Child Labor

Marshmallows, from this recipe (some with a little pink food coloring).  I also looked here, which pretty much just copies (with citation) the previously linked Epicurious/Gourmet recipe, but includes pictures and makes the whole thing seem a bit more daunting than it really is.

The process requires a number of bowls.

If you just have one stand or hand mixer I'd suggest whipping the egg whites right off the bat and setting them aside.  I did the heavy mixing/whipping in the Kitchenaid, and used an old, inexpensive handheld mixer for the egg whites.  This project would have gone fine with only one of the mixers, but having the two definitely sped things up, especially because we did a double batch.

Cleanup was a bit of a chore, but we enlisted the help of some marshmallow eaters.

An added bonus was the chilly weather.  The recipe calls for 3 hrs to a day of chilling.  Can you picture kids waiting a day for these things?  We just covered the the glass baking dishes of the molten marshmallow mix and placed them on back steps.  A little lunch, relaxation, and cleanup, and 1.5 hrs later they were ready to cut.

Overall, big thumbs up to making marshmallows.  Limitless possibilities on flavors, and gluten free to boot.

Finally, last reminder: you've got until midnight tonight to enter last post's giveaway.

Pork & Giveaway

Simple meal and quick post for someone to get a $65 gift certificate.  Here I'm pimping modern decor, and the certificate is for CSN stores, which sell all sorts of stuff.  Nothing in it for me this time, but I figure none of the handful of people reading here would mind a chance for some free credit.  Just comment with your name and current city of residence and I'll randomly pick a winner.  You could add more to the comment, but unless it's super moving I'm probably just going to random number it.

The dish above is a pork chop of quasi-Flintstone proportions over polenta topped with tomato sauce.  For the polenta, I used a rice cooker (recent purchase to aid with the boudin referenced in the last post), and I couldn't be happier with the result.  Looking for recipes on the internet, it seemed like a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio of liquid to polenta was the sweet spot.  I went 3.5 cups duck stock to 1 cup polenta and wouldn't change a thing.  Finished with a little salt, pepper, and butter, and, so long as the rice cooker doesn't break or the electricity go out, I'm never going to make this stuff on the stove again.

Rice cooker polenta.  It's where it's at.  Pork from New Creation.  Good luck to the commenters.

Contest ends Sunday night.

Crispy Skinned Sea Bream

 

After two days of making and casing a sort of venison boudin (more on that later), a dinner of red meat, or even poultry, was out of the question.  So off to the market to deal with the surly fishmonger for some never-frozen Florida shrimp and super fresh sea bream.  The bream fillets are everything trout can be only better--somewhat mild, just a bit of texture, and an affinity to just about any flavor.

This was cooked with the standard winter prep--heat fat (here 1/2 butter 1/2 olive oil), season fish with salt, pepper, and some coriander on the flesh side, cook skin side down until crispy, and then flesh side down to finish.

The sauce is was standard too.  Drain pan of fat, add some butter and brown it up, add some rinsed capers, some parsley (stand back--that stuff can go airborne), and a squeeze of lemon juice.  Simple and perfect.

The rice is brown rice cooked with some raisins and a bit of salt.  When it was done it got more salt to taste and some olive oil.  A Mediterranean would be proud.  As for that crusty bit of rice on the left side of the pile, I'm still learning to use a newly acquired rice cooker.

And that crispy skin (minus a bite or two):

I swear you could shatter that thing.  Prior to this the crispy skinned fish fillet had been pretty elusive for me.  In the past, before to cooking I've tried the following: super drying the skin, slashing the skin in diagonal lines, slashing the skin in a hatch pattern, coating the fillet in corn starch or flour, and god knows what else.  So finally I just asked a trusted person how to do it.  While I don't remember as much from the evening as I should Mr. Lambert, I remember what you said about the crispy skin.  And so simple--just press down on the raw flesh side of the fish while the skin is down on a hot pan.  Hold for a few seconds and it's good to go.  No more curled up fish or flaccid skin around here.  It was a revelation.

Last thing--next post = $65 gift certificate giveaway.  Give me a day or two to get it up.  Stay tuned.

