Oktoberfest Stew

The Packers have a bye week, so I needed a project for the day. To be honest, I didn't feel like looking up a recipe or coming up with some clever experiment to test out. I also was craving beer. What could I make that would be relatively simple and included beer?

Stew! The best thing about stew is that I could put just about anything in it. Growing up my parents would make a stew anytime they needed to clean out the fridge. Extra carrots, throw them in. Too many onions in cupboard, throw them in. Leftover meatloaf, throw it in. I wish I was kidding.

So I went to Whole Foods with only one ingredient figured out, Spaten Oktoberfest. As much as I love micro-brews there is something about a real German beer that hits the spot on a chilly October night. It is a dark flavorful beer that somehow remains crisp and not too heavy. Good for drinking, good for cooking.

First I bought a bunch of veggies, mostly roots: carrots, onions, garlic, Yukon Gold potatoes, celery, leeks, shallots, parsnips, turnips. I never cooked with parships and turnips before, so this would be interesting. I also bought almost 4 lbs of beef chuck for protein. You can't have stew by itself, so I bought some polenta to serve it over.

When I got home, I cut the chuck into 1-2 inch cubes trimming off most of the fat. I coated the beef in flour, salt, and pepper. Then browned it in oil. I then set it aside.

I chopped the veggies and separated them into two groups: 1) onions, leeks, shallots, garlic, celery and 2) carrots, turnips, parsnips, potatoes. I heated up some olive oil and a bit of butter in my heavy cast-iron pot and then sautéed the first group until the onions were translucent (5-10 minutes). Then I added the second group and simmered them for about 15 minutes.

I added the beef and poured in a couple Spaten's and enough beef stock to generously cover all the veggies and the beef. I then made a sachet by wrapping a couple sprigs of thyme, oregano, bay leaves, and about 10 peppercorns in cheesecloth and tying it together. I added this to the stew. I simmered the stew on low heat for about an hour and 15 minutes.

With about 45 minutes left until the stew was finished, I started the polenta. It was fairly basic. Boiled 4 cups chicken stock and 2 cups water. Slowly stirred in 2 cups of polenta. I continuously stirred for about 15 minutes and then added 3 TBS of butter and 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese. After about 10 more minutes, I transferred to a well-oiled bowl and let sit for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I flipped the polenta onto a plate and everything was ready to serve.

I was worried that some of the roots would be too mushy and others would not be cooked enough, especially the turnips and parsnips. Fortunately, everything seemed cooked perfectly. The stew was absolutely delicious. The turnips really stood out. The polenta was nice and creamy. The beef was tender and not too fatty. The beer gave the stew a sweet-and-sour flavor. All-in-all, perfect for a brisk fall day.

Next time you are wondering what to cook, but don't want anything too complicated. Stew is your answer!

Molly's even excited about the stew.

The hunt for pizza . . . in Memphis

Pizzeria Bianco - Phoenix

Ahhh pizza. I love pizza. You love pizza. Everybody loves pizza.

However, I really love pizza. I have been known to make  people wait over six hours so I could have one of my favorite pizzas at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. They have a pizza called the Rosa, which is fairly simple with red onion, pistachios, and parmasean. However, the flavor is intense and rich and worth waiting 6 hours for.

I have also made a bunch of colleagues join me on a “Pizza Crawl” after a meeting in NYC. We spent an afternoon in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan hunting for the best NYC pizza. The winner was Grimaldi's, under the Brooklyn Bridge. They use fresh mozzerella, fresh basil, real Italian sausage (not the turds you get at Dominos), and fresh homemade tomato sauce, all cooked under a coal fire brick-oven.

My pizza roots go back to Milwaukee, where I grew up with some of the best Italian restaurants in the country. Our favorites were Lisa’s Pizza and Palermo Villa Pizza. Milwaukee-style pizza has a very thin crust with lots of sauce and cut into little squares instead of pie slices.

Grimaldi's

Lisa's Pizza from diningoutmilwaukee.com

 

Palermo Villa - from facebook

Now I live in Memphis and I married a girl (Susan) who also loves pizza. In fact, we have takeout pizza almost every Friday night. After a long hard week, there is nothing better than enjoying a pizza, a bottle of wine, and a movie. With no dishes, it is easy and delicious.

