FoodNuts!

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In a time when things seem to be getting worse, it’s very nice to see some things that are getting better. Last November I wrote about the opening of a very nice, small produce stand that I found in Battle ground, Washington (see Produce stands, part 1), a great little place with excellent produce and a pretty good wine selection. I’ve since been there a few times (once going there right after shoveling in a load of horse manure into the back of my truck and, being rather conscious of its aroma, parking in the far corner, so as not to offend) and I can say that it has held its high rating in my mind.

My family and I went back there last Saturday and I can safely state that it has become more of a destination for meal planning. Not only a slight expansion in the wine and dry goods (nuts, dried fruit teas etc.), but also the addition of a meat department that came complete with its own butcher!

Please welcome Walt Coen, who is celebrating his 40^th anniversary as a butcher. Walt and his now-small (I have a feeling it won’t be that for long) meat section specialize in chicken, pork and beef. All the beef comes from Painted Hills, a ranch near Fossil, Oregon. They are well-known for raising beef in a humane manner, natural vegetarian diets and no antibiotics. Walt grinds all his own hamburger and bulk sausage in-house, and for link sausage they carry the local brand Zenners, and his selection of those should make any sausage lover happy (I hope one day to see Walt use his extensive knowledge and expand his sausage making operation to include making not just bulk, but link also. Right now, it’s merely a dream of mine).

Another great addition is wine tasting on Saturdays. The day we were there they had a beef brisket that had been marinating in pepper and burgundy for two days. Walt was preparing to smoke this for serving at the wine tasting. We didn’t stay for this, though I wanted to and I am sure it would have been a good time. Ill make sure we attend this in the future.

I look forward to going there again and for what other addition they may be doing in the future. Rumor be told, I heard word that it may have something to do with salami. But that’s just a rumor………………

Those of you that live in the sunny, warm land to my south are lucky in some ways that I am envious of. One of those are things citrus. When I lived there I loved picking lemons, oranges and grapefruit. There seemed to be at least one of these at, neglected, every house. Many of the fruits of these excursions ended up in screwdrivers, greyhounds (or salty dogs), and margaritas. Ahh, if only it was a bit more temperate of a family rather than so stubbornly sub-tropical. I still can get them, but there is something missing when one must purchase rather than enjoy the thrill of the hunt.

Along with the aforementioned gifts from the Goddess Pomona, I also have a love of the mandarin. Its flavor is more subtle and its intoxicating aroma is a large part of its taste (like the lime). But sometimes even the best of things can get better.

Enter the Shasta Gold mandarin, one of the newest members of the family.  I was at a fruit stand the other day and they caught my eye. Deeply orange, large with a rough-appearing hide, it looked sort of like a tangelo without the nipple. Since I am given to exploring novelties of the food world, I picked up about a half a dozen. They’re fantastic.  Easy to peel (and the peel is thin), seedless and very juicy. They have the aroma that I expected of a mandarin, and a wee bit tarter than the Murcott.

Apparently, it was developed in 2002 at the University of California Riverside. It is a hybrid of the Temple tangor (a tangerine/orange hybrid) and Dancy and Encore mandarins. So, as far as things go, it’s a real newcomer. If I still lived in the sunny, warm land of my origin, I would definitely plant at least one in my yard. But, then again, if I lived there I would be getting my apples and pears by proxy. Such a conundrum!

Anyway, my fellow foodnuts, give it a go. Perhaps one day it will be as common as other citrus are in the land of Helios. Then your children might have memories of “Shasta Gold” hunts to make an as-yet-unnamed cocktail.

On January 6^th of this year, I put myself on a diet. It was a simple one: No alcohol of any form (not only puts weight on, but makes for “bad decisions” in regards to your calorie intake), one meal a day that consists of one head of iceberg lettuce, hot peppers, a slice of blue cheese and raw scallions. As of the start of the diet, I have lost 56 lbs. Not only did I have my doubts that I could lose the weight, but I must admit I also had no idea how I would feel after such a big loss. I have more energy than I have had in years, I sleep less and sleep better, and have resolved to never return to that level of gravity again.

