Among the Missing...

Yep.

I know it's been a while. Sorry. More life stuff. Been co-directing a show with my friends at Mill 6. Try and check out Bunbury: A Serious Play For Trivial People, if you can. It's in its final weekend. Also in rehearsal for On The Verge at the Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge. Come by and say hi after.

Stay tuned...hope to get out an homage to grilled pizza over the next few days.

Meantime, keep cooking.

When I Bite Into a Pork Caramel-Braised Patty, I Get the Sensation...

Continuing, I suppose, with something of a Pork-aissance here at The Kitchen Chronicles: here's another dish I tried recently that I LOVED. (Again from the Sunday Globe Magazine...I must be highly suggestible early on Sunday mornings. And again from Adam Ried...who I SWEAR I am not stalking, related to or otherwise shilling for...)

The name, Vietnamese-style Caramel Braised Pork Patties, is a bit of a mouthful and, well, there's something that doesn't scream 'romantic dinner' or the like when you're serving up "pork patties" (unless you are romancing an ancient, plastic-capped elementary school cafeteria lady) - but these are really...REALLY...tasty and interesting to make. What's more, they're even better a second time. I vacuum-sealed and froze a couple servings to see how they'd fare for clients. (It's true: I'm selfless. I made these for THEM...not me! Oh, no!!) The defrosted and re-heated test subject last night was just as good, if not better than I remembered it. So, yay for pork patty craving clients everywhere.

The patties consist of ground pork seasoned with shallots, chilies, garlic and fish sauce (a common ingredient in Vietnamese and Thai cooking). They reminded me a little bit of the filling for Peking Ravioli (a.k.a. Potstickers in some parts of the country) and...well...I am a sucker for a good dumpling. After the patties are shaped and browned, they are braised in a very interesting, savory caramel sauce which contains tamarind pulp. You may be more familiar with tamarind in Indian cuisine. Tamarind chutney is that sweet, dark condiment ubiquitous on the table of many Indian restaurants.

This is more of a weekend dish to make. It involves more steps than you'd care to take on after work during the week. (BUT, as I said earlier, you can make a big batch and freeze some for the future.) You get the hands-on fun of shaping the patties, if you've got kids who like to help in the kitchen. Plus, if you've never made caramel from scratch, now's your chance to play mad kitchen scientist.


Sugar is dissolved in water, then heated until caramelization occurs.



Simmering or braising savory foods (pork, chicken, shrimp, eggs, tofu, etc.) in a caramel sauce (nuoc mau) is a staple method in Vietnamese cuisine. Andrea Nguyen, author of Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, on her blog calls the method "one of the cornerstones of Vietnamese cooking." Don't think of this at all as the caramel sauce you may have had on your ice cream sundae at Brigham's. This one is salty (courtesy of the fish sauce), dark and adds real complexity of flavor to your dish.


The browned patties are placed in the braising sauce.

After twenty minutes or so of braising.

Looking forward to trying the other recipe in the Globe piece, Vietnamese-style Caramel Braised Fish, and finding other dishes to incorporate this technique into the B. Home repertoire. You should add it to your own, so have at it!!

High Fiduea-lity

OK, so maybe I haven't been doing a lot of blogging lately...but I HAVE been doing a lot of cooking.

Recently tried a recipe I'd socked away after reading in several places about fiduea, a Spanish dish - similar to paella - that uses short, thin pasta in lieu of the usual rice. The pasta is first toasted, to bring out it's flavor and add color. The method is not unique to Spanish cuisine, but also used in Mexico and the Middle East, among others. No doubt, those of you who've made your own rice pilaf - or, those of you who rely on that sturdy pantry staple, a box of Near East Rice Pilaf - are familiar with the toasted vermicelli or orzo that cooks with the rice.

With fiduea, the toasted 1-inch or so pieces of thin pasta are added to a highly seasoned broth with seafood, meats and/or vegetables, partially cooked on the stovetop, then finished in the oven until the broth is fully absorbed into the noodles. It's yummy.

Kudos to Adam Ried for his article and recipe in the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine.

