December 30, 2012

California Christmas Recap

Now that we're back home in chilly DC, its time for a little recap of our culinary adventures in CA.

First, there was the pig head.  After 2 days in the fridge, our roll 'o head went into the oven at 325 degrees for 5-6 hours.  We rotated it a 1/4 turn about every 90 minutes in order to get all sides nice and crisp.
As it roasted, a lot of the fat seeped out, and the porchetta really shrunk down.  Once it finished roasting, it went back into the fridge, and we compressed it from all sides to squish even more moisture out.
Once it was completely cooled, it was ready for eating!  You can see all the fat marbling through, and all the meat that came off the face.  The really thin squiggly is the ear!  All that's left to do is slice it super thin and eat!  The seasoning was spot on and there was so much flavor imparted in the meat.
And so as not to waste any part of the head, we roasted the skull, and then simmered it in water to create a really rich pork stock.  A bunch of meat fell off the skull, so we ate those along the way, but now we also have a really rick, gelatinous stock for future meals.

Next came the joong.  Justin really had a knack for wrapping them, and they made the perfect snack/lunch when we got home today off the redeye.

Now that you're caught up on how those items turned out, I'll throw some new info your way.  We had some leftover lobster meat hanging out in the fridge, so Justin & I cooked dinner  for mom, dad and grandma, consisting of a simple salad, and lobster quinoa.  The lobster quinoa was super simple...cook up the quinoa, and in a separate pan, saute onions, garlic and ginger, toss in some mushrooms, deglaze the pan with Chinese rice cooking wine, add it some soy sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha, then toss in the lobster.  It was topped with some green onions and ready to eat!  It came together rather quickly and was a great way to use the leftover lobster.
 

But we didn't spend all of our time eating at home.  We hit all of our favorite restaurants: El Burrito Jr., In-n-Out, and A-1.  Plus, we tried out a really delicious Polish restaurant, some great tapas, a Top Chef contestant's bar, and a burger joint in the back of a liquor store.

And finally, Christmas gifts.  We were both really spoiled this year and received a lot of items to add to our pantry and kitchen.  I have a new All-Clad pan, along with cooking utensils and a wok.  We both now have a mortar & pestle, some squid ink, bottarga, and a variety of flavored salts.  And since Justin tends to be a little messy, a pirate chef apron was long overdue!




December 27, 2012

Mardi Gras-nukah!

Its a new holiday...like Festivus!  Since we got oysters in our share again, and we still had sauerkraut lingering in the fridge, we thought we'd make po' boys again.  We followed the same protocol as the first time around.  Justin took care of shucking the oysters again and we came across this little fellow
 
So you're probably wondering what this little guy is.  We thought it was a little worm that found its way inside the oyster.  With a little research we learned that its not a worm at all, but an enzyme complex that's formed by the oyster when its been actively feeding.  So really, this is just a sign of freshness.  As if we needed another sign.  I mean, when I opened the bag of oysters and clams, they smelled like the salty ocean.  Anyway...since this wasn't a worm, and just confirmation of how fresh our oysters were, we marched on!

One thing I forgot to mention last time was that when we started building our po' boys, I pulled out some of the bread on the bottom bun to form a bit of a trough.  This gave the oysters a place to nestle in the bun...as if the oysters and bun were cuddling.

It made it a whole lot easer to keep the po' boy together once we topped the oysters with the 'kraut and top bun.  The oysters didn't squish out when you bit into the sandwich, and everything just stayed in place.

So that's the Mardi Gras part.  As for the -nukah part, we decided to make some sweet potato latkes.  With the start of Chanukah this past weekend, we thought it appropriate, and a nice compliment to the po' boys.  I turned to my trusty friend, Gojee, for a recipe and found one for sweet potato latkes with chipotle sour cream.  It was a fairly easy recipe too.
The sweet potatoes were grated and mixed with the eggs, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, cayenne, some caramelized onions, baking powder, and since I didn't have cumin I used a little chili powder.  I covered the bottom of a pan with some oil and started dropping the latkes in for a shallow fry.
Just a few minutes on each side got them crispy and brown.  Once they were done I just placed them on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet, and kept them warm in the oven while the rest of them, and the oysters cooked.  This kept them from absorbing the oil, and allowed them to stay crispy!  The chipotle sour cream was super simple...all you need is chipotle and sour cream...duh!  Well, I couldn't find chipotle sauce (as the recipe called for), so I picked up a small can of chipotle peppers in adobo.  So I chopped up about 4 peppers and added that to the sour cream with some of the adobo sauce until it tasted perfectly smoky and spicy.  So the latkes got a dollop of chipotle sour cream and some cilantro and green onion.
And to cap it all off, we paired the po' boy with a Flying Dog Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout.  The beer is brewed with the same Rappahannock oysters we ate!  It turned out to be such a tasty and hearty dinner.  Happy Mardi Gras-nukah!

