This little piggy went to the market. This little piggy went on a spit.

This week’s topics include more Gospel According to the WF, crap in the glass means crap in the pan, a review of Barrio Café in Phoenix, a whole pig roast (oh baby), and a veritable cornucopia of porky goodness.

The Gospel According to the WF - Cooking with wine.  So, like yourself, I’ve often heard the pinheads on Food Network tell you not to cook with bad tasting wine.  My typical response is something akin to “Yeah, right.  Like I’m going to use this good Cab to cook with.  You must be high or just stupid!”

I have been horribly wrong on this.  Recently, I was browning sausage for a spaghetti sauce and had the bright idea of deglazing the pan with some red wine.  I reach for some wine in my wine cooler that I’ve absolutely hated since I was persuaded to buy it.  Deglazed the pan with a little of the wine, and the sauce was ok.  Then I added some more to let it simmer down.

And it tasted like crap.  Sweet, like crap red wine.  I poured some of the wine in a glass and it tasted exactly the same! 

Lesson learned and, frankly, it makes sense.  If it tastes like crap in the glass, it will taste like crap in the pan.  If you can’t afford to buy decent wine to cook with, find another liquid to use.

Restaurant Review – the Barrio Café, Phoenix, Arizona.  In a recent trip to Phoenix, my friend R brought me to this restaurant and spoke very highly of it.  Supposed to be southern Mexico flavors.  As we’re driving there, the neighborhood starts sketchy and doesn’t get any better.  This is most definitely in the barrio (aka – the hood).  Being who I am, I’m thinking that this place should have promise. 

So the outside is the barrio, but the inside is nice.  Plus this place has someone who purports to be a chef.  A chef in a Mexican restaurant?  I’m sorry.  I think I misunderstood what you said.  What kind of Mexican restaurant has a ‘chef’?!  Well, they do, and he sure as hell knows what he’s doing.

First, I have to mention the tequila selection.  I’m not the biggest tequila drinker in the world, but I appreciate a monumental collection when I see one.  Check out the wall of tequila.  They had a menu for just the tequilas.  Literally hundreds.  They have some tequilas which cost more than $200 per shot.  I can’t imagine what a $200 per shot tequila would taste like, but ok.

Back to the menu.  R and I order two house margaritas and Queso Fundido for appetizers.  Roasted poblanos, sauteed spinach, mushrooms and melted Oaxacan cheese with queso fresco and chorizo.  Cheesy goodness. 

I ordered the Cochinita Pibil, which is slow roasted pork with anchiote rojo and sour orange.  Imagine really good carnitas (bark and all), with a bit of heat and a subtle yet complex citrus flavor.  Check out the pickled onions on top.  Not your typical “Mexican” dish, but absolutely fabulous and melt in your mouth tender.   It also came with some sort of sweet mashed potato.  It was good, but I was clearly distracted by the succulent pork product surrounding it. 

R ordered the Enchiladas de Mole, with the red mole sauce on the side.  Check ‘em out.  These enchiladas were nicely stuffed with creamy goodness, though the red mole sauce was clearly the star of the show.  It had a nice, earthy flavor without the dark cocoa flavor I normally associate with mole sauces.

All in all, Barrio Café is a fabulous restaurant.  Very, very different than the Mexican food I grew up on and continue to love, such as Los Dos Molinos.  I can’t wait to go back and try more of their food.

A Pig Roast.  So every year, my friend D has a pig roast where he roasts a whole pig on a spit.  When I heard about it, I’m fairly sure that I invited myself, without actually waiting for an invitation. 

Caution – if you’re a vegetarian and/or squeamish, you may want to skip the rest of this week’s blog.

So D ordered a 75 lb pig, with special instructions to butcher it in true Filipino style (leave the tail on, don’t split the rib cage, etc.).  Apparently, Mrs. D, who is Filipino, has very clear ideas on how a pig should be done.  None of her instructions were followed by the butcher, so the annual pig roast got off to a dubious start.

