Grillotine

My Dad, who calls himself ‘the grillmaster’, overcooks sausages. Not in the “I like medium, he likes well-done” type of way, but horribly overcooked, dried out awful. Any advice for him  – Sizzling

Yeah, I have advice, technical advice, but I have nothing for you on how to tell your dad he isn’t good at something he thinks he is and probably enjoys doing. And that's the question I really think you’re asking. So let’s get to the technical.

The hotdog just went super-nova

Well before that - I am pretty sympathetic to building a fire, a big fire, with 3-foot flames and the orange/red glow flicking at the corners of graying charcoal. That feeling of a hot fire, one you’ve built, and cold beer to drink is such a winning combination, it makes the cooking secondary. 

Sausages should be poached before hitting the grill. Your grill should have 2 separate zones a medium side and a hot side. You can heat a pan of liquid, like beer for brats or kielbasa, on the hot side of the fire. It isn’t as fun to watch sausage gently poach in a pan as it is to watch 18-inch flame-ups shooting out of the grill, but it is still part of the grilling process. Poach the sausage to an internal temp of 130-140ºf, remove from liquid and add to the hot side before moving the sausage to the medium side to hold.

Things you can do…tell your dad you saw this technique on the Food Network and want to give it a try.  Give him other things to grill, asparagus, corn, fish. Give your dad a thermometer. Ask your dad to build a fire, but let him know he doesn’t have to grill, he should relax. If you have a charcoal grill, build the fire yourself with a medium and a hot side and then ask him to do the grilling - he can and probably will just crank the knobs on a propane grill. Poach the sausages yourself and say “Dad these have been poached in a special brine, beer, sauce thing, they only need to be finished on the grill”, then hand him a thermometer and say, “I know father’s day is next week but here is something for you”. Invite your Dad to make something that needs to cook at a low temp for hours like pork shoulder, ribs or whole chicken, as to break him of his high heat habit. Walk outside and see the heat rippling off the grill, and tell him about this blog you read that is funny-smug; where the writer claims the single biggest problem facing the home cook is high heat. The blogger thinks cooking, like a holiday, people should invest themselves in not kicking it up a notch, but learning how to dial it back and enjoy low and slow.

Rub a Dub Morelly

I was wondering if you knew the best way to wash morels. I always get a lot of grit. -  thanks bodeen

A little too much moisture

Trim, remove woody parts then submerge the mushroom in water right before cooking, agitate the water, remove brush/pat/clean with a paper towel and at the point of being redundant, cook immediately after removing from water.

Mushrooms are about 90% water, they aren’t going to get all soggy, how are they going add more moisture? This seems pretty clear, yet it seems to be somewhat controversial. If I were to say dry mushrooms concentrate their flavor as they dehydrate – no one is going to get upset. If I advise to take the very same dried mushroom and reconcentrate it in hot water, no one is going to object that the water is going to make the mushroom spongy. Yet if I say take an object that is 90% water, place it in water for a brief period, everyone complains it ruins the mushrooms texture. 

Untrue and do not listen to people who tell you otherwise. I have Harold McGee, Alton Brown and a few other heavyweights plus experience on my side. It is a non-debate. 

Exposing mushrooms to water will not dilute the 10% flavor compounds, especially with morels whose elaborate headdress looks like part brain, part maze with plenty of places for dirt and grit to get trapped. What water does…is cleans the mushroom. The peril in submerging mushrooms in water is not a loss of texture, mushrooms will retain their chewiness after a lot of heat and cooking. Nor is the concern that the soaking/cleaning water will cause the mushroom to become spongy – the first thing mushrooms do in the pan is release some of that 90% water. No, water will cause the mushrooms to discolor, like a peeled apple, that is why it is best to cook the mushrooms as soon as they come out of the water.

A little fun fact, the reason why mushrooms will stay chewy even after abusive amounts of cooking is that unlike other veg, whose structure comes from cellulose, mushroom’s framework is comprised of chitin – the compound that is usually found in the exoskeletons of shellfish and insects.

Other mushroom fun fact, the ‘roots’ of mushrooms called hyphae can stretch for miles and single cubic centimeter of soil can contain 2000 yards of hyphae – almost a mile of roots in less than 10% of a cubic inch.

Final fun fact: saprophytic, which according to Funny or Die is Rachael Ray’s new catch phrase or maybe it just means feeding off of decaying organic matter.

