Eating Out While Faking It

Greetings and salutations! Another week, another set of culinary adventures. As I’m sure you saw on the Facebook, I was beating my brains trying to come up with something to throw down on the Cooking With Pook segment on the Central Valley Buzz. It was late, the beer was flowing and I was rooting through the pepper porn on Thehotpepper.com and I discovered a drunken cooking thread of impressive size. As I flick through the various inspiring and spicy dishes I run across something so strange that I instantly fall in love.

Blueberry cole slaw. What in the heck? I’m normally a fan of more savory slaws, but for some reason it sounded good. It also had absolutely no recipe listed anywhere in the post that I could find. But I rarely let anything as paltry as a lack of experienced advice prevent me from wildly flailing about in some pathetic attempt to imitate an alien recipe! So here we go!

Blueberry Coleslaw

1 head cabbage shredded
1 large carrot shredded
1 red bell pepper chopped
1 small shallot minced
½ cup blueberries
¼ cup walnuts
¼ cup mayo (could substitute with yogurt or sour cream)
1/8 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons celery salt
1 hearty pinch pepper
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 small pinch nutmeg
1 tiny amount star anise


First shred your cabbage and salt with the celery salt. Then grate the carrot and dice your walnuts and red bell pepper and add to the cabbage. In a separate bowl begin to prepare the dressing. First, mash your blueberries in the bottom of the bowl with a fork until they’re thoroughly broken up. Then sprinkle with the dark brown sugar. Mince the shallot and add in as well. Pour in the mayonnaise, heavy cream, vinegar, pepper and a pinch of celery salt and whisk together until purpley-smooth. Now for the important part.  The weird spice measurements.  The amount of nutmeg used was scraped in two brief passes over a grater of the whole spice-nut. Less than a standard pinch. Then the star anise, you just use a few of the TINIEST little flakes scraped from one of the star nodules. Any more of either spice and they’ll totally dominate your dressing. And the idea is for them to help meld the savory and sweet flavors together.  Mix again, then toss the cabbage mixture with the dressing.  Cover and chill for at least 1 hour.  Serve and enjoy!

Given that I was flying blind on the recipe, I was overjoyed with the outcome. It was sweet but not cloying. There was nice crunch from the cabbage and the red bell pepper. The walnuts add a bit of a velvety texture between the softness of the berries and the zestier crunch of the vegetation. The nutmeg and star anise do a good job of staying in the background, lending some perfume to the bite, but not jumping out and dominating the palate. It’s certainly weird and attention getting without being so bizarre as to affront one’s culinary sensibilities.

If I were forced to make suggestions as to how to serve this edible sideshow attraction, I’d probably lean towards the beloved barbeque. Certainly ones with berry or cherry based sauces. Or accompanying a nice pulled pork sandwich and sweet potato fries. I’m even pretty sure that it’d play nicely with a fruitier red wine or a rose’.

So there it is! And I encourage all of you to be wild eyed explorers of the new and strange. Don’t be afraid to try a new twist on an old classic. Even if you don’t have a recipe, trust in your tastes and your experience to carry you through.


-Pook

Eating Out In Labor

Happy long weekend everybody! I am officially wrung out like a reusable vaginal sponge! This sedentary wordsmith has been running hither and yon so much that we’ve almost forgotten what our comfy hobbit hole looks like. From the Tower to the hills and back again. We’ve been all over our fair land in just a few days.

Tuesdays philly went over like gangbusters. And so now I can give to you the secret!

