Cocktail.

It’s hard to be objective about the merits of culturally significant moments of one’s youth. Nostalgia can cloud your judgment, making it hard to tell a madeleine from a Twinkie. Take the films of the 80s, for example. Is Pretty in Pink a great movie or a terrible one? Was The Empire Strikes Back a work of genius or unbelievably boring? Sometimes, it’s an easy call. Coming to America was a great movie. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was a great movie. Cocktail was a terrible movie.

But let’s say you’re of a certain adventurous turn of mind when, at twenty years old and with nothing better to do on a summer night, you go the movies with some friends while home from college. I speak not of myself, of course, but of a casual acquaintance who may or may not have coached my brother in boy’s tennis in the late 80s. We shall call him T.W., as those are his initials. According to my brother, T.W. saw Cocktail while home for the summer, and, moved to greater aspirations than whatever was in his mind at the moment, packed his bags and set out for the glamour of south Florida. As far as I know, it didn’t last all that long – I think he was missing a few crucial plot elements, like an older, Svengali-esque friend to show him the ropes – and at some point, T.W. returned to UW-Whitewater to obtain his bachelor’s degree and never speak again of his adventures as a lesser Tom Cruise. I don’t even know if he ever learned to flair, which was the only genuinely enjoyable thing about the movie.

I don’t know if Cocktail The Movie renewed interest at the time in cocktail culture. My range of cocktails was limited then to Bacardi and Coke or grapefruit juice and vodka, mostly guzzled rather than sipped. Now, I’m much more interested in the kind of cocktails that require more bartending skill and taste than opening a can of something and pouring in a few glugs of something else. As a bonus, many bars that mix great drinks also serve food more interesting than mediocre wings and pretzels.

As opposed to beer and wine pairings with food, cocktail and food pairings aren’t really my thing. My idea of pairing cocktails with food mostly extends to eating a little bowl of peanuts – or possibly even smoked almonds or those nice warm mixed nuts you get in first class on international fights – with my whiskey. Supposedly classic cocktail pairings with food, like margaritas with Mexican food or mimosas with brunch, never strike me as really great food pairings so much as opportunities to consume more alcohol. On the rare occasion I eat or serve something other than nuts with strong drinks, I like it to be rich and fatty. Foie gras is perfect – it’s buttery and tastes good with sweeter wines like Sauternes and liquor like Cognac, which are often used in its preparation.

Foie gras torchon

This foie preparation is not cooked at any point. Burying the wrapped torchon in salt and then hanging dry draw out the moisture from the liquor marinade, giving the foie a dense, buttery texture, with no melted fat whatsoever. It is important to keep the foie cold and your work surface scrupulously clean when working with the product as it will not be cooked. (Even cooked torchon tends to simmered only for a short time at temperatures far under those necessary to destroy pathogens.)

In this recipe, I used foie slices from our supermarket because I didn’t have time to order whole lobes. The whole lobes are nicer but are slightly more of a pain to work with because you have to remove the blood vessels and connective tissue. That said, no one makes a torchon unless they’re fine with doing that work anyway.

The foie pairs well with a tart, somewhat pungent condiment like nectarine mostarda, which includes both vinegar and mustard seeds.

7.5g kosher salt
1.5g smoked sugar
.25g TCM (about 1/8 tsp, not quite)
1g white pepper
1g Pondicherry pepper
500g foie gras, whole lobe or slices
200 ml water
25 ml each bourbon and Pedro Ximenez jerez
coarse (not rock) salt

2 lbs nectarines
1 c white wine vinegar
2/3 c sugar
2 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1 tsp piment d’espelette
zest of one lemon (peeled off in strips, not grated)

Combine all dry seasonings and set aside.

With clean hands and maintaining a very clean working environment, clean the foie, removing the veins, gallbladder (if present), and connective tissue from the foie. If you use pre-cut slices these likely will have been removed already, but double check. Place in a bowl and cover with cold water. Refrigerate about 2-4 hours. Drain thoroughly and rinse. Return to a clean bowl.

Evenly season the foie and cover with the alcohols. Place a piece of clingfilm over the foie to reduce oxidation and then tightly seal the bowl. Chill 24-36 hours.

Prepare a triple thickness of butter muslin or cheesecloth. Spread in a rectangle over a piece of clingfilm and cover with another piece. Roll with a pin into a uniform layer about 3/8″ thick. Remove the top piece of film. (Note: I used the pin method because, as this is a raw preparation, I wanted to touch it with my hands as little as possible. You can also use your hands to mold it together.) Using the bottom layer of clingfilm as a guide, roll the foie tightly into a log as you would a piece of makizushi. If using a bamboo mat helps, transfer the foie and clingfilm to a bamboo mat before rolling tightly.

Roll the foie torchon from the clingfilm onto the prepared butter muslin. Roll tightly to close and, using butcher’s twine, wind tightly and tie at each end. Bury in sea salt (not rock salt) in a pan and refrigerate 12-24 hours.

Remove all salt and dust the muslin log clean. Hang to dry from a rack in the refrigerator, ensuring the torchon touches nothing.

To serve, remove the muslin and slice with a hot knife. If you think you will not use it all, refrigerate the rest promptly, rolled in clingfilm and tied at the ends. Do not refrigerate in the muslin or it will dry out. If you don’t use it all in five days, freeze.

For the mostarda:

Pit and quarter the nectarines. There is no need to peel. Place in a pot with the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring only enough to dissolve the sugar, until the fruit is coated in a thick syrup.

Ladle into jars and refrigerate. These may also be pressure-canned for shelf storage.

The Continental

I called this “The Continental” because those Christopher Walken skits on Saturday Night Live are hilarious. This drink has nothing to do with that but it sounds retrograde and pretentious, making it a great pairing for the foie torchon.

Note: If you would rather eat your cocktail than drink it, add 1 whole sheet of platinum strength gelatin to the cocktail (sans ice) and bring to a simmer just long enough to melt the gelatin. Transfer to small polycarbonate or silicone half-dome molds and chill. Serve as a jelly to the foie torchon.

4 oz Riesling or Viognier
1 oz Calvados
1 oz St-Germain
3/4 oz peach pickling liquid from the pickled peach recipe
6 drops grapefruit bitters
Ice cubes (larger = better)

Combine all the ingredients except the ice and stir gently. Add the ice cubes and stir to chill. Strain into glasses with lemon peel.

I can flair if I want to flair. – Hidetsugu Ueno

Mother tongue.

Are we done talking about nose-to-tail cooking yet? Is everyone sick of being lectured to about eating all the parts of the animal? Then don’t consider this a lecture but just a statement of fact. The head of pretty much any mammal contains some of its most delicious meats.

Many people express reservations about eating the head of an animal, possibly for anthropomorphic reasons or just qualms about killing. Unlike a cut like the tenderloin or a boneless chicken breast, or even something a little more obviously connected to a living animal like a ham or short ribs, it’s hard to look at the head without an awareness that an animal was killed for food. Then there are the eyes and the brain, which are inevitable sources of comparison to our own brains, our own eyes. It’s not surprising the head is a little challenging.

“It’s chock full of … heady goodness.”

An easier and more accessible way to approach the head is to use the tongue and the cheeks. Beef tongue looks sort of terrifying, but once you make your peace with what it is, which is just a great big floppy cow’s tongue, you’ll find it easy to work with. It’s a tough cut that takes long, low temperature cooking, which is inherently forgiving. It’s also just basically a muscle, so unlike the organ meats some people find literally too visceral to eat (mmm, glands), it has the familiarity of cuts more usually encountered. Cheeks are even easier to work with – the muscle is more like the kind you find in shank or short rib, tough and full of connective tissue that melts to gelatin after lots of long braising.

Tongue and cheek

Tongue and cheek

Smoking the tongue not only imparts great flavor, but helps dry it out a little, which normally seems like a bad thing – who wants dry meat? But the muscle graining on tongue is dense and fine, and interspersed with large quantities of intramuscular fat and collagen. When you slice it warm, tongue can fall apart and seem sodden. To ameliorate this tendency, smoke it, chill it, and slice it thinly while still cold. Cold smoked tongue is great with mustard and pickles on rye. It’s also great draped over a hot risotto or grain porridge, where the heat of the porridge softens and melts the fat and gelatin in the thinly sliced meat. You can warm it slightly as well; just don’t overdo.

A final note about tongue: you must remove the skin. I once went to a wedding reception at a restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown that served a cold braised tongue appetizer. The tongue meat was delicious with soy and five spice flavors but I couldn’t get past the skin. Even when the tongue is sliced paper-thin, it’s still present in a thin ring, it’s not tender, and it’s gross. So remove it.

For the tongue:

one large beef tongue
1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp sugar (white or brown)
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
6 bay leaves

Combine all the dry ingredients but the bay leaves. Rub evenly all over the tongue and place in a pan just large enough for the tongue, atop three bay leaves. Place the remaining bay leaves on top. Cover tightly with clingfilm and refrigerate. You will turn the tongue every other day for ten days. Note: if you have a blade tenderizer (the kind that looks like an upside-down bed of needles), you can make tiny cuts in the tongue skin before curing. In this case, cure for four days.

Curing tongue

Transfer the tongue, with its seasoning and any accumulated liquid, to a pot with just enough cold water to cover. Cover and bring to a bare simmer (180F). Place in an 180F oven. Cook for 6-8 hours (depending on size) or until the tongue is tender and a knife inserted to the center meets no resistance beyond the skin. Cool in enough liquid to cover and then refrigerate (in the liquid) at least overnight.

Peel the tongue. This should not be difficult but requires the use of a sharp knife. The tongue’s skin should come off easily. Discard the skin.

Smoke at 200F for about two to three hours (depending on the size of the tongue). Cool and then wrap in clingfilm (and then foil) and chill completely.

Smoked tongue

Use in any way you see fit. Tongue is great in hot/warm dishes but should be sliced cold, very thinly, and then rethermed in the dish.

For the cheek:

Cheek cooking times vary widely depending on size and the extent of the connective tissue. It is best to budget at least twelve hours to cook the cheeks even though it will likely take far less time. You do not have to babysit the braise in the oven.

3 lb beef cheek, large and very tough sinews trimmed
unsalted butter or beef tallow
one medium onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
6 garlic cloves, whole
3 c dry red wine
4 c beef stock (chicken stock acceptable)
4 branches thyme
2 bay leaves
salt and black pepper

Oven 180F.