 

Rachael Ray's New Catchphrase from Rachael Ray

Red Norwegian Lobster

Is “Shrimp Scampi” a redundancy like pizza pie? Hospitalino

Scampi is a Venetian word for type of shellfish also known as Norway Lobster, Dublin Bay Lobster, Dublin Bay Prawn, and langoustine. It’s also a generic term for shellfish in English, that’s most British English usage, but the term is pretty flexible in the US. Finally, scampi is also a term for a preparation of shellfish involving garlic, white wine and breadcrumbs that began in Victorian UK but is now mostly used in the US in restaurants, such as - but not limited to Red Lobster (no relation to Norway Lobster) or the Olive Garden.

First off, scampi, specifically Nephrops norvegicus is a small lobster found in the waters of the eastern Atlantic between Iceland and Morocco and in the Mediterranean, particularly in the Adriatic. Venetians love their fish, shellfish and waterfowl, linguists who study such things, theorize the particular branch of Italian dialect used in Venice has more words for edible species of animals that live in or near water than any other European language.

Like words for love, English seems to have fewer, more general terms for shellfish rather than numerous more specific terms. Just as love can mean passion and occasionally familial affection, Scampi is pretty much interchangeable with prawn, which is technically a large freshwater shrimp, but mostly it refers to shrimp of a certain size – BBS; big beautiful shrimp. Except when scampi is talking about a specific dish…

In the late 19^th century, British Chefs began to use the term ‘scampi’ on their menus rather than the much more pedestrian Dublin Bay lobster or slightly more exotic but still familiar French term, langoustine – a designation that was equal to crayfish, not really a top dollar food draw. Scampi, and by scampi, here I mean, Norway Lobster, cooked in white wine and garlic before being broiled with breadcrumbs is pretty much what makes scampi scampi, more than the specific seafood. Add spaghetti, stuff into a ravioli, serve as an appetizer, even take the scampi out and put shrimp in and you still have scampi.

So is shrimp scampi a redundancy? No, it is actually letting you know a substitution has been made. A more surprising variation would be if someone actually used scampi in scampi-type dishes, then you would have scampi-scampi, which kind of sounds like a musical.

BTW/PS, I have never seen actual Norway Lobster scampi here on the west coast but the shellfish is currently being promoted as a sustainable seafood and leading English chefs are working to substitute scampi in place of traditional cod dishes.

The Maple Kind, yeah.

That dog on You tube made me think of this, but how do you get the maple flavor in bacon?

Old school would have been smoke and rubs. For modern pre-sliced packaged bacon: Brine, injecting needles, flavorings mostly artificial, nitrates and a fair amount of sugar, but my dogs don’t really care about the artificial flavors and nitrates – they would love bacon – maple flavored or not if they ever were fed it.

And too a certain extent, I don’t care about the nitrates – I may not leave a beautiful corpse but I can leave a beautifully preserved one. However, the grocery store where I do most of my shopping does. Nitrates have a bit of a reputation as a carcinogen, but more recently, sodium nitrate has been linked to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, because of either or both conditions manufacturers will forgo nitrates in order to make a healthier bacon.

That’s right a healthier bacon, except the meat still needs to be cured and this means extra salt and sugar to offset the preserving properties of nitrates. Oh yeah and then there is the fact that food is fatty, not horribly fatty, 4 medium strips of bacon are about equal to a candy bar, calorie-wise but you know since fat slows the digestive system down a person (hopefully) won’t be hungry in 30 minutes. Plus you know not adding nitrates means people will engage in moderate levels of exercise.

I’m sorry let’s move away from my rant and back to your question. An industrial slab of bacon will be pieced with needles, brined with natural and artificial flavors – the maple flavor comes from the chemical sotolone, which also occurs naturally in fenugreek, molasses, tobacco and caramel. Sotolone is a lactone or ester – a compound produced when a hydrogen of an acid is replaced by an alkyl creating an essential acid. Sorry for the chemistry, imperfect at that but it gets us there.

Thing to remember when you see the phrase “artificial or natural flavors” - these flavor combinations are like a recipe itself where a flavor we think of as maple is extracted from fenugreek, enhanced with an alcohol like artificial vanilla extract and caramel syrup. It tastes mapley, despite having nothing to do with maple trees.

Although bacon could be smoked over maple wood - which would burn the sap producing a smoky, maple syrup taste, it's more likely the maple flavor ends up in the brine through the better living of chemistry. And for the 6 of you who haven’t seen this:

Healthy Foods?

