the tribe into a big starch object. Nuki's Antelope Surprise, Nurg's Green Thing, King Cuchacho's Lemur Cheese, it all goes into the flatbread. Like modern fast food, you would cram it down your gullet, although not because you were late for work but because if he were found with the ill-gotten breakfast there's a better than even chance you would be killed and eaten. It gives the dollar menu a whole new significance.
Anyway, the fast food slurry- i.e., a thick liquid resulting from the liquids of many already prepared and/or cooked ingredients- is something easily replicated in the home. Last night I sought to come up with a Taco Bell-like slurry item and had what I thought was a reasonable success. It went something like this . .
Meat
12 oz steak
Badia Brand Fajita Seasoning. This is one of the best prepackaged spice mixes in existence.
Beans
6 oz dry black beans
1 onion, chopped
1 tblsp chopped garlic
4 tblsp fresh salsa, or some tomato product
1 tblsp chicken soup base
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp paprika
2 bay leaves
2 tblsp Olive oil
2.25 cups water
ALTERNATE BEANS
1 can black beans
ASSEMBLY
6 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
2 large flour torillas
Canola oil
Liberally dust your steak with fajita seasoning. I used a 3/4" thick strip steak for this, so take note- if you use a different cut it will affect the cooking time.
In the pot of your pressure cooker, fry the onions and garlic in olive oil until soft.Add everything else, set on high pressure for 30 minutes, natural pressure release. Drain extra liquid. Fish out the bay leaves. Yes, the beans are not super soft. They will provide a little texture contrast to our beef and cheese slurry. ALTERNATIVELY, open a can of black beans.
When the coals are ready, cook the steak 3-4 minutes per side on high heat, until rare or medium rare. Try to go rare, because there is more heat coming up for this hunk o flesh.
Put some canola oil in a pan and put on a burner on medium heat.
Slice your meat into strips 1/4 inch thick. Go for bite size pieces, so pulling out a strip doesn't decompile the burrito.
Heat your tortilla 30 seconds in the microware to soften. Lay down the tortilla. Put down half the shredded cheese, then half the sliced steak, then cover with beans. Not too much, you can always have leftover beans. Fold up the ends of the tortilla over the filling, then roll tight, one side over, then the other side over. Put it in the hot pan seam side down (the last side you folded), then fry until brown and crisp on the bottom. Flip carefully and do the same with the other side. Put a plate over it, hand on the plate, flip pan and plate, and you've got a nicely toasted and plated burrito, seam side down. I do this flip trick with frittatas a lot.
Repeat the last paragraph with the other tortilla.
What happens inside this containment unit is the beans drop some moisture to the not-entirely-cooked meats, which then drop grease and liquid into the cheese, which melts with these two liquids, providing us with our faux-fast-food slurry food product.
Consume very quickly before anyone sees you.
Most comfort foods are thick liquids of some kind, but since fast foods are hastily assembled the fast food slurry is almost always composed of ingredients that have just met each other. Compare this with a thick tasty slow food like potage ambassadeur, where the bacon and the peas have been dating for several years before they even began the long, slow simmer of marriage. Fast food slurries are anonymous drunk sex in a club bathroom by comparison. Still, they're both tasty thickened liquids- why does the fast food version incite such wanton lust?
I hypothesize that the big draw to the fast food slurry is a roguish human attraction to opportunity. Journey back in time for a moment. A prehistoric fast food item is basically what you would have gotten if you nipped a bit of food from every person in the tribe into a big starch object. Nuki's Antelope Surprise, Nurg's Green Thing, King Cuchacho's Lemur Cheese, it all goes into the flatbread. Like modern fast food, you would cram it down your gullet, although not because you were late for work but because if he were found with the ill-gotten breakfast there's a better than even chance you would be killed and eaten. It gives the dollar menu a whole new significance.
Anyway, the fast food slurry- i.e., a thick liquid resulting from the liquids of many already prepared and/or cooked ingredients- is something easily replicated in the home. Last night I sought to come up with a Taco Bell-like slurry item and had what I thought was a reasonable success. It went something like this . .
Meat
12 oz steak
Badia Brand Fajita Seasoning. This is one of the best prepackaged spice mixes in existence.
Beans
6 oz dry black beans
1 onion, chopped
1 tblsp chopped garlic
4 tblsp fresh salsa, or some tomato product
1 tblsp chicken soup base
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp paprika
2 bay leaves
2 tblsp Olive oil
2.25 cups water
ALTERNATE BEANS
1 can black beans
ASSEMBLY
6 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
2 large flour torillas
Canola oil
Liberally dust your steak with fajita seasoning. I used a 3/4" thick strip steak for this, so take note- if you use a different cut it will affect the cooking time.
In the pot of your pressure cooker, fry the onions and garlic in olive oil until soft.Add everything else, set on high pressure for 30 minutes, natural pressure release. Drain extra liquid. Fish out the bay leaves. Yes, the beans are not super soft. They will provide a little texture contrast to our beef and cheese slurry. ALTERNATIVELY, open a can of black beans.
When the coals are ready, cook the steak 3-4 minutes per side on high heat, until rare or medium rare. Try to go rare, because there is more heat coming up for this hunk o flesh.
Put some canola oil in a pan and put on a burner on medium heat.
Slice your meat into strips 1/4 inch thick. Go for bite size pieces, so pulling out a strip doesn't decompile the burrito.
Heat your tortilla 30 seconds in the microware to soften. Lay down the tortilla. Put down half the shredded cheese, then half the sliced steak, then cover with beans. Not too much, you can always have leftover beans. Fold up the ends of the tortilla over the filling, then roll tight, one side over, then the other side over. Put it in the hot pan seam side down (the last side you folded), then fry until brown and crisp on the bottom. Flip carefully and do the same with the other side. Put a plate over it, hand on the plate, flip pan and plate, and you've got a nicely toasted and plated burrito, seam side down. I do this flip trick with frittatas a lot.
Repeat the last paragraph with the other tortilla.
What happens inside this containment unit is the beans drop some moisture to the not-entirely-cooked meats, which then drop grease and liquid into the cheese, which melts with these two liquids, providing us with our faux-fast-food slurry food product.
Consume very quickly before anyone sees you.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Kim Il Delicious
I've always been curious about Korean food, but the Florida backwoods offer a perhaps unsurprisingly limited number of Korean dining establishments. With access to some Asian food markets, though, it's not a problem, and we decided to entertain with a sort-of-Korean menu:
Dahk galbi: Korean marinated grilled chicken
Bibim Naengmyun: A cold buckwheat noodle thing
Pajeon: Scallion pancakes, also a Chinese staple, purchased from the market because I only have two hands
Ojinguh Moochim: Seasoned dried squid
Spring rolls: not really Korean, but I like them, see note for pajeon above. These had mushrooms and cabbage and were really tasty.
Kimchi
Brown rice
What did I really like from this spread? Well, I like kimchi, the naengmyun was pretty tasty, and the ojinguh moochim was really, really tasty, especially with the rice. It was all pretty good, actually, new and strange. If I did it again I'd use less pickle in the naengmyun and I'd make more ojinguh moochim. Oh, and I'd get actual Korean naengmyun instead of soba noodles.
Korean food seems to be made up of a lot of tiny little dishes. It's the way Koreans eat things, apparently, an array called banchan, usually served with cooked white rice. It uses lots and lots of tiny little bowls. I bought a stack of paper bowls and plates so I didn't use every dish in the house in the process of serving. Unless you want your spouse to murder you in your sleep, I recommend you do the same.
I had some chicken quarters sitting in the freezer in individual freezer bags. Two days prior to the meal, I took each bag and added 2 tblsp ginger, 2 tblsp garlic, a handful chopped scallions, .5 cup soy sauce, .25 cup rice vinegar, 1 tblsp sesame oil, 1 tblsp red pepper flakes. The resulting bags of chicken and liquid had most of the air squeezed out of them, then were sealed and put in a bowl in the bottom of the fridge to await the big day.
One day prior, I seeded and sliced 1 cucumber and peeled and sliced 1 fist-sized daikon radish. Mix up 1.5 cups vinegar with .5 cups water, then add 3 tblsp salt and 3 tblsp sugar. Put veggies in vinegar mixture and put in fridge. These impromptu pickles will appear later in our bibim naengmyun
The rice recipe for korean brown rice I got from the internet had me cook the rice almost into risotto. I thought it looked gooey and sticky, but my wife loved it. 1 cup of rice went into the pressure cooker with 3.25 cups water, a tiny bit of sesame oil, a glurp of peanut oil, and a teaspoon of salt. High pressure ten minutes, natural pressure release, then fry for ten minutes.
