SpiceHound cooks (and brews)

Cottage Pie (featuring root veggies)

2012-01-25T12:01:00.003-05:00

What is a cottage pie? When I demoed this at the market I watched peoples eyes light up when I said "pie" only to turn to confusion and horror when I listed the ingredients, "Beef, turnips...". "Beef? Turnips? Carrots? That's not pie! After a moment of contemplation, some said "You mean shepherds pie". Nope I mean "cottage pie". Shepherds pie is made with lamb and ONLY LAMB! (O.K... maybe mutton.) That's my story, and until someone alerts me to the existence of the secret society of bovine shepherds, I'm stickin' to it. Cottage pie, on the other hand, is most often made with beef, although venison, chicken, turkey, cuy, or any other meat is acceptable.

Why all the roots? In a continuing effort to eat make local foods a larger part of our diets we often find ourselves in a bit of a pinch this time of year. I tend to push the limit as far as being a locavore but still struggle to keep my local food intake above 50% during these long Cleveland winters. Many cottage pie recipes call for peas and/or corn but since peas and corn aren't in my vocabulary in January I thought amping up the root veggie portion of the traditional recipe would be a great way to honor some of the root veggies that many of us have become bored with by now. How many root veggies can you get away with? My version is 75% roots to 25% meat and that's BEFORE the potato topping. It got rave reviews.

Which roots? For me, it wouldn't feel right to not use carrots and turnips, so those, along with onion (of course), are a perfect start. You could stop there but I prefer the use of other aromats such as garlic and celery (o.k, not a root, but if you have celery root, use it) and, as I perused the market, sun chokes, (A.K.A Jerusalem artichokes) caught my eye as did sweet potatoes. Both really perked this recipe up.

My food processor gets little use in my kitchen but it is perfect for mincing all the veggies together. I don't play favorites here. Then all go in together and get processed to a very fine mince. Feel free to go at 'em with a knife or box grater if you like and leave them coarser if you prefer. There are no rules here.

Next you need to saute the veggies in butter. (Use oil if you like, but it wont taste as good. Bacon drippin's, lard or tallow? I'll love you even more.) The goal here isn't necessarily to brown them but to reduce them and concentrate flavors. Take your time, a little brown wont hurt at all and be sure season with salt, pepper and your herb of choice. Rosemary or thyme are common. I preferred to use savory. Worcestershire sauce is an excellent addition here also. There are no rules here either.

Remove the finished veggies from the pan and brown your meat of choice. Here brown means brown. Not grey stuff boiling in it's own juices. Keep cooking 'til the liquids evaporate and the meat turns...you guessed it...BROWN! You want the relatively small amount of meat to have big flavor and proper browning is the way to do this. While my version of this recipe doesn't necessarily call for stock, it, as well as beer or wine, to deglaze the pan couldn't hurt. Otherwise, a little water in the pan to get the crunchy brown goodness out will work just fine. Combine your meat with your veggie mixture and taste it. It should be delicious.

Next the potatoes. Cook them. How doesn't matter, bake, boil, steam and this is a good time to use up leftover mashers if you happen have them. I tend to boil them and run them through a food mill and prep them like standard mashed potatoes. (That means cream, butter and salt. They are NOT real mashed potatoes without those three ingredients... but I digress) Prep your potatoes any way you like. Smooth or chunky, Real mashers or just loosened up with some stock, or milk, or whatever. As long as they taste good and are spreadable, they will work. Sweet potatoes for the topping? Winter squash hanging around bored? All or part? Why not. Rules? None.

Assemblage: Spread the meat/veggie mixture in a baking dish of some sort and spread your potato mixture on top. This can be tricky only because the spreading the potatoes may stir up the bottom mixture. Take a lesson from those who frost cakes. Do a skim coat over the meat and veggies first and then go back and do your final coat. This will make it much easier to get two distinct layers without just mushing everything together. Bake it at 350º or so 'til the top is browned. Doting it with butter first will make it brown nicer if you like.

This is easy and very flexible dish that can feed lots of people on only a few bucks and tastes even better as leftovers. You can't ask for much more than that from a locally-sourced meal in the middle of the winter.

Thai-ish crawfish cakes w/ banana bread crumbs

2010-01-28T18:43:00.005-05:00

Why have so many people forgotten what bread crumbs are all about? We seem to live in a world where people throw out stale bread but head to the store to buy bread crumbs in a can or worse yet "seasoned" bread crumbs in a can. Not using stale bread is a waste and missed opportunity and I would include in that category crackers, cake, cookies, chips of all kinds (potato and tortilla especially) donuts (I made awesome apple fritters using dehydrated day-old glazed donuts) and all other types of flour based goods.

A while back I found myself with an aging loaf of banana bread, and being the cheap fucker that I am, I needed to find a use for it. I broke it up and threw it in the oven to dehydrate it. It didn't take long to come up with something. How could crab cakes, Thai-style, with banana bread crumbs be bad. They weren't. I fact they were fantastic.

Having found myself with an abundance of banana bread once again, I decided to recreate that recipe...well kinda'. I didn't have any crab meat but I did have some frozen crawfish tail meat. I also didn't have any homemade curry paste in the freezer (See my post about homemade curry pastes here) so I needed to make a quick simple one. Certainly you could buy a canned one. They work well but if you're fortunate enough to have access to galagal, lemon grass and lime leaves, you can make a nice one at home. I made one with those ingredients along with, dried arbol chiles, garlic, green onions, cumin, coriander and fish sauce pureed with water in the blender. Is it any traditional style? No. Does it taste good? Yes and it only took 5 minutes to prepare.

The rest is also simple. Mix your crawfish meat (or crab meat or shrimp or any other seafood type thing) with the dried and ground banana bread crumbs, your curry paste, an egg and anything else you want. Mix it all together and form it into patties. Now cover those babies in panko. I know, how can I possibly rant about store bought bread crumbs and then suggest panko? Panko rules! They're unique and there isn't really a replacement for them. Now just fry them up. you can refrigerate them to firm them up first if your afraid they will break up in the pan.

Hopefully, next time you find yourself with some stale, overcooked or aging baked goods you wont just throw them away but instead let them guide your creativity.

Pepperpot

2010-01-07T09:48:00.004-05:00

The dregs from the pot on day eight.

In this paranoid "Your whole family is going to curl up and die if you leave the potato salad on the picnic table for more than thirty minutes" world we live in it's nice to remind yourself that people successfully survived without refrigeration quite well. So well, in fact, that there are way too many of us dragging our knuckles around the planet. This little experiment that I conducted on myself a few months ago is a good example of just that.

Admittedly, since pepperpot contains cassareep as a preservative, it's not quite the same as "mayo in the sun" but I'm sure the idea of eating the pot of meat you left on your stove for over a week would have your local sanitarian throwing a frenzied shit-fit also.

Pepperpot is not much more than a meat/offal stew with the one notable ingredient, cassareep. Cassareep is the juice from the cassava root cooked down with spices long enough to drive off the hydrogen cyanide and turn it into thick, rich, black, syrupy, bitter-sweet, molassesy goodness. A damn little miracle by it's self. You should be able to find it at any Caribbean food store.

My version was simple. I boiled a couple of pig trotters, skimmed off the scum and added cubed beef, allspice, cloves, cinnamon stick, cinnamon leaf (I don't know but they were at the same Caribbean store so why not?), a habanero chile from the garden, thyme, bay leaves, onion, garlic, cassareep and quite possibly some other shit. I cooked this until everything was tender and then checked for salt. Since many people shy away from bitter notes some people consider adding a bit of sugar. We had this for dinner over rice.

Nearly all references suggest that the flavor will improve over a period of days as long as you don't refrigerate it. There are stories about pots being kept going for over 100 years with new additions of meat and other ingredients being added to the dregs from the previous days. There appear to be two theories on preserving this. One is to add cassareep every day to restore its preservation ability. The other is to just bring it to a boil every day. Since I couldn't imagine that it would taste all that good with multiple additions of the stuff, I chose to bring it to a boil each day. The exception to this "boil a day" routine came on day four when I brewed beer and forgot to boil the pot. Not only did it NOT get reboiled for 48 hours, it also sat on the stove with gallons and gallons of boiling water and wort for 6 or so of those hours. Instead of the 70+ degrees it normally spent it's down time at, it probably was closer to 100+ degrees for that time period. Still the experiment continued.

Day one it tasted pretty good but I think I peaked in flavor by day three. I forgot about it on day four but, admittedly a bit reluctantly, tasted it again on day five. At this point it still tasted good but the texture of the meat was beginning to suffer and the meat was also beginning to taste cooked-out rather than rich and flavorful. I let the stuff sit for a few more days, still boiling it, while contemplating whether or not to eat the last serving. Day eight came and I decided to not be a pussy so I heated it again and ate it. It didn't taste spoiled but it didn't taste all that good either.

I'm happy to report that I suffered no ill effects at all from this experiment. I recommend that you not only seek out cassareep and make your own version of this but that you leave it out and eat it on day three. Without adding fresh meats and rebuilding it, there is no sense in storing it longer than that.

Oh, and by the way, the leftovers you brought home from the restaurant last week are fine to eat as is the pot of soup you forgot to put in the fridge last night. Oh, and so is the block of cheese that you left out the day before yesterday. And while were at it, the pork roast that's still a little pink in the middle? It's fine also. Relax people. Rant over.

Chorizo is your friend

2009-08-21T17:31:00.009-04:00

Here is a quick, simple recipe for a "flavor-bomb" sausage. It only takes a few minutes and is perfect for stuffing all kinds of veggies this time of year.

