The Best One Yet! Margarita Time!

Melanie was alarmed to notice that the search request for: get your wife drunk on tequila recipes drove someone to Erik's Rants and Recipes.

I asked Melanie what recipe I should post for this, and we decided to go with a Margarita.

1 part (now, get this in detail, as it is important to get the right stuff) 100% blue agave, SILVER tequila (reposado is too subtle for a margarita, and anything less than 100% blue agave is going to be almost half rum - not so tasty, and will give you a nasty hangover if you have too many)

1 part freshly squeezed lime juice

1 part Triple Sec (yes, you can use Grand Marnier, but Triple Sec is just fine).

Put all in a shaker with cracked ice (put that stinkin' blender away!) and pour into chilled glasses (or on the rocks) whose rim has been rubbed with the insides of one of the squeezed limes, and dusted with kosher salt. Enjoy!

Tonkatsu

I have not posted a recipe for aeons, so here is something simple and satisfying: tonkatsu, which you could call Schwein Schnitzel and I would probably accept, until you put tonkatsu sauce on it, but I am not there yet.

For the proper texture of the crust, you will have to find panko, the Japanese bread flakes, which have a much lighter texture than traditional bread crumbs. I imagine that you could make pannko by drying sweet French bread and gently flaking the crumb (not a bit of crust though).

Anyway, start with a boneless pork chop. Now, I rarely say this, but trim the fat off it. Then put it between two pieces of saran wrap and place it on a sturdy work board. Pound that thing flat with a mallet or a marble rolling pin, or the family dog (you will need to freeze it first, and then the children will cry, and the SPCA will come and throw you in prison forever, so only use the family dog if you can find absolutely nothing else). You want the pork to be about three eights of an inch thin. More or less. The thinner it is, the faster it will cook, and the higher the heat you can use, therefore, the less oil it will absorb.

Put it in a nonreactive bowl and let it marinate with a liberal amount of dry sake.

Meanwhile make your salad: Discard the ends of and peel a cucumber, leaving a few long, thin strips of peel. If your knife skills are good, use a very sharp chef's knife and slice the cucumber into paper thin slices. If your knife skills are not quite up to par, use a mandoline. Chances are you can't slice as finely as a mandoline, so you should go out and get one, if you don't have one. Otherwise, practice, practice, practice. It's probably best to be able to do it with a knife anyway, because it is much easier to clean a knife than a mandoline.

Also it looks cool. Especially if you can rapidly make paper thin slices while making eye contact with someone and having a conversation on a totally different topic. HA! After a martini. HA! HA! And not cut off part of your finger. OOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!

So, when you get back from the hospital (no, I actually did not get wounded last night, in spite of the martini. I just said that to make you feel better about your own knife skills. Practice. Practice. Practice. Then, when you carefully dissect small gamebirds without looking, folks will say "ooooh" to you too), sprinkle the slices of cucumber with black sesame seeds and seasoned rice vinegar.

Put the rice cooker on.

When the rice cooker clicks, heat your pan.

When the pan is hot, pour oil (canola, corn, any of the standard vegetable oils is fine) into it. About half to a whole inch. Let the oil get hot.

Take a pounded pork fillet, dunk it in flour, pat it evenly around in a thin layer. Dunk it in a bowl that has had an egg with some water beaten into it. Then give it a coating of pannko. Fry. Turn over. Make sure the whole thing is a uniform golden brown. Put on a plate with paper towling and do the next one (you can do two or so at a time, so long as they are not crowded). Salt both sides. When they are all done, slice them into bite-sized strips (remember, they should be chopstickable), serve with rice, salad, and tonkatsu sauce (I buy mine. I suppose you could make your own. It would be pretty easy, I think).

We had a chardonnay, because that is what I have (it is not my favorite white varietal, so we seem to have the most of it. I need to stock up on some good, dry Austrian white wine), and it was fine. We could have had beer, but we had already had cocktails, and going from a martini to beer is just wrong.

What?!? You still have leftover turkey?

