For something southern...

Seasonings, flavors, herbs and other aromatics are essential part of cooking in the way that you need good fertilizer with the right minerals and, frankly, shit. This does not give to the same methodology as plants. Shoveling enough shit on top and piss your pants if something beautiful actaully grows. I can not think of something more sinster than trying the same thing with food.

Every child sooner or later looks into the spice drawer and creates "something" using every bottle of spice they can lay their hands on or halfway pronounce. Most learn after a fateful spoonful that this awful creation should be trashed, never composted for fear of contaimination of the natural ecology of the land and never attempted again. Yet some professionals never figure this out and have the gaul to sell their defunct product to people as FOOD!

I take this a little closer to heart for several reason which I consider painstakingly obvious and others are very personal to me. Because of my burns, I can't tolerate being exposed to direct sunlight for very long. It literally makes my blood boil; large portions of my legs no longer sweat. Skin grafts don't sweat, exchange oxygen as well or even circulate blood like the rest of my skin does. The heat generated by my mucsles constantly increases the temperature of the blood flowing through my skin grafts. The lack of mature capillaries, veins and vessels prohibits the blood from quick circulation and proper disburtion of blood. I can't describe the exact sensation of walking under the sun with the dreading knowledge that your legs are slowly cooking and burning themselves much less how it feels when the hot blood pools in your feet. One could understand how insanely envious of anyone who can walk free under any circumstances. I reminded of the fact today returning home after walking 5 miles under the sun to discover small 1st and 2nd degree burns on my feet. So when I go out to eat and try the local food, I take risks.

I find myself extremly worried that cooks take clear advantage of their basics. Pay, use of their legs and components of food they have. I went with my brother to a local brewery that was recommended for their shrimp and grits dish. If I am going to be a southern chef, then I should be familiar with all forms of southern cuisine. So we toddled off and got a table.

I was not prepared for the quality of their food. We ordered a creole pizza and a shrimp with grits. A round of beers for the wait and I took in the scene, making notes about its layout, decor, spacing and other details. No sooner had I noted that the place was exceptionally clean for its local, that a roach trundles across my pad into the sugar caddies. I casually stuff the salt and pepper shakers into the caddy; pulverizing contaminated sugars and bug alike. Not yet ready to give up on a simple brewery until I have had my beer and food. It had been a while since I had a boc, a simply hoppy dark Germanic ale.

If you are like beer and like hoppier beers, then you can appreciate a hot summer days with a couple of bocs, enlightened black ales, or any ale of any color. This is the first alcoholic drink that I could order for my brother, a special occasion to be had. Yet, it was flat. How can you let your beer go flat? How could you let an ale go flat? An ale without carbonation is like over done scrambled eggs, those nearly grey ones that you get in your school mess, with out any condiments, even salt. It is the recognition that you are indeed drinking beer but all of the enjoyment and flavor seems to have been expended long ago.

So we downed the remainder of the beer and ordered another round, a porter this time. The porter was average, it wasn't going to win any beauty pagents but it tasted like a porter, a great comfort to me. We drank the beer as we chatted about the layout. The bar of the brewery is comforting to the eye despite the 1980's chairs and tables the that surrounded it. Yet the real eye candy was behind the bar, minds out of the gutter now. Beer vats and malters! If there was a god out there then the naive thought, that he/she/it/they('s') greatest gift would be creation of us in a similar likeness or image, is one of those hilliarious inside jokes at some oblivous dolt's expense. Yeast created products are the true gift. I hope the person who discovered that yeast transforms grain into precious culinary treasures, got laid, every night.

Our meals arrived with our third round of drinks, a pale ale. As I looked at out dishes my fears came true. My brother's shrimp and grits was a pile of sticky over cooked grits mixed with tiny nearly flavorless shrimp and topped with a grotesque pile of pork cubes with an eighth inch layer of seasoned salt with southwestern seasonings, cysco patented. Strangely my pizza featured the same pork cubes for some reason. The majority of my worries stemmed from my failing to comprehend why my pizza lacked a crust of a leavened dough and instead was a pita that had been cooked to a crispness equevilant of a softened communion cracker, I am guessing.

