Made it to Springfield

Made the move successfully to OR last weekend. Unfortunately, the new place still needs an internet connection (which should be set up by this coming weekend). 

The house is old and funky, but absolutely perfect- and the new roommate is awesome. 

Everyone up here is just so much more laid back and happy to help than in Sacramento.

As soon as my internet hookup gets set, going to be uploading a bunch of pictures. Here are some basic pictures of the house and kitchen in the mean time.

Cooking:

Had some extra frozen chopped spinach and mixed it with some large chunks of napa cabbage. After defrosting and squeezing the moisture out of the spinach, I cooked both with some sesame oil, shaoxing rice wine, and some soy sauce. Finished it off with some combo pork/chicken stock I had frozen. Had the look and texture of collard greens with distinct Asian notes, but not greasy at all. 

Topped it off with cuts off of a Beef Round Eye tenderloin that I had souvided to medium rare in sesame oil, dave's insanity sauce, shaoxing rice wine, and soy sauce- then cut steaks and seared them off in the pan. 

The red dots around the plate are deposits of siracha, just in case anyone wanted a little more pain. Turned out better than I could have hoped. The combo of spinach and the napa actually worked great. Perfect meal to share at 1AM.

Long's Meat Market

It warms me to experience honest and genuine service when it is completely unprompted and unexpected. On the last night of my trip up to Eugene to set plans for the move in the coming weeks, I wanted to really cook something for my host (and potential future roommate), so I set about getting the ingredients to make my rendition of a French Onion Soup. I like to use Mirror Pond Pale Ale instead of kirsch, and incorporating raw spring and red onions as a garnish for additional texture and color (all of those ideas are borrowed from the preparation of the soup at the Deschutes Brewery's Pub in Bend- a place I would highly recommend). I also would have floated it with some broiled chevre (for tang) and emmenthaler cheese (for contrast and texture) on top- but I literally forgot to buy one of the cheeses- and then forgot to garnish with the one that I did have. 


... But back to Long's Meat Market


My host recommended Long's as a good place for picking up the bones that I would need for makings the stock. I should have just purchased the stuff they had in the cold case buy the door, but we came in on the opposite side of the shop and I didn't notice the case until I was leaving. While on on the other side of the store, however, I picked up a bottled root beer since I was pretty thirsty. I knew just by their cheese selection that the place was going to be great. It is akin to visiting a new restaurant, cracking open the menu, and wanting to try a bite off everything the place serves. 


I am confident in my ability to distinguish between pretension and pure quality- and Longs has very little of the former and cases full of the latter. I am sure their prices aren't as cheap as bargain brands. However, when buying meat at Long's, you are literally getting a more nutrient dense product for your money. This is because the meat is  straight off the carcass, natural, and not pumped with water (or products intended to increase the meat's absorption of that water). So while the raw weight of the product you are buying at a Safeway may be less per pound, all of your "savings" can be found in those extra items tacked onto the end of the "Chicken" or "Beef".. i.e. water + salt + ? in the package ingredient list. Go out and check a package of chicken breasts in the freezer or "fresh" packaged meat section of your favorite large-chain supermarket if you are curious. I once watched an online video of Heston Blumenthal literally doubling the weight of a chicken breast using a syringe, salt water, and a chemical additive designed to increase the absorption of fluids in the cell walls of meat. The cut of chicken slowly inflated, but didn't have any kind of noticeable bulges (just looked a lot bigger than it did originally) . Even if the bargain brands are 1/2 as much, you can probably still buy more actual meat for the money (instead of meat + added water) when you buy from Long's. 


So I needed to make beef broth for my rendition of the soup, and began to make my way to the Beef side of the meat counter. This was quite difficult, because (to borrow a joke from Patton Oswald) I literally felt like Templeton the rat at the fair in Charlotte's Web.


Gazing at Long's awesome selection in the case, I spied some excellent stew meat. Yes, even their "stew" meat looked delicious. I can't remember if the actual meat cut was listed, but generically I think it is shoulder and leg pieces. Essentially it is cut from the places on the animal that are doing a lot of work, so there is a lot of intramuscular fat deep in the muscle. That fat renders slowly over time, making these stewing cuts more tender in longer cooking applications than their leaner cousins. I also noticed Long's unfortunately didn't have any beef bones for sale.


