Soup for a Lousy Day

Yesterday was rainy and chilly and not at all the beautiful May day that I hoped it would be. On top of that, I wasn't and I'm not feeling well with a slight head/chest cold that is dragging me down. Ann wasn't at the top of her game either. I decided to come home early from work and make us a pot of soup. While I was in the cooler scrounging carrots and celery, I noticed that we have duck eggs coming out of our ears now, so I grabbed a bunch to take home. On the way home, I picked up some chicken thighs.

Chicken Soup/Stracciatella

I couldn't decide between plain old chicken soup and stracciatella, so I made a hybrid. After I made the stock by poaching the chicken with the ends of the onion, carrots, and celery, I strained it and set the chicken aside to cool, discarding the vegetables. The stock back on the flame, I added diced carrot, celery, and onion to the stock and seasoned it, letting the vegetables cook until tender, about fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, I picked the chicken and returned it to the pot. Once the vegetables were tender, I brought the stock to a rapid boil and whisked in well-beaten duck eggs with a fork.

And there you have it: hybrid chicken soup and stracciatella. Stracciatella typically contains grated cheese and often green herbs, but not when I'm feeling sick.

Snowshoe WV Monday

From the moment I took the dogs out on Monday morning around 6 am, before the sun got up over the mountain behind us (if we could have seen it through the clouds), it was clear that there would be no morel hunting that day. The ground was covered in frost and the mist was so thick around that it seemed that it was nearly raining. That was a harbinger of a cold, gray, and rainy day, an inside day.

Although I was looking forward to foraging for morels, given how tired I was from a year without a vacation and from an incredibly busy week before we closed, I was OK with a day of doing little to nothing, of worrying about what to eat and drink and nothing more serious than that.

Later morning found us all sitting around the table in the bay window in the kitchen taking in the day and sipping coffee while chatting and catching up on life. Now that Mark and Kelley live three and a half hours from us, chances to visit are few and far between. Now that the resort is closed between ski season and the summer season, Mark and Kelley are kicking it, waiting for work to pick back up in a few weeks, and it was a good time to catch up. During the seasons, they are extremely busy doing ski patrol, guiding bike rides and hikes, and working in the bars and restaurants up on top of the hill.

We finally got motivated to make breakfast,  closer to lunch time than to breakfast time, and it was a group effort with all of us pitching in.

Cooking Bacon

Bacon and Ramps

Beating Duck Eggs

Duck Eggs with Ramps

I had brought along a dozen duck eggs from the restaurant because we were drowning in them: the girls are laying hot and heavy now. We slowly caramelized chopped ramp bulbs in duck fat and then scrambled the eggs to which we had added chiffonaded ramp greens. The plate of eggs, bacon, and slices of Ann's bread made for a wonderful late breakfast/early lunch.

Scallop Seviche

By late afternoon, I am sure that a little bit of wine had been consumed and we were starting to get a little hungry. I had brought some seafood from the restaurant, 3 scallops and 8 crab cakes, that needed to be eaten and eaten soon. The seviche came as the answer to the question, "How can I feed four adults with three scallops?" I knew there was leftover cilantro from the chili the night before and with Kelley's help, I had soon gathered a lime, some grape tomatoes, some celery, and some garlic together with some chile flakes. Quite a tasty little nibble or two if I do say some myself.

Asparagus and Crab Cakes

For dinner, we ate the asparagus and the crab cakes that I brought from the restaurant. We used Mark's big 14-inch cast iron skillet to cook all of the crab cakes at one time. Brilliant! More board games ensued after dinner and more wine was consumed as we discussed going on a hike and a picnic in the morning, to take advantage of the forecasted sunny weather.

Crab and Smoked Salmon Benedict

Crab and Smoked Salmon Benedict

I'm really not much of a Benedict fan, but Ann is and so I set out to make one for her on Easter Sunday. She wanted to put the Benedict on a crumpet, but there are no crumpets to be found in our town, and I did not have the desire to make them, although I have promised to make crumpets for her sometime soon.

Lacking crumpets, I borrowed a little bit of creamy Arborio rice pudding from work and mixed in a good bit of grated Pecorino Romano cheese and some fresh chives from the garden. I formed the rice into perfectly circular forms using a ring mold and then seared them in a black steel pan, hot holding them in a very slow oven while the rest of lunch was cooking. Next up were the crab cakes, which also went into the oven to stay warm.

Then I attempted to make a hollandaise and failed utterly. It happens even to us professionals. I was trying to make too small a batch with the wrong equipment. So I went for the handy dandy squeeze bottle of pimentón sauce in the fridge.

The assembly was very straightforward: rice cake down, finely minced smoked salmon next, then crab cake, then poached duck egg, then pimentón sauce, and finally, a few snipped chives.

Although it looks great and was well cooked, the dish didn't really work for me. All the flavors and textures were too similar, a white on white experience for me.

