Sausage for Radio

Last week my friend Jim came over and we made some sausage. He recorded it and made a podcast out of it. Now you can hear the gentle sounds of sausage being stuffed and you can count how many times I say "You know," in STEREO!

Check out Columbus Foodcast on ITunes or at its very own website, http://www.columbusfood.tv/.

Cheers.

Pie

Pizza in the summer time. This is the time of year when there are so many things to do other than pasting pictures on the internet. Earlier this week, Andrew at Slim Pickins' Pork, posted a picture of a pizza and well, I just couldn't help myself. Tomatoes are starting to come in here in the Chicagoland area and I picked up a few today at the Flossmoor Farmer's Market. I used three of them, peeled, seeded, and chopped, and cooked them down in a skillet with some chopped garlic and some olive oil: Hey Presto, Pizza Sauce. Four ounces of diced fresh mozzerella and into the 500F oven. As soon as it comes out cover with chopped basil.



My ten year old pizza stone from Target is in three pieces (has been for years) but it still works.

What's that? Kids wanna have a slumber party? Better make some ice cream sandwiches.



Remember when then most exciting part of Friday night was watching Miami Vice? It's gotten a lot better.

Cheers.

HAM burger

Do you remember the ads for A1 Steak sauce proclaiming a hamburger is not chopped ham but chopped steak? As a considered rebuttal to that 80's ad, I offer the HAM-burger. Pictured above the ground cured pork burger is dressed with mustard, ketchup, cheese, roasted jalapenos, caramelized onions in sour cream (à la Bonne Femme), tomato, lettuce and mayonaise, all set on a bun made with "Five minute a day dough."



Okay Bonne Femme says I need to take a picture of her burger too. She topped hers with a cole slaw (left over from yesterday's fish taco adventure) made with cabbage, beets, and carrots.

But I didn't set out to make hamburgers. It's been a little more than a week since we returned from our madcap EU adventure and I needed to restock the cured meats cabinet. I made up a brine (loosely based on Charcuterie's American Style Brown Sugar Glazed Holiday Ham recipe) and sunk some pork belly and some pieces of boneless ham. After three days I pulled the pieces from their salty sleep and today I tied them into roasts. While tying the roasts I ended up with some trimmings. Now if I had been really ambitious I used the cured pork trimmings in a Toulouse sausage, but I'm still jet lagged or I drank a lot of beer last night (with fish tacos!) Hey Presto HAM-Burgers. I'm smoking the ham and bacon tomorrow.

Hey check it out, I found the A1 commercial:



Cheers.

Live from Finland: Lapland Pig Pick

Okay we're not really in the Lapland but near a small town called Karjalohja in the lake district. Bill from Tennesee certified our BBQ as authentic:



Pulled pork, slaw and beans. And I wouldn't mess with Bill.

Dessert service by Jolie and mom.


Interpretations by the Deuce.


Wedding tommorrow.

Live from Finland Update

So if you're going to have barbecue, you have to have beans. For beans you need bacon. After you have made lardons, take the rind (pictured above) and throw it in.




The pork shoulder is getting there. The fuel for the fire is birch and Leppa (alder) for the smoking chamber. The beer is Karhu.





The party is starting soon, I'll try to update later

Cheers.

Live Blogging from Finland

Well we finally made it to Finland. Right now 7 kg of pork shoulder is cooking. We fixing a Carolina Pick Pick for thirty. here we are loading it in.






Check the flickr page for more photos. I'll try to keep you updated as the day goes.

Cheers.

Ten Years in the Making

Photo collage by James Worrell.

Excuse me while I jump into the way back machine. Ten years ago this week I went to Europe for the first time. Eight of us stayed in a house in the middle of nowhere, southwest France.

Bonne Femme improvising to roll out a pâte brisée (that's a pie crust, yo)

MAC et asperge.

We took turns cooking every night.

Lucky (née Michel)

We ate Cassoulet in Carcassonne.

For ten years I've tried to re-create the magical moments we had that week. I ended up living ten years of magical moments in Greenpoint, Lincoln Square, Homewood and of course Clintonville.

Fix food for family and friends, smile.

What else do you need?

Cheers.

Chicken Bratwurst

When it comes to the dueling sausages of our house, it's Bratwurst vs. Parsley and Cheese. Usually the P&C wins(Bonne Femme's fave), but this week I had a hankering for for my German friends.

I started to think about it on the way back from my food styling class last Saturday: A nice day, grilled sausages, sauerkraut, some mustard. It's not too much trouble to put together a couple pounds of sausage, right?

Chicken Again?

I used chicken in this recipe because that's what I had on hand. As I have mentioned in previous chicken sausage posts, I start the week with one whole chicken. The first thing I do is bone it and make stock with the bones. I get about a quart of stock from one chicken. Next I use the chicken during the week for whatever, nuggets for the boys, chicken salad, pot pie. By the end of the week if there is any bird left it ends up on pizza or sausage. Enough life lessons, let's go to the boards:

Chicken Bratwurst

989 g (2 lb 3 oz) Chicken, cubed

18 g Salt

1 g ginger, ground

1 g nutmeg, ground

1 g caraway seed, ground

2 g marjoram, dried

10 g powdered milk

Milk or water.

Combine chicken with dry ingredients, allow to marinate for one to four hours, if you have the time, in the fridge. Grind with using the small plate into a chilled bowl. Using a really big wooden spoon stir this mixture and add no more than 125 ml (1/2 cup) or milk or water. Continue stirring until it starts to come together, about 1 minute. Stuff into hog casings, twist into links. Allow sausages to rest, uncovered, in the refrigerator, if you have time. If not, go ahead and grill over indirect heat until done.

Yield: About 8 - 6 inch sausages.

A word about chicken and fat.

I first learned about making sausage from the book Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Their primer on sausage making stresses the importance of added fats, especially in lean meats such as chicken. I followed the advice of the book religiously, until one day I wanted to make sausage but I didn't have any additional fat. You know what? It turned out great. The Bratwurst recipe above does not call for added fat, however when I said I used a whole chicken the means not only meat but also, skin and fat (okay not giblets, but why not?). And it tastes great. I think the milk powder helps retain moisture so the added fat's only job is to keep it juicy once the sausage has been overcooked (Note: Don't overcook your sausage). My point here is not that I'm not out to create a "Lo-Fat" sausage (My mom calls me butter boy), but that to make sausage at home does not require a special trip to the packing plant: I got my bird out of the cold case, I got the casings ("oh about six feet please") by asking the man behind the meat counter at Walt's. Try it, homemade tastes way better than anything you'll get on a Styrofoam tray. (I'm spouting off again.)

Get out and grill, and be happy.

Cheers.

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.