Deus Ex Culina

Lime Marinated Basa

Thanks for the welcome!

One day, I got the idea to make ceviche. This is a Mexican/S. American dish where you marinate shrimp or whitefish in lime juice and the juice actually "cooks" the fish. Then I realized it takes several hours for the reaction to occur and I had to serve dinner in two hours. So I punted and it turned out quite well.

I had some basa filets in the freezer, but you can use any mild white fish.

4 to 5 six inch basa filets, fresh, or thawed if frozen
Juice of 2 limes
1/2 white onion, sliced
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 to 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Place the filets in a glass dish, or non-aluminum pan. I used a Pyrex. Put all the other ingredients on top and mix it all up with your hands. I squished the fish a little to let the juices get in. You can also add some fresh cilantro if you like.

Marinate in the fridge for up to two hours.

Bake, covered, at 350 F for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the basa is opaque and flakes easily. If you're using thinner filets, go with the shorter time. We served this with pasta shells mixed with fried mushrooms and a little olive oil and herbs, but rice would also go well with this dish.

Still want to try the ceviche someday, but this turned out very tender and tasty, my guests agreed!

Welcome Wishanick

Please join me in welcoming our latest member to Deus ex Culina, Wishanick. We look forward to many new and exciting recipes form her!

Also, if I need to move anybody up in the rankings, just shoot an email to me at samablog at gmail.com and I'll get it taken care of.

Thanks!

Grilled Duck Breasts

Saturday night, we consumed outstanding grilled duck breasts ! The genesis for this meal came from my 12yr child. A month ago, we took a family trip to NYC- 1 of my ground rules was that we had 1 nice dinner at a top restaurant. After some web searching and asking friends who had recently visited NYC, we settled on 50 Carmine. This is a wonderful Italian Restaurant in the West Village of NYC. Top rated with just about every reviewer that has tried the place- run a web search and you will see what I mean. The courses are arranged in classical style- Anitpasti-Primi-Secondi-Dolce. The Primi dishes are all Pasta dishes. One of the specialties recommended by friends was a Pappardelle with Duck Ragu. Freshly made ribbons of pappardelle, a rich and creamy ragu with large pieces of duck breast and confit plus herbs and mushrooms. We ordered several Primi dishes, with the expectation of passing each dish around. The Ragu dish was placed in front of my daughter- after 1 bite, she refused to relinquish the dish ! I had a forkful and understood why….. Since then she has been pestering me to prepare duck at home. I have wanted to prepare duck breasts for a while and saw this as my opportunity.

On with the show:

4 x 4-6oz duck breasts- with skin/fat still attached

Marinade-
1/4c Raspberry vinegar
1/4c Soy sauce
2 Tbls ea- chopped FRESH marjoram, rosemary, and sage
2 Tbls good Raspberry Jam
1 ts ea salt and ground black pepper

Mix together marinade ingredients. Trim excess fat from edges of breast.
Score the skin side of the breast in a diamond pattern, taking care not to pierce the flesh. Add breasts to marinade and marinade 2-3hrs.

Prepare grill to hot, coals 5-6in away from the grill surface

After breasts are removed from marinade, pour marinade into a small saucepan and add another 2 Tbs of Raspberry Jam. Medium heat until mixture boils, and then reduce heat to simmer.

When grill is ready, grill breasts, meat side down, for 2 min. Flip to skin side down, cover, and grill for 10min. Watch for flare-ups and dowse with water as needed!! Flip again and grill for another 3-5min for rare; 5-8min for med.

Remove from grill and let stand for 5min on cutting board. Slice on the bias.

To serve- arranged sliced breast on the plate, spoon raspberry sauce over.

We devoured every bite ! My daughter loved it as did my wife (she can take or leave duck). This was as good or better than the best restaurant preparation I have had the pleasure of eating.

I served this with wild, herb rice and roasted cauliflower. Wine was a St. Emillion from the Burgundy Region of France. OK but good for the price. My wife attended a wine tasting and came home with this. The white she also purchased is much better.

Enjoy !

Oinkfest Finale

We just ate the pig. It was unlike anything I'd ever tasted. A complete triumph. I'll post pics later, but for now I'm too busy basking in my own glory.

