Summertime, (kinda...almost...sorta) and tomatoes are piling up!

Every good Southerner knows that the beginning of Spring means that - very soon - fresh, home-grown tomatoes are going to start rolling in. Now, my folks have been participants in a CSA (community supported agriculture) program for several years, and also grow their own heirloom tomatoes. This leads to a real glut of tomatoes during the heart of the growing season.

So, here's a quandary. No self-respecting Southerner wants to waste a single, perfect, homegrown tomato. But there are only so many people to share with, and while canning is one solution, it's also a time-and labor-intensive alternative.

So, in honor of my impending move back home, I offer this alternative to canning that is efficient, versatile, and delicious. You only need a few things - tall, slender containers, salt and pepper, some kind of vinegar (I like red wine, but cider or white balsamic are also good), and (optimally but preferably) some Thai fish sauce. Don't worry - it's way better than it sounds! Also, some fresh herbs - particularly basil - would be great!

Caveat - this particular preparation will not keep like canning will, but it is a great way to use excess tomatoes...it's versatile, yummy, and will keep the deliciousness from going bad right away.

Step one is to get your prep ready (that's "mise en place" in fancy chef language). Kosher salt in a bowl, freshly ground pepper in a bowl, chopped basil (and/or other herbs) in a bowl. Tall container cleaned thoroughly with boiling water. Knife sharpened. Tomatoes washed.

First thing I do is put out a flat work-surface next to my cutting board.

Next, I start slicing tomatoes into quarter-inch thick slices. The end-pieces make great snacks while you work. The slices themselves go on the work-surface. Once it's full with a single layer, sprinkle kosher salt lightly over each piece, then pepper, then herbs. Stack slices into container. Rinse and repeat.

Salt has gotten a bad rap over the years, but the fact of the matter is that it is one of the few holy components of cooking. It enhances and preserves, and in this case, pulls out liquids and makes the tomatoes macerate in their own juices. Mankind would likely not have survived without salt.

Without adding a drop of liquid, this process will have your slices of tomato covered in juice within a few hours. For the next step, you can wait until the next day, or go ahead. It's a matter of personal preference.
For the finishing touch, I use five medium tomatoes for the sake of proportions.

Mix 2 TB fish sauce (this adds the "fifth taste" umami to your tomatoes. I'll let you look that one up, but basically umami is "richness") with 2 TB of vinegar (your choice, I prefer malt, red wine, or white balsamic). 1TB of soy is optional. You might consider a dash of hot sauce - Texas Pete, Tabasco, Crystal, etc. if you like a touch of heat. Sriracha would be kind of great, also.

Let the tomatoes sit for a couple of days, and then...deliciousness :)

Return of the Jedi...er...Chef

At some point between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Mark Hamill (that's Luke Skywalker for the non-Star Wars fans out there... God help you if I have to explain Star Wars) had a car accident that required plastic surgery on his face. The extent of that surgery is a subject of substantial debate, legend, opinion and bluster; what is relevant, however, is that between Episodes IV and V, Luke underwent an obvious change that got fans - even pre-blogosphere fans - speculating.

While the popular theory is that the wampa attack provides strong plot support for the nascent Jedi's altered physiognomy, my personal theory is that anyone shoved head first into the digestive cavity of a tauntaun would be lucky to escape with nothing more than mild facial scaring.

What is the point of this long (and admittedly nerdy) meandering? Well...transformation. Duh!

When I started this blog, I wanted to catalogue the culinary adventures of a dilettante...an amateur with a nice set of knives, copper cookware, and a gustatory itch to scratch. Things have changed. Things have changed ALOT. Maybe not wampa-alot, but...

Now, I'm an incipient culinary school student; after years of soul searching, I'm heading into a future where I pursue my true calling - food. My philosophy hasn't changed - I still think that great food is accessible to everyone, and I still want to talk about it...you know, constantly :)

The only difference is that now I'll have a better lightsaber and a cool Jedi robe.

