Raclette

Raclette is kind of like fondue's poor stepchild. Where fondue caught on in America to the point where virtually everyone has a fondue set of some kind buried in their closet, raclette seemed relegated to the "what's this?" category of strange appliances married to obscure dining methods.

It's a bit more complicated than than spearing some food with a funny-looking fork and immersing it in bubbling cheese or boiling oil. You need to steam some vegetables beforehand. Then you should have some sliced cheese, typically (no surprise here) Raclette. From France.

Raclette is one of those cheeses that's a bit fragrant, but very mild. It melts perfectly and its taste marries well with steamed vegetables. It used to be available at Trader Joe's, but as with all things from that market, you never know how long they'll be available. The more expensive cheese shops should have the stuff, too - or at least an acceptable substitute. Something earthy, a bit stinky. In a pinch you could use cheddar or Gruyere, but this would not be the rockin' taste of raclette.

We used Yukon Gold potatoes, kohlrabi and broccoli. I'm not wild about the broccoli, since the kohlrabi has a similar flavor and has the added advantage of faking people into thinking they're going to eat another piece of potato. I think turnips, potatoes, kohlrabi, sunchokes and maybe parsnips would be interesting to try, all steamed ahead of time. Cauliflower and broccoli work, too. Brussels sprouts would probably be worth a try, and maybe even Chinese broccoli or bok choy.

After that, things are simple. Take a slice of cheese and place it in the tray, then place the little tray under the top tray of the raclette machine. Nothing happening? Oh. Yeah, you have to plug the thing in and let it heat up.

Once your cheese is hot and bubbly, take out the little tray and dump the cheese on your vegetables, or on some ham or even some salami (saucisson, actually). Place another slice of cheese in the little tray and repeat the process.

Drink something appropriate, like a dry rosé, a Riesling, a Vin Gris d'Alsace, un Sylvaner...

So, that's it. Simple, easy, and virtually unknown here in the United States. We got our raclette machine in a close-out for half price. Our friends, who also lived in Europe, found theirs sitting dust-covered on a top shelf in a crowded cooking shop, where it had apparently lived for years. They, too got a good discount on their machine.

So, if you come across a dust-covered raclette machine while rummaging in a store, or perhaps receive one from an eccentric European friend or relative, you're now ready to invite some friends, fire the thing up and enjoy a simple meal.

American food! Fried chicken mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuit

I don't know what came over me, since I don't normally do mainstream American food, but somehow I started with some chicken. Then threw in some potatoes. Hmm. Some biscuits would work well here. If there's potatoes and biscuits, might as well have gravy, too.

Part of this is because we did chicken in class, then we talked about roux. So I suppose this could be a form of studying. If I want to twist things that far. Or is it twisting? This could be on a test!

Buttermilk fried chicken
Ingredients

• The marinade
• Buttermilk
• Minced garlic
• Chicken, dark meat pieces, skin on
• Salt
• Puréed onions (you can throw the garlic and onions in a blender with the buttermilk for this)

The dredging flour

• A bit of salt 
• Nutmeg to taste
• More minced garlic
• Black pepper

Process

1. The day before, marinate the dark meat pieces of a chicken, skin on, in a mixture of buttermilk, puréed onions and garlic, salt, fresh thyme and black pepper.
2. The day of the feast, preheat the oven to 375° F.
3. Heat some oil in a pan, about enough to come half way up the chicken pieces.
4. Put some flour in a more or less deep, wide bowl. Add a bit of salt, a dash of nutmeg, some more minced fresh garlic, and some black pepper.
5. Dredge the buttermilk-covered chicken through the flour, making sure it's well coated, then slowly lower it into the hot oil.
6. Cook the pieces until browned, turn over, then take out and place on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. 
7. When all the pieces have been fried and are waiting on the baking sheet, place the sheet in the oven for about 20 minutes. This will finish the cooking, and also allow some of the cooking fat to drain off.
8. The chicken is now ready to eat.

That seems like a lot of steps. I suppose I could have followed the sneaky practice I've seen in some cookbooks to combine several steps in one paragraph, thus lowering the count. Well, seeming to lower it. You still have to do all that stuff if you want to make the chicken this way. If you'd wanted simpler, you could have just sautéed the pieces and finished them in the oven, right? 

