Articles

A Paupered Chef Update

Blake — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:12:43 +0000

As many of you have noticed, it's been quite a while since we posted on the site. For that—and mostly for the lack of any news—we apologize. The story of our absence isn't as exciting as we'd like it to be. Basically, due to new jobs for the both of us, we've been busy. Really busy. So we took a little break from posting while we focused on jobs that pay money. Obviously, a note saying so would have been the polite thing to do, but we just weren't sure what to say.

After some discussion, both of us have decided to put The Paupered Chef on some kind of hiatus, at least for the time being. (You can never say never, right?) The Paupered Chef has always been a site full of youthful energy, about being scrappy and curious as to where adventures in cooking could take us. As it turns out, it could take us many places, from a homemade sausage adventures to tours across the country in search of the best barbecue; from the cattle markets of Argentina to a pig jowl hung in a Brooklyn living room to make pig face bacon. Sadly, we simply don't have the time or energy to continue exploring with the same passion that have always been the heart of this site, and to give it any less than our best would feel wrong.

Don't fear! In the next months, you might see us cleaning up some of our old content and highlighting it once in awhile on the homepage. Five years of writing has built up quite a fascinating account of two young men learning to cook, and we want to preserve that as a resource and document. And down the line, who knows.

And about those day jobs...we haven't strayed too far from food. Nick is currently editing the Chicago edition of Serious Eats, which he launched as the first Serious Eats site outside of its New York headquarters late last year (and once a week, you'll see Blake's work on the site in the form of Sausage City, his weekly column about all things encased meats across Chicago). Blake, for his part, is working full-time at Jamco Creative, which provides creative work for chefs and restaurants, including social media, video, and photography.

We hope you'll stick us in your RSS reader or stop back occassionally to see what we're up to. Thanks for all the comments. Hope to see you poking around the site. And keep cooking!

Repertoire | The Dinner Party

Blake — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:15:57 +0000

Ed. note: This is the third post in a "Repertoire" series on the interplay of food and style, with our friends The Midwestyle. We're helping their readers learn a few recipes, and they're teaching us a few things about doing it in style.

To say you’re an accomplished person is putting it lightly. That time you summited Kilimanjaro during a snow storm. The month you took a vow of silence. The day all the stoplights turned green.

You’ve been places, you’ve seen things, and you’ve got most situations in the bag. But the thought of hosting a dinner party? Crippling. Like trying to throw a punch under water. There are Nobel Prize winners who would buckle at the thought of preparing a meal for friends and having to sit there and face them while they eat it.

Having hosted more than few gatherings, we've learned a few things. Call them rules, or guidelines. We think they might be a helpful starting point.

And if nothing else, learn to cook porchetta. You won't regret it.

The rules, in no particular order.

Roast something. Inviting people to eat requires skill, timing, and artfulness. Roasting takes tremendous pressure off one of those things; with a thermometer and a few basic tips, the timing of the meal becomes far more forgiving.

Toast something. Let's bring it back. Toasts are a delicate alchemy. They require a strange combination of humor, truth and unspoken permission from your audience. They’re hard. Which is why people respect a good one. You have to make them laugh, steer a wide berth around cliches, and remain earnest. The formula: start out polite, transition to funny, and end with something true. Best bet is one you’ve spent enough time preparing that it seems effortless. But really, all that's required is a simple and genuine thanks for showing up.

The guests will be as calm as you are. There’s no easier way to ruin a party by being nervous, which of course makes it even harder to be relaxed. You set the tone, and if you’re unflappable, so your guests will be. Speaking of which...On drinking. With moderation and good timing, a drink or two can take the edge off. Sip while you cook, to give yourself a head start, but then cut it off. You want the right level of alcohol to relax, but not so much that you become incompetent (or, god forbid, incontinent). When guests arrive, everything will be jolly. Give them something immediately to put in their hands to soften your lead. Then, before you get sloppy and turn into a lousy conversationalist, pull back the reins. Put another way: Drink early, but not often.

Embrace the performance. Dinner parties are funny things. People are watching themselves and watching each other, and that’s okay. The cast of a dinner party will always be new (if it’s just close friends over for a meal, it’s not a dinner party), so the dynamic is unfamiliar. Nerves are a good thing.

Wear a tie.

Never mention your own cooking. Whether you’re fishing for compliments or lamely apologizing for the “dry meat” you’re lowering the tone. Take Julia Child’s advice: “You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.’” If the food is great, it speaks for itself. If it sucks, don’t mention it. They won’t remember.

Greetings and farewells. Much like giving a good compliment, hellos and goodbyes are best when simple and heartfelt. You’re excited they’re here, you’re so pleased they enjoyed themselves, and you hope to see them soon.

And if you’re the guest, bring a gift. Hosting a dinner party is a sacrifice of time, money and energy, so offer something that shows you appreciate the effort. Booze always fits the bill. Though if you’d like to take it to the next level, bring something that reminds you of the host. It shows you’ve paid attention. Bonus points for a handwritten note the next day.

And now, about that roast...

In Italy, porchetta is made by stuffing a whole pig with garlic, fennel, wild herbs, and heavy amounts of salt and pepper; it's then rolled up and spit-roasted slowly over wood. Thankfully, it's almost as delicious on a smaller scale. Serve the pork shoulder with creamy polenta, also something than can be made in advance. A standard for the repertoire. File under: You Can’t Go Wrong With Rustic Italian.

Porchetta

Adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rogers*

For the pork

1 3-pound boneless pork shoulder roast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon capers, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon lemon zest (no white pith), from 3-4 lemons
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
12 fresh sage leaves, crushed and coarsely chopped
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves stripped and chopped
2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 bulbs fennel
1/4 cup dry vermouth

For the polenta

5 cups water
1 cup polenta or cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

*Possibly one of the best cookbooks in the world to learn from. Highest recommendation.

Lay the pork out on a cutting board and examine the natural seams in the meat. Using your fingers and the tip of a knife as needed, excavate the seams to expose as much internal surface area of the pork as possible, carefully freeing the muscles along their natural separations. Season the pork inside and out with salt.

In a small bowl, mix together the capers, lemon zest, garlic, sage, rosemary, fennel seeds, and black pepper.

Pack the herb mixture into the crevices of the pork, rubbing it into the meat and ensuring the seasoning reaches all the exposed surfaces. Using kitchen string (or if your roast came with a net, use it) to tie the roast back into its original shape. It should take 4-5 strings crosswise and one lengthwise to accomplish this (for detailed tying instructions, see this post on making lamb pancetta). An even shape will also cook evenly.

Cover, refrigerate, and allow the seasoning to penetrate the meat, at least 1 day and up to 3.

Heat an oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large (14-inch) ovenproof skillet or roasting pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add the pork (it should sizzle) and transfer to the oven. Roast, uncovered, for an hour (the pork should begin to color; if it hasn't, up the temperature to 400.)

While the pork roasts, bring the water to boil in a large saucepan, then pour in the polenta in a slow stream while whisking to prevent clumping. Once it's all added, add the salt and reduce heat to low, stirring often as it thickens and the cornmeal becomes creamy, 25-30 minutes. If it appears too dry and the cornmeal is not yet soft, add more water and continue cooking; you can always cook it longer to evaporate any excess water. Once soft, turn off the heat until ready to serve. To finish, reheat and stir in butter and Parmesan.

Meanwhile, halve the fennel lengthwise and cut out the core. Put the halves cut-side down and slice thinly crosswise. Toss with enough olive oil and salt to coat it nicely.

Once the pork has been in an hour, use tongs to flip it over and tuck the sliced fennel into the roasting pan around the porchetta, tossing it well in the roasting juices. Return the roast to the oven and continue cooking for another 1 to 1 1/2 hours, to an internal temperature of 145F.

Remove the pork to a cutting board and keep it loosely covered in foil while it rests for at least 10 minutes (the meat will reabsorb the juices, ensuring it's as moist as possible). Put the roasting pan on the stovetop (with the fennel still in it), pour or spoon off any excess fat, and turn the heat to high. Add the vermouth to the pan, using the liquid to scrape up any caramelized bits left from the pork in the roasting pan. Cook, stirring often, until the fennel is soft and caramelized and the vermouth has mostly evaporated.

Slice the pork and serve with the polenta, along with some of the caramelized fennel and rich pan juices. Finish with some of the fennel fronds that (ideally) came attached to the fennel bulb.

Prep photos by Seth Putnam. Dinner photos by Ryan Plett.

Weekend Project: Freeze Chicken Stock in Ice Cube Trays

nick.kindelsperger — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:35:56 +0000

I, Nick Kindelsperger, wholeheartedly endorse the practice of freezing chicken stock in ice cube trays. Doing so allows one to crack them into zip-lock bags and stash them in the freezer for safe keeping. It is convenient, fairly easy to do, and downright practical (in a slightly embarrassing way). Of course, the problem with dishing out little kitchen tips and tricks like this one is that there are enough of them to make even the most organized person confused. I'm as guilty as anyone. So, I decided to wait on this one just to make sure that I actually followed through, used it all, and then did it again. It passed the test.

I've long been freezing stock. I learned early on that freezing the whole batch in one bag was the wrong way to go, because it is hard to dethaw a huge hunk of ice. So, I started freezing stock in four-cup batches, thinking that would be a normal amount to use for a recipe. That is almost never the case. Nine times out of ten, recipes call for ½ cup or less, meaning I had to partially dethaw the bags, pour off the amount I need, and then refreeze them. The process was annoying and, at least whenever I tried to do it, messy.

This is the opposite. Just pull out as many little cubes as needed, zip it back up, and place the bag back in the freezer. I'm not sure if there happens to be some universal ice cube tray size, but I have three different kinds of trays, and they all measured out to about one ounce per cube. Often I just defrost them in the microwave right before I need them.

That's it! Anyone else tried this?

Chicken Stock

What kind of stock you decide to make is up to you. Blake and I have written about a number of different versions, including this handy pressure cooker one. But for this batch I just wanted a stripped down version. Naturally, I decided to go with a recipe from Ferran Adrià— the same man behind El Bulli, which is one of the most acclaimed and gastronomically adventurous restaurants in human history.

Luckily, his latest cookbook, The Family Meal, is a chronicle of the humble staff meals from the restaurant. The recipes are remarkably straightforward — undoubtedly a product of needing to feed a large group of people quickly and cheaply — but they are also well thought out and delicious. This recipe for chicken stock couldn't be any simpler, but it's the kind of simple base that is always great to have around.

Makes 8 ½ cups, though, as you can see above, I tripled it.

1 small onion, cut in half
1 carrot, cut in half crosswise
1 celery stalk, trimmed and cut in half crosswise
2 ¾ pounds raw chicken carcasses (backs and wings are good for this)
1 ⅓ gallons water

Combine all the ingredients in a very large pot. Turn heat to high to bring water to a boil. While the water is warming up, skim off any foam that comes to the surface. When just starting to boil, reduce heat to a keep liquid at a simmer. Let the stock cook for 2 ½ hours. Occasionally, skim off any foam that rises to the surface.

When done, set a colander over a very large bowl. Pour the stock in to the bowl, and discard all the chicken and vegetables pieces caught in the colander. Then strain the the stock through a fine-mesh sieve.

Chicken Stock Ice Cubes

If you're like me and used backs and wings, the stock will be fatty. (If not, then you can skip this step.) Let the stock cool to room temperature, which takes a while. One way to speed up the process is to wash out the large pot, and then pour the strained stock back in. Plug the sink, and then fill it about halfway up with water. Place the pot in, making sure it doesn't tip over. This should help speed up the process. Also, you can add ice cubes or ice packs to the water to cool it down even more.

Once at room temperature, cover the stock and place in the fridge over night. In the morning, some of the fat should have risen to the top. Just spoon it off and use for some other delicious project.

Use a ladle to pour the stock into the ice cube trays. Because I tripled this recipe, I didn't have enough trays, so I had to do this in batches. Place the trays in the freezer and wait until they are completely frozen. This will take multiple hours.

