Kevin Andrew Murphy's Profile
Best sausages?
Dittmer's is an absolute treasure.
If you want somewhat more exotic sausages, try Polarica. They mostly do mail order but you can buy from then direct if you walk into the shop:
Polarica
105 Quint St
(between Arthur Ave & Custer Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94124
(415) 647-1300
www.polaricausa.com
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Polarica
105 Quint St, San Francisco, CA
Double yolk eggs
Every time I get turkey eggs, all of them are double yolkers.
I use turkey eggs to make scotch eggs, which I quarter up and serve with a wasabi-horseradish-mustard sauce. Using turkey eggs means that they're more spectacular and less troublesome to make, and the individual wedges look really neat with the double yolk there on view.
Regular chicken egg double yolkers would be just as nice for scotch eggs when you serve them cut open for folk to see.
Making lamb shanks for Thanksgiving. What to serve as a side?
Hmm, I just did tenderloin of lamb and crown roast of lamb and accompanied both with mixed green beans and yellow wax beans, sauteed in butter and finished with chopped parsley. Complimented them very well, but I was using much plainer seasoning than you due to the delicacy of the meat.
Of course, if you threw in a pinch of Ras al Hanout, you could easily give them a middle eastern flavor.
With your dish, I'd go to a middle eastern market and get some broad beans instead. I saw some recently at my local one. I'd do the broad beans with a little butter and summer or winter savory or one of the related fresh herbs they have at middle eastern shops (if you say you're cooking beans, they'll point out the right one) alongside a relatively plain rice pilaf. Remember, your lamb is heavily flavored already and you want something to soak up the juices and serve as backdrop, not try to upstage it.
So, I'd go with broad beans and rice pilaf to round out that dish.
Crown Roast of Lamb, stuffed or unstuffed?
Well, dinner party went amazingly well. Went with the sainted James Beard's 1965 Home & Garden recipe over at Epicurious for crown roast of lamb done with black pepper and tarragon. Beard gave directions to cook it to pink, and it was wonderfully pink, sitting right on the border between rare and medium. Guest were very pleased and converted to the pink side of the Force.
Also, rather than cook it with peas, went with a mixture of green "haricot vert" beans and yellow wax beans, done in butter and finished with parsley. Looked spectacular spilling out of the crown and scattered around the platter below. And did gravy with wild mushrooms with individual Yorkshire puddings as well as a second pan with the more traditional cut-up Yorkshire for anyone who wanted seconds.
The sainted James recommended two chops a person, but I was glad we had the sixteen chops, since that allowed seconds for those who wanted them. Have five chops leftover, which is perfect for a dinner for two in a couple days.
Thanks everyone for their advice.
Crown Roast of Lamb, stuffed or unstuffed?
Thanks. I just took it out to get it to room temp, which was advice I also found in James Beard's 1965 era recipe over on Epicurious, which I'm probably going to use since I've got access to fresh Russian tarragon. The rice sounds very good, but would be overkill with the Yorkshire pudding too, so I think I'm going to just do the classic peas with a few bits of onion thrown in and maybe a mushroom or two. It'll look spectacular and the flavors won't clash.
I'll tell everyone how it turned out.
Crown Roast of Lamb, stuffed or unstuffed?
Dot--
It's the Safeway in Almaden, south end of San Jose, south end of Silicon Valley.
After finding that the cookware store at the local mall had gone bust, I hit Lunardi's, the fanciest of the local grocery stores. The butchers at the full service meat counter there (who I usually buy all my sausages from, including the ones in tonight's cassoulet) took pity on me and gave me the frills I needed. I also saw the big sister of tomorrow's dinner: Crown Roast of Lamb, cut to order, $3 a chop.
I've got 16 chops for tomorrow.
Joan--
I didn't want to save the lamb any more than two days and didn't want to freeze it, since I could tell it was beautiful fresh and semi-local meat. But I think what I'll do is aim for rare for the bigger chops and medium for the smaller ones and make certain to give the guests the four end-cuts.
Worst case, if any of the individual chops is too rare for a guest, I can offer to quickly french them with melted butter, which isn't that bad for lamb.
Question still remains: Does stuffed or unstuffed work better? I was thinking of making it with Yorkshire pudding alongside and making a gravy, especially since I have gravy from a lamb tenderloin I made a couple days ago (the reason for the search for more lamb) that has wild Russian mushrooms in it, and I was planning to add that to the new gravy.
