The Confabulist

Food I have made recently, Part I: Goat Carbonnade with Couscous

I'm cooking a lot these days.  For the first time in awhile, the rate at which I'm cooking postworthy dishes far outstrips the time I have to blog about them.  I've decided that I'm not going to let that stop me from posting, since I do need to some relevant details about the food, if only for my own purposes.  Be warned, though, that many of these posts will be spare, and the pictures may not be quite up to par.

One recent dish was goat stew with couscous.  The goat has been in my freezer for months now, and since I recently acquired a whole pork loin and several other items which demanded freezer space, I decided it was time to cook it up.  I used to occasionally buy goat in Santa Ana when Rebecca and I were in exile in Orange County.  I hadn't bought it while in San Francisco until last fall, when I ran across some at random in Draegers (of all places).

Stew Construction

The stew has a pretty simple construction:  rub the goat with salt, pepper, and spices, and sear it on all sides in a pressure cooker.  Throw in some crushed garlic cloves, peppercorns, a bay leaf, some rosemary and perhaps some other herbs, a bit of smoked ham hock or some bacon lardons, a tin of diced tomatoes, and 3 cups of lamb, veal or beef stock.  Add 12 oz of a good, dark, sweet ale, ideally something with a lot of depth, but not too hoppy.  I wanted to get a good porter, but wound up with Newcastle instead.  Put the mixture under pressure for 2 hours.

In the meantime, cube and roast some potatoes or other root vegetables (turnips would be good here) in the oven with salt and herbs.  Prep some snap peas, chop up a bunch of mushrooms, slice some carrots, and prepare any other vegetables  you might want.  Break out the wok.  (I'm all about the wok these days, but details on that will have to wait for another time.)  Cook them separately until they are not-quite-done.  Set aside.

When the meat is ready, open the pressure cooker and pull the meat out.  Strain the braising liquid and put it back in the pot.  Shred the meat and pull out all of the dubious / fatty pieces.  Reduce the broth a bit, add a little cornstarch slurry for body, and correct for salt.  Throw the meat and vegetables in, and you've got a stew!

Somewhere In There You Will Need A Starch

I made my standard couscous, which is 2 cups of boiling chicken stock, 1 1/2 cups of couscous, some raisins,  dried apricots and a little orange zest thrown into a covered pan for 15 minutes, after which some toasted nuts (in this case, pistachios) are mixed in.  If you were serving this bare or alongside something, it would need to be a little wetter and saltier, but under the stew it actually works better this way.

Here's yer Martha Stewart hint for the day:  In pinch, a buttered ramekin can serve as a ring mold, as it did here.  Like you haven't thought of that already.  Ma always said you were the smart one.

Getting Your Goat

I've never understood why we don't eat more goat meat in the U.S.  It's one of those cultural blind spots -- we have no problem eating lamb, but goats, well, that's just ridiculous.  But goat is the primary food animal in some parts of the world.  I love a good steak as much as the next guy, but goat is far better for you -- about half the fat for the same amount of protein.  It has far less cholesterol.  Imagine having a red meat with the same nutritional value as chicken!

And you know what?  It tastes great.  Some imagine that goat tastes gamy, but it doesn't.  Young goat is lean but tender and somehow rich.  Adult goats do require marination and slower cooking, and is therefore less of a convenience food than, say, a New York Strip steak, but it is still very tasty, if a bit less versatile.  Check it out!

New York Steak with Stilton and Balsamic Vinegar Reduction:

This month, we have a combined WBW and IMBB entry, whose theme is (naturally) pairing food with wine.  I took the easy way out this time, motivated largely by the fact that I had to prepare this meal on a weeknight and  so didn't have the time to do anything more elaborate.  Even so,  I've been meaning to write this entry for a long time, in part due to the urgings of a friend of mine who has always wanted to know how I prepare steaks.

Cooking a good steak is easy.  But the difference between a good steak and a great steak is not quite as easily to pin down.  I try to make incremental improvements to my procedure when I can, and welcome any suggestions for further improvement.

Personally, I feel that the grill is the best place to cook a steak.  Unfortunately, in my current apartment situation, I don't usually have access to one.  And I know that in many parts of the world, cooking with a grill is impractical part of the year.  Hence, I'll discuss the sear-roast method here. 

The General Procedure

Turn on your oven to 450 degrees F.  Salt and pepper both sides of your steaks thoroughly.  Put the burner on medium-high and let your pan heat up.  When it's hot (a few droplets of water sprinkled from your hand should sizzle away rapidly)  pour a tablespoon or so of olive oil into the pan and swirl it around.  Put the pan back on the burner and wait until the oil starts to smoke.

Put the steaks in the pan. Let them develop a nice sear on the one side, which will probably happen in 2-3 minutes, but be mindful and check regularly until you know your stove and your pan fairly well.  The surface of the meat should be a deep brown color, but no charring or burning should have taken place.  When you see this, flip the steaks.  Put a pat of butter on top of each, and slip them in the oven.

I've heard this called the sear-roast method.  If you use just the pan, typically, you flip the steaks and turn the heat down to medium.  What this often yeilds is a steak with a strong gradient.  Cut down the middle, you'd find gray/brown at the surface gradually turning pink, and then turning dark pink in the center (assuming you've cooked it to medium-rare).  The texture is highly varied.  A steak cooked properly using the sear-roast method, however, will give you a very thin layer of gray/brown where the sear is, and an even dark pink throughout.  I think this is much more professional and much tastier, as you get the entire steak at whatever temperature that you prefer, rather than just the center.

An Entirely Rational Discussion Of Steak Temperature

As far as steak temperature goes:  flavor, texture, and tenderness are highly compromised if you cook a steak at anything above medium. Medium rare is, of course, generally considered optimal.  Exactly what temperature is that, you may ask?  Well, I thought we all agreed on what those terms meant.  Then I found a couple of sites like this one who were spreading an entirely different gospel.  Apostasy!  All I have to say is this: if I'm in a restaurant and I'm paying you $35 for a steak, and I ask for it medium-rare, and you bring me something cooked to 150 degrees Farenheit, I'm sending it back to the kitchen, and spanking your ass on the way out.  And not in a fun way.