Started the fire for the chicken, then came back in and did the bibim naengmyun.
Boil a . . er, damn non-english packaging . . about 10 oz of soba noodles for 2-3 minutes. Drain. Yes, they're still chewy, that's OK. Thoroughly cool noodles in running water, then add yangnyum (sauce): 2 tbsp gochujang (Korean chili paste), 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp minced garlic, 1/2 tsp soy sauce. Toss toss toss toss. Top with the pickled cucumbers and daikon you set to marinating last night, then halve four handy hard boiled eggs (what, you don't keep hard-boiled eggs handy?), put those on top artistically. Scatter some white and black sesame seeds over the top of this, and that's your bibim naengmyun, or the gringo version of it anyway. Put it out on the table. It's very pretty and quite good. The buckwheat noodle is surprisingly filling.
Make up some Korean dipping/flavoring stuff. Something besides the chili. Stir up 5 parts soy sauce,1 part sesame oil, 2 parts rice vinegar, 1 part sesame seeds, 2 parts honey, 1 part chopped scallion. Mix mix mix, put it out on the table.
Take your approximately 4-6 oz bag of "Jane-Jane Dried Prepared Squid" and put in a bowl of water. It looks sort of like shredded jerky and has the same texture. The taste is, well, imagine sweetened chewy fish. It's good. Let it rehydrate a little bit, then take it out of the water, squeeze it once or twice, then give it a quick toast in a tablespoon of oil in a hot pan. Mince. Put in a bowl, add 1 tblsp mayo, 1 tblsp gochujang, 1 tsp garlic. Top with sesame, chill until serving, then out on the table.
The coals are probably ready for the chicken. Go put the chicken on for 12 minutes, flip, 12 more minutes, then bring it back in, by which time you'll probably have everything else ready.
Fry up your scallion pancakes, one at a time, and deep fry your spring rolls. If the rolls are frozen when they're fried, chances are they're still cold inside- wrap with foil and put in a 250 degree oven until serving time. Cut the pancakes into wedges. These scallion things were pretty bland, but I didn't make them, so I could only be so apologetic. Put them out in their little disposable serving vessels. I hope you've got your dining table extended because otherwise you're going to be running out of room.
Put out the kimchi, maybe a little bowl of gochujang for people that are true masochists, and make sure nothing's left in the fridge. I'm pretty sure there's some forgotten banchan in there that I forgot about, but one of the great things about Korean is that it's not stealthy food. It'll make itself known in short order, like a really good cheese. Another great thing about Korean food is that it's really fun. Jal meokkesseumnida!
Dahk galbi: Korean marinated grilled chicken
Bibim Naengmyun: A cold buckwheat noodle thing
Pajeon: Scallion pancakes, also a Chinese staple, purchased from the market because I only have two hands
Ojinguh Moochim: Seasoned dried squid
Spring rolls: not really Korean, but I like them, see note for pajeon above. These had mushrooms and cabbage and were really tasty.
Kimchi
Brown rice
What did I really like from this spread? Well, I like kimchi, the naengmyun was pretty tasty, and the ojinguh moochim was really, really tasty, especially with the rice. It was all pretty good, actually, new and strange. If I did it again I'd use less pickle in the naengmyun and I'd make more ojinguh moochim. Oh, and I'd get actual Korean naengmyun instead of soba noodles.
Korean food seems to be made up of a lot of tiny little dishes. It's the way Koreans eat things, apparently, an array called banchan, usually served with cooked white rice. It uses lots and lots of tiny little bowls. I bought a stack of paper bowls and plates so I didn't use every dish in the house in the process of serving. Unless you want your spouse to murder you in your sleep, I recommend you do the same.
I had some chicken quarters sitting in the freezer in individual freezer bags. Two days prior to the meal, I took each bag and added 2 tblsp ginger, 2 tblsp garlic, a handful chopped scallions, .5 cup soy sauce, .25 cup rice vinegar, 1 tblsp sesame oil, 1 tblsp red pepper flakes. The resulting bags of chicken and liquid had most of the air squeezed out of them, then were sealed and put in a bowl in the bottom of the fridge to await the big day.
One day prior, I seeded and sliced 1 cucumber and peeled and sliced 1 fist-sized daikon radish. Mix up 1.5 cups vinegar with .5 cups water, then add 3 tblsp salt and 3 tblsp sugar. Put veggies in vinegar mixture and put in fridge. These impromptu pickles will appear later in our bibim naengmyun
The rice recipe for korean brown rice I got from the internet had me cook the rice almost into risotto. I thought it looked gooey and sticky, but my wife loved it. 1 cup of rice went into the pressure cooker with 3.25 cups water, a tiny bit of sesame oil, a glurp of peanut oil, and a teaspoon of salt. High pressure ten minutes, natural pressure release, then fry for ten minutes.
Started the fire for the chicken, then came back in and did the bibim naengmyun.
Boil a . . er, damn non-english packaging . . about 10 oz of soba noodles for 2-3 minutes. Drain. Yes, they're still chewy, that's OK. Thoroughly cool noodles in running water, then add yangnyum (sauce): 2 tbsp gochujang (Korean chili paste), 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp minced garlic, 1/2 tsp soy sauce. Toss toss toss toss. Top with the pickled cucumbers and daikon you set to marinating last night, then halve four handy hard boiled eggs (what, you don't keep hard-boiled eggs handy?), put those on top artistically. Scatter some white and black sesame seeds over the top of this, and that's your bibim naengmyun, or the gringo version of it anyway. Put it out on the table. It's very pretty and quite good. The buckwheat noodle is surprisingly filling.
Make up some Korean dipping/flavoring stuff. Something besides the chili. Stir up 5 parts soy sauce,1 part sesame oil, 2 parts rice vinegar, 1 part sesame seeds, 2 parts honey, 1 part chopped scallion. Mix mix mix, put it out on the table.
Take your approximately 4-6 oz bag of "Jane-Jane Dried Prepared Squid" and put in a bowl of water. It looks sort of like shredded jerky and has the same texture. The taste is, well, imagine sweetened chewy fish. It's good. Let it rehydrate a little bit, then take it out of the water, squeeze it once or twice, then give it a quick toast in a tablespoon of oil in a hot pan. Mince. Put in a bowl, add 1 tblsp mayo, 1 tblsp gochujang, 1 tsp garlic. Top with sesame, chill until serving, then out on the table.
The coals are probably ready for the chicken. Go put the chicken on for 12 minutes, flip, 12 more minutes, then bring it back in, by which time you'll probably have everything else ready.
Fry up your scallion pancakes, one at a time, and deep fry your spring rolls. If the rolls are frozen when they're fried, chances are they're still cold inside- wrap with foil and put in a 250 degree oven until serving time. Cut the pancakes into wedges. These scallion things were pretty bland, but I didn't make them, so I could only be so apologetic. Put them out in their little disposable serving vessels. I hope you've got your dining table extended because otherwise you're going to be running out of room.
Put out the kimchi, maybe a little bowl of gochujang for people that are true masochists, and make sure nothing's left in the fridge. I'm pretty sure there's some forgotten banchan in there that I forgot about, but one of the great things about Korean is that it's not stealthy food. It'll make itself known in short order, like a really good cheese. Another great thing about Korean food is that it's really fun. Jal meokkesseumnida!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Bean of Darkness
Black beans are not just full of nutrition, they are great chow for the New Depression. Also, they're delicious. This recipe is a sort of train wreck of Cuban black bean soup and Brazilian Feijoada- I took my favorite parts from both.
1 lb black turtle beans
12 oz bacon
12 oz chorizo or equivalent sausage product
12 oz of assorted meat scraps: chicken parts, ham bits, abandoned toddlers, etc.
2 onions, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
4 Roma tomatoes, chopped
6 cloves garlic, or more
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
6 cups chicken stock, what the hell, use bouillon, there's a depression on.
1) In the cooking chamber of your pressure cooker or in your dutch oven, fry the bacon until you have a good bit of cooking fat. Remove the bacon and reserve.
2) Working in batches if necessary, brown all the other meats in the fat, working in order from most flavorful to least flavorful. Remove as you go, reserve. Note that you really don't need anything other than the bacon, and you could probably substitute even the bacon with a quarter cup of olive oil without screwing up the recipe. It's hard for me to say this, but the beans will cook up fine without pork fat.
3) Fry the onions and green peppers in the meat fat until softened, then add the garlic, fry until aromatic. Add the tomatoes and fry until the liquid has evaporated and you are left with basically aromatic-flavored animal fat.
