Meat Condiment

Ground beef seasoned with salt and pepper, minced garlic. Brown with red chile flakes and then remove from pan. Toss two thinly sliced jalapeños into beef fat residue, brown on high heat, when just browned, add about a teaspoon of miso bean paste. Add meat back and mince/mix entire mixture to integrate. Spoon some mixture over fried egg on brown rice. Would have been improved with sliced green onion.

Pasta Primavera

Dang, those big ole nitrogen-fixing peas in the backyard got to be good for something, eh?

I harvested about a cup and a half of pea-pods from the backyard, and shelled them, providing maybe a quarter cup of fresh peas. I then prepared one medium carrot by peeling it, then slicing it into thickish matchsticks.

I then took one small young leek from the garden and thinly slided the dense end. This is about 1.5Tb of leek slices. Then I minced a small clove of garlic. I cut a 1Tb pat of butter from a stick, and measured out and equal amount of all-purpose flour.

In the meantime, I had water boiling to cook a serving (alright, a serving and a half) of whole wheat penne pasta. Salted water, of course.

I started a basic bechamel by melting the butter and sweating the leeks, adding the garlic at the end. Once everything was sufficiently softened, I slowly added the flour (through a sieve), mixing it with the whisk until fully integrated and browned.

On another burner, I began sautéing the carrots in olive oil till slightly browned. Don't move them around too much or they'll just be soft and not caramelized. Caramelization provides the essential sweetness, so get it there. No excuses. After the carrots were slightly browned, I tossed in the peas and squeezed the juice of about half a lemon over the peas and carrots. The acid deglazes the pan somewhat (I think), and provides some water so that the peas steam more than they sauté. I let the heat go on them a bit more, then turned it off to focus on the bechamel.

Adding a half-cup of milk to the white sauce is the final step. All I had was 1%, but it worked out fine. I haven't completely figured out the best way to integrate the milk yet, but doing it little by little, whisking smooth between each addition seems to work well. Once all the milk is integrated, I let it sit over med-low heat until it's thickened. I feel like ideally it shouldn't bubble, but again, I don't really know what's proper.

Assembly. Pasta has been draining in the colander and is nice and dry by now. Ready to accept sauce. I put it in a nice bowl, spooned a liberal amount of bechamel over the top, and dumped some of the now gently softened veggies over the top. A little salt, pepper, and a little splash of lemon juice, and I was ready to go. Dee-lish.

Also, I had meant to add parmeseano-regiano, but forgot. Was good anyway.

Burgers & Fries

Had some friends over the other day and wanted to do a little Springtime BBQ cookout type meal, and took it as an opportunity to try some things I've been thinking about. Yes, my good friends would become guinea-pigs to my culinary experimentation.

The menu I devised was as follows:

Sage turkey burgers
Sweet potato oven fries
Grilled young leeks (from the garden)

Of course, my friends were tasked with bringing wine.

The sage turkey burgers were not new to me, I learned them from Jacki's step-brother, Chris. I am not sure how he does them, but he turned me on to the flavor combo and it basically completely resurrected the idea of turkey burgers for me. I do it the following way:

Start with about a half-fistful of fresh sage (They sell little packages at my supermarket, and I just use the whole thing, not sure how much it is. Will make a note to record it.), removing the leaves from the stems. You can reserve the stems to toss on the coals when you grill or toss them out. I am not sure they're good for much. I throw the leaves into the food processor with a few cloves of garlic and enough olive oil to make the mixture a heavy paste when processed. The sage bits should be big enough on average to be visible as flecks of green in the patties, so it's a coarse paste. This paste I add to three pounds ground turkey and mix well, adding salt to taste. Don't over-salt, because it is nice to salt the patty surfaces before they go on the grill.

After letting the turkey mixture sit a spell (in the fridge!) to integrate, I commence patty formation. If I'm not mistaken, three pounds is 48oz, and that is perfect for making eight 6oz patties. I use a digital scale because I'm anal like that, don't you know. I also find it useful to cut squares of parchment (or wax paper) to put between the patties so they can be stacked. This makes them good for freezing and reduces the exposed surface area while they sit around waiting to go on the grill. They're closer to a third pound than a half pound, but still a hearty piece of meat. I usually try to prepare the patties first, then put them in the fridge or freezer until grilling time. This frustrates any bacterial baddies, plus it causes the patties to be more firm and easier to work with. Ground turkey is much stickier and less viscous than ground beef.