I bring this up only as a prelude to the following recipe. While on the diet, I ate a “regular meal” once a week, that once being Friday night. The meals varied as to what they were, but all fell into the “hearty” category. It was a good break from the somewhat monotonous once-a-day meal, and probably helped me to stick with the diet overall.

I noticed last night that my wife was thawing out beef shanks for the following day. Close to veal, it differs only in the age of the animal. I immediately thought of that great Lombardian recipe Osso Buco. It would be richer with beef than with veal, and I figured I would have to cook it a bit longer to get that “falling off the bone” aspect that makes Osso Buco so wonderful. That being said, on to the kitchen!

Basically, it is a very simple recipe. Its beef shanks à la Mirepoix.

To prepare the beef shanks, you have to remove the connective tissue that is on the outside of the shank, otherwise the shank will curl during cooking.

Dredge the beef shanks in flour. Add three tablespoons of Olive oil to a braising pan and brown the meat. While browning, prepare the vegetables.

The ratio of a Mirepoix is 2:1:1, onions, carrots and celery. Dice the vegetables but not too fine.

When beef is brown, remove from the pan and add the diced vegetables. Sauté the vegetables in the olive oil (add a couple more Tbls if needed). As they cook, add about ½ cup of water and cover (this will add a final steam to the veggies, softening them and preventing burning).

When vegetables are tender, add two cups of beef stock or wine, or a combination of the two, depending on your taste. Add 1 tsp pepper, two teaspoons of salt and 2 tsp of thyme. Add the browned shanks with enough water to bring the liquid level to the level of the shanks, but not over them. Cover, and simmer for about an hour (Because I am using beef instead of veal, I simmered until they were  very tender, perhaps 20 minutes longer).

When tender, serve the meat with covering of the vegetables and sauce from the pan. It went very well with Potatoes à la Lyonnaise. I’ll cover them in another post.

Well, moving from a city to a decent chunk of land, one is at first completely overwhelmed with what to do with it all. Thats the first, maybe second year, but you get over it. You start to view things in a different way, a way different from how you thought when you lived in cities, where you were born and raised and developed your sensibilities. And you start to think of all that you can do that you never thought of before.

So, two years ago, while clearing some of the land, I decided to plant a small orchard of plum and pluot trees (pluots are an hybrid of the plum and apricot). I already have an Italian plum, so I wanted to expand it out, so to speak. I planted 6 trees (varieties are Shiro, Flavor Supreme, Flavor King, Santa Rosa, Brooks and Satsuma), a good range of colors, flavors and ripening times. They are now two years in the ground, and should start to produce in quantity this year. I added to the plum orchard this year with the addition of plum cherries (another hybrid, apparently they grow in cluster throws like a cherry, but are larger and taste more like a plum. varieties are Sprite and Delight). All of these are common to each other in pollination, so the bees will have no problem helping me with a crop.

Last year, I continued to expand the concept, and this time it was pears. I planted 6 pears (Bartlett, Red Bartlett, Anjou, Red Anjou, Seckel and Bosc) Hopefully, I get some crop off of them this year, as they usually take 2-3 years to produce after planting.

This year, its apples. Unlike plums and pears, choosing apples can be very overwhelming, as there are thousands of cultivators. When I started to select varieties for planting, I wanted to give up and just go and buy whatever the local nursery had. But I persevered and decided to plant old varieties, varieties that were popular in the past, yet are not “commercially viable” today. Some I selected go back to the 16th century in England and France.

It gets even better. I found a commercial nursery in my area that was selling 5 year old saplings for $15.00. That’s an incredible savings when you consider that most retail nurseries charge anywhere from $40.00-$50.00 per tree! I bought 11 apple trees for under $200.00! And they are very established and healthy! The varieties are Chehalis, Arkansas Black, Honey Crisp, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Gravenstein, Spitzburgen, Whitney Crab Apple, Bramley Seedling, Enterprise, Macoun, Fameuse and Wolf River. This is a great start to a “Heritage” apple orchard. They even had a couple of European and Asian pears that are hard to find, but that may be for next year.

