2013: The Year in Review

2013 was another exciting year for us in the kitchen. We continued our exploration of cooking techniques, new and old, with delicious results. Here are our ten favorite posts from the last year:

Ballotine of Pheasant
This was the first of many pheasant cooking techniques and our first (and so far only) foray into modernist cooking. We introduced meat glue into the classic ballotine meat binding process with passable results.

How to Debone a Whole Chicken
We demonstrate the deboning technique depicted in Larousse Gastronomique using the tools from our home kitchen, proving that with a little practice the hobbyist cook can master Olde World cooking skills.

Traditional Bouillabaisse
Every year we post a variation on my favorite seafood dish. In 2013, we went old school and replicated the process advocated by Larousse Gastronomique.

Limas and Ham
We delved more deeply into traditional Americana cooking last year, including this superior take on good old pork and beans.

A Primer on Fiddlehead Ferns
After seeing these tender little shoots appear at our local Wegmans for several springs, 2013 was the year we took the plunge. The result was one of my favorite meals of the year.

Filleting Fish and Prepping Fava Beans
This two-for-one post shows how to fillet a fish in your own kitchen, as well as how simple it is to prepare the tender, buttery fava beans.

Ultimate Pancakes
2013 was the year we perfected pancakes. The secret - cultured dairy. While buttermilk is a favorite, we used labne for a more delicate flavor.

All About the Gravy
Just in time for Thanksgiving, my counterpart shares his best gravy secrets.

Weekday Coq au Vin
We employed the slow cooker to achieve this classic French dish on a Thursday night, made entirely from ingredients found in most home kitchens.

Boeuf Bourguignon
We wrapped up the year with another French classic that was a big hit at the holiday potluck.

And, our year in review wouldn't be complete without a shout out to last year's  birthday gift to ourselves - the VacMaster VP112 chamber vacuum sealer for the home. This one tool has reduced food spoilage and waste in our kitchen, allowing us to preserve cheeses, sauces, and leftovers for future use.

Bœuf Bourguignon

My favorite fellow foodie from work was gracious enough to invite me to her annual holiday party again this year. The last time, I was in the throws of Last Minute Holiday Panic and ended up bringing a store-bought cake (ugh). This year, I wanted to make up for that by providing something extra special that she and her guests might not ever make for themselves. I solicited the support of my very chefy counterpart, and after some discussion, we agreed on that classic French holiday party favorite: Beef Bourguignon.

Beef, wine, lardon, olive oil, and a bit of brandy - the basis for our dish

Like its chicken sibling, Coq au Vin, Beef Burgundy originated in French Wine country and was popularized in the States by the singular Julia Child. This traditional country stew is designed to give new life to middling cuts of beef. Basically, we are dressing up economical cuts of beef into something really quite special. And, chuck is an economical cut to be sure. Here are some of the things we considered when selecting our chuck:

Choosing Beef:

The Beef should come from the Chuck section of the cow. Meaning the top muscle section that supports the neck and connects to the back of the ribs.

From PressureCookerDiaries.com

In the actual Chuck Eye Roll, there are a combination of different meats, varying in toughness. The Tender top portion is the Chuck eye, and underneath that is a tougher bottom section.  This roast is not usually used for Dry Cooking, but is used for BBQ and stews.

Nicely marbled, corn-fed beef means you could skip larding the beef

We also researched several approaches, including the classic recipe from Julia Child, as well as the very brief entry in Larousse Gastronomique. My counterpart crafted a recipe that seemed to capture the essence of the dish. Here is his recipe with my photos.

All you need for beef burgundy

Ingredients:

8 oz. (generous) Pork Belly

5 lbs Beef Chuck Roast or very thick chuck steak from the Chuck Eye. (“Beef Chuck eye Roll”)

Olive Oil.

White Flour for dusting

6 Cups of Burgundy Wine (1.5 liters)

3 Large (restaurant size) Carrots

2 Leeks

1 Large (restaurant size) Onion

Celeriac Root.

