Delicate Art of the Griddle

Bacon Bourbon Pecan Pie

2011-12-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

When I was 11 years old, a friend and I got individual snack sized pecan pies. His looked exactly like a miniature pecan pie should. Mine looked like a fuzzy mix between a science experiment and a Chia Pet. Pete was a year older than I, and being older and wiser, it made perfect sense when he suggested I just scrape off the mold and eat it anyway.

It was 20 years before I could eat pecan pie again.

Fortunately, much like my aversion to whiskey which was achieved by somewhat similar methodology, I eventually overcame my repulsion to pecan pie. Pecan pie is an American tradition of southern cooking that is widely popular during the holiday season. Like many American traditions, its origins are somewhat murky and romanticized with advocates refusing to believe it could possibly be a recent innovation designed as a marketing scheme for product promotion. All evidence suggests Pecan Pie was a 20th century innovation designed to sell Karo corn syrup. Sorry. That doesn't make it any less delicious though.

So if Pecan Pie is so delicious, why the need to constantly modify ingredients and ratios? Why are there so many different recipes? Two reasons. 1. Some people are just plain wrong. 2. Adding bacon and bourbon makes just about everything better.

Crust
1 1/4 cups of AP flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of cold solid fat (butter, bacon grease, lard, or {shudder} shortening)
3 tbsp of cold water

Start with the bacon. Line a baking tray with aluminum foil and pre heat your oven to 400f. Lay in 6 slices of bacon. Cooking time will vary depending on how thick your bacon is, how streaky it is, and how big your baking tray is. A good rule of thumb is to flip the bacon in the tray and rotate it every 10 minutes. 20 minutes is usually enough. Don't completely crisp the bacon up as you would for breakfast, otherwise your pie will get a slight burnt bacon flavor.

Lining the tray with foil makes for easy cleanup, and allows you to easily pour off the grease to save for later use. Cooking the bacon in the oven allows the bacon to cook evenly without curling up. If you really prefer to fry it, do so, I'm not your mother.

I use a scratch made pie crust because I think Pillsbury is part of an international conspiracy to make me fat and stupid, and because it tastes better. You can use a pre-made crust if you hate yourself, America, and good pie. Making your own crust will take about 30 extra minutes and allow you to tell everyone how you made the whole thing from scratch. Feel free to use a superior tone of voice, you've earned it.

In a big bowl whisk together the AP flour, salt and sugar. Using a pastry blender or two forks, cut the fat into the flour until the mixture comes together in small nodules from the size of a pea to the size of meal.

A word on fat. Shortening sucks. It is scientifically proven to make you obese. Bacon fat, lard and butter, on the other hand, are pretty good for you as long as you don't snack on them by the spoonful. Also, they are much more tasty than shortening. Each will yield slightly different textures. I like to use a half and half mixture of cold butter and cold bacon grease.

After the fat is cut in, sprinkle on the cold water in small amounts while tossing the dough with a spoon. How much water you'll need depends entirely on the humidity where you are. Start with 3 tablespoons, add more as needed until the dough starts to form together and clumps easily when squeezed. This is something you'll get better at the more you do, but is really hard to explain in text.

Dust your rolling surface with flour, and roll out your dough until it's large enough to fit in your pie pan with about an inch of overhang. Pat the dough gently into the pan, and trim the edges. Pinch along the rim to make a decorative edge.

Cover with aluminum foil and lay in some pie weights. If you don't have pie weights, you can use dried beans. Bake in your 400f oven for 20 minutes.

While the pie crust is baking, start on the filling.

2 cups pecan
1tbspn bacon grease
6 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped.
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Maple syrup
1 cup corn syrup
5 tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 oz bourbon

Roughly chop the pecans. Mix the pecans with a tablespoon of bacon grease in a large non stick skillet. Heat over medium heat, to toast the nuts. Keep an eye on them, they will go from toasted to burnt very quickly.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, salt and sugar until well combined. Melt the butter and whisk it into the eggs. Chop up the bacon you cooked and mix it, along with the rest of the ingredients into the egg mixture. When the pecans are toasted, set them aside until the pie crust is baked.

If you're a vegetarian, or for some other inexplicable reason don't want bacon in your pie, feel free to omit it. The real secret to the flavor here is the bourbon and the maple syrup.

When the pie crust is done, pull out the pie weights, and reduce the heat to 375f. Mix the pecans with the rest of the filling, and then pour it into the crust. Bake until the center quivers but is set, about 35-45 minutes.

Merry Christmas, you're now the most popular person you know.

The Shooter's Sandwich

2011-05-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Considering the title and objectives of this blog, it's perhaps surprising that I've never before spoke of the Shooter's Sandwich. Let's remedy that, shall we?

The Shooter's Sandwich first came to my attention sometime in the late 90s by way of an episode of Two Fat Ladies. If you're familiar with the show, then you likely know that what follows is unlikely to be considered diet food. If you're not familiar with the show, you could probably deduce the same from the title which accurately described the two hosts. Fun Two Fat Lady fact; the surviving member of the pair's full name is Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright, and prior to spending time homeless and as an alcoholic, was the youngest woman called to the Bar as a barrister in the United Kingdom.

According to the history I've heard, the Shooter's Sandwich was despised in Britian as a hearty meal that could be easily transported and serve as a meal, or two, for a hunting party. The sandwich is, at it's most simple level, meat and a sauced mix of vegetables, crammed into an entire loaf of bread and then smashed for hours under a heavy weight and wrapped in layers of paper. You can use any meat that can be safely prepared raw, but as I understand it beef is traditional.

A loaf of bread
4-7 oz of butter
2 yummy steaks
Mushrooms
Garlic
Shallots
Stone ground mustard
Prepared Horseradish
Tarragon
Bourbon
Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper

Start with a crusty loaf of bread approximately the same size as the cuts of meat you'll be using. You want a strong bread, because we're going to be abusing it. I've selected a large sourdough boule. Lop off the top of the loaf and scoop out most of the interior. Hooray! You've made a bread bowl. Save those crumbs if you want, we won't be using them. Set your steaks out to warm up on the counter, and give them a good sprinkling of salt. I'm using rib eye steak because it's the most flavorful of all the beef bits.

Time for your miss en place. That's a fancy French culinary term for getting your shit together. It helps. Mince up the shallots, and garlic, and roughly chop the mushrooms. I'm using about 6 cloves of garlic, 4 large shallots, 6 mini portabellas and 6 of whatever variety of generic white mushroom every grocery store seems to have on hand. There's also 2 teaspoons of tarragon, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire, 1/3 cup of bourbon and an Armscor 1911 chambered in .45 ACP. The pistol isn't strictly necessary I guess.

Melt the butter in a medium hot skillet and toss in the shallots and mushrooms. Don't add any seasoning yet. Cook the veggies until the volume is reduced considerably and most of the liquid is cooked off, stirring frequently. About 10 minutes. Toss in the garlic and Worcestershire sauce, and continue to cook until the liquid is mostly cooked off. Deglaze the pan with the bourbon, being careful not to set yourself or your kitchen on fire. The traditional alcohol to use here is cognac, but I'm not French and I drink bourbon. Continue to cook until most of the bourbon is cooked off. Take the pan off the heat, stir in the tarragon and give it salt and pepper to taste.

Get a skittle, preferably cast iron, hot. Don't screw around, you want that thing as screaming hot and dangerous as a junior varsity cheerleader. If you don't have a cast iron skillet, you can use an aluminum or stainless pan, as long as it isn't a non stick pan. Get a nonstick pan this hot and it released toxic fumes. No, really. If you don't have an appropriate skillet, cook it on the grill. If you don't an appropriate skillet or a grill, stop reading this article and go reflect on the errors you've made in your life.

