Holland dayz.

Pretty simple. Needs demystification. All you have to know is that you're essentially making a hot mayonnaise. In a way.

A recipe that can be fifty-folded or not:

2 egg yolks
juice of half a lemon
salt
sriracha <- integral

Before you stir the previous together, melt a half-pound of butter down. Leave to cool to room-temp.

Stir the previous together in a metal mixing bowl. If you have gas heat, so much the better. Electric? Shit. Your bad. This can still be done though:

Light a burner (electric or otherwise), and put the stirred ingredients over said heat. Begin diligently whisking them together, periodically taking them off the heat from time to time. Electric's gonna take more time than gas, which'll happen in a flash, but once you get to "ribbon stage" <- a term utilized because when you take the whisk and pick up the cooking egg yolk mass and you're able to make a figure-eight(8) within it, you're done cooking the hollandaise, this is when you take it away from the heat; but first, dampen a towel, ring it out, roll it together, snap someone in the ass with it, and conform it into a circle. Place said bowl of hollandaise on top, and begin whisking the aforementioned melted butter into it. Take your time, and let the butter go in at a slow pace.

Once it's together, stir it over your favourite poached eggs, fish, steak, whatever.

No sauce should EVER be so mystical.

luv,
s

Turducken.

So, turducken is an abomination in the eyes of God, but can still be made, somewhat appropriately (this approach is Frenchified to the extreme, but I feel that this lightens the load, so to speak) :

Take a turkey apart, then a duck, and then a chicken. Set the legs aside from all three, as well as the breasts.

Put all the bones in a pot, add some aromatics (I usually go for onions, garlic, fresh thyme and bay laurel), top up with water, and bring to a boil. IMMEDIATELY lower to the lowest possible simmer you can maintain on your stove, and steep for eight hours.

Next day:

Strain your stock, discard the bones and such, siphon off a a couple of liters and set aside, and put the remainder in a pot to reduce and concentrate. Don't boil it down, just let it reduce SUPER slowly. It didn't do anything to you, so why treat it so harshly?

Bring out another big pot and place over medium heat. Chop a mirepoix (50%onions, 25% each carrots and celery - lots, as well) beforehand, and begin sauteing. After about five minutes, add your assorted poultry legs to the pot, along with more aromatics (just similar herbs as above), then just barely cover with the stock you siphoned off earlier (add any remainder back to the other pot currently reducing), bring to a boil, then immediately lower to a bare simmer, or, if space is an issue, bring your oven to 325F, clap a lid on the legs, and place it in said oven for two hours. Otherwise, if you're fine doing it on the range-top, leave it there for two hours, until the meat is falling off the bone, but don't OVER-braise it - the shit'll get dry as a popcorn fart if you do. Once done, leave to cool, and place in your fridge, warts and all, until tomorrow.

Whilst you're waiting for said legs to finish, prep the breasts: bring out a food processor, and finely mince about eight shallots, six cloves of garlic, and 1/8 cup of fresh thyme. Stir that together. Place the duck breasts (by the way, take the skins off the breasts of the duck and chicken) in the processor, along with half of the aromatic mix you just made, and one egg. Season the affair with salt, and pepper if you're so inclined (i'm not, but the salt is mandatory). Puree until it all comes together as a paste. You may need to scrape the sides down a couple of times, so be prepared for that.

Repeat the process with the chicken breasts.

Take your turkey breasts and butterfly them open. Season the interior with salt. Spread first the duck puree (called a forcemeat or "farce" in french classical cuisine) over the exposed interior, then follow with the chicken farce on top of that. Roll it up carefully, trying to preserve the look of the natural state of the turkey breast, and season the outside skin with salt, and place in an appropriate roasting pan. Leave till tomorrow.

Also, once the turducken stock has reduced to the appropriate point, where everything tastes strongly enough, thicken with a roux, but only enough so that it coats the back of a spoon, rather than something a spoon can stand up in. Leave to cool, and refridgamerate.

