Bakin-n-Bacon

hey http://bit.ly/2CPHDq5 Darcie Boschee

hey

http://bit.ly/2CPHDq5

Darcie Boschee

Please forgive me, Huevos Rancheros

You've probably seen this dish discreetly placed at the bottom of the menu at your favorite Mexican restaurant. However, faced with the dazzling array of choices and because you were already very happy from the margaritas, you haven't given it much thought. Who chooses a simple egg dish when you can have tacos al carbon? I do, now. Please forgive me, huevos rancheros, for not trying you sooner. I'll try to make it up to you.

I only decided to try this dish because I had leftover corn tortillas, a small amount of chorizo, eggs, and nothing else to make for breakfast one lazy Sunday. I'm glad we didn't go out for brunch. The humble ingredients of this dish belie the end result--it is truly much more than the sum of its parts.

Of course, my recipe strays from tradition because I used canned tomatoes to make my salsa, and because I added chorizo. Traditional or not, it was damn delicious.

I began by making my favorite fast salsa: a can of diced tomatoes (Muir Glen fire roasted are perfect), onion, garlic, fresh jalapeno, lime juice, cilantro, salt & pepper, quickly whizzed in a blender to just the right texture. Then I put this salsa in a small nonstick pan in which I had browned a small amount of spicy, locally-made chorizo. Once the salsa simmered, I cracked a couple of eggs into it and let them poach in the salsa.

I heated up the leftover tortillas, wrapped in foil, in the toaster oven while I waited for the eggs to poach. And waited, and waited some more. But the end result was well worth the wait. For those who don't eat meat, this would be fine without the chorizo.

Darcie's Inauthentic But Tasty Huevos Rancheros

Serves 2
1/4 pound of Mexican chorizo (not Spanish chorizo, which has a firmer texture) (optional)
1 (14 oz.) canned diced tomatoes
1/2 small onion, cut into chunks (about 1/4 cup)
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
1/2 to 1 jalapeno, roughly chopped (remove inner membrane & seeds for less heat)
1 small bundle cilantro, to taste (I used about 1/4 cup loosely packed)
Juice of one lime
salt and pepper to taste
4 eggs
4 corn tortillas, warmed

Brown chorizo in a small pan (you can use a skillet or a saucepan, nonstick works better). Warm corn tortillas, wrapped in foil, in a 250 degree oven. Put a couple plates in there, too, so they will also be warm. But be careful, because 250 degrees makes for a pretty hot plate. (Alternately, you can zap the tortillas in the microwave--sans foil, of course--for a few seconds just before serving, and use room temperature plates. I won't tell anyone.) If chorizo is browned before salsa is ready, remove pan from heat until you add the salsa.

While chorizo is browning, place tomatoes, onion, garlic, jalapeno, cilantro and lime juice in a blender or food processor. Pulse until the onions and garlic are broken down into small bits, but it's okay to leave a few chunks if you like. (You can use more jalapeno if you like. Or more cilantro. Or less. You get my point.)

Add salt and pepper to taste; pour into pan with browned chorizo. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. 

Crack eggs into the simmering salsa. (Everyone tells you to crack the eggs into a bowl, then carefully scoop into the poaching liquid with a ladle. This is excellent advice that I never follow, because I don't cry over a broken yolk. But feel free to follow this method, especially if you like doing dishes.)

Cover, and cook until eggs are done to your liking (about 6 to 8 minutes, maybe more). Peek at the eggs about every couple of minutes, and turn down heat if the salsa is spattering too much. (How much is too much? I trust that, as with porn, you will know it when you see it. Like it if squirts you in the eye. Wait, do not equate that last statement with the porn reference. Eewww.)

Place 2 corn tortillas onto a warmed plate. Gently remove 2 eggs from the pan, placing on top of tortillas. Spoon salsa around eggs. Repeat with remaining tortillas, eggs and salsa. Eat!

 

Pork Belly rules!

I know, I know, it's been over a month and no bacon posts. But I do have an excuse - I've been busy on my other blog, A Yankee Bakes the South. Lots to see there, please check it out.

That's really no excuse, however, for neglecting the ever important pork belly. A friend graciously shared the fruits of her family's hard labor--over ten pounds of farm-raised, tenderly cared for pork belly. It doesn't get any better than that.

But what to do with all of it? I decided to make two different types of bacon. The photo above shows the bacon frying gently in a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. A bacon tip: cook bacon over medium heat, no hotter. This reduces splatter as well as making superior bacon.

Since bacon is easier to slice if it is a neat square, I decided to make salt pork with the pork belly trimmings. The pieces I used for the salt pork are shown below in their raw state. Interestingly, it looks almost exactly the same when it's cured, although with a firmer texture.

