Alton Brown and Candied Ginger

One of the few things I miss about not having cable: Good Eats. I really enjoy Alton Brown's approach to cooking-perhaps because he spends a lot of time discussing the chemistry of cooking. Plus he reminds me of my gen chem professor-quirky, smart, fun, educational. In fact, I'm convinced that if he wasn't a chef, he'd be a chemist.

Anyway I made his recipe for candied ginger today. It's pretty simple but does take a while to prepare. The end product, though, is great: sweet, crunchy, and spicy. I love it!

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Best Apple(sauce) pie EVER

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Or so I'm told.

There is also more than one way to make an apple pie.

The classic American apple pie--you know, the one you get at a diner or in the frozen food section--typically consists of large chunks or slices of apple in a very sweet, thick sauce, all contained under and in a thick crust. And I don't like it. Something about the texture of the gooey sauce and the lackluster apple flavor... This just isn't my thing.

I grew up with a very different apple pie. Instead of slicing or dicing, the apples were shredded (using a food processor), then mixed with sugar and cinnamon (possible another spice or two), plopped in pie crust and baked (without a top crust). Something about the intense apple flavor and the homogeneity of each bite. This is better.

However, I recently discovered my favorite apple pie in my own kitchen. Applesauce pie presents this paradox of simplicity of ingredients and complexity of flavors. The texture is distinct from either of the two I described. It melts in your mouth. It pleases the tongue. This is a new favorite for Paramed and me.

The lab manual for this experiment was The All-New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook--not one I use frequently but general execution of recipes are deemed successes. An advantage to this particular recipe is that it is best once it has cooled completely, so you can make it a day or two in advance of serving it without a problem--provided you have a safe with biometric scanners in which to store it.

So, just in time for the holidays:

Applesauce pie

Reagents

• 10 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped
• 1 large lemon, sliced and seeded
• 2-1/2 cups of sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter (or margarine)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (15-ounce) package refrigerated piecrusts (don't forget to bring to room temperature before use)
  

Protocol

• Cook the apples, lemon, and sugar in a Dutch oven (or a very large skillet or pot) over medium heat, stirring often, until thickened (~35 to 40 min). Remove from heat. Discard lemon. Add butter and vanilla. Allow to cool.
• Fit 1 pie crust to a 9-inch pie plate. Pour applesauce filling into crust.
• Unroll, cut remaining pie crust into 1/2-inch wide strips, and arrange in lattice pattern over filling. Other top crust options would probably work and be less complicated to execute. As you can see in the pic, I opted to leave the top crust off altogether on another occasion.
• Bake on lowest rack in over at 425 F for 30 to 35 min or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.
• Try to keep your spouse from eating it all before serving it.
  

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The Great Pumpkin... recipe

There was a pumpkin slaughter at my home last night. And it was so worth it.

I've been planning to make Disgruntled Julie's Chocolate Chip Pudding Pumpkin Bread for a few weeks, but there's always something else to do. Well, I was in desperate need of some therapeutic baking last night, so I stayed up late to make it. It is absolutely delicious. Run! Get some pumpkins!! Make this soon, if not today!

As a note on the pumpkin puree, I used sugar pumpkins, ~2 lbs. each. They had a really hard outer shell; cutting them in half involved a large butcher's and a metal meat mallet. I'm considering the jigsaw next time--seriously. Anyway, once I had cleaved them in two, I scooped out all the seeds and as much of the stringy guts that I could. I then placed them cut side down on a large cookie sheet with a thin layer of water and baked them at 350 degrees F for ~ 1 to 1-1/5 hours. After letting them cool, I scooped out the pumpkin flesh and beat it in my KitchenAid mixer with the paddle attachment on low (setting 2) for a few minutes until it was a nice, homogeneous consistency. I think most people use a food processor, but I don't have one and have no space to store one in my tiny kitchen. Three pumpkins made about 7 cups of puree. Unused puree can be aliquoted and frozen.

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Shepherd's pie

As promised...

Reagents

• leftover pot roast, ~1 lb. cut into 1 to 1-1/2 in. cubes
• leftover mashed potatoes, ~3 cups
• leftover gravy, ~1-1/2 c.
  
• shredded cheddar, 1 c.
• frozen vegetable medley (I used Bird's Eye "Classic Medley", which is corn, carrot cubes, peas, and green beans)
• cornstarch
  

Protocol

• Cook 2 to 3 cups of vegetable medley according to package instructions and drain.
• Thicken gravy (as necessary). It should still be thin enough to pour. The best analogy is about the thickness of hot fudge (when it's actually hot).
• Combine the vegetable medley, pot roast, and gravy in a large bowl and mix well. Transfer to a deep casserole dish (I used a 10-in round stoneware dish). Spread mashed potatoes evenly across the top. Cover with aluminum foil.
  
• Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 40 min.
• Top with cheese and return to oven. Bake, uncovered, until cheese is melted and begins to brown. Alternatively, if you're impatient like I was, bake uncovered for ~5 to 7 min, until the cheese is melted, then broil to brown the cheese; just keep a close eye on it, so it doesn't burn.

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Slow cooking: Pot roast

Pot roast is one of those dishes that's fantastic for a chilly night, which we're getting pretty much every night in my postdoc city now. I highly recommend fixing a big ol' pot of simple mashed potatoes--with or without skins, but only use milk, butter, and salt during the mashing. You can use leftover mashed potatoes, pot roast, and gravy to make a shepherd's pie :) I'll post that recipe next.

Reagents

• Lean beef roast (mine was ~3.5 lbs)
  
• 2 to 3 large carrots
• 1 to 1-1/2 large onions (preferably sweet)
• 2 c. chicken stock
• 3 to 4 cloves garlic
• kosher salt
  
• freshly ground black pepper
• dried thyme
• olive oil
  
• 1/4 to 1/2 c. water (or possibly dry red wine)

Special equimpent

• Large slow cooker
• Large skillet
  

Protocol

• Cut carrots and onions into large slices/chunks. Slice garlic gloves in half. Set aside.
  
• Place the roast in a large bowl. Coat the roast lightly with olive oil then sprinkle with kosher salt (~2 to 3 t.) and a mixture of freshly ground black pepper and thyme (~2 T. at 5:1 ratio of pepper:thyme).
• Heat a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Once the skillet is hot, sear the roast on all sides, ~2 to 3 min per side. Remove the roast from the pan and set aside.
• Add 1/4 to 1/2 c. water (which I used) or dry red wine (which I think would be pretty fantastic but haven't tried yet) to the pan. Scrape the pan and reduce heat to low.
  
• Stab the top of the roast with a 1-in wide knife 6 to 8 times to a depth of ~1/2 the thickness of the roast. Push pieces of garlic into the holes.
• Add chicken stock to slow cooker. Place roast in cooker. Pour pan juices over the roast. Add carrots and onions to cooker around roast.
• Cook on low for 8 h.
• After roast is finished, transfer it and the vegetables to a large dish or platter and cover with aluminum foil.
• To make gravy: Pour cooking liquid from the slow cooker through a colander/strainer into a small saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat. Mix cornstarch in cold water. Slowly add to cooking liquid and simmer. (The amount of cornstarch you use is dependent on how thick you like your gravy).

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Perfect pairing: Mole + imperial stout

Pairing food and wine has become quite popular over the past few decades. A truly fantastic pairing brings out distinct flavors and notes of the wine and the dish it is paired with.

More recently, pairing food with a complementary beer has started to emerge. This can perhaps be most often observed at microbreweries that also run their own restaurants. If you haven't tried beer outside of those mass produced at large commercial breweries, then this may not make much sense to you. In your mind, perhaps, beer is beer, stout is Guinness... The truth is a vast, wonderfully complex spectrum of flavors, rivaling that of your wine list, can be found with beer. And just as pairing food and wine brings out unexpected notes in both, so does pairing food and beer.

OK. Now that I have extolled the virtue of pairing beer with food, let me share the one I discovered last night at a local pub/restaurant. I decided to try their pork mole. If you're not familiar with it as it is found in the US, mole is a sauce made with dried chiles, nuts/seeds (ground), and chocolate. In the Americanized version, bittersweet chocolate is often used, but traditionally 'Mexican chocolate' goes into the dish. (Mexican chocolate is essentially ground cacao beans mixed with spices and a bit of sugar. It has a distinct texture and flavor when compared to European chocolate and seems to be the 'new' thing in specialty chocolates.) The ingredients in mole give it a rich, strong, spicy flavor. The restaurant I was at uses chipotle (a smoked, dried jalapeno) in its mole, which adds a nice smokey flavor. The beans served with the mole had that smokey, chipotle flavor, as well.

I paired the mole with Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout. This is classified as a Russian Imperial Stout, so it has little carbonation and a big flavor. The Brooklyn Chocolate Stout has a subtle chocolate flavor. I will confess that I'm not great at defining how 'hoppy' a beer is. Several reviews refer to the 'hoppy bitterness' in this beer, but it's a completely different flavor than hoppy bitterness in an ale. Pairing this rich, powerful beer with the rich mole actually created a nice balance that kept either from being overwhelming. Funny how that works...