Give your steaks a light rub of olive oil, you won't need a lot. Slap the steaks in the pan, and don't touch them. We're going for a high heat sear and we want the steaks to be rare. If you're uncomfortable with that, I suggest you stop being such a whiner. If you're the kind of person to get squeamish about a rare steak, this sandwich may be too much for you. The more the beef is cooked, the less it will compress in the sandwich and more tough it will be when you eat it. About 90-120 seconds on a side should be enough. If you have an exhaust fan, now would be a good time to turn it on.

Look at that rich brown crust on those steaks. Now, this is important. Using all your will power, DO NOT eat those steaks. Also, don't let them cool or rest. You want them oozing juicy goodness into the sandwich.

Cram the first steak into your bread bowl. There's no cause to be gentle. Treat it like the guy who dinged your car door at the grocery store.

Layer in the veggie mixture. Hopefully you worked fast enough and it's still hot. At this point, the bread bowl is probably going to be looking a little full. That's okay. We're going to smoosh it all down later. That being said however, don't feel like you're compelled to use all of the veggies.

Now jack in that other steak. It might take some work. Don't be afraid to show it the back of your hand.

Smother the top of the steak with a thick layer of prepared horseradish. Slather the inside of the top of the loaf with mustard. Lay it on thick, like a Saturday morning lie.

Place the top back on the loaf. Try to match it up so it's even. See? It all fit.

Wrap the load up in several layers of waxed paper and then bundle it up with butcher's twine. Tie it up tight, you want the pressure contained as evenly as possible.

Put some heavy weights on top of the sandwich. I'm using a cast iron dutch oven filled with half a dozen cans of refried beans. That's about 16lbs. Heavier is probably better. Books also make good weights. I would advice against using anything filled with water, as the balance may shift and spill water everywhere.

Now comes the really hard part. Wait at least six hours. At least six hours, but you can press it for longer if you desire. It doesn't need to be refrigerated, it's still cooking. When I cut into this one after six hours, it was still warm.

Once you're done pressing the sandwich, cut through the entire bundle, string and paper and everything, and slice the sandwiches into wedges. Revel in the delicious aromas that fill your head. Luxuriate in the earthy sweet flavor of mushrooms and beef. Don't forget to chew. Chewing is important. I recommend serving this delicious monster with beer, and for god's sake, don't try and eat it by yourself in a single seating. Remember, it is an entire loaf of bread stuffed with two steaks and a giant handful of vegetables and fungus.

Creamed Brussels Sprouts

2011-02-02T18:23:00.000-08:00

Brussels Sprouts get a bad rap. To be fair, that's because Brussels Sprouts are generally pretty damn terrible. At best they are bitter, at worst, damn near inedible. Generations of children have gone to bed hungry on the pointed threat of Brussels Sprouts. This is because Americans are terrified of undercooked food and tend to cook the living hell out of everything. When you over cook Brussels Sprouts, they release glucosinolate sinigrin which yields a sulfur odor and flavor. Unless you are Mestipholes, chances are you don't care for the odor or flavor of sulfur. Just between you and me, I think even he's getting kind of tired of it.

Brussels Sprouts don't have to taste like crap though. They can be delicious, and I'm going to show you how. Granted, I'm going to use some bacon and cream to do it, but you shouldn't argue with what works. If you're a vegetarian, and don't want to use bacon, that's cool, you can substitute crispy herbed croutons, or fried sliver of sweet potato, or, you know what? You can figure that part out yourself.

2 tbs Apple cider vinegar
8 slices of bacon
4 slices of bread
2 tbs butter
1 large shallot minced
10-12oz brussels sprouts. trimmed and shredded
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup water
4 eggs
1 tsp tarragon
salt and pepper to taste
Shredded Parmesan cheese for garnish

This recipe calls for two prepared ingredients that tend to give some people trouble, poached eggs and crisp bacon. Poached eggs can be tough, so many of the preparations sound like mystical nonsense, demanding you create a whirlpool of just the right rpm, or add precise measurements of acid to the water bath. Bacon, for all it's loved, is difficult to fry evenly in most pans, yielding curly strips that are burnt in the middle and soggy at the tips. Before I get into the nitty gritty of making the main dish here, I'm going to break down these two preparations in a way that is damned near foolproof.

Bacon. Line a baking tray with aluminum foil. Lay out some bacon. Put the pan in a 400f oven for 10 minutes. Flip the bacon over and rotate the tray, toss it back in for another 10 minutes. Bam. Done. You just cooked awesome bacon that is evenly crisp and straight as Sergeant Joe Friday. Bonus: once the drippings cool off, gently pull up the foil and pour the grease off into a washed out tuna tin. Not only do you now have a handy reservoir of bacon dripping for future sautes, but chances are, you don't have to wash that tray at all. How's that for handy?

Poached Eggs. Using some cooking spray, butter, or some of that awesome bacon grease you just made, slick up some condiment bowls and then crack an egg into it. Put the tiny bowls in a steam basket, cover it, and get it over some boiling water. Put on the lid and in 2-5 minutes, depending on how cold the eggs are and what elevation you're at, BAM, poached eggs. They slide right out. Don't have condiment bowls? Use a coffee mug or a saucer. No steam basket? Put em right in the bottom of a sauce pan with just enough water to get some steam up. Don't be afraid to experiment, eggs are cheap. Careful when you take them out though, they were in boiling water, so whatever you put the eggs in is probably hot.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's how to handle the rest of this recipe.

Prep your Brussels Sprouts by rinsing them off under cold water and pulling off the loose outer leaves. Cut them down the middle from stem to head, then shred the halves into ribbons. This is easy, but if you really hate chopping, you have terrible knives, or you lost all your fingers in a tragic kitchen accident, toss them in a food processor after cutting off the stems and pulse it a few seconds. You want ribbons, not Brussels Juice.

Mince up that shallot nice and fine. You'll notice that this photo does not feature a shallot. I thought I had a shallot. I was mistaken. I was very stern with myself when I discovered this. It's okay though, maybe you don't have a shallot either? I hear Sandusky banned shallots last year, so it's possible. Substitute half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic, minced really fine. It's not going to fool James Beard, but it will probably fool Rachael Ray.

In a 12" skillet saute the shallot in 2tbs of butter until soft. If you saved some of that awesome bacon grease, use 1tbs of butter and 1tbs of bacon drippings. This will take 2 - 3 minutes. No rush.

Cut that bacon up into 1/4" strips. Yummy.

Drop in the Brussel's Sprouts and toss to coat with whatever delicious fat you're using. Add in the vinegar, water, cream, and tarragon, mixing well to combine. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and cook for about a minute over medium heat. Cover and cook for another 5-7 minutes. Do not overcook. Remember that part about Brussels Sprouts smelling like the devil's backside, that happens after 7 minutes. Don't do that. In the last minute or so of cooking, mix in half the bacon.

Butter up and toast your bread under the broiler while the sprouts cook. I'm using sourdough bread here because it's awesome. If you were planning on serving this to A. A. Gill, then you should probably choose a more square type of bread, something fresh made with a subtle nuttiness that evokes harvest grains, and then cut into diagonals removing the crust.

Gently transfer a poached egg, with the yolk still runny, onto each piece of toast. Cover with the egg with the Brussels Sprouts, then garnish with the remaining bacon and the Parmesan cheese. Serve hot, let the yolk run.

Give that a taste.

And you thought you didn't like Brussels Sprouts.

