Body Complex

Veg and pantry are easy. It's meat stuff that is harder. I'll break down a fish and do it all myself, same as poultry, and that's usually cheaper than having the butcher do it.  If you buy two chicken breasts, two wings, two legs, two thighs from the butcher it is so much more expensive than just buying a chicken! All birds are the same. 

Chicken/turkey/duck/partridge/pheasant/etc. are all the same. If you can do one you can do all. Mammals don't usually fall into this spectrum. I broke down a lamb in culinary school. Ribs? Check. Shoulder blades? Check. Spine? Check. Knees? Check. All mammals are built the same. J. used to be a massage therapist, and we have talked about her massaging me vs. the dog vs. the cat. All mammals are the same. If you can do one you can do all.

And yet where can I buy a whole mammal? You can't normally just buy a cow at the market (only rabbits, but not from Fresh Direct). This is where there is the weird medley between the depression era and nouveau fancy green eating. I should be able to buy a whole animal and use everything. No waste. Bones for stock, fried, spiced offal meats, tenderloin, braised shanks, loin chops, shoulder roast, barbecue ribs, braised belly, flank steaks, hanger steaks, head cheese, crispy skin, stew the rest. I could live off of half a pig for a month.

The weird thing is how the industry is built. There's only one flank steak in a cow. There are four shanks; have you ever seen one on a menu? I would die for a plate of monkfish livers and cheeks.

What's in there?

Another problem is commercial processing. I'm still trying to figure out veggie burgers. Not that I don't like Boca Burgers. I have yet to find a recipe that will hold together well, especially on the grill. My current version has an egg in it, and I freeze them before cooking. When have you ever bought an un-frozen veggie burger? The freeze keeps it together until the cooking binds the ingredients. 

Weirdly, I love using instant mashed potato flakes instead of bread-crumbs if I'm going to pan fry something. They have a magical taste and texture, even without being re-hydrated. Somehow here I don't really care what's in it, as there is no substitute. At least not until someone buys me a food dehydrator and I figure out how to get mashed potatoes through it.

do it yourselfer

In general I'm a proponent of doing stuff myself. Mostly because homemade stuff is so much more personalized. If I make salsa, I know exactly what's in it. Though I will admit that the last time I made it I used canned, crushed, tomatoes rather than blanching, peeling, and mincing my own. Is that lazy? In the summer when the basil is flooding the window boxes, I'm happy to make a huge batch of pesto and freeze it in portions. Defrost, add some parmesan, and I'm ready to go. I've even been known to make my own puff pastry. And I can tell you, mine significantly puffs, and tastes a thousand times better than Pepperidge Farms.

One problem with making it yourself is cost. Why is it cheaper for me to buy a can of organic salsa than to make it from the farmer's market myself? The butter alone needed to make puff pastry costs more then the frozen crap.

Buttercream frosting I will always make. My recipe is made from sugar, egg whites, butter, and vanilla. In general, I don't feel confident without four pounds of butter in the freezer. It must fill more than half of the door shelf. Try reading the ingredients list on a can of Duncan Hines frosting. No, seriously. Not that I won't use it for work projects. It has a great texture. It is just too sweet and forms that weird skin.

Gardening

I like herbs. I like to think about herbs.I like to use herbs. I like to grow herbs. I don't know any people named Herb, however. I think herbs are under utilized. I think people use dried herbs way more often then fresh. The Minimalist wrote an article about pantry items and talked about how dried herbs are worthless. I only like them if I dry them myself in the fall and then use them that winter. I recently made a tomato sauce with dried basil and oregano from the fire escape gardens.

There is nothing better than a bunch of parsley. Mince some up and it can go on or in everything. I made a salad last week from roast beets, shaved fennel, gorgonzola, and more parsley than you can imagine, all coated with a vinaigrette. We take this hiking in the summer. There is nothing better than a salad that won't wilt. Shake the tupperware, two forks, and we are ready to go.

The problem is the size of bunches at the supermarket. They are never right. Buy a bunch of thyme, use three sprigs, and watch it decay in your crisper. At least with parsley you can make a gremolata. Which goes with way more than just Osso Buco.