I haven’t posted in awhile, so I thought I would bring you up to date on whats new. I have also been on a program of “Mortification of the Flesh”, in other words, a diet. I am getting down to the weight I consider ideal, so, obviously, I have not been expermenting too much in the larder/kitchen/scullery. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to it in due time.

I was researching Matt’s great posting on Timpano di Tucci, trying to figure out what pastas I would use if I were to do it, and found this funny little Quiz:

Take the quiz here

I got 18/24, took it again with my wife (who surprised me at her knowledge of pasta types) and then got 21/24. What’s your score? Try it and post in comments!

Off again to the local meat cutter (Ward’s Meats and it’s just that: you buy an animal from the farmer, the butcher kills it, and off it goes to a local meat cutter for cutting and packing. Our cutter is Ward). This time the goal of the journey is beef bones, both for us (consommé) and the dogs (chewing and burying). Oh, and for sausage casings (I’ve yet to attempt to make these on my own. It’s a project for the future). However, this discussion will focus on neither of these.

In our lives, we try to get closer to the source of our food. Not only is it better for you and you know all about it, but you can get things that normally you would pay for in the store for free (trading homemade preserves for things you want really does work) I like to make beef broth, consommé and stock, but to do this I need a lot of good beef bones. You can’t get these at the local grocery store, and butcher shops are getting to be few and far between. So, since the butcher and the cutter end up with an awful lot of them (and offal) and they just get sent to the rendering plant anyway, I intercept them at the cutter. Normally, we don’t pay anything for them, and they’ll give you more than you can take. We got some bones, and he also gave us a complete ox tail, sectioned, that a customer didn’t take. Ward just wanted it out of his freezer.

Once home, I got to work on Ox tail soup. I thawed them, opened them up and rinsed them off.

That’s them. So, now that we are at the starting point of this recipe, what shall we do? Let’s start, I say!

Ingredients:

21/2 pounds oxtail, cut and trimmed

½ cup unsifted flour plus 2 Tablespoons

2 Tablespoons beef drippings or vegetable oil

2 medium yellow onions, peeled and minced

6 cups of water and 1 pint bouillon

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

2 teaspoons salt1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 bay leaf

½ teaspoon thyme

3 cloves

2 sprigs of parsley

2 medium carrots, peeled and diced

1 stalk celery, diced

1/3 cup sherry or port wine

Dredge the oxtails in ½ cup flour:

Once dredged, brown in drippings. You will need a large, heavy-bottomed stockpot for this:

Drain on paper towels after browning. Add onions to oil, turn up heat to medium and sauté till golden, but not burnt. Sprinkle in remaining flour, mix well and brown lightly.

Slowly add the water and bouillon, stir in tomato paste, salt and pepper;

Place bay leaf, thyme, cloves and parsley in a bouquet garni and add to pot.

Return the oxtail to the pot, cover, and let simmer for 3 hours until the meat is tender.

Remove bouquet garni. Remove meat and separate from the bones, cut to bite size and add back to the pot. Add carrots and celery.

Cover and simmer till carrots are tender, about 15 minutes. Add wine when tender.

I often wondered why this dish exists. There is a high bone to meat ratio, and its the tail. After eating it, I now know why. It has an incredible beefy flavor, and the texture is like tender rib steak. A wonderful soup, it went very well with a cold, rainy winter day in the northwest.

Marmalade. I think that it’s the first preserve or canning that I ever attempted. I originally made it way back in the late eighties, and, on again, off again, have made it ever since. I can’t say that I ever have bought it since I learned to make it. That being said I must add that it is perhaps the most difficult of preserves to do correctly. And doing it correctly is all about learning from your mistakes. And they can be awful. Don’t worry, it’s not impossible, and what follows is a process I developed that avoids many of the problems that can be encountered on the road to a great marmalade.