Garlicky mashed potatoes
ingredients

• Russet potatoes, peeled and cut into medium dice
• Duck fat. Yes, you could use vegetable oil. Or lard. I happen to like the flavor duck fat gives to potatoes that no mere vegetable oil could ever hope to match without a lot of chemical additives that would probably be worse than the duck fat.
• Salt
• Minced fresh garlic (paste)
• Chicken stock
• Buttermilk, cold.

 Process

1. Heat a deep frying pan.
2. Put in a bit of duck fat. Add some more. Hmm. That might be a bit dry. A smidgen more won't hurt. 
3. Throw in some fresh garlic paste, just enough for it to sizzle a bit and release its aroma. Burning it would be a faux pas here, making it bitter. A bit of light browning is fine, though.
4. Throw in the potatoes. Add some salt. This will lower the pan temperature and stop the garlic from burning.
5. Let them sizzle a bit, then add some chicken stock. Turn the heat way down, cover and let things simmer gently until the potatoes are cooked and just starting to get a bit mushy. 
6. Scrape all the potatoes off the bottom of the pan, stir them around a bit.
7. Mash the spuds with a fork, then slowly add some buttermilk. Don't panic, it's only 1% milk fat, so it's actually leaner than whole milk. Add bit by bit until you have a smooth, creamy consistency. Cover and reserve.

The gravy

Ingredients

• Flour and butter (equal amounts by weight) for the roux
• Salt
• Chicken stock
• Nutmeg
• Garlic, minced fresh

Process

1. Make the roux with the flour and butter (I use butter, but who would object to duck fat?). Mix them together and put them in a pan on low heat. Stir frequently so nothing burns or sticks. You want to cook the flour to eliminate any raw taste, but beyond that how dark you cook it is up to you. I went for a light tan, a bit beyond white. I want some color in my gravy so it doesn't just look like Bechamel sauce.
2. When the roux is your favorite shade of tan, get a whisk and add the cold chicken stock and the nutmeg. Whisk frantically and pour moderately so everything blends together happily.
3. Put the pan on low heat until it thickens. Remember to keep stirring. If you made thick gravy stir more often. If it's thin and watery you can relax a bit since convection currents will do some of the stirring for you.

Fire-roasted pepper biscuits

Ingredients

• All-purpose flour
• Salt
• Baking powder
• Butter
• Bell peppers, seared 
• Buttermilk

Process

1. I wanted something a bit more fun than normal biscuits, so I added a brunoise of flamed bell peppers. 
2. First, burn the peppers over a gas burner, on a grill or blast them with a chef's torch. You could also use another type of pepper, but would get more heat in the biscuits.
3. The peppers have a lot of moisture content, so I reduced the liquid in the recipe to compensate. I weighed the peppers and subtracted a bit less than this amount from the liquid. If you forget, you may need to increase cooking time to compensate and dry things out.
4. The biscuits go together the usual way: mix the sifty stuff together dry with a whisk: flour, baking powder, salt. These are savory biscuits, so no sugar. Then add the butter and mix it in well. Then the pepper brunoise. Finally, the liquid - in this case, buttermilk. Knead lightly until the dough firms up, roll or smash it down (if it's too wet, smashing works better). Cut into whatever size you think is appropriate, place on parchment paper lined baking sheet and pop them into a 425° F oven for about 15 minutes. 

You can do the biscuits in advance. If you want, pop them in the oven to heat them up - or just smother them in gravy.

When the chicken comes out of the oven, it's showtime. Spoon some mashed potatoes into a plate, arrange the chicken on top, pour a bit of gravy around the potatoes, and garnish with a biscuit and whatever other garnish you have around. I only had flat leaf parsley. Not too original, but a bit of green is better than none.

Frites à l'ARC

We had to sacrifice potatoes to the knife today. Julienne. Bâtonnet. This dice. That dice. So, the result is lots of potatoes in different cuts.

