Thank you, but no Darwin award for me.

This week’s topics include another proud moment for the Wannabe Foodie, how to avoid winning a Darwin award, instructions on safely frying turkeys (i.e., how to embrace your inner hillbilly), and scratch-made pork chile verde from the WF.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree.  Recently, Thing 1 had a birthday.  In my house, I make the birthday dinners.  So, I ask Thing 1 what he wants for his birthday dinner.  “King crab legs.”  Uhh… ok.  I point out that I may not be able to get them this time of the year and inquire if he has a backup choice.  “Lobster.”

Well, now.

Yes, it was an expensive dinner, but I found the king crab claws and legs and cried a small tear of pride and joy at his choices.  Seriously, he’s 12 years old and these are his choices?!  I think I’ll keep him.

Here’s how I prepare crab legs.  I make a roasted garlic butter.  I then cut open the legs and claws with shears and drizzled the butter into them.  I then roast them at high heat in the oven.  Absolutely divine.

My thoughts on crab legs generally – when they’re caught, they’re quickly boiled in salty water.  The legs you get are already cooked.  I’ve never understood the idea of boiling them again.  In my ever so humble opinion, this makes the meat mushy.  My preference is a high and dry heat, such as the oven or the grill.  I’m just sayin’….

Deep fried turkey.  As promised in my last blog, I am writing about frying turkeys.  You know you’re sitting there wanting to poo poo the mere suggestion of frying turkeys.  Only Cajuns and hillbillies do such a thing!  However, we both know that you want to try one yourself. 

First, the back story.  I have cooked turkeys just about every way you can.  Baked, roasted, smoked, and grilled.  I haven’t boiled one, but I can’t imagine that would be good.  Then again, you could deep poach one French-style in a rich stock.  Perhaps with some saffron and garlic…. You know, that’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had.

But I digress.  A number of years ago, I tried my hand at frying a turkey.  Since that time, I’ve probably fried 15-20 turkeys.  I will never prepare one another way, unless I’m forced to. 

I know what you’re thinking.  “WF.  That’s dangerous.  You could burn the house down.  I’ve seen it on the news.”

Yes.  That’s true.  You can start hell’s own fire frying a turkey, if you’re not careful.  Plus, there’s a decent chance that you’ll win the annual Darwin award. 

Some WF keys to safely turkey frying. 

1.  Don’t be a dumbass.

2.  When in doubt, see number 1.

3.  Thaw the bird completely before you fry it.  Think about what happens when you drop water into hot oil.  Now imagine a 20 pound frozen bird.   You don’t want that.

4.  Before you even think about cooking, put the turkey in the pot.  Fill the pot with water until the turkey is just barely covered.  Now take the bird out and measure the level of the water with a ruler or a wooden spoon.  That’s the amount of oil you’ll need when you eventually fry.

5.  Don’t fry the turkey in your garage or on your wooden deck.  Think about oil on fire on a wooden deck or slowly spreading across your garage floor.  In reality, this is probably covered by # 1.  I fry mine in my driveway or, ideally, in the middle of my back yard where only the grass will burn if something goes wrong. 

6.  Slowly lower the bird into the hot oil. Don’t drop it in.

7.  As an added precaution, I turn the flame off while the bird goes in.  Once the bird is safely in the oil, I relight the flame.

8.  Keep a fire extinguisher next to your chair while frying.  I’ve never had to use it, but I’ve always had one.

9.  Monitor the temperature of the oil.  I usually drop the bird when it’s about 350 and it immediately drops to close to 300.  It will slowly take time to get back to 325-350.  You don’t want to go much over 375.  You certainly don’t want to let it get close to 400.  It could burn the bird and cause a fire hazard. 

10.  This may be the most important one.  Make sure you have enough beer in a cooler next to you to last the hour or so it takes to cook the bird.  Do NOT leave the cauldron of oil over an open flame unattended so you can go get another beer. 

Enough with the lecture.  Suffice it to say that frying a turkey is safe if you’re careful.

So how is fried turkey?  It’s nothing short of the best turkey you’ve ever had.  Juicy, flavorful, and delicious.  Check out the photos.  It tastes as good as it looks.

I often brine my turkeys overnight.  Before frying, I inject them with a mixture of butter, beer, and Cajun spices.  I also rub the bird with Cajun spices and salt, which creates this crisp, salty skin that can best be described as turkey candy. 

