Susan Volland

Turkey Tribulations

Thanksgiving is a joy. Turkey is a misery. That sums things up pretty nicely, I think.

Thanksgiving dinner embraces many of my most treasured cooking philosophies. It is a time when people gather, prepare simple foods, eat, reflect and celebrate. It is a time when millions of Americans are willing to fight traffic, airport snarls and long-standing family feuds all in the name of sitting down together and sharing a traditional, comforting, meal. I love the sentiment. I’m charmed at how we have spun the story of the Pilgrims’ near starvation into a fairy tale involving pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I think of how, even in the midst of such selfish times, we still take a long weekend to embrace such ideals as brotherhood, celebrating our plenty and caring for our neighbors. I love that it is still a meal that matters, that most participants often want to cook or contribute in some way to the betterment of the experience, even if that means just stopping by the corner store and picking up a tub of CoolWhip or a quick six pack for the bowl games.   

What I don’t love, is turkey. I appreciate the bird and the role it plays. It is a big, inexpensive, crowd pleasing chunk of protein. The packaging, marketing and processing of modern turkey has magicked away most of the flub factor, making it possible for even very inexperienced cooks to proudly present a centerpiece-worthy fowl. Recipes, techniques and information on food safety are so ubiquitous a cook would have to make a conscious effort to avoid them. Swaggering, "manly-men", eager to avoid kitchen tasks the rest of the year suddenly don aprons and become experts on brining, smoking and deep frying techniques. Foodies will plan for weeks, clipping recipes and gathering ingredients. Those who invested big bucks early in the season will finally meet their adoptive Bourbon Red or Narragansett as it makes its plucked, naked arrival from the local, organic farm.  This is all good. Thanksgiving stuffing, mashed potatoes, sauces, rolls, and vegetables- pile it high! But a slab of lab-plumped Butterball? No, thank you.       

I’ve had some brilliantly cooked turkeys over the years. My family swerved off the traditional turkey path when I was very young. Mom and Dad lightly poached our birds in a soy sauce and ginger broth before roasting them, an idea inspired by The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook. The resulting birds were moist and savory enough to disregard their black, scraggly appearance. My personal turkey achievements include one honey smoked version that reached near perfection and a wild turkey shot by a family friend that I stewed in  rich, complex mole Poblano sauce from Diana Kennedy. Perhaps the pinnacle of turkey experiences was Jamie Guerin’s El Salvadorian chompe sandwiches. His family recipe involves roasting a turkey with a complex assortment of unfamiliar spices and, of all things, prunes. The shredded meat is served napped with a thick, sweet and savory sauce made from the pan components. It is all served on chewy rolls with sliced radishes and vinegary, spiced cabbage. We served them at our wedding. They’re that good. These days, Jamie is busy running his restaurant, The Whitehouse – Crawford in Walla Walla, so our days of celebratory chompes are sadly, long gone. Like all Americans, turkey is part of my culinary history. But we don’t have much of a future together.  

535 million pounds. That is one estimate of how much consistently lousy turkey is consumed over Thanksgiving weekend. It’s a dizzying number. And while I too often wear blinders when it comes to the horrors of factory farming, turkey season tends to give me the heebie-jeebies. The average American turkey has become a mutant of over breeding and genetic manipulation. The breasts on these beasts are so bloated that even “free range” birds are often unable to walk. For years my sister had a turkey hen as a beloved pet. Even with regular exercise and a healthy diet, “Winnie” looked crippled when she waddled outside of her comfortable stable. Commercial turkey reproduction relies exclusively on artificial insemination because these bad boys are too round to take care of business naturally. Any animal that cannot procreate is cause for concern. We're not talking here about cuddly panda bears with threatened habitats. These are huge, stupid birds with very little resemblance to their crafty, lean, wild brethren.     

So, I have a dilemma. Turkey plays a key role in many Volland family gatherings. Thanksgiving remains a treasured holiday for my husband’s extended family. How do I dismiss the offending entree without marring our family Thanksgiving traditions?  Quite simply, I don’t. I believe these meals, both good and bad, are far more important than my opinions on a domesticated bird. Turkey dinners make a lot of people happy. So, I will continue to do what I have been doing the past few years. I will load up my plate with all the fixin’s and somewhere, under a sea of gravy, there will be a small piece of dark meat. I will eat it and I will offer my sincere thanks to the cook for their effort and generosity. If it is my year to roast the turkey, I’ll do my best. I’ll try some new magic formulation to add flavor and moisture, or maybe spring for a heritage bird if I’m feeling flush. I’ll send big boxes of leftovers home with everyone. And on rare years like this one, when we take the trip to spend Thanksgiving with my own, turkey-ambivalent family?  We eat fish.   

Vegging Out at MacPherson's

Reluctant cooks often say that their biggest challenge is coming up with menu ideas. Lately, I’ve been facing the opposite problem. I went to MacPherson’s produce stand last week and became almost dizzy with culinary inspiration. Autumn’s bounty inevitably renews my love affair with food and cooking.  MacPherson’s produce makes it affordable.

Gwen Hayes introduced me to this cut rate produce stand back in the nineties. Her father, a famously thrifty fellow, used to drive the thirty minutes from his house to score a case of broccoli for a couple of bucks or half a dozen grapefruit that were in their prime last week. From what I’ve read, Greg MacPherson started the place by selling discounted fruits and vegetables out of the back of his station wagon at a Beacon Hill garage in the eighties. Now, his corner stand at 4500 15^th Ave S. is a bustling destination for a remarkably diverse clientele. The produce is, shall we say, mature and flavorful. But it is cleanly sorted and presented simply so customers like me can pick through each green bean without disturbing some fussy display. Local and seasonal items are always featured, and gradually more organic items are making an appearance.  

