Busy Nothings

I made the Chinese Pork Skewers again last night.  Since it’s winter, however, I had to use my broiler to cook them.  While the results were not nearly as good as on my grill, they still had quite a bit of flavor.  Here’s what it looked like:

This recipe originally comes via Alton Brown, although it seems that fried macaroni and cheese is gaining some widespread acceptance as I have seen or heard about it at The Cheesecake Factory, TGIF’s, and the Minnesota State Fair.  I think it’s a simply brilliant idea that creates a rich and creamy fried treat.  Lush might be the best description of it.  However, when made in the way I did last night, the result was not excessively heavy or even filling.  The key is to keep the fingers from getting too fat.  Also, the spicy marinara sauce helped to lighten as well by cutting the richness of the cheese in the dish.  I thought it was a dynamite combination.  Here’s a picture:

And here’s the recipe:

Macaroni and Cheese Fingers, based on this recipe by Alton Brown

1 1/2 cups Marinara Sauce, preferably homemade

Crushed red pepper, to taste

1/2 pound elbow macaroni

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon powdered mustard

3 cups milk

1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 large egg

12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Fresh black pepper, to taste

2 eggs, beaten with 2 T water

about 1 1/2 cups Panko bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.   In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter over medium heat.  Cook until all of the moisture in the butter has evaporated.  Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes or until it becomes bubbly. Make sure it’s free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, bay leaf, and paprika.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for ten minutes.  Remove the bay leaf.

Temper in the egg.  Stir in the cheese.  Season with salt and pepper.  Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 9×13 baking pan.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Cool at least 4 hours and preferably overnight. 

Heat marinara sauce, adding enough crushed red pepper to make it spicy. 

Cut cooled macaroni and cheese into “fingers” about 3 inches by 3/4 inch.  Gently coat with egg and then coat with Panko bread crumbs.  Heat oil in a deep fryer or a pot to 350 degrees.  Fry fingers for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes or until golden brown.  Drain briefly on paper towels and serve immediately with marinara sauce.

A couple of notes: 1)  The macaroni and cheese part of this recipe is great on its own.  Check the link for the remaining directions.  My only suggestion is to cook the onion in the recipe before adding it to the dish.  For fried macaroni and cheese, however, I liked the more aggressive onion flavor.  2)  Tempering the egg involves very slowly adding the hot liquid to the egg and whisking until the egg comes up to temperature.  You can then safely add the egg mixture back into the sauce.  Otherwise, there would be scrambled eggs in your macaroni and cheese.  3)  Use a gentle hand as the fingers are fragile. 

This is a pretty simple recipe.  The idea was to lighten up regular buffalo wings with a bit of citrus and chopped cilantro.  I think the effect was pretty good.  The sauce was just a bit hot with a nice sweetness from the honey.  The lime juice sharpened all the flavors and the cilantro made everything taste fresh.  These would be great on Super Bowl Sunday.  Here’s the recipe:

Honey Lime Cilantro Buffalo Wings

3 lb chicken wings

3/4 cup Frank’s hot sauce

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro

juice of 1 lime

2 T butter, melted

Cook wings, either by baking or deep frying.  Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a small bowl.  When the chicken is cooked, toss in sauce and then place under the broiler until the sauce becomes glaze-like.  Serve. 

This recipe was inspired by La Tache in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago.  They describe their salad thusly:

frissee, haricots vert, pommes frites, truffle vinaigrette and poached egg

When I had it, I thought it was such a brilliant flavor combination.  Peppery frissee, creamy poached eggs, crispy french fries, and a nice earthy vinaigrette.  I loved it.  So I wanted to make it at home but I wanted to make it a bit less gourmet and much more accessible to a wider audience.  So here’s my recipe (with a honey mustard vinaigrette):

Tony’s Salad Lyonnaise

4 servings

4 hard-cooked eggs (preferably baked)

1/2 lb blanched green beans*

4 small russet potatoes

Oil for frying

1 bag spring greens

juice of 1 lemon

2 T honey

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Take potatoes and make french fries out of them using this recipe.  Then mix lemon juice, honey, and dijon mustard in a small bowl with a whisk.  Then add olive oil slowly until a nice (but somewhat thin) emulsion is created.  Taste and adjust the seasonings. 

Mix spring greens with about half of the dressing, adding more to the mix if you think the lettuces are too dry.  Then build your salad.  Start with a base of french fries, then a layer of salad greens, then the blanched green beans, and finally top with a hard-cooked eggs, cut in half.  Serve immediately. 