OK. Here is the deal. I am trying to avoid running a restaurant. I get myself involved in insanely complex cooking projects to get it out of my system, and that has worked until recently. Now, after cooking some giant multi-course dinner for 300 people, I wake up the next morning wanting to do it all over again, to correct things that could have gone better, etc.

Basically, I think that I am feeding fuel to the fire.

These last couple of days I have been fighting a cold. It is something I do maybe once every couple of years. I used to get a cold once a year, but that was weak, so I am cutting back.

What really makes me think that I am doomed is that yesterday I slept most of the day (with a little blogging break, and a little bit of putting some stuff away, but mostly it was all about sleep). However, I ended up making a turkey pot pie with dough made from scratch and an additional mirepoix/marsala reduction and a selection of fresh herbs I gathered in the garden. I really did not have the energy for a project like that, but the lure of cooking won.

Sick. I know.

Today, I realized that we still had some turkey leftover, and it would not be edible in another day or two, so I fried it in goose fat and olive oil (I would have used freshly rendered lard, but I had used all of that yesterday in my pie crust) with garlic, onions, cumin, cinnamon, pimenton agrodulce, Mexican oregano, and salt. After it had fried for a bit, I poured in a splash of tequila, roasted garlic salsa, and a generous dash of tamarindo syrup and reduced it. We made quesadillas out of that, with Monterrey Jack and flour tortillas, serving some more salsa on the side.

I highly recommend this recipe, as the frying and tamarind correct the dryness that five day old cooked turkey has.

You could also add a chipotle to the mix, as that is a great flavor with these sorts of things.

Trout

Here's the deal:

There are many ways to cook rainbow trout that you have just pulled out of a lake or a stream. But why do anything other than gutting it, seasoning it with salt, pepper and olive oil and grilling it over a wood fire?

Serve with a sauvignon blanc and wild rice pilaf.

Or beer and wild rice pilaf.

Whole Wheat Flaxseed Meal Focaccia

Uh oh, Keilholtz is reverting to his Hippy roots? No, just wanting a good sandwich focaccia to feed many people that would have a good tooth and would be quite filling, not to mention tasty.

Heat two cups of milk to 95 degrees.
Pour it into a large working bowl and add two teaspoons of sugar and two packets of yeast.
When it foams, add two cup of whole wheat flour, three Tablespoons flaxseed meal, a Tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, two teaspoons of salt, and stir. Allow to foam for ten minutes.
Add white, unbleached flour, kneading it and adding flour until the dough no longer sticks excessively, yet is still soft.
While holding the dough in one hand, oil the bowl with EVOO, rotate the dough around to cover, put it in the bowl, cover with saran wrap, and let rise for an hour and a half or until doubled.
Punch the dough, divide it into two parts, placing each one on an oiled cookie sheet. Flatten out to the desired size.
Cover with plastic and let rise for at least another hour.
Preheat oven to 375.
Use your finger to make indentations at about two inch intervals all over each loaf. Drizzle EVOO all over, making sure you get a little puddle in each dimple. Sprinkle with course sea salt and bake for about 15 minutes, or until browned and the loaf makes a hollow sound when thumped.
Take out of the oven, allow to cool on the sheet, then transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool to a temperature that is comfortable to handle.
Ready to eat. Yum.

Black Bean Soup

What!?! A recipe? When was the last time Keilholtz posted a recipe? Rants? Oh yeah, plenty of rants, and he hasn't even started in on serious Oakland mayoral race ranting, but a Recipe? A bonafide, put the possum in the pot and stir it real nice recipe?

You got it, bub.

We inherited a ham bone. Not a great ham bone, but a good ham bone. It needed a good home after I had carved off all the meat I could, and Melanie has been after me to make a black bean soup. 2 + 2. Ah, yes, four, old man, four.

Into the slow cooker went the beans, concentrated lamb stock (the last of my Easter feast, alas), a couple of bay leaves, the bone, finely chopped ham fat, fresh thyme, dried Mexican oregano, allspice, pepper, half a Niman Ranch boneless Black Forest Ham that I had hurredly put in the freezer before going out of town (there is a special part of Hell reserved for people who let those hams spoil), and a puree of a small onion and three green garlics that I had sweated for ten minutes with olive oil, water and white wine vinegar.

