chadzilla

the smoke pipe

This quest started back in November when I ordered a 'smoke pipe' along with a book through a website called allforchefs.com.  After quite a bit of time and unsuccessful attempts at contacting the company (which is based in Spain), I never received the products.  I order frequently from the internet, and this was the single most frustrating experience for me... especially since the money was removed from my bank account the very next day.  I never did receive the book or my money back(which was about 75USD), but eventually did receive the smoke pipe.  The pipe was advertised as a Joan Roca creation.  It was a battery-powered device that was capable of shooting a stream of smoke onto food or under a cover to create a nice table experience.  The price of this device was about 80USD including the shipping from Spain.  The downside (besides being overpriced) is that it was made so cheaply it never worked at all.  The only thing preventing me from throwing it away was the ridiculous price I paid for it.

Aside from all of that and my gripes against ALLFORCHEFS.COM (never buy from this site!!!), I decided to build my own after seeing how easy the device was to assemble.

You will need to purchase the items below, which cost me about $30 all together (much cheaper).  They are 1) a battery-powered mini vacuum used to clean dust from computers and electronics (I paid $20 for this through this site.  2) a battery for the device.  3) a bowl for a pipe (which can be bought at any small local head shop.  4) screens for the bowl (also at the head shop).  5) a super adhesive or glue.

I used Amazing Goop for the fusing because it says it can glue anything to anything.  Another note is to read the temperature handling capability of the adhesive.  The metal bowl will be pretty hot during use.

Using some type of applicator (like the bamboo skewer below), put a little adhesive on the ring of the bowl (careful not to get any in the way of the middle opening).

Next, apply adhesive to the rim of the mini vacuum (usually the top) where the air intake is located (just look for the part that actually functions as the vacuum).

Carefully fuse the bowl onto the vacuum, press tightly and let the adhesive dry for the required time on the package.  Double check the opening through the bowl to make sure no glue is clogging the air flow.  Use one of the attachment tubes and place it onto the air output (where the air exhaust from the vacuum is located).  Most mini-vac's come with multiple attachments and brushes... you will only need a tube that is about 3 inches long to direct the smoke through.

Once the glue is set, you can use the pipe.  I use small hickory chips (ground into small shavings with my spice grinder) and place them in the metal bowl.  Be sure to use one of the screens inside to prevent larger particles from going through the machine.

To operate, just aim the tube where you want the smoke (I stuck it under a glass on a plate to create the effect below), and turn on the fan, and light the wood.  After the initial ignition of the chips, the bowl should stay lit by itself.  A steady full stream of smoke will shoot out of the tube.

This is the intended effect.  Place food on a plate.  Cover the food with an inverted glass or dome.  Fill the glass with smoke, remove the pipe tube, and set the glass firmly down.  When the plate arrives at the table and the glass is removed, a cloud of intense hickory (or tea, or nut shells, or whatever else you want to burn for smoke) will pour out around the plate before dissipating into the air.  Very simple but not worth all of the drama necessary for me to learn how to create it.

Now, everyone can build a smoke pipe like mine!  Do not spend unneccesary money on junk from Spain that does not work!  Do not buy anything from ALLFORCHEFS.COM!!!  Just go to the link above, order the vacuum.  Buy a battery and the other components while waiting for the vacuum to arrive, then put it together yourself... imagine your sense of self-accomplishment and the unwasted money in your pocket!

preserved meyer lemon

Here are the completed jars of meyer lemon set to preserve.  The process was taken from Moroccan Modern by Hassan M'souli.

The first step is to soak the lemons in fresh water for 3 days (changing the water out everyday).  Once removed from the water, cut 4 slits into each lemon from top to bottom.  Pack each opening with rock salt.  The recipe calls to pack the lemons immediately into jars, and add more lemon juice and more salt.  I actually let the lemons sit for a day before packing and added the rendered lemon juice from the process to the jars instead.  I deviated from the spices by putting some dried Thai chiles, long pepper, shaved mace, ajwan seed, and cardamom.  Fill the jars with boiling water, and drizzle a little olive oil to cover the surface.  Close the lids.  Set the jars away somewhere and wait one month.  Either we will have preserved lemons or exploded glass after this.

