Pork part 3: Chorizo

“Just because it can kill you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Just feed it to your spouse… You can always get a new one.” The love of my life says, with a smirk. (His eyes, at this point, are a stormy blue, but when we go back outside they will turn back to sage green. He’s lucky for those eyes, keeps me from smacking him when he says things like this. I’m not that frickin’ replaceable.)

Then again, there’s the subject matter. He was talking about making chorizo for me. That’s a seriously beautiful thing. How many people have made you chorizo? I thought so. Besides, he’s a good guy. I trust him with my life.

I re-fell in love with chorizo while we were in Portugal. It was a beautiful thing to be able to walk into grocery stores that were filled with cured sausages and artisanal cheeses. I continually had to keep myself from doing happy dances as we gathered up both to pair with fresh baked bread and cold beer for our impromptu picnics. When we got home Marv decided that it was time for him to start playing with cold cured and fermented meats.

Cold curing is basically meat or fish that’s been cured with salt rather than heat and that’s more often than not smoked. Wikipedia says:

Salt inhibits the growth of spoilage, killing microorganisms by drawing water out of microbial cells through osmosis. As the unwanted bacterial population decreases, other beneficial bacteria, primarily of the Lactobacillus genus, come to the fore and generate an acidic environment (around 4.5 pH). The sugar included in the cure is used as food by the lactobacilli; generally dextrose is preferred over sucrose, or table sugar, because it seems to be more thoroughly consumed by the bacteria. This process is in fact a form of fermentation, and, in addition to reducing further the ability of the spoilage bacteria to grow, accounts for the tangy flavor of some cured products. Concentrations of salt up to 20% are required to kill most species of unwanted bacteria.

You can probably see where this all could go wrong. But really, it’s pretty simple; salt draws the water out of the cells, which the bad bacteria needs to live and grow, therefore killing them off. Then they get replaced by good bacteria which likes to eat sugar and leave behind a bit of an acidic taste.

Happily, my boy is brilliant, so it didn’t go wrong. Could have been a bit spicier (particularly if he had listened to me) but it was really good. He did his research and then decided to (mostly) follow a recipe for Cold Smoked Chorizo from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Rhulman and Brian Polcyn. Tis a good book, explains a lot without getting overly techie for those of us who don’t really care about the life and mating habits of lactobacilli. I mean, I’d like to know enough not to kill folks, but I also have enough common sense to know when meat doesn’t look or smell right. As well as enough common sense to not eat it.

5# fatty pork shoulder
2.5 T salt
3/4 - 1 t pink salt
1 t pepper
2 T cumin
3 T chili powder
1/2 c milk powder
1/4 c apple jack brandy
3/4 c green onions, thinly sliced mostly white parts
sausage casings

Combine the dry ingredients and set aside.

Grind the meat in a grinder set with large die. Add in the spices, brandy and onions and mix until liquid is absorbed. Saute up a small patty for tasting. Taste. Adjust spices as needed. (At the time I said it needed more heat, again, he’s not so big on the listening.) Stuff the sausage into casings and tie off into links.

Refrigerate uncovered over night.

And now we get to the other bit of silliness; the smoking. For under $15 in parts Marv made himself a ghetto cold smoker.

Ghetto Cold Smoker

Wikipedia says, “Smoking adds chemicals to the surface of an item which affect the ability of bacteria to grow, inhibit oxidation (and thus rancidity), and improve flavor.”

Since summer is midway though summer stuff is on sale en masse. He picked himself up a hibachi for $8 and some heating duct parts. He removed the handle, popped off the little slidey vent cover and bent a duct wall connector to fit the hibachi and rivited it on. Then he took a duct that was the right size to fit to the wall connector and voila; a place to make the smoke. The other side of the duct then fits on his upright smoker’s vent and voila; a place to hang the sausage to be smoked.

Smoke for 2 - 4 hours, until they’re deeply colored.

Hang your sausage up in a cool, dry place for 3 - 5 days until the casings are a deep redish-brown color and have sunken in.

This is about 2 days in. You can see how they’re starting to get bumpy from sinking in.

Just as an aside here, thus far this sausage isn’t cooked. While it’s probably safe, you may as well cook it before consuming it just to be sure. Will last in the refrigerator for quite awhile, and in your freezer for longer. (How was that for a specific timeframe?)

