Salmon.

A reader wants to know the difference among several types of salmon. For the reasons why naming isn’t everything when it comes to seafood, scandalous information about mislabeling, and a couple of recipes for salmon, visit the Salmon page.

Recycling is good: the Please Let It Be Autumn edition

Our freezers are really, really full. I realized this when, the week we returned from our vacation, I had to stop rummaging through the plastic tubs in the freezer to find a couple of chicken leg quarters out of frustration. This happens from time to time, and it’s my fault. My mother was big on using every last bit of every meal if possible, and I picked up her aversion to waste. So trimmings from vegetable brunoise go into stock; bits of potato get fried up, transformed into hash or potato cakes; meat trimmings become sausage.

Throughout the fall and winter, braised meats are big in the kitchen. These are classic cold-weather fare – you have to eat them warm, because they’re no good chilled. They tend to be rich from all the gelatin. They take hours to cook, and warm your kitchen nicely in the process. Braises are rustic, and for the sake of presentation, I often trim braised meat into squared-off shapes – the trim goes into bags, vacuum sealed, labeled, and stored in one of the plastic tubs in the freezer along with any leftovers and what’s left of the savory reduced braising liquid.

A basic short rib braise involves three common elements in addition to the meat: a vegetable base, usually a classic mirepoix of onion, celery, and carrot or one of its analogues (such as soffritto); an acidifier, like tomato or wine (usually both); and the braising liquid, generally stock but sometimes water. To this, you can add a variety of dried fruits, or aromatics – thyme, bay, and leek are classic; pimentón is a favorite flavoring in my kitchen; licorice, star anise, or cinnamon provide a sweet note. Long cooking at low temperatures allows the meat to become tender and the collagen in the short rib to break down to gelatin, yielding that distinctive and unctuous mouthfeel. During the New Year holiday, I posted the basic recipe for a reader who wanted to make a spectacular and festive dinner. I’ve made this dish – and its variants – many times, and we have the freezer full of trimmings to show for it.

When you have a long commute, getting dinner together can be a problem. It’s too late to cook a meal involving a lot of prep. That’s where the trimmings come in. Rather than resorting to takeout or pizza – or some kind of supermarket ready meal – the trimmings are a perfect accompaniment for pasta, polenta, gnocchi, or even rice. Start to finish, it takes about 20 minutes, but almost all of that time you can spend unwinding with a glass of wine rather than cooking. Not bad for a hasty weeknight meal.

Not too shabby for leftovers.

Short rib, sedanini

If, like me, you have a vacuum sealer or a FoodSaver, and you’ve sealed up your leftovers or trim, you can throw the bag into simmering water until it’s good and hot, which takes about the same amount of time as cooking pasta or rice, and a little less time than making polenta, and leaves almost no mess to clean up. The recipe below features pasta.

1 lb dried pasta, preferably a short, textured variety like sedanini or orecchiette
about 12 ounces leftover short rib, whole chunks or trimmings with or without reduced braising liquid
fresh herbs and aromatics – thyme, flat-leaf parsley, chives, lemon or orange zest
salt and pepper

Optional (see recipe):
1 tsp tomato paste
2-3 tbsp dry red wine
2-3 tbsp veal or chicken stock, or a good quality commercial stock or broth

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the pasta until al dente (usually between 8-10 minutes depending on the type of pasta and the strength of your stove). Meanwhile, if you have vacuum sealed your short rib, bring a separate pot of water to a simmer, add the bag of short rib to the pot, and simmer until hot. If you have not, heat the short rib slowly, over medium-low heat. If necessary, you may add a little pasta cooking water (just a tablespoon or two) to loosen the rib.

If your trimmings or leftovers are completely dry – devoid of any sauce at all – you may want to “doctor” them slightly. Add a small quantity – not more than a couple of tablespoons – of wine to the short rib and bring to a simmer, reducing until the wine is nearly gone and it no longer smells alcohol-ish. Add the tomato paste and the broth, and simmer until a thick and barely evident sauce forms. Taste for salt and season with salt (if necessary) and pepper.

Drain the pasta and toss with the short rib. Plate and garnish with herbs and, if using, lemon zest.

Preserved lemons.

A reader asks for a quick method to preserve lemons. A one-week preservation method courtesy an expert on North African cuisine, and a recipe for chermoula, here on the Lemons page.

Project Food Blog, Part I.

The first week back from vacation always is the hardest. After almost two weeks in France and Britain – during which we cooked in brick ovens and over open fires, ate our way through London, and basically forgot about our professional and social responsibilities – we came back to Baltimore, with colds courtesy our fellow passengers, e-mail to read and answer, and rush hour traffic to DC and back every day. It was pretty good while it lasted.

