almost awesome split pea

The weather has turned into a constant cold (rather than the fluctuating from mild to cold and back all through November), so something warming was called for.

I made a batch of pea soup last year that totally rocked. Best pea soup EVAR. Somehow, I was so awed by my abilities that I failed to record anything I did. So this time I kind of winged it...found a good basic recipe online and added what touches I could remember from that rockin' batch.

I crisped up some tiny diced bacon, which I set aside to top the finished soup. I cooked 1 white onion, two carrots and 2 stalks of celery, all finely diced, in the bacon fat and some olive oil until they were very soft. Then I put a 1 lb. bag of dried split peas (that I had rinsed and sorted through), a big hunk of my bacon and water to cover everything by a couple inches. I covered that and just let it cook away at a slight simmer for a couple hours.

By then it was bedtime and we'd already eaten something else, so I dropped in a bundle of fresh herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary wrapped in cheese cloth) while the soup was hot, let the soup cool and put it in the fridge overnight. The next night I simply took it out of the fridge, fished out my herb bundle and bacon, pureed the soup with my stick blender and heated it up. It wasn't as awesome as last time. I think I added too much water, and I also think a chunk of pork with bone in it would have added more body. Still a good winter meal though, with some beer and warm bread.

taking stock of the situation

Yesterday I made my first attempt at beef stock. Let me tell you up front, it wasn't a total success. But, here's what I did...

Got some beef...specifically some beef marrow bones and a couple beef soup bones. They all had quite a bit of meat on them. In total it was about 6 lbs. of beef all together.


Roasted the beef.


Covered the beef with water in a stock pot, brought everything near a simmer, then put the pot in the oven and kept the stock at a constant temp between 180-190F.


After 4 hours, I added some lightly roasted vegetables...specifically 4 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 1 yellow onion, 2 shallots and 4 cloves of garlic. i also added a small handful of whole black peppercorns. I brought all this back up to a simmer, then put it back in the oven for another hour.



I strained the stock once through just a strainer, then again through some cheese cloth.



Here is the final result.


It was really quite clear. However, the flavor was pretty weak. I used way too much water, and probably could have used more bones to make it richer. While I was dancing my feets off at my reunion, Jack stayed home and boiled the heck out of the stock until it reduced by nearly half! That improved the flavor big time.


So, like I said, not the results I'd hoped for, but I'll chalk it up as an important learning experience. I see the value of making your own stock for sure (Ruhlman kept telling us in his class that he would rather us use water than canned broth), but it is something you need to work at.

squeeeeee...ahem, I mean...a night with Ruhlman

Sorry about my lame excuse for a post yesterday. You see, all day I was a bit distracted. Because Last night I was attending a cooking class. At the Viking School. With MICHAEL RUHLMAN!!!

See?

that's me and Ruhlman, for goodness petes sake! And if I kind of look like a spaz, it's because i kind of was acting like one a little. I mean, he's one of my favorite writers. Soul of a Chef opened my eyes to so many things about the world of chefs and is so inspiring. It would be one of the first books I'd recommend to anyone. Also? He's been on 2 Bourdain shows. And you guys know how I love me some Bourdain :)

So anyway, the demo was pretty neat. He's doing these to promote his new book The Elements of Cooking, which is "an opinionated food glossary from a writer and cook who knows better than most what the hell he's talking about."(from Anthony Bourdain's Introduction in the book.)So the demo consisted of a meal made using some basic yet very refined and important techniques. First he went over how to cure your own bacon, which I am totally doing ASAP. He used the bacon for lardons on a salad, which also included discussions on how to boil an egg properly, shallots, and knife skills. He also went over chicken stock, roux, roasting shallots, sauteeing mushrooms, making fresh pasta, chocolate ganache and choux dough. And you know what? I wanna do it all! And? I'm confident I can, now.

Did I mention how handsome Mr. Ruhlman is in person?


(sorry, I may lapse into silly fangirl mode throughout this post)

Anywho, if he's coming to a city near you and you're a fledgling home cook like myself, spring for the class. It's totally cool...informative, informal, intimate and perhaps some other words that begin with "i." If he's not coming to your locale, at least go get the Elements of Cooking. Everyone's doing it! It's getting (deservedly) positive reviews from all over the place. The best place to read all about the book is on Ruhlman's own blog, where he links to reviews, talks about writing the book and gives his promotional schedule. I've read only the first 12 pages or so. They are packed with info, and I'll probably be rereading parts of this book forever. It's a reference book, but a fun-to-read one.