Making bacon could hardly be easier: you mix up a cure, rub it on the belly, refrigerate for about a week, then cook to an internal temperature of 150 degrees. We smoked ours over hickory chunks, but you can finish it in the oven if you don't have a smoker.

The two kinds of bacon I made were both sugar cured--one with crushed peppercorns, the other with maple. I forgot that the recipe I used is a little sweeter than I like, but even so, it's fantastic. There is a satisfaction that you get from making bacon yourself that really adds to the end product (or so it seems to me). The flavor is more complex, and you can take the flavor in whatever direction you fancy by adding herbs, garlic, and spices.

New this year was my attempt at guanciale, which is a cured pork cheek that is used similarly to bacon. You can actually make pork cheek bacon (aka jowl bacon), but I wanted to try guanciale because it's an aged product. There is nothing like going to your upstairs bedroom closet and seeing meat hanging in it. It really makes you feel like a pioneer, even though you couldn't possibly live without central air, the internet, and pedicures.

Guanciale photos and a longer explanation will follow, depending on what the final product looks like. When last I checked it, there was a spot of mold on it (not necessarily a deal breaker but we'll see how it goes).

If you are a mood to make your own bacon, here are instrutions directly from Michael Ruhlman:

Home-Cured Bacon

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: October 12, 2010

(adapted from Charcuterie)

—Order five pounds of fresh pork belly from your grocery store, the pork guy at your farmers market, or from a local butcher shop.

—Buy a box of 2-gallon zip-top bags if you don’t have a container big enough to hold the belly.

—Mix the following together in a small bowl:

2 ounces (1/4 cup Morton or Diamond Crystal coarse kosher) salt
2 teaspoons pink curing salt #1 (I use this DQ Cure from Butcher-Packer, $2)
4 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
4 bay leaves, crumbled
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup brown sugar or honey or maple syrup
5 cloves of garlic, smashed with the flat side of a chef’s knife
2 tablespoons juniper berries, lightly crushed (optional)
5 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)

—Put your belly in the zip-top bag or on a sheet tray or in a plastic container.  Rub the salt and spice mixture all over the belly.  Close the bag or cover it with plastic wrap, and stick it in the refrigerator for seven days (get your hands in there and give the spices another good rubbing around midway through).

—After seven days, take it out of the fridge, rinse off all the seasonings under cold water and pat it dry.

—Put it on a sheet tray and put it in the oven (put it on a rack on a sheet tray if you have one) and turn the oven on to 200 degrees F. (if you want to preheat the oven, that’s fine, too). Leave it in the oven for 90 minutes (or, if you want to measure the internal temperature, until it reaches 150 degrees F.).

—Let it cool and refrigerate it until you’re ready to cook it.  But I know.  You won’t be able to wait.  So cut off a piece and cook it.  Taste it, savor it.  Congratulations!  It’s bacon!

Notes:  If you don’t have five pounds of belly, either guesstimate salt based on the above or, if you have a scale, multiply the weight of the belly in ounces or grams by .025 and that’s how many ounces or grams of salt you should use.

If for any reason you find your bacon to be too salty to eat (it happens, especially if you measure your salt by sight, which I sometimes do), simply blanch the bacon and dump the water before sautéing it.

Pink curing salt means “sodium nitrite,” not Himalayan pink salt.  It’s what’s responsible for the bright color and piquant bacony flavor.  You don’t have to use it, but your bacon will turn brown/gray when cooked (you’re cooking it well done, after all), and will taste like pleasantly seasoned spare ribs, porky rather than bacony.

If you have a smoker or a grill, you can smoke the bacon (strictly speaking, it needs to have the pink salt in the cure if you’re going to smoke because, in rare instances, botulism bacteria from spores on the garlic could grow; pink salt eliminates this possibility; but I never worry about this, you’re going to cook it again in any case).

Enjoy!

 

Happy New Year!

Admittedly, I have neglected my blog. Until I looked at it today, I didn't even realize it's been SIX MONTHS since my last post! Holy cow, time flies.

I started 2011 off with a bang participating in the Charcutepalooza adventure, but due to a lot of changes at work and home, I fell off the meat wagon.

My baking wasn't as prolific either, for the same reasons. I did get a few cakes made, like the one at the left.

So what am I going to do in 2012? Hopefully a lot more baking, much of it to be chronicled on my new blog, A Yankee Bakes the South.I will also get back to bacon, too (I have 10 pounds of pork belly thawing as I type).

