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.