Oeuf En Cocotte

I was playing around on the web looking at old PBS videos and came across a very cool technique. It was featured on an episode of "The French Chef" with Julia Child. The dish is called oeuf en cocotte. The word "oeuf" of course is French for "egg", but I had to look up the word "cocotte" in the French dictionary to satisfy my curiosity. Here is what I found:

Definitions of cocotte on the Web:

• prostitute: a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money

• a small casserole in which individual portions can be cooked and serve

I assume the second definition is what I was looking for. It is an egg along with various ingredients all cooked in a ramekin. The method is to cook the ramekin in a bain-marie. I received a nice set of Le Creuset mini-ramekins for Christmas that I have been itching to use. Here was my opportunity. There is something elegant and sensous about cooking food and serving it in the same individual dish. 

Last night, I had a guest over for dinner  who arrived too hungry to be able to wait for dinner, so I made the above pictured oeuf en cocotte as an impromptu appetizer while I cooked our dinner. Here's how I made it:

Ingredients for 1 serving:
-1 egg
-some butter
-2 mushrooms, finely chopped
-1 TBS Creme fraiche
-1 TBS grated cheese such a parmesan
-1 tsp chives, finely chopped
-1 tsp parsley, finely chopped
-salt & pepper

Direction:
-Preheat oven to 350
-boil enough water to fill an oven proof pan 1/2 way up the side of the ramekin
-In a saute pan, saute mushrooms in some butter. Season 
with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with chopped parsley. Set 
aside.
-fill the bain-marie pan with the boiling water
-butter the inside of a ramekin
-place sauteed mushrooms in the ramekin
-add the creme fraiche
-place ramekin in the pan
-allow a few minutes for the ramekin to warm
-break the egg in to the ramekin
-top with a sliver of butter
-season with salt & pepper
-add grated cheese
-place in oven and heat until the egg white sets and the yolk is the way you like it. You'll know by jiggling the pan. This should take 10-15 minutes.
-remove the ramekin with some tongs and allow to cool for a few minutes
-add the chives as garnish and serve.

This recipe can be varied in many ways with your imagination as the limit. You can use ham instead of the mushrooms, or sauteed vegetables, or salmon. The herbs can be whatever you prefer like basil, tarragon, or chervil. The cheese can be changed from parmesan to gruyere. You get the point. The choices are almost infinite because eggs are compatible with so many ingredients. It's an extremely simple and versatile method of presenting an egg that elevates it from the the every day pedestrian egg on a plate.

Food - The Ultimate Equalizer

I am in Miami for the day with my airline job. I am always in search of good food here and I am most often disappointed, not because of Miami, but because my layover location is not the best in Miami. It's not the trendy South Beach, nor is it Coral Gables, or Coconut Grove. I am staying near the Miami airport where my choices of decent dining are very limited. There are lots of strip mall style stores, cafes, and nondescript restaurants- all of them latin. Cuban food is king here. On this rather gloomy FL day, I went out for lunch and explored some of the less trodden, rather shady looking streets and came across a very authentic Cuban place, not very originally named "Havana Cafe.". This place was the real deal with the walk-up espresso window and not much evidence of the English language to be found inside. It was a local's hangout. I went in despite the not-too-friendly glares.

I lived in FL for many years. There has always been a divisive prejudice between the Cubans and the non-Cubans. Don't ask me who is at fault. I don't know. Today I felt that prejudicial eye as I sat at the bar and prepared to order. I was generally ignored, my order was taken without a smile, and all of my English was met with replies in Spanish. I ordered a Cuban Steak sandwich which was priced at an incredible $4.50! I could have actually been in Cuba with these low prices. My cafe Con leche came first. I have to admit, the Cubans have a great coffee ritual. As I drank the coffee, the cuban music filling the air, I remembered a passage in Julia Child's book "My Life in France" where she was annoyed with Americans who found things to complain about the French culture rather than embracing all of the wonderful qualities of the French. Maybe I can do the same here. My heartbeat slowed almost immediately at the thought and my anxiety level came down a notch.

