Freezer Adventures: Roasted Duck Red Curry

Confession: It's possible that I'm a bit of a food-hoarder.  I could tell you a sad story about the time in my life that I blame for this tendency, but it's really not that interesting or important.  The important thing is that I am the kind of person who winds up with a duck, 3 Magret duck breasts, and 4 duck leg quarters in my freezer for longer than is remotely necessary.  Half of that duck is going to turn into something Trinidadian soon. (Actually soon.  I promise.) The rest turned into one of my favorite foods: Roast Duck Red Curry...

How (Not) To Cook For One - Prosciutto, Cremini, and Pea Tortellini

I've been making an effort lately to make small batches of amazing food when I have a craving...  Not filling up the freezer and/or forcing myself to eat the same meal (no matter how delicious) 8 times in a row... I think of it as "cooking for one," but I'm really bad at it...  Here's how it happens.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes (And a Pasta to Use Them In)

For assorted not-particularly-interesting reasons, I've been finding myself with an excess of tomatoes these days.  Roasting (followed by freezing) has always been my go-to method for using up extra tomatoes, but recently I've discovered the beauty of super-duper-slow roasting them.  Behold:

Favorite Kitchen Tools: Batter Dispenser

My house smells like chicken stock right now.  Scratch that...  My house smells like ridiculously awesome chicken stock right now.  Perhaps my very favorite miracle of cooking is homemade stock.  I am a woman who buys more than her fair share of bulk-store rotisserie chicken. (It's juicy, perfectly cooked, and $5/bird every time.  I can't justify the time or money to buy a chicken and then do what it takes to make it that delicious when having it done for me is $5...)  This means that, at least a couple times each month, I have some lovely chicken carcasses with which to make stock.  I pull the meat off a couple carcasses, vacuum-seal breasts in one bag and dark meat in another (either to freeze or to re-therm later via sous vide).  Everything else goes in the pot.  A bundle of carrots. A bundle of celery. A red and a white onion. Bay leaves and parsley. Large handful of black peppercorns.  Fill a 20-quart stockpot with all of that and then cold water to reach 1" below the rim, simmer for 24-36 hours, and everything you make that calls for chicken stock suddenly has depth of flavor.  (It's kind of like the difference between sautéing in schmaltz vs. in oil.  If you know what I'm talking about, then... yeah.)

It was Michael Ruhlman who first made me realize how important this is (and I've mentioned it here before).  To quote, "I cannot say this strongly or loudly enough: DO NOT use canned stock/broth.  Use WATER instead.  I repeat.  You DO NOT NEED to buy that crappy can of Swanson’s low sodium chicken broth!  It will HURT your food.  Use water instead.  When that recipe says 1 cup of fresh chicken stock (or good quality canned broth), please know that your food, 90 percent of the time, will taste better if you use tap water instead of that "good quality" canned broth.  Water is a miracle."   

I suppose the secret hero of this post is actually the Pressure Canner (and, by non-trivial extension, my mother, who operates the pressure canner for me 99 times out of 100), which allows me to store my crazy-awesome homemade stock without a sacrifice of freezer space... But the hero I would like to acknowledge is the lowly Batter Dispenser. I originally owned one so that my boyfriend could make me pancakes, but it turns out it's actually the world's greatest fat separator...  The clean stock pours out the bottom, and you release the handle before the fat flows through.  Add more stock, the fat moves back to the top...  

What I've come to really love about homemade stock is all the ways it enriches things.  Buying the chickens gives me time off in the kitchen (since delicious protein ready to be flavored as you wish and used in any number of dishes makes for lots of easy meals).  It gives me 5-10 quarts (depending on how concentrated I make it) of kick-ass chicken stock to cook with.  It also, amazingly, makes dog food.  (It turns out the meat left on the carcasses (once picked) combines with the overcooked veggies from the stock, fresh rice, and some homemade chicken stock to give my toothless dog the greatest mealtime experience ever...)

This is the type of thing I like to think about these days.  I try (successfully or not) to minimize talk of my physical limitations when I write things here, but those limitations are typically the most screamingly relevant factor in every moment of my life.  It's been great to think about things I can do for (essentially) free and in less than 10 minutes of hands-on time that can also make every meal I cook taste just a little more nuanced and give my food that je ne sais quoi feeling that the person who cooked it for you loves you.

One-Pot Roasted Chicken with Potatoes and Sun-dried Tomato Cream

I saw this recipe at Damn Delicious and recognized right away that it sounded like "our flavors." After a few tweaks based on ingredients lying around my kitchen (and on my unwillingness to measure ingredients), this simple dish wowed us and entered the ranks of household staples... 

Extra-Meaty Ragú Napoletano

Every now and then, we get a craving for some old-school, rustic, meaty tomato sauce with pasta.  I've tried my hand at a couple different versions of bolognese, but there was always something missing. This meat sauce, on the other hand, is basically perfection, and I'm psyched to have 3 quarts more of it waiting for me in the freezer to satisfy our next craving...

