Author: The Answer is Always Pork

Cooking and Eating in San Francisco

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Recipes

alice’s cauliflower soup

Boy oh boy, cauliflower is in season! This week at the farmer’s market we purchased a huge head of cauliflower. It was at least basketball sized … and only cost $1. Talk about bang for your buck.

Jordan and I really enjoy cauliflower, as I’m sure you’ve noticed from prior recipes. This week we decided to fall back on an old favorite – cauliflower soup. We’ve made this recipe several times, but this is its first debut on the blog. Why you ask, if it is so delicious, has it never be discussed? Because the pictures I’ve taken up until this point have all be so ugly that I couldn’t bear to post them.

This recipe is from Alice Water’s Chez Panisse Vegetables, which is a fabulous cookbook. Each chapter highlights a vegetable, explains its taste and season, and then offers a few simple recipes for how to best prepare it.

French Cream of Cauliflower Soup, from Chez Panisse Vegetables
1 large cauliflower
1 onion
2 T butter
4 T creme fraiche
salt
nutmeg
chervil (I never can find chervil, so we’ve used parsley and chives)

Cut off the stem of the cauliflower and any green leaves. Break into florets, wash in cold water.

Peal and slice the onion thin. In a soup pot, stew the onions and florets in butter with a little water for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, without letting them brown. Add water to cover and cook for 25 minutes, covered over medium heat.

Puree the soup in a blender or using an immersion blender. Reheat gently until just under boiling. Add the creme fraiche and season with salt and nutmeg to taste. Serve very hot with herb garnish.

Yep, that simple, and it is amazing!  You don’t even need to have stock on hand (Awesome, since I more often than not forget to buy it). If any of you end up with gigantic heads of cauliflower, most probably larger than your own heads, try out this recipe. It is perfectly simple and the true cauliflower flavor shines through.

-Emily

Update: We enjoyed six meals from this single batch of soup! $1 cauliflower + $0.50 onion + $4.50 creme fraiche = about $1 per meal!

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Recipes

a dinner party with foraged foods

Last Saturday, Jordan and I hosted a dinner party. And, forgive my lack of modesty, I think we hit it out of the park. The food was wonderful, the company was fantastic, and not a single kitchen crisis befell us.

The Menu

Winter salad with shaved fennel, apple, radish, foraged* miner’s lettuce and foraged wild radish

Pork belly** with pomegranate molasses

Paella, from our recipe posted in Paella Per Se

Green beans

And for dessert …

Passionfruit*** mousse

*A note on foraging: Jordan and I are clearly interested in local foods and we’ve been talking about foraging our own wild foods for quite a while. While it sort of began as a distant possibility and kind of a joke, last week we went to a free lecture about the SF food scene at the library and one of the panelists Iso Rabins of ForageSF is a San Fran forager. Iso inspired us to get out and forage. And so, last Saturday, we did!

**Our pork belly was purchased from the Fatted Calf, a specialty meats and charcuterie shop near our place. The best part: we saw the butchering of the pig where our pork belly came from! More about the Fatted Calf to follow.

*** I am obsessed with passionfruit. Every since I went to Argentina and first tasted the maracuya helado, I was hooked. Sadly, passionfruit isn’t the easiest to track down here in the US. BUT! I have an awesome boyfriend who sympathizes with my obsession and somehow finds secret suppliers of frozen passionfruit puree in the Mission! Yay!

Now a few recipes …

Pork Belly with Pomegranante Molasses, click here

Passionfruit Mousse or Mousse de Maracuya, click here


Categories
Recipes

pork belly with pomegranate molasses

This was our first foray into homemade pork belly and it turned out really well. (To be honest, I was worried, but Jordan really impressed me with this one).  He based his dish on a recipe by David Chang of Momofuku fame for Pork Belly Buns.

