I thought I might just pop in a photography post this week - a few shots of our little vegetable garden, which I reckon is coming along nicely. Course, that all seems a little too nice, polite and pretty.. so lets through in some fire too (grilled gluten free pizza). Jolly good show.
Happy summer everyone!
There has to be something said for a recipe that combines the two big culinary focuses in my life - seafood and charcuterie (curing, preserving). Salt cod takes care of that.
Salt cod is one of those ingredients that I hardly ever use. In fact, come to think of it I have never done anything with it in my home kitchen. It is always on the menu in some form at a favorite local restaurant of mine, where it is impossible for me to have dinner there and not order something salty and fishy.
I got thinking the other day, and wondered how hard it would be to make. Turns out it is bloody easy. Easier than breathing. Well, almost. You know a dish is going to be easy when the name of it is also the full ingredient list.
Yes folks - to make salt cod you need… drum roll, no guessing now…:
salt.
cod.
BINGO! Well now, that can’t be too hard. Heck, I reckon even Sandra Lee makes stuff with more ingredients than that.
Click to see more photos, and read how to make this classic cured fish recipe
Blame this post on some Twitter friends that assured me it would be interesting.
When you cure meat you have to learn a thing or two about ingredients that don’t come up much in regular cooking. I don’t know about you, but I never cooked much with dry milk powder, dextrose, or peculiar sections of beef intestines. I can say without a doubt that I never dealt with nitrites/nitrates before making moldy meat in my garage.
So I thought it might be kinda fun, in a food history geeky kind of way, to look at why nitrites/nitrates are used in meat curing, the effects and benefits they have, their health implications, and natural sources of nitrites. We will talk a bit about botulism poisoning too, just for giggles.
Click to read a whole heck of a lot more about nitrates
I have a somewhat recent love affair on buckwheat. It seems like savory crepes (galettes) are all the rage here in Seattle, and almost all of them have a proportion of buckwheat in them. This is traditional to the area of France where they were apparently first developed - Brittany. Buckwheat has this lovely rich brown color, and a very distinctive nutty flavor all to its own. Even though the name might be misleading, it isn’t a wheat and is gluten free (watch out however for cross contamination in fields and processing if you are highly sensitive to gluten).
Click to read more, see photos and get this Buckwheat pancake recipe
When you say “Chorizo” to someone, you hear back a lot of different meanings. Here, in my second home of the USofA most people think of Mexican chorizo, when you throw out the C word. Mexican chorizo is a fresh sausage, heavily spiced that needs to be cooked. Mexican chorizo is usually made with chile peppers. and some simple herbs.
If you mention chorizo to anyone from Europe, they will most likely nod you towards Spain, and often the northern Basque region (and surrounds). Spanish chorizo is almost always dry cured, and more often fermented too (fermentation is the addition of good bacteria, to raise the acidity of the sausage, help prevent spoilage and also develop flavor). Spanish chorizo relies heavily on smoked paprika, not fresh hot chilies. This is really what gives a Spanish chorizo so much character. They can be either smoked, or just simply dry cured.
Click to read and see more about how to make Spanish chorizo at home
Sometimes we don’t get to work with our lovely little setup in our home or studio for food photography. Sometimes we walk in to a job not knowing what to expect, and hoping that the gear you have crammed in to your car is going to be what is needed to do it right.
I figured it might be rather interesting to do a post on food photography from a slightly different perspective - that is on location shooting.
The interest here is working with the unknown. Adapting your regularly successful food photography setup to work in a new location with different lighting and space requirements. This is a useful exercise even if you never plan to shoot anywhere else but your home/studio.
Click to read this post on food photography advice and tips
I will admit it now. I know nothing about wine and food pairing. Thankfully I have a friend who does, and has a lovely business selling wine to local Seattle people.
I first met Catherine over a year ago when I hosted and cooked a Seattle Food Bloggers Meat Party. The food had some high’s and low’s (totally overcooked some lentils..) but one thing that stayed consistent was the quality of the wine being served, and just how well the wine was paired with the food.
Click to read more, and get 11 tips on wine pairing
Spring is a time of soups for me. Here in Seattle we are lucky enough to have a ridiculous amount of farmers markets. If you go out for a walk on the weekend, you are pretty much guaranteed to trip over one. Or two. What is more, they are considerably cheaper than those organic natural stores that seem to be taking over the world these days. A good thing for this frugal Englishman.