Salt the cheek on both sides. Place a heavy saucepot over medium heat and, when hot, add the butter. Brown the cheek well and set aside. Sweat the vegetables and garlic cloves in the residual fat and fond. Deglaze with red wine and reduce over medium low heat by 1/2. Add the beef stock and bring just to a simmer. Add the herbs and the browned cheek (and any juices). Cover with parchment and then the lid and place in the oven.

Cook for about 7 hours. The cheeks are done when the collagen has completely softened and the meat is fork-tender.

Remove the meat to a plate and strain the remaining liquid. Return the meat to the strained liquid and cool.

When ready to serve, bring the liquid to a simmer, uncovered, and reduce by 1/2 to 2/3 until proper glazing consistency is reached. Return the cheeks to the reduction, cover, and keep warm.

Service:

Per four plates:

two bunches spring onions (bulbed), washed and green section removed and reserved
butter
red radishes
compressed celery pickle
pickled ramps
bitter greens (arugula, nasturtium, cress)
assorted herbs, edible flowers, etc
prepared mustard

Slice the spring onion bulbs lengthwise and brown in butter.
Slice the ramp pickles lengthwise and the radishes 1/16″ thin lengthwise.
Serve the sliced tongue and braised cheek with the onion, radish, ramps, pickled celery, and garnish with herbs and flowers, the braising reduction, and a spoon of mustard. (The plating shown also includes ground chilmole.)

Coda: Other uses for tongue

Tongue is a pretty rich, densely-textured meat. Some people can eat huge quantities in a sitting (such as in a deli sandwich, with mustard and pickles), but not me. If you find yourself with 2+ pounds of smoked beef tongue and are unsure how to use it, consider these suggestions.

Tongue on rye (porridge) with pickles

For a straightforward porridge recipe, see this earlier post. If you are using rye grain instead of farro, the cooking duration is basically the same. Other grains require more or less cooking time. I do not recommend cooking short grain rice sous vide. Garnish with pickled celery, red onion (or shallot), and Granny Smith apple, as well as herbs and buttered pumpernickel toast crumb.

Lengua tacos

Noodles with tongue (tossed in smoked beef fat and served with smoked beef consommé)

Best of the wurst.

It seems inevitable that trips to familiar destinations will coalesce around meals at favorite restaurants and stops in favorite shops. For example, In Milwaukee, my hometown, the route touristique is well-established. On landing, our first stop must be Kopp’s for one of the dinner plate-like cheeseburgers – extra butter, please – and a waxed paper envelope of onion rings. At some point during the weekend, we’ll take our places at the counter of Real Chili, where unlimited bowls of oyster crackers disappear into chili-laced spaghetti. Then it’s on to The Spice House to buy the freshest-tasting spices and chiles. And no trip is complete without a visit to Usinger’s for sausages.

If you’ve never been to Usinger’s, catch a flight to Milwaukee and visit the Old World Third Street location. You always have to wait – especially in summer, when the Brewers are in town, or before any holiday. Pull a number from the tape roll and, until your number is called, peruse the dozens of varieties of freshly made classic German sausages behind the glass display. Then look up at the wall, where a series of murals depict elves engaged in sausage-making. In typically blunt Teutonic fashion, Usinger’s spares the viewer nothing. A hog is slaughtered, dragged to the sausage-works, disemboweled, converted to links, cold cave-aged, and brought steaming to table by the elves, as a poem tells the tale of cramming pork into pig entrails and boiling it up for supper.

Liverwurst

When I was a kid, the weekly shop at the local supermarket was an exercise in lunchmeat fads; chicken roll one week, olive loaf another, ham studded with pockets of cheese the week after that. One reliable and enduring favorite, though, was liverwurst (especially Usinger’s braunschweiger). You can’t grow up in Wisconsin without developing a taste for the soft, rich liver sausage, preferably on caraway rye with sliced red onion, or, if you were a kid, between pillowy slices of white sandwich bread.

Liverwurst owes its flavor to pork liver, which is difficult to come by in supermarkets or even at the butcher shop now. That’s too bad, because pork liver is delicious in sausages and terrines; without it, your pâté de campagne, for example, will not taste like the one you enjoyed so much at the bistro. You can cook it to lower temperatures than, say, chicken liver, which the USDA recommends you cook to 165F and which at higher temperatures becomes chalky-textured and pungently liverish. It’s milder and moister, and, being much larger, is easier to clean. To find pork liver, your best bet is an Asian or Latino market or butcher, but any true butcher should be able to order it if you lack access to one of these markets.

Most types of liverwurst are emulsion forcemeats, meaning the fat is emulsified until smooth with water in the form of ice, and often with the addition of milk, as milk proteins lend further stability and richness. It’s the same kind of compact, smooth texture you’ve encountered in hot dogs, knockwurst, and the like, as opposed to the coarse, looser texture of bratwurst and Italian sausage. Temperature control is key; proper emulsion only takes place in a limited temperature range under 58F. Some, but not all, liverwursts are smoked as for braunschweiger; the following recipe is not for a smoked braunschweiger. If you want a smoked taste, you may substitute smoked slab bacon for the pork belly and reduce the total salt by 1/3, and/or hot smoke the finished product at about 160F for 60 minutes.

Cure:

24g kosher salt (4 tsp)
4g TCM (2/3 tsp)
8g sugar (scant 2 tsp)

Spices:

3g onion powder (about 1 1/2 tsp)
2g white pepper (about 1 tsp)
1/8 tsp each: allspice, nutmeg, mace, clove, ground ginger

Meat:

525g pork liver, cleaned of blood vessels and connective tissue
200g pork shoulder
325g pork belly or slab bacon

Emulsifiers:

117g ice (about 1/4 lb)
53g nonfat dry milk powder (about 3/4 c)

Combine the cure ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the spices.

Cube the pork shoulder, the belly, and the liver. Mix the pork shoulder and liver and season with the cure. Chill both the shoulder/liver and the belly (separately) in the freezer for about 2 hours, until firm but not rock solid frozen. Then toss the shoulder/liver mix with the spice blend and grind. Separately grind the belly. Keep both chilled over bowls of ice. You may refrigerate these if not ready to proceed immediately but do not refrigerate for more than about 30 minutes; otherwise, cover and freeze for up to about an hour.

Fit your food processor with a slicing blade, set out your mise en place in bowls over ice, and prepare to work quickly as the mixture will not emulsify if the ingredients are too warm. Place the ice cubes in the food processor and run until the ice is crushed. [If your ice is already crushed you may skip this step]

Add the ground marinated shoulder/liver to the crushed ice. Run steadily until the meat is incorporated with the ice. Run until the temperature reaches about 28F-30F. At this point it will resemble nothing so much as a sort of cold, red meat goo and calls to mind von Bismarck’s injunction regarding sausagemaking. Note: the rest of this process, until the point of cooking and slicing, is not photogenic. Do not be put off – that’s just how it looks. All the earlier talk of liver and disemboweling by elf was meant to cushion the blow.

As the machine runs, add the ground pork belly. Continue to run until the mixture reaches about 40F. The mixture should emulsify and form an increasingly stiff paste about the color of a pencil eraser. Add the spice and continue to run until the mixture reaches 45F-47F. Then add the milk powder and run steadily until the mixture reaches about 56F-58F. Do not exceed 60F or your emulsion likely will break as the fat becomes liquid. Each stage of temperature rise in this process takes a fairly long time, much longer than you might expect. When finished, the mixture will be quite stiff with a uniform consistency; it should approximate the color of a pink rubber ball and contain no visible chunks of meat.

At this point you can scrape it from the bowl using a flexible spatula, pack it into a plastic bag, and compress in a chamber sealer to remove the air bubbles before forming into sausage, but this step is not necessary. I generally do not find air bubbling a huge problem when making liverwurst (as opposed to making, say, mortadella). If you omit this step, simply pile onto sheets of clingfilm and roll into sausages about 6″ long and 2 1/2″ in diameter. Twist the ends and roll in the opposite direction in a second layer of clingfilm. Tie the ends securely and poach in water just shy of simmering for about 2 hours. Alternatively, vacuum pack the rolls in bags and cook sous vide at 158F for 2 1/2 hours. Feel free to use natural casing if you can find the larger hot casings.

Immediately chill down the wursts in an ice bath and refrigerate at least a few hours to allow them to firm up before slicing. Excellent with pickled red onion and mustard on a sandwich, whether open faced or between slabs of house-baked pumpernickel. Or eat it old-school Milwaukee kid style, as a white-bread sandwich layered with mayonnaise and thin slices of pickle.

Fish tales.

During the last few years, restaurant menus have come to feature more and more of the offal – those off-cuts that so often get thrown out or turned into pet food out of ignorance of their savory qualities. I’ve written about offal around here from time to time – using liver for pâté and terrines, the joys of sweetbreads, cheeks and caul, for a start. We eat those, and plenty more – the tongue and heart, and brains are favorites.

In all the talk and excitement about oxtail and beef tongue, pork liver and lamb brains, fish often gets left behind. And that’s a shame, because – unlike most eating mammals – fish are small enough that a home cook can break down the whole animal and consume it within a meal or two. What kind of offal does the fish have to offer? Well, if you’re like most people, you’ve been eating fish primarly in fillet form, or maybe once in a while cut into steaks. Every fish has a collar, though – basically the neck – which holds delicious bits of meat; larger fish often have very moist, scallop-like cheeks; and then there’s the liver. In the spring, you’re apt to find roe sacs; for some fish, like pike and shad, these are quite creamy and delicate, even more tender than brains. Shad is reliably delicious, which accounts for its recurring star turn every spring; the rockfish roe (pictured below) is tender and moist, but sometimes can have a bitter, bleachy taste that is off-putting.

Rockfish roe, gremolata, broken brown butter.

If you’re new to fish off-cuts, the collar is probably the friendliest for a start. The recipe below for rockfish collar will be familiar to you if you’ve ever ordered hamachi kama, or the yellowtail collar, at a Japanese restaurant. If you don’t want to deal with off-cuts, try the recipe for a seared rockfish fillet, which pairs yuzu with tomato in a delicious sauce.

Rockfish collar, togarishi goma

The collar of any fish holds some of its sweetest meat – within the c-shaped curve of the bone are moist nuggets of fish, akin to the crab backfin meat in terms of flavor and succulence. Each fish only has one, of course, and it isn’t considered a prime cut, so you’re not going to find it unless a) you break down your own fish (which I recommend of course, to keep your knife skills tight and to get the freshest product); b) you live in a city with a large Asian population and a great fish market; or c) you have a reliable fishmonger who breaks down fish in-house and can sell or give you the collars. It’s worth asking around if you’re not willing to break down your own fish.

