Dinnernoms an moer!!

We've Moved!

2009-04-21T09:36:00.004-04:00

Dinnernoms is changing. We started out sharing recipes and ideas, and now are branching out. As a result, we've outgrown the "Dinnernoms" name.

Our new blog is Food for Real. All prior Dinnernoms posts have been moved to that site. We will continue to provide recipes and cooking ideas. We also plan to have more posts about food in general - including thoughts on equipment, ingredients, diet and health.

We thank our small but returning reader base for your support and hope you will follow us at the new site.

- Courtney, Phil and Lane

Roasted Lamb's Head

2009-04-19T21:04:00.002-04:00

Finally roasted the lamb's head. It sat in the fridge defrosting for a couple of days, looking at me balefully (see below) while I figured out when I might have the time to do it.Precious few recipes around, and this one for Roasted Lamb's Head, which surfaced in a bunch of places (I link to this site because it gave the actual citation for the recipe), was the only one that didn't have it braised, boiled, or stewed. So I picked it and followed it fairly closely - the only substitution I made was of 2t mixed herbs for the 1-1/2 t oregano. Because I didn't alter the recipe substantially, I'm not going to reproduce it here - I'm just going to talk about the making and the eating.First instruction, to remove the tongue and eyes, was half easy. The head didn't come with the tongue in, I had it separate. So, that was done. The eyes, well, as you can see from the picture above, took a bit of time to learn. For the first eye, I carefully dug about and snipped and lifted with bunches of tools so I would take it out whole, while preserving the fat behind. This frustrating endeavor ended when the eye punctured and I kind of hacked it the rest of the way out.

So for the second eye I didn't much care and I just shoved my boning knife in and sliced around the eye in a conical motion. And it came out quickly and fine. Lesson learned.

The marinade was straightforward. Picture below shows it poured over the warm (and now eyeless) head.

The tongue was harder to skin than I expected. I don't have experience with tongue, so I'm not sure what the problem was, but I suspect I should have simmered it a few minutes longer than the 30 called for. The picture below shows it after boiling but before skinning.
Once I'd skinned it, I put it back in the mouth and marinated as directed. Picture below shows the head after marinating and just before it went into the oven. I had an extra sprig of rosemary and figured it wouldn't hurt.
Cooked it for the requisite time, basting every 20 min or so. Picture below shows it laughing at me as it comes out of the oven. Then the fun began.

"Crack the skull open" says the instructions. To me, this means that the skull will sort of crack open like an egg. Phil suggested cracking it with a cleaver. I said ok, but you're the one doing the cracking. Picture below, with the cleaver quite firmly embedded in the skull and requiring extra measures to extract, shows the result. It does *not* show the brains (literally) and bits of head flying all over the kitchen, nor Phil's clothes in the wash as I blog this. Another method was required.

Fortunately, we have a hacksaw that has been used enough so the paint has rubbed off, and that was employed to finish the job off.

Picture below shows the split skull. The white parts are the brains.
Finally got it plated (see below; jaw and meat on top; brains bottom left; half the tongue bottom right). They call for it served on a bed of parsley surrounded by flowers and tomatoes. Hah! Maybe next time when I have a proper saw available. We got what is shown, with a separate plate of rosemary-creamed vegetables I'll blog another day.Cooking Notes: Do not attempt this if you do not own a reasonably food-safe hacksaw. Whoever said to "crack" it open is a sadist who is laughing at those who are stupid enough to try this approach.

Eating Notes: It was surprisingly good.

The tongue was good meat, but nothing really special. It would be worth trying a recipe specifically designed for tongue, but in terms of non-standard muscle meat, I still prefer heart.

Regarding the rest of the head, it was really fabulous. The meat was flavorful and almost gamey. Phil mentioned that he had a bit that had a really nice sharpness to it. I thought he meant that it was gamey. Then I had the same thing (the cheeks, we think) - about four bites of something with this wonderful taste of Roquefort cheese, and the sharpness of the mold. The brains were a creamy counterpart. Definitely worth the start-up learning curve and (once I have a saw) something I will try again.

Regarding the whole eyeball issue, I cooked the removed, intact eyeball for 10 min when I parboiled the head, then cut it in half and offered it to the cats. They were smelling the meat and demurred, so I said OK, I have to try it, and tried one of the halves. So. Taste-wise it's like marrow, really rich and yummy. But eyes work a lot and have strong filiment things. Plus there's the whole lens and all. So there were textural issues that were a serious challenge. In addition, the brain is going "ick ick ick ick eyeball eyeball eyeball eyeball" and it's a real difficulty. In general? I'll probably stick to marrow bones, which my cultural Ur-brain identifies as "yummy." But I can see why they are considered a delicacy.

Marinated Ham Steak

2009-04-18T20:36:00.003-04:00

The lamb's head is ready, but I had a very draining morning and was not. In addition, the weather today was beyond fine, and not grilling seems like a crime. So. Marinated fresh ham steak (shown above served with the very last veggies from last year's farmers' market).

Recipe:
(serves 2)

1 ham steak
2 c coconut water (found in the juice section in most supermarkets. You really do need this; coconut milk would not work)
1/4 c soy (I used Kikkoman)
1" piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 lg cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1/4 c fresh-grated horseradish root (mine was mixed with beet; thus the pink color)
pepper to taste

Mix the coconut water, soy, ginger, and garlic in a shallow pan big enough to accommodate the ham steak. Marinate 2 hours or more, turning every half hour.

Preheat the Big Green Egg (or grill) to 325F.

While the Egg/grill is preheating, mix the horseradish with 2T of the marinade. Strain the rest of the marinade, discarding the juice. Mix the remaining ginger and garlic into the horseradish mixture.

Put the ham on the grill and spread half of the horseradish mixture on the top. Grill 8 minutes. Flip and spread the rest of the horseradish mixture on top. Grill 4 min more, then shut the grill down and let the meat rest (on the grill) another 4 min.

Eating notes: Yes, the coconut juice matters. It adds an understated sweetness that balances the rest and allows you to make a very simple sauce really stand out. The horseradish loses it's nasal sharpness on the grill, so even if you normally would think this is a bit heavy-handed, it's worth a try.

Roasted Goodness

2009-04-17T21:14:00.003-04:00

Everything easy and roasted tonight. Ends up as shin bone with horseradish-yogurt sauce accompanied by basil-smothered roast potatoes, carrots, and garlic.

Instructions: Preheat the egg to about 500F. Turn down to 325 - 350F and start the veggies (equal parts carrot and potato, 1 head of garlic skinned plus 2 oz basil leaves + seasoning and salt and pepper to taste; generously dotted with butter or ghee and wrapped in foil). After about 20 min put on the meat (mine was a piece of shinbone with meat approx. 1-1/4 lb total weight). Cook 12 min one side; flip and cook 12 min the other side (or as you like it).

For the sauce, mix 1/4 c each of fresh grated horseradish (mine was mixed with grated beet, adding the color), plus 1T Kikkoman, plus 1T Lane's cinnamon-tomato sauce.

Eating Notes: This cut is very good, but has a lot of tendon and whatnot. It also has marrow, which, as has been previously noted, is the tithe to the cook. So plan accordingly. A generous 1" cut of about 1.3 pounds including the bone served the two of us comfortably.

Also, Lane's ketchup has now evolved to a point at which there is a hugely strong attack of cinnamon followed by a hint of tomato. It would be challenging on its own. In this case, the tomato tempered the horseradish, and the cinnamon added a sweet bite that worked well in combination.

Lazy Grazing

2009-04-16T19:59:00.002-04:00

Still working hard. In addition, I had a post-Easter leftover feast at my client's of baked macaroni and cheese, ham and glaze, shrimp cocktail, asparagus, and a bunch of other stuff with multiple pies at the end. It was all homemade and well-made, so not a lot I could do but say "thank you" because I meant it.

So for dinner I wanted something that would be easy for Phil to have more of and for me to graze at and for us both to be satisfied. The dinner consisted of roast beef slices rolled and cut in half, some of Kolyu's homemade Bulagarian sausage, two types of cheeses, a sauce/salad of fresh horseradish grated with purple beets (nice and sinus-clearing) and an additional sauce of 1 part Dijon to 2 parts Greek yogurt, with a teaspoon or two of Japanese Seasoned Seaweed with Mushroom paste (gohen desuyo shitake nori) mixed in.

Eating Notes: Perfect for what we wanted. I'd intended for the sauces to go with the roast beef, but the yogurt sauce was even better with the Bulgarian sausage.

Paleo-ish Ready-made

2009-04-15T20:19:00.002-04:00

I'm working long hours and Phil is hungry, so ready-made is the best choice. Went to the Fresh Fields and got sesame kale (top of picture), roast potatoes, prosciutto wrapped lamb, and artichoke-spinach terrine. The picture shows Phil's - I was well fed by my client today so just had some tastings from his.

Eating and thinking notes: The food was good. The lamb definitely had been steeped in garlic for a while, and the terrine had this great coating of tomato aspic, for which I have a soft spot. We hardly ever go out or eat ready-made any more, but there is a value to taking advantage of people whose main jobs are cooking. Making either the terrine or the lamb would have involved enough person-hours that the resulting meal would have been a feast.

For a real feast meal, I'd still rather make it myself. But ready-made shows an advantage when I look at what I would compare it to if I had made this as a weekday after-a-10-hour-work-day affair. And I was pleasantly surprised at how many choices I had that were zero gluten, low carb, minimally vegetable-oiled, etc. So maybe I should climb down off the high horse to at least a medium horse.

Courtney's Shellfish with (not) Too Much Sauce

2009-04-14T20:35:00.004-04:00

Felt like some shellfish, needed to use up some of the very last veggies from last year's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) before this year's starts up this Saturday, and also felt like some comfort food. So made some shrimp and sea scallops with what seemed like too much sauce (see eating notes below). The picture shown above is served with the zucchini (see cooking notes)

Recipe
(generously serves 2)

10 16-20 count shrimp, cleaned to taste*
6 large sea scallops
1 10 oz jar clam juice
3 - 5 generous sprigs parsley
water to cover shellfish
2 T ghee
2 fresh garlic shoots, stem and bulb, sliced thin
2 T flour
2 roasted red peppers (jarred), diced
juice of 1 Meyer Lemon
1 T dijon mustard (I use Grey Poupon)
2 T heavy cream (I used the plug of cream off an unopened bottle of unhomogeonized milk)
* I like the texture of shrimp shells so I leave them on. On the other hand, I have textural issues with the legs so I take them off and give the cats a treat. It's purely a matter of choice whether or not to shell the shrimp before you make this dish.

Bring the clam juice to a boil with the parsley in it and, in a separate kettle, bring water to heat. When the clam juice boils, add the shrimp and scallops and just enough water from the kettle to cover. Poach the scallops and shrimp 3 - 5 min or until just barely done (they will continue to cook after removing and later when the hot sauce is added) and remove to a bowl. Reserve the cooking juice.

Heat the ghee.

Mix the lemon juice, mustard, cream, and red peppers in a small bowl.

When the ghee is hot, add the chopped fresh garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the flour, stirring continously.

When the mixture has browned slightly, add 1 cup of the cooking juice, slowly, stirring all the while. When this is strongly bubbling, add the lemon juice, mustard, cream, and red pepper mix. Add salt and pepper to taste. Continue stirring constantly while sauce bubbles and reduces. It should be at a strong bubble but not an urgent boil.

While the sauce is reducing, plate the shellfish.

Once the sauce has reduced to the consistency that pleases you, pour it over the shellfish. Serve hot. If you made too much sauce, be sure to get a spoon.

Cooking Notes: The recipe made about a cup of sauce. When poured over the veggies and shellfish, it seemed like far too much, but we had no problem eating every last bit. So if people are game, why not? Otherwise, save half of the sauce for tomorrow's lunch or dinner.

For the zucchini, it was parboiled and frozen last year, so all that was required was to drop the vacuum bag in boiling water for 6 min or so.

Eating Notes: There was no complaint about having to use a spoon for this sauce. It was good and rich but not overbearing, and the inclusion of the roasted red pepper and fresh garlic made it like its own little component of the meal, rather than "just" a sauce.

Boring Dinnernoms an Thoughts

2009-04-13T20:43:00.003-04:00

Saving the leftover Easter dinner for lunch tomorrow, so made a pizza tonight. No picture; sorry. Two thoughts on the pizza, though, involving the crust, which is ok but not stellar.

1. Why do "Gluten-free" recipes and cookbooks tout special wheat flour substitute mixes? I've made lots of gluten-free breads using recipes that, in essence, call for a non-gluten flour plus some xanthan gum and/or other common ingredients. But these are in the minority. For the most part, gluten-free cookbooks ask you to make up some convoluted flour substitute and use that. You almost would have to have a separate pantry to store all the things they want you to put into that wheat flour substitute. Why? The three or four types of non-gluten flour plus gum or similar plus what is contained in a normal pantry should be sufficient to make things on the fly.

2. I am really disappointed that focus groups, marketing, or whatever make companies feel the need to tout gluten-free alternatives as "low fat." Fat and gluten are different. People who are cutting gluten out generally are doing it for very different reasons than people who want to starve themselves by reducing fat intake (ok, bias showing.)

So. Goal for next time is to not make pizza until I find an acceptable non-wheat (because of me), non-corn (because of Phil) homemade pizza crust recipe. And yeah, I'll buy another rice crust as a back-up.

Easter Dinner Part 2 - Tatiana's Nettle Soup

2009-04-12T20:40:00.003-04:00

I had to run an errand and was at the home of my singing group's director, Tatiana Sarbinska . This meant enjoying the usual Bulgarian hospitality of good food and company. Today, though, I got a special treat and Tatiana gave me some nettles and young fresh garlic straight from her garden. We were talking while she cut them for me. Picture below shows the nettles and garlic after being washed. She had some nettle soup on the stove and it smelled so good my indecision over what to have with the rabbit vanished right away.
She also gave me some homemade tomato sauce, sort of a cross between ketchup and chutney and very good, with directions to put about half of it in the soup. So I did.

Tatiana's Nettle Soup
(makes 6 cups; recipe reflects what I used)

6 c stock (I used stock from my braised pork bones)
1 qt nettles, leaves pulled and stems chopped well (use gloves when doing this! They are called stinging nettles for a reason!)
Tops from one bunch of leeks, sliced about 1/2" thick
3 fresh young garlic plants (stems and bulb), sliced into 1" lengths
1/2 c cooked rice, steel cut oatmeal, or other grain (I used cooked millet)
3/4 c chunky fresh mild tomato salsa (I think this is the closest you will find to Tatiana's wonderful Bulgarian sauce)
1/2 t celery seed
salt and pepper to taste

Bring the stock to a boil. Add the nettles, leek, garlic, and grain. Boil until the leeks are soft. Add the salsa and spices. Simmer another 15 minutes or so and remove from heat. Serve hot. Picture below shows finished dish.

Eating Notes: This is surprisingly filling (which is why we ended up not eating the vegetables from Easter Dinner Part 1). The nettles add a sharp tone and complexity that is well balanced by the hint of tomato from the sauce.

Easter Dinner Part 1 - Easter Bunny

2009-04-12T20:16:00.003-04:00

Was planning to stew the lamb's head for Easter dinner, but Julie from Groff's Content Farm had some fresh rabbit. Got 2 -- one for us and one for Lane, but that had to go into the freezer as he's off doing family things for the weekend. So the lamb's head will have to wait until next week; for tonight I roasted the rabbit.

I wanted to do it whole, and the most interesting recipe I found that didn't involve several days' preparation was for Zajac Pieczony (Roast Hare). I followed the recipe almost to the letter from my Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery (2nd Edition, 1966) but reproduce it here because the book is out of print.

Vinegar Marinate for Meat
(Proportions are for 3 pounds of meat - this was almost exactly the weight of my rabbit)
3 c water
1 lg onion, sliced
9 allspice berries (I used 10 cloves instead)
9 peppercorns (I used about twice that)
6T unfiltered apple cider vinegar
4-5 bay leaves

Combine water with onion and allspice and peppercorns. Cook about 1/2 hour or until onion is soft. Add vinegar and allow to cool. Pour over meat and marinate, refrigerated, for however long the recipe calls for (usually measured in days).

For the rabbit, from here I deviated more than followed a the recipe. I did follow the instructions to bring the marinade back to the boil and pour while hot over the rabbit, and let it stand 1 - 2 days in the refrigerator. As shown in the photo below, I used a large zippy bag so I could flop the rabbit over every now and again to be sure it was marinating evenly.

When I was ready to cook it, the following came into play:

salt and granulated garlic to rub
cut carrots and potatoes
onoins from the marinating sauce
red wine for basting

I cooked the rabbit on a roasting rack in a 325F oven for 2 hours, basting with red wine every 20 minutes or so. I used the "trick" of roasting the vegetables underneath it. This was a mistake (see cooking notes below). Picture shows it just out of the oven. Once out of the oven, I removed the rabbit and the veggies. I carved and plated the rabbit and covered it with sauce made from deglazing the pan. First post pic shows the finished result.

Cooking Notes: The veggies were totally hard. The rabbit was too lean to drip enough fat to cook them, and the oven wasn't at a high enough temperature to roast them even in 2 hours. I had to put them in some water and boil them for 20 minutes to finish them off, and by that time we were finished eating and stuffed. Oh, well, live and learn. The sauce did have a slightly carroty note, though, so at least there was some benefit to doing it that way.

Eating Notes: The recipe warns that substituting domestic rabbit for the hare will result in a blander flavor. I'm sure this is true, as the rabbit, while tender and very moist, was not at all gamy, and both Phil and I were just a tad disappointed because of that. If I can get my hands on a wild hare I will try this recipe again, though.

Smoked Trout with Curried Pecan Salad

2009-04-11T20:38:00.004-04:00

Anticipated the most basic of trout dinners, but got home sooner than expected so decided to do something a bit more interesting.

Smoked Trout with Curried Pecan Sauce
(Generously serves 2)

2 trout fillets (1 lb total)
ghee

2/3 c pecan pieces (approx.)
1T fat for frying
1T curry powder
1/4 c mascarpone
2 T prepared horseradish
1 T coconut juice (not milk)
salt and pepper to taste

Soak wood chips (I used pecan wood since I was using a pecan sauce) for 1/2 hour or more. Preheat Egg.

Generously wipe the skin side of the trout fillets with ghee and place on a piece of foil. If there is any left on your hands, just wipe it off on the flesh side.

Add soaked wood chips (drained) to the charcoal and put the grill on. Put the foil sheet with the fillets on it on top. Keep the temperature around 200F.

Make the sauce: Saute the pecans in fat of your choice until they are very well toasted. I used the leftover skillet fat from Tuesday's chicken skin lunch. Stir in the curry powder and mix well, turning off the heat. Remove the pecans and fat to a bowl and cool. Add the mascarpone and seasonings and mix well.

Cook 20 min or until liquid is pooling on top but the fish hasn't started to flake, and close off. You can now sit and enjoy yourself until you are ready to eat.

When ready, plate the fish and add the pecan sauce. Picture above shows it served along with a scrap salad of radish tops and parsley bottoms with a dressing of Dijon mustard and black pepper mixed in well before plating.

