Spring Sprang Sprung

Spring is here. All the things that go with spring are starting to make themselves evident. The weeds in the yard, the birds nesting in the crawlspace in our attic, the endless rain keeping our 100 year old basement a dank, musty dungeon-y smell. Ahhh.....yes. Aside from all that nonsense that constantly occupies my every thought, it's actually warm enough to rock shorts and a tshirt, so all is right with the world. We can finally go for walks, bike rides and otherwise exit our four heavily mortgaged walls and breathe relatively fresh sweet sweet Illinois air. Ava is most excited of all, as we picked up a swingset/playground for her around Easter, so she's loving the swing, slide, climbing wall and other features of the Kmart special we picked up. I have officially become my parents - looking not for something better than what I had, but rather looking for that which will satisfy the immediate need, however crappy it might be. That said, there is much wisdom in that philosophy. My 35 pound two year old does not require a $4000 playset that can withstand the second coming. She needs but something to thrust her toddler frame into, and as long as it's rated for greater than 100 pounds, we're golden. Score 1 for Kmart.

As the weather warms (and hopefully dries), we're looking forward to more frequent trips around the neighborhood and general surrounds on the bikes (with Ava in tow in the Burley), and otherwise just being outside. The winter was brutal and cabin fever set in long before we were able to do much about it. I've managed to squeak in one decent bike ride thus far and hope to make a habit out of it. I live vicariously through the exploits of others that have the time and finances to continue racing, riding and otherwise being on a bike more frequently than once ever other month or so.

Tom Erb is getting married tomorrow, so I'm throwing out some good vibes for decent weather. It'll be nice to see some old and familiar faces.

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was our third anniversary. So to celebrate, we went to dinner at Erato in Edwardsville. I had read a lot of good reviews on some local food blogs and read how they generally tried to source ingredients as seansonl, local and as organic as possible, and rotate menu items daily. All these things, combined with some sample menus on their website, sealed the reservation. I was glad we were there on a Tuesday as patronage was rather sparse, so I'm sure we got more prompt attention from our waitress, who was incredible. I love when the front of house crowd loves the food as much as you do and it just generally amped about working there and eating. It makes their answers to your questions all the more believable. The only thing that brought down the night for me was that they were out of a couple boutique gins that I was really looking forward to trying. But I wasn't there just for gin, I'm sure I could find that somewhere else, or during a return visit. On to the food...

Armed with an empty stomach and a large Baffert's gin martini, we strategically selected our dinner options. We picked four of the smaller plates to start, then had a fish and steak plate for our mains, and would decide on dessert later.

"Toad in the hole": The bacon bread made this dish. I could eat this every day three meals a day and never tire of it. Crispy, smoky bacony bread, perfectly poached egg, delicious ricotta and white truffles. There is so much right about those four ingredients coming together in a single dish. I wasn't at all shy about mopping up the last of the yolk with a piece of crust.

The shitake salad was good, but probably my least favorite; not because it wasn't that great, but because our other choices just blew it out of the water. The mushrooms were fresh and cooked and seasoned well. The greens were dressed lightly and in general, it was just a really good salad.

The pear & proscuitto crostini were awesome. In each bite, you'd chew through the pear, goat cheese and bread first, then be left with the salty, chewy proscuitto to linger. The bite of the reduced balsamic, creaminess of the cheese, sweetness of the pears and salty ham again all came together really well.

They forgot to fire our sweet potato "nachos", but we didn't really care as we were pretty giddy about the food we had already, but within a minute or two, they were at our table. They were a good take on nachos, and for five bucks they were hard to pass up. I'd order again at the bar with a beer.

Our mains came our right about the time we were finishing with the starters, and we were glad they kept the food coming. The red grouper was fresh as fresh gets, cooked perfectly and delicious. That aside, I really thing the oyster mushrooms were the star of this dish. Again, not that the fish wasn't that good, it was fantastic, but the mushrooms really shined. I'm sure adding truffle butter had something to do with that. I was ready to order a side of mushrooms to go with the steak, but got sidetracked trying to make sure Celia didn't sneak in the last bite of mushrooms.

