Unspoiled Brats and Other Sausages

The ingredients for a sausage-making session

My old meat grinder, actually quite a fragile thing (Krups Butcher Shop) gave out on me several months ago. I didn’t realise how annoying this was until I contemplated buying the same old store-bought ground beef/pork/veal/you name it. You have no idea where this stuff comes from — some fright ads want you to believe that the meat of 1,000 cows could be in your hamburger — so if you’re used to grinding your own meat, as I had come to be, it was quite intolerable.

Let me get something quite straight for those folks that read the preceding paragraph and then moved on because the whole idea of grinding meat at home just seems to be too much trouble. Let me tell you what’s too much trouble. Too much trouble is baking. Anything. Why the hell are you going to devote an entire afternoon to assembling some baking project, the easiest of which is going to be some store-bought cake mix and the most difficult a levain bread made from your own starter, when you can go to the local baker and buy an excellent cake or a brilliant baguette for less than a few dollars?

But try going to the neighbourhood grocer and get a hamburger that was ground that day from meat that was all in one piece at the time (not assembled from “trimmings”) or a sausage that is not composed of — and this is almost 100% certain — some proportion of mystery meat. You can’t get sick from an underdone loaf of bread, but you sure can from mystery meat.

So why does grinding your own meat fall under the same umbrella of fear-of-cooking as, say, deep frying, pastry-making or pickling?

Deep frying. Hot oil! Burn. ER. Greasy black things floating in vat of burned oil to clean up.

Pastries. Millions of bowls, flour everywhere, hot ovens, tons of greasy utensils and pans to clean, not to mention directions so precise that if you miss by 1/4 of an ounce you’ll end up with a bathroom sponge.

Pickling. Don’t make a mistake on the sterilization of that jar, dude, or C. Botulinum might be tickling your cucumbers. Plus, wait a month before you can taste your project.

I’ve done all that stuff, and the only one of them that consistently wins in the Reward-for-Amount-of-Effort-Expended-with-Least-Hassle department is grinding your own meat.

The pork

I don’t eat meat a lot, probably not even once a week. Sometimes not for a couple of weeks. Chicken is good. Fish is good. Vegetables are good. So when I do eat meat, I want the best. I don’t go to fast food places to have a hamburger. If I’m going to eat some fattening, cholesterol-laden meal, let it be on a field of battle chosen by myself. I’ll choose the cheese. I’ll choose the meat. I‘ll know exactly what’s in it.

So after a couple of months of going without my homemade ground-meat selections, I began to hunger for a burger or the simple pleasure of a sausage, and bought a new meat grinder. This one promised to kick some major ass on my old one, so I put it to the test today.

Project: three different sausages. Number 1, the old standby, hot Italian. Number 2, bratwurst; a first. Number 3, Thai chicken-turkey, also a first. Why three? Because getting the grinder out and assembling and cleaning and producing is work, so you might as well do as much as you can while you’re at it. It might not come out again for three months, but guess what? You might still have the results from last time in the freezer.

It’s fun. And portable. And durable. You can’t haul your latest pastry creation cross-country and expect it to survive, but you sure can carry twenty frozen sausages and have them taste the same as the day you made them.

So this is how it went: I bought a Waring Pro MG800 for about $120. This bastard will grind your fiancé’s diamond ring down to a nub. I went to the butcher and bought all the ingredients for the project: two pork-based sausages and one poultry-based sausage. Recipes will follow, but I want to get the ground rules down first.

Pickling, you don’t have everything sterilised, you die. Sausage-making, you don’t die, but you have to outsmart the enemy, which is germs. Key here is cold. Cold, cold, cold at all times. Everything cold. And no cross-contamination. Don’t grind turkey in the same grinder as the pork before it without a thorough washing. Imagine you’re a surgeon about to operate before you make each sausage and you’ll be on the right track. That doesn’t mean sterilize, it just means clean; hands clean, tools clean, vessels clean, machine clean. Meat cold.

Par-freeze the meat before grinding. This means freeze it until it’s half-frozen. It makes it easier for the machine to grind and keeps everything a lot more sanitary. Bacteria double every 20 minutes at room temperature. Only a few really drunk ones venture out when it’s 1 degree centigrade.

Grinding chicken and turkey

Assemble all the other ingredients before even breaking the meat out of the freezer. This is so simple it’s pathetic. Often, it’s a list of powdered spices, sugar and salt. Then all you have to do is grind the meat, mix the spices in, and voilà, instant sausage. Bring the meat out of hibernation while it’s good and half-frozen. Grind it with the spices or grind it and then mix in the spices. Use your hands. Wash them thoroughly before, but then be a kid and mix all the gooey stuff together. Warning: if you’re doing it right, your hands will get unbearably cold. This is good. Warm them up under the tap and resume.

