Sliders

Not being from the true Midwest, I do not have a proper appreciation of the slider. Growing up in Montana, a big juicy burger was the norm. A mini burger...what is the point? And of course burgers have onions on them. And burgers still always taste best at my grandparent's house. (I don't know if Mama pays off her butchers or what.) Some folks get an appreciation for sliders sometime in college. I can guarantee that most of us who have friends with a soft spot in their hearts for White Castle. By the time Adam and I got around to visiting a White Castle in the Midwest, our palates were probably more mature than strictly sensible and we weren't drunk or high -- which I am told is an important pre-requisite for enjoying 'Whities." We went and I ordered what I was supposed to and was woefully underwhelmed. This? This is what everyone talks about? They named a movie after this? Greasy, bland, warm... hmmm.

A few weeks ago, I ran across this post from the Paupered Chefs blog. I knew Adam would be very excited to run a slider experiment if only for nostalgia's sake and I knew that whatever we came up with at home would be vastly superior to those we'd tried before. Here are the ingredients suggested by Nick Kindelsperger and edited by me:

• * 1 pound (or 16 oz) ground chuck (or 80/20 grind) rolled into 2 oz balls makes 8 sliders.
• * 1 vidalia onion, very (very!) thinly sliced
• * Slider buns or potato dinner rolls, halved
• * Sliced American cheese ( we had our deli slice this for us so we doubled up our cheese as it was thin. Slicing American at home is a pain. Get it done for you.)
• * dill pickle chips or bread and butter pickle chips
• * salt and pepper
• * ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise (optional) (Adam says mayo on a slider is sacrilege)

We started with an 80/20 grind from one of our favorite purveyors in the Puget Sound called Central Market. Adam also procured slider buns (but as noted in the original post, potato dinner rolls would also work), pickles (Claussen whole dills, sliced later), a huge sweet onion, and sliced yellow American cheese from the deli case. I salted and peppered the meat and rolled them into roughly 2 oz balls. I weighed the first ball and it was exactly 2 ounces, so I didn't weigh any of the rest of them because I figured that once you have perfection...

I tried to stay true to the original post as closely as possible. But I did disobey in one major way. The author had a lot of trouble with his cast iron skillet and strongly recommended a non-stick for ease of use after he spent a lot of time testing various methods. I love my cast iron skillet, however, and was determined to try it. The cast iron worked perfectly for me. And mine has a pretty serious coating so I didn't have near the sticking problems that he did. We tried batches of two and four. The batch of four worked well, so in the future, I would likely make four at a time instead of just two -- although it is fun eating them straight out of the skillet -- we don't have many meals like that these days.

Setting the meatballs in a hot skillet, you then top with an egregious amount of onions. Adam used a Santoku to slice the onions paper thin and we piled them on. I waited about 30 seconds for everything to soften before smashing the onion topped meatballs into the skillet. Then I waited another minute and a half before flipping the patties over on top of the onions to finish cooking and caramelizing. Now it isn't the prettiest process -- Onions will be everywhere. I found that heating the pan closer to the medium side of medium high gave me a good caramelization and browning with just enough steam.

Once you flip the patties onto the onion side, you herd the onions back close to their original positions, then top with cheese and their buns, and then cover to steam everything. The original instructions say that you can steam from 2 to 3 minutes. Our first couple were only steamed 2 minutes and later batches 3 minutes. The extra minute really helps the texture of the buns and the egregious number of onions really helps to generate the proper amount of steam, so I recommend the full 3 minutes.

Once the three minutes are up, you de-lid the skillet and plate your sliders. I preferred mine with 3 dill pickles, a little yellow mustard and a little ketchup. Adam liked his similarly except with bread and butter pickles and warned that too much ketchup could really interfere with the burger.

We served these with some spicy roasted potatoes and homemade chimichurri sauce (cilantro, parsley, jalapeno, garlic, vinegar & oil, salt & pepper) and a bottle of Pinot Gris. I think Harold and Kumar just pulled in. Hopefully they brought Neil Patrick Harris...

New Year's Sicilian Style Pizza

This year marks the first time (in awhile) Chef Beef and I have not traveled anywhere for the holidays. I had time off during the winter holidays and I used it to embark upon the projects like drunken noodles and pork asado, but also this Sicilian style pizza recipe I had bookmarked several months earlier. It all started with this post from Slice, the Serious Eats pizza division. I wanted Sal's Sicilian style pizza in the worst way. I came home and told Chef Beef the next time we were in New York... Unfortunately, New York really isn't one of our primary travel destinations with the hours we log to both homesteads throughout the year.