What I did on my summer vacation.

Catching up on Facebook, I saw this post:

“FoodBuzz announced a couple months ago that they would be holding a competition called Project Food Blog. It is the first competition of it’s [sic] kind and the winner will win $10,000 dollars and will be featured on Foodbuzz.com for a year!”

Hello, what’s this? A blogging competition?

I’ve been working on a cookbook, and I started this blog on the advice of a publishing agent who welcomed me to the twenty-first century by telling me that no one short of Jessica Seinfeld or the Real Housewives of New Jersey can secure a cookbook publishing contract anymore without a blog, cooking skill or no. If you’ve been reading me during the past year, you know what I’m about. I’m the one you call when you’ve killed a feral water buffalo and have no idea what to do. You have problems with cream puffs, and I’m here for you. I’ll tell you how I got that perfect crispy skin on that slab of pork belly and made the most of raw vegetables in the middle of a heat wave, and when I show you how to make the pork sausage of your Sunday brunch dreams, I’ll also show you how to turn the leftovers into a quick weekday burger.

You don’t come to me to read amateur restaurant reviews. I can’t tell you which Trader Joe’s simmer sauce you should buy. I don’t cook from other peoples’ recipes and expect you to be impressed. You read these pages because whether your CSA has just sent you ten pounds of cauliflower or you want to learn how to make one of those crazy foams or gelées you’ve been hearing about, you don’t have to worry. You know I can help you out, because even though I’ve got a day job as a lawyer in DC, you also know that someone who keeps an induction burner and steel pan in her credenza at the office really cares about food and cooking.

Office cooking battery - induction stove, rice cooker, knives, cutting boards

Office condiment drawer - vinegars, mustards, two kinds of rice, olive oil, nori furikake, etc

So, I’m not going to tell you why you should vote for me. I’m going to show you, with my food. Please stop by every week and read my regular reports from the kitchen, and my contest entries. Send me your cooking questions by e-mail. And then – please vote! For me. Because I can’t win without your support. Thanks for reading!

Braised pork belly, apricot, fennel blossom

Ricotta, ravioli, white truffle beurre fondue, poached hen's egg

Spherified yoghurt and mint, waiting for the galia melon soup

Your foreign correspondent.

Earlier this year, I read an article about a Dutch study purporting to show that the greatest psychological benefit of vacation occurred in the planning phase, and not during the vacation itself. I’ve thought about this study a lot because the conclusion the authors reached seems ridiculous, science or no. How is it possible that spending endless hours trolling Expedia for low fares could compete with, say, lying on a beach in Guadeloupe, Carib beer in hand? It seemed unlikely.

The obvious antidote to this kind of skepticism is a vacation. Is it possible to remain dubious about academic research while quaffing cold rosé under the southern French sun? To find out, I booked two tickets to Barcelona, hired a car, and made arrangements to stay at a 16th century stone house in Languedoc-Roussillon near Andùze where we stayed last June. My husband and I were going to find out whether leaving our jobs behind for a couple of weeks would boost our happiness. We’re both big fans of scientific research.

According to our friend Jonathan, who owns a share of the property in Languedoc, the house on the property probably dates from the 1500s when the production of silk began in the area. One wing of the house constituted the “magnanerie” (silk loft) where silk worms feasted on mulberry tree branches. The closest town of significance, Andùze, was the center of the silk industry in this region, and home to a number of mills. “Produced in Andùze, delivered in Nȋmes, the silk went back to Lyon via the Rhône,” Jonathan informs us. Although the property bears few obvious traces of this industrial past, it boasts plenty of natural charm. A tributary of the Salindrenque River winds through the property, twisting at points to provide refreshing swimming holes. Fig trees grow alongside the house, luring butterflies (and bees). Wild boars rustle through the woods from time to time. Just out the front door, a thickening canopy of grape vines, climbing roses, and other greenery shades a brick wood-fired oven and a picnic table. Walking about the property, the scent of wild mint rises, crushed by your feet. In front, there’s a makeshift pétanque circle. The nearest neighbor is a five minute drive away down a narrow gravel road.

A butterfly feasts on figs.

Al fresco.

But the main attraction of the place – as far as I’m concerned, anyway – is that old brick oven and the opportunity to cook in a completely different setting. There’s no electricity or hot water, which adds another level of complexity. Last year, before we went, Jonathan sent me this e-mail:

“Serious question for you. If Justin and I kill a wild boar, will you know how to dress it and cook it for us? That would be memorable, and provide food for days, don’t you think?”

Answer: yes. It would have been memorable … had the men been able to follow through on their end of the deal. The killing end of the deal, as I like to think of it. We could have roasted the loin and shoulder in the brick oven, and made terrine from the offal and cheeks. But with all the day trips to Nȋmes and Avignon, and all the games of pétanque lubricated with wine from the cave cooperatif down the road, nothing as exotic as wild boar ever turned up in the kitchen.

This time, before we left, Nat turned to me and said, “you know what would be great? If we could get that brick oven going.” I nodded my agreement. On our trips to Vermont, we established a tradition of visiting American Flatbread, whose wood-fired pizzas are better by far than almost anything outside of New Haven. Each Flatbread outpost has its virtues, although we have our favorites. The bartender in Burlington possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of craft brewing and will offer up generous tastings of anything if you express an interest. In Middlebury, close to the family vacation home, the waits are never as long as at the Waitsfield flagship, and it’s often possible to get a seat in front of the domed brick oven. Nat has alluded to plans to build just such an oven in our back yard. “You can buy a kit for about two to four thousand dollars,” he enthused.

So our trip to France became a quest, among other things, to learn to use the brick oven. Sitting beneath the Pont du Gard, I noted my interest in steak. “Actually,” Nat interjected, “you know what I’m really in the mood for? A whole roast chicken. What we don’t finish tonight we can eat cold for lunch tomorrow.” It would be memorable, and provide food for days, don’t you think? Holding on to this thought during the drive to Uzès, I was both excited to try out the oven and a little anxious. One thing about a completely un-electrified property – once it gets dark, it’s really dark. Would I be able to tell when the chicken had cooked? What if, at eleven o’clock, I pulled out a charred poultry-shaped shell masking a bloody, raw interior? Unlike the States – where you can find an all-night grocery within driving distance of most towns – rural France hews to meaningful shopping and dining schedules. At the market in Uzès, we picked up some terrine de foie aux cèpes and a thick slice of pâté de tête with green peppercorn along with the chicken, to hedge our bets.

View from the kitchen.

As the sun set, Nat stacked kindling sticks and logs inside the mouth of the oven, twisting bits of newspaper to stoke the fire, while I halved heritage plum tomatoes and “la ratte” potatoes, and rubbed butter on the famed poulet jaune de Landes, trussing it with butcher’s twine. By the time we slid two baking dishes into the oven – one with the chicken and potatoes, and another with the olive oil-dressed tomatoes – it was completely dark. We opened a bottle of local Syrah, sat down with a platter of terrine and cornichons to watch the fire, and leaned a forked branch against the oven wall.

The next 90 minutes were pretty interesting. To feed the fire, Nat gathered up a number of fallen tree branches and then started loading them into the oven. Most of the branches were far too long for the oven – having been cut for the fire pit or perhaps not at all – and I worried that one or the other of us would bump into a protruding branch, launching it from the oven and setting the old silk loft on fire. “There are saws in that armoire in the entryway,” I said, nervously regarding the orange flames.

“Really?” said Nat, raising an eyebrow. He left the table with a flashlight and returned with two flimsy saws, neither of which seemed likely to cut anything harder than butter. I regretted my suggestion almost immediately – one of the saws failed to grip the wood all that well but instead made a comical twanging sort of mouth-harp sound, and the other broke. Making matters worse, the forked branch we were using to latch onto the handle of the baking dish was disintegrating in the oven’s heat with each use, and after about 45 minutes, I found myself panicking when, trying to turn the chicken, I wound up pushing it so far into the oven I was pretty sure we’d be eating the headcheese for dinner and retrieving the charred carcass from the oven the next day. But cooking is the same whether you’re at home or in front of a brick oven in the south of France – when you run into trouble, you find a way to work it out. Trying to think cool thoughts – Vermont in winter, the unheated shower I took just that morning – I stepped closer to the fire and leaned in with the branch, pulling the chicken toward me.

Branches protruding scarily from brick oven.

Chicken, potatoes, tomato confit.

At home we often joke about our Eurotrashy dining habits. The fact is that we commute from Washington, DC to Baltimore every day, and rarely eat before 9:30pm, around the time some of our early-rising friends are nodding off during Real Housewives, remote in hand. I regarded our trip to France as a time to gain some normalcy – not because we’d be eating any earlier, you see, but because everyone eats later. This certainly was true in Spain, anyway, where we deflected well-meaning restaurant efforts to seat us at 9pm, the American hour, with the statement that we often eat around 10 at home. And true to form, we pulled the tomatoes, bubbling and caramelized, and the chicken, with its crisp, golden skin, from the oven just before 10pm.