When ready, crack the ice cubes into a large bowl, and then transfer to a zip-lock bags. Each ice cube equals about one ounce of liquid. If they seem to stick together, carefully toss the bags on the counter — they should easily break back into individual cubes.

For the Love of Un-Simple Things: Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo

nick.kindelsperger — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:09:18 +0000

The older I get, the more I appreciate the un-simple things. Sure, I admire the shining brilliance of singularly perfect foods — like the best summer tomatoes or a properly aged steak — but I'm far more interested in dishes that combine dozens of components into a complex and bewildering whole. I speak of Mexican moles, feisty Thai salads, balanced Indian curries, and, of course, a certain Creole dish I've been in love with for a while now: gumbo.

Gumbo is a passion of mine, even if I only seem to get around to it once a year or so. Part of the problem is that I live too far away from the source for it to worth ordering at restaurants (as I once learned the hard way). But the main issue is that gumbo is an all day cooking process that absolutely can't be rushed. It is not easy or, if we could return quickly to the main thesis here, simple. Fortunately, there is much to love.

While obviously rich and filling, gumbo is also hauntingly complex — two attributes that may sound easy to pull off, but which are actually quite difficult to do effectively. After most stews simmer for a few hours, they come out flavorful and delicious, but usually an individual ingredient's character has been sacrificed for the greater good. But not gumbo; each spoonful revels in some harmonious combination of distinct flavors, which are still hard to exactly pinpoint and identify.

Gumbo's brilliance isn't based on one ingredient or component. Even the chocolate-brown roux, which is one of the most distinctive elements of the dish, is just one part. You also have to account for a few pounds of sausage, mounds of different vegetables, and a whole chicken. (Even the fat from the chicken is used to make the roux.) This doesn't even account for the eight different spices in the Creole Spice blend.

But — much like the dishes listed in the first paragraph — for all of gumbo's complexities and long ingredient list, it is essentially made from a collection of some of the humblest and cheapest ingredients out there.

But let's back up for second, and explain how I got here. This post began with an attempt to make andouille at home — a process which wasn't exactly difficult, but did require me to hand chop meat, stuff it into beef casings, let it hang overnight, and then smoke it for a few hours. After the time-consuming process, I wanted to use it in some mad recipe that would really show it off. A gumbo seemed like the natural choice.

But gumbo isn't just about andouille, as I found out the hard way. In fact, many recipes didn't use it at all. (It really would have been good if I had figured this out before I started the process, but whatever.) Luckily, I was able to find a recipe from John Besh's My New Orleans that did use some, even if it was only a paltry six ounces.

Which isn't to say there isn't A LOT of sauasage here, because there most definitely is. It's just that the andouille is used more as a flavoring, while a full two pounds of smoked sausage is used to bulk things out. I really didn't want to have to make that too, so I cheated a little and checked out Gephardt's Meat Market, where I was able to score a bunch of Polish-style garlic sausage. It's not as spicy as its New Orleans counterpart, but it would have to do.

Of course, having a whole bunch of ingredients doesn't make a dish complex. (Remember that stew?) But I knew I was in good hands with John Besh, especially when reading this sentence in the introduction: "I believe that overcooking is the enemy of flavor and texture, so you'll discover in my recipes that I suggest adding ingredients in stages to preserve both."

And it plays out here. Most of the vegetables aren't added until the meat has been cooked in the roux, helping to preserve their character and flavor. The okra and file don't go in until much later. (Note: I'm not going anywhere near the argument about whether you should exclusively use one or the other.) The result is a stunning bowl, where the individual components combine to create a new dish, but which still manage to retain their essential character.

Creole Spices

Makes 2 cups

2 tablespoons celery salt
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

Mix everything together. You'll only need two tablespoons for the actual recipe, but it's worth having around. Store in a container with a tight fitting lid.

The Roux

1 cup chicken fat or canola oil
1 cup flour
2 large onions, diced

Heat the chicken fat or canola oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over high heat.

When shimmering, whisk in the flour. Stir well, and then reduce heat to medium.

Continue whisking until the roux turns a dark brown, about 15 minutes. This is surprisingly easy, as long you make sure to keep stirring. The flour will quickly burn if you forget.

Add the onions to the roux, switch to stirring with a wooden spoon, and reduce heat to medium-low.

Continue to stir often, and cook until the roux turns glossy, about ten minutes.

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

1 large chicken, cut into 12 pieces
2 tablespoons of the Creole spices
2 pounds spicy smoked sausage, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 celery stalks, diced
2 green bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and diced
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 sprigs fresh thyme, stems discarded, leaves chopped
3 quarts chicken stock
2 bay leaves
6 ounces andouille, chopped
2 cups fresh okra, stems removed, chopped
1 tablespoon Worcestershire
salt
black pepper
file powder
Tabasco sauce
4 to 6 cups cooked white rice

Sprinkle the Creole spices on the chicken pieces.

Then add the chicken pieces to the roux. Turn the heat back up to medium, and cook until the pieces have browned, about 10 minutes. Make sure to stir often. (Note: This was the exact moment when I realized I needed a bigger pot.)

Add the smoked sausage, and cook for a minute.

Then add the celery, bell peppers, tomatoes, and garlic. Stir well, and cook for three minutes. Pour in the chicken stock and stir well. Add the thyme and bay leaves, and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 45 minutes. Stir the pot occasionally, spooning off any fat that comes up to the surface.

Add the andouille, okra, and Worcestershire sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a pinch of file powder and a couple dashes of hot sauce. Simmer for 45 minutes. Continue to spoon off any fat on the surface. Stir occasionally.

Remove the bay leaves, and ladle the gumbo into bowls with rice. Serve with more file powder and hot sauce to taste.

Repertoire | The Working Lunch

Blake — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:18:15 +0000

I’ve worked enough days in my life, from my desk at home to mind-numbing office temp gigs, to have developed some theories on lunch. To me, the working lunch is a series of balances: it should be fast, yet not fast-food; it should be a break from work, but not so indulgent you can’t get moving again; it should be fulfilling, but not a cause of sluggishness. Lunch should work for you, but so often it’s the other way around.

Here's the idea: Work ahead, do a little bit of planning, and go vegetarian. And above all keep in mind: Healthy doesn’t have to mean it tastes like cardboard.

Start with a hearty grain, ideally with a high protein content—like farro, brown rice, or quinoa—and pair it with a vegetable, a touch of olive oil for slickness, and some kind of dressing. Sometimes just lemon juice works. Other times I rely on my stash of homemade vinaigrette that keeps for weeks in the fridge (speaking of, you should never buy salad dressing again after learning that recipe). But I’m most proud of my secret two-punch you see here: soft goat cheese and homemade pesto.

A few tips that make this a breeze:

Cook all the grain at once on Sunday, and stock up your fridge with a bunch of vegetables for the week. This recipe uses zucchini, but anything will work. Whatever you choose, it can be sauteed or roasted with salt, pepper, and garlic.
Make tons of pesto ahead of time and freeze it in ice cube trays. It’ll keep for at least a few months and be on hand whenever you need to whip it out (for tossing with hot pasta, for stirring into a soup, or spreading on some toast for a snack).
Have goat cheese in the fridge. It stays fresh for a while.

Delicious, nutritious lunch is never more than ten minutes away.

Now get back to work.

This is the second installment of a collaboration with menswear blog The Midwestyle. If you're just joining us: The idea was born over drinks at a tucked-away Chicago bar with the idea that, in addition to knowing how to dress, a man should master a couple of go-to recipes. We're preparing one for each meal of the day: breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. The recipes will be constrained by situation (e.g. lunch while working from home), budget (e.g. $5, or maybe what you've got in the fridge) and time (e.g. you've got 10 minutes to throw an elegant breakfast together before heading to work.)

First, we did breakfast. Now: Lunch.

Farro with Pesto and Goat Cheese

1/4 pound farro
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
2 zucchini
1 ounce fresh goat cheese, crumbled
3 tablespoons pesto (recipe follows)

Cost: $2.15
Makes: One serving
Prep time: 10 minutes (plus 30 minutes or so the Sunday before)

In a pot large enough to comfortably hold it, cover the farro (or other grain) with cold water. Bring to a boil and season the water with salt; it should be pleasantly briny but not overly salty. Cook until tender but still chewy, 20-30 minutes. Drain well.

While the farro is cooking, halve the zucchini lengthwise and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds. Cut into half-moons.

Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet until it shimmers. Add the zucchini pieces and garlic and sauté, stirring often, until the garlic is golden and the zucchini is tender but not mushy, 3-5 minutes.

In a bowl, combine the hot farro, pesto, half the goat cheese, and the zucchini. Toss to combine—the heat of the farro should gently melt the goat cheese. Top with the remaining goat cheese and eat.

Homemade Pesto

1 clove garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
A heaping handful of fresh basil
Olive oil as needed
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1/4 cup grated hard cheese (such as Parmesan or Pecorino)

Combine one of the garlic cloves with the salt in a mortar and pestle. Mash the garlic into a paste with the salt. Roughly chop the basil leaves and add them to the mixture, pounding them into a smooth-ish paste, then pound in the olive oil a little at a time to bring everything together into a sauce. Continue with the pine nuts and cheese and pound until smooth. Taste and season with salt, if needed.

NOTES ON PESTO

Alternatively, you could do this whole process in a small food processor, or quadruple the recipe and do it in a blender. But if you do that much (which we recommend), leave out the pine nuts and cheese before freezing in small quantities. When the time comes, defrost and mix in the cheese and pine nuts fresh.

How Absinthe Can Improve Just About Any Cocktail

nick.kindelsperger — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:46:22 +0000

I'm not sure if there is a better drink to write about for the launch of an improved website design than my favorite cocktail of the moment — a drink so good it's literally called an "Improved Cocktail." (If only modern drinks had enough courage to pronounce their worth.) Think of it as a relaunched product's "new and improved" guarantee, except that this one was made back in 1876 and is alcoholic. Sounds great, huh?

But wait! What makes it improved?

The standard mix of bitters, liquor, and sugar is a perfectly fine combination as it is. In Imbibe, David Wondrich refers to that mixture as The Original Cocktail. But people like to tinker, and somewhere along the line bartenders started adding little drops of this and that in order to alter the flavor. A few drops of curaçao made it a Plain Cocktail, and the addition of further fruit garnishes made for a Fancy Cocktail.

By the time the Improved Cocktail rolled around, the curaçao had been replaced by a little Maraschino liqueur. But the real breakthrough was absinthe. As Wondrich explains it, the green liquor sounds a bit like the way today's bartenders are so fond of elderflower liqueur: drops of it found its way into just about every drink they could think of.

And why not? When dished out in drops it adds an indescribable element to each sip (though too much easily overpowers everything else.) Of course, we all know why the drink disappeared. In 1915 absinthe was banned in the U.S.A. — followed by alcohol in general a few years later — effectively ending its run in legal joints.

The ban was overturned in 2007, and I remember tasting some of the first legal drops when I worked at a liquor shop in Brooklyn. I was mesmerized by the depth of each sip, and how even a little bit could awaken just about every drink. Though rumors of its psychoactive properties are exaggerated, it's still a hell a drink. You'd think that I'd have quickly stocked up on the green spirit.

Unfortunately, absinthe remains prohibitively expensive, easily costing $60 or more for a regular bottle. In fact, it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I purchased my very first bottle, albeit a 375ml one. Needless to say, I'm not about to go about drinking pure absinthe cocktails every night, however much I want to (but if you're curious, here's how it's done). No, this bottle of absinthe will be dished out in minuscule drops like the the rarefied liquor it is.

Which probably explains why I've been mixing up Improved Cocktails nightly for the past week. Only a few drops of absinthe are needed for each drink, yet they totally transform each sip. The result is a more complex and tempered drink. It's missing the razor sharp edge of the Original Cocktail, but it's easier to linger over and enjoy. Sometimes I need that.