I've also got some burdock roots I may do as a side dish, since I think those should go well.
Crown Roast of Lamb, stuffed or unstuffed?
Last night I went to my local grocery store's butcherette--you know, the lone full service meat case to make up for all the many cases of shrink-wrapped meat. I was looking for lambchops, which they only had vacuum sealed from Australia in quantities larger than I wanted, but there, on display in the butcherette case was a full crown roast of lamb looking rather lost and confused as it sat there behind a tag reading "Mozarella Stuffed Meatballs $4.99 lb."
Me: I'm certain you're not selling it for the same price as the stuffed meatballs, but just how much is the crown roast?
Apprentice Butcher comes around the case, peers at the tag in confusion, then goes back behind the counter, looking baffled and begins to consult the Big Butcher Book of Prices.
Apprentice Butcher: I've never seen one of those before. They just put it in the case yesterday. I don't know what it's called.
Me: It's a crown roast of lamb.
Crown Roast of Lamb: Help me! I'm among commoners! They put me next to the ground beef and call me 'meatballs'!" *SOB*
Apprentice Butcher continues to consult the Big Butcher Book of Prices. Enter Chad, Journeyman Butcher.
Junior Butcher: Chad! What's the price on the crown roast of lamb? It's not in the book.
Chad, Journeyman Butcher, peers at the case and spies $4.99lb. tag.
Chad, Journeyman Butcher: Well, if that's the price it's marked in the case, that's the price we have to sell it to him for.
Me: Sure. I'll take it for $4.99 a pound.
Crown Roast of Lamb: Hallelujah! My freedom has been bought! Wait, why does my tag still call me stuffed meatballs? Oh the indignity!
This is how I came to be possessor of a crown roast of lamb for $12.77 total, which I'm going to cook up for guests tomorrow and I may even make or see if I can purchase the old-fashioned paper frills you're supposed to put on the ends of the bones.
Here's my dilemma: My cookbooks mention that crown roast of lamb can be cooked stuffed or unstuffed, and if cooked unstuffed, is then stuffed as part of plating for presentation, usually with cooked peas. My question: Which tastes better?
Other related problem: The guests. The guests are not quite of the "Yargh! Meat must be well done! All color is bad!" school but they do prefer more medium-well and have only eaten lamb a couple times in their life (strange as this may sound). The cookbooks however mention that crown roast is best served rare, and I prefer rare myself.
How much more well done (I'm thinking of aiming for medium) will the smaller chops in the crown be?
Anyone have any experiene cooking these who could give an opinion?
Is there such a thing as good "Americanized" ethnic food?
Californa rolls are an excellent example, and from what I've heard of their origin, point to "Americanized" food often being "American immigrant" food. From what I heard, they were invented by Japanese students living in California, who then took the recipe back to Japan, causing a fad (and ridiculous avocado prices in the 80s).
Chow mein and the fortune cookie are other American inventions. And the American pizza--be it east coast "pie," Chicago deep dish, or Californian CPK/Pucks--well, not exactly Italian, but good food.
Even the corporate chains are not necessarily bad. I've had rather good experiences with Bucca de Beppo, in particular since I'm intollerant of garlic and they have several items on their menu which contain none, notably the Chicken Saltimboca which I've happily recreated at home (using un-garlicked German proscuitto).
California Cuisine
Easy appetizer is a piece of Belgian endive spread with herbed cream cheese. Shrimp also work well.
Honestly, if doing a winetasting, I'd just go with sliced french baguette and various cheeses, maybe a few nuts and grapes. Anything else is superfluous.
Leftover Stilton (and other cheeses)
You're entirely welcome.
Making your own blue cheese dressing is ridiculously simple and tastes so much better than any but the most expensive refrigerated brands. And I think it even beats those.
Pork, delicious; stuffing, atrocious -- suggestions to recycle?
Hmm, I don't have any marsala on hand, but I have a luxury of Meyer lemons and several other wines. Do you think madiera would substitute if I added a touch of honey?
"Healthy" homemade pop?
Get an old-fashioned seltzer bottle, the type that takes cartridges, and carbonate whatever beverage suits your taste. I'd go to some of the Arabic markets and get the various eastern European fruit syrups they always seem to carry. I've got blackberry, raspberry and black currant in my fridge right now and they'd be great carbonated.
