The Odd Food Dude

Snapshot: Crocodile Menu

2011-08-05T11:00:00.003-04:00

My friend Frank, a former monk, sent me this snapshot from Singapore. It was included alongside other photos inside Orchard Towers, which are decidedly less appropriate and not really in keeping with Buddhist tradition, wink wink.

I dunno dude, I'm kind of partial to free-range.

Intestine

2011-05-17T21:35:00.023-04:00

Unless you're a vegetarian, you've probably eaten intestines at some point in your life without even realizing it. Due to the cheap nature and availability of this offal, it is cooked around the world, often as a casing for meats and liquids, or a combination thereof. You might also know this as sausage, though these days the submucosa of the intestinal casing is sometimes substituted for a synthetic collagen-like material. For all intents and purposes of this post we're talking about pig intestine, which is still used for sausage casing, just not as commonly as its bovine counterpart. The United States doesn't find much culinary use for intestines outside of sausage, but other countries, such as Korea, like them to play the starring role in their cuisine.

I first had Korean BBQ when I was a teenager in Japan and had never even heard of it. I sat down with my host family on the first night I met them ("Americans all drink beer, right? You want a beer?" "Um...yes, we do. Starting when we're 15. Two please.") and had one of the best meals of my life. Since then, I've been hooked.

The Korean BBQ joint Honey Pig is awesome. And not just kind of awesome. Spinal Tap wailing on your guitar at 11 awesome. It's open in two locations in northern Virginia (Annandale, which is essentially Koreatown, and Centreville, which isn't far off). It's open 24/7 and is usually packed with people around the clock, though I have oddly never had to wait more than a few minutes. The food is good, the BBQ is cooked on a grill at your table, and you leave reeking to high hell of cooked meat. I wouldn't take a date there expecting a romantic evening or anything, but you'll leave with your belly content. And if you're having trouble reading the Honey Pig link, it's probably because you're not fluent in Korean. I would link to a menu written in English, but the one I found online is pretty much, well, not actually what they serve.

Because I don't want to sound like a complete ass (or more so than I usually do), I'm going to leave out trying to type in a Korean accent.

Waitress: Hi! What would you like?

Me: Three orders of dumplings and-

Her: WHAT?!

Me: Three orders of dumplings...?

Her: You can't have three orders of dumplings!

Me: Why?

Her: Too much! (Insert spherical Bilbo Baggins stomach emulation by her here)

Me: ...and an order of...coughbeefintestinescough

Her: Uhsaywhat?

Me: Beef...intestines?

Her: (hands on hips) You want beef intestines?!?! (laugh) Okay, sassy boy!

She takes the order to the open kitchen in the back where I hear some incredulous "eh?!"s followed by rapid fire Korean, guffaws, and staff unabashedly pointing at me. I guess I forgot to mention I was the only Caucasian there. I'd been before a few times, but never gotten the intestines, which apparently few people do.

The intestines come looking downright foul before they hit the grill. Like something gloopy out of a pig's stomach, for instance. Wild, I know. I didn't stop her to ask if I could get a good whiff, but with the marinade the dish was swimming in I doubt it would have mattered.

Don't mind the empty chair in the background. I said the place was packed and it's my blog, so there.

The intestine was placed on the grill and curled almost delicately with tongs by the waitress into pleasant little curlicues. Pretty much instantly a grayish, foaming substances came out of the tubes, and this is when I realized that the offal perhaps hasn't been cleaned to its maximum potential. Strangely enough, the thought of what might be in there turned my stomach even more than eating testicles. But then the smell of smoky goodness enveloped me (or the smoldering mushroom cloud coming from the grill), and I knew I was in for a treat. That, and the grill is placed with grooves at an angle, so all the bad "stuff" (hopefully) found its way out.

The meat was turned a few more times and nicely seared, then it was chopped and additional marinade was added along with jalapenos and garlic. Let me just say there must be some sort of garlic surplus in northern Virginia, because damn, son. Remember what I said about not taking a date to get Korean BBQ? You've been forewarned.

Tic Tac, sir?

In the tradition of Korean ssam, you take some leafy lettuce, some rice, jalapenos and raw/grilled garlic if you're feeling brave, and whatever banchan, or sides like kimchi, you want to add. It's kind of like assembling your own Korean taco. This process is similar for most dishes there and for Korean BBQ in general.

The intestine wrap was chewy--though less so than I thought it would be--but tasty. I can tell that without the savory marinade and sides, it would be nearly flavorless on its own. I've nearly run the gamut on the menu at Korean BBQ restaurants, with the spicy pork, kalbi, and bulgogi bing my favorites, but it's all good.

I'd suggest washing your meat-scented clothes ASAP or risk receiving a "friendly greeting" by your dog at the door.

Balut (Egg)

2011-02-07T10:32:00.008-05:00

This Superbowl Sunday wasn't exactly the typical spread of pizza and chicken wings. John and Tina, a Vietnamese couple, had people over to their new apartment for a seafood extravaganza with snow crab legs, blue crabs, clams, shrimp, and pho. I'm gingerly typing this entry out as I nurse the nicks and cuts on my fingertips, souvenirs from crustaceans determined to pinch even from the grave.

Tina is hard to explain. She's diminutive and cute, and could probably play Tinkerbell in a Vietnamese version of Peter Pan, which is undoubtedly why people call her "Tinabelle."

(Tina cartwheels into the TV room and taps me 46 times.)

Tina: "Dude, you want an egg?"

Me: "Uh...okay?"

Tina: "It's not a normal egg...it's like an embryo."

Me (swoon): "You had me at embryo. What's it called?"

Tina: "I only know what it is in, like, Vietnamese. Whatever. I'm making you one."

(Tina skips into the kitchen, her three-pound rat dog, Yappie, following at her heels.)

I'd heard of balut before, but I'd never seen it in person. Balut is the fertilized egg of a duck or chicken that has reached the embryonic stage but is not yet fully developed. As far as I know, it is not often eaten outside of Southeast Asia (maybe because it's a frickin' embryo), though in areas like Vietnam and the Philippines, balut is enjoyed as an everyday snack. Age is a factor in taste; usually the egg is considered ideal at 17-20 (or more) days after fertilization. Understandably, prenatal foods make Americans squeamish, so I consider myself lucky to find uncooked balut, especially when I wasn't even seeking it out.

(Just a 26-year-old man using a Mr. Eggy baby spoon. NBD.)

The preparation is difficult, but bear with me: boil the egg and serve it piping hot.

True to the cuisine, I ate the egg with a squeeze of lemon, chili sauce, Vietnamese coriander, and salt and pepper.

Strangely enough, balut tastes like...wait for it...an egg! Or, to be more precise, an undercooked egg with some decidedly strange textures. First, there's a little grayish liquid swimming atop, which is to be sipped. What I can only assume are the boiled remains of the chick-to-be rest in the middle of the shell, with the taste of a pungent egg (and maybe a little chicken) and the texture of undercooked scrambled eggs with some sea urchin to boot. There is an off-putting crunch akin to crab lungs, which I came to learn is the underdeveloped cartilage of the duckling. There is also some cooked yolk with thick, maroon veins. Finally, at the bottom, there are some rubbery white leftovers, the texture of a wet racquetball and about as flavorful. The smell is a little on the sulfurous side, though not putrescent the way I'd heard people describe it before.

The chili sauce, citrus, and seasoning are certainly welcome complements to the balut, though the Vietnamese coriander I could do without. Of the small percentage of people who don't like cilantro, a figure in which I do not include myself, the most common complaint is that it carries a "soapy" taste and smell (the cause of which is oddly still a mostly a mystery), which I found prominently in the Vietnamese cousin of the herb. An amusing side note about Vietnamese cilantro is that both my hosts were quick to tell me not to eat too much, as it "makes you a scrub (John)" and "makes your ding-dong not work (Tina)." A quick Wikipedia search revealed that Vietnamese cilantro "is used to repress sexual urges," though I feel like if you're eating duck embryos you probably don't need to much help keeping it in your pants.

In closi--what's that? Balut's an aphrodisiac? Oh, okay. Well, so are jackal bile, skink, ambergris, and seal penis, but I think I'm going to pass on eating them with any sort of regularity. Call me crazy, but there are certain foods that just don't do it for me. And while I'd eat it again, I can throw balut in that category without too much hesitation.

Caviar

2011-01-31T16:07:00.006-05:00

As a child, I remember thinking that caviar (and only of beluga variety) was something that high rollers stacked on blinis and creme fraiche with tiny spoons as they discussed shady illegal arms deals in thick accents, scantily-clad Slavic floozies lounging in the background. In retrospect, this Albert Broccoli-esque belief was a little presumptuous, as there are many different types of caviar out there that range wildly in price, type, color, size-you get the idea.

Caviar is salted fish eggs, and while though those from sturgeon are considered to be the real McCoy, there are plenty of alternatives such as salmon, whitefish, and trout. There are four types: Beluga, Sterlet, Ossetra, and Sevruga, ranking in quality of the order listed. Traditionally Russian and Iranian brands are considered to be the finest, though in my opinion it's kind of like wine: you like what you like and hope that it hasn't gone bad. Growing up, my family usually served it with some sort of cream spread, crackers, and chives or scallions, but I've seen many different uses ranging from sushi, atop soft-boiled eggs, paired with a baguette, and as a complement to other seafood. Mostly, the bold (and often expensive) nature of caviar lends itself to being eaten and enjoyed without much outside influence.

To celebrate the birthday of Boris Spassky, aka Gospodin Ducklips, I thought a little caviar and Stoli Gold would be in order this Saturday. Not really--I had no idea who Boris Spassky is until I just Googled "Russian birthday January 30th," but there was a Stevia-sweet deal. In hopes of savoring and interpreting the true nature of the caviar, I decided to it best to enjoy with only crackers or a baguette.

There will be no snickering as to the prominence of my fivehead, or its vascularity.

Reviews:

Red: As I have typically thought, the red varietal of salmon roe is too salty for my likes by itself. It pairs much better with creme fraiche, sour cream, cream cheese, or butter and a baguette. The large nature of the egg lends itself to something of a pop when bitten into.

Yellow/Orange: From the whitefish, the yellow/gold caviar is quite tasty. Smaller than its sanguine counterpart, it is also less salty. Best, in my opinion, with butter and a baguette.

Black: The good stuff from a sturgeon, these tiny black beads are the least salty, most savory, and also most enjoyable. Though they're excellent with all sorts of pairings, a tiny dollop of creme fraiche and a blini are the ideal transport to your mouth. Maybe the James Bond villains had it right.

I've got some caribou in the freezer and Charlemagne (whom you may remember from the Beef Tongue entry) just got a sausage grinder, so look forward to that coming up.

Shark

2010-11-05T12:51:00.005-04:00

Did you hear about the sharks that were recently caught in the Potomac River? Yeah, I had nothing to do with that. However, I used to row on the Potomac, and I figure it's my civic duty to eat sustainable foods.

In pretty much any habitat you can find sharks, there are people eating them. Obviously coastal regions tend to have a much higher presence of shark activity, which is why you see plenty of them in Japan, Australia, China, and Scandinavian countries. One particularly noteworthy dish from Iceland is hákarl, which is shark that has been pressed and fermented under sand, gravel, and stone for up to three months, then hung to cure for an additional five more. Hákarl has really made the rounds with celebrity chefs: Anthony Bourdain described it as "the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing" he had ever eaten; upon trying it, Gordon Ramsey spewed out a Technicolor yawn; and for a guy whom I've seen relish raw testicles with hedonistic abandon and orgasmic moans, Andrew Zimmern sure had trouble getting past the ammonia smell. Luckily, as I was cooking for the masses, I decided to forgo the extensive process of fermented, cured shark, and go for something a little more crowd-friendly.

I got two pounds of shark, which was cut extremely thick, pink, muscled, and no ammonia or fish smell. This is how you want your shark. Because I was cooking at a friend's home and not my own kitchen, I didn't have anything but an iPhone, so work with me. The picture comes a little later.

Baked Shark with Shiso Pesto & Tomato-Watermelon Salad

Shark

2 lbs shark, portioned into six 6 oz. steaks

2 T butter

kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 425. The rule of thumb with fish tends to be 10 minutes per inch, so do the math based off of the shark's thickness. Season the steaks liberally, then dot each piece with some butter. Add any remaining butter to the bottom of the pan, then put in shark in the oven for the time calculated.

Pesto

1 bunch basil (about 1 1/2 C)

1/2 amount of basil in shiso (perilla) leaves (optional, otherwise use an additional 1/2 C basil)

1/4 C pine nuts, toasted

1/2 C Parmesan cheese, grated

2/3 C extra-virgin olive oil (or more, as needed)

1 clove garlic

kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Toast the pine nuts, then combine the remaining dry ingredients in a blender or food processor, slowly adding the oil until you've reached the desired consistency.

