Christmas Vacation

I figured I should get around to writing this up, only about a month late. :)

This year we flew back to Michigan early to attend my grandmothers 100th birthday. We ended up spending about two weeks there. As usual I brought my knives and spices with me and got to cook a few meals for my parents.  My mom was starting chemo, so we weren't sure if she'd be up to eating. It turned out that she was able to eat, so it was extra special to be cooking for them.

I wanted to have some chicken broth on hand, so for the first meal I made a roast chicken and potatoes. We found that Horrocks had some nice Amish-raised chickens and reasonable prices, and I was surprised to see a nice variety of vegetables there, including obscure ones like bitter melon. After the roast chicken I made pumpkin-sausage penne and a chicken cacciatorra. (So I could make more broth.)

The next night, I set out to make my "bavette bordelaise", which I usually make with hanger steak (onglet). Unfortunately Horrocks didn't have it, but made a couple of suggestions.  The guy at the first place has been a butcher for 15 years and had never heard of it.  He suggested a mexican place, which wasn't a proper butcher (they had skirt, but it was frozen and in 5lb packs).  I ended up trying a place in East Lansing, which claimed to have it, but ended up giving me flap steak (bavette), calling it hanger.  I made it with my usual red wine / shallot sauce, potatoes sarladaise, and green beens. A few days later,  on christmas eve, I used the extra meat (it was a big chunk of steak) to make my fajitas. (They do have poblanos in Michigan.)

For our big Christmas meal, I made a standing rib roast. Emily likes it, it is traditional in some families, and it was what I made for them before they last left San Francisco. I again started with Alton Brown's instructions, aging the roast in the fridge for a few days.  But I added a garlic-rosemary rub and salted it ahead of time, per the Zuni cookbook.  For sides I made a squash and brussel sprout dish that I also made for thanksgiving. (You would have read about it last November, but it seems I forgot to actually post the article - I'll post it now.) I also made my parmesan mashed potatoes, green beans, and swiss chard sautéed in oil with some garlic. I got to feed my Grandmother, which made it extra special. (She loved the vegetables - probably one reason why she's 100 years old.)

It was a good Christmas, and a nice break from a busy time in my life. Although I wish Dan and Carmen could have joined us, and I missed having Carmen's parents join us - they always brought a couple of dishes, usually a chicken lo-mein and some kind of shrimp cake, to go with our food, and I always made cucumber kimchee for her Dad. 

Still, we were happy to be back in the bay area.  The weather was happier, I get all of my wacky ingredients again - everybody has hanger steak, I can pick up goat loin at the farmer's market, the corner stores have fresh herbs, and local produce have extra-long seasons.

Oh, and christmas gifts - it was the year of the thermometer for me. I got two of the probe thermometer on my list, which seems to work well - it's faster and more accurate than my old, broken one.  My Dad also fixed my broken one, and Emily got me a IR thermometer. You aim it at something, pull the trigger, and it tells you the temperature. It's a toy, but it has turned out to be more useful than I'd thought it would be.  I know when things are getting close to going into the fridge, double check oil and sugar temperatures, and look for cold spots in the house.

I also got some wonderful books including Peterson's fish and seafood book and the citizen cake book. (Emily has me on the hook for one of the desserts for Valentines day, the recipe spans 7 pages, wish me luck.)

Menu for Hope

It's that time of year again - Menu for Hope IV is underway, go check out Pim's blog, pick out some nice prizes, and donate. The prizes are provided by food bloggers, each $10 of donation will get you a spot in a raffle for one of the items, donations go to the UN's food program.

Thanksgiving

It seems I wrote this last november, but never posted it, so here it is now.

Another thanksgiving has come and gone. Carmen made her turkey again, this time with a heritage turkey. The only real incident was an explosion involving the gravy. Carmen was making a slurry, shaking some of drippings with some flour in a tupperware container.  This technique had worked for her in the past, but this time pressure built up and gravy came shooting out of the container and all over the kitchen. We ended up using beurre manié to thicken the sauce, which worked out well.

My contribution to the evening was two custard ice creams, cinnamon and vanilla, and three side dishes. I made my parmesan mashed potatoes and green beans with shallots. And I also made brussel sprouts with butternut squash and fried sage, based on a Thomas Keller recipe that I got from Food and Wine magazine.  They were very tasty, but I'd probably augment it with bacon or parmesan next time. This dish is a little different from most brussel sprout dishes in that the leaves are separated and blanched.  I did notice that the sage had to be fried for a shorter time and at a lower temperature to keep it from burning.

Weekend of Cooking

It's been a while since I've posted to my blog. I'm still cooking, and Emily is still taking amazing pictures, but I've been too busy with work to blog. Last weekend I had a bit of a cooking marathon, and Emily took pictures, so I figured I'd write it up.

