OK so this is the second old post I am re-posting. Yeah I’m a lazy ass bum, But, but but but, I feel morally obligated to disseminate some at least semi- authentic kimchi info across the tubes upon hearing of Bette Midler’s recently becoming a kimchi ambassador of sorts. A friend told me she saw Ms. Midler on the Today Show demonstrating how to make something she claimed was kimchi. It apparently involved stacked cabbage leaves with some seasoning in between. Mysteriously, the google cannot seem to locate any evidence of this incident. Anyway here’s a video of Better Midler preaching the kimchi gospel to Kelly Ripa. Pretty surreal shit, man:

Whoa. So anyway, I guess I can’t really complain about the motherland’s greatest gift to the world getting some press, but I dunno, it all just seems very, very wrong. Original post follows.

So I finally broke down and wrote a Citypaper piece about kimchi. It’s tantamount to, I dunno, someone from Iowa writing about corn. Actually that’s a terrible analogy, point is it just seems a bit cliche, but I know that’s irrational. In any case, in my defense it was under duress and I believe it to be interesting to Korea-philes if nothing else. Anyway the full text can be found here. Below are some hopefully helpful pics.

Korean cucumbers are a bit more irregularly shaped than hydroponic, pcikling, or slicer cukes, and also have small bumps and a yellowish cast. They can be found at most any Asian market, and are generally around $2/lb:

Cut into 2″ lengths – make sure to trim the ends, apparently there is an enzyme in the flower bud end that causes the cucumber to become mushy, so trim both to be safe:

Carefully bisect the sections lengthwise, leaving about a quarter inch intact – use the standard bagel slicing method:

Rotate and repeat so that you end up with a mostly quartered section:

Place the partially quartered sections into a bowl and salt thoroughly, making sure to salt the cut flesh. Allow to sit for at least two hours (sorry no pic). In the meantime, combine the seasonings to form a fairly thick paste:

After a couple of hours of salting, the sections should be a bit more pliable. Brush off any excess salt (do not rinse!) and discard any collected liquids. With a teaspoon, fill the sections generously with the seasoning paste:

You should end up with sections that look like this:

Pack as tightly as you can in the closest fitting containter you can find:

Rinse the bowl you used to mix the paste with a bit of fresh water, perhaps a 1/4 cup. This will be used to submerge the kimchi, and should taste quite salty – add salt if necessary:

Cover cucumber sections with brine and cover with plastic wrap, making sure they are packed down well. Use a weight (e.g. soup can, brick) if necessary:

Leave out overnight at room temperature and taste – if the kimchi still tastes too fresh, give it another few hours, up to 24 total. Then refrigerate. Final product:

Alternative preparation – my mom tells me that the following is actually the more proper way to make this kimchi. It consists merely of a diffierent cutting technique. The above semi-quartering method is more convenient and quicker, while the method below yields more attractive results. Instead of quartering the sections, make a deep score, about a third of the way through. Repeat 4-5 times evenly spaced around each section:

After salting, fill the scores with spicy paste and proceed as directed above. Final product:

Recipe:
Sue Hong’s Easy Oh-Ee Soh-Beh-Gee (Cucumber Kimchi)

Ingredients:

6-8 medium Korean cucumbers* OR
8-10 Kirby or pickling cucumbers OR
3-4 seedless hydroponic cucumbers
1/2 cup Korean red pepper powder
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup finely chopped scallion or chives
1/4 cup coarse sea salt, or slightly less to taste (table or kosher salt will yield mushier kimchi)
2 tbsp fish sauce (Three Crabs brand is very good)
1 tsp sugar

Cut the tips off both ends of cucumbers (this will ensure crunchiness), then cut into 2-3 inch segments

Quarter the segment lengthwise, cutting almost but not all the way through, leaving four spears attached at one end

In a bowl, salt the pieces thoroughly with sea salt, and allow to rest for 2 hours

In another bowl, combine all other ingredients and enough salt to make the mixture quite salty, but overpoweringly so; add just enough water to make a thick paste

After the salted cucumber has rested, wipe off any remaining salt and discard any collected liquid

For each segment, using a teaspoon, generously smear the spicy paste in between the cucumber spears (should still be attached, but a bit more flexible now)

Pack tightly in a glass or stainless steel container, vertically if possible

Add fresh water to the bowl that contained the spice paste, swirl and rinse any remaining paste into the water, and pour over cucumbers, adding only enough to barely cover

Cover the container and allow to rest at room temperature overnight or about 8 hours, then taste for sharpness and acidity; if desired, leave out for a total of up to 12 hours before refrigerating for up to a week

*Note: Do not use the smooth, dark green “slicer” cucumbers, as their skin is too thick and seeds too hard. All ingredients listed above can be found at Hanareum or Lotte Asian supermarkets, both on Rte. 40

-Henry Hong

Hello all, long time no, uh.. nothin. I’m sure I’ve used that exact phrase here before, but it has yet again been a too-long hiatus since my last post. Sorry! Anyway, today I spent another fun ass hour with my homey Dan Rodricks, a rare Tuesday appearance on the second hour of his show on WYPR. The subject was Thanksgiving dishes in general, but Dan was pretty taken by the dessert I brought along, essentially pumpkin pie, with my EZ crumb crust, and with acorn squash instead of pumpkin (in the above photo, it’s on the right, the more yellow one).