Salad

2 red tomatoes, small diced

1 yellow tomato, small diced

1 C watermelon, small diced

1/2 C of basil and mint, chiffonade

2 avocado, small diced

1/2 C feta cheese, crumbled

1/4 C white balsamic vinegar

1/4 C extra-virgin olive oil

kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Combine all the ingredients well, adjusting for taste and seasoning.

This was a massive hit. Each element is delicious by itself or, as I quickly proved, scrambled together in a hodgepodge eyesore. My brother, Billy Bob, and I have been making the watermelon-tomato salad (or some version thereof) for years now. It really is the most mouthwatering, fresh summer accompaniment you could dream for. Shark has the sort of quality you'd expect from seabass: firm and mostly tasteless, but nonetheless adopts the characteristics of whatever it's served with. Typically I sear fish before I pop it in the oven, but because I was in an unfamiliar kitchen, I decided to keep it simple and not worry about it. Due to the long cooking time, the shark was able to attain the desirable crust in the oven anyway. You can't tell, but there's a sizable pile of grilled zucchini underneath the shark and salad in that picture, which I would highly recommend, as it adds sweet-savory crunch and smoky char to the dish. What brought it all together was the pesto. In case you don't know, shiso (common in sushi bars, but you might know it by "perilla") is a herbaceous leaf that is minty with a light anise note. This cornucopia in a bowl turns messy pretty quickly, but each element is terrific on its own or scrambled together.

Shark seems like a good, meaty fish that will adopt the characteristics of the ingredients you serve it with. I highly recommend it.

Chia Seeds

2010-08-16T18:33:00.007-04:00

Ch-ch-ch-Chia! No, Martha Stewart, this did not become a gardening blog. Your familiarity wit hchia seeds may differ from mine, but don't feel ignant--I didn't always know they were edible either.

As a child, the commercials for Chia Pets kind of fascinated me. Much to my juvenile chagrin, my parents saw the uselessness of the shtick and denied my incessant requests to purchase one. So it came to pass that my original firsthand experience with chia seeds occurred during my prefrosh visit to Brown University. My host, Officer Char-Char, who was the older brother of my roommate-to-be, Lieutenant Twistopher, welcomed me to his suite with exceptional warmth. After throwing my bag on the floor, cracking me a tepid Natty Ice, and informing me that I wouldn't be going out with him that night and but rather sleeping on his damp couch, he then made sure the first grandiose view I experienced of what was to become my alma mater was a terra cotta phallus with a chia...ahem, hedge, that he and his roommates kept prominently displayed in their window. You simply can't hide good taste, folks. Both Char-Char and Twistopher are now enlisted overseas, probably hipshooting stacks of camel turds with M-16s and cackling hysterically.

It wasn't until I read a book on marathon running that I found out you could actually eat the stuff and eventually ordered some. Naturally, given my previous association with chia seeds, you can understand my initial hesitation. But chia seeds are actually an incredible source of protein, Omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, fiber, and a whole slew of other stuff that'll make you strong like bull. I'm no botanist, but I'm guessing their substantial nutritional content is why they grow like wildfire. They've been around since way before my man JC was kickin' it with his twelve man posse; in fact, the Aztecs ate them by the fistful.

Chia seeds can come in a myriad of colors, but mostly they're mottled grayish-black, and these little guys are only slightly larger than poppy seeds. Due mostly to their liquid solubility and health benefits, the seeds are used in recipes like fruit shakes and porridge, with an occasional stint as a salad topping and in some choice baked goods, not to mention their grassy, alfalfa-like sprouts. When soaked, they form a sort of gel that significantly softens the crunchy texture of the hull and goes down quite smoothly. I'm not breaking any molds with this simple agua fresca (that's Spanish for fresh agua, amigo) recipe that's been slurped down in South America for millennia, but I can't lie--it's good!

Agua Fresca

2 C water

2 T maple syrup*

1 lime, juiced (about 2 T)

1 T chia seeds

Stir to combine, wait 30 minutes to an hour. Serve over ice.

*Not the stuff you put on grandma's Aunt Jemima. I'm talking about the viscous syrup that 83-year-old men with monosyllabic good ol' boy names like Gus and Jed tap from trees in the Vermont backwoods between swigs of Kentucky gutrot and sessions of heavy wheezing.

This is what happens when two frogs meet on match.com.

Delicious aaaaand nutritious. I doubt Aztecs basked in Lake Texcoco with vessels of chia fresca to celebrate a good ol' sacrificial decapitation or two (million), but the drink definitely has a hot summer day kind of feel to it. Agua fresca is kind of like a limeade without the subatomic punt of sugar in your grill. In other words, it's got a lip-smacking, refreshing quality to it. Chia seeds used to be about as scarce in your area as rocking horse poopie, but like most things on the internet these days, they're just a step away.

Oxtail

2010-07-28T15:53:00.005-04:00

Americans tend to stray from oxtail because it is fatty and it cooks about as fast as old people fornicate*, or perhaps because raw oxtail looks like the barrel of a meat gatling gun. I had someone tell me one time that oxtails had too much bone, to which I responded with some pretty aggressive nostril flaring and explained that bone = flavor, dawg. Either way, oxtail gets a bad rep because of its gelatinous quality and slow cooking time; when prepared correctly, however, the stuff is nearly unbeatable in terms of flavor and tenderness.

True to its name, oxtail is, yep, the tail of an ox. Though this isn't really 100% accurate, as an ox is an ahem, gelded male, whereas the stuff you see in the supermarket can come off the heinie of any old cattle. Oxtail is eaten with relative consistency on each and every continent. That isn't to say that Hindus are lining up for seconds or that there are enough people (or cattle, for that matter) in Antarctica to even form a line, but it's a common (and usually cheap) cut. Oxtail is especially prominent in African and Jamaican stews as well as in Southeast Asian comfort food, and even comes in a powdered form much like bullion, ie, the salty bane of my existence.

Originally I was going to make Colombian sazon oxtail soup, but then my totally sweet older brother, Billy Bob, swooped in with a pasta maker for my birthday. A few leaping high-fives later, I busted that bad boy out and the rest, as they say, was history. Please preemptively forgive me if this recipe has more steps than Tikal.

Braised Oxtail

3+ lbs. oxtail

1 onion, small diced

2 sticks celery, small diced

1-2 carrots, peeled and small diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tomato, rough chopped

4 oz. button mushrooms, sliced

equal parts red wine, stock, and Coca Cola (3+ cups each)

2 T tomato paste

2 T soy

2 T Worcestershire sauce

1 T Sriracha (or other hot sauce)

2 bay leaves

1 stick cinnamon

1/2 T ground allspice

8 sprigs thyme

1 1/2 T Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped

kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

flour

vegetable/extra-Virgin olive oil

Preheat your oven on 325. Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add enough oil to coat the bottom of the oven. While it heats, pat dry, season, and coat the oxtail with flour, shaking any excess flour away. When the oil is shimmering, add the oxtail pieces and brown on all sides. Remove oxtails and add mirepox (onions, celery, and carrots.) Wait 2 minutes, then add the garlic. Wait another minute then add the tomato paste and tomatoes. Stir to incorporate the paste, then when the vegetables have been sweated down, add 2 cups of red wine. Reduce by a third, then add the remaining ingredients and put the Dutch oven into the oven. Braise until tender, or 6+ hours. Strain the liquid and set it aside. Pull the oxtail meat off the bone and cover it with the liquid, discarding the leftovers. Set in the fridge until the fat cap has formed from the liquid another few hours later, which you should then remove.

"Omg, omg, ur putting Coca Cola in there?!?!?!?!" Shaddap! This recipe needs to be kicked up with a little sugar. And by the way, I'm sorry if your kitchen smells completely delicious during this process. Now, this is incredibly tasty already and good enough to eat as is with some crusty bread, but I decided to take it a step or two further.

The next part of the recipe is where it gets a little tricky: rolling the pasta. You have a few options here. You can either, as I did, make your own dough; buy premade pasta sheets and cut them into ravioli; or buy another completely different kind of pasta and use that instead. Regardless, unless you liked Episode 18 of Joyce's Ulysses, you want to read my garrulous explanation of the process about as much as I want to write it.

Pasta Filling**

Braised oxtail meat

Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Ricotta cheese

basil and parsley, chiffonade

1 egg

kosher salt & fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Remove the meat from the liquid (Try heating it slightly and the removal should be easier--the liquid will have congealed somewhat), reserving the liquid. Combine the first four ingredients to your liking, then add the egg and seasoning. Place a small dollop of the mixture in the pasta as your ravioli filling, then cook the pasta 2-3 minutes in boiling water, or until done. Sauce the dish with the reduced braising liquid and garnish with additional herbs and Parmesan cheese.

**I realize this recipe's lack of measurements looks like a cop out, but you really should try it first and then add seasoning. Parmesan tends to be salty, so seasoning may not be needed.

Oxtail Sauce

Reserved braising liquid

Tablespoon pats of butter, cold

Take 1/3 cup of the liquid and reduce by half, or your spoon is coated. Add a pat of butter and stir to incorporate. Serve over ravioli.

Basil leaf pressed into homemade ravioli = pasta making skillz

Pretty much all I can say is, "Wow." Not to brag, but, uh...this recipe is awesome. I make plenty of things that I enjoy eating, but rarely do I impress myself with something I've made. Narcissus, move over. Braised oxtail ravioli is savory and rich like you wouldn't believe--almost to the point of decadence. As I cut the pasta rather into rather sizable shapes, two was enough for a (too-large) appetizer. I had ten. The reduced braising liquid is nothing short of heavenly, and if I had a vat of it with a few loaves of bread and the final fight scene of Last of the Mohicans on repeat, I'd be a happy camper.

* Author's Note: I haven't identified the rate at which the elderly get their swerve on, but I can imagine it is rather leisurely.

Blood Clams (Blood Cockles)

2010-06-28T17:35:00.021-04:00

The other night at a house warming BBQ, I made about 200 lbs. of swine, replete with pulled pork shoulder, ribs, hamburgers, coleslaw, caprese salad, green goddess salad, and a whole additional mess of tender vittles. The preparation took me at least 8 hours in total and I was wiped out by the end of the arduous process. Needless to say, when my friends Tinabelle & Co. arrived with a three pounds of mussels, shrimp, and blood clams and demanded, "cook these for us!," I complied only because they brought me an odd food in the form of blood clams. That, and eating something called "blood clams" is just kind badass. I mean, if I see something at the grocery store that has a dragon, viking, or some sort of medieval weapon motif, chances are strong that it'll end up in the shopping cart. Today's entry fits right into that category of stuff that dudes like. Here's a quick for instance in the extensive annuls of blood clam literature that would be entirely inaccurate:

ACT 1

SCENE 1

At RISE:

(A 1600 PUB, somewhere in London. Early evening.

PURSEY, twenty-something English ponce replete in

French courtier style clothing, hesitates at the entrance,

where the smell of fresh seafood beckons passer-bys.)

Enter PURSEY into PUB, stage left.

PURSEY

(eyes a dish on the counter)

Blood clams?

(puts a pinky to his mouth)

Smells like a SAY-LOOOOOOR!

(CURTAIN.)

I'm just sayin'.

Blood clams (or blood cockles) are what are called "ark clams," a namesake accredited to their shape. I may be providing my reader with too much credit, but these mollusks resemble, gasp! You guessed it! An ark! Indigenous to the southwest Pacific Ocean, they are a Chinese and Vietnamese delicacy, but are also seen in other parts of Asia. The blood clam adopts its name from the reddish hue of the meat inside, a shade created from the presence of excess hemogoblin. The bivalve's unique sanguine properties allow it to live comfortably in its murky, oxygen depleted environment. In America the blood clam is often hard to find due to the fact that its banned from importation in the US from all but five countries. The reason? Oh, just the off chance of of hepatitis A and E, as well as typhoid and dysentery. Um, what?

Sidebar: If you were to come into someone's house with an item potentially replicating Pamela Anderson's clinic results, or say, will cause you to die on the toilet, TELL THEM. And that's all I have to say about that.

Happily oblivious to my eminent demise and not wanting to dilly dally when some hot BBQ was waiting to be slayed, I used the ingredients on hand to throw something together. This forcedly resourceful compromise consisted mostly of herbs for the salad dressing and, you know, beer. I mean, it was a BBQ, not a Mormon birthday party. I hope that doesn't offend you if you're Mormon. And I'm pretty sure if you are, you're not allowed to use computers anyway, so shame on you for reading this.

My rule of thumb with shellfish is: butter, alcohol, garlic, and herbs. Thus far, the combination has worked on a pretty epic scale, if I do say so myself. Just make sure you have some bread to soak up the delicious broth.

