Construction 101

I'm not sure why but I seem to be taking on cooking projects that are more like actual construction projects than simple, making fun dinner recipes. This is what happens when you cannot let something go to waste, like fresh okra. I still had some fresh from my okra pie quest. I wanted to use it in a non-traditional way (because okra pie is so yesterday...) and I also like to stretch my kitchen skills muscles. My first thought was to take the basics of shrimp gumbo and make them into a tamale filling. The cuisines of countries south of the US are largely unexplored by me so tamale making required some research. It looks fairly simple, make filling, make masa, place masa and filling in soaked corn husk and steam - VOILA! Right now all the righteous old school tamale makers are cackling at my naivety. My research did not scare me off from the process but it did change the course of the filling. You see tamales, in their final cooking stage, steam quite a bit, depending on the recipe you follow. I'm not sure how shrimp would hold up to that and I really didn't want to find out the first time I made tamales. So I shifted gears into thinking about a different filling to pair up with my okra. Traditional choices seem to be slow cooking a pork shoulder in many wonderful spices and then shredding the meat. But that's a lot of meat even with a small pork shoulder and pork didn't seem to be the right combo with the okra. Then I had lunch at a new downtown restaurant, The Tamale Wizard.

No, that's not a tamale but anytime a KC restaurant has soft shell crabs on their Fish Friday menu, you'll soon find me sniffing around. Actually it was the second time I had lunch here that gave me (stole) the inspiration for my tamale experiment. It was a delicious and juicy short rib taco. Short ribs would be a great pairing with the robust flavor of okra. With my filling choices and flavors decided, it was time to draw up a schedule and begin construction.

As you can see by my construction schedule, the short rib filling is an all day preparation. But that's ok because your crockpot is your friend when it comes to cooking short ribs.

But first it's best to braise them in a little bit of oil. For this recipe I'm using 2 pounds of bone in short ribs, English cut.

Once you've browned them on all sides (3 - 4 minutes) you're going to put them in your crockpot with 4 strips of bacon, a quartered medium onion, 4 cloves of crushed garlic, 1 cup sliced grape tomatoes, 1/2 cup cilantro, 1 bay leaf (I use fresh), 1 tablespoon each of cumin, chili powder & smoked paprika, 2 teaspoons each of coriander and kosher salt. Add 2 cups beef stock to the ribs and spices in the crockpot. If the stock does not just cover the ribs, add enough water until it does. Let that cook on low for 8 hours. Once 8 hours has passed, turn off the crockpot and let it cool down for an hour still in the crockpot. Then transfer to a container and cool completely until you are able to handle the meat. Shred the meat and discard the bones but save all the cooking liquid.

While your meat is cooking, you need to start soaking your cornhusks in a large shallow pan of hot water. Weigh the tamales down with a plate so they stay submerged. Corn husks come in different sized packages so you want to soak at least 25 for the amount of filling and masa this recipe makes. In my area, finding corn husks was fairly easy but your area may differ. Soaking can take 2 to 3 hours because you want those husks soft and pliable. Once they are soft, rinse off any remaining grit and set aside for assembly.

Your meat is cooking, your husks are soaking, you now need to start your masa. Masa is made from dried hominy and if you can find a place to buy corn husks, it's a sure bet they also have masa. Take 4 cups of masa and mix it with 2 1/2 cups warm water. It will be a dry dough at this point. Set it aside. In a bowl combine a tablespoon of kosher salt, 2 teaspoons of baking power and a cup of lard. Now if you are anti-lard, you can substitute vegetable shortening. I broke out the lard for this recipe. Mix in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Now you're going to add the masa to the lard mixture a fourth of the masa mixture at a time, making sure the masa is well incorporated before adding the next. Once all the masa has been incorporated, add one cup chicken stock and beat for 5 minutes. Now for the important floating masa test.

Grab a small ball of the masa mixture and drop it in a glass of water. If it floats, you're good. If it doesn't float, mix it some more and test again. Once it floats, cover the masa with plastic wrap and chill for an hour. After an hour pull it out of the fridge and add another 1/2 cup of chicken broth and mix well. Conduct second float test. Once it floats, your masa is ready for assembly.

Now for the last part of the filling puzzle, the okra.