1/3rd cup chile powder (Today I used ancho but use whatever you like and of course, using whole chiles, soaking and pureeing is preferable but not as quick)

1 head of garlic, coarsely chopped (grate it on a box grater if the cloves are large enough)

1 Tbsp. freshly ground coriander seed (cumin would be more common)

1 tsp. dried Mexican oregano

1 Tbsp. Kosher salt (or equivalent amount of your favorite salt)

1 Tbsp. cider vinegar (or more to taste. It should have a bit of a twang)

1 Tbsp. brown sugar, give or take (to offset the bitterness from the large amount of chile)

A little water to mix to a loose-paste consistency

Mix into

1 lb. good coarsely ground pork (And yes, grinding it yourself is better)

Today I mixed the cooked sausage with some cheese curds and inky-binky tiny red potatoes and stuffed it into some small poblano chiles. I then heated them over a low flame in a small amount of freshly made tomato puree.

And after a little mozzarella is melted on top.

Enjoy.

Homemade masa for tamales

2009-06-04T15:19:00.000-04:00

I love tamales. I've been making them for years relying on my now defunct local tortilla factory for fresh masa. Sure, I've made them with Maseca, and you can make a passable version with that stuff but the result will likely be a passable corn batter with (hopefully) a great filling. The problem is, a great tamal is about corn. The masa should be exquisite with the filling being more of a garnish or a bonus. To have an awesome masa batter you need great fresh masa and even if you have access to a tortilla factory, you can do much better by making it yourself. As it turns out this is pretty easy and wont add to much time to what is usually a pretty involved tamale making day.

Aside from the normal tamal batter ingredients (fat, stock and salt), you will need need only two things, Cal or calcium hydroxide which you can find at most Latin grocery stores (or from me) and some sort of dried field corn. The first time I attempted this I used field corn grown by a local farmer for animal feed. It worked great but needed alot of cleaning before I could use it. A couple of weeks later I found myself with a little time to try again and had an idea. Almost everybody has dried corn in their house in the form of popcorn! I look forward to trying many different blue, red and other various heirloom maize varieties in the future but I highly recommend popcorn as an always-available alternative.

To turn your popcorn into nixtamal all you need to do is boil it with the cal (a generous tablespoon per pound should be fine) for 15 minutes and let it rest for an hour or more, even up to a day. After resting it needs to be rinsed thoroughly. Put it in a colander under cold running water and rinse it, rubbing it together to remove as much of the softened hulls as possible. In a perfect world you would end up with perfectly white and completely hull-less corn. I have yet to achieve this and don't consider it necessary for a great tamale batter. Then you'll need to grind your nixtamal in a blender or food processor. The food processor will not give you as fine a grind but will get you a stiffer batter, closer to what most of us are used to using. The blender will give a much finer grind but will require more liquid (hopefully good homemade stock) to keep it moving through the blades. I've done it both ways and have had slightly better results from the blender version even though the thinner batter can be a bit messy to work with during assembly. Either way, don't be concerned about the gritty texture. Once they are steamed you will end up with a completely un-gritty result.

Standard procedure would have you beat your fat (hopefully real, fresh rendered pork lard) with salt and maybe some baking powder to aerate it which will ensure a good rise during steaming and therefor a light texture. That's fine but I've had great results from adding cold fat to the machine for a few seconds once the mixture is ground as fine as you can get it. Feel free to experiment. As always, make sure it's seasoned well and tastes great.

Fillings can be anything you want. The one pictured above was filled with some leftover achiote-braise pork shoulder but anything delicious will do and a small amount of leftovers can be turned into a feast.
As far as filling, folding and steaming, Rick Bayless can explain it better than anyone so I'll leave that to him.

Now go make some tamales.

A couple of new books you should own

2009-04-30T12:21:00.007-04:00

I know, I know. I've been slackin' on posting again. I'm very busy this time of year trying to pull the market together for another season. I do have a couple of things worth posting that I hope to get to soon. Here's a hint.

I do want to mention o a couple of new books I'm excited about.

The first one is Ruhlman's new book, "Ratio". I can put him at the top of the list of people I can blame my ever increasing cooking obsession on. He's the reason I make all of the bacon I eat from scratch and now he's responsible for my recent bread-making compulsion. I have tried many times to make even a passable loaf of homemade bread but after reading the first chapter of Ratio, I made some pretty nice baguettes. The next day I went out and bought a 50# bag of flour and haven't stopped baking since, with very good results. This book belongs in everyone's often neglected reference section of their recipe book collection along side Ruhlmans "Elements of cooking", Ruhlman's "Charcuterie", McGee's "On food and cooking", Corriher's "CookWise" ect.

The other book I'm looking forward to picking up is the latest version of Cleveland Ethnic Eats. I first ran into this book in the late "90's at a time when the wife and I were searching every corner of Cleveland looking for the unusual ingredients we needed to fuel our new found passion for ethnic cooking. It rode around in the car with us for years and not only helped us find ingredients, but also to find the ethnic restaurants and festivals that were our inspiration. These little stores eventually became the first suppliers for a spice stand that I started at an old farmers market in my neighborhood which lead to my rewarding (although not financially so) career as a part time spice vendor and full time volunteer at the Coit Rd. Farmers Market. If you live, or spend any time, in or around Cleveland, (and require the consumption of food for your survival) you should own this book.

Homemade goatmilk ricotta

2009-03-25T12:30:00.003-04:00

The first time I made ricotta was about a year and a half ago. I began buying goat cheese from Lake Erie Creamery and asked about getting some whey to make ricotta. I was told that it can't be made from an acid precipitated whey because there are no solids left after the process of making chevre. Even though everything I read said the same thing, I decided to try anyhow. After heating four gallons of the whey I did get about a pound of very tangy cheese. While it was certainly not real ricotta it was usable and I made a zucchini casserole that took into account it's tart, lactic quality. Why mention this? Well, if you have access to whey from an acid precipitated goat cheese, don't write off the possibility of making a ricotta-type cheese from it. If you're clever, you will be able to come up with a recipe that will benefit from a tangy soft cheese.

Since then, Lake Erie Creamery have begun making several other cheeses including a French feta and the award-winning Blomma. I requested whey from a rennet-precipitated cheese and received nine gallons from a Caerphilly they are currently working on.

I did a search on making homemade ricotta and the first problem that I had with the results was that the over-whelming majority begin with or include milk. This ignores the spirit behind ricotta which is to take advantage of a by-product, whey. So for starters, no milk. The second variable was whether or not it would require the addition of an acid to increase yield or coagulate at all. After all, ricotta is supposed to be an heat AND acid precipitated cheese. I thought it would be smart to split the whey and try it both ways.

The first batch was the simple version. All We did was heat 4 1/2 gallons of the whey to 200 degrees and large chunks of curd began to form immediately. We scooped the clumps into a strainer lined with cheesecloth and then gently spooned the rest of the liquid through. After a half hour or 45 min. we had a pound and a half of delicious cheese. Definitely easy enough to make homemade ricotta on a regular basis.

The second batch would have an acid added. There were several quantities and types of acid suggested including one that suggested as much as 1/4 cup for two gallons of whey. That sounded like an awful lot of acid so I decided on a modest two tablespoons of lemon juice expecting that if the flavor came through (which it did), it would be more pleasant than vinegar. We heated the 4 1/2 gallons of whey to 200 degrees and added the lemon juice. We saw nothing. None of the big clumps that so easily formed without the acid. I even called Mariann at the creamery to make sure the whey in each bucket was exactly the same. She confirmed that it was. Since there was some very fine particles in the pot we decided to strain it anyhow. The fine particles nearly completely clogged the cheesecloth but it continued draining very slowly. After several hours (during which we reheated the spent whey from batch one and added 1/4 cup of vinegar to see if we could squeeze any more curd from it. Nope.), we finally got the last of the liquid in the strainer but it would take all night until it drained to approximately the same moisture level as the first batch.

The results were surprising. Two distinctly different cheeses. The first one had a texture similar to standard supermarket stuff but with a far superior flavor along with just a hint of "goatiness". The second batch, much to our surprise, did have a slightly better yield, about 1 5/8 lb and an amazing soft, fine cream cheese like texture with a hint of lemon. Both were awesome in their own way.

Batch one became part of a cannelloni dish. I seasoned the cheese modestly with salt, white pepper, a dash of nutmeg and a little mixed Italian seasoning. I rolled the mixture in some squares of fresh pasta that I made and fit them into a baking dish. I topped them with a simple sun-dried tomato sauce I made by sauteing in olive oil, garlic, onion and minced sun-dried tomatoes (or more correctly "oven-dried tomatoes" that I dried last fall and packed with olive oil in mason jars) and adding some heavy cream. The wife and I must have sound ridiculous as we moaned our way through this meal. It was awesome.

Batch two was seasoned with some sugar, vanilla and a tiny pinch of salt and rolled into some homemade crepes and topped with some black raspberry jam that we heated until it melted into a sauce. These we ate for breakfast and, needless to say, they were great.

As good as batch two was, it was no fun to strain. I will do it again, primarily to see if I get similar results with a different batch of whey (the real variable) but I can't see doing it regularly unless I come up with a more efficient straining process. On the other hand, batch one was so good and so easy that I expect this to be how I get all of the ricotta I use in the future. It was a simple and low impact process. It took maybe an hour and a half and and half of that was spent bringing it up to temp. The half hour or 45 min. strain and drain was well worth the pound and a half of excellent (and free) cheese. If you have access to whey I highly recommend that you intercept some before it all goes to feed these hogs.

Some beer recipes

2009-03-04T11:39:00.000-05:00

I recently threw my semi-annual beer bash and since I've found it hard to post about my beer and brewing I thought this was the right time to talk a little about it. I had six beers on tap and I cooked up a menu that included each of them in a recipe, something I hadn't done before. Unfortunately, I didn't take the time to shoot many photos but here are some details:

On tap no.1 I had a Belgian wit, not just any wit but without a doubt the best one I ever brewed. My opinion of this beer was backed up by the fact that it was the first keg emptied at the party. This is the first time a wit has beaten out both my pale ale and my IPA for this distinction. Here's the recipe.