1 lb. blood clams

1 lb. hard clams (Quahogs)

2 shallots, thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

2 small tomatoes, chopped

basil, 1 T chiffonade

tarragon, 2 tsp finely chopped

Italian flat-leaf parsley, 2 tsp finely chopped

chives, 2 tsp finely chopped

1 C Blue Moon or other beer (or white wine) of choice

1 stick unsalted butter, plus one pat

extra-virgin olive oil

fresh cracked black pepper

Sriracha (or other hot sauce) and lime wedges, to serve

Clean the clams. Any clams that are already open are dead, so get rid of them. Sit the rest in a colander or in a bag over ice, but keep your bag open. The clams are alive and need oxygen.

Heat a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. When the oil shimmers, add the pat of butter and the shallots. Wait 1-2 minutes, then add the garlic. Wait 1 minute and add the tomato. Very lightly season and combine, stirring for another minute or 2. Add the beer, butter, and 2/3 of the herbs. When the liquid comes to a simmer, add the hard clams and cover. Wait 1-2 minutes, then add the remaining blood clams and lightly toss to coat. Wait a few minutes until the shells have steamed open, then add the remaining herbs. Toss again lightly, then serve with wedges of lime and hot sauce.

I'll admit it's not the greatest picture, but my hand was trembling with anger when the delicious broth from this clam spilled everywhere but my mouth.

The recipe worked out surprisingly well considering I'd only ever seen blood clams before. I've found that most people (myself included) usually cook mussels (which have a quicker steaming time than clams) when dealing with shellfish, so be sure to be patient if you're not used to the wait. The aroma that comes out of that pot alone is worth the extra couple of minutes. Blood clams are very interesting. And not like the "interesting" story your grandmother told you about her riveting social agenda. They're much meatier than most of their cousins, but with a definite ocean tang offset by the herbaceous butter broth. Due to the intertidal environment they thrive in, the clams have a slight hint of muddiness. Strangely enough, however, the flavor isn't that "blech!" muddiness that's present in swamp animals, but a clean sort of earthiness, or what the Japanese call umami. Due to their meaty nature, I would definitely use these again in a similar fashion. The broth, though very flavorful, was saltier than expected. I added no more than a tiny pinch of seasoning when trying to break down the tomatoes in the early stages of cooking, so I can only assume that the elevated sodium level came from the mollusks themselves due to their saltwater environment. Cut with a little cream, it would make an excellent (and heart attack inducing) sauce for pasta.

Author's Note: No Hepatitis A or E, typhoid, or dysentery was exposed or consumed in the making of this post. That came later.

Chinese Sausage (Lap Chong)

2010-06-15T08:07:00.020-04:00

Hello loyal fans! I am remiss for not updating earlier. Though odd foods have been cooked and drafts have been written, my digital camera's USB cable has been misplaced. Coming from a guy who now buys burners instead of real cell phones due to a high loss-to-retain ratio, this might his might not surprise some of you. So, being the big spender I am, I decided to chuck all sorts of loot at Best Buy and drop 20 ducats on an external memory card reader. It's parked next to my Maserati. Those are the sort of high-profile purchases you can expect around here. Anyway, my stockpiled freezer is beginning to look a little Dahmer-esque at the moment, and I do have a lot of updates to write, so I'll just have to keep sorting through the deluge of fan mail coming in at a torrential pace begging for more posts (/sarcasm).

I saw Chinese sausage, or lap chong, at a new Korean market that just popped up in Virginia. And by Chinese sausage, I mean the Vietnamese version of it, lap xuong. Either way, I get the distinct impression that the store proprietors are still middling with their first CD of Rosetta Stone English, because the phonetic spellings are hilarious. I'm just glad they sell "sasej."

Much like the fare you see in your local grocery store or Wilt Chamberlain's veritable harem, lap chong cames in a variety of flavors. Usually these range from a composition of pork, pork fat, liver, and now more commonly chicken (in Canada and America), and often are much sweeter than those you see in your local markets. Not surprisingly, Chinese sausage is most typically eaten in...you guessed it, China! It is also commonly eaten in other parts of Asia and has a growing presence in North America. Until I realized what lap chong was, I had eaten it unknowingly--in exceeding bulk--in a classic dim sum dish called "lo mai gai," or sausage, chicken, mushrooms, and herbs steamed with glutinous rice in a lotus leaf. When done correctly it is divine, and I highly suggest that next time you hit up Chinatown for lunch you try it.

The bright red color and cheap vacuum packaging gives the lap chong all the allure of an overly plump Slim Jim. And unless you're my friend, Teddy Bear, who thinks the height of fashion is a Redskins jersey, booty mesh shorts, and unlaced Timberlands, or you still think that professional wrestling is real and/or entertaining, you are grossed out by Slim Jims. Upon its unveiling, the sausage looks and feels like a cheap, reasonably decent cured meat. (I wonder why.) The smell, however, is unmistakably like that of an overripe melon. In other words, cloyingly sweet and altogether unappealing. Unsure of my odoriferous new offering and faced with the dilemma of what I was going to make, I said to myself, "Self? What is your favorite sausage dish?" I didn't have time for cassoulet or the wherewithal to make lo mai gai, so jambalaya it was going to be. Sure, jambalaya isn't a classically Chinese dish, but the root of the Cajun word just comes from a French and African conglomeration of ham, jambon, of the, a la, and rice, ya. Last time I checked, Chinese people eat swine. And, you know, occasionally a little rice.

Chinese Jambalaya

1/2 package 14 oz. package of lap chong, cut into half moons

6 quail, broken down

1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 small onion, small diced

2 stalks celery, small diced

1/2 red bell pepper, small diced

1/2 green bell pepper, small diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 1/2 C Thai jasmine rice

1/2 C Chinese cooking wine/rice wine/sherry

6 cups chicken stock (see following recipe)

fresh shiitake or maitake mushrooms, thinly sliced

ground Szechuan peppercorns, to taste

salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Scallion greens, for garnish and to taste

Sriracha sauce at your discretion

Reinforced Stock

1 1/2 32-oz. cans/cartons of low-sodium chicken stock

1 10-oz. bottle of claim juice

leftover quail carcasses

tails (and shells, if possible) of 1 lb. shrimp

2 tsp. Szechuan peppercorns

4 scallion whites

1 1" knob ginger, crushed

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

tops of 2 stalks of celery, leaves included

4 stalks parsley

For the stock, sweat the shrimp shells in a little peanut/vegetable oil over medium-high heat until they are translucent. Add the other ingredients and cook on a low simmer until the quail meat is tender on the bone, or around 30-40 minutes. Skim the fat off the top of the liquid (there should be very little, if any) and strain the stock, then pull the quail meat and reserve it in the stock for the jambalaya.

Heat a large pot on medium-high heat, add a little vegetable oil, then add the lap chong. Quickly let it crisp and remove it onto a paper towel. Sear the sectioned quail meat and remove it as well. Add the small diced vegetables (aka, the Cajun Holy Trinity), season, and sweat them off until the onions are slightly translucent (about 3-4 minutes with that many vegetables). Add the protein back into the pot along with the stock. Simmer for 20 minutes, then add the sherry, mushrooms, and rice, cooking the rice 2 minutes shy of the manufacturer's instructions. Add the shrimp and finish cooking. Remove from heat, stir quickly, then let sit, covered, for 5 more minutes. Garnish with scallions and serve with Sriracha sauce.

Much to my dismay, the lap chong was the only disappointing thing about this dish. My friend Charlemagne and I disliked the overly sweet taste of the meat, but the three women who tried the jambalaya were all big fans of the sausage. Or they were just being really nice until they talked about it behind my back. Zing! Maybe females have a larger tolerance for sweet foods? Regardless, I can honestly say that this was the first time I've picked something out of my dish since I was a little kid. Fortunately, and kind of strangely, the lap chong didn't permeate in to the rest of the dish that I could taste. The quail (ware the bones!) and shrimp had absorbed the flavor of the savory reinforced stock quite nicely, so I managed just fine. The jambalaya was delicious; the Chinese sausage was not.

Look for a new post soon; there's some durian in the freezer.

Chicken Hearts

2010-03-30T14:29:00.022-04:00

I'd like to start off with a brief piece of etymological history to defend my newfound friend, the chicken heart. Much love, cuz.

This scrumptious treat gets a bad reputation due to the term "chicken-hearted," meaning "cowardly." Who can we blame for this dastardly deed, you might ask? Well, the phrase "lion heart" is to blame. And that popinjay, Shakespeare. I'll explain: Richard the Lionheart didn't earn his moniker by chilling in Westminster Abbey, lighting candles, and saying his prayers like a good little king. After six months, homeboy got sick of what qualified in England as "food," or as "attractive" (and still does to this day), said, "Nah, sonne," and then went and put the stamp on kids in Cyprus while playing slap and tickle with Berengaria, the Navarrean king's first daughter. Thus, a year or two later, Van Damme deemed the word "lionheart" worthy as the title for one of the most badass movies on the planet.

And then you have "chicken-hearted." Have you ever tried to catch a chicken? Because I have. And unless you're Usain Bolt, it sucks. Those quick little buggers are more scared than Stephen Rea halfway into The Crying Game. Clearly, Shakespeare grew up around the lily-livered avians as well, because in 1611, the clever limey drew from the popular king's courageous legacy and coined the antithetical term "chicken-hearted" in his play Cymbeline. Subsequently, when the world began to advocate literacy and force teenagers worldwide to read the bard's flowery, plagiarized drivel, chicken heart sales plummeted. I have no real evidence to back this theory, but you probably would have bought it. Hopefully now you've gained some empathy for my tasty friend, the chicken heart.

If you've been to Asia, South American, or the Middle East and you've had something akin to yakitori, sizzling sisig, churrasco, or meorav yerulshami, chances are good that you've eaten chicken hearts. You also probably enjoyed them immensely. You know why? Because they're awesome. This offal is high in protein, iron, cholesterol (yessssssss!) and flava, is also eaten in parts of Sweden, Germany, Italy, or Greece.

I have always wanted to try sizzling sisig, a Filipino dish that that contains several varieties meat, onions, and eggs all on top of a greasy sizzle plate. Seeing as how I didn't have a sizzle plate or beef cheeks on hand and it was 3:30 in the morning, I decided on an altered breakfast version.

A nice little protein blast before getting one's swoll on.

The hearts were pink to light-brown in color, the size of nickels, and gave slightly when pressure was applied, though they were mostly hard. The smell of iron was evident, especially when initially simmering them. For this reason, I could guess at the taste, so decided to marinate them in the strong Asian flavors and then add the sauce to offset some of the potential offal taste.

Filipino Hash

1 lb. chicken hearts

1/2 onion, small diced

chicken stock, as needed

1/4 C rice vinegar

1 T soy sauce

1/2 T fish sauce

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp Sriracha

1/2 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

4 new potatoes

2 eggs

green onions, chopped

vegetable oil

butter

Simmer the hearts whole in chicken stock to cover until tender but not soft (1-1 1/2 hours or so). Combine all the remaining ingredients other than the last five. Remove the hearts and roughly chop them, reserving the stock. Marinate the chopped hearts in the liquid mixture for an hour. Boil the potatoes in the stock until they are a couple of minutes from fork-tender, then remove and quarter them. Heat a pan on medium-high heat, add a splash of vegetable oil and a small pat of butter, then add the hearts. As the meat is browning, add the potatoes. Wait two minutes and add the diced onions. Wait another two minutes, then add 1/2 the marinade. When that cooks down, immediately place the hash between two serving vessels and crack an egg on top of each. Stirring will help the solidification process. Garnish with green onions and serve with plenty of Sriracha or hot sauce of your choice.

Man, I'm going to be SO hungover tomorrow. Oh wait, no I'm not.

This is seriously addictive. I'm pretty sure if I sold this in a college diner open all night I would be a batrillionaire. The tangy marinade shines through and the slight chew of the meat goes well with the crispy and soft potatoes. The smell of the dish is truly unbelievable; my mouth was watering like Elwood the dog's. The heart still has a bit of an offal bite to it, but in the hash it's enjoyable in accord with the other flavors. While it looks like there are many Asian ingredients in the dish, it still manages to have that American diner flavor with a twist as quintessential late night/early morning fare.

Many people grill traditional sisig on skewers, then chop it roughly and saute it in the pan for an extra charred smoky flavor. While I'm sure this is tasty, it was nearly 5:00 am by the time I finished putting this together, and I was one hungry fellow. Another good substitute would be using day-old white rice instead of the potatoes. The beauty about this dish (especially the marinade) is that there is no ascribed recipe. So don't be chicken-hearted and make it.

The Odd Food Dude Visits Vegas

2010-03-10T12:23:00.020-05:00

That's right. Vegas. And I ate some pretty cool stuff, I can tell you that much.

