Showdown at the Brisket Corral

My mother has always made a darn good brisket, and she has always made it the same way- brown the meat under the broiler, season it (with black pepper and garlic powder, never salt. Kosher meat is generally plenty salty), rest it on a bed of carrots, celery and potatoes (a few years back, mom started putting mushrooms into the brisket mirepoix, which knocked my world off its axis a bit, but I recovered and they're delicious), cover it and throw it in the oven at 350F for 20 minutes and then at 425F until it is fork tender. Once done, slice, cutting across the muscle fibers, and reserving the lean tip for Dad. Serve alongside the vegetable mirepoix that is so reich and delicious from sitting under the meat that it hardly resembles vegetable matter anymore.

Which takes forever- brisket is a tough cut of meat from the front of the cow, below the chuck. If you cook it forever, the collagen melts and the tough, stringy muscle fibres become soft and heavenly. Because of the length of preparation time (not the complexity; it's pretty easy), brisket, in my mama's house, is usually part of a festive meal- the festive Rosh HaShanna brisket, the festive Passover brisket, etc. Mom never adds any liquid to the roasting pan- the meat lets out a ton of its own that doesn't evaporate thanks to the covered pan, and the rich resulting brisket juice is used to reheat leftovers, never to make gravy.

Allow me to digress on the subject of gravy. I LOVE gravy (please take the caps as an indication of sincerity and enthusiasm). I generally can't get enough of it. I love all manner of pan-jus, thick gravies enriched with wine and butter, red-eye gravy (a strange and delicious pork fat and coffee sauce), and I won't even turn my nose up at even the vilest canned or powdered gravy mixes. I always make pan gravy with roasted chicken or turkey. A guilty secret: for leftover sandwiches, I spread congealed gravy on the bread in place of mayo. I'm not that ashamed. I wasn't raised in a gravy-eating family- my mom, who did most of the home cooking, never made any, and I'm not sure why. It could be that it seemed like too much extra work, or too fattening, but most likely (in my humble opinion) that my mother always felt that her meats were perfectly seasoned and juicy as they were. There were never salt and pepper shakers on the table, either.

I'm done now.

Anyway, we've had a couple of briskets at work in the last month. One, a smoked brisket to celebrate the local blues festival, and the other, just this week, was braised with thyme, hot peppers and red wine. Plus, I was just in Montreal for Rosh HaShanna (the Jewish New Year), and so was treated to easily the most exceptional brisket my family has ever produced. I restrained myself when selecting my leftovers to take back to Kingston with me; my pregnant sister-in-law, a notoriously picky eater had declared a liking for the brisket (who could blame her?), and I didn't want to deprive my unborn niece of a solid, festive meal. Big mistake. I have an unsatisfied hankering for brisket, which I am soothing with a 6 1/2 lb brisket purchased from my local butcher on my way home.

I am following my mother's cooking method, with a few alterations: I salted the meat liberally (incidentally, Mike loves salty food {oversalted, really}, and there is always a dramatic variety of salt on the table, over here), I didn't use any garlic powder (I don't have any, and plus, think its weird), and in addition to the traditional Rudner vegetable accomaniments, I threw the following under the meat: a handful of fresh shiitake mushrooms, an ounce or so of dried porcini mushrooms (the Asian Market has them for ultra-cheap), 2 tomatoes cut into wedges, a jalapeno pepper cut into long slices, and 4 really potent new crop onions, cut into wedges. And also, the dregs of a bottle of Italian red wine we had been enjoying a couple of nights ago.

The plan: eat brisket tonight (should it ever finish cooking) my mom's way, and tomorrow, the way we do at the restaurant, in which the meat is served not sliced, but rather in a large chunk, and reheated in the braising juice (we use quite a bit of liquid in the braise at work), which, as it simmers to heat the meat, reduces into a gorgeous, thick gravy, which dribbles into the accompanying mashed potatoes.

A brisket showdown, that's what this is. Stay tuned for the results.

Best ice cream of the summer, right here.

I have had some winners this summer, both at home and at work- personal favorite up until this point was the Damson plum ice cream, and crowd favorite was the Venetian dark chocolate and burnt sugar caramel gelato. The ice cream I made at home last night takes the cake (figuratively, although it would accompany a simple fine-crumbed chocolate cake swimmingly.) It was a stupid amount of labour, and so is unlikely to be replicated at work, where I get paid for my time. This is what I made:

Toasted coconut and vanilla bean ice cream with different nuts.

