Spring, I hardly know you.

So much for April. Last week in photo styling class we had to shoot a beverage and convey temperature. Does it look cold? The condensation portrayed here is a 50% glycerin mix. So much for the magic.

What's more important is what's inside: Homemade fortified wine, vin de citron, commonly referred to as vin de hoo-hoo. This year why not make a batch? Impress your friends with homemade Lillet. Summer is right around the corner.

Here's a link to a previous post on making vin de citron

cheers.

Hammin

Boneless Ham a la Gourmet Magazine 1987.

Here's the scene last Monday about 11:30 PM (that's 23:30 for my Continental friends, and a half hour more if you are in Hyderabad): I walk in with my haul from baking class, 2 rye loaves, 2 pains de campange, 12 mini baguettes. Bonne Femme is sitting on the couch unable to sleep. "I have fresh bread, who wants a ham sandwich?" BF replies, "I would but we don't have any mayonnaise."

"Huh? We got eggs don't we?"


One egg yolk, 1/2t mustard, a splash of vinegar, juice from half of a small lime, salt, white pepper and six ounces of canola oil. Thirty seconds later, Hey Presto, mayonnaise.


Midnight snack.

In school this quarter I am taking a food styling for photography class. Even though a friend who is a noted photography expert remarked, "Take the Class? Hell man, you could teach it," I still need to learn the "Tricks of the trade." I mean how do they get a burger to look hot and juicy even though its no warmer than a jar of jam? How do they make a beer look cold and refreshing even though it's been several hours since it came out of a can? I don't know the answers yet, but I will find out over the next few weeks.

For the first project I decided to shoot ham, so I gotta make some ham. I started with the brine recipe for "Glazed Holiday Ham," from Charcuterie, by Ruhlman and Polcyn. I threw in a handful old pickling spice and boiled it to a tea. Once this mixture had cooled I put in the ham. Since my boneless ham was in several pieces I figured it wouldn't need to sit too long, maybe three days.



Thoroughly pickled, time to tie our friends into roasts.





I let the roasts rest for a day then smoked them on the Weber Smokey Mountain.



Three hours later at an internal temperature of 155F, the ham is ready for its close-up.



This brings me to another philosophical quandary: Food as props. I'm sure somebody has written a book about this but I get an uneasy feeling about "styling" an object in order to made it look appetizing, then throw it away because it's inedible. This isn't a still life, this is portraiture. (all ham depicted in this blog was treated with respect, handled in accordance with sanitary guidelines and happily consumed). I know these thoughts verge on silly, along the lines of stepping on a bug, or the vegetarian having to cook meat at culinary class, I know there is give and take and compromises that are made for the greater good, but I haven't come to terms with it yet; I just can't put it down the drain.

In the mean time here are a couple of pictures of ham doing what it is supposed to do:


(Ham on a bagel under an egg and hollandaise)


(Ham on biscuit with egg)

Feeding someone, making someone happy.

Cheers.

The Istanbul Report: Food in The Streets

Grilled mackerel on the Galata bridge

"You and Ledina can eat all that crap together in Turkey."
--Eric (Ledina's husband) on prospects of eating non-fleshy animal parts.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided to visit Istanbul. I was going to meet up with Ledina, a good friend of mine from the Addis Ababa salad days. Ledina is a most impressive gourmet adventurer and I knew that she was the perfect person to discover a new world of culinary delights: After all she was the first one who dug in to the raw goat chunks (Tere sega), when we were in Ethiopia. We were joining Ledina’s sister Bora her friend Michael. It was a small army of fearless eaters-- stuffing our faces as we worked our way forwards and backwards across Istanbul, stopping for the occasional draw on the nargile or water pipe. The four of us were primarily interested in street food, as it tends to be the best tasting, cheapest and lets say, experiential. This is the way to locals eat anyways, not in tricked out tourist traps of ‘we have terrace’ restaurants with menus in four languages. Sultan’s Revenge be damned-- I’d rather eat hunkered down on a street curb swatting off the battalions of stray cats (and there are A LOT of stray cats in Istanbul!) than in a restaurant.

