Cooking

Reflecting recently how much I like a good paleta (Mexican popsicles, often made with fresh fruit and a little sweetener), I picked up a few molds and a book for inspiration. And then for a New Year’s Eve party I made two flavors: toasted coconut and lime-mezcal-chili. The latter used limes, cayenne peppers, and limequats from our back yard (the limequat is the edible kumquat-sized citrus sliced thin and frozen into the paleta below, mostly for appearance): ...

The best part of having leftover pulled pork and salsa from New Year’s Eve dinner? New Year’s Day carnitas chilaquiles (tortilla chips soaked in tomatillo salsa, topped with fatty pulled pork that’s been crisped under the broiler and mixed with a little orange juice, and a fried egg):

For a small New Year’s Eve party, a meal cooked primarily in the smoker (tacos with pulled pork, homemade tortillas, and salsas made from smoked tomatillos and pineapples): 23-hour slow-smoked pork shoulder: A roughly 7lb chunk of pork shoulder (a.k.a. pork butt) from Niman Ranch Dry rubbed with copious amounts of salt and mustard, smoked paprika, and black pepper and let rest in the fridge for 4-5 hours Smoked very low-and-slow at 215-225F for 23 hours over lump charcoal with some fist-sized chunks of apple and pecan wood for smoke, until the internal temperature was in the 195-200 range (for overnight smokes I have a ‘baby monitor’-style wireless temperature probe I rest on the bedside so an alarm will ring and wake me up if the pit temperature gets too high or low and I can adjust the airflow or add fuel) No intermediate basting, mopping, foiling, etc– just keeping it simple Wrapped in foil and let rest for 45 minutes It was so tender I could pull off strands by hand, and with a nice ‘bark’ and smoke ring… It didn’t even need any sauce– I just squeezed a few limes over it. ...

After years of successfully cooking steak in a traditional way (salted a few hours ahead of time, then high heat on a grill or a skillet on the stovetop followed by a 5-10 minute rest), I gave the “reverse sear” technique a try. The general idea is to bake / roast the steak at lower temperature until it’s almost done, then sear each side on a hot grill. The slower, lower-temperature approach should gradually and uniformly cook the meat, while the sear browns the outer layer for flavor which maintaining the juicy center (especially on a thick steak). ...

From earlier this summer, a bowl mostly picked from our little urban raised-bed garden: Armenian cucumber, tomatoes, blistered Padron peppers, sliced jalapeno (along with a soft-boiled egg and some sardines). I wish I ate like this all the time.

I had this once at The Dock in West Oakland as a snack– popcorn dressed with flavors similar to a Caesar salad– oil, anchovies, garlic, citrus, and parmesan. And I’ve been wanting to make something along these lines ever since. I found a recipe shared by the chef who created it and generally followed that– utilizing coarse crushed garlic (a smoky, powerful heirloom variety grown by my father), anchovy fillets or paste, and the recipe’s tip to try a little citric acid in place of lemon juice (to get the tartness of lemon juice without making the popcorn soggy)– and it was an addictively delicious savory addition to our Halloween party spread. ...

I threw a little brunch for friends, with homemade bagels, salmon and trout I smoked over alder wood, gravlax cured by H, dry farmed early girl tomatoes (so good…), salted cucumbers, and other accoutrements. For the bagels, I mostly used the tried and true recipe, though I tried retarding the dough (letting it rise slowly in a cold place overnight) in both a typical 40°F fridge and a special 55°F fridge I had set up with a temperature controller for fermenting experiments. The 40° dough rose less, but then swelled up when baked (see left bagels below– perhaps I didn’t boil them long enough this time?) They still tasted good, like bagels– but the dough retarded at 55° had an especially nice crackling crust around a chewy bagel. I’ll keep playing around with rising times and temperatures… ...

Our first basil harvest put to good use on a summer evening.

Fried and braised a chorizo sausage to crumble, then scrambled some eggs w/ milk in the drippings. With homemade tortillas (Maseca, salt, water), quick-pickled carrots (cut thin, 20 minutes in vinegar) as a nice counterpoint to the fat, cheddar, and avocado.

Inspired by a recent vacation in Morocco, we made dinner for a group of friends (and, as with Iceland, ended up going a bit overboard with food). Beets with cumin, carrot and orange blossom salad, pepper-tomato jam, eggplant zaalouk: Fresh baked semolina bread: Pastilla / B’stilla (savory pastry pigeon pie with egg and almond and cinnamon– in this case made with chicken thighs for convenience): Lamb, olive, cardoon, and preserved lemon tagine with homemade couscous: ...

Making couscous from scratch (flour, water, mist, roll with palm, filter, steam, repeat) for a Moroccan-themed dinner party, inspired by this NYtimes article and the linked article. Hydrated at the end with saffron-infused water. A repetitive, satisfying, and successful process.

How to cook thin ribeye steaks? Rub with salt, pepper, and juice from crushed garlic cloves, let sit 10 minutes, preheat a skillet over high heat with a little beef fat, then cook quickly (just over 1 minute per side), remove to a plate, and let rest under tented foil before slicing. Melting a pat of butter + goat cheese on top is optional. As is eating with lentils and romanesco in front of a roaring fire and jealous dog. ...

For 4th of July this year, carnitas tacos: Starting the afternoon before with an 8-pound bone-in pork shoulder (and some pork belly for good measure): Packed together to tightly fill a dutch oven, with onions, garlic, fennel, cilantro, and sliced oranges, then added just enough milk to fill in the cracks for braising (after wedging strips of pork belly in every open crevice to keep this tightly enough packed to render out the copious amounts of pork fat and allow the pork to almost confit, inspired by this Serious Eats carnitas article): ...

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. ...