Food Lab: Brewing

Confession time: this wasn't really a Food Lab. Mad Kitchen Scientist has been home brewing for more than 30 years and is, truly, expert at it. But I've never brewed beer, and wanted to at least learn what the process is, so this was more like a tutorial or demonstration than an actual lab.

Beer-brewing is conceptually simple:

• Crack the grain 
• Combine with warm water to form the "mash" 
• Cook the mash at a low temperature
• Strain the grain out of the mash water
• Add the "sparge" water to form the "wort"
• Add your other flavoring ingredients (hops, malt)
• Boil the wort
• Chill the wort QUICKLY 
• Strain the wort into your VERY VERY CLEAN fermentation container
• Add the yeast and a little more clean, cool water 
• Let the yeast do its job (aka ferment the beer)
• Bottle the beer

As Mad Kitchen Scientist is fond of reminding us, no known human pathogens can survive the brewing process (as long as you're careful not to introduce them in the fermentation and bottling), so beer is not only, per Ben Franklin, proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, it's also proof that She doesn't want us to die from drinking bad water, a major concern throughout much of human history. 

In fact, historically, beer tended to feature at every meal, even for children, due to the aforementioned water quality problem. Of course, those beers were not juiced to the high alcohol levels of today's imperial stouts (the beer we brewed this weekend), Belgian IPAs, and Scotch ales (or the even higher levels of speciality beers than can start to approach the proof of distilled spirits). Still, our forefathers - and foremothers - were likely rarely sober as judges. Of course, while alcohol abuse is very serious, it turns out the communities of tipsy apes do better than the communities of sober apes, and beer can be an excellent way to induce that cooperation and sense of bonding. So on to the brewing! For the good of our community of tool-using apes! 

If brewing is conceptually so simple, what's the deal with good versus bad homebrew, and the dizzying variety of beer options available? 

Recipes (and temperature control). And Mad Kitchen Scientist has been refining his for decades. 

The grain is primarily barley, but there are all different types of barleys for brewing at all different levels of roast.

Mad Kitchen Scientist's super-secret

Imperial Stout blend

Cracking the grain is cracking the grain - and it's a delightfully analog process.

The next stage at which the brewer really influences the product is in what you choose to add to the wort by way of hops (type, quantity) and malt or other sugars (same). This is also when you can get into experimenting with things like fruit beers or other flavors. 

Look at those pretty hops!

Once the wort is ready for fermentation, two things are VERY important:

• You need to chill your wort FAST
• Your carboy needs to be CLEAN (so does your filter and your airlock)

Mad Kitchen Scientist created a clever gizmo from copper tubing to cool the wort by plunging the coil of copper tubing into the wort, attaching one end to tubing that runs from the cold water tap and letting the water run out the other end back into the sink.

Clean carboy? Bleach solution, scrub scrub, rinse rinse rinse.

Then you filter the wort into the carboy, add the yeast and cool, clean water to fill, insert the airlock, and let those little guys get to work eating, digesting, and, per Alton Brown, farting, which is what creates the fermentation and, ultimately, the fizz.

Saturday was glorious, so we also smoked (and ate) a brisket and played with the dog. To drink? Homebrew that was already aged and ready to go, duh. 

Get to work, Yeast! 

How did Mad Kitchen Scientist's brewing expertise come to be? Well, it turns out, a little more than 30 years ago, he was housemates with his "Brew Daddy." Both of them were also competitive Ultimate Frisbee players, and their house was definitely the hip hangout for that crowd. Brew Daddy was already an accomplished brewer, he showed Mad Kitchen Scientist how to brew, and then it became a situation of iron sharpening iron as they inspired each other to up their game. It's been many years since they shared a living space, but, unsurprisingly, Mad Kitchen Scientist has continued down the path set all those years ago.

I will likely not start down that path - Chef Spouse doesn't drink beer, so I'd just be brewing for myself, and I already have a good source of homebrew at the ready - but I am glad to understand, conceptually, how to do it.

I'm also looking forward to cracking one of these babies at Mad Kitchen Scientist and The Executive Committee's resumed New Year's Eve house party later this year....