 The combination of seasonal bounty, cool weather and great prices on local and exotic fare had me dashing from bin to bin. “The butternut squash is dirt cheap and the eggplant is pristine…I’ve got to make roasted vegetable lasagna! Just look at this giant stack of fresh tomatillos and Serrano chilies…I’ll make some salsa verde! But the chanterelles will only be around for a few weeks… I’ve got to enjoy them while I can.” I resisted the urge to interrupt the women stuffing bags with tiny yellow guava and fat prickly pears and interrogate them for recipes.  

I get a similar rush at farmers markets, I suppose all cooks do. Unfortunately, even a small bag of basics at my local Sunday market will cost me $50. I fully understand and appreciate the political and social ramifications of what it is I’m buying, but sometimes, for a cheapskate like me, it’s just too much. At MacPherson’s, I have filled entire shopping carts with produce and I’ve never spent more than $30.

Some of my discount produce inspired dishes so far this month include-

• Posole with roasted tomatoes and chiles, topped with diced avocado and strips of carne asada.
• Pork scaloppini with sautéed sweet potatoes, Fuji apple and red bell pepper with just a drop of honey and a pinch of good Kerala chili powder.
• Stir fried beef, chanterelles and jicama in spicy Szechwan pepper sauce.
• Stir fried salmon with fresh citrus, leeks and a hint of cinnamon and star anise.
• Bison chili with Ancho and chipotle peppers.
• Pasta with spinach and eggplant marinara sauce.
• Mushroom and barley risotto with a salad of endive, avocado and Satsuma.

Last night, I polished off the last of my MacPherson’s booty by making a beautiful apple pie with a few ugly Jonagold apples.  With my larder empty, I can restock.  I’ll brave the chaos they call a parking lot, buy tamale from the guy in the roasted corn shack and let the vegetables speak to me.  

Chowderhead

I just returned from a two week drive exploring the Pacific coastline. I camped, gazed at endless seascapes, marveled at natural wonders, poked around in city centers, read, slept, stopped worrying about things I had no control over, and I ate a lot of clam chowder.

Road food is a worthy topic of discussion, my search was for solitude, not culinary insight. Luckily, I got both. My original game plan when it came to food was simple, I would sate myself with seafood along the Oregon coast, survive on avocadoes and artichokes in Northern California and then explore taco stalls as I drove south. I started out strong with barbecued oysters and a crab slider in Tillamook. I progressed to fatty, rich, smoked salmon collars from a roadside stand that I gnawed at like a starved sea otter. In Bandon, Oregon where it was crisp and windy and the road had been lined with fishing boats and endless surf, I had my first cup of clam chowder. 

I ate a lot of chowder as a kid. There was never a shortage of clams in our world and both my Mom and Dad made great versions with big chunks of skin-on potato swimming in a fresh clam broth with a splash of milk and plenty of black pepper. But after I left home, clam chowder became a different kind of soup.  It was as if there was some weird competition established to see who could make the thickest, pastiest glop of whipping cream and canned clams. I fell out-of-love with the stuff and in-love with a milk-hating husband which eventually slammed the door shut on clam chowder as a dinner option.   

That first cup at a Bandon seafood shack wasn’t spectacular. It was way too thick, almost like sour cream was added, and too light on clams, but the taste gently rekindled a long smoldering fire. I moved on to vegetables. In San Francisco, I got groovy and satisfied my vegetable cravings in the Mission district with a retro/ vegan/ tofu salad. After a magnificent day of kayaking Moss Landing I polished off a platter of deep fried artichoke bottoms dipped in ranch dressing in Castroville. But when I found myself hungry in Pismo Beach, clam chowder called to me. There are plenty of fish and chips shops in Pismo, but only one place, Splash Cafe, had a line out the door. The chowder was thick, but thinned with stirring. In my book, it relied too heavily on cream, but I was pleasantly surprised with the prevalent briny clam flavor. Chances are it came from commercial clam base, but it was utterly satisfying. While I am not a fan of bread bowls, if I ever go back to Splash I will most certainly indulge.They bake hundreds of small round loaves daily then trim, butter and toast each one. Each bread bowl of chowder comes with the cylinder of warm, chewy bread interior and a crisp, toasted cap - definitely worth a side trip.

LA was a meat fest. We had carnitas and stewed spicy goat tortas at Tacos Tumbras a Tomas in the Grand Central Market, French dips at Phillipe’s, Cha Cha Chicken enchiladas and a fabulous grilled tri tip and salad at our beloved Merrill family spa and resort. The highlight, second only to seeing the Tom Tom Club live at the Getty, was Colleen’s butter-drenched red velvet cupcakes. An adaptation of a Paula Deen recipe, they will most certainly go down in the history books.

Eventually I found myself back at the Oregon coast, ready for more chowder. I had learned to look past any gooeyness and just slurp in the goodness. At the Luna Sea Fish House in Yachats, my starter cup was presented, consumed and cleared so fast that one of the servers thought she had forgotten to bring it to me and offered me another. I would have taken her up on it, but I needed to save room for the “mushroom festival special” of seared halibut with crab, chanterelles and pine nuts.

