The Constables Larder

Easiest damn (good) braised brisket ever

It has been quite a ride the last few months. This week I’m incorporating a new tech startup, with a co-founder I couldn’t be more pleased to be working with. More on that to come (and thank you to those who took my first survey). I’m loving being back at the ground floor with an idea I’m passionate about. Obviously my time is crunched, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t need to put good food on the table! The only trouble is that I have to speed some things up, and I can’t be quite as creative, ambitious, or exploratory. I also need to carve out a little more “fun” time to catch up on the food blogs of so many people I have come to both like and admire out there.

This recipe is not radically different from other beef braises I have done, but in this case I chucked out any step that didn’t feel completely necessary (like searing the meat beforehand). You know what? It took minutes to throw together and the results were still awesome.

Brisket Braised in Beer

4 or 5 lb brisket
1 and a half large spanish onions (or yellow, vidalia, white)
5 garlic cloves, peeled
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 beer (in this case I used sapporo)
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp dry oregano
salt and pepper

Set the oven to 300F. Salt both sides of the brisket liberally (I like using kosher salt).

Chop your onions and place half in the bottom of a dutch oven large enough to fit the meat (it is ok to squeeze the meat in — the brisket will shrink as it cooks). Place the meat on top, and then scatter around the rest of the onions and the garlic cloves. Pour the crushed tomatoes on top, scatter the bay leaves, oregano and a little freshly ground pepper on top, and pour in the beer. Cover and place in the oven.

Stick in the oven for about 6 hours, flipping half way through.

When you serve the meat, don’t forget to cut across the grain, and it’s great with a little coarse salt on top.

The braising liquid and vegetables become a fabulous gravy. Just spoon out any liquid fat on top, spoon some into a food processor, and blend. Taste for salt and pepper.

Poached Pears in Red Wine

I used to make this dessert all the time and for some reason took a long hiatus. When we had some friends over for dinner tonight, I felt the need to make dessert for a change and took a quick look across the food blogosphere for an update. I found a nice recipe by Béatrice Peltre of La Tartine Gourmande over on Boston.com and adjusted to my own taste. Sorry for the lack of a picture, but I was quite happy with the results so thought I’d record it here — the use of cardamom in particular was wonderful.

4 to 6 pears (I used Bosc but have been happy with other kinds in past)
1 lemon
1 bottle of medium-bodied red wine
1 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cinnamon stick
2 long orange peels

Prepare a bowl of cold water and squeeze in the juice of the lemon. Peel your pears, leaving the stem at the top and cutting off the bottom so that they can stand upright. Place each pair in the lemon-water so they do not discolor. Combine the wine, sugar, cardamom, cloves, vanilla extract, cinnamon stick and orange peel in a pot big enough to hold the pears and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook the pears for 35 to 40 minutes, turning them gently every few minutes (be careful — a metal spoon will cut gashes in the soft pear surface). Remove the pears to a bowl and place in the fridge to cool.

Before serving, remove the cinnamon stick and orange peel from the wine liquid and bring to a boil. Cook down until it reaches the texture of syrup. Be careful not to go too far because it will thicken as it cools. Plate each pear standing upright and spoon the hot syrup on top.

Pictures from Late Summer

It is hard to believe that over two months have passed since I’ve posted. I have not had time to post here or read so many of my favorite food blogs, and I’m hoping to change that soon. In the meantime, we are still here, doing well, and missing you all. Here are a few pics from late summer. The produce at our favorite farm was much weaker than last year with the awful weather, but we did enjoy some goodies while the season lasted.

Now we’re entering my favorite time of year when I get back to braises and gratins. Oh wait, that’s right, I do that all year round! I recently made another version of peasant bean stew with leftover braised pork shoulder, andouille sausage, onions, carrots, parsley, and vallarta beans — it was fabulous.

baby bartlett pears

baby fennel

these orange cherry tomatoes were the star of the season; I found the confetti peppers very bright and pretty, but tasteless compared to their larger cousins

brussel sprouts

peppers at market

Summer meals: gratins and sauces

I’ve been on a gratin kick again the last few days. The first one was a remake of an eggplant, zucchini, basil and cheese gratin dish I blogged a year ago. It was one of my favorite meals of 2008, and it struck gold again. It should have been enough for 4 people, but was so good, Lisl and I pigged out and finished it off in one sitting! I’ve gone back and updated the recipe if you are interested. Make it while everything is in season!

