Ktepi

Pretty sure I'd give up a limb for deep-fried Creole cream cheese.

In early February, half of my freezer is stuff I froze during Farmer's Market season, apple cider I froze in the Fall, and rhubarb my mother sent me from her garden. I think the weirdest is the $3 of hickory nuts I don't want to waste by tossing out or spend $70 on to crack. Somewhere in there I thought I had my mystery basil -- the guy who sells it at the Farmer's Market says the Tibetan monks in town tell him it's holy basil, but the internet says holy basil is spicy and cinnamony, and this smells like perfumed soap and tastes like a cross between honeysuckle and cherimoya -- but I apparently used it up already.

Saffron is still my favorite flavor for homemade ice cream the way I make it -- I basically just freeze flavored sweetened whipped cream -- but I'm very happy with the bacon ice cream I made last night: chunks of smoked jowl bacon, larger strips of fat removed, barely simmered in heavy cream and maple syrup for an hour before being strained, cooled, whipped, and frozen. It tastes like toffee. Or butterscotch. The saltiness and smokiness ad a richness that reminds me of those, and enough pork fat melts and emulsifies into the cream that it's even richer (and freeze a bit more solidly) than whipped cream already is. Although the finish is one you can recognize as sweet pork fat if you're paying attention -- it's as though after the ice cream melts there's still that bit of pork on the tongue -- I don't think anyone would know this was bacon if I didn't tell them.

My spread: Chili, made today with ground beef, chorizo, and pork ribs. We'll have it with beans, cheese, sour cream, bacon, and scallions. Dr Pepper chicken, which is sort of like Coca-Cola chicken except that I'm essentially just reducing the Dr Pepper down with a little Tabasco pepper and citric acid; I like Coca-Cola chicken, but the soy sauce and so on that so many people add dilutes the flavor too much. Lemonade iced tea Jello. Dr Pepper cupcakes with chocolate frosting (it's just Coca-Cola cake with Dr Pepper instead). Bacon ice cream. Extra-large Virginia peanuts for munching on. Probably a fair bit of beer and yelling (the Missus is from WA).

A licked spoon of not-yet-frozen bacon ice cream, which if the texture comes out properly will be one of the best ice creams I've made. It tastes like butterscotch!

The Superbowl chili is in the oven: I cooked some chopped bacon in the Dutch oven until the fat had fried out; browned 2 pounds pork ribs and put them aside; fried 2 onions and 2 peppers in that; added 1 pound chorizo, 2 pounds ground beef, and kept it cooking until everything was browned and the liquid had cooked off; added half a cup of sweet vermouth and cooked that off, then half a cup of cream and did the same; added my seasonings and the pork ribs, covered it with stock, and into the oven it's gone. Judging by the smell, the vermouth won't be a problem, but we'll see -- for all I know it'll clash with the cumin or something. I don't anticipate that, though, and in that quantity I can't imagine the flavor will be pronounced -- I just wanted a little added richness and complexity. The bacon will go in later, as I add more stock here and there to keep it wet all day. Tomatoes will go in mid-afternoon, which is when I figure the ribs will have cooked off the bone -- I'll taste it at that point, too, and see how the heat's doing, add some chipotle if it's too tame or flat. I'll serve it tomorrow with beans, more bacon (dessert includes a stab at bacon ice cream), Colby cheese, sour cream, scallions.

It was too ... hoppy, I think. Maybe too bitter. The problem may be that I don't drink beer very often, and 90% of the time when I do, I'm actually drinking lambic, which would be weird in chili. The other ten percent is Rolling Rock or Abita, usually with seafood or, well, chili. I don't remember all the beers I've tried in chili, but I know I've used Abita Turbo Dog, Corona, and Dos Equis (the Rolling Rock didn't strike me as appropriate). In the house right now, I have Rolling Rock, Abita Christmas Ale, some kind of blueberry ale (okay, that's not going in), and Newscastle Brown Ale.

Hm, with the ragu I add the vermouth at the beginning of the day-long cooking, so the parallel of that with the chili wouldn't let me taste it in a small dose. That may be reason enough to be reluctant -- but I have a third or so of a bottle of red wine, too, and could try that.