On my last day on the road, on a wooden bench overlooking the glory that is Cannon Beach, I had a bowl of chowder at Mo’s. Mo’s Restaurants are a bit of an institution along the Oregon coast. I had almost passed them by because of their numerous, nagging road signs, but I had a glimpse of their wares at the seafood festival in Tillamook on the way down and I was curious. I’m so glad I stopped. Seattle needs more places like Mo’s- casual joints devoted to inexpensive, unfussy seafood that isn’t exclusively fried.  Mo’s is crowded and touristy with a good amount of kitch, but that kind of adds to the coastal/vacation vibe of the place.  Chowder rules here. It is hearty, but not as sticky or thick as other locales and it is chock full of chewy clams and thin strips of bacon, kind of like Dad used to make. The table is crowded with baskets of saltines and extra black pepper is ready and waiting. A bowl of Mo’s chowder on a crisp October day at the coast is a perfect food. It has placed this soup firmly back in my repertoire.  

 Mom’s Clam Chowder

Recipe adapted from  Off the Hook: Reflections and Recipes from an Old Salt, Roger Fitzgerald and Susan Volland, Ten Speed Press 2002

This is a very thin, simple chowder- the kind I grew up with. If you want it thicker, you need to stir in a few tablespoons of butter and flour with the frying onions and salt pork.

3 pounds fresh Manila clams, well scrubbed.

1 cup beer, white wine or water

½ pound salt pork or bacon, diced

1 onion, diced

1 pound potatoes, scrubbed and diced

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups of milk or half and half

Salt

Oyster crackers or saltines.

Place the clams and the beer in a large pot over medium-high heat. Steam the clams until they open, 6 to 8 minutes. Discard any clams that remain tightly closed. Strain off the flavorful nectar and pass it through a fine sieve to remove and grit or shell. Add water or additional clam nectar to the liquid to make a total of 6 cups. Remove the clam meat from the shells. If you are using small calms, keep them whole. For larger clams discard the stomach and chopped the meat. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.

In a soup pot, fry the salt pork until it is crisp and brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Pour off the excess fat. Add the onions and cook with the salt pork until they are translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the clam nectar and potatoes. Season with black pepper and simmer until the potatoes are tender, 25 to 30 minutes. Add the clam meat and milk and season with salt if needed.

Serve hot with crackers.  

Bonding with the dead through pickles

I remember my great grandmother as a tiny woman with big glasses, thin dresses and a thick accent. Great Grandma was a first generation German Russian immigrant back near the turn of the 20^th century. My mother has fond memories of her rustic cooking, but all I ever remember tasting at her house was second hand smoke.

So how is it that I can, with absolutely no reference material, make what my mother swears are my Great Grandmother’s exact German dill pickles? These are not anything like the pickles most home canners make. I have no recipe. But Bavarian Meats, an institution at Seattle’s Pike Place Market always had bowls or tubs of these fat, sweet and sour pickles and they became something of an obsession for me.  I remembered them from when I was a kid and when I started shopping and working in the vicinity, I couldn’t walk by without stopping in for a pickle. I built my brine around what I saw floating in there; some onion, some standard pickling spice, heavy on the allspice, and lots of mustard seeds. The brine was less pure vinegar than many home recipes with a pinch of extra salt and a good deal more sugar.

 My very first attempt was a success. My mother actually called me out of the blue once with an uncharacteristically specific point to make. “You make the best goddamn pickles!” That was it. She didn’t want to chat or catch up. She was overwhelmed with pickle joy and memories of her German grandmother.

These are not pickles that inspire such passion in others. Most tasters will take a bite or two and maybe mumble some appreciation. Some reel back in horror at the sweetness and unexpected, unfamiliar flavors. I don’t care. My mom and I can polish off a jar in a single setting, but only rarely. I cannot be counted on to make these pickles every year, so she hoards her stash, her pretties, even though I continually promise to make more. But I can never quite convince her that eating them will not make them forever disappear. And now she is faced with a new threat to her pickle larder. It seems my niece has inherited the pickle passion. One taste is all it took and she was hooked. Now when she makes the trip to visit Grandma, there is often a ritual opening of a jar, a clandestine pickle gorging.  My sister can take them or leave them, but my niece – she gets it.

I just made 22 jars of Great Grandma’s German Dill pickles today. I will restock Mom’s cupboard and for the first time, deliver a shipment directly to my niece.  And I am oddly proud. Somehow, without ever tasting or experiencing the originals my great grandmother made, I have rekindled and passed on a culinary tradition from my ancestors.

SausageFest 2010

My Sausage Addiction

 

It was an innocent thing - a few hot dogs in the summer, a taste for keilbasa and brats, a fondness for bangers and beer. My taste for ground seasoned meat was no big thing until my beloved  “brother” Scott Wellsandt, got me hooked on the rough stuff - the kind of rustic sausages you can only get from private sources- the goods made in garages, back porches and kitchen sinks. He became my dealer. Every February he would drive across Washington State to spend a long weekend with his cousins in Ritzville. And then he would return home with the cargo – a cooler stuffed full of the most wonderful homemade smoked German style sausage.  At first it was just innocent fun – no big deal. He’d fry up a few pieces for Sunday brunch or a family gathering. A little mustard, a little kraut…where’s the harm? Then it got to be that we all needed the stuff for camping and rafting trips. Pretty soon, he was selling me full pounds. I would keep the paper wrapped parcels in my freezer, to have it when the mood struck. I thought I could go easy, just enjoy it once in a while, but it went just so damn fast. Finally, I was begging him. I could no longer rely on his annual sausage runs. I needed to get straight to the source. 

 

That’s when I realized I had a problem. I had invited myself, a perfect stranger, to a longtime, family celebration. The Wellsandt clan couldn’t have been kinder or more welcoming, and I worked extra hard to pull my weight, but it was a moment of reckoning. I knew I couldn’t leech off these people any more. I had to become my own supplier. 

