tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30468521272756004642024-03-18T23:40:40.873-05:00made last nightthe only blog where colin and phil write about what they cooked yesterday a couple of times a year--and get rich doing itColinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-46606887255513900852012-11-01T11:53:00.001-05:002012-11-01T11:55:31.419-05:00Moonbelly Archive: C6H12O6Cooking with Moonbelly: Futuristic Cuisine for Real Americans<br />
<br />
Back before the Christ affair or any of that, when they pulled it out the ground in such quantity they knowed not what to do, it tasted bitter and they burnt it in clay dishes and mixed it with blood and fed it to virgins just afore they kilt 'em. With corn it might do, or with spice or little ground seeds or dripped over locusts, but best was with the sugar, dried out and crystals, where you keep it with you in a bag on your belt and lick your finger and dip it and lick it off: this was the thing to do, and too much made you sick. Came where they melted it down and made sticks, then came where they come up with this "milk" (good, they said, for you too), and you could mix it up and wipe your hands in it and near enough get to feeling like you want to spread it all over your chest. Now in every parlor, sealed and sanitized against smudgy fingers and acid-droppers and cyanide, too small for pins and razors, familiar qualities, infinite shelf life: the Fun Size. Amen.<br />
<br />
In the eves after All Souls', the wise cook will go to the bins passed over, and will buy at a discount. This is the pure stuff, the minimal food, stripped to its most basic function for aerobic respirers--the provision of glucose, the cheapest fuel to keep us breathing while we go about our evolution. Luckily for us higher types, this supply is available flavored with a variety of contaminants like mint and peanuts and chocolate (with whom we began today), or deftly burnt into caramel, or blown into amazing weird forms like the nougat, the cotton, the marsh-mallow, and the Skittle (from the Aztec <i>xklitl</i>, or "obsidian rainbow").<br />
<br />
Halloween is the greatest of harvest festivals because it leaves us with so much that can last so long. Thanksgiving, with its sad old birdflesh and root vegetables, hardly lasts a week before the rot starts creeping in. Hell, you can hardly call that "leftovers" at all. But Halloween, you can keep what's left all the way till next year, or the next, assuming you don't get hungry in the meanwhile. You've plenty of time, so first set some out to dry:<br />
<br />
<b>Choc Jerky</b><br />
<br />
These little numbers are handy for when you want chocolate experience without chocolate mess. Good for stirring coffee, crumbling over cereal, or putting in pockets.<br />
<br />
Ingredients:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Several Fun Size chocolate bars, race unimportant, sliced lengthwise into long strips.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Procedure:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Place the strips on a rack or screen, and place this in turn onto a plate. Loosely cover the plate with a bowl or glass bell.</li>
<li>Place the whole arrangement in a cool, dry, insect-free environment.</li>
<li>Wait several months, periodically checking on the progress of the drying.</li>
<li>When strips are well desiccated, the chocolate should look powdery, and the strips should snap rather than bend under pressure. </li>
</ol>
(Note--you can speed up the process by first rubbing the strips with coarse Kosher salt, but you may in this case sacrifice flavor for convenience.)<br />
<br />
<b>Smarty Loaf</b><br />
<br />
Smarties are hard to figure. They're always left in great quantity at the bottom of the trick-or-treat bowl, and their rigid crystalline structure makes them a hassle to cook with. This recipe forces them into submission while preserving their "fruity" essence.<br />
<br />
Ingredients:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>150-200 Smarties</li>
<li>2 Tbsp. light vegetable oil</li>
<li>2 c. uncooked white rice</li>
<li>4 c. water</li>
<li>1/2 c. syrup (corn, maple, molasses, etc.)</li>
<li>6 breakfast sausage links</li>
</ul>
<br />
Procedure:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Preheat the oven to 350° F. Toss the smarties with the oil until they're thoroughly coated, and set them aside.</li>
<li>Slice the breakfast links into roughly Smarty-sized pieces.</li>
<li>In a 2-qt. casserole, combine the rice, water, syrup, and link bits. Add the Smarties and oil, and stir the mixture.</li>
<li>Bake for 40-50 minutes. When the water's gone and the rice is done, the loaf is ready. Serve in slices.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<b>GeoTwix-n-Snickers Milanesa</b><br />
<br />
This delicious series of flavor layers looks like something made of rock.<br />
<br />
Ingredients:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>1 bag Fun Size Twix bars, unwrapped</li>
<li>1 bag Fun Size Snickers bars, unwrapped</li>
<li>1 box lasagna noodles</li>
<li>1 Tbsp. butter</li>
<li>1 bag mini-marshmallows</li>
</ul>
<br />
Procedure:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Set a pot of water aboil. Preheat oven to 350° F. Cook the lasagna noodles as directed on the box.</li>
<li>Grease a 9"x 12" baking pan with butter. Lay out a layer of lasagna noodles. Next place a layer of one type of bar, then another of the other bar, then another or noodles, and so on, so that you end with a noodle layer.</li>
<li>Spread a layer of marshmallows on top of everything. Fill any gaps you see between container and content with the remaining marshmallows.</li>
<li>Bake for 20 minutes or until the marshmallows liquefy and bubble. Remove from oven and chill in refrigerator. Display elegantly upon service.</li>
</ol>
<br />Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-12078728118665361912012-05-04T10:33:00.000-05:002012-05-04T10:33:18.651-05:00brussels sprouts and zucchini with porchettaI don't have a photo, but this was super tasty and easy. I made it in a pan on the grill while the meat sat on the other side.<br />
<br />
A bag of brussels sprouts, stemmed and halved<br />
Two zucchini, rough dice<br />
A small white onion, rough dice<br />
1-2 oz porchetta or other cured swine, chopped (Pancetta! Guanciale!)<br />
<br />
