November 28, 2011
I didn’t grow up with cornbread, and most of the time, the stuff I taste is just OK. It’s usually too dry or too sweet or too anything. I feel like Goldilocks, because I could never find the cornbread that was just right.
That changed a couple of years ago when my buddy Pableaux came through town on his “Red Beans & Rice Tour.” He’d visit friends. The friends would invite other friends. Pableaux made red beans and rice and cornbread. Everyone ate.
Pableaux’s technique was pretty simple: Heat up a cast iron skillet. Melt fat in the skillet. Pour melted fat into the cornbread batter. Stir. Add back to the skillet. Bake. And the thing is, this cornbread was just right. The bottom was good and crispy. The cornbread was moist, with the sweetness coming from the cornmeal, not a lot of sugar. And it was rich. I wanted a second piece. And a third. It was that good.
And so, Pableaux’s cornbread is now mine, as I use his technique, following the Lee Brothers‘ recipe for skillet cornbread. But where I differ is that I use duck fat. You can use shortening or butter or lard or bacon drippings, but I use duck fat, because I always have a lot around and, well, it makes the most kick-ass corn bread around. Now that it’s chili season, you need some kick-ass corn bread. So have at it.
Duck Fat Skillet Cornbread (Adapted from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook)
3 Tbsp. duck fat
1-1/2 c. stone-ground cornmeal
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar (optional)
1 large egg
1-1/2 c. whole buttermilk
Preheat oven to 450. Add duck fat to 12″ cast iron skillet and put in the oven. Allow skillet to get really hot! Meanwhile, mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients into another bowl. Add the wet stuff to the dry and mix until it comes together. Carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven, swirl a bit to make sure duck fat coats the sides, then pour the molten duck fat into the batter. Stir until combined and pour batter into skillet. Bake for about 15 minutes until the top is golden brown.
4 Comments | 
Cooking, Recipes | Tagged: cornbread, duck fat, Lee Brothers, Pableaux Johnson | 
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Posted by Varmint
April 27, 2011
Sometimes I come up with a great idea for a recipe, and it fails miserably. This happened to me at lunch today, when I sneaked home to grab a bite.
We had a bunch of Easter ham in the fridge, a gift from a friend, and I was getting a bit tired of the regular old ham sandwiches I’ve had this week. I wanted something different. Something I hadn’t had in ages. Aha! Ham salad!
Before you start gagging, I must confess that I’ve always loved ham salad — even when it’s the nasty grocery store deli case glop. My love for ham salad came from my childhood, when my mother fed us a similar concoction that we called, “pickle and baloney” sandwiches. My mom would buy a big hunk of bologna from the grocery store — not the pre-sliced stuff, but the solid, cylinder found in the deli case. She’d break out the meat grinder and throw some sweet pickles into the mix. It would be a course grind of bologna and pickles, and she’d pull it together with some Miracle Whip (no mayonnaise in my childhood home). I loved that shit, and whenever I found a pickle and baloney sandwich in my lunch bag, I thought I was being treated to something damn special.
Over the years, my mother stopped making pickle and baloney, and she would buy ham salad from the deli instead. It wasn’t the same as my old favorite, but I still liked the stuff.
And so, when I went home today, I was going to make some ham salad. I mean, how hard is that — ham, pickles and mayo. Maybe a little celery for some crunch.
But then I realized we had no sweet pickles. Damn! You have to have that sweet element to make ham salad work.
So, with no pickles, I had to come up with Plan B. What is sweet that goes with ham? I was thinking of what goes well with prosciutto, and of course, I thought of figs. But it’s not fig season. I do, however, have lots of fig preserves in the pantry.
THAT’S IT! Ham and fig preserve salad!
So I minced up the ham, and finely chopped the fig preserves, added some mayo to bind it all. A little salt and pepper. Onto some bread it goes, and then I take a big bite.
Blech.
It’s sweet. Too sweet. What I forgot is that the pickles didn’t just add sweetness, they added acidity to balance out the sweetness and to cut the overall richness of the ham and mayo. My sandwich didn’t have that. I could have added some vinegar, but that wouldn’t have kept the acidity with the fruit, which I wanted.
