Lemon-Butter Chicken

Okay, so this is really incredibly simple, but it was also tasty and ended up fairly pretty, so have a recipe!  This would probably serve at least three, especially if it, you know, went with vegetables of some kind.

2 tsp. olive oil
1 small spring onion (about 1/3 c.), diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 small boneless/skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1/2" pieces
1/2 lemon or 2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 c. white wine
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 sprig fresh thyme-- leave whole or strip the leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4-1/2 c. parmesan cheese, depending on how much you like cheese.

Pasta-- I used pappardalle from the Santa Cruz Pasta Factory

In a medium saucepan, saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are just starting to caramelize, then add the chicken, lemon juice, white wine, butter, salt, pepper, and thyme.  Simmer until the chicken is thoroughly cooked and the liquid has cooked down some.

Toss everything together and top with as much cheese as you feel like eating.  Enjoy!

It's been a very long time since I posted here, due to a combination of moving and having not a lot of money to buy fun food with. But now I'm back! I'm living in Willow Glen with my friend Ria (of Wildwood Yarn), and I've finally figured out where the good farmer's market is in this area (Campbell, if you were wondering)!

I've just started a batch of tomato sauce that I'm making with some heirloom tomatoes I picked up for $1/lb (!!!) at the market. I'm really excited about cooking this week, especially since I also got some butter and a WHOLE CHICKEN. Om nom nom.

But before that, raspberry jam!

Recipe: Nectarine Ice Cream

Nectarine Ice Cream

3/4 c. milk
2/3 c. granulated sugar
pinch salt
1 1/2 c. heavy cream
4 nectarines, peeled and diced

Chop the nectarines in a food processor until mostly smooth but still slightly chunky-- a smoother blend will give you smoother ice cream, but chunks of nectarine are pretty pleasant.

Mix the milk and sugar together until the sugar is mostly dissolved into the milk. Add the salt and the cream and stir until well-blended. Add in the processed nectarines and stir until they're incorporated.

Chill the ice cream in the fridge for at least half an hour or up to overnight, then freeze according to ice cream maker instructions.

You could probably add a few more nectarines, which would give it a stronger fruit flavor without affecting the texture that much.

There would be pictures, but we ate it all.

This is a modified recipe (originally for Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream, which I also made tonight) from the Cuisinart Ice Cream recipe book that came with my ice cream maker.

Anybody want some sausage?

If people want to buy sausages, here's what I've got!

Final tally for this weekend's sausagepalooza:

Apple-Fennel Crepinettes (4 crepinettes/1.5 lbs; $10)
Harissa Sausages (two 1 lb. packages available (5 sausages each); $7/each)
4 C's Sausages (cumin, coriander, caraway, cilantro) (two 0.5 packages available (3 sausages each); $5/each)
4 C's Crepinettes (4 small crepinettes/0.75 lb; $7)
Breakfast Sausages (three 1/3 lb. packages available (5 sausages each); $4/each)
Strawberry-Rhubarb Crepinettes (4 crepinettes/1.25 lbs.; $10)

All are first-come, first-served. I'll be checking comments here and at Facebook. All are vacuum-sealed, except for the breakfast sausages. I can deliver to the Santa Cruz/San Jose area, or people can pick things up here. If you want me to set something aside for you, I'm happy to; it will likely be frozen. At this point, all the sausage is fresh.

Just to be clear: I am not a professional. I do not have a permit; I am doing this for fun. I do my best to keep things safe and clean. The price of the sausages is essentially ingredients and a little time.

Apple-Fennel Crepinettes

On Friday, my local market had a sale on bulk meat-- I think we managed to buy nearly 25 pounds of meat for just under $50. I bought about 15 lbs. of pork shoulder to use in making sausages, with the intention of spending all weekend doing so. I haven't gotten hugely far as of yet, but I have made apple-fennel crepinettes and breakfast sausages. Today, I'm planning to make spicy sausages of some sort, as well as something that's more strongly cumin-flavored.

Last night's dinner was the apple-fennel crepinettes with farro and a salad, eaten entirely too late at night, because things always take longer than I think they will.

Apple-Fennel Crepinettes

2 3/4 lb. pork shoulder, cut into 1/2" cubes
1/3 lb. pork fat (I used belly)
2 small braeburn apples, peeled and cut into thumbnail-sized pieces
3 very small fennel bulbs (save some fronds for decoration, if desired)
2 tsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 large shallot, cut into rings
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. dill
1 sheet caul fat

Meat grinder
8- or 10-ounce ramekin, with straight sides

A note before we begin: it is very important to keep things cold when you're making sausages. Not only do cold ingredients and equipment give the sausage a better texture, you're working with raw meat. I stick my grinder in the freezer before I start anything else.

Chop the fennel into thin rings. Sautee over meduim heat until they are just starting to caramelize; add the apples and cook for another minute.

Remove the apples and fennel from the pan and set aside to cool. Do not clean the pan-- add the shallots, balsamic vinegar, dill, and cumin. Cook over medium heat until the shallots are limp and translucent.