Foods, they are either good or bad. My favorite meal to eat out; chicken wings and deep fried tater tots washed down with beer, is bad, that is why the wings joint is never crowded. Kale, chard and other brassicas, they're good, right? That's why everyone's fridge is packed full of leafy green things.

If the conflicting narrative on individual foods weren't confusing enough, what if certain foods were targeted as not just food, but superfoods? Items that weren't just good for you, but they actually counteracted the bad. A pint of blueberries offset the cigarette the other night. Grilled Salmon is so good for you, one could cover it with ranch and still come out ahead. Pomegranate Juice will help men in their 50s avoid prostate exams.

These foods are called functional foods or as the NY Times called them Foods with Health Benefits. (Imagine how NPR would have ruined that headline). They account for 37 b-billion dollars in sales annually and according an e-newsletter I get from a trade association, they represent the quickest and steadiest category of sales growth for foods in the US and Europe. 

The article is good and comprehensive and maybe is worth 1 of the 20 free things you get from the Times every month, although I am going to try to get you to use a second one below. One blog post; 10% of your monthly Times allowance. 

The article's author, Natasha Singer, touches on the rights of corporate free speech versus the rights of consumers to be provided with accurate, truthful information. And considering the words, "multinational corporation" appears zero times in our constitution or Declaration of Independence, I wonder which side the Roberts Court will come down on?

But I'm not a constitutional scholar, even if I can see where this thing is going. So how do individuals get accurate information about eating healthy foods? If you are on the right side of the digital divide you can get an ap from the good folks at Fooducate. If you are like me and use a droid, well you can try to eat less processed food, eat more whole foods, more fresh fruit and veg and try to eat the Recommended Daily Allowance - RDA- of 2 to 3 servings of fresh fish a week. Hmmm, the daily allowance of of fish is 2 to 3 servings for fish PER WEEK. Good thing the government agency in in charge of promoting healthy diets is clear and concise, whew.

And the subject of fish is easily the most contradictory: Eat more, but eat less because of toxins but eat ocean caught because farmed is bad, except oceans are getting overfished at a rate that makes strip mining look like a restoration project as far as environmental impacts go and who wants to eat catfish and talapia unless it's deepfried in transfats and served with ranch and how healthy is that. Confused? The Monterey Aquarium put together is very sensible list of fish to enjoy.

Speaking of enjoyment, enjoy this - This is A.O. Scott's love letter to a movie that has everything: A teenaged Catherine Deneuve, singing dialogue about tuning up a Renault, beautiful cinematography, heartbreaks and characters with limited resources making hard choices. And it is a musical, not like happy, singing despite the rain type of musical but well just watch the review...then watch the movie.

Tale of 2 Strawberries

“A report released earlier this year by Jake Robert Claro, a graduate student at Bard College’s Center for Environmental Policy who did the study for the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, found that prices at farmers’ markets were lower for many conventionally produced grocery items than they were at supermarkets. For organic items, farmers’ markets beat grocery stores every time hands down.”

That quote is from Barry Estabrook’s Politics of the Plate blog. The actual report can be linked to here.

So is the food at farmers markets cheaper?

No, the food isn’t cheap. And I mean that in a couple of different senses: let’s take strawberries and eggs. There is a huge difference between a Driscoll Jubilee, not a horrible strawberry, but they aren’t grown for flavor, they are bred and cultivated to be packaged and shipped 1000s of miles. While a Hood strawberry lasts about 48 hours off the vine. While not a wild variety, it is so good it could be a proxy, a powerful symbol of innocence lost, plus it is a little flavor bomb.

One is from a Grower's Market, one is store bought

Driscoll contracts, grows, packs and ships its berry’s all across the country, taking into account fluctuating energy costs, packing materials, demand, waste and supermarket’s willingness to sell their product at cost to attract customers into the produce section. The Farmers Market grower who doesn’t sell his berries on Market day eats them either literally or in the spreadsheet sense.

This study found eggs are more expensive at Farmers Markets. And I have read those articles where people explain how $7 a dozen eggs are actually cheaper than the store’s $1.99.  Save it for law school - 7 bucks for a dozen eggs is a luxury - I like my Market eggs, saffron yolked, delicious, but that is a quality issue not a price one. Store bought eggs work fine for a cake or bread pudding, but poached egg on beans and tortillas or an egg sandwich is only going to be as good as the egg, I don’t mind spending the extra when an egg is the featured item.