I had purchased a Lonely Planet guide that included a run down on street vendors and things that we might come across such as mussels, fish sandwiches, cucumbers, raw meat balls, etc. It warned that sampling some of these dishes risked bouts of severe diarrhea. The stuffed mussels for example, were recommended only for those that wanted to live ‘very very dangerously’ and went on to add ‘if you try these, you must be mad’. I wanted to live dangerously. And yes, I might exhibit symptoms of madness; but having lived in sub-Saharan Africa in a mud hut drinking river water for two years, I figured I already played host to most of the possible range of microorganisms and furthermore believed that the Turkish varieties were probably pretty small time stuff compared to their African counterparts. I was not to be proven wrong.

I sampled all that I could off the streets. The stuffed mussels for those who live dangerously? they were OK, but tasted more like a ball of rice than of any shellfish. There was amazingly delicious rice pilaf, with such fierce turnover, it is highly unlikely that it sat anywhere long enough to be fertile ground for bacteria.

The grilled fish sandwiches were always good, made more fun by the novelty of ordering them off of tiny wooden fishing boats docked along the Golden Horn river. Unfortunately, I never did manage to get my hands on the raw meat balls. Given my love of kitfo, it looked like they would be right up my alley. We hit everything else on the lonely planet list though, and more. I loved the carts of raw cumbers, expertly peeled before your eyes and served with a shake of salt.


Thirsty? There were carts laden with fresh oranges and grapefruits, pushed by men who would slice open and juice up some refreshing citrus. I was most enamored with kokorec, which are sheep’s intestines.

I used to be a bit squeamish when it came to the interior meats, but now-a-days I have a true appreciation of their capabilities. Especially when prepared porchetta style, all tied up and seasoned with aromatic herbs and served in a hot roll. I am ready and waiting for Macmac to try his hand at some boudin or haggis.



It wasn't all fish sandwiches and barbecued sheep intestines for us though, the sweet stuff is just as good and just as plentiful. Pastry and candy shops selling lokum (gummy Turkish candy) and all manner of baklava dot the city like the syrupy sugary stars. We also became specialists in the wonderfully eclectic asure.

Asure is a mix of fruit, nuts, grains and beans in a sweet starchy medium perfumed with rose water and cinnamon. Asure has it all, texture, flavor, color and all around mind-belly satisfaction--it feels good to eat it. The rosewater aroma imparts asure with a very sexy, exotic attitude, emboldened by dried figs and pomegranate, but is grounded in homey familiarity with its broad white beans, chickpeas and barley. We tried one that even contained maize kernels! I will certainly begin trying my hand at recreating this in my mother’s kitchen in the coming weeks... Asure is also interesting to me in that it breaks many of the rules that have been laid out for desserts in the western context. It is not cakey, flaky, creamy or chocolately; it isn't even terribly gooey. Often times, we just ate asure for lunch rather than downing a greasy French-fry-lamb kebab. Of course, we also took a fish sandwich for dessert.


Thanks Jolie. I believe my sister is getting back to the US today. You'll need to book her quickly for your Turkish-Ethiopian party food, she doesn't stay still for long.

Check Jolie's Flickr Page for more photos.

Cheers.

Fools for School

Break's over.

This week I started spring quarter and a Intro to Baking and Pastry class. As part of the class we are supposed to take photos of our work, I will try to keep a running photo diary on my flickr page.

In other school news I received the following email this morning from our roving corespondent, Jolie:

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: XXXXX
Date: Apr 7, 2008 1:26 PM
Subject: LE CORDON BLEU PARIS - Candidature
To: [Jolie]

Chère Mlle [Jolie],

Nous vous remercions de votre intérêt pour LE CORDON BLEU.

Nous sommes heureux de vous informer que votre candidature a été acceptée pour LE DIPLOME DE PATISSERIE - programme intensif du 17 Novembre 2008 au 5 juin 2009.

Nous vous adressons aujourd'hui par courrier la lettre d'admissibilité comprenant les détails pour le règlement du solde des frais de scolarité ainsi que le règlement intérieur de l'Ecole.

Nous vous rappelons que la date limite de paiement est le 3 Octobre 2008.

