Category Archives: Meat

Theme meal thwarted – The Hobbit

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Sorry for the silence of late.  I was being a bit superstitious… and it turned out to not matter anyway.

There was a local store that had this great idea – it’d do a contest for dishes inspired by Middle Earth, in conjunction with the upcoming film of The Hobbit.  Perfect for me – I love Tolkien’s work, and I love to cook.  So I signed up to actually make dishes inspired by hobbits, dwarves, and orcs.

And then the contest got canceled because only one other person signed up.  Sigh.

I hadn’t talked about it until now because I thought that I’d either jinx it by discussing it online or possibly give someone ideas to compete against me.  Well, little fear of that now.  So, here were my thoughts.

Orcs – Black heart stew

Truth be told, there’s not a very wide discussion of orcish dietary habits in any of the books.  The closest I have to any of that would be the fiery drink that they used on Pippin and Merry to get them up and marching in The Two Towers.

Enough for me to work with.

I was going to make a spicy soup – allow spicy peppers to steep in beef stock for 24 hours.  I was probably going to use dried ancho chilies, because I don’t think too many folks besides myself are going to give the ghost pepper a chance (oh, the stories I have).  To go with that, I was going to add cumin, bay leaf, and sage to the seasoning mix to give a rich and powerful kick to it.

With this broth, my hope was to combine it with black lentils and black mushrooms.  These would serve to both give further body to the soup as well as serve as a nice thematic component.

Dwarves – mountain potatoes

Thinking about it, the dietary habits of a species of sentient creatures that live primarily in mountain caves are more than a bit limited.  While there certainly is a biome that can support life, much of what a dwarf would have access to is pretty limited without trade.  And I was thinking that the most famous story about dwarves by Tolkien involved dwarves who were refugees and thus probably stuck eating what was native.

To be honest, I think mushrooms are a bit too cliche, plus I honestly don’t know just how well mushrooms grow in high mountains and mines – since they typically need moisture to grow, it seemed like a more sea-level food.  However, various types of edible taproots and culinary herbs do grow in mountainous terrain.

With that said, I imagine a good side dish for dwarves that would be extremely native would involve potatoes, sage, rosemary, thyme, and lavendar – all very tasty in combination as well as capable of growing heartily in mountainous regions.  They’d have to be tossed in some kind of fat – I bet the traditional dwarven method would be rendered goat or sheep fat. That said, olive oil would be tastier, vegetarian, and olives can grow in pretty hearty areas as well.

Hobbits – Cherry mead cake

I do make tons of different foods, but I will always admit to having a weakness for experimenting with different kinds of cake.  Also, given their dietary habits, if anyone could appreciate a soft and rich cake in Middle Earth, it would be those irrepressible hobbits.

In this case, I would start with a spice cake base.  Hobbits strike me as the sort that would just swoon at the scent of freshly ground cloves, grated nutmeg, powdered allspice, and any other spice that would make a spice cake stand out.

 

Also, I think that the spice mix goes quite well with mead.  Of course, I had to make this a booze cake, and while plenty of drinking of all sorts happens in the story, a strong yet sweet honey mead is the one that I always come back to when I imagine hobbits.  I think the combination of the two would be fabulous.

Also, I would include cherries in two steps.  One, I would take dried cherries and mix them into the cake batter.  I don’t have a good story reason as to why (a classic carrot cake really does seem like something hobbits would make and eat), but I thought it’d be a bit more playful and unexpected, which is always what Tolkien showed with them.

Also, I would add a bit of cherry juice to the frosting.  Making a basic cherry simple syrup, I’d add just a touch to a good cream cheese frosting, in order to give it a light but unmistakable complimentary cherry flavor.  A good finish to a hearty meal.

I will eventually make this, but probably not for at least a week.  While I didn’t do any experiments over Thanksgiving, I did make a ton of classics.  I have a lot of leftovers to clear.

Requested recipe – Arthurian legend meal

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So, a couple weeks ago, I had a request for a meal reminiscent of Aurthurian legends, from QXZenith.  This request, I felt was a worthy one, but I wanted some time to do some research.  There are plenty of ingredients that you might first think would be suitable, but weren’t around in Arhturian times.  Anything with wine was a bit much to request, potatoes are right out, and even the seasonings involved are restricted.