If you’re going to try your hand at this, feel free to drop me a line or post a comment.  I’ll send some other hints for making a tasty bird.  I don’t to give all of my secrets to everybody!

What Else Am I Working On?  Pork chile verde.  Here’s the basic ‘recipe’. 

I make a sauce of roasted tomatillos, pablano peppers, garlic, white onions, Mexican oregano, and thyme.  It takes some time to make your own sauce, but it’s worth it. 

I cut up some boneless pork shoulder, season it with a little salt and pepper, and sear the cubes in my French oven.  I cover the pork with the yummy sauce and let it simmer for about 3 hours or until the pork is tender.  As everything is coming together, I slowly season it to taste.  Remember my rant about salt?  This dish is scratch-made, so there’s no salt unless I put it in and it needs some salt and pepper.

I served mine with a sort of Mexican rice pilaf I made up, some black beans, a fresh salad, and … wait for it… homemade corn tortillas.  Yes, homemade tortillas.  It’s embarrassing how easy they are to make!

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures, which is not like me.  I will do so the next time I make the dish.

Happy cooking and happy holidays.

WF

P.S.  I’m cooking a standing rib roast for Christmas dinner.  I may have to take some photos and share!

Holy Mole!

This week’s topics include WF’s continued transformation into a Mexican woman, holy mole, a diatribe on salt, another diatribe on salt, a note about salt’s sassy brother from another mother, and a mini review of Ad Hoc in Yountville. 

What Am I Working On?  As you can imagine, I have cooked a lot since I went my little culinary boot camp.  A lot.  I’ve been recreating some of the dishes we prepared and creating some of my own. 

One of my favorite recent dishes is chicken with smoky peanut mole.  Mole is a commitment to make.  Lots of ingredients and you have to baby the sauce along.  You simply can’t rush it.  You have to ‘fry’ the paste until you start to smell a rich nuttiness and the paste has a rich, deep color.  If you get it right, it’s magical and worth all of the work.  Rich, deep, and complex flavors that permeate whatever you cook in the sauce.  If you get it wrong, it’s still decent.    

Here’s the photo of the mole I made at culinary school.  This one was with quail rather than chicken.  Note the deep and rich color.  Oh baby.  

By the way, have you ever partially boned a quail?  I now have. Those little bastards are tiny and very difficult to carve up well.  Frankly, I’m underwhelmed by quail generally.  A lot of work for very little meat.  Quail is the poultry version of artichokes.  Give me a good chicken and you can keep the fancy quail.

Salt.  It’s What’s for Dinner.  Most of us are scared to use salt in our cooking.  For years, we’ve heard “Salt’s bad for you.  It causes hypertension and other nasty things.”  While this is accurate, I think it only tells part of the story.  This fear is also the cause of a lot of bad cooking.

Here’s my theory.  Most of us eat prepared food or heat up processed food and call it cooking.  Inevitably these foods contain copious amounts of salt.  Why, you ask?  Because it preserves food forever so it can sit on a grocery shelf. 

Which means that most of us eat a lot of salt without even knowing it.  No need to add salt.  It’s already salty as hell.

As a result, if we actually cook from scratch, we have no concept that food actually needs some salt to taste good.  If you start with fabulous fresh ingredients and don’t add any salt, your dish will taste like crap.  Every single time.

At the store at the Culinary Institute of America, there is a t-shirt which simply says “Needs more salt.”  During culinary boot camp, our chef instructor repeated the phrase often.  Preach it, sister.

Don’t be afraid to use some salt in your dishes if you’re making stuff from scratch.  If you don’t, you’ll be disappointed.

Salt, Part Deux.  Most of us use normal table salt for everything.  Do you and your family a favor and throw it away.  It tastes like crap.  If you truly need a source of iodine, find a different source.  A need for iodine can’t justify using crap salt.

Try this.  Buy some good sea salt or simply a box of kosher salt.  Try a little of each.  Then try your table salt.  The flavors from the sea and kosher salts are much more complex.  I think you’ll find that the table salt tastes horrible by comparison.  I personally think it has a bitterness that’s simply unpleasant. 

Salt’s Sassy Brother From Another Mother – Pepper.  Fresh cracked black pepper is crucial to good cooking.  Pre-ground pepper is no substitute.  Don’t believe me?  Try the following. 

Pour some of your pre-ground pepper into a bowl.  Grind some peppercorns into another bowl.  Look at them.  The fresh ground will have a lot of black colors and some gray.  The pre-ground stuff will be gray with a little black.

