Tartiflette au Reblochon (Taleggio)

Sorry this is coming out late, I was in the Desert at a Wedding with my Friends. 

I have recently been introduced to a large, unsavory population of western Europeans living in the very heart of Davis. These people have an appetite for drinking, eating, and dancing that I have yet to see matched in any of the natives. At parties with them I have noticed that I have a habit of talking about food frequently. The beautiful thing about food is that no matter how little you have in a common with a person, odds are they like food to some degree. Food is a window into their childhood, their hometown, their very culture that would be difficult to extract from normal conversation. Either that, or I'm slowly becoming the fat kid at the party who only wants to talk about food, but frankly I'm not ready to confront that fact just yet so lets pretend that's not the case, yes?

At one of the more intimate parties (read: less than 200 people in the penthouse apartment that every French person seems to be entitled to. Seriously though, where the fuck did all these baller apartments come from and why do they only rent to brilliant french people? Very frustrating) I asked a fellow from La Ferte Sous Jouarre what his favorite meal was. He did not hesitate. Tartiflette au Reblochon.
Reblochon is one of the many fine cheeses produced locally in the Haute-Savoie region. It is a very soft cheese and I'm told its fantastic. After going to two very reputable cheese stores with no luck, the cheese monger at the Co-Op did some research for me. Turns out, Reblochon has been illegal to import since 2004. This shattered me pretty hard, because it was made very very clear to me that all things could be substituted in the recipe, save the Reblochon. If it doesn't have Reblochon, its just an ugly potatoes au gratin. Alas, the recipe was too good not to attempt, and Taleggio, I was told by the kindly cheese monger to stop my violent sobbing, is a fine cheese in its own right and could certainly hold this dish together.

1 3/4 pounds of potatoes (I used Yukon Gold, but use whatever you would normally use in au gratin)
4 slices of thick cut bacon
2 tablespoons butter
1 yellow onion
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup heavy cream
8 ounces Taleggio cheese
Salt and pepper


Start by adding the potatoes to a pot of boiling salted water. Let them boil for about 15 minutes, then remove them from the pot and let them sit under cold running water for 30 seconds. While the water is still running, peal the skins off with your hands, it should rub right off. If its too hot, let them sit under the water longer you dummy. For your health! One the potatoes are peeled, let them cool further.

Dice the bacon into batonnets (quarter inch little sticks, I know its pretentious to call them that but its important that you learn these terms because Larousse Gastronomique uses them and  you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of that book, believe, believe) and cook them until crispy over medium high heat. Remove the crispy bacon from the pan. Pour off some of the bacon fat, leaving a tablespoon in the pan.

Dice and add the onion, cook until translucent then add the wine. Let that cook down on medium low heat while you chop the potatoes into 1/3 inch thick rounds. I didn't use a  big enough pan, so I had to move to a large pot at this point, but if you have a massive pan feel free to use one dish for this. Add the potatoes, bacon, and cream to the onions. Salt pretty heavily (this dish is about the furthest thing from healthy you can make, so no point in cutting corners on the salt) then let simmer for about two minutes, just to let everything come together.

coat a baking dish with the butter, then pour the potato mixture in. Traditionally you top this with a half a wheel of Reblochon, but my Taleggio was a bit ripe, so i removed the soft cheese from the rind and then added it on top.

Bake at 400 degrees until the cheese is bubbly and delicious looking, about 15 minutes for me but you know how I feel about baking. Set a timer for 12 minutes and then watch it. This is what oven lights are for and why people don't use them more is beyond me. I served this with a very large salad and a healthy amount of exercise the day of and after. This dish is fantastic but it will also kill you if you eat it more than once a year. You've been warned.

 

Long Beans

We were at the Davis farmers market this weekend and found this brilliant bundle of green tendrils, straight out of a child's nightmare. I absolutely had to cook it. I did some research when we got home and it looks like these are fairly common in Chinese cooking. They are similar in taste to green beans, but have more crisp texture. I decided to just kinda wing it, combine all the flavors I enjoy in Chinese cooking and go from there.

1 bunch long beans

1 inch minced ginger

3 minced garlic cloves

3-4 small red chili peppers (sub 1 tablespoonful crushed red peppers if need be)

olive oil

sesame seed oil

soy sauce

salt 

pepper

I started by washing and drying the beans, then cutting the tops and bottoms off, just about an inch. Next I cut them into 4-6 inch long segements to make for easier cooking and eating, but if you are more adventurous they can be cooked whole pretty easily. I also chopped and minced the garlic, ginger, and peppers.

