Safe but tasty

After the extra-experimental semi-successes of my last two ice cream experiments (Thai iced coffee and candied yam for those who haven't been paying attention), I decided to go with something rather safer this week. For that reason, I made David Lebovitz's recipe for white chocolate and fresh ginger ice cream without major modification. Lebovitz is the author of the universally adored ice cream cookbook The Perfect Scoop so I figured it was a pretty good bet. I did want to add something of my own to it, particularly as I wasn't going to match it with a nectarine and cherry compote as he did.

Looking around for flavors that play well with both white chocolate and ginger, I settled on cranberries. There aren't an enormous number of recipes using all three, but all three pairs turn up pretty frequently. Lazy as I was being, I couldn't be bothered with dealing with fresh berries and instead used the half-dried sugar-injected cranberries from the gourmet grocery. Frozen, they're a bit chewier than they are at room temperature so I'd suggest chopping them up for lots of little specks of berry if you're going to follow my example. But they were fine whole so use your own judgment.

I used Callebaut chocolate which is my preferred brand of chocolate when I'm buying in big chunks. However, I really don't think it makes a big difference which brand you buy when you're talking about white chocolate as long as you stick to the high quality names. If anyone knows better do please correct me, but I can't imagine anyone bothering with a white chocolate taste test.

I won't go into great detail as this recipe isn't mine, but I do have a couple of observations.

First, white chocolate and ginger are a great synergistic combination. White chocolate on its own is, while flavorful, very one-note (despite the chemical complexity of cocoa butter). Ginger gives it a spicy complexity it lacks while the white chocolate smooths out ginger's harsh edges. It's not a completely uncommon pairing, but I think it deserves wider recognition. Personally, I found the flavors in this ice cream recipe a bit strong for my tastes. That may have come from rounding errors as I cut the original amounts by two-thirds to fit in my churn, but I'd back off the amounts or add a half cup of milk next time.

Second, from my experience using chocolate in ice cream before, I expected the mix to firm up in the refrigerator before churning. Not only didn't it firm up, it never really solidified in the churn or even after ripening. I'm not complaining; the lack of thickening allowed extra air to be churned in giving it a light smooth texture. Given the strong flavors, I don't think I'd want it any denser. What I had forgotten was that I was comparing white chocolate with dark chocolate which not only is chock full of cocoa solids, but also doesn't have any milk in it. Of course white chocolate is much more melty.

Tossing a chunk of white chocolate into a fruit-based ice cream should improve the texture and give a subtle added component to the flavor. I bet it would work well with any berry or stone fruit. I'll make a note of that for next spring when they're in season.

CSA subscription - week two

After a week off for Thanksgiving, the CSA food subscription is back again. The newsletter included a few other blogs that plan to record how they're using their subscriptions; it should be interesting to see the different approaches. I'll post links to their second-week posts just as soon as they get them up. [edit: it looks like only Trina at Miami Dish is going to be posting each week and that she generally does an end of the week round-up. That's probably a better idea, but I'll stick with my own bad idea of posting as I go along until it becomes oppressive. Here's her week two post.]

My first impression is that it's going to be a salad heavy week. There's lettuce, tatsoi and arugula and there's not much to be done with any of those but to just put them in a bowl, add some dressing and dig in. I'm going try using the tatsoi and maybe the arugula as a replacement for rice accompanying stir fries, but that's all I've got.

Next are some mustard greens. Braising's definitely the way to go here. I've got a ham hock in the freezer so it's going to be southern style rather than anything innovative.

I still haven't used the dill from two weeks ago (which seems to be holding up pretty well) so this new batch isn't a welcome sight. At least there are a couple of cucumbers. They're not Kirbys, but they'll do. I usually use Emeril's recipe for garlic dills; I think it's the only Emeril recipe I like. His recipes seem designed for someone with a sous chef and end up more trouble than worth without one.

Some more yellow squash this week, too. I did a quick recipe search and you can bread and fry them, you can use them in a casserole, and there's not much else. I saw one interesting recipe that shredded them, squeezed out the liquid and made a pizza crust out of them. But if these are actually good, tasty, organic vegetables it seems a shame to use them purely for their structural properties. They'll probably end up roasted next to a piece of meat. I don't normally eat that way, but I bow to circumstances.



