The Confabulist

Seafood Chowder Deconstruction Project

I'd originally intended this to be a pan-seared Steelhead fillet with shiitake mushrooms in a light milk sauce of some sort.  Early in the day, though, word came down that one of my dinner guests did not like mushrooms.  At around the same time, I ran across a recipe for "almond milk" (not real almond milk; really just toasted almonds braised in milk), and I thought that toasted almonds might add a similar woodsy note that I was going for with the shiitakes. 

In a note to the recipe, the authors mention something about clam chowder, and my mind was off racing:  a milk-braised Steelhead fillet as the centerpiece in some kind of deconstructed chowder nouveau.  Well, maybe half-constructed.

The dish, at least in my opinion, succeeded far beyond my original ambition for it.  It may be a little fiddly, but it's nearly technique-free.  The light milk broth is an excellent stand-in for the traditionally heavy chowder base.  Roasted celeriac one-ups potatoes here -- celeriac is definitely an underused foodstuff.  The almonds and nutmeg provide an intriguing earthy backdrop.  I think this was great food, and I may groom it into one of my staples. But then, I'm always inordinately fond of my concept dishes.

Ingredients

• 1 smallish celeriac
• 1 leek
• 1 bulb of fennel

• 1/2 cup sliced almonds
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp flour
• 2 cups milk

• 2 cups cream
• 2 (additional) cups milk

• 1 Steelhead fillet, big enough four 4 small servings
• 10-15 cooked crawfish with body fat
• 3-4 strips of good quality bacon

• salt
• truffle salt
• pepper
• cayenne pepper

Mise en place

Peel the celeriac.  (Well, you don't really peel a celeriac as much as cut away the thick, dirty outer skin.)  Cut into small, evenly-sized cubes.  Chop the bacon into lardons.  Chop the leek into thin rings. Chop the fennel into medium-sized pieces about the same size as the celeriac cubes, or slightly smaller.   

Execution

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. 

Break out the Pyrex roasting pan.  Place the celeriac cubes in a pile in the center.  Salt and pepper the cubes.  Drizzle olive oil over the pile, and mix up the pile with your hands.  Spread evenly over the bottom of the pan.  Roast for 10-15 minutes, stirring and checking every five minutes.  The cubes should be glistening and toothsome.  Put them in a bowl and set them aside.

Saute the almonds in 2 tbsp of butter until they are nicely toasted, being careful not to burn them.  Stir in 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1 tsp flour.  Take the pan off of the heat and let it cool off for 1 minute.  Add the 2 cups of milk, stir through, and put back on gentle heat, bringing it to just below boiling.  (Be careful not to let it boil, or it may curdle.)  Then lower the heat.  Add a pinch of cayenne, and pepper and truffle salt to taste.  If you have crawfish with the shells, you can add the shells with the milk.  If you are using frozen crawfish tails with fat on them, as I did -- you can pour the liquid that was at the bottom of the bag after it's defrosted.  If you are lucky enough to be able to easily get fresh or frozen crawfish fat, you can probably just substitute that for butter.  (And if you do try that let me know how it turns out.)

Pour the milk and the cream into a pot large enough to accomodate the steelhead fillets (but small enough that the 4 cups of liquid will submerge them).  Bring the mixture to just below boiling.  Place the steelhead fillets in the pan and cook until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest fillet reads 135 degrees.

Meanwhile, Saute the bacon lardons.  Remove, retaining 1-2 tbsp of the fat in the pan.  Saute the leeks and the fennel in the bacon fat.  Remove.  Gently reheat the crawfish meat in the bacon fat.

Now you can assemble the dish.  For each serving, put the fillet in the center of a heated, flat-bottomed bowl.  Ladle the milk over it, making sure that you include some of the almonds. Add a portion of the celeriac, bacon, leeks, and crawfish.  Eat immediately.  Serves 4.

Ingredient quality can really make a difference here.  It will taste good no matter what, but finding good quality fish, crawfish, and bacon can really make it stand out.

Allez cuisine!

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.

--//--

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.

 

--//--

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.

--//--

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!

--//--

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.

SHF #11, Coffee: Molasses-coffee cookie recipe

Milk and cookies

My first Sugar High Friday!  In an interesting coincidence, the first blog event that I participated in since my move back to San Francisco was IMBB #17, whose theme was Tea, and for which I also made (among other things) a dessert.  But where an Assam-infused creme brulee was intriguing and at least slightly exotic, coffee creme brulee is pretty much old hat.  In fact, the use of coffee in desserts is fairly well explored.  So did I work to find some exotic and unfamiliar way to use it?  Nope.  Instead, I made the first dessert you ever had:  milk and cookies.

Molasses-coffee cookies

Here I tried to make the chewiest possible molasses cookie with coffee flavors as a strong counterpoint.  I cut back on the spices that I'd normally put in (ginger, cloves, etc.) in order to let the main ingredients take center stage.   The coffee adds considerable adult interest to this already tasty cookie.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 1/2 sticks butter, melted
1/2 c dark brown sugar
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 large egg plus one yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 c unsulphured molasses
2 tbsp coffee liqueur (e.g. Kahlua)
3 tbsp instant coffee

Directions:

Grind instant coffee into a fine powder using a mortar and pestle (or coffee grinder, or what have you).  Whisk flour, spices, soda, salt, and coffee together in a medium-sized bowl.  In another bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together for 2 or 3 minutes using a mixer.  Add eggs, vanilla extract, liqueur, and molasses and work them in.  Add dry ingredients and and work them in. 

