→ February 12, 2008
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Pork Chops with Mushroom-Rosemary Sauce.

I’m not sure if this is exactly a “30-minute meal,” but it comes together very quickly. I recommend that you brine the pork chops for at least an hour (2 cups chicken broth, 1 Tbsp salt, 1 Tbsp brown sugar, boiled, then cooled with a dozen ice cubs), but it’s not necessary.

I like to serve these by toasting thick slices of Italian or French bread, slicing the pork, then serving them like bruschetta, with the pork on the toast and the sauce poured all over the whole mess. The toast will soak up whatever sauce misses the pork as well as any juices that escape the meat.

1.5 pounds of pork chops (I used 2 boneless chops, over 1″ thick)
4 oz shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, stems removed, sliced into ¼” wide pieces
1 Tbsp minced shallot or scallion (white part only)
2 Tbsp cognac or other unflavored brandy
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp chopped rosemary
1 Tbsp olive or other vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and place a roasting pan large enough to hold all the chops on the middle rack.
2. Season both sides of the pork chops with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Reserve 1 tsp rosemary for the sauce and rub the remainder on the outside of the pork. Score the fat on the outside of the pork in three places to prevent the meat from curling in the pan.
3. Heat a heavy skillet (cast iron if you’ve got it) on the stove over high heat until seriously hot.
4. Add the oil to the skillet and as soon as you see any smoke add the chops. Sear for one minute, then flip and sear for another minute.
5. When the chops are seared on both sides, place them in the oven and roast until they reach the desired internal temperature, not past 150 degrees (“medium,” but that’s as high as you want pork to go). For tonight’s chops, this took about twelve minutes.
6. In the meantime, drain most of the fat from the skillet, leaving roughly 1 Tbsp behind. Add the shallots and mushrooms with a pinch of salt and cook with the burner off, using just the heat trapped in the pan, only restoring the flame to medium when the food stops sizzling. Sauté until the mushrooms have released most of their liquid and started to color.
7. Deglaze the pan with the cognac, turning the flame down or off to prevent ignition. Scrape the pan bottom to dissolve any browned bits (called “fond”). Cook until most of the liquid is gone.
8. Turn the heat off and add the mustard, reserved 1 tsp rosemary, cream, and salt/pepper to taste. Stir to combine and serve immediately. (If the sauce is done too soon and you need to hold it, pour it into a heatproof cup or ramekin and set it in a pot of warm water. If you leave it over the heat, it can break.)

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→ February 7, 2008
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Hollywood eats.

Just a quick heads-up – no ESPN chat this week. I expect to do another one next week, on the 14th.

I had a short and uneventful trip to LA earlier this week, but I did manage to find one absolute gem of a restaurant, a sushi place in West Hollywood called Ajisai, right off of Santa Monica. It’s a tiny place, with maybe ten tables and a small sushi bar, but the fish is out of sight, to the point where I left thinking, “I wish I’d been hungrier, so I could have eaten more.” The salmon looked fabulous and was incredibly smooth and fresh. I tend to avoid fancy rolls, since they’re a bad value and inauthentic, but I was sucked in by the Dragon Roll, which was a shrimp tempura roll topped with spicy tuna and a bit of salmon roe. It turned out to be a great choice, at least taste-wise (as it wasn’t cheap at $14, and I’m sure it’s not an authentic dish), because the spicy tuna itself was just about perfect, with larger chunks of tuna than I’ve ever found in that dish, and sparing use of the very spicy sauce that let the texture and flavor of the fish come through. The only sour note was the unagi; one of the two pieces I ordered had a distinctly fishy taste.

Ajisai was a welcome improvement over the previous night’s sushi at Geisha House, on Hollywood Boulevard right in downtown Hollywood. It was late and I was exhausted, so I asked at the hotel about the nearest good sushi place, and of course, I was directed to a place that was pushing atmosphere over food and that probably has a deal with the hotel, since I was handed a preprinted card with directions. Geisha House’s sushi cost more and had far less flavor than Ajisai’s, and their special-roll menu was loaded with junk ingredients and ridiculous sauces. I ordered green tea when I sat down, and was brought a pot with fresh leaves in it, but when I took a sip of the brew, it was black tea that tasted of flowers. So when the bill came, and I saw $6 for “Kyoto Rice” (which, it turns out, was the tea), I pointed out that the tea wasn’t even what I’d ordered, saying, “I asked you for green tea.” Her response: “Oh, we don’t have green tea, we have other tea.” So if you’re in the mood for other tea, Geisha House is the place for you.