I ate half the sandwich and gave up, despondently.
Hmm, I wonder how mango chutney would work?
Leave a Comment » | Cooking, General, Recipes | Tagged: Fig preserves, Ham salad, Sandwiches | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
January 18, 2011
Photo courtesy of Carri Thurman by way of Michael Ruhlman
Michael Ruhlman is running a series on bread baking over on his blog, trying to get folks to bake bread. Of course, I’m a sucker for bread, having baked for nearly 20 years (including my mad scientist days when I was in law school and had multiple types of sourdough starter sitting in my kitchen). When I saw one guest blogger post a story and recipe about ciabatta, I knew I had to make it. First, I love ciabatta, with its rustic shape and straight-forward flavors. Second, this recipe comes from a bakery – Two Sisters — in one of my favorite places in the world, Homer, Alaska (also home to the best pizza in Alaska, Finn’s). This recipe is of the “no knead” variety, which I typically like because of its simplicity, but which I usually don’t love, because the full flavors you desire aren’t usually completely developed. This recipe was a bit different — it was a two-stage process, where a dense starter with a minimal amount of yeast sits on the counter for at least 12 hours. Then warm water is added, and you break up the starter into small clumps before adding more flour and yeast. It’s a very wet dough, but it’s perfect for the rectangular “slipper” shape of a ciabatta.
And, quite frankly, it was the best bread I’ve ever made. I’m already craving this bread and hope to make it again very soon. Thanks to Carri Thurman of Two Sisters Bakery and to Michael Ruhlman for publishing her recipe (and allowing me to reprint it). I’ve made a couple of minor changes, based on what I had in the house on Saturday.
CIABATTA
Recipe by Carri Thurman
To make the starter:
- 1 tablespoon whole wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon rye flour
- 3 cups/14 ounces/400 grams bread flour (I used King Arthur, but unbleached all purpose flour is OK)
- 1 cup/8 ounces/240 grams tepid water
- ¼ teaspoon/1 gram active dry yeast dissolved in 1 cup warm water (set aside)
- Combine the flours and tepid water in a medium sized mixing bowl.
- Add 1 teaspoon of the yeasted water (that’s correct, just 1 teaspoon — discard the rest)
- Mix it into a firm ball, kneading it just a bit.
- Cover the bowl and let it rest at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours
To make the dough:
- 1 teaspoon/4 grams active dry yeast
- 3 1/4 cups/15.5 ounces/430 bread flour (or unbleached all purpose flour)
- 1 tablespoon/.4 ounces/11 grams salt
- Cut the dense starter dough into 6 or 8 pieces and put them in a large mixing bowl. Pour 2 cups/450 grams warm water over it and let sit a few minutes to soften. Break it up more with your hands. Don’t worry about small-sized chunks.
- Add the additional flour, salt and yeast, and using a wooden spoon, beat the mixture together well. It will resemble a stiff pancake batter and appear quite rough, but still don’t worry about those chunks of starter dough. Let the dough sit, covered lightly, in a warm spot.
- Come back to it every 20 minutes or so and pull the dough away from the sides of the bowl and into the center using a rubber spatula or dough scraper. Do this four times. After the last turn you will be able to see that the dough has become smoother and more uniform, now cover and let it finish rising for another hour and a half. Total rising time for this period should be 2 ½ to 3 hours.
- Scrape the dough out onto a well floured surface and fold together lightly. It will be fairly wet. Divide into two equal loaves and either pull apart into a flat focaccia style or fold the two ends into the center, like folding a letter, to form rectangular mound.
- Place loaves on parchment paper lined sheet pan side by side for final rise, 30 to 45 minutes.
- Prep your oven by preheating to 450 degrees F/230 degree C and putting a baking stone or a cast iron griddle on the middle rack. If no stones/griddles, just back on the sheet pan.
- When ready to bake, lightly flour the tips of your fingers and deflate some of the bubbles; don’t worry, it’ll bounce back in the oven.
