Crock Pot Braised Heart a la Meta Given

Groff's Content's beef liver is wonderful, so it was what I asked for. After several moments' rooting around in the cooler for it, Julie's able colleague said, "Are you sure you don't want the heart? It's right on top." That seemed as good a recommendation as any, especially as I had not yet made beef heart. So instead of a pound of liver, we came home with 2.6 pounds of heart.

Cattle have much larger hearts than lambs or even pigs. This makes perfect sense, but still it seemed like a surprisingly large thing when I was holding it.

Cleaning the heart was easy, especially as it was destined to be cut into stew cube-sized pieces: I trimmed the fat and valves and membranes, cut out and threw away the membranes and valves, and decided to leave the fat (there wasn't much, as the picture above shows). It's a very pretty cut of meat.

To braise it, I consulted the 1947 Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. She says:

"An old-time method is to soak heart in buttermilk or a vinegar solution (half vinegar and half water) for several hours, keeping in a cold place. Heart is then drained and then cooked in the preferred way. Results of experimental work done in different laboratories on the tenderizing effect of the acids on meat are not conclusive, but there is agreement that both acids impart a delicious flavor."

Not having enough buttermilk on hand for the job, I used the vinegar mix approach, soaking the cubes of heart overnight in the fridge. Picture shows it. Given continues:

"To simmer hearts, add just enough salted water to cover (1 teaspoon salt to each quart of water), heat to boiling, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook until tender...To enhance the flavor, add an onion, a small carrot and a branch of celery when cooking beef heart or half this amount of vegetables for pork, veal, or lamb hearts."

I followed the instructions, throwing in about a dozen whole peppercorns besides. Turned the crock pot on low and went away for the day.

The whole house was amazingly fragrant by my return at 4:30. There was a lot more liquid than I'd expected. Given recommends cooking some of it down into gravy, but I didn't have time to do anything more than turn it out into bowls, making something of a heart soup.

Eating Notes: The heart itself was excellent - tender and a bit tangy from the vinegar. The sauce had the distinct stew-sweetness conveyed by the carrot/celery/onion mix. It also had a vinegary tang, balanced by a surprising amount of fat. Not as much as when cooking stew from stew meat or carcasses, but more than I had expected from heart, which is a very lean muscle. Including the fat was a good idea. A couple of smaller valves were overlooked when I was cleaning the heart, but these were completely cooked and tender and (in case they had been offensive) easy to spot and remove if desired. Leftovers keep well and could be frozen if desired.

In short, it was a quick and easy way (preparation-wise) to use a relatively inexpensive cut of meat. I am going to try more heart-for-meat substitutions in the future; curry is calling to me as I write this, and Given has a recipe for heart sauerbraten I'll likely try some time.

Easy Food Porn - First Farmer's Market of Spring

Spring/Summer hours at the Silver Spring Farmer's Market start until this coming Saturday. It's still a hard time for most produce people - things are sprouting, but there's little yet in the way of harvest. We've been getting some greens over the last couple of weeks from protected crops. But this past Saturday, Charlie Koiner, Silver Spring's only downtown farmer and something of a local icon, was back as well, with daffodils and some spring onions, complete with a bit of ice on their "feet" from an especially cold night. Spring has arrived.

1966 WDEC - Tennessee

I feel like I can see the light at the end of the "American Cookery" Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery tunnel, now that I'm starting in on the "T" states. First is Tennessee (photo by Brian Stansberry via Wikimedia Commons), where "only the 'journey proud' ever leave." I'll be one of those just passing through; there isn't much recipe-wise that is calling to me.

Tennessee Baked Ham: Ham coated in a cornmeal-sugar paste and baked. Serves 24. I'll pass.
Hog and Hominy: Pork neck bones simmered with canned hominy and tomatoes. Vaguely interesting and if I can get hog bones I'll try it.
Bean Pot Roast: A standard pot roast made in the oven using a bean pot. The gimmick doesn't seem to be enough to recommend the rather pedestrian recipe.
Turnip Greens with Hog Jowl: I will try this, because I have some young greens, and you can't go wrong when adding good pork.
Butter Beans with Pecans: What it says, which might be interesting, but with American cheese and breadcrumbs put on top I'm a bit suspicious. Jury is out on trying it.
Fried Cream: Custard cut into strips and then deep fried. Sounds really interesting but complex. Will try it, but may have to wait until I have the time to invest in being careful.
Strawberry Chess Tarts: Again, what it says. I'm not a huge strawberry fan, so I'll likely pass.
Strawberry Circle Cake: White cake topped with glazed strawberries. See note above.

So. Off to the kitchen.

Cod Liver in its Own Oil

I have a hard time resisting weird food. Some of my best food friends have been made that way, such as natto (Wikipedia)--at first I just couldn't get past the slime, but I said I would try it 5 times, and by the 4th I was sold. It has come to be one of my favorites.

