Category Archives: Traditions

Fermentationem Appalacianos Officiales

Posted on April 8, 2012 | 5 Comments

I have fought with fermentation for years. I can’t make beer, no matter how hard I try and how many brewers I know. Amazing brewers, actually, the best in the country, arguably.

My sauerkraut is a crap shoot — the most success coming when I completely oversalt the batch and my friend Alice uses it to make runzas, adding no salt to her meat mixture.

Don’t get me wrong, I love runzas. They’re funza in the bunza for sure.

But I’d like, frankly, to conquer fermentation. And I am now determined that this is the year I will, finely, tame the wild.

To catch you up, I believe I have tried nearly everything — though not the beautiful German fermenting crocks that are so expensive I wouldn’t be able to afford even a cabbage if I bought one.

There are two essential problems to my fermentation: floaty vegetable bits and moldy ickiness I tend to not want to touch after forgetting to look at the crock for a few days.

But the real crux of my problem, sans the said fermentation crock loveliness (reizender topf, I think), is that my fermentation is always equipment-challenged. Right tool for the right job is great only when you can afford the tool.

Me? I am left cobbling together bits and ideas to make the project actually work for me instead of battle against me.

I know I could scour thrift stores for glass rounds (plates? vintage-y industrial somethings?) to act as weights. I’ve done a little thrifting but really, it is a whole job when it is done well. I have a job, and more than a few projects, that leave me little time to pop into Village Discount every day for a month until, EUREKA!

I know I could commission a starving artist at Lill Street to make me some weights to fit in my pickle crocks. That would take money, though, and ceramic chips frustratingly easily at the moments when you can’t afford it to, so the solution isn’t really long-term. And, frankly, I feel like every time I wash out a crock even they seem just a little more chipped.

Having been HAACP-certified in a past life, ceramic chips freak me out.

Which leads me to plastic. I am just not a big fan of the togetherness of plastic and food. I know, I know, what kind of crazy loonbag … but really, so much food-grade plastic has BPA and virtually everyone but the people who decide what can be in food-grade plastic agrees that BPA is super harmful. So — get your tin foil hat on, folks — sometimes I tend to wonder what the hell else is in the plastic.

And while I am all about freezing in vacuum seal bags and have a good supply of Ziplocks and so on and so forth, I just can’t seem to use plastic when I am asking it to undergo processes that would potentially compromise it’s physical integrity. So, no cooking with in or around plastic. No microwaving (no, folks, microwaving is not cooking though and even still, I don’t microwave much to begin with anyway). And no dunking a plastic bag full of salinated water into a fermenting crock.

And yet, I determined. Because I decided that this was the year I would learn more about using my jars of stuff because Paul Virant finally published his book,  The Preservation Kitchen. I write a bit about that on the “Yard Farm Year” half-aspirational/half-actually accomplished calendar but for the purpose of this blog post I will share that Paul’s book is the bible of how to use stuff you can. So, if you have a pantry full of jam made from every berry known to man, and you know I do, this is the book to get.

So, I got it. And I committed to making everything in it.

And boom, the project, because of the exact moment in time that is today, starts with fermentation.

You see, my secret ramp patch is ready for me today. And Paul’s book not only features pickled ramps (natch and no problem for me since I make ‘em every year) but also fermented ramps. Dammit.

Nothing I want to do less is decide to start a project and then, on the day I am supposed to start, face what feels like probable failure.

Totally not what I am about.

But I am determined. I will do this project.

So, here’s what I am doing: conquering the airlock/mason jar method. (AKA:  Fermentationem Appalacianos Officiales)

The airlock/mason jar method of my dreams employs a “brewer’s” airlock shoved into a large-size carboy gasket that is shoved into the top of a mason jar. For the technical out there, it is a size 13 rubber gasket with a hole drilled in the middle. The beauty — keeps air out, let’s bubbles out, keeps grody moldy bits to a minimum.

There are a lot of people on the internets epoxing an airlock onto plastic mason jar lids with holes drilled in them. But and as you can imagine, I am not really one for having epoxy that close to my food. (Sorry, can’t find link now, but that’s ok since you shouldn’t do this anyway so why do you want to look?)