My steak sandwich came. A very humble looking sandwich on a white bun in a plastic basket. With low expectations, I took a bite and was really rocked by how good it was. There was some sort of rub/marinade on the meat that gave it a great "tangy" flavor. Hmmmm. "This is pretty good" I though to myself.  After finishing my meal, I told the waitress that the steak was really good and asked if she knew how the meat was prepared. It was as if I had found the key to unlock the barrier between us. She smiled and responded in English that she would find out. She went into the kitchen and returned with the cook (an older Cuban woman) in tow. The Cook proudly explained, through translation by the waitress, how she made the marinade/rub. Truthfully, I didn't fully understand all that she said. I was too caught up in suddenly becoming an "insider". The graciousness didn't stop there. When presented with the bill for a whopping $5.45, I was told that I could not use my credit card unless I had a $10 minimum. Having no cash on me, I offered a tip of $4.55 to bring the total to $10. She refused and wanted to give me the meal for free! After a few back-and-forths, I finally won and paid the $10. I had gone from being a lowly non-Cuban stranger to being offered a free meal in a mere 30 minutes.

There are so many lessons to be learned here that I don't know where to begin. I'll just keep it relevant to this blog. Food.....We all need it. We all go about making it differently. Each culture celebrates their food differently.  Yet, in the end, it's the one thing that all humans have in common that can bring us together - our love for food. Food is the ultimate equalizer.

Duck Proscuitto

I have been fascinated with the idea of curing meat. Long before refrigeration, this is how people stored meat. A little research revealed that curing meats has been around since the "ancient times". The are several forms of curing, but dry curing with salt is one of the simplest. I have always been a little intrigued by things of the past, so I decided to apply this old techniques to the duck breast and make some Duck Prosciutto. There is a lot of info on curing duck breast on the internet since it was popularized by Michael Ruhlman's book "Charcuterie" (which I have not read.)

WARNING! This is a method that I used without any prior experience. I am not an expert in curing and am not suggesting that you follow my recipe. I am just sharing information. Proceed at your own risk!

I bought a magret duck breast for this project. Magret is the breast of a moulard duck which has been fattened for the production of foie gras. It is known for its rich flavor. I rinsed the breast and dried it. I then made a mix of kosher salt and sugar (80% salt/20% sugar) enough to cover the breast in a non-reactive container. The goal is to pack the breast completely with the mixture. The purpose of the salt is to draw out all of the moisture which will in turn slow the production of harmful bacteria. The sugar adds flavor and counters the hardening effect of the salt. There are various flavors that can be introduced with the addition of herbs. In this case, I didn't use any. I then covered and placed in the fridge for 2 days. This allows time for the salt to do it's job.

Next, I removed the breast from the fridge, thoroughly rinsed the salt/sugar off the breast and then dried it with paper towels. Next, using cheese cloth, I wrapped the breast and tied it with kitchen string in a fashion that would allow me to hang it.

Temperature and humidity are critical: The ideal temperature for curing meat is 36-40 degrees F. Below 36, the process slows down too much and the longer process causes excess loss in the flavor. And, above 50 degrees, spoilage occurs. The level of humidity is also important to allow for the evaporation of moisture to occur. I wanted to cure the meat in my garage. Winter temperatures and humidity levels (in California) are ideal for curing. Otherwise, curing can be done in a fridge.

Weight: After wrapping the breast in the cheese cloth, I weighed it. This is important because the cure is complete when the breast has lost approximately 30% of its weight. In my case, the weight was 404 grams. So, my target weight for completion was  282 grams. (In researching the weight reduction goal, I came across numbers ranging from 20% to 30%, so I chose to go with the most conservative number which was 30%)

I hung the breast in my garage mid December and it took over a month for it to reach the target weight. I checked and recorded the weight weekly to monitor the progress of the cure. Initially, the weight dropped quickly during the first week. It then slowed to a few grams per week. The weight loss essentially stopped before hitting my target. It had only lost about 20% of its weight. I made the command decision to stop the process at this point even though it had not reached the 30% target. This morning, nervous with anticipation, I brought it down and opened it. The color was actually not very appealing. It was a dark brown color. I cut it open and was happy to see a beautiful red color on the inside. I took a bite. The fat melted in my mouth and the meat had the perfect balance of texture, game, flavor, and salt. WOW! It worked, although I still have to wait to see if I will die from botulism.