But there is another reason why the food at farmers markets cost a little more. They are true Markets in the economic sense. This makes the sellers agricultural entrepreneurs – businesses that create their own products, demand and are given a vast leeway in setting their own prices (as opposed to seeing what people will pay for goods). In this light, Market shoppers are first adapters - a group who help establish trends and often pay extra for the privilege of being the first to use a product or service. In a micro sense our markets are as much about macroeconomics as they are about food. And while esoteric arguments may not be as important as the cost of food, this is just another way to think about the issue of price, we are obviously different from grocery stores - Even Ayn Rand would be proud of what we do.

So if a grower can get $4 to $5 for a pint of strawberries on a Saturday morning, strawberries that are far more likely to go directly into the face of children then make it home for shortcake or to be blended in a margacoldaojito, does that make the product more expensive or does that mean it is priced exactly right?

What the Phở

For a dish that has been called Viet Nam in a bowl, I just assumed that Phở had been around as long as the country itself.

And even though I had no idea how long Vietnam as geopolitical state existed, I still ended up being wrong about that. Phở seems to have come into existence in the late 19th century, with the first print references turning up in the dawning days of the 20th century. Some claim that Phở is French inspired, they were the country’s colonial master at that point. Some point to the similarities between the French meal in a bowl, pot au feu and Phở. And you know feu (hot) and Phở sound alike.

Others make a more compelling case for the dish being Chinese in origin, noting that rice vermicelli is called hofan in Cantonese and it is the exact same noodle used in Phở.

I hate these origin stories for food, odds are it is never one person or one culture and it just makes more sense, that a culture that has been a hub for trade, been overrun, absorbed refugees, been the home to many subcultures, invaded and partitioned over the course of the last 2000 years, would take all influences and make something of their own.

In any case the dish seems to have sprung up near Hanoi in North Vietnam, a favored local dish, that was popular because of its sophistication or richness, but it wasn’t until the French abandoned their hold on the country in 1954 and the population that could fled South the dish became popular throughout the country.

Even then Phở, didn’t instantly become a the staple at home, it seems to be a restaurant experience, or perhaps restaurant is an overstatement for a meal/soup that is largely served up from street vendors, market stalls, modified tricycles and tiny storefronts. And that is just Portland.

No sorry, that was too easy, is in the motherland, Vietnam.

The stock can take up to 10 hours to prepare, in a country that had little electricity and gas until recently, 10 hours of fuel, even at a simmer would be a hardship. Even in the US with a developed infrastructure like the US, Phở is largely about eating out. For who has 10 hours to make stock, even if you aren’t watching the pot simmer, let alone the right spices, ingredients, limes and herbs to make a pot.

Well I do. I am setting out to make a giant batch for friends next week. And it is a huge undertaking – roast bones, simmer, caramelize onions, again I can watch Jersey Shore while I am doing all this, but it does take time, effort and knowledge. Then I am making a small batch of vegetarian Faux Phở, which either because of that or because I'm not Vietnamese, it has been suggested that I can’t make true Phở. I’m not sure that is true, Vietnam is a culture of food lovers and cooks but if I were getting ready to roll out pasta, no one would ever suggest I need to limit my cooking to spätzle and bratwurst because of my Teutonic Midwesternism, I think I can thrive with Phở

Minty

This weekend is Kentucky Derby weekend, which means Mint Juleps – you can read about Juleps and horseracing here, but we have never really looked at mint before, so because it is spring and it’s a weekend of Juleps and mint goes well with peas, let’s dig down a little into the mint patch.

There are a dozen different types of mint species, for the most part the herb can be divided into 2 basic groups, peppermint and spearmint. Mint has a long history, Minthe attracted Pluto, who long before it was both a planet and not a planet, was or possibly still is the God of the underworld. Minthe was all like “Hey Pluto what are you doing Friday, wanna hang out?” Pluto, who was into Minthe as only the god of the underworld can be into a nymph (and that’s an actual nymph, it isn’t short for anything), had his efforts thwarted when his consort, Prosperpina, turned mint into a plant.

Later, mint appears in the bible, turning up in the gospels quite a bit, Jesus apparently equated mint with Justice. There is room for interpretation on that because he spoke in parables, which is the very reason I interpret the bible literally to avoid any confusion. Justice or no Justice, mint has almost always been thought of as a drink that calms, aids digestion and freshens people.