Now smell them.  The fresh stuff has aromas of berries and, well, pepper.  The old stuff has a faint aroma of something, and sometimes it’s not good.

You tell me which one you think would taste better in your food.

Mini Review – Ad Hoc.  When the Red and I were in the Napa valley, we ate at two Thomas Keller restaurants.  I fawned over Bouchon in a prior blog.  Man that was a great steak!

A couple nights later, we had dinner with some new-found friends at Ad Hoc, which is right down the street from Bouchon.  All the food is served family style and the menu is basically set.  You eat what they’re serving that day.  Very cool concept. 

The review of Ad Hoc in one word?  Underwhelming.  The ingredients were fabulous, but the food was just ok and the vegetables were overcooked!  

At a Thomas Keller restaurant they served overcooked veggies!

I know what you’re thinking.  “WF – you had too much wine or you’re just stupid.”  While one or both of those may be true, those veggies were overcooked.  Here’s what I mean.  The main dish came with a medley of roasted vegetables, including baby potatoes.  Do you know how you can tell if potatoes are overcooked?  They’re dry and crumby and taste like dirt.  That’s how these potatoes tasted. 

I can get overcooked potatoes and veggies at Chili’s!

However there was one bright spot.  One of their daily specials was rabbit confit.  “Sir – would you like to try the rabbit confit?”  The answer is yes.  Every single time. 

This rabbit was very good.  Rich flavor and fall off the bone tender.  One odd thing is that they called it rabbit confit.  How can that be true?  Confit means to cook something in its own fat (as opposed to another critter’s fat) and this was not.  Perhaps confit just sounds better than “cooked in duck fat.” 

In short, I was not impressed by Ad Hoc.  I’m not saying I wouldn’t go back, but I wouldn’t run back there.  

Next week.  Deep fried turkey, with step by step photos!

Happy cooking. 

WF.     

Hola. Como Estas?

The week’s topics include the joy of the Hispanic market, a run-in with wannabe hippies, the WF is simply not right in the head, more lessons from culinary school, and a fancy but easy chicken recipe, just for you.

The Joy That is the Hispanic Market.  Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time at one of my local Hispanic markets.  For some non-Latinos, the Hispanic market can be intimidating.  It’s hectic, it’s got a number of products you can’t identify, and the meat counter has far more critter parts than you’re used to seeing at your local market. 

Intimidating?  Hell no.  It’s a blast!  Put your issues (and possible prejudices) aside and wade into the glory that is the Hispanic market.

Why?  Simply put, it’s loaded with fresh vegetables that are often cheaper and better than you find elsewhere.  I believe that’s true because of the clientele they cater to.  Most Hispanic food is made with lots and lots of fresh produce.  Peppers, chiles, root veggies, fruits, etc.  Plus, they have lots of stuff I love which I simply can’t find at other markets, such as any fresh or dried chiles I may desire.  Habaneros, Serranos, Jalapenos,  Anchos, Guajilllos, and loads and loads of them. 

The prices?  Let’s use tomatillos as an example.  My ‘normal’ market had about 20 on display and they are 2 for $1 or so.  At the Hispanic market, there are hundreds and they are something like 2 lbs for $1 or! 

Limes?  They’re ridiculously expensive, right?  Not here.  I think I bought about 10 for $2 or so. 

Lately, Thing 1 and I have been making weekly pilgrimages to the Hispanic market, where we spend an hour or so loading up for the week.  Imagine me and my red-headed Thing 1 picking through mountains of produce surrounded by middle-aged Hispanic women, all speaking rapid-fire Spanish.

Are we uncomfortable?  Not one single bit.  Thing 1’s clearly being raised right!

There’s another upside to the Hispanic market.  You can buy those brightly colored Mexican sodas.  I personally think the lime flavored one is crack in a bottle.

Whole Foods.  I often go from the Hispanic market to Whole Foods.  Talk about 2 different worlds.  My diesel F-250 fits right in at the Hispanic market.  At Whole Foods, it’s severely outnumbered by the Priuses.  By the way, what is the plural of Prius? 

In any event, I get some odd enjoyment out of parking my diesel truck in the Whole Foods lot.  Clearly I’m not right in the head.

I love wandering through Whole Foods.  The store is a veritable cornucopia of wonderful sights and aromas.  The bread shop, the meat counter, the cheese counter, the hot food buffet, and the beautiful produce.