I had one other meal of note, at Lucky Devil’s, a high-end burger (and panini) place on Hollywood owned by Lucky Vanous, best known for his appearance in a Diet Coke commercial back when people actually watched commercials. The burgers are all made from Kobe beef, which is probably something of a waste. I ordered mine medium-well, which is also probably something of a waste, and it arrived well-done, which was definitely a waste, since the burger was dry. The potato roll it was served on was the star of the show, while the “crispy fries” were pre-cut and coated, which means I could have had better fries if I’d walked five minutes in the other direction and gone to In-n-Out. But I will say that a medium or medium-rare burger at Lucky Devil’s is probably a much better experience than what I had, since good-quality beef probably shouldn’t be cooked too much past medium.

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→ February 2, 2008
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Salmon with tangerine beurre blanc.

I was asked for some advice on fish, so here goes.

Before I get to the recipe – a simple favorite of mine – some tips on buying and storing fish. You should always strive to buy fish the day you’re going to cook it, and no more than one day ahead. Buy it at a reputable store with good turnover, where the fish is stored in front of you on ice and where you don’t actually smell fish at the counter. Don’t be afraid to ask to smell a piece of fish before it’s cut or before you buy it – if fish smells fishy, it has already started to go bad. The color of farmed fish can be affected by its feed, so color isn’t a great guide for buying fish, but the flesh of the fish should look firm and not soft or mushy. When you get it home, stash it in the coldest part of your fridge – usually the bottom rack, towards the rear – and if it’s not wrapped tightly, transfer it to a sealed ziploc bag or container. I always store my wrapped fish in one of these flexible ice packs, which won’t freeze the fish but will keep it extra-cold.

When buying salmon, the tail end of the fish is not lower quality but the flesh can lose its texture more easily, and the last inch or so of the tail is useless. Tail pieces also cook more quickly because they’re thin. This recipe is designed for cuts from the center of the fish. Be sure to run a hand along the fish to check for pinbones, which can be removed with good tweezers or a pair of (CLEAN) needlenose pliers.

Salmon with Tangerine-Cilantro Beurre Blanc

6 Tbsp tangerine juice (roughly the juice of one tangerine)
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar (white balsamic worked)
1 Tbsp wine/cognac
1 small shallot, minced
2 tsp chopped fresh cilantro (or flat-leaf parsley)
4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Salt & pepper to taste
1 lb salmon fillet, cut into individual servings (1/3 pound per serving is usually good)

Preheat the oven to 350.

1. In a saucier, combine the first four ingredients and simmer down until the liquid is almost gone. Add the cilantro and remove from the heat.
2. While the sauce is reducing, heat an ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Season the salmon’s flesh side with salt and freshly ground black pepper and sear it flesh side down in the pan in about 1 Tbsp of olive or any vegetable oil. After two to three minutes the flesh side should be nicely browned; flip it and sear two more minutes before transferring to the oven to finish cooking, about five more minutes, until the center of the fish is no longer translucent but is still paler and more shimmering than the exterior of the fish.
3. To finish the sauce, adding about 1 Tbsp at a time, whisk in the butter quickly, using the heat remaining in the pan to melt it. The goal is to create and maintain an emulsion, which will not be possible if the pan and sauce cool while you’re still mounting the butter. If the sauce becomes too cool, place it over another pan with an inch of simmering water in it to warm it slowly. Placing the saucier directly over a burner risks breaking the emulsion.
4. Season the sauce with salt/pepper and serve as soon as possible. You can keep the sauce for 10-15 minutes by sitting the pan over (but not touching) hot water.

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→ January 27, 2008
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Mercury in fish.

The New York Times ran a scare piece earlier this week about high mercury levels in bluefin tuna found in NYC restaurants, focusing on sushi joints. Mercury in seafood is a significant environmental issue, no doubt, but TIME has an interesting interview with Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, who argues that the health benefits of eating the fish noted for higher levels of mercury outweigh the risk (to adults) of mercury exposure. He also says that varying the fish in your diet limits your risk of negative effects from mercury, and points out that the studies on cardiovascular damage from mercury have not produced consistent results. The best news: Eat all the salmon you want, as it’s high in omega-3 fatty acids and low in mercury. That’s my favorite type of sushi, so I’ll place a double order the next time I’m out for raw fish.