If the Mayans are correct, I need to really put in an effort this year, as it will be the last! But at the very least I have nearly 12 months of baking and bacon before the apocalypse, so I better start crackin'. I hope you will join me on my journey.

Rhubarb Pie

During the long, cold, dark Minnesota winters, thoughts of spring keep me going. I dream of the day when the snow is gone, the tulips pop up from the still cold ground, and the wrinkled leaves of the rhubarb poke through the soil.

Those days arrived a few weeks ago, and the rhubarb is now ready for harvest. I divided it last year as part of the plant was growing too closely to the ever-expanding peonies, and the new location I chose is better than the last. The rhubarb is taller, thicker and more lush than ever before. Last weekend we picked three of the best stalks and made the first rhubarb pie of the season. It's a rhubarb custard pie, and the recipe was handed down to me by my grandmother. Of course, I can never leave well enough alone so I've tweaked it a bit - pumping up the amount of rhubarb and adding a dash of vanilla. It's easy to make and the perfect pie to kick off the spring season.

The recipe below makes a 9" inch pie, but depending on the pie pan, you may have a little more filling than the pan will hold. If that is the case, bake any leftover filling in a small bowl and eat it warm out of the oven.

Rhubarb Pie
Makes 1 - 9" pie

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons arrowroot powder or cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups rhubarb, diced small
Pie crust for 9" pie, plus extra for lattice top (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and adjust rack to lower-middle position. Roll out pie crust and place in 9" pie pan, crimping edges decoratively. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs and sugar into cream. Stir in vanilla extract and then rhubarb. Pour into pie shell and add lattice crust if using. Place in preheated oven and bake until bubbly, 45 minutes to an hour. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until firm.

A Tonic for Any Weather

The weather here in Minnesota is nothing if not exasperating.Today there was a tornado close to our friends' house (luckily they are okay, but at least 1 person died). This disturbing, violent spring weather comes on the heels of a long, snowy, cold, snowy winter (did I mention snowy?).

But even though the days may be stormy, there is always an oasis waiting in the liquor cabinet. Recently I tried something new--Applejack. I still don't know what it is, really, but that didn't stop me from mixing it with orange juice, lime juice, and Grand Marnier for a tasty drink. A couple of these and the edge is gone; I can sit on the front porch and laugh at the rain. (And curse the weeds in my yard. Why can't my tomatoes grow that fast?) 

Splitsville

Even though I am not baking right now, my sweet tooth is still calling out for treats (my other tooth is calling out for a dentist, but I am afraid...very afraid...). Since the weather has warmed up all the way to the 60s (mental note: move farther south), I have been craving ice cream. But I couldn't decide on what flavor, so my indecision as usual caused me more work as I decided to make Neapolitan ice cream. And what better use for three ice cream flavors than a banana split?

The recipes are as follows: Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream by David Lebovitz, Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (registration required) - modified from the original recipe by Cook's Illustrated, and Chocolate Ice Cream by Pierre Herme.

I have two bowls for my Cuisinart ice cream maker, so I was able to do one right after the other, and then re-chill the bowl while the second one was churning. That worked okay, but the last ice cream took a lot longer to churn and the texture was a bit more icy than desirable which I attribute to the bowl not being quite cold enough. However, they all turned out great.

The strawberry sour cream is the best of the bunch. The sour cream adds a tang but the strawberry flavor shines through. It also has the best texture of the bunch, probably because it has alcohol in it. The chocolate ice cream is very simple, a Philadelphia-style ice cream (no eggs) and with only 4 ingredients. It's very, very rich and also sets up rock hard but counterintuitively melts very quickly. It's best eaten the day it's made.

The vanilla ice cream is miles better than anything commercial. I use fewer yolks than Cook's Illustrated recommends because I don't care for the texture or the taste if the custard is too...custardy.

To round out the banana split, I diced fresh pineapple and, channeling my inner Paula Deen, simmered it with butter and sugar to make a rich and delicious topping. The chocolate sauce was also utter simplicity: equal parts cream and chocolate. Of course I whipped up some cream for gilding the lily and tradition forced me to use the jarred maraschino cherry. That will probably be my next challenge: canning my own cherries for toppings like this. It's about the only thing that I don't make from scratch!

Taking a baking break

Between my last post and this one, I've baked up another storm of tasty treats, a few of which are pictured here. First up are yummy s'mores cupcakes. Each of these little gems contains a graham cracker base, chocolate cupcake with a chocolate ganache center (recipe from Cook's Illustrated), and a fluffy icing that I torched with my handy-dandy propane torch. A word to the wise: cupcake papers are extremely flammable. Stick with the foil cups for this project. The final touch is a square of the ubiquitous Hershey's chocolate bar. Sometimes you just gotta stick with the traditional.

