Pressurized gas—carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide—is suddenly the hot new cooking tool. Here it’s used to get the marinade in the meat—fast:
Or, impress your friends by serving 5-minute falernum.
Posted in Techniques
No, not beaver tail pastries, but actual beaver tails.
Dave Arnold at Cooking Issues recently prepared “odd meats,” including beaver, raccoon, bear, and yak, purchased from a supplier in Chicago. The beaver and raccoon meat comes from animals trapped for fur; the yak is farmed. The yak was a hit, and bear “started out slightly sweet, but I found it had an off-putting metallic, bloody aftertaste.” Raccoon is tough and fatty.
Beaver tail made for what looks the most intriguing result. The meaty part of the tail, Arnold notes, “is straight up fantastic. It has a woody-musky aroma and flavor that is unique among all meats I have tried.” The flat, iconic, paddle part—called the flapper—started out all wrong. Treating it like a pig’s ear, Arnold blanched and skinned one before deep-frying; and deep-fried another one whole. Not much success with either approach:
The blanched and skinned one was a gloppy fatty mess. Maybe it would have been good for something, but we were tasting it after we had tasted all the other meats and we weren’t in the mood. The whole flapper puffed up nicely in the fryer but we deemed it too fatty and weird for general enjoyment.
But every failed cooking experiment can inspire another one. The puffed-up tail gave Arnold an idea: Take the flapper skin alone and prepare it as for chicharrón, or what we know as pork rinds. Beaver rinds are delicious, apparently.
photo: Tony Crider
Posted in Brain candy, Snacks
We all have strategies for days when we just don’t feel like cooking. Seinfeld ate cereal for dinner; Elaine ordered Chinese. Takeout’s an option, though not often a convenient one at the cottage. A friend confessed recently that when his partner’s not around to cook, or to cook for, his dinners are often “popcorn-based.”
Here’s my strategy–a satisfying, rustic, one-pot concoction of Spanish chorizo (a most versatile sausage) and beans that I can throw together in a few minutes. It hardly matters what type of canned beans you use: navy, white kidney, pinto, or mixed if you can’t decide. Serve with a slab of crusty, buttered bread and a glass of red wine, and this recipe is almost elegant.
To give credit where it’s due, I started cooking this years ago after seeing James Barber make it on that old CBC show, The Urban Peasant. I wasn’t quite paying attention, and I’ve never seen that episode since, so I don’t know how far I have wandered from the original. Still, this dish still feels fresh and relaxed every time.
Beans with Chorizo, Parsley, and Lemon
1 tbsp olive oil (15 ml)
1 onion, sliced
1 chorizo sausage, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can (19 oz/540 ml) beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (250 ml)
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and chorizo and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute more.
2. Add beans. Stir occasionally to heat through. Add parsley and lemon juice. Add a little more olive oil if you like, and season to taste.
Serves 2 as a main dish; 4 as a side dish.
The October (already!) issue of Cottage Life is in the mail to subscribers. I worked with Jane Rodmell on a collection of low-maintenance recipes for the humble skillet. Almost every cottage has a well-used cast iron frying pan—nearly indestructible, long lasting, inexpensive, and a great cooking surface. Here are some tips on caring for your cast iron, plus the first video I shot, edited, and starred in for the blog. It’s a bit rough, and I need to work on lighting and sound, but I hope you like it. (By the way, many of these tips do not apply to enamelled cast iron cookware, such as your very expensive Le Creuset. That’s a completely different animal.)
Choosing cast iron cookware:
- Cast iron is heavy—you’re better off buying a smaller pan you can lift comfortably with one hand than a large one you’ll never use. Those cartoon witches skipping along, rabbit-filled cauldron in hand, must spend a lot of time lifting weights at the gym. Look for a pan with a comfortable, secure handle, and a little tab opposite, which makes a heavy pot easier to lift and manoeuvre. I’m not a fan of cast iron frying pans with wooden handles because, in time, the wood often spins on its axis, making the pan unstable to lift and difficult to tip food out of. Lids are useful, though as Jane points out in the story, it’s easy to improvise one.
Using cast iron cookware:
- Season it—Before you use it for the first time, scour the factory coating off, dry it thoroughly, and wipe a very thin coating of vegetable oil over the surfaces. Place it in a hot oven (about 450°F/230°F) for an hour or so. Don’t try to create a thick layer of seasoning by globbing on the oil; you’ll just make a gummy, smoke-producing surface. If you fry fatty foods (such as bacon) the first few times you use it, you’ll help build up the seasoning layers. Cast iron will never match teflon for non-stickiness, but well-seasoned, it will be very stick-resistant.
- Heat it—Cast iron absorbs a lot of heat, so it takes time to heat up properly, and on the other end, it takes time to cool down. If you need the temperature to be just right—for pancakes, say—test with a small amount of batter first, adjust the heat, and wait for the pan to respond. And if you’re just making a quick grilled cheese at midnight, better to use a nimble stainless steel or aluminum pan that responds quickly.
- Scrape it—Metal implements help polish the surface, according to an excellent post at Cooking Issues on the physics of cast iron cookware.
Caring for cast iron cookware:
- No dropping—Cast iron doesn’t bend or deform when it’s heated, but it is somewhat brittle. It can crack, especially if it’s dropped on a hard surface. Don’t hammer on it either. It’s not an anvil.
- No shocking—Cast iron is tough, but it’s easily frightened. Dump cold water in a hot cast iron pan, and it can crack. Not sure why you’d ever do this, but taking your pan from the freezer and putting it on a hot stove will do the same.
- Cleaning—First try wiping it out with paper towel. If that leaves just a thin film of fat, but gets all the food out, that’s all you need to do. If there’s still food stuck, wash the pan with hot water and a little dishwashing detergent, but don’t soak it for long. It’s a myth that you should never use soap on cast iron. Hand dishwashing detergents are not strong enough to remove the seasoning. But if you make your own lye soap, that’s a different story. Avoid abrasive cleansers, and never run cast iron through the dishwasher, or you will have to reseason it.
- Storing—Dry it well before putting it away (see video; do as I say, not as I do). It’s best to leave lids off, so moisture isn’t trapped inside. Never keep food in it.
Do you have other cast iron tips?
Posted in Techniques
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