Oh Baabee!

There are only so many Chicken Caesars (dressing on the side, please) and grilled salmon with seasonable vegetables (no salt added please) dishes in the world, and I’ve consumed my share.  Of course MFO gamely goes along with this vapid diet, but occasionally (actually – fairly often as a matter of fact) will cook something different.  Bless her heart.

Anyway, the other day she was busily working on mise en place for something. Turns out it was for a recipe she found in Southern Living, one of the many publications that fill up our coffee table.

BTW, I have grown fonder (if you can be fonder of a magazine) of Southern Living over the past few months.   They have veered away from articles on how to make gingham curtains into more foodie stuff.  They do have some interesting recipes, such as “Dutch Baby”.  What the heck is that? you may ask.. as did I.

Well, it turns out to be a “pancake” that is similar to a large Yorkshire pudding, and is always baked in the oven, rather than being fried on both sides on the stove top.  As to the name “Dutch Baby”, it may have been derived from the German Pfannkuchen, but the actual name Dutch Baby was coined by one of Victor Manca's daughters, where "Dutch" perhaps was her corruption of the German autonym (Huh? autonym (plural autonyms) (taxonomy) An infraspecific name in which the specific epithet is repeated. Synonym: type variety. (linguistics, anthropology) A name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups Got It?  The Feeder always seeks to educate!) Deutsch. Manca's Cafe claimed that it owned the trademark for Dutch Babies in 1942.

Well, who the heck is Victor Manca you might ask, as did I.  Well, Victor Manca (April 1933 – September 2015) was a legend of early Seattle's food world, operated Manca's Cafe - first at First Avenue and Cherry Street, then at Second Avenue and Columbia Street - from 1899 to 1957.  Now grandson Mory Manca and great-grandchildren Mark and Michele Manca have revived the tradition, including Victor's original recipe for Dutch Babies. Customers who frequented the downtown Manca's for breakfast, lunch and dinner are relating memories of the puffy baked pancakes, the combination salad, the razor clam hash and canned asparagus imported from France.

So, carrying on our own tradition, MFO followed the recipe

She combined the eggs, milk, flour in the blender and then poured into our cast iron pan  Put it in the 425° oven for about 20 minutes. Sure enough, upon emerging from the oven it had risen dramatically

And then she added the cheese

Back in the oven till the cheese melted, added the bacon and chives from the garden, and

Voila!

Plated it up, and enjoyed it. 

Of course we enjoyed it after

So it was fun and we were,

DFD and of course no MJ to be seen.

As an aside, Kelly Clarkson is the female Steve Harvey..

Bring it on!

Hey Bobby! You got nothing on the Feeder!  I’m doing my own Throwdown!   Could be called an egg-off but not quite the glam power.  Many of you (thank you!) have asked about the comparison between the turkey and chicken egg.  So I decided to settle it once and for all.   Okay team Turkey in spotted uniforms on the left and blue and brown uniformed players from the chicken side on the right.

Ready team Turkey? set, cook!  Listen to those cheers!

after cracking a tougher than "normal" shell, it reveals anice color, firm and big!!

After a brisk whisking (with a bit of heavy cream added) onto the heat

Getting it together

Big soft curds onto the plate for the judges

Okay Team Chicken, you're up!

Note the variation in color of the two player's yolks

Same treatment (in a clean pan so no cross contamination)

Plated and all And lined up for the illustrious judges (MFO and the Feeder)

So, what’s the verdict??

Well, the judges thought that team turkey's entry was a little more “creamier” than the competitors, but couldn’t compete on the color comparison, plus the flavor was a bit more forward.  So, the chickens carried the day!  Just as well, harder to come by the gobbler variety.  Wish I could get some Duck Eggs!

Beauty in the ‘Hood

Gathered ourselves together and took a little ride around “the Farms” to enjoy the spring’s offering of the trees..still a bit early for redbuds and dogwoods so mostly Pears with maybe the odd Cherry

There’s just something classic about lanes and gates, especially closed… what’s back there?  where does it lead?

And it’s always a pleasure to see trees that have the room to express themselves

Even up close, they’re pretty

For some reason it’s a banner year for Forsythia

Other people were out for a stroll

Sometimes you have to look close to see more beauty

Even after they treat us on the tree, they can make a nice monochromatic mosaic on the ground

Well, this may close out the egg-a-thon, time to move on to other culinary mysteries like:

“Where’s the Beef?”