Everyday Yumminess: "Holy Crap" Shrimp & Grits

Mothers' Day was this past weekend, and we thought making my mom brunch at home made a lot more sense than waiting in super-long lines at any of our favorite brunch spots in town.  Shrimp & Grits came to mind right away, which led us on a recipe search when we realized we had no idea how we'd made this dish last time.  I found a recipe at allrecipes.com (of all places) that (with a couple minor changes) turned out to be pretty darned spectacular, and when all was said and done we found ourselves sitting down to one of the most awesomely delicious meals we've cooked in recent memory, leading me to exclaim several times during brunch "Holy crap!  This is AMAZING!"

Everyday Yumminess: Double-Cut Pork Chops with Rustic Polenta and Chanterelle Cream

One of my deep-seated (and largely irrational) kitchen fears is cooking bone-in meat for guests.  I trust myself when I'm cooking for just me, and I'm starting to get there cooking for me and Devin, but I hate over-cooked meat as much as I dread seeing a guest cut into their pork or chicken only to find it under-cooked at the bone.  I realized the other day that this is pretty much the entire reason I got in the habit of cooking pork tenderloin rather and boneless chops rather than bone-in pork chops (and it is an irrelevant fear now because sous vide allows me to cheat on final internal temperature).  After cooking this meal, I see that it's a crying shame I left this ingredient out of my repertoire for so many years.  The inspiration was a couple gorgeous double-cut Carlton Farms pork chops that found their way home with us from Laurelhurst Market.  The result was one of the best simple meals we've sat down to in a long time...

Random Pet Post: A New Member of the Household

Ever since deciding to try my hand at posting here again, I've been struggling to actually sit down and do it.  I could blame any number of things, but the most adorable excuse I have is that it's hard to type with this little sweetheart lounging on my lap...

Everyday Yumminess: Perfect Sous Vide Mayo

Hello, there.  It's been a while since I've posted here.  I've still been having fun in the kitchen, but things have changed such that I now have a partner-in-crime who distracts me from taking pictures and noting changes I make to recipes...  I've been more about enjoying the cooking than documenting the cooking, which anyone who loves cooking knows isn't a bad thing... Anyway, this is something I came across a few months back in Modernist Cuisine at Home that totally rocked my world: Modernist Mayo.  It's rich, decadent, bullet-proof (emulsion-wise), and actually easy...  Things start with 75g of egg yolks (5 or so...).

Those are vacuum-sealed and cooked sous vide for 35 minutes at 67°C.  (Reading the recipe now, I was apparently supposed to blend them first, but in 5 times making this I've never done that and it's always turned out perfectly, so...) The yolks get all smushified, anyway, when you vacuum seal them, and come out pretty well mixed anyway...

Meanwhile, you'll stir together some (45g) water and Dijon (25g) in a mixing container.  When the yolks are ready, you immersion-blend them to smoothness, then start drizzling in about 300g of neutral oil in (while running your immersion blender.

I made this little immersion-blending-lid after one too many experiences making traditional mayo, when it ended up sprayed halfway across my kitchen...  It turns out this lid is completely superfluous with Modernist Mayo, given the thick texture... When the oil has been emulsified, you can season to taste (I like a little lemon juice and salt), and you have on your hands a batch of perfect mayo...

(This also happens to be the perfect base for Fry Sauce and Sriracha Mayo... but we'll talk abou that later...)  Back soon with more yumminess...  

Everyday Yumminess: Carnitas Hash with Eggs

This is one of those meals where I started with a recipe... but then failed to follow any part of that recipe and still ended up with something super-yummy.  In the end, I suppose the recipe just stuck an idea in my head: "Carnitas Hash is probably delicious."  A few weeks later, when I had some carnitas vacuum-sealed in the freezer and found myself with extra Yukon Gold potatoes, it seemed like the best possible way to remedy those two situations...

Happy Birthday To Me!

A couple weeks ago I had a kick-ass group of friends over for my annual birthday dinner.  It's the first time I've been able to do it at my own place since moving back to Portland, and I don't think it's a stretch to say it was one of my most delicious birthday menus ever...

For the trio of plated appetizers, we had Shrimp Mosaic with Avocado-Melon Salsa, Super-Crispy Calamari, and Vodka-Spiked Grape Tomatoes...

The two dishes on the sides are old favorites, but the calamari was a new recipe.  The batter is made with vodka and soda water, and crisps up beautifully when it fries...  Next up was another old favorite, Creamy Asparagus Soup with Lemon Dumplings.

These little dumplings are filled with super-bright homemade lemon "jello," which melts when the dumplings cook and then explodes into the soup when you take a bite.  I wanted the guests to get to see what was hiding under their soup, so we poured the soup tableside...