You can also buy a set-up with special-size rings that keep the airlock tight. But it is pretty pricey, to be sure. (In comparison, five gasket & airlocks packages costs about $20.)

Not to mention the fact that both of those methods seem kinda one-purposing the tools to me. Airlocks and carboy gaskets can be used in beer (!), in soda (!), maybe even I dunno, making soap or something. (!!)

So this year, with this method, I will conquer a basic first step level of fermentation. Later in the season, I am having Nance Klehm over for a class in advanced fermentation with whey and suchlike. (Let me know if you wanna join, it will be six of us. I will be serving runzas, unfortunately and probably.)

Anyway and onward. For now. Ramp pickles and sauerkraut.

The project starts with collecting five nice-size rocks from the backyard and cleaning them really well. The rocks need to fit into the mouth of a small-mouth jar; they’ll sit on top of the ramp tops to keep them submerged. I use black river rock that I used to use as decorative garden elements now seem to be something Grant and I move around every year as we try to decide how to make the yard look somewhat backyardy even though it is rows and rows of vegetables.

The reason for the small-mouth jar is because that is what the number 13 gasket fits into. I don’t know the size that would fit in a wide-mouth and in fact it would be something that the brewer supply store wouldn’t naturally carry anyway. Additionally, the shoulders of the small-mouth jar will be advantagous as one can shove in things that would simultaneously keep the goods down and stop at the curve of the jar. An added layer of protection from floaty bits.  So, small-mouth it is.

Then, go ramping.

As I type this, I have decided that my new ramp tradition will be to gather ramps on Easter Sunday morning. From now on, every Easter, as you don your bonnet, I will grab my trowel and go ramping. I love making my own traditions and they always have something to do with the seasonality of food.

Some people are religious. I am foodigious. (Foo-Dig-You-Us, noting to slur the last two syllables)

This year has been kinda hard to live up to my food seasonality traditions. I mean, who wants to make corned beef for St. Patrick’s when it is 80 out — I was looking for a tomato to eat. Putting in seeds on Imbolc was also horked, since on that day it was 45 or so, not 20. And there was no snow.

It sucks, this year. Though my garden is exploding with food. So, also, it doesn’t suck. Such is the real conundrum of Global Climate Change when you live in a temperate climate.

Back to ramps and Easter. I have realized, actually, that the side benefit of making a ritual of an Easter morning ramping was the realization that Easter morning might be a good time to do something illegal since everyone else will be distracted.

On now, you go hush up.

I take good care of my ramp patch by not over-harvesting. And, I am pretty sure the somewhat ridiculous place where my ramps grow means that likely not too many people, if any, partake of the harvest.

So, yes, it is illegal. But there are gradations of illegal, right?

Most years, I pickle the ends and freeze the greens. The greens I save for creamed ramps and spinach which, in the last few years, has been a part of a Thanksgiving dinner I make for my friends.

Freezing ramp greens is as easy as lining them up on a paper towel and then rolling the paper towel up and shoving the whole thing in a vacuum seal bag. Then, just toss them in the water before the spinach when the time comes.

My pickling recipe varies depending on what I find on the internets. Mostly it is rather sweet. I think a sweet pickle brine is important in a pungent ramp.

This year, as I said, I am dipping into The Preservation Kitchen and following Paul’s recipes for pickling and making ramp sauerkraut and then using those preserved items for recipes in the book.

I am pretty excited (ramp martini and creamed ramps and morels!) but it also means I won’t be adding recipes. Because I think you should go buy the book. If you are a canner, you will most definitely find one of the best canning books around.

What I like about it is that it is useful not just for canning — including some unique recipes and ideas, but it is useful for how to use the item. It’s pretty unique, going far beyond the other great book of its time, Well Preserved. Though I note many canners complained (wrongly!) that Well Preserved had too few canning recipes and too many what to do with the canned goods recipes — yet really, canning is super fun but jars and jars of Italian Plums Aigre Doux can sometimes not be.

