My Life for Eire!

   On this, the ides of March, I bring to you a meal worthy of Caesar himself. Caesar was Irish, right? No? Well, he'd wish he was for this classic. Once a year, we all turn Irish. I think, for me, it actually goes back to my Dutch grandmother.
   If I'm not making any sense, blame it on the whiskey.
   It really is a strange thing. Neither my heritage nor Jes's hails from Ireland, but we both love corned beef and cabbage and have continued the tradition handed down from our mothers to have it on St. Patrick's Day, like so many other non-Irish folk.
   Frankly, I don't mind having it other days of the year, and until recently I never knew that Jes's and my favorite sandwich happens to be based on the same flavor combinations. Rye bread, shaved brisket, shredded kraut, and possibly mustard; somehow, Switzerland's cheese and Russia's dressing got thrown in the mix. But if it works, you'll get no complaints from us.

The Best Reuben

   I'd been eating these for years and never saw the connection, probably because I rarely eat bread with a meal unless it is a sandwich. Now, whether you choose rye bread or soda bread to butter this Thursday, chances are you're not going to pile it high with meat and cabbage; the leftovers are a different story, of course. And maybe that's how the first Reuben happened.

No Corn?

   How many of you thought corned beef had something to do with corn? Raise your hands; it's OK to admit it. (It's not like I can see your hands, anyway.) I, for one, did. Until, at least, I learned where ground pepper comes from. No, not the ground. Wow, these quips just won't stop!
   Peppercorns are dried berries which we commonly grind up as a spice to pre-season a piece of meat or to add to a plate, or use whole when infusing their flavor into a liquid. This is only half of the story, however. When I thought of corned beef in this context, the image of a clove-dressed ham came to mind, but even that isn't right. There's another definition for "corn" that clears up all of this confusion. In Old English, "to corn" was to preserve in a salt brine. Nowadays, it can also refer to a drier marinade, but corned beef—as I can see it packaged before cooking—is soaking in a juicy brine.
   This meaning for "corn" is actually the original, and the reason we call maize by this new name is because it is synonymous in Latin with "grain." Most countries outside North America refer to any cereal grain (literally, grass seed) as corn. Actually, that's probably why "corn" is present in "peppercorn." But, the grain in this case isn't a seed: it's a grain of salt.

Pickled Brisket

   Doesn't sound too appetizing, does it? Maybe if we were Irish, or at the very least Northern European, pickled meat would sound more like a delicacy. But, just because it's cured—more likely, being cured—doesn't mean we'll be eating it straight out of the package. Several hours of heat should make this look even more delectable.

March 17, 2014 - Corned Beef and Cabbage

   Our brand of choice for at least two years is JP O'Reilly's. I'm not here to compare brands or find the absolute best; I think it's pretty hard to mess up a good thing, and cured meat is one of those things.
   Our method of cooking is in the crockpot. Apparently, some people bake their corned beef, which I'm only curious to try because of that wonderful layer of fat that I spy. But that trial might have to wait for a less Irish day, because as you'll see, the liquid from simmering this hunk gets put to further use.
   Because of the limiting size of our slowcooker, we had to cut the brisket in half, and that's only more difficult than it sounds because Jes doesn't like to touch raw meat. I can't say that I do either, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

March 17, 2014 - Corned Beef and Cabbage

   The package "suggests" using the brine to cook with, which is a beautiful idea. It also asks for water to cover, but fearing an overflow, I didn't feel like covering both halves. The brine from this particular brand includes water and 4 different varieties of sodium, none of which are MSG (not that this affects me, personally), as well as "flavorings." It also includes a meat tenderizer known as papain. This is an enzyme sourced from the papaya plant, and there may be some health concerns over its dosage and general ingestion, but when used in foods these possible side effects are likely mitigated; it is the medicinal use of papain which requires greater care. But for food allergen information, papain may affect people with kiwi allergies.
   Back to ingredients, there's also that little packet of seasoning you saw. The package also made the suggestion of adding it, "if desired." I couldn't find out what exactly is in it—probably those mysterious "flavorings"—but peppercorn is the obvious potent notable.

March 17, 2014 - Corned Beef and Cabbage

   What you see here is the difference submersion makes. The package calls for boiling and then simmering for 50 minutes per pound of meat. We exceeded that mostly because St. Patrick's Day fell on a workday, and that's the best excuse to use a slowcooker. This brisket soaked for around 7 hours, twice as long as it needed. Keeping the meat covered in liquid will not only keep it from drying out (as the one on the left did), but it will also help it hold onto that beautiful color!