Alternately, just by seltzer water and add the syrup to taste.
Pork, delicious; stuffing, atrocious -- suggestions to recycle?
Today my grocery store had some form of accident with their premium meats case--it was empty and all the premade prestuffed bake-at-home delicacies were set out in the regular case, priced to sell, so I got three double-cut stuffed pork chops for $2.99. The apple and almond stuffing even sounded decent.
Unfortunately, it wasn't. Baked to the package directions, the pork turned out moist and pleasant (though I didn't sear it like I would normally), but the stuffing was gooey paste inside, insufficiently crispy outside, and tasted mostly of garlic flakes and aluminum.
I ate one chop, deciding to give it a try anyway, but agreed with my original impression, and was very glad I didn't pay butcher's case premium for such stuff.
Anyway, the dog is currently eating the stuffing from the last two chops (at least she likes it) and I'm left with two cooked but unstuffed porkchops.
I also have a large pot of spaghetti in the refrigerator, having just about finished the beef-based sauce I was using for that, but would like to make a pork-based sauce for the spaghetti with the remaining two chops.
Anyone have any suggestions for how to recycle rather nice baked boneless porkchops into a sauce to be put with spaghetti, or maybe bake them all into a casserole?
Artichoke bottoms
I've got a Greek cookbook which has "Artichoke Mousaka" which is pretty much the same as its "Eggplant Mousaka" recipe except you sub in artichoke bottoms for the eggplant.
I'd do that as a dish.
Just find any recipe for Eggplant Mousaka you like and swap them in.
Leftover Stilton (and other cheeses)
Best bet with Stilton if it's too strong is to combine it with sour cream, black pepper, a touch of milk and salt and make a blue cheese dressing. Puree 2/3rs of the wedge in the blender and add the last as crumbled chunks.
The nice thing I've found about this is that it keeps, though since the blue cheese is a live spore, it grows throughout the sour cream and improves as it ages when packed into a mason jar in the fridge. You can make it in the same jar if you put the blender threads onto the mason jar (really) and if you don't care for blue cheese dressing, you can save it for guests who do.
Red velvet cake alternative
I did an experiment with natural dyes for frosting some years ago, trying beet powder (available at health food stores) and tumeric.
Do not, repeat not, ever use tumeric in frosting. Enough to turn it a pretty yellow will leave it tasting like bitter tumeric.
The beet powder, on the other hand, left a faint but not unpleasant beet flavor in rose pink frosting.
I'd use beets, both fresh and powdered.
Spinach dip quiche
This is probably a matter of reinventing the wheel, but I had a half a container of spinach dip left over from a party which I had no desire to eat or reserve to guests a couple weeks later. So, rather than risk it or throw it out, I decided to cook with it.
Here's what went into the quiche:
1/2 a 12 oz container of spinach dip (about 6 oz, Trader Joes)
roughly 1 1/2 cups Madrigal swiss cheese, one third finely grated (the harder rind that's always there under the wax), the rest roughly grated
a couple ounces of a leftover terriyaki glaze mushroom sauce reduction (very salty but good flavor)
a large dollop (about a quarter cup) of sour cream
about a tablespoon or two of dried minced onions (for flavor and to soak up excess moisture)
5 eggs, beaten
a dash each: white pepper, cayenne, mace, nutmeg
a pinch of dried majoram
The above was all mixed up and put into a buttered quiche pan, the remaining smudge of butter thrown in with the quiche mixture. It spread out easily with a spatula. A pinch of Hungarian paprika on top for color, then baked 30 minutes on the top rack of a not completely preheated 375 degree oven. Gave it 2 more minutes after the buzzer then took it out to let it set. An excellent savory spinach quiche. The most surprising part was that the little bits of water chestnut retained their crunch and whatever water they gave up was sucked up by the dried onions, giving those the right consistency as well.
Apologies for not giving more precise measurements. I've learned over the years to look for a certain consistency in a quiche mixture, neither too thick nor too soupy, and adjust accordingly.
This recipe could easily be done as a crusted quiche as well. Crustless, it's similar to a fritata and a bit faster. Plus the bottom browns nicely.