- Cut the parchment paper between the loaves to separate, and slide each loaf right onto to the stone or griddle. Or keep it on the pan. Whatever. Spray the loaves and oven with some water from a spray bottle to create some steam. Bake until dark-ish golden brown and internal temp reaches 200 degrees F, approximately 25 minutes.
Makes two 1-3/4 pound ciabattas
2 Comments | Alaska, General, Recipes | Tagged: Baking, Bread, Carri Thurman, Ciabatta, Homer Alaska, Michael Ruhlman, Recipes, Two Sisters Bakery | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
December 24, 2010
I love gingerbread. It’s always been one of my favorite flavors, particularly when served warm with some soft cream. It represents the essence of winter comfort food, not too sweet, with depths of flavor beyond most other desserts. But that depth was sometimes illusory, as it was just a smack of molasses paired with a touch of ground ginger. This holiday season, I wanted more flavor. I wanted more complexity. I wanted a goddamned adult version of gingerbread.
Thank goodness for Karen Barker.
Barker, the co-owner and Beard Award winning pastry chef of Durham’s Magnolia Grill, has the hand’s-down-bet-the-farm-you-can-take-it-to-the-bank-absolute-best gingerbread you’ll ever taste. This isn’t one of those pale cakes that you whip together in 2 minutes that will still taste just fine. This is a dark, foreboding-looking gingerbread, with three types of ginger, coffee, black pepper, and dry mustard in it. It’s a gingerbread that has some kick, without being piquant. It’s not a dense cake, but it’s really rich. And when paired with something somewhat sweet, like Barker’s Hot Buttered Rum Raisin Sauce and some vanilla-nutmeg ice cream — oh, my.
And that’s what my guests were saying last week when I concluded a 6 course dinner party last weekend. This dish is a winner. This gingerbread means business. And hell, yeah, I made three of those cakes, so there was plenty for breakfast the rest of the week.
Not-Afraid-of-Flavor Gingerbread
- 2-1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp dry mustard
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 Tbsp peeled, very finely chopped fresh ginger
- 2 Tbsp finely chopped crystallized ginger
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
- 1 cup molasses
- 1/2 cup brewed coffee
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup orange juice
Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 9X9X2 square pan or a 10X2 round pan. Line bottom with parchment paper, and butter the paper.
Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, ground ginger, dry mustard and salt.
With a mixer, cream butter with the sugar and the fresh and crystallized ginger. Add eggs one at a time to blend.
Slowly add the oil and then the molasses. Mix to blend.
Gradually add the flour and spice mix until just barely blended, scraping bowl as needed.
Heat up the coffee in a small saucepan to a simmer, add the baking soda, stir, and add to the mix. Add the orange juice until fully combined. The batter will be thinner than what you would expect.
Pour batter into the pan and bake at 350F for about an hour and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan. Invert onto parchment paper, and then flip back over onto serving platter. Eat. And then eat some more.
From “Sweet stuff: Karen Barker’s American Desserts” by Karen Barker, University of North Carolina Press
Leave a Comment » | Best Of the Triangle, chefs, Cooking, Durham, General, Recipes | Tagged: Baking, Gingerbread, Karen Barker, Magnolia Grill, Recipes | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
December 7, 2010
Damn iPhone images stink!
One of the favorite dishes in the McCord residence is creamed corn. No, not that crap from a can — freshly made creamed corn, with kernels freshly cut from the cob. It’s a dish I make fairly frequently, and it’s good in the summer with local corn and in the winter with Florida corn. The corn infuses the cream with its sweetness, and the cream holds it all together. It goes well with just about anything.
And the best part of all is that it’s so damn simple! It’s so easy that I’m not going to give you a real recipe; I’m just going to tell you what to do.
- Shuck the corn and cut kernels from cob. Scrape cobs with back of knife into corn dish. (TIP: Put a clean kitchen towel over your cutting board. The kernels won’t bounce away as much with a naked cutting board.)
- Melt some unsalted butter in a skillet.
- Add corn and the goodness scraped.
- Cook over medium heat until it starts to brown.
- Add some cream to bring it together. You want enough cream so the corn cooks in the cream, rather than the cream just evaporating away.
- Cook until somewhat thick. There will still be some residual cream, but it’s all good.
