Things wot I Made Then Ate

baguette

2012-01-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

apple with cheese

2012-01-31T03:05:00.000-08:00

Caraway seed. Basil from the grocery live plant that will not stop.

It's the kind of basil that comes in a small bunch. It already had roots. It's been put in a jar and benefits from irregular low wattage fluorescent lights. I've been dipping a chopstick in this liquid fertilizer which is like thin mud. Then dip the chopstick in the basil's water to clear off the fertilizer mud directly into the plants roots. I've done this three times. Each time the plant instantly grows tiny new leaves. It's the thing casting the shadows and it grows so fast it's messing up the shadow casting by filling in too thickly. I have to keep picking leaves off it to create holes. That's why this apple has basil leaves on it.

Caraway goes great with apple and cheese.

fried chicken

2012-01-30T22:30:00.000-08:00

ARTS !

This is the chicken that the guy chopped up in five seconds and bagged so I wouldn't have to touch it. The backbone segment is included too so I have that for stock. I didn't touch that either.

The spices were seeds that were crushed in a heavy ~~morter~~ ~~mortor~~ mortar and ~~pedestal~~ ~~pistol~~ pestle.

I kept the lid on the cast iron pan. It is very heavy. There was not much oil but a lot of liquid was released during cooking. The pieces braised on moderately low stovetop heat for forty-five minutes. Turned once.

angel hair pasta

2012-01-29T22:55:00.000-08:00

A return to something sure and familiar.

To hustle past the recent memory of something unpleasant.

Don't you hate it when somebody squeezes the anchovy paste tube in the middle?

Kidding. I don't even remember using that. I saw it on the teevee and it seemed like a good idea.

The two pastes are squeezed directly onto the hot pan along with the spices that are heated, to put a little singe on the pastes and another layer of flavor developed.

A few things are crushed with the mortar and pestle.

* mustard seeds. My new favorite thing. I think I like them in everything.

* fennel seeds. My other new favorite thing that goes in everything

* black pepper already ground to coarse

* sea salt, very small amount because the cheese from Parma has a lot of salt

Then also:

* Parmigiano Reggiano, indiscusso il re di tutti i formagi duri.

* nutmeg, I do not know why. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It goes well with the cheese but it will be nearly overwhelmed by the other spice.

lychee in lemon JELL-O

2012-01-29T00:40:00.000-08:00

Tinned lychee. I had this tin in the pantry for a long time. I was interested to know what lychee is. They look nice.

Red Cock on the Mountain. Brand.

The lid to the tin is nice too.

So that is what they are. I tasted one. It was okay. The syrup could not be used.

It is altogether quite ugly. Looks like mushrooms are in it.

This is what the thing that I ate looks like. All the rest of the whipped cream.

The balsamic was impulse. I was going for the vanilla extract to whip into the cream when I noticed the balsamic. I almost substituted to see what the acid would do to the the cream once it is whipped but then decided not to test that.

I feel a little bit ill.

Conclusion: I don't like it at all. Plain lemon JELL-O would be better. But I am not going to let this one tin and lemon JELL-O experience ruin lychees for me. They are very popular so I will keep an eye out for them in a different form and try again.

spaghetti with cream

2012-01-28T02:16:00.000-08:00

Cream is the sauce.

A mixture of ground spices is prepared from whole seeds to coat the pasta. Olive oil is drizzled to the extent that it is needed to keep the pasta moist and to help the ground seeds adhere.

The idea is that the spices coating the pasta will eventually combine with the cream but at the table and not at the stove. Cream becomes a flavorful sauce by moving the pasta around the plate.

* dark mustard seeds, these things are tiny

* fennel seeds, these sound good in everything lately.

* cumin, a very small amount to compliment but not compete

* hot chile flakes, tiny amount for a little oomph

* gray sea salt

* ground black pepper, not whole seeds because I wanted to go fast and my grinder is fairly coarse.

* nutmeg scraped over the whole finished plate.

It is odd not to include Parmigiano Reggiano when it is sitting right there ready to go, but tonight is different. A squirt of lemon is directed onto the pile of pasta which brightens the noodles and does affect the cream eventually turning it into the familiar consistency of sour cream except flavored with lemon and the spices coating the pasta. So the cream becomes flavorful sauce then becomes flavorful sour cream, which is a delightful transformation to observe right there on the plate.

Parmesan cheese could participate in the splendor of the transformation, and usually does, but not tonight.

scrambled eggs with avocado, corn meal, cheese crackers

2012-01-27T03:55:00.000-08:00

So now you see why I needed cheese crackers.

To make a stegosaurus.

What is it with boys and dinosaurs anyway?

It's a thing. Il est le petit garçon en lui, n'est-ce pas? Il aime jouer à un jeu de dinosaures.

These scrambled eggs will have avocado folded in at the end. Seasoned avocado.

I do not have any sour cream, any crème fraîche, any buttermilk, nor Mexican crema. But I do have yogurt, and I do have heavy cream.

Heavy cream is soured with lemon and my own mustard and seasoned with the same spice mixture that seasoned the cheese crackers. The citric acid thickens the cream more than it already is. Within a few minutes the cream becomes the consistency of familiar sour cream.

The sour cream does two things.

* It flavors the scrambled eggs as if they were a sauce. It is the same thing going on except a little farther than a sauce goes.

* Slams the brakes on the cooking action and reverses slightly the process of thickening the eggs. That is, the eggs are actually stiffened ever so slightly beyond the desired thickness and whisked back to sauce consistency with the addition of sour cream.

It is important to have the emergency brakes ready at hand when the moment comes to halt the cooking action.

That is all there is to say except will you please stop playing with your food?

cheese crackers

2012-01-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

The cheese is produced by the impressive cheese makers of Wisconsin. It was on sale at Whole Foods and it is a very good cheddar. I wish I had bought more. This is the last 5 ounces.

You can make crackers directly from cheese, as a parmesan tulle. Grated cheese directly onto parchment paper or Silpat. Such a cheese tulle can be formed while it is still hot and pliable, shaped around a drinking glass, formed into a basket, and so forth. But cheese crackers are different from that.

It's as if you are diluting the cheese with flour. Making up for the dilution with spices, apologizing for it by increased flavor, compensating for the blandness of the stretching material with excitement. And more fat. Good fat.

So the cheese is turned into particles surrounded by flour particles. Then water is added to turn the flour therein to paste that unites and holds everything together. A paste that can be dealt with. A paste in the form of dough. Wet dough that can be lightened with baking powder. Flavored. Manipulated. Moistened or dried. Spread out thinly or thickly. Decorated if desired. Baked.

The whirling disc of death. It does in half a second FrrrrrraP! what would otherwise take ... several, um ... well I guess it saves a couple of minutes.

The whirling disc of death is switched out for the spinning scimitars of massacre. Two cups all purpose flour added and processed further. More than shown below. To near complete homogenization of cheese and butter and flour.

Water is added incrementally through the feed tube while processing. Do not tarry. It is very easy to overprocess once the flour gets wet. You do not want to develop the gluten as you would with bread. Here the flour is stretching material for the cheese and glue to form a stiff paste with cheese, it is not intended to build a gluten network that is expected to contain expanding air bubbles.

The seeds of life with the spinning short blades of hurt. The coriander and the cumin seeds have potential. Up until now they could have grown. Odd, to value the seeds for their flavor more than for their growing potential, but that's the way it is. I don't think the pepper seeds would grow. They've been through too much already, boiled or something as part of the process. I never tried planting black peppercorns.

At length I did learn that each round coriander seed is actually two seeds. That is why two plants sprout from one spot when they finally get around to germinating.

The cheese-paste, the dough, is rolled out. The dough could have been wetter, it could have been rolled out more thinly, it could have gone undocked, it could have taken less spices.

Space-saving animated GIF. If you would prefer the jpg version of the photos.

bacon and eggs with hash brown potatoes and toast

2012-01-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

Not shown: a single chipotle en adobo chopped up fine. They come in tiny tins around these parts, but even that is too much for usual things so most of it was stored in a jar from last time.

The problem with that is the jar I used with its distinctive lid is a recycled jam jar and the chipotle in adobo inside it looks a lot like the original raspberry jam which is already replaced so there are two similar-looking things in there that are vastly different in taste and effect.

It is also a mess. It stains everything it touches. Cutting boards must be bleached after cutting up one or two of them. It's the adobo sauce that does it.

I never put bacon in a pan without separating them before. They separated themselves. With a little encouragement. Like this:

"Line up!"

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, I almost forgot.