When I saw that I could try to create the same magic in my very own home via this recipe, I jumped at the chance. The recipe takes 3 days to get great pizza and is worth the time -- if you have said time. Its actually an amalgamation of recipes for dough and sauce, culminating in the final product.

The most important part is the dough, starting with a sourdough or biga naturale starter to give fermentation and large air pockets to the dough. Though you can use the dough on the second day, without refrigerating, I highly recommend waiting until the third day even if you aren't using the sourdough. The dough for our second pizza (used on the third day) was much better all around in behavior, taste, and texture.

I didn't take many pictures of the dough making process, but I did document the 2 day sauce technique. In short, take 20 tomatoes and score their bottoms. Boil each for 10 seconds, then chill in ice water to loosen their skins. Peel, halve, and gut, reserving the guts for later use. Then place the tomatoes in an oiled pan with herbs, garlic, and basil leaves and roast on low heat for three hours.

Afterwards, these tomatoes are combined with some canned, gutted tomatoes and a reduction of tomato guts and parmesan rind for one of the more intense sauces I've encountered. It then marinates overnight with the vine stems from your fresh tomatoes to impart a really fresh tomato taste.

The dough rises on a sheet pan for a couple of hours with some sauce spread on top. It then gets par baked for a bit (we found 10 minutes was best) and then the toppings are added and then broiled. We shopped for a variety of toppings including hot coppa, proscuitto de parma, parmesan, fior d'lattte, buffalo mozzerella, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, red onions, and basil.

As a former Pizzaria employee, Chef Beef was in charge of topping our first attempt on New Year's eve. On New Year's day, we made the second pizza (which unfortunately was eaten too quickly to have its picture taken). It was much fluffier in crust, but both were delicious.

So the next time you have three whole days to make pizza, try it!

Things I will be making this week: Part 2, Pork Asado

As most folks know, I have a love/hate relationship with pork. While I do enjoy bacon (not floppy) and some snausage products, I am still a ways away from finding a love affair with pork roasts and ribs. But I am getting there.

After falling for a pulled pork sandwich at Minimus/Maximus downtown, we decided to try our own pulled pork this summer. While I wouldn't say our experiment failed, I would say that we definitely will need to try again. First, we rushed the meat. It needed to rest a lot longer than we gave it. But we had a hungry and antsy guest. After shredding a forearm high pile of hot and slippery porcine grease, I could barely eat the stuff. I was stabbed and burnt and though the bbq sauce was delicious, I simply had no appetite for it.

When I found this recipe, I knew the pork could have some redemption.

This recipe comes from the Homesick Texan Blog and is adapted from Mark Flowers and can be found here. The story is worth reading because all of us who have had an "Its A Small World" moment can relate to the joy in finding folks out there that share something random with us. Also Mark Flowers' instructions on how to make a cooking "disco" (big pan) are pretty funny.

Some notes on my experience...Since the ill fated pork roast, I continue to be more comfortable with pork loin than any other sort of pork meat. And I used it and it was delicious so if you are concerned about using a leaner cut, for me, it was delicious. Served with simple queso fresco and cilantro on warm tortillas I couldn't have asked for more. They are messy. And fantastic. We made a simple vinegar, cilantro, carrot, cumin, and cabbage slaw for alongside which was a good foil to the richness of the sauce.

Things I will be making this week: Part 1, Drunken Noodles

Since we've just discussed how I don't like to write about things that I have just cooked, lets preview some of my favorite items that I will be making again this week with my copious spare vacation time. As many folks know, I have never met a noodle that I don't like. So since I have little hope as a low-carber, I embrace a noodle-full lifestyle. My friend W once mentioned that I would make an excellent Chinese person since I like noodles so much. (She is Chinese and now takes me for noodles whenever it is humanly possible.) I don't have a vast pasta repertoire -- some lasagna and homemade noodles here and there, and my grandmother's red sauce. (See my post on meatballs -- we aren't Italian, just hungry.)

So when I found this recipe I was both intrigued and skeptical. Drunken Noodles consist of an Italian/French fusion of flavors. Using thin pasta such as Angel Hair and a bottle of cheap white, you can have a simply amazing dinner. I had read about this technique before seeing Rachel Ray use the technique with red wine last holiday on Iron Chef. I immediately dismissed it for several reasons.


First, we had recently tried pink soba noodles from the Asian grocery and as cute as they were, they looked undeniably like intestines and I figured red wine would cause the same sort of pallor. Secondly, I couldn't imagine that the wine diluted in that much water would taste like anything. And lastly, I felt that the technique was likely a disgraceful waste of wine, but I cannot tell you how glad I am that I changed my mind. As Ms. Saretsky explains in here original recipe article, you can use just about any kind of wine for the pasta -- but white works so well and is a wonderful compliment to the leeks.

