Prickly Pear

Last week me and the boys were toolin around the Southland, as we so often do, in search of an adventure or some cool park play toys. Rollin down Avenue O, we came across Pete’s Fresh Market. This store is incredible. It is brand new, the size of a Jewel but twice as beautiful. On top of that, it is a Mexican supermarket. The produce was beautiful: I got Plantains, Papaya(cheap), Guava, Parcha, I got 3 pounds of Jalapenos for $1.49 (We will be seeing them in an upcoming episode). I got 12 limes for a dollar. And Mexican spices and dried peppers, forget about it. The meat case was immaculate; I ended up getting my pork shoulder, for the pork tacos, there. But I went in only looking for one thing: Opuntia phaeacantha; the purple prickly pear.

It must be about ten years about now that I came across an article about soaking the fruit in tequila (infused liquors for youse fancy pants). Well I lost the article and an internet search did not turn up anything, so here’s what I did: I carefully peeled (using a vegetable peeler) about a dozen or so fruits, sliced them and poured a liter of white (no Cuervo) tequila over them.

I don’t know how long it should set, but the liquor had taken the purple color overnight. I haven’t tasted it yet either, but what I remember from ten years ago is that the prickly pear adds a tart taste and a floral aroma to the liquid. I'll let it go until I am ready to make some drinks. From there we will make some purple margaritas or maybe just a tiny tumbler with cracked ice and a sugar cube.

S looked for prickly pears (also called tunas) earlier in the year and she was told there is season for the fruit which lasts around July. So go get em. It will be great for that late summer garden party.
There are two kinds of tunas that you may come across at the store: Purple and white. Don’t get white. They both have green skins but you will notice a reddish hue to the purple ones. When selecting think of selecting an avocado ($.79 each at Pete’s): Not too hard and not too mushy. The fruit itself is very fibrous and has lots of seeds so you may have to strain it, but I think it is gonna be good. Stay tuned.

Cheers.

South Side Tacos

Well it’s been a busy summer here in the Southland, swimming lessons, traveling, trying not to listen to the news, it’s a wonder for when a guy can get any cooking done. By the way, the South Side was mentioned in the Sunday New York Times, last weekend. In an profile of John C. Reilly, the article stated that Reilly grew up in a “gritty South Side neighborhood…” in a “squat bungalow.” Once again the myth is perpetuated: Say you are from the South Side and folks start lookin to see if you have a gun stuck in your waistband. There must be some rule where folks from outside the Chicago are required to say “gritty” when saying the words “South Side.” I am sure that if, as the article states, Mr. Reilly’s father owned a commercial laundry service, and they lived in a bungalow near Marquette Park, Reilly’s youth may have been more accurately characterized as a “modest middleclass upbringing.” But that doesn’t sound very cool.

Continuing on this digressive diatribe regarding the Times (wait, you’ll see it comes full circle) I read over two articles today regarding Tacos. I’ll insert links for the articles, but I don’t know how long they will work, at a certain point the Times makes you pay to peak. The first article, The Taco Joint in Your Kitchen, by Mark Bittman, has only one valid worthwhile statement: In New York, a good taco is hard to find. True. When I lived in New York, good Latino (Mexican) food was very hard to find, we would travel to the ends of the Earth (New Jersey) in the hopes of finding something above mediocre.

But then the article goes on to state that Genuine Tacos can only be found in the Southwest or Mexico. False. Once again New Yorkeritis rears its ugly head; that’s the disease were the New Yorker (the inhabitant, not the magazine) believes that the only thing West of NYC is New Jersey and California. When I lived there I had it too. Chicago has some of the most beautiful, most delicious, most hardcore Mexican food to be had anywhere, and I missed it terribly when I lived out East. And what goes into a “Genuine Taco” in the little 3 inch corn tortillas supposedly only available in Cali and South of the Border? In my experience, meat. If you ask, and you can put up with the cook shaking his head, cheese. You get three on a plate surrounded by a little lettuce and tomato, and you eat them with a little salsa. Wash it down with a little horchata (no beer, its lunch time, and you are on the job) or if you are at Irazu on Milwaukee Ave., a Guayaba en Leche and there you go, genuine.

