Fall Roasts

 The temps are cooling and that means one thing - it's back to good old fashuioned roasts and sides. There are many you can make for these crisp , cool days and nights.

Keep in mind that roasting is changing. In out mothers" and grandmothers" day the oven was primarily used for cooking all sorts of meat. Now you can roast on your barbecue or more popularly your air fryer It makes roasting a bit more fun and interesting. If you are roasting on the grill, remember that the wood chips you use will flavor the meat. Most use hickory on beef and pork while poultry can be roasted over pecan, maple, hiickory or mesquite chips. Charcoal also works. For a traditonal flavor just rub what you;re cooking with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Try not to barbecue a fatty piece of meat because it will drip into the flames and cause a fiery flare up. The cut can rest for thirty minutes before serving. If you're going to roast chicken on the grill stick to the smaller birds like Cornish hen or poussin or a Spring chicken. The last is small young bird. with the average weight of only one pound. Remove the bag of giblets, heart and liver before cooking. These can be chopped up and used in the accompanying gravy. 

As for the air fryer, the cooking time is more or less the same as an oven. For roast beef it's usually fifteen minutes fo revery pound .  Afour pound London Broil will take about an hour. The same goes for chicken. It's thirty minutes at 350 degrees farenheit with a break after fifteeen minutes to turn the bird. Pork roast is also great , roasted in the air fryer. They skin gets extra crackly, which only elevates the flavor.It's also quicker to cook than a oven roasted one.It will probably take about fifty minutes for a two pound one. Keep seasoning simple so the flavor shines through. Of course you can go the traditional route and ove n roast your meat. Doing such allow you to collec tthe dripping to create a rich gravy. Another plus about oven roasting is that you can also roast some veggies when you're cooking that roast beef or chicken.  You could easily pop in a tray of seasoned potatoes for roasting. They make a great side for any kind of meat.Consider also Brussels sprouts , carrots and cubed sweet potatoes or yams to add to your roast.

It's time for heartier cooking. Return to roasts and sides for a good old fashioned meal. There's nothing like a satisfying dinner that's filling and delicious.

The Tradition Of Kimchi

 What keeps a culture together is its' food. This is never more true than the Korean dish kimchi and the making of it.It brings family and friends together , where ever they are in the world.

Regular contributor and chef Eric Kim wrote about this traditional of all Korean dishes in today's New York Times Wednesday Food section. He writes about the act of making it , usually in November with those near and dear in a rite called kimgiang and alternatively gimgiang. UNESCO World Heritage recognizes it as an intangible cultural heritage, that's passed down from generation to generation.It's living history.It symbolizes the tough Korean spirit To survuve hard times you must make yourself more resilient, Kimchi was a fall crop that would keep a tough people going through cold , harsh winters.It;s made in mid fall with pickling and Napa cabbage,placing this in a kimchi pot. and then buried in the garden , One family's recipe is not better than another.It's thought that the dish belongs to the nation, and on  a smaller level communities. Lauryn Chun remembers her grandmother's kingiang's wehre all the neighborhood women came over to make kimchi. The gathering was like a party, with hundreds(!)of pounds of brined cabbage being seasoned with spices. They even sampled the cabbage.Ms. Chun now makes it for her company Mother-In-Law's KImchi which her mother also has at her restaurant in Garden Grove, California.Brooklun chef , Susan KIm adds oysters to her family recipe which gives the cabbage a kick.

KImchis is not hard to make. Chef Kim gives the basic recipe along with a white kimchi stew one.As Ms, Chun puts it "If you can make a salad you can make kimschi". There are steps but they're not necessarily difficult ones. Chef Kim's recipe has a medium head of napa cabbage and dry brining it. It starts with rinsing the head and then cutting the leaves into the strips while still attached, Brining takes anywhere from  one to two hours. The pickling is a mix of ten garlic cloves a whole piece of ginger , fish sauce and Daikon radishes. Two green apples or an Asian pear is added for sweetness,A small yellow onion and a Korean red pepper are also added.Allthe ingredeitns save for the fisj sauce and the ghochu garu are pureed until fluffy. These two ingredients are added to the mix. carrots are added to this. Cut them into matchstick pieces and then add the cabbage.Transfer the sauced cabbaged to  jug and tamp down with your hands,It's fermented for two o three days on the kitchen counter. Burp it by letting out extra air every couple of hours. The kim chi stew combines a pork shoulder, ginger onions and kimchi into a flavorful braise.