I'll post a more complete description later. IN the meantime, I wish everyone a happy and healthy Independence Day.

Be Good!

Oinkfest #4

Cole slaw is the necessary side dish when eating pulled pork BBQ. And frankly, there's more than one way to make cole slaw. As you can see below, they all look kind of the same, but each has its own unique twist to suit varying tastes. Join me as we make regular, blue cheese balsamic, and spicy asian cole slaws.

Slaws (and some other things)

(I'll fix the photo quality when I'm at my own machine.)

The ingredients for any cole slaw are basic, and since I made all of these slaws concurrently, I'll describe to you what I did to make all this slaw in aggregate.

Ingredients:

• Two heads green cabbage
  
• One head red cabbage
  
• Three carrotts
  
• Maynonnaise
  
• One jar of remaining pickle brine from Claussen's dill pickles
  
• Balsamic vinegar
  
• blue cheese
  
• one bunch scallions
  
• red hot pepper flakes
  
• mongolian fire oil
  
• One jar hearts of palm
  
• Rice Wine vinegar

Begin by shredding all the cabbage. This is more time consuming than you'd think, so allow plenty of time. Shred the carrotts as well. Then, when making each individual slaw, grab proportionate amounts of the cabbage and carrotts to make each slaw.

Regular Slaw:
Mix the cabbage carrott mixture with about 4 tablespoons of mayo, and the jar of pickle brine. Toss, add salt to taste. Chill and enjoy.

Blue Cheese Balsamic Slaw:
Mix cabbage carrott mixture with about 4 tablespoons of mayo (or to taste). Shred hearts of palm and add. Shred blue cheese to taste and add. Add balsamic vinegar to taste. Chill and serve.

Spicy Asian Slaw:
Again, mix cabbage and carrotts. Slice scallions thinly and add. Add mayo to taste, I think I did about 1/2 the other recipes. Add gobs of Mongolian fire oil, and rice wine vinegar to taste. Add hot pepper flakes liberally. Chill, serve, and laugh at your wimpy friends.

Oinkfest #3

Let's talk sauces...

Most people are familiar with the Kansas City and Texas style BBQ sauces, the tomato based type. I made one of those for Oinkfest, and because I have the smoker, I put the sauce in the smoker for about 8 hours to give it that rich smoky taste that we all love in a BBQ sauce. I'll give you the recipe below, but in the meantime, let's check in on Oinky:

Oinky, black from the smoke

Ingredients:

• Ketchup
  
• Mustard
  
• Apple Cider Vinegar
  
• Hot Sauce
  
• Spice Rub
  
• Jack Daniels
  

• Basically, you mix all the ingredients together in a pyrex bowl, and smoke for 8 hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so. What are the proportions you ask? Well, it's not like I measured exactly, but basically I started with a pint of real maple syrup, assed about 1/3 of a 3lb bottle of ketchup, squirted in a bunch of French's mustard, I'd say 3 tablespoons, added JD and vinegart to taste, and a small package of habanero hot sauce.

  Let me tell you that using maple syrup as a base for sauce yields results like no other.

  The other kind of sauce, of course, is the North Carolina vinegar based sauce. That one is real easy to make. Take about 32oz of apple cider vinegar, add to that a few tablespoons of ketchup, mustard (I prefer Nance's Sharp & Creamy, but I can't seem to find it anymore), a few cloves of crushed garlic, and a tablespoon or so of spice rub. Shake it up, and serve with pulled pork. No cooking necessary.

  Posted by rsama at 09:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Oinkfest #2

So we've been smoking the pig for some time now, and it's a bit too dark to take pictures outside, but here's one of the pig just as it went into the smoker:

Oinky gets smoked

He went on the smoker at about 10pm. And there was some work involved in getting him on. Read on to see what was entailed.

Ok, so you're wondering, "Why does this pig have tin foil on it's ears and snout?" No, it's not to shield it from alien rays. It's to keep them from burning during the smoking process. They'll come off just before serving.

So what does one do to a pig after a good long brining? Well, you clean off the peppercorns that are stuck to and in every orifice of its body, wash off any coagulated salt, and you apply a rub. Now unlike a rub for ribs or brisket, this one needs no salt or sugar, as the beast has already been brined in salt and sugar plenty.