When the chips off the potato way up there ↑ are parboiled before they are fried, a little bit of vinegar in the water indurates the surface of the potato allowing the interior to soften while maintaining its shape. Indurate -- it's a wuuuurd.

This acid in the water thing for parboiled potatoes also goes for chips that are fries and chips that are crisps and chips that are chips like these chips here. I would say, oh, one tablespoon or so of vinegar, however much spills out when you pour it and it goes glug glug.

vegetable soup with chicken

2012-01-24T20:35:00.000-08:00

Fresh vegetables ↑ seen now mise en place.

If you stick with the soup-making odyssey they will be seen again mise en placed.

See? Now that's just good drama.

Have you ever thought about soup assemblage not so much as closely following a recipe as pursuing an idea? And scrounging, but mostly scrounging.

Scrounged, foraged, ↓ found and salvaged items.

Leftovers, as it were. They do have a few positive things going for them.

1. At some point I thought it was a good idea.

2. Whatever it is, it was cooked well.

3. At the time it seemed worth saving

4. It was carefully handled and stored.

5. It's available now and it is instant

6. It's already cooked

7. It's something good or it wouldn't be here.

8. It most likely won't kill me or else I'd be dead already unless there was a problem since then and I'm pretty sure I'm not dead

9. It's not going to be something I hate

10. I get self-congratulatory conservation brownie points

I don't know ↓. I was trying to get the shimmering hot oil in the pan because I think it's pretty. The camera went real close. This is a piece of the edge viewed at 100% apparently in the camera lens world this is called 1:1 but it looks a lot bigger than that.

So that's a lot of stuff innit.

There's more:

* vegetable oil to start the vegetables

* Asian flavor liquids

* soy sauce

* sake rice wine

* sugar in place of mirin

* homemade chicken broth. All of the remainder of the last batch

* water

* spices

* pepper but not salt because soy is taking that place

* chile flakes

* garlic powder because I don't have real garlic right now

* ginger powder because I don't feel like dealing with the real ginger that I have right now

* coriander powder because I love its earthy mid-tone enhancement that plays so well in chords

* cumin powder because I am entranced by all the wonderful sensations this exotic aroma evokes

* absolutely no fenugreek -- because what? -- do you think I'm insane?

cheese sandwich

2012-01-23T22:08:00.000-08:00

Mozzarella sandwich, Parmigiano Reggiano sandwich, Italian cheese sandwich, spices in cheese sandwich, sandwich del formaggio, pan-fried cheese sandwich, panini formaggio, cheese sandwich fried in butter.

There.

The bread is mine, mine, all mine, and so is the mustard.

It is imperative that the cheese melts or else you will lose the contest in your mind.

Bread toasts, cheese melts. Those are the only two things going on. Fail either one and you totally fail.

For this reason, the toasting action is slowed slightly and the melting action increased slightly by covering the sandwich while it fries and dropping water into the pan by the teaspoon here and there. That tends to kill the frying action momentarily and creates steam that melts the cheese. The caramelization on the surface of the bread recovers from the unexpected infusion of steam. It recombines as you will see in the final photographs.

Guess what this is.

Guess, I said.

Fenugreek.

Fenugreek would have no natural place in an Italian cheese sandwich, yet here it is, boldly crossing the line over to an area where it knows it doesn't belong, but not caring. It deserves to get beat up. It is joining forces with other rogue flavor elements like cayenne and black pepper and mustard just to see what kind of trouble they can get up to, and boy, do they.

Oh my God. This picture is freaking me out. Especially at an angle, then I'm doubly freaked out.

Did I just now say freaked out? I'm sorry, I meant to say amused, but oh my God this picture is amusing me was insufficiently dramatic.

This photo is like the 3-d king Tut mummy mask photo I had in the 5th grade. I loved that thing. I stared at it all the time as if it were as interesting as, say, a washing machine with a window. The fish that I caught in a river were too big for the aquarium I put them in. They kept splashing all over the place and ruined my 3-d king Tut picture along with a dresser top. I didn't care about the dresser top but I never forgave those fish for ruining my 3-d picture of king Tut's mummy mask. I never forgave trout.

A look at the dark parts.

mixed meat sandwich on chickpea bread

2012-01-23T00:33:00.000-08:00

This sandwich took 24 hours to make. Behold a moment its hand-food savory goodness.

For the full twenty-four hour ordeal the one single recurring thought that kept running through the cook's mind like a corrupted MP3 file stuck playing an endless loop over and over and over as he slogged through each step of the aimless desultory and debilitating sandwich-assembling process was, "Assemble, sandwich. Assemble."

Biga. Poolish. Prefermentation. ↑ 1/2 the water started in advance with minimal yeast.

Turned into this ↓ 18 hours later. It smells strongly of alcohol.

A handful of chickpeas ↓ ground to dust in the coffee mill included in the second half

That makes this dough 100% chickpea, according to industry's market-speak.

But it is enough to color its half of the dough noticeably.

The second half contains a full measure of yeast. No messing around today.

New Dough meets Biga and it's love at first sight.

Now that they are introduced, might as well lay down together and get married.

Whispers: Let us be as one.

It's okay, they're married.

After all that I got distracted and the loaf overproofed. I intended the loaf to go into the oven when the yeast began to enter its peak activity. I got to it late. The loaf had already peaked. This mistake would affect the shape and overall look of the finished loaf but nothing else. It turned out fine.

Alas, for I am without lettuce. Thus lettuceless. This forces me to think of something else.

KA-POW !

My mustard and my mayonnaise on my bread and if you think that might not make a gigantic favorable difference, well then, it's pistols at 30 paces, Buddy.

This basil is from the grocery store. It's rooting in a glass of water and it's growing faster than I'm picking it.

So is that thirty paces total or thirty paces each? I'm asking because I'm new to this, I never did a duel before and it seems like fifteen steps is kind of close. But then I'd hate be taking thirty steps and have you spin around at fifteen steps and shoot me expecting me to do the same. It's important to sort the details before we start out.

Oh Man, this sandwich is good.

chocolate Han Solo in carbonite production

2012-01-22T01:06:00.000-08:00

This is the final production phase. The candy is already being given away, feedback is positive. Two women scarfed the smaller chocolate without noticing or without commenting on Han Solo.

* chocolate Han Solo mold test.
* boxes for chocolate candy and tempering
* boxes for chocolate, obnoxious pedantry, tempering
* couverture, boxes for chocolate, tempering analogy, blooming
* white chocolate, fermentation, chocolate processing

Japanese noodles

2012-01-21T02:57:00.000-08:00

Japanese sauce. I am not even sure they would claim this, so let's say Japanese-inspired sauce. This is what happens when a guy doesn't know what he's doing but he does it anyway and ends up with something delicious.

* oil to get things crackling

then

* sugar, instead of mirin, because I felt like it

* soy sauce

* sake rice wine

* garlic powder

* ginger powder

The main thing I wanted was napa cabbage mixed with wheat noodles in a Japanese style. Everything followed from that.

I could have used real ginger and real garlic but I was too lazy for that. I could have used tofu, or I could have added chicken, or peas, or beans, or egg, or shrimp, or salmon, or halibut, or hamburger, or steak, or pork, other spices like Chinese five-spice, or star anise, or miso, or eggplant, or celery, avocado, tomato, cooked beans, scallops, shallots, apple, raisins, uncured ham, chipotle turkey. See all the things that could have happened tonight but didn't? I'm kind of glad that I am basically lazy or else this could have ended up a real mess. Like a pizza with too many things on it so that you don't taste anything except mass confusion. This avoided that fate.

Han Solo wrapped

2012-01-20T20:21:00.000-08:00

Remember, you are a little kid and you are handed this. All you might know is that it is chocolate and for some reason it has "H.S." on it carelessly scratched in pencil.

This is wrapping for the larger version of Han Solo. I was going for a Sand People of Tatooine kind of look, perhaps potato sack burlap, judogi with a belt kind of thing, like the clothes Luke Skywalker is seen wearing.

I still do not have the boxes worked out for the smaller version which actually might be the more useful size. I think unattractive dull gray would be great for the wrappers.

For this size it should be a box frame with handles that levitates for ease of handling but that is impractical so I want something to invoke the idea of Star Wars without actually saying it or without actually copying the device they used to carry off Han Solo in carbonite.

The problem with this is tearing the card stock to get a rough edge. That part is my least favorite thing.

I ordered nine more of the silicone molds for these and they arrived today. I already invited people over for a fun time of chocolate tempering but oddly they haven't responded yet and I'm over here thinking, "Come on. Who wouldn't jump right on that?"