Brunch: Chile Verde on Green Chile Latke, Poached Duck Egg

My kids have always claimed that breakfast or brunch is the best meal that I make. I don't do it that often because the thought of eating at anytime within the first couple of hours after I awake is unbearable. But Ann asked me to make brunch on Sunday and so I did, at 1:30 in the afternoon!

Chile Verde on Green Chile Latke, Poached Duck Egg

I have always been a huge fan of breakfasts in New Mexico, which often include chile, either red or green, or for those people who cannot make up their minds, both. When thinking about brunch food, my mind always heads to the Southwest and today was no different. I decided to bring my pork chile verde to a latke, but change up the latke by adding diced poblano chile to it. My answer to the question "Red or green?" is green for most dishes.

Layered from the bottom: green chile latke, carnitas, poached duck egg, tomatillo salsa verde, and cilantro.

One other thing about the latke: I've started leaving the skin on the potato in recent months. I just grate the potatoes skin and all.

Smoked Salmon Hash with Poached Duck Eggs

On Thursday, when Sarah brought us the first duck eggs of the year (who knew the girls were laying already?), I knew I wanted to poach some on Sunday morning and put them over a hash of some kind. Saturday night as I was leaving the restaurant, I went on a scavenger hunt to see what I could find: an end of smoked salmon, some unloved slabs of sweet potato, some smoked sausage, three little yellow potatoes, a few chives, and four duck eggs. Outstanding!

Smoked Salmon, Sweet Potatoes, Smoked Sausage, Potatoes, Chives, Duck Eggs

Smoked Salmon Hash with Poached Duck Eggs

Easter 2014

Like other such Easter mornings, I was awakened far too early by the sunrise service at one of the two nearby churches (or maybe both). Amplified voices are just what I need at sunrise after a long, hard dinner slog the night before. But I'm used to it and I don't really begrudge the churches their once-a-year celebrations. They didn't really get the dogs too riled this year, so it was possible to sleep on-and-off through the service. And bless Ann for getting up before me and taking the dogs outside. Not having to do that one day in my life is priceless, not that I really mind, but just this simple luxury was wonderful.

Anemones in the Morning Light

Easter to me means spring flowers, but this year, everything is 2-3 weeks late on account of our long, hard winter. So this year, I had to suffice with our earliest late winter/early spring flowers, anemones, which are quite stunning in the bed out front of the house.

Duck Eggs: Breakfast of Champions

Now that we have a steady supply of duck eggs, four weeks later than in any prior year, Ann asked me to bring some home for Easter breakfast. What a great idea! Duck eggs are so fabulous! These ended up scrambled and eaten in breakfast burritos.

Bob and Mary, Guests of Honor

After attending Easter Mass, Bob and Mary drove out from McLean to have lunch with us. Ann did a fantastic job of putting together a very simple menu that we could execute with very little effort, a good thing because I am now 51 weeks without a vacation and am whipped. My tolerance for large crowds and complex cooking is nil.



Dolmades to Start

We started with dolmades and really delicious goat cheese and green olive crostini.



Along with Green Olive and Goat Cheese Crostini

Ann picked up a recipe somewhere for the olives and they turned out wonderful. We pitted and roughly chopped them, then Ann added orange zest, fresh thyme, and garlic chives. That little pop of orange is really marvelous. Keeper!



Milk-Braised Pork Shoulder, the Main Event

For our main course, Ann decided on milk-braised pork, always a delicious thing! On Saturday, I sliced a few steaks off of a pork shoulder and braised them in milk on a bed of crushed garlic cloves, fresh thyme branches, and a couple of bay leaves. About six hours this pork spent in a slow oven, six hours of becoming super unctuous.

Twin Food Processors

To go with the pork, she decided that we should have pommes Anna, that amazing French classic potato dish. It is an old-school dish and I am an old-school kind of chef. Here you see my twin food processors: a knife and a mandoline. Even at the restaurant, it is very rare that I use our big Robot Coupe.


The Perfect Pommes Anna Pan

And likewise, I eschew the fancy copper cocottes for pommes Anna in favor of the old Griswold cast iron frying pan. As you will see, it does an amazing job at this and many other tasks. I don't understand why everyone doesn't have a cast iron pan. Well, I do. They take work to keep up and most people are lazy.



Ready for the Oven



We Really Need Smell-o-Vision for These Pommes Anna!

And so our dinner was very simple, yet with outstanding flavor. The plates, as Ann commented, were very pedestrian and a great departure from what we do at the restaurant, but the flavors were outstanding: fall-apart tender pork, sensual pommes Anna, and the first broccoli of the year. Easy to prepare and even easier to eat.

"The Most Boring Plate Ever," says Ann; but How Delicious?

Ann decided to make for dessert a batch of lemon cupcakes (because her mom loves lemon cake) with cassis buttercream.



Gearing up for Buttercream

And the result was gorgeous! I am not a dessert eater and these were outstanding. Brava Ann!