Unfortunately, with my high pizza standards, we have had much difficulty in

finding a good pizza place in Memphis. We have searched high and low, near and far. I have lived in Memphis for seven years and have not found a truly awesome pizza (until recently).

According to the Memphis Flyer “Best of” issue, the best pizza in Memphis year-after-year is Memphis Pizza Café. I am sorry, but I disagree. I wish I liked it, as it is near my house and it would make my life easy, but it just isn’t very good. The sauce lacks flavor and the crust isn’t very crisp.

We have tried numerous others. A couple times we thought we found some good ones, only to be let down the next week, because they were so inconsistent (Old Venice). Or HighPoint Pizza, which is so consistent that we got sick of it after a couple of weeks. Then there was Lavoros off of Summer, which I liked enough but Susan didn’t like the sweetness in the sauce. I think they have cinnamon in it. Finally, a number of people at work were recommending the Pizza Shack, which is right near my house. I got really excited, until we actually had the pizza which came with a cardboard crust.

Russo's from Commercial Appeal

I was about ready to give up, when we found Russo’s in Germantown. In fact, for the past few months, I have been driving about 30 minutes out of the way to have their NYC pizza. Even though it is chain, this place reminds me of the pizza that you can get by the slice on any corner in Manhattan. They sauce is very good and they don’t skimp on it. The sausage is sliced thin length-wise across the pizza. They also have good sides to with the pizza, like toasted ravioli.

Plus, they are neighbors to my favorite wine store in Memphis, Forest Hill Wine Merchants. While waiting for your pizza, go next store and find the wine to enjoy with your meal. Instead of organizing the store by region or price, they have the wines organized by color. The bottles wrap around the store with the darkest reds on the right and the lightest whites on the left. (To be honest, I have never really been on the left side of the store.) They also have a great high-alcohol beer selection with the hard to find Rogue beers and Belgian styles like Chimay. They even have a wine chiller to cool off a wine in minutes. My favorite part is their huge bourbon selection, with multiple selections from every major distillery and some hard to find small batch options. The service is knowledgeable and not pretentious. They always seem to have a couple wines available to taste. The only downfall is that they are a little pricey.

Okay, now back to PIZZA. Although Russo’s is quite good, it is still too far away. So my wife and I kept hunting for another location. Now, I am happy to say, I think we found the best pizza in Memphis. Have you been tothe Trolley Stop?

The Trolley Stop Market is not only a restaurant, but a year-round indoor farmer’s market, and craft fair. The ingredients are all local and the best part is that their pizza is delicious. I would assume that the other things on the menu are good as well, but knowing how good the pizza is I haven’t been able to order anything else.

Trolley Stop Market - from facebook

The large pizza is absolutely huge. We normally order a large with half pepperoni and half sausage, all onion. I like sausage and Susan likes pepperoni. Since everything is local, the meat is fresh and flavorful. Plus, you can actually taste the tomatoes in the sauce. You can just tell that it was made that day. The hipster service is laid back, but attentive and nice. Plus, they have local Ghost River beer on tap to enjoy while waiting for your pizza. Last night, I had their Copperhead Red Ale. Yummy.

Okay, so I am a bit pretentious myself, when it comes to pizza. I realize that Memphis is not known for being a place to go for pizza. However, I am happy to report after hunting long enough, I found a pizza that can compete with the best pizzas of the Northeast and the Midwest. What makes the Trolley Stop so delicious is not that they are trying to be like NY style pizza, but that their ingredients are local and fresh and you can taste the difference in their food.

If anybody who reads this has some other Memphis pizza recommendations, please leave a comment and let me know.

Thomas Keller and Short Rib Stroganoff

A couple years ago, my sister bought me the Thomas Keller cookbook called Ad Hoc at Home. For those of you who don’t know Thomas Keller, he is a world reknown chef best known for his famous restaurant in Yountville, CA called the French Laundry. He has won numerous James Beard Awards and has multiple restaurants with 3 star Michelin ratings.

Keller is known for his precision in cooking at his restaurants. However, in this book he tries to share recipes that are more relaxed for the home cook. He does say that there are certain things that you cannot compromise on, notably time and temperature.

I have tried a number of his recipes. My favorite so far is his meatballs with a roasted fennel tomato sauce. My wife Susan doesn’t even like meatballs and she loves these.

