Rob's Rants

Taking on the tradition of Kovászos Uborka.

My father was Hungarian. Like many Hungarians in America, he came in 1956 without much. But he did remember a few recipies from his youth. One of them was for a half-sour dill pickle fermented in the sun. Making them every year was a project and involved a lot of stuff boiling on the stove and many one gallon jars which would sit outside in the sun for days at a time. There are many varieties of such ‘sun pickles’ in the world, and they are common to many eastern European cultures.

I don’t remember the exact proportions of his recipe, and he died a few years ago, but I remember the basic ingredients he used:

• a salt-water brine
• white vinegar
• black peppercorns
• bay leaves
• fresh dill
• garlic
• rye bread

There is considerable debate about how these kind of fermented pickles can be made. Among the questions:

• Is the vinegar necessary? What does it do?
• Should the jars be sealed during fermentation?
• Why use the bread? Is it needed?

I looked for recipes online and found a lot. A pretty authentic one it seems is on Chew.hu. It doesn’t use vinegar but seems to advocate fermenting with the jars open. Another recipe from the Orange County Hungarians is similar, without vinegar and fermenting in open jars, and with a lot of garlic. Another recipe for Hungarian Summer Pickles on About.com does use vinegar and ferments in a capped jar. Someone called June Meyers has a recipe on Bigoven.com that also uses vinegar and an open jar.

After my research, I’ve thought about a few things and here is what I’ve decided to do for my recipe (the first jar of cucumbers and the dill came from my garden – I supplemented a couple jars from a local farm).

Vinegar

The vinegar is designed for two purposes. One, it does impart a flavor or tang to the final pickle. Although most of the tang ultimately comes from lactic acid produced during the fermentation, the vinegar adds a bit of extra kick. But primarily, the vinegar seems to be used as a hedge against alkaline water (pH greater than 7) allowing the growth of harmful bacteria. It’s generally assumed that a lower pH will lead to a safer brine. So I’ll use a little vinegar in mine.

Bread

Many recipes allude to the bread being used to introduce yeast to the brine. But that’s ridiculous - bread is baked and contains no live yeast – at least no more than is present on any other object. My theory is that the bread actually introduces complex carbohydrates and starches to the brine, giving the yeast naturally present something to chew on. So I will use bread.

Open or Closed

Some people believe that an open jar is necessary for safety – allowing the brine to remain oxygenated will prevent the growth of botulism. I’m not sure that is a real issue – the salinity and low pH (since I’m using vinegar) should be enough. More importantly, an open or at least loose cap will allow the brine to escape when the jar heats up in the sun. So I’ll use a loose lid on a 1 quart Ball wide mouth jar.

The Recipe

In the end, here is what I am trying.

For each one quart jar, you’ll need about 2 cups of brine due to the volume taken up by cucumbers.. So, for each quart of brine needed:

• 2 T salt (3 T kosher salt)
• 3 T white vinegar

Dissolve these in 1 quart water.

Slice the ends off of pickling cucumbers, and cut slits lengthwise, leaving about 1/8″ uncut. You will have quartered the cucumber, except the ends are slightly attached. This helps the brine reach the inside of each cucumber. Pack the cucumbers in the jar.

Add:

• 1 hot pepper (or red pepper flakes to taste)
• 12 peppercorns
• 1 clove garlic (peeled)
• A bunch of dill

Pour the brine almost to the top. Pack one piece of bread into the top of the jar and top off the brine liquid. Loosely cap the jar and place in the sun for three days. (I take the jars in at night so animals don’t get to them.)

They will get cloudy – and you can let them go for more than three days if you like a softer, more sour pickle. I like mine with a little crispness. Refill the brine level as necessary each day.

The Verdict

They turned out exactly as I remembered. I always thought that my father’s pickles tasted a little bitter, which I attributed to all the garlic he put in the jars, but I had the same problem with mine and I used much less garlic. Now I believe it might be the vinegar.

For the next batch, I think I will cut the vinegar in half and maybe add a bit of sugar to the brine. Not enough to turn them into Koolickles, but enough to take the bitter edge off.

Let me know in the comments if you try this.

I was craving tamales, one of my favorite foods and was taking stock of the ingredients in my cabinet. Unfortunately, I had run out of the all important Maseca flour needed to make the batter. And a trip to the supermarket yielded no results. But I did have  several cans of hominy in the cupboard. So I asked myself if I could turn canned hominy into the masa needed for a good tamale.

Since I searched for this question and found it asked all over the internet but never found it answered, I’ll answer it here. Yes, you can make tamales using canned hominy ground in a food processor.

If you’re not familiar with the different kinds of corn used for various Mexican foods (like tortillas and tamales) a good primer is this section of About.com. Understanding the nixtamalization process and the resulting products will help make sense of my recipes below.

I reasoned that the main difference between masa and hominy was the amount of cooking and therefore the  amount of water in the corn. The canned hominy was definitely wetter than fresh masa. But since tamale dough is really a batter where the masa is mixed with water or a broth, I figured the extra moisture present in the hominy wouldn’t hurt. I would just have to cut down on the broth I added when I mixed up the batter.

I experimented with a couple of dough mixtures until I got the recipe right. Here’s my recipe.

