Like the waiter at Fogo de Chao once said to me, “are you ready for the meat?”

As you may have noticed, I’ve been on a meat kick, thanks to Charcuterie the best book ever written.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to make every single recipe in here, but I can’t until I get a cold smoker… *day dreams about smoking delicious meat*

Can I entice you with some more pictures of meat?

Delicious pinwheel of fatty pork belly that’s been cured for 3 weeks in my meat basement?

How did you make this deliciously nom? Well let me tell you.

Pancetta
Adapted from Charcuterie

Ingredients:

• one 5 lb slab pork belly, skin removed
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons pink salt (sodium nitrite)
• 2 oz (1/4 cup) kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons juniper berries, crushed with the bottom of a small pan
• 4 bay leaves, crumbled
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 4 or 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper (yes this is written twice, you will see why!)

Directions:

1. Trim the pork belly so its nice and square.
2. Combine all ingredients above except for the last pepper (I over-peppered mine due to not knowing how to read properly… so I separated the peppers just in case you don’t know how to read as well).  Make sure it’s mixed well.  Rub the mixture all over the belly on both sides.
3. Put the belly in a large ziplock bag or a non-reactive (glass) container just large enough to hold it.  Refrigerate for 7 days – flip it over every other day and redistribute the cure by rubbing the outside of the bag.  (Bag is better than glass container because you can do this a lot easier)
4. After 7 days, check for firmness.  At the thickest point it should feel firm.  I had to cure mine for 2 extra days.
5. Remove the pork belly after it’s done curing, rinse it under cold water and dry.  Use the 2 tablespoons of ground pepper and rub it all over on the meat side (not the fatty skin side).
6. Starting from the longest side, roll up the belly tightly, make sure there are no air pockets (that’s how bad mold forms). Tie it up like you would a roast.  You might want to look at this youtube video on the method – it helped me a lot.  My pancetta was tied like a pro. Alternatively, you can also avoid the rolling and wrap the whole thing in cheesecloth and hang it.  Charcuterie has a great series of illustrations on how to do this.
7. Hang the pancetta in a cool humid place to dry for 2 weeks. Charcuterie recommends that it’s between 50-60 degrees F with 60 percent humidity, like a cool basement. Keep it out of the sun.
8. After drying, the pancetta can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for 3 weeks, or frozen for 4 months.

Charcuterie has a lot more details about the intricacies of hanging meat, I highly recommend reading this book from cover to cover because it’s sooo useful.  What if you were stranded on a deserted island, and you somehow wrestled a boar to the ground and had 80 lbs of delicious pork but no refrigeration?  You need to learn how to cure that damn boar by reading this book.

So now you are asking, what should I make with my 5 lbs of pancetta?  Well, I sliced mine and stored half in the freezer.  The other half went into a spaghetti bolognese, and a breakfast dish I will post later.  I may share the bolognese… but it’s so delicious that I’m afraid of sharing it because it would make the whole world fat from eating it every day.  I also “invented” a “bruschetta” with shaved pancetta.  More to come!!

Last weekend, our friends Nate and Tia had a “Party at which there will be Dinner” – which is not to be confused with a “Dinner Party” because those are for old people. I made a deal with Nate, if I provided red velvet cupcake, he must entertain me with Rock Band – specifically with the new Lady Gaga content. I was not disappointed. He even had the lighting system AND the fog machine attachments AND GLOWSTICKS. We were rocking it out, with our clams out.

For the cupcakes, I adapted this adaptation (lol?) of the red velvet cake from “Rose’s Heavenly Cakes,” by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  The book, I do not have, although it is on my amazon wedding registry!  The best part about this was the white chocolate frosting, which I made a double batch of.  I kid you not, I ate the leftover frosting out of my piping bag and licked it clean.  I even used low fat cream cheese, which makes these healthy right?  *shifty eye*  In hindsight, I would have added a little more oil component to make the cake more moist (due to baking it as cupcakes instead of one large cake) and perhaps decreased the amount of food coloring because wow these were RED.

Rose’s Heavenly Red Velvet Cupcake Adaptation

Prep: 30 minutes Bake: 25-35 minutes Makes: 18 cupcakes

Adapted from “Rose’s Heavenly Cakes,” by Rose Levy Beranbaum. For a more distinct chocolate flavor and a much darker red, you can use up to ¼ cup cocoa, sifted before measuring, but you must decrease the flour by the same amount.

