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

Sauerkraut

I'm a microbiologist. But I had made neither cheese nor sauerkraut in my home (until recently). No home microbiology (save wine and mead fermentations) have occurred in my home. During the day, I'm working my butt off to develop a rapid, sensitive, diagnostic test for Listeria contamination in food. Listeria is a deadly pathogen that can contaminate all kinds of food, but is most commonly associated with contaminated, unpasteurized dairy products. Given that I study food-poisoning, I'm rather more cautious in that area than most families.

It turns out, sauerkraut production is pretty toxic to to many food pathogens. Sauerkraut production is basically making an environment that makes Lactobacillus bacteria happy. If the salt concentration is high, and the environment is anaerobic, Lactobacillus will happily grow and piss out large amounts of lactic acid. Lactic acid is particularly toxic to non-lactic acid bacteria, translocating into the cell and dropping the pH of the cell in a way that many other acids don't. It's an excellent preservative. And it makes cabbage taste delicious. So win, win!

I used a sauerkraut recipe developed from a couple of online sources, and a brine developed from Charcuterie.

You'll need one piece of specialized equipment. An inert container (i.e., not plastic or metal). Either a glass (not a good idea, you might break it) or stoneware crock, and an inert item to cover it. I used a tight-fitting stoneware plate.

~ 2 lb cabbage (1 cabbage)
10 juniper berries
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp yellow mustard seeds
1 tbsp sea salt

Chop the cabbage finely.



Mix with the salt, and pack it into the crockpot tightly.



Sprinkle the herbs on top. Place your tight-fitting lid on top, and put something heavy on it. I used a 1 liter water bottle, and pushed down on it to squish the cabbage. This is important. The salt will draw out the water in the cabbage (pretty quickly, as it turns out - 4 hours after I mixed the cabbage and salt, water had filled up to the top). On top of the water bottle, I placed a tea towel, to keep out bugs and dust.

Every day, push down on the cabbage to squeeze out any air. Should it look like the water level is receding, top up with brine to keep all the cabbage submerged (to keep it anaerobic). Brine consists of:

1 cup water
1 tsp salt

Now you wait. Keep the sauerkraut cool, but not cold. The temperature in our house has ranged from 12°C to 20°C. At the end of the first day, there was a lot of water. By the end of day 5, that water was fizzing (that's carbon dioxide being produced as part of the fermentation of the sugars in the cabbage - the other byproduct of that is lactic acid). And at a week, the brine turned cloudy.



The cloudiness is the lactic acid bacteria themselves, present in high numbers.

By the end of two weeks, the fizzing had slowed, the cabbage had softened, and the cabbage had a faint smell to it. I've scooped out about ¼ of it.



It has a more serious crunch to it than commercially sold sauerkraut, but the acid is definitely there. It's both subtler and more complex than a canned sauerkraut. And, in a big win, the first sauerkraut that Mrs. Dude actually enjoyed. She liked it!

I served it with bratwurst on a bun. The acid and crunch go particularly well with the fat and smoke from the bratwurst. Delicious!



This is a big win. You should make it at home. It's easy and requires little effort. Just patience, and a 30 seconds of diligence each day.

EDIT: Mar 19, 2012. Week 3, the kraut is more acidic and brighter than before. It continues to improve!

By Bbq Dude

Asparagus mimosa

As we settle into Boston, I'm cooking a lot of old standbys. Not worth posting on them. But this book Plenty that I've gotten my hands on... It's providing tons of side-dishes. Yes, it's a vegetarian book. But as the author says, "I suggested serving a salad with some barbecued lamb chops."

Yes. This is an excellent side-dish book (and occasional main dish book). Tonight, I bring you a quick-and-easy way to dial up asparagus.

2 eggs
½ lb asparagus
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp capers, drained
2 tsp large crystal salt
black pepper

Place the eggs in boiling water. Boil 9 minutes exactly, then transfer to cold water to stop to cooking.



When cool, peel the eggs.



Chop off the white ends of the asparagus. Add the asparagus to boiling water. Boil for three minutes, or until tender.

Remove from the water. Dress the asparagus with the oil, capers, pepper and salt. Grate the eggs over the asparagus.

Serve.