The second Article (just a related recipe) Recipe: Slow-Roasted Pork for Tacos, must be geared towards the apartment dweller in Murray Hill. The recipe calls for two pounds of pork shoulder; good luck finding that. Most shoulder roasts come packaged between five and eight pounds and rarely come boneless. And you should cook a full roast at a time anyway, pulled pork freezes really well and reconstitutes nicely in a skillet. The bigger piece of meat just takes more cook time. I wont go into the spices and prep, but regarding cooking and serving, the meat should be shredded and that means cooking to somewhere between 190F to 200F. Below 190 you’ll be slicing. The recipe says to cook until “very very tender, at least two hours” Just take its temp you will know when it is done. Anything above 160 and below 175 the meat is fully cooked, but you’ll be slicing a very chewy piece of meat.

And wait a minute, this recipe looks like a dumbed down version of Slow Roasted Achiote Pork, in Rick Bayless’ Mexico, One Plate at a Time. Why? Well that’s what was in the kitchen last weekend.

Last weekend was the block party, the time of the year when the neighbors get together eat, watch movies outside and generally run amok until two or three in the morning.

The past couple of years I have done a brisket bbq but this time I bought a pork butt for pulled pork ( about 8-1/2 pound bone in). However the neighbors wanted a Mexican theme. So how about pulled pork tacos?

Rick’s recipe called for blending achiote seeds (I learned they are also called annatto seeds, which made them easier to find) black pepper, cumin, Mexican oregano, cinnamon and cloves, stir that into lime juice and orange juice, and throw in a handful of cloves. Put your butt into the marinade and let it soak overnight.

Now the recipe calls for cutting the roast into several slices and wrapping them in Banana leaves. Now as much as I like the idea of pork steaming in banana leaves over the pit fire, I lent my bone saw to a buddy to trim his mulberry tree, so the roast stays whole. I started the roast at 8 am figuring 6-8 hours to finish. However at 7 am I realized I was short charcoal, so a I built a smaller than usual fire. Instead of a 275F smoking temp I was at 225F. So at 5PM(the party already started) I pulled the pork off at 185F, 15 degrees short of the goal.

Most of it shredded but some had to be sliced. Again to hammer home the point, on tough cuts of meat (pork shoulder, Boston butt, beef brisket beef plate) you cook them low and slow to allow the fat to render (“self basting” in the Taco article) and the connective tissue to break down. The results is moist and tender meat. Most of the rendering and tissue break occurs past 160 F, so you got to keep on going.

Anyway Taco time. The night before I also sliced some red onion and marinated it in 2 parts lime juice (limes were twelve for a dollar) and 1 part orange juice. To build a taco: Tortilla, meat, onion.

Repeat.

Notes: the Tacos were magnifico, and they where enjoyed by all the gritty Southsiders. The marinade only called for 1 tablespoon of salt, I’d maybe double that next time. The onions had an exquisite color but they needed a bit more sweet. Next time make sure you have enough charcoal.

Cheers.

Backlogged Blog

(S in Provence, a year ago)

This blogging business is hard to keep up with. But the life of the sausage goes on. In the intervening months since the last update we have had our ups and we have had our downs; but mainly we have been having sausage. We vinted the vin d’orange and I am getting ready to start the third batch of bacon.

At the end of March, high off the success of the corned beef, I wanted to do a pastrami. What could be better than corned beef, but a corned beef that is smoked? Hello pastrami.

The process was the same as for the corned beef: Dry rub with salts and spices, cure for five days, then cook. The Charcuterie recipe called for smoking to 150F and finishing it to fork tender by boiling. Again as with the corned beef, I really only wanted to go to 160F and I didn’t want to boil it after smoking. The Virtual Bullet website had a pastrami recipe for smoking to 160f, so why not combine the recipes? It worked last time.

Well it didn’t work, exactly. It got a good smoke, pulled it off at 160F, It looked good, but too salty. And a little chewy. Don’t worry, it got ate, Ruben’s too, but it wasn’t magical like the corned beef. If I were to do it again, I think I would soak it before smoking (to balance the salt) and I would try a finish temp of 175F(give a little more time for fat to render but not dried out). “If” being the operative word here, because smoking it did not do much for me. There were so many subtle favors in the corned beef and they all got lost in the smoke.

Maybe I should follow a recipe straight. Early April and time to try bratwurst again. This time with veal and added fat back.

The last couple of times I had made sausage I felt the flavor was good but the texture (mouth feel, for you epicurious types) was not quite right. It seemed a little dry and the added fat should bring a little creaminess to the texture. I didn’t take pictures of the fat back but it was more like fat scraps. Isn’t there some saying about watching sausage being made? Maybe you should go browse the Nordstrom’s website.

Anyway the fat scraps did not fix the mouth feel conundrum, more fine tuning to come.