I’d experimented last year for citypaper with butternut, but it didn’t turn out so well. The important advantage of acorn over pumpkin is that it’s readily available year-round, and it seems to work better in sweet applications better than the more savory butternut. Indeed, I just made a batch of hobak jook (recipe will be posted shortly), which is really just squash puree, but in Korea it’s made with something called dan hobak (literal transalation: “sweet squash”). Anyway dan hobak looks almost exactly like acorn squash we find here, and though the Korean vegetable is naturally much sweeter and orange-er, acorn squash is an excellent stand-in with the help of some added sugar. So enough yappin, here’s the recipe, or you could also just go here for my more in-depth pumpkin pie recipe from last year’s citypaper article, except of course substitute acorn squash for pumpkin. Duh.

Food Nerd’s Acorn Squash Bars

(btw the name was Dan’s idea)

Ingredients:

2 acorn squash

2 eggs

1/2 can condensed milk

a bit of milk or water to moisten

1/2 tsp sweet paprika

1/4 tsp ground black cardamom

a few drops of orange essential oil

1/4 stick butter

maybe 10 gingersnaps (non-iced)

some chopped pecans

salt and sugar to taste

Directions

1. Halve the squash lengthwise and scoop out seeds, then halve again to form quarters

2. Roast on a sheet or shallow pan in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until squash is tender

3. While waiting, pulverize the gingersnaps into a pretty fine powder. Gingersnaps are really freakin durable, so you’ll need a tool, food processor is best but mortar and pestle or even strong paper bag and a mallet will work. Combine with pecans in a mixing bowl.

4. Grease a 9 x 9 baking dish (or if you’d rather call it pie, a 9″ pie plate) with the 1/4 stick of butter, then put butter into a small saucepan over low heat. When butter has melted, add paprika, cook for 15 seconds,  then add to gingersnap mixture.

5. Combine butter and gingersnap crumbs thoroughly, then press into baking dish or pie pan to form a crust.

6. When squash is done, remove to a bowl and allow to cool, covered. Leave the oven at 375.

7. While waiting for squash to cool, par-bake the crust – place baking dish in oven and cook for about 10 minutes or until you start to smell it, then remove and allow to cool.

8. When squash is cool, peel carefully with a sharp knife, and place in a food processor with eggs, condensed milk, cardomom, and orange oil. Begin pureeing, adding milk/water a tiny bit at a time, until it just begins to liquefy. Add sugar ad salt to taste, and continue to pure until smooth.

9. Pour mixture into the baking dish, wiggle and tap a bit to even out mixture, and place into the oven (should still be at 375). Cook for about 30 minutes, but start checking on it at 25 minutes. When a toothpick inserted into the center pulls out dry, it’s done.

Notes

-Pureeing the squash in a blender seems to whip in too much air and makes the pie too loose imo. If you don’t have a fodd processor, I guess you could mash it thoroughly by hand but I fear this will leave too many of the long fibers intact. Mortar and pestle might work too.

-You’ll notice I don’t use the usual pumpkin spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, nor do I even add vanilla. This is just me protesting against the overly spiced so called “pumpkin” flavored stuff they sell in stores. This way you really taste the sweet squashiness more. Either way I’m sure is good.

-You can also boil the squash, which is in fact faster, but it seems like roasting noticeably enhances flavor, what with the Maillard reactions and all.

A few weeks ago, I’d been running around craving pizza ALL FRIGGIN DAY, but the thought of an overloaded pie with an underdone crust disgusted me more than usual, enough to defeat my sloth even. Solution? Grill it up son! I started doing this last year, after grilling flat bread and using that as a crust. Pretty good, but not actual pizza, per se.Homemade pizza dough is just too much trouble for the payoff, except for those few souls who are absolutely committed to perfecting it. I eventually found that some pizza places are willing to sell you balls of their pizza dough, which makes the process a whole lot simpler. My go-to spot is Angelo’s in Hampden, where a large dough ball is $3.50 (they also make a very good [UPDATE: The quality of Angelo's cheeseteaks has taken a brutal nosedive! Dry meat and not a lot of it... So bad I thought it must have been anomolous just a few days ago, but conversations with other fans confirm that for now, Angelo's has officially fallen off, as the kids used to say], if not very Philly-esque, cheesesteak). [UPDATE: Frozen dough balls are less than 2 bucks, work just as well, and can be found at most area Italian delis and many plain old supermarkets]

This size ball is good for two large thin-crust pizzas, and the dough keeps incredibly well, more than a week no problem:

After starting your charcoal get the toppings ready – we used some dry salami, arugula, fresh mozzarella, smoked mushrooms, roasted pepper, and a can of chopped tomatoes:

To roast the pepper, place it directly on the coals, wait til the down side chars, and turn. I generally use hardwood, not briquettes for grilling, but this was spur of the moment. Was that a douchebaggy thing to say? :

While this is happening, get some smoke into the mushrooms and soften the onion [UPDATE: It's a much better idea to saute some moisture out of the onions and mushrooms first. This seems to help smoke absorption while mor importantly preventing excess moisture from making the crust soggy.]