When I was at the store getting fixins for this meal, I went over to the potato area and there was not a sweet potato in sight. Foiled! So, I had to make a quick change of plan and substitute another starch. I was feeling sort of wedded to the idea of "burgers and fries," so I wanted to do something else as oven fries. My friend Michael turned me on to the beauty and power of fried parsnips, so I figured I might give them a go as oven fries.

I wasn't sure how many parsnips to purchase. I figured I'd want to use only the outside flesh, because the inner core is much more fibrous, and not much fun to eat (though to me it seems to be the sweetest). I think I ended up getting six medium parsnip roots (for four people), and as it turns out I could have easily doubled that amount. I cut the outside layers off the parsnip (sort of like pitting a mango), and then cut them into rough french-fry shapes. These I put in a big metal bowl, drizzled with peanut oil, and threw in a clove or two of finely minced garlic. Tossing that all together, I layed it all out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, salted them, and put it in a 425º oven. It took a long time for them to cook up - probably over 40 minutes - but it is important to let them go all the way. The smallest pieces on the sheet should be blackened. After removing from the oven, I tossed them with some chopped parsley for color, and put them on a nice colored serving plate. These things are great on their own - or you can make a spicy mayo dipping sauce for them. Sweet and salt and spicy. Yum.

Jacki and I have been growing leeks in the backyard, and they're not like the leeks you see in the store. Commercial leeks are like freakishly huge compared to ours. Our young garden leeks vary in size from that of a typical scallion to maybe 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Jacki pulled up about eight half-inch leeks, I trimmed the roots, sprayed the dirt out of the leaves, and cut the tops off to a length to easily fit on the grill. Then, I cooked them like cebollitas, cooking until they are blackened outside and soft inside. Once done, I spritzed them with lemon juice and dashed with salt.

I cooked the turkey patties to 165º - which gives them a nicely browned exterior - and served on toasted whole wheat hamburger buns. The earthy flavor of the whole wheat buns is a huge player in the greatness of these burgers. For condiments I recommend simplicity: thickly sliced red onion, butter lettuce leaves, and mayo. Maybe a touch of ketchup. Friends brought a delicious pinot noir. Drank Sierra Nevada Summer Lager while grilling.

I think the meal turned out well. Wish I had pictures. Oh well.

Hummus

Garbanzo beans (chickpeas) are supposedly the most consumed legume in the world. I don't know if that's true, but they're tasty and they cost $1.69/lb at my grocery store, so I want to learn to use 'em.

Working with dried beans is something I don't have much experience with. I never understood the soaking thing, and canned beans are so dang easy. Cost is that main factor, I guess. Dried beans are a lot cheaper, and of course, they keep forever if airtight. Anyway, I decided to get to learning about them, and garbanzos are as good a place to start as any. I love hummus, and it is perhaps the most prototypical garbanzo dish I regularly consume.

First, I did a quick hot soak method on the dried beans. I used two dried cups - way more than necessary, but that wasn't entirely unintentional. I boiled about ten cups of water, then simmered the dry beans (peas?) for a few minutes. I then turned off the heat and covered the pot, letting them sit for about 4 hours. At the end of this they didn't seem adequately rehydrated, so I went ahead and left them overnight. In the morning, they were still hard and didn't seem suitable for use, but as it turns out, they were fine - I was just comparing them to canned garbanzos which are cooked already. I didn't realize that would be a necessary step.

I figured out the cooking factor and boiled the rehydrated beans for an hour or two, until they seemed right. Now I had about 4 cups of prepared garbanzos. On to hummus making.

Hummus

Two cups of prepared garbanzos into food processor, add about 4Tb tahini, 8Tb olive oil, juice of one lemon, one or two smallish cloves of garlic, and a good pinch of salt. Puree, adding water as needed to achieve the correct consistency. When fully processed, remove to storage bowl, adjusting salt as needed. I like to leave it slightly under-salted because sprinkling some kosher salt on top when serving is nice. Also, I generally tend to put more garlic into recipes than they call for, but in this case it is a bit overpowering to add more than is typical. Lastly, I finely mince about half a fistful of Italian flat-leaf parsley, and mix it in for color variation and a nice grassy flavor element.