I'm glad this thread was revived, and Jambalyle, that does look like a good turkey chili. Advice question: I'm making chili for Superbowl Sunday, and since I'm also making a batch of Ragu Bolognese next week (I've been making it pretty regularly since Kevin72's demonstration on his Italian Cooking thread), I was thinking of making the chili sort of similar to that. I mean, I almost always make chili with very slow, low heat anyway, but ... I'm thinking, something that more specifically targets the richness and depth you get with Ragu Bolognese, something as intensely meaty and rich as it is spicy. Chili you can eat with a fork without leaving much in the bowl. I don't want it to be especially tomatoey, so I'm envisioning a stock that cooks down over the course of the day, which suits the meats I have on hand -- chili-grind beef, normal ground chuck, it'll-do-for-now chorizo, and not-too-fatty/but-not-too-lean country pork ribs. I'm picturing stewing the ribs in that chili broth as it cooks down, removing the bones and shredding the meat after six hours, and then cooking down until it's very thick. My question, though. I use vermouth in making the Ragu Bolognese, adding some to the beef and vegetables and cooking it down before then adding the tomatoes. I like the additional depth of flavor it adds, and I'd like the chili to be similarly multi-dimensional, but I don't know ... would vermouth go with chili? I haven't been happy about beer in chili recipes unless it's used in fairly small amounts, say half a can per batch.

Y'all need to realize, the can isn't -- in my experience -- a preferred replacement for the glass bottle, it's an alternative to the plastic bottle that's driven the glass off most the shelves and out of even moster of the vending machines. (I can't remember the last time I saw a glass bottle vending machine other than the ones that charge airport prices for their "hey it's glass bottles!" novelty.)

The last time I tried this, I was all excited because I was using these fancy gourmet peanuts that were my current food obsession -- and which, of course, were too big to fish out of the can once plunked in. So I'll second (edit: third) Tom's as brand of choice. Although Planter's cocktail peanuts are pretty good. Just don't use anything seasoned, honey-roasted, etc.

I forget the name -- Havana Cafe? Cafe Havana? -- but the Cuban place in town is fantastic, the best Cuban food I've had in a restaurant. When I was in town last year, we went three times -- and we're not people who lacked a vast list of other places we wanted to go, we just wanted to go back there more. Thanks to going in a group of 20 the second time, I've tried everything on the menu (as of Carnival 2005) -- the yuca frita was perfect, all of the pork fantastic. Chicken sometimes a little dry, but this may simply be because most of it's white meat and I'm not a white meat fan. The stuffed potatoes are good, but hugely filling. Save room for the tres leches cake.

Oh man oh man oh man this is good news. One more dose of cold medicine and I'll be biting my monitor to get at that chocolate pie on the rack there. You can order Hubig's in bulk here, but it looks like the smallest order is 60 pies.

After totally screwing up a gratin last night, I only had two small potatoes left, and I have this thing about never remembering to buy things until I'm actually out of them -- so if I didn't use the potatoes, I'd never remember to buy more. So I made a corned ham hash, heavy on the onion and ham (and a little too salty for it, although it probably would have been fine if I hadn't fried it all in bacon fat), with a little homemade bacon, the potatoes, Louisiana hot sauce, and demiglace as the binder -- I was out of cream. Very good. Very easy. Why on Earth have I been bothering with the canned stuff? Other than the occasional red flannel hash when I have leftover corned beef, and turkey hash after Thanksgiving, I can't remember ever making hash before. The next time I buy skirt steak, I'm making ropa vieja so I can make hash with it -- like vaca frita with potatoes, the way I'm picturing it.