I also grilled a skirt steak last night and wanted to share/record the sauce after very good reviews from our guests (no photo, was too busy getting food on the table).

Mustard Sauce for Skirt Steak
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1 1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp grain mustard
2 tbsp dark rum
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
salt to taste

On medium-low heat, saute the shallots in a splash of olive oil in a medium-sized pan for a few minutes, until they soften. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Stir in the mustard and rum and reduce to a light sauce consistency, then stir in the vinegar. Taste and add a small amount of salt if you desire.

Note: an important thing with skirt steak is to give it lots of salt and pepper before you toss it on the grill, and then thinly slice across the grain (I usually cut it into 6 inch lengths before grilling, so that it’s easier to slice).

Elise’s Chocolate & Zucchini Cake

What do excess zucchini and a bored, unwell 4 year old have in common? Elise’s Chocolate Zucchini Cake over at Simply Recipes! This made for a fun Sunday afternoon project, and we’ve been happily nibbling the delicious results all week. It has a wonderful chocolate flavor, and stays moist and not too dense. Lisl was worried that the zucchini might give it a vegetable-y flavor, but one taste and she was sold.

At first I was scouring Elise’s post and comments in puzzlement that the grated zucchini was not squeezed to remove the water, but indeed it is not necessary — the recipe already accounts for the moisture. Note that in the below ingredients, posted for my own future reference, I halved the amount of orange zest used.

I heartily recommend that you pop over to Simply Recipes to read the post and directions.

Chocolate & Zucchini Cake
2 1/2 cups regular all-purpose flour, unsifted
1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup soft butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
2 cups coarsely shredded zucchini
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Glaze
2 cups powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Lulu’s Baked Halibut with Mushrooms and Cream

Some days you see a recipe and weather be damned. That’s what happened to me when I was flipping through Richard Olney’s homage to Lulu Peyraud, Lulu’s Provencal Table and saw:

“Baked Halibut with Mushrooms and Cream”

Yes, I’m a sucker for breadcrumbs.

I cooked the dish that very night to bid adieu to L’s mother, flying back to Sydney the next day. I made a few small adaptations, and the results were absolutely delicious and comforting. This dish will be back on the menu again in future, no question.

Continue reading “Lulu’s Baked Halibut with Mushrooms and Cream”

Slow Baked Dry Rubbed Spare Ribs

Theoretically, I should experiment more with dry rubs but, well, it’s just… for me, this stuff is like the grill equivalent of crack. Crack and pork. Pork and crack. I play around with ratios and leading actors, but I always come back to the same basic cast of characters. When these players hit the stage of Fleisher’s berkshire pork, spectacular things happen.

If you are looking to shut down all table conversation, and revert your guests to a neanderthal state of grunting and gnawing, try the following:

Buy two racks of (berkshire if possible) pork spare ribs for every 3 people.

With a mortar and pestle, grind up:
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp yellow mustard seed
1/2 tsp black pepper

Then stir in:
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp kosher salt
heaping tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp dried oregano

I sometimes use pre-ground cumin, but I really like using the seeds for the coriander, mustard seed, and black pepper for that extra texture. I also will note that I don’t bother removing the membrane on the bottom side of the ribs.

Rub the spice mixture all over the ribs, then place them in a suitable holder (I use a baking dish), cover with plastic wrap, and return to the fridge for 6 hours or more (overnight is ideal).

You can cook these with indirect heat on the grill, or with low heat in the oven. In this case, it was raining, so I baked these on broiler trays (so any melted fat didn’t pool) for 3 to 3.5 hours at 250F degrees.

That’s it. Easy peasy. Dig in caveman!

Urgh gllrgh mmmmmmmm

The ribs before cooking

Additional notes: I usually don’t use oregano with this dry rub, but really enjoyed it here. Another good spin is to add some heat with cayenne or red pepper flakes.

