A New Kind of Smoking

it's funny how some thins can be built up in your mind to be bigger than they really are. i had prided myself for a long time on knowing the difference between grilling and bbq, but i had only ever done the former. bbq'ing, the simple act of cooking with low, indirect heat and flavoring with wood smoke, seemed so difficult that i was scared to ever try. i didn't have a smoker, i didn't have the time; all i had were a bunch of excuses.

well i finally manned up and smoked some meat and you know what? it wasn't all that hard. now don't get me wrong, the art of bbq, as practiced by all those pitmaster savants is exactly that - art. and my bbq was nothing like that, but it was good, solid bbq. here's how it went down.

learning
i'll make this quick - after years of watching on tv, reading in various books and magazines, and listening to any and all wise words from anyone who had knowledge to share, i ended up at one website for all the specifics: http://amazingribs.com/. Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn, a pro que circuit judge, lays down the most specific, well written instructions i could find, collected in one free place. and sometimes "instructions" are exactly what i need; especially the first time i try something that seems difficult to me. in then end, two days later, i was so satisfied with the results that i now feel like i have the solid foundation of understanding required to start the refinement process.

shopping
shopping, as always, was easy - i just headed straight to Pape's. hey, that kinda rhymes: "straight to Pape." check it out if you live on the penninsula: http://www.yelp.com/biz/pape-meat-co-millbrae. i picked up 15 pounds of pork spare ribs and had the butcher trim them down to st. louis cut ribs, which basically means the ribs are cut at a natural joint, resulting in a nice, squared off rack. observe the 15 pound bag of sad pig:

rubbing
prep is certainly one of my fav parts of cooking and good bbq requires lots of prep. first, the membrane on the bone side of the racks was, quite painstakingly, removed with a knife, some pliers and a pirate ship full of cursing. after the membrane removal, spices were gathered and measured in accordance with the "memphis dust" rub recipe. please notice the sierra nevada bottle standing guard, making sure that i was happy and adding love to every last grain of preparation. once the "dust" was mixed, tasted and ready to rock, the ribs were given a good rub with the dust, wrapped up in ziplock bags, and put to rest in the fridge for the next 24 hours. at this point my ocd and love of prep had kicked in and i snapped a few photos:

smoking
i have very little photographic evidence of this stage, but it was by far the most surprising and the most fun. in a massive show of self control (one of three in my life) i managed to not party too hard the night before with the very same friends whose parties typically leave me in a semi-vegetative state for at least a day. instead i came home early, got a good night's rest, and was up at 9am to get smokin'.

i wanted to eat at 3pm, assumed a 5 hour cook, and figured on an hour to prepare. although the prep took a bit longer than i thought, was able to stabalize the smoker at 230 degrees F or so. throughout the cook, when the temp started creeping up i would just open the door to cool things down a bit. i loaded up the wood chip pan with hickory (because i couldn't find apple) wood and by 10:30 am, the smoker was pumping out a beautiful, fragrant, plume of smoke. holy crap. see the photo above for the glorious sight that has certainly changed my life. i don't know what i was expecting, but seeing that smoke, knowing that it really is that easy, sent me to cloud nine. or cloud hickory. whatever.

the ribs had been out of the fridge, coming to room temp of course, and in they went. 10:30am on the nose. a couple victory swigs of the Glenfiddich were in high order so swigged away did i. some friends had joined the party at this point, and all kinds of other prep was under way. however i never got very far from the smoker and probably checked the temp every 15 minutes. after about an hour i could no longer resist the urge to take a look. so i did.

dear god it was beautiful. there was melted fat dripping ever so slowly and the spice rubbed ribs were glistening with brilliance. there were beautiful, pitch black splotches here and there along the bottom edges of the racks. and the smell was out of this world. i let the smoke go for another 30 minutes, for a total of about 1.5 hours of smoke, and then took out the wood. (a bit longer than i read, but shorter than my more experienced neighbor recommended.)

more victory swigs.

