crimfan's blog

Fish heads are one thing but then there's

http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/03/whats-next-in-nose-to-ta...

Um... wow... thanks, really, no I'll pass.

Parts like these can happily go feed Fido.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTpUVAcvWfU&feature=related

So it's yet another East Coast blizzard. As I was at home, in between work and TV, I decided to make chicken tagine. Fortunately I'd run out for shopping before the snow really hit. The classic tagine is an interesting mix of sweet and savory which seems very common in North African cuisine and less uncommon in European cooking. The ingredients are your usual Mediterranean items but combined in very different ways than in Italian food. The mix of spices is as rich as in a curry. I read several recipes to get a starting point and then went with this (amounts are approximate):

-2 broiler/fryer chicken, cut into parts
-2 medium onions, cut roughly
-6 cloves of garlic
-1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, julienned
-1/2 cup Turkish apricots, julienned
-1/2 cup dried cherries
-1/2 cup raisins
-1/2 cup green olives
-1/2 cup almonds
-1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
-1/2 cup prunes
-1 tbsp each of dried ginger, cayenne, allspice, cinnamon, fresh ground black pepper, paprika, and fennel seed
-2 tbsp turmeric and cumin
-3 bay leaves
-3 tbsp oil
-salt to taste

First brown the chicken pieces (with salt, as usual) in a skillet using the oil and transfer to a baking dish. Soften the onions in the same skillet used to brown the chicken and combine with all other ingredients in the baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees until the chicken is done, approximately an hour and a half. Serve with couscous or rice.

I'm sure this wasn't the best one I could have done but, hey, it was the first try (and it's not bad at all). The chicken should be submerged and to do this right I really need to get an enamel lined Dutch oven or something like that, not a Pyrex baking dish. Also, I think chickpeas would have been very nice.

There are some classic North African ingredients I'd really like to find. Harissa is awesome as is preserved lemon. There's got to be a place to get this stuff somewhere near me....

"It" is pulled pork. Ordinarily you'd need a smoker to do this right and that's not a winter kind of thing to do in general, certainly not in the snow-blanketed Northeast (or Mid-Atlantic). This recipe lets you cook pulled pork indoors using your oven. A crock pot will make pulled pork but it won't have any Maillard reaction or crispy bits, which are pretty major disappointments. This recipe looks promising....

I suspect you could adapt it to chicken or turkey reasonably well, though you'd need to alter times, etc. Any thoughts on this?

...is a bargain.

It's really good for the price. I bought 24 oz of Bay Blend (essentially an Italian roast) for about $10. That's a lot of coffee but I go through a lot so it's not likely to get stale in the time I have it, as I make a quad espresso every morning. I don't know how good the lighter roasts are because I don't drink lighter roasted coffee, just French, Italian or, my favorite, Sumatra. (To my palate, origin flavor <<< caramelization. :) Anyway, if you shop there check it out.

I really wish there was one closer to my apartment. For some reason I seem to live in a "hole" and the closest is in Rego Park (five miles away, with ugly parking and crowds) and the next closest is about ten miles away. I find that kind of bizarre because I would have expected TJ's to go over pretty well in my neighborhood, but evidently not.

It's a longer piece but worth reading:

http://food.theatlantic.com/artisans/how-to-wield-a-knife.php

It's pretty safe to say that unless you are a butcher you don't use a knife remotely as much as this guy. Highlights:

-A reasonable stainless steel knife from the hardware store is enough, preferring an unfinished wood handle to plastic. No need for an expensive knife.
-When you're cutting big pieces of meat, you can get severely wounded and/or dead unless you are very, very careful.

It's winter and I was at home with not much going on so it seemed like a good day to make chili. I've tried it all sorts of ways but after some thinking about what I liked and didn't, I came to the following mini-epiphany:

Chili is essentially a beef and bean stew or soup, depending on how runny you like it.

Thus, treat it like a beef soup or stew, again, depending on how you like it, i.e., don't just toss a bunch of stuff in the pot and hope, or you will end up with either over-cooked or undercooked parts. Yes this is obvious in retrospect, but for some reason I just never thought of it that way. As I was aiming for a runnier chili today, here's what I did, and why:

Beef: 2 lbs beef stew meat. Ground beef is traditional but try it with chuck steak, it's better. Really. :) I lightly floured this and browned it in the bottom of the stockpot with some garlic and onion. Don't skip the browning, this develops a lot of flavor.

Vegetables: Two medium white onions in chunks, two medium carrots in slices, two sticks of celery in slices, eight sun dried tomatoes, julienned, one can whole peeled tomatoes (liquid included). These add some nice flavors and textures but I wanted to avoid over-tomatoing the chili.

Liquid: In this case the pale ale I had in my refrigerator, two bottles worth. Beer adds a certain bread-itude to a dish and a pale ale or light lager is much lighter than a dark. More liquid is needed but I just used good old H2O for that, maybe two cups more but I'm not exactly sure. For thicker chili, just add less H2O.

Spice: Don't be shy, the dominant flavor of chili is the spice with the beefiness underlying it! Three jalapenos, seeded; two serranos, chopped and seeded; one tablespoon allspice; four tbsp cumin powder; one tsp cinnamon; two bay leaves; 1/4 cup prepared mustard; 1/4 cup sherry vinegar; one tsp cayenne powder; eight cloves of garlic; salt (as needed); two tbsp dried oregano.

Beans: One can of canellini and one can red beans, rinsed and drained. (Get rid of the salt and starch.)

The main thing is that the chili has to cook long enough for the connective tissue in the beef to break down but not too long so as to turn everything into mush. This needs to be done low and slow, ideally in a Dutch oven but you can also use the stovetop if you're careful, but be sure to stir often enough to make sure you don't get burning on the bottom. Cook until the beef is tender. The vegetables aren't main players and should be fairly soft but still intact. Depending on how intact you want them, you might need to add them partway through the cooking process. The beans are a problem. Canned beans need to get the flavor of the broth but are already soft and don't need to cook, so add them very close to the end.

It was good today, it will be much better tomorrow.