CC: Hey I heard Chef DoucheHat is going to be commenting on the show while he watches it. What a fan-friggin-TASTIC idea! I wish we had thought of that.

MM: Our posts are better, because they have pictures.

CC: Alright, you ready to kick out the f00kin’ jams on this bithc??

MM: I am, once I figure out what a “bithc” is.

Unavailable for comment, Bithc.

CC: Right away I’m distracted by Fabio.

MM: Right away I’m distracted by an ugly dude with ugly hair who is going on and on about how he is so meticulous about his ugly hair.

CC: Yeah, he’s no Ruhlman, thats for sure. Maybe a John Besh, but no Ruhlman.

Someone’s hair profiles are off.

MM: The maximum capacity for swoopy hair in the culinary world has been reached.

CC: So this year they are setting it in New York, where MM lives for realsies, so if anyone needs a kick in the nuts, she’s our inside man for that.

MM: I’ll drive right on over in my Macchiato-Mobile.

CC: The competition is setting out with a reasonably strong Quickfire challenge, but the gay guy is overly concerned about what Padma’s wearing… Uhm, what?

MM: Why is everyone so obsessed with Padma’s clothes? She doesn’t dress herself. Fashion people probably pick it out for her.

CC: She does dress well.

MM: You just really liked that toga from the last season.

CC: He should be more concerned about the challenge - this is the first time someone’s being eliminated from a Quickfire! The challenge is a race. The first leg is to perfectly peel fifteen apples with a knife. The first chefs to complete the challenge do not have to go on to the next leg, and are safe… Thats a pretty random test don’t you think? I mean how is that a measure of ability, really?

MM: It’s more about speed. Though it’s not difficult in technicality, getting fifteen apples peeled with a knife before your competitors is stressful. Someone’s going to take a finger off. This sort of reminds me of the first competition they did in the Next Iron Chef America, when the contestants did a speed test, too.

CC: They should have had them bone a chicken or something.

MM: They already did that on a previous season.

CC: Now they’re getting technical. The next leg of the Quickfire is to brunoise their peeled apples, which is basically a really really small dice. Like 1/16th of an inch. Brunoise is some bad ass shit.

Photo courtesy of http://www.11er.at

MM: For our readers, here’s a You Tube video of a chef demonstrating an onion brunoise. At least I hope that’s what it is. I’m typing this at work and You Tube is blocked. The Google description alludes that it’s a chef doing an onion brunoise so, let’s hope that’s not a euphemism for activities of the naked variety. It should be safe, because I don’t think You Tube has those sorts of things… and if they do, I don’t want to know about it.

CC: So Round 1: peel 15 apples with a peeling knife. Round 2: brunoise the apples. Round 3: cook a dish with their apples. (sigh) Why does the hot chick have to be annoying, too?

MM: Which one is the hot one? I don’t see a hot one.

CC: I’ll point her out… Her. Um… hot-ish.

Photo Courtesy of Bravo

MM: But she’s no Ruhlman! Wait, what do I say to that?

CC: (laughing) Okay, now the dishes are done. We have an apple slaw (meh) and a scallop that looks pretty good. Sorry, slaw boy. I bet he’s a goner.

MM: But no! It’s semi-hot chick. God, that’s harsh. I’m sorry, annoying and bitchy semi-hot chick.

CC: Yeah, that’s really bad.

MM: Did she just say she was going down on apples?

CC: Now that would be a show I’d watch. If you can go down on an apple, that’s some talent.

MM: If you can go down on an apple, you’re in the wrong industry… not that I’d condone it, I’m just sayin’.

CC: So now, let’s get a look at the three gays who have dubbed themselves “Team Rainbow”. Apparently Bravo made a Team Rainbow shirt that everyone can buy. (Shameless plug brought to you by Orli Ninjamaster and Team AwK.)

MM: Now this is a nice moment, an evening around the dinner table before the next day’s elimination challenge. There’s even a toast of well-wishes to all of the contestants. In their heads they’re all planning how they’re going to throw each other under the bus at the Judges’ Table.