Improved Whiskey Cocktail

2 ounces rye whiskey (gin or cognac also work)
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 teaspoon simple syrup (1:1 sugar and water)
½ teaspoon Maraschino liqueur
⅛ teaspoon Absinthe
1 lemon peel

In a shaker, combine everything except the lemon peel, and stir with ice until very cold — approximately 30 seconds or so. Strain into a cocktail glass. Rub the edge of the glass with the lemon peel and then drop into the drink. Serve.

Repertoire | The French Omelette

Blake — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:47:22 +0000

We’re happy to announce a new collaboration between The Paupered Chef and some fellow friends and bloggers of ours in Chicago: The Midwestyle. It’s a great blog, and thorough. Ostensibly about dressing well on a budget, it’s really about caring: how you look, how you think, how you act like a young man in this here century of ours. We feel an affinity with their go-get-em energy, the same early-20s stuff that started this blog here that you’re reading. A recent post on how to compliment women is the kind of first-rate stuff that we’ve come to expect from these young pups.

Over a weekly beer at a local corner watering hole (the kind of bar that makes you fall in love with Chicago), we came up with the idea that another thing a man needs to know is how to cook a few dishes. See, The Midwestyle has taught us a few things about how to dress better. So it’s only fair to return the favor.

To accomplish this, we’re doing a four-post series, landing weekly this month: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. Each has a scenario, a budget, and a recipe. And great pictures. And clothes.

For our first post, breakfast, we are blushing and thrilled to present Hannah Lea, a fellow Chicagoan also making waves, as the star of our first shoot. She has a blog over here and graciously agreed to be apart of this project.

First up: Breakfast

Last night was nuts. Between the dancing, the toasting and the unexpected requests to sing your famous rendition of that hit from the 1960s, you're pretty sure your suit needs to be dry-cleaned. If you remember correctly, someone ended up in a fountain. But the time is now. You're wide awake, and after a quick glance at the beautiful woman beside you, you realize. The meeting—the one with the big client—is this morning.

This, of course, makes you seem like an asshole. This is the classic dash. But in this case, it's no excuse, it's your reality. Missing this one isn't an option. How do you explain yourself? With breakfast in bed. You slip out from beneath the covers and heat the pan.

Introducing your new go-to: the French omelette.

The French have this concept of "to taste." Just enough to get the flavor of the thing. It's the opposite of the American way. It's to savor, not to be full. And if she doesn't like breakfast—if she doesn't like eggs—she shouldn't be in your home in the first place.

A few words on the art of the omelette:

The French omelette, unlike our American counterpart, isn't about the filling. In its pure state, there's nothing but eggs, salt and pepper. Done right, it's tender, elegant, understated, charming…everything you wish you were as a conversationalist. Making one requires technique. A bunch of gooey cheese and ham won't be there to help matters, so you just have to cook it well. No pressure.

It may sound counterintuitive, but cook yours first. Not only will this ensure hers is hot when you serve them, but it will also season the pan. Like pancakes, the second one is always better.

The French Omelette

The technique I've settled on is to add a teaspoon of water for each egg, which hits the hot pan and immediately evaporates to lift the eggs and make the omelette fluffy. This is an exercise in timing. But judging from what it took to get you here, you're already a master of that. Unlike scrambled eggs—which are all about patience and coaxing—the omelette is a 30-second, high-heat affair. You can't hesitate. Pour in the eggs, never stop shaking the pan and have the coffee already made.

2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 grinds of fresh pepper
2 teaspoons cold water
1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs (optional)

Serves one. Repeat, but don’t double, for two. Omelettes are cooked one at a time.

In a mixing bowl or measuring jar, combine the eggs, salt, pepper, and water. Whisk vigorously to combine.

Heat a small skillet between 8 and 10 inches wide, preferably nonstick, over medium-high heat until drops of water dance on the surface. Add the butter, which will sputter and foam. When the foam subsides and the butter just begins to color and smell nutty, add the egg mixture all at once.

Immediately, lift and begin to shake the pan to distribute the eggs all over the surface and up the sides. Technique varies; some suggest pulling up the sides of the omelette and tilting the pan to let uncooked egg slide under, or using a spatula to gently break holes in the eggs to let uncooked egg run there.

What's important is to never stop shaking the pan—it helps prevent any browning, a sign that the eggs are tough and you've overcooked it. Remember, it will keep cooking off the heat. If desired, sprinkle the interior of the omelette with herbs or a little sharp cheese.

Using a spatula, fold one side of the omelette one-third of the way toward the opposite side, like the first fold of a letter. Tip the omelette out of the pan with the folded side towards the plate, then roll it onto the dish. Serve immediately with buttered toast.

Department of Basics | The Fruit Crisp

Blake — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 02:00:05 +0000

It's probably become clear to most readers that this is not a food blog where you read about desserts, and for that matter, about baking at all. There's a good reason. We're no good at it.

Cupcakes and chocolate cakes and other frivolous foods are the specialty of other writers. Besides a post or two about bread (we're pretty proud of our olive-and-herb-studded foccacia and the lengths explored for the perfect cucumber sandwich loaf), we're mostly about sear, braise, and savory.

I'm on the other side of the Lake from Chicago this weekend, in a little cottage in Michigan, and the markets here are fantastic. Yesterday we found ourselves with a few perfect local peaches and a bowl of late-season blueberries. And all I really wanted was to make them into a dessert. So it was time to learn something new. And jeez, was it easy.

The fruit crisp (also known as a fruit crumble, though perhaps some grumpy commenter could point out that they're totally different things—please enlighten me) turned out to be a baking project worth the hassle. Mostly because there wasn't much. The fruit crisp is easy, unrefined, and tough to mess up.

A pie is a lot of work without guaranteed results, but with the crisp you make two things quickly: first, toss the fruit with flour, sugar, and maybe some lemon zest. Second, make the topping with more flour, sugar, oatmeal, and also butter, then you top the first thing with the second thing and put it in the oven. About ten minutes to pull together before starting dinner, and ready when you're finished eating.

Even a measuring cup is unnecessary; it works quite well if you use equal parts flour, sugar, and oats for the topping . Perfect for that random vacation house you happen to be in.

Here are just a few rules to a successful fruit crisp:

Always toss the fruit filling with a bit of flour, which will thicken the liquid that it releases while cooking and keep it from being watery. Not too much, perhaps a couple teaspoons for a small dish.
The filling also needs a bit of sugar, but if the fruit is super ripe, hold back or it will get too sweet. Between one tablespoon and two will do it.
Use a wide, shallow dish to get a good crumble-to-fruit ratio and so it bakes evenly
When making the topping, keep the butter cold and don't let the pieces get too small or grainy while breaking them up.

The Basic Fruit Crisp

Here, I used peaches and blueberries, which are a good average for a filling (blueberries release a lot of liquid, peaches less so).

For the filling

4 peaches, peeled, pitted, and cut into wedges
1/4 pint blueberries
Lemon zest from 1/3 a lemon (about 1/2 teaspoon)
2 teaspoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar

For the topping

2/3 cup sugar (white or brown or a mixture)
2/3 cup flour
pinch of salt
2/3 cup oats
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, or a combination of any Christmas-y spices
5 tablespoons cold butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Toss the peaches and blueberries in a shallow baking dish with the lemon zest, flour, and sugar. Spread out evenly in the dish.

In a bowl, stir the sugar, flour, salt, and oats together with a fork. Add the cold butter and break it up steadily between your fingers, aiming for chunks a bit larger than a pea. Work quickly to avoid melting the butter too much. The smaller the pieces, the finer and grainier the crisp topping will end up.

Top the fruit with the crumble, then transfer the crisp to the oven with some foil underneath the pan to catch whatever bubbles over. Bake until you can smell it and the topping is nice and golden, an hour or sometimes longer.

Allow to cool for ten minutes and serve with vanilla ice cream or thick Greek yogurt.

Making Andouille at Home

nick.kindelsperger — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:01:07 +0000

This didn't start off as a gumbo mission, though I did end up there (more to come on that front soon.) No, the saga began simply: about three weeks ago I needed andouille for a Dinner Tonight. All I could find at the grocery store was a product that claimed to be the right stuff, but had all the character of cheap bologna and about as much spice as, well, cheap bologna. I was angry.

Then I drank too much whiskey and started to dream about New Orleans. I read John Besh's My New Orleans cover to cover in one night. Plans were made, again, to visit. As this dream clouded my brain, I read the following passage.

There's a lot of baloney out there that is not andouille...Cajun andouille is made from a diced lean cut of pork -- the shoulder, butter, or shank -- mixed with a little pork fat and generously seasoned with garlic, salt, and black and often red pepper.

There was only one recourse: I had to make my own. What else could I do? One of the fiercest sausages in America had been tamed by the corporate monster. I had to do something.

Convinced I had to correct the matter but without any actionable plan, I went out to the Green City Market to score some pork. Luckily, chef Jared Van Camp, maker of some of the best charcuterie in Chicago at Old Town Social, happened to be setting up for a demo. He'd obviously know what to do. "So, Jared Van Camp, how does one make andouille?"

I don't remember the exact exchange verbatim, but here are the important facts, which seemed to be completely in line with Besh: Chop the pork instead of grinding it; use red pepper flakes; beef casings are a must. I can't thank him enough for the advice, and he even let me use some of Old Town Social's own properly cleaned beef casings. (Which are awesome, by the way. Bigger than hog casings--I could easily stuff the sausages by hand.)

But I still needed an exact recipe. Besh makes most of his own sausage but not his andouille, claiming that two places in LaPlace, Louisiana make superior versions. Next, I checked with Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie. He had a recipe, and most of it looked great; but, it also used ground pork, which was whipped until emulsified. So, I also consulted Nola Cuisine — one of the best sources online for Cajun/Creole recipes. That's when I hit open a nice compromise. Nola advised using a combination of chopped and ground pork, so you'd get the right texture, but it'd still hold together like a sausage should.

Everything else is easy: Chop half the pork; grind the other half; mix in the spices; stuff into casings; smoke until cooked. Some recommend dry curing the sausages after that, but I decided to stop there. It's so good; Smoky, bold, and peppery — this is sausage with passion.

Okay, if you need a little bit more help, check out the step by step instructions.

Homemade Andouille Sausage

5 pounds pork shoulder
2 teaspoons cayenne
1 tablespoon paprika
¼ cup chopped fresh garlic
1 cup diced onion
2 tablespoons black pepper, ground
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon pink salt

Chop half of the pork into ¼-inch pieces. Chop the other half into 2-inch hunks. Place both in the fridge to chill for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix together the rest of the ingredients in a bowl.

Grind the 2-inch chunks through the small die. Transfer to a large bowl along with the ¼-inch diced pork. Add the seasonings and mix well. Cover and place in the fridge until you're ready to stuff the sausages.

Rinse about 10 feet of beef middle casings, and let soak for 30 minutes. (Just so you know, I halved this recipe, so the sausage is smaller than it would actually be if you made the whole recipe.)

Stuff the casings with the sausage mixture. This is spectacularly easy if you have a sausage stuffing machine; it is less so if you're using the Kitchen Aid attachment. Luckily, the beef casings are so wide, you honestly stuff it by hand. A wide funnel would also work.

Tie off both ends, and hang the sausage in the fridge overnight. Didn't I make this process look really easy?

The next day, set up a smoker to about 180 degrees. Add the sausage and cook until it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees.

Almost done.

When done, immediately transfer it to an ice bath, and let it cool completely. Stash in the fridge until ready to use.

How to Brew the Perfect Cup of Coffee

Blake — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:34:36 +0000

I discovered the first inklings of my obsessive nature while making coffee in college. So many things can go wrong. So many ways to go right off the cliff. What should be routine and pleasurable becomes stressful, maddening, disappointing. The beans, the water, the tools, the process, and the thin line between greatness and mediocrity. None are exempt from mistakes. And of course, no one has ingested any caffeine yet. And we know what kind of mood thatputs people in.