Mash: 1.5 gal. per pound at 65 degrees centigrade for 90 min.
5 1/4 lb. Durst Pilz malt (Yes, it's German but I couldn't get the Dingemans pilz I prefer)
5 1/4 lb. raw red winter wheat (I'm a big believer in using the traditional raw wheat in these beers)
1 ml. lactic acid
Sparge: 4.5 gal w/ 1 ml lactic acid at 100 degrees centigrade for 90 min. (Yes, I sparge hot but as long as the grain bed doesn't increase above 75˚ you will be ok)
Boil: 75 min.
1 ml. Hopshot 60 min. (Hopshot is a hop extract I've been experimenting with, 1 ml= about 10 IBU's or substitute 3.5 or so AAU's of your favorite noble hops)
.75 oz. whole coriander seed (steeped for 45 min. after boil)
.5 oz. bitter orange peel (steeped for 45 min. after boil)
Pitch: White Labs 400 Belgian Wit yeast tube and aerate or oxygenate well.

O.G. 13 F.G. 3.2 A.B.V 5.3%

With this beer I made unconventional Belgian carbonade. Traditionally, cabonades are a beef and onion stew made with an Oud bruin (old brown), A slightly sour/malty Belgian beer. I used this wit and echoed the flavors by adding some ground coriander and giving it it's sweet and sour notes with cider vinegar and an orange/apricot fruit spread added at the end.

On tap no.2 I had a Belgian tripel brewed with 1 1/2 lbs. of local honey. These can be dangerous beers to put out at a party because they are both potent and deceptively easy drinking. As a warning to the uninitiated I named this one "Tripel Fukt" complete with a blue silicone phallus as a tap handle.

Mash: 1.25 gal. per pound at 68˚ centigrade for 90 min.
11.5 lbs. Durst pilz malt
.5 lb. Breiss dextrine malt
1 ml. lactic acid (the lactic acid in both of these recipes adds just enough acidity to help avoid having them end up "floppy" of cloying because they are not very bitter beers)
Sparge: 6.25 gal. at 100˚ for 90 min. (long sparges will give you better yields)
Boil: 90 min.
7 AAU's whole Sterling hops 30 min.
1 1/2 lbs. honey added at the end of the boil
Pitch: White Labs 500 Trappist ale yeast (This is a strong yeast but you should make a starter. I used the slurry from a Dubbel I had previously brewed) Oxygenate well!

O.G. 20.2 F.G. 3.1 A.B.V. 9.5%

This beer was used in both a chicken waterzooi stew and some beer braised meatballs.

On tap no.3 was an English-ish IPA. I used all English hops but I hopped it aggressively enough to give an American "over the top" vibe. This was the second keg to be emptied that night.

Mash: 1.25:1 at 66˚ for 90 min.
10 lbs. Maris-Otter malt
1 lb. Dingemans caravien malt
1/2 lb. Dingemans Biscuit malt
1/2 lb. Breiss 20L crystal malt
Sparge: 5 gal. at 100˚ for 90 min.
Boil: 90 min.
31 AAU's Millenium pellets FWH (First Wort Hop = added to runoff at the start of the sparge)
1 oz. Kent Golding pellets 13 min.
1 oz. Willamette leaf 6 min.
Pitch: White Labs 001 (starter or slurry from previous batch)

O.G. 17.2 F.G. 3.6 A.B.V. 7.5%

This one was used in a beer-cheese ball. Amish Cheddar and Colby with cream cheese, "worst chest hair" sauce, IPA and brown mustard seed pureed in the food processor.

On tap no.4 I had a mistake that I called a "burnt brown ale". The recipe is a variation of my robust porter recipe that didn't ferment down far enough to be a porter but ended up as a nice, if not overly roasty, brown ale.

Mash: 1.25:1 at 68˚ for 90 min.
8 lbs. Maris-Otter malt
1/2 lb. Breiss 90L crystal malt (So you know, my real porter recipe would use Breiss Victory malt in this malts place)
1/2 lb. Dingeman's special B malt
1/2 lb. Chocolate malt
1/2 lb. Black malt
Sparge: 6 gal. at 100˚
Boil: 90 min.
5 ml. Hopshot 60 min.
Pitch: White Labs 005 (I usually use 001 for the porter)

O.G. 15.6 F.G. 5.7! A.B.V. 5.4%

This beer was used in Welsh rarebit. Butter, flour, beer and Cheddar cheese.

Tap no.5 was my Imperial Oatmeal Stout. I make this beer once a year and it's always great. I'm fortunate to still have some left after the party. It's a big rich "meal in a glass" kind of beer so it's hard to drink too much in one sitting.

Mash: 1.1:1 at 66˚ for 90 min.
8 lbs. Otter malt
2 lbs. Quick oats (Quick oats are pre-gelatinized so they'll convert without having to do a separate cereal-mash)
1 lb. 90L crystal malt
1 lb. chocolate malt
1 lb. roasted barley
1/2 lb. 40L crystal malt
1/2 lb. dextrine malt
Sparge: 5 gal. at 100˚ for two hours
Boil: 2 hrs.
7.9 AAU's Cluster pellets 90 min.
Pitch: 005 (slurry from porter)

O.G. 20 F.G. 6 A.B.V. 7.9%

This beer was used in a stout-malt cheesecake fondue dessert type thing. I thought it was great but I think it showcased the beer too much for some people. It would have been too easy to add chocolate and leave the beer as a backround flavor. It was basically 3 cups of heavy cream, 8 oz. cream cheese, 1/2 lb. dry light malt extract and around a cup or so of the stout. I should have added some vanilla. This was served in one of those cheesy (pun intended) fondue fountains that you find at discount stores.

The fountain the morning after. MMMMMMM.

The last beer was a simple pale ale (although it was the third keg to die that night). I served it strait out of the keg since I only have 5 taps on my fridge inside. (I have 3 more outside on the garage but it was too cold to use them). While a good utilitarian ale, it's not interesting enough to worry about posting the recipe. I used it in my first, and very successful, shepherds pie.
I ground lamb and fatty beef (trimmings from the brisket that I used in the carbonade) and cooked it down with minced carrots and onions. I added some beer, "worst chest hair" sauce, salt and pepper and spread it evenly over a full sheet pan. The hard part was spreading a layer of mashed potatoes over the meat but once I succeeded in that it was a great way to heat and serve it.

Before potato spreading.

After spreading.

After being eaten (you'll notice the lack of a proper "done" shot).

And the brewers morning-after treat?

Some of the almost 100 pieces of glassware I got to hand-wash.

I'll be doing a ricotta cheese making experiment tomorrow and I'm overdue on a post about my recent experiences making fresh masa from scratch at home. I appreciate the patience of you who like to read the shit I post. Thanks.

Winter salsa

2009-02-09T09:19:00.000-05:00

We're months away from fresh local tomatoes, cilantro and chiles so here's a winter-friendly salsa that still incorporates some fresh local ingredients. O.K., can you really call the tomatillos "fresh" if they were picked almost 4 months ago? I'm going to.

The humble tomatillo is often under appreciated. They are very easy to grow and you only need to plant them once and they will provide volunteer plants every year. They also have the amazing ability to keep for months. This pile is the last two pounds that I picked at the end of October and stored in a bowl on my kitchen counter ever since. Eighty percent of the two pounds was still in great condition. No refrigeration or processing was necessary and I get to enjoy cooking from my garden one more time while I wait for spring.

All you need to make a great tomatillo-chipotle salsa is some garlic (the other local ingredient), chipotle morita chiles, piloncillo sugar and salt.

This is pretty much a typical version of a traditional Mexican salsa with one exception. It's aggressively sweetened with piloncillo sugar. Most recipes I've read use little if any sugar but I love the smoky spicy sweet balance in this version. The other thing that makes this unique for me is that I can actually provide a precise recipe. I used to make this salsa to sell at the market so I took the time to refine the recipe so I could duplicate it every week. Keep in mind the all of the weights are for the ingredients after processing.

1 Lb. roasted tomatillos (husks removed of course). I like to roast them on the grill but in the broiler or in a dry skillet on the stove top is fine. You will loose about 25% of the weight during roasting so buy 35% more so you will have the right amount.

4 1/2 oz. roasted garlic. Roasting in a dry skillet, skin on would be traditional but use whatever method you prefer.

2 1/4 oz. stemmed and seeded chipotle morita chiles soaked in as little hot tap water as you can get away with and still rehydrate them.

3 oz. piloncillo sugar. Brown sugar also works.

1/2 oz. salt

Puree all of the ingredients except the tomatillos until completely smooth and then add the tomatillos pulse them until you get whatever consistency you prefer.

You can, of course, alter the amounts of any of the ingredients to suit your own taste but remember that this is a hot salsa and should be a showcase for the real flavor of the often misrepresented chipotle chile so if you're concerned about the heat, this salsa isn't for you. Mixing it 50/50 with sour cream make a great dip and cuts the heat quite a bit. It also works well as a seasoning paste or use it to braise a pork shoulder. Or just fry up some thick, enchilada-style corn tortillas and eat it as a snack.

Deliciousness: The shit I didn't post this year

2008-12-31T18:31:00.000-05:00

Popovers are easy. These were served with a simple ramp-butter sauce. Easily one of the top ten best-tasting things I made this year.

Rotisserie duck, a no-brainer, with a couple of oranges, in the cavity, with the spit right through them.

Leftover duck? How about tostadas.

I did a lot of ribs this year. Don't forget to make a bbq sauce with whatever fruit is in season at the time. Tomatoes are great but you can be more creative than that.

Calzone type things. In my opinion they are easier to turn out a great result than pizza and a great use for leftovers. I don't remember what's inside these.

Mmmm, morels. Enough said.

Kung pow octopus.

Once in a while, my friend and fellow Coit Rd. Farmers Market board member, Tony do something we call "meat day". He brings over some huge cut of meat and we spend our Saturday afternoon after market cutting it up and cooking it any way we can think of while drinking excessively. Good quality experimenting time. I think this time we were playing with Thai spices, herbs and stuff.

Fun stuff!

