Cooking

The Holy Grail of Cookbooks

Friends, if you have ever listened to anything I said, listen closely to these words: go buy Good Meat. Do it right now, and buy me an appropriately priced gift of thanks at a later date. I bought this book for my brother and his wife for Christmas, and was pretty excited about giving it to them. Then I saw his facebook status later that week and it was something to the effect of “Spent my entire day drinking tea and reading my new cookbook”. Now, I’m a fan of cookbooks, but I have never been so grossly enthralled in one so as to give up a whole day in my weekend in order to read through it. But that is partly because this is not just a bunch of recipes sent to a bindery. It’s a holy tome of carnivorous cuisine! Each section (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, rabbit, etc.) contains a sub-section about the meat itself. You’ll find information such as discussions of the difference between grass and corn fed beef, sustainable models of protein farming, breaking down a side of beef into primal, sub-primal and butcher cuts, and suggested vendors you can order from. It’s truly, truly amazing stuff.

The following recipe is the best one I’ve had from the book so far, but that isn’t saying much since we only tried 3 recipes while down in Kansas (where my brother Allen, recipient of the book, lives) and I haven’t yet bought my own copy of Good Meat. I will say up-front, I am not a mustard guy. Especially the bolder, spicier mustards; I hate them in the same way I hate horseradish. This recipe opened my eyes. You will need

• 2 1/2 lb new potatoes, cut into 2 inch chunks (any small potatoes will work)
• 1 chicken, 5 lb
• 1 head garlic, seperated into cloves and skinned
• 1 bunch/package  rosemary
• 1 cup coarse/stone ground mustard
• 1/4 cup EVOO
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 tbsp heavy cream (pretty sure we left this part out, and it was still friggin awesome)

Heat the oven to 450. Choose a roasting pan that will hold the potatoes tightly together. The idea is to keep them from burning here. Remove excess fat from the chicken and place chunks among potatoes.

Strip the rosemary leaves from the stems, and rough chop them. Take 1/4 cup of the rosemary and set it aside. Now take half of the remaining rosemary and sprinkle it inside the bird cavity, along with some salt and pepper. The  rest of the rosemary should be scattered among the tatoes in the pan.

In a bowl or blender, mix together the 1/4 cup of rosemary you reserved, the mustard, olive oil and soy sauce until its a homogenous paste. Spread that over the bird. It’s supposed to be a nice, thick crust so don’t be shy with the mustard paste. GET IT ON THERE! Place the bird on top of the potatoes, and put the roasting pan in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350. You need that initial high temperature period to really set the crust and get some browning action on the outside. Let it go at 350 degrees for another 60-75 minutes until a thermometer reads 165 in the thickest part of the thigh. When its done, let it rest 15 minutes before carving the bird.

Last step: drain the juices from the roasting pan and add to a saute pan along with the wine, place over medium heat. Allow that to reduce to about 1/2 volume. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream (again, we left that part out) then you can either serve in a gravy boat or just pour it over the potatoes as a dressing.

Doesn't it look fantastic?

Apologies to Meg, who apparently wants my mustard-crusted chicken recipe, but you’ll have to wait a few days. The other night, I made an interpretation of chicken stir-fried with Chinese long beans. It was probably my best re-creation of Asian cuisine so far. My favorite part of this recipe is the incorporation of dark soy sauce to raise the sugar content of the chicken marinade. When the chicken hits the pan the extra sugar will help the caramelization and develop a deep, rich flavor.

For any chicken stir frying, I prefer using thighs. There’s a little more fat in them, so there’s more flavor to stand up to spicy Asian sauces, and they’re definitely more forgiving of being slightly overcooked. So buy some boneless, skinless chicken thighs or, if you have a nice boning/fillet knife, save yourself a few bucks per  pound and buy the normal chicken thighs and bone them yourself. Cut 4 chicken thighs into roughly 1-2 inch chunks and add to a dish or plastic bag to marinate them.

For the marinade, mix together:

• 4 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce (you can substitute some sugar or honey, but really, go buy a bottle of dark soy sauce. You will find yourself putting it in everything)
• ¼ tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp  EVOO
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sriracha hot sauce
• 2 cloves minced garlic
  

  You just can't fail with these ingredients.

• a few dashes of white pepper

Mix it up, add it to the chicken, toss to combine and let it marinate for 1-2 hours.

Next, get a large pot of salted water to a boil. Then par-boil about 3 cups of green beans for just a few minutes, until they are bright green.  Then take them out and shock them either in ice water or under a cold tap. Set aside.

