The Captain's Table

For the Birds

2011-11-05T16:04:00.002-05:00

So I just want to reassure all of my loyal fans (search bots) that I'm still cooking, still eating, and still writing (rarely) on this blog. Unfortunately, I eat everything too quickly to publish pictures, and I'm on to the next dish before I can think about writing about it. There is an exception today: homemade suet.

In the process of making harira (you'll want to look that one up again), I ended up with a good half pound of lamb fat. What to do with all that flavor? I certainly wasn't going to dig in myself, but having just run out suet in the bird feeder, I decided to render it and make a little treat for my feathered neighbors.

Into the pot went all the lamb fat, cut into small pieces, and a half cup of water. I simmered the whole thing for about an hour until I had mostly melted fat and just barely a little bit of water. I didn't want to start deep frying the cracklin's in lamb fat...

Wait, that would have been delicious.

OK, well that opportunity is gone. Having rendered all the goodness I could, I strained out all the leftovers and let the liquid separate and cool in the freezer. After not too long, the fat had formed a nice creamy head, and the artist formerly known as water was now a gorgeous gelatin that I added to the harira.

The fat went back in the pan on low heat with a cup of mixed birdseed and sesame seeds, and it was all warmed up just to melt the fat. I poured the mixture into a mold and it's now hanging in the suet feeder waiting for my first customers.

Gone, but not pho-gotten

2010-07-05T18:34:00.002-05:00

The link to the pho recipe from years ago was broken. Here's the recipe:

Beef Pho Noodle Soup Recipe (Pho bo)

Makes 8 satisfying (American-sized) bowls

For the broth:
2 medium yellow onions (about 1 pound total)
4-inch piece ginger (about 4 ounces)
5-6 pounds beef soup bones (marrow and knuckle bones)
5 star anise (40 star points total)
6 whole cloves
3-inch cinnamon stick
1 pound piece of beef chuck, rump, brisket or cross rib roast, cut into 2-by-4-inch pieces (weight after trimming)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
4 tablespoons fish sauce
1 ounce (1-inch chunk) yellow rock sugar (duong phen; see Note)

For the bowls:
1 1/2-2 pounds small (1/8-inch wide) dried or fresh banh pho noodles ("rice sticks'' or Thai chantaboon)
1/2 pound raw eye of round, sirloin, London broil or tri-tip steak, thinly sliced across the grain (1/16 inch thick; freeze for 15 minutes to make it easier to slice)
1 medium yellow onion, sliced paper-thin, left to soak for 30 minutes in a bowl of cold water
3 or 4 scallions, green part only, cut into thin rings
1/3 cup chopped cilantro (ngo)
Ground black pepper

Optional garnishes arranged on a plate and placed at the table:
Sprigs of spearmint (hung lui) and Asian/Thai basil (hung que)
Leaves of thorny cilantro (ngo gai)
Bean sprouts (about 1/2 pound)
Red hot chiles (such as Thai bird or dragon), thinly sliced
Lime wedges

Prepare the pho broth:

Char onion and ginger. Use an open flame on grill or gas stove. Place onions and ginger on cooking grate and let skin burn. (If using stove, turn on exhaust fan and open a window.) After about 15 minutes, they will soften and become sweetly fragrant. Use tongs to occasionally rotate them and to grab and discard any flyaway onion skin. You do not have to blacken entire surface, just enough to slightly cook onion and ginger.

Let cool. Under warm water, remove charred onion skin; trim and discard blackened parts of root or stem ends. If ginger skin is puckered and blistered, smash ginger with flat side of knife to loosen flesh from skin. Otherwise, use sharp paring knife to remove skin, running ginger under warm water to wash off blackened bits. Set aside.

Parboil bones. Place bones in stockpot (minimum 12-quart capacity) and cover with cold water. Over high heat, bring to boil. Boil vigorously 2 to 3 minutes to allow impurities to be released. Dump bones and water into sink and rinse bones with warm water. Quickly scrub stockpot to remove any residue. Return bones to pot.

Simmer broth. Add 6 quarts water to pot, bring to boil over high heat, then lower flame to gently simmer. Use ladle to skim any scum that rises to surface. Add remaining broth ingredients and cook, uncovered, for 1 1/2 hours. Boneless meat should be slightly chewy but not tough. When it is cooked to your liking, remove it and place in bowl of cold water for 10 minutes; this prevents the meat from drying up and turning dark as it cools. Drain the meat; cool, then refrigerate. Allow broth to continue cooking; in total, the broth should simmer 3 hours.

Strain the pho broth through fine strainer. If desired, remove any bits of gelatinous tendon from bones to add to your pho bowl. Store tendon with cooked beef. Discard solids.

Use ladle to skim as much fat from top of the pho broth as you like. (Cool it and refrigerate it overnight to make this task easier; reheat befofe continuing.) Taste and adjust flavor with additional salt, fish sauce and yellow rock sugar. The pho broth should taste slightly too strong because the noodles and other ingredients are not salted. (If you've gone too far, add water to dilute.) Makes about 4 quarts.

Assemble pho bowls:

The key is to be organized and have everything ready to go. Thinly slice cooked meat. For best results, make sure it's cold.

Heat the pho broth and ready the noodles. To ensure good timing, reheat broth over medium flame as you're assembling bowls. If you're using dried noodles, cover with hot tap water and soak 15-20 minutes, until softened and opaque white. Drain in colander. For fresh rice noodles, just untangle and briefly rinse in a colander with cold water.

Blanch noodles. Fill 3- or 4-quart saucepan with water and bring to boil. For each bowl, use long-handle strainer to blanch a portion of noodles. As soon as noodles have collapsed and lost their stiffness (10-20 seconds), pull strainer from water, letting water drain back into saucepan. Empty noodles into bowls. Noodles should occupy 1/4 to 1/3 of bowl; the latter is for noodle lovers, while the former is for those who prize broth.

If desired, after blanching noodles, blanch bean sprouts for 30 seconds in same saucepan. They should slightly wilt but retain some crunch. Drain and add to the garnish plate.

Add other ingredients. Place slices of cooked meat, raw meat and tendon (if using) atop noodles. (If your cooked meat is not at room temperature, blanch slices for few seconds in hot water from above.) Garnish with onion, scallion and chopped cilantro. Finish with black pepper.

Ladle in broth and serve. Bring broth to rolling boil. Check seasoning. Ladle broth into each bowl, distributing hot liquid evenly so as to cook raw beef and warm other ingredients. Serve your pho with with the garnish plate.

Note: Yellow rock sugar (a.k.a. lump sugar) is sold in one-pound boxes at Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. Break up large chunks with hammer.

Variations: If you want to replicate the splendorous options available at pho shops, head to the butcher counter at a Vietnamese or Chinese market. There you'll find white cords of gan (beef tendon) and thin pieces of nam (outside flank, not flank steak). While tendon requires no preparation prior to cooking, nam should be rolled and tied with string for easy handling. Simmer it and the beef tendon in the cooking broth for two hours, or until chewy-tender.

Airy book tripe (sach) is already cooked when you buy it. Before using, wash and gently squeeze it dry. Slice it thinly to make fringe-like pieces to be added to the bowl during assembly. For beef meatballs (bo vien), purchase them in Asian markets in the refrigerator case; they are already precooked. Slice each one in half and drop into broth to heat through. When you're ready to serve, ladle them out with the broth to top each bowl.

Cheese of the Week No. 11

2010-03-23T21:00:00.004-05:00

I have to write this one down before I forget it. It was maybe the best cheese I've ever had.

Grayson (Meadowcreek Dairy): USA (Virginia), raw cow's milk, washed rind

Missy Kinz described the smell of French munster as "unforgivable." Well, Grayson gives off a funk that is equally unpardonable. Being a washed rind cheese, it has a briny, crunchy, funky-bacteria-loving rind that helps to ripen the cheese from the outside in. The paste near the rind was just becoming gooey, at its absolute peak of creaminess. It was described on the tag as similar to taleggio, but it's better than any taleggio we get here in the States. I find it more similar the Chimay Grand Cru, but better still. Chimay a la Biere is funkier, but not as delicious.

The taste is supremely earthy, nutty, fruity, grassy and rich. They must have some happy cows down there at Meadowcreek. It's not for the faint of heart (or nose), but if you like the funk, dig this cheese.

Japanese breakfast

2009-08-13T11:55:00.002-05:00

I just returned from a trip to Japan with Yuki. What a great place! We didn't have a single bad meal, and we managed to do it on the cheap, too. The cities were bustling, hot, and humid, and after many days of sightseeing, we headed off to Kamikochi in the Japanese Alps for a hike. Along the way we came across a popular fish hut located just off the path on a stream. Their specialty, dating back many decades, is fire roasted trout straight from the stream. They trap them in a pen not more than 30 feet from the fire that was used to cook them. They're only about 6-8 inches long, so they're tender throughout, and I mean throughout. We were told by our server that you can eat every bit of the fish. I've never enjoyed a better fish head!

The fish was killed and gutted, skewered, rolled in salt, then placed next to a blazing wood fire and roasted until the skin was crisp. It was absolutely delicious.

Unfortunately I didn't take a single photo of the food I ate while in Japan. I'll do what I can to recall the meals here soon.

Stuff it

2009-04-25T02:03:00.002-05:00

I got a text today from my sis (yo sis!), and it was all about what she was whipping up for supper.

Well, I got inspired by this and decided to make stuffed poblano peppers, chile relleno. I mentioned on my notes from Texas a stuffed, fried avocado with beef and cheese. This is what I was aiming for in my poblanos.

Chile Relleno para mi hermana

a coupla fat poblano peppers
fire
vegetable oil
1/2 onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 lb. sirloin, in 3/4 inch cubes
4 oz. chihuahua cheese, or feta, or whatever you like, crumbled or shreded
2 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. coriander seed
5 peppercorns
salt
flour

Roast the peppers over fire or under a broiler until the skin is evenly browned and blistered. Stick'em in a Ziploc bag for 5-10 minutes and peel off the skins. Cut a slit in the sides and removed the seeds. Set aside.

Toast the dry spices in a frying pan until the cumin begins to brown. Grind'em up in your spice grinder. Set aside.

Sweat the onions in a few tablespoons of oil, then add the garlic and toss for 30 sec. Add the meat and the ground spices, and toss it all together. Cook until the meat has browned. Salt to taste.

Stuff some of this into the peppers and douse them with flour. Get some oil nice and hot for deep frying or pan frying. At this point, many stuffed pepper recipes would call for a batter dip. I didn't feel like making a batter, so I fried them with just the flour. Brown on all sides and serve.

I made some soft tacos with the rest of the filling. The salad with dinner had tomatoes, avocados, onion, lettuce, and a nice vinaigrette. Coulda used some Coronas.

Best soup ever

2009-03-29T22:23:00.002-05:00

When I travel abroad, I don't expect to feel at home. Moreover, I don't want to feel at home, otherwise I would just stay in the U.S. So when I walked into the best regarded Moroccan restaurant in Grenada, Spain, and got blasted with Phil Collins, I did a quick about face and hit the cobblestones faster than you can say "sussudio."

Luckily there was a Lebanese restaurant just around the corner, and it was there that we tried harira for the first time. It would not be the last, though. This hearty soup is a complete meal in a bowl, a favorite during Ramadan for breaking the fast. I came across a great recipe on the web, and I'll share that here. It's really simple, it just takes patience while it stews for a couple of hours and teases you with its amazing aroma. It works with larger couscous instead of noodles, too. Credit goes to soupsong.com - thanks!

Harira

1 lb lamb, in small cubes (I used boneless leg and froze the rest)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
2 T butter
3/4 c chopped celery
2 onions, chopped
1/2 c each parsley and cilantro, chopped
2 lbs canned tomatoes, chopped
small pinch of saffron (optional)
7 c water
salt to taste
3/4 c lentils
1 c chickpeas, either canned or dried/soaked
1/4 c fine soup noodles or large couscous
2 eggs beaten with juice of half a lemon

You'll need a big pot for this one. Combine the lamb, spices, onions, celery, parsley, cilantro, and butter in a heavy bottom pot over medium heat and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook another 10 minutes. Add the water, chickpeas, lentils, and some salt and bring to a simmer. Cook, partially covered, and stirring occasionally, for two hours. Season with salt and pepper, then add the noodles (or couscous). Cook for 10 minutes more, then slowly stir in the lemony beaten egg so you form long strands of egg and the soup is thickened. Serve hot.

Getting in the spirits

2008-11-15T20:52:00.003-05:00

I don't know what it is about cold weather and the holiday season that makes me want to make (and drink) homemade liqueur. This next one is unique as far as page 1 of my google search is concerned: Thai Iced Tea Liqueur. Whatdya think? Here's the plan.

2 (15 oz.) cans evaporated milk
1 can condensed milk
1 c brandy, vodka, or whiskey
4 heaping Tbsp Thai tea powder

Heat the evaporated milk to a simmer. Add the tea powder and let it steep for about 5 minutes and then strain it through a fine mesh sieve or cloth into a clean bowl. Stir in the condensed milk and the liquor. Transfer it to a clean bottle and chill before serving over ice. It's creamy like Baley's, rich and sweet like Thai iced tea. Success!

Alstublieft!

2008-11-13T01:17:00.007-05:00

I once paid a visit to Brother Jeffrey in Holland, and among all the other great things the Dutch have to offer like fresh herring, Belgian beer, windmills, and warm stroopwafels, I tasted advocaat, the Dutch eggnog. It came in a bottle, but even so, it was fantastic, so thick it had to be eaten with a spoon. I've always loved eggnog, the thicker the better. When it's done up right, advocaat has little to do with milk and everything to do with egg yolk and brandy. Since that day, I had been searching American liquor stores for the real deal, finding only flimsy, watered down pretenders.

Thank goodness for the internet, and thanks to Karin Engelbrecht, who posted this amazing recipe. I whittled it down to a two-serving dish tonight to give it a try, and I nearly ate the two servings myself when it was still warm in the cup.

Jeff, if you're reading this, you should be reaching for a whisk and some eggs right now.

Advocaat, for two

2 egg yolks

dash of salt

50 g or 1/4 c sugar

70 ml or 1/3 c brandy (I used the $10/bottle kind)

dash of vanilla extract

Have ready a saucepan with some simmering water in it. In a glass measuring cup or small pan, whisk together the yolks, salt, and sugar until thick and creamy. Continue whisking as you drizzle in the brandy until it is all incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Place the cup/pan into the water bath and whisk, whisk, whisk, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Don't let it get hot, just warm and thick. Take the advocaat off the heat and whisk in the vanilla.

Serve in small cups or cordial glasses with spoons and a dash of nutmeg.

I like the story behind this dish, too. From the almighty Wikipedia comes this tale:

The original advocaat was a liquor made by the Dutch population of Suriname and Recife with avocados. Upon returning to the Netherlands, where avocados were not available, a similar texture was achieved with thickened egg yolk. The original Aztec name of the fruit, ahuacatl, was transliterated to Spanish as "abogado", the Spanish word for lawyer. Thus it was translated to many other continental languages as their word for lawyer. This led to the misidentification of the name's origin as relating to the Dutch legal community (advocaat is Dutch for lawyer.)

Warmin' the Soul

2008-11-08T22:40:00.002-05:00

Still alive, still cooking, just moved into a new place and we're just getting sorted out here. The kitchen's a little smaller, there's no room for the grill anymore, and the tomatoes are going to have to fight for space on the stoop. That won't stop me from dishing out a heapin' helpin' of goodies, though.

The holiday season is fast approaching, and the first cold weather is really starting to settle into the Pittsburgh area. This means that surely I'll need something to warm me and my guests up. Since the ginger liqueur was a big hit last year, I'm making it again. In case you need that recipe again, go here. Good stuff!

Salsa Verde

2008-05-26T10:22:00.003-05:00

A colleague of mine brought back a gallon of salsa verde from a Mexican restaurant in NYC. The TSA didn't even touch it, but if they had tasted it, I'm sure it would have been confiscated. It was full of fresh tomatillos, cilantro, onion and lime, and it was 8 on a spicy scale of 10.

The Strip District here in the 'Burgh didn't have any tomatillos this weekend, so I bought a jar that didn't have any preservatives, just the same ingredients mentioned above. Garbage. Lifeless, limp, no spice, no bite. This wouldn't do.

I found a pile of tomatillos yesterday at the supermarket, and so today we have fresh...

Salsa Verde

2 lb. tomatillos, husked, washed and dried
1/2 cup chopped onion (I used a sweet onion)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
juice of one lime, or more to taste
hot peppers to taste (I used pickled habaneros and jalapenos)
dash of salt

Slice the tomatillos lengthwise and place cut side down on a foil-line sheet pan. Roast them under a broiler until the skins begin to blacken, about 5 minutes. Transfer them into a food processor with all the other ingredients and whirl until well blended. Tastes great warm, but it will stay fresh in the fridge for several days. Serve with chips, tacos, flautas, carnitas, or even Indian food. I tried it on some palak paneer the other day, and it's like they were born for each other.

Fish Tacos

2008-05-24T18:39:00.002-05:00

Grilling season is here, finally, and I've been grilling up a storm at every chance. Fish tacos are on the menu pretty often. Check them out.

Fish Tacos

tilapia fillets or similar
salt and pepper
lime juice
white wine
finely diced onion
cajun seasoning

Place a fillet on one half of a large sheet of foil. Season both sides with salt, pepper, and cajun seasoning. Squeeze a dose of lime juice and sprinkle a little white wine over the fillet. Add a dash of diced onion and fold the foil over, crimping the three sides to seal in the steam. Grill on a preheated medium-high grill for 12 minutes. Why 12? It was a good guess once, and it gave perfectly cooked, but not dry, fish.

Place a chunk of fish down the middle of a flour tortilla. Add toppings to taste, such as: shredded queso blanco, sliced avocado, pickled onions, hot sauce, salsa verde, lettuce, and shredded cabbage. For a veggie version, just cut out the fish!

Figure on 1/4-1/3 lb of fish per person. You can also do this in a home oven, just cook at about 400 for 12 minutes.

Good News, Chicago Fans

2008-04-12T15:12:00.004-05:00

I don't know why it took me 12 years of living away from Chicago to figure this one out. Little did I realize, when I first moved to Pittsburgh, that outside of the Chicagoland area, poppy seed buns do not exist except by mail order. As anyone from Chi-town knows, poppy seed buns are essential to a good Chicago style hot dog, along with the neon relish, celery salt, etc.

After lamenting this for so long, I finally figured it out. What's missing from a regular bun? Poppy seeds. How do you get poppy seeds to stick to a regular bun? Try brushing them lightly with some milk or 1/2 & 1/2, sprinkle on the seeds, and toast the tops in a toaster oven for a minute or two. Steam, fill, and be transported back to the Windy City.

The Square Cut

2008-04-11T18:18:00.006-05:00

Mission accomplished... almost.

Here's the thin crust version of the dough from the last post. It could be a little crunchier on the bottom, but the cheese is already getting browned on top. Could be I need a screen or stone to help with that.

450 for about 15 minutes. Toppings were sausage, green pepper, mushroom. Sauce was Classico tomato and basil. Cheese was 50/50 mozz and provolone. Time to devourment (three eaters): 12 minutes.

I insisted on a square cut just so that I could fight myself for the little corner pieces. That's a little taste of heaven.

Pizza Legends

2008-03-30T20:46:00.005-05:00

It's pizza time again, peoples. I've become mildly obsessed with achieving the perfect Chicago pizza. The Gino's East experiment was a huge success, though I should mention again that I would bake it at 450 for about 30 minutes, rather than at 350.