None of this bothered me.  I was just happy there was a whole pig on the menu.

Here’s Porky shortly after going on the spit.  D rubbed the inside with various spices, inserted a bunch of lemon grass into the cavity, and stitched it up around the spit.  He actually drove some lag bolts through the back of the pig to hold it in place during the 8+ hour roast.    

Towards the end, D and others mopped Porky with water and cola to darken up the skin and crisp it up.  Below is a picture of the pig as it’s about to be carved.  Nice, deep color on the skin.

After D carved, I asked if I could carve some.  I just couldn’t help myself.  If there’s a critter around that needs carving, I’m in.  But, momma didn’t raise no fool.  I flipped the pig onto the back and carved out both pieces of belly meat.  For you non-foodies, pork belly is where bacon comes from.  Do you think I’m going to leave those tasty morsels if I’m given the knife?!  Methinks not.

The review?  Pretty awesome.  The pork meat was tender and flavorful, and it’s fun to have the whole pig to choose tasty bits from.  I was partial to the belly, but the whole thing was good.   

There was lot of other really good food, including various Filipino dishes.  But, let’s face it, we were there for the pig.  Did I mention that Thing 2’s nickname is pork chop?  You can guess why.

I can’t wait to cook my own whole pig.

Happy cooking.

WF

You Don't Always Get What You Pay For.

This week’s topics include the WF’s new take on cheeseburgers, another opportunity to blame your upbringing, tailgating food you wish you ate, and more of the Gospel According to the Wannabe Foodie (wine prices).

What am I working on?  Nothing earth shattering or particularly fancy.  Cheeseburgers.  To be more precise, inside out burgers.   The cheese is on the inside.

Make 2 smallish patties (from fresh ground chuck, of course) and salt and pepper them.  Put a wad of your favorite cheese on one and place the other patty on top of that patty.   Pick them up and press the two edges together to make a complete patty.  Give the completed patty a hearty push in the middle with the back of a spoon.

The spoon serves two purposes.  It ensures and that the two patties have become one.  More importantly, it keeps the patty from rising up in the center and becoming a ‘ball’ patty when it's cooked.  Ever cook a burger that has a shape more akin to a racquetball than a burger?   This will solve that problem.

I prepared mine with Point Reyes blue cheese in the middle.   The Red and the Things had cheddar.  I cooked them to about medium over hardwood charcoal on my Weber.  I served them with fries, corn on the cob, and salad.

 

Check mine out:  

If you like burgers and that doesn’t make you salivate, there is something fundamentally wrong with you and your upbringing.  Personally, I blame your mama.

You can see the cheese oozing out of the middle.  Just how you like it……  Note the toppings on the bottom so that as you bite through it, you immediately taste the toppings with the burger.

The review?  Imagine soft, creamy blue cheese oozing out of the middle of burger.  Pretty spectacular.  I don’t know if this is my favorite way to cook burgers, but it’s close.  You can put just about anything in the middle with the cheese – bacon, grilled onions, sauteed mushrooms, etc. 

Tailgating Food.  It’s college football season, which means I am often at home games of my beloved team and tailgating before the game.  Most people cook frozen burgers, hot dogs, or if they’re really ambitious, brats.

Not this group.  Most of us are pretty decent home cooks and we refuse to eat plain old tailgating food.  Check out the fare from the latest game.

Appetizer?  Home made spicy shrimp springs rolls made by my friend, D.  Served with a tangy, spicy dipping sauce.  Inside there was spicy shrimp, rice, fresh mint, and fresh cilantro.  I’m sure that’s not the complete list of ingredients, but that’s most of them.  The rolls had a nice and fresh taste, which you don’t normally associate with the crap spring rolls you have in most restaurants.  Very nice, particularly when you consider that D is most definitely not Asian. 

