Comfort Zone

Things for the restaurant are flying by at a meteoric pace right now and it seems hard to slow down enough to do anything but work and cook for sustenance; yet Christmas was such an incredible respite from hectic life. Life moves at a slower pace in the South and I will forever love that and be linked to the concept of whole animal eating due to my grand and great grandparents heritage and my mother's gracious gift of the seminal texts by Fergus Henderson "The Whole Beast" and "Beyond Nose to Tail." I grew up with fried hog jowl and black eyed peas every New Year's Eve and have now graduated to Fergus' fried pigs tails and warm pig head salad.

There is something disconcerting to the American psyche to see an animal's head sitting on a plate. I was a bit offput at times trying to cook it but it was truly an opportunity for growth and liberation. The idea that one of the most delicious salads I have ever made was born out of a necessity meat- a cut that our ancestors took great pleasure in turning into headcheese. To think something beautiful can come from a cut that terrifies so many that would ultimately agree that the end result is a success.

 

The peppery arugula paired with the richness of the pork and the tang of the mustard vinaigrette harmonize as much as Henderson meant it to. We must throw caution to the wind and try to cook foods out of our comfort zone. You will find yourself with combinations beyond your wildest dreams when off bits are added to your repertoire. 

Unlike my usual form of posting a recipe I am going to leave you with a final thought. Find one of Fergus Henderson's books and use it to change the way you look at waste and the way you approach cooking. May every bone have a chance for a stock and every head have a chance for a salad.
Happy cooking!

Painting by Numbers

It's funny to me to take note of how people talk and share stories about food and meals, recipes in particular. Typically if I receive a recommendation for a recipe, it's because there is some family history to it, or its been copied on to a scant, wrinkled sheet of paper with little to no attachment to its original source. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Food should be inspired and original. Nine times out of ten, I would say that citing off chef, cook book, and page number is less likely to make motivate me to try a recipe than hearing someone describe at as similair to a dish their grandmother made, or a recipe they could do something unique and interesting too.

For Christmas this year, Daniel and I received a plethora of cookbooks, including Nancy Silverton's Breads, Michael Ruhlman's Ratio, and Fergus Henderson's Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose to Tail.With books like Breads and Ratio, it's easy to adapt recipe and personalize them to your own tastes. A cookie is a cookie by any other name, and a baguette is a baguette. These are framiliar, comfortable. This may not be as true with Fergus Henderson (more on that later), but there are still elements of framiliarity and comfort that give you courage to try something new, go out of order, add or subtract components, and basically make something your own.

Every once in awhile though, a recipe just catches your eye that I think you have to go at verbatim, teaspoon by teaspoon, step by step. It's these recipes that remind me of the 'paint by number' paintings I remember doing growing up. I'm much more comfortable with a pen and paper to write, than I am with a paintbrush and pallete to fill. Similairly, I'm much more comfortable whipping up a delightful dessert or warming soup than I am creating a silky veloute to combine with some odd meat puree. But, it's in these moments of unfamiliarity that you can be comforted (I think anyway) by the culinary delights created by others, and reawaken your culinary curiosity.

Mortadella Smear  Taken from this recipe in the Jan/Feb Edition of Saveur
1/3 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/3 cup chicken stock
1 lb mortadella without pistachios
1/3 cup heavy cream, whipped
1 small loaf of a crusty sourdough
4 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp crushed pistachios
1/2 cup arugula


1. Reduce vinegar by half in small saucepan over medium heat.Set aside.
2. In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Whisk in flour and continue whisking for one minute. Slowly whisk in stock and cook until thickend to make veloute. Set aside to cool.
3. In meat grinder or food processor, process mortadella until pureed. Transfer to bowl and fold in whipped cream and veloute sauce. 
4. Rub bread with olive oil and toast. 


To Serve: Smear the bread wit the mortadella, garnish with arugula, pistachios, and a drizzle of balsamic. Serve warm. Enjoy!

Published by Saveur, and originally taken from Chicago's Purple Pig restaurant, this produce a delightful and "devastatingly addictive" treat. A simple creamy, meaty, satisfying mortadella spread atop a toasty baguette, topped with a little bit of peppery arugula, nutty pistachios, and a splash of reduced balsamic for the tiniest hint of sweetness. Truthfully, this new recipe is nothing earth-shattering. If you've never tried mortadella, its basically an Italian bologna that looks, smells, and tastes, pretty much like bologna if you sample the variety without pistachios. Even if you're thrown off by the bologna comparison, it truly is an intriguing delight.When selecting the next post to blog about, someone may have scoffed at my desire to share this verbatim rendition of a recipe, but it struck me as something new, and something I may not have tried if someone hadn't drawn the lines and numbered the color palette or taste palate for me.

A Bright Spot

I don't want to jinx myself, but I think that I have almost fully recovered (hurray!!), minus a small cough that I was told would probably last another week or two (thanks?). But, nonetheless, featuring a bright dish seemed appropriate to complement my bright and happy mood at recovering.

Our outdoor farmer's markets are coming to a close in Columbus. This Saturday I believe is the last one before they move indoors (where it becomes more arts and crafts than produce, for obvious reasons). Although I'm very sad at that being removed from our weekly leisure stroll through downtown areas, it does mean we can instead trek to Columbus' North Market and enjoy some of the unique things they offer.But anyway, as the season is winding down, aside from a plethora of leftover peppers and butternut squash an pumpkins, what the market has been full with at least the last few weeks as been an assortment of winter greens including the kale and arugula we were able to pick up. The kale went into a soup while I was to sick to take photos, but the recipe was pretty close to this one. For the arugula, we came up with this lovely dish:

 Some fresh pasta with an arugula pesto, tossed with garlic roasted tomatoes. The pesto was quite tasty with the substitution of the peppery arugula for the herbacious basil. If you prefer, I see no reason why you couldn't include some basil in it.  The original recipe we used was almost the same as what was printed below, but we felt it needed some acidity to balance it out a little, so we added the lemon juice. The sweet garlic flavor of the roasted tomatoes was a nice complement to the sauce once balanced, and of course the pasta was delicious with that amazing texture you can achieve when using fresh pasta. Enjoy!

Arugula Pesto:

4 cups (packed) arugula leaves (about 6 ounces)

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

1/4 cup (packed) freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup olive oil

Juice from 1/2 lemon

1. Place washed arugula leaves (stems removed) in blender along with toasted pine nuts and Parmesan cheese. Blend until almost smooth. Gradually add olive oil and lemon juice and process until well blended. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Garlic Roasted Tomatoes

Approx 2  Cups Grape or Cherry Tomatoes

Salt & Pepper to Season

1 Clove Garlic

2 Tbsp Olive Oil + Additional for Pan

1. Preheat oven to 350. In blender, combine 2 tbsp olive oil and i clove garlic. Blend until smooth. Toss tomatoes with garlic-olive oil mixture. Place tomatoes on lightly oiled panned. Roast for 45 minutes or until tomatoes begin to brown.