Dinner
Coconut Soup with Butternut Squash and Chile Sauce
Most cultures have a signature stew. I think of stew as a warm winter retreat, but even hot regions possess hot stews, leading me to ascribe equal cultural significance to stew as, say, bread or grain dishes. And since stews are liquid based, it stands to reason said liquid would be something indigenous. Hence the French – if only as an excuse to drink while cooking – use wine, and Thai/Vietnamese favor coconut milk. The latter is of interest to us today.
Not only is coconut milk rich, but the truly authentic curry recipes go a step further, calling for coconut cream. Cream or no cream, these curries never contain just “a touch of cream”, as waiters like to say. Rather, as with a true New England clam chowder, to eat these dishes is to consume spoonful upon spoonful of straight, simmered cream.
A good chef has a delicate relationship with his can of coconut milk: not too much, not too little. A poor chef looks at a can of coconut milk and sees an excuse not to cook and develop flavors but rather a shortcut in a can. And so you find the clumsy bowl of greasy white milk requiring some considerable fishing to locate a morsel of chicken or floret of broccoli.
The exception is coconut soup, a perfect representation of the phrase “it is what it is”. The soup is flavored simply with fish sauce and garnished with a healthy handful of veg (we used butternut squash), preferably something colorful enough to offset the white broth. Ironic that the perfect embrace of coconut milk exists in soup, rather than stew form, but cooking works in mysterious ways.
As a not inconsiderable aside, whatever you make with coconut milk needs a sharp condiment (unless it’s dessert) to fend off its richness. Here we made a simple chile sauce, but pickled cucumbers, herbs, and so on, would work well.
(NOTE: If you don’t live near a Thai grocery and thus can’t bike over for a few handfuls of tiny bird chilies, use whatever hot chile you can find.)
Coconut and Butternut Squash Soup
Serves 4 (with rice)
2 pound butternut squash diced (1/2 inch)
2 cups coconut milk
2 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons fish sauce
Chile Sauce (below)
1. Combine squash, coconut milk and broth in a pot and simmer until the vegetable is tender. Season with fish sauce and serve with Chili sauce.
Chile Sauce
½ cup scuds (tiny Thai chilies) or a few Serrano chilies
1 cup fish sauce
1. In a food processor (a mini one works well here), pulse the scuds (seeds included) to a slightly chunky paste. Add to a bowl and pour over the fish sauce. Serve. Stays covered in fridge for quite a while, decreasing in heat over time.
Fried Oysters, Fried Pancetta, and Grits
Oysters take me back to summer in Truro. While I’ll take a dozen raw ones over shaved ice any day, come summer we eat them Cape-style, i.e. fried. Fried oysters are the king of fried seafood: good oysters taste supremely of the sea, and so, rather than an excuse to eat fried stuff, a fried oyster is actually a fresh, oceany bite. Which happens to be fried.
There are two factors at play when considering the fried oyster: coating method, and plate construction. The former is a matter of taste. For a pure burst of oyster goodness, dust simply with flour and fry. From there, you move up the crust level, with increasingly thick layers of encasing crunch. Dip them in buttermilk, then flour, or your standard flour-egg-flour process. We went with a double dip: flour-buttermilk-flour then a return to the buttermilk and flour and into the oil.
Plate construction is a fancy way of saying accompaniments. I imagine that in the beginning, in seaside towns such as Truro, people ate their fried seafood Mediterranean-style: dropped in oil and devoured tableside by the water. Over time the dish took a distinctly American turn, and cooks created the “basket” or “dinner”. That is to say, an enormous salad of fried food served in a basket or on a frisbee-sized plate. And so, in Truro, my fried oysters arrive aside a high pile of French fries (and limp salad).
French fries-I eat them all, of course-are a poor foil for fried oysters; they dull the palate and dilute the sharp oyster flavor. It’s also an overdose of fried food. Better to munch on them with a simple tartar sauce or, as we do here, a plate of grits. And a few discs of fried pancetta because, well, fried pork never hurt anyone. At risk of violating seaside food history, French fries don’t necessarily improve a dish. Fried oysters, however, are always delicious and deserve a proper environment.
