Food Lab 22: Irish Cooking (Sort Of)

Chef Spouse has a good friend who lives in Pittsburgh who is a pretty serious cook himself (Mr. Pittsburgh even considered throwing over computer work for culinary school), so since he and his good friend who is a girl but not a girlfriend were visiting us for the weekend, we decided to lab it up.

The IAs were able to join us as well, so we had a full kitchen and MANY, MANY ideas. After quite a bit of back and forth (and speculation about where we might be able to procure liquid nitrogen), we arrived on "Ethnic cooking: Irish" in honor of St. Pat's weekend. And since we all still have lots of tasty, tasty lamb, we decided to go in a shepherd's pie direction, plus The Executive Committee was interested in learning the mashed potato technique Chef Spouse learned in his cooking course at L'Academie de Cuisine.

This quickly expanded, as it tends to do, to include making fresh farmer's cheese (two versions, one with cow milk, one with goat milk), making three different types of mashed potatoes, making a traditional colcannon mash, making cabbage cooked in bacon, making a Meyer lemon cocktail (as Mad Kitchen Scientist and The Executive Committee had found some lovely Meyer lemons at the grocery), and testing various brown liquors against each other in a manhattan.

As usual, we had "an absurdity" of ideas, and we also had "an absurdity" of cooks. (We've decided that "an absurdity" is the official Food Lab term for excess, so in other words, every single Food Lab we ever do).

Lesson one: eight cooks really is too many, even for our relatively spacious kitchen. So all y'all who've been hinting that you'd like to join us (you know who you are): you really, really do need to franchise this idea. We don't have room.

Drinks first:

We looked at a bunch of recipes that specifically called for Meyer lemons, and ended up choosing this one, for a Meyer lemon blossom, in part because it called for celery bitters. Of course we have celery bitters, along with at least 10 other types of bitters ranging from the typical (Angostura, Peychaud's) to the obscure (rhubarb, gin barrel orange, the aforementioned celery). Hey, we're serious about our cocktails in this house. It was decent, but it really amped up when Papa IA had the idea to muddle some fresh sage in.

We also decided to try 3 brown liquors - Irish whiskey, rye, and bourbon - in a manhattan and taste test.

While all three were delicious, Mad Kitchen Scientist and I clearly preferred the rye version (spicy and not as sweet as bourbon, but still with a solid kick), while Papa IA like the "gentleness" of the Irish whiskey version.

Why is Irish whiskey more "gentle"? The proof is lower.

On to the mashed potatoes. We labbed Yukon golds versus russets, and boiling versus baking. Why would you bake potatoes you're going to mash? The secret to creamy, decadent mashed potatoes is: one, don't over-mash as it breaks down the starch too much and renders them gluey; and two, and perhaps even more important, potatoes can only absorb so much non-potato material. The less water they absorb, the more space there is for butter and cream.

You know another way to make them even more decadent? Reduce the cream before you start adding it. Yowza.

Mad Kitchen Scientist preferred the Yukon golds, but I liked the baked russets best. They had a really nice roasted (no other way to describe it) flavor.

Then again, all versions had so much butter and reduced heavy cream in them that, even though they had been a little over-processed and weren't texturally perfect, Chef Spouse had to take them away from us in the "tasting" (aka "gobbling down") process so as to retain enough to top our shepherd's pie.

Speaking of, we started with Alton Brown's recipe, and then reorganized it, because it seemed like the order of operations was a little backwards, at least given our ingredients. Alton calls for you to saute the veg first and use ground lamb, but we had cubed lamb leg, so after consulting with Chef Spouse, we decided to process the ingredients more like you would for bouef bourgignon, which he makes every year for Christmas. We browned the meat in batches first, then sauteed the vegetables in the meaty fond goodness, then moved the veg to a large pot so we could saute the meat again with flour (which you need to form the gravy), then combined the meat in the large pot with the veg and added lamb stock, tomato paste, and herbs. We reduced the sauce, popped the lamb mixture into a pan, topped with the reserved mashed potatoes, and baked. It was REALLY delicious, and heated up quite well the next week, which I appreciated, since Chef Spouse was out of town and I have late classes some nights.

On to the cheese: The Executive Committee and Mad Kitchen Scientist had also procured rennet and citric acid. We just followed the process on the rennet package, other than skipping the final heating, so the cheeses that resulted were more like dryish ricotta in texture rather than fresh mozzarella-like. Actually, it was exactly like real Pennsylvania Dutch schmercase, which is a fresh cheese farmers make when they have too much milk, as opposed to the weirdo spread that includes cottage cheese and Worcestershire sauce you'll find if you Google it. Both were very tasty, particularly on homemade bread with a little honey (which is also the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch way to eat schmercase). We had enough remaining to cure a ball of each in brine for at least a week, as recommended, which means we get to try it this weekend, so I'll report back.

