It might not surprise y’all to know that Monica and I pull out all the stops when it comes to camp cooking. Rather than see camping as a need to pare down and go simple, we take it as a chance to eat well in some of the prettiest places you’ll ever visit. If you’re car camping, or talking hunting or fishing camp, you not only can bring what you want, you should. You’ll want some form of flat top of course; a big old cast iron skillet is perfect. And make sure you include your Dutch oven, it’s a must for great camp cooking.
A Dutch oven is a must for great camp cooking.
Without a doubt, the most important meal of the day out there is breakfast; that’s where your fuel comes from for the fun to come later in the day. With the Dutch oven, baked eggs, quiche, frittatas, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, Dutch babies, and dang near anything else you like for breakfast is absolutely doable. Just do a bit of pre-prep at home, measuring and combining ingredients so that it’s a quick and easy job at the camp end of things. Here are a few tips to help you have a great outing.
There’s nothing finer than campfire cooking.
Make some genuine camp coffee. Pull the guts out of a percolator, or just use a pan if you like. Do it up right, on the fire or in the coals if you’ve ’em; a Coleman or camp stove will work just fine if you’re camping in a no fire area. Here’s the scoop.
10 tablespoons coffee
10 cups cold water
5 empty eggshells
Tiny pinch of salt
Use a nice, dark roast, medium ground, (a bit rougher than you’d use for a drip at home.) Crush your eggs shells and throw everything into the perc or pot and cover it. Bring to a full boil, then move the pot to lower flame or coals and simmer, covered, for about 6 minutes. Remove pot from heat and Let stand, covered, until the grounds settle, about 2 minutes. Carefully pour off coffee, leaving the grounds and shells in the pot. Even Fannie Farmer herself used this method; try it, you’ll like it!
Knowing and regulating the cooking temperature for a Dutch oven is the real trick. First things first, decide whether you’re going to use charcoal or wood. Charcoal will give you the most consistent heat and control, so that’s what I prefer.
Use high quality hardwood briquettes and avoid the self lighting crap; it burns much hotter and doesn’t last as long as the good stuff. Good charcoal will provide at least an hour of cooking: For recipes that take longer than that, pull expended briquettes and replace them with fresh ones. Keep in mind that the Dutch oven is already hot, so you only need to replace a few briquettes at a time.
Here’s the general rule of thumb for heat regulation with a Lodge or GSI Dutch oven. Note that briquettes are applied to both the bottom and top. To achieve 325° F, take the size of the oven, then use that number of briquettes less three for the bottom and that number plus three for the top. So, with a 12″ oven, you place 9 briquettes on the bottom (12-3) and 15 briquettes on the top (12+3). Adding one set of briquettes (one on top and one on bottom) will raise the temperature of the Dutch Oven approximately 25 degrees, (Conversely, removing one set of briquettes will lower the temperature by 25 degrees). Here’s a handy little chart that’ll help a bunch.
That said, you do want to vary the ratio of briquette placement on the top and bottom of your oven, depending on what you’re cooking. Here are some guidelines.
* For simmering food, place 1/3 of the total briquettes on the lid and 2/3 under the oven.
* For baking bread, rolls, biscuits, cakes, pies, and rising cobblers, place 2/3 of the total briquettes on the lid and 1/3 underneath the oven.
* For roasting meats, poultry, casseroles, quiche, vegetables, and non-rising cobblers, use an even 50% on the lid and underneath the oven.
Heat placement around the Dutch oven is crucial to yield the best cooking results. Briquettes placed under the oven should be arranged in a circular pattern right under it and come to no less than 1/2″ from the outside edge of the oven. Briquettes placed on the lid should be spread out in an even checkerboard pattern. Avoid bunching briquettes; that’ll cause hot spots.
The Golden Rule of Dutch oven cooking is this; Go Easy With The Heat! You can always do things to get the oven hotter, but if you burn the food, it’s game over.
If you’re cooking over a camp fire, you can still use charcoal. Get the briquettes started in the coals of your fire and then cook with those. Again, it’s just a whole bunch easier to accurately regulate cooking with charcoal than it is with coals, unless you’re a real pro.
Keep in mind that environmental factors, (Air temperature, humidity, altitude, wind), all influence how much heat is generated by burning briquettes. Cool air temperatures, high altitudes, shade, and high humidity will decrease the amount of heat generated by briquettes. Hot air temperatures, low altitude, direct sunlight, and wind will increase the amount of heat generated by briquettes. In real windy conditions, briquettes will burn faster due to increased air flow, and they won’t last as long.
Here are a couple of our favorite recipes for you to try on your next outing.
Spanish Frittata
6 large Eggs
2 Cups Milk
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
1 Cup shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
1 Jalapeño Chile
1 Tomato
2 Yukon Gold Potatoes
5-6 sprigs Cilantro
1 clove Garlic
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground Pepper
At home, mix eggs, milk, sour cream, cheese, salt, and pepper, and blend well. Store refrigerated.
At camp, stem, seed, and core tomato and jalapeño, then fine dice.