Fried Oysters, Fried Pancetta, and Grits
Serves 4 as an appetizer
1 cup grits
2 cups milk
16 oysters, shucked
12 slices pancetta
3 cups flour
2 cups buttermilk
oil for frying
salt and pepper
- Bring grits and milk to boil in a small pan, simmer till done, stirring, about ½ hour (add milk or water as needed). Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm
- Set at least 3 inches of oil in a medium pot over medium high heat. Set up two bowls, one with flour the other buttermilk. When the oil hits 325, start dredging oysters: flour then buttermilk, back in flour. Repeat, shaking off excess flour. Fry until golden, about 1 minute. Season with salt. Drain on a paper towel.
- When done, fry the pancetta a few slices at a time for about 30 seconds. Divide grits, oysters, and pancetta among 4 plates and serve.
Homemade Sausage and Peppers
Thomas Keller says he keeps two things on the stove at all times: salt and acid, acid being citrus, or more likely, some kind of vinegar. Rather than, say, pepper, which adds a unique flavor, salt and vinegar act as a welcome air current to bird, carrying and intensifying existing flavor. A pinch of cumin makes a dish tastes a bit like, well, cumin. But a splash of balsamic can balance, or round out the picture, cutting through the fattiness of a steak or creamy sauce.
In addition to vinegar, Keller also savours publishing the occasional punishing recipe. Like a tennis serve, the mechanics may seem simple, but take a long time to master. Such is the case with his famous salmon tartare cones, which took me about a year to conquer. (A tip: when the butter starts bubbling, it’s ready to flip and mold.)
A perfect sausage is a like a speedy, accurate, tennis serve, requiring more than a little practice. We make our own fresh sausages around here, thanks to Pino the butcher, the Meat Hook’s cheap casings, and a streak of ocd. Usually we encounter the occasional split casing, or, more typical, a puff of meat popping out from both ends while in the frying pan.
Only yesterday did we produce flawless links. Way back, we learned about pricking out air holes, but the final key, it turns out, is to spin the ends vigorously while forming fresh links. That ensures a nice tight tip guaranteed not to burst.
But while it’s nice to master tricky recipes, it’s even nicer to broaden your touch, your food aptitude. Which is where the vinegar comes in. We stole this sausage dish from Andrew Feinberg via the doorstop-sized CoCo cookbook, down to the sautéed peppers served alongside the fried links. Sausage and peppers is pretty common, but, due to a tiny splash of balsamic, these peppers were perfect. The vinegar lightened the pork and brightened the whole plate. Keller (and, of course, Feinberg, would approve.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s not to be discouraged by tricky recipes. Having salt and vinegar within arms reach is half the battle.
(NOTE: get a kitchen scale. Curing salt optional, but they retain freshness and color. These freeze well. Also, when you grind, run through large, then fine die. Also (#2) make sure the butcher (if you’re making links) gives you casings packed in salt-they last a year. If you already possess a Kitchen Aid and have a bit of time, don’t be a schmoe: get the grinder/stuffer accessories. We added a bunch of directions on the processing-the book is sort of for the already-chef.)
Homemade Sausage and Peppers (From Coco and adapted from Andrew Feinberg)
Makes about 20 links (or a bunch of patties)
For the sausage:
Hog casings
4 ½ pounds fatty pork butt
½ pound pork belly
1/3 pound chopped parmesan
4 cloves chopped garlic
2 tablespoons salt
black pepper
5.6g curing salt
1. clean casings (see NOTE). Soak in a bowl of running water and run water through them several times. Make sure not to tangle.
2. Grind ingredients (see NOTE). Stuff casings – this probably takes 2 people – one to feed, the other to hold.
3. Prick all over with a sharp needle or some such device to pop air bubbles. Twist into links-turn several times. Freeze or use as desired.