Finally, there's some honey. Wildflower honey is too strong for using in tea or smoothies, where most of my honey ends up. It should be suitable for cooking, though. I'm thinking chai ice cream.

[It's later and I've just double-checked and found that the honey I'm using in my tea now is the selfsame wildflower honey that I got from CSA this summer. But chai ice cream is a better use so that's where it's headed.]

Health foodies look away

Here are those alluring and mysterious caramelized pork rinds I mentioned a few posts back. They are much better than they have any right to be: all at once sweet, savory, spicy, salty, chewy and crunchy. Think caramel corn but with pork fat. Pork rinds just by themselves are a joke of a snack, pure bad-for-you in a bag without the payoff to make it worthwhile. (This is contrasted with mass-market snacks like Doritos which aren't pure anything.) Chef Fukushima and Gourmet magazine should be ashamed of themselves for creating this.


CARAMELIZED PORK RINDS

Adapted from Katsuya Fukushima of Minibar, Washington, D.C.

MAKES ABOUT 4 CUPS

ACTIVE TIME: 5 MIN START TO FINISH: 15 MIN
Lowbrow meets highbrow: In this everyday snack food, pork rinds provide the crunch, cayenne provides the heat, and maple syrup creates a fun, almost candylike shell.

1/2 cup dark amber pure maple syrup
1 (5-oz) package fried pork rinds with skin (also called chicharrones)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

• Heat syrup (syrup will barely cover bottom of pot) in a 4- to 6-quart wide heavy pot over moderate heat until large bubbles cover bottom of pot, about 2 minutes. Gently stir in pork rinds with a wooden spoon until coated, then cook, stirring constantly, until rinds are caramelized and a shade darker, 2 to 3 minutes.
• Remove from heat and sprinkle rinds with cayenne and salt, then stir until combined well. Transfer to a large shallow baking pan, spreading out to cool.

COOKS' NOTE: Caramelized pork rinds are best when freshly made but will keep in an airtight container 3 days. Recrisp in a 350°F oven, then cool.

Slow Food from Spain

I went to a Slow Food dinner at Ideas restaurant last night. The chef, Jose Ignacio Castrodeza, was in flown in from Spain for the event. There, his restaurant Villa Paramesa specializes in medieval Castillian cuisine, as far as I can gather from the Spanish brochures we found at our place settings. The actual dinner he prepared used modern tweaks on traditional recipes and ingredients, possibly due to the regular Ideas chef, Alvaro Beadex, who collaborated.

The event announcement said there were sixty spots and I think fifty-nine people attended as the only empty seat I saw was the one by me. This is not an unusual occurrence, but I think this time it was due less to unfriendly vibes I may emit and more to the fact that I sat right by a big window looking into the kitchen as that was the only place with enough light for me to photograph my plates without using a flash. It was gauche enough to be pulling out my phone at regular intervals for snapping pics without drawing the whole room's attention with a flash of light. Amongst the other 58 attendees was Kyra White, the proprietress of Theine, my local tea shop, where I also pick up my weekly farm subscription vegetables. At the first subscription pick up she asked if I had joined the co-op due to her and I had to say no. She asked the same thing at the Slow Food dinner and I had to disappoint her again. Frankly, I don't remember her ever mentioning either one to me when I was buying tea, but next time I bump into her I'll tell her, yes, I am in fact stalking her just to make her feel better. As she saw me sitting alone, she offered me seat by her, but I declined saying that the empty seats near me would soon be filled with possibly-interesting strangers while I can talk to her every Saturday. She wasn't sure if that was a compliment or an insult. I'm not certain either as It was intended as a statement of fact. Anyway, I wanted to keep my seat for the light, and at least one of the people who sat at my table said something interesting before the crowd noise drowned everything out (which happened before the soup. With my hearing problems I'm essentially eating alone even at a full table so there would have been no real point in going with her, anyway.)