Let's see what we can do with these after 30 days... TBC.

meyer plans

These are some nice orange meyer lemons that we brought it.  After soaking a bucket of them in water for 3 days, I have them cut and packed with rock salt to start the preservation process.  We actually plan to go 'cute' with them and pack them into mason jars for future use.  I may deviate from the original recipe and use another variation of spices... I'll decide later today.

We have implemented the first stage of our new dinner menu change-out, and the result has been an extemely busy restaurant every night.  It's amazing how many people go out to eat a simple steak dinner a la carte with a side of parmesan fries (or as we call them, 'parm frittes') at inflated prices.  We switched all of our meat to prime and went with a higher weight spec on some.  Tomorrow we execute a lunch menu change (mostly sandwiches here).  All in all, we have been working more hours and getting less done.  So much more of my time has been spent in the fire, and I'm getting pretty burnt up.  It would be nice to actually play with my food again.  We currently have a sucking Berkshire pig, 10 avian, and some lamb belly from 4 story Hill Farm to utilize not to mention the above lemons.

hot pot at home

Hot pot has to be one of the most fun things to eat at home.  We recently bought a hot pot/grill combination electric table top cooker (not sure the exact name for this appliance).  I had to look online for it, and I settled for a Sunpen shabu shabu/hot pot for about $70.  I guess you pay for the awesome fun you'll have with it, because it cannot be worth that much for the materials it's made of.

This is what we had to eat on the grill on Wednesday night... We used a dashi/kimchee broth with daikon, carrots, cob corn, and tofu in it.  The beginning broth should always be on the light side... hot pot increases in intensity as the meal progresses.  We started out by throwing some nice maitake in the broth followed by some iceberg and broccoli (to eat right away).  We started priming the grill with butter, onions, and grilled onion.  Get some shrimp and crab in the hot pot, and put some sausage on the grill.  Throw a little minced garlic onto the grilled food.  Once the broth is boiling again, add in some konyakku noodles.  The mushrooms and shrimp should be ready now... eat that with some lettuce.  Eat a little onion and sausage from the grill, dapping them a little into the broth.  The bubbling broth will keep intensifying in flavor as you add more stuff, and it reduces.  The broth in your bowl will continue to mix with the flavors of the grilled food.  Dip the grilled foods into a Korean barbeque sauce or Taiwanese barbeque sauce or both.  Just start eating things as they cook and keep throwing more food on.  We continued with sliced pork shoulder, baby bok choy, tofu griddled dipped in egg and cornstarch.  We ate so much, and we still forgot to put things into it.  You will get so full eating this because you find yourself getting caught up in an accelerating rhythym.

The mess afterwards sucks... there are literally about 20 to 25 little dishes and bowls to clean up plus all of the utensils, and the hot pot/grill itself.  Chef K and I were discussing the merits to family-style eating with hot pots, and how the food would be different if placed in a Western family situation... combination fondue and grill, queso dip with fajita marinated meats, hot bean dip, various satays grilling away with warm peanut sauce in the middle, or whatever other flavors your family likes.  Trying different flavored broths such as a salsa broth or barbeque bouillon can be cool.  The only real limitation is that the grill and hot pot work on the same thermostat, and cannot be set at different temperatures.

taiwanese sausage

As I've said a few posts ago, I have been wanting to make Taiwanese sausage for a while now.  It is a 2 day process, so you must be able to commit the time to it.  I used the recipe from Chow Times.  The flavors were good, but I ran into equipment problems...

