Seed bread

What with all the time at home, we have time to experiment.

I present a new seed bread, adapted from the no-knead bread that I make weekly.  For the dough:

300 g bread flour
100 g spelt flour
8 g salt
1/4 tsp yeast
30 g pumpkin seeds
30 g sunflower seeds
300 g water

Prepare as described here.  When shaping the loaf, instead of using flour to dust the parchment paper use a mixture of:

white sesame seeds
black sesame seeds
pumpkin seeds
sunflower seeds

Bake as described at 475°F.  30 minutes lid on, 7 minutes lid off.  The crackling the seeds make while the loaf cools is quite heavenly.


By Bbq Dude

Dill pickles

Bbq Jr. is big into the pickles. Whenever we're out at a restaurant, he asks if he can have a pickle with his dinner. So, to attract him to cooking, we've been making pickles together. We started with an old standard - dill pickles.

There are two reasons to pickle. One is long-term preservation. That's harder. You need to sterilize jars. Probably should hot pickle your veggies. The other reason is deliciousness. There, you need clean jars. And you need to keep your pickles in the fridge when you're done. They're good for a couple of months in the fridge. I pickle for deliciousness. If you need to learn how to store your pickles at room temperature, look to The Preservation Kitchen, or other pickling references. If you pickle for deliciousness, read on.

I used the recipe in The Preservation Kitchen, although most dill pickle recipes are about the same. Add a tiny bit of sugar to make it sweeter. Add a tiny bit of crushed peppers to make it hotter. But, basically the same:

5 ½ cups water
3 ½ cups champagne vinegar
2 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp sugar
5 tsp dill seeds
10 dill sprigs
10 garlic cloves
4 ½ lb pickling cucumbers

We picked a couple types of cucumbers, and chopped them together.



Knife skills are important to develop at a young age.



Pack the dill, dill seeds, garlic and chopped cucumbers into your pickle jars.



Boil the water, vinegar, salt and sugar, until the sugar and salt are dissolved and the liquid is boiling. Pour the hot brine over the packed veggies.



Allow to cool to room temperature. Cap, and place them in the fridge. Strictly speaking, they're pickles now.



But they improve with age. They peak at about 3 weeks. Eat as a condiment, or as a snack. Tasty.



By Bbq Dude

Mashed potato soup

I'm not generally a fan of the starches (except homemade bread - I love homemade bread). Baked potato. Mashed potato. Rice. I'm not a huge fan. But when I read the recipe for Morimoto's potato soup, I knew I had to try it (adapted from his Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking). This is one of the best things I have ever cooked.

Morimoto starts out the section with a fairly hilarious quote:

I must confess I have a weakness for luxurious foods like lobster, caviar and foie gras. But I also respect the humbles of ingredients. Their plainness offers me a different kind of challenge. Here a simple potato is transformed into an elegant soup you could serve at any dinner party.

Of course, the recipe also includes caviar, which certainly helps elevate the humble potato.

First, the broth. The broth is a simple dashi-based broth. The genius who first decided to boil kelp and fish flakes should be honored with the status of a demi-god.

4 cups water
½ cup loosely packed bonito flakes
1 piece 4x6 inch kombu
1 large baking potato
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter
¾ cup half and half
2 tbsp sake
3 tbsp light-colored soy sauce
salt
1 oz caviar
wasabi
chives

Kombu and bonito flakes are available at Japanese and Korean grocery stores. At H-Mart in Massachusetts, there is a kelp section of the store, where you find the kombu. The bonito flakes (dried, shaved fish flakes) are in the seasoning section. Kombu:



And bonito flakes:



Rinse off the kombu. Place into a pot with the 4 cups water, and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes (until it starts to make your kitchen smell like a wharf), and then remove from heat. Add the bonito flakes, and stir. Allow the mixture to cool (20 minutes or so). Strain the liquid into a different pot to remove the kelp and bonito flakes. Don't be alarmed by the smell, the broth will be delicious.

Meanwhile, take a baking potato, and stab it with a fork a few times.



Steam until soft (20-30 minutes). Remove from heat, and remove the skin from the potato. Mash the potato, and then force it through a potato ricer or a fine sieve.



Heat the butter and cream in a pot until melted. Whisk in the sieved potato. At first it will float around in the cream, but as you continually whisk, it will turn into a syrupy goop. Continue whisking until it has the texture of a polenta.



Meanwhile, reheat the broth. Season with sake and soy sauce, and salt to taste.

When the potatoes come together in a thickened consistency, scoop it into the centre of the bowls you're serving it in (this makes 6 nice appetizers). Pour broth around it. Add a scoop of wasabi, some chives and a scoop of caviar to the potato. Serve.