Early the next day, drag your braised leg meat outta the fridge and pull the meat a la pulled pork off the bone, discard the aromatics, but SAVE THAT MOTHERFUCKIN' LIQUID, and set aside in a mixing bowl. Reduce the braising liquid down for a half an hour, and in another pot (big enough to hold the proceedings), sweat a fine mince of mirepoix for a number of minutes until soft, add the aforementioned pulled meat, stir to combine, and then add the reducing braising liquid - as much as it takes to bring the mix together. Season with salt. Any remainder of stock? - set aside and stir into the gravy.once it's back to temp and hits it's "gravy" consistency again.

Preheat your oven to 400F. Place the turducken (breast portion) in the oven, and roast till 155F. Keep your turducken ragout hot, and warm your gravy, seasoning as necessary). Let the roast of turducken breast rest for thirty minutes (tented, if not longer), until it hits 165F, then carve (thinly), and serve with whatever you think makes it the shit - I prefer twice-baked potatoes (stuffed with bacon, sour cream and cheese, thank you Karl), green beans, and a medicinal dose of whiskey or five.

You're welcome.

Poulet.

I think, very truthfully, that I could put a ring on the nearest finger of a good roast chicken. There's a restaurant here in town called Rei Dos Leitoes that specializes in pork yet does some of the most amazing chicken I've ever had. The sauce is the rendered fat mixed with piri piri.

Unbelievable.

Roast chicken epitomizes everything I love about good food. It's simple (on paper) yet complex enough that it'll challenge any cook's ingenuity in the making of it. You're looking for tender moist meat and brown crispy skin, not some limpid discoloured latex covering a dried out piece of styrofoam.

(a caveat: you must understand - I've only had a passing glimpse at what the experts are doing these days, and I certainly am not there yet, but good Lord - chicken doesn't need a physics degree for us lowly plebes to ingest and enjoy.)

Preheat an oven to 425F.

Buy yourself a free-range, grain-fed boiler-fryer (so named for it's size, somewhere between 3-5 pounds) and fast for half a day. Not only will it be spiritually beneficial, it'll put you in the proper receptive mindset.

Rub your bird down (minds out of the gutter, children) with plenty of salt. Bring it to room temperature (taking it out of the fridge for around two to three hours) and calmly squash your impulse to tell the nearest health inspector about your actions. I know, I know, you're not supposed to do stuff like that, but bringing the bird to room temp ensures a faster cooking process, such that it doesn't spend as much time in an oven drying out as it normally would going in cold.

A little trick my mother taught me is to stuff raw garlic cloves under the skin on the breast. Quite frankly, I don't know why more people don't do this. You can also stuff fresh herbs under there, as well as butter, duck fat, or any and/or all. You can also fire a halved lemon in the cavity with some other fresh herbs, as they'll steam and perfume the meat internally. Never stuff a bird with anything you intend on eating afterwards. In order for it to be safely consumed, that stuffing has to be cooked to at least 165F, leaving the surrounding meat drier than a popcorn fart. You want stuffing? Make it on the side, and stir the roasting pan juices into it after the fact.

Thomas Keller says it's important to truss the bird and I believe him. Here's a basic tutorial. It ain't me, if you were wondering. Place your bird in the oven and roast to 155F internally. It should take roughly an hour or so, but check it after 45 minutes to see where it's at - and don't worry about basting it. It doesn't work. Chicken skin is waterproof, so whatever you try to baste it with just slides right off, and on top of that, it's a timewasting activity. Take out once it's done, tent it loosely with foil and let it rest for roughly thirty minutes if at all possible, or fifteen minutes at the very least. In that time, carry-over cooking will raise the temperature to 165F, at which point, all worries of salmonella poisoning disappear.