Here's a quick rundown of the 408 lbs. I gained over the course of a weekend:

Chili cheese pastrami burger from The Hat.

-If you're a coward, this probably isn't your thing. I, on the other hand, have an entire sweater-vest of hair on my torso, and therefore this was a walk in the park.

In & Out Double Cheeseburger, Animal Style.

-The first time I had this I was in Phoenix, AZ on the way to a movie and it was pretty much life-altering. You know when there's that jerk that brings in something delicious smelling to the theater and you're all mad because your girl made you see that POS with Channing Tatum anyway? Well, it's nice to meet you.

Brunch buffet at The Wynn

-I'd never been to Vegas, so I'd only heard the tales of the delicious hotel buffets. For like $33, I had four or five heaping plates of good food and the best nap ever.

So we walk into a seafood restaurant in Montery Park, CA, and are literally the only non-asian people there out of a crowd of 150 or so. Initially it was a spot awkward, but the food was transcendent. They have these massive tanks of live seafood from which you can choose your dinner. Above is the eight pound crab we got cooked fresh with ginger and scallions. I also had shark fin soup for the first time, which was absurdly tasty.

Looks pretty gross, right? It's called "loco moco," and it's a famous Hawaiian dish made with hamburger, rice, eggs, green onion, soy sauce, hot sauce, and gravy. For you first-timers, I would suggest a booth near the bathroom or perhaps just eliminating the middle man and eating it in the stall for a taste of that elegant Hawaiian dive ambiance.

This handsome devil bronzed by the California sun is trying to figure out whether or not he can stomach one more *$%#ing bite.

Spam musubi is another Hawaiian dish. I was a bit leery of trying it, as it is, after all, made from Spam. In case you grew up on another planet, Spam is essentially canned processed meat and just by reputation alone is righteously foul. You look at the stuff and can't help but think of a few choice passages from Slaughterhouse Five. Then again, 3.8 cans of it are consumed every second according to Yahoo. No joke, musubi is awesome. It's pan-fried marinated Spam slices on rice and seaweed, which makes it simple and cheap.

I ended up eating a whole heap of badass food, but these were some of the highlights. More to come soon...

Bull "Fries"

2010-01-07T09:27:00.011-05:00

What better way to fire off the new year with a mouthful of fresh bull testicles? Big, fat, juicy, bal--Woah, woah, take your mouse pointer away from that "X." The least you could do is finish reading this entry after I consumed roughly a pound of fries for the sake of culinary literature.

Why did I choose this tender vittle? Well, for one thing, I'd never tried them. (Then again, I've never tried arm wrestling Lincoln Hawk...and we all know that'll land you with a broken humerus.) Typically, they are breaded, fried, and served up with some sort of toe-curling hot sauce, remoulade, aoili, or tartar sauce in American (as well as Central American) states where bovine husbandry is practiced and, I suspect, probably vies for most popular appetizer with Skoal snuff. Bull fries are known by many names, but most commonly as "Rocky Mountain oysters" or the less extravagant "prairie oysters." A few other aliases culinary wordsmiths concocted are "swinging beef," "Montana tendergroins," and my personal favorite, "cowboy caviar."

Cheapest caviar you've ever seen, no?

I wanted to raise the bar above just frying the oysters and dousing them with hot sauce to mask the pungent flavor. So, you know, I decided to make a spicy curry instead and attempt to completely overpower them. I was a bit surprised by my candor when I saw them on the protein rack at the market between pork maws and beef hearts. After all, they are testicles. But while my grocer carries such treats as live conch, snails, and jellyfish, this trip was the first time I'd seen this particular delicacy. Large and squishy with a distinct offal smell, in their raw state these plump fries could make even the most iron-clad stomachs churn. When sliced, they resemble sea urchin in color and texture, though they are a bit more hardy.

Definitely a first date kind of dish.

Nut Curry

1 lb + of beef fries, peeled and small diced

1/2 onion, small diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 C chicken stock

1 14.5 oz can Thai coconut milk

1 1/2 T Thai green curry paste

lime slices, for taste and garnish

cilantro, for taste and garnish

1 C rice (per serving)

vegetable oil

flour

kosher salt & fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Heat the vegetable oil while dusting and seasoning the fries with flour, kosher salt, and freshly cracked black pepper. Sear them in the pan and remove them. Add the onions, sweat them for 2-3 minutes, then add the garlic and curry paste and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the stock, wait until it comes to a boil, then add the coconut milk. Simmer the mixture and partially cover, cooking for 1-1 1/2 hours, or until tender. Serve with rice and garnish with plenty of cilantro and lime slices.

Not that bad, but try throwing in some peas or spinach for a little more color and flavor. In fact, you could definitely hide the oysters in a meal, serve it to your friends, and then cackle hysterically while they down the whole schmeer. But perhaps that's just my sick mind at work. The powerful and spicy green curry flavor matches well with the particularly strong tang of the fries, and the aroma of the dish is actually quite delectable. Use the green curry paste sparingly, as it will scorch your palate if overused. Note that it is very important to remove the elastin, or the whitish membrane covering the testicles, which is similar in nature the silverskin that you commonly see on pork tenderloins or ribs, for example. It will not break down during the cooking process and can make for an overly chewy meal. And if you know what you're eating, a chewy dish is an undesireable dish.

Water Caltrop

2009-12-01T15:26:00.007-05:00

Have you ever been to a Toys 'R' Us? You know when you're three aisles away from the section with all the Nerf guns? You're literally sixty feet away and can already hear the deafening roar of thirty little snots making ray gun noises that sound like a hybrid between a 70's space laser and a neighing horse. The look on those kids' faces rests somewhere between climbing the rope in gym class and descending the stairs on Christmas morning. In other words, sheer bliss.

Now imagine a 6'5" kid in a coat and tie after work in an Asian market that spies a large cardboard box filled to the brim with what looks to be medieval throwing stars. It took some serious restraint not to start going Ninja Gaiden on everyone, putting on a clinic, and showcasing my skillz, but somehow I survived. But you can bet your bottom dollar I was happy to find a new odd food that could double as a weapon.

While not exactly the same, water caltrop are the same species as water chestnuts, those crunchy, off-white nuggets you often see in Chinese stir-fry. Caltrop, however, isn't served neatly sliced or diced in an 8-ounce can with a bastardized Asian brand name. It has been primarily cultivated in China for thousands of years and used in pastries, served steamed or boiled from street vendors, and even as a remedy for inebriation. FYI: Michael Knight obstains from water caltrop.

Straight from the Weird Sister's cauldron.

Holy blanking blank, right? No, these taurine (or is it more bat-like?) shells are not occult paraphernalia. The last time I saw an aquatic nut this scary, Hurricane Katrina looters were at large. In all honesty, I had every right to be a little hesitant to cook water caltrop. A real concern I had was the possibility of fasciolopsiasis that occurs when consuming raw or undercooked water caltrop. This unpronounceable condition is a disease caused by a particularly disgusting worm. (Sidenote: the possibility of fatal illnesses is becoming increasingly common with the foods I'm making.) I stopped reading about the condition when I noticed that the symptoms might include such macabre treats like diarrhea and abdominal distension. Oh, and let's not forget liver failure. My remedy for any situation where I'm wary of food poisoning or the occasional parasite is to boil the living Bejesus out of whatever I'm cooking. So, who's hungry?

Boiled Water Caltrop

20 water caltrop

2 star anise

1/3 C sugar

pinch salt

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add all ingredients and boil for 25 minutes. Peel the shells and remove the nut.

Okay, the flavor is about as monotonous as the recipe suggests. Water caltrop tastes like lightly candied American chestnuts. I was a little disappointed by its lackluster nature, to be honest. But if you like the dry, sweet and starchy taste of chestnuts sealed inside of menacing packages that were clearly created by Chinese bad guys, water caltrop is the thing for you!

Next post: White fungus

Tamarind

2009-11-30T09:52:00.010-05:00

I'd certainly seen tamarind before and even used it a handful of times, but no one I know outside of kitchens I've worked in has had much, if any, experience with it. In America you don't see it very often outside of Florida or the Southwest.

As it is an evergreen, tamarind tends to be eaten in warmer climates that support the tree. Africa, India, southeast and East Asia, and South America are amongst the prominent producers and consumers of the fruit. The culinary and medicinal (tamarind is a natural laxative--another conversational gem for you) applications are numerous for the tamarind. It is found in soups, marinades, sauces for fish or real meat, desserts such as ice cream and sorbet, pickling recipes, and in drinks such as the refreshing South American agua fresca. Though in some places the seed is cultivated to be particularly sweet and therefore edible straight out of the pod, tamarind is typically used in its concentrated pulp form.

Buying tamarind as a pulp saves you countless hours of processing. Now to me, this can qualify as arduous work under the right circumstances, so perhaps I'm not the best judge. But if you love torture and hate fun, go right ahead and buy the pods, squeeze them, blend them, and pass them through a chinoise about sixty times to produce a paltry yield. And after your crippling bout of rheumatoid arthritis, feel free to take a light stroll.

I opted for a blurry shot because otherwise you'll wonder if you went to a German fetish site.

Sure it may not look like much, but it least it's really acidulous. And while it's not mouth puckering, tamarind pulp is definitely what you would call "tart." It also has a smooth sugary flavor to it that stays on your tongue until the finish and even a bit of spiciness. Tamarind pulp really is ideal for all sorts of dishes from many different cuisines due to its sweet and sour nature. Taking a cue from one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, Hot Sour Salty & Sweet, I thought I would highlight these flavors and enhance them in a sauce to braise some short ribs in. Over Thanksgiving a slow cooker arrived for my birthday (which is in July--thanks big bro!), so I was excited to break that bad boy in.

Short Ribs Braised in Tamarind BBQ Sauce

2 lbs. short ribs
5 shallots, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2" nub ginger, minced
2 C chicken/veal stock
1 C ginger ale1/2
C tamarind pulp
1/2 C ketchup
1/4 C brown sugar
3 T soy sauce
1 star anise

Combine all the ingredients other than the ribs. Set aside 1/2 C of the sauce. Sear the ribs in a pan on all sides and drain them of fat. Put the sauce and ribs in a slow cooker on low for 6 hours (or a Dutch oven @ 325 for 2 1/2-3 hours).

Heat your charcoal/gas grill to high. Remove the ribs from the slow cooker/oven and drain them from the fatty oils that will have accumulated it. Place them on the hot grill and cover with the remaining BBQ sauce until a crust has developed. Remove and serve with rice and a light salad.

This has to be my easiest recipe to date, at least in terms of technique. The short ribs are fatty-- but not oily--Hearty, slightly sweet, and super tangy. The smell coming from my slow cooker was heavenly (read: I'm a male and I like the aroma of cooked dead animals), but I'm not going to lie, I am partial to conventional American or Korean BBQ sauces. While I could taste the tamarind, there are just so many more sweeter substitutes that I prefer for this kind of sauce such as hoisin or apricot preserves. The crust is nice from the grill, but tamarind really is just a little too piquant for my likes. I'd give it about a 6/10. That's a relative ranking, of course, as some people clearly have no standards.

Next post: Water caltrop

Apple Snails

2009-11-12T09:40:00.021-05:00

My guess is that when you think about snails you imagine succulent escargot swimming in a warm sea of garlic butter, which you then savor the herbaceous flavor of as you mop it up with crusty, baked-that-day French bread then sit back and unbuckle that pesky and constrictive belt of yours, folding your hands across your constrictive belly in hobbitesque fashion, a stuporous and yet altogether pleased look in your glazed eyes. Yeah, that's not apple snails.

Apple snails are large (compared to their more tasty counterparts) mollusks that survive--and actually take over the flora--in tropical and subtropical parts of Australia and Mexico, but mostly in East and Pacific Asia where they were raised for their abundance in protein and calcium. As such, they tend to be cooked with the flavors indigenous to those regions in soups, salads, and stews.

I'm not going to lie; I saw that Hawaiians call apple snails "pupu" and instantly wanted to make some. The word reminded me of when my mom would take my siblings and me to Chinese restaurants in Mississippi (the absolute pinnacle of Asian cuisine in America) as a kid and order us the pupu platter because we got a kick out of the word. High wit, huh? In retrospect, it was probably to get us to shut up while she enjoyed her hot and sour soup in peace rather than any huge appreciation of scatological humor.

Stuff probably looks better on the way out, huh?

I realized I've been making an abundance of Asian-influenced dishes, so I decided to switch it up from my original idea of pupu. That, and there was an earthy odor (to put it very mildly) emanating from the snails that I could only hope indicated an abundance of umami and which I hoped to mask in a thick sauce.