Put all of this in a big bowl, toss with olive oil, s&p, and red pepper flakes. Cook on high heat in a covered saute pan for about 10 minutes, tossing every now and then. Uncover and cook a little more, for color. Yum.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-73055350922909909422011-11-21T14:46:00.001-06:002011-11-29T22:15:36.130-06:00fresh spinach casserole with goat cheese and mushroom cream<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdfphkwBv15nG3CCpLOq4LQSUwo2P3iycVvRJEGK278a-ih8z6sjg8u4pgouOpvn1PfG0Owbi0BS10QBOPAZQie87Ddv_vIacUv3eZ-ZVPPSKldj5MDoP0rBcxcHUytA_4pPXNnDWJ06on/s1600/IMG_0029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdfphkwBv15nG3CCpLOq4LQSUwo2P3iycVvRJEGK278a-ih8z6sjg8u4pgouOpvn1PfG0Owbi0BS10QBOPAZQie87Ddv_vIacUv3eZ-ZVPPSKldj5MDoP0rBcxcHUytA_4pPXNnDWJ06on/s320/IMG_0029.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The casserole is the Eisenhower era's most persistent contribution to our culinary technology. If it involves more than a little bit of family--at births, deaths, Thanksgivings, Xmases--it involves casserole. But just because the casserole is traditionally built around the kinds of ingredients you'd find in the backyard fallout shelter doesn't mean it is a genre without merit, a point <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/author/faith" target="_blank">Faith Durand</a> makes convincingly in her cookbook <i><a href="http://www.harvardcommonpress.com/not-your-mothers-casseroles/" target="_blank">Not Your Mother's Casseroles,</a></i> and over at Apartment Therapy's cooking unit, The Kitchn. I definitely lifted some ideas here from her way of doing things, but I thought the lack of spinach casserole was a glaring omission from that book. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, inspired by this season of bland foods and Pyrex, and in possession of several cubic feet of baby spinach, I set out to make a spinach casserole that would get grandma's version banished from the holiday table. (A metaphorical grandma, since I never met either of mine, and in any case neither one probably got much fancier than a dash of salt for the potatoes and a Yorkshire pud on holidays.) The traditional fallout shelter way to do things is to thaw some blocks of frozen spinach, mix in canned condensed cream of mushroom soup and a block of cream cheese, season it if you're lucky, glop the whole thing in a 9x13" baking dish, and top it with canned fried onions for textural contrast and a last, desperate, ultimately futile bid for flavor. Bake 45 mins at 350.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Okay, so the bones of the recipe are there: spinach, mushroomy salty creamy stuff, cheesy creamy stuff, crispiness on top, and flavor hopefully somewhere in the middle. This was my vow: for my version, everything must be fresh. I would open no can, I would thaw no vegetable, nothing would crunch that I hadn't crunchified myself. And god would smile upon it, and it would fucking rule.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">First, the spinach </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I don't know exactly how much I started with. It was a big bag from Stanley's, like 18" square and four inches thick. Took up a whole shelf in the fridge, which is really why I decided to make this. Two pounds, maybe? I diced and sweated a couple of small onions in butter, then a shallot, then a bunch of garlic and some vermouth. While that reduced to almost nothing, I coarsely chopped the spinach and added it in shifts until the whole mess cooked down to about two quarts, then drained it. (I probably should have drained it a little better than I did, but I was excited.)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHw2fMPzQJHNOq0GrOIrRDc-34C-hUg7pQZzOu_9CvH8d6etnT_5XUPDHerpURkE1rkIPFjReIfjGa_D_EpXqh9r1bxi1TCkh-eWV6LWj0-XSni2eVOQhe8tY-HMBWkMhDHNOJPwMz11bJ/s1600/IMG_0020+copy+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHw2fMPzQJHNOq0GrOIrRDc-34C-hUg7pQZzOu_9CvH8d6etnT_5XUPDHerpURkE1rkIPFjReIfjGa_D_EpXqh9r1bxi1TCkh-eWV6LWj0-XSni2eVOQhe8tY-HMBWkMhDHNOJPwMz11bJ/s320/IMG_0020+copy+1.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Most nights this would have been a fine place to stop. But this wasn't just any night. I put it aside while this next business happened.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Chanterelle cream </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Next thing was to figure out some analogue to the vegetable casserole's essential precursor, Campbell's canned condensed Cream of Mushroom soup. I had some beautiful chanterelles on hand, so I started there. This is what two ounces or so looks like.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid38Gw4uh93afbWC7PmiASg20TxDrs_wxS7vmqmv2GWF0QHpYqdiYYC-XXoYRV25e9FK2IGZ7MpHSAynlZpP1Fct3XKD7KWNXPNs7H_qYD36y0aQ6GzWpS0IjJuMa1vRuCiwVUwH7fleHD/s1600/IMG_0021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid38Gw4uh93afbWC7PmiASg20TxDrs_wxS7vmqmv2GWF0QHpYqdiYYC-XXoYRV25e9FK2IGZ7MpHSAynlZpP1Fct3XKD7KWNXPNs7H_qYD36y0aQ6GzWpS0IjJuMa1vRuCiwVUwH7fleHD/s320/IMG_0021.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: left;">Chopped them, sauteed them with some coarse chopped garlic over fairly low heat in butter and olive oil until I got a nice fragrance going. Then I added 10 oz of buttermilk (for tangy jab) and 2 oz of heavy cream (for butterfat bodyblow) and let it cook down a bit. </span><span style="text-align: left;">Then all of this went into the spinach mix, now over low heat again, along with 5-6 oz--half of one of the big logs--of room temperature </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">chèvre (for cheesy goatiness and accent-gravitude)</span><span style="text-align: left;">, and was stirred till it all combined. Hard to keep the passive voice going for so long but it seems to have to have been done. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: left;">I think chanterelles might actually have been a little milder than what I had in mind. The pieces tasted delicious when you got one, but didn't let out as much mushroomy flavor into the cream as I'd hoped. Something a little darker and more robust, like</span><span style="text-align: left;"> porcini or shiitake, possibly reconstituted dried ones, might have worked a little better. Here's how things looked in the pan, post mushroom cream, pre </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">chèvre.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Wow these photos suck. That's creaminess, not glare.) Next, of course, glop it into Pyrex and bake it at 350 for 30 mins or so. While that's happening, process ye some bread crumbs out of a couple of stale slices of bread you thought to cut up and leave sitting out for a few hours. Toast about 1/2c of them in a pan with a little butter and some salt and pepper, and then when the casserole is done with its first 30 minutes, sprinkle the bread crumbs on top and cook it for about 15 more. I gauged ultimate doneness based on how the liquid looked from the side. When the spinach seemed to be wading in a tidal zone, rather than drowning in cream up to its neck, I called it ready.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With a nice pork chop, it was grand, and technically this is a vegetarian dish that you can feel just fine about. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I really should learn to take some pictures that make things look as good as they taste, because this was one of the best things I've made in a long time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<b><i>11/29/11 update:</i></b> Made it again, using 6 oz of portabellas and a couple of tablespoons of flour in the cream, and a little better draining of the spinach, and sourdough for the breadcrumbs, and that fixed what little was wrong with it first time around. </div>
