The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

The Heart of Boris

You may or may not remember me mentioning Boris earlier this year.  If you are unfamiliar with Boris, you can read about him in this post.

Much of Boris was ill-suited to simple cooking – he was an older pig, well past the usual butchering age, and his meat was tougher than something you might buy in the store.

Part of our portion, which consisted of things like the head, the liver, bones (for stock), a few cuts of meat, some of the belly, also included the heart.  I’ve had it in the freezer in a vacuum-sealed bag for months now, and the other day, I decided to thaw it and cook it.

Now, this post will contain pictures of said heart.  No gratuitous blood or gore – just a simple – and simply beautiful – heart.

I will tell you, also, that, as I have with all of our Boris-processing projects, I felt…reverence.

Okay, if you are squeamish and don’t want to see a heart, click away and read something else.  Otherwise, come along.

Cooking with My Kids: Empanadas

Before I get started, no, Julia is not as tall as Alex – she’s standing on a stool.  Here’s a scary thing – if Alex were to stand on that same stool, he’d be eye level with me.  He’s not allowed to stand on the stool any more.

There, now that I’ve got that cleared up for you, we can talk about food.

Outdoors and Indoors

Spinach that lived through the winter (such as it was) and started growing again a couple of weeks ago.  I harvested those leaves last week, and we’re nearly up to another salad’s worth.

Making Head Cheese

When you think of head cheese, do you think of a slice of meat, like a cold cut, that resembles a mosaic – assorted bits and pieces of cooked meat held in place by a lovely clear aspic.

That’s what we always thought of, too.  So when we set out to make head cheese for the first time, that was the goal – something we could slice and serve on crackers or in hearty sandwiches on crusty bread.

Well, things didn’t turn out exactly as planned.  But that’s the thing about learning something new – sometimes you get more out of the experience than you ever anticipated.

*** The following post eventually contains pictures that may be off-putting to some of you.  If you are squeamish, you may want to have a less squeamish person read this post aloud to you.  Although, in my opinion, if you eat it, you should know what it looked like before it was processed, prettified, and plastic-wrapped. But that’s just me.  ***

Nothing Says I Love You Like Boiling Up the Head of a Pig

After running a bunch of errands this morning, I’m right this very minute finishing up a bialy and psyching myself up for the next step on the road to headcheese.

Making Sausage – John’s Experimental Sausage No. 2

This is John.  (John is the taller one.)  Telling you about John would take a whole separate website, and I simply don’t have time to launch such a project, so suffice to say John is Bill’s best friend and my very awesome friend as well.

I’ve mentioned John here in various past posts, most recently in my last series of sausage-making stories.  There have also been mentions of John in beer brewing posts, and probably here and there in other posts as well. 

But I tilt toward digression…I need to pull myself back to the post at hand.  And the sausage.

Making Sausage – Prep Work

You’ve no doubt heard the term mise en place (meez en plahs), which means “to put in place” or, basically, to get everything ready before you begin.  We mostly hear it used in the kitchen – you mise en place all your ingredients so you’ve got everything measured and ready to go before you start cooking – and it’s a good thing to do, frankly, because it would be a shame to suddenly realize that you’re out of some crucial ingredient midway through your fancy dinner prep.  Or something like that.

Anyway, in preparation for our Second Grand Day of Sausage Making this past Saturday, Bill and I did our mise en place on Friday.

Hearth Cooking Day – Beans and Ribs

Doesn’t it look gorgeous? 

Looks like there’s got to be something special inside.

And after six hours, there had better be.

Some Images from Hearth Cooking Day

I soaked the beans overnight.  This time I used a mixture of pinto, black, and navy. 

But first things first – we need fire.

Making Sausage – The Stuffing Part

Here it is.  The stuffer.

And I’ll say right up front that one day we will have a better one.  This one gave us some problems, but we are new to the business of making sausage, and we figured this would be nice and simple to use.

It is, but it takes superhuman strength to operate.  Fortunately we had John with us, who, thanks to carrying around his small children, has massive biceps and the strength of ten men.  Or five, at least.

Anyway…

Making Sausage – Grinding the Meat

We’re using an old meat grinder that belonged to Bill’s mom.  It’s old school, burly, and simple.  There are three dies – coarse, medium and fine.  We started with the coarse grind.

Making Sausage – And Other Things

It’s a big food production day here.  Not only are we making sausage, but we’ve got a few other projects under way.

Bill brined a turkey breast overnight in a mixture of water, salt, sugar, limes, bay leaves, thyme, black pepper, and I don’t know what else…

This morning he rinsed it off, dried it, and now it’s on the grill – it should smoke for about an hour and a half to two hours.

When that’s done, we’ll trim the meat off the bone and slice it up for sandwiches.  Most of it will go in the freezer.

And…

Ribs.