So, I am grateful for the book because I am pretty sure I will learn a thing or two about using my canned goods. And hope to at least attempt to share what I made and how I used it here. I’ll mark the posts, as I have done on this one.

So, until the morels are in season and I can cook up Paul’s Rainbow Trout with Creamed Ramps and Morels, I pass along a Happy Easter, Happy Passover and Happy Whatever Else.

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Posted in Canning, The Preservation Kitchen, Traditions

Good Luck Peas

Posted on January 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

First and foremost: Happy New Year to you. I hope this year brings you everything you wished for as well as dreams you never dared imagine. Seriously, I hope it brings me these things to. I could use a reasonable year.

For the record, last night I rang in the new year at Butcher & Larder. I don’t remember ever ringing in the new year with such a wonderful group of people, and I am not just saying that, these folks were fun, funny, wonderful near strangers I randomly decided to join. That said, it was also a particularly delicious evening. We shared course after course of, basically, fat. Whipped, cured, shaved, potted, we had it all. Topped by a chestnut dessert, which I found kinda fitting since chestnuts are probably the most fat-like nut. And while I am  not one for detailing meals in a blog post, I will share that I posted a few highlights on Twitter.

Suffice it to say, I hope I get invited back and make butcher shop dining a New Year’s tradition.

Which brings me to the real topic of this post: the tradition of peas.

I can’t remember any New Year’s tradition from my childhood. In fact, when I started writing this, I called my mom to ask what we did, her response was: “Beats me.” When pressed, her answer expanded to: “We might have gone out every once in a while, I guess. But really, not a whole lot.”

Which is probably why I have spent most of my adult life trying to establish a firm tradition for myself to mark this most auspicious day.

I’ve tried on much: Krug champagne smuggled into the midnight showing of Cape Fear, wearing yellow underwear a la Barbados one New Year’s spent on a cruise ship, reading melted solder with one of Dick Cheney’s former business partners on the Mellinnium, standing in front of a burning hawthorne bush the year I lived in London.

But as I settled into my life, I seemed to have fallen into making an annual breakfast of black eyed peas on New Year’s Day.

Really, this makes no sense. My parents are from Boston and aside from a handful of years in Orange County, I am solidly a Chicagoan. But it is what it is and so this morning, a full-on black-eyed pea breakfast is what I made.

You likely already know that eating black eyed peas on New Year’s Day is about good luck. To most Americans, the tradition hails from the south. But in reality, despite that honking ham hock that flavors most pots of peas in these parts, eating black eyed peas on New Year’s is a Sephardic tradition, celebrated for the Jewish new year.

So, as a nod to the Sephardi history of my peas, I like to include a pomegranate in my New Year’s Day meal. This year, I tossed that pomegranate into a quick salad of shaved Tuscan kale from the hoop house, parsley and cilantro from the garden itself, because the weather is so crazy it is still thriving, and walnuts.

Basically a version of Mary Klonowski’s Cancer-Curing Miracle Kale Salad, it was dressed with smashed garlic, good olive oil and vinegar. I got into vinegar last year so today, my kale got a syrupy Pepe Nero vinegar. If you haven’t tried making crazy vinegars, I recommend it highly. Honey vinegar, made with a moldy piece of bread, has pretty much become my go-to vinegar for anything and everything.

 But back to the peas.

First off, you should know that I cook dried peas. Black eyed peas are often available fresh but that kinda makes no sense for New Year’s Day. Traditionally planted as a cover crop before the winter wheat, the fresh peas would be available in late summer, early fall (for the clever reader, you’ll note this is around Rosh Hashanah). So, fresh black eyed peas in Chicago in winter, even this crazy winter, is just forced agriculture. So, I use dried.

Black eyed peas are only soaked for 4-6 hours, unlike the convenient bean-soak of overnight,  so it can be a little challenging to get them on the table for breakfast. So, I pressure cook them. If completely crippled by a hang over, one could get them cooked in a pressure cooker in about 10 or so minutes. My process takes me a half hour because I go thru a few extra steps to make sure I have super delish peas.