Judges’ Table: Only the strong (flavor profiles) survive.

CC: The Elimination Challenge is a good one - chefs are randomly matched to an area in NYC and expected to come up with a regional dish that reflects the area.

MM: Some of the chefs have a severe disadvantage. They’ll have to rely on their training, experience and… um…

CC: Spirit guides?

Casper the Friendly Ghost: Leading you on wacky adventures and saving you from culinary hell since 1939

MM: I like these head-to-head challenges. Chefs are assigned to each district by twos, and then have to face off before the judges. Whenever they do it this way, it’s successful.

CC: Yeah, it’s a nice way to do it. Some of these regions are really difficult to pick for. Latin would be easy, Russian not so much.

MM: Yeah. Vodka and pickles… that’s the only thing that comes to mind for Russian. Is that even a flavor profile?

CC: Italian cuisine people lucked out, too - wait, there’s a chef who has never made Italian cuisine? That sounds pretty odd.

MM: How can you be a chef and have never made any Italian food? Especially being an American chef, because it’s such a huge part of our diet. I don’t get it. Moving on, it’s time for shameless plugs on the Top Chef sponsors: Buy GE Monogram.

CC: Yes! They are great and I use them exclusively. (pause) Do we get any money for saying that?

MM: Not a cent.

CC: Well, fuck ‘em then; they use five-year olds to make their stoves. Now for the guest judge to be revealed: Jean-Georges!

MM: Time for the contestants to collectively pee their pants.

CC: Jean-Georges Vongerichten is a world renown chef with three Michelin stars! The man is a culinary god.

Side note: Bravo did a little Q&A with Jean-Georges that can be found on their website here.

MM: The dishes are coming out, and none of them are exciting me.

CC: Not like deep throating an apple, no. A Lamb slider is pretty boring. How much time did they have to make their dishes?

MM: Two hours.

CC: That’s a lot of time, and the majority of these dishes are BO-RING.

MM: Whoa. It’s not good when your dish is being compared to Wolfgang Puck.

CC: Ruh-roh. Now for the Indian dishes. Those chefs are hosed with Padma on the panel.

MM: I do really like that rough, tatooed chef. He’s one of my favorites so far.

CC: Gene. Yeah, I like him, too. He Rain Manned it, and is one of the top three dishes.

MM: Stefan’s the winner.

CC: I was pulling for Gene, the Hawaii boy, but at least Stefan isn’t the most annoying of the Euros.

MM: Now for the losers.

CC: Wow, only two losers.

MM: Poor culinary school boy. He was on the chopping block in the Quickfire for that apple slaw, and just couldn’t cut it. Get it? He couldn’t cut it?

CC: …I’m out of here.

Orli Ninjamaster reports: Bravo now has a Top Chef Twitter feed featuring a different former TC contestant each week dishing on the competition. Tonight, Top Chef Chicago contestant Spike Mendelsohn will be live tweeting the Season 5 premiere.

Thanks, Orli… Uh, I think.

Spike? Are you kidding me? Come to think of it, I’ll probably tune into it for full douche-baggery. (That’s right, new words made up for you right here on AwK.) Here’s the montage of stupid hats we did for him during last season’s restaurant wars challenge.

Don’t forget to tune in tonight for the premiere of Season 5! Spike McCan’tCook optional!

Chef Jeff Project on Food Network, Sunday nights

It’s not your typical reality show. Award winning chef, best selling author and ex-offender Jeff Henderson takes in six street-wise young adults and gives them a second chance in life. Knowing what a struggle it is to get away from the crime and drama of street life, Chef Jeff mentors these young people in his restaurant business, Posh Urban Cuisine, and they all get a chance to win a Culinary Art Institute scholarship from the Food Network. Their final exam airs this coming Sunday. If you haven’t watched the (short) season thus far, it’s worth it to catch some reruns.