Main course – spare ribs.  Not just any spare ribs.  Spare ribs that have spent 30 hours in P’s Sous Vide machine in a sauce of his making.  P then grilled them at the tailgate and served them with an Asian-inspired sauce.  Think hoisin-based barbeque sauce.  Check them out.

The review?  These were very different than the hill billy ribs I usually make.  But, they were very good.  The sauce reminded my pea brain of Korean short-ribs, at least a bit.  Very nice flavors.  The meat literally fell off the bone, which is nice when you’re tailgating.  You’ve only got one hand to commit to eating while you tailgate (there’s a beer in the other hand).  You don’t want to wrestle with tough meat on a rib bone.   

Here’s the ultimate review – Thing 2 had at least 4 ribs, and I bet he had closer to 6.     

Nice work, P.  By the way, P has his own blog and it’s very good.  Give it a read:  Irrelevant Discourse

The Gospel According to the Wannabe Foodie.  Wine prices.  I have lots of friends that are wine price snobs.  A lot of them believe that it can’t be a great wine unless you spent a lot of money on it. 

Do you know what I say about that?  B.S.

There are some wines under $10 which are pretty decent, but they’re somewhat rare.   One example was the 2006 Louis Jadot Beaujolais which Costco had in stock a couple years ago.  It was a fantastic grape year and Costco had purchased a large number of futures of this wine at a specific price. $6 in the store and it was fantastic.  A $6 wine that’s fantastic is certainly not the norm.

The vast majority of wine I drink costs $10-25.  In my ever so humble opinion, that’s the true sweet spot of wine prices.  Go into Total Wine and pick up a number of wines they recommend in this price range and I doubt you’ll be disappointed.  Plus, you can serve a few bottles of wine at this price to your dinner guests and not worry if little Johnny will be able to eat lunch the next week.

If you have friends that drink wine like my friends, you need a lot of moderately-priced wine on hand when they come over.

Every once in a while, I’ll thrown down for some wine in the $25-40 range, but that’s certainly not the norm.  One example is the Stags Leap Artemis I wrote about a couple of months ago.  $40 or so, and worth every penny.  Fabulous wine. 

Anything over $50 or so better have fairy dust spewing out of the bottle and make me sing with joy in a language I previously didn’t speak.  I’m talking a true Hallelujah moment.

$100 bottle of wine?!  I have exactly two of them and they’re both magnums.  This price range is just not me.  You serve it and I’m happy to drink it.  However, I have rarely found a $100 bottle of wine that is, for example, more than twice as good as that Stags Leap Artemis, or 3 or 4 times better than my favorite Petite Syrah, Vincent Arroyo. 

I personally think most people simply fall for the idea that more expensive means better wine.  It’s simply not a universal truism.  At best, price is a partial indicator of quality.  At best. 

Happy cooking.

WF

Demonic Hell-Fire in a dish

This week’s topics include Dante’s inferno in a dish, the Griswold’s Christmas lights, a BBQ lover’s utopia, more gospel according to the WF, ribs that I would be embarrassed to serve, and the best use of leftover garlic bread, ever.

Best use of leftover garlic bread.  I often scrounge for leftovers in the fridge in order to make something unique.  My favorite meal for such activities is breakfast.  You know the drill:  “Oh look, some left over veggies… Could make a decent omelette.  Potatoes – I’m thinking hash….  Steak, well, steak and eggs!”

You get the idea.

So recently I took a store-bought French loaf, sliced it lengthwise, and smeared some room temperature butter on both sides.  Added some granulated garlic, a little sea salt, mozzarella, parmesan, and some parsley.  Damn fine semi-homemade garlic bread. 

The next morning I see the bread in the fridge and decide to make breakfast with it.  Ever had Toad in the Hole?  It’s where you cut a hole out of bread and fry an egg in the hole.  Fabulous.

I took a thick slice of this garlic bread and scored the top with my knife so that there was an “X” which I could open up.  Put it “X” side up on my griddle, let it get hot, and dropped an egg in the hole where the “X” was.  A little salt, a little pepper, and let it cook for a couple minutes.  You then gently flip the whole thing “X” side over and cook the top part of the egg to about over medium doneness.

