Kimchi and Other Fermented Food

A jar of kimchi.  Photo by Rob Robitaille

Most people don't really think about it much, or at all for that matter, but what would the world be like without fermented foods?  Most people can think of the obvious ones; beer, wine, and liquor, but there are tons of fermented food that are consumed every day.  Sauerkraut, sour pickles, miso, yogurt, butter milk, bread, sour cream, vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce, kimchi; the list goes on and on.  And it is all done by an army of beneficial bacteria that exist almost everywhere.  One of the most simple examples of a fermented food in sauerkraut, and I am not kidding when I say simple.  Two ingredients: cabbage and salt.  That's it.  The rest is done by bacteria that exist in our environment.  In the case of sauerkraut and other vegetable ferments, is our little work horse lactobacillus.  In this example, you thinly slice the cabbage, then add the proper amount of salt, mix it up, let is sit for a bit, then pack it into a jar or crock and seal it so that it can out-gas but not pull back any oxygen.  The salt impedes the bad bacteria that could harm us and lets lactobacillus (and other friendly bacteria) thrive in this anaerobic environment.  The result is a tangy, slightly acidic and (arguably) delicious preserved food.  As I have mentioned before, my mom is German and eating sauerkraut was normal for me.  It was not until I went to school that I found out, much to my chagrin, that not everyone shared in my love for sauerkraut nor was it part of their normal diet. I would have to investigate further into what else my mom was serving me for dinner, because apparently we were very odd indeed.  I went on to learn that sloppy joes are normally served in a burger fashion, not open faced with sauerkraut as we were used to eating.  By the way, if you are not averse to sauerkraut, I suggest you try soppy joes that way.  It is remarkable.  I also learned that the potato salad most people ate had pickles, eggs, and mustard in it.  Mom and I definitely needed to talk about this over a glass of chocolate milk.

I digress.  You are probably wondering about the kimchi in the photo.  While most normal people spend Saturday night going out, or watching TV, I made kimchi.  I know, I'm a freak.  The recipe was inspired by Sandor Katz's recipe from his excellent book "Wild Fermentation".  If you are at all interested in this topic, I suggest you pick up a copy. He is, and I mean this in the best possible way, a fermentation nerd.  Kimchi is a Korean dish that is eaten every day and they take it very seriously.  It is delicious and arguably medicinal.  Even though it is spicy, I myself have found it to settle my stomach.  The kimchi pictured above is a cabbage kimchi, or baechu kimchi.  It consists of napa cabbage, radishes, carrots, ginger, garlic, onion, fish sauce, hot peppers, and of course, salt.  It is also worth mentioning that this is but one variation of kimchi.  Kimchi exists in many, many forms and I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject.  Since kimchi is still made in many homes in Korea, I would suspect that there are as many recipes as there are people making it.  All I know is that I love the stuff and can't wait until the jar I made last night is ready to eat.

Cooking on Slate

Shrimp cooking on slate.  Photo by Rob Robitaille

 I love cooking on slate.  It is not very common in this country, but more so in France.  Called pierrade cooking, it is basically a piece of slate over an open flame.  The slate acts much like any other pan, but it imparts a wonderful mineral flavor to whatever is cooked on it, and if used in a fireplace, you get a nice smokey flavor as well.  But, we don't have a wood fireplace and the thought of standing in the snow over the Weber has lost its appeal now that I am 45, so it was time to utilize the next best thing, a gas cook top.  We decided on shrimp and scallops, which had nothing more than a pinch of salt for seasoning.  The rest of the seasoning was from the slate. The shrimp were slightly seared and perfectly done.  The slate adds a mineral hint, which initially reminds you of black pepper, but more complex.  It is wonderful. 

Now, you may be wondering where you get slate for cooking?  I get mine from the flooring section of my local home center.  The important thing is that it can't be chemically treated in any way, so it is best to verify that fact before buying it.  These are just straight up untreated 100% slate floor tile.  Once you have your tiles in hand, the rest is easy, but there are some caveats.  We have already talked about the most important one, no chemicals.  The next most important thing is to keep them in a very dry place.  I always keep a box in one of my lower cupboards.  If they are not kept in a dry place, the moisture will cause the tile to pop apart when you heat it.