Grilled toms. About to be a great summer sauce.

I love these frozen New Zealand greenshell mussels. They make an easy quick meal topped with whatever you have around. (Top) Grilled with annatto oil and asparagus. (Bottom) from the oven with sesame oil, wasabi and pickled ginger.

Some meatloaf I made at the market. I have no idea what was in this.

Some pasta thing with both a nutmeggy bechamel sauce and a cinnamonny tomato sauce. This thing was delicious.

Fried potato skins stuffed with spaghetti squash that was tossed with red pepper puree and topped with cheese.

Shrimp and andouille sausage meatball gumbo. This was eaten outside with friends while a hurricane (Ike, I think) actually made it's way through Cleveland. Our food blew off our plates and branches fell around us from my 100+ year old maple tree while we ate. This was dangerous but probably the most fun meal of the year.

This pizza may have been the most delicious thing I made this year. It was one of those times when the result was so much better than the sum of the parts. I topped it with stuff I just happened to have around from other cooking experiments, an aji-orange sauce (aji amarillo chiles, cumin seed toasted and freshly ground, granulated garlic, mandarin orange slices in light syrup and heavy cream cooked down and pureed), some pre cooked sweet longaniza sausage and, after it came out of the oven, a cilantro-hazelnut pesto (cilantro, hazelnuts, garlic, locatelli, olive oil and gray salt), which my wife still reminds me "looks like a bird shit on the pizza". The bread machine made a great dough and the pizza stone was screamin' hot. I haven't even tried to duplicate this one, I don't want to be disappointed.

Thanks to all of those who took the time to read this crap this year. I'll try to be better at responding to peoples comments and while I'm at it, I'll try to take better pictures and learn how to use the blog well enough to add the blogs I follow and all of that other stuff the rest of you have already figured out. Peace.

The pit revisited: lamb

2008-12-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

For our second pit-roasting experiment, we decided to do a lamb for Thanksgiving. Since local lambs were not available this time of year we headed to the restaurant store to pick up a 25 lb. frozen Australian lamb.

We seasoned it by inserting dozens of whole cloves of garlic into slots we cut all over the animal. We intended to stuff the cavity with lots of fresh rosemary but the store was out of it. Instead, we decided to make a rosemary infused olive oil. I took a cup and a half of olive oil and slowly heated it and an ounce of dried rosemary to about 200 degrees and let it rest for a few hours and strained it. Using a brine pump, we injected the oil into all of the thickest parts of the animal.

We rubbed the whole thing down with salt and pepper and tucked the hind legs up into the body before wrapping it in a single layer of banana leaves. Following my own suggestion from our first pit-roasting experience, we also started with much more coals and burned the pit for three full hours to preheat it.

As you can see, we had 16" or more of coals. We mounded them up on both sides to make room for the lamb. We could smell the banana leave smoking a soon as we placed it in the pit so we quickly covered it with the steel lid and plenty of dirt. It spent a whole 17 hours underground before we unearthed it.

The lamb was cooked beautifully, the garlic and rosemary oil perfumed the lamb nicely and we were happy with the touch of smoke that the burning banana leaves gave the lamb. But it was clear that the pit had dropped below cooking temperature hours earlier. The meat was barely warm when we unwrapped it. We thought that by starting with an animal half the size, with no skin, using less banana leaves and using more coals for a longer time might even result in over-done meat. We now know for sure that it is nearly impossible to over-cook anything using this method. When we build the final version of the pit, we will use much more brick (for more thermal mass) and add a adjustable vent to allow a small amount of air to the bottom of the pit so the coals can be fed and allowed to smolder longer.

We will need a few more experiments and learn a little more about temperature control before we will be ready to cook a 100+ pound hog in the ground but we we do have a much better idea of what the design of the final version of the pit should be.

Turkey mole

2008-11-20T13:56:00.000-05:00

Since turkey day is upon us, I thought this would be a good time to consider preparing it similar to the way that people were likely preparing it on this continent long before any Europeans even new this bird existed. Unfortunately, mole is another one of those recipes that people tend to shy away from doing at home. It's not nearly as hard to prepare as most recipes make it sound. Moles often have twenty or more ingredients and each ingredient has to be roasted, toasted, fried, charred (sometimes burnt), ground, re hydrated or any combination of these things. Still, as long as you have some dried chiles around, most people have a well enough stocked pantry to make a good version, from scratch, all their own.

It helps to break down the sauce into groups of ingredients and pick one or more ingredients from each group.

The chiles.

Clockwise- ancho, mulato, pasilla, pulla and guajillo.

Dried chiles make up the bulk of a good mole even though they aren't usually very spicy. You can make a good sauce with just one type of chile but using several will give you a more complex end result. I almost always use guajillo and/or ancho as the primary chiles. Mulato and/or pasilla, with their extra deep flavors, add a nice second dimension and I used some pullas, guajillos slightly hotter cousin. There is no reason to follow these guidelines. If all you have is a pile of cascabels, then use those. Once the chiles are stemmed and seeded they should be either fried in oil or toasted. This time I toasted them.

Once they are all toasted, re hydrate them in a bowl of hot tap water. After 15 minutes, throw them in your blender and puree.

Dried fruits, seeds and nuts.

If all you have are roasted peanuts and raisins (most people do) you will be fine. I love sesame seeds (and I have pounds of them) so I always use some of those. They also make a nice garnish for serving. This time I also used cashews and some dried cherries from Michigan which added a nice fruity note. Pumpkin seeds are a very common addition. If the nuts and seeds aren't already roasted, toast or fry them. Add the seeds and fruits to your blender and puree them. I always add the nuts last. My Vita-Mix is a motherfucker of a machine but once the fats from the nuts begin to emulsify with the water, even it gets a little pissed at me.

Spices.

Cumin and coriander are always a good idea as are black peppercorns. I consider a stick of Ceylon cinnamon crucial but that's just me. Other sweet spices add a nice touch so I use a little clove and allspice. On the herbal side I used bay leaves, Mexican oregano, savory (thyme would be more common) and an avocado leaf. Avocado leaves have a slightly anise-like flavor so if you don't have them, you may want to add some fennel seeds, anise seeds, a star anise or none of the above. Since I dry toasted the chiles and other ingredients, I decided to fry the spices in a little oil. If you have a good blender, you should be able to add them directly to the puree. If your not sure they will blend well enough, dry toast them and grind them separately first.

Aromatics and veggies.

Onions and garlic are a given. You can roast the garlic (individual cloves, still in their paper, heated in a dry skillet) or not. The onion can be added raw or cooked. Sometimes the onion will be cooked, cut side down, in a pan until it burns. Tomatoes and/or tomatillos are often used and you may want to try a banana or plantain (fried would be nice) or mango or pineapple. be creative. I cooked the garlic and onion along with the last couple of pathetic tomatoes and tomatillos from my garden in a little oil until everything started to burn a little.

Add the veggies to your puree.

Most recipes will use some stale tortillas or bread to thicken and bind the puree. You may or may not choose to toast or fry them first. I added a couple of leftover tostada shells. Now you want to add the nuts and get the puree as fine as you can. You will need to decide if you want to strain it or not. I prefer to strain it (through a chinois) in order to get a silky smooth result but if you have a really good blender and want to save some time you can skip this step.

The strained sauce.

Now it's time to fry the sauce. Many people have never used this technique that is common for dried chile sauces in Mexico. Frying the sauce takes away the brassy-bitter edge and makes it sweeter while adding to the overall depth of flavor. Heat a cast iron kettle until it is screaming hot. Add a little lard or oil and immediately add all of the puree at once.

This can be messy but it's important. You want to keep stirring and reducing it until it's several shades darker. Then add some water or stock, lower the flame and simmer with the lid cracked so it can reduce further.

Chocolate is easily the most famous ingredient in moles. It is what make them sound so exotic (You will often see recipes titled "chicken in chocolate-chili sauce"). It is important but more of a secondary flavor or seasoning. Mexican chocolate is the right thing for the job but chocolate in other forms will also work. In this case I used an extremely dark baking chocolate mainly because I forgot to check and see if I had any Mexican chocolate in the house. Now is the time to melt it into the sauce.

All that is left is to season it with salt and sugar. Salting to taste is easy but don't over sweeten it. Most commercial moles are over sweetened to cater to those who aren't used to the extremely complex bitter notes in a good mole. I use Mexican piloncillo sugar which is just unrefined dehydrated cane juice. Jaggary is also a nice idea as is any raw sugar but if you don't have any of those, brown sugar or regular white sugar will work.

The turkey is simply braised in the sauce. I was making a ton so I could share it at my civic club meeting and at the market the next day. I split two 13 lb. turkeys and browned them in two cast iron skillets. When browned well, I turned them over and covered them with a generous amount of the sauce.

Cover and cook in a slow oven (325˚or lower if you have more time) until it pulls from the bone easily. For serving to a crowd, I separated all of the meat (and skin) from the bones and served it over rice and on corn tortillas.

When you think your sick of eating leftover turkey, heat some up in your homemade Mole. It will be transformed into something completely different.

Puerco pibil

2008-11-13T16:30:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to digging a pit so I could do a real "Yucatan style" pit-roasted pig.

I dug a hole 3'x 4'x 2 1/2' which I lined with brick that was salvaged from a recently demolished school. The size of my pit was determined by the size of the steel cover that my friend scrounged up from his shop. Although the finished with of 30" is good, I intend to lengthen it to 5-6 ft from the 42" that it is now. The 50 lb. pig that I got had to be beheaded in order to fit in the pit.

The pit happily burning away.

The almost complete lack of good descriptions for this style of pit-roasting is sad. I was able to find some good info on how to do it "luau style". Most recipes will give a short explanation of how it used to be cooked it in a pit, but go on to describe making it in an oven or crock pot. Pit roasting is a smoke steaming process and without the smoke from burning banana leaves it will not be the same. Sure, pork slow cooked in an achiote marinade will be tasty but it wont be puerco pibil.