Food Lab 15: Moules et Frites

I know it's been two months since the last Food Lab, but in our defense, this one got rescheduled twice, and even with all that, the IAs weren't able to join us. It's been a busy spring.

Speaking of spring, I can think of few better ways to spend a lovely spring day than hitting the Maine Avenue fish market with Mad Kitchen Scientist, Chef Spouse, and the Executive Committee, buying several bags of mussels, heading home via Sapore, where we picked up truffle oil and truffle salt, and then labbing them up with frites and several takes on aioli.

Speaking of the frites, Mad Kitchen Scientist had rendered some beef tallow, which he brought to add to our typical peanut oil deep fry. Chef Spouse claimed he couldn't taste the difference, which I think is mad - there was a DELICIOUS difference. Sure, beef tallow's probably not all that healthy, but then again, fries aren't exactly arugula salad to begin with, and since when has "healthy" been a criteria for Food Lab (never, just in case you haven't been paying attention)?

But the real stars of the day, other, of course, than the truffle oil, were the mussels. I've eaten the delicious bivalves many times, but this was my first time making them. I did all the de-bearding, and that was an interesting process. Many of the mussels, which were resting in a bowl of cold water, were very slightly open. As soon as I started messing around with the beards, they all, to coin a phrase, clammed up tight. It was slightly disconcerting to be reminded that, although they weren't nearly as feisty as last weekend's blue crabs, those mussels were still very much alive.

We decided that four mussel preparations would likely get us into enough trouble. We chose:

1. Traditional white wine, cream and herbs (in our case, shallots, garlic, parsley, tarragon and bay)
2. Traditional tomato base (to which we added shallots and garlic, parsley, bay, oregano, capers and olive oil)
3. Fennel (with white wine, garlic, bay, a sweet/hot red pepper, and butter to finish)
4. Asian (with garlic, a sweet/hot red pepper, cilantro stems, ginger, scallions, and a combo of mirin, rice wine vinegar, sriracha and chicken stock for the liquid)

In the first round, it was traditional cream versus fennel. The traditional cream won, although we were all surprised at how tasty the poached fennel was.

The second round was tomato base versus Asian. We agreed that that tomato base would make an EXCELLENT pasta sauce (in fact, we couldn't finish them all, so we removed all the remaining mussels from their shells, dropped them in the tomato sauce, and guess what Chef Spouse and I will be having for dinner tonight or tomorrow?).

The shocker was the Asian mussels. It might have been the tasty, tasty rooster sauce, but we could not get enough of the broth.

Oh, and I should point out that making mussels could not be easier. Debeard them and stick them in a bowl of cold water while you prep whatever ingredients you want to use for the sauce (make sure you include enough liquid to cover however many mussels you have in the pot you'll be using). Bring your sauce ingredients to a boil, skim the mussels out of the water (so all the sand they dropped stays the bottom of the bowl), and drop them in your boiling sauce. When they open up, they're done, so take them out, boil the cooking liquid/sauce down a little more, pour it over the mussels, eat.

Now Chef Spouse is not a huge shellfish/bivalve guy, so he was mostly excited about making aioli.

The first batch did not turn out. To say the least. We had curdled salad dressing. Even starting over with a new egg yolk and using the bad batch as the oil didn't help. We had three theories as to why: eggs too cold, too high a percentage of extra virgin olive oil, and we put the citrus in too late. Mad Kitchen Scientist pointed out that, while the egg might have been cold when it first went in the container, as soon as we started working it, it was no longer cold. Chef Spouse made an all extra virgin olive oil version later to test that theory, and it came out fine (other than tasting REALLY strongly of olive oil), leaving us to conclude that you MUST put the citrus in with the egg yolk right at the beginning.

We also made 4 versions of aioli:

1. Traditional (and whisked by hand) - egg yolk, lemon, garlic, salt, half and half mix of canola and olive oils
2. Truffle - like the above, but substituting in 1 tsp truffle oil for an equal amount of the olive oil
3. Saffron - this was the one with 100% extra virgin olive oil, plus a hearty pinch of saffron threads that had been reconstituted in hot water (you bung in the water and the threads)
4. Sriracha aioli - egg yolk, lime instead of lemon, 1 clove of garlic, an equal amount of ginger, salt, all sesame oil and, at the very end, a generous shot of rooster sauce

The hand whisked version was creamier, but the others (all done with an immersion blender) were fluffier. The truffle aioli was excellent on the fries. But once again, rooster sauce won the day. Oh rooster sauce, how I love you.

Now all this aioli left us with quite a few egg whites, so of course we made some Ramos gin fizzes (and thank goodness our favorite liquor store started carrying orange flower water, because ordering it online was a pain). We decided our unofficial motto is: "No egg white left behind!" But mostly what we drank was Belgian beer. What else, right?

Food Lab 6: Potatoes

We had originally planned to do a two day lab making homemade sausage, but Chef Spouse had to work Sunday and Mad Kitchen Scientist and The Executive Committee had a commitment, too, so we decided that we'd bust out the IA-By-Day Chefs-By-Nights' deep fryer and take on potatoes.