Pork Belly with Pomegranate Molasses

1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups water
1 1/2 lbs fresh pork belly (ours was from the Fatted Calf Charcuterie)
1/2 c chicken stock
1/2 c water

Brine pork:
Stir together kosher salt, sugar, and 4 cups water until sugar and salt have dissolved. Put pork belly in a large sealable bag, then pour in brine. Carefully press out air and seal bag. Lay in a shallow dish and let brine, chilled, at least 12 hours.

Roast pork:
Preheat oven to 300°F with rack in middle.

Discard brine. Cut pork into portion sized pieces and put it, fat side up, in an 8- to 9-inch square baking pan. Pour in broth and remaining 1/2 cup water. Cover tightly with foil and roast until pork is very tender, about 2 1/2 hours. Remove foil and increase oven temperature to 450°F, then roast until fat is golden, about 20 minutes more. Jordan also put the pork belly pieces under the broiler for a bit to really crisp up that last layer.

Serve with a splash of pomegranate molasses, a little acid to cut the delicious pork fat. Yummmmmmmm!

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

passionfruit mousse

Here is the recipe for the passionfruit mousse that we served at our last dinner party. It is based on a recipe that I learned while in Argentina. I love passionfruit and this dessert will not disappoint!

Passionfruit Mousse – Mousse de Maracuyá

2 packets (2 T) unsweetened gelatin
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cup passion fruit pulp
1 T lime juice
1 1/2 c sugar
1 2/3 cup heavy cream
6 egg whites
1/2 t cream of tartar

In a heatproof bowl, sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 c water and let sit for 5 minutes.

Combine passionfruit pulp, lime juice and sugar in a large sauce pan. Heat lightly until the sugar dissolves. This will only take a moment or two. Set aside to cool. Reserve 1/2 cup of this mixture for use as topping when serving.

Heat gelatin over a pot of simmering water until it melts. Take of the heat and add the passionfruit mixture. Let cool for 30 minutes to 1 hour in the fridge.

Take passionfruit – gelatin mixture out of the fridge and pull of any skin that may have formed. It will have thickened slightly.

Whip the cream until peaks form and then mix this into the passionfruit mixture with a spoon.

Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. Add 1/3 of the egg whites to the passionfruit mixture to lighten it. Fold in the remaining egg whites carefully.

Spoon into dishes and refrigerate for several hours.

Top with reserved passionfruit-sugar mixture to serve and enjoy! Passionfruit is amazing and this desert achieves the perfect balance between sweet and tart, light and creamy. I love it!

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

ginger lemon muffins

Jordan’s parents came over for breakfast on Saturday. I was thinking of making coffee cake, but then I stumbled upon these muffins on Molly Wizenburg’s blog Orangette. The picture was so cute I just had to make them.

Marion Cunningham’s Fresh Ginger Muffins, adapted from The Breakfast Book and Orangette
Yield: 12 muffins
One (~3-ounce) piece of unpeeled ginger root, washed well
¾ cup plus 3 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. grated lemon zest
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (I also decided that there is just no point in buying buttermilk when I can make it myself and have about cup of delicious homemade butter as the by-product. Want to learn how to make butter from scratch? Check out our post butter! homemade butter!)
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. baking soda

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a muffin tin.

Cut the unpeeled ginger root into large chunks. Process the ginger in a food processor until it is in tiny pieces; alternatively, mince by hand. Put the ginger and ¼ cup sugar in a small skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar has melted and the mixture is hot. This takes only a couple of minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon zest and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Add to the ginger mixture.

Put the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat the butter for a second or two, then add the remaining ½ cup sugar, and beat until smooth. Add the eggs, and beat well. Add the buttermilk, and beat until blended. (At this point my batter looked a little curdled – ew – but after I added the dry ingredients, it looked like regular batter and tasted just fine).

Add the flour, salt, and baking soda, and beat just until smooth. Add the ginger-lemon mixture, and beat to mix well. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Serve warm with fresh, salted butter

Conclusions: Absolutely delicious (and totally adorable)! I ate two right out of the oven (and wanted another). The ginger is surprisingly subtle, considering how much ginger goes into these muffins, and the lemon is a lovely companion. I will certainly be making these again! And, you have to try the homemade butter! It is soooo good.