After the thing had been simmering all night and most of the day, I pureed the soup, hand chopped the meat, seasoned with Worcestershire Sauce, balsamico, and white wine vinegar, added a pinch of pimenton agridulce, salted to taste, and served with a dollop of guacamole (should have used avocado cream), chopped cilantro, and imaginary pecorino sarde (alas, I had none, so just had to imagine it).

Yum.

Basic green salad

This is another recipe that is easy to do, but tastes quite good. I will also give a couple of seasonal variations.

For the greens, I use a mix. On Sunday we used butter lettuce, red leaf, romaine, radicchio, arugula and a little bit of mixed spring greens. Frisee is also good, but I didn't use it on Sunday. Wash the greens, tear them into bite sized pieces, and dry them.

My basic salad dressing is to start with a dab of Dijon mustard, a splash of Worcester sauce, then one part balsamic vinegar to three parts Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Salt and pepper to taste. If you want to make it garlicy, add a clove of garlic through a garlic press. Sometimes I will let diced shallot steep in the vinegar for twenty minutes.

Then you can add toasted pine nuts, avocado, sun dried tomatoes, or whatever else you think will make the salad more interesting.

In the autumn I add slices of persimmon and shaved pecorino romano cheese. You can also use pear slices and dried jack cheese.

In the late autumn slices of fuji apples and blue cheese are yummy.

In the late summer, figs and queso manchego are perfect, not to mention vine ripened, organic, heirloom tomatoes. I also like to add julienned basil in the summer.

Ceci salad

This is a basic chickpea salad that can be served, as we did at the St. Joseph's dinner, as part of an antipasto or as the antipasto. It can also be incorporated into a green salad.

While you can use dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans), I use the canned, as it makes little difference in taste, and it is much easier.

Basically, an hour or so before serving, open the can, drain the ceci and put them in a bowl. Add a generous pinch of fresh thyme, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I like to add some diced shallot, but Melanie thinks that just complicates things. She is probably right.

On water...

One thing I did not talk about in my overly long discourse on espresso (was there anything I did not ramble on about? Believe it or not, yes. Lots. Coffee is a very complicated matter, but well worth it) was water. In Oakland we have soft water. In Sacramento it is hard water. I use water right out of the tap and have never had any problems with it. I also drink water right out of the tap, seeing the filtering movement as nothing more than secular neo-Puritanism. Flouride is good. Trace amounts of chlorine that kill nasty microorganisms are good.

I have found that when someone is going on a little too long about water purity and they are talking about the modern Western world, not some place where the municipal water authorities have not yet figured out that the cloaca and the drinking water tube should be distinct from one another, the chances are great that they are trying to sell you something. I don't stick to pure grain alcohol and rainwater, and I seem to be doing OK.

But back to water for espresso brewing:

The only concern with hard water is that minerals can build up in your machine. This problem is solved by, once every few years, running white vinegar through the works, immediately followed by several runs with distilled water, until no more vinegar can be smelled or tasted. If a little, teeny hint of vinegar is there, it will go away after the first couple of real shots brewed.

So my basic rule is this: if the water is good enough to drink, it is good enough to make espresso with. Sort of like mixing concrete. Just don't drink the concrete.

Making Espresso at Home

Over at Two Sleepy Mommies there is talk about making good coffee for one. Of course one can buy one of those small cone filters to make a single cup, but I, for one, cannot drink too much drip coffee. There is something about the extraction that destroys my digestive system. I once in awhile will drink a cup of French press, but can only do it rarely.

That leaves me with espresso, of which I drink copiously. From six to twelve shots a day. I sleep fine (even though the last shots of the day are usually after 11pm), have no digestive problems from it, and highly recommend it to folks who like coffee.

