LA Times via Wednesday Chef

I got this recipe from the Wednesday Chef who got it from the LA Times and I’ve been cooking it since at least 2006… that’s what my notes say. So it’s got to be a favorite.

Here are some of my notes:

Cooked 6.06… I made the simple tomato sauce she suggested using my frozen San Marzano sauce. Made CI Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes to go with. That’s good-eatin’ comfort food… couldn’t put down my fork.
Cooked 4.08 – Just keeps on bein’ good. – see below
Cooked 3.11 — Dang all, these are good… why don’t I do them more often? Mixed about 1/4 ground beef and 3/4 sausage in the Kitchen Aid. The recipe doesn’t say to brown the balls, but I did. Used my chunky tomato sauce.

Why don’t I do them more often? As you readers of eats… know, I’m always up for trying new stuff, so that’s one reason. But then, I have several other good meatball recipes and really, how often does a meatball craving come around on the big wheel?
I’ve written about meatballs only twice on eats: Polly Dutton Meatballs in ‘aught six and Pappardelle with a ragu of tiny meatballs in 2008; so it’s been a while.

Generally I vary the ingredients for these Sardinian Meatballs each time, depending on whim or what I have on hand. Joyce Goldstein calls for all pork, but for this occasion, I used 3 Italian sausages from Golden Gate Meat — about 5/8 pound — and the balance ground beef. I’ve incorporated beef before, but never more than a quarter of a pound. They seemed a little heavier than usual this time. Just go with Joyce… pork rules, let it rule.

So, just assemble the ingredients and mix ‘em together. Its easy to mix by hand, but since I got my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, that is my preferred method; easy, clean and more thorough mixing without overmixing.

The recipe suggests that they be served over spaghetti or mashed potatoes. I have gone both ways, but today I was in the mood for spaghetti.

A word about spaghetti. For long pasta, I like thin spaghetti or store-bought fresh fettuccine or especially my homemade egg noodles. I find “regular spaghetti” too fat and heavy — just me. At my local Real Food market, they had shelves of DeCecco dried pasta, but no thin spaghetti. I could have walked two blocks to Cheese Plus, but instead bought a box of Bella Italia Capellini. That was fine (in more ways than one), but I still prefer thin spaghetti.

For sauce, I got out a container of roasted cherokee purple tomato sauce that I made and froze last fall. That stuff is serious good; rich and dark and sweet and dense and perfect. (I thought I had featured this sauce on eats, but no. Good subject for the next entry.)

The meatballs with their sauce were served over capellini with a side dish of braised carrots, a hunk of pecorino to grate and a very nice Simi Cabernet Sauvignon.

Sardinian Meatballs
Serves 4 to 6

1 pound ground pork
1/4 cup dried or 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs [I almost always make my own breadcrumbs. This time from an Acme Herb Slab about three days old.]
6 tablespoons grated pecorino cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Give these ingredients an initial brief mix, then add

2 eggs [I prefer to lightly beat the eggs before adding.]

For the sauce:
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 3/4 cups canned tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup water
I always use my own tomato sauce, made with fresh tomatoes.

1. In a bowl, combine the pork, bread crumbs, eggs, cheese, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper and mixed together until smooth. Form the mixture into balls about 1 inch in diameter.

In a saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes and water, mix well, and then add the meatballs.
Here, I depart from the recipe. I brown the meatballs lightly in olive oil, then pour my sauce over them to continue cooking.

4. Bring the sauce to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, until the meatballs are cooked through and tender, about 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with mashed potatoes or spaghetti.

meatballs brown

meatballs cook in tomato sauce

Yum. Good stuff.

…and reviews of two bistro cookbooks, Bouchon by Thomas Keller and Les Halles Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain

I wrote this in February 2009 and somehow it slid to the bottom of the drawer. I’ll blame it on getting busy preparing my income tax. In any case, its just as relevant today. Roast chicken does not go out of style, and Bouchon and Les Halles Cookbook are still in print, so you can rush right out and get your own copy (don’t get it from Amazon, they don’t pay California sales tax and owe the state about a bazillion dollars).

I had never roasted a plain, whole chicken before, always left that to Carol. I loved eating roast chicken, either home made by Carol or brought home from a rotisserie shop or the roli roti truck at the Farmers Market. I don’t know, a roast chicken always seemed mysterious to me.

In his book House:A Memior, Michael Ruhlman, co-author of Bouchon, described inaugurating the new kitchen of his new house with a simple roast chicken:

“I turned on the oven. I took a cast iron pan off its hook. I set a fresh chicken in it and salted the bird well.

“There was never a doubt what the first meal n the new kitchen would be. Roast chicken, baked potatoes, green beans with lemon and butter. Roast chicken is to me the iconic meal of the home. Many pleasures attended its cooking; in a way it seasoned the kitchen, the way you’d season a pan. Its smell filled the room, the house. I like to baste a chicken, to hear the crackling juices from the cavity spill into the fat, to spoon hot, clear fat over the darkening skin. A perfectly roasted bird is a beautiful sight.”