Basics

I usually make my tamales in two parts, over two days. I follow a basic recipe for the batter that is a cross between the recipe found in my old copy of The Joy of Cooking and in Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen.

On day one I make the filling, which is usually some form of stewed meat. I use the broth left from this phase to flavor the dough when I make it on the second day. I typically prefer chicken and pork for the filling and use whatever cuts I can find that are on special.

The Filling

Chicken With Jalapenos and Black Beans

Ingredients

• 2 Split chicken breasts with rib meat.
• 2 T Chili powder
• 1 T Kosher salt
• 4 – 6 cloves garlic
• 2 t Cumin
• 1 t Black pepper
• 1/2 – 1 can black beans
• 2 medium jalapenos, seeded & de-veined, chopped fine
• 2 T Goya Recaito
• 1 medium lime

Method

1. Place the breasts in a stock pot and cover with water.
2. Add the chili powder, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin.
3. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 1 – 2 hours, until chicken is fully cooked.
4. Remove the breasts and allow to cool.
5. Strain the remaining broth and and reserve 2 – 4 cups.
6. Remove skin from breasts and shred meat.
7. In a mixing bowl, (or in the bowl of a food processor if you like a finely ground tamale filling) mix chicken meat, black beans, Recaito, chopped jalapenos, and juice and zest of the lime.

Chipotle Pork

Ingredients

• 3-4 lb. pork roast (loin roast or whatever cut you prefer)
• 3 T Chili powder
• 1 T Kosher salt
• 4 – 6 cloves garlic
• 2 t Cumin
• 1 t Black pepper
• 1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
• 3 T Goya Sofrito seasoning

Method

1. Place the roast in a stock pot and cover with water.
2. Add the chili powder, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin.
3. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 1 – 2 hours, until fully cooked.
4. Remove the roast and allow to cool.
5. Strain the remaining broth and and reserve 2 – 4 cups.
6. Shred the meat.
7. In a mixing bowl, (or in the bowl of a food processor if you like a finely ground tamale filling) mix pork, chipotles (use a number based on your taste), and sofrito.

The Tamale Dough

Ingredients

• 2 15 oz. cans Goya hominy
• A few ounces masa harina
• 4 oz. lard (chilled). Shortening may also be used
• 1 t baking powder (double acting)
• Up to 1 C broth (I use whichever broth came from the filling I am making the dough for)
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Grind the hominy to a fine paste in a food processor.
2. Using a stand or hand mixer, cream the lard and baking powder together.
3. Begin to add the hominy, 1/3 at a time until filly mixed.
4. Once incorporated, add broth as necessary to create a spreadable texture. How thick you make the batter depends on how fluffy you want the final tamale texture. The wetter the batter, the fluffier and softer the resulting tamale. (Until the batter is too wet and then it will never set up when cooked.) Some people like their dough the consistency of modeling clay, while others (like me) prefer a spreadable, cream-cheese or even lighter texture. I like the consistency shown in this video.

After this, it’s a matter of filling and steaming.

I was impressed with the hominy version. The texture is a little coarser or rustic than dough made from dehydrated masa, yet is is also fluffier or less dense. I encourage you to experiment.

Recaito

I’ve written before about how most bar-b-que cooks are secretive about their rub and sauce recipes. I’m not. Even if I were cooking competitively I’d tell you 99.9% of what I do. But I’m not cooking competitively (yet – I need something to save for retirement 20 years from now) so I’ll tell you 100% of how I do things and you can use my recipes as a base from which to experiment.

My wife recently had her Aunt and Uncle here in the US from Germany. For the first of several dinners I thought I’d introduce them to something uniquely American. And what’s more American then bar-b-que? I’d argue that even the Hamburger has been exported so much that it’s lost its unique American-ness. You can get a hamburger in any country in the world now. But bar-b-que? That hasn’t been exported yet.

So I decided to make real spare ribs – using a rub I’ve been working on for several months. I also did these in my Bradley smoker since I wanted to actually be able to sit and talk to my guests rather than spend my time tending a fire.

Here’s how I did it:

Smoked Pork Ribs in a Bradley Smoker

Ingredients:

• 2 racks of St. Louis cut Spare Ribs. (I buy whole cryo-vac ribs and trim them myself. See my BBQ guide for a good video link and explanation, including how to remove the membrane from the back of the slab.
• ¼ cup molasses or Grade B maple syrup
• ¼ cup BBQ sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce)
• 1 T Dark Brown Sugar
• 2 T Apple Cider Vinegar
• Rib Rub (see recipe in this post, about half way down the page. Basically 6 parts Brown Sugar, 3 parts salt, 1 part other spices.)

Preparation (12 to 24 hours before smoking)

1. Pat the ribs dry.
2. Mix molasses, BBQ sauce, and 2 T vinegar together until blended. Use the brown sugar to sweeten to your taste if using molasses. Probably not needed if using maple syrup. Brush the mixture over the slabs until completely covered.
3. Sprinkle rib rub liberally over the surface of the ribs.
4. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to 24.

Smoking

I used the 3-2-1 method on these ribs. Especially because I had people eating who have never had ribs before and might not appreciate the chew and pull of regular smoked ribs. I use hickory smoke as always.