Unlike the pie recipe when I used okra's slime, here I wanted to eliminate the ooze. Again, I heeded the wise words of Chef Virginia Willis, roast it and the slime will be gone. There's also another reason to roast okra. It just makes it better. Actually you can apply that little sticky bit of advice to almost any vegetable. You want to taste a vegetables' true flavor? Cut it up, coat it in a little bit of oil, sprinkle on some kosher salt and roast it in a hot oven until it caramelizes just a little bit and eat it hot. Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and all the leafy greens can be roasted. It's just good stuff. So that's what I did with the okra. Roasted in a 400 degree oven for not very long, you have to watch so it doesn't burn.

Let the assembly begin.

Here is the husk with masa dough spread out. Roughly you want a four inch square of masa about an inch away from the top and bottom of the husk.

Then you put your filling down the center of masa. I'm fairly certain I have too much mixture to masa in the picture above. You want to be able to roll the sides of the masa over the mixture and seal in the middle but those first tamales were just butt ugly things to behold. However, when you've reached this stage, there's no going back. So the general idea is to fold the corn husk over and roll it to seal the tamale. Then you fold the bottomed tapered edge towards the top. Some recipes call for tying the tamales with kitchen string, others don't. I tied and learned a valuable lesson. Don't tie too tightly because the tamales expand in the steam and your string will cut your tamale in half. Not pretty.

So all my tamales were assembled and ready for steaming. Not a hard thing right? Miss Think's She Can Do This With A Jury-Rigged Steamer had all the answers right? FEH! Unless you have a steamer insert in your kitchen job-box, just go buy one of these. It costs fifteen bucks and you can use it to steam just about anything.

This nifty little pot has an insert with steamer slits and hole in the middle that allows you to add water to your steamer without it getting all over your tamales. So you take your tamales and place them standing up around the edges of the interior of the steamer. Again, don't pack them in too close together so they have room to expand. Place a few extra soft corn husks on top of all your tamales to help seal in the steam. Add the lid and steam them for at least an hour and 15 minutes. Again, the steaming time varies recipe to recipe. I went two hours and the test is to pull a tamale out of the steamer and see if the husk pulls away from the masa easily. If it does and the masa looks and feels spongy, they are ready.

At this point you can eat the tamales as is but I hate wasting anything so I decided to make a sauce of all that lovely liquid that the short ribs cooked in. The first step was to bring the liquid and the accumulated solids to a boil. Reduced it down a bit. Then I hit it with my stick blender to incorporate the solids and let that cook down. Next I took the results of that and strained out the remaining solids. The strained liquid I put back in the pan and tasted. I found it a bit salty so I added a tablespoon of brown sugar and let it blend into the flavors over a medium heat for 7 - 10 minutes. Tasted again and found the saltiness was now balanced with a bit of sweetness. Still it was missing some heat and complexity. Added some healthy shakes of some wonderful ancho chili powder and again let it cook again for 5 minutes. Almost there. Another shake of chili powder and the juice of half a lime. Cook, stirring constantly for 5 minutes and taste. Oh yeah, that's the flavor I was looking for. Add just enough beef broth to loosen the sauce up and drizzled it over my freshly steamed tamales.

Oh my goodness, they may have been ugly, they may require many man hours of professional contractors but damn they are good. The sauce is just a tad sweet with a whole lot of spice and the meat and okra mixture is bold and hearty. Bless you leftover okra for a job well done. I think I'll give my crew a bonus.

New Toolbelts for Everyone!!

Chocolate Solar System

Too beautiful to eat, it's the chocolate solar system.

Sadly these beautiful chocolates are only available thru L'eclat of the Righa Royal Hotel of Japan.

And no...they don't ship overseas. Whaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

Battle of the Brands

Would you make this for your family?

Would you serve this to a guest to your home?

If you've been stuck in a media blackout bunker, trying to hide from the insanity that is the Republican primaries then you might have missed the ongoing bloody Battle of the Culinary Brands.

This current battle really started last August when Tony Bourdain gave an interview to TV Guide. In that interview he slammed Food Network's shiniest stars, Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee, Guy Fieri and Paula Deen. Of Deen he said "the worst, most dangerous person in America … plus, her food sucks”. This is nothing new for Father Tony, he's been bitch slapping Food Network stars for years now but Paula decided to answer back with the tired, old, I'm one with the real people trope. "You know, not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine,” she said. “My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills.” (...and yet I don't see Tony pimping a 3 piece furniture set for $3,600 or a cheapest single ticket to her seven day cruise for $1,500). Frank Bruni, the food critic for the NY Times shoved his way into the conversation, siding with Deen and calling Bourdain elitist which is pretty freaking funny considering the paper he works for and the town he works in. Things settled down for a bit until....