I decided to break from tradition further and snap up some of that picture perfect (literally) stew meat, since "Why not?," there really wasn't anything "French" about the soup at this point anyway. Everything planned to go into it, short of salt and pepper, was/were coming from either Eugene, OR, or the surrounding areas.  


After getting the stew meat, I asked the gentleman that began assisting me on the other side of the case if they had any beef bones they might sell me. He smiled and said "Let me check," and walked over to a covered counter with a large covered partial carcass. He cut me off a large piece (not sure what it was off of but it had a lot of meat on it that I cut off and added to the soup when I finally removed the bone. I probably would have had to pay 5 dollars for something like that from a Sacramento market or butcher shop. My half pound of stew meat, bone, and Root beer ($1) rang up to just under $4. I didn't realize it at the time, but I wasn't even charged for the bone. 


The soup turned out great despite my forgetfulness, but I felt the need to extend a special thanks to Long's Meat Market for their hospitality. 


As I was leaving, I noticed a newspaper clipping (or copy maybe?) of an article reviewing Long's. The story featured a picture of the gentleman who was assisting me, owner Mike Wooley. 


Thanks for the great level of professionalism and the quality of the products that your store sells, Mike. I hope the natives of Eugene really appreciate the amount of effort you put in to stocking the best quality products, resulting in Long's Meat Market being an exceptional resource for local gourmets and amateurs alike.

  
The only picture I managed to snap from the store- but you can visit their website at http://www.longsmeatmarket.com/index.htm

Back in Sacramento

Eugene was absolutely awesome. Just everything about it was great. It has an amazing food scene, beautiful lush green landscapes, and is populated by a bunch of really nice people. Highlight of the trip was definitely visiting the Saturday Market downtown- but it was exceptionally relaxing to see the area in person. I know I am going to love it up there. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip...

Trip to Oregon

Going to be leaving tomorrow to visit Eugene, see U of O, and setting up formal preparations for law school in the fall. Not quite sure when I am going to be back (probably no later than middle of next week).

Here's the game plan....

North on I-5 starting in Sacramento and moving up to Corning --> Stop off at the Olive Pit --> Continuing up I-5 with a planned stop in Redding.

Continuing up from Redding --> (*possible stop depending on time) one of these small towns --> continuing on to Ashland --> home stretch to Eugene.

Duck Confit, Artichoke Heart, Piquillo Pepper Sandwich

Since I am moving up to Eugene, I thought it would be best to start clearing out the fridge. Still have 2 vacuum sealed duck confit packages that I had cooked earlier that I wanted to use up.


Picked up a baguette on the way home with roommate so I could make a sandwich. 


Game plan: Duck Confit Sandwich
The ingredients:
1 Sousvided Duck Thigh- See previous entries
1 Jar Roasted Pequillo peppers (Trader Joes)
1 Jar Marinated Artichoke Hearts (Trader Joes)
1 "Rustic Sweet Baguette" section cut in half and toasted with duck fat (Raleys- was on the way home)

Turn into....

Verdict- Awesome....Nommnomnom.  

Beer Tasting

We had a blind beer tasting last night. You can follow along and see our scores for the respective beers. I think for any future tastings we will stick to a particular style of beer (i.e. not really valuable to compare a Rogue Chocolate Stout to a Paulander Hef). Still was fun. See the "Blind Beer Tasting" collection in my Flickr stream for more specific photos

Spring Duck Confit Salad

Name says it all. Click on the photos for greater descriptions

New iPhone app

Just testing to see if it works ;)

Bill to Tail Cooking

So after butchering chickens for Easter, I realized how much cheaper and easier it is to buy whole carcasses and then process them yourself (that way you get everything - bones, fat, light meat, dark meat, etc).  I had one duck left from my trip out to the Asian supermarkets (of the original 3). I decided to use everything.

You can follow along in my "Bill to Tail" Flickr set.

****AMPLE WARNING-  NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH****

I start out with a great quality muscovy duck purchased from a local Vietnamese market and process it into two perfect breasts, 2 legs, and a remaining carcass that I roast in the oven and use for stock (or rather roasted duck jus).

I practiced prior on 2 other ducks and decided to make a duck ragu with the 4 other legs. I cooked the sauce low and slow for 4 hours with the intent to sous vide it another 12 - 14 so the thighs are insanely tender and there is no large deposits of fat. The duck thighs were joined by some louisana style sausage from a local butcher shop (Morant's is amazing), pinot grigio, san manzano tomatoes, and duck stock, sun-dried tomatoes (rehydrated in stock) and blended with garlic. Once the pot was bubbling- I stuck it in the oven at 225 for 4 hrs. You can see how tender the meat is. Look at those clean bones- no tools needed. I use the bones in the stock with the roasted carcass, the heart, and the head and  neck.