My corned ham lacks photos, but with the lighting in my kitchen you wouldn't be missing a whole lot. It came out excellently -- albeit too dry on one side, which was my own fault because I was on the phone (it was Christmas after all) at the critical end, and wasn't as vigilant as I should have been. This is the problem with cell phones, isn't it? You can't cradle them against your shoulder to free up a hand. Not only is it not overpoweringly salty, it's less salty than most country or city hams. It's just porky, like a great pork roast. The drippings were deep and brown, and in the end I decided to try something sort of odd, instead of Linda's desalination technique: I poured the fat off and added just enough water to deglaze the pan, and no more. The result is a thick sauce that's almost a paste, and it's immensely salty -- but instead of using it as a gravy or ordinary sauce, I'm using it the way you'd use Worcestershire, soy sauce, or other highly flavorful, highly salty condiments. I spread a little on an unsalted hamburger just now, leaving off any other condiments besides some sliced habanero (I thought the spice might distract from any oversaltiness), and it was great -- the saltiness was no more noticeable than on a bacon cheeseburger, and this meaty flavor came through that reminded me of the Ferdi poboy at Mother's. If it goes as well with potatoes as I'm expecting it to, the sauce-paste might be the best part of this, but I'm a fan of those kinds of intensely flavored gravies. The skin, too, is amazing. I did a hell of a lot of skin-on pork roasts of one sort or another before moving to Indiana (where it doesn't seem to be a popular cut; I had to special order the ham), and I cook with pork belly more often than I should, so I've had a lot of pork skin. The only time it's been even close to this good was the skin of the cheeks and jowls on the pig's head I roasted earlier in the year.

Yep, completely covered -- the sink's not huge, but it's big enough, although I had to maneuver the ham a bit to keep this one inch from sticking out of the surface. I was worried about the water staying cold enough, but the tap water is so cold today that that hasn't been an issue at all. If anything, I think it may be colder than it would be in the fridge.

My cooler has sprung a leak, so I'm soaking the ham in the sink, which is just barely barely big enough to contain it. Does anyone with a better handle on food chemistry know if this will make a difference, given that rather than soaking it in the same water for 24 hours I'll be draining the sink periodically in order to keep the water cold?

Corned ham! Biscuits or a baguette, kale, leftover chaudin if there is any, and maybe some homemade pepper jelly. That's dinner-on-the-actual-Christmas-day, though, which is just me. Our celebratory type Christmas dinner will be on New Year's Eve: Duck confit Tangy spicy sauce (vague sounding, but I'm using glaceed pieces of an unidentified citrus fruit I bought in an Asian market along with diced cayenne) Stone-ground grits Cured lamb tongue confit Fruitcake, saffron brownies, champagne, Campari

1: Sourdough bread. 2: I'm going to buy every frickin sour cherry in sight when the season starts. Whatever won't fit in a pie and another pie and another pie, I'll soak in bourbon, glace, make into jam, freeze, whatever. I don't care how long I have to spend pitting them. 3: Similarly, more preserves and other things to keep the flavors of spring and summer around longer. Infused liquors too. 4: Make twice as much marmalade the next time I buy Meyer lemons. Candied peel, too -- I made some candied peel from a mystery citrus fruit I found in an Asian market, and I like the results. 5: Master my iSi Creme Whipper so I stop blowing bowls across the room and scaring the cats. 6: Next year, three fruitcakes. One for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas, one to give away. 7: Blood sausage.

That's definitely true for me, especially if you discount baking (and other things where exact proportion is critical: candy-making, Charcuterie if Santa was kind enough to bring it, jam-making, etc). Come to think of it, other than those things, I doubt I've cooked from the same recipe more than once in the last few years. I'm more likely to read it, figure out the gist, and head into the kitchen, where I adapt as necessary or convenient or fun. I learned a lot when I did cook from recipes, or at least with a cookbook in glancing distance, and The Joy Of Cooking is one of those books I'll never get rid of because the idea is ingrained in me that it's simply a must-have kitchen fixture. But these days I'm doing my own thing more, and I shop differently: instead of deciding what to make and going to get the ingredients, I pick up what "makes sense to buy" and see what I can do with it later. (Something might "make sense" because it's on sale that week, because it's a seasonal item that's not available for long, or because it was just very fresh, etc.) I'm talking about step-by-step, cookbook on the countertop, rigorous recipe-following here though. If you broaden it to "reading a recipe and then making something more or less like it," I think I do that with all my cookbooks -- I get rid of the ones I don't, and as a result I probably have fewer than 20 outright cookbooks (as opposed to McGee, Steingarten, Larousse, etc -- although Steingarten does have recipes, and I think I've made most of them).

