BACK TO THE MEAT GRINDER, and some GUMBO
To demonstrate where my heart lies: Several months ago, seduced by the gorgeous, re-planted Williams-Sonoma up on 21st, I swapped out my Nordstroms Visa for a W-S visa. Now, instead of the little $20.00 coupon from you-know-who, useful only for purchasing something else from Nordstrom, I amass points which I can convert to a W-S coupon or use to pay down my bill. Or give as a gift. (It could happen!)
Got busy and put my gym membership on my new card. Use it to support my Eileen Fisher addiction.
Groceries. And by January, I was able to trade in my points for a hundred-dollar coupon.
Which brings us to the meat grinder. I wanted to return the unsatisfactory KitchenAid grinder for a shiny, stainless steel model from W-S, using my coupon.
But I had done my due diligence, and found that every model available on the Web was strongly disliked by folks who take the time to write a review on these things. Couldn't find the W-S model on line, but learned at the store that it is manufactured in Italy. Called TRE Spade. Aus rostfreiem stahl! (stainless steel).
A thing of beauty, heavy, serious, serious tool. Yes, pretty expensive . . . but I had the coupon . . .
Now the question is, will this be another toy or will I really use it? First attempt, I ground some cooked ham to make a sandwich spread with cheese and sweet pickle. In the processor, neither the cheese nor the meat is evenly ground, which isn't a huge problem, really, but my new Spade was perfect. Good.
Now what? What with one thing and another, I haven't gotten it down again. But I have plans!
I suspect we all have our recipes for gumbo, won't bother sending you another. So this is just a story. We were at Black Butte, enjoying the mountains, the sunshine, the snow. Wake up to Three Fingered Jack turning pink, slight cloud cap on Washington, and you feel that in this new day you will be the person you have always been meaning to be.
Larry wanted to cook, and gumbo seemed just right. The recipe we were using called for chicken thighs and andouille for the meat component. He chose to use chicken breast plus the sausage instead, and sauteed the chunks in oil before adding them to the stew. It was so delicious that it didn't really matter that he'd caught the pot holders (yes, both of them) on fire. See, by now we're so accustomed to our induction stove top that we forget that electric burners stay hot. Must remember to buy replacement pot holders. At Williams-Sonoma.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
GUEST WRITER TODAY:
I'm happy to introduce you to one of my favorite people in the world -- Herbert Piekow. He's a wonderful friend, a brilliant floral designer, and a gifted novelist. Several years ago he moved to Mexico from our beloved, rainy Oregon, and the transplant seems to have worked very well.
I'm quoting from a letter he wrote to me, and as you see, among his other talents is cookery, dear to this bloggers heart! (And I will get back to the meat- grinder on another day.) P.S., for many years, he and his partner Jack Richardson did indeed provide the floral displays for the Academy Awards!
This weekend is the BIG wedding in my Mexican
family. Ramón, or Junior is getting married fulfilling his mother´s
dream, and I hope his as well. His bride is lovely and we all truly like
her. My covered terrazzo looks like the prep area for the Academy Awards,
it is filled with buckets of red and white roses, lilies and other
flowers and greens. Martha, the mother, has been busy prepping for the
main dish, which she will cook over an open fire in her back yard. She is
making bieria, a type of stew, she will cook it over an open fire.
Already she has stemmed and seeded about 80 pounds of chilies. Today we
start boiling about 150 lbs of tomatoes, that they need to be skinned and
run through the liquidora to turn them into pulp. Usually bieria is made
with goat, but we bought a cow which has been slaughtered and after being
cooked she and the four daughters will shred by hand. Earlier we bought
about 20, or more, gallons of tequila, other family members bring other
foods and things. We have made at least twenty trips to Guadalajara,
about an hour away, to buy specially decorated tequila bottles, party
favors, have the wedding dress made, this required about five trips. We
went to the wholesale jewelry district and had the rings made and I don´t
know how many other trips for various causes, my poor Jeep needs a rest.
the wedding was perfect in every way. After the wedding Mass
the priest commented, from the altar, about the floral designs. We did
run out of tequila, which is a good sign, we went out and bought more.
There was just enough food for all 400 guests, the following day, Sunday
we ate left over rice with bieria sauce, no meat left.
The mariachi band played for three hours, then Uncle Juan had a sound and
light show followed by the Banda that played until nearly 4 AM. I danced
so much I wore a blister on my ankle.
