From Block to Kitchen

I am a butcher in training and a great eater living and working in San Francisco. This blog attempts to follow the meat I cut as it moves from the butcher's block to my kitchen at home but more often falls into rambles about the wonder of food. I'll almost always provide a recipe, though.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Ramen Whether You Like It or Not.

In my mind making ramen is a huge deal.  You want to make ramen for yourself?  Be prepared to put in some work.  Like, three days of work.  Maybe a week of work.  You're going to be roasting, simmering, stewing, poaching and maybe even pickling and it isn't until then, and only then, will you get a bowl of ramen.

What I oftentimes forget is that while ramen certainly can be all that, it can also be a little less.  Sometimes I make myself a bowl of noodles and broth and accoutrements and I enjoy it so immensely that I unintentionally think, "hey! This is some good ramen!!"  Then, in my horror of perhaps mistakenly recognizing what I'm eating as ramen I quickly google something like, "what makes ramen...ramen?"  Usually this leads to a bunch of various unreliable sources explaining "authentic" ramen and if there's one word that really sets my bullshit alarm off it's, "authentic".  So what do I do next?  I refer to the Momofuku book or to Ivan Ramen, which I just received in the mail.  If it's a night like tonight though, where I just got through reading an interview  with an editor from Time Magazine speculating why he believes women are non-influential in the food industry, reading what two hyper-publicized chef dudes have to say about food suddenly doesn't feel too appealing.  It is made less appealing by the fact that David Chang (who I love by the way) writes the forward for Ivan Ramen.  Is Chang the only person who has valuable input on ramen these days?

So where does that leave me?  If google is a let down and the famous chef bro-club is rubbing me the wrong way, what am I left with to parse with?  

What I can only hope I realize is that I am left with is this: A bowl of perfectly chewy noodles in duck stock cooked down with ginger, onions, Korean chile flakes soy sauce and Szechuan peppercorns.  Thinly sliced smoked and spiced duck breast; quick pickled carrots, radishes and jalapeños; a poached egg, a handful of greens and a spoonful of kimchi.  If you want, you can tell me this isn't ramen.  You can tell me that my lack of konbu makes it "inauthentic".  But listen, I'm eating this bowl of noodles right now and aside from the broth it took me no time to make at all and guess what, it's a goddamn great bowl of ramen.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Quick Update After a Busy Month.

Since the last time I wrote  I have made 25 pounds of sausage for a 30 person dinner party, signed up for an online Harvard course on food and science and had a quick little vacation to Bangkok where I ate some of the most incredible food of my life.  I've also been having some fun with piggy off-bits at work and attempted to cook the piss out of some pork kidneys with some success.  A post is definitely in order, especially since I just bought some beautiful Oregon chantrelles, but until then here are some photos of what has been going on.

5 pound toulouse sausage coil.

Wrapping duck, szechuan peppercorn and strawberry crepinettes  in caul fat.

The thai omelet is a thing of true beauty.

We had this soup on our first morning in Bangkok and it was absolutely perfect.  Salty, spicy and savory.  Unfortunately, after the first day I was too busy eating to make many more pictures.

 Back in the US and I was tasked with creating a dish with some pork kidneys we had frozen at work.  Here they are soaking in half and half in an attempt to draw out some of that piss flavor.  I then finely chopped them, sweated them and slow cooked them with caramelized onions, marsala, dijon, porcini mushrooms, chile flakes, fennel seed, thyme and some porcini mushroom broth.  In the end the flavor was similar to liver with a slightly pissy aftertaste.  Anyone who wasn't around when I was cooking the kidneys enjoyed them but I had already eaten enough along the way.  

I smoked a trotter to add to a smoked ham and collard greens soup.  Yummmmmm

[fromblocktokitchen]

Summer Lamb Shank Braise: A Reason to Not Shit All Over San Francisco Summers

As much as I may complain about cold San Francisco summers there is something to be said about a place that allows you to braise in August with the best of summer's bounty.  Lamb shanks cooked low and slow with super ripe San Marzano tomatoes and perfect globe eggplants is something you just don't get to experience in the winter and in most places the idea of having your oven on for three hours in the dog days of summer is out of the question.  While I still prefer the dry heat with a relieving breeze of an Oregon summer it's not all bad here in the Bay.  Warming braises in the fog followed by a trip across any bridge out of San Francisco where real summer is hiding gives us the option to pick and choose how hot we want our summer to be, knowing there's always a cool home we can head back to.

Now that we've finally made it to the San Francisco summer (blue skies and sun for us the past few days!), this recipe might be more appealing to those people who SWEAR that fall is in the air...I'm looking at you, East Coast.  Use the last burst of summer's harvest to make yourself a really great braise and revel in the awesomeness of summer produce while looking forward to the amazing autumn.  This is your one chance to enjoy a summer braise so go for it!

Lamb Shanks Braised in Summer's Finest

2 large lamb shanks

2 C chicken stock 

1 C dry white wine

1 onion sliced thin

3 cloves smashed garlic

1/2 small head of fennel diced 

1/2 Lb San Marzano tomatoes (or other good cooking tomatoes) roughly chopped

1 whole globe eggplant peeled, diced and salted

1 Lb fresh shelling beans such as cranberry beans 

pinch of chili flakes

Mint to garnish 

Salt your lamb shanks up to a day in advance and then pull them out of the fridge 30 minutes before you're going to cook them.  After you pull your shanks from the fridge, peel and cut up your eggplant, place the pieces in a colander, salt them generously and place the colander in a bowl to collect the juices.

 Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Add a little olive oil to a pot with a lid that fits both shanks and brown evenly on all sides over medium/high heat.  Set aside.  Add onions and garlic to the same pan and sweat until just soft.  Once your onions are soft add fennel with a pinch of salt and sweat until just soft.  Add the eggplant with another pinch of salt.  Pour in your wine and cook until the wine has evaporated.  Once the wine has evaporated, add tomatoes with 1/2 a tablespoon of chili flakes and continue to cook until the tomatoes have broken down a little, probably about 5 minutes.

Add shanks back to the pot, nestling them in among the vegetables and pour chicken stock over to just barely cover.  You may not need the entire two cups.  Bring everything to a boil before removing the pot from the heat.