The thin crust experiment, though crunchy and light, didn't have the taste I was looking for. The crust was more like a cracker than a flaky, chewy, yet still crunchy, pizza crust.

My attempts at a Giordano's-style stuffed pizza have led me to these two pizzas. The first one pictured used the Gino's East dough recipe; though I rushed it and let it rise only an hour rather than overnight in the fridge. It showed, because it was not very flavorful. It was too bread-like and just didn't have the right consistency for a stuffed crust. The top dough was almost uncooked, or cooked and soggy enough to melt in with the cheese. The pizza tasted pretty good, but it wasn't a show stopper.

I did some digging and came across one man's version of Giordano's crust. He promised a pie-like, flaky, biscuity crust. An eight hour rise promised lots of flavor, and a seriously short kneading time meant less bread, more flakiness. I mixed the dough in my food processor and followed the kneading and rising instructions closely. Here's what I found:

This is the crust! I'm not sure it's Giordano's crust, but it is THE crust for thin, crispy, Chicago-style square-cut pizza. The taste, the texture, the crispy bottom, it has it all. I wouldn't change a thing.

However, let me just say one thing about a lot of pizza recipes I've come across so far. If people try to tell you that a deep dish pizza needs maybe one-third to half a pound of cheese, they are lying to you. Do not believe them, do not trust a word they have to say about any dairy issues. Do not buy a cow from them; it will probably be devoid of milk. If anything, double the cheese amount they suggest and go from there.

On to the recipe. For a 12"-14" thin crust pizza, this amount is perfect. It also works well for a 10" x 2" pan pizza.

Crispy, Tasty, Flaky Pizza Crust

1 tsp yeast
3/4 tsp sugar
6 T warm water
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
6 tsp oil (5 tsp corn or veg oil, 1 tsp good olive oil)

Stir the yeast and sugar into the warm water. Let it stand 10 minutes to make sure the yeast is active.

In a food processor, combine the salt and flour by blending for a few seconds. Add the yeast mixture and blend a short time until it's thoroughly incorporated. Add the oil slowly with the motor on. The dough should start to form a ball. If not, add a little more water, but avoid adding too much as this should be a rather dry dough.

When a ball forms, knead the dough on a floured surface for not more than two minutes. It should be somewhat elastic, not sticky at all. Place it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel. Let it rise at room temperature for about 8 hours, or let it go for a day in the fridge. The lengthy rise time is important to both the texture and the taste of the crust, so don't rush it.

When you're ready to make your pizza, preheat your oven to 450. Roll the dough out into a 12" circle, fold it into quarters, and let it rest for 10 minutes. Lightly oil your pan and sprinkle a little corn meal on. Roll the dough again into a large, thin circle, place it into your pan, and add the toppings. A proper deep dish pizza starts with cheese, and lots of it. Next come the toppings, and finally, the sauce and some grated parmesan. Bake at 450 for about 30-35 minutes.

The sauce is a matter of preference. I love chunky tomato sauce, and so I don't really crush tomatoes from a can too much. I used Del Monte diced tomatoes with good results. You can try anything you want, just have about 28 ounces of canned tomatoes in total. Try this some time:

28 oz canned tomatoes, diced, whole and crushed, whatever you like
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp sugar
a couple shakes of dried basil, red pepper flakes, and oregano
a dash of fennel seed, crushed

Empty the tomatoes into a sieve and, without stirring, allow them to drain for about 20 minutes. You'd be amazed at how much water comes out, and this is the same water that would otherwise try to make your beautiful crust soggy.

Mix all the ingredients together and add them to your pizza.

Queso en Fuego

2008-03-04T07:30:00.003-05:00

If you've never had saganaki in a Greek restaurant, you're missing out on some great evening entertainment. Slices of kasseri, kofalotiri, or even halloumi are grilled in a pan until slightly golden, then brought to the table sizzling. For the finishing touch, the server will splash some ouzo into the pan and light it into an enormous fireball, yelling "opa!!!" and watching the delighted/terrified looks on the guests' faces.

I'm going out on a limb here by saying, "Try this at home, kids!" It's fast, fun, dangerous and, best of all, delicious. I found a good substitute for the Greek cheeses: queso blanco. It's slightly crumbly, salty, and it doesn't melt much when fried. Bourbon makes a great finisher, and a little sprinkling of herbs will add a nice flavor.

Slices your cheese about 1/2" thick and fry it to golden brown in a pan over medium-high heat. Flip it over and continue browning the other side. Have about a shot of warmed liquor handy, and when the other side of the cheese is browned, add the liquor, shake it a little to catch the cooking flame, and opa!!!

Serve it with some bread or crackers and a cold beer.

From the Archives

2008-02-18T21:13:00.007-05:00

Just two short years ago, I lived in Queens, worked at a grocer that rhymes with Balducci's, and rooted for the Steelers in Super Bowl XL. Pittsburgh is my second home, and I missed it dearly knowing that I'd be missing the absolute chaos as Stiller fever took over the city. To bring some of that charm to NYC, I made some dishes that would evoke memories of the Steel City and harden even the most supple of arteries.

My apprentice for the evening was Mike. Together we made Black & Gold Pierogies with a cheesesteak filling in the style of Primanti Bros. We also made Black & Gold linguine with a saffron cream sauce.

The details are a bit fuzzy. My internet connection in those days was bootlegged from someone else in the building, and it was a little unreliable, so the post unfortunately didn't make it up when it was more relevant and fresh. Here's what I remember:

The yellow pasta was colored with saffron; the black with squid ink. Of the squid ink, Sheila said, "That smells like men-stru-ation."

The pierogie filling contained chopped sirloin, provolone cheese, french fries, cole slaw (I think) and probably some hot sauce.

The saffron cream sauce had shallots, saffron, vermouth and maybe some celery and carrots, probably thickened with a roux.

In the end, the Black & Gold prevailed. These colors don't run. 'N'at.

Photos by Mike.

I just ate a can of beans.

2008-02-18T20:27:00.002-05:00

How could I, or why would I, eat a can of beans? Won't there be side effects to go with all those health benefits? To paraphrase Brandi, Yourmother's sister, I'm about to become a natural resource. But in the end, I'm a step closer to achieving a long time goal: the recreation of the black bean dip at Kaya, also served at Mad Mex, a small chain of Tex-Mex places in Pittsburgh.

What makes the dip so good and addictive is its alluring and elusive blend of spices, warmed into a pool of dip-able mashed beans with melted cheese on top. This isn't the first attempt at making this dish that I've been involved in. Several years ago, Chef Phateline and I took a swing at it with mixed results. Too much chili oil, maybe not enough cumin, but overall not too bad. After trying the real deal again recently, I figured it can't be too complicated. This is a restaurant pumping out dozens of pounds of this stuff daily. Maybe it's this:

Black Bean Dip, Kaya Style, v1.5

1 can black beans
2 tsp chili powder (regular old McCormick or similar)
1/2 tsp salt or more to taste
1-3 tsp hot sauce, to taste
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2-1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar or jack, chihuahua if you have it)

Put everything except the cheese into a food processor or chopper. Whip it up until it's just getting creamy. Spread it into a shallow baking dish that will give it a depth of about 3/4 inch. Sprinkle with cheese and bake at 400 F until the cheese is nicely melted. Serve with tortilla chips.

In retrospect, I probably would have made it a little spicier, maybe a little saltier, and it could have used maybe a little more cumin. Garlic powder or onion powder would be an interesting addition. Or maybe it's equal parts chili powder, adobo seasoning, and hot sauce. Go nuts. Let me know what you find out.

Thin Crust Pizza

2008-02-10T17:00:00.000-05:00

About a year ago I was able to recreate my favorite Chicago deep dish pizza in the world. I need to update the cooking temperature and time on that one, by the way. 425 for 45 minutes should be more like it. My second attempt was rather doughy and unsatisfying, lacking the crunch in the crust that is needed.

Chicago's other pizza claim to fame is crispy, paper thin, square-cut pizza. This is by no means a competitor to New York style pizza, but a third form of the art. I have fond memories of ordering thin crust pizza back home in Chicago; fighting over the crispest, tiniest outer cuts; avoiding the inner, soggier slices. In fact, my main complaint about Chicago thin crust was the unavoidable sogginess of the inner square slices. My goal is to bake a paper thin pizza that is crispy throughout the pie.

After some digging on the internet, I came across a quick recipe for a thin crust that is prebaked before adding toppings, much like a pie crust. Here's the basic recipe for the crust:

Thin Crust Pizza

1 c warm water
1 pkg (or 2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
2 1/2 c all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 T olive oil

Dissolve the yeast in the water for a few minutes. In a medium mixing bowl, mix the flour and salt. Make a well and add the water-yeast mixture and the olive oil. Mix thoroughly with your hand and then turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough for 8 minutes so that it is smooth and elastic. Allow the dough to rest in a clean bowl covered with plastic or a damp towel.

While the dough is resting, preheat your oven to 425 F. Have ready two 12" pizza pans or use a baking stone. Divide the dough into two balls and stretch each one to fit the pans. Bake the crusts for 12 minutes at 425. They will be slightly browned and crisp.

Add your favorite toppings and bake a further 1o-12 minutes at 425. The pizza in the picture was smeared with hummus and topped with canned diced tomatoes that had been drained for 30 minutes to remove most of the excess water. A little bit of oregano spiced it up just enough.

The crust proved to be crispy throughout the pizza, but it had a nice chewiness in the thicker parts so that it wasn't overwhelmingly crunchy. The taste is a little on the bland side, but it does remind me of some of my favorite old delivery places. Served with an ice-cold RC, this is a little taste of home. I suppose a little more flavor could be gained by allowing the dough to rise slowly in the refrigerator overnight, as with the deep dish crust.

I'm so proud.

2007-12-10T17:58:00.000-05:00

Yes, I used to work here.

Ginger Liqueur Part 3

2007-12-09T14:47:00.000-05:00

Two thumbs up for the honey ginger liqueur! It is a smooth sipping, soul warming nectar that satisfies through and through. Highly recommended. Decant it into a clean, sealable bottle after steeping it for several weeks as there's a little bit of residue at the bottom from the ginger. It's harmless, just unattractive.

Ginger Liqueur Part 2

2007-12-01T21:52:00.000-05:00

After one week of aging, I've tried the sugared version of my ginger liqueur, and let me tell you, it's really good. It has a wonderful, citrus and ginger aroma, a smooth, sweet front and a nice ginger spiciness on the way down. This was the second boiling of the ginger, and it was made with pure sugar rather than sugar and honey together. I did, however, boil this one for about 30 minutes instead of just 10, so I'll be curious to taste the first one and see how the ginger bite came through.

I wasn't too crazy about the E&J brandy I used, but as a base for this liqueur, it's perfect.

The ginger candy that came from the boiling of this liqueur turned out nice and chewy, and really spicy. Give it a try and you won't want to bother with store bought candied ginger again.

Ginger Liqueur Part 1

2007-11-24T22:33:00.000-05:00

It all started with a batch of ginger tofu soup (see April 2006) that I made today. The aroma of ginger lingers and lures all day long, and hours after the soup had been finished, I got to thinking. Wouldn't a ginger liqueur be nice? Something that really delivers a swift ginger kick in the pants, and has a nice, sweet, smooth liqueur base to sooth the burn.

After some quick digging on the net, I found several recipes and decided to up the ginger amount and cut the curing time in about a third. I'd like for this to be done in two weeks, not six.

Here's what's brewing:

A quick note about peeling ginger: While you can use a knife or vegetable peeler, most ginger lovers will tell you to peel it thinly by scraping with a spoon. Supposedly a good amount of the potent juice lies just beneath the skin's surface.

1/2 c honey
1/2 c sugar
1 c water
6" ginger root, peeled and sliced thinly crosswise
rind of one lemon
1 1/2 c brandy

Boil the honey, sugar, and water in a heavy bottom saucepan for about five minutes. Skim any foam (that's beeswax) from the surface. Add the ginger and lemon rind and boil for an additional 10 minutes. Strain with a fine sieve and cheesecloth into a clean 1 quart jar. If you have the patience, use a coffee filter. Allow to cool for a bit and then add the brandy. Close tightly and allow to sit for what I hope will be just two weeks. This experiment will be continued.

The sliced ginger can be dusted with sugar and dried in a low oven to make ginger candy.

Optionally, you can boil the ginger again with some sugar water and make yourself some gingered simple syrup, or another batch of ginger schnapps, and then make the candy. Don't waste it if you can help it.

Cheese of the Year

2007-10-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

I would first like to share some new-found knowledge with my loyal readers (who by now must number well below half a dozen.) I can now answer the question, "What are those crunchy things in my delicious aged cheese?" Calcium lactate, of course. When good bacteria love good cheese for a long time, they convert lactic acid into precipitated crystals of calcium lactate.

This brings me to my hands-down winner of the coveted Cheese of the Year Big Prize. Yes, I used to have a Cheese of the Week entry, but unfortunately I don't work in a cheese shop anymore. Nevertheless, this recent discovery was worth the wait. If you have not tried this one yet, get thee to a cheesery and buy some.

Midnight Moon (Cypress Grove Chevre): U.S.A. (California), goat's milk, aged 1+ year. Full of crunchy crystals, this medium hard cheese bursts with an amazing caramel-nutty flavor. It's so delicious, so flavorful, so absolutely delightful to behold, that it needs no accompaniment. Do not make cubes of this and serve it with your other cheeses. This one deserves to be shaved thin as can be, and allowed to melt on the tongue for full appreciation of its many layers of flavor. The goatiness of the milk comes out only slightly, but it's there, and it rounds out the aroma perfectly. Lightly flavored grapes and a light red would make good partners, but don't go making a mini sandwich on a Triscuit. Let it speak for itself, savor it, love it.

The Devil's Couscous

2007-08-16T21:21:00.000-05:00

I've been eating out a lot lately, and just as I was about to be overwhelmed by a burrito jones, I remembered the five minute miracle food residing on my countertop for the past dozen weeks. Couscous, whose virtues I've preached before on this page, was going to save my ever bleeding wallet once again. In this case, it was time for this little pasta to soak up the good juices of a seething Indian spiced hell broth.

My couscous today is the pearl type, or Israeli, couscous. The grains are much larger and chewier than their Moroccan cousin, and they're often made with ground bulgur and wheat rather than pure semolina. In any case, they plump and soak up a lot of juice, and would make a perfect substitute for pasta side dishes in many meals. Here's one to blow your head off with the fury of chili peppers and a fusion of tropical spices. Tamarind extract is available in Indian grocers and many international aisles of supermarkets, and it lends a pleasant sour taste. I've upgraded my Indian spice arsenal to include asafoetida, which is used in some cultures that believe garlic and onions are non conducive to spiritual advancement. You of course can use garlic instead, just don't burn it.

Couscous en Fuego

2 T vegetable oil
1/2 tsp each of whole cumin, coriander, black mustard seed, turmeric
1/4 tsp each black peppercorns, fenugreek, asafoetida, cloves
1 star anise
2-4 whole dried chilies, broken
3 green cardamom pods, crushed
1 medium red onion, finely diced
1/2 tsp salt or more to taste
1/2 tsp tamarind extract
2 c water
1 3/4 c Israeli couscous

Heat the oil up in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the spices except for the turmeric and and asafoetida to the oil and cook until the mustard seeds begin to pop. Add the turmeric and asafoetida and cook for 10 seconds before adding the onion. Stir the onion thoroughly with the spices and cook, stirring often, until it begins to brown. Add a little water if the onion is too dry or begins to burn.

Once the onion is browned, add the 2 c water and tamarind, and bring to a boil. Add the salt and finally the couscous, and bring the mixture to the boil once again. Remove from the burner, cover, and allow it to stand for 10 minutes to steam and allow the grains to absorb the liquid. Feast!

Pork 'n' Mac 'n' Cheese

2007-07-08T20:21:00.000-05:00

When all else fails, make mac'n'cheese and add some smoked pork to it.

The Best Mac 'n' Cheese Ever

1 family size box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (the fluorescent powder version, of course)
1/2 stick butter
1/4 c milk
1/2 can pinto beans or chili beans
2 handfuls of smoked pork
something spicy

Cook the pasta and drain. Add it back to the pan with the butter. Sprinkle on the powder cheese and milk and stir it all up. Add the beans and the pork and stir some more over low heat to heat it all through. Add something spicy and you've got yourself a helluva treat.

If you're adventurous with the spice, slice an habanero pepper in half and put it in with the other ingredients. Give it a good stir to warm the spice the whole thing through. In addition to hellacious heat, it has a great citrusy flavor. For god's sake, be careful, though; that sucker is hot. Take a piece in your bowl and rub some pork bits on the pepper every once in a while. That'll wake ya up in the mornin', boy. Don't forget the cold beer(s).

More Pig

2007-07-05T19:19:00.000-05:00

Here's another recipe for in case you also have a pile o' smoked pig in the fridge. Sorry about the lack of photos; these dishes go too quickly even for the digital age of photography.

Quesadilla Grande al Puerco Fumado

This is good for those leftover days. I had an Arkansas tomato that tasted like cardboard. This was about the only thing that could save it.

1 flour tortilla
1 handful of shredded cheddar
1 handful of shredded smoked pork
1 handful of crumbled feta cheese
2 big spoonfuls of pinto beans
1 handful diced tomato
1 T finely diced onion
splash of salsa
sliced hot peppers, Chicago style giardiniera, etc.
fresh cilantro
tortilla chips

Lay a tortilla down on a sheet of foil. Sprinkle all the other ingredients around, and top it all with the corn chips. Put it in a 375 toaster oven or regular oven until the cheese is well melted. Dig in!

101 Uses for Pulled Pork

2007-07-03T22:21:00.000-05:00

I have a little bit of a problem. Well, to call it a little problem is to do a great disservice to the glorious hunks of pork that I smoked over the weekend. But you just couldn't imagine how much meat would come off of a shoulder and a ham. Untold pounds of smoked-to-perfection pork have already been consumed in pulled pork sandwiches and pork tacos, but I'm still left with at least five pounds of meat, maybe ten. It was a big ham, I tell you.

The meat was rubbed down in a nice blend of spices and then hot-smoked for about 10 hours. The shoulder came out really nice, but the ham had a long way to go, only having reached 160 on the internal temp. Pork doesn't really pull well until all of the connective tissues have broken down, and this happens around 195 F. I finished it off in a slow 250 oven for about 3.5 hours more and popped it in the fridge. The next day I began the task of shredding the beast. At first I used two forks, much like in my recent shredded chicken adventures. About a pound into the behemoth I gave it a rest and saved the rest of the task for the next day, and that's when I discovered the magic of the Chinese cleaver I had picked up for $2 at a Goodwill. The heavy blade made light work of crushing chunks into fibrous mats, and hacking these mats further into bite-sized chunks was quick as can be. If Yan can cook, so can you!

One bonus to come from leaving it in the fridge was the amazing gelatin that formed on the bottom of the ham. It was dark like molasses, chewy like Jell-o jigglers, and smoky with a spicy bite. It seemed like a heart attack waiting to happen, so I didn't eat toooo much...

Several chunks of smoked ham await cooler days and soup making. Until then, I think I'm just about topped up on pulled pork. The barbecue sauce I made is Eastern Carolina style, very tangy and heavy on the vinegar. If you don't dig on the vinegar, use less and add more ketchup.

Eastern Carolina BBQ Sauce for Pulled Pork

2 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 tsp salt
1 T honey
1 T molasses
4 tsp hot pepper flakes

Mix it all up and use to dress pulled pork.

Coleslaw for Pulled Pork sandwiches

1 small head cabbage
1 cup of the BBQ sauce

Shred the cabbage with a food processer or chop very fine and mix with the sauce. Serve it up on a slutty white hot dog bun with a good heap of pulled pork and some extra sauce if you like it tangy.