The ice cream base comes from the best ice cream book in the world, The Perfect Scoop, by the incomparable David Lebovitz. If you are new to homemade ice cream, this is the only book you need. Not only is his technique flawless, but his flavours will inspire you. His toasted coconut ice cream has toasted, unsweetened coconut and real vanilla bean steeped in milk, sugar and cream for an hour or so, then strained out, and the rich, heavily scented liquid becomes the starting point for a beautifully textured custard ice cream.

While the sweet cream and coconut were steeping, I oven-roasted the following kinds of nuts in the following ways:

1 cup of pecan halves, broken up, and spiced with salt and ground cayenne pepper, and slicked with maple syrup.

1 cup of sliced almonds with some honey that I let out with a bit of water to make more of a glaze.

1 cup of walnut halves, broken up, salted, and coated in more maple syrup.

1 cup of coarsely grated coconut (the pieces are about as wide as tagliatelle, or ribbons), coated in egg white and white sugar, which kind of candies them. Coconut is not actually a botanical nut, but the American FDA categorizes it as a tree nut, for some reason.

Each of these nuts are roasted separately at 350F until they are crisp and very sticky- you want them to dry out as they cook so they retain their sweet coating and stay crunchy in the ice cream. If the honey is wet, for example, it will dissipate into the ice cream, instead of staying on the sliced almonds. Once they are cool and dry, break up the clumps, and try not to eat them all before they make it into the ice cream.

When the ice cream is churned, you can swirl in the nuts, either by hand as you remove the ice cream from the machine, or by tossing them into the machine with the motor still running. Remove this bit of heaven and freeze in an airtight container. Treating the nuts separately was a gigantic pain, and probably unnecessary (you could just as easily douse them all with maple syrup and throw them in the oven together), but this ice cream really was the best of the summer.

Glorious, easy summer dinner.

When I mentioned the idea I had for dinner, both Mike and my parents had the same response: ""No Meat?""

Generally, when I have time on my hands, the dinners I produce at home are fairly elaborate and usually star some beautiful piece of meat, either exotic or luxurious. I'm an oxtails or prime rib kind of girl- not a lot of boneless, skinless chicken breasts here.

Allow me to digress from the glory of the vegetarian summer dinner for a second, and rant about the cost-effectiveness of carefully selected meat: A crappy rib steak from food basics costs a little more than $10 per pound, and the meat is always meh- poorly marbled, thin, not aged well. 3 blocks away, the small butcher has beautiful prime rib for about $20 per KILO, which works out to about the same. The meat is so tender, it melts when you look at it. Granted, it's hard to come by a piece of the prime rib weighing in at less than a kilo, but it's enough meat for 4, with a salad, starch and vegetable side. And you have to take a side trip, but it's so worth forgoing the convenience of one-stop shopping at basics for a dramatic improvement in quality. Same goes for ground meats, pork, and especially veal, lamb and variety meats. You just get better stuff for the same price or even cheaper, if you look to your specialty shops. And this gets magnified the further you look outside the downtown core (in Kingston, at least)- there are butchers, bakers and cheese shops offering quality that far surpasses the meager offerings at Basics, and at prices that make 'special occasion' products, like prime rib, double-cut veal chops and lamb racks, accessible for every day. You just have to get there. Support your local butchers.

I'm done now.

Anyway, for a filling, quick (almost, but not quite, half-assed) summer dinner, this is my favorite:

A sandwich (for dinner? The shame!) made on fresh focaccia from Pasta G, one piece per person (this is a hearty sandwich), spread with La Bomba, a spicy, oily eggplant condiment (again from Pasta G), nice slices of fresh, local eggplant, green and yellow zucchini that have been salted and fried until golden brown in olive oil (drain them well on paper towel- eggplant sucks up TONS of oil), whole leaves of fresh basil, sliced heirloom tomatoes (hands down, the best tasting tomato anywhere is the Brandywine, but you could go for a Black Krim, a yellow Big Rainbow, or whatever you see in the market or in your backyard), great big chunks of Mozarella di Bufala, fresh mozarella made of buffalo milk. It's crazy expensive, but if you're accustomed to having the protein in your meal cost more than everything else on the plate, you should relax and enjoy the sweet, salty creaminess that is not easy to imitate. Finish the sandwich with crisp romaine hearts. A knife and fork is in order; this is a heck of a sandwich.

This time of year, corn on the cob is the best thing to eat alongside this gigantic, messy sandwich. I feel that corn is fine to eat raw, but it's nice to cook it a bit to release some of the starch and to get it hot enough so that the butter melts. Get a pot of water boiling- make it large enough to fit the corn, (or cut the cobs in half), and add some salt and sugar to the water. Add the corn, and cook just to heat the kernels through and soften them up a bit. Drain and toss with salted butter.

