Me and my girlfriend traveled down to outer banks, North Carolina, over Memorial Day weekend, where my parents had rented a house. It was a fine trip, however the beach was too cold and windy to get any enjoyment out of it, due to it being so early in the season; so we mostly regulated ourselves to the pool (and me to my brother's new copy of Grand Theft Auto 4) On one of the nights we went to this amazing restaurant called The Blue Point, in the town of Duck. I'd been there before the previous year and it was still just as good.
Chipoltle bourbon barbecue baby-back ribs.
seared jumbo scallops
french green lentils & chorizo sausage —whole grain mustard butter sauce—fennel salad
This was a lazy rainy Sunday project. I was inspired by the ventures of a fellow foodie and their slow cooked duck operation( Julie's duck) I have to give credit for my mother who ordered me this fantastic Weber brand charcoal grill. This is essentially a uber-slow cooked bird with hickory smoke over the course of 5+ hours.
So, I had this whole duckling kicking around in the freezer since winter, and we recently ran out of stuff to eat so I defrosted it in our Coca-Cola brand refrigerator over the weekend. I stuffed it with the following:
1 head of garlic, sliced laterally
1 lemon, quartered
1 small red onion, halved
1 yellow onion, halved,
1 sprig of pineapple sage (it's even better than it sounds)
1 sprig of rosemarry
Salt
Pepper
To cook it I used the minion method, which is basically lighting a small handful of charcoal briquettes and then sitting them on top of a larger pile of unlit briquettes. This produces a low and slow heat that cooks the duck, which is safe on the far side of the grill so that it cooks with indirect heat. I of course liberally added wet hickory chips to the fire which made the bird laquered and beautiful brown.
Duck fat is not like fat from a traditional animal like a pig or a cow. Duck fat is ambrosial gold; almost like the spermacatae vomited up by the ancient sperm whale and horded by some grimy Nantucket rube. But better!
I don't have a food post at the moment, but I do have a whole duck being smoked on the front porch. My last story got a few complimentary responses, so while I wait for the duck to finish- I figured I would regale you with another tale.
True story. I think this was around seventh grade when I did this. Basically, I spent about a week constructing a completely gorgeous RPG launcher out of PVC piping. I hid it in the crawl space of my basement for a while before my dad found it and threw it away. He must have been really pissed when he found it, because to make it I had to destroy one of his antique wood planers and one of his medical crutches. I think he was going through knee surgery at that time, so he probably really needed that crutch.
So the bazooka had this wonderful carved rosewood handle (salvaged from the wood planer) with a bright red trigger button drilled and installed within it. And the shoulder rest was a foam padded crutch top, which I sawed off from the crutch and glued onto the bazooka. The front of it was a big square of sheet metal that functioned as an after-blast flame guard, and there was a little rectangle cut out of it, which was installed with a piece of plexi-glass with cross-hairs drawn on it. And the entire thing was painted pure black with fire-proof stove paint; heat resistant up to 450 degrees farenheit. It more or less resembled a Stinger Missile Launcher. If you don't know what that is then you're probably not a boy. And on the side was a big red anarchy symbol. And I even drew the anarchy symbol so that it looked like it was dripping blood. I don’t use the term, "excalibur," lightly, but this thing was a fucking, "excalibur."
So after we built it (my younger brother, Josh, helped) I realized that it’s design favored asthetics over function and I had no idea whether or not it would explode and kill me the moment I turned it on. So we had to test-fire it, but I was like, “well, I’m not gonna do it.” And then Josh was like, well, “I’m not gonna do it.”
So we ended up calling Josh’s friend, Jesse. We told him to come over to house and then convinced him to put it on his shoulder and shoot it. Basically, we dragged this kid into the field behind my house and guilt-tripped him into not being a bleeding pussy by firing our bazooka. I feel bad now about taking his mortality so lightly, but whatever. It was middle-school.
I think at one point, before we left the house, Josh mentioned the fact that we needed an emergency plan if anybody actually saw us firing a bazooka. My solution was to bring a spiral-ring note book and pretend we were doing a science experiment.
So we’re out there in this field. Jesse’s got a fully loaded bazooka on his shoulder and I have a blank note-book tucked under my shoulder, and I’m counting down: “T minus ten, t minus 9……”
And then I hear a voice behind me go, “hey, what are you guys doing?” I turn around and there is a 40 year old man with his two daughters who must have been only 8 years old. They must have been just going for a leisurely walk through the woods. So I say…
“Uhhhhh, this is for physics class. I go to Harriton High.” The father says, “oh, cool! I went to Harriton also, can we watch?” Me: “I guess so.” So I give Jesse the thumbs up signal and he fires the bazooka. The rocket flies like a dream for about 30 yards straight when I realize that I should have used a different fin design on the rocket body, because the rocket does a 180 degree turn in mid-air and flies straight back at us. Me, Josh, Jesse, and this guy with his two daughters who I’ve never met before, hit the deck as the rocket shoots over our heads and smashes into a nearby tree.
So I’m just emotionally recovering from a near-miss and thanking god that I hadn’t tipped that particular rocket with napalm (which I had cooked up the week prior and almost burned down my tree-house) and thinking to myself, “My god, I could have literally killed this poor guy or one of his daughters! My shenanigans have finally caught up with me, he’s gonna call the police.”
I look at the father and my face must have been a visage of pure abject horror and apology. He raises his head out of the grass and says, “Oh, that was cool! I hope you get a good grade!”
Me too, random guy. Me too.