So, here’s the process: saute onion in (insert any high smoke point but I use coconut) oil, add diced onion and saute. Then add a meaty hunk of cured pork (usually a hock), add about 1/2 cup of water (I really have no idea, I just dump in water, it could be a cup) and pressure cook that for about 10 minutes. Pressure cooking the pork softens it up and makes a tasty jus. Take the pork out of the pan and dice it up into smallish pieces. This way, when you eat your beans, you get little pieces of tasty pork along with them.

This year, the hefty hunk my peas got was from the country ham I cured in my garage last year. For a year a pork leg that had been brined in blackstrap molasses and bourbon rested in a old pillow case tied to the rafters of my garage.

Crazy levels of hillbilly working with that ham.

And probably the crowning point of my culinary life thusfar.

Which I guess says a lot since my culinary life thus far includes cooking for Julia Child. (It was one part of one course, if you must know, not the whole meal).

This ham is making me quite proud.

But I am writing about peas.

After the pork is cooked and diced, add it back to the pan and add in the peas. Add in some water to cover and some flavorings (a tea ball filled with whole cumin, coriander, black pepper and red pepper flakes is a good start) and cook on high for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let the cooker come back to reasonable temperature on it’s own.

Boom, good luck breakfast.

Well, I also made cornbread, using Ruhlman’s Ratio app. There is a book, too, but I find the app to be amazingly helpful since I tend to have my phone nearby and it is small enough to perch it somewhere convenient.

As I started eating, marking the new year with a lovely meal and remembering the year that just past, the sun came out after a rainy/snowy/gray/cold morning walk. I am choosing to decide this is an auspicious sign that the coming year will be peaceful and delicious.

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Ode to the Strawberry

Posted on June 25, 2011 | 3 Comments

I have honored my strawberries.

Well, they weren’t mine in that I didn’t grow them. I bought them from lovely Seedling Pete, grower of amazing fruit in Southern Michigan. By the cuff of Michigan, his farm sits.

And his strawberries are ripe and delicious. They inspire.

Most recently, they inspired me to make a gigantic frozen daiquiri with a dollop of whip.

It was as delicious as it was declasse. Only, like a white bread tomato sandwich, a properly white trashy strawberry daiquiri is a right of Summer. And note, I wrote right and not rite.

Because I believe that if you eat unprocessed foods, you can eat whatever you want, as long as it isn’t the garbagey crap our Corporatacray serves up in florescent-lit grocery aisle across America.

So, the whipped cream-topped frozen Strawberry Daiquiri is right.

This is how you make it:
First, make bottled strawberries in syrup, raw-pack. You should know that the Canning Matrons don’t allow raw-pack strawberries. But strawberries, to be as delicious as possible, need to be dealt with carefully and processed minimally. So, I don’t heat process my strawberries prior to packing and I don’t process my jam after canning it.

One experience with heat is all my strawberries ever have to deal with.

And, lo, I am still alive. More importantly, my middle of winter Strawberry Daiquiries and Strawberry Shortcakes are a thing of great beauty. (yours?)

So, back to the drink. Raw-pack strawberries, just dump the half pint jar in the Vitamix (thanks Alice). Add a solid couple shots of rum and a shot of Grand Marnier. Add some lime juice, some lime zest if you aren’t too tired or hot, and a pack in pile of ice. Blend. Pour into glass. Top with some whipped cream.

Yes, damn it, enjoy the strawberry harvest fully and whip cream it up.

This is the thing: you’ve bottled strawberries and if you are like me, you bottled somewheres around 24 jars. That’s two strawberry daiquiries per month. Delicious, local, real, white trashy blended strawberry daiquiries with whipped cream. Two per month to last a year.

People who really love food — not foodies, who are eye-rollingly ridiculous —appreciate the simplest things in their purest forms. They aren’t embarrassed by a whipped cream-topped frozen strawberry daiquiries.

They realize that iconic recipes are something to rediscover. And they seek to discover them.

I bought two flats of strawberries. So, I’ll share that I started some strawberry wine, made jam, enjoyed a fresh strawberry milkshake and also ate a bunch out of hand.

