What I Ate For Dinner

Cilantro-Lime BBQ Chicken

Sun, 15 May 2011 18:51:47 -0800

This is one of the simplest bar-b-que chicken preparations I've ever been around. It relies on a light marinade to protect and enhance the chicken out on the grill as well as a cilantro-lime vinaigrette calibrated to give an acidic, herbal edge to the finished product. That's it.

For the marinade, combine a handful of brown sugar, two parts soy sauce, one part white wine vinegar, and one part cheap oil (canola, low-grade olive, whatever). Cracked black pepper optional. Blend it all up with a whisk, and thin it out with as much water as you've got marinade (that is, you should wind up with one part marinade and one part water). The vinaigrette will compensate for any flavor loss caused by watering down the marinade.

I use drumsticks since it saves the hassle of skewering white meat. Place the drumsticks in a Ziploc bag and cover with marinade. Squeeze out as much of the air as possible, seal the bag and place the whole deal in a bowl or other leak-proof vessel. Allow to marinate for an hour or so in the 'fridge. Then grill till done.

Once you've pulled the chicken off the grill, let the drumsticks cool while you knock out the vinaigrette. Start with chopped cilantro--a bunch. Add the juice of one lime, and one part soy sauce, one part white vinegar, one-half part sesame oil and fresh cracked black pepper (optional). Emulsify all of the above with a whisk, drench the chicken liberally and arrange with baronial panache on a paper towel (to soak up excess vinaigrette).

This one goes great with lightly sautéed vegetables such as bell pepper, zuccini, new potatoes and the like. While sautéing, a round of fresh chopped rosemary and a wallop of white wine (with which to deglaze) would send this one into orbit.

Lamb Shanks Remix

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:42:28 -0800

My adoration of all things braised has been documented here before, but I've recently come to question my faith in the slow roasts. Somewhere along the line, it dawned on me: this is boring. Braising, I reasoned, is a crusty method from the 18th century that produces uniformly subdued flavors. It lacks curb appeal. It feels like a brown plaid suit. If it were a car, it would be a Ford Granada. I mean, you can't make this stuff sexy, and I'm not going to be the first to try. So I broke it off with braising. I wanted revolutionary food! Food that's punk, food that pisses people off, veritable anarchist cuisine! I wanted to destroy the plate and palate. But then, staring apostasy in the face, I buckled. I came back around. Braised foods have heart. They've got warmth. They care, they really do. And I figured that if I could make them just a bit easier, maybe the low bar that separates success from failure with braising (and it can't get much lower) might become clearable almost as if by accident. Well, then, there'd be hardly any way to avoid it if it's this easy. Conservative cuisine; probably. A layup; sure, no argument. But it feels like home.

Since the last time I did lamb shanks, I've figured out a few ways to streamline the process, remove what I view as superfluous steps, and bring one of the easier dishes out there even closer to hand. So here's the lamb shank redux, which I think produces an identical flavor to the classical method (also paraphrased below) with even less effort.

lamb shanks remix from the baron on Vimeo.

Start with the shanks in a pan with a lid. A sauté pan works, as does a dutch oven or something of the sort. I've come to notice there's really no good reason to sear the shanks. It's a hassle, smokes up the joint, and produces a result that only melts away into braised oblivion in the end--so I say, forget it. Instead, just put a thick coat of beef or chicken stock in the bottom of the pan with the shanks. If you have no stock, just use white wine. Add a handful of chopped shallots, some fresh herbs if you have 'em, and season with salt and pepper. Throw the lid on, and pop it an oven preheated to around 325. That's it.

Turn the shanks every hour or so. Let them go for between three and four hours. You can go longer if you're really feelin' the braiseage.

Last time I did a sauce with the pan drippings and wine, which works great, but requires dexterous jockeying of a hot pan with lamb shanks waiting to slop out. To avoid an inelegant transfer, you might try this sauce du baron. Start by sautéing chopped shallots in butter. Once they start to color, kill the heat and toss in a half-a-handful of flour. Whirl it around with a wire whisk until the flour starts to clump up with the butter and shallots. Then douse with red wine--enough to put a thick coat (quarter-inch?) on the bottom of the pan. Top it off with a cube or two of demi (good glug of the darkest stock you have will also do). Turn the heat back up to simmer to cook off the alcohol, season with salt, whisk a few times, and you're done.

Gremolata has already been explained here, but I figured out an easier way to make that, too. Gremolata is typically lemon and lime zest, salt and pepper, and a few bits of raw garlic. First, skip the garlic. Second, use a vegetable peeler to get the zest off the citrus instead of a zester. Yes, this is a short-cut, and no, it's not exactly the same. But it's a lot easier. My zester sucks, and it takes forever to peel off tiny shards of zest from a lime. So, use the vegetable peeler and try to remove as thin a slice as possible. That is, get just the outer layer of the citrus peel. Then chop it up into the finest bits possible. They'll be more like flakes, but it's just as good. Season it up, and you're ready to roll.

Serve it up with a simple salad, or quick pickled carrots (julienne carrots, sprinkle with kosher salt, and allow to sit at room temp for 5 minutes to soften).

Savory Duck Crepes

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 21:03:24 -0800

Duck legs can be vexing. They're about half the price of the breasts if you buy them separately, which tells you something about how the callous capitalist system regards them relative to their boneless brethren. The meat is great, succulent and rich, but the bones, tendons and cartilage that traverse the thigh and drumstick compose an anatomical dragnet that can be daunting to navigate with a knife and fork. So I wanted to figure out a way to make finger food out of duck legs without offending their dignity. What I came up with is a savory crepe dish that's easy to eat and still features the duck's essential unctuous qualities.

The duck is easy, and I've done it before on the blog. Score the skin several times to allow the fat underneath to render out. Season with salt and pepper, and place in a moderately hot skillet or fry pan. No need for oil in the pan since tons of duck fat will soon coat the bottom anyway. Allow the skin to turn golden brown, about 7-8 minutes. Then transfer to another pan and place in a 350 degree oven to finish off. Should take 10 or so minutes. You do want to transfer the duck to a separate pan before roasting so that the rendered duck fat can cool before you discard it or use for the crepes; if you throw it in the oven with all the rendered duck fat, it'll start smoking something awful.