For serving, I like to dish some out into a medium hemispherical bowl, drizzling EV olive oil on top, along with an additional squeeze of lemon, sprinkle of salt, and perhaps a bit more minced parsley. Toast up some pita on the stove, and you're set. Adding some Kalamata olives on the side puts you well into light meal territory.

Notes:

An open avenue for flavor exists when using dried garbanzos. The cooking water can be augmented with anything for a subtle layer of herb or spice flavor in the final product. Sort of like herb-tea-brining chicken. Also, for spicy palates I sometimes enjoy adding a bit of cayanne pepper at the processor stage. Roasted red peppers are another option.

First Quiche!

3 eggs (so few!? yes.)
1.5 cups milk/cream
6oz. cheese (gruyere)
2 cups sliced leeks
1/4 lb. sliced turkey bacon
whole wheat pie crust (frozen)
3 Tb butter

Cut "bacon" in strips, brown in pan, using about 1 Tb butter - turkey bacon doesn't render much fat. If I use regular bacon, I wouldn't add the butter. Remove bacon from pan, leaving rendered oil. Add 2 Tb. additional butter. Sweat 2 cups leeks on med. heat until soft and delicious. Salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 325º F

Beat eggs in big bowl. Add milk/cream mixture. I used 3/4 c. half-and-half, plus 3/4 c. 2% milk. Mix in 6 oz. cheese. At this point I added some finely chopped chives - just to add some color to the quiche body. Mix well.

Remove pie crust from freezer. I made a little foil wrapper for the crust edge so it wouldn't burn - but that is personal preference. Evenly distribute leeks into bottom of pie crust. Add turkey bacon in an even layer. Pour egg mixture over leeks and bacon, filling pie crust. The quiche will not rise, so go ahead and fill to the max level.

The instructions I used said cook 20-30 minutes. Mine took nearly twice that judging by thermometer readings. I cooked it to 160º at the center ( I think most of it reached 165º) and it was quite good that way - perfectly browned on top, soft and custardy inside. I figure it could have gone to 170-175º for additional firmness, but it was quite good as it was. Also, I put a piece of foil over it for the last few minutes because it wasn't quite up to temp, but the top had reached the brown-ness I wanted. Worked great.

In fact, I made a second quiche with foil over the top for the whole cooking process. It cooked a lot faster, but when done, had no browning. Will be great for re-heating, but looks kinda pale.

Final product, as served:


As you can see, I topped it off with chopped chives. Color is king. Served with big salad (homemade fresh croûtons), and sautéed carrots. Delish. Riesling wine. Parmesan pictured is for salad.

Lessons:

Next time, a bit less cheese. Maybe 4 oz. Also, might flirt with higher cooking temp. Whole wheat crust is a winner.

Basic Lentils

Ratios:

Water:Lentils - 3:1
Onion:Celery:Carrot - 2:1:1 (Mirepoix)

Technique:

Sweating the aromatics (as opposed to softening on higher heat) really seems to help keep the flavor light and sweet, though I do throw the carrot in first and give it a little caramelization. I can't resist the flavor of caramelized carrots, plus the are the most robust, so can do with a little extra cooking time. Not that it makes any difference considering they are about to simmer for ages. I do this in just enough olive oil to thinly coat the bottom of the pot. Adding a couple pinches of salt with the onions.

Once everything is softened and smelling nice, I add the lentils and let them warm up and take some oil.

In the meantime, I've heated the water in my electric kettle, so it will reach a boil/simmer more quickly. I'm not sure if there's anything wrong with this, as opposed to adding cold water, but I find it helps me more quickly get the whole mass to the correct simmer so I can leave the room and see to other tasks. I have too often let the pot boil too hard for 15 minutes, forgetting to go in and check to turn down the heat. That has left me with hard lentils in the past. Best to get it all over with quick. At the same time I add the water I add a few bay leaves.

Once the pot is simmering low, I set the timer for 30 minutes and come check on the pot in intervals. It is usually an hour or two before they are done. They can be served any number of ways.

One of my favorite ways to serve:

Prepare a salad with lettuce sliced thinly and a basic vinaigrette. To this, I add thinly sliced garlic cloves and thin slices of jalapeño pepper, and sometimes sliced red onion. Toss with a pinch of salt and some ground pepper.

