Chile shrimp and grits with bacon jam and Russian kale

This was really good, bordering on the incredible, so I thought I’d share:

For the grits

I don’t really have a recipe I follow, and I’m not sure how legit my grits are, but this is what I do:  finely chop half an onion and sweat with an ample amount of butter.  Add a teaspoon of chopped thyme and cook for 30 seconds.  Pour in 2 cups of half and half and 2 cups of chicken stock, bring to a simmer, then slowly add about a cup of grits in a stream while whisking so as to prevent it from lumping.  Turn the heat to low, adding more liquid as necessary and cook until done, stirring occasionally and seasoning with salt and white pepper throughout.

For the shrimp & sauce

• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 3/4 tsp ancho chile powder
• 1/4 tsp ground arbol chili
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled & deveined
• 1/2 each red and yellow pepper, small dice
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• Salt & pepper

Combine the cumin, ancho powder and ground arbol and combine with the shrimp.  Cook your shrimp over medium high heat, flip when the first side is done and add the diced peppers, cook until the shrimp is just cooked and the peppers are tender crisp.  Add the chicken stock and lime juice, mount with a tablespoon of butter and season.

For the kale

Wilt some kale over medium heat with butter, add water if you need (I did), season.

Click here for the bacon jam recipe

To assemble

Place the grits in bowl, spoon some warm bacon jam into the bowl, add some kale and top with the shrimp and sauce.

5 courses on a Saturday night

This past Saturday we had our neighbors over for no other reason than to get together, eat some delicious food and drink ample amounts of wine.  Some pizza was baked for the kids who were sat in front of the TV while we enjoyed ourselves.

Most of the time I make up my own menu/dishes for when we have guests over, but for Saturday I decided to pull recipes straight out of cookbooks from two chefs whose food I greatly admire.  It wasn’t that many years ago that making four dishes from a Charlie Trotter or Thomas Keller cookbook would be a daunting task for me to pull off.  These days it’s merely a matter of lacking funds and time to prepare dishes from books like these.

The only exception to using a cookbook was the first course, a charcuterie board which had duck pâté and duck rillettes that I’d made earlier in the week to share at a friend’s house for Thanksgiving.

Charcuterie board

The compotes were apricot-ginger and cranberry-cinnamon-star anise.

For the second course I made Oysters and Pearls from Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook.  A friend of mine has kind of been on me for some time to make this dish, so I decided this would be a good occasion.  My friend isn’t lying when he claims this is one of the top five dishes he’s ever tasted.  I was unable to procure the caviar and it was still an amazing dish, and not all that hard or time consuming to prepare.  While the tapioca was soaking in the milk I was able to get a lot of the items ready to complete the dish (like shucking and cleaning the oysters, steeping the milk and cream with the oyster trimmings, whipping the cream).  Assembling the dish to serve isn’t all that bad either:  while you’re preparing the sauce you can reheat the ‘pearls’.  I cannot recommend this dish enough; sadly though I forgot to take a picture though I know plenty abound on the Internet.

The third course I made was chestnut soup with foie gras from Charlie Trotter’s Meat and Game cookbook.  I actually waited to buy the chestnuts the day after Thanksgiving which was no doubt a mistake; I didn’t find them until I hit my third grocery store, and even there I was buying the very last of what they had, literally the bottom of the barrel.  This is another dish I can’t recommend strongly enough.  Rich, decadent, perfectly balanced are all words that come to mind when I think about how it tasted.  The other components of the dish are quartered chestnuts soaked in beef stock reduction, cipolline onions, creme fraiche, preserved ginger, creme fraiche and thyme leaves.  I paired this dish with a California Chardonnay, something recommended in the cookbook.

Chestnut soup with foie gras, cipolline onions, creme fraiche, and preserved ginger

For the fourth (and ‘main’) course I wanted to do something different, and found that in Charlie Trotter’s Seafood cookbook – seared scallops with roasted mushrooms, Swiss chard, butternut squash, red wine and beef stock reductions and sage oil was a very nice and small dish after the richness of the soup.  The method for roasting the mushrooms enhanced the earthiness of the mushrooms.  And I really thought that all the components of this dish worked in unison:

The wine pairing for the scallops was an Australian Shiraz.