Now in our age of Starbucks it is easy to find espresso. Even drive throughs exist. Unfortunately very few places actually make a good espresso. In Sacramento I know of four caffes that do it right. In Oakland there are only two that I know of (barring the times when Peet's is making the espresso with their Espresso Forte blend and not Garuda (yuck for espresso) or Major Dickison's (neither yuck nor yum). In San Francisco you get better odds. So, if you want to switch to espresso the best bet is to learn to make it yourself.

You can spend a lot of money on equipment. La Pavoni piston machines, Gaggia pump machines, they are great and someday I hope to have one. Unfortunately they take up a lot of space and cost a lot of money, and they do require maintenance, which I would probably end up doing myself, since I like to tinker with things like that.

So that leaves three choices: a cheap pump driven machine (like the Krupps that I have, which we bought for about $100), a steam machine (generally cheap. I have seen them on sale for around $30 and see them at yard sales), or a stove-top Moka Express (price varies depending on the size and brand). I recommend a pump-driven machine, and one that takes grounds, not pods (which simply cannot result in a good espresso). For reviews of specific brands and models, go to Coffeegeek.com and try not to be intimidated by the fact that this is a site run by fanatics. Once you get over the intimidation factor, check out this article on the history and ever-rising standards of a good espresso. Especially look at the photo of the shot, which is a good model to think about.

Read this whole entry before you select a brewing method, and then think about grinders. You can get a rotary blade grinder just about anywhere. I saw them at the hardware store the other day. They are cheap, and, while they tend to grind unevenly and to heat the beans too much, they work. I use one every day. Sure I would rather have a $150 burr grinder, but there is the kitchen real estate factor, as well as the fact that $150 can buy a lot of other things. So, as long as I keep being satisfied with my espresso, the blade grinder stays.

Realize that espresso takes practice, so plan on spending a Sunday afternoon and a pound of beans learning your machine. Brew shot after shot, making a note of the character of the coffee. Undrinkable shots should go down the drain. You spent maybe $11 for a pound of coffee (cheaper if you shop around properly - my main source runs at about $8 a KILO, although I do blend it with a third part of $12 a pound beans). If a shot is not ideal, but not great, sweeten it, freeze it and scrape it into a glass, top it with slightly sweet whipped cream and you have a wonderful granita di caffe.

Now we get to the factors of brewing espresso: blend, roast, grind, the group, the tamp, and the machine (pressure and temperature).

Blend: Most commercially available "espresso blends" are about right. They vary, but they tend towards full-bodied Latin American and Asian Arabica beans, with some African Arabicas thrown in for aroma and a small percent of robusta beans. There is controversy over the addition of robusta, but I have come to see it as essential for espresso. Except for Illy, due to Francesco Illy's hatred of robusta, almost all of the Italian beans you can buy have robusta in them. Unless you are blending your own, you will want to find a reputable vendor and trust their coffee taster. I recommend Peet's Espresso Forte, Caffe Roma (in San Francisco) Trevi and Roma blends in a 50/50 mix, Blue Bottle in Oakland, and a couple of others whose exact names escape me. Always buy whole bean, as even beans in a blade grinder are better than pre-ground beans.

Roast: Again, you will probably rely on the pros for the degree of roastiness. However, if you are having trouble, look at the roast. Is it black and super oily? It might be French roast, which does not make good espresso. The French overroasted their beans so that they could use nearly 100% robusta from their West African colonies. I might point out that, while the French consume coffee prodigiously, they do not make it very well at all. If your espresso is thin and acidic, with harsh notes, it could be that your roast is too light. A good espresso roast should be dark brown, not black, and fairly oily, but not as oily as a French roast.

Grind: Now you have your beans home and want to brew. Espresso grind is pretty fine. Not the talcum powder like dust used in Turkish coffee, but fine. Pinch the grounds. They should clot together, but not stay together like clay. Rub them between your fingers. They should feel somewhat soft, with a little abrasion. When the grounds are dropped out of the fingers, you should see the lines of your fingers holding coffee dust the way an intaglio plate holds ink.