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→ January 22, 2008
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A simple pasta dish.

Sausage and mushroom pasta with pecorino romano – one pot and one skillet. Moderate knife skills required, and I’ll assume we all know that pasta should be cooked until it is al dente and no further, on penalty of death.

1 onion (or one small onion), diced
1 red bell pepper, cored and cut into 1″ strips
2 cloves garlic, minced
Pinch crushed red pepper
15-20 cremini mushrooms, quartered
1 pound fresh chicken/turkey sausage, Italian-flavored, casings removed
1 pound dried pasta (farfalle, rigatoni)
¾ cup to 1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Cook pasta according to package directions in heavily salted water. Drain, reserving one cup of the cooking liquid, returning the pasta to the cooking pot. Ideally, you want the pasta to be done just after the following process is completed.
2. In 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet, sweat onion and red bell pepper until translucent and just thinking about browning, 7-8 minutes. Add garlic and red pepper and cook 30-60 seconds more.
3. Move pan contents to edges. Add mushrooms to center (using more olive oil if required) and cook until they release their liquid and brown slightly, 5-10 minutes.
4. Move mushrooms to pan edges and add sausage, cooking thoroughly. I like to let the meat sit when I first add it so that it browns on one side, then I break it up into small bits and sauté it.
5. Add the skillet’s contents and the cheese to the pasta with ½ cup of the cooking liquid, stirring quickly to form a sauce using the residual heat from the pasta and the liquid. If the resulting sauce is too dry, add some of the remaining cooking liquid just until the pasta is coated and wet, but do not add so much that you get a pool of liquid on the bottom of the pot. Add a few turns of fresh black pepper and serve.

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→ January 19, 2008
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Disneyworld eats (second trip).

So before I get into new places, let me reiterate how much I like Raglan Road. We went twice, and I had the shepherd’s pie and Guinness both times, while my wife and I split the bread-and-butter pudding once. Other dishes I can recommend: The Guinness and onion banger is delicious, served over mashed potatoes and topped with a ladle-full of their beef stew, making it ridiculously hearty; their chicken and sage banger is also very good and a bit lighter than the pork banger, plus it’s a more reasonable portion than the prior dish; and the “pie in the sky” (chicken and mushroom pie) is hearty without being heavy, although it could never reach the heights of a proper steak and mushroom pie. We ordered a side of chips at lunch, and they appeared to be hand-cut. One caution: The Dunbrody Kiss dessert may sound delightful, but the cornflake layer on the bottom turns into a chewy, icky mush, and ruined the dish for me the one time we ordered it back in ’06.

Other than Raglan Road and a couple of breakfasts at Boma, we ate in the parks this time around. Most pleasant surprise was Flame Tree BBQ in Animal Kingdom; it’s real Q, complete with pink smoke ring. They offer pulled pork, shredded beef, ribs (St. Louis), and smoked chicken. My wife went with the pork sandwich; the meat had a mild smoke flavor and was just a little bit dry (unavoidable given the quantities they must smoke and serve). I went with the ribs, which were a little tough but were covered with spicy-sweet bark, the most glorious part of barbecued ribs in my book. The baked beans that came on the side had a smoky molasses flavor, but the corn muffin was nothing more than mushy corn cake. It’s easily one of the best values anywhere on the property.

The Prime Time Café at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) had good food, but was way overpriced. We both went with the pot roast, which was very nicely done, with most of the fat cooked out and plenty of well-browned surface area; it sat on top of some ultra-smooth mashed potatoes that served mostly to soak up whatever ran out of the pot roast. At $17 for lunch, it’s a bit dear, and large portions at lunch aren’t a big plus to me. They do make a good chocolate shake, though.

Get the smoked turkey leg if you have to eat at Magic Kingdom, or maybe the tuna on multi-grain bread at Columbia Harbour House. The Kingdom really doesn’t offer much for full-service options, and their quick-service selection isn’t great, either. The Sleepy Hollow stand, tucked in a corner in Liberty Square, has funnel cakes and Mickey waffles, two guilty pleasures.