Once everything is thoroughly mixed, it’s taste time. Make a small patty of the meat mixture and fry it up. Make sure it’s completely cooked through. Brown it nicely. Taste. While you’re doing this put the meat in the refrigerator. Keep the bugs hanging out at the bar, not going to see what’s going on outside.

Adjust the seasonings. At this point you might want to retire the meat to the fridge for the night. But don’t wait past tomorrow.

Time to stuff! Your grinder will have a stuffing attachment. You will have bought the casings from your butcher. This is not scary. They’re just medium hog casings, which means that they look like tapeworms swimming in salt water. You’ll load them onto your stuffer horn after washing them through the tap and then you’ll stuff. Then you’ll twist and make links and then you’ll you’ll semi-dry the sausages (that you made!) on racks in the refrigerator overnight.

Stuffed, rested overnight and ready for the freezer

Then you’ll grill, broil, poach or sauté them, or freeze them to be consumed at your leisure for three months or so.

One afternoon. Less hassle than baking a chicken pot pie or making minestrone soup. But here’s the best part, the part I was saving up. It’s not just that you made it yourself. It’s not just that you know exactly what’s in it. It’s not just that it really wasn’t very difficult, and that you don’t have to even be a totally incompetent moron to do it. It’s that it tastes amazingly good. Not just regular good. Light years beyond anything you will have tasted before you did it. 100 times better than any store-bought product. 50 times better than any restaurant-eaten product. And this is just if you blindly follow instructions! If you get creative, well, the stuffing’s the limit . . .

The finished product

New York-Style Spicy Hot Italian Sausage
3 lbs. pork butt
3/4 to 1 lb. pork back fat (unsalted)
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped fine
3 tablespoons anise-based liqueur, like Sambuca
2 tablespoons anise or fennel seeds
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
4 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cayenne
1/4 cup water, as needed
Medium hog casings

Grind the pork and back fat with the rest of the ingredients through your medium (not coarse and not fine) grinding plate, adding a little at a time of each. No need to be precise. After everything is ground, remix with both hands until thoroughly combined. Make a small patty, fry it up and taste. Adjust seasonings. Stuff or refrigerate overnight and stuff the next day.

Fresh Farm Garlic Bratwurst (Sheboygan style)
1.5 lbs. pork butt
1 lb. veal shoulder
1/2 lb. pork back fat (unsalted)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground mace
2 teaspoons ground caraway seed
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup whole milk
Medium hog casings

Grind the pork and back fat with the rest of the ingredients through your finest grinding plate, adding a little at a time of each. After everything is ground, remix with both hands until thoroughly combined. Make a small patty, fry it up and taste. Adjust seasonings. Stuff or refrigerate overnight and stuff the next day.

Thai Chicken and Turkey sausage
1.75 lbs. boned chicken thighs with skin (very important to maintain the proper fat content)
1.75 lbs. boned turkey thighs with skin
1 bunch of fresh cilantro, stems and leaves, chopped finely, about one cup (may need more after tasting)
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh purple basil, or green if you can’t find it, chopped (may need more after tasting)
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mint, (may need more after tasting)
1/4 cup Nam Pla (Asian fish sauce) do not skip!
1.5 tablespoons grated fresh ginger or galangal
3 tablespoons of Thai green curry paste (available at most grocery stores, do not skip)
1 tablespoon kosher salt or to taste
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cayenne
Medium hog casings

Grind the chicken and the turkey through your medium or coarse plate. Add remaining ingredients and combine thoroughly with hands. Make a small patty, fry it up and taste. Adjust seasonings. Stuff or refrigerate overnight and stuff the next day.

Notes:
It’s incredibly important to taste the sausage mixture before you stuff it. One very crucial ingredient is the amount of salt. Remember that you can always add more, but not take away. Depending on the fat content of your meat, the apparent saltiness can vary wildly, even though you’re sticking to the recipe. The judicial addition of sugar will generally offset too much salt, but once there’s a certain amount it’s past the point of no return. You don’t want to go there.

Sausage recipes are as different as pickling recipes. There are no amounts graven in stone. One butcher will tell you never to put veal in the bratwurst and another will tell you to make it only of veal. Find a recipe you think you can trust, make it, fiddle with it, then make it your recipe. Some people put bread crumbs or eggs in hamburgers. Some people don’t. They taste different, but not including one or the other isn’t going to kill you. So experiment. I love garlic and heat, so I’ll double or triple the garlic in a recipe. Likewise for the peppers. The thing is, if you’re like me, you’ll never find it like the way you make it on the commercial market. Few people like high-octane food, so no commercial producer in their right mind will make it that way. That’s why I make my own sausages.