I cut the breast into 5 equal portions, bagged, tagged, and placed in the freezer. I have lots of ideas for how I will use it. I may even cook some of it and use it on pizza, or as garnish for soup or salad.

I recommend that you read and research this process rather than following my curing technique. There is a lot of technical chemistry and MANY finer points involved in this process that I have ignored. I decided to not to get too bogged down with science and just do what people may have done years ago. 

La Fonda Del Sol, NYC

A wintry, drizzly day in NY led me to seek quick shelter for lunch. Walking rapidly and trying to peer below the rim of my umbrella through the drizzle, I spotted a trendy looking sit-down restaurant. No time to be picky, I ducked inside and asked for a table. I was at La Fonda Del Sol in Midtown Manhattan. Pure chance had led me to this cool Spanish tapas restaurant on the ground floor of the MetLife Building at 44th and Vanderbilt. The menu looked interesting. It was divided into seafood, meats, cheese, and vegetable. The average price ranged from $9-$15 per serving. So I decided to order the tuna belly with Navy beans, herbs, and jalapeno tossed in an oil and vinegar, the short rib with pomegranate seeds and sweet pickled cipollini onions, and the Tuna tacos with avocado, jalapeno pickled onions.

As I waited for the food, I read some yelp reviews on my iphone. The overall rating was 3 1/2 stars. Most of the complaints were about the octopus dish being rubbery and bland, poor service with lots of orders being mixed up, and steep prices for the small serving size.

Tuna Belly, Navy beans, jalapeno oil & vinegar

Short Rib, pomegranate, sweet cipollini onions

Tuna Tacos, avocados, jalapeno, lemon/lime juice

All in all, it was a great meal. The tuna belly dish was a little too oily and the tuna could have been canned white tuna, but the overall flavor was decent. The short rib was excellent. It was tender and juicy. The tuna taco was also delicious. The tuna was sushi grade and went well with the jalapeno, onions and the lemon/lime juice that was drizzled on it. My service was excellent. Grant it, it was a very quiet lunch so I had the server all to myself. I do think that the prices are fairly steep, but it's NYC! Everything is expensive. I left feeling satisfied. I would come back again.

Frycook?

This is my 100th post on this blog. I would have preferred to write about something a little more exciting than frying rice balls. Did I pay all that money for Culinary school only to end up as a frycook deep frying rice balls all day? Let me back up.

I got a call from the winery chef to work a food and wine event for the weekend. I am always excited for winery jobs since each one is different. The Chef emailed me a detailed summary of the menu, my tasks, and logistics. Another chef and I would be working the event. The "menu" was really only one item - arancini. Arancini is a rice ball which is made with risotto and various other ingredients. The flavors in the arancini were designed to pair nicely with the winery's pinots and merlot. For this event, the Chef and his assistants had spent the week making 4000 heirloom pumpkin and braised short rib arancinis. Our job was to deep fry them and serve them individually and unceremoniously on a paper napkin at the winery. So much for improving my culinary skills with cutting edge techniques. A 16 year old kid at McDonalds could do this one.

It would have been nice to have been a part of the assemblage of the arancini. It's actually a nice little process. Basically, make risotto and place on a sheet tray to cool in fridge. Bake pumpkin and puree. Cool. Braise the short ribs in veal stock and wine. Shred or chop the meat. Fold the pumpkin puree and short ribs into the risotto. Roll individual balls. dip each ball into flour, eggs, and bread crumbs. Then deep fry. Viola! I mean Presto!

Maybe there is a significance in this blog entry after all. There is a lesson to be learned from any experience no matter how trivial. Frying something all day long, although boring, taught me to recognize the exact color and feel of the end product. I experienced some things that are impossible to "see" without doing a task all day long. I played little games with trying to do each batch just a little faster. I tried to be more efficient with my movements. I tried to make the next batch even better. These games kept me engaged and interested allowing me to survive the day. Perhaps the biggest lesson learned is that professional cooking for the most part is unglamorous and very repetitious. It's through this repetition that cooks become so good at what they do. Whether It's cooking rice balls or a high end product such as foie gras or lobster. The learning process is the same. Plus, how can I possibly complain about a job where I am offered an occasional taste of wine while I cook. Not a bad gig!

