Welcome to the Rogue Gourmet Notebooks. I use these pages as my reference guide, sketchbook and archive for notebook related blog posts and recipes. Much of the content in this area is being worked on - "The wonderful world of DOUGH Donuts in Brooklyn, New York... Your eyes will glaze over with the amount of colorful sugar you're about to see."
DOUGH Donuts: A Far Cry From The Old Fashioned from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.
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DOUGH Donuts: A Far Cry From The Old Fashioned - Rogue Gourmet Video Week, Day Eight
I recognize that this video is effectively and advert for Knorr, but the advertising is discrete. Marco Pierre White is one of my favorite chefs, and these steaks look delicious. I couldn't resist posting this video, and I might not be able to resist actually making this for dinner tonight. Enjoy.
"Meet Chef Jeremy Spector of The Brindle Room in Manhattan's East Village, a cozy, charming, neighborhood restaurant that sears up quite possibly, the best tasting burger in New York City.
Chef Jeremy walked me through the design of The Brindle Room burger, explaining in detail what makes them so sought after and so terribly addicting. For me, it's all about the meat. There's something special about the beef in this burger. You can taste it in every bite, and feel the flavor develop with every chew. It's a quality that Jeremy likens to "a fine cheese or good wine". Truly, a burger for meat lovers." (video link)
Video by foodcurated.com
CADE (Part 1): Building Artisan Slaughterhouses to Feed the Demand for Grass-fed Meat
It should be noted that these videos contain some very
frank and honest imagery that some people may find disturbing.
Others it may make hungry. Diversity man, it makes life interesting.
"Meet Chris Harmon, a local farmer and the Executive Director of CADE, The Center for Agricultural Development & Entrepreneurship. CADE is a non-profit organization working to help build the necessary infrastructure so that farmers can survive and thrive in upstate New York.
More and more people are interested in knowing where their food comes from. And with local grass-fed meat in high demand along the East Coast, many farmers are looking towards repurposing their unused dairy land to raise animals. But to feed this demand, farmers need more local USDA-approved slaughterhouses. Slaughterhouses, with skilled butchers, that can help farmers make extra income off of their new crop of pasture-raised animals. And right now, there aren’t nearly enough of them. Therefore, building more meat processing plants is a necessary step to help revitalize a dying farming industry upstate, a step that CADE is using all its resources to grow." (video link)
CADE (Part 2): The Good Slaughter: A Proud Meat Cutter Shares His Processing Floor
“My hope is that my children will have the same passion for this as I do…”
"Meet Larry Althiser, the owner and head meat cutter for Larry’s Custom Meats in Hartwick, NY, a small farming community in the Northern Catskills. Larry takes pride in his slaughterhouse. He’s been butchering and processing animals for over 30 years, learning through hard work his philosophy on the right way to slaughter animals so we can eat.
I spent two days upstate with Larry at his brand new processing plant to learn firsthand how animals become food – a rare opportunity to tell the story of transparency in the meat industry. Truth be told, I was very, very anxious going into this shoot. The night before, I tossed and turned in my bed, restless for hours. I just wasn’t sure if I was ready to see the whole process, to film what I’d been shy to film for years. But, I had to do it. It’s a story I wanted to tell, a good story about a proud butcher open to teaching his trade, and a story I felt compelled to share with many others, like me, who didn’t want to be disconnected to their food any longer." (video link)
Videos by foodcurated.com
Hearing Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, José Andrés, and April Bloomfield talk about their favorite kitchen tools won't make you a better chef. But that doesn't mean you can't learn from them.
For day 2 of The Rogue Gourmet's Video Week - Move, Eat, Learn - Three short films from Rick Meriki: 3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ....into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films.....
Move
Eat
Learn
Filmed and Directed by Rick Mereki
A short vignette of Yoshi Masuda--a coffee enthusiast who is sharing his passion for coffee with victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.
Directed/Edited/Shot by Mackenzie Sheppard
www.mackenziesheppard.net
In a fit of apparent OCD over the weekend (and some inspiration from my wife) I finally got around to sorting through and organizing my herb and spice collection. I took the doors off the cabinets and added a couple of removeable shelf/organizers to each shelf to create a new layout. I think it may be the first time I actually like the way that my collection is organized and displayed. Best of all, for the most part, all the common spices are immediately available.
In the past (up until Sunday) my spice collection has been hidden behind closed cabinets, and as every spice stayed in it's own package, the lot was criminally disorganized. In fact the collection is actually taking up less space in my kichen that it did before - and it adds a great apothecary quality to the kitchen that I think I love.
I still have to actaully create some kind of order for the spiced and do some trim and finishing to make everything completed. but I think I am really happy with it.
A large form sous vide project I am currently working on, and will post about in depth in a couple of weeks, got posted to Lifehacker today (I got scooped on my own build). Somebody found my Flickr set on the project and it has gotten a lot of coverage today - which is very cool - but it isn't done!.
Here is a link to the build photos so far, I am adding new ones as I complete steps in the project. The full article and documentation on the project will come as soon as I complete the build and testing.
Hack a Day Story - Nov 9th 2011: Kitchen hacks: What would you cook if you had a Sous-Vide this large?
LifeHacker Story - Nov 10th 2011: This 16-Gallon Sous-Vide Water Oven Is Perfect for Huge Holiday Meals
A pâté de campagne is a traditional country terrine, a rustic preparation, slightly more refined than a pâté grandmère mainly in that it uses only a small amount of liver. In a pâté campagne liver is used as a seasoning device rather than a dominant flavor. In the past I have always used a recipe for a more or less traditional styled pâté de campagne from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Thier recipe is made up of ground pork and chicken or pork liver, but I wanted to try to make a variation that offered a richer flavor profile - with a game like character, and this recipe made a successful step in that direction.
The mushrooms bring out the earthiness in the duck and lamb. Morels would be a wonderful alternative to the porcini's I used in this recipe, but I couldn't find any this weekend. In either case I prefer to used dried mushrooms, the grind breaks them into the perfect size and I find that their flavor permeates the pâté in a way that fresh mushrooms don't offer.
The duck and duck fat brought a much finer texture to the pâté that I found to be very appealing as well as creating a earthier and more robust character. The liver flavor in this recipe wasn't as strong as it might have been, If you enjoy a strong liver flavor in your pâté you might consider adding an additional 50 to 100 grams of duck liver. The stronger flavored meats in this pâté make the liver a bit more background than in a pâté made with pork (especially commercially produced domestic pork in the US - which I find to be a bit less flavorful than heirloom pork like berkshire, which is far preferable for this kind of preparation).
Some great news on the gardening/brewing front, at least 9 out of 10 of our hops plants lived through the winter. I have to admit being pleasantly surprised. We had some very cold days this winter -44 fahrenheit according to our outdoor thermometer, and even in the photos I have uploaded you can see frost heave in the hops bed.