Now to the crepes. You'll need three per serving, so for two servings, combine two eggs, about a half cup or so of milk and about a cup of flour, along with salt and pepper. Those are approximate measurements. The idea is to have a thick but pourable batter--just like pancake batter. Adjust as you go; more flour to thicken it up, some water or milk to thin it out.

Savory Duck Crepes from the baron on Vimeo.

In a non-stick pan, heat some of the duck fat (or butter) on medium high heat. Pour enough batter in to put a thick coat on the bottom of the pan. Swirl the batter around the edge of the pan two or three times to thin it out and increase the size of the crepe. As it sets up, the top of the wet batter will dry out and become like a moist sponge; bubbles will form and then break. Once the batter starts to dry on top, flip it. This seeems tricky at first, and it's basically sink or swim. The basic technique, though, is to slide the crepe forward and then cock the back end down, flipping the crepe 180 degrees back into the pan. You could slide the crepe out of the pan onto a plate and the flop it back in, raw side down, if you want to avoid the flip. It's a very useful skill to have, though. Let the raw side get a bit of color, which should only take a moment or two. Yank it out and repeat.

I've also done the pico de gallo here before. It's just chopped tomato (small dice), a modest amount of chopped shallot, lots of chopped fresh cilantro, lime juice and pepper. Serrano chili would add some heat if you want it.

The vinaigrette for the duck is key since it gives a sweet/sour tang to the final product. Mix one part hoisin sauce, one part vinegar (white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar or rice vinegar is fine), one part sesame oil and one part soy sauce. Emulsify them. Once you have the duck off the bone, chop it into bite-sized pieces, drench in the vinaigrette, and allow the excess to drip off for a few seconds as you pull it out. Place in a bowl lined with a paper towel so that they don't get too saturated with the vinaigrette.

Quick pickled carrots top it off. Just slice the carrots as into strips as thinly as possible, sprinkle with kosher salt and let sit at room temp for 5 minutes. Bean sprouts are great, too, and require no preparation.

Assembly should be obvious.

French Onion Soup (of sorts)

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:08:38 -0800

Some recipes shouldn't be fiddled with. When simplicity is best, modification means degeneration. Perhaps this is never more true than when it comes to caramelized onions, beef stock, red wine and a crouton. It seems unthinkable that French onion soup could ever be improved. And since it's so easy to make, there's no reason to deviate from the mainstream at all. At all! Whereas some staples of the bistro menu are quite toilsome to prepare at home (pommes frites, for example), French onion soup operates on the opposite end of the work-to-reward index as a simple dish that always delivers. That's probably why it was one of the first things I loved cooking. Even with little experience or technique, the sublime virtues of an impeccable French onion soup were immediately within reach. So why corrupt it, even a little?

I'm sentimental about lots of things, but food isn't typically one of them. And yet, this time I feel like I'm bludgeoning something I truly love. But I gotta. I guess somewhere around the 543rd time I made French onion soup, I got tired of something. It's too heavy, too onion-y, too much of one (very good) thing. And the cheese always burns under the broiler, which is cool to some people, but less cool to clean up. So I wondered if a bit of balance might make the onion shine even brighter. I thought of carrot: mild flavor, great color (which this hoary specimen could use) and not too much of anything else to blot out the onion. And then I thought I'd tone down the onion a bit, too, by going with shallot instead. I figure shallots are more pungent, have a finer texture and are lighter than onions. They also caramelize a lot quicker (thanks to their small surface area, I suppose). And there you have it, the makings of a new-school French onion soup (of sorts). To do this the old-fashioned way, just use onions and leave out the carrot.

French Onion Soup (of sorts) from the baron on Vimeo.

If you've never done this before, you probably need a lot more shallots/onions than you think you do. By the time you cook them down, you'll be left with about a quarter (or so) of the volume that you started with. That's a guess, but the point is that these guys will disappear on you. So put a bunch in even though we're trying to lighten things up. I probably add about a cup of raw chopped shallot per serving. Check the video for the visual.

Then caramelize the shallots. I mean really. They need to be about as close to burned as possible, without, of course, crossing the line. Something like a milk chocolate color--deep brown--is what you want. Some of the edges on a few shards may even go over to the dark side. That's ok since deep cartelization is absolutely essential. A big pot with lots of surface area on the bottom will help--something like a sauté pan is a good idea. Season as you go with salt and pepper. I noticed that my shallots got there in about 15 minutes (two servings), much quicker than when I've used onions.

Once the shallots are close to fully caramelized, add the half-inch dice of carrot. Your call on how much, although I'd say you need about the same volume of raw carrot as you have caramelized shallots (if not more). Move them around the pan and let them get a bit of color before rolling in with the liquids. You can add a few (go light) shards of beef at this point if you have some to use up; it's a good addition, though not of the essence.

As for the liquids: start with beef stock and follow up with a few good glugs of red wine. Dust it off with a few sips of balsamic. Season with salt and pepper and allow the liquids to reduce on a medium simmer for at least 15 minutes, but preferably longer.

You'll know it's done when it tastes right. I like some sweetness from the aromatics, and palpable body from the stock and wine, too. I guess balance and body are the key terms here. It should be full flavored, so keep reducing if the taste remains too thin. You'll know when you're there.

Traditionally, you pour the soup into an ovenable crock, top with a hunk of bread, utterly overwhelm with cheese, and then slide the whole deal under the broiler. And this works. But an easier way to do it is to slice a baguette lengthwise, place the bread on a cookie sheet, top with Gruyere or Emmentaler Swiss, and bake until the cheese melts. A vegetable peeler is good for shaving off thin slices of cheese. Easier cleanup, lighter food, similar cheesy result.