Almost time to

DFD

The "B" word....

Maybe not the first “B” word  which comes to mind (one version might end in “tch”), but one I am talking about is one I have been complaining about for years, so was kind of sorry to see the latest cover of my favorite magazine celebrating the culture of “The South"  I'm losing my battle. 

 

For their purposes, “the South” is sort of loosely bounded by Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, both Virginia's, and Maryland, although those get blurred once in a while.  Classy publication, although i think they cater to a well heeled clientele (shotguns many thousands, simple leather goods and shoes well into the upper three figures, sometimes over) but have creative photography and are quite food oriented (despite the title) which sometimes leads you down bunny trails:

 For Instance:

while paging through the magazine, I ran across the following fantastic image of Monk Boudreaux, “Big Chief” of the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indian Tribe. 

”Mardi Gras Indians are black carnival revelers in New Orleans, Louisiana, who dress up for Mardi Gras in suits influenced by Native American ceremonial apparel”. 

Those elaborate costumes can take up to six months to make, and then are worn in parades of the various Tribes in such events as the St. Josephs Day Parade (Traditionally the third Sunday in March). There are some 50 odd “Tribes” in New Orleans, and are loosely formed to honor the Native Americans who helped slaves escape.  More complicated but that’s kind of a generalization. 

Reaching back in time (more diversions) there was a TV series (2010 – 2013) called “Tremé” taking place in post Katrina centered the historically black area of New Orleans.  The main character was a trombone player Antoine Batise, played by Wendell Pierce, the show featured several well know traditional musicians.  If you can find it on Netflix or some such service, it never grows old.

Oops back to the main topic.... 

My main gripe with G&G was their (front cover) use of that word I abhor, I’ve harped on this before, but what is it about Americans that gives them an almost psychotic drive to have to declare something as “best”?  One thing single solitary above all others?  C'mon, MAN! In whose estimation?  Who calls it?  For instance, how can that apply to food? there are so many wonderful variations of a single item that it is patently stupid to try to elevate one particular preparation above all others.  Think about Chili, Pizza, Barbeque, even Crab cakes.  How many different ways to make them can you think of?  And I guess you could extend the concept to Bars (despite G&G).   Noisy, high energy?  wood and ferns?  Quiet tables with white table clothes and servers in black vests?  Mugs or crystal?…  How about sports? If you are not the one pro football team out 32 that wins the Super Bowl, your season was a failure.  Endless arguments about who is the “GOAT” (Montana, Brady, LeBron, Michael). How stupid.  

My own quest

Lately I have been embarking on my own quest to find the fried oyster that I personally enjoy more than others.  I find that while I enjoy preparing them on the half shell

I also like them fried.  The basic preparation is pretty common, egg bath, flour, roll in coating, and into the oil.  The variations all come within what is in the flour.. Old Bay (sorry), Creole seasoning, Italian herbs, on and on.  Coatings and batter can vary from simple to elaborate, from bread crumbs, saltines, butter, to tempura.  I have found that I like a crisp coating encasing a succulent creamy oyster.  So I’ve been hunting around, and have come pretty close with the following recipe from the web:

Crispy Fried Oysters with Cornmeal Batter

Vegetable Oil for Frying *see chef note *1

1 Quart Oysters (about 2 cups drained oysters)*2

2 Large Eggs, beaten

2 Cups Cornmeal *3

1 Tsp Sugar

2 Tsp Salt *4

1 Tsp Ground Black Pepper

2 Tbs Flour

Which I modified slightly:

Chef’s Notes from 1/21/2019:

1. Used Peanut Oil  

2. Made half a recipe (of ingredients, since not a Qt of Oysters

3. Added about 18 Cup Italian Panko Bread Crumbs

4. Due to health reasons cut way back on Salt.

Only nuance in the prep the called for leaving the shucked oysters in the beaten eggs for 10 minutes before proceeding.   Not sure what that does.

So did the mise en place

Laid the oysters out on a plate

On kind of a whim, I "trimmed" themto get rid of the stringy tag ends and the “foot”, which made a tidy little “pillow”.  Into the fryer until nicely golden, and out they came.

Between the corn meal and the Panko, they developed the nice “crunch” I was looking for.  Next time I think I’ll increase the Panko content, and maybe a touch of cayenne.

So I am on a journey to determine what is “best” for me, not (necessarily you).  That tenet would apply to any of the categories mentioned above.  That’s the fun of cooking, seeking what you like.

