Maggie's Farm

With the interest in old time traditional cast iron cookware on our piece on A Darn Good Steak, (in which I learned that lots of folks prefer fried to grilled steak), here's a little cast iron cookware info.

Lodge is a good source, and you can buy directly from them. I like the assist handle and the pouring lip. Here's their advice for care and feeding of iron. I think two sizes of skillets ought to do it.

I know darn little about the subject, but I see that Wagner bought out Griswold, and that both brands are now owned by American Culinary Corp., which now produces a Wagner line.

Here's another source of cast iron cookware care.

I know it's grilling season, but I took a tip from The Prof and tried his blackened steak recipe - minus the salad part. (I have nothing against a salad course, but I am morally, spiritually, and philosophically opposed to serving salad with meat as they do in restaurants these days, like that revolting but ubiquitous Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad. They give you crappy bland slices of chicken, an out-of-the-can Caesar dressing, and expect you to like it because it is supposedly low-cal.) 

I had a 1" supermarket sirloin, coated the sides generously with a mixture of ground black pepper, salt, cayenne, thyme, garlic powder, and paprika and let it sit a little bit. Then I dipped both sides in melted butter and threw it on a maximum heat pre-heated ungreased iron frying pan on my gas stove. About 3 minutes per side made it perfectly rare and failed to set off the smoke alarm. Black and crunchy on the surface, but still trying to walk back to Kansas on the inside. As good a steak as I have ever had, and much tastier than steak on ye olde charcoal grill.

From now on, steaks get cooked in the pan, and the grill will be for butterflied lamb, chops, London Broil (a tasty but un-chewable cut), chicken, burgers, hot dogs, sausage, bluefish, tuna, etc. After all, aren't grilled steaks always slightly disappointing unless they are from a premium butcher and extremely full of fat? They smell good, though.

I love Pot Roast.

When I was in school, we called it Mystery Meat. It came out grey, dry, and tough. They served it with brown gravy. It was terrible. If done right, Pot Roast is fit for a king. Here's how I am making it this weekend:

A big hunk of beef
1 bottle of $15 cabernet
Half a little can of tomato paste. Or some canned tomatoes. Whatever, but not so much that you make a tomatoey sauce: it's meant to be a wine sauce.   
Some lightly sauteed garlic
A slice or two of lightly-cooked bacon, chopped
5 roughly chopped big onions
A bag of roughly chopped carrots. I never bother peeling carrots for cooking but, if you have OCD, you can.
A bunch of mushrooms, of any form. I always prefer porcinis, fresh or dried, in everything, but sauteed mushrooms, canned button mushrooms, etc are just fine.
 A couple of bay leaves
A teaspoon or two of sugar is necessary for any sauce with tomato in it
Salt and pepper to taste

Salt and pepper the beef, then brown in butter, then throw into a pot with the above ingredients. You can throw in some beef bouillon if you want, and a few good shots of hot sauce. Low simmer, covered, for 5-6 hours, or put in the oven, covered, at 350 for 5-6 hours. Crock pot probably works well too. Turn the meat when you remember. When almost done, throw in a couple of jars of button mushrooms, or lightly sauteed mushrooms of any variety, if you prefer. The beef, when sliced in 1/2" slices, should easily crumble with a fork - no knife needed.

Serve with mashed potatoes or wide noodles, and salad. The sauce from the pot, with the root vegetables,  is the key. Once evenings begin to get warm, it will be too late to make this variety of rib-stickin', soul-satisfyin', sleep-inducin'  Dad's home cookin'.

At Pajamas. I have never cooked with White Truffle, but my favorite use of Black Truffle is to shave a bit on top of a plate of Woodcock ravioli. 

And speaking of Fungi, here's a 20-foot mushroom. I didn't know that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.

We mentioned one of our favorite little hide-aways in NYC in our piece on cool NYC websites a long time ago. One thing we like about the Campbell Apartment is that it is in Grand Central Station, and thus very convenient when waiting on a train. Plus I do like it. They know how to make a Martini.

The story of their overnight conversion to posh is amusing. NYT

A book from our new pal, Hog on Ice (h/t, Comrade Right Wing Nation):

After our mention of Burgoo last week, the Bluegrass-born prof at Right Wing Nation was kind enough to furnish us with a recipe. Sounds good, but a bit civilized. I thought that you needed to use whatever you shot in the woods, plus whatever road-kill you found - or nailed with your truck bumper - on the way home.

Well, the Prof reminds me that he did include "varmint," such as the cute critter in photo. I think my ideal Burgoo would include possum, coon, and squirrel, with a pork base. Most of 'em can be shot from one's back porch without hardly gettin' up out of the chair.

