Being Sloppy

It was some months ago when a friend mentioned that he and his wife had sloppy joes for dinner.  While the topic turned into a conversation about slo-joes, it got me thinking of when the last time I'd had a sloppy joe.  It'd indeed been a while and during the discussion of my long overdue sloppy joe, we talked about how to improve it.  It mostly concerned talk of the blown out bun or the slide out lap-landing slop that presses out the back end of a roll that planted the seed of a sloppy joe pizza.  It made sense and was the perfect solution, as the sloppy joe would be spread out and the cheese would hold it in place.  

I set upon it:

Melt 2 tbs butter.

Brown 1 lb of ground beef.

Remove beef and saute:2 small red onions3 small carrots2 stalks celery    All diced, ja?

Blend your own tomato puree (5 tomatoes) and toss together with the sauted vegetables into a pot.

Add browned beef, cider vinegar, brown sugar, garlic & mustard powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne.
Bring to a boil, reduce, and simmer on low-medium heat for 30 mins.

Then get interrupted, place in fridge, leave apartment, forget that you were going to make a sloppy joe pizza, and eat open faced sloppy joes for the next 3 days.  Wha-wha.

Get into Goetta

Shortly after I got my sausage making attachment, my friend Mooch, who's from Cincinnati, asked me if I ever made goetta.  I told him that I'd never heard of it and if he didn't stop making things up, I would give all of his socks to the homeless in the neighborhood.  Once Mooch said, "It's really good," I was out of there and on my way home in the Celebrity already looking for sock candidates.

Not being one who enjoys a tale being spun straight to his face, I understandably got back home still enraged.  The Skipper rage, as always, was short-lived, and I was made the fool once I looked up goetta (pronounced "gedda") and found that it is indeed real.  It's only massed produced and distributed around Cincinnati in the form of packaged tubes or stuffed sausages.  There are even vending machines that you can buy it out of.  Maybe that's just for Goettafest though.

Apparently, ze Germans brought it with them when they settled in the Cincinnati area, and it was a way to stretch meat.  It ends up looking like scrapple, but it doesn't have the pork scraps or corn meal, rather it's mostly steel-cut oats and ground meat.  I've just been calling it Cincinnati meatloaf when people ask me what it is, which is dumb because I have to explain what that is.  

In a gesture of redress, as well as in recognition for his upcoming 40th birthday, I made a batch for Mooch distilled from the very few recipes available online.

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground pork

1 tbs thyme

1 tbs sage

1 tbs rosemary

1 chopped onion

4 clv garlic

5 c steel-cut oats
3 qt water (filtered if you got it, brah)

Brown meat with the herbs and s/p.

Add onions and garlic.

Add oats.

 Toss oats in meat mixture to coat and heat until oats begin popping

Forgetting to take more photos, I dumped the oat/meat mixture into the pot of boiling water and let it simmer down for two hours while stirring it about every 15 minutes as to not scorch the bottom oats.  After two hours pour the mixture into loaf pans and allow to cool before chilling in the refrigerator for an hour.  After the goetta is set, plop the loaf out and slice.

It's traditionally fried in bacon grease and eaten for breakfast, but it grilled up nicely last weekend.  I don't like to burn myself out on food by eating it every day, so I sliced it, wrapped it in foil, and froze it to eat at my leisure.

End product

Just reading the ingredients list makes it seem pretty bland, but it has a great hearty taste and texture.  The outside fries/grills up crispy while the inside remains very moist with a texture that I can only describe as slightly overcooked oatmeal with the individual oats occasionally popping in your mouth similar to the way barley does.  It's fine as is, but I have it with whatever random hot sauce I grab off the shelf.

An Easy Leek

For a while Farm Fresh to You was delivering a load of leeks with every delivery.  I'd mostly added them to my broths because it really punches up the flavor of them.  They also work well in a few different soups, light and heavy.

The most basic is the potato-leek soup:

1 tbs butter

1 stalk of leek

2 minces cloves of garlic

4 small potatoes diced

1 sprig thyme

6 cups vegetable broth

Chopped chive to garnish

Season to taste with salt/pepper

Warm pot to melt butter and saute leek and garlic.

Add potato and thyme and season.

Allow leek to wilt and add broth.

Stick blend (or blend normally), ladle to bowl, and doll up with chive.

Done, duh.

So Long

So long have I not posted.  It's hopeful to me that I won't let such a long period to pass without posting again because I have been cooking: cooking and photographing, just not posting.  Allow me a little catch up.

Here is a Ukrainian version of borscht:

1/2 head of cabbage

4 small roasted beets, diced

1 can of diced tomatoes, or fresh if in season

2 small cubed potatoes

1/4 lb sliced cherries

Juice of one juicy lemon (1/4 c)

1 large diced carrot

1 large chopped onion

6 c vegetable broth (not pictured)

Salt/pepper to taste

Olive oil for sauteing 

Heat up the broth to a simmer and saute the rest of the ingredients.