So who is responsible for this heresy?  I hope this doesn't make me sound like a wearer of tinfoil hats, but I think it's the government.  No, seriously!  A normal list starts with "Rare" and begins Medium-Rare squarely at 130 degrees F.  But you'll notice that all these lists omit "Rare" entirely, and start Medium-Rare at 145 degrees, which is quite close to the temperatures at the core of the sun and may reduce your expensive two-inch thick grass-fed dry-aged USDA prime black Angus Porterhouse to a trapezoid of steaming charcoal.  Medium Rare indeed!  What is this, some sort of culinary newspeak?  Clearly these government types are only interested in protecting your body.  They care nothing for the safety of your soul, which is obviously in jeopardy if you're eating 150 degree steaks on a regular basis.

(Editors note:  it turns out that up until the 1990's, the FDA had the same idea as everyone else regarding what was rare and what was medium.  Then they decided to issue new guidelines in an effort to combat food-borne illnesses.  Instead of just encouraging everyone to get their meat medium instead of medium-rare, however, they decided to change the scale, confusing everyone for no good reason. Your tax dollars at work!)

How to tell when your steak is done

There are four widely-recommended methods to tell when your steak is done.

• The color test:  Cut into one of the steaks and judge by color.  Plenty of sites will guide you in this method.  The problem with it is that you must cut rather dramatically into the steak, which lets the juices escape. Don't let the juices escape.
• The finger test:  This method has you poke the steak with your finger or with some other instrument.  With some practice, you can tell whether or not it's done from the springiness of the meat.  To give you some assistance, some proponents compare the feel of the steak to the springiness of certain parts of your body, e.g., parts of your arm or your hand.  The disadvantage of this method is that it is somewhat inexact.  Besides, it takes practice to get the hang of it, and in the meantime you'll be ruining a bunch of steaks.
  
• The meat thermometer: Clearly the easiest and most exact.  The only disadvantage is that you do pierce the meat, so there is some juice loss.
• The USDA method:  Use a portable mass spectrometer to confirm that the combustion process has removed all hydrogen and oxygen atoms from the meat, leaving only carbon atoms that can be safely consumed.

Personally, I use the finger method to get a rough idea of how a steak is doing, but a meat thermometer in the final minutes on one of the steaks to get a more exact reading.  I'd recommend picking up a simple, instant-read, digital thermometer like this one or this one.

Remember that a piece of meat will continue to cook after it's pulled away from its heat source.  Its temperature will continue to rise from 5 to 10 degrees afterward.  So the tricky bit is to take it out just before it's done.  This is easy enough if you're using the thermometer method, but a bit trickier otherwise.

Balsamic Vinegar Sauce:

1 cup balsamic vinegar
1 frond rosemary, intact
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/3 cup beef or veal stock
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper

Put the vinegar, stock, and the rosemary in a small pot over medium heat until it begins to steam.  Adjust the temperature so that it continues to steam, but not boil excessively.  Let it reduce by half.  Add the brown sugar and the salt and stir until they dissolve completely.  Let the mix continue to reduce slowly until it begins to thicken; there should be less than 1/4 c of liquid left; perhaps as little as 1/8 c.  Remove the rosemary frond and pepper to taste.  Remove from the heat.

When you're ready to serve, bring the sauce back up to temperature.  Break the butter up into 4-6 pieces and whisk them into the sauce.  Serve immediately.

The reduction takes some time, so don't leave this until the very end.  I usually try to have the reduction complete before I put the steaks on.  Then, while the steaks are resting, I whisk in the butter.

Though extremely simple to make, this sauce is, I think, very delicious and quite professional in appearance.  When done right, it's full-bodied and velvety, but neither vinegary nor overly sweet. It pairs well with intensely flavored meats such as lamb and venison, but I've had similar sauces at restaurants on more delicately flavored meats such as rabbit and chicken (links?), so don't be afraid to try that as well.  I even use a variation of this sauce as a dressing for certain kinds of salads (e.g. here, under "Baked Goat Cheese Salad").

Other tips:

• Don't smother the steak in this (or any) sauce.  A good steak is its own reward, and if it isn't, buy a different cut or from a different store.  This sauce is intended to be dripped in small portions alongside the steak, and it should be thick enough that it doesn't just spread over the whole plate.
• After removing the steaks from the pan to let them rest,  pour out any fat that remains in the pan.  Put the pan back on the heat on top of the stove, and use a bit of white wine, red wine, or balsamic vinegar to degrease the pan, scraping up any bits left on the pan.  After this reduces to a teaspoon or so of liquid, pour it into the sauce.
• After letting the steaks rest, whisk any juices that have escaped the steak into the sauce just before you whisk the butter in.
• Several useful variations:  instead of stock, use pureed fruit or unsweetened fruit juice.  I've used blueberries, blackberries, and even fresh strawberries in this role.  If you use pureed fruit (as opposed to juice), the sauce won't appear quite as professional, but it will be fruitier.  If you use juice, consider putting in a handful of the corresponding fresh fruit towards the end of the reduction phase.

And the wine is...

The featured wine for the evening is the 1999 Louis-Laval Cabernet Sauvignon.  We have a special relationship to this wine, as Louis-Laval was the winery that Rebecca and I worked at for a few weeks while we were in Australia, before going to graduate school. 

The pairing, of course, is a no-brainer to some degree (Cabernet with steak!  Who'd have thought!), but there's more here than meets the eye.  There's something about the dusty backpalate on our favorite Hunter Valley reds that marries particularly well with the sear on a good steak.  In addition, the prominent acids we expected from this wine would mean, we hoped, that it would fare well against the sauce.

1999 Louis-Laval Cabernet Sauvignon          ($??)

Just smelling this wine takes me back to Australia.  Although we only had one bottle of it while we were there, to some degree it's reminiscent of our favorite Hunter Valley reds.  It smells like tart fruit with a hint of anise, like a cherry-tarragon sauce I used to make.  The acids give it a nice round swell at the beginning, and balances the cherry reduction flavor that makes up much of the wine's fruit.  Towards the end we find the anise, leather, and finally, that dusty finish that reminds me of the dirt road that winds down alongside the vineyard from the top of the hill, past the winery buildings, and to Roy's house.  Cheers!

First Recorded Dinner Party of 2006

This past weekend we broke the dinner party moratorium.  We invited one of our favorite people over and set about the business of cooking.  I didn't actually start planning the menu until the morning of the meal, and I knew that I wouldn't have more than a few hours to cook once I got back from the store, so I designed a menu that I could prepare quickly but that was classy nonetheless.  I think I succeeded admirably.

We had some technical problems with our digital camera.  Rebecca did a great job with the camera on my phone, though.