Iron Chef Japan: It’s Alive! Week - every night on Fine Living Network

Orli Ninjamaster reports: This week on Iron Chef Japan reruns is the fourth of five stunt weeks! The Iron Chefs and their challengers grapple with some rather squirmy delicacies. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart — each episode’s secret ingredient starts out very much alive, and ends, well, very much not.

Thanks for the tip, Orli!

Also good to note for us die-hard Iron Chef Japan fans, on the Fine Living Network website, there’s a poll currently running to see who your favorite Iron Chef Japan is. As of right now, Chef Sakai is winning. (Of course he is, the guy is a badass.) Head over to the FLN site and take their poll!

Any man who can feel confident in hot pink silk pajamas is not to be trifled with… or he’s just really good with a knife and you shouldn’t laugh within earshot.

Top Chef Season 5 - Wednesdays on Bravo

The new Top Chef season starts this week on Bravo TV. Once again, Citizen Chef and I will attempt to review the episodes. So tune in to Bravo and tune into AwK for more hilarity. If you want to take a look at the new cast for the season, go to the Bravo website and check it out.

So I still didn’t get any bolognese.

I always think it’s better at an Italian restaurant than anything you can make at home. There’s a little je ne sais quoi in the tomato based sauce that I’ve never been able to replicate at home. In fact, I had abandoned the idea of making bolognese a long time ago because it always disappoints.

Until last night. On a whim, I was checking through the Food Network website’s recipes for something good, and I came upon a few bolognese recipes. But I was jaded. I had tried before, opening my heart to the possibility of a good bolognese recipe only to have my hopes dashed to the ground, spat upon and then danced that stupid “Hey Macarena!” dance on it — that’s right, my previous bolognese attemps weren’t even good enough for a decent dance to dance upon them.

Then I found Wolfgang Puck’s recipe. I thought to myself: Wolfgang Puck owns restaurants. Wolfgang Puck also has a bolognese recipe.

It was like the chocolate and the peanut butter coming together in one great, glorious masterpiece, people. I printed the recipe, ran to the store and BAM! VOILA! (sorry Emeril) in about an hour, I had a delicious, restaurant quality bolognese sauce. And I’ll tell you the secret of the delicious sauce: It’s the V8 juice. Seriously.

I took pictures but I left my camera at home, so you’re just going to have to settle for the picture provided by the Food Network.

Chicken Bolognese with Penne
Courtesy of Wolfgang Puck

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound ground chicken
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup finely chopped carrots
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
Pinch chili flakes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 cup tomato juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves (optional)
1 pound penne pasta

Here’s a quick discussion on ingredients. For the sodium conscious, I used the low sodium cans of V8 juice. For the dry white wine, I used the generic store bought white wine - Wegman’s brand. (Sorry, wine snobs! I couldn’t get to the wine store last night!) Instead of taking the time to dice up hard, crunchy carrots, I stuck them in the food processor and pulsed them until they were a rough, fine chop.

Now for the directions from Food Network and Wolfgang Puck, modified slightly by yours truly:

Heat olive oil in a large sauce pan on high heat. When the oil is hot, add the ground chicken and cook until well browned, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, thyme, and chili flakes and cook until the vegetables are softened, about 5 to 8 minutes. Carefully deglaze the pan with the white wine, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Reduce until the white wine is almost completely evaporated.

Add the tomato sauce and juice and simmer until a thick sauce consistency, about 20 minutes. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Cook the penne in boiling water until al dente. Drain the pasta and set aside. Add the drained pasta to the sauce along with the Parmesan and toss well. Serve in a large bowl garnished with parsley leaves.

That’s right, it’s time to bring out the recipes you’re thinking about making as Christmas gifts and giving them a whirl now. Don’t take a chance on that unknown recipe - sure, the picture looks good, but the outcome may be disappointing. The last thing I want is for anyone to be screwed when baking crunch time hits.