For the peppers:
2 red bell peppers, cleaned, in ½ inch dice.
Olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
To finish:
1. Warm about 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Add peppers and let fry, untouched until lightly charred, then toss and cook till soft. Add balsamic vinegar and toss until peppers are coated, season and remove.
To finish:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Fry 4 or 5 sausages in a large pan (don’t overcrowd or they’ll steam), rolling gently to brown all sides. Remove to oven for a few minutes. Serve with peppers.
Oysters Rockefeller via Roux Jr.
There’s something captivating about the entire Roux family. I used to think it was just the brothers (see earlier post), but the mischievous gene has been passed on to the next generation, specifically the younger Michel. On his BBC show, junior cooks French classics such as pigeon with peas, fennel-stuffed bass, morel and sweetbread-filled pigs trotter, and prune-stuffed rabbit saddle. I’ve never heard of any of this stuff-always thought classic meant soufflé-but maybe these are the burgers of France.
Funny, then, that Msr. Roux chose to make Oysters Rockefeller, a quintessentially American plate of food: something I associate with robber barons and businessmen and tourists at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central. But he chose the dish because its creation requires a handful of essential kitchen skills.
An Oyster Rockefeller (let’s use the singular, though I guess you can get a bunch) is a truly gilded lily. A plump, briny oyster is nestled in a bed of creamed spinach, coated with a rich thin custard, and broiled. The result is a warm, briny cream sandwich.
Back to the basic skills. You need to emulsify (egg with oyster liquor); squeeze dry (cooked spinach); broil gently; shuck; strain through fine mesh; temper a liquid; poach oysters very lightly. Nothing complicated, but a series of delicate steps. It’s a little ballet dance where one misstep wrecks the show.
As far as consumption, I envision tuxes, the Waldorf, and cigars. But the Cape being home of the oyster, we ate them picnic tableside washed down with growlers of Cape Cod beer. Msr. Roux would, I’m sure, appreciate.
Oysters Rockefeller (approximated via Msr. Roux)
Makes 4 oysters
4 large oysters
large handful spinach
½ cup heavy cream
1 egg yolk
salt and pepper
- Shuck oysters into a bowl and reserve in the oyster liquor.
- Steam spinach in a little water until limp. Drain, run under cold water. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible and chop roughly. Place in a bowl. Fold in enough cream just to bind the spinach. Season and reserve.
- Strain oyster liquor into a small pan over low heat. Add oysters and poach 15 seconds, remove to a bowl. Reduce liquid by half, add remaining cream (about ¼ cup). Whisk egg yolk in a small bowl and incorporate into the cream as you would a custard: pour a bit of hot liquid into the egg to temper, whisking energetically. Pour mixture back into the pot over low heat, whisking, until creamy. Season.
- To finish, preheat broiler. Spoon a bit of spinach on each oyster shell. Top with an oyster, pour over the sauce. Place on a tray and broil until lightly browned. It could take a few minutes, but watch carefully. Serve hot.
Grilled Squid w/ Basil
There’s a lobster glut around here; they’re scooping them out of the Maine waters at a furious rate, surpassing demand. And so more people are eating and overcooking more lobster than ever .
Like a new store or a Gymboree, the food truck is a symbol of arrival, that people have moved into the neighborhood, or, in this case, a dish has reached ubiquity. Which explains the three cupcake trucks and stands within 100 feet of our apartment. Or, now, the lobster roll truck.
Here in Truro, on the Outer Cape, you can find a pretty good lobster roll, but more typical is the simple steamed lobster with a baked potato and maybe a basket of steamers. I never order or cook lobster any other way, or any other time of the year. To me, lobster signifies summer, baskets pulled right from the sea, pots of boiling water, cold beer, and picnic tables. Rather than chunks of it drenched in mayo, stuffed into a bun, and served from a food truck or in a restaurant.