Here is how I use the slate tile.  I give it a quick wash and dry it very well.  Then I put it in the oven and turn it on to 500 so that the tile can temper.  Once the oven beeps telling me that it has reached 500, I leave it in for another 15 minutes.  I like this method because the oven works like a containment unit in the event your tile was damp and it pops apart.  When the 15 minutes have passed, I  move the slate with a pair of tongs to the hottest burner on my cook top and fire it up.  Slate is not like cooking on metal and it takes a bit to get it really hot.  Once a drop of water skitters on it, it is ready to use.  Then, just cook your food like you would normally.  Later, once the tile has cooled, you can check it to see if it is damaged.  If it still seems to be in one piece, you can wash it and put it away for another use.  However, I have found they tend to crack in half after only one use, but occasionally I do get two uses out of one. Fortunately, a box of slate tiles is relatively inexpensive, and it's not like I use them every day.

If you decide that this is something you would enjoy doing and you are a bold cook, I would encourage you to try, but be very careful.  You will be dealing with a natural product that has a tendency to do what it wants from time to time.  But, you if are cool with that, go forth and boldly cook and above all, have fun.

Obatzda - Bavarian Cheese Spread



Obatzda.  Photo by Rob Robitaille

 My mom is Bavarian, so this snack showed up from time to time, usually when we had guests.  It goes very well with beer, as do many German dishes.  It is basically a cheese spread made with a soft cheese, butter, paprika, onion, beer, and salt that is served with crackers.  There are other variations, but this is most similar to the way Mom makes it.  Although you could probably make it in a food processor, I like to make it the traditional way, which is to mash it all together with a fork on a plate.  That way it will have some small chunks of cheese in it, which is a nice contrast.  I hope you give it a try.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. room temperature Brie, with the rind.  (See note)
• 4 oz. butter
• Sweet Paprika, to taste
• 2-3 TB minced onion
• Beer (I prefer something lighter, like lager, but you can use whatever you want)
• Salt to taste

Place the cheese and butter on a plate, and mash with a fork, starting on the outside and working inward.  Mash and fold together until all the large pieces are incorporated.  Add the paprika and onion, and continue to mash and fold together.  Add enough beer until the mixture loosens up and becomes spreadable.  Add salt if needed and either push together in the center of the plate, or place it into another serving bowl or plate.  Garnish with some more paprika and server with crackers, bread, or pretzels.  Guten Appetit!

Note: Traditionally this is made with Camembert, but we like Brie better.  Also, the rind adds a lot of flavor, but if you are not a big fan of the rind, you can remove it.

Duck Tataki



Duck Tataki.  Photo by Rob Robitaille

 I remember the first time I had tataki.  Beef tataki - at our favorite sushi place in the Twin Cities.  I was perusing the menu, saw it, and read the description.  Essentially, quickly seared raw beef, thinly sliced, and served with ponzu.  I don't know why, maybe it was the Mai Tai, but I wasn't about to pass up an experience like that.  The server returned a few minutes later and delivered a beautiful plate with perfect rectangles of paper thin, generously marbled beef, layered one over the other with a garnish of thinly sliced red cabbage artfully arranged above it, and small nest of thinly shredded diakon off to the side.  I stared at it, chop sticks at the ready, not really sure where to begin.  I almost felt like a vandal ready to spray paint over Monet's Water Lilies.  Fortunately, that feeling faded once I took my first bite.  The beef was buttery and tender, and the sauce was lively and bright.  It was a taste experience I had never had before and I didn't want it to end, but like all good things, it did.  That experience changed me in some visceral way.  Although I had eaten plenty of raw fish, I had never really tried raw meat, or at least, meat that rare.  Since then, I have eaten it numerous times both in restaurants and at home.