Cocktails: The Manhattan and Caipirinha

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:58:15 -0800

Making cocktails is like cooking with liquor. Except the recipe is (classically) always the same: something sweet, something sour, something strong, and a cute garnish. That's basically it. And yet, at-home bartending used to seem like a high-risk, high-reward venture to me. Unlike the $4 whole fryer chicken, alcohol can set you back. And as much as I try to deny aphorisms, it seems like you get what you pay for with the potables even more so than with the edibles (debatable, but . . .). Sometimes you luck out and are initiated into the inner circle of a tasty Reposado's intimate cadre. Other times, you're left with a $25 bottle of barely sampled Rumplemintz for which you wonder what you can get on Craigslist. So I used to try all my new boozes exclusively at bars. If I were curious about something, I'd leave the pros with the bottle and decide for myself over a more modest sampler-size rocks glass. Then I realized that's stupid. For what you pay for two cocktails (and sometimes shots), you could well nigh take home a whole fifth (or more!) from Safeway. So now I roll the dice in the "Liquor Isle" pining for untasted ecstasies at the bottom of whatever bottle's on sale. Salut!

I must say that for most traditional cocktails, one ought not jigger with a good thing. Classic cocktails are classic for a reason. And yet, for me, there are moments when it seems something might be a bit more to my taste than the dogma of the old school. We shall encounter such moments with the Manhattan and Caipirinha tonight. With apologies to purists, I am not sentimental about these drinks--how could I be? I'd never had either of them a month ago. Instead of an apology for what may be deemed heresy, however, allow me a mere explanation of my methods.

Cocktails: The Manhattan and Caipirinha from the baron on Vimeo.

Manhattans are easy. They require only cheap ingredients, and none of them (save the garnish) need be fresh, so they're easy to have at the ready. Traditionally stirred, I shake'em. Mostly because I usually make them two at a time, and it's easier to shake two at once than to stir them. And because I don't yet have one of those long curly spoons made for stirrin'. Oh well.

Drop three ice cubes in the shaker. The ice both chills and dilutes this assertive sip. Add one to one-and-a-half shot(s) of rye, half as much sweet vermouth (half-ish shot), and one dash of Angostura bitters. That's for one drink. Shake it up and pour into a Martini glass. As for garnish, I go with fresh blackberries. I simply despise the traditional maraschino cherry, although this makes me a blasphemous bartender in the eyes of some.

A Caipirinha is easy, too, but you'll need Cachaça (a Brazilian rum-style liquor). Traditionally, you muddle lime slices, add simple syrup and Cachaça, then shake and pour into a rocks glass over ice. I've tried it that way. Maybe I goofed it, but I could not abide the pulp and mangled limes. So I do it almost like a martini or margarita, which may mean I've 'naturalized' this south side fave'. Anyway, I start by adding a dab of simple syrup (or agave nectar, which is what I usually have on hand) to the bottom of a martini glass. Roll in with the juice of one half lime that you've passed through a strainer to remove pulp. Then add a shot to a shot-and-a-half of the Cachaça. Stir, and garnish with a twist of the lime peel. I add an ice cube since this one's best cold.

Pan-Seared, Oven-Roasted Duck Breast

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:04:03 -0800

Pan-seared and oven-roasted duck breast is one of my favorites--right up there with sea scallops and braised lamb shanks. And with the graces of my Safeway Club Card, I've recently been able to secure morsels of my most beloved fowl at half the going rate. This, I should add, is one of my greatest coups to-date using my new shopping method. I used to go to the farmers' market and cruise the stalls, stalking the freshest produce and choicest cuts. That's a great way to cook, if you have the time and the cash. I don't always. So, I came up with an improvised (but still interesting) alternative: go to Safeway and buy whatever meat is cheap, and figure out the meal from there. Saves cash and obviates delicate deliberations. That's how I got into Tri-Tip. Same with Beef Ribs. And I'm still trying to figure out something to do with 13 pounds of pork shoulder, because that stuff is always on sale. La cuisine du marché be damned! This is La Cuisine Pragmatique de Safeway!

So, I got the whole bird since it's only 8 bucks (that is, with your Safeway card; $16 normally). Slice off the breasts and that's all we need for this one. Save the thigh/drumstick nugget for another time.

Start by scoring the skin of the breasts several times to allow the fat below to render out. Then throw them in a sauté or fry pan heated to medium-high. I don't think you have to even put oil in the pan since you'll soon have duck fat rollin' out by the barrel. Render out the fat and crisp the skins. I usually remove the liquefied fat halfway through to reduce smokage/stinkage.

Seared Duck Breast from the baron on Vimeo.

Once seared, the breasts will only take a few minutes (7-8?) in an oven preheated to 350. To allow for a margin of timing error, let them rest on the stove while you start the potatoes and carrots. Put a quarter-inch coat of the liquefied duck fat on the bottom of a skillet, and when heated to medium-high, roll in with a one-inch dice of potatoes and carrots. Sometimes they stick, so be sure to push them around a few times with a spoon as you season with salt and pepper. With the root vegetables, you're going for golden-brown on the edges of the potatoes. They should still be firm to the tooth when finished. Should take 10 or so minutes.

Throw the duck in the oven once you have the taters goin'. Look for doneness on the duck as you would on filet mignon. It should still be tender, even soft, to the touch and juicy when you pull it out. As I say, this won't take long in a preheated oven, so keep an eye on it.

Now the sauce. Sauté shallots in duck fat (you can't throw it down the disposal, so you might as well use it up now) until blonde. Then add two cubes of demi or a half-cup (or so) of beef or chicken stock. Bring to a simmer. While that's happening, place several blackberries (or raspberries) in a glass and fill with enough red wine to cover the berries. Smash the berries against the side of the glass with a spoon. You probably want to do this over the sink with the glass pointed away from you since any splatter quickly becomes an irredeemable stain. You don't need to purée this all the way; just get some of the berry liquid out and call it done. Consider it a rustic, provincial preparation. Pour the wine/berry mix in with the demi/stock and simmer for a few moments. Thicken if you need to with a simple roux (equal parts oil and flour), season and you're done. This sauce can go on most anything and is excellent with duck.