The marinade

8 oz. annatto seed
1.75 oz. black peppercorns
1 oz cumin seed
1/2 oz whole allspice
1 3" stick Ceylon cinnamon
1 1/2 lbs. peeled garlic
2 whole habanero chiles (from my garden)
4 cups of orange juice
1 cup of lime juice
1 healthy fistful of kosher salt
Grind the spices and puree with the balance of the ingredients.

Many sources (even Wikipedia) suggest that annatto is primarily used for color. One person even suggested substituting paprika. Annatto is one of the main flavors in the dish, paprika isn't at all appropriate. You wont have any trouble grinding the other spices but annatto seed is hard to grind to a fine powder. Grind it the best you can. The marinade will have a gritty texture but after the long cooking, the little bits will soften up and you shouldn't notice them.
I used lots of garlic, more than any recipe I read would suggest. Use your best judgment.
Traditionally, sour oranges would be the citrus of choice. Some day I will track some down and try them but I chose to use regular orange juice with some lime juice. Acidity is important and most recipes will suggest much more lime (or lemon which is similar in acidity to seville oranges) or even vinegar than I used here. I err on the less acidic side for things that are going to marinade for a long time. Years ago I made a pork shoulder in achiote that was made with vinegar and after a 24 hour rest, the vinegar had "cooked" the meat and I was unable to get an appealing texture after it was actually cooked. Be cautious with lime juice or vinegar but you could probably get away with more than I used.
The other crucial "ingredient" is banana leaf. You will be wrapping the pig completely in the leaves which will trap steam and add an important herbal flavor that is key to a proper end result. They should also be allowed to burn a little in order to get some smoke flavor. Don't use too many layers or the smoke wont penetrate.

The pig.

I bought a 50 lb. pig at the local butcher shop. As I mentioned before, even a very small pig like that was too long for my pit so we removed the head. We also removed the hocks so it would be easier to wrap in the banana leaves. From the inside, we cut some big slots into the thickest part of the rear legs and the shoulder so we could get some marinade in there and so it would cook more evenly.

Sucks to be delicious

Lay down multiple pieces of butcher twine and lay a couple of layers of banana leaves across them. Set the thoroughly rubbed down pig on top, cover completely with more leaves and tie it up.

We made a cradle out of some concrete reenforcement wire although any plain steel fencing or chicken wire would work well.

The fire.

My friend came over at 5 am Sunday morning to get the fire going. Standing around a huge fire, on a crisp fall morning, drinking a beer and watching the sun come up was extremely pleasant. It has been quite a while since I've had beer for breakfast and I forgot just how fun it is.

You will need a shit-load of fire wood to get enough hot coals to cook this thing for the nine or more hours it will spend in the ground. Most references suggest two to three times the volume of the pit and that is about right. We used a variety of scrap hardwoods from my friends shop that burned down to a nice 10" deep bed of coals in about two hours. If you are using logs, you may want to give yourself three to four hour to get it burned down enough. Shoot for a full 12" of coals. Put the pig, back down directly on the coals.

Place the cover over the pit and seal completely with damp dirt. If you see any places where steam or smoke are escaping cover with more dirt and pack it down. Now it's just a waiting game. We left ours for 10 hours and while it was done, It could have cooked a little longer. You are far more likely to under cook it than over cook it. My guess is that it would have been even better if we had left it until the next day. Once the pit is sealed the only thing cooking the meat is the residual heat stored in the brick. By a strange coincidence, my friend ran into a guy from Georgia at a bar in Pittsburgh the night before we did this. Having done many pig roasts, he gave him many pointers on how to go about it. He was correct for the most part but he did suggest that we add a bag of hardwood charcoal just before sealing the pit. This doesn't work. The coals will die down once they are deprived of oxygen and the charcoal never even lit. In fact, when we opened the pit it looked the same as when we closed it.

MMMMMMM!

We ate it as tacos on home made tortillas (gotta do something with all that time while the thing roasts), shredded romaine, Pickled onions (onions, lime juice, orange juice, annatto oil and salt) and a tomatillo-panca chile salsa (roasted tomatillos, roasted garlic, aji panca, dry malt extract and salt).

That's probably how it actually looked to my Doppelbock compromised brain

The things that I need to keep in mind for my next time:

More entry points (cut more slots) for marinade and a longer marinading time- The flavor wasn't as strong as I would have liked.

Less banana leaves- They need a chance to char through in order to get some smoke flavor.

More coals- The pit didn't sustain enough heat to cook it as well as I had hoped. It fell just short actually "falling apart" tender. (We did build a fire on top of the lid toward the end to add more heat.)

If you've got some room in your yard, I suggest building your own pit. I expect to do a lamb next and maybe a goat after that. Or maybe a couple of banana leaf wrapped, mole' rubbed turkeys for thanksgiving.

Green chile pasta with cilantro-lime brown butter sauce

2008-09-29T06:28:00.000-04:00

(Warning: I recently discovered that I can add video to my blog. This post contains a completely silly piece of video that I can only blame on a six-pack of Commodore Perry IPA and the unexpected free time that came from a canceled meeting. I'm only posting it as a test but it is kinda' funny)

Making fresh pasta is easy and always satisfying. You can make the dough, roll it and cut it in not much more time than it takes to bring the water to a boil. A bizillion different flavors can be added to the dough itself and you can also stuff it with any number of different things. I'm not sure why more people don't do it.

I headed out to what's left of my garden and picked a couple of green chiles which I roasted, seeded and pureed. To the Puree I added 1 cup A.P. flour, 1/2 cup semolina, an egg, olive oil and salt. Mix the ingredients and form them into a ball. Dough is not my friend. I can't make a decent loaf of bread or pizza dough without a bread machine. The only advice I've got to share is to leave on the "wet" side. I'll add flour as I knead it through the machine, just enough to get it to hold together. Wrap it in plastic if your not going to roll it right away. You will probably want to divide it into two or three ball to be rolled one at a time.

(Sorry about that.)

I like to keep the sauce simple so I decided on a cilantro-lime brown butter sauce. Heat butter until it just begins to brown then quickly add some cilantro, lime zest and lime juice. Your fresh pasta will cook in only a minute or two then you just drain it and toss it with the sauce. I browned a little queso fresco in a nonstick skillet as a garnish.

If you don't own a pasta machine, get one (unless you really like using a rolling pin). There is no end to the fun and interesting things you can do when you make your own pasta.

Real Swedish meatballs

2008-09-19T13:07:00.000-04:00

I have only one family recipe that has been handed down to me. My Swedish grandmother's Swedish meatballs have been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. I actually don't remember having ever tasted "grammy's" version, but my mother made them several times a year and as a child they were my favorite meal. I've eaten many versions, including many of the "cream of mushroom soup" types that would go better with a bong than with a Swedish meal. I've also read dozens of "traditional" recipes and only found one that was similar to our family's. The distinguishing thing about them is that they are seasoned with dill weed and nutmeg. No canned soup, no cream sauce, no dried fruit, just seasoned meatballs with brown gravy.

2/3rds beef, 1/3rd pork, egg, white bread soaked in milk, dried dill weed, fresh ground nutmeg, dried onion (my mom would have used fresh but I'm weird like that) salt and white pepper rolled into balls the size of your choosing.

Brown the balls. I'll save my "brown doesn't mean grey things boiled in there own juices" tirade for another day but if you brown them correctly, not only will they have great texture, but you wont need to add beef stock or bullion to your fond to make a great gravy.

Remove them from the pan and sprinkle the fond with flour. (my mom uses Wondra and so do I) add water and let sauce thicken. Check for seasoning including dill and nutmeg (add Minors beef base if your gravy is weak). Return the balls to the pan and simmer slowly until they are cooked through.

Spice of the week: Nutmeg

2008-09-19T11:00:00.000-04:00

Only buy and use whole nutmegs. I've turned away dozens, if not hundreds, of customers who insist on buying nutmeg already ground. I wont sell it. While I will sell other spices ground, that I would rather have people grind fresh, nutmeg is so fuckin' easy to grind and is so much better freshly ground that it makes zero sense to use it any other way. Even if you needed a cup full for a hundred pies, it would only take you a few minutes to grate it. Use it in your pies and other sweets, use it in your white sauces, but don't ignore it when it comes to everyday savory dishes. I'll be using it on all of the wonderful local cauliflower I'll be eating this fall.

Salbutes y salsa fresca

2008-08-25T08:32:00.000-04:00

Nothing tastes like summer quite like a simple salsa fresca. Like most people, I make dozens of versions of salsa but for this few weeks of the year, when perfect tomatoes, fresh green chiles, cilantro , onions and garlic are abundant, I like to keep it simple.

Red and yellow tomatoes, serrano chiles, seeds and all, sliced into little discs, Minced garlic, diced red onion (although I usually prefer white), chopped cilantro, a squeeze of fresh lime juice and a pinch of salt.

While it's not unusual for me to eat this stuff with a spoon, I decided to use some of my leftover smoke-roasted duck and make some salbutes. These are small stuffed and fried masa cakes. First you need some masa. We are fortunate enough to have a small tortilla factory here in Cleveland where you can get fresh masa for only $.70 a pound. Unfortunately, fresh masa is extremely perishable and doesn't provide very good results if it's been refrigerated or frozen. If you can't get fresh masa and use it within 12 hours or so you can use dry masa harina which is what I used for these (the tortilla factory isn't open on Sundays). Mix your masa dough according to the package directions (If using fresh masa, you may want to knead in a little water to get a workable dough). Roll the dough into small balls, slightly larger than golf balls.

When all of the dough is balled you can press them one at a time in a tortilla press into 5 inch rounds. You want to keep them on the thick side, you're not making tortillas.

I filled mine with some leftover smoke-roasted duck, shredded and mixed with some red onion, cilantro, cumin, salt and pepper, but you can, of course, use anything that you find interesting. Pile a small amount of filling on the center of on of the rounds and cover with a second one. Pinch the edges closed and fry in some hot oil until bubbling subsides and they are golden brown.