So more of this later.

hamburger helper

2012-01-19T19:02:00.000-08:00

If you've ever been tempted to buy a box of Hamburger Helper™, then punch yourself in the face really hard, and keep punching until you wise up.

This post will show an imitation of Hamburger Helper™ which is already an imitation of something else. It will not show an imitation of the original thing, whatever that was.

You can be excused for relying on Hamburger Helper™ if you honestly do not know anything and are trying to learn. The product can give you a start, I suppose. But in very short order you should catch on to what is going on there and strike out on your own for better results, and if not then I do not know what to tell you except you probably are not all that interested.

Open up your window wide so this thing arrays properly.

There. Butter, spices, flour to start a roux, milk to turn the roux into a sauce. A regular Béchamel with extra spices but no nutmeg because the extra spices used here would completely wipe out nutmeg, unless you overdid it with the nutmeg to insist on its presence being noted above everything else but that would be disgusting. Don't worry. Nutmeg's absence is made up for by, wait for it ...

fenugreek!

which is the new thing for me that is the old thing everybody else already knew about thus leaving me behind to catch up on my own.

I also ground up fennel seed and coriander seed with the fenugreek. I do not know why I used fennel. I am liking fennel seed in everything right now. I am forming the opinion that fennel seed in an excellent and underutilized spice.

So, there is all of that, and that is all anyone should need to leave Hamburger Helper™ in the I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing dust. And now having caught on to what Hamburger Helper™ is doing you will also realize that whatever hamburger meat is doing here for Hamburger Helper™ then another cut of meat in another form could undoubtedly do it better. Buy a small roast and knock chips off of it. Bang. Already better than hamburger.

What follows is pure extravagance. The meal does not deserve this treatment.

Eeeew, gross me out all over the place.

fried chicken

2012-01-18T19:20:00.000-08:00

The other day right after that guy at Whole Foods chopped up the chicken in three seconds I turned the corner and saw the packages Bell & Evans chickens in another separate chilling case. So I thought I'd try my hand at what he had just done. I didn't time myself tonight but it took over a minute and I nicked my finger. Fail.

I scooped out twice as much flour as needed. The spices including ... wait for it ...

fenugreek

were unnecessarily diluted with surplus flour that was discarded and so represent an unacceptable waste. I simply cannot justify such flagrant profligate spice wastage and I do not recommend it.

The vegetable is a disc of napa cabbage nicked off and fried retaining its shape as far as possible. Plus a disc of onion treated the same way. With raisins.

Zócalo, Denver

2012-01-17T22:40:00.000-08:00

Zócalo, the English cognitive is socle. A socle is an architectural plinth that supports a pedestal or a column or some kind of sculpture. A plinth is a block or a square, a base or a platform for column or for a wall. El Zócalo is the alternate name for Plaza de la Constitution. You see, it is a square and it is in the center of town and it supports metaphorically the whole city. Or something. I don't know. What am I, an anthropological etymologist?

The food came to us after ordering nearly immediately, few other people were there between shifts on this utterly frozen mid January day, and the meals were exactly what you would expect, and I mean exactly.

Except different. The pico de gallo is slightly different, and John said that so is the mole. ¡Olé!

My combo, ↑ and ↓↓, relleno, burrito, taco. "E" on their menu. The relleno is just the way I like 'em -- as if they were egg rolls. That is the way that I learned them so that is the way that I like them even though they are wrong wrong wrong. They are so wrong that they twist upon themselves in wrongness. So wrong wrong wrong that they actually become right. But it's good to have a real one once in awhile to stay connected.

John and the waiter joked that I was playing around too long. John dug in and there I was still moving my plate all around and peering at it through a viewfinder and lens, and indeed, my taco fell apart by the time I got around to it, so they were right.

This was my first effort to recover lost weight.

This restaurant is a block from my home and around the corner. I had no idea what they did there. I was glad to learn they serve this fattening stuff. I'll be back there to pack it on. You know, if you need to gain weight, I believe this is probably a good way to go.

Now that I am having a close look at that melted cheese up there ↑ I am starting to feel a little bit dodgy. I keep seeing imaginary restaurant-size bags of pre-shredded near-cheese. Oh no.

John's enchiladas, rice, beans ↓.

orange lentils, hamburger

2012-01-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

Masoor dal. Here is a recipe I pulled off the internet:

* onion
* margarine
* cumin
* turmeric
* clove
* cayenne
* salt
* pepper

No to margarine. What is the point? I am amazed they still make that. Anyway, do you recognize what this recipe needs?

Guess.

* Fenugreek! Of course.

I did not want all that stuff to darken the handsome orange color so originally I kept all that separate from the orange lentils but then I caved and combined them.

When these lentils soaked they looked like they have a little root that is trying to come out and you know what that makes me want to do. Plant them.

The lentils were combined with the butter and spice mixture which could as easily been all cooked together. The lentils never actually boiled. The water boiled but not the lentils. They soaked covered while I mucked about with other things. I never even tested to see if they were done. Apparently there is a wide margin for goofing around.

Red bean hamburger bun.

This is third portion of the dough prepared earlier for the pizza and for the baguette. The dough was one day old then, it is three days old now. It looked to me to be enough for two hamburger buns but after they were baked I saw there could have been at least three. So that is quite a lot of utility for one simple batch of careless dough. Two cups of water and three rounded packed cups of unsifted flour and a very loose scraping together. No real mixing involved starting out.

The dough was hardly kneaded at all back then and that showed in the baguette's crumb. Tsk. They wouldn't like that at the bakery college but it did make very nice sandwiches. So I kneaded this last portion now to make up for my sloven past, and to prove I mean it I gave this third and last portion a boost of flavorful and nutritious bean sludge. I discovered that yeast likes beans and that beans perform very well in bread. I learned this by adding leftover bean dip to bread dough expecting the worst but getting very good results by surprise. These beans here were processed to powder and added to hot water and then boiled for seconds which formed a paste that was spread over the dough then rolled and then thoroughly mixed in and kneaded. It is a very soft dough.

Apologies for the huge file size, but it is nineteen photos in a stack.

1. cold aged dough

2. red beans

3. red bean to powder

4. powder mixed with hot water

5. powder water zapped again to boiling

6. aged dough turned out

7. dough covered with bean paste

8. flattened dough rolled up

9. dough roll stretched

10. dough roll folded

11. dough roll compressed

12 dough roll stretched again

13. dough roll folded again

14. dough roll compressed again

15. dough kneaded

16. dough divided

17. dough transferred to baking tray and covered (not shown)

18. hamburger buns risen

19. hamburger buns baked.

Would you prefer better pictures?

That is it for the hamburger bun. The hamburger is 95% lean which is way way WAY too lean for me but it was on sale, so I added as much olive oil as the ground beef would hold.

Does that sound odd?

The thing is, I just experienced a sudden weight loss. Three belt notches, if that means anything. My pants are hanging by the cuffs arranged by waist size on a pole running the length of a walk-in closet. There are a lot of pants hanging in there and more on the shelf above. If the pants were piano keys then the last month would be like playing the scales down the line of waist sizes to the very end. Plink plink ... plink. Last week I weighed at college-level weight, which is the time when I stopped growing in height and where my present-day pants waists end hanging on the closet pole. Yesterday I dropped to just above High School weight which is alarming because I grew two inches after High School. And that was weighing myself yesterday sopping wet, I just stepped out of the bath. I do not have any High School weight level pants around here. I wear the smallest waist pants sold in men's shops and tuck in two layers of shirt. It sounds insane when I say it but I am down to size 30 waist /36 length. Soon it will be 29/36. Do you realize what that looks like? When I sit on my wallet I tip to one side as if sitting with one side on a brick. The backside is gone as far as I can tell. Now it is just loose baggy pants seat back there. I kept wondering what all that folded fabric is that I am sitting on. It was so annoying. Now it's pathetic. So something has got to give. I want that weight back, it took my whole life to earn it.

I resolve to stop this downward trend and reverse it.

The hamburger is large. I already ate half of it and I am going to eat the rest of this thing if takes all night.

scrambled eggs

2012-01-15T19:30:00.000-08:00

I do not know what fenugreek is. I do not know what it does, what is expected of it. This is a test for fenugreek. This pile of scrambled eggs is all about fenugreek.

That is, when the pile of scrambled eggs is not being about Parmigiano and scallion and chile pepper flakes and uncured ham. Those flavors I am very familiar with but fenugreek will push through all that and expose itself. The full monty. And then I will know fenugreek for what it is.