Next heat a wok over medium high heat and add a tablespoon of oil. Once the oil is heated, add the beans and cook for 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Once the beans turn brighter green and start looking more cooked, add the ginger, garlic, and pepper.

 Cook and stir constantly for 2 minutes, then remove the beans to a plate. You should have something like the photo below left in the pan. 

Reduce heat to medium low, and add a half teaspoon of sesame seed oil and two tablespoons of soy sauce. Let cook for 40 seconds or so, just until everything smells amazing, then pour the sauce over the beans.

Bruschetta

I've recently decided that I am going to be posting here every Thursday, feel free to give me shit on your preferred social network when I inevitably mug it all up. What this mostly means from a practical standpoint is you will be  seeing more shitty, simple recipes and substantially more rambling, grammatically disgusting posts. As a personal favor to you, I'm going to make the instructions purple so they will stand out and leave the rambling stuff normal, so you can just skip it if you actually want to cook (you're welcome)  So, you know, look out for that.

1 pound good tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1/2 bunch fresh basil
1 baguette
balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
olive oil

Lets start with the tomatoes because those are really the easiest part to completely fuck up. The rest of this recipe is just chopping and waiting really.  My dear, close, and personal friend Caitlin gave ME (not Shannon) two of those hanging upside down tomato planters at the beginning of summer. As much as it thrills me to get completely unsolicited gifts from dear, close, personal friends, I really couldn't make heads or tails of the gift, but accepted graciously and watered diligently. After several months we harvested three emaciated, scarred tomatoes. They really were quiet ugly, especially after years of pretty much exclusively eating perfect deep red spheres. We didn't want to just toss them in a sauce, so we whipped up a quick batch of bruschetta. At the first bite Shannon nearly hit the floor. The flavor! By god we had forgotten what tomatoes are supposed to taste like! For all intents and purposes we had been eating red water balloons for months if not years and calling them tomatoes. This deeply disturbed me and I have since gone out of my way to but those stupid expensive local heirloom tomatoes at the co-op. I know, I know! Four dollars for a pound of tomatoes! It can't be that good! It is, you have to trust me, it really really is. Thanks again Caitlin.

To summarize all that, BUY GOOD TOMATOES THE DAY YOU ARE MAKING THIS. Not the Sunday before, or the night before, the day of. No exceptions.

Preheat oven to 350ish. Chop into 1/2 cubes, or smaller if you prefer.Place in a reasonably large vessel.

Next is the basil, but really the chopping can be done in any order. I like to chiffonade the basil, it results in long pretty strips. To chiffonade, stack the leaves on top of each other,

 then roll them up,

 and cut.

 Next mince the garlic and add that to the bowl. Top with a 1 to 4 ratio of balsamic vinegar to olive oil, you can fill in the measurements depending on if you like yours more or less saucy. Top with a two healthy pinches of salt and a few cracks of pepper. Refrigerate for about a half hour while you prep the bread.

Slice 8-12 pieces of bread, about 1/2 inch thick. Arrange on a baking sheet and coat with olive oil. If you have a fancy brush, congratulations you have a better stocked kitchen than me, I bet your mother is proud. If you don't have a fancy brush, I know that feel bro, just spread the oil with your finger and be sure to wash first. Toss the oiled bread in the oven for five minutes, then turn on the oven light and stare at it until its perfect. Could be six minutes, could be eight. I know its not less than five, but other than that its your damn business to make sure you don't mug it up. I don't have to eat your burnt ass bread so whatever, that's on you son.

 Let the bread cool slightly on the counter while you stir the bruschetta, then top each piece with a spoonful of the mixture.  Personally, I go heavier on the oil and vinegar, then I use a fork to put the bruschetta on the bread. Once I scoop all the tomatoes out, this leaves me with about a cup of really good salad dressing base.  This recipe and its amounts should get you through most of a loaf, depending on how you roll, and the bruschetta should be good until.... gosh I don't know, lets say until the loaf of bread goes bad. That sounds good

Blistered Peppers

The other day I purchased a packet of Padron peppers on a whim at the farmers market. Padron peppers are beautiful green Spanish peppers that I had absolutely no idea how to prepare. If you are starting to notice a pattern, you are astute. I have a habit of purchasing ingredients I have no idea how to cook, then jumping in with both feet. Good news is this particular recipe is simple and doesn't require exotic ingredients. Bad news is the first batch with proper Padron peppers got eaten before I could take a photo so you will have to settle for the supermarket generic sweet peppers. Boo hoo.

