Wontonamera

There’s something to be said for making a delectable and deliriously delightful set of dishes for your date and you to devour. It’s romantic and all that other bs. As of late I’ve had two experiences I wanted to remind myself about that were not quite such intimate experiences.

My former roommate was having a goodbye-school-hello-summer party, and requested that I make pizza for said event. No problem, I readily agreed, blissfully unaware of what she had in mind. “How many should I cook for?”

Note: never agree, then ask. Ask, then agree.

“Twenty-five or Thirty.”

(insert sound of my mouth hitting the floor in shock and awe) After I recovered from my initial shock, I went about menu planning for that number of people and homemade pizza. In my house’s kitchen. With one oven. When the initial shock wore off, I started to worry. Making one or two pizzas isn’t a big deal…stir, swab, top, cook. Eight different pizzas in short order is a little bit of a different story. Like “War and Peace” vs. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” sort of difference.

As it turned out, it was more like 18 folks, so I ended up making 6 pizzas*.

-I cheated and bought dough for them all. Oopsie. No one cared, it was good dough and the rest of the pizza more than made up for it.
-Good cheese and good graters make a huge difference on the end result and in the making of.
-The sauce recipe from below was scaled up three-fold. Also planned on taking a bit longer to simmer as a result, during which time I went all “mise en place” on the rest of the toppings, and also made pesto.
-The oven was ramped up early, and a pizza stone in on the bottom rack, to try and help the temp fluctuations that would inevitably result.
-Don’t plan on having a break while you do this, as you’ll be topping, cooking, checking, slicing, and serving in short order once you get going.
-Make small square slices of a few pies so everyone can get a bite. When they’re coming out in stages, it helps to keep folks happy so they can return to mingling and rocking out while they nibble each round.

Don’t forget, cleanup is also scaled up. Woo.

The second meal was going to be a small dinner for three that soon changed into a six person, multi-course extravaganza expo. Most dinners I do are generally timed to coincide with a sitting down and eating all at once, but this one’s going to end up with its own post (and hopefully, pics) tomorrow. Timing, of course, is everything. Being able to accurately guesstimate your cooking and prep times, and pacing of the courses, makes a huge difference in serving them right!

1. Get in the car.

2. Drive to the store.

3. Buy bacon.

4. Drive home.

5. Cook bacon.

6. Eat….Oh, you meant how to make-make it? That’s a slight bit more complex. Not much, though. Like you can be in 4th grade. Seriously. Maybe Kindergarten. The hardest part about it is convincing your parents to buy the raw materials you need.

1. Wake up. Go to the farmer’s market. Talk to the rancher who has the pork. He’ll give you the pork belly (3-5 pounds) that you reserved earlier in the week.

Pre-Bacon

2. Upon returning home, bust out the curing salt (#1) that you bought earlier and mixed up to be the recipe from Charcuterie (by Ruhlman, et al) for the curing salt. Pierce but DO NOT REMOVE THE SKIN. Rub 50g or so on the belly, and if you’d like to spice it up with either pepper, maple syrup, brown sugar, chipotles, etc., add about 1/2c or so of that to the belly, ziploc it and throw in the fridge. Grab a drink and party! You’ve done half the work at this point, so celebrating is mandatory.

3. Over the next week, flip it every other day so the cure is on both sides. After the belly firms up quite a bit, ie, after a week to 8 days, you’re done curing. SCHWEET!!!

4. Wash the cure off the belly, let it soak for 30 minutes in water. Repeat for an hour with new water. During this time you’ll want to go crank up your smoker to about 200F. I use pecan and apple wood for smoking, you can use pretty much any wood you like. Smoke at 200f for about 4 hours. Remove from smoker. Trim the skin from the bacon. Take pics. Pop champagne. Cheers yourself, because you’re awesome and you’ve now completed makin’ bacon. Vegans everywhere will weep at your passing!!

References:
Charcuterie, The art of curing, salting, smoking and making meat awesome-er.

While google has basically made itself the ultimate cookbook and one of my most frequently referenced items, there’s still quite a bit of knowledge that’s not so easily codified and readily available as you can find in those archaic tomes known as “Cookbooks”.

Here’s some I really liked, with some blurbs about why.

Ad Hoc at Home

Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc may be one of the better ones, and the most approachable of his series of cookbooks (followed by Bouchon, then French Laundry). Ad Hoc includes things like cutting and tying whole chickens, which is something I hadn’t seen done as nicely ever. Also, lots of good recipes and techniques are covered through the rest of the book that you can pick up and use to your benefit in every day cooking. Keller and Co. even went to a home kitchen to test every recipe in the book(!) to ensure they could be done at home. The pictures are well done, the text as well. Large enough to read and see, unlike many smaller format books. Expensive (relatively speaking) but I think most folks should flip through it and see, you might be convinced.