Grab about 2 tablespoons' worth of dough and roll it into a ball.  Roll this ball in granulated sugar.  Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 12-14 minutes.  Be aware that the cookies will not feel as though they are done when you take them out.  They should barely be starting to set at the edges (and I do mean barely) and should still feel very foamy in the middle when you remove them from the oven.

Coffee "Milkshake"

This "milkshake" is designed to go with the cookies, so it's purposely not very thick -- a bit more "milk" than "shake".  For some reason, I felt like the use of coffee ice cream was cheating, but I suspected that adding too much coffee would make the resulting shake less creamy and too watered down.  So instead, I opted to infuse the milk with coffee directly, and add only a little coffee to the end result.  The result was a very tasty milk-like beverage with nice coffee overtones, rather than a thick coffee milkshake or something like a frappuccino. 

1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup cold coffee
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
3 tbsp kahlua
Cinnamon for garnish

Heat the milk and the cream in a saucepan to 205 degrees F, or just below boiling.  Pour the milk along with 5 tablespoons of ground coffee into a french press.  Let steep for 4 minutes.  Press the result and let sit for 30 seconds.  Pour the result into an airtight container and place in the refrigerator until it cools.

Combine all liquid ingredients and blend with a traditional or a stick blender.  Sprinkle with cinnamon  and serve.  This recipe makes 2 shakes.

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.

Reuben Sandwich Recipe

If I were marooned on a desert island and the menu from the only restaurant within swimming distance consisted of three types of sandwiches, I would want those sandwiches to be:

1. Soppressata with aged pecorino, ripe roma tomatoes, mayonnaise and dijon mustard on ciabatta,
2. Prosciutto, Stilton, and fig preserves baked into a sourdough round, and
3. A Pastrami Reuben between thick slices of toasted pumpernickel.

These closely edge out Banh Mi Dac Biet, Muffaletta, and Croque Madame, which would probably be next on the list in that order.  (Of course, if you ask me next week, that might all change.)  This weekend, for my last meal cooking for friends in the Orange County area, I decided to whip up some Reubens.

The traditional Reuben sandwich consists of corned beef, Russian dressing, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese on rye bread.  Contemporary versions sometimes use Thousand Island instead of the closely related Russian dressing and pastrami instead of the closely related corned beef.

An incredible amount of lore surrounds the sandwich and its primary condiment.  No less than three different creation stories exist for the sandwich itself.  If you're interested in contemporary food folklore at all, take the time to check out this incredibly fascinating article by Jim Rader of Merriam-Webster that evaluates the credibility of these claims.  The section on the Reuben begins about halfway down the page.

As far as why the dressing is called "Russian", it is asserted that it's because

• Early recipes included caviar [link].
• Early recipes included yogurt, which at the time was thought of as being a food that Russians consumed [link].
• it was pink, and in America at the time of the dressing's invention, Russian salads were thought of as having pink dressings [link].

The Bread:

The Reuben is most at home on dark Russian rye.  Pumpernickel will do, though, and quite frankly I don't exactly know what the difference is.  For this occasion, however, I decided to go in a non-traditional direction.  I bought the meats and other ingredients at a grocery store that caters to a Middle Eastern clientele, and they bake gorgeous flatbreads and sell them to you straight out of the oven.  As you can see in the picture above, I used these to wrap the Reuben filling, pinning it together with a toothpick.  This worked out very well.  The flatbread's flavor and texture worked spectacularly with the Reuben filling.  Sacrilege?  Maybe, but it's very tasty sacrilege.

The Contents:

• Pastrami (about 1/3 - 1/2 lb per sandwich)
• Gruyere or other Swiss cheese
• Sauerkraut

The Dressing:

There's no reason to use bottled Thousand Island dressing when you can make a much better Russian dressing at home in short order.

Russian Dressing:

• 1 c mayonnaise
• 1/4 c sour cream
• 1/4 c ketchup
• 1 tbsp horseradish
• 2 tbsp good wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
• 1 tbsp celery seed or fennel seed
• 2 tbsp finely chopped dill pickle
• 2 tbsp finely chopped shallots (optional)
• 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Makes about 1 1/2 cups of dressing, or enough for 6 sandwiches.

The Assembly:

Normally, the sandwich is assembled, a little butter is put down on a hot pan, and the whole sandwich is grilled until the cheese melts and the bread is toasted.  My procedure is quite different, partially due to my preferences, and partially due to the constraints provided by the wrap.  I enjoyed the result immensely, though, so I may use this as the model for all of my future Reubens.

1. Shred the Gruyere.
2. Shred the Pastrami coarsely with your hands.
3. Mix the Pastrami, the Gruyere, and half of the sauce together in a bowl.
4. Microwave the mixture for 45 seconds per serving, or until the edges of the pastrami crisp.
5. Squeeze all of the liquid out of the sauerkraut.
6. Put down a thin layer of sauce on the bread.  Add the pastrami mixture and top with sauerkraut.
7. If you're using regular bread slices, grill the sandwich in a pan with a bit of butter.

The Dessert:

Balsamic Strawberry Shortbread:  an old standby, but it's quick and easy and sooo good.  Which, one presumes, is why it's an old standby.  Rebecca whipped up some shortbread, and between that and a little ice cream, you have a perfect dessert for company.  (The ice cream is in the center below the strawberries in the picture.)

The procedure is simple enough:

1. Slice 16 oz of fresh strawberries.
2. Pour 1/4 cup of good balsamic vinegar over the slices.
3. Add 2-3 tbsp of brown sugar and mix through.
4. Let mixture sit for 45 minutes in the refrigerator, tossing the mixture every 15 minutes.
5. Serve over ice cream, shortbread, puff pastry, cheesecake, or whatever you have lying around.
6. Top with a dollop of whipped cream, sour cream, creme fraiche, or whatever you have lying around.

