Dipping a toe into the blogosphere waters....

When the hubby told me he was starting a blog, I honestly didn't know what to think. But after giving it some thought, I realized that it was a great idea, for 2 reasons.

1. We love good food and good wine, and both are better shared with friends in some form or fashion.

2. I don't know about you, but my memory has gone to he** in the past few years. I can walk across a room and forget what I got up to do. So writing things down has become paramount to me not completely losing my mind. What a great way to actually remember all the great flavors we encounter on our foodie adventures! Along with every winery, varietal, year, etc that I drink - there is no longer room for all that info in my head.

So, this leads me to my first posting, my venture into pasta making. Somehow I've made it over age 40 without ever making my own pasta. I've repeatedly heard how easy it was to do, but like many, I always thought "yeah, right". So I decided earlier this week that today was the day to stand up to the challenge.

A little background first: For about 2 years now, we have been members of a CSA (community supported agriculture) with Full Circle Farms in Carnation, WA. Every 2 weeks, we pick up a small box of farm fresh produce - much of it grown right on the farm. Because of this, our family has expanded our palates with new fruits and veggies, and re-discovered some from years past. For example, I have discovered that roasted chiogga beets bear little resemblance to the canned beets of my childhood..... but that is a discussion for another post.

A few days before pickup, I receive an e-mail from the farm, detailing what's in the box, and giving me the chance to make substitutions if desired. This past week, there was a sugar pie pumpkin on the list. Now, pumpkin has never been a favorite of mine, so my first thought was to pick something else. But then I starting thinking that it was time to try something new and different, so I left it there.

The box contents were heading into the fridge 2 days ago, when my master-pumpkin-carver-in-training daughter came home from school. She immediately asked what the pumpkin was for, likely envisioning the "vomiting pumpkin" design she had recently encountered. But Mom said "Nope, it's for cooking", at which point the kid's face lit up with an enthusiastic "Oh cool, pumpkin pie!" Not being a pumpkin pie fan, I did not share her excitement.

Now for the pasta venture. After a prolonged look at the Food Network and Cooking Light websites for pumpkin recipies, I finally made some decisions. The recipe that jumped out at me was listed as "Difficult", but that did not deter me. Of course, normal people would try fettucine or lasagna sheets for their first try at fresh pasta. But not me....nooooooo. I decided to jump right into Wolfgang Puck's Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Cream Sauce. So I spent today making fresh spinach pasta dough, pumpkin puree filling, and the best pasta sauce I have ever had (heavy cream and butter have that effect on me - for today, I chose to ignore the effect on my waistline).

The beginnings of the pasta - a lump of dough, a tasty filling, and a brand new ravioli stamp from Sur La Table.





Finally learned to use a pasta roller.... took a couple of tries, but it is pretty easy once you get the hang of it.






Dollops of yummy pumpkin/heavy cream/sage/butter goodness went down.




Then a layer of pasta over the top, and the ravioli stamper got broken in.




And several hours after starting...... The finished pasta, with the aforementioned chiogga beets on a salad. Totally worth the work!

Oh yeah - don't forget dessert! Gingersnap Pumpkin Pie, mostly created by the pumpkin-pie-loving kid in the house.

All in all, my first foray into fresh pasta was a success. I would say I gained a little confidence today, and will definitely be doing this again soon. Actually, I'll be doing it tomorrow, as the rest of the dough and filling need to get combined and put in the freezer for another day. Maybe some of you can come join us for some fantastic fresh frozen pasta!

Links for recipes:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/wolfgang-puck/pumpkin-ravioli-recipe/index.html

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=222789

...distrusting food that tastes me back!

Finding a good title for a blog entry is similar to finding a title to an episode on a reality show. Confession time. My wife and I really enjoy watching The Amazing Race. Yes, it's our weekly guilty pleasure and we even applied to be on the show. Unfortunately we don't qualify as "eye candy" so our application was probably placed in the recycling bin. I for one think that we would make an awesome team and even elevate it with some drama with some fake tears and start throwing temper tantrums during the stressful parts of the show. 

Question: What does this have to do with food? Let's step back a "couple of years" ago when I was a youngster. I remembered when my parents took my sister and I to New York on vacation. One of the best items we had at a deli was a strange meat - pickled beef tongue. I remembered it as being smoky with an incredbile texture and taste. Okay, fast forward a few years to March 2009. Wife and I visted great friends of mine, Jen and Ken in New York City. We went to 2nd Ave Deli Restaurant one evening. All those great memories from way back when suddenly came back and I knew I had to order pickled tongue! The taste was unforgettable and almost better than... I was in heaven! I know, I know the first words are probably -- ewww, gross, or disgusting. You really have to try it. I prefer the center cut where the marbling has some of the fatty tissue.

Fast forward 3 weeks to the month of June. While the wife was at work one night I decided to try my hand at making pickled tongue. Keep in mind that pickled doesn't always mean sour like pickles. It means that it has been brined for awhile before cooking. In fact the same technique to pickled tongue is the same for corned beef. After work one day I went to local Japanese grocery store and found a fresh 4 lb tongue vacuum packed. Since then I found other Asian stores carrying frozen beef tongue but a little cheaper.  Here is a photo of the tongue on the chopping board:

There is a very good reason why the wife was at work when I prepped the brine. She would probably have screamed if she saw this on the chopping board and I would probably have needed to dust off the sleeping bag for a night. To pickle the beef tongue, I used the following for the brine:

1 1/4 cups of good quality kosher salt (the pink stuff)

1 1/2 tbl of "modern cure"

3/4 cup of packed dark brown sugar

1/8 cup of pickling spice

8 cloves of fresh garlic

What is modern cure? When you cook tongue like most meat, it turns gray. To avoid the gray look you can add a very small amount of potassium nitrate, also known as saltpeter to brine. This keeps the pinkish color of the meat after cooking similar to bacon. It doesn't affect the overall flavor. Too much potassium nitrate can also be very toxic. Modern cure is very difficult to find. A small package is enough to cure about 100lb of meat. I was able to find this at a local butcher shop - Golden Steer Choice Meats. I had my wife pick it up one afternoon not knowing what it was for. She regrets it now.