I tried his Fiduea with Chorizo and Mushrooms and think I fell a little bit in love. (Adam...call me.) First off, let's just start with the fact that the dish starts with cooking bacon, then the chorizo is cooked in some of the bacon drippings. C'mon...bacon AND Chorizo? For me, this is sort of like getting the chocolate/vanilla swirl at Dairy Joy. (You don't HAVE to decide on a favorite...you can have BOTH!)

While we're on...ok, near...the subject, let's talk for a moment about chorizo.

If you are a frequent reader of this (in-)frequent blog, or you just know me, you know that I have a deep and abiding love for all things pork. Bacon...sausage...prosciutto...ham...and so on. And, in fact, I bow low to the gods of all charcuterie: those who practice the old forms of preserving meat before the days of refrigeration. I bow low to them when I taste a really beautiful bacon or ham. I even say a little thank you when I snap into a Slim Jim (admittedly rare...but sometimes at a rest stop...in the middle of the night...on one long haul of a road trip, one cannot resist) or a piece of jerky. (And, hey, who DOESn't like to say 'jerky?')

I imagine that there are vast variations of similarly preserved meats, seafoods, etc. - each unique in process and seasonings to its home town or country. Surely that can be said of chorizo - a latin style sausage. My first exposure to cooking with it - and the most readily available around these parts, I believe, in the supermarket, was Gaspar's Chourico. A Portuguese version that has the size and texture, of...say...kielbasa, perhaps. However, it was nothing like what I had tasted in some Mexican restaurants. Fortunate to have some Latin-American markets near where I live, I made a pilgrimage this weekend and picked up two different versions of Chorizo. One Mexican - which I used in the Fiduea, and one Guatemalan - which I now sleep with under my pillow...er...I mean, which I will use in a future dish yet to be named. The Mexican version felt in the package similar to the Portuguese, but - upon opening it - I found its resilience came from its plastic casing. Once removed, it was very soft and would not hold up to slicing. The Guatemalan more resembles Italian sausage in look and feel. Even still, I don't think either is quite close to other chorizo's I've had in restaurants, so...we'll keep looking and (insert put-upon sigh here) keep trying new ones.

The Mexican version was heavily seasoned, particularly with annato, and fell readily apart when it hit the pan - taking on the texture of broken up, browned ground beef. And for this dish, there is nothing wrong with that.













As for the noodles themselves. You could use, as Mr. Ried's recipe states, vermicelli or angel hair that you break up yourself, but Goya has bags of Fiduea noodles readily available and will make your prep easier. And I did like his method of toasting the pasta on a baking sheet in a 375 degree oven, as opposed to dry in a skillet. Just bake it, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Anywhere from 11 to 20 minutes, depending on how thin a layer the noodles are in. (Keep an eye on them.)

Toasted noodles are added to a flavorful sauce and partially cooked on the stovetop.

Then baked off in a very hot oven until all liquid is absorbed.

Do yourself a favor and give Fiduea a try. (And do me a favor and invite me over when you do.)

A Mid-Winter's Pasta

OK...maybe I haven't been as attentive as I'd hoped, blog-wise...but I have a note from my teacher! I'm involved with another show; directing Reefer Madness: The Musical at Suffolk University. (What...you didn't know there was a musical based on Reefer Madness? I didn't either 'til a few months ago. What...you didn't know I directed musicals?? Um...I didn't either until a few months ago.)

So we'll break momentarily from our recent aim to cover some culinary basics with a recipe for you to try.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. Right? A lot of times (particularly, you know, when you get home from a rehearsal around 10:30 at night and haven't eaten) one needs to throw together a dish with whatever you have on hand. We touched on this with the idea of Midnight Pasta. Invention and creativity in the kitchen, I'll confess, have not always been a strong suit of mine. There is...some risk involved. (The less said about the great Kraut Dog Burrito experiment of 1989, the better. However, I maintain: it was ALL WE HAD IN THE REFRIGERATOR.)