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Marinated Octopus
atop Bean Sprout, Pea Shoot, Daikon Radish, and Asian Pear salad 

OK, this was an easy one. considering that I bought the octopus already marinated.  I put together a salad of sprouts, pea shoots, and julienned Asian pear and tossed it in a Japanese-style dressing.  I then topped the salad with the octopus.  It was actually fairly good for a low-effort salad starter.  Next time I may try marinating my own octopus, as it's usually available in Chinatown fish shops.  (Well, the one I frequent at least.)

The recipe for dressing is worth remembering, so I'll put it down here:

• 3 parts soy sauce
• 1 part Shaoxing wine
• 1 part brown sugar or to taste
• 1 part rice wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
• 1 part sesame oil
• 1/2 part minced ginger

Make sure to use high quality light soy sauce.  I made the mistake of substituting dark soy sauce one time, and the result was somewhat less than delicious.

I made a version of this dressing later on in the week that went on a salad topped by pork loin that had been glazed with maple syrup.  Instead of using the brown sugar, I poured off the excess maple syrup into the dressing.  It was worth doing.

 

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Bluefoot Mushroom and Artichoke Ragu
in Puff Pastry

Bluefoot mushrooms are the cultivated version of (wild) Blewit mushrooms.  I've always wanted to taste Blewits, as they are reputed to have a stronger flavor than Bluefoots (feet?).  However, like many tasty wild mushrooms, Blewits have several poisonous dopplegangers.  This is why (no joke) the leading cause of death among mycologists is mushroom poisoning.  Think about that the next time you're tempted to pick a wild mushroom or become a mycologist.

Bluefeet are tasty nevertheless, and have a distinctive but mild flavor that make them perfect for many uses.  One disadvantage is their distinctive blue color, which means that the person in the checkout aisle is 87% less likely to mistake them for other kinds of mushrooms.  In contrast, I have been the recipient of the Fungal Ignorance Discount several times upon purchase of very pale, thick-stemmed Chantrelles, which are sometimes mistaken for trumpets by the foolish and unwary.

This dish was inspired by a recipe in James Peterson's Vegetables, which, like most of his books, is useful, informative, and entertaining.  The procedure is fairly simple, and I'll reproduce it here just so I can remember it:  Prepare some bacon lardons.  Cook some fresh artichoke hearts. (That's the tricky bit, but I'll leave it to others to explain that.  In a pinch, you can used frozen or canned (in that order of preference), but if you're using canned or jarred, make sure they're stored in water, not vinegar.) Cut puff pastry into squares or rectangles and bake until done.  In the meantime, saute mushrooms and shallots with herbs in butter (or, as I did, in duck fat).   Add the lardons, cream, and stock and reduce until the sauce is relatively thick.  Add the artichoke hearts and warm through.  Split the puff pastry down the middle and spoon the mixture between the two halves.  Drizzle the top of the mixture lightly with truffle oil.

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Seared Duck Breast
with Coconut Creamed Corn and Grits
and a Balsamic Strawberry Reduction

The duck breast itself was prepared simply:  rubbed with salt, pepper, five-spice, and herbes de provence and then pan-seared in duck fat until medium-rare. 

The strawberry sauce was also very simple.  I pureed a pound of strawberries with 3/4 cup of balsamic vinegar, pushed it through a fine mesh strainer, and then began reducing.  After reducing by half I added more balsamic vinegar and some brown sugar to balance the tartness of the vinegar and strawberries.   I reduced it again by half and swirled butter in just before serving.

The coconut creamed corn and grits were inspired by a recent meal at Azie, where we had a coconut milk risotto with duck and (as a separate side dish) creamed corn.  The risotto (we all thought) didn't pull its own weight, but the creamed corn was fantastic.  When I was considering what should go under the duck, I got an image of the two being combined.  I'm not sure how the risotto became grits in my head, but the result was very excellent and I think this will become a dinner party staple.

I decided to prepare the grits and the corn separately and combine them at the end.  I took the corn from four medium-sized cobs and cooked them in butter.  I added 3/4 c of coconut milk and a shot of pernod and cooked it down.  I then added pepper, parmesan, mascarpone, and chopped tarragon and cooked it through.

For the grits, I just warmed 2 tbsp of butter, 3/4 c stock, 3/4 c milk, and 1/2 c coconut milk and whisked in 1/2c of instant grits.  It cooks in about six minutes.  I then combined the two dishes.  Voila!

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Ginger Cake

Rebecca made this very tasty ginger cake to cap off the meal.  It used fresh ginger, candied ginger, and powdered ginger.   The topping was (I think) based on ginger jelly, put it was pleasantly tart -- probably had lemon juice in it.

It's great to be cooking (and blogging!) again.  I think I'm going to try to do it again this coming weekend, so stay tuned!

Reheat, Reuse, Recycle

You can't help but sympathize with all their talk about pervasive materialism and the scalability of modern lifestyles.  Nevertheless, there's something about the frugality subculture that gives me the willies.  I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is. Is it the sometimes thinly veiled crackpot ideologies?  The tedious aphorisms?  Or perhaps it's just the terrible, terrible food?  All I know is that I read their literature and I think that my idea of hell would be being trapped forever at a party with people like these and food like this.

(As an aside,  since it's the holiday season and all, I would like to take this opportunity to warn the many thousands of you who are no doubt racking your brains to determine what kind of gift you're going to get me this year that, no matter how frugal you are, I absolutely do not want any of these.  Although, if it's a choice between that and having you write me a poem from the heart...well, bring on the hot pads stuffed with rice.)

Alright, I'm done being snarky.  I must admit that there's something to be said for frugality.   When I throw a big dinner party, it makes me feel better about the cost and trouble of the event when I leverage the leftovers and unused ingredients in the following week's meals.  Last Monday, after the dinner party the previous weekend, Rebecca and I made quesedillas using (in part) cheese we'd purchased for the party.  And as I was making the salsa, I had a great idea -- why not add half of the pesto that I made for the party?  Since I only wound up using it for the salad dressing, there was plenty left over.  So I did, and a curious feeling came over me.  It was like I'd gotten away with something.  Like I'd gotten something for free.  Like I'd stolen it from someone who didn't deserve it.  This is what those frugal types must feel every day as they rinse out their I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter containers and haggle at yard sales.

Wednesday night I decided to make fish burgers, just to clean out the fridge.  Besides a few salmon steaks, I used all the leftover vegetables and herbs from the dinner party -- parsley, shiitake mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, a red bell pepper, ginger, garlic -- along with the rest of the bacon and tilapia that I'd purchased for the party. 

