Save The Filets, Save A Marriage

No blog posts for the past three weeks, but I have a really good excuse punctuated by a really, REALLY good excuse just yesterday. I have been spending the past few weeks getting my seedlings going for my summer garden. This has sapped a lot of my mental focus because it is my first year doing tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants from seeds. I’ve had to spend quite a bit of time researching this and creating favorable seedling conditions.  I had heard too many stories about how difficult it can be to start from seed with these particular types of vegetables, and I’d invested too much money in the seeds, heirloom ones which I ordered from a catalog. I really didn’t want to fail. So far things are going well. It’s a lot of work since I often have to sit with my wine at the end of the day and watch my seedlings and brim with pride for a while. Kyle thinks I’m nuts. Here they are:

Heirloom tomato seedlings, various...ahem...varieties. :)

As for yesterday, we were scheduled to pick up a half cow in Cordova, Nebraska. I took the entire day off work for this task as well as the task of breaking the cow down into its various parts to store in our chest freezer. At the meat locker, we chatted for a bit with Al, the owner. His wife said by 2 o’clock today I’d be wondering what I’d gotten myself into. “We’ve already done a hog,” I said. “This is a lot different than a hog,” she replied. They wished me a Happy Easter anyway. Was that laughter I heard as we walked out? The word “suckers”?

Hauling it out...

 

... loading it in.

Make no mistake: This was a boatload of work. And I mean really hard work. Dangerous, too. When we got home, we dropped the largest chunk of meat, the hindquarter, on the floor trying to get it from the car to the table. Hundreds of pounds of meat, and it knocked my husband over on the way down. To boot, after wielding a knife for 7+ hours, I think I now have carpel tunnel. The folks who do this every day are TOUGH.

I worked on the easiest-looking piece first, basically the middle section. From here we got some very meaty ribs, which became short ribs. We also were able to get some fun steaks called flintstone chops, I think because they are very prehistoric looking, essentially a filet attached to a very long, meaty rib. I could imagine they’d make a very awesome presentation. Since this was one of the first cuts we got, we put a couple in the crock pot to eat for dinner. They turned out awesome.  I have not bought any meat at the grocery store since beginning “The Odyssey.” We have bought the occasional beef steaks at small town butcher shops outside of Lincoln, but have otherwise abstained. I was really looking forward to having beef in the house again.

We used a book called Whole Beast Butchery by Ryan Farr, a gifted butcher with an upscale butchery out in San Francisco. This is a very good book with excellent pictures. But you really need to see people doing this stuff in order to remember it. I mean it’s really a lesson in anatomy, which is why it can get complicated so quickly. I augmented my knowledge beforehand with a couple YouTube videos, so ultimately I was able to glean enough information to feel I could make a decent go of it. For instance, I now know that you can have the filets and the New York strip steaks but you can’t do that AND have a T-bone. (The filet and New York strip together make up the T-bone.) Also, a porterhouse is the same as the T-bone except it has more filet. Because I don’t have a band saw, I did not do the T-bone.  These were some of the last cuts we did of the day, and I was just too damn tired to saw them apart by hand.  In fact, I was so tired by the end, I almost forgot to extract the filets! But thanks to Kyle, we do not have to spend the rest of our lives regretting how we threw away some very expensive meat. Tip #312 on making a happy marriage: Don’t leave the filet behind.

A bunch of rib meat and flintstone chops piled high.

The hanger steak is such a weird thing. Kind of like its name suggests, it’s basically just hanging in the cavity of the animal (it is the diaphragm muscle) and you have to cut away a bunch fat and exterior that has dried as a result of the aging process. But after you’re done, you have this cylinder of meat that is a little redder than the other muscles and whose grain comes together in an odd V-shape. I have never seen hanger steak in a meat department, and I found out why: because the butchers often keep it for themselves. I’m pretty excited to try this cut.

Skirt steak, folded in half.

Another strange cut is the skirt and flank steaks. These are flat pieces of steak and I really don't know how to cook them. I think they can be seasoned, rolled, tied, and roasted. There is a lot of this kind of meat in the cow so we'll get good at cooking this.  

Lastly, I stumbled onto the brisket by accident. You’re supposed to leave a layer of fat on it for cooking, but by the time I realized what I had, it was too late, and so we have a brisket we’ll have to cook a little more carefully.