Making Sausage at home

I have been wanting to make sausage at home for some time now so I placed a request to Santa for a KitchenAid meat grinder attachment and a sausage stuffer. Having done some research online for techniques and recipes I decided to give it a try today. I set aside the entire day to do this as I had read about some areas that might cause problems. Here are some of the facts I learned after my research.

My KitchenAid grinder, plastic pusher, and sausage nozzles

Equipment:
-a grinder with a coarse die
-sausage stuffer (larger nozzle)
-Larger tray for the grinder was an addition. It makes the task easier than the small tray that comes attached to the grinder

Ingredients:
-Pork with fat content of approximately 20% or leaner meat with addition of pork fat
-a variety of spices
-sausage casing either synthetic or natural. Natural is the best. Usually hog casings made of intestines are considered the best and used by your local butcher (even at the the chain store meat department). Just ask your local butcher and he can get it for you, or you can order it online.

Concerns:
-The kitchen aid grinder works well enough but the weakness is with the plastic pusher used to feed the meat into the grinder. KitchenAid previously supplied a wooden pusher which was much more effective but discontinued it probably because it's more expensive to produce. In fact, most of the online KitchenAid grinder ads still display the grinder with the wooden pusher. The problem with the plastic pusher seems to be inadvertent introduction of air into the grinder.
-The KA sausage stuffer nozzle gets very bad reviews. The problem seems to be that it heats up which causes the meat/fat to also heat up. It's inexpensive so I thought I would give it a try. I don't foresee becoming a serious sausage maker so I didn't want to invest a couple of hundred bucks on a nicer stuffer.
-Everything I read indicates that the equipment and the ingredients must be kept cold at all times or the process fails. This is mainly to keep the meat cold to prevent the formation of harmful bacteria. Additionally, as the fat warms, it become more difficult to run through the grinder during both the meat grinding and the stuffing.

Armed with the above information, I decided to make a spicy Italian sausage. My local butcher recommended pork shoulder for its correct proportion of meat to fat. He did say that some people preferred more fat, but he likes the shoulder and uses it for the store's sausages. I decided to buy a quantity that would allow me to process everything in a manageable size. 5 Lbs. seemed like an ideal quantity for my Kitchen aid mixing bowl. Most recipes I came across seem to add about 1Lb of fat to 5 Lbs of shoulder, but I decided to go with my butcher's recommendation of not adding the fat.

5 Lb. Pork Shoulder ($10.50)

I began by cutting the meat into bite sized pieces. This facilitates the grinding process. I then placed the grinder, attachments, and the meat in the fridge for about 1 hour before starting. while waiting, I assembled the spices. There are no rules here, only your own taste preference dictates the herbs that you choose. The only rule is that some sort of liquid needs to be used to bind everything. 1 cup of liquid is appropriate for 5 Lbs. of meat. Here is what I used:

4 TBS ground red pepper flakes
4 TBS Oregano
4 TBS toasted fennel ground
2 TBS onions finely chopped
1 TBS sugar
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp ground coriander seed
salt and pepper to your liking

1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3/4 cup red wine

Herbs and the vinegar

I combined all of the spices along with the liquids in a bowl and placed it in the fridge to keep cold.

Next, I retrieved the equipment and the meat from the fridge and began grinding. I recommend using speed 4 on the mixer and don't rush the process. The plastic pusher seemed to work fine as long as I didn't try to force the process too much. The entire grinding took about 20 minutes.

The plastic pusher and grinder in action

The Ground meat

When I finished the grinding, I placed the meat back in the fridge while I disassembled and cleaned the grinder. I noticed that some sinew had been caught in the blade and the die which explains why the mixer seemed to bog down at times. The next time I do this, I'll stop in the middle of grinding and clean them a couple of times to help speed up the process.