Combine it all in the pot of broth.

Get a close-up photo of it.

Simmer for 30 minutes, and serve yourself and your friend a bowl.

This was a nice light quick (1 hour prep/cook time) borscht recipe and lets me take advantage of my friend's lemon tree instead of using the usual red wine vinegar that's normally called for and forgoes the sour cream topping.

Hammin' X-mas

Christmas has come and gone, but the ham remains...

I bought a 10 lb ham from Taylor's Market 10 days before Christmas having in mind that I would make a X-mas ham.  You don't have to, but I removed the skin of what is called a fresh ham leg; i.e., it's hasn't been adulterated with brine or anything.

You now have a big sheet of skin that you can scare the neighbor kids with when you hold it over your face.

For good measure, I injected the shank end of the leg with the brine:

4 l water
350 g kosher salt
350 g raw sugar
42 g curing salt

1/4 c molasses
1 tbs juniper berries
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
1 small chunk of ginger
4 stalks of lemongrass

After 8 days immersed in the brine, rinse off the leg, and let it sit in the fridge uncovered on a rack to develop the pellicle to which the smoke can attach.  Then smoke the whole thing with alder wood on the 9th day for 2 hours.

Slow-roast the ham on the 10th day at 250°F for 3 hours or until the internal tempurature is up to 150°F.  During the last 30 minutes of roasting turn up the oven to 350°F and glaze:

1 c pineaple juice
1 orange zested and squeezed
1/4 c honey
2 tbs dijon mustard
1/2 c raw sugar
1 tsp salt/pepper

At X-mas dinner, the family is pleased with all the work they don't know you put into transforming a pork leg into a ham.

A Little Tongue

 Alright, I lied.  It's a big tongue.  A big 3.5 lb beef tongue.

As Sacramento lacks a decent Jewish deli where I can pick up some pickled tongue, I started pickling, or rather, started brining one last week.  Were it a beef brisket, it'd be called corning, but it'd still be brining.  I made it once before last August and smoked it on a camping trip.  It basically tasted like a really tender slice of corned beef, or as my friend Joe told me, it tasted "legit."

It takes about 5 days to brine this thick cut of beef, and the brine I used is just the simple one that I use for corned beef:

2 l water

225 g kosher salt

50 g sugar

13 g pink salt

3 crushed garlic gloves

1 tbs pickling spice

Heat all of this until everything is dissolved, of course, and place tongue and brine into a container or zip seal bag.

After 5 days brining in a cold spot, rinse the tongue, place it in a pot that it will fit in, cover with water, and add another tablespoon of pickling spice.

Bring the pot to a boil and simmer gently for 3 hours.

As with the first time, it was still a little disturbing that the tongue muscle still retains the tastebud texture after pulling the skin off.

Especially when you get real close to get a good look at it.

This is one of those cuts of meat that I don't use too often and much like butchering up half a pig or deboning a whole bird, I cannot help but think to myself that I would hate if someone was doing this to me: having my tongue cut out, brined, boiled and then the skin torn off.  Kinda brutal, so it's best not to dwell on it.  When it's finally turned into a sandwich all those thoughts melt away though.

A smear of Düsseldorfer Senf and homemade sauerkraut on a toasted roll and ya done.

And it all only took 5 days, 3 hours, and 15 minutes.  An extra hour or two if you want to smoke it.

I Need Schmor

Due to the severe cooling of Sacramento to 86°F today, I needed something to warm the bones.  Naturally I chose to make a Berliner Schmorbraten or Berlin-style pot roast.  It starts with a mustard rub consisting of:

1 heavy tbs dijon mustard

2 tsp granulated garlic

1 tsp each of salt/pepper

2 sprigs of thyme (leaves stripped)

a couple good rubs of fresh grated nutmeg

3 pulverized cloves

 + a 4 lbs rinsed and patted dry beef shoulder roast

= a mustard rubbed pot roast

This is seared on all sides and removed in order to saute some vegetables:

1 med parsnip
1/2 c carrots
1 med onion
2 stalks celery

Once browned, deglaze the pot with the Pflaumengeist (plum schnapps) that you keep in your cupboard.  Then add a tablespoon of potato starch, coat the vegetables, and place the pot roast back in the pot.  To this add:

1 can/bottle of Bitburger or other pilsener (a Berliner Weisse is ideal, but what can you do?)
2 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs white wine vinegar (barring that, use your champagne vinegar)

Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer on low heat for one and a half hours.  Remove the meat and half the vegetables (discarding the thyme sprigs and bay leaves).  Puree the remaining vegetables and stock with a stick blender or however you want to do it.  Then add:

2 cubed red potatoes
5 large button mushrooms

Simmer at medium heat for 30 minutes.  Then slice the meat and plate with the reserved vegetables, potatoes, and mushrooms--pouring the thickened sauce over the meat and vegetables.

Mmm...now eat one plate and give the rest to your neighbor.