My mom took home some strawberries, which made me happy since she eats a lot of scary Driscoll dreck. I don’t think their deliciousness will encourage her to stop buying out of season strawberries, though I can’t imagine why.

With the last of my strawberries, I made a new take on strawberry shortcake that was so good I started thinking I needed to get more strawberries.

Fresh strawberries, sliced and macerated in a little brown sugar atop a freshly baked biscuit with whipped sheep’s milk ricotta and a drizzle of Pepe Nero syrup. I tried a Whole Foods pre-made biscuit, on the advice of a friend. Surprise! It sucked! I am reconsidering that friendship. To honor the strawberry, make a biscuit fresh. Pepe Nero syrup is made by reducing Goose Island Pepe Nero and then stirring in a bunch of sugar while it is hot. Whipped sheep’s milk ricotta is whipped with some cream. Please if you make this, invite me over.

I can’t imagine I’ll get sick strawberries by the time the cherries start rolling in. Any day now.

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Rhubarb Bounce

Posted on June 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

Cherry Bounce is an easy thing to make:  just mix together equal parts cherries and rum or brandy and then add sugar.  Let sit for 3-6 months, drain, press and bottle. Cherry Bounce originated in Frithsden, England, which is apparently known for delicious black cherries and, naturally, has a festival for said cherries each year.

Neighboring Michigan is also known for its cherries, and I am sure there are cherry festivals there each year as well.  With those Michigan Cherries, I make a version of Cherry Bounce each year that I call Brandied Cherries. Brandied Cherries are basically the same thing as Cherry Bounce, only I leave the cherries whole and if you let the jar sit in the basement for a few years, they are pretty damn delicious, if dangerous, to eat by the fistful.  Especially during a snowstorm when there is no way you’ll be driving or interacting with humans until the city gets dug out and so, who cares if you are gobbling up fistfuls of boozy cherries.

And it is because I want to eat the macerated cherries during a future snowstorm I am sure will come, that my bounce of choice is rhubarb. Also, because I always want to buy rhubarb but then I never know what to do with it at home, since I can’t really make a rhubarb crisp for one and I don’t need more crap in my freezer, even if it is delicious rhubarb crisp.

I did make pickled rhubarb last year, which was delicious with goat cheese but still ends up a bit mushy and stringy at the same time. Most of it I ended up whizzing in the Vitamix and spreading on toast with soft goat cheese and bitter greens. It was delicious but not what I was going for so I have to futz with that recipe to get it right and I haven’t felt like it yet this year.

I make rhubarb bounce by chopping and blanching the stems. Seriously, blanch the stems only briefly and then plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking.  You want to preserve the rhubarb color but you don’t want to get rid of the crisp acid of the raw vegetable.  Then, I shove it into a gallon canning jar and let it sit until Thanksgiving.

This year, I might, since Rhubarb Bounce is basically Rhubarbcello for those following along, make Creamy Rhubarbcello with my Rhubarb Bounce.  I love, love, love Creamy Limoncello and since I like Rhubarb Bounce, I might as well see if creamy-ing it makes it ever so much more delicious.

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Variations on a Seder Plate Theme

Posted on April 18, 2011 | 2 Comments

I’m not really an entirely reliable source for all things Passover, being Catholic and all.  But I love traditions. Likely because my family never had much use for them growing up, as far as I can remember, and seems to have lost all respect for them now that we are all growed up.

But I can find a reason to start a tradition without so much as a holiday to hang it on.  Like the Ceremony of Garlic Planting in October or Great St. Patrick’s Day Pea Ritual, or, lest I leave out a nearly weekly tradition I have, The Festival of Sunday Morning Pancakes. And yes, I have some holiday traditions, such as my on again – off again Christmas tradition of watching the 8-hour Jesus of Nazarath Mini Series over the coarse of the day, interspersed with making a day-long Roman Feast of Fancy Christmas Foods.

And it seems I have a budding tradition of celebrating all the requisite Jewish Holidays with my friend JST, her family and a few rotating friends.