The next step is combining the spices with the meat. To aid in doing this I set up the mixer with the dough hook and used speed 4 and 6 to mix. You only want to do this until the meat and spices are well mixed as evidenced by clumping.

Using the dough hook to mix the spices with the

ground meat

The pork is ready to be cased

The pork is now ready to be cased. During my research I came across an excellent suggestion by an author to take a little of the pork and make a hamburger  to test for proper seasoning. This way, you can make adjustments before casing it.

Testing the seasoning by making a burger

These days I seem to use every opportunity to practice plating. This being no exception, I decided to plate  it with a ring molded fried egg, some pickled red onion slices that I made last week, and my wine- pomegranate reduction sauce. I think I have been watching too much Top Chef!

decided to have fun with my test burger

Making a test burger turned out to be a good idea because my mix needed more salt and more "heat." I decided to add some tabasco.

It was time to bring it all together. I opened the package of casings that my butcher gave me. Not knowing what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the casing had been threaded onto a plastic "tube" which made it a cinch to slide onto the sausage stuffer.

The hog intestines as they came from the

 butcher, pre-cleaned

 and threaded on a plastic tube ($5.00)

I placed the plastic tube on the stuffer and the

 casing easily slid off onto the nozzle

Yeah, yeah....I know what you're thinking

Next I began feeding the meat through the grinder. With one hand holding the casing to prevent it from falling off and to meter the amount of meat, and the other hand plunging the meat, I began. After the initial inch of meat comes out, stop, pull the air out of the casing and tie off the end. As I continued I began to understand the negative reviews about the plastic pusher. When pushing the ground meat with the pusher, some of the meat begins to actually come up along the sides of the pusher instead of being pushed down which creates a seal. Then, when the pusher is extracted, because of this seal, it tends to create a suction which pulls the meat out from the grinder chamber. This in turn causes the introduction of air pockets into the sausage with the next insertion of the pusher. Not what you want! This created some frustration throughout the entire process.

I stopped several times to remove the stuffer to clean out the blade from the build up of sinew.  It took a while but I developed a rhythm and feel for the whole process. One of the challenges is to control the thickness of the sausage which is exasperated with the formation of air bubbles. When I was finished, I had used only a small portion of the casings (maybe 20%). 

After the casing was filled, I went through and tried to even the thickness of the link and was a bit aggressive with my handling. I tore the casing as you can see above. Not a big deal. I just performed a tubal ligation and removed the damaged section. Next, I just sectioned the links by pinching and twisting.

Finished Product

I would say that the entire process took me about 5 hours. That includes stopping to take pictures and having to clean up each time for the shot. It was a lot of effort for something that's readily available at my butchers; however, it's always nice to know how something is made. I think now that I have seen the process, I will be more efficient the next time. I plan to call Kitchen aid to see how I can get a wooden plunger to solve the air bubble problem.

POSTSCRIPT:
After spending a great deal of time and energy making the sausages today I was wondering if the effort was really worth it. Tonight I grilled some of the sausage for dinner. It was DELICIOUS! It was better than any store-bought sausage. The flavors were great, the texture was nice, and it had nice heat. Any doubts I had about whether the effort to make sausage at home is worthwhile have been removed.

Things I would do differently:

-Try to get a wooden pusher from ebay. The plastic pusher is a cheap and ineffective tool.
-As good as the sausage was, I think I would use more fat the next time. It tended to be a little dry when I cooked it. I will use 1 Lb. of pork fat with 5 Lbs. of pork shoulder the next time.
-I did not cut out and remove the sinew when I initially cut the meat into bite sized pieces. This caused the grinder blade and die to become clogged.
-I will use an ice bath to house the meat while working on it to keep it even colder so that it grinds more easily
-I will place a pan or sheet tray to catch the sausage as it come out of the grinder instead of doing it right on the counter top. You don't see it in my pictures because I cleaned before taking the pictures, but it was VERY messy to have the meat/fat/blood/casings all laying on the countertop as the sausage was being formed.
-There is a leverage problem when using the pusher because of the height of the grinder which is already well above the countertop level. Unless you're well over 6' tall, it's very awkward to push down on the pusher from that angle. So, maybe a foot stool would help.