We planted 5 varieties of hop rhizomes last year, and were very lucky getting a reasonable batch of hops for brewing in our first year from two of the varieties. I am pleased to see that all of the varieties have survived, though one plant hasn't yet broken the surface - we will have to see if it catches up later, or if it is a casualty.
Today's recipe has become one of my flagship deserts - a deep, dark, rich chile and cocoa experience. The delicate addition of finely ground, carefully selected ancho and New Mexico chiles to this sinfully flourless chocolate cake creates a culinary tryst of surpising complexity and history.
I have named the cake for a very old Aztec drink served almost exclusively to royalty. Sophie and Michael Coe, note the drink in thier book The True History of Chocolate: "Universally popular throughout Mesoamerica was the addition to the drink of chile, dried and ground to a powder. The Molina vocabulary [the first Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary] calls the drink chilcacahuatl."
You will love this cake if you take care in creating it.
As I write this the snow is drifting down, the wind blowing, its cold and wet outside. It has been snowing all week, a thick wet snow that only lasts until about 10 AM each day before the sun melts it off. Tonight we are expecting 3 inches, which might stick around a bit longer, but all of this is great news. Spring is here!
Saturday I was planning a fishing trip down in Colorado, where spring is farther along. A fishing buddy, Tom and I were going to try and fish the Cache la Poudre River up in the canyon north of Fort Collins, but A fresh snowfall, a cold and fever, and a spouses migraine cancelled the trip. The fact is that the river might be too high to fish as well, and facing all of this, and no one to go with I ended up staying home.
For the trip fare I had been planning on making a lunch that my buddy and I could eat in the canyon. Eating well when out fishing is, in my opinion, an incredible pleasure, and my plan was to make a couple of shooter's sandwiches to make our day complete - with or without successful fishing.
I ended up making two different versions of carne asada tacos, with one main difference in the recipes (see recipe below). In the second recipe I added a 1/4 cup of medium heat New Mexico red chile powder.
Once a week is steak night at our house. Both my wife and I realy enjoy tri-tip and flank, both of which are a bit toothier than some more expensive cuts, but both offer great flavor, marinate well, and when cooked properly are a fantastic value.
One of my favorite ways to cook both of these cuts is Sous Vide. Cooking using this method is nothing new to the foodie community, and last year the introduction of the SousVide Supreme made affordable sous vide cooking available to the home cook. I was happy to be an early adopter of this gadget, and honestly after using it for over a year now, I am a really big fan.
At my daughters school they make a big deal about Saint Patty's Day. They tell the children that Leprechauns visit the school while the kids are out playing, and hide chocolate coins around the classroom. Fiona, my daughter, has been entirely unsure what to think about all of this, she is clearly excited about the chocolate, but inquired quite seriously recently about the existence of Leprechauns. "Tell me the truth daddy... Are leprechauns real?"
Oddly enough, I was fearful of telling her that they were not - mostly because at least in my mind, the next question would be about Santa, and at 4 I couldn't bear her thinking that Santa isn't real.
What came out of my mouth after assuring her that they were real... I have no excuse, except that it was funny..?
"Sure they are Fiona! In fact, Saint Patty's day is the one day of the year that we are allowed to hunt Leprechauns!"
Fiona didn't believe a word of it, and went straight home to tell my wife just how horrible Daddy was - teasing her that I was going to hunt Leprechauns, and even worse, make Leprechaun Sausage! My wife to her credit, thought all of this was very funny.
Now I should back up and explain that there is a lot of talk, especially lately, about hunting around the house. Many of our friends hunt and I have been shopping for a rifle and a shotgun. We have also been cooking a lot of game recently, and Fiona has expressed a sincere interest in "learning to hunt with Daddy" when she grows up.
Every year since moving to Wyoming now nearly 4 years ago our family spends 10 days of late Spring at Jackson Lake, in Grand Tetons National Park here Wyoming. Late Spring in Wyoming being the end of June and beginning of July.
Spring is a fickle dame in Wyoming, especially in the higher altitudes. Perusing Facebook over the last couple of weeks, I see more and more comments from friends living around the country talking up Spring. And lets face it, it's "Spring break", even here, where currently it is in the low 30's and snow drifts and ice packs abound.
Spring here in Laramie, doesn't necessarily resemble the season familiar to most. It's cold, though far less cold than last month - when we had several days below -30. The snow is heavy and wet in spring, and persistent, generally through mid June. It seems as thought summer will never arrive, and when it finally does, fall is already in the air.
This cold, and slow moving Spring here in Wyoming is also when I, and many like me in these parts, start thinking about fishing.
I recently joined food52 an online "cooks" community that is run out of New York City by Amanda Hesser(prolific cookbook author and NYTimes food writer) and Merrill Stubs (also a NYTimes food writer and Le Cordon Bleu Chef).
Food52 is a wonderful (however New York City'esqe) cooking and food community, which sponsors weekly recipe contests. As of today I have submitted 2 recipes to food52 contests. Frankly the competition is pretty tough, there are a lot of very good cooks in the community, and I am possibly the only member from Wyoming - which is pretty decidedly not New York City'esqe!
All that is not to say that I don't feel like I fit in. I have spent my time in big cities, and I am a big believer that rural cooking is anything but pedestrian - especially since with a little looking we can find almost anything we need in Laramie, and frankly we have seasonal access to ingredients like fresh wild trout, elk, antelope, deer, and wild duck that city folk pay dearly for, if they can get it at all.
This weeks recipe contest at food52 is "Your Best Recipe with Fresh Ricotta". Winning recipes are published in upcoming cookbooks published by Amanda and Merrill. I submitted my recipe for Meyer Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blackberry & Sage Butter Topping . If you think the recipe sounds good, jump on over to my entry, and give me a "like" or a comment! Then, try the recipe out for a slow Sunday morning breakfast or brunch - you won't be sorry, these pancakes are wonderful
Of all the recipes that I have this one is by far the most requested. Its easy to make, and when done with good ingredients is really hard to beat. Its great by itself, as tacos with slaw, or over rice.
I "discovered" the dish this recipe is based on when Naomi and I stopped for dinner in the small town of Cuba, New Mexico on our way to Albuquerque from Chaco Canyon. We stumbled onto the most unbelievable appetizer, 6 shrimp, sauteed with piñon in an rich, slightly sweetened chile oil. After a period of trail and error I came up with a recipe that takes its inspiration from the flavors in that dish, but has been built to serve as a stunning main dish, perfect for a dinner party. A simple combination of shrimp, piñon nuts (pine nuts) honey, olive oil, New Mexico chile powder and cream, this dish can be an extraordinary experience. Save your very best chile powders and olive oil for this recipe, as it offers a chance to truly showcase the complexities and richness of your finest ingredients.