The dry aged ribeye Celia ordered was probably the best steak I've ever eaten. Ordered med-rare, it came out a little less than that, which I was happy about. Steaks really should be ordered and eaten rare and the chef had no qualms about delivering that message loud and clear. I didn't ask exactly what the "house worchestershire" consisted of, whether it was house-made, or if it was a combination sauce of sorts, but I didn't really care. The steak spoke for itself and outshines anything you'd pay two or three times more for at any other place that prides themselves specifically on steaks. Drool.

Right before we got around to ordering dessert, the chef (John) came out to say hello, which is always a nice touch. Given we were one of only 4 or 5 other tables, he probably didn't have much else to do anyway, but still.... I actually knew him from my previous bike racing years at the tail end of the Cat.4 pack, so it was nice to say hello and see a familiar face behind this incredible meal. We ordered a lemon tart with jasmine sorbet and the molten chocolate cake with basil ice cream, along with coffee and port. I'm typically not much of a dessert person, but these were all solid as you'd expect. The highlight though, was the basil ice cream. I will order a double scoop waffle cone of this green deliciousness the next time we go.

This was an A+ dinner outing and we are definitely headed back. The preparations were simple, unpretentious and assembled in a way to let the ingredients stand on their own merit. The philosophy of seasonal, local & organic as possible is a great one by which to create an outstanding menu by which you have no choice but to get what tastes best. They also comped our desserts since it was our anniversary which was really nice.

Duck season pt. 2

I forgot to post this a while back. Ava got a kitchen set for her birthday, along with this game with little plastic ducks where you pick them up and match the shapes on the underside. A few nights later while I was making dinner, she took some of the ducks and put them in her little stainless saute pan and said "Look Daddy, duckies!" I was very proud.


She tried a little of the roasted duck leg I made the other night too and was actually really into it. I didn't have the heart to tell her she was eating duck, but then again, she didn't ask. It was more of her pointing at my plate and asking "Daddy, I try?"

Duck season

Shortly before Thanksgiving, I bought a duck along with the turkey breast I bought to do for T-day. It was your standard frozen duck available in most larger grocery stores, about 6 pounds - seemed like a reasonable price. I'd eaten duck a few times, and each time I was always amazed. My favorite had been a very simple preparation - a breast smoked with applewood and confit leg. Smoking was a no-brainer, but I am reserving confit for another time as it seemed like more work than I was willing to put in at this point, especially considering this was to be the first duck I've ever cooked.Freshly thawed in water over about 24 hours, I prepared for my first duck breakdown. I'd seen enough chickens and other poultry done on TV cooking shows before, and done a few chickens myself, so it didn't seem like too difficult a task. What I mainly remember is to use a sharp knife (preferably a boning knife, but all I had was a 10" chefs knife...) and let gravity work to your advantage.My plan was to lightly smoke everything with applewood, then give the breasts a quick pan searing and roast the legs, wings and carcass.Everything got a light smoking with about 1/2 a chimney of charcoal to keep the temp as low as possible while still getting the smoke I needed. It took about 20 minutes for my chips to give their all, which was jut about perfect. I had a hot saute pan waiting with a little butter in it (I had scored the breasts before going on the smoker), then seared them for about 3 minutes per side. Next time, I'll stick closer to 2 minutes as the duck was a bit more done than I'd hoped - closer to medium than medium-rare. Use a lid - the combination of hot butter and duck fat, while delicious, makes for impressive splattering. The breasts then took a 5 minute rest on the cutting board before serving. The fuzzy photo below is from all the steam coming off, but it was funny to me as it looked like some glamour shots filter.


Legs and wings went into a 425 oven for about 30 minutes to crisp the skin, then about another hour at 350 to finish. The temperature drop is a good point to drain some of the rendered fat off.


The carcass and neck then went into a pot with some aromatics for 4 or 5 hours and I have about 2 quarts of homemade duck stock, plus about 1.5 cups of duck fat that I drained off at various points during the whole process to use in some future application.

I think duck gets a bad shake as being a fatty bird. It is, but it's all on the surface. Much of it was rendered off during the cooking process. The fat left on the breasts can easily be pulled away, but you should try at least one or two bites of the breast with a little fat and crispy skin left on......fantastic. I think leaving the duck sans sauce is the best way to go to. I couldn't find one recipe in any of my cookbooks or cooking mags that didn't have some elaborate sauce to it. Aside from the smoking, I let the duck speak for itself.