Awesome Finale! Cassis Buttercream on Lemon Cupcakes



Pasta Carbonara

If you've followed this blog for any time (and that would be zero of you reading this right now), you will recall that this is not the first time that I've done pasta carbonara here. The previous time was just after I made my first batch (of very many) of pancetta.

Last night was just strange. We had almost no business, sadly typical of a Thursday night during the NCAA basketball tournament, so I decided to bail early and spend the evening with Ann. She texted me to bring home something for dinner so I went into the walk-in to see what might pique my interest. I spied a slab of speck, the delicious lightly juniper-smoked cured pork belly from Alto Adige. Unlike any other cured meat in the world, I think of it as a first class lightly smoked ham, mostly because it is made from very lean bellies and is more meat than fat.

Cubed Speck

High Acid Syrah for the Carbonara

This Cochon Syrah (95% with 5% Viognier) comes from mostly cool climate sites in California (Russian River Valley, Mendocino, Dry Creek, though there's some Napa fruit in it too). It has a minty nose that I associate more with Australia than California and it finishes with great acidity, perfect for Pasta Carbonara.

Trofie, Duck Eggs, Speck, Pecorino Romano, Parsley

Although Pasta Carbonara generally features a long pasta, I didn't have any on hand for this impromptu dinner, while I did happen to have a bunch of fresh trofie, the signature pasta of Liguria.



How Beautiful are These Duck Egg Yolks?

The sauce is made by mixing the hot pasta with the rest of the ingredients right in the pasta bowl.

Food of the Gods!

Pasta Carbonara with Speck and Duck Eggs

500 grams pasta
2 tablespoons butter
4 ounces speck, diced
3 duck egg yolks
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano
handful of fresh parsley, minced
salt
reserved pasta water

While the pasta is cooking, heat the butter in a skillet and cook the speck for a couple of minutes. Into your pasta bowl put the duck egg yolks, the cheese, and the parsley and mix well. Lightly drain the pasta just as it gets done and unceremoniously dump it on the egg yolk mix. Pour over the butter and speck. Toss it all together, adding more hot pasta water as necessary to make a fluid sauce. Season as necessary. Eat!

Huevos de Pato con Chorizo

Sunday morning we awoke to see that a large spring snowstorm had just trashed the Midwest and had us dead center in its sights. There seemed no doubt that we were going to get dumped on once again. It also seemed like getting to work on Monday would be problematic and closing of school seemed a foregone conclusion. So I suggested to Ann to head to FoodMaxx and stock up on some food for a long snowy weekend. We hunkered down this weekend and did what we always do when the weather turns against us: we cooked and drank wine and had a great old time sitting in front of the fire!

It is never a really good idea to go shopping for food when you're really hungry and by the time we got to the store, we were really hungry. After grabbing a bunch of stuff for dinner, we started thinking about what to eat for breakfast/lunch. Ann said, "We have duck eggs!" and we were off to grab some chorizos to make one of my most beloved foods ever, huevos con chorizo.

Duck Eggs and Salvadoran Chorizos

That's an Extra Large Rhode Island Red Egg on the Right!

If you've never worked with duck eggs, you have absolutely no clue what you're missing. You can see the huge size difference between a duck egg and an extremely large chicken egg in the photo above. But what you can't see in the photo is how rich and creamy duck eggs are compared to chicken eggs. Once you eat a duck egg, you will never want another chicken egg, I assure you.

Good news for us is that the ducks have been laying for about three weeks now and after a long winter without, we are now back in duck eggs again. And customers at the restaurant are also the beneficiaries of these avian gifts: we make all our pastries with duck eggs during the season.

¡Que Delicioso!

Memorial Day Breakfast

Pupusas, Duck Eggs, Bloody Mary—Now That's Breakfast!

Pupusas are one of the world's great comfort foods; thank you El Salvador for your contribution to the world! Last week, we scored some at the market and had been planning to have them one morning for breakfast, not that these stuffed tortillas are really breakfast food, but I have always enjoyed them for brunch.

I miss the days when César at Sweet Sunset Bakery would serve pupusas on Sundays, pupusas that his wife would pat out by hand. Sadly, he closed shop and left town a couple years ago. There is a new Salvadoran store near us that offers pupusas, but we haven't been there yet. These pupusas, both bean-filled and cheese and loroco-filled, came from the freezer case. BTW, pupusas freeze just fine, in case you ever make any. Make way too many and freeze the rest.

After a couple of hours working out in the yard before the sun got too hot, I was starving. I starting browning the pupusas in a pan and then I scrambled some duck eggs and basil to go with them. What a great dish that is! Duck eggs are so much richer and even more eggy than chicken eggs. While I was dealing with the pupusas and eggs, Ann was making her signature bloody Marys.

The pupusas weren't as good as fresh (the bean-filled ones were better and I couldn't really find any loroco in the others) but any pupusa beats no pupusa hands down!