The hindquarter, almost completely de-meated.

By the end, as with the hog, I just started hacking away at it, not really caring what cut I was looking at, just wanting it to be over so I could crawl into bed after working in a cold garage all day and soothe my aching muscles. And the fatigue! Man alive. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so beat the next day. I could probably sleep for two days after that marathon. And it's hard to know for sure, but I think this stash will probably last us up to six months. 

Eating Odd Bits at my House: It's Voluntary

This is my daughter sampling our odd bits dish from this weekend. I just want you to know that she did not do it under any duress or forcing from me whatsoever. In fact, it’s not like I whip up an odd bits dish for dinner and then tell the family they have to empty their plates a la Mommy Dearest and the scene with the bloody steak. I always give anyone in the house the option to eat whatever (conventional!) leftovers we have and make clear that they are under no obligation to try “the weird stuff.”

Yum!

But guess what: They always choose to try it, which is gratifying. They trust me, but it means I do feel some pressure to make it look and taste the very best I can. One really bad experience could mean they won’t try anything of mine again for a very long time. So I really am doing my best to not screw things up.

This week’s dish was roasted bone marrow. I was going to wait until our half cow comes at the end of this month to try this dish, but we happened to go by a butcher shop during a short road trip, and couldn’t resist stopping in. It was a place called Den’s Country Meats in Table Rock, Nebraska. A tiny little place in the middle of nowhere, at the intersection of grassland and gravel.

Den's Country Meats in Table Rock,  Nebraska

They kept most of their meats in refrigerators set to just above freezing. This extends the shelf life of the meat while making it possible for people to buy meat to cook that night, i.e. no thawing.

In the back I could hear the butchers processing meat, so I thought it would be a good time to request a special order for a dish I’d had on my mind for the past couple weeks. I asked the girl at the counter for some bone disks for the marrow, and she didn’t understand and went to get one of the butchers. I explained again what I wanted, and he responded, “For your dog?” These are not the kind of requests they typically get, I take it. Anyway, eventually I walked out of there with five chunks of bone for $1. (Heckuva deal, heckuva deal.)  

You’ll recall from the previous post that after this, we wound up going to a restaurant that night that had bone marrow crostini on the menu. We ordered that, but I was a little disappointed because it was impossible to see or taste the bone marrow.

So at home, I set about the task of preparing the bone marrow, essentially roasting it at 450° for about 20 minutes. The recipe, from by cookbook Odd Bits, says you’re looking for the marrow to be “loose and giving, but not melted away.”

While that’s roasting, you prepare a small “salad” to go on top.  This consists of some minced onion, flat-leaf parsley (finely chopped – I used cilantro because that’s what I had), a handful of capers (I chopped up some calamata olives instead), and then dressed with a vinaigrette made from the juice of one lemon, an equal amount of olive oil, and a pinch of salt.

The marrow is very fatty. When it’s roasted, there’s the combination of liquidy fat mixed with the marrow flesh. The marrow in the center is pink but brown at the ends.  It doesn’t look all that great. It’s globular and gelatinous-looking when you scoop it out, and spreading it on the toast is a little awkward, but there is no beefy flavor. It simply tastes like the richest butter ever. Topped with a bit of the “salad” it really is a treat. And you can't beat the presentation.

Slices of toasted baguette,  roasted bone marrow, and the "salad" topping.  

Fine, Adventurous Dining in Lawrence, Kansas

Staying in Lawrence for one night to see a show recently, we had dinner beforehand at a place called Pachamama's, which opened in Lawrence in 1996. I really just expected a nice meal after a long day of driving. But what we got was a very classy joint and some unexpected treats.

We took one look at the adventurous appetizer menu and decided to order just one entree and use appetizers to fill out the rest of our meal, along with a bottle of wine. The two most exciting items we ordered were kibbeh and roasted marrow crostini.

Kibbeh is a Middle Eastern dish made with raw ground meat (usually lamb or goat) and spices, and then served with pieces of grilled flat bread such as pita. I had only just recently learned about this dish and was very excited to try it. I pretty much figured, because freshness is so important to preparing and eating any kind of raw meat, that I'd have to wait until I ordered my first whole lamb to make/try it. So I was excited that I wouldn't have to wait.

