Fast Food Style

While we're on the subject of burgers, I ventured out of hot dog territory for my buddy's 30th birthday party last weekend. I'm no expert on the subject, in fact I can't even tell you what percentage of fat was in the meat I bought. Looked like a lot though.

This photo is a prototype I made the night before the party. Most of the ingredients came from the Reading Terminal Market - coarse ground, half sirloin half chuck beef from the Haltemann Family stand; pickles from AJ pickle patch, onions, iceberg lettuce and tomatoes from Iovine brothers; white american and orange colby cheese from one of the other Amish stands.

Then stopped at Acme for about 7 packs of Wonder Bread rolls. (Hey Metropolitan and Le Bus and whoever else- time to add artisanal fast food style soft burger buns to your repertoire)


What really made it was the special sauce, sort of cross between remoulade and russian dressing. I roasted a tomato, serrano chilis, onion and garlic, mashed them up and pushed it through my trusty old busted up chinoise "borrowed" from the kitchen of Brasserie Perrier a few years ago.. (well seasoned with 10 years of red wine sauce and truffled celery root "bisque") all that folded into a homemade mayo, then some small diced pickles and parsley thrown in.


I know "fast food style" burgers are all the rage right now but damn I love it. There's something about the comfort of a thin, loosely packed patty on a fluffy white bun mixed with just the right amount of fanciness that might be the best thing you can ever eat.

Thit Heo Kho Tau

Or Vietnamese Braised Pork Belly. This is one of my dad's favorite things to eat and the last time I went home he sighed and told me my mom is too tired to cook these kinds of meals anymore. He went on to say that one day he boiled 6 eggs in hopes of her coming home from work and seeing the eggs would think "Oh I can make this dish that Daddy loves!" But no,foiled, he told me he looked in the fridge and the eggs were gone. My little brother made tons of egg salad instead.

Our good friend Oanh made this one rainy day and I had forgotten how much I missed it. So using her super simple recipe, I decided to make it during the snow storm. The best part was the next day, we toasted up some french bread and made vietnamese sandwiches with them, YUM!

For an awesome version of this recipe see Tia Nguyen's foodblog.

My House

Tonite we made Lemongrass Shrimp Coconut Curry and it cost us about 12 bucks for the 2 of us. It made me realize that I am crazy for not buying more seafood living in South Philly. I live by Ippolito's. I also live in an Indonesian Cambodian nieghborhood so all the asian bodegas always have 5 limes for a dollar ( or sometimes 10 for a dollar) and fresh cilantro and lemongrass. In fact coconut milk, limes, and cilantro cost me 3 dollars. So tonite's meal was courtesy of the fruits of my neighborhood.

I also wanted to share my secret rice shoveling ingrediant, deep fried red onions or shallots. This little container is why I look down upon the fried onion cans that go on green bean casserole. These fried goodies taste delicious, stay crunchy and I put this all over rice, ramen, and coconut curry. Even better mix this with crushed peanuts and limes, who needs anything else?

Ippolito's Seafood
1300 Dickinson Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147-6214
(215) 389-8906

Hot Dog Cookery

Picked up some natural casing NY state hot dogs at Wegman's in Collegeville, PA. Got a pack of Zwiegels 6 to a pound "Texas Hot Dogs" and a 3 pound pack of Sahlen's for the freezer. They also had Zwiegel's White Hots - a pork,beef and veal uncured dog unique to Rochester.

This is particularly exciting because these products are extremely hard to find in Philadelphia, if not impossible. Normally eating these dogs would mean a 6 hour car ride to Buffalo or Rochester.




The Zweigel's were the best. Pan fried in butter and topped with mustard. Also tried one with onions and a mound of real PA Dutch pepper cabbage from the Reading Terminal Market - which I realize is complete regional blasphemy but it was delicous.

The Amish pepper cabbage was more briney and sweet than the pepper hash you would find on a hot dog at Moe's or 25th & Passyunk. More of a pickled flavor, like cabbage relish, but still delicious on a hot dog.