3 hours into the cook and it was time for the "texas crutch," which is a means for infusing a bit of flavor, tenderness and moisture back into the ribs. i pulled out the racks and wrapped them in foil pouches with about a cup of apple juice per pouch. the pouches were put back into the cook for an hour and then removed again. the ribs were then returned, sans crutch, to the smoker for the final 40 minutes of cooking. at almost exactly 4 hours and 40 minutes, i grabbed my tongs, took a rack lengthwise with the tong tips about half way up the rack and gave it a little bounce. the surface cracked ever so gently and the meat just under the surface looked moist and succulent. victory.

saucing
the final step was at hand. i removed the racks from teh smoker, cranked up the grill to high and painted my hand made bbq sauce onto the racks. the racks then got "sizzled" on the hot grill and basted a few times with more sauce. sadly, i "sizzled" a bit too long and made the surface of the racks more dry that i wanted. next time i think 4-5 minutes per side, just to crust up the sauce, would be more than sufficient.

and that was that. i cut the ribs into single ribs and the party loved 'em. i was pretty proud for my first attempt. bummed i only got the final parting photo. but hey, at least, if you look really close, you can see a bit of the prized pink smoke ring. victory indeed...

Roasting in the City...

ah bachelor life. i am not saying i miss it. i don't. i'm just enjoying the bit of it that is flying by me like a cloud. presently, as i have been for the past 4 days, i'm staying at hedda and leonard's place in japan town. it was crab night upon my arrival on tuesday. if there's one thing, and trust me, there are many, many more, that hedda knows well it's crab dinner. you see, she loves crab. and, i've been told, that our crabbing season is simply "the bers:" september, october, november (, december? i don't know, i can't recall having crab in the christmas season...). today's date, october ninth, puts us square in the middle of that glorious season, that yearly gift of culinary bliss: crab dinner season! sadly, overcome with joy, frenzy, shell cracking, i failed to take any photographs what-so-ever. oh, but did i mention the treasure hiding in the fridge? the oxtail marinating in love (wine, herbs, vegetables)? no? well, allow me to explain the three day love affair between us and the oxtails.

day one
using the "pot au feu" recipe in the french laundry cookbook as our guide, we set out marinating oxtail, rather than short ribs, overnight. and by we, i mean hedda. good lookin' out girl, good lookin out...

day two
(ok, at this point im just diving into the cooking) we separate out the meat, the marinade and the vegetables in preparation. this night's plan was to: 1) brown the oxtail, 2) clarify the marinade and cook the oxtail and 3) make pasta for dinner. everything swent swimmingly and thus we have steve and leonard enjoying a few beers along with the pasta.

but, first of course, was browning the oxtail. the marinade was separated from the vegetables and the oxtail. the oxtail, once seasoned, were browned in oil and placed in the le crueset. quickly sauteed, and, i think it is important to note, seasoned, vegetables followed. while all of that was happening, the marinade was bubbling away, being skimmed, painstakingly, every few minutes. repetitive, focused little motions, steps, tasks... i find a lot of comfort in that, so i skimmed and skimmed and skimmed for about an hour. when the oxtail and vegetables were both settled in for a long, slow boiling, we added the clarified marinade and enough stock to cover.

up to a boil over medium heat, certainly not in a rush here, and then into the oven.

after somewhere just shy of five hours, maybe four, the oxtail was tender and the sauce seasoned. that was the end of the cooking for the oxtail that day. off the heat more skimming occurred, and, after hours, the pot was put in the fridge for the night.

day three
sadly, leonard had to work late, or normal relative to his schedule. so hedda and i did some shopping at molly stones to pick up potatos and celery root, aka celeriac to serve with the oxtail. i won't get into the details, but that little trip to molly stone's turned into a very amusing, very quirky, trip that included the phrases: "only king of potatos, oh i know all about THOSE kind of friends, no - he's my best friend's husband, and i like chinese girls too." complete whackyness.

at home, the cooking commenced. the potatos and celeriac were peeled, chopped, covered with water and brough to a boil. after scrapping up and tossing the fat that had risen to the surface, the oxtail pot was returned to the stovetop to warm up over a medium heat. once the liquid in the pot had melted, out came the oxtail and vegetable - oxtail into a big container in a warm oven, vegetables into the garbage. the remaining sauce was then reduced over heat for about 20 minutes. and guess what, it was skimmed almost constantly. once reduced to a sauce consistency, it was seasoned to taste.