Serving different cuts of the same vegetable is taboo in chefdom. Chef Teresa once graded me down for exactly this kind of sin against the Gods of Gastronomy. It's just not correct. It shouldn't be done.

Yet, here I am with all these potatoes. They're sitting there in the refrigerator, soaking in water and hopefully losing starch minute by minute. It's either offend the Gods by mixing cuts, or offend them by wasting food. A real dilemma.

In the end, the ingrained adage "don't waste food" won out. I remember when they used to say, "think of all those starving people in China. Eat your broccoli". I wonder if the Chinese now say, "think of all those --- big noses in America. Finish your char siu!". Not that I ever had any problems finishing my char siu, considering that all those people in China would surely disapprove of my throwing it, uneaten, into a landfill.

So, here it is, apologies to Chef Teresa for my indiscretion. It is definitely more trouble, since three different cuts all have different cooking times. Definitely not economically logical for a restaurant, but I'm at home with nothing better to do than finish projects, study, do homework, answer e-mails, deal with cat/rat issues, try to tame a half-wild cat who might want to adopt us but isn't quite sure, bake some bread and cook the rest of the pork.

This pork is a great example of fat is flavor. Almost enough to make me want to get that tattoo for real. Oh, I never posted it...

Fat is Flavor

 There it is. Chefs have lots of tattoos. It's all the rage to work 16 hours a day then go under a buzzing needle to have something ridiculous engraved on your flesh that you can watch blur, sag and uglify as you grow older. Still, sometimes it's tempting to sheep out, join the crowd, jettison one's individuality for the sake of group fashion and nonconforming conformity. Back to the pork.

The pork is just some ingredients and lots of time. Pork shoulder, cut into 3" cubes, white wine, fresh thyme, fresh marjoram (or oregano, but the marjoram needed trimming). Bay leaves, onions, garlic, more garlic, red, ripe tomatoes that it was really time to use, Yolo Wonder peppers, salt and black pepper. Throw it all in a pot and let it simmer for about three hours until the pork is meltingly tender and imbued with all the flavors floating around it. Unlike carnitas, I don't take fry the chunks in their rendered fat. The acidity of the tomatoes and the flavors of the other vegetables just seems to make any caramelization superfluous.

Meanwhile, about those potatoes. They should have soaked overnight, since every good plate has something that requires preparing a day ahead. But since I'm breaking the rules, a few hours will have to do.

Take the potatoes out of the water, dry them. Heat some oil. Fry the three types of potatoes separately, just to where they begin to take on color. Put them on a plate and do something else for an hour or so. Just before serving time, re-heat the oil and fry the three cuts separately until they just begin to show some color. If they overcook, they'll turn bitter and that would not reflect well on ARC, especially as it's an added sin over and above mixing cuts.

Toss the potatoes with some smoked salt, maybe a bit of Maldon sea salt for big flakes, a bit of fresh ground pepper, plate with the pork and serve. Eat the shoestring (julienne) and diced potatoes first and be hasty. Once you've polished them off, your sins are extirpated and you may continue your meal at a leisurely pace, sipping some Vinho Verde to keep Bacchus happy. Might as well have one happy god on your side, right?

A Steakhouse anniversary dinner... without the steakhouse

foie gras poelé, sauce échalottes

Tchin-tchin!

Steack, beurre a l'estragon, purée, couscous

This year, we have a zero in our anniversary. With the economy being in such a sorry state, celebrating in a restaurant was not an option. Pan-seared foie gras, Champagne, USDA prime steak with tarragon butter and duck fat garlic mashed potatoes and summer couscous would have really broke the piggy bank. Doing it ourselves wasn't exactly a bargain, but then no tip, no corkage fee, no potential DUI and back inside our house in less than two minutes go a long way to make up our lack of extravagance.