 

Two years ago Scott and I managed to convince a few willing participants to start a meat tradition of our own.  Mark Vinson and Arlene Levins kindly offered their space and resources in Buckley as a home base and then took on the project. SausageFest 2008 was barely controlled chaos. We naively determined to make our version of the real stuff, but we didn’t have the Wellsandt recipe, the sacred measuring hands or any proper smokers. Scott valiantly tried to recall memories and specifics from his beer soaked family weekends while I kept interrupting with my own take. About 20 of us hacked at meat, ground it in Kitchenaide mixers and seasoned and stirred it up in big bowls until the samples fried up tasty. Our links were sloppy. Our smoking was ineffective. We managed to make some edible bulk sausage. But our sausage was a mockery of the original. It was so bad that the following winter it was decided that Sausagefest should be every two years rather than annually, so those of us who had over-ordered had more time to choke down the residuals.

 

This past weekend we gathered for Sausagefest 2010. I took on the role of meat master and started making declarations. There would be no horrid imitations of the glorious Wellsandt original this year. Because the vacuum bag storage system worked so well before, we would focus on bulk sausages of a type we all liked to purchase. Links would be optional. Smoked sausage was not an option for purchase, but we would try some as a test run for future events. We would choose three or four varieties by consensus and then I would work out original recipes. If my sausages didn’t meet the mark, we would alter them as needed or I would, without hesitation, pass along my reign to someone else for the following fest. 

 

And while there is definitely room for improvement in efficiency and precision – I think this years event was a resounding success. Eight families placed orders for sausage; Classic Breakfast with Fresh Herb, Spicy Italian with red wine and fennel, Mexican Chorizo with mole paste and a mild pork link with lemon zest and ale we called Buckley Manor House sausage. (We ended up with about 30 pounds of extra ground pork, so we also threw together some mild Italian and a few Maple links.) We started cooking at 10:00 am and by 5:00 Saturday evening we had packaged and distributed over 200 pounds of sausage, ate and drank to overfull and  had some experiments puffing in a newly built smoker. 

 

It’s been only two days, but I can already feel my old sausage yearnings flooding back in to relatively clean system. It is early afternoon and I have a pot of pasta sauce, thick with sausage, simmering on the stove. The top of my mouth is burned because I can’t manage the patience needed to even let the sauce cool before I taste it. Again, I’m hooked. But  this time the stuff is cheap – about $2 a pound. And I know it’s made only with top quality stuff, so I won’t have to cringe when my beloved sausages are compared to politics. And boy, oh boy, this stuff is goooood!

 

 

Breakfast Links with Fresh Herbs

2 1/2 lb pork

2 tsp kosher salt

2 tsp ground black pepper

2 tsp chopped fresh sage

2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon brown sugar (or 2 tablespoons maple syrup and less water)

½ teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

½ cup ice water (opt)

sheep casing for links

Makes 2 ½ pounds sausage

 

Mexican Chorizo

5 lbs pork butt

¼ cup cold tequila

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

5 tsp. Salt

2 Tablespoons ground ancho chili

2 tablespoons mole paste

1 tablespoon onion powder

2 tablespoon pimenton –smoked paprika

2 teaspons dried red chile flakes

1 teaspoon garlic powder ( or fresh garlic?)

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

1 teaspoon ground oregano

½ teaspoon ground cumin

Makes 5 lbs sausage

 

Hot Italian Sausage with Fennel

5 lbs pork butt

1 cup cold red wine

1 cup chopped fresh parsley

5 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon coarse black pepper

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons fennel seeds – toasted and coarsely ground or pounded

2 teaspoons crushed chiles

2 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon coriander

3 tablespoon paprika

Makes 5 lbs sausage

 

Buckley Manor House Sausage

5 lbs pork

1 cold bottle of ale

2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon ground sage

1 tablespoon dry mustard

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground mace or nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon finely ground lemon zest

1 cup breadcrumbs

5 teaspoons salt

Makes 5 lbs sausage

Gasping for Greens

It’s a perfect February day in Seattle. The sun is shining. I have all the heaters off and the front door open wide to let in the fresh air. The Olympic Mountains are showing off their best winter coats and the porch is gaudy with primroses. It is a perception altering kind of day. There is light when there has been so much darkness, breezes instead of cold winds, flowers budding and the scent of potential in the air. And with that sunshine comes an almost physical shift in my food cravings. I have no interest in the rich stews, spongy dumplings, salty condiments or fibrous root vegetables I yearned for last week. I am almost desperate for tender greens, shoots and seafood.

 

But winter is a trickster in these parts. Call me a “glass half empty” kind of girl, but I have been fooled too often. As soon as I am convinced the dark days are over, that spring is around the corner it will start to rain. The skies darken and the clouds lower and the optimistic, naïve crocuses are swamped. So today I will drink in the sunshine, collect branches of forsythia and flowering quince to bring indoors. But I will keep my heavy coat and mittens handy. And I will be very particular about my produce choices.

 

Ruby red, hothouse rhubarb, Mexican asparagus and giant artichokes that cost $4 a piece are tempting me at the stores right now. I will reach for them, smell them, even fondle them, but I will not buy. I will not be fooled. These are not real spring vegetables. They are pale, overpriced imitations of our local gems, so I must wait. I will instead fill my cart with Asian pea vines, endive and escarole. I will add scallions to almost everything and smother simple dishes in freshly chopped parsley and breathe in the chlorophyll. I will steam fish, sauté small shrimp and whip up tiny omelets, but I won’t give in to spring until the farmers at my local market have purplish spears of fresh bamboo shoots. I will wait anxiously for the fat, juicy spears of Walla Walla asparagus to be cheap and plentiful. My pies will be filled with greenish, pungent Puyallup valley rhubarb, but not in February. 