Easter in Columbus, it is nice to have spring sprung, unlike the cold morose in Chicago.
No pictures of the Easter Brunch bacon, but here’s the bunny cake S made. Carrot cake of course. The bacon (second batch) was better that the first, it cooks up nicer and tastes better than any store bought (and only $1.29 a pound). I cured one part of it with maple syrup (sweet), and another part with garlic and picking spices (savory). The sweet turned out great, the savory we can skip next time(see pastrami problems).

Here’s a picture of some fresh pork shoulder. In late April, I made Italian sausage with it. I like to rinse the meat before cubing. But I forgot something. Pat it dry. It made a real mess during the stuffing and the texture was bad (the fat problem from above also contributed). Plus smoke and spices adhere (I don’t mean stick, but penetrate) better to dry meat. I don’t remember where I read that, but just do it, pat it dry.

At this point I am ready for a happy sausage story. Here are my good friends from Williamsburg with their first batch of garlic sausage.

Ah, country living in the heart of the city.

Back home here in the Southland, the South side of Chicago, you know it’s now hip to be from the South side? Working class, gritty and all that, especially since the Pale Hose became the world champs…someday my kids will mockingly say to strangers “Yeah, I grew up on the Southside,” and those strangers, provincial Midwesterners that they will be (Or an immigrant Northsider, as I once was), will shudder in fear, and then a cool breeze of goose pimples will calm the shudder, followed by tiny tingles on the back the neck as they contemplate the coolness of being in the middle of the scrap. No really it’s just the suburbs, just South.

Anyway, earlier in May, I picked up a lamb shoulder for an attempt at Merguez (recipe from Charcuterie). According to the recipe, it is a spicy sausage of North African roots. I love kabobs, so I figured what could be better than a lamb and vegetables stuffed into a sausage. Lamb shoulder, roasted red peppers , garlic, oregano, paprika and fat. Oh yeah, the fat. After some ruminating and some reading I bought some pork jowl.

The jowl, or the cheek (sorry no quick links to Nordstrom) has the look of bacon but the fat should have a softer texture. I was offered the jowl with the skin removed which was fine, less work. While researching the jowl I came across a preparation called guanciale; certainly a project for the fall when the curing room (read basement) is at the right temperature.

Well the Merguez turned out nice, I didn’t think the flavor was very exotic, but the texture was perfect, the jowl is the way to go. Here we are enjoying our Arabian Nights. S made the Hummus, I can never do it right. Regarding hummus, if you have the where-with-all, you should make it at home starting with dried chickpeas instead of canned. It makes a big difference.

Finally in the big catch-up posting, lets talk ham. Over Memorial day weekend I roasted a fresh ham on the Weber SM.

Fresh ham means not the deli meat but the back leg of a pig, uncured. Ever since I first saw them stacked nine or ten high in the meat case, I wanted to cook one. It would be like a mini luau, or any other given pig roasting experience of the tropics or the Mediterranean. I didn’t have a recipe and the internet did not have a lot of ideas.
I liked the idea of the Italian Porchetta, so I spiked it with rosemary and garlic, before that I brined it for about 10 hours, and before that, I guess that is when I bought it, I picked the smallest one in the case and it came to 17 pounds.















I decided to try a roasting temp of 350, my reasoning being, that I wanted a higher temp to get the skin crackling, and I had success smoking turkeys at that temperature. I cooked the ham for about 6 hours to an internal temp of 155.

The results were mixed. The high temp caused the on the outside to get dried out while closer to the bone was perfect. I didn’t brine it long enough, should be 18 to 24 hours. I am not deterred, the ham roast is a good summer party item, especially with the garlic an rosemary that reminds me……Italy several summers ago rolling though the countryside in our little Opel, stumbling into tiny towns on market days. The markets consisted or 3 or four trucks; one of those trucks was always a pork van. Gimmie one grassa. Oh baby, on an unsalted roll a slab of meat smeared with a pumice of salt, pepper, rosemary and olive oil. Simple, sun hot afternoon, wash is down with a bubbly water.

Cheers.

Thanks to everyone who sent comments, for those who tried but couldn't get through, try again, I fliped a few switches, I'll get this blogging stuff figured out sooner or later.

Vin d'Orange

After a few days of searching S could not find a bitter orange. Instead of bitter oranges we ended up with sweet lemons. Meyer lemons are not not quite as tart as regular lemons and they have a sort of orangish finish.



So into they pot they go along with some regular oranges, sugar, a vanilla bean and the five to one ratio of wine and vodka. We'll see what happens in forty days.


This is S's batch; I hope she shares.


cheers.