Cover the pot tightly with tin foil, place the lid on and put in the oven.  Now be prepared to wait about three hours.

While your lamb is cooking, shell your cranberry beans and cook them in a separate pot.  Cover the beans with water, add a little salt and then bring them to a boil before lowering it to a simmer.  Cook until the beans are just soft, usually about 30 minutes.  

After about two hours check on the lamb.  The meat should be pulling back from the bone, but may not pull off easily with a fork.  Add your cooked cranberry beans and place back in the oven, checking every 30 minutes. 

Once the meat pulls from the bone easily with a fork, remove the lamb shanks and place the pot with the braising liquid on a burner.  Turn to medium heat and let reduce to thicken and make an awesome sauce.

Once shanks are cool enough to handle, pull the meat from the bone, taking care to set aside ligaments and fat.  Add the meat back into the pot once your braising liquids have reduced to your desired consistency.

I made polenta and served my braise over it but pasta or rice would be great too.

Finally, garnish your dish with a little fresh mint and maybe some soft goat cheese if you have it and feel lucky that you get to enjoy such a wonderful dinner with such wonderful ingredients.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Homemade Sausage Party!

Before I started working at the Fatted Calf I never thought much about sausage.  I knew that sometimes I enjoyed them but I definitely had ate too many overcooked sausages and had maintained a kind of uninspired boredom from eating the same kinds (Italian, bratwurst, breakfast, you know what I'm talking about) over and over again.  Before Fatted Calf I didn't realize that sausages represented an infinite world of possibilities and I certainly didn't realize how good a perfectly cooked, perfectly fatty sausage could be.  Now, when I eat a fresh, well seasoned and seared sausage I find myself thinking that there is truly nothing in the world that is better.  I really don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that sausages at my work have changed my life.

It is this love that has inspired me to go into work on my days off and learn how to make sausage from our sausage maker, Toni.  Toni has been making sausage for years and turns out over 100 pounds of sausage for us every week.  Every day I tell him that he is the best sausage maker in the entire world and he is so entirely sick of me.  But even as insane and annoying as he might think I am, he has taken extreme measures of patience to teach me how to make really beautiful sausage.

Part of the benefits of learning from a master is that Toni has taught me to make sausage as though it is the easiest thing in the world.  As though humans were born with the knowledge of sausage making and it's just a matter of accessing it.  It's common sense.  As you know, this is not actually the case.  There are about five things that you need to do to make perfect sausage and mess up on one of them and suddenly you have unevenly seasoned sausage, dry sausage, sausage where the fat has separated from the meat, terribly textured sausage, exploding sausage, etc.  

Lucky for all of us though, five things aren't that many things to remember and if you have them gently but persistently ingrained into your brain like I have, then it actually does feel like common sense and natural knowledge. 

So here are the five tips that I can give you that I have learned from Toni who learned it from our bosses:

1. Use fat.  No such thing as a low-fat sausage.  You need 25-30% fat.  That's how it has always been and will always be.  When you're putting the meat into the grinder put in three meaty pieces and one fatty piece.  It's a good way to get your ratio right. 

2.  Make sure you keep your meat and your grinder cold cold cold.  Refrigerate all the detachable parts of your grinder for at least an hour before grinding.  If you want you can even put your meat in the freezer 30 minutes before grinding.

3.  Once you are grinding make sure the meat is coming out in solid strands, not mushing or oozing out.  If it is mushing or oozing stop the grinder, unplug it, take it apart and clean out the detachable parts and try again.  If it continues you may need to sharpen your blade or your meat may not be cold enough...this shouldn't be the case since your meat and grinder were SUPER cold though, right?

4.  Mix your ground sausage thoroughly before casing. The grinder did not evenly distribute your seasoning and fat.  I like to put latex gloves on and mix it all up, almost like you're kneading bread.

5.  Once you have cased your sausage use a sewing needle, or safety pin or any other pokey thing to prick your sausages a few times in order to release air that may cause your sausage to explode when you cook it.

This weekend I made sausage at my house for the first time using the Fatted Calf's toulouse recipe.  I'm lucky and have early access to the new book that is coming out in September so I didn't have to downsize the recipe from 20 pounds.  If you're interested in meat even a little bit, you should get the book once it comes out.  It's super informative and has amazing recipes and also is just absolutely, mind boggling gorgeous.  Here's a link.  

Anyway, like I said I decided to keep it simple and make toulouse, a simple French garlic sausage that provides the meaty backbone for cassoulet.  It's a good all-purpose sausage with lots of garlic and warm spices like allspice, cloves and black peppercorns.  Since I was having a few people over before league night at the bowling alley I thought it would be a good sausage that everyone could enjoy but probably had never eaten.

What was most exciting was that it was my first chance to use the five pound sausage stuffer that Jesse had surprised me with a month ago.  It stuffed the sausage like a dream and despite running out of casings and having to run to work to get more (thank Maude I live 3 minutes from work) the entire process was quick and easy.  All the lessons I had learned from Toni transferred from work to home.

We threw the sausages on the grill and got them nice and smoky.  Somehow the casing ended up having a snap to it which is inexplicable so far, but I'm on a mission to understand why.  

When I brought two remaining sausages to work for everyone to try everyone was really impressed and we all made fun of Toni for turning me into a better sausage maker.  He replied, "Good, then you can take my job and I don't have to make any sausage!"  But I think that really he was pretty proud and I thanked him a million times for teaching me until he told me to go away.

[fromblocktokitchen]

A Visit to Oregon and First Time Lemon Curd

I spent the weekend in Oregon so I could attend the wedding of a friend from college and then go visit my parents and my sister who is pregnant.  Leaving Oregon in the summer is always hard, especially when the birth of your new niece is imminent.  In a perfect world, I would probably spend every summer in Oregon, help my parents in their wild garden, build them a chicken coop and bee hives they didn't asked for, harvest fennel pollen and make sausage all day.  Instead,  I am tied to a hazy SF summer which actually, by bay area standards, hasn't been too bad this year.