Flautas de la Noche

2007-06-20T20:00:00.000-05:00

Will it be good enough? Can my six month absence be forgiven? Does anybody still read this thing? These are the questions that have kept me up at night for six months as I cooked high and low searching for the next entry in the Captain's Table. Well, I'm here to say that I think it is good enough, and I am smart enough, and gosh darn it...

Let me just give you a quick update. I've finally got an herb and tomato garden growing on my deck, and the cherry tomato plant ("Sweet 100") is loaded with flowers and little green tomatoes. The regular-type tomato plant ("Better Boy") is coming along nicely and is adjusting to a new cage. It also has a bunch of flowers and several large green tomatoes ripening up. No more lousy tomatoes! (I hope.) In the herb section I've got tons of basil, lots of cilantro (just planted more yesterday to replenish), curly purple basil (a freebie from a nursery), arugula, parsley and mint. It's all coming in very handy these days.

Sometimes, when a craving strikes me and I happen to have the time to satisfy that craving, wonderful things happen in the kitchen. The music starts rockin', the broth starts boilin', and before you know it, there's a great big heap of chicken flautas on a plate waiting to be devoured.

The time it takes to go from recognizing a flauta craving to realizing the dream is about 3 hours. It takes a bit longer to make the rest of them to save for later. In case you've been deprived of greasy Mexican food all your life, a flauta is a simple soft taco rolled up and fried crisp and served optionally with salsa, sour cream, guacamole and/or cold beer. It's all about texture and spices.

The shredded chicken filling is great for wet chicken tacos, too. See also my carnitas recipe for topping suggestions.

Shredded Chicken Flautas

3 split chicken breasts (bone-in)
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 hot chili, diced, more if you like
juice of one lemon
1 tsp freshly ground cumin
1 tsp freshly ground coriander
1/2 tsp oregano
1 T fresh cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Place everything into a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partially covered, until the chicken is full cooked, about 30 minutes or until a thermometer placed in the thickest part of the meat reads 160F. Flip the chicken occasionally to cook it evenly. Turn the heat off and take one breast out of the broth at a time. Discard the bones and skin and shred the meat with two forks by holding with one and pulling bits of meat off of a large chunk with the other. Transfer the shredded meat back to the broth to keep it moist and continue to shred all of the meat. Taste for seasoning and if anything, over-salt it so that the meat will carry the flavors into your tacos.

From here you can proceed with sloppy wet tacos, or you can continue on with flautas.

To make flautas, you'll need soft corn tortillas, a skillet with medium-hot oil about 1/4" deep, and some shredded cheese (I tried an habanero jack cheese tonight.)

Take some of the wet meat from the broth and spread it out on a roasting pan or toaster oven pan. Roast it at 400F until the meat is starting to crisp on the edges and the water has evaporated from the broth, leaving behind all the flavor.

Fry a tortilla in the oil, one side at a time, until it starts puffing up a little bit, but isn't browning. Drain it on paper towels, place some chicken and cheese across the middle, and fold the sides over. Flip it over on the seam to hold it closed while the shell crisps up a little bit. Keep frying until your craving forces you to eat some of the tacos you've just made.

Makes 20+ flautas.

Gino's Way East

2007-01-29T18:24:00.000-05:00

I am so happy right now. The deep dish pizzas came out so well, so delicious, so right; this recipe is a keeper.

I could hardly wait to bake them yesterday. After slowly fermenting in the refrigerator for a day, the dough smelled amazing and was full of life. I decided to make a veggie pizza and a sausage patty/mushroom (my favorite). If you haven't been to Gino's East, you probably haven't seen a continuous patty of sausage on top of a pizza, and if you aren't familiar with Chicago deep dish style pizza, you're probably wondering from some of the pictures where the cheese is. Assembly goes like this: crust, mozzarella, mozzarella, more mozzarella, toppings, then sauce, and finally a little grated Romano cheese. As it bakes, some cheese may find its way through the sauce, and the toppings will start peeking through.

My pizza pans are thin gauge stainless steel, 12" round by 2" tall cake pans. It took about 50 minutes at 350 to bake the pizzas through, a pretty long time to wait for pizza. I might try a higher temperature next time, but I'd hate to burn that beautiful crust. The pizza itself brought back a flood of memories, and on this frigid Pittsburgh night I was glad to be inside with a roaring fire, a glass of beer and a slice of the best. Here's the full recipe.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

For each 12" deep dish pan:
Crust:
1 cup luke warm water
1 package yeast
1/3 cup corn oil with about 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil mixed in
1 tsp annatto seeds (optional)
1 T sugar
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 lb bread flour

For the golden crust effect, I heated the oil with the annatto seeds over low heat for about 10 minutes. Let it cool before proceeding.

In a bowl, put water, then yeast, oil, cream of tartar, and sugar. Mix with hand until yeast dissolves. Then start adding the flour a little at a time, using one hand as a dough hook to mix the ingredients. Continue adding flour until the dough is still soft, but not sticky. Turn onto a lightly floured surface, sprinkle with a little flour, and knead it for 10 minutes. Ten full minutes of fold, push, turn, repeat. Sprinkle with a little flour if it gets sticky. Do this, and you will have smooth, elastic dough with a fine structure. It's worth the workout.

Oil the surface of your ball of dough lightly, and place it into a clean, lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit out at room temperature for about an hour. It will just about double in volume. You can go two ways with it from here. What I did is probably closer to the way they do it in the high volume restaurant. Punch down the dough and roll it out to about 15" round. Lay it into your lightly oiled pan and pinch the sides up to form a nice thick crust. Sprinkle in about half a pound of mozzarella, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for a day. Alternatively, you can put your slightly risen dough, in its plastic wrapped bowl, into the fridge and let it ferment for at least half a day. The extra long, slow fermentation develops a wonderful flavor in the crust that cannot be done in a hurry. If you don't mind sacrificing taste, go ahead and bake it right away.

---

Sauce:
1 28 oz can plum tomatoes (San Marzano if ya got'em)
a pinch each of oregano and basil
about a tablespoon of salt (to taste)
fresh ground black pepper
(I'd probably put in a little garlic salt)

Remove about 1/4 c of the sauce from the can of tomatoes, then pour the rest into a bowl and with your fingers or a potato masher, crush the tomatoes into pieces smaller than a quarter. Add your seasoning, beginning with a teaspoon of salt and tasting frequently. It should be pretty salty but not overpowering.

---

Toppings:
Sweet Italian sausage
sliced black olives
sliced mushrooms
diced green pepper
grated Pecorino Romano cheese

For patty-style sausage, press one pound of Italian sausage (minus casing) into a 10" skillet and cook it over medium heat until it just starts to brown. Slip it onto a plate, invert the skillet over the plate and flip the patty over into the pan. Cook the other side until it just starts to brown, and slide it onto your pizza (on top of the cheese, of course.)

---

Half an hour before baking time, preheat the oven to 350, take the pan (or dough) out of the fridge and get it ready for assembly. Remove the wrap and tidy up the crust if need be. Sprinkle in about a pound more cheese. Add your toppings, sausage first if using, and then ladle on the sauce. Sprinkle on a nice dose of romano and put into the oven for about 45-55 minutes. The cheese should be well melted, the sauce should be bubbling, and the crust should be a deep golden brown.

Enjoy!

Sweet Home Chicago

2007-01-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

Seeing the Bears go to the Super Bowl this year has me in a nostalgic kind of mood. I miss some things about Chicago like the lake front, the Art Institute, shopping downtown , and mostly the food. Italian beef sandwiches, Chicago-style hot dogs and deep dish pizza don't make it too far outside of Chicagoland (except for Uno's, which are everywhere now and have all the charm of TGI Friday's.) I'm going to do something about it, if only on an extremely local scale.

This weekend, I'm attempting Gino's East deep dish pizza, with the signature golden crust and patty sausage topping. In my searching I came across a food blog and a forum on ChefTalk that both go into the gritty details of Gino's crust. Corn meal? Food coloring? Rise overnight? So many variables, so many guesses. I followed what is claimed to be the real crust recipe, and it is rising in my fridge until baking time tomorrow to get a nice fermented taste.

I tried something to color the crust yellow that none of these other bloggers did, and that was achiote (annatto) oil. It's commonly used in Latin American food to give yellow color to rice and pastry dough, and it's made simply by heating annatto seeds with oil. It has no aroma and as far as I can tell, no taste. I took 1/3 cup of the corn oil needed for the dough and heated it with 1 tsp of annatto seeds over low heat for about 10 minutes. After this time, it seemed like the seeds had given as much color as they were going to give. In retrospect, 2 tsp of seeds wouldn't have been too much as my dough came out kind of pale. The yellow tint in the crust is purely a psychological weapon, but I feel it's important.

One last thing I think I'll change is the cheese quantity. One pound just doesn't seem like enough for a 12 inch pie. We'll see.

Culture Shock

2007-01-17T13:32:00.000-05:00

Two things today: first a sourdough update, then yogurt.

There are signs that a starter will give you indicating that it has died, gone off, or is otherwise useless. In the case of mine, it was showing me no activity at all for several days, and there was a grim cesspool of hooch on top. I had to know what this meant, though, and the only way I could test this was to make some dough. I cheated a little bit, though, and I added a pinch of yeast to the sponge before mixing in the rest of the flour and water. After mixing in the ingredients, I had the most supple, smooth, elastic dough I've ever worked with. It was beautiful. I got excited and let it rise in a warm place for a few hours. I came back to such a sad sight, words cannot describe it. Instead of a nicely risen, puffy loaf of dough, I had a pool of goo. I didn't worry too much, though. Yes, my starter was dead, but was I on the right track with the taste? I baked that pile of goo into a nice, crusty, albeit flat, loaf of some very tasty sourdough with a delicate crumb. It went very well with a butternut squash ginger soup that took no time at all to cook.

I call that a partial success. However, I need to start again with the starter, and this time I will pay more attention to its needs and wants. Acidity is key in developing the yeast, but it must be well balanced and timely. I'll get that going soon.

In the meantime, I've become slightly infatuated with Greek yogurt, and since it's a pricey infatuation, and since I'm getting into an Indian cooking marathon mood again in which yogurt will play a key part, I need to learn how to make yogurt. I tried it once before in the times before this blog came to be, so I don't mind exploring and sharing.

My first attempt went from memory, and it failed on all counts. The milk was not scalded at a high enough temperature and wasn't held a that temperature for long enough. The incubation time was too long, and the temperature was again too low. After some reading, this is what I did, and what you should do if you need a pile of yogurt brewing in your house.

Homemade Yogurt

1 quart fresh milk (whole, 2%, skim)
2 T store-bought yogurt

Equipment:
A double boiler or one pan that fits in another
A candy thermometer
A warm, 125 deg F place for incubation

Place the milk in the top portion of the double boiler. I used a stainless bowl that I set over a pan of simmering water. Bring some water in the bottom section to a boil and watch the temperature of your milk. When it gets to 200 deg F, reduce your boil and maintain 200 for five minutes. This will change the proteins in the milk so that they will link together when the bacteria begin to act on the milk.

Cool the milk down to 120 deg F by setting the bowl or pan in a bowl of cold water. Watch it carefully so that it doesn't cool down much below 120. Take a cup of this milk and whisk in the yogurt. Stir this mixture back into the warm milk and cover the container. Alternatively, you can pour this into individual size jars or other small, lidded containers. Cover whatever container you're using and put it into your warm place. The ideal temperature is between 122 and 130 deg F. I had my gas oven set to 135 with the door ajar, and I was able to get 128. Keep the milk there for 3 1/2-4 hours, and you will get yogurt. It won't be super thick, but it will set and noticeably yogurt-like in appearance and taste. Pop it right into the fridge and it will keep there for a week. Save a couple tablespoons of this batch for your next batch.

To make the yogurt nice and thick like Greek yogurt, line a bowl with triple-layered cheesecloth or a cloth napkin, pour the yogurt into the bowl, and tie the four corners of the cloth up. Hang this over the bowl (to catch the whey) for a few hours and you will have a strained, thick yogurt. The longer you hang, up to a day, the thicker it will be, and when almost all of the whey is out of the yogurt, it is basically cheese. In the middle-east, they call it labneh, and it makes a great spread with toasted pita if you pour olive oil on top of the cheese and sprinkle it with torn mint.

Too many words, not enough pictures. I'll get some up soon.

Return of the Yellow Cloud

2007-01-11T21:31:00.000-05:00

I whipped up a little Indian chickpea dish last night, and although every crevice of my apartment has been penetrated by the aromatics and spices, I had a good time with it. I forgot how much fun it is to grind spices and layer complex flavors to bring out the best in a simple ingredient.

Carrot Cake

2007-01-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

I've had many mediocre versions of carrot cake in restaurants over the past ten years, and none of them have come close to my mom's Joy of Cooking version. It turns out that hers is the only reason why carrot cake is my favorite. Without that recipe this weekend, I had to go to the internet. The recipe I found is from the web, and I made it last night and made a lot of people happy.

Super Moist Carrot Cake

2 c all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or allspice and nutmeg)
4 eggs
1 1/2 c vegetable oil (I used 1 1/4)
2 c white sugar
2 3/4 c shredded or grated carrots (I did mine in the food processor)
1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple, drained
3/4 c chopped walnuts
1 c flaked coconut plus a little more for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 9" x 13" pan, or two 8 1/2" cake pans.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the sugar, oil and eggs together to mix well. Beat in the flour mixture little by little. Stir in the shredded carrots, crushed pineapple, chopped nuts and flaked coconut. Pour into pan(s). Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the centers no longer look liquid and jiggly. A toothpick should come out clean and dry. With two cakes you can make a nice two layer cake. Allow to cool before frosting with:

Cream Cheese Icing (based on Joy of Cooking recipe)

1 8 oz package cream cheese
3 T milk
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together the sugar and cinnamon. Set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the milk and cream cheese until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add a touch more milk if necessary, but be careful: The only thing you can do to make the icing thicker is to add more cheese. Beat in the vanilla. Add the sugar a little at a time and stir until it is smooth.

Sourdough, End of Week 1

2007-01-07T10:13:00.000-05:00

Those first few days of making the sourdough starters were magical, and then things got much less active and worrisome in a hurry. The fast start version is now a stagnant mass of brownish gray sludge with a pool of brown "hooch" on top. It smells decidedly funky and more pungent, even sweeter, than its cool start cousin. On day 7, I've decided to drop in half a teaspoon of honey to feed the yeast a little bit, and it will sit in the fridge until tonight. I plan to take half a cup out and prepare a sponge for sourdough pancakes tomorrow morning.

The cool start version has a sour smell and seems slightly more active, but the days of glorious foam and bubbles are over. Last night I took out a cup, nearly the entire thing, to begin a sponge for making sourdough French bread later on today. I then put in a cup each of flour and water and let it sit out on the 70 degree countertop overnight. It now looks like the fast start, slightly less gray with some slightly less-brown hooch on top. I gave this one a half teaspoon of honey as well and put it into the fridge.

The sponge for the bread has been sitting in the warm oven (around 80 degrees) overnight with 4 c flour and 1 1/2 c water plus 2 tsp each sugar and salt. The result? Practically nothing interesting to report so far. A few bubbles, that's it. I'm giving it until mid-afternoon and then I'm baking a loaf one way or another (with the addition of yeast if necessary.)

I'm going to do some more reading and see if this is all normal behavior. In the meantime, in my next post I'll just tell you that I've come across maybe the moistest carrot cake recipe ever.

Something in the Air, Day 3

2007-01-05T00:49:00.000-05:00

The slow start sourdough starter bubbled up nicely over the forty-eight hours I had it in my closet. I covered it with a moist towel to let it breathe, and hopefully let some wild yeast into the mix. I have a feeling, though, that all this action is due to whatever funkiness lives in the buckwheat. Buckwheat funkitude.

I fed it some white flour just like the other one, and it's now in the fridge awaiting its call to action for a loaf of bread this weekend.

Aebleskivers

2007-01-03T19:44:00.000-05:00

Who would have thought that pancakes could be so much fun? Aebleskivers (apple slices) are a Danish version made in a special pan that forms little rounded mounds of tasty cakes. The can be filled, and are sometimes topped with powdered sugar. The trick comes in turning them over, and toothpicks, skewers or knitting needles seem to be the tools of choice.

These were the dessert of the hour for New Year's Eve (see Sausage Fest '06, below). Against my better judgment, and paying no mind to the presence of not only the sausage-laden pasta dinner, but also about a pound of cheese in my belly from a fondue dinner the night before, I packed away at least a dozen of these babies. If you go by the power eating done on this night, one recipe serves four.

The recipe came with the pan, but the filling was all Matt. He took two apples cut into bits, sprinkled a spoon of brown sugar and some spices over them, and sauteed them in butter until they softened up a little. We teamed up to make the pancakes, I with the batter and he with the filling in a mad dash to prevent uneven cooking or worse. The cast iron was seasoned to perfection, though, and all went smooth as butta.

Great Grandma's Danish Aebleskiver
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs-separated
Optional: Apple slices or other fruit filling

Sift together flour, salt and baking soda. Add buttermilk and egg
yolks. Beat egg whites until light and fluffy forming soft peaks.
Gently fold egg whites into batter.

Cook in Aebleskiver pan over medium heat. Grease each cup and use
toothpick to flip after 1 to 1.5 minutes. Fill 2/3 full for plain or
1/3 add fruit and 1/3 more.

Optional: Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.

Makes about 40-45.

Something in the Air, Day 2

2007-01-02T11:41:00.000-05:00

Only half a day into the sourdough experiment, I'm seeing a lot of action and I'm convinced it's going to work. The mass has gained a half cup in volume: The bottom third looks the same, then there's a layer of "hooch" (a liquid that smells like the beginnings of beer), topped with two thirds of the batter looking nice and airy, bubbling off some potent gases. I've stirred it down; I'll feed it tonight and then put it into the refrigerator until I need to bake with it.

The only question is, what's doing all the work in this starter? Is it the bacteria, or is it the yeast? My sourdough colleague across town says 3 days at 65 degrees will let the yeast do the talking and keep bacteria activity to a minimum. Even though my starter smells yeasty, I'm starting a second batch and putting it into a cool closet for a few days to compare the activity and smell.

Something in the Air

2007-01-01T20:10:00.000-05:00

I've just made up a sourdough starter based on the simple concept of flour + water = starter. I'm hoping to harness whatever wild strains of yeast are floating in the Pittsburgh air and in the flour I chose.

1/3 c white flour
1/3 c buckwheat flour
2/3 c water

Just plain white flour seemed boring, and I have some buckwheat kicking around in the cabinet. The batter's slightly gooey and takes up about 1 cup of volume. The color is brownish gray and smells like flour. I have it sitting on top of my furnace to stay warm; we'll see what happens.

Sausage Fest '06

2007-01-01T12:44:00.000-05:00

With all the meat I've got now, there was no question that pork would figure into the New Year's Eve meal somehow. What better way to ring in the new year than with homemade Italian sausage in a rich red sauce. The sausage recipe is pretty much straight from Alton Brown, minus the parsley and without casings. It had a great fennel aroma and peppery bite. The sauce was a team effort that came out nice and thick, with a good dose of onion, garlic, herbs and sausage.

Szechuan Surprise

2006-12-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

I came across some Szechuan peppercorns while waiting in line to pay for some cheese today, and of course I had to get some. I recently saw a program that featured the famous, fiery Szechuan hot pot, which consists of a bubbling hell broth spiked with chili oil, onion, ginger, chili peppers and these little berries called Szechuan peppercorns. They were banned in the U.S. for years because they carried a virus that spread to citrus trees. Now they've figured out how to heat treat them without ruining the flavor completely, and they're available again on these shores.

