An Excuse to Eat

It’s not that hunger won’t do, but sometimes hunger and an occasion bring food to the fore. If this isn’t universal, then I’m on the wrong planet. The occasion may be as grand as the end of a hunger strike or acquittal on counts of larceny that you did not commit, or something as everyday as a birthday.

Yes, my birthday came and went recently, and so did another excuse to eat, which I did. It was dinner for two. My companion enjoyed three cups of finest chow in a delicate water suspension, dusted with nutritional and delicious brown powdery stuff from a jar. More on my meal in another post. She and I have a routine when she eats. She sits down, shakes hands, we exchange high fives, then she walks completely around me and her dinner before lying down and waiting. She likes me to give her a signal, a nod and a friendly “OK,” before tucking in. I’m not sure anymore why this is necessary. She prefers a utilitarian stainless steel bowl, large but not too large, and heavy, so that it doesn’t slide around too much. Her manners are acceptable, given her species. She doesn’t mind that I anthropomorphize her. She thinks it rather twee, but reserves judgement, even when I use the phrase “rather twee.”

I often get this look.

In the next post, I’ll tell you how I chose to take advantage of my excuse to eat. It’s a fishy tale.

How to Decode PLU Stickers on Produce

How to Decode PLU Stickers on Produce: PLU Codes User Guide (pdf)

May be good to know.

(Via Serious Eats.)

Limoncello

This started as a happy accident of finding this recipe and having on hand some lemons and grain alcohol, sugar and water. The grain alcohol was a relic, had been transported from apartment to apartment, occasionally making itself useful in lieu of rubbing alcohol, and gathering dust. For the first batch I had about 440ml of the stuff, so I reduced the quantities appropriately. The results are quite good, but very strong.

I have a new batch going now with vodka, but it’s taking much longer to leach the oils out of the peel. I think a smaller amount of grain alcohol could be used (perhaps in a French press just to keep the peel submerged) and the difference in volume made up with plain vodka. Or a mixture of the two could be used. Still tinkering.

As the recipe above says, the magic of making your own limoncello comes when you combine the simple syrup and lemon-oil infused spirits, both of which are translucent but turn opaque as they are combined. The sugar and oil react with each other? I’ve found that it makes any liquid you pour it into somewhat opaque, which may be good to know.

So far, I’ve tried a couple of cocktails with the stuff: a pomegranate and limoncello martini, limoncello poured over orange juice ice-cubes, even a highball of limoncello and cola, which is refreshing if not madcap. I also used it along with some blood orange segments, lemon juice, and basil to build a pan sauce for pork chops, which was delicious.

There is a local product called Paula’s Texas Orange that is similar, they also have a Texas Lemon.

Sen Spice in Sag Harbor, NY

Spice-Starved in Sag Harbor

Sen Spice is doing things the way that, in a perfect world, I’d be doing things. The elements are all there: adapted cuisine matches what I’m learning now: a mix of traditional and contemporary ingredients and recipes, experimentation and implementing the results in practice are what I am trying to do on my own time, and precedence is given to taste, not time and money, which is my biggest beef with the current situation I find myself in.

Not that all is bad. Where I work, sheer volume does not allow for experimentation and such variation. A windsurfer and an oil tanker come to mind when comparisons are made. There are definite advantages to learning in a high volume kitchen. I’ll keep my experimentation at home, for now.

(Via Serious Eats.)

Last and Final Meals

“They rise ARSE up, arse up, arse up high…”

All the Little Angels – Google Answers.

Doesn’t grease float on water?

The last meal for the first class passengers on the Titanic. The meal comprised 10 courses in all, paired with wine and as many after-dinner cigars as you could smoke.

Compare with this macabre list of meals eaten in similar yet entirely different circumstances.

(Titanic link Via kottke.org.)

Venison Chili

Well, I was going to continue an exploration of tipping, but who wants to beat a dead cliché? Perversely, I do. But not today.

Instead, I’ll show-and-tell you some venison chili I made this weekend. I was off work for a brief break for music, and withdrawal was setting in. We’re having the wrong sort of weather in my city for this stuff, but a bowl followed by a siesta hits the spot.
A cook friend of mine gave me some deer sausage, cube steak, and stewing meat a few weeks ago, and I had some trimmings from a side of top sirloin I butchered to make biltong. Chipotle, serrano, and dried bird’s-eye peppers provide the heat. No beans. New Belgium’s Fat Tire covers the obligatory (for me) beer element, and also imparts a subtle malt coriander flavor. Trinity provides the base (onions, carrots, and green bells). Lead spice notes are cumin, chili powder, and some secret, work-related spice mix. Tomato paste and canned tomato build body.

By no means traditional, but by no means inferior.
I tried a little trick – after a few hours of cooking I used some white rice flour (made by grinding 1/4 cup of basmati rice in a coffee grinder) to thicken it. The rice instantly thickens the sauce, but it catches fairly easily and should only be added right at the end. Works very well. Sour cream and scallions round out the dish, served with sourdough toast soldiers. Got me through SXSW.
Taste this:

Tea Espresso

Tea Espresso: “

South African Rooibos (red bush) tea Expresso. Interesting, as rooibos is one of the only teas that doesn’t noticeably change in flavor with reuse and time. The bags can be reused and boiled to extract the last drop of flavor from them. Probably why it can stand up to an expresso process. I wonder if this technique could be used on other varieties of tea, or if you’d want to.

(Via BuzzFeed Latest.)

The Edible Martini | New York Times Video

The Edible Martini | New York Times Video:

A gin martini-flavored cucumber. “Rapid Infusion” by vacuum.  AKA “Instant Pickling”.
There’s a tasteless joke about alcoholism in there somewhere.