This will be a repeat in our house. Very super delicious.



By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a mojito! We've been rather quiet of late, here at Indirect Heat, but not due to a lack of food enjoyment. We've had some blogatious IT problems that are starting to resolve themselves.

In the meantime, we've been enjoying the bounty of our garden. The mojito has become Mrs. Dude's favourite summer drink. And we're doing our best to enjoy it as the summer wanes. Our mojito is mintier than most, given the usage of Minty simple syrup. We base our recipe off of the one at use real butter.

Minty simple syrup:

8 oz. sugar
8 oz. water
4 large sprigs of fresh mint

Mix the sugar and water. Bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar, then toss in the mint sprigs, fresh from the garden. Let cool to room temperature, sieve out the mint. Chill. This minty simple syrup is good for weeks in the fridge.

Now, to the mojito. We use Privateer amber rum, a rum that tastes like it's been aged in wood. It has interesting bourbon notes, which makes for a much more sophisticated mojito:

½ lime, juice of to taste
2 oz minty simple syrup, to taste
bunch of mint leaves
2 oz rum, to taste -
club soda or sparkling water to taste
lime wedge, for garnish
mint leaves, for garnish
ice

Mix the ingredients, and garnish with the mint and lime wedge. Most of the mint flavour is coming from the simple syrup, so you can leave out the garnish if you're feeling lazy. Serve.

A perfect Saturday beverage for a hot evening. Salud.

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

a cucumber beverage.



There have been entirely too few lazy Saturdays of late. Working. Painting the house. Working. Gardening. Working. Plumbing. But this weekend, I am inspired to make a beverage we had recently at our dear friends' home. They found it here.

1–2 pieces of thinly sliced lemons
4–6 pieces of thinly sliced cucumbers
1 tsp of honey
2 oz vodka
4 oz sparkling water
3–4 cubes of ice
mint for garnish

Mix the vodka and honey. Add everything else to the glass. We used chocolate mint and spearmint from the garden. And what a delicious drink for a hot day.

By Bbq Dude

This is why I garden

In 1997, I moved from Canada to Houston. In Canada, you can grow rhubarb. In Houston, it is only sporadically available in grocery stores. I would carry my limp rhubarb with rotten spots on it to the cash register, and I would be asked "What is that?" and "What do you do with that?". And I would pay $7 a pound for the privilege. I would salvage what I could from this pale shadow of what rhubarb should be.

At home, all of my family grows rhubarb. And towards the end of the summer, every one of them asks who needs extra, because they have too much to freeze. The idea of paying for rhubarb is ridiculous. Rhubarb is everywhere. In all of my homes since 1997 - Houston, Baltimore and San Diego - rhubarb can't live. Houston is too hot. Baltimore is too humid (the roots rotted out of my attempts). San Diego doesn't have a winter, which rhubarb requires. But now, in Massachusetts, we can grow rhubarb.

We planted them last spring, and they've flourished.




And this weekend we harvested from them for the first time. Following my mother's advice, I harvested only the thickest stalks. Grasp them, and gently twist and pull. They come off at the base. The biggest stalks should be quite large on a healthy, established plant. Mrs. Dude is shown for scale:



Cut off the leaves (they contain toxic levels of oxalic acid). And chop the rest of the rhubarb into ¹⁄₈" chunks.

A simple and worthy dessert of rhubarb is rhubarb crisp. Preheat the oven to 375°F. For the fruit:

3 cups chopped rhubarb
1 to 1 ¼ C sugar
3 tbsp flour

Mix the rhubarb, flour and sugar and layer into a large, greased baking dish. Make the topping. If you like your topping crunchy, make 50% more topping than what is below:

½ cup oatmeal
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup flour
¼ cup butter, chopped
¹⁄₈ tsp baking soda
¹⁄₈ tsp baking powder

Mix the topping ingredients, and cut the butter into them. Mix well. When the oven is at temperature, sprinkle the topping evenly over the rhubarb. Place the dish in the oven, and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the topping is browned, and the rhubarb is bubbling through.



While still hot, scoop out crisp into bowls, and serve with vanilla ice cream. Perfect.



This is an excellent spring dessert to finish any barbecue. And this is why I garden.

By Bbq Dude

Pulled pork fishsticks

We first visited Joe Beef in Montréal a few months ago. It's a fun, meat-centric restaurants, with over-the-top, creative dishes and cocktails. I purchased their book, The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts as soon as it was available, and have been salivating over their dish, pulled pork fishsticks, ever since. But I needed a proper occasion to cook this over-the-top dish.