The fenugreek seems to be hard little brown seeds. They are difficult to crush completely. They go flying all over the place. Now I am stepping on the hard seeds that flew out of the molcajete onto the kitchen floor. The fenugreek is heated in a little pot along with chile flakes.

Testing: uno ... dos ... tres ... catorce.

See, we photographer-types like to change things around until we see something we like. You know, to get set up before the action starts. Now it is become part of the mise en place.

Did I ever tell you how my dad got set up to paint a room? He dragged out every tool known to house painting. Tarp, masking tape, newspaper, stirring sticks, drill with a long paint-mixer bit, ladders, trays, rollers, buckets, rags, drop clothes, rolls of plastic, brushes, painters cap, painters pants, shop vac, broom, mop, pole extenders, cans of primer, all the paint, TSP for wall preparation, rubber gloves for the TSP, compressor in case it's needed, compressor hose, compressor nozzle, face masks, goggles, painters blue tape, corner rollers, sawhorse, coils of electric cord, hanging garage lights with reflector backs and light-protector cages, shoe protectors, electric fans, large screwdrivers to open paint cans, rubber mallets to bang them closed. He wasn't satisfied until the entire space was completely cluttered and unworkable. That is my dad's room-painting mise en place.

A small slice of toast on a white plate is not interesting. Mind the shadows.

The eggs I let go for about 30 seconds longer than usual on heat that is hotter than usual so these eggs are are more firm than usual, a little less like sauce but still very wet and loose compared to what I see outside of home, but that is not so important because now I know fenugreek. It is the flavor I associate with India.

I think it should not be used in heavy doses as I did here, and it isn't all that great on its own. By itself in unreasonably heavy amount it seems to create a negative space that needs something else to fill it. The odor has already separately registered and the taste is imprinted. As I persist the fenugreek takes a shape in my mind. With each bite the shape grows. An incomplete ring. An atoll. As buildup strengthens it grows heavy and finally oppressive, its missing portion also grows like an ache. It needs something. Something opposite to fenugreek, but I cannot imagine right now what that would be.

It might be one of those things that cannot be complimented or contrasted with just one thing. It's a team player. I think saffron is like that. I find it not that great by itself and no one single thing makes a great combination, and yet used judiciously it can be triangulated and quadranglulated <--neologism. I can see now how fenugreek would be an important element in a curry, and it is also going to fill out stews and the like very nicely.

Speaking of spices I don't know much about, the people at Whole Foods were amused when I bought three-fourths of their mustard powder along with a bag of yellow mustard seeds and a bag of brown mustard seeds for further experimentation. They knew I must be up to something and asked me. There at the self-service spice counter, and through the place, and then again at checkout.

Also, I asked the guy behind the meat counter if he would cut up a whole chicken and put it in a plastic bag. So that I wouldn't have to touch it but I didn't tell him that. I don't know what is got into me but touching raw chicken is freaking me out. It causes me to go around bleaching my entire kitchen to make sure I got every surface. It's ridiculous. Anyway, the guy goes,

"Sure!"

))) WHAP ! (((

))) BANG ! (((

done

Dude. You dismembered that bird fast.

turkey sandwich

2012-01-14T20:07:00.000-08:00

Baguette wot I made. Mayonnaise wot I made and boy is it good. Cheddar wot the people in Wisconsin made. Chipotle turkey wot some place famous made and I will tell you something, if you are to name a product chipotle it had better be hot and this is not. But that can be fixed.

When it comes to managing the power of the mighty chile it is impossible to please everybody. To put a low amount of chipotle in the product in order to be least offensive to the greatest number of customers is a bad decision in my opinion. Who does it please? What market is there for imperceptible chipotle products? Customers looking for POW will not buy it anymore and people who prefer imperceptible chipotle for fear of it being normal strength will not buy it at all. Boo.

Napa cabbage leaves and white onion were soaked in water with vinegar and sugar and little salt.

baguette

2012-01-13T21:40:00.000-08:00

More of a baton than a baguette for my oven is short, or a bâtard, but that is a potty-mouth word over here in America so saying it causes my cheeks to heat and turn red.

Not.

The careless shaggy dough shown in the previous post down there ↓ that prefermented and developed into a slightly aged sponge is stretched on a floured work surface where it picks up additional flour and proofs a second time covered by an overturned storage tub. This redistribution by stretching and the influx of fresh food from the work surface is a big thing for nearly exhausted yeast cells. They take advantage of the situation. They have to, it's part of yeast-nature. The plastic storage tub is a convenient way to fashion a proofing box as they are the same dimensions as half sheet baking trays, and they are sold both deep and shallow.

Once again I forgot the salt. I am a dunce.

The dough was so sad-looking when it went into the oven. Loose and wet. Flabby. Not taut and ready to pounce as you might expect. Nothing happened when the dough was slashed as if there was no life left in it. Placed into an exceedingly hot oven it appears to have no chance at all, and indeed, I have baked such loaves that finished as they started. But now I have a new understanding and a secret weapon.

Dough can expand in a hot oven if it is wet enough for long enough. The wet dough must remain pliable while it heats up fast. If the skin bakes before the internal bubbles heat and expand then they must break through for steam and air to escape. But if the dough is wet and stays wet then the skin can expand to accommodate expanding internal bubbles. This is accomplished by steady pulses of steam for the first ten minutes of baking, and you can stand there and watch through the oven window the sad wrinkled stretch of exhausted-looking dough slowly expand then suddenly expand like a balloon and lift itself off the hot surface to escape the torture of contact. But there is no escape. Even the impressively resilient yeast within have given up the struggle to thrive. There is only one way out and that is baked.

pizza

2012-01-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

A careless shaggy dough is prepared the evening before. Covered and set aside.

* 2 cups water

* 3 packed cups unsifted flour

* 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

It is a very wet dough. We baker types refer to this as biga, poolish, or a sponge, it is a prefermentation.

Half this dough turned out onto a floured surface is cut out and rolled into a baguette. The remaining half is still too large for a single small pizza. The remaining portion will be used for something else.

Now that you've seen the baguette, I must ask you to forget about it because it is irrelevant to the pizza. Except were it not for this divided purpose I might not have forgotten the salt and I might have remembered I like semolina in the pizza dough.

This is the remaining portion for the pizza but it is still too much. A portion is reserved for something else.

Look. I am saving space.

The oven is preset to hot as it will go. There is a pizza stone in there getting seriously hot.

The parchment paper helps transfer the pizza to the oven, but I want the oven stone to contact the dough so the parchment is removed after a minute, after the dough inside the oven has set and won't be a problem to slip out. You can see where the oven scorched the paper within one minute.

So the dough is touching the hot stone for 95% of the cooking time. The pizza bakes quickly because the oven is so hot.

cod and shrimp tempura

2012-01-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

ARTS !

There was a dipping sauce if you can call a thing that complacent a sauce. I don't know what got into me. I almost didn't bother.

* soy sauce

* sugar

* water

The tempura batter is nearly as lazy. Plain white rice is processed to powder, about a single tablespoon, and combined with corn starch and regular whole wheat flour. So three types of dry ingredients where flour will work by itself just fine. The batter should be cold. If in doubt then add ice.

* whole egg whipped

* rice flour

* corn starch

* all purpose flour

* seasonings to suit your heart's contentment

* tonic water or soda water or baking powder and water or vinegar + water + baking soda, but watch it!, or you'll end up with foam.

A thin tempura batter is more desirable than a thick batter.

corn fritter with tuna

2012-01-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

Frozen corn processed to pebble size and an equal amount of masa, but the masa goes into the bowl last.

The tuna is kind that is like cat food and I do not like it. The tuna is heavily disguised here, barely noticeable, but it doesn't have to be like this if it was just good tuna.

One egg, one teaspoon baking powder, one slice of processed cheese and the rest is a gathering of my favorite things, jalapeño, chile pepper flakes, sea salt, diced onion, powdered garlic, black pepper.

poached egg

2012-01-11T02:07:00.000-08:00

A tiny pot. A teeny-tiny pot and few tablespoons of any kind of vinegar. The cheap kind. The kind that comes in half gallon jugs. White or Cider. Whatever. The vinegar makes the albumen go, "Ew, ew, ew, don't touch me." And if the albumen doesn't actually think that it still behaves that way reliably. You can count on the egg white pulling tight and not wandering around all over the pot.