Squid and clams are year-round fare, though in summer I eat them fried, and in winter I eat them grilled or sautéed. But grilled squid is fantastic and often overlooked, possibly because a handful of tubes and tentacles, squid is surprisingly tricky to cook. Extreme heat is critical for achieving the necessary charred bits, and as grills don’t often get as hot as a smoking pan, you need to let the squid sit for a bit longer. I know this violates squid cookery 101, which says that after 30 seconds the beast toughens. However, no one will turn down a bowl of lightly charred, smoky squid hot off the grill.
Less accessible than a roll full of mayo and lobster, grilled squid may not demand a food truck. But you never know. I’d rather eat great squid than a cupcake.
Grilled Squid with Fresh Basil
Serves 4 as a side dish
1 pound cleaned squid, bodies and tentacles
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
handful of basil, torn
olive oil
salt and pepper
- Dry the squid and toss in a bowl with basil and garlic and a generous pour of olive oil. Refrigerate for 4 hours.
- Oil grill grates and preheat on high then toss on the squid and grill until lightly browned. Remove the tentacles, as they will cook quickly. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.
Burger w/ Fried Egg and Other Stuff
Local inspiration is a (noble) food ideal. In a Wordsworthian universe, the cook would open the door to face rolling hills and forests lush with mushrooms and herbs and everything that sprouts, hops, or lopes, ready to be gathered, mixed aromatically in a bowl with a delicious wine, and set on the stove. Lacking the above setup, greenmarkets have, to a certain extent, filled the romantic void.
There are times, however, when, rather than intriguing, local produce is quite uninspiring. Usually, the area is somewhat barren or, in the case of many islands, relatively remote and therefore dependent on shipped-in fruits and veggies. As I write, we’re on the Outer Cape, a beautiful spot of national beach and wild grasses, where the light is filtered through a wonderful sort of bleached, washed out scrim.
While the sea fare is incomparable, the soil fare is less than fabulous. There are the occasional local corn and tomato stands, but missing is that feel of a place where lots of stuff grows; where roads are lined with farms and the land is striped with rows of hanging, budding bounty.
Certainly, meat is not the specialty, as witnessed by the ubiquitous frozen burger. When the local high-end spot, Winslow’s Tavern, in Wellfleet, sells a possibly frozen but certainly bleak and dry patty, you’ve got a meat issue. But rather than despair, we found inspiration not in local bounty but its exact opposite. When faced with a culinary vacuum, you have to get a little creative. Hence the burger below.
Across the street from Winslow’s sits the Wellfleet supermarket, which sells the sort of drab ground meat fit for a true Winslow’s burger (local inspiration for the Winslow chef, I suppose). After a week of superb swordfish, tuna, sea bass, clams, etc., and hit with a burger craving, we picked up some Wellfleet meat and donned the old thinking caps.
Laying a fried egg atop a burger isn’t novel, but it’s tasty and adds moisture and richness, two things sorely lacking in these parts. While I don’t find it aids really great quality meat, an egg is critical for the crummy stuff. As to toppings and all that jazz, I made a basic pesto and threw on a splash of sriracha for heat. The unusual option (there always is one) was a watermelon slice, which believe it or not, tastes pretty good with a burger. And an egg.
Burger, Fried Egg (and other stuff)
Serves 4
1 cup packed basil leaves
small chunk parmesan (inch or so), halved
¾ cup olive oil
1 ½ pounds ground beef, preferably 20-80 or 25-75 (fat to lean)
4 large eggs
butter
watermelon
sriracha
buns
salt and pepper
- For the pesto: combine basil and parm in blender and slowly pour in oil, blending to a chunky puree. Reserve.
- Form beef into 4 patties, about 3 wide by 1 inch thick. Saute or grill to medium rare, about 3 or 4 minutes per side. Reserve on a platter tented with foil.
- Fry the eggs in butter sunny side up till just done and a bit crispy on the edges.
