Made sauerkraut. One head of cabbage and some salt, massaged to break down the cell walls, then fermented in a ceramic pot (with water seal) for two weeks, making a tangy, tart, still slightly crunchy sauerkraut. Success! Next time I may try fermenting it longer and shredding it more finely.
Two Hour Tacos? Why not Ten Hour Tacos, with a slow-smoked brisket, hand made tortillas, pickles, and a creamy BBQ sauce? We threw a dinner party inspired by a weekend trip to Far West Texas, and this is the story of the brisket. I’d never actually smoked meat before, though I knew the general principle of indirect heat / “slow and low”. It became clear it wouldn’t just be a “set and forget it for 8 hours” process, and that there was a whole range of intuition, tweaking of the fire, and experience needed to get a good smoke. Well, there’s no real way to learn but by doing… so after browsing various online forums and getting pointed at this Saveur article, I had a general plan. ...
Relaxing at home by making a few tacos: Handmade tortillas. Quick-pickled carrots, radishes, and jalapenos. A rare ribeye steak. Some sauteed onions and padrones. And then, a few days later, repeating for dinner-for-two, swapping in chicken rubbed in hot paprika and dry-poached, pickles briefly blanched before chilling (more mellow), and grapefruit-mezcal-lime-honey-campari cocktails (Paloma-esque).
We threw a cocktail party / trip slideshow inspired by the food and drink of our trip to Iceland, squeezing about a dozen people into my tiny apartment. It started as an excuse to share the Brennivin (somewhat harsh icelandic schnapps with caraway), Lava Smoked Imperial Stout, and a cocktail centered around Birkir, the excellent birch-branch-infused liquer we’d carried back in our luggage (Birkir + lemon juice + simple syrup + soda water). ...
In Iceland, in a cabin on a snowy horse farm half an hour outside a tiny 350-person town on the day after Christmas. The two restaurants in the area were closed. As was the only grocery store we could find. A gas station beckoned– we took it as a challenge. This collection of tins/boxes: Became spaghetti with peas, sardines, tuna, fried onions, and the salmon rub spice pack Alaska Airlines had inexplicably given me as I disembarked and which I’d been carrying ever since. Not bad, actually. With a candle lit with an emergency firestarter and flint (we didn’t have matches) surrounded by bits of lava from the beach. ...
Even beyond The Hot Dog (already mostly lamb), most of what we ate during an epic December trip across Iceland was lamb or arctic char (14 lamb dishes and 13 with char in 12 days)… The trip was more about the icebergs, the lava, and the hot pools than the food, but a few memorable bits: Salted cod and tomato. But, even better, salted cod pizza from the pizza place with no name: ...
Quick meal from and inspired by the book / cookbook Bitter I received as a holiday present: Beer soup, made with beef stock, homebrew saison, dark rye flour, sourdough toast, cream, and nutmeg. Arugula and radish salad with a vinaigrette made from yuzu shrub. Mint tea (getting over a minor cold).
results of pasta class: hand-pulling orecchiette: agnolotti filled with rabbit and pork
Starting to cook weeknight dishes from Ottolenghi’s Plenty. The salad was simple but surprisingly good.
Peels of each type of citrus (meyer lemon, lime, and bergamot) soaked in vodka for a month in a dark cupboard, swirled gently every few days. After a month, I strained the peels out of the vodka. Instead of just adding a simple syrup, I got another set of each type of citrus (meyer lemons and limes from friends’ back yards, and I was fortunately still able to find fresh bergamot at Bi-Rite) and made each into an oleo saccharum– and then used that citrus-oil-infused sugar as the sweetener. ...
Cooking from Plenty. Excellent. And the Straus plain Greek yogurt is now my favorite brand.
What was going to be “an informal bread, cheese, and homebrew hard cider tasting” expanded a bit, as it always does. Highlights were the small carrots roasted in cider, the hummus made with plenty of garlic and a little cider vinegar in lieu of lemon juice, #3 of the hard cider experiments (made with unpasteurized cider and champagne yeast), the fennel salami mail-ordered from Seattle (which I’ve wanted to do ever since having it on a trip) and the Russian Imperial Stout (rich, coffee-like, well-hopped (not actively bitter but it kept the alcohol in check), 10% ABV, aged 4 months so far since brewing and really supposed to go 6+). ...
Pearl couscous browned in olive oil, then simmered with preserved lemon, cayenne, water. Mixed with toasted pistachios, parsley, mint.