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons egg whites, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons red food color
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cups sifted cake (or 1 ¾ cups all-purpose) flour minus 3 tablespoons
• 1 cup superfine sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 3.5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup canola or safflower oil, room temperature
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ½ cup buttermilk
• White chocolate frosting, see recipe

Directions:

1. Place cupcake paper in the cupcake tin. Set oven rack in the lower third of the oven; heat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk egg whites, food color and vanilla in a medium bowl until lightly combined. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa and salt in a medium bowl.
2. Mix oil and butter in bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, 1 minute. Add flour mixture and buttermilk; mix on low until dry ingredients are moistened. Raise speed to medium; beat 1 ½ minutes. Lower speed to medium-low; beat in egg mixture in two parts, 30 seconds each. Pour batter into cupcake tin, about 2/3 full.
3. Bake until cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean and cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center, 25-35 minutes. Let cake cool in the pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Carefully invert the cake onto a greased wire rack. Reinvert the cake so that the top side is up. Cool completely. Frost top with white chocolate frosting.

White chocolate frosting

Ingredients:

• 6 oz white chocolate
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon creme fraiche
• 2 teaspoons almond extract

Directions:

1. Microwave white chocolate  in a bowl on high heat, stirring often, until almost completely melted, about a minute on and off stirring. Remove from microwave; stir until fully melted. Cool until no longer warm to the touch but still fluid.
2. Beat softened cream cheese, softened unsalted butter and creme fraiche until smooth. Add the white chocolate; beat until smooth. Beat in 2 teaspoons almond extract until smooth.

I will leave you with a protip, make sure you have paper towels on hand, for when you accidentally spill any of the red cake mix, or get any of the dye on your fingers.  Paper towels are your friend.

I had the urge to bake Macarons again after joining the Macaron facebook fan page. Facebook started showing me ads about delicious and dainty pretty macarons and they won’t stop!! I broke down and made some. Stacy should be happy that they are pink and not blue. :P

I do have to confess, the entire batch did not end up this pretty… there were some quasimodo macarons that came out with half their foot… I’ll maybe attach a picture at the end. O_o

I didn’t really plan ahead for what flavor macaron I’m going to make… I just cracked open some eggs at the beginning of the week to let them age, and bought a bag of almond flour. I could have made saffron and pumpkin macarons… or strawberry and chocolate macarons… well the combinations are endless. I ended up making a very basic macaron with vanilla buttercream filling… SO BORING! Next time I will think ahead, maybe.

I went to the place that helped me make my first successful batch of macarons, tartelette!  She has a very precise recipe that’s measured out in grams.  I used the valentines day macaron recipe, swapped out the pistachios for more almonds (see: not thinking ahead).  Honestly, I have no idea how my macarons even turned out because I completely screwed up the recipe.  I under beat the eggs, they were not as stiff as they should have been, I accidentally mixed the powdered sugar into the egg whites along with the granulated sugar, and I had giant chunks of almonds stuck together and didn’t get incorporated into the batter properly.  I won’t complain tho! :)

See my baking action shot, with my new iPad out with Tartelette’s webpage and the recipe in front of me!  I usually flip the iPad horizontal to read recipes, but the vertical orientation makes a better picture.

Tartelette always has the step of breaking up almonds in the food processor.  You can definitely do this, but I was extra lazy and bought almond flour, which is just almonds, ground up into a powder.

Pretty in Pink Macarons

adapted from Tartelette

For the shells:
90 gr egg whites (about 3)
30 gr granulated sugar
200 gr powdered sugar
110 gr almond flour
12 drops of red food coloring