This brings me to canned cod liver (in its own oil). I bought it at Amazon as a sort of joke stocking stuffer for Phil, and finally got around to trying it. From the picture on the can, I was anticipating some sort of pate-like, can-shaped mass with a bit of oil around it. Instead, I got this:

Cat food for humans. There were pieces of liver, bigger and smaller, but on the whole it was not exactly appetizing. Putting it on a plate did not improve the situation:

In for a dime, in for a dollar, so I soldiered on and ate it. And it really isn't bad, flavor-wise, tasting like a fish pate with a bunch of oil. The texture, though, is another story, evoking the breakfast table of a Dickensian orphanage. I choked it down, reminding myself that it's very good for me. By the end of the dish I was getting used to the combination of oil and liver bits and appreciating the fish liver taste--at least, that's my story. I now see it as a personal challenge and am committed to four servings more (Have at it, says Phil). But Kitchen Goddess Nadja wholeheartedly approves. So it can't be all bad.

Wood Pigeons a la Mechazawa-san

After the incredible experience with the hare from D'Artagnan, I wanted to try more game. So I ordered a pair of frozen wood pigeons. They were even smaller than I expected, as shown below:

One look at the label is enough to confirm that side dishes will be required if there is to be a feast; this bird, the larger of the pair, weighed in at barely over a quarter of a pound.

The label also has a "use by" date of October 19, 2009. This caused a few minutes' concern, not so much because I thought the frozen bird would be unsafe, but because I figured for the price D'Artagnan really should send something still within its "best by" date. Eventually, I noticed the "packed on" date and realized that the "use by" date reflected the safe dates for using the bird fresh, and would more rightly be a "use or freeze by" date. So, no worries.

Unwrapped, the bird was beautifully dark. They are called wood pigeons because they live in the woods, but their flesh is a beautiful wood color, as well. I checked to be sure there was nothing packaged inside the cavity and found that (as with the hare) the packers had left organs intact - in this case, the heart. You can just see it inside the cavity, just left of center in the picture below.

Wanting to cook it simply, I smoked it over nectarine wood on Mechazawa-san (the big Egg) at 275F (140C) for 40 minutes, then let it rest for 5 minutes more.

The result was phenomenal. The meat was earthy, with distinct iron overtones and a gamy tang. The blood left inside the cavity had cooked into a velvet coating on the bones and had an almost liver-y taste. The heart was dense and well-flavored.

Between this and the hare, we understand wanting to learn how to hunt, and I'm even more jealous of Hank and Holly over at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. Being an urban gal with dicey hand/eye coordination, though, I will settle for being grateful for a source of and the means to buy such wonderful things.

(Oh, and the little "tail" in the first post picture is just a bit of drippings from the grill that plated that way. I thought it was kind of amusing, so I left it.)

Easy Crock Pot Bison Stew with Coconut and Ginger

Threw together a super-easy emergency stew the other day. It came out really good, so thought I'd share. Started with a pound of bison stew cubes from Gunpowder Bison, so it couldn't have gone too wrong, but even so...

Added 2 parsnips, sliced to 1" thick rounds; one 11-oz (approximate) juice box of coconut water; a piece of ginger about 1/2" thick and 2" long, peeled and sliced into very thin rounds; a dash of salt, one bay leaf, and about a dozen peppercorns. That's it. Threw it all in the crock pot set on low and went away for the day. Came back to be greeted at the door by a fabulous smell, and a follow-up taste that didn't disappoint. The tang and spice of the ginger and pepper, sweetness of the coconut and parsnips, and slight gaminess of the bison melded beautifully.

I just love it when happy kitchen alchemy happens with about no work on my part.

1966 WDEC - South Dakota - Parsnip Fritters

Instructions, not really a recipe, for a simple side dish: Scrub parsnips and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Plunge into cold water and slip off skins. Mash. Season to taste with butter, salt, pepper, and sugar. Flour hands. Shape parsnip mixture into small flat cakes. Saute in butter until delicately browned on each side.

Cooking Notes: I boiled, mashed and mixed the parsnips the night before I made and cooked the patties. The parsnips had thin skins that steadfastly resisted "slipping off.." Using a vegetable scrubber wouldn't work because they were too tender, and for the same reason it was hard to pare off the skin without taking a lot of parsnip with it. So, since this was intended for a family dinner, the skins ended up being mashed with the rest of the parsnip "meat." I used latex gloves instead of flouring my hands and was really pleased with the non-sticking results. For just under a pound of parsnips I used about 1/4 tsp each of salt and black pepper, a couple of generous tablespoons of butter (softened to room temperature so it would mix more easily) and no sugar.

Eating Notes: These were sort of like paleo pancakes (except for the butter). They were plenty sweet enough and the simple spicing was just fine, although a touch of mace or nutmeg would have added a nice note. Using a food processor would have allowed me to combine the ingredients to a greater homogeneity, but we actually liked the more homestyle texture of the potato-masher approach. It balanced nicely, too, with the crispy, buttery crust from the frying. A winner.

Next Up: Moving on to Tennessee, since I still don't have any rhubarb.

Lorann Orange Bakery Emulsion

I think I got my bottle of Lorann Orange Bakery Emulsion at the local Marshall's - a discount chain that specializes in last-season's clothing. The stores also have a small and sometimes rewarding selection of gourmet food and cookware. Most times I come up empty-handed, but sometimes I make a find. This was one of those cases (assuming my memory is serving me correctly). But wherever I got it, I know I saw orange emulsion, was intrigued, and an almost-free price made it worth a try.