Anyway, keep trying to DFD

And eliminate MJ anywhere in your kitchen

and the last vestige of FOJTE visit, kind of fits the memories

and just found out that FOJTY may be coming out (with Duke and Smoke!)

Rice can be Nice

MFO roasted a little pork tenderloin the other day, and last night she had meetings after her stint at the Historical Society, so another night of cold sliced tenderloin was in the offing. I decided to come up with a different side dish ("and now for something completely different" - extra credit) than our standby rice.  Since I had some extra kitchen time available, I hunted around for a different rice recipe, something like a Pilaf or Soubise.  In looking through my collection of recipe sheets (Pastas and Grains) I found a recipe for Soubise (passed along by somebody named “Alanna”) from the net, attributed to Julia Child.

Note: this is a post preparation image of the recipe I used, hence the bits of onion and spills.  Indicates a real recipe!

Here’s a better shot of just the ingredients

Right away it caught my (wannabe) Chef’s eye that the ingredients calls for one half cup of rice, but TWO pounds of onions sliced very thin… Seemed kind of out of balance with my visions of a rice and onion dish although she does call the recipe “Onion and Rice” i.e., Onion listed first..

What the hell, I decided to see how it was.  The first task of Mise en Place was to produce those two pounds of sliced very thin onion.  I cleaned out MFO’s hydrator bin which produced two softball and one tennis ball sized onions.  In a case of having the right tools, I unboxed my Mandoline that I have used for years, which is very useful.

Note that it isn’t a high end one of steel and so forth just plastic which does the job very nicely.  

On the thinnest setting I soon had a huge pile of thinly sliced onions - which kind of look like protozoa under a microscope!

Which still weighed only about 1.92 pounds, but figured close enough!

So finished Mise en Place and assembled the ingredients (notice the huge amount of the onions)

  

Done with the assembling phase, I launched into the “method” phase

I prepared a pan for cooking the rice and the dish for the butter and onions

That Dry Manhattan was not called for in Julia’s recipe, but I added that essential ingredient myself

Boiled the water and added the rice which was to cook for “precisely” 5 minutes.

And then drained immediately

chef’s note; you will see that it is not the common “white rice” but is something that MFO found called “whole grain” rice and NOT brown rice; but prep is same as white rice)

So began putting heat under the onions/butter and cooked it down a little

And then stirred in the drained rice – which seemed to get lost in the onions

And committed it to the oven for 60 minutes at 300°, pulled it out, and incorporated the Gruyere and heavy cream

Voilá!

So plated up the sliced pork, and added a dollop of the Soubise.

Well, as expected the onions overwhelmed the scant (IMHO) portion of rice, and although the cheese added some kick, it was mostly a pile of cooked onions.  Tasted good, but I was hoping for more of a rice forward dish.

So on a whim (and afterthought), I decided to make sure the recipe was "correct", and consulted the bible of French Cooking

And sure enough, on page 355 was the original unaltered, original "Julia" recipe. 

I noted that in the above "Mastering" version there were half as many onions and no mention of the heavy cream and cheese called for in the "Alanna" version the recipe.  Perhaps I should have looked before using the Internet version.

And after a little more research I uncovered another recipe for Soubise by the other icon of (Modern) French cooking, Jacques Pepin: 

Which is more aligned with my vision of a Soubise (less onions, more rice)

Next time we’ll use that.

So, of course when MFO came home, we got

DFD’d for dinner, and in the digs, there are absolutely

NMMJ!

Almost there!!

Well, it is amazing..  I thought: "well, I’ll just tell everybody about our visit to the Tobacco Barn Distillery here in the county, explain the process and show how they handle the various steps".   Well, as usual, if you ever want to know what you don’t know about something, try writing about it!  “then we take the wash…”  hey! I thought I knew what that is and why, so off to google and learn.   The distiller and owner of the place is probably ready for his product, as the feeder has asked him many questions which he always graciously and patiently answers.   It not being too far away from the cocktail hour (somewhere), I have decided to abandon my original plan of relating the tale of the Whisky (hey! It is America) and start afresh tomorrow telling the whole story! 