During the whole process, I kept flashing back to the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he and Daffy are doing the whole "duck season...rabbit season..." thing. I kept replaying the part where they're both reading off the names of various recipes Elmer Fudd should try.

Bones

I realize there is a fair bit of irony in a former vegan getting excited about cooking (and subsequently eating) bone marrow, but nonetheless, here we are. This all started with my quest to find a substantial bone/chew-toy for Olive, our pit bull/shepherd mix, who seems to be able to dismantle any store-bought rawhide or other chew item within a matter of minutes. I remembered my mom always giving my childhood dog the bone from a large roundsteak she'd cook up and he always loved it. He was a much smaller dog than Olive though, who would probably swallow one of those roundsteak bones whole. In the process, I've seen and read things on how roasted bone marrow, though it's fatty and can be a challenging (gelatinous) texture, is truly delicious. So I decided to try and please both man and beast in a single culinary act. Olive was, of course, very happy with my decision to attempt this.

I'd seen the episode of No Reservations where Tony Bourdain and company drool over the roasted bone marrow on toast at Prune in NYC. Though I'm sure my preparation was far less glamorous, I consulted various internet sources and my trusty Joy of Cooking, all of which basically suggested to wash, dry, salt & pepper, roast and enjoy. Unfortunately, I overlooked the serving vehicle since I was too excited over just getting the bones themselves. Since the chances of finding decent bread in my town at the unreasonable hour I was preparing this were slim, I had to opt for the multi-grain sandwich loaf I'd bought a day earlier. I figured the bread was not to be the star of this effort anyway, so it shouldn't matter too much, especially on this marrow maiden journey. I essentially took the bones from the package, rinsed them, added some kosher salt and cracked pepper, then roasted at 300 for an hour. Admittedly, the result was a bit underwhelming. I was left with a far greater volume of liquid fat than spreadable marrow. If I have to go into failure analysis, I would list the following as possible contributors:

• I am a lousy cook
• Poor quality bones/marrow
• Excessive cooking time/temperature
• I am a lousy cook
  

Then, there is always the possibility that the "hype" behind this really just led me to believe I would end up with a far different product than I did. Maybe as the father of a two-year old, I just consume way too many fish sticks and toasted ravioli, and maybe my palate isn't what it should be to appreciate the finer, more subtle tastes such as this. Or maybe marrow is marrow and some people just really get off on digging fat and gelatin out of animal bones. This first draft really just netted me a little bit of beef flavored jelly on toast, with a lot of liquid fat I can use later in a sauce or other application. All things considered, it was pretty tasty. My colon-blow whole grain bread had a pretty strong overtone, so that was likely a contributor as well. A more neutral white(r) bread may have let the marrow shine a bit more. I got really excited about eating, so the after photo has a bite out of it......Olive is asleep at this point, but she's going to have quite a treat in the morning.

What's for dinner???

Sweet sweet short ribs....

- This was 4 beef short ribs, about 1.5 lbs.
- Oven to 375
- Season w/ rosemary/thyme/kosher salt/cracked pepper
- Sear in olive oil ~2min per side, remove to a plate
- Add a medium onion and a garlic clove, sliced to the remaining oil & fat that have rendered out during the sear. Give them a quick saute until just browned & remove to the plate w/ the ribs
- Add 2 cups stock (chicken will do, but I had turkey stock from the smoked turkey I did at Thanksgiving) and 1 cup beer (I used O'fallon smoked porter)

- Bring the stock & beer to a boil, scraping all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan

- Add the ribs & onions back to the pot, cover and braise for about 2 hours.
- Add a few chopped carrots in to the braising liquid about 5-6 minutes before the meat is done.
- After the ribs were done, I strained the sauced, which had greatly reduced and made a thin gravy by adding a little butter, flour and more pepper. Looking back, I would have just kept it as a reduction as the gravy tasted a bit flour-y. But even mediocre gravy is still gravy....
- The white stuff is horseradish mashed red potatoes
- Sorry the photos are blurry. Either my eyes are going or the fact that I was really hungry when making this wouldn't allow me to hold the camera steady...

I'm going to wreck you.

Yeah, this about sums it up.