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.

   

Fever Diary

Vacation!

This week Luce’s Gluten-Free Artisan Bread passed another milestone: an initial health department inspection. We have a few minor corrections to make, but we can complete them in 3-4 days. That means production can start next week (week of September 24).

If you haven’t signed up for my e-mail letter, now is the time. Members will get dibs on the first batch out of our kitchen.

It’s been a long haul to get to this point, and I have to confess I’m feeling quite a mixture of emotions. I’m elated to have finally put this together and gotten it “legal”, excited at the prospect of sharing my bread mixes with the world, and more than a little intimidated by the amount of work ahead. 

With the thought that my future might be a very busy one, my wife and I took a vacation last week, visiting one of our favorite places: Chincoteaque Island, Virginia. Those of you who loved to read as children probably know the name. It’s the site of a kiddy-lit classic: Misty of Chincoteaque. Now a good reader I was not, but I know that this story revolves around the wild horses that actually exist on the island. 

Sunshine and vacation shoes

We’ve been vacationing on Chincoteaque island for about 20 years. We always go the first weekend after Labor Day and we usually stay three days, but since I’ve “retired” and since this retirement is soon to end, we elected to spend four weekdays on the island this time. It has a huge National Wildlife Refuge, glorious beaches, a beautiful long-needle-pine forest, interesting fungi and - thanks to all those wild ponies, a world-class mosquito population. 

This year the days were all sunny and not terribly hot. Surf was heavy, thanks to two tropical storms out in the Atlantic, but the water was relatively warm. 

Food on the island can be a bit of a challenge, given our dietary restrictions, but we like to spread our net wide and drive all over the Southern DelMarVa peninsula in search of non-toxic treats. This time we tried the harbor town of Onancock Virginia - and lucked out. The restaurant we found - and went back to twice - was The Inn and Garden Cafe, where Chef Ted went out of his way to make gluten-free crabcakes. What a treat they were!

Leslie and the North Atlantic

A week of lounging in the sun, swimming from time-to-time and eating crab was intensely refreshing, but all too soon it was time to head home. THAT however meant stopping at as many BBQ joints and produce stands as I could convince Leslie to tolerate. Think wood-smoked pig meat, late summer melons, fresh limas, okra, tomatoes, and of course local figs. These were smallish, quite dark and tough-skinned, but much more intensely flavorful than the California varieties I’ve been finding in my local groceries.

Easy to love: Virginia figs

Our journey home was on a Friday. On the way I ate more than a few figs, and was so enraptured by their musky rich flavors I neglected to pay sufficient information to my passenger my wife. Had I been less self-absorbed I might have noticed her unusual restlessness (Leslie is a world-class car sleeper). But as it turned out I didn’t suspect a thing until we were home. “I don’t feel well,” she averred. At which point I noticed she was flushed. I put a hand on her forehead. It was hot. Shit. Leslie is one lady who never gets fevers. I was pretty certain I knew where this one came from.

The first day we’d been on the island, Leslie had taken a walk we always take together: to a wild pony overlook. Rarely are ponies visible, but the view is terrific and the forest through which the trail winds, gorgeous. Unfortunately it is quite mosquito-riddled. This year it was beyond the pale. Mosquitoes usually don’t pursue me, but 20 feet into the woods they were around us in a dense swarm. “Forget this,” I told her, “say hi to the horses for me, I’m waiting in the car.”

I thought she’d come with me. Mosquitoes love her. But, no, the walk was a tradition and she loves traditions. When she got back to the car she had a nimbus of bugs; so many they were uncountable. Even jumping in and slamming the door we ended up with dozens in the car. Despite the fact I thought she’d been foolish to go out in that mob, I felt sorry for her.

Mentally I returned here to balm my fear

By Saturday morning I was feeling much sorrier. Her temp was up to 102, and she was alternatively chilled and sweltering, nauseous and head-achy. I spent the day feeding her acetaminophen. We called our doctor’s on-call service and were told her fever was “low-grade”. We tried to shrug it off.

Sunday was worse. We had a wedding to go to but I called and cancelled her seat. She insisted I go - she wanted photos of the wedding gown. I did go and had a great time. When I got home I stuck a thermometer in her mouth. 104.