4) Add the black beans, chicken stock or bouillon, vinegar, bay leaves, and reserved bacon. Stir. Lightly place remainder of meats on top. Lid the pressure cooker and put on high pressure for an hour. If using a dutch oven, lid the vessel and put in a 350 degree oven for anywhere from 3 to 6 hours.
5) Unlid, remove the meats. Stir the beans and check seasoning. Freshen up the liquid with some more vinegar if necessary. Serve with the meats, a good hot sauce, some raw chopped onions, and a little sour cream. It's pretty fantastic on yellow rice, as well.
1 lb black turtle beans
12 oz bacon
12 oz chorizo or equivalent sausage product
12 oz of assorted meat scraps: chicken parts, ham bits, abandoned toddlers, etc.
2 onions, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
4 Roma tomatoes, chopped
6 cloves garlic, or more
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
6 cups chicken stock, what the hell, use bouillon, there's a depression on.
1) In the cooking chamber of your pressure cooker or in your dutch oven, fry the bacon until you have a good bit of cooking fat. Remove the bacon and reserve.
2) Working in batches if necessary, brown all the other meats in the fat, working in order from most flavorful to least flavorful. Remove as you go, reserve. Note that you really don't need anything other than the bacon, and you could probably substitute even the bacon with a quarter cup of olive oil without screwing up the recipe. It's hard for me to say this, but the beans will cook up fine without pork fat.
3) Fry the onions and green peppers in the meat fat until softened, then add the garlic, fry until aromatic. Add the tomatoes and fry until the liquid has evaporated and you are left with basically aromatic-flavored animal fat.
4) Add the black beans, chicken stock or bouillon, vinegar, bay leaves, and reserved bacon. Stir. Lightly place remainder of meats on top. Lid the pressure cooker and put on high pressure for an hour. If using a dutch oven, lid the vessel and put in a 350 degree oven for anywhere from 3 to 6 hours.
5) Unlid, remove the meats. Stir the beans and check seasoning. Freshen up the liquid with some more vinegar if necessary. Serve with the meats, a good hot sauce, some raw chopped onions, and a little sour cream. It's pretty fantastic on yellow rice, as well.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Oven Fry Salvation
The Sunday afternoon tour de frigo yielded some randomness: a potato, eight ounces of sliced crimini mushrooms (a.k.a. "baby bellas"), a handful of parsley, some bacon, and some chicken leg quarters I'd set in a souvlaki marinade (lemon juice, olive oil, onion powder, garlic, oregano, black pepper, chicken bouillon) a couple of days ago. The bacon was rendered, the fungi fried in the resulting fat and rejoined with the cooked bacon and some chopper parsley. The chicken went on the grill, fifteen minutes per side. The potato was the testbed for a new recipe of oven fry.
I had never actually made a successful oven fry. I used to get either cinders or limp, greasy wedges that went in the trash. Imagine my glee at getting these things sort of right. The key to this recipe seems to be the pre-cooking of the potatoes and the fine coat of corn starch they get before heading into a hot oven. Hats off to America's Test Kitchen for the recipe.
16 oz russet potatoes, cut into wedges. The wedges I used were 1/16 slices- basically, half a potato, half the halves, half the quarters, then half the eighths.
5 tblsp canola or vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tblsp corn starch
1 tsp black pepper
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1) Preheat oven to 475. In big bowl, microwave the garlic in the oil for a minute or two.
2) Spoon 3-4 tablespoons of the garlic oil into a rimmed baking sheet. Roll the oil around the baking sheet until it is coated with the garlic oil.
3) Add potatoes to garlic and oil in the bowl, toss to coat potatoes. Cover in saran wrap, microwave 2-3 minutes, toss potatoes again, microwave 2-3 more minutes. The edges of the wedges should be just opaque.
4) America's Test Kitchen expects you to magically separate the garlic from the potatoes, as the garlic will burn in the oven. I'm not sure how I could have done that exactly. I just spooned the potatoes out of the garlic and oil then wiped the remaining garlic and oil out of the bowl with paper towels. I got most of it, I suppose.
5) Mix corn starch, pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Gently toss hot potatoes with this mixture until the potatoes are well coated.
6) Lay the potatoes down on the baking sheet in a single layer, put in oven. Cook for 12 minutes, then flip the potatoes, then cook for 12 more. Watch them after ten minutes. America's Test Kitchen said to cook them for fifteen minutes per side, but if I did that they'd have burnt. I did 12 minutes on one side and 11 minutes on the other. And yes, any garlic remaining on the potatoes did turn black. I think next time I'll just use the garlic powder. Still, deep brown, intensely crispy oven spuds.
I had never actually made a successful oven fry. I used to get either cinders or limp, greasy wedges that went in the trash. Imagine my glee at getting these things sort of right. The key to this recipe seems to be the pre-cooking of the potatoes and the fine coat of corn starch they get before heading into a hot oven. Hats off to America's Test Kitchen for the recipe.
16 oz russet potatoes, cut into wedges. The wedges I used were 1/16 slices- basically, half a potato, half the halves, half the quarters, then half the eighths.
5 tblsp canola or vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tblsp corn starch
1 tsp black pepper
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1) Preheat oven to 475. In big bowl, microwave the garlic in the oil for a minute or two.
2) Spoon 3-4 tablespoons of the garlic oil into a rimmed baking sheet. Roll the oil around the baking sheet until it is coated with the garlic oil.
3) Add potatoes to garlic and oil in the bowl, toss to coat potatoes. Cover in saran wrap, microwave 2-3 minutes, toss potatoes again, microwave 2-3 more minutes. The edges of the wedges should be just opaque.
4) America's Test Kitchen expects you to magically separate the garlic from the potatoes, as the garlic will burn in the oven. I'm not sure how I could have done that exactly. I just spooned the potatoes out of the garlic and oil then wiped the remaining garlic and oil out of the bowl with paper towels. I got most of it, I suppose.
5) Mix corn starch, pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Gently toss hot potatoes with this mixture until the potatoes are well coated.
6) Lay the potatoes down on the baking sheet in a single layer, put in oven. Cook for 12 minutes, then flip the potatoes, then cook for 12 more. Watch them after ten minutes. America's Test Kitchen said to cook them for fifteen minutes per side, but if I did that they'd have burnt. I did 12 minutes on one side and 11 minutes on the other. And yes, any garlic remaining on the potatoes did turn black. I think next time I'll just use the garlic powder. Still, deep brown, intensely crispy oven spuds.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Slumdog Salmon
Curried Salmon with Dhal
I knew I wanted to get rid of that last piece of salmon in the freezer, but I also knew I didn't have all the ingredients for the poached salmon recipe as it was written. Hmm.
For some reason I also had dhal on the brain. Now "dhal" means "split" in Sanskrit, and refers to any dried pulse that has been split in preparation or as consequence of drying. So dhal can be anything from chick pears to limas. In our household dhal generally means a 2-1 mix of masroor dhal (red lentils) to chana dhal (yellow split peas), with various seasonings. You're also supposed to add two raw green chilis, but not everyone can have the intestinal fortitude of those on the subcontinent and besides I thought too much heat would clobber the salmon. Two green chilis is a lot for two cups of anything.
So what ties together the Frenchy fish poaching fetish and the subcontinent savor? The answer is butter. Both cuisines literally drink the stuff. In this case, there is butter in the finishing sauce for the poaching liquid and butter added to the dhal just before serving. With some adjustments to the poaching recipe, the poached fish dish can be safely wed to the dhal.
In a convenients-sized pot, put 1/2 cup masroor dhal, 1/4 cup chana dhal, 1 tsp garlic, 1 tsp ginger, 1.5 tsp tumeric, and 2 tsp chicken soup base with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, then park it on low heat and lid with convenient lid-like device. Everyone makes fun of me for using plates as lids, but truthfully they form a tighter seal than most lids that come with the cookware, and they double as serving vessels later, which goes along with my "less dishes=more fun" school of cookery.
Eyeball your salmon and figure out how many slices of onion you'll need to hold them off the surface of your frypan. What you're trying to do is create an elevated bed for the salmon to lay on so it's not sitting in poaching liquid. Arrange the oniony salmon bed in the frypan, then add enough white wine (I used cheap pinot, which was so acid I did not need to add lemon) to come halfway up the sides of the sliced onions. To the liquid add 1/2 tsp garam masala (plain jane supermarket curry powder is fine here), 2 chopped scallions, 2 chopped baby carrots (they were handy), and 1 chopped stalk of celery. Make sure the poaching liquid does not come near the tops of the onion. Your onion bed should be safely above the surface of the liquid.
Bring the poaching liquid to boil on high heat, then bring to low, place salmon skin-side down on the onions, ensuring the fish is above the liquid, and tightly cover the poaching vessel. Leave it for 10 minutes, enough time for me to make a confession.