Here's how it works. You make pulled pork. You smoke a pork butt for 8 hours and then pull it. Then you mix it with bbq sauce and dissolved gelatin. You form them into a tray and allow them to gelatinize. Then you cut them into sticks, bread them and deep fry them.

Well, our occasion arrived, in the form of Foodapalooza 2012. I'm going to present a slightly modified version from what I made, as I wasn't thrilled with Joe Beef's bbq sauce, but this is inspired by their recipe, and is guaranteed to delight meatlover's everywhere:

½ of a pulled pork butt
¾ cup pulled pork bbq sauce
3 tbsp finely chopped shallots
3 sheets gelatin
salt and pepper
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp Old Bay seasoning
2 eggs
2 cups panko bread crumbs
canola oil for deep frying

Soak the gelatin sheets in icewater while warming the bbq sauce in a small saucepan. When the sauce starts to boil, remove from heat. Squeeze the icewater out of the gelatin, and add the gelatin to the sauce. Stir until the gelatin dissolves.



Mix the sauce, pulled pork and finely chopped shallots. Mix very well, and check the seasoning. Adjust with salt and pepper. Line a small sheet pan with plastic wrap. Press the meat into the pan, making it about ½" thick all throughout the pan. Push the meat together tightly. Chill overnight.

In the morning, remove the plastic wrap from the pan, and remove the meat from the plastic wrap. Slice into fishstick-sized pieces (I cut these into 21 pieces). Set up a breading station. First bowl has the flour and Old Bay seasoning. Second has the eggs, beaten until foamy. Third has the panko bread crumbs. While you're heating the oil in a pan, bread the sticks. Coat them with flour, then coat them with egg, then coat them with panko bread crumbs.

When the oil hits 350°F, fry the sticks in small batches until the bread crumbs are a nice brown colour. Fish out of the hot oil, and set on paper towels to drain for a few moments. Serve.

Deep-fried, smoky, acidic goodness. This is a decadent little meat-bomb, and it's guaranteed to please.



By Bbq Dude

Foodapalooza 2012

October has been a rough month, for various reasons. So, when I e-mailed drricky and told him, "I'm feeling bummed out, want to come up and cook?", he was here less than two weeks later. drricky is the kind of friend that I am truly lucky to have. Friday, we spent some time exploring the Italian bounty that the Greater Boston area has to offer, and on Saturday we cooked up a storm, as we have done together in the past.

Twelve dishes, no repeats (nothing we've done together before). We've gotten better at timing the dishes, and giving ourselves enough prep time to throw everything together. We started making sauces on Friday, and started serving around 6 p.m. on Saturday.



Small dishes, small servings, served over 6 hours. More detailed descriptions will follow, over at drricky's blog and here.

We started with pizza scones, hoping that the word pizza would lull the children.



Next up, bánh xèo, a coconut milk pancake, wrapped around all kinds of crunchy goodness.



An easy-to-prepare course, the ham-tasting: 3 prosciuttos served with drricky's excellent homemade loquat jam. Interesting note, La Quercia's prosciutto Americano was the far-away favourite (and the least expensive).



The following dish was the evening's most fascinating dish (and one of the most successful, in my opinion). Huitlacoche-monkfish chowder. The grey of the huitlacoche is a challenge to make beautiful, but I think that is accomplished here against the bright yellow of the corn (source of the huitlacoche fungus) and the white of the monkfish.



Next up was the Burmese thoke, a crunchy salad with fried lotus root. Lightened things up before we went heavy again.



Salted, seared duck breast, served with blueberries we picked in August. Beautiful and delicious on top of home-baked sourdough. I know that several guests are looking forward to drricky's post describing how to make this sauce.



Beef oysters (Joe Beef, that is). A mix of soy sauce and salt beans made this a tad too salty for some, may require a bit of refinement for the future.



Another hit of the night, chicken-fried, home-smoked bacon, served with a trio of New England sauces. Blueberry, rhubarb and cranberry sauces, this is another one that I eagerly await the details for.



On Friday, I smoked a pork butt, and made pulled pork. We split the pork into the next two dishes. First, bbq pork potstickers, with a mustard-serrano sauce.



Followed by pulled pork fishsticks (I'll be posting about this soon).



The final two dishes: Scottish sundae, consisting of grilled peaches and jackfruit, served with caramel-oatmeal ice cream and candied oats.



And the final dish of the night, chokecherry panna cotta with a nutty cookie.



A crazy evening, but everyone went to bed with full and happy bellies. An epic evening, I can't wait to do it again.

EDIT: Will continue to update with links for individual dishes.