Memorial Day Weekend Grilling.

Memorial Day Grilling.

I went down to Atlanta this past weekend with my girlfriend to visit my sister and her boyfriend. You cannot spend a Memorial Day weekend without a BBQ. After two days of Mexican and Fox Bros BBQ (highly recommended) I needed ANY vegetables. Probably the healthiest meal eaten whilst there.

Grilled Bone-In Ribeye Steaks rubbed with Salt, Pepper and Cumin
Grilled Asparagus with Garlic Oil
Grilled Corn and Red Pepper Tomato Succotash
Grilled Vidalia Onions
Grilled Jumbo Shrimp with Jalapeno Lime Ginger Soy Cilantro Vinaigrette.

Yum.

Sunday Night Carnitas

Chipotle Cinnamon Carnitas Tostada
Saffron Parsnip Puree
Yellow Rice and Pigeon Peas with Fresh Avocado

I had been craving some really stellar slowly braised pork carnitas. So why not make it myself?

I de-boned a small pork shoulder and roughly cut up the pieces. In a heavy cast iron pot I braised it with bay leaf, onion, garlic, cinnamon sticks, fresh chipotle in adobo, and the bone from the shoulder. After about 2 hours I was left with tender delicious meet and a thick sauce. I separated the meat and reduced the porky chipotle sauce while skimming away the fat layer. I added more onion and a heaping amount of chopped scallions.

I fried up the meat to make it crispy and the poured the reduced sauce over it.

For my sides I boiled parsnips with vegetable stock and saffron, then pureed them.
The rice was a box mix of spanish rice and pigeon peas. I added more fresh green peas into the mix.

To plate, I took a small tortilla and toasted it in a pan with some oil and added jalapeno queso on top. I layered the carnitas and sprinkled freshly chopped cilantro.

You can see the final result. The carnitas were amazing, spicy and sweet from the cinnamon. The fresh avocado was actually a really nice combination with the saffron parsnip puree.

pantry raid bowl noodle

So Caroline gave me an assignment for her Cook and Tell article on Serious Eats. The idea was to make something spectacular using only the ingredients in your house, no cheating, no shopping allowed.

You might think a food blogging ex line cook would have an amazing kitchen stocked to the gills with food, but really it's just a totally random mess of strange things I bought at the asian market 6 months ago , a few sketchy vegetables and whatever is left over from saturday morning breakfast.

I threw on an "asian-y" broth with a hunk of salt pork and some chicken innards I found in the back of my freezer, along with a few of the sketchy carrots & onions, soy sauce and coriander, and some green onion & cilantro remnants.

Cooked the broth for an hour, strained out the stuff, dropped in a few dumplings I found in the freezer along with a block of rice noodles for 5 minutes. Cooked off some sausage (italian turkey sausage to be exact- this is where the fusion comes in folks) with onions & red peppers. poached an egg, battered it with flour / egg wash / panko and fried it up. threw everything in a bowl with some chili sauce and cilantro and some pickled leeks that I bought a year ago because the can looked cool.

It was actually pretty damn good.. panko crusting the egg was sort of unnecessary and a little bit weird texturally with the noodles and broth.. if I wasn't taking pictures i would have just fried it normally.

I was also contemplating dusting banana slices in vanilla pudding mix and almonds and deep-frying them, mixing some ancient frosting with molasses or something and plating it up real obnoxious-like.. but I just ate the banana instead.

If you want to join in the fun you can follow Caroline's articles over at Seriouseats.com

Eggs and R. Kelly

I recently moved into a new apartment with my lady and we decided to throw a little brunch get together. Little became big and Big Man made an appearance in the form of R Kelly's Trapped In The Closet - Chapters 1-22.

Eggs and R. Kelly was born.