- Form burgers: (toasting buns optional) drop a few tablespoons of pesto on bottom, followed by watermelon slice, burger, drizzle of sriracha, and egg. Sprinkle egg with salt and pepper, close, and serve with napkins.
Sticky Chicken Thighs
There are only two rules of cooking: make it taste good, and cut it small enough to fit inside the average-sized mouth. Good sushi dutifully follows both: chefs transform a 500 pound tuna into succulent, tiny bites. Heat, however, is misunderstood and often assigned a biblical role alongside the aforementioned dictates.
Heat makes certain foods digestible, but we’re beyond the age of the merely digestible. That approach worked miracles for cavemen, but so did beating each other with clubs. Let’s take a look at the humble chicken.
Friday we hit Dons Bogam for the best Korean BBQ in town: slivers of short ribs and marinated sirloin strips bright red and dotted with chili flakes, all tossed on the grill and barely kissed by heat. The result: rare, soft moist, rich morsels that, like a victorious blackjack hand, spark an instant addiction.
For an after dinner drink we strolled a few blocks to Hillstone, a sort of upmarket Houston’s, where I observed the open kitchen, with special focus on the grill guy. The 28th street Hillstone grill man is a miniscule cog in a giant national chain; someone who daily straps on the tongs and follows orders from a faraway command center, which orders him to treat food caveman style: heat plus ingredient comes to Park Avenue. So it’s not his fault that he treats the food brutally, throwing it all on the grill with all the concern of a defeated high school teacher.
Chicken must be treated with delicacy. And I don’t mean necessarily a sous vide bath, though that’s a nice method. The meat must be transformed into something as tasty as possible rather than simply heated. And it can be as simple as poaching a breast in stock (chicken soup) to produce a soft, shreddable, moist piece of chicken.
Unless you’re poaching, with chicken you have two things to consider: skin and flesh. Crisping the skin on a salmon filet without overcooking, is pretty simple, a feat not as easily replicated with a piece of chicken. Because chicken has to be cooked through, by the time the inside’s done, the skin is easily burned. Conversely, if you’re too wary of skin ruination, you could have a well-cooked interior encased inside a rubbery skin flap.
The chicken thigh is the answer to your prayer. It can be overcooked and still moist; has a significant skin coating; and, meatier than the ubiquitous wing, can serve as an entrée. We tried a few cooking methods, and found that an oven is not ideal. For a crackling skin you need to keep the pan (covered) over the fire throughout the cooking process. If you don’t have a large enough lid, slap a piece of foil over it or, for a slightly inferior but still tasty product, brown the chicken skin down and stick it in a high oven.
It saddens me to watch cooks treat chickens like the neighborhood stray. What goes on night after night at Hillstone is depressing, but should inspire you to buy your own bird and do it at home.
Sticky Chicken Thighs
Serves 4 as an entrée with rice or Thai noodles
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup fish sauce
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup water
1 tablespoon chili flakes
8 large chicken thighs
1/4c cup canola oil
small handful peanuts, chopped
small handful mint or cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper
- In a small pot whisk first 5 ingredients and reserve.
- Season thighs with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large pan over medium high heat. When shimmering, gently add the chicken skin down, pressing each one to assure contact with pan. Cover the pan and cook until done, about 15 minutes, checking occasionally to assure the skin isn’t burning. (turn down heat if necessary).
- Meanwhile, bring the sauce to a boil over high heat, turn heat to medium and reduce to a syrup. You should have about ½ cup by the time the chicken’s done.
- When the chicken’s perfect, pour syrup into the pan and use tongs to roll the pieces in the glaze.
- Turn onto a platter, scatter with peanuts and mint or cilantro and serve.
Mussels and Garlic Aioli
A bowl of steaming hot mussels and a large hunk of crusty bread with which to dunk in the juices sounds like a wintry sort of thing to cook and eat. But summer is truly bivalve season: it’s food straight from the sea (or bay) onto your plate with not much of a stop in between, maybe a simple pot of boiling water (see: lobster). Dump a bunch of steamers on a picnic table and eat.