I used the food grinder/ sausage stuffer attachment for my Kitchen Aid.  This was the first time I've used it, so I now realize the flaws within.  I had the pork shoulder cut up nice and small, I froze everything (the equipment, not the meat), and the Kitchen Aid still managed to get way too hot.  I cleaned it out half-way through (this is only 4.5# of pork!) and changed to the coarser die, refroze everything, let the pork sit in the freezer for a minute, and the engine was still having trouble.  The meat was passing through way too slow, and the grinder was getting way too hot.  It would literally take the mechanism 10 to 15 minutes to push out 3 inches of sausage. 

I can only express deep dissatisfaction at Kitchen Aid for creating this device.  It is so impractical... 4 plus pounds of meat is not a lot to grind... especially if you're going through the trouble of making sausage at home.  I would now recommend anyone serious on the process to spend double the money, and get a stand-alone grinder instead of the KA attachment.  Part of the problem may be with the cross blade which doesn't appear sharp enough to cut the meat... only smash it through the die which eliminates the need for different sized dies (and creates excess friction, pressure, and heat) because everything just comes out smashed up.  Also the sausage stuffer tube (which they charge $10 for) is a little small for pork casings.  For now, I'll stick to cranking out sausage at work only.

You can see below how the first one came out a little red, but the others look white from the fat melting and creaming up inside the casing.  The meat was warm.

Barring the tecnical difficulties, I roasted off a few at very low heat.  This sausage is traditionally dried a bit, and the texture is that of a drier more compressed meat (like dry-aged) with more chew and less moisture.  As far as the flavor, the recipe in the above link is pretty damn good... just get the process right.

The recipe reduction (or adaptation) I used with the above link's recipe are:

4.5 lbs pork shoulder roast (cut into 1/2 inch cubes) marinate in 3/4 Cup sugar, 1/3 Cup Shao Xing rice wine, 1/2 tsp true cinnamon (not cassia), 1 1/2 Tbsp salt, 3 Tbsp granulated garlic.  Let marinate overnight, then grind into pig casings.  Pierce the skin of the sausage with a pin and allow to air dry if desired.

umami eggs

Ever since eating snacks of Japanese fish jerky with Kewpie mayonnaise and togarashi, I cannot get the savouriness of the mayo out of my mind.  I've tried it with Hellman's and it just doesn't satisfy like the Kewpie.  The reason for this only came to me recently.  I stumbled across a quote from David Chang of Momofuku in New York in the November issue of Food & Wine magazine.  He stated that he makes his lobster rolls using the Japanese mayo, and that Kewpie is the best mayo in the world because it has MSG.  Wow!  That was a chef that said that!  Unbelieveable and ultimately reaffirming.  This reinforces my liking for MSG despite all of the attacking it has received during my entire lifetime in the Western World.  David Chang is a chef who seeks out all of the best ingredients (like Berkshire pork) for his food... and he insists on using mayo with MSG.  You have to love that.

So, I had an urge today for devilled eggs... why not use Kewpie instead?  I even pushed the umami a little more by doing them Chef Mike style and mixing the meat and fat of the one left-over boiled crab into the egg yolk mayo filling.  The result... damn!  Excellent!

Here's my quick formula... 5 boiled eggs, 3 - 4 Tbsp Kewpie mayo, 1 green onion (minced), 3 slices dill pickle (minced), all meat and fat of 1 female blue crab (with eggs is better), and paprika for the top.  Mix the egg yolk and all other ingredients with a fork and stuff them into the whites.

So, if such a difference can exist in a devilled egg (or a lobster roll), why not start using Kewpie in all kitchen mayo applications.  Customers may not realize why they suddenly feel such an increased level of satisfaction from our tuna salad, potato salad, sandwiches, salad dressings, coleslaw, horseradish sauce, etc.  They may even splurge more often on our $10 parm frittes with pesto aioli... why not, serious umami there?  That's the secret of umami in foods.  It imparts a degree of fulfillment without having to ponder it.  It satisfies our most primitive cravings.