If you haven’t yet been to the grocery stores and noticed, the holiday cookie publications are already coming out. Now’s our chance to get in on the action. I usually pick up Martha Stewart’s (haven’t seen that one yet) and the Better Homes & Gardens cookie mags. We’ll be delving into those as we progress. Today, we’re starting off with a classic: Peanut Butter Cookies.

Why a classic? Well, a classic cookie is a sure thing. Also, I was in the mood for peanut butter.

Choosing a classic cookie recipe is a problem for anyone because there are always a million of them and it’s hard to tell which recipe would be better than the other. Not only that but, let’s face it, I’m not going to make twenty different cookie recipes and then subject myself to a taste test. I’m also not the greatest at making my own cookie recipes and, since there are pastry chefs in the world who far exceed my talents, I am happy to use theirs.

Still, with my cache of cookbooks, I have a million peanut butter cookie recipes. So then I narrowed it down to two peanut butter cookie categories: salt or sweet?

I’ve been on a juxtaposition-fix with my desserts for a little while now, where I like to have salt and sweet mixed in together with my cookies. The fixation came to me after talking to a friend who said his wife loved sweet, while he liked salty. It reminded me that a cookie that contains both wins over both palettes. A salty/sweet peanut butter cookie fits perfectly. If I were to go with a honey-sweet cookie, sometimes it can go too overboard on the taste.

We’ve talked before about Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking, From My Home to Yours, an award winning compilation of must-haves for any baker’s repertoire. This is where I dug out a fantastic recipe for a salty-sweet peanut butter cookies. It isn’t too sweet or saturated with peanut butter, and the texture is crisp on the edges and chewy on the inside. It has the added bonus of looking really beautiful when it comes out of the oven - something else to keep in mind for the holiday season.

I shared one other recipe from Dorie Greenspan and, after having delved into the rest of her book, I strongly encourage all AwK ninjas to pick up a copy. That said, this will be the last recipe of hers that I share on the site.

Peanut Butter Crisscrosses
Courtesy of Dorie Greenspan and Baking, From My Home to Yours
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup peanut butter - crunch or smooth (not natural)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups chopped salted peanuts
1/2 cup sugar for rolling

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. As with all basic drop cookie recipes, the next step is to take the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ground nutmeg) and mix them together in a bowl. I’ve said before that I don’t do that - to me it’s an added step. I skip that and do extra mixing later.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter for about two minutes, until light and creamy. Add the peanut butter and mix. They will be light and fluffy goodness.

Resist sticking your fingers in that and add the eggs, one at a time, and mix for 1 minute. I did do the eggs separately because I really wanted to make sure the eggs were thoroughly combined and that the fluffy egg whites give me the most bang for my buck.

Add the dry ingredients. Because I don’t combine them separately, I add the smaller ingredients first (baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, salt) and the half cup of flour. I mix those thoroughly with my mixer, then I add two cups of flour and mix until it just disappears into the rest of the batter.

Mix in the chopped peanuts.

Now put the 1/2 cup of “rolling sugar” into a small bowl, or something you can use to roll balls of the cookie dough in. Using a spoon (I use a regular dining spoon) measure out a flat tablespoon of cookie dough and roll it into a ball. The important thing here is to try and get your cookies to be the same size. Don’t get lazy toward the end and start dumping whatever into your spoon just to get this baking over with! You’ll be disappointed later when you have a million different sized cookies. It just doesn’t look as good when you’re giving them as gifts.

Put the ball of dough into the sugar and roll it around, giving it a light coat.

Place the balls two inches apart on parchment or silicone covered cookie sheets. With a fork, press a crisscross pattern on the top of the cookie balls. Bake for about 12 minutes Usually I have to watch the cookies carefully after they go into the oven, but these kept to the time limit. To accomplish this, it’s important that you keep all of the cookies the same size, as I said earlier. When done, the cookies will be slightly colored and a little soft. Allow them to sit on the cookie sheets for a minute or two before transferring them to a cooling rack using a wide, metal spatula.

Get a copy of Dorie’s book, and don’t forget to keep an eye out for the holiday cookie publications!