But using up ingredients isn't nearly as satisfying as reusing leftover prepared foods in ways that completely transform them. Into the mix went a bit of the salsa and the rest of the pesto. But the biggest coup was the two-day-old ciabatta that lay upon the coffee table.  (Or, er, speaking of reuse, upon the trunk that we use as a coffee table.)  I sliced it down the middle and then into thirds, toasted the heck out of it in the broiler, and then unleashed the fury of the Cuisinart.  In less than 10 minutes I had exactly as much breadcrumb as I needed to bind the fish burgers, with no need to sacrifice my precious, precious panko.

And you know what?  They were good!  It's no real loss that I didn't write down the recipe, as it was mostly odds and ends. But I did find this Chicken Burger recipe that's been sitting in my to-post bin for awhile now.  And I am all about reusing it.

Chicken Sausage Burgers

Ingredients:
1 1/4 lb boneless chicken thighs (or 1 2/3 lb with bones)
3/4 lb spicy italian sausage
1/4 cup pesto
1/4 cup cranberries
1 cup panko + more panko (you frugal types may substitute homemade bread crumbs)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp garlic
1 tbsp asian chili-garlic sauce
salt/pepper
tangy goat cheese

Procedure:

Salt and pepper the chicken thighs and sear them very quickly on the highest heat.  (You're not trying to cook them through.)  Put them in a food processor and pulse until well (but coarsely) ground.  Remand to a large stainless steel bowl.  Remove the sausage casings and put the sausage in the bowl.  Mix the sausage and chicken by hand.  Add the pesto, cranberries, garlic, chili sauce, egg yolk, panko, and another tablespoon of salt.  Mix.  Continue to add panko in 1/4 cup increments until the mixture coheres and you can work it with your hands without it sticking to them too badly.

Form mixture into patties.  Cook the patties on a skillet on medium heat until the internal temperature of the burger reaches 165 degrees (about 10 minutes, depending on the size of your patty).  Serve on a toasted bun with goat cheese and a slice of tomato.

Inspiration Optional?

I've been trying to put together a menu for this dinner party all week.  Nearly every evening for an hour or so, I pored over recipe books and websites, looking for ideas.  Normally, this is enough to generate more ideas than I could ever pursue for a single dinner party, many of them unusual and at least somewhat original.  I typically get very excited about the possibilities and can't wait to start shopping and prepping.

Not so this time.  For the life of me, I couldn't really come up with anything that I wanted to eat.  I felt as though someone had taken away some part of my brain that is responsible for cooking skills and desire.  Or perhaps I had been stricken with culinary impotence.

What kind of meal would this result in?  The best I could do was try to rework some dishes that I've already made a few times.  Here's what happened:

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Duck and Yellow Beet Salad
with Sage Walnut Romano Dressing

The salad consists of diced roasted golden beets, frisee, and shredded roast duck placed in equal volumes in separate piles in a bowl.  The dressing is poured over each pile.  This plating worked fairly well; my friend Eric commented that the dressing tasted different in each part of the salad.

The dressing began with a sage-walut pesto, made with sage, italian parsley, toasted walnuts, garlic, romano, and olive oil. To this I added Champagne vinegar, bacon fat, and prepared horseradish.

Originally I'd planned to duplicate my standard beet-orage salad, which uses cubes of beef, but with yellow beets instead of red.  The dressing was going to be made from orange juice, pureed yellow beets, and prepared horseradish.  But when things went awry with the sage-walnut pesto I'd planned for the pork dish described below, I decided to co-opt it for use as a salad dressing.  This worked out very well -- much better than I'd imagined.

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Strangely Uninspired Fish Stew

This is a fish stew with scallops, tilapia, squid heads, bacon lardons, a bit of smoked pork shank, green beans, shiitake mushrooms, and a few sun-dried tomatoes.  I served it with a square of puff pastry.

I made something like this a few weeks ago as a weeknight meal composed mainly of leftovers. It was fantastic.  I curse myself every day that I didn't write down the recipe.  This version took longer to make, was more expensive, and was about half as good.  It wasn't terrible...just strangely uninspired.

But one good thing did come out of it: an increased confidence with making good fish stock.  This stock was even better than the first.  Ingredients:  lots of ginger, some garlic, daikon radish, a huge fish head of some unknown provenance, two small yellow croakers, lots of mushroom stems, some Napa cabbage, and a pinch of herbes de provence.  Saute in some anchovy oil, olive oil, or duck fat.  Add some bones from a roast duck, from a smoked shank of pork, or whatever bones you have in the fridge. Add 1/2 bottle of white wine and a lot of water. Simmer lightly for 30-45 minutes.

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Maple-Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Dried Fruit

A simple preparation.  I seared the tenderloin over high heat, then set it aside.  I deglazed the pan with rum, and then covered the bottom of the pan with grade B maple syrup, which I feel is better for cooking than grade A.  I put the tenderloin back in the pan, turned them in the maple syrup, and put them in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or so, turning them in the syrup every five minutes. 

For the dried fruit mixture, I sauted some dried cherries and chopped dried apricots along with the rest of the bacon lardons in butter, added a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, a pinch of salt, and some brandy for good measure.

Another technique that I have increased confidence in as a result of this meal:  brining.  I used the Cook's Illustrated brine recipe:  1 quart of water to 1/2 cup of kosher salt to 1/2 cup of sugar.  I substituted molasses for half of the sugar.  I cut the tenderloin in half and brined it for about an hour and a half. The result was an unbelievably tender and juicy tenderloin.

The original title of this dish was "Pork Orgy", as it consisted of small servings of different cuts of pork with various preparations.  Along with the tenderloin, I was going to serve loin chop with the aforementioned pesto, strips of Chinatown BBQ pork with julienned vegetables, and mashed potatoes with bacon lardons.  But my lack of inspiration was taking its toll on my energy levels at this point; I was losing steam. So I just focused on one of the components.

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Grilled Goat Cheese Sandwich
on Raisin Bread with Honey and Basil

Rebecca put this delicious dessert together and took the very excellent photographs pictured here.  This was a great end to the meal and is a valuable addition to our repertoire, as it is very quick to make, and we don't always have the energy at the end of a meal to make a complex dessert. 

Despite the lack of inspiration, I wouldn't count this dinner party as a failure.  Except for the fish stew, the dishes were unexpectedly satisfactory -- good, even -- and each one built my confidence in a technique or approach that I don't use very much.  Maybe inspiration isn't absolutely necessary for a good menu. 

