So it has been nearly FOUR years since I have written here.. call it terminal writers block or whatever you like, but this morning I decided it was time to bring this here blog back to circulation. I never know when inspiration will strike me, but strike me it did at the farmers market today when my good friend Sara Zoe said this catch phrase that has not left me since... Butter is my favorite cheese and mayonaise is my favorite butter.... and of course that got me to thinking about mayonaise and just how amazing it is...
I love mayonaise. One of my favorite uses for mayonaise is dipping french fries in it.. But it cannot be just any mayo, mind you. It has to be Hellmans or even better, homemade. It seems like you cannot get Hellmans or homemade in any restaurants anymore..which makes me sad.. but it is ok because I have the technology to make french fries at home.. which gives me the freedom to fry my fries in any kind of fat possible. My favorite is either goose fat, or duck fat, though in the absence of either of these lard will most definitely do.. or beef tallow.. french fries fried in anything but animal fats just makes them less appetizing. The texture is better, crisper even.. and yes animal fats (especially those from grass fed animals) are healthy.
But I am here to talk about mayonnaise.. Mayo is the vehicle for amazing flavor.. Some of my favorites are mayo mixed with any habenero pepper sauce, or with sri racha sauce, or curry, or just about anything you like. Not only does it provide a great canvas for the palate, it also can be a great way to keep salmon from sticking to the grill.. a very reputable seafood restaurant that worked in during my sojurn in the restaurant business slather their coho slamon with dill mayo..it was a baby sized coho salmon which would give you fits if there was not enough mayo on it..it would stick to the grill, get dried out or just fall apart if you did not apply a good slathering of dill mayo. When properly slathered, you would get perfect grill marks too. To top it all off we would put a big dollup of dill mayo on top.. Then there is roasted chicken slathered with mayo.. now I can only speak to what I have heard about it, but if all the stories I hear about how good a roasted chicken is slathered with mayo before roasting, it is on my to do list. Bearing in mind that the sky is the limit and that the variations in what you put in the mayonnaise are endless.
Of course a discussion of mayonnaise cannot be complete without delving into the world of aioli, caeser salad dressing and one of my very very favorites... Hollandaise sauce... all of which are great with the french fry...never mind all of the other things that those sauces can go on. All those sauces are similar to mayonnaise in that they can be turned into completely new taste sensations by the addition of a simple ingedient or two ..I am not going to write about that right now.. for now I will just leave you thinking about the possibilities... and perhaps(hopefully) it will not be four years before I post again....but if it is..I hope between now and then that you have a big plate of french fries slathered in mayo or even hollandaise..I would be remiss if I did not mention that I cemented the bond of my very favorite love relationship over a plate of french fries and mayonnaise..
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Friday, February 27, 2009
Volkornbrot
One of my favorite breads to eat is Volkornbrot. A very hearty heavy German bread. I find it to be best eaten with smoked salmon, cheeses, cured hams and with butter and honey. Recently my neighbor Cleo made a batch of this fine bread.. It inspired me to give it a try. It starts out with a sourdough starter that takes 4 days to make. I did cheat on this as Cleo had a bunch of extra starter that she was not going to be able to use so I got a nice head start. The next thing to do is to soak Rye berries and add a bit more flour to the chef(the base for the starter). After the rye berries are soaked and the starter further fermented(about 8 hours) it is time to put the bread together. It starts off with the starter,to that about 8 cups of dark rye flour is added. The water that was used to soak the ryeberries is then added as well as the ryeberries, and a bit of salt. The bread does not get kneaded, that would be a big sloppy mess to be sure and rather impossible as the dough is sticky and on the wet side. No the dough gets stirred with a whisk or a spoon until well blended. At this point it is put in a warm place to ferment overnight(or the refridgerator) The dough does not get too much less sticky over that time..So it gets poured into pans and left to rise for 3 hours or so. After it rises (just a wee bit) it is placed in the oven for 3 hours or so at 300 degrees. I put the bread in the oven and left the house for those 3 hours and when I returned the smell was so over powering. The aroma from this gustutory delight was that of brewing beer.. It really smells just like the malt etc. SO when the bread is done it is time to.... wait another 24-36 hours so as to allow the bread to fully dry to the right consistency. Personally I found this entirely beyond my abilities and sliced a sloppy piece of this fine bread. Now I am not sorry I did that, but it does seem like a good practice to wait those days... Patience is usually something I like to practice, but theres just no call for it when there is bread AND butter involved. I have to wait at least 21 more hours before I cut into it again... we will see what happens. If anyone wants to try this recipe which is fairly complex but well worth it it is in a book called bread alone by Daniel Leader and Judith Blahnik. There are a lot of great recipes in this book. til the next time....