Heat pita bread on the stove until steam causes pocket to swell, then stowing under a plate to soften some. After a minute, slice pita into halves.

Dolop a large potion of lentils into each pita half, spreading with spoon. Then, grab a fistful of salad and shove it in there too. If it doesn't look like it's going to fit, you know you have the correct amount. Enjoy.

This dish is also well-accompanied by a honey-tahini sauce, or balsamic-pickled onions and peppers.

Walnut Cookie Lessons

Base recipe:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter creamed with 0.75 cups each of brown and white sugar. Add two large eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla. Mix together is separate bowl 2.25 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp salt. Mix dry into wet in batches. Chop 2 cups walnuts coarsely and stir into batter. Recommended cooking at 375 for 9-11 mins.

Lessons/modifications:

1. Creaming room temp butter really does make a huge difference.
2. Whole wheat flour is delicious with the savory, nutty flavor of the walnuts. Plus, better texture.
   
3. I added an extra teaspoon of salt and did not regret it.
4. Next time I will increase nuts by 50%, making the total 3 cups.
5. I cooked on parchment, equal-sized scoops from my white plastic disher (which I think is about 1/8 cup), six to a sheet. They were done at 13 mins. I did a batch to 11 mins. and they fell in the middle, slightly goopy. I think they will be suitable for vigorous toaster-oven reheating, though.
6. The rest of the batter is in the fridge. Straight out of the fridge, the cooking time will probably be 15 mins or greater. I'll keep an eye on them.
   

Bonnie BDay Lasagna

I made lasagna for Bonnie's birthday dinner here at the house. Can be quite a task by any measure, but considering that I made my own sauce, brined and roasted chicken breasts (it was a chicken-spinach lasagna), steamed the spinach, used pre-cook noodles, and refrigerated the lasagna 24 hrs in advance, I must have invested eight hours in the thing. Here's what I learned:

1. Consulting Ze Internets told me that I should heat the sucker to an internal temp of 160-170 degrees. Makes sense from a bacterial standpoint, but also probably has a lot to do with cheese meltage. In any event, it turned out to be a good measure. I pushed the thing to 165 and it was just right. However, it took over two hours to get there from the fridge. Threw my timing all to hell because I had planned for about 45 minutes. Oops!
2. My ideal lasagna has a firm, solid body, without being overly dense. When it falls apart on the plate (or on its way to the plate), or leaves a puddle of liquid at the bottom of the tray - well, that sucks. In an effort to avoid that fate, I did a little experiment with my spinach. I wanted the spinach to have the freshest, brightest possible flavor, but that to be balanced against the amount of water that those little leaves contain. I decided early on to opt for steaming the leaves rather than putting them in raw, but wasn't sure how much water savings that would get me - if any. In order to find out the answer I devised an experiment. I weighed all the spinach raw on my digital kitchen scale, then steamed it briefly (enough to go just beyond wilted) and weighed it again. I expected maybe a slight decrease in mass, or possibly even a slight increase, but was surprised by the results I saw. The initial weight was 231g and the final was 130g. Over 100g of water loss. That's 44% of the total original weight lost. I was careful to make sure every leaf made it to the second weighing, so I expect those numbers are accurate. Cool!
3. Despite my spinach strategy, the lasagna had a bit of a case of water-bottom when I served it. I attribute this to two things. First, I could have reduced the tomato sauce a bit more, making it thicker and less apt to contribute moisture. Second, due to the extended time it took to heat the beast up, I was forced to serve it right away - when normally I would have elected to let it stand for a bit. Perhaps some of the liquid would have been re-absorbed in that time.
4. I made a small practice lasagna for lunch one day because I wanted to experiment with the chicken component - which I've never used in lasagna before. My first instinct was to take tender chicken breast and tear it up into largish stringy strips, like in some Mexican food. This proved to be precisely the wrong strategy. The cohesion of the fibers of th chicken, though tender, impeded cutting and contributed to the lasagna disintegrating under the fork. For the final lasagna, I chose instead to cut the breasts against the grain (at about 3/8") and broke up those slices into bite-sized pieces. This I mixed with a small amount of prepared ricotta and grated mozzarella and formed into a single layer between noodles. This worked out okay - next time no ricotta, only mozzarella.

So anyway, fairly happy with the result, but next time - better.