First SF Dinner Party: Menu

In Irvine, I had a bad habit of throwing dinner parties and forgetting to take pictures of the dishes as they went out to the table.  Worse yet, sometimes I would take pictures and forget to blog about them later.  After moving back to San Francisco, I promised myself I'd photograph and blog every dinner party I threw.  Well, I nearly fell off the wagon on the first go-round.

Two weeks ago we threw the first dinner party in the new place, and I only took one servicable picture, and I nearly forgot to write the whole thing up.  Here's the lone picture and what I remember of the dishes.

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Amuse Bouche:
Dates Stuffed with Stilton

I was going for something unexpected and fun here.  There's a delicate balance which, when achieved, it tastes pretty good.  If one of the flavor elements dominates, which is easy to do with the stilton, it tastes one-dimensional and flat.   In truth, I think it needs a third ingredient to tie the two tastes together more tightly, but I'm not sure what it would be, especially given that it would have to fit inside of a half of a date that's already stuffed with cheese.  Interesting, but I don't think I'll be pursuing it further.

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Tomato Porcini Soup
with Olive Tapenade on Crostini

I haven't made a tomato soup in a long time, so I thought I'd break it out for this party.  This soup is made with porcini mushroom stock, the reconstituted porcinis themselves, white wine, good canned tomatoes, some herbes de provence, a little sour cream and one lone carrot.  There is enough porcini flavor to come through as a dusky, brooding undertone, but not enough to drag the focus away from the  bright, acidic tomatoes.

The epitome of tomato soup, for me and for a surprising number of people, is from Bistro Jeanty.  For me, it's nearly an ancestral memory, since it's been five years since I had it last.  I remember a number of great things about it, but one of them is a particular indescribably round, golden, delicious flavor that I've never known how to even attempt to duplicate in my versions.  This time, I remembered an email that someone sent me years ago that made some suggestions as to how to improve my soup.  I used a couple of them and tripped across the answer.

The "secret", as it turns out, is merely to swirl a metric sh--load of butter into the soup just before serving.  That's it.  Am I a dullard or what?  The thing is, when you taste it in the soup, it doesn't come across exactly like butter.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  Anyhow, if you make a tomato soup, try it the next time you have a dinner party.  It is totally worth the calories, at least when you're making it for guests.  Don't just do it for your own dinner unless you're terminally skinny, because it's quite addictive.

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Baked Goat Cheese Salad
with Frisee, Mache, Lardons, and a Truffle Vinaigrette

I use Cook's Illustrated's approach to making the goat cheese rounds -- freeze a log of goat cheese, cut it into rounds, roll it in herbs, egg, and then Melba Toast crumbs, and bake.  It generally turns out well.  (Though I'm not nearly as enamored with the magazine as I was when I first started cooking, I find that I still use it quite a bit, and this is exactly the sort of preparation that it is useful for.)

This is another dish I haven't made in awhile.  Last time, I used roasted white asparagus and a basalmic redux.  This time, I just tossed the greens with truffle oil and good port vinegar.  I prefer the reduction, but I think the tossing method works better with loose greens like this.

I'd like to try this recipe with an aged goat cheese.

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Open-faced Salmon Wellington
with Caramelized Leeks and Fennel,
  Artichoke Creme Fraiche,
and a White Wine Tarragon Cream Sauce

Yes, you read that right, leeks and fennel.  In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court of home ruled that in this instance it was okay to cook these ingredients and add them to the dish as long as Rebecca's didn't have any in hers.

This was basically a rectangular slice of puff pastry underneath a bit of salmon fillet, with the artichoke bit in between and the sauteed leeks and fennel on top.  The "artichoke creme fraiche" was essentially a modified version of my baked crab artichoke dip, but that isn't nearly a fancy enough name for this dish, now, is it?

I chose this format partially because I thought it might be easier to prep than a regular wellington.  It actually turns out to be a lot fussier, because the elements are cooked separately and then assembled at the end, so you have to worry about timing everything properly.  By the time I got everything to the table, nothing was at the right temperature.  Nevertheless, it has its advantages in dinner parties because portion control is far easier, and because the puff pastry won't get soggy.

--//--

Maple Ginger Coffee Glazed Pork Loin
on Molasses Coffee Rounds
with Roasted Figs and Root Vegetable Brunoise

I found the flavor of these cookies so intriguing that I thought they might be good in a savory recipe, perhaps as a pie crust.  This was my first attempt to use the recipe in a savory context.  I cut back on the sugar and the baking soda and pressed them a little thinner.

The resulting dish was, I thought, a success.  Arguably, the flavor of the rounds is a bit too strong for pork.  One of my guests suggested lamb or venison, which I did try later on that week.  It was also good, but not the dream combination of flavors that I was hoping for.

I may try to groom this into a signature dish.  It's unsual enough that people will remember it, and if I can get the balance of flavors just right, it could be very good.  It's the sort of dish that people talk about.  A few weeks later, at a Labor Day Barbeque, I was the "Pork Cookie Guy".

IMBB #17, Tea: Assam Creme Brulee Recipe

Living in Chinatown means never having to say that you're out of tea.  In fact, we have so much tea that for this month's IMBB, we decided to create a whole tea menu rather than a single dish!  Even so, one of the dishes stood head and shoulders above the others.  I've provided the recipe for it below; it's the last of the three dishes, so if you're feeling impatient and want to get to the good parts, you can just skip to the end right now.  Hey, that's okay, I won't be offended.  No, really, I'm sure you're very busy.

Cold Corn and Honeydew Soup with Lobster

I've made this dish several different ways, and I've been happy with it every time, but I'm convinced there's an even better soup in here waiting to get out.  It usually draws raves, but I know I can do better.  You'll have to wait until I'm completely satisfied with it before I give you the recipe.  I'll outline the general procedure, however, if you want to experiment with me.

Here's what I did this time:  Begin with six ears of corn.  Cut the kernels off of four of them and throw them in a blender or food processor.  Turn it on and leave the room for a few minutes.  Throw the corn liquid through a strainer.  A wet mass of corn will stay in the strainer.  Don't be afraid.  Roll the corn mass around in the strainer with a deft wrist motion and more of the liquid will strain.  Eventually you will wind up with a relatively dry mass of corn mush in the strainer. Put this back in the food processor.  Core half of the honeydew melon. Throw this in the blender along with the corn mush.  Blend this for a few minutes as well.  Strain this in the same fashion.