Drunken Noodles Adapted from Kerry Saretsky @ Serious Eats. Original here.

Ingredients
3 medium leeks or 2 large leeks, sliced into julienne and rinsed 2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup water (you might need extra)
1 bottle of white wine (I like Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc), 1/2 to 3/4 cup reserved (Don't use cooking wine like Sherry or Marsala)
1 pound angel hair or capellini or some other thin pasta.
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Grana Padano
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Notes and Steps (these are a redux, please see the original for more detail):

1. Make sure to slice the leeks as thin as possible. Otherwise, they take a long time to sweat out. Make sure your cuts are clean and to separate them before they go into the sweating pan or you will just have a mass of onion, not strands.

2. Using a wide sauce pan, sweat the leeks until they are soft and spaghetti-like in texture. The original recipe calls for about 20 minutes. I use an old magnalite with a lid, adding butter/water as needed. Your leeks will likely be seasonally wetter or drier and you simply must adjust...

3. Reserve 1/2 to 3/4 cup of wine, then add the rest to a pot of water with a generous amount of kosher salt. Cook pasta until al dente.

4. Once the leeks are soft, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of wine, and allow to reduce slightly. Then add the cream. Make sure you are stirring and separating those leeks. Add a little pasta water and the rest of the reserved wine. Then toss with the pasta, Parmesan, and parsley. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

I like some well seasoned boneless chicken breasts with this particular recipe. I have enjoyed cooking them in the cast iron skillet of late which allows a fantastic crust for such a pedestrian protein.

This technique is simple, fast, and worth trying for the extra flavor. The first time I tried this recipe, I added some scallions that needed to be used. Don't do this. Ick. The texture and flavor of sweated leeks and scallions are very different and should be kept separate. Make sure you rinse your leeks really well -- the way they grow makes them prone to be very sandy which is bad for teeth. Enjoy!

Slackers and Brunch

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with my Mama (aka my grandmother) who nonchalantly mentioned that she had been on my blog. She said something like, " Um, you really need to put something else on there. I mean I know you like tomatoes, but come on!" Now as one of my staunchest supporters in life etc, I know that when I start getting sh*t from my own mother I should probably fix the issue.

As a once aspiring writer, I can admit that a stream of consciousness about what I eat, sleep, drink, think, do, etc is constantly running through my mind. The problem, of course, is getting it from inside to somewhere external -- anywhere external at this point.

While I can explain fairly coherently why I hesitate to put poetry down anymore, reflections on cooking is a little harder to defend. And here is the grand admission: I am lazy and moody. Take this morning, for instance. I like Brunch. I like it as a concept, but I am an instant gratification sort of person. And brunch takes....For. Ever. This morning, I decided to make onion quiche -- a laborious process whereupon four onions are sacrificed, caramelized for a half hour (above) then added to a crust of one's choosing. My crust, also laborious, was a potato crust mixed with Parmesan and flour, pre-baked (as pictured on the left) for a half hour.

Now the quiche wasn't bad, it just wasn't knock-your-socks off delicious which after 2 hours of vacation time in the kitchen one feels somewhat jilted by. And after scrubbing the cast iron skillet and secreting away the remains of my disappointingly short quiche, I don't sit down and write about it. I pout.

And while I excel at pouting (just ask said Mama or perhaps Chef Beef), it isn't a very good use of one's vacation time either. Onion Pie (quiche) recipe here. Potato crust recipe here. The small vessels behind the pie are small oven-proof stoneware that I use for overflow in such cases -- here it was extra potato crust and custard.

Which I shall continue to be underwhelmed with for breakfast for the rest of the week. (Snicker.) But seriously, if you decide to recreate some onion pie for yourself, I recommend a metal, not glass pie tin and would stay away from the potato crust, or at least spend some time drying the potatoes beforehand as the extra moisture did impact the height of the quiche once it cooled. And some herb addition -- maybe some thyme or basil -- might have been welcome as well.

The Great Tomato Experiment.

Tomatoes are one of my favorite foods. Last fall, I had the grand idea to grow them. The main challenge in this pursuit is that I live in Seattle where there is not really very much sun. And sun is really what makes tomatoes flourish. This, however, was the hottest summer in Seattle on record, so one might think that I had a significant upper hand. However, my timing was a bit off and the overall crop was small. However, I learned several things of which I'll share with you...