Dry Rub

I have tried to make a good dry rub in the past, but never really got it. This time I tried something new.

Herb brine chicken (five hours):
One quart water boiled, then steep herb bundle for about 5 minutes. Remove herb bundle, then add 1/2 cup salt, plus four Tb sugar. Add one quart ice to cool before pouring over chicken parts.

Dry rub:
In a hot, dry skillet, heat four seeded dried chiles, cut up into 1/2 inch strips. Add also 1 Tb each cumin seeds, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, and peppercorns. Heat until fragrant and seeds begin to pop. Once heated, pour into spice grinder, adding 1 Tb salt, 1 Tb brown sugar, and 1/2 tsp garlic powder. Then grind until... er, ground up real good.

After drying off chicken pieces, sprinkle liberally with rub. Let sit for a bit so rub adheres well.

Grill chicken as per usual.

Result: A bit salty. I'll leave out the salt from the rub next time, and either salt independently, or let the brine handle it. Also, the spicy flavor just wasn't that great. I feel like it needed something a bit exotic, like cinnamon maybe. We'll see.

Schmaltz

Aw yeah.

Repeat... AW YEAH!

In the past, when I was gonna make chicken (bbq or baked or fried or whatever), I used to buy butchered thighs from The Joe (that's Farmer Joe's, our local yuppie-mart, not Trader Joe's). I still do when I'm cooking for company (consistency), but other times I've taken to buying the whole chickens.

Buying whole chickens means two things in addition to the deliciousness of legs, thighs, breasts, and wings: Chicken stock from the backs, wingtips, and necks - and Schmaltz.

I adore matzoh ball soup, as do Jacki and Nikki, and man those balls ain't the same without the chicken-fatty flavor of schmaltz. As I am ready now to make another batch from the fat I trimmed from the chickens, I figured I'd research schmaltz rendering techniques. In the past I simply put the fats and skins into the fry-pan and heated until the fat was liquefied, then poured it off and cooled it. Turns out I was not far off.

It seems there are two alternate methods to my basic low-heat pan rendering. One is to use water in the process (a little or a lot) - boiling the fat to render it, then allowing it to separate in the fridge before discarding the water (letting all the water boil away in some cases). I had thought of this, but between the absence of that yummy browned flavor that comes from pan-rendering, and not seeing the need to cool a bunch of water in the fridge unnecessarily, I think I will stick with the pan. The second different method is to use the pan-rendering technique, but to add diced onion to augment the flavor. Sounds good to me, but I think my basic rendering will remain nude.

I've taken to saving lots of my rendered fats (beef, bacon, etc) in the freezer, because they invariably prove useful. On the most basic level, it simply expands my choice of oils/fats to use in whatever recipe I'm making. Plus, it feels like less waste. Surely it's a sin to pour down the drain something as luxurious (and resource consumptive) as premium animal fats.

Poached Cod

I poached some delicious cod I got at the Joe today. Decided to do it with Asian flavors, because I was making Asian-flavor chicken stock tonight, too.

Started by sautéing a bit of yellow onion and green onion stalks. Did 'em up well-browned to maximize the sweetness and carmely flavors. Then I added garlic and deglazed with sake (about 2 cups). I then added a good chunk of ginger, thinly sliced, and 2 cups of water, plus a splash of soy sauce (instead of salt). Brought this to a boil and reduced to medium heat before adding 2 biggish cod fillets (1.5 lb total) and a fist full of cilantro. Simmering for about 20 minutes gave me fish that was at about 160ºF internal. It was hell of buttery and good, but I could have done with it being a bit more firmly cooked. Maybe head up to 170ºF or 175ºF next time. Also, I think I'll save the cilantro for serving, or add at the very end. it's best when fresh - cooking makes it flat and yuckish.

Cod seems to have lots of little bones, and the fillets I got didn't seem to be scaled. The scales were very small and delicate, though, and I didn't notice them while eating it.

Also - the Asian-flavor stock came out alright. A bit flat. I think I simmered it too hard (being distracted by cod cooking. It was the Cooks quick-stock method, but with green onions, garlic, and ginger as flavoring agents, rather than the traditional european counterparts. Also, added some leaves and flesh of kiefer limes from June's backyard.

Bitely

I like science. I like cooking.
I believe I'll keep my notes here.
Feel free to peruse.