We ate our way around Epcot, as usual, but hit a few new places this year:

  • The Biergarten in the Germany pavilion, offering a dinner buffet at $27 per adult (not including booze). Dinner buffets don’t usually thrill me, but the selection at this one was excellent, and our server, from northern Germany, told me that most of what was on the tables was authentic German food. The various sausages were all fantastic, as was the warm German potato salad (cider vinegar, mustard, and bacon … seriously). The salmon in dill sauce was solid, although I’d bet I got a piece that hadn’t been sitting under the lamps for long. The beef roulade tasted great but had dried out, while the pork schnitzel (breaded and fried!) was outstanding. Desserts were a disappointment. Live music is part of the appeal, with your typical goofy Disney humor.
  • The Rose and Crown in the England pavilion served straightforward versions of some of what you’d find at Raglan Road. We went twice; I wasn’t blown away by the pot roast, which was fattier than the one I had at Prime Time, but the bangers and mash were excellent, with outstanding color on the sausages. My sister got the fish and chips the time she came with us, and the breading on the fish was ultra-crisp and golden brown. Guinness on tap here is a bit colder than I’d like.
  • The San Angel Inn in Mexico was a disappointment. The menu seems less geared towards authentic cooking than other Epcot restaurants, and the prices here were out of line with 1) what I expect at a Mexican restaurant and 2) the quality of the product. I ordered the pescado a la ranchera, seared tilapia served over rice with an avocado cream sauce and roasted poblanos. The tilapia was quasi-blackened; the fish was almost certainly frozen at some point in its post-life life. I did like the avocado cream sauce, which was about as smooth as soft-serve ice cream.
  • We did the “princess dining” dinner at Askershus in the Norway pavilion. It’s steep at $29 per adult, but you are paying for the characters (your kid gets a photo with one of the princess characters, and the remaining princesses walk around and visit all the tables). The food was very good, probably the best of any place we hit at Epcot. Dinner starts with a koldbordt buffet of cold cuts, smoked fish (the smoked salmon was ridiculous, ultra-smooth with a sweet smoky flavor), and salads. For the entrée, I went with the baked salmon with mustard; I was disappointed that the mustard was yellow mustard, which I think is kind of nasty, but the salmon was perfectly cooked and the potato pancakes underneath it were fresh and crispy. My wife went with the braised pork shank, a huge portion where the meat just slid right off the bone. Dessert is family-style, with three desserts coming on one plate: a “rice cream” (pudding) with sweetened strawberries, a cappuccino cheesecake that tasted more like mousse than cheesecake, and a “princess cake” with a white chocolate mousse. All three were delicious. Note that this restaurant’s menu appears to change seasonally.
  • We hit the quick-service restaurant at the Morocco pavilion, the Tangierine Café. The “lamb wrap” was a gyro in all but name, with very juicy lamb shaved to order and served on a hot fresh flatbread with just a little bit of yogurt sauce (can I call it tzatziki if it’s not a Greek restaurant?). It’s a bit messy to eat while you walk, but either it was delicious or I was starving, because I inhaled the thing.

Finally, I can’t discuss Epcot without mentioning the Patisserie in the France pavilion. Their chocolate mousse is dark and very smooth; I can’t imagine that they’re making a true mousse with an egg white foam, a labor-intensive and fussy preparation, but that sure as heck is what it tastes like. Their éclairs are solid, with chocolate pastry cream inside, and the strawberry tart has a hard shortbread crust filled with sweetened whipped cream. I just wish you could get a proper espresso somewhere around there, but the only coffee they serve is Nescafe.

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→ December 6, 2007
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Nashville eats.

So before I get to the food, let me talk about the hotel that Minor League Baseball likes to force down the throats of the major league clubs (you know, the ones who make minor league owners’ insane profits possible) and the media covering the event, the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. You’re probably familiar with Hell’s Kitchen; this place is Hell’s Outhouse. I’m a pretty hardcore capitalist, and even I’m offended by the existence of this hotel. It’s enormous, large enough to get its own ZIP Code, with more wasted space than a banana plantation in the Yukon, and it’s overflowing with fake plastic trees and fake waterfalls and other crap straight from the mind of a designer who was clearly very, very mad at society when he came up with the concept. It takes about fifteen minutes to make a full circuit around the hotel, and can easily take upwards of twenty minutes to go from the lobby to certain guest rooms. Every restaurant and shop in the hotel is outrageously overpriced – $2.75 for a 20-ounce bottle of Dasani – and non-guests are charged $16 to park with no in-and-out privileges. There’s no central lobby area for the winter meetings’ standard evening congregations, and the hotel itself is located a good fifteen to twenty minutes from downtown or any area with non-chain sit-down restaurants. I’m tempted to go for a career switch, train as a munitions expert, bribe a county official to condemn the building before the meetings return to this scar on America’s landscape and culture in 2012, and (with the government’s permission, of course) blow the damn place to oblivion. I have yet to find a front-office exec, scout, or writer who likes the place. But hey, outgoing Minor League President Mike Moore loves it, so it’s been there every four to five years for forever now, and we may be stuck with it even after the door hits Moore square in the ass on his way out. Thanks for nothing, Mike.