Que Sadilla, Sadilla

If you're out of ideas for something fairly quick and junk-foody-yet-tasty you could always make a quesadilla. You can pretty much put whatever you want in them. Here's my recipe:

ChefNick Quesadillas with Sun-dried Tomatoes

Red onion, julienned
Red pepper, julienned
Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
Cilantro, leaves plucked, stems removed
Canned or bottled pickled jalapeños, in slices
Sharp cheddar, Gruyère or Gouda cheese, or combination
Bacon slices, cooked and split into 1-inch squares (optional)
Large flour tortillas

Place flour tortilla on cutting board. Layer as follows, distributing sparsely but evenly:

Cheese, in a light layer that barely covers the tortilla
Sun-dried tomatoes
Cilantro
Onion
Red pepper
Jalapeño slices
Bacon (if using)
Final layer of cheese, barely covering other ingredients

Cover with another flour tortilla. On medium heat, preheat a lightly greased non-stick skillet slightly bigger than the tortillas. When the skillet is hot, carefully slide the quesadilla into it off the cutting board, taking care not to lose ingredients.

With a wide spatula, press down the quesadilla as it begins to get hot, especially near the edges, so that the melting cheese seals the two tortillas. It's difficult to tell when to turn it over, but to be safe, after about 4-5 minutes, flip the quesadilla. I usually do this by putting the cutting board on top of the pan; holding the cutting board with the palm of my left hand and the pan handle with my right, I quickly turn the pan and board upside down so the quesadilla is now on the board. Then I slide it into the pan and cook the other side. Do this carefully.

When cooked, let rest on the cutting board for a few minutes, then cut with a pizza wheel. Serve with a good salsa. Note: if quesadilla is soggy, let rest for about 30 minutes, then reheat individual pieces in non-stick skillet on medium for about 8 minutes. These are also great refrigerated and then reheated.

Building a Relationship with your Server

I'll never forget the waiter at Chez Panisse. His name, perhaps, but not his face and certainly not his personality.

It was the mid-80s, and I was in design school. I didn't really have the cash to be spending a lot of time at Chez Panisse, a storied restaurant in Berkeley, California, but it was only the upstairs café, not the prix fixé downstairs, and a bottle of wine and a good casse-croute went a long way to restoring my sanity during those hectic days.

My dining companion was whoever I could find. I always bought, or they wouldn't have come. I didn't have a girlfriend at the time, so it was invariably a friend from the racquetball club that I played at, or rarely, a first date.

But I made it a priority to try to make it to Chez Panisse at least once a week.

The turnover there was quite slow. After all, who wouldn't want to work at Chez Panisse? At the time, it was quite possibly the most famous restaurant in North America. But when the waiter — let's call him John, because I honestly can't remember his name — suddenly entered into the mix, we somehow clicked. John was almost completely silent, all of the time. There were no long speeches or grovelling attempts at ingratiation. When he spoke, John tended to be brief, but there was a sly underpinning that one could never put one's finger on — as if the joke was always on you, but in a nice way.

So, as is my wont with servers I like (we used to call them waiters or waitresses) I gradually started tipping him more and more. It wasn't because I wanted better service. It was simply because when John served you, he served only you. He never forgot that quick "Oh, and a glass of water, too?" like most servers. Even when the restaurant was at its busiest, and it could get very busy, the glass of water would be at your table within a minute. The man had a mind like a steel trap.

It was innocent at first. I usually tipped 20% regardless, but it started creeping up with John. He was regrettably not always my server, but I gradually learned his schedule and tried to arrange my visits around it. And the tip began to creep upwards. Back then, a dinner for two with a few glasses of wine would run maybe $50. I began to tip John 25, then 30%. And silently, always silently, the experience at Chez Panisse got better and better. There was hardly a word exchanged between John and me except for the usual orders and thanks for a good dinner.

But then strange things started happening. On a very busy night, probably a Friday, I came in with a date. It was rare. I was usually with a racquetball partner or two. But John was there, and he immediately knew what had to be done. Within minutes, we were given the bay window table — the best seat in the house. I was amazed. I said nothing but felt like the guy in Goodfellas. My date was wowed. As usual, John said nothing, and attended us with the usual slight smirk on his face, as if we were all in on a huge cosmic joke to which only he knew the punchline.