I finish this one off with green beans. Sauté them in duck fat on medium-high heat briefly (a minute or two) and then kill the heat and deglaze with a thick coat (half inch) of white wine. Turn the heat back on to medium and allow the beans to simmer in the wine until they green up (you'll notice a change in color) and become firm to the tooth. It should only take a moment. Et Voila!

Beef and Barley Soup

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:39:53 -0800

All soups are basically a lie. The best and the worst, the patrician and the plebian, all originate from a fundamental dishonesty. Soup represents cheap, scrappy, gnarled hunks as (somehow) full-flavored, colorful and balanced bites. Making soup is like laundering dirty food: you know what you put in there and where it came from, but you hope no one asks because you're trying to disguise it. The keys to good soup are choosing chunks and knobs of meat, vegetables and herbs that work well together, (hopefully) having some good stock around, and seasoning it all right. To be a good soup maker, you have to think like a good counterfeiter: the final product is all that matters, but it has to appear to be a carefully considered, cohesive morsel even if its constituents are no more than scraps that have passed their peak. People gotta believe that your soup comes from nothing but the best, and the best soups taste like they do (even when they don't). You can't be indiscriminate in combining your ingredients, though, or you'll get caught. After all, soup isn't a trash heap; it's a crucible. Take the beef and barley variety, for instance. It's a marvelous example of how a few basic staples available fresh year-round can produce a result exponentially better than the sum of its parts. And the ingredient line-up with this one is open to interpretation: corn would be good,for example, and the roasted bell peppers, though excellent, are not the difference between success and failure.

Start by tossing chopped bell pepper and tomato in salt, pepper and olive oil, and then roasting them at 450 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. The pieces on the edges might get a bit burned, but most should only darken and soften. Be careful about this: once a burned flavor shows up in a soup, it never leaves.

Beef and Barley Soup from the baron on Vimeo.

While the peppers and tomato are roasting, sauté shallot and carrots in a sauté pan until the shallots are blonde/brown. Then add the roasted bell peppers and tomatoes, barley, and beef cut into (roughly) one-inch cubes (I used tri-tip since that's what I had, and I wouldn't use anything more expensive than that for this soup. Sirloin or chuck would also work). Finish with chopped fresh sage or rosemary, and season with salt and pepper.

Now add your liquids: beef stock (about 1qt per two-three portions), a healthy glug of full-bodied red wine, and some balsamic vinegar. Simmer on low to moderate heat for about a half-hour.

After a half-hour, taste it. Reseason as necessary. Optionally, you can squeeze a few drops of lime juice in at the end to brighten the flavors and bind the soup. Serve it up with a toasted baguette.

Grilled Tri Tip

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:59:22 -0800

One silver lining of the recession is that it offers a veritable open-mic night to less lovely, but altogether edible, foodstuffs. Instead of the old standards fillet and strip, for example, broke beef eaters remember during tough times that cows have more than those two muscles. True story. Other cuts are cheaper and oftentimes as (or even more) flavorful than the primetime playboys. Some of the best known of these "other red meats" are bavette (aka flank), hanger and tri tip, all of which happily occupy a sinewy ghetto on the belly of the beast. Fillet and strip would consider this fibrous neighborhood the wrong side of the bovine's anatomical tracks. If you're low on cash, though, such opinions of the effete bourgeoisie of beef might become a bit less persuasive, especially with these more economical nuggets vying for your attention. So don't get nervous about the raw characteristics of less "prestigious" cuts like tri tip or hanger steak: I'll describe an acidic marinade that can tenderize 'em, and how a slow grill over moderate heat can bring out the best of these "J.V." slivers. Compared to their more expensive neighbors, cheaper cuts like these are more interesting to cook, and therefore more rewarding, too. Keep in mind, though, that you don't want to cook them past medium-rare, or they'll toughen up something awful. (In my opinion, that's true for all cuts of beef, and especially for these.)

Tonight we're doing tri tip, which is the triangular hunk leanin' off the sirloin. Start with a marinade. Mix roughly one part soy sauce, one part vinegar (balsamic or white wine), one part oil (something cheap is good, like peanut oil), and a half part water. Season with fresh cracked black pepper, and whisk it up until the liquids emulsify. Then, place a ziploc bag inside a ceramic vessel (or something else that's leakproof), slip your beautiful tri tip wedge into the bag, and add the marinade. Seal the bag almost all the way, but leave an opening through which to squeeze out as much air from the bag as possible. This is basically home-style vacuum sealing, and it ensures maximum contact between the marinade and all surfaces of the beef but requires only the minimum amount of marinade for the purpose. I've marinated tri tip like this for anywhere between one and thirty six hours. Probably don't want to go less than one hour; no need to go thirty-six, though. Your call.

Grilled Tri Tip from the baron on Vimeo.

We've done grilling here before. For tri tip, be sure to bank the coals to one side in order to create a range of heat intensity. Lean the thickest end of the tri tip toward the center of the coals (where it's hottest), and let the thinner tail portion stretch into a cooler region. For a two pound slice, the grilling should take about 20-25 minutes.

Mashed potatoes are easy, but the method in Bourdain's cookbook improved my ole standard considerably, so I'll pass it on here. The key: boil the milk and butter first, then whip them in with skinned, fork-tender potatoes you've boiled in advance with a whisk, and season. I think boiling the dairy stuff first yields a more fluffy, creamy product. Be sure not to overwork them though, or you'll lose those assets. And take care not to splatter the boiling butter/milk--that's one of the nastier burns.

Leaner, tougher cuts like tri tip need sauce more than most. Here's an easy one: sauté shallots in butter until blonde, whisk in a judicious handful of flour to form a roux, and kill the heat. Deglaze with a healthy glug of red wine--get a solid half-inch or so pool on the bottom of your pan. Then, throw in some demi (bless you for making demi) or some beef stock (respectable substitute), and reduce by half. I guess the ratio of wine to demi/stock would be about 2:1. Season with salt, and balance with lime juice (if too sweet) or brown sugar (if too sour).

