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!"