There are some things I prefer to buy at Whole Foods, such as fresh whole chickens, awesome pork, and special occasion steaks.  Some of it’s expensive, but in my experience the quality of the product justifies the cost, particularly for special occasions.

However, not everything there is expensive.  Wander through the bulk section some time.  You can find high quality spices, grain, rice, etc., at a great price. 

What’s annoying about Whole Foods?  The holier than thou wannabe hippies that look down at you for using produce bags or, god forbid, not bringing your own bags.  The horror!  Let’s be clear, I’m not putting my produce in a cart that 90 people used that day before I did and I’m sure as hell not putting it on the nasty conveyor belt at the checkout.  Perhaps you should worry more about shaving your armpits than my shopping habits.   

More Lessons from Culinary School.  Until you cook with great product, you can’t appreciate what you’re missing.  As you can imagine, the CIA has fabulous product in its kitchen.  Great produce, all the fresh herbs you could ever want, fresh bay leaves, and any spice you need.  Man I miss that kitchen!  (insert your favorite day dreaming music here.  I for one am going with 38 Special and Back Where You Belong). 

One example of great product was the chickens we cooked with.  When I pulled one out, my first thought was that this is most definitely not a Costco chicken.  Absolutely beautiful organic chicken from Santa Rosa, and it tasted awesome.  Even the texture was different and more, well, textured. 

So I decided that I will no longer use crappy chickens if I’m making a dish where the chicken is the star.  I may still smoke with the cheap chickens, but that’s all.  Plus, they’re not that much more money.  A cheap whole chicken may cost $4-$7.  The same sized organic chicken might cost $8-10.  I can afford to spend an extra $3 or so on a really good chicken once in a while.

What Am I Working On?  Another dish from culinary school, and I’ll even share the recipe.  It’s called 40 Clove Chicken.  Try this at home and I promise you that your family will love it.  It’s VERY easy.  Here’s how it looks when it’s done:  

Here’s what you need:

A 3-4 lb. chicken cut into eight pieces.  Yes, you should start with a whole chicken if you can. 

1-2 cups of flour

1 bottle of dry white wine.

40 cloves of garlic, unpeeled.  Don’t worry.  Yes, it’s a lot of garlic, but it’s fine.  Trust me.

2-3 sprigs each of Thyme and Rosemary

Kosher Salt

Pepper

Canola oil.

Marinate the chicken in the wine for 1-2 hours.  Take the chicken out and save the wine marinade.  Salt and pepper the chicken and dredge it in flour. 

Brown the chicken on all sides in a large sautoir or French or Dutch oven.  I prefer the latter.  Take the chicken out and sauté the garlic until it’s nicely browned.

Put the chicken back in pot on top of the garlic and pour the reserved marinate into the pot.  Place the thyme and rosemary springs on top.  Cover the pot and put it in a 325 degree oven with the lid on.  Cook for about 30-40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.

Remove the chicken from the pot and reduce the sauce on stove.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Don’t forget to season!  Ladle the sauce over the chicken and serve with some fresh sprigs of thyme and rosemary.

That it’s.  As easy as falling off a log and truly a great dish.  Let me know if you try it.

You Know It’s Thanksgiving Time Because….  The WF is frying a turkey.  More on that in future blogs.

Happy cooking.

WF

Look at all the pretty photos.....

This week’s topics include another lesson from culinary school, you too can break down a whole chicken, a review of the original Thomas Keller Bouchon, and the best steak I have ever had.

Another Lesson From Culinary School.  Buy whole chickens and cut them up at home.  Why, you ask?  Many reasons, my friend.

First, whole chickens taste better because all of the pieces are together until such time as you cut them up.  When you buy chicken pieces, you don’t know when the chicken was carved up.  It could have been weeks ago and the pieces were frozen for shipping.  Plus, the meat doesn’t have time to dry out or otherwise get funky.

Second, it’s fun to carve up a chicken.  If you’re not a vegetarian, you love to cook, and you won’t carve a chicken, I ask you if you actually love to cook.   You have a stronger connection to your dishes when you get your hands messy and do all of the work.  Plus, you learn more about the food you're preparing.  

Third, you can impress your friends with your mad butchery skills.  Not everyone can or will carve up a whole chicken.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, you get chicken carcasses for stock, and nothing beats homemade stock.  I freeze them until I have 4 or 5 and then I make gallons of stock. 

Try whole birds.  You can find videos online to help you carve up the bird.  If you email me, I’ll send you step by step photos.  I'd post them, but not everyone wants to see that. 