To carve? Well, I take the breasts off the bird whole by cutting down the sternum and off the wishbone, then simply slicing across them thinly, and the gams? I tend to shred them by hand, as leg meat does not carve supermodellishly,

I dunno what you're serving with your bird, but I make a simple pan gravy (deglaze the roasting pan with chicken stock, reduce it till it tastes delicious and thickens noticably, seasoning with salt and a touch of balancing honey), put out the sides, as well as a crock of a particularly nice Dijon mustard. then rub the meat down with a bit of warm butter, et voila!

All together now - Amen.

luv,

s

Pepper.

"...add two teaspoons dried oregano, a splash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper; toss to combine...."

Are we all familiar with this refrain? Seasoning with salt and pepper has become so ubiquitous in culinary lore as to be holy writ. It's just how it's done.

Well, to the pious who subscribe unthinkingly to that sort of dogma, I say thus: Pay special attention to the lyrics.

I also pose to you a question: would you season all your food with salt and cinnamon? In all the instances in which you would season a particular food item with pepper, would you willingly substitute cinnamon?

No?

Then why do you spice it with pepper? Hm?

Because in point of fact, pepper is not a seasoning. It is a spice.

Salt, sweetness, acidity, umami, and to lesser degrees, bitterness and heat, are all seasonings. Pepper is a spice in the same league as nutmeg, coriander seed, cumin, and cinnamon.It isn't needed in every instance.

Where I'm going with this line of thought? - everything you ever make in the kitchen, assuming it's a savoury item intended for consumption at some point before dessert, does not need pepper in order to be seasoned properly.

To those who wonder aloud at this, I challenge you thusly: make a basic cream sauce (saute a minced onion in 4tbsp olive oil, add 4tbsp flour, cook for 1 minute, whisk in 1 liter 10% cream, cook on medium high heat until thickened - once it hits a high simmer, cook for roughly two(2) minutes), then split it into two separate batches. Season one with salt and the requisite amount of pepper you normally would season your food with (in most cases, a hell of a lot), and the other batch, season with just salt. Allow the salt to dissolve for a couple of minutes in both batches, taste, and correct such that it tastes properly seasoned - again, you're looking for the food to taste good, not salty.

Do you see how friggin' clean the salt-only sauce tastes, versus the bitter angriness of the pepper-laced sauce? Can you now see how this preponderance of pepper, especially so when every item within a composed plate has been seasoned with salt AND pepper, from steak to potatoes to vegetables to sauce can lead to an overload of that bitter angriness as a whole?

Try cooking without pepper for a week, and see how your cooking becomes as light as a cloud. You won't regret it.

luv,

s

Stock.

Stock. It's the foundation of all great cooking, IMHO. There are some Italians out there who'd tell you differently, that my approach is too French, and thus, too heavy. Stock, in their opinion, should never come from seafood, or veal, or beef, only chicken or vegetables, if you absolutely MUST have stock.

*yawn*

While I do appreciate that kind of puritanical approach, veal stock is what I imagine God wakes up to in the morning instead of our pitiful mortal attempts to fill that void with "coffee".

Stock NEEDS to be demystified for everyone, everywhere; essentially, it boils down (ha! get it?!?) to making meat tea. That's all you're doing, really.

A lot of old textbooks call for the addition of mirepoix to the bones (mirepoix = 2 parts onion, 1 part each carrot and celery), but I don't use them anymore. Nor do I use tomato paste, wine, herbs, and especially not peppercorns. I only use bones and water. That's it. That's all it needs. It's FAR cleaner that way. Celery and peppercorns only taste bitter when the stock is reduced. Also, a heretical step in the process I'm sure, I don't roast my bones in most cases. Chefs and cooks everywhere will turn up their noses at that, but it fucks up the collagen and elastin extraction from the pores of the bones. That lovely brown colour doesn't need to be there for a dense rich sauce, and besides, a "white" veal stock (considered "white" because there was no roasting of the bones), upon reduction, ends up pretty brown. You can reduce some red wine and shallots to further bump up the flavour/colour, so don't worry about roasting veal or beef bones.