For the whites: the day before (24hrs), separate your eggs and store the whites at room temperature in a covered container. If you want to use 48hrs (or more) egg whites, you can store them in the fridge. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites to a foam, gradually add the sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue. Do not overbeat your meringue or it will be too dry. Combine the almond flour with the meringue, give it a quick fold to break some of the air and then fold the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that flows like lava or a thick ribbon. Give quick strokes at first to break the mass and slow down. The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes. Test a small amount on a plate: if the tops flattens on its own you are good to go. If there is a small beak, give the batter a couple of turns.
Divide the batter in half and mix some color to one half to the desired effect. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (Ateco #807 or #809) with one of the batters and pipe small rounds (1.5 inches in diameter) onto parchment paper lined baking sheets. Use another bag for the second half of the batter.
Preheat the oven to 280F. Let the macarons sit out for 30 minutes to an hour to harden their shells a bit and bake for 20-22 minutes, depending on their size. Let cool. If you have trouble removing the shells, pour a couple of drops of water under the parchment paper while the sheet is still a bit warm and the macarons will lift up more easily do to the moisture. Don’t let them sit there in it too long or they will become soggy. Once baked and if you are not using them right away, store them in an airtight container out of the fridge for a couple of days or in the freezer. To fill: pipe or spoon about 1 big tablespoon in the center of one shell and top with another one.

Somebody bit my macaron!!!  Oh wait that was me.  Yum.

This is the quasimoto macaron… I had some issues with piping… apparently when you fill a piping bag up to the brim, it produces disastrous results such as not being able to squeeze the bag at all!!!  Lets just say it got real messy, there were glopping problems, and I ate about 2 macaron worth of batter off of my hands….

In an attempt to cook healthier foods, I came up with this fennel and turkey ravioli dish.  It was inspired by a fennel and artichoke ravioli recipe, but I have no artichoke, and plenty of ground turkey in my fridge.  It was one of those nights, scrounging in the fridge for whatever that’s left, and try to come up with something that doesn’t taste like dog barf.  This definitely did not taste like dog barf, I enjoyed it a lot.  During the making of this, I had an egg emergency – I had 3 eggs total, used them in making the fresh pasta.  This is usually not enough for 3 cups of flour, so I had to put in some extra olive oil and extra water to make it come together.  Then as I was preparing the stuffing, I realized… hey… most people would use an egg to bring the stuffing together… I HAVE NO EGGS.  Despite the fact that the grocery store is about a mile from my house, going outside is just a terrible terrible option.  I live in Minnesota, it’s cold out there!  Also, if I went out to get just eggs, I would feel like it’s not efficient, and I would try to buy other things, which would take an hour, and I was hungry.  So in place of an egg – I used feta cheese as the binding agent.  It turned out delicious, and one less egg is always good for my waistline.

Evie’s Fennel and Turkey Ravioli

Ingredients:

Pasta Dough:

• 2.5 – 3 cups of flour
• 4 large eggs (or in my case, 3, and some water… )
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• fennel frond, minced

Ravioli Filling:

• 1/2 lb ground turkey
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 1/2 cup diced fennel
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Pasta Sauce:

• 1 28oz can diced tomatoes
• 3/4 cup sliced fennel
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 3/4 cup red onions
• 2 tablespoons capers (or olives)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

Directions:

Pasta Sauce:

1. In a large pan, heat up a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat.  Add the fennel, fennel seeds, onions, and garlic.  Cook for 6-8 minutes until soft.
2. Add can of tomatoes with juices, tomato paste, and the capers.  Cook for about 5 minutes more.  Sauce your raviolis right away to prevent sticking.  Make sure you time your raviolis and sauce to be done at the same time.

Raviolis:

1. Mix the pasta dough by combining all ingredients, and then mix by hand or mixer, I use a mixer.  More in depth details here.  Cut it into 4 pieces, and roll it out using your awesome KitchenAid pasta roller, you do have one right?  I rolled the ravioli dough at the level 7 setting, so they are not complete paper thin like the level 8 setting.  For every piece of dough, I roll it out through level 4, then I cut it in half with a knife and roll it out some more into level 7.  Two sheets of pasta will make approximately 12 raviolis.    I love adding the minced fennel frond, it’s really visually appealing in this pasta.
2. Mix the filling by combining all ingredients in a bowl.  On the stove, boil a big pot of water to cook your raviolis in.
3. Lay one sheet down on your working surface, make sure the back is sufficiently floured so it doesn’t stick.  Use your ravioli cutter and lightly score the dough into the final shapes.  This helps you determine where to put the glob of turkey stuffing.
4. Spoon about a tablespoon of filling onto the pasta sheet.  Make sure you don’t overfill them, we don’t want them to explode.  Then use an EGG WASH (1 egg, 1 tablespoon of water) and brush every exposed pasta surface lightly.  See, I didn’t have an egg wash, because I had an egg emergency.  I used water.  It held fine.
5. Take the other sheet of pasta, and lightly layer it over the first two globs of filling.  Give it enough slack so the two pasta sheets touch.  Repeat to cover the rest of the raviolis.  Use your fingers and pat down the areas you egg washed.  Make sure there aren’t huge air bubbles near the filling.  You might have to pat the filling down a little for the ravioli cutter to travel over them.
6. Use your cutter, and cut out the raviolis!  This is my favorite part.  Super fun.  Separate them right away, I put them on some sheets of paper towels until they are ready to go into the pot.  Stack the sheets when you have a lot of them made.
7. Boil the raviolis for about 3-5 minutes in batches of 10 or less – you don’t want them to stick to each other.  Use a slotted spoon to fish them out, use them right away by saucing to prevent sticking.
8. Garnish with a little bit of fennel frond and serve!!

Valentines day kind of sucks, but getting flowers, chocolates, and eating pizza is pretty cool.  So I declare this valentines day a success.  Since it’s also Chinese New Years, we decided to do Valentines dinner Saturday night, because we’re going to my parents on Sunday for dinner.  We have been talking about making pizza for a long time, and it seemed like a fun thing to make together, so we did!  He has a very favorite pizza, which I find kind of ODD because it has no mushrooms on it.  I guess he can omit the mushrooms because he’s kind of allergic… and death pizza is kind of not cool.  Here is our conversation this morning…

Me: I’m going to the grocery store to pick up pizza ingredients.

Him: NoooOOoooOOoooOOOooooOOooo!!!!! (The Minnesotan kind of way)

When I said mushrooms, I meant green olives, because he likes pepperoni, sausage, and green olives.  I however, love alllll kinds of ingredients on my pizza, because I EAT EVERYTHING.  The best is a garbage pizza where everything but the kitchen sink is on it, and tons and tons of mushrooms.  But today, after seeing the prices of red bell pepper ($4.99/lb!!! WTFFFFFFFF IS IT COATED IN GOLD?!) I decided that I would much rather just make a margarita pizza with some tomatoes and basil and garlic.  I don’t eat a lot of pizza, so I got 1/4 of the pizza real estate. He ate one of my slices but since it’s valentines day, I was willing to share.  If this were any other day, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN SOME ASS WHOPPING.

I used a KAF Guaranteed pizza dough recipe, and I do have to say, it was mighty delicious.  King Arthur KAF Guaranteed recipes have not let me down yet.  I was going to use a little bit of the KAF dough improver to make the dough less elastic and easier to handle, but I forgot, but it was ok because I didn’t need any.  For the sauce, I used 1/2 jar of pasta sauce mixed with a small can of tomato paste.  Tomatoes, basil, garlic on 1/4, and spicy turkey sausage, pepperoni, and green olives on the rest, all topped off with mozzarella.

First step in the dough is to let it rise, roll it out, let it rise some more, and then bake without any toppings.  Here it is just out of the oven.  Not very exciting, looks like dough.

Next went on the tomato sauce, and brushed the outside crust with some olive oil for color.

Next went on the first layer of toppings.

Now the rest…

Action shot of sprinkling on more cheese, because you can never have enough cheese.

My side!

His side!

Oh I mentioned something about roses and chocolates earlier too didn’t I?  Just to make this post even more image heavy…..

:) :) :)

Do not read this if you hate deliciousness.

Do you like bacon?  Do you like it a little on the softer side?  If so, this is for you.  This was always a comfort food while I was growing up, and it’s meant to be eaten in moderation.  2 or 3 pieces with a bowl of rice and some greens makes a perfect dinner.  Pork belly offers a very interesting texture as well as flavor, melts in your mouth, makes you happy!

Mom’s Braised Pork Belly

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of pork belly, you can purchase this at Asian grocery stores or the butcher
• 2 tablespoons sugar or brown sugar
• 1 big stalk of leek (or 2 small stalks), washed and cut into 1 inch long pieces*
• 4 slices of ginger
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons cooking wine (sake, or white wine is fine too)
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon Chinese 5 spice powder
• green onions for garnish

*my mom uses a few bunches of green onions, but I find leeks to be tastier.