Mint as in condition, or I made a mint, derives from the sister languages of Dutch/German/English's bastardization of the Latin montea or money. Spearmint, native mostly to the Mediterranean (with local species that easily crossed with Euro cultivars making a native/not native genetic plant) are found up all over the world. The plant does like water and growing near water, but it can be found all over the world and is regularly cultivated. For instance, like it is grown here in Oregon, where the crop has a street value of $50 million USDs. Oregon is the 2^nd largest grower in the States and with our neighbors to the north, Washington, the Pacific Northwest grows most of the world’s mint.

Most of that crop is processed to make mint oil which is used in things like gum and breath mints, which just to confuse things, mint is also the term for these small flavored confectioneries as well as the plant.

Besides freshening breath, mint also prevents milk from curdling during cooking, so much so dairymen and women cannot allow goats, sheep or cows to graze on the herb or there will be no cheese. And in a time when wet nurses were still used mint was to be avoided or forbidden, depending on Madame’s management style.

Although it is a favorite herb in both Arab and English cuisines, here in the Saucykitchen it is used for only 3 things: Hot tea, added to Vietnamese food or Mint Juleps. And derby weekend or not, it has been above 70 less than a half-dozen times since last fall, so right now I am more in a carbonara calendar than cool, sweet, iced drink. If you are like me, plant now for August’s juleps and if you are all into the derby, well happy sipping and betting.  

Dang

Mmm, chaeful

One of my super special talents is that I believe I discover foods. And this isn't inventing or popularizing but actually discovering, granted I do this in the Columbus sense - that millions of people have been eating or drinking something for sometimes 1000s of years before I know about it, but once I discover the dish, well, it exists. 

The latest edition of food discovery is Japchae or Chapchae, a Korean dish of noodles, vegetables, soy, sesame oil and sometimes beef. First time I ever had this dish was when my friend Gwi made it for me. It was love at first taste. Because she referred to the dish idiomatically as "Mongolian Beef", it took me a few years to track the recipe down. But while I was distracted by the false recipe name, Gwi obliged me by making it every time I came to her house.

The beef may be Mongolian, (I have never been able to get a satisfactory answer to why she calls it that), but japchae is more literally translated as mixture of vegetables. More confusing still is the heart of the dish are the cellophane noodles, dangmyeon.

Dangmyeon are a grayish, translucent noodle made from sweet potato starch. Complete dearth of information about how the noodle came to be and came to be popular both locally in the Saucatorium and globally on the interwikinet. Apparently, the noodle was a 20th century addition to a mixture of vegetables and where ever it came from, it quickly became the centerpiece of the dish.

Heh, heh, Wang

Like other cellophane noodles, dangmyeon cook different than durum pasta. Where bean thread or rice noodles need little more than a good soaking in hot water, dangmyeon need to be boiled. But not to much boiling or they will revert to their form of pure starch. I have had better luck simmering for 5 minutes, rinsing in cold water, draining and immediately tossing in sesame oil than following the instructions on the bag.

But then again, I am not sure how authentic my Japchae is. It is a dish of complete and utter convenience - one that varies depending on what is in the fridge. Kale in place of spinach. Peppers, garlic and sugar are replaced by sweet, spicy, garlicky (& Vietnamese) Sriacha. Last week, the market's first sweet peas went into the dish. When I do shop for the Japchae, it is asparagus which transforms the Japchae into what I like to call Aspchae. My brother claims he will never eat a pun, but fortunately, no one even understands the play on words enough to object to it. Still, I love it. The issue with asparagus is that you need big flavors to match it without overwhelming the veg - and this is the perfect combination.

Other sins I visit upon Japchae - a little fish sauce, I almost never have mushrooms unless they are dried, so they rarely go in. The soy sauce is mushroom flavored and Vietnamese. I don't stir fry the noodles since I find it turns the dish into a glutenous mess, instead I mix the stir fried veg into the noodles. I use a really nice steak rather than a tougher cuts and I cook the steak whole, then slice it thinly rather than slice it and stir fry it. I like eating Japchae hot, cold or room temp with a side of kimchi.

Even though I am doing this all wrong, the results are good. Well good until it passes muster with Gwi and I am too afraid to invite her and her family over for "Mongolian Beef".