What's Going On Here?

As he leafed through the pages of Snacks & Sandwiches, Matt kept saying: “That’s not a sandwich . . . that’s not a sandwich . . . that’s not a sandwich!”  He doesn’t believe open-faced sandwiches are sandwiches.

As a long time fan of the open-faced hot turkey sandwich, I have no such quibbles.  But even so, this page stopped me in my tracks.  In fact it was the deal closer, in deciding whether or not to add this book to my collection or to give it a pass.

It’s not just the attention to detail.  Although it is impressive. Sigh. Look at the way the meat is trimmed to exactly fit the bread, the repeated groupings of three, the radishes sliced to translucence. Such artistry!

It is another translucent ingredient that made me realize this was a keeper.  An ingredient I have long been fascinated by, though I’ve never eaten it.   It is used here in a way I had never seen before. From the caption:

A coat of clear aspic is spooned over French gourmandises. […] Chilled until firm, the aspic will provide a shining surface for the open faced sandwiches, and will hold the elaborate garnishes in place.

Who knew aspic could be so functional?

A Play of Geometry

This is the latest addition to my collection.  It came out in 1980, but it was one of a series of Time-Life books.  If you remember the Time Life music collections advertised on television around that time, you know that the “time” usually focused on was “the past”.  This book seems to be looking back over a glorious past where precision in presentation was prized above all,  where you could get pretty far on piping skills alone, and everything was arranged like an Annie Leibowitz photo shoot, even if, or especially if, it was supposed to look natural.

Isn’t this loaf amazing?  Things are sandwiched between slices of bread, but this is like no sandwich I’ve ever seen. It’s built like a Murano glassworker builds a milliefiori cane.  The assembly must take forever, and then you’ve got to slice it without distorting the gorgeous cross-sections, no easy task especially since the dots in between the pink squares of ham are pistachio nuts. By the way the green is asparagus.

At first I assumed the binding agent was some sort of cream cheese, but when I turned to the directions for this dish I found that it was butter.  Butter! Each slice must contain like half a stick.  I like butter, don’t get me wrong. But that’s a little too much, even for me.

Then I looked even closer.  It’s not plain butter. Its beure fermière: butter flavored with wine and egg yolks.  So, no problem.

The Secret Skewer

Even if it’s a grey, chilly, kind of rainy day, the Fourth of July really ought to involve grilling. So yesterday I made chicken spiedies and grilled corn. I don’t know if I can call spiedies vintage cookery since I got the recipe from the June/July 2009 issue of Cook’s Country, but hey, Wikipedia says the spiedie got its start back in the 1920’s. Plus it’s obscure enough to qualify. The introduction in Cook’s Country called them “upstate New York’s best-kept secret”. I agree, since I grew up in upstate New York and I’d never heard of them.  They are skewers of grilled chicken that you slide off into a bun for a sandwich.

Cook’s Country is the slightly larger format magazine with color photos from America’s Test Kitchen, the same people behind the decidedly black and white Cook’s Illustrated. Cook’s Country features a bit more down-home fare: more BBQ ribs, less Chicken Kiev, but it still has the signature Christopher Kimball introduction about catching fireflies and chatting with crusty old Vermonters, and the OCD level of testing : Vanity Fair paper plates are better at weight bearing, but Solo has the advantage in spill prevention. The recipes follow the inevitable Cook’s Illustrated pattern. There’s an introduction outlining the glorious history of the dish, then the slightly longer section detailing what has gone wrong and how all the recipes they’ve found fall short: “I wasn’t surprised that my first batch of spiedies tasted pickled. Worse, the chicken was grainy and chalky, as if it had been overcooked.” Next the goals are laid out and the steps in the testing process, including the dead ends are described, before the recipe itself is presented.

The spiedie recipe is relatively uncomplicated for the Test Kitchen people. It does call for fresh basil and dried oregano. Most people just use dried herbs because it’s easier, while some people insist that fresh are always superior and should be used whenever possible. The Test Kitchen goes further to assert that fresh and dried are two different things and thinks of each distinctly. I wouldn’t argue with them, but my basil plants are still only knee high to a grasshopper, so I reached for the jar of dried basil. On the other hand, we were out of dried oregano, but had plenty of fresh, so I chopped up some of that, and some parsley, why not? Actually there might have been a jar of oregano in the cupboard, but I couldn’t find any. Matt, for some reason, refuses to alphabetize the spices.

In any case their recipe has it all over one I found on the internet which just called for marinating the chicken chunks in a bottle of spiedie marinade. I’m not against store-bought marinades, but if I could find spiedie marinade in the store, I’d bet my set of skewers it’s got directions printed on the bottle. Plus where’s the sauce? I don’t know if it’s traditional, and I don’t care, but the mayonnaise based sauce you make in step one of the Cook’s Country recipe is the best part. Even sauce averse Matthew loves it. And it gives me a chance to use one of my collection of small pitchers.

