Paul's Pie: Deconstructed BLT Tart

Deconstructed BLT Tart

Paul wanted a bacon crust. 

"Do you want bacon in the crust?" I asked.

"No," he answered.  "I want a crust that IS bacon."

I happily googled "bacon crust recipe" and discovered this very promising recipe.

"How about this?" I asked.

"No," Paul said.  "I want crust AND bacon crust."


Well!  I do like a culinary conundrum, but folks who know me know that I cook more comfortably from recipes.  Still, I wanted to satisfy Paul's quest for pie.  Since it's already June and a crust + bacon crust seems pretty heavy to me, I decided to fill the crust with seasonable vegetables rather than something quiche-like--and backing away from bacon and eggs led me to the BLT, which always tastes best with summer tomatoes.

What follows is my first effort to make a seasonal version of Paul's Pie, which cobbles together the recipe above and vamps on David Lebovitz's French Tomato Tart recipe, which I've made several times with stupendous results.  The bacon comes from Godfrey Bros. Meats, the arugula from my Sterling Farm CSA share on the advice of Jonathan Darby, and the tomatoes from Brogue Hydroponics, who manage to grow delicious tomatoes in early June!  The spinach and oregano were from my tiny shady garden.

Side view of a slice.

This recipe, like many, is pretty easy but takes both time and patience--and you have to trust your own cooking judgment, which I know from personal experience can be hard.  I'm sure you could use a store-bought pie crust instead of making your own tart or pie crust, but I encourage you to make your own.  Crusts are very easy to make, and the recipe below has always worked for me AND is big enough for the 10" spring-form pan.  I've taken lots of photos to guide the beginner.  Humidity really affects baking, since the more water there is in the air, the less you need to add to your recipe.  When I made this, it was so humid that 2 Tablespoons of water was almost too much!

Local and Seasonal: Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

Pumpkin fresh from the oven.

It's September 2010.  My friend Stacie calls me, and in a voice full of excitement, tells me, "NPR just did an interview with a chef who makes a recipe you have to try.  It's called Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good.  I know you'll love it!"  Stacie was correct, and that was the day I discovered and fell in love with Dorie Greenspan.  This recipe comes from Around My French Table, which I am very sorry to say I still don't own.  That day, though,  I went to google.com, and a quick search yielded up a version of this recipe on Epicurious.com, (which I encourage you to use if you have not already tried it, though I prefer allrecipes.com's ratings system). 

Flash forward to October 15, 2011, when I'm on my second go with this recipe since the pumpkin season hit.  While pumpkin growers in the Northeast had their crops devastated by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, I still managed to find two PA pumpkins at the Whole Foods in Mt. Washington, MD, and I shipped them back home with me.  I like the "bonne idée" section at the end of the recipe; both times I've used chard, the first time I subbed in 1.5 cups of brown rice, and this time I left out the thyme and added in about a tablespoon of ginger to complement the Star Anise and Ginger Chicken that I'm going to have as the main with my stuffed pumpkin tonight.

Try this recipe!  If enough people eat Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good, maybe stores will carry pie pumpkins after Halloween!

Found Food: Spiced Kuri Squash and Chicken Stew

When one impulse buys a 4-pound Kuri squash, it then behooves one to find a recipe that uses it.  This is the recipe that I found--and since I have a habit of finding food before I find the recipe, I'm creating a new tag.  

The amazing Red Kuri Squash

All of the vegetables and the chicken are local; the broth, while not homemade, has made use of leftover broth from my roomie's fabulous pilaf that she made me two nights ago.  I placed the onion, garlic, and ginger ends and peels in my freezer bag o' stock scraps. 

ETA: This recipe was originally posted in September 2010; it's now 2 October 2011, and I made this again deboning 2 lbs of leg quarters--NOT for the timid but an excellent way to get bones for the freezer hoard for future broth--to get 1.25 lbs of meat.  I also took photos!  Next time I make this, I may use coconut milk in place of the broth, since I bet that's worth the calories.

Spanish Lamb Chops: Menu

I happened upon twelve beautiful lamb loin chops at GIANT: original price $33.18, scavenged price $19.03.  It was definitely time not only for my wonderful Spanish lamb chop recipe, but to make Voluptuous Vegan's Fennel, Orange, and Pomegranate Salad.  (Second only to unveganing a vegan recipe is serving it with baby animal, since both please my warped sense of humor.)

Lazy Yakatori Steak

I defrosted a beautiful 1 3/4 lb. sirloin that I got on sale at Whole Foods for $6.99 a pound.  I found this easy recipe for Yakatori Steak so that I could get one more go on the grill before it gets too cold, which I decided to make even easier by using red wine vinegar instead of lemon juice to save a step and not cubing or slicing up the steak to thread on skewers.  Lazy! 