Mince Cilantro and garlic.
Dice potatoes.
Combine all ingredients. Add to a preheated Dutch oven. Follow the ratio for roasting, (50% – 50%), and cook for 45 minutes, then check dish. When eggs have risen about double height and the frittata is firm in the center, it’s good to go. Serve with salsa, more sour cream and toast.
Dutch oven roasting with a 50%-50% coal mix
Here’s a great French Toast Casserole, perfect for the first morning in camp. The initial prep can be done at home, then set up for breakfast the night before in camp.
1 Loaf Sourdough Bread
8 large Eggs
2 Cups 1/2 & 1/2
1 Cup Milk
2 Tablespoons Honey
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/4 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
Pinch of Sea Salt
Maple Syrup
In a mixing bowl at home, combine eggs, half-and-half, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Whisk by hand until thoroughly blended. Store blend in a Tupperware container with an airtight lid.
In camp the night before breakfast, slice the Sourdough about 1″ thick. Arrange the slices, overlapped, in a large Tupperware container or bowl with a snap lid.
Pour the egg mixture over the bread slices, making sure all are evenly covered. Lift the slices and make sure the batter gets all around the bread. Keep in a cooler until morning.
On breakfast morning, carefully transfer the bread to a well buttered Dutch oven. Pour all the remaining batter in as well.
Follow the briquette ratio for baking, (1/3 on bottom, 2/3 on top), and bake for 45 minutes, until the casserole has puffed up and turned light golden brown. Serve with warm maple syrup and butter.
Homemade dressings taste, feel, look, and are better for you.
Who knows what evil lurks inside?
I have a running food joke; it’s, “I love salad bars, because you can get all sorts of bad stuff and still pretend it’s good for you.” The reality here is that the one ingredient that’s truly not good for you nine times out of ten is dressing. The reason? Because most of the time we’re using commercial dressing. Just the other day, I urged y’all to read the ingredients on something as simple as a can of black beans. Reading the label on the vast majority of store bought bottled dressing is anything but simple.
You’re going to find stuff in 99% of the commercial dressing out there that you probably don’t want to eat, even if they say ‘Organic’, ‘Natural’, etc.; big agribusiness figured out that a lot of us like foods that are better for us these days, and they’ll do anything and everything to not lose our business, including trying to make themselves look like they’re onboard the healthy food train.
The main culprits in the You Don’t Wanna Eat That pantheon are the additives. Sure, the FDA says this stuff is safe in small quantities, but there’s a couple of problems with that. First off, the FDA has a serious track record of approving stuff that turned out to not be good for us, and secondly, even if they were safe, they might well be nutritional bad juju. Remember my piece on corn a while back, how we outlined varieties that aren’t used for eating straight away, but are used in a lot of processed foods? That choice isn’t made because of superior quality. Processed food is rife with substandard, cheap ingredients because making a profit is job one. The vast majority of commercial salad dressings contain way too much fat, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, salt/sodium, unhealthy oils, and way, way too many unpronounceable chemicals.
Reading the label prompted this harangue. M checked out a bottle of Famous Label Ranch: Let’s have a look at what she found. This is not gonna be an exciting post, but it’s important; what you’ll learn here will apply to the stuff in 90%+ of the processed food out there. If it scares you, that’s good.
Commercial ranch dressing; what’s in there?!
First ingredient, (and therefore, the greatest percentage of the overall recipe), is profit, with a pinch of advertising, bottling, and production; that is, uber alles, what we’re buying, right?
Second ingredient, water. That’s the dominant note in actual ingredients. I’m not thrilled about paying $3 to $4 for water, and while we’re at it, I’d kinda like to know what water; from where, processed or filtered how? Hmmm…
Next comes soybean oil; got any of that in your pantry? No? Soybean oil is a highly refined, high heat processed fat. Soybeans don’t give up their oil easily. Far and away the most common extraction method is to employ the industrial solvent Hexane, a highly toxic petroleum byproduct. After being treated with hexane, the oil is heated enough to remove the toxin, or so they say. Next, the oil is treated with hydrogen, (hydrogenated), so that it will blend with water and not spoil quickly. Hydrogenated oils are synonymous with the term ‘Trans Fats’. Let’s just be perfectly clear that this process is done to save money and increase profit; it’s not good for us in any way, shape, or form. Trans fats increase bad cholesterol, (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL), and decrease good cholesterol, (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL). Furthermore, they block the production of chemicals that combat inflammation and benefit our hormonal and nervous systems, while simultaneously allowing chemicals to work that increase inflammation. Finally, soy is higher in phytoestrogens than just about any other food source. Phytoestrogens mimic estrogen in our bodies, and that propensity is known to be a leading cause of breast cancer, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, infertility, and low libido. In other words, we really aughta avoid this shit like the plague.
Next comes buttermilk, but again, who made it, from what source? Buttermilk is great, but it’s kinda back to the corn argument vis a vis quality, I think.