1 ½ Small Pearl Onions

2 lbs. Small  White New Potatoes

Bouquet Garnie, of Bay Leaf, Thyme, Sage, and a little oregano

Salt for seasoning the meat

1 Cup (8oz) Tomato Paste (Goya Latino, Salsa de tomato)

3 sprigs Thyme

Directions:

Cook Pork belly in Olive Oil. To prepare the pork belly, freeze it until it is firm, and then slice it with a sharp knife. Cut it down into small strips and fry it in a heavy pot with a generous pour of olive oil.

Sliced pork belly fat is a good source of lardon

Fry it up until it is crisp

Cube beef and dry. Trim off any fat or gristle using a sharp knife or kitchen shears.

Season with Salt, Pepper, with a little ground Oregano and a little ground sage, then dust with white flour. 

Just dust it, do not bread it

Then, place it in a warm oven at 175 for a few minutes to dry.

A warm oven is a good way to dry meat

Fry in Pan, high heat, until Gratin (Brown Crust) is formed on the outside of the meat. Remove the meat and separate out the pork belly and discard.

Dried beef browned with lardon

Add 1 large onion, and Thyme. Continue to cook in the fat. Deglaze the pan with ½ of a bottle of Burgundy Wine.

Add Carrots, Leek, Celeriac to a Large Stewing pot, with the Bouquet Garni, 

Pour Beef mixture over vegetables in the stewing pot. Add a generous pour of brandy and flame it to burn off the alcohol.

Transfer to a large roasting pan and add the rest of the bottle of burgundy.

Add the entire bottle of wine

Bake for about an hour at 350, then add small potatoes. If you do not see the sauce bubbling, turn up the heat. Bake for 1 more hour, and then add pearl onions. Portion out some of the sauce and thicken it with sugar, a can of tomato paste, and some potato starch. Add the sauce to the pan and bake for 1 further hour. Total bake time is about 3 hours.

Remove from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

Weekday Coq au Vin

What I love most about winter is my counterpart invariably pulls out Le Gastronomique for a little old school comfort food. This week, he tried his had at that old classic Coq au Vin. As the name implies, this is basically chicken in a wine sauce. And it is a very old recipe with some accounts tracing it back to Julius Caesar in Gaul. A variant of the dish first appeared in print in 1864. Then, about 100 years later, Julia Child brought it to the U.S. in her seminal cookbook and featured it often on her cooking show.

The basis of Coq au Vin - chicken and wine

The recipe was most likely developed as a means of preparing old rooster, so there is a certain amount of time devoted to simmering the chicken in the wine to help season it. Even if you used a conventional bird from the grocery store, you still want to allow sufficient simmering time for that authentic flavor to develop. You need to create a sauce that is flavorful enough to both compensate for the mildness of the slow-cooked meat, but also complements it without overpowring it. And, while many have tried, there is no real getting around the long, slow cook required to get this right. But there is a way to mitigate it so that you can even have authentic coq au vin on a school night. The trick is the slow cooker.

So, the night before, you will have left overs because you will be prepping your authentic coq au vin. One of the truly nice things about this dish is that it does not require any esoteric ingredients. We had everything we needed on hand for this without needing to stop by the grocery store. And in the 30-45 minutes it takes for your leftovers to reheat in the oven, you will be able to brown your meat and prep your veg.

You will need:

• About 4 pounds of chicken, cut up (We used a pack of chicken thighs with the skin on that we deboned)
• About 3 oz of bacon, also cut up
• Onions
• Mushrooms
• Leek
• Carrot
• Potato
• A heavy hand of Mediterranean seasoning on our chicken
• Brandy
• About half a bottle of a nice wine
• A bit of habanero sauce or some other hot sauce to help cut the richness of the dish
• A bit of sugar to help cut the bitter
• A bit of flour

First, brown the bacon in a heavy pot. While it is browning, season the meat. We recommend sage, thyme, oregano, savory, white pepper, salt, and a bit of that habanero sauce. Place the chicken skin-side down directly on top of the bacon.