There’s no finesse to this one. It’s a Bundt cake (link goes to wikipedia for nerdy factual fun about the Bundt pan and its origins) and extremely simple. Fresh apples that have marinated in cinnamon and sugar are interspersed throughout. A little bit of orange juice gives it great flavor. Jewish Apple Cake is awesome for potlucks and best served warm with a side of vanilla ice cream. When the ice cream melts a little and the cake soaks it up, there’s nothing quite like it.

And before you ask, here’s the answer to the question I always get about this recipe: I have no idea what makes it Jewish. Grandma passed down the recipe to us, and that was the name. If anyone can figure out why it’s labeled as Jewish, post below!

Jewish Apple Cake Apples
5 - 6 tart, firm apples, peeled and sliced
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Fill a medium mixer bowl with peeled and sliced apples, sugar and cinnamon. Cover and let sit while working on the rest of the cake. Stir periodically.

Jewish Apple Cake Batter:
4 1/2 cups flour
3 cups sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup oil
4 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup orange juice
6 eggs

Mix all batter ingredients together, using a rubber scraper to make sure all of the dry ingredients are included. Grease and flour tube (Bundt) pan. Pour 2 inches of batter in. Cover with approximately 1/2 of the apples. Pour remaining batter into the tube pan, then top with the rest of the apples.

That’s it. Here’s the pictorial version:

Step 1. Apples!

Step 2. Pour mixed ingredients in!

Step 3. More apples!

Step 4. More batter!

Step 5. Even more apples!

After you’ve topped this with the remaining apples, there’s also a lot of sugar and cinnamon mixture that gets poured on top. My Bundt pan is a little small, so I put a foil-lined tray on the bottom rack, centered beneath the cake. The tray captures any drippings that may come out while the cake is rising - something to be wary of, since cooked sugar is a pain to scrub off of a surface.

Bake on 350-degrees F for 2 hours. Let sit for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from pan. Caution: If you let it sit any longer than 10 - 15 minutes, the cake will stick. Top with powdered sugar. Serve with vanilla ice cream! Jeni Briton’s Vanilla Bean Ice Cream would be a great choice.

Here’s the finished product. The nice thing about topping it with powdered sugar is that if some of your cake does happen to stick and you need to sort of put a chunk back on top, the sugar can sort of hide it. Not that any of us would ever do that, especially me, an experienced Jewish Apple Cake Baker.

Bon appetit!

I have been a fan of the food at L’etoile for many years now.  In fact on a dish-by-dish basis, I would put the food there up against the French Laundry which was the premier dining experience of my life.  There is good food, and great food.  And then there is that other thing.  If you are a foodie you know what I’m talking about.  The foodgasm.  That swooning moment when you put it in your mouth and you melt a little bit, and you swoon.  And you curse the fact that you only have one tounge.  And your brain shuts down completely and you just swear over and over again until you can remember all the other words in the english language that this tiny little package of bliss had obliterated from your memory.  So I find out that there are cooking classes available, yeah I guess I might be interested in that.

I have since taken 5 or 6 classes, on subjects ranging from summer seafood to french classics.  They have all been varying degrees of awesome.  But my concern was, could these recipes be duplicated at home?  By that I don’t mean could a home cook acquire the ingredients and tools necessary to complete these dishes. I mean could I make something as good as Chef Tory?  Could I cook something foodgasmic??  The short answer is yes.  I have a small and slowly increasing stable of recipes that are that good.  But I have stated in the past that cooking is as easy as following directions.  Why then don’t all of these recipes turn out as good as Chef Tory makes them? 

Well as much as I hate disagreeing with myself, I am in fact wrong.  Or I was, but I’m not now.  Wrong that is.  Or I mean wrong that was.  I do still contend that you can get to journeyman-level cooking just by following instructions, buying good ingredients and not screwing them up.  But there is another level that great chefs are at, that I can obtain only infrequently and often by accident.  I think the difference is those chefs have an ingrained knowledge of what is actually happening when they are cooking that I lack.  I am not damning myself with faint praise, I fully admit that I am pretty damn good.  I have the basic chops, and more importantly a passion for cooking.  I’m down with the maillard reaction, I know why dijon mustard is in so many emulsified dressings.  I watch Good Eats.  But there are still machinations happening that are a mystery to me.  I can’t tell you why one of my dishes failed, or partially failed, but a real chef can.