By Bbq Dude

Bacon shortage public service announcement

By Bbq Dude

Macaroni & cheese

When I left home, I didn't know how to cook. My mom is an excellent cook, and she didn't feel it necessary to teach her kids to cook. But when I left home, she gave me a copy of The Joy of Cooking (the old version, not the re-published travesty). I still love that book. How many cookbooks do you own that describe (with drawings) how to skin and cook a squirrel?



The first recipe in that book that I ever cooked by myself comes from page 186, Baked Macaroni. It was a classic when I was a child, and it's a classic for my child. And it's an amazing side dish next to a smoked brisket.

We've modified it over the years, simplifying the seasoning, and dialing up the cheese.

4 cups macaroni
4 cups grated cheese (as many kinds as you have in your fridge, but primarily cheddar)
4 eggs
2 ¾ cup milk
1 ½ tsp salt
butter

Throw the macaroni in boiling water and boil until al dente. Butter a large casserole dish and pre-heat the oven to 350°F.

Cover the bottom of the casserole dish with just enough noodles to make the bottom disappear, then layer on a layer of cheese. I particularly like a mixture of any blue cheese, cheddar and parmesan. Use enough cheese to cover the noodles and make them disappear.



Repeat, layer after layer, ending with a layer of cheese.



Meanwhile, beat the eggs until foamy. Mix with milk and salt until the salt dissolves. Pour that mix over top of the macaroni. Cover the casserole and place in the hot oven. Bake for 45 minutes, until cheese is melted, and the egg mixture has firmed up a bit (it won't firm entirely until it cools a fair amount).



Serve, classically with sausage and a veggie, or southernly next to a brisket.



By Bbq Dude

Wordless Wednesday: Oysters for bo ssäm

By Bbq Dude

Empanadas

Boston isn't the largest city in the U.S. Not by a long shot. But being a college-town on steroids means that it's a cosmopolitan town that attracts scientists from around the world. Despite living the furthest from Latin America in all the years that I've lived in the U.S., there is plenty of Latin cuisine here. And that often means empanadas are served at potlucks.



We've taken the Argentine recipe from Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way and cooked them on the grill.

Here we go. Make the dough and the filling the night before you plan to serve these tasty critters.

For the dough:

2 cups water
1 ½ tbsp salt
3 ½ tbsp lard
6 to 7 cups all-purpose flour

Bring the water and salt to boil. Remove from heat, and add the lard. Stir until the lard melts, then transfer to a bowl to cool.

When it's cooled to room temperature, mix in the flour, a cup at a time, until you've added 6 cups. Flour a surface, and knead the ball of dough, adding flour until you have a stiff, dry dough.



Split the dough in half.



Wrap and place in the fridge to chill overnight.

Meanwhile, make the filling:

1 lb well-marbled sirloin
coarse salt and fresh pepper
10 tbsp unsalted butter
¼ cup lard
3 medium onions
1 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp paprika
4 scallions, minced and separating green and white parts
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup fresh oregano leaves
3 hard-boiled large eggs, coarsely chopped
½ cup pitted green olives, coarsely chopped

Trim the most egregious pieces of fat off of the beef. Then chop finely. Think ground beef, but not quite that fine. That's why you do it by hand, you want it to still have some texture to it, but you want it pretty fine.



Chop the onions. Sauté the onions in the 6 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of lard over low heat. Cook until clear.



Add the dried spices and the white part of the scallions, sauté for a few more minutes. Your kitchen will smell ridiculous at this point. Remove from heat, and mix in the remaining scallions.



Meanwhile, brown the meat in the oil over high heat. Brown a little bit at a time, we're looking to sear the meat, not boil it (and if you liberate a ton of fluid, you'll end up making beef stew).



As you finish each batch of meat, set aside to cool. Don't make piles, we're not steaming beef here.

When everything has cooled, mix the beef, onion mixture, 3 tbsp of lard and the oregano (so glad we planted oregano in the garden this year, yum!).

Chill the mixture in the fridge overnight.

On day two, peel and chop the boiled eggs, and chop the olives.



Roll out the dough to ⅛" thick.



Cut out 3 ½" circles in the dough and set aside on a floured tray. Repeat until all dough is gone.



Get filling, butter, olives and eggs ready. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling in a circle of dough. Add a tiny bit of butter, olives and eggs.



Wet the outside of the circle of dough. Fold across the mid-line, and pinch shut with a fork.



Repeat. A bunch. If you're alone because Mrs. Dude is working late, continue folding for about an hour. Heat up your grill to 350°F. Cook each tray of emapanadas by indirect heat, using a bit of cherry wood for smoke. Cook until the empanadas are nicely browned.

Remove from heat and cool.



Serve. The lard creates a beautifully crunchy crust. And the salty, spicy, fat filling. In the language of the young folk. OMGWTFBBQ.  Really. It's that good.


By Bbq Dude