I served this next to a lovely fried hake fillet. As soon as I figure out how to make fish beautiful, I'll show you a photo. Until then, you'll have to imagine the perfect white flesh of the hake. With butter. And a spot of lemon and salt. Delicious.

And with a sip or two of a nice Riesling.



Provided as a going-away present before we left California. Not a bad 30 minute meal.


By Bbq Dude

Grilled bok choy

Lest you think that all we eat here at Indirect Heat is meat, meat and more meat, I show you a quick veggie that we like to toss on the grill.

Wash the bok choy, and slice in half lengthwise.  Brush the open side with olive oil.  Immediately after you pull the meat off the grill to rest, arrange the bok choy, open side down on the grill.



Place the base of the bok choy over direct heat, with the leaves as far from the heat as possible (they will burn and disintegrate rather quickly if they are over direct heat).  The base of the bok choy is quite crisp, and requires a few minutes to break down.



Remove from heat after the bok choy are softened nicely.  (Sometimes the very tip of the stem doesn't soften before the leaves start to burn - in that case, we remove it and eat everything except the tip).

Sprinkle with kosher salt, and serve immediately.  Crisp, fresh and delicious.

Grilled cauliflower

I talk about meat alot here.  That's not to say we don't eat our veggies, but we often serve vegetables pretty simply.  Take cauliflower.  Break it into florets.  Boil for 2 minutes.  Immediately plunge into cold water.

Toss on the grill while your meat is resting.  Brown the outside, and serve.

Roasted rice cakes

I'm sorta loving me some Momofuku. It's a pretty fun book, and there's a fair amount of deliciousness to be found in there. It's no "semi-homemade" *gag*, but it's good fun. This dish, for example, uses no fewer than three other recipes in the book (four, if you count that the ramen broth requires another recipe). But that's fun, in and of itself. You're building towards the other recipes in the book when you're cooking.

This recipe was... challenging... to find the ingredients. Mostly the rice cakes. There are 3 Japanese grocery stores in San Diego. I visited two of them, and even then, I wasn't sure I had the right thing after I left Mitsuwa. They're described in the book as:

"Rice cakes are sold frozen and they keep in the freezer for months. You can buy them at any Korean (or Japanese) grocery store."

Well, the frozen rice cakes that the manager in Mitsuwa sent me to were pink and labeled as a dessert. The other rice cakes they had that even looked remotely correct were in the dried, package section. And they were individually wrapped, and rather looked like bricks. Heavy. Dense. Pasty White. Bricks.

Well, I bought them and brought them home. And hoped they'd be delicious (spoiler alert! They were delicious! Though even now, I'm not sure if they were what the author intended. Ah well, deliciousness happened, who can complain?).

Alright, the rest of the dish:

¼ cup mirin
¼ cup ramen broth
½ cup korean red dragon sauce
¼ cup roasted onions
2 tbsp canola oil
6 rice cake sticks
1 tbsp sesame seeds
½ cup green onion

Mix the mirin and ramen in a saucepan. Boil over medium heat until reduced, a few minutes. Add red dragon sauce and continue to reduce, a few minutes. Add roasted onions, and reserve sauce.

Heat the oil in a pan, once the oil is hot add the little bricks rice cakes to the pan. Watch them puff up. Rapidly.

Neat. Sear 3 minutes to a side, until nicely browned.

Remove from the heat, chop into small chunks, and toss them into the sauce. Throw in the green onions.

Toss well to coat the sauce all over the cakes. Place into a serving dish, then sprinkle on the sesame seeds.

Serve as a side or an appetizer. These little crispy, chewy rice cakes are delicious. They have a sweet, sticky interior, and a rich, spicy, hot exterior. The bean paste flavour in the dragon sauce is delicious. And the sesame flavour on top is really, really nice. And as side dishes go, this is an easy one to assemble. Most of the work is in making the ramen, onions and dragon sauce, and that can all be done in advance.

Delish.

Gailan

What do you put beside a lovely slab of meat? My good friend Dr. Ricky introduced me to a fabulous way to prepare greens for dinner. You start with a green. For example, kale. Or cabbage. Or gailan (a.k.a. Chinese broccoli), available at your local Asian grocer.