If you do want to try your hand at butchery, you’ll find it’s not hard. I recommend you have someone scale your fish, at a minimum (I sometimes do it myself but it is a colossal mess); if you have no plans for the liver and roe, they might as well gut the fish too, because the air bladders can be difficult to separate from the gills. Just ask to have your fish scaled and cleaned.

Scaling.

Lay the cleaned fish on one side with the head to the left and the belly facing you, on a couple of clean kitchen towels on a cutting board to reduce slippage. Start by trimming off the fins, which can be poke-y. Slice the fish downward through to the bone, about an inch behind the gills (if you took economics, you’re looking at a slightly downward-sloping demand curve). Then, starting at the tail end, slice off the fillet, working along the central bone at a slight angle so the blade runs against the bone, with your other hand holding the fish in place, ending when you reach the gill incision. Flip it over and do the other fillet. At this point you can clean the bones from the fillet, trim off the belly fat, etc.

To get to the collar, first chop off the spine at the incision you made behind the gills. The portion of the head between the gills and that incision is the collar – and it usually contains the fish’s pectoral fins. Think of the collar as the neck, more or less. You can cut the cheeks out of the head as well – sadly, with the typical 18-20″ rockfish, the cheeks are pretty small. Use the spine and the rest of the head for fish fumet (akin to stock); you’ll simmer it with onion, celery, carrot, fennel, white wine, and aromatics for about an hour and strain through a cheesecloth-lined chinois.

Broken down.

The recipe below specifies togarishi goma, which, broken into its Japanese components, refers to a spicy seasoning of shichimi togarishi (“seven spice mixture”) and toasted sesame seeds. I’ve never seen it outside of the famous Japanese vendor Yawataya, and that’s where I get it. Instead, I recommend buying shichimi togarishi, which is widely available in the Japanese section of groceries, and combining it with toasted sesame seeds.

Rockfish collar, miso, togarishi goma.

2 rockfish collars
2 tbsp shiro miso or aka miso
2 tbsp mirin
1 tsp usukuchi soy
1 medium yuzu or 1 small lemon
2 tbsp togarishi goma or a combination of 1/2 tsp shichimi togarishi and 2 tbsp sesame seeds, lightly toasted

Oven 500F/260C

If using a combination of shichimi togarishi and sesame seeds, combine and set aside.

Combine the miso, mirin, and soy in a small pan and bring to a simmer. Reduce to a thick glaze. Coat the rockfish collars in the glaze. If your oven is blazing, you can move on right away; otherwise, refrigerate the collars.

Roast for about 8-10 minutes until just fully cooked through. Season with a squeeze of yuzu juice and togarishi goma. The fish’s meat will release easily from the bone when fully cooked.

Rockfish, tomato, yuzu

Rockfish, or striped bass, is one of the finest fish in the coastal Atlantic. There aren’t a lot of advantages to living in Baltimore, especially if your husband is allergic to crab, but rockfish certainly counts as one. But take advantage of your local fish; any medium-textured white fish will do.

4 6-ounce portions rockfish (the photo below depicts a 3-ounce portion), one per person
1 pint cherry and/or pear tomatoes – if you can find a mixed box of different colors, use that
2 large yellow potatoes, peeled
2 oz pine nuts
1 medium yuzu, zest grated, halved (substitute a lemon if yuzu is unavailable)
minced chives
salt and pepper

1 large banana shallot, minced
1 c dry white wine
1 14-ounce can of tomatoes
2 c fish fumet (described above)
2 fresh bay leaves
4 branches thyme
salt
piment d’espelette or cayenne pepper
canola or grapeseed oil

400F/205C oven.

Prepare the tomato broth first:

Place a sauce pot over medium-low heat and, when hot, add a little oil to film the pan. Add the shallots and sweat until translucent. Add the white wine and reduce to au sec (a glaze). Add the canned tomatoes, breaking up, and simmer about 15 minutes to break down. Add the fish fumet and herbs and simmer another 15 minutes. Strain through a chinois, pressing on the solids. Taste for seasoning; add salt and espelette. Set aside as you prepare the rest of the dish.

Blanch the tomatoes and cook the potatoes. Set a Large pot of salted water containing the potatoes to boil over high heat. While waiting to boil, score the cherry tomatoes by slicing a shallow “x” in the stem end of the tomato. Don’t cut through to the seed sacs. Drop the tomatoes into the boiling water and remove with a spider after about 10 seconds. These tomatoes are small so you do not have to shock them in cold water; simply wait until they cool a little and then slip off the skins.

When the potatoes are tender, drain and peel off the skin. Slice about 1/4″. Sauté until just golden in a hot pan with a little clarified butter.

Season the fish; if working with a larger fillet (over 4 oz), slice through the skin with 2-3 shallow parallel cuts to prevent too much curling. Place a skillet over high heat and, when hot, add about 2 tbsp of oil. Place the fish skin-side down in the pan and cook about 2 minutes, until the skin begins to crisp. Transfer to the oven and finish cooking. Cook about 9-11 minutes depending on the fillet’s thickness. Meanwhile, toast the pine nuts in a single layer in the sheet pan while the fish roasts.

Plate the roasted potatoes and the blanched cherry tomatoes. Top with a portion of pan-roasted rockfish and a sprinkling of pine nuts. Stir the yuzu juice and zest into the tomato broth and ladle the broth around the fish. Garnish with chive.

Seared rockfish, yellow finns, golden pear tomatoes, pine nuts.

With tomato and yuzu.

Cheeky.

One of the most interesting aspects of social networking is its potential to unintentionally reveal the truth about the self, the person behind the crafted public image. Along these lines, a surprisingly large number of self-described “foodies” – the kind of people who TiVo Food Network and would throw their panties at Michael Symon if he turned up in a local supermarket – evidently find certain foods too scary to eat. “I love ya Chef but sweetbreads I don’t think so……LOL!” goes one recent zinger on Facebook. “Ewwww….tongue!” says another. You can’t beat it for wit.

You already know about my low tolerance for this infantile attitude toward food. This goes back a long time. The summer after graduating from law school, I went to Spain and Portugal with some friends, a trip that reached its nadir one night in Seville when, nerves frayed from two weeks of hairpin turns in a packed Peugeot, sweaty nights in a series of hostels without air conditioning, and a couple of travel companions who displayed a surprising lack of dietary sang-froid, we got into an argument at the restaurant. Sitting beside the Guadalquivir and surveying the platters landing at tables around us, one travel companion complained that nothing on the menu was edible because all the seafood and poultry came head-on and bone-in.

“Just … order it,” I gritted tightly. “That’s how it comes in Spain.”

“Well, it’s gross,” she shot back. “I don’t eat food with the heads on. I don’t care where we are.”

“We’re not in Roseville, Brenda*. Shrimp has heads. Chicken has bones. There is no goddamn boneless chicken ranch.”

At this point there was a great scraping of metal on concrete as Brenda pushed back her chair, stood up, and threw her napkin down on the table. “You – are – such – a – @$%&^*@ – $#@&$!” she shouted, storming off and attracting the full attention of the other diners, who I’m pretty sure got the gist of her outburst even if they didn’t speak English. Good times, good times.

Looking back, I probably could’ve been nicer about it. For example, if I were trying to ease someone into the idea of eating offal today, I’d serve them braised cheeks. They’re basically like any other cut of meat but better, with all the flavor concentrated in one small disc, bathed in a glossy sauce. The plentiful collagen in the cheeks – heavily exercised by all that chewing – accounts for the sauce’s body.

Iberico pork cheeks.

Cheeks aren’t always the easiest cut to find, but I encourage you to look around, because they’re well worth the hunt. If you’ve got access to a market that caters to a Latino clientele, you might find them, as they’re a favored cut (and I’ve heard that Wal-Marts with well-stocked meat departments sometimes carry them in the freezer section, so give that a shot – it may be the only time I ever endorse stopping into the Wal-Mart). If you can’t find cheeks, substitute shank, shoulder (in the case of pork), or short rib (in the case of beef). Don’t substitute pork belly; it’s a lot fattier than the cheek, and you’ll wind up with a greasy braise. And don’t substitute hog jowl; it resembles the belly more than the cheek.

Pork cheeks, celeriac pancake, apple

If you subscribe to the textural variation school of cooking – and I do – you will want something firm or crisp to accompany the cheeks, since they’re falling-apart tender and saucy. A celeriac-potato rösti-like cake makes a great accompaniment. Relieve the richness of the cheeks with a fresh apple salad. If you have leftover cheeks, enjoy them with toast points, cornichons, and mustard for lunch.

I used ibérico cheeks and highly recommend them; they had an intensely meaty, nutty flavor that I haven’t encountered in any other type of pork. If you’d like to try them, Iberico USA carries them. The long braising process in the flavorful liquid makes up for a lot of the shortcomings of conventional pork, though, so don’t hesitate to make this dish if you can’t spring for the ibérico cheeks. Keep the cooking temperature low, as near to 180F as you can, to ensure tenderness rather than stringiness. The intention of long cooking at low temperatures is to break the collagen down into gelatin, which then bathes the meat’s muscle fibers. Although it may seem that braised meats cannot become dry, this is untrue; the fibers in the cheek, like those in other heavily-exercised parts of the animal, are long and will become tough, dry, and unpleasantly stringy if they lose too much moisture. If that happens, you can notice the stringiness even when the meat is adequately coated in sauce. So don’t be tempted to cook at a higher temperature, and always be careful when reheating.

One last thing: in a conventional braise, the meat is browned first to develop rich, savory flavors via the Maillard reaction. I dispensed with this step because the cheeks are quite small and I wanted to reduce the possibility that the meat would toughen up. It turns out not to be necessary.

Oh, actually, one last last thing: the ibérico cheeks came in a pretty large Cryovac package and, when thawed, gave up a few cups of blood. I saved the blood, which smelled sweet and clean, and not slaughterhouse-y in that way that factory-farmed (CAFO) pork smells. I’ll be making blood sausage with that in the future, so watch for the post.

2 lb pork cheeks, cleaned of silverskin if necessary
one large onion, peeled and diced
two carrots, scraped and coarsely chopped
two stalks celery, coarsely chopped
16 oz ale
1 1/2 quart veal stock (substitute white beef stock or chicken stock)
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp grated fresh horseradish root
bouquet garni

2 granny smith apples
lemon juice
chives, minced

180F/82C oven.

