The Weekly Meat

Cornbread

Awaiting a birth at any moment here, so things are tetchy. Still, we want to ensure you're taken care of next weekend. So practice your cornbread now, before the Big Show with the Roman numerals. And since my wife, AKL, is the bearer of the heretofore-mentioned child, I present to you her tweaked and conquered conbread receipt:

1-1/3 C all-purpose flour
1-1/3 C yellow cornmeal (Note: quality matters, here; the better the cornmeal, the better the cornbread)
1 T sugar 
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 C plain yogurt
1/3 C milk
1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted (plus a bit to butter the baking pan with)
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375°.

Butter 9" square baking pan.

Add all dry ingredients to a medium-sized mixing bowl and whisk to mix (Note: Sifting is for people with too much time on their hands).

In a large mixing bowl, add wet ingredients and whisk together.

Add dry ingredients to the wet, and stir just till blended.

Pour batter into buttered pan, and bake till beautyous (~30 minutes).

Dig.

Holiday Gift Guide: 2011

In past years, this post has been reserved specifically so I could shill for the publishing industry. This year, it's more like "catching up with consumable culture" — some of which is book-related, some not so much.

Here are some things I've run across in the past year that would make good holiday gifts. So go ahead, treat yourself or your loveed ones while boosting the economy in the following ways.

 

READ

Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman — Split into three discrete sections, this looks at the CIA's (Culinary Institue of America, that is, not Central Intelligence Agency) Certified Master Chef exam, as well as the restaurants of chefs Michael Symon, and Thomas Keller.

Cooking Dirty by Jason Sheehan — If Soul of a Chef is for the 1%, Cooking Dirty is for the 99%. It captures the crazy intensity (quite well, I might add; this is a James Beard-winning writer and former chef) of actual working restaurant kitchens in a way I've very rarely seen in print — but saw in practice every day in every restaurant in which I've done time.

Life by Keith Richards — Easy, late night reading, but well-written, entertaining, enlightening, and insightful.

The Four Stages of Cruelty by Keith Hollihan — A sure-handed, fascinating, writerly, and suspenseful novel, from a first-time novelist not afraid (curse you, writing programs!) to have an actual plot drive the story. (Full disclosure: Keith is a friend. And I wish I had his slapshot.)

 

WATCH TV AND MOVIES

Wallander — For a good 10–15 years, Kenneth Branagh and his agent made it too easy for us to forget what a fantastic actor he really is. Here, he brings an honest, humble performance as a Swedish detective, in which he shows his age, his gut, and his chops. Excellent, beautifully shot, understated yet intense TV. Get it from Netflix or wherever you get your goods.

Sherlock — Another BBC production worth watching. An updated and imaginative take on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson — and starring the man with the most British name of all time: Benedict Cumberbatch.

The Other F Word — Great documentary about punk rockers becoming dads. Deals with the topic of fatherhood better than anything else I've seen or read. And the music kicks ass.

A Face in the Crowd — Classic Elia Kazan flick I'd missed out on until recently. Incredibly prescient (1957) look at how media feeds the cult of personality and vice-versa. Great performance by Andy Griffith as the lead, and it stars both Patricia Neal and Lee Remick. Be still, my beating heart.

 

GO TO A MUSEUM

I could walk around the following museums even if they were absolutely empty. Both are beautiful and fascinating architectural spaces, well worth the time when you're in town.

• Mass MOCA
• ICA Boston

 

BUY RANDOM KITCHEN STUFF

Pickling tongs — What? You're not pickling or otherwise canning? Get on it; stat! You'll need this cheap but invaluable tool. And a mess of mason jars. Here's a basic pickling how-to from Rick of Rick's Picks.

Busha Browne's Authentic Jerk Seasoning — Marinate chicken or pork, cook, eat, thank me.

A sharp knife — Using a dull knife for food prep is more dangerous than using a sharp one. So go to a proper kitchen supply store and buy yourself a good knife, or take care of the good one you already have.

 

DRINK BEER

I like beer. These are a few new favorites, all from excellent breweries. Give them a shot.

