What I learned in cooking class this week

This week was cheesemaking. Lots of pots of milk on the stove! I worked on making Camembert, simple enough as long as you are paying attention to the details. But the devil is in those details -- as we saw with some of the other cheeses, you get careless with proportions and things get messed up in a hurry. One person put in only half the milk needed for the mozzarella curd, and the full amount of citric acid. What we got was a grainy tangy mess that would not melt into the soft mass we needed to pull it into shape. So had to start over on that one. But we didn't toss the first batch -- I chopped up some fresh herbs and we mixed them with that, some cream, and some olive oil. Tasted good -- then we tossed it into a pasta salad with tomatoes, kalamata olives, and other good things. What I learned was more about the progression of proteins through denaturing and recombining, and what happens at each of those stages. That learning had an interesting effect on my breadmaking the next day -- I didn't have bread flour so we were using AP, and I could understand how to compensate for the lower protein content of the AP flour and not freak out when my dough needed more flour and more attention to get the result I wanted (which I did, see earlier post about the challah buns for lamb burgers). Also took the next step on our prosciutto. Washed off all of the salt, dried it nicely with towels. Coated it in lard, keeps it from drying out when we hang it. Then a coating of ground black pepper on all the flesh areas, keeps the flies away and gives more flavor. Wrap it all up in a couple of layers of cheesecloth, and then hung it in the garage. That will now take about five months, I guess, for it to finish drying. The other sausages are looking good -- can't wait to try them in another three weeks.

Lamb and sweet potatoes (again)

One of the interesting things for me about blogging is that I can begin to see patterns in what I am cooking and paying attention to. For example, back in mid-May I made lamb meatballs and was eating sweet potato fries. And... ...yesterday I grilled lamb burgers and sweet potato slices. Different mix than for my meatballs: the usual 3/4 lb ground lamb to 1/4 pound regular ground beef, but left the onion finely chopped and mixed everything by hand. Two cloves of garlic minced into a paste with 1/2 t of salt, 1T olive oil, 1T chopped fresh oregano, 1T chopped fresh mint, pepper. I make four relatively thin patties out of this mixture. On the grill for about 8-10 minutes. Served them on homemade buns, used the challah recipe in "Joy of Cooking" since it makes dough with a nice texture and flavor for the lamb. Toss on a little tzatziki, a slice of tomato, and a couple of torn mint leaves and it makes a great sandwich! For the sweet potatoes, I peeled and sliced one into about 1/3" slices, tossed with olive oil and salt. They went on the grill for five min on one side, then turned and brushed with honey/lime/mint glaze (2T honey, juice of one lime, about 1/8t lime zest, 1t chopped fresh mint leaves. Boy, were those good. Once again, we served a rose. Nice with all those flavors going on, and it was a scorcher of a day around here so quite refreshing.

Duck redux

Well, as I was saying, I made duck confit last month. After four weeks, it was time to try it out. So I heated an iron skillet in the oven at 450 degrees and put four legs in there to crisp up. Then I put them aside, drained off some of the fat that had melted off the legs, and put in two bunches of chopped arugula with half a chopped sweet onion. Let the heat of the pan cook it, and finished it with a little sherry vinegar. (Not an original idea -- a riff on one from Alton Brown.) The bitter/sour of the greens were a great offset to the richness of the duck. And the duck -- ohmygawd. I could eat that every day! Beside the word "savory" in the dictionary is a picture of that duck. I am SO pleased with how that turned out. Juicy, seasonings just right, my mouth waters again to think on it. Drank a 1999 Milestone Merlot from Columbia Winery. Not something we'd been fond of last year when we tasted it before, but an extra year really softened it up and it was a great match. Still dancing around the chaos in the kitchen and the rest of the condo, but another day of touch-up painting and I can pretty much move everything back into the kitchen and go back to normal life in there. However --- now I don't have a bedroom for a couple of days because the paint we're using in there requires three coats+ to cover (it's a dark wine red). So the chaos continues for a while longer. Our painter just called me in to see the master bath, it's now rose pink and it's beautiful. Before it was sort of the color of a flesh-colored crayon. Now -- it pops.