In years past, I brought the wine.  Mostly because I had a large wine dungeon in my basement that I filled with wines that could be classified as either fantastically exciting or hackneyed and predictable, depending on which crowd of my friends were nearby.  But I drank, gave away or made vinegar out of most of the wine a few years ago when I realized “Wine Collector” was actually not something I aspired to be.

So, now I bring food to JST’s.  And this year I am bring the Seder Plate.  Only, I am not one to just wanna toss a hard-boiled egg on a plate and call it a day. I tend to want to flash some jazz hands and mount a production. And lo, I came up with my own personal Variations on a Seder Plate Theme.

Karpas
The Karpas are supposed to signify the coming spring. Basically, most people dip parsley in vinegar (or vinegar, depending on which tradition you follow) and eat that. Hum. Not precisely what I imagine happening to the parsley I struggled to grow in my windowsill this early spring.

So I found a recipe for a gin-based drink with balsamic and parsley garnish.   The gin they used is Leopold American Small-Batch Gin, which has a hint of floral that supposedly pairs well with the parsley. But rather than clobber the thing with balsamic, I opted to riff on that floral aroma, pairing it with homemade honey vinegar I made with local honey last fall.

Note: this killed the vinegar honey, which was a sad moment I commemorated by having a drink of Maple-Rye Hooch before putting up more honey and water to cure. One should always have honey around for these situations, as well as some sort of seasonally appropriate and easy to grab hooch.

Charoset
JST said the charoset is one of her favorite seder things, but I have to admit it took me a while to “get it.” According to Wikipedia, it is — a sweet, dark-colored, chunky paste made of fruits and nuts meant to recall the mortar with which the Isrealites bonded bricks when they were enslaved in Egypt.

Traditionally, it is supposed to have forty ingredients, representing the forty dessert years, not forty ingredients specifically put together to taste delicious. Although it is apples, figs, pomegranates, grapes and all manner of other things are used often together, it also seemed a bit culinarily random to me.

In sum, the task of charoset is to make something decent out of a random hodge-podge of raw ingredients that is supposed to remind people of mortar.  I’ll admit I felt a little challenged by this.

Thankfully, JST is a bit fast and loose with the rule of Jewish law so I opted for the cooked version I found a recipe from Epicurious of Black Mission Fig and Ruby Port. I subbed in Six Grapes Port. This is obviously just Jewish Chutney, and chutney is something I can get behind. I’ll assume the fact that I have cooked this mortar should be helpful in reminding all at the table of the guilt they should be feeling for playing fast and loose with the rules.

Which I intend to be a helpful addition for the celebratants.

Z’roa
A joint of lamb representing the lamb offering. Easy Peasy. Not just because it can be tossed in a slow cooker with some leavings from the vegetable crisper, but also because it is delicious, lamb ragout does the trick, served up on a fried polenta cake.

Before you go all ballistic on me, cornmeal is ok for some Jews and not others. I decided JST & Co were just gonna have to be the kind for which cornmeal is fine, mostly because I am never one to buy a certain ingredient, say matzoh meal, to sub in for something else, say wheat flour, it is supposed to kinda be but really isn’t even close.*

Beitzah
Totally in my wheelhouse, this dish is, by most accounts, a hard-boiled egg. But those accounts apparently don’t reference Wikipedia, where it is clearly noted that the egg is actually supposed to be roasted — not boiled.  Sacre bleu! Or, I guess, Mishugana!

But, dear reader, you can, in fact, roast eggs instead of boil them to, basically the same effect. Just roast them on a rack set on a jelly roll pan at 325F for about half hour.  Shock them in ice water and try to peel them without being reduced to tears.**

For my eggs, I am mixing up the deviled part with lots of horseradish. Points if you grow it yourself because it is more delicious, feels more holy and keeps in the fridge, in vinegar, from one fall until the next. So you never have to go buy any of the prepared stuff, which is never as sharp and purely pungent anyway.  And, you can use the vinegar over and over again, though I will admit to bringing it to a fast boil in-between batches.

Happy Passover to all.