Irish Roots

   Corned beef and cabbage is, more traditionally, a type of New England boiled dinner, where the meat is not often the star. Root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, turnips and onions, in addition to cabbage, are boiled alongside the roast, which may be beef or pork.
   Some people will defend their Irish roots by saying that corned beef and cabbage is an Irish-American variant of Ireland's traditional bacon and cabbage meal. Being 100% American myself, I can't stand up for them on that front, but I will go on believing that it's more Irish than some people would like to admit.

March 17, 2014 - Corned Beef and Cabbage

   Back to the wonderful topic at hand, while the meat is resting (and covered in foil to keep its heat), we drain the drippings into a stove-ready pot and throw in some red potatoes, carrots (baby, that year), and after 30 minutes of covered, high-heat simmering, probably half a head of green cabbage.

March 17, 2014 - Corned Beef and Cabbage

   Jes and I love cabbage. Raw, it has some spice to it that can aid an Asian-inspired salad or even be used to turn one into a wrap; a light sauté in stir fry can also exemplify this characteristic. Pickled, it doesn't break down as much as other vegetables, so it keeps its crisp crunch whether you're eating it on the side or adding it to a hotdog. But for a leafy vegetable, moist heat is really how it stands out. Its thick ribs are my favorite part, softening to just the right texture over the next 30 minutes of cook-time.

March 17, 2014 - Corned Beef and Cabbage

   If you prefer your potatoes and carrots to have more bite to them, you can probably add the cabbage in earlier and lessen the time. But I think this is just the sort of meal where their fall-apart texture is desired—if anything, to keep the corned beef from feeling left out.

Hazy Days

   Yesterday, Jes and I had beef stew for dinner, and while it wasn't homemade, it was as equally pleasing to consume. The brand was Dinty Moore, the source was my mom's pantry, and with those two points this became a meal down memory lane for each of us.

Putting the Heart in "Hearty"

   A year or so ago, when the extent of my culinary expertise was in knowing which flavors go together, I attempted my first beef stew. I'd like to say it was from scratch, but I didn't yet know how to make my own broth. Back then, I also found no qualms in using "cooking wine."
   Not only was it not from scratch, I can't even take credit for it. So why am I sharing this? Because there is still value in walking the path already laid out. In following a recipe already mapped, you first have faith that it will be as good as they say. Then, in putting it to practice, you experience the work that is required to bring it to fruition. If your aim is to learn, you will certainly have plenty of opportunities to do so, with less trouble than if you had gone your own route. Some of the best recipes out there, no doubt, have been refined through trial and error, and they are written up with the purpose of avoiding further error. But we're all different, and some of us trip where others stride. The key is not to let it drag you down, not to let it keep you there.
   Yes, there's a secret thread I'm weaving here, but inasmuch as that ulterior thought is creeping in, I really am equally talking about the stew. So, allow me to get to it, and you'll at least see half of what I mean.

The Meal

   This recipe comes from a Lisa Lavery at Chowhound, one of those sites I find just by searching Google. I have to admit, the ingredients' list is daunting for a minimalist like myself. It isn't so much the variety of ingredients that find their way into the melting pot, but the ones that are there strictly for science. In this case (in my mind), flour and wine.

October 9, 2014 - Beef Stew

   This may be the first time I'd thought to use flour, and I'm not ashamed to say I wouldn't have considered it on my own. Indeed, it took another recipe to get me to realize just how useful it could be outside of baking. Growing up, I'd seen my mom using it similarly with an egg-wash beneath, but directly, I'd never applied it to a meal.
   Lisa called for a 3-lb. chuck roast to be trimmed and cubed. We skipped ahead and simply bought pre-cubed beef conveniently labeled "for stew." The perfectionist in me made an ordeal of coating each piece in the lightly seasoned flour, so this may have been the longest step for me.

October 9, 2014 - Beef Stew

   Cooking the meat calls for browning, which isn't enough to cook it throughout, but to ensure that red center stays juicy when it comes time to return it to the heat. This is where I erred, and the culprit is none other than the oil. What was meant to become a flavorful crust of brown turned into splotches of charred oil, thankfully inconsistent among the cubes. The real damage, however, was dealt to the pot.

October 9, 2014 - Beef Stew

   I believe those onions were leftover from kebabs—which only explains the holes that some of them are showcasing. The smoky resolution of the picture is no joke, and this result is as much burned in our minds as it was to that pot, as an example of poor cooking. If I knew then what I know now.... Hey, mistakes serve as great teachers.
   Actually, the pot's material held as much responsibility for this mess. Lisa used a Dutch oven; I used a stainless-steel pot. The latter heats up more quickly, and with our electric stove, lowering the heat also proves meddlesome. Of course, I didn't know either of these points at the time. All I was certain of? the oil's burning! Although, rather than seeing this as a bad choice in oil or measure of heat, my thoughts back then were more along the lines of thinking I'd spent too much time: as if the oil would burn regardless, and I had to get the work done before that point.
   In the aftermath, this pot saw several soakings, scrubbings, and ultimately a handing-over to my mother because many remnants of the blackened residue refused to be wiped away. Like a bad memory, it kept haunting me and proving that all my work to erase it wasn't amounting to anything. But where I failed, my mother succeeded, and that pot lived on to see other meals.