Like I said, my sister is pregnant.  Her due date was on Monday and as amazing as it was to feel her belly and see her at the peak of her pregnancy I couldn't help but feel bad for her.  I don't think anyone would ever tell you the final weeks of pregnancy are comfortable so I tried my best to make her as happy and relaxed as possible in the best way I know how.  Food.

We cooked a whole range of things, tri-tip steak with chimichurri, toasts with marscapone, prosciutto and figs fresh from the yard, saucy tomatoes and mozzarella, but the definite stand out was lemon curd with a quick blueberry jam on top.

It's possible that you don't know about berries in Oregon so let me tell you, they're the best.  No one grows better berries.  I'm sure there's a scientific reason.  Maybe the nine months of damp, soggy weather followed by three months of nearly arid, cloud free summer perfection.  I don't know, but whatever it is, it makes the sweetest, plumpest berries ever.

Anyway, I had never made lemon curd before but when your sister is due in a day and she says that she loves lemon curd, you make her some goddamn lemon curd.  I turned to Alice Waters Fruit cookbook for direction and was amazed to see how easy making lemon curd is.  All you need are some lemons, sugar, water, eggs and butter and suddenly you have lemon curd...or not exactly suddenly, but overall it's pretty quick!  In an ideal world I may have poured the curd into a tart shell and topped it with the blueberries, but it was wonderful just in a bowl with some biscotti.  I'm having people over for dinner on Saturday (more on that later) and I think I might make it again!  

Alice Waters Lemon Curd 

Zest of two lemons

Juice of two lemons (about 6 tbsp)

3 tbsp water

1/2 cup sugar 

1 stick of unsalted butter (1/4 lb)

1/4 tsp salt

3 whole eggs

3 yolks

Combine zest, lemon juice, water, sugar, butter and salt in a heavy-bottomed pot and heat slowly until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved.

Whisk the eggs and egg yolks together in a bowl and drizzle the hot lemon mixture into the eggs while whisking continuously.

Scrape the contents of the bowl back into the pan and cook over low heat, constantly stirring until the curd begins to thicken.  About 5 minutes.  This happens fast so it's important to make sure you're paying attention.

Strain the curd through a fine mesh sieve.  If you had a prebaked tart shell you could pour it into there now and wait 30 minutes before serving, but I knew I would serve it in bowls so I just put it in the fridge. 

See, wasn't that easy?

So now I'm back in San Francisco trying to comfort my Oregon blues with cooking and I have a lot of things on deck.  A few weeks ago Jesse bought me a sausage stuffer and one of my bosses is generously letting me use her grinder so this weekend I'll have my first go with homemade sausage.  I'm not too worried since I've made sausage at work before but it will be interesting to see what challenges come up in a home environment.  We also have two super special milk-fed gloucester old spot hogs coming in today and I preordered a loin roast.  This morning I made a five day brine for it and pickled some peaches to go alongside.  I can't wait and I'm sure you'll hear all about it.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Two Meals Scavenged From the Fridge

Two nights ago I cooked a loin chop with cinnamon and ginger spiced roasted apricots, polenta and a wild arugula salad with a pesto and roasted tomato dressing.  For maybe the second time ever I actually felt like I made a good salad and the dressing I made was something thrown together from breakfast leftovers.  That morning I had combined the roasted tomatoes and pesto to put on top of eggs but did not end up using all of it.  When it came time to make the salad I fished the pesto and tomatoes from the fridge, added more olive oil and a splash or two of zinfandel vinegar (please don't judge me for having like, 30 kinds of vinegar) and suddenly it was a really nice dressing!  I felt particularly triumphant since salad is something that I don't tend to enjoy and like it even less when I make it for myself. 

Last night I cooked risotto with a shiitake stock that I made two mornings ago after finding a bag of shiitakes I had bought for $2 because they were "ugly" in the back of my fridge.  The shiitakes were fresh so the flavor of the stock was not exceptionally strong, but it still brought a nice sweet earthiness to the otherwise traditional risotto.  I garnished it with a little pesto, summer squash and tomato because I seriously can't stop eating these three things (partially because it's so good and partially because I get a lot of them in my CSA).  The shiitake stock was super easy to make and I pretty much just did the first two steps of David Chang's ramen recipe.  I ended up making about 6 cups of stock with a pint of fresh shiitakes and a 10 inch long piece of konbu.  First I rinsed the konbu and then added it to 6 cups of water.  I brought the water to a simmer over high heat.  Once it was simmering, I turned off the heat and let the konbu soak for 10 minutes.  Then I removed the konbu and added the shiitakes.  I brought the stock back up to a boil and then down to a gentle simmer.  I let the shiitakes simmer for about 45 minutes before discarding them.  FInally, I filtered the stock through a cheese cloth lined colander.  I used half the shiitake stock for the risotto and then froze the other half for future use.

Tonight I don't know what I'll eat but I know I have some roast beef, one more squash, some chicken stock, collard greens and a peach.  I'm thinking a lentil soup with squash and collards and probably sliced peaches for dessert.  Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Constantly Cooking

Colin making ravioli, Laurie Ellen supervising, me (photographer) drinking rosé and talking shit.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Summer Squash Saute and The Perfection of Summer

No one can tell me otherwise, summer is the best season of the year.  Even here in SF where we're all huddling around a grill in big sweaters watching the fog roll in, chanting, "yay! Summer" with hopes that it will make us a feel warmer, summer is still the best.  All my favorite fruits and vegetables are in season and there's really nothing more that I could ask for.

Yesterday I ate bowl after bowl of pesto pasta while singing, "Who gon' stop me?  Who gon' stop me huh?" because I couldn't contain my happiness that this was the second time this week that I made pesto.  Pesto all day every day.  And when it's not pesto it's strawberries and raspberries and apricots and peaches and nectarines.  And when it's not those things it's tomatoes and melons and corn and avocados and summer squash.  

I used to think that I did not care for summer squash but I have been converted.  After eating squash in about 10 different dishes in the last month I am 100% on board, and loving the squash that I cooked for myself the other night really sealed the deal.

Inspired by a caponata we've been making at work with eggplant, tomatoes and capers I made my own quick saute of summer squash, cherry tomatoes, taggiasca olives and white wine for dinner on Wednesday and have been eating it every day since.  

