The Beneficiary

My boss called me into his office this morning and said, "hey, would you like some morel mushrooms?"  As I thought to my self, "is this a trick question?", he added, "I have a buddy who gathers wild mushrooms, and he went out this weekend and he gathered pounds and pounds of them.  He sold most of them to local restaurants, but he gave me a couple of pounds, and I can't use them all."  "Absolutely" was my response.  A few hours later Russ showed up at my desk with a plastic bag containing about 3/4 of a pound of the freshest, most beautiful, morel mushrooms I've ever seen.

I didn't want them to deteriorate, and I figured that the more I did to them, the more I'd screw them up, so I cooked up about half of them this evening in a very simple pasta dish.  I sauteed the morels with some finely diced shallot and a couple of cloves of garlic.  Then I added some asparagus, and a cup of chicken broth, about a cup of cream, and a few teaspoons of fresh thyme from my garden.

Ten minutes later I tossed the sauce with some grated parmesan, salt, and pepper, and it was dinner time.

I overcooked the asparagus just a bit, but it was still delicious.  Spring on a plate.  Tomorrow morning it's scrambled eggs with morels for breakfast.  Thanks again Russ.

I had no idea that morels could be found in central Texas.  Now I really want to take one of those "Hunting For Wild Mushrooms" classes I see advertised from time to time.

Sausage, it's what god created deer for.

My father was an avid hunter.  Growing up, at least half of our meals consisted of something we caught or killed.  Over the winter, we would harvest on average three or four deer, which would stock the freezer for the rest of the year.  We always had the deer professionally processed, and always had the processor make sausage.  In Laredo during the early 80's your only choices were a lightly smoked link sausage, breakfast sausage, or chorizo.  This is probably the case today, but I could be wrong.  I haven't shot a deer in over 20 years, but I am still a big fan of venison, especially venison sausage.

My brother-in-law has recently gotten into hunting.  He doesn't cook much, so for the past couple of years, he has given me all the venison I could handle.  He doesn't bother getting it processed, he just does it himself, which means the portions I get, are huge primal cuts...entire legs and such.  This weekend I decided it was high time I dealt with one of the rear legs that was taking up room in my freezer.  It was time to make some sausage.

A 12 pound leg of venison takes some time to bone out and cut up.  There is a lot of silver skin and tendon that you need to remove before grinding it, otherwise you will wind up with odd gristly bits in your sausage.  Also, since all I have is a rather puny meat grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I needed the meat in strips no more than an inch wide.  It took me a good 30 minutes of effort to get the leg above to look like this.

One of the advantages of making sausage at home, is you know exactly what is going into it.  If you are a health conscious person, you may be tempted to take advantage of the fact that venison is nearly fat free to make a very lean sausage.   You can actually get away with this if you are just making chorizo, but you will need to add a fair amount of oil when cooking it if you do.   When it comes to link sausage, let me tell you, don't skimp on the fat.  It will be dry and disappointing.  You need at least 20 percent fat in your final mix to have a nice juicy sausage.  That may sound like a lot, but many recipes push the fat content up over 30 percent, so relatively speaking, it's still pretty lean.  I purchased a quarter of a pork belly from a vendor at the farmers market to provide the fat for this round of sausage making, but in the past I have just used pork fat, which you can buy at markets such as Fiesta.  I cut that into strips as well.  I had a nice chunk left over which I roasted up for dinner but that's another story.

After boning out the leg, I ended up with nine pounds of venison.   Since pork belly is not pure fat, I used three pounds of pork belly to get me into the ball park of the 20 percent fat content I was shooting for.  The venison and belly then went through my grinder.  For this round of sausage making I was planning on making three types, chorizo, a riff on merguez, and an Italian sausage.  For the Italian sausage, I would need some pancetta, so I ground up a pound of that as well.

Once I had my three piles of ground meat portioned out, I seasoned them up.  Chorizo sausage is seasoned with a lot of ancho chile powder, some spices, and good amount of cider vinegar.  It needs three to five days of curing to develop the proper flavor, so after seasoning it, I covered it up and put it in the fridge.

The merguez and Italian sausage were both going to be stuffed into sausage casings, but they could also benefit from some curing time, so I also stashed them in my fridge over night to allow the flavor to develop before stuffing.  The next day, I attached the sausage stuffing attachment on my stand mixer and went to work.  (possibly NSFW photos below)

Typically, I place six or seven link portions in vacuum bags and freeze it.  With 12 pounds of sausage, what else are you going to do?  I have a Foodsaver vacuum sealing machine and it works very well.  You can store it in regular zip top freezer bags, but after a few months, it will start to get freezer burn.  Vacuumed, it will keep it for over six months with no problems.