I popped a peppercorn in my mouth and gave it a crunch, expecting it to be overwhelmingly spicy, but to my surprise, it was pretty mild. It's slightly citrusy, similar to pink peppercorns, with more of a black peppercorn aroma. The coolest thing happened, though, about a minute later. My tongue started to tingle as if I had been eating Pop Rocks, and it didn't stop for about 10 minutes! I was standing in my kitchen laughing to myself like a fool, but it was the coolest thing food has done in a while. I can't wait to corral some of my bravest friends for a traditional hot pot dinner one of these days. Maybe Chinese New Year will be the day.

Carnitas, Part 2

2006-12-29T12:07:00.000-05:00

Those were some delicious tacos, I don't mind saying. After about 4 hours in the slow cooker, the meat was nearly falling apart, so I took it out of the broth and shredded it with two forks. I let the broth settle for a while and then skimmed the majority of the fat off. The meat then went back into the broth and simmered until dinner time, giving every morsel a chance to soak up the lime-garlic-spice goodness from the juice.

There's another thing you can do with the meat, for that authentic taco stand touch. After the meat is super tender, take the chunks out of the broth and lay them out on a baking sheet. Bake in a 350 oven until the surfaces have crisped up, then take them out and shred them. Do with the broth as you please, but I would suggest draining your black beans and putting some of the broth in to stew some flavor into them.

This recipe is a winner, I'd definitely make it again. One butt down, more to come!

Here, Piggy Piggy

2006-12-28T14:13:00.000-05:00

A little while back, my grandparents took delivery of half a pig, naturally raised on an organic farm in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I just got back from visiting them, and I'm now the proud owner of a fresh ham, a picnic shoulder, fresh pork belly, several pounds of ground pork, a loin the size of a yule log, and many, many butts. I had no idea how many butts a pig could have.

I'm trying to make carnitas tacos for dinner tonight, and after searching the web and cobbling together some recipes, I've come up with this so far. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Carnitas

2 1/2 lb. pork, trimmed of major fat and cut into chunks
1 medium onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried cilantro leaves, or 1/4 c fresh
1/2 tsp oregano
2 c hot chicken bouillon
2 tsp vinegar
juice of 2 limes (optional, but I like it)
hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste

Put it all into a crock pot set on high, and cook until the meat is super tender and ready to shred. Pack it into warm corn tortillas with guacamole, black beans, chihuahua cheese, pickled red onion (see below), hot sauce, fresh cilantro, and anything else you think might be good.

These pickled onions come from a Cuban friend of a friend who brought them to a barbecue this summer. They were excellent on tacos.

1 red onion, halved and sliced
1/2 c vinegar (cider or white)
1/2 c water
2 1/2 T sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Put everything in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook for 5 minutes, let cool, and pack into a sterile jar. Keeps for a few weeks in the refrigerator.

Lemon Custard Rice Dream

2006-11-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

This is for my sister Nicole, who I'm pretty sure is a genius because she dreamed up the idea for this recipe. On election day she gave me five business days to make and post a lemon custard rice pudding, and in my hurry to meet my deadline I undercooked the rice slightly. No matter, though. It's creamy, lemony and totally dreamy. I started with a recipe for tapioca pudding, but I thought it could use more egg and a real vanilla bean. Oh yes, and lemon. Meyer lemons were on sale this week so I decided to give them a go. They're sweeter than regular lemons, and they're thought to be a cross between lemons and oranges, originating in China. The rind is smooth and doesn't contain much oil. They make great lemonade, though.

Lemon Custard Rice Pudding

1 c heavy cream
2 c milk
1/2 c rice
1/2 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 vanilla bean
rind of one lemon
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
juice of one lemon

Combine the cream, milk, rice, sugar, salt and vanilla bean and lemon rind in a heavy bottom saucepan over low heat. Stir frequently and cook until the rice is tender.

Meanwhile, stir the eggs together with the lemon juice in a medium bowl. Don't beat them too much.

When the rice is tender, take out the lemon rind and vanilla pod. Scrape the paste from inside the pod and stir it into the milk. Dribble a ladle of the hot milk into the eggs to temper them. Do this slowly and stir it well as you dribble. Add another ladle of milk in the same way. Do this one more time to really warm up the eggs, then stir them into the rest of the hot milk over low heat. Continue stirring and cooking the mixture for 3 or 4 minutes until it thickens. Serve it warm or cold. Makes one serving if you're hungry like me.

Coffee as Art II

2006-10-30T09:52:00.000-05:00

Kona Peaberry from Hawaii, French Press. Rich, smooth and beautiful.

Photos by Yuki.

Sugar Plum Fairy Tale

2006-10-17T07:35:00.000-05:00

About a year and a half ago, I was about to go to Prague, and I wondered what kind of treats I could expect to be eating. Plum dumplings moved to the top of my list of things to seek out, but they were nowhere to be found. Fried cheese was a suitable substitute, but I've been dreaming of those sugared, cinnamon-dusted plums-in-dough ever since. Well, I finally got around to making them, quick and dirty like, and they were a dream come true.

I say quick and dirty because I used wonton and gyoza wrappers, but they're just dough circles, so the taste should be pretty similar if you make your own pasta dough. I struggled for a long time trying to jam whole pitted Italian plums with sugar cubes in the middle into a square of wonton wrapper. It was frustrating and they almost never sealed. The ones that did were absolutely delicious, so I would wholeheartedly recommend making some pasta dough and tucking them in properly. To get around the size issue, I chopped the plums up and spooned the filling in, and the result was nearly as intoxicating. Try them, you'll like them.

Plum Dumplings

2 lb Italian plums (also called prune plums)
cinnamon
(sugar cubes)
brown sugar
wonton (square) or gyoza (round) wrappers, or rolled out pasta dough
butter

To make these traditionally, to really get the effect, to really achieve heaven on earth in the form of a bite-sized juicy plum cake, carefully pit the plums. Toss them with some melted butter and cinnamon, and tuck a sugar cube into the center of each one where the pit used to be. Take a 5"-6" round of dough and wrap the plum in it. Boil them up for about 5 minutes, then fry in butter to golden brown. Sprinkle with a little bit of brown sugar and cinnamon and eat'em up.

To cheat, chop up the plums and toss with some melted butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. Tuck about a teaspoon into the center of a wonton wrapper, wet half of the border with water and fold to seal. It doesn't take a lot of pressure to seal, you just need to make sure you don't overfill.

You can skip the boiling part and do them like you would pot stickers. In a skillet, heat up a tablespoon or so of butter, and brown the dumplings on one side. Pour in about 1/3 c water, cover tightly and continue cooking over medium heat until the water is absorbed. Sprinkle on some sugar and cinnamon and chow down.

Hot Dates

2006-10-12T12:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a sudden craving for something sweet, spicy and savory. I knew it would involve the dried dates I already had in the cupboard, and from there things took a turn towards Morocco. Lo and behold, the lamb and date quiche was born.

Lamb and Date Quiche

2 pie crusts, prebaked in 400 degree oven for 10 minutes
1 lb ground lamb
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/4 tsp thyme
3/4 tsp salt
couple dashes cayenne and black pepper
1 T honey
2 handfuls dried dates, chopped
1 c cream
1/2 c milk
3 eggs
2 or 3 good handfuls pistachios, chopped

Prepare the pie crusts, then turn the oven down to 375. Brown the ground lamb in a skillet over medium heat, making sure to break it up nicely. Drain most of the fat and then add the onion and spices. Cook until the onion is softened, then add the honey and cook a minute more. Taste for seasoning. It should be sweet and spicy with enough salt to enhance the flavors. Toss the lamb mixture with the chopped dates and divide into the two pie pans. Beat the eggs into the cream and milk, and divide into the two pans. Sprinkle the pistachios on top of the quiches and bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes or until set and a toothpick comes out clean. Eat!

Columbus Cocktail Hour

2006-08-30T14:43:00.000-05:00

How many engineers does it take to open a coconut?

During a recent visit to Columbus, Ohio I was shopping with friends Meghan and Chris and came across fresh green coconuts and ripe passion fruit. Who knew Ohio had such a bountiful tropical harvest? I had to get some, and the result was the soon to be famous drink below.

Squid Eye

juice of one green coconut
pulp of one ripe (wrinkled) passion fruit
couple shots of rum
club soda

If you want to get fancy, shake the juice and rum with ice and pour into a few martini glasses. Spoon the pulpy seeds of the passion fruit into the glasses, top with club soda, and garnish with a sliver of sugared fresh coconut meat.

Cue the flowery food poetry: The delicate sweetness of the coconut water is balanced wonderfully by the crisp tartness of the passion fruit. Bubbles from the club soda cause the seeds to move around in beautifully choreographed Dance of the Squid Eye. Playful textures and dazzling presentation make this a cocktail to savour.

Good pho me, good pho you

2006-08-11T15:49:00.000-05:00

It didn't take long after leaving New York for me to miss the flavors of Chinatown. Almost any kind of Asian cuisine is available any time for very cheap, and the one I missed most was Vietnamese pho. For $5.00 or less, a gigantic steaming bowl arrives at your table in about 5 minutes, and it's just about the best thing on Earth. Sweet spices, sweet and bitter herbs and a hint of salty fish sauce all in a gelatinous, beefy broth provide the base for a flavor and texture explosion.

Being in the heart of Ohio, I had no choice but to try and recreate it at home. Thank goodness for Jungle Jim's, a mammoth multinational market outside of Cincinnati that has just about anything you can imagine.

I followed an excellent recipe from the web almost exactly, so I won't reprint it here. Follow this link for the recipe.

I used top round for the slicing beef. Thorny cilantro (culantro) made an interesting addition, but it is optional. One thing I added to the equation was tripe. I had never cooked it before, but in my visits with Andy through little Chinese dives by the Manhattan bridge, I came to love its unique taste and texture. I took one honeycomb tripe and sliced it into 1"x2" pieces, scrubbed them well, blanched them in boiling water for 15 minutes, scrubbed well again, and added them to the broth to simmer for 3 hours. The pieces could have been smaller, but they took on great flavor and color from the broth, and they were still chewy but very nice.

It took a long, long time to make the broth and prepare everything else, but in the end, I was completely satisfied with my home cooking taste of Chinatown. Once the Captain lands in his new home, this will be a regular addition to the dinner menu.

New York, I miss you.

Back to the Farm

2006-05-01T09:36:00.000-05:00

I watched closely when the Vietnamese fruit shake lady was working her magic the other day. This is a close guess at her recipe for thick, smooth, rich fruit shakes that pair well with a crisp, tangy, savory sandwich. The fruit can be just about anything, just adjust the sugar and milk to make up for sweetness and moisture. Think tropical: avocado, mango, papaya, banana, and especially today, durian!

Tropical Fruit Shake

2 T sweetened condensed milk
2 T sugar
1/2 c fruit pulp
1/2 c milk
1/2 c crushed ice

Whirl the first four ingredients in a blender until smooth. Add the crushed ice and whirl again until the shake is thick, rich, smooth and tasty.

The durian shake I made this morning had a faint odor of the pig farm, but it tasted amazing. It was like a cup of vanilla pudding crossed with a really ripe banana, with a hint of mango thrown in; awesome. And the single 4.5 lb fruit I bought is probably good for 8-10 shakes, though I ate a good bit of the pulp as I was digging it out.

Smells Like a Pig Farm

2006-04-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

I was going to save this one for a food challenge with Danger Mike and Melissa, but I couldn't resist shopping in Brooklyn's Chinatown on what was, quite possibly, the most beautiful day of the year. I was anxious to find durian, which is just now coming into season and is starting to appear in Asian produce markets.

Durian, if you've never been introduced, is a fruit from southeast Asia roughly pineapple sized or a little larger, slightly plum shaped, and armed with spikes over its entire surface. Many people die each year from having one of these bad boys falling on their heads. The first thing anyone will say about it, though, is that it is one of the most foul-smelling foods in the world. I've seen it described as "eating custard in a sewer." So what's the attraction? Let's dig in.

I consulted with Andy the sushi guy on how to attack this beast of a fruit. No problem, he said. Just cut along the seam with a sharp knife and scoop out the good stuff. It really was that simple, and taking some care not to bloody myself with either the spikes or the knife, I unlocked the secret to this legendary treat. Six compartments inside contained the creamy custard-like flesh surrounding two or three brown seeds. The texture is really like pudding meets mango, creamy and a little stringy. And so far, I was not knocked off of my feet by the smell. Yes, it was a little pungent, but I think my olde tyme root beer was a little more rank.

The only problem is that the smell doesn't go away, and it gets stronger the longer the fruit is open to the air. It's not a smell you can become used to, either, and before long, you're convinced that a naughty pig has defecated in the corner of your kitchen and is dragging his dirty behind across the floor. This is why Andy said the flesh should be kept in the freezer, which advice I promptly heeded.

More to come with this amazing treat. The taste is of vanilla pudding and much more. I went to a Vietnamese sandwich shop yesterday that serves up a durian shake. This will be my breakfast tomorrow.

Ginger Tofu Soup

2006-04-06T11:40:00.000-05:00

The ginger binge continues with this soup that I recreated the other night. This is the soup that the sushi guy makes for us at work occasionally. He does it all quietly and on the sly, using ingredients "borrowed" from other departments, until the aromas of frying onions and ginger start wafting out of his rice cooker and into the store. Ginger is not sneaky.

Andy's Tofu Soup

3 T olive oil
1 small red onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1 or 2 inches of fresh ginger root, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, very thinly sliced or minced (optional)
1 quart good stock (chicken or vegetable) or bouillon in a pinch
1 quart water
2 handfuls peeled, deveined large shrimp, sliced (optional)
1/2 pound diced ham (optional)
1 block firm tofu, cut into 1/2" dice
4 scallions, finely sliced
soy sauce, pepper and cayenne to taste
1/4 c corn starch dissolved in 1/2 c water

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large pot. Add the onions and saute until they are softened a bit. Add the ginger and continue cooking until the onions start to brown. Add the garlic and toss about for a minute. Pour in the stock and water and bring to a simmer. If the shrimp are raw, add them first and cook for a little while. Otherwise, add the shrimp, ham and tofu and bring to the simmer again. Add the scallions, season to taste, and stir in the corn starch to thicken the soup nicely. Feeds many.

Cheese of the Week No. 10

2006-03-31T10:44:00.000-05:00

I've nearly exhausted my favorite cheese selections from the store I work in, so the cheese of the week posts have been necessarily sparse. I did find a good contender in my new neighborhood of Williamsburg (Brooklyn) last week. Bingham Hill Cheese Company in Colorado makes a great selection of artisinal cheeses with fantastic raw milk. I tried one and I have to tell you, it smells downright aweful, but like so many aweful smelling cheeses, it's a wonder to behold in the mouth.

Harvest Moon: Raw cow's milk, USA. This is a stinky washed rind cheese of creamy, but not spreadable, consistency, able to compete with some of the beefiest competetition from France. It beats any of the pasteurized versions of Pont L'Eveque or Livarot you'll find on these shores, and it is one of the tastiest American cheeses I've ever tried. Sweet, salty, musty, earthy, grassy, beefy. It's a knockout.

Breakfast Risotto

2006-03-31T10:14:00.000-05:00

What do you do with the leftover rice from Chinese takeout? The next day, it tends to be dried out and pretty bland, and microwaving it only makes it worse. The rice and beans experiment last week left me with a large portion of leftover cooked rice. Not one to waste food, and thrilled that I didn't have to wait 30 minutes to make rice from scratch, I looked around the cupboard for ideas and turned it into:

Breakfast Risotto

1 1/2 c cooked rice (preferably sticky)
about 3/4 c coconut milk
sugar, cinnamon and cayenne to taste

Heat the rice in a saucepan over medium heat with 1/4 cup of the coconut milk. Warm it through and stir until the milk has been absorbed. Add another 1/4 c of milk and stir this into the rice as well. Add the spices, sugar, and final bit of milk and stir until it takes on a nice creamy consistency and is flavored to your liking.

I know, it's not really a risotto, but the leftover sticky rice has enough starch to make a creamy rice pudding in about 5 minutes.

I have a habit lately of putting cinnamon and cayenne pepper into everything I cook. This spicy tropical combo has found its way into quinoa, couscous, curries and most recently (this morning), oatmeal. Try it sometime, and don't forget the sugar: It will give your breakfast a kick in the pants!

Ginger Ale

2006-03-30T11:04:00.000-05:00

When's the last time you tasted real ginger in your ginger ale? It's a little easier to do these days with a number of brands bottling the real deal. But the mass market ginger ale is nothing more than corn syrup and artificial flavorings. A little bird told me that a good fake can be made in restaurants by adding a splash of Coke to 7-UP or Sprite. Not in my kitchen!

The ginger ale I made last year involved boiling sliced ginger in a simple syrup for hours to reduce the syrup and concentrate the flavors. Sparkling water was then added to the syrup. It was time intensive and, in the end, too sweet. The bonus was the ginger candy that I made with the ginger slices. Dredged in sugar and baked in a warm oven to dry them out, they came out chewy, spicy and sweet.

Here's a five minute ticket to homemade ginger ale that I whipped up last night.

Quick Ginger Ale

4 inch piece of fresh ginger
2/3 c water
1/2 c sugar
1 liter chilled sparkling water with lime essence (like Poland Spring)

Peel the ginger with a spoon and grate the whole thing on the fine side of a box grater into a saucepan. Use the 2/3 c water to rinse the grater and add this to the pan as well. Add the sugar and heat over a medium flame with stirring just until the sugar dissolves. Pour the mixture over a glass measuring cup through a sieve and squeeze the juices out with a spoon. Discard the remaining pulp or eat it as a sweet and spicy, if high-fiber, snack.

Add 1/4 c of the syrup to a pint glass, top off with sparkling water, and enjoy. Makes about 4.

(In retrospect, I would have added some fresh lime juice to make it a little more sour.)

Why is ginger peeled with a spoon? If you were to go at a piece of ginger with a vegetable peeler, you would find yourself taking off a good bit of ginger pulp along with the skin. The problem is the fibrous structure, and once you dig in, you're committed to following the stringy flesh all the way to the end. A spoon also lets you get into all the nooks and crannies of the ginger.

Ginger Kick

2006-03-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

About a year ago I was coming off of a monthlong obsession with ginger. It all started with the Indian cooking classes and continued with ginger ale, fermented ginger beer, ginger candy, and ginger in just about everything I cooked. Well, I feel it coming on again, and I owe it to this adaptation of a recipe from Indian Home Cooking. (I reduced the sugar in the original recipe from 2 cups to 1/2 c. Start there and work your way up if you like it sweeter.)

Ginger Lemonade

1 c freshly squeezed lemon and lime juice, or key lime juice
2 inch piece of ginger
4 c cold water
1/2 c sugar, or more to taste

It takes three lemons and two limes to get about a cup of juice. A bottle of key lime juice works well, too. Peel the ginger with a spoon and chop it in a blender or food processor with a splash of water to make a fine puree. (You can also grate it by hand, saving all of the juice.) Squeeze the ginger mash through a sieve into a two quart pitcher. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir well and taste for sugar. A little more ginger never hurt anybody, either.

Look for more ginger features in coming weeks.

Staples

2006-03-24T10:43:00.000-05:00

Throughout the Latin American world, two foods make up a majority of meals: rice and beans. I've eaten them together dozens of times in restaurants, in burritos, even in some soups, but I never, not once, ever made a dish of rice and beans from scratch. It would have been too easy to use boil in bag instant rice and a can of beans, so I went for dried beans and regular white rice in a bag.