I'm not normally the "fresh fruit and dairy" type of dessert person; I prefer my sins to be heavier and more decadent.  This is one simple dessert that is much greater than the sum of its parts, however.

Other resources:

• The Reuben Realm is a site devoted to reviews of the Reuben offerings from various restaurants.  Most of the reviews so far are centered around Indiana, so if you're nearby (and like Reubens) it might prove to be a valuable resource.
• Snopes has an entertaining discussion on the etymology of the word "pumpernickel".

IMBB #14: Orange You Hungry?

Orange is the theme of this month's IMBB, and what a theme it is!  An inspired bit of  lateral thinking by Foodgoat has left us with a  color, not an ingredient, to work with this month.  I am, as always, very curious to see how other people approached the theme.  Until then, here's my attempt:

Vertical food:

Some say it's trendy, some say it's already passe,  but I  think it's here to stay.  There's something special, something uniquely gratifying about vertical food.  Is it a protest against the entropy of the universe and the disorder and decay that seem to dominate our lives?  Is it the phallic nature of these towering constructions that is the source of their appeal?  Or is it a destructive impulse?  Is it that we take pleasure in toppling, dismantling, and then consuming the creations that our hapless hosts have  painstakingly built for us?  Perhaps.  All I know is, some food tastes better when it's taller than it is wide.

The recipe below should make four salads.  You may wish to increase the amount of the dressing you make, though, to suit people's preferences.

Tower of Orange:

• 1/2 small papaya
• 4 small (orange) tomatoes
• 1/3 head savoy cabbage
• 1 lb fresh salmon fillet
• 5 slices thick cut bacon
• 3 (orange) bell peppers
• 1 c chopped pea shoots
• fresh basil
• fresh tarragon

Render and reserve the fat from the bacon.  Chop the bacon into bits.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on the salmon fillet and pan-fry in 2 tbsp. of the bacon fat.  Remove the skin from the fillet and shred the salmon with two forks.

Chiffonade the basil and mix with the papaya.  Chop the tarragon and mix with the shredded salmon. 

Take a 16 oz plastic cup -- you know, a "beer cup" -- and cut out the bottom.  Grease the inside with nonstick spray or olive oil.  Turn the cup upside down on a flat-bottomed plate or bowl.  Drop a few tablespoons of each mixture into the cup and pack it down gently with the spoon.  We alternated the orange layers with the non-orange layers like so:

• Orange bell pepper
• Pea shoots
• Bacon bits
• Orange tomatoes
• White bean ragout
• Papaya/basil mixture
• Savoy Cabbage
• Salmon/tarragon mixture

But of course most any order will do.  Spoon the dressing around the sides of the cup and gently remove the cup.  The resulting tower is surprisingly stable and very impressive.

The 16 oz. cup results in a relatively large salad.  If you're serving this as part of a three or four (or more) course meal, you may wish to use a smaller cup.

White Bean Ragout:

• 1 can Cannelloni beans (or other white beans)
• 3 tbsp "bacon bits" (see above)
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 1/2 cup stock

Saute the garlic for 4 minutes in 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Add the beans, the stock, the thyme, and the bacon and cook over a medium heat for about 5-8 minutes or until the bean mixture begins to thicken.

Curried (Orange) Tomato Dressing:

• 6 cloves of garlic, rough chopped
• 1/2 of a sweet onion, diced
• 8 (orange) tomatoes, rough chopped
• 20 or 30 coriander pods
• 3 cardamom pods
• 20 or 30 cumin seeds
• 3 or 4 peppercorns
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock
• apple cider vinegar

Toast the spices in a dry pan until you can smell them.  Grind them using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder.

Saute the onions and the garlic in 2 tbsp of olive oil until the onions are translucent.  Add the ground spices and saute  for two more minutes.  Add the tomatoes and saute for two minutes.  Add the wine, the stock, and the thyme, cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes.  Let cool and puree.  Add vinegar to taste.

The result should be somewhat aggressively spiced and tart.  It may look like a soup, but it's really a salad dressing, so don't be afraid to add just a little more vinegar.

Conclusions:

I had fun making and eating this salad.  The various textural elements worked well together, I thought, and the flavors meshed satisfactorily.  The curried tomato dressing was quite good.  I do feel as though one or two of the flavors could be a bit more intense.  I may trade mangoes for the papayas the next time, for instance.

I count this as a definite success, if only because it has increased my confidence regarding vertical plating of salads.  The assembly was easy and fun and trouble-free.  And it was fun to eat, too!  This will definitely enter my dinner party repertoire.

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!

Further Sandwich Experiments

I had some friends over this weekend and made a few more sandwiches. At right is a sandwich-in-progress comprising black forest ham, sopressata, fontina, tomatoes, arugula, and red currant jelly. Sort of a Monte Cristo without the egg batter. OK, not really. But it is pretty good, even if the jelly tends to liquify into a sticky mess after being baked. My guests liked it even better than the muffaletta, which you can see being prepared in the background.

The next day I made another version of the first baked sandwich I'd ever tried: proscuitto, stilton, and fig preserves. Still very good, though I didn't go crazy over it like I did last time. Next time I think I'll try using fresh fig slices over the preserves; that will cut down on the sweetness and minimize the mess.

Baked Muffaletta Recipe

Sandwiches are the working mules of the culinary world: they're functional, but they don't dress up well and you probably don't want to introduce them to important guests. There are a few routes that can give the humble sandwich a bit of social mobility. Baking the sandwich in bread dough leverages the social capital of freshly-baked bread to raise the status of a sandwich considerably.