Panicked, we struggled to face the situation rationally. That’s not so easy when one of the engaged brains is beginning to cook. 104 is the border for hallucinations, and Leslie allowed she was having some trouble processing time-related concepts. My pulse had begun to race, but we agreed to not head to an ER until we saw what acetaminophen did. Which was actually and thankfully quite a bit. Her fever dropped to 100 and she soon fell asleep.

It was a wild night. Her fever “broke” early Monday, bathing her in perspiration and rousing her for showers and mop-downs twice before dawn. I had to pry her out of bed for a noon doctor’s appointment. Which, as I feared and suspected, indicated (but did not prove) West Nile Virus.

I’ll skip the rest of the medical story and say that in the intervening days she’s improved steadily: no more fever, no more nausea, gradually increasing appetite. We do not yet have an official diagnosis, but whatever-it-was, was too close for comfort. Fortunately she’s unscathed.

Postscript (written 9/22/12): Leslie has almost completely recovered, though she still is quite tired. Lab results say it was NOT West Nile. We're going back to the doctor next week for further investigation.)

As for me, I almost suffered the unspeakable calamity of losing those Virginia figs. By the time I remembered them on Monday afternoon they were at the outer orbit of ripe. Leslie was too sick to eat, and I couldn’t do that job myself (Anybody know what happens when you eat an entire quart of ripe figs? Bet you can guess...) so I elected to try a combination that’s been knocking around in my head since figs “came in” this autumn: cooking them with chanterelles.

Chanterelle vodka

Problem: I had no fresh chanterelles. Idea: I had a fifth of chanterelle vodka.

Do not go down to your liquor store and try to order this. You must make it: shred two or three very fresh, large chanterelles into a bottle of vodka and stash this in the refrigerator until the mushroom fragments sink to the bottom and the booze turns faint orange. Then freeze it or just keep it cold. 

Chanterelle vodka is not something I’d consume directly since I do not drink, but I made a bottle in August for slight-of-hand flavor tricks. It was time to try one. If I did this right, the diner would find unique flavors in the caramelized figs but not realize they were mushrooms. Unless of course I’d told them the ingredients in advance.

The figs were so pungent they overwhelmed any but a heavy dose of mushroom booze, but after fiddling with the ratio I ended up with a fun and rich dish. I’m not sure where it should be on a menu, but my instinct says appetizer. Whenever I ate some - which was often, since Leslie wouldn’t touch it - I paired it with chive-and-onion-laced Cotswald cheese, or Basque Issara cheese, or Vermont Clothbound Cheddar, and it was terrific. And, yes you can store leftovers in the fridge, though for some reason that kills the chanterelle flavor.

One of the best things about this dish - besides the illogical yet wonderful flavors - is how quickly and easily it can be realized. Just one thing: if you’re going to forage your own chanterelles and/or figs, wear plenty of mosquito repellant.  

Caramelized figs with onions and chanterelle vodka

Ingredients:

10 small figs, or 5 larger ones, halved and stems removed

1 TBLS unsalted butter

1 TBLS extra-virgin olive oil

3 TBLS Vidalia onions, chopped fine

1/8 tsp salt

Pinch paprika 

7 TBLS chanterelle Vodka, divided (see text, above)

Procedure: 

In a heavy skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the olive oil and allow to heat until butter sizzles. Add chopped onions and distribute evenly. Allow to sauté until onions just begin to brown, then reduce heat to low and place figs halves onto the hot oil, face down. Sprinkle salt and paprika over the simmering figs.

Continue to braise the figs for 10 minutes. Add one tablespoon of the vodka. It will boil off vigorously. Turn heat off.

When pan has cooled to below the vodka boiling point, add the remainder of the vodka and swirl pan so that liquid picks up the paprika and salt. Return pan to low heat. Simmer another 5 minutes or so until the alcohol is boiled away (or not, if you want a dish with kick). Stir just once and place into a serving dish. Serve warm with very sharp cheeses.

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"

 

Perfectly Clean

Boletes in leaf litter, Vermont

Finally, a blog about mushrooms!