I learned two important lessons last night. One, the rice should not be cooked in the sticky Asian style. Two, the beans should be cooked with the seasonings, not boiled separately. I know this because I ended up with insipid beans on a lovely bed of starchy, sticky Goya rice. The next time I cook rice and beans, it will go a little something like this:

Rice and Beans

1 1/2 c black or pinto beans, soaked in cold water for about 6 hours and drained
1 1/2 c white rice
a large cauldron of boiling salted water with 1 T olive oil
2 T olive oil
1 medium onion, coursely diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste

Add the rice to the boiling water and cook until tender, about ten minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook to soften a little. Add the pepper and toss around until it softens as well. Toss in the garlic and cook another minute until the garlic is nice and fragrant. Add the drained beans and enough water to cover about halfway. Simmer and stir occasionally until the beans are tender, about 20 minutes, and check the seasoning. Spoon the beans over the rice in a bowl. Serves 4.

The Strawberry Challenge

2006-03-09T23:05:00.000-05:00

Has it really been a month since my last post? Unbelievable. I should be put in blog jail, but let's see if I can make it up to you.

The challenge this week comes from Melissa, the future Mrs. Dangermike. Strawberries are the name of the game, and this is how we played it.

Fresh Tropical Fruit Salad with (what else) Quinoa

2 c quinoa
3 3/4 c water
3 small chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 c white wine vinegar
2 T sugar
a few dashes of cinnamon
a dash of cayenne
a dash of turmeric

Toast the quinoa in a big pot over medium high heat for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa is transluscent. Give it a stir and set it in the refrigerator to chill completely.

Chop and add any variety of fruit that you want, but try to get a nice sweet-sour mixture going. I used the following, all coursely diced:

6 large ripe strawberries
1 ripe plantain
1 ripe avocado
10 kumquats (thinly sliced, seeds removed)
1 nopalito (prickly pear cactus), trimmed of spines and blanched 3 minutes
1/2 c sundried tomatoes
1/2 c chopped cilantro

Toss it all together and enjoy. Serves 4.

Dessert combined two challenges into one: rose water and strawberries. I kept it really simple and made a...

Strawberry Rose Gelatin Mold

7 sheets gelatin (or enough powdered for 2 c water)
1 c boiling water
1/2 c sugar
1 c cold water
1/3 c rose water
10 strawberries, thinly sliced

Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling water in a bowl. Add the sugar and stir until it dissolves. Add the cold water and rose water. Butter up a suitably sized mold, add the strawberries, and pour in the gelatin mixture. Chill until set, unmold, and behold the splendour.

photos courtesy DangerMike

Cheese of the Week No. 9

2006-02-11T12:18:00.000-05:00

It's all about not-brie this week. Brie is everywhere, and almost everybody knows it. It's a soft-ripened, unpressed curd, young cheese from France with a tangy, slightly bitter rind and interior paste that ranges from rubbery to runny depending on quality and runniness. Unfortunately for us, we can't get the great raw milk brie, and while the pasteurized stuff we have is still wonderful cheese, I'm going to give you a few tastier alternatives to try.

Chaource: pasteurized (in U.S.) cow's milk, France (Champagne). Also a bloomy rinded soft ripened cheese like brie, but fashioned into a stout drum rather than a pie. About 4 inches tall and just over 3 inches in diameter, chaource has a much tangier and fruitier flavor than brie, and when it's at its peak ripeness, it's a real treat. Cut a hole through the top of the rind and spoon out the runny paste onto sliced baguette or crackers. Enjoy with Champagne or dry, fruity whites and very light reds.

Robiola Due Latti: pasteurized cow's and sheep's milk, Italy. Depending on its ripeness, robiola can be sliced or spooned. In either case, it's delicious, tangy, fruity, and comes on with a strong cheesey aftertaste that goes through the nose as you exhale. As a washed rind cheese, it packs a powerful aromatic punch, but don't let it deter you from trying this delicious square of creamy goodness with bread, fruit and a bold red.

Alsatian Munster: pasteurized (in U.S.) cow's milk, Alsace, France. This is not your typical deli muenster, far from it. This is a funky, stinky, creamy delight that tastes tremendous. Your friends will be impressed that you would even consider putting something that smells like that in your mouth. Do try it, though. It comes in a couple of different sizes, a large round that's often sliced for sale in wedges, and little rounds to be bought whole. A French customer told me it's common in France to dip little slices of munster into cumin seeds to enjoy it. Tangy, spicy and rich, this is a good after dinner cheese with fruit and a nice Alsatian white.

If you're still stuck on Brie and you have a little round of it that you want to bake en croute, here's an idea for you:

Bake Brie, Sharp Edge (Pittsburgh) Style

one small round of brie
couple tablespoons of raspberry jam
puff pastry, enough to wrap around the cheese
thinly sliced toasted almonds
honey for drizzling

Slice the brie horizontally to make two layers. Spread the jam over the bottom half and sandwich it with the top. Wrap the whole thing neatly with puff pastry and top with almonds. Bake on parchment paper in a moderate oven until the pastry is puffed and golden. Drizzle with honey and serve warm with crackers and some tasty beverage.

Smells Like a Curry Truck

2006-02-02T12:14:00.000-05:00

You might be saying, "Enough with the quinoa already," but I'm telling you, it's good, it's quick, and it's healthy, so pardon me while I indulge. This recipe involves a lot of ingredients, but if you have picked up the basics, it should all be pretty handy, and you can certainly make up your own mix. If you're not into the whole spices, omit all of the spices and substitute maybe 1.5 T curry powder.

Indian Quinoa Pilaf

4 cloves garlic, crushed

** 1" fresh ginger, minced, or 1/2 tsp ginger powder

** 1 tsp cumin seeds

** 1 tsp coriander seeds

** 1/4 tsp turmeric

** 1 bay leaf

** 3 whole dried chiles

** 1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

** 1/2 tsp amchoor powder (or 1 T lemon juice)

2 T vegetable oil
* 5 green cardamom pods, cracked
* 1 2" cinnamon stick
* 5 cloves
* 1/2 tsp peppercorns
* 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
* 1 tsp fennel seeds
* handful raw cashew halfs
1 medium red onion, very finely chopped
1 c quinoa
2 c water
1/2 tsp salt or more to taste
1 T butter (optional)
splash of heavy cream (optional)

Place the garlic and all of the (**) spices in a mortar and pestle or food processor and work into a rough paste. Set aside. Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan or wok over medium heat. Add the (*) spices and cook until the mustard begins to pop and the cinnamon starts to unfurl. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to brown lightly. Add the spice paste and cook for another minute or two. Stir in the quinoa and water, bring to a boil, and reduce to a low simmer. Cook until the liquid is absorbed, about 15-20 minutes. Check the seasoning and salt to taste. Stir in the enriching butter and cream if you want, and serve.

Fond Summer Memories

2006-02-01T16:48:00.000-05:00

This cold, gray weather has me thinking back to the steaming hot grilling days of summer. You might remember the glorious beer can chicken, juicy, golden, meltingly tender and deliciously smokey.

I miss the grilled jerked pork tenderloin, irresistibly spiced with scallions and habañero peppers. Nothing I've ever had in a restaurant compares to the intensity of that fire. This is summertime fare at its spicy best.

Towards the end of summer I made a delicious accompaniment to a spicy vindaloo dish that did a great job of taming the fire. I can't claim it as original, but I'll share this recipe from Indian Home Cooking anyway. I was fortunate to have fresh champagne grapes from the garden, but any kind will do. It's good for anytime of year with a spicy dish, especially Indian.

Grape Raita

3 c plain yogurt
1 1/2 c seedless grapes, halved
1 tsp ground toasted cumin
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or paprika

for tempering oil:
3 T canola oil
2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
salt to taste

Whisk the yogurt until smooth and add the grapes, cumin, sugar and cayenne (or paprika). Prepare the tempering oil by heating the canola in a skillet over medium heat. Add the mustard and cover as you cook for 1 or 2 minutes until the mustard pops. Add the fennel and cook for about 10 more seconds. Pour over the yogurt and chill well. Stir in the salt just before serving.

I can smell the grill smoke already.

Quinoa's Revenge

2006-01-30T21:14:00.000-05:00

I had some mushrooms and not much else kickin' around the fridge, so I browsed my spices and came up with this. It's a little bit Indian, a dash Moroccan, and all around Incan. The cashews are as much a spice as they are a nice texture enhancer. Delicious!

Spiced Quinoa with Mushrooms

1 c quinoa
1 T olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 handful raw cashews, broken in pieces
1/2 lb mushrooms, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/8 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 c chicken broth
salt, cayenne and pepper to taste
fresh chopped cilantro to garnish

(Optional: Place the quinoa in a large skillet over medium heat and toast for five minutes, tossing occasionally.) In a separate pot, heat the olive oil and saute the onion until softened. Add the cashews and fry for a minute, then add the spices, mushrooms and garlic. Toss until the garlic is fragrant and the mushrooms have shrunken a bit. Add the quinoa and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Check the seasoning, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes or until the liquid has been absorbed. The grain will be transluscent and the white germ will have spiraled out. Top with cilantro and serve hot. Serves 4 as a main or 6 as a side. This would make a great side to a roasted leg of lamb or goat (just a hunch).

Try it with couscous instead! Substitute 1 c couscous for the quinoa and reduce the liquid to 1 1/2 c. After you've cooked the mushrooms, add the broth, bring to a boil, and then add the couscous. Cover, remove from the heat and let stand for five minutes. Stir and serve.

Game Day Munchies No. 1

2006-01-27T21:27:00.000-05:00

We have a week and two days to prepare all the munchies for the Big Game. I'm planning a knockout pierogi that only a Steelers fan could love; more to come on that next week. Today I'm happy to host a recipe submitted by a good friend and fellow cheese lover. Check out the number of different cheeses in this warm, gooey, cheesey - yet healthy (spinach? instant healthy points!) - dip. You bet I'll be making this as soon as possible.
"
Phateline's Spinach and Artichoke Dip

This is an approximation of what I did, you could probably use a handheld mixer too with the regular fittings, just make sure there ain't giant chokable pieces of spinach in there, cuz that ain't appetizing.

Dip:
½ bag frozen spinach thawed and drained well
1 regular can artichoke hearts drained with a teaspoon of juices reserved for mixture
¾ cup mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons of finely grated parmesan cheese
¼ cup soft crumbled blue cheese
1 package of cream cheese softened
2 heaping tablespoons of regular mayonnaise
1 teaspoon of dried Italian Herb Mixture (just plain herb mixture, don't use a salt/garlic etc mix)
2 cloves of fresh roasted garlic
½ teaspoon of cayenne or a your favorite hot sauce
½ teaspoon sea/kosher salt (don't use that throwaway Iodized !#$!)
½ teaspoon black pepper
teaspoon of fresh lime juice

for topping:

handful of pine nuts
1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese
¼ cup shredded mozzarella

Mix dip ingredients together with all purpose fitting of mixer; the garlic spinach and artichoke hearts should break up. Mix on Low for about 2-3 minutes until well blended. Mix for 30 seconds on high to further break up until smooth. Spread in a shallow ceramic baking dish (I used about a 6" by 8" by 3" deep) and top with toppings. Bake at400 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve warm with crusty bread. Probably serves about six generously, although 3 of us pretty much ate it all.
"

Cheese of the Week No. 8

2006-01-26T23:04:00.000-05:00

It's time to take a trip to the Netherlands for a tour of goudas. The typical gouda you find in every supermarket is one of the most mass produced cheeses in the world, and somehow it still ends up tasting delicous. From there things only get better with age.

Gouda: pasteurized cow's milk, Netherlands. Semi-hard, mildly flavored, ivory colored cheese that almost always comes packaged in red or black wax. It's easy to snack on, completely inoffensive, and melts well, making it a good alternative to cheddar for almost everything you can imagine.

Geitekaas (Goat Gouda, Arina): pasteurized goat's milk, Netherlands. Semi-hard, full goat flavor, nice smooth texture like regular gouda. Pure white with small holes throughout, often coated in white wax. This is a great alternative to the usual cow's milk, and it's an unusual style for goat's cheese, being sliceable rather than spreadable. Try it on a sandwich, or with beer, wine, crackers and sausage.

Medium aged Gouda (Parrano, Vincent): pasteurized cow's milk, Netherlands. Semi-hard, sprinkling of pea-sized holes throughout, yellowish color. These gouda-style cheeses have been aged about 6 months and have a much bolder flavor, somewhat sweeter and a little tangy, with a lasting taste and irresistable appeal. Wherever I bring this cheese, it's always the first to go. Aside from its utter snackability, it's a great alternative to cheddar on sandwiches and grilled cheese, and it's great shaved over pasta dishes.

Aged Gouda (Amsterdam Reserve, Primadonna, Rembrandt): Semi-hard but very firm, still sliceable while maintaining its shape. Aged one to two years, these cheeses have an orange-yellow color, pea- to marble-sized holes scattered in the paste, and a creamy mouth feel with the occasional crunchy bit. Much bolder than the medium aged cheeses, these begin to reveal caramel and butterscotch flavors with a slight smokey finish. Really delicious, easy to love, and they go well with sausages and red wines. A little goes a long way.

Extra-aged Gouda: cow's milk, Netherlands. After two years of aging, goudas become something altogether different. They enter into the realm of the great Parmagianno-Reggiano and cave-aged Swiss cheeses. Their color deepens to a nice shade of orange, and the paste becomes much more crumbly, barely able to hold together when sliced. I bought a piece of a four-year old gouda today, and let me tell you, there's nothing quite like it. There is still a pleasant creaminess to a morsel of this cheese, but now those delicious crunchy crystals are more abundant and the flavor is miraculous. So many layers develop, ranging from caramel and fruit to smoke and whiskey. This is a wonder to be enjoyed with a great wine or beer, maybe some good smoked fish. A good Belgian ale makes a great partner.

A Word About Brine

2006-01-21T09:59:00.000-05:00

Last week I received another challenge from Melissa (of savory cupcake fame). She decided she liked brine, so she challenged me to brine something. I gladly accepted, and I began digging deep into my cookbooks for some ideas. Das neue grosse Kochbuch has a good Sauerbraten recipe, and it talked a little about Schweinebraten, but neither one is really brine intensive. The good old Joy of Cooking has an amazing corned beef recipe that requires the brisket to be corned for two weeks! After consulting with Mom about Swedish pot roast, and Oma about Sauerbraten, I settled on pork and came up with this recipe. The gravy was a bit on the strong side, but the meat was meltingly tender and delicious.

Corned Pork Roast

1 pork loin roast, about 1/2 pound per person
3/4 c white wine vinegar
1/2 c salt
1/4 c sugar
1 onion, sliced roughly
3 cloves garlic, whole
2 bay leaves
4 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp peppercorns
1/2 tsp whole coriander seeds
water to cover

Place the roast in a stainless steel pot just large enough to fit, add the brine ingredients and cover with water. Set in the refrigerator to pickle for 12-24 hours. Reserve the onions, garlic, and some of the whole spices from the brine, and discard all but a few tablespoons of the pickling brine. Wash the roast under running water and pat dry with paper towels.

For gravy:

2 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 c boiling water
reserved onions and brine
salt, sugar, vinegar and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Have ready an oven-proof dish or pan with a tight fitting lid. Set the dish over high heat with the oil. Brown the roast well on all sides. Add the onions and cook another minute without burning them, then carefully add the boiling water and the reserved brine. Cover the dish and place in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour.

Remove the roast from its juices and set aside to rest while you prepare the gravy. Strain the juices into a saucepan and give it a taste. Add sugar if it's too sour, vinegar if it's too sweet. Season it with pepper and salt if necessary. Prepare a thickener if you want to with cornstarch, potato starch, or flour in water to make a slurry. Whisk in a tablespoon or two of the slurry into the gravy over medium heat and bring to a boil. The gravy will start to thicken. Add a little water if it's too thick, or more starch if it's too runny. Check the seasoning again and serve.

I decided that Bavarian shredded potato dumplings would make a good side dish, but something about my mixture didn't come out right. Danger Mike suggested we batter and fry them, and it turned out to be just the thing those dumplings needed. A little beer batter, a touch of breading on one side, and they were crisp, golden and delicious, especially with a smothering of sweet and sour gravy. Prost!

Grain of the Year 2006 BC

2006-01-13T23:03:00.000-05:00

I recently tried quinoa for the first time and really liked the texture and delicate flavor of this pseudo grain. It cooks up like rice, but is smaller, lighter, and has a slight crunch to it. It's pretty fancy looking, too, with its spiraling white germ surrounding the transluscent body. It's not really a grain but rather the seed of a relative of spinach, and like its leafy cousin, it's packed with iron and other nutrients. What's not to like?

Since it's been growing in South America for 5000 years, try looking in Latin-American markets for this newcomer to North America, otherwise you might have luck in a fancy grocer. If you get a hold of some, cook it up and make a salad with it using walnuts, dried cherries, wine vinegar and oil. Or try this spin on an old Cuban favorite:

Arroz y Quinoa con Poco Pollo
(Rice and Quinoa with a Little Bit of Chicken)

1-4 chicken breasts, diced
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 T olive oil
1 green pepper, finely diced
1 red pepper, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz tomato sauce
2 c chicken stock
2 c dry white wine
pinch saffron
1 bay leaf
salt, pepper and cayenne to taste
1 1/2 c white rice
1/2 c quinoa (or more rice if you can't find it)

In a large pot over medium high heat, brown the chicken on all sides in a tablespoon of oil. Remove the chicken and set aside. Add the remaining oil and cook the onion over moderate heat until it begins to soften. Add the peppers and garlic and cook a few minutes more until the garlic is nice and fragrant. Add the remaining ingredients except the chicken, quinoa and rice, stir and bring to a boil. Add the chicken, taste, season and cover, reducing heat to a simmer for 15 minutes. Add the rice and quinoa, stir once, and cover again, cooking over low heat for 25 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve. Feeds many.

The Glarner Schabziger Adventures

2006-01-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

After picking up my cone of Schabziger cheese yesterday, I paid a visit to the maker's website and perused the recipes. The pale green cheese most often ends up grated into a sauce and poured over potatoes, fish, just about anything. So I got to thinking that potato gnocchi would probably taste good with some Schabziger tossed in. Then I got to reading a Julia Child book and thought that maybe a modified sauce parisienne would be really good poured over the gnocchi. Finally the idea of adding onions and bacon to whole wheat dumplings really sounded good to me, so I ended up with the recipes below. If only I had a really cool Swiss name to attach to it. How about...

Herdöpfelknödeln mit Glarner Schabzigersosse

Dumplings:

2 pounds boiling potatoes
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/3 pound bacon
2 T finely chopped parsley
1 ounce grated Glarner Schabziger cheese
1/4 c grated parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper to taste

Boil or pressure-cook the potatoes until tender. While the potatoes cook, fry the bacon until very crisp, remove to paper towels, and break the strips up into little bits. Drain all but one tablespoon of the bacon fat from the skillet and fry the onions in it over medium heat until they are soft and golden. Peel and mash the potatoes and begin working in the flour until it is all incorporated and the dough is smooth. Add the parsley, Schabziger, parmesan, bacon and onion. Season if necessary with salt and pepper. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Set a large pot of salted water to boil, and in the meantime, prepare the sauce below. Once the water is at a rolling boil, form teaspoon-sized dumplings and drop into the water. Cook until they float to the surface, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside as you continue cooking the rest of the dough.

The dumplings taste fine boiled, but like most things, they taste better after being panfried in butter. Brown as many as you want in a hot skillet with butter, and top with the sauce. Freeze the rest if you like.