Snail Spaghetti

1 lb. package thin spaghetti

1 28 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes, whole
2 small handfuls of precooked apple snails, diced (about 2/3 C)
1/2 large yellow onion, small diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 carrot, peeled and grated
1/2 6 oz. can tomato paste
1/3 C red wine (Port works very well also)
1/2 C chicken stock
1/3 C mixed julienned herbs (thyme, oregano, basil, parsley)
1 tsp. crushed red chili flakes (or more to taste)
1 bay leaf
pinch sugar
1/2 C fresh grated Parmesan and mozzarella
kosher salt and fresh-cracked black pepper, to taste
Extra-virgin olive oil, as needed

Heat a Dutch oven/pot over medium-high heat as you bring a pot of well-salted water to a boil for the pasta. Add about 1 T of extra-virgin olive oil to your sauce pot. When it's shimmering in the bottom of the pot, add the onions and sweat them for two minutes with a pinch of salt. Add the garlic and chili flakes and sweat them out for another minute. Add the tomato paste. When the color becomes rusty after 1-2 minutes, add the remaining ingredients other than the snails and cheese, making sure to crushed up the tomatoes by hand or in a food mill. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 20 minutes. If the sauce becomes too thick, add a little more stock. When the pasta (cooked per manufacturer's directions) is nearly al dente, reserve 1/2 C of pasta water, pour it in the sauce, strain the spaghetti, and add the snails and stir. Add the pasta back to the sauce with fresh cracked black pepper and about 1 T of good-quality extra-virgin olive oil. Stir and cook the spaghetti until incorporated about 30 seconds to a minute. Add the cheese and season. Let the pasta rest for a good 2-3 minutes before serving, as it will continue to come together. Grate fresh cheese and sprinkle fresh herbs over top.

Not your average Chef Boyardee.

The risk run with buying cooked snails is that they can be almost rubbery when you recook them. Of course, the risk run with buying apple snails uncooked is the threat of Angiostrongylus cantonensis, a parasitic nematode that causes Angiostrongliasis, which then leads to eosiniphilic meningitis, a condition that causes damage to the central nervous system and/or death. Still hungry? Me too. The snails do contain an earthy punch and chewiness not unlike a hen of the woods mushroom. A really, really tough hen of the woods mushroom. I'm not sure any amount of braising would have soften these little suckers up, but I'm always game to try. Be advised that this sauce goes great with sausage/bacon/any meat, but my suggestion for eating snails is to stick with that delicious plate of buttery escargot.

Next post: Tamarind

Banana Leaf

2009-11-04T13:10:00.009-05:00

Ah yes, banana leaf. The culinary gem that everyone's eating these days.

Okay, you can't really eat it. But believe you me, it serves a culinary purpose. Banana leaves are typically employed in Indian, Southeast Asian, Polynesian and South American cuisines. Or, you know, places where banana trees grow indigenously. They are used for frying, steaming, boiling, or as serving vessels, and are believed to impart flavor and aroma while retaining the cooking juices. I think the latter school of thought is poppycock because of the leaf's porous nature, but I've only been to one luau, so I can hardly consider myself an expert.

Hey, it's a banana leaf. Pretend for a moment the fish isn't there. We'll get to him. Banana leaves are kept well frozen, take up very little freezer space, and thaw surprisingly quickly (within 30 minutes or so), so they're a great auxilary culinary item to have in your kitchen. I'd never used banana leaves before, so I was wowed at how big these suckers really are. We're talking feet. Their thin and flimsy nature makes them quite simple to cut, so I had a little fun by making some throwing stars and rising sun headbands in case the red snapper went all zombie on me. (I'll act like a 4-year-old if I want--it's my blog.) Banana leaves smell incredibly like green tea. Now typically one doesn't eat them, but I had to try it. Sure enough, it tasted like green tea with a hint of artichoke. The texture, however, makes it pretty much unpalatable.

Vietnamese Red Snapper Steamed with Banana Leaves

2 red snappers, scaled and gutted

1 medium shallot, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 Vietnamese/Thai peppers, minced

1 1" nub galangal, minced (or ginger)

2 T Thai basil

1.5 T cilantro

pinch brown sugar

pinch kosher salt

1 banana leaf, cut large enough to wrap the fish completely

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. If you have a mortar and pestle or food processor, I suggest using them to create a paste out of the ingredients (other than the fish), but mincing them works just fine. Slice 1/4" deep slits in the fish (2 or 3 depending on the size) and rub the paste into them as well as the stomach cavity. Let the snapper sit for 30 minutes. Wrap the fish like a burrito within the banana leaf and place into a glass dish with the opening side facing down. Place in the oven 20ish minutes, or until slightly flaky.* Serve with dipping sauce.

*The general rule of thumb with baking fish is 10 minutes per inch, but that's uncovered. 12 minutes ought to do it with the leaf.

Chet really needed to lose weight before he could defend his hide-and-seek championship belt.

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Cham)

2 limes, juiced (about 2T)

2 T warm water

1 T brown sugar

1 T fish sauce

1 T vinegar

1 tsp soy sauce

1 clove garlic, minced

1 Vietnamese/Thai peppers

1/2 T cilantro and basil, minced

Combine all ingredients and adjust as necessary. I like mine sweet and hot, so sometimes I'll add more sugar and peppers.

Rice Cream Cone

1 C Thai basmati rice

1 C coconut milk

1 C water

1 heaping tsp. brown sugar

tiny tab of butter

about 20 Thai basil leaves

pinch kosher salt

Follow the directions to cook the rice and substitute half the water/stock suggested with coconut milk. Wrap your banana leaf in a conical shape and spoon the rice into it.

Yum. The dish is sweet, salt, spicy, hot, herbacious, and in general everything that you'd expect in a Southeast Asian dish. And believe it or not, the banana leaves really did make themselves known. The bites where the leaf flavor popped were those that weren't covered by the paste. The "rice cream cone" was very good and provided some thickness, sweetness, and starch to a somewhat thin and spicy dish. I was trying to create a "boat" out of the leaf for plating but left my stapler at work, so I tried something I'd never seen before and just wrapped that puppy up. The basil went great with the coconut in it and the dipping sauce complemented the flavor as well.

All in all, I was happy with the dish. It's very flavorful and I didn't feel like a fat mess afterward, which was a nice reprieve from most dishes I make. I think next time I really want to experience banana leaf, I will cook the fish plain (with a little salt) and then serve it with a Chinese oyster/hoisin type of sauce.

Next post: Apple snails

Sweetbreads

2009-10-15T19:13:00.010-04:00

Oddly enough, these over-sized loogies are neither sweet nor bread. What are they? The origin of the sweetbread is actually a well-documented tale of a newlywed couple in the offal business in 18th century London:

"Oi! Nigel, you lazy scallywag! Up n' at 'em! 'Ese brains won't up n' sell 'emselves!"
"Oh crikey Petunia, no one wants t' buy anyfink called 'FROAT!'"
"Oh? What 'ave we 'ere? A regular Adam Smif!"
"Come off it, luv!"
"You've no bizness sense, Nigel! You've just got t' ma'ket 'em!"

After much head scratching and enjoying only minor success with the sourcake, saltdanish, and umamimuffin, Nigel & Petunia finally hit their cash cow with sweetbreads.

Krang wondered how those pesky Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kept foiling his evil plans.

Sweetbreads are, in fact, the pancreas or thymus gland of a young animal such as a calf or lamb. The use of "bread" comes from an Old English term that refers, much like the Bible, to flesh. They are typically associated with European (primarily French and Italian) fine dining, but can be found in Latin American cuisine as well.

The most tasty sweetbreads tend to be those of the veal thymus, but before you go all PETA on me just know that the gland shrinks as an animal ages, so...you know, without the veal there are no sweetbreads and Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide would plummet into bankruptcy. The French might even have to work more than 40 hours a week, resulting in a possible coup d'etat and possibly their first national military victory.

Sweetbreads with Champagne Sauce

Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads, blanched and sliced into 1/2" thick segments
capers
flour
kosher salt & cracked black pepper
1 gallon milk (or water)
extra-virgin olive oil
butter

Bring a pot of milk to a simmer/scant boil. Submerge the whole sweetbreads for 4-5 minutes, or until slightly firm. Blanch them in an ice water bath, then dry. Remove the protective "skin" or membrane. When they have cooled, slice into segments at 1/2" thickness, season them well with salt and pepper, and dust them with flour. Sear them in a hot pan with the olive oil and butter until they are cooked through and have a nice golden-brown crust on each side. 2 minutes before the cooking process is done, add the capers.

Champagne Sauce

1/3 C champagne vinegar
1 egg
1 clove garlic
1 tsp capers
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 T mixed herbs (basil, parsley, tarragon, fennel)
dashes Worcestershire
extra-virgin olive oil
kosher salt & cracked black pepper, to taste

Combine all the ingredients except for the olive oil and blend. Slowly add olive oil to emulsify until the sauce has thickened to the consistency of a dressing. Serve with the sweetbreads.

I would eat this again. And again. While the veal flavor is extremely tasty, the real stars of the dish are the contrasting elements. The crust provided by the sear goes well with the smooth interior of the sweetbread slices. The cool, herbaceous, and tangy dressing cuts the hot and almost liver-like taste. The fried capers are a real gem that add a great pop, and a leafy vegetable such as arugula (I used potato greens) provides a nice peppery finish. Cooked correctly, the sweetbreads should have none of the mushy consistency that their raw form would indicate. Oh, and I'd suggest brushing your teeth after this one.

Next post: Banana Leaf

Sapote

2009-09-30T09:35:00.006-04:00

Let me first apologize for not posting sooner. Despite the millions of dollars in revenue I'm raking in from this site via ad space and sponsorships, I've been busy at work on a new project at work.

Look at me, I'm like a really annoying avocado.

This is South American sapote. People probably eat it. When they know how the hell to pick it out, that is. I try to test products before I make them so I can get an idea of what I'm going to make for the blog, so sometimes I will choose something that's spoiled or unripe even if I've researched it. Well, the first one I got worked out great! It tasted a lot like guava and had the consistency and look of avocado, so I figured I'd make a modified guacamole. Two trips after my first sapote venture the specialty market, one producing an amazingly pungent fruit and one yielding a petrified rock, I grudgingly admitted defeat. I will revisit it at some point soon by buying a few more (now that I finally know what to look for), but I'd rather move on at this point. Let's just agree I had no idea how to pick out a ripe sapote and focus on what I'll be making this weekend.

Next post: Sweetbreads

Pig Ears

2009-09-18T15:45:00.006-04:00

When I think about pigs, I envision a pastoral Charlotte's Web kind of scene with cute little runts running willy nilly in the mud. Little runts. But unless my market is exclusively butchering mutant steroid pigs, I previously underestimated the size of the average adult swine to a significant degree. This was made evident when I walked down my grocer's aisles to the section between pork fat and pork heart, et Voila! Huge, hairy, hand-sized pig ears.

Pig ears are eaten around the world as an economic alternative to other, more expensive cuts of pork. (Spoiled) Americans tend to shun the parts of the animal that take time and technique to coax flavors from, especially when McDonald's is right up the street. There are literally dozens of preparations for the ears, ranging from soups to sandwiches to sashimi.

Liposuction gone horribly awry. I didn't show you the original uncooked ear, but in all honesty I shaved it down with a razor.

Boom. Pig ears. Cute, huh? With bad boys like these, I now somehow doubt that ear nibbling/kissing/blowing happens pre-coitus in the pig world. Okay, so I somehow doubt that any pre-coitus activities happen in the pig world. Why are we talking about pork porking? You brought it up, weirdo. Moving along. While I love most parts of the pig, I love bacon. Sure, I could go to Whole Paycheck and spend $10 for a couple of slabs of the stuff, but I figure I'd come up with a faux recipe.

Pig Ear Crisps

1.5 lbs pig ears
1.5 lbs pork product such as bones or trotters (can substitute chicken/beef)
2 yellow onions, roughly chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 ribs celery, roughly chopped
1 fennel bulb, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1/4 C honey
2 bay leaves
6 sprigs thyme
6 sprigs parsley
15-20 whole black peppercorns
kosher salt, pinch for stock and pinch for finished crisps

Cover the pig ears and other meat product(s) with cold water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Strain the pork to rid it of the scum that forms, add the remaining ingredients, refill with cold water to cover, and bring to a boil again. Reduce the heat to a light simmer and skim scum and fats that rise to the surface. After 2 1/2 hours, remove the ears and continue to reduce the stock for another 1 1/2 hours. Strain and save the liquid. Slice the ears in 1/4" strips, dip in a batter (see Cactus Leaf entry), and then place in the fryer for 3-5 minutes. Remove the crisps, place them on a paper towel, and salt immediately. Serve atop a chopped salad.

As you can see by the dolphin-shaped ear strip, I am sensitive.

Xtreme Bacos!