(Via Buzzfeed.)

The Point of Tipping – WSJ.com

The Point of Tipping – WSJ.com:

Interesting Article from the WSJ on tipping. While it focuses mainly on tip jars at Starbucks, representing over-the-counter service establishments generally, some of the history of tipping is quite informative.

“It’s not that we tip waiters because they are paid so little; they are paid so little because they can expect to make up the difference in tips.”

This debate is endless, from all sides. The most important thing to remember about tipping is not that it makes the relationship between customer and waiter one of servitude and lordliness, but rather that it helps to ensure quality service. If not, the feedback is swift. Bad service? Equivalent tip. A good waiter feels no animosity for a bad tip. They probably know that their service was not up to their high standard. They may apologize, or offer some sort of compensation. Be human, they are. Accept their apology. But don’t undermine their standards by tipping them well anyway, unless there are signs that this is not an attitude problem but something deeper.

Using this transaction as a cover for being a cheap bastard, however, is unforgivable. Does Mr. Pink expect that his coffee is hot, in a cup? That is the socially acceptable way of doing things, correct? Maybe the waitress doesn’t think so. She prefers her coffee cold, in a large bowl that she can slurp from. Just because society says hot, cup, doesn’t mean she has conform. Mr. Pink doesn’t like his coffee that way, he can go somewhere else.

At the end of the day, waiter’s tip income could move from the credit slip or cash to the menu, just as the article suggests in the case of Starbucks. Higher prices, no tipping, and actual paychecks for waiters (at least in my state, where hourly wage for servers is $2.13, just enough to cover taxes. Other states have higher minimums for waiters.) In a perfect world, this would be like calling a spade a shovel. In this world, you’d better hope that the waiter is good not because it makes them money, but because they really care to give you a great experience.

(Via The Consumerist.)

Biltong

This article discusses the origin of a food. The author is well aware of the complexities of colonialism and the troubles that are only just beginning as a consequence. The author is also aware of the continuing history of South Africa.

Biltong is beef jerky. Biltong is also miles away from American beef jerky. Its origins lie in South Africa, along the dusty Voortrekker wagon trails into the hinterland. The Voortrekkers (lit. first journeyers) were Dutch colonists who left the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope and moved into the interior, to escape British rule. They needed a way to prevent the excess meat from antelope and other beasts that they hunted from spoiling. The obvious answer (as it has been for countless other peoples who lacked refrigeration) was to cure and dry the meat.

The traditional recipe for curing biltong is a mixture of salt, vinegar, coriander, and sugar. The meat was allowed to cure for a time then strung up in the sun to dry.

The Cape of Good Hope (as it was then called) was a safe haven and provision supply for ships passing around the Cape of Storms, from India, Malaysia, and the Far East. These ships carried silks, precious metals, timber, and spices to Europe. The settlement there was a post office, grocery store, and repair station. Farms in the area grew fresh produce and livestock for the provisioning of ships. The climate was (and is) also perfect for vinyards and the production of wine.

When the Voortrekkers moved North and East from the Cape and into the interior of what is now South Africa, they took with them the spices that had become a part of their kitchen. One such spice, coriander, was found to be ideally paired with the gamey cured meat that they produced, and was incorporated during the curing process. It is considered definitive of biltong’s flavor.

The salt that they used probably contained saltpeter (potassium nitrate) as an impurity, which becomes a nitrite when exposed to the bacteria present in meat. This helped to prevent spoilage and illness. A short but informative article on saltpeter and meat-curing can be found here.

Vinegar is also an agent for bacterial genocide. It’s acid levels killed many surface-level bacteria on the meat, as well as adding to biltong’s distinctive flavor. The Voortrekkers leaving the Cape had a good supply from the vineyards around the settlement.

But Biltong is more than a cured, dried meat product. It defines my South Africa. My family has a cardboard box “Biltong Maker” with airholes and a 40 watt lightbulb in the bottom, and bags and bags of spice mix from the butcher down the street from my grandparents house in a suburb of Jo’burg. I’m sure many South African expats have a recipe and similar setup, or know someone who does.

In the course of my recent yen for biltong (I moved back to Austin and my parents stopped sending the “care packages” (I’m kidding)) I have discovered some new ways that people are preparing and using biltong. I have also built my own biltong maker.

A few of my favorite new finds:
-Thinly shaved biltong and avocado salad, with tomatoes, lettuce, and mozzarella, in a light lemon dressing.
-The addition of red wine to the vinegar used to cure the strips of meat at the beginning of the curing process lends an unforgettable flavor (Cabernet Sauvignon or another dry red work best).
-Buffalo Meat. As you would expect, this lean, very slightly gamey meat is perfect for biltong.
-Experimenting with different types of salt in the basic recipe.

I built a pretty elaborate setup, using a prefab kitchen cabinet from a big box home and garden store. It is a similar design to any biltong maker you will find, although I did add a 115v electronics fan for improved airflow. On top of the cabinet is a cutting board, secured by dowels. This provides a baffle to prevent dust from entering the box, and a convenient place to cut the biltong. The hanging rails are 1/4″ steel rods. The hooks are actually ornament hangers, very sturdy and convenient. In the future I plan to install mesh screens over the air-holes to prevent any unwelcome feast-crashers, a second fan in the shelf between the light and hanging space, and a latch or deadbolt on the door (to seal the door and prevent the biltong growing legs ) Below are some pictures of the completed box.

Front View:

Cutting Board:

Fan (cutting board removed):

Recent batch (Cab Sauv):

Once I’ve figured out my favorite recipe I’ll share it here.