That brings me to why I blog under the name Citizen Chef, or why I blog at all.  I know, you were hoping that would bring me to the recipe.  HAH!  One more paragraph to sit through, assuming you haven’t zipped to the bottom of the article three paragraphs ago. 

When Miss Macchiato approached me to start a food blog, I was reticent.  I consider myself a good writer.  Ok a very good writer.  And a good cook.  But there are much better writers out there, who are also real chefs.  Bourdain,  Ruhlman, Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot.  And on the amateur front, French Laundry at Home.  Why add to this cacophony with my lesser opinions?  Then I realized the true value of the foodie movement.  Each one of us who cares about food raises the bar just a little bit.  We all elevate the conversation simply by having the conversation.  Eating is the ultimate shared expierience.  It is the only thing that each and every one of us is doing, and will continue to do until the day we die.  All other artistic endevors are optional.  Eating is mandatory.  Eating well should be mandatory.  Citizen Chef symbolizes to me, the theory that we are all of value.  

Buttermilk Ice Cream

• 2 cups cream
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup sugar
• 10 egg yolks

  Heat cream, half and half, buttermilk and sugar to a simmer.  Temper in the egg yolks.  Chill mixture and freeze.

This is a very simple recipe that has been just as good as Chef Tory makes it every time.  I do put it in an ice cream maker to keep the crystals small, but that is optional.  Mix some blueberries with lemon juice and honey and let them maccerate for a while and put them on top of the ice cream and it is out of this world.  I would suggest eating the ice cream the day you make it or the day after.  Any longer than that and it loses some of its’ buttermilk twang.

~Citizen Chef

Can you guess what's wrong with this?

Here’s the answer:

Okay, so I knew this wasn’t going to be a 10 minute dish because, unless you’re an experienced serial killer, you need that long just to cut up the vegetables.

Freddie's next career: Sous Chef.

Secondly, the dish isn’t spicy. The person who shares the recipe (and I apologize for picking this person out, because I have a few recipes from them and the dishes are great) admits that this dish surprisingly mild, due to it being a szechwan dish. The reason for that is because there isn’t any spice in the ingredients list!

Due to this, I have changed the title of the dish to reflect the appropriateness of the dish:

Not 10 Minute Un-Szechuan Chicken
1 tablespoon corn oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1/2 red bell pepper, julienned
1 carrot, julienned
1 small zucchini, julienned
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1 bunch scallion, cut diagonally in 1-inch pieces

Also, I added red pepper flakes as optional in case you want to make it spicy. It’s delicious without, but some days it deserves a little kick to it. If you do add the red pepper flakes, then you can change the “Un-Szechwan” back to “Szechuan.” What can I say, I’m a giver.

I served this with a cup of Jasmine Rice. As with all of my stir fry dishes, I started the rice before I started on anything else.

Feel free to add additional vegetables to this dish. I also added baby corn. It was awesome.

Heat the oils in a wok or frying pan over medium-high heat. Toss the cubed chicken breast in a bowl with the cornstarch to coat. Add the chicken and minced garlic to the pan and stir-fry until the chicken is lightly browned. Don’t cook the chicken all the way through - the dish is still going to cook for another 5 minutes or so, and you don’t want to dry out the chicken. If you only brown the outside of the meat, the rest of the chicken will continue to cook after the sauce is added. Reason being is that the sauce will be absorbed into the chicken during this additional cooking time, and the chicken will be moist. There’s not much worse than eating tough, dry chicken.

Add the remaining ingredients except the scallions. Cover and cook for three minutes.

Add the scallions. Cover and cook for two more minutes. Serve over rice.