I made two types this year: A Blood Orange Marmalade and a Sour (Dundee) marmalade. I was going to do this right up on the Sour Orange, but decided against that. Instead, I’m doing it on the making of the Blood Orange Marmalade. There are a couple of reasons for this. Most people that would attempt doing marmalade are probably going to use the Valencia Orange, the standard juice orange of California and Florida. The Valencia is a very different orange from the Sour (Seville) Orange. The Sour is very sour and very seedy. The Blood Orange, however, is a bud sport of the Valencia, so, except for its beautiful color, it’s almost the same thing (As a side note, Marmalade made with the Valencia actually has its own name. It’s called “Californian Marmalade”, and it was made famous by the King Kelly Corporation of Pasadena, California).

What makes the process difficult is making sure you have the proper pectin (not hard to do) and not caramelizing the sugar as you approach gel set point (Neither is this)

Let’s begin:  Total ingredients:

4 lbs of whole Blood Oranges

2 lemons

16 cups of water

9 1/2 lbs of White Cane Sugar

Wash all of the Oranges and let dry. Using a Mandolin or a Slicer, slice the oranges into 1/8” thick slices, retaining all juice and discarding any seeds. Once sliced, cut each orange ring into four, quarter, parts. Add all oranges to a stock pot. We will get more than enough pectin for jelling by including all of the pith, pips and peel of the oranges.

Next, completely zest both of the lemons and juice them. Hopefully, you have an assistant for this. This Juicer’s name is Max and he’s real good at what he does.

Add Lemon zest and lemon juice to the Oranges, sans seeds.

Next, add the water and bring it to a boil. When it reaches a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for about 40 minutes (I do this covered as I do not want to reduce the orange solution). Continue simmering until the peels become tender to touch.

Now, with the fruit tender, add the sugar, stirring constantly until it completely dissolved.

Now well start the boil process. This is where we are going to finish the cooking of the fruit, and set the gel of the Marmalade. During this process, you will need to stir almost constantly, as this will help to keep the sugar from caramelizing and the whole liquid from browning. You may need to modulate the temperature on the pot to keep it from boiling over. Try to keep it boiling on as low a flame as possible.

While waiting for a boil, place a small dish in the freezer to keep cold. We will use this to check the marmalade as it finishes.

Take a candy thermometer and keep a constant eye on the temperature. You will slowly approach  222°F. When it does, you are almost at gel set point.

At this temperature, place about a teaspoon of the Marmalade onto the chilled plate; let it sit about 30 seconds to cool. When cool, swirl the plate to move the Marmalade around on it. If it thickens and “wrinkles” you’re there. If not, keep boiling, watching very carefully and stirring constantly.

When you check shows that it is gelled, It’s ready for jarring. We used a dozen ½ pint jars, as they will be gifts, but you can use any size you want. Ladle the marmalade into the jars, place on the lid  and screw on the rings, making sure not to get any marmalade on the jars threads.

Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes, and you’re done. See? It’s not that hard at all, and it’s better than almost any you can buy.

Buttered scones with Earl Grey, anyone?

After my posting on making fresh sausage, Patrick posted a link to a chorizo recipe that I found to be incredibly enticing, tasteful and challenging. After reading it, I checked my stock of chili peppers in the larder and it found woefully lacking to attempt such a sausage. I have since stocked up, and, as fortune would have it, pork shoulder went on sale here. Well, combine the two things, and you have all you need to attempt Patrick’s chorizo. Well, plus other things, but I have them!

I am not going to go into the packing of fresh sausage in this posting as I already have and it is pretty much the same for all types (it’s just the meat and the spices that are variables). What I am going to focus on, however, is the making of the ingredients that make this one different. That’s the chili paste.

There is a great variety of dried chili’s out there, and making them into paste is pretty much the same for all of them. I have made these in the past, for dishes like Pozole (fantastic dish, BTW, highly recommend it), but I am going to tweak it just a bit to bring it in line with more traditional Mexican cooking and, I think, eliminate problems I have had in storing.

Ok, the chorizo calls for two types of dried pepper: Guajillo (pronounced wha-hee-oh, called Mirasol when fresh) and the Ancho (called the Poblano when fresh). For our discussion, I will only be dealing only with the dried varieties of each pepper.

