Time to give a fig or Kate makes a dessert for a change

This recipe for roasted figs is one of those delightful recipes that tastes like it took a very long time to make, but really didn't. I think it was 25 minutes from start to finish. The original plan was to make it on a Sunday, but I might have overslept (something about binge watching Netflix) and had an appointment I couldn't miss.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds firm-ripe fresh figs (about 35 figs), halved lengthwise (I think the package I bought had about 20, but I made the full amount of syrup anyway)
• 3 tablespoons aged balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey (I like my honey on the dark side, I think it has more flavor and more complexity, but as you will since the recipe doesn't specify)
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract (I used a full teaspoon and recommend it)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 5 sprigs rosemary
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
• ½ teaspoon lemon zest (from 1 lemon)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (218.3 C. I don't know if metric ovens get that specific, but that's what the conversion table says). Place figs, cut sides up, on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle evenly with balsamic vinegar, honey and vanilla; sprinkle with salt. Add rosemary sprigs to baking sheet.

Hint: put the honey in something microwaveable with a spout and zap for about ten seconds. it will drizzle more easily.

Roast in preheated oven until figs soften slightly, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven; flip figs using tongs (carefully or you'll mush them). Sprinkle baking sheet evenly with butter cubes.

Return to oven, and roast at 425 degrees F until butter is melted and balsamic vinegar is thick and syrupy, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool on baking sheet 10 minutes. Discard rosemary sprigs. Sprinkle figs with lemon zest.

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Serving size is about 6 of the cut figs. I had my first taste over vanilla gelato and added  teaspoon of balsamic and then the lemon zest:

This may come to be a standard when company comes to visit. 

Cue the Kinks: Avocado Toast and a bit about eggs

Hi everyone. Today's entry is unplanned, mostly because one of the most important ingredients isn't where I want it yet. On the other hand, it's a fine breakfast, so why not share?

I am not what you'd ever call a dedicated follower of fashion, but I do like variations of avocado toast. My version for breakfast this morning:

• One ramen egg (soft boiled, marinated in soy, mirin, dashi, sake, rice vinegar) (comments about the egg below)
• Chopped 1/2 of a ripe (ha!)* avocado
• Soy sauce
• Hot sauce
• Toasted slice of your favorite bread (optional)

It's a damn fine breakfast if you ask me. It's filling, it's flavorful, and there's a mix of textures so it's interesting to eat. I don't always bother with the toast--that depends on how hungry I am. I've also considered putting this over a small amount of rice, but I haven't tried it yet.

About the egg:

I love ramen and I've tried it multiple ways in multiple places. Several of my friends get an invitation once a month for a Ramen night and we always have a great time. This has been going on (minus lockdown, of course) since 2014. The members of the group have changed, and it's not always the same group at the same time, but there's always fun, food, and drinks.

Ramen eggs, if you haven't experienced them, are unique and fabulous. The correct name is ajitsuke tamago and they are soft-boiled and marinated. I have seen recipes for all kinds of marinades and I haven't found one or improvised one that I am completely happy with.

The texture, where you have a solid, but soft white without a trace of a rubbery feeling, and a yolk with a texture that you could describe as feeling like a rich custard or your favorite jam, I do have down. That is thanks to Ivan Orkin, who is an interesting human and has a chain of restaurants. My birthday has been spent at Ivan Ramen more than once. If you have a big appetite, I recommend the triple-pork-triple-garlic, which is hugely delicious, but I can't finish even if I fast for two days prior.

Anyway I was searching with various terms for the recipe and several pages into the search engine I found this blog entry from Rowley's Whiskey Forge. While I didn't love the marinade recipe when I tried it, boiling the eggs for six minutes and ten seconds is pretty much perfect! When I have a marinade I like, I'll post a full entry.

Happy noshing!

*Yeah, I know. It is really hard to find that 15 minutes when an avocado is perfectly ripe.

My Knives Need Sharpening: Pork Belly Adobo

It seems like forever ago, but I Kickstarted a cast-iron Dutch oven. I needed an (affordable) enameled one because I have ceramic cooktop on my electric stove and it came at last on 8/31.

If you're not familiar with chicken or pork adobo, you are missing out. It's a zing of soy sauce and vinegar with earthy undercurrents of bay leaves and pepper. Since I first tried adobo at Bilao, a Filipino restaurant about a mile and a half from me, I've been testing and searching for recipes. I've tried several, making them with chicken thighs, but it was my friend Scott who found this one. 

I'll get right to the ingredients, but do read the whole story at the link.