1. Remove ribs from refrigerator at least 1 hour prior to smoking and let them come t room temperature.
2. Set Bradley Smoker oven temp to 220° F. Timer set for 6 hours and 40 minutes.
3. Let smoker warm up for 40 minutes.
4. Place ribs on Bradley racks.
5. Set smoke generator for 3 hours of smoke and start. (You’ll need 11 bisquettes in the tube for this).
6. After 3 hours, remove ribs from smoker and wrap in aluminum foil. I add a splash of cider vinegar to each foil pouch at this point.
7. Put foil covered ribs back in smoker for 2 hours. No smoke during this time.
8. After 2 hours, remove foil packs from smoker. Unwrap ribs and place back on Bradley racks. Be careful to reserve the liquid from the foil pouches – collect it in a small saucepan.
9. Start the smoke again for one hour (5 bisquettes).
10. While smoking, reduce the collected liquid to a glaze by heating until reduced by half. Mix this with any additional sauce or spices that you prefer. It will be the final finishing sauce.
11. After the final hour, remove the ribs from the smoker (they may fall apart at this point, so handle carefully). Brush on your reduced glaze and serve.

They were a hit! I think I may have started a German BBQ cult. Hope this recipe works for you too.

If you read my first Makin Bakin post you’ll understand my basic philosophy and method for making bacon at home:

• Bacon is made from pork belly.
• Bacon is cured with nitrites.
• Bacon is smoked.

Pretty simple. But as with anything, the difficulty is in the execution. So after thinking about the delicious results of my first attempt at homemade bacon, I decided to adjust my recipe a bit. For my first try, I basically used this method:

1. Rinse and dry pork bellies.
2. Sprinkle with curing salt according to the instructions (I used pre-made cure from the Butcher and Packer company).
3. Place in a Zip-Lok bag in the refrigerator for 5 days, rotating bag every 24 hours.
4. Remove from bag, rinse in cold water, and allow to dry for several hours.
5. Smoke in my Bradley Digital Smoker with hickory wood for 4 to 4 1/2 hours, starting at 120° F and increasing to 140° F for the third hour and and 160° F for the remaining time, until the bellies reach an internal temperature of 135° F.
6. Trim the skin side off of the completed bacon.

The result of this process was good. But not great. I didn’t think the bacon was seasoned (salty or sweet) enough and I thought that it was extra smoked. So for my second batch I adjusted my recipe. And let me tell you, the results were outstanding! Here’s what I did, with major changes in red:

Rob’s Dry Cured Smoked Bacon

1. Rinse and dry pork bellies. (This time I started with fresh, organic, Vermont-raised belly from Savenor’s in Boston.)
2. Coat bellies on both sides with a layer of fresh New Hampshire maple syrup (grade B for extra flavor). <– New step
3. Sprinkle with curing salt according to directions.
   

   Drying Outside (temp was 31 degrees)

4. Place in a Zip-Lock bag in refrigerator for 14 days. Turn bag every 24 hours. <– 9 days longer than first time
5. Remove from bag, rinse in cold water, then let dry for several hours.
6. Place in Bradley Digital Smoker for approximately 4 to 4 1/2 hours. Start at 120° F with no smoke for one hour. After one hour, raise temperature to 140° F and start hickory smoke for two hours. Then stop smoke and raise temperature to 160° F until bellies reach internal temperature of 135° F. <– New smoke & temperature profile
7. Trim skin off of completed bacon.

The final result, shown here fresh from the smoke, was some of the best bacon I’ve ever had. It had enough of a cured taste to remind me of the bacon I’m used to, but, because it was dry cured over time and smoked with real wood, it was much firmer and the flavor was richer. Since most supermarket bacon is “cured” by pumping it with a curing solution and then “smoked” by sitting in an over for a couple of hours while being sprayed with liquid smoke flavoring, the taste of real dry-cured bacon is simply “denser” and richer. And when you cook it you don’t get all that milky liquid that cooks out of store-bought bacon, which is the reason for its watered-down flavor.

The Final Product

The final step, since I can’t shouldn’t eat all five pounds in one sitting, is to let the finished bacon spend a night in the freezer to firm up and then send it for a trip though my electric slicer and then into several vacuum bags for future use.

What Good is a Smoker if You Can’t Make Bacon?

Among all the visions of pulled pork and spare ribs that I had when I bought a smoker, the main thing I wanted to do was make bacon. There really isn’t a greater food than bacon … fatty, meaty, salty goodness kissed with a bit of smoke. And bacon isn’t the most complicated preparation either. With just some basic ingredients and a little time, bacon is pretty easy to make.

But First … To Cure or Not

Commercial bacon is a cured product … meaning that it it treated with nitrite salts to help preserve the meat. And these compounds are somewhat controversial due to their potential direct and indirect effects on health. I say potential because I am not convinced of their harm and I think the worry is overblown. What these compounds do is threefold: deterring the growth of botulism toxins, preserving the red (pink after smoking) color of meat, and subtly altering the flavor of the cured meat.

