Stock Wars III - Revenge of the Syphon

You saw how it was made, you saw what I made with it, and now, how to deal with the aftermath. The strange contraption pictured below is blatantly ripped from the pages of Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here For the Food". Pages 216-217 describe verbally and visually the method I am employing here or at least pretty close to it.
"I make stock only a few times a year-and when I do, I make a lot. And when I need to move it, I fall back on a skill developed in my misspent youth. Now, I am not saying that I actually siphoned gas out of my parent's car so that I could fuel my Pinto and still have money for Big Macs, but... well, yes , that is what I'm saying."
He then details the rig and all of the components. While I pirated the the idea like a Napster junky bootlegs music, I did make some minor adjustments.
I needed a way to stop the flow. Simple physics came to my rescue. Raise the non submerged end if the hose/tubing above the level of the liquid being filched and it will stop flowing. A jumbo binder clip held it to the cabinet handle while I filled zip top bags with liquid love.

I tried filling the baggies all the way at first them remembered a bit of chemistry or physics one.
Water is one of those funky substances that expands when heated (steam) or when cooled (ice).
So I decided to start over and fill my pint bags with only 2 cups of stock each, leaving a nice little bit of wiggle room for expansion as it solidifies. It was also easier to weigh the first 2 cups of stock and use my kitchen scale to measure out the rest.

I used half sheet pans lined with parchment paper to reduce tongue-to-flagpole type freezing of the baggies to the pans. Also only 4 per pan so they wouldn't stick to each other.

Stock making is not hard in and of itself, mostly just time consuming. Ten dollars or so worth of ingredients and taking the time to perform the necessary steps has yielded about 31 cups of stock. That's about 32¢ per cup, compared to approximately 65¢ per cup when buying canned.
AND I actually know exactly whats in it. Priceless

So will I do it again? Damn skippy but not until the leaves start to wallpaper my truck sometime around October.

Cheers

J.A.F.A.R.

Shameless Food Pron

Lunch was sourdough (my all time favorite bread) with buchon (i need to get the real scoop on this cheese next time I am at Whole Foods) toasted in the toaster oven 425 for 15 mins. Paired with a little pear preserves...

DAMN! that is some pretty cheese when it is all melted.

Mmmmm tasty

Cheers

J.A.F.A.R.

Spoils of War

It was a long an arduous battle, heat and stream and lifeless bodies... Do carrots have bodies per say? Eeh who cares... they add goodness to stock and thats all I need to know.

So what do you do with over a gallon of fine homemade beef juice.
Item number one on the menu post Stock Making Day is non vegetarian vegetable soup.

I started with a basic mirepoix (carrots, celery, and onions) sautéed in a little butter and peanut oil, about a tsp of each.

For some pizazz I added Parsnip... Which begs the question. What in the name of all that is holy is a parsnip? White carrot? No... Rock hard root vegetable my sharpest knife barely was able to cut? Maaaayybee... Wikipedia says it is a relative of the carrot with a stronger flavor and the closest relative to parsley. I must not got a good one. This one, pictured below, was not stronger flavored than my carrots but was tougher. The Chuck Norris of the root vegetable world.

So once the "mirepoix + one" started to sizzle,I turned my attention to the crisper drawer to see what else was available. Radishes? no, broccolini? na, cucumbers? no way, corn on the cob? yeppers. But removed from the cob and sautéed in the leftover butter/oil from the mirepoix.

Four cups of "The Stock" in a pot with the carrots/celery/onions/parsnips (mirepoix is getting over used in this blog) make the base for my lunch. One bay leaf +


one quarter tsp of my new planted Lemon Thyme (yes it smells like lemon) +

one tbsp of flat leaf parsley + salt and pepper round out the spices.


Or so I thought until I added 2 smallish russet potatoes, and a can of sweet peas, then it needed something.

What to add, what to add? Turns out that the home grown, home made, home canned salsa that I was gifted by Luis on my last road trip to Charlotte, is an ideal additive to vegetable soup. Nice little tomatoee/pepper kick.


Bring it to a boil for just a minute, then reduce the heat to a simmer cover with a lid and leave the room for 25 minutes. Looks like this when you come back.


Service? In a bowl, with a couple slices of not half bad store bought "Ugly Tomato" with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper.



Lessons learned. My mother makes better vegetable soup, don't shave the corn so close to the cob, half as many peas would have been enough, and corn bread goes better with veggie soup than tomatoes do. But it was a good meal.

I especially like the fact that the only thing from a can was the peas. I don't consider the salsa as "from a can" cause it was homemade, just not made in my home.

Cheers

J.A.F.A.R.