Flash forward to January 17th and Paula Deen is confirming on NBC's Today show that, yes, she has Type 2 Diabetes, yes, she's now the spokesperson for Novo Nordisk and their injectable diabetes drug, Victoza and yes, she's known and has been treating her diabetes for three years. Victoza, which costs something like $500 a month, is not exactly cheap for the common folk Ms. Deen so loudly claims to champion. Mr. Bourdain, looking a bit like a modern day prophet, lobbed this Twitter pie directly at Team Deen's face, "Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later." Bruni, suddenly smelling which way the butter burns, also checked in with NY's opinion on this national story, saying "She had waited three long, greasy years since her diagnosis to come out. During that period, she promoted the deep-fried life without acknowledging her firsthand experience of how a person can be burned by it". Thanks Frank.

Since then it's been a constant tsunami of quotes and public relations web spinning. Paula's longtime publicist left Paula in December over the current direction of Team Deen, thinking she still had a job with her sons. She was quickly released from their employment. Food Network, also sensing bad juju, released their statement that they had no idea whatsoever that Ms. Deen had diabetes. Paula weakly defended herself, blathering something about not being educated enough to reveal her condition. Apparently she also felt a bit hurt that none of her brother and sister celebrity chefs are running to her defense but can you blame them? Actually I'm guessing that the only person happier about this Deen/Diabetes brouhaha is Ina Garten who can now officially come off the Internet Outrage pedestal after having refused a child's Make a Wish request and had her brand ripped up one side and down another.

The most amusing aspect of this whole charade is that those who strongly support Paula Deen's culinary empire (Smithfield Ham, Philadelphia Cream Cheese/Kraft Food, Nebraska Furniture Mart, magazines, restaurant, cookbooks, dvds, cookware and television shows) now claim that her food, her culinary output is only meant to entertain the masses. That she's always preached moderation. That's she's not responsible for what food you choose to put in your mouth. To this we must call Shenanigans! If Paula Deen is only on TV for entertainment purposes I'm guessing companies like Smithfield and Kraft are going to want their advertising and sponsorship dollars back. They are certainly not advertising on her show or on the Food Network as some sort of charitable donation. Hell no, they want Paula's viewers and fans to buy and keep buying their many processed food products. They don't care if Americans get diabetes, they have product to push and now with Victoza, you can keep eating their products and her food and all will be well.

The one thing I agree with out of all this is that no one forces you to eat or cook like a tv chef, food blogger, or newspaper critic. You have to be responsible for your own health and decisions. But there's a reason why the tv show Jackass has huge blazing warnings not to try their stunts on your own....because idiots do. There are thousands and thousands of Paula Deen fans that cook and eat her food with regularity. They find justification in the buzz words used to describe her food: comfort, rib sticking, southern, traditional, country and uncomplicated. Pointing out the unhealthy aspects of her dishes is translated into attacking the emotional resonance that food represents to her devoted fans. C'mon y'all, you'll feel better if you make yourself a big ole pile of my Mac and Cheese and some wonderful fried chicken, just like grandma used to make. That's a pretty powerful pitch. Let's all just remember that above everything thing else it is a pitch. Paula's not your girlfriend and she's not going to invite you into her house to cook you food, Tony's not your buddy, Frank Bruni doesn't really care about your opinions. They all represent Brands that must be fed and cared for. They all have an agenda to push and empires to maintain and salaries to pay. The team you should be most concerned with is YOU and your family. Use the common sense that the good lord gave you and use fresh food in dishes you make yourself, recipes full of vegetables, fruit and whole grains. You can only help yourself build a strong foundation to a healthy lifestyle and in the process make your own wonderful food memories.

How Far Will It Go?

I have never tasted Atlantic bluefin tuna sushi or sashimi. Actually I don't think I've eaten that species of tuna in any form. I will probably never get the chance to. Not that it's not available, sadly it is. But this fish, a species that has fed the world for thousands of years is in danger of collapsing to unrecoverable levels due to overfishing. Now in years past, Americans would learn about such things by reading the National Geographic magazine. They would have spectacular action color photography of tuna underwater. They might have Jacques Cousteau explain the various migration and mating patterns of this apex predator. I'm sure there would even be a map and graph showing all the different species and habitats of the tunas of the world. Later, when television took off, National Geographic wildlife specials were fascinating and a bit scary. All the drama you could want was right there as you followed what ever creature or life form they were exploring. Little did we know those were the golden years of Nat Geo.