I fell victim to this insanity for a number of years. I cycled through methods and gadgets like so many disposable filters. Vacuums, presses, gravity-defying machines. I melted espresso makers, shattered French presses, and consumed an entire stovetop Bialetti's worth of espresso every morning for a period of my life. The caffeine only enraged my desires further in a vicious cycle.

How could I enjoy a perfect cup of coffee? One that tastes intoxicating, sweet, rich, and subtle--just like it smells?

I suppose things have relaxed now; I'm more mature and I even drink milky black tea in the morning, thanks to my wife Elin's influence. She came back from England with an abiding faith in good tea, and it rubbed off. I'm a little less amped up and a lot more tolerable now.

But every day, at some point, I think about coffee. I am as interested as ever in techniques for making the perfect cup.

The pour-over technique would be laughable if so many devoted coffee drinkers--experts and connoisseurs--were behind it. Really? All I have to do is pour water over the coffee in a plastic cone?

No machinery or anything that has a switch, cord, beep or button, just a tremendously appealing simplicity and artfulness (it was popularized in Japan). Like most things resulting in perfection, it does require attention to detail, but it's not hard once you get it. It's meditative, and it makes you enjoy each and every cup you drink.

If you start with good beans, this is the most subtle coffee you've tasted in awhile, revealing characteristics like fruitiness, chocolate undertones, all that stuff you've pretended to notice in the past.

My friend Tristan Coulter Metropolis Coffee, which roasts their coffee in Chicago, walked me through the process step by step. He was quick to assure me that none of this is set in stone, but this is the way they do it at Metropolis. While there's always room for different methods, this is the result of some trial and error, and, judging from the cup of coffee I tried, it's excellent.

Pour-Over Coffee

An electric scale
A timer
A coffee grinder*
A single-cup drip coffee cone*
A kettle*
A single-cup paper coffee filter
A brewing vessel (like a measuring cup)

*Grinders, drip cones, and kettles are not all made the same. Here are some recommended products, all by the same company, which is apparently the gold standard for pour-over things:

Burr grinders (not the electric kind that spins) can be expensive, but this one is handheld, compact, and has ceramic that won't wear out. Hario MSS-1B

The drip cone is a simple tool, but getting a good one with a proper shape is a good idea. Hario VDC-02W

The specialized kettle is the least important item to buy, but it does make a difference. With a spout that draw water from the bottom of the kettle, rather than the top, you get an even flow of water and great accuracy for where you point it. You'll see below why this matters. Hario Coffee Drip Kettle

Preparation

Fill a kettle with cold, filtered water and set it to boil. Set the cone on top of a brewing vessel.

While the water is coming to a boil, put a paper filter inside the cone, then rinse the filter with about 4 ounces of hot water (it doesn't have to be boiling; you could use a little of the kettle's water on the way to the boil). Two things are accomplished: heating the cone and rinsing out any residual paper flavor. It'll add a subtle flavor of wet paper towels if you don't. Pour out the water that has collected in the brewing vessel below.

Grinding the Coffee

Measure out 32 grams of coffee beans and grind them to the consistency of granulated table sugar (the fineness of the grind determines not only how much is extracted, but also the speed with which the water passes through it).

Place the cone and brewing vessel on top of an electric scale. Pour the grounds into the filter and reset (tare) the scale to zero.

Blooming the Coffee

Once the water in the kettle is at a rolling boil, remove it from the heat and let it cool for 30-45 seconds, which is about enough time to get it to 205 degrees. 205 degrees is a little hotter than you want, but by the time it travels to the coffee, it will be ideal. Extremely detailed people would use a thermometer in this case, but that's pretty fastidious.

Carefully pour 55 grams of water over the grounds from a height (you want it to be a relatively aggressive pour), starting in the center and working your way out. Make sure that the grounds are evenly saturated; once the scale reads 55 grams, stop.

There shouldn't be much water that drips down; the coffee will absorb it. If water is coming through, you're using too much water, or the coffee is not ground finely enough.

Let the coffee sit for 30 seconds, which time the grounds will swell up a bit and "lock" into place. It also allows the cofee to "degas" and fully saturates the coffee bed, ensuring better flavor in the resulting cup.

Brewing the Coffee

Start a timer.

Pour in 100 more grams of water, so that the scale now reads 155 grams. Try to pour with slow precision (this is easier with the kettle linked to above) so that the grounds are evenly covered and not dislodged. You never want to pour onto the side because the finer grounds can get pushed down towards the smaller part of the funnel, choking the extraction. Aim at least 1/2 inch from the edges.

Use a spoon to push any stray cofee on the sides of the filter back into the water.

At the 2:00 mark, pour in another 100 grams, bringing the weight to 255 grams. At the end of each pour, push the bed back down. At 3:00, pour another 50 grams to total 305 grams.

At 3:30 pour in the final 50 grams to total 355 grams.

At 4:30, the coffee should stop dripping, and the bed should be done draining. If there's still excess water, that probably means the grind was too fine. 4:30 is of course an estimation; 30 seconds or so give is okay. But it's a good ballpark.

Remove the cone, pour the coffee into a mug (be sure to warm the mug with some extra hot kettle water so it's toasty first) and enjoy.

The Tomato Sandwich: Why You Don't Always Need Bacon to Be a Glutton

nick.kindelsperger — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:30:11 +0000

Most people return from the beach with tans; I returned with tomatoes. It was a half-bushel, to be exact, and they were stashed in the back of a car as it wound its way from North Carolina, through the Great Smoky Mountains, and, some 16 hours later, finally to Chicago. Why such extravagant measures for tomatoes?

When it comes to tomatoes, I don't suffer fools, and I simply can't accept sub-par specimens. I shun fresh ones except for a brief three-month span when they are really worth eating. They still aren't ready in the Midwest, but in the North Carolina they were absolutely perfect, and when I finally got to lunch on immaculately ripe red ones for a whole week, how could I possibly stop? I needed a good stash to help me bridge that gap.

Besides knowing that I had to have the tomatoes, I didn't actually have a recipe to use all them, and great tomatoes don't like to sit around on counters for long, as they like to bruise and turn to mush. I needed a plan. I tried all kinds of dishes, including BLTs, salads, tomato sauce, and the like. Along the way I managed to find my new favorite use for tomatoes: the tomato sandwich.

The general consensus is that the BLT is the ideal sandwich showcase for the freshest, in-season tomato. I have nothing against a BLT. In fact, for the past few years I've explored the many variations of the BLT: two years ago it was the fried green tomato BLT; last year was the BLT with avocado and shrimp; and a week ago, I even took a page from In-N-Out and attempted a BLT Animal-Style. But a new sandwich has surpassed it in my mind.

Saveur Magazine refers to it as the tomato sandwich, but it's more like a toast, mayonnaise, butter, and tomato sandwich. After I had written most of this article, I realized Kenji from Serious Eats had also fallen under its spell.

That said, this version differs from the Serious Eats-approved one in exactly two ways: First, like all good toast, each side is buttered; second, I used a prepared mayonnaise. We'll get to the first item later on, but let me explain my mayonnaise preference.

We all have that one food product that we love despite overwhelming evidence that it is inferior in some way to the real thing. Whether it's boxed macaroni and cheese, salad dressing, or even sriracha, I bet we all have one. I know I do. It's called mayonnaise, and I like it best from the jar.

Sure, homemade mayo is elegant, easy, and a basic of all seriously focused culinary minds. I just don't love it the way I love Hellman's. But I found out something very important about myself last week at the beach: It turns out I don't love Hellman's more than regular mayo, I apparently love most jarred mayonnaise in general.

Here is Duke's Mayonnaise. The southern product seems to have little more vinegar tang than Hellmann's and also doesn't contain any sugar. (And yes, I did just take a spoon and sample a little bit of each. I told you I love jarred mayonnaise.) It is perfect for tomato sandwiches.

Now, let's talk about the butter. Adding a nice spread of fat to both sides of bread might seem like a ridiculous thing to do, especially when you're about to spread mayonnaise on two of those sides, but it's the final bit of decadence that pushes this sandwich over the edge into the ridiculous category. It is unhinged and unwieldly. Bacon wished it could be so out of control. This is a summer sandwich like no other.

The Tomato Sandwich

adapted from Saveur

1 very ripe tomato, stem removed, cut into thick slices
2 slices of bread
softened butter
mayonnaise
kosher salt
black pepper
pinch of sugar

Toast the bread. When done, slather both sides of each slice with butter.

Spread one side of each with mayonnaise. Top with two or three slices of tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper, along with a small pinch of sugar. Top with the remaining slice of toast, mayonnaise-side down.

Slice in half and serve immediately.

How to Make Proper Barbecue Chicken

Blake — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:27:13 +0000

There's a lot of misconception when it comes to "barbecue." The problem is the word itself. It's used as a synonym for grilling, refers to the grill itself, or to the meat being grilled; it also has a sauce named after it; and sometimes it's just the word for the party itself held outdoors in somebody's backyard. What, actually, is "barbecue"?

American purists see things a little differently. To them, "barbecue" is a wonderful Southern tradition of slow-cooking with indirect heat and woodsmoke to transform cuts of meat, often inexpensive ones, into succulent, unbelievably delicious results. That's true barbecue. Anything else on a grill cooked hot and fast rather than low and slow is called grilling. Brits and anybody else in their commonwealth be damned.

Which brings us to barbecue chicken, a staple of the summer grill. Does it earn its name in the true sense of the word?

The sad fact is that often times the answer is no. The way I've seen it cooked most is like this: the chicken is slathered in sauce, the coals are lit (or the gas grill is fired up to high) and it's then grilled until the inside is no longer pink. Seems simple enough.

The problem, and the result, is charred all over the place, a crapshoot for succulence, often dry and sad. Not to offend you or your talented uncle manning the grill, but he's probably cooking your barbecue chicken all wrong.

I believe good barbecue chicken is low and slow followed by fast and hot; that's the easiest way to achieve fantastic results. (Now, before we get too far with this idea, it's important to mention that even this method deviates a little bit from the barbecue orthodoxy for chicken, which stipulates that the meat should never see high heat at all. Bob Gibson, arguably the most famous name in barbecue chicken, believes that the chicken should be cooked at a very cool 300 degrees until it's done, with no exposure to caramelizing high heat at all.)

This way is a vast improvement over most methods, and won't take all afternoon. But it will take a couple principles:

the dry rub
keeping half the grill hot and half of it cooler, i.e. "banking the coals" or using half the gas
a final sear with the mopped-on barbecue sauce

As the chicken cooks on a relatively cooler part of the grill covered in a pungent rub of spices--essentially slow-roasting in its smoky environs--the skin gradually crisps into a mouthwatering crustiness and the interior juices baste the chicken while it cooks.

Then, and only then, we see the appearance of barbecue sauce, when the chicken is essentially finished cooking. Then it gets painted on the chicken liberally and constantly over a hotter part of the grill, allowing it to caramelize and turn syrupy just the right amount. Then you devour it like crazy.

Proper Barbecue Chicken

For the rub, I turned to a famous thing "magic dust" invented by barbecue god Mike Mills. A blend of mustard powder, paprika, granulated garlic, and other goodness, it's good enough to mix up and keep around for rubbing on just about anything, including sauteed vegetables. I recently rubbed it on some pork chops and they were stellar.

Magic Dust

(makes 2 cups)

1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons mustard powder
1/4 cup chile powder
1/4 cup ground cumin
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
1/4 cup granulated garlic
2 tablespoons cayenne (or less to taste)

Combine ingredients in a container and mix thoroughly.

To begin, mix up the magic dust and sprinkle it pretty liberally all over the chicken. While you can proceed right away, see if you can plan ahead long enough to let the chicken sit, covered loosely in the refrigerator, for a few hours or even a day. The magic dust has salt in it, so there's no need to salt the chicken otherwise.

Barbecue Sauce

While there are great bottled sauces out there, and they'll work pretty well, I seem unable to avoid the possibility of making something from scratch.