* I couldn't resist putting up a picture of a mole chemist, especially with it being so close to Mole Day, because I am that much of a geek.

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Cajun-cut ribeye

I'm back. Finally. Suffice it to say, life has been pretty crazy. Then again I'm not sure that it's ever not.

Part of the craziness involved being deprived of good food for nearly a week. Over the weekend I was away at a department retreat in the middle of nowhere. Although the buffet food wasn't terrible, it was typical of a hotel buffet: everything overcooked, meat smothered in sauce, vegetables underseasoned. This was followed by a restricted diet, under which I was essentially left with white bread, tender meats, cheese, and a very small subset of cooked vegetables. Then a day of broth, juice, and jello. Blah. And no coffee. That's just cruel. But I am now back on the coffee and whatever I want to eat. It's the small things in life, you know.

Speaking of small things, one that Paramed and I indulge in periodically is a good steak. Sometimes it's tough to find a good steak that you can have more than once a year on a medic and postdoc's salary. Fortunately some years ago, I had a couple of meals at Foster's Market while on a grad school visit in Durham, NC (as an aside, I highly recommend the restaurant, especially as I was vegetarian at the time and loved it). I picked up The Foster's Market Cookbook before I left, and in the years since, one recipe (with some adaptations) has become our standby for steak night (yes, I gave up the vegetarianism along the way).

Reagents

• 1 to 1.5 lb rib eye steak - We have tried other cuts, but they just don't turn out the same. Also the original recipe calls for a single big-ass steak, but we usually end up with two smaller ones.
• 1/2 cup port or dry red wine - Haven't tried port in the recipe. Beer works, but a nice bold red (I prefer a Shiraz or Cabernet mix) is better.
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  
• 2 teaspoons fresh cracked black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary - I personally think fresh is better
• 1 roasted red bell pepper, diced - You can use store bought or roast your own.
• Optional: 1 roasted jalapeno pepper, peeled, seeded and diced - This is in the original recipe but makes it a bit too spicy to truly enjoy the steak flavor. If you decide to use it, toss it in at the same time as the red pepper.

Special equipment

• A large cast iron or other oven safe skillet
  

Protocol

• Whisk together wine, mustard, Worcestershire, and soy sauce in a small bowl.
• In another small bowl, combine black pepper, cayenne, and rosemary.
• Place the steak(s) in a deep glass or stoneware dish. Pour the wine mixture over the steaks. Then press half of the pepper/rosemary mixture into each side of the steak. Marinate at cool room temperature for up to 2 hrs. (I wouldn't go much less than an hour).
• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
• The next part will smoke up your kitchen, so crank up the exhaust fan, open a window, whatever you need to do. Heat a large, cast iron skillet over medium high-heat to the smoking point, about 10 minutes. I've also used a stainless steel pan here. The key is to have a large (12-in or more), heavy duty skillet that transfers heat well and is oven safte.
• Place the steak in the hot skillet and cook on each side for 3 min. (This creates a really nice sear on the steak. Also you can throw in some sliced sweet onions, if you like). Cut the heat and immediately pour remaining marinade on top of the steak. Toss roasted pepper in the skillet and transfer to preheated oven.
• Cook to an internal temp of 150 to 120 F for rare, 125 to 130 F for medium-rare steak. The original recipe, which uses a single 1.5 lb steak, recommends ~15 min for rare and ~20 for medium-rare. My experience using two steaks totaling 1 to 1.5 lb is that ~10 min is sufficient for rare.
• Transfer the steak to plate/carving board and allow it to rest for five minute before serving and slicing. Top with peppers, pan juices, and onions, if using.

Serve it up with a nice baked (sweet) potato and a glass of that wine, and you're in the steakhouse business :)

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Intro

Many scientists I know--the ones that I've interacted with in person and the ones I've met in the bloggosphere--are also proud foodies. I count myself among that group. I am from the South, after all, so how could I not love food?

One of the problems I've encountered in my endeavor to find fabulous food and awesome (on so many levels) alcohol is that lack of storage space in my brain. There have been several times when Paramed (my spouse) and I have spent a long time trying to remember the name of a wine or cheese or where we found some recipe. Thus I have decided to create a repository here on the interwebz, a chronicle of the things in the food world I've tried.

Of course, I am a scientist through and through, so you may occasionally see some article that integrates these favorite topics.

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