The water never boiled. When the water almost boiled then the pot was removed from the burner. This egg poaching business is done off the heat at near boiling temperature. Why? Because the cold refrigerated egg white and yolk together visibly denature at 180℉ / 82℃ sufficiently to suit me, and the white tightens up worse and worse after that, the yolk cooks. Removed soon enough and the white will stay silky and the yolk will stay liquid.

Under normal circumstances, without vinegar, and with time, the temperature that egg whites and egg yolks cook is expressed as a range of temperatures, just like chocolate but for different reason.

144-149℃ / 62-65℃ range that proteins in egg whites denature.

149-158℃ / 65-70℃ range that proteins in egg yolks denature

Now those temperature ranges seem rather low don't they? Compared to that, what I am doing off the heat is aggressive. And compared to all that, what is done to eggs in a frying pan is straight up egg-abuse.

Normally, without acid, the whites of eggs and the yolks of eggs denature at different temperatures over time. They begin denaturing when held for several minutes at the target temperatures. Pasteurized eggs are one degree lower than non-pasteurized eggs. My experience is acid in the water protects the eggs, or causes them to become protected, so the cooking temperature is raised noticeably. Egg yolks are protected by the egg whites which denature at lower temperature range than the yolks do. Yet the yolk sits there untouched while the white denatures because insufficient time is allowed for the heat of the water to reach them.

The egg is lifted out with a regular serving spoon. There isn't any water to tip out because the egg is taking up the whole spoon. The scraggly bits of white are trimmed around the edges of the spoon with a dinner knife.

I heard a character on television say that sun dried tomatoes are the gayest of the tomatoes. I found that very funny, but it showed an apparent lack of appreciation for concentrated flavor. These sun dried tomatoes in the pasta could have hydrated longer.

The masa has a lot of dehydrated onion in it and powdered garlic dry restaurant-type chile flakes which seems to be about 75% seeds. As you know by now the seeds contain no capsaicin whatsoever except for a tiny dot at the end where the seed connected to the membrane which does contain capsaicin. You can test this by separating seed from connective membrane with with an X-Acto blade then biting into the seed. Nothing happens.

The masa was prepared in reverse as I do with other doughs. Water first. The hot water hydrated the onion and the chile flakes. Then masa powder in increments until a dough forms which is about fifteen seconds. The dough can be adjusted with either more water or more powder. Formed into a patty and fried. Water added to the pan by the tablespoon to keep the patty steaming, the pan covered.

ahi tuna

2012-01-10T18:15:00.000-08:00

Cold comfort. Asian ingredients form a marinade that flavors cold noodles.

I suppose it could be hot, but it's not.

Asian ingredients for marinade:

* grated ginger

* grated garlic

* grated onion or scallion

* few drops toasted sesame seed oil

* few drops fish sauce (anchovy paste)

* soy sauce

* water

For some odd reason no capsaicin heat this time.

Toasted bread crumbs for texture. Bread crumbs are not an Asian ingredient as far as I know, excluding Panko of course which is the exception that comes to mind.

That's it.

What?

More?

Fine.

jalapeño poppers

2012-01-09T23:46:00.000-08:00

The only cheese that I have on hand is mozzarella di bufala that I picked up to make pizza, and I may still do that but tonight I wanted this. This cheese is completely inappropriate for jalapeño poppers. Not because it is mozzarella but because it is frankly too good for this sort of thing. It's a careless marriage and and the profligate waste is unjustifiable. The finer ingredient cannot help a crude product be better.

The manner of production and the photography caused problems for the wontons. Half were torn open. A thin batter was prepared that contained crunchy bread crumbs to create a new coating for the damaged pieces and repair their rips and holes.

The wontons stuck together in the package. The cornstarch coating on each individual wrapper had become absorbed during refrigerated storage. They were carefully separated and recoated with cornstarch. The fresh coating facilitated sealing the rolls and might not be a bad idea in any case.

A deep bowl of corn starch is prepared to refresh the wontons which are close to reverting to a square clump of dough.

salad

2012-01-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

Apparently, these genetically modified super hybridized strains of tomatoes are constructed to last the apocalypse. I've been watching this thing turn for over two weeks and it's still firm.

Speaking as a cook, as a consumer, as a person concerned for their health, as a guy who already eats fungi, molds, and bacteria in various forms, do you think that it is possible to work around the necrosis and salvage this vegetable or fruit or whatever? Is that even worth considering?

Let's see.

* tests salad *

* eats salad *

* dies *

Barolo restaurant, Denver, Colorado

2012-01-08T02:01:00.000-08:00

Roasted pheasant. The entree portion of a five course sampler. It was a special at Barolo and easier than reading everything on the menu and deciding so I left my fate to Barolo's selection and their capable staff.

I'm such a dunce. Our waiter was remarkably knowledgeable, he was also friendly and engaging. He asked me what I was up to and that was a good chance for me to ask permission for his picture but I was too engaged and having too much fun to think about my task. In fact, Joe had to remind me take a few shots before digging in.

The cylindrical thing is brioche. It has an egg inside. Quail egg, I guess. The waiter and later on another guy, a helper, both emphasized the idea is to break open the egg and have the yolk pour out, and you know I love that but I didn't notice it happen this time. Maybe I am insufficiently observant but like I said, I was having a good time.

Ed: Wait! I do remember now. It was small. Joe was speaking. Delightful. Smeared it onto a little piece of its own brioche cylindric coat and ate it.

So this plate of pheasant breast shown above and below was mine. It was the main thing and it came second to last in the lineup. The other items were all samples, but this was more than a sample and that is why I am showing it first.

So that was my main thing.

Back to the beginning and in order but minus the pheasant shown above.

The waiter called this a terrine. It is a country pâté with pistachio and four specks of sauces, two mustards and two aioli. It also shows up on Joe's antipasto.

Foie gras. Whispers, demasiado raro para mí. Personalmente, no me gusto mucho este hígado. My favorite part is the biscuit.

This antipasto plate was served to Joe. Joe picked at it like a picky little picker. This alone could have been dinner. We both picked at it. Pick. Pick. Pick. Pick. Pick. Well, what else can you do except pick and poke and smear. It was great. Loaded with little piles of all kinds of odd and wonderful things. I don't know why we left behind so much prosciutto.

Joe is a waster.

Back to the wave of plates cresting in front of me.

Calamari as ceviche. Very interesting texture, almost like incompletely cooked dough. Were this a blind taste test I would not have been able to identify it. Until now. Now I would go, "Aha!"

Haystack goat cheese in mini ravioli.

Now I recall why Joe let the prosciutto go -- to clear a place for this breaded veal. This was Joe's main thing. The stuff in the center is a plant called salsify. I don't know what that is pictured on the end, Joe said it was delicious but not what it was. A biscuit, I think. Something baked.

Maybe the things on the end are Tater Tots® smashed into triangles.

My final course, which never occurred to me to share, is a study of contrasts in miniature.

Hazelnut this / hazelnut that

hazelnut cold / hazelnut warm

hazelnut flat / hazelnut spherical

hazelnut wet /hazelnut crumbly

hazelnut crispy/ hazelnut creamy

hazelnut light/ hazelnut dark

hazelnut short / hazelnut tall
hazelnut lacy / hazelnut thick
hazelnut shiny / hazelnut matt
hazelnut smooth / hazelnut textured

Conclusively, this dessert is mostly hazelnut.

polenta, eggs, shrimp

2012-01-06T22:47:00.000-08:00

The polenta was done in the microwave. Go ahead, call the police. The deed is done, the crime against the culinary arts committed, and there is no undoing it, and it is delicious. It has curry. A cup or so of chicken broth, 3/4 teaspoon prepared curry, salt and pepper, cayenne and garlic, butter, and whatever you wish. This polenta is hot.

Ed: I forgot to mention this and it could be helpful. Pretty much any prepared curry will have stuff in it that does best started first in hot oil. The curry used here is colored with turmeric which does best staged later. So 3/4 teaspoon prepared curry is zapped with butter first. The butter melts, heats the curry. Secondly, and this is not scientific it is my experience, these grains turned to powder, corn, wheat, rice, and even beans, all react very slowly in cold liquid. Not much absorption happens at all until the cooking liquid is boiling. Then it all happens at once. So you might as well have the liquid boiling first then add the powder slowly while mixing it in to avoid clumps, then return to the heat for near instant boiling and thickening. Otherwise you could be standing there over a stove stirring a pot wondering when your grits are going to start to thicken when you could know that will not happen until the liquid boils then suddenly it happens at once. I do not know why 100 ℃ at sea level is the magical number, but it is.