</div>Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-796433766737391212011-11-01T10:56:00.001-05:002011-11-23T11:48:12.223-06:00potatoes de cheddar de beer<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">[This is Phil's recipe and boner commentary, but he was too lazy to post it himself. He seems to have a thing for potatoes.]</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">5-6 potatoes, better to have waxy but I used small russet, peeled and cut into 1- or 2-inch chunks</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">small onion or big shallot, minced</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">3 tbs olive oil in a deep skillet, then potatoes over med-high for about 10 mins until they start to brown and stick, then onion/shallot for another couple of minutes, then enough beer to barely cover.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Boil, then set to simmer. Don't let it dry out; add beer as necessary. (I used <a href="http://www.oskarblues.com/the-brews/mamas-little-yella-pils" target="_blank">Mama's Little Yella Pils</a>, about 1.5 cans after all was said and did.)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">1 c. grated <a href="http://www.cabotcheese.coop/pages/our_products/product.php?catID=37&id=6" target="_blank">cheddar</a>, or mix of thereof with aged Gouda</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">2 tbs flour, mixed with cheese</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">After about 25 minutes of braising, add a little more beer and left it boilubble again, then add cheese/flour mix.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Let the cheese melt, get a boner, add some chopped parsley and continue having massive burnt cheese boner, eat, have sex with pan, die happy. Mix should be pretty saucy, but not quite like a fondue.</span></span>Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-12580358246203369992011-10-30T23:45:00.004-05:002011-11-23T20:21:17.447-06:00roasted butternut squash poblano soupFall for sure, so <a href="http://www.foodsubs.com/Squash.html">orange-fleshed squashes</a>. This was the way to ring it all in. Everybody was impressed, so I guess I need to get this one down before I forget it.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1 butternut squash</div>
<div>
2-3 small poblano peppers</div>
<div>
2 small onions</div>
<div>
1 shallot</div>
<div>
2 carrots, peeled</div>
<div>
2 ribs celery</div>
<div>
6c chicken stock</div>
<div>
~1c sherry or marsala</div>
<div>
buttermilk </div>
<div>
heavy cream</div>
<div>
fresh sage leaves</div>
<div>
s&p</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Preheat oven to 375. Peel, half, and seed the squash and cut to roughly 1" cubes. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and spread it evenly on one or two sheet pans. Roast till you can easily cut it with a fork, about 25 minutes. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Meanwhile, roast the poblanos over a stove burner until the skin is black and blistering (or else rub them with oil and roast in the oven along with the squash until the skin is blistering). Put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap to let it finish the job. When you're partway through doing some of the other stuff below, skin and seed the peppers and chop to roughly 1/2".</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Dice the onions and shallot and carrot and celery fairly small. In a heavy pan, get some oil going over medium heat and start with the onions, then the shallots, then the carrot and celery, seasoning as you go. Deglaze with a goodly amount of sherry or marsala, and cook this all down for long enough to let the alcohol burn off. Add the squash, peppers, and stock and bring to a gentle boil. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Simmer till the carrots are pliable, then use an immersion blender to make it all pretty smooth. Check seasonings, which will probably be fucked by all the new vegetable matter and sugar freed in the last few steps. Add a cup or so of buttermilk, and a glug or so of cream. Chop several tablespoons of sage fairly fine and add to the soup. Wait a few minutes and check seasonings again. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
For a garnish/finish I reduced some port and cream together and made pretty patterns on top, but I have since have thought of a few different ways to go in a fantasy cooking world, many of which I probably couldn't even execute: a salty walnut maple brittle, or diced apple sauteed with smoked bacon, or nuts and apples together in baconfat, or maybe even mushroom something or other, or something using the squash seeds to be all snout-to-tail about it. Smoky, tart, savory, leafy, nutty, forest-floory is the palette I'm thinking of. Lightly salted port cream actually worked pretty well for that, after all. </div>Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-57132672922038399982011-10-24T19:37:00.003-05:002011-11-23T12:19:10.815-06:00ten-minute marinaraJust as Master J's <a href="http://www.bariitaliansubs.com/">Bari</a>-bought pumpkin gnocchi went into the water tonight, I realized we only had puttanesca, which would be revolting, so I had to scramble. Ten minutes later we had this. Surprisingly good for something pulled out of thin air.<br />
<br />
Having generally relied on restaurants or jars for my red sauce needs, I know nothing about the real way to make Italian sauces. But I'd always been under the impression it was supposed to involve at least one person who had little choice in the matter, due to gender, state of imprisonment, or physical handicap, sitting there stirring all day long. But perhaps Scorsese movies provide an incomplete view of Italian cuisine. Since it relies on new world fruits and Portuguese wine and was prepared by an Irish, I have no cause to act like this sauce is remotely Italian anyway. It's just a nice and quick and red sauce that pleases somewhat finicky children and their <a href="http://www.dadsmanship.com/">parents</a> too.<br />
<br />
(makes about a quart)<br />
a small onion, finely diced<br />
some garlic, coarsely chopped<br />
two 14 oz cans of some kind of tomatoes, plain as can be<br />
madeira wine<br />
olive oil<br />
s&p<br />
red pepper flakes<br />
dried oregano<br />
<br />
In something powerful, puree the tomatoes along with another half cup or so of water. Heat several tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat, add the onions and cook until clear, then throw in the garlic, salting and peppering as you go. When you can smell the garlic, add some pepper flakes and oregano, whatever seems right to you. I went lighter on both in deference to the toddlish palate. Once the oregano is pungent after about a minute, half a cup or so of madeira or port or another wine along those lines. (Don't worry, you're going to cook off the alcohol, but I suppose this ingredient could be optional.) Reduce by half, then add the tomato puree. Keep it moving. Season it. Cook it down for a few minutes, things brighten up, and Bob's your uncle.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-75729641577005492032011-09-26T14:40:00.004-05:002011-11-23T11:55:57.352-06:00pickling is the new knittingWell, not just pickling, but "putting-by" generally--canning, jellying, jarring, jamming, curing, root-cellaring, all of it. It never really went away, but it's new to us in the urban middle class, and I think it must have to do with CSAs bringing huge masses of fresh and perishable foods to us week after week.