N'hésitez à nous contacter pour toute information complémentaire.

Avec nos sincères salutations,

XXXXXX
Admissions Director
LE CORDON BLEU PARIS
8 rue Léon Delhomme
75015 PARIS FRANCE

My French is a little rusty but it looks like we will have a stringer working the Paris beat this Fall. That will make three in my family that have gone to culinary (My Uncle J cooks at Orso in Anchorage). Like my pal Sabra says: You crazy kids are always up to something (Sabra also has stories to tell of being elbow deep in the butter cream bucket).

Très Bien Jolie!

My mom, Ekarhu and Jolie spent the Easter Holiday in Spain. They put some nice pictures up on flickr, check them out.

We'll get back to the business of sausage real soon.

Cheers.

Vegetarian Sausage!

By any other name: Falafel, The Coptic Lenten treat.

A few weeks ago when me and the boys stopped into Jerusalem Grocery and Bakery on 159th ST in Orland Park. We went for the fresh pita, but we also found some dried chick peas. On the back of the package was a recipe for falafel. Oh boy, I love falafel. I remember the first time I had it: Twenty years ago at the Pita Inn, in Skokie. Savory deep fried love in a pocket. (Hey Brian, you remember that time we went with the Mitsi and ran afoul of some low slung cables? Good times.)
But wait it gets better, on the back of the package it says for best results use a meat grinder. Hey I got one of those!

According to the Oxford Companion to Food, Falafel is considered to have originated in Egypt, where it has become a national dish. Early Christan Copts served it at many religious festivals and ate it a lot during Lent. However the the book goes on to report that in Egypt falafel is made with a broad bean called ful nabed, and the chick pea is used elsewhere in the Middle East.

Back in present time, our chick peas have soaked for a very long time and have been combined with the onions and parsley. Time to grind.

For the falafel, I really wanted a cucumber mint yogurt sauce to garnish. I took some plain yogurt and put it in a muslin lined colander for a couple of hours to thicken. Let's go outside to see if we can find any mint:

Bingo.

For the recipe pick up a package Ziyad Brand Dry Chick Peas. A little bit goes a long way, unless you are having a party, make half a recipe, use the other half for hummus.

Cheers.

Boneless ham in beta

At my local abattoir I can get ham with or with out the bone. While picking up some belly to make bacon, I impulsively decided to get some boneless ham, about three pounds. I threw in in the brine with the future bacon and let cure for three days. Yesterday I tied the ham into a roast and hot smoked it for 3 hours.

Ridiculously easy and now I have lunch meat.

Cheers.

South Side Irish

Yeah I live on the Southside. Yeah I have an Irish last name. Ergo, this Irish Bangers recipe has got to be authentic.

Irish Banger

2 lb pork shoulder diced
3 slices (90 g) whole wheat bread dried in the oven chopped into fine crumbs
20 g salt
1/2 t (1 g) dried marjoram
1/2 t (1 g) grated nutmeg
1/4 t (1 g) powdered ginger
1/2 t (2 g) ground black pepper
1/2 t (1 g) finely grated lemon zest
100 ml milk

Combine ingredients, except milk, and rest the mixture in the fridge for at least an hour. Grind through fine plate into chilled bowl. Add milk and stir mixture until it starts to come together, about one minute. Stuff into hog casings. For that fancy pub look, twist the sausages into 4 inch lengths. Gently saute them to an internal temperature of 150F. To finish the authentic look make some grilled onions, some curry gravy and mashed potatoes.

The recipe originally appeared last year in the post St. Patrick's Day Bangers and Mash.

Cheers.

Chicken Andouille

Chicken Andouille Sausage for Gumbo.

Another week another chicken. Bonne Femme said she wanted to make gumbo: What do we need to do? We could use some of the garlic sausage that's in the freezer. And stock do we have any stock? Oh yeah, I got some stock. So as BF walked out the door for another day at work, I was charged with thawing out some sausage and warming up some stock.

But wait. Do we really want just garlic sausage, or should it be some smokey spicy encased meat? Well I do have some chicken.

The Spices

The Crank man


Walking to the smoker.


Smoked Chicken Andouille Sausage.