• BBC Berkshire Ale — Straight-ahead English-style pale ale (currently my fave type of brew).
• Otter Creek Black IPA — Just what it sounds like. A real dark India pale ale that doesn't go overboard on the hops.
• Great Divide Hoss — A rye (grain of the moment) beer; delicious on tap.

Or if you or a loved one is in or around Boston, give em a gift certificate to (and ride home from!) Meadhall, which has an insane selection (~100) of craft beers on tap.

 

BUY RAZOR BLADES

I have no explanation (outside of a "vast right wing conspiracy") why replacement razor blades are so damn expensive, while disposable razors are so damn cheap. I just know they are. So buy your loved ones some replacement razor blades. I'm personally a Gilette Sensor Excel guy. I'm just saying.

 

GET YOUR MEAT ON

Why buy a T-shirt when you can buy a TWM-shirt?

 

GIVE IT AWAY

We have too much stuff and don't need more. We all have folks who have died on us that we'd trade every gift to have back. Agree with family to not give mutual gifts, but rather to put your money where your heart is. Do some homework, and donate.

 

That's all folks. Now go get your holidays on.

Because Pasta Salad Sucks, That's Why

It's picnic season, people, and you need some go-to recipes that are not pasta salad. Let the lazy people who can't cook bring pasta salad. You will be bringing something much, much better. Because — if nothing else — you've got moxie enough, or luck enough, to be reading this blog.

Here are the staples I keep in heavy rotation.

• Dan Dan Noodles
  
  You can fake an easy "Peanut Noodles" recipe, but authentic dan dan noodles are no more difficult (and don't actually contain any nuts, if that's a concern). This is a great summer dish, because prep and cook time are minimal (even more so with lo mein or soba noodles), and they're served at room temperature. Buy a cheap, used copy of the invaluable Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook (basic, adapted recipe follows, but the cookbook is utterly worthwhile, and one of the few that I regularly use). Typically, the prepped ingredients are mixed table-side by each diner, but it's easiest to mix and serve family style and let folks spice it up individually with hot pepper flakes or some Lan Chi chili paste with garlic.
  
  1 lb noodles
  6 cloves garlic
  2-inch piece of peeled, fresh ginger
  1/2 t Szechuan peppercorns, pan toasted
  3/4 t salt
  3 T water
  4 scallions, minced
  1 cup tahini
  6 T soy sauce
  1 T sugar
  
  While you cook the noodles, chop the garlic and ginger, then add peppercorns and salt, and use a mortar and pestle (or smear back and forth on the cutting board with the side of a chef's knife) to form a paste. In a bowl, blend together the garlic/ginger paste as well as all remaining ingredients. Drain cooked noodles, and let cool a bit, then add sauce and integrate w/noodles. Dig.

• Pulled Pork
  
  Will a little effort, you can achieve smoky, slow-cooked goodness in even a standard Weber kettle grill. And if you're looking to feed many for cheap, you'd be hard-pressed to find an easier alternative than buying yourself a whole pork shoulder, cooking it slow and low — till you barely need to pull it off the bone — and serving with a bit of BK Kine Cue Sauce. It's a fatty, forgiving cut that's fairly easy to work with. Novices, learn here. Experts, learn here.

• Baba Ghanoush
  
  Forget about making hummus as good as you might find in the middle east; just buy a tub of Sabra and call it a day. But outstanding homemade baba ghanoush is so damn easy it's criminal. You barely even need a knife. Fire up the grill (true baba needs that smoky grilled goodness) and follow the great recipe here.

• Gazpacho
  
  A great summertime staple, in that there's no cooking involved (so no sweating in the kitchen on an already-hot day). All you need to know is here in the blog archives.

• Deviled Eggs with tuna and olives
  
  Had these six years at Oleana in Cambridge, MA and began faking the recipe at home immediately. Ana Sortun's actual recipe here if you want to do it right, but suffice to say that simply adding some canned tuna and diced kalamatas will take even your grandma's deviled eggs to to a new level.