I serve it up with a simple arugula salad, dressed lightly with sesame oil, salt and a bit of lime juice.

Cornish Game Hen

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:18:38 -0800

I've never really agreed with the notion that you judge a cook by his roast chicken. The technique is pretty straightforward, sure, but I figure there are all manner of cooks in the world, many of whom could give a damn about roast chicken. Hell, I'm usually one of them. The bird itself makes no sense: the thighs cook at a different rate than the breasts, and the thighs that cook slower are tucked away while those big ole breasts protrude into the arid oven as if they're hopin' to get dried out. It's kind of like trying to roast a sinewy lamb shank and a tender filet mignon at the same time, no? And the difference between good and average with poultry is greater than for most meats. If you think you can just shove the bird, legs agape, wings flailing, into a hot oven and yank out a moist and sumptuous dinner thirty minutes later, you probably also know how bad things can get without at least a gesture toward technique. It's easy to do it right, but give the bird its due: at their juicy best, these guys really deliver, but at anything less, you've got dry, chalky meat chipping off the bone like mortar. I know I've personally been responsible for things going south in a hurry. And when they do, there ain't no amount o' saucin' go'in help that. So cook your game hen or chicken or turkey with the resolution to take it to the peak of flavor--and not a step further. To do just that, this technique, adapted from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, is one of the more reliable I've seen.

Start by taking the giblets out of the bird (if they're there) and making sure the whole bird is completely thawed (if you bought it frozen). Dry it off. Then rub it down with salt and pepper. Since the salt and pepper is going to come into contact with the raw poultry (either directly or through your chicken hands), you want to mix the salt and pepper in an isolated dish dedicated to the purpose. Throw away any remainder. Be sure to season the cavity! There's meat in there, too.

Cornish Game Hen from the baron on Vimeo.

Next, load the cavity up with diced onion, lemon wedges (or quarters), and chopped fresh rosemary. Now the butter. You want to slide a knob of butter underneath the skin of the breast meat. There should be a way to wedge your finger between the meat and skin WITHOUT rupturing the skin. You may want to trim away the top part, where the skin and meat abut to form a seam, to make this easier. Get at least two knobs in there, one per breast. More the better.

Now on to trussing the chicken. This part's easier done than said, so check the video. Basically, you cross the legs perpendicularly (or nearly so), and tie them with kitchen twine. Be sure there's nothing in the string you're using that will melt in the oven. Next, cock each wing back behind the bird so that the tips are touching the shoulder blade area. Sort of like a full Nelson. Run another length of kitchen twine around the wings and tie 'er up. This will help the chicken cook relatively evenly.

Place the chicken in a roasting pan or other oven worthy vessel. Surround the bird with potatoes, onions and carrots, and put about a half-inch thick coat of white wine on the bottom of the vessel. Pop it in an oven preheated to 350 for about 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of your bird.

After the 20-30 minute initial roast, knock the heat up to 425-450 for the last 20 or so minutes. That'll give you a good bronze on the skin. It's all done when the juices from the thigh joint run clear.

For a simple sauce: sauté shallots in butter until blonde, then sprinkle a delicate handful of flour over them. Mix in the flour to form a roux. Then, deglaze with white wine and add demi (ideal) or a glug of chicken or beef stock (respectable) in a proportion equal to the earlier glug of white wine. Season, reduce by half, and you're done.

Some places serve up the whole Cornish game hen to a single patron, full skeleton 'n all. Seems awkward to me. Instead, you might consider separating the thigh joint from the rest of the bird so that you're left the thigh and drumstick as an independent unit. Then, I usually yank out the drumstick bone since it's easy enough to get out. Leave the thighbone in; it's a pain to get out and not that big a deal anyway. Serve up the thigh-drumstick slab with some of the breast meat (which is easy to carve off). Now you've got the whole shebang on the plate and only one bone (thigh) to worry about. And you've navigated the only roast with two kinds of meat that cook differently, and you've done it with admirable panache.

Ginger Scallion Noodles

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:14:14 -0800

Noodles are good to have in the repertoire: they're cheap, they keep and in most cases you can make a meal out of them with only a few adjuncts. So they're practical. But then there's the other part, which I used to hate but have grown to love. They can be kind of homely. You know, kinda greasy or saucy, a bit awkward to eat, bland and slurpy. At their worst, they used to make me wish I could photosynthesize and just skip the whole eating-food-thing altogether. But then I realized that noodles, especially like the ones I'm doing tonight, are kind of a joy because they're easy to get along with. They like my jokes. And they go good with beer. They're forgiving, compassionate, ever at the ready. These guys really deliver. They're like Rudy. All of which is to say that they edge out most people you come across. So perhaps noodles are some sort of super food. I guess that's over the top, but as someone who just spent three days making demiglace, I'm glad to know some noodles, too. This one's from David Chang's book.

The prep work is really the only work here. First, make the ginger scallion sauce with which you will toss the noodles. I make this in single servings and just toss up the noodles in the same bowl I use to mix the sauce. If you're doing a larger batch, you can make a bunch of sauce and then deploy it as needed. Your call.

Ginger Scallion Noodles from the baron on Vimeo.

Start by giving a good mince to some peeled ginger. Really chop it up, since big hunks of ginger are kind of a downer. You can also chop up some chilies if you want some heat. Throw a solid pinch (or more) of the ginger and however much of the chilies you want in a bowl. Add some chopped scallions, too. Follow that up with a good drizzle of sesame oil, just a bit of white wine or sherry vinegar, a drizzle of soy sauce and some fresh ground black pepper. I think a few drops of fresh lime juice really brings these flavors together, too. Mix that up with a whisk until all the liquids are emulsified.

A note about the sauce: This is obviously prepared to taste. If you're interested in ratios, here's what Chang has: 2.5 cups scallions, half cup ginger, quarter cup neutral oil (I subbed sesame), 1.5 teaspoons soy sauce, ¾ teaspoon sherry, salt to taste. Don't get hung up on these measurements; I've only provided them for referencing ratios.