Nat Geo recently announced that they are to air "Wicked Tuna", an unscripted reality show featuring tuna fishermen of Gloucester, Massachusetts has they hunt the Atlantic Bluefin tuna. Now this is sad in just so many ways. First I learned that News Corp and Rupert Murdoch owns 67% of the National Geographic Channel which begins to explain Wicked Tuna. You see, the "fishing reality/competition" reality programs have been done to death. Deadliest Catch has been running on the Discovery Channel since 2005. Then we had Lobstermen but that lasted only one season. Determined to keep cashing in on Deadliest Catch's format for success, sword fishermen (and woman) were next to pop up on the Discovery Channel. But neither the Atlantic Bluefin tuna's precarious fishery levels nor the tired nature of watching men fish will keep Nat/News Corp from promoting and airing Wicked Tuna.

What can you do to help stop promoting the destruction of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna? Well for one thing kill your cable television. I'm not joking. In April of last year I ditched pay tv and haven't looked back. No money will go to Murdoch, no eyes will see whatever advertisers pay for commercial time on Wicked Tuna. I was mad as hell and I didn't want to take it anymore. Isn't it about time for you to stop taking it too?

Putting Up, Not Shutting Up - Okra Pie

OK, I think I did it. Made an edible okra pie. Will it replace the classic apple pie, the sweet and gooey blueberry or the unending variety of cream pies? No. But if you want to try something completely different and you're an adventurous soul, here's what you do.

First, let's remember that it's the middle of January in the midwest so my access to fresh okra was difficult at first. However plenty of frozen to go around. Actually two kinds of frozen for our purposes. Precut and whole. When I first started out on this project, I thought the precut okra would work great. That was a big no go. Too much chewy okra texture and general bad mouth feel. So I switched to the whole okra and cut it to the size I thought would work best. Since I'm working a nine inch pie, I decided to use two one pound bags of whole okra. Two thirds of this I sliced really thin (while still mostly frozen, cuts better) and the remaining third I cut about a half inch thick.

Why do this? Well the thin slices break down a little bit and make better pie filling and the larger pieces still give the filling the okra texture. So once you've cut up your okra we need to make it just a little less okrery. Put the thin sliced okra in a pan and add enough water to cover. Bring it to a boil. Once it has reached boiling, lower the heat to a simmer. Add the juice of one lemon and let simmer for a couple minutes. Now add 3/4 cup brown sugar and stir to mix. Taste the mixture. You may like it sweeter or more tart according to your taste. Now stir in the remaining thicker slices of okra. Remove from heat and set aside.

Toast 2 cups of pecans halves for 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Once toasted and cool enough to handle, roughly chop the nuts and add them to the okra mixture. Add the zest of one lemon and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and mix well. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

As I said in my original Facebook posting, I mentioned a cornmeal crust. None of my numerous pie cookbooks had a recipe I really liked so I resorted to Epicurious, my favorite go to site for fairly decent online recipes. They had just the pie crust I was looking for. They used it for a Apple Cranberry Pie and the only change I made was to leave out the pumpkin pie spice and use an entire top crust, not the leaf cutouts they prepared. Next time I might cut back on the salt. I will be making this crust again, it's almost like a cornmeal shortbread crust but very rustic. It would make a great crust for savory pie. I brushed the top of the pie with some buttermilk and sprinkled a little bit of very fine granulated sugar (caster sugar) on the top. Popped it into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes with aluminum foil strips protecting the edges of the pie. Then another 15 minutes or so without the foil so the top crust can get nicely browned but not burned.

It's not a very pretty pie but I really kinda like the flavors none the less. Boiling away some of that strong okra flavor and then matching with what's left with the hard to beat combo of brown sugar and lemon is fun. What we haven't talked about is the slime, or the snot of the vegetable world as it's generally known. Virginia and I actually corresponded a little bit about developing this recipe and her suggestions on eliminating okra's slickness were valid but I wanted to bend it to my will, not make it disappear all together. By boiling the okra first, adding acidity (the lemon), and then binding the results (the cornstarch) I got a filling that holds together without being gummy or slimy. Earlier experiments involved many more spices to pair with the okra, namely a mild sweet curry however if there's one thing I've learned from watching many people cook food and developing my own cooking style, simple is better. The curry was one step too far. I'm much happier with the what finally developed.