   This step where I was surely questioning whether this was actually going to plan—this step is not to be taken lightly. If I wanted this to be perfect, I should have started over. But then, what a waste of food—not to mention, effort—that would be.
   The way it's supposed to go, Lisa explains as the fond. It sounds like The Fonz, and it's actually about as cool, but it's literally the French term for the "foundation" or "base" of the stew. Much like the roux of gumbo, this is where the magic is supposed to happen. It's the dense flavor of meat and onion and tomato and wine and flour coming together as a thickening agent for the future stew. This is known as the Maillard reaction, and it's slightly intriguing.
   The wine. I almost assuredly used cooking wine, because we don't drink anything short of Moscato. Wine, or even diluted vinegar, applies its acid to the "browned bits" along the pot's bottom. It doesn't work so well, however, against the flat, blackened bits. So, assuming you've properly nurtured the oil in your pot, attained an even balance of flavors, and actually managed to have some liquid leftover before it comes time to deglaze with wine, flour is the key to pulling everything together.
   When you've got a sauce, then it's time to bring the meat back in, along with broth and herbs. Boil to penetrate the cubes of beef with a decent temperature, then simmer uncovered to help thicken what you have. An hour later, carrots, celery and potatoes make it into the pot to cook for another hour, this time covered. This will especially aid in cooking the potatoes, *wink wink*.

October 9, 2014 - Beef Stew

   That looks much better, since, you know, the bottom of the pot is hidden.
   Lisa calls for frozen peas to be added just before serving, but I have this thing against frozen veggies in general, and Jes has this thing against peas in general. So, needless to say, we stopped there.
   I was really tempted to invite neighbors over to share this bounty. What a wonderful conversation-starter that would be, considering I'd barely acknowledged that anyone else existed since we moved into our complex. If memory serves me correctly, we handed the leftovers off to my parents. Not that it wasn't worth keeping for seconds. On the contrary, it was so worth keeping that we just had to give it away. The meat was remarkably tender, the potatoes as well, and the broth was so full of flavor. I could only have wished it was thicker. Next time, Gadget.

POTATO

   Between Jes and I, "potato" is a word. Not a concept, not a title, not even the obvious name for a specific underground vegetable. In the very beginnings of our relationship (some might specify the period as mere friendship), it was a word I said at random, to break the tension of not knowing what else to say. As my social skills are often lacking, silence is usually the response I give in normal contexts, but this was an online chatroom, a whole other ballpark. Silence connotated an air of ignoring someone. If you wanted to show interest, and you weren't a normal conversationalist like everyone else, you had to speak up, even if what you typed made absolutely no sense. At least you were there; at least you were alive. 
   So, I'd type "potato." We used it in Scrabble, we used it as an insult, it was the scapegoat in everyday conversation. Among a slew of other hat-choices, "potato" stuck almost like a cuss word in our vocabulary. Ironically, it became a flavor-enhancer, and only we were in on the joke. We had even considered buying one of every variety and handing them out as Christmas presents to each of my family members. (My dad would get the fingerling.) What had originally started as a reason for Jes to call me weird now brought her under that umbrella: we were "the odd couple." And you could say bananas were equally responsible.
   So there you have it. "Potato" means a lot to us, and we're not really sure why. 

   Potatoes, on the other hand, seem to present themselves as the ultimate kitchen challenge, for myself at least. I mean, if vegetables are supposed to be easy to cook, then potatoes do not deserve to be categorized as such. Indeed, they'd probably be much more comfortable at the bottom of the pyramid.
   I must tell you about my potato stigma. I do not have the patience to cook potatoes. In fact, I very much dislike including them in any meal because of it. And I had long known that they take some extra time to reach the perfect doneness, had even unveiled secrets in my research which called for cutting potatoes in order to speed the cooking process.
   But when I decided to tackle them for the first time, in 2011—two whole months before meeting Jes in person—I had babysat them for what I was certain was borderline too-long, only to find that seasoning and plating them only made them look appetizing. The luster they lacked was obvious upon the first bite: they had simply refused to cook through. I've never resorted to using a microwave oven to actually cook something, but that was probably the closest I'd ever come to doing so. I had given up hope, and would rather stomach their undercooked bodies than heat-treat them once more for an indefinite period of time.