Place a heavy, lidded pot over medium heat and, when hot, add about 1 tbsp oil. Add the vegetables and sweat until tender and translucent. Add the ale and scrape up the fond. Lower the heat and reduce by about half. This step is necessary to reduce the booziness of the beer.

Add the stock and aromatics; return to simmer. Stir in the mustard and horseradish; place the pork cheeks in the pot. Cover with parchment paper and then the lid; place in the oven. Alternatively, reduce the heat to the lowest setting and maintain just shy of a simmer. You may not achieve equivalent results on the stove since a consistently low heat is harder to achieve.

Braise 10-12 hours in the oven or about 5-6 hours on the stove. Check stove from time to time to ensure that the braise is not boiling.

When fork-tender, remove cheeks to a container. Strain the braising liquid through chinois over the cheeks to cover. Chill overnight (this step is not strictly necessary but it will make the fat easier to remove).

After removing the cheeks

Remove cold fat layer from the top of the container. Return the braising liquid to a pan and reduce over low heat until glossy, smooth, and sauce-like. This step may take from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on your volume of liquid, the size of your pan, and the heat of your stove. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and return the cheeks to the pan. Heat through.

Prepare a brunoise of the granny smith apples and toss with a little lemon juice to prevent browning. Then combine with the chives.

Serve the cheeks with celeriac rösti wedges and the apple-herb salad.

Iberico cheek, celeriac rosti, mustard, celeriac purée.

For the celeriac rösti:

This isn’t strictly a rösti, which classically features just potatoes and butter. It just sort of resembles one.

1/2 celeriac root, washed and peeled (use a knife to peel, not a peeler)
1/2 lb russet potatoes, washed and peeled
1 medium yellow onions, minced
1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp ground celery seed
pinch of cayenne or espelette pepper
4 large eggs, beaten with a fork
kosher salt to taste, at least 1 tsp and probably more
black pepper
celery salt to finish
vegetable oil and butter

Oven 425F on broil. Set the rack in the middle position of the oven.

Place a 12″ skillet over medium heat and, when hot add 1 tbsp oil. Sauté the onion until translucent and just beginning to color slightly. Do not brown. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

Combine the eggs, flour, celery seed, cayenne, scallions, onion, 2 tsp salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Wipe out the skillet.

Shred the celeriac in a food processor or grate on a box grater. Toss with about 1/2 tsp lemon juice to prevent browning (try not to use more or it will be sour). Shred the potatoes in a food processor or grate on a box grater. Place in a clean kitchen towel (one that does not smell of detergent or dryer sheets), fold the towel over, twist the ends, and squeeze the towel over a bowl. Squeeze as much liquid as possible out of the potato. If necessary, repeat in another towel. Add the grated potatoes and celeriac to the egg mixture and stir well to combine.

Return the skillet to medium high heat and add about 1 tbsp each butter and oil to the pan. Swirl the pan once the butter foams to coat the sides about 1″ up. Add the entire mixture and distribute evenly throughout the pan, patting to compress somewhat. Cook until the underside is golden brown and pulls away slightly from the sides; transfer to the broiler.

Cook until the top is golden brown. Remove,cool slightly, and transfer to a cutting board. Slice into wedges. Season with a grind of black pepper and a little celery salt.

Golden brown cake.

Beef cheek, ricotta dumpling, cauliflower soup

Certain cuts of beef taste to me like “generic meat.” Beef tenderloin, for example – I’ve never really understood the great love of filet mignon (although I imagine it corresponds with the fear of offal). Or the round – there’s nothing really wrong with it, but I’ve had a lot of roast beef made from the round, which tastes to me like AnyMeat. It could be the reason why I’ve never been able to get excited about deli roast beef sandwiches.

Beef cheek, though? You’ll never mistake that for anything other than beef. Along with the deckle and the short rib, it is one of the three cuts that deliver the most intense beef flavor per bite. The dish below – beef cheeks with dumplings and a creamy cauliflower soup, garnished with flash-fried cauliflower florets – is pretty rich, and a small-portions kind of thing. If you have fresh truffle, now is the time to use it.

You’ll have leftover beef cheek and braising reduction; you can shred up the cheeks in the reduction and toss it with tagliatelle or pappardelle.

For the beef cheek:

1 1/2 lb beef cheeks, cleaned of the most obvious gristle and silverskin
medium onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
bouquet garni (leek w/bay leaf, thyme, parsley)
2 c dry red wine
1 quart white beef stock or veal stock

180F/82C oven.

Place a heavy, lidded pot over medium heat and, when hot, add about 1 tbsp oil. Sear the beef cheeks on all sides until deep brown (a couple of minutes per side). Remove to a plate. Add the vegetables to the pan and sweat until tender and translucent. Add the wine and scrape up the fond. Lower the heat and reduce by about half.

Add the stock and aromatics; return to simmer. Return the beef cheeks in the pot. Cover with parchment paper and then the lid; place in the oven. Alternatively, reduce the heat to the lowest setting and maintain just shy of a simmer. You may not achieve equivalent results on the stove since a consistently low heat is harder to achieve.

Braise 10-12 hours in the oven or about 5-6 hours on the stove. Check stove from time to time to ensure that the braise is not boiling.

When fork-tender, remove cheeks to a container. Strain the braising liquid through chinois over the cheeks to cover. Chill overnight (this step is not strictly necessary but it will make the fat easier to remove).

Remove cold fat layer from the top of the container. Return the braising liquid to a pan and reduce over low heat until glossy, smooth, and sauce-like. This step may take from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on your volume of liquid, the size of your pan, and the heat of your stove. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and return the cheeks to the pan. Gently heat through.

Serve with the cauliflower soup, flash fried cauliflower florets, and the dumplings. If you have fresh white truffle (or black), slice a little bit over the top.

Beef cheek, cauliflower, ricotta dumpling

Cauliflower soup

2/3 lb cauliflower florets and stems, sliced 1/4″
2 1/2 c white veal stock or chicken stock
6 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar (to taste)
5 tbsp butter
2/3 c heavy cream
salt and white pepper

To prepare sous vide:

Bag the cauliflower with the salt and 1 tbsp butter. Vacuum seal and drop into a circulator at 183F/84C for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, bring the stock to a simmer with the bay and thyme.

Remove herbs. Transfer both cauliflower and stock to a vitaprep. Blitz until smooth and add the cream; blitz again until smooth. Add the butter; blitz again. If necessary, strain through a chinois. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

To prepare conventionally:

Bring the stock to a simmer with the thyme and bay leaf and, when add the cauliflower. Simmer until tender, about 8 minutes; do not continue to simmer beyond that point. Remove herbs.

Transfer to a vitaprep. Blitz until smooth and add the cream; blitz again until smooth. Add the butter; blitz again. If necessary, strain through a chinois. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

For the dumplings:

1/2 lb whole milk ricotta
1 egg, beaten
between 3-5 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
minced assorted herbs – thyme, chives, tarragon, parsley

Combine the beaten egg with the minced herbs, salt, and the ricotta. Incorporate well. Spread out on a flat surface and sprinkle flour evenly over the surface; working quickly, fold the ricotta/egg mixture over itself again and again, using a bench scraper or knife to incorporate the flour into the ricotta, to form a small square. Transfer it back into a bowl and let it rest (you can rest it in the refrigerator for up to a day at this point, tightly covered).

At serving time, bring a pot of salted water to a simmer and, using a small scoop or two spoons, drop balls or quenelles of dumpling dough about 3/4″ into the simmering water. When the dumplings float, let them simmer for about a minute. Remove from the water with a skimmer and drain briefly on a clean kitchen towel.

With a cauliflower soup.

*names have been changed to protect the food-cowardly.

Big Hungry Boy.

Recently, the New York Times ran a ridiculous Opinionator column by Virginia Heffernan dividing American women into two categories – “foodies” and “techies” – and bashing the “foodies” while touting the virtues of “life-hacking techies.” I still don’t really know what “life-hacking” means, but the distinction between people who spend their time thinking about food and people who glorify progress and technology struck me as total bullshit. What about, say, Wylie Dufresne? Or Ferran Adrià? What about me?

Heffernan’s piece illustrates the danger in categorizing people. That said, I feel fairly confident saying that some men are Big Hungry Boys – guys who just like to eat, and to eat as much as they can – and others are not. Unlike an ex-boyfriend in Minnesota who once lived for months on almost nothing but bagged coleslaw without complaint, my husband appreciates copiousness and variety. One evening in 2009, during our summer visit to a friend’s home in the south of France, we stopped after a sweaty day in Nîmes for dinner in Andùze, arriving before the rest of our friends at “La Rocaille,” an old stone-faced restaurant in the town square, opposite the site of the ancient covered market. Sitting down to cold Heinekens, we scanned the menu while waiting for our party. La Rocaille’s advantages for a big hungry boy soon became clear. For under 9€, you could get a three course meal of salad or terrine, steak, merguez, or poulet frites, pasta or pizza, and to finish, fromage or ice cream. It was low-budget, of course – the tables were set with paper napkins and mustard packets, which anticipated foil-wrapped wedges of camembert and ice cream in waxed paper cups (complete with the little wooden spoon). Even so, the frites were thin and crispy, and flecked with exactly the right amount of salt. When Nat and our friend Kem both ordered terrine de pâté to start; the waiter brought a knife and pan the size of a loaf of bread to the table. The two of them (by which I mean mostly Nat, in case you wondered) ate more than half the contents – a rustic and surprisingly delicious pâté de campagne – right out of the pan before it occurred to anyone that maybe that whole thing wasn’t just for them.

La Rocaille on the left; weekly market square on the right.

Last summer, on our last night in the same home in France, Nat requested a return visit to La Rocaille. “They have that giant terrine!” he appealed, laying a hand on my elbow.

“You know that whole thing wasn’t all for you, right?” I reminded him uncertainly.

“You don’t know that for sure,” he shrugged. All the same, I agreed that dinner at La Rocaille was a great idea. I wanted to find out if they still had the same mustard packets. Randomness comes in many forms, and on our first visit, it took the shape of a yellow plastic packet inexplicably bearing the name of a former law school classmate. It was a little like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer stumbles upon an empty Japanese detergent box bearing his visage in a landfill.

Coincidental mustard.