I was leaning towards doing chocolate for dessert, such as the chocolate terrine from Keller’s Bouchon cookbook, before I came across the poached pear and chestnut custard napoleon with an orange-pepper sauce and praline pecans in Charlie Trotter’s Desserts.  There were no complaints with this dish.  If anything I kind of messed up the orange sauce by not pureeing it right after the pear was cooked while it was still warm which lead to it being thicker and needing to be thinned out more than I did do.  But it was still tasty.  I paired this with a late-harvest Viognier from Chile which had pear and apricot undertones and it worked quite well:

I’m not sure when the next chance will come around that I get to cook a ‘fancy’ meal, or even cook straight from cookbooks again.  Having the second child limits the amount of time for these types of luxurious activities.  But it is nice to do though (cook from cookbooks that is) from time-to-time in order to be introduced to new (at least to me) methods and techniques (like the aforementioned roasting method for mushrooms).  With the Christmas holidays coming up though there will be an opportunity to do something different and new, though we’ve got a New Years’ tradition of making cassoulet (I make everything from scratch, including the Toulouse sausage and duck confit) and chocolate fondue.  I suspect I might throw in the oysters and pearls dish to start this year. . .

Summer

As you may have been able to guess by the lack of posts, this summer has been a little busy.  At this very moment Nate and I are both dealing with colds (summer colds are the worst), Nate’s watching Cars II (known as New Cars in our house) on the couch while I listen to our contractor walk around on the roof fixing a host of problems the previous owners passed onto us (to be fair we were aware of most if not all of the issues at the time we purchased the house but we weren’t anticipating having to deal with so many of the issues at once).

The bulk of the summer activity is coming to a close though as we prepare to welcome the new baby into our family next month.  I’ve been asked a couple of times in the last week or two what I’m feeling about this, and the closest I’ve come up with is that his or her birth will be “permanently disruptive”.  I of course mean this in a positive way, but whereas with the first child you have no idea what the fuck to do or how your day-to-day life will be impacted/altered, this time around I have a pretty good understanding, at least enough to know that the schedule has already been determined and this child must be made to fit into it in some way.  Nate, naturally enough, has no idea as to what’s in store for him.

As for cooking, there have been a couple of notable meals I’ve been involved in preparing this summer.  The first was helping my friend Dean plan and prepare a meal for his law firm.  Little did we know when we were planning the menu that about halfway through the meal he would begin to exhibit the worst of his food poisoning symptoms, which would continue on for another week or so.  I felt terrible for him as he had to bow out of the night’s action prior to the final three courses being served, but in a way it was exhilarating to feel the rush of adrenaline in feeding 30 or so people.  Thankfully I didn’t have to plate all those dishes since the dinner party is interactive; if I did have to plate that many dishes I may have walked away with a different feeling altogether.

The other memorable meal of the summer was one to remember and honor my father-in-law.  Erin and I hastily put together the menu a couple of days prior to the one year anniversary of his death.  The idea was to put together a menu of some of his favorite dishes for us and my mother-in-law to enjoy and remember him by:

Roasted corn soup with tarragon, tomato and basil

Black truffle foie gras torchon with Maldon sea salt, golden raisin compote and toasted brioche

Crab and spinach timabale with roasted red pepper (from The Inn at Little Washington)

Caramelized onion and bacon tart (from Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home)

Seared foie gras with polenta cake, blackberry sauce and arugula (from The Inn at Little Washington)