Now the only question is where to buy Kewpie in bulk containers so we don't have to fight with that ridiculous toothpaste-type squeeze bottle it comes in.  As long as they still put the little baby on the bucket.

crab boil pressure

Ok... everybody's pressure cooking now, and I'm jumping in the game late.  Even though Chef K had given me a stove-top pressure cooker for Christmas, I am ashamed to say that I am using it tonight for the first time.  Why the hesitation?  I was thinking that it may be because everything in South Louisiana is slow cooked.  Although, it took me no time to find multiple uses for my old crock pot, and also because my umami fascination always keeps me experimenting with slow-cooking methods, pressure cooking is a different animal.

I was skimming through some info on pressure cookers and didn't notice any subjects concerning using the method on seafood... or mainly shellfish.  There are always the references to beans, grains, roasts, poultry, etc.  Cajun-style boiled crabs had started cooking in my head.  Uncle Chunky always (and a lot of other people) would weight the top of the crawfish or crab pot with a heavy chunk of steel or even devise a clamp that would creater a tighter seal on the pot.  It seemed that to create real cajun-style boiled crabs on a small scale in the home, the pressure cooker was the perfect vessel.  The fact of steaming them in a concentrated flavor bath is more representative of what I grew up with opposed to the New Orleans method of boiling them in lots of seasoned water.  This was old-fashioned coon-ass pressure cooking, and I didn't even realize it until today.  Pressure steaming will always be better than boiling (think about heat recovery times and the destructive effect of the water pulling flavor out, instead of steam pressure forcing flavor in).  In fact, the flavor delivery was so effective that I will have to cut down on seasoning and salt next time.

The problem with a home pressure cooker (because everything is sealed in at once) is obviously different cooking times of the components... i. e. potatoes, garlic heads, whole or half onions, sausage, corn.  To solve this issue, I boiled the items earlier in a separate pot.  Get a lidded sauce pot rolling with a mix of water, Zatarain's, salt, and bay leaves.  You don't need a lot of water (about 1 1/2 cup for 6 crabs) because we don't want to over fill the pressure cooker.  Not to mention that the various ingredients (including the crabs) will expel liquid.

Do the potatoes first.  I went 12 minutes because I couldn't find nice small red bliss potatoes.  Next comes the onion and garlic for another 5 minutes.

Arrange the cut uncooked sausage on top of the crabs in the pressure cooker.  I only put 6 because I couldn't fit anymore into mine.  For a second, I started to ponder about the humanity of pouring boiling water over live crabs as opposed to the traditional way of pouring live crabs into boiling water... but the controversy seemed equal on both sides to me (besides, I have been around this my entire life, so it's difficult to feel remorse over it... guess those damn hippies are getting into my head a little).  Another tip is to use a fairly large pressure cooker because pouring boiling hot spicy water over anything is going to flip it out!  If the pot is too small, they may try to jump out like they did with mine... my super coon-ass relexes prevented any real escapes.

Once the boiling vegetables are up to their times, pour them over the crabs and sausage and immediately lock on the lid.  Have a burner pre-cranked on medium high before-hand and place the pressure cooker on top of it.  It's beneficial to have the shortest possible heat recovery, so think ahead!!!  Let it get up to high pressure and cook for 2 minutes (much faster than the tradional method).  Release the steam, open the pot, and drain the liquid.  This method works well to create the flavor of bayou-style crabs.  The small amount of liquid in a high pressure environment (with the additional starch and salt added) creates a web of channels throughout the entire pot for flavor to travel on.  Instead of pure water vapor the extra elements create a honeycomb of flavor bubbles.  Much better than boiling.

That's cajun food science.

microwaved dirt

We received another weekly order  of microgreens and heirloom tomatoes from the ladies at Tropical Delights (sorry, no website), and they were telling me of  a new process they were using involving the microwaving of dirt.  Naturally, I was intrigued and skeptical.  After a brief explantation that it somehow removes the bad stuff from the soil, and leaves the good stuff I wondered how that was possible.  Is it because all organic pathogens and parasites get cooked to death while certain minerals are retained.  Also, how would heated up dirt smell?