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A friend lent me a 1973 hardcover edition of Hertzberg, Vaughan, and Greene's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Putting-Food-Plume-Janet-Greene/dp/B0032FO5BA/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1"><i>Putting Food By</i></a>, which seems to be underwritten by the USDA and FDA. The early chapters have instilled in me a great terror of microbial contamination that I feel like I should probably read all of, but I've paged through and there's some good stuff later on about storing carrots and apples under blankets in the yard to keep them good through the winter, and even building your own cold-war era root cellar in a corner of the basement. I'm looking forward to some serious cross-seasonal preservation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So far all I've done is quick-pickle some onions and radishes under what I'm sure are grievously hazardous conditions, but nothing bad has happened so far, and some damn good cole slaw has resulted. Anyway, that's the planned new direction for this fall and winter. </div>Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-2292481013628465542011-09-10T14:11:00.003-05:002011-11-23T12:19:25.859-06:00please welcome the newest addition to the MLN media empireOh hey check it out, a new blog wherein I parent a young child, and do so from home while also not working: <a href="http://www.dadsmanship.com/">dadsmanship</a>.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-37689238519553330642011-07-05T21:25:00.004-05:002011-11-23T12:21:30.695-06:00potato salad with poblano-garlic scape aïoliThere's quite a street fireworks culture here in West Town, where every other block has its own dude who has spent the last three months hauling sticks of flying dynamite back from Indiana to outdo his counterparts two blocks in every direction. You could also see it as a Modelo-fueled mating ritual where the language is explosions and it's unclear who the quarry is. The cops don't give a shit about any part of this whatsoever, so it would be a great night to shoot somebody over and over again, if you were looking for a good time to do that. We had people over to sit on the porch to enjoy the spectacle and to grill meats and meat substitutes, and my all-American bride rightly decreed that nothing could be more all-American to serve as one of the sides than mayonnaisey potato salad. <br />
<br />
Because I didn't grow up in a potato salad kind of house (where I come from, we took our potatoes fried and salty or not at all) I had no stake in the level of tradition involved other than that there was no fucking way we were going to buy a mixture of potatoes and mayonnaise at the store. To be even more fake-hardcore about it I decided to make my own mayonnaise, which is the cooking equivalent of riding 100 miles on a bicycle--sounds really impressive to the uninitiated, but it's something the professionals knock out every day before lunchtime without even thinking about. To be totally unamerican, and really un-anything, I made aïoli, the only mayonnaise that's metal enough for an umlaut, and filled it out with garlic scapes and roasted poblanos, and did it all in a food processor, so that no purist about anything in any region or continent could be pleased. And ain't that America.<br />
<br />
Most of the flavor here happens in the aïoli, with the larger solids involved acting mostly as vehicles for the mayo, or agents of color and texture. <br />
<br />
<b>Poblano and Garlic Scape Aïoli</b><br />
roasted poblano pepper, skinned and seeded<br />
the lower 4-5 inches of a bunch of garlic scapes (or, in another season, 5-6 cloves of garlic)<br />
1 egg yolk<br />
1T dijonish mustard<br />
juice of 2 lemons<br />
1.5 c olive oil <br />
salt<br />
<br />
Let everything get to roughly room temperature. Coarse chop the poblano and the garlic scapes, then puree them in a food processor or blender with about half the lemon juice and the mustard. When that mixture is fairly smooth, add the egg yolk and salt and pulse to mix. Put the olive oil in something that will be comfortable to drizzle from for several minutes (like the food pusher on a cuisinart, which has a tiny hole at the bottom that's perfect for this). Start the processor going and slowly drizzle the oil into the mixture in a steady stream. Add the last of the lemon juice and adjust seasoning. Put in the fridge for a while to let it set up. It'll be thinner than the mayonnaise you know even after it's cool. <br />
<br />
<b>The Potatal Vehicle</b><br />
5 lbs peeled potatoes<br />
2 roasted poblanos and 2 roasted red peppers, skinned, seeded, and chopped about 3/8"<br />
3-4 ribs celery, diced<br />
3-4 whole dill pickles, diced<br />
parsley, chopped<br />
s&p<br />
<br />
Boil the potatoes to the traditional point, cool till handleable, then dice to roughly 1/2". Put everything together in a big bowl, add most of the aïoli, see how it tastes, adjust seasonings and aïoli levels. Let get to know self. Refrigeration is important--remember the egg yolk.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-28916292409358702862011-01-05T10:52:00.000-06:002011-11-23T12:21:46.834-06:00apple fennel slawCentral to this recipe is that everything is the same shape and the same color. Bright, tart, sweet, greenish white, and refreshing. Great with fatty meaty porky things. <br />
<br />
one Granny Smith or other tart apple, peeled and cored<br />
one small fennel bulb<br />
the white and a maybe an inch of the green of one leek<br />
olive oil<br />
lemon juice<br />
salt<br />
cayenne <br />
<br />
Using deft knifework, julienne the apple, fennel, and leek into roughly 1/8-1/4" x 3/4-1" pieces. Toss apple and fennel with a little lemon juice. Heat some oil in a pan and very gently soften the leek in it, taking care not to scorch or brown. Cool and combine with the apple and fennel. Add a little more lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and a bare pinch of cayenne. Toss together, adjust seasonings, enjoy.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-85946416940767198232010-11-18T10:54:00.003-06:002011-11-23T12:23:08.078-06:00the gratin variations: corny pueblo styleThis starts from the same place as the ramps/morels recipe from the other day, with potatoes and bechamel as the basic vehicle for actual flavors. But it takes a right turn at Albuquerque and gets fallish instead of springy.<br />
<br />
Makes 16 healthy servings<br />
3-4 poblano peppers<br />
3-4 cobs worth of corn (2c or so)<br />
1 onion, diced<br />
1 minced shallot<br />
plenty of minced garlic<br />
4lbs potatoes<br />
butter<br />
flour<br />
milk or light stock<br />
1c shredded cheddar/jack/whatever<br />
s&p<br />
<br />
Heat oven to 375. Roast, seed, and peel the poblanos and dice to about 1/2". Melt some butter in a heavy pan and start to slowly saute the onions over low-medium heat. When they're really soft and starting to carmelize add the shallot and garlic. When things get fragrant, turn up the heat and add the corn and cook for a while. If the corn gets burnt in places, that's great. Season and toss everything in a big bowl with the potatoes, which you have meanwhile peeled, quartered and sliced about 1/4" thick, then put the mixture into a baking dish or two. (You may need more salt than you'd think, as all the starch in this will really soak it up.) <br />