• Warm Melon Salad
  
  Alton Brown is a bit of a goofball, and this is a bit of a goofball recipe — but trust it. Forego the wok though and use the grill; it's summer, dammit. I've done it several times on the grill to great acclaim. It takes about 10 minutes, start to finish, and kicks ass. Give it a shot.

Right then. Now you have no excuses. So make something good. Or I will be forced to taunt you.

 

Matzo Ball Soup

With apologies to Andy Warhol, have a good Passover, people. Get your soup on.

Street Food

You can tell a lot about a country by their street food.

And what our street food says about us in the U.S. (the new-style vehicular gastronomy notwithstanding) is none too flattering. Yes, our melting pot brings in smatterings of excellence from town to town, but as a nation, we have no American equivalent to the Vietnamese báhn mì. No Cuban pressed mixto. No Mexican taco.

Sure, the occasional dirty water street dog can be delicious, if you pick your spots, and you can find a to-go slice ranging from meh to excellent in nearly every small town in America. But outside of pizza, or a full-frontal greasy-spoon breakfast, and, yes, junk food — we're lacking.

Italy, as a country, understands and respects food. France too. Spain. Southeast Asia. Most of the world, in fact. Think about it: average Italian trattoria, above average food; average Spanish bar, above average food; average Mexican taqueria, above average food. You get the picture.

I just returned from a week in Israel. It is a country of world-class street food. Hummus, falafel, shawarma, kabobs. They have fresh produce year-round, Kosher/Halal butchering, but more than anything, the country, as a whole, just gets it. Every cook in every dinky restaurant knows how to perfectly grill chicken, fish, meat.

Several years ago, when my Israeli cousin was doing his military service there, I met him at his army base to take him out to lunch. The base was located in the middle of nowhere, and so we ate a few miles away at what could only be described as a gas station. And still lunch was not just good, but very good.

Even just last week, on the way out of town, I had a falafel pita for breakfast from a nothing merchant at Ben Gurion airport. It was made then and there, made to order, and was delicious. Fresh veg, tahina, hummus. Try that in the U.S. And for less than $6.

Unfortunately, we are a nation that respects neither our food, where it comes from, who eats it, nor how we eat it. And that is not only our loss, but — due to the global export success of our embarrassingly-crappy fast-food giants — the world's.

Cooking Sexy

Here's a quick and hearty, but sexy (tell me a perfectly poached egg isn't sexy!), meal for impressing dinner companions, new or old, in these dying weeks of winter. I made it for AKL on valentine's day, and she less than three'd it.

Props to The Indo for this dish, since I first et it there. It was delicious, and more than the sum of its simple parts — which were so clearly evident that, after a single bite, my first thought was, "I should do this at home. For $10 less." And do it I have, ever since.

Now, before I go any further, of course, I have to note that I didn't need a recipe for this dish, just the idea. If you understand food in that way too (I'm a good cook, but no savant), just look at the pretty picture below and move on to the next post. Then get cooking. Then leave me a comment telling me how this is the perfect third date dish, brought the fire back into your marriage, is so much easier than 24-hr cassoulet, or some such.

 

Now, if you are, in fact, a dedicated follower of recipes, please forgive the following shorthand, as I do enough recipe-type writing in my day job. But, by all means, read on.

Below is enough for between two and four people, depending on portion size.

 

White Beans with Sausage, Greens, and Egg

Big can of beans
2-3 mild sausage links (even chicken sausage works well for this)
1 small onion, chopped
couple cloves of garlic, chopped
1 T tomato paste
cup of beer or chix stock
1/2 big bunch of kale or chard, chopped
1 egg/person

 

In a <4 qt stock pot, saute your onion for a minute or two in a splash of oil over medium heat, then add the garlic.

Stir another minute, then add in the tomato paste, the beer/stock, and the beans. Let it come up to near boiling, give it a stir, and turn down the heat to let it simmer.

Meanwhile, get enough water boiling in a deep saucepan or shallow pot to poach some eggs. (There are hundreds of videos out there on how to do this, but here's the shortest that gets it right. And do use a ramekin or teacup for each egg; it makes it easier to slide the eggs into the water. And use white vinegar.)