- Salt and pepper to taste. Some freshly ground nutmeg is killer.
- Devour.
Really, that’s a lot of steps for something that’s as simple as this: Brown corn in melted butter. Add cream, cook, season.
You’ll thank me for this dish, and you can even add it to your Christmas dinner. And for you lazy folks out there, Whole Foods often sells corn that has been freshly cut from the cob. It’s not as good, as you don’t get the cob scrapings, but it’s still pretty damn tasty. Regardless, you’ll put thoughts of the Del Monte Creamed Corn far behind you — just where it belongs.
Leave a Comment » | Cooking, Recipes | Tagged: Cooking, Corn, Creamed Corn, Recipes | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
October 12, 2010
Yes, I love the Southern Foodways Alliance. Yes, I’m a member. And yes, I’ve even been nominated to be on its Board of Directors. So it should be no surprise to you that I’ll do just about anything this organization asks of me — not just because I’m a good soldier, but because there’s nothing this organization does that I don’t support. Whether it’s a fundraiser for their film or oral history initiatives or for scholarships for burgeoning food writers, I’m going to spread the word.
This time, however, it’s different. This time, the event is to celebrate a cookbook. A fantastic, spiral-bound, community cookbook, suitably named, “The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook.” The cookbook is divided into chapters that represent the region’s iconic foods: Gravy, Garden Goods, Roots, Greens, Rice, Grist, Yardbird, Pig, The Hook, The Hunt, Put Up, and Cane. It’s been edited, written and compiled by some of my favorite people in the world, including April McGreger, baker and pickler extraordinaire of Farmer’s Daughter in Carrboro, Chapel Hill’s great cooking instructor, Sheri Castle, and Sara Roahen, author of the fantastic book on New Orleans, “Gumbo Tales.” Heck, I even submitted a recipe for the book — and yes, it is a recipe for cooking one type of varmint.
To celebrate the release of the book, there are not one, but two events planned for this weekend in Chapel Hill.
The first event is this Friday, October 15th, at Foster’s Market in Chapel Hill (750 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd). This event is a book signing and is free to the public — and, yes, there will be a little bit of food there.
The second event has a lot of food, and this is a ticketed event. It will be on Sunday at 4:00 PM at Chapel Hill’s 3CUPS (227 South Elliott Rd.). If you just want to come and eat, it’ll cost you $25. If you want one of these awesome cookbooks (all the cool kids have them), then that will cost you an additional 15 bucks. That’s less than the Amazon price! So, you get a soon-to-be iconic cookbook, lots of great food (with both cake and pie, as there will be a debate about which is better), lots of social interaction with writers, and all on a Sunday evening! And because it is 3CUPS, there will be wine. Tasty, wonderful wine.
So, get off your butt and head to Chapel Hill this weekend to buy a book — the best community cookbook ever! And if you need more information, just check out the SFA’s Blog.
5 Comments | Books, Chapel Hill, Cooking, Events, Food writing, General, Recipes, sfa, Southern food, Southern Food Culture | Tagged: 3CUPS, April McGreger, Cookbooks, Foster's Market, Sarah Roahen, sfa, Sheri Castle, Southern food, Southern Foodways Alliance, Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
September 30, 2010
We all receive gifts from time to time. A bottle of wine, a nice piece of pottery, or a cookbook. On Sunday, my dear friend Nancie McDermott gave me a copy of her newly published “Southern Pies.” I have all of Nancie’s cookbooks (as she has been so kind to give me copies of them), and through these books she’s taught me a ton about Asian cooking and Southern cakes. I’ve enjoyed the books, as they’re very accessible and interesting, and all of the recipes have been winners.
But of all these gifts, this one — this book of pies — is different. This is not only a gift commemorating a birthday, but it’s a gift for everyone. It’s a gift from Nancie to the cooking world. Hyperbole? Judge for yourself, but if you take a serious look at this book, you’ll see what I mean.
