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.

Chicken Cobbler?

I was trying to figure out what to do for dinner tonight. Scrounging around in the fridge, I found a half of a store bought roasted chicken. I was kind of in the mood for compfort food, so I thought I'd throw together a pot pie. I've made chicken pot pie a number of times, and I usually make a sage biscuit crust, but I was trying to throw something together relatively quickly, so I decided to make drop biscuits in a food processer to speed things along. In the end what I wound up with was not quite chicken and dumplings, and not quite a pot pie. I dubbed it chicken cobbler, and it it turned out quite good.

Chicken Cobbler

Chicken Stew Base

1/2 Roasted Chicken

2 tbsp olive oil

8 oz sliced crimini or white button mushrooms

2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup finely diced shallot or 1/2 cup finely diced onion

1/2 cup finely diced celery

3 cloves minced garlic

2 tbsp flour

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup milk (I use 2% fat)

1 tsp herbs de Provence, or whatever herbs you like.  Fresh thyme or fresh parsley are nice.

8oz frozen peas

1/4 tsp tabasco sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Remove the chicken from the bones, and shred or chop into bite size pieces.  Heat the olive oil in a 12 inch skillet over medium high heat.  Add the mushrooms and cook tossing occasionally until the mushrooms are well browned.  Remove the mushrooms from the skillet and set aside.  Return the pan to the stove, turn the heat down to medium, and add the butter.  Once the butter is melted, add the shallots or onion, celery, and garlic.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the veggies are translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add the flour and cook about 1 minute stirring constantly.  Add the broth and milk, and stir until the mixture is smooth and begins to thicken, about 3 minutes.  Add the herbs, chicken, reserved mushrooms, peas, and tabasco sauce.  Taste for seasoning.  Add salt and pepper as needed.  Turn heat to low, and let the mixture simmer while you work on the biscuit topping.

Drop Biscuit Topping

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp sugar

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup buttermilk

Combine all the dry ingredients in the work bowl of a food processor.  Give the mixture about 5 one second pulses to combine.  Add the vegetable shortening, and combine using about 10 - 15 one second pulses or until the mixture resembles course corn meal.  Add the butter milk and pulse about 10 times until well combined.  The mixture will be relatively wet.  Using a soup spoon spoonfuls of the dough over the top of the chicken stew base.  The dough balls should be about the size of ping pong balls.  

Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the biscuit topping is golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Cool for about 5 minutes before serving.  Serves 4, or 2 to 3 really hungry people.

Setagaya Boro-Ichi

I am in Tokyo this week on business, and had a weekend to do some exploring.  I saw that a sort of street fair was going on, so I decided to check it out. 

I started my day with a quick bite at a bakery in Shinjuku station.  They didn't have any English on the signs next to the choices, so I grabbed a pig in a blanket, one of my usual favorites, and something that looked like a sweet pastry.

The sausage thingy was damn tasty.  The crust is green from just a bit of seaweed that was in the dough.  Then I took a big old bite of my pastry.  To my great disappointment, it wasn't sweet.  The filling was mashed potato which had been covered with a sauce that although it looked fruity, was actually made from fish roe.  Not what I had in mind.  Off to the festival.

The Setagaya Boro-Ichi has apparently been going on for 430 years. Basically it's like a giant flea market, with over 700 vendors, which goes on for blocks on end. You can find all manner of things there, stylish handbags, plants, antiques, kimonos, erotic posters, tools, you name it. 

I quickly realized I should have skipped breakfast. The festival was a street food dreamland.  One the first items I had was a sausage on a stick, a common sight at Japanese festivals.

Two other street food classics you see all over Japan are Okonomiyaki, a sort of pancake with a variety of savory ingredients, and yaki soba, a stir fried noodle dish.  I wasn't in the mood for either of these, but they did look good.

Many sections of the festival were so crowded with people, that you literally could not stop to look at things.  The massive throng just pushed you along.  It was a little unsettling at times and definitely not for anyone who is claustrophobic or has issues with personal space.  I saw a number of people giving their kids piggy back rides because they would be quite easy to lose otherwise.

A bit further down the market the crowd cleared up, and I found a vendor making yakatori from beef.  The aroma drew me in, and it's hard to go wrong with grilled meat.  These ones were quite tasty.

I saw several vendors grilling mochi over charcoal.  If you've never had it, mochi is a cake made by pounding sticky rice into a smooth dough.  It is served as a sweet, stuffed with sweet bean paste, but it is also often used in savory applications.  When grilled, the mochi gets a toasty flavor sort of reminiscent of plain popped corn.  The texture is what usually turns off westerners.  It's very sticky and elastic.  I was really turned off the first time I tried it, but over the years it has really grown on me.

As I was wrapping up my trip to the festival, I came across a vendor selling imagawayaki, a filled cake made from a pancake like batter, and filled with sweet fillings.  They are served nice an warm, perfect for a cold winter day.  I wasn't sure what the filling was on these, but I grabbed one anyway.  Turns out the filling was a creamy custard which tasted of maple. 

Warm imagawayaki in hand, I made my way back to the train station for the trip back to my hotel.  Below you'll see a few more images from the festival.  Please enjoy.