First meal had to be quick, so I stopped by Fat Mo’s, a small Nashville-area fast-food chain along the lines of In-n-Out and Five Guys. The burger was excellent by fast-food standards, a wide half-pound patty with plenty of salt and some black pepper in it; it was well-done, of course, and it would have been nice if my “no cheese” request had been followed. (It wasn’t a big deal – I just peeled off the one slice of yellow crap.) Their French fries are very good, although not up to the hand-cut standard of the other two chains, although again Fat Mo’s gets credit for understanding the culinary value of salt. A burger and fries plus a bottle of water came to just over $6.

Whitt’s Barbecue shows up on a number of “best barbecue in Nashville” lists I found online, and their Q was solid. It’s a bare-bones joint and the menu is sparse. I ordered the cornbread dinner with pork, which comes with one side and fried cornbread, a Nashville specialty that elsewhere seems to be called a “corn cake.” The pork had a mild smoke flavor and no hint of dryness, meaning that very little sauce was required. The beans were fair, perhaps a bit too sweet, and the corn cake had a good crumb and savory taste but wasn’t very hot, so it had started to dry out.

Swett’s is a classic meat-and-three joint (which means you pick one meat item and three sides) in southwest Nashville that’s been open since 1953. Service is counter-based – you stand in line, get your order, pay at the end, etc. There’s a full list of items sitting on the top of the counter before you get to the food. They offer five standard meat items plus a couple of items from a list of five non-daily meat items, including pigs feet (not available the day I was there, darn it). I ordered the turkey and dressing, one of the non-daily meat items, as well as just two sides – pinto beans and okra – and baked corn bread (a muffin), as well as blackberry cobbler for dessert. The turkey and dressing was over-the-top good; I’m a sucker for cornbread dressing, and theirs was moist with a great mix of cornbread, onion, celery, and herb flavors, while the turkey was moist and the gravy was smooth with a good but not overpowering chicken-stock flavor. The pinto beans were classic southern-style with chunks of ham hock, while the okra was steamed (I was hoping for fried and didn’t see the okra before ordering it) and had little flavor. The cornbread was too sweet but had a good crumb; the cobbler was probably made from frozen blackberries and the cobbler dough was greasy, although neither fact stopped me from eating almost the entire thing.

The Yellow Porch is a sort of casual fine-dining restaurant on the southern end of town, with a strong emphasis on fresh ingredients, local ones if possible. The menu isn’t long but the dishes are layered – Calvin Trillin’s “something served on a bed of something else” expression comes to mind – and despite the obvious quality of the inputs, my meal didn’t add up. A perfect example of their too-clever-by-half philosophy is the oil served with the bread (which was, by the way, an outstanding soft sponge bread): Olive oil with chopped fresh herbs, with a pool of balsamic vinegar (might have been a reduction, but it wasn’t sweet) in the middle, with a small pile of fresh feta cheese in the middle of that. It was a taste overload, and the tart-with-tart combo didn’t work that well for me.

For the entrée, I went with grilled shrimp with “grits custard,” sautéed spinach, roasted red pepper coulis, and a “caraway spiced napa cabbage salad.” That last part, the cabbage salad, proved the undoing of the entire dish. The shrimp were outstanding, fresh, Cajun-spiced (but not blackened as the menu said), and the coulis was delicious. But in the center of the dish was a ring-molded grits custard, which was grits mixed with beaten eggs and what I think was parmesan cheese (not the real stuff) and baked. The texture was a bit odd, not firm like custard or smooth like grits/polenta. But the killer was the cabbage, which was shredded and drenched in white vinegar, which dripped down into the grits below it, rendering both items inedible. (Vinegar and parmesan cheese ≠ good eats.) To the restaurant’s credit, when I told the server that I was “disappointed” and explained about the excess vinegar, he took the entrée off the check.