With it I will grill salt and vinegar potatoes and local eggplant that I bought yesterday at Sonnewald.  I'm very excited to get a chance to make the potatoes, though of course rice is the obvious (and lazier) accompaniment to the steak.  La!

Local Pork Butt to Puerco Pibil

Back in the triple-digit heat bath that was July, a friend on Facebook posted this recipe for Robert Rodriguez's Puerco Pibil (made famous in Once Upon a Time in Mexico).  I made a mental note (and a comment on her Facebook) to make this recipe come the cooler days of Fall when having the oven on for four hours is no hardship and might even bring welcome heat. 

The highs are in the 70s, the lows in the 50s, and it is time, since I am cooking for 8 this evening, including two people with gluten sensitivities.  Dinner will be a potluck: I am providing the main dish with homemade corn tortillas (using Bob's Red Mill's masa harina and recipe) and chocolate sorbet (my farewell to summer), my roommate is providing Italian Cornmeal Cake, and the guests are bringing the rest.  Since one of my guests cannot eat hot peppers, I threw in two poblanos from the garden rather than habañeros to make the marinade, and I'm making pico de gallo as a topping for those of us who want more kick.

Who knew I had to move to York, PA, to start cooking Tex-Mex? 

Puerco Pibil á la Robert Rodriguez

Makes 15 servings

Thanks to my local butcher from Three Sons, I now know that pork butt and pork shoulder are the same thing.  I also learned that it can come with bone, so I carved off the meat and stuck the bones in a freezer bag for future use, most likely to help flavor a winter bean soup.  I was left with about 4 pounds of meat.

The only ingredient not readily available where I live is the annatto seeds; you can order them through Penzey's.

5 Tablespoons annatto (achiote) seeds

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 Tablespoon peppercorns

8 allspice berries

½ tsp. whole cloves

2 habanero chiles

½ cup orange juice

½ cup white vinegar

2 Tbsps. salt

8 cloves of garlic

Juice of 5 lemons

Splash of tequila x 2

5 pounds pork butt (or shoulder)

Banana leaves or heavy-duty aluminum foil

White or Spanish rice or taco shells for serving

1.  Place the annatto, cumin, peppercorns, allspice, and cloves in a spice grinder and process to a fine powder.

2.  Carefully remove the seeds and veins from the chiles and chop coarsely. (Habaneros are very hot; even breathing the fumes may make you cough. Removing the veins and seeds ensures the dish is fiery but not painfully hot. You can also substitute a milder chile.)

3.  Process the orange juice, vinegar, chiles, salt, and garlic in a blender or food processor until liquefied. Add the lemon juice and tequila.  Combine with spice blend in a large, self-sealing plastic bag.

4.  Cut the pork into 2-inch chunks. Place in a large, self-sealing plastic bag with the marinade. Seal bag and turn to evenly coat the meat. Refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours, turning occasionally.  (Overnight = better.)

5.  Heat oven to 325 degrees. Remove the meat from the marinade and wrap tightly in banana leaves or foil so no steam can escape. Place packet in roasting pan and roast four hours. Open packet carefully; the meat should shred easily with a fork. Serve with rice or shred with two forks and use as taco filling.

Per serving: 240 calories (35 percent from fat), 9.3 g fat (2.9 g saturated, 3.8 g monounsaturated), 92.2 mg cholesterol, 33.1 g protein, 5.2 g carbohydrates, 0.7 g fiber, 1,037 mg sodium.

Local Top Sirloin to Korean Steak

Dinner tonight is courtesy of Three Sons Meat Market of York County, who raise and slaughter their own meat and sell it at Eastern Market every Friday, Sonnewald Natural Foods, which has the best local and organic produce in the area, and Dietz's Produce at Central Market, which is my go-to market within walking distance.

This is a very easy prep, best done the night before or the morning of cooking, that I found on Austin's own Stubb's BBQ website (which is local to where I used to live, LOL).  Photos will follow soon.

I'm serving this tonight with spicy baked sweet potato fries--a recipe for that will follow soon--and an as-yet-to-be-determined vegetable.

Korean Steak, Stubb’s style

Serves: 4-8

Toast your own sesame seeds, and use a teaspoon to scrape the skin off the ginger with ridiculous ease.  Save all veggie scraps, including ginger peels, in the freezer as a base for vegetable or chicken stock.