Smoking inside the house.

My wife came through, and gave me one of the few items on my x-mas list, a stove top smoker.  I've toyed with the idea of getting one of these things ever since I saw Jeff Blank use one to smoke a few quail during a cooking demonstration at the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival about 10 years ago.  I have a gas grill, a charcoal grill, and one of those electric kettle style smokers already, so I kept putting the purchase off.  Now that I have one, I suspect it's going to become one of the most used pieces of equipment I have.

If you've never seen one before, a stove top smoker is basically a roasting pan with a tray, a rack, and a slide on lid.  To use it, you simply put about a tablespoon of wood shavings, sawdust really, in the bottom of the pan, place the tray and rack directly on top of that, add the food to be smoked, slide on the lid, and place it on a burner set to medium.  After about five minutes the chips will be smoking away, but as long as the lid is firmly in place, the kitchen remains pretty much smoke free.

The main reason I wanted one of these things is for smoking seafood.  This always seemed like more trouble than it was worth in my regular smoker, which requires a least a little advanced planning, and is a bit of a mess to clean up.  It's fine if you're going to smoke a brisket or a couple of chickens, but for a fillet of salmon that requires just 20 minutes of cooking time, the hour or more of setup and cleanup were a real non-starter.

For my first attempt with the new toy, I picked up a fillet of wild salmon, and a rainbow trout.  I brined them both for about an hour, then seasoned them with pepper, an smoked them using alder wood shavings for 25 minutes.  We ate the salmon for dinner, and stashed the trout in the fridge for a later use.  The salmon was tasty, with a nice mild smoke flavor.  The next day I made salad with the chilled trout, arugula, and a goat cheese vinaigrette dressing.  The trout was amazing.  Because it was thinner, it took the smoke much more than the salmon had, yet it hadn't dried out at all.  Beautiful.

For the second go, I bought some large shrimp, and more trout.  I gave them the same brining treatment as before, but this time, I used a mix of alder and cherry wood.  The cherry produces a stronger smokey flavor.  We haven't had the trout yet, but the shrimp went into a smoked shrimp cocktail I made for a party last night.  They were a big hit and disappeared in about 10 minutes.  I think quail are next on my list.

Stovetop Smoked Shrimp Cocktail


1 lb 20-25 count shrimp
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
ground black pepper to taste


1 cup ketchup
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp fresh grated horseradish
juice of one lemon
salt to taste


Peel and devein the shrimp, leaving the last segment of shell and tail intact.  
Make a brine by whisking the kosher salt and sugar in 1 quart of water until completely dissolved.  
Add the shrimp to the brine, and refrigerate for one hour.  
Remove the shrimp from the brine, and rinse briefly under cool tap water to remove the excess brine.  Pat the shrimp dry with paper towels.  Season with black pepper.
Set up the stovetop smoker using 1 1/2 tbsps of wood shavings.  Line the tray the rack sits in with aluminum foil for easy clean up.  Smoke the shrimp for 20 - 25 minutes until just cooked through.  Remove the shrimp from the smoker, but reserve any juices that have collected in the smoking tray.  These are salty smokey goodness that can be used to season the cocktail sauce.


While the shrimp are cooling, prepare the cocktail sauce.  Combine the ketchup worcestershire sauce, horseradish, and lemon juice in a small bowl.  Taste.  If it needs salt, add a tablespoon or two of the reserved smoking juices if you have them, otherwise just season with salt.  


Serve the shrimp chilled or at room temperature with the cocktail sauce.

Bunuelo Recipe

As promised, here is the recipe for the bunuelos. 


BTW - I've stopped using the tilde over the N when spelling bunuelos because I think it was causing problems with the way the text was wrapping in the blog.  


Bunuelos

4 cups Sugar
6 tbsp cinnamon

1 Stick of cinnamon
1 tbsp anise seeds (optional)

2 lbs flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs beaten
1/2 c shortening

1-2 Q Peanut or canola oil

Put 2 cups of water in a small sauce pan, add the cinnamon and anise seeds.  Bring to a boil then turn off the head and allow the tea to steep for 20-30 minutes.  Strain into a small bowl or measuring cup.

Sift together flour and baking powder, into a large mixing bowl.  Add the shortening and mix in with your fingers or pastry blender until completely incorporated, and the mixture is the texture of corn meal.
Add eggs and about 1 cup of tea.  Mix adding additional tea until a soft smooth dough is formed.  Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. 

Tear off portions of dough to make ping pong sized balls.
Allow the balls to rest for 1 hour covered with plastic wrap or a damp towel.

Heat 1 Q of oil in a large deep pot to 350 degrees.

Combine the cinnamon and sugar in a large cake pan or roasting pan until completely combined.

Roll the dough into large circles as thin as possible.  Streach the dough by hand until it is paper thin. 


Fry the pastry in the hot oil until pale golden brown and crispy, about 20 seconds per side.  Transfer to a paper lined sheet pan to drain.  


Working with one at a time, transfer the bunuelos to the roasting pan filled with cinnamon sugar, and coat both sides liberally with the sugar.  Gently shake off the excess sugar, and move the finished bunuelo to a box or platter.   


Makes about four or five dozen bunuelos