My wife also loves tataki, so last night I decided to make duck tataki, pictured above.  Like the one I had at the restaurant on that wonderful night, this also was served with ponzu.  I included some shredded scallions and a thinly sliced lettuce salad, also served with ponzu.  It brought me back to my happy place just like that first night.

I think it is time we talk about...salt.



A salt box behind Sel de Rose, Smoked Chocolate Salt, Hawaiian Pink Sea Salt, and Spanish Smoked Seasoned Salt.  Photo by Rob Robitaille.

Okay, this is a hot button for me. Just the other day I heard someone say "salt is bad for you", and they were dead serious.  Now, I am not a person that goes around looking to start something, but I couldn't let that one go.  I would like to tell you what happened, but my lawyer has advised against it.  Just kidding.  I did go on to educate that person about salt, though.  So, let's clear the air about salt.  Salt is not bad for you.  You need it to live.  Think about it, your tongue is specifically designed to be able to detect salt.  However,  no one will argue that too much salt isn't good for you.  That is why too much salt doesn't taste good.  If you put a few grains of salt in your mouth, it tastes good and it is a pleasant sensation.  But, if you put, say, a teaspoon of salt in your mouth (which I am not advising you to do), it fails to be a pleasant experience and you start looking to get it out of your mouth, quickly.  That is Mother Natures way of saying, you need salt, but don't be an idiot.  I personally don't worry about my sodium intake for one simple reason: I rarely eat processed food.  Processed food is full of salt.  Home cooking, if done properly, does not need that much salt because there are a lot of other flavors playing a role.  A lot of processed foods don't really taste that good by themselves and instead lean on salt to save them.

In the kitchen I use Kosher salt. I never use table salt, nor iodized salt*.  Kosher salt is, well, less salty by volume, so it is nicer to work with because you can't over salt as easily.  1 part table salt is roughly the same as 1.5 parts Kosher.  Kosher salt is also very pure, so all you are really getting is NaCl.  The salt box pictured above sits in my kitchen between my prep area and the stove so it is always handy.  The right hand compartment is filled with Kosher, which I use as the main salt in cooking.  When the meal is served, the salt has been adjusted, so I rarely put a salt shaker on the table unless we are having corn on the cob.  The best way to salt food is with your fingers, hence the salt box.  If you don't have a salt box, you can use a small dish or anything else that trips your trigger.  Just as long as it is roomy enough to be able to grab a pinch of salt between your first two fingers and thumb.  To apply salt, pinch the salt between your first two fingers and your thumb.  Then, in a horizontal circular motion, gently rub your fingers together to sprinkle the salt on your food from a height of about 8-12 inches.  This way the salt will be distributed over a larger area, reducing the risk of salty "hot spots".

It really makes me sad when someone says "I will just let people add their own salt at the table", or "I didn't salt [whatever food] because I want you to to experience what [whatever food] is supposed to taste like by itself."  That is just wrong on so many levels.  The food will be flat and bland.  Salt enhances flavor.  Therefore, salt throughout the cooking process (with the obvious exception of large cuts of meat, poultry and fish).  Small adjustments will help you hit your mark more accurately than a large adjustment.  And, use your common sense.  If something is going to be reduced, don't get carried away with salt because it is just going to get saltier when you reduce it.  Once something is too salty, unless it is something that can be added to in order to dilute it, you are pretty much out of luck.  However, that is not to say it is garbage either.  For example, I made a duck recipe that was supposed to be heavily salted and it wasn't supposed to end up salty.  Something went wrong along the way and it was way too salty to eat the way it was. But, duck isn't exactly cheap, so I made a kettle of bean stew and added the duck.  The duck and the stew both became perfectly seasoned.  It was so good that it went into my recipe collection.  It is important to note, that once you add salt to something and stir it, you need to leave it be for a while so the salt has a chance to mix in properly before tasting again.  This is more important for your final adjustment right before serving. 