Leftover Millet Pancakes

2009-04-11T11:15:00.005-04:00

Made the rest of the glutinous millet yesterday and have tons of leftovers. So this morning I made some up into true millet pancakes. Picture shows the pancakes served with a mushroom-tomato-leek omelet and liver (today's breakfast).

Courtney's Leftover Millet Pancakes
(Makes 6)

1/2 c millet flour
1/4 t xanthan gum
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 egg
1 c cooked millet
1/2 c milk
2T melted bacon fat (or melted butter)

With an electric hand mixer, thoroughly combine the dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg and add the millet, milk, and fat. Mix very well on medium-high speed until the millet has no clumps.

Heat a griddle and grease it well.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, beating all the while. Beat until thoroughly mixed. As soon as possible after beating, pour the pancake batter onto the griddle using a ladle or large spoon. Cook until bubbles break open and do not seal on the top of the pancake and the bottom is medium-brown. Flip and cook until browned. Serve hot with syrup or a savory sauce.

Cooking Notes
I used glutinous millet, but I think regular millet would be fine. Regular millet is a bit dryer, so you might want to add more liquid or to soak the millet in the milk for a while to soften it.
If you're not minimizing gluten, you can substitute wheat flour for the millet flour and xanthan gum.

Eating Notes
We had these for breakfast with a little maple syrup. Because they are not sweetened, they also would be good with a creamed seafood or similar sauce. Millet is one of the grains I'm moving away from, but if I weren't I would definitely have these again.

Grilled Lamb Shoulder Roast with Potatoes and Leeks

2009-04-10T20:20:00.002-04:00

Another easy but good thing to do. Phil was very hungry; I moderately so. So a boneless roast was called for, where we could each take what we want. Leftovers? No problem. No leftovers? No problem.

Instructions for the lamb: Get the Egg well started and then turn it down to the low 300Fs. Put on a boned rolled lamb shoulder (ours was just under 2 lbs and had thawed at room temperature out of the freezer 2 hours or so), fat side up. Cook 1-1/2 hours or so depending on how rare you like your meat and how frozen it was when you put it on the grill.

Instructions for the veggies: For 2 people, I cubed a large russet potato and sliced a leek and wrapped them in foil spread with 1T ghee and with another 3T of ghee dolloped on top. I also added sage, mixed French spices, salt and pepper, and a dash of granulated garlic to the spicing. Wrapped the foil up and put it on after the lamb had been cooking 50 minutes.

Instructions for the sauce: For the sauce I mixed approx. 2T mascarpone, 1T Dijon mustard, 1t Japanese Seasoned Seaweed with Shiitake sauce (desuyo shiitake nori), and 1T coconut juice.

Eating notes: Everything was really good, as was to be expected (arigatou, Mechazawa-san!). It was the sauce that made it interesting. I put the sauce only on the veggies (see initial picture). Phil ate it that way and liked the contrast. I, on the other hand, cut up my meat and then mixed it all together in a sort of hash. I liked the complexity of the sauce on the meat and how all the tastes of the ghee and veggies and sauce and meat combined in a distinct but pleasant riot.

Oh, and no leftovers. No problem.

Braised Bones

2009-04-09T21:29:00.003-04:00

Was going to make pork soup, but I've never just had the pork bones braised, and they had all this really nice looking meat and tendon and marrow stuff going on. In addition, both of us had long work days today and were unlikely to sit down for dinner before 8 or so, and probably would not want to fuss with an elaborate dinner. So I decided to have the bones a bit more paleo style (assuming our hunter-gatherer ancestors had a convenient plug for a crock pot), and just threw them into the slow cooker (see first post pic) with some bay, peppercorns, and water and braised them all day. Results below. Pulled the bones out and put them on a plate (broth and trimmings will be lunch tomorrow, served over millet) with nothing else. Phil looked very suspicious that this plate of bones would make a meal, but none of us are complaining now. Marrow and meat and good fatty connective tissue is really satisfying.

Eating notes: Use a chopstick to get as much marrow as you can out of the bone. It's really good and a crime to waste.

Lamb Chops with Easy Sauce

2009-04-08T20:36:00.003-04:00

Scavenging through the freezer after a long day. Have a week to use up the preserved parts of last year's CSA, so used up some frozen cauliflower and broccoli, served with lamb chops. Complemented with a sour cream garlic sauce, it was really nice. Instructions: The veggies were just boiled in the bag (from frozen) for 8 minutes and then held in the hot water until ready to serve. The sauce was 1/4 c sour cream mixed with 1/2 t garlic powder, 1 t dried tarragon, and pepper (red and black) to taste, thinned with about 1T milk or until of a consistency you likeor the meat, I heated the egg and then the grill until everything was well over 500F. Then I put the chops (again, from frozen) on the grill and turned it down to about 325F and cooked it 8 min on on side; 10 flipped; then 7 on the original side turned off so I could've just left it there for a while. The results, as usual (arigatou, Mechazawa-san!) were perfect.

Deconstruction of a Chicken

2009-04-07T20:31:00.003-04:00

Chicken tomato stew tonight (chicken, tomatoes, onion, mushroom, peppercorns, bay and spices to taste; cook all day on high so the bones really soften and release everything they can). Tomorrow's lunchtime leftovers will be the last of the chicken. So a four pound chicken works out to the following:

Initial dinner for 2
2 chicken and rice lunches
Chicken pizza for 2
1 chicken and rice lunch and 1 chicken skin lunch
Chicken stew dinner for 2
Chicken stew lunch for 2

I looked at the $17 price tag on the chicken and thought "yowzers." But the bird has given us the main course for 12 meals. Not bad. Arigatou, chicken-chan.

Chicken-Basil Pizza

2009-04-06T20:03:00.003-04:00

Felt like something good and easy, so a nice gluten-free basil-chicken pizza. As an aside, the basil was frozen from last year's harvest. As Basil Fawlty would say to Mr. Hutchinson in The Hotel Inspectors, "it was fresh when it was frozen!"

Instructions for this one: Make or use a crust. I was lazy and used a gluten-free brown rice crust. Dice and combine 4 mushrooms, 3 large garlic cloves, 2 oz basil leaves, 1/2 onion, 1/2 md tomato. Spread tomato sauce on the readied crust. Shake over dill, oregano, thyme, parsley or other dried herbs to taste. Generously coat with crushed red pepper. Distribute the mixed veggies over. Grate 2-3 oz cheddar over. Grate 2 oz Locatelli over that. Dice chicken and press into the cheese. Bake at 450F for 12 min or until everything is cooked and bubbly but not burned. Serve hot.

Eating notes: Again, arigatou Mechazawa-san. This is the first chicken pizza I've ever had that I liked. The strong basil and garlic flavors also helped. A nice use for leftover chicken.

Mind-blowing Ur Chicken

2009-04-05T20:21:00.005-04:00

Intended to make some sort of fancy pressed grilled chicken. But after making 4 batches of cat food and doing a goodly number of weekend chores, decided to be lazy. Remembered something I'd seen in my cruisings (and unfortunately can't remember enough to credit the source of) where they talked about oven-roasting a chicken over a pan of potatoes so the potatoes would be continously basting in the chicken juices and fat. I decided why not try this with Mechazawa-san (the large Egg). Now I don't know if I ever can go back.

Instructions: Take a whole chicken (mine was just over 4 lbs.). Cut up some root veggies (I used a medium-sized russet potato plus 2 md carrots). Put the chicken on a vertical roaster in a pan and lightly coat it with ghee or butter. Place root vegetables around it (see first post picture). Preheat the egg to a very healthy 375F or so (I pushed it up to 500F and then closed it back down). Put the pan on the grill and let the grill die down so it settles in the low 300F's and roast for 2-1/2 hours or so. If you're not yet ready to eat, just close the Egg off at that point and it will stay warm. Serve.

Eating notes: Wow. We each had a drumstick and a wing (See picture above). The bones came off easily but the chicken was still outrageously juicy (arigatou, Mechazawa-san!). The skin was crispy but still had fat attached. The vegetables were really crispy-crunchy-carmelized on the outside and had soaked up tons of chicken fat and juices, while they retained a carrot/potato flavor. It will be hard to entice me to cook a chicken any other way. Ever.

Seafood and Veggie Chickpea Flour Pancakes

2009-04-04T11:16:00.006-04:00

Saw this recipe in the "Dining and Wine" section of the New York Times and decided to adapt it to my gluten-reduced diet and pantry contents. Made it for breakfast, and it also would be a very nice brunch or luncheon dish. Picture shows Phil's, served with three eggs over medium-hard.

Seafood and Veggie Chickpea Flour Pancakes
(makes 6 approx. 4" pancakes)

1 c chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour (found at organic-focused supermarkets and coops)
1/4 t xanthan gum (ditto)
1/2 t baking powder (check to be sure it is gluten-free if this is a concern for you)
Salt and fresh pepper to taste
1 c water
Enough raw sea scallops and shrimp to make 1/2 c chopped with one extra peeled shrimp and 1/2 scallop per person for garnish
2/3 chopped cooked summer vegetables (I used some leftover zucchini and yellow squash) split into two 1/3 c portions
1 scallion, chopped fine
3T chopped fresh herbs (I used basil), divided equally among the two chopped vegetable portions.
2T mascarpone or softened cream cheese
ghee for frying

Heat some ghee on a skillet. Cut the scallop in half crosswise so that you have two disks. Saute the scallop and shrimp until just barely done (it will continue cooking after you take it off the heat). Remove and reserve.

Take one of the portions of vegetables and basil and saute in the ghee left behind by the seafood until well warmed. Remove and reserve, keeping warm.

In a bowl and using an electric hand mixer, thoroughly blend the dry ingredients. While still beating, add the water and continue beating until well mixed. Using a spoon, stir in the chopped seafood and the unwarmed portion of vegetables and basil just until mixed.

Put a generous amount of ghee on the griddle. When hot, make the pancakes, using the spoon to keep the batter mixed. Cook until nicely browned, approximately 3 minutes on each side.

Plate the pancakes. Mix the mascarpone in with the reserved sauteed vegetables and spread over. Place the scallop disk on top, and the cooked shrimp on top of that. Serve hot.

Eating Notes: The pancakes were an excellent combination of filling but light, which is why I think they would be perfect as luncheon/brunch dishes. It also was a good way to use up some leftover veggies. Tomatoes and mushrooms would have been nice additions, and could have been used instead of the seafood to make a vegetarian dish. Another thing I like about the recipe is that the finished pancakes taste like their own thing, not like something that is a gluten-free pretender to a wheat flour dish.

Grilled Swordfish with San on Tou Marinade

2009-04-03T20:20:00.002-04:00

When I was a kid, swordfish was something you had at the Danzer's restaurant in Syracuse, NY - the fanciest place we ever got to - and the swordfish was invariably cooked in some sort of lemon and white wine sauce. So I've got this association with swordfish and a lemon taste and have avoided it because of that. But my fish guide (yeah, thanks, Lane!) pointed me at this very nice, uniform and fresh swordfish steak and I said OK, why not, because he's been a good fish guide in the past. So.

Grilled Swordfish with San on Tou Marinade
(Serves 2)
1 1lb swordfish steak

2T San on Tou (or use light brown sugar or maple sugar (not syrup!))
6T Ponzu (Japanese citrus soy sauce)
1t minced fresh ginger
1 lg clove garlic, minced
1 md shallot, minced

Combine all the non-swordfish ingredients and let stand at least an hour for the flavors to blend.

Marinate the fish in the sauce for 10 minutes on each side. In the meantime, preheat a grill (I used Mechazawa-san, the large Egg).

Put the fish on the grill and put a little less than half of the sauce on the up-facing side. Grill to taste (I grilled 7 minutes on one side, then flipped it and closed off Mechazawa-san and let it sit 10 or so minutes more). When you flip the fish, put a little less than the remaining sauce on the other up-facing side.

Plate the fish and pour the remaining sauce over (see first post picture).

Eating notes: This convinced me that swordfish is not a one-trick pony. It had a distinctive flavor and texture, and balanced the sauce very nicely.

Mechazawa-san Lamb Meatloaf with Starchy Tubers

2009-04-02T20:28:00.002-04:00

We're both still wanting comfort food. So. Mechazawa-san lamb meatloaf with starchy tubers. Instructions for 2: Mix 3/4 - 1 lb lamb, 1/2 waxy potato diced very fine; 2-4 slices of onion diced very fine; 1/2 t garlic powder (or 1 clove of garlic, minced); 1 T Worcestershire (I use Bulldog for meatloaf); 1 egg; 1T cumin. Cook on the Egg at about 375F for 30 min. Serve on a bed of romain lettuce. Good and reliable.

Tomato-Cabbage-Egg Casserole

2009-04-01T20:50:00.003-04:00

Raining and surprisingly chilly. Wanted comfort food but didn't want to do a lot of work.

Tomato-Cabbage-Egg Casserole:
(serves 3 - 4 as one-dish meal)

1/2 lg. head of cabbage
2 tomatoes, diced fine
1/3 red onion, diced fine
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t black pepper
1/2 t celery seed
4 eggs
1/4 c sour cream
3/4 c milk
Lard or butter to coat baking dish.
1/4 c pecan meal
Preheat oven to 350F.

Core the cabbage and cut the rest into reasonably-sized pieces (see first post pic) to fit in a square baking dish.

Steam cabbage 10 - 15 minutes.

Generously lard/butter the baking dish. Put the cabbage in.

Mix all other ingredients together until sour cream is broken up and everything is thoroughly mixed. Pour over the cabbage. Sprinkle pecan meal over all.

Bake 30 - 45 min or until cabbage is tender. Serve hot.

Cooking notes: I only let the cabbage steam 10 min and it was undercooked when we ate it. Give it the full 15 minutes. Otherwise, it was easy and nice.

Courtney's Japanese-theme Marinated Lamb Chops

2009-03-31T20:29:00.004-04:00

Beautiful spring night here, with rain predicted tomorrow, so the need to grill. All off the top of my head.

Courtney's Japanese-theme Marinated Lamb Chops
(Serves 2)

4 lamb chops

1 can nameko mushrooms* (juice and mushrooms)
1T Japanese Seasoned Seaweed with Mushroom paste (gohen desuyo shitake nori)
2T dijon mustard
1T lemon juice
*these cans are *really* tiny - maybe an ounce or two at most
(Accompaniment: 2 baby bok choy, grilled)

Mix all the non-lamb chop ingredients (except the bok choy) together. Put the lamb chops in and marinate, turning once or twice, an hour and a half or so.

Start the Egg and preheat the grill (about 4-5 min on full to start and another 4-5 min to heat the grill).

Put the lamb chops on the grill and keep at medium-high. If cooking from frozen (as I was) cook 7 min then flip; 9 min then flip; 6 min then close off the grill. The chops will turn out a nice rare-rare-medium. Adjust cooking times to taste.

If you are cooking the bok choy, add it at the first flip of the lamb and flip it at the second. Or steam it until just done.

Plate the lamb and bok choy. Zap the rest of the sauce in the microwave for 30 seconds (I didn't but wish I had) and spoon next to (see picture at start of post).

Cooking Note: I wanted to grill the baby bok choy and found one thing that may not be suitable to Mechazawa-san. The edges of the bok choy dried out and wilted when the core was cooked properly. I could add foil and be creative to compensate, but the take-away is that I can't just slap stuff like this down on the grill.

Eating notes: Phil just thought the sauce had a nice oil content; I thought it "slime-ified" the way natto does (this is a positive for me). I will buy these mushrooms again, despite their costing like $5 for this outrageously teeny can, just for that effect. We each licked the plate clean (for the sake of politeness, let's say that's a metaphor...)

Courtney's Curried Spleen with Vegetables and Cracklin'

2009-03-29T18:01:00.010-04:00

I couldn't find a spleen recipe besides the one I already made, so I created one up on my own, using my 1972 copy of the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery recipe for basic Ceylonese curry as a rough guide. I was motivated by people who have suggested cubing various organs and making otherwise normal curry with them, and decided to try this with the spleen. When I cleaned the spleen, the fat just looked too good to waste, so I made cracklin' from it to use as a topping. Courtney's Curried Spleen with Vegetables and Cracklin'
Ingredients:
(Makes about 4 servings)
1 - 2 pig spleens, or a veal/beef spleen. Enough potatoes and carrots to make 2-3 lbs total (see pic above)
1 - 2 Yukon Gold or similar waxy potatoes (see note above)
3 - 4 medium carrots (see note above)
2 lg cloves of garlic
1" piece fresh ginger
1/2 yellow onion
4 md - large button mushrooms
1 t curry powder
1 t coriander
1 t turmeric
1 t mustard powder
1/2 t cayenne
1/2 t salt
1 bay leaf
1" piece of cinnamon
3-4 drops lemon or lime oil (I used lime)
2 c coconut water (found in the juice section in most supermarkets) or coconut milk
2 T ghee
1 t ground cloves
1 t Chinese 5-spice powder (or allspice or something similar)
Coarsely cube the potatoes, onions and carrots. Mince the ginger and garlic. Quarter the mushrooms.

Clean the spleen (pictures here). Cube the spleen and add to the vegetables (see picture above) Throw away the vein. Cut the rest of the fat into 1/2" - 3/4" pieces.

Mix the curry powder, coriander, turmeric, mustard powder, cayenne, and salt. Add the bay leaf and piece of cinnamon to this mixture.

Make the Cracklin. Melt the ghee in a saucepan. When hot, add the cut up fat. Saute over medium-high heat until the cracklin' is crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
Turn the saucepan heat down to medium. Add the spleen, vegetables, ginger and garlic and saute 1 min. Add the mixed spices and the lemon or lime oil and combine well. Stir-fry for 4 or 5 minutes, until very nicely fragrant. Pour in the coconut water. Bring just to a boil and then turn heat down to a low simmer. Cover and simmer until everything is very tender, about 1-1/2 hours or so. Remove lid if necessary during last half hour of cooking so that juices reduce to about half, as shown in picture above.

When the curry is done, the sauce is reduced, and the spleen and veggies are tender, remove from heat and stir in the cloves and allspice. Serve, sprinkling the cracklin' on top. If you are serving this for one initial meal plus leftovers, either store any remaining cracklin' separately or just use it all for the first meal (do not mix it in, as it will become soggy).

Eating notes: This was the best curry I have ever made, and among the best I have ever had. All the spices melded well together. The spleen was tender and still tasted like spleen. Adding in the cloves and allspice at the end made my decision not to increase the cayenne sensible. And making the spleen fat cracklin' has converted me to doing the same whenever I have "waste" fat around. The hardest part was not scarfing it before dinner was done.

Courtney's Fish in a Blanket

2009-03-28T20:53:00.005-04:00

Recipe:
(Serves 2 very comfortably)

1 Red Snapper or similar fish (ours was just over 2 pounds before cleaning), cleaned but retaining head and tail.
1 pkg (2 pieces) dashi konbu (Japanese seaweed; available at Asian groceries)
1" piece of ginger
1 lg garlic clove
1/2 md yellow onion
1 chorizo sausage
2 meyers lemons
2 lg crimini or comparable volume of other mushrooms
2t Kikkoman or other strong soy sauce
1/4 c coconut oil
1/4 c shredded coconut

Take out the dashi konbu (see pic below) and soak in a large pan for an hour.
Preheat oven to 400F.