For dessert, I had a slice of flourless chocolate-espresso torte with a raspberry coulis. The coulis was excellent and the texture of the torte was great, but it could have been darker. They get big points for having a wide selection of loose-leaf teas.

The next day’s lunch was at another meat-and-three with my comrade-in-fork, Joe Sheehan, who is also a frequent comrade-in-pork. Arnold’s Country Kitchen seems to be the consensus pick for Nashville’s best meat-and-three, and once we saw a diner with the pork barbecue on his plate, our lunchtime destinies were sealed. I paired mine with black-eyed peas and green beans. (Note: If the menu was posted somewhere, we didn’t see it, but there’s an image of it on their website.) The pork is a Wednesday special, and we picked the right day to go, because it was amazing, moist with a good smoky flavor, and the sauce had a nice molasses base without overpowering the flavor of the meat. The black-eyed peas sucked; there was no hint of ham hock or salt pork or, frankly, any flavor other than onions. The green beans were a little bit overstewed but otherwise solid. Arnold’s serves both baked cornbread and fried cornbread with every meal, and these were probably the best I’ve ever had, with no sweetness, plenty of fat in the recipe to keep them moist, and an absolutely perfect crumb. For dessert, I tried their “chocolate pie,” a thick chocolate pudding that tastes a lot like brownie batter topped with meringue. The filling was delicious and the meringue helped cut the richness of the filling, although the crust was too greasy and not very tender.

Last stop – with Sheehan, Kevin Goldstein, and Will Carroll in tow – was Calhoun’s, a Tennessee-wide chain of barbecue restaurants. They’re known or claim to be known for their ribs, so I went with the half slab with smashed red-skin potatoes and beans on the side. The hickory-smoked ribs were smoky but didn’t have a lot of hickory flavor; the best part was the top and end bits, with that indescribable pork taste and just the right amount of tooth. The mashed potatoes were good but generic – definitely made in a huge batch – and the beans were more like a chili than baked beans, which made a fan of Joe but was a little less of a hit with me. Pre-meal cornbread was on the sweet side, although the buttermilk biscuit was solid-average. They do get points for having Newcastle Brown Ale, which was about the last beer I expected to find in Nashville.

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→ November 30, 2007
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Pork loin, bread and butter pudding, and cookies.

So I finally made the bread-and-butter pudding recipe in Kevin Dundon’s Full on Irish cookbook, and I can report that (a) the recipe works and (b) the finished product is just like the version at his Raglan Road restaurant. (Without the raisins. I despise raisins.) My only modification was to cook the pudding in a bain marie, since it’s really just bread in a custard and I always cook my custards in a water bath to minimize the chance of curdling. I made a half-recipe, so I checked the custard after 20 minutes and pulled it at 25 (the full recipe calls for 30-35 minutes, but it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on custards). The cookbook includes recipes for both the crème anglaise and the butterscotch sauce that are served alongside the dessert at Raglan Road. Just be prepared for a lot of whisking.

—

Those of you who live near a Trader Joes and have any sort of affinity for chocolate need to go try their new Dark Chocolate Stars cookies. It’s a non-pareil wrapped around a star-shaped crunchy shortbread cookie. I just ate seven inside of a minute. The store nearest me sold out its first shipment inside of a day.

—

I haven’t posted any original recipes yet, mostly because I never think to do it, but I made a roasted pork loin the other night that was easy and came out particularly good. The brining is optional, but pork is so lean that I always brine it before cooking.

For the brine:

2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 Tbsp kosher salt (about 1.5 of table salt)
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2-3 whole cloves
Pinch whole black peppercorns
A piece of a sprig of rosemary (about 2″ long)

Bring all ingredients to a boil in a saucepan. Chill with about a dozen ice cubes.