Up next is a coconut-lemon layer cake with Italian meringue icing, one of my favorite cakes. The flavors and textures marry so well and it's easy to decorate since the sides have toasted coconut to hide all the flaws. 

Last, and in this case least, we have a cake on which I suffered an utter lack of artistic thought. I had really wanted to make a cherry blossom cake, very sparse, modern and clean, but I didn't have time to break out the gumpaste. So I just mixed up some lavender icing, put on a drop flower tip, and went to town. Luckily the people for whom I made it enjoyed the taste and weren't put off by the decorating, so all ended well. It was a vanilla cake with lemon curd filling and just a touch of raspberry between the layers. It too had an Italian meringue icing (gosh that stuff is addictive).

Not pictured are all the treats I made for our employee appreciation luncheon at work. I made a layer cake (kinda sorta an Italian Cream Cake), two kinds of cheesecakes, eclairs, and triple chocolate brownies. I did all of this in the midst of a bad cold/sinus infection from which I am still recuperating.

So after all of this baking I gave myself a baking vacation. I'm into week 2 of not baking anything. People are wondering if something is gravely wrong with me, but I just need a break. After I get over this nasty sinus crap I'm sure I'll be rarin' to go on another project.

Baking Frenzy

I'm in the midst of a spring baking frenzy. Pictured at left are mini-cupcakes made for a friend's business open house. I made dark chocolate cupcakes with a milk chocolate icing, lemon cupcakes with a white chocolate-lemon icing, and vanilla cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream.

The milk chocolate icing was a case study in fixing my mistakes. I wanted a milk chocolate ganache but forgot  how much cream to use. I ended up making sauce instead of ganache, so I decided to add powdered sugar. After adding a lot of powdered sugar the ganache was still too soft and now way too sweet, so I beat in some butter (two sticks to be precise). Holy cow that turned out to be genius! The icing was silky, with a divine milk chocolate flavor - it's true, everything is better with butter. I can't wait to try it with malted milk powder. It could be an epic recipe once I tinker with it.

Pictured below the cupcakes is a first birthday cake featuring Elmo from Sesame Street. I am undecided about putting beheaded children's icons onto cakes. While Elmo's eyes are always look like that, the fact that only his head is on the cake makes it look like he is in shock with his mouth gaping at the awful fate that befell him. Luckily the birthday girl adored the cake and had no qualms about the rest of his body being missing. The head is a round cake made from sandwiching two hemispheres from Wilton's small hemisphere pan (6 cavities in one pan).  The rest is just icing including the eyeballs and nose.

Below Elmo are two "adult" cakes that accompanied him to the birthday party. They are are orange cakes with an orange whipped cream filling and an Italian meringue buttercream icing. 

I sprinkled the cakes with a Grand Marnier syrup and coated them with apricot preserves before adding the whipped cream filling to the layers (there were four layers). Even though I used gelatin in the whipped cream filling, it was a little loose to hold up the cake and there was some sagging on the ends.

The daisies and leaves are made of gum paste (my first foray into this medium). I used the pre-made Wilton gumpaste and it was very easy to work with. While it is technically edible, it sure doesn't taste good. I would like expand on my gumpaste ability and create mums or lilies with it, using an airbrush (which I would need to purchase) so I can create ultra-realistic flowers. Or maybe not.

I also made a pineapple upside down cake this weekend but there are no photos. And, there are more cakes to come later this week! I had hoped to do Easter egg cakes but it doesn't look like I'll have the time this year.  Maybe I can use that pan to make football cakes for tailgate parties this fall. Does anyone have other suggestions for the use of egg-shaped cakes? 

Chacutepalooza Challenge 4: Smokin'

Hot smoking, that is...

This month's Charcutepalooza challenge is hot smoking. Here in Minnesota, it's been a challenge to do anything like using a grill outside for oh, say, the last SIX MONTHS. In fact, when this challenge was posted, our smoker was still hibernating in two feet of snow next to the garage. However, I was determined to finish the challenge even if I had to stand outside in the snow, shivering while I chucked hardwood charcoal into the firebox (and when I say "I", I mean my husband - thanks sweetie!).

Pictured above is extremely tasty smoked Canadian bacon. Homemade Canadian bacon is so superior to the plastic-packaged, plastic-tasting grocery store offering that I now refuse to eat the store bought version. I've been forever spoiled for the sweet, smoky flavor of homemade Canadian bacon. And it's easy - one of the easiest charcuterie items I've made.

