Category: House Made

From standards to radical departures, homemade is always best

Cole Slaw, the right way.


For those of you who don’t know, I’m an unabashed Yankee; I was born and raised about 18 miles north of Boston, in Concord, Mass. In that neck of the woods, a Saturday Night Suppah more often than. Or included baked beans, brown bread and freshly made cole slaw. Cabbage is much maligned, methinks, and shouldn’t be. New England is a place where it is celebrated in many dishes, and I carry that tradition to this day.

Slaw can be as simple or as complex as you like, but it general, a few truly fresh ingredients do the trick best. Cole slaw dressing from the store, with very, very few exceptions, is utter crap, filled with nasty fats, sweeteners, thickeners and preservatives you really and truly want no part of. House made is always best, period: Here’s how I do my favorite version.

For the veggie mix,
Green or Red Cabbage
Sweet Onion
1 small Carrot
Small handful Celery Leaves
1 Clove fresh Garlic
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Pepper

Rinse and slice roughly 1/8 head of cabbage very thinly (about 1/8″), across the grain. Cut into more or less bite size pieces.

Cut 2 or 3 slices of sweet onion the same way.

Rinse and use a peeler to shave the carrot into very thin strips, then cut down to bite size as above.

Chiffonade the celery leaves, and mince the garlic.

Combine all in a non-reactive mixing bowl, season liberally with salt and pepper and toss to blend.

For the dressing,
1 Cup real Mayonnaise, (Homemade is always best)
1 Tablespoon Agave Nectar
1 teaspoon Malt Vinegar
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Pepper

Combine mayo, agave and vinegar and whisk to blend. Season lightly with salt and pepper to taste.

Combine dressing nod veggie mix and blend thoroughly. Place slaw in an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, (and up to overnight), before serving, to allow flavors to marry and develop.

Strawberry Short Cake


If you’ve had strawberry shortcake while out and about, chances are good that it wasn’t, and you weren’t impressed. More often than not, what you’re served is kinda like a little sponge cake thing with some whipped cream and strawberries. If you’re lucky, the whipped cream is fresh and so are the strawberries, but luck is rare in this regard. You’re almost certain to be outa luck with the shortcake.

Lucky for us, Gen-U-Wine strawberry shortcake is easy to make; easier, in fact, than all that faux crap. I’ve been known to say that, “In the kitchen simple is always best, but not always easy”; here’s a case where it’s both.

Traditional shortcake, done right, is far more like a biscuit than a cake. This is precisely what you want, because it has the density to stand up to strawberries, juice and whipped cream without becoming a gloppy, saturated sponge. ‘Short’, in baking term FYI, means a higher ratio of fat to flour, resulting in a tender, crumbly cake. Flour variety matters as well, and pastry flour is what you want. Its relatively low protein content, (about 8% to 10%), makes it perfect for stuff that demands a light and flaky consistency, like biscuits, tart crusts, pastries, and cakes. All purpose or bread flour is right out for this recipe; they’ll make things hard and chewy.

Good strawberries mean ripe, local berries at the prime of their season. Yes, you can make strawberry shortcake at other times, but this is when it’s meant to be made, so that’s kinda what you need to do.

Good cream means real cream; local, heavy or whipping cream, not that ultra-pasteurized, mass produced crap that you see most often. My local version comes in a glass pint, and the real cream absolutely plugs the top of the bottle – That’s cream.

Here’s how ya do it.

For the cake.
2 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1 Cup Whole Cream (1/2 & 1/2 or Buttermilk are also fine)
1/2 Cup Honey or Agave Nectar
4 teaspoons Baking Powder
4 tablespoons unsalted Butter
Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 450° F.

Butter needs to be cold for this recipe; quickly cut it into 1/4″ cubes, then place in freezer until you need it.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, a pinch of sea salt, and baking powder; blend thoroughly.

Add the butter and work it Into the flour blend by hand, until the butter is uniformly the size of small peas

Add the cream slowly to the mix, mixing constantly.

Add the honey or agave and blend thoroughly.
The dough should be sticky; you can add a little more cream or flour at this point if you need to adjust.

Grab some dough and form a cake about hockey puck size, 3/4″ thick and roughly 4″ in diameter. Place the cakes on an ungreased baking sheet with a couple of inches between each one.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown.
Don’t wander too far from the oven, they darken up pretty quickly.

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

For the Berries.
4 Cups Strawberries
1/2 Cup Honey or Agave Nectar

Rinse, top and cut berries into quarters.
In a mixing bowl, combine berries and sweetener and blend thoroughly.
Place in an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to use.

For the Whipped Cream
1 Pint real Cream
1 Tablespoon Honey or Agave Nectar
2″ Vanilla Bean, scraped, or 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Combine cream, sweetener and vanilla in a non-reactive mixing bowl.
Whip cream by hand or with a stick blender.
When the cream is holding stiff peaks, stop whisking, cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to use.

To serve, slice one biscuit in half. Place a half biscuit on a desert plate, add berries to cover evenly, then a soup spoon of cream. Repeat the layering with the other biscuit half, berries, and cream.
A mint leaf is a nice garnish, and the scent blends beautifully with the other ingredients.