Kitchen remodeling continues, and it's count the cookbooks time

New countertops installed last Friday. They are made of something called Swanstone, sort of like Corian but harder. And you can set a pot right off the stove or out of the oven on them. That's going to take getting used to, after being so careful with the Formica we had. They are purple. Actually the color name is Purple Sage, and they go very nicely with the lilac and olive paint in the kitchen. I like the integrated sink. By Sunday I had a working sink (and disposal) again so other than touch up paint, the first stage of the kitchen stuff is done. Next thing is getting the cupboards built-in around the fridge. But that doesn't keep me from using the kitchen, and we can now move most things back in. We discovered that due to all the dust we have to wash pretty much everything, and wipe out all the cupboards. So the dishwasher has been doing extra duty the past few days. Of course, getting the kitchen finished isn't the end of it, now we starting having the master bedroom and bath painted. So everything gets moved out of there into other rooms. Feels like we're playing musical chairs with everything. Gotta move all the cookbooks out of the bedroom so we can move the bookcases away from the walls. No small effort, since there are 375 of them in there! There are more than 100 in other places, so the cookbook count these days is about 500.

Making up for 20 years? Thai cooking and other classes

Four cooking classes in the span of eight days. Having always denied myself the pleasure of taking those kinds of classes, it seems I'm trying to make up for lost time all at once. But it really wasn't intentional. One of the classes was more demonstration and book-signing reception, for Tom Douglas' new book on crab cakes. He made five different ones, and they were all interesting. But the crab foo yung was my favorite. I'd signed up to go to this a couple of months ago, and it got postponed. So it landed on the 14th. While I was at the cookware shop where it was hosted, I looked at their schedule of classes and noticed there was a five-hour class on Thai cooking the next day. (One of those advantages of being a consultant, you get to do some interesting things in the middle of the day.) The cool thing about the Thai class was that first we went shopping. So I got introduced to a great hole-in-the-wall market in the International District that even has free parking. And incredible prices on great produce as well as an amazing selection of Asian ingredients. Lots less expensive than Uwajimaya, which is everyone's go-to place for such things. I can't wait to take Dave there to shop with me. The class was fun -- practical stuff I'll use again, and learned more about how to deal with fresh rice noodles, which I love. My second week of the Culinary Communion preservation series was mostly about preserves (duh!). As a class we made a lot of recipes; I took responsibility for making a poblano ketchup, which was great. Though the batch of poblanos was pretty spicy -- you know how they can vary so much -- so the end result had quite a kick. Would be great with a chunk of halibut or deep-fried zucchini. We also did some followup work on the cured things we did the week before. So I removed the skin from the cured pork belly and rolled it very tight to continue the process of making pancetta. That was hard work! We cooked (smoked) some of the bacon we made last week and had it with our lunch, it was quite yummy. Oh, and lunch was pork vindaloo, rice, and fava bean puree. I'm feeling a little more comfortable with the group but still a little disoriented. It's fine though. Next Saturday we're making cheese -- mozzarella, Camembert, cheddar, goat's milk cottage cheese, chevre, and maybe some paneer. Mmmmmm.

My first cooking class!

Geez, you'd think someone like me would have been taking cooking classes all along. For some reason, I just haven't made the time. But I am now! I signed up for a six week course on "preserving." That means sausages, smoking, pickles, cheeses, jams, etc. The first class was on Saturday, and we were making sausages for smoking/drying. Eight students, and an entire pig! It had already been broken down, but we were using incredibly fresh, organic pork to make saucisson sec, spanish chorizo, salted air-dried ham, molasses-cured ham, lamb bresaola, and duck prosciutto (among other things). I was elbow-deep in pork fat for quite some time. It was a blast, though because everyone else had taken classes with Culinary Communion before, I felt a little outside the circle. I'm sure that will change over the course of the course. What surprised me the most was that as part of the five-hour session, we also cooked ourselves lunch -- roasted leg of lamb with a honey/garlic/cream sauce, braised artichokes, blanched asparagus and garlic curls, with pre-prepped ratatouille and mushroom/fennel/artichoke salad. So after about five hours of sausage talking and making, we all sat down to a substantial meal. Wow! It was energizing and exhausting.

Rose and sweet potatoes?