This recipe may seem like a lot of work, but most of what's really involved is stirring, skimming, and occasional straining. And not all these ingredients are necessary for the dish. I essentially only created a stock, which can substitute vegetables and herbs such as parsnips, leeks, mushrooms, tomatoes, rosemary, cocoa nibs, etc. depending on the type of meat. Once you pop the products in the pot you're pretty much set to sit back and watch the 92nd season of Lost or some other cinematic stool sample. Additionally, you'll have 3-4 cups of some great pork broth leftover, and not much can beat the rich flavor of homemade stock.

These crisps have a lot of flavor and texture, but not one that I'm sure everyone will enjoy. There is the initial crunch of the fry followed by a gelatinous, gooey pork goodness, and then the somewhat disconcerting chew of the cartilage in the middle. If you didn't know what you were eating, you might even think it was brittle bone. So in the event that you don't own thermal underwear, know how to properly wield an axe, or know what kind of gun Jesse Ventura was shooting in Predator, you probably want to avoid pig ears. But you could always substitute bacon (bacon, Bacon, BACON!), which I hear grows chest hair as well.

Next post: Sapote

Soursop

2009-09-13T09:14:00.008-04:00

My grocer has a freezer that contains two things: 1) rare perishables, and 2) items such as durian that have a stench so rancid that they would make a sanitation worker gag. Now I wasn't sure which category this post's selection fell in, but with a name like "soursop" the first option didn't seem all that promising.

The soursop is an evergreen fruit that is harvested for its pulp in warm or even tropical climates in South America, the Caribbean, and southeast Asia. It is used primarily for its sweet flavor in drinks, sorbets, ice creams, and candy, and is prized for its nutritional value. Soursop is also valued for its medicinal qualities and treats such ailments as urethritis (cringe) and eczema.

Boom. Soursop. At my market they sell soursop as a frozen pulp with a tiny little spoon attached. Now to me this indicates that you have a treat, such as Italian ice, which should be eaten during a warm afternoon stroll in Venice along the Canal Grande. Not so. Perhaps more apropos would be eating it soursop along the Seine in Paris, because this stuff was some stinky cheese. My research had indicated that soursop might be great in a fruit smoothie, but to me it smelled exactly like a lemon cheesecake. If you can imagine a cheesy, creamy pineapple with a hint of lime, you have soursop. Keep in mind, the emphasis here is on the cheesy aspect. Cheese.

Soursop & Lemon Cheesecake

1 8 oz. cream cheese container
1 C (or 8 oz.) soursop pulp
2 lemons, juiced
1 lime, juiced
2 tsp gelatine dissolved 1/4 C hot water
pie crust

Uh...yum?

Combine the first 4 ingredients and stir to combine. Dissolve the gelatine in the hot water and add to the mixture. Combine with a blender or mixer until smooth. Pour the filling into your pie crust and place it in the refrigerator until set. Serve with whipped cream if desired.

The mint garnish indicates that I am obviously a high-paid pastry chef.

I'm not much of a baker, as seen by my lack of interest in creating a homemade pie crust. And this was certainly a tasty cheesecake, but don't hold your breath. The soursop really did complement the natural flavor of a cheesecake surprisingly well, and if you like beer with your dessert (and who doesn't?!), a Hefeweizen would go great with this. This recipe is, however, a cheap and easy recipe for a cheesecake that's better than your run-of-the-mill supermarket purchase. All in all, however, I would say soursop is the least interesting of my projects so far. It's neither super tasty nor skull-numbingly disgusting. And thus I have decided...

Next post: Pig ears

Cactus Leaf (Nopal)

2009-09-10T19:34:00.009-04:00

Cactus leaf intrigued me because, well, cacti are spiky. (Don't stop reading, I promise it gets better.) At my market they sit looking pretty next to a pair of tongs (WARNING!), but also looking fervently inedible due to the razor sharp tongue-piercers jutting from their skin. Unless I'm hunting for bear meat with my bare hands or maybe making sushi with some deliciously toxic fugu, food really doesn't get much more dangerous than that.

Nopales are eaten almost exclusively in Mexico. If you've ever been there or seen pictures, chances are you'd probably know why. Word on the street is that the place has a cactus or two. Due to their extremely high content of vitamins and minerals, cactus pads are used in a plethora of dishes in Mexican cuisine, especially in salads and meat or egg dishes.

Watch yo'self.

Boom. Cactus Leaf. Or pad. Or the nopal. There are like eight different names for this thing, gimme a break. The raw...vegetable is light and slightly crunchy with something of a green bell pepper finish that is almost grassy. The one off-putting element of the leaf is its sliminess. This unfortunate mucilaginous quality can be avoided by grilling, frying, sauteing, or even rinsing it thoroughly. I had no idea how I was going to use the leaf initially, but recently I saw someone order chile relleno at a Tex-Mex place and I had trouble avoiding following the scent. I'd neither made nor even eaten a chile relleno before, but when something involves cheese and spicy fried stuff, I'm pretty much in. The closest I'd come before were served at my local watering hole, the extreme jalapeno poppers, or as I like to eloquently call them, "toilet plunger necessitators." What can I say, I'm a classy guy. Anyway, I already knew how to make a batter and salsa, so I figured why not.

Cactus Leaf Chile Rellenos with Spicy Chipotle Sauce

Chile Relleno

4 hablano peppers
Quesito Colombiano, as needed
2 cactus leaves, cleaned and sliced into strips about 1/2" thick.
vegetable oil and peanut oil
toothpicks

So I was short a toothpick or two, okay?!

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Pour a little oil in your hands and rub the peppers thoroughly. Place them in the oven on a sheet tray until the skin is becoming blistered and blackened, turning once midway for even coverage. Remove the peppers from the oven and place them in a paper or plastic bag for 5 minutes, or until the charred skin easily peels. At this point you can heat your oil on medium high. If you do not have a thermometer, a good way to test if your temperature is where you need it is to drop a small piece of batter and see if it quickly crisps. Make a small incision down the middle of the peppers and carefully remove the seeds, avoiding splitting the chiles as much as possible. Do not wash the seeds out, as it will also wash out some flavor. Tuck pieces of cheese and cactus leaf (as many as you dare) into the peppers and seal them with toothpicks. Cover the pepper with batter, shake any excess, then place it in the hot oil for 3-4 minutes per side. Dry on a rack and not paper toils until the chile relleno is cool enough to eat. Serve with rice and chipotle sauce.

Chipotle Sauce

2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, chopped
1 tsp fresh oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
1 T Canola/vegetable oil
pinch sugar
kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Sweat down the onions for 2 minutes in the oil over medium-high heat and then add the garlic, cooking for an additional minute. Add the remaining ingredients and make sure that you salt the tomatoes so that they break down. Cook for 5-10 minutes, or until the tomatoes yield their juice and become soft. Blend the salsa to a puree.

Chile Relleno Batter

1 C flour (or more as needed)
1/2 C dark beer (or more as needed)
1 tsp salt
3 eggs, separated

Combine the beer, flour, egg yolks, and salt. Your batter should not be doughy. Add a little more beer or flour if needed, but keep in mind that the egg whites will thin your batter out. Whip your eggs to a stiff peak and fold them into the batter to complete your batter.

Maybe I'm getting a handle on this whole photography thing!!! Signed, Ansel Adams.

This dish will knock your socks off. The only downside was the vicious needle I received in my finger when I was cleaning the nopales. I made them with my girl Ying-Hua and she was one unhappy camper when she only got to inhale two faster than Usain Bolt running the 100m. The dish was surprisingly complex, which is something I don't always associate with Mexican cooking. The cactus leaf hits you first with its signature bell pepper taste, immediately followed by the delicate, peppery flavor of the poblano. Finally, the smoky flavor of the chipotle pepper fires up in the back of the throat and it's all brought together by the delicate tang of the Colombian cheese and the pepper's crunch. While you might think that the fried cheesiness would make my recipe heavy, the egg whites in the batter and the white cheese actually make for a very light and tasty dish.

Anyway, The Vampire Diaries series premier is on so I've got to jet. Wait...what? I meant Braveheart director's cut.

Next post: Soursop

(Pig's) Blood

2009-09-08T18:06:00.010-04:00

Let's be honest. After a long day at work, you don't typically come home yearning for a tall, warm glass of blood. Blood is just plain gross to most people. It's just one of the many appalling foodstuffs you can purchase at your local butcher. For whatever reason, blood doesn't tend to be a best seller (end sarcasm) and now you typically have to request it from the back where they keep various other vampiric treats. When buying blood you get the guarded feeling that your butcher just might be adding you to an online FBI database with other suspicious characters you'd see on Dateline NBC.

While Americans tend to simply be averse to blood, some people, such as Jews and Muslims, consider the consumption of blood as a religious taboo. It is, however, a culinary delight in Germanic and Asian cultures. Blood is used primarily in sausages and soups to add taste and texture, but some African countries drink it fresh from the animal and Scandinavians even consume it in pancakes. These, however, come as a close second to my personal favorite in Viet Nam, where snake's blood is guzzled down to enhance virility.

Chet's parents just weren't willing to fork over the money for a decent embalming.

Boom. Pig's blood. With some friends. The best part about the packaging is the bright "come hither" colors the merchant thought would attract potential customers. If I was marketing blood, the container would have a bunch of menacing Jolly Rogers, a jet black background with red coloring which would be dripping crimson rivulets. I'm just saying. Of course, this wouldn't have made the customer's tastings any easier. I decided on the quick and painful Band-Aid method. That is to say, I steeled myself, dunked my finger in the blood, and stuck it in my mouth as fast as possible. I immediately thought, "Nosebleed!" The cloying, coppery taste was altogether disgusting. Up until this point I was going to do a blood-based soup or a salad with a blood dressing. Uh...no thanks. After my initial taste test I remembered a dish I had eaten in Provence, jugged hare, which employed blood to thicken rather than to flavor. A cop out, perhaps, but I didn't think I could handle tasting one more sip in its raw state.

Jugged Hare

1 rabbit, butchered
1 large yellow onion, small diced
3 carrots, small diced
2 ribs celery, small diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 whole allspice
5 whole cloves
1 2" segment dried orange peel
1 bouquet garni
1/2 C marinade, reserved
2 1/2 C chicken broth
1 C port wine
1/2 C blood
1 T butter
1 T flour, extra as needed to dust
1 T extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Marinade

750 mL red wine
8 sprigs thyme
2 sprigs rosemary
2 bay leaves
5 whole cloves
5 whole allspice

Marinate the rabbit overnight, turning once. Remove the rabbit pieces from the marinade and pat dry. Reserve 1/2 C of the marinade and discard the rest. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and make sure all your ingredients are room temperature. Dust the rabbit with flour and sear over medium-high heat in a Dutch oven or similar cooking vessel in the olive oil. Remove the rabbit and add the vegetables, sweating down for 4-5 minutes. Add the reserved marinade and reduce by half, then add the rabbit, stock, and spices and herbs. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, then place the Dutch oven in the heated oven for 1 hour, add the port wine, then cook for another hour. Make a quick roux with the butter and flour, then add along with the blood to the stew. Stir until a thick sauce has developed. Serve with bread.

When a dish looks like this, do yourself a favor and call it "rustic."

This dish is, for lack of a better term, awesome. While it's not true jugged hare and is really more of a rabbit stew, the resemblance is certainly still there. The aromatics and fruitiness are immediately present from the port wine and dried orange (a Provencal staple) with herbaceous undertones. The rabbit tastes almost exactly like chicken that had a few too many glasses of Sangria at lunch. If you can imagine that, I mean. The sauce is great and just a little fatty, compliments of the quick roux and blood. Tiny, brick-red clots of the blood are floating around in the almost strangely pink-purple liquid in the pot. They do pack a good bit of richness and no longer are metallic tasting (Thank God). If you have a weak stomach, I would just think about the delicious taste rather than what's in the dish. And if you're cooking for someone else, your best bet is just not to tell them. Until they're done, of course. Then you bust out this bad boy:

Seconds, anyone?

Next post: Cactus leaf (Nopales)

Banana Blossom

2009-09-03T22:48:00.007-04:00

I'd walked by banana blossoms in the market and their striking color had always piqued my interest. I had also never seen anyone buy one, which set off my Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! bell. I would come to find out that shoppers were avoiding them like the boogery kid in kindergarten with a rat tail because of the laborious preparation process. More on that later.

Banana blossoms are primarily used in Indian cuisine and to a lesser extent Southeast Asian food in anything from salads to curries. The whole flower may be utilized, from the heart (which tastes surprisingly like artichoke) to the outer leaves. For the purpose of my project I decided to stick with the flower itself because, you know, I've had artichokes before and the leaves seemed more suitable as a serving vessel than as tender vittles.