WHERE'S THE BEEF..!?!?!?

If you don't remember the commercial featuring Clara Pelle that launched one of the most over used catch phrases of all time, then you are too frackin young to be reading this blog...
"GET OFF MY LAWN! You dang kids!"
Okay, I am done shaking my fist at the kids in my virtual yard and I have an answer to the question of the day...

I'z n ur pot makin ur stawk

So as mentioned in my last post, March 25th was my first semi-annual stock making day. Here after to be known as Spring Beef Stock Day.
Making stock, I learned, is not a task to be entered into frivolously. It takes commitment. Not "50 year til death" commitment, but "you can't leave the house for 8 hours" commitment. Thats a commitment I can commit to.
"What's it take to make stock?" you ask. Well besides the afore mentioned commitment, it takes bones. Piles and piles of beef bones. 7-8 lbs actually, a few cups of mirepoix, red wine, bouquet garni, and water.

I started using Emeril's Demi-Glace recipe from foodnetwork.com refer to the brown stock part.
Step 1: Roast 7 lbs of bones for an hour at 450°f
Step 2: Brush with tomato paste and top with veggies roast for another 30 mins. Looks like this...

And this... close up.

Step 3: Dump all that roasted goodness into a stock pot - with the water and the herbs. Drain off as much of the fat as you can before dumping and deglazing the pan. I used tongs to gently and lovingly plop all the bones and veggies into the pot, because, the distance from top of my pot to the water level would have resulted in a kitchen tsunami.

Deglaze the roasting pan with the wine and add the resulting liquor to the pot. (no deglazing pics sorry was to busy scraping the pan)
Bring the proto-stock to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer... (Simmer whats it mean? Couple of bubbles every few seconds)
Simmer for 4 or more hours.

Once the simmering is done strain into another big pot. Again I use tongs to get all the big bits out of the proto-stock before actually using cheese cloth to filter.


Emotional reaction to straining "Eww!"... but comforted by the knowledge that I have wrought a wonderful thing.

There was a good bit of fat swirling around in the pot when I was done straining. It's not easy to remove while the stock is still hot, so I quick cooled the pot by putting the pot into the sink and filling the sink with cold tap water. This draws the heat out of the pot.
I had to change the water twice to get the temp down low enough to stick the pot in the fridge. Which I did and left it to chill over night.
This morning reveled a nice but sorta icky disc of solidified tallow that I broke up and scrapped off.

Leaving over a gallon of home made beef stock that I now have to portion and freeze for future use.

Yay beef!

Next stop espagnole sauce then demi-glaze... But that's a future show...

Cheers

J.A.F.A.R.

Midnight Gardener

Today was a productive day. It started way early. Midnightish early, so technically today.
Considering the hour of this posting let me clarify. Tuesday was a productive day.
I planted all the seeds that I procured at a local home improvement store. I started them in one of this peat pellet trays. Add water and the little buggers just swell right up.
The lid creates a greenhouse effect. Good greenhouse not global warming greenhouse.
Warm plants makes for happy plants. So just call me the Midnight Gardener.

I planted mostly herbs and 4 varieties of radishes.
WHAT? I like radishes, and they are easy to grow.

Amazingly, after I had sleep a few hours and made it closer to lunch, (about 11 hours) there was proof of germination, which is flippin cool.

I ran out of room in the peat pellet pallet, so I started a terracotta pot with one of the basil varieties. No discernable germination here...

I also snagged a bunch of already growing herbs. They have since been transplanted into window box pots and are awaiting warmer weather for a first venture out into the sun.

There's a tree in the back yard and I haven't foggiest clue about it's name, but it has these tiny white blossoms. I like em. I gots me some. It's in a vase on the table.

I am aware that I am missing a restaurant review from Saturday, but I just can't get a bead on where to start.
I promise to post it soon.
Oh and today was my first semi-annual beef stock making day... More on that later

Cheers

J.A.F.A.R.

How to make grocery store fried chicken edible.

To date I have not ranted about the dull flavorlessness of chicken breast.
But it's true. The average chicken breast is flat and dull, about as interesting as cardboard.
There is hope for the humble chicken boob. It involves ample assistance from it's barnyard neighbor the pig, in the form of bacon.
Lunch today was a chicken sandwich with bacon and Buchon cheese.
I apologize up front for the blurry pics. I think I got my greasy mits on the lens causing some burr right in the middle. If I had greased the outer edge of the lens I would have gotten that soft diffused 80's highshool senior picture look.

Skin and de-bone a store bought in-house deli mega-mart fried chicken breast. Cut into bite size chunks.

