Winter IS for cooking

Carne Asada Brava

http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=rickbayless

Technique is...

Realizing anything can be great.
I love fine cuts of meat and seafood. They are so great to cook with. But the chef that takes the item that has nothing to do with gourmet cooking and makes something awesome is the one with technique. I am of course talking about Spam. OK wait! I see you trying to leave but hear me out.  Chef Jacob Burton of Stella Culinary said gourmet chefs go home and eat spam and eggs too.  Its not all lamb and steak. So the saltiness of the (you know what) actually plays nicely off of the hot carbon steel of the wok. It is surprisingly good.

Fishing with the boys Saturday made for a nice lunch

Trout wrapped in bacon

Shark Mc Nuggett Memories

It was late June 1984. I had not seen my father for 4 years until yesterday when I drove the 2279 miles from Connecticut to Port Aransas Texas. We met Captain Rick Gaston at Woody's Boat Basin.  His Charter Boat, the Orca had just arrived.  Word was that Rick had a large Tarpon on a line that he was fighting to land. They all said it was unusual for Rick to call anything in. He was not a man to cry wolf. When I met Rick he was a small guy with a big personality. Standard 1984 South Texas look. Jeans t shirt ball cap with wrap around sunglasses on. Rick did not come back with a tarpon but he did have a story about how a girl jumped out of the boat because he pulled the shark into the boat and it was flipping around. He told us how he's very excitedly explained to her that there were a whole heck of a lot more of them in the water than there was in the boat. Rick filleted a shark right there on the dock for us and we took it home and hence my first shark McNuggets experience happend. My father had 1 of those woks that had the grate on the side to set the fish on after it's cooked. The batter with a sweet light beer batter and it was delicious. I do wish I had his recipe today. So why am I thinking of my dad and his famous shark McNuggets? I took shark out of the freezer yesterday and it looks like I'm going to have to cook it tonight. I'll let you know how that goes.
... well made the shark last night. I use my usual quick pancake mix and sirracha method. Well I could say it wasn't bad it wasn't great either. Perhaps dad famous shark McNuggets recipe is gone forever or maybe Brooke has it.

Maybe some things cannot be duplicated. A hot June evening in South Texas, a couple of ice cold Lonestar beers, 1984 MTV playing in the background, and of course a father and son forging a new friendship. It's the kind of day that would make even my shark McNuggets from last night taste good.

Time For Beef Jerky!!!

Wandering around the kitchen looking for something to marinade with. Teryaki, Soy Sauce, Liquid Hickory Smoke, Serrachi, Brown Sugar, Pepper, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Brown Malt Vinegar, Nutmeg. It's got to be good! I'll Let you know later. Just put it on the racks...

Flank Steak Fajitas Southwest Egg Benedict Wraps Braised Chicken Thighs-Jacob Burton's Death Row Meal Tryout Homemade Pesto Steamed/Roasted Chicken and Leaks

Why is Emergency Food Worth Mentioning?

In 1991, I lived in a truck in the deserts of Saudi Arabi, Iraq and Kuwait.  All we had to eat was MRE's and a few other things that came in cans and packages.  It was possible to combine the individual components and come up with something edible.  Once the wiring is there, you sort of keep thinking of that after that phase is done.  Today there are so many above average things you can do to make things taste great on the fly.  I would not consider them as a way of life, but it's good to know how to do it.

When I was a commercial truck driver, I hated the food that was available on the road.  Any place you could park a 70 foot long tractor/trailer meant fast, greasy and tasteless food worthy of having your brain removed and strapping on a feed bag to bear it.  I decided to pick up a Burton Stove to Go down in North Carolina one Friday night.  There are cook books that drivers have written for this, but I found that common sense questions such as:  "How can I do this with the least possible cleanup?"

I figured out that if I shopped at Super Walmarts accross the country because of adequate parking, I could but meat and vegetables to keep in the fridge in the truck. I would set up a cooking bag in the afternoon with a couple of country style ribs, asparagus and marinade. Place the bag in the foil pan, foil pan in the stove, which was insulated. Then about 3 hours before stopping for the night I would reach down to the stove on the floor, plug it into the cigarette lighter and when I stopped for the night, that little stove opened as sweet as a single serving crockpot on the kitchen counter. Cleanup consisted of carrying the oven bag to the nearest trash can. I guess the point is, we don't have to eat crap even though statistically our situation suggests we are supposed to.

South African Biltong

  Anyone that knows me knows that I love the back to basics practicallity of living.  I have been making beef jerky since 1992.  For nearly 10 years now I have been taking dehydrating to all new levels.  Today my cupboard is full of canning jars with dried vegatables that I dried when I determined that I would not be able to use before they would go bad.  At first, the did just sit there and make me feel smart for doing it.  But let's face it, when you see that same jar untouched for 2 years you realize that perhaps, I am supposed to do something more with these.  I have been experimenting with using these goods and have been pleasantly surprised with their taste texture and usefulness.  More about that later.  So you cannot be surfing the net in this subject without inadvertantly colliding with other drying methods.  The one that really intrigued me is South African Biltong.