For dessert? In almost no time, you can slice juicy peaches, fry them in butter, when they're almost cooked through, toss in some brown sugar and a splash of Amaretto, and eat them as is, or better yet, spooned over ice cream, and garnished with some fleur de sel or Maldon salt.

No meat, no problem!

Tiger, tiger, burning bright/In the forests of the night

Tiger tail ice cream is my very favorite.

It's a very creamy orange ice cream base, with a black licorice ripple. It is an unusual flavour combination, but it works way more harmoniously than it sounds like it ought to. Baskin Robbin, conveniently located 3 blocks away from my parent's house in Montreal, used to make a delicious one, but doesn't seem to offer it anymore, and most commercial brands available in my neck of the woods pale in comparison.

I'm told that President's Choice released the flavour this summer as part of a 'nostalgia' collection (including pink bubble gum.... is it weird that the choking hazards of my youth are now retro, or nostalgic? Am I right to feel old?) In any event, I don't have access to PC products at the grocery store in my 'hood. So I made my own.

I made an ice cream base that tasted like orange creamsicle, rather than super citrusy orange- I wanted more of a muted sherbet flavour, and less of a bright and citrusy one. To keep it light, I made it 'Philadelphia' style, rather than with a custard base, I used both orange juice and zest for a nice, full flavour, only 18% table cream, rather than 35% heavy cream for a lighter mouth-feel, and some sour cream, to keep it zippy. The resulting ice cream was delightful; it had a really natural orange flavour, and would be amazing on its own.

The licorice ripple was a little more challenging for me, and I ate a lot of different kinds of black licorice to find the one I wanted to work with (poor me, right?). I settled on 'Panda' brand soft licorice candies, as the flavour was strong and true, and not that sweet. I melted them on my stovetop, and used a heavy simple syrup (1:1 water to sugar) to let it out, which is why I had been looking for a less-sweet candy. I couldn't melt it smooth enough, so I put it through my food processor.

This was unfortunate for two reasons: while the resulting texture was perfectly smooth and thick and sticky, it changed the colour from black to brown, which I wasn't hoping for, and by some food processor magic, it really emphazised the molasses flavour in the candy, also unintended. If I had had the resources at my fingertips, I would have rebalanced the flavour with some aniseed oil or licorice powder.

Once the orange ice cream was churned, I alternated scooping it into a container with drizzles of the licorice ripple. I let it set in the freezer, and then sampled it. It was delicious, almost 100% what I wanted, but it would have been better if the ripple was a stronger licorice flavour- the molasses notes that came out during the food processing of the licorice were not enough of a contrast to the orange.

Another thing, and I'm almost ashamed to admit it, is that the colour of the orange ice cream tasted off. I'm so used to bright, artificially coloured orange ice cream in a Tiger Tail, so conditioned by industrial food production to expect that anything orange flavoured from a popsicle to a soda should be Orange with a capital 'O'. My pale yellow, naturally coloured and flavoured orange ice cream tasted like the wrong colour.

Feh.

First of all, colours don't have flavour, and second of all, maybe next time, in addition to boosting the licorice ripple, I will add some food colouring to the orange ice cream. How stupid is that?

PS: This is the best time of year to live in southeastern Ontario. There are peaches, flowers from right outside that look like they come from the tropics, corn, blueberries, and in short order, tomatoes. Have a nice long weekend.

If you can't stand the heat...

Last night, I cooked dinner at home for the first time in what seemed like forever. Sure, Mike and I eat here regularly, but it had been some time since I'd made any kind of effort. Blessed with a sunny day off, and only laundry on the 'must do today' list (everything else got shuffled off to a mythical day off in the future), I had time to visit the market, the butcher, the italian grocery, the cheese shop, and prepare a nice dinner to enjoy at home.

This is what we had:

*A salad of Patchwork Gardens Asian greens with strawberries and an aged balsamic-maple-curry dressing. In years past, Patchwork's Asian salad mix (mizuna, tatsoi, mustard greens, etc) have been really spicy, so I wanted a sweet dressing to tone it down, plus strawberries and aged, syrupy balsamic vinegar love each other. As it turns out, the greens I got were pretty mild, so on the whole, the salad was pretty sweet, and very refreshing.