Pour the liquid into a saucepan along with 1/2 cup of white wine.  Add the core of four or five lemongrass stalks and some fresh ginger.  Bring to just below a boil.  Add a handful of good quality white tea (we used Drum Mountain White Cloud) and let steep according to the tea's instructions.  Refrigerate until cool.

In the meantime, remove the kernels from the remaining two ears of corn.  Add commensurate amounts of cucumber and honeydew melon in very small dice.  Salt to taste.

Remove the cool soup base.  Add freshly ground cardamom, white pepper, and a dash or two of cayenne pepper.  Whisk in 1/2 cup or more of plain yogurt.  Add lemon juice and a judicious amount of salt.

To serve, pour the soup in the bottom of a wide, flat bowl.  Mound the vegetable mixture in the middle, and top with chunks of lobster.

Everyone seemed to like this incarnation very well, but I couldn't help but feel that it didn't quite live up to its potential.  I remember liking the original version, which doesn't add tea or cook the soup at all, a little better than this one.  I think cooking removes this soup's freshness, which is one of its primary assets.  It seems to kill the color as well.  The hints of white tea in the soup were definitely interesting, however.  Maybe I can figure out a way to add tea flavor to the soup base without cooking it.

Duck Bastilla

Bastilla is a perfect dinner party dish.  It's unusual, impressive-looking, tastes great, and though it requires a fair amount of preparatory work, much of it can be done ahead of time, and it doesn't take long to cook once assembled.

The filling of a bastilla consists of meat (traditionally pigeon; we usually use chicken) and scrambled eggs along with ground almonds and spices.  For this variation we added ground Lychee Black tea and cut back on the sugar a bit.  In the end, the tea flavor didn't come through as much as we wanted, however.

Assam Creme Brulee

Ingredients:

4 egg yolks
2 cups whipping cream
1 tablespoon rum
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Assam black tea
Raspberries

Directions:

To begin with make sure you are using a good quality Assam tea.  We used Assam Sessa Estate, Second Flush.

Mix cream and sugar in a saucepan.  Heat the mixture to just below a simmer.  Add the Assam and let steep for 7 minutes.  Strain out the tea and pour the mix back into the saucepan.  Whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl.  Add the cream mix to the yolks a bit at a time so that the yolks don't curdle, whisking as you do.  Add the rum and the vanilla.

Pour the mixture into five ramekins.  Put the ramekins into a shallow baking pan and fill the pan with water halfway up the sides of the ramekins.  Bake 30 minutes or until the center of the custard is nearly solid.  Refrigerate for at least two hours.  Press brown sugar through a strainer to create a thin layer of sugar on top of the custard.  Broil until the sugar melts and covers the custard -- this shouldn't take but a minute or so.  Refrigerate another hour or two.  Serve topped with raspberries.

Evaluation:

The Assam adds an incredibly rich flavor to the custard that is difficult to describe.  It's surprisingly coffeelike, actually, but it's where it's different that it's most interesting.  The musky, earthy flavors are quite beguiling.  When such a simple variation can make an old saw like creme brulee be described as "beguiling", it's definitely worth taking notice.

Paper Chef #5: Stuffed Squid, Savory Cheesecake, and Proscuitto "Candy"

When I first read the ingredient list for this month's Paper Chef, I was a little worried.  Prosciutto, sherry vinegar, and goat cheese are all fairly common items around here, but I've never really noticed green garlic in any of the stores that I frequent.  I called four or five nearby grocery stores just in case.  Sure enough, no one carried it.  Most of the produce managers had never even heard of it.  It looked as though we'd have to substitute regular garlic, which annoyed me.

Our last hope was the Irvine Farmer's Market, which just happens to be across the street from us.  Rebecca went there to investigate while I did some final kitchen cleanup.  I was expecting her to come home empty-handed, so I was quite surprised to see her bearing green garlic from three different vendors!  As a side note, they called it "young garlic" or "fresh garlic" instead of "green garlic"; if you're calling around for it, you might try these terms when the produce manager says "no, we only have the white kind".

First, a note on prosciutto.  I don't know why it's so often served in paper-thin slices, wrapped around other food items.  I can only assume that cutting it thinly is a way to stretch it, since it is so expensive.   I think it's usually too chewy to be enjoyed this way.  I prefer to get a few thickly cut slices , dice them small, and then saute them to get some caramelization (well, okay, technically it's a maillard reaction, but who is picking nits?).  This is the procedure that I used in the main dishes.

Green Garlic and Goat Cheese Cheesecake

In this savory "cheesecake", green garlic bulbs are minced and sauteed until they are mildly sweet.  They are then mixed in with goat cheese, mascarpone, and eggs and poured on top of a shortbread crust in a springform pan and baked in a water bath.  While the cheesecake is in the oven, a maple/sherry vinegar gastrique is prepared (caramelize some brown sugar, add a bit of maple syrup, then dissolve the result in an equal volume of sherry vinegar), diced prosciutto is sauteed, and the two are combined for the topping.

The result is served warm and as a result has a texture more like a heavy souffle or a light quiche than a dessert cheesecake.  It wasn't nearly as good cold; I suspect it would need some sugar in order to succeed as a more traditional cheesecake, if not enough to make it actually sweet.  I haven't provided an explicit recipe because I feel it could do with some tweaking, but  I thought it was a promising direction, and the guests seemed to agree.

Squid Stuffed with Seafood and Green Garlic Risotto

The risotto is straightforward:

1. Saute 2 cups chopped green garlic and the 1/2 cups diced prosciutto in olive oil.
2. Add 3 cups uncooked Arborio rice and stir, cooking until translucent.
3. Add 1 1/2 cups white wine and a shot of Pernod.  Stir until it is mostly absorbed.
4. Add a cup of hot seafood stock.  Stir until it is absorbed.  Repeat ad infinitum.
5. When the rice has about three minutes left, add two cups or more of mixed seafood chopped into bite-sized pieces.   Shrimp, mussels, lobster, crab, and scallops all work well, but feel free to use whatever is available.
6. At the very end, crumble in 6 oz of goat cheese, diced fresh herbs (I used tarragon and the green ends of the garlic) and stir through.

This risotto is good enough to stand on its own, but of course this is Paper Chef -- we had to take it one step further.

1. Take your washed and cleaned squid bodies.  Stuff them 1/3 full of the risotto.  You read that right!  The squid bodies will shrink quite substantially, so if you don't want them to split during cooking, be careful!
2. Bake in a covered, lightly greased casserole for about an hour.
3. In the meantime, add 1 cup of seafood stock and 1/2 cup of white wine.  Reduce by half.  Add a tablespoon or two of sherry vinegar and 1/2 cup of heavy cream.
4. Plate the squid bodies atop a small mound of risotto, and ladle a tablespoon or two of the sauce on top.