August 11, 2011 - Balsamic Steak

   Ignore the "steak" off to the left that appears to be crying tears of shame. There are plenty of excuses for that to be heard. But also note the date. This was four years ago. My skills, creativity, plating design, and nearly every other aspect of my former self have changed since. Only my hatred for preparing potatoes remains the same.
   OK, that's not entirely true. For one, I'm no guru when it comes to meat; but at least I can judge when it's done without cutting it open. Potatoes, however, must be in my mouth before they can disappoint me. Not a month later, I took the rest of that sack and tried again, as yet another side to a horribly cooked cut of steak. Hey, I've had high hopes for every meal I've ever crafted. It's just the fact that both of them came out unsatisfactory which shows they ended up being paired pretty evenly.

September 30, 2011 - S&P Swiss Steak

   To quote my feelings after this meal, "I do not like cooking them." There are mushrooms in there as well, and a dab of sweet hot sauce I had received as part of an online order. That probably explains the burnt goodness that tried to hide the undercooked starchiness. And I don't know what it is about steak that just begs to be paired with potatoes, but this was, in fact, the last time I put the two together—not that I stopped cooking either of them, but where I got better with beef, the other became the bane of my kitchen experience.
   Fast-forward to life with Jes. She loves mashed potatoes and doesn't mind the instant kind. I'm not a fan of mashed, but I'll eat it; I much prefer baked, and separate entirely from Jes's tastes, I think sweet potatoes are amazing. Yes, I know they're not technically potatoes. No, I don't care. But, both of us thoroughly enjoy roasted potatoes, and I am thankful that Jes has such oven expertise that she can rectify my stovetop failures.

January 10, 2015 - "Aside" Dish

   Remember those high hopes I'd mentioned? These red potatoes were originally sautéed in a pan that I had just finished sizzling shrimp in, for the fabled ramen meal of repurposed legend. I added a splash of white cooking wine and a couple of pieces of butter, then tossed these "cubes" in and did my worst. Finally, when I admitted to Jes that I could not successfully tend to potatoes, I handed over the baton and she roasted them to the perfection seen above.

Deli-cious

   After reading up on those deviled eggs we made, Jes had a sudden hankering for all things hard-boiled. Well, mainly just eggs. She made me buy a dozen in this expensive economy—there's been an egg shortage nationally, or something—on my way home from work. But, apparently, potatoes were also on her mind.
   Visit a deli and it'll be easy to see that potato salads are very popular, so much so that there's usually more than one kind (three-potato and red-skin, to name some). My absolute favorite happens to be an Oktoberfest specialty, full of flavor, oil and bacon; I am hopefully looking forward to having that this season. My mother occasionally buys the Black Bear premade stuff, which aside from the excess of runny, white mayo can be quite tasty. But homemade anything is instantly better, and is often easily recognized.
   Summer picnics, barbecues, family reunions, and general visits to my grandfather's house had my relatives eating one mayo-variety that included pickle slices and shredded carrots. Fresh, tangy, colorful, and unique—all words to describe what we call "giddo's recipe." My mom usually made it sans pickles and carrots, which I equally enjoyed, but being different from grandpa's gave his a sort of delicacy status.
   Yet, no matter who was making it in my family, the potatoes were always boiled: Peeled first, and then submerged in a bath of boiling water. (Actually, if memory serves me correctly, my mom was boiling water for potatoes when the issue of adding salt to water was initially brought to our attention.) This might be why the very first potatoes I cooked, shown above, were boiled—whole and unpeeled, because they're much tinier.
   Jes, being from the west coast, has a more unique look on foods than I've been exposed to in NJ. This is both due to regional trends (location) and her separate heritage. She apparently has a lot of Northern Europe in her blood, and while I've both grown up with and live in an area with a lot of Dutch and German influence, Jes's take on potato salad happens to be so ingenious that I'm surprised I'd never heard of the variation.
   To be fair, it's not hers any more than pickles and carrots would be mine, but her mother, Ruth, famously made it for their family gatherings where it was lovingly called "potato lollie." And the history behind it is, I think, simply beautiful:
   One Easter, Jes's grandpa wanted potato skins for an appetizer. So, Ruth baked potatoes, halved them and scooped out the meat of each, fried the skins into shells, and then added the fixings such as bacon and cheese. But what became of the actual potato? Ruth decided to take those hollowed-out guts and put together a salad. Talk about saving scraps. If one recipe doesn't need something, spend it toward another.
   Of course, the salad was as much a hit that meal. Ruth's brother would ask for it time and time again, though no one can really be certain how the name "lollie" stuck to it. Ruth will call it her Famous Potato Salad, but I don't think Jes and I can escape referring to it by its pet name, especially since I've actually tried it.