 

I will only be able wait because of sunny February days like this one. I am reminded of what is to come.

 

Simple Stir-Fried Pea Vines

 

This is my variation of a very fresh tasting pea vine dish at Shanghai Garden. The sauce is simple but aromatic with just a hint of cornstarch to make it syrupy.  Add a teaspoon of soy or oyster sauce if you like.

 

1 bunch fresh pea vines washed and dried well

½ cup chicken stock

1 teaspoon corn starch

Salt and pepper

splash of Chinese sherry (optional)

a few drops of toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons peanut oil for frying

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon chopped shallot

1 teaspoon minced ginger

 

Sort through the pea vines, removing and discarding any tough stems. Ides aIn a small bowl, combine the chicken stock, salt, pepper, sherry and sesame oil. Mix well. Heat a wok over high heat until the sides of the pan are hot to the touch. Swirl in the oil, add the garlic, shallot and ginger and stir-fry until aromatic but not browned, about 15 seconds.  Add the pea vines and stir-fry until they are wilted and vivid green, about 3 minutes. Stir the chicken stock mixture and add to the pan. Simmer until the sauce lightly thickens and clears. Transfer to a bowl and serve immediately.

 

My First Attempt at Gumbo

 

Perhaps it is because we both grew up in the Pacific Northwest, but I  tend to agree with James Beard when it comes to gumbos. In his book “American Cookery” he wrote “ ..They are not the culinary achievement they have been made out to be. Some of the modern adaptations seem to be better, but are still not really great dishes. They are typical of Creole cuisine and became fashionable, I wager, because this is what the cooks of the day, who at times were pretty dictatorial, chose to serve up.”

 

My dislike of gumbo is simple. It tends to feature The Dreaded Three - undercooked chunks of onion, the overwhelming taste of green bell peppers and blobs of canned tomato. For me, this is the devil's trinity- the evil ingredients that all too often seasoned the weeknight dinners of my childhood. Add slippery, snot laden okra, some overcooked shrimp and threads of file powder to all this and voila, you have a crappy gumbo! No thank you!

 

Given this bias, I can’t quite explain why I have recently felt compelled to make a proper gumbo. I’ve had only one good restaurant gumbo in my life. It was in New Orleans and the predominant flavor was not the seafood, meat or vegetables, but the dark and toasty roux it was built on. While all good gumbo cooks tout the importance of the roux, this was the only soup that really served up the goods. The place was packed and noisy. My soup was brown, not red like I expected. It was boldly spiced, complicated and rooted in rustic traditions, but silky and refined. It was everything gumbo was supposed to be.  I have yet to find another bowl that comes even close. 

 

Granted, I haven’t been back to New Orleans recently. And Seattle isn’t exactly a hotbed for authentic Cajun food. But, like a mountain climber, I tend to get obsessed with culinary challenges, and “real gumbo” like “real barbecue” is a dish that America takes very seriously. I had to try it. (Incidentally, today is Mardi Gras! I made my gumbo in support of the New Orleans Saints at the Superbowl. And hey, it worked! )

 

I made a very simple shrimp and sausage version adapted from probably a dozen different recipes and tweaked to my taste. I omitted the tomato because, like that perfect bowl in New Orleans, I wanted my soup to be toasty rather than acidic. I hunted down fresh okra at a Chinese market. My local supermarkets don’t stock fresh okra in February. I pondered the need for file powder, or ground sassafras. Some people swear that file IS gumbo. But from what I understand, it is a thickening agent, and I already was using plenty of roux and the addition of okra. It can be tricky to master, so I went without.

 

I started by making a pot of shrimp stock, with half a pound of head-on shrimp, some extra shrimp shells and all the other usual suspects. Then I started the roux. It was actually exciting! I knew that to make it right, flour and oil had to cook slowly until it was as brown and smooth as it could possibly be, just on the cusp of being burnt. I let it bubble and brown and then chickened out, pulling it off the burner to see if the residual heat of the heavy iron pan cooked it much. Then I put it back and cooked it some more. It went from golden to reddish to a good chocolate brown. Finally I panicked and dumped in a diced onion, celery and pepper. Next time, I’ll try and push it even farther.

 

I cooked the vegetables properly right off the bat so there wouldn’t be any sliminess in the finished soup. Then I poured on about eight cups of my homemade shrimp stock and gave it all a good stir. It looked and tasted pretty pathetic at this point. I didn’t want the shrimp and sausage to be overcooked, so I left them out. And I didn’t want all the spices to mellow out, so I didn’t add my homemade Cajun spice mix until later. So at first my gumbo was really lame. I was tempted to add some tomatoes, just to brighten the whole thing up, but I resisted. I cooked the soup for about 45 minutes. It was still pretty bland. I think my shrimp stock was too mild, so I crumbled in a Mexican shrimp bouillon cube. Then I added the sausage, plenty of salt and pepper and three or four tablespoons of my spice mix and it perked right up! I sliced and browned about half a pound of okra in a hot pan. I didn’t stir them, just shook the pan so they would stay crisp. I added the okra and then tweaked the seasoning a little. I splashed in a ton of Tabasco and a little vinegar to brighten it.  It thickened to a nice velvety consistency and got really intriguing. Finally,  I dusted a pound of peeled giant shrimp with more Cajun spice mix and schlepped everything over to Scott W and Susan G’s house to watch the Superbowl. At halftime, Scott made rice and I seared the shrimp with a few more slices of andouille sausage and served it up. 