Shrimp with Red Chile and Piñon Nuts
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I have been looking for a good high alitude cinnamon roll recipe for a quite sometime. I finally worked out this one after a couple of tries. The rolls are huge, none of us ate more than half a roll. The recipe is set up to make 12 rolls, this time around I did 8 with the same recipe, and they were great.
I admit that I have a Cinnabon problem. Not one that I indulge very often as we don't have one in Laramie - and in fact, I don't even know if there are any in Wyoming. My solution was to come up with a recipe that was just as good, and I think these are it - that said, they take a very long time to make!
Recipe After Jump
So I have a copy of Diana Kennedy's newest book "Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy" on the way to my Wyoming casa. Anyone who knows me well knows that Mexican Cuisine, and in particulaly Oaxacan cuisine has a very special spot in my heart. I very much look forward to reading and reviewing the book (all 492 pages of it).
I am particularly interested in reading her recipe(s) on mole(s) from the region. I am a die hard fan of Rick Bayless's Oaxacan black mole, but I am excited to find some other variations.
I will post photos, and more once I have the book, but for now, here is an interview with the author.
Originally posted on Chileifre.com 10/5/2007
The chile, it seems to me, is one of the few foods that has its own god.
— Diana Kennedy
Cooking is one of my great pleasures. I enjoy nothing more than creating food that enlivens the palate, invokes strength of flavor, and speaks of refined textures and seductive and sensuous aromas. Spices, herbs and aromatics are to me like pigments to a painter - to be mixed in an endless variety of alchemical compounds, elixirs, and infusions.
But spices, herbs and aromatics go beyond the pleasures of the palate. Historically, in early trade, spices often took the place of currency, they have played important roles in the healing arts, adding properties to medicines, bringing scent to perfume and used to enhance our seductive qualites.
The flavors brought by these botanicals also become synonymous with location - certain foods evoke immediate recongnition of where they originate, and the mythologies and imagination we associate with with these faraway places. Spice has for much of history traveled where we as individuals could not, or have not. I have never been to Shanghai, but if I close my eyes I can vividly imagine salty caramelized roasted pork sticky with a sweet plum, soy and start anise, served from a street vendor surrounded by wafts of fragrant smoke. Cuisine is, in my mind, just as much a medium for expressing culture as is art, literature or music.
Wavery Root suggests that, "every country possess, it seems, the sort of cuisine it deserves, which is to say the sort of cuisine it is appreciative enough to want". American cuisine, unlike our current political climate, is incredibly welcoming and diverse in it's acceptance of foreign tastes; at once the result of our diverse population, and a growing acceptance of foreign flavors and cooking techniques. Americans prize our diverse culinary traditions even when we might not welcome those who introduce them - a fact that I have a very hard time accepting in this time of war and distrust. Anglo America - that culture of the "Founding Fathers" was not what America has become - Our fore bearers preached austerity, blandness and economic practicality at the expense of indulgence and taste. It was over and over again in this country that the lower economic classes and immigrants introduced Americans to the flavors of the world outside it's borders; new and rich flavors which America has thrown, with more relish into it's famous "melting pot" than it ever has any other the cultural products introduced by the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free".
Spices, herbs and aromatics, it seems, travel more freely than those who have mastered their use
When I started Chilefire in 2005 I selected the name - to speak to the topic of spice, for exactly that reason. Chiles are an unusual cultural spice in many ways, chiles apparent universal appeal, the fruits wholehearted integration into virtually every cuisine on the planet is in some ways unique. Smithsonian researchers report that across the Americas, chile peppers were cultivated and traded as early as 6,000 years ago and likely were consumed by the native people in the Ecuadorian rainforests even earlier than that.
Recently plant remains which include corn, squash, beans, avocados and chile peppers, were recovered from two caves in southern Mexico and analyzed by a Smithsonian ethnobotanist/archaeologist and a colleague. their finding indicate that as early as 1,500 years ago, Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region enjoyed a spicy fare very similar to Mexican cuisine today. The two caves yielded 10 different cultivated varieties of chile peppers “What was interesting to me was that we were able to determine that they were using the peppers both dried and fresh,” Perry said. (Chilies broken while fresh had a recognizable breakage pattern.) “It shows us that ancient Mexican food was very much like today. They would have used fresh peppers in salsas or in immediate preparation, and they would have used the dried peppers to toss into stews or to grind up into sauces like moles.”
Today, chiles have managed to integrate themselves into the diet and cuisine of very nearly every continent on the planet. I have been told by a colleague at National Geographic that cultivated chiles have been found being grown by "un-contacted" tribes deep in the Congo, proof to the contrary that these remote tribes are truly un-contacted, as ultimately this spice had its heredity in the equally deep jungles of ancient Ecuador.
That Famous European, Columbus, brought chile peppers in several forms back to Europe; from there, Portuguese traders spread them along the coasts of present-day Africa, India, Asia, China, the Middle East, Central Europe and Italy. Areas which already consumed a diet rich in highly spiced foods — such as present-day Asia and India — very quickly incorporated chile peppers into their local cuisines; so quickly, in fact, that until the 1900s chile peppers were widely believed to be indigenous to Asia and India — they were not.
So on this Columbus day I thought it worth a meditation on the history of the chile, this skilled culinary ambassador, who was set upon the world by another whose legacy is both celebrated and despised.
These chili peppers from the Guila Naquitz cave in Oaxaca Mexico date to between A.D. 490 and 780, and represent two cultivars or cultivated types. A Smithsonian scientist analyzed the chili pepper remains and determined that Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region hundreds of years ago enjoyed a spicy fare similar to Mexican cuisine today.
Credit: Linda Perry, Smithsonian Institution
| There are very few desert foods that are as universally loved as fresh Medjool dates. I used to consider dates as little more than another barely edible dried fruit added to American Christmas cakes, which I don't care for much. I didn't really appreciate them fully until in the summer of 1987 on a road trip with a small group of high school friends I was forced to pull into a roadside farm market on route 86, 50 or so miles north of the Mexican border with an overheating engine.
The market was associated with a date ranch that we had been driving by - unnoticed as our attention was focused on the wavering engine heat indicator which was only being kept from a boil over by our willingness to run the heater all out on this 104° day.