Conclusion 1: I NEED a deep fryer. Are you listening, Santa?

Conclusion 2: Mix 6 people who like to experiment in the kitchen, booze, a deep fryer full of hot peanut oil, and a bowl of simple baking powder batter, and all kinds of insanity is likely to result. "What can we batter and deep fry?" "What CAN'T we batter and deep fry?"

Following our usual practice, we gathered, pulled out all the supplies, made cocktails (bloody marys of course, with vodka which of course is made from potatoes), sat down with the snacks, and figured out the plan.

What we arrived on was:

1. Hash browns
2. Fries
3. Chips
4. Stuff Covered In Batter (more on that later)

We had the traditional russet potatoes, Yukon golds, and sweet potatoes, plus olive oil, peanut oil, and bacon fat (from the bacon we cooked to snack on). We never did use the olive oil, as emptying the deep fryer proved impractical, and once we started on doing the hash browns in bacon fat, we all agreed that there was really no reason to try anything else.

Chef Spouse was the hash brown guy, and I ended up Queen of the Deep Fryer

On the hash browns, we labbed each option with both the russets and the Yukon golds. Russets are traditional for most potato frying applications, but we agreed that in most cases, the Yukon golds were superior in taste and texture. Chef Spouse captured it best: "Yukons remind you of brunch, russets remind you of camping."

First trial was to grate raw potatoes, spread them widely/very thin, and fry in bacon fat. Didn't really work - the potatoes didn't seem to cook evenly and were almost impossible to flip. We did better keeping them more in a potato pancake configuration, but we didn't really start cooking with gas (so to speak) until we parboiled whole potatoes, then grated them, then dried them, then cooked them in more the pancake configuration in bacon fat for about 15 minutes (until golden and crispy).

Once we realized the parboil was the key, we tried going the other way - grating first, then parboiling for 10 seconds, then ice shocking, then drying (as best we could - there was a LOT of water still in there, though), then cooking the potatoes in bacon fat for 15 minutes. They weren't as crispy as the parboiled whole potatoes (almost definitely because we couldn't get the water out), but they were still better than the grated potatoes that went in the pan raw. We also tried coating the raw potatoes with potato starch to see if we could duplicate the effect of parboiling without actually parboiling. No go.

Conclusion? Your best bet is to parboil Yukon golds, cool them, grate them, dry them, and then cook them in the hot bacon fat you have on hand from making your bacon (we are, after all, talking about breakfast here). But that takes a lot of time. So if you don't want to get up at the crack of dawn, grating and then parboiling for 10 seconds before frying in bacon fat is an acceptable solution.

Queen of the Deep Fryer?

Let me cut to the chase: there's a reason the double fry in peanut oil is the classic way to make French fries. We tried a single fry at a high temp, we tried a single fry at a lower temp, we tried parboiling the potatoes first. Yeah, don't even bother. 3 minutes at 300 degrees, drain while the oil temperature comes up, 5ish minutes at 360 degrees = French fry perfection. Both the russets and the Yukon golds worked well. The russets had the traditional floury texture, the Yukon golds were more buttery, but you MUST double fry. No excuses, no exceptions.

Did I mention that The Executive Committee made dipping sauces? A roasted red pepper (her take on ketchup), aioli, a spicy yogurt cilantro, and a cream cheese, scallion and bacon. All delish, but I thought the yogurt cilantro was particularly good.



Chips: well, unsurprisingly, we discovered that double frying was the best here, too. One tip? Your chips MUST be of a consistent thickness. The taste difference between the russets and the Yukon golds was not nearly as noticeable once we moved onto chips. And this was when we broke out the sweet potatoes. Sweet potato chips? Awesome. Sweet potato chips with the spicy yogurt cilantro dip? Even awesomer.

By this point, we'd all had a few cocktails, and Mama IA-By-Day Chef-By-Night had mixed up a batter for deep fried pickles. And sweet potato chips. And Snickers bars (yes really). And - ultimate triumph - bananas sprinkled with cinnamon palm sugar.

The thing that I learned about deep frying in general is that you have to gently slide the items into the fryer by hand from close up (which always looks so dangerous when I see it on cooking shows, but it really is better - good control and no splashing), you can't put too many in, and you need to keep an eye out to make sure the items aren't sticking to each other or the fry basket. That goes triple once you include batter in the mix. And the battered items will want to stick to EVERYTHING, so have a variety of metal tools handy to use to pry things apart.

So the pickles were decent. The Snickers bars were hard to fry - even though we froze them before battering and frying, they kept melting. The sweet potato chips ended up very tempura-like, even without panko bread crumbs in the batter.

But the bananas? The bananas were SOOO good. How good were they? They were so good Mad Kitchen Scientist decided he needs a deep fryer just so he can make them. They were that good