You will notice that, along with the salt box, there are a couple of other salts in the picture above called finishing salts, so named because they are used right at the finish of a dish so they can impart their particular flavor.  Finishing salts always have something more than NaCl in them.  Some are smoked, some are sea salts that contain flavorful minerals particular to some geographic area, and other simply have things added to them, such as the Sel de Rose, which has rose petals added.  Although I don't really use them a lot, they are fun because they can help impart unique flavors on your food.  For example, the Smoked Chocolate Salt is good on steak and the Spanish Smoked Season Salt is good on shrimp or in paella.  But, enough about those.  I encourage you to experiment and have fun with them.

Finally, I never follow a recipes salt measurement unless it is needed for some kind of reaction or process, such as curing, pickling, baking, etc.  Otherwise, I taste often and use my experience and senses.  As I had mentioned in my previous post, tasting often throughout the process not only helps you hit your flavor "mark", it really helps you understand what is happening and will help build your experience level.  You will find yourself able to mentally evaluate how much salt you need to start with based on what ingredients you have added, the volume you are cooking, and how the finished dish will be used.  For example, if you are braising lamb shanks, you need to salt the lamb ahead of time, but be very careful with your braising liquid if you plan to reduce it for a sauce.  Another example is something like a salad dressing.  By itself, it may be a little bit salty, but since lettuce doesn't come seasoned, they will balance out when combined.  As silly as it may seem, salting is a valuable skill and does take practice to become good at.  But like anything else that takes practice, it is worth it in the end.

*Table salt is hard to use in a kitchen.  It is hard to pinch with your fingers and tends to make things too salty.  Iodized salt just tastes bad, and I have never seen a recipe that has iodine as an ingredient.  There are a lot of foods that are high in iodine, namely seafood, that can, and should be incorporated into ones diet.  I have not had iodized salt in years and had my thyroid checked just this past spring.  It was fine.  Ultimately, do what you think is right for you, but I, along with a lot of other cooks out there, avoid iodized salt like the plague.

Smoked Salmon Penne and Cheese

Photo by Rob Robitaille

Yesterday it snowed.  Not a lot, but enough to require shoveling and snow blowing.  As I trudged up my driveway after work, I made the decision to take care of it while I was already cold from the walk home. Then I would take refuge in my warm house for the rest of the day.  So, after blowing snow in the wind, and having to stop and replace an auger bolt that sheared off when my snow blower found that chunk of 4x4 I forgot to pick up when I could actually see it when there wasn't snow on it the day before, I finished the job and went inside.  I changed into something warm and started thinking about what to have for dinner.  Actually, I usually start thinking about what to make for dinner when I am getting ready each morning, which may explain a lot about me.  But, the cold and the snow definitely guided my choice a bit to something that I always love on a cold day.  Mac and cheese.  Although I rarely use elbow macaroni, we still refer to it as mac and cheese.  But, it seemed more appropriate, since the dish included smoked salmon, to refer to the specific pasta as well.  I used penne.  Why?  Because I have a boat load of it in my pantry, and I already decided I wasn't leaving the house for the rest of the day, so penne was the lucky winner.  I also decided to use Havarti since dill goes so well with both Havarti and smoked salmon.  It turned out fantastic and was just what I needed.  Here is the recipe, as best as I can approximate.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 TB minced shallot
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 3 TB butter
• 4 TB flour
• 4 C warm whole milk
• 2-3 tsp dried dill weed
• fresh ground white pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 - 2 C shredded Havarti, depending on how cheesy you want it
• 1/2 C shredded smoked salmon (or however much you would like)
• salt to taste
• 1 LB prepared penne
• garnish with a bit of dill weed and smoked salmon if you like

In a large sauce pan, melt the butter over medium low heat and add the shallot and garlic.  Cook until the shallot and garlic is soft, but not brown.  Increase the heat to medium and add the flour.  Whisk for a few minutes.  We are looking to cook out the raw flavor of the flour but not add any color to it.  Next, add the milk, dill weed, and pepper.  Increase the heat and keep whisking.  The sauce won't thicken until it starts to simmer.  Keep the sauce at a simmer and keep whisking.  I whisk the sauce for about 20 minutes because it will make a smoother sauce.  If you don't, the sauce will be grainy.  Taste it several times along the way*. 