Chicken bones, duck, and lobster shells? Different story. You can roast or not roast, just expect differing levels of of collagen extraction from the roasted results

A recipe:

Bones (veal, beef, or venison)

Enough spring water to cover by three(3) inches

Bring to boil as quickly as you can, then drop to 2 on an electric stove, super low flame on gas, for roughly ten hours, up to a full day. Skim, skim, skim. (skimming the froth that rises to the top is integral. It's all the blood and impurities that lurk inside the bones, and they do NOT taste good. So skim the surface of your stock periodically as you would an aquarium. If you wouldn't feed that nasty shit to your mother, why would you or anyone else want to consume it?) Strain, and now you have instant culinary napalm to light your cooking on FIRE.

If you use chicken or duck bones, halve the cooking time. Lobster shells? 45 minutes to an hour.

I CANNOT stress the importance of making your own stock. Not only is it economical, freezes well, and is exceptionally easy, but your cooking will never reach the heights afforded it by the possibilities out there, simply waiting to be exploited by those who choose not to be lazy.

luv,

s

Duck. I'll just give you a taste.

I get a lot of people asking me about how I create the dishes and flavour combinations that I do; I'm not reinventing the wheel when I come up with anything, as I'm not into either the trappings of molecular gastronomy, or trying out ridiculously far-reaching flavour combinations - to wit, strawberries and kale will never see a home on any plate I serve. I realize that classics are classics for a reason, and I tend not to stray far from the flavours involved, moreso a new medium to present them in. For instance, I can't count the ways it's possible to serve tomatoes and basil, sweet or savoury. THERE is where the fun lies for me - not in serving pickled cauliflower with a juniper syrup over an Arctic Char terrine studded with raisins, capers and pine nuts. That's lunacy. Who would appreciate that but the 4% of the population that prides itself on looking down its nose at us lowly 96% that LIKE still-sun-warmed garden tomatoes, basil and spankingly fresh Buffalo mozzarella? FUCK me, but their ilk makes my teeth itch.

In deference to the repeated questionings, I'll walk the casual observer through the evolution of a dish I created recently involving duck as the locus of attention. I LOVE DUCK. I revere and respect all creatures that live and die for my culinary exploitation, but duck stands head and waterproof shoulders above them all. I don't know if I'll ever know what it is about it that generates such friggin' lust in me, but I will NEVER treat a duck wrongly. I'd be hard-pressed to say the same of most girls that have passed through my life.

1. The Conceptual Stage

I have a duck.

You died for a good cause, sir or madam.

What can be done with it? Well, since the idea of roasting a duck whole does not fill me with girlish glee (who the hell wants well done breast meat on a duck?), I must of necessity butcher it down into it's primal cuts - breasts, legs, and leftover carcass, separating as much excess fat as I can from said carcass. This affords me three different applications to cook the duck within:

a) make stock with the carcass (roast the shit out of the carcass before you do), and thus reduce it down to a beautiful sauce

b) braise the legs (either in the rendered fat, which is called confiture from the French term - a historic method of preservation - or in the resultant stock from the carcass) and then do something fun with them afterwards, and

c) cook the breasts to a perfect medium rare

....all within the same plate. Duck is a particular meat that lends itself to showcasing several different ways of preparation on the same plate, simply because of the extravagance of purchasing one. I'd like to get my money's worth - wouldn't you?

Now that I decided on those factors - roasting the breasts medium rare, confiture of the legs (to a sinfully delicious well done, they have a dream-like texture), which implies a rendering of the fat, and making stock from the remains, I now need to choose co-stars in the production to follow: what flavours do I want to frame the duck within? And within that question, what textures?