And so we bought a bunch of mussels, steamed them in the classic mariniere fashion (white wine, shallots), and ladled them into bowls, ready to devour. And then we were hit with a buzzkill as classic as the cooking method: the tiny mussel, a nugget of meat the size of a crouton. A bowlful of them, drowning in mussel juice like plankton in the ocean.
Like Moby Dick, a great bowl of mussels is something rarely seen yet worth a lifetime of searching. Once upon a time in a restaurant in the East Village a waiter set before me the ultimate bowl of mussels, each one fatter than the next, their shells barely containing the plump meat. Alas, since then I’ve been met with only disappointment.
On the plus side, serially dashed hopes can lead to innovation, which is why, resigned to a world of the midget mussel, I committed the heretical act of dumping out the cooking liquid in favor of a little dip of garlicky aioli. And it was quite tasty. Not as much as serving of bloated mussel morsels, but a sensibly delicious approach for the mussel lover.
Mussels and Aioli
Makes a big bowl
2 cups white wine
2 shallots, sliced
2 pounds mussels, cleaned
1 recipe aioli
chives
- Add wine, shallots, and mussels to a big pot over high heat, cover and steam until open, about 3 minutes.
- Strain liquid into a bowl and reserve for another use.
- Serve mussels with a bowl of aioli on the side or, for an hors d’oeuvre presentation, squeeze a bit of aioli on shell and top with a mussel. Sprinkle with chives.
Aioli
Makes 1 cup
4 cloves garlic, pureed
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ cup canola
½ cup olive oil
salt and pepper
- To puree garlic, chop, sprinkle with a pinch of salt, and work into the cutting board, mashing to a puree.
- Combine lemon juice, garlic, egg yolk in a medium bowl and add oils in a thin stream, whisking to emulsify. Season with salt and pepper.
A Cherry Menu
Come summer, New York becomes a city out of a science fiction novel, its citizens shut in for fear of the gaseous atmospheric conditions outside. Halfway down the block, you feel something strange: the shirt you put on this morning becomes a wet, sticky, second skin, and the head you woke up with begins to sweat like the glass of a cold cocktail left out in the sun, although these droplets are hot and salty and sting the eyes. And so we chain ourselves to our air conditioners.
New York is denser than a ball of rubber bands. The only available space is the sky; people are packed atop and wound around one another, and that’s only half the story. As involved is the world below the pavement: pipes, subways, cords, wires, and so on. The result is a world wrapped around itself, trapped in its population and structures, totally unfit for summer heat, which is why I seem to take several showers a day.
Scattered within this map are particularly unpleasant, flaring hot spots. Such as Chinatown. Chinatown in the summer is a throwback, a piece of the city untouched by urban planners and whoever sits around thinking of mixed spaces and bike lanes. The only thing mixed here is the air, a soupy whiff of hot kitchens, sweating fish, and sweating people. However, Chinatown is the cherry zone: street vendors sell bags of cherries at prices so cheap I suspect something nefarious. But as long as I get my cherries…
Cherries may be about sunshine and middle America and pie and cute towns, but to me, cherries are about Chinatown in the summer, and threading my way on my bike, through the streets and the humidity to grab my bags of cherries. This is a truncated menu using cherries; raise a glass to Chinatown and New York in the summer.
Mustard Crusted Salmon w/ Cherries
Serves 4
4 salmon fillets, 6 oz each, skinless
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs
1 shallot, minced
2 cups red wine
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups cherries, halved
2 tablespoons cream
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
chopped parsley
salt and pepper
- Season each fillet lightly with salt and pepper, spread one side of each fillet with a thin coating of mustard and sprinkle over bread crumbs. Reserve.
- For the sauce, in a small saucepan, sauté shallots in 1 tablespoon of the butter until soft, add the balsamic vinegar, wine, and half the cherries, mashing them as they soften, and reduce to a few tablespoons, then whisk in the cream and butter. Strain through a fine mesh strainer, stir in remaining cherries, season, and reserve.