“The moment of truth,” Nat said, pouring more Syrah into my glass. I probably looked worried. I am not known for my culinary failures – a strange incident involving some sablefish in 2001 stands out as the sole example in the past ten years – and the chicken looked like a roasted chicken is supposed to look. Then again, the sablefish looked right too. Would this be the Great Sablefish Incident of 2010? One of the thighs had come loose from when I flipped the bird over with the branch to roast the underside. Nat reached out and tore off the bit of dark meat dangling from the cavity, and popped it into his mouth. “Perfect.”

Meal cooked entirely in the dark with fire and a big stick.

Brick oven roast chicken and potatoes

Here’s the thing about cooking in a brick oven. It’s just like cooking in any other oven, except for two things. The heat isn’t even throughout – it’s unbearably hot right beside the fire, and gets cooler as you move away – so you need to take advantage of the zones. And another thing – at its hottest, it’s far hotter than any home oven.

Our chicken emerged looking pretty good, although it was a little ragged from our efforts to move it around the oven, and the fact that we cooked the meal entirely in the dark. For best results, use something other than a fallen tree branch to drag your pan around the oven.

One whole roasting chicken
1 1/2 lb yellow-flesh potatoes, like la ratte, Yellow Finn, or Yukon Gold,
1/8 lb or about 60g (4 tbsp) unsalted butter
one lemon, halved
one small onion, quartered
4 sprigs of thyme
salt
Giant pile of firewood and brick oven (optional)

If using the brick oven, begin about two hours before you intend to roast your chicken. Build a fire inside the mouth of the oven, immediately to the right, against the interior wall. Avoid resinous woods like pine; instead, select hardwoods. Have additional kindling, tinder, and logs on hand, as you will need to feed the fire.

If using a conventional oven, 450F/230C.

Season the chicken inside and out with salt and stuff the cavity with half a lemon, two onion quarters, and they thyme. Rub the chicken with 3 tbsp butter. Place in the center of an ovensafe roasting pan (if you can, place the chicken on a rack within the pan). If using the brick oven, your roasting pan of choice should be enameled cast iron, cast iron, or earthenware. Do not use any nonstick items if using a brick oven (including the rack) as the coating may not survive the heat.

Halve the potatoes lengthwise, arrange around the chicken, and dot with butter. Arrange around the chicken (if using a rack, place the potatoes directly in the pan and set the rack above them.

Once your oven of choice is hot, load the roasting pan into the oven. Begin by placing the pan near the heat source – within about 6 inches – so the skin begins to turn golden. Turn the pan 180 degrees to brown the other side. Once the chicken has begun to turn an even gold, push it back to a cooler section of the oven. I found that about 14-16 inches sufficed. If you are using a conventional oven, turn the heat down to 300F/150C.

Turn the chicken as necessary to ensure even cooking. After about 40 minutes, pull out the chicken and test for doneness – juices from the cavity should run clear and the thigh should move easily in its socket. If using a thermometer, at its thickest point the temperature should read not less than 165F/75C (and, to be appetizing, probably should read about 175F/80C). Let the chicken rest for about 15-20 minutes before carving. Season with salt and pepper.

Tomato confit

I hesitate to call this a confit, because the tomatoes are not actually poached in fat, at least not initially. Maybe oil-roasting is a better term. Once the tomatoes soften and begin giving up liquid, they collapse into the poaching oil. The tops will bubble and blacken a bit, and the tomatoes will become thick and sweet. Even a somewhat substandard tomato will gain great flavor using this cooking method.

6-8 plum tomatoes, like San Marzano, or Amish Paste (or the more commonly available Roma)
six thyme branches
salt and pepper
olive oil

If using a conventional oven, 450F/230C.

Halve the tomatoes lengthwise, place in a baking dish (follow the tips above if using a brick oven), and season with salt and pepper. Place the thyme branches on top and add several good glugs of olive oil on top and around the tomatoes.

If using a brick oven, load the pan into the oven about 8 inches from the heat source. Once the tomatoes begin to collapse and give up some of their juice, move the pan to a spot about 12 inches from the heat. If using a conventional oven, place the pan in the oven and roast until the tomatoes have collapsed, are bubbling, and have the occasional blackened spot on top.

Tomatoes, seasoned in the baking pan (at home)

Out of the oven (at home)

Taco time.

A reader asks how to make the “slaw” that accompanied a Korean-style taco. Find out what I’d use to top a Korean taco, on the Slaw page.