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Category: Food

Fish and Stock Pots

This is the slightly neurotic backstory to the cook fish story

So I woke up this morning and really didn’t want to get out of bed, but I did manage to barely get out of the house in time to acquire the 20L stock pot a nifty Philadelphia food person had offered on Twitter. I did not do public transportation, nor the brisk walk I had thought might be fun. I drove. But still – pot acquired. And even though I had grabbed a small book I’d made and a bar of fancy chocolate to offer in exchange, I did not remember to hand them over… a bit out of sorts today.

But then I was in the vague vicinity of the one place in all of Philadelphia to get reliable fresh seafood. So I stopped in and made a fool of myself and clearly admitted I knew nothing but would they please point me toward something fun. And I ended up with a pretty whole fish, which I asked them to fillet and give me the bones and head and all so I could make stock.

So I get home and have to look quite hard, but I do find a close-ish parking spot off of the snow emergency route (oh, hey, looks like we’ll probably get more snow).

So I get home and do the dishes, so I’ll have a clear workspace for the fish. And there are a lot of dishes (just because). And I open up the fish, and there are only two lovely fillets – no bones or bits. Grrr.

But I’ve got this weird thing going where I should have left five minutes ago, if I were going to go to work, but I have to get the fish sorted before I leave. No idea why I can’t just shove it in the fridge.

So I trim the awkward bits (not really awkward in the real world, but I was looking to make them smaller, anyway, so that was my excuse for picking on the thinner area) off the fillets and set them aside to dice and make ceviche. And I wrap the now 3.5 and 4 oz fillets back up tightly and back in the plastic bag. Next, I pull out my ice bin and line it with foil before I put in the bag with the fish to approximate the rig Alton Brown had which took up a whole shelf in a decoratively empty fridge.

And then I look at the clock, and I could just put on clothes and grab a cab and make it to work five minutes late… so I start preparing the ceviche. It’s a weird disconnect that happens sometimes, but not so much since I quit being stressed from college. So I called out sick and had a great day of it.

Eggplant and pasta + Salt question

Many of my food experiments are directly the result of instigation from my friend Meghan. And her latest blog post about eggplant sludge, though not attractively named, was also inspiring.

Luckily, another friend had recently gifted me with an eggplant from her organic produce delivery service, which was getting on in days and needed to be eaten quickly in a dish where appearances didn’t matter.

Eggplant and Pasta

In 1 teaspoon of olive oil, I sauteed 1 diced yellow onion and then 3 minced cloves of garlic.

Once the onions cooked to translucency, I peeled the eggplant and cut out any brown spots, and then I took my box grater and just grated it right into the pan.

In reference to my friend Meghan’s post, I’d been chatting with her about whether or not salting eggplants was useful, and there was googling. The end conclusion was that pre-salting doesn’t ‘draw out bitterness,’ but saltiness does counteract bitterness.

So I salted the hell out of this dish. Erm, buy which I mean that I took three chunks of fancy pink Himalayan salt and ground them down into regular powder and added that to the dish such that I was pleased with the saltiness and there was not noticeable bitterness.

I also cut small and added two dried peppers – one cayenne and one other one I dried, which memory tells me was a red jalapeno but could have been something else similar, too.

When it looked a little dry, I peeled and cut in the edible half of the tomato my friend had also given me for urgent consumption.

And then I cooked it until the eggplant was not only soft, but also releasing liquid, then seasoned with a generous amount of cinnamon and black pepper.

Shamelessly (well, mostly shamelessly), I then added about half a cup of jarred tomato sauce. (Yes, I’ve had bad jarred tomato sauce, and I see why you don’t like it. But Classico rarely has off flavors, has a wonderful product as a base for sauces, and I love the jars for reuse.)

Mixed in 4 ounces of cooked macaroni (selected because that box was in front of the queue, but it was a good pairing for the sauce), and that made two generous portions.

Because I’m back on the Weight Watchers wagon, I topped it with 2 thinly sliced scallions and about a teaspoon of freshly grated parmesan.

So please explain to me what to do with this fancy Himalayan Pink Salt.

The crystals are too large to sprinkle on top to finish.

And when you grind it down, it only looks pink next to other salt.

Is it mostly useful in a pretty, transparent grinder and then used as you would regular salt?