Peel and mince the ginger, garlic and onion. Very thinly slice one Meyers lemon and the mushrooms. Slice the chorizo approx. 1/4" thick.

Juice the other meyers lemon and combine with the soy sauce.

Heat the coconut oil on a griddle. Add the garlic, ginger, onion, chorizo, mushrooms and lemon and saute 5 min or so. Add the coconut and stir in.
Stuff fish with as much of the mixture as comfortably fits. Keep the rest warm.

Grease a shallow baking sheet with coconut oil. Put one sheet of seaweed on it; put the fish on that, and wrap the seaweed around. Take the second sheet and lay it on top, tucking it under the fish to stay secure. Leave the head and tail free (see first post picture).

Bake 25 min or until fish just starts to easily flake. Picture below shows it just out of the oven. Heat the griddle holding the remainder. Add the soy/lemon juice mixture and saute until reheated and thickened.

If (as we were) you are serving it to two people: cut the head and tail off (see final picture for disposition). Cut the seaweed along the belly of the fish with scissors. Unfold the fish and cut in half along the backbone area.
Put half the seaweed on each plate. Put one of the fish halves on top of each, skin side down. Put stuffing over. Add reserved stuffing and sauce on top, distributing evenly.
Eating notes: This was truly my own recipe, and I'm rather proud of how it came out. Unexpected combinations and quite good. The seaweed is a bit chewy, but fine to eat. Be very careful of the bones and scales. The scales, especially, can adhere to your throat and be very unpleasant. It also helps, as Alex and Nadja show below, to have a good friend willing to look away when your own enjoyment becomes a bit too enthusiastic.

Stuffed Chicken without Preconceptions

2009-03-27T20:39:00.005-04:00

Preconceptions first. Chicken that isn't "fully" cooked is bad. People who serve chicken that isn't so cooked are bad.
Recipe:
(Serves 2)
1 boneless skinless chicken breast (3/4 lb or so)
2T pecan meal
2T parmesan
scattering of marinated mushrooms
1 to 2 oz soft cheddar (I used a stout cheddar) sliced thin
salt and pepper to taste
2 oz sour cream
1/4 c dry white wine
3 - 4 thin slices prosciutto
2T ghee
4 oz frozen cooked zuchhini or summer squash
Instructions: Take one chicken boneless, skinless chicken breast (see picture immediately above) and pound it thin (see picture immediately below).
Mix sour cream, wine, and salt and pepper to taste until smooth.Sprinkle pecan meal over. Dot with mushrooms. Slice cheese and arrange (see next pic). Put grated cheese over. Put prosciutto over. Fold in half, so that if there is a stray "limb" of meat it is folded inside (see pic below).
Heat ghee in heavy pan until very hot. Saute folded chicken 4 min on each side. Plate.

Updated because I forgot about the zucchini!: Add the zucchini to the pan and saute until cooked, about 4 min. Plate zucchini around chicken.

Pour cream and spice mixture into pan and deglaze/reduce until of a nice sauce consistency. Pour over and serve (see first pic).

Eating notes: Phil was not at all amazed that rare poultry is ok and, in fact, good. For me it was a revelation. The poultry was moist and not at all gummy. It clearly was rare meat, but I didn't feel the need to snatch up the plates and rush back to the microwave. I need to think on this some more.

Ketchup Pizza

2009-03-26T20:04:00.003-04:00

Circumstances conspire. 1: Pizza fail from the other night. 2: Wanted to get some chicken from the Fresh Fields but realized I had no money so went home empty-handed. 3: Had one more leftover pizza shell. 4: Thought I had some tomato sauce but it turned out to be chili paste.

The result: Ketchup Pizza. Used Lane's Super-Sweet Ketchup (see Eating Notes below) mixed with Thai chili sauce as the base. Instructions: Prepare the pizza crust or be lazy like I was and use a gluten-free (or regular if you're not bothered by gluten) ready-made as directed. Preheat oven to 450F. Mix 1/4 c ketchup, 2T chili sauce, 1T mixed dried herbs, and 4 sliced garlic cloves. Spread over the sauce. Layer over sliced veggies to suit (I used 4 mushrooms and half a red onion; again, what I had on hand). Grate 2 oz or to taste hard cheese over all. If desired, top with sliced meat or sausage (I used spicy Italian sausage). Cook 13 - 18 min or until done to taste.

Eating Notes: Lane's ketchup now tastes really sweet. I'm not sure if it's really all that much sweet-tasting or if because I'm eating far fewer sweets than I used to it's my palate that has changed. But it's a surprise and kind of nice when you think about what to mix it with. I think the ketchup/chili sauce was too obvious/harsh, but I will now start planning for more subtle future uses.

Mechazawa-san Meatloaf Love

2009-03-25T20:25:00.006-04:00

After too many fails in too short a time, I needed something comforting and reliable. Mechazawa-san to the rescue!!

(Updated to be a bit more useful). We were a bit hungry, so made two individual loaves from a pound of beef. Instructions: Mix the beef with an egg, 1T yellow or brown mustard, 1T Worcestershire (I use Bulldog for meatloaf), 1T sage, 2t cayenne, 1t garlic powder (if you're tired lazy like I was; it would be better if you mince a few cloves and mix them in) and 1/2 c glutinous millet or other cooked grain to soak up the juices.* When you make the individual loaves, remember to put a dent in the middle to retain cooking juices and provide a well for ketchup. Preheat the Egg and the grill. Grill directly on the grill 35 minutes on restrained-high heat (about 400F) for 2 loaves. Plate carefully to retain the juices and pour ketchup over.

Eating Notes: Used my old-time ketchup, which I hadn't had since Lane and I did the ketchup comparison back in February. It definitely will continue to improve, but was much better melded having had a month more to age.

* as a whole grain, millet (as opposed to millet flour) is not on my "good" list, but I've had some to use up. So I've been trying to sensibly process the millet as much as possible before I eat it. This millet ended up being cooked twice - first in the rice cooker and then in the Egg. Also, glutinous millet, despite the sound of its name, is not a gluten grain.

Veal Liver and Parmesan Herb Potatoes

2009-03-24T20:44:00.004-04:00

Easy, filling and good.

Instructions: Preheat oven to 425F. Slice russet or similar potatoes 1/2" thick. Take two 1/2" slices out of the middle (widest) part of an onion, or use the roughly equivalent mass from the ends. Layer half the potatoes on a greased piece of foil on a baking sheet. layer the onions on. Season to taste with herbs, salt and pepper. Layer the rest of the potatoes over. Put approx 1/4 c ghee or butter on top in large dollops. Cover generously with grated Parmesan and wrap in the foil. Roast 45 min to an hour.

When done, remove from oven and plate. Heat 2T lard or bacon fat or butter in a heavy fry pan on medium-high heat. Add veal liver and saute 2 min on one side. Flip and saute 1 min on the other side. Liver should still be oozing blood and be nice and rare on the inside. Cut in half and plate.

Veal Cheeks Braised in Tomato

2009-03-24T09:17:00.002-04:00

Rehearsal night last night, so easy crock pot dinner - except that I chunked the veal in the pot and forgot everything else! So thanks, Phil, for doing the actual cooking. As it turned out, we still needed to pull it out of the crock pot and put it on the stove for a half hour for it to be edible for dinner, and then I let it simmer a couple of hours more so it would be really good for leftover lunches.

Instructions (or; what I *should* have done): Put veal cheeks in crock pot with one can of tomatoes. Cut a medium onion and a large waxy potato (red, Yukon gold, etc.) into 1" cubes and add. Add some carrots and celery, cut into 1" pieces. Throw in 4 whole cloves of garlic and spices to taste. Cook on low all day.

Updated with photo.

Pizza fail

2009-03-22T20:51:00.002-04:00

Went to make pizza on the egg tonight and it was a fail - 25 minutes on the grill and still it wasn't cooked and parts were cold. Because the ingredients were veggies, cheese, and pre-cooked sausage on a pre-cooked crust, it was edible, and we were hungry enough by then to eat it, but it wasn't very good.

Diagnosis:
Egg wasn't fully preheated when I put the skillet on. I think the thermometer also needs recalibration. After 18 minutes the cheese hadn't melted and I decided to give it another 7 minutes. I should have realized this was a major problem and just kept on cooking. I forgot that it takes a long time to heat the iron pan and that when the pan and stuff near it is hot, stuff far away may not be.

Irony:
I still managed to burn my mouth on a bit of tomato paste that had gotten very hot indeed.

Which came first?

2009-03-21T20:21:00.004-04:00

Last night had the eggs, so tonight the shad. Another first for Phil and me. Basically, an unremarkable fish but easy and good. Again, I adapted one recipe for the cooking sauce and another for the finishing sauce to end up with...

Basic Broiled Shad with Caper Sauce
(serves 2)

1 shad made into fillets (about 1/2 pound), cut in half lengthwise

For cooking sauce:
1/4 c melted butter
1 t lemon juice
1 t paprika
1/2 t dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste (I used no salt and a bunch of pepper)
parsley (I didn't have any, so I used carrot greens)

For finishing sauce:
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 T drained capers
1/2 c dry white wine
Juice of 1 lemon (I used a Meyers lemon)
1/2 c buttermilk
1 t corn starch
1 t cold water
2 T butter

After assembling your mis en place, start the broiler (I used the high setting with the rack positioned about 5" from the heat) make the finishing sauce first.

In a 1-quart saucepan over high heat, combine garlic, capers, wine and lemon juice and cook until reduced 1/3 to 1/2. Add in most of the parsley, reserving enough for a garnish.

Mix the corn starch and water.

Add buttermilk and cook until reduced again by 1/2. Add the corn starch and water mixture and cook until thickened. Remove from heat but keep warm. Picture below shows the sauce keeping warm.Make the cooking sauce and cook the fish next.

Melt the butter and stir in the other ingredients. Line a baking sheet with foil and turn up the edges. Brush some of the sauce on. Put the fish onto the foil and distribute half the cooking sauce over. Broil 3 minutes.
Remove from oven (pic above shows it just out of the oven and before flipping) and carefully turn. Distribute the rest of the sauce over. Broil 2 minutes more. Remove and plate (because Phil and I were having only the fish, I cut each fillet piece in half before plating; see first post pic).

Pour the fish juice remaining on the foil into the finishing sauce and stir gently to combine. Pour over fish. Serve at once.

Eating notes: The fish was a bit pedestrian, and the sauce a bit strong. That said, it was a good combination and worth repeating. I liked the buttermilk (instead of the cream the one recipe called for) but you have to be sure not to panic when it all curdles up and to just keep cooking it until it all melds.

Chesalane Shad Roe

2009-03-20T20:49:00.009-04:00

Today I was so happy to be able to make dinner that I decided to do something fun. So (thanks, Lane!) I bought some of the in-season shad roe (see first post pic) at the Fresh Fields and the ingredients to make Lane's Shad Roe recipe. But I wanted something a little more robust. So I looked around and found a Chesapeake Bay Shad Roe recipe that sounded good. Merging the two sounded like an excellent idea, and it was. So in honor of both, I merge the titles as well. Chesapeake gets top billing because both the roe and the recipe apply.

Recipe:
(serves 2)
1 set of shad roe
3T ghee or butter (I used ghee)
3 shallots, minced
5 md button or crimini mushrooms, wiped clean and cut in half
1 decent-sized bunch of parsley, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
1 lemon, sliced thin (Lane insisted I use Meyer's lemons, and after doing so I agree)
1/2 c dry sherry
4 oz creme fraiche or sour cream
approx. 4 oz milk to thin the creme fraiche
1/2 T flour (I used rice flour to keep it gluten-free)
salt and pepper to taste

Mince the shallots and put in a bowl. Chop the parsley and add it but do not mix. Separate the parsley into two approximately equal amounts by lifting out the leaves at the top, leaving more leaves and most of the stems in the bowl with the shallots.

Melt the ghee or butter in a heavy skillet. Stir in the shallot/parsley mixture and cook slowly 1 min. Turn heat to medium, add the mushrooms, and cook 5 min more. Season with salt and a bit of pepper. Arrange the mixture so the roe can sit on top. Carefully add the roe (see picture) cover with the rest of the parsley and lemon slices (see next picture) and pour over the sherry and lemon juice. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. If the lid seals tightly, vent occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a jar or bottle mix by shaking the creme fraiche with enough milk to bring it to a heavy cream consistency. Shake in 1/2 T flour (Phil overshook and made really nice solidified cream; if you do the same, just add more milk and shake again until it's right - it is not a fail).

Preheat your broiler. (I used the low setting, with the rack about 4" from the flame)

When the time is up, carefully remove the roe and lemon slices from the pan, putting the roe on a flame-proof platter and scraping any parsley on top of the roe back into the skillet. Using a slotted spoon, remove and plate the solid parts (parsley and mushrooms).
Reduce the sauce until it is slightly thickened and pour over the roe. Pic above shows the roe with the sauce poured over. Broil 3 min. Put one roe sac on top of each plate of parsley/mushroom mix. Pour sauce over, layer lemon slices on, and serve.

(I was serving this with steamed beans and shiitake mushrooms (see last pic below), so I put the lemon slices on those and not the roe. It worked quite well, and Lane was right that the Meyer's lemons could be eaten, rind and pith and all, without trouble)

Eating Notes: Not being from the area, this was Phil and my first experience with shad roe. We really like it. We both thought it tastes more like organ meat than what our experience with roe (which, essentially, has previously been limited to sushi and caviar) has been. The fact that it is seasonal (see Lane's post linked above for more info) makes it more fun to have. I thought that the combination of Lane's cooking sauce with the Chesapeake recipe finishing sauce worked well. In the future I might add just a touch of curry or something with a bit of a bite, but as it was it was great comfort food.

Can't Talk...Working

2009-03-20T09:14:00.001-04:00

Pulled a 12-hour day at my client's site last night and dinner consisted of natto and too much packaged trail mix. Don't know what tonight will bring, maybe more of the same.

Apologies, and will be back as soon as I do something worth blogging about (let alone eating).

Courtney's Ersatz Bopis

2009-03-18T20:26:00.006-04:00

I am honestly a bit tired of seeing apologetic recipes for pig parts. As with the pork kidneys the recipes for hearts almost uniformly praised lamb and veal (and even ox!) parts and said well, if you can't get anything else, pig would probably do. So when I defrosted the pig heart I had on hand (see first post pic), I was determined to find a recipe that called, initially and with pride, for a pig heart.

Fortunately, Filipino recipes embrace the pig, and the whole pig. So I found several basic recipes for Bopis, which can be made with heart or with heart and lungs combined. I had nowhere near all the traditional ingredients, so I adapted it to fit my suburban American kitchen. The result was fabulous.

Recipe:
(serves 2)
1 pig heart (ours was just over a pound)
4 large garlic cloves
1 medium-large onion
1/2 bell pepper
1 hot pepper (I used a jalapeno)
1/2 cup white vinegar
1T turmeric
1 t ground black pepper
salt or patis (Filipino fermented fish sauce; I used salt) to taste
2T coconut oil or lard for frying

Trim the pig heart of excess fat, obvious valves, and the muscly flaps that cover it. Rinse it out well. Boil 30 - 45 min or until a fork poked into the heart comes out easily. Remove the heart and cube it.

Mince the garlic and cube the onion and bell pepper.

In a frying pan or wok, heat the fat and saute the garlic until just brown. Add the onion and pork and saute 2 or 3 minutes more. Add the turmeric, pepper, and salt/patis and stir until coated and fragrant. Add the vinegar and set to medium heat. Boil 5 min without stirring. Add the peppers and stir gently (picture below shows everything added into the frypan).
Boil 8 - 10 minutes more until sauce is melded and vinegar no longer tastes sharp. Serve.Eating Notes: This was excellent sweet and sour in its own right. I think it works very well with heart, but for the squeamish another cut would probably do. We were surprised because aside from the onion and bell pepper there was nothing "sweet" in it. I would definitely make it again and now I'm curious to track down all the Filipino ingredients and do it right.

Update: The reason I didn't link through to the "ur" recipe is because I cribbed this from 5 or 6 different sources. I've added a link above to the Wikipedia article on bopis for those who would like to learn more about the dish.

Pork Adobo

2009-03-18T08:06:00.004-04:00

So, I was a the store looking for some pork to make pork adobo and saw some packages of neck parts. My recipe is a variation on the adobo theme. Neck is not normally a cut that I would jump on for this dish, actually, its not a cut I think of at all, really. But I had been thinking earlier that I should try the dish with a fattier cut and bones might be a good idea, too. So I bought about 5 lbs and wondered what would be the result.

Pork adobo
Pork neck pieces
1/2 C cider vinegar
6 T soy sauce
6 cloves garlic
2 T sugar
3 bay leaves
1 t black pepper corn
2 t pickling spice

Separated the neck pieces with a cathartic attack of a meat cleaver. Sliced the garlic into rounds. Put everything in a dutch oven and simmered over low hear for an hour plus. I added a little water and cooked uncovered for another 15 minutes.

This turned out to be a very good cut of meat for this dish. It is not the tidiest or dainty cut. The meat was very flavorful and easily picked off the bones. Served with rice.

Marinated Lamb Chops, Yams and Kale

2009-03-17T20:33:00.004-04:00

I fasted today (despite lunch with Lane - sorry to be a stick in the mud but you deserve it for not covering for me by blogging yesterday!) because I just wasn't very hungry. But Phil had no such proclivities and by dinner I was ready to get back to normal so, a full spread of lamb chops, yams with herbs and cheese, and lard-fried kale was made to order.

Instructions for lamb: Make a marinade of about 1/3 c peach preserves, 1/4 c Thai chili garlic sauce, 1/4 c cider vinegar and garlic and pepper to taste (pic below shows the lamb marinating). Marinate 2 hours or so, flipping intermittently and spreading the mixture all over. Heat grill (I was cooking the lamb chops from nearly frozen so used Mechazawa-san). Put lamb on. Cook approx 10 min 1 side; flip and add some marinade and cook 10 minutes more; flip and put on, with any big bits of peach on top of the lamb. Cook another 5 min or so and then pull off, keeping the big bits of peach balanced on top. When plating, lift carefully to keep the big bits of peach on top, and pour any remaining marinade over.

Instructions for yams: Put the yams in a layer on a roasting pan. Grate some cheese (Ok, mom, the grater did do a better job...) and sprinkle over (see pic above). Cover with foil. Bake at 400 for 40 - 45 min.

Instructions for "dinosaur" kale: At about 1-1/2" wide at the broadest part of the leaf, dinosaur kale is very thin. If you are using more broadleaf kale you may want to chop more finely. Chop the kale from stems to top in increasingly longer sections from root to leaf (approx 1/2" at the root end and 2" at the leaf end). Heat 3-4 T lard in a heavy pan. When melted and hot, add the kale stems. Saute 4 min or so and then add leaves. If desired, add some soy or soba sauce. Stir fry until well wilted.

Eating notes: I am constantly amazed at how Mechazawa-san can turn out amazing results from things like frozen-solid lamb chops. Arigatou gozaimasu!