Dig in!

I can tell you that for the collard greens I blanched them, then made some bacon stock to cook them in.  This is the start of the bacon stock:

So which is sexier, that pot o’ love, or my smiley face jammies?  Tied at meow!

For the cornbread, and the pork for that matter, I followed the basic recipes from Cook’s Illustrated.  The cornbread had buttermilk in it, which was a winner.  I also used that to make buttermilk ice cream with maccerated blueberries, but that’s another Chef Tory thing, so you’ll have to wait on that one too. 

On to the main event!  This was yet another attempt on my part to get the whole smoking thing to work.  I had gotten close before but not what I would consider a win.  The main change in the technique for this recipe was using a center-cut pork chop and standing it on it’s side, which allows for even cooking without opening the grill to turn it over, which would release all the smoke.  I did take out some insurance and brined the pork, just in case the smoking thing was a bust.

  Here is the smoking rig I uh rigged up.  I did go buy a cast-iron smoke box which has a thing underneath to catch the ashes, which was optomistic on my part and I almost did away with it to get the wood chips more fire contact, but it turns out I needn’t have worried because I HAVE MADE SMOKE!!!

I know it’s a little hard to tell in that pic, but it did actually smoke a ton.  I wish I could accurately describe how I got it to work, but I can’t.  I discovered last time that the indirect method didn’t seem to generate enough heat to get the wood smoking.  So this time I cranked all the burners (before putting the pork on of course) and sat there and stared at it waiting for it to smoke.  Then I tried turning the burners off suddenly, since that seemed to work last time as well.  Meaning that the only time I got smoke last time was when the thing was done cooking.  I even tried setting the damn things on fire with a grill lighter, but no go.  Then all of a sudden it caught on fire, I blew it out and I had smoke!  I even restocked the wood chips after the first batch burned through and it kept smoking.  Sooner or later, I had this:

 ~Citizen Chef

Bowtie Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Gorgonzola
1/2 lb bowtie pasta
3 T oilve oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
12 oz diced smoked salmon
1/2 cup brandy
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup gorgonzola
2 T chopped walnuts
1 t lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh dill

Directions: Drain the pasta, then add it back to the cooking pot, combining with the sauce and reserved 1/2 cup water.   Cook gently on medium 3 to 4 minutes or until water is absorbed and sauce is creamy.  Remove, add lemon zest, dill and salt and pepper to taste.

To make sauce, heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high.  Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes.   Add salmon, brandy, capers and tomato sauce and cook for 3 minutes.  Stir in cheese and walnuts and cook for 1 minute.   Remove from heat.

Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente.  Remove 1/2 cup water from pasta when done and set aside.  

So here is the money shot of the ingredients:

You’ll notice those are real smoked salmon pieces there, not that lousy pink stuff!  You’ll also notice there is a bottle of port there and no brandy.  I personally hate buying booze for recipes, and since I rarely drink I decided to use port instead.  Which I think was a fine substitution since port is a fortified wine and has brandy in it.  Or maybe I’m making that part up.  I just like port.

Could have stopped right there and just sat down with a fork, but that is probably because the salmon at this point looks like ham.  Which would have probably made it turn out better, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  Next I put in the walnuts and the lovely lovely cheese.

The sauce at this point was getting nice and creamy, and I was excited to see that the pasta cooks with the sauce for a bit to bind it up.  And the final product:

Got to be a winner, right?  I mean just look at that!  Well no.  There was something wrong in this dish, something horribly wrong.  Well ok maybe not horribly  wrong because we ate all of it.  But there was something in this dish that really clashed with the rich earthiness of the gorgonzola sauce.  That’s right, it was the dill.  Maybe it would have worked better if I had used a “lesser” smoked salmon (perish the thought!) but as it was the dill just smashed it’s way all over everything WHICH IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS DILL!!

“I think pickles are cucumbers that sold out. They sold their soul to the devil, and the devil was dill.” -Mitch Hedberg

~Citizen Chef