Or is there a way to take advantage of the pretty without having to buy purely decorative hardware?

note: This salt was given to me gratis for review by Marx Foods as a result of the entry I made for their free black garlic. There were many more things in the new sampler, too, so there will be several entries mentioning them in the near future.

Update

1) As of the wee hours of the morning, I’m an aunt.

2) I did not get the house on which I made an offer – over the weekend, someone else also put in a bid for the house, only full asking price.

3) I have a new laptop. Oddly, it’s still in the box.

4) Made more truffles – for the help_haiti auction. They are getting mailed out today. Made a box to fit them all perfectly, too, and I might be even more proud of that because the little muffin wrappers were ornery and hard to keep squished together and tidy.

5) back on the wagon for Weight Watchers. Over about the 8 months off the wagon (wherein I discovered rudimentary baking), I only gained 11 pounds, so I’m not too badly off. I restarted also to enable my boss’ quest to fit into her pants.

6) have new kitchen toys: a salad spinner (birthday present and something I’ve been pining after for years and years) and a pressure canner

7) While planning for the house, evaluated apartment. With sufficient boxes, I think I could pack up to move in about 4 hours. Maybe less.

8) I’ve lost my apples tree in the back yard to termites and heavy snows. If I’m not moving, I am worried about the summer. I’ve long suspected that the shade from that tree was the main reason I could manage without air conditioning.

9) Okay, now I have to get dressed and mail packages, including one addressed to a brand new baby, probably still in the deeply unattractive stage… though after 12 hours of unproductive labor, there was a C-section, and I hear those babies are supposed to be prettier – at least their head shapes are less silly, but they might still be purple. No idea. No pictures yet.

10) This week, I have to reserve all the side trips and stuff for the Rome trip.

11) I need to call the property manager and ask them to check that my neighbor isn’t dead. (I haven’t seen him for a couple months and for a couple other reasons)

ETA: …erm… actually, he was dead. But they were already/recently aware. /eta

12) I did my taxes. Federal ones have already been e-filed. Now I have to remember to mail in my state taxes. There was a terrifying moment when I thought I owed almost as much to the state as I’d been getting back from the federal government. Then I saw I had entered the state withholdings line with a decimal point in the wrong place. ~whew~! All is well with the world. I requested direct deposit so I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I’d still be at that mailbox when the check came.

pantry stock

So I’ve been having some trouble with my refrigerator, and it just started affecting the freezer, too. It might just be the seals, but I’m worried that it will need a replacement. So I did an inventory of the contents of my fridge and freezer… and then things kind of got out of hand, so there might be an inventory of all the food in my apartment (though I didn’t itemize the spices or the booze. yet.)

Note: There’s a lot of meat there. In about the last six months, I have switched my ethical take on buying meat. Instead of looking for the $2/lb stuff that is ruining the world, I’m now only eating free meat (aside from bacon). In that, over the years my mother has done things like buy a quarter of a cow and then have some of it still sitting in the freezer years later. And so my plan is to not buy meat until we’ve damn well eaten what we’ve already bought. And then I’ll re-evaluate my ethics vs income.

* asterisks mark things that will be more likely to spoil if the refrigerator/freezer fails

Refrigerator
Dairy
*6 8oz packages of neufchatel
3 8oz packages of extra sharp cheddar, 1 fancy 8oz package, 1 pepper jack
7oz parmesan
½ oz prima donna
3 oz chevre
6 6oz nonfat plain yogurt
*some heavy cream
*some low fat sour cream
*some 1/2 & 1/2 creamer packets

Lipids
Butter
7.5 oz creamed coconut
small and quart jar of herbed mayo (see also condiments)
quart jar of plain mayo (see also condiments)
ghee

Produce
Jar of peeled garlic
Jar of poppy seeds
½ a lemon
*salad greens
*arugula
limes
lemons
carrots (bag of baby, 4 purple from farmers market)
1/4 purple cabbage
1 red bell pepper
2 oranges

Prepped stuff
Tiny jar of minced garlic (which I can’t open)
*Tiny jar of pesto
*Ginger juice
Thai red curry paste
3 baked potatoes
*cheese filling for stuffed dates
giant jar of applesauce I don’t know what to do with