The Nitrite Concern

There are actually two concerns surrounding nitrites in meat … their direct toxicity and the potential formation of compounds called nitrosamines when nitrite cured meat is either cooked at high temperatures, as bacon usually is, or exposed to a low pH environment like it is in your stomach. The amount of nitrite needed to be directly toxic is pretty high, so I’m not really worried about that. Studies in the 1970s first identified nitrosamines as carcinogenic. Subsequent work has confirmed this. However, there are steps which can be taken to reduce this risk, including cooking bacon at lower temperatures and to a less done final state, as well as adding certain anti-oxidants (like ascorbic acid) to the curing salt.

There are several very good resources describing this on the web, from reputable sources including the University of Minnesota, Oregon State University, and in this Wikipedia article.

So, in the end, I decided to cure my bacon. For me it comes down to flavor. I’ve tried uncured bacon and it’s just not the same. It’s more like … well, roasted pork. I like roasted pork, but not when I expect bacon. I used a commercial cure with a nitrite concentration in the acceptable range, and I didn’t use more than recommended. Additionally, I don’t cook my bacon to anything near well done, preferring it just short of crispy. And finally, I will be adding some ascorbic acid to my cure mix, just to be safe.

An interesting note – much of the “uncured” bacon that one finds in the organic section of the market these days in fact contains just as many nitrites as cured bacon. By law, “uncured” means no additional nitrites were added beyond what occurs naturally in the ingredients themselves. Now look closely at the label of your uncured bacon. You’ll probably see “celery juice” as an ingredient. Wonder why celery juice is in bacon? Because celery juice is naturally high in both nitrates and nitrites. So, by adding it, manufacturers can claim “no added nitrites” or “uncured” while still adding nitrites and getting a cured product with the taste people expect. But don’t take my word for it. Consumer Reports was one of the first to catch this trick when they tested hot dogs. They said:

While the three uncured franks might boast of “no added nitrates,” our testing found that Applegate Farms, Coleman Natural, and Whole Ranch contained nitrates and nitrites at levels comparable to many of the cured models.

And

While a hot dog can be labeled uncured if no nitrates or nitrites have been added, that does not necessarily mean the product is free of them. The three uncured models we tested contained nitrites and nitrates because the compounds occur naturally in spices and other natural ingredients added during processing.

So keep that in mind if you’re buying “uncured” bacon. You just might be fooling yourself.

The Process

The Meat

American Pork Cuts (adapted from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Pork_Cuts.svg)

American bacon is made from cured pork belly, the meat outside the ribcage and extending around the stomach or belly of the pig (labeled “side” in the diagram to the right – don’t ask me why). As far as I am concerned, anything else isn’t bacon, it’s some other form of cured pork. I’m all for that … I come from New Jersey, the home of Taylor Ham after all, just don’t call the other things bacon. For instance, there’s some bullshit abomination popular with home smokers that they call “buckboard bacon.” But it’s not bacon; it’s a cured and smoked pork shoulder. Lose the smoke, chop it up and form it back into a loaf, and you have SPAM. And SPAM ain’t bacon.

So when I call something bacon I am referring to cured, smoked, pork belly.

Getting pork belly can be a bit of a challenge depending on where you live. My normal meat market, which even sells goat, doesn’t carry it. They offered to order some belly, but I would need to take a whole case of three bellies, or about 30 pounds. I really want to perfect my recipes before I tackle 30 pounds.

I did find pork bellies at one of the best specialty markets in Boston, Savenors, but that’s a 40 mile drive from my house. For my first time, I wanted to start making Bacon now, not in a few days when I picked up some belly after work (I work a few blocks away from Savenors). So I tried my local, tiny Asian market. And sure enough, they had some small 1 lb. pieces tucked int their freezer case. I can’t say that these were the best looking specimens I’d ever seen, but they were worth a shot. So my first test batch was made with frozen pork belly.

Dry Curing

Rather than making up my own recipes, I decided to go with a commercial cure mix. This would let me learn about the differences caused by curing time rather than worrying if I had my mix correct. Based on some recommendations on various message boards, I went with a regular and a maple cure from the Butcher and Packer company. For about $5, I got enough cure to dry cure 100 lbs. of meat. Not bad.

You need a surprisingly tiny amount of cure for bacon. The Butcher & Packer instructions say to use 2 pounds of cure per 100 pounds of meat for a dry cure. That equals 0.02 pounds of cure per pound of meat, or just above 1/3 of an ounce of cure per pound of belly.

As for the vitamin C to add … the Oregon State reference lists the effective concentration as 550 ppm (parts per million). So assuming that’s ppm of the total cure weight, I need 550 mg of ascorbic acid per Kg of cure. I’m going to keep these tiny numbers in grams … So 550 mg per Kg is 550 mg per 2.205 pounds. That equals 249 mg per pound (550 / 2.205). That means I need to grind and evenly distribute one 250 mg vitamin C tablet into each 1 lb bag of cure. Simple.

That done, I measured out the correct amount of cure by weight using my kitchen scale (ended up being less than a teaspoon for each piece, but do your own math) and evenly sprinkled it over the pieces. I placed them in a Ziplock bag in another plastic container (just in case) in my refrigerator. And for the next 5 days I simply rotated them each day. Some liquid was released, but not much more than a few tablespoons.