I use orange extract fairly often - I like the mellow citrus flavor quite a bit. Most often, it's used just to give a hint of citrus perfume in a somewhat complex sauce or even a stew. One of the few places where it stands alone is in orange pancakes. This, then, seemed a good place to substitute and test. Following the label instructions, I substituted emulsion for extract in equal parts. As the photo shows, the emulsion was opaque and quite a bit thicker than an extract; it still mixed in easily. I made the pancakes as I normally would.

Eating Notes: Without question, the emulsion maintained more of an orange taste than the equivalent amount of extract. I'll still use extract for uncooked foods such as frosting or unheated sauces. Emulsion will be my flavoring of choice, going forward, for breads, cakes, cookies, and similar things. I will do some more experimenting with sauces and stews, where the subtler flavor of extract may be better.

DC Area Foodie-Readers Take Note

Arlington Reads 2010 Looks at Food and Where it Comes From

The Arlington (Virginia) Library System and its Friends of the Library group sponsor an annual community reading program, where all members of the community are encouraged to read a single book, and the library holds events and discussions around that book and theme. Arlington Reads 2010 "looks at the movement away from industrial mass production back to safer, healthier meals grown through local, sustainable means." The featured Arlington Reads author is Wendell Berry, a farmer/writer and agrarian advocate. Berry’s novel The Memory of Old Jack is this year’s featured title.  The book "finds truth and integrity in the land looking through the eyes of an aging farmer in 1952 rural Kentucky" (or so says the Arlington Library press release) and is part of Berry's series of novels and stories set in Port William, a fictional Kentucky town.

Events in the "Arlington Reads 2010" program include:

• An appearance by Berry at Central Library on May 3, 2010 at 7 p.m. to discuss his life’s work and vision of people honoring and reconnecting with the soil.
• A month-long juried art exhibition, “The Art of Food,” at Central Library in April.
• Screening of the documentary “Food, Inc.” at Shirlington Branch Library on April 7 at 3 p.m.
• A panel discussion at Shirlington Branch Library on “Eating Local” on April 11 at 3 p.m. A group of area farmers and naturalists will look at simple ways to eat foods that are safer, healthier and geared to the bounty of each season.
• Screening of “Fast Food Nation” at Shirlington Branch Library on April 14 at 6:30 p.m.
• A “work-in-progress” screening of the documentary “A Community of Gardeners” at Central Library Auditorium on April 17 at 2 p.m. The film explores the role of community gardens in Washington, D.C., as sources of food, outdoor classrooms, centers of social interaction and oases of beauty and calm in inner-city neighborhoods. The screening will be followed by a Q-and-A session with filmmaker Cintia Cabib,
• A community discussion in Central Library Auditorium on April 19 at 7 p.m. about the book and Berry's influence, led by Professor Patrick Deneen, director of Georgetown University’s Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy.
• An appearance by Novella Carpenter at Central Library on April 29 at 7 p.m. Carpenter, an urban farmer and author, raises fruits, vegetables, bees, pigs and goats in an abandoned Oakland, California lot, and will be discussing her book Farm City.

More information on all Arlington Reads 2010 events and offerings including book club kits and contests can be found at their website.

I haven't read Berry's works, so this may give me impetus to try him out. In addition to his fictional works he has a list of non-fiction and essays to his credit as long as my arm, so any suggestions of where to begin are appreciated.

1966 WDEC - South Dakota

South Dakota (photo of the Badlands by J. Crocker via Wikimedia Commons) is best known to me as the "Black Hills, with gold at Lead" (pronounced, BTW, like "leed" and not "led"). Phil worked in the gold mines at Lead doing physics experiments as an undergrad, and I spent some time there years later. South Dakota fascinates me with its extreme variation from near desert scrub to plains to forested hills. All it lacks is access to an ocean. I'd love to go back for the geography alone. The food...well... what I had when I was there was perfectly fine but not particularly remarkable. The lineup from the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery reflects my direct impressions:

Pan-Barbecued Ham: Not sure why this is called "barbecued" - it's  a bunch of sliced ham toasted and served with a sauce poured over. I'll pass.
Wild Goose: Instructions for roasting a wild goose. Nothing special except for the goose itself. If one of the kitchen gods manages to snag me a goose, I'll smoke it on Mechazawa-san (the big Egg) instead.
Cabbage with Bacon and Cheese Sauce: I already made this. It was ok but not remarkable.
Parsnip Fritters: Pseudo-paleo pancakes - mashed parsnips mixed with butter (the dairy is what makes it only pseudo-paleo) and minimal spices and then formed into pancakes and fried. I bought some parsnips and will try them this way.
Buttermilk Biscuits: Standard recipe. Meh.
Polynees (Swedish Almond Tarts): Tarts filled with a bit of raspberry jam and some ground up almonds mixed with sugar and egg whites. Probably fine, but not really calling to me.
Rhubarb Pie: I love rhubarb and will try this version as a tart. We're not quite into rhubarb season, though, so I may have to go on and then come back to it.