Sorry I've been remiss in keeping this up. Time for a little catch-up (catsup??). Grilled pork chops -- salted with a nice dry rub for two days since they were over an inch thick. Sweet potato puree, and a Chinook Rose of Cab Franc. What a combination! Everything tasted better together. And I've gotten into roasting/grilling heads of romaine lately. Very nice just rubbed with olive oil and salt, then drizzled with a good balsamic vinegar. They go great with almost anything, rack of lamb last Friday. Wrapped some asparagus in foil with some sliced baby Walla Walla sweet onions to go with both, and it was a pretty quick dinner based on stuff that was already sitting in the fridge. (Yes, I do consider a rack of lamb a pantry staple sometimes :) Two things we are really liking this time of year are those baby Walla Wallas and fresh garlic. With the garlic, you don't have to peel it, just chop up the whole thing. That's what I used in the eggs I talked about last week. Also great with some shrimp and capers for a quick picatta sauce over angel hair pasta.

Scrambling eggs

I'm currently reading Julia Child's memoirs, and something in there about scrambling eggs made me do it twice (Sunday and today). I've got lots of fresh herbs begging to be used out on the balcony, so I made "Scarborough Fair" eggs. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, of course, and a teaspoon of chopped fresh young garlic (you use the whole head, no skins to remove), and a couple of tablespoons of sweet spring onions for six eggs. This time of year is just the best when the brand new Walla Walla sweet onions come in, with the tops still attached. Anyway, sweat the garlic and onion over low heat in some clarified butter in a nonstick pan. Whisk the eggs gently with a fork. Add a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream and a couple of tablespoons of the chopped mixed herbs to the eggs along with salt and pepper (I prefer to use white pepper in this). Add the eggs to the pan and patiently cook them very gently, using a spatula to move them around until they are in soft curds and as firm as you like them. With some steamed asparagus and a couple of slices of tomato, it's a very nice brunch for two.

Adjustments required

All this new kitchen gear is requiring some adjustment... As I said, cooking a chicken in the advantium is a major mess. Not quite what I expected. Have to get used to the concept of cleaning out the entire oven interior like it's a pan. Sigh. And loading the dishwasher is going to take a while to "get." The racks are somewhat smaller and they are configured quite a bit differently from what we have known. Heard some frustration from Dave last night over that one. It just takes time (I hope!). The range will take some adjusting too, cleaning the cooktop is a little more extensive since with the continuous top, everything gets messy every time I cook. I'm just going to try to be patient. Not my strong suit but a good exercise for me.

Ducking again...

So I had one duck liver in the freezer, and two more from the ducks this week. So I tried Jacque's recipe for a quick duck liver pate: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105586 Dang, that was easy and yummy. Had the other duck breasts last night. No cherry sauce this time, unadorned was very very good. Got the confit cooked and packed away to age for a couple of weeks. Initial reviews are positive :) Today, we're having lamb burgers for dinner. But before that I am trying to roast a whole chicken in the advantium. It is kind of messy, you have to accept that it's going to splatter all over the oven then you have to wash it out. I need to figure out a solution for that.

Duck!

Tomorrow the remodeling guys will be painting in the kitchen, so I have to get my cooking in today. Went and bought two fresh ducks this morning. Broke them down into leg-thighs, wings, and breasts. With the legs and wings from another duck in the freezer, I have enough to merit making confit. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/102313 seems to be a good recipe, I've tried a few. But I'm of course as usual not leaving well enough alone. I'm subbing herbs de Provence for just thyme, and instead of curing it in a single layer in a dish I'm putting it all in a ziplock bag. So that's in the fridge until Sunday morning. Good thing I have about five pounds of duck fat already in the freezer for this one. Now for the duck breasts. Tonite two of them will be duck with cherry sauce. I'm using the recipe from Epicurious as a starting point http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/232306, but using my home-brandied cherries instead of fresh cherries and red wine. I've made the sauce already, and it's interesting. We'll have polenta with gorgonzola and asparagus with it. The other two breasts we'll have on the grill on Sunday, if the weather cooperates. All four of them are in a light salt/herb cure for a couple of hours right now. Guess I'd better go find a nice Pinot to go with tonite's dinner!