Beverages
*Orange juice
Apple cider
Hard apple cider

nuts
halved walnuts
sliced almonds

condiments/sauces
tahini
picante pot sauce base
oyster sauce
kick ass steak sauce
pomegranate molasses
fish sauce
black pepper stir fry sauce
black bean garlic sauce
tamarind honey lime sauce
coriander chutney
mustard
small and quart jar of herbed mayo (see also lipids)
quart jar of plain mayo (see also lipids)
sambal oelek
okonomi sauce
spicy stir fry sauce
Smucker’s apricot jelly
a jar of my own jam

Protein
1 doz eggs
*roasted beef (see also prepared food)
*carnitas (see also prepared food)
bacon
*Mexican chorizo

Rice
Brown
Carolina
Short grain asian
Risotto
*Cooked turmeric basmati (see also prepared food)
there’s also a rice breakfast cereal that needs to be thrown out next time I remember – too glutinous

Flour
Brown
Bread
Rye

Soups
*1 quart vegetable stock
*Cream of butternut squash
*Turkey & lentil
*Beef & bean Chilli

Prepared food
*Roasted beef (see also protein)
*Carnitas (see also protein)
*Cooked turmeric basmati (see also rice)
Beet/cabbage shred
Pie Crust (packaged)
large jar of applesauce (I have no idea what to do with this)
2 packages of flour tortillas

Freezer
random beef products
*filet mignon? 2
*slightly larger/thinner steak: 3
*>1″ chunk of beef: 2
*1lb package of ground beef: 3
*porterhouse steak: 1
*cubed? might be beef might be a dark pork? 1
*thinly sliced beef for stir fry: 1.5 pints
Hebrew National hot dogs

Pork/Chicken
*cubed? 1lb-ish: 1
*1/3 pork loin: 2
*pint container shredded pork: 1
bacon (the rest of the pound from what’s in the fridge)
*turkey meatballs
cubed roast pork shoulder leftovers
fat back
small commercial container of schmaltz (see also lipids)

Bread-ish
4 bagels
wonton wrappers
small quantities of seeds/grains for granola someday
2 boxes of phyllo dough

Produce
slices of lemongrass
*little cubes of cilantro
*stewed tomatoes from my mother’s garden this year
roll of dried tomatoes from my garden (dried by a friend)
*pesto from the previous summer
unsweetened shredded coconut (shredded by me)

nuts
1lb pine nuts
1/3 lb pecan halves

prepared food
*3 packages of my mother’s beef vegetable soup that cures all ills
*1 package of my mother’s chopped liver
*pint of mystery soup
*some lunches to take into work

lipids
3 lbs of butter
schmaltz (see also chicken)
some bacon fat

small bottle of some fancy brand of vodka

On top of the freezer
booze (not really itemized)
red wine
white wine
scotch
white run
spiced rum
gin
unopened cointreau
Manischewitz concord grape wine

soft drinks
ginger ale
tonic

boxed goods
1 cold breakfast cereal
1 box of graham crackers

Baker’s rack
produce
box of dates
4 small red potatoes
1 pomegranate
1 pear
2 rutabegas
1 butternut squash
some few, small straggler tomatoes left from my garden
live rosemary and winter savory

Canned goods
2 cans of cream of chicken
1 can of tomato soup
4 cans of corn
3 big cans of chickpeas
3 big cans of black beans
2 cans tomato sauce

starch
box of oyster crackers (hey, user name=”merisunshine36″>, you want? I forgot to offer them with your chilli)
what’s left of this week’s loaf of bread
basmati rice
whole wheat saltines (possibly my new favorite packaged cracker)

Sugar
1qt brownulated
1qt powdered
1qt demerara
1pt dark brown

condiments/sauces
jar of mustard
2 8oz, 1 4oz jar of my jam left
1 jar of apricot jelly
3 jars of fancipants jam from
1 qt mayonnaise (I bought a lot when it was on sale for $1.88/qt)
1 jar spicy stir fry sauce
ketchup (occasionally it’s useful)
3 jars of Chi-Chi’s hot salsa

Tea
2 boxes of Stash decaffeinated sampler
1 canister of english tea

Chocolate
3.5 bars of semisweet Ghirardelli baking chocolate

cabinet over the stove
canned goods
7 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans chickpeas
3 cans black beans

starch
2 boxes of flat, clear thai noodles

sweeteners
bottle of light Karo
equal (magnetic canister)
splenda (magnetic canister)

spice
whole cloves (magnetic canister)

cabinet over drying rack
starch
2 boxes rotini
1 box macaroni
2 boxes spaghetti
1 box Orzo
1 jar black rice
2 bags Ho Fun noodles
1 package soba noodles
1 package soba-esqe black rice noodles (which I should use for the next food blogger potluck!)