Chances are you will be buying these peppers by the bag, unless there is a really good Hispanic store next to you.  Try to get peppers that are somewhat pliable and not too dry. It is much easier to work with them somewhat soft. If, however, you can’t obtain them this way, email me, and I’ll explain how to deal with the extremely dry peppers. (If time permits me, I’ll do it at the end of this article).

Remove the stem of each pepper and discard. Take a chef knife and make a slit in the pepper from tip to tip, and fold open. Remove all of the seeds from the inside (save some for spring if you wish to grow them). Also, remove any pepper ribs you can that are visible.

When you have them all cleaned and ready, it’s time to make the paste. Take all of the cleaned peppers of one variety and soak in warm water for at least 30 minutes. They will become very soft.

Drain and discard water.Place in a blender (this is easier to get out without waste than a food processor) and add a couple tablespoons of vinegar (I used to use water, but this is the more traditional paste-making aspect I mentioned earlier) The vinegar will work the same as water, however, the lower pH of vinegar will eliminate much of the bacteria growth problems I have found in the past when storing excess paste. If you need more vinegar, add it a tablespoon at a time. Do his until it is a thick paste, and then remove from blender with a spatula.

There you have it, chili paste. I keep many varieties on hand, and my wife, not born in Los Angeles, wonders why. Hmmm, well, to be honest, not so much anymore.

Anyway, I made this paste specifically to make Chorizo. I adapted Patrick’s recipe from the comments on foodnuts to my sausage making. It is a great recipe. There was only one problem: the recipe called for a one to one of vinegar (cup) to one pound of meat. I would cut that volume of vinegar by about 1/3, as it is too soupy, and will come out of the porosity of the casing. (That’s why I say 1/3; it’s about how much I lost.) But, nonetheless, they came out great. Breakfast on Christmas will be Huevos Rancheros made with these.

Recipe for the Chorizo:

9 lbs of pork shoulder

2 lbs fat

9 tbls Salt

1 pint of Guajillo chili paste

1 3/4 cup Ancho paste

9 cups vinegar (I’d cut back to 6)

14 tbls Paprika

9 tsp garlic powder

18 bay leaves, ground fine

3 tbls ground black pepper

4 1/2 tbls ground cumin

7 tbls ground oregano

4 ½ tsp ground marjoram

4 ½ tsp ground coriander

4 ½ tsp ground thyme

4 ½ ground allspice

Mix well; allow to sit refrigerated overnight; pack into casing. Here’s what the final product looks like:

They aren’t hot but they are very spicy! I look forward to a large meal of Huevos Rancheros, made with fresh eggs, homemade Pico de Gallo, adobo sauce and Escebeche!

The period from the Civil War to 1912 was defined by the Legislative branch of Federal Government. It starts with our first impeachment of a President, and ends with the election of a President that would begin the ascending power of the Executive branch. During this era Congress would wield its greatest power ever in history. The 20^th century would be defined by its slow loss of power to the Executive branch. Never again, after the election of Woodrow Wilson, would Congress ever wield such power.

If the Congress was all powerful, who, therefore, in Congress, would have been the most powerful? Well, that would be the speaker of the House, of course, or didn’t you stay awake in government class? And of all the speakers of this era, none had the power and used it like Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois.

Known as Uncle Joe, he used his power as a tyrant over the House. No bill saw the light of day without him allowing it, as he was also head of the Rules Committee. Nothing in Congress happened without his permission. At times, things came to a standstill, loggerheads being broken only on his whim. Finally, the situation became intolerable, something had to give.

Like Humpty Dumpty, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. As the story goes, Uncle Joe got up from his speakers seat to relieve himself due to “nature calling”. When he left the chamber of the house, the members present, both Democrats and Republicans, quickly put together a resolution to remove him as Speaker. Upon his return, his supporters initiated a filibuster to block the resolution. After 26 hours, the filibuster ended, but the damage was done. Uncle Joe was no longer speaker of the house, and the era that was born in the tragedy of the Civil War came to an end. The rise of the Executive’s star was to begin, and we would enter an era defined by regulation. In history, even the greatest changes can come about for the simplest of reasons.

You must be asking yourself “What’s with the history lesson? Isn’t this a food blog? Well, Uncle Joe is famous for something else, and that’s Senate Bean Soup. Apparently one day he entered the dining room, looked at the menu, and exclaimed “Thunderation, I had my mouth set for bean soup! From now on, hot or cold, rain, snow or shine, I want it on the menu every day.” And it’s been that way ever since, never has a day gone by without it on the menu.

I love this recipe; it has become a staple at our house, our children call it “so good bean soup”. It is great on a cold winter night, and is pretty much a meal in itself. I try to make it as authentic as possible, which means making like they do in Washington, so I follow this recipe:

• 1 pound dry white beans, soaked overnight
• 1 meaty ham bone or 2 smoked ham hocks
• 3 quarts water
• 3 onions, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 4 stalks celery, with leaves, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
• 1 cup cooked mashed potatoes
• salt and pepper to taste

To begin: soak the beans overnight. In the morning, rinse beans, add to a stock pot with 3 quarts of water and the ham bone or hocks. Cover and simmer 2 hours.

Stir in the mashed potatoes and cook over low heat until the beans are almost tender, about 30 minutes. Add onion, celery, garlic and continue to simmer about an hour, or until the beans are tender. Remove the bone or hocks, clean of meat, dice it and return meat to the soup (I always add more ham to it than the bone will have). Salt and pepper to taste, and then serve. It’s very hearty and a wonderful meal. It also goes well with a salad tossed in a strong vinaigrette.

A great legacy left by a man of power, almost forgotten in our history books. Though, like Humpty Dumpty, he fell, the difference is in his case the king had no desire to use his men and horses to put him together again.

Battle Ground, Washington is a small town just north of Vancouver, Washington.  It has seen a flurry of growth, both good and bad, in the last ten years. It has a main strip, called Main Street (believe it or not) that most of the city’s growth has been focused on. It just got its own exit finished off of I-5, exit 11 (11 miles from the Oregon border), so now it is really on the map.

Like I said, the growth is, as I see it, both good and bad. Malls, parking lots and congestion due to increased traffic , is, in my book, bad, yet virtually inevitable. But growth can also give rise to new things that expand an areas opportunities. It now has a brewpub (a branch of Laurelwood Brewing in Portland), a new library and community center. See, it’s not all so bad!

At the end of Main Street is a little produce stand that opened up around the end of summer, 2009. Its named, surprisingly, Battle Ground Produce Co.

We’ve gone there a lot since it has opened, and each time we go there it seems to get better and the reasons to go there get greater. The produce is great; most of it is locally grown. What can’t be grown locally is of a high quality and brought in from reputable sources (for example, in three days they will have Blood Oranges. These come from the hot areas of Southern California, and it gives me the opportunity to make Blood Orange Marmalade). The bread is from local bakeries, as are the honeys and preserves. They even carry locally made candies!

It was started by Lorne Alacano, who has 20 years experience in the green grocer trade, both wholesale and retail. And believe me, it shows. The shop is clean, immaculate and well stocked.  If that weren’t enough there’s more good news.

The stand is a cross between a green grocer and a wine shop. There is a wine room, full to capacity, with an excellent selection. Focused mostly on wines of the Pacific Northwest, they are of the low price range to about the higher middle of wine overall. They range from red and white dinner wines to aperitifs to desserts.  I am sure that anyone selecting a wine to match a planned meal will not come away disappointed nor empty-handed.

I love the concept of this market, and I hope to see more of them in the future. In marrying the wine and the produce, he has combined what food lovers want: great grocery supply and great wines to go with it, purchased in a single location. He doesn’t carry beer, and I neglected to ask him if this is something that he plans on doing in the future. Ill ask next time and update.

And there’s more; behind the wine room is another, currently under construction area. It will be the home of a classical (old style) butcher shop. Oregon and Washington raised beef and pork and Washington chickens. He has a butcher with 40 yrs experience who is setting it up and will be the man in charge.

If you live in the area, do yourself a favor and stop in and check it out. It is yet one more reason that makes it possible to stay north of the Columbia. They’re at 925 E. Main St., Battle Ground WA., Phone: 360-687-1718.

Enjoy!