<br />
Make a bechamel with 3T butter, 4.5T flour, and 3c milk or light stock. Off heat, whisk in 1/4-1/3c shredded cheese (much more and the sauce may break in the oven) and season to taste, then pour over the potato mixture. Top with the remaining cheese. Bake uncovered 45 minutes. Eat it in tacos with chorizo.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-71594105631429804952010-09-27T20:13:00.005-05:002011-11-23T11:52:01.541-06:00autumntide pork chops with apple cider-sage-jalapeño glazeSummer has passed in a haze of bottles and bodily fluids, but I'm finally awake enough to cook something again. It's fall. Hay manzanas.<br />
<br />
1.5 cups or so of fresh apple cider. 1/3 c dry sherry. 1/4 c apple cider vinegar. 1/4 c olive oil. Several garlic cloves, a whole fresh jalapeño, a goodly amount of sage (I had bags and bags of it dried, left over from some apothecary applications, and used probably 1T, though it was very course and fluffy), and a brineworthy amount of salt (1.5T, I'd say). All of these into the processor, then pour it over a couple of pork chops and let sit for at least an hour. If these are "enhanced" pork chops from the supermarket, leave out or dramatically reduce the salt.<br />
<br />
After an hour or more in the juice, take the chops out--reserving the marinade--pan fry and then finish in a hot oven. Meanwhile, strain the marinade and bring to a boil to reduce. Skim what rises (which will mostly be the olive oil), and gradually lower the heat as it reduces and thickens to a glaze. If you like, add more more sherry as this is taking place. Apply the glaze to the chops and the plate before eating. There you are.<br />
<br />
This same thing works with pretty much any combination of juice, acid (if the juice itself isn't too acidic), and sugar (depending on how sweet the juice is), varying the other flavors as appropriate. The other day for more of a mojo thing, I did it with orange juice, white vinegar, even more garlic, oregano, and some sugar, and that worked great too.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-1732646361957619792010-05-10T10:43:00.007-05:002011-11-23T11:50:13.047-06:00potatoes gratin with ramps and morelsThe wild forests of Chicago are lousy with morels and ramps for a few days around now. As any woodsman knows, these life forms are about as seasonal as you can get and will probably be gone from the region by the next produce box. Here is a simple vehicle to move them (or pretty much anything small and fragrant) quickly and efficiently from forest floor to belly. <br />
<br />
Invoke a 375 degree oven. Peel and thin slice 4-6 potatoes (these were russets). Toss the potatoes with a little oil, s&p, and any extra ingredients like shallots, garlic, herbs, mushrooms. This here had 4-5 whole ramps cleaned and chopped (green parts and all), and not quite an ounce of chopped fresh morels, which had dried out in my cabinet, reconstituted for a few hours in salted water. I was afraid this wouldn't be near enough morels to taste anything, but when the woodland nymphs wear these caps to sleep in the oak hollows they endow them with great fragrance and meaty fungal flavor, so it was plenty. <br />
<br />
Make a textbook bechamel/veloute, like the recipe in Julia's Mastering the Art Vol. 1, which is 2T butter, 3T flour, and 2c heated-just-to-boiling milk, plus seasoning. No need to precook the potatoes, as the bechamel holds a lot of heat and will start the potatoes cooking right away. I was thinking you could also stir in a nice stinky blue cheese to the sauce at this point if you wanted to go that direction, but that would overwhelm the flavors at hand today.<br />
<br />
Put potatoes in a greased gratin dish, pour the heated bechamel over to just cover, and grate a dry cheese over the top. I used some kind of parmesan from the back of the drawer. Bake 45 mins. and then start checking doneness, as it should be about ready at that point.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-26414231944714072232010-04-02T10:39:00.002-05:002011-11-23T11:51:50.121-06:00roasted fennel & tomato salsaSmokey, sweet, and spicy. The roasting mellows out the fennel's fennelness and sweetens it up. <br />
<br />
Fire up a grill with two levels of heat. Cut a fennel bulb crosswise into 1/2" sections. Put some s&p in some olive oil and use it to lightly coat the fennel, 8-10 ripe tomatoes, and half a bulb or so of garlic with the pointy end cut off. Start them all on the hot side of the grill and then move them to the cooler side once they get some nice burnt bits. Put 4 dried cayenne peppers over the heat and keep them moving around till they're mostly blackened, then to the cool side with them as well. Cover the grill and let it get smokey. When the fennel is starting to get sorta clear and sweaty, and the tomatoes have all split their skins, remove them and the garlic to a bowl to get to handling temperature. Set the peppers aside too. <br />
<br />
Peel the skins off the tomatoes and garlic, then finely chop them and the fennel and put them all together in a bowl. Finely chop an onion and add it, too. Grind the cayenne as fine as possible and add it to the mix. Season with salt and and the juice of a lime or two. If possible before serving, let this all sit for a few hours and think about what it has done.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-65537773294159830682010-04-01T12:04:00.004-05:002011-11-23T11:48:46.085-06:00disposing of a coney in the springtimeBari had a little sign in the butcher case for rabbit for incredibly cheap the other day, like less than the price of anything except whole chickens, so I picked up a two pounder and figured I'd see what it was all about. Back home I was rewarded to learn from Larousse that you can also call a rabbit a "coney," a word I had thought JRR Tolkien had made up solely for homesick hobbits to pine after. Perhaps also a clue to Coney Island's pre-amusement park fauna.<br />
<br />
First, butchering. This was my first brush with a raw bunny. It has your basic mammalian body plan, but with a fairly long back and two disproportionately large loins, almost an inch in diameter, running down it. I guess they get a lot of their running power from big dolphin-like backbone-flexing moves rather than just their legs. There was no visible fat, either in layers or distributed through the muscle. You end up with six or seven pieces: two forelegs with some fairly meatless breast/ribs, two hind legs (each roughly the same size as a small chicken's hindquarters) and then two or three saddle pieces, which are sections cut across the loins and backbone. I got two 2.5-in square saddle pieces, from the section of back behind most of the ribs (which end soon after the legs) to the start of the hindquarters. These also had thin flappy flank pieces attached to them, which I left on because they had a good bit of muscle in them and if nothing else would contribute flavor. For future reference, the flaps seemed like they would be good to wrap around something fatty and tie and roast.<br />
<br />