That night I tipped him 60%.

And it went upwards from there. I wasn't rich, but I did the mental math. I could have this incredible time at the best restaurant in America (and I realised it even then) and all it would cost me was a little extra. I scrimped in other places in order to save for Chez Panisse.

And it paid off. One night, John put a plate of baked artisanal goat cheese (only the best for Alice Waters) down in front of me. "John, I didn't order this," I protested. He just smirked and walked away. It was not on the bill.

Another night, one with another rare date, a half-bottle of Roederer champagne was delivered in an ice bucket with two champagne glasses. By John. I knew by this time not to protest.

By this time the tip was up to 80%. This meant that on a meal costing $60, the tip was $48.

The turning point was the day I tipped John the cost of the entire meal. It was a meal in which my companion and I —I forget who — received a literal red-carpet treatment. It was like I was Charlie Sheen and we were at Spago. Dishes came fast and furious, the wine flowed — and half of it was unordered. Orange and grapefruit salad with wild fennel. Pizzetta with spring onions and anchovies. Caymus "Special Selection" Napa Cabernet.

John's expression did not change when he came to collect the credit card payment. The half-smirk remained. "Thank you, sir," he said, tipping his head slightly, and then he melted into the hubbub.

Imagine my surprise when I next brought a date and John suddenly wasn't there any more. "Oh, John," remarked the server, "He always wanted to open his own bookstore. He went off to do that. He was a good guy, huh?"

Yep. He was a good guy.

Further Reading

A Predictable Outcome (knowing me)

PETA ("People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals," the organization against the killing of animals, also affectionately known in some quarters as "People for the Eating of Tasty Animals") has a new war on its hands. Forget the debate about the murder of harp seals in Canada. This time the group is focused on a small island in the Pacific, several hundred miles from Mexico, now owned by the French. Its name is Clipperton (pop. 18.)

It seems that the island is a haven for Sooty Terns, a type of seabird. The island is so isolated that shipments of fresh food only occur about once every three months. So, "We eat the wildlife. There's no choice," says longterm resident Pietro Rocha, 59. However, since according to an ancient law (still on the books) the islanders are not permitted to carry firearms, the method of killing is somewhat primitive. "We use slingshots," says Rocha. ”We have no other way to cap the bastards."

And PETA is up in arms. "They should find another way of sustaining themselves. Perhaps supplies could be flown in from Mexico. Can't they grow vegetables? Need they kill these defenseless terns with stones? Imagine the suffering," says PETA spokesperson Pamela Anderson.

But Rocha is unrepentant. "Let Pamela Anderson and her boobies (another bird species prevalent on the island) have a grand party together. This is our livelihood. We have to do this to live."

In the face of mounting campaigns against the islanders from PETA groups, sometimes in the form of actual monitoring from offshore organization boats, Rocha summed it up for the entire populace of the island:

"We will not relent. We will never surrender. We will leave no tern unstoned."

Thai Chicken and Yang Chow Basmati

Thai Chicken (adapted from Le Cordon Bleu Home Collection)

4 chicken thighs, skin-on, bone in, or 8 chicken wings, skin-on, bone in, or any combination thereof

Marinade:

4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 T grated ginger
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 tsp Nam Pla (fish sauce—do not leave out)
1/4 cup good soy sauce (not Kikkoman)
1/4 cup honey, or 1/4 cup Mirin
2 green onions/scallions, cut lengthways into thin strips
2 serrano or piquin chiles, finely diced (optional)
1 tsp. chopped lemongrass (optional)
2T lime juice

Garnish:

2 green onions/scallions, cut lengthways into thin strips
Small bunch cilantro leaves

Combine all marinade ingredients. Pour over chicken in a container with a lid. Marinate for 24 hours, or if you have a Foodsaver, 3 hours in the vaccuum marinating container (comes in handy!)

Preheat oven to 400F. Arrange the chicken in a shallow roasting pan, well-spaced. Pour over some of the marinade and bake for about 1 hour, basting frequently with remaining marinade.

Arrange the chicken on a serving dish and garnish with scallions and cilantro. Serve with rice and spring rolls with a chile-garlic dip.

Yang Chow Basmati Fried Rice

You don't need to use basmati rice for this, but the only acceptable alternatives would be Patna and preferably Jasmine. Do not use Uncle Ben's, Texmati, arborio or Calrose Japanese rice. Jasmine is the best substitute and cooks very similarly to basmati.