Nat was less interested in the mustard than in the potential for unlimited pâté de campagne. It wasn’t the first time Nat’s appetite has conflicted with local practice. On our first trip to Taipei after my parents moved there, we visited Din Tai Fung for their famous xiaolongbao, soup dumplings served with black vinegar and fine shreds of ginger. I placed our order out on the sidewalk with one of the uniformed attendants, who promptly crossed out more than half the items we’d checked off on the paper slip. “Too much!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. In a panic driven partly by my inability to speak Chinese and partly by a concern that we were about to get shortchanged on Juicy Pork Dumplings, I pointed to Nat, a little further down the sidewalk, perusing the window display at Mister Donut. The attendant nodded knowingly and re-checked the items without further comment. On subsequent visits, I learned to bring Nat along when handing off the order form. Big Hungry Boy.

Anyway, when the terrine arrived at La Rocaille, Nat cut a single slice – a thick slice, but still – and slid the pan to the edge of the table for the waiter. I did feel a little bad for him. It seemed to me, after all, that one of the dangers inherent in providing self-serve communal terrine is that any one of your customers will eat far more than his share, up to and including the whole thing. In the law, we call that “assumption of risk.” So at home, Nat can eat all the terrine he likes, sliced up or straight out of the pan. If you have a meat grinder, so can you.

Pâté de campagne

Pâté de campagne is inherently rustic and thrifty – hence “de campagne.” You don’t make it by grinding up carefully trimmed pork loin – to the contrary, pâté de campagne is a way to use up scraps, trimmings, and offal – anything from the nose to the tail of the pig. So don’t worry too much about the ratio of meats. If you’re not really a meat-trimmer and aren’t in the habit of keeping large quantities of scraps, just be sure of two things – a good amount of fatty pork (and perhaps also veal or duck), and liver. The fat is necessary to keep the pâté out of the cat food realm, and the liver provides flavor ranging from subtle to pronounced, depending how much you use. Your only concern should be proper seasoning. Use 1 tsp salt and a little more than 1/4 tsp quatre épices per pound/450g meat.

You can chop the meat by hand for a very rustic pâté, which provides some textural variety, but realistically, it’s far easier to pass the meat through a grinder fitted with a coarse die. I don’t recommend using store-ground meat. You can dispense with lining the pan with foil/clingfilm (especially if you intend to serve straight from the terrine), but it does make it far easier to remove, and definitely makes it easier to weight after cooking.

About 4 1/4 lbs fatty pork trimmings and offal, including liver, in a 3:1 ratio, or:
2 1/4 lb / 1 kg pork shoulder or butt, preferably a really fatty slab
1 lb / 450 g fatback or pork belly
1 lb / 450 g pork liver
2 large shallots, diced
3 bay leaves
8 sprigs fresh thyme
4 juniper berries
1/4 c dry sherry or cognac (sherry will be drier, cognac sweeter)
1/4 c dry white wine
1 1/2 tsp quatre épices or a mixture of 3/4 tsp white pepper and 1/4 tsp each ground ginger, nutmeg, and cloves
scant 1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt
one large egg
optional: caul fat
optional: whole black truffle
optional: lobe foie gras, trimmed of all veins and connective tissue, cut into strips about 1″ x 1″
optional: 2/3 c lightly toasted pistachio nuts

Dice the meats and offal (1″ or slightly less is good) and combine with the shallots, bay, thyme, juniper and the liquids. Combine in a shallow pan and cover the surface with clingfilm. Cover the pan tightly and refrigerate for 1-2 days.

Chill the worm, blade, and coarse die of your meat grinder (freezing is best). Remove the bay and thyme from the marinade and run the rest of the contents through the grinder into a chilled metal bowl. Combine with the egg, salt, and quatre épices. If using pistachios, add to the mixture as well.

Mixture with egg and salt.

Oven 225F/107C.

Line each of two terrine or loaf pans with aluminum foil and then with clingfilm. If using caul fat, line the pan with caul, overhanging the edges by about 3″ (you will trim it later). Fill the pans with the mixture. If using truffle, fill the pan halfway, shave the truffle, and layer the shavings across that layer; finish with another layer of meat. If using foie, fill the pan halfway, lay the foie in the center lengthwise, and finish with meat. If using, fold the caul over the top of the terrine and trim. Fold the clingfilm tightly over the top, and then the foil.

Caul.

Wrapped.

Slide the terrine lid in place. If using a loaf pan, cut a piece of cardboard to fit and wrap in two thicknesses of foil; place on top. Place the terrines in a large roasting pan (with about 2″ between them) and fill with boiling water to a level halfway up the sides of the pans. Place in the oven and cook until the mixture reaches 160F in the center, which depends on the looseness of your mixture and whether or not you are using convection. At the convection setting, you should be done in about 1 1/2 hours; up to three if not using convection.

Remove the pans from the water bath and, when just cool enough to handle, weight down with heavy cans. Place in the refrigerator weights and all and chill for at least a day and up to three. When ready to serve, turn out onto a board and unwrap. Brush cold fat and jellied meat juices from the surface of the pâté and slice. Serve with cornichons and mustard.

Pâté de campagne, cornichons

No guts, no glory.

One of the best aspects of buying whole chicken is the plastic-wrapped bundle of organs tucked inside the cavity. Raise your hand if you use the contents. No?

Perhaps recognizing that most people just throw out the liver, heart, and gizzards, many chicken processors – including one of my favorites, the sustainable-practices Ayrshire Farm – no longer include that little packet of organ-y goodness. And that’s a shame. I know it’s annoying when people whip out the old “When I was a kid” line, but when I was a kid, my favorite parts of the chicken were the heart and gizzards. My mom would set an entire chicken to simmer in spices and aromatics, or rub it in salt and pepper to roast in the oven; soon after the cooking started, she’d spear the heart and gizzards with a fork or chopstick and hand it across the counter to me. Years later, driving through Dollywood (I know) on the way to the Smokies, I stopped for gas at a filling station in Tennessee that also sold hot paper cones of fried gizzards. We can debate the wisdom of buying gas station food from a guy in a dirty sleeveless Bud t-shirt with a cigarette who filled the cone with a lit cigarette firmly clamped between his lips, but we can’t argue about the taste. Those gizzards were good.

I wrote recently about my foie gras and sweetbreads initiation in Paris a couple of decades ago. Undoubtedly, the path to foie was eased by many a chicken liver. My husband, who claims not to enjoy liver, makes numerous exceptions: for Braunschweiger, a hastily made chopped liver flavored with Cognac on toast, chicken liver pâté. Once, while an undergraduate at Oberlin, he and some friends, having taken responsibility for the weekend meal at their co-op, prepared chicken liver pâté for eighty people. Or what they thought was the right amount for eighty people, which with a certain perspective on how much pâté any one person might eat has turned out to be way more than eighty people ever were going to eat. In any case, they filled a three gallon plastic bucket with the remaining pâté, which Nat brought home to his apartment. According to the Baldwin Co-op Chicken Liver Pâté Mythos, the next day – Super Bowl Sunday – his housemates ate most of the pâté right out of the bucket while watching the game until a certain sense of gastric unease forced them to stop. Asked about it today, Nat will only deliver this message: “Tony Geron, no one forced you to eat all that pâté.”

No one’s going to force you to eat three gallons of pâté from a plastic bucket. But you might want to think twice before throwing out that little plastic packet next time you buy a whole chicken. Use it to make a quick chopped liver, to serve before the chicken. Or freeze it, covered in milk, adding livers and milk to the container with each chicken you butcher, and make a smooth, rich pâté.

Quick chopped liver

This is the perfect way to use one large chicken liver, fresh from the chicken. Don’t have Cognac? Don’t worry – Madeira, brandy, Calvados, port, and even bourbon can substitute.

1/2 small onion, peeled and diced as small as possible (1/8″ if you can)
2 tbsp butter, divided
2 sprigs thyme
one large chicken liver
1 tbsp Cognac
salt and pepper
chives, minced

Place a sauté pan over medium heat and, when hot, add 1 tbsp butter. When the butter foams, add the onions and thyme and reduce the heat slightly, seasoning with a little salt. Sauté the onions until they just begin to turn golden.

While the onion cooks, clean the liver – remove the veins and connective tissue – and chop as finely as you can. The liver is very soft so you should be able to chop with ease. It will appear to coalesce into a pool, rather than distinct small pieces.

Raise the heat slightly. Add the liver to the onions, season with salt, and cook, stirring from time to time, until the liver is tender and begins to brown. Add the Cognac and cook until the liquid is absorbed. Remove the thyme, stir in the remaining butter. Garnish with chives.

Serve on toast points.

Chicken liver pâté

This makes a decent amount of pâté – about 28 ounces or so, probably enough for at least 10 servings – but if you cover it with fat, pack it into small tightly sealed containers with gaskets, and don’t open it until you’re ready to eat, you can prolong its life to about 3 weeks. Great for parties!

The awesomeness of this pâté is its silken texture. You won’t find fibers or granular bits in this pâté because it’s been passed through a fine sieve. That step takes a little time and I won’t pretend it’s fun standing there pushing it through, but it’s worth it. You can dispense with the sieving, and it’ll taste good, but not as good.

If you accumulate livers in milk in the freezer, prepare this dish once you have about a pound (maybe 8 large) livers. Thaw them in the refrigerator and, when totally thawed, drain the milk. You can dispense with the milk-soaking step in the recipe, which reduces the blood content and bitterness of the livers.

1 lb chicken livers
2 c milk
1 large onion, peeled and diced
6 sprigs thyme
bay leaf
salt
optional: curing salt (Tinted Curing Mix or pink salt)
vegetable oil
1/4 tsp quatre épices or a large pinch each of the following ground spices: cloves, ginger, and nutmeg plus 1/8 tsp white pepper
3 tbsp Cognac
5 oz (10 tbsp or 1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 c melted duck fat, or chicken fat, or butter

Clean the liver – remove the veins and connective tissue. Divide into equal-sized large pieces. Soak in milk, refrigerated, for at least 2 hours. Drain well and discard the milk.

Place a sauté pan over medium heat and, when hot, add 2 tbsp vegetable oil. Add the onions, thyme, and bay and reduce the heat slightly, seasoning with a little salt. Sauté the onions until they just begin to turn golden.

Raise the heat slightly and add the quatre épices. Add the liver to the onions, season with about 3/4 tsp salt or 3/4 tsp salt plus 1/16 tsp curing salt (if using), and cook, stirring from time to time, until the liver is tender and begins to brown. Add the Cognac and cook until the liquid is absorbed. Remove the thyme and bay leaf.

