CAB at SPAC: a meaty discovery at the Saratoga Wine and Food Festival

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Saratoga wineglasses waiting to be filled

These glasses will shortly be filled with wine.

The Saratoga Wine & Food Festival, held last weekend, is a lively event where local fun lovers take back the town after the racing crowd departs. There are fashions to view, Ferraris to test drive, and large quantities of food and wine to taste, but I made a beeline for the tent where they were serving up Certified Angus Beef.

CAB Sirloin after 30 hours “dry aging” in refrigerator

The Certified Angus designation came into existence in 1978 after the USDA lowered the bar for earning the USDA Choice grade. Angus marketers wanted a “high Choice” designation that maintained the former quality standards, so they built their own. Their website uses the double entendre mumbo jumbo that “It’s a cut above USDA Prime, Choice and Select” but the fact is that this is Choice beef that meets additional standards, some related to appearance and others related to making sure older or larger animals don’t slip through. (There is also a CAB Prime and a CAB Natural, grown with no hormones or antibiotics, but I’ve never seen these at retail.)

CAB Sirloin grilled rare/medium rare

The finished product

I like the flavor profile of Certified Angus a lot and am fortunate that it’s often on sale at my local supermarket, the Albany-based Price Chopper chain. At the festival Prime Restaurant was demonstrating its own preps, paired with Chianti, including a sirloin that had been “dry aged 52 hours”. This got my brain spinning. True dry aged beef hangs in the cooler for weeks, loses up to 1/3 of its weight, often develops a “curd” that must be removed on the surface, and becomes immensely tender because of the chemical changes in the meat.

This was something different, probably rested a couple of days uncovered in the walk-in, rotated regularly, then brought to room temperature 4 hours before the evening rush (hence the 52 hour total). It was grilled with a nice crust and served with jus that the server advised us to forsake so we could concentrate on the meat. It tasted spectacular. Could I possibly do the same thing at home?

CAB sirloin on the grill

On the grill

I picked up a 705 gram steak for $7.99 a pound and did my usual “refrigerator aging” per Jacques Pepin but extended the time to about 30 hours, flipping and wiping off accumulated moisture several times. The steak dropped 25 grams of moisture during the process and the surface changed noticeably. The meat was then brought to room temperature, rubbed with a proprietary seasoning salt, grilled to rare/medium rare.

The result was about as good a steak as I’d tasted, suffused with the unctuous muskiness of a great cut of beef. No reason not to do it this way again and again, and extending to the full 52 hours next time. (Also I’ll keep the meat on a rack atop the plate, so air circulates on both sides.) Thanks to the festival gods for making this happen.

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Recipe: Carnitas

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
The finished product: Carnitas

The finished product: Carnitas (fat bits are chopped separately so they can be removed if you prefer)

The original pulled pork, without the attitude. Amazingly easy because all you need is piggy, water, salt and time. Number of servings determined by the size of the roast; allow 1/2 pound per person measured by uncooked weight.

Ingredients:
1 pork shoulder roast (bone-in preferred) with plenty of fat, 3-8 lbs
Kosher salt, to taste
Water

Method: Chop pork into 3/4 inch dice, chopping fat separately. Place in a heavy deep skillet and cover with water. (Include the shoulder blade bone if there is one) Add some salt, maybe 2 t; don’t try to for a salty stock because it is going to cook down a lot. Bring to boil then turn down to a simmer and allow to cook 4-6 hours, stirring occasionally. During this time the water will cook away and the fat will render, so the pork is first boiled and then sauteed to melting tenderness.

Carnitas Tacos

Carnitas Tacos

Future carnitas after two hours

Future carnitas after two hours

When the pan has almost run dry, discard the bone (after scraping off any meaty bits) and remove the fatty bits if you like. Correct the seasoning; it should be salty but not overly salty. You can serve as-is in bite size chunks, or shred the meat with your serving spoon. Best use of this pork is in tacos but it also goes well in a Cuban-style sandwich on crusty bread. Or simply stuff into your pie hole using both hands.