Finally - as I was butchering I was cutting off huge quantities of fat and fatty skin, I used a water rendering method of basically boiling them until all of the fat had rendered. I then strained it. Once in the fridge the fat will rise to the surface and thicken up to the consistency of warm butter. I'll just add it to my duck fat container (the small plastic one that looks like it is filled with Tahini in the photo set). The small amount of stock underneath will be added to the larger batch and then frozen.

Here you can see those "Italian Style Confit" Duck Thighs cooled in their own juices/fat in a vacuum seamed bag. Insanely delicious...

Duck Fat Facts

http://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/science_of_cooking/cooking_with_duck_fat.htm

Interesting online article.

Change of plans- Gumbo!!!!

I realized that French style duck preparations are probably not going to be worth it considering my palate. So, I think I am going to use the remaining duck in my fridge to make a gumbo instead.

One of my biggest culinary revelations that I received from living in Texas for 4 years (aside of Texas BBQ Brisket, Sichuan peppercorns, and soul food) was eating gumbo at Goode Seafood Company. Their gumbo wasn't actually even the best I had (damn good nonetheless), but they made it in a certain way that was sort of unique.

All of the components of the dish are cooked independently and then composed on the opposite side of the pass in view of the diners. Basically, they add the cooked meat and veggies on top of some rice and then poor the stock thickened with dark roux over everything. The result- everything is brilliantly cooked and it is a whole helluva lot easier to customize each bowl to order then trying to manage gallons of the fully mixed soup.

Granted- this method isn't as theatric or traditional, however, it is easier to control the relative doneness of fickle components (like okra and the seafood) that can become overcooked easily. And if you mess up one component, the whole recipe is compartmentalized so you can just throw out what was ruined and remake that component without having to start everything over again.... And what do I find while reading through the French Laundry Cookbook? Thomas Keller advocating this very same method for assembling/creating soups!

So change of plans for the remaining duck and the legs- going to make gumbo (deconstructed and then reconstructed for serving):

Current list of stuff going in:
Veggies:
- Cajun mirepox- carrots, onions, bell peppers
- Okra
Meat:
- Shrimp
- Duck breast & legs
- Andouille sausage
Stock/Roux
- I have about 2.5 Quarts of duck stock that I made up + a bunch of duck fat for the roux. Apparently duck fat is one of the best fats for you (nutritionally) because it naturally contains large levels of omega 3s.
- I also have one more duck in the fridge that will likely contribute to stockpot in short time...

Here's a photo for those who have never had the opportunity to try it (looks like this one only has shrimp and some tiny scallops as proteins)...

Sous Vide Duck Breast

Broke down the ducks and sous vided the breasts at 140F (slightly above medium rare). Pulled one out of the vacuum bag and finished in in a cast iron skillet to get some color on the fat side. The duck itself was OK- ended up just pulling the fat layer off to eat it. I think I am going to roast the remaining duck I have in the Chinese style (But I still plan on making confit with the 4 legs I have left in the fridge)....

Liquid Gold

After finishing off some errands, I swung by SF Market to pick up a few ducks. This is one of the most treasured culinary delicacies that the average cook can collect for him/herself- DUCK FAT! Oh boy, veggies are going to taste good this week! Sous viding up the breasts at the moment, will try to snap a picture of dinner before I dive in.....

Duck Confit Part 2

So I have been lazy about making the trip out to South Sac- since it appears as if the Asian markets are going to be the only place where I am going to be able to find some ducks... Maybe I should just bring a giant burlap sack to the park along with a loaf of bread?

Duck Confit

Always wanted to try it, going to give it a shot tonight I think (or at least start the process tonight). Debating whether to cure it in the fridge before Sous viding. We shall see. Now, if only I could run across that annoying AFLAC  spokesman... >=)

http://www.thecitycook.com/cooking/advice/general/000032

I think I might also try a slow-roasted Chinese style duck just for kicks as well. Definitely going to have to figure out a good way to store the rendered fat since it is apparently a favorite among professional chefs everywhere (and who better to take cooking advice from?)...

[Edit 6:00PM] Slight game plan change- probably going to try to this out tomorrow instead ;)