1 pack of Padron or sweet peppers (any pepper under three inches long that you can stand to eat in bulk will work)
Sea Salt
Olive Oil
Dilithum Crystals

I'll be honest, I pinched that last ingredient from Star Trek because I felt the list was too short, but trust me these are delicious. Heat a skillet to high heat with a few glugs of oil in it. Open all the windows in your house, get a few fans running and be prepared for smoke. Once the oil is shimmering toss as many peppers as can comfortably fit in the skillet. They need to all be making full contact with the cooking surface, so don't over crowd. Shake the pan every 10 seconds or so, and turn with tongs as needed. You are looking for even blistering. I myself prefer a bit of char, but that's up to your taste, as long as they get nice and blistered you don't need them black. Cook this way for 4-6 minutes, remove to a plate when at the desired doneness. Add a few generous pinches of sea salt on top and eat as soon as they are cool enough to handle. These are a perfect appetizer for any meal and a damn good reason to buy multiple packs of peppers at the market.

Coeur de Boeuf avec Persillade

Right so Coeur de Boeuf is beef heart. If that sentence makes your stomach turn probably best to jog on. On the other hand if you are the least bit intrigued by beef heart, stick around, I've got some good news for you.
I was wandering our local Nugget market the other day and walked passed the weird meat freezer. This is where the Nugget keeps their truly strange products; pheasant, pork belly, tripe, its all there. I walked past and nearly missed it, this massive hulking challenge. Shannon was disgusted I was even suggesting purchasing it but at five dollars for the whole thing I could throw it out and call it a wash. I've had most expensive drinks that were too bad to finish and this was clearly worth the risk. I wandered around the market completely giddy and grinning like an idiot, my head swimming with ideas. When I got home I did some research and settled into the recipe below.

1 beef heart 3-4 pounds
5 cloves garlic minced (I used pink garlic, its a bit more mild which helps with the persillade)
1 bunch parsley, chopped
mixed greens
olive oil
salt
pepper

The exterior has a thick layer of fat that needs to be removed.

The interior has a thin membrane and some connective tissue that needs to go.

 I'd like to think I own some decent knives and know how to use them fairly well, but this was a wonderful challenge. Beef heart is the second most difficult thing I've ever had to butcher, but it is by far the most fun. Rabbit is more difficult by a slight margin, but there is more pressure and less joy in rabbit. Beef heart offers all the difficulty and practice, but none of the pressure. Its a cheap cut and there is a ton of it! Make as many bad cuts as you like, just learn from them.

Start with the back and work your way around. Its pretty clear what needs cutting away and what doesn't. When you are done it should look about like this.

Doesn't that look just like beef? It's because it is.

You could marinade it whole at this point, grill it like a tri-tip or a flank steak or you could do what I did, cut it against the grain into thick slices. Salt the beef thoroughly, cover with half the garlic and a light crack of pepper. Place the meat in a plastic bag with a quarter cup of olive oil, then let marinate for an hour.

Persillade is basically a pesto, sub parsley for the basil, skip the nuts and cheese. Actually its closer to a pisu. Actually, its not really like either, exempt maybe in texture and color. Place the remaining garlic, the parsley, and olive oil in a blender. Crack some pepper into it and add a heavy pinch of salt. I used pink finishing salt because I'm fancy like that, but kosher or sea salt will work fine. Pulse until it looks like persillade/pesto/pisu, then chill.

Grill the beef like you would a steak to medium rare, about 2 1/2 minutes a side. Serve over a pile of mixed greens with a spoonful of persillade.

I personally could not be more excited about this discovery. It Doesn't taste game-y, its super tender, cheap, fun to work on, loves marinades, and is dead easy to cook. I won't go so far as to say its a substitute for a rib-eye, but under the right conditions I'd put it against a tri-tip. I was honestly expecting a huge hunk of liver, but its incredibly tame, a little like lamb. If this were a different world I would bring this to every barbecue, but we just aren't there yet as a society. Shannon hit the nail on the head when she said, "It looks like beef, smells like beef, tastes like beef, but I know it's heart." If you bring this to a barbecue, 70-90% of the people there wont touch it, and that's a damned shame. If you happen to have four or five friends who don't mind trying something really different, its a must buy.

Tamales with Molé

My mother is visiting Montana where I was partly raised. This has made me absurdly jealous and nostalgic. To combat this I've turned to food. We usually make these Tamales only around the holidays, Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter, due to their labor intensive nature. I suppose you could make a batch of say a half dozen and cut it down to a few hours, but it usually makes more sense to just mark a day on the calendar strictly for Tamales. When we were pressed for time we would buy masa from the local market and use dried chili powder instead of making a paste from the chilies, but I felt like taking the long road today. This recipe is my grandmother's and is very familiar to me. I am quiet certain that I am making them wrong and completely different than how you like them, but fuck off. It's my childhood I'm making, not yours. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, lets get at the heart of it, yes?