Semi-Family Style

Dinner for four on one big plate.  Maybe not as elegant as the ones at this place, but it worked out pretty well.  The salads would have been served communally too, but sadly when I pass around a bowl of salad with citrus segments everyone seems to wind up with greens and all those painstakingly removed segments get left at the behind.

What's under that mess of mushrooms (sauteed oysters from Killbuck Valley)?  Pork, of course.  What else would it possibly be?  That's some of it below:

Two big pork chops from New Creation.  Seasoned simply with salt, pepper, and Spanish paprika, seared in bacon fat, and finished up in a 425 oven.  Taken off the bone and sliced thickly for easy grabbing at the table.

And there's risotto.  Here's the rice is Vialone Nano (available locally at Gallucci's).  Better than carnaroli?  Not sure, but definitely better than the arborio I've gotten around here.  Made in the standard manner (sweated onion, rice added and briefly sauteed that with the onion, mix got drowned and boiled with a few glugs of wine, then cooked through with additions of hot chix stock).  In addition to a little butter and some parmesan, the risotto got finished with roasted acorn squash (still available from Covered Bridge at winter farmers markets).  Sweet and almost creamy, the addition of squash worked well and the color was nice to look at.  I think I liked the rice made with acorn squash more than the ubiquitous butternut variety.

Regarding that salad . . . .  Local hydro bib lettuce and non-local blood orange segments.  Dressed with a vinaigrette of blood orange juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and honey.  The mustardless vinaigrette was pleasant change from the mustard bound stuff we usually eat around here.

Family style.  It's the new small plate.

Good Local Cheese

Lake Erie Blomma.  The truth.

So good, if not a little spendy.  Available at The Cheese Shop.

Sausage Fest '11

Toulouse Sausage via Paula Wolfert via Chow (above), venison with bay and garlic via Hank Shaw (below right), chorizo for aging via Darina Allen (below center). Good looking recipes. No pink salt.

Hog casings for the Toulouse and venison, lamb casing for the chorizo.

We used a Kitchenaid attachment grinder with pretty good success. As for that caulk looking gun on the right up there, not so hot. Broke after a few pounds of links. But, it came with stuffer tubes that fit the Kitchenaid perfectly, so it wasn't a total loss. I've heard mixed things about using the Kitchenaid as a stuffer. With the caulk gun tubes it worked out really well.

Venison from Ashtabula. Pork and back fat from New Creation. Spices from Urban Herbs. Hog casings from Pinzone's.

Easy Oven Ribs

Finding a good recipe for oven baked ribs isn't easy. At least it wasn't for me. Cover in foil, don't cover, 225 for 4 hrs, 325 for 4 hrs, all sorts of things. So I chose what I figured were three somewhat reliable sources and started blending. I mean, could Emeril, TFlo, and the wise folks of Epicurious all be wrong? Not likely.

These baby backs were seasoned with salt, pepper, 5 spice, and Spanish paprika and greased up with some olive oil before being placed in a 325 oven for 1.5 hrs on a cookie sheet that was placed on top of a 1/2 sheet pan. Bones up for the first hour, down for the next 30 min. While that was cooking I worked on the sauce.

Homemade bbq sauce. Not my forte, but it worked out fairly well. I once again consulted Emeril and another website. I also looked at that TFlo recipe cited above. Wound up with this, in approximate order of amount: ketchup, sauteed onion, molasses, rice wine vinegar, peach jam, honey, maple syrup, minced garlic, Worcestershire, sriracha, cumin, mustard powder, salt, pepper, and ginger. That was pureed and then I got all Alabama with it and added mayo. The much enjoyed Kewpie, specifically. What doesn't msg mayo make better?

After an hour and a half the ribs came out of the oven and the bone/concave side got painted with the sauce. The oven was turned up to broil, and in went the ribs, sauce up, until the sauce was sizzling (about 5 min). Then out came the ribs, the meaty side got painted with more of the sauce, and they were placed back under the broiler until the sauce blistered up (about another 5 min--it's a sweet sauce and can burn quick).

That was it--slice, optional squeeze of lime, and enjoy. Not mushy fall-off-the-bone, but still super tender and easy to eat the bones clean.

The greens were just kale sauteed with minced garlic and then braised in chicken stock until the stems were tender and the liquid was all cooked off (had to add a bit of water half way through).

