Chop and Stir

Pizza pizza

The secret is out. It's been out for a while, though I just figured it out.

Apparently I've had my head in a cave while the rest of the free world figured out how to make pizza at home using the "Skillet broiler method". It's pretty simple, really, here's a video demo:

 

The crazy thing is that you don't even need pizza stone for this method. I happen to have some in my oven during this video, only because I had just baked some bread and they were too hot to remove-- or rather I was too lazy to remove them.

The equipment you need is a pizza peel, cast iron griddle, two burners on your stove, a fiery hot broiler, and $2 spray bottle filled water, I've only tested this method with a gas broiler, but I'm guessing an electric broiler will do pretty well.

Here's the steps, assuming you've got some pizza dough ready to shape:

• Put your griddle over two burners, and turn them on, full gas! Turn your broiler on, oven open.
• Shape your pizza dough, slide onto peel, and add your toppings.
• Slide the pizza onto the griddle.
• Spray the crust with water so that it will expand properly and not burn to quickly.
• Lower the flame, or turn off entirely.
• Oven mitts on!
• Place the griddle with pizza on board below the broiler, about 5 inches below. You'll have to gauge the best distance after some trial and error.
• About 1:30 minutes in, when the back starts to crisp up and brown, rotate 180 degrees for even heating.
• After about 30 more second, you should have a perfectly crisped pizza, top and bottom. In and out in under two minutes. Voila.
• Place back on stove top, and transfer pizza with a large metal spatula to a cutting board or flat round pizza pan. Cut and eat.

You might need to experiment with just how hot to get your griddle before putting the pizza on it. And how long to cook on the stove top. As you can see from the video, I just cook long enough to give the pizza a good spray. Too hot and you'll burn the bottom a bit, too low, and the pizza bottom won't cook enough and stick to the griddle. Perfectly done, the pizza will slide off the griddle easily when it comes out of the broiler, with a lightly charred bottom.

I like using the griddle instead of an upside-down skillet because the griddle is much bigger than pizza so you don't get flour all over your range. Plus, the griddle has a lot of mass, so it retains the intial heat from the stove top.

 

 

Tale of the tomato

We've got a new toy in the kitchen. The best part is that it's powered by our child. Who needs a cuisinart?

On sale for $25.00 at Williams Sonoma, it's the Tre Spade Italian Tomato Press. I'm guessing that they are discontinuing this product, but it's a perfectly fine device and for 25 bucks, you can't beat it.  Alex was so mesmerized by the thing that he couldn't stop churning. Until we reached the bottom of our 20 pound box of tomatoes on a recent Friday evening. And then we were back at again on the next Friday with another 20 pounds.

We were on a mission to freeze off a bunch of tomato sauce to make it through the winter. Twenty pounds makes about 6 quarts of the best sauce ever.

We're using dry-farmed early girls from Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz. These are the best tomatoes I've ever had-- incredibly sweet and concentrated. Much better than any of the fancy heirlooms that I've had. Get them now at various farmer's markets before the season ends! They sell at the SF Ferry Plaza on Thursdays and Saturdays. $25 gets you a twenty pound box of saucing tomatoes. You can't afford not to get these!

 

 

 

Make yer own kale chips

I bought some kale chips at an Indian food store in NYC earlier this summer. They looked scary, but tasted pretty good. But now, with some fresh curly kale from Heirloom Organics at the Tuesday Ferry Plaza farmer's market, we've got a winner.

The recipe is trivially simple, and I'm sure there's many compelling variations. I adapted the recipe from here. Pictured here are the kale leaves before and after roasting. Before roasting, you can hardly tells that there's any of the tahini mixture on the leaves. But after roast, the mixture gains volume and takes on color, making it much more prominent.

I just did something like this:

• 1 bunch of curly kale, washed, drained, and then thoroughly dried with a kitchen towel.
• 3 T tahini
• 1 T extra virgin olive oil
• 1 t onion powder
• 1 t paprika
• 1/4 t cayenne pepper
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1/2 t black pepper
• 1/2 t kosher salt

Mix all ingredients besides kale together in a small bowl. Spread the mixture evenly as you can over the kale. A little goes a long way.

Roast in a 450 degree oven until top is crisp, then flip over to crisp evenly.

 

I'll bring a salad

You know the story. You're headed to a friend's house for dinner and you're feeling the need to contribute to the meal. "What can I bring?"

How many times I've said that, and just brought over a bag of mixed greens from TJs, some balsamic and some extra virgin olive oil.