To sum up: Chicken Spiedies have a New York History, are cooked on the grill, let me use specialized dishware, and make Matt happy. What more could I ask for? Oh yeah, they’re also super delicious.

Rarebit Spotting

Welsh Rarebit was the subject of one of the questions on the latest PodQuiz: episode 275. I like to torment Matthew with PodQuiz whilst we do dishes.

Rookie Mistake

 Let us pause to consider the chafing dish itself.

There's a scaffolding that holds a water pan over a heat source and the blazer pan over the water pan.  The heat reaching the food is a very even 212° F, perfect for melting cheese, making delicate sauces, or keeping food warm at the buffet.

But the very name blazer pan seems to suggest it might be used a bit more aggressively.  And so it can.  You remove the water pan and use the blazer pan directly over the heat source like a skillet. This is how you can use the chafing dish for cooking performances wherein meat is browned and a fond created for rich sauces. This is how you create sizzle!

In retrospect, it seems obvious that for Steak Diane, you would want to use direct heat.  

 Illustration by H.W. Doremus from The Chafing Dish Cookbook by John and Marie Roberson.

Meat: The Yardstick of Protein Foods

 At this point we will take a break from the Prices.  Don’t worry, we will come back to them. I have barely lifted the crust of the deep dish pie that is A Treasury of Great Recipes. Just remember that this pie is as likely to contain jellied meat as anything.

But in the meantime, I ought to actually cook something.  Not that there aren’t things I can cook in A Treasury of Great Recipes, but so far the only things that seem doable are cookies or desserts. As for main courses, I keep getting distracted by things like Polynesian Coconut Duckling or Königsberger Klops.   What I need is something relatively simple, not too terribly expensive, that will appeal to Matt, while keeping me interested.

It is time to turn to Fondue, Chafing Dish and Casserole Cookery by Margaret Deeds Murphy.   I’d really like to use the chafing dish again: the drama! The easy cleanup!  And Mrs. Murphy seems to know that the exotic cooking equipment is novelty enough: she doesn’t load up her ingredient list with saffron or three kinds of meat.

She has a recipe for Steak Diane that looks good.  I’ve made Steak Diane successfully (i.e. Matt liked it), but the recipe I used in the past was made in a skillet and used as a crêpe filling. The basic formula is the same:  steak lightly sauced with mustard.

The first hurdle is always meat selection.  It ought to be simple, yes?  One pound boneless sirloin steak. 

The thing is, I have to admit I’m not very good with the packages of meat at the grocery store.  Really buying meat in general.  Whether I go to an actual butcher shop or to the butcher counter, or select from among the wrapped Styrofoam trays, whatever cut was called for in the recipe doesn’t seem to be available,  only available in quantities more suited to a mess hall than my kitchen.  I’ve read and re-read all  about the primal cuts, and the difference between  chuck and round, but  when I get to the store I can’t keep sirloin, tenderloin and top loin straight, much less filet mignon vs. “tournedo of beef”.  I write down what it is I want but nothing at the store is labeled that way, and I’m not sure if that’s because they don’t have it, or they just call it something else.  Substitution is fraught with peril.  Tip steak and sirloin tip just do not work the same.

Matt is quite knowledgeable about meats.  He has been cooking daily for years now, loves meat and studies it like a Mets fan and the box scores.  When we’re at the store and he heads to the meat department, I usually wander over to the bakery to look at the pretty cakes because he has to examine everything from chops to skirt steak.  More than a few of my cookbooks point out that any fool can make a tasty meal out of an expensive steak, but it takes a truly skilled cook to make a good meal out of a cheap cut. (This is usually before the section on organ meats)  Matthew is a Master of Chuck, a Magician of Brisket.  He always selects his meat with an eye on the price, and he will go for quantity over quality every time.

I am of course, the dilettante who would always choose a tiny, expensive piece of meat over the solid trencherman’s slab.  So whenever I ask Matt’s advice on which cut of meat I could substitute, I always suspect he is steering me towards some tough piece that is completely unsuitable for the delicate recipe I have in mind.

Luckily this time around I was able to find a package of meat that matched my recipe.  It only took about twenty minutes, and it was twice as much as I really needed, but now I have everything I need.   Tonight’s cooking performance starts at six.

Photo from New Delineator Recipes.

Rabbit or Rarebit?

Some people spell it rabbit, some spell it rarebit.  What's Vincent Price's take on the question?  He includes a recipe in the section on England and the introduction addresses that very question. (All of the recipes except for a few in the back for basic sauces, doughs etc. get a paragraph introduction.) Go ahead an click on the image to bring up a version that should be large enough to read.  He does agree with me about  milk-based rarebit.  Never!