We pulled into the market to give the car some time to cool off, while we wandered down the market aisles and pondered the idea of a "Date Shake". The heat may have helped me decide that day to go ahead and order that five or six dollar date shake, and I remember well waiting in anticipation as the girl with the long brown hair put it together, three or four scoops of french vanilla ice cream, a good sized scoop of a date paste (I was later to learn it was Medjool date paste) and a splash of milk. I imagine now the buzz of the burr inside the frosted stainless shake cup, before she half poured, half scooped my date shake, now a rich carmel brown into a paper cup. It was even more thick and smooth than I'd anticipated, with chewy bits of date skin and an intense carmel and honey flavor. The cold made the pieces of date in the shake chewier, somehow even more satisfying as they softened under my bite - I was quite literally smitten with this first real taste of fresh dates, and before I left the market I had spent twenty five dollars on soft, fat Medjool dates, some wrapped like truffles in thin colored foil, others pressed together in transparent plastic cartons. Our road trip sent us north - away from the fertile date plantations of the south, so there were to be no further forays into date shakes on that trip, and before we made it home - the dates I had purchased, even the fancy foil wrapped delicacies, were long since gone; eaten around fires at campsites, or warmed on the dashboard with morning coffee in San Luis Obispo.
A Thousand Uses The origin of the date palm is lost in antiquity. Dates have been a staple food of the Middle East for thousands of years. They are believed to have originated in the Persian Gulf area, and have been cultivated for thousands of years in the Middle East. Known cultivation range from Mesopotamia to prehistoric Egypt. There is archaeological evidence of date cultivation in eastern Arabia in 6000 BC. Dates and date cultivation gave a means of existence to thousands of people. It was said to offer man a thousand uses including thread, needles, baskets, lumber, mattresses, rope, numerous other household items and an integral part of their diet. In culinary terms dates are equally versatile and Medjool dates are particularly wonderful, deep amber to almost red in color, with a slightly wrinkled skin. The flesh of the fruit is immensely satisfying, sticky and thick, they are rich with flavors of wild honey, carmel, and cinnamon. Cooled they are slightly harder to the tooth, warmed they are like some decadent pastry, almost cloying in their sweetness.
Dates, while wonderful by themselves (and in shakes) are used in a huge variety of culinary preparations. While commonly eaten out-of hand dates are also stoned, or pitted and stuffed with a variety of fillings, such as almonds, walnuts, candied orange and lemon peel, marzipan or cream cheese. Dates are used as an additive in beer and fermented into wine. Dates are also chopped and used in a wide range of sweet and savoury dishes, from tagines in Moroccan dishes to traditional puddings, bread, cakes and other dessert items In today's recipe I offer a wonderful (and spicy) smoky date chutney. Dates make a wonderful base for many chutneys adding a thick body and great base sweetness. Many date based chutneys work well with yogurt, and are wonderful with eggplant and pork dishes. |
Spring in Laramie, Wyoming is fickle at best ~ and by the second snow in June it can seem downright elusive. This year, our first in Laramie, winter has seemed particularly dogged in it's cling to our thin air, but in the last 10 days, daytime warmth and the sudden greening of the plains seems to be announcing that summer has at last arrived.
This year we marked Summer twice. Our first attempt, a "Summer Barbecue" over Memorial day weekend was well attended and ended a great success, never mind the wintry chill and icy rain with which it was accompanied. Ultimately the event was hardly the warm outdoor picnic we had all hoped for.
No, it was going to be yet another 10 days, before we would really mark Summer properly. Naomi and I gathered some good friends, crossed our fingers and, took the folks at CajunGrocer.com up on an awesome offer, 10 pounds of live Crawfish shipped overnight and delivered to our doorstep.
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Spicy boiled crawfish, smoked sausage and steaming corn, I can't think of a better way of welcoming summer.
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The folks at CajunGrocer.com sent us a beautiful batch of large red swamp crawfish, straight from their farm in Maurice, Louisiana. They arrived packed in a large styrofoam case, cooled by several gel packs. We made several dishes with crawfish for the party: we boiled the live crawfish in a traditional style, with Louisiana seasoning (included in the shipment), smoked sausage, and fresh corn all boiled together in a large pot. We also made a huge batch of my Crawfish Etouffee, 6 quarts of home churned strawberry ice cream, and even made up some homemade lemon-lime soda. Our guests brought wines, salads and other side dishes that ultimately made the meal complete.
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Fiona, our 2 year old was beside herself with excitement about the arrival of the "bugs" and was equally delighted with the idea of eating them by the handful from the communal pile, she just needed some help shelling them, "More bug plas!"
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We count ourselves lucky around here when we can get our hands on ingredients like Crawfish. Finding good fresh fish other than trout (which by the way is wonderful) in Wyoming is nearly impossible. Laramie is a very small town, and getting harder-to-find ingredients often means a long drive to Fort Colins or Denver Colorado, or even just forgoing them entirely. We usually end up driving to the Whole Foods in Fort Collins for special occasions that call for more than the locally available catfish, frozen farmed salmon and frozen farmed shrimp that makes up 90% of what is available in our local markets. So getting our hands on these live crawfish was a real treat.
I can't think of a better way of bringing in Summer than with a crawfish boil. The internet and companies like CajunGrocer.com have made it easier to get some wonderful and traditional American ingredients that we just couldn't get otherwise.
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Curry Laksa is perhaps one of the most incredible soups that I have ever had. Laksa though now available world over is originally of Peranakan or Nonya origin. Nonya cuisine combines Chinese, Malay and other influences to create a truly unique, and wonderful mosaic of flavors, and it is my opinion that Nonya cuisine's incredible potential can be fully realized in a bowl of fragrant curry laksa. The result of a masterful blending of Chinese ingredients and wok cooking techniques with the aromatic and sometimes fierce spices of the Malay community, Nonya recipes are tangy, aromatic, spicy and herbal. Key ingredients in Nonya cooking include coconut milk, galangal (a rhizome similar to ginger), candlenuts which are used as both a flavoring and thickening agent (and it might be noted poisonous uncooked), laksa leaf, a dried fermented shrimp cake called belacan, tamarind juice, turmeric, lemongrass, ginger bud, jicama, kaffir lime leaf, rice noodles (rice stick) and cincaluk - a pungently flavored, sour and salty shrimp-based condiment that that is typically mixed with lime juice, chiles and shallots and eaten with rice.
Peranakan or Nonya cuisine, and curry laksa haven't really be discovered in United States until recently. Laksa has begun to sporadically appear on The Food Network, the Travel Channel and other foodie programs and networks. Laksa made it's most recent appearance on last nights episode (episode 11) of Top Chef on Bravo, with a shrimp laksa made by one of the contestants. Bourdain, after announcing that he "took his laksa seriously" judged the entry to be too smoky for his taste. Interestingly, it might be noted that Bourdain presumably had his first laksa two seasons back on his traveling foodie show "No Reservations". I discovered laksa on a trip to visit family in Australia several years ago, where the soup has become as familiar part of the Australian diet, as Vietnamese Pho has in big city America. After my initial introduction I returned with with several recipes for the soup - most notably a recipe from "Spice" by Christine Mansfield, the chef and founder of Paramount restaurant in Sydney. The recipe below is closely based on the Paramount recipe, changed mostly to accommodate for difficulty in finding Nonya ingredients in American groceries. The last time I made up a batch of the paste I ended up driving for 6 hours to an Asian super center in Denver for several of the ingredients.