Have fun. Eat meat.

Grilling Up Pizza

A couple of days ago I hosted my first cooking Meetup. About a month ago, on a whim, I took over the What’s Cookin’ Minnesota? group. I decided for an ice breaker we should make pizzas on the grill and pair that with a beer tasting. I provided the crust dough, roasted tomato sauce and carmelized onions. Just to make things more Minnesotan, I asked people to source some local ingredients for toppings.

Of course, after inviting a bunch of strangers to my yard, then I had to learn how to make pizzas on a grill. I’m always really happy with the results of the pizza dough I photographed and wrote about in January, so I knew that would be the recipe I would use. It was pretty much just a matter of figuring out how to make it work for the grill. Turned out that two key bits for success were cooking both sides of the crust (rather than cooking it like you would in an oven) and moving it around quite a bit so that it wouldn’t get burned my grill’s hot spots.

The only other thing is to not loading up the crusts too much. (Although, this does become a bit difficult when people bring lots of tasty toppings.)

(Go ahead, take a bite.)

Pork Part 2: Tamales

I’m probably about the worst person in the world to be writing about making tamales. I’ve never had one prepared by anyone other than Marv or myself that I’ve liked. Seems like every time I get them made by someone else, they’re either too wet, too dry, lacking flavor or just generally lackluster.

And yet, when Marv started making them at home several years ago, I loved them. Of course, Marv was playing with making sauces from smoked and dried chilies. He’s insanely good at these things. (He is also a lasagna genius. Two excellent reasons to marry a person, in my opinion.) The only problem is that once he figures out how to do something really well, he stops. It’s very unfortunate. But there’s not challenge for him, so he’s just done.

Then I have to take over. Oh well. I decided to do a little research. Turns out tamales aren’t even called that, they’re tamals, but we’ll go with it. The gist is they’re little sandwiches. Fillings can change, be different kinds of meat or veg, or they can go sweet filled with nuts and raisins. (I’m psyched to try this.) Seems war parties used to carry them a road food. I’ll have to remember this for our next road trip. (Hopefully, this won’t make me attack statues of war heroes. Oh, me and my warmongering ways.)

Anyhoo. Back to the tragic loss of my tamale maker. I am not he. I don’t feel the need to grind up re-hydrated chiles and whatnot. I opted for chile gravy more or less making a roux with powdered spices instead. Then I just cooked the meat over low heat for a couple of hours until it was falling apart. Rather than actually pulling it apart, I then chopped it up with a cleaver.

The only other thing that I do that may (or may not) raise eyebrows is that I really like the taste that comes from steaming the tamales in banana leaves rather than corn husks. They seem a bit brighter in flavor for some reason. Banana leaves are super cheap and you can get them frozen at Asian markets.

Pork Tamales

Filling

Pork, Pork & Pork: Beer Braised

Every now and again there’s a bunch of pork in the house. Then stuff needs to be made from it or it goes bad. (Bad pork, bad, bad pork!)

Sometimes, we even work at making it go bad. If you make things go bad in the right way, bad is really tasty. That’s where half of the pork went: chorizo. (You’re going to have to wait for that as it’s still curing.)

In the meantime, you get pulled pork. But not the pulled pork you would expect in the summer. No grills or smoke are in use. It’s been rainy and cold here - so I just braised it in the oven. (Although, you could easily braise on a grill.) But in an effort to try to pretend that it’s summer, I decided to play with one of my favorite sauces for pork made from equal parts of vinegar, yellow mustard and brown sugar. To work the sweet/tang taste, I braised braised in beer and mustard. Yummy. A bit of a taste of summer even if there’s no proof of it outside.

Pulled Pork Braised in Beer & Mustard

Lemon Blueberry Bubble Bread

I love creating something out of nothing. It’s funny, because one could reasonably argue that my life is about creating nothing out of nothing. When the power goes out, my work no longer exists. Perhaps that’s why I’m so partial to baking bread. It’s something out of nothing - that brings people joy. You don’t need much in the way of resources. Bit of flour, water, heat and time and you’re good to go. I’m convinced that if you have a warm loaf of bread all is right with the world.

It’s love… really.

Um, yeah. This worked quite well.