Post-Scripts, In Order:
*Other examples of stupid sub in’s of which I absolutely do not approve: Margarine, I Can’t Believe (insert any of their products here), Fat-Free (insert baked good here), Skim Milk, Half ‘n’ Half, Sugar Cereal That Turns Your Milk Colors, Turkey Bacon, Veggie Burgers, Tempeh or any Other Substance That is Supposed to Trick you into Thinking you are Eating Meat, in fact I will throw in Portabella Mushrooms Cleverly Presented as Meat, Light Beer, Lighter Than the Other Guy Beer, So Light You Think it is Water But it Costs More Beer, Most Vitamins, Lipator for Gen Pop, Water Fortified with Anything you Should get in a Balanced Diet Anyway, and Crisco. That’s just off the top of my head.

For the record, I do embrace decaf coffee, served with milk, for the benefit of those around me and wine coolers, when made at home, can be a revelation.

**Actually, as a side note, Joe Yonan‘s Miraculous and Surely Pulitzer Prize-Winning Book, Serve Yourself, has a brilliant Hard-Boiled Egg recipe that blasts the shells off even the freshest of eggs (I actually tried it with eggs that were so fresh, they were still warm from the hen, just to test him). It worked beautifully. I am not posting the method here or telling anyone how to do it — even Grant! — go buy the book and support this kind of cookbook author!

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Christmas Pudding

Posted on November 27, 2010 | 3 Comments

If you want to celebrate a proper Christmas, you need to start with Christmas pudding even before you think about getting a tree.

Christmas pudding, made properly, takes a good long time to cure. But beyond that, if you want to attempt to make your food instead of buy it, Christmas pudding can be the mother of all year-round projects because Christmas pudding is chock full of candied and dried fruits you collect up through the year.

January: Candied orange peel, candied lemon peel, candied Kumquats
May: Dried cherries
July: Dried currants, currant jam
September: Raisins (Jupiter grapes make the most super D raisins)
November: Dried cranberries, Buddha’s Hand citron (which, although is not candied, I list because of the importance of making Buddhacello)

I didn’t learn Christmas pudding when I lived in London back in the mid-80′s. Instead and of course, I learned it from Martha Stewart, whose qualifications, I think, only include speaking in a faux-British accent.

That said, I am sure she did extensive research before cribbing someone else’s recipe to call her own. So, in Martha, I trust.

I read somewhere that in England, they have a day when the puddings are made. Me, I try to make it the weekend after Thanksgiving project, sorta while the dishes are being done and put away (sans dishwasher, dirty dishes from a feast take a whole long weekend to tackle in bits and pieces) and a turkey sammy or two has been enjoyed.

I’ve tried various puddings recipes, and have settled on a general gist of process and ratio than a teaspoon of this or that. The important bits are candied and dried fruits, nuts, suet (don’t skimp out and use butter, for the love of all things holy), and some variation of bread, either soaked or in crumb form, and lots of spices. That said, I pretty much offer a basic recipe here, to be used as a jumping off point.

To start, soak about 2 cups of currants and/or raisins of any proportion in a good shot of brandy and/or cognac and hot water to cover.

3 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoon molasses
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup each candied  citrus peel, cherries, dates
1/2 pound walnuts, chopped
1/2 pound ground beef suet
2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup almond meal
1 cup Muscavado sugar (splurge, it is Christmas)
Zest and juice of one each lemon and lime
1/2 cup brandy or cognac

  1. Preheat oven to 450°.
  2. Mix together egg and molasses in a small bowl. Combine dry ingredients and another bowl.  Combine fruits, nuts, suet, breadcrumbs, almond meal and sugar and zests in a third, large bowl. Add all together and mix well.
  3. Pack batter into greased glazed-ceramic or glass bowls. Cover each bowl with 2 layers each waxed paper, then foil; secure with twine. Put bowls on a rack set in a wide deep pot. Add boiling water to pot to reach 2″ up sides of bowls. Cover pot and steam puddings in oven, replenishing water as necessary, for 5 hours.
  4. Remove bowls from pot and let cool. Uncover puddings and pour brandy over top.  Place new parchment and foil over top and secure.  Store in a cool place until Christmas.
  5. On Christmas, reheat puddings by steaming them, still covered, for 1 hour. Unmold onto plates. Serve with hard sauce.

