Today is International Bacon Day. I was informed of this by my girlfriend this morning, then immediately interrogated about our household bacon levels. My response (“one strip”) was deemed unsatisfactory, so off we went to the store to get more. At the store, I bought a half pound of bacon. Upon seeing it, my girlfriend shook her head and told me that it was insufficient bacon for International Bacon Day, so off she went to buy another pound of bacon.

While at the store, I saw figs and immediately thought of wrapping them in bacon. Well, to tell the truth, I wanted to wrap everything in bacon, but I thought of a wonderful meal I had at Gitane, hosted by the same person who cooked me a meal during her visit to San Francisco. It was quite a while ago and I had a few glasses of wine, so many of the dishes fade in my memory but I remember their bacon bon bons  somewhat well. They stuff prunes with goat cheese, wrap them in bacon, and glaze them with port. I figured I would do something similar.

The process is fairly self-explanatory. Stuff figs with goat cheese, add a pecan, wrap in bacon, and secure it with a toothpick. Then, bake it at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes or so. I finished mine in the broiler, turning them to crisp them up for about 2 minutes. Alternately, you can broil them for about 5 minutes or until the bacon is cooked.

Stuffing the figs with goat cheese and topping them with a pecan half

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Bacon-themed meal with faded retro-esque pictures? What a hipster.”

And I concur. I should be judged.

In my defense, it was only because my camera’s battery died (it was charged by the end to take the first picture above) and my girlfriend’s phone consistently took blurry pictures with the regular camera app, so we used the “Retro Camera” app. I am a hipster by accident, if at all.

Into the oven you go!

While these did end up being decently delicious, the next time I would do the following:

• Add more sweetness: I would do this either by using riper figs or, per my girlfriend’s suggestion, drizzling honey over them. Alternately, you could also use some brown sugar to candy the bacon (what’s a few hundred more calories?)
• Remove the pecan: It didn’t add all that much. The bacon provided enough crispy, crunch texture on its own. Speaking of which, I would also
• Use thinner strips of bacon: We bought thick slices of pre-cut bacon from the butcher. Next time, I’ll ask him or her to slice me some thin strips off of the slab.
• Use whole figs: The fig flavor was overwhelmed by the goat cheese and the bacon. Using thinner strips of bacon and riper figs would likely improve the balance, but just having more fig would be helpful. Plus, it would allow me to
• Wrap the bacon around the whole fig so that the cheese is exposed to the heat and no part of the bacon is touching the bottom of the cooking dish. Not only does this allow for wonderful browning of the cheese, it also cooks the bacon more evenly and prevents you from having to rotate it. In the picture above, you can see that I rested them on racks to allow the fat to drop down. Even this didn’t allow for even cooking except in ones where the bacon was wrapped perpendicularly to the dish.

Bacon grease basted eggs, with bacon on the side

It’s been awhile, but I come bearing excuses! In the time since my last post I’ve graduated from law school, studied for and taken the bar, moved across the bay from San Francisco to Oakland (more on that later), and become an uncle. All of which is fine and fascinating for me, but leaves my blog bare and neglected.

However, this isn’t to say I haven’t been eating. I have been, prodigiously. I just haven’t been writing about it. I may do a post with assorted pictures of meals past, but it is much more likely that I will focus on the bounties I have been given in the trans-bay move: namely, a large kitchen, an antique stove, and a new garden.

When I started this blog a few years ago I had a galley kitchen equipped with a 4-burner electric stove. It held two people at maximum capacity and even then, you bumped and brushed up against one another as you jockeyed for the minimal counter space. So, moving from that cubbyhole into my new kitchen has been a wonderful adjustment. Best of all, it comes with an antique Wedgwood gas stove complete with a flat top griddle (perfect for pancakes) and a broiler. I’m still getting used to just how much heat it can put out, but again, it is a welcome change from my old electric stove.

Glorious new kitchen

Glorious new kitchen from the other side

I had hoped to start a rooftop garden in San Francisco, but work and studying crushed those dreams to a fine non-biodegradable powder. However, my new place came with a girlfriend (it was a great deal) who is quite adept at gardening. I have learned a fair amount from her already, but at this point my skills are largely limited to watering and harvesting.

Watering skills in action; making it rain on rosemary

Unfortunately, as we have been here only a few weeks, nothing is ready to harvest except for tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. My girlfriend brought a few plants over from her old place (including an heirloom) and the previous tenants had a few in the ground, both roma and plum. Then, when my dad visited, he brought a basket of plum and beefsteak tomatoes from my sister’s garden.

So, we are basically swimming in tomatoes.

Plum tomatoes

Shy heirloom tomato

Yesterday I decided the solution was… tomato soup!

After checking to make sure the broiler and oven were working (the Wedgwood was a bit finicky at first), I decided the solution was… roasted tomato soup!

The recipe can be boiled down to a few steps:

1. Roast tomatoes, onions, and garlic.
2. Simmer roasted tomatoes, onion, and garlic in chicken stock.
3. Blend.

The broiler, fired up and ready to char some tomatoes

I used the broiler to blacken the tomatoes a bit, then threw them in the oven along with some onions and garlic to roast at 400 F for about 30 minutes. The broiler was largely superfluous. I just wanted to play with the broiler so, in that sense, it was a success. However, roasting the tomatoes, onions, and garlic is sufficient and you don’t need to waste time and energy by broiling them as well.