This morning I finally finished the leftovers when I put it over black beans, with a few slices of avocado on top and then some parmigiano.  It was just perfect.  The most perfect breakfast.

A recipe for the squash would be a little silly since it took about 15 minutes, I winged the whole thing and just tasted along the way.  Perhaps that is a sign that anyone with any kind of cooking intuition would be able to replicate sketchy directions with equal amounts of luck.  Essentially, the dish consisted of softening onions in butter and olive oil, softening squash and throwing in a pinch of salt, adding a splash or two of white wine, adding halved cherry tomatoes, maybe adding another splash of white wine, throwing in the chopped olives, turning up the heat to evaporate some of the wine and also help release some of the juices from the tomatoes, tasting for seasoning and then serving.  

It's the easiest thing ever but so delicious it makes you thank the world for existing and having seasons like summer!

[fromblocktokitchen]

Macaroni Salad and What The Hell is Wrong With Me?

My parents are integral people in my discovery of how to enjoy food.  When I write about positive food experiences in my life, or any of those big realizations about food that I've had, they were usually involved.  My mom's collection of Chez Panisse books practically transformed Alice Waters into another family member in our home and her philosophy was a huge motivating factor in my parents planting their own garden.  Enjoying fresh vegetables in the summer helped me realize how good vegetables really can be.  When I was in 4th grade my parents took me to Italy where I would say my true love of a food began.  Before Italy I was eating top ramen, scrambled eggs and smashed up salmon (to ensure all the pinbones were removed).  After Italy I knew that being a picky eater was only good for depriving yourself of incredible tastes, flavors and textures.  Highlights were lemon tarts in the morning and a zucchini blossom pizza with a thin, crisp crust that BLEW MY MIND.  Even as a little 8 year old I was so grateful to my parents for that trip and I continue to be.

My parents' influence is also determined by the things that we didn't eat.  The things we avoided that made me so so sad as a kid.  To be clear, my parents definitely weren't health nuts and they also weren't ashamed of convenient eating.  We ate (and still do) a lot of ice cream sundaes for dessert, driving across town to Prince Pucklers where you can get the best oreo ice cream in the world.  I played basketball obsessively when I was in middle school and high school and often that meant grabbing an enormous burrito from the taqueria or a heaping mound of fried rice from a Korean place by my school after practice that I would devour in the car. 

The thing that was off limits though, the thing that I wanted most of all, was the pre-made food in the Safeway deli.  The shiny, mayonaise slick macaroni salads, the snowy white potato salads that claimed to have peas, baked pizza pockets that were oozing with cheese, the crispy fried chicken under the orange heat lamps, the mashed potatoes, oh my god, the mashed potatoes.  I knew that those mashed potatoes had to be the fluffiest, butteriest potatoes in the world!

My parents argue that they were ignorant of my premade food obsession but I'm not sure this is exactly true.  When I expressed to my mom how much I looooooved the hot pockets I had eaten at my friend's house, she cooked up a big batch of handheld calazone that I could pull from the freezer and heat in the microwave.  As I remember they were really good and all her hard word was consumed in about two days--she was not happy.  In my eyes this just added to the true value of premade foods, I could eat them as fast as I wanted and we could just buy more!  

I call my love for premade food an obsession but I think it was more of a deep curiosity with a hint of longing and a tiny desire for painless flagellation.  Why was this food here?  How could it look so delicious yet remain so untouched?  Why did my parents breeze past it as if it weren't there?  There was an element of sinfulness that I wanted so badly to experience, there must be something really really bad that made my parents pretend it didn't exist.

As I continue to eat a lot of truly remarkable food  my desire for premade food gets pushed further and further to the back of my brain.  At this point I will almost always take a perfectly ripe tomato with a little salt and pepper over a potato salad that miraculously manages to be chalky and silky at the same time (are these potato salads made with real potatoes is my question.  How do they make the potatoes feel like they are made with grains of sand?)  Every once in a while though, the desire rears its ugly head.  That's why every six months I make tuna casserole with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and terrible canned tuna that is probably dolphin.  That's why a few weeks ago at a weird party I ate fried chicken that I found in a Safeway bucket while my friends looked on in horror.  That's also why when asked to bring a side dish to a BBQ I made the most enormous batch of macaroni salad that had all the elements I remembered the premade macaroni salads to have.  Sweet, tangy, creamy, a little crunchy.  

When I arrived with the salad in hand I felt the need to awkwardly explain to everyone that I KNEW it was a shitty macaroni salad but that it was also the salad of my childhood dreams.  No one really seemed to care because it's a fucking macaroni salad after all.  It's not beer, it's not a beautiful pie, it's not some insane, decadent dish that we all seem to cook for each other so casually.  It was a macaroni salad that everyone has eaten from when they were five years old until they moved out of their parents house and stopped going to neighborhood barbecues.  It was mundane.  All the sinfulness and longing was gone.  I couldn't feel bad for eating it because no else did.  At the end of the day it was a fine mayonaise based macaroni salad and nothing more.

I realize now that what I had always interpreted as an intentional shun was probably no more than a general disinterest on my parents part.  They weren't depriving me of premade food, they just weren't interested in what was being offered.  This realization is kind of sad.  Sometimes I take joy in feeling wicked when I eat and cooking my own premade-style food was my number one way of accomplishing that wickedness.  Splitting an entire casserole dish of tuna casserole with Jesse while watching the worst TV we can find is cathartic.  Eating potato chips alone while reading Vogue in my underwear helps to release some of the...almost narcissistic steam that builds up after months of eating only good food.  When shitty food is linked to something personally therapeutic you can't expect others to feel the same way about it and that's what I learned by bring that macaroni salad to the party.  That macaroni salad was a means to a deeply personal end and if I want it to retain it's weird emotional power it's something I need to enjoy in the privacy of my own home where no one can tell me that I'm being boringly normal.

Totally Appropriate for a BBQ or For Feeling Wicked If You're Weird Like Me Macaroni Salad

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Recipe 

1 lb pasta elbows

1 1/4 cup frozen peas (thawed)

6 oz smoked ham cut into quarter inch chunks

2 stalks of celery 

3 green onions

4 small dill pickles, or one large one, cut into quarter inch chunks

1 cup mayonaise 

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tsp white wine vinegar  

3/4 tsp sugar 

1/4 tsp nutmeg 

Cook off pasta and place in a large bowl in the fridge covered in plastic wrap.  Wait until the pasta has cooled.