So I took my notes and finished my beer. We packaged our left overs and gave them to two homeless men on Franklin street. I began thinking about the beautifully arrange plate Linden referenced as the burning sensation of my legs filled my mind. Well, to the drawing board...

Shrimp and Grits

So there are a large number of ways this dish could be southern. Think of it. You could take it any number of ways.

1) Soak the shrimp in buttermilk and white wine before coating them in grated cheese and uncooked grits. Repeat the process twice and fry them in hot bacon fat. Serve with a simple beurre blanc sauce coating a frisee watercress salad and garnished with a sprinkling of chopped chives and cilantro.

2) Mix the grits with milk, butter and some sweet chipolini onions. Cook in a pot for 45 minutes then spread into a greased bread pan and cool until set. Cut the grit cake in triangles or whatever shape becomes pleasing to the eye. Put these in the oven with a thin coat of butter until golden brown. Saute freshly shelled and deveined (devein deepily for an added volume affect) with some garlic and oregano. Remove shrimp add a small helping of flour, stir until roux is blonde and mix in some white wine until smooth. Touch up with a little cayenne pepper. Arrange on plate with a biased slice of green onions as a garnish.

3) Make the grits the same as the last recipe except cut grits like you were layering a cake. A tall circle of cooled grit cake. Torte: cut horiziontally into the cake to produce three equal discs. Coat the tops of each disc with butter and bake until brown then remove. Chop shrimp roughly and saute lightly with chopped peppers and onions. On an oiled sizzle plate layer the grit cakes with the shrimp saute and some montery jack. You should have a three layers of cake with three layers of shrimp saute mixed with plenty of cheese. Put this under the broiler for about a minute to melt the cheese to a golden brown color. Serve immediately on a new plate with a drizzle of pure olive oil on top. I would serve with roasted cherry tomatoes but that is me.

Sorry Linden. I love the idea of shrimp and grites but I dislike the brewery's version. It makes my blood boil.

My kingdom for a knife...

My first class at culinary school was a standard classroom class based on nutrition. In our last week of nutrition, our knives were delivered. All of us got a standard set of kitchen untensils and knives of all shapes and sizes. If you can think of a task, there is a knife for it or knife that should be used. Granted, most of these tasks can be used by a general all-purpose knife, which is a standard chef's kife or a santoku (if you are so inclined). Chef's knife comes in all sort of styles and designs. Some are thin five inch knives were the tip is curved away from the spine, towards the edge of the knife. Some are twelve inch near cleaver verisions with a tip that is in line with the spine and the hilt. All of them are ment to do the same task but each one is ment for a different hand.







Knives are great pets. They don't eat anything, never leave messes and they don't give you stupid looks when you request a trick. Sure as there is fire in hell, you will need to give them attention, cleaning and respect. You can't just throw them around, trust me.





If you do take care of them they can do amazing things for you. Take Flank Steak.





Flank steak is one of those cuts of meat that everybody started serving within the last few years because it didn't have any clout. It simply wasn't popular enough to get on menus. Most chefs are afraid to serve something if they thing their customer is going to say, "What the hell is flank? It it an ass muscle or something?" However, flank has become very popular recently. Flank is one of the primal cuts of beef but it doesn't come from a steer's ass. Flank is like the abs of a steer if you were to think about it.



Thinking deeper into it you could notice several things. Flank is a long plate of muscle, not a knot or lump of flesh. One Flank cut could probably feed a about 5 couples easily for a dinner item. However, one should probably marinate the cut for at least 2 days after cleaning the cut. Here is were the knives feature.



Lay the entire flank out on your cutting board. The cut is huge so you might have to improvise, a few old plastic placemates work. YES, THERE WILL BE A REDDISH LIQUID THAT WILL GET EVERYWHERE UNLESS YOU LAY DOWN TWO TOWELS UNDERNEATH THE CUT. Find the SHARPEST knife you have. This will be dangerous.