Last night after dinner, I finally got a chance to sit down and take a look at Southern Pies, and my first impression is that this may be the first time I’ve had a cookbook that makes me want to make every single recipe in it. I’m totally serious about this. Of course, there are the expected chess, lemon and coconut pie variations, but there are a number of very interesting pies of which I’ve never heard: green tomato pie, sliced sweet potato pie, vinegar pie, bean pie, and a plum custard pie. There are fruit pies that have added substantial amounts of cream to them. Rhubarb and scuppernong grapes are featured.
I’ve always been a huge pie lover, but I’ve gotten away from baking them in the past year. That’s all about to change. I’ll be sure to chronicle my pie baking escapades here, and I suspect my kids are about to learn how to make pie crust.
Thanks again for this wonderful gift, Nancie. It will be treasured for a long, long time.
2 Comments | Best Of the Triangle, Books, Cooking, Family and Food, General, Recipes, Southern food, Southern Food Culture | Tagged: Baking, Cookbooks, Nancie McDermott, Pies, Southern Pies | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
April 27, 2010
When spring rolls around, I think of asparagus and ramps and morels. But I also think of butter. Lots and lots of wonderful butter, but not in the way you might suspect. I think of beurre fondue, the butter and water emulsion that I prefer to use to cook these wonderful spring goodies.
You may not have heard of beurre fondue unless you’re a culinary school grad or a food geek, but you know about it if you’ve ever heard the term “butter poached.” This is what Thomas Keller uses to butter poach his lobster, although I think he uses a slightly more concentrated form of emulsion. He calls it beurre monte’, but I really can’t figure out if there’s any difference between these butter sauces.
Regardless, I first learned about beurre fondue 10 years ago when Tom Colicchio’s first book, Think Like a Chef, came out. This is one of my all-time favorite cooking books, as so much of it focuses on technique, flavor profiles, and other culinary basics. Beurre fondue is just butter that has been emulsified into boiling water. The technique is simple: Get about half to 3/4 of an inch of water boiling in a small saucepan. Whisk in unsalted butter about a tablespoon at a time. Continue adding the butter until you’ve added anywhere from 12 to 16 tablespoons. If droplets begin to form, add a bit more water, as that’s a sign you’ve evaporated too much water.
Now, take some asparagus, peas, fish, mushrooms, whatever and poach it at a very gentle simmer in this ultra-rich sauce (transfer it to a wider skillet). You’ll end up with the most delicious, decadent (but seemingly light) dish you can imagine.
Some folks par-cook their food first and finish it in the beurre fondue, but I love to cook it from beginning to end. I particularly like to cook morels in this sauce, as the final flavor is heavenly. I recently made a dish of mahi-mahi with morels, shallots and local asparagus, with all the vegetables cooked in the beurre fondue. I served the dish in shallow bowls, making sure there was plenty of the butter sauce to go around. It was spring on a plate and one of the best tasting things I’ve ever made.
5 Comments | Cooking, General, Recipes | Tagged: Beurre Fondue, Butter, Butter Poached, Cooking, Sauces, Tom Colicchio | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
January 27, 2010
Ever since I bought my cheap pressure cooker, I’ve been exploring ways to use it in getting dinner to the table more quickly. This is important to me, as I often don’t get home from work until 7 or so, and I don’t want to spend an hour or two putting together a nice meal. I’m trying to eat more high fiber foods, such as brown rice, so the pressure cooker allows me to cook that rice in 20 minutes, rather than an hour.
Last night, I tried making risotto in the pressure cooker. That’s right, risotto, which traditionally takes 20 to 30 minutes of constant attention. But not in a pressure cooker. You cook it for 8 minutes, without stirring. And damn it, if it didn’t come out perfect!
Now you still have to cut up your vegetables for the soffritto. Last night I used shallots, fennel, garlic and carrot. I browned some boneless chicken thighs in the cooker, removed them, added the soffritto, and cooked for a couple of minutes. Add the rice, stir to coat, some wine, chicken stock, and then the chicken. Seal the cooker and cook for 8 minutes. Release the steam, stir in grated cheese and butter, and serve.
This risotto was absolutely perfect. Creamy and rich. The starches from the arborio rice released into the broth, which surprised me. I thought that the dish would be overly watery, but it wasn’t at all. And the chicken was nicely cooked, too.
I may never make traditional risotto again.