Pulled Pork Mac and Cheese

2010-04-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

Macaroni and cheese is an essential element of comfort cooking. For many people, like myself, Kraft Mac and Cheese was a building block of our diets, not only growing up, but into early adult hood when budgets were tight and Kraft was cheap. Kraft Mac and Cheese is velvety smooth, cheesy, delicious, filling, and these days, mostly crap.

Even in the fancier organic mac and cheese boxes there is very little, if any, real cheese included. Even when there is, the ingredients have been processed to such a high degree that they barely resemble food at all. As much as I like the Kraft Mac and Cheese, still, I'm convinced that the packaging actually has more nutritional value than the contents.

Even if it did have real cheese, it doesn't come with pulled pork, and mine does. Making mac and cheese from scratch is easy, takes very little time, and delivers a far superior product. When it's done you can be relatively certain that it contains real food and no monosodium poisonate.

16 oz of pasta cooked al dente
4 oz to 16 oz pulled pork
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups heavy cream
4 oz to ∞ of cheese
Panko bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 350f. Drop your pasta in boiling water and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes. I like to use elbow macaroni or shells, but really any small pasta with lots of nooks will work well. Don't be afraid to experiment. When the pasta is done, drain it and toss it into a proper sized baking dish. I'm using a half steam pan.

In a sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat, but don't let it brown You can really use any pan or skillet, but because we're making a sauce here, I prefer a proper sauce pan, one with gently sloping sides that allows the whisk to get in, and made of a heavy slow and even conductor. I'm using a La Creuset cast iron sauce pan here.

When the butter is melted, dump in the flour and commence to whisking. Whisk away! Continue to whisk constantly for at least 2 minutes. Hooray! You just made a roux. Keep an eye on the temperature and the roux, if it starts to darken, turn down the heat a little. Keep whisking, don't stop. Cooking the roux for 2 minutes cooks out the flour taste. This is important if you don't want your mac and cheese to taste like glue. If you like the way glue tastes, I guess you don't have to bother.

Pour in the cream, and keep whisking. As you whisk, the sauce will start to thicken. Depending on how warm the cream was relative to the roux, and how fast you poured it in, the sauce will either set up quickly or a little more slowly. If you attempted to use fat free milk, it will take longer and be terrible. Don't do that. Some people will say you should add in the cream slowly, or heat it up first. Since we're pumping this full of cheese and baking it later, this isn't really that important.

Hey, you just made a Bechamel sauce! You're a fancy French chef now. Go tell all your friends, but wait until we're done here first. You don't want to burn the sauce, and ruin all your new French Chef cred. The Bechamel, or sauce blanche, is one of the French mother sauces and is the basis for a number of super delicious sauces such as Mornay and Soubise sauce. You may have also noticed that it's basically just gravy. I just saved you three weeks of culinary school.

When the sauce is done to your desired consistency, coating the back of a spoon is a common test, lower the heat and pop in the cheese. Add the cheese in a bit at a time, other wise it will be hard to stir in smoothly and it may break or clump. Since you stuck a spoon in it, you might as well taste it. Resist the urge to eat it all. Add salt or pepper as you see fit.

A word about cheese. Use a cheese that is a good melter. I like smoked gouda. Hard cheeses can be used, but will often yield a grainy texture after baking. I like to add a little manchego because I like the flavor. Cheddar is the typical American addition, and works, but it has a tendency to break more often in my opinion and why use cheddar when you can use something as tasty as smoked gouda? It's really a matter of taste though, as is the amount. The more cheese you put in, the cheesier your mac and cheese will be. 4 ounces is about the minimum and 8 ounces is a good place to stop before going crazy.

When the cheese is all melted in to the sauce, pour it over the pasta and mix it up good. Toss in the pulled pork and mix to combine. Wait, you don't have pulled pork? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you. Well, we'll cover that some other time. For now, reasonable pulled pork can be had at the grocery. I'm so embarrassed right now.

Pat the mixture down evenly and, oh wait. Listen, the baking part. It's not really necessary. You can eat it just like that. Go ahead, I won't stop you. Baking does make it kinda tastier though. Still with me? Okay, pat the mixture down evenly and sprinkle the Panko bread crumbs in a layer over the top. I like to spritz it with a little olive oil too, just to make the crumbs crisper. Panko isn't necessary if you don't have any. Any bread crumbs will do, they just aren't as tasty. Hell, you can replace the bread crumbs altogether with crumbled bacon.

Pop the pan in the oven for 30 minutes and sit on your hands. You have to sit on your hands because your kitchen will start to smell like miracles and fairytales and you'll want to pull the mac and cheese out before it's done.

Serve immediately. Serves up to eight, or as few as one.

Grilled Zucchini

2009-06-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

For years I labored under the mistaken impression that I didn't like zucchini. I can't say for sure where this prejudice originated. If I forced at gunpoint to guess though, I'd say it was the result of a long standing disagreement I had with most, if not all, members of the squash family. This was a long standing conflict that only reached a period of truce when I stopped residing in my parents home.

This period of my life was known as The Decade Of Freedom From Vegetables And Experimentation With Scurvy. Most people call it bachelorhood. It was marked by dramatic increases in cheeseburgers and rib eyes, and a violent avoidance of most flora as a culinary option. This was an exciting period of my life that featured vitamin C deficiency and flirtation with gum disease. I don't really recommend it.

Over the last several years, as my quest to not die at an early age from nutritional deficiencies has really picked up steam, I've been reintroducing a variety of plants back into my life. I've yet to give okra another shot at the pennant, but several other previously vilified representatives of the plant world have been called up from the minor leagues. Among those was zucchini, and what I've come to realize is that zucchini is not bad, but it can be made badly. As it turns out, this is true of all food.

The following preparation was improvised for a cook out with friends several weeks ago. There were people in attendance who were not interested in eating meat, so I elected to prepare a meat free alternative. I'm a nice guy like that.

Ingredients

dried or fresh herbs (see below)
olive oil
lemons
white wine
salt
zucchini

Dried or fresh herbs? Man, that's a debate. I'm not going to get into it now. Just use whichever you like the most, or have available. For this particular batch I used thyme and oregano. In previous batches I used rosemary, savory, and thyme. Dill would probably be good too, but only if you liked dill. How much should you use? I'd say a tablespoon probably of each. Again, it depends on what you like, and keep in mind we're making a marinade here, not baking a cake. Is that vague enough?

User your microplane to get the zest o... What? You don't have a microplane? Go buy one. Right now. I'll wait.

Got it? Good. Now use your microplane to remove the zest from two lemons. Wait, you still don't have a microplane? Fine, if you really must, you can carefully slice off the zest with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler. Be careful about getting too much of the pith, the white rind, it's bitter. Seriously though, get a microplane, they're awesome and versatile.

Juice both of your naked lemons and add the zest to the lemon juice in a mixing bowl. Toss in the herbs with two generous pinches of salt. Now for the wine. You'll note that I've selected a Yellow Tail Pinot Grigio. I've selected this wine because that's what was in my pantry. Feel free to use a chardonnay, riesling, or really any other white wine. My only caution here would be to avoid the old wives tale about not cooking with wine you would drink. It's silly. You want to cook with wine that tastes good, but balance that with some sense. You don't want to use a Joseph Drouhin Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche 2006 in a clam sauce. So, I tend to keep some value wines around for cooking.

Whatever wine you choose, add about 1/2 a cup to the mixing bowl. Whisk to combine, and then whisk in several healthy tablespoons of good olive oil. I'm using a Sicilian Val Di Mazara, just because that's the way I roll. Whisk everything in the mixing bowl real good. Don't kill yourself, you could mix this with a boat motor and wouldn't integrate, we haven't included anything that will work as an emulsifier, so that lemon juice and wine will never combine with the oil totally.

