Local Gems

Have I  mentioned before that I do not do restaurant reviews? - Scotty Harris

I don't. But I do talk about restaurants I go to. Especially something interesting.

Just south of here is the intersection of Dodge and North French Roads, the very location of the girl's alma mater Dodge Elementary. Take the left on North French and head out. Past Transit it becomes County Road, and then Hunts-Corners-Akron (what kind of street name is that?) until it ends at Rte. 93 in Akron. This is our standard route when traveling East. Take a right and cut over to the Thruway. A left gets you there too, via the Res for gas.

We go this way often. We know the landmarks along the way: the bus barn; the tree farm; the giant mosquito sculpture; the horse farm located right by the graveyard (turning the game of "bury your horses" into a giggle-fest). Reliable Propane always makes me muse about an "Unreliable Propane". Sounds like a Simpsons gag.

Earlier this year we were returning from my homeland of Pittsford when we discovered something new along the way - what appeared to be a trailer and some tables in a small clearing beside the road. We were traveling at nice clip, but Trish and the girls were pretty sure the sign saying one of my favorite things: BBQ.

Cooking or Death I : The Tongue is ever turning to the aching Tooth - Benjamin Franklin

Cooking with kids always carries the risk of a mess of biblical
proportions, but the rewards are so great that the risk is irrelevant. In fact the debris fields become the subject of merriment.

So it was when the girls insisted that they make Sunday dinner with little or no supervision. Ellie picked a recipe for pie crust, and combined it herself (debris at left), but shortly thereafter some friends came by, and they forgot about cooking the rest of the day. We ate hot dogs.

But, yesterday, while was out they decided to proceed. Ellie blind baked the crust, made lemon pie filling and meringue from scratch. Alison trimmed green beans, mepotatoes and made a peach glaze for the ham. Ellie made biscuits. The waited for my return to surprise me.

Only one problem. I was at the dentist thinking to get an antibiotic scrip and schedule an extraction of a busted tooth, but they went ahead and yanked it. All I wanted from that hame was the bone to make split pea soup!

Nomenclature III

OK, this is the kind of thing that just bugs me. The ad to the right appears in this weeks circular for Tops Supermarkets. It is clearly a marketing ploy rather than an accurate description of the product for sale. The term "Prime Rib" refers, or should refer, to beef. Whether it it actually is, or should be USDA Prime Beef is a subject for debate. The Food Lover's Tiptionary says it must be Prime Beef. Webster's New World Dictionary of Culinary Arts disagrees. The Penguin Companion to Food is silent.

The ultimate arbiter is the USDA's 2003 publication: Food Standards and Labelling Policy Book, which says:

PRIME RIB OF BEEF OR STANDING BEEF RIB ROAST FOR PRIME RIB:
These products do not have to be derived from USDA prime grade beef.

I have a problem with that. By this definition, technically a rib roast from a Commercial or Utility Grade hunk of beef could be sold as prime rib. Now, in the interest of honesty, I must say that Prime Rib is not something I crave. Take the same cut of meat and cut it into thick, bone-in steaks to toss on the grill and I am fine. Roast it whole and it tastes like a hunk of boogers. But like Prime Rib of beef or not, the concept of a "prime rib" of pork just doesn't exist except in the pin heads of the pinheads of some marketing department. It may be the rib section of some piggy, but since the have bred the fat out of pork to create "the other white meat" you won't get
the mouthfeel of a Choice Standing Rib Roast, let alone a Prime Cut.

The problem is that consumers are gullible. They'll think they are getting something special.

Just tell us what we are getting.

Rant Off!

The End Of Breakfast?

Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin has died at 89. Genius or agent of Satan, I don't know. But, I enjoy my homemade Egg McMutants!

Makin' Bacon, eh? Cheater's Style!

Last October I posted on the proper way to make Canadian Bacon, and 90% of the time that is how I make it. However, while I have no objection to using the grill or smoker during the Winter, energy conservation requires us to cover every door and window (save the main entrance) is covered with heavy duty plastic until Spring truly arrives. I could use the big grill, I suppose, but it would require me to walk around two townhouses, take the tarps off the grill, and . . . well, you get the idea.