The first course was Serrano ham and castillian cheeses, both very nice. Serrano ham is rather similar to prosciutto and considered by many, including me, to be a bit superior. Like prosciutto, it's salted and aged up to a year. According to McGee's On Food and Cooking, the difference is that Serrano ham is cured with saltpeter to provide nitrite. To get a sense of what it's like, think of good quality prosciutto that you've kept in the refrigerator a bit too long and its started to dry out a little and it's started to go from soft and silken on its way to crispily dried out (and thrown out). In between, there's a stage where the ham's firmed up a bit and has a bit more tooth to it and the flavor is a bit more intense. Serrano ham is like that but much much better since it's not half gone off. The cheese, which the menu leaves nameless, was similar to an aged Parmesan in flavor, but the texture was a bit creamier so it could still be sliced into nice wedges instead of chiseled into uneven chunks. The crystals meant that it was aged too, around a year if I'm any judge, and I'm not. It was served warm but not quite hot, which really brought out the flavors. That's not something I've done with Parmesan, but I'll have to try it, even if I don't usually have the patience to let it get up to room temperature.

There was also Manzanilla sherry which had a lot of young green and vanilla notes. I asked the hostess for a bit more information (it's the sea breeze on the vineyard slopes that gives it its distinctive flavor, she said) and she poured me a glass of an older bottle from the same region. It was more refined (her words; I was thinking that, but I wasn't going to say.), and to more to my taste, but not nearly as good a match for the ham and cheese.

That course was followed up with some bread that didn't appear on the menu at all. (nor in my photographs. Either it's vampire bread or I need to actually wait when my phone says to wait.) The bread left at each table setting was a batard with a thick crunchy crust and a light fluffy inside. Over-baked if you ask me, but maybe that's what they were going for. Waiters also doled out wedges of another bread that was pretty much a Philadelphia-style soft pretzel in loaf form. It needed salt.

The meal proper began with creamy lentil soup with quail and foie gras. Also yummy. I liked how the lentil soup itself was under-seasoned and only really shone when a spoonful also included some fat from the quail or a bit of the oil that was drizzled on top. Unless that was some liquid form of foie gras I'm unfamiliar with (which is quite possible), I didn't notice the foie gras at all. I mentioned the fat from the quail, but not the meat. The meat was dark poultry meat (I had a leg) somewhere between chicken and duck. Not at all bad, and well prepared certainly, but nothing too special.

The wine for this course was Pares Balta Cuvee de Carol small bath Cava. That's a sparkling white wine if your oenology failed you. It was very flinty, which along with the bubbles, made it a bit harsh, really. But nothing wimpy would stand up to lentil soup, and the soup toned down the wine's excesses which a good food/wine pairing is supposed to do, so no complaints to the match.

The main course was a choice of anisette duck with a chestnut puree stuffed pear or a confit of Spanish cod on creamy garlic sauce with fried garbanzos. I'm not a huge fan of either anise or chestnut so despite my concern about confit of cod, that's the one I went with. Now, if you're familiar with north Atlantic cod (or the scrod you find in Boston) this wasn't that. If you're familiar with bacalao, the Spanish preserved salt-cod, it wasn't quite that either. I was quite surprised to learn (from questioning the hostess again) that the very firm texture that I had always attributed to the drying and salting procedure is actually what fresh Spanish cod is like. I'm sure if I read the blockbuster natural history book Cod I would know this. The undistinguished small tender whitefish I had in Boston must be the young over-fished version. This, according to the hostess, was a chunk from a very large adult fish. It certainly explains why cod and not some other whitefish was the one that ended up salted and stored; it's halfway to hardtack already. So, the upshot is that, while this was the best piece of cod I've ever had, that's not saying much. It's used today because it's traditional, not because it's good. The garlic sauce perked it up a bit, but I really was impressed by the fried garbanzos. I'll have to do that myself the next time I make the garbanzo, pasta, chorizo dish I discussed a few posts back.

The wine was a 2005 Martinsancho Verdejo, Rueda a very soft understated white wine. I had trouble putting my finger on a description, and I don't usually go for the fancy professional wine-talk, but the menu talked about this wine's "lanolin-and-melon textural richness" which really nails it, I think.

Unlike the last Slow Food dinner I attended, I was the only single at the table so there was nobody for me to share with to try the other entre. Ah well. Hmm, that's a lousy picture. The duck is the brown lump to the right; I think it was a boneless breast. The pear is the yellow disc on the left. Nice presentation, anyway.