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Lessons from a Thanksgiving Feast

Posted on November 26, 2010 | 1 Comment

Lesson One

Don’t garden while reducing a pot of balsamic vinegar on high heat.

Because that is what I did.  I don’t know why.  I’ve reduced bottles of balsamic before. In fact, I reduce all the balsamic that comes into this house, because it tastes better that way.  And of point in fact, I actually believe one can buy a big bottle of cheap balsamic from Costco, put it on the stove, reduce it by half, and call it decent enough to drizzle on a dish at table.

I will admit that attending to the pan rather than taking pictures of the mess would also be a lesson.

I didn’t learn it.

 


Lesson Two

Cipollini onions taste better…


when grown in your own garden.

Actually, I should point out here that everything does.  So much so that I am convinced I will think about Thanksgiving dinner as early as January, when I am looking through seed packets and dreaming of the meals I’ll make with all the delicious-looking food featured in garden catalogs.

Plan for it in spring and summer and
you’ll be extra thankful of your efforts in Fall.




Lesson Three

The best thing you can do for a friend is making the stuffing of her dreams. Do it up right: cornbread from scratch with fresh cornmeal from a farm, cure pork belly from a contented pig to grind for stuffing, use cherries you dried and some you brandied last spring.

It is, by far, the greatest holiday gift you can give someone.


Lesson Four

Essential for the grinder to work is the cutting tool. In the absence of this tool, one is left with extruded meat paste stuff.

Which is what I was getting when I tried, over and again, to push the meat down the shoot. At one point, the sheer force of effort put out by my little machine was enough to shoot the whole grinder attachment off the machine and hit the cat that dared to stand nearby.  I never liked that cat, really, but my dislike didn’t extend to wanting to inflict her with bodily harm by way of a flying meat grinder attachment.

If you don’t use the cutter, go find this gal, she’ll help!


Lesson Five

Taking five minutes to make some garnishes catapults a meal into a lovely dinner.

The thing you learn when you are a line cook for any amount of time is that prepping ahead of time is the difference between life and death.  So, you learn to plan.  And start prepping days ahead.

I  am really trying to work on doing this in my everyday meals, to be honest.  The planning, not the garnishing.  But I am really good at it for the big blow-out meals.  The planning and the garnishing.

Jeffrey stole the garnish for his plate.
If you can believe it.




Lesson Six

If you’ve kept up with canning and preserving goodies all year, you can fancy up boring dishes in a flash. Take this roasted butternut squash, I drizzled on some Bourbon County Stout-Bacon Jam on top and voilá! I am a chef!

This was my last jar of Bourbon County Stout-Bacon jam, which means, of course, that I planned that perfectly. Because the fall is bac’n-makin’ time here at my house and also the time of year Goose Island releases it’s Bourbon County Stout. So, the ingredients will be at the ready.


I also used a jar of bourbon cherries
and a jar of pickled ramps, see here”


Lesson Seven

Buying some turkey legs ahead of time to make stock and gravy before the big day makes the big day a lot less stressful.

I learned this from Michael Ruhlman, just this year.  He wrote about it on his excellent blog. I also used his iPhone app, Ratio, for a lot of the cooking I did this year and use his book, Charcuterie, for (added: the rest of this sentence, post post.) the pork belly I then turned into sausage.

Lesson Eight

If you can a lot, you end up making delicious cranberry sauce.

There isn’t much more to say about that, it is simply true.


The Menu

Roasted Turkey with Gravy, Straight Up
Garlicky Mashed Potatoes
Cornbread Stuffing with Sausage and Cherries
Crispy Cipollinis and Mushrooms with Balsamic Glaze
Creamed and Pickled Ramps
Cranberry Jam with Candied Orange
Carrots and Parsnips with Fried Sage
Butternut Squash with Bourbon County Stout-Bacon Jam
Roasted Fennel & Beets with Charred Orange

added later, I forgot:  Paul Kahan’s Cancer-Buster Kale Salad

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