The Radioactive Potato

   We went shopping in my mom's pantry—a legitimate practice for us. A box of russet potatoes was the prize here, specifically those bearing the seal of Idaho. "Russet" simply refers to the skin color, meaning "brown." As opposed to red-, white-, blue- or yellow-skins, russets are good for baking, and those grown in Idaho are boasted to benefit from "ideal growing conditions" (true story). Personally, I don't care which state grew them, just as long as God made them.
   So, Jes took up 5 medium-sized ones, I guess the length of my palm. I don't know if my palms are big or not, but now I'm self-conscious about it. Anywho, she gave them a good scrubbing, blinded them (i.e., gouged out their eyes), and set them on the bare oven rack after it was preheated to 350 degrees. Initially, she waited 35-40 minutes, and aren't you glad I'm being so precise about this? I mean, of all things, I'm timing an oven-baked potato.
   One-liner comedian Mitch Hedberg once commented on this exact phenomenon: "Sometimes I'll just throw one in there, even if I don't want one. But by the time it's done, who knows?" True to theory, when she checked their doneness, Jes had to raise the time an additional 25 minutes. I asked her how she checks, because I was honestly intrigued, and the answer made me cringe: You squeeze them, really quick. I am familiar with the game Hot Potato, which sounds painful enough for my chicken, tender fingers, but having to reach into an oven insulated with searing-hot metal simply to do so certainly does not better my prospects. She does use a towel to protect her fingertips, but she had to remove one from the oven in order to get me to try it. A softened yet firm texture was the goal, but I'm convinced that heat was the only thing I could feel.
   When the 25 minutes were up, three of them were perceived done, while the other two received another 10 minutes, bringing the grand total time for baking these medium Idahoans to 60-75 minutes. This probably fluctuates with ovens, individual potatoes and heat-loss from opening the door, which is generally why I don't prefer timing things. But, knowing the basics such as a minimum time-frame, visual cues for doneness and the desired texture, I could probably dare to bring potatoes into my meals again.

Baking Potatoes

   Once they're done, the potatoes are set out in the open air to cool before they're finally refrigerated overnight. This will not only make the skins shrivel and separate, but will also make breaking them up more tolerable, as Ruth characteristically gives them hands-on attention. As Jes was preparing them, I would have loved to save those skins for something (I'd always eaten them as remnants of baked potatoes from my childhood), but alas! she tossed them before I could express my wishes. Le sigh.
   A day later, after peeling and crumbling them (admittedly with the aid of a knife), Jes added all of the other ingredients and finished the job before I could even wake up. The only true difference between this concoction and her mother's tradition is actually a consequence of region. The American history of mayonnaise is an interesting tale, but to cut it short, in the 20th century, the Eastern United States had Hellmann's while the Western United States had Best Foods, with the Rocky Mountains serving as the dividing line. At some point, Best Foods bought out Hellmann's brand, but otherwise kept the two distinct in name, regional distribution and recipe. So, while Ruth and Jes are familiar with one taste of mayo, the majority of the US calls another its norm.

September 13, 2015 - Baked Potato Salad

   Don't think I'm going to leave you dry. I've been saving up the suspense for this very moment. I introduce to you the first official recipe to be listed on this site, by simple virtue of it not being mine. Without further ado, I present to you Ruth's potato lollie, which incidentally shares her recipe for pasta salad:

Mommy's Famous Potato Salad

1 package elbow noodles / 4 or 5 large russet potatoes
2-3 green onions, sliced thin and broken apart
1-2 large cans jumbo black olives, cut in half (amount varies by preference)
1 celery stalk, sliced really thin (optional)
1 cup or so mayonnaise (too much will make the salad slippery)
½ to 1 teaspoon spicy brown mustard (add incrementally to taste)
salt and pepper (to taste)

Boil your noodles, don't overcook. Drain and cool.
Or, substitute noodles with potatoes. Bake your potatoes, then let them cool. Peel them and break them up into small pieces.

Cut up your veggies, then add to your cooled noodles / potatoes. Add mayo and mustard, and mix well. Taste for salt and pepper, or if it needs more mayo or mustard or onions. 

Chill for a few hours before serving.