Once the vegetables are cool, combine them with the shoulder, fat, and salt in a gallon-sized plastic bag. You can either mix everything together in a bowl and then transfer them to the bag, or start with everything in the bag, and mix it there, which is what I did.

Put the bag in the freezer for at least an hour, or until it the ingredients are cold through, but not all the way frozen.

While the meat is chilling, soak your caul fat in luke-warm water.

Grind the meat in a meat grinder (I use an attachment for my stand mixer, which works well but isn't ideal). If it's as warm as it was yesterday, set the bowl you're grinding into in ice to keep things chilled as you go. If the meat gets warm while you're grinding, chill it again in the freezer before continuing.

Line the ramekin with caul fat-- you'll want to get as many crepinettes out of the sheet as possible, so start near an edge and work your way in. Place a small piece of fennel frond in the center of the ramekin, then fill to the line with ground meat-- it should be about 1/2 cup, perhaps slightly more. Trim the caul fat around the edges, about half an inch from the top of the ramekin, and fold it over the meat. Be careful with the fat and don't pull it to hard, as it can tear.

Flip over the ramekin and tap on the bottom to loosen the crepinette. You should be able to get at least eight crepinettes out of this; I ran out of caul fat before I ran out of meat.

If you don't have a grinder, buy ground pork and chop the apples, fennel, and shallots finely before adding them to the meat.

To cook the crepinettes, I am going to direct you over to El Salchichero, which is where I bought both the belly and the caul fat: cooking directions here! They are genuinely good people, and they carry truly awesome meat. I bought a duck from them last weekend, and it was one of the more delicious things I've eaten recently.

A note on caul fat: I am lucky enough to have a butcher who is willing to sell me sheets of caul fat. I know that you can order it online.

Cheese, part two

When I picked up my cheese to check on it last night, it was... leaking. Uh-oh, I thought, I hope it hasn't turned to mush. Although I had planned to wait until at least the end of February, as it's only been aging about three weeks at this point, I was worried enough to cut it open now.

It's an interesting sort of cheese. It's definitely firmer than the cheese I've been making, but it's a bit more like feta than cheddar in texture. In terms of taste-- well, it's interesting. You can tell that someday, it will be a cheddar, but it isn't quite there yet. There is a taste, but it's not hugely strong.

So: notes for next time.

1. Make sure to press the cheese with the right amount of weight for the right amount of time.
2. Make sure that the cheese is fully dry before you wax it.
3. More salt? I think it's not quite salty enough for my tastes.

Also: there is more cheese than I will eat before it gets moldy. I have about five pieces to give away; each is about three ounces. Who wants some?

Unexpected Sausage

As I've mentioned before, I had two goals during the summer of 2010: bread and cheese. I also had a goal for summer 2011: sausage.

In the fall of 2009, just before Halloween, I discovered El Salchichero at the Scotts Valley Farmer's Market. One of the first thing I bought from them was their chestnut crepinettes. They came two to a package, so I cooked them, cut them into quarters, and served them at a Halloween dinner for eight. It was a rather loud night-- we were watching movies, talking about costumes, and answering the door for trick-or-treaters. But as our guests ate, silence fell. Thankfully, it was the good kind of oh-my-god-how-delicious-is-this silence. By the end of the night, we had been converted to the absolutely amazing sausage-making skills of Chris LaVeque, the man who owns and runs El Salchichero.

The sausage stall became a regular stop for me on my farmer's market rounds, especially once they started carrying whole cuts of meat, lard, and, occasionally, rabbits. I was continually amazed by the creativity shown in the week's offerings: they changed with the seasons, using locally-available produce, and were, without fail, the best sausages (and crepinettes!) I've ever tasted.

Then, in July, Chris folded up his farmer's market stall in order to remodel an old t-shirt factory into a butcher's shop. While I tried to make my stock of sausage last, it was too delicious not to eat. I was left in a quandary: did I want to go back to eating grocery store sausage (both New Leaf and Scotts Valley Market make their own), or did I want to start my next summer's goal a little early? In early September, armed with a KitchenAid stand mixer and attachments, I made my first sausage: a fairly simple breakfast sausage.


To be quite honest, it wasn't great. Neither was my next try-- spiced apple sausages. In both cases, the sausages ended up dry and bursting from their casings. Eventually, I picked up a copy of Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie.

Ah, I realised after following their instructions (slightly modified) for Andouille sausage, this is it. I'd finally gotten the proper fat/meat/salt/seasonings ratio. The andouille became a Thanksgiving Day appetizer, and hung around in the freezer long after, becoming breakfast and dinner (I'm fairly sure I have a few links still). It was followed by garlic and herb sausage, mild Italian sausage (Christmas Eve lasagna!), and, most recently, sausage made with ras el hanout.

So, thank you, Chris LaVeque and El Salchichero-- oddly, thank you for closing, however temporarily. I am very happy to have discovered a love of sausage-making. I am also extremely excited about the fact that El Salchichero's new face (local butcher's shop!!) is opening this Friday. I'll see you there.