Smoked

I have found a silver lining in colds: staying home to cook. 

This past week I’ve been laid low with a respiratory infection. While I’ve no compunction about going to the shop to mail already-packaged bread mixes, I draw the line at making fresh blend. No one wants my viruses. Therefore, three days out of the past four I’ve never left my house, electing instead to have fun with Christmas presents: an immersion blender and a stovetop smoker.

Leslie and the Christmas Tree

Both items were given me by my lovely wife, Leslie. The first is the longed-for tool of choice for making mayonnaise, and the second ...... well if truth be told I’d asked for it ‘cause I wanted to make pork ribs and fatback. 

But after Leslie was nice enough to find and buy the smoker, I realized I’d better expand my repertoire. She’s a vegetarian, and if I wanted to create something tasty for us both (sharing, after all, is half the pleasure of cooking) I’d better think beyond pig fat.

A bit of background: I’m crazy for smoked foods. When a BBQ crowd sets up in the picnic area of our lake club and those ribs start simmering upwind, my saliva factory goes off the charts. There’s few treats I enjoy more than smoked salmon, and a layer of oak-fire char on sweet corn is just incomparable. Ergo, I’ve lusted for and worked at smoking foods for years.

A great summertime way of smoking meat is to use a paper shopping bag. Build a small fire on a flat stone, smother the embers with damp hickory and oak shavings, lay a gridwork of green branches atop this, put the meat on the green branches then tent the smoking pyre with a shopping bag. If done carefully, the bag escapes conflagration and the internal temperature is just high enough to keep the meat cooking safely and slowly.

This is a good technique when one has the whole afternoon ahead. I do it when the woods have chanterelles or the lake is a good temperature for doing laps. Make the smoke tent, grab the collecting basket or bathing suit, go off to mushroom land and come back in a couple of hours. If the ribs aren’t done they can be finished on a charcoal fire. If they are done, so much the better. (One hitch: bears. Don’t try this in bear country.)

Bag smoking a rack of ribs in a modern apartment (read: one that has properly functioning smoke detectors and attentive neighbors) is a bad idea. Enter my lust for a stovetop smoker, which I’d read about in my friend Eugenia Bone’s book Well Preserved but which I’d never seen in any food gadget store. 

Leslie managed to track one down in the Chef’s Catalog, and it, as well as an ample supply of Alder, Cherry, Hickory and Oak chips, appeared under the Christmas tree. 

Burnt remnants on the drip pan. Cool-looking
but a misery to clean.

On a whim, the first thing I decided to smoke was butternut squash. Squash aren’t big hits with someone in this house (I happen to love them), so I’m always trying to either disguise one or find myself staring at stale remnants growing mold in the ‘fridge. We were having guests for dinner and I needed a seasonal vegetable course. Well, I thought, why not? If it didn’t work I’d make a bigger salad and pretend that’d been the plan all along.

To hedge my bet I used a familiar disguise: painting squash sections with maple syrup and wrapping them in bacon. As a little extra I tucked dried cherries under the bacon wraps. The smoker puffed fragrant clouds of Alder and I twitched with fear the smoke detector would start wailing, but it never triggered. I let the squash smoke an hour (The smoker instructions say its internal temperature is about 375 F), then peeled back the lid to discover one messy cleanup (maple syrup and bacon fat carbonized on the drip tray) and a load of amazing squash. I’ve never tasted a better vegetable, and was thrilled to watch my guests’ faces as they dug in. Even more impressive was Leslie’s - she ate seconds!

Since then, I’ve smoked potatoes (yum!), onions (so-so) and apples (super-yum! Leave the skin on.) And then I came down with a cold and found myself with extra time on my hands. It was then I decided to make baked beans.

Beans in their foil trencher.

There was no baked beans recipe in the smoker instruction manual. But then there was no winter squash recipe either. I felt pretty confident about winging it, even after I realized the basic structures of the smoker (drip pan, food rack, siding lid) would have to be altered in order to make this casserole-style dish. Luckily I keep a stash of heavy duty aluminum foil in the house. I used some to fashion a trencher that fit the device’s drip pan, making a container for the beans and the liquid they’d stew in. Finally, to expand the range of flavors just a bit, I lay four garlic cloves in the wood chips. 

Baked beans are cooked in a low oven for a long time, and the smoker produced temperatures I’d normally not use. I set the apparatus on a stove flame, per instructions, but after an hour pulled it off and put it into a 300 F oven. I reasoned the wood chips were consumed by that point and the beans were as yet not done. Two or more hours in the oven wouldn’t hurt.