Chop combined chopped celery, peas, diced green onion, ham and pickles and toss with pasta.

Whisk together, mayonaise, sour cream, nutmeg, vinegar, sugar and a little salt and pepper and add it to the pasta.  Toss and taste for salt and pepper.

Enjoy with a side of guilt.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Pork Belly and Playing With Fire

Remember how last time I wrote I was like, "I'm sooooo not into pork anymore" and you were like, "Has she forsaken us?!  Has she forsaken the holy porcine flesh?!"  It's true, the fog of false chicken and beef idols had cause me to wandered from the path of swiney righteousness, I was lost as I searched for some little scrap of fat to melt on my tongue.  But the sacred light of pork brought me back and I now know that pig is the one true meat.  Ok, enough of Biblical allusions, this week pork was bought, cooked, burned and then enjoyed and I have to say that I feel great about it.  Pork is the best and I understand that now, again.

The part that may actually be more interesting about this whole story is how my relationship with grilling has been slowly developing but how I still know nothing about it so I managed to burn the shit out of the nearly 5 pound pork belly I cooked up last night.

Three summers ago Jesse and I went camping and he taught me how to gather wood and little sticks to start a fire. I felt totally powerful and awesome.  REN, MASTER OF FIREEEEEEEE.  Anyway, the thing I really took away from it was, "the fire triangle" or, the three things you need to build a fire: heat, fuel and oxygen.  A few weeks ago, when tasked with starting a grill and not knowing how I relied on the fire triangle to get the little briquettes burning.  I used an empty six pack box  to fan the embers (in addition to some lighter fluid...cue nervous admission of how terrible I am for using lighter fluid) and sure enough, I got the grill going and we made some nice salmon for dinner.  The next day, when I was in Marshall eating oysters with Isis and Mike, Mike showed me how to use a chimney to start a grill.  We loaded up the bottom with newspapers and then poured charcoal on top.  Once we had some good flames shooting through the top of the chimney, we flipped all the charcoals onto the grate, put the grill over it and had ourselves some BBQ'd oysters.  It was great!

I think I should explain that the only reason I didn't know how to start a grill until recently is because I don't come from a big grilling family.  I think the general thought is that cooking with fire has its place but it isn't in our house or our yard.  This isn't entirely true, a few years ago my mom bought a very fancy gas grill and while we've cooked some great meals on it.  It's not the same though, as a flame throwing, oh shit that's really hot, charcoal experience.  That experience is something that has been left unexperienced by me until last night when I decided to put a slab of pork belly fat side down on a very hot grill just to "try to crisp it up a little."

For me, the epiphany of the fire triangle was oxygen.  It felt so counter-intuitive to blow on or fan a flame to make it grow bigger.  As a result, usually when I'm trying to make a fire I think a lot about adding oxygen  and less about, oh I don't know, lets say fuel.  Fuel though, is a very important part of the fire triangle (equally as important actually) and when you put a piece of meat that is literally dripping with fatty fuel onto the fire you're going to really burn the crap out of that meat and it's going to look something like this:

You're also going to send your friends running for some kind of water to temper the flames and you're also going to burn all the corn that the pork belly was sharing the grill with.  So much so that when people eat that corn it looks like they've been making out with their teenage goth girl/boyfriend because there's black smudges all over their mouths.

But like I said, I'm new to grilling!  I didn't know that putting nearly pure fat over a flame would try to set the house on fire!  Lucky for me I have some really great friends that helped scrape off most of the char, put the belly back on the grill fat side up and we had  a really wonderful dinner and the belly was really really good.

Here's a recipe for the dry rub I made.  I roasted the belly in the oven first because I don't know how to make a grill stay at 350 degrees.  I recommend doing the same unless you're great at grilling.  Finishing on the grill gave the belly a nice smokey (some may even say charred) flavor.

Don't Burn Your House Down Pork Belly

4.5 lbs skin-off pork belly

5 dried or fresh bay leaves 

3 tsp whole cumin

1 tsp whole coriander 

1 tsp whole black pepper corn

1 tbsp pimenton 

1 tsp cayenne 

.5 tbsp chili flakes

3 tbsp brown sugar  

sea salt

  The night or morning before you are going to serve the pork belly toast all your whole spices until fragrant and then grind with the bay leaves.  Add the ground spices to the brown sugar, pimenton and cayenne and mix thoroughly. 

Generously salt the pork belly.  If you want to be exact, measure out 1.3% of the weight of the belly in salt.  For example: If your belly is 10 pounds, use .13 pounds of salt.

Rub the mixed spices into the belly evenly so the entire surface is covered.  Refrigerate for a few hours until you're going to cook it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place the belly in a snug pan, cover it with foil and place in the oven.  Let cook for 2 hours, basting it with its juices occasionally.

After about an hour, get your grill going.  After the second hour in the oven, remove the belly from the oven and throw it on the grill FAT SIDE UP.  Don't burn your house down.  Let the belly absorb all the good smokey flavors for about 15 minutes before pulling it from the grill.  Let rest and enjoy!  Like I said, don't burn your house down.

[fromblocktokitchen]

New York Strip Steak, the Admission of a Guilty Secret, and How I Show Love

This is great news for Jesse who would eat steak every day if given the opportunity.  The other night I brought home a huge 2 inch thick New York strip steak and I think he actually cheered.  His favorite cut is the tenderloin because of its tender texture and general lack of fat but he'll always be happy with New York Strip.  It makes sense since the tenderloin and strip are nearly one in the same.  They are separated by just a thin piece of bone that forms the T shape in a Porterhouse of T-bone steak.  I, on the other hand prefer a piece of steak that bites back a little.  Never chewy but definitely something you need to sink your teeth into.  New York Strip nearly melts on your tongue and its reduced amount of fat compared to a ribeye seems to give it a grassier, less beefy flavor.  