Boom. Banana blossom. Banana blossoms are, especially for an odd food, exceptionally pretty (see cow tongue). They have a deep magenta color and an ellipsoid (nerd alert) shape. The taste of the flower--the part that will become the fruit--itself is much like an unripe, green banana. It's chalky, slightly bitter, and holds the promise of sweetness with age. As far as blossoms go, besides actress Mayim Bialik, banana blossoms are probably the heaviest that I know of. If an ever-so-light cherry blossom is the empty first-class seat next to you on the (insert mode of transportation here), then banana blossom is the she-cow with the deviated septum next to you on the (see above). Don't pretend you don't know the one that I'm talking about. For example, when our aforementioned antagonist waddles on the train, your thoughts might be something along the lines of:

Holy! Clearly the zoo is on strike. I feel sorry for the poor shmuck that Miss Piggy sits next to. Good thing I'm 6'5" and have long, beautiful legs like a gazelle. Simple laws of physics dictate that this already cramped seat can't hold the both of us. Is someone's work shift over? I think I just heard a steam whistle. That cannot be her breathing. Um...hey. Elephant Girl. Just where on Earth do you think you're going? Seriously, please turn around. Oh no, it's coming towards me. Don't she see the empty seat next to that anorexic chick? She weighs like four pounds! This isn't happening. Should I play possum? Too late, she's oozing into the seat. This is worse than that time I farted in front of Wanderlei Silva. If she gets even a whiff of that snickers in my bag, I'm done for. Why?! WHYYYYYYYYY??!!!

I digress.

Banana Blossom Bonanza

1 C banana blossoms
1/4 C coconut, shaved
1/4 yellow onion, small diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 knob fresh turmeric, minced (or 1/2 tsp dried turmeric)
chicken/vegetable stock or light coconut milk, as needed
1 T gi (clarified butter) or 1 T peanut/vegetable oil
kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Heat the gi in a pan over medium-high heat. When the gi is simmering, add the onions and sweat them out for 4-5 minutes. Add the jalapeno and stir for 2 minutes then add the garlic and sweat it down for another minute. Add the remaining ingredients and cook the mixture down for another 5 minutes. Add stock/milk as needed to keep the pan from drying out. Season and serve.

Okay, so my camera is a little on the bright side.

Cleaning and preparing the blossom was similar to extracting the honeysuckle vine, only infinitely more time-consuming. By a mile, nay, a marathon. Remember when you were a kid and your mom would get you to help her shuck corn? Remember how it was fun? Think about shucking hundreds of tiny pieces of corn. Somehow after the fiftieth or so flower, the process loses its allure. Though I have to say that the juice was absolutely worth the squeeze. This dish was a full-on 21st birthday party in my mouth. Spicy, tangy, well-seasoned, slightly sweet, and flavorful, the banana blossom bonanza embodies everything that Indian cuisine is about. The smell wafting from the kitchen was like walking into a restaurant in Bangalore. I served it with potatoes seasoned with similar spices (cumin, paprika, cayenne, salt, pepper) and pan-fried in duck fat, which added some welcome and tasty starch. So if you love torturous preparation and delicious Indian food, this meal is for you.

Next post: Pig's blood

Bitter Melon

2009-08-31T20:00:00.006-04:00

Americans don't tend to appreciate bitter tastes. The nose-wrinkling characteristics of vinegar in a steaming pan will make even the most seasoned cook pop an Elvis sneer. But bitter melons sell like hot cakes at my special foods market, so clearly not everyone agrees. I nonchalantly placed some of these bad boys on the belt at the check out line like I'd been buying them my whole life, but no dice. I could see the passive aggressive "Is this guy seriously still coming here?" a mile away. Oh well. My goal is to have the cashier give me a fist bump by the end of the year.

Though there are apparently a few types of bitter melons, the most common are from China and India and are thus popular mostly in Asian cultures. Stews, soups, stir-fries, curries, salads, and even teas are all amongst the many uses of this vegetable. In addition to its culinary function, bitter melon is prized for its medicinal value for ailments such as upset stomachs and even diabetes.

Boom. Chinese bitter melon. I seem to have a penchant for finding odd foods that have the texture of a toad and this lil' guy would prove to be no exception. The color was a vibrant spring green, which was the obvious choice to me. The rule of thumb with bitter melon is: the darker the green, the more bitter the product. I didn't want to blanch the melon and thus jeopardize losing its base flavor, but I also didn't want to look as if I was sucking on a lemon each bite either. The raw melon tasted similar to the South American fruit, chayote. The fiery red seeds inside had a slimy covering that was a sweet, peppery, and surprisingly tasty. Taking these flavors into consideration, I decided to a create a stir-fry with a heavy sauce to nullify some of the melon's apropos namesake.

Pork & Bitter Melon Stir-Fry

3/4 lbs ground pork
3/4 of 1 bitter melon, thinly sliced (1/4" thick)
3 cloves garlic (about 1 T), minced
5 canned long baby corn, cut on the bias 1/2" thick
1/2 of a 7.5 oz can straw mushrooms, strained
2 T oyster sauce
1 T soy sauce
1 T Chinese rice wine, sake, or sherry
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
2 T chicken stock
1 T peanut (or vegetable) oil
1/4 tsp sesame oil per serving to finish (optional)

Slice the melon in half then in half-moon slices on the bias as directed. Salt them in a colander and set them aside for 30 minutes. Dissolve the cornstarch in the warm chicken stock and set aside. Heat a wok over high heat until it's extremely hot. Add the peanut oil then the garlic a few seconds later, stirring constantly for 15-20 seconds. Add the pork and stir it constantly until it is nearly done. Remove the pork from the wok, return it to the heat, then add the bitter melon. Stir occasionally for about 3 minutes, or until the melon is tender, then add all the remaining ingredients other than the stock-cornstarch mixture to the wok. Stir, then cover for a minute. Uncover, add the mixture, then stir for another 30 seconds-1 minute, or until the sauce has thickened. Add sesame oil to each serving if desired and serve with rice.

This dish was, as the kid from Boston whom you want to smoke in the face would say, hella good. Initially the sauce was richly delicious, then the tasty bitterness of the melon hit my tongue on the second half of the bite. The straw mushrooms add a bit of chew while the baby corn and melon have a slightly crunchy quality. When cooked, the melon tastes similar to a tart green bell pepper, but this can be downplayed by blanching it before adding it to the wok and consequently lowering the melon's cooking time. You know, if you're a girly-man.

A noteworthy observation I made was that the addition of other spices or hot sauces combats the flavor of the bitter melon and is unpleasant in this recipe. I tend to pour a volcanic river of Sriracha (dubbed "magic sauce" in restaurant kitchens--as well as another R-rated nickname due to the rooster on the front of the bottle--because it complements everything it goes with) on my food and this was the first time I regretted it.

I suspect bitter melon walks the same line as fanny packs--it's much more popular in other countries and is definitely an acquired taste, but I would absolutely make this hearty-tarty dish again.

Check out India Baby Bitter Melon at Foodista:

Next post: Banana flower

Goat

2009-08-28T13:52:00.005-04:00

Now I don't know about you, but when I think of goats I don't necessarily think "food." I think of them eating things like tin cans and garbage and I think pretty sweet facial hair. Perhaps these were endearing qualities in that Birkenstock-wearing, nitrous-toting guy named Rain you shared a tent with at the Widespread Panic concert, but to me they're not particularly appetizing.

Goat meat is eaten primarily in African or African-influenced countries (such as the Caribbean islands) as well as in the Middle East and parts of India in a variety of different ways such as stews and curries. Funnily enough, the viral fainting goats are often prized due to the meat to bone ratio and tenderness created by the constant stiffening and relaxing of their legs.

Boom. Goat. The neat thing about the meat that I bought was that it ranged from the consistency of sushi grade fatty tuna (on the left), to that of fatback (over one), to many low-grade beef cuts (on the right.) What was also interesting to note was that during the cooking process, goat has a much different smell from other red meats. Rather than the deep, rich smell of a properly cooked steak, goat has a somewhat wild, lean quality to it. Additionally, when resting, juices are almost completely retained within the meat.

In my search for ideas I came across a multitude of recipes that fired off the salvo, "slaughter goat." Not, of course, because the Ivory Dragon wouldn't make caprine sushi faster than a John Moschitta rant. But when I'm making burgers, I don't typically see the instruction "eviscerate cow." The impression I gathered was that these recipes were straight out of The Masai Warrior's Coming of Age Cookbook: A New Life of Cow Blood, Curdled Milk, & Circumcision! I knew I was on to something good, so I decided to incorporate some African culinary staples into my Louisiana roots with a modified etouffee.

Goatee

1.5 lbs goat meat
1/2 large yellow onion, small diced
1/2 green bell pepper, small diced
1/2 red bell pepper, small diced
2 ribs celery, small diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 T or a 1/2" nub ginger, minced
2 jalapenos, small diced
1 tsp thyme
2 tsp peanut butter
2 T butter
1/3 C flour
1 C low-sodium chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 T vegetable oil
1 T lemon juice
Italian flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
scallions, chopped
kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper

Season and sear goat over medium high heat in the vegetable oil in a heated heavy bottom pot such as a Dutch oven. Remove the goat and reduce the heat to medium. When the heat has come down, add the butter and slowly sift in the flour while whisking to prevent clumps. Stirring constantly for 12 minutes, create a roux. After 12 minutes, the color should change from a very light tan to a dark reddish-brown:

Call me Paul Prudhomme. Shhhhhhh, just do it.

Bring the heat back up to medium high and add the vegetables, sweating them out for 6-8 minutes. Add the thyme, peanut butter, bay leaf, a pinch of salt, and 1/2 C of the chicken stock. Add the goat meat back in as well as the remaining stock. Reduce the heat to low and simmer with the lid on for an hour. Remove the lid, add peanut butter and stir to incorporate. Cook an additional minute or two while stirring on medium-high to thicken the mixture. Check for tenderness, add lemon juice, and serve over rice with fried plantains. Garnish with scallions, parsley, and a lemon wedge (optional).

The flavor was...well, interesting. And not "interesting" like the fat chick your parents tried to set you up on a blind date with. More like the gymnast co-ed that lives down the hall who wants to watch Dirty Dancing with you. The ginger and peanut butter were present, but the dish didn't lose its Cajun flair. Still, I prefer goats when they produce the delicious cheeses my mom spends $20 on at the famer's market (read: swindling thieves) rather than be parked on my dinner plate. Ultimately the meat is tough--not like the catcher's mitt that is Mickey Rourke's face tough, but perhaps saying the alphabet backwards tough--and lacks the depth of beef.

Next post: Bitter melon

Beef Tongue

2009-08-24T19:25:00.012-04:00

If you've seen this massive pink-gray hunk of meat at the supermarket, you've probably quickly steered your cart the other way. I don't blame you; it's an eye sore. And when brandishing one, you feel that heft alone is suitable for hurling down on a great hall table after some uncouth cur has insulted your lady's chastity.

It is likely that due to its high fat content beef tongue has been eaten since day one of the omnivorous human race. Today it is eaten around the world, typically in Mexican, Jewish, Japanese, and German cuisine, as well as in countries that are fond of pickling their foods for reasons of preservation, such as Russia, Albania, and Romania. In the US, tongue is served primarily in meat markets around last call on Friday and Saturday nights and often marinated heavily in alcohol.

I decided to tackle beef tongue because it seemed frankly a little intimidating compared to tongues I'd had from other animals, such as duck--a minuscule undertaking by comparison. Ever see the "That's not a knife!" scene from Crocodile Dundee? I think I've made my point.

I could already anticipate the scenario that would encompass my trip to the Russian butcher: I timidly walk in and am brusquely greeted by a sweaty guy in a blood-smeared apron named Oleg who has tattooed arms so hairy they they look like they're on loan from Robin Williams. When I ask for the solitary beef tongue that's swimming in blood and lazily swarmed by flies (think cartoon poop), there's an audible pause. The gangly apprentice in the back slowly exhales, sweat trickling slowly down his forehead. Nervous glances are exchanged from the veteran customers, unsavory characters who look like they were Alexander Karelin's wrestling partners when they weren't busy exterminating bears in Siberia for sport. A sinister smile forms on Oleg's face. "Vhy yeeeeeeees!" he exclaims, "I've been savink zis just for you, tovarich!" As I'm quickly served and hustled out of there, behind me I hear the rising din of Russian folk music, Cossack dancing, shot glasses of Stoli being clinked together, and some ever-so-alarming howls of laughter. Confidence level prediction: nul.

Skippy the Platypus woke up wondering exactly where the *$@! he was.

Boom. Beef tongue. I'd read that beef tongue was actually quite delicious in tacos, so I figured I'd give it a shot. If it was anything like the consistency of human tongue, I knew I'd better braise the hell out of it to tenderize it as much as possible.