We didn't have enough squid bodies to go around, so the other servings were topped with seared fresh ono fillet.  That is one tasty fish.  It is no accident that "ono" means "good to eat" in Hawaiian.

Prosciutto and Goat Cheese "Candy"

The purest expression of the ingredients was prepared by Rebecca.  A green garlic and goat cheese puree, a dab of the sherry vinegar gastrique, and a piece of a date are wrapped in proscuitto -- thin slices this time.  The ends are pinched like little candy wrappers.  The little packages are then sauteed briefly to crisp the prosciutto.  The result is a tasty little morsel that's greater than the sum of its parts.

In Summary

This was a fun menu to work with.  Despite the fact that all three of the dishes featured all four of the Paper Chef ingredients, none of them tasted alike.  In each, the key ingredients are experienced in different ways.  Green garlic, for instance, is suffused throughout the fluffy goat cheese mixture in the first; in the second the coarsely chopped pieces can be eaten individually, and the minced green tops lend an herbaceous note to the finished product.  While it's the textural elements of the goat cheese that's strongly experienced in the cheesecake, they are completely absent in the risotto, where the cheese's primary contribution is a perfect tangy-sour backdrop to the seafood flavors. 

What will enter my permanent repertoire?  The prosciutto candies are good appetizers (though we served them as dessert).  I'll continue to work on the savory cheesecake -- it has the potential to be quite good.  I'll buy ono when I see it, despite the general consensus that mahimahi is better.  The goat cheese - seafood risotto is an excellent combination that I've never had before and was, in my opinion, the catch of the day.  I may try to develop this into a signature dish.

IMBB #12: Lamb Fries and Beef Tongue

There aren't a lot of foods that I dislike.  Oh, I've pretended to be horrified at the thought of eating, say, human placenta, but when it comes right down to it, I'd probably dig right in, if it was prepared well. Rebecca and I racked our brains for awhile and the only thing we could find that it disturbs me to eat is “Jello”.  I find jello to be deeply insulting.  It hurts me to be served jello.  I am not sure why.

That having been said, there are plenty of ingredients that I have been afraid to work with in the kitchen, mostly because I've never had them prepared for me, so even if I have a recipe to work with, I have no idea what the end result should look (or taste) like.

When I heard that the theme of IMBB #12 would be “Is My Blog Taboo”, I figured it might be a good time to take on some of those challenges.  Oh, sure, I could have wimped out and done oxtail, which I work with all the time, or beef cheeks, which I made a few weeks ago.  But the real question was this:  did I have the balls to take some risks and do something new instead?  Well, I didn't.  But I knew where to get some.

Lamb Fries

Montana Tendergroin.  Rocky Mountain Oysters.  Barnyard Jewels, Cowboy Caviar.  Swinging Beef.  Bull testicles got all the cool names.  The little rams got the shaft. One thing I know for sure, though, is that the “lamb fry” name has got to go.  It's not really fair to anyone.  It's deceptive marketing, for sure.  Might as well rename durian the “Sun Fruit” or something.

Testicles – whatever their origin – are not upscale food.  Most recipes that I have found are quite straightforward.  Unfortunately they are even briefer than they are simple, and omit certain details that someone who has never cooked up a batch of testes might want to know.  Here's an actual example:

Blanch, strip, drain, and dry the fries. Cut thinly.  Bread and fry.

Whoa, wait a minute!  That's not a recipe, it's an intention.  Here's the process I used, learned from what I could glean from the Internet as well as a brief process of trial and error:

• Blanch testes for 5 minutes.  This solidifies the insides enough that you can strip the outer membrane. (Before this, they feel like water balloons.)  Make sure the water is only barely simmering, as too much of a rolling boil can cause the balls to explode. (Ouch!)

• Peel off the thick outer membrane using a very sharp knife.  This is the most difficult and annoying part of the whole process.  Start at the Hole That Nature Made – that will make things easier for you.

• Cut into thin slices.  This is another reason you'll need a sharp knife, as the insides are still somewhat gelatinous at this point.

• Marinate for at least one hour.  A simple vinaigrette makes a good marinade, or try something using beer for more cultural authenticity.

• Pat the slices dry.  Salt and pepper them.  Dip them in flour, then into a (beaten) egg, then into panko or bread crumbs.  Shallow fry them until the breading is a deep golden brown.  Serve immediately.

There you have it.  Like most deep fried entities, these are best eaten immediately after being made.  And you know what?  I don't know that I'll be making these again, but all in all, they weren't too bad.  You can bread and fry anything and it tastes pretty much the same.  It's definitely the most approachable way to eat testicles.  Just don't eat too many; you'll spoil your appetite for the tongue.

Beef Tongue in a Rich Tomato Sauce.

There's an old joke that goes like this:

A guy went into a restaurant and asked 'What's the special of the day?'
'Beef tongue,' the waiter replied.
'Ugh!', the guy said, 'That's disgusting!  I won't eat anything that comes out of a cow's mouth.  Fry me up a couple of eggs!'

I think we're all in agreement that people's food preferences are pretty arbitrary.  You must admit, though, that a beef tongue can be pretty formidable to someone who has never prepared one before – or seen it prepared.  I seriously had no idea what to expect.  For instance, I assumed that the whole of the tongue was a dense, solid meat, kind of like – and I say this with full awareness of how stupid it makes me sound – kind of like a bologna.

In fact the pink part is just a piece of skin, and just like many other pieces of skin, what lies underneath is a thin layer of goop (technical term) and then a muscle.  What you eat is the muscle.

As you might imagine from all of the talking that cows do,  the muscle is quite lean and tough and must be subjected to a long braising or boiling.  After that, though, things change. The tip of the tongue is made up of long muscle strand like brisket, only it's softer and more tender than any brisket ever could be.  The back of the tongue is denser and more solid, but still has a melt-in-your-mouth texture that is difficult to describe.  It's little wonder that Mexicans (the real ones, not the mythical ones that made the menu at your neighborhood Taco Casa) use this meat in burritos.  It's miles above, say, ground beef.

Ingredients:

1 2 to 3 lb beef tongue
4c cider, wine, beer, stock, or combination thereof.
3 cloves garlic, whole
Fresh herbs.

