Barolo Salami

Yum.  My untrained palate doesn't have much else to say by way of distinction.  Just yum yum yum.

CITP - Vintage Irish Cheddar with Porter

Oh, how I love Irish cheese!  And it's fun to take cheese out of wax.  It reminds me of when I was first explaining the heaven that is Irish butter to my brother.  He'd never heard of Irish butter so his first reaction was, "What's Irish butter?  Do they put whiskey in it?"  Ha!  I wish! 

In any case this is a soft cheese that looks like a wedge but in reality is a bunch of delicious curds pressed together in some kind of Porter glue - half of the slices broke apart on me as I cut it apart.  It has a rich flavor but the beer doesn't dominate at all, for the most part just blendning into the backgrounds of the curds. 

CITP - Dubliner White Cheddar

We fell in love with this cheese last summer in Cork.  Here in the State we can only find the white (the red is also great if you can find it).  This cheddar is is harder than the American variety, more flavorful, and has a grainy texture.  It also melts well - mmmm, grilled cheese.  We use it in the place of American cheddar most of the time, e.g. in sandwiches, sometimes crumbled on top of salads, etc.  And of course it's a solid addition to the cheese plate.

Charcutepalooza - March Brining Challenge

Thanks mrswheelbarrow kitchen!

I made the garlic-sage brine (minus juniper berries, which I couldn't find) from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie. 

Um, I forgot to take a picture of the meal (yum yum yum),

but the beauty of the brine gives you a clue of how good it was.

This was the apprentice challenge for March, and it was delicious.  Since we are moving soon I used a couple pork chops from the freezer and guessed on the brine time (the recipe is for 1.5 inch pork chops) and I think I under-brined the chops a little...alas, I am but a apprentice.  I think next time I will buy a fresh center cut rack of pork, brine it for longer, then cut up the individual chops...not sure if that will make it better, but that's what this is all about eh?

I used a measuring cup filled with brine to weight the chops.

ps. for my other March Charcutepalooza posts you'll have to check the tag, as the March 15th ruhl was not conducive to a St. Patrick's day corned beef party.

Wild Boar Salami

Be jealous.  This was an excellent salami that was earthy and gamy in all the good senses of those words, and none of the bad.  We might have eaten this one a little too fast - ha!

Cheese Platter

We had a friend drop by as we were having lunch (see the cheese platter below).  "That is so foreign," was his reaction.  Ha, indeed it is, but we really absorbed the European eating culture last summer and are tyring not to lose it in the bustle.  It's well worth the effort.

Grilled onions

I've been experimenting with grilled onions a bit lately.  I slice them about 1/4 inch thick, put at least two toothpicks in them (so they don't fall apart on the grill - much better than a grill basket), and then add olive oil, balsamic, fresh herbs, and some kosher salt.  Below is a red onion with rosemary, but a yellow onion with thyme is my current favorite.  Let the onions sit in the oil and vinegar for about 20-30 minutes so the liquid can get inside the rings, then grill it up to your preferred blackness.  It's a delicious contorno - enjoy.

CITP - Fiore Sardo

Thank you cheese cave!  I walked in looking for a cheese to pair with our salami, and this fine specimen just jumped out of the case at me.  Fiore Sardo is a sheep's milk semi-hard cheese from Sardegna with a beautiful black rind.

It packs more bite than peccorino romano, so it may be a bit much grated on a pasta if it's not the flavor you're trying to showcase, but it's excellent on its own or paired with salami (we had it with wild boar and barolo).

Bacon Jam: mortar of the food pyramid

My wife told me about skillet food bacon jam last year before Thanksgiving (apparently it had been popping up on several of her regular blogs).  I thought it was a joke, then I saw it was serious, then I bought some...as a joke.  I thought it would make the perfect Christmas gift for one of my friends who considers bacon to be the mortar of the food pyramid.  It was the perfect gift (and she's now on her third jar...eating it straight with crackers), so I decided to try some myself.  It smells great and looks weird (ergo no photo of inside the jar), but all that doesn't matter because it tastes great.  Seriously.  We made some excellent bruschetta with bacon jam and ricotta a while back, and I just had my friends over for gourmet burgers, homemade sweet potato chips, and some arugula salad (to assuage the conscious - ha!).

I made the burgers with 2T Worcestershire sauce, 2T whole grain Dijon mustard, and a large pinch of sel gris per pound of 80/20 ground beef.  Then I added bacon jam, Dubliner Irish Cheddar, arugula, and some mayonnaise (I forgot to get tomatoes at Sprouts).  The chips are just thinly sliced sweet potatoes, canola oil, and kosher salt.  They are addictive, but I need to devise a better way of getting the oil off before I salt them; gravity is cardiovascularly insufficient!  It's not an everday meal, but it was nice treat so load that baby up with more bacon jam.

Gourmet oils and Balsamic Vinegar

We found Bistro Blends at Claremont's Annual Village Venture last year, and now that we're reaching the bottom of our bottles and I've been reminded that I should share.  Best balsamic ever.  The heirloom balsamic and fig are our favorites - the former makes out of this world brussel sprouts (now there's a recipe I should past) and the latter is the perfect salad dressing (a little oil, some fig balsamic, a sprinkle of kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper, and some fresh greens - a go to salad staple at our house).  Both have a syrupy texture without being too sweet (try them on vanilla bean ice cream for a real treat).  We also have the blackberry balsamic; it's more like a store-bought balsamic in it's runny consistency, and while it is great on it's own, the fig is soooo good that we often end up passing the poor little guy over.

I also recommend their truffle oil as it has a better flavor than any other oil I've found at our local Claremont store - it's great with gnocchi.  The one product we were initially disappointed with was the bread dip - it was terrible - but then we tried it out as a marinade and it makes some of the best grilled chicken we've had.  In any case, they're certainly more expensive than most grocery store comparables, but their taste is well worth it - we're certainly not looking back.

Sunday Afternoon? Cookie time!

Nothing like making cookies with my oldest son on a Sunday afternoon.  I told him he could pick from any ingredients out of the cupboard...he chose yellow and green.  That's butterscotch and mint for the uninitiated.  But I persuaded him that chocolate chip, butterscotch, and walnut would be better, and indeed they were.

CITP - Rosemary Cheddar

Another goodie from the Cheese Cave - Rosemary Cheddar.  This cheese is from Oregon and has a great balance to it - you definitely taste the Rosemary but it's not herby at all. 

I must admit that I did the cheese a bit of an injustice though.  I decided to try it on a sandwich and I masked its flavor too much...not to say that the sandwich wasn't great, but the cheese is better served with plain bread or a minimum of other competing flavors. So all in all it doesn't sound like an adventurous cheese - poor cheddar has gotten a bad rap from American cheese - but it rewards the taste buds and that's all that matters.

Planting Sauerkraut Seeds

I planted sauerkraut seeds today: cabbage, brine, a two week vacation in my pantry, and hopefully we'll have some rocking homemade sauerkraut to go with my first ever attempt at making corned beef from the brisket up.

I used cheesecloth and ziploc bags filled with brine (thanks mrswheelbarrow.com for that great idea) to weigh down the cabbage.  Maybe I could have sliced the cabbage thinner too, but that's what I get for trying to do it all by hand on my first try.  We'll see how it turns out in a couple weeks.