They may be simplified recipes for the home cook, but that doesn’t mean they are easy. Most of his recipes, refer to other recipes in the book. For example,  within the meatball recipe is a separate recipe for the papparadelle pasta and another one for the tomato sauce. Then within the papparadelle recipe is a recipe for the pasta dough and within the tomato sauce there is a recipe for the sachet of herbs. It can be a bit of a process.

Today (and tomorrow) I am trying his beef stroganoff recipe. Although it is still going to take two days, in the spirit of the book, my wallet, and my time, I going to simplify even more. I will not be making my own beef broth and I will not be making my own pappardelle.

Picture from Wikipedia

If Keller ever reads this, I am sure he would feel I bastardized the recipe. However, I have another job during the week. Sorry.

What makes this recipe so exciting to try, is that it uses beef short ribs for the beef. This is also why it takes two days to prepare.

According to the "Dining Chicago Blog," short ribs are tender and meaty, rectangular bones cut from the underside of a steer’s rib cage – from the sternum, or ‘plate’ up toward the shoulder area known as the  ‘chuck’”.

Short ribs have a lot of fat in them and are usually cooked very slow to render the fat, which is a more French style of cooking, or it can be cut into strips and seared quickly over high heat, which is a more Korean style of cooking.

I am going to spend the day braising them slow and low and then let them sit in their marinade and rendered fat in the fridge overnight. The next day I will make the beef stroganoff and hopefully enjoying it while watching the Packers beat the living snot of the Vikings.

Below I have detailed out how I made the short ribs. If you don’t want to read all the details, I will give you a quick summary and the moral of the story.

Even though I took some short cuts and it was a pain in the ass, this meal was one of the best meals I have ever made. My in-laws and my wife completely agree. However, I think I say this about everything I have made from this cookbook.  Keller really does give easy to follow instructions. There are just a lot of them. However, it was completely worth it. The braised short ribs just melt in your mouth and every detail to the little sprinkle of sea salt at the end of the meal makes a difference. 

So if you feel like cooking for two days and spending another day doing the dishes and cleaning up the mess, you should definitely try this recipe. Of course, you could always buy a can of Campbell’s Cream ofMushroom and cook the classic stroganoff that grandma used to make.

THE DETAILS

Day 1: Braised Beef Short Ribs

First thing I did was make the red wine reduction. This included a bottle of red wine, onion, carrot, shallots, leeks, button mushrooms, fresh thyme, flat-leaf parsley, fresh bay leaves, black peppercorns, garlic.

By the way, leeks are really expensive at Whole Foods. I have no idea how much they cost elsewhere, but they were $2.99 a stalk  at Whole Foods. Yikes. I skimped on these a bit to save a little money.

I combined all of this in a large dutch oven and cooked it down until there was very little liquid.

While the marinade was reducing, I prepared the short ribs. The recipe called for boneless short ribs, because they were easier to cut away the sinew and may make it easier to eat later. I ignored that part. I braised the short ribs bone in. I didn’t want to miss out on any additional flavor the bone might provide.  The bone fell out after cooking and it was easy to prepare later.

Before braising the short ribs, I then browned them meat side down in canola oil for a few minutes. Then I added more onion, carrot, leeks, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme to the wine reduction. Before adding the meat, I put a layer of cheesecloth to separate the meat from the reduction. This will later make it easier to separate short ribs from everything else. I then put the meat on top of the cheesecloth and the poured enough beef broth to cover the top of the meat.  I then made a lid out of parchment paper with a hole in the middle. I cooked this at 350 degrees for a couple hours.

After removing the meat from the over, it was all I could do not to eat it right then. I may have tried a little. I put the short ribs aside and strained the liquid from the marinade. I put the short ribs back in the strained liquid and refrigerated over night. 

Phew. Day one done. All that work and I still haven’t had any dinner. I poured a glass of some leftover Nebbiolo and reheated some leftover soup.

 

Day 2: Beef Stroganoff

My goal is to finish this by 3:15pm in time for the Packer game. They are playing the Vikings and need to beat them to remain undefeated. Problem is that I overslept. Recovering from a bit of a cold, I took a bit too much cough syrup the previous night (Tussin X). Plus, I hadn’t even set my fantasy football lineup. I didn’t get started until 1:00pm.