This tactic can be applied to any sandwich that does not depend on a substantial amount of sauce (which will leak and leave the bottom half of the dough soggy) or fragile ingredients (such as lettuce or other greens, which will wilt in the heat and leach water as well). The Muffaletta is the perfect example of a sandwich that benefits from baking. While it is already considered the King of Sandwiches by some, it is only made more regal when served en croute.

Makes 2 large muffalettas. Serves 4-6

2 lb loaf of French bread dough
1/3 lb provolone, sliced
1/4 lb ham, sliced
1/4 lb mortadella, sliced
1/4 lb sopressata, sliced

For the olive salad:
1/2 lb green olives
1/2 lb black olives
5 cloves of garlic
6 pepperoncini
1 tbsp celery seed
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

----

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the olive salad ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until coarsely chopped. (This will probably make more olive salad than you'll need -- close to twice as much, depending on how liberally you apply it. I'm sure you'll find other uses for it. Otherwise, feel free to scale the recipe down.)

Split the dough into four evenly sized pieces Take the two smaller pieces (because no matter how hard you try, they won't quite be evenly sized) and shape them into rounds with a rolling pin. They should be about 1/2 inch thick, if I'm remebering correctly. Roll the other two balls of dough into slightly larger rounds.

Lay the meats and cheeses down in layers on the bottom rounds top with the olive salad. Put the remaining rounds on top and fuse the edges. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the bread has browned nicely.

cauliflower and stilton soup recipe

Saturday, Rebecca and I had the pleasure of having lunch at Jeanty at Jack's, a great French Bistro in downtown San Francisco. One of the highlights of our visit was the Soupe du Jour, a Cauliflower and Bleu Cheese Soup. Bone-white, rich, and mild, it was an elegant, filling soup. Since cauliflower season is just coming on, I decided to take on the challenge of making such a soup the very next day. Here's the result of my first attempt.

Cauliflower and Stilton Soup

Ingredients

for the soup:

2 slices of thick cut bacon (or 3-4 thin)
5-6 cups cauliflower florets (1 to 1 1/2 large heads?)
1 large Yukon Gold potato, diced
1/4 cup flour
3 cloves of roasted garlic
nutmeg
cayenne pepper
6 oz stilton
milk

for the dumplings:

3/4 cup breadcrumbs
3/4 cup panko
1 egg
1/2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 to 3/4 cup cooked fish or shellfish meat, shredded 

Directions

In a deep pan suitable for cooking soup, render the fat from the bacon slices. Remove the bacon from the pan, leaving the fat. Saute the diced potato and the cauliflower florets (as well as the garlic if you're using raw garlic) for five minutes, then add the flour and cook a bit longer. Add the stock, crumbled bacon pieces, 1 cup of milk, 1/4 tsp each of nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and black pepper. Cook for twenty-five minutes on low heat, stirring occasionally to make sure that it's not burning on the bottom.

While the mixture is cooking, prepare the fish dumplings. Feel free to use almost any kind of fish or shellfish you have around -- salmon, scallops, crab, lobster, should all work fine. I had a single Steelhead Trout filet in the freezer, so that's what I chose, and it worked fine. Mix all of the listed ingredients together. Don't be afraid if there's some clumping due to the small quantity of wet ingredents. Add milk in 1/8 cup batches, stirring through, until the mixture coheres enough to form small balls. Roll into 1/2 inch balls.

Once the cauliflower mixture is finished cooking, blend in batches and put back into the original pan. Add milk to thin to desired consistency. (After blending, the mixture may be like a thick porridge. Add a little milk until it's more pudding-like, then add a bit more.) Add the fish dumplings, submerging them completely. Crumble the stilton and stir through. Cook on low heat for ten more minutes. Salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Thoughts

There are many differences between my soup and the Jeanty at Jack's version. Some were intentional. The dumplings, for instance, were my addition, inspired by some research I did into similar soups. Other differences were not by choice. The Jeanty soup is completely white. All of their ingredients are probably white or clear. This made for a very elegant soup, but one which was beyond my humble kitchen. They must have used a consomme or a white chicken stock, I imagine. (Actually, it could have been a clear vegetable stock, I suppose.) I had none of these things, so I used regular chicken stock, and the brand that I use is quite yellow. As a result, my soup was light tan in color, rather than white. Similarly, they probably used white pepper. I thought I had some, but I could not find it. (I need a better system for spice organization!) My soup, therefore, had little black specks sprinked throughout.

Both in taste and texture, too, I thought my soup was a bit heavier, perhaps betraying the bacon fat and potato, neither of which, I suspect, were present in the Jeanty version. I also think that my soup has more bleu cheese than theirs, and is spiced more heavily. But I am satisfied with my choices in all of these cases. Heavier though it is, I think my soup is fairly well balanced. And it is not overwhelmed by the Stilton or the spices. (In fact, we both thought that the Jeanty version could use a little more bleu cheese.)

Finally, the restaurant soup likely benefited from the inclusion of onions or shallots, both of which are verboten in my kitchen due to Rebecca's strong feelings about them. If you're following this recipe, feel free to add an onion -- chop it and saute it in the bacon fat before you add the other ingredients.

This is a good soup. It's cheap, hearty, and flavorful. Check it out.

rabbit stew recipe (aka rabbit bourguignon)

The two words came to me in a dream: "Rabbit Bourguignon". I'd never heard of such a thing, but it wasn't too hard to imagine: Rabbit chunks braised in a golden elixir, the essence of a fine white Burgundy, accompanied by cubes of potatoes, hordes of mushrooms, and scattered bits of bacon. Just a bit of everything that is Right and Good in the world.