Restaurant Review – Bouchon in Yountville, CA.  While I was at my culinary school boot camp, the Red and I had dinner at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, which is built and designed like a small French eatery.  The colors are bright, yet elegant, and the tables are very close together.  Like so close you have to pull the table out so the person on the far side can slide in. 

The proximity of the tables encourages you to strike up a conversation with the tables next to you, or at least it encouraged me to do so.  In no less than two minutes, the table next to us is offering me a sample of their fries fried in duck fat and drizzled with truffle oil.  The Red was either impressed or appalled at this.  Whatever.  Why did they sit so close to me if they didn’t want to be talked to?! 

Did I mention fries fried in duck fat and drizzled with truffle oil?  They were good.  Like I needed a moment of silence good.

Another note about Bouchon.  There are no salt or peppers shakers on the tables.  Apparently, they’re confident in the way they season their food.

Anyway, back to the story.  We order ridiculously priced French wine.  Truly a fabulous wine.  It needed some time open up, but when it did it was wonderful.  A somewhat big wine, yet no single flavor was predominant.  Quintessential French wine. 

I ordered the Steak Au Poivre (medium rare, naturally) with French potatoes and spinach. The Red ordered the Beef Bourguignon.   Check out the photos. 

The beef was Niman Ranch American Wagyu and my steak was the eye of the ribeye.  They cooked it in a sous vide machine to the desired temperature and then finished it on high heat to give it a nice crust.  At the table, they ladled the au poivre sauce onto the steak. The waiter gave me some of the sauce and then tried to walk away with the rest.  No, son.  Don’t you walk away with that!  Pour it all on.

Side note – au poivre sauce is a pepper cream sauce, with a little brandy or cognac in it.  You make it in the same pan that you sear the steaks in.  You like steak sauce?  This is steak sauce on crack.

The Review?  Absolutely fabulous.  I have never had a steak with the same buttery texture.  It literally melted in your mouth, and the au poivre sauce was just as good.  Creamy, peppery, and rich.  I simply can’t describe how good this steak was.  I will forever compare all other steaks to this steak. 

The Red’s Beef Bourguignon was also very good, but I was too infatuated with my own meal to pay too much attention to hers.

I don’t mind spending real money on a meal.  How often do I get to sit across from my lovely bride and enjoy a grown up meal with a great bottle of wine?  However, if I’m going to spend real money, I expect the meal to knock my socks off. 

Bouchon definitely did not disappoint.  

 

Another Food Mecca.  On our way to dinner at Bouchon, we stopped by the French Laundry.  I just wanted to see the place. 

For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the French Laundry is generally regarded as one of the best restaurants (if the not the best) in the country.  It’s also this tiny little converted house in a sleepy little town.  Check out the picture.  Note the shadow of the dork taking the photo. 

If someone didn’t tell you what this place was, you’d probably drive right by it.

They claim that one of the reasons for their success is their gardens.   You’d think these mystical gardens would be shrouded in mystery and closely guarded, right?  Wrong.

They’re right across the street and absolutely unguarded.  Anyone could saunter through the gardens whenever they see fit.  Apparently, people rarely cause problems in the gardens. 

For me, these gardens were very zen-like.  Beautiful and peaceful.  Check out the photos.     I actually had no interest in wandering through them, even though they were wide open.  I just wanted to see them.  Odd.

Happy cooking.

WF.

A Culinary Mecca

This week’s topics include a description of my first day of culinary school boot camp, a rare moment where the WF felt awkward, a culinary Mecca, I cry (though just a little), some gospel according to a chef instructor, and the perfect hardboiled egg. 

Off to Culinary School….  As I noted in my last blog, they let me into an actual culinary school.  No, I didn’t quit my job and pursue cooking for a living.  I simply dabbled in culinary school through the Culinary Institute of America’s boot camp program.

And, yes, I brought my own knives.  Just to keep it real, I brought them in a camo bag.  Who’s ghetto now?!

So, I show up to the school at 6:30 a.m. on Monday.  I check in and I’m given a bag full of stuff, including 2 chef’s coats and 2 chef’s pants.  You’ve seen these pants.  They’re the ubiquitous black and white pants that nearly all kitchen staff wear. 

I change into my outfit and feel like an impostor.  Who am I to wear the outfit of a chef?  I am a wannabe foodie, not a chef! 

