Category: House Made

OK, well I mentioned this salsa in a Facebook post and now a few of y’all have asked for the recipe. It’s super simple, and here ya go. If you don’t make your own fresh salsa as a routine, it’s time to start – Here’s another place where it’s a serious night and day difference from store bought.

Pico de Gallo is a fresh salsa, and such, it’s quick to make. With pico, you want the sweet notes of tomato, onion, and cilantro to mesh with the chile heat, and nothing furthers that combination better than citrus. This is a great salsa to make shortly before meal time, but it’ll be twice as good then next day. This recipe will make enough to last for two or three meals, most likely.

4 medium Tomatoes
2-4 Jalapeño Chiles
1 large pink Grapefruit
1 Lime
1 sweet Onion
Handful go fresh Cilantro
Sea Salt

I do this in a mini food processor powered by a stick blender, but you can certainly do it by hand. Size of dice is up to you; we like it fine, minced in fact, because it spreads and blends better.

Process tomatoes and toss into a non-reactive mixing bowl. Process onion, then cilantro and add to the tomatoes.

Feel free to sub a chile you like better for jalapeño down the line, but try this first. If you like it hot, don’t field strip your chiles; if you’re cooking for a broad spectrum of diners, be kind and do strip ’em. Process with the cilantro and add to the mix; cilantro is also a personal taste note, so use more or less as you see fit.

Cut grapefruit in quarters and the lime in half. Squeeze the grapefruit by hand over the bowl and absolutely do let some of the crushed fruit go in there too. Squeeze lime next, take care to keep seeds out of the mix.

Give all a good stir, taste and season with a shake of salt as you see fit; it’ll brighten up the mix and bring flavor out, so don’t skip it.

Allow ingredients to marry in the bowl for an hour prior to serving. The salsa will last a good few days refrigerated.

For a wonderful alternative, try roasting or grilling everybody, including the fruit; it brings out a very subtle note of smoke and heightens the sweet tones nicely.

Smoked salt is another neat alternative that you might try as sub for regular sea salt.

Enjoy!

Love bacon? Love good bacon? Seen the prices lately? Us too! That little revelation led us to home made, courtesy of Michael Ruhlman’s blog.

I started our odyssey with a search for pork belly locally, which wasn’t as easy to find as I thought it’d be. Eventually, we found roughly 15 pound packs at Cash and Carry for $3.15 a pound. We took that home, divided it into 2 1/2 pound batches, and went to town.

Our first batch was made straight from Ruhlman’s recipe. It turned out great, but it wasn’t exactly what I want in my perfect bacon. Having no doubt that experimentation is almost always a good thing, we analyzed the results and decided that Ruhlman’s would be, for us, perfect lunch and dinner bacon, but not breakfast. We found Michael’s recipe a touch salty, even when we’d carefully weighed the pork belly and salt; further, we felt that while the bay leaf, nutmeg, garlic and thyme in that recipe added glorious floral notes perfect for lardons, and stellar for carbonara, it was a bit much for our breakfast palate, so we set out to build our perfect breakfast bacon.

While one needs to stick pretty closely to the 1.5:1 salt to curing salt ratio for proper bacon, you have relative freedom with the other ingredients, so we revamped with our chosen notes, less salt, more sugar, Grains of Paradise for that unique pepper note we love, brown mustard seed for the tang, and a little smoke.

The results were spot on, and we’re happy campers!

2.5 pounds Pork Belly
1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar or real Maple Syrup
1 Ounces Flaked Salt
1.5 teaspoons Pink Curing Salt, (Sodium Nitrite)
2 Tablespoons Grains of Paradise, coarsely ground
2 teaspoons Brown Mustard seed, coarsely
1 teaspoon Smoke Powder

Mix all dry rub ingredients except the smoke powder together in a bowl.

Set your belly on a baking dish or sheet tray.

Rub the cure onto and well into all surfaces of the belly. Take your time and work it right in there evenly and completely.

Place your belly into 1 a gallon Ziplock bag, press the excess air out, and set it in the back of your fridge for 3 days.