Mix 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce with 2 tablespoons of water, set that aside as well.

Pre-heat 1 tbsp of light oil in a skillet over medium high heat. While that is warming up, take the chicken out of the marinade and (important) pat the chicken dry with paper towels. This will help the chicken get some browning in the pan, and will also remove most of the garlic which might burn in the pan. When the oil is shimmering, add the chicken and cook for 3-5 minutes per side or until there is some serious browning on each side. Don’t overcrowd the pan; you will probably have to separate the chicken into two batches unless you have a pretty decent size pan. When the chicken is almost done, add 3 cloves of minced garlic and a minced serrano pepper and stir it around. Let the garlic cook for 30-40 second, then add in the green beans and the oyster sauce mixture.  Cover the pan and let it cook for 3-4 minutes. If the sauce is not thick enough, you can either take the top off and let it reduce or mix up a little water/soy sauce/cornstarch slurry and mix it in. Serve over rice or rice noodles or whatever floats your boat.

Later this week: the last football post of the year. We’re breaking out the best of the best for the SUPERBOWL! It’s times like these I really wish Arty was back in the tundra, but Rick and I will have to step up and perform in his absence.  I’m hoping to have about 3 appetizer recipes and maybe a review of my favorite football beers or someother such nonsense.

The Beautiful Machine

Among the many things I love about my new apartment (ok, new as of last August) is that I have the space to actually spread out and take on some cooking projects that just seemed painful, if not dangerous, in my old apartment.  I’m talking most about deep-frying of course.

Meg got me the deep fryer for my birthday two summers ago but I could never bring myself to break it out in my old apartment.  For one thing, it stored nicely in the box on a shelf in the shared hallway.  I had serious concerns about where I would put the thing once it was actually broken in.  Plus, the limited counter space meant that a gallon or two of 300 degree peanut oil would be precariously placed somewhere.

But with a longer train ride has come a large kitchen.  With plenty of counter and storage space it was time to fry!  I actually first broke in the deepfyer a few months ago for a poker game.  So this last time wasn’t the virgin run, but it was the first time I thought about taking some pictures and writing about it.

The deep frying plan came together as part of a larger scheme.  Stu’s girlfriend Chin was planning a surprise birthday visit.  To keep Stu from running off to Atlantic City for the weekend to try her luck at the poker table, I decided to bring the action to Park Slope and get a game together for Friday.  Coincidentally, it was also my friend Dave’s birthday and I was excited to get some party time in with him, as well.

Preparing for this event was one of those times where I miss having a car in New York.  In order to deep fry you need peanut oil—heavy, heavy peanut oil.  Plus, while deep frying is great, we need a few other things, some chips, the making of a spinach dip, the makings of chilli, etc.  So Meg and I grabbed the little red push cart headed out for the half-mile walk through the snowy Park Slope streets to Key Food (for those in MN, think a supermarket between ¼ and ½ the size of Rainbow or Cub Foods).  After loading the card to the brim, we headed for the now much more difficult trek back.  We made it, but in some snow bank or another the weight of all the food in the cart managed to bend one of the wheels to about a 30 degree angle.

Once back it was time to get the cooking thing rolling.  As Meg started in on the cup cakes from scratch (a must for Dave and Stu’s b-day celebration) I started in on the spinach dip.  See the recipe here.  Something that I’ve done before, it comes together very quickly in a food processor.  The recipe calls for ½ to 1 cup of mayo and to keep the Mayo flavor down I stayed on the lower end.  A new addition was some cherry tomatoes.  After trying to mix some in using the food processor and seeing them shredded into a million little pieces I decided to slice them in half and mix them in by hand.  The dip was a great snack to have around as people arrived and I set-up the deep fryer.

Mushrooms

The first things to fry were some crimini mushrooms.  In a little experimentation, half of the package got a standard egg wash and a cover of some seasoned flour (including some paprika, garlic salt, and a dash of white pepper) and half got that flour mix turned into a beer batter (aka I pour some beer into the flour mix until it was a paste).  Even before the deep frying, the color of the beer batter was noticeably enticing: the paprika turned the mixture a beautiful bright orangish red.  When the beer batter mushrooms were deep fried they came out with a nice orange colored crust.  While both sets of mushrooms were good, the beer battered batch was the clear winner.  Not only did they have a great color, the orange compared to a duller gray brown, but they were more moist, while still retaining a nice crunch on the outside.