Pressure Cooker Rissotto
- 1-1/2 cups aborio rice
- 2-1/2 cups chicken stock
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1 pound boneless chicken thighs
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 Tbsp butter
Heat oil in pressure cooker without lid over high heat. Salt and pepper chicken thighs and brown in hot oil. Remove chicken from cooker and add shallot, carrots and garlic. Stir for 1-2 minutes. Add rice and stir for another minute. Add wine, stir, and then add stock. Add browned chicken thighs (including any exuded juices), bring to a simmer, and seal pressure cooker. Reduce heat to low and cook for 8 minutes.
Release pressure, remove lid, and stir in cheese and butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serves 3-4.
9 Comments | Cooking, General, Recipes | Tagged: Cooking, pressure cooker, Pressure Cooker Risotto, Recipes, Risotto | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
July 15, 2009
I’ve eaten a fair amount of paella in my time, and frankly, I never really got the appeal. I mean it’s rice, protein and vegetables, all with a slight saffron flavor. It’s usually dry, insipid, and quite frankly, not worth the trouble to make. I’ve had two paella pans, or paellera (and correct my Spanish, please, as I’m probably using the singular form of the word instead of the plural), and I’ve done paella in the oven, but I never really enjoyed it.
Until now.
Read the rest of this entry »
8 Comments | Cooking, General, Recipes | Tagged: grill, Paella, paella on the grill, Smoking, Wood cooked paella, wood fired paella | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
April 23, 2009
A Twitter update from Mark Bittman led me to what is likely to be the best website for recipes on the internet: food.com. Why is this so great? Because it is an independent search engine that can search all of the main recipe sites, such as Epicurious, the Food Network, CHOW, and Recipezaar. Because each result can be filtered by source, cuisine, time and more. Because they have a toolbar that you can add to your browser. Because you can examine the entire list of ingredients on the results page without leaving the page.
Food.com is a creation of Food Network’s parent company, Scripps, and it has many of the features of another freestanding search site, Project Foodie. But the interface of food.com is far more user friendly, and the ability to easily examine ingredient lists makes it a lot easier to sort through recipes.
I love food.com, but I’d like to hear your feedback, too.
9 Comments | General, Recipes | Tagged: Food Network, Food.com, Project Foodie, Recipes, Scripps, Search Engine | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
March 24, 2009
This past weekend I ran some tests. First, I used duck fat to pop some popcorn. It was a noble experiment, with the duck fat adding a barely noticeable flavor to the corn, but it wasn’t life-altering (which was disappointing, as I currently have 8 pounds of duck fat in my fridge).
So then I tried popping the corn in some bacon grease that I had rendered from that morning’s breakfast. Again, the grease added a very subtle bacon flavor to the popcorn, but it wasn’t enough for me.
And then the proverbial light bulb went off. I melted some more of the bacon grease. I then ground up a slice of crispy bacon into a powder (a spice mill or coffee grinder works well here). I put the popcorn in a paper bag, poured the bacon fat over it, and shook it vigorously in the bag. I then added the bacon powder, shook it again, and ended up with exactly what I was seeking: popcorn that wasn’t soggy or heavy, but with a fair amount of bacon flavor. You could taste corn and bacon, which was the balance I was seeking, and I’ve now found a new snack for the Varmint household.
I’m not going to give you a recipe for this, as anybody knows how to make popcorn. But here are some tips.
First, render the bacon fat over low heat, and then strain it through a paper towel to get rid of the sediment that can burn.
Then be sure to cook your bacon until it is very crisp. I’ve heard that freezing the bacon can facilitate turning it into powder form.
Pop about a half cup of popcorn in 3-4 Tbsp. of filtered bacon grease. Don’t use high heat, as bacon fat has a fairly low smoke point.
Put the popcorn in a large paper grocery bag. Drizzle about 2-3 Tbsp. of melted, filtered bacon grease over the popcorn and shake vigorously to distribute the grease. Add the bacon powder and shake some more.
Eat. With lots of beer.