Err...I mean better knives and a chef's uniform...obviously...

Return of the Jedi...um...Blogger!

At some point between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Mark Hamill (that's Luke Skywalker for the non-Star Wars fans out there... God help you if I have to explain Star Wars) had a car accident that required plastic surgery on his face. The extent of that surgery is a subject of substantial debate, legend, opinion and bluster; what is relevant, however, is that between Episodes IV and V, Luke underwent an obvious change that got fans - even pre-blogosphere fans - speculating. While the popular theory is that the wampa attack provides strong plot support for the nascent Jedi's altered physiognomy, my personal theory is that anyone shoved head first into the digestive cavity of a tauntaun would be lucky to escape with nothing more than mild facial scaring. What is the point of this long (and admittedly nerdy) meandering? Well...transformation. Duh! When I started this blog, I wanted to catalogue the culinary adventures of a dilettante...an amateur with a nice set of knives, copper cookware, and a gustatory itch to scratch. Things have changed. Things have changed ALOT. Maybe not wampa-alot, but... Now, I'm an incipient culinary school student; after years of soul searching, I'm heading into a future where I pursue my true calling - food. My philosophy hasn't changed - I still think that great food is accessible to everyone, and I still want to talk about it...you know, constantly :) The only difference is that now I'll have a better lightsaber and a cool Jedi robe. Err...I mean better knives and a chef's uniform...obviously...

Deconstruction, Whimsy, and Riffs

The French philosopher Jacques Derrida introduced the term "deconstruction" in his 1967 work Of Grammatology. In the most simplistic terms, deconstruction is a kind of criticism that involves breaking a text into its component parts and influences, and examining those components to establish context and meaning for the original text.

You might ask why I mention this in a food blog. Well, the concept of deconstruction spread from literary criticism to various other fields and disciplines, including the culinary. In cooking, deconstruction has come to mean taking classic dishes and preparations and reinterpreting them in different ways, maintaining the fundamental flavor profile while updating and elevating said classic.

I'm having some friends over for dinner tonight, and while I was thinking about menus, a character on TV mentioned "franks and beans". Franks and beans - they're a simple comfort food from my high school days, and probably from many of yours. But, they weren't complex, and certainly not fit for company.

DECONSTRUCTION!

So...how do you take franks and beans and turn it into a big-boy dish worthy of serving to friends? I've decided to inject a bit of whimsy into the mix, creating what is (hopefully) a great blending of flavors that captures the essence of simple dishes.

The Concept

I've decided to create a modern riff on franks and beans, AND the classic sausage with sauerkraut. Components - bratwurst poached in Guinness, then seared on the grill, baked beans made with molasses and poaching liquid, a "sauerkraut" made with red and Napa cabbages, grated Gala apples, and grated fennel with a brown sugar and apple cider vinegar reduction, and a mustard, horseradish and baked bean purée.

This takes the basic flavor profiles of franks and beans, and sausage and 'kraut, but updates it with additional flavors, different techniques, and new spins. It's risky - I once tried a deconstructed BLT risotto that didn't work so well. But it's all about being bold!

Results to follow!

Poaching...the legal kind.

As a kid, I hated fish. It's not unusual - our palates are underdeveloped when we're young, which is why there are so many foods that we wouldn't eat then that we love now. The addition of previously-despised foods to my list of "things I love to have in my mouth" reads like a timeline of palate development. Onions, shrimp, tomatoes, avocados, beets (also pâté, blue cheeses, fois gras, escargot, and a variety if other obscure gustatorgasms) - one by one, they all wooed and seduced me into loving them.

Seafood had its own timeline. It started with things like popcorn shrimp from Red Lobster (I hang my head) or your standard fried fish. I clearly remember the first time I was enticed to eat Shrimp Scampi; for the next several years, it became my dish of choice at The Country Gentleman, back when that was THE good restaurant in Rome, GA. Then came grilled salmon, then grilled tuna, then salmon en papillote, then mussels, then calamari, then crayfish, then crab and lobster, then...whew! You get the idea.