Figuring braising is a good way to start if you have no idea what something tastes like, I followed Bourdain's suggestion and soaked the pieces overnight in white wine with mirepoix, garlic, peppercorns and fresh parsley/rosemary/thyme (which, by the way, is what I want to be marinated in for my cremation). Next, drained and reserved everything, dredged and browned the pieces, browned the vegetables with some tomato paste, added the pieces back in along with the reserved wine, then covered and stuck in a low oven for three or four hours. The neck/backbone and other bony pieces also went in for the braise.<br />
<br />
All of this went back on the stovetop on a high flame to start reducing while the pieces came out to cool for handling. I removed the meat from the bones (most of them, though a lot of small flat ones got past me), shredded it with forks and kept it aside while the liquid continued to reduce and thicken. The grain of the meat, especially the loins, is much finer than chicken or pork; in places the shredded texture was more along the lines of small fish, like anchovies or sardines.<br />
<br />
When the liquid was a sauce and seemed about right, some chopped olives and capers went in along with a few tablespoons of fresh herbs and the shredded meat, then this all went over a coarse buckwheat fettuccine and down my gullet as quickly as I could get it there. Distributed thus over the pasta, this could have easily fed six, but serving individual pieces, four would be pushing it. The only thing I might change with this is to maybe use red wine at the start, the same one I drank with it at the end.<br />
<br />
The flavor of the meat was fairly mild, but seemed like it could stand up to some bigger herby flavors like sorrel or ramps. It suggested other earthy, slightly bitter flavors like brown mustard or molasses. Next time I might roast it to see what a little char will do.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-21152767699538164572010-02-24T09:30:00.003-06:002011-11-23T12:24:26.047-06:00rooty saladMade a pretty colorful salad last night. It's the time of beets in the produce box, so I roasted a few, boiled some potatoes, shredded some leftover chicken, chopped up some dates, and tossed it all with spinach, chevre, and a warm duckfat/sherry vinegar dressing. That was dinner.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-27773161775737638832010-02-13T23:45:00.003-06:002010-02-13T23:46:47.547-06:00ain't made shit for nohowJesus shit, man. I haven't made shit since 2009. I'm making a turkey sandwich now, at 11 p.m. on a Saturday, with mustard and (possibly rancid) sauerkraut, after two rather powerful bourbon-and-ginger-ales. <div><br /></div><div>I'll let you know how it goes.</div>Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638732650731480537noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-62409288103123487562010-02-04T10:51:00.010-06:002011-11-23T11:59:20.829-06:00olive and roasted red pepper pasta sauceWay back in the fridge from having people over a couple weeks ago, we had some spicy olive tapenade (mix of mostly nicoise and kalamata olives, capers, garlic, ground red pepper, lemon juice, lots of black pepper) and roasted red pepper coulis. Not technically a coulis, I don't think, but that's what I've always called this stuff: roasted/peeled red peppers, garlic, green onions, parsley, sherry vinegar, s&p all blended together and then olive oil slowly drizzled into the blender to make a thick vinaigrette that somehow stays emulsified for days and weeks--good for pumping up (and, in a squirt bottle, making colorful designs on top of) dull winter veggie soups. <br />
<br />
So: throw 1/4c pine nuts, very coarsely chopped, into a dry saucepan to toast for a while. Then chop/mash a couple of anchovy filets (mine were packed in olive oil and I didn't rinse them), and mix them in with the nuts and briefly cook till umamtastic. Next, 1/3-1/2c of tapenade, and a cup or so of non-oaky dry white wine (I used a cheap Soave). Reduce by about half, then add maybe 1/4c of the coulis, simmer for a couple minutes, finish (off heat) with 1T or so of butter, and toss with pasta right out of the pot. Seasonings should be fine, but check just in case. This went great with fresh herb fettuccine from our local <a href="http://www.pastaputtana.com/">pasta whore</a> by way of <a href="http://greengrocerchicago.com/">The Ladies</a>.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-84023647621298787902010-01-28T16:58:00.008-06:002010-01-28T17:33:10.264-06:00split pea and pancetta soup<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pancetta's fermented porkbelly power means you need a lot less of it than normal weak ham, and can also get to the eating more quickly than pigfoot-based pea soups. Also, get some garlic and heat in there. </span> <br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1-2 small onions, diced</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">3-4 cloves garlic, minced</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2-4 carrots, diced</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1-2 ribs celery, diced</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">red pepper flakes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">0.5 lb pancetta, 1/2" dice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">8 oz dried split peas</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~6 c stock/water (I used roughly equal parts, with a pretty strong chix stock)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">bay leaves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sweat the vegetables in a little oil, then add red pepper flakes to taste and cook for a couple minutes more. Turn up the heat, add the diced pancetta, and keep everything stirring for a while. When the fat in the pancetta starts to liquefy, add the peas, stock/water (I just guessed at the amount--should be enough to cover by 1.5 in. at least), and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer partially covered for 1.5 hrs or so, until the peas lose their individuality and resolve into a generalized green medium. Then, and only then, check and, if necessary, adjust seasonings. The pancetta brings a lot of salt to the picture, so if you season too early you can really mess things up. Serve with toasted crusty bread in a bar in Amsterdam.</span>Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-50304069119538033092010-01-06T19:06:00.009-06:002011-11-23T12:23:44.321-06:00corn and goat cheese enchiladas with reddish brown "mole"This is adapted from Deborah Madison's <i>Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, </i>and know I should have gotten suspicious when I saw that it took less than a day to make. Now, I've never been a big mole person myself, but I have friends who've gone far down that path, and it's rare that a good one takes under a good farm workday over slow heat to really come into itself. This recipe gave that part of the cooking like 20 minutes or so, in no way enough to get the flavors all grooving together. It also involves no seeds or nuts or whole chiles. But then again, I don't really like mole enough to care how pure it is, and it's a weeknight, and I had some extra <a href="http://www.monroeschile.com/mrc_shop/detail.asp?dept_id=20&pf_id=201">red chile sauce</a> on hand from a trip to ABQ, so everything's fine. There's lots of cheese, there's <span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">piñons</span></span> and corn and onions and garlic and cilantro, how bad can you fuck that up?<br />