Next we have maltodextrin; this is a polysaccharide, an artificial sweetener manufactured by applying acids or other enzymes to cornstarch. Unlike simple, natural sweeteners, maltodextrin does not provide any long-term energy benefits that a natural complex carbohydrate will. Those contain vitamins and minerals that help your body use the carbs as energy; maltodextrin doesn’t. It’s also a very large molecule, so your body has to use up a chunk of its own supply of vitamins and minerals to assimilate it. The end result of eating this stuff is that it leads to depletion of important vitamins and minerals. There are also potential side effects to ingesting maltodextrin, including allergic reactions like rashes, asthma, itching and difficulty breathing.
Next two ingredients are sugar and salt, and again, I ask, what sugar and what salt and from where. Care to bet they’re not super high quality stuff?
Now we get to the rest of the things this dressing is made of, all of which are prefaced with ‘Less than 2% of’. Among the ingredients we’ll explore further, you’ll find reasonably good things like garlic, egg yolk, celery purée, carrot purée, dried onion, vinegar, onion purée, and corn oil. All of these could be good stuff for a dressing, but they’re here in tiny amounts and once again, we have no idea of the provenance or quality. Given we’re talking Big Agribiz, chances are very good that the quality sucks.
Onward; next we get ‘natural flavor (Soy)’. Sounds pretty harmless, right? No such luck. Manufacturers these days are acutely aware that a whole bunch of us don’t want Monosodium Glutamate, (MSG), in our food. Even if they say ‘No MSG’ on the label, they well may be lying to us flat out. Why? Because MSG is cheap, and very effective at adding umami taste, that mysterious savory note. Unfortunately, MSG just ain’t good for ya. Side effects can include burning sensations, weakness of the limbs, headaches, upset stomach, and hives or other allergic reactions. Ingredients labeled like the one we found here, as well as ‘yeast extract,’ or ‘hydrolyzed soy protein,’ are nothing more than MSG in disguise. And there’s another example of things the FDA lets manufacturers get away with that they maybe shouldn’t.
Next up on the rogue’s gallery, Modified Food Starch. This stuff is made by physically, enzymatically or chemically altering starch to extend its shelf life, and little else. The most common types of modified food starch are made from corn, wheat, potatoes, and tapioca. Half way decent labels will tell you what kind you’re about to eat, reading something like ‘Modified Corn Starch’. The kicker is that, unless it is derived from one of the top eight allergens as determined by the FDA, they don’t have to tell you from whence it came. You don’t need it or want it in your diet, and that’s a fact.
Next comes Soy Lecithin, which is incredibly pervasive in processed foods. It’s an emulsifier used to help blend disparate ingredients. In other words, it’s something used solely to keep things looking like they should for longer than we aughta be comfortable with. To make soy lecithin, soy oil is ‘degummed,’ mixed with water until the lecithin is hydrated and separates out. It’s then dried, and sometimes bleached with hydrogen peroxide. See above about soy, and ’nuff said.
Then we have Carrageenan. This stuff is an extract of seaweed, and the refining processes are not particularly nefarious, so this should be OK, right? Not necessarily. Although it’s allowed in almost everything over here in America, it’s restricted in the EU, due to possible health concerns regarding inflammation, gut irritation, and even cancer. It’s in here as a thickener, which I’ll point out, we wouldn’t need if they were making this stuff from real, wholesome ingredients.
On to Phosphoric Acid; got a bottle of that on your pantry shelf? It’s in this dressing to make stuff taste tangy, which real vinegar and buttermilk in proper proportion do just fine all on their own. Why is it here? Because it’s a ridiculously cheap, mass-produced chemical. It’s also commonly used for rust removal, by the way. Some Phosphorus is good for you, and fortunately, compounds containing it occur naturally at very low concentrations in milk, meat, poultry, fish, nuts, and egg yolks, (AKA, stuff you might add to real dressings if you were of a mind). Phosphoric acid, on the other hand, has been linked to lower bone density in some epidemiological studies. There are also studies that refute those claims, (Those ones were funded by PepsiCo, FYI…)
Next comes Artificial Flavor. That’s it, just ‘artificial flavor’. Neat, huh?
Next comes Disodium Phosphate, which is made by treating phosphoric acid with a sodium compound. It’s in our dressing here to enhance texture and increase shelf life, (Is that shelf life thing starting to sound like a broken record?) In addition to enhancing your dressing, it’s used in cleaning products, pesticides, and as a corrosion inhibitor.
And then we get Xanthan Gum. This fermented corn sugar polysaccharide sweetener gets its name from a strain of bacteria used during the fermentation process, Xanthomonas campestris, which happens to be the exact same bacteria that causes black rot on broccoli, cauliflower and leafy vegetables. The bacteria forms a slimy substance which acts as a natural stabilizer or thickener. Combined with corn sugar, you get a colorless goo used to increase viscosity and generate a quality known as ‘pseudoplasticity.’ That means that when the product is shaken, it will thin out, and then thicken back up after you stop shaking it.
Next we have it right there in black and white, Monosodium Glutamate; that makes a double dose.
Artificial Color is next, and again, that’s it, just ‘artificial color’.