This time, I'm going to do something more memorable. I've got some baby kale from the Ferry Plaza Tuesday farmers market. What can I do with it?

Enter Dan Barber's Kale Salad with Pinenuts, Currants, and Parmesan Shavings.

This baby dino kale is soo good. If you find some, get it. It's much less bitter and much more tender than the grown-up varieties. Still, since we're having it raw, I'm chopping it in 1/4-inch strips, a sort of rustic chiffonade-- get a bunch of leaves of about the same size, please them over each other, and roll them up into a kale cigar to make them easier to chop:

Here's my recipe, as modified from the one in Bon Apetit, as I had a lot of raisins but no black currants on hand:

• 1/2 cup organic thompson seedless raisins
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2-3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 pound baby kale
• 1 cup pinenuts, lightly toasted
• Parmesan cheese shavings

Place raisins in small bowl and add 1/2 cup less  apple cider vinegar. Let soak for a few hours or overnight, then drain.

Whisk remaining white balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, honey, oil, and salt in large bowl. Add kale, currants, and pinenuts toss to coat. Let marinate 20 minutes at room temperature, tossing occasionally. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle cheese shavings over salad and serve.

 

Big Porchetta

I've been intrigued with porchetta since my first porchetta sandwich at Il Cane Rosso a few years ago. Complete with cracklings, the sandwich is a satisfying meal of thinly sliced moist pork on a roll. It doesn't appear that it's currently on their menu. What to do if you have a craving for some luscious porchetta?

How to do this at home? I found a number of home modifications of porchetta, but they seemed like lame watered down versions of the real deal: take a pork loin and wrap it in pancetta, take a pork shoulder and make slashes all over to infuse with herbs. No, no, no, let's do this pro style. No shortcuts.

Saveur to the rescue with their classic porchetta recipe. A 15 pound slab of pork belly attached to a 5 pound pork loin? Intriguing. Tell me more. Enter Chili, from Bi-Rite. Hard to imagine a better name for a butcher.  With a whole pig from Gleason Ranch coming in the afternoon of the day that I'm calling, he's going to make the perfect cut for the job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the beast, with the loin at the bottom of the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skin side up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chili suggests using an x-acto knife to slice the skin, so you can control the depth of your cut. I'm trying to make slashes about 1.5 inches apart, in a cross-hatch pattern, at 1/4 inch depth, to cut through the skin into the fat, but not into the meat, so that the juices won't leak out during cooking.

 

 

 

 

1/2 inch deep slashes in the meat, to allow for the spice mixture to get into the meat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A spice mixture of lemon zest, garlic, fennel seeds, and crush red chilis, after thoroughly seasoning the meat with kosher salt and black pepper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then we tightly roll, so that the loin is encased in the pork belly. Tie the roll tightly with doubled-up butchers twine. Seal in two clean plastic garbage bags, and refrigerate for 24 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let the roast warm to room tempeture by removing from refrigerator 3 hours before roasting. Roast on a rack and a large sheet pan--this one took a full size restaurant sheet pan--at 325 for about 3 hours, till the internal temperature reaches 130 degree. Then, the fun starts. You roll it under your broiler, so that the tough skin blisters into some decadent cracklings. Yum. I didn't do the baking soda rub like the recipe calls for, maybe next time. I bet that keeps the skin from burning.

 

 

 

Supper time! I like how the layer of herbs separates the loin from the pork belly. And how there's a juicy layer of fat all around and inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unless you have an oven which will accommodate a full size restaurant sheet pan, I'd recommend a 10 pound roast. That will feed a small army anyway.

More culture for 22K

We've had a sourdough culture growing since 1996. And now it's getting a sibling-- a bucket of sauerkraut. I've long been a fan of sauerkraut, even the stuff from the ballpark. As you might imagine, the sauerkraut that you make from fresh organic cabbage, with minimal processing, is a million times better than the baseball variety. Here's the final product, in the good company of some fatty pork, a thick-cut pork chop. The sauerkraut is trivially simple to make. Now that I've got it going, I think I'll just keep adding some cabbage to it every so often, as we eat some of the sauerkraut, to keep the culture going. Maybe 16 more years? I used a recipe I found online, on Wild Fermentation. Here's my setup above. Lots of cabbage-- I had about a dozen heads of cabbage, a mandoline, and a food-grade plastic bucket with lid. I bet that just about any kind of bucket like container with a lid will work. You want to find a plate that will just fit into the bucket. More on that in a sec. As the recipe tells you, just start slicing the cabbage with a mandoline, in a uniform thickness. As you add it to a large bowl to collect it, sprinkle it with a liberal amount of kosher salt, so that the cabbage will start to sweat. The fresher the cabbage the better, as it will have more water in it.  As you're accumulating salted cabbage, just throw it into your bucket. By the time you're done, you'll have a bucket full of salty cabbage, sitting in the brine that it has created for itself.