So, it looks like a quick trip to the kitchen for this state. Off to it!

D'Artagnan Dry Boar Sausage

In my quest for new sausages, I also ordered some boar saucisson sec (dry sausage) from D'Artagnan. Picture above shows it. This is slice 'n' eat sausage, ready to go out of the package.The picture below, courtesy of the nice folks at D'Artagnan, is of a "package" before it became sausage.

Eating notes: The fat-to-meat ratio is perfect, giving an excellent balance in both flavor and texture. Phil liked the "tang of its fat," a good description of the note of gaminess that lifts this beyond a standard dry sausage and makes it (to me, anyway) well worth the price of ordering and shipping. While I'm sure it would be happy as a topping for salad or pizza, some of the notes that set it apart would be lost among a bunch of other competing tastes. I had it in thin slices, paired with an extra sharp cheddar. I'd also serve it sliced alongside a simple soup.

Additional notes: D'Artagnan caught my previous sausage post and wrote me about the "feral swine" label, leading to a short discussion about the history of boar/feral swine in the U.S. They also sent me a link to an informational brochure from the Texas Cooperative Extension that tells you more than you probably want to know about the creature, as well as how to humanely trap the boar in what looks like a super-sized Havahart cage. The brochure also (this being Texas) tells you how to secure a permit to hunt boar from a helicopter if you are so inclined. D'Artagnan's suppliers use the trap method.

1966 WDEC - South Carolina - Benne Seed Cookies

The African word for sesame is "benne" (Wikipedia), which apparently led to cooks there using benne as the preferred name for sesame (at least, as of 1966); thus the title of this Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery recipe.

Benne Seed Cookies
(to make 2 dozen*)
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar (I used san on tou, a Japanese brown sugar)
1 cup benne [sesame] seed
1/3 cup melted shortening (I used lard)
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp hot water

Preheat oven to 325F [170C]. Combine and blend all ingredients. Drop from teaspoon onto greased cookie sheets. Bake for about 10 minutes. Remove to rack. When cool, store in airtight containers.
* I think 3 dozen is a better lower estimate.

Cooking Notes: No changes to ingredients beyond dropping the sugar to 3/4 cup. As the first post picture shows, this was something of a fail in terms of getting cookies, rather than a solid sheet. I made 30 cookies, well above the 2 dozen they said to expect. I spaced them sufficiently, or so I thought, as shown below.

Obviously, this was not enough room. The cookies flattened into a sheet and melded together. Either making more, smaller cookies or spacing the larger cookies more generously would have worked. As it was, after they came out of the oven, I had to spatula them apart from one another and off the baking sheet, and the finished products were more like mashed-up amalgams than true cookies.

Eating Notes: The cookies (or mash-ups) were basic but good. The textural combination of crunchy sesame and chewy sugar-fat mix was satisfying, and the very simple flavors worked well together. If I were to make them again, in addition to spacing them farther apart, I would cook them until they were toasted a bit more to get some caramel into the mix.

Next up: South Dakota

D'Artagnan Sausages

Making sausages is something to which I aspire but haven't done (despite having a nice bag of lamb casing just waiting for me in my freezer). So I satisfy my sausage cravings by trying other sausages out. When I ordered the hare from D'Artagnan, I kept adding things until the shipping costs bumped, and in the process ended up with two new things to try: Boar sausage and Duck sausage. Picture below shows the packages.

Used half of each in the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cooker recipe for red rice. Kept the rest for breakfast (shown in the first post picture) so we could taste them as they are.

Eating Notes: The boar sausage is a sage sausage and highly spiced. It was good, but didn't bring out the boar taste. If you served it to a crowd they would think it was a good sausage, but in all likelihood would not be clamoring for the recipe or sauce. The duck sausage was undeniably a star. It was creamy, with a texture that bordered on pate and a subtle spicing that let the duck taste come through. I will definitely order the duck sausage again.

Slightly OT Note: I found the labeling note on the boar sausage interesting. There is an asterisk on "Boar" and the reference says "Meat from feral swine." I haven't had the time to research this, but I must, because I have no idea why the clarification is required. I also wonder if the general public would think "Boar=AOK" but "Feral Swine=Eeeeew."

1966 WDEC - South Carolina - Red Rice

This recipe seemed like the kind of comfort food casserole I remember as a kid, so I had to try it.

Red Rice
(to serve 4)
1/2 cup bulk sausage meat
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped red sweet peppers
About 2 cups (one 1-lb can) tomatoes
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
Dash of hot pepper sauce
Dash of pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup uncooked rice
2 cups water

Fry sausage meat until brown, stirring with fork. Add onion and peppers; cook for 2 - 3 minutes. Add remaining ingredients; mix well. Cover and cook over low heat until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed.

Cooking Notes: In terms of ingredients, I doubled the amount of meat and my "dash" of hot sauce and pepper were about a half and a quarter teaspoon, respectively. I used a crock pot and was in a hurry on a weekday morning, so my instructions are somewhat simpler. Combine all ingredients in a crock pot; set on low for 6 - whatever hours; eat.