Speaking of awesome Ruhlman reference books, I also purchased a copy of Charcuterie, which Michael co-wrote with a chef he met writing Soul of a chef, Brian Poclyn. A book about curing your own meat and making your own sausage? Who has the time and skill to do that? Actually, reading the book, it's not as intimidating as it seems. Take the bacon. A simple dry cure and a pork belly. Refrigerate, smoke or bake at a low temp...voila. YOU MADE FREAKING BACON! And making pancetta is not many more steps than that. I don't have any sort of meat grinder, but I see that as my next big step in the kitchen...well a kitchen-aid with grinder attachment, at least.


I had him sign Charcuterie for me. I'm so glad he mentioned sausage. Now I have to make some. I feel like it's expected of me.


Elements RAWKS!

So, yeah, I had two books for Ruhlman to sign, plus one for a friend. And I was probably smiling like a crazy person the whole time I talked to him. He didn't seem to mind, though. SUCH a nice guy. Gracious and friendly and genuine.

There were some distractions, so I may have missed stuff, but I'm sure the Elements book will fill me in...there were also a couple of other St. Louis food bloggers there that I got to meet. Mike from STL Hops, a great beer blog, and Bill from STL Bites, a fantastic general food blog. Great guys, and hopefully they will post about the Ruhlman demo soon ;)

One of the distractions was getting to eat the food he was demo-ing. First we had a Lardon salad with spinach and arugula, with hard-boiled egg and shallots. I didn't get a photo of my salad :( The main course was "Blanquette de Poulet with Fresh Noodles, Sauteed Mushrooms, Roasted Shallots, Gremolata." This was a combo of the basic stock, roux, fresh pasta, and roasting. Yum:

Dessert was "Cinnamon-Sugar Choux Doughnuts with Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce," incoprprating ganache-making, choux dough-making and frying:


I'll leave you with some of my notes I took during the class...in other words, things I learned (not that this is everything I learned...just some stuff I had written down):

-After you cure your own bacon (can you tell I'm a bit excited about this?), you need to cut off the skin. Don't waste it, though! you can add it to stocks!!

-When you are making a roux, a good way to tell it's done is that it will smell like a pie crust.

-Take out the "germ" of your garlic cloves (the green middle thingy) if you are using a garlic press or if you are mincing garlic for a recipe ahead of time. There is an enzyme in there that will give your garlic a bitter taste. If you are mincing it with a knife or grating it right before cooking it, you don't have to worry about because the heat will negate this effect.

-When making stock, it should not boil or even simmer. You can bring it up to heat and put it in a low oven for hours until it's done. Also, add the veggies and aromatics towards the end so they don't get mushy/spongy and make the stock cloudy.

-A "Liaison" is a thickener made from eggs and cream. EDIT: Whoops. I've been in formed that "a liaison has minimal thickening powers, what it gives the sauce is an incomparable texture." I knew I was distracted during that part of the demo.

-When rolling pasta, let it rest in between each roll.

-"choux" dough can be used for cream puffs (baked), doughnuts (fried) and even boile in water to make Parisian gnocchi.

So, there you go. I met Michael Ruhlman, and I'm still glowing like a geeky schoolgirl meeting her favorite backstreet boy. Seriously, though? this is a writer ya'll should read. In fact, I better get off this machine and read some more.

ETA: Ian from the RFT's blog gut check has posted about the Ruhlman Viking demo here and here.

ETA more: Bill Burge of STL Bites finally got his recap of the Ruhlman Viking show up! I'm glad he said something about the food we were served. I wasn't gonna complain, but I was underwhelmed by the execution (cold pasta, skin on one of my lardons no cinnamon sugar on the choux donuts...). Still a great experience, and I learned alot, and I know when I make these things at home they will be fab.

my job meets my hobbies

You may not know this about me (especially considering my standard-issue blogger layout), but I am a graphic designer. I'm lucky to have a job doing a lot of food-related design. The two are good partners, food and design. Both require creativity, both can be improved by technical know-how, and both can be fun and rewarding. To sharpen both my design knowledge and my food knowledge, I have found some links that involve both:

-An article about designing restaurant logos.

-An article about designing restaurant menus.

-A regular feature on Design*Sponge called "in the kitchen with" talks to designers about what they eat.

-What Gordon Ramsey can teach Software designers.

-An article about a Wine label art show that discusses wine label design.

-Also, a website featuring unusual wine labels, and another good collection of wine labels.

-Retro Food advertising-Lots of fun things to look at!

-More retro advertising...not all food items.

-remember my post on cheese labels? good stuff!