Transfer to a vitaprep or blender and process until relatively smooth. Add the butter and continue to process. The mixture will be quite runny. It will firm up on chilling.

Pass through a tamis or fine sieve, using a rubber spatula or bowl scraper to push the mixture through. Taste for seasoning and transfer to lidded jars, preferably with gaskets, leaving 1/2″ or more space at the top.

Delicious chicken liver pâté

Melt the duck fat and pour a thin layer over the surface of the pâté in each jar. Chill until firm.

Serve with toast or grilled bread, accompanied by sweet onion confit or cornichons.

On toast with tart-sweet onion confit

Ducked up.

In his 2003 autobiography “The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen,” Jacques Pépin relates an anecdote about stopping by a duck farm during a mushroom-picking outing with his friend Jean-Claude and Jean-Claude’s daughters. The little girls select a live duck for dinner, money exchanges hands, Jean-Claude wrings the duck’s neck, and the four of them are run off the property for their cruelty. “[E]ven in a rural area,” Pépin awesomely understates, “my attitude toward farm animals caused some misunderstandings with the neighbors.”

I still don’t get what that farmer thought was going to happen to those ducks if she didn’t expect them to wind up as dinner. That outcome seemed pretty obvious – a couple of French dudes in a pickup on the way back from mushrooming? Don’t kid yourself, lady – those ducks weren’t going to be anyone’s pets.

Duck is inherently festive and restaurant-y. Think Peking duck, canard à l’orange, caneton à la presse. I think that’s because people don’t like to cook it at home. To the uninitiated, duck can seem like a huge production. Whereas a roast chicken is universally comprehensible and manageable – season with salt, tuck a lemon and some herbs in the cavity, and throw it into the oven for an hour – duck presents multiple challenges. First, there’s the fat. Roasting a whole duck generates huge quantities of fat, which smokes up the oven like crazy, and if you don’t separate the skin from the breast before roasting, great pockets of jelllyish fat can cling to the meat, which is kind of gross. Second, there’s the doneness problem. Chicken legs and thighs do take longer to cook than the breast, but not much, and you can roast the chicken whole without sacrificing the quality of either. In contrast, it’s virtually impossible to roast a whole duck and end up with a medium-rare breast and properly cooked legs. Duck legs are fairly rich in connective tissue and require fairly long, slow cooking or they seem sinewy and tough; duck breast, other than the fatty layer of skin, are lean and tender, and long cooking not only toughens them but makes them taste livery. And third, duck seems super expensive considering the yield. With the exception of magret from force-fed ducks, the breast is skimpy relative to the bird’s overall size. A five pound duck really only yields enough meat to feed two or three people.

The solution? Break it down. Even though few things are better looking than a whole mahogany-glazed roast duck straight out of the oven, a broken-down duck tastes better and offers more cooking options. You can roast, braise, or confit the legs; cure the breasts as “pastrami,” score the skin and grill them, or cook sous vide; make stock from the generous frame; reduce the skin to fat and crackling. You’ll find that you can use every part of the duck – when I broke mine down, all that was left were a couple of pieces of sinew holding the tenders to the breasts. And even those got thrown into the stockpot. You should have no waste at all.

Duck breast:

Thanks to Andrew Little of Sheppard Mansion B&B for the inspiration – I saw the photo of this duck preparation on his Facebook page and initially thought he’d scraped the fat from the skin and re-rolled it around the breast, until he told me it was cabbage.

In this preparation. the skinned duck breasts are rolled in blanched savoy cabbage leaves and cooked at a controlled temperature sous vide for a uniform medium rare doneness. Or actually, just past medium rare – the breasts are an even pink throughout. To form the cylinders of duck, I used Activa GM transglutaminase to bind the duck to itself; otherwise, the natural shape is flat and oblong. You can skip this part of the exercise and just wrap the breasts as they are. Don’t fold the duck into a cylinder and wrap it in savoy if you don’t have transglutaminase, though, because it won’t hold together. Just wrap them in their natural shape.

4 duck breasts (from 2 ducks), skinned and deboned
salt and pepper
2 tsp transglutaminase Activa GM
4 large leaves savoy cabbage, washed well (make a few extra for good measure)

Place a large stockpot of water over high heat and bring to a boil. Blanch the savoy leaves. Remove with a skimmer and drain on clean kitchen towels. Blot off as much water as possible.

Place four pieces of plastic cling film on a clean surface. Each one should be large enough to accommodate the duck and be rolled over several times.

If using Activa, sprinkle on the inside (tender side) of the duck breast and roll to form cylinders. Season the outside of the cylinders with salt and pepper, on both sides. Otherwise, just place each duck breast in a savoy leaf, running perpendicular to the center vein, and roll tightly. Place in the cling film and roll it tightly, twisting off the ends to form little packages.

Place in vacuum bags and seal. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer, place the cylinders in double-zip freezer bags, three or four to a bag, and partially lower the bag into a large stockpot full of water to displace as much air as possible. Seal the bag tightly. You can double-bag if you’re worried about leakage.

Cook in an immersion circulator at 140F/60C for 25 minutes. Alternatively, bring a large pot of water to a simmer on the stovetop and turn off the heat. Add the bagged breasts and cover the pot. Leave off heat for about 15 minutes (note: this varies from 12-20 minutes based on thickness). Remove from the water bath.

Slice the rolls, still wrapped in plastic (to facilitate clean slicing). Remove the plastic and serve with your accompaniment of choice. In the picture below, the rolls are plated on Puy lentils in a golden turnip and butter puree, accompanied by a reduction of white wine and duck stock enriched with butter, and powdered duck crackling. Yeah, a little rich, but the duck breast is lean.

Duck breast, savoy, lentils. Powdered crackling in the foreground.

Duck legs:

Been there, done that. Use this recipe for duck confit. Bonus: you can use the confit for rillettes.

Duck liver:

Duck liver pâté:

1/2 lb duck livers (about two), veins removed
1 small onion, minced
1 leek (white only), julienned
several sprigs thyme
1 tbsp cognac
3 tbsp dry white wine
salt and pepper
3 oz butter (3/4 stick. or 6 tbsp)
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Sweet onion confit:

1/2 c caramelized onion from this recipe
2 tbsp sherry vinegar

For the onion confit – combine the caramelized onion and sherry vinegar in a small saucepot. Bring to a simmer and stir until the vinegar is fully incorporated into the onion. Set aside.

Place a sauté pan over medium low heat and, when hot, add about 1 tbsp vegetable oil. Add the onions and leeks and sweat with the thyme until tender. Add the duck livers and cook, turning frequently, until the livers are warm throughout but not cooked hard. Do not brown. Add the cognac and wine and continue to sauté until the alcohol cooks off. Cool somewhat and transfer to a vitaprep or blender.

Blend the pâté ingredients. Add the butter in chunks and continue to blend until smooth. If you are inclined, pass through a tamis or sieve for a smooth texture. Chill.

Serve on toasted pain de campagne with a quenelle of onion confit.

Duck liver pâté, sweet onion confit

Duck skin:

This is where duck fat comes from. A standard-sized duck yields about a quart of duck fat (if you count the legs). The resulting crispy skin, or crackling, is a delicious fatty addition to salads and a nice garnish for poached or roasted meat.

For novelty, you can turn the crackling into powder. You need maltodextrin, specifically one formulated for a very low bulk density like N-Zorbit from National Starch or Malto from the Texturas line. If you use the stuff from the health food store, which I don’t recommend, you’re going to get a heavy, sweet, starchy product.

skin from 2 ducks (except for the leg quarters)
salt

To render the fat from the skin, prick the fatty side of the duck skin all over with a fork. Place in roasting pan a 300F/150C oven. Roast until the skin is crisp and golden, and most of the fat has rendered. Pour off the fat and reserve.

Cut the skin into smaller (1″) pieces. Freeze in a ziploc bag until ready to use; then roast in a pan in a 375F/190C oven until crisp and deep golden brown.

If you want to make really pretty, thin, crispy duck skin chips, first turn the skin fat-side up and scrape off as much fat as possible, in an even layer. Use that fat for rendering as described above. Trim the skin into rectangles or squares and place on a silpat-lined sheet pan. Season with salt and cover with another silpat and another sheet pan. Bake until the skin is crisp, flat, and golden brown (usually about 20-30 minutes depending on the thickness of the residual fat). Drain on paper towels.

Powdered duck crackling:

1 oz (28 g) duck crackling, roasted as specified above
12 g tapioca maltodextrin (N-Zorbit or similar), plus extra (you may need up to 40 g total).
salt

Blitz the duck crackling in a food processor until ground to an oily powder. Incorporate half the maltodextrin in the food processor, scraping down the bowl if necessary. It probably will resemble a thick paste. Don’t panic. Scrape it down and add more maltodextrin and blitz again. If the powder and fat are at all moist, add more maltodextrin and blitz again. Repeat until necessary for a powder. Store tightly sealed (with a dessicant packet if available).

Cracklings.

Grinding.

Powdered duck crackling.

Duck stock:

Duck stock is pure gold. Once you’ve made stock, re-use the bones for remouillage (literally, re-wetting) and reduce that to glace. You’ll be able to add ducky goodness and body to your sauces.

5 lbs duck bones (from 2 ducks)
One leek, washed well to remove all dirt and grit and roughly chopped
One medium onion, peeled and halved
2 carrots, scraped and cubed
2 stalks celery, diced
1 star anise
3 cloves
1 large or two small bay leaves
About 4-6 sprigs fresh thyme, tied together
6-8 black peppercorns

Place the bones in a large stockpot. Cover with filtered water, making sure there remains enough room for vegetables. Bring to a simmer. Be sure not to let the stock boil as agitation makes the stock more cloudy. As scum rises to the surface, skim it off with a spoon into a small bowl and discard. Simmer in this manner for about 20 minutes.

Add the vegetables and aromatics and add additional water to cover if necessary. Return to the simmer and skim additional foam or scum. Simmer, partially covered, for about five or six hours. Longer simmering won’t necessarily hurt, but you don’t enjoy that much additional benefit. Add water if necessary.

Strain through a chinois or a fine sieve, lined with cheesecloth if possible. Cool quickly; I generally use a bain marie filled with ice, but you can make an ice bath by stopping up your sink and fill it with ice and cold water about 1/3 the height of your container, place the container in the sink, and stir continuously until the contents are cool.

To store, ladle into freezer-safe containers, perhaps 3-4 cups each, and freeze. A layer of solid fat usually rises to the surface. Remove the fat before using the stock, and set aside.