Start with a nice base of bacon

Continue to cook the chicken in the bacon fat while you prep your veg, remembering to turn the chicken a couple of times with your tongs.

Heavily seasoned chicken cooking in the bacon

You'll also want to sprinkle a handful of flour over the chicken. This will mix with the fats and will help things thicken in this first cooking.

A little flour never hurts

And, prepping the veg is not so bad for this dish as you will want large chunks of veg. Make sure to peel the potatoes and carrots, and to thoroughly clean your leek.

Large chunks of veg

Once the chicken has cooked through and the outside has browned, add a generous pour of brandy to the pot. If you have the time and you want to be truly authentic, light it up and flame it off. We passed on this step and just let the heat of the pot cook off the booze.

When it looks like this, it's ready for the booze

You'll also want to add that nice wine, and also a bit of sugar. While the French may say you'll get the sugar from the wine, we used a domestic and were not hedging our bets.

A splash of brandy

A lot of wine

Give the wine some time to cook as well. Then, gently transfer the contents of your pot to your 2-quart measuring cup. Once it has cooled a bit, place a lid on it and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight for the flavors to mingle.

When it looks like this, it's done for the night

A large measuring cup is ideal for overnight storage

Bag up your veg for the night also.

The next morning, get out that slow cooker. Place the potatoes in first at the bottom of the pot. Then add the rest of the veg. Then place the meat on top, pouring the liquid from the meat over the whole thing and add a couple of cups of water as well.

Set your slow cooker for 4-6 hours and go on your merry way to work. When you get home, your coq au vin will be cooked, and you'll just have to make the sauce. This is a necessary and quick step, so don't get over-excited and skip it, no matter how good the kitchen smells.

This is what I came home to on Thursday

Empty the contents of the slow cooker into a colander to strain the sauce from the meat and veg. Then strain the liquid again through a mesh colander or something similar. This is also a necessary step to remove the sediment from the sauce. Here's a photo depicting why you should do this.

Why you need to strain that sauce

Place the strained sauce in a pan on the stove over medium heat. Dissolve some potato starch in a bit of water and add it to the sauce and simmer until slightly thickened.

Thickening the sauce on the stovetop

Arrange your chicken pieces and veg in a wide, shallow bowl and top with the sauce. And go easy on that sauce. That golden color and delicious flavor comes from animal fat. Plus, the surprise best-tasting element of this dish - the onions. They come out sweet and fatty and melt in your mouth. And that's how you get coq au vin on a Thursday night.

Weekday Coq au Vin

Summer Steak is a Beautiful Thing

Any day that starts with pancakes and ends with steak is a good day, regardless of what happens in between. And, while I was not conscious enough this morning to capture the pancakes, I did manage to get something of tonight's steak.

This Sunday's dinner was a tribute to summer foods, and summer foods are truly wonderful. We picked up some fresh corn on the cob from the Hopkins produce stand just down the street from us that we worked into a beautiful medley with some red peppers and fresh fava beans on the side.

And the steak - a couple of 12-ounce striploins from D'Artagnan. These are strip steaks cut from the loin near the butt-end just below the ribs. It's cut from a tender part of the cow, albeit not as tender as the ribeye. My counterpart topped this all natural pasture-grazed beef with a garlic-jalapeno caramel glaze.

Now those who doubt that a garlic jalapeno caramel will work out here, just consider the typical steak sauce and then remove what doesn't work. What you end up with is garlic, peppers, salt, sugar, and vinegar. This was the basis for our sauce.