It actually does not look all that appetizing at first blush. But then you try it and you understand why people love it so much. The texture is velvety with a slightly salty taste and a strong component of onions/scallions on the nose. Cumin, allspice, mint, and olive oil also add to a very complex flavor combination that is mysterious and exceedingly pleasing. Ours was also served with a yogurt sauce, another delicious layer to the dish. Can't wait to try that again!

Kibbeh on the left, roasted marrow crostini in the middle, and crispy cotechino chop salad on the right.

Seeing the marrow on the menu also seemed serendipitous. We had stopped by a butcher shop on the way to Lawrence and I was able to order freshly cut bone discs for the purpose of making roasted marrow when I get home (more in another post). Seeing it on the menu mere hours after our butcher-store detour seemed to be a sign from the culinary gods. I had to have it.

The roasted marrow was served on slices of toasted baguette with slices of avocado and radish, then drizzled with a honey truffle sauce. The result was really wonderful. Creamy, crunchy, and fresh. However, if there's one reason I'm looking forward to making this at home it's because I never got a sense of the main ingredient. There was a lot going on in this appetizer that made it hard to taste the actual marrow. Making it myself will give me a chance to taste it on its own before adding a bunch of fancy extras.

The least adventurous of the three appetizers was the cotechina. This is a pork shoulder hash that has been formed into squares, coated with panko crumbs, and fried. It is served along side the "salad" which consisted of lentils, guacamole, and brussels sprouts in layers. An interesting combination of ingredients that did seem to work. I wish I had not been so full with the other items we were eating to give it a more thorough tasting.

A blissful, well-fed Kyle :)

Pork Tongue: Part 2

There are a few ways to cook tongue. For the recipe in part one of this post I poached the tongue. I also have used a pressure cooker (45 minutes at 15 lbs). Yet a third way is a slow cooker. Tried and true. The curry recipe I used is actually written for goat meat, but it worked really wonderfully for the tongue, too. 

To cook the tongues, I put them in a crock pot water (just enough to cover), a few shakes of worcestershire, a cup of dry white wine I happened to have open in the fridge, a diced onion, half a chopped green pepper, and a couple bay leaves. I let it cook all day while I was at work. After they are done, they look like this:

Pork tongues right after they have come out of the crock pot. You can see in the photo that the skin hangs on them like soft paper. This is the best time to peel them because the skin will come off easily.

Discard the cooking liquid or reserve it as broth for another dish. Peel the tongues while they are still warm so the skin comes off fairly easily. Then slice them against the grain in thin oval slices. Put the sliced tongue back in the crock pot to await the other ingredients (below).

Cooked, peeled, and sliced pork tongue.

Jamaican Pork Tongue Curry

Ingredients
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp black mustard seed
1 onion, chopped
6-8 Tbsp curry powder
1 tsp allspice powder (this is what makes it Jamaican)
2 tsp ground coriander seed
2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
4-5 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 can coconut milk
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
2-3 cooked, peeled, and sliced pork tongues
salt to taste
3-4 c. water
5 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

Heat the oil in a deep saute pan. Add the mustard seed and curry powder. When the mustard seed begins to pop, add the allspice, coriander, ginger, garlic, and onion. Cook a few minutes, until the onion is clear and rendered. Add the coconut milk and tomatoes and salt to taste. Stir and heat thoroughly. Add this curry mixture to the sliced tongue in the crock pot. Add the water and let cook for 2-3 hours. Add the potatoes in the last hour of cooking. Serve over rice and enjoy. 

As with most dishes you might bring home from your favorite Indian restaurant, the leftovers just get better as they sit in the fridge, and the same is true for this dish. You won't believe you made it yourself. It's that good. 

Pork Tongue: Part 1

I am most familiar with beef tongue, and only just recently tried pork tongue for the first time: pickled and sliced in gelatin (see picture in a previous post), a preparation that seemed best suited for eating in a sandwich with a little mayo. Simple and delicious, not the least bit objectionable.

Because I knew I was a big tongue fan, I didn't have any hesitation about buying several extra pig tongues back when we ordered the whole hog from the Stecs in November. I bought all the tongues she had, about 25 in all. So this week I defrosted six of them and decided to try a few different recipes. In this post, I'll describe how I brined three of them and then cooked them for a Hungarian potato dumpling soup. In part two of this post, I'll describe how I made the other three tongues into a curry stew and an appetizer.