6-7 cloves Garlic, minced
1 onion
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/3 soy sauce
2 c beer – preferably Strong Brown ale or Belgian-style
2-3 tbsp tamarind paste
2 tbsp molasses
4 pcs thick cut bacon, cut into lardons
3 tbsp fresh tarragon
1 14 oz can tomatoes

• Wash the tongue.  You can scrub it, or you can blanch it in boiling water with a cup of vinegar added to it, like I did.
• Rinse out pot or pressure cooker.  Add tongue, 4 cups of cooking liquid (as above), fresh herbs, and garlic cloves.  Braise for 1 hours (pressure cooker) or 2 hours (normal pot).
• Towards the end of this time, fry the bacon in a medium-sized pot and reserve it, leaving the rendered fat in the pan.  Saute the onion in the bacon fat until it is nearly translucent.  Add the garlic and saute.  Add the tomato paste and saute until it browns slightly.  (You need to be done cooking the tongue by this time if you're using the pressure cooker.)  Add the can of tomatoes, 2 ½ cups of the braising liquid, the bay leaf, the soy sauce, the beer, the tamarind, the molasses and the tarragon.  Let cook for 20 minutes.  Puree the sauce in  small batches in a blender or food processor.  Thicken the sauce if you like.
• Remove the outer layer of skin from the tongue.  It should slough off very easily now.  Cut the tongue into slices.  Add the tongue slices and the bacon lardons to the sauce. Cook 10 minutes.  Serve.

One caveat:  the part that I am least sure about is the braising time.  Recipes I consulted to compare with have wildly differing cooking times.  I actually braised for about an hour and a half in a pressure cooker, and I thought that was a bit much – the outer edges of the tongue were a bit mushy.  Maybe they get this way no matter what.  Regardless, the meat should be pretty much done by the time you take it out of its initial braise, so if the meat at the back of the tongue isn't tender and succulent, braise it for another half hour and check it again.  If you do try this recipe and have a different experience, drop me an email and let me know.

Other Resources:

If you were wowed by the thought eating lamb testicles, you love boobies, and you live in or near Montana or are willing to drive there on your Harley or in your motor home, you should check out the nation's one and only (as far as I'm aware) Testicle Festival.  Lots of “fries” of various kinds for you to eat, and for some reason, while you're there, women of varying degrees of attractiveness will take their tops off!  Must be all that testosterone in the food.

If, on the other hand, the thought of eating human placenta gets you going, there are many resources for you to check out.  (Apparently, it's far more popular than testicles and boobies.)  Also  be sure to check out the hilarious Straight Dope column on the subject.  And don't worry, there's still somewhat of a likelihood that you'll get flashed while waiting in line for your placenta -- I hear those new mothers wear some pretty skimpy outfits when going into delivery.  Whoa, mama!

Peppadews of Madness, Empanadas of Malcontent

Peppadews and I'm losing my mind

The Peppadew is a sweet, tangy, mildly spicy pickled pepper from South Africa.  It's got an appealing flavor profile:  It starts out sweet, then gets tangy, and then finishes with a warm, suffused heat.  It's hard to tell how much of this is due to the nature of the pepper itself and how much is due to the brine.  (The peppers are not available fresh.)

I made the appetizer pictured by stuffing a cube of aged Cheddar inside a Peppadew and pinning a wad of soppressata to it with a toothpick.  Quite good.

I don't know how it happened, but for well over a year I've been thinking that a Peppadew was some kind of pepper crossbred with a honeydew melon. It seems silly in retrospect, but I swear it made sense at the time. The most disturbing thing is that I have absolutely no idea how I came to think that.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't from the friend that introduced them to me.  And I'm equally certain that I've never met another living soul that had heard of them before I gave them one.  So just where did this crazy idea come from? 

Was it just a stray hypothesis based on the name and the fact that they're kind of sweet (which actually comes from the brine) that somehow transmuted in my brain into a fact? The autogeny of an urban legend usually occurs during transmission between people, and it's a bit bothersome to think that I'm giving birth to them all by myself.  Okay, maybe I'm taking this a bit too seriously.

The truth is that, outside of the company line, which is largely content-free, not much information is available about what the Peppadew actually is.  Urban legends reproduce well in low-information environments.  In fact, I suggest that you can see one in action right now with regard to the Peppadew -- one besides my own, that is.  The original company materials noted that Peppadews looked like little cherry tomatoes. One way of expressing this resemblance was to say that Peppadews "looked like a cross between" a pepper and a tomato. Possibly after having read such a description, some people decided that Peppadews also tasted like such a cross. A lot of people began reporting that the product was "sort of a cross between" them. It's not really clear what they meant by "sort of a cross"; most likely they didn't know either and didn't care to take the trouble to clarify matters. Then, finally, the genesis of an urban legend:  somewhere, in some random mutation, the "sort of" got dropped.  People began reporting that the Peppadew was a cross between a pepper and a tomato.

Like all good urban legends, this one has some associated facts that lend it just enough support to seem credible enough to propagate:  besides the taste and the look, the discoverer of the plant and the creator of the product was a tomato farmer.

Ordinarily I'd make fun of the originators of such stories as sloppy thinkers and lazy writers, but look at me!  Up until last week, I told people that it was the product of an interracial union between a pepper and a melon!  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  (I'd also like to point out that when it came time for me to put something down in writing about it, I did enough digging to find out that I was wrong.)

So what, then, is the Peppadew?  Some people suggest that it's a hitherto obscure pepper from Central America.  Others suggest that it is a pepper hybrid (no, between two peppers) of recent provenance. Either way, it's a fun little fruit.  Check it out.

Recently, Jeanne over at Cook Sister talked about peppadews from a perspective that's closer to the source.  Have a look.

Empanadas disappoint

I made empanadas the same night that I made Peppadew-on-a-stick.  I had a grand idea: a pork shoulder, black bean, plantain, and currant filling.  I slowly braised the pork shoulder and shredded it like I normally do, briefly boiled the plantains, added the beans and the currants, threw in a goodly bit of lime juice, and let the whole mixture cook together for awhile.  The end result?  Ho hum.  Eatable, but entirely unremarkable.  I had a great idea for a recipe, good ingredients, and flawless technique (ha!), but things still didn't work out.  Sometimes you just can't catch a break.

I'm not sure where to lay the blame.  The pork was probably underspiced, but that could hardly be the sole culprit.  The empanada dough I made, while functional, lacked character. It probably would have been better if I'd had some masa harina.  Still, something else was missing...

I'm eager to try again, though, using masa harina in the dough and with a different recipe for a filling.  Any suggestions?