Joy of Cooking

The Joy of Cooking, venerable and stoic though it may be, is a dense encyclopedia of recipes and information. Not much isn’t covered in this, and can be handy for making a pie to whipping up hummus. Revised several times over the years, it’s fairly up to date on temps and times and the like. Consider this the google of cookbooks, with its index and appendices. You can make every bit of a four course easter dinner from its pages and end up looking like a real champ if you please.

As I was im’ing with a friend she mentioned that she has a fun time in the kitchen, but I, oh I am all serious ‘n’ s#!t.

I mean, sorry, I am COMPLETELY serious when I cook. Totally.

This interchange from The Mummy should emulate the sort of fun I have…

Evelyn: Now, what exactly is this man in prison for?
Warden Gad Hassan: Well, this I did not know. But when I heard you
were coming, I asked him that myself.
Evelyn: And what did he say?
Warden Gad Hassan: He said he was just looking for a good time.

(a few minutes later)

Evelyn: Where are they taking him?
Warden Gad Hassan: To be hanged. Apparently, he had a VERY good time.

It’s sort of like that.

For Christmas and his birthday i bought my brother a Sous Vide Supreme. I figured it was something he wouldn’t have (he didn’t) and would be geeky enough he’d like it (he did). He likes to cook, joined me at the French Laundry, and has a girlfriend he should occasionally try and impress to boot, so that never hurts.

Back to me, though, since I’m who you should be focusing your attention on here. I got all jealous at how nice I’d been and decided that I wanted to join the geeky science project kitchen fun crowd somehow. Lots of research and curious googling later, I think I’ve managed to do just that.

See?

Just waiting to be used...

Just mush all that into a box, add electricity and water, and SHAZAM, b!tches, it’s sous vide cooking.

Or not quite.

If you take a moment to read and bookmark this hugely useful page, you’ll note there’s a crapload more that you’ll need to consider about this. Not to mention general food safety, which needs to be first on your mind when you do this crap, even more than normal. Yeah, paralytic somethingorothers as a result of mishandling lobster don’t sound quite as pleasing as gettin’ some after dinner for that butter deliciousness you just made. Just sayin’. Be careful.

The first article I’d read that made it seem quite doable was the Popular Science article that talked about DIY, followed soon after by my roommate sending me Make version of the same after a discussion while watching “Top Chef”. Granted I’ll never be on that show, but it’s fun to talk about. That and chef groupies.

The main part of what you’ll need is a device to accurately control temperatures. Some people consider a crock pot a good way to do this. It is, for the “high” and “low” temps that it maintains. If you want a bit more than that (you do), you’ll need to get a PID controller and a method to heat your desired cooking bath. My PID is from Auber, it’s the smoker/sous vide model ($200), but I also have a smoker I can use it with. I’m good like that. For heating, the Norpro 559 immersion heaters are cheap ($6-8 shipped) and can be made to work in a wide variety of containers–not just a crock pot or a rice cooker. REI, conveniently, sells a knock off of the norpro (rebadge, even, who knows) that does the same functions but for twice the price and immediately available. At least when I went and bought them.

If you do go with the immersion heater method, you’ll need to figure out how much power you’ll need to heat your water. Remember, a larger amount of water can hold its temp steady easier, but requires more power to heat up. As I chose to DIY without a rice or slow cooker, I had to find a suitable container. Simple enough, I did what a lot of the pros do–steam table pans. My local ACEMart has them in a wide variety of sizes, and after some thought I bought two sizes, 25 and 12 qt ($15 and $10), aka 8″ deep full and half size pans. You can get them in stainless or plastics of varying types, and there’s always the Imusa tamale pot if you want a really big pot you can use for something else.

And there ya go. That’s the basic equipment you need to start making eggs in a water bath. Tada! I can stick all of my gear into the 12qt pan and take it with pretty easily as well. Handy.

Of course, Sous Vide means “Under Vacuum”, so there’s a tiny bit more if you want to really make it that extra special sort of toy to play with in your kitchen. The vacuum sealers you see all around can be used, though the pros make use of some seriously ridiculous chamber sealers which would shrink plastic over the face of a small baby if you wanted. They’re running on a budget you and I don’t have or want to spend on this stuff. Heck some people have been known to use ziplocs. Whatever. I procured a food saver ($60 with two rolls of bagging material). Basic, functional, and relatively foolproof. Heck I can use it, right?

Some other parts you’ll wish to consider for good measure:
Thermometer for calibrating/comparing
bubbler/circulator to ensure even heating (despite the rumor, water can have drastically different temps in a pan)
lid for your container you can cut and hack to make it hold all the heating and temp elements.
A good set of tongs
hot pads, etc…

Now the girlfriend to impress thing, that’s a whole nother story.