Calling this "Rabbit Bourguignon" could be considered controversial. After all, a quick Google search for the term turns up exactly zero hits for recipes for a rabbit braised in white wine. Typical stews a la Bourguignonne are made with red Burgundy. I briefly considered changing the name to something generic, such as "Rabbit braised in white wine" or just plain "Rabbit Stew". But then I had an insight. In my rabbit stew fever dream, the golden liquid made my mouth feel exactly the same way it does after drinking a great white Burgundy. I decided to keep the name. (Some further investigation showed that I wasn't far off base.)

And that's also why I specify a "white Burgundy" in the recipe below, as opposed to just "white wine". I don't know about you, but when I cook with white wine, it's usually Sauvignon Blanc. And I just don't think that's right for this recipe. I know, I know, the Burgundy will be more expensive. But I really do think the soul of this dish is better expressed with that wine. I haven't tried it with both; this could all be foolishness. Yet I am convinced. Such is the power of dreams.

I'd like to make another plug for The Cook's Thesaurus, which I've found to be an very useful reference. In this case, I used it to figure out which potatoes are best for soups and stews.

Rabbit Bourguignon

Marinade:

1/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsp. herbs de provence
1/2 cup Cognac 
1/4 cup Madiera
white wine to cover, about 2 cups

First Batch:

3 lb rabbit thighs
12 oz thick-sliced bacon
4 medium-sized Yukon Gold potatoes
  (or some other low-starch variety; see here)
1 large rutabaga
1 large turnip
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bottle white Burgundy
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup Cognac
1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
2 bay leaves

Second Batch:

3 cups mushrooms, sliced
2 medium-sized carrots, sliced
1 1/2 stalks celery, sliced
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or to taste)
1 tbsp brown sugar

Other Ingredients:

Place the rabbit and the marinade ingredients in a one gallon resealable plastic bag. Marinate in the refrigerator for two hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Cook the bacon in a large dutch oven. Cook in batches as necessary, draining the fat from each batch. Meanwhile, peel and chop the potato, rutabaga, and turnip, and onion into bite-sized pieces. Remove the rabbit from the marinade, reserving the liquid. Flour each piece and brown in a bit of bacon fat. Set aside and let them cool. Next, saute the chopped root vegetables and the garlic in bacon fat.

Cut the rabbit into bite-sized pieces. Put the rabbit, the root vegetable mixture, and the bacon back into the dutch oven. Add the wine, stock, Cognac, bay leaves, and pepper. Bring to a boil on the stovetop, then put into the oven for 45 minutes.

Peel and chop the carrots into bite-sized pieces. Chop the mushroom and the celery. Saute all of the vegetables in bacon fat until the mushrooms lose their water. Remove the stew from the oven. Add the vinegar and the sugar. Taste for salt, pepper, sugar, and vinegar content (be careful!). Add the vegetables to the stew and return to the oven for 30 more minutes.

Pour stew into heated bowls. Just before serving, swirl in 1-2 tbsp. of heavy cream.

--//--

I'm definitely on to something here. The flavor wasn't quite as intense as I'd wanted, but otherwise, it was exactly as I'd imagined it. Got rave reviews at dinner.

In the future, I might try:

• Using 1.5 times as much stock and wine and reducing it together before adding it to the solids

• Using half veal stock and half chicken stock

• Making rabbit stock

• Adding homemade half-dried tomatoes

• Using fresh herbs -- I didn't have any on hand

• Adding peas

• Adding walnuts

April 14, 2003 in main_dishes, old_site, recipes | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 11, 2003

chicken crepes florentine

Chicken Crepes Florentine

OK, I don't know how florentine these crepes are per se, but, uh, they do involve spinach.

Ingredients

Frozen spinach
Chicken thighs

Cognac
White wine 
Tomato sauce 
Chicken stock (low salt)
Fresh herbs (thyme and sage recommended)

Fresh garlic, diced
Crimini mushrooms, chopped 
Dried chantrelle mushrooms
Ham, proscuitto, or pancetta, diced

Premade crepes (or make your own!)

Directions

Soak the chantrelles in 1 1/2 cups of warm water for a half an hour or so. Meanwhile, put the chicken stock and herbs in a pan and reduce by half. Remove the herbs and set the reduced stock aside. Remove the chantrelles. Strain the soaking water through cheesecloth. Reduce it by half and set it aside. Heat the frozen spinach through.

Salt and pepper the chicken thighs and cook them in a saute pan. Shred the thighs and set aside the meat.

Chop the chantrelles. Saute them along with the diced ham and the garlic in the saute pan used for the chicken. Add them to the same container as the spinach and mix them together.

Deglaze the pan with white wine and cognac. Let the alcohol burn off. Add the mushroom water and the chicken stock. Add just a touch of tomato sauce. Don't overreduce; instead, thicken lightly with cornstarch. Whisk in some butter at the end -- however much your inner dietician will permit.

Wrap the filling in the crepes. (Microwave for one minute if using the premade variety.) Spoon the sauce on top, and serve.

--//--

This is my attempt at a "weeknight" crepe recipe -- hence the use of convenience foods such as frozen spinach and premade crepes. It turned out quite elegant, but it wasn't nearly as quick as I thought it would be -- it still took me an hour or so to prepare.