this resulted in the three primary components: meltingly tender oxtail, a very strong, red wine based sauce, and boiled potatos and celeriac. the potatos and cleriac were mashed with about 15 pounds of butter and quart of cream (and yes, that's an exageration) into a smooth and creamy consistency. i'd like to point out that leonard, who was home at that point, couldn't find the potato masher so i, brimming to the gills with liquid courage, took after mashing those potatos and celeriac with two wooden spoons and a loud "hell yea!"

and that just about did it. we plated, we served and...

sadly the photo just doesn't do it justice. we were really, really proud of this one. the oxtail was tender, the sauce savory and the mash nicely creamy. not only that, but we had a lot of fun cooking, as usual.

so that's it. through the haze of good times, my four day roast in the city that i love, with the friends that i love, doing the things that i love, missing the ones that i love. cheers...

Lonely App and Dessert

Ack, need more words here... Main point is that the braised oxtails Hedda made were so tastey that no photographs were taken. The appetizer and dessert were both good tood, and here's the photos:

Gnocchi 3 Ways and Osso Bucco

Ah the adventures... 4 pounds of veal shanks, hand made gnocchi and the opportunity to obsessibly chop veg. Dig.

Japanese Poser Plate (and the 6th Grade)

this past may, babe and i had the pleasure of juliet, jennifer and baby maddison visiting from vancouver. juliet and jennifer, twin sisters, are two of alisa's oldest friends. juliet's lovely daughter maddison, is just a few months older than lucas. the visit was a blast and i got to cook dinner for one of the evenings. the twins, rockin' chicks as they are, love their steaks rare. that being the case, and since i live but to serve, rare steaks were served...




so what's up with the poser plate you ask? do you even remember the word poser? the word, like an old familiar tune, ringing just barely in earshot, takes me back to a sweetly simple time. 1986. sixth grade. we were rockin' the long bangs and, like 11 year olds with turrets, we would shake our heads in vain attempts to get those long bangs out of our faces. we were blooming idiots, by which i mean idiots that were blooming, eyes peeled open by the wonders of a world that was bigger, grander and, most importantly, ours for the taking. lead fearlessly by devious older brothers, we were learning about rock music, the glorious fact that girls weren't actually "grodey," nor did they have cooties, and those crazy, pioneering lords of the skating world: caballero, hawk, mountain. the list goes on. skating was it, it was the bangs in our faces, the sweet ass vans shoes with skulls, the sure fire way to come home every day with bloody knees.

it was the line between the glory of truth and the shame of being a poser. posers were the ones who talked the talk but couldn't ollie the curb at full speed.

ah, good days. hence the title of this post. my plate, with the carefully placed pile of spinach, chopped in ribbons, tossed with a fresh white balsamic and fresh peach vinaigrette and topped with seasame seeds, the four squares of firm tofu, glazed with a miso, mirin and sugar reduction and broiled, and the two (not one or three) tempura prawns, doused in mayo, soy and sugar, was a poser. it was a pretty good poser though, not only lookin quasi-japanese in organization and precision, but tasting fairly good as well. do you ever get raw spinach at a japanese restaurant? rarely. peach dressing? i've never. well, cest la vie. the guests were happy and, bonus, i got to trip myself down memory lane...

Salmon Burgers, Apple Pepper Slaw, Out of Focus

this'll be a quicky, just a few shots of some salmon burgers with and apple and red bell pepper slaw made some night last week.

the slaw was made with julienned fuji apples and a red bell pepper. on the good advice of my good friend myra, i picked up a japanese veggie slicer and love it. anything sliced with the apparent precision of a julienne just looks cool to me. (and yes, i realize my next challenge is to julienne by hand! man, if that doesn't sound like a time suck that i'll enjoy greatly.) the dressing: mayo, sugar, mustard and some rice vinegar.

the burgers are salmon, celery, parsely and chives. all in all, simple good stuff. wow, what a boring post.

Risotto, u confound me...

it all seems so simple - melt butter, sautee onions until translucent, add rice for 2-3 mins until faintly toasty, add wine until evaporated, then add heated stock, 1 cup at a time, letting each cup get completely absorbed before adding the next. stir constantly. stop when risotto is creamy but still al dente, or "toothy" in the middle of the grain.

this should leave you with risotto - creamy, saucy rice basically. well, it does, but damn, doing it is waaaaay different than doing it well! i've tried dozens of times and am only now getting close to a good risotto.

first and foremost, use a wide sautee pan - i tried like 10 times with a deep stock pot before finally realizing that was not the way to go. (ok, recipe's often don't specify the cooking vessel, and when they do, i often don't recognize which is which. i had to see someone making it on a cooking show before realizing my mistake. lame. not at all suprising.) second, be patient and keep stirring. trying to speed things along does not a good risotto make.

anyways, these days i'm fairly happy and have become unconfounded. here's the mise en place and the finished product: musroom risotto and orange-rosemary grilled lamb chops.

DAF... Done and done.

like the oh so great chocolate, another DAF has gone by, and the success is bitter sweat. the normal players were present - Aurthur and Elaine, Leslie and Kelvin, Hedda and Leonard - as well as a special canadian guest, alisa's childhood friend Virginia. foxy wife decked the house out in fine style, adorning our table with a beautful setting of mandarin oranges and hand made menus. amidst the sweet smell of blooming birthday roses, my biggest endevor ufolded, itself blooming, and took on a life of it's own. and this night saw and added touch of joy, which, like that perfect pinch of salt, flavored the whole evening - we were celebrating alisa's birthday!

this DAF also featured another unique addition: a blind tasting wine contest. the rule was $25 max bottles. the tasting was fun and i'll write up the details in my next post... stay tuned.

babe's beautiful table setting

amuse bouche ~ lobster pops

first course ~ crab salad and avocado

second course ~ corn chowder

third course ~ scallops and citrus sauce

fourth course ~ sea bass, beniimo salt al cartoccio

fifth course ~ game hen, polenta cakes, carmelized onions

sixth course ~ sierra nevada braised short ribs, fingerling potato coins

about the food
amuse bouche ~ lobster pops
first up were the lobster pops. i had planned on serving a toasted bread box filled with brie and topped with a meyer lemon marmalade, but when i tested the recipe i found out that i am absolutely incapable of making a good marmalade. (that in itself is just a challenge really 'cause considering there's like 4 ingredients, it shouldn't be all that hard). anyways, if no bread box, then what?

well, inspiration strikes where you least expect it: las vegas. foxy wife went to vegas (baby!) for a bachelorette. they ate at Sea Blue and were served lobster corndogs. how deliciously haute country cuisine. i had to bite on that idea, and bite i did. seemed to me that a corndog tastes mostly like the cornmeal based batter and would probably mask the sweetness of the lobster. on went my little little culinary thinking cap - quite obviously the very first sign of trouble - and out popped the above mentioned tempura lobster pops. genius i thought - tempura batter, properly executed, is so light and subtle that it would surely add only a cripy texture to the golfball size chunks of lobster it was to coat.

well properly executed was the first problem ~ i followed what i thought was a fairly standard tempura recipe: corn flour, flour, ice cold water and egg. i even went so far as to chill the flour mixture in the freezer to ensure cold ingredients! regardless, the batter was waaaaayyyyy too heavy resulting in exactly what i was trying to avoid - lobster pieces lost in a mouthful of thick, crunchy fried batter. the second problem was just the rookiest of the rookie manuevers - i forgot to season the lobster. ack. there. i said it.

ah well, the idea is still solid ~ the pops themselves were fried nicely, the lobster was tender and moist and delicious. they were served with lemon wedges and fried basil. next time i go "mano y mano" with the lobster pops, ill season the little bastards liberally and follow the french laundry's tempura recipe (which includes baking soda and sparling water), and, dear friends, i'll be victorious. oh, and i hope you are there to try them out...

second course ~ corn chowder
nothing to say here except that corn and crab fritters were intended to join the perfectly-fine-but-not-interesting soup. only the fritters never made it to the party. i was told they forgot their baking soda and didn't have time to go back home and pick it up. subsequently they disintegrated in hot oil, pissed me off, and skipped out on dinner. oh well, onward...

third course ~ scallops and citrus sauce
so for this dish, i guess i need to link back to the originator? i'm not really sure how that works. anyway, babe and i ate at a joint called The House in the city and Chef Tse's dish formed the foundation for this one. Seared scallops, micro-green salad, and some sort of citrus sauce that was smooth, silky and sweet.

I have no idea what was in his version, but my sauce (served from a squeeze bottle in a funky shape - boo ya) was basically a lemon juice vinaigrette of lemon juice, white balsamic, and olive oil, enhanced with this really kick ass pomegranate syrup i found at a little middle eastern market. the syrup is incredible - super concentrated pomegranate flavor that somehow has all the sweetness leeched out so that you can control the sweetness level yourself. then the lemon-pomegranate vinaigrette was mounted with butter (again, you must be shocked) and sweetened with honey to form what i think was a nicely balanced, smooth and tangy sauce that brightened up the tender scallops. one last touch that was small but important to me, was the addition of a pinch of fluer de sel and a thyme sprig tip to each scallop. when consumed together, the salt cut the sweetness slightly and, right at the end, the thyme imparted a floral freshness, thus keeping the whole bite almost refreshing. (holy crap, that little tirade, although absolutely true and my honest thoughts, is worth a post of its own. seriously, who the hell do i think i am, haha...)

plating wise, well, i'm proud gosh darnit! why can't i use a squeeze bottle, a rectangular plate, and the rule of thirds to compose a dish that looks better than it tastes?!?

fourth course ~ sea bass, beniimo salt al cartoccio
check it: baking in paper rocks. baking the tastiest fish in the ocean in paper rocks squared. baking the tastiest fish in the ocean in paper seasoned with beniimo salt that your dear friends brought you all the way from japan rocked the house d-0-w-n. super, super simple. julienned red bell pepper and carrots, a nice hunk of sea bass, thyme (again) and the beniimo salt are assembled in an envelope of parchment paper and baked for 9 mins at 500. bam. done.

so the beniimo salt. comes from beni imo, or Okinawan sweet potatos. the dried, minced sweet potatos are mixed with salt and just float around like little bits of purple haze. when added to the fish, their color bleeds, creating little purple patches on the fish. topped with the thyme, the colors blended beautifully - from bottom to top: red and orange, white, purple and green. it was a straight tie-dye dish... the hippie in me smiled big.

fifth course ~ game hen, polenta cakes, carmelized onions
this dish was covered pretty well in my post about the sauce so i'm not going to get into the food per se. i do, however, want to take a moment to talk about the mad respect i have for the organizational genius it must take to run a real deal restaurant. my dish included a stock based sauce, sauteed game hens, sauteed polenta cakes and carmelized shallots. that's 4 little items.

yea, it took me several hours spread over 2 days of cooking to put this one together.

this innocent looking little dish was, however, my biggest organizational success and a very potent reinforcement of the value and efficiency of good prepping and organization. day 1 consisted of butchering the hens, separating out the legs that were to be used for the dish, and making the sauce with the freshly harvested carcasses. while the carcasses roasted with some carrots, onions, celery and garlic, i made the polenta (which, by the way, got a great flavor spike by adding crushed garlic to the stock that was simmered prior to adding the corn meal ~ thanks again french laundry cookbook!). the polenta finished cooking and went into a sheetpan to cool while the carcasses came out of the oven and went on to the stovetop. the sauce was made on the stovetop and then set aside to cool along with the polenta. finally rounds were cut from the sheet of polenta and everything - the sauce, the hen legs and the polenta rounds - went into the fridge, ready for the next day.

day 2 started with seasoning the legs and carmelizing the shallots, hours before dinner. then, come time for this course, all i had to do was sautee the legs and the polenta rounds, pull them and keep them warm while the sauce was finished in the pan used to sautee the legs. lastly, assembly of all the completed pieces and voila - the course was cooked and served in 15 minutes! this may not sound all that impressive, but considering we were five courses in, i had been cooking for like 9 hours at this point, and i HADN'T GOTTEN DRUNK YET, time was certainly of the essence. all the prep meant that i got to start drinking that much faster once dinner service was complete. need i say more?

sixth course ~ sierra nevads braised short ribs, fingerling potato coins
i, along with thousands, nay, millions, have said it before: slow cooked meat rocks. and, as you know, beer is considered to be the 8th wonder of the world at Chez Berliner's. so the two of them together is just fine by us. this is the third time i've served it and everyone always loves it. but i'm getting tired of it so this is the official swan song of the sierra nevada braised short ribs! adios tasty ribs...

well, there you have it. more than you ever wanted to know about this round of DAF. on the whole i'm really pleased. 6 courses plus an appy pulled off with no stress - well, very little stress - and another great night. best part was that i didn't get wasted until AFTER dinner so hey, success!

Gastrique!

Gatrique's rock. Super potent, very pretty on the plate and super easy to do! This one was sugar, vinegar and apple flavored tea. Mix, reduce and use... The chicken was pan seared and steamed thigh over fingerling potato and parmesan mash. Bit of thyme has been going with everything lately - not sure why, just obsessed with thyme.

Oh, and regarding the pan seared/steamed thing, I found, quite by accident, that covering chicken while sauteeing it, which adds the "steam" part of the equation, really made for tender and juicy chicken. I only figured it out because I was trying to keep the damn oil from popping all over the place. Lucky discovery!

DAF, T-Minus 17 Days!

the prep has begun. once again, poor foxy wife has had to cope with maniacle murmers, inaudible mubles of culinary mayhem in preparation, and of course, me, being really, really annoying. i've got a menu planned, and, thanks to our craptacular economy, a spreadsheet listing each item and it's cost so as not to get out of hand in my desparate attempt to impart all my love of cooking, like an intravenous shot of dopamine, unto my guests in the form of dining pleasure.

this one will prove to be an excersize in organization and preparation. the menu includes an amuse bouche (heh, that will never not make me laugh) and six full, alibiet small, courses. Dinner's at 4pm on saturday and I don't get off work until 5pm friday, which leaves me just under 24 hours to shop, prep, cook, plate and serve. there's a little voice in my head that, along with babe, is telling me that i've bit off too much, that i'm marching up too big a hill, but i say "bah! i can do it..."

best part is, we're hosting a wine tasting competition along with dinner, based loosely on Chateau Montelena's '73 Chardonay's famous victory in 1976 in Paris. i'm guessing i could serve 2 of the 6 courses an no one would even notice!

i'll share more of the planning after dinner so as not to spoil the suprise in the event that one of my guests happens to read this.

Six Courses at Chez Berliner's

the players

picture the scene: two dear friends visiting from canada, Babe, 9 months pregnant with Lucas, a chill to the air outside... what else is there to do but to go big and have an intimate dinner party? first up, the players: me and Babe (and, technically, Lucas), Myra, friend, co-host, chef, Maurice, guest and photographer, and Anita, guest. observe:

the dinner soirée
this is my cooking blog so i'm just going right to the food. and there was lots of it. as usual, babe set the mood with her beautiful decorating ~ sort of an enchanted winter dinner party feel. dinner, 2 days in the making, took 3 hours to consume, which was really rewarding... felt very european as a matter of fact, with a laxidasical pace, endless conversation, free flowing wine and, of course, the food. when the last drop of mango sauce was licked from the beautiful dessert dish, maurice looked at his watch and exclaimed, "holy, it's 11pm!"

come to think of it, "rewarding" isn't strong enough ~ it was downright invigorating! as noted in an earlier post on Why I Love This..., it's in the combination of food and friends, exhibition and glory (or not sometimes!), and, of course, butter, that i find so much pleasure. and this night, this dinner that slipped 3 hours out from under us without shaking a glass, this experience was a savory hallmark in what i hope will be a lifetime of such events...

~

the enchanted table

a la foxy wife

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amuse bouche

gruyeré cheese gougers

~

first course

butter nut squash soup

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second course

dungeness crab salad, mixed greens, pomegranate dressing

~

third course

sweet potatoe agnolotti, curry emulsion sauce

~

fourth course

seared halibut, broccoli rabe, citrus vanilla buerre blanc

~

fifth course

sierra nevada pale ale braised short ribs, fingerling potato coins

~

sixth course

vanilla bean panecotta, mango compote, homemade pistachio biscotti

so there you have it, six courses at chez berliner's courtesy of todd and myra. you can find the complete album of Maurice's Fabulous Photos on, again you guessed it, facebook. in case you're not cool enough (i kid) to see his photos, here's the gist of the food shots. oh, and hey, don't feel bad, i had to make a six course meal to get access to these photos (again, i kid)!