I ignore this rare moment of introspective awkwardness and proceed to class at 7:00, where we are told that we are students of the school, and we will wear the uniform of a student and chef including the pants, jacket, neckerchief, and toque (the tall funny looking hat that chefs where).  We represent the school, so we will dress appropriately.

Yes ma’am, or perhaps more importantly, yes Chef!

We take a tour of this wonderful old building which houses the school.  For those of you who’ve never been there, the CIA’s St. Helena campus is in an old former winery.  Very old.  Frankly, it kind of looks like Hogwarts, for those of you who’ve read the Harry Potter books.  Truly the kind of old building that you desperately want to explore unsupervised.

Back to the  class.  The first 2 hours was essentially a verbal course on cooking generally and the topics for the day, which were dry heat cooking methods.  By the way, frying is a dry heat method.  Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

We then proceeded to the teaching kitchen, which is absolutely enormous.  Imagine a room which is  15,000 square feet of all cooking, all the time.   Check it out. These pictures really do not do justice to the size of this room. 

There are monster tables running lengthwise  down the middle and cooking stations on each side.  Probably 20-30 cooking stations on each side.  The back 1/3 was the baking section, where the pastry chefs are trained.  That section smells like heaven at all times throughout the day and also contains cooking stations, though modified for baking.

Yes, I heard angels singing when I first walked in.  I felt like I had reached the culinary Mecca.  I cried a little, but it was a manly cry.  Don’t judge.    

After some demos by Chef, we were broken into teams, shown our stations,  given a general description of where things were (very general), and let loose to cook under a deadline.  Very overwhelming.  It took me 10 minutes to find my first ingredient, annatto seeds.  For those of you at home, that’s a spice and it starts with “A.”  You wouldn’t think that would be that hard to find.  I start to feel like I’m on a cooking show. 

Day 1 dishes:  a) Grilled chicken with adobo de achiote  marinade; b) smoked corn and chile salsa; c) red quinoa pilaf with roasted peppers; d) mamba (peanut sauce), and e) grilled seasonal vegetables.

Ok.  Easy enough, right?  Well, yes, but now imagine cooking in a chaotic room full of 75+ other people all cooking at the same time.  Now imagine slicing and dicing while people are moving around you, and reaching underneath you for the cooking instruments which are stored in your station.

No matter where you are in this monster kitchen, you’re in the way. 

I felt like I was on a TV show.  I’m sure the viewers at home would have laughed a bit.  In any event, we got everything done and felt pretty good about our efforts.

The Review?  Adequate.  The freshly ground spices in the achiote rub were fabulous.  You can’t appreciate the burst of flavor and smell you get from freshly ground spices until you grind them yourself.  Truly a game changer.

I made the quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) pilaf.  I have never made a pilaf before and I’ve never worked with quinoa, so this was a new experience.  I loved the earthy, rich flavor of the red quinoa and can’t wait to use it again.  It’s supposed to be one of those near perfect foods.  A grain with lots of protein.

And, yes, my quinoa was under seasoned and slightly under cooked.   Apparently, quinoa takes a fair amount more time and liquid than rice in order to fully cook.  Now I know.

The first day was a blur of activity, sights, and smells.  I loved it and couldn’t wait to come back the next day, which will wait until another blog.

Great quote from culinary school and soon to be Gospel of the WF.  The instructor chef is discussing the positives and negatives of grilling on gas vs. charcoal.  And I quote:  “Gas is quick and convenient.  Charcoal is yummy.”  Preach it, sister. 

Easy way to prepare the perfect hardboiled egg, according to the CIA.  Put the egg (s) in a pot and fill the pot with water so that the egg (s) are about an inch under the water.  Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute.  Turn off the heat and let the egg (s) sit in the water for 10 minutes.  Perfect hardboiled egg, every time. 

Happy cooking.

WF

I do like veggies, Sam I Am!

This week’s topics include a discussion of my childhood issues with veggies, a fabulous way to make broccoli (the WF and broccoli?!), a good day for the WF and Thing 1, a blast from my childhood (hint – the General Lee), and the WF is getting schooled!

The Wannabe Foodie and Veggies.  So, I admit that I’m not the biggest veggie eater.  I eat enough to have a diversified diet and I’m always trying to eat more.  However, I never think “Wow.  I’d love a plate of veggies.” 

I think that the core of my issues with veggies comes from spending a fair amount of my childhood in Mississippi.  I don’t know what it is with traditional Southern cooks and veggies.  They seem to think that only way to cook veggies is to cook them into mushy oblivion.  Most veggies taste horrible when they’re overcooked.   Example – lightly sautéed green beans are crisp and taste sweet.  Overcooked green beans have a nausea-inducing texture and an overpowering bitterness.  

