Author: iamnotachef

Posted on

Revisiting A Tired, Old Standard: Salmon

As I may have mentioned, I like steak. And pulled pork. And sausage. And roasted beef marrow. And cheese. And butter. Oh, I’ll admit it; I like fat. But as many of us must eventually admit, my waistline and coronary arteries are less enamored than my taste buds of those luscious lipids. Besides, there are foods that taste great but don’t have a gall-bladder-exhausting dose of fat. The default for many people when their doctors say to lose weight and cut out some fat, is fish. And the fish that seems to be one of the most popular, at least judging by what is always front-and-center in the display case and at restaurants, is salmon. But salmon is boring. I ate lots and lots of salmon in my youth. I used to dive for abalone on the North Coast of California, and then trade one or two with the fish mongers at my favorite store. And I would invariably get a big salmon (among other fun stuff) in the transaction. But after eating what seemed like tons of the stuff, it got a bit tedious. However, my bathroom scale has been agitating for a more moderate diet, so last night I dipped my toes into the salmon ocean again.

Instead of cooking the same old recipe, I tried to duplicate something that I had eaten at a wonderful restaurant in San Francisco called Aqua. It was a salmon steak, but they skinned and boned it, and cooked it gently in a simple sauce. It was great, and didn’t taste anything like what I expected. Skinning is easy, but I had to pull out a pair of pliers to remove the tiny bones near the spine. I also carefully cut the spine out of the steak, and was left with two halves, which I rolled together to make a round steak about 4 inches in diameter. I put a thin silicone band around it to keep it from falling apart while I cooked it, and then I made a simple marinade of vinegar, honey, mustard, shallots and cayenne pepper.

The toughest part was deciding how to cook it. I didn’t want a typical grilled or sautéed steak, but I do like a bit of color. So I split the difference and sautéed it briefly, just enough to brown the flesh a bit, and then popped it into a warm oven for another five or six minutes.  It turned out very well. The  flesh was moist and tender, and had a delicate flavor that I certainly wouldn’t associate with salmon. Because the steak was uniform, it cooked perfectly, without the overdone parts that I find really unpleasant. The extra few minutes of preparation was definitely worth the trouble. To complete my transformation into a metrosexual, I sautéed snap peas with a bit of lime juice as a dressing. My wife loved them. I wasn’t as happy. Oh well, nobody’s perfect.

Posted on

A Lighter Touch

I am a fan of big, bold flavors in my food and grand gestures in the kitchen to match. A blazing hot pan, a 3-inch ribeye, big lobsters, 500-degree ovens, triple-cream cheeses…I could go on and on. There is something exciting about seeing a huge hunk of meat, not too many cuts removed from primal, sitting on the counter waiting to be cooked. And huge clouds of billowing smoke wafting through the house always has been, in some weird way, appealing to me. Of course, the old and easy trick of using artery-clogging amounts of fat (my favorites are butter and duck fat) to improve the flavor of a dish is an integral part of my repertoire (and that of most restaurants). So, I surprised myself when I decided to prepare a subtle (for me, at least) meal as a birthday celebration for a relative. Okay, seared tuna is not a delicate dish, but in fact, tuna is not a boldly flavored food. I served the seared tuna on a bed of turnip and potato purée and garnished the tuna with a spoonful of sautéed leeks. And damn, it was good! This is one of the things that separates me from real chefs: the ability to understand and appreciate how different foods go together. I sort of fell into this one and still had to do a bit of testing to make sure that the resulting combination didn’t taste like old socks soaked in cod-liver oil and garnished with match heads.

The point, if there is one, is that with some work and study (and a bit of luck), we can make dishes that work as well as those that come out of the best restaurant kitchens. I am not suggesting that they will be as well executed, but we can, at least, be in the same league. Or maybe just get bumped up to the Majors every once and a while.

Posted on

Alien V

This has very little to do with anything. But I love the Alien movies (not number 3), and I got a chuckle out of this.

Posted on

Long Distance Eating

Aside from the smart-assed comment at the end, this article, by Joel Stein in Time, is exactly what I think about the whole “eat local” crap that rich chefs (yes, Alice Waters, I’m talking about you) with too much time on their hands have been peddling to unsuspecting foodies for years and, recently, everyone else . I touched on some of these ideas in an earlier post that was actually critical of the global transportation system that can’t get me fresh tomatoes that actually taste like something other than soft baseballs. But Stein’s point is valid, rational, and pretty amusing too.

Posted on

Garden Cafe (Brooklyn)

I will eventually write a real, but amateurish review of this lovely little restaurant, but for the time being, I had the best venison I have ever had outside of New Zealand. The meal was impressive, reasonably priced, and the tiny kitchen puts to shame some of the most highly regarded restaurants in New York.

Garden Cafe
620 Vanderbilt Ave. (Prospect Pl.)
Brooklyn, NY
718-857-8863

Posted on

Recipe Time Or Real Time

One of the things that frustrates me when I try new recipes is the almost universal inability on the part of most cooking editors to gauge correctly the time it takes to complete certain steps in a recipe. I’m not talking about baking a cake, or roasting a chicken; they seem to be able to figure those times accurately. I am talking about the throw-away times like: sauté onions on medium-low until golden brown, 20 minutes. Or, Cook
until the pancetta is crisp and the fennel is caramelized, about 20 minutes (That one is from an otherwise wonderful recipe for a caramelized fennel and pancetta salad). The problem is that vegetables have wildly different amounts of liquid in them depending on season, length and method of storage, variety, and probably dozens of other reasons. And for them to caramelize, they first have to lose most of that pesky water. So writing confidently about how it takes twenty minutes to caramelize onions is just silly. And irritating. And unnecessary. Why not just say something like: sauté onions until caramelized. It takes me 20 minutes, but your mileage may vary. And the same thing goes for cured meats. One batch of pancetta for the fennel salad crisped nicely in 30 minutes. The second batch didn’t crisp as nicely in spite of nearly 35 minutes in the oven.