I have three window boxes on the fire escape. For some reason the rosemary and lavender survive the winter in NYC. My friends in L.I. and R.I. can't keep them through the winter. I t could be the building's radiant heat. Sage lasts through the first frost, and sometimes longer, and then there is dried sage leaves hanging on the stem for me in the winter. Basil gets thrown here and there, onto a tomato salad from the farmer's market or a summer pasta with olives, capers, roasted red peppers and parmesan. When I freak out I make pesto, and then freak out again  that I have no basil. Last summer I roasted peaches on the grill and coated them with balsamic, basil, and vanilla Häagen Dazs. Mint goes into anything trying to resemble middle eastern. Chives are a lovely summer taste, and grow like weeds in the six inch square I allocate them. I like using the purple flowers in salads. I mixed oregano into a home made salsa and home made chili powder. Yes, they did work. Rosemary, along with pork and lamb, makes great summer cocktails. And thyme, like parsley, goes with almost everything.

The nicest part is you can use them to create a complex flavor palate. It helps keep me interested in cooking vegetarian. Breaded tofu with gremolata? Check. Stuffed portabellos with parsley, thyme, and oregano? Check. Basil sun dried tomato and mozzarella panini? Check.

I'm looking forward to next summer's crop already.

Veggie Stock Revisited

I've had a lot of questions about my veggie stock freezer bag. "How do you do it?" "I've started my ziplock, now what do I do?" So here is the basics. It is not a recipe. These are just guidelines for using scraps.

Carrots: I use peelings and heads. If your carrots are really dirty, rinse and dry them before peeling. You don't want to have to strain dirt from a stock.

Onions: I use the inner peel, parts that are half dry half moist, and then the remnants from dicing/slicing. White/yellow onions are way better than red, but a red onion won't kill it.

Celery: Leaves are great. The white bottom and core are good as well.

Herbs: Parsley stems and thyme sprigs have a huge amount of flavor. Sage and cilantro are strong and specify what you will make with it.

Tomatoes: Made a salad? Throw the core in the bag. Made salsa? Throw the skins in the bag.

Mushrooms: Stems/peelings from the top. Like the carrots, watch the dirt!

When you make your stock, it's all about proportions. If you don't have enough carrots, throw half a carrot in. If you need some herbs, throw some more in.

Everything listed as not needed adds depth and body to your veggie stock. If you have less of these than the proportion list, it's fine. If you have more of these items, beware.

Proportions:

3 parts onion

3 parts carrot

2 parts celery (not needed)

1 part herbs

1 part tomato (not needed)

1 part mushroom (not needed)

1 peppercorn for every cup of ingredients

Half a bay leaf for every cup of ingredients

Herbs are a hundred times better fresh. I've said this before. No dried herbs!

If you want a richer stock, saute the veg in a little olive oil to gain some brown color. If you are lazy, toss them with some olive oil and roast them in the oven until browned.

Put everything in a stock pot (which you sauteed the veg in) and cover with water. Bring to a boil, drop to a simmer, add peppercorns and bay leaf, and wait half an hour. You want everything cooked to death. Boiling will make it cloudy and dirty, but simmering is important. You want to cook it to death. You're extracting flavor - not enhancing it!

Strain it through a cheesecloth. You will end up with a green-brown liquer and a gross vegetable mass. Mash all the liquid out of the veg. If you aren't using it immediately, cool it fast over an ice bath. (Sanitation!) It will last in a sealed container in the fridge for about 2 weeks. You can put the liquer back in the pot and reduce it if you want to concentrate the flavors or save it. Don't forget, it has no salt. When you add salt to it the flavor and salinity will multiply exponentially. Careful, all packaged stock already has salt. If you reduce it, add salt after the reduction. There is no way to un-add salt.

Practice and enjoy.

P.S. For poultry: 6 parts the wing/legs/cleaned spines of a chicken/duck/turkey makes great stock. (Give it 6 hours to simmer.) If you roast the poultry it makes it twice as delicious. The added time and gelatin add body. Veal/beef/lamb/pork stock requires a private class - please schedule. You will appreciate it. 

P.P.S. This is still a vegetarian focused blog.