Wash your zucchini up, and trim off the ends, but don't peel it. We need that green skin left on to give it some structure and prevent it from falling apart when we get to the grilling. Cut the zucchini lengthwise in slices that are about 1/4 inch thick. If you cut them too thin, then they'll go all floppy when they cook and turn to mush. I'm only using two zucchini here, because there's only two people in my house. We've made enough marinade for 4-6 zucchini depending on how big they are and how thick you decide to slice them. 4 zucchini is enough to feed 8 people if this is going to be a side dish, 4 if it's an entree.

Once your zucchini is all sliced up, toss them into a gallon sized ziplock bag and then pour in your marinade. If you had to, you could do this in a glass or plastic tray or bowl, but I wouldn't recommend it. The bags are the best way to marinade anything in my opinion. If you use a bag, that's one more dish you don't have to wash. Just be sure not to use an aluminium pan for the marinading. There's a lot of acid in this marinade, and it will react with the aluminium and make everything taste funny as well as maybe ruin your pan if you leave the marinade in long enough. Once the bag is sealed, slosh everything around and try to separate the zucchini slices, they'll try their darndest to stick together.

Now's the easy part. Wait.

Just let that bag sit on the counter for a while. Anywhere from 1/2 an hour up to a few hours. I wouldn't leave it in there for much more than 2 hours though. While you're waiting, you can heat up your grill. You want those grates nice and hot to leave some pleasant looking, and tasting, grill marks. Once your grill is hot and you're done waiting on your marinade, pull the slices out of your bag with some tongs and lay them on the grill. Turn them over after a few minutes, they won't take long.

What? You don't have a grill either? Good gravy. Alright. You can do it in your broiler. After all, a broiler is just an upside down grill, right? It won't be as nice and you won't get those tasty grill marks though. Lay the slices out on in a single layer on a baking sheet and place them on the highest rack in your oven under the broiler set to high. Keep an eye on them, and in a minute or two, turn them over and repeat. Do us both a favor though, and get a grill.

Voila! All done. These make a great side dish for a cookout. They are also a fantastic condiment for a grilled sausage or a bratwurst on a bun. Let em cool, and you can make a tasty vegetarian sandwich with them. Or, you can just take a fork and dig in.

Cream of Broccoli soup

2009-01-04T18:39:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly 2 years since I've posted anything new. That's how good this soup is.

2 tbsp Butter
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp + 1 pinch tarragon
1 1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped (about 1 large onion)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 lbs broccoli, chopped, stems sliced thin
5 cups chicken broth
3 tbsp white wine
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 lime, juiced
1 pinch red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
Bacon, fried and crumbled for garnish

In a stock pot, melt the butter and saute the onions and garlic until translucent. Add mustard powder and 1 tsp tarragon, stir to combine. Pour in wine and reduce by half.

Add broccoli, chicken broth and red pepper flakes to mixture. Stir to combine and when soup boils, reduce to a simmer. Cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender and crush easily on the side of a spoon.

Using an immersion blender cream the soup until all large chunks are gone. If you don't have an immersion blender, transfer soup in batches to a blender and then return soup to the stock pot. Don't fill the blender up too far, as hot soup will expand when blended. Seriously though, just get an immersion blender.

Once blended, add in cream, lime juice and pinch of tarragon, blend to combine and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with garnish of crumpled bacon.

Serves 6 hungry people, or 8 children.

Early in the evening, just about supper time.

2007-01-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

Winter is soup season. regardless of whether it's tomato or cream based, has beef, chicken or shrimp, starts with a mirepoix or a roux, as long as it's hot and warms the belly, it'll be appreciated. If it's made with fresh, quality ingredients, to complete a delicious and well balanced meal in a bowl, it will be desired. If you don't skip on the cream and butter, it will be coveted. Buckle up kids, this ain't diet food, but you're going to love it.

4 small yukon gold potatoes, small dice
2 leeks, white part only, diced
1 shallot, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 small or 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
3 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon dried mustard
4 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cups of chicken stock
1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste

Add 2 tablespoons of the butter and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to a large hot skillet. Saute the potatoes in the oil until well browned and cooked through. Remove the potatoes from the skillet and toss with salt and pepper to taste.

Try not to eat the potatoes.

Add the remaining butter and oil to the hot pan and when melted, add the onion, shallot, celery, leeks, and thyme. Saute until translucent and just barely caramelized. Mix in the flour and mustard, stirring constantly until a brown and bubbling roux forms.

Reduce the heat and slowly pour in the stock and cream, stirring constantly to blend well. Do not allow it to boil. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and keep stirring until slightly thickened. Stir in the potatoes and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

And now, a digression about Pirates and Barbecue

2007-01-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

The word Buccaneer presents many imaginative images. Swashbuckling heroes, desperate sea battles between ponderous ships, daring and poetic romance, even despicable and foul treachery. When you think of a buccaneer though, you likely don't imagine your father, sweating beside a Weber grill filled with too little charcoal and too much lighter fluid, wielding tongs and hot dogs like some primordial fire worshipper dressed in a denim apron emblazoned with the words, "real men cook with oxidizing exothermic chemical reactions!"

The startling, if not bewildering truth though, is that Pop, no matter how culinary challenged he may be, is closer to the real buccaneer image than any of the others i've mentioned with the potential exception of foul treachery.

The word Buccaneer, is a french word, which according to some has a literal translation as "Hunter of Wild Oxen." Not being particularly fluent in French I can not verify that, but it sounds like something they would say. In any event, Buccaneer, is the english derivative of the word boucanier which means "user of a boucan." Hardly a revealing phrase that. One wonders exactly what a boucan may be and why I just don't get to the point.

Etymology is perhaps the ultimate pursuance of pedantry. Those that revel in it also revel in the most trivial of details. For instance. It's a widely held misconception that the word barbecue is derived from the french phrase "barbe à queue" meaning "from beard to tail," a reference to cooking an entire pig whole. Despite the fact that pigs rarely sport beards this pseudo-etymology has entered the common lexicon as truth. Trust me, this is relevant.

Boucan, as we've already established, is a french word. It refers to a frame of green wood used to cook and smoke meat over open coals and is in turn derived from the Tupi word, mukem rendered in Portugese as moquem. The Tupi, for purposes of edification are an aboriginal tribe from northern brazil, but it isn't so much the Tupi we're concerned with. Boucan referred not only to the frame work that held the meat, but also to the meat itself, both on the hoof and prepared.

The word came into common usage in the late 1600s by french settlers working as hunters in the Spanish West Indies. When the Spanish outlawed the practice and drove these French hunters from their jobs, those same hunters turned to a life of crime aimed chiefly at avenging themselves against the Spanish. What reason the Spanish had for such an action is unclear, although it was likely prompted by the bitter racism and nationalism that was prevalent at the time. The French you see, were no friends of the Spanish, and the Spanish for their part felt much the same for the French.

These Boucaniers then turned into lawless bandits, and around the same time the word was anglicized into Buccaneer it came to be used by the English to describe a pirate of any nationality that made war chiefly against the Spanish. It wasn't long before the term was used to describe practically any pirate or seemingly piratical behavior.

The French, for their part, continued to use the root word boucan to refer to smoke cured meat, open fire cooking and the framework of wood used in said cooking. They even used the word to refer to similar frameworks of wood used as elevated bedding by many inhabitants of the West Indies to avoid nighttime visits from serpents, much in the same way that the Tupi used the word mukem.