These can be eaten with your hands as a snack dipped in the salsa or sauce of your choice. Have fun.

Chiles rellenos

2008-08-21T17:40:00.000-04:00

I'll be stuffin' a lot of peppers in the next couple of months while they are so abundant. Today I picked a half dozen long green chiles, similar to Anaheims but slimmer and without the square shoulders. The first thing I like to do when stuffing these things is to peel them. Generally you roast peppers to peel them so the first thing we need to discuss is choosing the right roasting method. I'm sure most of you have roasted red peppers in the oven or on the grill which gives you those wonderful sweet, melt in your mouth peppers that are so good in about a bazillion recipes or just by themselves. The problem with this method is that you tend to cook them until they are falling apart which will likely make them hard to stuff. What you need is to char them fast while leaving the pepper largely uncooked. You could char them on a comal or in a cast iron pan, you could char them directly over the flame on your stove or on a very hot grill which works well or you can use my favorite method. I find it works well, especially on thin walled chiles, to scorch the skin with a propane or butane torch. This chars the skin quickly without cooking the pepper at all, leaving you with a firm pepper that will be easy to clean and stuff. unless you have constant plumbing problems or your a sculptor, your torch probably sits in your shop, collecting dust anyhow so you may as well give it something to do. I usually use the bottom of an overturned cast iron pan to set the pepper on while burning it. Char the skin evenly all over and after a brief rest the skin should slip right of under cold water.

Slit the chiles down the side and scrape the seeds and veins away with a spoon and their ready to stuff with whatever you choose.

Naked and eviscerated

Today i'm going to do a couple of kinds of cheese, queso fresco that I briefly fried in some annatto oil to get it a little browned and some Monterrey jack for the melty ooziness.

I made a quick cinnamon-chipotle tomato sauce by putting some fresh tomatoes through my old reliable Foley food mill and cooking them down with some chipotle chile powder and a small chunk of Ceylon cinnamon until the sauce thickens and reduces. After adding a tablespoon a heavy cream to the sauce, I arranged the stuffed chiles in a pan and spooned the sauce over them. A short time in the oven to melt the cheese, brown the top and finish cooking the peppers is all you need.

When I get some fresh poblanos we'll talk about doing some battered and fried chiles rellenos. Have fun.

Spice of the week: Fire-brick pepper

2008-08-21T13:17:00.000-04:00

I've been playing with this mix for a while and I finally decided to blend it for sale. It is a blend of cut black peppercorns, red pepper flakes and hickory smoke powder that is great for all of you who, like me, love to encrust salmon, steaks and other things with black pepper. The red pepper flakes give it a bit of sweetness and a modest but different heat than just black pepper and the smoke powder gives it just a little supplemental smoke, especially when your not grilling. You can see where the name came from.

If you want to make this yourself, use equal quantities of very coarse black pepper and red peper flakes (Not crushed red pepper but the stuff without the seeds or veins) and add a very light dusting of hickory smoke powder. Easy.

Fuckin' asshole!

2008-08-18T09:50:00.001-04:00

I pitched the thing in the pond, I wonder if the fish will eat it.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately, I've cooked some great stuff, grilled white bass, Roasted corn with tarragon oil, roasted corn with coconut curry ghee and culantro chutney, grilled pizza, playing with my new blend "Fire-brick pepper", but haven't had the time to document any of it. Now that my brewing demo and the Coit Rd. market corn roast are over and I've recovered from the loss of our 14 year old German shepherd "Pepper", I hope to have some time to catch up.

Spice of the week: Annatto seeds

2008-08-01T07:53:00.000-04:00

This is a bit redundant to my regular customers since I made annatto seed my "spice of the week" about a month and a half ago but I've been playing with this one lately and thought it was worth talkin' about. Everybody has eaten annatto since it is a common natural food coloring. How do you think that cheddar cheese ends up being orange? The first thing everybody should do with these seeds is make some annatto oil. Put two ounces of annatto seeds in a pot with about a cup and a half of olive oil or the oil of your choice (real rendered pork lard makes this something really special). Slowly heat the oil until the seeds start to bubble. Don't get it too hot, you don't want to fry them or they will get bitter. About 200 degrees is hot enough. Now just turn off the heat and let it cool. Once cool, strain it and marvel at its vibrant orange colour. I keep mine in an old wine bottle in the fridge.

Now that you have the annatto oil, you can make a wonderful seasoning base called sofrito. There are many variations on this theme and I don't really follow any of them. Basically, it's a mixture of onion, garlic, peppers, herbs and spices sauteed in the oil. I started with a few things from my garden.

Then I added some stuff I picked up from the market. Leeks, onions, green peppers and garlic all coarsely chopped. Heat a decent amount of the oil in a large saute pan. The first thing in the oil was a generous tablespoon of cumin seed cooked until they started to pop. Then add your veggies and cook 'til soft but not brown. Then I added some Mexican oregano, a couple of chopped tomatoes and a goodly amount of salt.. The most important herb in many sofritos is culantro. This can be hard to find ( I do have an herb farmer who will be growing some for the market ) but it can be found at Latin and Asian stores. Cilantro is a good substitution but in this case I used a shadon beni ( another name for culantro ) chutney that I bought a a Latin store. The main ingredient is culantro but it also echos some of the other ingredients that I have already added. Once this cools a little, I like to pulse it in a food processor to get an even texture but this is optional. Now you have an awesome, flavorful seasoning base that can be used for many different things. The first thing that comes to mind is rice or rice and beans but I love it to flavor a simple saute of whatever summer veggies I have on hand.

The other thing I love to do is make achiote paste. It is nothing more than annatto seed ground together with garlic, vinegar, water and usually some other spices. I like allspice and fresh habaneros. This mixture is rubbed on pork or some other meat and pit roasted for a good long time. This will be a post of it's own some day soon.

Avocado sauce

2008-07-31T15:02:00.000-04:00

I finally got my first gift from my garden this season. Today, I picked my first serrano chiles. Since I found California avocados at my local Marcs store for $1.00 each, I decided to make a very simple sauce that has become a staple around my house because it's so versatile. All it is, is a simple puree of avocados (2), cilantro (a large fist full), the zest and juice from one lime, salt, as many serrano chiles as you can stand (I used three, seeds and all) and enough water to make it the consistency you want. Just puree everything in a blender. It's a great topping for tacos, nachos and the like but I've also used it as a salad dressing, a dip, with fish and many other things.

A quick note on storing this, guacamole or other avocado based things. It is always best to prepare these things as close to serving time as possible but when you have to make it ahead here is the best way I have found to stop the avocados from oxidizing. Store the product in a heavy zip-lock type bag and squeeze out all of the air. If possible, set the bag in a bowl of ice water. The combonation of cold, a lack of oxygen and plenty of acid (lime juice) should keep it fresh and green for a day or two. I've also had luck putting this sauce in a squeeze bottle filled to the absolute top and kept cold.

Not a great picture but still a delicious sauce.

Spice of the week: Mixed sesame seeds

2008-07-24T09:40:00.000-04:00

I've had several people ask me to talk a little more about spices. I'm trying to not use this blog to shill for my spice business but I have a weekly promotion that I do called "spice of the week". Basically, if you buy five $1.00 bags of spices from me you get the "spice of the week" free. I'm trying to get people to try something unusual or different, usually something that I have been experimenting with recently. I thought it might be good motivation to talk about a different spice, spice blend, salt sugar or anything else on a regular basis.

Sesame seeds seem to be something that people don't use very often. They are pretty inexpensive ($1.00 gets you 2-3 ounces), healthy and very tasty. You can get them in three forms, hulled (white), un-hulled (natural) or black. (You can also buy them toasted but since they go rancid quicker once they're toasted, I suggest that you undertake this very quick and easy process as needed.) I also sell a 50/50 mixture of black and white that I use often because it looks so nice. Aside from breads and an occasional sprinkling on sesame noodles, I find that a lot of people don't know what to do with them. One of my favorite uses for sesame seeds is to encrust things with them. I've done scallops, all kinds of fish, eggplant, mushrooms and meats. Today I'm doing some shrimp.

I thought that it might be interesting to make them sweet and spicy so I dissolved some hot pepper jelly in a small amount of white wine. I dipped each shrimp in the jelly and then into the sesame seeds. I would suggest not using the small shrimp that I did unless you like for this process to take what seems like forever. Cook them quickly in a very hot cast iron skillet. You want to be careful not to overcook them, the sugar in the jelly will give you a nice brown crust in seconds.

I finished them with a little wasabi sauce (wasabi powder, wine and honey). These were good and they were even better cold. Next time i think I might grill them and serve them as a cold appetizer.

Sesame seeds make a nice alternative to breading and they are also great in dips and on salads. Be creative. I'm sure that you can think of many things that can be complimented by their toasty, nutty flavor.

Squash blossoms

2008-07-22T19:30:00.000-04:00

O.K. This isn't all that unique or creative but it is something that people don't do often enough. I usually end up with some "volunteer" squash vines coming from my compost pile or somewhere in my garden. These rarely produce great squash but they do give a steady supply of blossoms for fryin'. I like them stuffed with cheese or any other tasty filling but I love them simply fried in a light beer batter on their own.

All you need is that last cup or so of that German Hefe beer that I know you brewed after read my post about it and some all-purpose flour. Mix them together to make a "slightly looser than pancake batter" batter. Season it with salt, pepper or anything else you can think of. Dip the blossoms (washed and naughty parts removed, of course) in the batter and fry in some 365+ degree oil in whatever strange cast-iron piece you recently acquired at your local thrift store and need to season. Remove from oil when golden brown and top with your favorite finishing salt.

There you go, stupid-easy and delicious.