Death and decay

Everything I want to eat is some form of decay. I am on a diet of controlled rot. There are so many delicious things available that are being eaten for me by mold or bacteria or yeast.

Beer, you are not my favorite, but I like you when you taste like hearty bread with a heavy yeast. Or a cask beer that the bartender has to hand pump because it doesn't have enough carbonation, and the taste evolves over the week or so that the keg is tapped at the bar.

Cheese, you are my favorite dairy rot. You can do so may things. So much variety with so many possible textures, flavors, and smells. Sometimes I only want a grilled cheddar sandwich with salt and dijon. Other times Stilton on a crisp. Or the gooeyness of a soft cheese with a moldy rind for texture, and I can watch you continue to evolve in the fridge (if you last that long).

Sorry yogurt, I still like you, just not anything on most store shelves. After the joys of a thick greek yogurt and the Indian cookbook author whose mother smuggled the family culture to NYC from home, Dannon has a lot to live up to.

Wine. I came to you late in life. There is so much to learn. I am enjoying this class, so I will sign up again for next semester. Do you have some extra-curricular internships?

Vinegar. And all of your delicious incarnations. A simple vinaigrette is great on a salad. I don't need any fancy balsamic, just a simple white wine or raw cider vinegar. And vinegar makes pickles. And pickles can be anything. I like the pickle plate at Kampuchea. Spicy, sweet, fiery, soft and delicate, all together on a plate. Cucumber, watermelon, cabbage, carrots, string beans, beets, cauliflower, the list goes on and on. Pickles can be anything.

Kimchee, you delicious korean fermented cabbage. I could live on a diet of you. Not too spicy, rather tart, with some residual crunch. I'm sad J. won't eat you.

Sauerkraut, kimchee's european cousin. What would a central park hot dog be without you?

In my refrigerator I have a pet living. It is a sourdough culture that I started. I feed it and it feeds me. This is a two-for, as it is both yeast and bacteria. I've made a plain bread, monkey bread with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon in the bundt pan, and waffles.

I am brewing a simple ginger beer, from this recipe. I'll tell you how it comes out.

None of these items are meat-based. I love a cured ham, prosciutto, a slice of coppa, a dry aged steak, all broken down by their own enzymes. But these are pricey and occur infrequently in my life. Then there are the rotten meat products, but as I'm not Icelandic or Inuit, they aren't for me. And I've never tried Surströmming, but I've also never been to northern Sweden. So my decaying diet remains vegetarian.

Leftovers

I only cook vegetarian at home. Mostly. It is too much work to try and make separate meals when only two people are eating. I'd rather put all my energy into a single meal. I've taken to cooking some things at a higher volume to guarantee leftovers, like veggie pot pie or baked mac-n-cheese.

The problem is when I have good leftovers from work. Two beautiful pork chops, half a flank steak, a duck breast. Then I have to figure out a way to make something for both of us. My standard has been something like a vegetable heavy pilaf or a quick risotto. I get a nice seared carnivorous meal on top and J. gets seared tofu. At my laziest, I have tried the same marinade or spice rub on both. Just do the tofu first! It only needs a few minutes in any marinade anyway, and doesn't mind sitting around and waiting on the back of the stove under a piece of foil.

I once worked on a job for a mail order ham company. It was a week long and every day they would send 20 fresh hams, half of them butt and half shank. We only used the shank ends, so already there were 10 hams to get rid of at the start of the day, and the rest supposedly had to go by the end. I know, this sounds crazy, but the sugared crust, which was the selling point, would dissolve into the moisture of the ham overnight in the fridge. So fresh hams every day.

Everyone I know ate ham that week. Friends would stop by the studio and leave with a nine pound ham in their bike basket. More than once. All of the studio staff took a ham home. I sent a messenger home with a ham. By thursday I was overwhelmed. I had refrigerators stuffed to the gills and 20 more hams coming that day. 

Finally someone had a brilliant idea. We were about 10 blocks from the Bowery Mission, which is a homeless shelter/soup kitchen/life fixer. After a quick phone call I messengered about 70 hams to them. Normally It is hard giving shelters food, because they only want packaged, sealed stuff, but we didn't have that issue with them. Hurray, leftovers!