KImchi is the heart and soul of Korea and its' cooking. It's spicy mix is comforting and tasty. It's truly a heritage dish.

The Day After

The day after Thanksgiving is one filled with leftovers, from turkey to stuffing  to sides, There's always the same old recipes from turkey tetrazzini to cranberry sauce paninis. Put a different spin on them. Have them the Filipino way for breakfast.

This is an eye opening twist that food writer, Priya  Krishna wrote bout n Wednesday's New York Times  Food section. Instead of saving the thighs and stuffing for a reheated lunch or dinner , think about it as ingredients in a large breakfast. She interviewed Filipino- American brothers  Chase and Chad Valencia  who own the popular LASA  Restaurant in Los Angeles. They have the top modern Pinoy cooking in the States yet it's their mother's recipes that are made with the Thanksgiving Day leftovers. Mrs. Valencia comes from Pampamga , the culinary capital of the Philippines ,  and her influence is felt both in their eatery and home. She whipped up huge breakfasts of longazina, a type of sweet sausage, silog or garlic rice with eggs, fried eggs and pan de sal, a sweet yeast roll.One of their first Filioino-American hybrid meals was incorporating leftovers with familiar standards.It had to be a big do. They always have more than twenty people to feed and it always held in a different relative's house.

What are the culinary mixes? There are traditional Thanksgiving dishes such as honey baked ham, turkey cranberry sauce and stuffing sharing a table with sopas ,a creamy chicken soup, rice and pan de sal. The brothers add their slant  with the addition of asado, a salty, sour complex dish of pork shoulder cooked in tomato sauce, garlic, bay leaf, and calamansi , a lime like citrus fruit of Southeast Asia. The best part comes the morning after. Guests are treated to sandwiches stuffed with their choice of asado, ham or turkey and silog topped with turkey and gravy. This idea solely belongs to the brothers. As Chase put it. it was a tradition born from laziness. "We were stoners' " he admitted and wanted to create a quick breakfast.Chad spotted a pot of asado on the stove - and voila - a new dish was born. Now it's an assembly line of them and hungry friends and relatives who put together reheated asado (made richer by mellowing overnight), eggs and a nutty tasting Filipino cheese all sandwiched between pan de sal. There's also their take on silog with  turkey and gravy.It's more like the super hearty Hawaiian surfer breakfast loco moco, stuffing people  before they go off on Black Friday forays.

Leftovers can be used for lunch and dinner but why?Refashion them into a hearty breakfast like the Valencia brothers cook. It's a great way to clean the fridge and eat heartily for this weekend of shopping and traveling.

A New Take On Pork Shoulder

If it's August , that means one thing - you've exhausted grilling every type and cut of meat available.However there's a cut of meat you may not have tried yet - or at least over an open fire. It's pork shoulder - usually a cut reserved braising on chill fall or freezing winter days. Surprisingly it's also perfect for summer eating too,

Alison Roman explored this new side of pork shoulder in yesterday's New York Times Food section.
Shoulder is usually reserved for braising in a Dutch oven.It's one of those cuts that gets retired during the warm weather, only to become popular in the fall when cool days arrive. Yet , this cut can be sliced into pork chop like pieces and grilled. They should be cooked hot and fast - not the typical one hour in a Dutch oven.This makes the fatty bits char and crisp, which only add to the flavor. Some may worry that this won't thoroughly cook the meat and make one sick. Not to fret.According
 to USDA, United States Department of Agriculture, pork can have an internal temperature of 145 degrees F to be considered safe. (have a meat thermometer handy to gauge the temperature). This should give you medium rare meat, perfectly pink and juicy.Flavoring them is a cinch. Try a sprinkle of sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Another variation is citrus juice, chili paste and fish sauce. They can be marinated for up to twenty-four hours in advance.