Sauce:

2 T butter
3 T flour
1 c chicken broth (bouillon is fine)
1/2 c milk
1/2 c white wine
1 T finely chopped parsley
1 ounce grated Schabziger
2 egg yolks
1/4 c cream or milk
salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Cook for 5 minutes without coloring. Slowly add the broth, 1/2 c milk, and wine, whisking constantly to avoid lumping. Bring to a boil as you continue stirring. The sauce should be quite thick, but still manageable with the whisk. Mix in the cheese and parsley and remove from the heat. In a separate bowl or saucepan, beat the egg yolks with the remaining milk (or cream) until smooth. Whisk in the hot cream sauce by driblets at first to avoid cooking the yolk. After adding about 1/2 cup of the sauce, you can increase the addition to a steady stream. Return the sauce to the heat, bring to a boil while stirring, and cook for one minute. Adjust the seasoning and pour the custardy sauce over the dumplings.

Would I make them again? That depends. If I were running a bed and breakfast in Glarus, and I wanted to give the guests a taste of the local Schabziger, this would be an excellent introduction. These dumplings probably won't make it into my favorite meal rotation, but they are tasty and the sauce is excellent. You could go with just parmesan instead of the green wondercheese, or you can omit the cheese altogether and serve these dumplings with a roast and gravy on Sunday. Me, I'm going to enjoy my leftovers and experience that unique Schabziger taste a few more times.

Cheese of the Week No. 7

2006-01-04T20:25:00.000-05:00

Grüezi mitenand! German East meets French West on our brief cheese tour of Switzerland today.

Gruyere: raw cow's milk, Fribourg Canton, Switzerland. From the same wonderful animals that produce the double cream of Gruyere comes this full flavored cheese out of the French speaking hills of Fribourg. The town of Les Gruyeres is like a fairy tale, complete with a castle and picture-perfect green mountain landscape dotted with cows and edelweiss. The cheese comes from a big 80 pound wheel and has a terrific nutty flavor that intensifies as it melts. This is the cheese of fondues, gratins and onion soup. Don't underestimate its snackability, though. Try it with crackers, or use it in your next grilled cheese with caramelized onions on rye bread.

Glarner Schabziger (or Sapsago): cow's milk, Glarus Canton, Switzerland. This cheese is as unusual as the German spoken by the Swiss in Glarus. To make this novelty, fresh whole milk is skimmed and then heated and allowed to sour naturally, forming curds of cheese. These curds are pressed, dried and ground. The unusual color and flavor comes from blue fenugreek, known also as blue melilot. This special type of clover is added along with salt, and the powder is pressed into molds to form the trademark truncated cone. This is used primarily as a grating cheese or as an addition to spreads and butter; on its own it is simply too strong. It has a truly unique flavor and aroma, something akin to sage and honey crossed with hops and parmesan. Watch this space for Adventures in Schabziger.

Way Over the Top

2006-01-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

One benefit of working in a gourmet grocer is the access to top quality ingredients for snack time. All I had to do was ask the butcher what cut of beef he would recommend for tartare, and voila, a nice slice of USDA Prime chuck roast was delivered to my station. It's not the most tender cut, but it was nicely marbled and it was free, so I'm not going to complain. I sliced it thinly and gave it a grind of pepper, a dash of salt, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Delicious.

I looked around my department for anything else that might be tasty with the raw delicacy, and lo and behold, a slice of foie gras made itself handy. I tucked a little into the beef and rolled it up for some outrageously decadent carpaccio. It's not something I'm likely to try at home, but I thought I'd share.

Cheese of the Week No. 6

2005-12-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

For anyone else who missed it, last week was Christine's birthday. If I could, I would send her a heaping bucketload of this week's cheese pick:

Endgame 2005 by Bobolink Dairy: raw cow's milk, New Jersey, USA. This is one of the most serious American cheeses I've had yet. Rich, raw, buttery, yet still a little crumbly, it packs a huge flavor punch. No, it doesn't taste like the New Jersey Turnpike. Hay, wild garlic, freshly cut grass, yogurt, it was all there, and the flavors keep developing even after you're done sampling it. It's unlikely that you'll find this exact cheese near you, but I encourage you to stop by any farmstands you see to sample the local offerings. There are some real gems out there.

How to Survive a Transit Strike

2005-12-21T23:47:00.000-05:00

I joined the cattle herd into the city today on Day Two of the transit strike in New York. It's a pretty crazy sight to see seven million people coming up with creative ways to avoid the buses and trains. I tell you, though, all that walking in the cold gave me a craving for hot chocolate... with cognac! Take your usual hot chocolate (I like whole milk and chocolate syrup), and add a tablespoon of Hennesy or whatever cognac you have kickin' around the liquor cabinet. Stir it all up and enjoy the good life.

Cheese of the Week No. 5

2005-12-13T08:42:00.000-05:00

I don't usually go far beyond "sweet" or "nutty" in my descriptions of cheese. Rarely do things like pasture and mushrooms make themselves apparent to me, but this week's pick is a different story.

Durrus: raw cow's milk, Ireland. This beautiful washed rind cheese from County Cork is distributed by Neal's Yard Dairy of England. The cheese is just over an inch thick and about 8" in diameter. The rind is a nice orange-tan and is speckled with salt crystals. It has a pungent, musty smell, but nothing too offensive. The inside, though, is amazing stuff. The golden paste is soft, but not spreadable, and has a sprinkling of small holes. I tasted hops and grass at first, then walnuts and mushrooms, and it has a tangy finish that lingers. This is one of my new favorites.

Coffee as Art

2005-12-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

A perfectly made espresso is a work of art. Delicate crema floating on a rich, silky bed of the very essence of the world's finest coffee beans; a fleeting balance that exists for mere seconds before being shattered in the daily breakfast ritual of millions.

Far less popular, though no less beautiful, is the Greek or Turkish coffee. By necessity made with loving care and patience, this beverage must be allowed time to form three distinct layers of its own: the prized foam on top, the rich essence of coffee in the middle, and the spent grounds settled on the bottom of the cup. Rather than being filtered, the coffee is finely ground into a powder and added to the briki, a slender copper pot that sits directly over the flame. Sugar is added to taste along with the water, and the mixture is brought to a frothy boil until it almost spills over. Once poured into the cups, it is allowed to rest a minute, and then it is enjoyed, slowly, with a sweet pastry and good conversation.

5 Minute Meals

2005-12-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

Rice is great - it's nutritious, filling and, with so many varieties, there's one for every cuisine you can sauce it with. No wonder it's the most popular grain in the world. But you have to admit, some days you don't want to wait 20 minutes while it cooks, and that's where couscous comes in so handy. This tiny little pasta goes great with just about any sauce or seasoning you can throw at it, and it cooks up in five minutes.

This dish came together with a bunch of leftovers and a handful of spices. It's based on arroz con pollo from Cuba.

Couscous con Pollo

1/2 c water
3/4 c dry white wine
pinch of saffron (about 10 threads), optional but excellent
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut in 3/4" dice
1 shallot, finely diced
1 small tomato, seeded and finely diced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 handful Italian parsley
1/2 tsp thyme
a good grinding of pepper
a couple shakes of cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 c couscous

In a small saucepan, bring the water, wine and saffron to a boil. Turn off the heat and let it steep while you cook the chicken. Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the oil, then the chicken, and cook until well browned. Add the shallot and tomato and cook, stirring often, until the shallot softens a little. Add the garlic and cook two more minutes. Add the herbs and seasonings and stir well. Add the wine mixture, stir together, and then stir in the couscous. Turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let it stand five minutes. Stir and serve. Makes about four servings.

Cheese of the Week No. 4

2005-11-29T00:56:00.000-05:00

I'm going to have to slow my cheese of the week offerings down a little bit. There are only a couple dozen cheeses that I really love from my rather modest selection at the cheese counter. I'll have to do some more exploring (cheating?) at other cheese counters around the city to give you options like these:

Schlosskranz: raw cow's milk, California. A washed rind, raw milk cheese from the good ol' USA? And it stinks, too? Great! Give me half a wheel, please. Or rather, half a wreath (Schlosskranz is "castle wreath" in German, and the wheel is a flat donut.) The rind is orange-brown, crusty and pungent, the inside is a maize colored paste that oozes just slightly at room temperature, and the taste is earthy, nutty, and downright musty. If you make this a first date cheese, and there ends up being a second date, hold on to what you've got, because that is one very special relationship.

Hoch Ybrig: raw cow's milk, Switzerland. Again a washed rind cheese, this time a much larger example from the fun folks that brought us Swatchguards and neutrality. This cheese is anything but neutral, though. It's big, meaty, sweet and spicy, bigger than Gruyere, something more like Appenzeller (a cheese for another day). It would make a luxurious addition to a fondue, but it might be better served at room temperature sliced thinly with fruit and a crisp wine or champagne.

Cupcakes!

2005-11-19T15:16:00.000-05:00

Melissa, fan of all things cheesy and savory (which is probably why she likes Mike the omeletologist) suggested during the course of a Steelers game last week that we try making savory cupcakes. Brilliant, I said. Instantly, images of cheese frostings and meat fillings came to mind, and we set the date for last night.

Armed with some tasty goodies from work, and with Mike as my sous chef, I set about creating several savory cupcake options. Credit must go to Gourmet Magazine for the basic structure, but I really felt that any good cupcake deserves a filling and an icing, and I wanted to spice up the cake a little.

In the end, we had a truffle mousse-filled cupcake with cheese icing, a cheese-filled cupcake with more cheese on top, a well seasoned corn muffin that went great with truffle mousse spread on top, and a corn cake layered with cheese frosting and accented with, what else, more truffled liver mousse. Mike made a side dish of green beans and mushrooms that were made in true Danger Mike style, with a first-degree burn and numerous vegetable casualties .

Everything could have used a little more salt, maybe some more spice, and the truffle liver mousse dominated a little bit (not really a bad thing), but overall, the experiment was a smashing success.

---

Cheese Cupcakes with Two Fillings

2 eggs
3/4 c milk
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
1 c grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
1 large shallot or small onion, minced and sauteed until softened
1 handful finely chopped green onion
1 tsp herbes de Provence or a combination of your favorite herbs
a good grinding of pepper
a good shake of crushed red pepper
3/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350. Whisk eggs, milk and oil together. Combine about 3/4 c of the grated cheese with the rest of the dry ingredients, and add them to the wet ingredients. Stir until well mixed. Add the garlic, onions and spices. Pour into greased muffin tins and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean and the tops are slightly golden brown. Allow the cupcakes to cool while you prepare the fillings.

Meat filling

1/4 lb soft meat mousse or pate, such as truffled liver mousse

---

Cheese filling and icing

6 oz mascarpone cheese
6 oz gorgonzola dolce
1-2 T milk

Whisk the cheese ingredients together and place about half of the mixture into a pastry bag. Fill another pastry bag with the meat filling. You can make a quick pastry bag with wax or parchment paper and tape. Make a cone, cut the opening in the top to about 3/8", and pack the mix into the cone. Roll up the wide end and squeeze the filling to the tip. With the handle of a wooden spoon, poke a hole into the bottom of each cupcake and pipe filling in. Frost the cupcakes liberally with the reserved filling and EAT!

---

Savory Corn Muffins and Layer Cake

1/2 c cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 c flour
1 c sour milk (1 T lemon juice in 1 c milk works)
1 egg
1 T bacon fat or oil
1 handful of finely chopped scallions
1 finely chopped shallot, fried until softened in olive oil
1 chopped clove garlic
1/4 c grated Parmigiano Reggiano
herbs, spices, hot sauce, and seasonings

Heat the oven to 400. Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Whisk the egg and oil together with the milk, and add this to the dry ingredients. Stir in the onions, garlic and seasonings. You can make 12 muffins, or 6 muffins and a little corn cake. Pour about half the batter into six buttered muffin tins, and pour the rest into a buttered ramekin. Sprinkle some cheese and herbs over each one. Bake the muffins 15 to 20 minutes, and the cake about 20-25 minutes.

Mike had the great idea of making a layer cake out of the corn cake. We filled it with cheese frosting and a little accent of truffle mousse. It was over the top and delicious.

---

Green Beans with Mushrooms

One medium pot of boiling salted water
1 lb green beans, washed and trimmed
1/2 lb button mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 inch fresh ginger, minced
2 T olive oil
1/4 c grated Parmigiano
salt and pepper to taste

Blanch the beans by putting them in the boiling water, bringing the water back to a boil, and cooking for two minutes. Remove the beans from the pot and refresh them in a bowl of running cold water for a couple minutes. This will give you cooked-yet-crisp, bright green beans.

Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the mushrooms, ginger and garlic and toss for a couple minutes, then add the beans and toss for a few more minutes until heated through. Season well with salt, pepper, and cheese.

Cheese of the Week No. 3

2005-11-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

Let's take a trip to Italy today. Sometimes you forget just how good the old classics are.

Mozzarella di Bufala: water buffalo's milk, Italy. This has my vote for best fresh cheese. Moist, tender, utterly delicious, it's the very essence of buffalo milk, with a nice grassy note. Unsalted mozzarella will let you truly appreciate the quality of the milk. It should be eaten within a day of being made, but the hermetically sealed cheese we get from Italy supposedly stays edible for a month. It's very good, but I highly recommend a trip to the motherland for the real deal. Serve it simply with good tomatoes, cracked pepper, and some fresh basil.

Fontina d'Aosta: cow's milk, Italy. It's an Italian Raclette, sweet, nutty, full flavored, and great for melting. It's an excellent addition to a fondue, and it also makes a great snack with a little red wine and bread.

Parmigiano Reggiano: cow's milk, Italy. Pound for pound probably the tastiest cow's milk cheese in the world. The 75 lb. wheels we have in the shop were made about two and a half years ago, and when we crack those babies open, all those months of aging spring to life and fill the whole area with a fantastic aroma. The days we chunk, shave and grate Reggiano are some of my favorite days of the week. Do yourself a favor and toss out that green can of wonder cheese you have, and get yourself a chunk of the real deal. There's no comparison to freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and a little goes a long way. Use it on pasta, in risotto, in savory cupcakes (coming soon!) and just about anywhere. Goes great with wine as a dessert or hors d'oeuvre.

Taleggio: cow's milk, Italy. This is a great washed-rind cheese from Lombardy with a sticky, stinky rind and very soft, sticky inside. It's sweet, earthy, and a little tangy, with the taste enhanced by the smell of the rind. It would go well with nuts, fruit and white or light red wine as a dessert.

Risotto Time Again

2005-11-13T09:56:00.000-05:00

Most of the recipes I've shared to this point have been pretty simple affairs, but every now and then I like to raise the bar a little. With a little more time and loving care, you can bring your risotto to the next level. I asked my friend what she'd like in a risotto, and she said mushrooms and fresh herbs. I added tomatoes to the mix and ended up with this recipe.

5 T olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 15 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1/2 c red wine
2 c arborio rice
5 c vegetable stock
1 large portobello mushroom cap, coarsely diced
1/2 tsp each: sage, marjoram, rosemary
1 handful dried porcini mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp truffle oil
1 T butter
1/2 c freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano plus more for garnish
2 T chopped Italian parsley plus more for garnish

Heat the stock in a saucepan to a simmer and keep it hot for the whole process.

While the stock is heating, soak the porcini mushrooms in a little boiling water. Chop the onions, garlic and portobello. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a saute pan over high heat and add the portobello. Season with herbs and toss frequently for about 3 minutes. You don't want the mushroom to dry out, just seal in the moisture. Set the cooked mushroom aside.

Dice the porcini and add the soaking liquid to your stock. You're now ready to start the main event. Heat up the remaining four tablespoons of oil over moderate heat in a casserole or deep saute pan. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until softened. Add the garlic and cook a few more minutes. Crush the tomatoes with your hand and add them with their juices to the pot. Stir and bring to a simmer. Add the wine and cook another minute. Now you must give your undivided attention to the pot. Stir in the rice and allow it to absorb the majority of the tomato juice. Begin adding the stock, ladle by ladle, allowing the rice to absorb each addition before the next. After about 20 minutes, your risotto will start to become creamy. Test it occasionally to check for doneness. When it is just al dente, add both mushrooms and stir well. You want the rice to be tender, creamy, and neither mushy nor crunchy. Add the grated cheese and parsley, stir well, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Finish by stirring in a tablespoon of butter and the truffle oil.

Serve immediately with some crusty bread and a red wine like Chianti. Serves 8 as a side, or 5 as a main.

Do you have some leftover risotto? Don't throw it away! Save it for the next day and fry it up.

leftover risotto
1/2 pound fresh mozzarella, cut in 3/4" dice
1 egg, beaten with 1 T water
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
oil for deep frying

Heat up about an inch of oil in a suitable pan for deep frying. Grab a small handful of risotto and make a pocket. Tuck a chunk of cheese into the middle, and cover it with more rice to form a ball. Roll the ball first in the egg wash and then the breadcrumbs. Repeat until you've finished the risotto. Fry them a few at a time, turning occasionally, until they brown nicely. Fry up some cheesesticks while you're at it. Serve hot with beer or wine.

Cheese of the Week No. 2

2005-11-11T20:53:00.000-05:00

The federal government has outlawed raw milk cheese that is aged for less than 60 days. It's all for fear of the natural bacteria that exist in raw milk, and it's a shame because we don't get to try the wonderful raw milk Brie and Camembert of France. We do, however, get a few raw milk cheeses that are among the best in the world.

Chimay Lait Cru: raw cow's milk, Belgium. This washed rind cheese is made by the same Trappist monks who bring us the Chimay line of Belgian beer. The cheese is just as great, with huge depth of flavor and aroma. As a washed rind cheese, it is bathed with a brine solution during ripening that gives it a very stinky, sticky rind. A beer-washed version of this cheese also exists. The interior is sticky and soft, tasting of toasted walnuts, mushrooms and hay. Awesome. Serve it with red wine or Chimay beer.

Keen's Farmhouse Cheddar: raw cow's milk, England. This straw colored, occasionally blue-veined cheddar is in a class by itself compared to our orange blocks of cheddar. It has a much more interesting array of flavors that keep developing as you eat it. It's fruitier, spicier, deeper than the old standby. Goes great with nuts, fruit, and red wine.

Cabrales: raw cow, sheep, and goat milk, Spain. My favorite blue cheese. Grazing high in the mountains of the Asturias region of Spain, the animals who give their milk to make this cheese live a rough life. They really have to work to find good grazing, and it builds character that translates into one of the most amazing blue cheeses in the world. The cheese is wrapped in sycamore leaves and aged in limestone caves until the airborne bacteria (helped by piercing the cheese) permeate and create a wild network of deep blue veins. One little taste, if you can restrain yourself, will unlock smokey, berry, nutty, meaty flavors that keep exploding in your mouth. Keep the cracker or bread simple, and serve it with a red wine.

For Lack of Buttermilk

2005-11-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you want buttermilk pancakes, the Aunt Jemima's all out, and you have no buttermilk in the house? Try a little sour cream - it works in coffee cake, why not pancakes? These hotcakes come together quickly and cook in no time, and they have the tangy richness of a great buttermilk flapjack.

Sour Cream Pancakes

1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 c milk
1/3 c sour cream
1 egg
1/3 c melted butter or vegetable oil

Whisk the five dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. Measure your milk and sour cream into a measuring cup, beat in the egg, add the oil, and pour the mixture into the dry ingredients. Whisk it all together until smooth. Pour half cup ladles onto a hot griddle and cook until the top starts to dry, then flip and cook until browned on the bottom. Pile on some blueberry rhubarb jam, maple syrup, or what have you. Eat! Makes about six 6" pancakes, or many more silver dollars.