Braised Beef Tongue

1 beef tongue (approx. 3-4 lbs)
1 Xingu beer (any dark beer will do)
chicken stock, to cover
1 10 oz. can diced RoTel tomatoes, with juice
1 yellow onion, small diced
1 T garlic, minced
1 T cumin
2 T Ancho chile powder
1 T paprika
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 bay leaves
1 T plus 2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

Bartholomew was quite the lady-slayer in the pasture until his untimely demise.

Add all the ingredients together in a crock pot and set on the low setting for 8 hours. (6 if you prefer a slightly chewier meat.) After cooling the tongue in the braising liquid to the point where you can safely touch it, remove it from the pot and peel away the fat. It should come off very easily. Small dice the meat and replace it in the braising liquid. Serve with a slotted spoon.

Fire Roasted Salsa

7 Roma tomatoes, halved length-wise
2 Hungarian hot wax peppers
2 serrano peppers
1/2 yellow onion
2 shallots
3 cloves garlic
cilantro, to taste
1 lime, juiced (approx. 2 T juice)
1 tsp. cumin
kosher salt & cracked black pepper, to taste
vegetable oil

Keep all the vegetables intact (skins included) other than the tomatoes and the yellow onion. Oil and season all the vegetables then throw everything on a very hot grill. Grill them until lightly and the skins begin to look like they're peeling and lightly wilted. Place the vegetables in a plastic freezer bag or a paper bag and let them rest for 5-10 minutes. When they are cool enough to handle, remove the skins from the vegetables. Blend the peeled vegetables with the cilantro and lime juice then adjust the seasoning.

Carolina-Style Cole Slaw

1 lb. bag cole slaw mix
1/3 C cider vinegar
1/8 C extra virgin olive oil
1/8 C vegetable oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cracked black pepper

Combine all the ingredients and refrigerate. If you like a slightly less tang/Carolina style slaw, feel free to adjust the amount of acidity that you add into the recipe.

A beef tongue taco. Idiota.

Hopefully you won't need any advice on how to assemble tacos unless you're fresh off the Amish turnip farm. If that's the case, shame on you for reading this. There are barns that need erecting. Obviously the missing element within these recipes is cheese. I used queso fresco because I couldn't find oaxaca cheese, but I'm sure your typical Mexican four-cheese blend will work just fine.

The flavor of the tongue was similar to pulled pork, but with the rich suppleness of liver. This comparison may gross both of my readers out, but when considering the original roughness of the tongue, the texture of the cooked meat was surprisingly soft and almost melt-in-your-mouth. If you aren't using hard tacos, I would recommend braising it for 6 hours instead of 8 so that a little bit of a textural component is present. The slaw added a nice tang and the salsa provided some freshness, though I'm sure the jarred stuff would work fine.

I cooked this at my friend Charlemagne's home (merci, mon ami) and we both agreed we'd eat this recipe again. Keep in mind, however, that a meat this rich is kind of like your last colonoscopy--a little goes a long way. And if that last sentence doesn't whet your appetite and sell you on beef tongue, I don't know what will.

PS - There were three dogs present that were going crazy over the aroma of the tongue. It was beefy, but I'm literally unable to describe the scent as it was unique. I'm going with fatty, hearty, and delicious. The bulldogs didn't have the length to reach the counter, but this rapscallion did:

You touch Charlemagne's beef tongue taco, you go to timeout. End of story.

Next post: Goat

Chicken Feet

2009-08-18T16:39:00.002-04:00

You've probably seen these gnarly little guys hanging in Chinatown windows while wondering just exactly how much frickin' bribe money the county health inspector is getting under the table. The first time I saw chicken feet up close I thought that one should either be floating in a jar of formaldehyde on a shelf in Jeffrey Dahmer's pantry or attached to Chris Elliot's arm in Scary Movie 2.

While certainly spidery looking, ie not at all appetizing in appearance, the gelatinous properties of chicken feet make for a welcome addition to stocks and soups (due to their abundance in cartilage) and in some very tasty Chinese, Philippine, Jamaican, and African dishes along with the fowl's head in a dish known by the giggle-inducing name "walkie talkie."

While this wasn't my first time (thus eliminating the need to ask my 16-year-old female friends if this could finally be "the one") with chicken feet, I'm still relatively green to the dish I chose to tackle, fèngzhuǎ (translation: Phoenix talons). I decided on this dim sum staple, or my Szechuan-influenced take on it, because a real-life Asian person who tried my version before told me her mom would like my recipe, so automatically (at least in my mind) my street cred rested somewhere between that of Deebo's and Vassillis Paleokostis's. And after the sea squirt fiasco, I'd been walking around my kitchen feeling like the decidedly less intimidating Guido the Killer Pimp.

Somewhere in the bucolic Midwest, Plucky unsuccessfully tries to play patty cake with his friends.

Boom. Chicken feet. The smell? You know, kind of like raw chicken. I wasn't really sure how to pick up this item at its most fresh, so instead I picked ones with the least amount of black talons and thus, by my reasoning, the least likely to be poised to strike atop my chest in Kill Mode while I drool obliviously into my pillow. The texture of the feet was slightly ribbed on the skin--like an unyielding elbow--and akin to hard rubber when prodded. Hopefully this would change before I ate it.

Szechuan Chicken Feet

1 package chicken feet (1+ lbs)
1 T ginger, minced
1 T garlic, minced
2 tsp Sriracha (or less, depending on your heat tolerance)
1/2 C ketchup
1 T sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 C chicken stock
1 T Chinese rice wine/sherry/sake
1 1/2 T peanut oil
scallion, to garnish

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the chicken feet and cook for five minutes. Strain the feet and clean them with a sharp knife by removing all the nails and the cushioned pads on the "palms."

Heat the peanut oil in a Dutch oven or large pot and sear the feet on medium-high heat until caramelized and lightly browned. Remove the feet and add the ginger. Sweat the ginger for 2 minutes and then add the garlic. After another minute, add the stock and rice wine to deglaze the pan, scraping any brown bits off the bottom. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, and reduce the heat, bringing the liquid to a light simmer. Cover and continue to cook at a light simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for another 10-15 minutes, or until a thick sauce has developed. Serve with rice and garnish with scallions.

I always avoided fèngzhuǎ in Chinese restaurants with the same sort of flared nostril wariness that Beavis & Butthead exhibit when watching a video by the band Winger, but this was actually pretty darn good. Spicy, succulent, and gummy (both texturally and in terms of how to eat it), if you don't mind the fatty consistency you just might gnaw your way into a food coma. Ware the cartilage and make sure to keep it classy by bringing some pungent lemon wet wipes because this is one sticky dish.

Next post: Beef tongue

Sea Squirt

2009-08-17T16:16:00.001-04:00

I was initially intrigued by sea squirt because I had passed it in the Korean market and not once had I seen even the most wizened old crone pick one up. This was strange to me for two reasons. 1) Little old Korean ladies are always buying things like tripe, chicken feet, and massive jugs of mystery goo, and 2) that place looks like a swap meet for the Asian-American Centenarian Club. Sea squirt's unpopularity at such a venue indicated to me that it is indeed an odd food.

The sea squirt/ascidian, or Halocynthia, is a marine invertebrate filter feeder that preys on plankton in cool, shallow water. This hermaphroditic critter is eaten all over the world, but mainly in Japan (as "sea pineapple"), Korea, Chile, parts of Aboriginal Australia, and Europe, under the entirely more appetizing moniker "sea violet."

Traditionally the sea squirt is eaten raw, over rice, or in heavily spiced stews, so at first I figured I'd stay the course. It was, however, very difficult to find anything about the preparation online and certainly in none of my cook books. When inquired about a recipe, the snarky teenager at the seafood counter scoffed at me like cooking sea squirt was as natural as his emo haircut and then mumbled something entirely unintelligible. Upset that I clearly just got punked by a pimply sixteen-year-old who listens to bands like The Promise Ring and knows the names of multiple mascara brands, I hastened back to HQ.

Boom. A sea squirt. The smell was quite fishy, which instantly made me wary. Typically when buying seafood or choosing a life partner this odor indicates that freshness is a no-no. But hey, this is a sea squirt, and who was I to say this was a bad thing? The sea squirt's texture and color were very similar to that of a toad. And by that, I mean disconcertingly bumpy and brown (or deep umber if you want to get all fabulous about it.)

I began the dissection process. Now The Ivory Dragon is absurdly sharp and responsible for numerous hunks of skin missing from my fingers, so when I couldn't crack a dent in the "shell," my first thought was similar to that of Mama Cass's probable last: Clearly, I have bitten off more than I can chew. The only thing interesting was that certain orifices were releasing...yep, you guessed it, squirts of a clear liquid. So I changed up my strategy and tried the hairy left side (see picture) or what I like to call the merkin end. Butter.

Interestingly, the "shell" came off like the skin of a mango, revealing the rubbery inside and a whoooooole lotta juice. Here's the mess in all its glory:

No, this isn't your baby cousin's latest bowel movement after happening upon that unsuspecting gallon of Plenty of Pulp Tropicana. The bottom yellow...thing is the "edible" part. Upon first taste, I was quick to disagree. I read somewhere the Japanese ate sea squirt raw, so I crossed my fingers and dove in. The juice itself was briny and not unlike that of an oyster. The innards were tangy and almost caviar-like. The flesh itself was soft, slightly rubbery, and overwhelmingly soapy tasting. Now unless you're like my brother, whom my family suspects developed a four-letter lexicon at a young age because he just couldn't live without the ever-so-fresh tang of Irish Spring, the taste of ammonia is decidedly off putting. It was at this point I figured I'd hide the sea squirt in a cheesy mass of homemade pizza. How can pizza be bad, right? Plus, I'd already made the dough the day before.

White Sea Squirt Pizza

No Need to Knead Pizza Dough

1/4 tsp. dry active yeast
1 1/2 C. tepid water
1 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. sugar
2 T. olive oil
3 C. flour
corn meal, as needed

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir with a spatula. The resulting dough should be slightly stiff and very sticky. Cover the mixture with Saran wrap and let it sit and rise for 12 hours. After this period, heavily dust a counter top and your hands and pat the mixture down to release the air bubbles. Quarter the dough with a pastry cutter or knife and form balls, keeping the "tucked" end down. Roll the balls out to a 8-10" round/square with a floured rolling pin. Apply corn meal liberally to an oven pan and slightly to the top your crust. Placing corn meal against corn meal, set your pizza crust on the pan. You're now ready to go.

Pickled Sea Squirt

3 sea squirts, julienned
2 C rice vinegar
1/3 C sugar

Pickling Spice Mix:

1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. coriander seed
3 bay leaves
10 whole black peppercorns
10 whole white peppercorns
1 tsp. whole allspice
1 tsp. whole clove
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 large nub ginger, cut into coins

Add all the ingredients other than the sea squirt and bring to a simmer for 2 minutes. Add the sea squirt and simmer for 20 seconds. Drain, rinse, and dry.

Pizza Topping

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 T. oregano, chopped
1 T. garlic, minced
handful of arugula
5-6 deli-style slices Monterey Jack cheese
large handful of Asiago cheese
pickled sea squirt, as needed
kosher salt & cracked black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450. At an extremely light simmer, saute the garlic and oregano in the oil until the garlic is translucent. Apply the oil very lightly to the top of the pizza dough. Season the dough with salt and pepper, then layer with the Monterey Jack cheese. Layer then with the sea squirt and the arugula and finally finish with another layer of Asiago cheese.

I'll be honest: I didn't really have the cojones or confidence that the squirt would be masked even by the cheese and garlic at this point. I wussed out and layered one half of the pizza. After 8 or 9 minutes in the oven, I removed the pizza and voila!

I was right: it was still impossible to escape the soapiness of the sea squirt. But hey, at least the other half was good! The chances of me eating this over rice or raw again are akin to that of me surviving a maximum security prison yard after arguing with a guy named Lord Shank over which bunk I'd get, but in retrospect I would probably eat it in a cioppino or bouillabaise.

Next post: Chicken feet.

Introduction

2009-08-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

What: This is a blog with recipes, pictures, descriptions, and hopefully a little history of the odd food that I cook. By "odd," I mean things you wouldn't typically find at your average American bar-be-que such as hamburgers, hot dogs, or obese Southerners. You're probably not going to see dog or deep fried turds on my menu, but if you find a vendor for, say, otter balls, I'm open to suggestion.

Why: I've always had an adventurous culinary spirit and luckily enough for me, my friends and family are (usually) willing to try it. The stranger the food, the better. I thought this would be a great outlet to share my trials and tribulations with odd food. It also gives me something to do on Sundays when my meathead friends are watching football.

When: Hopefully at least once a week, but ultimately whenever my schedule allows it.

Where: Any kitchen that I can squeeze myself and some ridiculous ingredients into.

How:
She hath been dubbed "The Ivory Dragon." In addition to this amazing hand-made 10" Chef's knife, I also have a plethora of other blades and gadgets that will be used here.