Now, remove the pan from the heat and start whisking in the Havarti a little at a time paying attention to your whisk to make sure all the cheese is incorporating.  Repeat until all the cheese has been added.  Trade your whisk for a wooden spoon and add the salmon, gently folding until incorporated.  You don't want it to fall apart into small specks.  Now, adjust your salt if needed.  Add the penne by starting with half of it and fold it in.  Add more if there is too much sauce for your taste.  Serve with a garnish of smoked salmon and dill weed.  Enjoy!

*In fact, taste your food often throughout the cooking process.  It will help you understand what is happening to it along the way and give you opportunity to adjust seasonings.  The only seasoning I wouldn't mess with too much until the end is salt, because we are going to add  cheese and smoked salmon, which are unknown variables.  And, since this is basically a liquid, you can add salt at the end.

Ginger Scallion Crab

Photo by Rob Robitaille

Crab was on sale at our local market the other day.  There were impressive king crab legs and snow crab legs.  So, decision time.  Which one?  King crab is, well, king.  But it pokes your hands when you work on wrestling the meat out and takes one heck of a big pot to steam, so I decided on snow crab, my second favorite.  But after having lobster last weekend, I really wasn't in the mood to be slathering these in butter, but instead decided on an Asian inspired preparation.  Crab steamed with ginger and scallions.  Man, were they good, and they were really simple.  One thing you need to know about me is that I never measure, so my recipes are mere guidelines.  I try to get it as close as I can, but you need to let your senses guide you. 

The ingredients (for two people) are as follows:

• Oil for frying (canola, or peanut is even better)
• 2 TB ginger, minced
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 2 LBs crab legs, cut into manageable sized pieces (body, first section of leg, end of leg, claws-chela, actually from high school biology)
• 3-4 TB water
• Salt to taste
• A splash of the sauce from the recipe below
• 4-5 scallion, cut into 4 inch pieces
• Sticky rice, recipe follows
• Stir fried napa cabbage, recipe follows

Heat your wok until smoking hot (in the mean time, you need to get the rice going-multitask, baby).  Add the oil, swirl around to coat the sides a bit, then throw in your ginger and garlic.  Stir fry for a minute or two, until fragrant, but not browned.  Add the crab and stir fry for another minute or two.  Add the water, salt, and sauce and stir fry until the sauce starts to come together, then cover for a couple minutes.  Uncover and stir a few times.  Add scallions and cover for five minutes.  Remove to warm plates and set aside in a warm place. Don't rinse the wok because you can make following Stir Fried Napa Cabbage, and the fragrance of the crab will make it that much better.

Photo by Rob Robitaille

As much as we would love to try, we can't live on crab alone, so we should add something green.  As far as I can tell, my ancestry is German, French-Canadian, and perhaps some other wanderer somewhere along the line, which would not adequately explain why I have a love for chop sticks.  I don't know why, but I absolutely love to eat with them. It's kind of weird, actually. Ergo, my love for anything you can eat with them, hence this recipe.

The ingredients:

• Oil for frying (canola, or peanut is even better)
• 1 TB ginger, minced
• 1 small clove garlic, crushed
• 1 football sized head of napa cabbage, cut cross wise into 2 inch pieces
• Splash of water
• 1/4 cup oyster sauce
• 1 TB soy sauce
• 2 TB water mixed with 1 TB corn starch
• Salt and white pepper to taste

Just like for the crab, heat your wok until smoking.  Add the oil and swirl around to coat the sides of the wok.  Add the ginger and garlic.  Stir fry until fragrant, but not browned.  Add the napa and stir fry for about 2 minutes.  Add a splash of water and cover the wok and let the cabbage soften, just a bit more.  Add the remaining ingredients and stir fry until the sauce comes together.  Server over the sticky rice.