Directions:

1. When buying pork belly, make sure you get leaner pieces.  Pork belly is fatty, really really fatty.  Generally I would look for something that is 50/50 fat to meat ratio.  Usually they will be ~3 inches thick.  I cut it into 1×3 inches, or 2×3 inches, like so.  
   
2. This is the hardest part.  Heat up your dutch oven, no need to add any oil.  Brown the pork belly in batches.  It WILL splatter, a lot.  Wear an oven mitt to protect your hand.  I got 2 small oil burns this time around, but damn it’s worth it.  You can skip this step too but I find this step gives it a better texture.
3. When you are done browning the pork belly, there will be quite a bit of fat at the bottom of the pan.  Turn the heat to medium and add the sugar.  Stir vigorously and don’t burn yourself, let the sugar get a little caramelized, it adds another layer of flavor.  This process should only take about 20 seconds so be very quick here!
4. Add the browned pork belly back into the pan and stir.  Add the 2 cups of water right away.  At this point, the water should reach a boiling point instantly.  Add the rest of the ingredients.  Stir.  Reduce the heat to a simmer.  Your pot should look like this, all nommy and stuff.  
   
5. Cover the pot and simmer for 2 hours.  Then uncover and simmer for another hour.  Be sure to stir every 30 minutes or so, especially that last hour.  You might need to add a little extra water depending on how dry your climate is.  It should look like this.  At the end of 3 hours you should have about a cup of thickened sauce/fat mix at the bottom of the pan.  

Serve over some white rice and spoon a little bit of sauce over the pork belly (minus the oil) and garnish with green onions.

I’ve always tried to make my own pasta when I have time, so naturally I’ve gone through many pasta dough recipes.  Most read the same, flour, eggs, sometimes olive oil.  I didn’t know anything better existed, until now.  The consistency of this dough beats the others out of the water, it’s so easy to work with and it’s got a gorgeous golden yellow color (thanks half a carton of eggs!).

French Laundry’s Pasta Dough
French Laundry Cookbook
Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup (8 oz) all-purpose flour
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon milk

Directions:

Chef Keller goes in depth about the technique he uses in his book but did I use it?  No.  Why?  Because I’m lazy and prefer to use my KitchenAid mixer instead.   You should still get his book and read about it though.  I start with the flour, then I make a well in the middle for all the wet ingredients. Then I turn the mixer on, using the dough hook, and make sure everything is getting incorporated evenly with some fast action spatula work. And I have to commend this recipe yet again, the amount of ingredients was PERFECT. I didn’t have to add any extra liquid, or flour, like I did with those other recipes.  I let the mixer knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes more after everything was incorporated – you cannot overknead this dough.  After kneading, wrap your dough ball in plastic wrap.  Let it sit for at least 30 minutes.  Then roll out your pasta!

I have this pasta roller set attachment for my mixer, and I cannot rave more about it.  It’s seriously one of the best things I’ve ever purchased.  Rolling this dough through the roller was like BUTTER.  The texture of this dough is so incredible, there were no weird pulling, no crazy air bubbles anywhere, it was just smooth and perfect.  I whipped up a very easy bolognese sauce to go with it for dinner.  nomnomnom!

mmm wontons – a staple in my household.  These are only in the medium hard category because I used pre-made wonton skins which you can get at any asian grocery store (even Target sells them now!).  It’s much more fun however to make your own wrappers, tastier too!   I usually make wontons in large batches and freeze them, use them in wonton soup or ramen.  The skin on these are a little too thin to fry, if you’re looking for potstickers keep posted, I will eventually post about making your own wrappers.

Start off with one  whole napa cabbage, break it apart in a food processor.  You can also do this by hand but I wouldn’t recommend it, you will be chopping until your hand literally falls off.  Squeeze off almost all the juices (there will be a lot), we don’t want the filling to be too watery, they will not wrap well and come apart in the water when we boil them later.

Next add your ground pork.  I used a little over a pound.  The ratio of meat to cabbage should be 1 to 1, but it really is up to what your personal preference is.  I used fresh grounded meat since my food processor was already out!

Next, add all the seasoning.