Laksa defines two different types of noodle soup dishes: curry laksa and assam laksa. Curry laksa refers to noodles served in coconut curry soup, while assam laksa refers to noodles served in sour fish soup, and nearly endless variations exist under the two core types. My preference is the curry variation, the Assam variations that I have had are very similar to Thai Tom Yum, though a bit less spicy, and while the soup is great it isn't as rich and fully satisfying as the curry version. Wikipedia lists three main variants of Curry Laksa:
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Fresh from the smoker, my latest batch of mesquite smoked salt crystals. The color of good smoked salt should be as rich as the aroma and flavor it provides, ranging from a light amber to a dark pitch, almost black color.
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Almost two years ago I wrote up an article on a series of experiments I was doing smoking salt. At the time I promised a follow up article posting my results in a "couple of weeks". Clearly it has taken me longer to get here than a couple of weeks, but I didn't want to post on the subject again until I sorted out some of the details and techniques and had a chance to do some research.
The art of salt smoking has prompted more inquiries than any other subject I have posted on Chilefire.com - I have received emails from both professionals interested in marketing their own smoked salt and amateur home smokers interested in making up a batch after having tasted the unique salt, all looking for a web resource on the topic. So, after experimenting for over a year and making up a few batches of really great salts, as well as a few total failures I thought it worth starting up the Salt Smoking Discussion Forum
What I Have Learned - The Basics:
There are six basic recommendations I have for the first time salt smoker outlined below. if you follow these basics you should have decent luck making up some great salts.
1. Use Long Smoke Times
Smoking salt take time, salt doesn't absorb the smoke - or cook and react in the warm environment the same way meats will. Salt absorbs flavor as the smokes resins coats the grains, and this take some time. In my experience, depending on the coarseness of the grain, salt needs at least 4 hours in the smoker, but my best salts spend 24 hours smoking.
2. Use Cool to Medium Heat, and Always Cool Your Salt in the Smoker
Heat is tricky, I have made great salts at regular barbecuing temperatures around 225°but have had better luck when the temperature is even lower. Some folks I have talked to swear by cold smoking, but in my experience anywhere from cold smoked at 85° to regular BBQ temps at 225° work well. If however you get a spike in your temperature to grilling temps - for any length of time you're gonna have to start over - the higher heats will burn off the smoky resins and leave you with salt that pretty much tastes like salt. In short - tend your fire. Finally leave your salt in the smoker until the smoker goes cold. I have 't the slightest idea why this makes a difference, but it does. Salt cooled in the smoker has a better aroma and a smoother smoke flavor, sure it takes longer - but has that ever stopped you before?
3. Soak Your Wood
This is the only time you will ever hear me suggest soaking your wood before you smoke with it. Every time I hear someone on TV or the Web say to soak our wood chips before you put them on your fire it makes me cringe - soaked wood makes nasty, bitter meat in my opinion. However when you're smoking salt - and only when you're smoking salt - it seems to work pretty well. Moisture plays a role in Salt smoking and while I have had some luck with using a pan of boiling water in the coals, my best luck has been when I soaked my wood. With salt it doesn't make for a bitter taste.
4. Use Coarser Salts
Coarser grain salts smoke better. The smoke can move through the grains more easily and the smoke seems to stick to the grains better. I mostly use a grain size I can put in my salt grinder, it seems to work best.
5. Resist the Urge - Smoking Salt when Your Smoking Other Foods is Not a Good Idea
Fastest way to mess up your smoked salt? Smoke it with a pork butt, a slab of ribs, or god forbid a fillet of salmon. Don't do it! Salt takes up the flavor of cooking meat faster than it does the smoke - and the effect is not good. If you are thinking "oohhh! bacon salt!" this isn't the way to do it, trust me. Yuck.
6. Store Your Product in an Air Tight Container
Finally, when your done, seal the salt in an airtight container. The smoky flavor you have carefully layered into your salt is sensitive to oxygen and looses it's tang, smoke flavor and aroma as the essential oils oxidize and evaporate.. Seal it up tight as soon as it leaves the smoker. I use big mason jars that folks use for canning.
You can find the complete" How-To" I have put together on the Salt Smoking Discussion - including pictures of the rig I am using and the processes that I have used to make my best salts. And if you have smoked salt - please consider joining the group and sharing your experiences, recipes, tips and tricks.
The final product, ready to grind into a fine powder; I use a Krups grinder as well as this Japanese mortar.
Smoked Hatch chiles in the smoker - after
about 60 hours total (between smoking and drying).
A second batch of Hatch green chiles sits above another batch that is nearly done.
I have spent the last several days making a about 2 pounds of hand smoked Hatch green chiles. I started out with about 15 pounds of fresh chiles and smoked them at about 150° for a total of about 72 hours until the chiles turned a dark golden color and were completely dried.
This is the first time that I have smoked chiles and I am very pleased with the result that I have achieved. The process was certainly time consuming - but the ultimate results are well worth the wait.
Chipotle chiles (smoked Jalapenos) are the most common smoked chile - - though morita chiles are also a commonly smoked chile. I have not personally had any smoked Hatch chiles - either red or green (chipotle chiles are made from red japapenos), but I can say now that there is no reason not to smoke them.
The flavor of the finished chiles was surprising even to me. After the extended smoking, I let the chiles sit in a loose canvas bag for several days and "air out". The chiles have a strong smoke aroma that is followed with a wonderful sweet chile sent that is unmistakable. The chiles smoked from green to a light reddish orange when fresh to a wonderful golden color that ranges from a light yellow to a darker golden brown.
The flavor of these chiles is fantastic - the smoke is right up front but not bitter of over done - I was considering cutting these chiles open to shorten the drying time of the chiles and I am very glad that I did not - yes the chiles took MUCH longer to smoke and dry, however I strongly suspect that had I cut the chiles open that the smoke flavor would have been overpowering but the finished product was just perfect.
I used these chiles for the first time the other night to make the red chile listed below. The same chile sauce could be made with chipotle powder though it would likely be much hotter than it turned out with smoked hatch chiles. To overcome this issue you could swap out some of the New Mexico Chimayo chile for a smoked paprika for a good - and less spicy version that tastes similar to the recipe using smoked green Hatch chiles.