Yeah, I’ve been away for a bit, I know. Lots of crap and the holidays going on. Bite me. Or have a bite of these:

Scallops in Puff Pastry, with truffles and foie gras, aka, Scallop Wellingtons.

Here’s a towel for that mess you just made.

I was fairly scared to cook these. One of my friends was like “Whatever, just make it.” until I mentioned that two of the ingredients were $100+ per pound. Then I got the “Oh….yeah, be careful.” So….be very aware of what you’re getting into with this one! If you use diver/sea scallops, then you will need to use larger slices of puff pastry, but adjust to fit your needs as needed.

Ingredients:
Mushrooms (get good ones, cremini would be the bottom end of what I’d use for these)

Black Truffle
Foie Gras (Locally sourced as “Duck Liver”)
Scallops
Puff pastry
Chives
Salt
Pepper
Egg

Dice chives.
Dice mushrooms, sautee in a pan for a couple of minutes, set aside.
Wafer/paper thin slice the truffle into pieces about scallop size.

Leave the Foie Gras and puff pastry in fridge as long as possible!
Cut a piece of puff pastry big enough to wrap the scallop completely with a scooch of room to spare.
On the puff pastry, sprinkle a layer of mushrooms, then add a few pieces of chives.
Place a slice of truffle on top.
Slice a piece of foie gras about scallop sized and 1/8th inch thick, place on truffle. Season with a dash of salt/pepper.

Season scallop, place on top of foie gras.

Wrap one end of puff pastry over scallop, brush edge with egg wash. Wrap the rest of the way, and trim excessive pastry as needed.
Place on non-stick baking pan. Brush with Egg wash.
Repeat till done, place in fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400F.

Diver scallops may take 15 minutes, the small ones took 10-12. Do a test one first to see for yourself how long you want to bake. My oven and yours may be friends but bake different.

Plus these are fun to eat.

I Klassed it up big time with the baked brie in puff pastry I did with the extra pastry. Awww yeah. These might just get you laid.

Slap yo' momma good.

(Scallops were the cheapest item per pound when I bought these–chives were per bunch
puff pastry was $15
scallops: $8
Hen of the wood shrooms: $24
Foie Gras: $100
Black Truffle: $200
yeah…be very aware of what you’re making!)

I have one of the world’s worst sweet tooths. Big Top Candy Shop may yet be the worst thing I’ve ever known. Double Bacon Chocolate bar? Yes, it’s kind of my catnip or crack or Megan Fox’s body or whatever you’d find most addicting. In order to avoid things like eating half a batch of cookie dough, then, I just skip making them.

Sigh.

I have issues.

The other day after reclaiming my place on top of the food chain, I realized I had materials on hand to make one of the greatest easy-bake desserts you can do. It’s not only quick, but supremely unhealthy, doubly fried, chocolatey, and dusted with sugar. In fact it’s so good my camera refused to take pictures of it*.

Nanutellatons. I made up a name that pretty much covered the whole of the recipe, but I doubt I’m the first to make these. Break it down, you’ll get it figured right out.

Nan = bananas
utella = nutella
‘tons = wontons

There ya go. Simple. Four things (and a frying pan). PS, they’re most delicious warm, when they get all melty and gooey and almost even orgasmic on your tongue.

Gratuitous picture from other wonton-related dish I tried:

Wontonarific!

Without further babble, then…

1 banana, cut into half lengthwise, then into 1/2″ chunks.
jar of nutella
a stack of wonton wrappers.
powdered sugar

Prep work makes this easy. Get a small ramekin of water nearby your wonton wrappers. Have the jar of nutella with a spoon in it ready to scoop. Have paper towels and a cookie rack right next to the pan. line up wonton wrappers, nutella, banana, water, then safely near by the pan, and then the cookie rack.

Heat a frying/sauce pan to medium heat with your favorite frying oil about 1/4″ deep. When warm, toss in the banana. Once fried to the point of being appropriately fried, remove from the pan. If your oil is still clean you can reuse it for the next stage, otherwise, use a fresh batch.

Production line phase. It might help to make several first before you fry the first batch, otherwise you’ll get stuck eating them one at a time forever as they come off and cool. Peel a wonton wrapper. Add a small dollop of nutella, then drop on a piece of banana. Dampen one index finger, and moisten the edge of the wrapper. Fold into your favorite wonton-esque shape (corners together is good, or just rolled, whatever). Make sure you seal the edges, otherwise they will be oily inside, which is NOT good.