 

I think it will take a few more practice runs before I get it right, but I was basically happy with the results. If anything, it was too rich. I tried so hard to play down the vegetables that I may have overemphasized the roux and the shrimp. Next time, I will add a little tomato.

 

Or maybe I’ll just leave gumbo to the experts and plan another, much overdo, trip to Louisiana. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeff's Birthday Cassoulet

Choosing the right birthday dinner for my husband is a lot like buying a present for the guy who has everything. The “problem” if you can call it that, is that he has too many choices. Another “problem” this year, was that I had done a lot of good cooking over the holidays. He wasn’t really craving anything.

We tossed around a bunch of ideas, but nothing seemed to inspire him. Finally, we decided to venture up the road to our local “Temple of Porcine Love”, The Swinery, (3207 California Avenue SW, Seattle, WA www.swinerymeats.com ) and select something from the fresh case. He had stopped by there before Christmas to pick up a few gifts and was still talking about the bacon-wrapped loin chops he saw.

The Swinery seemed to exacerbate his dilemma. The tempting chops were there, looking almost prim and lean next to thick, fatty slabs of fresh pork belly. But they no longer seemed special. I, personally, couldn’t tear my eyes from the charcuterie case – venison terrine, lean and tender pastrami, artisan salamis and gorgeous hocks of ham. “How about cassoulet?” I finally suggested, inspired by the house-made duck confit. “YES!!” So, last Sunday, we invited his parents over and all feasted on a decadent cassoulet, and here are my thoughts on the subject.

Outside of the French countryside, the word “cassoulet” is most often heard in snobby food circles. There is often a certain reverence involved. The music of the foreign term, often accompanied by moans of delight and perhaps an unmistakably cosmopolitan smirk can give the uninitiated the distinct impression that cassoulet is a very fancy, expensive and elaborate dish. But cassoulet is just a pretty term for French baked beans. It can, indeed be sublime and worthy of hushed tones. It can also be very complicated, expensive and elaborate. But to make a really good cassoulet, you must embrace the simplicity and peasant origins of the dish. If you pretend it is anything else, you will be sorely disappointed. I learned that the hard way.

I made cassoulet for the first time about 20 years ago for the family grape harvest. I wanted to blow everyone away with something super complicated and impressive. I used a recipe from the now very trendy, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child as my framework and spend days sourcing and cooking the components. I knew I wouldn’t be able to exactly duplicate her recipe, but I interpreted Julia’s words to mean that the most important elements were diverse and flavorful meats, and a bold, inspired cooking broth. I nailed it. The finished dish was a glorious, bubbling rondo of garlic, smoked pork, stewed venison, duck and sausages, herbs and tender white beans crusted with golden crumbs. (I even made a smaller “cute food free” version without venison or duck for my sister.)

After four days of cooking, and hauling the goods 300 miles from Seattle to Walla Walla, I presented my masterpiece. The crowd, weary from a weekend of picking and pressing grapes, anticlimactically scooped it on to plates and scarfed up my pride and joy while they gathered around a Husky football game on TV. I was horrified. Those mounds of pork and beans on the their plates weren’t just pork and beans. It was cassoulet, dammit! I was in a right proper snit. I myself would dine at the table, thank you very much!

No matter where I dined, I was doomed. There was no getting around it. My classical French delicacy was, even after all that attitude and work, just a mighty tasty pile of beans. It is what it is. I’ve grown up a lot since then. And while I think back on that meal with mostly embarrassment and horror, I still hear the occasional moan of delight in reference to that long ago cassoulet. Football chow doesn’t get much better than that.

Since then, I’ve thrown together the occasional “quickie” cassoulet. I’ll dump some canned white beans into a gratin dish with lots of sautéed garlic, carrots and whatever bits of ham and sausage I have in the fridge. I’ll add a good handful of herbs from the garden and some stock, top it with breadcrumbs and pop it in the oven. It’s just a weekday meal, nothing for company, but a nice quick and relatively healthy winter dinner. I made a great roasted vegetable version once. In some ways a meatless cassoulet sounds like a travesty, but it also was very tasty.

To make a proper birthday meal, I needed to build another “real” cassoulet. To get it right, you need to dedicate at least two and maybe three days to the task. Coincidentally, Fine Cooking magazine featured a multi page spread on making cassoulet in their recent issue. It looks good. But I didn’t follow their recipe. I cobbled together memories of Julia hints, preferences from former restaurant recipes and my own likes and dislikes.

Here’s what I did. I soaked two pounds of Great Northern beans for 24 hours, changing the water twice. I made a stock with half a dozen roasted marrow bones, some beef short rib bones, chicken bones, onion, carrots, fresh thyme, rosemary and bay leaves from the garden, peppercorns and a splash of red wine. That simmered for about eight hours. I browned chunks of pork sirloin in a little fresh bacon fat and then stewed it in a can of chicken stock, with a few roasted vegetables from the stock pan, lots of herbs and two cloves. Then I read a book.

The next day, I cooked the beans with some onion, carrot and more rosemary and thyme until they were tender. While they cooked, I tore the duck confit from the bones, (and somehow managed to not gobble it all up. FYI, The Swinery makes a killer duck confit. Not only is it spiced nicely, but they leave plenty of duck fat in the container for your cooking enjoyment!) I tore a big Hempler’s smoked pork chop into rough chunks and sliced up some Hempler’s garlic sausage. I sautéed onions, carrots and lots of garlic in duck fat, mixed them into the cooked beans and seasoned it all really well. Some recipes call for tomato, but I am anti-tomato in cassoulet. I don’t like the pink color it adds.