Eventually I got to the point where all of those delicate fish - too delicate to appeal to an under-developed palate - tasted great, and offered a welcome change from the chicken-beef-pork-salmon-tuna grind. So, TONIGHT'S DISH IS:....

Cod fillet, slow-poached in wine, with a saffron-infused bechamel made with poaching liquid, served over bacon-gratin potatoes, with roasted leeks.

The Plan:

First, slice red and yellow wax potatoes into fine slices on mandoline. Parboil for a few minutes in milk. Shock in cold water, reserve milk, dry potatoes. Put several bacon slices on medium-high heat and sizzle until done. Drain bacon, then crumble, and reserve bacon fat. Take potato slices and carefully overlap into a SQUARE or RECTANGULAR pan. As each layer is complete, lightly brush with bacon fat, and lightly sprinkle with bacon crumble, salt and pepper - go REALLY LIGHT on the salt. Once all potatoes have been layered, add back sufficient milk to cover, and add to 350 oven.

Second, heat oven to 180-200. slice one leek longways into planks. Maintain form, while fanning layers under cold water to clean. Dry well. Slice long planks in half, shortwise. Mince a couple of shallots. Melt a bit of butter over medium heat in a saute pan - 1TB or so, then sauté shallots. Season cod. Add planks of leek to pan in center to create a platform. Pour in white wine (GOOD white wine) enough to cover about 1/3 of the fish atop the leek platform. Bring liquid to a bare simmer (around 130-140 degrees) then add fish atop platform. Cover, and move to oven. For a thick filet, you're looking at 10 minutes. When done, remove fish and keep warm. Reserve liquid (strain).

Third, make béchamel. This mother sauce is a roux (equal parts flour and butter by weight, though a good non-weight rule of thumb is 2 parts flour to 1 part butter, where the butter is melted and the flour added and cooked to various degrees - in this case, a very light cream color) plus milk or cream. Warm milk - 1 cup of dairy for each 2TB Flour/1TB Butter in the roux - then slowly stir in until sauce thickens. For this sauce, first add a pulverized 1/4 t or so of saffron threads after the butter melts, but BEFORE adding milk.

Once fish is done, add strained poaching liquid to béchamel, thicken slightly, taste and adjust seasoning. The sauce should be velvety, but not gummy.

Plating

Slice the gratin so you have rectangular lengths, two overlapping potatoes wide.

On a square plate, drizzle sauce over one half. On the unsauced half, place a rectangle of gratin so that the edge is just at center. Place the cod filet parallel to the gratin, and slightly overlapping so that it leans against the gratin. Dot or streak with some additional sauce, then arrange the grilled leeks so that they are perpendicular to the fish/gratin, leaning against the fish on the sauced side of the plate.

Results

This dish turned out really well. The béchamel with the poaching liquid was subtle but very rich, and the potatoes were delicious. I decided to go with scallions instead of leeks, more for visual reasons. Leeks are pale and straight, while scallions have brilliant green ends, and curve. They also crisp up nicely when roasted.

I will make this one again!

Update: Corn purée

Revisiting the purée, I reincorporated the strained portions, and puréed a second time, adding in a little more cream for emulsification and stabilization. Worked much better!

Tonight's evaluation - pork chops w/ roast corn salsa and caramelized corn purée

So, tonight's dish was all about corn. How did it go?

What worked:

The salsa - yummy and simple...roughly equal parts roasted corn, avocado, sliced leeks, and diced tomato, along with a couple of tablespoons of lime juice, a little cilantro, and salt and pepper.

The chop - pretty basic. Dredged in flour, the dipped in egg wash and panko.

What didn't work:

The purée. Flavor was good, but texture was all wrong. Way too thin after being pushed through strainer.

How to fix it:

Fix the purée. The immersion blender was probably the wrong tool choice. Use a food processor or standard blender to purée more thoroughly, adjust seasoning on the purée.