I mixed all the ingredients together in a 1 gallon ziplock bag, add the tongue and filled it up with water. You need to make it as airtight as possible so the tongue is completely submersed in the brine. I added a second 1 gallon zip lock bag to prevent it from leaking. I placed it in a bowl and put it in refrigerator for 10 days - the second fridge in the garage. I recommend that you turn it over every other day.

On the 10th day, I took it out of the fridge and cooked it for 4 hours. The recommended way of cooking a pickled tongue is to place it in cold water first and bring it to a boil. Pour out the water and start again with fresh cold water and bring it to a boil. You do this process 3 times and on the 3rd time you let it simmer for at least 3-4 hours. After the 4th hour pour out the water and rinse with cold water. There will be an outer membrane that you have to peel off while the tongue is still warm.

You can eat it right away or as I prefer is to put in the fridge overnight and eat it cold. It turned out very well for a first time! There are a couple of things I would do differently the second time around. I would poke it with a sharp needle in different places to allow the brine to soak in more. Parts of the center was a little gray since the brine didn't penetrate through. I was also brine it for 14 days instead of 10 days for a little more flavor. The recommendation from one cookbook is 3 days per pound. I prefer 3.5 days per pound. I would also like to try to sous vide cook it next time around. This would be another blog entry on another day. 

I actually posted these photos on facebook and to my surprise I received 25 negative comments from my friends and I think 2 positive comments. I even brought it over to a pot luck at work the next day. There were a few brave souls that actually tried it and enjoyed it!  Honestly the taste is slightly similar to corned beef but 10 times better.

If any other brave souls out there decide to try this, please drop me a comment!

P.S. The title came from a friend of mine who posted this comment on my facebook...

First Posting

First posting is always the most difficult. It sets the tone with the rest of the blog and it can be challenging to find something creative to say :) Where do I start? The goal of this blog is to document that the different cooking techniques and recipes that I have plagerized researched from other websites/cookbooks and add my personal touch. I never take a recipe and follow it word for word. I prefer to use other recipes as a guidance to something that I want to cook.

My philosophy with cooking is that it is something that I consider creative, similar to an artist creating a painting, with the exception is that I and others do get to consume the creation. Granted that the creation is not always desirable. I hope others will contribute with constructive feedback and can offer suggestions to improve the techniques or flavoring. I've learned so much from other people's experiences and it is time for me to give back to other aspiring chefs in their home kitchens. The pipe dream that I have is to own a small winery with my wife one day and build a restaurant next to it. The restaurant would focus on sustainable organic consumable creations where ingredients would be seasonal and home grown. I would also like to offer afternoon/high tea on certain days of the week.

What do I like to cook? The answer depends on my latest obsession of the month. I am not a professional chef by any means but I'm willing to try anything to replicate a technique or experiment with a new cuisine. I can't afford to quit my day job anytime soon since it pays the bills and pays for my habitual hobby as an enthusiast chef. Okay, back to the original question. Here are a few things that I have been working on over the last few years:

Paella - Ever since my wife and I visited Barcelona we love paellas! One Christmas while were still dating she bought me my first paella pan and cookbook from the Spanish Table in Seattle. Of couse I was ecstatic! Unbeknownst to me she had an alternative motive for these gifts -- she wanted paella :)  I'll be publishing many photos and recipes of variety of paellas that I have created of the last few years. I recently entered in a paella contest sponsored by the Spain Association of the Pacific Northwest and placed third. I have since perfected the "sofrito" and I can't wait to compete again.  

Asian Cooking - Asian cooking can be healthy and flavorful when done right. I'm not talking about the food that is normally served at a Panda Express in the mall, but rather authentic Asian food that is serve in a good Asian restaurant majority filled with Asian people. Typically recipes will vary from home cooked comfort food to fancier items normally served at a wedding banquet. I haven't tried to make many dim sum since it is very time consuming and can take years to perfect. Making good sushi is next on my list, and I still haven't perfected the perfect peking duck yet. Roasted crispy pork and egg gravy over wide rice noodles are common but can be challenging to make.

Sous Vide - I confess this is my latest obsession. What is Sous Vide? Translated it means "under pressure". It is a cooking technique in which you vacuum pack a food item with or without a marinade and cook it at a low temperature water bath for a long time. You can typically spend anywhere from $2-3K for a professional thermal immersion circulator. My paycheck can't cover this expensive hobby so I built a CA (cheap arse) contraption instead with a slow cooker and varying the lid rotation to adjust the temperature (don't laugh since it actually works). I have sous vide duck breasts, short ribs, lamb, and pork tenderloin over the past year. I'll include photos, recipes, and temperature/cooking duration with pros and cons. I'm hoping Santa Claus will be kind this year to bring me a "prosumer" version of a Sous Vide machine. 

This is just a small list of items that I have obsessed focused on recently. Seafood is probably one of my top choices for meat and I highly recommend that you try real high grade Kobe beef from Japan at some point in the future. Massaging these cows with Sake can't be all that bad. Hopefully next year I'll also be focusing on smoking and BBQ techniques. The Big Green Egg is also on my Santa Claus list but I doubt I'll get it this year unless I'm extra nice :)

On occasion my wife will be contributing to this blog as well since her passion is also great food and great wine!