Smoking

Many people online complained that bacon cured too long turned out too salty. So I was scared into leaving my first batch curing for only 5 days. Turns out the people online were either full of shit, overly sensitive to the taste of salt, or used way too much cure. Because my 5 day cure tasted barely salty. But it did have that characteristic red color, so I went ahead and smoked it.

Anyway, I took the bacon out and rinsed it well in cold water. Some people advocate soaking and all sorts of treatments, which I’m glad I didn’t do. I let it sit for several hours to reach room temperature and let a bit of a pellicle form.

I am a fan of real smoke flavor, so I used hickory only and ended up smoking my pieces for about 4 hours, starting at 120° F for the first 2 hours and then stepping the temperature up to 150° and 170° in the third and fourth hours respectively. I kept it in the heat until the internal temperature was just past 140° F and let carryover take it almost to 150°.

The Result

Whole Bacon

I know it might not look like much in this view, but it really did look sooooooo much better than that slimy pre-sliced stuff you buy in the supermarket. And once I cut into it, well, my effort was immediately worth it. Even the cheapo $1.99/lb belly I got from the freezer of my local Asian market was a better quality (read less fatty) than the typical bottom-of-the-barrel belly that becomes mass produced bacon.

The smoke flavor wasn’t too apparent on the first day, but like all smoked foods, really benefited from a few days in the refrigerator. It seemed that the smokiness really bloomed after that. Enough that I might cut the smoke back to just 3 hours next time. As for the flavor, I really didn’t think there was a strong cured, salty, or sweet flavor at all. Either immediately out of the smoker or even several days later. It just didn’t seem to be thoroughly cured. I’m sure this was the result of the limited curing time. I will at least double it to 10 days next time, or perhaps as long as 14 days. I also didn’t detect any difference between the maple cure and the brown sugar cure. So to enhance some maple flavor in the next batch I think I will brush the bellies with some actual maple syrup. Hopefully that will improve the character.

It's What's Inside That Counts

The Recipe

As of right now, here is my recipe, and the one I will follow for the next batch of bacon (I have 5 pounds of belly from Savenors ready to start curing tonight).

1. Wash belly and pat dry. Leave skin on.
2. Brush belly with thin layer of maple syrup.
3. Measure proper amount of cure and sprinkle evenly over all surfaces.
4. Place in Ziplock bag and allow to cure 10 to 14 days in refrigerator, turning bag every 24 hours.
5. Remove belly from bag and rinse quickly in cold water.
6. Allow belly to sit in the air for several hours until a pellicle forms.
7. Place in smoker at 140° F. After 2 hours, increase smoker temp to 150° F. After 1 more hour, increase temp to 170° F. Allow smoke for three or more hours depending on wood and your taste.
8. When internal temperature reaches 140°, remove, slice, cook, and enjoy.

Some Resources

Along the way to this recipe I found a couple websites that were very helpful. So thanks especially to Dave Selden and his blog and the “Makin Bacon” post. And also to the 3 Men site and their bacon page.

It's Winter Here in Massachusetts

The other day I watched a show on Food Network about the 2009 World Chili Championships, in Reno, Nevada. Over the course of the hour I learned a lot about what sacrifices people make for “competition chili” versus regular chili. Like having only three hours to get everything cooked and insisting that the finished chili be smooth and absent any chunky tomatoes, onions, or peppers.

Kind of like bar-b-que, there are probably as many chili recipes as there are chili cooks. The International Chili Society, which conducts the World Championships, has an interesting rule: each year’s winner must publish their recipe so the rest of the world’s chili cooks can see what won. No secrets! That’s pretty cool.

I looked over some of the winners and realized that my own personal chili style kind of fit the general championship theme: rich chili pepper base; minimal green peppers and onions; and real beef cut into small cubes rather than ground beef.

But I also realized that many of the winners worked through various rituals and additions of ingredients that simply made no sense to me — they must be based on superstition rather than actual experimentation. So using some of the recipes I found on the Chili Society’s website as inspiration, I decided to adapt my own chili recipe to see if I could come up with something good.

My basic thinking:

• Chili peppers should form a rich base. Chili powder should be home made as much as possible.
• The tomato base should be strong and not watery.
• Meat should have “tooth,” that is, be bite-able and chewable, not mushy like over cooked ground beef.
• There should be a complex heat, but not mouth-burning.

So here’s the recipe I came up with.

Ingredients

• 6 dried ancho chili peppers¹
• 2 dried cascabel chili peppers¹
• 2 dried arbol chili peppers¹
• 2 special dried hot Hungarian peppers²
• 1 T cumin seed
• Kosher salt
• 2 lbs. sirloin, cut into 1/4 to 3/8 in cubes²
• 4 slices smoked bacon
  
• 1 – 2 T Worchestershire sauce
• 2 cans Ro-Tel tomato & chili pepper mix
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 15 oz. can beef broth/stock⁴
• 1 15 oz. can chicken broth/stock⁴
• 4 cloves garlic, minced fine
• 1/2 C green bell pepper, chopped fine
• 1/2 C white or yellow onion, chopped fine
• 1 – 4 T light brown sugar
• 1 -2 T masa harina (fine ground corn meal) or corn starch (to thicken if necessary)