It being spring/summer, I turn to the Orient for inspiration - Asia produces cuisine that, while dense in flavour, is very light in terms of it's preparation and reception; you know the old adage about being hungry again thirty minutes after eating Chinese? - and duck welcomes heavy flavours, but I don't want to be weighed down by a heavy beef stew-like concoction. so I start thinking of ginger, soy, something sweet to balance like honey, acidity to undercut and stabilize the presence of the fat in the duck; then, I start thinking of textures and how it will present itself on the plate:

- the breast will be tender, but in a different way then the leg meat. Also, it will have a crispy skin. What to pair with that, that won't either dominate the flavour of the duck/sauce to follow, or leave the skin as the only source of crispiness on the plate? (Crispiness is a BIG texture to play around with; it doesn't always necessitate deep-frying though, a good lesson to remember)

- the legs are going to be sublimely tender, but incredibly, densely rich from the confiture (note: confiture refers to a slow, very lengthy poaching of the legs in the duck's own rendered fat at very low temperatures following a day-long salt-curing to pull excess juices out of the legs; this process transfers a lot of fat into the meat of the duck, but also results in the legs being able to be submerged in said fat, allowed to cool, and be stored over the winter without the threat of the meat going skunky, thanks to the curing beforehand and the fact that oxygen cannot now reach the meat entombed beneath the fat); thus, you HAVE to serve something either very fresh-tasting, like a simple steamed green vegetable, or a something light and acidic to balance the fattiness of the duck leg, like some peeled orange slices, or both; as well, since I'm considered crispy texture on the one side of the plate, I'm free to consider much softer textures on the other side: soft silky duck leg, with....what?

- since this plate is going to be a duo of duck, both versions of duck have to complement one another, as do the garnishes for both "sides" of the plate - they'll ALSO have to work well together

- finally, the sauce is the tie that binds; how to flavour it, such that everything on the plate will be complemented by it?

This level of cuisine is not for novices, but the results that come from attempting to reach this level - "reach for the stars, and you may at least grasp the moon" - are well worth it. This perspective isn't really taught in culinary school, thus, my breakdown of my previous twelve years for you, the avid, salivating, insatiable consumer.

I decide to go with some crispy potatoes, cut in small cubes to reduce the need for a knife to enjoy the meal. I deep-fry these, but that isn't necessarily the only way to achieve the crispiness I'm looking for; a quick deepfry simply leaves the potatoes a blank slate, waiting for whatever flavour I hurl at them (in this case the sauce). To pair with the confiture of the legs, I decide on a halved Shanghai bok choy (a lovely young version of conventional bok choy). I will shred the leg meat (had I the time, I would have pulverized the meat into a makeshift cylindrical terrine - called a rillette - but my time was null at best for this meal), and nestle it inside the folds of a simply steamed choy.  I would have liked to pair this side of the duo with some pickled daikon radish, but again, my time was at a premium.

The stock made, it reduces incredibly slowly until it reaches the consistency of what most people consider a gravy's thickness; this is achieved through the evaporation of water from the stock and the concentration of extracted gelatin, collagen and elastin present from the carcass utilized (ask me about it if you want the skinny). I decide that a huge amount of ginger should be infused in the stock as it reduces, concentrating that flavour in the stock, to later be balanced by soy and a trace amount of honey.

(an aside: no savoury item I've ever consumed could not benefit more from the presence of some balancing sweetness. It doesn't have to TASTE sweet, it just needs to take the edge off of ONLY the presence of salt as the seasoning for a dish)

2. The Plating

 

Oh, so nice.

Here go the duck breasts in a straight up pan roast. You sear them low and slow in the pan, skin-side down to render the subcutaneous fat (this takes upwards of 7-10 minutes) and then turn them for a minute or two to finish the other side. Unless these were Magret duck breasts, which are upwards of 1-2lbs. a boob, these never need to be cooked inside an oven.

The confit:

Simply shredded, and warmed through in it's own fat and a touch of rice wine vinegar (as I didn't have time to pickle anything, I figured I'd subtly cut the fat directly at the source).

The breast roasted and rested for twenty minutes, sliced thin and waiting for good things to come. (resting your meast after it's cooked is your biggest game-winning ace up your sleeve; again, ask me about it some time.)

