June 20th, 2013 - Thursday - Achiote Paste

June 20th, 2013 - Thursday - Achiote Paste

While making Carnitas I found a recipe that included Achiote Paste. I looked on Amazon and found some, but didn't want to wait for it to get here.  So instead I went with my daughter to a few local Mexican Markets, and found some Achiote Seeds (Annatto Seeds) as well as a block of the paste.  When I got home I decided to make my own paste.  Here is the recipe, inspired by the Modernist Cuisine at Home book.

Achiote Paste
1/4 Cut of Annattoo Seeds
3 teaspoons of Ground Annatto (Achiote) Powder.
2 Dried New Mexico Peppers, stemmed and mostly seeded (I left a lot of seeds in)
1 Tablespoon of Black Peppercorns
1/2 Tablespoon of Cirander Seeds
1 Teaspoon of Cumin Seeds
1/2 Tablespoon of Dried Oregano
1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice
8 Whole Cloves
1/2 cup of orange juice
2/3 cup of white wine vinegar
1/4 cup of lemon juice

NOTE: The recipe I used also includes 3 tablespoons of chopped garlic and 1 teaspoon of tequila.  Both of which I didn't use this time.

Put all the dried stuff in a coffee grinder and grind to a powder.  Add to a blender, add the liquids, and blend.  There you go! Makes a lot more than you need in the Carnitas recipe, so save it in the fridge. I have no idea if it freezes.

June 19th, 2013 - Wednesday - Brown Pork Stock - Pressured-Cooked

June 19th, 2013 - Wednesday - Brown Pork Stock - Pressured-Cooked

These mad Modernists are mad about pressure cooking.  Remember those magical machines that made so much sound in the old days when we were children?  Well we are bringing them back.

Today... my Kuhn Rikon Pressure Cooker arrived from Amazon:

The first thing we made with it was some rich brown pork stock.... Instead of boiling water for hours, we did it in an hour!

Ingredients

Pork Short Ribs - 1 lb
Neutral Oil - 2 tablespoons
Ground Pork -  .5 lbs
Neutral Oil - 1/4 cup
Water - 4 Cups
White Whine - 1/2 Cup
Carrots Sliced Thinly - 1 Cup
Yellow Onion and Onion Skin - 1 Cup
Leek - White Parts Only - Sliced - 1 Leek Bulb
Italian Parsley - Handful of sprigs
Fresh Thyme - 2 big sprigs
Fresh bay leaf - 1 leaf

What to do good folks?  Bake those ribs for 45 minutes (in a bit of oil) at 400 degrees in the oven.  Brown them good.  Then put the 1/4 cup of oil in the bottom of your pressure cooker, heat it it up, and brown that ground pork.  Add the water, whine, carrots, onions, leeks, parsley, and herbs... and then the browned short ribs.  I think I added a bit of extra water.

Seal the pressured cooker and heat at 1 bar for 1 hour.  You can go longer for sure, the longer the better actually... but you'll get a nice good stock after 1 hour.  

When you are done, depressurize the cooker with room temperature water and then strain the vegetables out... and you have wonderful stock....

WAIT A MINUTE!!!!

What about that pound of short ribs????

Exactly!  I took those ribs and slathered them with sauce and slapped them on my outdoor grill for 10 minutes and... you guessed it... AMAZING RIBS.  HOLY CRAP!  

The sauce is used is worth mentioning for a second.  It was Stonewall Kitchen - Maple Chipotle Grille Sauce.  And... it was okay.  I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not saying it's good.  It was okay on the ribs.

So you will soon see a 'rib' recipe coming from me... and it's going to be 1 hour in the pressure cooking followed by 10 minutes on the grill and it might just be incredible, because these were so good.... so tender... perfectly cooked ribs.  Now I need the best BBQ sauce I can get and we'll see where we end up!  Looking forward to that, and I hope you are too!  

As always... your comments are welcome!

June 8th - Cook's Illustrated Cookbook - Tuscan-Style Garlic-Rosemary Roast Pork Loin

June 8th - Cook's Illustrated Cookbook - Tuscan-Style Garlic-Rosemary Roast Pork Loin - One of the definite joys I get in this world is putting together a good meal.  Good meals are a combination of a lot of things, not the least of which is the foundation of intention that goes into them.  We appearing humans have a lot of energies running through us, and being an artist in any realm means sensing, balancing, and transmitting those energies out into the world in a form or expression. 