BBQ rubs are the stuff of intrigue and secrecy among afficianados, and few will reveal their actual recipe. As for me, I don't take precise enough measurements to be able to tell you exactly what I did apply in the end. But I can tell you that it contains chili powder, ground sage, dry mustard, paprika, cumin, tumeric, garlic powder, ground thyme and ground black pepper. Apple liberally to the inside of the animal and less so to the outside.

Of course, a pig would dry out very quickly in a smoker let alone, so one must apply moisture every 20 minutes to meep it moist and to add flavor. My mop is basically 1/2 apple cider vinegar to 1/2 Jack Daniels, with a healthy dose of rub thrown in there to make up for what gets washed off by the liquid.

Ok, so me and the battle hogs will be up all night smoking. Anf I have three cole slaw recipes to sharem as well as two BBQ sauce recipes in the coming hours. But as it is, I'm beginning to feel sleep deprived and a little drunk (I'll share the Dark & Stormy respie with you as well), so I'd better mosey on along. Stay tuned for progress reports and more recipes.

Oinkfest #1

If you haven't already heard, this weekend, for the Fourth of July, my friends and I will be slow smoking a pig in an event called Oinkfest 2004. This will be part narrative, part recipe, as I detail the preparation for the event tomorrow.

Basically, while I've been into slow smoked BBQ for some time, I've never attempted a whole hog. And while a 22 1/2 lbs suckling pug isn't really a hog, it is the whole animal, and I figured it should be an interesting experience to attempt to smoke it. The first step, of course, is procuring the pig.

The WSJ had a great article this week on cooking whole animals. We got out pig by ordering it through our local butcher, John Dewar's in Newton, MA. We got a 22 1/2 lbs pig, and it cost us about $120, or roughly $5.60/lb. I took the pig home, unwrapped it, and snapped a picture, since neither you nor my guests would be seeing it in this state ever again.

Oinky the Pig

The pig came in triple wrapped plastic pags. I opened all three bags in the sink, and removed and inspected the pig. I should tell you right off that this is not a job for one person alone, and if I had it to do over again, I would request the assistance of a friend. This is an elongated animal, as opposed to a more round sort of creature like a turkey, and so handling it, picking it up, moving it around, is a bit difficult for one person. So definitely, get a friend's help.

The other thing to keep in mind is the smell. Having a whole pig in your kitchen can make your house smell like a butcher shop. There was still some residual blood in the bag when I opened it, and there was what appeared to be an artery that I needed to cut out as well. The liver appeared to have been left inside, and while I considered keeping it and using it for some purpose, I eventually decided to just discard it.

Normally, when preparing ribs, you are supposed to remove the tendon that covers the inside of the rib cavity because it becomes tough when cooking, and interferes with the smoke penetrating the meat. I have seen this done with whole hogs as well. I attempted this with the suckling pig, but the tendon was so fine, it was virtually impossible to remove. I tend to think that on such a young animal, this won't matter much anyway.

Finally, I had been wondering how they would remove the brain while keeping the animal in tact. There is, on Oinky's forehead, what appears to be a drill mark or bullet hole, and I suspect that the brain was sucked out through that hole.

Ok, on to the brine. I decided to brine the animal for about 24 hours before sending it to the smoker. The brine I decided to go with was a Coca-Cola based brine. Be certain if you do this not to use a diet soda, but rather one with real sugar in it, as artificial sweetners don't always cook well. I got this brine recipe off the Internet, and it seems to be a commonly used one.

Ingredients:

• 2 liters Coca Cola
  
• 3 cups Kosher Salt
  
• 2 heads garlic
  
• 10 bay leaves
  
• 1/2 cup black peppercorns

Basically, just mix everything together wither in a container large enough to hold it and the pig, or in a giant garbage bag. If you use a bag, you may want to put that in a container anyways, as the bag may leak, and if it does, you'll have a mess. It goes without saying that I was unable to accomplish this feat myself without making something of a mess. Flip the pig over in the brine after 12 hours, to ensure even marination.

Oinky brining in my fridge.

And that's it for now. Stay tuned as I make BBQ sauces and cole slaws for the event, and as we put a rub on the pig and smoke it!

Check back often.