Regular readers know that my warm-months passion is foraging wild, edible fungi. The 2012 season has so far been less than spectacular, so my posts on the topic have been non-existent. Moreover, with my days spent tracking down flour suppliers and begging at municipal building departments, there’s no time left for foraging. Last week, however, I got to an early-season chanterelle spot and came home with some goods. And there (home) I discovered something worth sharing: a better way to clean them.

But first, two background items: 1) Putting together a shopping cart web page is very distracting; 2) The mushroom-foraging crowd I hang out with has one very strong opinion about the right way to clean chanterelles. In fact, when we gather in Vermont for our annual two-day chanterelle forage, a team of 4 is assigned the pre-dinner prep task, which consists of very thorough brushing, then splitting each mushroom and scraping out any internal wormholes (and worms), and re-brushing. With absolutely no washing whatsoever. The process takes hours.

OK, back to my discovery.

Boletus bicolor - an edible (but hard to ID!!) variety

When I dumped the chanterelles on the kitchen counter I was disappointed by the incredible dirtiness of my collection. Most had been growing in a narrow stream bed, and a recent rain had splattered their undersides with sandy grit. They were small specimens too, and the thought of painstakingly brushing each one was boring beyond belief, especially since I’d had a digital insight on my drive home and now wanted to correct some errors on my shopping cart page.

Acting on a whim, I filled a bowl with water and tossed the mushrooms in. They floated like fishing bobbers - probably because this season has been so dry and they were desiccated - as their exquisite perfume filled the air. Back in a minute - I thought, heading over to my desk and laptop. 

An hour later, I closed the file I’d been editing to realize I’d totally forgotten my mushrooms. Exclaiming profanely, and imagining a bowl of orange mush, I darted to the sink. There they were, still bobbing and to all appearances, unchanged.

I poured the ‘shrooms into a colander and shook off the excess moisture. By all accounts I was now about to have a terrible time. Don’t wash mushrooms, they absorb too much water is the received knowledge. The reason? When over-wet mushrooms hit a hot pan, that water gets released, which means they’re being boiled, not fried. The lower heat of boiling isn’t what you want when cooking mushrooms. Mushrooms need the flavor boost that comes from caramelization in oil, a high-temperature reaction. Or so it is believed. 

I’d anticipated that my overly-dry specimens wouldn’t mind a little extra hydration, which was why I’d cavalierly thrown them into water in the first place. After all, dehydrated mushrooms, the kind filling baggies in my cabinet, required a good soaking before they could be cooked. Those chanterelles had simply been naturally dehydrated. However, an hour’s worth of soaking was far more than I’d planned. 

But as I examined my bounty in the colander I realized something: Each and every one of those previously-grit-laden chanterelles was spotlessly clean.

I spread them out on a cutting board. Indeed they were flawless. All that dirt had simply dissolved.

Unscrubbed, unbrushed; only soaked y nada mas

I cut the largest mushroom lengthwise. It was as firm as cork, without a hint of mushiness.  Had they lost aroma? Not a chance - I could smell them 20 feet away. I rubbed a finger over stems, caps, undersides. No grit. None.  No sliminess, either.

My favorite way of eating chanterelles is with scrambled eggs, so I grabbed a few eggs, added cream and milk and salt and pepper, and made dinner for my wife and I. Through the entire cooking process there was no extra water and the mushrooms behaved nicely, and smelled terrific.

Alas they were not the best mushrooms I’ve ever eaten. But it wasn’t because they were soggy - quite the opposite. Our dry weather had “leatherized” them. Which in an odd way confirmed one bit of received chanterelle knowledge: they’re less than spectacular when dehydrated.

However I now submit this thought to foragers: Soak-wash your mushrooms. Forget about dry brushing. 

If you don’t trust my finding (and why should you, I’m hardly describing a scientific experiment), set aside some of your next haul for soaking and compare the results, all the way through cooking. That’s what I plan to do with whatever-I-next-find. And if my no-scrub, no-brush cleaning method works I’ll try to get the appointed scrubbers to adapt it in Vermont later this month. Of course doing so will put them out of a kitchen job. I guess I’ll just have to ask them to do something else. Maybe.... Sing?