Meat in the Middle

Every year at Christmas I come out to California to visit with family, and for the last couple years we've spent the day after Christmas making joong.  They're basically the Chinese version of a tamale...rice and meats wrapped up in bamboo leaves, then boiled for a few hours so everything inside cooks.  They're delicious little rice and meat packages.
Here you can see all the components of the joong.  The sweet rice was simply rinsed in water, salted and mixed with garlic oil.  The garlic oil was super easy to make.  We minced about 5 heads of garlic and let it sit in about 1L of vegetable oil.  Grandma made the Chinese bacon and salt eggs, which have been curing for about 2 months.  The only other ingredients not pictured are chestnuts and peanuts.

Once all the ingredients were laid out, we were ready to start wrapping!  It took a little tutorial from my mom's cousin to refresh my memory on how to fold them, and Justin picked up the technique rather quickly.  So we were off and running!
 
In just a few hours, since there were about 6 of us wrapping, we made about 185 joong. 
Once we divyed them up, we boiled our share for about 5 hours. This allowed all the rice and meats to cook up. The few that split open will be eaten in the next few days, but the rest will go into the freezer for those nights when we're just too lazy to cook.
 
We have some other ideas for these little packages of deliciousness, but we don't want to spill the beans just yet.

December 26, 2012

Face Off!

What better to way to spend Christmas morning than by defacing a pig, literally?!?! 

Justin was welcomed into the family by receiving a pig head for Christmas.  I guess its a replacement for a lump of coal ;) 
So after opening presents on Christmas morning, we set off to make porchetta di testa!

First, we needed to grind up our spices that would later be wrapped in the face.  With Justin's new morter & pestle, we ground up black peppercorns, coriander, star anise, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, and some juniper berries.
Next came Mr. Pig!
I gave him a quick shave to get rid of some of the longer facial hair.  He had a lot on his ears too.
Once he was clean shaven, and looking handsome, it was time to cut the face off.  I took the first stab at it (get it...stab...).  My cousin, Lauren, who'd taken a pig butchering class and learned how to make this, coached us along.  Using short strokes with the knife, and pulling the skin away, we just followed along the skull to release the face.  We were careful not to puncture the eyeball, and tried to keep everything in tact as best we could.
It was a little tough to navigate around the socket by his temple, but I managed to get the left side of his face off in one piece.  Next, it was Justin's turn to cut off the right side and the snout.


Then we were left with the pig face, in two pieces.  Since Justin cut the snout off, I had the pleasure of cutting out the tongue.
The next step in the preperation was to remove all the glands, lymph nodes, and other untasty bits.  We took off a fair amount of fat in the process, but there was plenty of meat left.  Before laying out the face to season it, we cut off one of the cheeks to make guanciale (more on that in a minute).  We tucked the ears through the eye sockets to fill the holes, and layed out the face.  It took a lot of flipping and turning of the face pieces to figure out the best way to layer the two sides so we could roll it into a fairly even log.  Once the pieces were in place, we massaged in our seasonings with Kosher salt, getting into all the little nooks.

With the leftover salt and seasonings, we packed it on top of the cheek we cut out, and placed it in a ziploc bag where it will sit in the fridge for a week.  When we get home we'll hang it up to finish curing, so we'll post an update when that's ready to eat.

Now, back to the pig face.  While removing the face was time consuming, it was quite a fun experience, while tressing it proved to be more difficult.  Essentially, we rolled our seasoned porchetta like a pork loin, but the uneven shape made it a bit of a challenge. It took me a while to get the hang of looping it around, but it turned out alright.

The porchetta is sitting in the fridge until tomorrow, when we'll roast it.  Once its ready for eating, we'll slice it thin, and treat it like charcuterie.  We'll let you know how it turns out!

And, so we don't waste any bit of the head, we're roasting it (eyeballs and all), to make pork stock.  It should make for some tasty dishes down the road.

December 23, 2012

Taco Bamba


Its hard for either of us to pass up delicious tacos, especially when they're filled with non-traditional meats. So when we first heard about the Taco Bamba pop-up at Black Jack, we kept it on our radar.  We finally made it over there this past Monday for their last night, and boy did we pick a great night to go.  The menu changed week to week, but for the final pop-up, they offered Taco Bamba's Greatest Hits...all the favorites from the past weeks.

We managed to snag some seats on a couch where we settled in for our taco feast.  After choosing drinks (him a Tecate Michelada, me a mix of tequila, rum, lime and mint), we thought long and hard about which tacos to try first.  We settled on the Taco Bamba (because it had chicharones), the Duck Tinga (because it was filled with duck confit), the Masa Crusted Foie Gras (does this need any explanation?), and the Grilled Smoky Belly (again, no explanation needed).