Cooking is one such expression.  Not many people would tell you to learn to breath and to use energies of intention and purpose in your cooking... but I will!  Through meditations of various sorts, I gather energies in my body and transform them into useful forms so I can express my art (in this case, good cooking) with ease.

Enough about all that, let's talk about Tuscan Style Pork!  So I had this boneless Pork Loin in my freezer from Costco, and I decided to finally use it!  And I looked around at a bunch of recipes and came up with some ideas.  I'm listing the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook (from the Cooks Illustrated folks) in the title because they gave me the inspiration for the garlic and rosemary.  

Now let me tell you about this meal.  It turned out absolutely fabulous, a real treat.  We ate it with the family last night out on the porch and it touched us all emotionally.  That's what the best meals do, right?  There are some things I think could be improved.   For instance, I think the roast loin could be cooked Sous Vide and we would have had more tender pork cooked perfectly all the way through.  That's what I'm going to try next time.

So here we go...

We started with about a 4 pound pork loin.  Cook's Illustrated folks tell you to use one with bones, but I didn't have one with bones, so there wasn't much I could do about that.

Brining the Pork

There is a method in the book where you submerge the pork in a brine liquid in the fridge for 2 hours... I didn't do this.  Instead I used my handy syringe and injected salt water brine into the pork in many places.  I've never really figured out if this works very well.  The Modernist Cuisine folks do it all the time.  I've got to eventually learn about brining, because I really know next to nothing.  Never the less, I injected salt water into the pork.

Paste - Garlic - Rosemary

So next I made a paste of 2 tablespoons of minced garlic (I got mine from a jar, but you could use fresh), three or four sprigs worth of fresh rosemary leaves chopped up, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and some pepper and salt.  

Brown the Loin

I patted the Pork Loin dry and heated some Olive Oil.  I then browned the Loin fat side down in the oil for a 5-10 minutes.  I took the loin out and set it on the cutting board.  I cut holes in the loin with my knife and stuffed it and slathered it with the Paste.

In the Pan

In the pan with the olive oil and the juices from the pork, I heated it up, added 2-3 more sprigs worth of rosemary leaves, then an onion (I used a red onion of all things) and cooked them down a bit.  Then I added white wine.  I used Pinot Grigio, which I don't think is a 'dry'  white wine.  Well, maybe it is, I found a Blog about it:  Wine Folly.  Yes indeed Pinot Grigio is a dry white wine.  What do you know?  Though they suggested I use a Chardonnay for Pork.  Oh well.

I cooked this mixture together till the wine reduced and tasted amazing.

Dutch Oven

In a dutch oven I layered in some carrots.  Then put the pork loin on top of the carrots. I then added the white wine mixture of onions.  I think added a few more splashes of wine.  Then I put the whole thing in the oven at 275.  I wanted to cook it slow.

It would be at this point where next time I'll put the whole thing in a bag and Sous Vide cook it slowly to the perfect temperature of 140 degrees

In the oven I had a hard time getting to 140, I had to eventually increase the heat to 325, and then it over shot the 140 mark to 155 which is overcooked.  Damn it.  (It still tasted wonderfully, but we can do better and I'm convinced Sous Vide is the way to do it!)

You take the roast out and let it sit for 15 minutes, best covered in tented foil.

Sauce

So I heated some olive oil while the roast was sitting, and added 2-3 more sprigs of rosemary to the oil and four small shallots chopped up!  Then I slowly added Chicken Broth, probably 1-2 cups, maybe more, then boiled it. I added the accumulated juices from the pork as well as lots of the juice from the wine mixture the pork just cooked in.  I cooked this mixture for 5 minutes or so and it was the most wonderful gravy.

Carrots and Onions

So the carrots and onions that the Pork Baked in were a side dish and the carrots just tasted AMAZING.

Mashed Potatoes

My daughter made Mashed Potatoes which went with the meal perfectly!

We ate outside with the family and it was just wonderful. One of the better meals.  Just so perfect.  I will say again however that next time I'm Sous Vide cooking it so the meat is just perfect. 

[I'll let you know one day when I do that and come back and add a link to this post pointing to the new recipe]

Again, this was a fantastic meal.  Thanks to the folks at Cook's Illustrated for some of the ideas that inspired this!