Underwriting Leftovers

   In remembering the legacy that is our grandparents', leftovers do not often receive the credit due them. I have known someone who would rather see once-eaten meals fill the fridge until the value of real estate (a.k.a., shelf space) which they cluttered had them evicted to the trash. I still know another who, in similar thought, has set a presumptive expiration date for all such meals, and would not return to them if the date was passed. And I know others who would cook for a single meal, or portion, just to avoid eating the same dinner more than one day in a row.
   I can connect with most of those mentalities, but a friend of my past taught me the following mantra: "waste not, want not." (He didn't live by it, but I adopted it all the same.) And I can recall such punishments as "no dessert until dinner is finished," or having applied the concept of not taking more [of a helping] than I could eat, or hearing my paternal grandmother consistently repeat "finish to the last." Those generations responsible for such wisdom survived the Great Depression, at such vulnerable ages that left them trusting wholly in their own parents' care for their best. I cannot spit in their face or curse their memory simply because I do not have a taste—a preference—for the meal placed in front of me. But that's just me.
   I grew up eating leftovers regularly. From picking at bacon straight out of the fridge when stopping at my grandfather's house after church, to microwaving a Kraft Single over a bowlful of potato salad while my mom was out shopping, to eating whatever my grandfather had cooked for his wife and son that week past, or even "cleaning out the fridge"—by consuming, not discarding; I was raised on leftovers, and I eventually gained a heart beyond them for conservation of resources and efficiency of their use, which nowadays translates into making ingredients stretch as far as they can go.
   Our beloved a-nonni-mous knows better than anyone how to do this, and for her sometimes-questionable methods, her continued health stands as a testimony of the very words she ever reminds us of. They basically carry the same effect as, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." And I believe it (though I'm not so bold to take some of her sorts of risks, especially under Jes's watch). Still—and my mother can attest to my inquiries—I show much interest in understanding how long something can last, especially canned items which, if you're familiar with Rhett & Link, may stand the test of time better than anything on the market, wholly dependent upon their initial freshness and the success of the process which secures this.

The Preservationist

   There is great admiration in my heart for antiquity. Nowadays, we look at the refrigerator and freezer as the ultimate means of preservation. Shirley, even my grandfather's household appreciated this: they owned two fridge-and-freezer combinations and a full freezer, where were saved future meals as well as specialty dishes (such as homus and m'hommorah and Syrian cheese and yebret). But, with such authentic cuisine and the carrying-on of tradition, I was also turned on to the practices that had been around for millennia and centuries before such giants of innovation walked in: cured meats are as ingenious as they are delicious, and pickling seals the nutrition of fresh vegetables beneath layers of unique flavors for the months when nothing is growing.
   Pickled cauliflower was a treat from my grandfather, one that I miss dearly. Green tomatoes were also delightful, and one of his daughters continues to make bread-and-butter pickles, sweet and tart. From the Polish side of my family, I had once eaten a pickled watermelon—storebought, however. Harvested young, it was much the same as a giant pickle[d cucumber]. I have also fallen in love with sauerkraut (as a side to kielbasa), and Jes and I actually aspired to make it once. I researched it, saved a fact sheet to my computer, and even contemplated sterilizing Mason jars for the occasion. I was most intrigued that the recipe only includes two ingredients: cabbage, and salt. But, we never set aside the time for it. One day.
   The first time you make something is always the hardest. The second time is a memory game, and a chance to clear away mistakes. By repetition, you master the art, and refine it. I imagine that in the far future, Jes and I will be that couple whose open pantry shelves are filled with jars and jars of various pickled vegetables and preserved fruits, bursting with color as much as with flavor. They will redefine for us the meaning of "shelf life." And everyone we invite over will look forward to the day when we decide to make a new batch of something, thereby passing on the tradition along with the food. But, of course, by that time, it would be ingrained habit.
   I have actually made marmalade before, on a whim; that's a start. As a kid, I recall the science experiments of making homemade syrup: Equal parts water and sugar, dissolved and boiled until the viscosity had noticeably increased. If I remember correctly, I dipped a pencil in it. I probably don't remember correctly, or wholly, because I can't imagine why I'd need to do that. And I don't believe it was a random thing for me to do. I wasn't always as weird as I am, you know. *Edit: there was a string suspended from a pencil, for to make homemade rock candy.
   I had also put sugar in a spoon while at a restaurant with family, added just enough water via the straw-dropper technique, and cooked it over a candleflame like it was crack. I'm just giving you the proper imagery. The point is, I was learning...to create food. I'm not a druggie, honest. Anyway, after it bubbled up and I got a few concerned looks from my uncle, I dunked it in ice water and voilà! I'd made a lollipop.