First, my counterpart sauteed slices of garlic and jalapeno in olive oil. He then added salt and a generous pour of sugar and continued cooking it until the sugar dissolved. He added a healthy pour of mild white vinegar, plus a good pour of white wine and continued to cook it, using a deglazing motion with a spatula to remove any residue from the pan. He finished it with a bit of King syrup and let it boil for a few minutes before removing it from the heat to rest.

 The corn medley began with our fresh corn. If you are planning on removing it form the cob, here's another use for the MAP torch in the kitchen, once again proving that it's not just for creme brulee.

After you have husked your corn, use the torch to sear off the remaining corn silk, being careful not to actually sear the corn. Once that's done, cut the cobs in half and use a knife to gently cut off the kernels.

With corn that fresh and pristine, we wanted our red peppers to achieve a similar perfection, so Gareth took the extra step of skinning them. This can be done with a vegetable peeler and a gentle touch. Once peeled, he sliced them, as well as some onion and leek. This was our medley for this evening, and one that would prove to work out well with our caramel.

The best way to cook a steak is medium rare, While I have long maintained that this is a bit over-cooked, Gareth took care to cook tonight's steaks to this generally-accepted state of perfection. To do this at home, you'll want a generous amount of olive oil heated in a heavy skillet until just about smoking. First, pat down the steaks to remove any moisture. This will prevent things from becoming a bloody mess in your skillet.

Using two sets of tongs, carefully sear each side of the steak, starting with the fatty edge. If you do this right, you'll end up with a thin exterior that is seared and an interior that is red and slightly warm and just cooked enough to be on the civilized side of raw. When cooked in this manner, the juices are sealed inside, and you can cut through the tender meat easily with a sharp knife.

When all sides have been seared, remove the steaks from your pan and let them rest. The best way to do this is to set a small rack over a plate and rest the meat on the rack. This will allow some of the oil to drain.

The garlic and jalapeno caramel provided a bold counterpoint to the tender, mild steak, and was a great compliment to the sweet corn medley. With starchy fava beans on the side, this was a most excellent summer meal.

Shrimp with Beurre Blanc

While I was at work today, my counterpart whipped up a beurre blanc sauce. This is another one of those things that you can do yourself at home if you know a couple of things.

Beurre Blanc is not a classic French sauce - it's actually fairly modern, having allegedly been discovered by accident about 100 years ago by Chef Clémence Lefeuvre. She was supposedly working on a Bearnaise and she forgot to add the egg yolks. She still ended up with a decent emulsification, so she plated up. 

For us non-French chefs, life does not always go so well. Anyone who has ever played around with a recipe and thought that mixing vinegar, wine, and shallots together was a good idea might claim that no one would do this on purpose, and that all the butter in the world might not save the sauce. Turns out there is a bit of an art to it. 

Your basic beurre blanc starts with vinegar and wine, and the wine makes a difference here. You'll want a very sweet white like Champagne to cut the bitter edge off the rest of the ingrdients. You'll want two parts wine to one part vinegar, and you'll want to reduce it.

Once you have your reduction, you'll also want to add any combination of shallots, leek, and garlic. Traditionalists will stick to shallot, but leek and garlic add a little depth.

You'll also want about half a stick of butter, cut into about five or six pieces. Once the shallots, etc., have cooked, add the butter, reserving two pieces for later. When the butter has melted and is integrated into the sauce, remove it from the burner and add the two remaining pieces of butter to melt at their own pace.

Beurre Blanc - white butter

This will result in a sauce that is sweet, tangy, buttery, and surprisingly light. The Champagne will cut through the bitterness and will bring out the subtle sweetness of the shallot that is otherwise overpowered by its bitterness.

Fresh shrimp

This sauce is an excellent partner for seafood, and my counterpart served it over fresh shrimp that he sauteed with a little jalapeno, leek, and peas. Pasta tossed with a Spanish goat cheese and a smattering of lima beans rounded out things out nicely. It was completely unexpected for a Tuesday, and it was completely delicious.

Beurre Blanc over shrimp