Pork Meatloaf and Asparagus

2009-03-15T20:32:00.003-04:00

The asparagus at the coop this week looked wonderful, so had to get some and never mind the cost. For protein and fat, used pork leftover from breakfast to make some very nice meatloaf.

Instructions: Heat your grill (Mechazawa-san, the big Egg, was the choice for us). While the grill is heating, mix 1/2 lb ground pork, 1T good yellow mustard, 1T Worchestershire (I used Lee and Perrins), 1T horseradish, 1 egg, and 1/4 c panko. Once the grill is heated, cook approx 30 min or until done. Steam the asparagus 5 - 7 min. Melt 1/4 c ghee. Plate everything and pour the ghee over the asparagus. Picture shows one serving (out of 2).

Eating Notes: Forgot to let the grill really heat up before putting the meat on, so while it was cooked well it could have benefitted more from the crispy/carbon additions if it had gone onto a really hot grill. Note for future reference.

Lame...but easy and a little fun

2009-03-14T20:37:00.002-04:00

Long day and not terribly hungry, so tore open a bag of smoked shrimp and pulled out the wonderful cocktail picks and made a go of it. I used to love these kinds of things (and cocktail umbrellas) when I was a kid - I'd open and close them obsessively, and take them home from the restaurant and play with them until the little paper accordions finally gave out or faded into a sad shade of neutral. They still make anything taste better.

Broiled Catfish with Incredible Sauce

2009-03-13T21:11:00.006-04:00

Bought a huge (well, 1.5 lb) catfish fillet because it looked really good. Catfish is not one of my "go to" fish - chalk it up to 7 years in Baton Rouge, Louisiana or just a mental block. But for whatever reason, the fact that I selected a large catfish fillet at the store today was unusual but serendipitous, because it lived up to its oracular suggestions. Adapted the recipe from an industry site for catfish recipes and decided to try it for my purposes.

Recipe:
(serves 2 very generously)
Enough fillet of catfish to make you happy (anywhere from 12 oz to 2 lb)
2 0z. cup of strong espresso (or 1T instant espresso powder mixed with 2 oz water if you have no other choice)
1/4 c butter, melted (I used half-and-half butter and ghee)
1/4 t garlic or onion powder (I used garlic)
1/2 t salt
1/4 c mascarpone cheese or sour cream
1/4 c horseradish
1/4 c capers

Combine espresso, melted butter, garlic powder and salt. Generously grease foil and place on an appropriately sized baking sheet. Turn the edges of the foil up.

Place fish on foil. Brush generously over catfish. Broil 3" = 4" from heat for 6 - 10 min (depending on thickness) checking frequently so that the fish doesn't overcook.

Flip an brush remaining half of sauce over. Broil 4 - 8 min longer or until fish just barely starts to easily flake.

While the fish is broiling, combine the cheese, horseradish and capers into a sauce.

Plate fish. Carefully lift the foil and pour the fish juices into the rest of the sauce, stirring to combine. Pour over and serve.

Eating Notes: This is the best catfish we have ever had (not too difficult since catfish is so frequently breaded and fried to death). It was perfectly cooked, and the coffee butter cooking sauce combined really well with the cheese/horseradish/capers finishing sauce. I will definitely use the coffee/butter combination for other things. Not sure what yet, but it was a winner.

Veal Liver with Dandelion Green Potatoes

2009-03-12T20:48:00.005-04:00

Phil was intrigued by the New York Times' Mark Bittman's Green Mashed Potatoes recipe and passed it over. We come at it from differengt perspectives - Bittman is a vegan; I'm an unabashed animal-fat-and-meat-loving omnivore, but our goal is essentially the same. We both want to take simple, real, food and cook it simply.

So, needing comfort on this chilly March evening, we had veal liver with Dandelion Green Potatoes. His calls for boatloads of olive oil and a thick breadcrumb crust; I prefer butter and just a dusting of panko.

Recipe:
(serves 2)

For the Veal:
1 slice veal liver
2 sliced mushrooms
1 large shallot, sliced thin.

For the potatoes:
2 large (approx. 1 lb) russet or other starchy potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
1 lb dandelion or other similar greens, bottoms of stems cut off (save for scrap salad).
1/2 c butter
generous pinch of salt
lots of pepper
dusting of panko (Japanese bread crumbs; omit if you want it gluten-free)

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add the potatoes and salt and boil until nicely cooked, 20-30 min. Remove with slotted spoon and mash, rice, or put through a food mill (I mashed). Bring the pot water back to a boil, add the greens and cook 1 min. Remove, rinse in cold water, squeeze out excess water, and chop. Mash the greens and butter into the potatoes.

Preheat oven to 400F. Put the mixed greens and potatoes into an ovenproof dish. Generously grind pepper over. Dust with panko. Bake 15 - 20 minutes or until panko starts to brown.

While potatoes are in the oven, heat a griddle generously coated with bacon drippings or lard. When the griddle is hot, add the mushrooms and shallots and saute until the shallots are crispy-brown. Push the shallot-mushroom mixture to the unheated part of the griddle, or remove and keep warm. Turn the griddle to medium-low until you are ready to cook the liver.

Once the greens and potatoes are done, remove from the oven. Put the liver on the griddle and cook 1 min on each side. Plate immediately and cover with the mushroom and shallot mixture. Serve 1/4 of the potatoes to each. Save the rest for tomorrow.

Eating notes: Honestly, while this was easy comfort food I would have preferred the dandelion greens cooked separately from the potatoes. There was not enough "bite" to the dinner as a whole for my taste. That said, it was a really good dish and I will make it again, although probably paired with something that has a sharpness of its own so that the meal as a whole has a better balance.

Giving it Away

2009-03-12T13:30:00.001-04:00

I'm working at a client's site for a while, so I brought in a sack of snacks - a couple packs of mate (Japanese rice cracker snacks) and Harry and David things - that I won't eat but that I thought were non-offensive enough to give to others. I like my client and the staff, so I just tossed the "Moose Mix" or whatever it was called and similar items that from the ingredients appeared to be code for Death in a Bag.

In addition to the mate: box (opened) of individually wrapped jam-filled cookies; box of six chocolates; individual serving size bag of mixed nuts; box (opened) of seeded crackers. I put them out and have been walking by every 20 minutes to see what is left.

10:00 put all items on the table in the break room
10:20 nuts taken; chocolates opened, 2 taken; entire box (!) of cookies taken
10:40 one more chocolate taken
11:00 one bag of mate gone
11:20 entire box of crackers taken
11:40 one more chocolate gone
12:00 no change; one bag of mate and 2 chocolates still available
12:20 2nd bag of mate taken
12:40 one more chocolate gone - only one left!
1:00 last chocolate still hanging on
1:20 all gone!

I don't want to know who took an entire box of individually wrapped cookies. Or crackers, for that matter, but at least the crackers could have been someone's full lunch. On a related note, I'm glad that as a consultant I don't know enough about office politics to make a guess.

Maybe it's the person who politely opened the chocolates and took only one or two, rather than the whole box of six, who is the outlier, but I prefer to think otherwise.

People may be reluctant to take the last goody unless they really want it, or perhaps the last chocolate did not disappear until after lunchtime because during lunch the room is busy and others would see you take the last one.

Mechazawa-san Pizza

2009-03-11T20:46:00.004-04:00

A staple of my "pre-gluten" days was Mechazawa-san pizza done in the iron fry pan on the Egg. Who knows why, but we were craving pizza so revived the practice with excellent results. Instructions: Heat the Egg; make the pizza; cook at about 375F or so for about 15-18 minutes if you're using a relatively thin crust.

This serves 2. The pizza was made with a ready-made rice flour (gluten-free) pizza crust I had on hand, plus tomato paste, sliced garlic, sliced chili peppers, cooked spinach, cheese, fresh tomatoes, and spicy Italian pork sausage.

Eating notes: I like the rice flour crust - it is very thin and crispy and holds up well. People who like a chewy crust will not like it, though. Even though this is a small pizza, I use a whole can of tomato paste (not sauce) on it. It's a bit low fat and all, but I compensate with a lot of cheese and fatty sausage. We may be reviving weekly pizza night...

Smoked Bluefish

2009-03-11T09:21:00.009-04:00

I bought two bluefish fillets to smoke. The pair weighed a little over 3 lbs and so served the four of us dinner with leftovers for lunch or snacks or appetizers or another meal. We all love smoked fish, so I don't expect it to last very long.

Smoked Bluefish
2 qts water
1/2 C salt
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C soy sauce
1 T dill weed
1 lemon
sage

Mix water, salt and sugar until the solids are dissolved. Add everything else and mix. I found a couple of sprigs of 'fresh' sage looking forlorn in the basket where I keep my garlic and ginger which was halfway to being dryish, so I crumbled that up and added it to the brine. Soak fish for 8 hours. I have a charcoal Meco water smoker which basically means you can't skrew anything up no matter what you do. Follow directions, it smoked about 2 hours with beech chips as the smoke source.

Oh, and don't use it indoors stamped all over the thing and in all the ads. Uh, ok. I'm also really sick of warnings labels on everything. So, I offer this Frazz which sums up my interpretation of warning stupidity quite well:

Appropriate © to Jef Mallett

Back to the fish. I made a mayonnaise, mustard and horseradish sauce to go with it, I give you no proportions, I just tasted until it worked. And it turned out to be completely superfluous. This is an incredibly simple and tasty way to cook fish.

Goat Chops with Coconut-Oil Roasted Sweet Potatoes

2009-03-10T20:45:00.003-04:00

Wanted something easy but a bit fun tonight. So grilled the rest of the goat chops on Mechazawa-san (the large Egg; 40 min from frozen to nicely medium rare) and made some sweet potatoes that turned out really well.
Recipe:
(serves 2 as a side)
One generous sweet potato
Bacon grease or lard or ghee
Coconut oil
Red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 425F. Line a cookie sheet with foil. Grease with fat or lard.

Scrub the sweet potatoes and slice approx 1/3" - 1/2" thick. Place on the greased foil. Put a small dollop of coconut oil on top of each slice. Shake red pepper flakes over.

Bake 5 min at 425F and then reduce heat to 375F and cook 40 minutes more.

Eating notes: With the instructions given, the potatoes will crisp just a little on the bottom and around the sides. If you'd like them to be soft all over, do it at 375F throughout; if you'd like them more crispy, keep the oven hot for 5 or 10 minutes longer.

Lamb Loin Chops

2009-03-09T10:28:00.004-04:00

Last night I attacked the first couple of packages of loin chops from the lamb Courtney and I split. You can see the packages sitting in the middle of the picture where they would be sitting in mr. lamb. Conveniently packaged at four per pouch, two pouches fed four people. They were really good and I am glad that all I did was a simple marinade and grill. I don't take picture, so I can't show the well gnawed bones, but they were well gnawed.

Lamb with garlic and rosemary
Lamb loin chops, 2 per person
1/4 C pomegranate juice
1/2 t pomegranate molasses
2 T olive oil
4 cloves garlic
2 sprigs rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

Strip rosemary and shred. Press garlic. Mix everything together. Marinate for 30-45 minutes mixing now and then. I added the molasses as a slightly for a slight tart punch and it gave a little caramelized hint to the sear on the surface. I grill over high hear to sear the outside an let my meat baah on the inside. Grill as desired.

Warm weather brings out our desires for extreme simplicity in grilled meats.

Baked Pears

2009-03-08T12:43:00.004-04:00

Planned to be talking about something exotic yesterday, but by the time dinner rolled around last night I didn't feel at all like cooking. So we made some grilled pork meatloaf on the Egg that, while yummy, wasn't really worth blogging. So apologies.

This weekend we've been trying to work our way through the Harry and David pears, so both mornings I made baked pears (first pic shows the finished pear as part of today's breakfast).Recipe:
(Serves any even number)

Pears (1/2 pear per person)

For each pear:
2 t unsalted butter (approx)
1 T pecan meal
1/2 t san on tou; or light brown sugar; or maple sugar (not syrup)
1/2 t freshly ground nutmeg
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 375F. Cut the pears in half. If the pears have tough skins, peel. Otherwise, leave skins on.

Using a small melon baller, remove the seeds from the pear. Cut out the stem and blossom. Arrange the pears in an appropriately sized baking dish (covered is preferable but not required; see picture above showing the pears arranged in the baking dish I used).

Using the same melon baller, place one ball of butter in the depression in the pear. Mix the other ingredients together and dust over the pears. Pour 1/4" hot water in the bottom of the baking dish.

Bake, covered with the lid or with foil, for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 minutes more. Serve warm.

Veal Cheeks

2009-03-06T20:44:00.003-05:00

Tonight made the veal cheeks from the Halal market. Will try to take "in process" pictures next time - the only one I have shows it plated.

Recipe:
(serves 2 as single-dish meal)

2 veal cheeks, trimmed
2 T lard or other oil for frying

2 carrots, sliced 1/2" thick
1/2 onion, chopped coarsely
4 large crimini or button mushrooms, quartered

1/2 t sage
1/2 t thyme
1/2 t tarragon
1/3 c pecan meal

1/2 c dry sherry or white wine
2 c water
1/4 t salt
msg to taste
generous sprinkling of black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
rice flour or other thickening agent (if desired)

Dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 325 F. Combine pecan meal, tarragon, thyme and sage and set aside.

Peel silver skin and trim extreme excess fat off cheeks. Heat lard in ovenproof Dutch oven and sear cheeks 3-4 min on each side. Remove from pan.

Add vegetables and cook 5 min or until onions are browning, stirring constantly. Add white wine, stirring to deglaze, and cook 2 min. Add water, msg, salt, peppercorns and bay. Stir to combine. Return veal to pan.

Cover and bake 1-1/4 hours. Remove veal to roasting pan lined with foil. Coat with mustard and distribute pecan meal/herb mixture over. Broil 2 min and turn off broiler.

Put pan over medium-high to high heat and reduce remaining sauce to about 1/3 cup (Add thickening agent if desired).

Plate the veal, distribute vegetables around, and pour sauce over.

Dressed Black Bass

2009-03-05T20:41:00.005-05:00

More conversations over fish and was convinced to buy a whole black bass. Looked up a lot of recipes for smoking whole bass and they were all outrageously complex. Until I looked at the recipe for the Egg, which (in a nutshell) was essentially 'stick it on a piece of greased foil and close the Egg and come back when it's done.' So that is what we did.

To semi-compensate, I tried to make hollandaise sauce. Major fail, as I wasn't paying attention and the eggs cooked and separated out. So I strained it through a very fine sieve, added the fish juices to it, and used the eggs as a garnish.

Recipe:
(generously serves 2)

1 whole black bass (approx 3 lbs), gutted, descaled and fins trimmed

1/4 c coconut oil
1 leek (white and light green parts)
1/3 c pecans
2 shiitake mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste

Hollandaise sauce (use whatever recipe you have)

Cooking note: If you are using a grill other than a Big Green Egg, don't trust the fish grilling instructions because they will probably dry your fish out. Go wtih whatever your grill manufacturer says.

Smoke fish at 250 for 40 - 45 minutes.

While fish is smoking, make dressing. Heat oil in a heavy pan and add other ingredients. Cook until leeks are done. Remove from heat.

When fish has about 10 minutes left, start the hollandaise. If it fails, strain it through a very fine sieve and use the eggy part for garnish.

Take the fish off the grill and split it in half. You will have to pull out the skull and the spine (see above), and any other bones that don't obviously split in half. Reassemble each half of the fish on a plate. Add the dressing and pour sauce over. Add the garnish if you need to :-).

Basic Lamb Really Good

2009-03-04T20:22:00.002-05:00

Sort of an Ur dinner as one can see. Lamb done on Mechazawa-san (the big Egg) and some broccoli with ponzu (Japanese citrus soy). That's it! Really nice. The lamb was perfectly rare and we just ate it like fried chicken - pick it up and go to town. And yes, we did take the time to lift a glass to the lamb.

Whole Lamb

2009-03-04T09:24:00.003-05:00

Here's the whole lamb from Groff's Content! We decided to lay it out lamb-like for educational purposes before splitting it.
The sack underneath is the fat; the bag on top has the bones; the bag by the tail is the intestines.

The nice thing about lamb is that there are not that many unusual cuts, plus it has that useful bilateral symmetry, so dividing it was fairly non-contentious (although reportedly Lane's son was not happy that I ended up with the head) since there were multiples of 2 of everything except the head and organs. Of those, Lane got the tongue and heart and I took the kidneys. On to the cooking.

Carbonade de Boeuf

2009-03-03T20:08:00.000-05:00

I love Robert Carrier. His volume 'Great Dishes of the World' is not what one will find in modern cookbooks anymore. He's one of my comfort food chefs. It is bourgeois/country/regional cooking and a solid base for any cooking library. It's cold again here meaning stew.

Carbonade de Boeuf
2 lbs beef (I used a bottom round roast from the cow in my freezer)
2 T lard
4 T butter
4 onions
2 T flour
1 bottle Guinness
salt and pepper
flour for dredging

Cut roast into 1 inch cubes. Slice onion fairly thinly. Dredge cubes in flour and brown in lard in dutch oven in a single layer. Remove to platter and continue until all meat is browned. Add onions to dutch over with butter. Cook over medium heat until lightly browned. Sprinkle 2 T flour over onions and stir. Return beef to dutch oven and mix. Add beer. Cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Carrier says to serve with spaetzle or potatoes. I served it with thick egg noodles.

This a very simple, very good stew. Good warm comfort food for a really cold night. While the ingredients are very simple, the flavor is more complex than you would expect. Cooking with beer is a wonderful thing.

Corn Elbows with Gizzard Sauce

2009-03-02T19:41:00.003-05:00

Rehearsal was canceled but still felt like a Monday night dinner, so made corn elbows with the leftover sauce from last night's curried chicken gizzards and some yellow squash (previously blanched and frozen) from last summer's CSA mixed in. It was so good we each had two bowls. I know I'll regret that much carb intake later, but now....mmmmmm.

Eating Notes: This was our first time trying the gluten-free corn pasta. From the experience with the rice, I cooked it just over 5 min (instructions said 6-8) and it was perfect for us. You can taste the corn. The texture is pretty good, not gummy and it seems like it would hold up to macaroni and cheese or another casserole type dish. But the star was the sauce. It had congealed into a sort of loose aspic in the fridge, belying its high fat content. When it heated, it had a wonderful sheen. Phil noted that in the "old days" pasta sauce used to have a lot of fat in it, but now, no. That certainly was the case in my family, as well.

Curried Chicken Gizzards

2009-03-01T20:25:00.003-05:00

Tonight I wanted to use up the zippy bag of chicken gizzards. Searched around a bit and finally found a Sri Lankan recipe that sounded interesting at this site. Adapted it a bit as follows.

Recipe:
(serves 2, with sauce left over; mis en place shown above)

1 lb chicken gizzards
1.5 T ground coriander
1T ground cumin
1/4 c ghee or other fat for frying
1 md onion (I used half an half red and white)
5 cloves garlic
1T fresh ginger
2t paprika
2t cayenne
1t ground turmeric
1/4 c tomato paste
3/4t salt (mix with tomato paste)

Wash and clean the gizzards and cut into their natural parts.