Trimmed from the pork belly, we’ve got two sets of ribs.  One will go on the smoker and the other has been cut up for an Asian recipe Bill’s made before. 

Yes, this is man’s work.

After Bill and John sawed the ribs in half, John separated the ribs like this:

At the moment, Bill’s got water on to boil, and I’ll let you know what happens next with those.

Oh – and last, but definitely not least, John’s smoking a batch of bacon.

I think that’s everything.

Oh – and I’ve got a batch of baked beans simmering in the oven.  They’ve been in there since a little after six this morning.  We’ll have them with lunch.       

Making Sausage – Part 1 – Cleaning the Hog Casings

Hog casings.

Just a fancy, in-polite-company, not-for-the-squeamish way of saying pig intestines.

These are packed in salt and need to be rehydrated and rinsed.  Rinsed a lot.

Making Bacon – Part 4 – Salt Pork

Sick of pork yet? 

In case you aren’t, here are the first three posts in this little series…

Making Bacon - Step 1 - Curing

Making Bacon - Step 2 - Smoking

Making Bacon - Part 3 - Fried Pork Rinds

And now…something to do with portions of fat and meat that aren’t really bacon or ribs….

Making Bacon – Part 3 – Fried Pork Rinds

In case you missed the first two parts of my bacon-making series, here they are:

 Part One – Curing

Part Two – Smoking

So, now that the bacon’s made, what else is there to do?

The Fog is Lifting

Most of yesterday is a blur.

I’d had great plans to continue posting about the whole overnight pulled pork adventure, but it got harder for me to form coherent thoughts after a while, and so I gave up.

Bill got up around five thirty and made coffee, and I went downstairs to sit on the couch – just to get off my feet for a little bit – he brought me a big mug of coffee, and I fell asleep without even taking a sip.

The Pork Butt Smokes at Midnight

Well, it smokes at one a.m., anyway.

Yep,  it’s the middle of the night, and I’ve just put a 9+ pound pork butt in the smoker.  It should be done around twelve hours from now.  Lunchtime tomorrow.  Or, actually, lunchtime much later today.

My husband thinks I’m nuts.

Making Bacon – Step Two - Smoking

If you missed part one, head over here to see what’s going on…Making Bacon – Step One – Curing

Just like we experimented with two cures – one with maple syrup added, one without – we also experimented with two smoking methods – hot and cold.

Hot smoke is faster, cold smoke…isn’t.  But cold smoke seems more authentic, somehow.  You know, like people would have done it back in the olden days.

Making Bacon – Step One – Curing

I cooked jonnycakes and bacon for breakfast for Bill yesterday (Father’s Day) and I think that triggered the need to write about our experiences in making bacon.  We made bacon twice last year, and we’ll definitely be making more this summer. 

Why?  Because it’s cool.

The Bacon Posts are Long Overdue

It’s about time I wrote about making bacon.

We’ve done it twice now, and we’ll do it again this summer, because it’s yummy, and it’s cool to be able to make your own stuff.

That’s why we make lots of our own stuff – bread, cheese (well, working on expanding that, but still…), beer, we grow lots of plants, we can things and pickle things and make sauerkraut and kimchee…there’s probably more, but you get the idea. 

So yes, last year, two times, we made bacon.

And I took pictures, and meant to write about it, but the giant Painting The House Ourselves project took over, and then other things came up, and I just kept not doing it.

That has to stop.  And stop now.

So stay tuned…the Makin Bacon Saga will begin shortly….

Pulled Pork Tamales

Bill made pulled pork not too long ago, and we had about 2 cups’ worth of the meat left in the freezer.  (Odd as it may seem, there’s only so many pulled pork sandwiches we can eat over the course of a week.)

Anyway, this was the first week in May, and I decided to make tamales for Cinco de Mayo.  I thought it would be a fun group project for the kids and me.  Bill had to work late, and so I figured it would be a nice surprise for him, too.

And since I had some pulled pork in the freezer, why not use that for the filling?

Why not, indeed!

7 Hour Ribs

“It’s an awesome pork bone with smoked meat and a little sprinkle of Heaven.” – Alex Maker, age 9

Alex’s top two favorite meals are sushi and ribs.  I’m not sure which is #1 – I think it changes periodically.  Right now, I’d bet it’s the ribs.

Ribs – Part Two

Two racks gone. 

One’s left.

It’s in the fridge.

But I should pick up where I left off, right?

Ribs – Part One

Busy day today!  First thing this morning I baked some yummy Banana Sweet Potato Muffins.

And then I started the ribs.

Smoked Pork Butt – Of Bark and Smoke Rings and Shreddy Goodness

Yesterday, starting early, early, early in the morning, I fired up the smoker and placed a lovingly rubbed and injected hunk of pork on the rack.