4 cups maseca
1/2 cup lard
3 pounds pork shoulder
3 dried Californian Chilies
3 dried New Mexico Chilies
3 dried Arbol Chilies
1 pack ojas
4 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon peanut butter
2 squares dark chocolate
1 can black olives (optional)
Salt
Water

Makes like, two dozen-ish.


Separate the ojas and soak them in cold water.

Mine floated so I had to weight them down. 

Bring two cups of water to a boil in a small sauce pan and add the chilies. Let them boil for a good five minutes until they are soft, then drain and chop. Transfer, seeds and all, to a blender or food processor and pulse will a bit of water until a paste forms. You want this to be pretty fine to avoid chunks of chili skin in the molé.

Place pork shoulder into a pot just big enough to fit it and fill with cold water until the pork is just covered. Add the chili paste and stir until dissolved.

 Set to high heat and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a slow simmer for at least 2 1/2 hours. I recommend putting on swim trunks, taking your laundry to the laundry room at the apartment complex, then hitting the pool with lime based cocktails. Moscow Mule, Dark and Stormy, Margarita, Gimlet, or tequila shots with a lime chaser are all acceptable. This allows you to relax and enjoy your Sunday a bit while getting everything in the wash but your swim trunks and a towel. After everything is on hangars and sorted, your pork should be fall apart tender. Transfer pork to a bowl and pull apart with two forks, then set aside.

Set remaining liquid to a slow boil and leave uncovered to reduce.

In a large bowl mix four cups of masa with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and lard. This will give you a very loose dough. Slowly add two cups of water, working the dough until it has a hummus like texture. You might need more than two cups, you might need less, it all just depends.

Bit of a side note here, I called my mother in Montana for these instructions and at this point she said "spread a thin layer of masa in a two inch strip on the smooth ojas." She did not specify vertical or horizontal or perpendicular to the grain or parallel to the grain. This resulted in about two dozen ojas with masa parallel to the grain, which of course is dead wrong. I will save you the misery and specify that the quarter inch of masa should be spread PERPENDICULAR to the grain of the ojas on the smooth side in a two inch strip.

You can prep a bunch in a row, it will save you time assembling later but only if you have help, otherwise its probably best to assemble each tamale start to finish. Or you could do the prep work, mug it up, then have to make them one at a time anyway.

Transfer a few ladles of the molé to a small bowl. Add the flour, peanut butter, and chocolate then whisk into a slurry. Add this back to the sauce and it will thicken right up. It should have the consistency of a heavy gravy.

 Add one or two cups molé to the pulled pork. Now to assemble! place a heaping spoonful of the pulled pork into the center of the masa. I like to add a black olive to every third tamale because my sisters hate them and its always fun to see them get one but its personal preference. Cover with another masa'd ojas, roll together then tie the ends off with a 1/4 inch strip of ojas.

Another side note, you should probably skip the next paragraph if you are Mexican.

My grandmother, who was super Mexican and had a half dozen Mexican babies and dozens upon dozens of Mexican grand kids, was very adamant about how all of her tamales were to be assembled and why. She never folded her tamales, always tied them, because, and this is a direct quote from her, please please please understand that she was crazy and this is not how I feel and I have eaten dozens of FANTASTIC folded tamales, "Lazy Mexicans fold their tamales." She would also sit on you if you were bad, not just like for a few seconds but like a half hour, and if you got too close to the butcher block while she was making tortillas she would throw one in your face that would stick and suffocate you and she would laugh while you clawed at it, desperate for air. She also drank diet caffeine free Coke, which is just weird.  What I'm trying to say is I only tie my tamales because if I don't she will sit on me. Tied, folded, its just a different way not to die for a few more days, yeah? Back to the plot though.

I used a 20 quart brew kettle to steam them, but if you don't have a pot that big you can work in shifts. Place a vegetable steamer in the bottom with a half inch or so of water.

 Next built a fort of tamales in the pot, making sure to leave a shaft down the middle to allow for air circulation (thanks Sarah's dad for the tip on that one). Then place a kitchen town over the whole thing to trap the steam, cover with the lid and turn the heat up to medium. It needs to be at a very, very low simmer, just enough to steam, so adjust as needed. Check back in an hour and a half to two hours, or four episodes of The Inbetweeners. The masa should easily separate from the oja and taste cooked, not awful. Serve with the molé, guacamolé, salsa, rice, and beans. Some people like sour cream as well but they are just awful.