Not-Dan’s Philly Cheese

1 lb VERY thin sliced boneless ribeye steak
2 med red bell peppers julienned (about ¼ inch)
1 small shallot minced
1 clove garlic minced
¾ lb sharp cheddar cheese cubed
4 hoagie rolls
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bottle brown ale (Newcastle preferred)
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper to taste

First, start your cheese sauce. Take the cheddar cheese cubes and place into a plastic bag and sprinkle with the flour. Close the bag and shake to coat cheese. Heat your butter and sauté your shallots until they’re glassy. Turn down your heat and add the cheddar cheese and about 1/3 of the ale. Stir and simmer, making sure to keep the cheese moving on the bottom of the pan so it doesn’t burn. Add in the cumin, paprika, turmeric and garlic, stir and reduce heat to low.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Now heat up your skillet and add in the olive oil. Season your beef with salt and pepper and place about 1/4 in the pan and brown on one side, then add in 1/4 of your red bell peppers and sauté with the beef. Working in batches, you can also toast your rolls if you prefer and assemble on the fly, or finish cooking your peppers and beef before you tackle the task. Simply open up your roll and squeeze in as much peppers and beef as you’d like. Then, placing the cut upright, ladle some of your hot cheese sauce over the filling, taking care not to overdo it and cover your hand in napalm-like lactose divinity.  Enjoy!

Then on to Wednesday and the Pub Quiz at The Landmark! As I heard the tale told, the jackpot was up around a couplefew grand! But alas, the sweet taste of victory and a buttload of cash was not to be had by the Central Valley Buzz team. Sadly, I was just bare assedly wrong on a few pivotal questions. Although I still stand by the fact that nitrocelluloid has been commonly known as celluloid since DeMille’s time. Yes, I’m pouting. No, it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest at the end of the game. Nyah!

Thursday again saw us dashing off to The Landmark again for a dear friend’s birthday and pub crawl. The funniest part being that no crawling actually happened. Instead we tucked in for a quick dinner. Scalone again. I know, I know, the food blogger should try new stuff and rant about it. But I REALLY like the scalone there! Their onion rings looked gorgeous, if you’re into that sort of thing. Our dinner companions were mightily impressed with theirs, that’s for sure. We then moved onto the patio to relax and palaver over cocktails and enjoy the mild summer evening. One big perk was my introduction to a mixed drink called a Hi-C. Which, hands down tastes like the old fruit punch, but it masks an insidiously strong booze kick that’ll have you drooling under the table after a few. Alas, we’re unable to fully embrace the terrifying cocktail, for we cannot be drag-assing for…

Friday! And this evening we’re off to Mr. Chuck Leonard’s surprise birthday party at the City Arts Gallery. Mr. Mayor was taken off to enjoy a baseball game downtown to give everyone time to gather and set up. Then at the appointed hour this wizened old man was nearly sent fluttering from this mortal coil by the exuberant bellow of his many well wishers. After some smelling salts and the defibrillator, he was back up and delivering hugs to his friends and associates. Then off to the libation table to get tight! There was a fantabulous cold cut and snack spread. Which worked out fabulously for me since I was running on Pringles at the time. Of course the night rocked our little pink socks right the heck off. Even Chance the Friendly Pit Bull was having the time of his life as new friends and old chatted and danced the night away.

Saturday…ugh! I feel like a Kenyan distance runner has been using my liver as his left shoe. We’re due up in Coarsegold for yet ANOTHER good friend’s holiday long birthday shindig. There is nothing quite like being able to relax with coincidentally unrelated family in the wonders of the live oak, clear skies and beautiful vistas. But I’m also feeling tired, grumpy and terribly self indulgent. I love everybody to death and unfortunately missed out on the planned tacogeddon that night. But we opted to lay low and rehydrate, then duck out to Yoshino’s for some sushi. We had a newer guy as our sushi chef, but he was on point through the whole meal. We started off with some miso soup and a little plain rice, then she moved on to the snappy roll, which she loved. I opted for a couple orders of tuna and 1 order of yellowtail nigiri sushi (fish on rice). I used to not be a raw tuna fan, but at Yoshino’s they seems to always get really fresh and clean tasting tuna. Mmm mmm good! An order of beef sashimi and I’m full to the gills. What? Yeah, I said beef sashimi! It’s crazy good. A lightly seared piece of beef is sliced very thin and placed over daikon strings with a sweet-savory sauce and scallions. If you like rare beef, you’ll love this and it’s a great way to get non-sushi fans into the fun of Japanese cuisine. Good meal, relaxing evening, good cheer reserves are topped off and ready for GO!