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Recipe: Creamy Andaluz Gazpacho

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Creamy Andaluz Gazpacho

Creamy Andaluz Gazpacho

If you like chunks of fresh veggies in your soup, this is the gazpacho for you. The secret is a quick pickling which helps them stay crisp. Adapted (and dramatically simplified) from a Cooks Illustrated recipe, this is a good way to use the end-of-the-season tomato “seconds” that cost a buck a pound or less. 4-6 servings.

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs nice tomatoes
1 small cucumber, peeled and seeded
½ red onion
1 small green bell pepper
½ t Tabasco, or ½ jalapeno, seeded
2 garlic cloves, peeled
Kosher salt, about 2 t total
A big chunk of stale white bread, about ½ cup or more
3 T good olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar

Method: take about a third of the tomatoes and half each of the cucumber, onion and pepper and chop into ¼-inch dice. Add ½ t Kosher salt and mix in with your fingers or a spoon. Allow to macerate a half hour during which time the diced vegetables will throw off quite a bit of liquid.

Meanwhile, add the garlic, jalapeno if used and oil and vinegar to the blender and pulse until garlic is pulverized. Add reserved tomato, onion, cucumber and green pepper and blend until liquefied. Add 1 1/2 t salt and blend then taste; the soup should taste a bit undersalted since more salt will be added from the chopped veggies.

Tear or chop bread into 1 inch chunks and pour the liquid from the diced vegetables over it. Work in the liquid with your fingers till the bread is thoroughly moistened. Add to the mixture and the blender and blend till the bread is pulverized. Transfer to a serving/storage bowl and pour in the reserved diced vegetables. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

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Recipe: Fried Okra

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Fried Okra

Fried Okra

If you’re going to fry chicken or fish, might as well fry okra while you’re at it. My fried okra ends up a bit deconstructed because the cornmeal doesn’t stick to the okra about half the time. But the green tidbits look pretty shining through, and the fried cornmeal batter tastes good on its own. 4 servings.

Ingredients:
1 lb okra
1/2 t Kosher salt
1 c buttermilk
1 c cornmeal
1 T cornstarch
1 t baking powder
Vegetable oil for deep frying

Okra Frying

Okra Frying

Method: use only small fresh okra without brown streaks. Cut off the stems then cut into 3/4 inch pieces; if they are very small you can leave them whole after removing the stem. Place in a bowl with buttermilk, add salt and stir to combine. Marinate 15-30 minutes, stirring several times to make sure all surfaces have equal exposure to the buttermilk.

Meanwhile, heat deep frying oil to 375 degrees. Combine cornmeal, baking powder and cornstarch and mix very thoroughly (or sift the ingredients then mix). Dredge the okra pieces in this and then fry until golden brown in batches. Keep warm in a 200 degree oven. Serve and enjoy.

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Recipe: Simple Spanish Gazpacho

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers

Use this Simple Spanish Gazpacho recipe when your tomatoes are so good, you don’t want any other flavors getting in the way.

Simple Spanish Gazpacho

Simple Spanish Gazpacho

Adapted from the excellent Simple Spanish Food website. It’s meant to be drunk from a glass or cup. 2 servings.

Ingredients:
1 lb nice tomatoes
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
2 T good olive oil
1/2 t Kosher salt
1 t champagne vinegar

Method: Put the garlic into the blender along with salt, oil and vinegar. Blend to pulverize the garlic. Wash the tomatoes; remove stem and any bad bits and coarsely chop. Add to blender and blend until liquefied. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

Note: If the flavor seems too sunny and one-dimensional, try adding a dash of Tabasco, a bit of salt or an extra splash of vinegar.

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Can I reuse pickle juice?

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Not Pickled Green Beans

Green beans marinated in pickle jar liquid

After I sliced and served my last Kosher style pickle, I was left with a jar filled with wonderful brine. Rather than just throw it out, I got some more cucumbers from the garden and plunged them into this brine, to see if I could make even better pickles by reusing it. About five days later, the cukes had transformed themselves into rather bland pickles and there were white curds (different from the scum that had formed with the original batch) floating on the top.