That's right. I'm stealing your first borns mister Rooster. Actually, it's more like your 40'th. So our chicken coop is up and running now. It's located by the horse barn and I love it because we don't have to waste money on a 12 pack of eggs, that I usually won't get through until the remainders are past-date. In a while our two ducks will grow up and lay eggs of their own too. I hear duck eggs are delicious and I'm already a big fan of their pure fat. Eventually they will all grow up nice and plump and I will devour them. Such is the way of nature. The only problem is that our landlord's mother helps herself to the eggs and actually leaves thank-you notes to the chickens. Not notes to Olivia who actually bought and cares for the chickens, but notes to the chickens themselves. As if a fucking chicken can read a post-it note mounted on the wire facing away from them. She's a sadistic battle-axe. And they say, "Thank you so much- You are very good chickens!" I don't like to take it out on the chickens, but that's just one more reason to make me feel better about executing them for my tummy's benefit. I should put the heads in her mailbox. Gahhhhh. I'm disturbed! No...wait....I'm "advanced!"
I ran into my buddy Harte over by the chicken coop/stables, so I treated him to a classic "toad in the hole," also known as "eggy in the basket."
The juice runeth....
Because I'm currently deficient in post-worthy consumables, I figured I would share with you a passage of my current reading venture. I recently dug out my mothers battered college copy of Moby Dick, complete with hand written study notes in the margins. I had heard before that Moby Dick was a literary chore, deigned to be reluctantly plowed through (the chapter on Cetology actually embodies these qualities); but let me tell you, Herman Melville is a fucking nut. This is one of the most metaphorically dense works that I've ever come across and the process of deciphering his words has become a savored pleasure for me. I didn't expect that I would enjoy a book I avoided in high-school so much. For instance, here's a passage Melville wrote concerning ego-loss from the p.o.v. of a crow's nest watchman.
"There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, o more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists."
I made this for dinner last night because we are basically all out of groceries and all I had in the pantry was potatoes and onions. I've been a little lax on the blog lately because I am poor at the moment, so I haven't really been able to satiate my champagne tastes with my pauper's wallet. Also, I had planned to post about the New World Restaurant wine tasting, but I totally forgot my camera when I went there. Basically, any literary description of the tastes and experience would greatly suffer from the absence of visuals, so I'm crutched for a post on that.
Red Bliss potatoes, peeled (as many as will fit your gratin/casserole dish)
1 clove Garlic, unpeeled
4 tbs. Butter (I used chili-honey butter)
2 cups caramelized onions
Cheddar cheese (swiss is probably better)
1 cup milk
Salt and pepper
Fresh thyme
Preheat the oven for 425 degrees.
Slice up the potatoes and let them chill in a bowl of cold water so that they don't oxidize while you do the rest of the work.
Cut the top half off the garlic and dry rub all around the inside of your gratin dish. Add 1 tbs. of the butter and smear it all around the dish. Lay down a single layer of potato slices. Add some salt and pepper, grate some cheese onto it, and lay down some caramelized onions. Repeat as many times as necessary, depending on how many potatoes you're using and the size of your pan. Don't overdo it with the salt and pepper.
Bring the milk to a boil in a sauce pan. Pour over the potatoes and then pop the gratin dish into the oven for maybe 30 minutes, or until the top gets a nice golden crust. Add the fresh thyme and eat with a soft crusty bread so you can soak up all that juice.
I've done this dish with white wine before as well. Just replace half the milk with wine but don't boil it. You could also replace the milk with beef stock.
Something about brussel spouts taste good burned. The outer leaves have been fried in oil and salted so they're like brussel potato chips.
First, the outermost leaves on the sprouts were removed and set aside. Heat olive oil in a pan over high, and fry up those outer leaves until they resemble overdone potato chips. Remove and drain on a paper towel. Add your brussel sprouts to the hot olive oil and saute for maybe 4 minutes. Add salt and pepper and pop the whole skillet into a 425 degree oven. Don't be afraid to let the outer layer char up a bit, cause it tastes good like that. Leave the sprouts in the oven for maybe 20 minutes. Basically, the key is to get a crispy and tangy outside of the sprout and have the inside thoroughly cooked, so that when you bite into it, it's soft and steamy.
This is a simple way of cooking brussel sprouts but I think it highlights the sprouts natural qualities. I also usually like roasting them in the oven with some red onions, red wine vinegar, and almonds.
Some of the tomato plants I'm growing. Milano Plum and San Marzano. Shot with the macro lens.
Another one from the Padma Lakshmi cookbook. It's quickly become one of my favorites.
These are two Red Snapper filets at about a pound and a half total. About $16 bucks at the supermarket.
They sit in a marinade for no more than half an hour, turning them once.
Marinade:
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
salt
The chutney you want to puree in a food processor or blender. Add the salt last to taste, then refrigerate. Should last a couple of days. Makes about 2 cups.
1 Granny smith apple
3 cups loosely packed fresh mint leaves
4 serrano or thai green chilies
2 cups loosely packed fresh cilantro
1 medium tomato
2 tbs. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
salt
For the rest of the dish, you'll need on medium onion, sliced thin.
Pierce the filets a couple times with a fork and remove from marinade.
Heat a skillet over medium high with 2 tbs. vegetable oil.
Cook one filet at a time, skin side down for five minutes, then flip over to cook for another two minutes.
Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan and cook the onion for maybe 5 minutes. Then add the 2 cups of chutney and heat through until warm. Top the filets with the onions and chutney.
These are some toasted tea sandwiches that I kind of modified from the Padma Lakshmi cookbook.
They're all on plain white toast. The first has a goat cheese, dill and olive oil spread with cucumber and blackberry, and the other one has chili-honey butter and slices of Manchego cheese.
And somebody is stealing my newspaper and chicken eggs.