Brining is the process of letting meat sit in a seasoned salt-water mixture in the refrigerator for the purpose of helping it retain juice and flavor through the cooking process. It can also can help take the edge off of stronger-flavored cut of meat. I had never brined anything before. What I will say is that it takes some planning. In fact, I have spent probably four days preparing these dishes, so it's not something I could have decided to do on the fly for company on the same day. That said, if you prepare the tongues ahead of time and get them cooked, peeled, and refrigerated, you could whip up a dish with them in very little time.

My brining recipe came from the book called Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal by Jennifer McLagan. It's a basic brine that could be used with other animal parts besides just tongue.

Basic Brine

Ingredients
8 oz salt
1 c. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. toasted coriander seeds, crushed/ground
1 Tbsp. black peppercorns, crushed/ground
1/2 tsp allspice berries, crushed/ground
1/2 tsp juniper berries, crushed/ground (I had this on hand because I use it in dry curing)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 large sprigs fresh thyme (I substituted rosemary because I didn't have thyme)
4 fresh bay leaves
1 gallon water

Put half of the water and all the seasonings in a stock pot and bring to a boil, stirring while it's coming up to temperature to dissolve the sugar and salt. Let boil for two minutes and then remove from the heat. Put in a glass container and add the other half of the water. Put in the refrigerator to cool. Meat should be put in COLD brine, not hot.

Three pork tongues after brining and prior to poaching.

To brine:
McLagan says the brining time is determined by the size of the cut of the meat. For tongues, she recommends 1/2 to 1 day. Put them in a bowl, cover with the cold brine, put a heavy bowl over them to keep the meat submerged, and put in the refrigerator. When they are done, remove them from the brine and rinse them very well in running water. Set aside for cooking.

To poach:
After brining, I cooked the tongues in a large sauce pan in a simple broth consisting of water (enough to cover the tongues), a diced onion, a couple bay leaves, a couple teaspoons of salt, couple pinches of pepper, a chopped carrot, one stalk of celery (chopped), half of a green pepper (chopped), and a clove of garlic. Simmer them for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Remove the tongues from the broth and reserve the liquid plus vegetables for the soup. Peel the skin off the tongues as soon as they are cool enough to handle them and trim any obvious pieces of fat. Don't wait to peel them after they are cold because the skin becomes a real bear to remove. You'll be surprised how soft the tongue feels in your hands. This is an indicator of the treat you're about to enjoy. It's a really fine, delicate texture unlike any other cut on the animal.

Cutting up the tongue seems to be pretty consistent across recipes. That is to say, all the ones I have seen say to cut across the grain in thin, oval slices. You could also chop the meat up, but I think you lose some of the eating experience if you do it that way.

Hungarian Sour Soup with Pork Tongue and Potato Dumplings

Soup Ingredients
3-4 cooked, peeled, and sliced pork tongues
1 medium onion
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp of olive oil
3 bay leaves
1 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp flour
salt and pepper to taste
fresh chopped parsley, garnish
vinegar, garnish
sour cream, garnish

Dumpling Ingredients
2 medium potatoes, peeled
3 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp semolina flour (the kind used to make pasta)
1 small egg
pinch salt

For the soup, saute the onions and garlic in the oil until clear. Add the flour and paprika to make a roux. Add the sliced tongue and the liquid (plus the onions, celery, etc) that the tongues were cooked in. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about 20 minutes. For the dumplings, boil the potatoes until soft. Drain, smash, and add the other dumpling ingredients. Depending on the consistency of the dumpling dough, you can either roll it into balls or, like me, use a small cookie dough scoop to form and put directly in the broth. Add the dumplings to the soup and simmer for another 20 minutes. Serve and garnish with parsley, sour cream, and sprinkle with a good vinegar if desired.

The finished soup, pre-garnish.

The sour cream and vinegar garnishes are really important. The sour cream gives it an added creaminess and the vinegar gives it a little kick. And you could use pretty much any good vinegar, even a spicy one. The tongue is unbelievably velvety. Kyle said it was "very good," adding that it was very hearty. Pretty much what you would expect from eastern Europeans!