*To blanch green beans: Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.  Use at least 2 quarts of water for a pound of green beans.  Trim the beans and then place in the boiling water for 2 minutes exactly.  Drain and then immediately put them in an ice bath.  Let them sit in there until cool and then drain and pat dry with paper towels. 

This is what it looked like:

I think it turned out pretty well.  The dressing was light and pretty perky, so it really brightened the heavier flavors of the french fries and hard-cooked eggs.  The fries were a delicious underlayment that added a hearty base to the salad while the egg and green beans echoed the same theme of heartiness.  I can’t wait to make this again. 

It really doesn’t get any easier than this:

Simple Raspberry Coulis

1 10 oz package frozen raspberries in light syrup

1/4 to 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Heat raspberries and sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat until it comes to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.  Strain using a fine mesh sieve, pressing with a spatula to extract the maximum amount of liquid and to remove any seeds.  Cool and serve.

This is a great, easy way to “fancy up” your desserts.  It looks and tastes fabulous on Charcoal Room Cheesecake but it would go well on any number of other desserts.  For the amount of effort invovled, this recipe is a no-brainer to make because of the exceptional culinary return. 

I made Coconut-Lime Shrimp over Black Bean Cakes again last night.  I was really happy with how it turned out last time (please click on the link in the previous post) but the presentation was really lacking.  In particular, the sauce looked unappetizing and well, amauterish with unevenly cut cilantro and gloppy nature.  This time around, I used my stick blender to mix all of the Spicy Cilantro Sauce ingredients together.  The result was a smooth, consistent, and pretty sauce that was dynamite on the shrimp.  Otherwise, besides broiling instead of grilling the shrimp, the recipe remained the same.  It’s fabulous.  Here’s a picture:

I made Charcoal Room Cheesecake again last night and served it with a raspberry coulis.  It was delicious (as it always is).  I particularly liked how the coulis matched with the cheesecake.  It was like a match made in heaven.  Here’s how it looked:

This is an entirely decadent dish. Salty, luscious, thin-sliced Pancetta is baked and then used as a base for creamy goat cheese and juicy pear wedges. It’s like a flavor explosion in your mouth. The Pancetta adds a wonderful creamy fattiness. The goat cheese is just a little tangy and sharp. And the pears add sweetness and a bit of a crunch. They’re absolutely addicting. Here’s the recipe:

Pancetta Crisps with Goat Cheese and Pears, original recipe can be found here on Epicurious

8 thin slices of Pancetta

4 oz log of goat cheese, cut into 8 pieces

1 pear, cut into 8 wedges

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake Pancetta on a baking sheet until cooked through and a bit crispy, about 15-20 minutes. Remove the Pancetta to a paper towel lined plate. Then top each piece with a chunk of goat cheese and one pear slice. Serve immediately.

Here’s a picture of the final product.

My first crack at using my homemade Pancetta was a simple sandwich of fried Pancetta and a fried egg with some grated Parmesan cheese.  It was simple but I wanted a simple recipe so I could concentrate on tasting the Pancetta.  Here’s what it looked like:

Let me tell you, it was delicious.  The Pancetta was richly fatty (in the best sense of the word) and earthy that was dynamite with the soft eggs and their gooey insides.  The Parmesan cheese added a nice sharp flavor note.  As much as I like bacon (and I really do), somehow I felt that the Pancetta was “porkier” and more complex in flavor both due to the lack of smoking.  I can’t wait to eat more Pancetta. 

Since a pork belly is around 10 pounds of meat, I decided to try to make Pancetta at the same time I made my homemade bacon.  It is essentially an unsmoked Italian bacon that is cured and dried.  Here’s what my end product looked like:

Again, like my homemade bacon post, I am not giving step by step instructions here.  I recommend the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.  But, will be happy to go through the steps.  First, a portion of pork belly is trimmed neatly and then covered (really rubbed) with a savory salt mixture containing pink salt (salt with nitrite), garlic, thyme, sugar, and crushed juniper berries.  Second, it is left to cure in the refrigerator for about 8 days.  At this point, the pork belly should look like this after rinsing:

Third, it is rolled tightly and then hung to dry in a cool, humid place. 

The result was simply amazing.  The meat itself (and I know this sounds somewhat unappetizing) has an amazing fattiness to it.  It is somehow rich and creamy and fulfilling all at the same time.  And the additional flavors of the thyme, juniper berries, and garlic all lend flavor but also earthiness and depth.  Plus, since Pancetta is not smoked, the pork flavor of the belly is all the more in the forefront.  I had thought that my next pork belly would entirely be made into bacon but after tasting this, well, I’ve got some tough choices ahead of me.