Roasting tomatoes, onions, and garlic in the oven

Simmering in chicken stock

You’ll notice in the above picture I removed some of the peels. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t removed as many of them as I had. I like the charred, smoky flavor that they add and it wasn’t as prevalent in the finished soup as I thought it would be.

Adding spices (in order of amount added, descending): cumin, sage, cayenne, bay leaf, ground cloves

It was at this point that I tasted the soup and noticed just how acidic it was. In order to cut the acidity I added a spoonful of wildflower honey and a half-spoonful of brown sugar. This helped quite a bit.

Blending

Next, blending (I remembered to remove the bay leaf). I’ve got to get me an immersion blender.

Lastly, eating.

It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it still accompanied my grilled cheese, wine, and Game of Thrones quite well.

Next time, I will use riper tomatoes, no broiler, more blackened peels, and perhaps less stock.

More importantly, “next time” should hopefully be sooner than 3 months from now.

With that, I’ll leave you with one gratuitous oozing cheese picture.

Mmm... cheese

]]> http://www.foodbyz.com/2011/08/29/tomato-soup/feed/ 5 http://www.foodbyz.com/2011/08/29/tomato-soup/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FoodByZ/~3/wE3jrOfWVDo/ http://www.foodbyz.com/2011/04/06/butternut-squash-soup/#comments Thu, 07 Apr 2011 02:20:42 +0000 Z http://www.foodbyz.com/?p=1009

A storm is brewing in San Francisco. While walking home from work in a headwind I was able to lean forward like an extra from the Smooth Criminal video. After so many days of sunshine, the rain is coming to remind us what city we live in. Luckily, I have a defense: smooth, creamy, comforting butternut squash soup.

I won’t be taking pictures of the soup I make tonight, but as this is a simple recipe with nearly infinite permutations, I have made it many times over the past year and taken pictures several of those times. I had aspirations of blogging about it, but haven’t found the time until now. Luckily, I still have the pictures.

Now, I’m not the hugest fan of blended soups (I enjoy texture), but this butternut squash soup is pretty damn amazing. It’s not my recipe, but my sister’s.  It is, as you’ll see below, an easily modified recipe to adjust for taste, health, texture, and such.

Without further adieu, lots of pictures (and the recipe at the bottom!).

Scoop the inside out and cube it. It's all gonna get blended so don't worry about being perfect, just try to cut them similar sizes so they'll cook at the same rate.

It's worth mentioning that these pictures span several months and several different times of cooking the butternut squash soup. This time, I was lazy and used pre-cut butternut squash.

Bringing the squash to a boil with the spices.

Cook until the squash is tender.

Then, blend. Note: Do NOT fill the blender up all the way or you the steam WILL build up and you WILL get butternut squash soup all over yourself and your kitchen. I make these mistakes so you don't have to.

Serve topped with crème fraiche or greek yogurt. In this picture, I drizzled a little bit of chive oil on top.

Butternut Squash Soup

Original recipe is in black, my sister’s comments are in red, and mine are in blue.

INGREDIENTS
6 tablespoons chopped onion (or, if you don’t want to measure, one medium-ish onion)
4 tablespoons margarine (I used “light” butter) (I used real butter)
6 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash (I used one bag of peeled cubed squash from Costco) (I used one large-ish butternut squash and didn’t bother measuring after the first time showed me that it was approximately 6 cups)
3 cups water
4 cubes chicken bouillon (or use 3 cups of any kind of stock or broth in lieu of water; it won’t be AS flavorful or sodium-laden as the recipe intends, but it still tastes quite good and is pretty close. Oh, and it should go without saying that you can substitute beef or vegetable stock. I wouldn’t use seafood stock though.)
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram (I’ve added a variety of different spices depending on what I felt like while making it; examples include sage, thyme, and one ill-advised time, rosemary)
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (This is key; I’m convinced this is the secret ingredient to this recipe. Of course, I add enough for it to be spicy, but with the prescribed 1/8 teaspoon, it’s virtually undetectable, but really ties the soup together)
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese (I only used 4 ounces of whipped cream cheese)

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large saucepan, saute onions in margarine (or butter) until tender. Add squash, water, bouillon (or stock), marjoram, black pepper and cayenne pepper (and/or other spices). Bring to boil; cook 20 minutes, or until squash is tender.
2. Puree squash and cream cheese in a blender or food processor in batches until smooth. Return to saucepan, and heat through. Do not allow to boil.

 

Note that the basic principles of this recipe can made with any combination of root vegetable + fat.

I’ve made:

• carrot and ginger soup with cream cheese
• leek and fennel soup with heavy cream
• cauliflower soup with chicken stock (yeah, chicken stock doesn’t have THAT much fat; that was for a low calorie, high fiber sipping soup which I think turned out pretty well)

I only include this picture because it is so ridiculous. In a misguided effort to take an "artistic" picture, I decided to prop up my cutting board to use as a backdrop. Anthropomorphizing be damned, even the squash looks a bit awkward and embarrassed at being in this photo.