<br />
<b>"Mole"</b><br />
1.5t each: coriander, anise, cumin, Mexican oregano, all toasted and ground<br />
1 onion, fine dice<br />
2-3 cloves garlic<br />
1 oz. Mexican chocolate<br />
cinnamon to taste<br />
1/2c red chile sauce, plus more to taste<br />
salt<br />
sherry or red-wine vinegar<br />
<br />
Cook onion till it's getting clear, then add garlic and spices and cook till fragrant. Remove from heat, add chile and some water, and bring to a boil. Cook it down slowly, then when it's getting pretty thick add the chocolate in chopped up pieces, stirring to incorporate, and then a little vinegar. Keep cooking, very low, then when everything is soft as can be, puree it all in a blender and then put it back on the heat. Depending on preference (and remembering that this is going over enchiladas) thin with water or thicken with time, and adjust seasoning. If possible, put it away for a few days to allow the magic of compound interest do its work.<br />
<br />
<b>Filling</b><br />
1/4c raisins, soaked in brandy and/or warm water<br />
1/3c pine nuts, coarse chopped and lightly toasted<br />
1 onion, diced<br />
3-4 cloves garlic, minced<br />
1.5c corn off the cob<br />
1.5c shredded pale mild cheese (I used a tasty morel mushroom jack)<br />
2 c soft goat cheese/chevre/chopped and screwed feta<br />
cilantro<br />
12 corn tortillas<br />
oil for to fry in<br />
sour cream<br />
s&p<br />
chile powder<br />
<br />
Once the raisins are tumid, drain and then briefly go over them with a knife and add them to the <span style="line-height: 19px;">piñons</span> in a bowl big enough for everything else. Saute the onion, then throw in the garlic, then the corn. Cook for a bit over reasonably high heat, to get some brown on the corn if possible. Season as you see fit with salt, pepper, chile powder, whatever else. Add to the bowl, along with the goat cheese, a cup of the shredded cheese, and good amount of chopped cilantro. Check seasonings.<br />
<br />
Preheat oven to 375, and start heating a good amount (at least 1/4") of oil in a pan than can handle it. One by one, dip the tortillas in the oil for a few seconds, just long enough to saturate and soften, and remove to drain the oil. (Lower fat method: use a pan of warm red chile sauce diluted with water for to dipping. Since red chile is precious to me, and I'm a fat fuck, I went for the more traditional oil method.)<br />
<br />
Put filling into tortillas one by one, rolling and setting seam side down in a casserole (a dozen fits a 9x13 perfectly). Pour/spoon mole over the top, then the remaining shredded cheese. Bake uncovered 25-30 mins. Plate, fork, sour cream.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-35449067388689333282010-01-04T10:08:00.003-06:002011-11-23T11:55:07.759-06:00quick and dirty chicken soupWe are sick people. It probably originated with a Georgia 3-year old before Christmas, but it started getting bad on the far too relative-filled trip to Vegas. It was all we could do to stumble across the street for either wildly overpriced or absurdly cheap food-court meals, depending on which end of the specials we ended up; any kind of real gambling at a table with other humans would have been a deeply antisocial move. Weaving down the Strip with a comically oversized frozen drink? Unfortunately, this was impossible. For my part, it could be the H1N1 or the seasonal or some vicious hybrid, but E was supposed to be inoculated against all of this. All I know is that for a few bedridden phlegmy days, it looked like the microbes might take this one. Whatever the essence of Las Vegas is, we either slept through it or were too sober to notice.<br />
<br />
In any case, when we straggled home on New Years Eve there was only one clear path, and thankfully <a href="http://www.greengrocerchicago.com/">The Ladies</a> were still open to supply most of what we lacked.<br />
<br />
1 small onion<br />
2 carrots<br />
2 ribs celery<br />
a lot of garlic<br />
2 chicken breasts<br />
1 qt dark chicken stock<br />
white wine<br />
parsley<br />
red pepper flakes<br />
s&p<br />
limes<br />
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1. Peel and cut onions, carrots, and celery into roughly uniform soupy-sized pieces, and start sweating them in olive oil. Coarsely chop a bunch of garlic and throw that in, too, and shake some pepper flakes in as well. Sneeze repeatedly.<br />
2. Dice the chicken and brown it with s&p in some oil elsewhere (assuming it's raw--otherwise the juices will all run out and cloud up the soup as they cook). When it's browned enough, deglaze with white wine, scrape the goodness, and pour this all in with the vegetables. Add the stock, which thank god you had plenty of in the freezer.<br />
3. Cook this until the chicken is tender but veggies still have some bite. Add a bunch of chopped parsley and adjust seasonings.<br />
4. Squeeze lots of lime in it as you eat. Keep some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha_sauce">cock sauce</a> at hand just in case the pepper flakes don't get the juices running.<br />
5. Feel the healing power as viruses and bacteria flee in terror.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-26113956777641241352010-01-01T22:54:00.009-06:002011-11-23T12:23:59.648-06:00moi je suis le paysan<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRQwwWytFe5F7XPAmAtx-sO2BexTcVKmRPlskssRPxt7WgqcmannDQksoHBg2lZBnVT0vex-cvEQ3OmyMqL4RC90RZw3fOFMT6fUoQwDewVxJYD38FKis9hWkBkVp7_oyN5g-01ngOjQV/s1600-h/photo.jpg"></a><br />
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Not a bad start to the year. This morning we had baked beans on toast; tonight we had French lentil soup along with a loaf of bread I made last night. We were pretty ragged from travel, having just come back from ABQ the day before, and with nothing terribly thrilling on offer for New Year's Eve, we decided to stay in. I started a loaf of that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html?_r=1">no-knead bread</a> of yore (18 hours in the laundry room), made sweet potatoes, kale and barbecue seitan for dinner, and got drunk off blood-orange-and-prosecco cocktails -- which were bitter, like my 2009. Today I baked the loaf, went on a bike ride, started a company and got halfway to patching a hole in our bedroom wall. And then, tonight, French lentil soup.</div>
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Easiest thing you ever did on a stove: 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 garlic clove, 1 bay leaf, 1 cup of lentils and some thyme, plus 6 cups of stock or water and some salt & pepper; veggies are your classic country-boy chop. Everything but the onion and garlic go into a pot, bring to a boil, let it simmer for 30 minutes. Meantime fry up the onions and garlic til soft; once the lentils are done, add onion mix to the pot. <i>Et voilà!</i></div>