"What," you may ask, "has any of this to do with my father and his incapacity to cook hot-dogs to an even temperature over his poorly crafted fire?" I'm glad you asked. The French word boucan derived from the Tupi word mukem. On the Spanish held island of Hispaniola the aboriginal tribe Arawakan called the same framework of wood and the meat it was used to cook as barbacoa in their language, Taino. Hispaniola, part of which is now known as Haiti, was much contented among the european nations and indeed has remained divided politically into the 21st century. This cultural and linguistic mishmash brought the terms boucan and barbacoa into more or less synonymous use for the cooking of meat over open pits of coals. Barbacoa is the word from which the now chiefly, although hardly exclusive, American practice of barbecue finds its origins.

So, you see, your father, in his comical apron and using his inefficient, although flavor enhancing fuel is no mere backyard cooker, he epitomizes the swashbuckling buccaneer.

La Caja China; Part One

2006-11-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

When Jose´ told me about his pig box, I listened politely and nodded approvingly in all the right places. I mentioned how I was quite fond of the pork beast and all it's many delicious pieces. Men talk about meat. Like cars, sports and pointless explosions, meat is something that men have an opinion about and we never really shy away from sharing those opinions. It's like a secret language for us, one that we use to communicate at an instinctual level.

What Jose´ was really saying was "I like pork. I want to share some with you some day, so that you can tell me how good my pork is." I accepted his offer and offered to reciprocate by telling him about my smoked tri-tip and the special seasoning blend that I use for dry rubs.

Then, like many men, I completely forgot the entire exchange; until next Christmas. I was returning from a Christmas party when I turned the corner onto my street and my nostrils were filled with the succulent aroma or roasting pig. It filled the street and filtered in through the ventilation system of the car. If I had been a cartoon character, tendrils of wispy smoke would have gently caressed my face and lifted me by my nose to lead me to the source of the smell on my tip toes.

What I found was Jose´ and about 25 other Cubans standing in his garage huddled around a wooden box on wheels. Jose´ gestured madly and insisted that I join him. What I learned that night was that Cubans traditionally roast a pig at Christmas, that the pig is delicious, and that you don't need to speak a lot of Spanish to make someone understand that yes, you'd love another piece of crispy skin.

It was then that Jose´ told me about La Caja China, the Chinese Box. "First," he said, "you rub the pig with the sauce. You love it, you caress it like a woman, but not like your wife. Then you stab it! You stab it! Then you rub with the spice, THEN STAB IT!." His exclamations were partnered with drunken stabbing as he mimicked maiming the porcine target of his affection. "Then you put it in caja china and add the fire to the top."

"And then?" I asked.

Jose´ shrugged as if my question was irrelevant or the answer a mystery of such high order that mortals simply couldn't comprehend it. "You take out the pig." After his animated description of the preparation, I was expecting a little more in the way of details. When I pressed him for things like temperature, cooking time, and fuel, he just shrugged again. "You put the pig in, and then put the fire on and then three hours later, you take the pig out."

"Three hours?" It seemed like a rather short time to cook an entire pig.

"Yes. Always three hours." And that was that. He later explained to me that the box was magic, and that's why they called it La Caja China. According to Jose´ the Cubans have a tendency to label devices and things they don't understand, or that appear to have nearly mystical capabilities, to the Chinese. He didn't know why.

I recently got my own Caja China, and it does seem nearly magical. After a knuckle busting assembly I can assure you that the box is nothing more than a pine plywood box that's lined with sheets of stainless steel. The meat is captured in a rack and sits in the box in a drip tray. A top is placed on the box, and a grate on top of that. Coals are piled on top of the grate and lit. The coals are refreshed three times in three hours. In the last half hour the rack is flipped so the meat is skin side up to let it get crispy, but that's the only time you do anything other than watch the fire and drink a refreshing beverage.

After three hours of cooking, anything you put in there is done. The model I got can do up a 70lb pig, 4 pork shoulders, 4-6 turkeys, 12-18 chickens, 12 racks of ribs, 4 briskets, or any other suitably enormous quantity of meat. I got mine last week, and naturally I've decided to cook an entire pig for Thanksgiving.

Only a fool rushes in without experimenting though, and I wasn't about to just willy nilly try this new technique without practicing it at least once. So a friend and I prepared two picnic cuts a piece with different seasonings and marinades. The meat was secured, fire added, and time passed. Two and a half hours later, we jumped the gun and removed the coals and the pork.

The results were exceptionally tasty, although the simpler seasonings were the most favored amongst testers. Because the meat was pulled too soon, it wasn't as tender as it could have been, even though the meat had reached temperature quite quickly and stayed at temperature for more than an hour. Lessons were learned, and in a future installment, I shall detail those lessons.

Lemon Pepper Chicken with balsamic vinegar glaze

2006-09-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

2-4 chicken breasts
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
Lemon pepper
Kosher salt

Pat chicken breasts dry and sprinkle with salt and lemon pepper. Turn oven broiler on high.

In a hot, oven safe skillet, melt butter in olive oil. Fry chicken for 2-3 minutes on each side, until browned.

Spoon or brush half of vinegar over chicken and place skillet on middle rack of oven for 3 minutes.

Remove chicken from oven. Spoon honey over chicken. Ladle remainder of vinegar over chicken. Add lemon juice to skillet.

Place skillet back in oven on top rack, directly beneath burner, for 3 minutes.

Remove chicken from skillet and serve immediately. Do not spoon sauce from pan over chicken.

Don't hate the tater, hate the game

2006-07-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

Potatoes are the most widely grown tuber in the world, and a staple of the American diet. Here's a fun fact; Potatoes do not come from Ireland. Potatoes are a new world vegetable that originate in the Andes highlands of Peru. It was imported into Spain and then slowly spread across Europe where they were considered unhealthy.

Despite being a new world vegetable, the potato has a long and varied role as a culinary ingredient. If you're american though, you've very likely only eaten in a small number of ways. Baked potato, mashed potatoes, french fries, potato chips. While fine in their own right, these three dishes don't offer the diversity of flavor that most of us crave. The more adventurous or ethnically diverse may have sampled other common potato dishes. Potato pancakes, gnocchi, or pommes souffle

Fortunately, potatoes are a hardy and durable ingredient that take well to a variety of seasonings, both sweet and savory, and cooking methods. Potatoes are almost perfect for experimentation. Fry, boil, bake, roast and grill to your hearts content.

The following recipe is my latest experimentation. I'm pleased to say that it came out quite well. The end result had the desirable crunchy exterior of an au gratin and the creamy cheesy center typical of scalloped potatoes. It came out a little sweeter than I had expected, but not enough to overbalance the savory flavors of the cheese and onion.

3 russet potatoes cut into 1" cubes
1 Sweet yellow onion roughly diced
2 golden delicious apples cut into 1" cubes
1/3 cup of Gulden's brown mustard
2/3 cup of sour cream
1 cup of Sargento's shredded four cheese Mexican blend
salt and pepper to taste

In a large mixing bowl mix together the sour cream, Gulden's mustard, Sargento's cheese and half of the parmesan cheese until well blended. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the potatoes, onion, and apples, and toss until well coated.

Place mixture in a 1.5 quart baking dish and sprinkle the top with the remainder of parmesan cheese and fresh ground black pepper. Bake in a 375° oven for 1 hour. Let the dish cool for 3-5 minutes before serving.

Fun, although untested, additions would be; bacon, prosciutto, rosemary, jicama, spinach, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, and flaked smoked salmon.