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Rueben!
I love corned beef. Alot! I was recently given some sauerkraut that was homemade. It sat in my fridge for a while even though I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. I was asked fairly frequently by my friend that had given it to me what I thought of it.. I told him that it had to go on a Rueben.. and not just any Rueben It has to be the right corned beef. Corned beef needs to have a fair deal of fat content for it to reallybe a high quality rueben. I love the creamy texture of the fat on corned beef. I finally said enough is enough and headed to a local butcher shop to get myself a piece of brisket and cured my own. It is really quite simple, just a bit time consuming for those that may have issues with impatience. I got the recipe for the corned beef from Julia Childs Book The Way to Cook which is a fantastic book
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So after a period of two weeks it was time to cook the corned beef and prepare for an evening of food fun and friends..I figured it was pretty important that the rueben had all the right ingredients.. if you are going to through all the trouble of making your own corned beef it is best to also bake some bread and get some high quality cheese for the ruebens right? SO I spent the day baking bread and shopping around for the right ingredients for the sandwiches. I was looking for a good Swiss and found that perhaps the best cheese for the job was a cave aged Gruyere. Perhaps one of my favorite cheeses for eating with a good Belgian beer(which for the time being I have given up)Bread has baked,Thousand Island dressing is made,everything is in place.. Guests arrive. One essential side dish for a good rueben are potatoes fried in duck fat.. which we had no shortage of, along side of that a big old ham was brought as well just for picking at while we waited for the rest of the meal to be ready.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Hi I am Money, and I have never been to a Trader Joes
OK, so the truth is out... Never have I been to a Trader Joes. Sure I have had a few chances and thought that I may take the first step towards actually walking through the doors of a Trader Joes. I never have... whatever the reason, I think I may now have just the impetus to actually take that first big step. Certainly its not that I have never actually had anything from TJs... My brother was a big fan of the One Pound Chocolate bars as part of a Christmas present for a few years.. I very much enjoyed, even devoured said chocolate in fairly short order. I generally have this habit of making sure there is no chocolate that lasts in my house for very long.. call it a weird part of my psyche or what ever you want to, but chocolate is not a part of my house.....Anyways I think I may just have the impetus to break my long absence from TJs. I had some guests over last night and for desert they brought some cookies just labeled Laceys cookies. Buttery Buttery Buttery. Chocolate and macadamia nuts as well.. pretty much like a Heath bar... And honestly what is not to love about a heath bar? Things that I want to do with these cookies? For sure there has to be some vanilla ice cream in between two of these cookies... may be even chocolate ice cream too. I thought that maybe using them as sprinkles in a sundae may not be a bad call either...I had one with my deep dark French Roast coffee this morning...so freaking good... I am looking forward to more such experiments.. but for that I may just have to go and see what the fuss is all about.....
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Picking greens on a very cold day
This winter I have been doing an experiment here at the farm.. I am growing greens in an unheated greenhouse with minimal protection. Up to this point it has certainly been a fairly cold winter but not so cold that I was not expecting to pick greens from this greenhouse. Just this past week though old man winter certainly shared with us some of his piss and vinegar. Night time lows ranged as low as -10 which is not very conducive to many living things. However to my surprise these greens took it fairly well. I will say that the arugula did suffer perhaps terminal damage, but all of the others including some of the lettuce did quite well.. albeit a bit of damage but I was able to pick quite a lot of greens for a cold winters day. How is this possible you ask? Well I'll tell you. The greenhouse is protected with one layer of plastic, which gives about 7 degrees of frost protection and the lettuces etc are protected with one layer of reemay which is a fabric row cover and that provides about 6 degrees opf protection. I think the success is due to the fact that these greens have been living in these cold conditions since November. There have been weeks at a time where they have been frozen solid and I was not going to get anything from them.... The insulation from as much as three feet of snow banked up on the side of the greenhouse possibly gives an extra 5-10 degrees of protection. Meanwhile when the sun comes out and is uninhibited by a clud cover the greenhouse can get as warm as 65 degrees. Its pretty amazing to walk from ten degree winter weather into even 45 degree early spring weather with greens sprouting out of the ground. Unfortunately the rate of growth is quite slow without the use of supplemental heat, but it is amazing to me that with a bit of protection I can eat greens out of my greenhouse right now. Luckily I also have a commercial greenhouse at my disposal that allows me to cut as much as 60 pounds of greens per week.. I do however heat it when it gets below forty degrees in there.I love the fact that I can do this, and the best news here is not just for me, but so can you.
Monday, January 12, 2009
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