Sweet Potato Fries

Next up was the fries, both regular and sweet potato.  The regular fries turned out well, but not as crispy as I had hoped.  I think that I might have under-timed the first fry of the double frying process.  (In order to get fries nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside you first fry at 325, take them out for a few minutes, and then fry them at 375.)  Still, even though they were less crispy then I would have personally liked, they were well-loved.  The sweet potato fries presented a whole other problem in the second step of the double-fry process.  The sweet potatoes’ high sugar conten started to caramelize and almost burn at the high temp on the second fry.  The result was a little ugly, but was really tasty—a little sugar, a little caramel, and some starch.

After the fries, the final deep-fry act was jalapeños in the beer batter.  Not unseeded these little guys packed a mean but delicious punch.  (The heat of all pepper resides with the pepper’s oil which is mainly found in the seeds.)

Some of the Spread

There were grand plans for onion rings and Meg’s idea to turn string cheese and breadcrumbs into fried mozarela sticks… but alas the night was getting on, there was poker to play, and bellies were full from the first rounds of deep frying.

At some point in the poker game Meg broke out the chilli that she started along with the deep frying.  Coming about 4 hours and countless beers after the end of the deep frying and that start of poker it was a welcome warm treat.

Chop that Cabbage

A week or two ago, the New York Times had an article about some cabbage  dishes that break the stinky stereotype.  Meg has been saying for months that she wants to cook more soups, so the cabbage soup recipe seemed like the perfect choice

[DDET The NYT recipe can be seen by clicking here.]

Bess Feigenbaum’s Cabbage Soup

Adapted from The National, Manhattan

Time: 3 hours

1. In a 6-quart pot over medium-low heat, heat olive oil and add garlic. Cover and cook until garlic is tender but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add onion, and sauté until translucent. Add 3 cups water, carrots, tomatoes and purée, tomato paste, ketchup, brown sugar and bay leaf. Simmer at a lively bubble for 10 minutes, then crush whole tomatoes with potato masher or fork. Continue to simmer until carrots are tender, about 10 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

2. Using an immersion blender, or working in batches with a stand blender, process mixture until it is coarse, not puréed. Return sauce to pot and add lemon juice, cabbage ribbons and 3 cups water. Place over medium-high heat and cook at a lively simmer until cabbage is cooked to taste, from al dente to meltingly soft, 1 to 2 hours. Add 3 to 6 cups water, to thin to desired consistency. Ten minutes before serving, stir in raisins and a few twists of black pepper. If desired, garnish each serving with a dollop of sour cream.

Yield: 8 servings.

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[/DDET]

I’m pretty sure that I’ve never cooked with cabbage where it takes center stage, as in this soup.  Embarking on this new frontier, Meg and I decided to closely adhere to  the recipe.  I was excited to use this opportunity to test my eye-balling skills, figuring out how to accurately judge whole ingredients’ measurements.  For example, I was a little surprised to see that only about one and a quarter small onion was needed to make a cup of diced onion.

The recipe was, all in all, fairly easy.  Basically, just cut things and put them in pot and let it all cook for a while.

So…. how did it taste?  Meg and I both agreed that it was WAY too sweet.  Edibile, but too sweet.  (Which maybe shouldn’t be a surprise given that the article the recipe comes from is Cabbage’s Sweet Side.)  The recipe calls for brown sugar, ketchup, raisins, and a full cup of tomato paste–all adding to the high level of sweetness.

The soup might work better as a small part of a larger dinner, but when taking center stage, Meg and I agreed that the sweet needs to be take down a notch or two.  We we next try, we are going to definitely cut the brown sugar and the ketchup.  Meg also had the idea of adding in some India or Middle Easter spices.  (I’m so proud of her improvisational thinking!!!)  I think that with Meg’s spices this dish might be great served over rice–but only more cooking will tell!

Ok, ok, I hear you.  Epic fail on eating and writing about cheese.  I’m working on turning my life around.  More cheese eating and writing. I promise.

Two days ago I was lured in cheddar–the aisles of  Whole Foods can be a dangerous place.  While shopping for the ingredients for cabbage soup (which turned out ok, but not great and will be the subject of a future post) I spotted them.  Two types of cheddar:  Isle of Mull Cheddar and Borough Market Cheddar.  Fortunately there were small enough pieces of each so that Meg and I could afford to buy a little of each.  The Borough Market was aged one year and the Isle of Mull was aged 60 days.