I was envious of his ability to simply and effortlessly roast a chicken. I read House in 2004. It took me until now to roast a chicken myself.

Roast Chicken Bouchon
My Favorite Simple Roast Chicken
Mon Poulet Roti, Thomas Keller

I was looking through Bouchon, one of my favorite books about cooking. I think of a cookbook as a book of recipes. Bouchon is so much more than that, it’s about food and cooking, with recipes used as illustration. In any case, I was thinking of writing a review of Bouchon. As I leafed through, I came across a two-page spread entitled My Favorite Simple Roast Chicken, Mon Poulet Roti. Below the title was Thomas Keller’s narrative description of how he roasts a chicken at home. On the facing page was a gorgeous picture of a roast chicken. It looked so good, I just had to give it a try.

Here’s the picture from the book that enticed me to make THAT chicken.

It looked pretty simple: Heat the oven to 450°F. Rinse and thoroughly dry the chicken. Truss it with butcher’s twine. Rain salt and pepper over the bird.

“Place the chicken in a roasting pan and, when the oven is up to temperature, put the chicken in the oven. I leave it alone – I don’t baste it, I don’t add butter; you can if you wish, but I feel that creates steam, which I don’t want. Roast it until it’s done, 50 to 60 minutes.”

I had questions. Roast on a rack? Brine the bird? I referred to page 192 to learn how to truss the bird and found the restaurant recipe, answering my questions. Rack: no. Brine: he brines in the restaurant, but not when he does it for enjoyment at home.

I can do this. I got out my chicken and my cast iron skillet. Continue reading →

Here’s what Fatted Calf had to say in their first week of March newsletter:

While I will gladly pile up stacks of dirty pans and bowls in pursuit of culinary glory and happily turn up the radio, roll up my sleeves and attack a sink of dirty dishes, if it’s the price for a good meal I have to admit there is something awfully appealing about a one pot wonder, the kind of cooking that takes its time but not yours.
The Versatile Pork Country Rib Roast slow cooked atop a bed of root vegetables makes for a tender, juicy pot roast.

I bought the Pork Country Rib Roast. This is not my first time, but I haven’t yet fixed on the perfect way to roast it.

When Niman Ranch was in the Market, they sold a Pork Country Rib with about 2 ribs and they sold it on the cheap, about $6 the pound. Then they changed their operation around and moved out of the market and I haven’t seen a similar “country rib.” I believe they described it to me as the first two ribs at one end or the other. I bring this up because Carol had a perfect way of roasting that country rib, so when I got one of those, I was pleased to let her do it.

But that country rib is not this country rib and I have a checkered history with this country rib:

Roasted Country Rib 12.09
I have a country rib roast from Fatted Calf, 3 ribs, 2.3 pounds, marinated with Mandarin oranges and Tournantes olives. C sez stick in the countertop convection oven on fan bake at 400° for 30 to 45 minutes.
Took 50 minutes to reach 150°. Yum.
I put it in the square roasting pan on no stick foil with a splash of water in the bottom. C sez she uses the pan that came with the oven and the wire rack to hold it off the bottom.

11.10
FC Country Rib roast with apples and walnut. 2.09 pounds.
Not so good.
First, on the wire rack the roast barely fit in the oven.
Second, it took way long to cook, and was more stringy than tasty, which I attribute to the HOT oven and the tight fit. I think I would go longer and slower next time (see Pernil Pork Roast by Mark Bittman).

My solution was to do nothing until I had an idea.

After rumination, the idea came on a trip to Sonoma to pick up some Cline wine and have Sunday brunch on a drizzly but not nasty day… “cook it like a pot roast, using a beef recipe as a guide.” I have a bunch of root vegetables from Mariquita that are taking up space in the refrigerator. Perfect. Continue reading →

“The french fry did not become America’s most popular vegetable until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting, and frying the potatoes – and cleaning up the mess. If you made all the french fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they’re so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken…”

Chapter 39: Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself. FOOD RULES: An Eaters Manual by Michael Pollan

“Frying chicken is so much trouble that people didn’t used to make it unless they had guests coming over and a lot of time to prepare. The amount of work involved kept the frequency of indulgence in check.”

Chapter 60, Treat treats as treats.

FOOD RULES: An Eaters Manual by Michael Pollan

Back when I was in the Navy, stationed on a destroyer out of Norfolk, I was often invited to my cousin’s wife’s mother’s house in Suffolk, Virginia for Sunday Dinner. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and all the good Southern stuff was a standby. That was the sixties and I’ve eaten fried chicken since – especially in the South when we would visit Eric at Duke or later when Brian lived in Tifton GA – but when I’d think about making it, I stopped when I read, “Pour about three-inches of oil into a deep heavy pot…” and looked for another recipe. And I never cared for Colonel Sanders fried chicken. Besides, how can you beat a roast chicken?