Chilaquiles

2008-07-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

Shame on you for throwing out all of those stale tortilla chips all of these years. Those chips, some other leftover stuff from the fridge and a little creativity will get you a tasty Mexican style meal. I've made chilaquiles many dozens of times over the years with all kinds of different ingredients (They are a great showcase for dried chiles) and the only hard part is getting the liquid to chips ratio right so the the final consistency is what you like. Recipes for traditional chilaquiles can be found everywhere but this post isn't about the traditional versions. Instead, we are talking about making something delicious out of whatever you may have around. In this case I had some homemade coconut milk and a couple of cups of tomatillo salsa that was dangerously close to ending up in the compost pile and had to be used immediately. Fill a baking dish with your collection of stale chips, mix in and thing else you want (I used cubed cheddar cheese and some leftover chicken but this is a great time to use veggies or anything else you may have) and pour your liquids over the whole mess. Make sure your liquid mixture is very flavorful but be gentle with the salt. Your chips are most likely bland but salty and the liquids need to make up for that by being light on salt but bold in flavor. If your sauce isn't chile based then I would suggest a sprinkle of your favorite chile powder (I used ancho) over the top just before it goes into the oven.

As I mentioned before, the hard part is getting to chip to liquid ratio correct. I like them to come out on to loose side but if you want it to slice neatly I have one little trick for you. Just mix an egg or two into your liquids and you will end up with something that serves up beautifully. Just don't err on the dry side or it can be nearly inedible. Bake the whole mess at 350 degrees for 45 min. to 1 hr. and it will be wonderful.

Coconut milk

2008-07-14T18:34:00.001-04:00

Canned coconut milk is very convenient but making it from scratch is easy, fun and satisfying. If you do it my way, it will only take 15 or 20 minutes so time is not an issue.

One swift hit with the back of your chefs knife or cleaver will crack his head open. Drain the coconut water into the nearest Hello Kitty bowl and drink it or add it to your liquid later. Separate the flesh from the hard shell. If you slip a butter knife between them it should come free pretty easy. Now here is the time saver. Most, if not all, recipes would ask you to remove the brown layer from the flesh. This is difficult, time consuming and unnecessary. If you leave it on it will still come out very white and the flavor will not be affected. Break it into smallish chunks so it's able to be pureed in your blender.

Add the chunks to your blender with two or three cups of hot tap water and puree until uniformly smooth. Separate the resulting puree through a chinous or other fine strainer, or you can pour it through a clean kitchen towel, wrap it tight and wring it out.

However you do it, the resulting solids should be surprisingly dry.

Now you have a luscious addition to hundreds of dishes both sweet and savory and it was easy to do. Part of this will be used for chilaquiles.

Figs and goat cheese and bacon and fire

2008-07-14T09:46:00.000-04:00

Here is another simple and fantastic idea. Figs with goat cheese are a common combination that are often served with prosciuitto. Since I have a abundance of homemade bacon, I thought I would wrap them in that and throw them on the grill.

Lake Erie Creamery makes the best goat cheese I have ever had so I didn't feel the need to doctor it up with herbs like many recipes do, I just added some cracked pepper. I slit the figs down the side, stuffed some cheese in, wrapped them in bacon and put them on a skewer. After five minutes or so on the grill they were warm and the bacon was crisp. These things were heavenly.

A very quick radish slaw

2008-07-03T17:22:00.000-04:00

Somebody at the market asked me what they should do with radishes besides topping a salad. Radishes are great on their own so here is something that's stupid simple.

Radishes, shredded finely (I used a Benriner mandolin with its finest shredding blades)

Dressing:
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp. sugar
Fresh dill weed
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Next time I'm going to buy the multi-colored variety that Bo sells at the market called "Easter egg". This will be great with my dry rubbed ribs I'll be smokin' on the 4th.

I've been tagged

2008-07-01T15:24:00.000-04:00

Since I don't believe in following rules I thought I would take this opportunity to list a few of my food related pet peeves.

It pisses me off when:

-people choose not to eat or drink certain things. Food and drink, like life, is to be experienced. "I don't eat pork", "I don't eat meat", I don't eat salt", "I can't eat that, there is too much fat", "I don't drink", the bullshit never ends. Barring the risk of anaphylactic shock (Minor food allergies can be dealt with by eating a Benadryl before your meal. Just ask my wife), you shouldn't completely exclude things from your diet. Religion?, Silly. Health concerns?, Try moderation. Eat, drink and enjoy and always be willing to try something new.

-people make substitutions that are nothing less than lies. Miracle Whip isn't mayo. Soy isn't meat. Margarine isn't butter. Log Cabin syrup isn't maple syrup. There is no such thing as vegan cheese. I could go on and on. I even ate at a restaurant once that used surimi in their crab salad. If there is no fuckin' crab then it's not crab salad.

-forget that beer is great with food. The world of beer is far more diverse in flavor than the world of wine. I'm not at all saying that either one is better than the other, just that beer has taken an undeserved 'back seat' for way too long. All of those wonderful Maillard reactions, that those of us who cook work so hard to create, go unrepresented in the wine world. Beer has all of the roasted, toasted and sometimes burnt flavors that we crave as well as a whole world of sweet, sour, funky, chocolaty, fruity, bitter and just about any other complimenting or contrasting flavor you could want to match with food.

-assholes buy insipid California strawberries at Costco when local strawberries are in peak season. Eat seasonally, eat locally and when you can't, at least buy quality ingredients at a market where you can taste them. I run a farmers market. I see all kinds of people who want pretty veggies. They will walk past a weird looking heirloom tomato to pick up the perfectly round red one. The prettiest tomato probably isn't the best tasting. And this, at a place where the farmer who grew it would love to give you a taste of their hard work before you buy it. Why taste isn't the most important criteria, for many people, when buying fruits and vegetables, I don't know.

Oh, and since there should be six 'things about me', here is the fifth and last. It's just not me to 'tag' someone, so I will let this tag die right here. This doesn't mean I don't love you ohio mom. Thanks.

A quick Thai soup

2008-06-30T15:05:00.000-04:00

Now that you all have put in a hard one hour of work making a home made green curry paste, I can show you when it really pays off. I love to make a quick soup for lunch and you can't get much easier than this. I picked up some candy onions and leeks from my market, chopped them and sauteed them with a couple of tablespoons of the curry paste. Then I added:

2 cups of stock or water (I used chicken stock)
1 can of coconut milk
The protein of your choice (I used a 1 lb. bag of mixed seafood which included squid, octopus, clams, mussels, surimi and who knows what else) but chicken works great
1 tbsp. of fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime
A small chunk of jaggary (palm sugar) or brown sugar

That is all you need but because I still had some of the ingredients from the curry so I thought that I would add them.

Lime leaves
A slice of galangal
Thai basil
Cilantro
Curry leaves (just because I had some)

Simmer all of the ingredients together for a few minutes and add the protein at the end, just long enough to cook it through. This should only take you 10 or 15 minutes to prepare. Serve it over rice or rice noodles, or any other noodles for that matter.

There you go, quick easy and delicious.

(P.S. After I posted that putrid picture of the pasta with pesto, I thought I owed you a couple of decent ones of this soup. I'll have to pay more attention to the tips I get from Jerry mann.)

A mountain of fresh basil

2008-06-27T07:02:00.000-04:00

Summer is here and I finally get to enjoy one of my favorite herbs in abundance. To me, basil tastes like summer and I love to eat it a hundred different ways. From a last minute addition to a fresh tomato sauce, to using it as a salad green, to grabbing a leaf out of the garden, wrapping it around a cherry tomato and popping it in your mouth, basil is good anytime. Like most people, the first thing I think of when I have a pile of it is basil pesto. Pesto is, of course, great over pasta as a quick summer meal but when I do this I like to deconstruct the pesto. I simply pound the basil in a mortar with salt (you could do this in a food processor but I like a more rustic texture and the mortar is easier to wash) and then add olive oil and maybe a liile lemon juice. The toasted pine nuts, garlic and cheese will be added to the pasta separately.

I do this for two reasons. First, I like the separation of flavors and textures you get, and second, I like to freeze some extra for when I need a bit of summer in the colder months. I don't like the idea of freezing garlic or cheese, the garlic seems to get bitter and the texture of the cheese changes. It's only a little bit of work to turn this frozen mixture into a fresher tasting pesto by adding the other ingredients when you plan to use it.

All you need to do is toss your cooked pasta with the basil mixture, add some finely minced garlic, toasted pine nuts and some good italian cheese shaved with a vegetable peeler (in this case Parmigiano Reggiano and Locatelli Romano). Quick, simple and delicious.

Pesto is named for the mortar and pestle used to make it. Remember that next time your eyeing your food processor

German hefeweizen

2008-06-26T09:28:00.000-04:00

I've brewed a lot of beer and by 'a lot' I mean enough to have broken the '200 gallons per household per year' law 5 years in a row. It might come as some surprise that after over 1600 gallons brewed I never brewed a German "hefe". After my friend Jerry made a trip to Germany last year, we have been working brewing some German styles. This is not a hard beer to brew. You only need two grains for your mash, a good German 2-row Pilsner malt and some malted wheat. American versions often go heavier on the Pilz malt but in Germany it's all about the wheat. The first batch we brewed we chose to go 50/50 on the grains and for the second batch we used 70% wheat. Hopping is light, between 3 and 3.5 AAUs per 5 gallons with no finishing hops.

I'm not going to describe the whole brewing process. There are many books and web pages that can do a better job than I at teaching you how to brew. Go to beertown.org to find a homebrewing club near you. If you like beer you should definitely learn how to brew.

For 5 gallons:
5 lbs. Durst pilsner malt
5 lbs. Rahr red wheat malt

Mash in at 50 degrees Celsius with 2 1/2 gallons water for 30 min.
Raise mash to 65 degrees with 1 1/4 gallons of boiling water for 60 min.

Sparge to collect 6 gallons

Boil for 90 minutes adding:
3.3 AAUs (one ounce) Hersbrucker pellet hops for 75 min.
Enough water to leave 5.5 gallons after boil.