I'd been intending to try this for years, but I'd never before had the "problem" of leftover spinach dip. However, it's a perfect use of it, and ditto the somewhat withered cheese you might find on a cheese tray the day after a party.
Any Recipes using ground white pepper ?
I always use it as an ingredient in quiche. It's not just color, it's a subtlety of flavor.
types of cheese for quiche
Well, I'm certain the recipe calls for goat cheese because that pairs well with sun dried tomatoes. But you don't like goat cheese, so that's off the menu.
If you want to follow the rest of the recipe, what I'd do is substitute a 50/50 mix of cream cheese and parmesan, romano or some other dry cheese. That would give you about the same moisture content and a flavor base that would be sharp/creamy on the same level as the goat cheese without tasting like goat cheese.
Need Help With Appetizers
Cheap, easy and visually appealing: cream cheese balls. Get three boxes of cream cheese on sale (you have time so just shop and catch the sale a week or two before the event). Also get three of the following: cracked black pepper and grated parmesan; crumbled blue cheese; a bunch of parsley and a handful of mushrooms; premade real bacon bits and prepared horseradish OR orange marmalade; a handful of tart dried frut (apricots, cherries or cranberries), a shot of port wine and chopped nuts.
The peppar and parmesan is the simplest: just squash the cream cheese into a ball and roll in black pepper and parmesan. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until serving time. Mix a handful of crumbled blue cheese with a package of cream cheese, roll it in a ball and roll it in the rest of the blue cheese. Chop up the mushrooms and mix with the next bit of cream cheese. Add truffle oil if you want to be fancy. Roll in the chopped parsely or other mild herbs. Mix another package of cream cheese with some horseradish or marmalade (not both). Roll in bacon bits. Chop up dried fruit and soak with port. Mix with cream cheese and roll in chopped nuts. Serve these all with crackers.
These are pretty, impressive, cheap, and transport well. Put out a trio of them on a plate surrounded by various simple crackers with no extra flavor beyond the grain or seeds. (Some whole wheat, some water crackers, etc.)
Any trick to make a not-soaky-at-the-bottom pie crust?
I use pyrex and stoneware pie dieshes by default. I never have had this problem.
salmon in the house - how to avoid the post p.u.
We general bake all our salmon on the barbecue using foil and an old cookie sheet. It works well keeps any smell out of the house.
Fresh fish shoudn't smell "fishy" but it will still smell like fish. Otherwise, bake in the oven and leave the fan on and window open.
A recipe came to me in a dream
Ethiopian kitfo beef served in an avocado shell, or maybe with some grilled onions and green peppers with injira bread to bake Ethiopian fajitas.
grass-fed and overcooked
Well, for grilling, you need to let the meat "relax" after you cook it to let the blood redistribute and make it more tender. And of course when you do this, you shouldn't jab it with a fork or worse, cut into it to see if it's "done."
It's also possible you like your meat more "well done" than a lean cut of meat will turn out well. What may be acceptable for a fatty cut will ruin the texture for a leaner cut.
For meat that is well done but tender with a leaner cut, whether it's from a cheaper section of beef or simply a leaner grass fed cow, the recipe is generally the same: initial pan searing to seal in the juices followed by long slow cooking at a lower temperature. That will work for generally everything.
However, the plain fact is that certain cuts work better for certain preparations, and are simply ruined if cooked to a "doneness" that does not suit the cut, no matter how much you insist that you like that level of doneness.
What to do with 5lbs of potatoes?
Hot German potato salad. Buy a package of bacon ends and pieces (cheaper and meatier than regular bacon) or just regular bacon if you can't find that. Wash/clean potatoes and put them on to boil. Chop/snip the raw bacon (kitchen shears work great) into small bites and fry it all up to not-quite crisp. Remove from pan, don't bother draining. Put a chopped onion (large yellow is fine) in the bacon grease and fry until golden/just carmelizing. Remove and put with the fried bacon. Put flour in the onion-flavored bacon grease and toast to make a roux. Make gravy using equal parts water and apple cider vinegar. Throw bacon and onion back into gravy. Simmer and add sugar to sweeten plus salt and pepper to taste. Drain potatoes once done, roughly chop into large cubes, chunks (be messy), put in original boiling pot and then pour gravy over. Mix with huge unbreakable spoon. Serve.