Finely chop the onion, garlic and ginger

Measure out the other ingredients.

In a small dry heavy pan, stir the ground coriander over low heat for a few minutes until it turns a farily dark brown and is giving out a pretty strong (but not burning) smell. Dump it into the mis en place bowl holding your other dry spices. Do the same thing with the cumin.

Heat the oil in a large heavy pan. When hot, add onion, garlic an ginger and saute unti the onions are soft and start turning golden brown.

Add dry spices (except salt).Cook, sitrring to mix, 1 min, then add tomato paste and salt and stir well. Pic above shows it at that point.Add gizzards and stir until well coated (as shown right above). Add water to cover and simmer 1 hour. Serve hot.

Cooking Notes: There is a lot of sauce per unit solids. The recipe says to mix it in over rice, but I decided to save it as a pasta sauce for tomorrow instead.

Eating Notes: Definitely not "meat" in the muscle meat sense. We both really liked it, but it's not the kind of thing you can pass off on people pretending it's little bits of steak or whatnot. Phil liked it better than liver and on par with non-liver organs. I was just pretty happy.
As the picture above shows, it was plated with a dense yogurt. I used the plain, whole fat yogurt from Three Greek Gods, which is my favorite main dish yogurt. This is a good foil to any spicy European/African dish.

Dinner At Ansill Food and Wine - Part 4

2009-02-28T22:13:00.002-05:00

Last of the wonderful dinner at Ansill. Following the just-for-us kidneys was an even better treat of just-for-us sweetbreads served with grilled Brussels sprouts (see first pic of the sweetbreads with the sprouts at the upper left). Tasha gave us some 2005 Sangiovese to go with. The sweetbreads were smooth and rich. I was so focused on them that I forgot to take notes about the sauce. I think that's a good thing. The restaurant was busy by now, but I caught David's eye and said "mmmmm.......sweetbreads" and he just smiled and said "of course." If I could have smiled any bigger than I already was, I would have. I liked the sprouts as a side. They were mixed with some applewood smoked bacon and sliced in half so the open sides browned up from the grill. Phil, who is not a big sprouts fan, thought they were ok, but they didn't convert him to a sprouts-lover.
The next and last main course was, to my mind, an example of about the best breakfast a person could wish for. Egg baked in cream with truffles, served with venison spaetzel. Tasha gave us 2006 Altos de la Hoya to accompany. Honestly there isn't much to say about this because it tasted like one would expect a fresh egg in cream with truffles and homemade spaetzel tossed with venison to be.
The kitchen asked if we wanted dessert before cheese. After so much food already I said only if it's very light and very sublime. Once again, no disappointments! The almond tart we got was served with (I think) small cranberries that (I think) had been marinated or pickled in something just a little acidic and sweet. It was so good I forgot to take a picture until it was almost gone. And very light. Tasha gave us a dry dessert wine, Casa de la Hermita, which we both liked very much and found a nice difference from the sweet wines one normally gets at the end of a meal.
Finally, cheese and chutney served with homemade crackers and toast and some espresso. The cheese was first-rate and fresh with a nice rind; the chutney was slightly warm, which was a nice touch and reflected our feelings as well.

So, it was time to leave. David said goodbye and we vowed to come back hopefully sooner than next year. And then out in the chill for a nice walk back to the B&B and a very good night's sleep.

Chopped Lamb Liver

2009-02-28T20:11:00.004-05:00

Yep. I get a feast and all Phil gets is chopped liver.

I ate about a hundred pounds of incredible food this afternoon at a Bulgarian gathering held by my singing group in honor of one of our benefactors. So I come home bloated like a puffer fish and not in any mood for fancy cooking. So just whirled up (Instructions) three medium-boiled eggs (very inside of the yolks still a little runny), a pound of leftover liver, a quarter of a large red onion, 1/4 cup ghee and some salt and pepper, in the food processor. Phil scraped the plate clean and Kitchen Goddess Nadja was angry that he did so, so I guess it was fine.

Dinner At Ansill Food and Wine - Part 3

2009-02-27T21:51:00.001-05:00

Almost past the halfway point of our dinner at Ansill. Before I say more about the next course, I'll mention that they offer marinated olives as something to both reset your palate and keep you occupied as you wait between courses (see first post pic). I recommend them. The variety is good and they are just the thing with so much of the food being velvety and a little rich.

The crispy pig trotters (above) with pickled red onions were no exception to this rule. I wasn't sure what to expect; what came was a set of three medallions of pulled or diced meat held together most likely (I didn't ask David so I can't be sure) by the cooked gelatin of the feet themselves. Capturing the combination of fried-comfort-food and meat melange appropriately without making it come across as some sort of high-class version of scrapple or fish sticks has proven elusive, so you'll just have to try them if you find yourself there. They were served with Nottage Hill 2007 Pinot Noir, which we also kept for the next course...

...which was skewered bacon and kidneys served over small lentils. Honestly I thought the kidneys probably could have been pulled off the grill 30 seconds earlier, but this is a small complaint for what was a happy combination. It was a special treat, too, because David had ordered the kidneys specially for us (!) so not only was it off the menu, it was off the ingredients list. Talk about making a guest feel special. I was grinning from ear to ear. (OK, Phil says that was true all night). I liked and will try this on Minizawa (the small Egg) - very simple, just good ingredients quickly grilled. The sauce from the lentils was enough to flavor the skewers or, if we'd wanted to, we could have mixed it all together. But I wanted to enjoy the kidney all by itself.

This weekend: The rest of it all: Brussels sprouts and sweetbreads (yay!); baked egg with truffles served with venison spaetzle; dessert and cheese.

Stuffed Rockfish

2009-02-27T20:41:00.003-05:00

Wanted fish and briefly entertained the notion of laterally testing Lane's monkfish but Phil said that would make a pretty boring blog. So got this oddly shaped rockfish fillet, which really was half a full fillet and half a bit of flesh with the skin still on (see pic above). My intention was to stuff the fleshy side and wrap the skin bit over. That wouldn't work and I ended up slicing off the flap and putting it on top as a topper, almost like a tasty fishy crouton.

Recipe:
1 lb or so rockfish fillet
1 clump of watercress, leaves only (save the stems for scrap salad)
2 crimini mushrooms
2 oz (approx.) crab meat
1" piece of ginger
1-1/2T dijon mustard
generous grating black pepper
generous amount of ghee for frying
lard for frying and baking

Cooking Note: I have a sort of policy of not cleaning off my griddle if I'm going to use it the next night, and instead just making something complementary. Last night was the livers with mushrooms deglazed with ghee and cranberry liqueur. There was still a bit of schmutz from that on the griddle, and I left it there. I think it added a bit of sweetness and a depth from the carmelization that happened last night, combined with tonight's cooking.
Instructions: Preheat oven to 450F. Grease the bottom of a baking pan with lard. Heat the griddle.Moderately thinly slice the ginger and mushroom. Add ghee to heated griddle and when melted add mushrooms and ginger. Saute until the mushrooms are just limp. Remove all to bowl and mix in mustard and pepper and crab (I used Japanese tinned, which is very finely flaked. More coarse would be fine, you would just want to mix it up more). Saute greens on griddle until just cooked. Mix in with the other stuffing parts in the bowl.

Melt lard on griddle. Add fish, skin side down and saute 3 min or so until skin is a bit crispy. Cut off the "flap" part. Remove fish and flap from heat. Put fleshy part in the greased baking dish. Slice lengthwise through the middle almost (but not quite - say about 1/4" shy) through.
Spoon in stuffing mixture. Picture above shows it stuffed. Lay flap part on top. Bake (for 1-1/2"- 2" bottom) approx 20 min or until just opaque and fish breaks into large flakes easily. Picture below shows it just out of the oven, after having been sliced in two already (because I incorrectly thought 8 - 10 min would be right).

As shown below, serve with capers and paprika. Or be creative - chutney also would be good with this. Eat hot.
Eating Notes: We won't attempt to say what rockfish "tastes" like, but it is a meaty and slightly fatty but clean-tasting fish so that you're sure it's fish but without noticeable aftertones. We liked how the sauce and greens balanced the fish.

Monkfish and leeks with ginger

2009-02-27T07:58:00.013-05:00

It is one ugly fish. But very tasty. I didn't have a whole one, so I stole a picture from wiki. Actually, if I did have a whole one, I would probably be eating it for a month.

I love referring to its other name, a headfish, and as you see, it is basically a tail (the part we eat) with a head. It has often been referred to as 'poor man's lobster' and it does have the texture and taste of lobster, sort of. I probably would never have come up with that analogy without some prompting.

Monkfish and leeks with ginger

Monkfish filet, these normally work well at about 1 per 2 people.
1 leek
1 T minced ginger
3 scallion
1/4 C white wine
1 T butter
salt and pepper
ghee

Season monkfish with salt and pepper. Chop scallion and slice leeks into 2 inch long strips about 1/4 inch wide. Lightly brown each side of the monkfish in a heavy sauté pan in a couple of teaspoons of ghee with 1 t of the ginger. Add white wine and cover. Cook for 10-12 minutes. This is not a fish that you want to eat underdone it will be rubbery in a not good way. Remove fish to a platter, cover and reduce any remaining liquid and any liquid from fish platter. Add scallions, leeks and ginger to pan with butter and wilt over med-low heat scraping up any residue bits. Serve fish with leeks.

I had a side of 'baby' bok choy (this affectation of calling any small/young version of a vegetable 'baby' really gets on my nerves, but I guess it serves both as marketing and descriptor) that were separated into leaves and sautéd in ghee with a little ginger until wilted. Toss with a little soy sauce and sesame oil.

The small version of this cabbage is much milder in flavor and does not stand up to what you would do with the more mature version.

Dinner At Ansill Food and Wine - Part 2

2009-02-26T22:00:00.002-05:00

Our next course at Ansill was steak tartare with cognac, which I had and loved on my previous visit. Tasha allowed us to keep our chardonnay with this. Mixed in the quail egg and some of the sauce and spread it on the accompanying homemade toast. I like the cognac taste and am going to try it the next time I make tartare. It gives a side-of-the-mouth sweetness and fills out the tartare.

I suggested to David that the cognac approach would be really good using heart as the meat. He said he couldn't do that at the restaurant - raw hearts would be a bit beyond the comfort zone of the clientele. Too bad! But it doesn't stop me from trying it at home. I have a lamb heart from the latest batch and think I'll try it that way.
Next up was soup and salad and a change of wine that I wrote down the name of so illegibly it is lost in the annals of time. The soup was tomato with escargot. It was served with a bakala (dried salt cod) salad.

Soup first, because that's how we ate it. The tomato and mussel broth. The soup also had a strong carrot flavor from the mirepoix. It was thinner than a bisque but with a good deal of body. The combination of sweet-salty carrot/tomato/mussel broth and earthy snails turned it into high-class comfort food. Deeply satisfying and smooth, punctuated by a few perfectly toasted croutons to add interest.

With its mellow vinegary tones, the bakala was a natural follow-on. David said he soaked the cod for a couple of days and it showed in the subtle meld of flavors. I would make this myself, especially after David reminded me that you can just pick off the amount of salt cod you want for any occasion and leave the rest for later. For some reason I have always just looked at this big dried fish and thought 'how could I possibly use all that?' and let it go. But now I have good reason to try something new at home.

Next up: crispy pig trotters; kidney and bacon skewers served with lentils

Lamb Liver and Leeks

2009-02-26T19:48:00.005-05:00

Phil is sick, and I'm (hopefully) fighting something off, so I thought liver would be good for tonight and to balance it a crisp salad of leeks and small tomatoes. Found out Lane is also having leeks tonight, and will be interesting to see what he does with his. But the main dish of the day was liver, this the liver from the lamb I got Tuesday afternoon. Picture above shows the whole of the lamb liver after I've sectioned/sliced it.

The recipes I have call for you to slice liver 1/4" thick, but that seems far too thin to me, and the smallest slices I made were more on the order of 1/2". I'm still new to this crosswise slicing of slimy things endeavor, so my slices tend to be thick in any event because I don't want to lose fingers in the process.

I cooked all of the liver and used a little less than half for dinner; the rest I'll make chopped liver with for tomorrow. Instructions for liver: Preheat griddle on medium heat. Melt approx 2T lard on griddle. When lard is melted and griddle is hot, add thick-ish liver slices and saute 4 min total, flipping to be sure both sides are nicely seared. Remove liver and plate. Melt 1-2T ghee on the griddle. Add a couple of mushrooms, sliced fairly thin. Saute until just starting to get transparent, and add 1/4 c cranberry liqueur or port. Continue sauteing, scraping up bits strenuously, until the liquid is reduced to a medium-thick sauce. Pour mushrooms and sauce over liver. Picture below shows it done and plated. The thin sauce to the right of the liver and musrooms is sauce and a bit of blood, becuase the liver should still be fairly rare in the middle when you pull it off the griddle.
Served here with leek salad. Instructions: Thinly slice a leek (green and light green parts; save the rest for scrap salad) into a bowl. Halve 8 - 10 pearl/cherry/grape tomatoes and add. Halve 4 -6 Japanese pickled onions (rakkyo; they are sweet, not like cocktail onions) and add. Mix 2T lime juice, 1T olive oil, and 1T hot prepared mustard (I used Colmans) and add. Let marinate at least a half hour.

Eating Notes: We don't like liver as much as Kitchen Goddes Nadja (see below with laser eyes) but we sure like it a lot. The mineral notes of the liver are well-balanced by the cranberry liqueur and the whole thing set off well by the salad.

Dinner At Ansill Food and Wine - Part 1

2009-02-25T22:00:00.002-05:00

Phil and I took a day last week and went to Philadelphia to visit Ansill Food and Wine, a restaurant I had been to in January 2008 while I was at a conference. I fell in love with the food, with small servings and lots of offal on the menu, and finally dragged Phil up with me.

Before we went, I emailed the restaurant to explain that I intended to come and eat my way through the menu and ask, given that we were planning to stay there for several hours, if it would be better for us to reserve a table or to sit at the bar.

I also asked if he could recommend a B&B. The owner/executive chef, David, personally wrote back to me saying yes, it would be helpful for them if we sat at the bar. He also suggested La Reserve Bed and Breakfast, where one of his cooks works.

A couple of days later I emailed back confirming that we were coming and warning David that I might just ask him to cook "whatever," given that I had just been in heaven the last time I was there. He responded "I will cook until you say stop" and I started really looking forward to the trip.

Dinner did not disappoint, and the B&B was fantastic. Over the next few days I'll be blogging/commenting, a little bit to share, a bit more to plug this great restaurant, and mostly so I don't lose the experience. Today is courses one and two.

As a production note, all the pictures were taken with my cellphone camera and no flash, so excuse the less-than-great quality. I think you get the idea, though.

We went early so as not to stress out the staff during a busy time and were essentially the first people there. So we settled at the bar and Tasha, our amazingly fabulous bartender/waitress, announced us. She came back and asked us to pick some things off the menu, which they would then augment in the back. We picked marrow, steak tartare, pig trotters, grilled Brussels sprouts, and idiazabal (a raw sharp cheese from Spain). Tasha gave us half-glasses (so we didn't get blotto) of appropriate wines to suit. Unfortunately, my wine notes are cryptic and spotty, so all I have is what kind and sometimes a year. I realize this little information is effectively useless and apologize (especially to Lane, who would have done it correctly, I'm sure) in advance. Anyway, Tasha set us up first with a sparkling wine.

The first food that came was house-smoked (I'm pretty sure that's what my notes say) salmon wrapped around dill and little cucumber spears and served with a lobster cream (pic at top of post). My only complaint was that the little fish forks we had were insufficient to the task of picking up the roll. Phil did the smart thing and used a regular fork. I ended up having a bit of a salmon-cucumber salad. But the taste was very good - velvet at the top of the mouth and just tart enough at the sides for balance.
Next up was the bone marrow, served with homemade toast. Pic shows it after we'd split it and piled it on 2 toast pieces. The salad was a salty parsley salad. I didn't ask David how he did the marrow, but it was so perfectly grilled we wonder if he used a torch. The outside was crispy and the inside appropriately unctuous but not melted at all until it went into the mouth. The parsley salad had red onion and what seemed to be hibiscus sea salt on the side. It was quite salty; in other circumstances, too much so, but here it was a perfect foil to the marrow.

Part 2 (stay tuned) - steak tartare; tomato-escargot soup served with a marinated salt cod salad.

Shin Bone with Meat

2009-02-25T20:05:00.006-05:00

Tonight I wanted to have some of the "old" lamb, but it's under a sack of 57 pounds of "new" lamb that won't be split out until Lane and I do so on Tuesday. So instead I pulled out a cut of beef dubiously labeled "Shin Bone with Meat." I think you are supposed to feed this to your dog.
If you do, you are a fool (unless, as Phil notes, you really like your dog). A simple, good dinner. First post pic shows the meat (about 1.3 pounds total before cooking) just off being smoked on Mechazawa (the large Egg) with cherry wood for about 45 min and then closed off and sitting until we were ready to eat. Picture above shows 1/2 the meat cut off the bone with the marrow sliced out and sitting on the left of the plate.
Served it (see picture above, which shows plated meal - the marrow, cut in half, is the whitish bit on the left) with a red bell pepper and leek salad. The salad marinated about 40 min in a balsamic mustard vinaigrette with some Harry and David Pepper and Onion Relish (because Phil's mom sent him a Harry and David present for his birthday) thrown in. It was really good.

Eating Notes: This was chewy and flavorful and good. Like amazing stew meat. The red bell pepper salad was a good complement. Having the wonderful chunk of marrow to go with everything put it over the top. Take-away message: do not eschew dog food!

Goat Chops

2009-02-24T20:20:00.003-05:00

Serendipitous find today. Bit of a backstory in that the lamb I had been talking about during Obama's inauguration was finally delivered late today. So I have more meat than I can use in several months. OK. Lane and I had lunch and it was my turn to pick, but the first Japanese place I suggested was closed. So I remembered this other Japanese cafe said oh! Let's try it and see. It was fine but nothing worth blogging about, except that it happened to be located right next door to Rockville Gourmet Halal Meat. So I said Oh! Let's go there after lunch! And there was no need to twist my fellow foodie's arm.

Once inside I could let my inner zombie go......"brains....brains" and tongues and tails and a prominent sign that said "lamb's head." I was in heaven. Walked out with veal cheeks and a nice plate of goat chops (see pic above. Bit more backstory. My entire conversation with goat as a food involves "curry" or "stew" right after. So I had to have these). And the guy at Rockville Gourmet Halal Meats (phone is 301.424.4444 if you're in the area) was incredibly sweet and gave me a couple of pounds of liver as lagniappe, partially, I think, because I was so happy at seeing offal on offer.

Back to dinnernoms.

Decided to make the goat on Minizawa-chan (the small egg), high heat short time both sides. Steamed the carrots and made a 3G (ghee/garlic/ginger) glaze. Instructions for Goat: Start the grill and warm it up. Grill the goat 4 min or so on both sides until it has a nice skin on the outside but still is very rare (room temp or so) on the inside. Instructions for Carrots: Steam the carrots for about 7 min. Heat 2T or more ghee until hot and add 1 clove garlic and 1/4" piece ginger (both chopped). Saute until just starting to brown and add a shy 1T of san on tou or 2t of light brown sugar and the carrots. Saute 5 min or so until the carrots are glazed and done to your taste.