I have many fond memories of Southern cooking.  Fresh veggies are not one of them.

As a young adult, I associated all veggies with the nasty flavors of my childhood.  Going to college in California, I was introduced to vegetables which were only slightly cooked so that there’s still some crunch and which didn’t taste bitter due to overcooking.  As it turns out, I like some of the vegetables that I hated them as a kid.  Shocking.      

I admit that I’m still not the biggest vegetable eater on the planet, but I’m getting better. 

The Best Method to Cook Broccoli.  Ironically, one of the vegetables I really like is broccoli, if it’s cooked well.      

I have cooked broccoli almost every way you can.  Steamed (not my favorite), boiled (nasty), sautéed, grilled, roasted, etc.  The only way I haven’t cooked it is throwing it in the smoker, which perhaps I’ll try soon.

Recently, my friend T suggested I try his favorite method, which is as basic as basic gets and now my favorite way to prepare broccoli.

Toss the florets in olive oil, some kosher salt, and some whole  or ½ cloves of garlic (the more the merrier).  You want big chunks of garlic.  Put it in a baking dish and cover it with aluminum foil.  Bake at about 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Uncover it and cook for another 10 minutes or so, depending upon how well cooked you like your broccoli.  I like mine with a lot of crunch, so I don’t cook it more than 20-25 minutes total.

The garlic permeates the broccoli and the roasting without the aluminum foil puts a little browning on the broccoli.  Absolutely fabulous.  Try it and I promise you won’t be disappointed. 

A Good Day for the WF.  On a recent Sunday, I started cooking at about 11 and stopped about 6:30 or so.  I wasn’t cooking the entire time, but certainly most of it.  And watching football, of course.   That’s a very important part of cooking on a Sunday!

Here’s what I prepared.

A double batch of my barbeque sauce.  Doesn’t sound like much, but my sauce is a pain in the butt to make.  Lots of ingredients and it needs to be cooked.  I always double the batch when I make it and freeze most of it.

2 racks of spare ribs and 2 racks of baby back ribs. 

2 gallons of brine for my smoked chicken. 

I prepped 4 chickens and started brining them.  Saved the nasty bits for the stock I’m going to make with the smoked chicken carcasses.  Made 3 gallons of stock the following day.

A salad with butter lettuce, baby yellow, red, and orange bell peppers, carrots, and some balsamic vinaigrette.

3 heads of roasted garlic with rosemary, which I turned into a spread with olive oil, a little dried rosemary, salt, and pepper.  I put the spread onto some fresh sour dough bread, which I browned under the broiler. 

Corn on the cob tossed in butter, salt, and fresh lime zest. 

Lots of dishes and clean up, but a great day for the WF.  7 hours of cooking and prepping, and a fair amount of it with Thing 1, who’s recently showing a strong interest in cooking.

Not a bad day at all.

   

A Preview of Upcoming Blogs – the WF Gets Schooled.  As some of you may recall, I recently had a big birthday and the Red bought me a 5 day culinary boot camp at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, CA.  5 days of cooking and instruction from 7 a.m. until 2 or so in the afternoon. 

5 days of real cooking school.  Can’t wait.  

I suppose I’ll probably blog about it……..

Random Travel Note. So, the night before my cooking class, I’m at a hotel in St. Helena, CA with the Red.  We’re walking through the parking lot, and I can’t help but notice… the General Lee parked right in front of me! 

The General Lee, as in the car from the Dukes of Hazzard.  Perfect replica of the car.

I started chatting with the guy who owns it and he proceeds to tell me that it is indeed for sale for the right price.  Plus, he’s got a couple more of the same, plus 5 Knight Rider cars, and a Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am.  

How does a man convince his wife that he needs those toys?!  If you know, please let me know.   I’d be happy to just have a Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox.  To have the General Lee parked in the garage, alongside KITT and the Bandit’s Trans Am?  I would walk into my garage and giggle every morning.

I wonder if he has the Delorean from Back to the Future.....?

No.  I didn’t buy the car, though I wanted to.  “Honey – why don’t you go back to room?  I’m just going to chat a while with this nice gentleman….  Of course I wouldn’t buy something like this without discussing it with you!”

Happy cooking.

