Once I figured out how to make fresh pasta , I waited all of 12 hours before I set out to create my own Ragù alla Bolognese. It was a goal of mine ever since watching an episode of Heston Blumenthal's TV series In Search of Perfection . The premise of the show is for the acclaimed chef to reexamine some stodgy British classics by going back to the roots of the original dish. His f...
I've moved to Tartu, Estonia with Elin, where she is doing research, and I'm now neck-deep in a deeply confusing language which has no prepositions, word for "he" or "she", no future tense, and three different Os -- o, õ, and ö (ask me to pronounce them in succession: it sounds like I'm trying to lift a piano). And of course, I'm learning to cook in this new place. Good food is frighteni...
The recipe comes from Diana Kennedy's "From My Mexican Kitchen". This particular version comes from the Michoacán region. She does give direction on how to stuff the mixture into casings, but I bailed out early. Some day.
As first sausage making experiences go, I'd have to say this was pretty remarkable. I got about 2 pounds of fresh sausage and spent about $12 dollars. Half of it is fro...
Apple City Barbecue Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Day 1
Prick the pork butt all over with a fork.
Magic Dust: AKA the Rub
First, I needed to find some pork belly with its skin still firmly on. My previous attempt removed it , along with a lot of precious fat directly underneath. My bacon didn't have nearly enough fat on it to fry up, so instead cooking up beautifully in a pan, it burned . My local butcher wouldn't sell me a piece with the skin on unless I bought 10 pounds, a fact I still find ridicu...
My most ambitious meat curing project yet recently emerged from an unplugged fridge in my living room. It was a pig cheek from a heritage-breed pig, also known as the jowl, which was salted and seasoned with sugar, black pepper, and thyme leaves, then left in the bottom of my real fridge for a week to release moisture. After that, I hung it to dry in the unplugged fridge for three more...
I can't remember exactly where the conversation began, or why we suddenly started talking about New Orleans, but for about 5 minutes last Friday Night I waxed poetic about the Crescent City. My interest has been explored before , but apparently my chatter seemed especially interesting that night. I suppose I could have been because my friend Hal had never been, and I took umbrage. ...
It took me almost a month and calls to half the butchers in New York before I could get my hands on a pair of pig jowls. Here’s the problem: they want you to order the whole head. And while I had a wonderful time watching pot-roasted pig heads go ferrying by my table at the Spotted Pig , when it was under the tutelage of British chef Fergus Henderson , the thought of lugging a 40...
I'm definitely not the first to point this out, but Chicago has some great food. You know, with all the high accolades for their inventive restaurants and classic comfort foods, and the fact that they are hosting this year's Top Chef , I have nothing new to add. It's just that over the past weekend Abby and I managed to fit more good food into our bellies than we had any right to do...
Time to play catchup. Blake has been on the forefront of this curing business for awhile now and I just couldn’t stand back while he was slicing off hunks of his own fresh bacon and duck prosciutto . I picked up a duck and a pork belly and got to work.
It might seem a little redundant to document two projects that Blake has already covered, but in all fairness, these are d...