Eating Notes: We managed to scarf down two servings each while feeling like there was nothing especially positive to say about it. We've come to see rice as a food rather than a filler, and this dish definitely uses the rice to stretch the homemaker's grocery dollars. Also, the rice was a bit pasty both because it was short grain sushi rice and from the crock pot treatment. Using the method they set out and medium or long grain rice probably would have dried the texture somewhat and led to a better finished product.

1966 WDEC - Shrimp and Corn Pie

This Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery recipe looks something like a crustless quiche. If it had required fresh corn, it probably would have been passed over as being too much bother. But with a creamed corn substitute, there was no excuse not to try it for an easy weekday dinner.

Shrimp and Corn Pie
(to serve 4)
2 cups corn grated off the cob (or one 17-oz can cream-style corn)
2 lightly beaten eggs
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup cooked shrimps
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (Lee & Perrins type)
Salt, pepper and mace to taste

Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Combine all ingredients and turn into a buttered shallow baking dish. Bake 30 minutes or until firm.

Cooking Notes: Essentially, none. Cans of corn are now about 14 ounces instead of 17, but I didn't think that would make a substantial difference. I doubled the Worcestershire and used 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, and a generous 1/2 tsp mace. The pie took about 40 minutes to become firm.

Eating Notes: As an emergency egg pie, this would have been just fine. As the result of following a recipe, it was a disappointment. The first post picture shows that both visually and texturally the pie wasn't very compelling, and liquid leached out of it continuously. Both the pie and the liquid tasted good, but were not exceptional enough to make up for the lackluster presentation.

Early food pr0n

This is the early spring and egg eating stuff ingredients.

You simply add eggs and butter, don't pre-mix, cook then add the pictured porn (this is the first chive from my garden and it is fat and aromatic, and tomatoes) some cheese and sour cream are welcome additions, too

1966 WDEC - South Carolina - Shrimp Canape Paste

Shrimp and butter and very little else. There seemed nothing to lose with this recipe.

(Starting with this recipe I'm going to try to remember to give conversions for oven temperatures into degrees Celsius. I really should provide conversions for everything, but it's tedious work. One step at a time...)

Shrimp Canape Paste
(Serves 6 - 8 as a canape)

1 lb fresh shrimp, cooked, shelled and deveined
1/2 cup butter
Salt, celery salt, and cayenne to taste

Preheat oven to 350F [180C]. Force shrimps through medium blade of a food chopper or pound to a paste in a mortar [or use a food processor]. Cream 1/2 cup butter or margarine. Add shrimps and salt, celery salt, and cayenne to taste. Mix until smooth. Picture shows it.

Pack into a greased small loaf pan (about 6-1/2" x 4") [be aggressive in your packing; see below] and bake 30 minutes or until mixture leaves sides of pan.

Picture above shows it just out of the oven; it has pulled away from the pan and is sitting in a little bath of melted butter. Cool; chill before slicing.

Cooking Notes: I used 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp celery seed (not celery salt), and 1 tsp cayenne. I thought I had packed the shrimp in well, but when it was done there were numerous holes. It held together, but was not as uniform and the top of the unmolded form was not as smooth as I would have liked. I garnished it with strips of (jarred) roasted red peppers and capers as shown in the first post picture.

Eating Notes: The spicing was distinct and complemented the shrimp nicely. The cayenne added just enough kick to make it interesting (to us; the kitchen goddess, who normally loves seafood, turned up her nose at this). An easy luncheon dish, it also would be quite lovely spread over fresh sourdough or pumpernickel bread.

And an aside... One of the small things I like about the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery is that the editors did not consider "shrimp" to be a collective noun - so when they have you use more than one shrimp, they call them "shrimps." For some reason, it always makes me smile when they say "force the shrimps through...a food chopper" and the like.

1966 WDEC - South Carolina

South Carolina, where "cotton, wood pulp and bright-leaf [tobacco] mean wealth." Or, at least, they did to the 1966 Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery editors (photo of Chattooga River from the National Forest Service via Wikimedia). South Carolina is the last state until Virginia with an Atlantic coastline, and the recipes reflect this:

Shrimp Canape Paste: Shrimp made into a paste and mixed with butter and spices, then baked into a mold. I'm a sucker for molds and just bought a couple of new ones at the thrift store, so I'll try it.
Charleston She-Crab Soup: A standard cream of crab soup with sherry. I'll pass.
Shrimp and Corn Pie: Essentially, a creamed corn and shrimp crustless quiche. I can't resist.
South Carolina Scrapple: After toying with the idea of making scrapple when looking at the Pennsylvania recipes, I decided the pork I buy (whether from Babes in the Woods, Evensong, or Wooly Pigs) is just to good to need to be stretched with cornmeal. So I'll pass unless some pork scraps come my way.
Red Rice: This looks a lot like what was passed off to me as "goulash" when I was a kid - sausage meat mixed with rice, onion, tomatoes, pepper and spices. I may try it for old time's sake.
Benne-seed Cookies: The WDEC notes that "Sesame seed is called benne in South Carolina." That's just so weird I'll try the cookies.
Party Pudding: Bridge ladies gone wild after eating this brandy pudding. Really, the brandy is cooked so no alcohol problem. I'll probably pass unless I feel the urge to try it to use up some decent but not quite sipping quality brandy I have in the pantry.
Syllabub: This would be a recipe for a barf-party at my house! A drink made of sweet sherry and Madeira, lemons, lots of heavy cream, mace and a good bit of sugar. Yowzers. I'll pass.