One night a few weeks ago, I found myself with several things on hand I thought could work together: Italian sausage, potatoes, and blue cheese and an apple. Feeling kinda New England-y, I decided to throw maple syrup into the equation. Here was the rationale: sausage and potatoes pair up naturally, as do apples and cheese, as do maple and pork. And pork with apples? Say it with me now, Peter Brady fans: "pawk shops...n'apple shaushe..." I have also really grown to like the presence of potato in pasta dishes, which may sound odd, but has - I believe - some traditional roots in Italian cuisine, and...is just good so you should try it. (Plus, necessity again, I only had one potato.)

Anyway, with other pantry staples on hand, I came up with this pasta dish - which I've tried a few times now, so as not to toss your way the latenight one-off of a starving man. I think it's nice and hearty. Give it a try and let me know what you think.


B's Mid-Winter Pasta

6 sundried tomato halves (if in oil, drained and chopped; dried - soak 6 minutes in boiling water, drain and chop)
1/2 lb. Sweet Italian Sausage, casings removed
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/4 t. crushed red peppers
1 (generous) C. diced peeled Yukon Gold potato
1/2 lb. orrechiette pasta or shells
1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and diced
3/4 C. frozen peas (thawed or frozen is fine, just adjust when you add them)
6 T. dry white wine
1 1/4 C. chicken or vegetable stock
2 T. maple syrup (with all due respect to Mrs. Butterworth - REAL please!)
3/4 - 1 C. crumbled blue cheese

1. Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat, add uncased sausage and begin breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Continue to break it up and cook the sausage until browned (about 5-6 minutes). Remove the sausage to a plate.

3. If there's not enough fat left in the saute pan - or you want to drain it all - add a tablespoon of olive oil to the saute pan, return to the heat, add the garlic, and saute until it just starts to color. Add crushed red peppers and potatoes and saute one more minute.

4. Add wine to pan and scrape up any brown bits on bottom (deglaze). Reduce wine for 1 minute, then add chicken stock, sundried tomatoes, and 1.5 teaspoon kosher salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 12 minutes (until potatoes are just starting to soften). Add maple syrup, apples, and cooked sausage. Cook until apples are just tender (about another 10 minutes). Add in peas and cook 1 minute more. (Check for seasoning and remember the pasta cooked in salted water and blue cheese will add a bit more saltiness to the final dish.)

5. Meanwhile, cook orrechiette in salted water according to package instructions. Before draining the pasta , reserve about 1 cup of cooking water. Add drained pasta to saute pan, along with crumbled blue cheese, and toss over heat for a minute or two. If too dry add a little reserved pasta water.

Try it and let me know what you think.

De Glaze! De Glaaaze!

Smiles, everyone, smiles!


OK. Enough with my seventies flashback.

Today I want to talk about deglazing.

Deglazing is one of my all-time favorite things to do in the kitchen. Why? Well, probably because it generally involves wine and...well...B loves his wine. But wait - that's not really it BECAUSE deglazing doesn't necessarily have to be done with wine. (Can you feel me frowning?)


OK. When you're cooking something in a pan - be it vegetables or some sort of protein (meat, seafood...) - bits of what you're cooking stick to the bottom of the pan and become this highly flavorful brown stuff referred to as 'fond.'

Fond is good. (So is fondue, but FOCUS, Sven.)

It means foundation. (Stocks are referred to as 'fond de cuisine,' as in the base of cooking.) And that fond in your pan can be the foundation of a quick pan sauce for whatever was cooking in said pan. And you get that sauce, or incorporate all the flavor of that fond into your sauce, by deglazing.

To deglaze a pan, you add liquid to the hot pan and stir, scraping up the fond from the bottom of the pan. That flavor incorporates into the liquid and the liquid also reduces over the heat, so you are left with a lovely, flavorful sauce.

et voila!

If you cook for any length of time, you're going to deglaze a pan at some point - if you, in fact, already haven't. It was one of the first cooking techniques I learned that actually made me feel like I was COOKING something. (It's true, mom, opening the jar of Ragu did not count! Sticklers...) The liquid makes this great noise when it hits the pan. The entire room fills with a fabulous aroma. I still can't resist bending over the pan and inhaling every time I add some wine to a pan of sauteing tomatoes and garlic. Mm-mm!