Serves 4 to 6

• .25 c. neutral oil
• 2 lbs. pork belly, skin removed, cut into 2-inch cubes
• 3 tbsp. minced garlic (about 10 cloves) (I think I used 12 or 13)
• .25 c. shoyu (soy sauce) (I bought a dark, Filipino soy sauce brand called Da Puti from Amazon)
• 2 tbsp. oyster sauce
• .25 c. cane vinegar (This was the Da Puti again. This has a softer taste to it and I really like it)
• .25 c. apple cider vinegar (Extra zing!)
• 3 bay leaves
• .25 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 3 c. halved cherry tomatoes (about 1 pound), for serving (This is the first time I've seen tomatoes added to the serving of adobo even after looking at multiple recipes. More on that later)
• Cooked rice, for serving

In a large, deep skillet, wok, or Dutch oven, heat the oil over high heat until shimmering-hot. Pat the pork dry with paper towels. Sear it in the hot oil, turning, until evenly browned on all sides, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Stir in the shoyu, oyster sauce, both vinegars, the bay leaves, and pepper and toss to coat the pork belly. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the pork has started to soften and most the fat has rendered, 40 to 50 minutes. What you’re going for is not a melt-in-your-mouth bite, but rendered fat and meat with some texture to it, like spareribs almost.

Once the pork is cooked, remove it with a slotted spoon and set aside. If desired, skim off some of the rendered fat and discard (I usually keep it) (I did too). Increase the heat to medium and reduce the sauce, stirring constantly, until a sticky glaze starts to form. Return the pork belly to the sauce and toss to coat.

Serve with tomatoes and cooked rice.

Have you seen the price of pine nuts lately?

 Admittedly, one can use walnuts in a basil pesto, but one day way back when, I was feeling whimsical and I ground up some salt & pepper pistachios and tossed them with olive oil and pasta and loved the result. More recently, I bought some pistachios and thought I'd try to find a recipe that could improve on that impulse, and Food and Wine had the perfect solution:

• 7 ounces unsalted roasted shelled pistachios (1 1/2 cups) (get help shelling them, this took me about 49 minutes, or one episode of the Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me podcast)
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped mint
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 cup finely shredded pecorino cheese, plus more for serving
• 2 scallions, cut into 2-inch lengths and julienned
• Salt
• 1 pound orecchiette (I had spaghetti in the pantry, so that's what I used)

In a food processor, chop the pistachios. (I recommend doing this in batches because the smaller bits of nuts will sink to the bottom. You can probably use a blender. I have a small food processing unit that came as an accessory to my stick blender) Add the olive oil, mint and garlic and pulse to combine. Transfer to a bowl, stir in the 1/2 cup of cheese and the scallions; season with salt. 

In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta until al dente; drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Return the pasta to the pot. Add the cooking water and the pesto and cook over low heat, tossing, until coated. Serve, passing more cheese at the table.

I recommend a bit more of the cooking water because it will help prevent the cheese from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Here's my final result:

I might have put on more cheese after I took the picture. This is a deeply satisfying dish. The mint leaves a coolness at the end of a bite. The Romano gives a bit of a feel of cacio de pepe, but elevated with the pistachio for richness, and there's a tiny bit of bite from the scallions. I can't find anything I'd change, which, if you've been reading me for while, is damn rare.

What's your favorite pesto?

It's only a little bunny rarebit

 I am not massively familiar with common British foods. I've never visited, and in my murky past I was more likely to visit an Irish pub than I was an English one. Authenticity, as you can imagine, varies. 

When I lived in Nashville there were a couple places I enjoyed and I really enjoyed bangers & mash. I found myself with a craving for it a couple months ago and met up a friend at an English pub uptown. For an appetizer, we enjoyed a Welsh rarebit.

Why the hell I haven't made this before I don't know.

A few weeks later, a friend posted this link. I hadn't heard of Two Crumbs up, but I found the concept fun, and then I came to their Scottish Rarebit recipe. It intrigued me because it used whiskey instead of beer, and I just had to try:

• 1 tbsp Butter
• 1 tbsp Flour
• 1/4 tsp Mustard Powder
• 1 tbsp Whiskey (I used Jameson's)
• 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp Heavy Cream
• 2 cups Grated Scottish Cheddar (I might have used Irish, St. Andrew forgive me)
• 2 slices Sourdough Bread, cut in half

The method very simple:

Begin with a roux-- melt butter in a sauce pan over medium heat until foaming, then add flour. Stir and allow to cook for a minute or two, until the smell of flour fades and you have a popcorn-smelling wet sand texture.

Add your remaining ingredients (except the bread, you silly K-nig-hts), and stir over medium-low heat until melted.

Keep your cheese mixture warm while you lightly toast your bread. Pour cheese sauce over bread and summon fire without flint or tinder-- ie toast the cheese with a blow torch or under a broiler. To avoid burning the toast, I suggest counting to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

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The cheddar I had was a bit oily, so I ended up playing with the sauce a bit. A little more flour to soak up the oil, then a little more whiskey and cream to keep the right texture. I used Colman's mustard powder. I like that this had mustard powder so there wouldn't be acid from the vinegar in the sauce. I want more of that flavor next time. And there will definitely be a next time.

The tomatoes were tossed with a little salt, black pepper, olive oil, and thyme, then roasted at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes before I put the oven to broil for the rarebit.

Have you made rarebit? Share your experience! 