Eating Notes: Another ZOMG. The goat chop is the same size as a lamb chop, but it's a grown up animal. The muscle fiber is more chewy (but not gamey, the way goat stew is) and has a somewhat metallic (to Phil) or complex (to me) taste. The fat (thanks, Phil) has a more unctuous taste to it. It's really good. We both liked it better than traditional lamb chops because of the more complex and mature taste. So I'll definitely get them again.

Shad Roe

2009-02-23T08:52:00.006-05:00

Woo Hoo. It's shad roe season. We are lucky around here, the Delaware River is still a viable commercial fishery for shad and the Potomac River is being restored (currently, shad is only catch and release on the Potomac) for shad spawning and habit.

The fish monger had sets of shad roe, so I bought two sets for dinner last night. This version of preparation is very simple and bring the texture and flavor with a simple contrast of lemon and parsley. This is also another harbinger of spring; ramps (this is a fun festival), fiddlehead fern and other spring treats will be showing up soon.

Pan fried shad roe with parsley
Shad roe set, I use 1 set for 2 people
bunch parsley
2 lemons
butter
salt and pepper

Chop parsley. Juice 1 lemon, slice the other. Melt 1 T butter in cast iron pan and add a layer of parsley. Place roe on top and add another layer of parley and lemon slices. Cook over med-high heat until the bottom layer of parley starts to crisp a little. Season to taste with salt and a little pepper. Sprinkle with lemon juice and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes. Remove roe and cook parsley and lemon slice a little to remove some liquid. Serve roe with parsley and lemon slices on top. These 'garnishes' are complements to the roe and should not be ignored.

I served this with halves of eggplant that were seasoned with olive oil, garlic and rosemary and broiled with rice.

Serve 2 per roe set.

Intermissive noms report

2009-02-22T20:50:00.004-05:00

No posting yesterday - Phil and I were in Philadelphia and having a tremendous dinner at Ansill Food and Wine that I'll say more about later and Lane, who'd promised to blog, ended up getting sick. So, apologies.

Tonight, a really good emergency food dish of cabbage-sausage-kimchi cassserole. Like a standard red sausage casserole, just mixing in about a cup of cabbage kimchi an some black pepper and no other spicing. Really good.

Anyway, tomorrow is rehearsal night so in all likelihood I will start explaining about the amazing dinnernoms that will stay with me always (with pictures!) on Tuesday. Please be patient. Kthxbai.

Curried Mussels

2009-02-20T20:08:00.004-05:00

Wanted fish but had "flesh" fish recently, so decided to pick up some mussels, and glad for it! Trolled around for a recipe that could be adapted to fit the contents of my fridge and found a Curried Mussel recipe from my 1973 Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery that I could modify.

Recipe:
(Serves 2)
2 lbs mussels in the shell
1 t salt
1/4 c butter
3 oz shallots
1/2 md green pepper
1/2 c dry sherry
1/4 t dry thyme
2 t curry powder
1/4 c sour cream
Clean and debeard the mussels. Picture above shows the "keepers" versus the ones I needed to dump because of broken shells or questionable life force. Mince the shallots and green pepper.

Put 1" water in a large kettle. Add salt. Bring to a boil, add the mussels and steam 3 min. Drain, reserving the broth. Picture below shows the mussels out of the shell and some of the rest of the mis en place.Remove the mussels from the shells. Blend the curry powder with 1/4 c mussel broth.

In a medium skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the pepper and shallots and saute 3 min. Add sherry and thyme. Add the curry powder/broth mix. Stir and saute 5 min. Add mussels and combine. Picture above shows it in process. Turn off heat. Mix in sour cream. Serve hot.

Eating Notes: The cookbook says to serve over toast, but since I'm avoiding wheat I didn't. We thought it was pretty incredible as is. But it definitely would work with bread. I'd suggest something a bit acidic, like sourdough, to balance the mouth feel of the curry-sour cream mix.

More Pork

2009-02-20T08:13:00.005-05:00

No, I'm not going to give a purported analysis of the stimulus bill. So, in keeping with a non-existent food comparison, I cooked pork loin chops last night. Courtney did the classic pair of pork and sauerkraut, I did pork with apples. And ginger and sage. The pork loin chops at the butcher were beautiful, so I couldn't resist. The apples were, too.

Pork chops with apples
2 pork loin chops (this cut is obviously not required, though I prefer using a bone-in cut for this type of dish)
2 apples (honey crisp)
1+ T minced ginger
sage leave, lots
ghee
1 C chicken stock
1/2 C white wine
salt and pepper

Slice apples into wedges. Season chops with salt and pepper. Melt 2 t ghee (butter would work, though the solids are going to cause a burning problem, probably) add some sage leave (I ripped the large ones into thirds) and 1 t ginger. Saute until sage starts to crisp. Add a layer of apples and sear over med heat until brown, turn, and repeat. Remove to platter and deglaze pan with a little wine. Pour onto platter or bowl.

Melt another 2 t ghee, add another bunch of sage and ginger and sear chops. The chops were about 1 1/4 inch thick, so I covered them for a few minutes on each side. When done, transfer to the platter with the remains of the apple deglazing step. Cover the chops. Add 1 t ghee to pan and remaining sage and ginger cook until sage is crispy. Deglaze pan with remaining wine (I ended up with a couple of slices of apple that didn't fit on the plate as I conceived it, so I chopped them up and added to the reduction) add drippings from platter holding resting meat and reduce. Add stock and a little more ghee. And reduce to desired consistency.

I divvied up the chops (ever fair about distributing loin and tenderloin) among three people. There are bones to be chewed on on some meat leftover for a small snack.

Serve with apple slices and sauce over the chops. I had roasted asparagus (tossed in about 2 t melted butter with a little lemon juice and pomegranate molasses) and pasta. Salad was slices of avocado, red pepper and hearts of palm with a vinaigrette.

Pedestrian Dinner and Notes on Fasting

2009-02-19T20:22:00.004-05:00

Pic shows tonight's pedestrian dinner of pork chops baked on a bed of sauerkraut. OK, so it was impossibly simple and impossibly good. Nothing but pork, fermented cabbage, and some black pepper over the top. We ate all the fat, all the drippings, everything except for a bit of a tithe around the bones for the kitchen god and goddess.

And this simple feast made me think a lot about the simple famine of a short fast. Yesterday I wasn't that hungry, so I didn't eat. And I think I really gained from that fast.

Bit of back story first. I've always been a morning person. Early to bed, early to rise, and all that (still waiting for the wealth and wisdom, but what can you do). So my mornings are usually very productive, work wise, and then there's a marked drop-off after 2 or so.

But yesterday, I felt productive all day. There was no drop off; if anything, I felt like I was getting more done at 4:30 than I had at 9:30. And today, even though I didn't fast, I just ate when I was hungry. And today's productivity was the same. I was really productive in the afternoon; at least as much so as in the morning.

I don't have enough data yet to form conclusions. But I do know that a lot of times we eat as a social obligation - and why eat if you're not hungry? So I am going to continue to experiment on this front some more. I'm trying to listen to my body and pay attention even if it goes against culture.

Simple Food, Simply Cooked

2009-02-18T20:10:00.004-05:00

Woke up this morning not feeling hungry, so fasted until dinnernoms. Then felt like having simple food, simply cooked, so settled on some seared salmon following (mostly) Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home (Amazon link here)and adding pine nuts and a second course of salad with a complimentary dressing. The Salmon follows the Julia and Jacques recipe except that I used ghee instead of butter; added about 1/3 cup pine nuts at the same time as the onion; and cooked the salmon for only 4 minutes. Picture above shows the mis en place. Picture below shows the finished fish with the sauce poured over.Instructions for the salad dressing: For each serving, mix 1T olive oil, 1t horseradish, 1t hot mustard (I used coleman's) 1t dried sage and 1T buttermilk. It is the perfect foil after having had the fish. Sage, mustard, and horseradish are critical. You could substitute yogurt or sour cream for the buttermilk. Picture below shows the salad.

Eating Notes: Phil and I both felt like we could taste each of the components really well and that they blended perfectly. While musical piece traditionally come in three movements, this dinner was in two. The first movement was the salmon, with capers, pine nuts, onion and ghee all contributing distinct notes but coming together cohesively. The mustard-horseradish-buttermilk dressing of the salad provided a direct link back to the first movement of the fish course, but the leafy crunch of the salad left us feeling decisively satisfied at the end.

Courtney's Rule of 4 Liver and Green Beans

2009-02-17T20:09:00.003-05:00

Tonight I had a pound of chicken livers to dispose of. Also, some good green beans I was in the mood for. Went through a bunch of recipes and absolutely nothing appealed, so made something up myself I don't mind taking credit for. First post shows the finished dish. Pic above shows the main ingredients - liver, beans, and some onion.

Recipe:
Courtney's Rule of 4 Liver and Green Beans
(Serves 4)

1 lb liver (I used chicken; any would be ok I think)
12 oz fresh green beans
1/2 c chopped onion
1/4 c cranberry liqueur or port
1/2 t dijon or other sharp mustard
1/2 t Worcestershire sauce (I used Lee and Perrins)
1/4 c sour cream (please use full fat)
Salt and pepper to taste
2T fat for frying (I used a combination of lard and lamb heart fat)

Trim the stem ends off the beans and cut into thirds. Blanch by steaming 4 minutes, then rinse in cold water to stop the cooking.

If using chicken livers, in half along the natural divide. If using other livers, cut into approx. 1/3" slices/cubes/pieces/whatever. Heat the fat until melted. Pic below shows the amount of lamb heart trimmings I used, which I supplemented with lard to make about 2T fat total.
Saute the livers for 4 minutes and remove from the pan. Picture above shows the livers after cooking.

Add the onions and the blanched green beans and saute 4 min. Add liqueur/port and stir to deglaze; add mustard, Worcestershire, sour cream and salt and pepper, stir the livers back in, and blend well. Serve hot.

Eating Notes: Another ZOMG. With menneh!11! The beans were cooked but crispy. The sharp/sweet taste of the cranberry liqueur was a perfect foil to the chicken livers, and the livers themselves were just gently cooked and really nice. We only could eat about half, so Mr. Bento gets to enjoy them for lunch tomorrow; we'll see if they also make great leftovers.

No food; consolation kitty porn

2009-02-16T16:34:00.004-05:00

Rehearsal for me and Lane's still on his trip, so no new food tonight. As consolation, a small amount of kitty porn, featuring our own Kitchen God Alex looking as disgusted as he is that we're taking pictures instead of doing good things right now for his direct benefit. Enjoy.

Lamb Hearts Tartare

2009-02-15T20:16:00.006-05:00

The lamb (sadly) still hasn't come, but (gladly) I still have some left from before. So!! For tonight, lamb hearts tartare. This completes my lamb heart cycle from slow-cooked to quick-cooked to raw. Easy and incredibly good. From the raw heart (shown above):
Instructions:

Mince the heart (above shows it done) with a cleaver. Per heart, add: 1 1/4" slice onion minced fine; 1t Worchestershire; 1/2t English mustard (I used Coleman's), and salt and pepper to taste. Picture below shows everything ready to be mixed. Blend well. Shape into balls and roll in pecan meal.

Picture below shows it plated. Each of us got 6 heart rolls, with a medium-sized caper pressed into the top of each one. I completed the plating with 10 smoked scallops I had left over from before, plus some pecan halves.
Eating Notes: We've now had lamb hearts raw, cooked lightly, and braised for a long time. We have really liked them each way. We (Phil and I) now firmly believe that people who don't like organs grew up in a culture that cooked them like bacon, which is about the only way they can't taste really good.

Also, while there was some difference in texture between the minced lamb and the chicken hearts tartare I did a couple of weeks ago, it wasn't all that pronounced. For a single large heart mincing was easier, and if I did have wild bird I'd probably mince, but if you're doing a large quantity, mincing it through the meat grinder with a 4mm die is fine.

Valentine's Breakfast

2009-02-14T13:31:00.002-05:00

First, Happy Birthday, co-contributor Lane! And I'll take your snarks for unashamedly celebrating that other February 14 holiday!
Breakfast was an onion-tomato egg pie with a mixture of herbs. To do the paprika stencil on the top, the easiest way is to put down a biscuit cutter and shake the paprika over. I kind of like it bleeding over, but if you want it "clean" the best way is to make a true stencil. Trace the shape on a piece of parchment big enough to catch the overflow, cut it out, put it on the food and shake the paprika over, and carefully lift the parchment away.

In honor of Lane's day, I used his savory-ish ketchup to make an avocado sauce. Instructions:Halve and pit an avocado. Scoop out each half into a small bowl, retaining the shape. For each half, mix 1T ketchup, 1/2t Worcestershire (I used Lee and Perrins), and 1/2t citrus sauce (I used Japanese sudachi).

Eating Notes: A good use for this sweet ketchup - the citrus juice cuts a lot of the sugar taste and the avocado blends well with it. A success!

No cooking today...

2009-02-13T17:14:00.004-05:00

Lane is off on a weekend family trip, and I'm down with some sort of stomach bug, so no cooking today. Instead, a picture of Healing Goddess Nadja, doing her best to make me feel better in time to get her dinner, at least!

Cabbage Etuvee

2009-02-12T20:21:00.003-05:00

Phil was out tonight with a somewhat indeterminate time back, so wanted something that would hold for a time. Also, had a cabbage and some green beans, and wanted to save the green beans for tomorrow with fish. So. Looked around for something to do with cabbage. Found this extremely simple and good recipe. If I were better at diacriticals when blogging I could write this better - the first and second e's have accent marks. But it's also called Smothered Cabbage, even though you don't put a thing over it. According to New Making of a Cook it's an old recipe, which I believe. I adapted it some more to suit my tastes.It's not complex enough to need a true recipe, but instructions may be useful: Core a head of cabbage and shred. Picture above shows the shred cabbage. Chop 1/2 a large red onion. Melt 2T or so of fat (I used lard) in a large saucepan. Add the onion, shake and stir for a minute or two. Add the cabbage, 1/4 cup of cider vinegar, and 1/3 cup of nutmeats. Shake/stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. Shake stir. Cover, turn heat down to very low, and let it cook. Picture below shows it just covered. Let cook on slow for an hour or so. The liquid will have cooked down and it will be nicely, but subtly, sweet. Serve hot or chill until cold and serve as a salad.

Eating Notes: The recipe I was inspired from said 2 heads of cabbage would make 6 servings, but my 1 medium cabbage head easily made 4. It was great comfort food but not too heavy. I'll have it as a salad on Saturday and I think it will be very nicely marinated/aged as a "cold comfort" food by then.

Leftover Lamb and Kale

2009-02-11T20:41:00.003-05:00

Meeting tonight so needed a quick dinner. Decided on a bunch of kale with some leftover lamb. The picture above shows it just ready - enough for two dinners tonight and one leftover lunch tomorrow. No real recipe, but it was good enough to give Instructions: Separate the leaves and ribs from a bunch of kale. Chop the ribs about 2" long. Saute the ribs in 2T or so coconut oil. After a few minutes, add some leftover stew meat with juice (I had 10 lamb cubes in all, plus a nice amount of fat and juice) and some pine nuts or pecans or something similar if you have them. Season to taste (I used mostly cumin and pepper and a bit of potassium salt, which tastes a lot different than regular). Cook over medium-high heat until the juice is almost gone. Add the leaves and cook until completely wilted, stirring so the leaves pick up any good bits from the bottom of the pan. Serve hot.

Picture below shows the clean-up crew, aka Kitchen Goddess Nadja.

Sausage-stuffed squash

2009-02-10T20:12:00.003-05:00

Wanted something easy but filling tonight, so had acorn squash stuffed with lamb-pork sausage. The sausage, seasoned with lots of good things and "crunched up" with some pine nuts, was made a year ago so I don't remember the recipe. Making tonight's finished dish, though, is just like for any baked squash. Instructions: Preheat the oven to 425F. Cut an acorn or other winter squash in half lengthwise, scoop out the flesh and seeds. Pull off the seeds and discard the "guts." Spoon sausage into each half of the squash. Dust the seeds with a little salt and spices to taste (I used a generous amount of cumin because it was a spicy lamb/pork sausage) and mix with about 1t oil (I used sesame). Spread on baking sheet.
Bake on a baking sheet lined with foil 20 - 25 min and then pull off seeds (picture above shows seeds just out of the oven). Bake another 25 min until squash is just on the soft side.

If you didn't eat the seeds after pulling them out of the oven (we often do), sprinkle half over the top of each stuffed squash half. Serve hot.

Ketchup Comparison

2009-02-10T17:33:00.006-05:00

So, with both batches finally being ready, we did a comparison tasting. Wow!! What a difference a recipe makes. These weren't just two different ketchups, they were two different foods. The picture shows my New Old-Time Tomato Ketchup on the left and middle. The far left one was made in August 2007 and the middle one is from last month's batch. Lane's Savoryish Ketchup is on the right.

We both confessed that we use ketchup mainly as an ingredient, but while I do put mine plain on steak, Lane says he rarely if ever uses his as a condiment.

Courtney's Eating Notes
Lane's ketchup really surprised me. I like its ketchupy texture a lot, and it had really good mouth feel. But the taste is not at all like a standard ketchup. There is a ton of cinnamon in it - so much so that I could feel it physically and it, plus the onions, started numbing my tongue after a few tastes. Somehow the cinnamon combined with the sugar made it taste very sweet to me. Lane only puts 1/2 cup of sugar into the whole batch, but combined with the cinnamon it was a lot more than my palate is used to handling. But I found it had an intriguing raisin-like taste to it that made me want to pair it with something - lamb or maybe even a pasta primavera.

My new ketchup still tastes too salty to use as a sauce. The taste will mellow over time but now it's sharp and, to me, has a slightly unpleasant metallic tone. I think it will be a lot better in 6 months. The older sample had really aged nicely and made me very happy.

Lane's Tasting Notes
As noted, I tend not to use my ketchup as a condiment, but rather as an ingredient in sauces. These are not truly 'comparable' side-by-side, other than the fact they both share a name. And they do share some common ingredients.

The lack of sugar in Courtney's, other than that in the tomatoes and onions, and relatively high salt content, is going to create something that needs to meld over a long period. And that was evidenced by the two versions of hers that we tasted. The more recently created one distinctly more salty and what I would call raw with distinct flavors poking out. Basically, it needing more time for the flavors to blend. The aged on had mellowed out those distinct flavor spikes. Overall, I liked the spicy tones that this ketchup has and could see using it on cow-based foods by itself.

Mine was significantly sweeter and not at all subtle with the cinnamon, it has sugar, roasted tomatoes and the onions are sauted, all of which will develop more small chain sugars and intensify the sweetness. Then plonking in a bunch of cinnamon will, Courtney noted, stimulate your palate creating a big mouth fizz. Or, in her case, numbing her tongue after a while. As I said previously, I use this combined with other ingredients in sauces and marinades. It will also change character over time, but I will have to wait to do any side-by-side comparisons. It does have some dried fruit overtones, not sure if it is raisin that I would use as a descriptor, but definitely fruit.