I confess that I botched the poaching on the first pass. I was using processed Wal Mart salmon filets, which have no skin or much of anything else really. Sad skinny little suckers. Eleven minutes was far too long for such a fish, and the salmon was overdone. Thick, nice skin-on filets should take approximately 10 minutes, but for Wally World salmon or otherwise scrawny specimens next time I'll tune that down to about five minutes or less. In any case cook until the sides of the filet are opaque but the center is still translucent, and an instant-read thermometer reads 125 degrees when inserted in the thickest part of the fish. Using a spatula, remove the fish and onions to a plate and tent with foil.
Crank the heat up to medium-high and reduce the cooking liquid until it is almost dry, sort of a wet paste. Reduce the heat to medium or so and add 1 tblsp butter, swirling the butter until incorporated with the paste. Test the sauce and adjust flavorings, if necessary. If the wine you used isn't ridiculously tart like my bargain pinot was, add a splash of lemon juice for acidity. Something I might add to the sauce when I make this dish again is a little dollop of plain yogurt, I just think it'd be tasty with the salmon.
Check your dhal for doneness, then swirl in a tablespoon or two of butter and a few teaspoons of chopped cilantro or parsley. Discard onions, plate salmon topped with sauce and surround with dhal.
Dot the plate here and there with mint chutney, if you have any handy, or whatever Indian condiment you might have on hand. Speaking for me personally, I'm sort of addicted to the mysterious Swad "Punjabi mixed pickle". What is in there? It's a mystery. I honestly can't identify any of the objects in there, which as far as I'm concerned adds to the flavor. You never taste anything so hard as when you don't know what it is.
I knew I wanted to get rid of that last piece of salmon in the freezer, but I also knew I didn't have all the ingredients for the poached salmon recipe as it was written. Hmm.
For some reason I also had dhal on the brain. Now "dhal" means "split" in Sanskrit, and refers to any dried pulse that has been split in preparation or as consequence of drying. So dhal can be anything from chick pears to limas. In our household dhal generally means a 2-1 mix of masroor dhal (red lentils) to chana dhal (yellow split peas), with various seasonings. You're also supposed to add two raw green chilis, but not everyone can have the intestinal fortitude of those on the subcontinent and besides I thought too much heat would clobber the salmon. Two green chilis is a lot for two cups of anything.
So what ties together the Frenchy fish poaching fetish and the subcontinent savor? The answer is butter. Both cuisines literally drink the stuff. In this case, there is butter in the finishing sauce for the poaching liquid and butter added to the dhal just before serving. With some adjustments to the poaching recipe, the poached fish dish can be safely wed to the dhal.
In a convenients-sized pot, put 1/2 cup masroor dhal, 1/4 cup chana dhal, 1 tsp garlic, 1 tsp ginger, 1.5 tsp tumeric, and 2 tsp chicken soup base with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, then park it on low heat and lid with convenient lid-like device. Everyone makes fun of me for using plates as lids, but truthfully they form a tighter seal than most lids that come with the cookware, and they double as serving vessels later, which goes along with my "less dishes=more fun" school of cookery.
Eyeball your salmon and figure out how many slices of onion you'll need to hold them off the surface of your frypan. What you're trying to do is create an elevated bed for the salmon to lay on so it's not sitting in poaching liquid. Arrange the oniony salmon bed in the frypan, then add enough white wine (I used cheap pinot, which was so acid I did not need to add lemon) to come halfway up the sides of the sliced onions. To the liquid add 1/2 tsp garam masala (plain jane supermarket curry powder is fine here), 2 chopped scallions, 2 chopped baby carrots (they were handy), and 1 chopped stalk of celery. Make sure the poaching liquid does not come near the tops of the onion. Your onion bed should be safely above the surface of the liquid.
Bring the poaching liquid to boil on high heat, then bring to low, place salmon skin-side down on the onions, ensuring the fish is above the liquid, and tightly cover the poaching vessel. Leave it for 10 minutes, enough time for me to make a confession.
I confess that I botched the poaching on the first pass. I was using processed Wal Mart salmon filets, which have no skin or much of anything else really. Sad skinny little suckers. Eleven minutes was far too long for such a fish, and the salmon was overdone. Thick, nice skin-on filets should take approximately 10 minutes, but for Wally World salmon or otherwise scrawny specimens next time I'll tune that down to about five minutes or less. In any case cook until the sides of the filet are opaque but the center is still translucent, and an instant-read thermometer reads 125 degrees when inserted in the thickest part of the fish. Using a spatula, remove the fish and onions to a plate and tent with foil.
Crank the heat up to medium-high and reduce the cooking liquid until it is almost dry, sort of a wet paste. Reduce the heat to medium or so and add 1 tblsp butter, swirling the butter until incorporated with the paste. Test the sauce and adjust flavorings, if necessary. If the wine you used isn't ridiculously tart like my bargain pinot was, add a splash of lemon juice for acidity. Something I might add to the sauce when I make this dish again is a little dollop of plain yogurt, I just think it'd be tasty with the salmon.
Check your dhal for doneness, then swirl in a tablespoon or two of butter and a few teaspoons of chopped cilantro or parsley. Discard onions, plate salmon topped with sauce and surround with dhal.
Dot the plate here and there with mint chutney, if you have any handy, or whatever Indian condiment you might have on hand. Speaking for me personally, I'm sort of addicted to the mysterious Swad "Punjabi mixed pickle". What is in there? It's a mystery. I honestly can't identify any of the objects in there, which as far as I'm concerned adds to the flavor. You never taste anything so hard as when you don't know what it is.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Why Did the Chicken Salad Cross the Border?
Some days it's hard to get food requests out of people. After a bit of pondering and poking at the supplies, we finally had something. "How about some sort of southwest chicken salad?" Oh yeah, I could do that. I love chicken salad and I love mexican- why can't the two get together and have kids? It'd be like a burrito at a Jewish Delicatessen. "Oy vai- ai-ai-ai-ai!"
Dissassemble one baked chicken into a big non-reactive bowl. Store-bought rotisserie chicken works for this too.
Chop up an onion, a big handful of cilantro, 2 seeded chipotles. Toss in the bowl.
Grab a can of black beans, drain, put beans in bowl with 1/3 cup olive oil and 1/3 cup lime juice. I like sour things, so you might want less lime.
Core and cube 2 avocados, put in bowl, toss so that the acid in the lime covers the avocado or else they'll turn all brown and nasty.
Chop up a little bag of Fritos and toss in the bowl.
Salt to taste. Serve with lettuce of your choice. It would also be good in wraps or in some savory corn cake type object, like sopes.
Dissassemble one baked chicken into a big non-reactive bowl. Store-bought rotisserie chicken works for this too.
Chop up an onion, a big handful of cilantro, 2 seeded chipotles. Toss in the bowl.
Grab a can of black beans, drain, put beans in bowl with 1/3 cup olive oil and 1/3 cup lime juice. I like sour things, so you might want less lime.
Core and cube 2 avocados, put in bowl, toss so that the acid in the lime covers the avocado or else they'll turn all brown and nasty.
Chop up a little bag of Fritos and toss in the bowl.
Salt to taste. Serve with lettuce of your choice. It would also be good in wraps or in some savory corn cake type object, like sopes.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Curry from Story
A long time ago, my wife-then-girlfriend Monica asked if I knew of a green curry that had lima beans in it. She had eaten such a curry during a trip to Washington DC and loved it immensely. I was stumped. I knew that the Thais make a green curry. The color in a green curry- the Thai one, anyway- comes from cilantro, sometimes basil, and raw green chiles, making it arguably the hottest of the thai curries, at least the coconut-based ones. The Thais, though, generally do not have legume based-curries. The Indian curries do, but search as I may I could not find a green Indian curry. What if I made a Thai green curry based on lima beans? I shuttled various ingredients around and made a green curry with cashews and basil, centered around the lima beans and around raw red bell peppers added at the last moment. "How is it?" I asked. "It's good," Monica reported. "It's nothing like what I had in D.C., but it's good". Since the lima bean curry has become an institution in our household.
Splash of oil
8 garlic cloves
Thumb-sized knob of ginger
Juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup white wine
1 tblsp fish sauce
1 can coconut milk
.25-.5 can green curry
4 oz cashew halves
12 oz baby green lima beans
1 red bell pepper, chopped
Bunch basil leaves, chopped
Bunch cilantro leaves, chopped
Jasmine rice
A word about canned curry paste. I have no idea what the name of the brand is that I usually buy, but it has a tiny picture of a slightly forbidding looking oriental matron on the label. If you buy this brand and make it according to the directions on the can you will die. Well, maybe not die, but you will have a hard time eating the stuff unless you're from the same hell-planet that Madame Heat comes from. Half a can is the maximum for me, and most will probably be comfortable with .25 of a can for this recipe.