Note: To pressure cook, throw everything into the pressure cooker with about 8 quarts of filtered water. Cover tightly and pressure cook for 30 minutes (at 15 psi; don’t include the time it takes to get to 15 psi or to cool down).

After straining the stock, return the bones to the pot and cover again with cold water. Bring to a simmer and skim additional foam or scum. Continue to simmer, partially covered, for at least six hours and up to twelve.

Strain through a chinois or a fine sieve, lined with cheesecloth if possible. Return to a clean pan and bring to a simmer. Reduce slowly, watching as the stock approaches the level of a heavy syrup once about an inch or less is left in the pan. Pour the stock into a small shallow pan and refrigerate to cool. When the glace has cooled, it should be quite solid. I generally cut the glace into cubes and freeze on a sheet pan before storing in a bag.

Remouillage.

Sweetie.

The summer before I went to law school, my parents announced that the whole family was taking a ten-day trip to Paris and London, one of those last great family trips before the kids leave home for good. It was a fun and memorable trip, especially from a culinary standpoint – I’d never been to Paris, and the first day, in an attempt to stay awake in the afternoon, I went for a walk in our Quartier Latin neighborhood, where we were staying not too far from Notre Dame. There I passed tiny Syrian shops displaying great trays of multicolored olives, herby vegetable salads, fattoush, and dozens of varieties of phyllo pastries, Tunisian briq stands, couscouseries – the first time I had encountered most of those foods, at least in that form. I had just taken up cooking that year, if in a totally amateurish way that mostly involved wrapping everything in Pepperidge Farms puff pastry and trying not to burn down the kitchen. Back then, the only olives you reliably could get in Milwaukee were green pimento-stuffed cocktail olives and maybe the occasional kalamata in a jar; couscous came in boxes from Near East Foods, complete with flavor packets of highly un-Moroccan herbed chicken bouillon, or dehydrated broccoli and cheese. No one was topping pizzas with fried eggs, or serving perfect little scoops of fruit flavored gelato outside the park in summer, much less selling giant ropes of blood sausage, made according to the family’s 300 year old recipe.

cut me a break, we were just out of the 80s

My dad had a friend in Paris, a businessman who had lived in the city for many years, and in the days to come, he showed us around the city and took us out to eat. One night, we drove to the western side of the city, to the notorious Bois de Boulogne, and boarded a small boat to a little island in the Lac Interieur for dinner at the Chalet des Iles; the next night, we went to the Tour d’Argent, which at the time still had all three Michelin stars.

Tour d’Argent was my first experience with that kind of fine dining. I had no idea what to order – growing up as a picky kid in the suburbs provided no training for this moment – so I surveyed the menu first for the familiar. Duck- ok, I knew liked duck, and that happened to be a house specialty, so I ordered duck as a main course. But I was at a loss when it came to the rest of the menu – it seemed lame to come all the way to Paris to a three-star restaurant and try to order, say, salmon or chicken. I decided to go with plan B: things I’d heard about but never tried. Soon after that, a man’s arm appeared on my right side and slid a ballotine of foie gras before me. Later, the same arm arrived with a plate of ris de veau, veal sweetbreads, in a creamy sauce with vol-au-vent. By the time I tasted the duck, I knew two things: one, I wasn’t a picky eater anymore, and two, I was going to learn to cook for real.

The trip kind of went off the rails a few days after that – my brother ate an undercooked poulet rôti at the Musée d’Orsay cafeteria on our last full day in Paris and spent the London segment of the trip racked with salmonella, which he unfairly blamed on the copious quantities of lamb couscous from the Quartier Latin couscouserie the night before. I ran into some University of Wisconsin students I knew at our hotel’s outdoor bar, got super drunk with them on cheap wine, and knocked over a huge lamp on my 3 am crawl up five flights of stairs to the hotel room just hours before leaving for London (Mom, if you’re reading this, that’s what happened. Now you know). Last day shenanigans aside, though, we had a great time. And we had sweetbreads.

Sweetbreads are the thymus and/or pancreas of the veal or lamb. The thymus, or neck sweetbread, is long and cylindrical – unlike the somewhat more globular pancreas – and is absent in the adult animal. Probably because few people enjoy preparing them at home, sweetbreads are not widely available in stores, but if you have access to a true butcher or a good meat market, you should be able to order them. For the best flavor, and to make them easier to handle, you need to prepare sweetbreads thoroughly, which involves some planning – they should be soaked in salt water to remove blood, the membrane needs to be removed, and then they should be dried thoroughly and compressed somewhat to form them and make them easier to handle. Rich and mild, they’re versatile – you can roast them whole (one of my favorite ways), slice and deep fry, or poach in courtbouillon and sauce. They need acid to balance the fat and the slight visceral quality. Don’t overcook sweeties – you don’t want them to become rubbery and tough. Short of that – well, I think they need to be cooked through until just completely cooked but still creamy. I’ve had sweetbreads cooked what can only be described as medium rare – warm but not completely cooked through to the interior – and although I respect the decision to serve them in a more natural form (this was at Manresa), I found the sweetbreads really organ-y, and not in a good way.

A last note about sweetbreads: probably not an everyday food. 100g (3 1/2 ounces) of sweetbreads ring in at 236 calories, 77% of them from fat (!). Of course, they’re incredibly rich, so you probably won’t eat more than 50g at a shot in a tasting portion, and it’s not going to kill you if you don’t do it every day.

Pan-roasted sweetbreads, cauliflower, sherry vinegar reduction

You don’t think of cauliflower as a Spanish vegetable, but Spain grows much of the European Union’s cauliflower (second only to Italy) and, in Spain, cauliflower often is served with a pimentón and garlic sauce. Here, whole sweetbread lobes are dusted in pimentón, roasted and served atop sweet roasted cauliflower with a butter-enriched sherry vinegar reduction.

I garnished the plate with a powder of ground dried arbequina olives. The earthiness and slight bitterness of the olives perfectly offsets the rich sweetbread and the sweet/sour sauce; if you don’t want to deal with dehydration, just pit and halve some arbequinas or niçoise olives and sprinkle them around the plate.

2 veal sweetbreads
1 tsp each Pimentón de la vera agridulce (bittersweet) and picante (hot)
salt and piment d’espelette
1/2 c Wondra
1 head cauliflower, florets only
1 large leek, white and light green only, julienned
vegetable oil
olive oil, preferably Spanish
1/4 c dry white wine
1/4 c sherry vinegar
3 tbsp cold unsalted butter, divided
1/4 c pine nuts
2 dozen arbequina olives, pitted and halved
thyme leaves, washed and dried
parsley leaves, washed and dried

Prepare the sweetbreads at least 8 hours and up to a day in advance by soaking in cold water (in the refrigerator), changing twice if you can. The water should be salted 1 tsp per 2 cups.

Drain. Remove the membrane with a thin, sharp knife and then divide into large lobes (along natural lines). Roll the sweetbread lobes in clean cheesecloth or kitchen towel to form and dry. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Convection oven 200F/93C.

Place the olives in a single layer on a silpat-lined sheet pan. Bake until dry (about 90 minutes; they don’t have to be rock-hard, just not moist). Remove from the oven and cool. Transfer to a clean spice grinder and grind to a powder. Cover tightly until use.

Oven 400F/205C.

Place a small saucepot over medium heat with about 2 tbsp olive oil. When hot, add the leeks. Cook slowly until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon; season and set aside.

Place a small saucepot over medium low heat with the dry white wine. Reduce to au sec (until syrupy and nearly totally cooked off); add the vinegar. Reduce again by 2/3. At this point you can hold until service (stop just short of the 2/3 reduction).

Place the pine nuts in a single layer on a sheet pan; toast in the oven until uniformly golden. Remove and cool.

Trim the cauliflower florets to remove the stalks entirely, leaving only 1/2″ or slightly smaller chunks of floret. Reserve the trimmings for another use, such as soup. Toss the cauliflower lightly in oil in a roasting pan and place in the oven. Roast until golden brown; toss and return to the oven and continue to roast. At this time, turn the oven down to 300F/150C.

Combine the pimentón and about 1/2 tsp salt and a big pinch of espelette. Dust the sweetbreads with this mixture. Place a large skillet over medium heat and, when hot, add 1 tbsp each vegetable oil and butter. Dredge the sweetbreads quickly in Wondra and shake off all excess. They should be just barely dusted. Fry on one side until golden; turn over and place in the 300F oven. Roast until just cooked through and still creamy; remove the cauliflower if necessary to prevent overcooking.

Bring the vinegar reduction back to a simmer and continue to reduce to 2/3 if you were holding it previously. Remove from heat and whisk in the cold butter off heat, swirling to incorporate.

Serve the sweetbreads atop the cauliflower and leek, garnished with the fresh herbs, pine nuts, olive powder, and the vinegar reduction.

Roast veal sweetbread, cauliflower, sherry vinegar reduction

Sweetbreads with bacon and pickled onion

I hate the “everything’s better with bacon” bandwagon – it’s so cliché; everything is NOT better with bacon, and bacon has become the universal crutch for adding a tasty component to a dish that otherwise lacks interest. Having said that, sweetbreads are a natural and classic pairing with bacon.

This was a hasty dish conceived to use one leftover sweetbread (prepared but not cooked for the above recipe) and the end chunk of some house-made bacon on a weeknight. Assuming that you thought about making sweetbreads in advance (and you would have to, since it’s almost impossible to just pick these up at the butcher on the way home), and you began soaking them the night before after dinner, this dish can come together in about half an hour. Just trim up the sweetbreads while cooking up the bacon and onions, and then give it a pan roasting – all in the same pan.

2 veal sweetbreads
salt and piment d’espelette
1/2 c Wondra
4 oz (1/4 lb) slab bacon, cut into 1/4″ x 1″ batons
one small red onion, peeled and 1/2″ dice
3 tbsp red wine vinegar, divided
dijon mustard
chives, washed and dried
thyme leaves, washed and dried
parsley leaves, washed and dried

Prepare the sweetbreads at least 8 hours and up to a day in advance by soaking in cold water (in the refrigerator), changing twice if you can. The water should be salted 1 tsp per 2 cups.

Drain. Remove the membrane with a thin, sharp knife and then divide into large lobes (along natural lines). Roll the sweetbread lobes in clean cheesecloth or kitchen towel to form and dry. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Oven 300F/150C.

Place a skillet over medium heat and, when hot, add the bacon batons. Reduce the heat slightly. Cook slowly until brown and crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon; season and set aside. Remove all but 1 tbsp of the bacon fat from the pan and reserve.

Return the pan with the 1 tbsp bacon fat to medium heat and, when hot, add the onion. Reduce heat slightly and sauté slowly until golden. Add the red wine vinegar and cook, stirring, until vinegar has been absorbed or evaporated. Season with salt and combine with the bacon. Wipe out the pan with paper towels.

Combine the salt and espelette. Season the sweetbreads lightly with this mixture. Place a large skillet over medium heat and, when hot, add 2 tbsp of the remaining bacon fat (if necessary, supplement with vegetable oil). Dredge the sweetbreads quickly in Wondra and shake off all excess. They should be just barely dusted. Fry on one side until golden; turn over and place in the oven. Roast until just cooked through and still creamy.

Remove from the pan and return the bacon and onions to the pan over medium heat, tossing just to moisten and warm through.

If you have any bacon fat remaining, make a quick vinaigrette by whisking together 1 tsp mustard, a pinch of salt, and 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, and then whisking in 3 tbsp bacon fat (make up the rest with a neutral oil like grapeseed if you don’t have enough). Whisk in some snipped chives and thyme leaves.

Serve the sweetbreads atop the bacon and pickled onion, garnished with the fresh herbs and, if you have it, the vinaigrette.

Veal sweetbreads, house-made bacon, pickled onion

The story of the lamb, as told by the belly.

We didn’t eat lamb in my house when I was growing up. It wasn’t a taste my family enjoyed. As I understood it, this anti-lamb sentiment had its origins in my father’s graduate school days at the University of Wisconsin. Back in the Sixties, he shared a house on Johnson Street with a couple of guys – also foreign students – who enjoyed cooking lamb at every opportunity. More accurately, in my dad’s recounting, they enjoyed cooking cheap cuts of lamb day and night with the kitchen windows closed, filling the house with the pungent, fatty odor, putting him off lamb for good.

On account of that experience, my mother never cooked lamb, and the only time I remember trying it as a kid was during Thanksgiving weekend 1978. We went up to Wausau, up in north central Wisconsin, where my dad’s friends and fellow political science colleagues Joe and Angie Burger lived in an old farmhouse. Maybe it’s because Joe is Czech, or something, but instead of turkey, we had mutton for the holiday. Unless you have an inside source, mutton is pretty hard to come by these days in the United States, for good reason. It’s a really tough, strongly-flavored meat. It’s basically adult sheep – lamb past its eating prime – and even back then I don’t think our dinner was retail mutton, if you get my drift. I wasn’t expecting Thanksgiving mutton, and I don’t think my dad was, either. Like any polite adult, he sliced it up, put it in his mouth piece by piece, and chewed, staring straight ahead and chasing it with wine. I don’t know if I ate it or just moved it around my plate under my Brussels sprouts. My three year-old brother was a real glutton for turkey and I think he might have cried when confronted with the mutton. All I remember for sure about that holiday was that my brother split his chin open getting out of the tub, and driving around the woods of northern Wisconsin, going deer hunting with the professors. Kind of a bloody weekend, in retrospect.

So my family’s shared food narrative, at least through the early 2000s, was that we did not eat lamb. My dad hated it, my brother hated it, I hated it, and whatever my mother really may have thought of lamb, I never saw it pass her lips. Then around 2003, in London, my dad ordered the lamb at dinner one night. “I thought you hated lamb,” I said, completely shocked. “Oh, sure,” he shrugged. “But that was before I had British lamb. British lamb is delicious. So tender and mild.” What was going on here? Had the British government kidnapped my father and replaced him with a surrogate? My now-husband looked down at his plate, smirking. He loves lamb and is always going on about how it’s so full of “lamby goodness.” I was outnumbered, Lisa Simpson in a land of lamb-eaters.

I like lamb now. There’s still something about the taste – I can’t eat too much of it. If you’re like me, and find the taste of lamb a little funky, maybe it’s the lamb, not you. According to culinary scientist par excellence Harold McGee, the distinctive taste of lamb may be down in part to the presence of skatole, a compound that comes from grazing on clover and alfalfa, and contributes a “barnyardy” element to pork as well, at least in the fattier cuts of heritage breeds. And it’s true – that flavor hasn’t been sanitized out of lamb in the way of today’s “other white meat”-style pork loin. Other reputable sources report that alkyl- and thiophenols are responsible for the characteristic “lambiness” of lamb, as is thymol – one of the phenolic compounds responsible for thyme’s distinctive quality. That seems plausible, because you definitely can get too much skatole. Present in both the meat and fat, skatole can push lamb past the smell of goats and sheep out in the pasture, beyond hay, toward manure and worse, and is responsible for the rich, mulchy, faintly rotting smell of jasmine and orange blossom as well. In other words, “barnyardy” is a polite term for something more pungent, since skatole shares the same origins as the word “scatological.” You get where I’m going with this, so if you have an uncomfortable relationship with lamb, that could be why. Strangely, as much as the pungency of skatole can put me off, the dish that brought me over to the lamb side was a frugal sauté of potato scraps in lamb fat.

No part of the animal tastes more of the lamb than its belly. Also known as the breast, the belly is the tough cut from the outside of the ribcage along the chest of the lamb. If the loin chops represent the loin eye inside the rib bones as they curve down from the spine, the belly represents the the muscle and fat layer outside the rib cage as it closes along the sternum. Lamb is by definition young, tender, and relatively lean, and the lamb belly is neither as thick nor as fatty as the corresponding portion of the pig, nor is it as tough. Even so, it can be prepared in the same way – braised, cooked sous vide at low temperatures, cured like bacon. And, unlike pork belly, it has not become ridiculously expensive. If you can find it – and in this case, a willingness to work with bigger cuts of meat and an unhealthy interest in wielding large knives is useful – you can have lamb breast for next to nothing. Use the butchered bone cut for Scotch broth or Irish stew.

Thirty six hour lamb belly, orzo gratin

This may seem an esoteric preparation using an esoteric cut of meat. Not so! As I said above, lamb breast is cheap, almost a throwaway cut. The low, slow, sous vide/low temperature cooking method involves some equipment investment, but it is simple. If you don’t have the equipment, you can braise. Use the same method as pork belly braising – instructions are included. It won’t take quite as long.

The use of Activa transglutaminase permits you to glue together the relatively thin cuts of lamb belly into thicker cuts about the size of pork belly. Its use is optional and definitely esoteric. The lamb depicted below is a doubled cut bonded with Activa RM and cooked sous vide at 140F/60C.

Two lamb breasts, on the bone (sizes will vary; you will need to weigh)
kosher salt, 1% by weight or roughly 1 tsp per pound
sugar, .5% by weight, or roughly 1/2 tsp per pound
garlic confit, one per tsp of salt
thyme branches
optional: Activa transglutaminase (RM or GS), 0.75% by weight

Cut each belly from the bone in a flat piece. Weigh and calculate the required amount of salt and sugar. Combine the salt, sugar, and garlic confit; rub on both sides of each belly. Lay atop thyme branches and place thyme on the top side as well. Cover and weight. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours, up to 72.

If using Activa to make double-thick portions of belly, scrape off any garlic paste and sprinkle Activa RM powder or spray Activa GS slurry on the meat side of each belly. Press together and tie. Seal with a few thyme leaves in vacuum bags and weight. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours, up to 24. If not using Activa, simply seal with the vacuum bags and proceed.

Obverse.

Reverse.

Place in an immersion circulator or sous vide supreme for 36 hours at 140F/60C. The meat will be cooked just to medium.

Alternatively, if not cooking sous vide/low temp, place a pot large enough to hold the belly over medium heat. Bring just enough chicken stock to cover the bellies to a simmer with bay leaf, thyme branches, and garlic confit. Add the bellies, and then place in a 220F oven for three hours. Be sure the top layer of fat remains above the liquid. Use a parchment lid as well as the pot’s lid. The meat will not be pink as pictured below because of the increased heat.

Remove from the circulator (or oven) and unpack. (If not preparing immediately, follow appropriate chilling and storage procedures.) Cut into squares. Place a skillet over medium heat and, when hot, add duck fat, pork fat, or clarified butter. Place the lamb belly squares, meat side-down, for about 30 seconds; turn over to skin side-down and brown for another minute.

Serve with orzo gratin and Brussels sprouts, blanched in boiling water for 20 seconds, drained on towels, and sautéed in hot duck fat.

36 hour belly.

Orzo gratin

It’s basically just macaroni and cheese. Sheep’s milk cheese complements the lamb belly nicely; black truffle is a classic winter pairing. If you don’t want to deal with the lamb belly, at least make the gratin.

Why do I toss the orzo with oil when it is common knowledge that you should not oil your pasta any more than you should rinse it in cold water before saucing? Because baked pastas tend to absorb large quantities of liquid, and if you don’t coat your orzo with the merest bit of oil before baking, it will emerge from the oven pasty, oily, and mushy, not coated with a creamy, cheesy sauce. The oil protects the orzo, which is so small and has so much surface area that it cannot withstand much contact with sauce before soaking it all up.

8 oz orzo
1 tsp grapeseed or other neutral oil (or clarified butter)
3 tbsp unsalted butter, divided
3 tbsp Wondra
one small onion, peeled and small dice 1/4″
2 c whole milk
5 oz Sottocenere al tartufo, coarsely shredded
3 oz Robiola (inside only) or another mixed sheep’s milk cheese
one black truffle, thinly sliced
salt (truffle salt would be a great choice)
1/2 c fresh breadcrumbs
thyme leaves

Oven 400F/205C.

Cook the orzo in salted, boiling water until just al dente and drain. Do not rinse. Toss in colander to break up lumps. When cool, stir with 1 tsp neutral-flavored oil or clarified butter. Set aside.

Place a saucier over medium heat and, when hot, add 1 tbsp butter. Add the onion and sweat until tender. Do not brown. Add the rest of the butter and, when melted, add the Wondra. Cook for a minute, stirring constantly, to cook out the floury taste. Add the milk, slowly, stirring. Bring to a simmer and cook out to a bubbling and somewhat thickened texture, about ten minutes. Strain through a chinois into vitaprep (or blender) and add the cheeses. Purée.

Season with salt. Combine with orzo and thinly shaved truffle slices. Pour into a gratin dish. Top with breadcrumbs mixed with thyme. Bake until bubbling and browned.

Orzo gratin

Orzo gratin, sottocenere al tartufo, sliced burgundy truffle.