Throw the chopped greens into your pot with the beans and sausage, cover the pot, and let the greens wilt while you poach the eggs.

Portion out the sausage and beans and greens, then top each portion with a poached egg.

Dig.

 

* I parboiled the sausiche in some beer, then browned it, and cut it into chunks it. But you could skip this and just chuck it into the pot and adjust your cooking times. Depends on the sausiche.

Slow Roasting the Tenderloin

This week's meat is beef tenderloin.

With holiday party season in full swing, give this a shot next time you need to feed people. I promise you, it is criminally simple (certainly, if you read this blog, I'd like to think you're capable of far more than this), and leaves one loads of time for other things — like fixing sexy amuses-bouche and drinking copious amounts of whiskey.

Beef Tenderloin (cribbed from FineCooking.com)

2 T EVOO
2 t coarsely chopped fresh thyme
2 t minced garlic
Kosher salt and fresh black pepper
4 lb beef tenderloin roast

Preheat oven to 250°F with rack in center of oven.

Mix salt, pepper, evoo, garlic, and thyme, and rub all over the tenderloin. Place the tenderloin on a rimmed roasting pan. Roast in oven until temperature reads 130°F at the thickest part for medium rare — about 1–1.5 hours. Transfer to a carving board, tent with foil and let rest for at least 20 minutes before serving.

The inside will be pink and beautiful, and taste like victory.

If you don't want to fart around with some touchy Bearnaise (as I did not), serve with the following (as I did; cribbed from my grandmother's 1961 New York Times Cookbook):

Horseradish Sauce

3 T butter
3 T flour
1-1/2 C beef stock
horseradish to taste

Heat stock in separate pot to boiling. Melt the butter in saucepan. Blend in flour w/wire whisk. Add boiling stock all at once, stirring vigorously w/whisk to blend until mixture is smooth and thickened. Add horseradish to taste. (I probably added a good tablespoon.)

 

I had some leftovers earlier today as a warm sandwich on a baguette, with a handful of spinach leaves, sliced comté, and the horseradish sauce. It was filthy good.

 

Gazpacho

Summertime, and the tomatoes are easy...

2 pounds tomatoes (~4 large)
1 cucumber (peeled, halved legthwise, seeded)
1 medium onion
1 large pepper (red or yellow)
2 cloves garlic (zap a few seconds in microwave to take the sting off them, since they won't be cooked)
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
~pint of tomato juice (depends how thin/thick/tomatoey you want the soup)
1/2 cup, fresh cilantro (substitute basil if you're not keen on cilantro)
hot sauce to taste
black pepper to taste

 

Combine all ingredients in a blender (better than a food processor, because you're turning it into a liquid, and it'll start leaking out of most food processors) and blend/puree.

Note: if you like it a bit chunkier, chop some of the tomatoes, cuke, onion, and pepper, and add them to the soup after it's been blended.

Chill a bit (~an hour), which seems to help the flavors marry, then serve.

 

I play around with this basic recipe. If it's not salty enough, add a few dashes of Worcestershire. Too sweet, squeeze in some lemon juice. Could add in some celery or scallion, etc.

Dig.

The Limoncello Experiment

My wife, AKL, and I have a set group of 7–8 foodie friends we get together with every two months for what we call a Moveable Feast. We rotate hosts, and the host picks a theme around which that day's Man v. Food challenge meal is based. And then we cook and eat holy hell out of that theme. Everyone has great kitchen skills, is adventurous, and no one goes home less than painfully stuffed sated.

This weekend, we host the Feast, and AKL picked "lemon" as our theme (our past choices have ranged from Cajun to Sandwiches to "Food on a Stick"). From the outset, I planned to use the lemon feast as an excuse to whip up a batch of homebrewed limoncello.

And that's just what I've done.

After tasting several "house made" versions in restaurants lately (traveling in Tel Aviv last year, I couldn't swing a cat without getting hit with a complimentary snift of the stuff, post-dinner), I was keen on trying my own.

