My Almost Biscotti Disaster

"Eeek! "

That's the sound that came out of my mouth as a tray of half-baked biscotti logs slid off the oven rack and ended up  standing vertical with the edge of the tray stuck in the hinge of my oven door.  Luckily the actual logs of biscotti held on and didn't fall off.  When I righted the tray there were some casualties, but I was able to salvage most of my work.  So at least my first attempt at making biscotti wasn't a total disaster...

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All Aboard the Sous Vide Bandwagon

Okay, so I have been accused of being a little bit of a gadget girl.  But you can't blame me, it's genetic. Sources have informed my that my own father has been known to order computer equipment, then have it shipped to my sister's, whereupon she would bring it over as a gift.  My dad would exclaim something to the effect of, "Wow, how did you know this is exactly what I've been looking for?'  and my mom would be none the wiser.  Sorry guys, the jig is up.

Well, I've been wanting to get into sous vide cooking for some time, but it's not a technique that's necessarily used at my current job.  Until New York City Health Department developed standards regulating the use of sous vide, many restaurants were using the technique under the radar.  But now that most of the top restaurants in the city are certified to use sous vide, it has become quite commonplace.  After all, Thomas Keller's Under Pressure, a book demonstrating the use of sous vide in his restaurants, has been around for years, and there are very accessible pieces of equipment on the market now that make sous vide a very practical addition to the home kitchen.  So as a restaurant professional, there is no way I'm going to get left behind in the dust.

Sous vide is a French term meaning under vacuum.

Easy Pickled Jalapenos

Forgive me father for I have sinned (I imagine the late James Beard to be looking down at me with disdain from his kitchen in the sky).  It has been two weeks since my last post, and in that time I have twice eaten takeout pizza, and once I even had Taco Bell.  But it has been very difficult to have home cooked meals now that I am working more nights at the restaurant.  The powers that be have decided to expand the dining room, and add 50 more seats.  So after the departure of the Hulk, they have brought on a second, more experienced chef to help run the kitchen.  He and I have cooked together before, and as his sous chef I get to play more of a supporting role.  Remember that episode of Battlestar Galactica (the newer series) when Colonel Tigh had to run the ship while Commander Adama was recovering from a gunshot wound?  And remember the relief that he felt when he was able to return command to Adama?  Well, color me Tigh.  Now I get two full days off, but the other 5 nights are spent in the trenches, on the line, cooking with my crew until close.  So when I get home late and starving, pizza and nachos sound like a really good midnight meal.  The problem is that I always wake up in the morning feeling kind of crappy and regretting it.

Fast food and takeout are not cheap eats either, especially here in New York.  So I am on a new mission:  to  take a little time on my days off to stock my larder with fresh homemade goods from which I can make quick, delicious, and healthy midnight meals during the rest of the week. Having already discovered how easy it is to make home-cured meats, I figured I would add home-canned goods to my routine.

Steak and Kidney Pie, or the Dinner that Wasn't

"...not too much kidney...just enough to give it that touch of bite...and lashings of steak, oooh, and it's good steak too!...ooh." - from Jeeves and Wooster, Season 1: The Hunger Strike.

Is it possible we watch way to much Jeeves and Wooster?  Perhaps it's a sign, that after the 'teenth  time of watching Tuppy Glossup describe Chef Anatole's masterly Steak and Kidney Pie with such mouth watering anticipation, I finally needed to make one.

In keeping with the spirit of Jeeves and Wooster, I decided to use a British recipe for Steak and Kidney pie.  I remembered coming across a recipe in Hugh Fearnley Whittingsall's River Cottage Meat Book,  so I ordered some grass fed beef kidney and steak from Lewis Waite Farm.  Last week I finally had a chance to thaw  them out and work on the pie.

The thing is this:  When we made beef kidneys in culinary school, I could barely stand to taste them.  Yet Tuppy Glossup and Mr. Whittingsall managed to convince me that Steak and Kidney pie could be truly delicious.  Here I believe, was my first failure in judgment.  My second, was perhaps getting frozen instead of fresh kidney. After thawing it out (properly, i.e. in the fridge), I took the kidney out of the package, and started trimming it.  The center was still a little frozen, but as I continued to cut, it continued to thaw out.  It also began to give off a distinct odor of piss.  Not a strong odor, but it was there.