Food Lab: Under Pressure

In at least one way, Chef Spouse and I have had an unusual pandemic experience: We haven't bought much stuff for the house. We already both worked from home full time prior to the pandemic, so we didn't need any office set up items, and we had the athleisure wardrobe thing covered. We redid our yard a few years ago - new porch, new patio, nice yard furniture, landscaping - and it's too small to ensure six foot spacing between groups, so we weren't part of the run on outdoor heaters and electric lap blankets in the fall.

We've been doing our damndest to keep a few small vineyards we love in business, buying every time an allocation is released (SO MANY BOXES OF WINE IN THE BASEMENT right now), but other than that, there just really wasn't anything much we needed to comfortably hibernate. 

Well, almost. 

One of our ongoing Food Lab jokes is "no uni-taskers!" (with much love to Alton Brown)

We have exceptions, of course, and we give each other unending shit about them (Mad Kitchen Scientist's rice cooker, Chef Spouse's asparagus pot, etc.). 

It's all part of the fun, along with jokes about ramekins, exploding shrubs, flying chocolate, cleaning lobster off the ceiling, Mad Kitchen Scientist and me not being allowed to shop unsupervised, and me laying on the floor with Mad Kitchen Scientist and The Executive Committee's dog after our second Food Lab moaning: "ATE. TOO. MUCH. STEAK."

At Christmas 2018, Mad Kitchen Scientist turned in his rice cooker in favor of an Instant Pot. Out: one uni-tasker. In: one Instant Pot convert.

Chef Spouse, who never met a decision he couldn't research to the nth degree, has been pondering getting one ever since. Yes, that means he's spent more than two years dithering over a device that costs about $75. 

So we finally decided to test it out.

There are many potential uses of an Instant Pot, but it's really best suited to pressure cooker or steamer type applications. Mad Kitchen Scientist has mostly used it for beans and grains (rice, oatmeal), and making homemade yogurt.

We decided to test it with beans, kidney beans to be precise.

One batch, we prepared the traditional way: Soak overnight, stovetop cook.

The other batch went into the Instant Pot, no prior prep required.

One of the advantages touted for the Instant Pot is that it's faster. In this case, it wasn't - the stovetop beans were ready first. Then again, we had done a FULL 12 hour soak, and stovetop didn't beat the Pot by much.

But the real question is: Which were better?

There, it was the Pot, by a nose. Slightly creamier, and definitely much more consistent texture. Which you can see in the photo below - the stovetop beans are on the right, the Pot beans are on the left.

The other thing, of course, is that we ALL do the thing of planning to have a bean dish for dinner, forgetting to start soaking the beans the night before, and then either bagging it in favor of carry out or eating at 10 pm because it took that long for the beans to soften in whatever the planned dish was. In that, the Instant Pot is the CLEAR winner.

Now that we had all these beans, what were we going to do with them? Red beans & rice of course! 

We cooked the rice in the Instant Pot, with no stovetop comparison.

Per Mad Kitchen Scientist, the big rice cookery advantage of the Pot is seen in brown rice that takes half a lifetime on the stovetop and about 30 minutes in the Pot (including time to come up to and off pressure). The other big advantage is that, like a rice cooker, it can hold cooked rice at temperature without getting gluey for an extended period of time. 

We also made some mango sticky rice for dessert.

That is traditional sweet rice - the reason it's light brown is that we cooked it in coconut milk with a little palm sugar (rather than white sugar).

We had talked about Labbing stock making, stovetop versus traditional pressure cooker versus Instant Pot, but we quickly realized that was pointless: Why would one ever make only 3-4 quarts of stock? That's just silly.

Verdict? Pretty sure Chef Spouse is going to be getting an Instant Pot, as soon as he decides whether he's OK with a "regular" Instant Pot or if he wants to pay extra for this bad boy:

What about drinks? I had ordered something special for Chef Spouse a while ago that took some time to come in, but arrived just prior to our Lab and inspired our libations.

Let me preface this by saying there are a few kitchen tools I've been leery of getting. A mandoline and a kitchen torch top the list. Chef Spouse has had a mandoline for some time, and had cut himself, badly, on it. Never using it - always setting it up or cleaning it. Still, my caution was justified, and I'd sworn he was not getting a kitchen torch because I was afraid he'd burn the house down.