But in order to keep your interest peaked, I have been cleared to share the Remoulade Recipe we all enjoyed.  Apparently it was kind of handed down through family channels, with origins in New Orleans..  So (with chef’s comments):

Tobacco Barn Distillery Remoulade

Ingredients:

½ Cup Olive or Salad Oil (more salad than olive)

1 tsp. salt

2 ½ tsp. Paprika

¼ - ¾ tsp Cayenne

1 Garlic clove

⅓ Cup Tarragon Vinegar¹

⅓ Cup Creole or Horseradish Mustard²

2 Tbsp. Catsup

½ Cup Green Onions

Method:

Chop Green Onions (white and green parts)

Mince Garlic clove

Mix in food processor doing onions and garlic first

Notes/Info:

          1. Tarragon Vinegar

           is sometimes available in Grocery Stores, but you can             also make your own from dried or fresh:

    or:

    Take some fresh sprigs of tarragon from your garden, wash, and chuck them in a jar of white wine vinegar for a while.

2.  Creole Mustard

a.     The holy grail (as opposed to the Holy Trinity – a       New Orleans staple) is Zatarain’s 

b.     Horseradish Mustard is some what different, and there are many commercial varieties available

**********

Of course if you want to print the recipe, you may not want the Feeder ramblings in “notes”.   The original recipe above, thanks to the wife of the owner of the Distillery. 

As mentioned in a previous edition, FOJTE made up a batch when they returned to STL: 

Step One: Mis En Place

Step 3

And voila!

Dates: 

Back in the day, when I was doing what evolved into “the Bottom Feeder” I used to play with dates:  “if you multiply the day of the month by the number of the month and divide by the year, you get…..”  One of our Project Managers was particularly fond of my machinations. 

Anyway, I was a big chagrined by hearing from a reader reminding me the current set of dates fits the definition of a “palindrome” (reads same forward or backward: madam, racecar) and hence this week is sort of dubbed “Palindrome Week”

That is, today being 8-17-18 is the same sequence either way.  Works for 8/12 through 8/18.   And, it won’t happen again until…..next year..

Okay I think tomorrow will find time to construct the Whisky edition!

Mean while

DFD and
NMMJ

The Morel of the Story

Just imagine! A food blogger actually writing about food!

Ever since I acquired the freeze dried Morels

I have been looking for an opportunity to incorporate them in an actual dish.  In browsing one of my recipe folders “Poultry”, I came across the following

Just to show you how (a**l) retentive I am, note the date and the source at the bottom of the page, and MFO’s chef notes at the top.  Perfect!

So, we started with Phase I of the mis en place, gathering the ingredients

including the little freeze dried treasures of the forest (with the help of the Forest Glory folks)

And then prepping the ingredients for Phase II

Clockwise from nine o’clock: 

3 Tbs of (Chamisal unoaked chardonnay) white wine; 

1 Tbs fresh lemon juice; 

1 Tbs minced fresh garlic; 

1 Tbs minced fresh flat leaf parsley (from the feeder’s garden); 

Rehydrated Morels (20 minutes in water) .

Probably with a penchant for stating the obvious, I hope any alert readers that cook follow the practice of “mise en place”, before putting heat to pan, it makes it so much easier to fabricate your dish

Okay, oil and butter in pan

Add ‘shrooms and garlic and sauté until mushrooms begin to brown (MFO comment applies: 5 minutes is way too long) remove Morels from the pan 

Add the (no salt) seasoned chicken added and brown on both sides (again, 6 minutes per side is probably too long

Remove the poultry, add the wine and lemon juice, and reduce

Re-assemble dish with reserved mushrooms, add sauce, sprinkle with parsley, and…voila!  Chicken with Mushrooms!

Chef’s notes:  It was good, and we will make this dish again, but I think with the following modifications (hey! we are not perfect all the time);

Less oil and butter in pan to begin with (too long to reduce, resulting in over cooking the garlic in pan)

Pull the mushrooms earlier, they were not “succulent”; perhaps the recipe did not consider the delicate Morels, maybe thinking more along the lines of a beefier Crimini?

Possibly use a “real” split Chicken breast and not a Purdue boneless skinless one. Might be thicker and retain more juices.

That’s kind of the Joy of Cooking, execute a recipe, think of improvements, try again.  Always a learning process

and if you get your head out of the pan for a minute, you might turn and look out the window enjoying the view

Also, if you’re home you can follow your conscience as to appropriate

DFD

And you should have no trouble embracing

NMMJ

Bon Appétit!

PS: I am not even going to mention tomorrow is the first round of the Open Championship at Carnoustie, and once again, the media has installed T as favorite.  We shall see.