May 29th, 2013 - Wednesday - Modernist Hamburgers

Modernist Hamburgers****

So last night I did indeed make the Modernist Hamburgers! There are a ton of variations on this... and I didn't use most of them.  But I will tell you what I did.  This is something I definitely will make again, and I will certain refine it greatly.  I took the base of the recipe from the Modernist Cuisine at Home book.

I bought 9 Angus Beef 1/2 pound premade patties at Smith's Grocery.  I asked them if they could grind me a specific mixture of meat I wanted, but they needed me to buy 14 lbs of the stuff to make it worth while.  So I'm going to have to invest in a grinder.  Without that I just bought the premade patties.

I salted them and put them in refrigerator for 1 full hour (covered with saran wrap) while I heated the water bath to 55 degrees Celsius.  I prepared 9 small zip lock bags, putting a teaspoon of vegetable oil in each one.

At the end of the hour... took the meat out of the refrigerator and put one each in the nine zip lock bags.  I dipped the bags in a pot of water to get all the air out (this is explained in depth in the Modernist Cookbook).  Then i put them right into the water bath.  I let them list there for about 2 hours. It said it takes about 45 minutes for them to be done, but... i let them sit longer. It doesn't hurt.  They can't get overcooked.

I got some buns, painted them with melted butter, and browned them under the broiler. I managed to overcook them slightly.

Then I pulled the hamburgers from the bags, dried them, and dropped them in a basket of boiling Vegetable Oil to deep fry them for 30 seconds.  I took them out, patted them dry, salted them again, and put a piece of cheese on top (I used Tillamook Sharp Cheddar).  Once all six were deep fried, I then put them under the broiler with the cheese for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.  It melted the cheese nicely.

Then... we took them out and started building our burgers.  The reviews were outstanding... but there are a few areas I want to explore to expand on the taste.  First I want to grind my own meat and use my own meat blend. I want to season the meat as I want to season it.  I want to make homemade hamburger buns as the Modernists suggest. I want to try grilling the meat instead of deep frying when ti comes out of the water bath.  I want to use a Modernist Cheese making method for cheese! Yes, I know... quiet ambitious!  We'll get there and I'll report on it all!

Till then, this version was fantastic.  Perfectly cooked meat with condiments was just amazing.

May 28th, 2013 - Chef Paul Prudhomme Tradition - Sausage and Spinach Jambalaya

So we cooked a couple Chef Paul Prudhomme recipes from Seasoned America last week and I decided to go ahead and just make my own... an on the spot recipe made by me.  It turned out so good, I was told I needed to include it as a repeat (4-5 Star) recipe in the Smith Family Cookbook!

We are going to called this meal: 

Sausage Jambalaya****

Jambalaya's are traditional meals from Louisiana (Creole) that have French and Spanish influences.  The basic idea is to cook meat and vegetables, add stock and rice, and cook.  That's the basic idea, and I do this with a lot of variations. This is a sausage variation, with the strange addition of spinach...

SEASONING MIX
1 teaspoon of Garlic Powder
1 teaspoon of Onion Powder
1 teaspoon of Salt
1 teaspoon of black ground pepper
1 teaspoon of white pepper
1 teaspoon of red cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon of rosemary
1 teaspoon of ground pasilla 

Now we won't use all the season mix, but this is the ratios I used.  

INGREDIENTS
1 tube of Jimmy Dean Sausage (Regular)

4  Evergood Hot Link Sausages Louisiana Brand (Slice them up) - I got these at Costco.

1 red bell pepper (you can use green, I think the red taste better)

4 stalks of celery (chopped)
1 handful of baby carrots or just 2 big chopped carrots
1 bunch of green onions
1 bunch of spinach (washed and stems cut off)
1 cup of rice
1 can of diced tomatoes
Chicken Broth

DIRECTIONS

I started by browning the Jimmy Dead Sausage in a big pot. I added 2 teaspoons of the seasoning mix.  Once cooked I added the sausage (sliced).  I cooked that a few more minutes.  Then removed all the meat to a paper towel lined plate.