Season up the greens and shrooms, I used oil, lemon juice, and salt:

When the toppings are ready, prepare the dough by cutting the ball in half, and gently stretching the dough over a cutting board 11/17:

Brush with olive oil and add and pepper:

Carefully transfer to your hot grill, oiled-side down, then salt, pepper and oil the up side. When bubbles appear, it’s time to flip:

Then add toppings:

Add a small chunk of wood and close the lid. [UPDATE: Protip- move the pizza off  of directheat after about 3 minutes. Then inspect the bottom and rotate underdone areas back onto direct heat as necessary, closing the lid between adustments] 8 minutes later, dinner time. Easy as pie, no? (Disclaimer: pie is NOT in fact, easy). Note to be more careful than when removing your pizza from the grill:

Before things get too crazy, I believe introductions are in order. I’m a 30-something guy living in Baltimore who started cooking for real mainly to impress girls. (Fellas – remember not to set the bar too high on the first meal!) The neighborhood I live in has only one small grocery store within easy walking distance and I don’t own a car. Plus, I’m pretty lazy. Consequently, I often have to make do with a painfully limited selection of items for my culinary adventures. On the plus side, this lack of choice forces a bit of creativity to stave off boredom and/or full blown Five Guys addiction. By no means do I think of myself a master chef, I routinely “discover” basic herbs like they were the dead sea scrolls and use them with reckless abandon for weeks at a time, but I’ve made some things that I am pretty proud of, and I am always learning. Of course, I would like to use nothing but the freshest and highest quality ingredients, but due to the aforementioned lack of options and laziness, plus an occasional bout of penny-pinching, I sometimes cut a corner or two.

Henry has graciously allowed me to post chronicles of my triumphs and failures in the kitchen. I would have liked to present these feats as normal recipes with a nice bulleted list of ingredients and such, but unfortunately, I am terrible with measurements because I never use them. I season and cook by eye and by feel, so any attempt by me to assign units of measurement to anything that I’ve made would most likely end up in disaster. Also, I usually drink when I cook, so I can never remember exactly how much of what I put into any given dish. Every meal is an adventure!

One day at work, where these things usually happen, I decided out of the blue that I was going to attempt some sort of pasta bake with my brand new Pyrex baking dish. I did a little research online to get the general idea of the standard cooking times, techniques, ingredients, etc., and stopped by the store on my way home.

Foolishly eschewing a list, and thereby almost certainly guaranteeing that I would forget something important, I gathered my ingredients with well-honed market-ninja skills. In no particular order, I picked up a medium yellow onion, a large green pepper, garlic, a large can of crushed tomatoes, sausage, and cheese. The idea had previously occurred to me to put one layer of sausage and one layer of pepperoni in the pasta bake, but all such thoughts were washed away when I saw the package of prosciutto ham glowing among its lesser deli meat brethren. That’s right, shit was about to get fancy! Everything else I needed I already had at home.

After some liquid courage to get me through this daunting new cooking challenge, I prepped everything that needed chopping, preheated the oven to 350 degrees, set a large skillet to medium heat, and put a pot of salted water on to boil.

First step was to brown up the sausage in the skillet. My local Italian sausage options are limited, so I ended up using a classic orange tube of Eskay pork sausage. I picked up the hot variety, partially because I always like a little kick, but mostly because I am always working to covertly build up my girlfriend’s tolerance for spicy foods. When the sausage was just browned, out went the fat into the special “sausage/bacon grease that I’ll probably never use for anything because there are little sausage bits in it and that is gross” coffee can that I keep in the fridge.

Next to join the sausage in the pan was the can of crushed tomatoes, about half a cup of olive oil, five or so cloves of minced garlic, the whole diced onion, half the diced green pepper, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning (oregano and thyme), sugar (just a shake), and red pepper flakes (amount depending on desired spiciness level). I let this simmer at medium heat, occasionally stirring and tasting, and adding more of this or that as necessary while I prepared the pasta.

I used whatever pasta I had at home, which happened to be egg noodles and thin spaghetti. It was kind of a weird combination for something like this, but they did the job. While the sauce and meat mixture simmered, I cooked the noodles per the instructions. The spaghetti took a little longer for al dente so it went in first.