 I had expected more people to feed which was why I got such a large piece but when I discovered I was just cooking for the two of us I began looking forward to enjoying cold steak the next morning.  Cold steak from the day before is a pleasure that my mom and I share.  Whenever she made steak we would always have a few pieces leftover which we would happily share for lunch the next day straight out of the fridge.  Sometimes, let's just be honest and admit that it was every time, we'd be super bad and even dip it into some ketchup and my dad would be totally horrified.  But really, there was something about the steak being fridge cold combined with the sweet, salty acidity of the ketchup that was just so perfect.  I imagine there is a more refined way of creating these same flavors but ketchup did the job pretty damn well.  Oftentimes my coworker tells customers that the quality of the beef is so good all you need is a a generous amount of salt and a little pepper and then jokingly adds, AND KETCHUP and everyone gets a good laugh.  Meanwhile I'm standing there laughing but secretly feeling a little shameful because I've definitely eaten steak with ketchup and really enjoyed it...I may even consider it a coveted family memory.

The problem with steak though, is that it can be hard to stop eating.  You don't need much to feel full but it also has a certain something special that makes you continue to pick at it, even when you thought you were finished.  And that's what happened to this massive steak that I brought home.  By the time that Jesse and I were done with it there were two thin slices left.  Once I realized that we had both eaten about 12 ounces of steak, I quickly packed the two slices away into the fridge, just so I wouldn't deprive myself of that cold steak moment the next morning.

My moment came and shame got the best of me.  Jesse's little sister was staying with us and I was having a lot of fun cooking her breakfast because usually it's a meal I only enjoy by myself.  I put together some toast with tomatoes and basil and a crumbly Italian cheese, a hard boiled egg with olive oil and black salt and then fished the steak from the fridge.  Even the thought of serving it to her cold was almost too embarrassing and I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to add ketchup to the mix.  

 So we ate the cold steak with cold onions that I had sautéed in the steak juices the night before and I trimmed off the fat because I figured cold fat was also a taste reserved only for my weird ass taste buds.  And it was good but it wasn't the same.  It wasn't standing with my mom in the kitchen over a plate of cold strips of steak and a little pile of ketchup.  We weren't feeling a little wicked about combining such a wonderful meat with such a lowly condiment.  And we weren't laughing while my dad was in the other room saying, "yeeeeck" while we yelled back at him, "it's really good!!!"  

So it was different but it was also nice in its own way.  In the days leading up to Jesse's sister's arrival I was soooo excited and was thinking of all the wonderful things we'd eat together.  I had plans where we'd take her out to dinner and what I could cook for her but suddenly I found myself serving her cold steak, in the morning no less.  It was weird and unexpected and kind of jarring.  Why would I even think to give her cold steak?  Why not just skip the steak all together and enjoy it alone?  Now, I realize that it was a really subtle and quiet way to share my memories and my family with Jesse's family.  I realize that I was trying to express how much I really care about her by sharing something that is strange but close to me, like giving someone the oyster from the chicken.

 It was a way of silently saying, "I'm sorry to make you eat this weird thing but I wouldn't even have offered it to you if I didn't love you so much."

[fromblocktokitchen]

Tomatoes Are Here and Everything in the World is Good Again

The arrival of the season's first tomatoes is always a surprising and dubious time.  I wonder if that first crop of golden and ruby cherry tomatoes could be any good or if I should wait another two weeks before even trying one.  The truth that I've discovered this year though, is that if it's the season and you're getting your tomato from an actual farmer, not a scientist that has tomatoes growing from the rafters of a warehouse, that tomato is going to be good.  Maybe it won't be the August heirloom with its brain exploding, umami rich, bursting at the seams flavor but after seven months of living without tomatoes, the little cherries feel like a godsend and a sunny preview of what's to come.

I discovered my tomato love in my parents' garden.  My parents have no tolerance for life without tomatoes so nearly half the garden is devoted to growing tomatoes that range from sweet little golden cherry tomatoes to Frankenstein-like heirlooms that are so heavy they will tip the whole plant if improperly staked.  My dad roasts and freezes tray after tray of early girl tomatoes so in winter when they haven't seen the sun in three months they can still enjoy a summery meal.  The memories of sitting in that garden and just eating tomato after tomato without seeming to even make the tiniest dent in the crop are very dear to me.  The best though, was slicing and sprinkling a little salt on one of our favorite heirloom varieties, Cherokee Purple.  The fruit looked like it was about to burst through its red and purple skin but it remained firm, holding pockets of juice and seeds that were set almost like gelatine but would pour out once you took a bite.

With experiences like these it's hard to not be totally crazy about tomatoes.  We have been getting them in our CSA but I have been supplementing our supply with others from the farmers market.  So far I've roasted them and confit'd them and of course have eaten dozens raw, popping one in my mouth every time I go into the kitchen or cutting them into salads.  This morning for breakfast I made myself a salad with wild arugula, avocado, torn lox, roasted tomatoes and fresh tomatoes and just a little olive oil and salt and it was so perfect.

Yesterday morning I made biscuits and gravy and roasted tomatoes with garlic while the biscuits baked.  The tomatoes and some freshly chopped basil made the hearty breakfast feel a little more appropriate for late June, even though we're in the beginning days of gloomy, foggy San Francisco summer.

Two nights ago I confit'd a big batch of tomatoes with basil and then made a simple yet hearty sauce to go over gnudi.  I added two legs of duck confit that I shredded and then warmed in order to cook out  some of the fat (not because I am worried about fat, but because duck fat has a very strong flavor) and then added it into the tomatoes after they came out of the oven.  It was totally heavenly but very rich so Laurie Ellen had the smart idea to add lemon zest and lemon juice and the acidity cut through the richness perfectly.  I love having smart friends.  We finished the sauce with fresh basil and Isis made an awesome salad with romaine and a creamy, herbaceous dressing and it was a totally awesome meal.

Unfortunately, I was too excited about the meal to take a picture but I can leave you with a recipe for confiting tomatoes and the double confit sauce we made.  Both are stupidly easy.