Creme brulee

I’d never pieced it together prior to doing the prep work for this meal, but Jack was a huge custard fan.  Behind each meal there’s a particular memory or story that each of the three of us had associated with these dishes.  I’ll share perhaps the most memorable and lightest one as briefly as I can.  We had travelled up to Virginia to spend Christmas with our parents in December 2008 and Erin, unknown to them at the time, was pregnant with Nate.  Erin and I had deliberated on the best way to tell our parents the good news and Erin decided that she’d wear a long sleeve t-shirt that said “Due in August”.  We started by “telling” her parents first, except they didn’t read the shirt for a good 5 or 10 minutes, until we couldn’t take it anymore and one of us begged “Would you guys please read Erin’s shirt”.  A moment or two passed before there was a reaction from either of them (in all fairness I don’t think any of our parents were really anticipating us ever having children), but Jack’s reaction was completely memorable for his sheer sense of jubilation; in fact I must admit this is the only time I ever saw him cry.  A man not flustered very often, he was preparing the caramelized onion and bacon tart when he found out his only daughter was going to provide him with his fifth grandchild, and when he put the tart in the oven he’d done so without having put in the egg base.  After he composed himself a couple of minutes later he discovered his error and was able to salvage the tart.

Having been turned on to some aspects of Asian cooking by the Momofuku cookbook (I simply cannot get enough of the steamed pork buns) I purchased two books (Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen and The Big Book of Noodles by Vatcharin Bhumichitr) that have done quite a bit to alter how we eat at home in addition to broadening my horizons as a cook.  Into the Vietnamese Kitchen in particular is a great cookbook that I recommend for anyone interested in learning about Vietnamese cooking and cuisine.  Vietnamese cuisine makes a nice segue into Asian cuisine for someone with knowledge of French cuisine or French training, but some of the techniques are different.  For instance pate is steamed in banana leaves instead of cooked in a terrine in a water bath.

The Big Book of Noodles is a worthwhile book as well, though I’ve found that many of the recipes are simplified, which may not be such a bad thing.  I’ve already made some quick noodle dishes for lunch and dinner out of this cookbook, and because the recipes aren’t perhaps as authentic as they could be, I have most of the ingredients on hand on any given day.

Lastly, I’m brewing my first batch of beer.  Actually I don’t know if it’s correct to say I’m currently brewing, because I’m currently doing nothing other than once or twice a day peek in on the glass carboy to see if the beer is still bubbling.  I’m close to being able to bottle my first brew – an English style bitter made from liquid malt extract.  I made at least one rookie error, which was doing everything in the evening, which meant I knowingly pitched the yeast at too high of a temperature (I really wanted to go to bed and had already prepared the yeast).  It smells like beer with a hint of banana (this could be either the yeast I used which was an English ale yeast or due to esters created by pitching the yeast at too high of a temperature).  I’m pretty confident that it will be drinkable even if it’s not the best beer I’ll have ever consumed.  But that was most likely always going to be the case anyway since it’s my first effort.  If if tastes alright I’ll post the recipe up here in a few weeks.

Next up I plan on making a porter from extract and after that I’ll take a stab at an all grain batch to brew a Belgian Wit (Erin’s favorite style of beer).  My goal with homebrewing is simply to have fun and have some homemade beer on hand for families and friends when they come to visit.  And fortunately I have a pretty vast crawl space in which to store what I make.

My ramen adventure

Why is it so difficult to write about something you enjoy and so easy to write about something that was not enjoyable, dispiriting or simply a let down?  Sometimes I wonder if the English language wasn’t created by and for critics who seek to be “underwhelmed”, using their own terminology and my least favorite word in our language.  How often is it that you read a positive review of something, anything, and say to yourself “That was well written?”  Chances are not very often.  It’s easy to destroy, to tear down, to trash and be original, even witty.  Conversely, it’s hard to write originally, cleverly and without cliché when praising something (not to mention that you’re really putting yourself out there to ridiculed or embarrassed).  For me it’s one of the hardest things to do, which is why I don’t do it very often.  So here goes. . .