Check out the food porn picture.  

I’m not going to lie to you.  That was a damn fine use of leftover garlic bread. 

The Hottest Thing I’ve Eaten in a Restaurant.  Ever.  So, recently the Red and I join my friend B for lunch at my favorite Mexican food restaurant anywhere.  I’ve blogged about this place – Los Dos Molinos in South Phoenix.

Everything is flippin hot here.  Like crazy, this is really going to hurt tomorrow hot.  

B and I ordered the spicy chorizo dip as an appetizer. 

 

Let me first say that I like hot food and I have a pretty high tolerance for it.

This dip was like eating molten lava.  Really good, but inferno hot.  You truly got an adrenalin rush from eating it.  I gave the Red a single bean to try and it lit her up like the Griswold’s house in Christmas Vacation. 

B and I continued to eat it, but we never really got used to it.  I think I personally drank the majority of a pitcher of margaritas just to cool down.

I believe they made the dip earlier in the week and as it sat in the fridge the capsaicin from the chiles slowly released, waiting for the opportunity to unleash its demonic hell-fire fury on unsuspecting customers.

And, yes, I’d order it again.  No one ever said I was bright. 

The Best of the West Rib Cookoff, Sparks, Nevada.  This event is held every Labor Day weekend in Sparks, Nevada.  Approximately 24 BBQ teams from across the country come to compete in this competition.  Unlike some competitions, the teams aren’t just cooking for judges.  They’re cooking to sell from their own stalls and provide food for the organizer’s money-making endeavors.

Which is where this story picks up.  Each year, I try to buy a corporate table in the Rib Village at this event and invite friends and clients.  In many ways, the Rib Village is my version of Utopia.  All you can eat ribs from all of the cookers, plus sides, desserts, and… all you can drink. 

The best part is that you get to try each cooker’s ribs without fighting the crowds.  The Red even made sheets for us to make notes on each cooker’s ribs.  Check out my notes, like “Meh” or “Underwhelming.”

Before I get to the review, let me give you the gospel according to the Wannabe Foodie when it comes to spare ribs.  The rib should stand on its own without the sauce.  Nice robust rub, good smoke ring, and cooked to perfection.  Bite clean off the bone, not fall off the bone.  The sauce should only accentuate the rib, not ‘make the rib’. 

I know there are those that will disagree and say something like “Good ribs need only salt, pepper, smoke, and great sauce.”  I call those bland ribs with good sauce.

So my friend J (another foodie and avid bbq’er) go through each rib.  Try the rib naked (leave it alone) and then try it with the sauce.  Check out the first plateful.    

Truthfully, there were only a few that were better than your drunk neighbor’s ribs from last year’s Labor Day barbeque.  Most were dry, with very little spice on them.  Some were more like pulled pork than anything resembling a spare rib.

The only ones that stood out for me were The Barbecue Company and Butch’s Smack Your Lips. Rumor has it that Bone Daddy’s were the best that day, but they ran out before we got some.  Even the Checkered Pig’s ribs were underwhelming, and they’ve won numerous contests.

All in all, the level of barbeque was truly disappointing.  I wouldn’t pay for some of these ribs and I would likely mock my friends for serving them.  My personal theory is the ribs aren’t that fresh when they’re put in the buffet line in the Rib Village, and they only get worse the longer they sit there.  For the money you spend on a table, you should get fresh ribs. 

I also wonder if these BBQ teams strive to put their best product out for the masses in the Rib Village.  Methinks not.

Name Suggestions?  I really want to start my own BBQ team.  I think my friend J would join me in a heartbeat, and I bet I could get some others to join in.  Now only if I can convince the Red to let me buy a big pit to tow behind my truck……  Feel free to email me name ideas for the WF’s BBQ team.

Happy cooking.

WF