Get a couple rashers of hickory smoked bacon working.

Once the bacon is as crisp as you like it, I like mine a tiny bit chewy, drain off all but 2 tbsp of the fat and add the chunks.

Construct the sandwich on your bread of choice, sour dough for me as usual.
From bottom to top - bread, Buchon, chicken, bacon bread. I wipe the barest layer of mayo on the top piece of bread to add a little moisture to the bread.

Enjoy

J.A.F.A.R.

Food Porn

So I have been getting flack about not showing any pictures.
Let's remedy that. Dinner tonight was Sea Scallops with Wood Ear or Black Fungus.
I like the name Wood Ear better. I know that all mushrooms are in fact fungi, but there is something less than appetizing about the whole concept of fungus, but I digress.
Sea Scallops with Wood Ear and Asparagus.
The first step was to gather everything up.
3 sea scallops
1/4 tsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley
1-2 garlic cloves minced
1 1/2 tbsp bacon or pancetta fat
4-5 oz of fresh asparagus
1/2 a lemon
kosher salt
fresh cracked pepper

The Wood Ear are neat little guys looking vaguely in appearance like ears, thus the name.
Thank You Mr Obvious you say and I agree.
In a sauté pan I started a sweat with the garlic with a tbsp of butter. In my zeal to take pictures for this post I let the pan get WAY to friggin hot leaving the butter scorched and the garlic beyond toasted. So I pitched it and started over.
Not wanting to mess with mincing more garlic I just heated about a tsp of the bacon fat in the freshly cleaned pan until it just barely started to smoke.
I placed the scallops in the pan and stepped back. Two reasons. 1 to take pictures... 2 cause you just leave them alone for about 5 minutes before checking to see if they are getting brown.

While all this browning is going on, (see maillard reaction) I had a non stick sauté pan over medium high heat with a scant tsp of the bacon fat getting ready for the asparagus. Toss the asparagus in the pan to coat with the fat, then allow to sauté for 3-4 minutes, tossing occasionally . Sprinkle with kosher salt to taste. I salt liberally. Asparagus can be a little bland.
Once it just barely starts to take on some color, squeeze the lemon over the asparagus. After another couple of minutes it will start to look like the picture below. This is the lemon juice caramelizing.


So the asparagus is on it's way what about the scallops... After about 4-5 minutes they had some nice color on them so over they go... To be left alone in the pan for another 3-4 minutes.
Once they reach that nice golden brown color they need to be pulled. One of the secrets to scallops is to not over cook them. Slightly higher heat than you might think and a faster cooking time will ensure that they are tender and not rubbery.
After removing the scallops toss the wood ears in and toss briefly. They will start to wilt like sautéed greens. Add the thyme and the parsley. Toss or stir for another minute or so then pour over the already plated scallops.
In my opinion sea scallops do not need salt when cooked this way. The bacon fat has enough salt and the thyme brightens the flavor.
Prep time 5 minutes
Cooking time is about 8-10 minutes.

Finished product.

Fromage Fort

So, Cheese... As promised... Sadly neither one of the cheeses that I tried today were in the "BOOK" (see yesterdays post)
Both were obtained from Whole Foods Market®... Pfff, 'Market' my ass. It's a huge, wallet ravaging mega store with more variety than most mortals know what to do with... Rant over. I actually love the selection but it can be a little daunting, plus I don't want to know what it is doing to local purveyors.
Back to the fromage. The stink. The milk pucks.
Todays offering were something called "Fromage D' Affinois Plain" and "Pave Du Nord".
The D' Affinois was soft, silky, creamy, slightly tart, reminiscent of a processed cheese spread without the artificial funkyness. Mild but tasty.
Pave Du Nord is a frim and slightly sharp cheese, sorta like a sharp Vermont Chedder but not as chalky and dry. Very smooth.

Over all I would and most likely will buy these again...

J.A.F.A.R.

Cheese 101

Only some kind of savant could truly grasp the entirety of the worlds cheese population...
When I say cheese I am not smiling, nor commenting on the fashions of the '70s, I am talking about milk that has been intentionally turned, made to spoil, go chunky and in some cases encouraged to behave like a science experiment and grow mold...
In an effort to get a handle on the 'World O' Cheese' I purchased "Cheese Primer" by Steve Jenkins.
Anyone familiar with NPR's "Splendid Table" very well might have heard this 20 year veteran of the entreprise de fromage wax eloquent to Lynne Rossetto Kasper about all the glorious variations of queso available.

I intend to expose myself to as many of the available cheese offerings that can be found in this town. I will be following the guidance of the book.