Cherry Tomato Confit 

1 bunch of basil

1 lb of cherry tomatoes cut in half

2 cloves of garlic thinly sliced 

olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a baking dish, made a bed of basil leaves.  Sprinkle slivers of garlic over the basil.  P

lace cherry tomatoes in the baking dish with the cut side down, taking care to cover all the slivered garlic.  Make sure they fit snuggly without too much room in between each one.  

Season with salt and pepper.  

Pour olive oil over the tomatoes so the oil comes about half way up the sides of the tomatoes.

Bake for about an hour or until the tops of the tomatoes are caramelized and the oil is infused with the flavor or the tomatoes, basil and garlic.

Double Confit Tomato and Duck Sauce (serves 5 hungry people)

Cherry Tomato Confit (with its oil)

Two Legs of Duck Confit 

1 lemon

A few leaves of fresh basil 

salt and pepper 

Shred the duck confit and warm it in a pan.  Once warmed through, remove the meat with a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel lined plate.  Save the remaining fat and freeze it in a jar for future use unless you're like me and have a freezer full of duck fat already.  As a note, duck fat is really wonderful but sometimes the flavor can be a little strong for me so I wanted to try to reduce the amount of duck fat going into the sauce so that it wouldn't overpower the tomatoes.

In a large pan, add the tomato confit and slowly begin to warm.  Once its slowly bubbling add the shredded duck.  Taste for salt and pepper.

Zest a whole lemon and add the  zest to the sauce.  Tasted and if more acidity is needed, add juice from half the lemon.  We ended up using juice from the whole lemon but taste as you go.

Allow to simmer for a few more minutes.  Hopefully at this point whatever you're cooking to accompany it, such as pasta or gnudi or even toast is nearly ready.

Add a handful of freshly chopped basil in the last minute and then mix in your starchy sauce vehicle of choice.  

Enjoy!

[fromblocktokitchen]

Good Life

BBQing oysters and dousing them in garlic butter.  Marshall, CA

[fromblocktokitchen]

The Magic of Breakfast

The other night over a late dinner at Nopa, an amazing restaurant with a wonderful menu that we only seem to end up at when it's after midnight and we're kind of drunk and wanting burgers, I told Jesse that I was interested in finding a kitchen to stage in on my days off.  He seemed to be completely surprised and very apprehensive, something that was very surprising to me.  He had whole slew of questions, mainly if I wanted to start working in kitchens professionally and if that's really what I wanted to do with my life.  I was caught off guard by his dubious response.  I guess I had always assumed that entering into a professional kitchen in one way or another was an obvious continuation of my culinary education.  Ultimately though, his questions gave me a good opportunity to formulate why exactly I thought working in a professional kitchen would be important and also helped me realize that no, I don't want to work in restaurants and that's certainly not what I want to do with my life.  I do see value in it though, and I think there's a lot for me to learn.

Working in a professional kitchen has never been appealing to me.  I'm not motivated by relentless, thankless work.  I can say that freely which may be the strongest evidence that I'm not suited for a career in restaurants.  I enjoy taking time off to travel and see people I love and I enjoy having a relatively ache free body (I say this while fully acknowledging that my hands are often numb while I sleep, my wrists are almost always sore and my knees are totally wobbly but in comparison to others, I'm doing pretty good).  I also enjoy having a fair number of evenings off and even one weekend day that Jesse and I can spend together.  Working in a restaurant, to me, means giving that all up and no amount of perceived glory or kitchen-cred would make that something I could do, at least not right now. 

What I can do, and what I feel good about doing though, is giving up some of my time and some of my labor for free to see what there is to learn in a kitchen. As our conversation continued and Jesse seemed more at ease with the idea of what I was looking for in a stage we agreed that what I really was lacking in my own cooking was the broad skills and knowledge that would really develop a strong cooking intuition.  I don't want to wow people with new and original ideas or be a leading innovator in food, I just want to make food that tastes good and makes people happy.  Sometimes I'm able to do this and other times I am cooking, I hit a wall and something doesn't taste right and I flounder...and then I panic...and then usually I drown.  I end up with a dish that doesn't taste how I wanted it to and I don't have the first clue on how to bring it back to something even close to what I was envisioning.  What I'm missing is the skills to keep me from panicking or the knowledge needed to steer clear of floundering all together.  Something tells me that I could learn these things in a professional kitchen.  Even if it's just building small skills like how to properly turn an artichoke, or something I observe while dicing ten quarts of carrots.   I think maybe working in a kitchen could give me some confidence and maybe help me even listen to the cooking intuition I already have.

I was mulling all these things over this morning while mindlessly making breakfast. Thinking about how I have a tendency to over think, thinking about how good a salad we had at Nopa was with romaine, blue cheese, nectarines and hazelnuts.  I was thinking about how scared I was to even approach the topic of entering a kitchen with pretty much anyone I know who knew anyone who worked in a kitchen.  And suddenly I looked down and saw before me this really lovely plate of food.  Lentils, stewed in homemade chicken stock with guanciale, basil and a little red wine vinegar with a nice fried egg on top.  A simple red butter lettuce salad with almonds, peaches and good olive oil.  I looked at it and kind of marveled.  This is the basic breakfast in one form or another that I cook for myself every day and every day I enjoy it and I never think about it.  I can spend hours fretting over what I want to make for dinner for my friends but breakfast for myself is pure instinct and pulling together whatever is in my fridge and every morning it's great and vastly improves my morning.

Looking at this breakfast I realized that I still really want kitchen experience and I think I would learn so much but maybe my intuition isn't so terrible after all.

[fromblocktokitchen]

An Impromptu Dinner After Two Long Trips

Once again I find myself in the place where I'm wanting to make excuses for my absence.  This happens entirely too often but hey, what can you do?  I'm a busy woman.  This time, lucky for me, my excuse is a glorious, extravagant and wonderful one.  I was in Spain!!  For 10 days!!!  ( please don't do the math between now and my last post and find that it has been WELL over 10 days since I last posted.)

So yeah, I was in Spain.  The reason we went was to attend Primavera music festival in Barcelona which seems completely insane and indulgent and it totally was but the lineup was so good and Jesse is a sucker for a good lineup and I will take any excuse to travel.  Luckily, we were able to afford ourselves six days after the festival to enjoy the city and travel up the coast a little to Girona.  To say we ate well and often would be an understatement.  Of course there were a few lackluster meals but every bite or sip of jamon bellota, boquerones, Andalucian olives, mussels, foie gras, Spanish goat cheese, cava, and 2 Euro lambrusco made up for those meals ten fold.  We left Spain totally full and happy.