Stock/Broth problems

In culinary school we made stock every day, both chicken and veal. Besides being the base of every sauce known to the french, it was a way to use everything. It also kept costs down significantly. There were bins in the walk-in for left over carrot bits, leftover onion bits, and bones from breaking anything down. Very little food scraps went into the trash. With chicken, the chef would save all the livers and hearts and make something special. If you made any white fish dish, you made stock from the heads and bones. The secret to that was to be the person who got the cheeks off of the fish, especially if it was something delicious like striped bass. A tender little oyster, flavored by the parsley stems, leeks, carrots, maybe fennel trimmings also in the pot. It was all so unctuous. I love the mouth-feel of a good stock. The smooth gelatin texture adds so much body to any dish.

I have taken part of this with me. There is a ziplock in the freezer, slowly filling up with carrot peelings, onion skins and trimmings, and parsley stems. I'm pretty sure there are some zucchini stems in there as well. When it is full, or more likely when I need it, I'll make a veggie stock, adding whatever to balance out it's ingredient ratios. I love it because it takes less than an hour and the most work is straining it after it cooks. I also like mine more than anything at the store. First of all it doesn't have any salt in it. Have you ever tried to reduce a store bought stock/broth? Even the low sodium ones are problematic. I like to control my own salinity, thank you. Also, so many of them have tomato, which I rarely want. It is great for any soup base or adding moisture without dairy.

The only problem is thickening. There is nothing better than a stock thickened with a good simmer. The natural gelatin makes it so rich and thick. And yes, fish stock does this as well. This never happens with veggie stock. I end up adding flour, which makes it a gravy, or cornstarch, which makes me think of chinese food. At least with flour I can use butter, and the fat adds to the mouth feel. I'm grateful she's not vegan.

FYI: Stock is made with bones. Broth is made with meat. When it is veggie, who knows. I tend to think of broth as being the liquid of a soup and stock being an ingredient, but I know I'm wrong.

the tragedy of vegetarian restaurants

I hate vegetarian restaurants. I hate anything that has to do with politics, religion, or philosophy being involved with my dining experience. I don't need a lecture on maintaining mother earth and the carbon footprint of that cow I ate for breakfast. Especially when your menu is filled with mock duck, fakin' bacon, meatless loaf, or anything with TVP. Stop trying to make me feel guilty while I am eating your food. You are promoting a lifestyle diet, and not food. It doesn't add to the atmosphere of your establishment.

Anything trying to be something else is just awful. Even things like turkey bacon. You are only allowed to eat turkey bacon if you are muslim. And I bet you could take the belly off of a lamb or goat and make a much better bacon substitute. I think you have more options and a better result trying to make something the best it can be rather than trying to make it into something that it isn't.

When I was in Singapore we ate out vegetarian all the time. I don't speak Malay, or Mandarin, or Tamil, and yet I always knew what was vegetarian. If it is and and Indian restaurant and you see Shiva, you know it's vegetarian. If it is Chinese, you know it is Buddhist friendly, but I bet they serve meat as well. The point is that if they were veg friendly, they told you, and that was it. There was no lifestyle elitism with it.

I would rather go to a restaurant that has a selection of vegetarian items on the menu than a veg place. J & I have several regular places. I can eat everything on the menu, and she has multiple options. And the food is generally better, because that is all they are thinking about in the kitchen. I swear her favorite veggie burger is from a VERY meat heavy establishment.

So I was very happy to read this interview with the chef of Dirt Candy. She gets it! Yeah! Vegetarian food that is just about food. I want to go.

Infected with baconitis

Bacon is magical. It is a breakfast meat, a garnish, a source of fat for sautéing, a manipulator of other meats like shrimp, scallops, and filet mignon. When I was little my Oma kept a cast iron pan in the over for bacon and eggs. Most of the time it had about a quarter inch of congealed bacon fat in it. She had a coffee can that the excess got poured into (through cheesecloth) which EVERYTHING was cooked in.

It is the only meat that J doesn't complain about the smell of it cooking.

When I worked in the test kitchen at Martha Stewart I learned to cook it on a sheetpan in the oven. No splatter on the cooktop and it takes care of itself while you do other stuff.