15 Comments | Cooking, Family and Food, General, Recipes | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
March 4, 2009
When I lived in Milwaukee back in the 90s, there was this one restaurant that my wife and I hit when we wanted something “different”, something Asian but not Chinese. The restaurant was the West Bank Cafe, and it was a French-Vietnamese place that had one dish that I always ordered: Spicy Catfish in Clay Pot. The catfish was surrounded with a rich, slightly sweet, dark sauce, loaded with umami and a touch of heat. I could never get enough of this dish, nor could I ever get it out of my head. Read the rest of this entry »
12 Comments | Cooking, General, Recipes | Tagged: Caramel, Catfish, Clay Pot, Recipe, Umami, Vietnames food, Vietnamese Caramel, Vietnamese Cooking | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
December 15, 2008
One of the things I like to do most Christmases is to make candied nuts. They’re so easy to do and everyone in my family loves them, I don’t know why I don’t make them more often. Hell, it’s gotten to the point where we always talk about “Dad’s Nuts,” and, well, the headline above clearly demonstrates where this can sink. My 14 year old son started actually walked into the dining room yesterday, carrying a bowl of nuts, asking his grandmother — HIS GRANDMOTHER, for chrissake, whether she wanted to taste his nuts. I think he’s still blushing over it, but it’s pretty damn funny. Almost as funny as the Schwetty Balls skit from SNL. Read the rest of this entry »
12 Comments | Cooking, Recipes | Tagged: Candied Pecans, Candied Vanilla-Spiced Pecans, Cooking, Food, Nuts, Pecans, Recipes | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
August 29, 2008
It’s the end of summer, when tomatoes are everywhere. This is the time to make fresh pasta. Yeah, I know that it can be a royal pain in the bohunkus to make pasta, so you can buy some decent fresh stuff, but the reason for it is to make an uncooked tomato sauce to go with it. This is such a simple dish, but oh, so tasty!
Here’s what you do. Find the freshest tomatoes you can. You need about one medium-sized tomato per person, and make sure that sucker is ripe. It’s OK if it’s a bit over-ripe. Then chop it up to a medium dice — skin, seeds and all those lovely juices. Frankly, if the tomato is really ripe, you won’t really be able to dice it at all — it’ll just smush up. So, put all that tomato glory in a bowl, add some salt, a tablespoon or two of fruity extra virgin olive oil, one clove of freshly minced garlic, stir it up, and let sit for at least 15 minutes.
Cook the pasta that you’ve made. And no, I’m not going to tell you how to do that. Just cut it into a linguine style strand. You want it somewhat thin, but you don’t want angel hair, either.
While the pasta is cooking, which shouldn’t take much more than 2 or 3 minutes, chop up some fresh basil — several large leaves’ worth for each tomato. Stir those into the tomatoes.
Drain the pasta just when it’s done and dump the tomato mixture into the still hot pasta pot. Stir it around for a few seconds to warm it up a bit, then add the cooked pasta back to the pot. Stir it all up so the pasta is fully coated with the tomato juices and serve. You’ll want to get the pasta out first, and then spoon some tomato and juices on top.
All you need is a baguette to soak up the liquid heaven. A glass of wine works, too. After a few bites, you’ll be in a state of revery, which is what summer is all about.
13 Comments | Cooking, General, Recipes | Tagged: Cooking, Food, Pasta, Recipes, Tomatoes | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
August 8, 2008
My wife doesn’t eat red meat. If it’s got fins, feathers, or shells, that’s OK. If it has fur, no thanks. Yeah, it’s sad, but it forces me to be creative, and moreover, it really does make me eat a healthier diet. So even though I might want to break out the meat grinder and a chuck roast for a fresh, kick-ass burger, more often than not I’ll go to Whole Foods and buy their ground chicken thighs. The gold standard for a poultry burger is the turkey burger, but frankly, I think ground chicken thighs have more flavor than turkey. But not enough to make it a tasty burger.
I also don’t care much for those poultry burgers that add flavor with the addition of onions, garlic, worcestershire, feta and three different herbs. You’ve turned the damn thing into a burger salad, for god’s sake!