The appearance of each cheese was very different.  The Isle of Mull was a light orange but has huge visible veins of mold running though it.  Yeah, cheddar can have that too!  And it’s so good!  Usually, the intensity is way lower than with a blue cheese, but it still packs a little bit of the kind of blue cheese punch that wrestles with the cheddar flavors.  The Borough Market, on the other hand, was much lighter, almost an off-white.

The texture of each was also very different.  In fact Meg had me try to judge which one was which–I was able to correctly guess which the older cheese was (the Isle of Mull) because of its relatively harder texture.  The younger cheese (the Borough Market) was much more creamy.  When you think about cheese-making, it makes sense that the older the cheese, the less creamy it will be.   As the cheese sits around, building flavor and waiting for me to eat it, the moisture is slowly sneaking off.  The Isle of Mull, though less creamy was a far cry from a hard cheese.  The Borough has some nice little crunch to it, but again, nothing like you would find in, say, a Parmigiano Reggiano.  The Isle of Mull had just a few crunchies, maybe one or two in every bite.

Now the flavors.   The first bites of the Mull had a good balance of the blue cheesiness and the cheddar flavors, but the bites of the veins in the cheese overpowered the inherent cheddar taste–though it did it in a strange way, the cheddar flavor at these points seemed lower and the blue cheesiness only marginally higher (not punching you in the face).  The taste of the Mull fit this pattern from nose to rind.  The Borough, on the other hand, changed as you moved from nose to rind.  The first bites had some complex flavor with some blue cheesiness lingering in the background, but as we ate through it, the blue chessiness grew stronger and stronger until it was hitting you over the head!  A very interesting experience.

All in all, two good cheeses that remind me that I want to have more cheddar in my life!

An aside:

Meg noticed that while we’ve been shopping lately I’ve found my self stopping and scanning the mustard (often reading some out load to her).   I didn’t realize this, but she thinks I’m on the verge of a “mustard phase” and I have to say that I think she might be right. Stay tuned.

Howdy football fans! My deepest apologies for missing last weeks post. Words cannot express my sorrow, but I know you’ll forgive me. To make up for the absence, this week I’m posting my favorite Renzo Original of all time! I was going to save this one for the Super Bowl post because it’s so damn good, but here you go: Renzo’s Jumbo Skrimp Skewers!

This recipe came as a result of having a pound of jumbo shrimp, a grill, and a desire for spicy deliciousness. There may be an ingredient or two that might refine this recipe or add a little something, but all of the ingredients were what I had on hand at the time. The only reason I don’t make this every single week is because of how unfortunately expensive jumbo shrimp are. Sometimes I can find a bag of frozen jumbo shrimp for a few dollars less per pound,

These are about the right size

and when I see these things I pounce and stock up the freezer. Don’t try to substitute normal size shrimp for the Jumbos, they would be very dry and over-done by the time they get any grill marks and smoky flavor.

1 lb of Jumbo shrimp, the biggest you can find (peeled and deveined)
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (damn Rachel Ray for tainting the acrnoym EVOO!)
3 tbsp fresh squeezed lime juice
1.5 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp papeika
1 tsp red curry powder
5 cloves of minced garlic
2 serrano peppers, minced
1 large handful of chopper cilantro

Combine all ingredients in a Tupperware or ziplock bag and mix well before adding the skrimps, then let that marinate for 30 minutes or so. Do NOT let this sit longer than an hour. All that citric acid will essentially turn this into a ceviche and so the shrimp will be “cooked” before they even hit the grill. Take them out of the marinade and skewer them (if they’re really big skrimps you might not even need the skewers). Throw them all on a very hot grill (bright glowing coals or propane turned to high) and cook them for about 1.5 to 2 minutes per side. This is a delicate balance; you want a grill hot enough that you’ll get nice char marks with only about 100 seconds per side of the shrimp. They’re done when they’re opaque all the way to the center, which should match up with the cooking time above. Serve with whatever you like for a real dish, or just put the platter out in front of everyone watching the game for an appetizer.

I hate this guy. Only player to ever get kicked off a probowl team. Seriously.

VIKINGS PREVIEW SECTION:
I think our problems boil down to one main point: The O-line. It is horrid. Bryant McKinney is the most over paid (and overweight) player in the league, we can’t find a player to hold down the Center position for consecutive games, Loadholt might be good in a few years but he’s struggling right now, and Hutchinson is by far our best lineman but is past his prime. I know I’ve said recently that Favre is having problems with his arm, and I still think he is, but if we had a decent O-line we would at least be able to run the ball effectively when Favre is struggling to keep his head above water. As it is, there are practically no holes for AP to run through, Favre is getting destroyed  after every single passing attempt, and Randy Moss will never be a downfield threat because the QB has to remain standing longer then 4 seconds in order to chuck it deep!