Rabbit in White Wine Gravy

Rabbit is a very sensitive subject. For some odd reason they straddle the line between seasonal pet and delicious treat. If you are someone who has ever owned a pet rabbit, odds are you are going to want to skip this one. I didn't take any process photos so this is going to be a text heavy recipe, but that's okay because its pretty damned simple to make.

Rabbit, 2 1/2 - 3 pounds

8 small (1-1/2 in diameter) onions, whole

1/2 pound mushrooms, dealers choice, halved

6 small carrots, not the ones that come in the 600 packs for horses, dont eat those, those are for horses

6 sprigs of thyme

5 cloves of garlic, halved

2 cups dry white whine, I used Pomelo 2010 Sauvingon Blanc, my new favorite cooking wine

2 cups chicken stock

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Hands down the hardest part of  cooking rabbit is finding a rabbit to cook. Specialty markets are usually able to order them for you, but in my experience they are incredibly emaciated things, all bones. There is a lovely vendor at the Davis Farmers Market that sells whole chickens and once a month she will have a few rabbits. They go fast and as far as I can tell pretty much random when the pop up, but I always grab one when I see it. Expect to pay around 8 dollars a pound, with most weighting in at around 2 and a half to 3 pounds. I had a two and a half pound rabbit and it easily fed four. I would caution you that when inviting people to eat rabbit, be very careful. While a chicken thigh with bones is a normal thing to eat, a bunny thigh, no matter how well cooked, still looks a bit like a bunny thigh. Now we have to debone the beast. 

Here is the part where Shannon usually goes for a walk with the dog. Deboning, to me, is a wonderful skill to have and brings you much closer to the food and the process. Most people don't share my secret fantasy of quitting everything, moving to Montana and becoming a butcher though. If you go the specialty market route they will probably be able to debone the rabbit for you, but always ask if they have worked with rabbit before. Its a very delicate thing and while butchers deserve your trust and respect, a busy butcher might work too quickly and loose some of the more interesting cuts in his haste. I am about to link to a video of a very talented man showing how to debone a rabbit, so far warning, here it is. I have never finished an episode of Dexter but I could watch this guy work all day. Sigh. Should have been a butcher. I'm going to take a few minutes to break down that video for those who are process junkies, everyone else feel free to skip the next paragraph.

I'm going to start by saying I have cooked three rabbits in my life and that the fellow in the video is far beyond my humble criticism. This is just the advice I would have given myself before diving into my first rabbit. In the video he is working with a very large rabbit, I'd guess between 4 and 5 pounds. At that size its okay to leave a bit of the breast meat attached to the rib cage, but when we are working on a smaller rabbit you should spend the extra five minutes to remove the ribs and the ribs only. In most videos online they quarter the rabbit first and usually ignore the breast meat, but not this guy. He deboned the whole damned thing and managed to keep everything together. Just stunning. His biggest asset is that boning knife. If you don't have a proper boning knife and think you can manage with a cleaver and a pairing knife, you are wrong. Go get a proper boning knife now before you ruin your rabbit. The first rabbit I cooked I spent probably a good hour trying to replicate what that fellow did in five minutes, but at the end I did have a complete rabbit to work with and cooked it more like a pork loin. Another recipe for another time though. With this recipe I had a bit of an audience, so I removed the spine and rib cage, then just cleaved the limbs off and halved the breasts. 

After deboning you will be left with six nice pieces of rabbit, all of which need to be salted and set aside. In a large dutch oven  heat three glugs of olive oil over medium high heat. Once that is shimmering add the onions and garlic, letting them get a bit brown and fragrant. Then add the carrots, mushrooms thyme, meat, wine, and stock. I briefly considered searing the meat first, which is an option, but that wasn't what I was going for here. The liquid should just cover the meat, if it is too much skimp on the stock, too little add extra wine. 

Bring everything to a simmer, then check the temp in five minutes. We are shooting for 160 degrees Fahrenheit. When the rabbit hits 155,  remove it from the pot, cover it in tin, and placed in the oven. Then  strain the vegetables, reserving the liquid for the sauce. Much to my guests' disgust, I threw away the soggy  miserable vegetables. I should have asked before, and you should too. If they want to eat soggy vegetables so be it, but make sure its their choice. You don't want that on your hands. 

Next melt the butter in a small sauce pan and whisk in the flour, forming a roux. Add this to the reserved liquid in a large sauce pan and reduced until a thick gravy forms. Served it over fresh noodles with poached asparagus (peel your asparagus, trust me) and fresh bread. 

If you waded through that mountain of texts thank you! Let me know if you have any questions and I do hope this has made rabbit a less intimidating meal, it really is wonderful.