1. Seed early: I grew my tomatoes from seed. I seeded 5 types ordered online in an organic compostable seeding kit from Lowes. You can't put tomatoes outside as early in Seattle because of the rain, but starting them a few weeks earlier indoors would have helped me beat the return of the rainy season in August. I made my tomatoes a little sprouting space near the heating vent, the window, and supplemented them with a growing light that I stole from my sewing area. The plastic, protective sheeting that came with the kit helped keep moisture in, but we had to be careful of seedling killing mold as well. It was a delicate balance to combat underside mold and still keep them well watered. Eventually, though, they did seed and I took a picture of my very first green seedling.

2. Time to transplant: I planted 50 seeds, of which about 75% sprouted. I kept 25 initially but only 11 ended up being healthy enough to transplant. Then came time to transplant the seedings. After several false starts trying to harden them off in the front and back yards, they were finally strong enough to withstand a little sunburn and wind trauma. I selected 5 pots and planted 2 in each pot and three in the last pot.
In Japan, where container gardening is common and necessary, they feel that plants like tomatoes can share pots because it makes the tomatoes work harder and therefore be better fruit. I also bought the tomatoes some geraniums for friends because they are supposed to help repel some of the pests who love tomatoes. I also bought them wire cages, though I couldn't imagine that they'd ever get tall enough to need them.

3. Panic. Then they started growing. A lot. I gave my tomatoes 2 canfuls of water every single day at the same time, avoiding their leaves. If tomatoes aren't watered regularly, they can split and crack. I also gave them fertilizer during the first potting and they started to grow very large. Tomatoes don't have large root systems, but they don't like to touch eachother either.

So, I decided to take my 5 pot system and turn it into a ten pot system. At this point I also added some basil to the mix as well as some thyme to attract bees to the tomato flowers for pollination. The second replanting set my plants back about a week. I replanted on a cool day and gave them fertilizer, but still I was afraid that I would lose some because of my poor initial planning. But I shouldn't have worried. Twelve days later I had flowers.

4. And Bugs. I had bugs. Whiteflies. I read in horror about how they would suck the life from my carefully pruned and watered plants. So I marched myself down to the giant plant center down the street and bought ladybugs. Ladybugs are kept in the fridge of your favorite garden center and as soon as they come out of the fridge, they go crazy. Thus, its a careful ruse you must concoct to convince the ladybugs to stay. First, under the cloak of darkness, you must give your plants a drink to share with the ladies. Then, you take them from the fridge to the plants as quickly as possible so that they are still asleep and when they wake up, you have finished sprinkling 1000 of them onto your front patio. When they no longer have anything to eat, they fly away to find something else to snack on -- a pretty perfect pest control if I do say so. My ladybugs stayed about a week and then were off to greener pastures. They did their job admirably. The flies came back later in the season, but first we had TOMATOES! This tomato was from the black pear variety -- the first tomato to come in. These plants were not repotted -- I let them share a pot to see what would happen -- and were the first to mature and the largest. Not repotting them might have caused quicker soil nutrient depletion and fewer fruit, but the fruit from these plants were in general larger than their friends and neighbors.


And the tomatoes grew with regular watering but right as the time came for them to begin turning red, the weather cooled. Contrary to popular belief, its the temperature not the sun that changes your tomatoes by the production of some manner of ethelyne gas (also produced by apples). Rain and wind interrupts that process and so unfortunately my tomatoes have been slow to change. As we had a frost threat last week, i harvested all the greens and have them stored away for the fall. My small but precious collection of tomatoes has made me very proud and I plan to do it again next year, despite all the pitfalls I might face.

5. Finally we have tomatoes. And they are good. And we can eat a whole meal of tomatoes...

Cookies

Here is an example of an original -- my own chocolate chip cookie recipe that I developed over time starting from something from an old chip bag from the 80s. There is nothing wrong with this recipe and most folks seem to like them. They look like this:

Today was the culmination of an experiment whereupon I used the New York Times cookie recipe from last fall which takes about a day and a half. They look like this:

While both have aesthetically pleasing elements, there are only a couple of fundamental differences. First, NYT uses butter which is more sensitive to temperature and humidity than shortening seems to be. Secondly, NYT uses chilling to bond flour, develop gluten, and develop flavor (in this case brown sugar + butter = toffee). 36 hours of waiting seems to make one desire a cookie more than usual.

The NYT article can be found here. My first batch (pictured) was a little flat while the second two batches came out tall and fluffy. This was either due to an ill heated oven, too cold dough, or perhaps I overworked the first batch while molding into shape. Regardless, I think the texture is improved but I am still not sold on butter over shortening. Next iteration, I believe I will chill my original recipe to see if any improvement in texture or flavor development can be found...