Pre-cooked Basmati

2 cups Basmati rice
2 T ghee (clarified butter) or 2 T vegetable oil
1/4 cup shallots
2 bay leaves
3 whole cloves
3 whole cardamom pods
2" or so stick cinnamon
3 garlic cloves, diced
2 1/3 cups chicken broth or water

Rinse rice thoroughly. Let soak in water for about 90 minutes. This allows the rice to swell somewhat and adds to fluffiness once cooked. Result of soaking is that you need less liquid to cook it in.

Drain rice through sieve. Heat large nonstick sauté pan on medium-high. Melt ghee or oil. Add shallots, bay leaves, cloves and cardamom. Sauté for approximately 5 minutes. Add drained rice and garlic. Sauté until rice becomes somewhat glassy, about five minutes, stirring constantly. Heat chicken broth in microwave until almost boiling.

Add broth, stir to combine thoroughly, reduce heat to minimum, cover pan with aluminum foil, then pan top. Steam for 18 minutes or so. Turn off heat. Let rest for 10 minutes. Remove whole spices, stir to fluff up.

Fried Rice

This must be cold — not room temperature, but cold — before preparation, so either flash-freeze very carefully until cold or store in refrigerator until next day. If you try to make fried rice with hot or warm rice you will end up with a sticky mess.

Chop the following in small dice (about 1/3 cup each; add or subtract vegetables according to taste:

Carrots
Celery
Red onion
Red or green peppers
Green onions

Plus, according to taste:

Diced garlic
Diced chilies

Prepare:

1/2 cup good ham diced in 1/4" dice
1/2 cup baby cooked shrimp

2 large eggs

1T sesame oil
2T peanut oil

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Mirin

Sauté chopped vegetables in oil on medium-high heat for approximately 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Add garlic and chilies, sauté five minutes more. Remove from pan and set aside. Sauté cold rice in 2T oil until warm. Add all the rest of the ingredients. Add soy sauce, Mirin. Stir to combine. Break eggs into bowl and whisk together. Drizzle onto rice and stir thoroughly to combine. Cover and cook on very low heat for 10 minutes. Serve.

Not Your Parents' Salad

I believe I just ate the best salad I have ever eaten (and I certainly got the most out of a $30 steak! Works out to $10 a dinner.)

It's adapted from a recipe in the book Steaklover's Companion, by Frederick Simon. You don't have to use Kobe beef for this — any old filet mignon will do. The crunchy bits of chile, red pepper, green onion and beansprouts coupled with the tangy sesame-ginger dressing and the unctuousness of the steak make for a superlative dining experience.


Pacific Rim Kobe Steak Salad with Sesame-Ginger Dressing (Serves 4)

For the Marinade:
2tsp. sesame oil
1tsp. soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 tsp. Chinese plum sauce
1 small serrano chile, seeded, chopped extremely fine ( I used a Jalapeño because I couldn't find Serrano)

For the Steaks:

Either use the leftovers from last night's rare filet mignon or grill yourself some new ones. Slice the steak into very thin strips.

For the Sesame-Ginger Dressing:

1/2 C rice vinegar
1/4 C grated ginger
1/4 C sesame oil
2 T soy sauce (usukuchi is best if you can find it)
1 garlic clove, chopped fine

Mix well in a bowl and let flavors merge for 30 minutes

For the Salad:

2 heads Boston lettuce, leaves washed and separated, only the best inner leaves reserved for the salad
1 red onion, julienned
1 red bell pepper (capsicum for you Brits) julienned
1 cup bean sprouts, cleaned up and sorted for only the best
2 scallions (green onions), white part only, sliced on a diagonal

Marinate the sliced steak in the marinade and cover for at least 30 minutes at room temperature.

Combine all the salad ingredients except the steak and shake with as much of the dressing as you like, but be generous.

Pile salad on an attractive serving vessel and drape steak slices on top. Drizzle with remaining marinade. Serve.

Here's The Beef

Kobe Beef Steak Sandwich with Truffle Oil Marinade



I figure this sandwich cost me altogether about $35 worth of ingredients. Not quite the monstrosity here, but pocket-lightening nonetheless.

Okay, so the truffle oil idea wasn't in my original plans. But as I was getting geared up to make this thing, it occurred to me that a tango for one is not a dance. The Kobe royalty needed at least a Marquise for a match, or the sandwich wouldn't work. And tasty or not, aged Gouda just wasn't up to doing it alone.

So I hustled off to the the place where truffle oil comes from and plunked down an astounding $42 for a small bottle.



Not that I have a clue what truffle oil is.

But when I got home I warmed the leftover Kobe steak very gently in aluminum foil in the toaster oven — I did by no means want it to get any more done — and then sliced it thinly and tossed it in a tablespoon of truffle oil.