So why do this? Why make a pie out of vegetable that a majority of people hate with a passion? Well there's the whole challenge of it. Think of it as a puzzle game, what fits best with what. Also knowing that you have the flexibility to create something from very little available. When I was doing the research for this project I read a very interesting passage from the Little House Cookbook. Barbara Walker wrote a wonderful book on the foods and cooking methods she believes were used during the frontier time period that was the setting of the Little House on the Prairie series. In the book, The Long Winter, Laura's mother makes a pie out of the only thing she currently had available , green pumpkin. Her ingenuity and cleverness provided a much welcomed treat when normal pie fillings were nowhere in sight. I like knowing that I can do that. The culinary sky's the limit if you can make a good tasting okra pie. You just never know where it will lead.

Putting Up - Okra Pie

Start with some research.

First try, fail.

Second try, edible but issues.

BUSTED!

Busted.
I am so totally busted.

It was a simple question.

"Working on a project for summer and this 35° New England weather has me stymied. What's your favorite okra dish?"

Virginia Willis asked this on her Facebook page. It's a good question. I happen to love okra but there's not a whole lot of American recipes outside of deep fried and gumbo. And this is where my smart mouth (or keyboard in this case) got me into trouble. I typed in a response, thinking the saucy Ms. Willis would be too busy to notice my suggestion. But noooo, girlfriend jumped all over it. "Linda - can you pls shoot me the recipe for okra pie w cm crust? That sounds goooooood!"

That's right. Okra pie with cornmeal crust. I've never heard of it, never tasted it, let ALONE made one. Why did I say it? Say it outloud. Okra pie. It makes me laugh. (This alone should tell you why I'm not a stand up comedian). But now the lovely Southern chef and author of two fabulous books would like my recipe for Okra Pie with Cornmeal Crust. Do I put up or shut up? I'm thinking Put Up.

Do you doubt me? Think I lack passion or vision? Oh no, think back. Am I not the woman who gave you Peep Sushi?

Am I not the woman who gave you Crab Pot Pie?

Am I not the woman who put Tom Colicchio's head on the body of a rooster?

(Why....because I could!)

I think I can handle Okra Pie. That's my challenge for the weekend. Make an edible okra pie. What do you think, savory? Sweet? Spices or flavorings? Can the slime be conquered? Watch for either yummy results or a total flaming failure that not even the dog will eat.

Guess What I Got for the Holidays?

The Pumpkin Butchering

There's an old saying about curiosity killing the cat. I don't know about cats but curiosity has always served me well. Waiting for a Caesar salad to-go, I pondered out loud about the squash anchoring the festive fall decorations sitting on the bar at Lidia's Kansas City. You see it was rather large for an indoor pumpkin. So I asked the hostess what they were going to do with it once Fall was over. "Well, the chefs will take it back to the kitchen and make pumpkin raviolis out of it." How great was that? So great that I asked if I could watch and by "watch" I meant be the photographic fly on the kitchen wall while they broke down the massive 80 pound pumpkin. After a flurry of emails with busy Chef de Cuisine Cody Hogan and Executive Chef Dan Swinney, I found myself squeezed into some tight kitchen spaces to witness The Pumpkin Butchering.

Now it would be much easier and probably more cost effective to buy a big can of pumpkin at the Restaurant Depot and call it a day. But that's the difference between OK restaurants and great restaurants. They take tremendous pride in their food, from seeking out the best local fresh ingredients to using those ingredients to make simple luscious well seasoned and balanced dishes. I can tell you that the best compliment I could give to the chefs that day was an grateful empty plate.

You would be doing yourself a favor by finding and supporting those restaurants that understand that simple philosophy. I know I'll keep supporting the treasure that is Lidia's Kansas City.

Be Prepared

I have been known to keep a treat or two in my pockets for my four legged friends that I might run into while going about my daily business. However I was caught completely off guard when leaving my downtown KC workplace the other day.

This would be O'Sullivan and Blaise. I believe that's Officer Mike Mast with O'Sullivan but I didn't get the name of the officer on Blaise. I'll make up for it next time they come walking up the street by having an apple or carrot or two ready for sharing with our hard working police horses.


Are there doughnuts for horses.....?