The salad course came from Zak Pelaccio's "Eat With Your Hands" cookbook: a Crispy Pork Belly and Watermelon Salad.

I went ahead and compressed the watermelon, since I love the texture and it's so much prettier, but other than that this was just as written.  The pickled watermelon rind was beautifully spicy and was perfect with the crispy pork...  Mmm....  Because I'm addicted to scallops, I added a seafood course this year in the form of a Seared Diver Scallop with Ginger-Carrot Emulsion.

The sauce is from Thomas Keller's Peas and Carrots, but I passed it through a whipping siphon so that I could make it in advance.  The siphon re-emulsifies the sauce when you reheat it, and also adds a crazy-awesome texture...  The main course was a Horseradish-Crusted Rib-Eye with Red Wine Jus and Crispy Potato Ruffles...

And, finally, the meal finished up with Thomas Keller's take on Strawberry Shortcake...

This plated up way prettier the first time I made it (see below), but was delicious even when ugly...  

By the time we got home from some late-night post-dinner karaoke, I have to say this was one of my best birthdays ever... A super-fun evening with totally awesome company and fantastic food...  It will be hard to top it next year, but I'll see what I can do...

Recipe Revisited: Seared Spring Salmon with Melted Leeks and Herbed Beurre Blanc

This is a recipe I've made (and loved) before, but I had to post again because it was even more mind-blowing this time with three small changes.  I don't like to make many alterations to Thomas Keller's recipes, because he's pretty much always right... but I feel like my leeks turned out better (and infinitely easier) by switching up the technique a little.  The recipe for this amazing dish is here, and I highly recommend trying it out next time you get your hands on some beautiful salmon...

Everyday Yumminess: Chicken Divan Casserole

My mom tells me that she sometimes made Chicken Divan Casserole for us when we were growing up. I am not about to call my mother a liar, but somehow the food memory didn't dig itself very far into my brain, so this isn't a dish I would have thought to seek out a recipe for and make... A couple weeks ago, though, a friend mentioned some pangs of nostalgia for the Chicken Divan his mom had made for him when he was young...and what kind of friend would I be if I didn't try to make a version of this classic for him? (I know the pictures of the finished dish are a little scrappy, but it's comfort food so I wasn't about to mess around with fancy plating...)

Sous Vide Makes it Better: Two Curries

I haven't made a lot of "new" dishes lately, but something I do a lot of is re-making things I've made before, only switching the cooking method over to sous vide.  I tried this with two curries last week, and was incredibly happy (for different reasons) with both dishes...  The first dish was Beef Rendang with Roti Canai.

Everyday Yumminess: My Favorite Buttery Flatbread

As I mentioned when I made the Mission Street Food Buttery Flatbread, one of the reasons I was a little disappointed by that flatbread was my preexisting love of an easier version...  I first made these Roti Canai almost 5 years ago when I was still living in Australia.  (I have no idea where the original recipe came from anymore...) They're kind of fun to make, super-delicious, and super-buttery...  

Valentine's Feast (Alternate Title: My Mom is Awesome)

UPDATE: I've now uploaded the recipes here if anyone wants to recreate portions of this meal... The soup with lemon dumplings is here.

As I was enjoying an amazing 5-course dinner with my parents last night, I realized something: Nobody has ever cooked a dinner party for me.  I love to cook (obviously), and I love throwing dinner parties, but it was one of the nicest gifts my mom could have given me when she prepared everything for this feast and then brought the whole production over to my house so that she and my dad could share it with me.  There's sometimes a misconception about us people who are obsessed with food and cooking... an idea that, because we love to go crazy in the kitchen, we're going to be harsh critics of other people's cooking and thus are too intimidating to cook for... (When, in fact, I love very simple food, too... and even a grilled cheese sandwich is enough to rock my world if I didn't have to make it myself...) Even though this wasn't a cool restaurant or my own cooking, I wanted to share the meal my mom prepared for us...

Cookbook Adventures: Mission Street Food (Updated)

Mission Street Food is another one of those books that I couldn't wait to get my hands on, but then didn't manage to play with until now...  

Now that I've tried a few recipes, I think it may be a while before I break it out again... Everything was sort of in that "good... but not as great as I'd hoped..." category.

I love the philosophy of the book, and I love the ideas behind the recipes, but it may end up being one of those books that I turn to more for inspiration than for guidance...

Sous Vide Duck Confit

I've been meaning to make Duck Confit for a long time, but it took a while to decide I really wanted to stock up my freezer with duck legs and duck fat...  I finally took the plunge and picked up some gorgeous duck products a few months ago, and then it was on...

Pizza Fest: Playing with My New Baking Steel

After all the buzz on the interwebs, I couldn't resist spending some Christmas-present money on a new toy: the baking steel... It turns out all the hype is correct.  

(As you can see, I got the 1/2-inch version.) I tried three different crusts on my new steel, and every one of them blew me away with how amazing it turned out... 

Yum...