If You’re Not 1st, You’re 2nd

April 18, 2012 • Kitchen Experiments, Recipes • by
5 Comments

Ricky Bobby can kiss my ass, because placing 2nd in the Pork Experiment Competition this past Sunday was worth every second lingering over the fiery grill and roasting oven. After being reminded Thursday night by the events curators Theo and Nick, I spun my culinary gears hard and fast to come up with a dish capable of pleasing even the noblest of swiney sages . With Megs as my sous chef and the devil at the wheel we cranked out hundreds of made-to-order samples for the Durham crowd.

I chose to rework my first recipe of 2012 on giusto, Porchetta Sammies, by turning up the heat with the multi-purpose spice you’ve all grown to love: Vesta. The running title was Vesta Porchetta Crostini with Meyer Lemon Salsa Verde. Luckily, the dish was a huge success, “selling” out completely and earning the 2nd place award for Fan Favorite. Hands down, the cook-off was the best culinary event I’ve ever been to, chock-full of great music, great beer, cheering fans, gracious friends and a complete adoration for the day’s star product: NC Pork.

To give the entire recipe would be 1. Long and 2. Out of proportion considering how much pork I cooked, but here’s the Spark Notes version:

1.ROAST PORK SHOULDER COVERED IN GARLIC & HERBS FOR 8 HOURS OR UNTIL EASILY PULLED APART, CHOP ROUGHLY. 2. DOUSE HEAVILY WITH VESTA & MIX TO COMBINE 3.GRILL SLICED BREAD UNTIL GOLDEN BROWN. 4. TOP BREAD WITH PORK AND TOP WITH SALSA VERDE MADE OF MEYER LEMON JUICE/ZEST, OLIVE OIL, PARSLEY AND CAPERS. 

(Taking a written speech from my pocket) I’d like to thank Theo, Nick, Maya and the entire Brooklyn Brewery/Food Experiments/Motorco staff for putting on a stellar battle. Congratulations to all of my fellow competitors, especially the day’s winner with their creative and delicious Bacon Maple Ice Cream. Thank you Sarah Matista for her righteous photography skills and expansive documentation of the day’s fun. Thanks to my Pop’s for inventing Vesta and giving me a helpful boost towards the finish line. And finally, thanks to all of the friends, family and new fans of giusto who voted so adamantly for my dish and earned me a long desired culinary trophy. Food Experiment 2013 can’t get here fast enough!

Carolina Pork Experiment

April 12, 2012 • Kitchen Experiments, Locations • by
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Time to strap on the armor and go to battle! I’ll be competing in the Brooklyn Brewery Carolina Pork Experiment this Sunday, April 15, @Motorco in Durham from 12-3. Pork, Beer, and Culinary Battle? My kind of party. Follow the link below to buy a ticket and come grub out with some of the Triangles best home-cooks duking it out for gastro supremecy and a free ride to the Brooklyn Brewery!

http://thefoodexperiments.com/tour/durham/

Have at you!

Cookie Cookie Cookie

January 26, 2011 • Kitchen Experiments, Product, Recipes • by
3 Comments

ell, it’s safe to say last weeks Giusto Discussion was a flop. Thanks for nothing folks….ha, I kid I kid. It was not the most thought provoking topic (yet worthy of discussion in my opinion) but we’ll try again sometime in the near future.

On a separate note, only recently did it occur to me how prevalent the humble sesame seed is in world cuisine. As a kid I used to munch on sesame cookies (much like the one’s I attempted to recreate below) at family meals. I later grew into cold sesame noodles from the nearest “China Garden”, so cold and peanut-buttery. Add in humongous sesame bagels, tahini-laced hummus, sesame-seared ahi tuna, and the crunchy sesame brittles of Sicily and it’s apparent that this tiny seed has spread from coast to coast with delicious results.

Harking back to the cookies of old Long Island, I recently tried my hand at Megs area of expertise, baking, with positive and negative results. The recipe went something like this:

Sesame Cookies

4 Cups AP Flour

1 Tbs Baking Powder

Pinch Salt

1 Cup Sugar

2 Cups Sesame Seeds

1.5 Sticks Butter

4 Tbs Olive Oil

3 Eggs

1/2 Cup Milk

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Start by heating me oven to 350. In a stand mixer (or with a hand blender) cream the butter, olive oil, and sugar together until very pale. Add the eggs to the mixer (on medium speed) one by one until fully incorporated. Add the Vanilla extract after the eggs and continue to mix on low while you sift the dry ingredients.

Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder and slowly add to the mixer on slow-medium speed. Add it all at once and you’ll not only clump the dough but you’ll look like Tony Montana before getting blown to pieces!

Mix until a smooth dough forms, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes so the butter and oil can cool before handling.

After 30 minutes remove the dough from the ice box. Pour your milk into a bowl and your sesame seeds into another bowl. Pinch a golf-ball sized piece of dough off and roll in your hands until it resembles a small log. Roll each log in the milk quickly and then toss in the sesame seeds. The seeds will adhere to the milk and stick after cooking.

Place each rolled log onto a silicon mat or greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until the seeds are lightly toasted and the cookies have the same crunch as a crisp biscotti.

The flavor is simple and subtle but perfect for dipping into a hot espresso or cup of coffee. The sesame seeds are toasted and create a crunchy coating you can’t get enough of.