Tea
Mighty Leaf Orchid Oolong
Mighty Leaf Celebration
genmaicha
chinese restaurant tea
random tea swap teas
Republic of Tea Mango Ceylon
Twining’s sampler
Taylors of Harrowgate Assam
green tea sampler

Chocolate
Carnation hot cocoa packets
Lake Champlain cocoa mix
Mexican unsweetened chocolate with cloves for hot chocolate
shaved Santander chocolate

Cabinet under sink
jarred miscellany
Habanero salsa
2 jars roasted red peppers
shrimp paste
adobo sauce
pipian sauce
bartlett pear marmalade
Chipotle Lime Ginger marmalade
Harry & David horseradish & garlic mustard

Cabinet over microwave
grains
barley
popping corn
old fashioned oatmeal
steel cut oatmeal

canned goods
3 cans thai curry (red, green, penang)
3 jars pasta sauce
2 mini coconut milk
1 tomato paste
3 canned tuna in water

baking stuff?
kosher salt
baking powder
baking salt
red food color

produce
cooking dates
jar of dried tomatoes
raisins
onions

sauces
Tabasco (original)
El Yucateco green habanero
El Yucateco chipotle
Worcestershire sauce
browning sauce
bitters (which I have no idea what to do with, since I don’t make cocktails)
harissa

spices
not yet itemized

other bulk goods
lentils
whole roasted (unsalted) almonds
peanut butter
honey
demerara sugar
slightly sweetened shredded coconut

on top of cabinets
jar of kick ass steak sauce
fancy salt (gift from friends)
Lipton’s herbal tea sampler
Stash’s herbal tea sampler
Fancy canister of Oolong tea
dark Karo

Window Sill and behind stove (yes, I know this is the worst place for oils, but it’s the only place that really works in this apartment for me. But if it helps, I feel real guilty about it)

vinegar
Balsamic (good, okay, white)
apple cider
distilled white
chinese black
red wine
rice (not seasoned)

oil
white truffle (gift from friend)
olive (both good and just okay)
roasted sesame
mustard

miscellany
molasses (with sulfur)
good soy sauce

Now I have to plan a schedule for converting the perishables to a more stable form (i.e. lunches to take to work and store in their freezer). There’s already a random piece of meat being turned into pot roast right now.

Black Garlic experiments

About a month ago (at the start of December) Marx Foods ran a promotion where they’d offer esoteric food items to food bloggers willing to write up reviews. And, honestly, this was my first ever shot at free food just because I have this hobby, so I gleefully bopped on over and signed up.

And also for full disclosure, I found out about the company in the first place because my friend, Meghan, had been to their site and entered a photo contest that had scored her some vanilla beans, of which she spoke highly.

So of three choices, I asked to try the Black Garlic because earlier in the year there had been a wave of food bloggers trying out this ingredient, too, and it’s appeal seemed to come from its flavor as well as its novelty value.

And right away I had to change my shipping address and had to try out their customer service – and received prompt emails back from Justin Marx on a weekend. Wow! And he was very supportive of my little amateur blog and every welcoming even though many of the things he sells just seem way out of my league / price range. So I am very impressed by them.

But how impressive is the black garlic?

Scent – I had it shipped to my work address, and I could not resist opening the package and poking at it right away. At first it didn’t seem to have much scent, but then I left the office to do something, and I came back to realize that there was quite a strong, dark garlic scent all through my office. Oh, yeah. I am full of professionalism. Luckily, no one has to share the office with me. But it made me very hungry for the rest of the day.

It ended up arriving at a fairly busy time for me, and the first recipe I made from it was born of a need for simplicity. That Friday, was the Philadelphia Food Bloggers pot luck, and I’d been planning to make stuffed dates… and then just didn’t have any time to assemble them. So I went with an incredibly easy cream cheese dip instead.

Recipe 1 – flavored cream cheese with crackers
I made two side-by-side bowls of dip.

Garlic & Parsley Cream Cheese

Garlic (3 cloves minced black garlic in one, 5 cloves mashed roasted garlic in the other)
12 ounces neuchatel cheese
large bunch of flat leaf parsley, minced (the last from the summer garden)
2 Tablespoons finely minced purple onion
pinch of salt

So with exactly the same recipe, I set out to see what people thought the differences were.