Knowing from my bread making experience how often wild yeasties invade a casually tended sourdough, I should have expected this. My pickle brine was a giant petri dish, and the chance of getting the same product two times running was probably about the same as life forming from carbon molecules in the early days of our planet. So the answer is: drink the stuff, or experiment with it in potato salad or maybe a Bloody Mary (both these uses are mentioned on various websites). But don’t expect that your pickle juice will ever get better than the day you crunch into that perfect half-sour. Start fresh the next time around, with everything thoroughly cleaned.

Speaking of the internets, in the course of my research I found there is quite a culture (sic) of people who re-use the pickle liquid from commercial pickle jars. They soak vegetables in it, or spray it on potato chips. So in the interest of science, I brined some chicken thighs in liquid from a gallon jar of Vlasic pickles and blanched some garden green beans and plunged them into the same liquid (though not with the raw chicken) along with a couple garlic cloves and a few flakes of red pepper.

Note that this is a completely different substance than my pickle brine, though it’s interesting that people on boards like chowhound seem to talk about the two liquids interchangeably. A commercial pickle jar liquid is vinegar based and it’s also going to have preservatives and stabilizers in it. Thus it would seem unlikely any chemical reaction is going to take place. More likely the pickling is done with another process, then the pickles are transferred to the jars for preservation and distribution.

And indeed my chicken thighs (after 8 hours) had a mild tang, but none of the moistness and tight texture of meat that had been brined. The beans (after 24 hours) were also pleasant, but tasted like beans flavored with pickle jar liquid. No chemical transformation had taken place.

So, no. Other than the exceptions and adaptions above, I would say you can’t reuse pickle juice. It’s like a soufflé. Enjoy, then move on.

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Recipe: Easy Kosher Pickles

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Fully ripened garlic pickle

This pickle is fully developed and needs to be eaten right now.

These are darn close to Guss’s Kosher pickles in my opinion. All you need is cucumbers, water, salt, garlic and patience.

Ingredients:
A pound or more of nice pickling cucumbers
Water
Kosher salt or another non-iodized salt
A handful of garlic cloves, peeled
Jar or jars with tight fitting lids (recycled spaghetti sauce jars are good for this)

Method: Wash the cucumbers and jars very thoroughly, including the lids, to keep unwanted beasties from growing. Squeeze the cucumbers tightly into the jars, adding 1-2 garlic cloves per cuke. Make a brine consisting of 1 part salt to 20 parts water (a teaspoon of Kosher salt weight about 8 grams, so you’ll need about 3 tsp for a pint or half-liter of water). Pour the water over the cucumbers, filling all the way to the top, and LOOSELY replace the lids. Place in a cool dark place for a few days.

Pickles in Brine

Beast of the Deep: Kosher pickles in their brine

In 3-7 days, the water will become cloudy and bubbles will appear on the surface, indicating the pickling process has begun. Move the pickles around in the jars to be sure all surfaces have equal exposure to the brine. Replace lids loosely and continue to ferment 3-4 more days till they look like pickles, not cucumbers any longer. Taste one. If it’s still crisp at the center you’ve got a perfect half sour. Tighten the lids and refrigerate. They will continue to slowly ferment for another week or so at which point they’ll start to get too sour to be eaten any longer, but hopefully your batch is depleted by then.

Comments: This is a lower salt ratio than most recipes, allowing for a more leisurely and controllable fermentation process. If you have pickling spices or some dill twigs by all means toss them in at the beginning. Some people like to add a celery stick or two or a grape leaf, which supposedly keeps the pickles crisp.