That said, I think I have a good one.

Entree – pot roast marinated in mead

Mead is often overlooked culinarily these days, because you don’t see as many people sell it anymore.  That said, it has its own rich flavor, it was popular in Arthurian times, and it marinates just as well as any other alcohol.  A standard roasting procedure using mead, a basic mirepoix (that’d be two parts onions, one part celery, and one part carrots for the unfamiliar – all of which have been around for millennia; feel free to substitute shallots for onions if you want to be fancy), and choice herbs.  As sage was a traditional flavoring and ward against evil in Arthur’s time, it’s an excellent choice, as are parsley, bay leaves, and thyme.

A pork tenderloin would also work for this, as would a Cornish hen, but I find beef to be the most evocative of a knight.

Side dish – Steak over salad

Taking inspiration from Gawain and the Green Knight, I think a salad featuring steak strips over lettuce is a perfect choice – a little salt and a good sear is all you need for the steak.  Feel free to top it with an appropriate blue cheese (many fine varieties from either northern mainland Europe or England itself will do), and perhaps some cucumbers if you’re up for them.  I highly recommend using a stronger-flavored lettuce varietal, like Bibb, over something that’s used as a dressing-carrier like iceberg.

Drink – mulled apple cider

Mulled drinks (alcoholic or not) were quite popular amongst the royalty of the era; if you’re going to eat like you’re in the court, you should drink like it as well.  While nutmeg isn’t nearly as exotic today as it once was, it’s an excellent choice for a high-end mulled drink, as well as a tiny amount of peppercorn for kick.  While cinnamon and cloves are ordinarily wonderful for such purposes, trade issues that weren’t fully resolved until the 1700s limited England’s access to the seasoning, so I recommend against a period-specific drink featuring it.  For those who want a bit of an exotic flavor, mull a bit of currant with the drink.  And, of course, red wine and mead also work well for this.

Requested recipe – Don Quixote burger

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Yesterday, The Finch came up with a whole bunch of suggestions for recipes.  I can only assume they’re doing a theme dinner of some kind, but I sadly don’t have the time to just throw myself into the kitchen and experiment on doing all of those dishes (don’t forget, I don’t just conjecture – I experiment and make all these foods, and I only have so much room for leftovers).  Between the relative simplicity of the dish and the many avenues I could take it, though, I decided that I could come up with a fun recipe for a hamburger inspired by Don Quixote.  Well, I may have also listened to some Toad the Wet Sprocket while coming up with this burger, but that still makes thematic sense (ask someone who was a teen during the 90′s if you don’t).

First, I knew that the burger would have to be on toasted rustic bread – pain rustique, pane rustico, whatever you want to call it.  Given the rustic setting of most of Don Quixote, it really was the only bread that would do.  I personally would lightly toast it on the stovetop in a light amount of olive oil – you want to give it a bit of crunch and not sponge off all of the toppings, but you don’t want to turn it into a solid piece of toast.

For the burger itself, I actually recommend ground lamb, mixed with minced garlic.  The La Mancha region, home of Quixote, is known for its sheep and goats, and it’s not the best terrain for cattle.  Sure, you can use beef, if that’s all you have available, but lamb makes a terrific burger, and it fits the theme besides.  As for the garlic, garlic mixed in with meat is almost too easy, but Don Quixote was famously once nearly knocked over by a girl’s incredibly garlicky breath – can’t ignore its place in the book.

Now, for toppings, I thought long and hard both about the culinary traditions of Spain and the original story.  I’m going to keep the toppings relatively simple at three, but they’re all very potent and more than enough for a great burger.

The first topping is Spanish ham.  Spain has some of the best ham in the world, which has been famous for millennia.   Seriously, look it up – Romans were praising Iberian ham well over 2000 years ago.  If you want to make a burger that truly calls to mind anything about Spain, including one of its great literary contributions to the global canon, you have to have it.  Plus, to make the bad pun, there were few hams in literature larger than Don Quixote himself.  I personally would select jamon serrano, which is my personal favorite amongst Spanish hams, but jamon iberico is an excellent choice and would make a fine addition as well.