My only issue was the use of olive oil I believe. I love the stuff so I try to incorporate it into everything, but in this circumstance I don’t think it helped so try using 2 sticks of butter and no olive oil instead. Or f*ck it and try the olive oil, I ate the whole batch so they couldn’t have been that bad.

Happy munching homeys.

Paulie’s Spark Notes: 1. Make some cookie dough 2. Roll it in da seeds 3. Bake and eat, done-zo.

Juiced Up

November 2, 2010 • Kitchen Experiments, Recipes • by
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ecipes? We don’t need no recipes, let the mother f*cker blend! That doesn’t seem so vulgar if you know the song reference. Gazpacho, another great concoction by the crafty Spaniards, calls for proportions rather than a strict recipe. It’s fall, but thanks to global warming you can still find a great selection of ripe, fruity veggies to toss into the old blendatron and whip up a Gazpacho so rich, so sweet and velvetty you’ll wanna slap yourself with an ice cold celery stalk!

First things first, hardware: 1 Blender. 1 Micro Strainer. 1 Bowl.

Software: Any collection of ripe, crisp vegetables. In this case I used celery, peppers, tomatoes, scallions and a little fennel. The only thing you really have to worry about are the proportions. I like equal parts of all veggies so no one flavor is king, it’s more of a democracy. Then I pour in enough water to reach halfway up the blender, a splash of good olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Blend into oblivion, strain into a bowl, chill, and serve with another drizzle of oil.

Some enjoy chopped veggies in theirs as well but I find that just gets in the way of the smooth texture. Adding a little Pimenton makes this exceptionally Spanish, but this cold soup, as it were, could transform into that of a thousand different cultures with the addition of specific veggies, spices, or oils. A thousands a lot, maybe a couple dozen. If you come up with a killer combo, let me know.

Market’s Bounty

July 26, 2010 • Kitchen Experiments • by
4 Comments

etween the Downtown, State, and new Bickett Market my kitchen creativity is being tested week after week. With products this fresh it’s almost impossible to leave the market completely content. I want every ripe tomato, baby eggplant, fingerling potato, and plump cucumber I can get my hands on. It’s a Festivus for the Rest’uvus!

Last weeks Downtown Market was bursting at the seams with the seasons first peaches, swollen with sun-drenched flavor, as well as succulent turkish figs, purple long beans, sugary orange cherry tomatoes, and more potato varieties than I care to count. After snagging some of the long beans and figs I spent the later part of the afternoon chatting with the owners of the recently opened Bickett Market near Five Points off Glenwood. A full article on Bickett Market will be available on NewRaleigh.com any day now, but in short it’s a distributer for all things local. From beef and pork to tomatoes and milled flour, Bickett Market is a one-stop shop for all of your localvore madness. Among the dozen or so fish options I chose 4 shiny Black Bass fillets and a head of garlic.

As great as the market was, nothing can beat veggies straight out of the ground like this behemoth! This bright green swan impersinator is called a Cucuzza (or Goo’goo’za) in Italian and is a rare variety of squash from Sicilia mainly. They typically grow with the help of a trellis and can grow up to 6 feet long! This monster was closer to 3, maybe 4, and took us an entire week to consume entirely (as you’ll see by the rest of this week’s posts). With arms overflowing with NC’s finest ingredients I was home bound, ready to transform the days harvest into the evening’s meal.

It may have been as hot as Satan’s balls outside but I was really itching (gross) for something off the grill. Looking curiously at the array of garden-fresh products before me I chose to play around a bit. Maybe I could roll these…inside this…and blanch these…maybe toss them with…yeah, that will work. The result:

Black Bass Involtini with Figs and Ham

Garlicky Grilled Long Beans

Charred Cucuzza with Sherry Vinaigrette

It may look complex but this meal took no more than 30 minutes to assemble. To summarize:

FISH: Remove the skin on your fish. Cut fillets in half and roll each half with a halved fig and a slice of ham. Scewer two or three, season with salt, pepper, oil and place on a plancia or hot piping-hot grill until moist and flakey (flip once).

Beans: Blanch in boiling water for 3-5 minutes or until al-dente. Remove and shock in ice bath. Rinse and dry before coating in a mixture of bread crumb, garlic, oil, and parsley. Cook on a plancia or veggie grill plate until lightly charred and tender.

Cucuzza: Almost identical to Zucchini, this squash is easy to grill and chars up perfectly. Cut into 1/4″ slices, coat in salt, pepper, and olive oil and grill until lightly seared and tender.

A celebration of summer, each flavor was more exciting and vibrant than the next. The slightly briny and flakey Bass was made extra sweet thanks to the porky ham and oozing figs. The beans were almost like Garlic and Oil pasta with each long “strand” coated in a crusty combination of bread crumb and garlic. The cucuzza, tho the skin became quite leathery, are soft and sweet like fresh cucumbers but with the taste of summer squash. Dressed with only a drizzle of sherry vinegar and good olive oil, it was a bright and refreshing compliment to the rest of the meal.

What’s in store this week? We’ll just have to wait and see what the markets have to offer. Make sure you stop by the Downtown Farmers Market this Wednesday to visit me at the Vesta Booth. We’ll have bread, oil and tomatoes, and maybe even peaches coated in our fiery topping for your enjoyment. Ci Vediamo!

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