Finally was dessert, Castillian cheese with quince foam and raspberries. Well, the menu says raspberries, but we got raspberry sorbet. I was not entirely thrilled with it. The quince foam was, I thought, a little too stabilized. It was kind of like the semi-solid Whip'n'Chill the University of Delaware dining halls used to serve back in the day. And raspberries in general and raspberry sorbet in particular are getting pretty tired in fine dining circles. At least it wasn't polluting perfectly good chocolate this time around. The cheese was soft and creamy but ripe. Eaten with the quince or raspberry, the sweet and tart flavors would overwhelm the cheesiness leaving only the creamy mouthfeel until the aftertaste. It was an interesting added element, but I think it would have been nice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, too. There was also a crispbread with anise seed in it, but, as you may recall from a couple paragraphs up, I don't really care for anise so I don't think it added anything.

To finish things off was a glass of Williams and Humbert Dry Sack 15 year Oloroso Sherry 'Solera Especial'. You really shouldn't serve me anything especial when I've had four glasses already; I'm in no fit state to tell the difference. It seemed nice enough as far as I could tell. So I threw that back and headed home. And that was that.

The rest of the farm subscription

I got through a bit more of the farm subscription vegetables today with a green bean stir fry. I don't suppose what I did was really innovative enough to talk about on its own merits, but since it's part of the farm subscription series I guess I'll lower my standards a bit. Or maybe that's the wrong move; I'm new to this blogging thing and I'm not sure what's worth posting.

My top-of-the-head thought for the green beans was a black bean sauce, but a literature review revealed that I was mis-remembering a large number of Szechuan green beans in hoisin sauce recipes out there. I wasn't really in the mood for hoisin sauce, though. I've always thought that it acts more as a condiment than an ingredient; every recipe that uses even a little bit ends up tasting like a bowl full of hoisin sauce with some supporting vegetables.

Instead I started off with this recipe. It's a good, fairly generic, starting point. I added some Szechuan peppercorns to the sauce, replaced the pepper flakes and sesame oil with chui chow chili and tossed in the last of the garlic chives and some sliced cremini mushrooms.

I also used ground turkey instead of ground pork since that's what I happened to have in the freezer. It's relatively bland so I marinated it in a couple tablespoons of the sauce, the garlic and ginger and some cornstarch.

One thing you'll notice, if it comes through with my phone's low resolution camera, is the wrinkly texture of the green beans. It's something I'd always noticed in restaurant Chinese dishes, but I figured it was just old beans from crummy cheap Chinese takeout places. Actually, it comes from giving the green beans a quick dip in hot oil. A couple minutes of deep frying dries them out so they can absorb the sauce. It also cooks them half-way so a couple minutes of stir frying is enough to finish them up. Definitely worth the little extra trouble it took.

Unfortunately, the end result was a bit blah. I blame the turkey partially, but mainly I was let down by the lack of the organic vegetable flavor explosion I was led to expect. Cooked or raw, those beans barely had any flavor. Nice crisp texture, but bland.

The komatsuna, on the other hand, had some lovely flavor. Trying it raw, I thought that the peppery taste would work best with Asian flavors, but I second guessed myself and decided I only thought that because I knew beforehand that komatsuna's an Asian vegetable. So I paired it with pancetta, olive oil and pasta instead in a variation on the turnip greens and cavatelli recipe I wrote about earlier. (By the way, the photo I took of it mysteriously resurfaced in my phone's memory so I've added it to that post. I think it looks more appetizing that the image I found on the web.)

The turnips were lovely just boiled and buttered. That's half the point of quality fresh produce-- it doesn't need fancy preparation to be tasty.

You can't just sit down and eat an avocado, though. One went into a fairly successful scallop ceviche. For the other, I found an interesting recipe that uses mashed avocado and cheddar cheese to top a roasted yam. [It's now several days later and I made the avocado-topped yam recipe. It was surprisingly good. Usually I can look at a recipe and see how the flavors fit together, and it really doesn't seem like sweet potato, avocado and sharp cheddar should work, but it did. I think it helped that the avocado was half-way to guacamole mixed, as it was, with plenty of lime juice, cilantro and olive oil. That strengthened that component while the yam remained a mild base which contributed a just a bit of sweetness to the whole. Just a theory off the top of my head, there. I'd have to make it again, maybe with a regular baking potato or with a different cheese to really figure it out.]

The squash I steamed with some shrimp. I used a carolina spice mix that was heavy on the garlic. Maybe I was supposed to put the spices in the water instead of over the shrimp, but the dried garlic flavor was overwhelming. I think it might have been better with Old Bay.