660 g (1-1/2 lbs.) Chicken cubed
100g (4 oz)bacon diced
140 g (5 oz) onion diced
10 g Salt
4 g pepper
2 g allspice
1 g cayenne
1 g thyme
1 g mustard
2 cloves garlic minced

Grind whole spices and combine with all other ingredients. Allow to marinate in the fridge. Run the mixture through the grinder attachment, After grinding, stir the pate adding a little water so that it comes together. Stuff into casings. If you have time, hang to dry the links before smoking. Hot smoke at 200F for two hours.

Bonne Femme made the best gumbo ever.

Cheers.

The Jersey Report: White Bean Soup with Cured Ribs

(Dear MAC:)

Every time I buy a pork belly from my local Asian butcher, it comes with about 6 ribs attached. I've tried using the ribs in soups and stews but they never quite had the savoriness that I wanted. This week I finally separated them from the belly, cured and smoked them with the bacon. I don't know why I waited so long to try it; they were so fantastic that I ate a couple of them within 5 minutes of being off the grill. The cure was the regular pink salt/kosher salt/brown sugar/maple syrup from Ruhlman's Charcuterie. The ribs were so salty, sweet and smokey and I couldn't eat just one...kind of like the ham popcorn of my dreams. I was planning on throwing them into the white beans in the slow cooker (just to get rid of them), but briefly considered hiding them from the family and eating them while everyone's asleep.

I've been making some version of this white bean stew for years now, and I feel like I'm getting closer to my ideal. They no longer feel like a dish of privation, something to be eaten only during the lean weeks. I've pushed the dish to an almost cassoulet-like heaviness. Here's the current recipe:

1/2 pound dried white beans (Great Northern or Navy) soaked overnight, then cooked until tender with water to cover, an onion, a bay leaf, a couple cloves of garlic, a carrot and/or a chunk of smoked pork skin from bacon-making (basically whatever I've got on hand)

After that, the drained beans go into the slow cooker with:

2 links of Italian sausage, sliced
a chunk of slab bacon, sliced
one 16 oz can fire-roasted tomatoes (crushed or whole are fine)
a few sprigs of thyme (if it's not covered by snow in the garden)
a bay leaf or two
some diced onion
a couple crushed cloves of garlic
salt pepper
chicken stock or water
smoked pork belly ribs (if you have them)

I cooked everything (but the ribs) in the slow cooker for a few hours but the dish was still too runny. I threw it into the Dutch oven and put it in a 325-degree oven, uncovered, for about 90 minutes. Garnish with some good salt (smoked salt is really good) or some grated Parmesan. Serve with crusty bread or toasted breadcrumbs or even croutons....some red wine...and a nap.

Grace had four helpings before she went to bed without complaint.

(Brian)


Thanks for writing, it sounds magically delicious; however I would advise not hiding smoked ribs from your pregnant wife.

Cheers.

Chorizo, chorizo

Chicken chorizo hash for breakfast.

Did you read the previous post where I suggested getting a whole chicken? Did you get one? Did you make stock? Did you stuff the legs with Swiss chard and cheese? Some people may call it an obsession, but I just call it a good habit. I bought another bird, made stock, some "chikin" fingers for the boys, and... What's that? Ma are you comin' to visit? Well I got a chicken breast what should we make?

Around here we love whippin up something good for breakfast. I am particularly partial to any menu with the words huevos and rancheros on it. I figured with the leftover chicken I could whip up some ranch style hash with chorizo.

Chicken Chorizo

720 g (1lb 80z) Chicken cubed
125 g ( 4 oz) Bacon diced
8 g Salt
7 g chile powder*
5 g paprika
3 g black pepper
1 g Mexican oregano
1 clove
Pinch of cinnamon
10 g garlic minced
Vinegar (15 ml) and water (30 ml) as needed

*The chile powder plays the star roll in this sausage so use something good. I had some New Mexico powder and I ground up a guajillo. Check out Penzeys or the Spice House for your chile needs.