Once you have the sauce knocked out, add a handful of noodles to the bowl with the sauce. You want something like ramen-lookin' noodles. You know the ones: long and narrow, not too substantial, eminently slurpable. Mix the noodles with the ginger scallion sauce, and then dump it out into a serving bowl.

Then top the noodles with whatever you have. I used bamboo shoots, which are easy. Just grab a can of the shoots, drain them, and let them stew in a saucepan with sesame oil and a few drops of soy sauce for (I dunno) 20 or so minutes. Low heat here. They should be tender and flavorful when you yank 'em out.

Quick pickled vegetables like carrot or celery are also great atop this dish. A few extra scallions earn their keep, too. As always, pork belly or a few shards of beef rib should need no invitation.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 20:06:29 -0800

Beef short ribs, in their unmolested, natural state, are by most any reasonable measure an unlovely cut. Composed of a hunk of sinewy meat slung by cartilage strap athwart a rather substantial bone, these guys will elicit few catcalls at the club. But, my, what a few hours in a 325 degree oven can do for 'em. And for you. A braised beef rib offers its patron all the joys of lamb shanks, and often for a fraction of the price. That's because beef short ribs, like demi-glace and clams, magnanimously reward the adoring touch of any sensitive cuisinier bold enough to mine their shrouded ore.

The basics here are the same as for braising anything, although I've made a few modifications as per Tony Bourdain's recipe in his Les Halles Cookbook. Start, predictably, with sautéed shallots in a sauté pan or casserole large enough to fit all your ribs. Once they get some color, coat the bottom of the pan with enough white wine to form a half inch or so pool. Add to that a healthy dose of white wine vinegar and reduce until the alcohol cooks off. A moment or two of vigorous simmering should do the job. Next, add a handful of fresh herbs. I think sage, rosemary and thyme together make a handsome ensemble, although any one of them alone would be fine if you can't swing the combo. Also throw in some sliced garlic, and--if you really love unlovely things--some demi-glace. If you don't have any demi, a bit of stock will suffice. Allow these flavors to come together on a medium simmer.

Braised Beef Ribs from the baron on Vimeo.

Now on, courageously, to the ribs. First, be sure to chop them up so that a single piece contains but a single rib. And do be sure that you're dealing with the meaty short ribs, which are different than the full slab of ribs that I grilled a while back. Rub the ribs with olive oil, salt and pepper, and then snuggle them into the pan of by-now-adequately-reduced liquid. Kill the stove heat, and pop the whole deal into a 325 degree oven. Don't even need to put a lid on this one. If one side of your ribs is more fatty than another, be sure the fatty side is up. That'll tenderize the final product as the solid fats turn to liquid in the oven and seep throughout the meaty morsels.

After about an hour in the oven, baste and rotate the ribs. Then back in they go for another hour or so. Rotate (that is, rotate them 180 degrees; by which I mean "flip" each rib) the ribs every 20 minutes or so during this hour. I should mention that these times are mere suggestions. Braising requires, I'd say, a minimum of two hours, but more than that can improve the flavor as well.

After about two hours in the oven at 325, kick the heat up to around 400 so that you'll get a good bronze on the outside of the ribs. Be sure the meaty side is up for this portion. Continue at 400 until you achieve this roasty result.

The pan drippings from the braise provide you with the base for a sauce that should not be neglected. While they're bronzin' up, start the sauce by sautéing shallots until translucent. Then stir in a fistful of flour--that's your roux. Deglaze with as many pan drippings as you can scrounge, embellish with a bit of stock and finish (should you choose) with a dash of port. Whisk this all together, and you've got a sauce for the ribs. Should you need a thicker product, mix up a simple roux of equal parts oil and flour, and then whisk that in.

The prefect finish to braised meats is gremolata: combine the zest of lemon and lime with a few shards of raw garlic, some fresh herbs, season with salt and pepper, and use the result as a toothsome garnish atop the ribs. Serve these up with roast vegetables, mashed potatoes, risotto, couscous or whatever.

Clams Casino

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 21:09:43 -0800

Clams casino: it ain't much, but it's good. Really it's just clams with bacon. But I suppose the marketing powers that be figured foregrounding a gamble would do their brand best. And so we have it: Clams Casino on top of the deck tonight.

All y'er dealin' with on this one are clams and casino butter. Step one: Buy the biggest clams you can find. I mean big'uns. Then you want to separate the meaty goodness from the two muscles attached to the shell. That sloppy booger-with-a-brain should be swingin' free now. If yuh need'uh point'r on clam schukin', consult this'un.

Now for the butter. Start by crispin' up some diced bacon. Once they're gettin' bronzed, throw some chopped shallots in to tan. Some folks throw in bell pepper, too, but the baron resists. No flavuh. After the shallots have a cinnamon tan, add enough cognac to coat the bottom of the pan. It'll love you better than bell peppers. Be sure to kill the heat beforehand, though, 'er yu'll be ablaze. Let the hooch cook off. I mean off. Finish with a few knobs of butter.

So, you've got y'er butt'r. Slather a spoonful on the clam. Top 'er with a slab of bacon, perhaps about the same size as the clam meat itself. Then all yuh gotta do is throw 'em under the broil'r. Once the top slab bacon is crisp, the whole kit and caboodle is ready for primetime.

You'll nudge this toothsome nugget closer to a meal by servin it up with a baguette slathered with tapenade au style du baron, some spinach and coppa. That'll hold 'em. Hold 'em good.

Clams Casino from the baron on Vimeo.

Chicken Satay

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 19:37:38 -0800

As mentioned already on this blog, when it comes to skewered and grilled chicken, you're really talking about sauce as substance. That's probably because chicken lacks a bit--really a lot--in the flavor department, especially if you're dealing with the white meat. And it needs something to protect it on the grill. This means it's condiment time. Under such circumstances, chicken satay delivers nobly, so it's worth having in the arsenal.

You could marinate your satay. You could, really. And classically you would. But I don't. I say just slather the sauce on the chicken, grill as such, and then spoon a bit more sauce on top upon service. Simple.