It has been a long time since I last posted.  Almost an entire year. I could make excuse after excuse about how busy I’ve been, but I won’t waste time explaining that can be spent uploading pictures.

What prompted this post was the gift of two wasabi rhizomes from Ms. Azmina of Lawyer Loves Lunch (she got them in a cooking competition and used her rhizome to make wasabi fried shrimp). I decided to make sushi. I’ll shut up and show you pictures now.

First, we prepared sushi rice. It was a bit glutinous, but the flavor was good (with rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and roasted sesame seeds)

Tuna in focus

Salmon in focus

Yes, we realize a lot more rice should have been used. Oh, and yes, we're using a placemat to roll the sushi.

First roll attempt!

It quickly degenerated from here into a free for all, with us eating sashimi and nigiri, cutting slices from the fish as we needed it. I managed to snap a few more pictures though.

Out of focus tuna nigiri

At this point, my wanton lust for raw fish and wasabi had somewhat abated, along with the sushi rice. So, I had to get creative. I decided to add some herbed rice to the mixture. It was not great texture wise  (the unheated brown rice was a bit coarse), but the taste was good (lots of parsley and dill in the rice), so I still finished the whole roll.

Roll with the dregs of the sushi rice and some herbed rice and zucchini I had made the night before (note: I did not make the zucchini; my friend Elliotte did)

After the rice was done, I ate the rest of the fish as sashimi with grated fresh wasabi, ginger, and soy sauce…. while growling like a dinosaur.

Oh, lest I forget, I should describe the WASABI. Its taste was surprisingly similar to the horseradish + wasabi powder + food coloring we usually get here, but a bit subtler and with a earthier flavor. While it was certainly spicy, it didn’t pack the overpowering wallop you get from some restaurant wasabi. Overall, I am very grateful to Azmina for giving me the opportunity to try out wasabi for the first time.

I didn’t have the oroshigane grater that I was supposed to use to get a paste, so I just used the smallest side of the grater I had.

Grating fresh wasabi... this is probably a sacrilege to a true sushi chef. If there are any out there that see this, I apologize in advance.

Grated wasabi

However, what this meal lacked in technique, it more than made up for in taste.

I like experimentation. I rarely make a dish the same way twice. I recently described my cooking to someone as frenetic and while I originally meant that I generally flail about the kitchen, I think it describes my approach to recipes as well. If there’s a flavor I want or a texture I’m after, I’m gonna try to get there a bunch of different ways… no, not to see what’s best, just because I’d get bored otherwise.

This approach does not work well in the realm of baking. As the T-shirt says, “Baking is science for hungry people” and, unfortunately, science requires proper measurements and correct temperatures and the like. I don’t pretend that I know how to bake, so when I bake, I defer entirely to others’ expertise.

That said, even though I made a few rookie mistakes, I was not embarrassed of the soufflés, especially when topped with rich vanilla bean ice cream and served with port.

Though, to be fair, how could any combination of sugar, fat, chocolate, vanilla, and booze taste bad?

I needed something to pair with the port and that’s how I came up with the idea of dark chocolate soufflés. I was originally going to just have dark chocolate and ice cream with it, but then I decided I needed a dessert that would measure up against the wonderful Thomas Keller chicken.

The main course. Plain old chocolate bars weren't going to satisfy after this meal.

As I said, I defer entirely to others’ expertise when baking, so for the soufflés, I simply googled “chocolate soufflé” and sure enough, three links down, there was a recipe. The domain was cookingforengineers.com and you can’t go wrong with a domain name like that.  So, I’m not even going to pretend like I had anything to do with this recipe. Basically, this post is just a bunch of bigger versions of the pictures on their site. Oh, except for I screwed a step or two up. Despite my mistakes, the soufflés weren’t half bad. Sure, there’s room for improvement, but then again, I always think there is.

But, if you take away one thing from reading this post, other than becoming hungry*, you should know that despite the soufflé’s reputation of being a very sensitive dessert and falling if you look at it wrong, even my bumbling approach to baking didn’t screw it up. So, please, by all means, give it a try yourself. If you’re just here for the recipe, head over to Cooking for Engineers’ dark chocolate soufflé page.

*this is the secret depraved intention of every food blogger… to make his/her audience hungry and jealous

Mmm... butter, cream, and chocolate.

This was done in a double boiler. In my case, it was a stainless steel mixing bowl set on top of a pot of boiling water. Be careful to make sure the water level isn’t too high. You don’t want it touching the bowl.

I nearly decided to eat it plain at this stage. Well, I did eat a decent amount of it.

Here's where I went wrong. I added eggs while it was still on the double boiler, which started to cook them too quickly.

I used small pictures to hide my shame. But you can still see the texture is all lumpy.

Luckily on the other side of the kitchen, my dinner companion/sous chef was being competent and created perfect stiff peaks with fresh egg whites and cream of tartar.

Even more luckily, the texture wasn't terribly compromised when I folded in the egg whites.