The first time we hosted Thanksgiving I wrapped the turkey in it. Crispy skin, crispy bacon, juicy turkey.

I know a group of magazine food/photo editors who have a bacon club. Potluck once a month, every dish must contain bacon. I have heard tales of bacon desserts, but they are a secretive group. And it is a ladies only group.

People blog about how to cook it in different shapes.

Lately I have been seeing/hearing of some really fun stuff. My friend Stasia made chocolate covered bacon with her family over the holidays. I need to try that.

Bacon apple pie can be done in two different ways.

And my favorite, the bacon stuffed bacon wrapped sausage.

I wonder if you could make ice cream out of hard apple cider and bacon fat? I would need to figure out a way to emulsify the fat. Honey Mustard? I would want it sweet, but not too sweet.

My cast iron pan is getting jealous.

Calling the kettle black

I have a difficult relationship with my cast iron pan.  I love it dearly. I have worked on the finish for several years. I promised it that it would never see soap. The center is approaching teflon. The only thing ever used to clean it is coarse salt with the occasional splash of vinegar. I have never had to re-season it and start the process over. It can bake a mean Tart Tatin and then, with the caramel rinsed out, put some serious sear on a marinated slab of tofu. I once made banana walnut brownies in it over a campfire.

I love the weight of it. Twelve inches across and approaching five pounds. How I could just kill a man. I have insulated red leather gloves from Lodge for when the handle gets problematically hot, which I also use as oven mitts.

Sadly, it has never had the joy of Steak au Poivre, or a brined pork chop, or a thick rasher of bacon. I know it would love to put a crispy skin onto a butterflied chicken. But then it would be confined to the "kitchen items you can't cook for J with" area of the kitchen. Currently, the only resident in that neighborhood is a plastic cutting board for meat. 

Often it sits, coolly watching from the back burner, as one of it's lesser peers sears a piece of meat. It watches quietly, knowing it could do a better job. And I feel sad for it.

From the beginning....

The holidays are always a challenge. After lots of travel and guests I didn't have the energy to do anything extravagant for New Years. J & I talked about it and realized, without any guilt, that we would be staying in. The tivo was full with the Twilight Zone marathon from scifi network and I had a new puzzle from christmas (MTA map). On J's suggestion it was decided: Superbowl food.

I know, it is unconventional. It takes alot of time, but the recipes are not challenging. So I get a kind of methodical, meditative moment out of it. Quiet, repetitive actions in the kitchen over a big pot of hot oil. The challenging part it to try and make different textures and tastes when everything is deep fried.

The first was Pommes Dauphine. This is a mix of half mashed potatoes and half pâte à choux, which is the dough for making cream puffs. I previously had made this for my mother-in-law and shown her how to do it, so luckily I had a batch of the mix in the freezer. Make some quenelles with two soup spoons and carefully drop them into the oil. You would think these are heavy, but the choux dough puffs them up extraordinarily and you end up with fluffy potato clouds with a crispy skin. Delicious, especially dipped in ketchup.

Second Course: Jalapeño Poppers. I started here, but had to make some modifications. 

Unlike the original recipe, I used some egg instead of just milk, I think the proteins help it bond together better. I also left the bacon out (obviously). Next time I think I will blanch the jalapeños first, as they were still a bit firm after being fried.

Third Course: Fried Pickles. Still crunchy and sour on the inside and crispy and bready on the outside. I mixed some of the leftover flour from the peppers with the leftover egg and milk mix.(Don't throw anything out until you are positive it should go!) I was aiming for a thin batter, like you would want for crepes. I added some salt and Siracha hot sauce. Using 4-5 inch spears, I dusted them in flour and then a quick dip in the batter.These cooked the fastest, as only the batter coating had to cook, unlike the potato puffs. So I turned the oil heat up to about 380º so they could just brown quickly.

The best thing about all of these is that everything we didn't eat gets easily saved. I spread them on a wire rack on a cookie sheet and put it in the freezer. After a few hours (ok, really, overnight) I separated them into ziplocks. They reheat great in a 425º oven for 15 minutes.