Shooting for science! #2

2006-07-06T20:43:00.000-07:00

In America, Independence Day is a really big deal. It's the titular anniversary of the day we tossed off the shackles of tyrannical monarchy and unfair taxation, shortly replacing it with ignorant misrepresentation and unfair taxation. Some people celebrate this holiday by tossing cash semi-legal fireworks vendors to procure a product that they will literally burn and explode in the street and leave the remains to float away in the evening wind. Or, you know, clog up the storm drain. America can be a confusing place, even for the natives.

I don't prescribe to the fireworks game plan much. Fireworks are most often used after dark, and I'm frequently far too intoxicated after dark to mix such things as fire and explosions. That kind of tom foolery is for the day time, and if you're going to do it, you should really do it right. So last weekend while my brother-in-law was in town, we went out to the desert for some good ol fashioned Independence Day Shooting At Things fun.

Peter had brought a number of firearms with him, and so had my good friend Jeff, so we had a grip of guns and between us we had far more ammunition than we could realistically shoot before the July sun tried to kill us and pick our bones for the pleasure of the desert. What we didn't have was much to shoot at. I had a few old hard drives, but nothing really heavy. Nothing worthy of science. "Don't worry" I admonished them as we bounced along the gas line road, "Arrakis provides." And so it did.

We stopped a few times and picked up things like a steel rack to use as a stand to dangle things from and an old saw horse, also to dangle things from so that we could shoot them. The real treasure though, was an old cast iron disk brake rotor. Now we were talking! Now we had some science to shoot at!

We set up our stands, attached the science target and set out to 'test' the ballistic performance of disk brakes. I'll tell you right away, disk brakes do an awesome job of stopping cars from doing silly things like ramming into other cars, but they're not really the kind of thing I'd want to hide behind in a fire fight, unless my opponent was armed solely with hand guns, and was a really good shot. Seriously, disk brakes aren't that big, and there's a big hole in the middle of them.

We started off at approximately 10 meters with the .40 Glock, which did nothing but splatter against the iron with a sharp ring and an impressive splatter. Peter, seeing the bullet splatter decided to move farther away behind me during the shooting section of Science. This is only important to note because Peter did not get shot that morning.

The .40 was followed by the .223 AR-15, the .303 Enfield, the .30-06 Springfield, and the .30-30 Marlin. That's really where we ran into a bit of a road block. The .223, .303, and .30-06 ammo was all FMJ while the .30-30 was a winchester XM2 soft nosed deer round. The FMJ ammo all cleanly and neatly penetrated the iron brake rotor and the thirty caliber rounds all popped out impressive chunks of metal on the back side. While the .30-30 round was more than powerful enough to bust through the iron, it was also real soft. At that range, and on that kind of target, it seems to have a tendency to fragment and ricochet rather unpredictably.

As soon as I took the shot with the Marlin, Jeff casually mentioned, "I'm hit" in a tone of voice that didn't really suggest panic or danger. "I took some shrapnel" he clarified and I jogged over to see what he was so politely not panicking about. Turns out a piece of the jacket had caught a ridge in the rotor and peeled off, shoot back at us and catching Jeff in the wrist. It was a good pea sized junk of the jacket a little bit of the slug and had dug firmly into the soft flesh surrounding Jeff's meaty wrist.

I had shot my best friend of twenty years.

He casually picked out the fragment and walked towards the truck, discarding the piece of bullet without thinking about retaining the trophy. We gave the wound a little cleaning, examined it for damage, determined it was a minor flesh wound, and applied the real life equivalent of a video game health pack, the band-aid.

When we resumed shooting for science, Jeff stood farther back. I felt it was important to test the .30-30 again and took more careful aim this time. Predictably I took a piece of shrapnel in the forearm. I was a little disappointed when I discovered that the fragment was tiny. A part of me was hoping I would wound myself at least as badly as I did my good friend, who didn't want to get shot, so that I might gain some kind of karmic balance. I couldn't take back the chunk of bullet in Jeff's wrist, but maybe I could put a larger one in me somewhere fleshy. I would have been okay with that. I hurt myself all the time, some times on purpose. Of course, I wasn't willing to actually shoot myself directly, especially not after seeing what these bullets where doing to cast iron.

We finished off the science portion of the day with a 2 3/4 inch 12 gauge slug. This turned out to be the surprise ballistics performer of the day. The other rifled rounds all cut clean(ish) holes in the brittle iron. This wasn't surprising considering the velocity of some of the rounds. I didn't expect the 12 gauge slug to do much tough, and so I was surprised when both test rounds punched through, making impressive ragged exits. While the rifle rounds seemed to nearly machine cut their way through, the 12 gauge slug by comparison made a whole that could have just as easily been made by a hammer.

In all seriousness though, we got lucky, and I realize that. This is an excellent example of how unpredictable and dangerous fire arms can be if not treated with respect. We, and when I say "we" I really mean "Jeff," got very lucky. The bullet fragment hit him in a place not covered by clothing that could stick in the wound and become infected, and it didn't hit him in the face or some other delicate bit.

Respect the power of your firearm.

Hardened arteries are a sign of social stature.

2006-06-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

I can't find the words to describe the Beer Battered Deep Fried Bacon Double Quarter Pounder. I can't decide it it's the best idea in the whole world, or a terrible terrible no good thing.

A sauce for all seasons

2006-06-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

Pasta sauces range from the time consuming bolognese to the excruciatingly simple sage and butter sauce, whose only ingredients are sage and butter. Opinions on the proper sauce to use and the way to cook it differ to a degree that would make a veteran of the Usenet OS Wars shudder and cower. Seriously, people have died over such seemingly minor differences as when to add cheese, what kind of wine to use and whether the tomatoes should be chopped or mashed by hand.

Here's what you don't hear very often though; they're dead simple to make. You can make a killer tomato based pasta sauce yourself, with very little preparation, training, or skill, and you don't even need access to a farmer's market. All of those things help, but just about anything you make will come out better than Ragu. Notice the capital R. It makes a difference. I'm talking about the Ragu brand sauces in the grocery store, not the lovingly prepared sauces crafted by hand.

The following is a recipe for a simple sauce that I made last night. i welcome you to try it and modify it as required by your available ingredients and taste. You'll note that I left out onions and carrots. I don't particularly care for onions, they give me heartburn, so I omit them. Besides, I didn't have any. Feel free to do the same thing.

Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a hot stock pot. Expect some smoke, turn on a fan.
Add a hand full of diced prosciutto to the hot oil and stir around. It will cook very fast.
When the prosciutto starts to brown, and it will do so quickly, toss in 4 or 5 chopped cloves of garlic.
You can use any wine, although for my money, reds work best. A lot of people will tell you to never cook with wine you would drink, that you tend to lose all the important flavor components in the cooking process. This is horse shit. I wouldn't ever cooking with a wine you wouldn't drink. If it tastes like cat poop in the glass, it won't be doing your food any favors.
For the record I use a 2003 merlot.
Let this heady mixture of wine, pork and garlic boil for a good bit. You want it to reduce by about 2/3s.
Once the wine has reduced sufficiently, toss in two cans of diced Del Monte tomatoes, I prefer the basil, garlic, and oregano variety.
Yes, canned tomatoes. You know why? Because I can't be bothered to cut, scoop, blanch and peel 6-10 tomatoes. Be my guest if you want. Sometimes it's worth it.
Bring the sauce to a boil, adding salt and sugar to taste. The sugar will help cut down on the acidity. I also add in about a tablespoon of Italian seasoning and a few dashes of oregano and basil. At this point you want to pour in another 2 cups or so of wine.
I also like to toss in some sharp cheese. You can't go wrong with a nice parmesan. I also like Asiago and even Dubliner. Go nuts, make it a few big handfuls.
Cover the pot, and reduce the heat to a simmer.
Walk away. Do something else for an hour or two, and let this happily percolate.
After simmering, I like to go at the sauce with an immersion blender for a smoother sauce. Don't feel you have to. A chunky sauce is just as good as a smooth one.
Just before serving, add in a ladle or two of the water from your cooking pasta. This starchy fluid will help even out the consistency of the sauce and aid it in adhering to the pasta.
You can serve the sauce immediately and it will be delicious. Be sure to set some of the wine at the table with glasses. If you have the time though, I recommend letting it cool in the fridge over night and serving it the next day. Given time to rest, it will be even better.