Now it is time to load the basket. This is where the consideration of the machine comes in. When we bought our new machine last year, it came with a woefully inadequate basket. It was too shallow by far, and sloped to make a strong tamp all but impossible. So I took the much deeper and straight-lined group from the old steam machine, and the combination was good. Ideally the portafilter (the basket and the handle) should be pretty heavy. Mine isn't, so don't think you need to spend oodles of dough just to get a good espresso. You might want to salvage a group from a yard sale model, or craft your own, if you are good with metal. I don't know, but you might be able to order a proper group from the manufacturer.

The first thing I do is heat the whole group by running an empty shot through. This heats and cleans the group head (muy importante), heats the group and the cup. Dump any old grounds that flushed out of the groupo head and rinse with the hot water from the cup. Dry the basket before putting in grounds.

You cannot do this with a pump machine, so run the group and the cup under hot water.

Fill the basket with grounds and start...

The Tamp: You can and should buy a proper coffee tamp. I still haven't in my nearly twenty years of making espresso, so again, it is not that important. I use the back of the coffee scoop, which is flat, but not wide enough, so I have to tamp the center, then the sides. Then I use my thumb to get the edges. This is important with my machine, because if I don't get an even tamp, water will find its way into voids and the extraction is too fast, and the espresso wretched. Generally, I recommend a heavy tamp. Too much and the water goes too slow, too little and the water goes too fast. Ideally the coffee should ooze out like honey. Drop by drop and it will be too bitter. Fast like water, and it will be thin and bitter. You will need to experiment and to rely on your eye as well as your muscle memory of how much pressure to use.

If you are using a Moka Express, tamp firmly. You need to create proper resistance to the steam-propelled water.

Please note that some owner's manuals on some machines say not to tamp. They are full of tea or hogwash or something that is not espresso. Ignore them. I have yet to meet a machine that did well without tamping. I have owned three different steam machines, two Moka Express pots and a pump machine, and I have used many other machines. Tamping is essential.

Now, put the group in place to wherever the manufacturer indicates is the safe locking position. Do not overtighten, and certainly don't undertighten, as that can be explosive and messy (not to mention dangerous).

Dry your cup.

In a steam machine you fill the reservoir and turn it on. When it has generated enough heat and steam, the water will flow. At a certain time the espresso will change color and become a light brown froth only. Quickly pull the shot out and place the slops cup under to catch this worthless excess, which is not fit for human consumption. This is important because ALL steam machines, unless it is one of those ones with a cutoff valve, continue to brew long after good espresso is in the cup. Ignore the markings on the glass pitcher, which will be broken in a month anyway. Do not worry about timing your shots. Get the viscosity right and the timing will take care of itself.

With a pump machine, turn the valve. When the brew changes to the icky stuff (eventually you will predict this and shut it off right before this), turn the valve off. I do not time my shots, although Peter, the excellent barista at Sacramento's Infusion, says I should. I suppose it is the best way of building a disciplined approach to making espresso. Maybe I will start doing it. I will report if it makes a difference.

With the Moka Express, things are trickier. You want to brew over the lowest heat possible (and watch the plastic handle, which, if it is over the heat source will start to melt. Don't worry, you will forget this and yours will have the same ugly melted end that all of them do eventually) with THE LID UP. You want the coffee to simple ooze out of the top. Once it starts to spurt, take it off heat and pour.

Now, for cheap home models, temperature and pressure are beyond your control. They will be constants for you to deal with. Your control is over the grind, pack and tamp, and when you stop the extraction.

Experiment, practice, don't be afraid to throw out a bad shot, and you will eventually have consistantly good espresso in your own home.

If you have questions or want clarifications, feel free to comment or email me at EKeilholtz [at] aol [period] com.

Happy Espresso!

Beef Wellington Recipe... sort of...

First, study the recipe for Beef Wellington in Julia Childs' Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol Two. Then, think of inserting a truffled duck liver mousse between the beef and the brioche.

OR...

Insert a mince of fresh porcini mushrooms, sauteed and finished with marsala in that layer.

If you need more details, holler.

I want to be
In some
Dark Holler...