Now, I was fresh from a Knife Skills class taught by Dave-the-Butcher and I had a nice half-chicken from Marin Sun Farms. I needed to cut that chicken up for practice. Why not make Fried Chicken? I searched “fried chicken recipes” on the Internet – there are a gazillion of them out there – and settled on one from Emeril Lagasse when he was with the Food Network. It seemed straightforward and used his “Essence” to “kick it up a notch.” I had used his Essence before in other dishes… its good. I cut up my half-chicken. My knife skills class paid off; the pieces are tidy and beautiful, not “mangled as usual.” Six pieces: leg, thigh, two pieces of wing and two pieces of breast. Perfect for two.

Combine a pint of buttermilk with 1 ounce Essence, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed in a large nonreactive bowl. Stir to blend. Immerse the chicken in the mixture and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and for up to 24 hours. Continue reading →

Love meatloaf. Love meatballs. Since I love them so much, I’m very discerning about the cooking and eating of them. I have my favorites. For meatloaf, it is K-Paul’s Cajun Meatloaf — dubbed the Best Meatloaf of all Time by me back in ought-six — but I’ve been making it since I got his cookbook in 1984. For meatballs, the Polly Dutton meatballs that I learned to make from Polly as an Ensign in the Navy, living in Coronado. That said, I’m always trying new stuff. If the recipe looks good, I’ll give it a shot in hopes that it can topple K-Paul or Polly.

This meatloaf was published in the New York Times Magazine in July, 2009 and called Fancy Meatloaf for Nora Ephron. It looked good enough to make and Sam Sifton’s story made it even more intriguing. I belatedly got around to making it recently. I’ll let Sam Sifton introduce his meatloaf:

“I was invited to cook dinner for Nora Ephron. This is what happens if you hang around New York long enough, writing about food… You end up at ground zero. The invitation was to a potluck. Guests were meant to bring food inspired by Ephron’s career or by the woman herself. It was essentially high-stakes food charades. My draw was meatloaf. Ruh-roh. Ephron is famous for her meatloaf, a version of which is on the menu of Graydon Carter’s new restaurant and clubhouse, the Monkey Bar. And cooking plays no small role in her new film, “Julie & Julia.” Just thinking about cooking for her, I felt sick and wondered if bringing a few bottles of cold Pellegrino or Laurent-Perrier Champagne would do instead. I’ve read widely in the literature. Nora Ephron loves Champagne. But I got down to cooking. I started to grind. What was borne out by my experience I pass along as gospel: Do not make Nora Ephron’s meatloaf for Nora Ephron. This is a sucker’s play and remains true even if you’re cooking for someone’s aunt on a Saturday night in Fort Myers, Fla.: Don’t make a person’s signature recipe for that person, ever. Instead, take it as a starting point. Move the ball along. And practice. A couple of years ago, Ruth Reichl edited a huge cookbook that was built out of the recipe files of Gourmet. In it is a meatloaf recipe that combines beef and veal, pancetta and Parmesan, brightened with lemon zest and white wine. It’s a luxurious feed, and I’d run versions through the oven before deciding to take it on the road.”

I had all the ingredients on hand except the Italian bread and thin sliced pancetta. I was planning to try and recreate rice meatballs served to me at a dacha outside Kyiv, but reading about Sifton’s meatloaf made my mouth water so I usurped the meats. Meatballs next time. The last time I made K-Paul, I mixed the meat with my (sorta) new Kitchen Aid mixer toy. I found it gentle, quick and non-messy, although mixing meat with my hands is fun and sensual in a way. Continue reading →

Lamb Crepinettes, potato salad, haricot vert
K-Paul Meatloaf, melted potatoes, broccoli

I volunteer at the CUESA Kitchen two Thursday evenings a month (more or less) to help with cooking classes. We prep food for the students, wash dishes and set up and break down equipment and furnishings. The most recent class was “Sausage Making” taught by Dave “the Butcher” Budworth.

On my way to the class I had visions of meat grinders and sausage casings arrayed around the rolling stainless steel pods used as counters. There was none of that. There were mounds of herbs ready to be chopped and spices ready to be portioned, boxes of ground pork, ground lamb and caul fat. The class would not be making sausages in casings as I had envisioned, but crepinettes.

I’m familiar with the word because Fatted Calf sells crepinettes at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, but I had never seen nor eaten a crepinette. That evening I learned how to make a crepinette and Saturday, dined on my own homemade crepinettes.

sage to pick and chop

Sage was only one of many ingredients that went into the sausage. We also picked and minced fresh thyme leaves and parsley, and minced long green Anaheim chilies and garlic.

mise en place

Each pod was set up with a tray of sausage making supplies. Ten students worked at each station.
.

Dave holds a piece of caul fat

Caul fat is the spider web of fatty membrane that encases the internal organs of pigs, cows, and sheep, and it can be used in a variety of meat-friendly ways. Chef Vuong Loc of Portage Restaurant in Seattle calls it “kind-of like the original combi oven, because it allows the meat to roast and steam at once. It can get to a super hot temp because it’s fat, but it also keeps the moisture locked inside. It gives the meat a unique texture and adds flavor.” Continue reading →