You can read the first three posts about this day-long project here:

Smoked Pork Butt – Rising Before Dawn

Smoked Pork Butt - Charcoal Couture

Smoked Pork Butt - I've Got a Hot Butt (clearly the smoke was getting to me here)

Now, for the final chapter of yesterday’s labor of love….

Smoked Pork Butt – I’ve Got a Hot Butt

And yes, I’m suddenly an eight year old boy.

Or a twelve year old boy.

Or an eighteen year old boy.

Or a 26 year old boy.

Or a 40 year old boy….

Hm.  Well okay, you get the idea.

Moving on…

Smoked Pork Butt – Charcoal Couture

Early this morning when I started the coals and injected the pig, I put this hat on.

And I have kept it on all day so far.

Somehow it seems I MUST keep this hat on for the duration of the smoking process.

Perhaps it will keep my head on straight.

Smoked Pork Butt – Rising Before Dawn

Sorry it’s blurry – I blame the darkness of 4:37 A.M. in the morning for that.

I got up this morning at 4:29 to start coals and inject a pork but with…well, part of me keeps wanting to say “moisturizer” but no, I didn’t inject it with a skin care product. 

Let me try this again.

French Fridays with Dorie – Hachis Parmentier

It was a bit crazy in the kitchen the day I made Hachis Parmentier. 

Vocabulary homework, spelling reviews, math problems, an upcoming social studies test, school picture orders (they want me to pay how much???), and I don’t remember what else was going on, but I felt like I was being pulled and tugged at and many demands were made for my EXCLUSIVE AND UNDIVIDED attention from humans and cats alike, mostly about food.  (When do we eat?  What’s for dinner?  Mom, I’m hungry!  Meow!)

Oy!

Oh, yeah, and on top of all that, my camera wasn’t working.  It would work, and then it wouldn’t.  I switched batteries, changed lenses, removed the memory card and put it back…I even, I am ashamed to say, smacked the side of the camera (gently) in frustration. 

“Well…just bring it somewhere tomorrow to have it fixed,” Bill said, with the shrugging, what’s-the-big-deal? attitude of someone who HAS NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF CRISIS THIS IS!

I still don’t know what was wrong, but after lots of taking things out and off and putting things back on, my dear camera decided to work again.

PHEW!

We now return to our Hachis Parmentier, already in progress.

I made a bit of a change, by the way.  Instead of using water and beef bouillon, I just used 6 cups of beef stock, which we had in the freezer.  (In the “stock freezer,” actually.  Chicken, beef, fish, crab, and clam stocks.)  Other than that, I kept things the same. 

Here’s the strained broth, by the way.  I kept the carrots and celery and chopped them to smaller pieces, to include with the beef in the filling.  I didn’t really need to cook the stock as long as indicated in the book, because I was already using beef stock and the flavor was fine.  So the vegetables, as a result, still had plenty of flavor.

By the way, until I got smart and looked it up, I avoided saying “Hachis Parmentier” out loud because I didn’t know how to pronounce it.  Well, I kind of figured out the “Parmentier” part.  Par-men-tee-ay.  Or Par-men-tyay.  But “Hachis” was a puzzler.  Ha-chis, with the ch like “chick” or “cheese,” or (here’s the Scot coming through) was it more of a gutteral “K” sound?  Hackis?  It didn’t work for me.

Then, tired of mumbling “Hmbmbmbm Parmbmbmbm” all the time (because I often go around muttering the names of dishes I’m going to cook.  It’s either that or allow the strange lyrics Julia comes up with take root in my brain and drive me further along the journey to madness), I looked up the pronunciation.

AHA!  HA-shee PAR-men-tee-yay!  Well that sounds sensible.  And more French than “Hackis.”  I was happy just to be able to say it. 

No more mumbling!  I said it loud, I said it proud:

HACHIS PARMENTIER!  HACHIS PARMENTIER!

And then my children begged me to be quiet and my husband threatened to take away my copy of Around My French Table, so I stopped.

Here’s the sausage, the chopped cube steak, the carrots and celery, and the tomato paste, about to blend together deliciously.

Now, fast-forward, past the actual – and really, very easy – making of Hachis Parmentier – to the writing of this post.

It suddenly occurred to me that while I could say the name of the dish,

HACHIS PARMENTIER!

I didn’t know what it meant!  I hadn’t looked that up.  And, frankly, “hachis” doesn’t sound all that French to me.  (And I’m such an authority.) 

Anyway, I looked up the words, and everything fell into place in my slow-to-catch-up brain.

Hachis refers to a minced or chopped mixture of meat and herbs.  (Corned beef HASH, anyone?  Duh!)

Parmentier refers to a food “garnished with potatoes.”

A-HA!

Well then.  I’m happy now.

And below, speaking of potatoes, there they are.

Boiling!

Going through the ricer!

All ready to go! 

I could eat them all, just like that.

But no, I had to complete the recipe, and quickly, just in case the camera decided to go on strike again.