Sunday and Monday have actually been more of 1 solid chunky day. I could wax poetic about my dear friends that you might not know or might actually be. Sufficed to say that we’re super, ultra, mega, blessed by a dearth of good people in our life. And they can cook! Dinner was The Most Perfect Green Chicken Enchiladas ever made by man. Good drink and conversation waxed clean through to sunrise at which point the morning shift kicked in. Talk about a wake and bake! Straight out of bed and on to proofing her cardamom rolls prior to their Faustian convectionary completion. They didn’t last long. But it did seem so long until dinner, farfalle with Italian sausage and a asiago primavera sauce. So damn good!

We even got some great and potentially life ending exposure to wildlife. First was a little bobcat kit that we saw staring at us from the shore of a nearby pond. So incredibly cute! We were told to beware that there was a mountain lion in the vicinity, but thankfully it took the holiday off, short of giving us all a start with a 3 a.m. yowl. But my most impressively boneheaded move was narrowly averted by Mrs. EOF. As we’re walking up a well defined dirt road, I’m dazed and entranced by an angus cow that appears to be magically floating around a pond, munching the plants. Aqua cow! A new breed! When I’m knocked to the side with a counterintuitively calm “Dude, snake.” She narrowly saved me from stepping right on the fattest rattlesnake I’ve ever seen and the first one I’ve ever seen outside of a cage. Thankfully, it appeared that he too had been partying all night as he barely took notice of us as we lurched past him. So, thank you Mr. Mellow Rattlesnake for not taking down the giant, pasty and (stupidly) barelegged blogger. That fact that I’m still alive and have both my legs still has totally made my summer. Here’s hoping you get to somewhere people don’t go and spread your snakey gospel of not biting dumb drunk insomniacs.



-Pook

Eating Out Tubers and Shrooms

So spring is here and I have begun my seasonal plunder of the Vineyard Farmers Market. It’s still early in the season, so what these farmers lack in bounty they make up for in succulent tenderness. Sweet little tightly coiled bunches of baby romaine, tangy and sweet myer lemons, blood oranges. My money just evaporates every time I come here. It takes two trips to the car just so we’re not loaded down while we try to sip coffee. And naturally, I forget to bring my camera. So you’re stuck with what we brought home.

There were two major scores on the trip. The beloved ladies of Sun Smiling Farms offered their usual delicious array of mushrooms and some beautiful, young leeks. But, oh happy and special day! They have morels! Blow your truffles out your ass, morels rule the fungal world in my crystal castle! The comely lady is quite amused as I do my gangly-pudgy dance celebrating the extra fatness I shall be layering on for the sweltering summer to come. My other major delight was discovering that the veg folks on the northeast corner had Jerusalem artichokes! I have heard of sunchokes before, but have never worked with, or tasted them before. I’m giddy with delight at the prospect of working with a new and relatively rare (for Fresno) ingredient. Now, whatever shall we make with these beauties?

Glad you asked! Time for Sunday dinner. I’m an immediate gratification kinda fellow. So, we’re going to dive right into the middle of the market bounty and make all of the delicacies into a mess o’ vittles. Scouring the interweb for morel recipes is bizarre. Any ‘shroom hunter site pretty much offers 80 variation on fried morels, 1 cream sauce recipe and 1 soup recipe. The rest of the web offered morels and asparagus. How odd. You would think that such a wonderful mushroom would have more variation in it’s popular use. I guess fried highlights the flavor best. Screw that though, I want a brandy cream sauce with these bad boys. How I wish I could find green peppercorns in this town! But a good cook soldiers on. That’ll mean some steaks. Rib eyes look good. Ok, now onto the chokes. Hmmm, sautéed with sage and lemon? Nah. Oooooo! Sunchoke au gratin with ginger and garlic. Now that sounds delicious! And what’s this? Dilled horseradish red potato salad? Yes please. But what’s this crap about using a microwave? Screw that, I’ve got the idea, I can run with it from there.

