Cottage Pie (featuring root veggies)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.