Get your jasmine rice going according to the package directions.
Heat the splash of oil in a wok until almost smoking. Saute the garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add the wine, lime juice, and fish sauce. Cook until reduced to the consistency of thick porridge. Crank the heat down to medium. Add the coconut milk, then dissolve the curry paste into the hot mixture. Reduce this until it is very thick. Add limas and allow to thaw if frozen, or to heat through if not. Add bell pepper and let it soften just a bit. Before serving, kill the heat and stir in the cilantro, basil, and cashews.
Serve with the jasmine rice.
Splash of oil
8 garlic cloves
Thumb-sized knob of ginger
Juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup white wine
1 tblsp fish sauce
1 can coconut milk
.25-.5 can green curry
4 oz cashew halves
12 oz baby green lima beans
1 red bell pepper, chopped
Bunch basil leaves, chopped
Bunch cilantro leaves, chopped
Jasmine rice
A word about canned curry paste. I have no idea what the name of the brand is that I usually buy, but it has a tiny picture of a slightly forbidding looking oriental matron on the label. If you buy this brand and make it according to the directions on the can you will die. Well, maybe not die, but you will have a hard time eating the stuff unless you're from the same hell-planet that Madame Heat comes from. Half a can is the maximum for me, and most will probably be comfortable with .25 of a can for this recipe.
Get your jasmine rice going according to the package directions.
Heat the splash of oil in a wok until almost smoking. Saute the garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add the wine, lime juice, and fish sauce. Cook until reduced to the consistency of thick porridge. Crank the heat down to medium. Add the coconut milk, then dissolve the curry paste into the hot mixture. Reduce this until it is very thick. Add limas and allow to thaw if frozen, or to heat through if not. Add bell pepper and let it soften just a bit. Before serving, kill the heat and stir in the cilantro, basil, and cashews.
Serve with the jasmine rice.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Hot Purple Sandwiches
One of our regular dinner guests is lactose-intolerant and does not eat red meat or pork. A lot of cooks I've known would resent this, but then again, a lot of technical folks I know also resent being challenged and/or working.
The said guest is now also trying to cut down on the amount of meat, period. A fresh challenge!
I just couldn't make myself do another Thai curry, so, well, my mind wandered. How about eggplant and roasted bell peppers? My wife hates grilled eggplant, so that means frying. This was starting to sound like a really good sandwich, but it needs a creamy component, which I intended to supply via melted manchego and softened creamed garlic. Baguette could serve double duty: sliced on the bias and broiled with olive oil and bruscetta for appetizer; sliced lengthwise and lightly toasted for serving with the sandwich stack ingredients. For the side dish I couldn't get my mind off the roasted broccoli I made from America's Test Kitchen:
http://www.slashfood.com/2008/12/13/americas-test-kitchens-method-for-roasted-broccoli/
I made this brocc a couple of days ago with zero expectations. It turned out to be the best single method of broccoli preparation I've seen. The vegetable does not actually need any seasoning with this method- the natural browning of the veg, with the salt and lemon, provides more than enough depth of flavor.
Anyway, eggplant sandwiches:
Put two big handfuls of whole garlic cloves in a pan with some oil or butter, put on low heat. Every time it looks like it's getting too brown, put in some white wine, stir, deglaze, let simmer again. Eventually the garlic will have the consistency of boiled potatoes and have a nutty, slightly sweet flavor. I imagined smashing them into a creamy spread but they looked so pretty that I served them as they were.
Grab a red bell pepper. Run the tip of your knife around the stem, then make a longitudinal cut all the way around. Split the sides, pull out the seed core, clean the insides of any hanging seeds or white rib matter. Halve the sides so you have quarters. Put on an oiled baking sheed cut side down and roast in a 350 degree oven until very soft.
Peel one medium-sized eggplant and slice 1/2" thick. You'll only be using slices wide enough to fit the width of your baguette. Too wide is A-OK. Salt both sides of the eggplant slices with coarse salt, put in bowl. The salt is going to draw off a lot of moisture, you'll be surprised by the amount that accumulates.
Slice the baguette lengthwise, then, using the heel of your hand, flatten the baguette. Cut it into pieces long enough to serve as rolls for the eggplant slices.
Slice some manchego cheese into some pieces that will melt well on your eggplant patties.
Prepare the fry prep line: one plate of flour, one bowl of beaten egg, one plate of bread crumbs. Dry the eggplant with paper towls, then flour-egg-breadcrumb the lot. Reserve on an elevated rack or on paper towels.
In a nice heavy pan, heat some olive oil on medium until shimmering. Fry the eggplant until golden brown on both sides. When frying the second side, put down the manchego so it gets just a little melty, barely translucent.
Toast your flattened baguette slices.
Plating: put down two slices toasted bread. On one side, stack roasted bell pepper and some fresh basil leaves. On the other side, put an eggplant/manchego patty. Put roasted broccoli in the middle, top with softened garlic cloves.
Considerations:
>>Chevre might be better on this than manchego. If you use chevre, don't try melting it on top of the eggplant or it'll turn into a runny mess. Apply it to the eggplant at plating time.
>>I didn't measure anything here because franky I didn't have a recipe. Sorry about that. If you have extra fried eggplant slices, freeze them for later or - I love this- smother in caper butter and serve as another appetizer with lemon slices.
The said guest is now also trying to cut down on the amount of meat, period. A fresh challenge!
I just couldn't make myself do another Thai curry, so, well, my mind wandered. How about eggplant and roasted bell peppers? My wife hates grilled eggplant, so that means frying. This was starting to sound like a really good sandwich, but it needs a creamy component, which I intended to supply via melted manchego and softened creamed garlic. Baguette could serve double duty: sliced on the bias and broiled with olive oil and bruscetta for appetizer; sliced lengthwise and lightly toasted for serving with the sandwich stack ingredients. For the side dish I couldn't get my mind off the roasted broccoli I made from America's Test Kitchen:
http://www.slashfood.com/2008/12/13/americas-test-kitchens-method-for-roasted-broccoli/
I made this brocc a couple of days ago with zero expectations. It turned out to be the best single method of broccoli preparation I've seen. The vegetable does not actually need any seasoning with this method- the natural browning of the veg, with the salt and lemon, provides more than enough depth of flavor.
Anyway, eggplant sandwiches:
Put two big handfuls of whole garlic cloves in a pan with some oil or butter, put on low heat. Every time it looks like it's getting too brown, put in some white wine, stir, deglaze, let simmer again. Eventually the garlic will have the consistency of boiled potatoes and have a nutty, slightly sweet flavor. I imagined smashing them into a creamy spread but they looked so pretty that I served them as they were.
Grab a red bell pepper. Run the tip of your knife around the stem, then make a longitudinal cut all the way around. Split the sides, pull out the seed core, clean the insides of any hanging seeds or white rib matter. Halve the sides so you have quarters. Put on an oiled baking sheed cut side down and roast in a 350 degree oven until very soft.
Peel one medium-sized eggplant and slice 1/2" thick. You'll only be using slices wide enough to fit the width of your baguette. Too wide is A-OK. Salt both sides of the eggplant slices with coarse salt, put in bowl. The salt is going to draw off a lot of moisture, you'll be surprised by the amount that accumulates.
Slice the baguette lengthwise, then, using the heel of your hand, flatten the baguette. Cut it into pieces long enough to serve as rolls for the eggplant slices.
Slice some manchego cheese into some pieces that will melt well on your eggplant patties.
Prepare the fry prep line: one plate of flour, one bowl of beaten egg, one plate of bread crumbs. Dry the eggplant with paper towls, then flour-egg-breadcrumb the lot. Reserve on an elevated rack or on paper towels.
In a nice heavy pan, heat some olive oil on medium until shimmering. Fry the eggplant until golden brown on both sides. When frying the second side, put down the manchego so it gets just a little melty, barely translucent.
Toast your flattened baguette slices.
Plating: put down two slices toasted bread. On one side, stack roasted bell pepper and some fresh basil leaves. On the other side, put an eggplant/manchego patty. Put roasted broccoli in the middle, top with softened garlic cloves.
Considerations:
>>Chevre might be better on this than manchego. If you use chevre, don't try melting it on top of the eggplant or it'll turn into a runny mess. Apply it to the eggplant at plating time.