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

oven roasted fish with citrus

Tonight’s dish was inspired by a recipe in The Chronicle for a quick week-night dinner.  I prepared it as directed in the recipe last week and with my own twist this week.

Oven roasted fish with fennel and grapefruit, or with lemongrass and ginger
1 – 2 fillets of a mild, white fish (I used rockfish)
2 T fronds from a nice, fresh fennel bulb OR 1 stock lemongrass, cut into slivers
1/2 grapefruit, juiced OR 1 t fresh ginger, minced and 2 T lemon juice
2 T butter, cut into small pieces
Salt and pepper
Lemon, for serving

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Place fillets on a large piece of tin foil. Liberally salt and pepper both sides of the fillets. Lay the fennel fronds on top of the fish. Crinkle the sides of the tinfoil up a little and squeeze the grapefruit juice onto the fish. Top with the butter and close the foil package. Cook for 15 – 20 minutes, until the fish is just flaky. Be careful when opening the foil packet, the steam inside is really hot!

Serve fish with a fennel salad OR cabbage salad and a grain. We had wild rice the first night and jasmine rice the second time.

Conclusions: Tasty, seasonal, super easy and pretty healthy (although not the most photogenic). This recipe is also incredibly adaptable to different seasonings and flavors …  it may just become a weeknight favorite.

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

baking therapy: brownies, continued continued

Yep, another brownie attempt. I am very determined.  And some good news: I’m almost there. The recipe below, plus a few tweaks, may just be the one. I’m not going to rejoice yet, but I am feeling pretty good.

Classic Chocolate Brownies, adapted from Ghirardelli Chocolate
Makes 16 brownies
1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Guittard)
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate baking bar (I used Scharffen-Berger semi-sweet baking chocolate bar)
1/2 c butter, cut into pieces
1 t vanilla
2 large eggs
3/4 c plus 2 T flour
1/4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan. Chop the 4 ounces of semi sweet chocolate bars into 1-inch pieces. In the top of a double boiler, melt the chopped chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Stir the brown sugar and vanilla into the chocolate mixture. Add the eggs and mix well. In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly fold the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture, mixing well until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 45 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into 2-inch squares.

Conclusions: Crusty top! Chewy sides! Fudgy middle! Pretty darn good. I even wanted to eat more than one (which is my true test of a good dessert – I’m usually pretty burnt out after one serving so if I want another, it must be really good). BUT, since I’ve decide to be really picky about this project, the top could be crustier, the brownie chewier and the middle a little less fudgy.

The Tweaks

1. Use all Guittard chocolate chips (or other lesser-quality, but still decent baking chocolate) instead of the 4 oz of Scharffen-Berger. The Scharffen-Berger chocolate is just too good (I cannot believe I’m saying this, but I think it may be true) and makes the brownies a bit too chocolatey.

2. Cook those little guys for even longer. The original recipe recommended 25 – 30 minutes. I did 45 and they were still a bit mushy. The extra cooking time hopefully should make the brownies a bit crustier and chewier, and less fudgy.

I think I will give my updated recipe a try this weekend for the Superbowl. You know I’ll be reporting back!

-Emily

Categories
Queso Chronicles

queso chronicles: homemade mozzarella

I have this fantasy that I will one day be an excellent cheesemaker. I really like cheese and I really like making things from scratch soooo … logical conclusion, right?

Well, my first two forays into the world of cheesemaking have been (sadly) less than stellar. Armed with internet research, a recipe from Ricki the Cheese Queen and the appropriate ingredients, I thought I had it in the bag.  I didn’t. After two back-to-back disappointments, I have taken a hiatus from cheesemaking. I think my milk choices may have been to blame (too high of a pasturization temperature at the milk factory), that and also the lack of a microwave to aid with the stretching process.

Here’s a little breakdown (although, if you want to attempt yourself, I would recommend you go straight to Ricki. She has quite the cult following and an awesome 80s hairdo, so she must be doing something right).

The ingredients

1 gallon whole milk, as local as you can get and not ultrapasturized

1 1/2 t citric acid, diluted in 1 c water

1/4 tab rennet

Add the citric acid diluted in water to cold milk. SLOWLY heat to 90 degrees.

Remove from the heat, add the rennet, stir 30 seconds, cover and let it sit quiet for 5 minutes.

A curd should form. Cut the curd into 1 inch cubes. Heat to 105 degrees. Take of the heat and continue to stir for 3 – 5 minutes. Strain the curd.

And this is where is all went downhill. I did not get a clean break between the curds and the whey. My curds were also finer and more grainy than they should have been. Still, I soldiered on, attempting to drain the curds and then form balls of those curds. Not successful. On my first attempt, my “mozzarella” was this funny mix between ricotta and mozzarella and would not hold any shape. On my second attempt, the cheese formed balls, but they were rock hard and dry. (Eww). Neither time was I able to stretch the cheese like Ricki shows in her pictures, neither time did I end up with a cheese that was appealing in texture.

I have to say, after the second failure I was pretty heartbroken. I hate to waste food (but I could not force myself to eat those hard, dry cheese balls). I won’t pretend that that it’s not disappointing to know that my dreams of master cheesemaking are much further away that I once thought. But, if anyone has a cow (and wants to share some super fresh milk) or even wants to offer up the use of their microwave, I may just give it another go.

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

spaghetti alla carbonara

Let me begin by saying that this is one of those perfect dishes; nothing is wrong with it, nothing needs to be added and nothing needs to be taken away.  Spaghetti alla carbonara is a wonderful mix of egg, pancetta, parmigiano reggiano, and black pepper which form a silky sauce for the pasta.  Not only is it a perfect meal, but it’s quick and easy to make.  Before I get to the recipe I’ll give you a sneak peek into my past and what this dish means to me.

When I was a young food nerd on my first (and hopefully not last) trip to Europe, I given some excellent advice from my father: “eat as much spaghetti alla carbonara as possible because it’s very difficult to find in the US.”  I did.  In fact, I believe I at spaghetti alla carbonara five times during my six days in Italy.  This was back in 2004, and I’ve only tried to recreate the magic once.  My first attempt probably wasn’t long after the trip and needless to say, it wasn’t quite as good as the stuff from overseas.  Fortunately, since then I’ve become much more proficient in the kitchen and, inspired by the amazingly fresh eggs in our CSA box, I decided to give it another go.

It really is an amazingly simple dish, but I still used a recipe for guide.  Emily recommended the version from Ruth Riechl’s Garlic and Sapphires, which immediately appealed to me due to her substitution of bacon for pancetta.  Now I’m sure some people would find this blasphemous, but I prefer the flavor of bacon and I think that the use of pancetta may have been my downfall all those years ago in my first attempt.  So, with the pork issue sorted out, it’s time to get cooking.

First, bring a large pot of water to boil, then add a nice handful of salt and pound two-thirds of a pound of spaghetti.

Meanwhile, cut bacon into 0.25 inch slices and cook them over medium heat.  Add 2 or 3 cloves of garlic cut in half.  Allow the bacon to render its fat and start to crisp at the edges.  Don’t cook it like you’re serving it for breakfast because you need it to be soft to incorporate into the sauce.

While the bacon is cooking, in the bowl you are going to serve the pasta in whisk two eggs together and add a pinch of salt and a pretty good amount of freshly ground black pepper.  Then grate about half a cup of parmigiano reggiano into another bowl (don’t skimp here, buy the good stuff).

When the pasta is done cooking reserve about a quarter cup of the cooking liquid and add the drained pasta to the egg mixture in about three batches, mixing each time.  This tempers the eggs (cooks them slowly) so they don’t curdle.  Once all the pasta is in, remove the garlic from the bacon and add the bacon, its fat, and the parmesan.  Toss it all together and add some of the reserved water if it needs it.  Serve immediately with more parmesan and pepper.  We enjoyed ours with Acme bread and more CSA stuff: a salad with spinach, watermelon radishes, carrots, and a simple balsamic vinaigrette.