Seeking perfection: Salmon Cakes

I have been cooking, I just haven't been blogging. Sometimes because I'm making old favorites, sometimes from laziness, and sometimes because dishes don't turn out the way I want them.

Case in point: This is my second attempt at salmon cakes and I've gotten closer to what I want, but more importantly, I'm pretty sure what I want to do next.

Preheat over to 350 F

Ingredients for this batch:

• 1 14.5 ounce can of salmon (who the hell decided on 14.5 ounce cans?), drained.
• .5 Cup Ka-Me wasabi flavor rice cracker crumbs (I used a coffee grinder, more on that in a bit)
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 2 teaspoons Penzey's Wasabi powder (thank you Gina!)
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 Tablespoons plain yogurt (I'm a fan of Fage Total)
• 1 Tablespoon mayonaise

Vacate salmon from can with a fork, breaking up the chunks until it is more flaky than chunky, stir in the green onions, cracker crumbs and egg until everything is mixed to the point where you don't see cracker crumbs. Stir in yogurt and mayo.

You could form these into balls or patties, but I decided to use a muffin tin to help me get six cakes, with the idea of 2 as a main dish serving:

I baked these for about 20 minutes and then broiled for about 4 minutes to get a nice crunchy top. They didn't come out of the pan in one piece because they were just too wet. Still tasty and a nice warmth from the wasabi. I'm not sure if wasabi paste would give the same, but if I try, I'll let you know.

For a condiment, I mixed up some garlic-chili sauce with some plain yogurt and on the side were some sliced cucumbers with sesame seeds.

So, my critique:

• I should have crumbed (yes, that is now a word) the crackers in a food processor or used a rolling pin or my favorite mallet to get bigger pieces. I think they would have absorbed the liquid better if they were closer to the flaky fluffy consistency of panko.
• I probably also needed at least 2 Tablespoons more of crumbs
• More green onions. At least two more.
• Peppers of some kind? Maybe, I'm not sure. Red bell might work. Or well-drained peppadew. These were creamy, with the crust being where a different texture is. A little crunch might not be a bad idea.
• Just yogurt, no mayo to get more of a tang.

So we shall see what happens next. 

A Tale of Some Oxtail (a sous vide adventure)

I love oxtail broth or stew, though I do not remember when I first tried it. I tried to make it once, on a stove top, without a pressure cooker, and it took too much time, too much attention, though it did come out delicious.

The fine fun folks at Lifehacker have a sub-blog called Skillet, that includes the topic Will it Sous Vide? and today's meat method comes from this article from a few years ago.

The TL:DR version: 

• make an umami paste
• coat your oxtail
• bag
• Sous vide for 24 hours at 185 degrees Farenheit, 85 degrees Celsius, 358 degrees Kelvin

It fell off the bone with almost no effort. I think I had to shake one piece off, but look how clean those bones are:

More specifics:

My first attempt at an umami bomb (or paste, but bomb is much more fun to say) failed. I used a lot of garlic, and unfortunately, while the garlic smelled fine before I smashed it (I love my mallet), when I tasted it, something just felt totally and utterly wrong. Into the trash it went. My second attempt was more saucy, but tasted much better. It still needs work, though. What I threw together:

• 1 Tablespoon Better Than Bouillon mushroom flavor
• 1 teaspoon Better than Bouillon garlic flavor 
• 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
• 10 grinds black pepper
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable broth
• 1 Cup grated onion and its juice

I brushed the liquid onto the meat, and added a little more into the bags before I sealed them. When I de-bagged, there was a ton of liquid and I poured most of it into a medium saucepan, reserving some in a small pitcher.

To the pot I added:

• 3/4 bottle of cabernet sauvignon (pour yourself a glass and dump in the rest)
• 8 ounces of mushrooms (I had a mix of Crimini, which are sometimes called Baby Bella, and some amazing Trumpet shrooms that I caught on sale. Use your favorites)
• 6 oz of pearl onions, whole
• 1/4 cup vegetable broth
• 2 teaspoons of thyme
• 1 Tablespoon parsley
• 1 bay leaf (note to Kate: more herbs next time)

I let that simmer and reduce for about an hour. In retrospect, I should have spent the last hour the oxtail was cooking reducing the wine more slowly. It would have left more flavor. 

After the hour was up, I mixed some cornstarch with the liquid I had put aside to make a slurry, and added it to the pot. Once that was absorbed,  I put the meat in, then cooked some mushroom ravioli to serve everything on. My liquid was more stew than soup, so I used a slotted spoon and here is the final result:

I've got a lot of fat floated to the top in the leftovers, so I will likely use that to make a roux to thicken the rest. I'll also add more herbs to the next bit.

I give me an A-. The meat had such amazing texture. The connective tissue was completely broken down, and chewing was only needed for the sheer joy of it. The globs of fat, just melted in my mouth. If you have the time, the ciruclator, the counterspace, and you like oxtail, please try this. My ideal takeaway from this is we have an entry just from people sending me their umami bombs.