Finally, I started layering it up, mixing the beans and the meats in a big, terracotta casserole and drowned it all in a super-flavorful but still light, stock. I had some dried breadcrumbs from Trader Joes, but they were too fine, so I chopped up some sourdough bread into coarse crumbs and topped it with those. For flavor and color, I drizzled the breadcrumbs with a little more duck fat and finally called Jeff over to marvel at my work. It was beautiful.

Beautiful is good, but looks aren’t everything, right? There were some problems. First, I used to work for a wonderful French restaurant that served a very good cassoulet, but I didn’t like how their beans seemed all mashed up. They looked overcooked and over handled. I wanted my beans to be smooth and velvety, but still keep their individual integrity. I originally cooked my beans tender enough that I could squash one between my fingers, but then I messed them up. In order to get all of the ingredients in the dish, I piled the top layer of my cassoulet in a heaping mound. Don’t do this! It looks great, but the top beans are not able to soak up all that great broth. In my heart, I knew that two hours of baking would be barely enough, but we got hungry and couldn’t wait. We had a lovely meal – with a crunchy salad of bitter greens a fabulous baguette and a dessert of lemon tart and coffee, but the texture of the cassoulet was slightly off.

When we were finished, and stuffed to the gills, I rebuilt what remained, making sure that all the beans were swimming in stock, added more crumbs and baked it for another hour. I am not usually a fan of leftovers, but last night, the evening of his actual birthday, we had a dish worthy of celebration. It was amazing.  A good cassoulet demands both reverence and humility. And a decade between preparations is not unwise for such a rich and filling treat. We will mete out what remains in between leaner, vegetarian entrees for some much needed nutritional balance. 

I wonder what he’ll want next year? Happy Birthday Sweetie!

For the Love of ...Rutabagas

Happy New Year! I am determined to write again in 2010. And to kick off my foray into the already over-saturated world personal and culinary essays online, I have selected to write about… Rutabagas.

It is too easy to forget about this homely, yellow and purple root. And yet, when the right menu presents itself and I cook up a batch, I find myself swooning over every nutty bite. (Silently, of course. No one in their right mind would publicly swoon over a mouthful of rutabaga.) My inspiration to spread the gospel of the rutabaga began when I recently made a puree of locally grown rutabagas to serve with a rich, slow-braised beef brisket. The meat was good. The rutabagas were spectacular!

Regardless of how we feel about the root itself, I think everyone can agree that rutabaga is a silly word. It’s a Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck kind of word that people tend to think of more as a joke than an actual vegetable. That was certainly the case for me when I was growing up. I can safely say that no rutabaga ever even made it past the threshold of our family kitchen. Canned spinach? Yes! Frozen Lima Beans? Definitely! Rutabagas? Never. But that might be because, even today, Dad doesn’t much care for root vegetables. Threaten him with a beet and his spine actually shivers. He’d rather go hungry than eat mashed potatoes. Perhaps it is my lack of traumatic childhood rutabaga memories that allows me to pontificate over the glories of the rutabaga as an adult?

I met my first rutabaga in London, masquerading as something called “Swede.” I was 18, broke, miserable and had agreed to work in a dark, smoky pub, pulling pints for alcoholic pensioners in exchange for a room with a very kind family. Part of my responsibility as barkeep was to help cook dinner while the pub was closed for afternoon break. That first evening, I was put in charge of mashing, stirring and seasoning a pot of bubbling, golden orange puree. It was love at first nutty, buttery, earthy taste. My job at the pub lasted less than 36 hours. My love of mashed “swede” endures.

“Swede” in England is short for Swedish Turnip. How a simple, one syllable term in “the mother tongue” became “Rutabaga” in America baffled me, so I had to look it up. Turns out, our modern day rutabaga was originally discovered growing wild in the forests of Sweden. There, it was called the “Rotabagge” or “root ram”. Aha!! It was cultivated in Northern Europe around 1700. In Ireland it is often just referred to as a turnip. To the Scots, it is a “neep” as in ‘buttered neeps” a classic side dish of buttered turnips or parsnips alongside a nice joint of roast meat. These were the turnips the Scots originally carved as Halloween Jack O Lanterns. In Denmark and Germany, the term for rutabaga starts to sound more like kohlrabi, which is definitely NOT on my list of favorite veggies.

The rutabaga is a cross between a white turnip and the cabbage. It is botanically a brassica, like broccoli and cauliflower, so you can eat plenty of them in the name of preventing cancer, if that’s what floats your boat. The greens are also edible and I would love to try them. In my mind, they have a richer, buttery flavor. But I have never seen anything on the market tables labeled “rutabaga greens” and wonder if they are often just piled high and called generic turnip greens.

The rutabaga became a staple in colder climes like Russia, Scandinavia, the UK, Canada and the US Midwest. It is filling, stores well and provides a source for desperately needed vitamin C and minerals for the dark days of winter. What I want to know now is why rutabagas aren’t seen more in Northern Chinese dishes, much like cabbage, carrots and turnips? I need to look in to that. It sounds delicious- fried up Szechwan style, with red chilies and peanuts! Mongolian lamb and rutabaga? Mmmm. Those ideas will be tested before the winter is through!

I’m going to guess that it is just this practicality and usefulness that has kept the golden root out of the limelight. Rutabagas are not sexy. Nutritionally, they are just fine. They have fiber, a good amount of vitamin C, some B6 and are plentiful in minerals like thiamin and calcium. But a rutabaga isn’t something you would toss in your bike bag for a quick power snack. They don’t have an impressive glycemic index, nor do they fit neatly into the South Beach Diet Plan. It’s a rustic, old-fashioned vegetable that is best served in a rustic, old-fashioned way. They take long, slow cooking. In my imagination, they should be served with a hand carved wooden spoon, near a crackling fire with perhaps some lute music playing in the background.