Call it pandemic insanity, but I broke my rule to buy him a drink smoker that was recommended by a friend of mine who's a licensed bartender and swears by this particular brand.  

I gotta say: a smoked whiskey drink is truly special - and delicious - and, as of yet, Chef Spouse has NOT burned down the house. Fingers crossed. 

Food Lab: Celebration of America

We had another plan for a Food Lab for Saturday, January 23, but Mad Kitchen Scientist pointed out that it felt like it should be more of a celebratory thing, drawing from the heritage and background of our new President Joe Biden (Delaware, Ireland) and Vice President Kamala Harris (California, Jamaica, India).

We decided on the following menu:

Kerala hurricanes

Crab cakes with cilantro chutney and champagne

Fried plantains with mambo sauce (tostones because they weren't ripe enough to be maduros) 

Oxtail stew

Curried collard greens

Naan

California cabernet

"I cannot tell a lie" cherry pie

Irish whiskey

The table, decorated for Mardi Gras bien sur!

Although we didn't plan on it, we did end up doing a little labbing in the process.

The hurricane is a much-maligned drink, in part because too many people have only experienced it as red kool aid plus cheap rum. That is NOT a hurricane. A real hurricane is a sophisticated tiki drink that requires a variety of fresh juices, including passion fruit. What made it a "Kerala" hurricane? The addition of local DC Pratt Standard True Ginger Syrup, Kerala being the region of India where ginger was first grown commercially.

The crab cakes were a nod to Joe's Delaware roots. The key to a good crab cake is to have as little non-crab binder as possible. Chef Spouse generally goes with the minimum amount of panko bread crumbs and mayo that will allow him to form the cakes. Mad Kitchen Scientist had brought along some shrimp, which is another direction you can go: shrimp puree. We had a few extra, so we fried them up as a topper.

The plantains are a staple across the Caribbean, with the addition of Mambo sauce as a shout-out to Kamala's years at HU (You Know!). We ordered them from Baldor Foods, so of course the minimum 

order was 10 pounds. The only difference between tostones and maduros is the level of ripeness of the plantains, and with a 10 pound order, you would THINK that would be plenty for us to wait until some were completely ripe so we could try both kinds, and you'd be right, but we've had to intentionally restrain ourselves from frying up the last two. 

The oxtail stew was where we got into the labbing. Speaking of Baldor, that's also where we got the oxtails: 15 POUNDS of oxtails, and they did NOT come sectioned. Chef Spouse started with the cleaver, and quickly realized that was not going to cut it (see what I did there?). Fortunately, we remembered our Food Lab: Butchering lessons and immediately reached for the hack saw. 

Chef Spouse started with the Jamaican oxtail stew recipe from the NYT Cooking column, and it mostly worked well, although we did have a few notes. 

One, it takes MUCH longer than the three hours they list as a cooking time. Two, it should really be made over two days. On day one, take it up to the place in step five BEFORE you thicken the sauce. At that point, take it off the heat, remove the oxtails, let them cool, remove the meat from the bones, and chill the whole thing overnight. On day two, DEGREASE, reheat, and THEN make the water (or stock) based slurry to thicken the sauce. DO NOT DO IT AS A ROUX - which we did - because, trust me, it does not need any more fat added. 

Even day of, it was delicious - although greasy - and we were able to degrease some the next day before having the leftovers, although since we'd done a roux as a thickener, a lot of the fat did not separate to allow for degreasing. Oh, and it's DEFINITELY a "better the next day" type dish.

On the side, we had curried collards and naan (which was a throwback to our last lab), and accompanied the main meal with a lovely California cabernet. All of this, of course, in tribute to MADAM VICE PRESIDENT. 

Finally, in honor of a return to truth and accuracy to the White House (and to bad ass woman, White House press secretary Jen Psaki), a cherry pie made with a little Ginja cherry liqueur and MORE of the 40 pounds of sour cherries from our last Baldor order (there's a theme here) and a tot of a lovely gift from Mad Kitchen Scientist and The Executive Committee (which I think is also now the official house Irish whiskey) Writer's Tears.

Welcome, President Biden and Vice President Harris! You have NO idea how happy we are to see you! 

Holidays and Some News!

Happy New Year, Foodies!