When the pasta was ready, the tomato and sausage mixture had been simmering for about 20 minutes. Ideally, I would have liked to let it cook out for much longer, like I would if I was making spaghetti sauce, but I was getting pretty goddam hungry. I spread the cooked pasta on the bottom of the baking dish as the first layer. In retrospect, I should have mixed the pasta and sauce mix together before adding both to the pan. Instead, I added the sauce mix over the noodle layer. Unfortunately, this created patches of dried up noodles on the bottom where the sauce didn’t settle through during baking.

With the base layers down, next came a layer of cheese. I used the Sargento Italian Cheese Blend, which consists of shredded mozzarella, provolone, asiago, romano, fontina, and parmesan. It took almost the whole package to cover the entire dish.

Next up: the big guns! I can’t attest to the quality of the prosciutto brand that I used because I am far from a connoisseur, but I thought it was quite tasty. The lovely strips of meat went on top of the cheese layer as shown below.

Finally, I covered the prosciutto with the rest of the cheese and a sprinkling of Italian-style bread crumbs, just because it seemed like the right thing to do.

To cover or not to cover? I couldn’t find a majority consensus online. This quickly proved to be a moot point because I discovered that my list-snubbing ways had caused me to forget the aluminum foil. The matter settled, I popped the whole thing into the over for about 20 minutes. When it was ready, the top was nicely brown and the cheese was bubbling.

The results? Not too shabby! I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and there were no complaints from the little lady. Good thing, because I made enough to live on for a week. Thanks to my lack of foil, I had to cram the leftovers into multiple square Gladware containers.

How it could have been better: I thought the sauce was a little bland. This I attribute to the short cooking time before I added it to the bake. Also, I would have liked the sauce to be a little saucier, I may need to add more liquid next time. Finally, more meat! That tube of sausage was stretched a little thin when spread around the whole dish. Maybe that additional layer of pepperoni shouldn’t have been omitted after all….

I definitely considered this dish a success for a first try. Next time, allotting more time for the sauce, adding a bit more substance, and using a more traditional pasta should really smooth out the rough edges. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

The weck was a bit soggy, but the all-important crystal salt and caraway seeds were intact. The roll itself had slightly more substance and chewiness than a kaiser roll, with a slightly denser crumb:

The beef itself was a far cry from whatever it was the Road Food folks were serenading – slightly-thick-ish slices of well done beef. It was definitely roasted and not some commercial pre-made stuff, but still it was a tad dry, and very lean. I’m guessing it was top round:

Anyway the meat had decent beefy, roasty flavor, but no real discernible seasoning. That is apparently the weck’s job, and I gotta say, though the roll would be way too salty on its own, combined with the bland beef it was a pretty winning combo. The caraway added a bit to flavor of course, but the salt was really the star – it’s a clear, crystal salt that has a very clean flavor and a texture that’s somewhere between crispy, crunchy and sorta icy. Very enjoyable. It seems some believe the salt on Schwabl’s weck is sea salt, but I couldn’t find any conclusive answers.

The only problem was on my particular bun, the salt was unevenly distributed, which resulted in some too salty and some bland bites. I’m hoping this was anomalous. Also, and I don’t know if this is a regional thing or an intentional consideration (re the salt on the weck), but the sandiwch had very evenly stacked meat, i.e. was not mounded - something that I really appreciate.

-Henry Hong

This week my article about deviled eggs ran in Citypaper! The edited version can be found at CP online here – please leave a comment if you’re so inclined. The recipe can be found following the article. Below is the full version, after a couple of bonus pics:

The yolks, after having been pressed through a sieve:

The homemade mayonnaise and spiced butter/milk mixture, with some very finely grated lemon zest (use a Microplane) and finely chopped chives:

The full text of my article:

The Sunday before Memorial Day we inaugurated cookout season ‘08 with the customary orgy of fire, meat, and booze. But this year, a friend brilliantly suggested a deviled egg competition, and I was ready to battle. Mostly because her eggs were reputed to be “the best”, but partly because it would address a common cookout flaw: deviled egg deficiency. With five eventual contestants, I figured there’d be 144 deviled eggs – surely enough to squelch any deviled egg guilt. You know the feeling – on an overflowing table, there’s that one tray of deviled eggs, which works out to like 1.3 eggs/person, and you want five but dare not take more than two, lest ye be judged a greedy bastard.

The amount of labor involved in making them no doubt contributes to their scarcity at get-togethers, and relegates them to the class of foods that are usually better homemade. I’ve never been able to find a store-bought deviled egg that didn’t suck – cold, rubbery egg white, that no matter how long you chew just divides into ever smaller yet distinct – fractal, if you wil – chunklets, until you finally concede defeat and swallow the bland, gravelly mass. And the filling has too much mustard, but still smells faintly of fart. This is what happens when the most important ingredient is omitted – love. Or in my case, love’s slutty cousin, ambition.