The rutabaga, (much like myself), does not always play well with others. It is too often relegated to a “filler” position in stews and pasties. I, along with much of the general population, find it slightly offensive when used in this manner. I don’t want to chomp into a savory cottage pie or beef stew and find my mouth startled by a tidbit of skunky, sweet rutabaga. It tastes somehow off, like finding a Brussels Sprout in your Caesar salad. They make good soup. They are good roasted. They are a compliment to braised and stewed meats, but must be a highlight, not a base note. Best of all, they are served alone, mashed with butter, salt and pepper and a perhaps a splash of cream.

As I mentioned earlier, the rutabaga and most root vegetables were not a mainstay of my childhood diet. So imagine my surprise when I first experienced the produce section of a supermarket in Grand Fork, North Dakota. Rutabagas the size of soccer balls was sold heavily waxed, in huge wooden bins. At my local Thriftway, they reside in a small silvery bowl tucked in amongst the “boutique” items like fresh horseradish root, red endive and live watercress.

I tried something new with my last batch of “swede” and I cooked the rutabaga chunks in the pressure cooker. Rutabaga doesn’t cook as quickly as most potatoes. I tend to be impatient and will sometimes undercook the pieces, resulting in a slightly stringy, albeit still flavorful mash. No such worries this time! In just minutes, the pressure-cooked rutabagas were velvety smooth, easy to mash and quick to dry. And of course there is the added bonus of retention of vitamins and minerals and improved carbon footprint, but I’ll save that for another time.

I have promised myself to be more disciplined in the act of writing but less dogmatic about the topics and craft. In other words, I have given myself permission to write grammatically incorrect, whimsical nothings about rutabagas in the hopes that it will eventually inspire more creative and potentially marketable work. It is the act of writing and creative thinking that I need to nurture. And as a reward for those of you willing to plow your way through it… here is a recipe.

Mashed Swede

This was my introduction to the rutabaga, and still my favorite preparation. The puree tastes much more complicated than it is – as if enhanced with and extra step of browned butter or pureed caramelized onions. A splash of cream is all that is needed here, and milk will do in a pinch. If you have a pressure cooker, use it here.

3 lbs rutabagas
2-3 tablespoons butter
2-3 tablespoons cream or half and half
Plenty of salt and black pepper.

Peel and dice the rutabagas. Place in plenty of cold, lightly salted water. Cover and bring up to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 30-45 minutes, until the pieces are fork tender. Drain well, mash or rice the rutabaga and return to the pan. Cook the puree over medium/low heat stirring often for 10 minutes, or until the puree has steamed away the residual water. Add butter, cream and salt and pepper. Stir to blend and serve hot.

For the love of Tofu

 

I used to think tofu was inedible, slippery, tasteless chunks of solidified goo. I would actually slurp my miso soup in a sideways sort of way in order to leave the tiny cubes untouched in the bottom of my bowl. Today, I can’t seem to get enough of the stuff.  What changed?

 

Two things. First, I am now able to source freshly made local tofu. It is sold in blocks, not submerged in tubs of suspect liquid. It is often still warm. It has a lovely texture, like young cheese, and a fresh clean flavor. In other words, fresh tofu has everything that the tofu of my youth lacked.

 

Second- I discovered Chinese Ma Bo Tofu  and  Korean Soon du bu. In these traditional, spicy dishes, the tofu is not sneaked in as a filler or protein substitute. And they are also not dishes designed to delicately nourish the serene palates of meditating, vegetarian monks.  They are neither subtle nor wimpy. They explode with flavor while still managing to bring a sense of comfort to the eater.

 

Ma Bo or Mapo Tofu  is said to translate into “pock marked” bean curd because the woman who created it for her husband’s restaurant had some complexion difficulties. To make it, a small amount of ground pork is fried crisp with garlic and ginger and then transformed into fiery sauce with Szechuan bean paste. Big chunks of soft tofu are simmered in the sauce – with a hint of mouth numbing Szechuan peppercorns, a few drops of sesame oil and a sprinkle of fresh sliced scallions.

 

This is not a difficult dish to find, but few restaurants make it really well. It is too bland and the tofu is of a poor quality. Luckily, it is easy to make at home. And while it isn’t the best,  I am not opposed to using the House Brand Extra Hot Ma Bo Tofu instant sauce found in Asian supermarkets, or the Hot Bean Sauce from Lee Kum Kee. Ma Bo tofu makes a wonderful quick dinner with rice and some quick fried cabbage or greens. Yum!

 

My newest tofu passion is Soon du bu. My friend Gwen turned me on to this bubbling cauldron of tofu in an explosive red chili broth. It can be accented with seafood, meat, eggs or vegetables, but it is the tofu that really matters. Oh, yum!! It’s spicy – super spicy, but with a rich complexity that is rarely painful. It warms the soul from deep inside rather than flaming up the senses.

 

On a recent visit to the H Mart in Federal Way, (where they make a decent soon du bu in the restaurant) I picked up a packet of instant tofu broth seasoning mix. Building a bowl of hot tofu soup in this way as easy as making instant ramen noodles and just as much fun to customize.  The finished soup is thin and not nearly as complex and intriguing as a bowl made from scratch – but on a cold day it is as comforting and nourishing as the best chicken noodle soup.  And that is high praise.