Fry your potatoes, and steam your bok choy. Arrange as above.

Array your sliced duck breast over the potatoes;

Then, scoot the confiture into the space provided.

Pansies are optional, but oh tho gay, and oh tho very pretty.

Finish with the sauce spooned around the plate so that every component can get a taste.

While this may seem overly complicated, it illustrates many principles I use in every single dish that passes me by on its way to a consumer. Break it down into its constituent parts, and ask for any clarification needed. I'm here to help.

luv,

s

Pulled Pork

Pulled pork seems to occupy a very mystical place for a great many people. I can't understand why. It's incredibly simple, even if you don't have a smoker (smoking the pork is a luxury most don't have access to, but if you have a barbeque, you can make a de facto smoker - details forthcoming) - it's all in the braising.

Braising is a term that'll be thrown around a lot here, as it defines much of my cooking style: I like food that takes patience, understanding, and time to reach it's divinity. Braising as a technique simply refers to foodstuffs (generally meat, but other vegetables and grains can also fall within these borders) that require low simmering temperatures in a moist-heat environment in order to break down connective tissues and flavinoids and thus elevate it beyond any self-respecting tournedo's wildest culinary delusions, to transfer flavour back-and-forth with said liquid medium in incredibly delicious ways, and generally eclipse any and all dry-heat-friendly preparations across the board.

Pulled pork generally starts with the shoulder, a heavily-used muscle on any animal; a general rule of thumb to know when dealing with any cut of meat - the more it's used in the animal's day-to-day, the tougher it'll be, but correspondingly, the more flavour it will have. Such cuts require moist-heat cooking methods, not slow-roasting or grilling.

Pork shoulder is usually pretty cheap compared to "lesser" cuts like the tenderloin or loin chops; if you're going to make this, stock up on the meat and make a good metric assload. It takes just as much time to braise five(5) shoulders as it does to braise one(1), and it freezes very well. The following recipe can be easily doubled, tripled, or tenfolded as required.

1 pork shoulder, roughly 5-8lbs.

1 large spanish onion, sliced thin

1 head garlic, sliced

5 exceptionally ripe tomatoes, diced [failing that, one(1) 28oz. can diced tomatoes]

Fresh thyme, in as much abundance as you feel necessary

Enough vegetable stock to just barely cover the victuals

- simple veg stock recipe? - a couple onions, a couple carrots, and half a head of celery, pulse it in a food processor until it's a grainy mess of pulpy vegetable matter, and top it up with double the volume of water. Simmer 45 minutes, strain, and use how you see fit.

Optional spices: smoked paprika, oregano, coriander, etc. A bit of sherry wine vinegar and/or Worcestershire sauce wouldn't hurt.

Salt to taste (It should not taste salty, only seasoned moreso than nature allowed it to taste. Never underestimate the ionic properties of salt)

Preheat oven to 325F. (this is the magic braising temperature. Remember it.)

Heavily season the shoulder with salt. You can cut it into smaller pieces if you like, but if your shoulder is still on the bone, leave the bone in at least some of the meat. Place all ingredients in a casserole dish large enough to hold them without overflowing. Bring to boil, tent with aluminum foil, and place in the oven for two(2) to three(3) hours. Check for doneness by stripping a small piece off of the shoulder, judging how effortlessly it severs from the larger cut. It should taste moist and not at all tough. If it takes an half an hour to an hour more, so be it. 

Once done, allow to cool, and refrigerate overnight. Next day, take the meat out of the dish and begin pulling it apart by hand. Meanwhile, pour the remains of the braising liquid into a pot and begin reducing it (whereby you allow the water component to evaporate, and the flavour to intensify in the now concentrated liquid remainder - let it simmer on medium heat until reduced to half it's volume). Fold the shredded meat back into this concoction, and check the seasoning. It may need salt, and/or some added honey to balance everything.

Toast some buns, pile on the squishie, and enjoy!

More to come - I might feature duck next.

luv,

s