Next, we get Disodium Inosinate, the first cousin of the Disodium Phosphate above. This junk is used to enhance the effect of MSG. It’s an artificial ingredients there to enhance another artificial ingredient.
Then we got the second cousin, Disodium Guanylate, a chemical additive that intensifies savory flavors. AKA, another artificial to enhance artificials.
Finally, we have Sorbic Acid, Potassium Sorbate, and Potassium Sodium EDTA, ‘as preservatives.’ Sorbic acid occur naturally in many plants, and is also made synthetically; the second ingredient is a salt of the first. Both of these are effective at inhibiting certain strains of yeasts and molds, but they’re not that effective against bacteria. The third member of this troika, Potassium Sodium EDTA, is another story. First off, it’s made from formaldehyde, sodium cyanide, and Ethylenediamine, none of which you should be thrilled about. Secondly, the EDTA part is short for Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, a chemical salt used to separate heavy metals from dyes and other industrial substances. Beyond that concern for human ingestion, EDTA breaks down in the environment into ethylenediamine triacetic acid and then diketopiperazine. Diketopiperazine is a persistent organic pollutant, similar to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT). Heard enough? Wait, there’s more… See, although your FDA has deemed this stuff safe, it has also put it on a priority list of food additives to be studied for mutagenic, teratogenic, and reproductive effects, AKA, the FDA wants to study it further to see if it is associated with birth defects, cancer or reproductive problems. This ingredient has potential side effects including cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, low blood pressure, skin problems, and fever. Too much of it can do irreparable liver damage. There, now you’ve heard enough.
There you have it. For the record, ranch, cheesy, or creamy commercial dressings are generally the worst offenders when it comes to artificial ingredients, because all that crap is needed to keep something ranchy or creamy way longer than it should be. Don’t even get me started on the fat free or reduced fat stuff; those often have more artificial ingredients in them than the regular versions. Suffice it to note that those versions will not help your body absorb all the nutrients in a fresh salad at all, which natural fats can and will do. What about those dressings kept in the refrigerated section; are they better than their shelf-stable companions? Short answer, you gotta read the labels. Several of the most popular brands are made with soybean oil and still contain a bunch of artificial crap.
To be fair, there are artisanal and organic dressings out there made with good expeller-pressed vegetable oils like canola or sunflower. Expeller-pressed means those oils are mechanically derived instead of extracted via the use of nasty chemicals. The companies that use them usually make a point of putting it on the label, so, as with all things commercial, if it doesn’t say expeller pressed, it probably ain’t.
Granted, not all food additives are bad; salt, sugar, and other naturally derived substances have allowed us to preserve and store food safely for thousands of years. I suppose that some of the artificial stuff we’ve just outlined have a place, given the worldwide food distribution system and the need for folks to eat something when they have nothing; on an occasional basis, bad food is better than starving. I believe wholeheartedly that the majority of issues folks have with food intolerance is due to the ubiquity of all this crap in processed foods. The popular thing these days is to blame everything on gluten, and fact is, that’s probably bullshit. Less than 1% of us are actually gluten intolerant. It’s not the natural stuff, gang, it’s all this artificial crap, and you can take that to the bank.
The fact remains that the whole ‘Green Revolution’ we began foisting on the world back in the middle of the 20th century has been largely a catastrophic failure. Powered by fossil fuels and chemistry, increased yields have lead to large scale poisoning of the earth, us humans, and myriad other critters. The backlash against processed food and unsustainable agricultural practices is needed every bit as much in second and third world countries, where a lack of nutritional content can mean not just obesity, but life or death.
The answer is to take back control of our food. Buy with intelligence. Buy locally when you can. Always buy quality. Make and grow everything you can at home. Not only is this absolutely much better for you, it tastes, smells, looks and feels better. Add nutrients, flavor, and health benefits, instead of taking those things away. Here’s how.
Dressings are emulsions, an acid suspended in an oil with some herbs and spices. That utter simplicity is the beauty of a good dressing. As with all things good to eat, the fresher and higher the quality of your ingredients, the better the final product. Start with nothing more than great oil and vinegar, and you’ll have amazing dressing, guaranteed. Change the oils and vinegars, and you’ve got variety right there.
First off, the good oils. We’re looking for polyunsaturated and monounsaturated varieties, and there are a good few out there. Canola, sunflower, safflower, and walnut oils are all polyunsaturated. Olive and peanut, (yes, peanut, my fave frying oil), are monounsaturated. Olive oil all by itself offers a wide variety of flavor profiles; you can and should spend years just exploring those. Use the canola, safflower, or sunflower for dressings when you want other flavors to speak louder than the oil. Opt for good extra virgin olive oil when that flavor note will contribute to the finished dressing. Naturally, you don’t want to use a highly flavored, pricy finishing oil in a complex dressing recipe.