Then I assembled the sandwich. My great regret here is the bread. I do not understand why Montreal is so bereft of good bread. This sandwich cried out for a sourdough roll or seeded baguette but they are in very short supply here. I had to make do with a Première Moisson submarine loaf — quite a despicable thing when you actually get a good look at it. Definitely not a good tango partner, unless you panhandle for a living.

But the redeeming ingredients were perfectly ripe little cherry tomatoes, the choicest chunks of a fresh Boston lettuce tossed in balsamic vinaigrette and an amazing shallot-garlic-Italian parsley butter.



With sweet gherkins, Japanese mayonnaise and Polish mustard rounding everything off, all in all, the end result was a triumph, despite the bread. How many steak sandwiches have you had to chew your way through, pulling out whole slices of steak en route?

There was no hard chewing here. The steak might as well have been foie gras.



Well, don't believe me, just believe your eyes. And imagine. I did all this so you don't have to.

Late-night Comfort Food

Leftover Pasta with torn Prosciutto, White Wine, Garlic, Green Peas, Basil and Parmesan

When it's time to take stock of what you've got in the refrigerator, and when you're reluctant to get dressed and go to the all-night grocery store, this is what you make.

6 slices or so of prosciutto, torn into pieces
1/2 cup or so of white wine
1 large clove or so of garlic
1/2 cup or so of mini-green peas
Basil leaves
Parmigiano Reggiano
Cracked pepper
1 pkg. cooked cold spaghetti or spaghettini
1/4 cup or so of extra-virgin olive oil

Heat non-stick pan with olive oil on medium. Add prosciutto and garlic. Sauté five or six minutes. Add white wine, cook for another three minutes or until slightly syrupy. Add peas and spaghetti and mix well. Toss pasta and other ingredients, mixing well. Reduce heat and cover for three or four minutes.

Serve in a wide bowl with lots of Reggiano and pepper and garnish with basil. Serve a side mixed baby salad with Japanese goma dressing. Have a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc and freeze some chocolate truffles for the in-bed surprise. Watch Perry Mason on TV Land.

Two Million Bottles of Wine and Some Chilies

Going into a supermarket in California can be an awesome experience. Of course, here they can sell any alcohol under the sun anywhere. And they do. Want a bottle of red wine for $2? Get some Two-Buck Chuck.
As you can see from the photo, this aisle of delight probably stocks more wine than your SAQ, and on the other side is every brand of hooch ever known to corrupt God and mammon.
And the selection of vegetables in a typical supermarket rivals all of Jean-Talon and Atwater Markets combined. Just gaze in slavering lust at the selection of chilies. I carted off 30 of those nuclear habañeros and made a killer salsa (recipe below.)

Chez Louis, eat your heart out.

Habañero Salsa

20-25 Habañero chilies (or Scotch Bonnets)
1 tomato
1 red onion
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 T balsamic vinegar
3 T olive oil
1 tsp. salt
Cracked pepper to taste

Chop chiles into small dice. If you want it a bit less hot, discard the seeds, but it will still be fairly piquant. Be very careful to wash your hands thoroughly after chopping the chiles. Chop tomato and onion into small dice. Mince garlic. Chop cilantro. Mix all together. Let flavors mix in refrigerator for an hour or so. Enjoy.

Pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, kalamata olives, Frank and Hawaii-Five-O

. . . and the video . . .

2 1/2 pounds cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup olive oil
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
3 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano

1 pound farfalle (bow-tie) pasta
1/2 cup halved pitted Kalamata olives or other brine-cured black olives
6 ounces chevre (goat cheese—feta will do fine), crumbled (about 1 1/4 cups)
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
Parmigiano Reggiano to taste

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375°F. Combine tomatoes, oil, garlic, vinegar, oregano and crushed red pepper in a glass baking dish. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Roast until tomatoes are tender and juicy, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes. (Can be made 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.)

Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite. Drain. Return to pot. Add tomato mixture and olives. Stir over medium heat until heated through, about 2 minutes. Add goat cheese and stir until melted and creamy, about 2 minutes. Divide pasta among 6 plates; sprinkle with pine nuts and Parmigiano Reggiano and serve.

Steak fajita with sambal oelek

The new camera seems to be doing okay.

This was a grilled steak fajita with roasted tomatoes, red onions, celery, aged cheddar and mixed greens with a very lovely sambal oelek sauce (not for the faint of heart.) I used the Huy Fong version.

This was a very tasty shoot.