Intrigue

   It is these sorts of things I reminded myself of when I endeavored to make grapefruit marmalade. Now, I like marmalade. I prefer it over the exceedingly sweet grape jelly or strawberry jam at diners. And the interesting thing about marmalade, I'd learned, is that its gelatinous consistency comes from pectin. And the reason that marmalades are made from citrus fruits is that their pith (the white part under the peel) contains so much pectin. I'd taken to eating this, especially from a navel orange, which has a lot more of it compared to other kinds of oranges. It's packed with nutrition and swaps the acid of the pulp for a gummy texture. It has the essence of the fruit it covers and orange pith still has a touch of sweetness.
   But grapefruit is not my thing. My mother eats it, Jes loves it, but I cannot stand it. I—Daniel, who has bitten into a peeled lemon as though it were an apple, who has eaten kumquats whole, despises the aftertaste of grapefruit. Jes has captured exclusive footage of my attempt to eat a ripe grapefruit for breakfast, thinking just maybe it would taste different from any other time I'd tasted the juice. Imagine, now, the countless videos of child abuse where parents offer their hungry infants a lemon wedge, and you've got me regretting my decision until Jes could no longer stand to see me in such pain. That's right: my determination would have seen me through it if it was the last thing I ever ate.
   So, the grapefruits were bought for Jes, but I had interest in using their peels, rather than see them to the trash. They don't exactly biodegrade well, being so full of oil. (In fact, my mother occasionally toasts orange peels over open flame for the scent.) I looked up a recipe, was hardly amazed at its simplicity, and started cooking. I didn't have nearly as many peels as it called for (6 grapefruits' worth), but I divided properly. Nickelodeon's Doug had taught me that division, and not subtraction, was the most important cooking operation.
   Admittedly, dicing the peels was the most fun. My knife skills are not the greatest; a touch of perfectionism remains in me, and sometimes daring curiosity (such as, wondering which knife would work best). The object here was to section it up into 1-cm squares, so it helps to peel them neatly from the fruit in the first place. Of course, by now, most of our grapefruits were already eaten, because this recipe came as an excuse to use leftovers, not as the reason for buying them. I think we had half of one remaining, the other half of which I had tried and failed to stomach. The recipe I'd found also called for an orange, to sweeten the batch, but as this was already a trial-and-error sort of creation, I ignored that ingredient.

April 2, 2015 - Grapefruit Marmalade

   There, doesn't that look scrumptious? Even sans orange, I didn't mind eating this.
   The peels are quick-boiled thrice—each time dulls down the bitterness. After strained the final time, they're cooked with some of the pulp (no water), some sugar, and I added a cinnamon stick. It's all simmered down until the desired consistency is reached, then it's chilled overnight and ready to serve on buttered toast. And just so you know, the above is still alive and well in our fridge. As long as it's kept airtight, nothing should trouble this stuff for quite a while.

The Stockpile

   There are two types of leftovers. There are those that are literally left over from a meal, already cooked and for the most part ready-to-eat. Then, there are those that are not yet cooked, and are probably better-known as "kitchen scraps." The peels above are of this second type, but there are so many others that any given meal may produce, and it is sad to say much of it goes straight to the trash bag. But just like egg shells and banana peels should probably be thrown into your garbage garden, most of the trimmings from vegetables and cuts of meat should rather end up in a bag in your freezer.
   My first laudable use of such scraps was [at least] 12 months in the making. The recipe for homemade broth is actually very flexible, so that if you've got the basics down pat, settling down and making it becomes a streamlined, carefree process. But it all starts with flavor-packed ingredients: fresh, clean, unused vegetable parts, along with fresher ones and spices.
   Now, this probably goes back to 2013, when I was living in my friend's house and had created a new habit of collecting, and freezing, kitchen scraps such as celery heart, carrot ends and scrapings, onion skins, asparagus ends, and mushrooms. The most important thing to know about this vital step is cleanliness: make sure it's fresh (or at the very least, not on its way out—i.e., spoiling), and notably in the case of carrots, etc., make sure it's cleaned before you peel/trim it. Because these trimmings will end up soaking in water, and you may not want the taste of dirt.
   Speaking of dirt, once this stockpile of scraps was finally broken into—all of this going into a big pot—I also added leek greens. Leeks are notorious for trapping dirt in between their leaves, and not just the gritty particles of it, but sometimes caked smears of it that make you wonder how they got there. Leeks will take some extra effort to clean fully, but for my ulterior motive they were an essential ingredient in this veggie broth.
   Additionally, I doubled up on fresh celery, shiitake mushrooms, and more asparagus ends, because let's face it, asparagus will always give you tough ends. If spices are any balance against how much was going into the pot, I added 3 bay leaves and 3 garlic cloves, with their skins, as well as a rough-chopped white onion and its skins. I think the skins of these Allium sp.-bulb vegetables condense a lot of flavor that we otherwise wouldn't know about, similar to citrus peels which we might only zest, if that. And for the final touch, mainly because they were in my fridge at the time and were not seeing better use, I sautéed radishes and a turnip because I'd heard that roasting, charring and similar techniques help to bring out nutty flavors in such root vegetables.
   There are some vegetables which shouldn't go into broth-making, namely belonging to Brassica sp. This does include turnips, but mostly considers cabbage, broccoli, kale, etc. Their inclusion solely regards the bitter taste they might impart on a broth, especially if used in excess. Potatoes are not used for the reason that they absorb flavors rather than give them. And ground spices are not better options than whole versions.
   The rule for stock calls for water to cover. That is to say, however many solids you've got, give it enough water to fill the crevices and just cover it all. And here comes the easy part: boil, then simmer uncovered for an hour without stirring. Stirring is one of those mechanical processes that helps tenderize and break down food. As far as the broth is concerned, we want the exact opposite: for those ingredients to stay as whole as possible while draining them of their flavors. If anything, the only extra treatment they'll need is to skim any "suds" off the top layer; these would be broken-down proteins, but their removal is purely an aesthetic option, as they lead to cloudiness. When the hour is up—and taking care not to cook for too long, for sake of the delicate balance of flavors—the heat goes off and it cools slightly before the final step.
   Straining will show you what you've been working toward. Understandably, the finer the sieve or whatever you use, the clearer your product will be, and usually a little cloudiness is not terrible. Starchy vegetables will increase cloudiness, but if you choose to follow this recipe, you may wish to strain with cheesecloth layered over a colander. We didn't have cheesecloth, so I made do with the next best thing: a dampened paper towel. Hey, it was that or the naked colander, which really wasn't an option.