Poly and Mono Unsaturated Oils
Next, comes vinegar, and there are once again a myriad of varieties and infused options to try. And of course you can and should make your own, too. Among the common varieties you’ll find, distilled white vinegar has a sharp flavor profile that goes nicely with delicate herbs and spices. Cider vinegar has a sweet tang that compliments fruit and vegetables with a sweet note of their own. Red Wine vinegar is a bit heartier and blends well with vegetables. Malt vinegar is one of my faves, with a great balance of tang and sweet. Rice vinegar is a lighter, more delicate taste if you prefer things a bit less zippy. Balsamic vinegar is a world unto itself, enough for a future post, in fact; its richness and depth prompts me to say that you really don’t want to mix it with much more than good oil and a little salt and pepper. For daily use, a moderately priced balsamic will do just fine.
Vinegar varieties run wild, and so should you!
By the way, there are plenty of other acids to use for house made dressings. Citrus is a great alternative, so try lemon, Meyer lemon, lime, orange, blood orange, as well as pink and white grapefruit. Other tangy fruits with a dominant acidic note will work as well. Mango is one of my favorites, but tomato, tomatillo, kiwi, strawberry and blackberry are also stellar. Squeeze and strain citrus, or purée and strain the others to use them as a dressing base with your favorite oil. With flavorful options like these, you may find yourself not wanting to add much of anything else.
Acidic fruits make great dressings
Likewise, you can use booze or tangy dairy in place of vinegar. The inherent smoky wood and sugar notes of bourbon, or the sweet tang of rum make fabulous dressings. You can use booze straight away, or do a quick flambé to flash off the alcohol and concentrate the flavors. And frankly, there’s nothing like a creamy version made with fresh, local yoghurt, or genuine homemade buttermilk ranch. Contrary to popular belief and its name, buttermilk has less fat and is lower in calories than whole milk. The natural tang comes from lactic acid produced during fermentation. The curdling process also makes buttermilk thicker than milk, which is perfect for dressing.
Booze in dressing? Oh my, yes! Buttermilk & Yoghurt make fabulous creamy dressings.
Adding fresh herbs and spices yields yet more variety, as well as providing a little shot of nutrients and antioxidants with virtually no calories. Try what you like, and then branch out; sage, rosemary, marjoram, parsley, thyme, cilantro, and so on. Here again, think of the varieties of just one of these you can grow, like thyme or basil; each of those will give a totally unique finished dressing.
Don’t miss out on fresh veggies in your dressing either. Garlic, shallot, sweet onion, green onion, cilantro, parsley, lemongrass, peppers, chiles, even puréed root vegetables will make spectacular dressing. Like beets? Try my vinaigrette made with ’em.
Finally, dressings are a perfect showcase for all those varietal and smoked salts and peppers I’ve been yammering at you about. In a small batch of fresh dressing, just changing these will be a whole new ball game as well.
Finishing salts and peppers at custom zing to house made dressings.
Here are a few suggestions to get you started. With all of these versions, it’s best to blend with a fork or a whisk and then let the finished product sit for 30 minutes or longer to allow flavors to develop and marry. These are scaled for two to four folks to enjoy fresh, which for my mind is the way dressing aughta be done; if the volumes seem small, that’s because they are. Dressing should compliment the flavors of a salad, not drown ’em.
Fresh salad and dressing; hungry yet?
Dijon Vinaigrette
3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
Pinch of Sea Salt
Variant: Add 1/2 teaspoon of good local honey or agave nectar.
Citrus Vinaigrette
3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Juice and zest of 1-2 fresh navel Oranges
Juice and zest of 1 fresh small Lime
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Variant: sub Meyer Lemon for oranges, add 1 teaspoon local honey or agave nectar.
Balsamic Vinaigrette
3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Creamy Vinaigrette
1/2 Cup plain Greek Yoghurt
3-4 Tablespoons Sunflower Oil
Juice and zest of 1 small Lemon
1/2 teaspoon dried Dill
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Variant: Add 1 teaspoon Poppy Seed
Mediterranean Vinaigrette
4 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Tomato Purée
1 teaspoon fresh squeezed Lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon granulated Garlic
1/4 teaspoon dried Basil
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Variants: Add chopped capers, or sun dried tomatoes.
Smoky Vinaigrette
3 Tablespoons Canola Oil
1 Tablespoon Malt Vinegar
1 Tablespoon minced Sweet Onion
1 teaspoon local Honey
1/2 teaspoon Sweet Smoked Paprika
Pinch Alderwood Smoked Salt
A few twists of Smoked Pepper
Garlic Vinaigrette
3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon White Vinegar
1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed Lemon juice
2-3 cloves freshly pressed Garlic
1/2 teaspoon BasPinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Variant: Add 1 Tablespoon Tomato purée.
Veggie Vinaigrette (For marinating or sautéing veggies)
Juice and zest of 1 large or 2 small Lemons
1/4 Cup canola Oil
1 Tablespoon Malt Vinegar
1 Tablespoon minced Sweet Onion
1 clove minced Garlic
1/2 teaspoon Sweet Paprika
1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
A few twists fresh ground Pepper
Blend all and refrigerate for at least an hour prior to marinating or sautéing. Really nice over hot vegetables like broccoli, asparagus, or green beans.