The second topping is Mahon cheese.  Spain is not known for its cheeses, and it honestly doesn’t produce nearly as many as its two neighbors, France and Italy.  My personal take is that you have to be that damned good in order to make it as a cheesemaker in Spain, because I think Spain has some of the best cheeses in the world.  Technically speaking, Manchego should be the cheese to put on this burger (seeing as the name basically is “from La Mancha”), and keep in mind that I think Manchego is an excellent cheese.  That said, it does not melt very well for purposes of a hamburger.  Meanwhile, Mahon, from a small Spanish island in the Mediterranean, is an incredible cheese with a flavor that blends well with nearly everything and it melts just beautifully (I admit, I love Mahon and try to use it as much as possible).  Of course, if you want, you can compromise with some shavings of Manchego with plenty of Mahon – the two blend very well.

The final topping is a tomato jam, preferably a smoked tomato jam.  This isn’t merely a fancy way of saying ketchup.  A good smoked tomato jam is an incredible rustic flavor that goes with meats very well.  On top of that, it’s easy to overlook just how well Spanish cuisine uses tomatoes.  In fact, the only Mother Sauce (of the originals, anyhow) that uses tomatoes at all is called “espagnole” (although there are arguments on precisely why).  It enhances the various flavors here without covering them up.

Also, related to the last post, I picked up the materials to make the champagne butternut squash soup, and that’s going to be made on Tuesday.  Here’s hoping it works out.

Totally flipping out, but not killing everyone

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First off, I’m totally going to do the limeade for Halloween.  Upon a simple review of everything, it’ll be a nice shock to guests.  Also, I imagine someone will probably have fun turning it into a mixer for some drink.  Plus, I really only have to modify my lemonade recipe a tiny bit, so it’ll be a fairly quick make.

Limeade

1 cup lime juice (probably about 12 limes)
1 cup sugar
Water

In a pot, mix together the sugar, the lime juice, and one cup of water.  Mix well.  Stir over low-medium heat for 10-15 minutes, until the sugar is completely dissolved and the volume of the mixture is reduced anywhere from 25-50%.

Remove from heat.  Pour into a half-gallon container.  Fill the rest of the container with water, and stir well.  Chill, then serve.

For later this weekend, I think I’m going to experiment with making my own carnitas – maybe it’s remembering too many family outings to Mexican places as a kid, but nothing quite beats the versatility of a good batch of carnitas – you can treat it like pulled pork, taco or fajita meat, or do any number of other delicious things with it.

The tricky part, though, is carving up the pork shoulder.  I used to use a chef’s knife for it, but I actually found the curvature of the knife a pain to use in such a fashion.  That said, I now have a santoku knife imported from Japan.  I probably shouldn’t be so obsessed over it, but it’s such a nice blade.  Feel like I’m Miyamoto Musashi or Sarutobi Sasuke (well, if the latter really existed) when I’m using it to chop through food.  Plus, I got a blade with excellent heft in the handle – it always feels weird when I use kitchen knives that have light handles, like I’m going to apply too much pressure to the work.

I don’t know what I’ll include in the carnitas yet – that’s a recipe that just begs to be freestyled.  I’ll post more when I figure that one out.

Brainstorming – Halloween entrees

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I haven’t been cooking much the last couple of days – when you make lots of food, you end up with tons of leftovers, so I’ve really been working through those.  With that in mind, though, it’s never too early to start planning on big meals.  I’m next thinking Halloween.

Now, I know the popular thing is to come up with some apple cider drink, throw in some green dye, and call it a witch’s brew.  Little too predictable, if you ask me.  What might work, though, is if I surprise them with something with a powerful flavor.  Perhaps limeade, since that also is a bit green.

I’m actually thinking of something fun with meatballs for a dinner idea, though.  I usually make meatballs with just beef, but you can really blend all sorts of ground meat together.  I’m thinking a combination of beef, lamb, and pork, and make some kind of awesome Frankenstein meatball.  Maybe come up with some powerful seasonings for it too, to make it really memorable.

Not sure how bold I feel, but I could even come up with a flambe gravy for extra fun – fire bad! Fire bad! Though I suspect I’ll need my trusty fire extinguisher on hand if I try this.