Cool and rack off of sediment to your sanitized fermenter.

Pitch with a good German hefewiezen yeast and oxygenate well.

If your yeast culture is strong you should see activity in less than 12 hours. If your yeast is really strong this will happen.

This beer was done fermenting in about six days. We racked half of it to a keg after 8 days and the other half was racked to a secondary fermenter for 4 days of cold conditioning before bottling it. (We brewed 10 gallons). What a perfect summer beer and the clove and banana notes from the 'hefe' yeast (redundant, I know) go great with the fun stuff I'm making with my recent batch of curry paste.

It's not really your beer if you didn't brew it yourself.

Curry paste

2008-06-24T06:51:00.000-04:00

Here is one of those things that even the most adventurous cooks rarely do from scratch. This is a shame. I doubt the home cooks on the other side of the planet fret over the details of these creations and you shouldn't either. Like curry powders and mole', the list of ingredients and the descriptions of the processes used to make them often make the recipes in books sound daunting. Read these recipes but ignore them. The only hard part for many should be sourcing the right ingredients.

The crucial ingredients (in my opinion): Galangal, lemon grass and lime leaves

Living in Cleveland, we are fortunate to have many stores selling obscure ingredients from around the world but last week was the first time that I ever found fresh galangal root here. My first curry pastes were successfully made with frozen galangal, frozen lime leaves and frozen lemon grass. Now I can finally make one with all of the appropriate fresh ingredients. The trick to deciding how to mix these or any ingredients in the right proportions is simply tasting them. I often tell my customers that while something may not necessarily have a pleasant flavor on its own, the only way to get an a good idea of how much to use is to taste it. My first bite of fresh galangal was memorable to say the least. It is the only ingredient that absolutely shouldn't be left out. After that you can use whatever you like and can find. Besides my big three I used Thai basil, cilantro (often the roots and stems are used so don't throw them away), lime (juice and zest), garlic, ginger, shallots, green chiles (they are a staple of green curry pastes these days but if you don't like it hot, remember that they were making these mixtures long before chiles were ever introduced to that part of the world), turmeric root (not traditional but I had it so why not), and the dry spices, coriander, cumin and white peppercorns, all toasted and ground. The last ingredient that is in most recipes is shrimp paste. You can find it in any Asian store. It is funky and potent but it adds the umami to bring the whole thing together.

You could use a food processor or a blender but both would require the addition of liquid and it's better to keep it on the dry side. They also chop more the smash so I don't believe that you get the same extraction of flavor. Nothing is like the good old mortar and pestle. A little salt will help break everything down. Add your ingredients and beat the shit out of them.

The best way to taste your creation is a simple rice dish. Just heat a little oil, fry some of the paste and add some cooked rice with a little liquid and mix. If there is anything wrong (there wont be) you can easily taste it this way and make adjustments if necessary

It will take about an hour of your time and about $5.00 worth of ingredients. It freezes well so you will use it for several meals. And it's fun. Don't let peoples overly anal descriptions of these kinds of recipes deter you. They are actually pretty hard to fuck up. Enjoy.

My favorite sweet potato

2008-06-23T11:47:00.000-04:00

(Caution: Requires sense of humor)

I didn't plan on buying a sweet potato when I left for the market last December but out of the corner of my eye, there she was. I can't explain the attraction. I can only say that, for the last six months, my friends and family have enjoyed her presence at my house nearly as much as I have.

Alas, when I checked on her this morning, I noticed that she wasn't quite herself. She is beginning to wrinkle and sprout.

Do I continue to care for her until all quality of life is gone or do I bury her in the back yard and hope for another, as unique and desirable as her mom? What should I do? I don't know.

Fresh herbs and skirt steak

2008-06-16T18:05:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite steaks (o.k, maybe my favorite) is the humble and misunderstood skirt steak. In many meat books, it is referred to as a braising cut. While this may be true, it is also great cooked quickly to medium-rare. While many beef cuts, including the skirt, are great on the grill, it's the skirts ability to be cooked to perfection in a pan on the stove in minutes that makes me love it. While it is usually advisable to cook steak (and most meats) from room temperature, I make an exception for this cut. It is so thin that it can be hard to get a great sear before over-cooking the inside so I always cook it right out of the fridge. Anything past medium rare is overcooked for any steak. This is not an opinion, it is fact.

One of the less appreciated techniques for infusing fresh herbs into meat is my favorite. Simply sear the meat by placing it directly on top of the herbs (in this case rosemary) in a screaming hot skillet. The herbs will often nearly burn but the flavor will completely permeate the meat.

I took a skirt steak from the fridge and seasoned it with a little salt and equal quantities of fresh ground, course black pepper and red pepper flakes (not crushed red pepper). Heat a skillet until it is smoking, add a small amount of fat, set your herbs of choice in the pan and the steak goes on top. One of the problems people seem to have when cooking steak in a pan is that pockets of steam get trapped underneath and compromise the crust by creating those un-crispy gray spots. Contact with the pan is crucial. To accomplish this I like to use a weight. A smaller cast iron skillet or a brick wrapped in foil will make a perfect weight.

It only takes a couple of minutes on the each side to get a crispy crust and leave the inside rare to medium-rare.

All you need is a splash of your favorite beer, wine, stock, vinegar or other liquid (in this case Marsala) in the hot pan to make a quick pan sauce and a side of fresh, local steamed asparagus drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkle of any great topping salt and you've got a perfect meal.

Go to your local butcher today and save the skirts from the meat grinder.

Brisket with strawberry/guajillo bbq sauce

2008-06-13T15:50:00.000-04:00

Strawberries are in season! While I enjoy them just as they are and in desserts, I see no reason that they should be excluded from the main course or the joy of summer barbeque. Yesterday, when the bacon was done and the mash was resting, I headed to my local butcher shop and picked up a five pound beef brisket. The first thing I did was to give it a dry rub with salt, brown sugar, guajillo chile powder, paprika, garlic powder, dry mustard, savory and probably a few more things I forgot (I love doing improvised dry rubs). I then smoked the brisket, using hickory, the same way I did the bacon.

While it was smoking I worked on my first strawberry-based barbeque sauce:

1 quart fresh, local strawberries
1/2 cup guajillo chile powder
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 tbsp. blackstrap molasses
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tbsp. granulated garlic
1 tsp dry mustard
Salt and fresh ground black pepper

I threw all of this in my Vita-Mix and made a smooth puree.

After a few hour of smoking I placed the brisket in a foil pan with about a cup or two of the sauce and covered tightly with foil.

I let it cook gently over the waning fire for about an hour. It was good right off of the grill but once it was chilled over night, sliced thinly and served with some of the reserved sauce it was spectacular. The strawberry flavor was distinct but not at all out of place. Strawberries aren't just for dessert anymore.

If you would like to enter you strawberry recipe in the strawberry moon contest click here.

Bacon

2008-06-13T13:33:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been making bacon from scratch. If you haven't tried doing this at home yet, I highly recommend it. It is incredibly easy and takes very little time. The bacon I was smoking when I cooked the calamari was the most basic, just a standard cure of salt (50%), dextrose (40%), and pink curing salt (10%). All you do is rub the pork belly with a generous amount of the cure, put it in a zip bag and refrigerate for a week.

The part most people would consider a "deal-breaker" is the smoking. If smoking is not an option, roast it in a 200 degree oven. You could always add some smoke to your cure if your oven roasting but un-smoked bacon will still be good. The smoking can be done on any backyard grill. All you need is some tasty smoking wood, an old cast iron pan and, of course, charcoal. Build a small fire, push the coals to the side, place the pan full of wood chips directly on the fire and put the rinsed bacon as far from the fire as possible. Cover the grill and, as slowly as possible, smoke the bacon only opening the grill to add charcoal or wood. Your goal is an internal temp. of 150 degrees.

Yesterday, while making ten gallons of German hefeweizen with my friend " Jerry Mann, photographer", I smoked my next two bacon experiments. I split the pork belly and rubbed in the cure. To one half, I added a pastrami-esque spice rub of fresh cracked black pepper, cracked coriander, garlic, onion, chili flakes and probably some other random spices. To the other half, I added a 1/4 cup of fresh Ohio maple syrup to satisfy the wife's preference for a sweeter bacon. This time I smoked it with some cherry twigs instead of the hickory that I used the first time.

The results are awesome. It ends up being less expensive than store-bought and the bonus I didn't expect, it doesn't shrink when you cook it as much as the stuff from the store. I'm guessing that most bacon is brine-cured so you're buying a lot of moisture that you end up cooking out, which, I assume, is why you end up with those pathetic little pieces.

I would suggest getting "Charcuterie" by Michael Ruhlman if your interested in making all kinds of smoked and dry-cured meats.

Curried and smoked calamari w/ chili-lime pickle mayo

2008-06-05T14:53:00.000-04:00

I almost never cook the same thing the same way twice. While I learned early on that it's important to take good notes when brewing, I never got into the habit of doing the same when I cook. Almost all of my most successful meals are lost to history. This is at least one of my motives for starting this blog.

A couple of weeks ago, I was smoking my first homemade bacon and trying to decide how to cook the squid I had defrosted for lunch. At a loss for an interesting idea, I decided to try smoking it. I took some curry powder and Murray River salt and lightly seasoned the cross-hatched pieces of calamari I bought at Trader Joes. I placed them in a saute pan and set the pan over the hickory smoke next to the bacon on the grill. They cooked slowly for about 15 minutes until the smallest pieces just started to get tough. The result was fantastic! The smoke was subtle, clean and unobtrusive. The texture was tender with just a little bite. I've always followed the "under two minutes or over two hours" rule to cooking squid so I truly expected this to fail.

It went well with this mayonnaise I made a couple of days earlier.

Using standard mayo making procedure, combine:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg yolk
Juice of 1 lime
1 piece of lime pickle, minced (Asian store)
1 heaping Tbsp chili pickle (Asian store)
and salt to taste

I love when something that I think will flop works so well.