This is best started the night before so that the chicken has a chance to marinate. Grind the whole spices in a mill and combine with everything else except the vinegar and water in a large bowl. Rest it in the fridge overnight. The next morning run it through the meat grinder. Stir the ground mixture adding the vinegar and water so that it starts to come together. Fry it up in a pan with some red potatoes, some onion, a poblano pepper and presto! hash. Serve with homemade corn tortillas and poached eggs.

For more chorizo fun, check out this video of Novak and his ode to Chorizo:



Spring is coming.

¡Salud!

Chicken and Cheese Please

Got the winter blues? Get some fresh parsley; the color and the smell will remind you that Spring is not far away. Now that you have some parsley you might as well make some sausage.

Italian Style Chicken Sausage with Parsley and Parmesan

633 g (1lb 6oz) Chicken
130 g Parmesan Cheese
12 g salt
7 g white pepper
7g coriander
10 g dry milk
25 g parsley
A little water and vinegar
medium hog casings

Cut the chicken and the cheese into cubes. put the cheese in the freezer for a few minutes. Meanwhile grind the pepper and coriander together then mix with the salt and dry milk. Stir the spice mixture into the chicken and refrigerate for a few minutes. Rinse and chop the parsley. Combine the chicken and cheese and grind them through a medium plate. Stir the chopped parsley into the ground mixture along with a little vinegar and water to smooth out the texture continue stirring for about a minute. Chill. Stuff into casings.

Yield: 760 g (1 lb 11 oz)

If you are feeling daffy, get a whole chicken, use the carcass and wings for stock, use the meat and skin for sausage. I have used this recipe as a stuffing for ravioli, and I have also made it with pork. Have fun with it.

Cheers.

The Accidental Foodie in Milwaukee

Cold enough for ya? If not then try Milwaukee in the Winter. We headed up there last weekend for a change of scenery. It was actually pretty warm there when we arrived Saturday morning, around 25F, little E kept calling it Hawaii.

Our first stop was The Milwaukee Art Museum. I highly recommend parking in the museum garage, it's the coolest carpark I have ever seen. Next we tried Wicked Hop for lunch, it had a nice pub atmosphere, and a lot of wraps on the menu. I had a wrap. After a couple of Lakefront IPA's, we sashayed across the street to the Milwaukee Public Market.

Sausage in the shape of a football, what will they think of next? At the market we loaded up on snacks for the slumber party: Beer, cupcakes and cold pack. Time to check in.

We booked into the Milwaukee Hilton. The front desk was kind enough to put us up in a "Murphy Bed" room ("You mean an executive suite?"): Double sized room, wet bar, fridge, and one full sized bed. We pushed the furniture around, set up a tent for the kids, and then went to the water park.

You see, the kids don't care too much about fine art, pub food or cheese counters, they came for the waterslides. Paradise Landing is a part of the hotel, so we were set for the evening.

For dinner we had smoky bacon cold pack and a chunk of Pleasant Ridge Reserve (my favorite cheese), along with the last of the magret sec and the smoked trout. We also had a focaccia from home and six pack of pilsner from Lakefront Brewery. We fell asleep watching cable.

Sunday morning H took pictures of the Ninjas he had won playing skee ball, and then we headed for our next stop the Sprecher Brewery Tour.

It was a brief tour that ended in a beer garden like setting where we could sample the brews and the kids could drink their fill of root beer.

After draining that joint, we headed down the street for a late lunch at Solly's Grille.

For those of you that are up on your hamburger stand history (I'm not), This place is a Mecca, making claim as the originator of the butter burger (Yes, a regional specialty where they put butter on their hamburgers). Food writers from around the nation travel to the counter service spot to bow down before the butter burger. The boys each had a Solly cheeseburger (ez butter), I had a Super Glendale.

That would be a burger with Monterey Jack, mushrooms and grilled onions. Boo-ya. I liked the size of the sandwiches (small) you could enjoy it without feeling like you ate a whole cow. Everyone was very friendly and the service was great.

That's about it, We made the late afternoon drive back to the Southside and got to bed early. Milwaukee is a great place to get away for the night, two hours or less away from Chicago and it's very reasonable: The Hilton, with admission to the water park, and parking, and some voodoo drink Bonne Femme ordered, was less than $175. Fun and food without a fuss.

Cheers.