How did I miss it?!?

Katy Ridgway told me that she's really disappointed that week two is turmeric. Not because she doesn't like turmeric... but because I could have said "Week Twomeric" and didn't.

I'm disappointed in myself. I feel like I really let everyone down.

Turmeric Eggs

In response to my first turmeric post yesterday, Mike passed along this link to a NY Times article: (Registration may be required, who knows.)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/the-11-best-foods-you-arent-eating/?em

Unrelatedly, Neil sent me the following via chat:

"Fuck meat. Eggs are the perfect food. Goodbye."

Which leads me to two questions: First, should I tone down the profanity that I typically use while writing? (Probably yes. I'm a dad now. I need to learn to stop swearing.) And second, why did he leave it at "goodbye"? That's so wussy, especially when he could have said something like THAT IS ALL or AND I AM OUT.

Anyway, between the Times article and Neil's obvious (though milquetoast) push, I figured I needed to make eggs with turmeric for breakfast.

Turmeric is complex stuff - I don't really know how to describe the taste. I don't even really know if I like it - but I enjoy it, if that makes any sense. I enjoy the way that I can feel it rolling over my tongue, lighting up different taste buds - first the back of my tongue, then the left side, then the back again. I'd love to see what it looks like, if the nerves were wires, crackling with lightning all the way into my brain...

Eggs. Eggs are what started all of this, actually - eggs are the first thing I ever really cooked. It's a good story - remind me to tell it some time. For now, let's take five large eggs - three for me, two for Victoria - and toss them in a mixing bowl. (I use a two-cup Pyrex measuring cup.) Add in a glug of milk (a glug [I think this comes from Bill Cosby] is the amount of milk that comes out between the time you tip the bottle over and the time it makes that glug noise.) and a pinch of kosher salt. Then a half-tablespoon of turmeric. While this is all happening, get a pan warming on the stovetop, high heat, and maybe chop up a few mushrooms, if you've got them handy.

Get out a fork and mix up the eggs. Watch out - the turmeric really clumped up when I was mixing, and I don't know how to stop that from happening. Sift it, maybe, or simply don't drop the whole amount at once into the mixture. Make sure the eggs get broken up and everything gets mixed, then toss the whole mess (mushrooms first, so they get coated in the egg mixture) into the pan. Get out a spatula, and just make everything stays moving. If a skin forms on the bottom of the pan, scrape it off; what you want is to get even heat and let the eggs firm up. Should take about two or three minutes. Take the eggs off the heat slightly before they're at your preferred level of firmness - they'll still cook for a while on the plate.

Voila - scrambled eggs. Easiest hot breakfast in the universe. The turmeric gives it a nice orange color - turmeric is a great food coloring - and a mellow, earthy flavor, as well. I almost never make eggs without cheese, but that didn't seem like the thing to do here. (Actually, I tend to consider eggs that don't include at least three types of vegetable and two types of cheese a bit underprepared, but that's neither here or there.) All things considered, a really nice way to spice up a simple dish.

Tomorrow... I'll talk about the dinner I made tonight, Kashmiri rice and salmon with turmeric in a coconut milk sauce.

Getting lost (and a call for contributions)

If you’ve ever argued with me – and if you’re reading this, let’s not kid ourselves, you have – you might have noticed that I’ve got a thing for analogies. I like analogies. I find them to be an incredibly useful rhetorical device. Analogies can make things clearer to the person you’re talking to, sure – but they can make things clearer to yourself, as well. You’re gaining two things – an easier way to look at a particular subject, primarily, but just as importantly, the idea that these two things are similar. If that similarity breaks down - if your analogy turns out to be inapt - then that can reveal a great deal about your original subject; likely, things that you had missed, the first time around.

I’m not sure if this is making much sense… let me find an analogy for you.

I cook, in a lot of ways, in the same way I learn a new area. When I’m living somewhere new, I spend a lot of time getting lost. Not simply because I don’t know my way around; I get lost on purpose, as a method of learning. I’ll pick somewhere big and obvious that I want to go – the mall, the Washington Monument – and just go. No directions, no nothing, just hop on my motorcycle and do what feels right. (And when you’re on a Harley, baby, it all feels right.) Pick a time when there’s no traffic, nothing else to do – where you can just drive, take in the roads, get a feel for the lefts and rights, for the way the city streets curve, for where the big roads take you and where they don’t. If you never get there, who cares? As long as you can find your way home again and start over, that’s all you need. Getting lost does two things that getting where you’re going never can, and I don’t know which one is more important. Getting lost on purpose teaches you how to get found, when you’ve gotten lost not on purpose. And getting lost often introduces you to amazing things, things that you would never see if you were just heading from point A to point B.