Some claim deviled eggs originate in Ancient Rome, but Apicius(the ur-cookbook of the western world) mentions nothing about stuffing halved eggs. We know for sure that such preparations appear in the 13^th century Spain. As a kid I assumed deviling (two l’s in England) something meant mashing or pulverizing the hell out of it, mostly because of my dad’s post-divorce reliance on canned meats for sustenance. Along with the ubiquitous Spam and Vienna Sausages were little white cans with a red devil on them, that contained pink meat ground into a coarse paste – deviled, or so I thought. In fact, deviling indicates spiciness, because in 18^th century England, spice=heat=hell – duh! Today it seems the spice aspect is secondary to the later association of the term with ground-up mixtures. I think the implication of evil inherent in the destruction of meat is much more badass.

To keep the field level, I imposed a no-lobster-and such rule, and after all isn’t a better test of skill to work within constraints? Besides, we want the eggs themselves to star, not act as mere vehicles for some other food. traditionally I think what most people expect in a good deviled egg are a tender white, creamy filling with acid and complexity, but still mostly eggy. You’re basically building-in a sauce to prevent the caulk-like consistency a standard hard boiled egg takes on after some mastication.

A properly cooked egg is critical – in order to achieve a resilient but not rubbery white, and a fully set but not discolored and not sulfury yolk, the egg can’t be overcooked. I use a method that is a bit time consuming, but is really easy and conserves energy to boot, developed by the great Julia Child. Simply cover eggs in cold water, bring to a rolling boil, boil for two minutes, then turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 20 minutes. Yet as straightforward as this method is, on this occasion I still ended up with the what’s really the only potential kibosh in deviled egg making – hard to peel eggs. Anyone else who has sheared this calamity can attest to how much it sucks – the shell, instead of slipping off the albumen with the membrane attached, remains stuck fast, taking bits of egg off with it, at best resulting in a pockmarked egg, at worst an egg rent asunder.

The problem: too fresh eggs, which when boiled are harder to peel. In my zeal to stack my entry with uber-ingredients, I done played myself. One way to mitigate freshness (how’s that for a rare sequence of words) is to add a little baking soda or salt to the water, which favorably changes the alkalinity.

The stuffing, however, is really where the battle is won or lost. Recipes vary wildly of course, but the standard complement of ingredients seems to include mayonnaise (for creaminess), lemon juice and/or prepared mustard(for acid), and spices – cayenne pepper, dry mustard, and/or paprika (the “devil”, as it were). Notably, there exists a splinter group of relish fans (the repugnant “sweet” or “bread and butter” variety to be precise), who seem to think it’s a required ingredient in authentic deviled eggs. This clearly misguided belief did however prove to be the reason I ended up winning, as most tasters preferred a smooth texture. In any case, the ingredients are simply mashed together with the cooked yolks until smooth, and re-deposited onto halved whites.

I use a variant of the French ouefs durs farcis, wherein the yolks are made creamy with bechamel sauce. I don’t go that far, but I do start with a pan of butter over low heat, which offers a window of cooking absent in the usual method. When the butter is melted, I add cayenne pepper and sweet paprika. The hot fat becomes imbued with the pepper flavor, enabling more even distribution in the stuffing, while also cooking out much of the cayenne’s heat, leaving behind the smoke and fruit components. I also add some very finely grated lemon zest, which adds a clean high note, and finely chopped chives, which add onion flavor with minimal crunchiness.

After about thirty seconds, the heat goes off and a bit of milk or cream goes in. By using this mixture, the yolks can be moistened with less mayonnaise, and I think this makes for a more “pure” tasting final product. Re-deposit the yolks into the whites and you have my competition-winning recipe.

Tip: To stabilize the white halves, you can either slice a thin strip from the bottom of each one, or for the lazier among us, just set them atop some greens or parsley sprigs.

Back to the cookout – when all the contestants finally arrived, my eggs were obviously the odd man out. I prefer mine completely unadorned, stealth if you will, while the others had the ubiquitous sprinkling of paprika (or – gasp -chili powder, in one case). One set even had each egg meticulously garnished with a perfectly trimmed parsley sprig. Curse you Alvina. Also, turns out I’m the only person in Baltimore that doesn’t own a deviled egg platter.

We picked the six most sober people and sequestered them away for judging. After much deliberation, and even a recount, yours truly emerged as the winner! Woot! In fact, although the overall margin was slim, it was texture and appearance that won it for me. Alvina came in second mostly due to tricking out her eggs with chopped bacon – in a rare case of backfiring use of bacon, the crunchy texture turned judges off. Other entries had non-traditional seasonings like curry powder and horseradish, which hurt their scores. Like I’ve always said, sometimes less is more.

My high appearance scores were baffling, but I was told later that it was because my yolks “looked all piped-in and swirly”. A Zip-Loc bag with a corner cut off is my filling tool of choice. Heh heh, filling tool. I gotta give credit to my nemesis for having the strength to ask me for my recipe afterwards. I would have been way more bitter.