This is Jane again: I won't bother asking for the recipe for bieria -- the scale is a little formidable -- and this must be one of those cases in which you simply had to be there. But I did find a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Authentic Mexican, by Rick Bayless: Birria de Chivo o de Carnero, kindly translated for us as "Slow-Steamed Goat or Lamb" in the event you are hosting a wedding sometime soon. No, I'm not going to print it here, but you can get it from the library, or probably on line.
Many thanks to you, Herbert, and I hope to have you on my blog again soon!
I'm happy to introduce you to one of my favorite people in the world -- Herbert Piekow. He's a wonderful friend, a brilliant floral designer, and a gifted novelist. Several years ago he moved to Mexico from our beloved, rainy Oregon, and the transplant seems to have worked very well.
I'm quoting from a letter he wrote to me, and as you see, among his other talents is cookery, dear to this bloggers heart! (And I will get back to the meat- grinder on another day.) P.S., for many years, he and his partner Jack Richardson did indeed provide the floral displays for the Academy Awards!
This weekend is the BIG wedding in my Mexican
family. Ramón, or Junior is getting married fulfilling his mother´s
dream, and I hope his as well. His bride is lovely and we all truly like
her. My covered terrazzo looks like the prep area for the Academy Awards,
it is filled with buckets of red and white roses, lilies and other
flowers and greens. Martha, the mother, has been busy prepping for the
main dish, which she will cook over an open fire in her back yard. She is
making bieria, a type of stew, she will cook it over an open fire.
Already she has stemmed and seeded about 80 pounds of chilies. Today we
start boiling about 150 lbs of tomatoes, that they need to be skinned and
run through the liquidora to turn them into pulp. Usually bieria is made
with goat, but we bought a cow which has been slaughtered and after being
cooked she and the four daughters will shred by hand. Earlier we bought
about 20, or more, gallons of tequila, other family members bring other
foods and things. We have made at least twenty trips to Guadalajara,
about an hour away, to buy specially decorated tequila bottles, party
favors, have the wedding dress made, this required about five trips. We
went to the wholesale jewelry district and had the rings made and I don´t
know how many other trips for various causes, my poor Jeep needs a rest.
the wedding was perfect in every way. After the wedding Mass
the priest commented, from the altar, about the floral designs. We did
run out of tequila, which is a good sign, we went out and bought more.
There was just enough food for all 400 guests, the following day, Sunday
we ate left over rice with bieria sauce, no meat left.
The mariachi band played for three hours, then Uncle Juan had a sound and
light show followed by the Banda that played until nearly 4 AM. I danced
so much I wore a blister on my ankle.
This is Jane again: I won't bother asking for the recipe for bieria -- the scale is a little formidable -- and this must be one of those cases in which you simply had to be there. But I did find a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Authentic Mexican, by Rick Bayless: Birria de Chivo o de Carnero, kindly translated for us as "Slow-Steamed Goat or Lamb" in the event you are hosting a wedding sometime soon. No, I'm not going to print it here, but you can get it from the library, or probably on line.
Many thanks to you, Herbert, and I hope to have you on my blog again soon!
Friday, February 1, 2013
A SARDINE IS NOT AN ANCHOVY: A Cautionary Tale
It all started with a short sentence in a cooking mag -- famous chef said he liked to grind his own meat, but the food processor was not the correct tool. Lightbulb! I'd tried "grinding" chicken and pork with my processor, but managed only an uneven shredding. Hmm.
Flashback to my mom's kitchen and the sturdy hand grinder she used, not for meat, so far as I remember, but nuts and dried fruits for our Christmas cookies. To my own earlier grinding attachment to my Kitchenaid, which I'd passed along to my son-in-law.
Enough to propel me to Williams-Sonoma in search of the hand-grinder mentioned by famous chef. Wow! A hundred and fifty dollars? But there was a shiny new Kitchenaid attachment for forty-nine or so. Deal.
Took it home, it was useless for the pork shoulder Larry had acquired from Cash and Carry for the freezer, and the ragu we'd planned for that evening's dinner. The knife blade was unable to slice through the meat that worked it's way through the turn screw, and a most unpleasant mess of mashed meat was all the thing could accomplish. And yet, it did a great job on some citrus and on those nuts and dried fruit.
On to the web, where a hundred sad stories of hand-grinder failure littered the screen. Haven't solved this yet, but now we move on to the main theme. Sardines.
