Cure-All

One of the easiest ways to tell that summer is leaving is to look around, and you'll probably see a bunch of sick people.  Or you could be like me, and look in the mirror to see a single sick person.  This weekend I devised the perfect cure-all to accompany your drug cocktail of choice.

When figuring out what to make, my first requirement was that I wouldn't have to leave the house, and that it wouldn't be labor intensive.  Rummaging through my freezer I found a huge smoked ham hock, and immediately knew that soup was going to be the main course.  Dried split peas in the pantry followed, and the last thing I had to make sure of was that the couch be ready for me.

Split Pea Soup with Charred Chiles:

• 1 Smoked Ham Hock
• 1 Onion (or handful of shallots)
• Pork Stock
• Split Peas
• 3 Serrano Chiles
• Mexican Oregano
• Cumin

Step one is sweating the shallots or onion found in the back of the fridge in a large dutch oven or pot.  Once translucent, season them with a couple tablespoons of Mexican oregano, and cumin.  Next, add the still frozen ham hock, and pour in enough stock to cover.

Once the pot comes to a simmer, throw in two cups of split peas, and take a nap, because that's what ill people do.  Wake up, and check to see if the pork is fork tender, and if the peas have disintegrated and thickened the soup.  If so, the soup is ready.

The soup may be ready to nourish the soul, but an appropriate garnish is needed for the nose, and to enable breathing.  Take a handful of chiles, and char them on a dry pan.  If you're one of those cooks that are great at burning things, this garnish is for you.  Put them on the heat, and take another nap; the blacker the better.

When conscious and ready for service, ladle the rich, thick split pea soup into a bowl and don't skimp on the gelatinous porky bits from the smoked hock.  Top with a handful of chopped charred chiles, and cure yourself.  It may look like the mucus you're expelling, but it tastes a whole lot better.

Smoked Baba Ganoush

A couple months ago I was fortunate enough to dine [again] at one of the top restaurants in the country, Townhouse, in Chilhowie, VA.  One of my favorite dishes of the night, aside from the incredulous turbot chicharrone, was a barbequed eggplant.  It was a very unassuming dish, but full of flavor, and put the idea in my head that smoke, and char, and barbeque, and all those good things belong with eggplant. 

Baba Ganoush is one of my favorite eggplant dishes, so it didn't take long for my mind to arrive at the idea of smoking it.  After all, the eggplant is supposed to be cooked over an open flame to get a smoky flavor, so why not just smoke it to begin with?

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Abandon Strudel

I had my choice of poison when asked to prepare a dish for a friend's annual Oktoberfest party.  Hand stuffing 30 lbs of sausage didn't sound like a great time, so I thought I'd take the easy way out by making a strudel from scratch.  The morning of the event I found out just how silly this notion was, and won't be posting the recipe as a result.  There has to be a better approach and recipe out there, but this is what I've learned so far.  

Strudel is an ancient Austrian pastry most commonly filled with apples, making Fall a great time to eat it.  The key is to make a very elastic dough that can be stretched so thin a love letter can be read through it (I must assume all Austrian love letters are written in a size 100 bold font).  Onto the process.

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Red Redemption

Last time, I made lamb neck rillettes that I tried to model after merguez sausage.  While the product was good, it wasn't as I intended it to be, oozing red goodness.  In hindsight, folding in harissa would have been a good idea, but I've been too eager to try my next idea, which is chorizo rillettes.  It sounds scary, but I really want to make a red, eye-catching product of infinite desirableness.

To achieve the color, I decided to develop the same kind of chile paste that is used for fresh, Mexican chorizo sausage.  Don't let the dried chiles be intimidating, they're already dead.

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Gateway Charcuterie

As proscuittos and sausages are most people's introduction to dry cured foods, rillettes are the gateway to spread-able meats. Three years ago, I had my first charcuterie plate, and while I didn't realize it at the time, it was a life changing experience. It was then I had my first batch of rillettes and was hooked into charcuterie, seeking and consuming all offerings in Chicago. Shortly after going down that porcine road, I attended my first butchering demo and learned the ways of various cured meats and old preservation techniques. Today, after much practice, I have a decent approach to the art.

Luckily for me, for the second week in a row, I got the one lamb neck in stock at my local butcher. This is a great piece of meat for making rillettes, since it's very flavorful and tender. Due to the uniqueness of the cut of meat, I salted the neck then slow roasted it in a 200 Dg oven over-night while I slept. This allowed for the fat to slowly seep out of the meat and essentially baste itself while roasting. Once morning came, the meat was easily shreddable. Traditionally, the cooking process for rillettes would take place in a covered pot with simmering liquid, but that's another post.

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