The Packers are having huge injury problems, but their biggest strength remains they’re passing game and I think Aaron Rodgers is going to throw it at Lito Shepperd all game long. This week boils down to the simple fact that I don’t have confidence in our offense to put up more than 250 yards (only 190 last week!!!), and I think it’s going to take more like 400 to put this one away. Final Score: Packers 30, Vikings 17.

Again please.

Arthur’s Two Cents:
The jumbo shrimp sounds awesome.  Citrus and some heat?  I don’t see how you can go wrong.

The game:  I’ve been saying the offensive line is the main problem since our first game versus the Saints.  Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been any improvement in the last 6 weeks.  And with Greenbay leading the NFL in sacks I don’t see good things coming this week.  Farve needs a few seconds to let Moss get down field, let alone to be able to throw to him.  It seems that in each of the last two game Farve was able pull him self together and pound out about 5 consecutive minutes of solid play, regardless of the O-line folding like superman on laundry day. If he can do that twice this game, well we have a shot.

Given the GB injuries I foresee a lower scoring game: Vikings 9, Packers 12.  While this is going to be a painful match-up to watch, at least I have the Packs defense in fantasy to dull the pain.

BLT Dip

This week’s football food is an adaptation of a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs (besides this one), The Food in my Beard. There have been some really cool recipes over there, some of them far more ambitious than I am prepared for. He also seems to have a knack for coming up with dips, which are of course perfect football food. At one point I stumbled on his BLT Dip and it looked amazing so I gave it a whirl (check out the link, the pictures are what really inspired me to try it). Overall it was pretty good, with some awesome flavor combinations. There was only one problem: the mayo. I don’t know about you readers out there, but I am NOT a mayo fan. It’s one of those condiments I barely tolerate, sort of like sauerkraut or Dijon mustard. A little bit will usually help your cause, but a there is a very fine line between a little and way too damn much. And once you cross that line, you’re screwed. There is no going back so you might as well just throw whatever you were making in the trash, go brush your teeth and start over again.

In this case, it was not immediately obvious that this was a problem. I made a big batch of the dip for a game and everyone dug in. But after a few minutes all I could think of was the mayo flavor and mayo texture and it was just wrong. I ended up throwing a big tub of the dip out because there was just no way I was going to eat any more. This is certainly not a shot at the culinary skills of the recipe’s creator, just a personal taste thing. Anyways, I modified the recipe slightly to avoid a repeat of the over-mayo trauma I experienced. The recipe’s name? PTSDBLT Dip. It strays even farther away from religious adherence to the ingredients of a BLT, but its damn tasty in its own right.

[DDET Click for recipe!]

For the base of the dip, skin and pit two ripe avocados and drop them into a blender along with 1/3 cup of sour cream and 1/3 cup of mayo and the juice of half a lemon. Blend that until smooth and add to your serving dish. Add to that a carton of cherry tomatoes which you quartered, about 1 Tbsp of minced shallot, and half a pound of torn arugula leaves. I love arugula; it’s so peppery and unique for a green leafy vegetable. And this is a great recipe for it because you need something that will have a flavor capable of standing up to the creamy avocado/mayo/sourcream mixture.

The last thing to add is by far the most important: BACON. If I were you, I’d try to find something nice and thick cut. No Name makes pretty good bacon, and if all else fails most any butcher should have some top notch stuff. Cook up about ¾ of a pound of it, and just like for the Jalapeno Poppers, you want to cook it to fairly well done so that almost all of the fat is rendered out. Crumble that up and add it the bowl, then fold everything together. Finally, give it a taste and then add salt and pepper to your liking. By the way, this one definitely goes with sliced bread. It’s just too chunky and thick to pair well with chips, and with all that bacon the dip is plenty salty without adding potato or corn chips.

[/DDET]

VIKINGS PREVIEW SECTION

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!

We got Randy. What the hell is going on here? Imagine that you’re back in 2004 and someone says to you “Don’t worry about trading him to Oakland. He’ll be back in 6 years and, oh yeah, Brett Favre will be tossing him passes.” WHAT?! Your head might have exploded then and there. Allow me to use this opportunity to publicly declare my love for Zygi Wilf. This man is a god send and 90% of NFL fans wish they had an owner like him. My only concern here is that the ownership is going to shell out for player after player to try to win now, and then we falter in the playoffs and the stadium bill goes down in the legislature. That’s when I see good ol’ Zygi throwing his hands up and deciding to cut his losses.