So, perhaps my work is not nothing out of nothing. If (by incredibly abstract extension from bread-making) it’s love, then it transcends medium. A case that may prove this point is Figs With Bri creator and author, Bri Brownlow. She is one of the many kindly people who has invited the world into her life through the words that she writes and the food that she eats. The grateful people who read what she writes have answered back. When Bri wrote about her recurrence of cancer they arose out of the nothing to help. Which means that, while all is not right with the world, it’s not crap either.

Along with the fundraiser there’s a CLICK photo contest, in honor of Bri. Photos are to feature the color yellow which made me think of my chubble bread. Bri made this recipe of mine (with her own modifications) a few months ago and talked about making a sweet version. I’ve thought about this as well and while a most appropriate version would have featured figs and brie, I chose to go with lemon, blueberry, pecan and mascarpone cheese. (It’s decidedly lighter and healthier than it’s predecessor.)

CLICK - that’s the zest. Zest is good.

The bread worked well. When it was done, we (Marv and I) decided it was good, but needed a bit of glaze to polish it off. Yeah… that was more good.

Please, join me in sending your best wishes to Bri and eating good bread.

Love, always.

MrsMarv

That’s right, when life gives you lemons - make bread.

Sponge:
1 t active dry yeast
1/2 c warm water 105°f to 115°f
3/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour

Sprinkle yeast over the warm water in a large bowl, whisk it in, and let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until very bubbly and doubled, about 45 minutes.

Dough:
1 t active dry yeast
1 c warm water, 105°f to 115°f
3 T olive oil
Sponge, above
1/4 c honey
1/4 c dried milk
3 1/2 - 3 3/4 c unbleached all purpose flour
2 t kosher salt

Sprinkle yeast over the warm water in a small bowl, whisk it in, and let stand until creamy, about 5 to 10 minutes. Using a heavy-duty mixer, add the dissolved yeast, honey, dried milk and olive oil to the sponge in the mixer bowl; mix in with the paddle attachment until well blended. Add in salt. Add in flour 1/4 c at a time - when you get to 3 cups add flour slower checking it until dough stops being very sticky and is only slightly sticky.

Change to the dough hook and knead at medium speed until the dough is soft, velvety and slightly sticky, 3 to 4 minutes. At this point you will be able to pull the dough up into peaks with your fingers. Finish by sprinkling 1 T of flour on your work surface and kneading the dough briefly. Transfer to a bowl lightly coated with olive oil and cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled 1 1/2 hours, or so.

Stuffs:

6 oz marscapone cheese, frozen then cut into small chunks
1 c pecans
1c blueberries
1/3 c sugar
zest from 2 - 3 lemons
3 T olive oil
1/4 t salt

Just before the rise is done, prep and toss together all stuffs ingredients in a large bowl. Coat the mixture with oil.

Stuffs & Second Rise:

Put a coating of stuffs in an empty wide bowl. Empty out bread on a non-sick surface. Shape into an flat rectangle, approximately 1/2″ - 1″ thick. Using a pizza wheel, cut loaf into inch wide strips. They do not need to be uniform. Then cut off one inch ends and put them into the stuffs bowl. Toss dough cubes into the stuffs mixture and gently coat them. Add in more stuffs periodically so that they stay separate.

Divide mixture into your baking pans. I generally do two pie plates but you can do loaves, cake pans or even muffin tins. Once you have dough in pans cover with plastic wrap and leave for second rise in a warm area. Let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Baking:
Preheat oven to 400°f. Brush top with olive oil and bake for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown. (If top starts to brown too much, place on top shelf of your oven.

Glaze
1/4 c powdered sugar
2 oz marscapone cheese, melted
1 T lemon juice

Whisk all together and drizzle over bread. Enjoy!

Oh, how I love the falafel.

Let me count the ways… All right, there aren’t many ways, but I do love the falafel. The best falafel I ever had was in Austin, Texas. Ah, Austin, home of many vegan delights… Yes, it was silly - but we had driven from Minneapolis to Austin, and after Iowa it gets hard to find much to eat on the road besides meat. I needed a break, and it was so good. The little patties were crispy on the outside but tender, savory and flavorful on the inside.

Falafel made from scratch at home has always eluded me. But I’ve had to keep trying because the place by my house that has falafel on the menu serves up these mini falafel pucks that only serve to make me wish that I was in Texas. Or knew how to make it myself. It seemed that every time I tried the little beasts would explode or suffer from some sort of garbanzo bean plate tectonic syndrome. Soon there would be little fried bean bits floating and bursting into flames in hot oil, victims of the unfair and unstable universe on which they lived. And I didn’t have a clue why.