Rib Eye Steaks with Morel Brandy Cream Sauce

2 med rib eye steaks
6oz morel mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
¾ cup diced shallots
4 tablespoons brandy
1 cup cream
2 cups beef broth reduced by 2/3
2 tablespoons green peppercorns (if you can lay hands on these spicy little gems)


Prep: Soak your morels in salt water to wash off the grit and run off any potential hitch hikers. After the soak, rinse and dry on a paper towel. Prior to use, give a rough chop. I like mine fairly chunky. Put your beef broth on a low simmer to reduce. Add in a bay leave if you like. Give your shallots a dice and season your steaks with a little salt and pepper. 

Now, heat up your pan and add the olive oil and 2 tbl spoons of butter. Once the foam has settled, fry your steaks to taste, preferably medium rare. Once done, set aside and rest. Add 1 more tbl spoon of butter to the pan and then add in your shallots. I like to cook mine until they’re getting a bit glassy, around 5 minutes. At this point, add in the reduced beef stock and the brandy. Careful smokers! Booze evaporates. Keep that rockin Tom Selleck mustache in safety. Allow that to simmer a bit, then add in your morels (and peppercorns if you have them). Allow these to simmer until you start to smell the boozy brandy mellow and the mushroom smell starts to dominate. Now add in your cream and simmer until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Plate your steak, then top with morels scooped from the pan, then spoon sauce over the whole affair. Your dinner guest will hail you as a golden god of cream sauces. Next course! In reverse.


Sunchoke gratin

2 cups of med sliced sunchokes
2 table spoons butter
1 cup cream
1 & 1/2 teaspoons of corn starch
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger
salt and pepper
1/2 cup crushed walnuts

Prep: Wash and slice your sunchokes, then slice them about 3/16ths of an inch thick.  Crush your walnuts to the desired texture.  Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees and prepare a roasting pan with a water bath

Heat up a sauce pan with some butter, add in your sunchokes, ginger, garlic, salt and pepper and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Mix corn starch with a little reserved cream and add to the pan and simmer for another 5 minutes or until thickened.  Spoon sunchokes and sauce into 2 buttered ramekins, top with walnuts and place in the water bath and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.  Allow to cool and enjoy.

The recipe worked spot on and was insanely delicious. The only variation I made was substituting the bread crumbs with crushed walnuts. OMFG*! (*Oh My Felicitous Goat) It was insanely good! I had no idea that Jerusalem artichokes would taste so much like sunflower seeds. It makes sense, since it’s a sunflower tuber. But amazingly delicious all the same. And it mixes so very well with the warm oily flavor of the toasted walnuts on top. I think next time I might grate a little nutmeg into the cream as well to add a little bit of a perfume to the flavor. Happy happy happy! And last but first…


Dilled Horseradish Potato Salad

2lb red potatoes cubed
½ cup diced shallots
1 cup mayonnaise
1 heaping tablespoon horseradish (We like it HOT baby!)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons dried dill
½ tsp cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Prep: Wash and cube your potatoes. Boil until fork tender then rinse and cool. Dice shallots.


Take all of your wet ingredients and whisk together in a bowl large enough for your pertaters. Toss in your dill and shallots and mix. Then add in your chilled potatoes and toss thoroughly to combine. You can serve immediately, but the flavors will be more pronounced if allowed to rest overnight.

And that dear friends is, what I hope to be the first of many wonderful dishes made from fresh ingredients sold by Fresnans and from our own soils. This is only whetting my appetite for what bounties may come from the market as well as my own recently planted garden. Thumbs up to ole Maw Nature for kicking down some kick ass grub.

-Pook

Eating Out Myself

And so we return, dear readers.  I have retreated to the Cave of Grumpiness, now that the Rogue Festival has come and gone.  Truly it was a grand two weeks for myself and many many others.  Shows were rocked, crowds were wowed and lots of new friends and acquaintances were made.  A hearty thank you to everyone who participated in the Rogue this year, from the organizers to the volunteers to the audiences themselves.