The sauce was promising, but there is still room for improvement. Next time, I may omit the tomato sauce and go for a pure chantrelle/chicken/white wine flavor. The consistency was acceptable, but I wish it was creamier. Ideally, I'd just use heavy cream instead of cornstarch to thicken it, but frankly I can't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe, so I'd just as soon not jump up two pant sizes. Fat free sour cream might take the sauce in a different -- but good? -- direction. I'll have to mull it over.

March 11, 2003 in main_dishes, old_site, recipes | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 21, 2003

malaysian lamb stew

I am a cooking machine. Who darest challenge me? Menu for tonight:

Predator and Prey Salad
Shredded Rabbit on Wild Greens and Red Bell Peppers
with Persimmon Vinaigrette

Okay, so it wasn't a "vinaigrette" -- it the persimmon chutney I made on Sunday, slightly thinned. It made a satisfactory dressing on the salad. Not spectacular, but it got the job done. Which job, in this case, is encouraging the consumption of actual vegetables, which are normally missing from our diet.

--//--

Malaysian Lamb Stew
with Lentils and Eggplant

This stew is based on a fascinating recipe of James Peterson's; his version of a traditional Malaysian dish. I've never made any Malaysian-influenced food before; this was a gentle and interesting introduction, however authentic or inauthentic it may be. I enjoy it when a dish that I make is both well-received and unlike anything I've ever made before.

Ordinarily would take a bit too long to be weeknight fare, but I was home just early enough to start the lamb braising and still have everything done by 8:00.

Ingredients

3 small lamb shanks, or 1 lb lamb shoulder
5 cloves of garlic
2 cups chicken or beef stock
1 eggplant, peeled and cubed 
1 14 oz. can tomatoes
1 onion
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1 cup lentils
1 cup coconut milk
1/8 cup white wine vinegar

Curry spices

1 tsp. Cumin
1 tsp. Coriander
1/2 tsp. Cardamom
1/2 tsp. Allspice
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

Preparation

Brown the lamb in olive oil. Add three garlic cloves, 1/2 cup of wine, and two cups of stock. Braise the lamb in a covered pot on the stovetop for two hours, skimming occasionally. Turn the shanks halfway through braising.

Saute two chopped cloves of garlic and the onion in butter in a medium-sized pot over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the curry spices and the ginger and saute for 5 more minutes.

Pull the lamb out of the braising liquid and set aside. Pour the braising liquid into the pot with the garlic and onions. Add the lentils, tomatoes, and eggplant. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, pull the meat off of the shank and shred it. Throw away the bones and fat.

Puree the stew in a blender and, if you like, strain it through a medium-mesh strainer. Stir in the coconut milk, the lamb, and the vinegar. Season to taste (it will likely need salt). Let sit for 10 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally.

--//--

Take my advice: buy (or make!) some naan before you make this dish. Nothing else will do. Well, except maybe some Roti Canai.

(Just for good measure, click here for an interesting article on Indian breads of all kinds.)

January 21, 2003 in old_site, recipes, soups_stews | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 19, 2003

rabbit redux

Farmer's Market

I spent $200 at the grocery store on Saturday. This is unsurprising, considering that I haven't made a real shopping trip since before I left town for the holidays. What is surprising is that I felt the need to go to the Farmer's Market yesterday. I spent maybe $35, but at the Farmer's Market, $35 goes a long way. For instance:

Ten ripe persimmons: $1.00
Enough wild greens for 7 salads: $2.50
Two largish Dungeness crabs: $6.00

While I was buying the crab, I noticed a bin of mackerel nearby. Ever since acquiring Peterson's Fish & Shellfish I've wanted to mess around with mackerel. I looked at the sign: $1.00/lb. They looked to be about a pound each, so I asked for three pounds. After a moment, I was handed a bag with at least 10 mackerel. (Apparently I am a very bad judge of weight.)

Every time I go to the Farmer's Market, I think: why do I ever buy produce at the grocery store? Convenience is the answer, but the premium paid is quite extravagant considering that I have a Farmer's Market within walking distance that, with a little foresight and a willingness to contribute an hour and a half on Sunday mornings, can serve to satisfy all of my produce needs.

--//--

When I got home, I cooked and froze the crabs and made persimmon chutney. Then Rebecca and I had sex and played videogames until it was time to start thinking about what to make for dinner.

This is the life, I tell you.

Grilled Mackerel Salad
Wild Greens and Red Grapefruit Salad
with Grilled Mackerel and a Balsamic Vinaigrette

I rarely make salads. The salads I grew up with were mostly banal constructions -- vegetable barriers which had to be surmounted before one could get at the main course.

As an adult and a foodophile, I now know that building a truly successful salad requires sensibilities that I do not posess in large amounts: economy, balance, style. Salad-making, I've always thought, is very Japanese; food reduced to its barest essentials. Breathtaking when successful, but the slightest misstep is glaringly obvious.

Nevertheless, I've come full circle to the situation I faced in my youth. I need more vegetables in my diet, and salads are one of the easiest ways to do that. So I must resist my own laziness. With you as my witness, I pledge that if I ever catch myself throwing random greens and chopped vegetables into a bowl, dousing it with Ranch, and serving it up to someone, then ... I'll cut off my own hand. Er, a finger. No, that would make it too hard to cook. How about a toe? Maybe the little one.

Though this salad needs work, I think I'm on the right track. The sweetness of the grapefruit contrasts nicely with the strong, salty mackerel flavor.