Getting Down to Business

This being an odd bits blog, you were probably starting to wonder when or if I'll ever get around to cooking any odd bits. The truth is I've been working my way up to it. Slowly. Not only am I being careful about how I acquire the odd bits (which takes time), but there's also my subconscious to deal with. Despite my high level of interest, I'm nervous about what I'll discover once I have a dish of odd-bits meat sitting in front of me. Deep down I still harbor all the negative meat-tasting experiences I've had in my life. This morning, while I was eating breakfast, I thought it would be no problem to thumb through one of my odd-bits cookbooks to find a recipe for my next cooking adventure. I have butchered. I have discussed the indelicate topic of slaughtering over lunch with strangers. Surely looking through a harmless book with tripe recipes while eating won't affect me, right? But within minutes I was no longer interested in finishing my breakfast. OK. So I am not that tough.

I feel really good about where I'm getting my meat, which is key for me to feel good about cooking (and eating) the odd bits. Freshness and knowing the source of your meat (and organs) is paramount for safety and for the best flavor experience possible, and I believe I have achieved that. My rational self says there is nothing to fear. So we push on.

As I said, I am going slowly, which for me means starting with organs I am already a little familiar with. I was served beef liver and onions (ketchup on the side) a few times when I was little (bleck), which in retrospect seems odd to me. I don't remember my mom or dad being a huge fan of liver, can't imagine them thinking we, as kids, would take to it. And we didn't have it enough to make me think we ate it because we couldn't afford other, more expensive cuts. Thinking even further back, liver was the bait we tied to the end of our lines to catch crawdads at Lake Jacomo. So versatile, this meat. Yum!

Liver did not come back into my life until I was in my late teens. I ate liver pâté while on a student exchange to Germany. I came back to the States and instantly fell in love with Braunschweiger liverwurst. I couldn't understand how too much of it could possibly be bad for you!

So having already established a rapport with this dish but never having made it myself before, I have decided to make pâté for this week's odd-bit cooking challenge. 

I will again invoke my cousin Bill's name (his contributions to this odd-bits adventure are truly too numerous to count) since he is the one who brought this recipe by Jacque Pépin to my attention. It actually calls for chicken livers, but because I have not yet established a sustainable/organic supply of these, I am going to use the pig liver that came with the pig we butchered a couple months ago. As a result, you can see I took some liberties with the title of the recipe. Bill was right about this pâté. I had no idea it could be this mellow, delicate, and aromatic. And easy! Holy mackerel. Preparation takes a total of about 10 minutes. 

Choose-Your-Liver Pâté

1/2 lb. of liver(s), well-trimmed
1/2 small onion, thinly sliced
1-5 cloves garlic, smashed
3-4 bay leaves, whole
1-3 tsp. thyme or rosemary, leaves
salt to taste
1/2 c. water
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp
2 tsp cognac or whiskey (I used white wine)
pepper (to taste)
toasted baguette slices or crackers

Pâté ingredients simmering away on the stove, pre-food processor.

The recipe recommends choosing "paler" livers if you have the choice, since these will have a mellower flavor than the deep red ones. Combine the liver(s), onion, garlic, bay leaf(ves), thyme/rosemary, and 1/2 tsp salt in a sauce pan. Add the water and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce the heat, and stir occasionally for about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand covered for 5 minutes.

Discard the bay leaves. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the liver, onions, and garlic into a food processor and process until coursely pureed. With the machine on add the butter 2 Tbsp at a time until fully incorporated. Add the cognac/whiskey/wine and season with salt and pepper to taste until completely smooth. Pour into ramekins. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pâté and refrigerate until firm. Serve chilled.

The finished pâté spread onto toasted, thinly sliced homemade birdseed bread. Cooking it is the fast part; it's waiting for it to chill and firm up so you can eat it that takes so dang long!

After making it, I now understand why it could be so bad for you. It is incredibly rich with all that butter, but that's also what makes it so luxurious and smooth, a really wonderful way to treat yourself from time to time. My favorite way to eat it is slathered in a baguette with nothing else. There is enough bread to completely take the edge off but leaves enough of that distinct taste that lets you know you're eating something really special. In a future version of this, I will add more rosemary. I did not do the leaves as the recipe calls for. Instead I took dried rosemary and ground it up in a spice blender. This would make it possible to incorporate it into the pâté (cranking up the aromatic-ness of the spread) instead of leaving it behind in the simmer liquid.