There're a buncha variations out there, but here's a general road map to get you to Sataydom, after which you can make whatever sorts of adjustments, amendments and bastardizations you prefer. With so many alternatives available, I'll relate the recipe in a sort of "get there fast and then take it slow" style.

Start with good peanut butter. You know what that rules out. You want the shortest path from peanuts to butter, so look for the grinders with big bins of peanuts on top that churn out fresh peanut paste. Look for unsalted, unadulterated varieties. That'll give you dominion over all seasoning decisions. King in the castle.

Spoon your peanut butter into a food processor or blender, and throw a bit of coconut milk in, too. You want this to be a smooth, medium thick sauce, so you'll need probably a whole can 'er so of coconut milk for a few cups of peanut butter. Now the spices. Add these to taste: basil, lime juice, chilies (more on these guys below), soy sauce, white wine vinegar, fresh-cracked black pepper, and brown sugar. Blend it up.

Chicken Satay from the baron on Vimeo.

As I say, you're going for a medium build on your sauce. It should coat a spoon of course, but it should also drizzle down off the spoon in a smooth, viscous (though not goopy or gelatinous) stream. Taste it after blending, and adjust. Vinegar and lime juice will give a bit of sharpness and definition to an otherwise full bodied, creamy sauce. If you like heat, you may want to experiment with chilies north of Serrano on the Scoville scale. Serrano chilies are great, but I've learned that, in modest quantities, they're not really hot enough to puncture the creamy, buttery atmosphere of peanut sauce. If you like heat, a more potent pepper may be what you need.

Anyway, once you have the sauce, slather it on diced chicken (I go with thighs). Then skewer it up. Be sure to soak your skewers so they don't catch on fire (too much) on the grill. And never crowd chicken on the skewer. Grill on high heat until crisp or even charred (a little) on the outside, and serve with just a bit of the sauce spooned over the chicken. You don't want to go overboard with peanut sauce; this stuff can weary the palate in large doses. A little fresh lime juice is nice, too, on the final product.

The dark, roasty creaminess of satay calls for something sharp and crisp, I think. So here's a very simple salad that plays nice with satay. Slice jicama and carrot into strips about two inches long and a quarter inch or so wide (sort of like a julienne). Toss them with lime juice, pinch of salt and a judicious drizzle of sesame oil. You're going for light and crisp, so take 'er easy on the oil.

Clam Bisque

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 21:22:46 -0800

Bisque is something of a beautiful liar, which is probably why I adore it so much. Sashaying smooth and hearty, a well-tended bisque transcends the homely profile of its constituent parts to become a most toothsome morsel on par with any of the bistro all-stars. But like so many sexy beasts, its graceful appearance camouflages a truly desperate, brutal and violent past. Screaming crustaceans. Crunching skeletons. Sharp whirling blades. Gelatinous magma. These are the steps along the way, classically, to one of the titans of polite cuisine. And what with high-priced lobster and a boiling column of tornadic puree, the opportunity for calamity and ruin has always followed closely those daring enough to attempt this most noble of soups. Tonight, I offer a small adjustment that I hope will make bisque, so deserving of affection, a bit easier to dance with at home. Instead of lobster, shrimp or crayfish bisque (classics, all), I announce instead: clam bisque.

Clams rarely appear in bisque, a scene dominated instead by shrimp and lobster. There may be industrial reasons. After all, if you owned a restaurant that served shrimp cocktails and surf 'n turf entrees on Saturday night, then you might wonder if you could make a buck or two (or 13) at Sunday brunch with all those unsightly shells you had to trash in the name of a pristine primetime plate. It follows that, classically, shrimp and lobster bisques metabolize kitchen waste. The base of bisque is the flavor extracted from pounds of shrimp or lobster shells that would otherwise be discarded. Then, one adds a few whole pieces (that is, shell-on) of the crustacean, purees the whole deal, strains it through cheesecloth, and brings it back up to temperature with a touch of cream. Only then is shrimp or lobster bisque served to a gleeful diner with studs of the eponymous seafood.

There are at least two obvious problems with this method for the at-home chef. First, who'd ever pay for a whole lobster with bisque in mind? You're probably not swimming in lobster at home, which means you've gotta buy fresh ones destined for bisque. Such would be counter to the spirit of things, for, clearly, lobster bisque grew out of the need to somehow make saleable "stiffs" (recently deceased lobs). Restaurateurs would never dream of droppin' a high-dollar lobster in soup, so why should you? Second, unless you have an industrial-grade food processor, you might have some trouble pureeing whole lobster, shell 'n all. Traditionally, mind you, the whole shebang gets ground up. So, I'd say that the restaurant method is fine--for them. But I've got a cheaper, easier, more sensible method for the rest of us.

Use clams! Sure, you won't be able to steep their shells for flavor extraction as per traditional bisque protocol, but your soup will be blessed with the wonderful flavor of the clam liquor that accrues in the shells. This will more than compensate for skipping the usual shell steeping step, and render an otherwise unwieldy preparation much simpler. And clams are almost always cheaper than lobster, and sometimes cheaper than shrimp. The following is sort of based on a recipe for shrimp bisque in The Professional Chef.

Clam Bisque from the baron on Vimeo.

Start by sautéing chopped shallot and carrot in butter until the shallots are blonde-brown. Then add a chopped clove or two of garlic, and continue sautéing for a minute or so on medium heat. Once the garlic gets some color, add in some tomato paste--a few good spoonfuls. Stir that up and, as with the demi and stock, allow the vegetables to turn a rusty brown color as the tomato paste cooks. Deglaze with enough cognac/brandy to put a good coat on the bottom of the pan. Once the cognac has mostly reduced down, throw a few handfuls of flour over the veggies to make a simple roux. Stir the thick, pasty result over medium heat for a minute or two.

Now deglaze with fish stock and add the clams (along with their all-important liquor). For four portions, I used a quart of fish stock and one pound (before shucking) of clams. Check this page if you need a few pointers on clam shucking. Add fresh herbs at this point, too, if you feel like it. Season and reseason with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then adjust the heat so that you just have a slow, even and relatively gentle simmer. Allow the bisque to simmer like so for about 30 minutes. Then cool until lukewarm-ish.