I love sticky rice, and nothing could be simpler.  I use a ratio of 1 part rice to 2 parts water.  Measure the rice and place in a wire mesh sieve.  Rinse briefly under cold water.  Place the rice and proper ratio of water into a small sauce pan.  Cover and place over high heat.  When it begins to boil, reduce the heat to low and set your timer for ten minutes.  Once ten minutes is done, remove from the heat.  Resist the urge to peek until you are ready to server.

I hope you try this, however it is best enjoyed with people you know.  I don't think it would be too cool to invite someone over for a first date and gnaw apart crab legs.  In fact, I could barely see through my glasses after my wife and I had this last night.  So, enjoy them with friends that accept you for who you are and don't mind seeing you using your teeth to crack open crab shells.  Enjoy.

The Humble Chicken

Chicken is one of my favorite things.  Rewind.  Really well raised chicken is one of my favorite things.  Before you start wondering; I like trees, a lot, but I don't tend to hug them.  However, I am very passionate about buying locally grown, free range, antibiotic free, blah blah, you know the drill, meat and poultry.  There are several reasons for this, of which, I will talk about one of them.  Critters raised right, taste better.  This guy, pictured above, ready for the oven, is one such member of this fraternity.  This was locally raised, running around outside, pecking at bugs, worms, gum, anything sparkly, and generally unstressed about life.  The only thing that was put into this chicken is high quality food and anything else it scratched up outside.  Period.  And I have to tell you, this chicken tastes unlike any chicken I have had in years. 

So, step one is complete.  We have a well raised, delicious bird.  Step two.  Don't @%#&^* it up.  How do we do that?  It really isn't as easy as it would seem.  I have eaten a lot of chicken, lots of it made by me, that have been @%#&^* up.  And I am ashamed of myself for it.  I haven't found many cookbooks that tells you how to not @%#&^* up a chicken, but many innocently lead you, step by step, to a @%#&^* up chicken.  Here is how I do it:

1. Get an excellent quality chicken (we already talked about this, but this list started at one,so I had to talk about it again)
2. Rinse it, and dry it with paper towels (remove the giblets and keep them for soup)
3. Let it sit so that it comes up to room temperature.  this will ensure more even cooking.
4. Remove the wish bone.  This can be done with a sharp knife.  Feel around the neck for the wish bone and make two shallow slices right on the bone.  Then, using your finger, trace around the bone and yank it out.  Cool, huh?
5. Truss the chicken.  The important part is to close up the large opening at the end that goes over the fence last.  This is to keep it from cooking from inside as well as outside, thus keeping the breast from getting over done.  Also, make sure to truss the wings in as well so they don't get overdone either.
6. Then salt the skin of the chicken liberally.  Don't be shy.  It won't be too salty because most of it will run off during roasting.  
7. Place it in a heavy cast iron, aluminum, or other heavy metal pan.  The one this bird is sitting in is a ten inch All-Clad fry pan. It is not a non-stick pan, it is just well seasoned in case you are wondering.
8. Roast at 450 F (four hundred fifty) for about 45-60 minutes for a 3.5 pound bird, until the juices run clear when you poke it in the thickest part of the thigh.  Most people roast chicken at too low of a temperature, which dries them out.
9. This is very important: Remove it from the pan and let it rest on a cutting board for about ten minutes.  The internal temperature will carry over by a few degrees and the juices will redistribute into the meat.  That means when you carve the bird, the juices won't run out all over your cutting board leaving you with dry meat.
10. Don't throw away the carcass.  You can use it for stock or making chicken a la king later on.  If I don't plan to use it right away, I vacuum seal it and freeze it.  Once I have a few in my freezer, I make a kettle of stock.

This is such an easy and delicious preparation that we tend to roast one of these very week or two.  And talk about frugal.  This can feed two people for 3-4 days.  Breasts the first night, legs the second, wings somewhere in day one or two, and soup, stew, or a la king for a couple days somewhere down the road.  I hope this has inspired you to have roast chicken this weekend.  I'm pretty sure we will.