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Part of my parents' Christmas gift to us was a stock-up trip to Trader Joe's. The bulk of our haul was cheap booze, but also onions and boxes of stock and a slab of prosciutto for me. For my soup, I added a little parsley chop and a half slice of prosciutto all torn up. Serve with five-dollar TJ pinot noir, and life is beautiful. No, it's nothing fancy, but tomorrow you'll wake up in time to feed the truffle-hunting swine, clean your Chapuis rifle and <i>recherches tes temps perdu</i>.</div>Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638732650731480537noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-13935203207474717402010-01-01T14:00:00.005-06:002011-11-23T11:55:42.531-06:00rillettes, end of it all<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFqNz288L0LJv_95LrGd_5N_rYJLXJqD6c6spFJU2E3H9nMmT9JFKlBmzMN9kpEbKmgkt-S1ESHHlkqAH7vE1NFRwbuH4Cu2naV3sIevJPGY_eGwx2UNNDXyAZ4RfOAmuWEoomqRLaSiGO/s1600/IMG_0307.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFqNz288L0LJv_95LrGd_5N_rYJLXJqD6c6spFJU2E3H9nMmT9JFKlBmzMN9kpEbKmgkt-S1ESHHlkqAH7vE1NFRwbuH4Cu2naV3sIevJPGY_eGwx2UNNDXyAZ4RfOAmuWEoomqRLaSiGO/s400/IMG_0307.jpg" /></a></div>
Miraculously, the rillettes are fine, all 2 porky quarts or so of them. Some kind of cross-membrane sodium exchange must have happened as they sat quietly beneath their lard blankets for a week, because they ended up meaty, mellow, and delicious. Slightly salty by themselves, but spread on bread or a cracker they're fine. Since we had to cancel the party they were meant for out of lingering fluey nast, we will also get to see how they evolve over time.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-45628226959448415082009-12-20T15:45:00.007-06:002011-11-23T11:56:44.966-06:00il pizza patateLast night we had a holiday party. A success: we started with a case of Red Stripe and some $10 rosé, and this morning we woke up to a fully stocked wine rack and a fridge overflowing with beer. Because 2009 was such a shit year, I didn't bother to come up with anything different to serve and went with last year's menu, the mainstay of which was potato pizza. When we lived in New York we were right around the corner from the original <a href="http://sullivanstreetbakery.com/">Sullivan Street Bakery</a>, which among other things makes <a href="http://sullivanstreetbakery.com/pizze">these</a> really simple pizzas: rectangular, with a single topping. (They're also the folks behind the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html">no-knead bread recipe</a> that Mark Bittman turned into a bakery world watershed a few years back.)<br />
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I'm no baker, so as simple as the recipe sounds they're quite difficult for me. I always make too much or too little dough, and I can never lay it out very evenly in the pans. The result looks intentionally paisano and "charming," but I assure you the effort is amateur. <i>Allora, la ricetta!</i> (Which is from a book I picked up in Oregon called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Baking-Across-America-Recipes/dp/1579651178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261349227&sr=8-1">Artisan Baking Across America</a>,</i> full of intense discussions of yeast varietals, which is why I'm no good at baking.)<br />
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<i>Hey Giovanni! You makea due pizzete, you needa:</i></div>
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<i></i>3.5 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour</div>
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1 teaspoon active dry yeast</div>
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2.5 cups lukewarm water</div>
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1 teaspoon sugar</div>
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1 teaspoon salt</div>
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Olive oil</div>
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1. Put the yeast into a 1/2 cup of tap-hot water, stir it up and let it get going. Put the flour in yr KitchenAid and start mixing it, on low, with the paddle attachment. Add the yeast water slowly, then add the remaining 2 cups of water, also slowly. Mix just until the batter "comes together," the book says, about three minutes. Up the speed to medium and mix until the dough starts cleaning the bowl, about 20 minutes. Add the sugar and salt and mix for another 3 minutes. </div>
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2. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. (I rubberband the edges, too, just in case.) Let it ferment until it's very light, 4 or 5 hours. I ferment mine in the laundry room, which is warmer and darker than the rest of our house.</div>
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3. Coat two half-sheet pans with olive oil -- not too much, you're not trying to fry the damn things. Pour one half the dough into each pan. Cover your hands in oil and gently spread the dough to the edges, giving it time to recuperate between stretches; try not to rip it. Set it aside and let it proof for another hour.</div>
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In addition to the potato version, I like to make one with just plain tomato puree with a little bit of salt, oil and rosemary, which is why I make two pizzas. For the potatoes, you'll need:</div>
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5 Yukon Gold potatoes or a bunch of fingerlings, peeled</div>
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1 yellow onion, sliced into half-moons</div>
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Fresh chopped rosemary</div>
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Slice the potatoes with a mandolin into paper-thin bits, toss them with a little salt and let them drain their moisture in a colander for 20 minutes or so, then toss them with the onions, rosemary, and more salt. </div>
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Preheat the oven to 425°, placing one rack in the top third and one in the bottom third. After the dough is proofed (meaning it has risen again, like our Lord Jesus), spread the potato mix over one pan and the tomato mix over another. Before I put them in the oven I'll also drop a few unpeeled cloves of garlic over the mix as well. Potato goes on bottom rack, tomato on top; switch them midway through. In my shitty oven the tomato takes about 35-40 minutes; the potato closer to an hour. The tomato is done when the pie's edges start rising up from the pan; the potato is done when the potatoes are brown or almost black; serve at room temperature.</div>
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</div>Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638732650731480537noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3046852127275600464.post-16609542458877073542009-12-19T15:30:00.000-06:002011-11-23T11:55:33.780-06:00rilletes, 2me parteThis morning (having potted and covered the meat late last night), it's looking like a failure. Way, way oversalty, even though I followed (by eye) Larousse's direction for quantity of salt. I even felt like I undershot it a little since I was using kosher, but it's possible I vastly overseasoned. We'll see if a few days in the fridge mellows it or makes some magic curative fluid exchange for to happen, but as of now, it's a few pots of porky Bovril.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09027822369205200861noreply@blogger.com1