Conclusions:  Awesome!  Just as good as Italy.  If you execute it properly, without over-thinking it, and use good quality ingredients, it will be perfect.

Also, if you have one of those pasta spoons with the long tines, it works really well when adding the pasta to the eggs because the pasta still holds onto some of the water so you don’t have to add it later.

-Jordan

Categories
Restaurant Reviews San Francisco

bar tartine

Emily and I celebrated our fifth anniversary last week, so we treated ourselves to a nice dinner.  Since it falls so close to the holidays, we choose not to purchase each other gifts, but we still splurged a bit for a nice meal.  After much deliberation, we settled on Bar Tartine in the mission, on Valencia between 16th and 17th.  The “bar” is more of a restaurant that happens to have bar seating; this trait usually lends itself to a cozy and intimate dining experience, and Bar Tartine is no exception.  Because of this, I would now like to apologize in advance for the lack of photos; the tables are fairly close together and the lighting from the antler chandelier was not exactly photo friendly.  As well as being cozy, the space feels calm and the creative touches are interesting.  Bar Tartine kind of sums up what the food and people are like in this part of the mission; it shares this with its sister eatery: Tartine bakery.  There’s another thing it shares with Tartine Bakery: the quality of the food.

We decided to neglect the traditional dining progression and instead shared the four things on the menu that looked best.  First was a frisée salad with prosciutto and a soft boiled egg ($9).  The greens were fresh and dressed very well, the egg was cooked perfectly, and the cooked prosciutto added a satisfying crispy component.  This was a good salad, but a bit forgettable.  Also, I’m not a huge fan of prosciutto prepared in this way; I think you lose most its the subtlety as well as the delicacy of the fat which melts on your tongue.  For this salad, I think bacon would have been a better choice.  Next was the big one: bone marrow ($15).  Three bones with a garlicky, herby, crusty top filled with what can only be described as butter of the gods.  Imagine the most meaty, perfectly salty, creamy, deliciousness and spread it on toasted Tartine bread (which is also wonderful).  We’ve had bone marrow other places and it’s almost always great, but this is something special.  For a main course, we shared the boudin noir ($24).  Blood sausage is one of my favorite treats; I fell in love with it at a parrilla in Uruguay and indulge in this porky, creamy sausage whenever I can.  It may sound gross, but trust me, it’s not.  Bar Tartine put forth a good effort resulting in probably the second best I’ve had, defeated only by my first love from Uruguay, but that was an emotional day for me (soooo much good food).  Okay, I’ll stop reminiscing and get back to the meal.  The boudin was served with braised cabbage and sweet potatoes, both of which complimented the sausage very well.  To accompany our main dish Emily and I indulged in yet more of Tartine’s lovely bread; this time it came in the form of a savory bread pudding with leeks and plenty of pepper ($6).  It was super crispy on top, and creamy and hearty in the middle.  This final course was loaded with flavor and we were ready to move onto something sweet.  Everything that comes out of the bakery is perfect, so we had to get something from Bar Tartine’s dessert menu.  While the menu looked interesting, the night we were  there they had run out of a couple things, so we settled on the Passion Fruit Lime Bavarian ($7.5).  The cake was very nice and the passion fruit and lime filling was fantastic (by the way, passion fruit is like the bacon of the dessert realm, so we MUST eat it when it’s available; it’s compulsive and not our fault), the only downside was that this cake is also served at Tartine Bakery so it didn’t seem as special or unique.

Conclusions:  The meal was great and although we didn’t follow the traditional dining format it allowed us to try all the things we wanted without spending too much or eating an obscene amount.  If I had to sum up Bar Tartine in one sentence, I would say: it’s good, simple food with the flavor dial turned up to 11.  This is definitely the place to go for uncomplicated food executed wonderfully.

-Jordan