Crack-a-Roni

I don't know how old you are, but if you're my age, you certainly remember Noodle-Roni and Rice-a-Roni. There was an annoying commercial that I can only remember a snippet of (the one they wanted you to) and it piped cheerily "Rice . . . A-Roni! The San Francisco Treat!"

Well, let me tell you, they didn't need the jingle. We kids lapped that stuff up like hamsters in a honeydew patch, mainly because our mothers fed it to us in toxic amounts. My shake-knee weakness was Noodles Romanoff, by Betty Crocker. Today, I can think of nothing to recommend the original; it was in a box quite similar to today's Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and the selling point was that it could be made in one pot. Just add some milk, and presto! instant dinner. It was pasty and viscuous and salty and day-glo yellow — crack-a-roni for little kids. I have no idea why it was named Noodles Romanoff. One has visions of the imperial family of Russia lounging about the palace snacking on vodka-laced stroganoff prepared with these very noodles: "Svetlana, my dear, more of zose vanderful noodles!"— but the reality was very different. Still, an addict never strays far from the fix, so I went in search of a recipe that would approximate this marvelously kid-dictive concoction. Here's what I came up with:

Noodles Romanoff

The key to success here is the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese day-glo yellow powder. Without it, you will never approach the original.

One package egg noodles (about 1 lb.)
1 cup sour cream (use full fat—don't make me come over there)
2 T butter, melted
1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped finely
3/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano (okay, so I'm a cheese snob, except for):
1 package day-glo cheddar cheese powder from a box of Kraft Macaroni 'n' Cheese
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Cracked pepper to taste

Directions: Cook the noodles to al dente. While cooking noodles, sauté the onion and garlic in butter in large saucepan. Add parsley at the last minute; remove from heat. When noodles are a hair away from being done, drain but retain residual pasta water (don't wring them dry).

Put the hot noodles into the saucepan, then add the sour cream, day-glo powder and half the Reggiano. Mix very well with the cooked onions, garlic and parsley. The result should be a pleasingly creamy deep yellow mess. Add the pepper. Serve in individual bowls with the rest of the parmesan. Serve with a bone-in country ham and shots of frozen Smirnoff. Call rehab.

Incidentally, there was a double meaning in the title of this entry. The people who make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese are Philip Morris — the masters of addiction.

My beef with beef

Okay, the heat is on. The other day at a friend's house we ate burgers cooked on a gas grill. The ambient temperature outside was -8 C. We had to shovel the steps leading to the back yard in order to get to the grill. I ground some of the burgers myself, the day before. Grinding your own burgers may seem to some to be a bit extreme, but to me, it's just an extension of the love affair I have with beef. They turned out to be quite good, as usual. But that's the part that bothers me; that's the beef I have with beef.

Because no two beefy experiences I have ever had have been the same. There is no guarantee that the filet mignon I buy from Fred's Market today will taste the same as the one I bought a week ago. This is good, in that I will always be surprised by my next beef experience, but it's not good in that there seems to be little or no consistency with beef shopping, at least in your dreary, garden-variety grocery store. Add a couple of Dateline NBC hidden-camera exposés about grocers relabeling old product and selling it and you're left with an E-colicky taste in your mouth.

I don't pretend I know anything about what's under the hood of my car. I can take it to my mechanic and he can spout anything he wants about turbos and spark plugs and transmissions and I'm completely at his mercy. I don't have a clue what he's talking about, but when he says the solenoid in the draft mechanism needs to be replaced to the tune of $145, I just pay up. I have to; there is no other choice. Which brings me to my point: when I go to the grocery store and the package says "Grain-fed Angus Beef filet mignon" at $45/lb, who am I to quibble? It's gotta be good, right? But the truth is, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I've had nights when I've slapped the bastard on the grill for exactly the requisite amount of time and it comes out perfectly, melt-in-your-mouth delicious. But I've had other times, far, too many other times, when it's a chewy, rare mess.

Like plonk-fatigue, the illness provoked from imbibing too many inferior wines from the corner dépanneur, one gets filet fatigue. There has to be something bigger, something that transcends the daily grind, if you will. Something dependably delectable. Something so awesome, so life-affirming, so transcendental, so unattainable, that just the thinking of it leads to a disturbing obsession. Bon dieu, informez-moi. What could that be?

How to make perfect carpaccio.

I'll try to make that a priority next week.

Radish mice

Recently I've been really interested in the presentation of food—the one thing that separates my chicken in wine and mushroom, say, from one served at Caprices de Nicolas. Obviously, when I cook spaghetti for myself, I don't put an artful chiffonade of basil leaves on top, but when it's for someone else, I've been thinking that my cooking needs to go to a new level.