A few days later, after it had cured sufficiently, I dealt with the chorizo.  Although one could stuff chorizo into casings, you always remove them before cooking it, so there isn't much of a point.  Instead, I wrap five to six ounce portions of the stuff in  plastic wrap, then store those in a large zip top bag in the freezer.  Packaged this way, it's very easy to pull out and thaw just enough for breakfast.  The plastic wrap also does an excellent job of keeping freezer burn at bay, so vacuum sealing is not necessary.

In terms of recipes, I found the merguez recipe on-line.  The Italian sausage was based on a recipe from a Mario Batali book, and the chorizo was from Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico.  In each case, I just replaced the pork and pork fat or in the case of the merguez, lamb and lamb fat, called for with an equal amount by weight of my 80/20 ground venison mix.  If there is interest, I will type up the recipes.

Ceviche

Ah, spring.  It's getting to be that time of year when I get to spend more time outdoors enjoying life, and less time cooped up inside.  It's also a time when I am less interested in messing up the kitchen cooking something elaborate.  In the spring and summer I am all about things that are tasty, but require a minimum amount of time over a hot stove.  Nothing fits the bill better than ceviche. 


If you are not familiar with it, ceviche is a sort of Latin American fish salad made from raw fish, that is "cooked" in lime juice.  A long soak in citric acid turns the fish opaque and gives it a cooked texture.  It is pretty common here now, thanks largely to the sushi craze that got Americans over their queasiness about eating raw fish.  15 years ago, you had to be at a Mexican restaurant in the barrio to find it.  Today, they probably serve it at your friendly neighborhood TJ McFunsters.

Here is my ceviche recipe in 3 easy steps.


Step 1, catch a fish.


Now this is not absolutely necessary.  If you live in a major city and have a reliable fish merchant in your town, you can probably get sushi grade fish, which would be what you want for this.  However, nothing beats the fresh clean taste of ceviche made from a fish that was swimming in the sea less than 24 hours earlier.  I've made ceviche from dodgy fish before, and believe me, it's not worth the effort.  For 2 - 3 people, you'll need about a half pound of fish.  


I was on Tiki Island, just west of Galveston visiting my sister over the weekend and my brother-in-law put us on some fish right under the causeway.  Which made my first batch of ceviche for 2010 possible.  I caught the chunky sheepshead on the far left in the photo below.

Step 2, marinate.


Cut the fish into a small dice, about 1/2" max. You'll need a good sharp knife for that. Then put the fish in a glass or ceramic bowl, and add enough fresh lime juice to cover the fish. For that amount of fish, it will probably take at least 8 good sized limes, perhaps a few more. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or foil, and park it in the fridge for 4-6 hours or over night.

Step 3, dress it up.


Drain the lime juice from the fish. Add 1/4 cup of finely diced onion (or shallot, or scallion), a handful of sliced green olives, 1 minced clove of garlic, 1 finely diced serrano or jalapeno chile, and a handful of chopped cilantro. Pour in about 2 or 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Toss the ingredients and give it a taste. If it's a little flat add the juice of 1 lime and/or a bit more salt. 

I almost always serve my ceviche with chunky guacamole on the side, and corn chips or saltines.

In terms of the fish to use, I prefer a mild white fleshed fish. Grouper, trout, redfish, and flounder all work well. For this batch I used what the bay provided, a combination of sheepshead, speckled trout, and black drum.  Use whatever looks freshest. I've also used mahi mahi and amberjack, but those larger ocean fish give you a slightly different texture. It ends up more chunky, but still very good. I've never tried using salmon of fresh tuna, but wouldn't necessarily rule it out. Scallops and shrimp are also fair game, but those should probably be lightly poached first.

Some variations. If you don't have serrano or jalapeno, any chile will do even habaneros. It depends on your tolerance for heat. It's best to add a little to start then taste, and add more to get it to the heat level you want. To give it an asian spin, skip the olives and serrano and add some sirracha sauce and about a tablespoon of minced fresh ginger root. I'd probably also use a more neutral oil such as peanut or grape seed in place of the olive oil.   For more of a Polynesian flair skip the olives, and use pineapple and ginger.  Really, it's all about the technique.  Once you have the marinated fish, you can go any number of directions with it.  Enjoy.