For the meat:

1 pork loin (mine was 1.5 pounds), any strings removed
Small handfuls of fresh parsley and thyme
Needles from 1 sprig of rosemary (save the stem)
3-4 sage leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1-2 tsp kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into ¾” cubes

  1. If brining, put the pork in the brine in a zip-top bag for at least one hour before cooking. Dry thoroughly with paper towels after removing from the brine.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350°.
  3. Chop all of the herbs and combine in a measuring cup with the salt, garlic, and ground black pepper to taste.
  4. Cover with just enough olive oil to make a paste and rub all over the pork.
  5. Remove the rack from a small roasting pan and cover the bottom with the sweet potato cubes. Add the stem from the rosemary and any left over thyme sprigs.
  6. Sit the pork on the sweet potatoes (fatty side up) and roast until the pork reaches the desired internal temperature – about 135° for medium, 145° for well-done – stirring the sweet potatoes occasionally to ensure even coating with the oil and juices. A 1.5 pound loin took 1 hour to reach 145°.
  7. Remove the pork from the oven and cover with foil on the counter. Allow to rest 5-10 minutes before carving.

Enjoy!

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→ November 23, 2007
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Thanksgiving eats & random thoughts.

Thanksgiving at Chez Law is a simple affair. My in-laws came for the holiday, and my mother-in-law started asking about a pumpkin pie (not on my menu) two or three days prior to their arrival. My father-in-law likes pumpkin pie, but also likes apple pie, which I had already made, and I wasn’t about to make two desserts for four people plus a toddler. My mother-in-law explained, “I just have this thing about not wanting anyone to be disappointed,” which is how we ended up with eleven dishes for eight people in 2004. My response to her philosophy? “I don’t give a shit if anyone’s disappointed, so I tend have a lot less stress on holidays.”

The menu: turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, green-bean casserole, Irish soda bread, cranberry sauce, apple pie.

I always use Alton Brown’s roasted turkey recipe – half an hour at 500 degrees to brown the outside, then drop the oven to 350 with foil over the breast until the white meat is 159 degrees and the thigh hits 170. I brined it the night before using his brine recipe (same link), but instead of allspice berries and candied ginger, I use whole cloves and a pinch of whole mustard seed. I filled the cavity with half an apple, half an onion, two sage leaves, and two rosemary sprigs. The turkey took about 2:20 to cook, longer than I expected, but aside from the deepest part of the drumsticks, every bit of meat was still moist and juicy, and the white meat (usually pretty bland) had a nice flavor that didn’t require help from gravy. Speaking of which, I had plenty of pan drippings for a simple gravy – deglazed with a mixture of sherry (Amontillado!) and cognac, with a little chopped celery and rosemary in the pan, then boosted with homemade chicken stock and thickened with a flour/butter paste. It was very dark and strongly flavored, but delicious.

EDIT: One thing worth mentioning about AB’s cooking method is that during the first half-hour, the oil from the outside of the bird and some of the rendered fat from the bird itself run off and hit the bottom of the pan, which is at 500 degrees, so it smokes. While not good for the smoke alarm, it does end up briefly smoking the bird, so the turkey gets a little pink smoke ring all over the meat, and the drumsticks in particular have a texture a lot like a fully smoked turkey leg. Definitely good eats.

For dressing, I always use Joy of Cooking’s basic bread stuffing recipe, just adding one cup of chopped red bell pepper for flavor and color:

The keys here are always starting with a good-quality bread – I used the fresh Italian bread from Whole Foods, but any artisan bread would be fine – and using fresh herbs and, if you can, homemade chicken stock to moisten it. I grow parsley, sage, and thyme in my tiny backyard, so I had all three fresh and available, and I grind the cloves and grate the nutmeg fresh as well.

The sweet potatoes were another AB recipe, chipotle mashed sweet potatoes, kicked up with 2 Tbsp of brown sugar and about 1 Tbsp of cream:

I melt the cream and butter together in a small saucepan and dissolve the salt and brown sugar in it, just as I would do for mashed potatoes. You should never add cold butter or cream to hot potatoes of any sort, and using them to dissolve the salt and sugar helps distribute the seasonings more evenly throughout the mash.

The green bean casserole was, sadly, the one from the back of the can, because my wife insists on it:

I did throw about a half-teaspoon of hot sauce in there; it doesn’t make the finished dish spicy, but it adds an undertone of heat that I like and that no one complains about.

I make my own cranberry sauce; cranberries are very high in pectin and they gel pretty quickly. The rough rule of thumb is eight cups of fresh whole cranberries, three cups of sugar, and two and a half cups of water. I kick it up a few notches (sorry) by going with 1¾ cups of water, ½ cup of rum,

For bread, I skipped my usual sponge bread and made the white Irish soda bread recipe from Kevin Dundon’s Full on Irish cookbook:

Great texture, perhaps a bit too much buttermilk flavor for my tastes, so next time I might play with it and try a baking powder/milk combo instead of baking soda/buttermilk. Raglan Road, the Downtown Disney restaurant about which I raved earlier this month, is Dundon’s creation, and they serve a brown soda bread there (recipe also in that cookbook) that’s outstanding.