First off – after a full day at work, the cream cheese with the black garlic needed to be mixed up with a fork again to be presentable because the brown color had seeped out into the surrounding cheese. (And with the leftovers, it continued to spread and blend into the cream cheese until there was an even mocha color – I might recommend making this 2-3 days ahead for maximum joy)

No one thought there was a licorice flavor to the black garlic spread. Descriptions tended more toward round and dark and complex, but no one could quite name the difference. That said, people loved them both equally, but separately. They were not interchangeable at all.

Recipe #2 – flavored butter
So since it melted to well into the cream cheese, I figured I’d try mixing it with butter, too.

Now, I’d already read Diane’s entry from White on Rice where she found that it didn’t infuse well into oil, but I figured it would not only be useful to confirm her results, but also be useful for extending the experiment – since I’d only acquired 2 heads of garlic.

And, no, the garlic didn’t melt into the butter at all. But it was still tasty spread on bread. My favorite experiment at this stage was making toast with the black garlic butter and a thin smear of thick, smooth Frontera salsa.

Texture: The reason so many descriptions of black garlic evoke licorice is that’s exactly what it looks like coming out of the papery husk. The paper skin is so thin, there’s not more than a single layer between you and the clove, but the clove has shrunk down to a thick black nub. It’s dry and squishy and a bit sticky/tacky as you but into it. Putting it in the freezer doesn’t change its texture much at all and doesn’t make it easier to slice. I ended up resenting the fine layer it would leave behind on my knife because I had so little to work with.

Experiment #3 – Black garlic in mushroom barley
I’d been trying to hold out against a Black Garlic Risotto recipe because that would be too ridiculously easy. How could black garlic not be tasty in that set up? But I caved because the taste matched exactly a Roman barley recipe, which I made for my last Roman cooking workshop (and, huh, never got around to writing up) and had promised myself I would revisit. So a cold night and much starch and there was a tasty, garlicy meal of joy. Guaranteed crowd pleaser. I’ll get my copy of Apicius and try to remember to make a separate entry for that one, but trust me – it’s a lot like risotto.

Taste: So it doesn’t taste quite like garlic, so what does it taste like? Well, darker and rounder and definitely umami… but that’s not helpful. The best description is that it tastes like garlic breath – everything around the flavor of garlic, without the obvious front taste. It’s dark and musky, but it’s all around the edges of flavor without confronting you directly.

Experiment #4 – Chocolate Truffles
Now I was a little dubious about this from the start, but the Marx Food people has promised this would be useful for savories or sweets. And they had even offered up a chocolate truffle recipe. Having read it, I’m kind of dubious about their preparation – which has a regular truffle center, rolled in minced black garlic. I think the garlic would end up too chewy and right there on your tongue.

So I set about to make the garlic part of the filling. I mixed together butter and garlic again, and I added as much chocolate as necessary to keep it from being overwhelmingly butter. I added enough sugar to make it feel like dessert, but I also added some salt and smoked paprika to bring out the smokier notes. I chilled this and dipped it in a pretty dark chocolate coating (a ratio of 2 squares unsweetened to 1 square semi-sweet Ghirardelli chocolate) and then garnished with a dusting a regular paprika.

And… it turned out bad. Not devastatingly bad, but not something I want to eat. Other people who tried it described it as a flavor explosion. But it wasn’t a pleasing one by my call, and I threw out the untried ones, instead of taking them home with me. (right, and I also need to write up the other, more sucessful, truffle recipes)

Experiment #5 – Black Garlic omelet
So I had just one clove left, and I decided to go with something I knew would be good. I sliced it very thinly, and I fried them crisp in a teaspoon and a half of bacon fat.

note: it was hard to track their cooking progress because they were already black. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before, but yeah worth pointing out.

And then I scrambled together an egg and almost an equal quantity of light cream. Poured in just enough to coat the pan, pulled the garlic slices back into the pan so they were evenly distributed, and rolled out a soft, luscious omelet of pure bliss!

(Note: this same trick of frying slices of garlic was also used in Steamy Kitchen‘s experiment, where she made Scallops with Black Garlic)

Conclusion: This was a lot of fun to try, and I’d definitely use them again… but I’m not sure it’s something I’ll feel the need to seek out.