When I’m cooking something new, I’ll come up with an idea. Most of the time, that idea will be based off of something I’ve eaten before, or at least heard about. I’ll look through my toolbox, and try to figure out if I’ve got what I need to get from here to there. Is the place I’m going big enough to see from where I am? It’s still rare for me that the answer to that question is “yes” – that I can just come up with a recipe in my head for something new. Most of the time, I’ll search Internet for hints. I’ll do a quick Google search, and take a look at a few recipes. Most of the time, all I’m really looking for are the broad strokes – the major directions – because if I follow the directions to the letter, I’m likely to get a perfect, delicious dish.

I’m unlikely to get lost, in other words.

Making dishes wrong is far, far more educational than making them right, in more or less the same way that getting lost is more educational than getting to your destination. (Unless, I suppose, you’re heading to a school, library, museum, or that sort of place.) (And you’re the type of person who gets more benefit out of those things than out of experiential learning.) (And you were going to be so late that if you got lost, you weren’t going to make it on time.) Pointing yourself in a direction and winging it means that sometimes you’ll wind up with food that tastes terrible (or even worse, food that tastes boring) but sometimes you’ll wind up with something that tastes amazing. And when you make the dish again, you’ll be able to correct your errors – much more useful, in the long run, than never having made them at all.

Even more than that, getting lost is exciting. It’s scary, no doubt – especially when you’ve got a half-dozen people coming over for dinner, and you don’t really know if you’ve cooked anything that’s actually worth eating. But at the same time, there’s a tingle that goes through my system every time I figure something out, or every time I think “I bet it would taste even better if I…” It's worth occasionally having mushy cashews.


So I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. This blog is open to anyone and everyone who feels like contributing – and I’ll let you define how you’d like to contribute. I’d love to have people writing guest entries, or even a weekly column, but if you’ve got something else in mind that you think would be fun – get in touch! I’d love to hear from you. In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying watching me get lost.

Week 2 - Turmeric

So last week, I was looking through my spices for spices, and I thought, “Turmeric. I’ve got this big jar of it, and really have no idea what the heck it is.” It goes in Indian food. That’s why I have it, and that’s pretty much the only thing I know about it.

Then I thought, “wait – don’t I have a blog for precisely this reason?”

I’m not joking, either. One of the advantages of having a terrible memory is that you occasionally surprise yourself like that.

Up until then, I had been spending a lot of time waffling about what I should do next. Should it be something else critical, along the lines of salt? Sugar? Pepper? (No. Very no. Week one took three weeks in large part because salt is an immense topic. I need to pick something that’s reasonable.) (And pepper is probably at least two weeks, maybe as much as a month – a week for black peppercorns, and then I’ll look and see if the other colors are deserving of weeks to themselves, or should just be handled en masse.)

At this point it seems like a good idea to get down to business as usual, or at least figure out what business as usual will be. This week I’m just gonna pick something nice and normal, cook a few dishes, make a few funny quips, and try not to get sucked in too deep. (Fair warning – if it turns out that, upon examination, turmeric is as rich in history and usage as salt, has as many variations and requires the same kind of in-depth understanding… I’m going to quit.)

I also like the idea of doing spices in themed groupings – so I’ll probably wind up, over the next few weeks, doing a bunch of the spices that are commonly used in Indian dishes, and trying out a bunch of Indian stuff, in addition to doing my best to find dishes that show off each spice’s individuality.
In a lot of cases, of course, there won't be a dish that really focuses on spices like, say, turmeric - because spices are usually used in conjunction with particular other spices, just like music tends to happen in chords, rather than individual notes.

I’m not going to cook anything for at least a day or two, because honestly – between the dinner on Friday and a birthday dinner we made last night (sushi for my friend Yousef’s thirty-fifth… I need to find a better source for sushi-grade fish around here, but all in all the meal was great) I’ve got to clear out some of these leftovers. But that gives me some time to figure out exactly what turmeric is, where it comes from, and what it does - as well as some thinking about how I can make sure this blog remains a reasonable amount of work for me, and a reasonable amount of reading for you.

