Onion Roll Special

When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes take me to Town and Country Village in Sacramento and we would have lunch at Brothers' Deli.  This is one of my earliest food memories.  I have no idea what else they had on the menu, because I would get the Onion Roll Special every time I went.  I loved it.  I'm pretty sure that the sandwich was a meat sandwich with half corned beef and half pastrami on an onion roll with a little bit of mustard.  It was served with potato salad and a dill pickle spear.  This was 40 years ago, and Brothers' Deli is long gone.  But the memory of those meals remains with me.

So for the Charcuterpalooza challenge this month, I invited my almost 80-year old mother to lunch for my interpretation of the Brothers' Deli Onion Roll Special.  I used Alton Brown's Corned Beef recipe to brine two pieces of brisket.  One of them I left in the brine for 10 days, the other for three.  I hot smoked and cooked the three day brisket using the directions in Charcuterie for Pastrami.  I cooked the 10 day brisket in a pressure cooker using the recipe for brisket in Victoria Wise's The Pressure Cooker Gourmet.

When the meat was ready, I piled the meat on some store bought onion rolls, spread on a bit of mustard, then served the sandwiches with some potato salad and a pickle spear.  My mother is kind of an easy audience these days...she doesn't want to cook any longer so she's happy to eat what I'll feed her.  But the sandwiches were very good.  I hope she realizes how much I appreciate my childhood...

Seafood Paella

My wife and daughter are in Arizona this week, so it gives me a chance to cook some of the dishes they don't like.  One of those dishes is paella. Neither of them likes saffron, peas, and anything cooked in a carbon steel pan.  Check, check and check.  I had some cod filets, scallops and peas in the freezer and some home cured spanish chorizo in the refrigerator, so all I needed from the store was a half dozen shrimp and a pork chop.  I made this in my 12" paella pan which yields two generous servings.  I just threw this paella together, but I really like Penelope Casas' cookbook Paella! as a reference for all things paella.

pinch of saffron
3 cups chicken broth (or fish stock)
2-3 ounces Spanish chorizo, diced
2 T olive oil
6 sea scallops
4 ounces cod filet, cut into 1-inch chunks
6 extra large shrimp in their shells
1 pork loin chop chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 small onion, diced
1/2 large red bell pepper
half of a 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes (with their juices)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups Spanish or Arborio short grained rice
1/4 cup frozen peas
1 jarred piquillo pepper (or roasted red pepper) cut into thin slices

Preheat oven to 450°. Pour the broth into a pot, add the saffron and bring to a simmer.  Keep hot over low heat

Heat the olive oil in the paella pan over medium heat.  Add the chorizo and cook until browned.  Remove the chorizo to a plate.  Increase the heat to high then add the sea scallops and sear both sides quickly. Remove to a plate.  Add the shrimp, cook briefly, then remove to the plate with the scallops.  Add the pork,  brown, and remove to the plate with the chorizo.  Add the cod and cook until just browned.  Remove to the plate with the chorizo.

Turn the heat down to medium and add the onion and red bell pepper.  Cook until softened.  Add the garlic, cook for a minute, then add the tomatoes and their juices.  Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the rice.  Stir the rice into the mixture, then add the hot broth.  Bring to a boil, and cook until the rice has absorbed most of the broth, but enough liquid remains to finish cooking in the oven.  Stir in the reserved chorizo, pork and cod.  Arrange the shrimp, scallops, peas and piquillo peppers on top of the paella.  Place in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes.  Remove from the oven, cover with foil and let sit for 5-10 minutes to finish cooking the rice.

Charcutepalooza Pancetta

This all started for me about 12 years ago when I received a small package in the mail from my friend Sergei.  I opened the package to find a Christmas Salami that Sergei had handcrafted.  It was a revelation -- so much better than the store bought salamis to which I had become accustomed.  When I asked him how he was able to cure the sausage, he explained that the house he lived in had a cellar that was perfect for curing meats.  I would have started making charcuterie then if I had a cellar.

A few years went by, my daughter was born, and I didn’t give much thought to making charcuterie.  But then my daughter discovered pork.  She became a fiend for all things porky.  It started with bacon but soon progressed to sausage then salami.  She collects pigs. She uses the Piggly Wiggly logo as her avatar.  So I started to think about charcuterie again.

I learned that people were using refrigerators and wine chillers to cure charcuterie.  Then I found Michael Ruhlman’s website, and bought his book Charcuterie.  Then I bought a wine chiller last October.  Then I read about Charcutepalooza.  So here I am.

Oh yeah, about the pancetta.  This is my second attempt at a rolled pancetta after a disastrous first try.  Let’s just say green fluid oozing from a loosely rolled belly and leave it at that.  This one looks good.  I’ll try some tonight fried up with some Brussels sprouts.  Then it will go back in the wine fridge with the Sopressata and Tuscan Salami to age a little longer.  I’ve got to get good at this for when I make my Christmas Salamis this fall...

Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Biscuits and Gravy

Okay, this is kind of a cholesterol bomb...but this was one of my favorite breakfasts at John Hudspeth's long-gone Bridge Creek Restaurant in Berkeley.  Marion Cunningham was a friend of Hudspeth's and the menu and recipe consultant at Bridge Creek.  She included recipes for many of the dishes served there (including this one) in her The Breakfast Book cookbook. So I made breakfast for dinner.

Cream Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 T baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 425°.

Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar in a mixing bowl.  Slowly add the cream while stirring with a wooden spoon.  Once all the cream has been added, mix with your fingers until the dough comes together.  Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for 1 minute.  Pat into a square about 1/2 inch thick.  But into 12 squares.  Dip each square into the melted butter and place about 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake for about 15 minutes until nicely browned.

Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Cream Gravy

1 pork tenderloin cut into twelve 3/4 inch thick medallions
1/2 cup flour
salt and pepper
3 T bacon fat

Blend together the flour and salt and pepper.  Melt the bacon fat in a 10-inch skillet.  Dredge the pork medallions in the flour, shaking off the excess.  When the fat is hot, add the pork.  Brown on both sides then turn down the heat and cook gently until cooked through, about 5 minutes.  Remove to a heated plate and keep warm while making the gravy.

For the Gravy
1/4 cup bacon fat
1/4 cup flour
salt and pepper
2 cups half-and-half

Add the bacon fat to the fat left in the skillet used to cook the pork.  Scrape up the browned bits.  Add the flour, salt and pepper, and cook over medium heat.  Stir constantly to keep the flour from burning.  When the flour is nicely browned, slowly add the half-and-half.  Cook over low heat until the gravy is smooth and thickened.  Serve with the biscuits and pork medallions.

Seared Scallops on Celery Root Puree

This comes from a recipe in Barbara Lynch's Stir cookbook.  I was cooking for the three of us, so I seared the scallops in two batches.  I plated the first batch for Tess and Lisa. Before the second batch was done, they were sitting behind empty plates with big smiles on their faces.

1 pound sea scallops, muscle removed
1 tsp sea salt
2 small celery roots ( 1/2 pound) peeled and roughly chopped.
1 cup whole milk
3 1/2 T unsalted butter
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup panko
2 T vegetable oil
1 T chopped chives

Toss the scallops with the sea salt, rinse, then pat dry.

Cook the celery root in the milk until tender, about 20 minutes.  Pass the celery root through a strainer and combine with the milk.  Whisk in 1 1/2 T butter and 1 tsp kosher salt.  Keep warm.

Melt 2 T butter in a skillet over medium heat.  Add the panko and stir, coating the panko evenly with the butter.  Fry until nicely browned.  Transfer to a bowl.

Sear the scallops in two batches.  Warm a plate.  Heat 1 T vegetable oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Place half the scallops in the skillet and cook undisturbed until brown and carmelized, about 2 minutes.  Turn, and cook another minute or so.  Transfer to the warmed plate and cook the second batch.

Spoon the celery root puree onto four plates.  Top with the scallops, then sprinkle on the panko.  Top with chives and serve.

Potato Sopes with Salsa, Greens and Queso Añejo

This is a Rick Bayless recipe from his Mexico One Plate At Time cookbook.  The potato in the masa dough make the sopes taste kind of like thick potato chips––really good potato chips.  I topped them with some bay lettuce leaves and red chile-tomatillo salsa.  These little guys are incredibly tasty.  The recipe can be found here.

Mock Porchetta

For Christmas dinner this year, I roasted a couple of whole, boned pork shoulders using Judy Rogers' Mock Porchetta recipe in her The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.  I froze the leftovers, and inspired by the Porchetta Sandwich I had at Salumi Artisan Cured Meats in Seattle this past summer, I slow cooked a hunk of the leftover meat in a bit of chicken stock with carrots and celery.  The result was meltingly tender pork with which I stuffed Village Bakery rolls.  A side of boiled Kale made for a satisfying dinner on a cold winter night.

Mock Porchetta (adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook):

3 pound boneless pork shoulder roast
Salt
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and dried
1 tsp grated lemon zest
3 garlic cloves, minced or put through a press
12 sage leaves, chopped
2 tsp minced fresh rosemary
2 tsp crushed fennel seeds
1-1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
2 pounds of prepared vegetables: potatoes, carrots, garlic, etc., cut into chunks
olive oil
2/3 cup chicken stock

Trim, season and tie up the pork (1 to 3 days in advance):

Trim off all but 1/4" of the fat from the pork.  Locate a long seam between the muscles of the pork.  Using a small sharp knife, separate the muscles along the seam exposing more seams as you go.  Continue until you have butterflied the pork.  Salt the pork evenly using about 1-1/2 tsp salt.

Combine the capers, lemon zest, sage, rosemary, fennel and black pepper.  Sprinkle this mixture all over the exposed face of the pork making sure to stuff it into any of the nooks and crannies you have created.  Reform the pork into a roast and tie up the roast.  Use 4 or 5 strings to close the roast and another couple around the length of the roast.  Rub any remaining herbs on the outside of the roast.  Cover the pork and loosely refrigerate so that it dries out a bit.

Roasting the porchetta:

Preheat the oven to 350 °.  Remove the pork roast from the refrigerator.  The colder the roast is, the longer it will take to cook.

Toss the vegetables in a small amount of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and toss again.

Heat an ovenproof skillet large enough to barely contain the vegetables and the pork.  When very hot, add the pork roast.  Surround with vegetables and place in the oven.  After one hour, turn the roast over and roll the vegetables around in the rendered fat.  Repeat after another hour and add 1/3 cup chicken stock.  Roast until the internal temperature reaches 185°.

Transfer the roast to a plate and tent with foil.  Let rest at least 15 minutes before carving.