Like Bill Quick's blog, I wonder whether the Prof is slowly turning his into a foodie blog. Indeed, there is only so much politics that one can take before you begin to gag on it. After a while, the sheer stupidity of it all just pisses you off. However, as citizens of a free republic, it is a duty to care, even if we would prefer not to.

I decided to trust Right Wing Nation, a blog cousin, on the turkey recipe this year. It was a great success. Father-in-law: "Best turkey I've ever had." Me: "I am finished with turkey breast that tastes like cardboard and has the texture of wood."

We are sold! No more unmarinated turkeys. And yes, we marinate everything in garbage bags: it's the only way. For Mr. Turkey, you need the big leaf bags or contractor bags. We didn't bother with the ice-water part, though. Marinated..."marine" - now I get it. Salt water.

Now I need to try this on a wild goose. Or pheasant. Or why not roast chicken, too?

I know people use "right wing" ironically, and only mean "conservative," but the moral of the story is that you can trust their recipes for the right wing, the left wing, the thighs and the breast.

A (rare) Maggie's Nod to Multiculturalism

A reader reminds us that somehow - probably due to the effects of Bush's global warming on our brain - we neglected the essential topic of Virginia's famous Smithfield Ham in our little piece on Christmas Ham.

We deeply apologize for any possible offense, humiliation, pain, or other neurotic reactions we might have caused. Shame on us for neglecting a treasured, age-honored, and totally delicious cultural tradition of the great people of the great Commonwealth of Virginia.

Tomato vs. Vinegar, etc.

To us in the Northeast, the barbecue wars of the South can seem like quaintly endearing rivalries - until you experience two things: 1. the true intensity and competitiveness of the regional barbecue wars (see Instapundit) and, 2. the total lusciousness of each one of these forms of commingled fat, smoke and meat. I hesitate to state that I prefer the Carolina-style pulled pork to the others, but I've never had a barbecue I didn't like. The pulled-pig I had in Kentucky may have been the best, a whole hog smoked in a freshly-dug hole in the ground for about 24 hours. You yank hunks of meat off the hog with your hands like a cave-man.

Our red-state readers hardly need a basic lesson in the regional barbecues, and in pits vs. smokers, and dry rubs vs wet sauce, or even pork vs the blasphemous Texas beef brisket, but I needed a primer, especially after a conversation last week about vinegar-based sauce vs. tomato-based - North Carolina's famous east-west division.

A barbecue primer here. Another piece with recipes here. Hungry already. Too bad this stuff is so scarce in the Northeast. I've had enough sushi for a lifetime, and the very thought of more of it is nauseating: from now on, I will call it "bait," not food. I think I just liked the wasabi and the ginger.

Cooking  a Wild Duck

Or any duck, even from the supermarket... here are the two basic approaches for the breast or for the entire bird:

1. Cut off the breasts carefully, retaining all of the meat and keeping the skin on. Marinate in wine and various herbs for a few hours. Or in milk.

2. Then take the carcass, boil in water with plenty of good wine and/or port and herbs, onions, carrots, celery and garlic, a little sugar, etc. for a few hours, until thick. Simmer the heck out of it for a good sauce. Then strain it and cook until thick on the stove.

3. Saute the breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper, in olive oil and butter on high heat very briefly, a couple of minutes to rare, both sides. DO NOT OVERCOOK.

4. Take the reduction from #2 above, and pour over breasts sliced on the bias.

OR:

1. Take the entire bird, season with salt and pepper and put in oven on a rack, put a sliced onion and a sliced apple inside, and cover with a couple of strips of bacon. Wild birds are short on fat, but store-bought duck is full of fat. Bake at 550 for 25 minutes - rare. Duck needs to be rare for the full wild, livery flavor to be fully appreciated.

2. Slice the breast, cut off the legs and serve them too, and pour a thickened reduction of wine/port/herbs (see above) over the slices. (Hopefully you have a spare duck carcass to put into that reduction).

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You can garnish both of the above with orange slices, but do not cook an orange near a good duck. Too strong. Serve either approach with wild rice and sauteed root veggies - carrots, parsnips, celery root, etc. A few sauteed figs are nice, or sauteed pears. Whatever you do, save or use the reduction from the duck carcass - it is a base for a fine sauce for anything, like chicken. It can be frozen if you don't use it all.

The diving ducks (red-heads, canvasbacks, blue-bills, etc.) are, in my opinion, the most delicious with their liver/anchovy flavor, but some prefer the mallards and other puddle-ducks with their milder flavor. Chacun a son gout. But try to appreciate the wild ones - they concentrate the call of the wild in their flesh. Yes, you can serve with cranberry sauce - anything with feathers is enhanced by cranberries.

Posted on April 7, 2005

Maple Sugar