As for this week, I’m afraid I don’t see good things; and that’s only partly because I refuse to be the homer who picks the Vikings every single game. I think jumping to a new team, combined with facing Darrelle Revis is going to mostly shut down #84. There are three other main things going for Jets next Monday: 1) The Brett Favre incarnation of the Vikings has been absolutely terrible on national television, with the sole exception being the annihilation of the Cowboys in last year’s playoffs. 2) I think coaching does matter in the NFL and if I had to rank these two coaches I would say Ryan is top-five in the NFL and Chilly is bottom-five. That’s not a good matchup. 3) The Jets are a bunch of blitz-happy motherfuckers. They are going to put a hurt on old man Favre, and send extra defenders from all over the field.

Final score: Jets 20, Vikings 17.

Arthur’s Two Cents:  Having Moss back in MN is going to be a game changer.  And for third round draft pick?!?!  Until the offensive line learns how to give Farve more than a blink of time in the pocket here is how see things.  Moss won’t be used for his very deep threat potential, but for more modest passes.  Farve will be able to trust him and have just enough time to find him quickly.  With AP on the field and Farve’s ability to find the some other recivers he won’t be triple covered like he was in his last year with the Vikes!

On the game versus the Jets, I don’t know if we can pull it off, but I think that we have a real chance.  Revis got hurt covering Moss, maybe that will get in his head a little.  I see the Vikes at 21 and the the Jets at… well we’ll see what our defense can do.

On the food:  this sounds like a great dip.  Meg is planning on making up some bread this weekend.  But, since this is a Monday game that I’ll actually be able to watch at home, I was thinking of breaking out the old deep fry and getting some homemade wings going.  Though this might be great for Thursday poker night.

My other thought is that that the high mayo version might work great not as a dip, but to use instead of boring plain mayo on burgers for grilling time.

Lest I get a reputation on this site as someone who only cooks jazzed up bar food on game days, I thought this recipe would be a nice change of pace. This meal came about, like some of my best creations, on a complete whim. I was walking through the grocery store with a very specific shopping list, and ignoring it entirely as I bought whatever looked good. I got to the seafood counter and saw Wild Coho salmon for $11/lb. Normally I would think this was far too much to spend on part of a meal except for special occasions, but I had just been looking at the Alaskan Copper River salmon for $22/lb so at the time this seemed quite the bargain.

When it comes to salmon, I have never found a marinade that I particularly liked so my standard choice is to put a bit of a spice crust on it. In this case I put drizzled some olive oil over both sides of each filet (I bought a 1 lb section of fish and halved it), then sprinkled the flesh side with fresh cracked black pepper, kosher salt and Penzey’s Northwood seasoning. If you don’t currently own this spice, go buy it right now. Not only is it delicious, but it goes with anything from poultry to beef to potatoes or green beans. I would say it’s tied with Cavender’s Greek seasoning as my favorite spice mix, and that’s saying something. If you absolutely refuse to go buy it, you can approximate the same effect by mixing dried thyme, and rosemary with paprika, salt, pepper, ground chipotle powder and garlic powder. Put the spices on relatively thick if you like a nice spice crust the same as I do.

This is with just salt & pepper, prior to the rest of the dry rub

Preheat the oven to 400, and preheat a pan over medium heat with a small amount of vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the salmon, flesh side down, and leave it untouched for about 2 minutes until that side looks browned, then flip the skin side down. If you have a pan that you can put in the oven, throw it in right now. Otherwise, cook the fish for another 2 minutes before transferring it into the oven. The cooking time is going to depend on how thick or thin your fillets are and that does vary widely depending on what part of the side of salmon you were sold. It should be done in 10-20 minutes, so check frequently in that window. You’re looking for the flesh to be firm and opaque, and it should also flake cleanly with a fork. If you have an instant read meat thermometer, so much the better. In that case it’s done when it reaches 125 degrees in the thickest part of the fish.

Now don’t get me wrong, this will be delicious all by itself. But why not take it one step farther? That step is a garlic-dill compound butter.  Compound butters are an easy way to add another layer of flavor to cuts of meat and fish. Obviously butter is adding calories to the dish, but you also don’t need very much since it will be a concentrated flavor. I’d say it about equals out with other things you might add to a dish like a pan sauce. Take 4 ounces of room temperature butter, or spreadable butter, and add it to a bowl with

• 1 small clove of garlic, minced
• a pinch of red pepper flakes
• 3 cloves of roasted garlic, minced and pasted
• 1/3 tsp of minced dill fronds
• salt and pepper to taste.