For lunch on Saturday we had pizza margherita. We have this about once a week when tomatoes are in season. This week we used the green zebra heirloom tomatoes (Emily's favorite varietal) and "Bubalus Bubalis" buffalo mozzarella from Cowgirl Creamery.

For dinner we had a goat loin roast, stuffed with cumin, apricots, roasted pumpkin seeds, and bread crumbs, and wrapped in prosciutto. Served with baby spinach (with garlic and pumpkin seeds), red onions cooked in balsamic vinegar. This was a Gordon Ramsay dish that I've been meaning to make. He calls for a boned out lamb saddle, which I believe is called a double loin roast in this country. I substituted goat from Marin Sun Farms because somebody sniped the lamb. The "sauce" in the photo is the jus from resting. The onions and spinach were quite tasty, although the onions look a bit dark. I'd definitely make them again. The potatoes weren't spectacular, as I wasn't using my usual recipe, and I don't think they were really necessary.

I actually only used half of the loin for this. I thought I froze the other half, but it seems to have disappeared - I may have thrown the wrong thing out while cleaning the freezer.

For lunch on Sunday I made Keller's "Soup and Sandwich." This time I didn't screw up the brioche. I used "Lincolnshire Poacher" from Cowgirl Creamery for the cheese. I also made the tomato consommé and potato chips (fried in canola oil and clarified butter) to go with it.

The consommé was easy to make and quite surprising - it's hard to me to accept that a clear liquid has so much tomato flavor. You rehydrate a chipotle (or half of one) add it to a couple pounds of chopped tomatoes and strain in cheese cloth (or a dish towel) hung over a bowl in the fridge overnight. Add a few peeled cherry tomatoes (one of each color if you can) and serve cool.

For dinner, I made pork and beans and invited Dan and Carmen over to join us. Emily suggested I also make Pim's Pumpkin Panna Cotta, so I decided to make it a four course dinner with tomato consommé and some cheese.

I served smaller portions of the consommé this time, a little bit goes a long way. Dan and Carmen got the cherry tomatoes that were left over from lunch, and I garnished with little baby basil leaves. I'll definitely make this again - it's an easy course to make, holds at room temp, and is tasty.

For the pork and beans, I cooked and reserved some bits of bacon, softened some onions in the fat, added 1/2 lb of soaked Rancho Gordo Borlotti beans, water, and half a smoked ham hock. I cooked it for 1-2 hrs, removed and cut up the meat, then cooked it for a few more hours with the cover off, occasionally sprinkling with bread crumbs or mixing in the crust that had formed on top. It's garnished with some mexican crema and cilantro.

The Lincolnshire Poacher and an Italian Fontina on fancy crackers served as a simple cheese course. (I didn't have any fruit handy, and wanted them to try the cheeses.) The fontina was rather mild and a bit overpowered by the cracker, I probably should have cut it a bit thicker or omitted the cracker.

The Pumpkin Panna Cotta, in a jar from Miette. I also had some in bowls, but we were rather full dessert time, so I served the smaller portions. (Pim's recipe yields at least 8 portions, so we had plenty of leftovers, too.)

Ratatouille

This was the weekend of ratatouille: I spent most of Saturday preparing for dinner Sunday night. I made two French Laundry dishes, one of which was derived from the classic french ratatouille dish. On Saturday night, we had Dan and Carmen over for a simple dinner - various sausages from Fatted Calf, a good french mustard, and the leftover ratatouille vegetables sautéed in olive oil. After that, we went to see Ratatouille. The movie was a lot of fun and very well done. The attention to detail was amazing. I'd definitely recommend it.

"Macaroni and Cheese"
Butter-poached Maine Lobster with Creamy Lobster Broth and Mascarpone-Enriched Orzo

The first course was lobster poached in butter served with with orzo in a lobster cream broth and a Parmesan crisp. The parmesan crisp was very easy to make. They lobster was briefly boiled yesterday, the meat removed from the shell and refrigerated, and then I spent a few hours were spent making a lobster broth, reducing it, adding cream, and reducing again. I added a some cooked orzo the next morning. I left out the coral oil, as I didn't have any lobster coral.

On Sunday, I reheated the broth, made up a batch of buerre monté, briefly poached the lobster and put it on warmed plates.

Roasted Guinea Fowl en Crépenette de Byaldi with Pan Jus

Imam Byaldi is a turkish dish which is a more refined version of the classic Ratatouille. In the movie, the byaldi is removed from the pan and artfully arranged on the plate. (And, according the recipe in the New York Times, served with a vinagrette.) The byaldi itself takes 2 1/2 to 3 hours to cook, by the way.

On Saturday, I cut up a guinea fowl, reserved the breasts and boned-out thighs for the next day, and used the rest of the bird, along with some vegetables and chicken stock, to make a sauce. (Which also spent a good hour or so reducing.)