Of course, we are using a recipe from Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn. (Can I just mention that I am super excited about the follow up version of this tome that is set to hit the stores later this year? I can't wait!) This is where I have to show off. (Remember Show and Tell from elementary school? this is like that, only for once I have something worth showing, unlike in grade school. Kids can be brutal, especially to others who don't have the resources to get the "good stuff." Not that I'm carrying a grudge or anything.) Anyhoo, I've had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ruhlman on a few occasions where he demonstrated various cooking techniques and also signed books. He signed a couple of books for me including this one:

But enough about me. Let's talk about Canadian bacon. My love of American bacon knows no bounds, but choosing between it and Canadian bacon would be difficult. Cured, smoked pork belly can only possibly be matched by cured, smoked pork loin. It is denser, leaner, and the counterplay between the smoke and the natural sweetness of the pork is phenomenal.

To make Canadian bacon, you brine pork loin in a solution that contains pink salt, kosher salt and aromatics including thyme and sage. (No parsley or rosemary, though.) After a couple of days, the loin is removed and air dried for a day or two, then hot smoked to an internal temperature of 150 degrees.

I used a pork sirloin instead of the center cut pork because a) it was on sale, and b) it was on sale. What can I say, I'm a cheapskate at heart. What I didn't use was any "enhanced" meat - this was au naturel, high quality locally-raised pork. Pretty much everyone who lives in Minnesota or Iowa eats locally raised pork since it's a huge industry in the area.

I must digress but for a moment. My uncle used to raise pigs, and we would butcher a couple every fall. It's amazing to witness an old-time butchering, where in truth they use "everything but the squeal." The intestines were turned inside out, washed, and turned back to use for sausage casings, the blood was collected (and continually stirred to avoid clotting) to be used in blood sausage, the head was boiled and used in head cheese (natch), and on and on. My only regret is that I was too young to have input on the use of certain pig parts like the jowl. I would love to have had some guanciale from those pigs!

Back to the bacon. Smoking the pork loin isn't as fussy as one would think. My husband built a fire out of lump hardwood charcoal in the firebox and maintained a pretty steady 225 degrees in the big chamber. The same results could be obtained in a kettle style grill by putting the coals to one side and setting the pork on the other. Our preference for a smoking wood is good old-fashioned hickory. It provides a pronounced smokiness that we prefer to some of the more delicate woods like apple or cherry. And of course we don't like regular charcoal because of all the nasty additives which, in addition to probably being quite unhealthy, add an off flavor to the meat. The smoking only took about 3 1/2 hours.

While the "go to" recipe using Canadian bacon is the venerable Eggs Benedict, my husband doesn't like hollandaise sauce (you'll have to forgive me - I married him before I knew that fact), so I decided to make a pizza and use the Canadian bacon as a topping. I used a simple, quick pizza dough because I cannot seem to plan ahead for a more complex (and probably tastier) overnight-ferment dough. I topped the pizza with a homemade tomato sauce heavy on the fennel, Canadian bacon, and thinly-sliced fresh pineapple.

To all the pizza purists crying out in anger, despair and utter frustration, I make no apologies and stand by my decision to add pineapple to pizza. This is considered heresy by many, but darn it, it tastes so good! To paraphrase an old tune, "if loving this is wrong, I don't wanna be right."

My husband is taking the first piece of the pie below (I'm so considerate...actually, it's only because he got to it before I had a chance to take a photo of myself grabbing a piece.)

Quick Pizza Dough

12 ounces (2 1/2 cups) all purpose flour
4 ounces (1 cup) cake flour
1 1/3 cups warm water (about 105 degrees)
2 1/2 teaspoons instant or active dry yeast
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven with baking stone to 450 degrees F.

Put both flours and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine. In a small bowl, stir together the water and yeast and, if using active dry yeast, let sit until bubby (you don't have to let the instant yeast sit).

Stir olive oil into the water/yeast mixture and, while the processor is running, pour all but 2 tablespoons of it over the flour. Process until the dough comes together in a ball, adding reserved water or flour if necessary to get a cohesive, tacky but not sticky dough. Let dough sit in the food processor bowl for about 10 minutes.

Divide dough in half and cover one half with a damp kitchen towel. Roll out the other half onto a piece of baking parchment until it's about 15 inches in diameter and quite thin (go as thin as you like). Using a fork, prick the dough all over.

Slide dough, parchment and all, onto baking stone and par-bake the dough for about 8 minutes or until it just begins to turn brown in a few spots. Poke any large holes that arise with a skewer.

Carefully remove the crust (it should be fairly stiff) and cover with sauce, toppings and cheese. Don't go overboad with the toppings. Return to oven and bake until cheese is bubbly.