Preperation

Build the Chili Powder Base

1. Heat your oven to 325° F. (Or optionally heat a cast iron skillet on the stove top on medium-high heat.)
2. Spread the chili peppers on a baking sheet.
3. Toast in the oven for 10 minutes, or until dry and fragrant.
4. Remove peppers and let cool. Turn off oven.
5. Spread cumin seed on hot tray, and return to  hot oven for 5 min. (oven is off — residual heat will roast seeds).
6. Remove stems and seeds from peppers.
7. Crumble peppers into spice grinder in two separate batches:
8. In one batch, grind cascabel, arbol, and hot hungarian peppers (this will be HOT chili powder)
9. In other batch, grind ancho chilis
10. Grind toasted cumin seed

Brown the Beef

1. Chop the bacon into small pieces and place in a pot over low heat. Cook until crispy and the fat has rendered.
2. Add the beef, being careful not to crowd the pot. Add a pinch or two of kosher salt and let brown.
3. Remove to a separate bowl.

Sweat the Base

1. Add more oil/bacon fat to the pan if necessary, and dump in the onions and peppers. Add a pinch of salt.
2. Cook until translucent, stirring occasionally (~10 min).
3. Add the garlic and stir for another minute.

Bloom the Chili Powder

1. Add most of the ancho chili powder to the pot and stir (I reserve about 1 T in case I need to adjust the seasoning later).
2. Add the ground cumin (again, reserving some to adjust seasoning later).
3. Add between 1/2 and all of the arbol/cascabel chili powder (to taste — the more the hotter the final chili will be).
4. Keep stirring for a minute or two until the whole mixture is fragrant.

Begin the Simmer

1. Deglaze the pan by adding one can of beef stock and turning the heat up to high.
2. Stir to release all the fond from the bottom of the pan.
3. Return the meat to the pot.
4. Add the Worcestershire sauce, 1 can of Ro-Tel, and tomato paste. Stir.
5. Bring the pot to a simmer, and let cook for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, and adding chicken stock as necessary to keep everything covered and loose in the pot.

Bring it Home

1. After 2 hours, add the second can of Ro-Tel.
2. Adjust the salt as necessary.
3. Simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, add the brown sugar, one Tablespoon at a time, until the desired sweetness is reached. (I usually use 1 – 2 T total).
5. Let cook for another 30 minutes.
6. After 30 minutes, thicken with either cornstarch dissolved in chicken stock  or straight masa harina.

Notes

¹ I usually get my peppers from Penzey’s Spices, at http://www.penzeys.com.

² I don’t know the actual name of the peppers I use. Many years ago my father and his friends brought seeds for these peppers to the US from Hungary on one of their trips home. My family (I’m actually the only one left) has been growing them ourselves for at least 40 years. They do very well in northern climates. They are about 4″ long maybe as thick as your pinky finger when fully grown, and turn from a dark green to a rich red. When green they are very hot. When red they are nearly unbearable. When dried they put other peppers to shame. The closest thing I can commonly find is a Thai chili. These peppers are legendary among my friends who appreciate hot food.

³ You can use many cuts for this. Competitive chili cooks appear to have nearly universally standardized on tri-tip as the meat of choice, but I tend to go with whatever my butcher or supermarket has on special. I’ve used general sirloin roasts, top sirloin, or whatever. I stay away from any stew meats or chuck roasts for this.

⁴ Lately I seem to be using Swanson “Stock for Cooking,” but any quality broth will do.

OK you say. I don’t feel like cranking my Whirly Pop and making your ultimate popcorn, and I sure as hell won’t buy a big monstrosity of a theater style popcorn popper that you say is hard to clean. All I want is some quick popcorn so I can watch a movie … can’t I just make some in the microwave?

Image from Wikimedia Commons, courtesy: Fir0002 / flagstaffotos.com.au. Provided under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 (click image for details)

The answer is YES! And you don’t have to buy that crap with the goopy yellow faux-butter sludge in the bag either. There’s a way to make your own! (Popcorn … not goopy yellow faux-butter sludge.) I’ll credit Alton Brown for developing the basics of this recipe and assuring the world that our microwaves won’t catch on fire. Here’s what you need:

• 1/4 cup popcorn
• 2 -3 Tablespoons oil (canola, peanut, corn, etc.; Alton Brown uses olive oil, but that has a really strong flavor)
• 3/4 teaspoon popcorn salt (I use flava-col)
• Melted butter (optional)
• Brown paper lunch bag
• Stapler

And here’s what you do:

1. Dump popcorn, oil, salt in brown paper bag. Give it a quick shake.
2. Fold over about 1/2 inch of the bag and staple closed with one or two staples (no, they won’t spark in the microwave)
3. Put in the microwave for three to three and a half minutes (or use the built-in popcorn setting like I do)
4. When done, remove, butter (if you wish), and serve

It really doesn’t get easier than that.

This is a simple weeknight recipe that I adapted from one I saw in Cooks Illustrated a couple of years ago. I like it because it’s pretty much done in 1 single skillet and a bowl or two.