Tomorrow, the cheese I bought today, without any guidance...

Stay turned

J.A.F.A.R.

Dinner Unexpected

Time: 5 pm Sunday evening... Mood: Hungry...

Fridge Inspection reveals a rather dismal selection...

Suspect uncooked sausage (tossed), miso paste, (ignored) half of a 100% cocoa bar, (do not consume a.. la cart, very bitter), 3 cerignola olives and some week old sliced mushrooms greet me as I peer into the chilly confines of the ’icebox’.

The olives are consumed while contemplating the mushrooms... mehh…

A quick inspection of the meat/cheese drawer reveals the presence of brie, Ile de France - Le Brie 7.7oz to be precise. (This same type of cheese I provided to my un-suspecting southern mother once… She complained about the amount of moldy rind that had to be trimmed off, to get to the relatively small amount of soft edible insides… "Mom, you eat the whole thing…" says I. Her only response was to grimace and continue to peel away the rind)

Baked brie sounds decent... Artsy and pretentious too… oh how wrong I am…
I have a fresh sourdough loaf from Panera (I know I know... it’s a chain but Provence is a pain to trek to on a Sunday morning...)
Sooo buttered sourdough toast with baked brie... I could be eating worse... Oh!.. Look on the top self... some left over pineapple... (side note: for those of you who frequent Whole Foods, the miniature pineapple is a rip off... Cool to look at, but outrageously priced for the same flavor as a regular sized pineapple... Do not buy except for novelty sake.)

So here is my recipe for "Brie à l’ananas sur pain grillé" - Brie with Pineapple on toasted bread (with my exact prep method)
Ingredients:
3 tsp butter – room temperature
2 slices of sourdough bread – Thick sliced, Texas Toast style
½ Cup small dice fresh pineapple or canned crushed pineapple mostly drained
1 tsp sugar
1 small wheel of brie (see above for exact brand I used) 7.7 oz (219g)
Juice from half a medium blood orange about 1½ - 2 tbsp , substitute a tart orange of some type, or 2 tbsp juice from a box/carton
Method:
The brie and toast: via a toaster oven.
Line toaster oven pan with aluminum foil for easy cleanup
Butter up the bread with 2 tsp of butter, set on toaster oven pan butter side up. (someone would have done it butter side down and been disappointed if I hadn’t said something)
Place the brie on a small square of parchment paper next to the bread on the pan.
Place pan of bread and cheese in a cold toaster oven.
Set temp to 450°, turn the timer to 15 minutes and start the cooking process.
My toaster has a selection of Bake, Broil, Toast, Slow Cook etc. I chose Bake to start.


The Pineapple Sauce, chutney, garnish, relish… Stuff… whatever you want to call it.
While the cheese and bread are toasting, preheat a sauté pan over medium high heat then add the remaining tsp of butter. It's gonna bubble for a bit and just start to turn brown…

Now for those of you that think margarine is a suitable substitute for butter let me just kinda chew your ear for a second… I am not Alton Brown or a food scientist or a professional chef but in my humble opinion butter has better flavor for cooking and is unequaled as a browning fat… Here are a couple of articles on butter and margarine that help tell the story.
http://www.ochef.com/864.htm
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/butter-vs-margarine/AN00835

Once you have attained barely brown on your butter (margarine doesn’t really brown, it just melts… no milk solids) pitch in the pineapple. Toss, stir, fold, or shake the pineapple in the butter. It will start to take on some color. Get a little caramelization going then add the blood orange juice and sugar…Cook this for approximately 5 minutes or until the sugar and juice start to thicken.

At around 5 minutes till DING! on the toaster oven, I flip the selector over to "Toast". Why you ask…
Well, Bake on my little oven does a good job of getting things warmed up but not a great job of toasting especially from a cold start. So ten minutes in, everything is starting to get yummy and warm but not as brown as I want it…
So kick it over to toast and the top heating element kicks on to join the bottom one. Broil would turn off the bottom element while cranking up the top one… I want them both on... "Toast" does the trick.

DING!!! If your toaster has done the same thing mine does then you will get mahogany colored sourdough and brie that looks like it has been brushed with espresso.

Plating… I am about to get into trouble with at least one of my readers. I didn’t take photos... (I’m sorry doll.) I promise to prepare this again, following the recipe and taking photos along the process.