So...love your fond. (And, yeah, you can't really get good fond with your non-stick pans, so...) Grab the wine (or stock or water or what have you) and create yourself some pan sauces, amigos.

Sauteing the shrimp leads to...


...fond!

And so we add some wine. (Say it with me, now: yay, wine!)

Look, ma, no fond!!

Mis En Scene

In theater and film, they talk about 'mis en scene' - staging basically, the composition of actors and set and props on the stage or in a shot.

In cooking, we do 'mis en place.' Again with the French! (Pronounce it: meez on plahss.) It's also staging. Preparing everything you need to cook with - food and tools - and having it all at the ready (composed), at hand, by the stove. I hear it translates to 'put in place' or 'everthing in its place'...but I regret to inform you that - are you sitting down? - aside from two years in Mr. Quercio's high school French, I am not fluent, and I am a trusting soul...so we're gonna go with 'put in place.' (Though I like the idea of it actually translating to 'stick it up your pants' and we all are just buying into it.)

It's a highly common-sensible thing to do. In school they stress it. It even has, in kitchens, become a bastardized verb or noun. 'I still have to meez...do your meez...meez this dish...' At home, to be honest, I do it or don't depending on the dishes being prepared. If you're doing a stir-fry, it's essential. A stew? Mm...probably not so much. You can generally do simultaneous prepping and cooking for something like that.

I like to meez.

Don't laugh. That is, to some, essentially saying you like to collect stamps or organize your sock drawer. BUT...I find prep work somehow relaxing and comforting. Sue me.

It's not rocket science. (Cooking seldom is.) Just go through your recipe and try to get everything cleaned, chopped up and ready to go, so once you start firing up your dish everything is at hand. The idea being, you don't want to toss that minced garlic in the pan and discover you don't have the accompanying...oh, say...minced ginger and said garlic burns while you attend to the skipped task. Or you need to whisk hot stock into your perfectly golden roux and remember you loaned your whisk to the plumber who lives next door (for reasons best left unsaid, un-wondered about...).

It will add some extra dishes, but let's just assume you have a dishwasher or a grateful spouse who jumps at the opportunity to clean up after you (we love you, spouse!). In school, I got a real jones for these little Pyrex prep dishes that could hold every chopped up individual ingredient. In fact, all my classmates apparently lusted after these things because there was generally one whopping shortage of little Pyrex prep dishes for those who didn't act fast enough. At home - yes...damn it! I DID get some little Pyrex prep dishes for home - I will generally prep things and try to organize them all onto a plate or couple plates, but sometimes I just have to break out the prep dishes.

So...

Do your meez, babies. Meez it! Get your shizzle all prepped and ready to go and you will be amazed at how fast and easy the actual process of cooking feels.


Mis for a pasta dish. (right) Notice those swanky prep dishes!

Mis for a stir-fry (above).

On Having Lost the Will to Blog...

Are you there, God? It's me, Bar-gret.

So...

Been a while.

Miss me?!

Comes a time, I suppose, in ever blogger's, um, inter-span, when he or she loses the will to blog. When life and family and work and love and friends take you by the proverbial collar (can't think of a proverb involving a collar, but give me a minute...), and yank you quickly and efficiently back into the real world. Away from one's tiny digital soapbox where one is free to wax poetical about canning and greens. (I once knew some greens from Nantucket...) Away from the 'virtual community' of the Internet, where one can measure his friends in numbers and stats, dictate his persona through judicious uploading and editing, and regularly place one's heart on his well-published sleeve via Facebook. Back into the world of work and cars and flesh and blood and hopes and dreams and love and sex and birth and death. Things you can touch. Things you can smell. Things you can taste. Things you can live with. Things that you can't live without.

But hey, Ebenezer, why such a DOWNER?? Let's talk about some FOOD. Mais oui?

Oui.

I'm in jeopardy of having my license to blog revoked (and then actually being replaced by Pierce Brosnan, or - worse - Timothy Dalton), so...baby steps here...I think I'd like to try and start back up with some techniques and terminology. Back to basics for me and for you, but I promise to try to show up more often. Shall we?