Chop it up to separate the stems from the leaves. Gailan is a pretty sturdy green, and will need some serious treatment to make it delicious. Melt some:

duck fat

in a sauté pan with a tight-fitting lid over medium-high heat. Toss in the stems and sauté for a few minutes until they start to soften. Toss in the leaves.

Toss in the duck fat, and sauté for a few minutes. Put the lid on to trap the steam, and steam the gailan in the duck fat for a few more minutes. They're done when they've softened to the point that they're chewable, but not mushy.

Toss with a bit of kosher salt and serve hot. I generally don't even start this dish until everything else is done because it's so fast. It's rich, slightly bitter and the duck fat and smooth it and make it a spectacular side. And gailan is substantial enough that it even holds up as a leftover (unlike so many lesser greens). Great stuff.

Mexican corn

This past weekend we a friend was visiting from out of town, and we roasted a pig. (I'll be writing that up as soon as I'm done picking which photos I want to post). While shopping for side dishes, we noticed corn on the cob on sale, 5 for $3. Corn on the cob is quintessential August food. And corn on the grill is even better. I have a continuing lovefest going with Adam Perry Lang's Serious Barbecue book, and thought I would cook the Mexican corn recipe from that book, just cause it looked delicious.

First, you make a pesto:

½ cup cilantro

2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

1 garlic clove

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

¼ cup canola oil

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

Grind up everything except the oil in a food processor. Add the oil slowly, you're trying to make an emulsion.

Meanwhile, unwrap the corn, remove the corn silk, and then wrap the corn back up in its leaves. Soak for 10 minutes to an hour in water while you heat up the grill. Cook a few minutes on each side while wrapped, then unwrap and brown on the grill.

Brush the pesto on the corn, and serve hot. Crazy delicious. Best corn I've ever made.

(P.S. These photos were taken by a friend who's a photography buff. Thanks!).

Black Beans with Chipotle and Tomato

This blog isn't all meat, all the time. We also do a wee bit o' veggie cooking. For example, this brown bean concoction from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. (This book is fantastic for veggie sides to your big hunk o' meat, and for weeknight veggie cooking). To serve with Mexican cuisine, we make black beans with chipotle and tomato.

1 tbsp oil

1/2 onion, finely diced

1 28 oz can black beans

1 tsp chipotle chile

1 cup finely chopped roma tomatoes

4 cilantro sprigs

salt

garnish: chopped cilantro, jalapeno

Sautée onions in hot oil until soft (3-5 minutes). Add everything but garnish, simmer for half an hour or so. This is an easy addition for Mexican cuisine, for folks who look forward to the bean portion of the meal.

Sweet Sauteed Onions

How many recipes do you have to cook from a book before you declare the book a *raging* success? I'm just about there with Adam Perry Lang's new book Serious Barbecue. I've already made a modification of his brisket. It was freaking fantastic. And now I've done his fajitas, which I will post on shortly. As an accompaniment to fajitas, I've made his sweet onions. They go great on fajitas, on burgers, and most recently on grilled bratwurst. I think you'll agree they're pretty outrageous. All right, let's go!

1-2 sweet white onions

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp finely ground fresh black pepper

2 tbsp unsalted butter

6 garlic cloves, zested

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

Peel and slice the onions to make rings. Sautée the onions in oil. As they soften, add the thyme and sugar. Continue as the sugar melts, browns, and covers the onions. This is yumminess here. Add garlic, salt and pepper. And butter on one side of the pan (until it melts). Mix all of this delicious ridiculous mess. When the onions are soft and browned, deglaze the pan with the vinegar. Set aside and keep warm for the fajitas/burgers/bratwurst.

I think you'll agree these look and taste crazy good.

Guacamole

Ho-Lee Crap! Well, I just made the kick-assiest batch of fajitas. And fajitas need a great batch of guacamole to go with. So here's a quick post. I found the best ever recipe for guacamole. (Though the Homesick Texan doesn't call it a recipe, it's her recipe).

Make this. It's great.

2 ripe avocados, peeled and cut in half

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 Serrano pepper, diced

1/2 cup of chopped cilantro

Juice from 1/2 a lime

Salt to taste

Chop. Crush. And mix. Let sit in the fridge for a couple hours to allow the flavours to meld.

Serve as a chip dip, or with fajitas. It'll be a hit, I promise. Several folks who claimed they "don't generally like guacamole" loved it.