Five Salt Dinner 4 -- Salt-Crusted Red Snapper

Hi blog readers, this is Victoria.

As you know by now, my husband is a city boy who shrieks like a sissy when confronted with a harmless one-pound fish. Fortunately for him, I spent years working on living history farms; plowing with a team of oxen, milking cows and goats, stuffing sausage casings, and plucking and gutting ducks. I have never cleaned or gutted a fish, however, so I was relieved to hear that he had bought one that was already prepared. I got home from work, still amused by the panicked phone call in which he begged me to “deal with the fish.” I was even more amused to realize that it was basically a large red minnow.

Gross? Definitely. Scary? Not even a little. I showed Mr. Snapper to our nine-month-old son, Benjamin, and he just laughed.

Unfortunately, Aaron hadn’t realized that although the vendor at the fish market had assured him that the fish was cleaned and gutted, it hadn’t had the scales removed, and our recipe called for a cleaned and scaled fish. Aaron hadn’t been able to bring himself to look closely at it (or to bring himself close enough to the fish to take a look) and he assumed it had been scaled. I picked it up and realized instantly that it hadn’t. So task one was learning how to scale a fish.

Fortunately, the internet gave me instructions.

The instructions included: “You will want to do this outside, or in a place where you can clean up easily -- scales will fly everywhere. I learned this the hard way: I scaled many fish in an old apartment of mine, only to find scales attached to the ceiling when I moved out, years later.”

After reading these instructions, I took Mr. Snapper out to the balcony, placed him on some wax paper, and started scraping firmly from tail to head, i.e. against the direction of the scales. The internet was not kidding about scales flying everywhere – they literally went flying in a four-foot range and in many random directions. If you ever try this, remember to keep your mouth closed! Also, wear a high-necked shirt. I was itchy later that evening and discovered that a fish scale had flown down my shirt and lodged under my bra. Uncomfortable as well as yucky!

The important thing when scaling the fish is to achieve full coverage (or uncoverage, really). Run your fingers over the body of the fish to make sure you haven’t missed anywhere, like behind its ears or under its little armpits (finpits?). Any stubborn scales can just be plucked out with your fingers. I didn’t get too picky about the part closest to the head, which I had no intention of eating anyway.

 Success!  I feel like a pioneer woman!

Once I realized how easy this process is, I resolved to go to the fish market and buy whole fish on a regular basis and to learn how to clean and gut them as well. My husband is going to be SO happy!

Now that the fish was finally ready, I cut some slits in the skin, rubbed olive oil on both sides, and sprinkled it liberally with Old Bay seasoning. I equal my husband in general over-enthusiasm, and used far too much Old Bay, but it didn’t matter because it wasn’t hard to scrape it off before eating the final product.

 












The second challenge was adjusting the proportions and the timing. The recipe that Aaron found online was for a bulky (I almost wrote “beefy”) 6.5 pound fish, and our Mr. Snapper was a classic one-pound weakling. I bet the other fish picked on him in school.

Ha! “in school” -- get it?

I prepared the salt crust, which called for mixing a large amount of kosher salt with chopped fresh parsley, basil, tarragon, freshly-ground black pepper, orange zest, lemon zest, a little orange juice, and some lemon juice. Since this was just flavoring the salt crust, I figured the portions didn’t matter too much.

The timing was more of a problem, and I resorted to looking for recipes for salt-encrusted fish that were much smaller than the one in the recipe Aaron had recommended. I decided that 20 minutes would probably work.

Unlike the recipe for the salt crust for the roast, this recipe did not call for egg whites – probably because the fish is flat and could be easily coated with a top and a bottom, without worrying about the sides standing up on their own. The recipe assured me that I could leave the head and tail uncovered, which made me feel like I was tucking Mr. Snapper into a little bed. Time for Goodnight Moon . . .

Goodnight little fishie...

After 20 minutes, we pulled Mr. Snapper out of the oven. He looked pretty much the same. 

I gingerly tried cracking his salt crust with a hammer, hoping for the same dramatic effect Aaron had achieved with the roast. There was an unresounding smush as the hammer sank slightly into the salt, and I realized that the egg whites turn the crust into, well, a CRUST. Sigh.

If I ever salt encrust a fish again, I will use egg white just for the gratification of being able to crack the crust open with a hammer.