Copper River Salmon -- yum

I've never really fallen for the marketing of Copper River salmon. Nor the sky-high prices. But I was up at the Market yesterday (Pike Place Market, the local farmer's market) and one of my fish guys had some Copper River chinook for only $13.99/lb. So I got a nice piece to try for my lunch. It took all of FOUR MINUTES in the Advantium, and it was really great. Moist, great flavor. I only seasoned it with some lemon avocado oil and sea salt. A little fresh asparagus and I had a great lunch for about $7 -- would have paid at least $25 in a restaurant.

I can't hear my dishwasher

I didn't think a dishwasher could be this quiet. What a wonderful thing! At this point I can recommend a Miele -- though you'll need to ask me again in a couple of months after I've really broken it in. The interior dimensions seem a little smaller than the last one, so the baskets aren't as large. But with the extra cutlery tray, there's isn't that stupid silverware basket taking up space in the bottom. I like that, though it's going to take getting used to new patterns of loading dishes.

Lamb meatballs

Had to come up with a nosh for a pinot nior wine tasting. Decided lamb of course made sense, so: 1/2 onion 1 clove garlic drop both into food processor and whirl until finely chopped. Add: 1/2 lb ground beef 1 lb ground lamb 2 t. cumin 2 t. salt 1/2 t. allspice 1/8 t. cayenne pepper Whirl to combine, add 1/2 c dried breadcrumbs and one egg. Whirl again, just until it comes together. Chill at least an hour. Form into 1" meatballs. Convection roast at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Served with some tzatziki, yogurt with shredded cucumber, cumin, salt, and a little mashed garlic to taste. They seemed to go over well, and did match nicely with the pinots we were tasting. Discovered that the dairy kind of smoothed out those that were a little high in alcohol.

Sweet potato fries

I seem to be on a quest to find truly great sweet potato fries around Seattle. I've made them myself, but with only two of us it's kind of not worth going through all the mess. I had some really interesting ones today at Palisade. They weren't what I would call crisp, but the outsides were somewhat caramelized, and the insides were really creamy. Well-seasoned, too. I had some at Pig Iron BBQ two weeks ago that were good but totally different, crisper. But what I'd like to find is crisp outside, creamy inside, without overcooking. I wonder if dredging them in cornstarch, they way some folks recommend doing french fries, would do the trick. I suspect I'm about to embark on a set of Cooks Illustrated-like experiments to see what works best. I hope my neighbors like sweet potato fries :-)

Advantium pork chops

Cooked a couple of 1 1/2" thick boneless pork chops in the Advantium last night. I'd put on a rub of salt, brown sugar, and ground ginger the night before, so they were nicely cured. Used the built-in program for pork chops, but of course had to modify it since it only had up to 1" thick as an option. Took about 2 minutes longer. They got nice grill marks on them, which was a surprise. Another surprise was the amount of smoke that got generated and how much of that ended up in the room instead of vented out of the oven. It was a lot. But the outcome was good. Cleaning up the grill pan that comes with the oven was something of a chore, and I was also surprised at all the splatters I had to wipe up. But the cleanup was less than from broiling and the outcome was just as good.

Three down, one to go

We got three of the four appliances installed. That means I'm still without a dishwasher. Looks like we're going to have to re-do some plumbing to pull that one off. Another sigh. But, the fridge is lovely and so nice and roomy! I so love being able to see everything. Getting the Advantium oven up and installed with the two of us was quite the adventure. Suffice to say that I shed a few tears of hysteria but we got it up there and securely fastened. I think I need some kind of a different degree to operate it, though the principles are pretty clear to me. I'm going to try a nice thick pork chop tonite. Sugar cookies the other night were kind of weird, best to not leave them in little balls but squash them some. One challenge is that it cooks so fast that you can go from done to burned in less than a minute. So it will require lots of practice. When you're using just microwaves you have to change to a different turntable and that's going to be a little annoying sometimes I think. But something I'll get used to once I resolve the storage issues for the different pieces. With no dishwasher, and a husband away on business, I'm not going all out with fully using the range. But just the luxury of five burners, including one oblong one that will be ideal for deglazing a roasting pan, makes me all warm and happy inside :) One thing I'm looking forward to is using the lower oven, which can be set as low as 150 degrees, to do some oven dried tomatoes and maybe some jerky. Workers are back tomorrow to work on some other areas, so back to more noise and dust. One thing about living in a condo, you find out all kinds of weird ways things got put together when you start pulling off drywall. Spaghetti electrical, things that look structural but really aren't, jury-rigged infrastructure. Makes it all a little hard because we never know what the next stage will bring in terms of expanded work to be done. At least when we started this we didn't attempt to redline our budget from the beginning, so as the task grows we're not freaking out about going over budget. Yet.