I searched for more information on this process, and also to see if other organic growers were using the method.  The only mention of it was on this site here.  The author writes about cooking dirt to sterilize it and offers a conventional oven technique as well as the microwaved process.  There have been tests to determine what is lost from foods after microwaving, so I am curious to know if by microwaving dirt do we deprive the plant of important healthy components before it even grows?  There is so much for us to learn.  We continually focus on food and are just starting to look at the food system.  Time Magazine has a great article in their current issue written by John Cloud.  Hopefully, it will force the public to look past the organic food industry and use other criteria when choosing what to put it their bodies.  We are on the verge of a new beginning.

buen provecho

At the beginning of the Tamiami Trail, we ate some tapas in a small Euro-styled Cuban restaurant.  Our waiter did not speak any English, and I had to order the food in broken Spanish.  At the point when our food arrived, he said "buen provecho," which I have come to know as the Spanish equivalent to bon appetite.  The phrase itself was common to me, but I was left in wonder as he asked me how to say it in English.  Hmmmm.... you know, we do not really have such a phrase in English.  Almost every other culture has some equivalent that is spoken before a meal to wish an enjoyable time at the table, but not English.  I then started to question what this says about Americans, or more appropriately, what does it say about the English?  Is that the key to why food in America is so different from other countries?  Why don't we want to enjoy our food?

I guess we can say (although it is a stretch) that we use the word 'enjoy' to express wishes of a happy meal unto others, but this is not a true expression.  It is almost as though we say it out of a lack of anything else to say... or at least something that is not directly borrowed from another language.

My first response to the waiter that day was, "We say, 'bon appetite!'"  No, wait.  That's French... just what in the hell do we say?  That was the moment the brain started to click.  I came across a site on epinions that goes into some detail of this question.  The link is here.  It is also ironic that the very next morning I read the ideas in food post that speaks of the same topic, or more or less answers the question without ever posing the question.  Why are we so food dysfunctional as a society?

Perhaps one of the answers is not in words, but in sights, smells, and tastes... like the Spanish tortilla I enjoyed that day which was cooked perfectly and was delicately balanced in flavor (the flavor of 2 ingredients that both hold all of the necessary components to develop into full-grown individual organisms on their own... egg & potato).

tamiami

Sometimes, you just have to get away.  I had unexpectedly ended up with 3 days off on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday so at the last minute, Ming and I packed 1 bag each and just took off.  We decided to travel the length of the Tamiami trail which extends from Miami to Tampa Bay.  For those of you unfamiliar, the trail is one of those Route 66 type passages that has existed since pre-Interstate highway system days.  It crossed the Everglades and ran up South Florida's west coast from Naples to Tampa.  Some parts were long, but interesting nonetheless.  We drove through swamp areas and were intrigued by the difference in South Florida cities.  Naples is a little money-spot, a true retirement area for the financially sound... clean and polished.

We saw the sunset on the beach in Naples.  The next evening, we saw the sun setting as we crossed the larger section of Tampa over the Gandy bridge.

Tampa is a strange and spread-out city.  Quite uninteresting.  Perhaps there can be no appreciation for it from the short-time visitor.  Everything seemed to be stuck in time... actually, styles and decor seem to be from the 90's, like accidentally stepping back 10 years or more.

Along the way, we mostly drove and ate.  At every stop, we ordered more food than we could eat and ate what we could.  I had tripe stew on the Miami side of the Everglades, we ate mussels and littlenecks on the water in Naples and sushi in Tampa... why sushi, why not?  I have always been amused at how sushi varies from one American city to the next.  The subtle differences reflect the personality of the areas.  Here is a photo of the tripe stew which was one of the more interesting choices along the way.