--//--

Rabbit Ragout with Figs
Rabbit Ragout with Tomatoes and Dried Figs
Atop Parmesan Polenta
2000 MacRostie Carneros Chardonnay

I had a lot of trouble coming up with a rabbit dish to follow up the Rabbit Pie. I tried to think of what I wanted out of a rabbit dish. I kept coming around to rabbit and mushroom ragouts in creamy, roux-thickened, brandy- and madiera- laden sauces. Throw a crust on that and what do you have? Rabbit Pie. I was stuck in a rut.

I still think that ragout is the best way to present rabbit. That way you get the subtle gamy flavor and pleasant texture distributed through as much food as possible.

The other major direction for rabbit dishes is with a tomato-based sauce. I'd been resisting this, thinking that tomatoes would overwhelm the taste of the rabbit. If your game meat is too gamy, I suspect that a tomato sauce is a good idea. Otherwise, I'd say to avoid it.

But I couldn't think of anything else. Then I remembered a wierd recipe I'd run across a few months ago involving rabbit, tomatoes, and figs. Sure, why not?

Here's what I improvised:

Ingredients

1 large rabbit or 2 lb rabbit meat
1 rib of celery
1/2 c diced ham
6 dried figs
1 14 oz can tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato sauce
8 oz chopped fresh mushrooms
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
fresh basil, chopped 

Preparation

Chop rabbit into bite-sized pieces. Mix a cup of flour with salt, pepper, and sugar and coat the rabbit pieces with it.

Saute celery, diced ham, and garlic in olive oil. Add the mushrooms and dried figs. Once the mushrooms have lost their water, remove all ingredients from the pan.

Add more olive oil and a third of the rabbit. Saute until browned, making sure to keep the bottom of the pan reasonably clear of accumulation from the flour. Repeat for the other two portions of the rabbit.

Deglaze the pan with wine. Return the vegetables to the pan. Add the tomatoes and the basil and stir. Add half of the stock. Stir occasionally to avoid burning. Add the other half of the stock and stir.

Serve over polenta.

--//--

This dish was fairly successful. Sufficiently different from the pot pie so as not to attract unwarranted comparison, and moderately healthier, response was positive enough that I may experiment with it further. In the future, I think I'll focus on freshness and discreteness of the flavors rather than trying to cook them together. I'll still use dried figs, but I will parboil, peel, and chop fresh tomatoes instead of using canned. I won't saute them with everything else, but sprinkle the over the dish afterward. I won't flour the rabbit. I'll nix the tomato sauce and opt for something thinner but with more bite.

The Macrostie Chardonnay was excellent. At $15, it's a revelation. It's got all the earmarks of an over-the-top California Chard: 100% Malo, 1/4 new oak, Hungarian wood -- but in the end, what you taste is lush tropical fruit and spices, with just enough oak and butter to fill it out.

January 19, 2003 in main_dishes, menus, old_site, recipes, salads | Permalink | Comments (0)

rabbit pie

The Tasty Kind

I bought Rebecca rabbit for Christmas. No, not the furry kind -- the tasty kind.

Rabbit is one of those foods that makes you wonder why people eat chicken. Rabbit has so much more character. Why isn't it all over the place? Is it the cuteness factor? Obviously you don't get as much yeild from a rabbit as you do from a chicken, so there's the cost factor. Still, you can get rabbit thighs for $6/lb. over the 'net, and tenderloin for $9/lb., so it's definitely worth considering as an occasional alternative to the bland bird.

Of course, you can always buy a whole rabbit at your local butcher or gourmet market. We tried this once. Talk about your pain in the ass. Not much is more trying to my little brain than attempting to debone a small animal that hasn't been bred for yeild. The only more annoying cooking experience I can think of is the time I tried to skin and filet an eel with a spoon.

(Okay, it wasn't a spoon, but it was a knife so dull we let the neighbor's two year old play mumbly peg with it.)

So do yourself a favor and plonk down the $35 for six pounds' worth of rabbit thighs (or just $50 for 6 lbs of 2 oz tenderloins!). Make all of your chicken dishes. They'll taste twice as good, have 3/4 of the calories and half the fat. (Well, the meat will, anyway.) Or try some exotic new recipes. You'll have a great time. I am.

'Tis the Season

I thought I'd kick off our little rabbit season with a dish that is fairly unhealthy and somewhat complicated, but had all the earmarks of sublime comfort food. Mr. Pot Pie -- Frozen Food Aisle Veterean, Uninformed Bachelor's Delight -- meet Mr. Bunny Rabbit.

The filling for this recipe is based loosely on one by Gloria Ciccarone-Nehls, Executive Chef at the The Big 4 in the Huntington Hotel on Nob Hill. (I've never been.) She appears to have a fondness for game; I've seen a lot of interesting recipes for alligator, ostrich, buffalo, and so forth with her name on them.

Rabbit Pot Pie With Biscuit Crust

Filling:

2 c. Fresh wild mushrooms
Baby carrots
Golden beets
Other root vegetables, such as turnips
2 1/2 lb rabbit meat, or
1 very large rabbit 

Sauce:

Dried mushrooms (porcini, chantrelle, etc.)
1 medium onion
1 c. Madiera
1/2 c. Cognac
3 c. cream

Shell:

Bisquik
Milk
Eggs

Variously:

Butter
Flour
Salt
Pepper
Fresh sage and thyme
Other fresh herbs
Minced garlic
Chicken stock

--//--

Marinate the rabbit for a few hours in a mix of cognac, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, and fesh herbs.

If you're using dried mushrooms, start soaking them just before you begin the next step.

Braise the rabbit in a mix of chicken stock and the marinating liquid. If you're using a whole rabbit, poor soul, you'll need about an hour and a fair amount of chicken stock. If you're using thighs or loin, check it after fifteen minutes or so -- actual braising time will depend on the size and thickness of the pieces.