I smoked the chiles with pecan and mesquite woods - skipping the Bradley biscuits and instead using my two can hack on the Bradley's smoke generator. This is a very useful addition to the Bradley that makes for a much more versatile smoker - the Bradley biscuits are great for some applications, but I find that ordering my wood from Bradley leads to my not having the wood I need when I want it. The two can hack allows me to use any kind of wood I would like (small chips work best) and I can purchase it from local stores. The downside is that I have tend the smoker more often (roughly once an hour), but I prefer the finished product as well - as I find that I can better control my heat and smoke production using the two can hack, while still getting the advantages of the "cool smoke" that is a unique trait of the Bradley line of smokers.
When it comes to grilling fish, the Japanese have mastered the art. Which should hardly be surprising, when at least according to the Guardian "one in ten fish is eaten in Japan. " As a culture Japan has explored the eating of fish to levels quite literally never even thought of yet in the west. We have plenty of sushi bars in the States, but the food served at most American sushi bars is a very narrow range of possible selections you could make of Japanese fish dishes.
The cooking process is what makes the eel both crisp and tender: The eel is first grilled over hot oak charcoal, then steamed to remove excess fat, then seasoned with a sweet barbecue like sauce and grilled a second time.
The first installment of a two part series on smoking salt. See the link at the bottom of the page to Experiments in Smoking Salt: Part II. Chilefire also hosts a Salt Smoking Discusion. Please Join us!
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The alchemists believed naturally occurring dew contained the divine salt or "thoughts of the One Mind". Dew was likened to Gods sweat, so to tease salt from it would give you quite a condiment indeed.
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My first smoked salt: The smoke and taste this salt provides is shocking, just a few grains as a finishing salt has a remarkable
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2 hours of smoke & these crystals are beginning to color a slight amber with deep smoke aroma.
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I am surrounded by wisps of the sweet smoke of orange and mesquite woods, it is a windy spring night aboard the boat, blustery, with a slight chill that is unique to spring on the water. Tonight the smoke from the onboard cooker adds gravity to the evening, seemingly weighing down the passage of time.
As Spring opens this year I look forward to more nights like tonight, spending time tending my smokers. In the coming months expect to see a bit more exploration around here on the fine art of wood smoking; tonight I am working something I have never tried in the smoker before,
Salt
Salt is fascinating. Like water, salt is an absolute essential, without it ultimately we will die; and yet natures only guarantee that we seek it out is our "taste" for it. Unlike water, food or air, our bodies do not symptomatically crave it. We go without ever craving it until we become ill, and ultimately die.
This basic relationship we have with salt has created an incredible and epic history. Politics, religion, science, human history is as intimately intertwined with salt as our biology; and culture is full of hidden references to salt that we take for granted in today's relatively salt rich world.
Roman soldiers were paid at least partly in salt, it was their salarium, or 'worth in salt'. The tradition of paying soldiers in salt is not at all unusual, It is said to be from this that we get the word soldier - 'sal dare', meaning to give salt. In many times and places around the world salt has been used as currency. In Latin, salt is Sal which is the root for many familiar words, including Salary, Sale, and even Salvation. The Bible makes a number of references to salt, and generally held it to be incorruptible - thus a covenant of salt is one that can not be broken [2 Chronicles 13:5]. (1) Salt is strongly symbolic in Judaism and Islam as well and appears equally in eastern religions.
This is illustrated by a story in the Hindu "Chandogya Upanisad" which is one of the oldest and largest works of Hindu mystical teachings. “A boy at the age of 12 years left his family to learn from a school. On returning at the age of 24, the young man's father realized that his son had learned the scriptures without understanding the nature of Brahman. He therefore asked his son to sprinkle some salt in a glass of water. The next day the father asked his son to find the salt in the water. As the salt had dissolved, the search proved to be futile. The father asked his son to taste the water from the top, middle and bottom of the glass and asked him how it had tasted. The son replied salty and the father asked where is the salt the son replied he could not see the salt. His father replied that just in the same way you cannot see the spirit, the Brahman, which encompasses the universe but it is there. That is the reality, that is the truth and you are that truth”.
Salt was used symbolically in a very similar way in the middle East and West in the traditions of alchemy. Alchemy, in it's most common and romanticized understanding is of course, the pseudo-science of "transmutation", of changing of lead into gold. Alchemy however was also the foundation of what led ultimately to what has become modern Western science.
The alchemists believed naturally occurring dew contained the divine salt or "thoughts of the One Mind". Dew was likened to Gods sweat, so to tease salt from it would give you quite a condiment indeed.
The Art of Smoking Salt
I have scoured the web looking for information on smoking salt but thus far I have been unable to find anything of interest or utility. Smoked salts are beginning to appear on shop shelves however, being offered by 4 or 5 different salt crafter's. Rather than pay the $15.00 an ounce that Whole Foods was asking, I decided to try to make it myself. What I have come to find is that smoking salt is something of an art.
While I have many many times cooked with salt, this last week has been the first time I have cooked salt, and my first experiments have been of mixed results. My very first try I smoked kosher salt for about two hours in a hot ( 225° +) smoker, with a pan of water, orange wood chips following the smoking of a rack of lamb. We didn't try the salt until the next day , and when we did, it was amazing! The smoked salt brought a really pure smoke flavor to whatever it was sprinkled on.
I have spent the last several days trying to reproduce the same thing again, with significantly less luck. I am not sure what it was that I did right that first time, but I have been unable to reproduce the effects, so I am going to get more systematic going forward. I received neary 7 pounds of salt in the mail today, just over a pound and a half of Maldon sea salt, and about 5 pounds of Himalayan pink salt. I am planning on working a series of small batches until I have mastered it and I will post the results and the methods I find successful here.
My goal is to create a series of finishing salts from different woods. My first experience with smoked salt suggested that salt is a unique carrier of the smoke flavor, and I would like to make a set of jars, each containing a sample of salt from a different wood, hickory and mesquite are what I am working with until I have a system down; alder, orange, cherry, lemongrass, and cedar are to follow.
I have several basic experiments I am going to try going forward:
- Cold smoking a batch of 12 salt samples measuring 1 tablespoon each for 24 hours, removing one sample every 2 hours to find the best length of time for smoking without heat.
- Hot smoking (without steam pan) a similar batch following the same procedures as above but at 255°
- Hot smoking (with steam pan) and another batch following the same procedures as above but at 255°
This will hopefully send me in a good direction in terms of time and leaning toward hot or cold smoking. I am adding the with and without steam pan smokings to try to gauge humidity into my results. I intuitively believe that water will effect the absorption and taste of the salt. Salt and water just interact chemically too much for this not to have an effect - I have no idea which will create a better result.