I must admit however, I prevailed by one mere point, and I gotta give love to my nemesis for having the strength to ask me for my recipe afterwards. And keep the Febreeze handy, because as they say, “Huevo duro, pedo seguro.”

Henry’s Deviled Eggs Recipe:

1 dozen eggs, not too fresh

2 tablespoons mayonnaise (homemade if possible)

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons milk or cream

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

1 teaspoon very finely grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon finely chopped chives

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon sweet paprika

salt, white pepper, and lemon juice to taste

1. Place eggs in a large pot and cover with cold water, adding ½ teaspoon of salt or baking soda if the eggs are very fresh

2. Bring to a rolling boil

3. Boil for 2 minutes

4. Cover pot and turn off heat; after 20 minutes, carefully drain and allow eggs to cool(submerge in icy water if time is a factor)

5. While eggs are cooling, melt butter in a small pan

6. Heat cayenne and paprika in butter for 30 seconds

7. Add milk, zest and chives, and heat for 30 seconds, allow to cool

8. While butter/milk mixture is cooling, peel and carefully halve eggs, reserving yolks in a mixing bowl

9. Press yolks through a sieve using a wooden spoon or spatula, producing very fine particles; if you don’t have a sieve, mash yolks thoroughly with a fork or stiff whisk

10. Add butter/milk mixture, mayonnaise and mustard to yolks, and combine until smooth

11. Adjust yolk mixture for seasoning, adding salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste

12. If desired, slice a thin strip off the bottom of each egg half so it will stand straight; otherwise arrange egg halves on a bed of greens or parsley for stability

13. Spoon yolk mixture into a pastry bag or ziplock bag with the corner cut off (1/4”)

14. Gently fill egg halves, squeezing from the top of the bag, as you would toothpaste

15. Garnish with additional chives and paprika if desired (I like mine nude)

-Henry Hong

Despite the myriad uses of the word in modern English and regional squabbling over the topic, the etymology seems to be pretty concrete.

I guess the Spaniards kept decent records of their decimation of indigenous populations in the West Indies. In any case, “barbecue” derives from the Spanish barbacoa, which in turn comes from the Taino word barabicu(?), which is the word for a structure of sticks used to elevate stuff off the ground, including meat for cooking or drying. The Taino are also credited with inventing the hammock, and indeed the raised stick structure was also used for sleeping. So the classic image of a suburban guy chilling in a hammock while steaks are working on the grill is a surreal replay of a pre-Columbian scenario. Cool!

Eventually the word and practice spread and morphed – in Mexico, barbacoa refers to meat (usually a goat) that’s cooked elaborately in a buried pit, sort of a combo of steaming and smoking (it looks like the term may have been applied to an existent method of cooking). In southern Texas, the same term is used for steamed cow’s head. Barbecue has been practiced in the US since the 1600’s, brought along with settlers to the East Coast and Florida. It seems originally the term could be applied to the awesomely fun occasion that is the consequence of cooking and eating an entire pig. Virginia passed a law outlawing the firing of guns in the air during barbecues in the late 17th century, an eerie portend of July 4th celebrations in Baltimore.

The US seems to be the only country in the world where barbecue indicates long and slow cooking instead of direct-heat grilling. It saddens me to conclude that the barbecue-as-grilling usage may be considered more authentic, or at least closer to the original meaning of the word, if this drawing is to be believed:

This sucks because I’ve spent most of my adult life cringing when folks use “barbecue” and “grill” interchangeably. But there is no question that in the US, barbecue, both as a term and practice, is far more involved. Regional variants share major similarities, most importantly that the cooking is indirect and extended. The differences lie mainly in the type of meat used, seasoning, and sauce.

I am currently engaged in getting good at making ribs, and I prefer a sort of hybrid Memphis style. I use spare ribs, which I believe to have better flavor, and a sweetish rub.There is a sentiment out there that using back ribs is kind of cutting a corner, because they are generally more tender to begin with. I feel however that the trade off in flavor is not worthwhile. Some contend that back ribs are “higher on the hog” and thus better, but I need only one word to rebut that assertion: BACON. Spare ribs, well trimmed, all the way.

What I look for is ribs that are most, well seasoned, and tender but not too tender. Also, and this is just a personal preference, but I’ve always associated BBQ with a strong sweet component as far as seasoning.

I smoke with unseasoned apple and/or cherry wood whenever possible, for which I have a pretty reliable and reasonably priced [secret]source. I find hickory and mesquite to be way too strong,and have found pecan and oak to be a bit too mild. I think the apple/cherry diad is ideal (apple on left, cherry on right):

More coming soon….