It was hard to pick a favorite, but I think we both agreed that the Foie Gras took the cake.  The masa crust gave the savory foie gras a much needed crunch.  The duck was another one of my favorites because of the sauce that covered it.  It kind of reminded me of Indian food.  And of course, the belly.  You can't go wrong with smoky strips of crispy pork belly.

We wasted no time scarfing down these tacos, and decided we needed a few more to fill our bellies.  For round 2, we went with the Crispy Kiss (because it had both pork and beef tongue), El Cheek-o (who can resist pork cheek?), and the dessert taco (banana, dulce de leche, and almonds).  In this round of tacos, the duo of tongues came out on top.  They were cooked perfectly, seasoned excellently, and the addition of a chili aioli gave it a very subdued heat with a nice, creamy, textural component. The desert taco came in second because the dulce de leche was fantastic, but it was almost a shame it was encased by a plain ol' tortilla

Taco Bamba is a worthy entrant into the recent surge of taco eateries in DC.  It sets itself apart from traditional variants, like the delicious Tacos El Chilango, which features more traditional fillings. Overall, the tacos were great, though a little pricey at $5-$9 a pop.  Another favorite, TaKorean, offers three times as much taco at the same price point (Do yourself a favor and hunt down their truck, or visit them at Union Market.  You won't be disappointed!).  The brick and mortar Taco Bamba will be opening in Falls Church, so I don't know how frequently we'll drive out there just for tacos.  But it was a great introduction to Chef Albisu's food, especially since he'll be opening another restaurant downtown in the near future.

December 21, 2012

Holy Cannoli!

We'll keep this one short and sweet.  Short, since I can link to past posts for the dinner portion, and sweet since we made cannolis!

We got another spaghetti squash from the CSA last week, and we have some leftover meatballs from a past dinner, so that's what we threw together tonight.  Here's our spaghetti squash and meatball how-to.  We did have to make some sauce, so we made a puttanesca-esque sauce.  Sweat out some onions and garlic, add baby bellas and anchovies (these were in oil with capers), toss in a can of tomatoes (preferably San Marzanos), and top with some chopped basil and parsley.  Since we had some parmesan rinds hanging out in the fridge, we threw one in to help thicken the sauce, and add a little cheesyness.  Then you can just let it simmer until you're ready to serve.  Super quick.  Super simple. Super tasty!


Now for the cannolis!  We had some leftover ricotta from our gnocchi, so what better way to use it up than by making dessert?  Honestly, I'm not much of a baker.  I don't have the patience to precisely measure each ingredient, and sift things.  Plus, I tend to gravitate towards salty snacks over sweets.  I prefer the creativity of cooking, where I can add a splash of this and a dash of that until it tastes right.  I leave the baking to my mom.

They took a little more time and work than we thought, but we pushed through!  While Justin manned the sauce, I prepped the cannolis.  For the dough, all you need is flour, salt, sugar, an egg, and some dry white wine.  The only white wine I had was some delicious chocolate flavored wine I'd picked up a couple years ago at the Virginia Wine Festival (If you've never gone, you should definitely check it out!).  We thought it'd add a nice subtle chocolate flavor to the shells.

Once the dough was wrapped up and in the fridge to rest, I moved onto the filling.  I let the ricotta drain for a bit, and then added powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg (since I didn't have allspice), grapefruit zest (since we didn't have a lemon) and some whipped cream (you just need soft peaks when you're whipping the cream).  This sat in the fridge to set up while we ate our sketti squash and meatballs.

Once we were through with dinner, it was time to make cannolis!  Not to be confused with this guy.  We floured the counter and rolled out our dough while the oil heated up.  Its best to get the dough really thin.  We used the bottom of a bowl as our stencil, and cut out circles of dough.  Each circle was wrapped around a little wooden dowel that we found and dropped into the hot oil.  It only took a minute or two for them to fry up, but we got into a groove and knocked out the shells. 

Since we had some extra mint in the fridge, we chopped some up and added it to the filling for a little fresh, brightness.  I made my own pastry bag by dumping the filling into a big ziploc bag and cutting off one of the corners.  This will let you easily pipe the filling into the shells.  Once they had cooled down and were easy to handle, each shell was filled with the ricotta mixture.

During one of our last trips to Trader Joe's, we were roaming the aisles and came across a spice grinder that contained sugar, coffe and chocolate.  We looked at each other, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, knowing we had to get it.  And what better use for it than to top our cannolis?  We ground some into a little dish and dipped each end of the cannoli into the delicious powder.
It really tied in the chocolate wine that was in the shells, and brought out the cinnamon and nutmeg that were mixed into the filling.  Ok...so maybe this post wasn't as short as I thought it would be, but it certainly was sweet!