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons minced ginger
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3 chopped scallions
• 1/4 cup corn starch

Notice the amount of liquids that goes into the mix, this is why it can’t be too wet from the cabbage.  The corn starch will offset the liquids and make everything stick together.  It also makes the meat more tender.Mix everything together.  You should be able to pick up the filling with a pair of chopsticks and it shouldn’t be oozing liquid.

Next get your supplies ready.  Get a baking sheet (or cutting board) and line it with parchment paper.  Make sure it fits into your freezer if you plan on freezing some.  Also put out a small bowl of water, this is to help the wonton skin stick better.

Start your water right now as well.  By the time you wrap about 20 or 30, the water should be boiling.  If you suck extra hard, you might have fewer, but it never hurts to have super boiled water.

Take one piece of wonton skin and hold it in your hand.  Use chopsticks and grab a dollop of filling.  You shouldn’t over fill it if this is your first time making wontons.

Next, dip your finger in water and wet the bottom row of the wonton skin, fold your wonton skin in half and make sure the bottom sticks together.  Now if you notice, a wonton skin isn’t perfectly square sometimes.  If yours is perfectly square, ignore this.  I usually fold along the longer end so I have more wonton skin at the bottom.  This helps keep your filling in better.

You don’t have to use water here if you are more experienced with wrapping.

Now this is the tricky part.  Pay attention.  Hold the wonton in your hand, configure it to the above picture.  Roll up the bottom edge towards you while pulling the top two corners together and pinch.  Use water at the pinch point to adhere the skins.  It should look like the picture when you are done.

Here it is again from the side.  If yours doesn’t look like this, start over and try again.  Roll and pinch, roll and pinch.

If your wonton looks like this, you have failed and probably put too much filling in.  Go back and try again with less filling.  Roll and pinch, roll and pinch.

Your water is boiling right?  If not you are reading fail and I told you to boil water earlier!Put your wontons into the water, very gently.  They are very fragile in this unfrozen state.  And this step is VERY IMPORTANT so listen up.  Take a serving spoon, and stir the water very carefully after all your wontons are in the pot.  Scrape the bottom of your pan very gently, make sure you don’t break anything in the process.  Wontons love to sink to the bottom and stick to the pan.  Do this as soon as all your wontons are in the water!!  I usually boil about 20 at a time to prevent sticking.

While your wontons are cooking, ready a bowl and add to it:

• Teaspoon of chicken boullion
• Teaspoon of salt
• Teaspoon of soy sauce and/or fish sauce

When they start popping up to the surface, that’s when you know they are about to be done.  This should only take less than 5 minutes.  If they are frozen, it will take longer.  You want to keep about 2 cups of cold water handy.  When the water starts boiling, put the cold water into the pot.  The idea is to never let the water fully boil.  This is because the boiling agitates the wontons, and has a higher chance of breaking them.  By the time your cold water is going to boil again, chances are your wontons are already done.  After they are at the surface, I would let them sit about a minute or two longer.  Ladle out the wontons and water into the bowl with the seasoning.  Mix and garnish with green onions, fried onions, and a dash of sesame oil.

After you have a bowl or two of wontons, you can go back to finish wrapping them all.  Be sure to cover your wrappers with a damp paper towel to prevent it from drying out.  After you are done with the wrapping, put the entire cookie sheet or cutting board right into the freezer.  Once they are frozen (about 2 hours), you can put them into a ziplock bag and they won’t take up any space.  Then you will have wontons ready for whatever you need them for!

And now the finished product…  nom nom nom.

Look how pretty they are all lined up!

A while back, I posted some pictures of tasty ribs and carrot cupcakes that Sean and Travis made.  Sean has written up the recipe for a coworker of mine, and my coworker got a kick out of it and said I should post it on my blog.  So here is the awesomely delicious, but not-so-precise recipe!

Sean’s rub-a-dub-dub-ribz

Braising Liquid:

I never use exact measurements.  Also, it tends to change a little bit every time I make them.  Nevertheless, I try to end up with about four cups of the stuff total once everything is added in:

-A fair amount of apple cidar vinegar
-slightly less, but roughly equal parts Worshester(sp), soy sauce, water.
-A drop of liquid smoke.
-A fair amount of Sriracha red pepper sauce, to desired spicyness.
-Fresh ground pepper.  I prefer a peppercorn blend with red peppercorns in it.
-A tiny bit of honey.
-For sweetener, I will sweeten to taste with either 1) Coca-cola(not the diet shit), or 2) cheap sweet Riesling wine.  I think that I actually used a little of BOTH the time that you came over and had these.  If you use riesling, make sure it’s a sweet one and not at all dry.