For the roasted garlic: throw the cloves, skin on, in a pan over medium heat. When the skin starts to get black and spotty on one side, flip them around. Take them out after all sides are done, then mince and paste the garlic before adding to the butter. Let the butter firm up in the fridge for 15 minutes or so. When the fish is hot out of the oven, scrape out some butter (however much you like) and let it melt over the fish. Then squeeze a bit of lemon or lime juice over the top and it’s ready to serve, in this case paired with a ceasar salad, topped with shredded pecorino-romano cheese – thanks for the suggestion Arty!

The Stew, Pre-Cooking

As it has started to get a little chilly I became fixated on my favorite fall dish: stew.  The process for making stew is simple.  Buy some beef, cut it into small pieces.  Get some veggies, either bought small or cut into small pieces.  Find some herbs.  Brown the meat, and add all of the chopped stuff into a pot or slow cooker with some beef broth and the herbs. then let it cook for 12 hours or so (18 hours never hurt anyone).

But, before I could start I needed a pot.  I left my well used slow cooker back in Minnesota two years ago and while it might be moving to New York with Fayaz, I wasn’t willing to wait until mid-October.  Still I didn’t want to get another slow cooker, potentially ending up with two in the house.  Over the summer Meg had gotten an amazing Le Creuset enameled dutch oven.  So before my stew making I headed out to look for a similar pot.

I started my search at Whisk, a fantastic cooking store in Williamsburg.  I found the Le Creusets colorfully sitting in the front of the store as always, but the prices seemed about $40 more than they should have been.  I next somehow ended up at Create and Barrel.  The only enameled dutch ovens they had in the store were the Mario Batali line.  Now I loved Batali on Iron Chef, but the whole celebrity chef branding thing kind of annoys me.  But more than my annoyance, the Mario dutch oven just looked much less substantial than the Le Creuset.  After a little foodie message board research I found a few complaints about the Mario line cracking—not the dutch oven I was looking for.

So I next headed to William–Sonoma.  Walking in I remembered how dangerous that store can be, how everywhere I look I see something else that I “need.”  With the help of a sales woman I found the Le Creuset I was looking for, the 5-qaurt yellow oval dutch oven.  But, as the manager went to the back to get the dutch oven I’d been looking at, the sales woman told me I might want to check out Staub.

I coincidentally had seen a debate on Staub versus Le Creuset on the boards while evaluating the Mario dutch oven.  The conflicts, in my mind, came down to personal opinion.  Some thought that, over the years, the Le Creuset’s cream colored interior stained.  The Staub camp felt the dimples in the Staub lid helped self-baste the joys in the pot.  In the end, I was persuaded in part by the dimples and in large part by the price and got the Staub.

For the Stew I first hit the farmer’s market.  I feel the heart of any stew is the potatoes, so I got three kinds: blue, red and yellow fingers.  I kept the potatoes I purchased small so pre-cooking cutting would be unnecessary.  In addition, I got some great small onions, a rainbow variety of carrots, some celeriac (celery root, which is great because I don’t like celery in my stew and it gives the celery flavor without the need for nasty celery), some herbs.  For the herbs I got a one bunch of savory and one bunch of thyme.   I also got some stewing beef (aka “low quality” beef chunks) and beef broth from Key Foods.

To start the stew I browned the outside of the meat (NEVER cook it all the way, that makes it too chewy) added the beef broth and veggies (chopped where necessary), and the herbs.

When the stew first got started I was very worried I had gone too strong to the hoop with the thyme and savory.  The smell of these herbs filled the apartment and in the past when I’ve made stew I’ve used a similar volume, but  greater diversity of herbs.  But, as time went by, the fragrances of the herbs in the apartment diminished.

As the stew cooked the bright colors of the potatoes and carrots diminished.  The dark blue of the potatoes, the red of the other potatoes and some the carrots faded.

But even faded, these colors added a great visual element to the stew (and at a increased cost of only about a $1.50 for the whole pot, relative to the normal boring colored ingredients).

The Stew, All Cooked

When the stew was done, I fished out the stems of the herbs (where I more fancy I would have used an herb bag—someday).

The end product was great; the perfect stew for a cool fall day.  It was far more than Nick and I could eat in a sitting.  But it kept well in the fridge.  What couldn’t be eaten from the fridge we froze.  While not ideal—freezing made the veggies became overly soft—freezing still gave us great stew over the coming weeks.

Overall, I had a great kick off to fall cooking.  Yes, with the 80 degree heat in New York, I’ll need to wait a bit longer, but soon my new pot and I will be back to some great work.

I googled Favre interception. There were lots of choices...

Well that last game sucked huh? If you would have told me that the Vikes would hold New Orleans to 14 points and have only one turnover, and STILL lose,  there’s no way I would have believed it. Oh well, at least my fantasy team seems to be doing well. Hopefully I won’t have to console myself this way all season long.

I hope you liked the buffalo chicken dip from last week. This week’s offering will be even more tasty, if for no other reason than it contains BACON! I absolutely love these little buggers, and every time I have made them they received rave reviews and inspired prolonged nagging that I should make them again. I like to make these when I’m going to a party or someone else’s place because you can make them completely beforehand and then just throw them in the oven when you get somewhere…. And also because I would eat the whole batch by myself if someone else wasn’t around.

Ingredients:

• 6 large jalapeno peppers
• 5 oz cream cheese, room temp
• 4 oz goat cheese (I usually use Chevre)
• 5 slices bacon
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 1 Tbsp fresh herbs (basil, chives, parsley, oregano), optional
• Salt and Pepper

Slice the jalapenos in half lengthwise and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds and ribs. Set these aside and make the filling.

First off, cook those bacon slices on medium heat until they are pretty well done. You want all the fat rendered out, and good amount of browning on the bacon.  Remove from the pan, chop them up and then throw that in whatever mixing bowl you are using for the cheesy goodness.

Then mince the garlic cloves. Turn it into garlic paste by adding a pinch of kosher salt to the garlic and then grinding it into the cutting board. Some people use their knife for this; I prefer the back of a spoon. Pasting the garlic will bring out the juices to mix with the cheese, and make it more homogenous so people don’t get chunks of raw garlic in their mouth.  Add the garlic to the bowl, along with the minced herbs (if you like), a few grinds of black pepper, and the cheeses. Mix well to combine and – if you have the time- cover it and refrigerate for an hour or two.

We all need more bacon in our lives.

Then pile the filling into the jalapeno shells. If you’re looking for an exact amount to put in each jalapeno, you are a deranged and misguided person. Just eye it; it’ll be good for you.  Put the poppers on a baking sheet and put them in an oven you’ve preheated to 350. Let them bake for 10 minutes, then transfer the sheet to beneath a broiler and finish them off for 2 or 3 minutes, until they look a little golden.  DON’T START DOING SOMETHING ELSE WHILE THESE ARE BROILING!!! These things are small, and you will burn the whole batch before you get half way done with whatever it was you were going to do.

Note: If you have leftover cheesy-goodness, it makes a fantastic spread for a baguette or crackers. Try it sometime, and you just might forget about the jalapenos  in the future.

VIKINGS-DOLPHINS PREVIEW:

I’m not entirely sure what to expect for this game, mainly because I think it might take Favre until after the bye week to truly be on the same page with all of his receivers. Here’s what I do know: AP is looking good. Last season we saw way more of those runs for no gun, or +/- 1 yard. Last week it looked like AP in year 1, where you knew every time he touched the ball was good for at least 4-6 yards. Throw in a few busted tackles and he can easily rack up 150+ yards in almost any game. I like what I see from him and this week I expect the Vikings to make a concerted effort to stick with the gameplan of feeding #28 the rock ALL DAY long.

We can’t look past Miami as much as we once could, they are definitely on the rise, but I like how we match up here. Our front seven has gotten, if possible, even better since last year and I cannot see the Fins running their way to victory in this game. I also don’t think Chad Henne has what it takes to win the game through the air when that becomes necessary. Vikes win in a low scoring rushing game, 21-17.

Arthur’s Two Cents: Looking back at last weekend I think that half the problem with Favre’s game was the offensive line. Yes, he isn’t completely in tune with receivers. BUT this man can throw the ball to anyone if he has the time. I think that versus Miami he’ll have at least a few more seconds in the pocket, which will give him time to look down field and come-up with some big plays.

Versus the Saints Favre didn’t seem to go for many long passes (only handful of attempts beyond 5 or maybe 10 yards). I’m not sure if this was his own caution or if it was Brad Childress’ play calling. Either way I think that against a team that is, still a threat, but not the defending Super Bowl champs, we’ll see at least a little of Favre from last year.