So, if I need something during the depths of Winter, like say pulled pork for a Bills tailgate party, I cheat. The provenance of my particular cheat is Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's "How to Cook Meat", and consists of adding liquid smoke (about 1/2 cup for each gallon of water) to the brine and cooking the meat in a 200° oven. Does it work? Yep. Is it as good as outdoor smoking? No, but it will do until the plastic comes down.

Reason For Hope

This article on some local makers of prosciutto is heartening on three levels. One, I am not the only one in the area trying to cure things the old fashioned way. Two, the Buffalo News chose to print it, rather than the usual Easter Butter Lamb article. Three, a new source of good pork just across the border. Yippie!

Nomenclature II

So, my wife thought she found a good bargain on what was labeled a pork loin roast at our local Tops Market.. She knew we wouldn't get a chance to to eat it right away, so we popped it in the freezer. I pulled it out and put it in the fridge to thaw without really looking at it. I figured I'd whack the chine bone, so I could carve it, and have some good eats. But, when I pulled it out of the fridge, I got a surprise. While one side of the roast showed the characteristics of a loin cut - the "T" of the back (chine) bone, an eye of both the loin and tenderloin muscle. The other side clearly showed the hip bone. It was a sirloin roast and after I made stock to turn the leftovers into pot pies, it was clear I was right.

Now it was tasty, but a consumer who didn't know the bone structure of meat would be disappointed. There has to be a way to get this right.

Technorati Tags:bugbear, pork, nomenclature,
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Staying Alive and Changes

Saturday Night Fever is the only movie I have ever walked out of, so It is easy for me to choose Bowie over the Bee Gees. But, this is not a music blog.

Staying Alive refers to the fact that the dried sausage turned out OK, and nobody had any ill effects from eating it. When we took it off the hook, some ten days earlier than it was supposed to be ready there was no sign of mold or external discoloration. The texture felt like any dry sausage I'd buy at local stores. I cut into the link, and, as you can see, the color was uniform throughout. So I tasted it. It was good. Trish tasted it. It was good. Ellie tasted it. It was good, and she asked for more. Next time, when I try something more complex, I will take Bob delGrosso's suggestion to use a humidifier in the curing room.

Changes refers to the new meat grinder attachment that my wife gave me as an anniversary present, to replace the one that broke last month. For the most part the grinder looked the same, but there were three noticeable changes. The large cutting plate was larger than the old one, giving me effectively a small, medium and large plate now (you didn't think I got rid of the parts from the old one, did you?) The old wooden pusher is gone, it is now part of that plastic wrench thing that I have never used. Bad choice. It is not solid, more of an x-shape of plastic, and ingredients end up in the open stem. What really surprised me is the knife. It is no longer of the same composition as the plates - it appears to be stamped stainless steel. It has gone from 15 grams to 8 grams in weight. I was a bit worried, but it worked well.

Technorati Tags:charcuterie, sausage, pork, equipment
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

The Great Sausage Experiment

I have wanted to try dry-cured sausages for a long time, and with the guidance provided by Ruhlman and Polcyn, and the inspiration of Bob delGrosso, I was pretty sure I could succeed. My biggest concern was finding the place with the best environment. The most temperature stable place in the house is the cupboard in the basement, where we store extra cooking equipment and our wine rack. But, it's also where the sump pump is, and I figured that was a prime source of bad mold.

But, I got an email from Chef delGrosso which contained sound advice, and I have his permission to reprint it here: "Listen you can probably cure in you kitchen now. Don't overthink it. Do it, and if it doesn't work, then worry about it. My basement is actually a bit too dry (rel humidity is about 40%) but I'm not freaking out -yet." Mine too, despite the sump.

So I started it last week. I didn't bother taking pictures of the grinding and mixing process, as I just did the Italian Sausage one a few weeks ago. But, what you have below is kind of a time-lapse of the last 11 days. No sign of mold at all, but the drying process seems to going too fast. I have been concerned with case-hardening, and have taken to misting twice daily.

Today, I weighed the sausages, and after only 11 days they have lost more than the 30% they are supposed to lose in 18 -20 days from 719/694 grams to 387/371 grams. So, I guess I will cut into one tomorrow.