Back in the US jet lag took its toll and when I woke up at 5 in the morning on Saturday ready to seize the day I decided to invite all my friends over for dinner.  Come 7pm and I was a delirious, grumpy puddle that could only rant about how I had forgotten how to cook and everything was terrible.  Luckily, Colin is a wonderful friend and poured me a glass of wine before picking me back up and saving the pasta sauce I was attempting by simply adding a splash of sherry vinegar and finely chopped olives (it's the little things, people).  Later, when Laurie Ellen showed up she saved the artichoke hearts I had cooked and tossed to the side after declaring them, "bullshit".  She threw them in the food processor with lots of parmigiano, some arugula and a few almonds and voila! We had an amazing artichoke dip for the entire loaf of Tartine bread we consumed.  In my sleepy eyes my friends were true miracle workers.  God's hand couldn't have staged a better intervention.

Flash forward a few days and it's Monday and while I'm still feeling the disorienting effects of jet lag, I can at least keep it together and have managed to only fall asleep face down on the living room floor in front of my friends once.  Isis had just arrived home from her own epic journey, traversing the entirety of New England and I was so eager to see her that I demanded she meet up with me for beers despite having stepped off the plane about two hours earlier.  

We met in Duboce Park to drink beers and watch the dogs.  One particularly eager dog lept into my lap and ate half of my sandwich in one bite, a maneuver so quickly executed that the owner didn't even realize what happened or if he did he was so embarrassed he only could sheepishly apologize for his dog's bad behavior from a distance.  After a few hours of trading stories and Isis' boyfriend, Mike showing up and also enjoying a beer we all headed back to my house to make dinner because in my 5am wakefulness I had made A LOT of chicken stock and my freezer was full but there was still more stock to be dealt with.  Mike had the smart idea to make risotto and I remembered I had bought mushrooms so we stopped by the store to pick up some wine, leeks, parmigiano, asparagus, and lo and behold, CORN!  The corn debate went on for a while, is it too early?  Will it be good? But after running into a friend who had recently had corn and said it was wonderful we decided to go for it.  What a charmed life we lead, standing in the aisle of a little grocery store trying to estimate how satisfying a ear of organic, locally grown corn will be and feeling so fearful that it might be a disappointment.

Dinner came together slowly and leisurely.  First things first of course, we needed to cut bread and put out cheese for snacking.  Then allot the amount of wine needed for the risotto so we could drink the rest.  We chopped the vegetables and began softening the leeks while the stock heated slowly, then started to saute the mushrooms and asparagus as the arborio was beginning to cook.  When we were finally at the end, stirring in handfuls of grated parmigiano and each dipping a spoon into the risotto to taste we were ready to eat.  

It was an ideal late spring, early summer meal.  Earthy mushrooms thinly sliced, fat flavorful asparagus spears, ribbons of bright green basil  and pale yellow corn kernals thrown in at the last minute.  It was the perfect way to end two vacations to far away lands with the best of what home has to offer.

Welcome Home Risotto (with mushrooms, asparagus, corn and basil)

1 1/2 cup arborio rice

1 1/2 quarts chicken stock

1 cup white wine

3 leeks, washed and finely chopped into thin ribbons

1/2 lb small crimini mushrooms finely sliced

1 bunch asparagus sliced diagonally into appx. inch long spears 

1 ear of corn, kernels removed 

handful of basil

1 cup grated parmigiano

3-4 strands saffron (if you have it, no big deal if you don't)

Slowly heat your stock in a pot on the stove.  It should be hot but never boiling.

Add butter and olive oil to a large pan that will be big enough to hold all the risotto.  Add leeks and saute until they are very soft.  

Add rice and mix so the rice is completely coated in oil and butter and so the leeks are mixed throughout as well.  Turn the heat down to low or medium low.

At this point you can either add all of your wine and let it evaporate or you can add half of it and add the rest along with the stock.  Adding it with the stock will give the risotto a brighter flavor at the end which I enjoy but may not be for everyone.  Either way, add all or half the wine to the rice and stir until it has all evaporated.  

Now being ladling the stock into the rice.  Ladle enough in so it is a porridge-like consistency and stir occasionally.  Once the stock is almost entirely absorbed, add more stock.  You will continue to do this until all the stock is gone or until the rice is cooked (it should be soft and creamy but have a little tiny bite in the center).  It will probably take about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in another pan, begin to saute the mushrooms in butter and olive oil.  Once the mushrooms have released much of their liquid and are starting to become flavorful add the asparagus.  As the asparagus cook, taste for salt and pepper and if it looks like it's drying out a little too much, add a splash of wine, or water or stock.  Once the the asparagus is tender but still has some bite to it, take the pan off the heat and set aside.

Once the rice is cooked, stir in the corn kernels.  Then begin stirring in the parmigiano.  It's nice to sprinkle it over the risotto and stir at the same time so that it distributes evenly.  Now is also a good time to add a few dabs of butter just to enhance the creaminess.  

Once the parmigiano has been added, stir in a few strings of saffron if you have it.  Then add your mushrooms and asparagus and mix well.  Mix in the basil very last.  Taste for salt, pepper, or more parmigiano. 

Remove from the heat, serve and enjoy!

[fromblocktokitchen]

It's artichoke season and we've been getting them in our CSA.  For the most part I'm pretty lost when it comes to what to do with artichokes.  Jesse usually steams them with garlic and lemon and then we dip them in melted butter but this week we got some little babies and I wanted to figure out how to prepare them.  This video wasn't particularly helpful in that regard but Jacques Pepin might be a kitchen god who was sent to earth to use the TV to teach us all how to be better cooks.

[fromblocktokitchen]

Any Day Now Summer.

I'm just going to throw it out there.  I miss tomatoes.  I miss them so much.  Also, I miss stone fruit but Isis says they're popping up at the farmers market due to the hot weather we've had  the past two weeks.  I can hardly believe it.