- Heat a broiler and broil the fish, coated side up, until medium rare, about 6 minutes.
- Heat sauce, stir in some parsley, spoon some of the sauce including the cherries, on a plate, and top with the salmon.
Cherry Clafoutis
Makes 1 tart
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 tablespoon flour
¼ c sugar
2 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons kirsch
1 ½ pounds cherries, pitted
pinch salt
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
- Preheat oven to 375. Butter a 10-inch clafoutis dish and fill with cherries. Set aside.
- Sift flour and salt together into a bowl. Add sugar. Whisk in eggs, egg yolks, milk, and cream. Add vanilla and kirsch; whisk to combine.
- Strain batter over the cherries, bake until puffed and browned, about 45 minutes. Let cool until warm, dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve.
Cherries and Cream
Serves 6-8
2 pounds cherries, pitted and halved
2 cups heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks
1. Place cherries and cream in separate bowls.
2. Eat.
Huntsman’s Terrine
If you spend time at all reading or watching about food, you know that, these days, pork is king. And not just the evening family pork roast or weekend grilled ribs, but a worship of the entire animal. Historically, the best stuff (see jazz) has been a product of the south, and the proof of pork’s arrival is the jammed BBQ street fairs and restaurants firing their hog pits throughout the city. Well, not everything southern is so great (see human rights), but back on topic.
For food watchers and participants, the pig is an emblem of modern cooking, a walking, slop-eating cookbook; virtually every section, appendage, and organ of the pig suitable for the dinner plate. And its fattiness fits with our poor eating habits; unless there’s a swiss chard mania of which I’m not aware. Because the beast has such a wide range of flavors and textures-from lean loin to fatty belly and weird ears-pork is a perfect vehicle for a terrine which is by definition a meat mix.
It’s a reasonable assumption that a book called simply, Terrine, would be a cornerstone of the terrine junkie’s library. And while, I suspect, a bit lazy in the testing department, Stephane Reynaud’s book is pretty good. Recently we posted his lentil terrine. Here’s his so-called “Huntsman’s Terrine”, a squab-pig combo which is pleasantly meaty, smoky, and gamy.
A final note on the pig: while it’s easy to look down your snout on trends, the pig is good eating. But, more importantly, the pig is good for the butcher, such as Pino, our guy on Sullivan Street, and anything good for the butcher is good for us all.
(NOTE: Terrine recipes tend to make large amounts, and Reynaud’s are no different. While I suppose this is because they’re meant as group picnic fare, terrines are designed to fit, well, the terrine pan, and most of these are relatively large. There are smaller pans, but I suggest following the recipe and making a whole batch. Terrines last in the fridge for general snacking. In addition, meat for terrines can be ground, chopped, or left whole. Here he calls for the pork to be chopped which I took to mean minced, a pretty major pain in the butt, but good for a chunky texture. To save hassle, grinding coarsely is fine.)
Huntsman’s Terrine (adapted from Terrine)
Serves about 10
2 squab, breasts, skinned w/ hearts and livers
6 tablespoons olive oil
3 ½ ounces banyuls or port
11 oz fatty pork shoulder, minced
7 oz pork belly, minced
2 shallots, minced
3 ½ ounces slab bacon, diced
7 oz mushrooms, chopped
salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Heat half the oil in a small pan, add livers and hears, sear for a few minutes deglaze with the banyuls, season, scraping bottom of pan. Chop on cutting board and reserve in a medium bowl.
- Add pork belly, shoulder, shallots, and bacon to the bowl. Season and stir.
- Saute mushrooms in a pan with the remaining oil until browned. Add to the bowl and stir.
- In a terrine, pour half the meat, layer the squab breasts, pour over the remaining meat. Cover with lid or foil.
- Place terrine in a roasting pan, fill the pan with boiling water halfway up the terrine, bake 2 hours. Serve cold.