Ingredients

2 Lbs beef flank steak or sirloin
4 scallions (green and white parts), sliced in 3/4" lengths, or 4 shallots, chopped
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbs minced garlic
2 Tbs minced fresh ginger
4 Tsp sesame oil
2 Tbs sesame seeds, toasted (see Note)
1/4 Tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 Tbs dry sherry (I used Busha Brown's Spicy&Hot Pepper Sherry)

Preparation

Score the beef on each side with intersecting cuts 3/4 inch apart to create a diamond pattern; cut only lightly into the meat, about 1/8 inch deep.  Slice the scallions diagonally into ¾-inch lengths.

In a baking dish or shallow pan, combine the brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and seeds, pepper flakes, and sherry. Stir in the scallions, and then add the beef, coating well with the marinade. Cover and marinate, refrigerated, preferably for 8 hours (or from 1 hour to overnight), turning the beef once or twice.

Prepare a grill for direct cooking. For a charcoal grill, when the coals are ashed over, rake or spread them out in the bottom of the grill so the food can cook directly over the coals. (For a gas grill, fire-up the burners so the food can cook directly over the heat.)

Grill the steak over direct high heat, flipping once, long enough to lightly char the scored edges of the meat, making them crisp and crunchy, without overcooking the interior. (Allow 8 to 10 minutes total for medium-rare.)

Let the steak rest for 10 minutes. If desired, boil the marinade for 1 full minute or more, to use as a sauce. Slice the steak against the grain into thin strips and serve drizzled with the cooked marinade.

Notes:  Toast sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until golden brown and aromatic, 3 to 5 minutes.  Or buy the seeds already toasted.

This Korean marinade may also be used to grill thin slices of beef (known as bulgogi), rather than a whole steak. (To put a touch of Texas in this dish, replace half the soy sauce with Stubb’s Beef Marinade.) It’s also dynamite on lamb, particularly when charcoal grilled. Serve with steamed rice and a cucumber salad, tossed with a sesame dressing.

Scavenged Chicken to Javanese Chicken Curry

It took me a long time to find a recipe to use for 3 pounds of scavenged chicken legs and thighs I bought on Labor Day at GIANT (Original price: $6.26  Reduced price: $4.20).  It seems I only cook whole chicken and boneless, skinless breasts, so buying bone-in pieces is a real departure for me (it also doesn't help that I didn't eat any chicken at all from 2000-2008, so I have little experience cooking it relative to other meat).


This recipe for Javanese Curry Chicken that I downloaded in 2006 from the NYT is the one I finally chose.  I will use dried kaffir lime leaves that I brought home from a Belfast Marks and Spencer back in May, and I got frozen chopped lemon grass and whole knobs of frozen galangal from the Asian grocery around the corner.  I have cut the oil down from 3 to 2 tablespoons, subbed light coconut milk for regular, and removed as much skin and fat as possible from the chicken.


Note to self: cook more Asian food to use that grocery more extensively!

Javanese Chicken Curry (Opor Ayam) Adapted from NYT

Time: 1 hour

Serves 4 to 6
Per serving (@ 5 servings):  318 calories, 37 g protein, 1.2 g carbs, 16.8 g fat

1/2 tablespoon ground coriander

2 fresh cayenne or other hot pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped

6 shallots, peeled and cut into chunks

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 piece galangal, about 11⁄2 inches long, peeled and roughly sliced (optional)

1 piece ginger, 2 inches long, peeled and roughly sliced

2 tablespoons sunflower oil (or other oil suitable for high heat)

2 tablespoons chopped frozen prepared lemongrass

2 pieces cinnamon stick

5 dried kaffir lime leaves

21⁄2 to 3 pounds skinless chicken legs, thighs or both (if possible, have thighs cut in half and knuckle cut off legs), patted dry

1.5 cups unsweetened light coconut milk (1 can)

3⁄4 teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste

1. In a small food processor, combine coriander, chili, shallots, garlic, galangal and ginger and process to a smooth paste, adding a tablespoon or so of water if needed. (Ingredients can also be chopped finely, then pounded together in mortar and pestle.)

2. Heat oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. When oil is hot enough to gently sizzle a pinch of paste, add all the paste and cook, stirring often, until golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce heat as needed to prevent browning.

3. Add lemongrass to pot with cinnamon and lime leaves. Cook 1 minute more, until cinnamon is fragrant.

4. Scrape paste to one side and add chicken to pot. Raise heat and brown chicken lightly on both sides, about 10 minutes total. Add 1 cup coconut milk, 1 1⁄4 cups water and salt, stirring well and scraping up browned bits from bottom of pot. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered 40 to 50 minutes, until chicken is cooked through and sauce is thickened. Do not boil.

5. Add remaining coconut milk and heat through. Taste for salt. Let cool slightly and serve.