All that leaves me with is the dill. I've had some trouble finding kirby cucumbers here in Miami so I might not go the pickling route there. Maybe with some salmon?

Better than you'd expect

What you see to the left is an olive, peanut-butter, mayonnaise sandwich. And it's really good. Honestly.

I know, I was skeptical too and it took me weeks to work up the courage to try it. There's some odd background before I get to the odd sandwich. Last year, Gourmet Magazine was involved in a 20-part documentary series called Diary of a Foodie. Each episode focused on a foodie topic--eating locally, the transformative power of mold, the blossoming food culture in Brazil, etc. The episodes were mainly stories in the field, but each would come back to a kitchen studio once or twice where Gourmet's editorial staff would prepare quick recipes exemplifying the episode's theme.

The episode about under-valued ingredients included a recipe for caramel corn that, personally, I consider oversimplified to be any good and a recipe for this sandwich. Don't bother going to the show's website to find it, though, the whole episode has fallen down the memory hole. The caramel corn recipe is now attached to the Anatomy of a Meal episode along with a caramelized pork rinds recipe that I'm sure I would have tried by now if it had actually aired.

I'm half convinced the sandwich was a cruel hoax. After demonstrating the preparation, Ruth Reichl, Gourmet's Editor in Chief, took a bite and laughed "That's some sandwich!" which is not the strong endorsement one would like. Frankly, I'd suspect I confabulated the whole thing if Google didn't turn up one (count'em) reference to it on the Web. I'm still not entirely convinced that it wasn't a trick that I (and the person who posted the recipe to recipezaar) have fallen for.

So, the sandwich itself. The vinegary brine of the olives are up front, of course, but they're framed by the creaminess of the mayo and grounded in the earthiness of the peanut butter. It's complex and surprisingly well balanced. (although today's version is thrown off a bit by strong flavors of the multigrain bread. It works better with a country white that serves more as a canvas than an ingredient.) If you do try it, use the large good quality green olives from the gourmet grocery's olive bar and smooth natural peanut butter without the added sugar of the big brands. Not a lot to say about the choice of mayo. I'd avoid Miracle Whip, but that's more of a general rule of thumb.

Finally, I'd like to again emphasize that I'm not making this up.

Turnip tops with cavatelli

Well, radish tops, actually. They look like turnips, I got confused and I ended up with a better recipe so I suppose it ended up for the best. I've done the recipe before with genuine turnip tops and, as far as I can recall, the radish tops worked just about the same.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I made the turnip [radish] tops with cavatelli last night. I could have sworn I took a picture, but it's not in my phone so I guess I did something wrong. Here's a picture of someone else's version I stole from www.italianrecipes.ws:


This is typical traditional Italian peasant fare and is very simple, really. Bring a big pot of heavily salted water to a boil, add the greens, cook 8 minutes or so, remove, add the pasta, cook until not quite al dente. Meanwhile, lightly fry garlic or anchovies or capers or red pepper in olive oil just enough to release the flavors. I used all four which would be a bit of a splurge for a peasant, I suppose; I found it to be a little too much for the relatively mild turnip [radish] greens. Optionally, you can add some bread crumbs, too. Next time I think I'd go with just garlic and bread crumbs. That's another traditional Italian preparation without the greens.

Of course all this frugality is lost if you use fancy store-bought pasta like I did. I had the cavatelli on hand due to one of my periodic whims to purchase the extra-fancy version of some ingredient to see if it's really worth the exorbitant price. Usually it isn't, but the hand-rolled cavatelli has a nice chewy texture unmatched by anything Ronzoni offers. On the other hand, Ronzoni is a pretty good choice for your extruded pasta needs. A lot of the more expensive Italian brands are using semolina flour imported from the US anyway so all you're paying for is a couple of sea cruises for the wheat.

Anyway, add the greens and the pasta to the frying pan, making sure just a little bit of the cooking water is included, cook over high heat for a few minutes so the pasta finishes cooking and absorbs some of the flavor from the sauce, and you're done. Easy and pretty tasty.

Edit: the photo I took belatedly showed up in my camera's memory. Here's what it my version looked like. Despite the bad lighting, I think you can see that, compared to my preparation, the photo from the website overcooked both the greens and pasta. Cavatelli shouldn't be unrolling like that and the greens shouldn't have that light-green boiled-out color.