Transfer the (at least mostly) cooled bisque to a food processor or blender. Get the lid on there. Good. I mean real good. Put your big paw on it, too. You do not want bisque going everywhere when you flick the switch. Puree until smooth.

Put the pureed bisque back in the pan on the stove. Whisk in some cream--perhaps a half-pint 'er so for four portions? I dunno, I guess I used a little less than a half-pint. Anyway, it doesn't take that much. Bring the bisque up to temperature slowly, on low heat, while whisking occasionally. If it's not thick enough, whisk in a simple uncooked roux (made from mixing equal parts oil and flour) until you get 'er where you want 'er.

If you'd like a handsome escort for your bisque, you might consider an olive tapenade spread over a toasted baguette. The tapenade can be made in a food processor or by hand. In either event, start with black olives, capers and sardines. Chop--either with a trusty shank or in the food processor. Mix that with olive oil, fresh chopped herbs (sage is great) and fresh cracked pepper. Hold back on the salt--sardines are usually salty, as are capers and sometimes olives, too. Finish 'er off with some fresh lime juice, and mix it up caveman style. Then spread over the baguette.

Demiglace

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:31:11 -0800

There ain't a lot of glamor in demiglace. It takes a lot of time. And a helluva lot of stock. No talent, very little technique, and if you save your kitchen scraps, very little expense--but time and stock you'll need in aces. And even once you've got a few rounds of demi finally in your clip, you still need something to cap, which means you've still gotta cook dinner. Now the good news: demi's easy to preserve frozen in ice cube trays, and a small amount of it will enhance the profile of your sauces immeasurably. Hell, it already is a sauce! With patience, your efforts will be spectacularly rewarded, for demi will put most any at-home hobbyist cookery on the fast-track to becoming truly great bistro fare. A nugget of demi, mind you, is the highly concentrated crystal of flavor slowly extracted from some of the best stuff out there: roasted bones, shaggy meat scraps, aromatic root vegetables and herbs. It might even be said that a cache of adoringly prepared demiglace confirms the kitchen workman's faith in the honesty of taste. At least, that's the sort of food-based, secular spirituality you'll start proselytizing after watching hours of slow reduction on your way to this blue-collar delicacy.

In the spirit of reduction, let me summarize the preparation: begin by making sauce espagnole, strain that, combine the resulting liquid with an equal portion of stock and reduce by half. That's it. Traditionally one uses veal stock, but in its absence, I'm working with beef stock tonight. Quantities are tough to estimate for this recipe since it depends on how much stock you have, so as usual, I'll stress ratios over quantities. The recipe in The Professional Chef calls for a total of two gallons (eight quarts) of stock to produce two quarts of demi. In my experience, this ratio basically holds up, so you can look forward to demiglace in the amount of one quarter of the quantity of stock you begin with. Given the time involved, I'd recommend making as much demi as you can in a batch. That'll free you up for more glamourous pursuits.

Demi-glace from the baron on Vimeo.

Sauce espagnole is a mother sauce, which means that chefs back in the day were 'bout it. Not so much anymore. Anthony Bourdain says nobody makes it these days, and so he offers a roundabout shortcut to demi that amounts to reducing stock and wine with some shallot. We're keepin' it classical here, though, so do start with sauce espagnole.

Predictably, sauce espagnole begins with mirepoix (50% onion, 25% each of carrot and celery): sauté the onions till browned, then add the carrot and celery. Let them all get some color, then throw in some tomato paste (a few healthy spoonfuls; remember, you can make your own by pureeing a tomato or two and cooking out as much of the water as you can). Let the mirepoix and toms get to know each other over medium heat. Your house should smell great by now.

While the vegetables are simmering, start your roux. Mix either oil or clarified butter with an equal amount of flour and cook over medium heat. Stir regularly until chocolaty brown. You'll only need about a cup of roux for about a quart of sauce espagnole. It's important to cook your roux at this point for two reasons: first, a cooked roux has less thickening power than its uncooked counterpart, which means the sauce will thicken without becoming too gelatinous, and, second, a cooked roux will deepen the color and flavor of the finished product.

Once the mirepoix and tomatoes have turned a rusty brown color, add enough stock to more-than-submerge them. The Professional Chef calls for 1.5 gallons of stock to make 1 gallon of sauce espagnole, which gives you some sense of the proportions you're dealin' with. Once you have the stock in, bring it up to a simmer and whisk in the roux. Add a few whole peppercorns and some fresh herbs (thyme sprigs are great), too. Simmer for an hour, skimming fat off the top as needed.

To finish the sauce espagnole, strain through a double thickness of cheesecloth slung over a colander. Make sure you've got a pot to catch the sauce down below the colander when you start pouring. Or you're ganna be pissed.

Next, combine the strained sauce espagnole with an equal portion of stock. Reduce by half. Skim the fat. On low heat, this step took me about and 90 or so minutes. Strain it when you're done for clarity. Allow the demi to cool, then freeze in ice cube trays. And. You're. Done.

Demi is a sauce, so you could just thaw a cube or two and throw it on beef, chicken, pork, lamb, etc. You can also use it to deepen the flavors of soups. And here's how you can make a simple sauce using the pan encrustations left from searing pork, lamb, or most other meats: sauté shallots in the same pan you seared the meat in, sprinkle in a bit of flour, then deglaze with just enough red wine to coat the bottom of the pan. As the wine reduces, throw in a cube or two of demi. Season with salt and pepper. Taste, adjust.

They say Champagne is the only wine that goes with everything. Maybe so; but it's not the only sauce that enhances almost anything. In its smooth subtlety, demi, too, has earned an honored place in the pantheon of epicurean delights. Unlike Champagne, however, demi does it with roots and bones. It will win few beauty contests. But by turning kitchen scraps into the most important of French sauces, perhaps you'd agree that demi's about as close as Western civilization has come to alchemy thus far.