>>I didn't measure anything here because franky I didn't have a recipe. Sorry about that. If you have extra fried eggplant slices, freeze them for later or - I love this- smother in caper butter and serve as another appetizer with lemon slices.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Fishy Fishy Taste
Sort Of Anchoiade
The recipe for today is not one that everyone will be happy with. It might make some people run to the bathroom, just reading about it. For me, though, it's a pretty magical thing.
I'm fond of strong flavors. I like subtlety, yes, and well-thought out combinations. Chilled pea soup with mint. Vichysoisse with toasted leeks. Bernaise. These are fine things and I love cooking and eating them. Speaking for myself, though, I prefer the nuclear options, and anchoiade is one of them.
Chop 1 can anchovies with 5 cloves garlic, put in tiny bowl. Add 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 teaspoon red chili flakes, and enough extra-virgin olive oil to form into a paste. Mix it up. Let sit.
Cut half a thin banguette into slices approximately .25-.5" thick. Brush both sides with olive oil, then put on foil-lined baking sheet and broil until toasted. Turn the bread slices and repeat with the other side. Keep an eye on them because toasty brown turns to char very fast under a hot broiler.
Put .5 tsp anchovy mixture on each baguette slice. Use more anchovy mixture per slice depending on the design tolerances of your guests' taste buds.
To provide some relief, alternate this with another topping like bruschetta, chevre, or pseudorissa.
The recipe for today is not one that everyone will be happy with. It might make some people run to the bathroom, just reading about it. For me, though, it's a pretty magical thing.
I'm fond of strong flavors. I like subtlety, yes, and well-thought out combinations. Chilled pea soup with mint. Vichysoisse with toasted leeks. Bernaise. These are fine things and I love cooking and eating them. Speaking for myself, though, I prefer the nuclear options, and anchoiade is one of them.
Chop 1 can anchovies with 5 cloves garlic, put in tiny bowl. Add 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 teaspoon red chili flakes, and enough extra-virgin olive oil to form into a paste. Mix it up. Let sit.
Cut half a thin banguette into slices approximately .25-.5" thick. Brush both sides with olive oil, then put on foil-lined baking sheet and broil until toasted. Turn the bread slices and repeat with the other side. Keep an eye on them because toasty brown turns to char very fast under a hot broiler.
Put .5 tsp anchovy mixture on each baguette slice. Use more anchovy mixture per slice depending on the design tolerances of your guests' taste buds.
To provide some relief, alternate this with another topping like bruschetta, chevre, or pseudorissa.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Pseudorissa
For a middle-Eastern themed dinner, with hummus, tsatsiki, smoked lamb, and baklava, I served something I called harissa which ultimately turned out to be nothing like harissa at all. Why did I call it that? The planners of the event (or someone close to them) asked for something involving roasted bell peppers, and after an internet search of "recipe red bell peppers roasted middle eastern", I got a recipe for something called red bell pepper harissa. Unfortunately for my middle eastern street cred, real harissa is made from roasted chiles and is beyond spicy. It's not something you eat by itself. I had no idea at the time how far off base I was, but though mild, my pseudorissa turned out quite good. In the words of Ian Tattersall, "Goodness, you've taken harissa and made it into something almost civilized". The pseudorissa has since become incredibly popular, and makes a regular appearance when I'm entertaining. It has the side benefit of being dirt simple.
4 red bell peppers
1 medium egggplant
1 tbls red pepper flakes
1 lemon
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
A few squirts liquid smoke
A teensy bit of paprika
Extra extra virgin olive oil for lube
1 tbls salt
I'm not going to give a big lecture on picking out product here. Just one sentence: pick out only mid-size eggplants with green stems and taut skins.
Line two baking sheets with foil and generously lube with some extra virgin olive oil.
Cut a circle around the stems of the red bell peppers, then slice in half. Knock out the seed cores and any seeds sticking to the insides. Pull out the white ribs. Place the red bell pepper halves, cut side down, on one of the lined baking sheets.
Peel and slice the eggplant into 1/2" slices. Arrange on other baking sheet. If there's too much for one baking sheet, fit them in with the red bell peppers as best as you can.
Put both sheets in a 350 degree oven until the peppers are soft and the eggplant is shrunken and somewhat caramelized. If the peppers have a lot of char on them, pull the skins off, then put the roasted flesh in the bowl of a largish food processor. The eggplant will probably stick to the foil- gently scrape the eggplant into the bowl of the food processor. Add red pepper flakes, juice of 1 lemon, salt, squirts liquid smoke, and whir until smooth.
Pour out the puree into a bowl and add 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil. Stir until incorporated. We don't brutalize extra virgin olive oil in the food processor because the whirring sharp metal turns it bitter. Add a teensy bit of paprika if it's too orange- you'll need to do that if the red bell peppers weren't ripe enough. Chill the resulting concoction overnight. Remove, taste, and correct seasoning. It probably isn't salty enough. Salty flavors are muted when chilled.
Serve with the usual middle eastern suspects: falafel, pita, hummus, etc. It's not bad as a bruschetta topping, either.
4 red bell peppers
1 medium egggplant
1 tbls red pepper flakes
1 lemon
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
A few squirts liquid smoke
A teensy bit of paprika
Extra extra virgin olive oil for lube
1 tbls salt
I'm not going to give a big lecture on picking out product here. Just one sentence: pick out only mid-size eggplants with green stems and taut skins.
Line two baking sheets with foil and generously lube with some extra virgin olive oil.
Cut a circle around the stems of the red bell peppers, then slice in half. Knock out the seed cores and any seeds sticking to the insides. Pull out the white ribs. Place the red bell pepper halves, cut side down, on one of the lined baking sheets.
Peel and slice the eggplant into 1/2" slices. Arrange on other baking sheet. If there's too much for one baking sheet, fit them in with the red bell peppers as best as you can.
Put both sheets in a 350 degree oven until the peppers are soft and the eggplant is shrunken and somewhat caramelized. If the peppers have a lot of char on them, pull the skins off, then put the roasted flesh in the bowl of a largish food processor. The eggplant will probably stick to the foil- gently scrape the eggplant into the bowl of the food processor. Add red pepper flakes, juice of 1 lemon, salt, squirts liquid smoke, and whir until smooth.
Pour out the puree into a bowl and add 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil. Stir until incorporated. We don't brutalize extra virgin olive oil in the food processor because the whirring sharp metal turns it bitter. Add a teensy bit of paprika if it's too orange- you'll need to do that if the red bell peppers weren't ripe enough. Chill the resulting concoction overnight. Remove, taste, and correct seasoning. It probably isn't salty enough. Salty flavors are muted when chilled.
Serve with the usual middle eastern suspects: falafel, pita, hummus, etc. It's not bad as a bruschetta topping, either.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Provisioning the Lone Male: Opa!
Continuing to provision the lone male, but this time greek style. I didn't feed myself pita, but went all out on the tsatsiki. Fats are not automatically metabolized into fat tissue when you eat them before sleeping. I remember some meathead telling me, "Carbs and protein in the morning, protein and fats in the evening". Now if only I could get ahold of some of them steroids!
Chicken Souvlaki
3 tablespoons (or more) lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic power
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt or chicken bouillon
Chicken breast
tsatsiki sauce, chopped feta, tomatoes, onions, pita
Put everything but the chicken in a zip-lock bag and smoosh it around to mix thoroughly. Put in chicken, get as much air out of the bag as you can, then smoosh around to make sure the marinade has good contact with the meat. Let sit for at least an hour, optimally overnight. Grill or broil. Preferably grill. Eat.
If you're being fancy, serve with tsatsiki sauce, chopped feta cheese, tomatoes, onions, and good pita.
Tsatsiki Sauce
Cucumber
16 oz sour cream
2-4 cloves garlic, mashed (I use a garlic press)
¼ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper (about a teaspoon each)
In a perfect universe we’d use Turkish or Greek style plain yogurt instead of sour cream. Greek yogurt is basically plain yogurt with a lot of the moisture pressed out of it, but since you’d have to drive to, I don’t know, Kazakhstan to get some, we’ll use sour cream instead, which works fine.
Chop the cucumber into a couple of chunks. In food processor, whir cuke chunks until pureed. Drain cucumber mush in fine wire sieve or strainer, or use kitchen towels. Try and get as much water out of it as you can. Put strained cuke with the rest of ingredients in big bowl and mix until smooth. You can eat it now, but it gets better after a few hours in the fridge. Actually, it just continues to get better and better in the fridge.
This stuff can be eaten with just about anything from steak to falafel. It’s also a surprisingly good dip for potato chips.