It's easy enough: just take ketchup and start doctoring it up. Homemade sauce ups the game considerable, and for barbecue chicken, ketchup-based is probably the way to go. Common augments include soy sauce, brown sugar, mustard or mustard powder. I used this recipe adapted from Steven Raichlen.

2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard
1 tablespoon magic dust (recipe above)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Hot sauce (such as Tabasco) to taste

Prepare the barbecue sauce by putting all the ingredients into a small saucepan and bringing them to a boil. Turn down the heat so that it just bubbles a tiny bit and simmer it, whisking once in awhile, until it's dark and thickened, 10-15 minutes.

Now, the chicken.

I used a charcoal grill, but you could also do the gas route by turning on just one side. In the case of charcoal, bank all the coals on one side of the grill and line up the chicken on the cool side. Cover the grill to build up some heat and cook until the chicken starts to turn golden and brown, 25-30 minutes.

Make sure to switch the pieces halfway through so that the ones closer to the coals trade places and get equally cooked.Once the chicken is golden and looking close to done (a thermometer should read somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 degrees; by the end the chicken should be up to 165), move the chicken nearer to the coals and start brushing sauce on the pieces, turning often to completely cover them with sauce.

This is a pretty focused process, so stay in front of the grill brushing, turning, and moving the pieces all over to get them equally cooked and sauced. Try to cook the skin-side down as much as possible. Just as the sauce starts to turn syrupy and caramelized, the skin should be crisping up beautifully.

Once the internal temperature is 165 degrees fahrenheit or hotter and outside is all dark and crisp (some black is okay, but I try to keep it to a minimum), remove the chicken to a platter and let it rest for at least 5 minutes. Serve!

How to Enjoy Hotel Bars and the Seelbach Cocktail

nick.kindelsperger — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:45:12 +0000

I have a thing for hotel bars. It helps if they are opulent old ones, designed to comfort the wealthy traveler from a 100 years ago. Sure, the drinks aren't necessarily the best, and the service can be uninspired and overly corporate, but I feel immediately relieved when I walk into some grand old space like Chicago's exquisite Palmer House in the Loop. Plus, I'm just not sure there is a better place to have a cocktail. Served cold and strong, cocktails comfort the weary traveler and immediately transport one to a different, happier place. My hunch is that best hotel bars seem to be the manifestation of that first sip.

So, when I got stuck in heavy traffic for over an hour on a recent trip to Louisville, I knew immediately what would comfort my frayed nerves; I needed a drink at the Seelbach Hotel. I've written about this storied hotel more than once, and have probably visited it more than many of the bars in my own neighborhood in Chicago, but never had I noticed that the bar actually had its own namesake cocktail.

And it's good. Essentially a champagne cocktail with bourbon substituted for the usual gin, the drink is a perfect mix of pleasure (bubbles!) and sleek cocktail cool. You won't feel like a whimp holding one of these. Of course, many bars and restaurants these days have a house cocktail, but few are nearly 100 years old, or quite as odd as this one.

What's so strange? Well, I'm an ardent fan of bitters, which lend drinks complexity and depth. But never have I encountered a drink that uses them as brazenly as this one. According to nearly every recipe I've found, seven drops of Angostura are used, which is dramatically more than any other drink I've made. Usually, only a couple drops are added to any given drink. Though slightly out of control with the Angostura, the drink doesn't stop there; it also features seven more drops of Peychaud's bitters. The combo dies the drink red, making it almost look like a fizzy Negroni, which also happens to be one of my favorite drinks.

It helps to have one of these in the appropriate setting, though I've found that the experience is still pleasurable enough to replicate at home.

The Seelbach Cocktail

1 ounce bourbon
½ ounce Cointreau or Triple Sec
7 dashes Angostura bitters
7 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Champagne

Combine the bourbon (I used Buffalo Trace), Cointreau, and bitters in a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir for 30 seconds, and then strain into a chilled flute. Top with Champagne.

Italian Bean Salad with 'Loadsa' Herbs and Tuna

Blake — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 01:06:39 +0000

The Italian bean salad has been with me a long time, and for good reason. I've made some variation of beans, herbs, and olive oil dozens of times over the past few years and I never get tired of it. When it comes to the relationship between deliciousness and effort, this one gets it exactly right. It's about as easy as mixing the ingredients together and letting the flavors develop, then it's ready to bring to a picnic, served under some seared skirt steak, or crumbled with tuna. What matters is using great ingredients and letting them shine.

Above is one of the best bean salads I've ever made--bright and herby and made with two ingredients I found at Dose Market, Chicago's recently-launched "European-style" market for all things local, handmade, and artisanal. After a successful debut last month, Dose is again happening at the River East Art Center this Sunday from 10am-4pm.

Dose is, among other things, a place to secure some world-class items for your larder. Old Town Social charcuterie. Rare Tea Cellar teas. Hoosier Mama pies. Bittercube cocktail bitters. Check out the full list at DoseMarket.com.

All these beautiful people are not usually in one place at one time. And that's what really shines about the market: it's a chance to not only try lots of amazing products in one place, but also to talk to the producers and chefs behind them. Last month I got to talk charcuterie with Jared van Camp and geek out about aging room temperatures and bacterial curing cultures. It was really, really fun.

(For those of you who don't live in Chicago, feel free to skip ahead to the recipe.)

What made this salad special was two ingredients I bought at a company called Blis, which sells vinegars, maple syrups, and this amazing canned tuna. I bought a bottle of their sherry vinegar that's aged in barrels formerly housing maple syryp and aging bourbon before that. Reuse and recycle has never been so delicious.

The tuna they sell is packed into the cans raw (meaning it only cooks once, during the canning process, rather than pre-steamed commercial varieties to assist peeling and deboning). All the natural juices and omega-3 fatty acids stay in the can. The result is richer and more flavorful.

I used the sherry vinegar to punch up the acidity, and the tuna to top the salad.

Good ingredients leads to good food.

Consider this recipe a starting point -- it's a perfect blend of flavors, but feel free to leave out the chile and anchovy and add olives. Or lose the parsley and mint and use fresh rosemary. Tough to go wrong.

Bean Salad with 'Loadsa' Herbs and Tuna

Serves 4-6

2 14-oz cans Italian beans, preferably a mix like cannelini, borlotti, etc.
1 red onion, peeled, cut in half through the root, and cut into thin slices
4 anchovy fillets, minced (optional, but they add superb flavor)
1 fresh red chile, seeded and minced
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, or another lemon's worth of juice
3 handfuls mixed herbs (parlsey, basil, mint, chives, etc.), chopped
Olive oil as needed
1 can high-quality tuna packed in olive oil
Any great-quality canned tuna would work here (imported varieties packed in olive oil) or even a piece of fresh tuna seared.

In a large bowl, combine the onion, anchovy, chile, lemon, and vinegar. Stir well to combine and allow to sit for a few minutes while the vinegar and lemon juice softens the bite of the onion.

Stir in the beans. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Add enough olive oil to nicely coat the beans--the whole thing should look barely slicked with oil. Serve with the tuna crumbled on top.

Get thee to Dose and support a good thing. And have a cocktail before noon while you're at it: anyone who arrives before noon this sunday gets a free cocktail from Aviary. Free cocktails before noon...this is getting better by the minute.

Do Dose membership cards are $30 for six months’ admission, available online.

Or, you can purchase $10 tickets at the door or $8 advance tickets online. Again, need I mention the free Aviary cocktail?

How to Throw a Baja Fish Taco Party

Blake — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:59:32 +0000

Mexican food is made for parties. The construction of tortillas, fillings, salsas, and toppings; the spicy, rich flavors; and above all, the fact that it tastes so darn good. This was our guiding principle on a recent Saturday when, with the help of a handful of talented friends, we threw a Baja Fish Taco party under warm string lights in a Chicago backyard.

We were celebrating one of the early recipes published on this blog for beer-battered strips of fish served with spicy "white sauce" and shredded crunchy red cabbage. The Baja fish taco is a wondrous thing, and, done properly, earns a spot in my book amongst top 5 foods in the world. When I was in Baja last month to film behind-the-scenes footage for the latest season of Mexico--One Plate at a Time, I rekindled my love of the fish taco.

And I thought: more people should know about this thing.

Through sheer luck, the recipe Nick and I made back in 2006 was one of the best things we'd eaten, much less cooked ourselves. I remember distinctly visiting 4 Manhattan grocery stores after work before I could find lard (which are essential to good flour tortillas), and rolling them out with Corona bottles from the beer we'd drunk and used for the batter. We had no deep-frying thermometer or ventilation, or much confidence that things would work out. But the gods smiled upon us, and the tacos were good (even if we did spend the next three hours cleaning the kitchen).

The Paupered Chef Kitchen, circa 2006

For the party, I recruited and invited every talented friend I knew in Chicago. Tristan Coulter gave us two of his beautiful handcrafted aprons made by his company, Winter Session; they're fashioned out of recycled chinos, the craftsmanship is top-notch, and they are available for order and purchase in Chicago (pictured below).

We secured fish from Whole Foods, which was offering line-caught "Pacific Rockfish" fillets on special, simple to cut into strips.

We stocked three tubs with beer, gave instructions for making micheladas, and mixed up a huge batch of margaritas. Our secret ingredient was the triple sec, a brand called Gran Torres which I learned about writing a piece on margaritas for Time Out Chicago. For the price, it packs a bright orange flavor and a hint of complexity. Here's the recipe we used...for 39.6 servings, scaled down from the jug of tequila.

Max Wastler (above, left) of All Plaidout lent his energy, musical knowledge, margarita-mixing skills, general sense of style, and, at the last minute, a pinata.

Joe Roy stepped in with his envy-inducing gas-powered griddle to help me mix up the tortillas dough and nobly cook fresh tortillas all evening long, missing only a cigarette to complete his short-order cook's persona.

Heather Pieske and David Baker graciously hosted us in their backyard, and passed out cherries.

And Ryan Plett of You Have Broken the Internet shot all of the photographs you see here.

It is this bringing of people together, and cooking for them, that truly makes me happy.

Maybe some of it is selfish. Cooking great food makes you look like a hero, even when it's easy. But the pleasure of cooking the food is equal or greater to the pleasure of eating it, and it certainly is more lasting; in some Freudian way, cooking reaffirms my sense of manhood, as a provider, and in this case, a facilitator of pleasure.

But as Max put it on his blog All Plaidout, there is another, more noble thing going on: worlds colliding as friends of friends of friends became friends. Every cliche in the book comes to mind, but the simplest one is what I'll choose: food brings people together. It makes them forget about what happened that day, and makes the temptation to worry about the future seem silly.

There is only this moment: the golden, crispy fish battered in flour and beer, the crunch of cabbage, the warm, pliable tortilla, and the spicy, creamy sauce, and most important of all, the people surrounding you enjoying it, too. Eating well reminds us of the pleasure of a moment, and surrounded by friends, the moment becomes one we may never forget.

If you haven't tried a true Baja Fish Taco, may I recommend that you do. You can follow the link to our original post, or, if you have an iPad, check out our app called Appetites, where you can cook this exact dish in an amazing step-by-step format along with us in the kitchen.

Long live summer and the Baja Fish Taco.

In Praise of Cincinnati Chili

nick.kindelsperger — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 02:11:54 +0000

Cockaigne: an imaginary land of great luxury and ease.
—Merriam-Webster Dictionary

"Cockaigne was the name of the family home...Any time there's a recipe with this in the title, it means it's an old family favorite."
— 'Joy Of Cooking': 75 Years Young, CBS

When the words "imaginary land of great luxury" and "chili" collide, usually that means we're set for some hyperbolic description of Texas chili, which many people consider the only "authentic" version there is. At least, it sounds like something I'd write — because I have indeed explored authentic Texas chili in detail. But I have something to admit: I grew up with spaghetti in my chili. Red kidney beans bobbed in the red liquid, and cheddar cheese and oyster crackers were mandatory toppings. Less than an hour-and-a-half from Cincinnati, my hometown fell under inevitable regional influence, and it somehow made sense to me growing up.