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A paean to Pastene Crushed Peppers

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Pastene Crushed Peppers

Pastene Crushed Peppers, from their website

After all my whining about the bad food and low expectations in upstate New York, here’s one thing I definitely like: Pastene Crushed Peppers. These guys (or an equivalent brand, but Pastene seems to be the standard) are always at the ready in a sub shop where they will be applied to your sandwich if you ask for “hot pepper spread”. They’re not dried, not fire-roasted, just spicy and vinegary. So they add a few beneficial Scoville units to your hoagie without upsetting the delicate balance of oil and vinegar in the dressing.

My local sub shop (the excellent Roma Imports in Saratoga Springs, NY) charges a dollar to add Pastene so I just keep a jar in my fridge and spread a couple of spoonfuls on the bread when I get home. I also spoon it into pasta sauce whenever I want a little extra heat, and I suppose I could ladle it onto pizza as well.

Pastene Crushed Peppers are a true regional product in that they are universally available in any grocery store in an upstate or New England Italian American neighborhood, yet are invisible outside the region where they are processed and consumed. Do a web search or go on Amazon and see for yourself. Keep in mind these are NOT dried or roasted or Turkish or otherwise ethnic. They’re just good old pepper spread.

If you’re curious, you can buy a jar from the store on the Pastene website. A 16 ounce jar (enough to last quite a while) is $2.89 but they will then clip you for a brutal $6 or so shipping. Still, that’s cheaper than paying Roma to spread a spoonful every time you order a sub.

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Recipe: Wilted Kale Salad

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Wilted Kale Salad

Wilted Kale Salad

There are lots of recipes for wilted (or “massaged”) kale salads around, but this one nails the flavor balance*. It’s from Jennifer Adler, a nutritionist in Seattle. Thanks to Daniel B for the link that led me to it.

Ingredients:
1 bunch kale
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
3 T sunflower seeds,  or other nuts or seeds such as slivered almonds or pine nuts, toasted
2 T diced red onion
3 T tart dried berries (she suggests currants, I used blueberries, also try cranberries)
1/4 peeled and diced apple
2 T olive oil
1 T apple cider vinegar
3 T feta or dry gorgonzola or other sharp cheese, crumbled

Method: De-stem the kale, using your hands, by tearing away the green leafy part from the stem that runs down the middle. Wash leaves and dry thoroughly. Stack the leaves, roll them up, then cut into chiffonade. Transfer the kale to a bowl, add salt, and massage with your fingers for about 2 minutes until leaves are moist and shiny. The volume of the kale should reduce by about 1/3.

Toast seeds in a dry skillet over low to medium heat, stirring constantly for a few minutes until they change color and give off a nutty aroma. (Or use pre-toasted seeds.) Add seeds to the kale with the other ingredients, toss and serve. This is a sturdy salad that will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator and will also hold up at room temperature on a hike or a picnic.

  • This recipe has been updated to suggest a few ingredient options. The main thing is to create the right balance of crunchy/crispy/leafy and salty/sour.
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Recipe: Korean Bean Sprout Salad

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Korean-style bean sprout salad

Korean Bean Sprout Salad

This Korean bean sprout salad is from the somewhat grandiosely titled “The Complete Book of Oriental Cooking”, a Penguin paperback by Myra Waldo published in 1960. Conventional spices are used in unusual proportions to create an exotic taste without sesame oil or quality soy sauce, which would not have been available at that time in the U.S. 8 servings.

Ingredients:
3 c fresh mung bean sprouts, washed and drained
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T soy sauce
½ t Kosher salt
½ t freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
2 T sesame seeds
½ c salad oil
¼ c finely chopped scallions
¼ c julienne cut pimentos (I use roasted red peppers or frozen pepper slices I’ve saved from other recipes)

Method: Lightly toast the sesame seeds in a non-stick skillet (or just use Korean toasted sesame seeds), then grind to a coarse powder with a mortar and pestle or mini-chop. Mix the vinegar and soy sauce with the salt, pepper, ground sesame seeds and garlic in a jar and shake till the salt is dissolved. Add oil, shake to emulsify then pour over sprouts. Add chopped scallions and julienned pimentos/red peppers and mix thoroughly. Chill at least 1 hour before serving; needs to be eaten the same day it is prepared.

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