 

Potato Salad, Good & Evil


I love potato sald, not the least because you can make a big ol’ batch and it’ll just get better for the couple of days it survives. I often get asked for my recipes, so here they are, mayo based and vinaigrette. Both of these are best made at least 8 hours before service, or over it, so the flavors can do their business.

Citrus Vinaigrette Potato Salad
10-12 medium Potatoes, (I like to mix white, yellow, red & blue for special occasions).
2 Slices thick cut, smoked Bacon
2-3 Green Onions
1/2 Red Bell Pepper, (Orange or yellow are fine too)
3-4 stalks Cilantro
5-6 stalks Garlic Chive, (Use one clove garlic and a small wedge of shallot as an alt.)
1/2 teaspoon Dill Weed
1/4 teaspoon Celery Seed
1 fresh Lime
1 fresh Lemon
1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Pepper

Rinse and boil potatoes until fork tender, but not mushy.

Fry bacon until nice and crisp; set in paper towels to soak up excess grease.

Plunge spuds into ice water and shock for about a minute. Transfer to a colander and allow to thoroughly drip dry while you continue prep.

Rinse, remove ends, tops, seeds, etc and dice green onions and red pepper. Chiffonade cilantro and garlic chives.

Cut potatoes into roughly 1/2″ chunks. Dice bacon.

Combine potatoes, bacon, onions, red pepper, garlic chive, and cilantro in a large mixing bowl and combine well. Season with salt and pepper as you see fit.

Juice lemon and lime into a small mixing bowl. Add vinegar, then add enough oil to achieve a 3:1 oil to citrus/vinegar ratio. Add dill weed and celery seed and whisk to incorporate.

Pour dressing over salad and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

While the oil based salad is light and herby, when I make may based salad, I’m looking for unctuous, creamy goodness.

Mayo Based Spud Salad
10-12 medium potatoes
1/2 Sweet Onion
3 Hard Boiled Eggs
15-20 medium Black Olives
2-3 Dill Pickles
1-2 cloves Garlic
1 Tablespoon Capers
1 to 1 1/2 Cups Real Mayo
1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1 teaspoon Creamed Horseradish
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Black Pepper

Rinse and boil potatoes until fork tender, but not mushy.

Boil eggs until hard boiled, about 10 minutes.

Plunge spuds and eggs into ice water and shock for about a minute.
Transfer to a colander and allow to thoroughly drip dry while you continue prep.

Rinse, skin and fine dice onion, olives, and pickles.

Mince garlic and capers.

Cut potatoes and eggs into roughly 1/2″ chunks.

Combine potatoes, eggs, opinion, olives, capers, pickles and garlic in a large mixing bowl; season with salt and pepper.

In a small mixing bowl, combine mayo, mustard, and horseradish thoroughly.

Spoon dressing onto salad and gently incorporate thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

 

Hot Dogs


I love hotdogs, I surely do, buuuuuuuut… My Sis worked in a hotdog factory once; I don’t think she’s eaten one since. If you think pink slime is bad… And anyway, have you checked the prices on these pies lately? Nasty ones are going $4 to $5, and quality almost double that. Time to get busy then; you make ’em, you know what’s in ’em, and they’re way better than anything you can buy.

This is a take on the snappy, lightly smoked, garlic and paprika-flavored all-beef dogs served at Gray’s Papaya and Papaya King in New York City. Made with good local beef, these hot dogs are just about the juiciest, most flavorful you’ll ever enjoy. My version was adapted from Ryan Farr’s original recipe. Mine has some changes for flavor and to save you some time and effort; I’ve converted original weights to measures for almost all the ingredients, tweaked the process a bit for home cooks, and altered the spices; I also used powdered smoke from Butcher & Packer, which saves you a bunch of work smoking the dogs, (If you own a smoker and enjoy that process, by all means do that; the smoking/internal temps and times are the same, either way.) Here’s how you make them.

Preparing the Casings.

Casings can be found as both natural and collagen style; I really have not had very good luck with fake casings. They taste fine, but are much less forgiving than natural when it comes to stuffing. For hot dogs and franks, you need a roughly 24mm or 1″ casing. They generally are sold in pretty large volumes that are more than a casual user will need. This offer through Amazon is the best priced, moderately sized I’ve found.

Snip off about five feet of casing. (Better too much than too little; any extra can be repacked in salt and used later.) 

Rinse the casing under cool running water to remove any salt clinging to it. Place it in a bowl of cool water and let it soak for about half an hour. 

After soaking, rinse the casing under cool running water, (Under 70° F). Slip one end of the casing over the faucet nozzle. Hold the casing firmly on the nozzle, and then turn on the cold water, gently at first, and then more forcefully. This procedure will flush out any salt in the casing and pinpoint any breaks. Should you find a break, just snip out a small section of the casing with kitchen shears.