For dessert, I had already prepared and frozen an apple pie, using apples we picked ourselves in late September. You can prepare and freeze an unbaked pie without too much extra work – I have another one in the freezer for Christmas – and it allows you to get the fruit into the pie while it’s still in season. Baking is simple: don’t cut steam vents or glaze before freezing; glaze before baking; bake 10 minutes at 425°, then cut vents and bake 20 minutes more; then drop to 350° and bake until thick juices bubble up through the vents, about another hour. Anyway, the pie was a bit of a disappointment, as the flavor was bland. I think I used too little salt in the crust, although its texture was perfect (it’s the lattice-dough recipe from Baking Illustrated), and the filling probably needed a bit more lemon juice both for tartness and to emphasize the contrast with the sweetness. Apples are always a bit unpredictable in their sweet/tart ratio, and I missed this one a bit. Anyway, the obligatory picture, although the damn thing fell down between slicing and picture-taking:

I can’t emphasize enough how good that dough recipe is, though. Working with it is very easy, as it doesn’t tear or crack, and it’s flaky and tender when it’s baked.

One last hit is the beverage – every year, we make cranberry daiquiris (don’t laugh, they’re about 60% rum) based on a recipe that I could swear was in Bon Appetit but that has disappeared from epicurious.com. Since they seem to have lost interest, here’s my take on the recipe:

Dissolve 1/2 cup sugar in 1/2 cup water in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add 1 cinnamon stick, two or three whole cloves, and 1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel; bring to boil. Mix in 1/2 cup cranberries and cook until cranberries begin to pop. Cool; discard cinnamon. Pour mixture into jar; add 1/2 cup light rum. Refrigerate until fully chilled. Strain syrup into pitcher; reserve cranberries. Add 6 tablespoons each dark rum, light rum, orange juice, and lemon juice to pitcher. Chill. Serve over ice; garnish with reserved cranberries.

I use Gosling’s Black Seal rum for the dark rum and squeeze the orange and lemon juices myself. They’re very good and potent for a fruity drink, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I like the demon rum.

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A few random observations from the holiday:

• Love the AFLAC commercial using the Rudolph characters. Unfortunately, OfficeMax scooped them a few years ago with their Rubberband man spoof, which was almost as funny as the making-of video.

• More props to TIAA-CREF for using Bob Mould’s “See a Little Light,” one of my favorite songs ever in any genre, in their “Power of” commercial.
• Shouldn’t Les Miles be named Fewer Miles? Does Michigan really want to hire a coach whose own name is a grammatical error?

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Pasta alla Carbonara, and why Giada is a bubblehead.

So I was looking for a new recipe for pasta alla carbonara, a common dish from central Italy where beaten eggs are whisked into freshly cooked pasta to create a sauce right before serving, and a little Googling came up with this recipe from David Leite, which I made tonight. It was quick, easy, authentic (no extra ingredients – more on that in a moment), and delicious. The only changes I made were to use 3 eggs without the extra yolk, and to make the sauce in the pasta pot rather than the skillet; stirring a pound of cooked pasta in a skillet is treacherous, and one thing you need to do to keep the eggs from scrambling is to keep the pasta moving. That’s just easier to do in a big pot than in a skillet, especially one with flared sides.

One other hit on page one of my Google results was this recipe by the Big Giant Head Girl, Giada de Laurentiis. Check the fourth ingredient: 2.5 cups of whipping cream. Say it with me, folks: There is no cream in carbonara sauce. It is creamy, but contains no cream. So Giada isn’t authentic, but we knew that already from the first time we heard her say spa-ghee-tee or open a jar of store-bought sauce. What’s worse is how incredibly unhealthy she’s made this dish: One pound of pasta plus one pound of chicken should mean six to eight servings, and by my calculations, her Chicken Carbonara has 35 to 40 grams of fat per serving (at six servings), two-thirds of which came from the whipping cream she added because she’s lazy. At least Raechel Ray can cook a little, but what the heck does Giada have swimming around in that enormous head of hers?

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