Just about a month ago Erin gave me a surprise gift in the middle of the week: David Chang’s Momofuku cookbook.  I’m serious when I say it may be the most influential cookbook I’ve looked at in 5 years when it comes to how I cook and how I want to cook; it’s to my cooking what reading Joyce’s Ulysses has been to my fiction writing, which is to say, at the least, liberating.  Is that to say Chang is the best chef or cook on the planet? Not at all, just as I don’t think Joyce is the greatest writer to have ever written in the English language.  But like Joyce, Chang isn’t chained to tradition or authenticity.  The most important thing is that end product tastes good, which is why you see him suggesting Benton’s bacon in the recipe for the ramen broth.  Authentic?  Not at all.  Tasty as fuck and original?  Quite.

When I started flipping through the pages cookbook I was blown away by his approach to cooking.  Some might say he’s irreverent, but to me that would imply that he doesn’t treat the ingredients with the respect that they deserve.  And when I had finished cooking the pork belly after it had cured in sugar and salt, and I tasted it, my head was spinning.  I’ve cooked pork belly before and some of it has been damn good.  But none has been like this.  The simple cure of equal parts sugar and salt truly respect and enhance the porkiness of the belly (and shoulder), as did the cooking technique.  Let me say, if you don’t like pork, this is not the recipe for you.

At every step in the process of producing Chang’s ramen recipe at home I was impressed by the technique and the final product.  From the taré used to season the broth, to the meats, to the broth itself, everything came out better than I had anticipated.  Sure, I could have been done a week or so ago, but I chose to cure and smoke my own bacon for the broth rather than purchasing Benton’s.  But the whole process was more than worth it.

Here’s the end result from my own kitchen, garnished with pork belly, pork shoulder, narutomaki, nori, English peas and bamboo shoots:

Needless to say my ramen adventure has just begun.  To say that I’m an enormous fan of noodle soups from Asia would be an understatement (so much so that I’m considering starting up a food truck that would sell a small variety of noodle soups and pickles from Asia).  And to see Nate, nearly 3, gobble that shit up with as much enthusiasm as I did last night was pretty cool.

Unlike Chang it may not end at ramen for me as I tend to prefer pho, but I get the ramen fascination and could easily be taken up by it.  And based on this introduction to making ramen, I’m sure I’ll be having it for lunch and dinner many more times in the future.

Ramen – this is the week

My bacon is cured and smoked, and now I’m ready to start making ramen broth.  I made three slabs, one of which I gave to my neighbor who was delighted and who is going to pay me back with some home brewed beer.  This is a relationship worth developing!

Today I’ll start by making taré, a bbq sauce of sorts made from chicken bones, sake, mirin and light soy sauce.  This is used to season the broth once it’s all done.

I still need to get dried shiitakes before I start the broth itself, but that’s not a big concern because I need to wait for my whole chicken to defrost.  I’ll pick the mushrooms up the same time I get the noodles, which will be today or tomorrow.  And while I’m on the subject of dried mushrooms, how is it that Asian markets sell them for so cheap?  Do they cultivate them next to nuclear power plants or something?

 

 

Ramen

Erin recently gave me the Momofuku cookbook as a mid-week gift (it really was a nice surprise) and ever since I’ve been obsessed with ramen (as well as the rest of the cookbook).

I’ve slowly been gathering the necessary ingredients to make my own batch, which has required trips to two different Asian markets in the area.  Unfortunately both of them cater more to the Chinese population than Japanese, so the names of what I’m looking for is totally different (this includes basic items like nori, konbu and the type of light soy sauce I was looking for.)  If I was doing this 10 years ago I probably would have given up the search long ago without the ability to search the internet while I’m in the store.

After yesterday’s trip I think I’ve finally procured or identified all of the ingredients necessary to make my first batch of ramen, though I’m still at least a week away from starting to make the broth because I’m making my own bacon.  David Chang’s recipe calls for Benton’s bacon, which I can actually get pretty easily at Reliable Cheese Company here in Durham.  But my dad just gave me his smoker and I’m eager to give it put it to good use so I’ve got 3 slabs of pork belly curing which I’ll hopefully be able to smoke either next Sunday or Monday.