From Sauerkraut

Here's what is looked like just before I pushed down with a plate. Then, I put a large container of water on top of the plate to hold it down. The container has a lid on it, so I wouldn't spill any of the water when moving the bucket around. For the next few hours, you want to be somewhat diligent about pushing down on the plate via whatever you've put on top of the plate, so that you end up with a layer of water above your plate. The sauerkraut needs to be in an anaerobic environment--not exposed to air--otherwise you'll have a fungus among us. Instead, you want the natural bacteria in the cabbage to culture, and create a vinegar that will end up transforming the raw cabbage into a beautiful thing.

From Sauerkraut

It took about 3 weeks to get to something I'd call sauerkraut. I tried it periodically up till then, and it was more like raw cabbage. I stored it at about 65-70 degrees in our garage and dining room. Now, at about 10 weeks, it's still tasting fine, even better than at 3 weeks into it. I'll be getting some more cabbage tomorrow, to feed the machine. Getting ready for some brats.

From Sauerkraut

Hand-canned

Mike: Wow, these hand-canned tomatoes make the best sauce ever!

Alex: What does hand-canned mean?

Mike: It means that our friends Suzanne and Peter preserved these vibrant San Mariano tomatoes from Marquita Farms with care in their home, by hand, instead of in a huge factory.

Alex: Wow, how come all farms don't do that?

Mike: Good question!

I do wonder what the economics of canning organic, small production tomatoes would be. They did make one of the more memorable pasta dishes I've made in a while.  Compared to even the best San Marzano tomatoes I've worked with, these tomatoes were so much more dense and flavorful, much less watery. Suzanne told me of the story that Marquita accidently planted San Mariano instead of San Marzano, so maybe that's part of the story.

All that these tomatoes need was a a rough chop. I added them to an EVO saute of onions and garlic, and voila pasta magic.

Tale of the tomato

Mike to Cheryl, "So, how did we end up with so many onions?" Cheryl explains, "Well, it's because neither of us has cooked anything in a while." So sad. But that still doesn't explain why there's 10 forlorn, large yellow onions staring at me from our kitchen counters.

Seizing the moment, I remember that Cheryl last week bought 6 large cans of whole peeled stewed tomatoes from Trader Joes. "A new variety, I thought we should try them," she tells me. Ahh, perhaps that was the sign that I missed.

And we're we have it, the tale of the tomato, old versus new:

Left to right: New stock at TJs, the San Marzano; old stock at TJs, tomatoes of unknown origin

The hands down winner is the new variety, I hope that TJ's keep getting it. I didn't actually taste them, but the San Marzano feels much more like a piece of food going through the foley food mill, while the old stock is feels more like I'm grinding a soggy baseball. I can see why Wikipedia is telling me that San Marzano is considered by most chefs to be the best saucing tomato on the block. I get the feeling that these tomatoes are imported from Italy. At least the "Pomidori Pelati" wording on the label, and the fact that they are distributed by "Simpson Imports" leads me to believe these aren't a domestic product.

And thusly, our recipe for an impromptu enormous pot of tomato sauce this evening is 8 large cans of tomatoes (I found two of the older variety in the cupboards) run through a food mill, 8 onions diced (2 of them were too far gone), a head of garlic (minced), and some accumulated rinds of parmigiano regiano. Check out our earlier posting on Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce for more details.

Look at the raging red color of this sauce. Yea, it's gonna be good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few lessons learned from tonight's brief, but educational cooking session:

• Keep several jars of plum tomatoes on hand-- always--as you never know when you'll feel the need to make a large amount of sauce or the need to use up bags and bags of onions
• Look for the new San Marzano variety at TJs-- they'll vastly improve your saucing quality of life.

 

Going big

It's asparagus season now and I'm taking advantage of the rare sunny evenings after work to do some grilling in the front yard.

Pictured here are some monster asparagus roasting over some almond wood. This is the first time I've ventured into the world of oversized asparagus, and I'm glad I did. They have a meatiness and sweetness that you won't find in the smaller variety. These stalks are about 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter at the bottom of the stalk, for reference.