Here’s some butter and Gruyere.  Mmmm.  Shreddy.

And now, – the assembly.  I spooned the meat mixture – the hachis, or, more accurately, the hachis avec carottes et céleri.  I don’t know if that’s a correctly constructed phrase, but it’s certainly looking like a correctly constructed meal.  Let’s continue.

Time to garnish with potatoes.  My favorite part.  I spooned the potato mixture into the dish, on top of the meat (and veggie) mixture, and smoothed out the top.

Then I sprinkled the grated Gruyere on top and added the bits of butter.

I really would have happily dug in right then with the same big spoon I used on the mashed potatoes moments ago, but I knew it would be even better if I waited.

So into the oven went the Hachis Parmentier, and I scurried around in a housewifely manner, setting the table and fretting about all the dishes I would have to do later.

I don’t know if this happens to you, but it seems like no matter how simple a dish might be to prepare, if I am rushed or stressed or tugged-upon-by-many-hands-both-large-and-small while preparing the meal, I use WAAAAAAAAAAY more bowls and spoons and spatulas and knives and pans and EVERYTHING than I could possibly really need.  Really.  One bad day I used two frying pans, the food processor, seven wooden spoons, three whisks, two plates and twelve knives just to make a peanutbutter sandwich.  Just peanutbutter!  Not even jelly!  Okay, I exaggerate.  Only eleven knives.

BEEP.

That was the oven timer.  I took a peek, rotated the pan to get more even browning (oooooh, browning potatoes and cheese!!!!) and set it for another ten minutes.

After a really fragrant eternity, it was done.

And because my camera had been so, so…recalcitrant earlier, I was afraid to even switch lenses, just in case.  So the pictures I took while the Hachis Parmentier cooled a bit on top of the stove are not very good.  But still.  You get the idea.  Golden brown, cheesy, potatoey yummiliciousness.

My husband and children were, by this time, already seated, pounding their spoons and forks against the table, demanding nourishment and threatening mutiny.

I brought the hot bowl (actually, it’s my favorite souffle dish) to the table and served it up. 

We all burned our mouths.

Joyfully.

Well, okay, full disclosure:  Alex (predictably) didn’t like the Parmentier aspect of the dish.  But he liked the hachis.

I ate his potatoes.  I hate waste.

Ohhhh, what a tremendous meal this was! Rich and meaty, with the fluffy potatoes and the crispy golden-brown bits of cheese on top (Dorie is right – that’s the best part), hearty and filling and satisfying. 

I should have doubled it.  Or tripled it.  Maybe I’ll make it again next week. 

Yes, I think that’s a good idea.

Care to see if other French Fridays with Dorie members have waxed as rhapsodic as I have?  Click over here to check out the other posts!

 

Technorati Tags: French Fridays with Dorie,hachis parmentier,shepherd's pie,beef,potatoes

Red Pork Curry

From the book Keo’s Thai Cuisine, by Keo Sananikone, page 135.

We Like Big Butts

Especially when they're about ten pounds...of the pork variety...rubbed and injected and then slow-cooked (12 hours of indirect heat) on the grill/smoker, with plenty of hickory and cherry smoke.

Why, what kind of butt did you think I meant?

Pork Loin Medallions With Apples, Onions and Herbs

 

I've been so mired in cookies for the past several weeks, I've been neglecting the rest of the menu, at least as far as posting is concerned.

We bought a package of pork tenderloins (2) at some point in December, and after much contemplation of possibilities, I went the medallion route.

Baby Buffalo Ball Sandwiches - Updated

Originally I used the Buffalo Balls recipe I'd posted years ago on my old blog.  The other night I made them without the Gimme Lean component - instead, I used 2 lbs of a blend of beef, pork and veal - sold as "Meatloaf Blend" or something like that - can't remember what was on the package.

Chiles Rellenos

From Mexico One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless.  This book is a terrific introduction to Mexican cooking.  As the title indicates, the book focuses on a number of classic recipes in great depth, so you, the reader, can understand why the dish is made the way it is, what some of the regional differences are, and so forth. 

Chiles Rellenos - which simply means stuffed peppers - are a bit time-consuming, but well worth all the work involved, and rather impressive to serve.  This recipe is actually Chiles Rellenos de Picadillo en Caldillo de Jitomate, which translates as Classic Pork Picadillo-Stuffed Chiles in Tomato Broth.

Recipe for Thai Spring Rolls

From Keo's Thai Cuisine, by Keo Sananikone.  I mentioned the Spring Rolls in this post earlier today.  Here's my version - slightly different but basically the same.  Mine are larger - like egg roll size - and the actual version has them smaller - little bite sized appetizers. 

Baked Pork Chops

This is an old family favorite.  I think I'm going to make it for dinner tomorrow night.  And serve it with baked potatoes...and maybe a baby spinach salad...