Finding the right type of noodles has kind of been a pain in the ass too.  Have you ever walked into an Asian market and looked at the noodle aisle?  I couldn’t even go by the name because the only type of Japanese noodles I could find (and in ample supply) were udon noodles.  So instead I had to look at the ingredients listed and ended up stumbling upon the right thing in the refrigerated section at Li Ming’s Global Mart.  I have yet to actually purchase the noodles since they’re refrigerated and I won’t be making my ramen for another week and a half or so.  Sure, I could make my own noodles, but to be honest it looks like a real pain in the ass and would require trying to find even more ingredients.

Another great find were the frozen fish cakes, or narutomaki, which I found at Grand Asia.  It’s possible that they’re somewhere in Li Ming’s but I couldn’t find them, and the last time I asked for help there I didn’t get much assistance.  Erin really isn’t looking forward to these, but I admit that the day glo pink ring in the  middle has me more than intrigued.

So over the course of three trips to these two markets, I’ve procured:

• konbu
• nori
• pork bones
• pork bellies
• light soy sauce, apparently also known as usukuchi, though I found nothing labeled as such
• narutomaki (fish cakes)
• mirin
• sake, which I had to buy at a wine shop

I’ll update when I actually get around to making the ramen, presumably some time next week.  For something I’ve already put so much work into I’m expecting it to blow my mind.  If it doesn’t, at the least I’ve purchased some ingredients that will be nice to have around.

Butter poached lobster, gnocchi, fava beans, pickled ramps, English peas, proscuitto – Mother’s Day 2012

I made this for Erin last night:

This is actually a pretty easy dish, so long as you’ve made the gnocchi beforehand.  You could use any gnocchi recipe, but I used the one from The French Laundry cookbook (I’ve used several different gnocchi recipes and I’ve gotta say that this recipe makes for the lightest gnocchi possible).  Earlier in the day I blanched my peas and favas, as well as crisped up some diced proscuitto scrap.

To cook the dish, bring a tablespoon or two of water to a boil, remove from the heat and start swirling in 1/4 cup of butter a tablespoon at a time so that it emulsifies.  Season the butter with salt, add lobster (I used tails) and keep over low heat, spooning the butter over the lobster.

In another pan, heat oil and sweat one diced shallot, then add about a quarter cup of white wine, reduce au sec, and add about a half of cup of cream, reducing until nappé.  Season, add the ramps, peas and fava beans.

When the lobster is just about ready, drop gnocchi into salted boiling water (12-13 per person).  When it floats, strain and place the gnocchi in the cream mixture and toss.

Spoon the gnocchi/cream mixture into a large bowl, sprinkle some of the proscuitto around and top with the lobster.

(I meant to garnish with a few pea shoots but completely forgot about them.)

Halibut with roast shallot nage, pickled ramps, fennel, radish and crispy shallot

I apologize for the low quality photo of this dish.

I made this for my parents this past weekend when they came down for a visit and I’m actually quite proud of how it all tasted.

Here’s a basic version of the recipe:

Roast shallot nage:

You’ll need a quart of nage, which is essentially a court bouillon.  Sweat a leek or two, 1 bulb of fennel, 1 onion, garlic and 1 carrot with an ample amount of butter.  Add roughly 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of white wine along with some fennel seed, peppercorn, parsley and a few sprigs of thyme.  Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and continue for 45-60 minutes.  Meanwhile, roughly chop two shallots, toss with oil and roast at 400 until caramelized.  Strain the nage and combine the shallots with 1 quart of the nage and reduce for 20-30 minutes.  Strain & season.  You can use the remaining nage to poach fish in or use as a base for cooking mussels; it provides a great base which you can enhance by adding many different things to it (saffron, roasted tomato, chorizo, roast shallot).

Pickled ramps

You’ll need pickled ramps; check out my previous post about canning which includes links to two different recipes.

 

The remainder of the dish is pretty basic.  Julienne a bulb of fennel and sweat in 3-4 tablespoons of butter until tender.  Slice the ramps into half inch pieces on the bias and heat through with the fennel.