So. Staying sober and off to the kitchen.

1966 WDEC - Rhode Island - Johnnycake

When I was a kid, Johnnycake was my idea of quintessential pioneer food - no eggs, no milk, no leavening - just cornmeal and water and a little salt, mixed up and fried in a pan. This version is positively decadent, including both milk and butter, and even a little sugar. The original instructions call for frying or baking; I also include instructions for the Advantium, which I used so it would finish at the same time the sausage and omelet were done.

Johnnycake
(to make 9 or 10 Tablespoon-sized cakes or one 8"square cake)
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1-5 Tbsp butter (approx.)
1 cup white cornmeal
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup milk
4 Tbsp fat for cooking (if not using butter for cooking)


Combine sugar, salt, 1 Tbsp butter, and cornmeal. [There is no need to melt the butter or mix it up; it will melt when you add the boiling water]. Add actively boiling water and stir vigorously until well mixed [and butter is melted]. Add milk and mix well.


If frying: Drop batter by tablespoons ontl hot griddle well-greased with fat. Pat if needed to about 1/2" thickness with a greased pancake turner. Cook over medium heat until browned on one side. Put a little melted fat on teh uncooked top of each cake, turn and brown.


If baking: Melt 2 Tbsp fat in an 8" square pan and grease sides of pan. Spread batter in pan and bake in preheated very hot (450F) oven for 30 minutes or until firm.


If using the Advantium: Melt 2 Tbsp fat in an 8" square pan and grease sides of pan. Spread batter in pan. Cook at U=6 L=6 M=3 for 10 minutes. Picture below shows it just out of the oven and cut; it really doesn't look like much.

Serve very hot with melted butter poured over.

Cooking Notes: Made everything to spec, using all butter.

Eating Notes: Probably should have halved the sugar; with nothing else in there as flavor, the sweetness was pretty intense. Otherwise, it was as expected - a slightly firmer version of cornmeal mush, given added goodness by a bunch of butter. Interesting as a variation, but not particularly remarkable.

Next up: South Carolina. While I am planning to come back and make the Rhode Island fried clams, I have some fresh shrimp to use first, and that state has a couple of promising recipes.

Copper Pot Food's Quinoa Potato Gnocchi

New this winter to the Silver Spring Farmers' Market is The Copper Pot, a local concern that also sells jams and sauces online. Because we don't eat much pasta any more, the pasta sauce wasn't a big draw; similarly, since we don't eat bread we don't have a huge call for jam - I make more myself than I can possibly use. But Stefano Frigerio, the owner, has fantastic fresh soups every week, and we have come to look forward to them as part of our weekend lunch (I found out by happy accident that the pasta sauce makes fabulous thick soup straight out of the jar, too).

This weekend we were talking with Stefano and somehow I mentioned not eating much pasta, and he asked if I was sensitive to gluten and I said yes. It turns out he has other customers who have gluten issues and he's been working on trying to make pasta and products he finds acceptable with non-gluten flours. While pasta still is a challenge, he has some quinoa-based gnocchi that he encouraged us to try. The guy is a really good chef, so it didn't take a lot of arm-twisting. Picture below shows the gnocchi.

Cooking is easy: working in batches so the gnocchi isn't crowded, lower the gnocchi into gently boiling water and let it cook just until it rises to the surface. I was careful to put it in and pull it out gently, since things made with non-gluten flours have a tendency to fall apart more easily than their wheat-based counterparts. Because I wanted to be sure to taste the gnocchi itself, I very gently tossed with just a little olive oil, some black pepper, and diced roasted red peppers (from a jar).

Picture above shows it as we made it. The gnocchi was excellent. Stefano said he liked the nutty flavor of the quinoa flour, and it is a good complement to the potato and Parmesan. The texture wasn't compromised, and if I hadn't known it wasn't made with wheat flour I probably wouldn't have noticed it.

It makes me feel good when good chefs take the time and care to make foods to their standards for people with dietary concerns. When the results are this good, so much the better. So, thanks Stefano and Copper Pot!

1966 WDEC - Rhode Island

My grandparents on my mom's side were from Rhode Island, "smallest of all, facing the sea." It showed, right down to the astonishing accent--they never could pronounce my name correctly; it came out as "Kaahtney" as much as anything else. I spent many summers with them, and to this day my grandma is the person in my life I most regret not knowing better. (In a bit of a departure, my picture doesn't show a landscape or even Rhode Island. That's my grandma and grandpa at the wedding ceremony Phil and I had at the nursing home where he was at the time.)

So I turned to this entry in the "American Cookery" section of the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery expecting a bit of nostalgia. I conveniently forgot that cooking was not among the many exemplary qualities my grandma exhibited. But what are you going to do?