The other thing I am going to try is an in smoker evaporative salt forming: boiling a cup of salt into a cup of water, and evaporating it back to salt crystals inside the smoker. This experiment would take too long for me to try it it with different techniques very quickly, so I am going start by tasting the water from the steam pan in my hot smoking experiment decribed above; marking the quality of the taste of the water as time passes, and graph when the water becomes too smoky or bitter. Then I will use the resulting time line to as a starting point for my evaporative salt forming; removing the smoke when the brine has reached the best time suggested by the graph.
Scoring: Each category is worth 20 points for a total of 100
- Temperature Controls: 10
- Smoke Controls: 6
- Durability: 15
- Versatility: 11
- Taste Test: 10
Final Score: 52/100
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The Char-Broil Electric Water Smoker is a "bullet" style smoker, named for the basic shape of the unit.
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The smoker does not allow the smoke to pass over the meat and exit though the top of the smoker, creating a smoke pocket in the lid that slowly pours out the lids seal with the base, inevitably bittering your meat which is left sitting in a kind of bowl of smoke.
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The Variac will allow you to have very precise control over your burner heat. With this addition you will be able to control the temperature of any electric smoker down to the degree – no joke.
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The Char-Broil Electric Water Smoker is a "bullet" style smoker, named for the basic shape of the unit. Bullet smokers are great introductory smokers for a number of reasons, the most important being the price - at $69.99 it is about as inexpensive as you can get if you are buying a smoker new and even your cheapest homemade smoker isn't much less (and who really wants to cook in a trash can or a cardboard box anyway?).
The Char-Broil smoker comes largely disassembled but goes together in about 20 minutes with a screwdriver and a wrench. I have put two of these together and in both cases the smokers were missing one screw, which was irritating. luckily I have spare screws and nuts around so in both cases I could fix the problem, nonetheless for some users this is going to mean going to the hardware store for the part or even a return.
An experienced and patient pitmaster can tease come pretty decent food out of one of these guys in a pinch but it is a pretty basic unit and without committing to putting some customizations into the unit this smoker isn't going to please the serious barbecue fan for very long. If you have some ingenuity you can massively improve the unit, and later on in I will go into some recommendations on how to improve its performance.
The temperature control on this smoker is pretty rudimentary; the heating element is basic, and very similar to an electric charcoal starter, and the temperature meter on the lid is useless. The temperature control is a knob, but really only has three settings, off, not hot enough and barely hot enough.
Another problem the smoker has is with smoke control. The smoker's instructions suggest that you put your wood chips into the “water” pan for smoking. This just doesn't work well. The wood chips start out not wanting to burn for lack of heat and as the meat above begins to cook, the drippings fall on the wood and then the meats grease is what burns, which gives your meat a nasty burnt meat flavor and smell, yuck. Further the water in the smoker is an important part of the chemistry of a smoker, filling the water pan at least halfway keeps the drippings from burning, and adds the humid environment that good BBQ needs. I place my chips in and around the burner below the water pan – which works very well, though it burns away quickly if you don't use chunk wood.
Also troubling is the smoker's lid. The smoker does not allow the smoke to pass over the meat and exit though the top of the smoker, creating a smoke pocket in the lid that slowly pours out the lids seal with the base, inevitably bittering your meat which is left sitting in a kind of bowl of smoke. The lid also condenses water that then drips on your food, covering your food with sooty water that has a foul taste. Covering your food on the top grill with foil will prevent this (see below for another customization that will help with both these problems).
Pimp Your Smoker!
The blessing of this unit is that it is made of reasonably tough materials (though I found that the paint tends to come off the inside of these cookers over time). These smokers, cleaned maintained and treated well will last for at least a couple of years. The other thing that the smokers 14 gauge steel provides for is a good foundation for reasonable customizations. The rest of this article and review is about making this cheap, half assed smoker into a more serious machine that will make you much happier with your results.
Fixing the Heat Control:
My first step in customixing this smoker was fixing the heat control (or lack there of). I put baffles in the bottom of the smoker by drilling 3/8 inch holes around the base of the unit, above the burner reflector, just below the burner itself. Next I went out and purchased a bag of replacement lava rock for a propane grill and poured this around the burner. The rock takes in the heat and distributes it more evenly than the reflector plate did, and creates a good surface for the wood to smoke, and, the baffles allow me to add some charcoal (shhh!) when I can't keep the temperature quite high enough (think Fall, Winter and Spring), I control the temperature with small pieces of stainless steel screwed in place next to the holes that I rotate out to open and close - contolling air flow. When I am done smoking I UNPLUG THE UNIT repeat UNPLUG THE UNIT, remove the burner and hose out the ash. I have also added a set of three 3/8th inch holes in the very bottom of the unit to allow the water and ash that accumulates there to leave the smoker. If you don't do this rain fills the base of the unit up anyway, so you might as well.
If you want to add some real flexibility to the unit, for instance adding the option of cold smoking, you can do that as well. Go online and find a Variac – which is also known as a Variable AC Transformer (Note: A Variac is not a dimmer switch – use a dimmer switch for this and you will have an electrical fire on your hands!). You will need one that is rated for at least 20 amps, and plug this unit in between your power and the smoker. The variac will allow you to have very precise control over your burner heat. With this addition you will be able to control the temperature of any electric smoker down to the degree – no joke. In a search for this article I found at least 3 used Variacs online that would do the job, from between $25 and $50. Set your smokers temp knob to max and use the large dial on the Variac to find your exact temperature, high or low. The best thing about the Variac it that it will make your smoker look like FrankenSmoker!
Fixing the Smoke Control:
This fix is a simple one and does a lot to fix two of the problems presented by the Char-broil. The Thermometer on the lid is a useless piece of junk – you have to use a a different thermometer, so pull that piece of junk right out of the lid, and add a smoke baffle instead. You can actually use tin foil for this if you want to work on the cheap, just shoving the foil in the hole and allowing a hole on one side to let out the smoke. This fix solves two problems in one – both the smoke bowl problem caused by the closed lid, and the drip problem caused by condensation on the lid roof. Allowing the smoke to pass over the meat is key to good barbecue, and this fix will make a huge difference in the taste of the food you can produce in this otherwise mediocre cooker.
I would love to be able say that I don't fall for gadgets. The thing is I do, and in general I end up not liking them. I have basically never found a "handheld" to be of any use at all. I just don't pick it up, they have a terrible interface,and are just not pleasing to use. ick. Thing is, I own two of them.
In my kitchen, I don't actually have all that many gadgets. A few, that work, I do keep handy. For instance, I love my silicone spatula that I can stick in a fire and scoop out molten lead with (ok, but almost!). I like my fancy lemon zester, my bread machine, and... I do have a waffle iron. After that, its all woks and pans and knives, the essentials.