Raspberry Vinaigrette
4 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons puréed fresh Raspberries
2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh squeezed Orange Juice
1/2 teaspoon Agave Nectar
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Variants: Sub blackberries for raspberries, lime juice for lemon. Sub blueberries and orange juice.
Beet Vinaigrette
1/2 Cup Beet Purée
1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 teaspoon creamed Horseradish
1-2 drops Vanilla extract
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Variants: try any of your favorite roots veggies in place of the beets.
Add 2 Tablespoons of buttermilk for a creamy dressing.
Honey Mustard
1/2 Cup plain Greek Yoghurt
3-4 Tablespoons Safflower Oil
1-2 teaspoons dried Mustard
1 Tablespoon local Honey
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Buttermilk Ranch
1/2 Cup fresh Buttermilk
2 Tablespoons Crema (creme fraîche or sour cream is OK too)
1 Tablespoon Mayonnaise
1 teaspoon minced Celery Leaf
1 clove freshly pressed Garlic
1/2 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
1/2 teaspoon Malt Vinegar
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Shot or two Tabasco Sauce
Whisk all like you were making whipped cream. Refrigerate in glass with an airtight lid for at least an hour and up to overnight before serving; like great potato salad, it’s actually better the next day.
Bourbon Vinaigrette
4 Tablespoons Sunflower Oil
1 tablespoon Bourbon
1 Tablespoon Cider Vinegar
1 teaspoon real Maple Syrup
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Variant: Add 1/4 cup plain Greek Yoghurt for a creamy alternative.
Buttermilk Rum Dressing
4 Tablespoons Safflower Oil
1 Tablespoon Dark Rum
1 Tablespoon Malt Vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh squeezed Lime juice
4-5 sprigs minced Cilantro
1 clove fresh pressed Garlic
1/4 teaspoon Habanero Chile Sauce
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists of fresh ground Pepper
Ours pals Chris and Grant hail from northern Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, most of which have great fishing. Among the various options to go after, panfish are a personal favorite. They’re fun, feisty, and you can harvest a very decent catch relatively guilt free, ’cause those suckers breed like there’s no tomorrow.
But wait a minute, you ask, what are panfish anyway? Great question! The term has some wiggle room is the broadest answer; panfish mean different things to different regions and fishers. Some folks will tell you it means any species that, fully grown, fit well in the ol’ cast iron frying pan, while others claim it’s because the fish themselves are frying pan shaped. I’ve heard Crappie, Blue Gills, Sunfish, Perch, Pumpkin Seeds, and Small Mouth Bass all referred to as pan fish. To me, any of these small, plentiful species qualify for the term.
Anyway, I digress; back to why Chris got in touch. She wrote, “We caught lots of Crappies. The fillets are thin and the flesh is quite soft, but they’re nice and sweet. Any tips?”
Sure do; while a simple butter poach is lovely, or a sauté in olive oil, lemon, and dill, sometimes it’s fun to go a bit farther afield and try something new. Ceviche is the ticket. This favorite of the coastal Americas derives from an Incan dish of fish cured with salt and chiles, and marinated in passion fruit juice. The modern incarnation in its simplest form is fresh, raw fish cured in citrus juices and seasoned with chiles. Ceviche is fabulous with any white fleshed fish, and that certainly includes the pan varieties.
If you’ve never tried making or eating ceviche and are maybe a bit squeamish about it, don’t feel bad, so was Chris; she wrote, “Have never had anything like that before, so I was wary. Not anymore! I knew you wouldn’t steer me wrong!” (That’s my kinda endorsement).
Nonetheless, what makes folks nervous is the lack of cooking involved in making ceviche. Technically speaking, cooking requires heat, so ceviche isn’t cooked, but it’s not raw either; it’s fish cured in a citric acid bath. Fact is, both processes initiate a chemical reaction called denaturation, which alters the proteins in the fish chemically and physically. The end result of either method is fish that becomes firm to the touch, opaque to the eye, and a ‘cooked’ taste.
So, how long should fish be marinated in citrus juices in order for denaturation to take place? That depends on the variety of fish you use, and how well you like your fish cured. Just a few minutes in citrus juices and your fish will start to go opaque, though the interior will still look raw and the flesh won’t have firmed up yet. Just as with cooking, you can marinate too long, leading to a tough texture and an overpowering citrus note. The key to even, dependable results is to always butcher your fish down to roughly bite sized pieces. Doing so increases the fish’s surface area and makes it easier for the citric acid to do its thing. Generally, the flakier and softer the fish, the faster it will cure in citrus. Watching for the complete opaque appearance and firm feel you expect when you cook fish will give you good results.
The freshness of the fish you choose to marinate is a critical consideration, because citric acid curing doesn’t kill bacteria the way cooking does. If you’ve got any concern about this, it’s best to freeze your fillets at or below -4° F for a good week prior to making ceviche. That will kill potential parasites like tapeworms and roundworms. Alternatively, you can do a quick blanch with your fish, dropping the fillets into boiling water for a full minute, then immediately plunging them into ice water to stop the cooking process, before you marinate it. This quick shock also helps softer fleshed fish maintain a firmer texture when cured.
There’s a world of variety waiting for you to explore once you wade in. Just varying the citrus creates truly unique dishes, so try lemon, lime, blood orange, grapefruit, or yuzu. Same goes with the chiles; from light heat and fruity to truly fiery, each one creates a different finish. A touch of a varietal vinegar does the same thing. A bit of mango in your finished mix beautifully compliments the sweetness of the fish, and on and on.
Here’s the one I did up for Chris; It’s a pretty classic swing at the dish, and super easy to make
1 Pound Fish
6-8 Limes
2 medium varietal Tomatoes
3-4 Green Onions (Sweet Onion is fine as a sub)
1 stalk Celery
1-2 Jalapeño Chiles (Again, you can vary the variety as you like)
1/2 Cup fresh Cilantro
Cut fillets into bite size pieces.
Place fish in a non-reactive bowl and cover completely with lime juice.
Refrigerate covered for 6-8 hours, until the fish has turned completely opaque.
When the fish is ready, fine dice all the remaining veggies and mix well, including the olive oil.
Discard the marinating juice from the fish.
Add the juice from 2 fresh limes and the cured fish to the mix and toss gently.
Serve with fresh tortillas, crema, guac, and ice cold beer!
Here’s Chris’ gorgeous plate, made with Golden Jubilee heirloom tomatoes.
So, if you’re a lover of food porn TV, you have without a doubt heard the term ‘Gastrique’ thrown about by an Iron Chef or Chopped contestant. While ya might hear that term and nod sagely, do ya know what one is and how to make it? I’ll bet you do, though you might not know it.
Stripped of the fancy moniker, a gastrique is just a sweet-and-sour sauce designed to compliment and coax out the bold flavor notes of a protein; they work well on beef, pork, chicken, fish, meaty vegetables like mushrooms and eggplant, and even tofu, (in fact they’re spectacular with tofu), even sweet stuff.
Gastriques are easy to make and visually stunning; they’ll make a simple dish look and taste like something turned out by a seasoned pro. Simply caramelize a sweetener and blend it fifty-fifty with vinegar, (the acid, or sour component), and you’ve formed a sauce of sublime beauty.
Gastriques are wonderfully tweakable, given the wide of sweeteners and vinegars available to us these days. Make the same one with different variants and you’ll have a bunch of distinct sauces, each with its own charm. Consider vinegar; there’s everything from the spicy, sharp notes of cider, to the amazing depth and subtlety of good balsamic. Varietal wine vinegars, sherry, champagne, rice, malt – the other day I saw blood orange and fig vinegars in the store, and all of these you can make yourself at home, too, so once again, the sky’s the limit. For sweeteners, you might choose sugar, (white, brown, dark brown, turbinado), honey, agave nectar, maple syrup, molasses, and so on.
Additional flavor notes can be supplied by a myriad of things, from booze, to fruit, veggies, herbs and spices. Gastriques can stand on their own with a main ingredient, or act as an adjunct with heavier partners like a pan sauce made after searing a protein.
Regardless of what you decide to make, the process is the same;
Combine the sweetener and vinegar in a sauce pan over low heat.
Reduce the sauce, stirring occasionally, until you’ve got roughly 50% of your original volume.
When you’re just about to the volume and consistency you like, add your additional flavor notes, heat through, and reduce a bit further if need be.
When the gastrique is right, it should nicely coat a spoon.
Take a taste, and that’s it, you’re done.
Gastriques are pretty but potent, so use them sparingly. You don’t have to get uber fussy, but this is one of those cases where you want to pour or brush a little line across your plate, or around your entrée; a big ol’ puddle of gastriques is too much. Also, you need to pair wisely. It’s like with like, so a stronger flavored protein like duck or game will like a strong gastrique, like brown sugar/malt vinegar/blackberry. Likewise, something more delicate like chicken will go better with agave nectar/champagne vinegar/kiwi. Citrus or herb variations go great with seafood and veggie dishes. Don’t forget cheeses; from Brie to Myzithra, a gastriques can turn cheese into a serious appetizer just like that. And that ain’t all; try a slightly sweet favored fruit gastrique over homemade ice cream, on a fresh granita, or crepes. You can even use a gastriques in a cocktail where you might normally opt for bitters. Once you get hooked, the sky is the limit.
As I mentioned above, gastriques can also be combined with other sauces; when you want to try this, think of the gastrique as specifically providing a tangy element to your overall presentation. For instance, you might use a honey/malt vinegar/tomato/lemon gastrique to provide that function for a pan sauce made from a whole roasted chicken.
Gastriques will keep for two or three weeks refrigerated in an airtight bottle. Repurposed hot sauce bottles are perfect for the task. That said, I like them fresh best, so I build in small batches that will get used pretty quickly.
Sherry Gastrique is great for chicken, fish, and veggie dishes and sides. Just blend all three ingredients from the get go and reduce accordingly. Raspberries also go great with this combination of sweetener and vinegar.
1 Cup Champagne Vinegar
1 Cup Amber Agave Nectar
1/2 Cup Dry Sherry
Blackberry Gastrique is seasonal, of course, but if you pick ’em, then freeze ’em so you’ll have them year round. This goes great with beef, pork, and meaty mushrooms like porcini. Blueberries and cranberries also are great with this combination of sweetener and vinegar.
1 Cup Malt Vinegar
1 Cup dark brown Sugar
1 Cup fresh Blackberries
Purée the blackberries in by blender, then add them when your sugar/vinegar reduction is roughly 60% of initial volume. Continue to reduce until you hit 50%.
If you cook well at home, like watching food porn shows on the tube, appreciate the truly amazing diversity of food in stores these days, or own great cookbooks, you owe a big thanks to Julia Child.
And just for the record, those of you old enough to recall the infamous Dan Aykroyd Saturday Night Live skit should know that Julia loved it so much she kept a copy cued up in her VCR and showed it to everyone. Ever after, she would chime in with “Save the liver!” as a favorite non sequitur.
This daughter of a wealthy California family came to cooking rather late in life. After serving with the OSS in World War II and meeting her husband Paul Child, they were transferred to Paris with the State Department in 1948. Introduced to good French food, she was transformed by sole meunière, a classically simple dish of fish in brown butter and lemon. Suddenly, a woman who’d had little interest in food or cooking through the first thirty some years of her life couldn’t get enough of either. She began training in formal French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu, but ran afoul of the Ameriphobic headmistress and never graduated. In the process of immersing herself in all things cuisine, she met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholde, and Les Trois Gourmandes was born, the wellspring that lead, some ten years later, to volume one of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Roughly two years later, The French Chef was born on WGBH in Boston, my home town. The rest is, as the saying goes, history. Literally every cooking channel, show, and even the way most cookbooks are laid out owes its existence to Julia Child. Yes, there were others, before and during her rise, but none came even close to plowing the row like she did.
I grew up watching Julia do her thing; my folks were pretty darn cosmopolitan, and appreciated good food and the cooking of it. My mom encouraged my desire to learn to cook, so Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Irma Rombauer’s Joy of Cooking, and James Beard’s American Cookery became culinary touchstones for me.
With Julia, what you saw was who she was and what you got, whether you saw her on TV, read her books, or met her live and in color. Through all the years of The French Chef, her number and address were published in the phone book; if you called or just dropped by, you were more likely than not to get Julia herself, and to find yourself in a conversation or her kitchen. She was famously irreverent, even on air, always finding a way to casually toss anything that she deemed useless over her shoulder, to crash a la Monty Python on the floor behind her. And yes, she did once note of pasta right out of the pot, “These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock.” She charged forward with indomitable energy from day one to her final hour, her spirit rarely anything but full bore.
Here’s my personal tie and case in point, why to this day I love that woman with a passion. My mom was a very successful artist in the Boston scene. Every year, she contributed works to the annual WGBH fundraising drive, which were held as televised auctions. In ’68, I went with her to “The Pru,” the Prudential building where the events were held and filmed, to drop off artwork. Lo and behold, there was Julia Child, in the flesh. Mom told me to go say hello, and I did. Julia gave me that trademark smile, shook my hand, asked my name; I told her I loved her show and liked to cook. She asked what my favorite thing to make was, and I told her macaroni and cheese. She asked how I made it, and listened intently as an eight year old explained how it was done. She allowed that my recipe sounded very nice, and made a suggestion about cooking and “stretching” the roux for best results, said “Nice to meet you, Dearie” in her trademark warble, and went on her way. I still do the roux exactly as she explained it to me.
So, Happy Birthday, Julia Caroline Child, née McWilliams. You have touched millions of lives like no other. Thank you, and Bon Appetite!
And for y’all, here’s the dish that got it all started…
NOTE: Clarified butter has a much higher smoking point than almost any oil you can name;
it also adds a delightful, nutty flavor note to dishes. If you’re genuinely carefully about removing all the solids, clarified butter can be stored unrefrigerated, like oil, for up to three months.
To clarify butter at home, place it in a heavy saucepan and melt slowly over low heat.
Remove the pan from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes.
Skim the foam from the top, and slowly pour into a container,
discarding the milky solids in the bottom of pan.
Lay out and pat dry the fillets. Season with salt and pepper.
Dredge in a light coating of flour, removing excess.
In a skillet on medium-high heat, pour clarified butter in and allow to heat just before browning.
Place fillets in, not overcrowding the pan. About 3-4 in a large skillet.
Brown on one side for about 1-2 minutes and flip over to brown other carefully.
Remove fish to a platter and add capers to butter, if using, for another minute.
We’re up in northern Minnesota for a gathering of the Luthier Community, and the heirloom tomatoes at Grant and Christie’s, some 25 varieties, are coming ripe every day. I’ve been in hog heaven cooking for the gang, let me tell you.
UrbanMonique 