January 9, 2015 - No-Salt Vegetable Broth

   Now about that ulterior motive. The above broth was made for a homemade ramen meal. But what should become of those strained solids? Because knowing me, they've got to go as far as they can before I'll consider ditching them. Two days later, the vast majority of them found their way into a potato-leek soup. I searched out the onion and garlic skins, those 3 bay leaves, and however many carrot ends there were, and the rest of the broth scraps landed in a pot with gold potatoes and a splash of water. The conglomerate was boiled and then puréed, a process which took quite a while to do completely with one of those hand-blenders, and finally simmered with milk, cream, butter, salt and pepper, and thyme. The end result? C'est magnifique!

January 11, 2015 - Potato Leek Soup

   Cooking with vegetables is the safest route to take, and saving up those scraps comes second nature now, but this summer I decided to take advantage of another easy-to-cook element: shrimp. And all of those endeavors deserve their own post (to follow), but I'm glad I chose early on to purchase the "EZ-peel" flash-frozen shrimp. Frozen, because chances are any fishermen-caught shrimp were already frozen at some point; and easy-to-peel because the beheading and deveining process actually makes it so. Plus, if they're pre-peeled, you're only robbing yourself of that tasty layer. Once sufficiently thawed, their shells were peeled and refrozen until the point where I'd accumulated enough for a long-desired homemade shrimp stock.
   Technically, a stock is created to serve its purpose as a base (for soup, sauce, gravy, etc.), whereas a broth is considered complete on its own. Stock would more likely be concentrated with a richer flavor (more commonly using meat or bones), while broth is mild and owes much of its taste to seasoning. And because I made the following to be added to my trial gumbo, it may indeed be called a "stock"—though shrimp may not have ended up the proper star of it.
   The overwhelming flavor of this stock came from one vegetable which I'd underestimated. You may recall my mention of onion, carrot and celery as foundational ingredients, but the thing about these (and especially celery) is that the denser or more tightly packed cores hide a lot of flavor. So it was, that when I used the entire celery heart in addition to a stalk or two, the essence of the vegetable overpowered everything else. All I'm going to say, then, is remember to keep the balance.
   Before anything else, approximately 1 pound's worth of shrimp shells (along with garlic skins and onion skins) was tossed into the pot and cooked from frozen, until they gained color and basically separated from each other. Then came the famous triplex of fresh onion, carrot, and celery, along with garlic and thyme. And finally, water to cover, a tasty splash of Sauvignon blanc, a dollop of tomato paste, and a touch of salt and pepper set this medley ready to boil and simmer for 1 hour.

July 21, 2015 - Shrimp Stock

   Of course, the final step was straining, and this time we did right. If you've already read the roux-and-gumbo post, you'll know that we'd gone to IKEA by this time. We invested in a proper mesh strainer, and I bought cheesecloth from a supermarket, so I was actually able to mash and press this stuff against it without fear that the filter would break. Then, dividing the perfect (albeit celery-y) product between two containers to be refrigerated for the next day's meal, it was time to address the leftovers.
   The idea for potato-leek soup came hand-in-hand with the first broth I'd made. These leftovers, however—sans anything I knew wouldn't blend well (shells, skins and thyme stems)—sat in our fridge for a while before I finally thought of a way to use them. I shoved them in our food processor, pulsed them with some oil, and ultimately wound up with a carrot purée. This I added to pasta, and shrimp (because, summer), and was reminded of pasta fagioli...in appearance only, I assure you. Edible? yes. Tasty? somewhat. Satisfying? on many levels.

August 7, 2015 - Shrimp Primavera