I then added to the same pot (with the sausage fat in it) the diced bell pepper, celery, and carrots.  Add 1 o 2 more teaspoons of seasoning mix.  Cook about 5-7 minutes, till you feel the vegetables look good.  Then add the diced green onions cook a minute, then add the can of tomatoes... cook another minute, then add the cup of rice and cook 3-5 minutes, till the rice is good and brown.  Then add the spinach (washed and stems cut off) add the ground sausage and Louisiana hot links back into the pot and then add stock.  I think I added 6 cups of chicken stock, but you'll have to figure this out for yourself, as you want a good amount. 

Bring to a boil...

Then cover and simmer 20-30 minutes. I had too much stock so I had to simmer longer.

It was... AMAZING.  4 stars. I'll cook it again, and we'll see if it eventually becomes a classic, a 5 star family recipe!  Let me know how it turns out, and let me know the variations you make.  This was a keeper.

Next we have Modernist Hamburgers.... that's for tonight!  Hopefully the recipe will come tomorrow!

May 24th, 2013 - Friday - Paul Prudhomme's New World Chicken Fricassee

May 24th, 2013 - Friday - Paul Prudhomme's New World Chicken Fricassee -THREE STARS- After cooking Chef Paul Prudhomme's Country Captain a few days ago, I dived right back into my Cajun roots and tried another recipe from the same book:  Seasoned America.

The idea behind this book, first published way back in 1991, is that Chef Paul goes across America, and takes all of the famous recipes we are used to, and he 'seasons' them Cajun style.  The result is a list of recipes you are familiar with but have been jazzed up quiet a bit.

I have to say... I've always loved this book, and really enjoy the concept.  I highly recommend it.

So I found his recipe for New World Chicken Fricassee.  Now... I am not familiar with common Fricassee, so this is not a recipe I'm witnessing evolve from plainness to something special. It's just a recipe I'm taking out of the book and cooking.

Now I mentioned in the last post that I need to start doing a Star System for how well I like the recipe.  Star systems are a little overrated actually.  First of all... they only tell you what I thought of it.  You might think something totally different.  Also, it only tells you what I thought at the moment.  Some recipes take repeated preparing and eating for their magic to attach to our souls.

So right now you will see I gave this recipe three stars out of 5.  It was the first time I made it.  Everyone who ate it loved it, really enjoyed it.  Then why only three?  Three is a good score for me.  I like it.  I just don't know that I will ever make it again.  I think you have to want to make it again and again for it to be 4-5 stars.

So here is the recipe.  Of course I've changed it from what Paul did, which he would expect me to do!

SEASONING MIX

1 tablespoon of salt
2 teaspoons of paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of onion powder 
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of white pepper

NOTE:  The list above, minus the Paprika, is the base of almost all Cajun cooking.  Each spice mixture has a healthy mix of salt, garlic, onion, black and white pepper.  Often Red pepper is added to really round the taste out.  If you make spice mixtures in the Cajun tradition, start with a 1:1:1 ration of these and you will have a great base spice mixture every time.  Then whatever else you add with build individual flavors on top of your foundations.

1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon marjoram

NOTE: I almost never have recipes that use Marjoram.  But I love the smell of it.  I think I should use it more often.

1/2 teaspoon of Tarragon

NOTE: I've become a big fan of tarragon with chicken. Tarragon alone seasoning chicken in a wine sauce is amazing.  

1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice

INGREDIENTS

2 pounds of chicken without bones
Olive Oil
2 Onions chopped
1 cup of Celery chopped
2 cups of sliced carrots
5 small bay leaves
2 cups of pearl  onions (I used a frozen bag of them, pre-pealed and everything.  Only way to do it!)
1 small can of mushrooms (I only had 1 can, I would have liked to use more)
2 teaspoons of fresh garlic minced (or garlic from a jar which I used)
1/2 cup of flour
4 cups of chicken stock
2 cups of heavy cream (I used half and half)

You can obviously substitute different vegetables here.  Bell Peppers come to mind.  Also different proportions.  Also tomatoes.  I actually added a can of cut green beans.  I love canned green beans for some reason.  Isn't that weird?

DIRECTIONS

Mix the spices together, then put a good portion on the chicken rubbed in with your hands.  Heat the oil in a big pan, and then brown the chicken.  Take the chicken out, and add the vegetables in layers.   Put  some in and cook with some spice mixture 4-5 minutes, then add another layer.  Usually three layers, so you get three different textures of food in your cooking.  When you've cooked the vegetables enough, throw in the garlic and flour, mix it together, and then add the stock and put the chicken and accumulated juices back into the pot.  Bring to a boil.  Add the cream... and bring back to a boil.

Simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is tender.

We ate this over noodles, out on the porch with my family, as a comfort food, and it was well received.  Three out of four stars.  Don't know that I will make it ever again... but I can say I really enjoyed it.    If you try it, let me know how you liked it and what your subtractions and additions were!

Chef Paul Prudhomme Country Captain

May 21st, 2013 - Tuesday - It has been really busy lately and I've taken to doing something I haven't done in years. Buying frozen meals.  I started with PF Changes Frozen Meal!

Then the next night we did:

So what were the results?

Not great... not at all... so I decided I needed to cook again, on my own! And I decided to do a meal called Country Captain.  In December of 2012 I found three Country Captain Recipes in different books and cooked all three one night in a taste test with my family.  I don't have the details of that cook-off here on the blog, but if I ever do it again I'll do a full post for them. The Paul Prudhomme Country Captain from his book Seasoned America won!

This meal is very similar to some of his Jambalaya that he cooks.  It's a chicken dish heavily seasoned, cooked in rice.   He does a lot of these meals, and they are an absolute favorite of my son Riley.  After the foray into Frozen Meal goodness... it was a nice return to cook something up on our own.  Here is the modified recipe that I used.  I really like this meal, but I wouldn't rate it as top notch. I should create a rating scale to try and make sense of things, but there is a part of me that thinks that's a dumb idea. I'll just let you cook it and tell me where YOU rate it!  

Seasoning Mix

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of curry powder.  I used Bolst's Mild Curry Powder (1 tablespoon) and Rajah Tandoori Masala (1 teaspoon) -  

When it comes to curry powder, well... there are so many brands out there.  For years I used to use Spice Islands Curry Powder only!

Now I have like 20 different brands... One day we are going to have to get serious and figure out which one is the best. It's going to take some serious work and testing... 

On with the recipe...

2 teaspoons of salt

2 teaspoons of sugar or brown sugar

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon of dried cilantro leaves

1/2 teaspoon of dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon of dried sweet basil leaves

1/2 teaspoon of white pepper

1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice

As with most of my spices, I usually use Spice Islands.

I've considered some variations to this mix.  First of all we could try different Curry Powder brands and see what we get.  Additionally we could add some more pepper to heat it up, white, black, and red mixes always being something I recommend.

Ingredients

2 lbs of chicken tenders - You can use whatever you want here to be honest, chicken breasts, thighs, bone in, bone out . I just had boneless chicken tenders from Costco.

1/2 cup or so of flour

Oil food Cooking - I used about 4 tablespoons of Olive Oil

4 small onions, chopped

2 red bell peppers, chopped - Obviously you can use whatever color peppers you want, but I've noticed that the red ones are a bit sweeter to the taste.  They cost more than green ones, but I think they DO taste different.

1 cup of uncooked rice

1 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic (I get mine from a jar, but you can use fresh)

4 small tomatoes chopped

1 cup of almonds (I didn't slice them, but I think I would next time.  Chop them up good!)

1/2 cup of raisins 

4 cups of chicken stock

This ingredient list can fluctuate. If you don't like almonds and raisins, take them out.  I think the main ingredients are the chicken, rice, onions, pepper, and tomato.  You can add or subtract a few things to that as you like.

Instructions

Add all the spices into a bowl and mix well.  Use a bunch of it to coat the chicken pieces, patting it in with your hands.  Heat the oil in a big pot.  Dredge the chicken, and cook 5-7 minutes, turning often.  Take chicken out.  

You might need to add some more oil here... Throw in some onions and some more spice mixture.  Cook 5 minutes or so.  Add the rice, more spice mixture, and stir and cook 3-4 minutes.  Then add the garlic and tomatoes, and the rest of the onions and peppers and the rest of the spice mixture.  Cook a 5 more minutes, then add the almonds, raisins, and stock and throw the chicken back in there.  You might need more or less stock.

Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer for 20 minutes, covered.  Then turn off the heat and let stand 15 minutes covered.  Then it's ready!

Let me know how you like it!  The idea of mixing meats, vegetables and rice together into meals is just fantastic, and there are endless variations.  This is a good one.