I understand that recipes are written for everyone, and that people need some sense of what they are getting themselves into before they start a dish. But by stating a seemingly inviolate number, aren’t they suggesting, at least implicitly, that you are a failure if you can’t sauté those onions in 20 minutes? I know that these cook book authors are, in many cases, accomplished and talented chefs. And I don’t cook their dishes to compete with them. So why don’t they appreciate that and write recipes that are closer to reality?

PS I am guilty of this laziness too. I reread some of my own recipes and, yes, I am an idiot.

Posted on

Pasta With Fresh Mussels And Bay Scallops

This is an easy dish that can be prepared in advance. Just don’t add the spaghetti until you are ready to eat. Or do what I do when I am even more lazy than usual. Make the dish, stick it in the refrigerator, and then when you reheat it just toss some reserved pasta water in to smooth out the sauce. It’s great either way.

 

Pasta With Fresh Mussels And Bay Scallops

1 lb. Thin Spaghetti
2 lbs. Fresh Mussels
1 lb. Bay Scallops (I like scallops, but you can use less).
1 Small Tomato  (cored, seeded and finely diced),
or 4 ounces of canned, chopped tomatoes
2 Small Onions (chopped)
1 Garlic Clove (finely minced)
3 Tbls. Chopped Parsley
12 oz. White Wine
Olive Oil
Salt And Pepper to taste (Be careful. The scallops and the mussels are salty, so it doesn’t need much)

Sauté onions in a large heavy pot in two to three tablespoons of olive oil on low/medium heat until slightly caramelized  (about 20 minutes).

Set a large pot of salted water to boil for the spaghetti.

Place mussels in a colander and rinse them in cold water, checking for opened or broken mussels; allow the mussels to drain.

When onions are cooked, turn heat to high and add white wine and garlic. Reduce for a few minutes and then add the mussels. Cover and cook for two to three minutes, until all of the mussels are open. Remove from heat.

Heat a small sauce pan on medium/high heat for one minute. Add one to two tablespoons of olive oil and the tomatoes. If you used fresh tomato, toss them for a few minutes until they give up most of their liquid. Add the scallops and cook for two to three minutes, until the scallops are no longer translucent. Add the parsley and cook for about 15 more seconds.

Remove the mussels from their shells (use gloves; they will be hot), taking care not to discard any of the onions.

Add the tomato and scallop mixture to the pot with the mussels.

Cook the spaghetti until just al dente and drain, reserving some of the water.

Add the spaghetti to the mussels and toss until the spaghetti is coated liberally; add some pasta water if necessary.

Serve immediately, topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

Posted on

I Promise: The Last Duck Story (How To Brine A Duck)

As you no doubt know by now — and probably are sick to death of hearing — I like duck. But my attempts at brining the little critters did not do them justice, so I decided to try just once more. The problem with brining is that there are many variations, most of which will work well with some meats but not with others. For instance, my chicken brine doesn’t work well with pork chops, but is a rockin’ good way to make roast chicken. I did a bit of research, and discovered absolutely nothing of any utility. I just confused myself even more. But that has never stopped me, and I had a beautiful duck just waiting to be the subject of my grand experiment.

I try not to be wishy-washy in most things, and brining is no exception. I went the overkill route, with a 5:1 ratio of water to sugar and salt (or more accurately; 10:1:1). In retrospect, I used too much sugar, so if I ever brine a duck again, I’ll use just a slightly smaller amount of sugar and replace it with more salt. I also added some fresh thyme, sage and garlic, in addition to freshly ground black pepper and some juniper berries. What? I once had a juniper berry-cured pork chop that was spectacular, and because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing…Anyway, I mixed everything in a pot and boiled it gently for about ten minutes to dissolve the sugar and salt and to extract some extra flavor from the herbs and spices. I then stuck the pot in the refrigerator for an hour or so to cool, plopped the duck into its lovely and fragrant bath, and left it for four hours. After the brining I rinsed the duck in fresh water, dried it, and left in the refrigerator to dry overnight.

The roasting was simple. I stuffed the cavity with whatever I had floating around in the vegetable drawer (carrots, celery, onion, orange) and put the duck into a hot, hot oven (450°F) until the skin was crispy and before the rendered fat burst into flames. About 45 minutes into the roasting, I removed as much of the fat as I could.

Total time? I don’t really know, but the skin was nice and crispy, and the tips of the wings were just a bit charred. And the flavor? Very nicely seasoned, but the salt and sugar overwhelmed the herbs. I really liked the flavor, but it is certainly not a subtle dish. Interestingly, the most important part of this dish has nothing to do with the brining; it is the drying before roasting and then roasting it at a very high temperature. That, Grasshopper, is the secret to duck. I wish that the brine made a huge difference, but all it did was salt the duck and add a bit of sweetness to the meat. I think that I will continue to brine my ducks, but if I don’t have the time or energy, I certainly won’t worry that I am short-changing my taste buds. Maybe adding more herbs and spices to the brine will help, but I wouldn’t increase the time in the liquid. The duck was borderline too salty.

Now that I have driven both of my readers away with my incessant ranting about brining, I will console myself with a duck burrito.