Menu:

Fried Chicken and Jalapeno Scallion Cornbread

Raspberry or Pumpkin Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast crusted in Pecans and Coconut

Eggs Benedict Florentine with Chipotle Hollandaise

Swine Tray (minus the flu) Sausage, Bacon, Canadian Bacon

Strawberries, Mimosa's, and Bloodies.

Philly is pretty in the Spring

I am never sure if it's because all year long it's a little "unpretty" and the first sign of flowers reminds me of what a great city Philly can be.

Fresh sunny side up eggs from the fair food Reading Terminal Stand for breakfast and Herbs from the Garden.

Oh and to make summer better, a long legged birdie told me that Capagiro is opening up where Roselena's used to be on Passyunk. Woot Woot South Philly!

Easter Pot Pie

My parents' house is a great place to shoot photos of food, it's filled with all kinds of old signs and pennsylvania dutch cooking tools, handmade placemats, random stuff everywhere. It's a challenge to cook with one tiny cutting board and no counter space but I'm lucky enough that my parents aren't picky eaters and will pretty much let me make whatever. Also there's a garden out back with every herb you could want, and the hottest cookbooks of the 60's and 70's so no complaints here.

I've been dreaming about pot pie for a while, figured lamb would work for easter. Braised some lamb shanks in white wine, mint, parsley, onions, celery, etc. for 4 hours. Pulled off the meat, saved the braising liquid for the veloute sauce, threw in some fava beans, cauliflower, mushrooms, more mint, puff pasty on top, and bingo, lamb pot pie. Also asparagus with shallots and black truffle sausage, and a quasi nicoise salad.

Came out really good - sort of better than I expected. Believe me I can mess up some food too, I just don't post it on the blog. My friends smile and keep eating but in the back of my mind there's a phantom head chef with bloodshot eyes yelling at me for all the things I did wrong.

Borscht

I've never been a picky eater, even as I child I was pretty adventurous.  Raw oysters, rare steaks, I even remember eating turtle soup with my grandparents.  There is only one thing that I recall being really turned off by and that was borscht.  I think it had something about the bright fuchsia color and the old people connotations.   

During the snow storm last week I was looking through a Russian cookbook and decided it was time to give borscht another chance.  It turned out wonderfully, the combination of beets, cabbage and braised beef finished with sour cream and dill was perfect.  Nothing like the pink sludge of my childhood.

biscuits & gravy

the best hangover breakfast of all time - except maybe creamed chipped beef on toast, which is basically a philadelphia version of biscuits and gravy. It's really easy, all you need is sausage, flour, and milk or cream and some butter, maybe some hot sauce or garlic powder if you want to get fancy.

v-day food porn

Filet mignon and shrimp, surf & turf style with bearnaise sauce, and cauliflower gratin made with goat cheese and
caciatta al tartufo (black truffle sheep's milk cheese).

Tim & Chau brought some fantastic apple pie (not sure where from?). The next day we had some with the leftover truffle cheese on top and holy god damn, somebody put that on a menu already.

Bacon Explosion

The article on the Bacon Explosion hit the NY Times last week.

So of course right before Super Bowl Sunday it was perfect timing. GO STEELERS!
I wavered back and forth on making this horrendous ode to all that is swine. I nearly caved to restraint, but then a challenge was brought forth by our pigskin watching host for last night's game. The Explosion must come!

This is not at all a hard thing to make. You just need to be comfortable with the feeling of immense amounts of pork fat between your fingers. Start by latice weaving an entire package of bacon. I added a spice rub once I finished. Then smear on top two packages or tubes of breakfast sausage. Don't go for italian, I just can't sanction it, the sage and sweetness of your normal tube of Jimmy Dean will suit just fine. Once that is done, sprinkle a large handful of crispy bacon bits on top. Then roll into your cylinder of hog.

I seared off the sides before finishing for about an hour in a 325 degree oven. I then glazed in Vermont Maple Syrup.

You can add any variation to this and as long as you dont sit down and eat the entire thing, you aren't doing any more damage than a couple of sausage patties.
It shouldn't be a regular thing, but it was worth doing once.