The Flexicado™ is a gadget. No question. but is it a nice one? like my ginger grater, or a another piece of junk, Like... every pepper grinder I have ever owned. After my first two uses, I think it might actually be a keeper. I picked it up after reading a review that mentioned in a magazine, and I thought - "I have to have one of those!" A trip to Sur La Table and $5.20 cents later I had one.
$5.20. That's a great price. I thought well, if this thing is junk, at least it isn't Krups junk. It's more like fru fru fancy overindulgent coffee drink junk. So I went straight to Harris Teeter and picked out 2 miracle perfect avocados.
Last night I used it the first time. The body of the Flexicado™ is made from flexible nylon, so that it can change size to help follow out the shape of the avocado; this is about 85% effective and on smaller avocados it works fairly well. On larger avocados you may need to make a second pass.
IF you are a big avocado fan the Flexicado™ is pretty cool. For salads and Guacamole this will save you time. The slices are a bit rough around the edges, though I imagine that I will get better at using it. I do fear that the nylon is going to get dull but I will have to see how it stands up to use.
First Impression: Good, though pretty function specific. Materials are a little lighter that they could be (thinking stainless spring steel and wire...) works pretty well, and has a low space impact. Probably floats (important on a boat), and looks pretty cool. I think I will probably use it until it gets dull, won't throw it away for too long, and then won't get another one.
I received the last order of chile powder in the mail yesterday before I went to work. I have decided that to introduce the first two of the chile powders today: Hot and mild Chimayó Chile Powders from The Santa Fe School of Cooking
So I am starting with the Santa Fe School of Cooking powders because they come in stainless steel resealable tins. Really it is more like a small paint can, but it's nice. I have been ordering this chile powder from the school's store for 2 years now, and each time I finish a can it is months before I can bring myself to toss out the tin. The tins are really nice.
Brennan G. Proctor (a.k.a. Uncle Brutha) sells his hot sauces in person at Eastern Market on the weekends. I have been picking up the occasional bottle over the last year on the weekends I that I am lucky enough to have the time to go by the market. I haven't been lucky enough to have his Chile Verde sauce yet but the next time that I hit the market I am certainly going to pick one up. You can also pick up Uncle Brutha sauces at his website, http://unclebrutha.com.
Throughout the country, you will find all kinds of chile peppers. Texans boast their citrus-hot jalapeños and squat poblanos. In Louisiana, cayenne and tabasco peppers are the chiles of choice. Cooks in Miami have fallen in love with the fiery habanero, and in California, the chiles selected are most often pasillas, fresnos, and California chiles. But in New Mexico, there is only one chile of any real importance, The New Mexico chile. The New Mexico chile comes in both fresh and dried varieties and depending on when they are picked are served either red or green.
The New Mexico chile comes in many different varieties. The most popular mild pepper is the NuMex conquistador, which is great for chiles rellenos. The NuMex sweet variety is used like a bell or anaheim pepper, as it has little or no heat at all. The NuMex Joe E. Parker is a medium-hot pepper that is excellent for salsas. And for the serious chileheads, there's the Sandia, a very hot southern variety, that is used in many green chiles that you will find throughout New Mexico.
This week we had our first whole weekend back on our boat since we had it put back in the water last week. After 6 weeks living away from our floating home I was ready to do some cooking.
I finished setting up my smokers on the dock in front of my boat and started them up. In the galley I had a brisket soaking in a quick rub I put together, two chickens and a mess of poblano chiles waiting.
In our time out of the water I had worked up the recipe that follows this posting for a smoked chile - and man did it turn out! Naomi and I had a couple of friends over for the results; Slow Cooked Brisket with homemade Mango Habenero Barbecue Sauce, bowls of Smoked Chicken and Pablano Chile and a mess of Green Chile Cornbread. By the end of the day the smoker had let all of our neighbors know we were home.
My father has loved Tabasco Sauce for years, and for almost as long I have been trying to convince him that while there is a place for Tabasco - it isn't on everything you want hot; because when you add Tabasco you also add a lot of vinegar, and in my opinion at least, scrambled eggs just aren't any better with vinegar on them - even if it is spicy vinegar.
Recently though my father switched from regular Tabasco to Chipotle Tabasco (which isn't really Tabasco anymore now is it?) In the last 2 or 3 years chipotle chiles have become very popular. A restaurant chain carries the name, and endless products containing some variation of the smoked chile have been put on the market, from sauces to mustards. When my father switched from regular Tabasco to Chipotle Tabasco - I saw my chance to introduce Los Chilernos Chipotle powder as an alternative to his vinegar habit.
I have tried a couple of chipotle powders and so far this is the best I have found (though the search continues!) Los Chilernos advertises itself as providing the ingredients for "gourmet" southwestern cuisine and in terms of chile powder so far as I have tried, they do sell a high grade set of products.
This powder is great stuff. The smoke is right up front, it has a sweet smell but the taste is all chile and wood. It is great sprinkled on salads, mixed with a bit of olive oil and used as a bread dip or added to soups and stews to add both heat and a great smoky quality. This chile powder is pretty hot and carries its flavor along way with just a touch, so use it carefully at first until you figure out how much you like.
I had my parents over for dinner on our boat and served a ceasars salad with a light dusting of this chile powder over the top, and ended up sending them home with an extra bottle. My dad still hasn't given up on Tabasco Sauce, but he is mixing it up now with this great powder. I totally recomend it. You can find Los Chilernos chile products at Whole Foods Markets, but more often that not they they don't carry the powder in this shaker bottle - the powder is the same either way but the shaker is a nice way of serving it up. You can order it online at http://www.888eatchile.com for about $6.00 a bottle or a 3 pack for about $17.00.
Next Chipotle Powder? Chile Today-Hot Tamale Chipotle Powder.
I ran into this plastic tub of "red chillies" at a local Pakistani food store in Falls Church. I couldn't help picking it up for two reasons. The first was the price! At 1.99 I didn't think I could go wrong and I had never seen these little peppers before and I just had to try them out.
I am not at all sure what kind of chile these little guys are, they are a bit smaller and much brighter in color than Hungarian cherry peppers or cascabel peppers. I would guess that they are related to cascabel though only about a third the size, and about twice the bite. These little chiles like Hungarian cherry peppers are loaded with seeds. Bright red , smooth, and round in shape, measuring about ½ an inch in diameter. medium fleshed and pretty hot, with a sweet fruit/raisin quality. Low in tannins, The flavors are a little smoky sweet, rather like a riesling grape. The heat is first noticeable at the back of the throat, but hangs on around the front of the mouth and lips. Great for sauces, soups, and stews, and might make a great powder if you have the patience to seed them - I don't.
I will definitely be back for more of these. They are perfect for bringing up the heat in any number of chile dishes and grind really easily, just drop them into your grinder and give them a spin - just 3 or 4 of these will add a noticeable note of heat in any