A place in the sun

2006-06-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

The experienced firearms collector knows many ways to deal with the love hate relationship they have with cosmoline. The freshman firearms collector will soon make numerous additions to his or her vocabulary of hate. The complex emotions that a firearms collector has with cosmoline root from it's use and removal.

Cosmoline is a petroleum distillate similar in appearance and consistency to petroleum jelly (Vaseline). It's primary use is as a preservative for long term storage of firearms. This is good. The remarkable preservative qualities of cosmoline allow for firearms to be stored for decades, if not longer. Cheap and easy preservation means that those of us who are so inclined can readily and cheaply purchase historical firearms.

As it ages though, cosmoline penetrates all the tiny crevices of the firearm's mechanisms, and is even absorbed by the wooden parts like a sponge; and then it hardens and gets sticky. Very sticky. So sticky that removing it can be time and sanity consuming.

The classic method is to break the weapon down into its component parts and carefully and time consumingly scrub each part with a variety of solvents designed to break down petroleum distillates. There are a number of problems with this method though, it relies on corrosive and potentially toxic combinations of solvents and it can take a long time. Last winter it took me approximately six hours to scrub down all the parts on my Lee Enfield No.4 Mk1, and more than one followup cleaning proved to be necessary.

Others recommend using the dishwasher. The one in your kitchen. Cosmoline has a relatively low melting point of about 120 Fahrenheit. The hot water in the dishwasher is more than warm enough to gently wash away the cosmoline. Care must be taken though; never use a detergent only hot water, and immediately after removing the metal from the dishwasher, apply a thin coat of oil. Don't attempt this method if you're intending to restore the firearm, as the hot water will raise the grain on the wooden parts and a post wash sanding will be required. This could remove or damage any stock imprints or other marks of character. The most important cautionary element of this method is to prevent your wife from ever finding out you used the dishwasher in this manner. I recommend waiting until she leaves the house and then never telling her. Ever.

Another, easier, method that I've recently discovered has a short and readily obtainable list of requirements.

1-3 black garbage bags
A hot sunny day

Pick up your firearm, and if you feel like it, disassemble it. Or don't, whatever, it's not that important. Place your firearm inside the garbage bags, then place it out in the sun. Wait a few hours depending on the temperature and latitude. The hotter it is, and the closer you are the equator, the less time you have to wait. Take the firearm out of the bag and wipe it down with a rag. Repeat if necessary.

Seriously, that's it. Several applications may be required to get desirable results, but it beats spending numerous hours hunched over, scrubbing at a relentless foe with noxious chemicals. A serious advantage of the solar method is removal of cosmoline from the wood without damage. The only downsides to this method is that you may not live someplace that gets hot enough and the metal parts can become too hot to touch. Why spend all that time busting your hump when you can finally let that giant ball of burning hydrogen do something more constructive than hang around burning your scalp.

Remember the membrane

2006-06-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, and I have to assume you are, then you spend a lot of time watching the cable food channel, FoodTV. The shows that are featured on that cable channel are a wealth of information about cooking and I frequently find myself integrating portions of recipes I see on some of those shows as well as learning valuable techniques.

One thing that I frequently heard was that when cooking ribs, any self respecting cook that wasn't a foul lich and wasn't actually interested in poisoning their guests, would remove the membrane. Which seems like good advice. Of course I would remove the membrane. I mean, it sounds disgusting. Anything called a membrane has no purpose lurking around attached to the food I love to eat.

Of course, no one really explained what the membrane was, or where it was at, or how to actually remove it. I can only guess that they presumed something so foul would easily stand out and the process for removal would be clear to anyone capable of both tying their own shoes and walking through a kitchen without getting stabbed, burned or sliced before tripping because they'd tied their shoe laces together. I'm here to save you that pain.

I could infer from the sparkling comments of the TV hosts that the membrane rested along the back of the ribs, close to the bones. I assumed that there would be some kind of pulling, or maybe cutting, certainly some swearing was involved.

Here's the straight poop. The membrane does indeed run along the back side of the ribs, close to the bone. It is thin, well, membrane, composed largely of elastin. If I were to guess, I'd say it's a cousin of silver skin, that other enemy of delicious that sits so closely to our beloved ruddy morsels. It's just a guess though, I'm neither a scienctician nor Alton Brown.

How to remove the membrane:

Turn the ribs over.

One side of the rack will have longer bones that the other. Locate the second bone from the end on the short side. Slip a paring knife or butter knife between the bone and the membrane.

Use the knife to gently pry the membrane away from the bone. Don't go to fast, and don't apply too much pressure, you don't want to tear the membrane.

When you've pulled the membrane far enough way, slip a finger under the membrane and work it farther from the bone.

Once you get your whole finger under it, pull the membrane away from the bone and towards the long end of the rack. A piece of paper towel might make it easier for you to grip the membrane, as it's quite slippery, like most of the insides of a pig.

With patience, experience and luck, the membrane will come off in one large piece. Once you've removed it, take a moment to stare at it. Make some appropriate noises about how disgusting it is.

If you're like me you can consider rolling some cheese or other tasty bits up in it for frying. Push those thoughts away. Elastin is really tough, chewy and despite it's bouncy stretchy name, tends to shrink up and become inflexible when it's heated. Don't give in to that temptation, the results are not good, and certainly not edible.

Now that we've removed the membrane, all that's left is seasoning and cooking the ribs. We'll cover that in a future installment.

Canned bread; not new, still awesome.

2006-06-08T10:23:00.002-07:00

The internet is all a flutter about what the hip trendy kids are calling The best thing since sliced bread; canned bread! The original article touts the product as an "innovative product, intended for use as emergency rations."

Boingboing thinks this is awesome, and to be fair, there is some awesome in this article, but it has little or nothing to do with canned bread. What's awesome is that this is the product of a vocational rehabilitation project in Japan. A small group of bakers in Nagoya bake and can the bread and sell it directly to businesses, directing any profits to a vocational aid facility in Nagoya's Showa Ward to help with living expenses for disabled people.

Here's the thing though, canned bread isn't innovative, it isn't even a new idea. Canned bread was a staple of the C2 and C3 field rations, commonly referred to as "C-Rations",used by the US military since the early 1950s. In 1958 the C-Rations were technically replaced by Meals, Combat, Individual. The packaging and implementation were so similar that troops continued to call field rations "C Rats" until the introduction of the Meal, Ready-to-Eat, or MRE, in 1983. While the MRE was packaged in high strength plastic bags instead of cans, it too featured a bread item.

Both the C-ration and the MRE bread have a technical shelf life measured in years and a practical shelf life that's more accurately measured in decades. In 1991, while digging a fox hole during a training exercise on Fort Carson, my squad uncovered a can of spice cake marked with a date in the 50s. It was rusty, and dented, but otherwise appeared complete. We opened it and the cake seemed fine. To collect a $20 bet, I ate half of the small can of spice cake. I wouldn't describe it as "tasty" or even "desirable" as it was quite dry, but it was certainly edible and I suffered no ill effects.