Then, put them in the oven to bake. I didn’t fill the ramekins up high enough. I thought I had enough for three. The recipe says to fill them 3/4 of the way up, but I only filled them 2/3 of the way up. However, I don’t think even 3/4 is enough. Next time I will fill them 4/5 of the way up.

For science!

And deliciousness. There’s something about seeing a soufflé ooze over the top of a ramekin that makes it seem that much more toothsome.

Soufflés, ice cream, and port. Wonderful end to a great meal.

I read somewhere that this roast chicken would be Thomas Keller‘s choice for his last meal. I dismissed this as the hyperbole of a celebrity chef, but was quite intrigued nonetheless. After my friend and fellow food blogger Azmina (of Lawyer Loves Lunch) sang its praises, I knew I had to give it a try.

The verdict? I’m a convert. Everyone must try it. I’ve made it twice and eaten it thrice since the first time I had it. Is it the absolute best roast chicken ever? I’m not sure about that, but it is rather mind-boggling how good it is given the simplicity of the recipe. It reminds me of an elegant solution to a math problem, with all of the variables boiled down to their constituent parts and arranged precisely so as to arrive at the correct result. Here, the correct result is crispy salty skin surrounding tender flavorful meat.

Since I have been waxing on about the simplicity of the recipe, I’m going to give you Thomas Keller’s original recipe and let the pictures do [most of] the rest of the talking.

Roast Chicken by Thomas Keller

• One 2- to 3-pound farm-raised chicken
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons minced thyme (optional)

• Unsalted butter
• Dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Rinse the chicken, then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. The less it steams, the drier the heat, the better.

Salt and pepper the cavity, then truss the bird. Trussing is not difficult, and if you roast chicken often, it’s a good technique to feel comfortable with. When you truss a bird, the wings and legs stay close to the body; the ends of the drumsticks cover the top of the breast and keep it from drying out. Trussing helps the chicken to cook evenly, and it also makes for a more beautiful roasted bird.

Now, salt the chicken—I like to rain the salt over the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin (about 1 tablespoon). When it’s cooked, you should still be able to make out the salt baked onto the crisp skin. Season to taste with pepper.

Place the chicken in a sauté pan or roasting pan and, when the oven is up to temperature, put the chicken in the oven. I leave it alone—I don’t baste it, I don’t add butter; you can if you wish, but I feel this creates steam, which I don’t want. Roast it until it’s done, 50 to 60 minutes. Remove it from the oven and add the thyme, if using, to the pan. Baste the chicken with the juices and thyme and let it rest for 15 minutes on a cutting board.

Remove the twine. Separate the middle wing joint and eat that immediately. Remove the legs and thighs. I like to take off the backbone and eat one of the oysters, the two succulent morsels of meat embedded here, and give the other to the person I’m cooking with. But I take the chicken butt for myself. I could never understand why my brothers always fought over that triangular tip—until one day I got the crispy, juicy fat myself. These are the cook’s rewards. Cut the breast down the middle and serve it on the bone, with one wing joint still attached to each. The preparation is not meant to be superelegant. Slather the meat with fresh butter. Serve with mustard on the side and, if you wish, a simple green salad. You’ll start using a knife and fork, but finish with your fingers, because it’s so good.

From Epicurious via Lawyer Loves Lunch

Bath in brine

I brined my chicken.

I know… I know. I go on and on about the simplicity of the recipe and immediately diverge from it. In my defense, I already had brine made (intended for pork chops originally, it was equal parts sugar and salt with some peppercorns and a splash of orange juice) and, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t fully trust the recipe.

I did notice that the brined chicken was slightly juicier than the subsequent attempts, but there were too many variables to draw a definitive conclusion from it. That said, if you want to be 100% sure that your bird will turn out juicy, combine a brine with this recipe and I guarantee you that you will avoid the dreaded dry chicken.

As long as we’re on the topic of diverging from the recipe, I should admit that in lieu of unsalted butter, I decided to make some compound herb butter.

Chopped parsley

All you need is herbs (I used leftover fresh parsley) and soft butter. Mix them together and put it in some sort of mold (I used plastic wrap). Then stick it in the fridge to harden.

Parsley butter firming up

Now comes the most important part of this recipe and the real secret to this dish.

To have crispy perfect skin on a roast bird, you must thoroughly dry it first.

I learned this technique from Harold a long time ago when we were living together, but never really took it to this extreme.

And take it to the extreme I did.

Warning: The next few pictures are extremely graphic and may be inappropriate for immature audiences.

Fan-drying chicken

If you don’t want to use the fan, you can simply let your chicken set uncovered in the fridge, but I don’t like this technique for a couple of different reasons. First of all, it takes much longer to get it as dry as necessary. Second, there is the potential (though slight) for your chicken to pick up odors/flavors from other items in the fridge. And third and most importantly, you can’t easily pose your chicken in demeaning positions if you don’t use the fan/colander setup shown below.

Getting the chicken skin nice and dry

You’re going to have to pose your chicken in several different positions to dry every nook and cranny. The skin will become almost brittle or leathery. That’s when you know it’s ready.

Makin' it rain

Then truss it, put it on a roasting rack, salt it liberally, then into the oven it goes.