Now that our pandemic pod has met a few times, I think I can safely call it an unqualified success and, as we move into the annual darkest time of the year and what's likely to be the hardest time yet in the pandemic, a total sanity-saver.

Of course, the holidays are normally a time to gather with family and friends to feast and make merry. We normally spend Christmas Eve with a larger group of friends at the home of an Italian-American friend, and if you have any of those or grew up around them, you know what that means: Feast of the Seven Fishes. Then Chef Spouse makes a big meal - traditionally Julia's boeuf bourguignon - and we have some folks over on Christmas Day. Then we sometimes also gather with more friends to celebrate the British Boxing Day holiday with more yummy food and fellowship. The holiday week is then capped off with Mad Kitchen Scientist and The Executive Committee's annual New Year's Eve party, always imaginatively themed to organize the food and drink.

This year, none of that was happening. 

When we started chatting about this with our pod - MKS and TEC - we were like: "Seven Fishes, Boxing Day, or NYE?" We quickly realized AND was the key. 

Mad Kitchen Scientist was scheduled to be on call for his office on Christmas Eve and The Executive Committee had planned a virtual family cookie competition, so we pushed Seven Fishes to Christmas Day. And since it was only four of us, we decided to go fancy-schmancy. 

Fish 1: Osetra Caviar on MKS's blini with creme fraiche

Fish 2: Oysters on the half shell

Fish 3: Chef Spouse's fresh fettuccini with clams

Fish 4: Polpo with romesco sauce

Fish 5: Whole salt-baked snapper (pre-oven)

(post-oven)

Fish 6: caesar salad with white Spanish anchovies

Fish 7: timbales with MKS's home-smoked "bacon of the sea" (salmon)

We finished up with Italian cookies (chocolate almond biscotti, amaretti, anise pizzelles) and amaro in front of the fire.

For Boxing Day, Chef Spouse and Mad Kitchen Scientist decided they wanted to try making a beef wellington, seeing as we were celebrating a British holiday. Beef wellington, for those who haven't yet had the pleasure, is a full tenderloin slathered in yummy stuff, wrapped up in puff pastry, and baked until perfectly medium rare. It takes time to make because you have to allow the components to cool and firm up after each step. In short, they take a fair amount of time, but are, surprisingly, not that complicated to make. 

What yummy stuff? Recipes vary, but we went with mushroom duxelles, prosciutto, and foie gras (because we had some canned that another friend had brought back from a trip to Paris when that was still a thing one could do). You make the duxelles, tie up and sear the tenderloin, chill them both down, and then assemble. Roll out a sufficiently large rectangle of puff pastry to accommodate your tenderloin. Add a layer of prosciutto, making sure to leave a small clear space along one long edge for sealing. On top of that, layer your foie gras (should you be fortunate enough to have some), then your duxelles. Trim the strings off your tenderloin, place it in the middle, wrap up the whole delicious mass, seal it, then wrap TIGHTLY in plastic wrap and chill again. Bake until the meat registers 125 degrees. 

One tip on the baking: we had placed the wellington on a rack in the roasting pan so that the bottom wouldn't get soggy. That worked, but the puff pastry puffed through the rack, which made it a little challenging to remove. Next time? Parchment paper between the rack and the beef. 

How was it?

I think that picture is worth AT LEAST one thousand words.

New Year's Eve brought cioppino, champagne, cannoli (this time, we made a MUCH smaller batch), and Cards Against Humanity (which Rando Cardrissian nearly won, that bastard).

Had to include a picture of our NYE table just because

In other Food Lab news, you may have noticed that everyone referenced on this blog has a nickname, aside from me, your correspondent. After TEN YEARS, the rest of the Food Labbers finally noticed my trick, had talked amongst themselves, and planned to choose a name and name me on our ten year celebration trip to Paris and Provence this past fall.

Which did not happen.

So they decided to name me anyway. 

Many names were proposed, discussed, and discarded, until Mad Kitchen Scientist had the idea to check with Escoffier on kitchen positions. The team decided my role was somewhere between Chef de Brigade and Garde Manger in its more modern interpretation of one of ensures all parts of edibles are used. That morphed into Brigadier Manger, the one-star general who's on the field leading and organizing the troops. 

In sum: "Hi, I'm Brigadier Manger. Nice to meet you!"