On Sunday, I placed a bit of the byaldi on each piece of breast and thigh, wrapped it in caul fat, seared it, and baked it. They were then sliced in half, and served on some of the remaining byaldi with some sauce on top.

The actual cooking on Sunday was a half hour at most, but I spent most of Saturday preparing. It was a lot of work, but a fun learning experience. Not something I'd do every weekend.

Catching up

It's been a while since my last post. I've been really busy at work and neglected to write up my parents visit. They were here for a month, helped us a lot with the house. Most of the plaster work is now done, and we have a completely finished bathroom and living room. I got to feed them almost every night, showing off what I've learned in the past year. (And skipping dishes that they might not like.)

For mother's day, I made short ribs and oxtail, vaguely following the zuni recipe. They were accompanied by parmesan mashed potatoes, carrots and parsnips (turned and glazed, if I remember right). Each plate contained both cuts of beef, removed from the bones. (I cooked the ribs for a little less time.)

From my repetoire, I made pasta norma, the chicken roulade, and zuni chicken. I also made the posole rojo recipe from Rancho Gordo.

And, of course, one night my mom made our traditional fish fry. She takes Michigan lake fish, breads them with flour, salt, and pepper and fries them in olive oil. I'm always thinking there is some way to tweak it to make it better - but I rarely have the opportunity to have it, and it invokes such memories from childhood, I don't mess with it. The best way to enjoy the fish, is sneaking a fillet off of the plate next to my grandfather's grill while he's cooking a batch. This year, I let my mom do her thing and just prepared some sides. For the first, I sweated down some onions and then sautéed some diced summer squash in olive oil, salt, and pepper. The second was swiss chard sautéed in olive oil with garlic, salt, and pepper. The squash was quite good, but the chard didn't work so well with the fish. (The fish is a bit too delicate for the chard.)

For an early father's day, I made a standing rib roast from Prather Ranch beef. It was my first standing rib roast and turned out perfect, even though I was aiming for a little more well done, because my parents aren't big on rare beef.

For sides, I reprieved myself by making green beans again but getting it right. (My mom liked them the previous time I made them, but I thought they were a little too raw.) And I made my parmesan mashed potatoes. (They're tasty - and the leftovers work well, Emily rarely lets me cook potatoes another way - but I like them roasted, too.)

One Sunday, I attempted to make Keller's grilled cheese sandwich recipe. I got some excellent English cheddar, but I managed to use twice as much butter as I should have when making the brioche. I was making a half recipe. It called for "10 oz (20 tbsp) butter" - I halved it and got 10 oz. In lieu of his fussy tomato soup, I served it simply with some sliced apples. It wasn't bad, but the bread was too crumbly, too buttery, and I didn't use enough cheese.

On a subsequent Sunday, I finally got around to making Osso Buco. I saw some wonderful Vitellone at Prather Ranch in the ferry building and picked it up for the freezer. (Vitellone is a bit older than Veal and free range.) I also added some saffron to the parmesan risotto that I usually make with the chicken roulade. It turned out really well, and I'll definitely try it again. I consulted a few recipes and ended up salting ahead (per the Zuni cookbook), using red wine (because I had it on hand), tomatoes, leeks, a little bit of celery and carrot, rosemary, thyme, onion, bay, and black peppercorns. Per Keller, I used a bit of cheesecloth to keep the veggies separate from the meat.

And tonight I made red-cooked fish again. This is the second time I've made this dish. This time I made it with a, err, red fish that I got at Sun Fat. (I don't remember what kind it was, but it looked like it was fresh and the right size for one person.) Emily hasn't been around either time I made this dish, so I decided to take a picture myself. I'll have her work her magic and replace this with an edited one.

The fish is fried in a wok, some aromatics (scallions and ginger) are fried, and then everything is braised in a soy, sugar, rice wine sauce. The fish and veggies are removed to a plate and the sauce is reduced. The resulting sauce is a savory, caramel sauce that is quite tasty.

Sushi Night

The day before we went back to Michigan, Emily asked me to make sushi. The results were a little crude, but tasty.

I stopped by Sun Fat on the way home for some salmon, tuna, and oysters. I was hoping for hamachi, but they didn't have any. I picked up some nori, avacado, and sushi rice from the at 24th and Valencia. My bamboo mat was lost in one of my many moves, and I couldn't find them at the store, so I had to improvise with a piece of tin foil and plastic wrap. It worked surprisingly well.


Of the maki, we liked the california rolls the best - real crab legs make a big difference. (I had some in the freezer that I'd been meaning to use.) For the outside, I used furikake because I didn't know where to find tobiko.

The tuna and salmon rolls were a little overpacked, so the rolls didn't always close up. The fish wasn't placed right, so it didn't end up in the center. I don't usually order maki rolls. They were good, but I will probably try my hand at nigri next time.

I also sliced up some sashimi and opened some Fanny Bay oysters to accompany the rolls.