Indeed I could have baked them longer. The flavors were wonderful - kind of like Boston by way of North Carolina - but the legumes were just a bit crunchy.

Ready for the table!

If you love BBQ, smoked foods, unusual twists for root vegetables, or have an abiding lust for meat, I say click on the link for this smoker and buy one today. I plan to keep experimenting with mine, trying out new foods (Venison liver! Bone marrow! Tamales!) and foraged hardwoods (Willow! Birch! Blackberry! Grape!). Someday I’m sure I’ll manage to trigger the building’s smoke detector, and end up with a stern warning from our super. But until then (well, even after then), let the smoke clouds fly.

   

Restart

Back to the world of food...

Last weekend was the strangest drive home from Ohio, ever. For the first time in decades, I had the peace of mind that I was not leaving any crises behind. With nothing to worry us, Leslie and I crossed Pennsylvania in a dream state. We stopped to collect mushrooms and gone-wild apples, and to shop at Woolrich. It was One Big Float, a journey on a cloud.

Then we reached New Jersey and it hit me: there was no one to call and say, “I’m home. I’m safe.”  

Many of you have experienced a death in the family, so I won’t belabor you with my emotions. For you who are inexperienced, suffice it to say that when the tears have dried and the pain moves to some background place, the immediate blowback is profound exhaustion. Which is what hit me that night at the doorstep of Home, and what haunted me for the next week.

Broken ground for Luce's Gluten-Free Artisan Bread
factory and distribution center

But a man can only sleep so much, especially when that man is trying to launch a  business. On the second day home I headed back into the test kitchen, and on the third day went to the building that will be my small factory and distribution center. There, my plumbers broke ground - quite literally - for equipment installation. By the end of the week I had a shiny new three-part sink, a mop sink and a handwashing sink, all installed and waiting for plumbing inspection. Whoopee!

My short-lived retirement is rapidly reaching an end - a fact I alternatively celebrate and dread. What exactly will happen the day I tell the world my artisan gluten-free bread mix is available, I cannot predict. The best-case scenario has me working hard without stressing. I don’t dwell on worst cases. 

One thing is certain: Once the business launches, I won’t be able to spend every single winter day skiing in the woods and every single summer day foraging mushrooms. But until the doors open, well, it rained A LOT while I was in Ohio, and the woods of New Jersey beckoned ..... 

A "troop" of black trumpets

On Day One Home From Ohio I went to a favorite site. When I came out of the forest three hours later, I had one sore back, a dulled collection knife and a wondrous haul: two shopping bags filled with black trumpet mushrooms (Cantherelles fallax), a 6-quart fruit basket loaded with smooth chanterelles (Cantherelles lateritius) and an 8-quart fruit basket stuffed with corrugated milky mushrooms (Lacteri corrugis). 

And then, since I was hungry after all that work, I stopped at my local Trader Joe’s. Where, to my delight, amazement, and expectation, a huge stack of fresh black figs was on display. Expectation? Yes. Late-summer mushrooms and black figs are go-togethers.

Now I realize that to most people figs and mushrooms are companions in the same sense as chihuahuas and oak shelving, but in fact these fruits and fungi DO actually belong. Both ripen at this time of year - August, or late summer in the Northern temperate zone. And, while I’ve not yet thought up a dish that combines them, they’re similar taste-treats: intensely flavorful, decadently rich, and aromatic beyond belief.

Figs, by the way, are not my favorite fruit - that honor falls upon white nectarines (not the rock-hard ones you find in grocery stores in February, but dead-ripe, sweet-fron-the-tree and grown in south Jersey). Still there is nothing like the aroma of figs, and fig trees too. When I was in my 20’s I spent the good part of a summer in Dubrovnik Yugoslavia, hanging out on that city’s famous pebble beaches and marble sidewalks. There was a huge sprawling fig tree shadowing the steps down to the town beach, casting wonderful perfume over the Danish girls I so ardently pursued. I don’t recall them so well, but the scent of figs has stayed with me forever.

Figs in melted butter, waiting for space in the oven

Driving home from Trader Joe’s I managed to restrain myself from eating more than 5 from the a single quart of figs I’d bought. A problem with figs is, they stale much faster than mushrooms, probably because they’re picked in Arizona and California then refrigerated before being shipped East. If you want moldy fruit, chill it. Mold loves cold, sugar and moisture. Anyway, my drive home was filled with dessert fantasies. By the time I arrived at the door I’d come up with a concept: caramelized figs over salty, sourdough-rosemary shortcake. With creme fraiche, which Trader Joe’s also had.