For the crispy shallots, cut shallots into rings and place in a bowl with buttermilk.  Drain and dredge in flour and deep fry at 350 until golden brown.  Drain and season, reserve on paper towel.

Pan roast the halibut.  While it’s in the oven, begin plating by spooning the fennel and ramps into the middle of a deep bowl.  Place radish slices into the now empty and still warm pan.  Ladle the nage into the bowls, then place the now warmed radish slices around the bowl.  Take the fish out of the oven and place on top of the fennel and ramps and put a small handful of the shallot rings on top of the halibut.

April 27, 2012 – seven courses

Succotash of black eyed peas, roasted cherry tomatoes, roasted corn, fennel puree, tarragon vinaigrette, buckwheat lettuce

 

Butter poached shrimp, warm crab salad with tarragon and mint, fiddlehead ferns, radish, lemon confit, orange and vanilla beurre monte

 

Sea scallops, proscuitto and potato foam, fava beans, pickled ramps, pimenton

 

"Pho" with duck broth, pickled daikon, English cucumber, chive flower, Thai basil

 

Pork belly, piquillo confit with preserved orange, grits, crispy brussells sprouts, jus

 

Sweetbreads, puff pastry, roasted parsnip puree, asparagus, oyster mushrooms, beef and madeira jus

 

Strawberries with almond cookies, creme fraiche, basil, balsamic

Canning

Last September when I visited Chicago for the wedding of two friends I stayed with two other friends or mine (Jon & Rick).  Toward the end of my stay, Rick showed me his stash of cooking supplies he keeps in his basement.  Included in all of this on some shelving were some mason jars containing various pickled vegetables.  Before heading back upstairs Rick asked me if I was checking my baggage; responding in the affirmative he handed me a few of the jars.  My curiosity being roused, I asked a few general questions about the canning process.  He broke out his kit, walked me through it, and I said something along the lines of “That’s it?  Why haven’t I tried this?”.  Basically, if you can boil water, you’re able to can.

For some unknown reason I have never canned anything.  Maybe I thought it was too much of a pain in the ass or I didn’t have the right equipment.

So last week I went to Whole Foods here in Durham to procure some olives for dinner, and just to see what seasonal items they had, I took Nate through the produce.  To my pleasant surprise they had an ample amount of ramps in stock (as well as fiddlehead ferns).  I absolutely love ramps (in fact they’re probably my favorite food item), no doubt due in large part to their fleeting availability in the spring.  Just the smell of them makes me feel a bit giddy in the way that the aroma of truffles does.  So I bought a handful and cooked them up for dinner that night.

Usually we’ll just have ramps around for a few days and they’re gone for another year.  But this year, armed with my cursory knowledge of the canning process I decided that I was going to pickle a bunch to have around for a little while.  Later that night I went back and bought about a pound of ramps.  In the morning I pickled them using a combination of this recipe and this one.  The spices I used were fennel seed, coriander seed, black peppercorn and mustard seed but the ratios of sugar, water and salt I used from the first recipe.  I  honestly have no idea how they turned out because they’re sealed in mason jars, but I’ll find out this Friday when I plan on using pickled ramps in a scallop dish (for the aforementioned couple from Chicago who were married last September and who will be visiting us).

Feeling more confident, we bought a large container/basket of strawberries from the Durham Farmers’ Market this Saturday.  I used about half of these to make a batch of strawberry and kiwi jam.  I didn’t use the crystallized ginger as the recipe calls for, chiefly because Erin is pregnant and she asked me to leave the ginger out.  The jam came out really well and she’s already been enjoying it on waffles.  I plan on making pancakes soon and having it with them.

(With the rest of the strawberries, aside from just eating them, I made strawberry ice cream with Nate’s assistance and considerable delight since this combines two of his favorite foods.)

In the coming weeks/months I plan on canning a wide assortment of vegetables and fruits.  The ones I’m most eaglery looking forward to are making my own pickles, blackberry jam, doing something with peaches which might include pickling them as well as making jam.  There’s also scapes and whatever else grabs our interest when walking through the market.