Pour vous qui habitent hors de l'état de Californie:
Nos politiciens qui sans doute mangent que de "fast food" merdique, avec un gouverneur qui pensait que le foie gras était une mauvaise chose, mais tromper sa femme n'était pas, se mit ensemble pour détruire tout fabrication et vente de foie gras dans notre état, parce que nous ne devons pas avoir le droit de décider pour nous-mêmes de quoi manger. Donc, ils ont signé un loi qui transforme un délice en un délit. Des le 1 janvier 2012, nous n'aurons plus le droit de manger comme nous voulons, et si on veut du foie gras il faut le chercher dans l'état de Nevada, voir plus loin. On verra si nous deviendrons des trafiquants de foie gras, recherché par les agents habillés en noir sans pitié et sans âme. Peut-être il sera plus simple de déménager vers le Canada où pour l'instant le gouvernement laisse le peuple libre choix sur leurs préférences gustatives.

Magret de canard en gastrique de mûres, Yukon Gold smashed potatoes

seared duck breast with blackberry gastrique, garlic smashed potatoes

What do you do when sour, wild blackberries have conquered part of your back yard? Make them into a gastrique and pour it over some seared duck breast, of course! Make some smashed potatoes with duck fat and garlic, sprinkle some chives over the top, and voilá! A fancy French dinner.
Served with an '06 Yorkville Highlands Merlot. Organic, even.

Dessert was ice cream sandwiches, home made. You assemble them yourself, just before putting them in your mouth, so the chocolate cracker stays crunchy and the ice cream... well, it's messy and drippy. Once you've had an ice cream sandwich like this, there's no going back to those frozen, soggy things at the store.

Braised Cache Creek Chicken with herbs

This chicken is raised in open air pastures, where it can eat whatever it can catch. Yes, that includes bugs. I can't say that it had a distinct air of cricket, but the meat was flavorful. This is good when you're boning the bird, rubbing the inside with a strong herb and prosciutto paste, rolling it up and braising it in a garlic/red wine broth in the oven.

The chips are Yukon Gold waffle cut on a mandoline, tossed in extra virgin olive oil, salt and garlic, baked, then tossed again in finely chopped fresh basil and topped with Maldon smoked sea salt.

The hors-d'œuvre was Tuscan style crostini. None of that topping rich nonsense that the Americans favor. Just recently baked ciabbata toasted on the grill, rubbed with raw garlic, drizzled with organic, extra virgin cold pressed Mission/Manzanillo blend olive oil from Happy Valley, dusted with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

The first course was a traditional Tuscan melon draped with Prosciutto, served with a glass of reserve ruby Port. That trip to Portugal did make an impression after all.

The chicken was followed with a Nicasio Valley cheese plate, then some fresh fruit, all eaten under the stars on a warm almost summer evening.

Since these birds actually move about rather than sitting in tiny cages, their meat is a bit firm. A bit of time in a brine might be useful for a bit more tenderness.

Buttermilk fish & chips

 

It was a dark but not yet stormy night. The storm was on its way, though. Rain was in the air as the trees bent in the wind. An ideal night for some comforting pub food.

This recipe started with an idea to use a thinner, lighter batter but still have moist, flavorful fish. I did not want to fool with beer batter, yeast, and a thick crust with a lot of flavor, since the goal was to bring out the fish's natural flavor and just use the batter for a bit of crunch and as a coating. The fish should be the star, after all. Instead, the fish is left in some salted buttermilk to act as a brine and get more moisture into the fish before frying. The buttermilk will also act as glue to hold the flour mixture onto the fish during frying.

I suppose I should mention that this type of cooking has an element of risk. Doing things the old school way is not the same as sticking things in a microwave and waiting for the "bing". 

Hot oil overflowing onto an open flame creates a grease fire - not a good thing, and definitely best avoided. This typically happens when your fryer has too much oil, too close to the rim. When you add the food, the moisture on its surface will flash into steam, creating bubbles. All those bubbles - combined with the food itself, will raise the level of the oil. If you have too much oil, it will overflow right onto an open flame (if you're doing this over a burner). Badaboom! Danger! No eyebrows! Always add the food slowly, even when you're certain that the oil level is fine. Dropping the food into the oil is never a good idea in any case, since hot oil hurts, leaves unsightly red welts on your skin and is overall bad form if you're trying to appear expert and cheflike.

Maybe this is a good time to check that you have appropriate materials on hand to extinguish a small kitchen inferno appropriately, too.