Of course, once I sampled fiery and robust Texas chili — with its mesmerizing mix of dried chilis and chunks of beef — I cursed, wrote long screeds, and generally tried to disavow that I ever had anything to do with the Midwestern version.

Except, I couldn't. I'd give into a plate of 5-way from time to time at Skyline Chili (hopefully you know the terminology by now), and my mom actually mailed the company's slightly less terrific canned version to me when I studied abroad. Eventually, I accepted the idea that Cincinnati chili may be inferior to the Texas variety, but it still satisfied a deep craving. When I made chili, I made this; when I wanted to reminisce in some nostalgia for home, I opened a can of Skyline Chili.

Unfortunately, the cans don't exactly make a great case for the dish, as they feature pasty ground beef with a slightly bland spice blend. It's fine on a hot dog. I always knew that those plates I indulged in at actual locations of Skyline Chili were better.

I didn't find any luck searching in any of the usual places; instead, I went straight for my busted copy of The Joy of Cooking. When you're in search of truly authentic recipes, go straight to the source with the most knowledge of the particular region: The Joy of Cooking may not be my first choice for authentic Thai or Mexican cuisine, but if you have some kind of hankering for a Midwest classic — especially one from Cincinnati — then this is the book.

From the very beginning, I knew I had struck gold:

There are hundreds of so-called original recipes for John Kiradjieff's Cincinnati Chili that he served for the first time in Cincinnati's first chili parlor, The Empress. We particularly like this version of our hometown obsession, and we can guarantee without question that it is not one of myth.

Titled "Cincinnati Chili Cockaigne," it bears almost no resemblance to Texas chili. First off, there is no chili powder to speak of — only ground cayenne pepper making an appearance. Secondly, it features a whole range of spices and flavors — including black pepper, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, and chocolate — which have far more in common with picadilloand other ground beef mixtures than some stew. It is "chili" only by association. In fact, the idea of using this as a topping for pasta starts to make a lot of sense.

The only issue I had with The Joy of Cooking recipe was that it required one to cook it a day in advance. The ground beef is simmered in water along with all the other ingredients, meaning all the fat stays in. If you transfer the chili to a container and let rest in the fridge, the fat eventually rises to the top, and you can scoop it off with a spoon. It's not difficult, but does take time. But Cook's Illustrated came up with an interesting way around the problem: the beef is simmered in water for 30 seconds and then drained in a colander. This removes most of the fat, and allows you to make the recipe in one day without waiting overnight.

As soon as I separated the dish from its supposed Texas brethren, I was able to see that Cincinnati chili was totally unique, and madly delicious. As the quote from the top attests, the editors of The Joy of Cooking considered it to be one of the best recipes in the whole book.

I can confirm that they are right.

Cincinnati Chili

2 pounds chuck
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
one 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 quart water
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
10 black peppercorns
8 whole allspice
8 whole cloves
1 large bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ ounce unsweetened chocolate, grated
1 pound dried spaghetti
grated cheddar cheese
chopped onion
¼ cup canned red kidney beans
oyster crackers
hot sauce

Pour 2 quarts of water into a large pot and bring to boil over high heat. Add the ground beef, set the timer for 30 seconds, and stir constantly. You want to separate the meat into individual strands. As soon as the timer goes off, turn off the heat, and drain the meat in a colander.

Rinse out the pot, and add the oil. Turn heat to medium, and when shimmering, add the onions. Cook until the onions are lightly browned, and then add the garlic. Cook until very fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the tomato sauce, water, cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a simmer.

Grind the black peppercorns, allspice, and cloves. Add them to the pot along with the bay leaf, salt, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, cumin, chocolate, and the ground beef. Stir well, turn the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to maintain a simmer.

Cook for 1 ½ to 2 hours, or until thick and delicious.

Serve with cooked spaghetti for 2-Way
Add cheddar cheese for 3-Way
Add chopped onions for 4-Way
Add red kidney beans for 5-Way

Also, oyster crackers and hot sauce are kind of mandatory.

Homemade Ginger Beer and the Dark 'n' Stormy

Blake — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:42:38 +0000

File this one under projects that seem a lot harder than they actually are.

A week or two ago, my wife tore out a couple pages in the New York Times Style magazine about a shop in Melbourne, Australia that combines style, bespoke fashion, and great food under one roof called Captains of Industry (here it is as an interactive online feature). Besides all the cool ideas and wavelengths that must bounce around in that shop, they apparently have delicious ginger beer. And they offer an informal recipe in the spread: take ginger, cut it up, add some lemon juice and sugar, toss in hot water and yeast, and give it 24 hours. Not that they had time or space to give any true exact quantities or anything. But hey, that's the fun of fermentation and kitchen experimentation.

Well, it actually is that easy to make ginger beer, and I made a batch recently which was fizzy, super ginger-y and dry, and fantastic over ice. Ginger beer is essentially ginger ale but with a much sharper, more upfront ginger taste, and it's far less sweet. It isn't alcoholic, but because of its more assertive flavor it holds up beautifully in cocktails.

Indeed, I was most happy to see if fulfilling its true destiny in a Dark 'n' Stormy cocktail, mixed with dark rum and a little lime juice to taste. The sweet undertones of the rum soften the spicy ginger to great effect—and when summer finally comes around for good in Chicago and it's sweltering again, the heat is made a little bit more bearable with one of these in your hand.

Homemade Ginger Beer

1/2 pound fresh ginger, roughly chopped
2 quarts boiling hot water
2 cups sugar
juice of two lemons
1 teaspoon champagne or other yeast

A couple tips for making ginger beer: first, don't do like I did and stuff all the ginger into the jug you'll be storing it in. Obviously, once it's done fermenting I needed to separate the ginger from the liquid or it would get spicier and spicier, and so I had a real time getting all the solids out of the bottle. Instead, let it steep in a large bowl or pitcher, then pour it into a jug and add the yeast

Also, the kind of yeast you use matters when it comes to flavor. Champagne yeast is cheap and pretty good for this purpose -- check for a local brewing shop or order online. That said, it'll work with regular bread yeast and it will still taste pretty good.

After making this batch, I found many recipes that opt to grate fresh ginger and simmer it with sugar and water in a pan, then use the resulting syrup mixed with more water and sugar and yeast to create the ginger beer. This does seem like a good solution, though the ginger-y taste might be less upfront (which could be a good thing or bad thing, depending on your perspective). Anyone want to weigh in on that method?

Chop the ginger (no need to peel) and add to a large pitcher.

Cover with sugar and lemon juice and add the boiling water.

Stir well and allow to sit as the water temperature cools. When the water feels just lukewarm to touch, add the yeast and cover the pitcher (plastic wrap would work well). Allow to sit at room temperature for 24 hours or so.

Pour the mixture through a strainer, cheesecloth, or a clean kitchen towel into a sealable jug (leftover beer growlers work particularly well). Taste the mixture and add more sugar if desired (adding more sugar will also give the yeast still living in the beer something to eat, which will carbonate the drink if you seal it). If you want carbonation, let it sit out for another day, then refrigerate to keep it from fermenting further. Every few days, open the cap to release gas buildup, or it might burst in your fridge -- though it's unlikely.

Dark 'n' Stormy

2 ounces dark rum
3 ounces ginger beer
lime juice to taste (try 1/2 ounce)
simple syrup to taste

In a tall glass, stir together rum, ginger beer, and lime juice (though citrus cocktails are often shaken, you don't want to shake this one because of the bubbles in the ginger beer). Add plenty of ice. Because this ginger beer is pretty upfront, you may want to add simple syrup to soften it out a little bit -- just mix half water and half sugar and shake until dissolved, then add to taste. Though if you use a good full-flavored dark rum (Gosling's is the standard-bearer), it may not be necessary.

Homemade Rhubarb Syrup and the Rhubarb Daisy

nick.kindelsperger — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:49:09 +0000

"I hate rhubarb." That was the first sentence uttered by my local butcher after I described this sauce I wanted to make to pair with some pork chops. To be fair, rhubarb is a much-maligned spring vegetable. I was just convinced that I had to love it, and that I’d instantly find all kind of amazing uses for it.

Though rhubarb and I don’t have much history to contend with, in cooking more that one dish with it in the last few weeks, all it’s given back to me is disappointment and failure. This spring vegetable has turned into something of my nemesis this year.

Which isn’t to say that it was all rhubarb's fault; just that it seemed to be the harbinger of really bad luck. The first disaster was when I tried to pair it with some beautiful pork chops. The sauce came out tart and sassy, but the rhubarb must have been too young, because instead of looking all red and luscious, the sauce looked like a putrid green colored mess.

Undettered, I scooped up a bundle of gloriously red rhubarb and tried again a few days later. I decided to follow a Barbara Kafka recipe which paired the vegetable with two other spring cohorts, asparagus and morels. How could that fail? I picked up some of the very expensive funghi from Whole Foods, and stashed them in the fridge for the night. But when I took them out the next day they were nearly covered in a hairy white mold. Though I initially thought about just wiping it off proceeding as directed, I eventually worried that I’d might, you know, kill myself. I threw them out.

What was I to do now that I had two major failures on my hands? Well, it was time for a drink. And if there is one thing I can confirm, it’s that rhubarb tastes really good with lemon and gin.

I stole the idea from a recent feature I did for Grub Street Chicago. I was searching for brightly colored cocktails for spring, and eventually ended up at Blackbird to take a picture of the Pisco Criolla. Mixologist Lynn House gave the drink its beautiful red glow by using a rhubarb syrup, which she freshly made everyday. It turns out that the syrup is actually pretty easy to make at home.

While I didn’t have any pisco, I did have gin, and before I knew it, I was essentially recreating the Daisy cocktail, which I first wrote about back in 2009. Instead using a homemade grenadine — which I simply made from fresh pomegranate juice, sugar, and water — I just chopped up a bunch of rhubarb and tossed it in a small saucepan of simple syrup. I simmered the liquid over medium-low heat until the rhubarb fell apart, strained it, and then mixed it up just like normal. I guess it technically could also be a Tom Collins with rhubarb. Either way, its delicious.

The best part is that the rhubarb syrup has a strange citrus note to it, which perfectly balances the sweetness of the syrup. That also means you don’t need to add as much lemon juice as normal. It’s a pure spring drink.

Rhubarb Syrup

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
6 or 7 stalks of rhubarb, ends trimmed and removed, thinly sliced

Pour water into a medium-sized saucepan. Turn the heat to high and add the sugar. Bring to a boil, whisking occasionally, until sugar has dissolved.

Add as much of the rhubarb as will fit and still be covered by the simple syrup. Bring to a boil again, and then turn down to medium-low.

Simmer until rhubarb is very tender, about 10 minutes. It should easily break apart with a fork. Turn off heat and let mixture cool to room temperature.

Strain mixture into another bowl, pressing on the rhubarb solids to get as much liquid out as possible. Discard the solids.

The Rhubarb Daisy

2 ounces gin
1 ounce rhubarb syrup
¾ ounce lemon juice
club soda

In a shaker, combine gin, rhubarb syrup, and lemon. Shake with ice and then strain into a glass with fresh ice. Top with club soda. Serve.

Introducing The Soft Shell Crab Sandwich...with Bacon

Blake — Tue, 17 May 2011 02:49:21 +0000

Soft shell crab season is here, generally considered to begin at some point in May. So we here at The Paupered Chef decided it was time to take advantage. Generally, the soft shell crab is dusted with flour and fried up in a skillet, and I'm not sure there is a better way to prepare this crustacean than this recipe by David Lentz from Food & Wine magazine: stuffed into a crusty baguette with a lightly dressed cole slaw, thick-cut bacon, and a drizzle of grainy mustard mixed with creme fraiche. Who cares if the weather sucks? Summer is officially here.