(If you are using a whole rabbit, you should probably complete the rabbit-related sections of the recipe first, rather than interlacing them with the rest of the preparation as I've done below, because it takes longer to cook and it will take you forever to get the meat off of the bones.)

While all the braising is going on, put some water on to boil. Then, in another pot, saute some sage and any other fresh herbs along with the onion and garlic in olive oil until the onions are soft. Chop the dried mushrooms and add them, then add the Madiera, Cognac, one cup chicken stock, and cream. Reduce the sauce by half, then turn the heat down.

By this time, the water should be boiling. Quarter your root vegetables and parboil them along with the baby carrots, golden beets, and whatever else you've got. Take care not to overcook. Dice the vegetables.

When the rabbit is done, strain the braising liquid and put it in the freezer for later use. Chop the rabbit into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

Make a roux from 6 tablespoons of butter and 6 tablespoons of flour. Cook it lightly and add it to the reduced sauce. Stir it through. The sauce should now be just about the thickness of the horrible chicken pot pies found in the frozen food section of the grocery store. (If it's too thick, add some of the braising liquid.)

Saute the shallots in butter. Add the fresh mushrooms briefly. Add the chopped vegetables and the rabbit and stir, then remove from the heat.

Prepare the biscuit mix now. (Just follow the directions on the box; I won't repeat them here.)

Fill each of the individual tins halfway full with the filling. Pour the sauce over each, then mix in with a fork. Pour the biscuit mix over the top and put into a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.

--//--

I was so right about this recipe. It's gorgeous. We couldn't stop eating.

I still have 9 pounds of rabbit left in my freezer. This is going to be fun.

January 19, 2003 in main_dishes, old_site, recipes | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 28, 2002

the bitter -- no, the bland taste of failure

Dramatic Failures

I'm having some people over on Saturday for a post-Thanksgiving dinner. I had some great ideas for the menu, but I've been experimenting with them one by one over the past month and most have been dramatic failures. Here's one example:

Lobster Mashed Potatoes

Sounds like a great idea, right? I like lobster. I like mashed potatoes. Two great tastes that taste great together! What's not to love?

(In all fairness, I must point out that I didn't come up with the concept. It's been done plenty of times before; see for example here and here.)

Here's what I did:

- Steam lobster for 4 minutes using 1/2 bottle of dry white wine. 

- Put lobster in a bowl of ice water to stop it from cooking further.

- Remove tail meat, body meat and put in the fridge.  Remove 
  tomalley and set aside.  Remove evil stomach sac and throw away.

- Make "lobster butter":  put some shells, some of the tomalley, 
  some herbes de provence and two sticks of butter in a small pan and 
  put in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or so.  

- Meanwhile, boil the potatoes.

- Make lobster stock:  put some other shells and herbs 
  along with the drained lobster juices in with the steaming 
  liquid, along with more white wine if necessary, and reduce.

- Cook the lobster meat briefly in some of the lobster butter.

- Mash the potatoes.  Use the stock, the lobster butter, some
  cream, and some truffle oil in the potatoes.

When I first tasted them, I thought not bad; this could work. The lobster flavor stood out just enough to make it interesting. But by the time we had them with dinner, they'd changed. They tasted bland, bland, bland. The lobster was overcooked and the potatoes had no trace of lobster flavor. Worse yet, they tasted grainy. I think this is because I'd substituted the lobster stock for much of the cream.

I made several mistakes during preparation, but even though I could possibly do things a bit better, I decided not to serve it at my Thanksgiving dinner. It just didn't show enough promise.

Beet-cream sauce

The lobster dish had one saving grace: the sauce served with it. Ironically, the sauce was thrown together as an afterthought and was the product of several mistakes and poor choices.

I'd intended to create something along the lines of Keller's Red Beet Essence, which I'd had at the French Laundry. But that sauce begins with beet juice, which my local store does not carry. So I just bought some beets, sure that I could make something similar using the raw materials.

I decided to start by roasting the beets. (To do so, just coat them liberally in olive oil, salt and pepper, and put them in a pan in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour or until a knife slides easily through them.)

I then peeled them and ran them through the blender. It seemed like the right thing to do.

I peered into the blender. I saw beet mush. Far too thick to be a sauce. "Fine," I thought. "I'll strain it."

I poured the contents of the blender into a strainer. The beet mush just sat there, defiantly, refusing to strain.

I used the back of a ladle to lightly work the beet puree through the strainer, taking care not to force it through. I threw away the remaining beet matter, about 1/4 of the original volume. But the puree that remained was still far too thick to be a sauce.

What could I thin it with? White wine seemed like a good choice. I combined equal parts beet puree and white wine in a saucepan and left it over medium heat for a few minutes; just long enough for the alcohol to burn away. I added salt and pepper to taste. It wasn't bad. Pretty good, actually. But it was still a bit too rough-edged.

So I took it off the heat and stirred in a few tablespoons of heavy cream to mellow it out. The sauce turned a bright fuscha. I wasn't sure how to take that.

The resulting sauce is very flavorful. The color is quite distinctive, so it can be a powerful element in the presentation of a dish. It's easy to make, and I imagine it can be prepared well in advance. (Just don't stir in the cream until just before serving.)

I'm glad to be able to add this sauce to my small but growing arsenal.

Seafood and the Circus

So, tonight: dinner at Waterfront, and then Cirque Du Soleil. Seafood and the circus -- call it a non-traditional Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it. Have a great holiday.

November 28, 2002 in old_site, recipes, side_dishes | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 10, 2002

Beef Bourguignon

If you've never made