Chicken Souvlaki
3 tablespoons (or more) lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic power
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt or chicken bouillon
Chicken breast
tsatsiki sauce, chopped feta, tomatoes, onions, pita
Put everything but the chicken in a zip-lock bag and smoosh it around to mix thoroughly. Put in chicken, get as much air out of the bag as you can, then smoosh around to make sure the marinade has good contact with the meat. Let sit for at least an hour, optimally overnight. Grill or broil. Preferably grill. Eat.
If you're being fancy, serve with tsatsiki sauce, chopped feta cheese, tomatoes, onions, and good pita.
Tsatsiki Sauce
Cucumber
16 oz sour cream
2-4 cloves garlic, mashed (I use a garlic press)
¼ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper (about a teaspoon each)
In a perfect universe we’d use Turkish or Greek style plain yogurt instead of sour cream. Greek yogurt is basically plain yogurt with a lot of the moisture pressed out of it, but since you’d have to drive to, I don’t know, Kazakhstan to get some, we’ll use sour cream instead, which works fine.
Chop the cucumber into a couple of chunks. In food processor, whir cuke chunks until pureed. Drain cucumber mush in fine wire sieve or strainer, or use kitchen towels. Try and get as much water out of it as you can. Put strained cuke with the rest of ingredients in big bowl and mix until smooth. You can eat it now, but it gets better after a few hours in the fridge. Actually, it just continues to get better and better in the fridge.
This stuff can be eaten with just about anything from steak to falafel. It’s also a surprisingly good dip for potato chips.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Cheddar at Kursk
This fondue started as an attempt on my part to break up the monotony of fondue. That's Fondue Neuchatel, the traditional mixture of swiss, gruyere, and kirsch that makes up the vast majority of fondue I cook and serve to others in my never-ending battle to make everyone around me obese. Now, let's get this straight, I love the Neuchatel formula, I think it's pretty much perfect, but for this occasion- Byron's birthday- I thought I should highlight his Southern heritage and make fondue more a la Americaine. Besides, his wife Carine's French and I honestly felt a little unsure of myself cooking the traditional Swiss mixture. I decided to go with a cheddar-beer fondue. A little bit of searching and I found the right proportions for a cheddar-stout mixture. Recipe in hand, I dropped by a convenient gourmet store on my way to Byron's house- European Gourmet, actually, off Brandon Blvd.
After selecting some choice weisswurst and some really tasty little dried sausages, I moved on to the cheddar. They had a seven-year old reserve Irish cheddar, of which I grabbed a pound. The English clerk/butcher/proprietress bobbed about in a wonderful blonde blur of Englishness. I actually could smell the moment she sank her knife into the grim white block. She did wonder what the hell I was using a pound of the stuff for.
"I'm making cheddar-stout fondue, actually"
"Have you the stout?"
"Er, no. Do you have Guinness?"
She snorted a little bit, as I had just asked for a Steel Reserve. Apparently, I was in for a stern correction.
After a brief bustle across the store, she offered me a clay vessel covered in cruel-looking Cyrillic lettering. Heavy steel clamps held a rubber stopper against its unadorned neck, as if in containment of radiation or djinn. Whoever made this thing had not seen fit to put a single word of English on any part of it. This was what a bottle of beer looked like in Mordor.
"Why doncha try this one, love?"
"What the hell is it?", I asked.
"Oh, it's beer. It's very nice. Imperial Stout."
I was beginning to suffer from what is commonly called consumption overload, stunned by all the wonderful things that were going in my big box. I didn't really examine the decision to take ownership of the dire stout. Certainly it must be nice, coming from the nice English lady, I thought dazedly. As I left the premises they offered to grill me some sausages. I've selectively deleted from my memory exactly how much money I spent in there that day.
At my friend's house I started assembling the fondue. The group in the dining room could talk to me over the counter, and I could join in the conversation. I always liked those counter things between kitchen and dining room for exactly this reason. I cut some cheddar, sampled it. "Dear God in heaven," I said to no one in particular. It was overwhelming. The stuff had more cheddar flavor in it than the combined yearly output of all Cheetos plants in North America. Somewhere Chester Cheetah was tapping a vein in anticipation. I hoped that the apple juice concentrate would mute some of that, or else it would just be too much. Somewhat tentatively, I opened the stout and poured out the amount needed for the fondue. In the glass the black liquid appeared completely opaque.
"Is that Worcestershire sauce?", Steve asked.
"Er. No. It's supposedly beer," I said, looking dubious. I held it up to a powerful track light. It became no less opaque. "It's from Russia," I tried to explain. I'm no great beer fan but I decided to try a taste. Urk. There's a reason I don't like beer. I handed it off to Steve, who is a genuine aficionado.
"Malt, " he said. "Chocolate. Something berry like. Complex. Mnh. Very dark."
"Dark as Stalin's soul. Does anyone have a laser pointer?" I wanted to check just how opaque it was, or if the light beam bent in its presence, which did not seem out of the question.
"What's it called?"
"I have no earthly clue" I passed him the bottle. Steve cackled. For all we knew, that bottle of stout was unique. Perhaps it was. Perhaps we had released Stalin's soul, liquified, bottled by Kruschev, as it were, to be delivered into our cheesy pot. I put my ear to the simmering mixture to see if I could hear show trials.
The final product was a desperate land war in the middle of Asia, a trenchline five thousand miles long. "It's like the Eastern Front in my mouth", I remember saying. The stout and the cheddar were just barely at violent, genocidal stalemate, broken only by hints of flavor from the substance dipped into it. Even the spicy dried sausages submerged themselves in this epic conflict. They were even Hungarian sausages, which made the metaphor a bit eerie. We all agreed that it was delicious, but had quite enough after a half dozen bites.
I've replaced the dipping substances in this recipe with the ones I liked the best. It was originally served with dried sausage, black bread, cauliflower, and apples.
Cheddar-Stout Fondue
lots of cauliflower florets
lots of broccolli florets
1 pound very good cheddar, aged at least 3 years, shredded. A food processor's shedder attachment is fondue's best friend.
2 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3/4 cup good dark stout
6 tablespoons frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 green onion, sliced on the bias
Prepare veggies by boiling/steaming/roasting etc.
Toss shredded cheese with flour in large bowl. Heat stout, juice, and mustard until steaming. Gradually add cheese mixture, stirring constantly, until cheese is melted and the flour has thickened the mixture. Scatter green onions on surface of cheese to break up that brown color. Put pot on hot pad in the middle of the table. Dip veg in cheese and eat.
After selecting some choice weisswurst and some really tasty little dried sausages, I moved on to the cheddar. They had a seven-year old reserve Irish cheddar, of which I grabbed a pound. The English clerk/butcher/proprietress bobbed about in a wonderful blonde blur of Englishness. I actually could smell the moment she sank her knife into the grim white block. She did wonder what the hell I was using a pound of the stuff for.
"I'm making cheddar-stout fondue, actually"
"Have you the stout?"
"Er, no. Do you have Guinness?"
She snorted a little bit, as I had just asked for a Steel Reserve. Apparently, I was in for a stern correction.
After a brief bustle across the store, she offered me a clay vessel covered in cruel-looking Cyrillic lettering. Heavy steel clamps held a rubber stopper against its unadorned neck, as if in containment of radiation or djinn. Whoever made this thing had not seen fit to put a single word of English on any part of it. This was what a bottle of beer looked like in Mordor.
"Why doncha try this one, love?"
"What the hell is it?", I asked.
"Oh, it's beer. It's very nice. Imperial Stout."
I was beginning to suffer from what is commonly called consumption overload, stunned by all the wonderful things that were going in my big box. I didn't really examine the decision to take ownership of the dire stout. Certainly it must be nice, coming from the nice English lady, I thought dazedly. As I left the premises they offered to grill me some sausages. I've selectively deleted from my memory exactly how much money I spent in there that day.
At my friend's house I started assembling the fondue. The group in the dining room could talk to me over the counter, and I could join in the conversation. I always liked those counter things between kitchen and dining room for exactly this reason. I cut some cheddar, sampled it. "Dear God in heaven," I said to no one in particular. It was overwhelming. The stuff had more cheddar flavor in it than the combined yearly output of all Cheetos plants in North America. Somewhere Chester Cheetah was tapping a vein in anticipation. I hoped that the apple juice concentrate would mute some of that, or else it would just be too much. Somewhat tentatively, I opened the stout and poured out the amount needed for the fondue. In the glass the black liquid appeared completely opaque.
"Is that Worcestershire sauce?", Steve asked.
"Er. No. It's supposedly beer," I said, looking dubious. I held it up to a powerful track light. It became no less opaque. "It's from Russia," I tried to explain. I'm no great beer fan but I decided to try a taste. Urk. There's a reason I don't like beer. I handed it off to Steve, who is a genuine aficionado.