Now, after two months or so of curing/brewing/mellowing/chilling, it turns out, it's some damn fine limoncello indeed. We have quite a lot of it too (locals, come on by for a sample aperitif), which should keep us cheery well into Spring.

But all that lemon peeling must amount to something more than booze. And so, a blog post — including pictures, for those of you keen on amateur liquor porn (god help you if you've stumbled onto this page by Googling that phrase; I'm not even going to try it myself).

Things you need to make yourself some damn fine homebrewed limoncello:

• Gallon (or bigger) glass jar/jug
• Sharp veggie peeler (worth $5 for a new one because that piece of trash from your college dorm kitchen might be fine for carrots but not for nice pith-free lemon rinds)
• Vodka, or — if you can get your hands on some (I, sadly, could not) — Everclear grain alcohol (which has less native flavor than vodka and is therefore a better foundation for lemony goodness)
• Bag of organic lemons (remember, it's all about the peels with this, so skip the pesticide and such)
• Bag of sugar

That's about it; step-by-step instructions here, here, and here (as I'd recommend with any new time-consuming recipe, it's worth looking at several so you get a sense of what matters). But essentially, I used the following for this batch:

• Rinds from 14 good-sized lemons
• 1.75 L jug of vodka
• 3 cups sugar dissolved in 3 cups water

Word to the wise: I made the mistake of buying some organic pure cane sugar, with the thought that quality ingredients equal quality booze. Unfortunately, the thing about pure cane sugar is that when you make the simple syrup with it, the end result is a bit dank for a drink meant to be bright and lemony yellow. So I went back and used standard white Domino's sugar. The result, while less smooth and subtle, was hella more clear than the former — and my resulting limoncello is not the color of pond scum. Which is nice.

Flavor-wise, limoncello does not masquerade as anything more or less than what it is: alcohol, lemon, sugar. Depending on your water:sugar ratio in the simple syrup, it can range from tart to cloying. (This was my first effort, so I stuck with the standard 1:1 simple syrup recipe, and would actually go with less sugar next time (say, 3:2) and see where that leaves things.) Stick it in the freezer (it will thicken up a touch, but the booze keeps it from freezing) and drunk straight up after a nice dinner, it goes down like honeydew vine water.

Note: I didn't initially run mine through a clean coffee filter, and the end result was a bit cloudy (pic at right) — and not in that uniform, milky way of some limoncellos. Rather, it simply looked unfiltered. So I've since filtered it, and am happy with the results. And bound to be even happier this weekend once plied with some hefeweizen, lemon orzo, Moroccan chicken with preserved lemons, veal piccata, lemon tart, pavlova with lemon curd, and the like...

P.S. Come on back later in the year for my homebrew kahlua recipe, which is even easier (no peeling!), and most definitely guaranteed to put a hem in your dress.

Caucasian Chana Masala

A veggie posting today on The Meat, and a bit late, but I had a rough week of work. In fact, this past week, besides my wife and kids, pretty much only three things made me feel good about the world:

1. A single Friday night martini.
2. A birthday cake I made in the shape of a fish for my daughter.
3. Homemade chana masala.

You can figure out the martini on your own, and the "fish-cake" is a state secret I cannot share, but here's my take on number three.

CHANA MASALA

2 15.5 oz cans chick peas
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp salt
2 toes garlic, minced
1" nub of ginger, minced
1-1/2 cups water (or beer)
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp cayenne

Rinse beans in cold water and drain. In a saucepan, toast cumin seeds, stirring, several minutes till fragrant. Add onion with a splash of oil  and saute till translucent. Lower heat and add garlic, ginger, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, and salt. Cook/stir for 30 seconds. Add water/beer, and tomato paste. Mix and bring to a boil. Add beans, lemon juice, and cayenne. Stir, cover, and cook over medium for 15–20 minutes, or until beans are soft. Stir occasionally. If too dry, add a little more water/beer.

Monter au beurre.

Top w/scallions and cilantro, and serve w/rice.