If you didn’t fuck it up, the vinegar will not be overpowering, and it will be moderately spicy while retaining some sweetness.  I’ve used Molasses in the past, but it tends to cause the liquid to burn off/get “gummy” faster, so I switched to the tiny bit of honey + liquid sweeteners.

Rub a dub dub.

I used to make my own rub, but nowadays I just use “Wee Willys” dry rub, I think it’s Formula #1, but it might be #3(you should be able to get it at any grocery store).  When I want it to be spicier, I add some Cayanne pepper into the “Wee Willys”.

When I do make my own rub, at its core is a mix of chilli powder, granulated garlic, granulated onion, sweet hungarian paprika, the aforementioned red peppercorn ground pepper, cayanne pepper, dried red pepper flakes, and brown sugar.  I also add in smaller amounts of ground cumin, ground coriander, and if I want a more smokey flavor I’ll add some “Original Juan Batch #218 Chipotle Seasoning”(see also: this shit is awesome, you should be able to get it at that Chili pepper store in the Mall of America, if it still exists.  Also can get from http://www.originaljuan.com).

Cooking:

Get yourself a broiler pan, you know the kind where you’ve got a top “sheet” with holes in it that sits on top of another pan so that fat can drip down and get caught?  Perfect!

Rub the shit out of your meat(huhuhuh) and drop them into the lower part of the pan, just ignore the top part for now.  Then pour as much of your braising liquid into the pan as you want, so that the ribs are sitting in a nice pool of the stuff.  If you’ve got extra, thats ok since you might want to add more later on if it burns off in the pan.

Heat your oven to 300-325.  Cover the ribs-filled-pan with aluminum foil nice and tight and place in the oven.  How long you cook them is dependent on preference, but about 1.5-2 hours usually does the trick, depending on how many racks you’ve got going in there.

After they’re braised to preference, remove the pan from the oven.  Now you need to shift your oven racks so that they’re closer to the top(hopefully the heating/broiling element of your oven is on the ovens ceiling) so that the ENTIRE broiling pan can fit on there(lower and top piece, plus the ribs sitting on top of that).  Transfer your ribs out of the pan, place the top piece onto the lower piece(leave the braising liquid in there), and transfer the ribs on top of that top piece.  Turn the oven to Broil, and once it is heated up place the ribs back in, right underneatht he broiling element.  It’s likely that your rub is very moist, so if you’d like you can add a little more before broiling, but don’t go overboard.  This stage will dry out the rub a good amount.

Usually you only need to broil the ribs for about 5 minutes.  You don’t want to burn them, you just want to dry the rub out a bit.  Once you’re happy with this, pull them out, apply your favorite BBQ sauce(Famouse Daves Devils Spit FTW!!!) and place back under the broiler for 2 minutes, or until you’re satisfied.

Remove from oven, let rest for 2 minutes or so, and then eat.

They should just rename turkey day to Alton Brown day, I mean really, the man already won thanksgiving.  Just give him the title.  I’ve been pre-baking turkeys for thanksgiving for the past 3 years, mostly because I love turkey and I cannot wait to get one into the oven and then into my belleh.  From the day that whole turkeys go on sale till the day they take it away from me, I cook as many as Sean and I can eat in the timeframe.