-Henry Hong

In any case a few months ago, after maybe three years of pretty slapdash experimenting, I decided to document, as it were, one particularly good combination:

Writing down recipes is for chumps! Well not really, but this is more fun and less work all at the same time. The astute will be able to

narrow the ingredients sufficiently to reproduce it reasonably well. Actually that’s completely false, a bajillion spices could comprise layers of those colors. The pic does however represent ratio well, and with a list of the component spices, I think it should serve as a pretty good template:

• brown sugar
• sugar
• cane sugar
• nutmeg
• coriander
• black pepper
• cayenne pepper
• dry mustard
• onion powder
• garlic powder
• paprika
• white pepper
• ground ginger

Another sneaky ass trick I’ve been trying recently – smoking the rub! Yep, throw your spice mixture on some foil, and smoke it for an hour or so. The result is actually not quite recognizably smoky, but it does add something akin to smokiness. Definitely adds complexity:

God I suck at the interweb. To compound my general aversion to perform web related tasks, I am apparently emitting some sort of EM field that causes computing devices to keel over and die. Anyway, this week Citypaper ran my pastrami article, of course drastically edited down for space. Here’s a taste (nyuk):

If you live in Baltimore, you eventually resign yourself to the fact that certain food joneses just aren’t going to get resolved. That’s why it pays to have transplant friends, who you can wheedle into being grub mules when they visit home. So thanks, Reuben, for taking the train all the way to New York to get pastrami from Katz’s, and then not eating it on the train ride back here.

The pinnacle of pastrami artistry for me is Katz’s in New York. Theirs is really transcendent – smoky, spicy, tender yet with a compact grain, well-lubricated with rendered fat and hewn by hand into thick slabs. But it’s $24/lb. not including the 8 hours travel time, and the grub mule (my term for friends that bring me food during their travels) system is unreliable. I once considered pastrami too holy, too mystical, too difficult for one as lowly (and lazy) as I to attempt. But emboldened by a string of smoked/cured meat successes last year (due in no small part to acquiring a massive Tiernan “Son of Brisket” smoker), I decided to suck it up and give it a go.

Two factors needed to be addressed initially, the cut of beef and the curing process. I searched high and low for the so-called plate cuts, i.e. navel plate or pastrami cut, favored by hardcore enthusiasts for higher fat content. Wasserman’s kosher butcher on Reisterstown could get some special order, but the price I was quoted – $7.99/lb. – convinced me to stick with the more readily available brisket.

Butchers usually carry fresh brisket, with the dependable JA Regan in lexington market on the low price end with $3.79/lb and Whole Foods/Cierello’s/Eddie’s on the high end at 5.99. Yet again, Amish butcher guy was the best solution to my meat quandaries, with his grass-fed local brisket priced at $4.39. Be wary of prepackaged supermarket briskets, since they are almost always pre-brined with a nitrite solution, that typically accounts for a fifth of total weight.

As far as cuts, generally the “first cut” of flat brisket is what is most readily available. This is the typical flat, rectangular cut with a cap of fat on top. Preferable is a whole brisket, which is the flat with the cap or “deckel” attached. This piece of beef is very savory and has great texture – some feel it’s the best cut of the cow outright. Then there is the point cut brisket, which comes from further up (towards the head) of the cow, and generally includes both cap and flat, and is more irregularly shaped. Some pre-packaged briskets use this cut, which has more fat than a flat cut. I also believe grass-fed to be particularly tasty for brisket.

Anyways, here is the full, uncut, overly long pastrami project, with lots of pretty pictures of meat. Enjoy!

Two whole briskets from my trusty Amish butcher:

This is the meat cure available at Bass Pro Shops. It’s actually sodium nitrite, as opposed to nitrate, but really these produce the same result – a brief explanation:

The brine, with kosher salt added until a raw egg floats (about 12 cup for 1 gallon):

Flavoring agents, in this case bay leaves, pepper, coriander, garlic, and thyme:

This is the traditional wet cure, which was injected once a day:

This is the wet cure under vacuum, using a standard home model Foodsaver:

(Note that the vacuum must be in a rigid container, otherwise it’s not a vacuum at all, as far as atmospheric pressure)

Injecting the beef (nudge nudge wink wink):

This is a pre-packaged brisket – you can kinda see how the grain is ‘looser’, perhaps due to the inclusion of papaicin, a fruit-derivied enzyme that breaks down portein, as a tenderizer:

The label – as you can see, much cheaper than fresh brisket, but then about of a 1/4 of the weight is simply added water:

Curing beef array – must be a band’s name somewhere:

After curing, the briskets are purged in fresh water to remove excess salts:

Aromatic spice coating:

Dry cure on the left, wet on the right – big difference in color:

A rather homespun solution for weighing the meat down before cooking:

Into the maw of my Tiernan smoker:

(Note the strips of fat on top of the meat – this is a trick I started using on smoked brisket last year. Instead of leaving a thick cap of fat on the meat, I trim it and then use the fat to self – baste. Since the meat surface is exposed, it gets more smoke and browning, while still retaining the benefit of increased moisture from the rendering fat, which I reposition periodically.)