Before you begin to cut into this gorgeous piece of beef let's stop and appreciate what you have. This huge plate of flesh doesn't even amount 1% of the total weight of the steer. If you mangle this piece because you don't have time, a desire to make the most out of this cut, or the resolve to really try then don't continue. The next step is a long process that makes or breaks the beauty of the piece and its texture. If you don't treat this with respect then I guarantee you that will not get nearly as much enjoyment out of possible one of the greatest simplest steak cuts that you will know.

Alright looking at the piece you will notice that isn't all red. Yes it is red meat but there are spots of fat and another element. This other element looks like a silverly white sheet of skin covering some of the flank. This is silver skin, a long sheet of inedible protein called elastin. This is your enemy. Silver skin does not disolve in heat; it increases the gummy chewness factor making your steak tough. This can not be premitted because we want an excellent med rare.

You are going to skin the silver skin off the meat by cutting under and lifting the skin. Saw the knife back and forth underneath the skin as close as you can get to the silver skin. You want the highest yield and the prettiest looking steaks to add to the effect of the dish. Take you time. Trim carefully. On one edge will be a jumbled mess of fat and meat as if wasn't completely for that muscle group. You will also note its really jagged. Cut off enough so that you have a good edge to work with that is uniform with the rest of the meat. (Total judgement call) Save that edge though because it can be slow cooked in a soup, stew or curry. The silverskin can all be thrown away. I wouldn't even feed it to a dog. Bad indigestion. Don't forget to clean the opposite side too.

With the cleaned cut begin portioning. Cut the flank into rectangular steaks. I recommend cutting each steak into a rectangular piece because it makes slicing so much easier and the effect of a carefully constructed pile of flank slices with a dark whiskey sauce dripping off the pile is heavenly and delicious. Cut 4 inch wide, 6-7 inch long and however tall steaks. Don't waste ANYTHING. You should get at least 10-12 steaks. With these steaks completed put them into a sealable plastic bag with a marinade of your choice.

My recommendation:

1 cup brown sugar
1 bottle of dark beer; (Black Butte Porter from Deschuttes brewing company and Walking Man Cherry Chocolate Stout from Rogue brewing and distillery company are both excellent choices. If you could find it I encourage you to serve this dish with 1554 Enlightened Black Ale from New Belgium Brewing company.
4 oz of whiskey
1 bundle of fresh time. No stems please.
1 package of blackberries or boysenberries.
4 tbsp of soy sauce
2 tbsp of craked fresh pepper
Salt to taste

Heat to combine and dissolve the sugar and the berries. Let it reduce and cool before adding to the steaks. The steaks marinate that for about 3 days. Save the marinade. It will double as a sauce.

Right before cooking sprinkle a little salt, cracked pepper and minced thyme on the steaks. Heat the remain marinade in a pot.

For cooking, you can use either grill or a pan. If you use a grill remember to keep good grill marks and not over cook. Use a thermometer if you are unsure. You should be pulling them off at 118 F. The carry over temp will bring the steaks to 125 as you let the meat rest before cutting into them.

Cooking in a pan is just as simple. Heat an oven to 200F. Sear both sides of the meat with in a hot pan with some olive oil or grapeseed oil if you can find it. Remove from pan and space on a sheet tray. Pop them in the oven until they reach 118F.

When you have let the steaks rest for a minute start slicing them on a thin bias. Sharp knives are your friends. Long even strokes are best. Slice not saw.

The creative part, arrange the meat to your fancy. My particular favorite is to bend and twist the pieces of each steak to make a decent pile that stands out and contrasts the plate. Use a side dish to lean it against, like a hot mediterrainian pasta salad (hot liguine, minced freash mint leaves, lemon zest, hard goat cheese, klamata olives, salt, coarse pepper, a basic shrry vinagrette [three parts olive oil, one part sherry vinagear] and some torn basil leaves. Then when all your plates are arranges, stir in about 1 tbsp of butter into your marinade sauce. Drizzle that over your steak and serve. Whatever veg accompanient works, quick blanched then sauteed red onion juiliennes or a mushroom medley sauteed with some butter and white wine.

If it works in your favor serve a basket of sliced ciabatta bread grilled with olive oil and rubbed lightly with garlic, salt and pepper.

Cheers.