I’m not going to call what follows a recipe - it’s more of a rip-off and a tease - the former because the cake is adapted with little alteration from a Melissa Clark recipe in the NY Times, and the latter because you can’t make the sourdough version until you can buy some of my bread flour. (Which you will be able to very soon, I hope). However you can adapt my adaptation (I’ve given notes), and (even better) if you are lucky enough to have access to black trumpet mushrooms, you can forgo dessert and make a black pizza topping by doing this: Clean 2 quarts of black trumpet mushrooms. Finely chop 1/2 a small shallot. Sauté the shallot about 1 minute in +/- 2 TBLS butter. Add trumpets. Sauté a minute or two then reduce heat to low. Continue to cook, turning every now and then, @ 10 minutes. Add a sprig of fresh thyme and a teaspoon of paprika. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream. Add 1 cup high-quality shredded parmesan. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir to blend, remove from heat, spread over pizza crust and bake. Oh, yes!

And now for dessert!

Salty GF Rosemary Shortcake

With balsamic caramelized figs

(adapted and halved from a recipe in the New York Times)

Yield: 4 modest servings

Ingredients:

115 grams or about 1 cup GF flour blend (Or Luce’s Gluten-Free Artisan Bread “Classic Sourdough” flour, when it becomes available)

1/4 tsp xanthan gum (eliminate if using Luce’s Classic Sourdough flour)

28 grams or about 2 TBLS packed, dark brown sugar

8 grams cornstarch (about 1 TBLS)

6 grams baking powder (about 1 tsp)

10 grams salt (about 2 tsp) (5 grams/ 1 tsp if using Luce’s Classic Sourdough flour)

Two, 4” sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves pulled from stems and stems discarded

3.5 TBLS unsalted butter, cubed cold

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 medium egg, beaten

White rice flour for dusting

12 fresh figs, either black or green, halved

About 1 TBLS good balsamic vinegar

1 TBLS unsalted butter

4 - 8 TBLS créme fraîche

Procedure:

Insert a pizza stone or cookie sheet into the oven and heat oven to 375. Set out a half sheet of parchment and dust with white rice flour. 

In a small bowl, mix cream and medium egg and blend well. In a separate large bowl, combine flour, xanthan gum, sugar, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and rosemary leaves, and blend well with a fork or hand mixer. Toss butter cubes into bowl and pinch into flat thin sheets. Distribute through the flour. Add egg and cream mixture and gently stir, trying to retain as many “sheets” of butter as possible. When you have a shaggy dough, turn it out onto the parchment. (Note: Luce’s Classic Sourdough flour will not bake into flaky cakes. If using Classic Sourdough flour, cut in the butter  until it forms pea-sized lumps.)

Smoothed dough on parchment

With floured hands or a floured bench scraper, divide dough into quarters. A rough-topped, rustic result is perfectly acceptable, or you can be neat and pat down the dough into roundish mounds. (If you do, you’ll need to sprinkle flour on the dough first). Using a peel or flat cookie sheet, slide parchment with shortcakes directly onto hot stone/sheet. Bake 20 - 30 minutes, until the cake is the color of dark Kraft paper.

Remove cakes from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Turn oven off and brush figs on their cut side with balsamic vinegar. If your pizza stone is sealed - like an Emile Henry broiler stone - or if you are using a cookie sheet, drop a TBLS of butter directly onto the stone. Otherwise use a small piece of parchment paper and place the butter on it. Once the butter melts, lie the figs cut-side-down on the butter, return stone/cookie sheet to oven, and allow the figs to bake in the oven’s residual heat - at least 30 minutes. (Alternatively you can caramelize the figs in a skillet on the stove top.)

Split cakes in half. Divide figs among the cakes, placing them inside the two halves sandwich-style. Drop a dollop of créme fraîche onto the figs, close the cakes and serve warm.

Some would call this "food porn"

 

Getting There

Finally, I’ve arrived!

Future Home of Luce's Gluten-Free Artisan Bread

I know this photo isn’t much to look at, but it depicts the actual, real home of Luce’s Gluten-Free Artisan Bread. Once the plumbing goes in and equipment installed, this site will be recognizable as a clean, safe environment for producing what I do best: ready-to-mix and virtually instant artisan bread dry blends. 

This is a very exciting time for me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from retirement, it’s that I need a lot of physical activity. The amount of desk-sitting I’ve done over the past year - calling bakeries, writing contracts and emails, finding and communicating with suppliers - and waiting, waiting, waiting for people to get back to me - has not set well. I’m ready to get my hands dusted with flour. Work up a sweat. Mix and package and sell my remarkable blends.