Nice little rib dinner that doesn't take much time and incorporates a sauce that uses lots of leftovers in the fridge. Also, I love smoked ribs, but there are ribs beyond smoking.

New Creation pork.

It's on.

It's kind of sketchy, but it's still on. (I just hope my intestines are domestic . . . or at least from that vaguely defined area known as "Europe". Even more so, I hope they're not from all three places.)

Resolute Eating

Sort of lame, very inauthentic, but perfect for a post New Year's resolution meal. Piccata inspired. And except for the pictures, it's really no worse than this one, and that blog is crazy popular.

Super simple. Thin sliced chicken breast pieces(chix breasts have been breeding in the fridge as of late--I'll cook one and it's like two more take its place) get seasoned and just barely dredged in flour before being sauteed in olive oil to get a little color and just cook through. The meat then gets thrown in a 200 degree oven while the sauce comes together.

This sauce is tomato based. I'm sure that makes the dish called something other than piccata, but as an unedited and pretty much anonymous food blog, it's not like this is really a trustworthy source for anything anyway.

So, while the chix is in the warm oven into the pan goes diced onion and a little stock and/or white wine to scrape up the fond leftover from cooking the chix. Once the pan is clean and the onions are soft into the pan goes some crushed canned tomato plus salt, pepper, and rinsed capers to taste. Red pepper flakes would be a nice addition too (plus anchovy . . . puttanesca style). Once that's all melded and reduced in goes some chopped parsley and a small pat of butter (optional, very optional). Then back in the pan goes the chicken. Look at that top one--it kinda looks like a chicken leg. Weird.

I won't talk about those sad looking boxed salad greens (hopefully there'll be something good at the Shaker Winter Mkt, opening this weekend), except to say they were dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. One of the best dressings ever. For now, just please imagine a side of braised chard or something.

NYE '11

Shown in no particular order.

Pudding with whipped cream in a depression era glass. Classy. Pudding recipe from here (slightly lighter on the chocolate than suggested and skipped the double boiler suggestion), w/ a pinch (just a small pinch) of garam masala. CFT prediction for 2011 food trends -- Indian spices in dessert.

Whipped cream made with a little powdered sugar and vanilla. The whole thing really looked like a poorly made cappuccino, which was kind of neat.

Surf. Sliced scallop, just warmed through in a 450 oven, over a butternut squash puree (flavored with salt, pepper, butter, ginger, and vinegar). I thought the sauce would serve two purposes. First, be all trompe l'oeil scallop roe, cause if scallop roe, that delicious sauce maker, is available in Cle I haven't been able to find it. And second, mask my weak ass non-coin shape making knife skills. It did neither, but it tasted pretty good.

Scallops from Kate's. Squash from Covered Bridge. French butter from The Cheese Shop.

And the turf. Short rib how the cohabitant likes it, braised in aromatics, red wine, and a can of tomatoes served with the defatted (mostly) braising liquid. I was told "we need a vegetable with the meal," so I steamed some carrots, sliced them in half, and heated them up in a little butter enriched water. They were nice.

Beef from Millgate.

Not pictured is a simple leaf lettuce salad with a traditional vinaigrette. That and a traditional blanc de blancs champagne to go with the whole meal.

Oysters

All Wellfleets are not created equal.

Thanks Tom.

Con-Fusion

Vaguely Japanese style chicken meatballs (basic recipe here), brown rice, salad w/ Japanese restaurant style carrot/ginger dressing & cucumbers that had marinated in vinegar, and green chard stir fried with garlic. The sauce at the top left is almond butter based like this one.

I'm convinced soaking skewers prior to broiling is worthless. Want the sticks to look pretty? Cover exposed areas with foil. The rest of us can enjoy the char broiled goodness. [Plum Creek chicken, Firefly chard, Urban Growth garlic]

I'm coming to the realization that if I want to eat a healthy, complete meal, I've pretty much got to eat at home (or at limited ethnic restaurants). Maybe it's just the season, but it seems like some of the better menus around here compete for who could use the richest offal, the fattiest cuts, and/or deep fry the most. There's huge risotto and pasta mains, burger mania, offal fetishism (I'm not immune) . . . . Farm-to-table and nose-to-tail appear to be synonymous with "cook everything in animal fat of varying temperature." And that's just locally. When I turn on my super-limited cable Man v. Food is like The Making of a Heart Attack (or at least a diabetic), and I'm pretty sure Lipitor is sponsoring No Reservations.