With asparagus this large--and this expensive--you definitely want to peel the bottom of the stalks, as that's where some of the best parts of the vegetable are.  I used to be challenged by the idea of peeling asparagus, but I think I've finally uncovered the secret.

When I get the asparagus home from the market, I cut off about 1/2 off the bottom, just as I would with flowers. Then, I'll put the bunch in about 2 inches of water in tall container and cover the asparagus and container all with a plastic or composting bag.

This practice has two benefits. First, it keeps your asparagus fresher for longer--keeps it firm and bright green. Second, because the bottom of the stalk has been soaking in water, it becomes much easier to peel with your basic vegetable peeler. Otherwise, the peel is a bit like leather or plastic--very tough to peel.

To roast these on the grill, I'll first do the basic treatment of EVO, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Then, grill them directly over the fire for about 2-3 minutes until somewhat charred, then i'll move them off flame, to the distant side of the grill, and cover the Weber with all vents open and the lid slightly askew to let the fire breath more. After about 10 minutes, the asparagus have softened a bit, and are looking like they've been roasted in a high heat oven. Perfect.

Roasting time

There's nothing like a CSA box to get you out of a rut-- and to get you to cook something and just eat really well. We had an abundance of vegetables this week compliments of the CSA basket that our friends Jocelyn and Miles sent over. Suddenly, I feel more connected with the earth and the seasons. Really.

Whole roasted asparagus, slices of fennel, yellow carrot fries, and whole roasted baby beets. You can't help but feel connected to the earth with all of the vegetables. For all of these vegies, there's a variety of cooking techniques that you can use, but nothing locks in and concentrates the flavors like a high heat roast. Apply the same roasting principles to all of them: season with kosher salt and pepper just before roasting, toss in some extra virgin olive oil, and then spread out in a single layer on a large sheet pan.

Ideally, the vegetables are spread out enough that they are hardly touching. You want the heat to be able to reach deep into your vegetables as quickly as possible, otherwise, you'll get more of a steamed effect. If they steam instead of roast, you'll lose the vibrant colors of your vegetables, and fail to carmelize the sugars which gives them a beautiful browned color and naturally some sweetness.

The aspargus looked so fresh that I took the time to peel the bottom 2-3 inches of the tough skin. That meant I had to trim off only about 1/4 inch off the bottom of each stalk. Glad I did that-- every inch of these was worth eating. I found that if Iay the stalk on a cutting board and peel it, turning the stalk with the non-peeling hand, that allows me to peel without breaking the stalk. Also, I need to keep a bowl of water handy to wash the peelings of my peeler frequently.

In the picture of the finished asparagus and fennel, note the vibrant green of the aspargus. They tasted every bit as good as they look.

For the fennel, nothing special except cutting them in about 1/4 inch slices, with the same kosher salt, white pepper, and EVO treatment. They were sweet and licorice-like, without any of the bitterness that one sometimes gets with fennel.

The beets were too perfect to chop, so I decided to roast them whole. I prefer to peel them before roasting, so that the precious beet juices form a crunchy sweet carmelization on the outside of the beet. All that gets lost if you opt to roast them and then peel them (or scrub them with a kitchen towel) after roasting. Also, after you peel them, don't wash them, as that will just introduce unwanted water into the whole situation, and you'll get steamed beets.

The stalks from the greens were actually kind of edible. They got a little burnt, but again the burnt sugars saved the day. Keeping the stems on from the beet greens also makes them much easier to peel-- of course you could lop off the stems just after peeling, but I think it makes for a pretty cool effect to keep them on.

How long do these vegetables take to cook? As long as it takes till they're done. Seriously. Set your oven to the highest temperature it will go to, and leave it there for 30-45 minutes. Then you're ready to roast.  One might argue that this pre-heating is bad for the environment, and I don't have a great answer to that. Except to say that there's certainly some environmental benefit to getting the most out of the food in our kitchen, and making unprocessed foods much more attractive than foods from the center aisles.

We have a 10-year old Thermador range that has an analog temperature dial.  The last number on the dial is "500", so I turn it past the 500, just before I can feel the broil mechanism click on. At this setting, the oven just stays on.

Check out the carrot fries to the right. See all those browned bits of extreme goodness? Yea! I thought they were parsnips at first, so I had planned on doing some parsnip fries, which I first started doing many Thanksgivings ago, inspired by one of those feel-good Thanksgiving spreads in Gourmet magazine. The tradition continues, now with these yellow carrot beauties. I'm curious to see if you can fool your kids into trying these, as they resemble french fries, and maybe your kids will even like them.