WF

Why Martha, Please Tell Me About your herbs

This week's topics include my impersonation of Martha Stewart (the horror), why my herbs are better than yours, I rank fresh herbs and their general wussiness, cooking on a slab of rock, and champagne Thursday!   

My recent hiatus.  Yes, I know it's been a couple of weeks since my last post.  It's like my grandma used to say:  "If you can't blog about something good, don't blog at all."  

Ok, it was actually about saying something nice about people and nothing to do with blogging.  Grandma was not, shall we say, a blogger.

Whatever.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Nothing good?   No blog.  

A Martha Stewart moment?  Every spring I grow (or regrow, as the case may be) an herb garden, and each year it gets bigger and has more herbs.  Fortunately, I live in an area where the growing season is fairly intense.  Unfortunately, the growing season is also somewhat quick and when it’s over, it's over.  Like "night, night termite" over.  Winter sets in and that is, as they say, that.

We recently had a cold spell, so I brought the herb garden into the house to protect it and let it live a little longer.  Check it out.  

During the last few years, here’s what I’ve learned about herbs:

Once an herb starts to get big, it needs to be dramatically trimmed down.  I know this makes logical sense to the gardeners who read this.  You have to trim the big pieces so that the sweeter and smaller sprouts have a chance to grow.  If you don’t do this, the plant will get too big and die.  Don’t ask me how I know this. 

Rosemary – looks all butch and tough and you’d think it would survive the winter.  You’d be wrong.  The thing’s got branches as big as small bushes, but it flat out dies if it’s left out during the winter. 

Oregano – it’s got delicate limbs, that are almost like a flower’s stalk.  Frankly, it’s a delicate herb all around.  It doesn’t die during the winter.  It goes dormant.  Go figure.

Basil – an all around wimpy herb.  It’s got limbs and stalks which look almost like a small tree.   However, it shrivels up and dies at the slightest hint of foul weather. 

Sage – the heartiest of the bunch.  Seriously, I cut this thing back significantly 4 or 5 times each season and it grows back like a weedy bush.  At times, it’s two feet across and as healthy as it can be.  It’s the irony of growing stuff.  Sage is the herb I use the least of, yet it grows the most.  It also goes dormant during the winter and comes back with a fury in the spring.

Ok, WF, this is all fine and moderately interesting at best.  So, where’s the Martha Stewart moment?

If growing my own herbs wasn’t enough, I also cut them and dry them for future use.  I get to use my own herbs all year long, even if the fresh herbs have gone dormant.

Drying your own herbs is not difficult at all.  I say that, though I live in a very dry environment, which makes it easier.  I cut the herbs, wash them, and lay them whole onto a cookie sheet lined with paper towels.  Check out the photos.    

I come back a week or two later, strip the leaves off, and store them in a plastic bag or reuse an herb container.

Like I said, a Martha moment.  Then again, I bet my dried herbs are better than yours and I know here mine came from!

Cooking on Salt.  Yes, I said cooking on salt and not with salt.  As some of you may recall, I recently received a slab o’ Himalayan pink salt as a present.  It’s meant to be cooked on, as opposed to being ground up and used as, well, salt. 

The concept is that you put the salt block on a heat source and slowly bring it up to a searing temperature.  I used my cooktop.  Here it is warming up.  Apparently, if you heat the block up too quickly, the block will crack. 

So, I decided to cook king salmon and thin strips of rib eye steak.  I didn’t brine the fish.  I figured the salt block would impart more than enough salt onto the fish.  Here they are cooking. 

The block wasn’t hot enough to brown the meat, though it was hot enough to cook the fish and the meat. 

For the salmon, I prepared a pan sauce with butter, champagne, lemon thyme, garlic, and a little salt.  I let it reduce and drizzled it over the salmon as I served it. 

Why champagne?  It was Thursday night.  Can you think of a better reason to have champagne?

The Review?  A unique way to cook, to say the least.  The salmon was very nice, with just a hint of salt flavor.  The skin on one side blocked some of salt from getting into the fish.  The strips of steak were awesome.  Salty, beefy goodness, though it wasn’t what you think of when you think salty.  Himalayan salt imparts a complex flavor.  Imagine really good sea salt, but much more complex.

All in all, a pretty good start for a new way of cooking.  I can’t wait to try other things, like veggies tossed in olive oil (broccoli, mushrooms, bell peppers, etc.), shrimp, and scallops.  I think a delicate white fish, such as tilapia, would also be great cooked this way. 

Happy cooking.

WF