Thyme and chicken fat... mmmmm.

I suppose if you’re trying to be healthy you don’t have to ladle the chicken fat and freshly chopped thyme over the finished bird, but I’m of the opinion that wasting good fat is a sin. I actually saved the rest of the chicken fat because there’s nothing like good schmaltz.

When there was about 20 minutes to go, I rubbed some red potatoes with some of the rendered fat (you can use butter or olive oil if you want to prepare ahead of time), salt, pepper, and rosemary. I then added it to the oven. This was perfect timing to take them out right after the chicken had rested a bit. However, next time I would cut them in order to get a bit of crisp on the edges.

Spinach salad with goat cheese, parsley herb butter, roast chicken, roasted potatoes, and wine

Note that while it looks as if we had a nice elegant dinner, we quickly degenerated into ripping it apart with our hands per Mr. Keller’s instructions. The meat was so flavorful and fall-off-the-bone tender that there was no better way to eat it.

Now go make your own.

And invite me.

Gumbo, like any great dish, comes with fervent devotees, each with their own “correct” recipe. With my gumbo I think I’ll probably manage to offend each one of those schools of thought. Not only do I use linguica instead of andouille, I add some homemade chili powder, both okra AND filé powder, and even (*gasp*) tomatoes.

Yet, as this blog makes perfectly clear, I am far from a purist. I am an experimenter and a blasphemer. So, I did just that (blasphemed, that is) and, fortunately, it turned out that experimentation and blasphemy work quite well with gumbo. Sure, there are things that I will change the next time I make it (and I’ll let you know what they are), but ultimately I’d say this was a success.

As a side note, my picture taking was NOT a success. I was under the impression my camera had run out of batteries, when in fact the camera had simply shut off to spite me (probably). I didn’t realize this until much later, so that explains why I only have pictures of the very beginning of preparation and none until it was fully prepared.

This dish was inspired by the copious amount of crab stock that I made in order to do something productive with the pile of crab shells I had laying around after my attempt at crabcakes.

I simmered the shells with onions, carrots, garlic, whole peppercorns, salt, and some scallions I had left over from the crabcakes. However, feel free to simmer it with aromatics, herbs, and spices of your choosing. Note that this can be made with shrimp shells, fish bones, crawfish shells, or any combination thereof. Every time you eat any seafood, save the bones/shells and freeze them. When you have a good amount, then you can make stock.

A pot of crabby goodness.

Once the stock had been simmering for a few hours or so, I drained it using a colander. It wasn’t a very clear stock, but luckily gumbo doesn’t require completely clear stock–especially when you make it with (*gasp*) tomatoes.

However, I didn’t really know what to do with it. I only had two ideas, really:

1. Make cioppino. The only reason I didn’t is because I owe a friend of mine cioppino and there wasn’t enough time to invite him. If you must know, the cioppino debt was in exchange for an invitation to a Chinese New Year feast cooked by his grandma and extended family. It was well worth it.
2. Crab juice. I actually drank quite a bit of stock while contemplating its uses. It was delicious.

However, Googling revealed gumbo and once I saw that, I pretty much stopped looking. I love any dish that allows me to have a variety of meats, myriad flavors, and–as a great bonus–is incredibly easy to make. This took me about 20 minutes of chopping, one step that I’m considering eliminating, making a roux, throwing everything together and walking away. Provided you have stock, you can go from wanting to eat gumbo to eating gumbo in less than an hour (provided you have a grocery store within walking distance… which I do, neener neener).

On a semi-related note, you can use pretty much any type of seafood stock for gumbo. Make it how you like it.

Or with what you have available.

Or don’t make it, FINE.

I plan on eliminating this step next time.

Overall, frying the vegetables and sausage just led to a much softer texture in the finished product. The celery still had some bite, but the bell pepper, celery, and onion were pretty incorporated into the stew. Tommy suggested that I go with a much hotter cooking surface and reduce the cooking time, which I might try next time. However, the temptation to just throw it all in the pot and let it cook is pretty strong as well. Who will prevail? Culinary adventure or laziness?*

I read a few different recipes that suggested to quickly submerge the sausages in boiling water (like blanching, but without the ice bath), but it seems you would lose fat that way and Lord knows you don’t ever want that, especially not with any sort of Southern cooking.

Speaking of the South, let’s quickly address gumbo’s origins. You may hear gumbo being called a Cajun or a Creole dish. For the purposes of this post, I decided to research the difference between the two, and to tell the truth, it’s rather complicated and relatively inconsequential to anyone not from Louisiana (if you’d really like to know more, take a look here). For our purposes, Creole/Cajun simply signifies cross-cultural pollination with a heavy French emphasis. A Frenchman might see a gumbo as a kind of bastardized bouillabaisse or seafood stew.

Gumbo’s true international character shines through in its thickening agents–the roux (French), okra (African), and filé (Native American).

The roux is how you start the dish.  Simply melt a bunch of butter (I used about a stick and a half or so) and then add an equal amount of flour and mix until it doesn’t taste like raw flour anymore. While you can use it when it’s at the “light roux” stage, for gumbo it’s more appropriate to wait until it has darkened a bit. I generally wait until it’s about the color of the old beige Volvo station wagon my parents owned during my childhood.