I haven't seen Malacca in at least a year, maybe two -- it was my gin of choice during its brief lifespan. I don't remember drinking it with anything but tonic or club soda -- I'm not much of a martini drinker, I hadn't yet embraced the Negroni, and I agree with the page there that says it doesn't mix with fruit juices as well as other gins do (although I usually added lime to my gin and tonics and didn't have a problem with it).

1 ounce Galliano 4 ounces cold Coca-Cola large amount of both Angostura and Gary Regan's orange bitters (~20 drops each) It's a sweet drink, and I'd like it more if it were a bit less so -- maybe I should try adding rye or something to it. But it has transformed the bottle of Galliano from "something I'm drinking to make room in the cabinet" to "something I'll have to buy more of when I run out." (I like the taste of Galliano but haven't found many drinks I like it in.)

I keep an idea book with me, too -- a lot of times I'll think of a flavor combination but know that it's not something I'll do anything with that week, or not know what exactly I want to do with it. I jot down what we order at some restaurants, too. I often blog what I made for dinner, lunch, whatever, after the fact -- but not for the sake of a recipe, per se, and since I measure hardly anything if I'm not baking or curing, my recipes are often going to be wrong in those specifics. I can almost always remember how I made what I made -- but nine times out of ten I'll forget that I made it until I'm reminded. Tell me "the carrot pancakes with the ginger" or "that duck on the rice noodles" and I'm fine, but ask me for something to do with duck and I'm more likely to think of something new than to remember what I've done with it before. Keeping a record of the highlights makes things easier, and most years I print up a cookbook on CafePress to give to family.

I'm hoping this becomes a tradition: A few days before NYE, my ex and her husband -- at whose 2002 Halloween party I met my girlfriend -- are coming to visit for a week, and we'll do a belated Christmas. It's the first year since we moved out of New Orleans that all four of us have lived in the same country, had the money to travel, and been free during the break between semesters (the three who are not me are all academics). Hopefully those things will continue to be true now. They're even bringing their cats, one of whom we cat-sat while they were living in China for a year, so it feels kind of like a family reunion. I'm making duck confit by request, and I'm going to try to sell them on grits since we have just enough left of the good stone-ground grits we bought this summer. A crudo appetizer if I can get good fresh fish, some kind of sweet-tangy-spicy sauce for the duck (I'm leaning towards a vinagrette-ish thing with harissa and chopped up bits of a mysterious citrus fruit I bought a few weeks ago and glaceed), the last of the fruitcake for dessert, Campari cocktails of some sort for drinks after. Probably Campari and champagne, or else we'll just have the champagne separately. (I told them that when they visit, I'm going to show them that grits, fruitcake, and Campari are all terrific. Next year, sweetbreads and tongue.) New Year's Day, the current plan is to go into Indianapolis, do a little shopping, and get lunch at Gray Brothers Cafeteria.

Mine's been in the fridge for I guess about a week now -- with no Exacto knife, no stress analysis, and mildly defective hands, I don't anticipate a particularly pretty porcine pskin. But the ham -- nameless, anonymous -- seems to be coming along well. It gave off a lot of liquid in the first few days, which washed so much of the surface salt away that I added more than I had anticipated adding ... hopefully not too much. For the overnight soak, I'm going to have to use the heavy-duty cooler with some ice in the water -- I'm using a 20 pound ham and just don't have anything I can submerge it in, much less room in the fridge for such a hypothetical thing if I had it. I don't drive and the Missus is gone for the rest of the year, so I can't go get a bucket or something -- the cooler will have to do. It's kept sodas cold for four days, and it's what I use to brine turkeys -- I'm sure it can handle a ham. In the meantime I've been making bacon according to the Ruhlman recipe in the NY Times article that had been linked on some thread and have been flavoring the cure with whatever I can think of, maybe to make up for the simplicity of this ham. I wish I had given in to the impulse to buy pork ears -- it truly would be Porkmas.