Vin de Pamplemousse

40 days ago I finally got around to working on a recipe that I have been holding on to since Fall 2004. As with the sausages and other cured delicacies, the Vin de Pamplemousse (grapefruit wine) rattles about my head as one of the essential ingredients for the elusive Mid-Summer's party. I will have one sometime (maybe this Summer) but until then I will keep practicing. Lillet, a French aparatif(a fortified wine with an orange essence), reminds me of the summer of 1998. We sat in a tiny walled green oasis, in Williamsburg, perfect in every way except for the stifling heat. We balanced ourselves with this smooth beverage poured over cracked ice with a slice of orange or lemon and we sat and we waited for nothing to happen.

Ah the salad days. In Fall 2004 the New York Times Magazine had an recipe for homemade Lillet, except since Seville Oranges (bitter oranges) are hard to come by in the US, it called for grapefruit. I was hooked, I just had to find the conviction.

Five bottles of white, one bottle of vodka, six grapefruit, lemons, vanilla bean, sugar. To the basement for forty days.

I got some corks and a corking thing at Bev-Art, up in Beverly. Strained the vin into the bottles and set the cork. I'll let them sit for at least another month.

The combination of citrus and vanilla gave off the aroma of bubble gum, and the taste finished with a very sharp grapefruit. We see how it is in the summer. But S could not wait. What I had left over from the bottling I chilled in a pitcher. After polishing off the pitcher (I helped) She declared this would be the drink of summer. Then she started thinking about vin d'orange: Chicago is a cosmopolitan Midwestern town, there had to be bitter oranges around here somewhere....Sounds like a project.

Into the bin

Tonight's menu, Rubens. The featured fermented guest, however will not make it. Mold took hold of the sauerkraut that I started two weeks back. I have to do a better job of keeping the cabbage completely submerged. I will start another batch tomorrow. Tonight's fill in: One can of Frank's Quality Kraut.

Sunday breakfast

A poached egg, pickled fish, last night's rye toast. A dab of dijon.

Saturday Corned Beef

S had an event Friday night, so while everyone else was out drowning the shamrock, me and the boys were home watching Harry Potter. Saturday became our St Patty's day and it started with the boys trying their luck on the iced sugar cookies.

Next came the corned beef. After five days of curing, it was time to put on the boil. I was concerned because I had mished mashed two recipes together, the wet brine and the dry rub. I would not be able to tell until it was done whether or not it was cured too much or not enough. The color on the on the outside of the uncooked brisket looked purple to brown and the book did not provide any guidance on what it should look like. I was additionally worried about the cooking times: Both recipes said to cook "two or three hours or until fork tender." I find that direction rather vague. I will concede that since I "went off book," that my results were (very) far from guaranteed, but when it come to cooking time I always cook to temperature. I find cooking to internal temperature is the best way the have consistently good results. But remember kids, just like when your are navigating a supertanker into the Port of Houston, Use more than one chart. Triangulate between two thermometers and cooking time.

Anyway back to the Corned Beef. I looked around the web for a cooking temp and the closest I got was for a Pastrami on the Weber smoker. It suggested 160F. It took only ninety minutes to get to 160 and that was too quick. Besides it definitely was not fork tender. I slowed the oven down and let it go to about 188, another ninety minutes. The whole time I worried about what I was going to get but I also started to realize I did not know what I wanted to get. All I had hoped was that it would not be too salty and the color would be right.

But the smell. Last year I made boiled a corned beef (corned beef from the store) and cooking it smelled like corned beef. I remember when we ate it we thought mmm this is good corned beef, maybe a little salty, but tastes like every other corned beef. The corned beef today smelled different. The cloves and the allspice dominated the house. It smelled like Christmas. Now I am worried that I will have a piece of meat that tastes more like mulled wine than a Ruben.

As you can see from the picture below the brisket noticeably shrank. But it got thicker. The color, Boiled Brown.

So the moment of truth, I cut it into it by about a third and sampled. The color unbelievably even and red. And the taste, well it was worth all the worrying. The layers of flavor in the meat led me to understand how the each ingredient played an important role in the cure. I had expected salt to be the lead player in this medley with the chorus rounding out the flavor, but it was an ensemble piece( A Collective, to use the parlance of our times) where no single ingredient stood out. And it definitely tasted like corned beef.

Next time I will probably only cook it to 160. I strained the broth and used it to boil red potatoes, carrots, parsnips and cabbage. And lastly the Gravlaks...the simplest magic that yields such tasty fish.

Cheers.