Okra is seen by many to be the heart of the dish. It not only is another wonderful texture and flavor to add, but due to its mucilaginous nature, it actually helps to thicken it as well. As a matter of fact, the word gumbo comes from the word for “okra” in several different Bantu dialects (okingumbo, gombo, ngumbo, gomboaud; no, I don’t know how to pronounce any of them). I have read some recipes that advise cooking them down first until they lose that sticky, gooey character, but I didn’t notice it in the finished product.

And, last but not least, filé is a powder made from sassafras root which is used similarly to corn starch or arrowroot powder. It should be added at the end of cooking and preferably taken off the heat shortly thereafter.

Okra. In order to maintain scientific inaccuracy, I both fried some okra and then added some frozen okra straight to the pot.

So, in the interest of blogging laziness, I’m not gonna write out a recipe, but just a very simple list.

1. Make seafood stock (fish, crab, shrimp… or any combination thereof). This can be done ahead of time.
2. Chop desired vegetables (the holy trinity is bell peppers, onions, and celery, but feel free to experiment). Here is where you would add okra as well. I used frozen okra. I guess this can also be done ahead of time.
   • Optional: Quickly saute vegetables and sausages.
   • Here is the point where I would start the rice if I was planning on eating the gumbo immediately. And trust me, you’re going to want to eat the gumbo immediately.
3. Make a roux.
4. Add vegetables (and, *gasp*, tomatoes), seafood (everything from shellfish to fish fish will work), sausages, seafood stock, and herbs/spices (for me, lots and lots of fresh thyme, cayenne, some homemade Iranian chili powder, and salt and pepper).
5. Cover and simmer for about 30-60 minutes.
6. Enjoy.

Yes, she really is a ginger and allergic to red bell peppers and ate it anyway and yes, he really is a Brit and had never had seafood and sausage combined and ate it anyway. I think they liked it, if returning for seconds is any indication.

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with some friends on a camping trip. We spent the night on a bitterly cold and windy beach in a tent that was better suited for a heated patio. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t my greatest camping adventure. Although I woke up with a crick in my back from sleeping in a car, I received a fairly decent consolation prize: fresh crab.

My friend had taken a boat out on Bodega Bay and returned with a pretty big catch. He cooked the crab and gave me a bagful. He warned me that it wasn’t particularly good, but I was simply looking forward to using it to soak up a bunch of clarified butter. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to use it immediately and had to freeze it. This compromised the texture even further, so I figured that there was only one thing to do… fry ‘em up as crabcakes.

The first thing to do was to get them out of their shell. At first, I despaired because I didn’t have a nutcracker… then I realized that any smashing device would do.

I opted for a hammer.

Smashing crab shells is pretty decent stress relief... picking crab meat out of the shells, however, is not.

I wrapped the hammer in a few layers of aluminum foil, because I’m all about sanitation.

A lot of work for very little meat.

Next chop up some crunchy vegetables and prepare the rest of your mix ingredients, including breadcrumbs, egg, and mayo.

Red and green bell pepper, Ritz crackers (for breadcrumbs), scallions, and shallots.

Notice that I used Ritz crackers for the breadcrumbs… well, in addition to regular breadcrumbs… and panko breadcrumbs.

I decided, due to the aforementioned textural difficulties, that these were going to be a rather filler-heavy crabcake.

There are two crabcake camps and, like most things related to food, I am in both, because it means I get to eat more. I know them as the traditional, filler-heavy crabcake and the other as the gourmet/foofy, lump crabcake. Apparently, in Maryland, they are known as the Boardwalk and Restaurant crabcakes respectively. Now, as I said, I like both, but if I was forced at gunpoint to choose, I’d go with the foofy type.

I just prefer big chunks of meat, pretty much as a general rule.

Of course, that’s provided that the meat is good quality. In this case, while it wasn’t terrible (and I should know, because I ate quite a bit while shelling it), it wasn’t great either. Plus, I ended up chopping it too finely (as pictured below).

Conclusion: Go with the traditional Boardwalk style and throw in some other flavors (as pictured above).

I tried to chop it roughly, but the pieces still ended up shredding.

I really am not sure of the proportions and shot for an approximate texture instead. I added one beaten egg, about 5 crumbled Ritz, red and green minced bell pepper quarters, mayo, some Worcestershire sauce, a few shakes of paprika, and a few more of cayenne. That was for approximately two big handfuls of crab meat.

You should be able to somewhat easily form balls with the mixture.

I made two terrible mistakes here. The first was my choice of breadcrumbs–I went with panko. While I love panko breadcrumbs for some things (like chicken strips), they are far too much crunch for crabcakes. Next time, I will go with simple seasoned breadcrumbs. My second mistake (and I really should’ve known better, even without experimentation) was to pre-make the crabcakes and fry them the next day. I wanted to save time because I was going to bring them to a friend’s house and didn’t want to have to be breading there, but it ended up making the breadcrumbs soggy and compromising the texture of the crust. Worse, the extra moisture caused more oil splatter, which–despite being relatively inured to burns at this point–is hardly pleasant.