So I add two things to my ground chicken: some low-fat ricotta and some McCormick’s Seasoned Salt. That’s it. The ricotta adds some depth to the texture of the chicken, some juiciness, and just some overall balance. If it’s not there, the burger ends up not feeling right in your mouth when you eat it. The Seasoned Salt will probably be viewed as an abomination to some foodies, but frankly, I love the stuff in this burger (and on oven-roasted potatoes from time to time!).
You mix a pound of ground chicken thighs with about 1/4 cup ricotta and a teaspoon of the seasoned salt. Gently form 3 patties (wet your hands first, as this stuff really likes to stick to you). I usually fry up my chicken burgers in a dry non-stick skillet, as this stuff does like to stick (and my grill hasn’t been functional in quite some time). You don’t want too high of heat, as these suckers, unlike beef burgers, really need to be cooked all the way through. The burgers will brown and then just start to develop a slight char — that’s when you flip them.
It’s as simple as that. Is it healthier than a regular burger? Beats me, as that’s not why I eat them. Does it satisfy even my 14 year old? Yup, but he’d still like some bacon on that sucker!
7 Comments | Cooking, Family and Food, General, Recipes | Tagged: Burger, Chicken Burger, Cooking, Food, Turkey Burger | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
July 8, 2008
I think the single greatest “convenience food” conceived of in the last several years is the boneless chicken thigh. We all know that thigh meat is so much more flavorful and juicy than the breasts, which are prone to dry out and have little flavor. However, mainstream America loves the ubiquitous breast because they’re easy, particularly when they’re of the boneless variety. It’s easier to eat a piece of meat when bones aren’t involved, and that goes double for thighs. For many (or even for most), it’s too much of a pain to eat a chicken thigh, as the meat to bone ratio isn’t all that great.
Then came the boneless thigh. Hallelujah!
Boneless chicken thighs are flavorful. They’re easy to use and eat. And they’re also damn cheap. Hell, even Whole Foods charges only $3.49 a pound for these, and they’re often on sale. If you buy in bulk at Sam’s Club or Costco, you can get them for less than two bucks a pound. I’m not sure if there’s any other meat that’s as cheap as this. Read the rest of this entry »
14 Comments | Cooking, General, Photos, Recipes | Tagged: Chicken, Chicken Thighs, Cooking, Food, Poultry, Thighs | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
July 1, 2008
The only ice cream cookbook I have ever owned is the Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. I think I got it as a Christmas present along with a Donvier ice cream maker, back in the late 80s, when Ben & Jerry’s was all that and more. And so I made ice cream — a buttload of it. Combined with my suddenly sedentary lifestyle, I’m blaming Ben and Jerry for much of my weight gain over the years. The bastards. Read the rest of this entry »
13 Comments | Books, Cooking, Family and Food, General, Recipes, Southern food | Tagged: Ben & Jerry's, Buttermilk, Cooking, Dessert, Food, Ice Cream, Molasses | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
June 26, 2008
(This is a big old cobbler with lots of peaches before baking. Photo courtesy of Jason Perlow. I don’t have a shot of the finished product, so you’ll just have to make it to see how good it looks!)
People love them some cobbler. I knew I made a lot of people happy when I recently posted my recipe for Bill Neal’s Four Berry Cobbler, which certainly wasn’t a secret (I don’t believe in secret recipes, quite honestly — especially for home cooks). But that’s not the only type of cobbler I make: one of my favorite desserts is a simple peach cobbler where the crust makes itself. Yup, you don’t have to make a biscuit dough and cobble it on top — you start with a simple cake-like batter that creates its own crust as you bake. It’s extraordinarily simple, and you really can use any kind of fruit you want, but I prefer peaches.
This recipe came from the wonderful cookbook, Coastal Carolina Cooking, which is very near and dear to me because the first chapter focuses on my wife’s late grandparents, Emest and Katherine Taylor, from the Currituck County town of Maple (population 50, including livestock). This cookbook is a treasure trove of wonderful stories and great recipes, but the one I use more than anything else is the one for Cherry Cobbler. And I rarely make it with cherries. Read the rest of this entry »
12 Comments | Cooking, General, Recipes, Southern food | Tagged: Baking, Cobbler, Dessert, Fruit, Peaches, Southern food | Permalink
Posted by Varmint