"Malt, " he said. "Chocolate. Something berry like. Complex. Mnh. Very dark."
"Dark as Stalin's soul. Does anyone have a laser pointer?" I wanted to check just how opaque it was, or if the light beam bent in its presence, which did not seem out of the question.
"What's it called?"
"I have no earthly clue" I passed him the bottle. Steve cackled. For all we knew, that bottle of stout was unique. Perhaps it was. Perhaps we had released Stalin's soul, liquified, bottled by Kruschev, as it were, to be delivered into our cheesy pot. I put my ear to the simmering mixture to see if I could hear show trials.
The final product was a desperate land war in the middle of Asia, a trenchline five thousand miles long. "It's like the Eastern Front in my mouth", I remember saying. The stout and the cheddar were just barely at violent, genocidal stalemate, broken only by hints of flavor from the substance dipped into it. Even the spicy dried sausages submerged themselves in this epic conflict. They were even Hungarian sausages, which made the metaphor a bit eerie. We all agreed that it was delicious, but had quite enough after a half dozen bites.
I've replaced the dipping substances in this recipe with the ones I liked the best. It was originally served with dried sausage, black bread, cauliflower, and apples.
Cheddar-Stout Fondue
lots of cauliflower florets
lots of broccolli florets
1 pound very good cheddar, aged at least 3 years, shredded. A food processor's shedder attachment is fondue's best friend.
2 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3/4 cup good dark stout
6 tablespoons frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 green onion, sliced on the bias
Prepare veggies by boiling/steaming/roasting etc.
Toss shredded cheese with flour in large bowl. Heat stout, juice, and mustard until steaming. Gradually add cheese mixture, stirring constantly, until cheese is melted and the flour has thickened the mixture. Scatter green onions on surface of cheese to break up that brown color. Put pot on hot pad in the middle of the table. Dip veg in cheese and eat.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Provisioning the Lone Male: Lentil Pots
The wife is out for a week and it is time to cook. It's always time to cook, though, because I have chosen the role of cook in our household, but when the wife is not around the rules of the kitchen change significantly. This is primarily because the sink can only hold so many dirty dishes. It's a common design flaw of modern kitchens. Also, cooking for myself, I don't particularly care how balanced the dish is, whether it looks nice, or if I made it already this week. All that fru-fru goes right out the window. It has to taste OK, go together without too much thought, and by-and-large go by a few simple rules:
1) Will it make me a fat bastard? More to the point, will it make me more of a fat bastard than I already am? Since I lift big metal things recreationally, I should take in approximately 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. I'll aim for seventy grams per meal. The meal should also avoid crap carbs like potatoes and rice, and crap fats like shortening and margarine. It shouldn't have too much of either fats or carbs, no matter how high-quality, and preferably not too much of both at the same time. A lot of both at the same time is also known as a biscuit, or as I fondly call them, obesity tablets.
2) Can it be prepared and eaten using one item of cookware? Preferably a piece of cookware that is also simple to eat out of? This is to avoid covering every horizontal surface with dirty dishes that have to be maniacally cleaned in the last two hours before said wife's return. In the heat of the moment, I had once considered renting a pressure washer for this, but I know that if I did, the temptation would be too great to turn its formidable nozzle on every other soiled surface in the house: toilets, bathtub, litterbox, linens, etc. The results would take some explaining, a lot of flowers, possibly a lawyer and body armor.
3) Does it cost more than gas? I spend about five bucks a day on my commute, so that rules might not go for people that, say, bike.
Once you say "no" to all these questions, one of the perfect foods left is lentils. Fast cooking, tasty, macronutrients evenly split between protein, fiber, and carbs, there's nothing they can't do. We won't be seeing a lot of that today. Sorry to be such a tease. If you want to see saged lentil burgers on homemade brioche with chiles and chevre, you'll have to wait a bit. It's a good dish but it's not what we're after right now. For today, if you want to see cheap and easy lentil pots, you're set.
Sausage and Lentil Pot
½ package Jenny-O turkey breakfast sausage, diced.
½ cup lentils
1 onion, chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp sage
1 tsp cumin
1 cup broth, bouillon, or other seasoned liquid
1 tablespoon olive oil
A word about the turkey sausage. Jenny-O turkey sausage comes in tubes from Wal-mart for something like a buck fifty a pound. It’s easier to dice it while frozen. Wal-Mart has a random selection of ground turkey products that are usually pretty good, including this "italian flavor ground turkey product" that's pretty good and is a buck a pound. Strangely, the "italian flavor ground turkey product" is incredibly fiery- I mean thai hot- while the "mexican flavor ground turkey product" is fairly mild (and also tasy and, like its italian cousin, also a buck a pount, but totally unsuited to this recipe).
Brown the sausage in the olive oil until brown. Add onions, cook until translucent. Add everything else. Cover tightly, cook on low heat for an hour. Eat out of pot while reading Garth Ennis' Preacher.
Chicken and Lentil Pot
½ cup lentils
1 onion, chopped
1 chicken breast or chicken parts (approximately 14 oz)
1 tablespoon garam masala or other curry powder
1 carrot, chopped
1 cup cauliflower, chopped. Frozen is OK
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup broth, bouillon, or other seasoned liquid
1 tablespoon ghee or butter
Melt ghee in pot. Brown chicken in butter. It's OK if it's frozen. You just want the flavors from the browning, and the chicken will cook through while the lentils are cooking. Add onions and carrots, cook until onions are translucent. Add everything else. Cover and cook on low heat for 1 hour. Eat out of pot over Grant Morrison's Invisibles.
1) Will it make me a fat bastard? More to the point, will it make me more of a fat bastard than I already am? Since I lift big metal things recreationally, I should take in approximately 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. I'll aim for seventy grams per meal. The meal should also avoid crap carbs like potatoes and rice, and crap fats like shortening and margarine. It shouldn't have too much of either fats or carbs, no matter how high-quality, and preferably not too much of both at the same time. A lot of both at the same time is also known as a biscuit, or as I fondly call them, obesity tablets.
2) Can it be prepared and eaten using one item of cookware? Preferably a piece of cookware that is also simple to eat out of? This is to avoid covering every horizontal surface with dirty dishes that have to be maniacally cleaned in the last two hours before said wife's return. In the heat of the moment, I had once considered renting a pressure washer for this, but I know that if I did, the temptation would be too great to turn its formidable nozzle on every other soiled surface in the house: toilets, bathtub, litterbox, linens, etc. The results would take some explaining, a lot of flowers, possibly a lawyer and body armor.
3) Does it cost more than gas? I spend about five bucks a day on my commute, so that rules might not go for people that, say, bike.
Once you say "no" to all these questions, one of the perfect foods left is lentils. Fast cooking, tasty, macronutrients evenly split between protein, fiber, and carbs, there's nothing they can't do. We won't be seeing a lot of that today. Sorry to be such a tease. If you want to see saged lentil burgers on homemade brioche with chiles and chevre, you'll have to wait a bit. It's a good dish but it's not what we're after right now. For today, if you want to see cheap and easy lentil pots, you're set.
Sausage and Lentil Pot
½ package Jenny-O turkey breakfast sausage, diced.
½ cup lentils
1 onion, chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp sage
1 tsp cumin
1 cup broth, bouillon, or other seasoned liquid
1 tablespoon olive oil
A word about the turkey sausage. Jenny-O turkey sausage comes in tubes from Wal-mart for something like a buck fifty a pound. It’s easier to dice it while frozen. Wal-Mart has a random selection of ground turkey products that are usually pretty good, including this "italian flavor ground turkey product" that's pretty good and is a buck a pound. Strangely, the "italian flavor ground turkey product" is incredibly fiery- I mean thai hot- while the "mexican flavor ground turkey product" is fairly mild (and also tasy and, like its italian cousin, also a buck a pount, but totally unsuited to this recipe).
Brown the sausage in the olive oil until brown. Add onions, cook until translucent. Add everything else. Cover tightly, cook on low heat for an hour. Eat out of pot while reading Garth Ennis' Preacher.
Chicken and Lentil Pot
½ cup lentils
1 onion, chopped
1 chicken breast or chicken parts (approximately 14 oz)
1 tablespoon garam masala or other curry powder
1 carrot, chopped
1 cup cauliflower, chopped. Frozen is OK
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup broth, bouillon, or other seasoned liquid
1 tablespoon ghee or butter
Melt ghee in pot. Brown chicken in butter. It's OK if it's frozen. You just want the flavors from the browning, and the chicken will cook through while the lentils are cooking. Add onions and carrots, cook until onions are translucent. Add everything else. Cover and cook on low heat for 1 hour. Eat out of pot over Grant Morrison's Invisibles.
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