1985 Columbia Cabernet Sauvignon, Red Willow Vinyard

I told you I'd let you know how the '85 was when we opened a bottle for my son's 21st birthday. He wasn't drinking much yesterday afternoon, as he was dreadfully hung over from that ritual of going out to start drinking right at midnight when you turn 21. But I did make him take a sip -- guess we're glad he didn't really want it since it left more for the rest of us :) Because it was incredible. Started out harsh and sharp. Left in the glass for about 20 minutes, it became just like velvet. Soft and smooth, with firm cherry and tobacco aromas and flavors. Good to the last drop. A great match for the rotisserie rib roast we had. And since it was Mother's Day, a nice treat for me 21 years after delivering the best thing I've ever done. I have one more bottle and will drink it very soon, since it is definitely ready.

More restaurants: Andy's Diner & Etta's

Well, Andy's was retro before retro was in. It was the kind of place where I felt I had to order a glass of the house red wine, if you know what I mean, and it seems most of the people there were regulars. Really good onion rings, and great housemade clam chowder. Service was really rushed, we got our soup/salad while we were eating the o-rings, and the entrees showed up when we were halfway through the soup/salad. The steaks are good, and reasonably priced. I had a 10-oz "prime steak" which is what I think is a very rare skirt steak with barbeque sauce. It's good; the hashbrowns that came with it were underdone. The prime rib was fine, nothing extraordinary but at $16.95 for a 12-oz slab, you can't really ask for more. With that we had pasta Alfredo, which while good is *really* garlic-y. Hubby was happy because they have Alaskan Amber on tap. Passed on dessert -- evidently they get their pies at the beginning of the week and by Friday all that was left was cherry and banana cream. I wanted the coconut cream...wanted to compare it to the Tom Douglas' restaurants version I had for lunch yesterday. Oh, well. Another day. Speaking of Tom Douglas restaurants, we had lunch at Etta's yesterday. The day boat scallops were incredible -- about as sweet as I've ever tasted. My halibut was nicely crusted, and I really liked the lemon couscous under it and the harissa viniagrette on top. The coconut cream pie was as good as I remember from several years ago. The chocolate pistachio cake was good enough, but I'm not wild about the almond extract flavor it had. And, unfortunately, there were several pieces of pistachio shell in the cake. Those are really hard, we're glad no teeth were sacrified. Long lunch, expensive lunch ($75) but really really tasty. Server shared that Douglas is in the planning stages of opening a pizza parlor...interesting!

They're here! They're here!

Okay, maybe it's just not natural to get so excited about new appliances. But, as I told the delivery guy (who looked about 15 years old, by the way, but was incredibly competent) I've been wanting a professional-grade fridge for most of my adult life and so today is kind of a milestone in that sense. I'm all verklempt...give me a minute... Oh, they aren't installed yet, though the fridge is plugged in. But the sad thing is that until I get the water connected and the fridge pushed back into its retaining bracket, I can't even open the doors to look inside. Delayed gratification, I guess. Hubby will be home from work early to help me get all the connections made for that and for the new range. Tomorrow we'll tackle the dishwasher and the Advantium microwave. Dang, that fridge is HUGE! Seven feet tall, three and a half feet wide. One rather imposing expanse of stainless steel in my not that big kitchen. It (and the other appliances) really brighten it up, though, with all the reflecting of the light. I haven't cooked a meal in almost two weeks now. Feels like withdrawal to me. I'll cook on Sunday at mom's, we're going to christen their new BBQ rotisserie with a standing rib roast. That ought to be interesting. Just a simple salad and roasted new potatoes and asparagus on the side. And a big chocolate cake for dessert :) Since we're celebrating my recent birthday and my son's 21st birthday. I'm hoping that a highlight will be a couple of bottles of 1985 Columbia Red Willow Cab (my son was born in 85, natch). Will of course let you know how that turns out.