Blue crabs have made appearances on this site before, notably in a sloppy cook-up we embarked upon in a Brooklyn apartment a few years ago. The soft shell is just a traditional blue crab just after molting, meaning that you can simply remove the inedibles and cook up the entire thing to be eaten whole. It's not for the squeamish. This could be mostly due to the fact that this sandwich will appear to have grown legs (see below). But they are mild and sweet if you don't mind the texture, and a grand American delicacy at that.

The recipe complements the sweet crab with a nice light, vinegary coleslaw and chewy, thick-cut bacon (in this case, Neuske's). I was also pretty smitten with the sauce (grainy mustard + creme fraiche), a lighter alternative to something mayonnaise-based. In fact, it is exactly the same sauce I recently encountered in a Suzanne Goin recipe for asparagus with prosciutto, a recent colum on Serious Eats. Wait a minute! David Lentz is married to Suzanne Goin. You do the math.

Soft shell crabs are sold fresh, but that's not always easy to find; they keep for a couple days in the fridge so it's not required that they're fresh. To prepare them for cooking, you have to remove the lungs, the eyes, and the skirt, which takes all of ten seconds. This video from Chow.com pretty much covers it.

Soft Shell Crab Sandwiches with Bacon

1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
1/2 small head green cabbage, cored and shredded
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
1 small carrot, coarsely shredded
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons grainy mustard
2 tablespoons minced chives
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon crème fraîche
1 pound thickly sliced bacon
About 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, for dusting
8 medium soft-shell crabs, cleaned
1 long baguette, split lengthwise, or 2-3 shorter rolls
Lemon wedges, for serving

Makes enough for 10 people or so

In a heavy skillet, cook the bacon over low heat for 20-25 minutes, turning ocassionally, until the fat has mostly rendered away and the slices are chewy and only just beginning to crisp.

Drain on paper towels. Leave the bacon fat in the skillet.

In the meantime, put the red wine vinegar in a small saucepan and reduce the volume of liquid by half. Add honey to the pot and stir to dissolve it into the vinegar. Combine cabbage, carrot, and red onion with red wine vinegar mixture in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper and allow to sit for at least 15 minutes.

Then, add mayonnaise, half the mustard, chives, parsley, cayenne.

Combine the remaining mustard and creme fraiche in bowl. (Alternatively, you can use sour cream thinned with a little milk to substitute for the creme fraiche, which is sometimes rather expensive.) You're aiming for a mayonnaisse-like consistency.

Dredge the crabs in the flour, shaking off the excess, and heat the bacon fat over medium heat until shimmering. Add the crabs to the skillet and cook, turning once, until deep golden and red, about 5-6 minutes per side.

Split a warm baguette or other rolls. Spread the mustard mixture on one half and lay the bacon and coleslaw on the other. Top with the hot crabs, dressing them with any leftover mustard/creme fraiche sauce.

Cut into 10 pieces and serve immediately!

Tea-Smoked Duck Breast

Blake — Wed, 11 May 2011 11:35:54 +0000

I love what smoke does to foods—preserving, often cooking them, and adding layers of flavor. Next to cooking over wood fire, there's nothing more basic and caveman. There's just one major problem with this particular hobby (true of many caveman-esque cooking experiments): it's impossible to pull off without outdoor space and a backyard. This isn't always a luxury we're afforded living in a city.

I have tried some indoor smoking experiments, including using a cookie tin and some wood chips to try to smoke a slab of bacon on the stove. But they usually turn out disastrously, gravely try my wife's patience, and everything ends up smelling like a campfire for days.

Wood, though, isn't the only substance you can smoke with. A different smoking technique from the Sichuan province of China uses tea leaves instead, and once sealed into a wok with tin foil, they produce less, but more potent smoke. At home, tea smoking can be easily accomplished inside of a wok on the stove. There is plenty of aroma, and the apartment will definitely have a pungent smell. But the fire alarms will keep quiet. Inside the wok, the warm smoke cooks the meat through and leaves it pungent and fragrant.

Duck is the most common meat from what I can tell -- Fuschia Dunlop calls smoked duck "one of Sichuan's most lauded delicacies" in her fantastic book Land of Plenty. The whole duck is the proper way to make this dish, and it is ridiculously complicated, involving not just tea smoking but also a long marinating time, blanching, air-drying, steaming, and deep frying—hence my abbreviated experiment with just a duck breast. This is by no means authentic, but it's in the spirit of the technique.

As for what kind of tea to use, it's pretty flexible: black tea is pretty common, so that's what I used. I also had a bag of green tea with mint leaves, so I spread that into the mixture, too. The mint was amazingly pungent. I served it simply fanned out on some greens with a dressing of sesame oil, Chinese rice wine, lime juice, garlic, and ginger.

The key to the technique is to line the wok with foil (otherwise, it will literally never come clean) and to heat it just long enough to start producing smoke and flavor the duck. Left on the heat too long, the smoke starts turning acrid, and too much of it will be produced. The key is to generate the smoke and then seal it in so the meat absorbs it. For a smoking rack, I used a little one I bought awhile back for roasting chicken in skillets--I've also heard of people using chopsticks like a grid. Just something to keep it off the bottom of the wok.

Duck is just one option. Fish could be marvelous, too, expecially if you smoked it with jasmine tea and served it with jasmine rice.

Tea-Smoked Duck Breast

1 duck breast, skin scored with a sharp knife in a diamond pattern
1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder (see below)
2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine or other Chinese cooking wine
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup rice
1/3 cup black tea leaves
1/3 cup sugar

The first stage of the recipe involves marinating the duck in spices. Traditionally, the marinade involves Sichuan peppercorns and a wetting ingredient like Shaoxing rice wine (a good substitute is cheap sake). I ended up using a mix of spices known as Chinese five spice: Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and fennel seeds. You can buy five-spice premade or mix it yourself -- just go easy on the cinnamon, advice I probably should have heeded myself. Rub the duck with salt and spices, then run the wine all over. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours to marinate.

Next, line a woke with a large piece of foil that hangs at least 6 inches over each edge (it will be folded back over to seal the wok).

Combine the rice, tea, and sugar in the bottom of the wok. Place the rack inside the wok and put the duck breast on top. Over medium heat, begin cooking the tea mixture until whisps of smoke begin to appear. Quickly cover the wok with a lid and seal it by crimping the foil all around (more pieces of foil will likely be needed).

Continue cooking for 3-5 minutes more, until a respectable amount of smoke has probably been generated inside (there shouldn't be a burning smell at all). Turn the heat off and allow to smoke for at least 10 more minutes, longer if desired.

Once cooled, slice the breast and serve.

How to Make Shoyu Ramen at Home

nick.kindelsperger — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 23:08:46 +0000

One sip of real ramen is enough. That’s all I needed to permanently erase all those memories of those pathetic packaged noodles, which I greedily warmed up in the microwave during college. One sip. Done. It was also enough to make me question whether there was a better soup on the planet. Fragrant, rich, and soothing, it has no parallel in the Midwest cuisine I grew up on, and while other marvelous brothy soups my attract my attention from time to time (phở and pozole, mostly), ramen is the one I simply can’t live without.

A perfect bowl of ramen, unlike, say, a perfect steak, isn’t about coddling some cherished ingredient and letting it shine. No, it’s about a meticulous and flawless combination of about 28 different ingredients into a whole more powerful and important than any of the individual components could ever hope to be. That also means that it helps to have a crazed passion for the stuff, as it will undoubtedly take two days to recreate at home. It is a pain. Luckily, my effort was rewarded with the single best bowl of ramen I’ve ever encountered.

What’s in my favorite ramen? Of course, there must be ramen noodles, and they must be springy but not rubbery, able to be slurped and not fall apart. There also must be broth. It should be deep and dark, made from a combination of chicken broth and another base; together they should as David Chang so eloquently described, be “not quite too salty but almost.” And there must be garnishes, which can include, but are in no way limited to, fish cake, bamboo shoots, sliced pork, hard boiled eggs, and nori.

None of these ingredients are expensive, or particularly difficult to use. There are just a lot of them, and for help, I turned to Takashi Yagihashi’s Takshi’s Noodles. His high end Bucktown restaurant morphs into a noodle bar for brunch on Sunday, and his version of shoyu ramen is quite possibly my favorite bowl of soup in the city. I figured that he’d be my best guide.

Last time I left you, I was searching in vain for the perfect ramen noodles. While I briefly flirted with the idea of making the noodles at home, I took the advice of many commenters and purchased some rather remarkable frozen ramen noodles from Super H Mart in Niles. It couldn’t have been easier.

There is, however, no shortcut for the stock and the pork, two elements that really do take a couple of days to make, and yet are worth every single minute lavished on them. As I noticed a few weeks ago, the broth isn’t simply dashi. That would have been too easy. Instead it is a combination of a chicken stock and a shoyu base. All told, 16 of the ingredients are used just to create the broth.

The same care and attention is also given to the toppings, especially the pork. It is slowly simmered in water, and is then transferred to its own decadent braising liquid spiked with soy sauce, star anise, cinnamon and ginger. I could have simply stopped at this step and eaten the pork by itself. But I stayed strong, and braved the rest of the recipe.

Again, it’s best to think of this as a two day process, or you will possibly drive yourself insane. That said, once everything is prepped and ready to go, the actual construction of the soup takes minutes.

That’s also why I’m recommending you make the entire batch of each sub recipe. You’ll definitely make more broth, pork belly, and shoyu base than you’ll need for the final four-person recipe. But since you’re going to trouble of making ramen at home, you might as well make more than one batch. I just stuck all the extras in the fridge, and was able to quickly whip up batches of ramen for lunch for nearly a week. Plus, the stock and base can be frozen. But the pork is so good you’ll probably finish it off later that night.

To help with the planning, I’ve broken the recipe down by day.

Takashi’s Shoyu Ramen

Serves 4

Day 1

Make Ramen Chicken Stock

4 quarts water
4 pounds chicken bones
1 ¾ cups peeled and chopped carrots
1 ½ cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped leeks, white parts only
½ green cabbage
½ head garlic, halved horizontally
1-inch piece fresh ginger, smashed
one 10 x 4-inch piece kombu, wiped with a damp cloth
½ cup sake

Pour water into a large pot and add the chicken bones. Turn heat to high and bring to a simmer. While it is warming up, skim any impurities that rise to the surface with a spoon. Add carrots, celery, leek, cabbage, garlic, ginger, kombu, and sake. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently for two hours. Turn off the heat, and strain the liquid through a fine-mesh sieve.

Make Braised Pork Belly

For the Pork Belly Simmer

½ tablespoon vegetable oil
9 ounces pork belly
4 cups cold water
½ cup sake
1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and smashed

For the Pork Belly Braising Liquid (Step 2)

1 ½ cups cold water
1 cup Japanese soy sauce
¾ cup sugar
1 piece star anise
½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and smashed

Start with the pork belly. Place a large skillet over high heat. Pour in the ½ tablespoon of vegetable oil. When it start to smoke, carefully add the pork belly fatty side down with a pair of tongs. Cook until golden brown, about two minutes.

Repeat this process on all sides of the pork belly. Turn down heat if it starts to burn.

Place the seared pork belly in a large pot. Add the 4 cups of cold water, ½ cup sake, and 1-inch piece of smashed ginger. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine all of the braising liquid ingredients in a 4-quart saucepan.

When pork belly is done, drain the liquid and discard the ginger. Then transfer the pork belly to the saucepan with the braising liquid. Turn the heat to high and bring this to a boil. Then reduce heat to low and simmer until the pork belly is very tender, about 1 ½ hours. When done, transfer pork and braising liquid to a container. Let cool on the counter, uncovered, and then cover and place in the fridge.

Day 2

Prep Ramen Ingredients

1/2 cup marinated bamboo shoots (available at most Japanese grocery stores)
8 thin slices fish cake (naruto)
1 scallion, both white and green parts, thinly sliced diagonally
1 sheet nori, sliced in quarters

Make Hard Boiled Eggs

2 eggs
1 tablespoon kosher salt
4 cups pork belly braising liquid

Place eggs in a small saucepan along with the salt. Add enough cold water to cover the eggs. Set heat to high and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, cover pot, turn off heat, and set it aside for 12 minutes. Then drain eggs and immediatley rinse them under cold water.