If eggs could talk they would scream to be custards...

I probably will incure the wraith of the cooking gods by talking about custards. Custards are one of the most simple but yet delectably delicious. The person who decided to subvert sugar to enchance the marriage between egg yolks and heavy cream has my vote for the single person most deservant of being laid for the rest of their lives. It simple.

Two egg yolks, some sugar and a cup of cream are the starting ingredients for the smoothest, richest dishes you will experience. In addition custards are easily customizable.

A chocolate peanut butter custard on a chocolate chip cookie crumb crust with a raspberry liqueor simple syrup.

I used a spring form pan (9 or 10 inch) and a deep dish pizza pan half filled with water. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Start a decent pot of water to boil.

I grabbed about 16 decent size cookies from last weeks cookie making frenzy, already getting kinda stale and too crumply. Threw them into a stainless stell bowl with about 3/4 cup of dark brown sugar, 2 oz of brandy and about 4 tbsp of butter. I pulverized the ingredients with my hands until I had dry doughy consistancy. I press the mix into the pan, evenly.

Throw that into the oven until a golden brown color develops. Remove and cool.

Throw the stainless steel bowl over the pot of now boiling water. Toss in about 6 oz of peanut butter, 6 oz of dark chocolate, 4 oz of dark brown sugar and 2 tsp vanilla. Mix well. One could subsitute brandy for the vanilla or use an alcohol of choice. It is a taste thing. One could also drink brandy while baking. Shrug. Go figure.

Reduce heat on the pot of water. In a different pot scald 1 cup of cream. While cream is heating, remove the stainless steel bowl from pot and stir in 2 egg yolks. Add scalded cream in gradually, stir in completely. Once everything is incorporated, pour mixture into spring form pan. Wrap outside bottom of pan in plastic wrap. Set oven to 300 F. Place pan in water of deep dish pan.

Bake until the custard wobbles when shaken lightly. About 30 minutes.

Cool at room temp for 25 minutes. (Cover before refrigeration.)

Raspberry liqeuor simple syrup

1 part Raspberry liqueor of your choice
2 parts sugar
4 parts water

Stir to combine. Heat, when mixture becomes homogenous and shiny remove from heat. Let cool and decorate cooled cake to your liking.

Yes you will need a glass of milk.

Literally, a grain of salt...

So my Dad called me and told me that salt is salt. His opinion is that salt has the same purpose no matter the application or the desired affect. He related the issue of salt in food and the type of salt used like one would look on the associative property of addition. Or in other words, "...If the boot fits..."
I don't think that is true. Sure as heart attack for a fat man, people will always try to upscale their products and sham whatever laymen with two wits and a dollar to their name. However, this doesn't take away that salt is useful and almost ever form it comes in has a use. I can not stress the use of salt in all your dishes and not to mention that the proper use of salt has made all the difference in the dishes that I served at fine dining restaurants. Yet, each addition of salt requires small bits of common sense and a great sense of taste.
Ice cream. Making ice cream from scratch involves at the least two different types of salt; rock salt for the production portion of the process and a salt to enhance the taste of the custard. For those scratching their heads at this thought, try a deductive reasoned approach. What would ice cream taste like if you replaced the salt with sugar? SWEET. As in all you would really taste would be sweet of the sugar and the full mouth richness of the custard. The flavoring would be a mellow backdrop compared to the sugar. Salt and sugar have developed an opposition to each other in our taste buds. That is pretty awesome considering how many sugars and salts we have!
Salt comes in a variety of styles. In shape alone there are a few dozen that come to mind; iodized, kosher, rock, sea, french, coarse, and even pyramid shaped salts to start. Salts also have a variety of colors stemming for compostion of their elements to flavorings imparted on them by artificial or natural means. (For berry ice cream lovers try adding a little rose water infused pulverized salt to your base.)
To demonstrate this point, I made two dishes that taste like gruel without salt. Curry and Risotto. There was some fusion that went into these dishes but the technique is standard.