Ingredients:

• 6 – 8 extra large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/2 C panko breadcrumbs(I actually mix 2/3 panko and 1/3 traditional just because I like it that way )
• 1/2 stick butter (will be used in 1 Tablespoon slices)
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1/4 C Marsala wine or cooking sherry (or even leftover white wine will work)
• 2 t all-purpose flour
• 1 t sugar
• Juice of 1 large lemon (or a splash of concentrate)
• red pepper flakes
• Salt, pepper, and dried herbs, and other seasoning  to taste (I like Old Bay)

Preparation:

1. Thoroughly dry shrimp with paper towels. Toss in a bowl with a pinch of salt, pepper, and 1 t sugar. (You can also add other seasonings here — I usually add a pinch or two of Old Bay and some dried herbs). Set aside.
2. Heat skillet over medium heat and add 1T of butter. Allow to heat until foaming stops.
3. Add breadcrumbs and stir until lightly browned. You can also add seasoning at this point to taste — I often add a pinch or two of Old Bay, along with some herbs and black pepper. When crumbs are lightly brown, set aside.
4. Wipe out skillet and place back on medium low heat. Add 1 – 2 T olive oil and allow to heat.
5. Place shrimp in pan and allow to cook on one side until just browning — maybe 2 to 3 minutes.
6. Remove shrimp and set aside.
7. Wipe pan and return to heat.
8. Add 2 T butter
9. Add red pepper flake to taste (skip if you don’t like spicy — I use a full teaspoon, but I like heat).
10. When butter stops foaming, add garlic and saute for a minute or so.
11. Add Marsala wine or sherry and lemon juice. Whisk together in pan.
12. After another minute or two, sprinkle in flour and keep whisking until thickened (another minute or so).
13. Finally whisk in the final 2 T butter.
14. Return shrimp to pan and shake to coat. I usually flip the shrimp so the uncooked side is down, but this is optional.
15. Cover pan and allow shrimp to cook until pink and cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve the shrimp and sauce over whatever you want — rice, pasta, something from a box that’s quick. Top with the crunchy breadcrumbs. Yummy.

One of my local farms (Nourse Farms in Westborough, MA), where my family has a CSA share, had some beautiful fresh basil when I stopped by for this weeks’ produce. So I decided it was time to put up a batch of homemade pesto in the freezer for use later in the year. This is not really a complex recipe, but there are as many different pesto recipes as there are people making it. This is my pretty traditional take, with pine nuts.

Ingredients

For each large bunch of basil (about 2 cups of packed leaves)

• 3 to 4 cloves of garlic (leave skin on — it will be pan roasted)
• 1/4 C pine nuts (we will also toast these)
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• approx. 1/4 C extra-virgin olive oil (ask someone at Salumeria Italiana in Boston — they’ll steer you towards something good)
• 1/4 cup fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (no, the pre-grated stuff in the green can/jar doesn’t count) get a nice aged piece and grate it using a microplane grater.
• black pepper to taste

Method

Separate the basil leaves from the stems. Wash thoroughly, because no one likes gritty pesto! I sometimes crumble the leaves a bit, but this is purely an optional step. Some people crush them with a rolling pin or beat them with a meat tenderizer. I’m not sure that really does any good.

Start a heavy pan on medium heat. Do not use non-stick for this part. Heating a non-stick pan without enough food in it to absorb the heat and keep the surface below ~400 degrees F can be dangerous, especially if you have pet birds in the house. (Don’t believe it, see this, this, or this.)

When the pan is warm, dump in the pine nuts. Give them a shake/stir every minute or so and keep an eye on them to prevent burning. Toast them until they are nice golden. Be careful though, they go from golden brown and delicious (GBD) to burnt in a matter of seconds. Remove them from the pan to cool.

After the nuts are toasted, dump in the garlic, with the husk still on. I usually add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, but this can also be done dry. Roast the garlic for 5 to 7 minutes until it too is GBD. Let it cool when done and then remove the paper.

Add the garlic, pine nuts, and basil leaves to a food processor. Add the salt. Pulse while occasionally stopping to scrape the walls down until the leaves are coarsely chopped. Then begin to drizzle in the oil while continue to run the food processor. Once the oil is incorporated, fold in the grated cheese and add additional salt and pepper to taste.

Storage

Pesto freezes very well and will keep for several months. I usually save it in 1/2 cup reusable containers, like these Gladware ones. Fill each container 3/4 full, then pack the pesto down completely by banging the container gently on the counter. Then I pour a couple ounces of olive oil over the top to seal the pesto from the air. If put into the freezer quickly, this additional layer of oil solidifies on top and prevents the pesto from contacting the air, keeping it greener and fresher than pesto left open.

When I want a taste of summer during the long New England winter, I simply break out one of these little frozen bundles and add it to some pasta. It can be defrosted in the microwave, and a fresh meal is only a few minutes away at any time.

One of the first foods I learned to make on my own was popcorn. Since the first JiffyPop I made on our stove top (useless link: Cute chick making JiffyPop on YouTube) I have been on a life-long quest to make the ultimate bowl. Along the way I have learned a lot about popcorn. Here’s the core dump.