Hour 1:

Hour 3, about the upper limit for smoke ‘absorption’ for beef:

A few river rocks for lift:

Meat in the steamer:

Here is the unsmoked brisket, sitting atop some crumpled foil:

The unsmoked after 3.5 hours:

The smoked after about 4 hours:

A sampling plate of 5 homemade, Katz’s, and Attman’s pastramied beef:

Deep concentration:

Some pastrami portraits, first the great Katz’s:

Attman’s:

And my own Dry/Smoked:

I use a modified version of the popular and widely cited “Senator Mikulski Recipe”, which in turn closely resembles the recipe printed on Old Bay Seasoning cans. Oddly, there used to be an original, slightly different Mikulski recipe, published in the “Maryland Way” cookbook, but I can’t seem to locate it. They all share the most common seasoning component: mustard. I’ve found Dijon adds unnecessary complexity, and dry mustard lacks the balancing acid component of prepared yellow, which I prefer.

My recipe yields a pretty loose mixture that’s a bit difficult to work with, so I’ve developed some extra steps designed to bolster cake structural integrity. I highly recommend frying over broiling, since broiling seems to lead to dryer, blander crab cakes at home. Depending on the output of your stove, you may need to adjust burner strength or broiler distance, so note any deficiencies and adjust accordingly the next time.

The full, super-long crab cake article

1 lb. jumbo lump crab meat (domestic > imported)

1 tsp. yellow mustard

1 egg

1 ½ slices Wonder bread (or any soft commercial white bread)

2 tbs. mayonnaise (use light or fat free at your own peril)

2 tsp. Old Bay

1 small dash Worcestershire sauce

A little milk

Optional: a little ground white pepper, no more than 1 tsp. chopped parsley*

1. Open and invert the container of meat onto a cutting board and tap firmly, releasing the meat. This minimizes potentially harmful handling. You’ll be left with a container-shaped mound of meat, a la canned cranberry sauce.

2. Very gently separate the meat, making every effort to keep lumps and lump clusters intact, and look for shell pieces (discard). Each individual lump need not be separated, just do a cursory inspection.

3. Gently transfer meat to a large mixing bowl. Using a knife, scrape any residual meat and liquid into the bowl as well. Sprinkle ½ of the Old Bay onto the meat and fold, using your hand to scoop from the bottom of the bowl and lifting, gently mixing in a vertical motion t(fig. 1).

4. Tear or cut bread, including crusts, into small pieces, about 1” square. In a small bowl, combine bread with enough milk to soak.

5. In yet another bowl, thoroughly mix the egg, mustard, mayonnaise, Worcestershire, remaining Old Bay, white pepper and parsley.

6. Squeeze excess milk from bread pieces and add them to egg mixture. Taste for seasoning, add salt or Old Bay as necessary. A little raw egg won’t kill you, but if you must, nuke a small bit for 30 seconds, then taste.

7. Pour the mixture over the crab meat, and fold to incorporate. Try to be thorough, but be extra careful not to break up the lumps. Go slow.

8. If the crab cake mixture is very pretty loose, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 20 minutes to tighten it up.

a) To fry, carefully shape into 4 flat cakes (I’ve found the shape and size should correspond closely to that of a White Castle slider, if that helps). If they aren’t keeping their shape well, place the cakes in pairs on a piece of plastic wrap (fig. 2), then wrap securely. Go to step 9.

b) If broiling, then shape into 4 cakes, place on a plate, and cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Go to step 12.

9. Refrigerate for at least another half hour, turning them over once halfway through. This helps flatten both sides of the cakes.

10. Heat a nonstick or well-seasoned cast iron pan (doesn’t seem to make a difference) to medium-low, and add either butter or a neutral-flavored oil like canola or safflower. Do not use olive oil. Unwrap the cakes and slide them into the pan, two at a time (a crowded pan makes flipping more difficult).

11. Fry uncovered until a brown crust has formed, then carefully and slowly flip (leaving them uncovered helps the cakes to self-heal if damaged during flipping). If the cakes break, gather them back together and knock on wood. When the second side is browned sufficiently, remove to a plate. End.

12. To broil, carefully transfer the cakes to an oven-safe pan or baking sheet, and place on oven rack fitted to the highest rung (i.e. closest to top). Keep the oven door open and broil until browned, turning the cakes to allow for even cooking. If you have an oven-safe pan, you can lightly fry the cakes (just the bottoms) before broiling them, thus achieving more complete browning. Endif.

* I recommend using curly instead of the more intensely flavored flat-leaf. It’s hard to use an entire bunch of parsley before it goes bad, so try the following:

Curly parsley is generally grit-free, but if you get a dirty bunch, rinse under running water. Remove as much stem as possible from the parsley by either cutting with a knife or pulling the tops off by hand.

Chop the leaves finely. Place in the center of a clean kitchen towel, then grasp the corners and gather the parsley into a ball. Twist the ends of the towel so the bal gets tighter and tighter, and eventually you will squeeze water out of the parsley. When you’ve squeezed the parsley relatively dry, fluff it up a bit and place in a lidded container. It’ll keep a whole lot longer this way.