Fried Clams or Fannie Daddies: This is the only nostalgia-inducing item here; a somewhat elaborate version of the fried clamcakes I used to get on trips to the Rocky Point amusement park (This link has some photos from "my" era and his comments exactly mirror my own recollections).
Chicken Smothered in Oysters: Chicken braised in milk with oysters and cream cooked alongside at the end. Not really calling me.
Block Island Baked Swordfish: Swordfish baked forever (30 minutes) with minced green peppers and slices of onion. Again, not really doing much to pique my interest.
Green-Corn Cakes: Corn fritters. Meh.
Scalloped Corn: Casserole of creamed corn, pepper and onions baked under breadcrums. Meh again.
Johnnycake: The classic fried/baked cornmeal mush. Another meh, but suitable for breakfast, so I'll try a batch.
Peach Slump: Sugared peaches baked under a biscuit crust. Again with the meh, although if peaches were in season I might have tried making a tart-sized, less-sweetened version.
Corn Flake-Coconut Macaroons: Classic macaroons with corn flakes mixed in. Meh number seven.

So, a couple of things to try and I may as well get myself off to the kitchen.

1966 WDEC - Pennsylvania - Pickled Eggs and Red Beets

Yow. Two scary childhood things in one! Holy pre-school lunch, Batman!

Pickled Eggs and Red Beets
2 bunches small young beets
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (I used san on tou)
1 cinnamon stick
6 whole cloves
1 tsp pickling spice
1/4 tsp salt
6 hard-boiled eggs, shelled

Boil beets until tender. Skin and put in a deep bowl. Bring water, vinegar, sugar, spices and salt to a boil. Pour over beets and let stand overnight.

Place eggs in the mixture, making sure eggs are completely covered with liquid. Let stand in the refrigerator 2 or 3 days before serving. This is what they look like in the brine.

Cooking Notes: First, a bit of a rant. How big is a bunch of beets? It's bad enough to have to compensate for changes in vegetable size over the past 45 years; now there's the additional need to figure out if "bunches" have changed. How much trouble would it have been to say "about a half pound" or something in the instructions? I didn't want to make the full recipe, so I took one bunch of beets and 3 eggs. The beets were medium and middle-aged, but cooked and quartered seemed to be about right. Kept the pickling quantities as written to be sure there would be enough juice to cover, but cut the sugar in half.

Eating Notes: These were great. Not too sweet, nicely clove- and cinnamon-flavored, but not at all overpowering. My friend from Boston, who grew up with pickled beets and was over when we had them, was happy as a clam. With the eggs, it's enough for a light main course, or would be an excellent side with just about any flesh or a mild fish (about the only thing I wouldn't pair it with would be a fish with a lemony flavor.

The kitchen goddess took her tithe by way of the greens.

Next Up: Rhode Island

Modern American Dinner?

This dinner was classic modern American - or maybe classic New Jersey? A melting pot in any event. Easy jerked paneer and spinach over rice. Instructions for 2 servings: Cut a brick of paneer into bite-sized cubes. Slice a few mushrooms and coarsely dice half an onion. Put enough coconut oil in a hot skillet to generously cover the bottom. Fry the paneer until golden, turning as needed, and remove. Fry the onions and mushrooms until just done. Add a tablespoon or two of jerk seasoning and stir in. Add a little watermelon syrup or other fruit syrup (pomegranate would be good). Stir in. Add about 10 oz of frozen chopped spinach. Heat until the spinach is ready. Stir in the paneer and serve over rice.

Mangalitsa Lard - Worth the Convenience

When I went to Foods in Season to order the Mangalitsa bacon from Wooly Pigs, I saw that they sold Mangalitsa lard. I go through a lot of lard and don't like to buy the hydrogenated bricks on offer at the supermarket (if one is lucky enough even to find that), so historically I have rendered my own, using leaf lard or sometimes fatback from the farmer's market for the task. Seeing it sold by the tub made my heart do a little happy jump. I ordered two, and just finished the first after a couple of months.

The benefits of the Mangalitsa lard are an incredibly light and neutral taste and the convenience of not having to render the lard myself. I do think the lard works up better in light pastry than my home-rendered lard does - my pies certainly have been the better for it. The only disadvantage is that there are no tasty cracklin's left over from the process.

I've heard that Mangalitsa lard can be whipped up and used as a topping. It's certainly light enough texturally for that purpose, and I do find myself eating with no regrets the stray bits that fall on the counter. So I'm willing to try that out some time.

In the interim, just being able to buy good quality lard by the tub is an incredible luxury. I no longer hesitate to make things like donuts or deep-fried cheese and I having a choice of fats - butter, suet, or lard - whenever I make a pastry or use a fat definitely expands my cooking palate. The Mangalitsa lard is perfect for people who want a very light and mild lard for cooking or for frying or who would like to use lard but for whatever reason don't render it themselves.

I'm not going to stop rendering fat, because I do like the cracklin's and for some uses I prefer the slightly heavier texture and taste in my home-rendered lard. But when this tub is half gone, I'm ordering more.