Lulu’s Ratatouille (and the benefits of elbow grease)

ratatouille-lulu

I’ve been reading Julia Child’s My Life in France and the difficulties she faced trying to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In 1959, when Houghton Mifflin finally passed on the book, and before Knopf picked it up, Julia read a note from her champion at Houghton who explained the rejection, “They feel [the average housewife] wants ‘shortcuts to something equivalent’ instead of the perfect process to the absolute.”

America’s culture has changed a lot since then, but anyone who reads Simone de Beauvoir’s 1947 America Day by Day will be struck by how much has remained consistent. The business instincts of the Houghton execs remains somewhat true today if Rachel Ray’s empire is any evidence. Thankfully, there is room for more ambitious efforts, as Julia Child and Simone Beck proved and as new author/chefs continue to show; a recent example is Paul Bertolli’s almost literary Cooking by Hand.

Ratatouille strikes me as a perfect dish to highlight the merits of the two mindsets (and there are indeed merits to both). Sometimes I will throw together a ratatouille very quickly, let all the components stew together for a while unaided, and enjoy a perfectly good rendition. However, with a little more effort and time, you can take the dish to a different level entirely.

On Friday evening, after picking up some lovely fresh vegetables from the local farm, I rolled up my sleeves and put together an adaptation of Lulu Peyraud’s ratatouille from Richard Olney’s cookbook Lulu’s Provencal Table. It is considerably more involved than my usual, but the result, which we ate the next evening, was the sweetest, most delicious ratatouille I have had in a long while.

Continue reading “Lulu’s Ratatouille (and the benefits of elbow grease)”

Shiitake, Chard Ravioli in Dashi Broth w Watercress and Shimeji Mushrooms

Homemade ravioli, stuffed with shiitake mushrooms, chard stems, shallots, pine nuts, parsley and parmesan, made from fresh beet-leaf pasta, served with a dashi-mushroom broth with watercress, scallion greens, and shimeji mushrooms.

That’s a mouthful to say, but was an absolute delight to eat. It was also my first attempt to make up an Asian-European fusion dish, and emerged out of my need to give the old creative cooking juices a swift kick in the pants. For the last few months, I poured my energy into a startup project, but unfortunately it became clear that the necessary funding resources were not going to emerge. Creative cooking took a back seat, but last night’s meal was its way of pounding a fist on the table and crying “my turn, dammit!” I was quite proud of the results, if I can say so myself.

I’ve been a fan of fusion since it burst on the New York City restaurant scene in the mid-nineties (flashback to an incredible dinner with Aun, my then-roommate and now the author of the marvelous blog Chubby Hubby, with a Japanese-Italian pasta-and-squid-ink dish served in a bowl made from a huge cheese rind. I love me some cheese!).

With the arrival of my pasta machine (recommended by Zenchef, and after using it last night, I love it!), I decided that I wanted to serve ravioli with a Japanese broth. This led to cracking open Kimiko Barber’s The Japanese Kitchen, which has been waiting to be read for the last 6 months, and a hop down to the Japanese grocery store in Harrison, NY. This is a fairly involved meal, so with no further ado:

Continue reading “Shiitake, Chard Ravioli in Dashi Broth w Watercress and Shimeji Mushrooms”

Peach, Blueberry and Apricot Cake

When it comes to baking, one of my favorite test kitchens belongs to a New Jersey blog called Stacey Snacks. I’m not a huge baker, even though I might aspire to Zoe heights, however I’ve mentioned before that baking has become a fun activity where I can involve our 4 yr old munchkin. When Lisl caught sight of a peach and blueberry pie recipe with two thumbs up on Stacey’s site, I knew we had to try it.

The recipe comes from Mango & Tomato, and I followed it pretty much exactly save for replacing one of the peaches with 3 apricots (and I skipped powdered sugar at the end). It is very straightforward — check out her site to see the instructions. Moist and absolutely delicious!

Ingredients (just so I have a record should other blogs disappear)
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon yogurt
zest of half a lemon
1 peach, pitted and sliced
3 apricots, pitted and sliced
1 cup blueberries

And while my savory dish of the evening didn’t quite pass the “bloggable” bar (experimental vegetarian dish), I did take this photo of spinach which I liked enough to share: