Eggs Pickled, Devilled, Garnished, etc.

I was flying home last night after a fabulous cookbook conference in NY, reading a cooking magazine that shall remain nameless. Perhaps I was in a critical mood from the surfeit of discourse, or maybe it was just clarity only afforded to the hung over, bloated and exhausted on multi-stage cross continental flights. There were a few devilled egg recipes in the magazine, SO very lacking in inspiration that it afforded me a few hours of private amusement thinking of better things to do with an egg. This is only the nicest looking. I usually don't fuss with food, but this cut of a pickled chicken egg holding a pickled quail egg, holding an edamame puree, with random pink pickled radish and chive, I think looked too nice to pass up. Equally fetching was the same red egg (for Valentines!) with it's yolk devilled, restuffed, spiked, similarly stuffed with another egg and various garnitures from jars on the shelf - corn relish, sage leaf, pimento. They got too noisy and crowded to show, but they sure tasted fabulous. NEXT step, add a smoke element. I'm thinking of pickling, then lightly smoking, then stuffing. With pancetta garnish instead of soy. Send some ideas. Share your pictures too, I'll post them. It has GOT to be better than the dumbed down drivel that's out there now folks.

Ah, Here's another idea I woke up with today. Boiled, Pickled, Devilled, then Scotched!

Soplados

I know everyone is into meringue the past few years. But I have been trying to perfect them for at least 30 years. By perfect, I don't mean your standard French or Italian meringue. I mean those my Auntie Fanny made. YES, I had an Auntie Fanny. My grandfather's sister, from Kastoria in Northern Greece, who spoke Spanish as her first language. Sephardic. I saw her last maybe in 1972 or 3. She made these when I was still very small. And I've been trying to do it ever since then. Seriously. And on a completely random whim, after using a ton of egg yolks, there were all these whites. And I think I've finally figured it out: almond extract! Here's how. Whip egg whites by hand with a jot of cream of tartar. Tiny pour of vanilla and almond extracts. Add powdered sugar, about a cup per three whites. Beat until stiffer than the devil. Drop onto paper bags torn up, I remember this detail. Bake for about 4 or 5 hours at 200 degrees. Let cool. For me they evoke her apartment in NY, that was very high up with a window open and I remember her worrying that I would fall out. I'd never been so high up in my life. Except for right now.

Clobbered Cream

Every now and then it's good to notice you've been talking a particular talk but not walking the walk: I've been saying for a long time that milk or cream just left out rots if it's pasteurized. But raw milk naturally ferments. Have I ever just let it do that? On the counter and unattended? Last week I was making butter, which ended up going into a bizarre 16th century recipe I'm talking about next week at a cookbook conference in NY. Let me just say this recipe I'm pretty sure has never been translated into English and I doubt has been cooked using original techniques, at last for 400 years or so. So I had some raw cream left over. I just left it out. And in one week this is what happened. Not very sour, rather pleasant and buttery. I'm not sure if it's creme fraiche or clabbered cream or what, but it did it to itself. GOT to love bacteria!

The Gastronomical Cat

I have a remarkably weird cat. Ray likes to thumb through the cookbooks. It's rarely the same one, so he has clearly been looking for a specific recipe for some time now. Nope, not in Julia. Jeff Smith, you must be kidding? So this morning he pulls out The New Basics by Julee Rosso and Sheila Luckins. I am NOT kidding. He opens it quickly, I think finds what he wants and rips a page out, then crosses his arms and sits on it with a satisfied look on his face, waiting. I've long been wondering who leaves the dirty pans in the sink. And where those stray bits of bulghur wheat tabbouleh came from. He has very clearly been teaching himself how to cook so he doesn't have to eat cat food any more. Normally he waits till I'm gone to start reading, but this morning, I guess he couldn't wait. And for some reason he didn't think I could put two and two together - that he's the one messing up the kitchen, and then pretending it was the kids.

So here's the bigger question: do I invite him to cook with me, and just pretend the whole thing never happened? Or do I confront him, and tell him to stop tearing up my old 1980s cookbooks. Actually I never knew he could read either. What other things do you suppose he's been keeping from me. OH! That's why the pickles have been disappearing too! He's been nibbling on them. And look how he's just sitting there as if nothing's happened. Opposable thumbs apparently are not such a big deal folks.

Baby Artichokes

They are in season now, funny enough. So if you find baby artichokes - they are best battered and fried - but here are some other ideas. In all cases pull off the outer leaves, peel the stem, cut off the top pointy end of each and the very bottom discolored end of the stem. Keep them in a bowl with lemon juice as you work to prevent discoloration. Then you can marinate them in olive oil and vinegar with oregano, and roast them on the BBQ, then submerge completely in oil. I don't know why this isn't more common in the US, it is among the most delicious things imaginable. Next to them is an experiment: they were blanched briefly and covered with 1/2 strong brine and 1/2 white wine vinegar with fennel, coriander, bay, peppercorns. Why not? They could also just be put in a good O&V dressing after blanching and served as an appy.

It was an overall pickle day in fact. From big red bartop pickled eggs to little quail eggs in rice vinegared tea. Also meat, just to see what happens. Little salametti I made last night as demos for a workshop are now in brine and some other leftover odds and ends, just to see what happens. I also made some coppa stuffed in hogs middles. Should work nicely. What I'm really awaiting is the pickled broccoli rabe. They went very dark, smell a bit funky and I'm hoping haven't gone slimy. Fingers crossed.

Beef Back Ribs

Sometimes the best fun in the kitchen is to buy something you're unfamiliar with and hit it with your best shot. I spotted these ribs and am pretty sure I'd never cooked them before. They're not short ribs. Rather some weird scraggly end of what I assume was left after removing various steaks. There wasn't much meat on them, very short sections, only three bones. Cost about 4 bucks. I browned them in oil, doused with tempranillo and then for no good reason apart from the fact that I had these ingredients around, threw in 2 anchovies, a few squirts of tomato paste in a tube and a sliced shallot. Covered the casuela with tin foil and left to simmer maybe an hour and a half. They were unbelievably tender without being mushy, rich without being unctuous or too fatty, just a lovely deep rich beefy flavor. DO try them if you see them around folks.

Relearning How to Bake

By now you have figured out my oven obsession. Yesterday I decided to make Fornax more efficient by doing some interior patchwork, starting with vacuuming out all remaining sand then applying mortar to any interior nooks and crannies. Little did I realize how good a job it was. After stoking her for an hour, I raked out the coals, gave the floor a quick wet mopping with a newly made broom and threw in a standard sourdough. Not one minute later the bread was burnt to a cinder. Not just the side facing the hottest wall, but the entire bottom. I'm guessing it must have been 1000 degrees. I've never seen such immolation. Clearly I need to rethink fuel and stoking now that she retains heat so well. Not all was lost though. Nathan Crook had only to suggest the word quail and poof: it came into being. These cooked in maybe 4 or 5 minutes tops. Just marinated and set into a clay cassola. Magnificent.