When cool enough to handle, peel the eggs and discard the shells.

Rinse out the small saucepan, and then set back on the stove. Add the peeled eggs and the pork belly braising liquid. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Then turn off the heat, and let the eggs hang out while you finish the rest of the recipe.

Make Shoyu Base (To be Combined With Chicken Stock, Above)

one 10 x 4-inch piece kombu, wiped with a damp cloth
1 ½ cups white soy sauce (shirojoyu)
2 cups water
1 tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup Japanese soy sauce
1 ½ cups dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi)

Place all ingredients in a medium-sized saucepan. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. The reduce heat to low, and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain this mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl.

Make Ramen Broth

4 cups ramen chicken stock
1 ½ cups shoyu base

Combine both mixtures in a medium-sized saucepan. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to very low and cover.

Warm Pork Belly, Cook Ramen Noodles

4 ounces braised pork belly, cut into ½-inch thick slices
four 7-ounce pieces frozen ramen noodles

Fill a large pot halfway up with water and bring to a boil. Set a steamer basket inside. Obviously, you’ll need to pour off some of the water if it comes up to the steamer basket. Reduce heat to medium, and the pork belly slices. Cover and cook until the pork is warm, about one minute. Set aside.

Turn the heat back up to high and bring water to a boil. Add noodles and cook according to the directions on the packaging. Drain and immediately divide noodles between four bowls.

Build Your Ramen

Remove the eggs from the pork belly braising liquid and slice each in half.

Ladle 2 ¼ cups ramen broth into each bowl. Time to garnish!

It’s more photogenic to arrange these items in a circle on top of the noodes, but that’s really up to you. Either way, garnish each bowl with half an egg and a quarter of the of the pork belly slices, bamboo shoots, fish cake slices, scallions, and nori. Serve.

Building the Best Ramen: The Noodle Question

nick.kindelsperger — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:45:01 +0000

Ramen is Japan’s ultimate comfort food, the equivalent of a cheeseburger, fried chicken, and deep-dish pizza into one.
- Takashi Yagihashi from Takashi’s Noodles

I may live in Chicago, but I’ll admit that I'd probably pick ramen before those other foods when I'm in need of something truly comforting. Those big bowls of noodles and broth seem especially perfect at warding off a brutal winter. Unfortunately, locating a halfway edible version, even here, can feel like equivalent of a finding a needle in a hay stack. Disregarding the packaged stuff I quit eating years ago, the ramen peddled at most Japanese restaurants is tired, flavorless, and shockingly expensive. Bad ramen shouldn’t cost $14.

So, I’ve come to the natural decision that I need to make it at home. While I loved Serious Eat’s recent look at ramen hacks using the standard cheap packets, I don’t want to cut any corners, or leave anything out. One of the great pleasures of ramen is all the stuff contained in the big bowl. I want the pork, the brightly colored fish cake, the bamboo shoots, nori sheets, and scallions. It all has to be in there. Still, in the end, I know my two biggest obstacles would be the noodles and the broth.

While I’ve been whipping up batches of udon with regular frequency lately thanks to my growing comfort with making quick batches of dashi, ramen doesn’t actually rely on dashi as a base. Instead, it uses a kind of stock. Sure, it could be flavored with some dashi, but the bulk of the liquid came from stock. That sounded easy enough, and when I first glanced at Takashi’s Noodes’ recipe for Shoyu ramen, I was comforted by the fact that there were only 12 ingredients. But closer inspection proved that four of those ingredients were actually sub-recipes, and that the finally tally would actually require over 26 different ingredients and hours and hours of time. Might as well make some sliders.

But I’m going to see it through. I just need a little help. I’m going to have to spend some time on the stock, but I need your help with the noodle part. I know I'm leaving behind the shelf stable packages of ramen, but should I make my own noodles? Takashi actually calls for frozen ramen noodles, which I am having a hard time locating. It’s the only key part that I am missing, and I’d appreciate the help.

Philadelphia Fish House Punch

Blake — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:07:55 +0000

Until recently, my first thought upon hearing the word "punch" was a frat party, something electric red, and indiscriminate drinking--a concoction spiked with a slew of spirits that might be laying around and then covered in Koolaid. That seems to be the reputation punch has gotten—but if cocktail writer Dave Wondrich has anything to say about it, we are all missing the point. Punch is not the currency of undistinguishing party animals or boozy housewives at weekday luncheons—it is a fine art woven into the fabric of American Drinking and integral to cocktail history.

Perhaps the Philadelphia Fish House Punch can demonstrate this; the recipe is from the 18th century, and when I served it recently at a party—granted, a Toga Party, but why not do things with a sense of irony?—it was well received. I had to scramble and make a second bowl of it and promise the recipe to everyone.

Punch is a communal drink, obviously, and it's meant to be both stiff and down-easy, which together are particularly effective in kickstarting a party. Chicago's own Violet Hour has punch on their menu, and they bring to punch the same style and gravitas that accompany all of their cocktails, delivered to the table in an ornate bowl with a veritable iceberg floating in the middle (the single large surface area slows dilution). After experiencing the particular pleasure of is essentially a communal cocktail, I finally understood the appeal of punch.

Philadelphia Fish House Punch is based around rum, and is really about squeezing a heck of a lot of fresh lemon juice and finding one difficult ingredient, peach-flavored brandy. You used to be able to find peach brandy made with real fruit (and there is rumor of some distillers bringing it back), but for now I skated by with a pretty cheap bottle that probably uses artificial peach flavor. However, it seemed to perform quite well without detriment. Even better: a $10 bottle of dark rum and cognac are perfectly fine for a drink like this, so the whole lot can be made for very little cash.

Philly Fish House Punch

2 parts dark Jamaica rum
1 part cognac
½ part peach-flavored brandy
1 part freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 part (or to taste) sugar
3 parts (more or less, to taste) water

The basic procedure for many punches is to muddle sugar with fresh citrus until as much of it is dissolved as possible. You can also muddle the zest of the lemons to release the citrus oil which adds even more lemony aromatics. Only then is the booze added until a good balance is reached, followed by plenty of water to dillute the bowl to palatable levels (substituting ice for some of the water, with an eye towards how quickly it will melt and add more water).

In a punch bowl, combine sugar, lemon juice, some zest from the lemons if desired, and a little water. Muddle and stir until the sugar has begun to dissolve.

Add all three types of alcohol and stir to completely dissolve remaining sugar. Taste, adjusting ratios as needed (a little peach brandy goes a long way). Top off with water and/or ice to taste and serve.

The Case for Going Animal Style: The Double-Double In-N-Out Clone

nick.kindelsperger — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:43:34 +0000

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one railing against the big burger tide. While nearly every new restaurant opening in Chicago features a big, fat burger on its menu, I’m that guy that prefers thin little griddled burgers. Usually I can only find them at old school joints, but even these are frequently harder to find these days. It’s getting to the point where I haven’t eaten a burger at a restaurant in months. I have an epic anti-big burger rant in me somewhere, but I’ll save that for later. How about what I do like?

Basically, I’m not quite sure a burger can possibly taste any better than this clone of an In-and-Out Double-Double, Animal Style. For those unfamiliar with the storied California chain and this glorious burger, the Double-Double features two ⅛th of a pound patties, two slices of American cheese, lettuce, tomato, raw onion, pickle, and their secret sauce all on a griddled bun. Get that guy “Animal style,” and the burgers are griddled with smear of mustard, and the raw onion is replaced by some seriously caramelized onions, which are sandwiched between the patties.

Calling this thing balanced seems slightly ridiculous considering the caloric overkill, but for some reason the desperate elements (vegetable, meat, cheese, bun, condiments) combine to create something truly unique. The caramelized onions between the patties are especially inspired, acting as a sort of juicy center, which bests any medium-rare burger you could throw at me. But, like I said, I wasn’t going to get into that argument.

Used to be that you couldn’t get one unless you lived on the West Coast, and even when you could, some have questioned whether the chain is overrated or not. While my four experiences have all been spectacular, my point is not to say that the Double-Double, Animal Style from In-N-Out is the best burger in the land, but that this clone recipe by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt for Serious Eats might just be. Considering the recipe is so good, it’d be kind of ridiculous to completely repeat it here, so I’d advise you check out the whole thing over on Serious Eats. Oh, and those fries... That’s another Kenji recipe, and those are nearly perfect, too.

In-N-Out's Double-Double, Animal Style [Serious Eats]

The Burger Lab: How to Make Perfect Thin and Crisp French Fries [Serious Eats]

Corned Beef Short Ribs

Blake — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:09:37 +0000

Corned beef is one of the more basic and surprising kitchen experiments. But I think that people still think it's pretty nuts. I'm staying in California for a couple weeks, and had to buy the ingredients, cook, photograph, and eat this project while staying at someone else's house (sorry for the lack of pictures). First of all--it's really tough cooking somewhere you don't have all your familiar tools! But I think it's a testament to how simple it is to make corned beef that I could pull this project together while on vacation with nothing special. When I served it to my hosts for breakfast with grits and kimchi, they were completely amazed that I'd made this corned beef on the sly in their fridge right under their noses!

It goes like this: you take some beef, usually a cheap cut (because making corned beef out of ribeye would be criminial), soak it in a liquid made up of salt, sugar, and spices, then simmer it slowly until it yields to your will, i.e., it becomes tender, succulent, juicy, falling-apart good. And with a flavor that's totally different from a beef stew, thanks to the curing process which leaves the meat piquant, pink, and with that unique corned beef taste.

It's that time of the month again — charcutepalooza time. The blogging challenge this month isn't to make bacon or pancetta, but to brine some meat.

Brisket is the most common corned piece of meat—a cut that has a gorgeous amount of fat knitted into it as well as a cap of fat that runs along the top. It's the basis of corned beef as well as pastrami, which is smoked. The only problem is, you usually have to buy a whole brisket, unless you have a very good butcher friend, which is far more than you need, and end up scrambling to use up the whole thing.

The bonelss short rib fills the gap nicely. Equally marbled and in need of slow-cooking attention, it comes in a more convenient size, and takes less time in the brine to be ready. I first encountered the short rib cooked this way at The Publican, where I had a brunch dish made up of a bed of grits, a pastramied short rib, a fried egg, and giardiniera scattered over the lot to bring the dish a hit of spicy acidity in response to all that richness.

So I followed their lead when making up this dish, while taking it in a new direction, replacing the giardiniera with kimchi. It immediately reminded me of the Korean dish bibimbap with the salty beef playing against the rich melty egg yolk and piquant, tangy kimchi. But, you know, sort of Irish at the same time.

So what's so special about the cure? When it comes to the recipe for the brine, what really matters is the ratio of salt and sugar and water. The rest is just spices. I used coriander, mustard seed, allspice, and bay. But the basic ratio to follow, from Ruhlman, is here. For two short ribs it wasn't necessary to make the whole batch.

The one unusual ingredient is pink salt, or sodium nitrate. That's what keeps this from tasting like a beef stew (that signature corn beef flavor comes from pink salt) and it also keeps the meat red after cooking. Pink salt is a pretty basic ingredient in the charcuterie arsenal, and you can order it here for cheap--also known as sodium nitrate, cure #1, Prague Powder--as long as it's pink, it will have 6.25% nitrate.

The best way to make the brine is to use half the water, heat it until the sugar and salt are dissolved, then dump the remaining water as ice to bring it back down to temperature. It needs to be room temperature or colder before you add the meat, then refrigerated immediately. After 5 days, my short ribs were ready---then I drained the brine, rinsed them, and simmered them slowly in a snug saucepan with some carrot and onion until absolutely tender. Took about 3 hours. Then I wrapped it up for my very delicious breakfast--which I served to my unsuspecting hosts to very enthusiastic response.