I would love to say that I lovingly placed all the items on a plate, artfully arranged with the Pineapple Sauce, chutney, garnish, relish… Stuff, in a little condiment cup, cut the brie down the middle allowing it to ooze out onto the plate, and stepped back to admire my handy work - but that would be a blatant lie…
What actually occurred was that I dubiously cut off a bit of the brie, chased it around the plate until it had cooled a little then smeared it on the toast. Topping the brie was a minimal spoon load of the Pineapple Stuff.
As with many of the things I throw together in the kitchen, I was slightly afraid of what I had wrought. The first bite though, was mind altering. Brie immediately became one of my favorite cheeses, sourdough was confirmed as the best toasting bread on the planet and I was suddenly more tolerant of the artsy crowd I used to a hang out during my RHPS days, baked brie being a favorite item of some of the theater students who used to annoy me after the show.
I scarfed down the remainder of the prepared fromage goo and pineapple stuff on the amazing bread. So yummy, and so simple.
This is one of the few times, maybe the only time that I have immediately written down the recipe for something that I brewed up on a whim.
Pair it up with like I did with a Wood Chuck Draft Cider – Dark & Dry.
Enjoy
J.A.F.A.R.

Phisher Price’s - My First Resturant Review...

Roosters,
Sounds like a strip club don't it?

Well, it's not. Add the words Wood-Fired Kitchen after Rooster's and you have a fine dining joint in the Southpark area of Charlotte.
http://www.roosterskitchen.com/

I found, upon walking in, a comfortably lit restaurant with the kitchen in the middle of the dining room, a ginormous bar and wine rack, er wall, um collection… let's just say there was an ass load of wine. The opposite wall is covered with slightly creepy stuffed roosters.

I was greeted by the manager, Laura Lee Peyton, and shown to a bar stool overlooking the sauté station and executive chef. Once ensconced on a mildly uncomfortable stool, (my butt is not happy on stools) I was immediately pounced on by a cheerful and eager waitron, whose name I regretfully forgot. She knowledgiably recited the specials at a quick pace and I quickly settled on the Braised Veal Cheeks and an order of pommes frites (that's french fries to you culinary neophytes) with barely a glance at the menu.

(For those of you who are going to harp on me for eating baby cow, please… I am an omnivore and unashamed… If you disapprove then you may not want to read further… I actually wax dreamy about the consumption of animal flesh.)

Back to the review…
The veal, two 2 to 3 oz medallions of meat braised in some wonderous ambrosia, came with mushroom ravioli that was perfectly prepared, at least I think it was perfectly prepared. Growing up, there was only one chef that cooked ravioli for me, and his name rhymed with Royardee, which, after an exhaustive Google search, turns out to be a totally fictitious name. Now imagine my surprise when the ravioli at Roosters didn't disintegrate went it hit my tongue. It was also not covered in that red goo that passes for sauce from the Chef…

Al dente ravioli aside, the star of the plate was the veal. As I sat on my ass numbing stool watching Executive Chef Ramon Taimanglo at the sauté station, I was treated to an expert demonstration of cooking skill. Ramon has mad sauté skillz. Mac & Cheese is prepared to order with what appears to be fresh cream and elbow macaroni, I wish I had asked about the cheese used but I never had the chance. Pan fried corn seemed quite popular as was the butter wilted spinach. There were a lot of dishes I would have liked to try, but I jumped on the veal cheeks and remained committed to my choice.

Now I have been rather verbose about everything so far but when the Manager, Laura Lee, approached and asked me how the veal was, my only response was some kind a half mute mewling of pleasure. The veal was beefy and tender and light and unctuous all at the same time, at that time though none of those words came to mind… I just sat there with what I am sure was the glazed look of a 4:20 teenager at 4:31. I was finally able to blurt out the phrase "No words" three or four times and wave my fork around like an spastic capuchin monkey and that seemed to draw a smile of appreciation from Laura Lee.

It was the little things that sealed the deal, the bottomless water glass, the bread to sop up the braising ambrosia, the perfectly made cappuccino. All top of the line.

Websters - Dessert:1: a usually sweet course or dish (as of pastry or ice cream) usually served at the end of a meal2 British : a fresh fruit served after a sweet course.

I chose the pistachio gelato, which was on par with the gelato I have had in Miami and Little Italy, 3 outstanding servings. It was served with some crunchy little biscotti like cookie, one end dipped in white chocolate and pistachios.

I do have a couple of small gripes:
The bread while having a beautiful crumb and cool mouth feel was only good after the chill fell away, it is not served heated. The pommes frites were your average fresh cut fries, too limp and under-crisped to for my taste. Pommes frites to me implies Belgian style fries. C'est la vie…

Final thoughts:Nice ambiance, cool kitchen, unique menu, chatty wait staff, in a good way chatty.
A really nice place for dinner or lunch.

†††† four out of five

J.A.F.A.R.