All that said, onto the foodings.  A strong lack of time and spare cash conspired to keep me from embracing as many Tower eateries as I would have liked.  But have no fear, I have every intention of Eating Out Tower and leaving her mewling and sloppy in my wake.  But until I can miracle up enough cash, we're going to focus on what we're Eating Out at home.

A favorite treat of mine is a dish I learned at the table of a disgraced mobster, who had been exiled from the home country for reasons unknown.  He was dating a rather promiscuous and somewhat foolish friend who had invited us up to his Hollywood Hills home for dinner.  So after some small talk about how he was Italian Special Forces, a former mining engineer, a single engine prop-plane pilot and what the current market prices of Bolivian booger sugar was, I came to the conclusion that he was the real deal and I had better buckle in, shut up and hold on.  And now, I'm afraid that my fiercly clenched sphincter was going to leave a spiral pattern in the seats of his redwood dining chairs.  But a dish was brought out that was so delicious that I was (foolishly) able to relax.  Such is the magic of pasta carbonara!

And then I find out that it's stupid easy to make!  The hardest part is finding pancetta, which is readily available at Sam's Italian Deli.  From there it's just a bit of planning and moxy.  So be not afraid!  And if you're too cheap for pancetta, you can easily substitute the same amount of bacon.  It's a little different, but still amazing.  So here's what you'll need.

1lb spaghetti (or linguini)
4 eggs (3 if they're large)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 lb pancetta (sliced thick, 1/8th inch)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup romano cheese (both grated)
fresh cracked pepper

Now, before some purist yells NUH UH!  THAT AIN'T HOW GRANDMA MAKES IT!  Well, you're right.  So go eat a dick.  We're making it this way this time.  I've done it in the past with only egg yolks.  Hella yum, but this is less of a pain in the ass.  So suck it.

First!  Give your pancetta a dice.  I like mine a bit chunky, so I keep it 1/8th inch cubes.  Then add it to a nice pre-heated pan, deep enough to take about a pound of pasta.  You'll find out why soon.  Now cook down the pancetta until you render the fat from it.  Unlike regular bacon, it'll start to look done long before it is.  Lower heat will help prevent burning.  But melt as much fat as you can out of the pancetta.  Once it's well done but not terribly crunchy, transfer it to a paper towel lined plate.  Drain the fat and reserve 2 tablespoons for later naughtyness.

Somewhere in all of this you should have already started the water for your pasta.  So, now would be the time for you to cook said pasta.  Because you'll be using the following 7 minutes to beat your eggs together with the cream.  Then toss your cheese in with the eggs.  Now, take your pancetta pan and put it back on medium heat with your reserved fat.  Once it's warm, your pasta should be done.

Now comes the planning.  You need to get your pasta quickly and safely drained and into the pan before it can significantly cool, since it's going to save you from an ignoble death via salmonella ridden undercooked eggs.  Thats right!  The hot pasta cooks the eggs!  So stop dawdling and get it in the pan!  Give it a quick toss in the hot fat, throw in the pancetta and then pour your egg/cheese/cream mixture over the top.  Cut the heat.  Here I find it easiest to use a fork and spoon to toss the pasta and egg mixture together.  It will quickly emulsify into a creamy, gooey, bacon ridden delight.  Sprinkle with cracked black pepper and you're good to go.  I don't use any extra salt as I find there is plenty coming from the cheese and pancetta.

Get this plated and shoved into your face asap!  As it cools that sauce will sieze, so this is a one shot, eat it as you make it kind of dish.  But I dare you, no I double platipus vagina dare you to be able to walk away from a plate with even a smidgen of this God-made-food left on it.  If food could be narcissistic, I could easily understand this dish wanting to fuck itself and forsake all others.

Make it.  Eat it.  Make other people eat it.  I will wait patiently for your thanks.

-Pook