Actually, that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is that… the store-bought crabcake was far superior to my own.

I went to the store earlier in the day in search of a bit of crab meat to augment my own, but it was FAR too expensive ($12.99 for a baby food sized jar). However, the butcher/fishmonger (yeah, it was a Safeway) gave these frozen crabcakes such a ringing endorsement that I felt like I would be insulting him not to buy at least one package. I figured I could do a comparison and show the world how superior my delicious homemade crabcakes were. However, my Bobby Flay-like hubris caught up with me and I was [easily] bested by the frozen food.

In the left corner, wearing panko breadcrumbs... Homemade! In the right corner, covered in plastic wrap... Store-bought! Let's get ready to fryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

The store-bought ones were the “restaurant-style” lump crab meat kind and simply had better texture overall. This is not to say that mine weren’t good. They simply couldn’t stand up to the appeal of big chunks of crab.

I fried them both in peanut oil for a few minutes per side.

Getting ready for the final showdown in which <SPOILER ALERT> frozen food defeats homemade and fresh.

Yes, everyone pretty much agreed that the frozen crabcakes were better than mine. The bigger pieces of crab simply tasted better than my filler crabcake.

However, I consoled myself with the fact that my sauce (shown above in the glass and below on the left) was superior to the frozen crabcakes’ sauce (shown above in the plastic pouch in the mug of hot water and below on the right).

My crabcakes are on the left and the store-bought ones are on the right.

A good crabcake, like any good fried item, should come with a delicious sauce.

I Googled and asked people on Facebook and Reddit for sauce suggestions. Remoulade and Hollandaise topped both lists, but I wanted something with a bit more bite.

I decided to go with a garlic cilantro shallot aioli, based partially on my mood, but mostly on my available ingredients.

From L to R, spiraling inward: cilantro, horseradish, lemon, fresh egg, garlic, shallot.

Basically, an aioli is an emulsion similar to mayonnaise, though not as creamy. Some aiolis are barely creamy at all, but I wanted something that would at least mimic a remoulade or hollandaise, so I decided to include egg in my aioli. Plus, I had fresh eggs.

On the board: Horseradish, cilantro, shallot, and garlic; In the bowl: lemon, mustard, and yolks (one was dropped from too high up); On the table: wire whisk

I made a quasi-Hollandaise, whisking the eggs as I drizzled olive oil in, then slowly added the minced ingredients. The result was a bit thinner than I wanted, but I suspect it’s because I used too much lemon juice. Another egg might have helped. Overall, I don’t even know if you can call it an aioli, but I’m gonna do so anyway. I also pre -made the aioli, which was nowhere near as terrible an idea as pre-breading the crabcakes. Most aiolis will last a couple of days in the fridge.

Overall, this wasn’t one of my more successful recipes, but they still were all eaten and I’ve learned some important things about crabcake making (use bigger chunks of crab, no panko breadcrumbs, and don’t pre-bread them). Furthermore, the crabcakes’ shortcomings kept no one, least of all me, from eating all of them.

]]> http://www.foodbyz.com/2010/06/15/caught-crab-vs-consumer-crustacean-2/feed/ 6 http://www.foodbyz.com/2010/06/15/caught-crab-vs-consumer-crustacean-2/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FoodByZ/~3/6k2guO4wUYc/ http://www.foodbyz.com/2010/05/31/pomegranate-infused-pineapple-with-coconut-ice-cream-mobile-post/#comments Mon, 31 May 2010 23:02:05 +0000 Z http://www.foodbyz.com/?p=870

Drain the liquid, then boil it to make a reduction glaze.

Grill or broil the pineapple until it has char marks and/or has a slightly golden “crust.”

Serve with coconut ice cream and drizzle the reduced glaze over it. It will cool and become pomegranate pineappley caramel.

Heaven in a bowl.

So what’s so hard about cooking a burger? Get some ground beef, mash it flat, and cook it, right?  Maybe a little seasoning. Some people go so far as to say a burger patty should be ground beef and nothing else (not even salt!).

I think these people are idiots.

Now, when I go to a restaurant and order a cheeseburger, if I’m given a choice I order my burgers cooked to medium. Why? Well, well-done burgers tend to be as juicy as a hockey puck and nearly as tasteless, and if a particular establishment feels comfortable enough in their meat to allow it to be cooked to order, well then, by golly, I trust ‘em to have decent quality meat (foolish, perhaps, but that’s how my mind works). On the other hand, when I buy pre-packaged ground beef from a supermarket, there’s no way I’m cooking it to anything less than well-done.

Unless you’ve got high-quality beef whose provenance you are confident in, if cooking a burger well-done, steps need to be taken to both enhance flavor and maintain juiciness. To that end, I employ two key ingredients. The first is steak sauce: I presume that plenty of people probably pooh-pooh plebeian pleasures such as steak sauce, and I would never use it on an actual steak of reasonable quality. In a burger, however, I think it’s the perfect addition. It has an ineffable, unmistakable spice profile and a bit of a lip-puckering vinegary kick that’s an excellent counterpoint to the beef flavor (oh man, that’s probably the douchiest food-related thing I’ve ever written).

Pre-mixing

The second key ingredient is bread crumbs. Again, purists may scoff. However, the bread crumbs *(footnote: As an alternative to breadcrumbs, my mom and little brother use Quaker oats in their burgers. I kid you not.) serve a vital purpose — as the burger cooks and the fat renders, the bread soaks up the molten fat rather then letting it all drain away, resulting in a far juicier end product. Some may argue that this effectively makes the burger patty more of a meatloaf patty — and to them, I say, “You’re right. What’s wrong with that?”

Now to make the burgers. In this case, I started off with a pound of 80% lean/20% fat ground beef. Yes, 20% fat. You wouldn’t go wrong buying 70/30 if you can find it. Burgers are supposed to be juicy. The juice comes from fat. Buying the leanest ground beef you can find is a surefire way to end up with dry burgers, and all the breadcrumbs in the world can’t change that. Also, fat is delicious. To this I added a healthy dollop (probably about 1/4 cup? Heck, maybe even more) of steak sauce, and probably almost another 1/4 cup of bread crumbs. Incidentally, the bread crumbs I used were homemade, made from leftover bits of stale, crusty sourdough bread I accumulate. I also added 2 cloves of minced garlic, because I am of the firm opinion that every savory dish is better with garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. The final ingredient is one well-beaten egg. The egg serves as a binder and prevents the motley beef mixture from falling apart (again, shades of meatloaf). Hooray for liquid protein! To mix, use your hands. It’s fun, trust me. (I’ll admit that sometimes I use my stand mixer, which made a guest appearance in a previous post).

Mmmm, fryin' up some burgers.

Forming the patties is easy — I wanted to make roughly 1/3-lb burgers, so I fashioned the beef mixture into something vaguely log-shaped and then divided it into 3 equal lengths (who said fractions would never be useful?). Consistent size means consistent cooking time, so I strive for, uh, consistency. When dealing with larger quantities, I actually will weigh each ball of beef using my trusty kitchen scale. Roll into a ball, smash into a flat patty in the palm of  your hand, and work around the edges to seal up the inevitable cracks that form. The KEY, though, to forming burger patties is to put an indent into the middle of the burger. When the burger cooks, it shrinks inward, and without an indent the patty will end up much thicker in the middle than the edges, and that both makes it difficult to cook evenly and difficult to assemble and eat. Remember — consistency! I like to make the indent have roughly 1/3 the diameter of the overall patty and half the thickness of the edges. Some people just make a thumb imprint. Whatever works.

Mmmm, cheesy.

Then…to the (Bat)pan! Pan frying is great for making burgers indoors. Non-stick pans (and well-seasoned cast iron) will need no additional oil, as the fat rendered from the meat is sufficient to keep the burgers from sticking. Cook on medium-high for about 4 minutes per side (if you’ve made thicker burgers, you’ll need to reduce heat and increase cooking time accordingly so that the inside cooks completely without burning the outside). Flip once only! Also, for the love of all that is good and right in this world, do not smash the burger with the spatula. Doing so only forces all of that lovely beef juice out onto the pan, which is not nearly as good as being forced into your mouth by a healthy bite. Once the burger is flipped, I lay cheese slices (in this case, a pretty standard medium cheddar) on top. I like to use a lid on the pan to help melt the cheese, but if no lid is available a piece of aluminum foil will do. Basically, you just want to trap/reflect some heat at the top of the patty in order to get the cheese nice and melted.

Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?

Then, assemble. Here, pretty standard: A toasted whole wheat bun, burger with cheese, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. No pickles, naturally. I added some avocado for flavor and the creamy texture (and because I thought the burgers needed more fat). Just like a steak, I find that a burger benefits from some “resting” time before eating. It will allow the juices to set a little bit and avoid soaking through the bun and/or squirting you in the eye with the nearest bovine equivalent to napalm.

And the result? Well, it was pretty good. Note the even thickness of the final result in the cross-sectional cut, as well as the noticeable but not overwhelming amount of juice even in a burger clearly cooked well-done.  I wish I could say it was fantastic, but I had a few reservations about the flavor, both them related to the breadcrumbs. One, I don’t think I would use sourdough bread crumbs again. The sourdough flavor was actually a little too strong and I wasn’t a big fan of this flavor in the burger. Second, the texture was off. It didn’t have the same chewiness and resistance as burgers typically do (you see, I resisted the urge to use the term “mouthfeel”). I think this was due to either there being too much bread crumb in the mixture, or that the bread crumbs are larger than commercially available bread crumbs, or both. I normally use store-bought “Italian seasoned” bread crumbs, which both have no sourdough flavor and some extra herbage, but also are much more finely (and consistently) ground than what I get out of my food processor. Or it could have been the egg — a whole egg may be too much for a single pound of meat.

Cross-sectional view

Then again, my dining partner actually liked both of the things (the sourdough flavor and somewhat softer texture) that I thought were faults. So…take from that what you will.

We both agreed, though, that avocado on burgers is pretty much a win all around.

Avocados are delicious.