Most of the time you don't even eat the garnish. How many sprigs of parsley have gone untouched back with the busboy on your plates? And you don't lap up that squeeze-bottle squiggle of cilantro-lime reduction after you're done with the Thai Grilled Chicken, do you, but you're kind of glad that it's there. Those small touches always add that indefinable element to your restaurant experience.

A sprig of parsley is a tiny thing and you just don't think about it, but it's really like the curly holly ornament on a Christmas present. It doesn't need to be there, but it makes the whole thing more Christmasy.

Thus, my newfound interest. However, I think that unless you're going to be getting paid for it at your next soirée, making cucumber petunia clusters or radish mice is not an art form you're going to be needing much.

Yet I've been able to find spectacularly little information on the subject. Can you put a thin slice of lemon on a halibut, and will it make the fish taste better? Why not a handful of long-cut spring onions? Or maybe you put the halibut on a single leaf of crisp romaine and drizzle chili oil on top?

I realise that these things are individual choices that make up recipes, but isn't there a general guide to garnishing for the home cook that eschews grand soliloquies that involve melon ball-mushroom flower cutters in favor of some simple, eye-pleasing presentations that will make anyone's cooking look like it was made in a restaurant? What goes well with what? How to make those squeeze-bottle squiggles?

I won't bore you with a list of books on the subject matter that I've looked at, precisely because none of them fits the criteria I just outlined.

Maybe someone should start a webpage on the subject . . .

. . . whadda you looking at??

Stew

It's an overlooked meal, I think. Or maybe just too ordinary to really get much notice. But stew is pretty much common to all cuisines in one form or another; it's how our ancestors dealt with a pantry whose components were coming to a rapid end and needed to be used. It's called curry in India, tagine in Morocco, bourguignon in France and sukiyaki in Japan, but it's basically stuff shoveled together into a pot with a liquid and simmered for a mite, preferably accompanied by some mind-altering beverage while you're doing it. Low maintenance, high yield.

This one I propose to you here is very simple and has a minimum of exoticness. I guess it's just an all-around one-pot dish that happens to star beef. I'm going on the American or European model here, so let's think Western. But it need not be bland. Let's look at the ingredients: we like garlic. We like onion. We like potatoes. We like top sirloin. We like butter and we love wine.

So here's the list:

Meez:

Four nice cloves garlic, finely chopped
One large or two medium Vidalia onions, roughly chopped
Two or three large carrots, sliced in rounds
Three Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch cubes
A couple of pounds of top sirloin, cut in generous 3/4 to one-inch cubes
A cup of full-bodied red wine, like a Merlot or Bordeaux
4 cups of chicken stock
1/4-1/2 cup of parsley (Italian or broadleaf is best)
1 cup kernel corn
1 cup green peas (miniature is good)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
Herbes de Provence to taste (thyme especially)

Check out the video for visual directions, but basically, the method is this:

Don't get anal about this recipe—just put in the amount of stuff that you like. Get everything chopped and diced beforehand. Trust me, it's just easier. Put a couple of teaspoons of olive oil into a wide sauté pan and blast it. Toss in the meat, but let it stay on one side for two or three minutes—we're not looking to cook it, but to get a good fond and caramelisation. The meat will be nicely browned—like I say in the video, don't let it boil, we want it to sear, so dump the juices in the vegetable bowl if they get too much—in about ten minutes, if you're doing it right. Sprinkle salt and pepper on it while it sears. Remove from the pan and set aside in a bowl. Now add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the hot pan and sauté the onions and carrots on medium high for about ten minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for two minutes more. Put aside in the bowl with the meat.

Pour the wine into the pan you just made the meat in and bring it to a boil for a couple of minutes. Put that into the bowl with all the rest. Now, you will need a clean pan for the potatoes, so wash it out. Melt the butter and add the potatoes when the pan is not quite smoking. Watch the potatoes very carefully, but once they're in the pan, don't turn them over for about 5 minutes. Don't worry, at this point if you're doing it right, the butter won't burn. Now turn the potatoes over so that the other side can brown. This is labor-intensive, but worth it.

We're almost done . . . after about 15 minutes of sautéing the potatoes, add the parsley after turning off the heat.

Now fire up your soup pan—a pot for pasta is good. Put all the ingredients except for the potatoes and parsley into it, adding the chicken broth and tomato paste. It's all downhill from here. About 25 minutes before you plan to eat, add the potato-parsley mixture. Thicken with cornstarch, demiglace powder or onion soup mix. You're gonna be loving this one.