There is basically four parts to the beef stroganoff: 1) the cream sauce, 2) the mushrooms, 3) the short ribs, and 4) the pasta.  Let me warn you, this day is not for the faint of dishes. I made a mess. Susan will attest to this.

The cream sauce involved chopping a pound of Cremini mushrooms in a food processor. I then sautéed some onions in butter and added the chopped mushrooms to the onions. I then cooked until the liquid had simmered out of the mushrooms. I added cream and a satchet.

What is a satchet you ask? According to Thomas Keller, it is a little packet of thyme, bay leaves, and peppercorns wrapped in a little “satchet” of cheesecloth.

While simmering the cream sauce, I started browning another pound of sliced Cremini mushrooms in a hot skillet with butter and canola oil. Keller makes it clear not to stir the mushrooms while they are browning. It will only allow them to steam and not brown. After cooking these in batches, I put them on paper towel to drain the grease off. I took the short ribs out of the fridge. The marinade had a nice layer of fat on top. I removed the fat and carefully fished out the short ribs from the remaining liquid. I cut the short ribs into 1-2 inch cubes and then put them aside to get to room temperature.

 Then I took the simmering cream sauce and put it in a blender until it was completely smooth. I strained this mixture back into a sauce pan  added some crème fraiche for good measure. The heavy cream apparently wasn’t enough. I mixed in ¾ of the browned mushrooms and kept on low heat while finishing the recipe.

I heated some oil in a cast iron pan and browned (again) the short ribs on one side until they were basically caramelized. I flipped them and put the whole pan in the over at 350 to cook through.

I boiled some egg noodles in yet another pan. I mixed these with butter. Finally, I was ready to serve. I put the noodles on a plate, added a couple dollops of sauce, sprinkled on the leftover browned mushrooms and some chopped parsley. I carefully place the short ribs on top and sprinkled with some Gray Sea Salt.

Done. I am now enjoying one of the best meals I ever made with a Paulaner Ocktoberfest and the Packers beating the Vikings..  The meat just melts in my mouth.

Cheese: Grilled vs. Smoked

I was supposed to be traveling this weekend for work. When that got cancelled, I needed a good project for the weekend. I thought about raking the leaves, cleaning the attic, catching up on my bills and finally decided to smoke some cheese.

Why smoke cheese you ask? Well, there has been a lot talk recently about the art of cold smoking, which is the process of smoking something without cooking it. I saw it on some Food channel show. I read about in Edible Memphis magazine. I heard about one of the cooks using this method for something in his sauce last week at a BBQ competition. What better to cold smoke? One of my favorite things. Cheese, of course.

The title of this blog also mentions grilled cheese. Where did that come from? I am not talking about the sandwich. I was actually on the phone with my sister. She mentioned that when in Argentina recently, she had grilled provolone, known as provoleta. Since she mentioned that it was magnificent, I figured that as long as I was smoking cheese, why not grill some too?

Smoked Cheese

I started with three types of cheese: a red wax gouda, an aged cheddar from Roth Käse in Wisconsin (of course), and provolone from Whole Foods.

I then did some research on the web on how to cold smoke with my Big Green Egg. A website called the Naked Whiz provided a fairly simple method, that I ended up basing my method on.

1) I first smoked cherry wood chips in water for over an hour. I like the cherry wood because it is not overpowering like a hickory. Other fruit wood would also work well, like apple or peach.

I then wrapped the soaked wood in a little tin foil package and cut holes in the top of the package for the smoke to get out. I got this method from Americas Test Kitchen's awesome cookbook called Best Recipe. They use it when smoking ribs on a Weber charcoal grill. Great recipe.

2) I lit 8 charcoal briquettes using my chimney starter. I put the eight hot coals at the bottom of my Green Egg and then placed the wood chip package on top.

3) I used the place setter to hold a large aluminum pan with ice cubes. I put the grate on top and then another raised grate on top of that.

4) I closed up the Egg so that the vent on the top was barely open and the one on the bottom was about half way open. This allowed me to keep the temperature at about 75 degrees. I little warmer then it was outside. I wanted to keep the smoker as cool as possible, so I wouldn't melt the cheese.



5) After an hour, I was done. I removed the cheese. As you can tell from the pictures, the cheeses all sweated a bit and the provolone even melted a bit. I let them sit for about 10 minutes before my wife and I tried them.