Technorati Tags:charcuterie, how to, pork, sausage
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Egg McMutant

This was quite a change from the Eggs Benedict and Sparkler for yesterday's brunch, instead an Egg McMutant with a slice of that same Canadian Bacon and some American "cheese" accompanied by a V-8. Darn good eating, again!

Technorati Tags:breakfast, pork, eggs,
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Makin' Bacon, eh?

I could have named this post "a perfect breakfast". My wife and I had our eleventh wedding anniversary last Thursday, but couldn't celebrate it until last night. This morning's brunch was Eggs Benedict and a sparkler. A note to the purists out there, I use a Yogurt "Hollandaise". Lipitor can't do it alone!

Of all of the components of this dish, perhaps the most important ingredient is the bacon. To me that is Canadian or Back Bacon - cured and smoked pork loin. Some people recommend peameal bacon, which is a pickled, uncooked loin. Some heretics even recommend a slice of ham. It's the real thing for me, preferably home made and these days that means the recipe in Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie. So, when Dash's had their three day meat sale, I bought a whole pork loin.

A boneless pork loin is fairly easy to break down. The first step is trimming any fat and silverskin. Abandoning the latter, I still ended up with a good amount of usable trim, mostly fat for use in sausages. I cut a two pound roast from the sirloin end - sometimes I divide it further for stir frying and such, but I had some in the freezer and this is a nice sized roast for a family of four. I also cut three chops from the rib end which I quick brined and grilled for dinner that night.

That left me with a 3.75 lb. piece of center cut pork loin. You don't have to tie it up, but it holds its shape better for - well for use in Eggs Benedict or an occasional egg McMutant. It then went into the brine to be refrigerated for 48 hours. One of the reasons I wanted to do it now is that the garden herbs I needed for the brine will soon be gone. In fact, there is a frost warning for tonight.

After brining, the loin was rinsed off, and placed on a rack in the fridge for 24 hours.



After the rest in the fridge, a nice tacky pellicle had formed and the time came to hot smoke the loin. As this was to be hot smoking, the fire was in the main chamber - rather than the side car (I have to work on that!). The smoke was created with chunks of pear wood gleaned from trimming my mother-in-law's tree. The aroma was fabulous, and the result perfect for today's breakfast.



One final note, the weather factored into my equation. While Buffalo gets a bad rap weather-wise, but we are approaching the time of year when the plastic sheets go up on the windows and the back door. So I was thinking about what I would do if the weather kept me from using a grill. Ruhlman and Polcyn suggest that you can just roast the loin, but that doesn't work for me. To paraphrase Trapper John McIntyre on martinis: Yeah but without smoke, a bacon just doesn't quite make it.

My answer: A lesson that was truly brought home in "How to Cook Meat". Add a half a cup of liquid smoke to the brine!

Technorati Tags:charcuterie, pork, how to, smoking, eggs, brunch
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Fun With Intestines

Bob del Grosso is a great cook and a great food blogger. He and I share a love of Ruhlman and Polcyn's masterful Charcuterie. The book is good because it is both well though out and well explained. It has information useful to both the professional and the home cook.

What has been most intriguing is Bob's recent attempts at Pancetta and my desire to work on some dry-cured meat products. We'll get to that, and Bob's advice later, but the last week or so has been filled other projects oddly all out of Charcuterie, we will get that started soon.

The fall is sausage time, as the weather has cooled enough (or not) for grinding pork products with greater safety. It is also, after a long summer of grilling, a time when I have a whole lot of trimmings - especially pork trimmings. There were scraps of meat and fat from whole pork loins used in Canadian bacon (we'll get to that next), and a whole lot of rib trimmings (The boneless brisket portion and the skirt flaps). Since they were leaner than the pork butt called for in the recipe, I adjusted the proportion of meat to fat. Everything else was just ground for use in meatloaf or meatballs.

The Photos show the progression from cubed meat to ground meat, being beaten briefly with the paddle, stuffed and portioned. The links were tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen in a ziplock bag. Except for one. I cooked it up and had it on a bun with some sauteed onions and peppers and some Weber's Mustard.

Darn Good Eating!

Oh, and the last photo is the cracked housing on my KitchenAid sausage grinder. Rest well old friend!

Technorati Tags:charcuterie, how to, italien, pork, sausage
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator