May 5 . 2004
They said I was mad until they tasted it

I bet you think you know how to make mashed potatoes. So did I. And then I found out how to make mashed potatoes.

SCIENCE!

Dig this: Take a couple of potatoes, enough to feed you. So, like... three. Some nice yellow-flesh, medium starch, thin-skinned lovelies like Yukon Golds or Estimas or actually even some nice reds would work nice.

Peel them. Cut them into slices about a half-inch thick. You know the rules: surface area inversely proportional to cooking time, yeah? And with something starchy, you never want to overcook things, unless you like to eat paste. Which some people do, and I'm not knocking that. I prefer to put wallpaper up with it, but hey.

So take your potato slices and boil them up in (and here's where you can tell there is SCIENCE! involved...) 160F water for half an hour. Trust I.

Once you've done that, get them off the heat, out of the hot water, and cool them fast. This lets the starch go all retrogrady. Keeps it from getting all over the place, making that icky froth, making yer spuds all glue. Run cold water over the slices to cool them, think of it like blanching, yeah?

Now cook them again. Gentle simmer, 180F, thirty minutes. Yes, I know I said I'd talk about simmer, but give me a break. It's not even a new day yet.

After a half hour in the second cook, get them off, drain them, let them dry and cool down. They will get all weird looking. This is good.

Now mash them. Please use one of the S-shaped things, not one of the discs with holes in... those things are atrocious. You don't want to press the potatoes. Add salt, white pepper (so no black flakeys), soft butter, and a little milk to get it to the consistency you need.

Seriously. Best mash ever.

May 4 . 2004
The very definition of simple

Don't be afraid of baking. It's true that baking requires a fair amount of precision, and that operating on pure instinct, nose, and tastebuds isn't likely to get you anything nicer than plasticene unless you're a very experienced baker (which I am so not), but there's still no reason to be intimidated. There are some simple rules and tips that I'm slowly figuring out, but so far the best stuff seems to be the easiest.

Thing I learned most recently: Don't put your damned eggs in the fridge. If you have to put your eggs in the fridge because they'll go bad before you finish them, then don't buy so many goddamned eggs. Or eat them faster. Choose one and stick with it. But when you can buy eggs by the half-dozen, buying twelve and throwing three or four away is just stupidness. Eggs, fruit, vegetables. Keep them out of the fridge, please. Things taste better that way, anyhow.

But with eggs, it is more important. Warm eggs blend better, they cook better, they taste better.

Anyway, where was I?

Oho... yeah... Do this:

You're going to want a third of a cup of lemon juice. Depending on how good the lemons you can get are, that's likely about a whole lemon, maybe one and a half. Best way I've found to get maximum juice out of a citrus fruit is a) make sure it's warm -- or at least not cold, b) roll and squeeze it around a while, c) either use a fork as a ripper while you juice or just dig your fingernails in and eviscerate that lemon until you can turn the peel inside out. People seem to be all squeamish about getting dirty when they cook, they don't like to dig fingers in, tear out the seeds from peppers, drive thumbs into lettuce. It's all knives and skewers with some people, and I don't think they understand what they're doing.

Anyway... a third of a cup of fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Three eggs and another egg yolk. Half a cup of sugar, half a cup of unsalted butter (cut it into pieces so it mixes fast and smooth). Get that all into a bowl and whisk it all up nicely nice. Add a teaspoon of lemon zest. Get a pot of water simmering away (one day I'll get into the difference between simmering and not simmering, because it seems a lot of times people don't get that one -- fair enough, no one ever talks about it) and do the double-boiler trick I told you about before... Bowl with lemon juice, butter, etc sitting on top of a simmering pot of water. Keeps it warm, helps that butter and sugar dissolve, but not hot enough to cook the eggs. You don't want lemony scrambled eggs, here.

Whisk steady but gentle until you get thick, creamy lemon curd (because that's what you've just made). It'll take around 10 or 15 minutes. When it's done, bung it in the fridge to chill down. Put cling wrap directly on the curd surface to avoid a skin forming.

So.

Now you take some ramekins (how I love ramekins) and you butter the sides. Then dust all over with sugar. That's a great thing to do ... when I make chocolate lava cakes I dust the ramekins with mint chocolate powder, so delicious. Put a bit of parchment on the bottom of the ramekins if you have it, but I don't have it so I just make sure it's very well buttered and sugared. It still runs the risk of sticking, but generally if you let things cool properly and are careful getting them out, you won't disfigure the result too harshly. And anyway, that's what sauce is for: hiding the blemishes.

Ramekins greased and sugared, oven getting ready for 350 degree hotness.

You've got warm eggs, right? You put the eggs in some warm water or something, didn't you? Because I KNOW you had them in your fridge, even though I said don't. But you didn't listen to me, nooooo. You know best, don't you? Warm up your goddamned eggs and get the other ones out of the fridge, please. You will thank me. I have never lied to you yet.

So, whip three eggs and a half cup of sugar until it's all pale and frothy. Best you do this with a mixer, but if you don't mind doing it by hand it's just the same. Just a lot more tiring and takes a fair bit longer. With a machine, it's going to take ten or fifteen minutes, so imagine what it's going to do to your wrist. Personally, I do it by hand, because I don't have what you'd call Smarts.

When that's all nice, put a half cup of all-purpose flour, a quarter teaspoon of baking powder, and a quarter teaspoon of salt (okay, a BIT OF BAKING POWDER AND A BIT OF SALT, but you know how people get... they want specificity, and this IS baking, so I will oblige) into a bowl, and then sift it through into another bowl. Sifting is important: It aerates the dry ingredients, giving added fluff and ease of mix, and it gets shot of nasty lumps.

Now put a half teaspoon of vanilla extract, a teaspoon of lemon zest, and two teaspoons of lemon juice into a quarter cup of melted butter (unsalted, yes)

Put the mixer on low (or just do your best by hand) and slowly add the dry ingredients, bit by bit, mixing thoroughly. When that's done, add the butter mix.

Okay, here's a tip: Instead of just adding the butter mix to the batter, add some of the batter to the butter mix first, then add the butter batter mix slowly to the rest of the batter. It's going to mix better if you temper the butter, it won't all sit at the bottom of the bowl. Butter batter better.

So add the everything up together and mixy mix until blended nice. Then put it in the ramekins, but leave about a half-inch at the top (it will grow while cooking) and blob a big glob of the lemon curd in the middle.

20 -25 minutes in the oven, and it should go nicely gold and spring a bit when you poke it. That means it's done.

Turn the ramekins out when they've cooled a bit, dust with icing sugar, pipe a bit of the remaining lemon curd next to it. Sprinkle some blackberries.

Simple like pie, yes?

Eat it.

Apr 11 . 2004
BEWARE: Cookerman at WORK

If anyone around here realises that I have decided to burn off my frustration and anger at the world at large by losing myself in the soothing embrace of the kitchen, I'm doomed. They will conspire to irritate me day and night in order to keep the yummies flowing.

Do this, and feel good about life:

Get a pie dish or something similar. I don't have a saucepan with an oven-proof handle, so I would have to use a pyrex dish or something... Just make sure it'll stand up to 400 degrees in the oven and that it's fairly deepish. Put a couple of dozen unpeeled pearl onions in there and drizzle them over with a bit of olive oil. I am blessed with a bottle of organic extra-virgin olive oil from Puglia. It's incredible stuff. The better your ingredients, the better your food. Mmmmm... It's good enough to drink.

Cover the pie plate with foil, and pop the onions into a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes until they've softened right up and started to caramelise a bit. Much as I'd love to just start eating them right now (mmm baked onions are the best things), I have bigger plans for these little deliciousnesses. Err... YOU have bigger plans for them.

Let them cool down a little, then cut they bums off. Snippy snip. Squeeze gentle, and the insides come out all nice as you please, just like roast garlic. Put them aside for a second. Don't eat them.

Mince up a couple of tablespoons of shallots (mmm shallots) and melt a teaspoon or so (who measures butter? PUT A SMALL GLOB OF BUTTER IN THE PAN) of butter in a skillet, then add the shallots to it. Sauté for a bit on a medium heat, maybe two minutes or so, until things get softly soft. Pour a half a cup of a nice dry red wine in there, and crank the heat up high. Again with the ingredients: Don't cook with wine you wouldn't drink... Please. Ideally you want to be able to serve the same wine you cooked with as a drink with the meal, for great callback flavour.

Let the butter / shallot / wine mix reduce to a fairly thick glaze... Think beurre blanc, only rouge and thicker.

Monter au beurre by turning the heat off and melting a couple tablespoons more butter into it. Usually best to do the butter a bit at a time, yeah? Pour it all into a bowl and add a bit of parsley, salt, and pepper. Now leave it alone. If it starts to harden up (it shouldn't, but you could live in a snowbank for all I know) you can put the bowl over a pot o boiling water -- improvised double-boiler effect.

Couple tablespoons of delicious olive oil in another (heavy) skillet, and heat heat until it's searing hot. While that's heating, take some center-cut skinless salmon fillets and press fine-chopped parsley and thyme on them as a seasoning before wrapping them in three slices of pancetta each. Then drop them gentle into the searing pan and turn them occasionally until the pancetta is nicely browned. Careful not to muck it all up... salmon can get flaky.

While that's doing, a tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet brought up high waits for a few cups of baby spinach to wilt in it. Toss in the spinach, season with salt and pepper, and stir it about a bit to get it nicely coated and wilty. Then pour the pearl onions in there, too.

Check the salmon... You want it medium rare and lovely browned crispy pancetta. Pull the fillets out and sit them on a paper towel for a bit to dry a bit.

Plate the onions / spinach, cut the salmon fillets diagonally into nice slices, drizzle them over with the red wine butter.

Eat.

After you've finished, remember it was my anger that brought you this joy. And don't get any ideas about pissing me off just to get more food... Besides, I'm far more likely to tell you more recipes and such if you send me a picture of something I've never seen before.

And I have seen a monkey bathe a kitten in a sink, so that one's out.

Mar 25 . 2004
You Know I'll Never Steer You Wrong

Do this and be happy:

Drop three egg yolks (save the whites separately), half a cup of sugar, and a little dash of vanilla extract into a bowl. Lord knows I'd love to have actual vanilla beans, but we takes what we can gets. Whisk whisk whisk until you have a nice thick going on. Then put two teaspoons of melted butter, 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk, and about a tablespoon of lemon zest. In a different bowl, assemble the dry team (no, sugar is considered a wet ingredient, don't get smart with me) which consists of 1 3/4 cups of flour (all-purpose), a teaspoon of baking powder, and a half-teaspoon of cinnamon. Mix all the dry stuff up nicely and whisk it into the wet team.

Then get the egg whites and a pinchie of salt, and whip that until the egg whites get to stiff peak. Fold the egg whites into the buttermilk mix (best way: fold a third of the eggs in, then the rest... fast and soft).

Then, and here's the first genius bit, get yourself a few ramekins -- this amount of ingredients should do about 6 of them -- and distribute 2 cups of blackberries between them. Mmmm blackberries. I can eat blackberries until I am sick. And then I can eat some more. But yeah... Dry and wet combined, blackberries in ramekins.

Spoon the mixture into the ramekins (Lord how I love ramekins... I think it's also because I feel so damned l33t using them in a waterbath to bake, which you will do soon, so prepare to feel l33t) and put them in a roasting pan, pour boily water into the pan until it's halfway up the ramekins (see? don't you feel l33t?) and then cover the whole dealy with some plastic wrap. Then foil.

Oven at 375° already, jam them in for 35 or 40 minutes. You'll know they're done because they'll be springy when you press them.

Get them out of the oven and out of the water bath. Careful for the hot. Leave them somewhere to cool while you do the second bit of genius.

Get a saucepan, medium heat, and mix up 1/3rd of a cup of sugar, a tablespoon of cornstarch for great thickening, juice of half a decent sized orange and about half a lemon, another 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk, an egg yolk, a tablespoon of the orange zest, and stir with a wooden spoon please until it is thick and smooth.

When the sauce is all warm and thick (you can tell when it's ready because it coats the spoon nicely... should be about 4 or 5 minutes) strain it through a sieve so you get all the zest and whatnot out of it. Then hahaha monter au beurre... cheapest trick in the book, but oh so vital to the wonderfulness of things I cook: teaspoon of butter stirred into the warm sauce. Put it in the fridge to get cooly cool until you serve it up.

Now that the ramekins are cool, slip the knife round the inside and turn them out onto plates. Dollop some of the orange buttermilk sauce on them, and eat your freshly-built steamed blackberry puddings with your orange buttermilk sauce.

You're welcome.

Feb 22 . 2004
I need this blood to survive.

Accidentally made a hell of a sauce tonight while I cooked my well-loved pork tenderloin. My mum managed to spend more than two decades cooking for such a horde, and every time I cook for the entire clan I get a lot more edgy than she does.

Well... That's mostly dad's fault. He and I are both big lads, and it's difficult for us to stay off each others' toes. Plus he keeps MOVING THINGS ON ME while I'm USING THEM. Grrr. Not safe for us to be in the same kitchen with all those knives and blunt objects, sometimes.

But mum is small, and efficient. And I was telling the story of the sauce...

Eight people's worth of butterflied pork tenderloin. Normally when I cook for the army I am in the sacred space with the barbeque. No one is allowed at that end of the balcony while I cook. I scowl and I wave things fiercely, and I say things like "OI! GET OUT OR YOU DON'T EAT ANY OF IT!" And I say that to the dogs as well... They like to try to sniff the barbeque, and I'm sick of trying to explain about heat and the burnability of a mastiff's nose -- so I resort to breaking it down into concepts they understand: Bugger off or you get none.

But it is February, and it is Canada, and therefore there is no barbeque. The kitchen and all of its inherent obstacles was today's arena. And dad was relegated to the library with the wine, the CD player playing T-Rex and The Jam, and my brother and his girlfriend. For great justice.

So I rub the beautiful meat down with a combination of cayenne, ginger, thyme, and a little sage. I have no idea why people think sage is basically only any good on poultry... It's brilliant on pork tenderloin. Kinda gives it that musty smokey taste, goes great with citrus. Which is where I was taking these porks.

Rub 'em down, let 'em sit a while. I get out my beautiful Wusthof santoku knife and julienne a red pepper. Then choppa choppa onion (kick punch, it's all in the mind). Zest a lemon, juice it, and put things aside for a second.

I like to cook in such a way... I usually have a full station of little bowls with things in, ready to add when I want them. Parsley, juice, zest, garlic, chives, whatever. And God help anyone who monkeys with my mise en place. I have a big knife.

So I drop the porks one by one into a searing hot pan so I can quick-seal the outside, keep the juicy in while it bakes. While I sear, I let the Wusthof turn three gorgeous cloves of fresh garlic into slices so thin you can very nearly see through them. Have I mentioned that I love my santoku knife? A good tool makes a job turn out thousands of times better, and Wusthof is damned near the top of the line for knives, especially if what you want is an Oriental-style cleaver with a scalloped blade... Mmmmm...

So I sear up all the pork, which is where the sauce begins. I slip the meat onto oiled baking sheets and pop them into a 400 degree oven with the roast potatoes. Deglaze the pan with some of the white wine that's floating around, and all the bits and such float up, mix, and start the base. In go the onion and pepper to slowly braise a bit, caramelising and mingling so nice. Ease the garlic and lemon juice in, and let it reduce a while after I grind eight or so cranks of fresh black pepper and shake a bit of salt. Give it a while to get down to about half, then a bit of balsamic and chili sauce.

Meanwhile the pork is nearly ready, so I finish the sauce with about a half cup of water with cornstarch to thicken it up.

And it was delicious, especially with the pork.