Each cheese had a definite smoke flavor. The gouda took to it the best. It had this awesome mild smoke taste that infused the entire brick. The cheddar wasn't all that smokey. The intrinsic flavor of the cheddar prevented the smoke flavor to really come out. The provolone was somewhere in between.

I am assuming this is why I see smoked gouda at the grocery store, but rarely any other smoked cheeses. My wife was very happy with the amount of smoke each of the cheeses had, but I was looking for a bit more smoke, especially in the cheddar.

6) So, I put the whole setup back together. I added three more briquettes to the still hot original briquettes. Then for the smoke, I opened up the tin foil package. I added new soaked wood chips and put the side with the holes face down on the briquettes. I then opened up the other side all the way. Once the smoke started to release. I added some of the cheese back into the Egg. I smoked them for another 20 minutes. This did the trick and all three cheeses had a much more intense smokey flavor.

In the end, I ended up finding a way to get a nice mild smokey flavor in the cheese the way my wife likes it and I found a way to have an intense smokey flavor the way I like it. We tried the cheese with pears, as well as on hamburgers later in the evening. It was perfect with both.

One more thing, according to the Naked Whiz, do not put the cheese in the refrigerator right after removing the cheese from the grill. It will cause everything in your fridge to smell like smoke. This is good advice. As of right now, my wife still indulges me without complaining about my little weekend projects. If I smelled up the entire fridge with smoke, she may no longer be so willing.


Grilled Cheese

So now for grilling the cheese. I already mentioned that I was going to grill provolone. However, the cheese lady at Whole Foods recommended I try a Greek "grilling cheese" called Halloumi. Sounded good to me. If I was going to grill cheese anyway, might as well try two types.

Grilling cheese is not all that easy. How do you grill cheese without ended up with a gooey mess? The halloumi was easy, as its natural properties prevent it from melting. However, the provolone was more difficult. I actually tried grilling provolone before and failed miserably. So, I scoured the web for some advice.

The best advice was from a video by Michael Chiarello on the Food Network website. Apparently leaving the cheese out at room temperature for at least an hour, will cause a skin to form around the cheese. This helps prevent the cheese from melting. The other advice was to grill the cheese at a very hot temperature, allowing the outside to be grilled without melting the inside (similar to grilling a steak).

1) For the provolone, I made a marinade that was similar to chimichurri sauce. It included garlic, red pepper, fresh oregano, and olive oil. I pressed this marinade into the cheese, so that it wouldn't fall off.

2) For the halloumi, I decided to use just lemon. The Greek halloumi reminded me of a fried cheese dish that I used to have as a kid at a local Greek restaurant in Racine, Wisconsin. The dish is called "Saganaki." They would basically douse Greek cheese in brandy and then light it on fire at the table. They would then use lemon to put the fire out. It was delicious. After doing some research, sure enough, halloumi is one of the cheeses often used in Saganaki.

3) Unlike smoking cheese, I now had to get the grill hot. I put the cheese on once the grill hit 450 degrees. I started with the provolone and grilled each side until it started to melt (about 1 minute). Then I put the cheese in a little aluminum tin on the raised grate for another minute or 2 until it really started to melt. I made sure to oil the grate generously before putting the cheese on. Otherwise, it would stick and I could lose the best part of the grilled cheese.

4) As predicted, the halloumi was easy. I grilled it on both sides with the lemon until both the lemon and the cheese were slightly browned.

5) Served both. I have to admit at this point, I have had a lot of cheese. So, I again I needed my wife to help me evaluate the final product.

The provolone was delicious. It had the warm, not quite crispy outside with a delicious garlicky marinade. Literally melted in my mouth. It was even better on some country bread.

The halloumi was good, but not as good as the provolone. I squeezed the grilled lemon on the cheese before serving. It had good flavor, but the consistency was a little cardboard like. I guess that is why it was so easy to grill. I probably would have liked it a lot more, if it was the only cheese I had for the day. However, after trying three different smoked cheeses twice and the grilled provolone. I was a bit cheesed out.

I think my next endeavor for cold smoking will be malt for my friends home brew. I will fill you in on that when the time comes.

Thank you for reading. This blog was brought to you by Lipotor. I think I better go for a run.