Surf and Turf...kind of

Well, it is pretty obvious that I am not a food photographer.  I typically use my smart phone as my main camera because is always with me and you never know when you will have the urge to take a picture.  On a positive note, I actually know a couple of food photographers, so maybe there will be hope for me.  Last night was one of those nights that a picture needed to be taken.  My wife and I were invited over to our good friends house for dinner.  The menu was broiled lobster, pan seared duck breast with Cassis sauce, squash and potato puree with roasted garlic, and a nice salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

We started off with the seafood course.  To prepare the lobster the shells were cut down the back and the small "ribs" on the underside of the shell were snipped on both sides so make opening the shell easier.  The meat was pulled out, still attached to the end of the tail, and then rested on top of the shell.  Next it was given a generous brushing of butter, a bit of salt, and a sprinkle of sweet paprika, then placed under the broiler for about 5 minutes.  You really need to keep an eye no them, especially when your friends have an oven that has a nuclear setting.  It was done perfectly.  I managed to snap this picture as everyone was circling the table like a pack of hungry wolves.  I was actually getting kind of nervous because they had all had kind of a wild look in their eyes.  I took the hint and found my place a the table before anyone got hurt.  I wish I could eat like this all the time, but as things go, this is a treat I only get once or twice a year.

After reducing the first course to a pile of empty shells, the wolves seemed more calm.  We went back to the kitchen to make the duck breast.  Duck breast is one of the simplest dishes to make and I think I like it as much as a good steak.  The duck is seared in a cast iron pan that is hot.  Smoking hot.  We lightly scored the skin so some of the fat can render out, gave them a sprinkle of salt, and pepper, then put them into the pan skin side down.  This is one of those dishes where you really need a good vent hood.  Once the skin is sufficiently crispy, they were flipped and cooked on the flesh side just until lightly browned.  They should be rare to medium rare.  Next we took them out of the pan and let them rest on a cutting board.  In the meantime we drained off all but about 1 TB of fat from the pan and added minced shallot, current preserves, Cassis, and some good balsamic.  While it was reducing, we sliced the duck breast and put them on a nice big plate.  The sauce was adjusted for salt and then spooned over the center of the meat.  My buddy Steve was feeling creative, so he added some decoration to the plate.

This was paired with some of the wonderful squash, potato, and roasted garlic puree.  Throw in a nice salad and it was the perfect meal for a rainy December evening.

Ah, Bacon

Well, this is my first post, so I figured I would write about something that most everyone likes.  Bacon. What would the world be like without bacon?  Chowders would always be missing something.  How would you order breakfast?  I would like some "and eggs" please.  What about those times when you just want a big old pile of bacon for a snack on Saturday night?  They would be all gone if it wasn't for this small wonder. 

I digress and turn my attention to the task at hand.  Explaining the photo above.  Although I am fortunate to live in a part of Minnesota that allows me to buy some of the best bacon around, I really like to make my own.  This batch was cured with maple syrup and smoked with corn cobs.  Corn cob smoked bacon is almost impossible to find around here, but knowing the right people who happen to have corn fields in their back yard is pretty handy.  A friend of mine was nice enough to slog around the corn field behind his house and pick up a couple grocery bags of cobs after the farmer finished with harvest.  I filled the smoker box twice during the first two hours of smoking and as you can see, the color is a nice burnt orange.  The aroma of corn cobs is a bit hard to describe, other than it smells like corn cobs.  A bit pungent, not not too bossy, and a little bit sweet.  Not like apple, which is actually my favorite wood to smoke bacon with.

These were done after a few hours and they are sitting on my counter to cool down a bit.  After that, they were parked in the fridge over night and then portioned and vacuum sealed.  I prefer to freeze them in slabs, because I think it maintains the integrity of the bacon better than when sliced.  These will keep for several months in the freezer.