Never, ever use water to put out a grease fire! Remember the Wizard of Oz? Do you really want that fireball in your kitchen or in your face? No, I didn't think so. Water is heavier than oil, so what happens when you get a lot of it in the fryer is that it sinks to the bottom of the oil and flashes into steam, shooting burning oil everywhere.

If all this sounds too scary, maybe you should bake the fries and fish instead - but that's another recipe. This recipe is the real thing, hot oil, potatoes, fish. If the oven is too much a challenge, well, there's always frozen stuff and a microwave, the mainstay of cooking-challenged people everywhere - although at this point I'd rather brave the approaching storm and head for a local pub.

The Fish 

Ingredients

The Fish

• Black rockfish fillets, sliced into four inch chunks. Debone the fillets first (fish or needlenose pliers work great for this). You could also use some other type of white fish with firm flesh. If you opt for salmon, remember that your oil will be forever imbued with a good dose of fishiness. Remember to use sustainable seafood, whatever your choice!
• Buttermilk to cover fillets
• Sea salt
• Aleppo pepper (chile flakes)
• Black pepper

The flour for dredging

• All purpose flour
• Morton sea salt flakes
• A bit of kosher salt (since the flakes won't all stick)
• Aleppo pepper
• Black pepper

Process

1. Mix the buttermilk, salt and peppers together, pour over the fish, mix everything together so that each piece of fish is well coated. Place in refrigerator for at least two hours.
2. Mix the flour, salt, peppers together and set aside in a large mixing bowl suitable for dredging the fish.
3. Heat a suitable vegetable oil to a point where a chip (piece of potato) bubbles energetically when dipped into the oil. It doesn't have to be smoking, and it's probably a good idea that it's not.
4. Dredge the fish in the flour mixture, making sure that the pieces are well coated. When removing the fillets, shake them a bit to remove excess flour.
5. Your oil should be nice and hot at this point. Slowly dip the fish into the hot oil and let go. Don't drop it in unless you like oil burns all over your forearms. The fish will cook much quicker than the fries, so stagger the two processes.
6. When the fish is golden brown, remove it from the oil, turn off the heat and set it on a rack or screen to let the excess oil drip off.

The Chips

The chips should not come out of a large bag that's been in a freezer for an unknown amount of time. They should be cut from scrubbed Russet potatoes, sliced and done in a three step process just like in Belgium. No, they're not French. Just ask a Belgian if you don't believe me.

Ingredients

• Russet potatoes, julienned. If you have a mandoline, you can slice them quickly. If you're a gadget freak, you can get a gizmo that mounts on the wall and slices them just about instantly. If you have a really great, razor sharp knife you can do them all by hand.
• Salt, pepper for tossing on the finished chips

Process

1. Soak the potatoes in water, preferably overnight. If you're in more of a hurry, you can rinse the potatoes until the water is clear and soak them for less time. This is to remove excess starch for crispier chips.
2. About an hour before showtime, heat a suitable high temperature vegetable oil. Use a frying pan or fryer that's deep enough to cover the fries yet have ample room between the top of the fryer and the surface of the oil. The fries will bubble energetically when they go in, raising the surface of the oil so it's essential that this can all happen inside the fryer. 
3. Place the fries in the oil slowly. This lets you avoid splashing and consequent burns, and also lets you verify that you didn't put too much oil in the fryer. If the bubbles get almost to the top, save the rest of the fries for a later batch. 
4. Fry the potatoes until they start to get limp, not golden. That's the next step. Leave the potatoes to cool off. Don't worry about draining off excess oil at this point, since you're going to re-fry the chips anyway. Turn off the heat under the oil.
5. Before meal time, start heating the oil. Since you may need to fry the chips in batches, allow time for multiple fryings as needed (you can heat the oil for the fish so it's ready too - just be careful not to overheat it while you're doing the chips).
6. Fry the chips until they're just a nice golden brown. Drain off the excess fat.
7. Toss the chips with some salt and pepper and serve immediately. If all went well, you've also cooked the fish and everything is in perfect synchronization. 

Place the fish over the fries, garnish with a lemon wedge and dinner is ready. If you insist on being very British, make sure you have some malt vinegar on hand.