Larry had expressed a desire for the sardine sandwiches old Doc Peterson across the street from his childhood home ate. Always willing to help, I'd ordered some sardines along with other frozen sea food from a purveyor I'd found out of an Alaska fishery. Alas, the reality didn't live up to the nostalgic longing, and it became clear that the last sardine in the first tin he'd opened would live in the refrig until I could toss is some dark night when he was away.
But there was that mashed, mangled pork for the ragu. Obviously we went on with the all-day recipe, which promised to be gorgeous. Until I had my bright idea.
We've learned from Marcella Hazan that many an excellent dish can start with a bit of anchovy mashed in the skillet with some olive oil, which melts into a delicious undertone -- giving up its own identity in service of the greater good. Well now, why not employ that lonely sardine in the same fashion. One tiny sardine in several quarts of ragu?
Here's why not. The damn thing took over, not just the sauce but the kitchen. Hours later, we'd walk in and be smitten with that awful sardine smell. And taste! No giving up for this fish.
Okay, what to do? The recipe had included hot Italian sausage, which had completely surrendered to the sardine. But it has fennel in it, and so I added a hefty teaspoon of the spice. Nada. More red pepper. Oregano. Lemon juice. Even milk, thinking to turn this into a Bolognaise. Nope.
But lying in the drawer next to the fennel was fenugreek. I don't think I'd ever used it, don't know why I had it. But it smelled lovely, said it was to be used in Indian cookery. Might as well. To my eternal surprise, it did the job, almost. The sardine was still there, but at least not on the front of the fork.
It's my hope that some tenure in the freezer will continue the process the fenugreek started, because we have a boat-load of the stuff.
I'll let you know what happens with the meat-grinder in the next post.
Flashback to my mom's kitchen and the sturdy hand grinder she used, not for meat, so far as I remember, but nuts and dried fruits for our Christmas cookies. To my own earlier grinding attachment to my Kitchenaid, which I'd passed along to my son-in-law.
Enough to propel me to Williams-Sonoma in search of the hand-grinder mentioned by famous chef. Wow! A hundred and fifty dollars? But there was a shiny new Kitchenaid attachment for forty-nine or so. Deal.
Took it home, it was useless for the pork shoulder Larry had acquired from Cash and Carry for the freezer, and the ragu we'd planned for that evening's dinner. The knife blade was unable to slice through the meat that worked it's way through the turn screw, and a most unpleasant mess of mashed meat was all the thing could accomplish. And yet, it did a great job on some citrus and on those nuts and dried fruit.
On to the web, where a hundred sad stories of hand-grinder failure littered the screen. Haven't solved this yet, but now we move on to the main theme. Sardines.
Larry had expressed a desire for the sardine sandwiches old Doc Peterson across the street from his childhood home ate. Always willing to help, I'd ordered some sardines along with other frozen sea food from a purveyor I'd found out of an Alaska fishery. Alas, the reality didn't live up to the nostalgic longing, and it became clear that the last sardine in the first tin he'd opened would live in the refrig until I could toss is some dark night when he was away.
But there was that mashed, mangled pork for the ragu. Obviously we went on with the all-day recipe, which promised to be gorgeous. Until I had my bright idea.
We've learned from Marcella Hazan that many an excellent dish can start with a bit of anchovy mashed in the skillet with some olive oil, which melts into a delicious undertone -- giving up its own identity in service of the greater good. Well now, why not employ that lonely sardine in the same fashion. One tiny sardine in several quarts of ragu?
Here's why not. The damn thing took over, not just the sauce but the kitchen. Hours later, we'd walk in and be smitten with that awful sardine smell. And taste! No giving up for this fish.
Okay, what to do? The recipe had included hot Italian sausage, which had completely surrendered to the sardine. But it has fennel in it, and so I added a hefty teaspoon of the spice. Nada. More red pepper. Oregano. Lemon juice. Even milk, thinking to turn this into a Bolognaise. Nope.
But lying in the drawer next to the fennel was fenugreek. I don't think I'd ever used it, don't know why I had it. But it smelled lovely, said it was to be used in Indian cookery. Might as well. To my eternal surprise, it did the job, almost. The sardine was still there, but at least not on the front of the fork.
It's my hope that some tenure in the freezer will continue the process the fenugreek started, because we have a boat-load of the stuff.
I'll let you know what happens with the meat-grinder in the next post.
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