Here’s that pork chop–the one that so generously provided the bone with which I made the stock that embellished the chicken roulade kabobs so handsomely. I had a busy weekend (ceramics sale and then return to Rhode Island to collect all the work from the gallery) so this will have to do until I empty the camera of pictures from intervening meals. Having said that, though, it was a good one.
I’ve always been a fan of viewing mistakes as an integral part of creativity. Sometimes they just plain ruin the thing, but often they’re like positive mutations in the DNA of the process, allowing us insights or improvements that would have otherwise never come. I was making bread the other day–now that it’s cooler, I’m back to making 2-3 loaves a week–and as I mixed the wet into the dry, the dough came together into a much tighter, dryer ball than normal. I scratched my head for a second, and then figured out what happened: I used a plastic container for the flours and a metal bowl for the water and starter, and didn’t zero the scale when I switched. The metal bowl weighs 125 grams more than the plastic tub, so the scale read 600 grams of water when I had only poured in 475. Rather than add in the missing water and make a no-knead loaf in the Dutch oven, instead I dumped out the dough and gave it a good hard knead on the counter and then put it in an oiled bowl to rise.
That’s what the email said, just to ensure that the more squeamish guests would be arriving around 5.
The invitation landed in my inbox because Eve had emailed me, asking “do you know where a friend can get a pig?” and I directed her to Richard at Northwind farm, where they raise a variety of first-rate pastured meat. I get my belly from them (in more ways than one). In exchange for the pig hookup, I got to attend a special sort of barbecue. The kind that begins with a live pig, and ends with dinner. Tate, the host, thought it would be a good idea if all of his hipster Brooklyn foodie pals connected with their meat in an intimate and direct way, seeing exactly what it is that goes into bringing an animal to the plate. It was an interesting idea, and I was by myself that week, so the prospect of meeting some nice people while soaked in pig’s blood seemed like a no-brainer. I charged both camera batteries (I have two now, because Claudia sent me one).
Richard and the pig arrived (a little after noon, actually) and he described how the pig would meet its end. He slipped a couple of ropes around the animal. Tate loaded the .22, and they worked out who would stand where. The picture below shows the moment where the pig figured out that the day was not going to go very well at all.
John called me a few weeks ago and said “Do you want a whole artisanal Tennessee ham?” “Sure,” I said, on account of I’m not a complete idiot. “Why and how?” The band’s publicist, it turns out, during or after Bonnaroo, had been driving around and stopped at some joint in Gallatin for lunch. The ham sandwich–smoky, fatty, and piled high for $6–was one of the best he’d tasted. So he talked to the proprietor,…
This all began with a High School friend posting on Facebook that she was smoking a pork butt as a precursor to making pulled pork for dinner. “Hmmm,” I said, “I have some pulled pork in the freezer, already smoked, braised, de-fatted, and pulled–ready to go, in other words.” So I defroze it, and made corn muffins, using the very same local coarse polenta that I used to dredge the quail. This polenta is going places; I had the chance to chat wth Don, who mills it, yesterday at the farmers’ market, and he told me some exciting news that is going to bode well for this region and the farmers thereof.
Upon return home, it was decreed by those who had languished for a week without being properly cooked for that were would be having barbecued chicken. And me? I’m not one to argue. I’m a lover, not a fighter. Everyone knows that. Thus, sustainably raised and then killed for our sustenance chicken legs found their way onto our grill (which, since we were out of charcoal, I had to fuel with foraged fallen maple branches, taking this fully into the realm of the old school). I made BBQ sauce with tomato paste, red wine, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, coffee, balsamic vinegar, and passion fruit juice, and also brown rice and a salad of greens from the garden. No pictures. Settle down.
Since writing about pappa al pomodoro a while back, I’ve been keen on it as an excellent way to eat up otherwise obdurate heels of homemade bread. It’s also well-suited to a brainlessly quick and easy lunch, and highly tweakable. In the case of yesterday’s lunch, it benefited from the homemade prosciutto and smoked chicken stock, two items which I venture to say come awfully close to being essentials. So I sizzled minced ham, garlic,…
Improvising dinner is a funny thing; sometimes–like two posts ago–it fails utterly in the absence of attentive preparation. Usually it works fine, especially when it treads familiar, well-worn paths of technique and ingredients. And sometimes it exceeds wildest imaginings, making for a perfect plate of food. Happily, last night was such an instance. I did the usual pre-dinner survey, pulling various containers and vegetables out of the fridge, and took stock. (I actually took stock…
Today I taught the first of what I hope is many cooking classes in our lovely new kitchen; we covered tsukemono, fermented pickles (kraut and kimchi) and vinegar pickles (in this case, beets because they’re ostensibly in season). It was a great group, and I think everyone had the subject demystified to the point where they can now comfortably, confidently do it at home. After they left, I got busy with some other culinary projects before the family returned (they went to a movie). Ten pounds of local pork belly had spent two weeks absorbing my super-secret miso-based cure and were ready for the smoker, so I fired it up and brought them up to an internal temp of 150˚F over the course of about two hours. Milo and I vacuum-sealed them all and put them into the freezer.
I ordered a chest freezer, which hasn’t come yet, but in anticipation I made six liters of trotter stock (it’s like Fergus Henderson’s Trotter Gear, but I separate the meat and strain the liquid. I also don’t use Madeira). It’s such a jiggly joy to have on hand, and I always freeze most of it in ice cube trays for convenience; even one cube adds superlative lip-smackery to anything from simple sautéed greens on up.…