I will be posting some more thoughts using these two ketchups as ingredients in the future to give a more useful spin on how I find using them as complimentary ingredients.

Beef Carpaccio

2009-02-08T20:59:00.004-05:00

Out all day today, so needed something easy. Also decided to eat in front of the TV, so wanted something sort of snack-like. Had some chipped steak in the freezer and some (purchased) smoked scallops in the fridge, so decided on beef carpaccio and the scallops and some rice crackers as a side. Picture above shows the finished dish. Picture below shows Kitchen God Alex helping during construction.
Recipe:

Beef Carpaccio
Serves 2 as a main dish

1/2 -3/4 pounds thinly sliced fillet or similar roast/steak
1 T dijon
1 T small capers
2 t Worchestershire (I used Lee & Perrins)
2 t ketchup (click on the search term for ours - I used the "New Old-Time" ketchup)

Roll the beef slices. Cut into bite-sized pieces. This is important (see Eating Notes below)
Mix the other ingredients and pour over. Serve cool but not icy.

Eating Notes:
I didn't bother cutting the meat, I just left it in long rolls. This was fine for me; I just bit off a comfortable amount and ate it. But Phil's teeth aren't constructed like mine and he ended up having to choke down the entire roll at one uncomfortable bite. Do your co-eaters (and possibly yourself) a favor and take the 5 minutes to cut the steak up.

Oh, and I probably made too much sauce, but it was good so I didn't care.

Funny Chuck Roast, Marinated Roasted Beets and Scraps

2009-02-07T20:47:00.007-05:00

Today we (finally) had FIOS installed. So the pictures took a lot less time to upload, but just as much time to drag around and place. Oh, well.Decided to cook the weird chuck steak I got with an odd lot of great, pasture-raised beef. It had a rib and a section of blade, and nice meat around and in between. The only solution was to just cook the darn thing, cut it up and decide who gets what. Pic above shows it raw. This one shows the part we've saved for another day after it's been smoked for an hour with Mulberry at 325F-ish on Mechazawa-san (the Egg). You can see what we had in the pic at the top of the post (I let Phil be paleo-dude and take that big blade bone while I took the rib section).

The rest of the meal was scrap salad made with some leftover lettuce and cabbage cores plus the ribs and leaves of the beets.
Picture above shows the beets ready to go with the tops cut off. I took the long root ends, and "de-haired" them and put them into the scrap salad as well.

Beet instructions: The beets themselves were marinated and then roasted for an hour on Mechazawa at fairly high heat (350 or so) for an hour. Basic instructions: Quarter beets and slice into 1/3" slices. Marinate in 2T vinaigrette (go ahead and use bottled if you want) + 1 generous T good yellow mustard (yes, there is such a thing) 1-2 hours. Cook (preferably) on a grill or in an oven at 375F or so - no need to be especially fussy about the temp, but try not to go above/below 400/350F for too long if you can avoid it.

Eating Notes: The steak and scrap salad were really good, but I've written about them before so am focusing on the beets.

Earlier when we were at the Fresh Fields (ok, the Whole Foods) looking at the beets, Lane was asking about the golden beets. We started in about beets, and he got to the point of them turning the kitchen and everyone/thing in it purple, but then I backtracked him to being introduced as a child to beets from a can. Preserved, pickled, and utterly gross. Started coming around when I had fresh borscht once in college, and later made some myself, but still was not sold on using whole beets until years later....

....when I had some golden beets, which somehow seemed more removed from the can than the purple variety. Phil and I both agree they are less sugary than purple beets, but they retain that beety texture. Since then, I've branched out to beets of all colors. But today the golden beets were reasonably priced and had nice tops I could use, so why not?

Shrimp-Stuffed Rainbow Trout (and a note on eyeballs)

2009-02-06T20:12:00.006-05:00

I've been trying to make fish at least once a week. So today, when Lane and I met for coffee and he was wondering what to make for dinner, I thought, Oh, I have some salmon in the freezer. But he needed to stop at the Fresh Fields (OK, the Whole Foods) anyway, so I said let me get something fresh.

He encouraged me to get this flounder that looked like it could feed an army. No, it's really a two-person fish, he said. But that was more fish than I could handle without some advance prep. So I got two whole rainbow fish instead. And I was glad.

Recipe:
Serves 2 (can be scaled)

Fish:
2 rainbow trout, boned
flour (I used millet flour)
1 egg, lightly beaten
pecan meal
1/4 c butter
juice and zest of 1 lemon, or equivalent lemon juice plus a dash of lemon oil
salt and pepper to taste (I didn't use any)
bamboo or wood skewers to secure the fish
Stuffing:
1/2 onion
2 oz mushrooms
3 dried tomatoes*
2 oz frozen spinach (fine to use fresh, just wash it first)
4 oz shrimp
2 T ghee or butter
1 T white pepper (ground)
1 c dry sherry
*I accidentally bought some dried tomatoes that were salted, and I used them in this recipe since I knew they would be cooked as they rehydrated. If you are using unsalted dried tomatoes you may want to add some salt to the recipe)

Make the stuffing:
Chop the onion and slice the mushrooms and the dried tomatoes Mis en place picture shows approximate dicing and thickness and includes everything but the spinach. You can use shrimp of any size, just be sure not to overcook it.

Melt the ghee or butter in a skillet. Saute the shrimp until very barely done (they will cook more when you stuff the fish) and remove. If the shrimp have shells or tails, remove them to use for something else.

Add the mushrooms, onions, dried tomatoes and spinach and saute until cooked. Add the sherry and white pepper and cook until it is reduced to a glaze. Remove from the heat and stir in the shrimp just to coat. Let cool.

Make the Fish:
Dredge the outside of the fish in whatever flour you are using. Coat with the egg mixture and then generously with the pecan meal.

Open the fish. Add enough stuffing so that the fish are full, but can be closed when folded back over. If using larger shrimp, split the shrimp between the two fish and then add some of the rest of the stuffing. Close using the skewers. Picture shows them ready to go into the pan. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the trout. My skillet comfortably held 2 trout. If you are doing more than that, do them in batches and remove the cooked ones and keep them warm.

Cook the trout until the crust is golden, turning once. Mine took about 3 minutes on each side.

Remove and plate the the trout. To the cooking pan, add the lemon juice and zest/oil and any remaining stuffing. Deglaze and pour over and around the trout. Season to taste with salt and pepper if needed. Serve right away.

Eating Notes:
We haven't had whole rainbow trout in who knows how long, and it brought back a lot of memories. The fish was not overcooked (I saw a lot of recipes asking you to bake the shrimp at 350-375F for 30 minutes!) andthe shrimp stuffing added just enough of a saltwater seafood note to remind us that the trout itself most definitely was a freshwater fish. If doing it again, I might cut back a bit on the lemon juice, but I would not ramp any of the spices up - it was best as a subtle dish so you could taste the fish and not the cook.

Finally, a note on eyeballs. We saved the heads to feed to our aquarium fish, but I decided I should be brave and at least try the eyeballs. The squeamish factor was primary, especially with eyeball one - "you are eating eyeball!" my cerebrum screamed. "Be quiet and let me taste it" said the cerebellum. By eyeball 2 the cerebellum was marginally winning - with a small fish. The taste itself was almost like marrow - sort of creamy and rich and good. But I was still thinking "eyeballeyeballeyeball." I am going to keep at it because it really is good. But if I were presented with something bigger - a lamb eyeball, say - I don't know that I'm up to it yet.

Chicken Hearts Tartare

2009-02-05T20:37:00.007-05:00

Lots of discussion over tonight's offal offerings. Chicken Hearts Tartare, thanks in large part to Hunter Angler Gardener's recipe for wild duck hearts tartare. I'm not a hunter, I'm one of those inept people who get fed by hunters. But I recognize that and appreciate and applaud (and crave the results of) their efforts.That said, I thought, well, are chickens all that much different from wonderful wild fowl brought down in their prime? Yah, ok, I answered that question. So I re-adjusted my expectations and said, I have chicken hearts. What can I do with them?
Answer: Chicken Hearts Tartare

Recipe:
Serves 2 (can be doubled)

1 lb chicken hearts
2 garlic cloves
1 1/4" slice onion
1 radish
2 garlic-stuffed olives
4 t small capers
2 t lemon juice
dash lemon oil
1 t olive oil + to fry in + to drizzle
1/4 t mint bitters
1/4 t Tabasco
1/2 t dried tarragon
salt and pepper to taste
romaine lettuce leaves for service

Trim off the tops of the hearts with the fat and valves coming off. Clean out overtly coagulated blood, but no need to be obsessive about it. First picture (after the one of kitchen goddess Nadja with her tithe) shows the bag of hearts; the second shows the hearts after I've trimmed off the offending parts. There probably is something I could do with those, but I couldn't think what...

Mince the hearts into a bowl. I used a meat grinder, and then I minced what was left in the grinder by hand. You also could easily do the whole job by hand using a chef's knife.
Mince the onion, olives, and radish. Combine lemon juice, lemon oil, mint bitters and 1t olive oil. Picture shows the mint bitters, oil and lemon juice/oil, plus the capers and minced onion, radish, and olives. Stir the minced bits and the capers into the heart. Chill if needed (should be a bit cool). Gently stir in the juice, oil and mint bitters. Add the Tabasco and tarragon and salt and pepper and gently mix.

Finely slice the garlic. Saute in a generous amount of olive oil until toasted. Drain on paper towels.

Spread a couple of romaine lettuce leaves on each plate. Spoon the heart mixture over. Make a slight indentation and drizzle 1t olive oil over each serving. Sprinkle the toasted garlic bits over. Serve and sigh.

Eating Notes:

Another success. Use the leaves as a wrapper to pick up the heart tartare and resort to the fork only after you've run out of greenery.
If you had told me I'd ever take a bunch of raw chicken hearts, shove them through a meat grinder, mix them with a bunch of stuff and eat them just like that, I'd have said you were nuts. But here it was and it was really good. More tender than the best steak tartare I have ever had. Fortunately, nobody wants this stuff. Otherwise, how would I have been able to convert basically the heart output of a small slaughter into one really good dinner for two?

Cabbage Casserole for Lunch and Dinner

2009-02-04T17:05:00.003-05:00

No pictures tonight, I'm afraid. Meeting commitments and out the door quickly, so no time to cook. Made some cabbage casserole for dinner last night but we weren't hungry, so shared half for lunch and the other half for dinner.

Basic instructions
Preheat oven to 350. Quarter a small head of cabbage and remove the core. Steam 8 min.

Generously grease a square baking pan. Mix 3- 4 eggs, approx. 3/4 c milk or buttermilk or a blend, and stuff. I used some minced onion, some leftover bits from lard-making, 1/4c tomato paste, 1 t or so Tabasco, and some spices and msg. Pour it over the cabbages and bake 40 - 45 minutes or until set.

Keeps well, makes good leftovers, and can be reheated in the microwave or the oven.

Organs tomorrow, though, so stay tuned!

Liver-Rice Mold

2009-02-03T17:15:00.001-05:00

The title doesn't sound so appetizing! But the food itself was good.

Recipe:

Liver-Rice Mold
Serves 3 (can increase a bit if you'd like)

3/4 lb leftover liver
2 - 3 c leftover rice
1-2 mushrooms
1 2-3" diameter 1/4" slice of onion
Spices to taste (I used pepper and sage)
warm water as needed
fat to grease pan
sauce to serve with (I used my ketchup)

Dice the liver fairly finely. Let the liver and rice warm up to room temperature. Preheat oven to 400F. Generously grease a ring mold, bundt pan, etc. The picture at the start of the post shows it done in a bundt pan, which is the only ring-shaped mold I have. I would have liked something a little smaller but it came out fine.

Finely mince the mushrooms and onion.

Put the liver, rice, mushrooms, and onion in a bowl and mix with your hands strongly until it starts to come together. It's important to use your hands because you get can feel it when it is holding together without homogenizing the liver. Add a little warm water if needed to make this happen. Add the spices and blend (again, use your hands).

Heat in oven 10 - 15 minutes until warmed through. It will form a nice thin crust and should unmold nicely. Serve with sauce.

Eating Notes:

It tastes a lot like really good meatloaf. Phil liked this even better than the fresh liver yesterday. I'm still a fan of fresh, but this was very good. I think you could make it with leftover potatoes, too if you were careful about the mashing/combining of everything.

Winter Stew

2009-02-02T10:14:00.008-05:00

I was out of the house for most of Sunday, so dinner was something I could throw in the oven and allow it to stew. One of the cuts I ended up with from the last batch of cow that I split with Courtney was a 2 1/2'ish lb arm roast, so that seemed like a good idea for a winter stew-thing. So, the day decided to crank up to a nice seasonable 60+ F and sent my goat willow into paroxysms of attempting to bloom. It's going to be very annoyed when it starts snowing in a few days, again.

Pot roast

2 1/2 cow arm roast
2 med onion
3 ribs celery
3 carrots
4 cloves garlic
28 oz can tomato
2 T Worcestershire sauce
2 t oregano
1 t thyme
1 T mustard seed
1 t fennel seed
1 t celery seed
1/4 t cayenne
1/4 bunch parsley
12 oz bullion
1-2 T lard
flour
salt and pepper

Chop onion, celery, carrot and garlic, coarsely. This roast had a gorgeous bone with what would end up as about 2 tablespoons of marrow to savor. But anyway. Coat meat in seasoned flour and brown in dutch oven in lard. I cut the roast into 3 sections to brown in two batches. Remove to platter. Throw veggies and garlic into dutch oven an sweat over med-high heat for 10 minutes. Add tomato and juice from can along with spices, bullion and meat. Stir. Add parsley on top. Cooked in 235 F deg oven, I am not sure what I was actually trying for, but that seems to be where I pulled my finger off the temperature control. This would probably work well in a crock pot, I don't actually have a functioning one, so I tend to do these types of dishes in the oven.

I guess this was in the oven about 4 hours. I reduced the liquid some over the stove and broke the meat up into smaller bits; I didn't share the marrow, cook has his privileges. Served with pasta and a green salad of no real great description.

Serves 6'ish

Lamb Liver, Onions, and Mushrooms

2009-02-01T19:57:00.006-05:00

First, a nod of appreciation to my ex-husband, Doug, who made *really* excellent liver and onions and who introduced me to liver (my own mother wouldn't touch the stuff unless it was safely labeled as pate). I tried to get Phil to try this for a long time, but with no success because his childhood experience was not so positive. But with our new commitment to whole foods and organs and trying "old" things in general, he tried it again.

This was a full lamb liver (shown in the picture) weighing 1.4 pounds. The recipe reflects half that amount, because I reserved half of the cooked liver to make a liver-rice ring mold for tomorrow. The mushrooms and onions represent the full mis en place minus spices and fat for frying for tonight's dish.

Recipe:

Liver, Mushrooms and Onions (with thanks to Doug)
Serves 2

3/4 lb liver (I used lamb)
1/2 lg yellow onion
4 - 6 md white mushrooms
Salt, pepper and spices to taste

Slice the liver approximately 1/2" thick. Slice the onion into 1/4" rings. Slice the mushrooms 1/4" thick.

Heat a griddle or grill and generously grease with fat or ghee. I just used the griddle from breakfast bacon, so it had a lot of nice pork fat already on it.

Saute the mushrooms and onions until limp and fragrant. Remove to a bowl.

Add more fat to the griddle if necessary so that there is a generous coating (but not a pool) on the griddle. I added about 1T of ghee.

Lay the liver slices on. Saute 1-2 minutes on each side (no more than 4 min total) until they are just barely done. Picture above shows them ready to remove (again, this shows the full 1.4 lb of liver on the grill). Remove to a plate.

Put the onions and mushrooms back on the grill and saute them while scraping vigorously. In essence, you are deglazing the griddle with the mushrooms and onions. Remove them back to the bowl. Picture below shows the onions and mushrooms after the second cooking.

Put the liver on individual plates and cover with the onion-mushroom mix. Serve hot.

Eating notes:

"More liver, please!" is Phil's request, and I am happy to oblige. A simple dish, simply cooked, and really good. I seasoned it only with pepper and (mixed in with the onions and mushrooms) a little bit of salt. It has more texture than spleen, which almost tastes like pate even in its natural state. But it definitely is not muscle meat. The trick is to just barely cook it. Too much and you'll have the shoe leather that turned Phil off for decades. Done right, even the kitchen gods approve (Kitchen Goddess Nadja shown; later, she made short work of the griddle as well, but of course we didn't get that ultra-cute picture on camera!).

Lane's Squid Day 2 and Herb-Roasted Yam

2009-01-31T20:20:00.003-05:00

Long day today, requiring a dinner with little or no work. So. Leftover squid from yesterday, plus a yam sliced, lightly brushed with olive oil and coated with herbs, and roasted at 425F for 50 min.

Eating Notes: The squid was better yesterday. By 24 hours later, the ginger dominated a bit too much. That said, it was still really good and a nice combination with the sweet softness of the yam. So, no complaints!

Millet - Rice Cakes

2009-01-31T09:32:00.004-05:00

Felt like something substantial for breakfast, but still trying to avoid the gluten. My white (1975) Joy of Cooking had a recipe for rice flour "pancakes" but I wanted something a little bit more robust, and I thought I could improve things with some xanthan gum. I was right. While these look a lot like pancakes they are made differently and they taste like their own thing (see Eating Notes below)

Recipe:

Millet-Rice Cakes
Makes 10 cakes; recipe can be doubled

1/2 c white or brown rice flour
1/2 c millet flour
2-1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t xanthan gum
1/2 t salt (really! It will not taste too salty)
1 t light brown sugar or maple sugar (not syrup)

1 c milk
1 md - lg egg
1 T butter

fat as needed for frying

Melt the butter. Beat the egg in a small bowl.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and then sift. Do not skip the sifting step.

Using an electric hand beater, beat the dry ingredients while slowly adding the milk. Be sure everything is well mixed. Beat in the egg and melted butter. The batter may look a little thin. Do not worry.

Using a large spoon, pour the pancakes onto a hot, greased griddle. Mix the batter in a folding motion as you do this, as it may start to separate slightly. Flip when bubbly on top. Serve hot with topping of your choice.

Eating Notes: A success. While they can stand in for pancakes, they didn't taste at all like fake wheat pancakes. The texture was fluffy and a little crisp, and the inside had the distinct warm grain taste of millet. The cakes were perfect for breakfast with a bit of syrup or jam. Because of the millet, they also would be good as a foil to creamed shrimp or seafood or something similar. I would still add the small amount of brown/maple sugar; it added overtones but wasn't enough to make the cakes noticeably sweet.

Salmon, Lane's Squid, and Scrap dinner

2009-01-30T20:33:00.004-05:00

We're trying to eat seafood at least once a week. I have never (honest!) cooked squid myself, even though I really like it. I had a salmon fillet in the freezer, and had stopped to get some frozen squid. And I had leftover cores and scraps from various leafed vegetable things. Also, since Lane doesn't usually photograph his recipes, I wanted to include some so people not accustomed to working with squid would know what they were looking at. So the obvious choice was a salmon, squid and scrap s alad dinner using Lane's marinated squid salad.