Rules and Tips for Roasting Turkey

1. BRINE YOUR TURKEY.  I cannot stress this enough.  Turkey is a fairly big bird, and its not easy to season the outside so it flavors the inside.  The math just doesn’t work people.  You need to soak that bird, then it will get juicier, more tender, and more flavorful.  Why anybody would NOT brine a turkey is beyond me.  “But waaah waaah I don’t have a big enough pot to brine in!”  Shut up and listen ok, reduce the brine recipe, stick your turkey in there breast side down, let his ass hang out.  You want the breast to get the most out of the brine, the dark meat is usually flavor and juicy enough by itself, it can hang out and not be submerged, some of the saltiness will travel upward – and I actually prefer it this way for dark meat.  Let me reiterate, if you are not putting your turkey in a brine, I will come to your house and beat you with the tasteless dry turkey corpse and all your relatives will be horrified on thanksgiving when I start beating them too with your dry ass turkey, do you really want that to happen?!
2. Try not to put stuffing in it.  When you put stuffing in the cavity of the turkey, it gets in contact with the bacteria and uncooked turkey goo, so you really have to cook the turkey until it’s all the way done in the middle – and usually when you are at this point of the cooking process, you’ve already overcooked your turkey (or cooked your turkey to a great temperature, and get sick from the turkey bacteria in the stuffing).  Just don’t do it, it’s not worth it.  Stuff it with aromatics instead, it makes your turkey smell great and more flavorful, and smell less like throwing up the next morning.
3. This tip I learned from this year’s turkey.  Make sure you have some liquid in the bottom of your pan.  The recipe I adapted used a few cups of water to steep the aromatics, and the entire mixture is put into the cavity of the turkey.  A lot of the liquid leaks out and settles at the bottom of the pan.  You ask, why do I need to keep my pan moist?  Well do you want turkey gravy??  If there is no moisture at the bottom of your pan, all the yummy turkey juices and fats that cooks off are going to hit the bottom of the pan and sizzle away and/or burn into the pan.  By the end of the cooking process, you’re left with very little turkey juices and a lot of turkey crust.  Nobody likes turkey crust.

Now I present to you, a picture of the best turkey you will taste in your entire life, already eaten a little by me… because I was hungry… very hungry… and it was so good… yes it’s missing a leg… and an entire side of his body….. THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW IT’S GOOD PEOPLE!!

The Best Thanksgiving turkey EVER

adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats Roast Turkey

Ingredients:

• 1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the brine:

• 3/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• enough chicken stock to cover half of your pot (a gallon or so)
• 1 tablespoon ground white pepper
• 2 teaspoons allspice powder
• 4 or 5 slices of ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• enough iced water to submerge your turkey and not overflow the pan

For the aromatics:

• 2 onions cut into quarters
• 2 stalks of celery, rough chop
• 1 carrot, rough chop
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon dried rosemary
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• Canola oil

Directions:

2 to 3 days before roasting:

Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.  Or buy a thawed fresh turkey and bypass this step.  Defrosting turkey sucks.

Combine the chicken stock, salt, brown sugar, pepper, allspice, cinnamon, and ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.  If you’re impatiently putting the turkey in the brine on the same day, you can wait until it’s somewhat cooled, and add ice until it’s all melted and cool (like how you make quick jello!)

Early on the day or the night before you’d like to eat, combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket or a big cooking pot.   Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine.  I find it very annoying to find fridge space for a 5 gallon bucket, so I’m a big fan of the half brine method I used this year with the turkey.  If  using a 5 gallon bucket, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 hours – 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining if you find it necessary.  I prefer the shorter time period, once I brined a turkey for too long and it was way too salty, so be careful with your timing in relations to how big your bird is.  Mine was about 13 lbs and I brined for about 8 hours overnight, without turning, in a smaller cooking pot with the turkey’s ass hanging out.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine.

Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.

Combine the onion, celery, carrot, dried herbs, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey’s cavity.  Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.  A trick to tucking the wing is locate where the wing meets the body of the turkey, cut a small slit on the body side, and insert the tip of the wing into the slit.  That wing will never fall out during the cooking process.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.  My 13 lb turkey took about 1 hour 50 minutes and was a perfect 161 degrees.  And if you don’t have one of these, your life is not complete and you really need to buy one, now.

When your turkey is resting, look in your roasting pan, there should be EGADS! Turkey juices!  Pour that into a small pan, scrape up all the turkey crusty bits as well.  Bring to a boil, add flour to bring the texture to a gravy-like state.  You probably don’t even need to salt it due to the flavor of the brine.

I made a green bean HOT DISH (not casserole, you’re in minnesota territory now) and stuffing for sides.  We kind of ate them as well, before pictures, so… here are some after shots.

And finally, the cleanup crew. Let me halp you lick that up, it haz a flavor.