Once you have your batch ready, place into frying pan spaced enough to not touch. Should take 1-2 minutes to get the bottoms golden brown, watch carefully and remove as soon as you see them crispified. Place onto paper towel briefly to absorb oil, then onto cookie rack. Once your batch is done, arrange onto serving dish, and dust with powdered sugar. IF you’ve gotten them timed right, the banana will be super fried gooey good, and the nutella will have melted nicely around it.

After your guests eat them, give them the raised eyebrows and move in for the after dessert Smoove B moves.

Curious if I could work graham cracker crumbles into these for a texture option. might be too much, though.

* Actually I was too busy frying and eating and frying.

Once upon a time, Scallops ruled the Earth.

Soon thereafter, humans developed a mildly refined palette, realized that scallops were delicious, and wrestled their way to the top of the food chain.

Fast forward to Sunday, when I did some surf-n-turf. Since I think lobsters are cuddly and scallops clearly evil, I decided to use the scallops to complete my meal so rhymealicious and delicious. Lobsters love you. Scallops are still jealous of being knocked off the food chain.

Since it was Labor day, everyone had sales on Ribeyes, so I found some serious sized ones to grill. 1-1.5″ thick steaks scare some people, but really, they’re just as tasty if not more so.

Scallops + Ribeye

Having both of those, I quickly googled and found this recipe for scallops with pasta and roasted red pepper sauce. And the plan then came together. I skipped the pasta, but the sauce sounded delicious. Besides I had the ingredients on hand, so why not give it a whirl?*

Burn, baby, burn!

While the peppers were charring, I managed to sear the scallops, toss the steaks on the grill, and get out the remaining ingredients for the sauce. Kitchen management skillz, I got them.

Anyways, peppers roasted, evil scallops seared till they were good again, steaks grilled up and wrapped in foil, I quickly peeled the (EXTREMELY HOT) peppers and tossed them in the blender. Guest #3 was surprised at how little there was to making food at home. I told him “Cooking: it gets you laid, man.”

Sometimes, at any rate.

Ok fine, it gets you fed. Shush.

Blenderation

Presentation skills, though, I need work on.

I need to work on my presentation skillz.

Yummy. Yes, I have half a ribeye. Those things were huge! I wasn’t going to eat a whole one myself. Besides I have leftovers that way.

Guest #1 said “I didn’t like scallops that much before, but maybe they just needed the right sauce!”
Guest #2 said “Mmmmm! I like those.”
Guest #3 mostly nodded in agreement between bites. Much like me.

* Also, he’s now an Austinite, and CfE is a killer food site.

Ah, winter, that cool time of the year when stewing pots of sludge over a hot stove doubles as a bonding experience with your family…wait, what? It’s under 100F in Austin? Sweet. I can cook inside again. To celebrate the cold spell we are having, I got all hungrified for some Taco Soup. I’m certain there’s another name or six for it all over the world, but that’s what I learned of it as and how it’s staying.

I stole this from an ex girlfriend, made a few improvements for my own liking, and am now sharing it with you. You’re welcome! Sorry there’s not more pictures, I was busy doing dishes or drinking or something important while this cooked. Trust me, if you have the ingredients, it’s seriously 15 minutes or so to cook this up, and 5 to serve it. 20 minutes. And you look awesome in your house guests eyes. They’ll ooh and aah over your amazing skillz between bites.

Taco Soup!
1# ground beef (or turkey, your choice!)
1 shallot, diced -or- half an onion. Up to your tastes/availability.
1 can whole kernel corn (do not drain)
1 can Ro-tel (do not drain)
1 can sliced mushroom (drain about 1/2 the liquid)
1 serrano or new mexico green pepper, diced
1 packet ranch dressing powder mix
1 packet taco seasoning mix
-
to top with…
shredded cheese
sour cream
tortilla chips

Heat a 4qt or so pot to medium high. Add 1tbs olive oil to pan.
When pan is heated, add onion and pepper. Stir once or twice.
Open ground beef, sprinkle with taco and ranch powders. Mix into the ground beef, and then add to pan.
Let simmer for a minute, stir. Check every minute and stir, and when the meat is nearly browned, add in the corn, rotel, and mushrooms.
Stir together to mix. Turn off burner. Stir after a minute, cover and leave alone for 5 minutes while you get bowls, cheese, and sour cream.

Scoop into bowl, sprinkle with cheese, and a dollop of sour cream. Tortilla chips served on the side to dip/crunch/enjoy as needed.

Please excuse the massive dollop of sour cream I lumped on for the picture. But I still enjoyed it.

Tada! Comfort food in 15 minutes. Style points if you do your own taco or ranch seasonings, but really, this one’s about easy like Sunday morning. Feel free to suggest improvements and the like!