Risotto: Basics
Rice (try to use aborrio rice but if push comes to shove use what is on hand)
Salt
Butter
Stock (a flavor of your liking)/flavored water
Beer/Wine/Spirit/Liqour
Bulb vegetables: onion, garlic, scallions, etc...
Herbs (fresh is unbelievable but any herbs will do)
Extra veggies (Mushrooms if you can get them from the farmer, make my day. Oregon Morels. God I miss those.)
Cheese

What I used (slimmed down to a 2 serving batch)

1 cup long grain rice
kosher salt
2 cups homemade chicken stock
Vermouth
1/4 yellow onion [small dice]
1 tablespoon garlic
Majoram
Oregano
Scallions blades cut at a high bias (save the stalks, discard the root)
4-6 oz Montrey Jack

(I encourage you to find your own combinations of ingredients and experiement. Risotto is easy and delicious.)

From a person stand point, I like a little color on my rice. Gently, brown the rice with about 3 tbsp of butter. High heat, hot pan, add butter, melt slightly, add onion and garlic, add rice and reduce heat to medium. STIR CONSTANTLY. You will notice slight browning and some sticking. Continue to stir, add about an ounce and a half of vermouth. STIR. The sticking disappates and the pan becomes clean. This is deglazing. Add about 1/2 of the stock now. STIR. Add in herbs and salt. Salt is always to taste. Start out with about 2 tsp and taste the rice once its cooked more. Reduce heat to medium low. Add stock a half cup at a time as it is absorbed by the rice. Stirring the rice and adding liquid gradually should pull the starches out of the rice and create a shiny sauce that coats the rice. Add the cheese and the scallions as you add the last measure of stock. Taste for flavor and doneness. It takes about 20 minutes. Give or take. ADD SALT IF THE FLAVORS DON'T STICK OUT. Don't let the rice turn to mush. Taste is important. Finish with a last touch of vermouth and some butter. Serve immediately. Risotto was intended to be a stand alone dish but I prefer it with something on the side.

That is a basic risotto. Sorry there aren't any picks. My brothers devoured the dish as I was plating.

Putting out one fire... Starting another...

Cooking is a form of transmutation. Alchemy, if one would want to get really want to get romantic about it. Cooking tries to take the best out of each element present and through sacrifice becomes something new. When one commits ingredients and energy to a dish, the synergy of the dish produces an effect on all senses in a euphoric array. Most equate basic cooking as very moderate in its precursors for succes. An undergrad student can use a tea kettle and some instant noodles to achieve a nurishing meal with some fair amounts of self-satisfaction. I started the same way at the age of 6 fabricating basic instant make dishes which tickled me. Today my tastes have changed, by biases are skewing and broadening without restraint.
I pursue techniques and cuisines that will utilize the most of the product available and tempered with my own, hopefully growing, skill; create an end worth whatever means. Oblique awareness of one's surroundings will bring an unfair value to everyday worth. With time and seasoning, like a primal cut of beef left to dry cure, one learns to appreciate the beauty that life brings. This applies to everything in the kitchen from fresh produce bought at a local market to knives that are clean, sharp and honed with a skill fit to be the jealousy of any surgeon. The waste of potential, product and skill is crime in my eyes when so much can be gained and enjoyed out of each. I seek to make the best from the best that i can find.
Already this mission is flawed. I am not the best chef in the world, much less the current city in which I reside. Not even a day after completing my externship, I nearly burned alive in an auto accident. I am seared. 1 square yard of skin grafts cover the areas on my legs that ignited in flame. Learning to walk again, I find that I don't dwell on how my hands crisped to blackness then cracked and bled upon flexing to dissaude overzealous EMTs that amputation was not necessary. I am fixed in casual
obsession over wasted life.
If we must kill to eat and survive, we must pay homage and honor ever contribution to each meal. In hopes of achieving this goal, I am writing about anything that comes to mind as I continue my career as a chef. With each entry I hope readers will experiement and pick up tricks, techniques and patterns that they enjoy in bringing happiness and life with each meal they create for their loved ones and guests. Selfishly, I hope that readers will also be my critics about my food and techniques. As the old phrase goes, it is only after you are burned that you learn the lesson. Oh yes, it is very bad humor. Please enjoy.