Once upon a time, in a better, richer day, butter was made from cultured cream. I'm not talking about the hastily cultured, pasteurized sour cream we get in stores today. I'm talking about raw cream from a cow that is allowed to rest for a day and thicken naturally, more akin to the creme fraiche they adore in France and Switzerland. The result is a nuttier, more delicious butter, and wonderful buttermilk that isn't anything like what is sold commercially here. Unfortunately, the City of New York has strict rules about keeping livestock in residential buildings, otherwise I'd have a Jersey cow or two for making butter, cream and cheese. I'll bring you some raw milk cheeses in this week's cheese picks, but until the FDA relaxes a little on the raw milk scene, we'll all just have to move to farms.

Cheese of the Week No. 1

2005-11-04T23:12:00.000-05:00

So as a way to both survive in the big city and be surrounded by great food more often than not, I've been working at a cheese counter on the Upper West Side. Each week I'll try to bring you my picks for a weekly cheese combo platter. Some of them might be on the pricey side, but if you treat yourself on occasion, you'll be sampling a masterpiece -- the cheesemakers' interpretation of milk as art.

Humboldt Fog: goat's milk, USA; crumbly yet very rich and creamy with a dry mouthfeel, tangy and definitely "goaty," with a distinctive layer of ash in the middle separating the two milkings used to make the cheese; aged to perfection, it's my favorite goat cheese so far; eat with plain water crackers or nice crusty bread and a light bodied dry red wine.

Brillat Savarin: cow's milk, France; soft-ripened Brie-style cheese, though very young with only a hint of cheese flavor; a dreamy triple cream cheese that, when warmed to room temperature, spreads like butter and is perfect on strawberries and other fruit or bread. Great with champagne or a dry white wine.

P'tit Basque: sheep's milk, Spain; a stout little cylinder of semi-firm cheese, it's sweet, a little tangy, not overly "sheepy," really flavorful. Serve with a light red and bread, crackers and fruit.

Raclette: cow's milk, Switzerland. This modest looking cheese is really delicious and full of flavor. Sweet, a little nutty, not too firm, it's pricier than most Swiss cheeses, but there's a reason for it. Melts perfectly; makes a great addition to fondue, mac'n'cheese, or just as a table cheese. Sweet or dry white wine would be a nice addition.

Enjoy!

Absolut Creamy Goodness

2005-11-04T22:36:00.000-05:00

Add heavy cream to your list of things to have handy. It makes a last minute vodka sauce a reality, and it's great poured over strawberries or swirled into coffee. My vodka sauce isn't overly rich, and the alcohol cooks out. It's great as a main or side.

Penne alla Vodka

2 T olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
1 T fresh chopped basil or 1 tsp dry
2 T fresh Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 c freshly grated Parmagiano Reggiano
1/2 c heavy cream
1/4 c vodka
1 T butter
salt and pepper to taste
12 oz penne or similar pasta, cooked al dente
extra parsley and cheese for garnishing

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large saute pan or pot. Add the onions, toss to coat with oil, and cover for 10 minutes to sweat them. When the onions have softened, add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their sauce, crushing them with your hands. Toss in the bay leaf and red pepper and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the the basil, parsley, Parmagiano, cream, and vodka and simmer another 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, and finish by swirling in the butter. Toss with the pasta, and try not to eat it all at once.

Serves 4.

Spice Up Your Life

2005-10-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

If you love Indian food (and you know I do), it would be worth gathering up a collection of spices so you can whip up some simple dishes any night of the week. Sure, you could get them at your gourmet grocer or in a specialty spice shop, but you'll save a bundle if you find a good Indian grocer, and you'll also find an inspiring variety of frozen breads, samosas, unusual produce, spice mixes, sacks of rice, Bollywood movies, CDs, you name it.

Whole spices are what you're looking for; they'll keep for a year or longer, and freshly ground spices are far better than anything you can buy pre-ground. Some recipes call for whole spices, often fried briefly to gently cook them and infuse the oil with their essence. Often times you'll need to make a spice mix or paste, and for this you'll need either a good, heavy mortar and pestle, or a dedicated coffee grinder (unless you like spiced coffee). Here's a good essential list to start with: cumin seeds, coriander seeds, turmeric powder, cayenne pepper, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, green cardamom pods, black peppercorns, whole nutmeg and fennel seeds.

If you really get rolling with the Indian cooking, you'll probably want to include mace blades or powder, whole dried chilies, black mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, amchoor (dried mango) powder, and nigella seeds. The list goes on, but these are some of the more common, subtle ingredients you'll see often.

Keep these all stored in a dry, dark place and they'll last for at least a year. Replace if they lose potency or color.

Some other things to have on hand are fresh ginger root, red onions, and garlic. With these you can make the base for many common sauces, to which you can add any vegetables or meat and have a fine curry.

So you have a big basket of spices, a pile of onions, some ginger and garlic. What now? Try these to warm your soul.

Channa Masala (Chickpeas in Spicy Sauce)

2 T oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
6 whole cloves
1 3" cinnamon stick, broken into a few pieces
6 green cardamom pods, cracked with the flat of a knife
6 whole peppercorns
2 large or 4 small red onions, very finely chopped
1 medium tomato, diced (optional)
2 inch piece fresh ginger, finely grated
5 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 T coriander seeds, ground
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 large can (23 oz) chickpeas with liquid
1/2 tsp amchoor powder or 2 T sour cream, or juice of 1/2 lemon
salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste

Have everything chopped, minced and ground before you begin. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large skillet, wok, or pot. Add the cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and peppercorns and fry until the cinnamon begins to unfurl and the cumin is browned but not burnt. Add the onions and stir well to combine. Continue frying over medium heat to cook the onions through, stirring occasionally. The onions should lose most of their moisture and turn a golden brown, but do not burn them! If they begin to cook too quickly, add a tablespoon of cold water to slow the cooking.

When the onions are caramelized, add the tomato, garlic, ginger, and the rest of the spices except salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Add the chickpeas, stir, and simmer for 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste (it should be tangy and spicy). Serve with rice (see below) or bread. Makes about 4 servings.

Options: Instead of chickpeas, you can add some browned chicken chunks and a little chicken stock, or experiment with different vegetables and beans.

---

Chai Tea

4 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups milk
12 green cardamom pods
3 3" sticks cinnamon, broken into pieces
1 thin slice of fresh ginger (optional)
6 whole cloves
4 black peppercorns
2 T black tea
sugar to taste

Crack the cardamom pods and peppercorns with the side of a knife. Add the spices to the water and milk, and bring to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for five minutes. Remove from heat, add the tea leaves and steep, covered, for five minutes. Strain into cups and sweeten to taste.

---

Steamed Rice

This goes well with all kinds of curries. It takes about 30 minutes start to finish, so if you're making the channa masala above, wash the rice before you begin the dish, and start cooking it around the time the onions are finished cooking.

1 1/2 cups basmati rice
2 1/4 cups water
2 tsp oil (for less sticky rice)

Place the rice in a large saucepan and fill with cold water. Swish the rice around to wash off some of the starch and bring out any impurities. Drain and repeat another time so that the water is mostly clear. Drain again, add the 2 1/4 cups clean water and oil, and bring to a boil. As soon as the water boils, cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook without stirring for 20 minutes. Make sure all the water has been absorbed, give it a stir, and serve.

Gruyeres Days Re-Revisited

2005-10-03T13:08:00.000-05:00

For the chunk of Gruyere cheese in the fridge, it began as any other day. The door opened some time in the morning; eggs and milk were plucked from around it, the milk placed back not long after. Then all was quiet for hours. Dark and cold, the Gruyere rested, keeping its pungent odor to itself for the most part. Little did it know that this particular Wednesday was fondue night!

Later that night, the hefty chunk of Gruyere would be committed to the molten pot of funky, cheesy goodness and devoured by a group of friends engrossed in a shark-like feeding frenzy. Within minutes, every drop of cheese was gone, every crumb of bread, each chunk of crisp vegetable, devoured.

It's so simple and so delicious, and quite possibly the easiest way to eat a half pound of cheese in one sitting.

Swiss Cheese Fondue

1 1/2 pounds mixed Swiss cheeses (Gruyere and Emmenthaler are a classic duo), shredded
1 c dry white wine
splash of Kirsch (optional)
1 clove garlic
black pepper
nutmeg (optional)

The cheese can easily be shredded in a food processor. Shred it and have it near room temperature. Rub the fondue pot with a cut clove of garlic and pour in the wine. Slice the garlic very thinly and add to the wine if you want a little extra garlic punch. Heat the wine over low heat to a simmer. Add the cheese, a handful at a time, and stir until melted and smooth before adding the next. Once the cheese is completely melted and bubbling slightly, add the Kirsch and season to taste. Set over the fondue burner and feast. Great with bread, carrots, peppers, apples, just about anything.

What better to go with a molten pot of cheese than freshly baked bread? I tried my hand at the French loaf, with some success and lots to learn. A lot has been written about the subject (Julia Child committed 20 pages to the subject in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two,") so I won't go into too much detail here. I followed a method that requires moistening the crust every few minutes during the first half of baking, and I think I lost too much heat in the process since my crust was a little soft. And the interior was a little dense, which I take to mean the loaves didn't rise enough before baking. Things to try for next time. In any case, they were beautiful.

Monkey see, monkey do

2005-09-16T16:25:00.000-05:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Despite the warnings from my friend about the mediocre bakery on the corner, I was lured in by the warm, sweet fragrance of cinnamon wafting into the neighborhood. The chocolate brioche was just okay, but the Irish soda bread scone left a lot to be desired. Scones are supposed to be dry, but not Sahara-dry, and the whole fennel seeds were unpredictable and found themselves lodging in my teeth.

Always trying to keep up with the Joneses, I added a few things to the scone recipe from June.

Irish Soda Bread Scones

2 c flour
1/3 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fennel seeds, crushed or ground
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 c shortening or butter
1 egg, beaten (reserve a spoonful for glazing)
1/2 c milk
1/3 c raisins

Whisk dry ingredients except raisins in a bowl. Cut in the shortening or butter with the whisk or a pastry blender until the mixture is sandy. Stir the milk and egg into the flour mixture to form a dough, adding a little flour if it's too sticky to handle. Fold in the raisins and knead briefly to distribute them. On a cutting board, pat the dough into a circle about 3/4" thick. Cut into 8 wedges and place on an ungreased sheet. Mix the reserved egg with a dash of milk and brush lightly over the tops of the scones. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

I didn't have raisins at the time, so I popped a handful of chopped red grapes into the toaster oven at its lowest setting for about an hour. They were still juicy, but with a little extra flour the dough held together just fine. The result was a really tasty, fragrant, sweet scone with a moist crumb.

The culinary journey continues here in the DC-Baltimore area. Dinner last night included a giant soft pretzel smothered in cheese and crab meat. There may be a risotto on the table tonight; we'll see what the District's markets have to offer.

The Big City

2005-09-09T11:13:00.000-05:00

The Captain's Jetta has safely arrived in Manhattan to begin another food journey. All the fantastic food, fresh fruit and vegetables, and beautiful pastries just beg to be eaten as I walk down just about any block in the city, but I've been here before, I know how easily these treats can rob the wallet. So after window shopping and working up a tremendous appetite, I went back to the apartment and whipped up a quick Indian style rice dish. This kind of dish illustrates how nice it is to have a good stockpile of basic ingredients and spices in the house. In another episode, I'll suggest a few to have on hand.

Pulao Plus

1 c basmati rice, washed and drained
1 1/2 c water
2 T oil
1 medium red onion, halved and sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1" fresh ginger, minced
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
2 dried chilies
salt and pepper to taste

Heat 1 T oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and cook the onion, stirring often, until golden brown. Do not let it burn. Set the onion aside and in the same pan heat the remaining 1 T oil over medium high heat. Add the cumin, mustard and chilies and cook until the cumin turns brown and the mustard pops. Add the onion, garlic, turmeric and ginger and fry until fragrant and softened a little. Add the rice and stir until it begins to turn opaque, then add the water. As soon as the water begins to boil, turn the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes without peeking. Season to taste and serve. Sprinkle on some cashews and cilantro for a nice treat.

Thank you, Ohio.

2005-09-01T13:09:00.000-05:00

At over 40 pounds per person, France is the world leader in annual cheese consumption. But if Ohio could be considered its own country, just the cheese served on a typical chili 3-way would put it over the top. This is fast food at its finest (they have at least two chili chains), but you can recreate this masterpiece at home.

Cincinatti Chili 3-Way

1 plateful of overcooked spaghetti
1 giant ladle of no-bean chili
1 heaping handful of finely shredded cheddar cheese

Layer ingredients with loving care on a top quality paper plate. Serve with oyster crackers, hot sauce, and sweet tea.

Purple Green Beans and More Risotto

2005-08-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, these purple beans turn green almost the instant they hit boiling water. They are delicious, though, and if they're blanched in boiling, salted water for about a minute and a half, and then refreshed in ice water, they make a lovely addition to a chicken salad that features crisp vegetables, tangy vinaigrette, and fresh mozzarella.

I've said before that good tomatoes are hard to find. But sometimes all you need is a little extra cheese and Prego! It's in there! Flavor, texture, salt, it's all there. Tonight's adventure in risotto involved some weak Roma tomatoes, an accidental cheese spill, and some reassurance from a fellow cheese lover that it would be fine. And it was. Too much cheese? Impossible!

Risotto al Pomodoro (e Formaggio)

Following roughly along with the basic risotto from earlier this week, you can add a few peeled tomatoes just after the onions are soft, and cook them until they become saucy. Add the rice and allow it to absorb the tomato sauce. Add about 6 cups of unsalted chicken broth, as before, ladle by ladle (test the rice occasionally for doneness). When the rice is just tender, finish with butter and olive oil, add a cup of diced fresh mozzarella, a dozen shredded basil leaves, and a half cup of grated parmesan. Salt and pepper to taste, and serve immediately. This dish has the freshness of a margherita pizza with a creaminess that could only come from risotto.

To peel tomatoes, dunk a couple at a time into boiling water for 10-20 seconds. Cut the stem out and peel from the stem end with a knife. Return to boiling water briefly if the skin is being difficult.

Below is a cool, tangy dessert that could go well with your next summertime meal. I had a heck of a time freezing the granita, but it had a clean taste that finished the meal off nicely.

Granita di Pompelmo con Panna

1/3 c water
1/2 c sugar
2 1/2 c fresh grapefruit juice
2 star anise (optional)
1/2 pint whipping cream
1 T powdered sugar

Heat sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar has dissolved. Combine with grapefruit juice and pour into a shallow metal pan. Place the pan in a freezer and stir up the ice crystals every 40 minutes or so until completely frozen. Alternatively you can let the juice freeze solid and shave the ice with a spoon.

Beat the whipping cream until it forms soft peaks. Mix in the sugar. Layer glass dishes with whipped cream and granita. You can keep it in the freezer until serving time, though your whipped cream may be more like ice cream. It's a tricky balance because the acid from the juice could turn your whipped cream into cheese if everything's not frozen. Makes 6-8 servings.

Optionally, you could take a batch or two of home brew espresso, sweeten to taste, and freeze as above for a traditional granita di caffe, and it's even better with the layered cream.

Rice Flavored Butter

2005-08-22T10:55:00.000-05:00

Risotto might be the easiest way to eat half a stick of butter in one sitting. I did it yesterday before I even realized what I had done, but the fragrant, porridge-like rice dish was so delicious that I couldn't stop eating it. The recipe called for dry white wine, onion and chicken broth, but I had sweet red wine, shallot and bouillon cubes on hand, and it came out just fine. Don't let those little things get in the way of your lunchtime meal.

Start to finish the dish takes about 30 minutes, but these 30 minutes require your constant attention at the stovetop. Have everything measured and chopped before you start cooking the rice, because you'll be stirring it constantly and watching for the magic to happen. During the cooking, the rice gives up its starch to form a creamy sauce around the grains. The end goal is a creamy, tender, fragrant rice that still has its shape but isn't crunchy inside. Once you have the basic risotto down, you can use any kind of stock and add just about any kind of meat, vegetable, mushroom or fish that you want.

Basic Risotto

one pinch (about a dozen) saffron threads
1 cup dry white wine
5 c broth
8 T butter plus 4 T to finish the dish
1 small onion or shallot, finely chopped
2 cups risotto rice (chubby short grain)
1/2 c good quality grated Parmesan cheese
1 T chopped herb or parsley
salt and pepper

Heat the wine with the saffron in a small sauce pan until the threads begin to color and flavor the wine. In a separate saucepan heat the broth until just barely simmering, and keep it hot for the entire process.

In a large skillet over moderate flame, heat the butter and saute the onion for a few minutes until soft. Add the rice and stir until the rice begins to turn opaque. Lower the heat, pour in the saffron wine and stir the rice until the wine has been absorbed. Now add one ladle of the simmering broth and stir continuously until the rice absorbs it all. Continue adding broth by the ladle, stirring constantly, allowing the rice to absorb the broth each time.

After the last ladle of broth, check your rice to see that it is tender inside. If it is still crunchy, continue heating with stirring for a few minutes, checking occasionally. Add a half ladle of hot water if necessary. Once tender, add the finishing butter, herbs and cheese, stirring gently to mix. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with additional cheese for sprinkling.

Makes 4 servings. This recipe can be halved easily.

That's a Tangy Sauce

2005-08-20T23:21:00.000-05:00

Any good chunk of meat left to smoke for hours on end will taste great on its own. That fall-apart tenderness and characteristic smoke ring and flavor are why we do this thing called barbecue in the first place. But of course a nice barbecue sauce is always welcome, and I wanted to give a tangy Western Carolina barbecue boost to some smokey ribs. I didn't want the first noticeable taste to be sugar (usually corn syrup in commercial sauces). Here's a rough idea of how it came together. No corn syrup was harmed in the making of this sauce.

"Gonna Make Ya Sweat" Barbecue Sauce

1 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup water, more if the sauce is too thick
3/4 cup vinegar (I used sushi vinegar because it's all I had)
1 T molasses
1 T honey
1 clove garlic
1/2 inch fresh ginger root, sliced
1/2 small onion, chopped
1 tsp mustard seeds, ground
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
a dash of Worcestershire sauce
several dashes of XXX hot sauce
a good shake of cayenne pepper

In retrospect, half the tomato paste would have done the trick, and then the water could have been cut down so that the sauce is more of a tomato-tinged vinegar sauce rather than vice versa. In any case, toss everything into a blender and process until well mixed and smooth. Add a splash of liquid (vinegar or water) if the sauce won't budge in the blender.

Some of the ingredients were just handy and sounded good at the time, like the chili powder and Worcestershire. Omit, substitute or add as you please. The sauce should have a tangy vinegar and chile burn that's eased by the honey and molasses. Makes about 2 cups.

Hot tub! Gonna get ya hot-a!
Gonna make ya sweat! Hey!
Say! Hot tub! Rub a dub in the hot tub!
Rub a dub with me!

--James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party (Eddie Murphy, SNL)

Bad Root Beer, Good Tapenade

2005-08-18T11:52:00.000-05:00

The root beer from yesterday is really not so great. There's a little too much ginger, something funky in the aftertaste (maybe dandelion), and it's not sweet enough. A couple of teaspoons of simple syrup fix that last one, but otherwise I'm sticking to store-bought for my root beer fix.

Here's something quicker and a little more fool proof. It's nice as an appetizer or quick lunch; try a few different olives for variety. Chop the ingredients by hand for a more substantial texture.

Olive Tapenade

2 cups of olives, pitted, chopped
1 T salt packed capers, rinsed and chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 anchovy filets (optional), finely chopped
squeeze of lemon juice
2 T olive oil
any good Italian, French or sourdough bread, sliced and toasted crisp

To pit olives, lay a few on a cutting board and press on them firmly with the side of a large knife. Pull out the pits with your fingers. It's a little messy, but you'll find more variety in unpitted olives and they generally taste better. The salted capers have a stronger flavor than their brined cousins; if you can't find them, feel free to substitute.

Combine the olives, capers, garlic, (anchovies) and lemon juice in a bowl. Drizzle in olive oil while stirring until the other ingredients hold together. Spread on the bread on its own or with sliced tomato or mozzarella.

Root Beer, Take 2

2005-08-17T14:06:00.000-05:00

My recent obsession with old fashioned root beer is getting dangerous. I can't drive down a country road without gazing out the side window looking for sassafras trees. So to put it all to rest, and before I end up stranded in a ditch, I'm making root beer one more time this summer.

I'm brewing 1.5 L this time, so I've adjusted all my quantities and added a few ingredients based on an old time recipe I found floating on the web. The juniper berries and dandelion root came from a local hippy food co-op. They also sell frankincense and myrrh, which will make an appearance here during the holiday season if I figure out what to do with them.

8 sassafras sapling roots, each about 4" long
1 T juniper berries, crushed
2" fresh ginger root, sliced
1 1/2 tsp dandelion root
5 T sugar
1 T honey
1 1/2 tsp molasses
scant 1/8 tsp dry yeast

Boil the sassafras, juniper, ginger and dandelion in about 3 cups of water for 20 minutes. Strain well and allow to cool to lukewarm. Add sweeteners and yeast, mix well and pour into a 1.5 L bottle. Top up with cool water, cap and shake gently to mix it all together. Stand in a warm room for about 12 hours or until the bottle is very firm to the squeeze. Refrigerate until cold, serve over ice or vanilla ice cream.

I wasn't sure how much "bite" the ginger/juniper/dandelion mixture would have, so I boiled it separately and added it little by little to the sassafras tea. In the end, I used it all because the sugars tamed the bite, so I suggest boiling it all together. I tasted the brew as I added sweeteners little by little to make sure it was sweet enough and not overpowered by molasses. I made it about as sweet as sweet tea because the carbonation and chilling will cut the sweetness a little.

I haven't tasted the final product, but I have a good feeling about this batch. I'll let you know how it goes.

Coffee Talk

2005-08-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

I've been putting my stovetop espresso maker to work these past couple of weeks. The results have been tall, refreshing, eye-opening iced coffee drinks that rival anything you can buy at the local coffeehouse or supermarket. In under five minutes you can have a Thai iced coffee, or a grande decaf soy iced mocha whippaccino, or anything else you can imagine.

The coffee makes all the difference, although it's a matter of personal preference. Having tried a few different brands and beans I finally settled on Caffe Kimbo Gold Medal. For half the price of the superpremium brand, it's a nice finely ground medium roast, perfect for the stovetop espresso maker. Instead of being bitter and smokey like a lot of espresso roasts, the Kimbo is smooth, sweet, almost chocolatey. For the strongest, sweetest brew, bring the pot up to a boil slowly, and allow only half the water to seep through the grounds at a trickle. Take the pot off the heat to stop the espresso from getting diluted. It looks like molasses and even has a nice foamy crema on the surface. This small amount of coffee contains all of the essence of the grounds; it's delicious straight with dessert, or in mixed coffee drinks.

Cappuccino

For each serving:
1 shot freshly brewed espresso
1/4 c milk

Bring the milk to a simmer. Remove from heat and whisk milk (or use a milk frother) until foamy. Pour espresso into a warmed coffee cup and top with the hot milk and foam.

---

Thai Iced Coffee

2 T sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c freshly brewed espresso
ice cubes

Combine milk and coffee in a glass, top up with ice cubes. Makes one strong serving.

---

Iced Mocha Latte

2 T sweetened condensed milk
2 T chocolate syrup
1/2 c freshly brewed espresso
1/2 t vanilla extract
ice cubes
whole milk

Stir together the condensed milk, chocolate syrup, vanilla and espresso. Fill two glasses halfway with ice cubes, pour half the coffee mixture into each, and top up with milk.

What a jerk!

2005-08-11T22:10:00.000-05:00

I've suspected this for some time, but it's on a t-shirt, so it must be true. I'm going to substitute bacon for brussels sprouts from now on.

Well, my kitchen has gone from smelling like root beer, to smelling like jerk, to now smelling a lot like mesquite smoke. Here's how it all went down.

When my buddy said he was getting a smoker-grill, I immediately started craving a Jamaican jerk recipe I had read about back in the cold weather months. Today was the day, and with only a couple of hours before grill time, I rushed out to pick up a few essentials and mixed up the fiery paste that would transform a pork tenderloin into an amazing mouth-watering morsel bursting with flavor. The recipe is worth repeating here. The smell was intoxicating, the spicy heat built up a little, but mellowed out into a nice tasty burn. 7 out of 10 on the spice scale. Adjust the number of peppers if you need to.

4 habanero pepper, stemmed
1 bunch green onions, cleaned and chopped
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1 T fresh if you have it
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground allspice
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
dash cinnamon
2 T vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 T vegetable oil
1 T salt
1 heaping tsp brown sugar

Put it all in a blender or processer and whirl until blended. This is enough for 2 pork tenderloins, butterflied and pounded to about 3/4" thick. Jab the meat all over with a chopstick or the end of a wooden spoon to form little pockets. Smear the marinade on, making sure to fill the holes, cover it with plastic wrap so the plastic clings to the meat, and refrigerate for a few hours, turning occasionally. Over a medium-hot grill with plenty of wood smoke, it takes about 8 or 9 minutes a side. A bigger cut of meat would be a good candidate for smoking with this marinade.

This was all a prelude to the main course, the amazing and beautiful beer can chicken. Believe the hype, it's all true. This was the most delicious bird I've ever had on the grill. The smoker was hovering around 200 degrees, and we worried it wouldn't be hot enough, but the two hours spent in the mesquite smoke bath were worth every minute. The can of beer up the bird's rear end keeps the moisture up, steaming it from the inside and wetting down some of the dry rub. The smoke is key; it browns the outside and carries the flavorings all the way through the meat.

I am now the proud owner of the carcass from that beer can chicken, and it was pointed out by my dear friend and fan of hearty cold weather food, that it would make a really tasty stock to go into a pot of gumbo. Pure genius. I'll freeze the stock until gumbo season or until my kitchen drops below 80 degrees, whichever comes first.

Sweet Sassy Molassey!

2005-08-08T21:47:00.000-05:00

We'll get to the fresh mozzarella in a minute, but first, I want to tell you what I know about root beer. It's delicious in a frosted mug on ice, or poured over vanilla ice cream for a float. But what is it? What is the "root" in root beer? The ingredients tell us nothing: corn syrup, "natural" and artificial flavorings, caramel color. As it turns out, the key is sassafras, the bark of the sassafras root, to be exact. It's worth noting that the root cannot be sold in the States for various reasons, the most likely being that the government cannot distinguish root beer makers from illicit drug makers.

That being said, sassafras is common along roads, meadows and water all through the eastern states. After having no luck in the local parks, I ended up in the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania. It's beautiful country, plenty of forest, rivers, skiing, waterfalls and, finally, sassafras. It has distinctive leaves, and if that isn't enough, the root beer aroma when you scratch and sniff any part of the plant is a dead giveaway. I dug up a few saplings and chopped the roots off for my first attempt at root beer. Here's what I tried so far.

10 inches of skinny sassafras sapling root
2 cups water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp molasses
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

I boiled the root in the water for about 30 minutes. The two cups reduced to about 1/2 cup, and it was a nice reddish, fragrant liquor. To this I started adding the other ingredients, sampling the whole time, ending at the above amounts.

Fresh ginger or some hops might be better than ground ginger, and the vanilla was a little overpowering. I found one recipe suggesting juniper berries and dandelion root. More roots, slower boil, and some new bitters for next time. I didn't have enough to bottle and carbonate, but when I do, I'll treat it like my homemade ginger beer, using a little yeast and a tight bottle.

My first swing at mozzarella was a miss. Getting curds is the easy part, but having them acidic enough to "spin" into mozzarella is a little tougher than I thought. To half a gallon of whole milk over medium heat, I added 1/2 cup of lemon juice to curdle it. At about 100 degrees F (a little late) I added 1/2 tablet of rennet dissolved in 1/4 cup of water, and I got a bunch of big curds in whey. Pretty promising so far. I scooped out the curds at 105 degrees F, and set the whey to heat up to 175 with a little salt in.

This is where I should have paid better attention to all the warnings about mozzarella, because when I dripped my curds into the hot whey, they scattered and didn't really bother to spin, flip or cartwheel at all. The curds weren't too bad with a little salt. I heated up the whey to almost boiling, skimmed out the ricotta and had that for supper as well.

Next time I'll try adding a little cultured buttermilk to the milk and letting it develop acidity overnight. It has to happen soon - all those ripening tomatoes won't wait forever!

Hip Downtown Cats

2005-08-05T09:25:00.000-05:00

The last week has seen blazing afternoon sun heating up the kitchen to a steamy 95 degrees, which means a) no stove or oven and b) staying out as late as possible until the apartment cools down at night. So, we're going fishing.

That's right, midnight catfishin' here on the three rivers of Pittsburgh. You've seen it on TV during baseball and football games, but the view is even more spectacular from the banks of the rivers at night, and the fishing isn't too bad, either. I'm joined by Matt, whose wife Addie loves both cheese and Matt very much, so she let's him out until all hours to fish. Our spot is on the banks of the Allegheny River between the two stadiums, and our weapon of choice is stinkbait.

We bought a tub of commercial stinkbait a while ago with great success. But it smelled SO bad, I didn't know where to keep it anymore. So we're moving on to home remedies: chicken livers and dough bait. The liver nearly got me a 5 pounder the other night, but my ultralight rig was no match for the mighty cat. The dough has been tricky to get right, and I don't want to offend my neighbors with anything ripening in the sun. Here's what I've got so far:

Gumbo Garlic Dough Bait

1/2 c dried potato flakes
1/2 c water
2 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp gumbo file (just to give the dough a cool name)
enough flour to make a nice dough

If you have some blood from the livers on hand, toss that in, too. Mix that all together, knead it a little, and when it doesn't stick to the hook, use it for chum!

Not for human consumption!

Next time on the Captain's Table I hope we'll be talking about something more edible, something that would go well with all the ripening tomatoes of the world, something like... fresh mozzarella.

Summer Travels

2005-07-29T13:18:00.000-05:00

First off, a quick off-site adventure in dairy: how to make queso blanco.

Well, loyal reader, I've enjoyed a good month and a half of traveling through our great (big) country. The Captain's Jetta has logged about 10,000 miles since my last post en route to the Northwoods of Wisconsin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, New Orleans, Memphis, New Hampshire and New York City. There was a ton of great food along the way, definitely some new things to try. Some memorable meals:

Hermann, MO: "Dave" burgers and venison steaks. (Dave was a cow on the farm last year).

El Paso, TX: Cattleman's Steakhouse. We were greeted at the door asking how we'd like our steak done. It was excellent, and the ranch was a nice place to stroll as the meal digested.

Corpus Christi, TX: A Mexican dinner including an avocado stuffed with seasoned beef and cheese, breaded and fried. Amazing and delicious; I'll be trying that one.

New Orleans, LA: Crawfish etouffee, alligator stew. The etouffee was sweet and creamy.

Memphis, TN: Best pulled pork I've ever had at The Pig on Beale. Super tender, juicy and tangy.

Chicago, IL: Tony's (70th & Pulaski) Italian Beef sandwich. There's still nothing else like it in the country.

Lake Tomahawk, WI: Pork steaks (from their amazing town butcher) and potato packages (recipe below). Good summertime feasting.

New London, NH: Pleasant Lake. If I had to pick one lake to drink, that would be it.

New York, NY: Greek! I tried some of Astoria's finest, including gigantes (stewed lima beans), grilled halloumi (cheese), and a really good portabello grilled with tomato and cheese on top. Also, Cevabdzinica Sarajevo (Astoria). Tasty little sausages served with warm, fluffy ljepina bread and onions. ChikaLicious was the most beautiful dessert I've ever seen being made; incredible. Mandoo Bar serves up a mean stone bowl bi bim bap.

Waffle House, USA: Pecan waffles, hash browns covered, diced and topped, and sweet tea (recipe below). Better and better the farther south you go.

You can't find good sweet tea in the North, so we Yankees have to brew our own. There's nothing like it on a steamy summer day.

Sweet Tea

2 qts filtered water
6 tea bags (I use plain, black tea; you can experiment)
pinch of baking soda (smoothes bitterness)
1 c sugar

Bring two cups of the water to a boil. Remove from heat, add the tea bags, and steep for five minutes. Remove the tea bags and stir in the soda and sugar until dissolved. Pour the tea into a pitcher and top up with the rest of the water. Refrigerate until cold, and serve over ice.

---

Growing up my mom made fantastic foil-wrapped potato packages to go with grilled meat. Filled with fresh garden vegetables and herbs, they were a delicious alternative to plain whole potatoes.

Potato Packages

For each:
20 inches aluminum foil
olive oil
1 medium-large potato, peeled, halfed lengthwise, and sliced to about 1/8"
a small handful each of fresh garden herbs and vegetables, such as:
scallions, thinly sliced
leeks, chopped
garlic, finely chopped
dill, coursely chopped
sweet peas
chives, finely chopped
basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, anything else on hand
1 T butter in pieces
salt, pepper, cayenne to taste

The foil will be folded in half, so prepare the package on one half. Drizzle oil on the center of the foil and place the potatoes on. Add the vegetables and herbs, drizzle with a little more oil, dot with butter, and season. Fold the foil over the potatoes and crimp the edges to form a tight seal. Cook in a closed grill over medium-high heat for about 15 minutes, longer if you want crispy browned bits. Remove to a plate and cover with a towel to keep hot until the rest of the meal is done.

Weekend in Review

2005-06-06T11:11:00.000-05:00

First, the Adventures in Dairy roundup. Remember the yogurt with rennet? That was just a dumb idea, forget about it. You can't make cheese from something that's already basically cheese.

The feta that was so happily pickling away is, in fact, a pleasantly salty feta cream. My tin can cheese press didn't have enough pressure to squeeze all that whey out, so the cheese came out more like cream cheese. It'll probably be good on toasted bread with olives or tomato.

In other news, I created the million dollar dumpling. Imagine, if you will, a bite sized potato dumpling filled with homemade hot gravy. I'll post a recipe when I can include pictures.

If you should find yourself anywhere near Columbus, go to Jeni's Fresh Ice Creams. There is a genius at work there. Seriously, goat cheese with cherry conserve? That's just brilliant.

Guacamole!

2005-06-06T10:02:00.000-05:00

It's one of my favorite foods, but I will never buy guacamole from a store. They try to make up for lack of freshness by adding questionable seasonings, sour cream and preservatives. It's crap.

I always use ripe Hass avocadoes (the black wrinkled ones). They're creamier and less watery than the smooth green ones. When they're perfectly ripe you should just be able to leave a dent with your fingers without much effort. If they're still hard, you can ripen them at home on the window sill. If they're mush, don't even bother.

Nearly every tomato I've bought from supermarkets in the past several years has been mealy, and they ruin everything they touch. Try to find a reliable source of good tomatoes, and you'll be so happy you did. Better yet, grow your own in a window box or garden, and then send me some.

Here are two versions of the good stuff. I like to keep it simple; some, like my Mama, prefer a few more layers of flavor. Mix and match, invent your own, just don't buy that tub of slime from the grocer.

Carsen's Guacamole

2 large, ripe Hass avocadoes
2 medium tomatoes
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of half a lime
salt to taste

Cut through the avocadoes lengthwise down to the pit, and slice all the way around. Twist the two halfs apart, tap the edge of your knife into the pit, and twist to remove. Slash through the flesh, but not the rind, a few times across and down, and scoop out the chunks with a spoon into a bowl.

Cut the tomatoes crosswise and squeeze out the seeds. Dice them roughly and add to the bowl. Add the minced garlic and lime juice. Use a potato masher or fork to coursely chop and mix the ingredients. Taste with whatever chips you'll be serving with the guacamole, and salt to taste. Enjoy!

Mama's Guacamole

Add these to the above.

1/2 c finely chopped red onion
handful of chopped cilantro
dash of Worcesterchire sauce
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
a couple dashes of hot sauce

Adventures in Dairy, Part 2

2005-06-02T12:22:00.000-05:00

Needing something to put the last of my homemade butter on, I whipped up some scones. Start to finish they take maybe 25 minutes.

2 c flour
1/3 c sugar
2 t baking powder
1/8 t salt
1/3 c shortening
1 egg, beaten
1/2 c milk
1 t vanilla
splash of milk for brushing on top

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk dry ingredients together in a bowl. Cut shortening into mixture with whisk until the flour is grainy and not too lumpy. Add the liquids and combine to form a dough. It will be a little sticky. Pat it into a circle about 3/4" thick on a cutting board. Cut into eight wedges and transfer to a baking sheet. Brush tops with milk, sprinkle with a little sugar, and bake for 15 minutes. Serve with butter, jam and tea. Makes 8 scones.

While they were baking I plunked a lovin' spoonful of Swiss plum preserves into a cup of plain yogurt. Try it. I dare you.

My first try at cheesemaking was a rollercoaster of success. I started with a gallon of milk, at one point had 8 pounds of collapsed curds and whey, and ended up with a bowl of cottage cheese, a cup of ricotta, half a gallon of wasted whey, and half a pound of cow's milk feta that right now is happily pickling until Saturday.

The cottage cheese went straight into my belly. No passing Go, no $200, just spoon to mouth.

I tried to coax a bunch of ricotta out of the half gallon of whey, but it wasn't acidified enough, or not heated enough, or I disturbed it too much, who knows. It really looked indecent.

The other ricotta went into a pasta dish whose credit must go to this page. It was delicious, full of raw garlic and cheese. I left out the marjoram and added grape tomatoes, which, according to acclaimed cheese connoisseur Adeline D. Phelps, added "depth of flavor" and "texture." It's true.

I'm trying an experiment with yogurt cheese. I skimmed the cream off of a container of Brown Cow Cream Top yogurt and put it over raspberries. That was pretty amazing, similar to the cream of Gruyere, but with a yogurt tang.

To the remaining yogurt I've added a quarter tablet of rennet dissolved in water, hoping to get some yogurt cheese. More on that later.

Spanish Tortilla de Patatas

2005-06-01T12:16:00.000-05:00

So simple, so easy, so good, the Spanish tortilla (nothing to do with tacos) is a cake of potatoes, onion and egg, typically served in wedges as a tapa.

1/3 c olive oil
2 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 small onions, halved and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 eggs
salt

Over low heat in a 10 inch skillet, layer the potatoes and onions in the oil. The mixture should come to a slow simmer (some bubbles), but DO NOT fry the potatoes. If anything starts to brown, reduce the heat. After about 10 minutes, add the garlic. Heat through until the potatoes are cooked.

Beat the eggs lightly in a bowl. Scoop out the potatoes and onions with a slotted spoon and stir them into the eggs. Add about 1/2 t salt. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Heat the oil in the skillet on medium-high heat and add the egg potato mixture, spreading quickly. Keep the mixture from sticking to the bottom by shaking the pan or lifting the tortilla witha spatula. When the bottom has browned slightly, slide the mixture onto a plate. Invert another plate on top, flip the tortilla over, and transfer back to the pan to brown the other side.

You can eat it hot, or wait for it to cool to room temperature and cut it into wedges and serve as an appetizer. Great with beer.