  Wikipedia defines Biltong as:
Biltong is a kind of cured meat that originated in South Africa. Many different types of meat are used to produce it, ranging from beef through game meats to fillets of ostrich from commercial farms. It is typically made from raw fillets of meat cut into strips following the grain of the muscle, or flat pieces sliced across the grain. It is similar to beef jerky in that they are both spiced, dried meats, but differ in their typical ingredients, taste and production process; in particular the main difference from jerky is that Biltong does not have a sweet taste.
The word biltong is from the Dutch bil ("rump") and tong ("strip" or "tongue").^[1]

Oncethe beef is sprayed with vinegar, (my choice is apple cider vinegar) it is sprinkled with coarse salt, cracked pepper, and freshly cracked corriander seeds.  It then sits in the fridge overnight and then is hung in a dry area to dry out for 3 to 7 days.  At this time of year, I can just hang it from the kitchen ceiling as shown in these photos.  Once spring comes and the heat doesn't run so much and the humidity raises, hanging like this will no longer be practical.  There can also be no flies around this meat while hanging for obvious reasons.  To be able to still make the biltong then, it can be done on a dehydrator.  While this method is not too bad, it dries the meat faster and something is lost in doing that.  There is no substitute for the slow drying process that creates this easier to chew than jerky, prosciutto like meat.  The most common way to dry biltong is in a biltong box which consists of a upright cupboard looking box that has a section on the bottom with a light bulb in the bottom, then above that is a wooden shelf that separates the bulb from the rest of the box.  Holes are drilled in the shelf to allow the light's heat to rise to the upper compartment.  This keeps the air dry.  Then the top section has holes drilled in the sides of the box to allow the heat to flow through past the meat.

 Friday night I did "repurpose" and old HP computer case into a biltong box.  There is no lightbulb but there is a fan in the back that I hooked up to a 12V transformer.  Then I put the cover back on.  Now 2 days later our biltong is drying away in an enclosed box.  I have heard it said that if you have biltong, you need to eat it under a heavy wool balnket with a flashlight so that no one else knows you have it since it would be instantly gone.  I have also heard that if you have any left over you made it wrong.  This is all ironic, since cured, dried meat is a way of preserving meat for long term storage.  All of this was proved true with my kids when once my boys got a taste for this. Next thing I knew they were standing on stools trying to pull the strips down from the ceiling.

 

Food, Libraries and Adventures Still Rule

Last night we did took a culinary journey to Africa.  This was done because despite the Internet and Kindle and iPhones etc, we still go to the library.  (We do not have iPhones or a Kindle, but I do have a disconnected cell pone that I carry as a stopwatch, flashlight and iPod, but that's not important right now).

There is nothing like finding a book at the library and embarking on the tactile journey into enlightenment.  This is even better when it involves cooking.  My Wife Donna found the book Passport on a Plate by Diane Simone Vezza.  A Round-the-World cookbook for children.  My son's love to cook, create and generally make huge messes in the kitchen, just like me.


Donna and Liam decided to chose African food last night.  Three recipes in all.  The first was luku (Chicken Stew)  It is an Ethiopian Dish.  I am not going to go into detail since Liam is going to be blogging about this himself.  This is a very inexpensive dish to make and is mild tasting which gives it a great home in a cookbook for children.  And yes, those are hard-boiled eggs in with the chicken.  I may have thought at first that they would be out of place, but they certainly were not.

The next recipe was from Nigeria called Akara (Black-eyed Pea Balls).  As you can see, they did not retain the shape of balls but were delicious nonetheless.  The book stated that these are often eaten with sweet custard.  I realized as we had a whole bunch of cilantro that I had not done anything with, I quickly made 2 batches of cilantro pesto and 1 batch of Avocado Cilantro Mayonnaise.  These were awesome dipped in either of these.  The balls consisting of beans, cayenne, onion had nice rich almost meatiness about them.


Avocado Cilantro Mayonnaise is NOT African, but it is one of those things that can work on many international dishes.  It is the design of the finest Mexican chef in the universe, Rick Bayless and is a regular staple and the Frontera Grill, Topolobampo and Frontera Fresco all in Chicago.  It is a simple mixture of 1/4 cup of chopped fresh cilantro, 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise and one mashed avocado.  I have yet to find something that this does not taste good on!




The third recipe that Donna and Liam chose was, a Nigerian Fruit Salad.  This was mixed with a nice blend of fruit and seasonings then baked in the oven to draw the sweetness of the fruit to the forefront.  Everything was very good and what a nice adventure for a Wednesday night.  I think I overheard that the next adventure is going to be Russia.  It is a great way for your child to explore social studies by creating and tasting the food that children from other parts of the world eat.  I kind of wonder if the version of this book on the other side of the world has miscellaneous chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese and french fries for the American recipes.  Can I please say that I am from some other country?  Although Donna did have a box of Kraft Mac-n-Cheese on stand by in case the boys did not like the African food!