Anyway, I was able to lift the salt crust off mostly in large-ish pieces, and to sweep off the remaining salt with a pastry brush. Then I was faced with a whole fish, apparently cooked.

Um, what next?

Since we’ve never cooked a whole fish before, I wasn’t sure what to do next . . . Well, actually I knew that I needed to cut it apart in some special way that would leave the bones behind and preserve the meat for serving. To the internet again!

The internet said: “To serve, slide a spatula under a section that had been scored and simply lift it out and onto a plate. For the section closest to the head, move the spatula into the top of the fish over the ribs, which start below the backbone, then around the top and down toward the ribs in a semicircular motion. This ensures a boneless piece.”

Sound great!

Only, it turns out that was one of those “easy to describe, difficult to do” things. I ended up with a lot of pieces of fish, and quite a few of them still had bones in them. Grrr. I love fish, but I HATE fish bones. Obviously, this will take more practice.

This is not easy.

The internet also said: “Oh, and don't forget the cheeks of the fish, which are my favorite part. They will be orbs of yummy fish right under each eye. And the tails, if not burnt black, are crunchy and nutty-tasting. You can also pick at the meat between the ribs, as well as in the belly.”

To which I responded: “No frickin’ way am I eating fish cheeks!” Now I’m grossed out too! Maybe Aaron had a point after all.

On a happier note, the fish was delicious: flaky, moist and perfectly cooked. I shredded the leftover pieces onto a salad for lunch today, and discovered that the spiciness of the Old Bay was a great complement to the lettuce and spinach.

But the result was pretty tasty!

My conclusion: it was a lot of work for a good, but not spectacular, dish o’ fish. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt that way if I hadn’t been learning so many new skills at the same time. I’ll try cooking and serving whole fish a few more times, then try it again.

Five salt dinner 2.3 - Salt-Crusted Prime Rib Finale

I had expected the prime rib to take about four hours, based on the weight. However, I was judging doneness based on the internal temperature, rather than time, and three hours into the process it hit 130 degrees - the bottom end of medium rare, for prime rib. (As an aside, this is the first time I have used the thermometer for any large project, and I absolutely loved it. I never had to open the oven, touch the meat, or do anything else that might disturb the cooking, and I could feel comfortable the whole time that I knew exactly what was going on.)

There was definitely a problem, though - carryover heat. The purpose of the salt crust is to absorb the heat of the oven and re-transfer it to the meat in a controlled fashion. And while the salt never got particularly hot (it was warm to the touch out of the oven) it kept cooking that meat for about an hour after I took it out of the oven. I was chewing my fingernails, as I watched the thermometer creep from 130 (when I took it out) all the way up to 150 (when I finally served it.) Part of the problem there is the fact that I had thought it would take about four hours - so I put it in at 3:00, planning on taking it out at 7:00, resting it for a half hour and serving it at 7:30. Instead, I took it out at 6:00, and it sat for an hour and a half.


Oh, also - I totally screwed up the placement of the roast - whenever you're cooking any sort of roast, the fatty part needs to be on top, so the fat can drip down during cooking. I'm not sure HOW I could have worked that out - the roast's shape would have made it really difficult to coat in the salt mixture if I turned it the other direction - but I wasn't thinking when I set this up, and put the fat on the bottom. So, if you do this yourself, don't be dumb like me.

In any case, it came out fine - a bit overdone (I think rare or maybe medium rare are really the only temperatures that do prime rib justice; this was solidly in the medium range, with a pinkish center. (This picture makes it look more overdone than it actually was, though.)

Guess what? It still tasted amazing, though.

But wait! I'm skipping right past the fun part!

Honestly, if you look at the first picture in this post, you'll notice that the crust had fallen apart towards the bottom of the pan - if I had wanted to, I could have just lifted the top crust off of the meat. But this was so much cooler.

Carving was also an issue; I've never cooked a prime rib before, and I wasn't familiar with how the bones are configured. What I had was three ribs off of a cow, connected by a big piece of what one assumes is vertebra, slightly deeper in the meat.

While I was dithering and trying to form a carving plan, my friend Laura stepped up to the plate and started slicing. She worked the knife around the vertebrae, creating opening up a space so that when she parallel to the ribs, she could then pull the whole bony section right off. (It's still sitting in my fridge. When my wife leaves, and I feel like I am safe acting like a caveman, I am going to pick those bones clean.)