I'm no health nut. I eat everything. But sometimes it's just too much. Which isn't to say I'm for salt bans or any real initiatives. It'd just be nice to be able to go out and get some good food that's not internally punishing. Sure, it's possible to piece together a meal at some quality spots, but couldn't it be a little easier?

Cleveland in general is not a model of health. Wouldn't it be kind of a public service if a place offered something like a non-ass kicking prix fixe? At least once a week? I'd order it. Just something like "No Heart Attack Wednesdays" or "Confit Free Fridays."

And until then, if you have the time, might I suggest this recipe for cured salmon. It's awesome, if not a bit high in salt and sugar. Pic of cure below.

Good for X-Mas or Hanukkah, or anything else, really.

The Nuge Would be Proud

Venison backstrap. Shot and hung on Saturday, butchered by yours truly on Sunday, left to mellow in the fridge for two days, and enjoyed Tuesday evening. Really great stuff.

For the backstrap (loin), it was just some salt, pepper, and a healthy dose of five-spice powder. Then it got seared on both sides in a super hot pan in canola oil with a little butter before resting for a few minutes in a 200 degree oven. It was as rare as it looks, and it was perfect that way. The young white-tailed doe was from Jefferson, OH, where, based on the contents of its stomach, it enjoyed some left behind field corn and soy in addition to its regular diet. She was just super tender and clean tasting.

The accompanying sweet potato fries were fine, but not special. I soaked mandolin cut sweet potatoes (Firefly) in water, dried them, and then dredged them in cornstarch before frying them in lard (I read about the dredging here). Thing was, I didn't really take my time knocking the extra cornstarch from the fries, and some of it didn't really cook off. Not terrible, but there's room for improvement. Sauce is Kewpie blended with garlic and a little oil.

Maybe it was the msg in the mayo, but this was the best steak frites I've had in a while. I'm feeling the venison. And more deer dishes to come, so if anyone has recipe suggestions I'm all ears.

Little Macs

Made pretty much using a Martha recipe (although she has others). Apparently this is the macaron bible, but Martha treated us right.

Swiss meringue buttercream (read the comments for clarity) for the pistachios, and strawberry jam for the others. Never have I enjoyed the use of food coloring more.

This may not be Pierre Herme, but they were very good and required less voodoo than research would lead one to believe. And they're gluten free.

Pork Shank

Pork shank, chard, and some polenta/grits under that mess.

The Fig used to serve pork shank osso bucco (and hopefully will again). While this may not have been quite as good as theirs, it was a nice easy dish for a dinner at home on a cold day.

The pork (New Creation) was seasoned and floured and then seared on all surfaces in some lard. When they were done in went diced onion and carrot and minced garlic. Once that softened up some wine was added to the pot and reduced. Then a light poultry broth was added along with a bay leaf, rosemary, and some thyme (still hanging in there in the yard under the snow). Once that was simmering the pork went back in, the surface just peeking above the simmering liquid. The pot got covered and placed in a 375 oven for 2 hrs (the pork got flipped every .5 hrs or so).

After the pork was tender it was pulled from the braising liquid. The liquid got rapidly reduced for a bit, then some stemmed and chopped chard (Firefly--great greens of all sorts) was thrown into the porkless, somewhat reduced braising liquid and simmered covered on the stove top. The taste was classic, fresh soul food greens.

When it was time to eat, the pork got added back to the reduced braising liquid and greens, and the pot was covered over medium heat just to get everything hot. Some runny polenta got placed in the bowl, the pork and chard on top of that, and then a nice ladleful of the braising liquid (with braising veg and all--the rosemary and thyme stems were removed). A quick top off of parsley and it was good to go. A fair amount of time in the oven, but all in all not too much active work made this a pretty good weeknight meal.

The polenta (Country Gristmill/Stutzman--at NUFM) was just some cornmeal cooked with water and stock.

For reference, I glanced at these two recipes. I heart shank.