That is a lie. I am not frugal. The rest is true.
Click to read more, and get this shrimp and vegetable soup recipe
When you talk to most people about cured meat, it is only a matter of time before “coppa” is talked about. Next to prosciutto, I think this certain cut is everyone’s favorite, and it is easy to see why. On a properly raised hog, you get what I consider a perfect fat-to-meat ratio for cured meat. What is more, the fat runs throughout the slice, rather than around the edge, with a few pieces of marbling. No, this fat is in the middle of the meat, providing great textural balance to the meat along with just enough of that fatty mouth feel with every bite.
Most people know coppa as a cured meat, but technically it is a certain cut of pork from the top of the shoulder. The loin of the pig ends, and the coppa begins, and wraps over the shoulder. Coppa is really a bundle of a few muscles, which are heavily used, so have a lot of flavor. Between these muscles is lovely pockets and striations of fat that gives the coppa its unique flavor and texture.
Click for more home cured coppa pictures and coppa recipe
A couple of weeks ago now I was lucky enough to score a ticket to a class. This was honestly the class I had been waiting for. Waiting for a very long time.
Ron Zimmerman (Herbguy on twitter, owner of Herbfarm Restaurant) posted something about a “French Pig” class. Well, that was one link I had to click. Thankfully it wasn’t spam, a virus, or a link to pills that promise something totally not required . It was the sign up sheet for a day’s class in French seam butchery of a pig, lunch at the Herbfarm, then a charcuterie class afterward.
Click to see the French pate recipe
Yes folks, it’s time for another video post! What does this mean? Well, for me it means that a day or so after this post goes live, it goes around my office, and I get ridiculed for a week or so….
Ever wondered why I don’t do more video posts?
Nah, but seriously - I want to do start doing a series of “Matt gets saucy” (yes, I came up with that all by myself..) videos, with a focus on seafood. The videos are gonna be technique focused, and based around simple clean sauces that are simple enough for a mid-week meal.
Click to see this fish recipe, and the fish cooking video
As anyone that reads this blog knows, I have a certain something for rustic, French cooking. The kind of food that gets cooked in houses and small restaurants throughout France. The food that has honestly made France what it is culinary-wise, and I am sure will continue to do so well after I have put my knives and pans away.
A “Fricassee” is right in the heart of French country cooking. A rustic stew of meat and vegetables, enriched with some form of cream. The great thing about a dish like this is that it can be as rustic, or as refined as you like. Some upmarket restaurants go all crazy with alleged fricassee’s of lobster and crab. “Alleged” because like so many terms in French cookery, this one tends to get bent around a bit.
Click to see the recipe and more photos
Six weeks ago Becky Selengut and I started another batch of salami. You may remember, dear reader, that we threw the last batch we made in trash, because I considered the salt percentage too low to be safe.
Well, I am proud to say that this salami cured pretty much perfectly, and quite frankly is one of the tastiest things on earth. How is that for a kick in the pants to my usual modesty?
Becky came over today, we sliced some up, and compared tasting notes. I couldn’t talk, I had too much salami in my mouth. Her’s was perhaps the best analysis:
“wow, the first taste is bay, the middle taste is all porky flavor, and it ends in… YUM”
Click to read more about this home cured salami
I have had to keep this one quiet, really quiet. Which, as anyone that knows me could tell you, is a ridiculously hard concept for me to grasp. This has been in the works for some time, and I am so happy that today is the day I get to share this with you!
(did anyone notice that I changed my blog header to now match somewhat of the front cover?)
I am finding this one rather hard to put in to words, so instead of rambling on about how proud I am, and all that jazz, I guess I should tell you what is going to be in it.
Click to read more about the book deal
Cabbage is not the sexiest thing to blog about. The whole group of vegetables that fall under the cabbage genus (is it a genus? I am guessing so) just conjure up images that are rather unappealing and the best of times.
My memories of cabbage really aren’t that good to be honest. The British have quite a history assaulting this group of plants, and quite honestly a lot of it could quite easily fall under the “war crimes” category, for it is that bad. I remember going over for Sunday lunch at my Grandparents a few times a year. Generally my grandmother was a great cook, she could knock a roast dinner like nobodies business. Cabbage however was another thing. The cabbage got boiled. Boiled for a very, very long time. “Fall apart tender” would be one polite description that could be used.
Click to see this cabbage salad recipe