Place the casing in a bowl of enough water to thoroughly cover the casings. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar per cup of water; this will soften the casing a bit, which makes it a bit more forgiving for us amateur stuffers. Leave the casing in the water/vinegar solution until you are ready to use it. 

Rinse casings thoroughly before stuffing. 

 

NOTE ON MEAT: If you can’t find the neck, plate, or shank cuts, you can substitute chuck for all of the meat and fat called for; they’ll still be spectacular dogs.  

2 Pounds boneless lean Beef, (Such as neck, plate, or shank), cut into 1-inch cubes

5 Ounces Beef Fat, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 teaspoons Murray River Flaked Salt

1 teaspoon Sweet Smoked Paprika

1/2 teaspoon Granulated Garlic

1 teaspoon coarsely ground Smoked Pepper

1/2 teaspoon Onion Powder

1/4 teaspoon Celery Seed

1 Gram Pink Curing Salt, (Weigh this, don’t try to convert to a volume!)

1/2 teaspoon Hickory or Mesquite Smoke Powder

8 Ounces crushed Ice

10 feet of rinsed sheep Casings

 

NOTE: 

The ice above if for the actual recipe, not for bowl chilling. Just want to be sure we’re all on the same page with that… 

Place the meat and fat on a rimmed baking sheet, transfer to the freezer, and chill until crunchy on the exterior but not frozen solid. 

In a small bowl, add the salt, paprika, garlic, pepper, onion powder, and pink salt; stir to combine. 

Nest a large mixing bowl in a bowl filled with ice.  

Grind the meat and fat through the small die of the grinder into the bowl set in ice. 

Add the spice mixture to the meat and stir with your hands until well incorporated; the mixture will look homogenous and will begin sticking to the bowl. 

Transfer the meat to the bowl of a food processor, add half the crushed ice and process until all of the ice has dissolved, 1 to 2 minutes. 

Add the remaining crushed ice and continue processing until the mixture is completely smooth, 4 to 5 minutes more. Note: The temperature of your meat during this mixing step is critically important. Temperature must never rise about 40°F. Work efficiently during this step of the process. This is as important for food safety as it is for a homogeneous blend. And yes, it looks kinda nasty raw; welcome to force meat…

 

Spoon 2 tablespoons of the meat mixture into a nonstick frying pan and spread into a thin patty. Cook the test patty over low heat until cooked through but not browned. Taste the sausage for seasoning and adjust as necessary.

Press a sheet of parchment paper or plastic wrap directly on the surface of the meat to prevent oxidation, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, (If you own a vacuum sealer, use that instead.)

Stuff the sausage into the sheep casings and twist into links about 5″ to 7″ long.

 

Preheat your oven to 175° F. Spread the links out on a baking sheet and slow cook them until the internal temperature of the sausages reaches 145°F, about 45 to 60 minutes. 

Remove the sausages from the oven, and transfer them to a bowl of ice water; shock for about 30 seconds, then set to cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. Refrigerate uncovered, overnight. Your dogs are now fully cooked and ready to be vacuum sealed, refrigerated or frozen. To prepare for eating just heat through on a grill or in a steamer.

Since you went to all the trouble, don’t you think homemade buns are in order too?

 

 

Pommes Anna


I love potatoes, and you should too. This fancy sounding dish is actually simple as simple can be, the sign of a truly wonderful, timeless dish. Great with breakfast, brunch or dinner, the minimalist approach lets the flavor of the spuds shine. Yukon Golds are perfect for Anna; they crisp up beautifully and have that to die for creamy center we all love.

 

In our take on this recipe, we use Sel de mer for a truly French salt flavor note, and grains of paradise for pepper influence at its most elegant level. The cast iron adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the flavor as well.

Trust us, do it just like this, and then you can try your own variants. Don’t add anything else to Anna, just vary the kinds of salt and pepper used; you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the notable differences in each.

Build this recipe in the exact order I’ve shown here; you really need to minimize the time the potatoes go from sliced, to ice water, to oven in order to allow them to maintain their flavors without oxidizing.

6-8 Yukon Gold Potatoes
4 Ounces fresh, unsalted Butter
1 teaspoon Sel de Mer
Fresh ground Grains of Paradise

Rinse and peel the potatoes. Using a food processor fitted with the slicing blade or a mandoline, slice them very thin, (About 1/8″is perfect), transferring them as they are sliced to a large bowl of ice cold water.

Melt butter in a small sauce pan and remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 425° F.

Drain the slices and pat them dry between paper towels.

Generously brush the bottom and side of a 9″ or 10″ cast iron skillet with half a tablespoon of the butter, using a basting brush.

Arrange the slices in layers, overlapping each slice slightly; brush each layer with butter, a sprinkle of sea salt and a few twists of grains of paradise.

Cover the layered potato slices with parchment and gently but firmly press down on the assembled potato cake.

Bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes.

Remove the parchment and continue baking for another 25 to 30 minutes, until the slices are tender and golden brown.

Remove from oven and turn the Anna onto a cutting board and cut it into 4 to 8 wedges.

Serve with crème fraîche and freshly made scrambled eggs for a real treat.