All in all, I really liked the salt crust - I would definitely do this again, circumstances permitting. I think the presentation is really cool, the crust does a good job of keeping the meat evenly cooked, traps juices in and really lets the natural flavor of this great cut of meat come out. If I did it again, I would definitely try the crust I suggested in an earlier part of this. Also, I would take it out of the oven at 115 or 120, depending on how well done I wanted it. It was a great centerpiece to a really nice meal... and as a bonus, I've got about two prime rib lunches left over!

Five salt dinner 3 - Stuffed Mushrooms

Oookay... So I was going to do salt-crusted red snapper next. Then I took the fish out of the bag to work on it. Then I shrieked like a little girl, and ran across the room to get away from the bag with the GIANT FISH EYE staring at me.

I am a city boy at heart. I do not want to be close to nature; I don't want to be part of the food cycle. I want my meat in fillets, steaks, or other forms that don't remind me at all of what they once were. What I do NOT want is a GIANT FISH (and by giant, I mean literally the smallest red snapper the market had) that is likely to start flopping around any second. (Despite being dead and gutted.)

Are you trying to tell me that thing doesn't freak you out at all?

I really wish I could describe how freaked out I am right now. I was barely able to get the fish back into the bag and into the fridge. I really, really hope Victoria is willing to deal with that thing.

You know what the funny thing is? I KNOW all this about myself - yet I bought a whole red snapper anyway.

Well, I'd better get working on something else, then...

Five salt dinner 3 - Salt-Crusted Red Snapper Stuffed Mushrooms

(Picking this entry up the next day - I just didn't have time to keep blogging and still get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour.)

As I said earlier, in the interest of science, I'm going to be making the following stuffed mushrooms every week - the only alteration being the spice I add for flavoring. It's a simple recipe, the point being to have something yummy, but which doesn't overwhelm the flavor of the spice. I had intended to make it exactly the same way every week - but honestly, at least in the beginning, I'm not going to be able to stop myself from tinkering. The mushrooms tend to come out a bit more watery than I would prefer. More on that later.

Also, I like to say mushrump a instead of mushroom. I do it enough that Victoria bought me a stuffed hedgehog and named him Mushrump. (What? It makes sense. His girlfriend is Pinecone, obviously.) Here is a picture of Mushrump - doesn't he make my baby look cute?

Seriously... I am shameless.

Right. Mushrooms.

Okay, so the parts:

 

Mushrooms, spinach, a baking pan, some salt, that's it. Well, since I'm cooking for eight this evening, and I've got plenty of mushrooms, I decided to spice things up a bit - I had an extra chorizo in the fridge, so I fried it up and threw it in the mix.

De-stem the mushrooms, and put them in the baking tray. Take the stems, and add an equal volume of spinach. Then, chop the hell out of them. My favorite tool for going nuts on stuff like this is a knife I found out last night is called a Mezza Luna - a curved knife with a handle on both ends. It's really good at mincing things, and it's really fun to use.

Cackling evilly is not a requirement when you use this thing, but every little bit helps.

After I chopped everything up, I decided I had too much stem, not enough spinach, so I threw in another half-handful or so. Half of this got enbowled at this point. I chucked the chorizo in the pile, kept chopping for a bit. Eventually, I wound up with this.

Now, as I said earlier,  the last few times the mushrooms have been a little too much... let's say juicy. Not bad - but a bit too much water in my mouth when I bite down. I've learned a bit about the cooking uses of salt, recently - and so I decided to sprinkle some kosher salt on the mushrooms, figuring that it would pull some of the water out of them.

 

In to the oven for seven minutes - and when I pulled them off, it was pretty clear that water had been pulled out - the salt on the bottom of the tray had been dissolved, then the water it dissolved in evaporated.

Perfect! Flipped 'em over, (to be honest, I don't know why I was cooking them face-down then flipping them... I'll try it the other way next time and see if anything different happens.) stuffed 'em with the mushroom and spinach mix, covered 'em with a little bit of cheese (a parmesan/asiago mix) and threw them back in for seven minutes.

Result:

They look better than they tasted. Not that they tasted bad - actually, they tasted really good - but to me, at least, that picture looks like some kind of Platonic ideal of stuffed mushrooms. I'm drooling looking at that picture.

They were definitely less watery than they were last time, but I think there's still room for improvement. Anyone have any suggestions?