1966 WDEC - Pennsylvania - Sour-Cream Doughnuts

I am having a hard time accepting these square cakes without holes as doughnuts. Even knowing that originally, doughnuts did not have holes doesn't help much, because doughnuts still were round. If only for those reasons, though, I had to try this Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery "Pennsylvania" recipe.

Sour Cream Doughnuts
(to make about 2-1/2 dozen)
1-1/2 cups dairy sour cream
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
4 cups (approx) sifted all-purpose flour

Combine sour cream and egg. Sift dry ingredients together and then combine with cream mixture. If necessary to roll easily, add more flour.

On floured board, roll to 1/2" thickness. Cut into 2" squares (I use a pizza cutter, as shown above, for such tasks) and prick each square with a fork. Fry in hot deep fat (360F on a frying thermometer) until golden brown; about 2 minutes on each side. Drain on absorbent paper. Serve with confectioners' sugar, molasses, or syrup.

Cooking Notes: I made a quarter of a batch, which yielded about nine squares. We didn't put any syrup or sugar on them at serving time. Everything else as written.

Eating Notes: The doughnuts came out perfectly - uniformly cooked, terrific uniform crumb, and a nicely crisp skin. But they tasted like fried cakes, not doughnuts. Perhaps if they had been toroid my brain would have accepted them as such. The taste itself is pleasantly neutral with just a bit of tartness from the sour cream, and these would go well with anything from pomegranate syrup to fresh fruit or even melted butter. I'll probably warm the leftovers with a bit of butter and a dusting of fresh-grated nutmeg for breakfast.

As an aside, I looked up doughnuts in Wikipedia and in my Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking to be sure I wasn't just out of line in expecting something round. Both agree: round or toroid; variations in shape also cause a name change (e.g. crullers, which are twists of dough). The name apparently derives from old-fashioned doughnuts being, essentially, nuts of dough. They were small round balls about the size of walnuts. Wikipedia credits Dutch settlers with bringing doughnuts to America, which probably is why the WDEC includes them in the Pennsylvania section.

"Especially Agreeable" Liver and Onions

The 1947 Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking I inherited from my mother-in-law says that one should have "Liver or other variety meat" once a week. My guess is that this is partially an economic consideration, but in general I approve of the sentiment and am making it a goal (along with fish or seafood at least once a week, which was something of a lofty goal for most people in 1947).

Since the cookbook inspired me to buy some beef liver from Groff's Content this week, it seemed only right to look to it for guidance in cooking. I really wanted liver and onions, and for this basic dish the cooking itself wasn't anything I don't already do: heat the griddle and add the fat; saute the liver about 2 minutes on a side, push the liver off to one side and cook the sliced onions (and, for me, mushrooms) in the area where you cooked the liver, adding more fat if necessary; plate the liver and put the onions over. Picture below shows me just starting to cook the onions.

The new thing I tried thanks to the book followed from the section "Removing Skin and Tubes from Liver," in which Ms. Given tells us how to do this. Essentially, one removes the outside skin of the liver by lifting with a knife and peeling, and removes the tubes by cutting them out with sharp pointed scissors as shown in the picture below. "This leaves liver looking somewhat torn, but the tears will not be seen after cooking, and the liver will be especially agreeable to eat."

So I cut out the tubes (my slice of liver already was skinned). And she was right. The liver was especially agreeable to eat. It was uniformly tender and had none of the "chewy" bits I'm accustomed to in a slice of beef liver. Phil also thought it was a lot better. So, a new technique from an old, classic book.

Giovanni's Seafood - Petrale Sole

To try the Pacific razor clam bisque from the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery meant sourcing some clams, which I found at Giovanni's seafood in California. Shipping three pounds cost the same as shipping one, so I got two other Northwest species. First, some Dungeness Crab destined for the the freezer and eventual use in the WDEC Washington State recipe for Dungeness Crab Louis. Second, one pound of fillets of Petrale sole, a right-eyed flounder harvested off the Oregon coast.

 

Picture above shows it whole. The folks at Giovanni's nicely filleted the soles, then packaged them and sent it fresh. Picture below shows them. There were four, of varying sizes.

 

Unfortunately, we weren't able to cook it before going off to Minnesota, so it went into the freezer, too. Came out tonight to be part of a simple dinner dish.

Cooking Notes: Pan- (well, griddle-) fried it in Mangalitsa bacon fat, 1-1/2 minutes per side. Served it with a simple horseradish sour cream sauce (1/2 c sour cream, couple generous dinnerware teaspoons of prepared horseradish, tabasco and lemon bitters to taste) and some steamed broccoli.

Eating Notes: Yum. Nicely crisped on the outside and perfectly done throughout. The fish had a deeper flavor than I'm used to in a sole, and I thought it was pleasantly fatty, which I don't usually associate with sole (but that could have been a relic from the sour cream sauce).

About the Vendor: Giovanni's sent everything promptly and the sole was definitely fresh when it arrived. The fillets were not of uniform size. I don't hold that against them because I didn't expect it with a wild-caught fish, but it is something to consider depending on what your use will be.

I keep checking their specials and will definitely order from them again (only reason I haven't yet is my freezer full of things I still need to eat).