This is a cheap nourishing meal for a large group of college students and is calculated for using 10 pounds of potatoes. If using 5, halve the bacon and onions.
How do you keep everything warm till it's all served ?
Experience is learned in the field.
I've done many dinner parties before, large ones with multiple guests, but recently I did the favor for my mother of catering a party for her friends and made the mistake of calculating their speed as her speed. I put dinner on the table, called the guests in and then...my god, getting garulous old people to move. It's worse than herding cats.
I knew one guest was on crutches and another had a walker but the rest...well, by the time I got everyone seated, the food was cold and I had to reheat it.
I'd suggest, aside from timing the meal and getting everything on platters warm in the oven, time the guests. You can use young active people as your benchmark. Add an extra five minutes at least from when the dinnerbell is sounded to when people are at the table if you've got children in the party, since there's the whole business of the mothers getting them settled and washed up and so forth. Old people? Add at least 10 and forget any "Look, I just took this off the stove, it's perfect!" flourish unless you have a second helper whose job it is to herd the old people politely and decorously to their seats.
Of course old people have an advantage over children in that they do not suddenly rollerskate through the kitchen or bounce in to show you the dorkarama dance. Or come to the table not wearing any pants.
One hopes.
Something Savory with Meyer Lemons
Honestly, when I first read Martha Stewart going on about how "You can only find them a few weeks of the year!" I thought she was on crack because we have a tree in the back yard that has them on it year round, and right now has more lemons on it than I can count. I made Ohio lemon pie with a couple two days ago and used the rest of the less pretty ones to make lemonade for guests tomorrow.
On the savory end, I just stuffed a turkey with them and rosemary. Yes, the whole turkey. Makes a great gravy, and if you have it from the garden, there's no extra expense.
That said, if you've only got four of them, and want to showcase the flavor of the pretty things, first cut them in two on a shallow plate because they are juicy and you don't want to waste any juice and steal out a couple of the prettiest slices from the middle of each one, to be used for your water glasses or garnish. Then, take the halved lemons and use them and some fresh rosemary sprigs to stuff game hens. If you want to be extra fancy, sew them shut in the "Marcella's Lemon Chicken" manner and bake, letting them puff up and the lemon infuse the meat, taking the rosemary oil with it. You can omit the rosemary if you want to show off the lemon by itself.
If you were doing this as "romantic dinner for two," that leaves you two halved lemons left. Slice another one up into wedges and make a simple bit of salmon or other seafood and use the lemon for guests to drizzle over to taste.
Your last lemon? Make classic german pork schnitzel. Pound the pork thin, dredge in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, then fry. Serve with boiled potatoes and a clear gravy made by tossing a knob of butter in the skillet at the end and then deglazing the pan drippings with some water. Cut the last lemon into wedges and use this for each guest to squeeze over the schnitzel, salting to their taste. Nothing else is needed except a bottle of hefeweizen which you can add the lemon to as well, traditional accompaniment to this dish.
That's what this Californian would do if he only had four Meyers for savory dishes.
I went crazy with vegetables. What do I do with them now?
Use butter to cook the onions, a carrot or two, the harvest medley, and the shitakes. Season the vegetables with the fresh herbs, then layer in that order in the bottom of a pie shell. Place top crust and bake for a medievalesque vegetable mushroom pie. Serve a large slice of this with a small bit of chicken served with a fresh Cumberland sauce made with the currants, some orange juice and shallots.
Buffalo Sausage Recipes?
I've made buffalo meatloaf with bacon, which made up for the fat the buffalo was lacking. I'd say old traditional pork belly fat would work fine unless of course you have actual buffalo suet handy, but in that case, don't render it, just run it through the meat grinder cold along with the buffalo in the proportions to get the right fattiness for sausage.
Ohio (Shaker) Lemon Pie variants, tangelo & grapefruit
I've occasionally had a thin-skinned Meyer, but our bush is so huge and well established that we pretty much leave the fruit on year round, letting the skin thicken and the juice sweeten like oranges. Sometimes there's one inside the bush that gets so huge that it ends up loose-skinned like a ripe tangelo. Right now the winter crop has just ripened and there are more lemons than I can count. And a couple years ago at this time, I had to prune it back so you could walk past (it had overgrown the walkway) and there were enough lemons from the portion hacked off to fill (and I'm not exaggerating) our empty garage refrigerator.