Scrambled eggs whisked with butter as a sauce. A teaspoon of ricotta to finish.

The water for the shrimp never boiled. The heat was on the rise when I tossed in the frozen shrimp. Snapped off the heat but the heat persisted awhile anyway. It is an electric stove so not immediately responsive. I made the eggs in another tiny pot. When I was done the shrimp appeared to have denatured and turned color, and opaque throughout as far as I could tell. The temperature of the water had not changed. I think there was a battle of the rising and lowering temperatures there in the pot so that it all evened out. At any rate, the shrimp were cooked perfectly.

I actually intended for the polenta and the eggs to be firmer, but this worked out fine. When I tasted it I as amazed. When I was done I wanted more. It's nice to know the extra polenta is right there to use anytime. Then it will be firmer. It does that when it cools and another chance is given to decide how wet you want the reheated curried polenta.

The bacon goes with the polenta and scrambled eggs as sauce and shrimp, but tonight it is on a separate plate. The food stylist and the cook had a blow out argument about that and then the photographer chimmed in. It was awful, they were yelling and hissing angry sweary words. Then the diner pipped up and added his impotent 2¢ on the matter and flounced off complaining about the whole thing had gone cold. But the plate has a metal rim and cannot be reheated so the entire thing had to be carefully slid onto an ordinary plate that could go into a microwave for 30 seconds. And as those four people happen to be myself you can imagine how I felt behind all of that. So for art the bacon was kept on a separate plate.

cubed steak, baked potato

2012-01-05T23:41:00.000-08:00

This is the sort of thing that could get you run out of Texas.

It's not right. You just do not do this to a T-bone. T-bones have the lovely tenderloin side to them that is not to be messed with. This slice of T-bone is a very good segment off that slab, it is from that area that borders Porterhouse where the tenderloin is nice and full as the lesser-used tenderloin muscle narrows through the T-bone segments until it tapers to tendon, I suppose. Often the slices cut from that area where the tenderloin muscle tapers down to the size of a nickel, the resulting slices are still marketed as T-bones even though their tenderloin portions are minuscule, and that is why you have to poke around the chiller when shopping. Reputable places would not do such things.

So if the Texans did ban me from their amazing state then I would say,

"But this is just breakfast."

Then if they said,

"Too bad for you, Bub, you're banned!"

Then I'd go,

"Breakfast for Nana in the nursing home."

"Banned!"

"Nana who cannot find her teeth."

Nice. Do you have that in a monocarpic red?

2012-01-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

I do not know why fascination with decay outweighs desire to have a tomato.

chicken soup

2012-01-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

"Leftovers again!?

"Yes, Precious, but this chicken soup is different. "

"Wuh?"

"No chickens were harmed for the production of this chicken soup."

"¿"

"This chicken soup is entirely different from the previous chicken soup because I didn't have to bake a bird this time and I didn't have to make a broth. It tastes different because I feel different and my impulses are different so the spice, herb, and salt are different, the vegetables have aged so they are cooked differently, the onion was refrigerated so it changed and tastes different. The noodles are wonton wrappers strips this time which are hardly noodles at all.

Now please, Precious, Apple of My Eye, Light of My Life, shut up and eat your chicken soup."

sea bass

2012-01-03T20:20:00.000-08:00

The sea bass looks to me like it is playing cats cradle with itself and that is just plain weird.

Had a thing like this appeared when I was, say, six or seven, it would have freaked me right out so bad I'd be put off sea bass permanently. Or else fascinated and filled with joy and awe.

* A poaching liquid is prepared. The usual seeds. The only thing different this time is thin slices of ginger and white wine. The sea bass was poached in the liquid the previous night and removed to a plate and chilled. At that point the liquid also contains proteins sloughed from the fish. The next day the liquid is reheated to a rolling boil. The liquid cooks the pasta. Cools to poaching temperature and the liquid reheats the sea bass, then the liquid is discarded.

* The sea bass is poached at 160℉ / 70℃, well below boiling.

* A sauce is prepared using butter and wine with ginger and lemon and honey. It also uses a divided egg. I'd go further, but honestly, this sauce is not ready for Prime Time. It's good but not delicious. This sauce has identity issues and it's not worth the trouble and the mess. Simple lemon is better.

* Altogether this sea bass is very satisfying. It is delicious with great textures. Apart from the sauce, it has a refreshing simplicity. Very well composed besides. Combined with the red bell pepper and sugar peas it is positively vertical while at the same time remaining implacably horizontal, and whimsically spherical with triangular fins.

chocolate Han Solo in carbonite

2012-01-02T20:39:00.001-08:00

Picture it .

You are a boy. You are handed an obviously home-wrapped chocolate, paper wrapper with 'Star Wars' summat, aluminum foil, Cellophane tape, clearly unprofessionally done. This cannot be good. It is misdirection. You open it and see that it is Han Solo in carbonite and you piss yourself.

On the machine I used the "go directly to the perfect temperature" method of tempering this time instead of the "go high, go low, go medium" method of tempering. The reason I switched is because the last time a few of the finished chocolates fell out of temper over time even though they were tempered carefully using the traditional method and they were stored at a steady cool temperature. This vexed me. Caused me to rebel and go, "Fine then, I'll just use the chincy way next time." Which is now. It also caused me to have to check everything I had already wrapped.

This mold pictured above is intended for ice cubes but I hacked it you see and I am using it for chocolate instead. Frankly, it makes terrible ice cubes. Hardly worth it at all. Within one minute the detail is melted away in any drink no matter how cold. The success of this mold for chocolate means that if the molds are to be any use at all to me I must buy at least seven more molds. Possibly nine.

As far as Han Solo in carbonite goes, this is the best mold I've found so far. I found another good one similar to this but presently it is unavailable. I will buy that one too. It turns out the smaller Han Solos here in this mold might end up being more useful to me than the larger Han Solo in this mold. It is a very good size for chocolates, both sizes are, actually.

I've been interested in the Han Solo in carbonite mold in the Play Doh set, so I've been keeping an eye on them on eBay. It's in the vintage Play Doh Jaba the Hut Playset.

Han Solo is vintage.

Now, you see that the whole point of this iconic vignette is the obvious terror of Han Solo at the moment of being frozen but it would not do to have the delicate developing psychologies of Play-Doh-playing children be disturbed inadvertently therefore the Play Doh version of Han Solo in carbonite is a terror-free version and so avoids the point completely.

Look, his hands are folded like an Egyptian pharaoh, not like the terror of somebody being buried alive. This would not make a good chocolate bar. Insufficient terror.

Here's the Lego version also insufficient terror.

The Lego version couldn't work anyway. This shows two sides of the same piece. It's used to store a lego person. The Lego man snaps inside. Although the detailed side could be used to produce a very decent chocolate mold, it too avoids the terror of extended curled fingertips which makes the original so compelling.

Another alternative is to use an action figure to create a mold. There are Han Solo in carbonite action figures that come with both a doll which is useless for chocolate and carbonite version which is useless as an action figure. There are two sizes. They appear to be sufficiently detailed. Those carbonite versions, not the action figure, could be used as positive templates for the production of food-safe molds.

Okay, not the doll, the blockish thing behind the doll. The thing advertised in black and white next to the doll. I think the flat thing behind the doll is Han Solo in carbonite that could be used as a positive template for a negative mold. This version appears to depict a sufficiently terrified expression, in black and white, not the doll. Maybe I had just buy one and see. This is the sort of thing boys of all ages find cool. Why? Because it just is.

Two pages have been written since this page.

* large chocolate Han Solo in carbonite, wrapped
* chocolate Han Solo in carbonite production

chicken noodle soup

2012-01-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

I would like there to be beans in this soup.

Anasazi beans.

The broth comes from the chicken roasted earlier and the chunks of chicken in the chicken soup came from the same roasted chicken.

Did I ever show you how to deal with the dead bird carcass to produce a chicken broth so delicious that it is termed Liquid Gold and traded on the EPLCM, that is the Escoffier Precious Liquid Commodities Market? I haven't? Very well.

You have a roasted chicken as the one pictured in the link above and you picked off all of the good bits and they have gone their separate ways, sandwiches, soup like this one, nibbling and so forth.

So there is that, and that would be enough, a bargain right there, but now on to the carcass and the broth.

By acknowledging the anathema that wasting a carcass is to culinary catechism one attempts to extract the most from the sacrificed bird, and that shows consideration, but then to go on and intensify everything by roasting before all the flavors, nutrition, colors, are extracted shows deliberation even though it only takes a few minutes to broil the bones.

The re-roasted bones are brought to the stove top, water added to the pot, and the whole lot simmered until the last flavor molecule is drawn from the carcass, the skin, the neck, gizzard, livers, heart, everything that came with it. Onion, carrot, celery, now added if you like them. Bay leaf, whatever, anything at all you like, except salt.

Save salt for the very end or when the broth is portioned out and used. The liquid concentrates as it boils, so it wouldn't do to over salt early on. That is one major problem with commercial broths. They are already heavily salted and concentrating them makes it worse. Why do you pay more for low-salt broth then if they are using less salt shouldn't they charge less? They have to make up the flavor another way when they use less salt, more expensive ingredients, like chicken.

Straining takes two large pots. There is some back and forth.

Strained back into the original pot.

Strained into the storage container using an even smaller strainer.

These broth photos were taken days ago when the chicken was roasted ↑.

These photos were taken tonight ↓.

The broth sat in its tall container sealed up beneath its chicken schmaltz lid. Underneath the layer of fat is another layer of aspic. The depth of this aspic and its completeness as gelatin will indicate how much nutrition is extracted from the carcass. If there is a watery layer of gelatin, or none at all, then that will indicate little nutritional value. What you are looking for is gelatin all the way through straight to the bottom, good solid gelatin too, not loosey-goosey watery gelatin.

This is loosey-goosey watery gelatin, but it is gelatin all the way through, so neither the worst nor the best. I was pleased with it actually when I consider it is a single ordinary battery chicken of no great mass. Usually people freeze them until they have more than one carcass to make the process worth while.

So what is Anasazi?

The Ancient Ones, although the modern Pueblos do not much care for the designation because the word also means ancient enemy. There were four main tribes inhabiting the area, the Anasazi concentrated in the northern portion of the range covered by the four early tribes. This is in modern day Colorado, shaped like a square, in the far lower left corner. Looking at a map of the U.S. state borders one's eye is drawn to the geometric oddity near the center termed The Four Corners. That is the area inhabited by the four early tribes although its Four Corners designation would be 3,200 years later.

The Anasazi were cliff dwellers. Their site is known today as Mesa Verde, green table, Spanish words, not Amerind. The cubicles built into the cliffs are part of a larger system of roads and ritual sites. Their fate is debated. There is the pattern of drought and flood, there is evidence of resource depletion, evidence of conflict.

You can go there and explore the place. Walk around. Crawl around up and down, up down, up down narrow walkways, short pass throughs, irregularities with every step. Bring up water, bring up wood, bring up supplies, carrying out refuse, litter, compost, waste. One sees rather quickly that life on the cliffs couldn't have been all that splendid. Life in the shadow of the cliff. Protected. Yes. Yes. Yes. But it's the sort of thing that cannot last. Eventually you gotta break out. It leads to greater things -- facing the challenges of nature and conflict uncowed out in the open.

Did they starve? Were they wiped out? Buried by flood? Murdered by enemies? Enslaved? Calm down! They changed. They moved on. They intermingled with neighboring tribes. They evolved. They became the modern Pueblo peoples.

Here's to getting off the cliffs.

tamale poppers

2011-12-30T23:06:00.000-08:00

Jalapeño poppers meets tamales. East meets West. North of the border meets South of the border. Old meets new. Entree meets hors ďoeuvres. Flogged rhetorical construction meets pistol. BANG! They are odd little things and they are delicious and they are addictive. I ate the whole pile and when you see the pile you are going to be shocked.

The other odd thing is that part of the filling, the masa de maíz, could very well have been the wrapper. Wontons can also be sliced and used as noodles but that is irrelevant to what is going on here and I'd appreciate it if you would avoid getting off topic.

The green chili from before is too lumpy for wontons so it must be processed further -- with a fork. It is also not hot enough so additional jalapeños are added. Jalapeños come in different hotnesses, this is the hottest. I used the entire tin, it's also the smallest tin. After all that, the finished tamale poppers still are not hot at all. Everything else tends to deaden the effect of capsaicin, the masa, the cheese, the wrapper, the cooking oil. Maybe that's why poppers are so successful, they are more simple and more directly and powerfully jalapeño whereas here with the tamale poppers the jalapeño is muted.

Regular masa harina for tamales, the powder that comes in bags and mixes with water. It is a wonder to behold. Incredibly easy to mix, amazing aroma and flavor, versatile and inexpensive. Plus, the removal of the pericarp by an alkaline soak and cook makes available the nutrients within corn and the process eliminates some pathogens on corn, mycotoxins and the like. I read it in a jaw-droppingly boring paper. They might pull it down out of embarrassment, it is a government research paper.

Oaxacan cheese

Green chili, masa de maíz, Oaxacan cheese are set to the side mise en place.

Half the package of wontons arrayed to accept the layers of filling.

Please pardon the shift in viewing angle. If you sense a rush of vertigo coming on I suggest closing your eyes and grabbing the seat of your chair.

It turned out to be too much filling. About 1/8 was removed from each one.

Edit: I'm changing my suggestion. Do not shut your eyes if you feel a spate of vertigo coming on. Instead, keep them open and stare at something steady. The steadier, the better, like a mountain is a lot better than staring at a hamster in an exercise wheel, and grab the arms or the cushion of your seat.

masa pasta

2011-12-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

The question burning today is, 'can the miracle product masa harina from corn be used to to replace wheat flour to make pasta?' and the answer is yes.

Not straight up masa harina, that didn't seem right for starters, I would like it to have semolina for its strength, all purpose flour for its paste-like cohesion, but mostly masa harina for its flavor.

* 1 jumbo egg

* 3 half egg shells water, egg shell cup

* 2 tablespoons semolina flour

* 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

* 4 tablespoons masa harina for tamales and for corn tortillas

The dough is tender. This is 50% corn and 50% wheat. That is a high percentage of corn for pasta. The individual noodles are more fragile before and after cooking. They tend to break. They do taste like masa but not deeply of masa.

The sauce is green chili from before.

cheese crackers

2011-12-29T01:49:00.000-08:00

As cheese the Kraft product is a disaster but I must say the substance bakes to delicious crackers. For the purpose of crackers the Kraft product is considered a fat. The crackers are enhanced with even more fat -- butter. With Cheez-It® in mind, the dough is lightened with baking powder. The dough is enhanced with cayenne. Sea salt.

"Nobody likes Cheez-Its," a friend once averred axiomatically. I was stunned to hear something so wrong put so flatly. I regarded the man as particularly odd after that. Cheez-Its are one of my favorite things. That was before my own crackers became one of my favorite things, and the Cheez-It® were shunted to a sidetrack. A sidetrack to Desuetudeville. Desuetudeville on the continent of Relic. The continent of Relic on the planet Quaint. Planet Quaint in the system of planets, Bygone. Maybe I had just buy a box and reenter that earlier period that seems fogged now by not knowing then my own power to out-cheese my favorite cheese product.

I would say, this is about half the package of Kraft cheese, so 4 oz. Not much.

The cheese was shredded nearly frozen. Here it is completely frozen.

1 + 1/2 cup flour, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 level teaspoons baking powder, sea salt

Water added through the feed tube in increments until dough balls up. The dough could have been more wet.

The dough is divided in two.

There was exactly enough dough for two of these trays.

scrambled eggs, pork chili

2011-12-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

It is a delicate flower that buds all month and blooms an hour.

I dislike those kind of flowers. But evanescence is not so bad with scrambled eggs unless you are an MRE developer or something. Silky and light as an airy sauce but more substantial than that. Whipped with cold butter and finished with sour cream -- fat and acid -- just like a sauce, except sturdier than that. Heavier than a souffle, denser than meringue, lighter than an omelet, weightier than synthetic sponge but lighter than a steel gauntlet and more buoyant than a sack of nickels.

Pork with green chiles from before.

The idea is to shred the pork but I did not do that. I liked the cubes too much to go around smashing them to bits. But later at the table, just pressing down steadily on a pork cube with the back of a fork smashes it to smithereens quite satisfyingly. So should't that be an enjoyment left for the diner? Leave something to play with. Then push the smashed cube around and it <begin sound effect> slurps <end sound effect> up the sauce.

green chili

2011-12-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

You're probably thinking, "Hey! that chili is red, not green."

The chiles in the chili are green. The tomatoes turn the overall color red. 42 oz tomatoes out-colors 27 oz green chiles. There is also jalapeño chiles but the tins are much smaller.

No matter what I do along these lines I am always pleased with the result. I've tried all cuts of pork, beef, lamb, and chicken and they all work very well.

As to what is not shown, it is all in tins except for an onion and the cloves of half a garlic bulb.

I thought I would go easy this time. One small pork roast, one 27 oz tin of Hatch type roasted green chiles. Three 14 oz tins of diced tomato, two medium size tins of jalapeño chile peppers in strips. That would amount to a small batch, so I thought.

Herbs, of course: coriander, cumin, cayenne chile pepper powder, sea salt, black ground pepper.

The pork was still partially frozen. When I cut the pork into cubes it became very wet there on the cutting board. I had already seasoned it and I didn't want that rubbed off. In two batches, I dusted the pork cubes with flour to absorb the wetness. This instead of a paper towel because of the herbs already on it. You can see the seared caramelized flour encrusted the pork. As the pork released moisture and steamed, it picked up the fond stuck to the pan and adhered it to the surface of the pork. So a textured surface developed. Those cubes of fond-encrusted pork were utterly delicious just as they were. I ate six of the cubes for sort of a first course.

Then the onion and garlic.

Then everything in the tins. This may sound to you like a cheapskate low down no good dirty rotten shortcut-take'n can-openin' inauthentic, gringo-choice-makin'n way of doing this, and maybe it is, but I roasted piles of chile peppers before lots of times on the grill, in the oven, broiled, stove-top, gas, electric, peeled the charred skins, I've peeled fresh tomatoes, I've peeled the sticky paper off tomatillos, found and used weird herbs like epazote, and insisted on specific cuts of pork, but honestly, when it all boils down, and it does boils down, it's not that I cannot tell the difference between fresh and tinned, it's that I don't care. It's all fantastic to me.

Flour tortillas were made the usual way.

* 2 cups a/p flour

* 3 tablespoons lard

* 2 level teaspoons baking powder

* 1 cup warm water

Water added in increments until a workable dough is attained. This dough has salt and pepper and Mexican oregano. I guess it's not usual to season tortillas, but hey, what the heck. The dough balls are rolled out and fried.

chicken sandwich

2011-12-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

I have really been grooving on this bread that somebody else made.

This is the first loaf of bread I bought in years. It's puffy. The package says '100% whole grains' and there are obvious whole grains right there on the surface for all to see, but that is a marketing ploy. This is almost entirely refined-wheat white bread even though its color is brown. I can tell by the crumb. We baker-types speak like that. We use words like 'crumb' instead of texture, but that is what it means. I can tell by the texture this bread is refined-wheat white bread maybe with a few silo sweepings thrown in for good measure. If this bread really was whole grain even up to 25% whole grain, any grain, then it would be a lot heavier. A LOT heavier. This bread is very close to Wonder® bread. They get away with those marketing claims because industry language is different from regular language, and purposefully so. It was fun while it lasted, being all pre-sliced and everything, which incidentally is an actionable tort in the baker's world -- see what I did there? -- but I sure wouldn't want to live on this bread. The value pursued here which works out for everyone is making a lot of bread and making it fast and doing it inexpensively as possible and still be a substance that can make a claim to being bread. But making bread fast is antithetical to what bakers do. Real bakers, not employees that bake.

* Chicken roasted by me

* Mayonnaise by me

* Mustard by me

* Bread by some faceless special someone unknown and unknowable, placed at a station along the conveyors and flywheels of industry. But the place smells awesome!

cilantro↑

more cilantro↓

mayonnaise

2011-12-26T22:31:00.000-08:00

I keep needing mayonnaise but only a little here and there. If the mayonnaise is cooked then it can be kept longer. This is an experiment to make mayonnaise just from the egg whites, not the yolks, and see what happens.

Whisking the egg white creates meringue obviously, this meringue of two jumbo-size eggs will take up 1 cup of vegetable oil.

Actually, I don't care that much for plain pure white mayonnaise so even I were to buy a jar of it I'd alter the flavor with garlic, ginger, cayenne, honey, and most of all, mustard. I'd change the whole jar. So I'm putting those things in this except in powder form this time. So aioli then, and not mayonnaise, but they do have the same start. Plus rice vinegar.

Makeshift double boiler. Egg whites from two jumbo eggs. Yolks reserved.

Vegetable oil drizzled in by the drop at first, slowly increasing to a steady thin stream to one full cup. Two egg whites absorbed one full cup vegetable oil. Is that amazing or what?

It tastes fine, but it is an ugly white without the powder ingredients and even uglier white with the powder ingredients. I do not like the color. It tastes fine. It tastes better than regular mayonnaise, but it has color issues. Color and tone and value and reflectivity issues. It looks like goop.

The impulse is to whisk the egg yolks directly into the finished white mayonnaise if only to give it some color. Instead, I added the finished white mayonnaise to the egg yolks incrementally as if making a fresh batch. This is the same way a broken mayonnaise is corrected. It doesn't make a difference since this mayonnaise will thicken by being cooked to 145℉/63℃.

roasted chicken

2011-12-25T20:09:00.000-08:00

A brine is created with as much sugar as salt. The brine includes fennel seed and black pepper. It could have contained a lot other things like chile flakes, bay leaf, coriander, garlic, onion, whole clove, orange and lemon rind, but all those things were left out this time. I'm on a simplicity kick.

I was happy to find a bottle of white wine. I found a small cache of bottles of white stashed where they do not belong. One of them was wearing a miniature kimono made for bottles. I thought I was out of white wine and I don't care for the purple coloration that red wine imparts to chicken as it cooks in it but I was willing to let it happen. I used 1/2 bottle of the found white wine, a Pinot Grigio. I should have used the whole thing. The chicken soaked in the fortified brine for 18 hours.

cucumber radish salad

2011-12-24T23:05:00.000-08:00

* vinegar, a lot

* sugar, a lot

* salt, a little

* fennel seed

* black peppercorn

* water

mac and cheese

2011-12-23T23:11:00.001-08:00

Now that I have this craptastic processed cheese I am compelled to imagine what people do with it.

The processed cheese is disguised in this mac and cheese and outnumbered. It is completely outclassed by top Parmigiano and by regular ricotta. The orange barely-cheese belongs in lesser league.

I used milk shaken in a jar with a teaspoon of flour to compensate for its thin viscosity before pouring it over the stacked pasta. I opted for half a small tin of diced hot jalapeño peppers and cayenne powder.

This casserole has milk, sour cream, Neufchâtel cream cheese, and a lot of ricotta cheese, which combine into a sauce. All that dairy fat loosens the prickly connectors of capsaicin molecules, encases them, and carries them off. So double the normal amount of jalapeño and cayenne to make up for that moderating dairy. The increased cayenne imparts a pink tint.

Topping: Oatmeal, flour, cold butter, hard grated cheese, salt. For a sweet pie, this same topping minus the cheese would have brown sugar. But not here. This is a savory topping. Odd, to resist pushing in that direction. There is nothing in this that is bitter either. So that is two main taste sensations that are purposefully avoided.

These are remnant pieces of Parmigiano and Grana Padano. As far as cheese goes these two are solid. *fist bumps* And now that they're gone I feel an urgency to go out and get more, and then the other brain goes, "These are the thoughts of an addict." I think I just now accepted my addiction to these two cheeses. That was easy. I'm going to go ahead and enable myself on this one.

ARTS !

omelet

2011-12-22T15:54:00.000-08:00

I picked up this package of cheese with the intention of using it for cheese crackers but then this idea for an omelet came and I thought I would just nick off a piece for that. For this.

When I opened the package and tasted it I was disappointed. This tastes and feels like Velveeta™ and I was expecting something normal. This product is bad. I hope it fails.

But it won't fail because the product fulfills a niche and that niche is a massive market of cheese under-appreciators and other sundry misanthropes. I don't know. What do I look like over here, a nutritional-sociologist?

All I know is this cheese sucks. But it will probably still work for crackers, being nearly burnt and everything, and it will still work for mac and cheese in conspiracy with other cheese. But still, please, I urge you, do not feed this to your children, or you'll set them back decades. Then they'll grow up and realize the short shrift you've given them which forces a review and a look back at the length of their checkered past with you, and every minor insult and offense will stand up in high relief and sharp contrast so they become convinced you never really did love them and only barely tolerated them as children, and this cheese is proof of all that. It's like I was saying to Dr. Fenberg last week, it's not like she ...

okay, forget that last part.

I did not show the ricotta. It is an unartistic unattractive carton that contains a white creamy substance. That's the ricotta oozing out under the mushroom.

And now I must say a prayer of thanksgiving. Dear Lord, thank you for making me an ace omelet maker. Amen.