First, lets get something out of the way — good popcorn consists of popcorn, butter, and salt. Anything else is just an attempt to cover up shitty popcorn, so you will find no recipes here for kettle corn, caramel corn, or popcorn with cheese, taco seasoning or, God forbid, cauliflower popcorn. Oh, and good popcorn is popped in oil. I lived through the era of the hot air popper and can say quite emphatically that hot air poppers are useful only for producing packing material.

The Equipment

For the last several years I’ve used a Back-to-Basics 6 quart stove-top popper (available from Amazon — I don’t make any money on this). I have the aluminum version which is OK. The stainless version is much better, but I’m not sure it’s $50 better. The aluminum version is good enough. I love popcorn, but you would have to really loooooooove popcorn to pay $50 for something that you have to crank by hand.

Forget right now about any consumer-grade, countertop electric poppers, no matter what the box, sales person, or TV commercial says. None of them are going to get and stay hot enough to work well. If you are even more frugal, you can use a big dutch oven or stock pot with a lid. I’d rather use this method than any electric popper if given the chance.

Oil

Perhaps the biggest debate in all of popcorn popping  is about the type of oil to use. More than anything else, the oil will lend a flavor to the final product. And there are noticeable but subtle differences between different oil types. Here are my observations about the flavor characteristics.

• Canola oil: Canola is one of the most popular oils right now and very useful for popping corn. Canola has a high smoke point and can therefore handle high popping heats. This helps it impart a slightly “darker” (meaning well done) flavor to the popcorn.
• Corn oil: Corn oil is similar to canola as far as smoke point, but it gives a less “nutty,” less “dark” flavor to the corn. I like corn oil a lot.
• Peanut oil: Peanut oil has the highest smoke point of any of the oils listed here. Most people say that it has a very neutral taste, but I can always tell when someone has used peanut oil. It sounds cliche, but peanut oil gives the popcorn a nutty taste.
• Coconut oil: Almost all commercial popcorn is popped with some amount of coconut oil. There is a great deal of controversy surrounding coconut oil and whether or not it is healthy or harmful. The argument is essentially whether the detrimental effects of the high saturated fat content are balanced by the presence or high levels of lauric acid which help balance cholesterol and other fats in the bloodstream. I’m going to stay out of that debate — but coconut oil lends both a crispness and a “sweetness” to popcorn. It’s a very distinct flavor element that you’ll recognize when you taste it.
• Cottonseed oil: Also common in commercial mixtures, cottonseed oil behaves a lot like canola oil.

My current favorite is either straight canola oil or something like a 2/3 canola, 1/3 coconut oil mix.

There are a lot of flavored oils on the market, with some or another variety of buttery flavor. I usually avoid these unless I’m using a pre-measured portion pack.

Salt

Popcorn salt comes in two main varieties: plain and flavored. Regardless of which you use, the main characteristic is that popcorn salt is an extremely fine grind. You can either buy special popcorn salt or make your own with kosher salt and a coffee grinder. Just take standard kosher salt and whiz it until it’s an ultra-fine powder. Viola — popcorn salt.

For flavored salts, the industry standard is something called Flavacol, made by the Gold Medal products company. You can read about the bulk sizes here. Flavacol is available from a variety of retailers in normal 1 quart sizes — just google “flavacol.”

Popcorn

Surprisingly, I have found very little difference in flavor between brands of popcorn. The main thing you want for a good batch is fresh kernels, so whatever brand you buy, make sure that it’s fresh. Once opened, popcorn goes stale rapidly, and stale popcorn doesn’t pop as fluffy and leaves a lot more unpopped kernels (called “old maids”) than fresh corn. I don’t buy large bags or jars, but rather smaller sizes that I will use quickly.

Butter

Salted or unsalted — your preference. The thing about butter is that it contains a lot of water (up to 16% I believe). So whatever you use, try and clarify it and use only the fat portion, leaving the solids and water behind.

Technique

This is the important part. There are some important tips here collected from years of experience.

1. Put the popper on the stove and turn on the heat. Give it a minute or two to warm up.
2. After heating, add your preferred oil mix. If you’re trying to be healthy, you can use a ratio of 1:6 oil to popcorn. So for a 4 oz. (1/2 cup) popper (roughly 6 quarts popped) use 4 teaspoons of oil. If you want good tasting popcorn like you get in a theater, then the ratio can be 1:2 — that’s 1/4 cup of oil and 1/2 cup of popcorn. You can play with this ratio until it suits your taste. The oil should shimmer if you’ve heated to the correct temperature.
3. Dump in the popcorn and salt. Close the lid and wait.
4. This is where I start melting the butter in the microwave. I use 3/4 to 1 whole stick for my corn, though I separate and leave behind the milk solids so it’s less than this amount that actually makes it onto the corn. I drop the butter into a one cup measuring cup and microwave it for 30 seconds. Then let it sit and separate.
5. As the corn begins to pop, you can start stirring if your popper is so equipped. Shake it occasionally if you don’t have a stirrer.
6. Here’s the important step — heat that is too high leads to chewy corn, so, just as the popping slows down, I turn the heat off, letting the residual heat finish the corn. This is a critical step.
7. When there are 2 or so seconds between pops, it’s time to dump into a large bowl.
8. Drizzle your butter, mix, end enjoy.

It’s a lot of work, but I promise you it’s worth it.