Sweet apple herb chicken

2006-05-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

On occasion I happen to think of possible recipes while in the strangest of circumstances. Showering, cleaning the garage or parachuting out the back of a Russian cargo plane with an expensive German sports car are all places that culinary inspiration may strike. This time it struck as I wandered the aisles of Costco, trying to accomplish nothing more complicated than figure out what I could make for dinner with the rather limited ingredients in my refrigerator. While that may sound relatively mundane to you, my test audience is my wife, partly because she’s a picky eater, but mostly because she’s a captive audience. She has yet to spit anything out, although she isn’t hesitant to express her distaste when the situation calls for such. This dish earned accolades though and so I feel confident that you too will enjoy it.

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 celery stalks
2 carrots
1/2 onion, Vidalia, or Maui Sweet if you can get it although any yellow onion will do.
2-3 granny smith apples
Kosher salt
Black pepper
Italian seasoning herb blend
Rubbed sage
1 1/2 tablespoons Honey
Olive oil
Butter
Asiago cheese
Parmesan cheese

Trim the chicken breasts of excess fat. Rinse the chicken and pat dry with a paper towel.
Season chicken to taste with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and sage. Rub the seasoning blend into the chicken so that it sticks.
Dice onion, carrots, celery and apples.
In a medium hot skillet or saute pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in two tablespoons of Olive oil.
Carefully add chicken to oil and cook about 1 to 2 minutes on both side, just enough to sear and nicely brown the exterior. We're going to finish it in the oven later.
Remove chicken to a plate.
Add the apples to the same hot skillet without removing any oil or washing it out.
Add the honey to the apples and saute for 2-3 minutes stirring frequently
Add the carrot, celery and onion to the apples in the skillet, continuing to saute for 3-5 minutes or until onions are translucent.
Add apple mixture to a 9x13 casserole dish and arrange the chicken breasts on top of apple mixture.
Shred cheese to cover chicken.
Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes.
Serve with rice, potatoes or gnocchi.
Yield: 4

So why use both butter and olive oil? Butter browns nicely and lends a pleasing taste to food, unfortunately, it has a low smoking point and burns quickly. Olive oil combines with butter quickly and easly, increasing the smoke point to manageable levels and lends a subtle aromatic flavor to the finished dish.

Okay, so why both Asiago and Parmesan? This is mostly a matter of taste. I happen to think that asiago compliments parmesan nicely and gives a very subtle nutty flavor to the final product. You can of course use any blend of Asiago, Parmesan or Romano cheese that you desire. Hell, put some thick slices of mozzarella, Colby or monterey jack]over each breast, or even omit the cheese entirely. The cheese is not essential to the flavor of the chicken but each will lend its own subtle flavor to the dish. Although, with the softer cheeses you’ll want to add the cheese right at the end of the cooking period, otherwise you’ll just get a greasy mess.

Shooting, for science!

2006-05-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

I had these aluminium plates in the garage, and so, for the sake of science, we shot every load we had at it and recorded the source. I had meant to also record the type and brand of ammunition used, but four hours in the desert sun must have frizzled our noodles because we tossed all the empty boxes. Click the pics for notes. Other pics of the blessed day can be seen here, and here.

The new AR shot like a charm and the sights didn't require any adjustment for shots up to 75 yards from a standing position. One thing I had forgotten, it does get flaming hot in the desert sun.

The surprise performer for the day was the CZ-52, an ugly and uncomfortable gun designed well before ergonomics were a matter of concern, and yet a real solid ballistics performer.

Recipes for the bachelor who isn't afraid of heart disease

2006-04-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

For the bachelor there is little more satisfying or efficient than the pork beast. Bacon, fried by itself is the perfect accompaniment to an infinite variety of sources for the daring single cook. And yet, there is even more flavor and satisfaction to be uncovered for every dish that touches the pan, especially so as a only a small number of dishes is actually needed to satisfy a man’s appetite for a self cooked meal. It would seem that many bachelors don’t know that such tasty dishes can be created in a single pan. Or they are badgered by women, whose pants they wish to enter, to eat healthier more complex meals. This then, is a guide to all free men, who do not fear heart disease. Enjoy. All recipes yield one serving except where noted.

Bacon sandwich

Bacon
Cheese
Mayonnaise
Bread.
Black pepper

Cook bacon, sprinkle with pepper on both sides while cooking.
SPAM can be substituted for bacon. Cut SPAM as thin as possible and cook till hard and brown.
Toast bread.
Spread [mayonnaise] on both slices of bread.
Put cheese and bacon on bread.
Serve with beer.

Sausage and Rice

Loose pork sausage
Rice
Beans (optional)
Salt
Black pepper
Butter

Cook rice.
Cook sausage in butter until it’s no longer pink.
Sausage can be substituted with and combination of bacon, SPAM, or ham.
Drain beans and combine with sausage.
Add rice to sausage and bean mixture.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve with beer.

Hash browns and pig

Pork meat.
Potatoes O’Brien
Cheese
Salt
Black pepper
Cheese
Egg

Cook pork meat. You can use either bacon, sausage, SPAM or any combination of the three. Alternatively, you can use any left over meat or meat product found in the refrigerator.
Add a handful or two of potatoes to pan. Season to taste with pepper and salt.
Cook till done.
Sprinkle cheese over potatoes.
Add egg to potatoes and stir to combine.
Serve with beer.

Mac and porker

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese
SPAM
Cream Cheese

Cook macaroni and cheese according to directions on box.
Dice SPAM and cook in a separate pan till brown and hard.
Add SPAM and cream cheese to macaroni and cheese. Mix to combine.
Serve with beer.

That’s it. The well read bachelor really doesn’t need to know how to prepare anything else. More complicated fare such as steaks and hamburgers can be purchased from a respectable restaurant and the bachelor is best to not attempt these dishes at home as they frequently call for the use of such accessories as vegetables. Vegetables simply shouldn’t be cooked by the eager amateur as they require specialized equipment, like deep fryers, to prepare the ingredients in such a manner that the natural flavors are replaced with the more agreeable flavor of beer batter. For this reason, matters of convenience, and loose waitresses, things like hot wings and onion rings should only be prepared by trained professionals in the controlled environment of a sports pub. It’s worthy of note to mention that the ingredients from any of these recipes can be combined with any other or all contained herein to create a meal for you and your buddies.

Range report for the Lee Enfield No.4 MkI

2006-04-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

The only real barometer of a weapon's performance is what impact it has on a hard drive. You can talk about your ballistics gelatin and modeling clay until you're blue in the face, not me brother. 2 - 6 metal platters evenly spaced and secured inside a metal box, that's where it's at!

Entry hole.

Exit hole.

After exiting the hard drive, the round hit a rock the size of my head that was on the hillside directly behind where we set up our targerts. It still had enough energy to not only split the rock, but also start a smoldering brush fire that had to be stomped out. You many sneer, but I was impressed.

This was Sellier and Bellot 180gr FMJ at about 40 yards from a standing position using the battle sights. I still haven't figured out how to use the graduated sights. It took a few rounds to get dialed in, and once I figured it out the shots were pretty consistent. That's a heavy rifle though, and it didn't take very long for me to get tired and start to wander. On the plus side, the heavy weight of the rifle set off the recoil real well.

Over all, it's a good performer and an excellent rifle, especially considering that I spent less than $100 on it (minus security and FFL transfer).