“It’s street food for crying out loud! It can’t be that freakin’ hard,” I’d cry to Marv who would just roll his eyes over my falafel incompetence. Then, while I was on a plane, I read a description of falafel that said it was a dough made from garbanzo beans and spices that’s fried in oil and served in pita bread with cucumber sauce and lettuce. A dough. Doh! All the recipes I had tried were basically bean patties with nothing holding them together.

Armed to the teeth with this new information - I had another go. And it worked beautifully. Yea! Falafel for me!

Falafel

Makin’ Other People’s Stuff

Several weeks ago, Marv made the observation that we never had a wedding cake. I really couldn’t believe that he didn’t remember the cake that he made, considering I clearly remember looking up to see the top layers slowly gaining speed as they slid off their base. Doing the whole wedding reception ourselves had seemed like a good idea. (We tend to do things like this.) For some reason, we also wanted to have it where we lived, in an illegal loft space in ghetto central, with bullet holes through the windows, prostitutes on the street and whatnot. We even briefly considered having a bbq out on the roof but there was no telling who or what would be wandering through the alley so we decided to have Sunday brunch inside. (Prostitutes, pushers and pimps generally sleep in on Sundays. Preachers have somewhere else to be. The street would be relatively hassle free for our people.)

Yep, this sign was in the alley. It is my all time favorite handmade sign. (This one is a close second.)

Regardless of our highly questionable logic, we did have the skills to pull this off. Marv had recently retired (at age 27) from being a chef. At his last cooking job he worked 80 - 100 hour weeks for almost a year at a bakery/cafe and had proven that he could cook brunch in his sleep - with a crazy woman screaming at him if need be. But not this crazy woman. I was running around getting everything else but food done. Oh, and it was 105°f out. I was having problems just wearing clothes, therefore generating more heat by screaming was absolutely out of the question.

Marv was a rock. Not only did he crank out a half dozen different kinds of muffins, several salads and sandwiches (on bread he baked, of course) but he also took on making a flourless almond cake he was going to make for a wedding while at the bakery. The wedding got called off, so he never made it and when we decided to do the reception ourselves, he said he wanted to make the cake that got away. My response was, “Dude, you’re doing the baking, make what you want.” Little did I know that chocolate ganache + 105°f = very slidey cake.

Tuna Noodle Casserole… Rethunk

I missed the one bit of competitive cooking I do every year… but I still couldn’t get it out of my system. Hence, the overwhelming desire to dork around with a tuna noodle casserole. I could not resist. (Frankly, I don’t think you should either.)

I’ve changed it up from “tuna surprise,” to nice big chunks of tuna paired with edamame and bacon. The sauce is a bit sweet with the addition of some corn and topped with a bit of bacon grease tossed breadcrumbs for a nice crunch. And while it does take more work than the whole mix random stuff together and stick it in a pan bit, I think you will like it.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Simple Dinner #23: Catfish with Alabama White Sauce

Insert rant about how easy it is to cook a fresh meal quick fast in a hurry here. Alright, so I misremembered and there really wasn’t much of a rant there. I’m just feeling lazy and unranty. What can a girl do?

I guess she can make dinner in about 5 minutes flat. Here goes.

Alabama White Sauce
1/2 c mayonnaise
1/4 c cider vinegar
juice from half a lemon
1 T honey
1 t salt
1 t pepper
1/2 t cayenne

Stir together sauce ingredients and place in refrigerator for 1 hour. This sauce can be made ahead and it will keep in your refrigerator for weeks.

Panko Breaded Catfish
Heat pan over medium-high heat.

Beat one egg in a shallow bowl. Add in some salt, pepper and whatever other spice you eould like. Coat catfish fillet in egg mixture.

Put some panko in a a shallow dish. Press catfish into panko firmly. Add some oil into the pan and then the fish. Cook until brown, flip, cook the other side until brown and fish is firm.

Serve with sauce.

Too, too frickin’ simple… breakfast.

Cooking for my mother can be tough. She’s picky. She’s very picky. But when she called me up in November and said, “I’m almost out of the good ones biscuits.” I knew exactly what she wanted.