The dressing is the easiest: combine 3 parts e.v.o.o., 1 part aged balsamic vinegar (this stuff is way more mellow, and less brassy than regular balsamic. It's thicker, too. And it's very costly, so I try to save it for drizzling on salads, meats and fruit. I use the cheaper stuff for any kind of preparation that involves the application of heat, like making sauces and grilling vegetables), salt, pepper, a sprig or two's worth of fresh thyme, a glug of maple syrup, and enough curry powder to add some heat and depth of flavour, but not so much that the flavour of cuurry is immediately identifiable. I like the mystery. This is one of my go-to vinaigrettes, and a good one for intensely-flavoured greens.

*A pan-roasted, double-cut veal rib chop, with teeny-weeny roasted new potatoes, yellow beans, heirloom carrots and a pomegranate sauce. Pretty simple, straightforward food, but really satisfying.

The meat was a real find- it was what I had woken up craving, and randomly found at the butcher (where I had never seen it before). A really thick veal chop is an incredible treat- it stays moist and tender, even if you cook it too long. It is pretty lean and has a really fine grain.

The sauce was not a winner. Last weekend, one of my co-workers made a truly remarkable pomegranate sauce for duck breasts, and after quizzing her on her preparation, I tried to recreate it at home. The magic just wasn't there. As we sat down to eat, I realized where I had gone wrong- I think the trick is to cook all the sauce ingredients into an initial simple syrup (2:1 sugar to water, heated to dissolve the sugar), so that the shallots, garlic, orange zest and pomegranate seeds get candied together. I sweated the shallots and garlic in butter, added the pomegranate, cooked it for a bit, then tried to sweeten it at the end. The flavours got muddied, and the fruit lost its jewel-like brilliance. No matter. Mike thought it was tasty, I left my share aside.

*Finally, strawberry-sour cream-amaretto ice cream for dessert. I had wanted to make popsicles, but could not find popsicle molds downtown (and I truly had no interest in improvising, when making ice cream is such an appealing alternative). This is the easiest sort of ice cream- a bit time-consuming (it requires several hour-long rest periods), but no fussing around with custard. Plus, with only 3/4 cup of sugar in the whole batch, and made with both heavy cream AND sour cream, the strawberry flavour is very clear, and not at all too sweet. Which justifies it as a breakfast food, as far as I can tell!

Cookies and Cream, Italian style

I really like cookies and cream ice cream.

I like how the cookie bits get soft, like they've been dunked in milk, without being unbaked (I find cookie dough-flavoured ice cream repulsive. Furthermore, I am not an eater of raw dough of any description. Nor do I drink milk, for that matter, so the appreciation for dunking cookies in it is largely theoretical. Give me biscotti to drown in espresso or marsala any day.)

I had a hankering for cookies and cream when I arrived at work to devise some desserts to see us through the weekend. I work at an Italian restaurant, though, so I wanted to put a Mediterranean spin on the classic. I made the ice creamy background lemony, though not overly so- I used only lemon zest, no juice, and steeped it in the cream, then strained it out. The lemon flavour was very soft and muted, not the clear, bright lemon flavour I generally go for.

Cookie-wise, I crumbled some Amaretti, and swirled them into the just-churned ice cream. Amaretti, served in the restaurant alongside espresso, are little bitter almond-flavoured cookies, with a texture like a cross between a meringue and a macaroon. They are crisp and light, and melt in your mouth. The flavour is similar to that of Amaretto liqueur.

As a cookie, they are obviously a sweet treat, but they also have a natural affinity for butternut and acorn squash, and to my way of thinking, they are always a welcome accompaniment to simply roasted squash, or squash ravioli with parmesan and a sage and brown butter sauce. The sweetness of the cookie matches the squash, and the bitter almond flavour and crunch adds complexity and textural intrigue.

Still no home cooking to speak of. Maybe tomorrow.

All work and no play....

....makes for dull home cooking.

I have been working a zillion hours a week, in a kitchen that feels like the surface of the sun. Which has been amazing- I'm learning tons, but I have been somewhat less than inspired to cook when I get home. I'm still really feeling frozen treats, and until I can come up with something interesting and blog-worthy to prepare at home, please see the following list of delicious ice creams, gelatos and granitas I have been working on, by way of proof that I'm still trying:

Zabaglione gelato (lemon and marsala flavoured, inspired by the traditional Italian egg white froth)

Fresh strawberry ice cream (spiked with cherry brandy)

Strawberry-rhubarb granita

Mascarpone gelato (served with fresh strawberries in lemon syrup)

Fresh mint-stracciatella ice cream (mint-chocolate ice cream is totally different when the mint flavour is real, and the colour is not neon green)

Cantaloupe granita (this one was a winner. Waiting until the cantaloup was a shade past ripe gave it a really full and bloomy mouth-feel)

My goal for the week: cook something at home that I can write to y'all about.