On day 4, pull out your belly and rub everything back into the flesh again. Set ‘er back into the fridge for another 3 days.

And on the 7th day, there be bacon…

Pull your belly outta the bag, rinse your sink well and then stick the belly under nice, cold running water and rinse all the cure off, giving it a good rub as you do.

Preheat oven to 200 F.

Pat your belly dry with paper towels and set into a glass baking dish or a sheet pan.

Rub the smoke powder evenly and thoroughly into your belly.

Roast for 90 minutes, or until your internal temp reaches 150 F.

Remove from oven, allow to cool, and then repackage in a ziplock in the fridge. It’ll last as long as store bought, or maybe a bit less, since it has less bullshit stuff in it; anyway, I’d bet that after you try it, lasting long won’t be an issue…

You can freeze bacon, but not for more than about a month. If you do freeze it, you’ll want all the air you can out of the bag so, again, vacuum sealing is best.

You can also sub Honey or Agave Nectar for the sugar and get some pretty nice flavor variations. Our family also likes peppered bacon, and for that we’ll layer on a bit of olive oil and ground, black pepper for the roast.

Big thanks to Michael Ruhlman for a wonderful charcuterie book, and for encouraging experimentation. Now it’s your turn, and make sure you try his recipe, because it rocks and it just might be your all-around fave!

Enjoy!

Its officially fall in the Great Northwet and with an epic September storm rattling the house, it seemed like a good time to make soup. A day like this begs for something hearty and in keeping with the season, so naturally I thought of Butternut squash.

The real beauty of a squash bisque isn’t the rich, satisfying flavor; it’s the fact that this wonderful stuff is so dang easy to build. Something this luxurious makes folks think you slaved for hours, when in fact it takes less than 30 minutes to make and is at its best eaten right away.

There are many takes on this stuff, a lot of which are a bit sweet for my taste. I prefer something savory that highlights the ability of squash to marry well with bold flavor notes, so I went for a vaguely Provençal feel to the spicing: Here’s how ya do it.

Butternut Squash Bisque, (Serves 6 to 8)

3 Cups Chicken Stock
1 Cup heavy Cream
1 Large Butternut Squash
1 medium Sweet Onion
1 Cup Celery, (Use leaves whenever possible)
1-2 Cloves Garlic
1 teaspoon fresh Rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh Pineapple Sage
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1/4 fresh Lemon
Dash hot chile flakes
Salt & Pepper to taste

When choosing butternuts at the store, look for nice evenly colored tan squashes; the sort of greyish-tan ones aren’t as ripe as the evenly toned, almost peanut colored specimens. Make sure the squash feels firm and has no lesions or soft spots – That’s your guy.

NOTE: If you’ve got time and want to deepen the flavors a mite, roast the squash, onion, celery and garlic for about 15 minutes at 325 F – It adds notable complexity to the overall flavor.

NOTE 2: You can do a very nice vegetarian version of this soup by using vegetable instead of chicken stock and soy milk for the cream.

Peel and slice the squash, then cut into roughly 3/4″ cubes.

Dice the onion and celery, mince the garlic, and chiffonade the herbs.

In a stock pot over medium high flame, heat the olive oil thoroughly.

Toss in the onion and celery and sauté until the onion is just starting to turn translucent. Add the garlic and herbs, squeeze the lemon juice in. Continue to sauté for a couple minutes longer.

Add the chicken stock and bring the mixture to a rolling boil.

Throw all the squash cubes into the party; reduce heat to a low simmer and allow everything to marry and soften for about 20 minutes or until the squash cubes are all fork tender.

The next step is blending, best done with a boat motor, (AKA immersion blender), but a stand blender or food processor will do just fine – Just be careful transferring hot liquids, naturally. Blend the mixture until you have a nice, even consistency.

Add the cream and mix thoroughly.

Now season to taste with the chile, salt and pepper, and there you are; serve nice and hot, with fresh local bread lightly rubbed with a garlic clove and toasted.

E & M