Recipes:

Broiled Salmon
Serves 1-2 per steak (we split one)

Salmon Steaks (approx 6 - 8 oz. each, approx 3/4" - 1" thick)
1-2T Ghee per steak

Set broiler to high and preheat. Put salmon, skin side down, on a broiling pan and brush the flesh with 1/2 the ghee.

Put under broiler for approx. 4 min. Remove from broiler.

Flip steaks over so skin is up. Brush skin with remaining ghee. Broil another 3 - 4 min. Remove from oven. Cut in half if you are splitting and plate. Drizzle ghee and juices in the bottom of the pan over the salmon. Season to taste (I just used some fresh pepper)

Scraps from greens, cabbage, broccoli, etc.
Tomatoes
1T Vietnamese Roasted Red Chili Paste
1-2T coconut oil

Prepare scraps for Scrap Salad. Thinly wedge or slice some tomato (whatever you have).

Stir just enough water into the paste so that it is pourable.

Heat the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Saute the non-leafy green scrap bits until just starting to get soft. Add the leafy bits, tomato, and the softened chili paste and turn heat to medium-low. Stir and mix in until leafy bits get limp.

May be served hot or cold.

Squid Tutorial

I made Lane's squid and it was superb. Pictures show the frozen squid soaking in water; the squid after I've chopped it; and the cooked squid being rinsed in cold water to stop the cooking.

My only substitutions: I had no Mirin so I used sake. I had no pickled chili, and nothing to make a reasonable substitution, so I just left it out.

One clarification: the recipe should say to use a pound of cleaned squid. I got mine frozen right before, so I just kept rinsing it in changes of cold water until it thawed enough to slice. By then I didn't need to rinse the squid again in water.

Also, if you're working with the squid right from frozen, little blocks of ice will collect inside the squid bodies. Work these out before you slice the squid bodies.

When I cut the squid, in addition to splitting the tentacle bunches I cut the long tentacle (each bunch has one and sometimes 2) into 2" - 3" lengths.

Eating Notes: This was really nice and was very flexible time-wise because everything but the salmon can be made ahead. The squid really was nice. Tender, with just the right bit of subtle bite (and Phil and I both agree that Lane is to be commended for bringing up pre-teens who like marinated squid!). I'm saving half the squid for tomorrow to see what it tastes like after marinating a full day.

Mechazawa-san Meatloaf

2009-01-29T18:46:00.005-05:00

Despite pigging out at lunch (kim chi, cheese, and leftover Vietnamese lunch) I was really hungry at dinner, as was Phil. And it's still cold here, steering us to comfort food. So had some Mechazawa-san meatloaf.

Note that the ingredients are as variable as egg pie. Put in whatever you have that appeals and it most likely will come out ok. The only rules I fairly stringently follow are to allocate 1 egg per pound of meat and to put in something (bread, potato, whatever) that will absorb some of the internal juice.

Recipe:

Mechazawa-san Meatlof
Serves 2 hungry people with nothing more or up to 4 with good sides
(ingredients reflect what I had on hand; be *very* creative)

1 lb ground beef (or mixture of 1/2 lb ground beef plus 1/2 lb other meat)
1 egg
1 slice of onion
3 md white (button) mushrooms
1T lime juice
1T Worcestershire sauce (I use Bulldog Japanese)
1T Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce
1T Yellow mustard
2 - 4 T Panko or breadcrumbs or a starchy substance to soak up juices
Ketchup to taste

Chop onion and mushrooms.

Mix all ingredients. Shape into 2 - 4 loaves with indentations in the top (see picture below). The indentations are important because they hold in juice during cooking.

Picture shows the loaves (in this case, 2 loaves made from 1 lb. of beef) ready to be put on the Big Green Egg.

Start the Egg and then let the grill sit on it for about 5 min to warm up. If you are concerned about the loaves "slumping" and getting stuck to the grill, it's better to freeze the loaves for a half hour or so than to try to grease the grill for that purpose.

Put the loaves directly on the grill rack. Grill for 30 (for 4 loaves) to 50 (for one loaf) minutes. Picture at the top of the post shows one of the 2-loaf, 40-minute meatloaves (meatloafs?).

Pour ketchup on the plate around each meatloaf and serve. Picture at the top of the post shows a plated meatloaf with the ketchup around and the indentation holding the juices from cooking.

Eating notes: Mechazawa-san *anything* always is good. This was no exception. Nicely browned and crispy on the bottom, but not at all dry. Really good.

No New Food...

2009-01-28T16:45:00.001-05:00

Meeting commitments tonight, so no new food until tomorrow. Raining and gross outside - I'd much rather be cooking than driving! At least I have some nice leftover offal pie in the oven.

Offal Pie

2009-01-27T20:13:00.004-05:00

It's snowing today, and I really wanted something comforting. There being no meetings or rehearsals to rush out to, and wanting something with no gluten, I decided on shepherd's pie, made with a mystery bag of "pork parts" obtained from Babes in the Woods.

ZZZZZZOMG it was good.

Recipe:
(Serves 4 - 6; ingredients reflect what I used)

1 lb pork parts
1 lb potatoes (I used 3 decent-sized red)
2 md carrots
1/2 onion
4 lg white mushrooms
1/2 - 2/3 c buttermilk
2 l garlic cloves
2 T fat (I used butter)
2 T deglazing medium (I used tawny port, and I used more than that but it was too much)
Salt to taste

Dice carrots 1/2" or so. Coarsely chop onions. Quarter mushrooms or divide into more pieces if quarters are too big for a comfortable bite.Picture above shows the organs and main veggies.

Boil potatoes. Cool, peel (reserve peel) and mash with the buttermilk (more or less as needed for consistency). Add salt to taste.

Steam the carrots 4 - 5 min. Add onions and steam 2 min. more. Add mushrooms and steam 4 min more. Turn out into mixing bowl. Chop the peel fairly fine and put into the mixing bowl with the vegetables.

Slice the pork parts (organs) into 1/8" - 1/6" slices. Finely chop the garlic cloves. Heat the fat in a large fry pan until fragrant. Add the garlic and saute until just starting to brown. Add the pork parts and saute 3 minutes or until just cooked.

Remove the pork parts to the mixing bowl. Add the deglazing medium and stir to get all the browned bits up. Pour the deglazing medium into the mixing bowl.Picture shows the innards and the mashed potato topping ready to put in the casserole. The picture at the top of the post shows it in the casserole and just out of the oven.

Mix everything in the mixing bowl up and turn it out into a casserole. Spread the mashed potatoes over.

(You can do this ahead and keep it until about 30 - 45 minutes before when you want to bring it all together)

Heat oven to 425F. Put casserole in and heat until bubbly/brown, about 20-25 min. Serve hot.
Eating Notes:

OMG this was so good. I couldn't tell what all the organs in my "pork parts" vacuum bag were, but there was very little waste and it seemed like there was a lot of really yummy liver. I said serves 4 - 6 but it seems like it could have fed an army. Highly recommended and I will make it again.

Squid snacks

2009-01-26T11:48:00.006-05:00

This weekend was remarkably non-discussion worthy. Saturday, I made a simple Thai chicken dish that is not worth wasting the poor innocent electrons that would be consumed if I wrote about it. And Sunday was another chicken dish that I have basically forgotten already.

So, I an effort to remain somewhat relevant, I will comment on a quick squid creation I made. In an effort to make room for a variety of frozen animals that are coming into the house in the near future, I was pawing through the freezer and found chicken that could be cooked (as noted above) and a couple of pounds of squid. My children love marinated squid, so kill 2 stones with one bird and clean out freezer and make snacks.

Marinated squid

Cleaned squid
2 t ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 t soy sauce
1 T olive oil
2 T unseasoned rice vinger
1 T mirin
1 pickled chili, chopped

Mix seasonings in a bowl. Cut squid bodies into rings about 1/4 inch wide and cut tentacle bunches in half. Rinse well in cool water. Toss squid in boiling water and allow to sit for 30 secs. No longer and no need to allow water to come back to a boil. If you cook it longer it will become tough. Drain in colander and rinse under cool water. Mix in with marinade and allow to sit for a few hours. Mix occasionally. The longer it sits, the more intense it becomes.

Fast Broken

2009-01-25T21:10:00.004-05:00

So. The fast was broken at about 7:50. This was a bit late for us - we usually eat dinner at about 7:30. I was hungry but not any more than normal.

Dinner was pork chops smoked on Mechazawa (the Egg) - the delay in dinner was because unkowingly the lid was in the closed position and Mechazawa's fire went out, causing a delay in the proceedings. But (as is to be expected) Mechazawa rose to the occasion and delivered wonderful juicy smoked pork chops even with the snafu.

Accompanying the pork chops was a simple salad of greens, radish, mushrooms, carrots, and garlic with a commercial organic vinaigrette augmented with some live culture sour cream. It was really nice. And a half hour later, I don't feel like there are stones in my stomach.

So I give the fasting thing a cautious nod of approval.

Lard Tutorial

2009-01-25T20:30:00.005-05:00

Lard is one of the easiest things one can make. Here is my tutorial, drawn from multiple sources and with pictures. I don't have a picture of the bag of frozen leaf lard, but it started out at just under 3 lbs. Leaf lard is the fat lining the abdomen and kidneys in a pig. You can render from belly fat, too, but traditionally "lard" refers to leaf lard fat, and that's how I've always made it.

My approach to lard has become very simple. The trick, for me, has been not worrying if it takes a long time, and embracing the whole food approach - so that I'm not obsessively trying to render every last little bit of fat out of the lard. If the approach appeals to you and you can put the leftovers to good use (see the Eating Notes at the end of the post), this recipe is for you.

Recipe:

Rendered Leaf Lard

Leaf lard

Put the lard in a heavy pot. Put in an oven set at 225F. Cook, gently stirring every now and again.
Cook until the solid pieces are floating. Take the pot out and mash the lard with a potato masher. Put the pot back in for another hour and repeat. picture above shows the lard just before mashed the last time.

After an hour after the final mashing, remove the pot from the oven. Increase heat to 425.

Strain the big solid pieces out and put on a rack over a pan. Cook about 20 minutes or until nicely browned but has not started smoking. Note that they look a bit like bacon, but there's basically nothing there but fat and they will crumble apart if any force is applied.
Remove the rack after the solid pieces have stopped dripping. Strain the lard from the pot and the pan under the rack (assuming it has not smoked - otherwise, use it for something else) through a fine cheesecloth into a container to chill. Reserve the chunks, pieces, and strained bits.Eating notes: Lard is great - it makes pastries really crumbly and fluffy and enhances the taste of fried foods without imparting a strong flavor of its own.

The solids are equally good in other uses. Suggestions: Crumbled into a hot salad dressing recipe; Fry up a little bit and then spread around and start an omelet; saute with mushrooms; put into an egg pie . Anything where a little bacon fat would do or where you just want something a little unexpected and good is a candidate. I put the "crispier" bits in one plastic zippy bag and the solids left over from the straining in another. They both go in the freezer and I call on them as needed. Invariably, the solids are used up before the lard is.

First Fast?

2009-01-25T16:37:00.002-05:00

So. Yesterday my singing group had an early dinner after rehearsal, with food from a very good Lebanese restaurant. I stayed away from the carbs and had an assortment of meats and some tabouli, baba ganoush, and hummus. It didn't seem like too much, and the food tasted great. I only drank water. But by a half hour after I'd left I felt bloated and gross. Not like I was going to throw up or have other gastric disturbances, but just like I'd eaten too much and it just wasn't sitting well. I don't know if it was the food or me, but there you are.

So 2. We've been toying around with a pseudo-paleo diet. As a result, I've read a lot about periodic fasting - some people recommend at least a 24- to 30-hour fast once a week. I say if you're hungry, you should eat, and scheduling a fast is hardly what our Paleolithic ancestors would have done. But so many people swear by an occasional fast that I have been curious.

So 3. This morning I got out of bed late (7:30-ish) and I don't know if it was that ton-of-rocks dinner or something else, but I was not hungry at all. So I thought, why eat if I'm not hungry? And I decided to fast. I figured if I got really really hungry I would just graze on a few pecans or something but otherwise I'd fast until dinner. Since we ate early yesterday, I wouldn't even have to delay my regular dinner time.

OK, so it's 4:30 now. I made some leftover lamb stew and eggs for Phil for breakfast, and I also made cat food and rendered some lard today, so the house smells *really* good (sort of like there's been bacon frying all day). I exercised fairly strenuously for 45 minutes and did a lot of chores and stuff around the house, so it was a fairly active day. I've had some coffee, tea and water, but nothing else. And yeah, I'm somewhat hungry, but hardly ravenous.

So I'm titling the post first fast, but putting in that question mark. I can definitely see doing this again. I wouldn't want to if I were hungry already at breakfast, and I definitely don't want to based on an arbitrary schedule rather than on how my body feels. But for those days when I wake up and just am not hungry, I'm thinking, why not?

Gluten-free Baking: Cornbread

2009-01-24T08:15:00.007-05:00

First, a bit of a rant about gluten-free recipe books. Phil bought me a couple, and I am highly underwhelmed.

Seem to focus almost entirely on making ersatz versions of things rather than on embracing things that naturally don't have wheat or gluten
Call for all sorts of things you're not likely to have in the house - one asked for four different kinds of flour for a simple cornbread recipe
Want you to make up magic baking mixes, which is fine if you're baking all the time, but if you're not, it's difficult if not impossible to figure out how much of ingredient X to put into just the thing you are making

But I was determined to make gluten-free cornbread this morning. So off to the Internet. I found a couple of interesting recipes to build from, and settled on this. I will have to check out more of the celiac.com site when I have a chance.

Recipe:

Gluten-Free Cornbread
Makes 1 8" x 8" pan
(Ingredients reflect what I used)

1 c Buttermilk
1 egg
1/4 c butter plus enough to grease pan
2T maple syrup

1 c cornmeal
1 c white rice flour
2 T san on tou (or light brown sugar or more maple syrup)
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t xanthan gum
1/4 t salt

Grease an 8" square baking pan. Preheat oven to 400F.

Melt the butter. In a blender, process the egg and melted butter and slowly add the buttermilk and syrup. Blend until smooth.In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix all dry ingredients. Add the liquid ingredients, mixing gently but thoroughly with a large spoon. It will come together differently than with wheat flour. Turn out into the pan (the original recipe said "pour" but my my batter was stiff enough that I had to spoon it into the pan). The picture above shows the batter poured into the pan.

Bake 30 minutes. Turn out onto a rack to cool. Serve with butter or jam.

Eating notes:

I was very surprised when the cornbread turned so nicely out of the pan (see picture at the top of the post. Cornbread just doesn't do that, in my experience, unless you cook it in a hot, buttered iron skillet. The cornbread is definitely dryer than a wheat version, but not unpleasantly so, and a little butter took care of that right away. We really liked the crispy crust. The other good thing was that although this was made in a conventional oven and I did not use convection, it cooked very evenly. The center and edges, including the corners, were very uniform. So, all in all, a success that will go into my breakfast rotation.

Update: We each ate 1/8 of the cornbread at breakfast. I was gone for lunch and dinner and Phil ate 1/4 more. He felt out of sorts and overloaded until he had a bit of stew - it was just more carbs than he can handle in one day any more. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't have to stop before he did. We have frozen the rest for later.

Offal Cultural Differences

2009-01-24T08:03:00.003-05:00

No blogging yesterday. I sing in a Bulgarian/Eastern European group (Orfeia; long story) and we have several rehearsals over the weekend, so not much time to cook. But conversation last night was of interest.

Our director, Tatiana Sarbinska is from Bulgaria. She has introduced me to Bulgarian tripe soup and other really good traditional food. Everyone else in the group is American.

Because I have the lamb coming, and the most challenging part for me will be the head, I asked her if she had ever done lamb head. She was extremely enthusiastic and said yes, and I hope to get some guidelines from her today. Everyone else was going eeew, gross. Tatiana was saying no, it's really good.

We are a squeamish people.

(Oh, and she also has eaten eggshells and basically said yes, of course, they are very good for you.)

Lamb Hearts with Baked Creamed Broccoli and Carrots

2009-01-22T20:26:00.007-05:00

To have a nice, carb-free feast, we defrosted 2 lamb hearts and had them scallopini style, with a broccoli-carrot casserole on the side.

Pictures of how the hearts look trimmed and untrimmed can be found here .

Recipes:

Courtney's Lamb Heart Scallopini
Serves 2

2T fat (I used some leftover chicken fat, plus the excess fat from the hearts)
2 lamb hearts
2-3 T chopped onion or shallot (I used onion)
1 lg clove garlic
1/8 t undiluted beef bouillon
1/2 c tawny port (you could also use broth or stock)
2T celery leaves (you could also use parsley)

Finely chop the garlic and the celery leaves.

Trim the lamb hearts of any excess fat, ligaments, or blood vessels. Slice approximately 1/8" thick.Heat the fat in a heavy skillet. Add the heart and stir-fry 2-3 minutes. Remove the hearts to a platter and keep warm. Picture below shows the hearts keeping warm, next to the finished broccoli-carrot casserole, which is also keeping warm.

Return the pan to the heat. Add the onion and saute 1 min.

Remove from heat and add the garlic, bouillon, port or stock, and celery/parsley. Set heat to medium, return the pan to the heat, and add the heart. Saute another 1 min. Remove the heart and plate. If necessary, reduce the sauce over medium-high and pour over the hearts. Serve hot.

Picture below shows the finished dish. Again, my plating could use some help...

...and for the side...

Courtney's Creamed Broccoli-Carrot Casserole
Serves 4 as a side
(note that all ingredients reflect what I had on hand. Feel free to adjust!)

6 oz broccoli (approx; any combination of florets and stems is fine)
1 md carrot
1 2" round, 1/4" thick slice of onion
1T ghee
1T flour (I used regular wheat flour)
1/2 c milk
1/4 t paprika
1/4 t garlic powder
1/8 t salt
1 - 2 T pecan meal
1 - 2 T shred/grated hard cheese
dash cayenne

Cut broccoli into florets and/or 1/2" pieces. Cut carrots into 1/2" dice. Finely chop onion.

Steam broccoli and carrots until just starting to get tender, approx. 5 - 8 min. Drain and rinse with cold water. Chop fine by hand or in a food processor. You can also puree it if you want a different texture.Make a roux by heating the ghee, sauteing the flour until just bubbly, and slowly adding the milk, paprika, garlic powder and salt. Stir in the broccoli-carrot mix. Keep stirring until it bubbles again and is light. Turn out into a baking dish. Picture above shows it done and ready to turn out.

Cover with pecan meal, shred cheese, and a dusting of cayenne.

(At this point you can continue, or just leave it and go away for a while)

Cook in a 425F oven until the cheese browns (see picture). Serve hot.

Eating Notes:
This time I quick-cooked the heart instead of braising it. It was a little more chewy, but just as good - full of flavor. Really, deeply satisfying.

Phil commented that while we still like pot pie and corn pudding, this type of food has become our comfort food. Somehow, over the past year we have switched from craving carb-rich stuffings and the like to breathing our happiest food-sighs over offal and veggies. And we've lost weight and gained health in the process.