As work on my facility progresses I’ll post more photos, as well as a narrative of the “action,” which in this case means coping with bureaucracy. Lots of it. 

(A note to my friends in New Jersey: this isn’t a retail sales operation, so you can’t drop by and pick up a package of Bread-In-A-Bag. Sorry!)

And something for all of you, gentle readers: first notice that my virtual store is open will go to people who’ve signed up for my newsletter. This is an easy thing to do - just click HERE, wait for the page to open, scroll to the bottom and enter your email in the noted place. My newsletter is quarterly, ad-free, and contains recipes and special offers as well as opportunities to purchase my newest products, which I hope to roll out regularly.

OK - so much for self-promotion. Let’s talk about food! 

Black trumpet mushrooms - arriving in NJ in July

I’m writing this at lunchtime with hunger stalking my insides, a sensation that’s enhanced by the aroma of cooking mushrooms. A saucepan of chicken mushrooms (Laetiporus sulphureus) in milk is simmering on the stove. Later, I’ll strain off the orange colored, mushroom flavored broth to make a wild mushroom custard, which I’ll serve with braised bone marrow. The mushrooms themselves will have to be tossed into the garbage - this batch is too tough to chew. I knew when I found them they were stale. Chicken mushrooms that are beyond fresh have the texture of cardboard, but their rich, excellent flavor is undamaged. I’m simply transporting it into a fat vehicle (whole milk) for later use. 

Shredded bread 

But my intent wasn’t to write about mushroom custard. Instead I want to share my recipe for veggie-burgers. 

As most of us with celiac disease have discovered, restaurant or store-bought vegetarian “hamburgers” are unsafe. Luckily, making one’s own is not hard. Cooked beans, a bit of onion, an egg, GF oatmeal if you can tolerate it, GF bread crumbs if you can’t, and whatever seasoning floats your boat, is all it takes. You can be sloppy, measuring ingredients by eye or intuition, and still end up with good tasting results. The “burgers” cook up splendidly in a skillet or electric griddle like the George Foreman Grill, but shine as well when seared over charcoal.

My recipe includes bread crumbs sautéd in a blend of butter and black trumpet mushrooms (Craterellus fallax). If you can’t find black trumpets or don’t like them, a substitution is listed.

Ingredients for Veggie-burgers

Black Trumpet Veggie-Burgers

Ingredients:

4 TBLS black trumpet butter (recipe below).

1 cup coarsely-chopped bread crumbs (GF or other).

1/2 cup oatmeal (GF or other).

2/3 cup cooked white beans, drained. Liquid reserved.

2 TBLS coarsely chopped red onion.

1 egg 

Spices to taste: garlic flakes, paprika, salt, cumin, parsley, black pepper.

Black trumpet butter: 

Sauté 2 quarts of fresh, cleaned, chopped black trumpet (Cantherelles fallax) mushrooms in 1 stick of unsalted butter. When mushrooms are done (about 8 minutes), remove from heat and allow to cool.  Soften another 3 sticks of butter to room temperature. Put mushrooms and their cooking fat, plus the three sticks of soft butter, in a food processor and process to a smooth, dark paste. Divide into small units, reserving 4 tablespoons and freezing the remainder. 

Notes: 

If you are unable to find or don’t like black trumpet mushrooms, substitute the bread crumbs and trumpet butter (step 1) as follows: Sauté 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms in butter, increase amount of oatmeal to 3/4 cup and increase beans to 1 cup.

If you cannot tolerate GF oats, substitute with quinoa flakes.

Method: 

1) Melt the black trumpet butter in a skillet over medium flame. Gently sauté the bread crumbs until they are slightly crisp and saturated with the mushroom mixture. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

2) Place the oatmeal, beans, onion and about 2 tablespoons of the bean liquid in a food processor. Pulse 4 - 5 times to blend. You do not want to make a purée, only a coarse chop. Add the egg, bread crumbs and spices and pulse a few more times. Scoop up mixture in your hand. If it holds together in a ball when shaped and squeezed if is wet enough. If not, add a tablespoon or two of bean water and pulse a few times.

3) Allow the mixture to rest 10 minutes. Add a bit more liquid if necessary. Shape into patties, and fry in an oiled skillet, in a home griddle, or on an outdoor grill. Thorough cooking is essential - about 5 minutes per side, or twice as long as the average hamburger. 

4) Serve on a bun with condiments of your choice. 

(A bun recipe will be part of my summer newsetter. Sign up HERE)

Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 days or frozen in a sturdy plastic bag.