Preparing the meat may be a  bit more labor intensive . The pork shoulder should be cut crosswise into one inch thick steaks, Ms. Roman cautions that some pieces may not stay in the steak shape, depending on the cut and shape of the shoulder bought). Season with salt and pepper, place in either a shallow baking dish or resealable plastic bag. You can just leave it at this if you want just the pork flavor. For Ms. Roman's marinade combine fish sauce, light brown sugar and sambal -  hot chili paste, garlic and half a cup of lime juice, Mix in a bowl to dissolve the sugar.Pour half  the mixture over the chops and let marinate for fifteen to twenty minutes while the grill is being fired up. You don;t have to worry about leaving it out. That's fine. The grill at this point should be "screaming hot" as Ms. Roman puts it.Once on the grill, the pork should be a deepened brown color and lightly charred on both sides. Each side should be grilled for only two to four minutes each. Let stand in a  shallow baking dish and pour the rest of the marinade. Serve with rice noodles or rice. Top with lettuce , shallots and mint. Serve with grilled citrus for squeezing.

Try a pork shoulder chop for a new grilling experience. It's get you out of the barbecue doldrums  and into exciting new territory. Don;t wait for fall to eat it. It's perfect now for a summer meal.

Sous Vide Made Easy

The sous vide method of cooking can either excite chefs or scare them.Yet, it's a really simple way of having thoroughly cooked meats and vegetables.it's also a great cooking technique of sealing in flavor. It's something all home chefs should embrace.

Brian X. Chen wrote about them in yesterday;s New York Times Food section.This is a first for him because he usually writes about new tech gadgets . A sous vide is a kind of kitchen one, although not so new.It was invented in 1799 by Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford and brought back into the cooking world in the 1960s, thanks to frozen food companies. Restauranteur George Paulus was the first chef to use it in his famed Troisgras Restaurant in the mid Seventies.. Since then it's become a restaurant staple which can intimidate a home chef.There's really nothing to fear.It's a pretty simple method of meat being sealed in a bag and placed in hot water as a cylindrical  gadget circulates hot water and the bag around for thorough cooking..Another turn off is the fact that the cooking method takes too darn long!.A piece of meat can take anywhere from an hour to a day to cook. The end result though is worth it . Many home chefs may also be leery about the sous vide price, usually between $200 to $300 hundred dollars however it does pay itself off.It's the price of a microwave or a good emulsion blender.

Sous vide cooking is easy , Mr. Chen had a pictorial for pork or beef roast with his article but directions are easy to follow. He recommends using a 3 to 5 pound chuck roast or boneless pork shoulder. The meat should be trussed with cooking twine. Tie it around its' midsection, leaving one inch spaces. The meat can be preseared in a Dutch oven using vegetable oil.Afterwards place the meat and two sprigs of rosemary inside a one gallon freezer bag. Fill a large pot halfway with water. Attach the sous vide and set it to140 degrees for the pork shoulder for medium doneness 130 degrees for the beef chuck which will turn it medium rare. Submerge the bag when the water reaches the desired temperature.  Remember to seal the bag as airtight as possible. Once the bag is submerged, it has to cook for twenty-four hours. Add more water if it starts boiling off When done ,remove the meat from the bag and transfer to a cutting board. The juices can either be discarded or used for a gravy. For a nice crust season steak on both sides with salt and pepper. The pork can be rubbed with brown sugar Heat in a cast iron skillet with vegetable oil. hen they start to smoke add butter and herbs for flavoring.

A sous vide should be considered a home chef's best friend.It's a great gadget to for cooking roasts for a tender , melt in your mouth texture Its a great addition to any chef's arsenal of gadgets.

Slow Cooking Gourmet Style

Crockpot cooking usually suggests a hominess that's full of pot luck dinners and Saturday night get togethers. However you can take slow cooking to a new level with more sophisticated recipes and  more complex ingredients. It's not just chili and Swedish meatballs anymore. It's sophisticated fare worthy of any dinner party.

It was the subject of an article in Wednesday's New York Times Food section. Sam Sifton experimented with it  and different recipes (and to be honest you can also adapt Melissa Clark's tangine recipe from her A Good Appetite piece for this as well). Slow cookers can be temperamental dishes cooked in it may start off well with good intentions but six or seven hours later you get mush at best, goo at worst.As Mr. Sifton found out the hard way, just chucking ingredients in it and cooking for six to seven hours is not a good idea. The best amount of time is five to seven hours tops. even four hours will produce a better result.Also prepping is a good idea too. There is a debate about braising any meat used to give it some color. Mr. Sifton recommends it. Another hint is not to use too much liquid which will make the  recipe soupy. Be sparing with it.

Mr. Sifton gives two recipes. One is a Vietnamese style slow cooked pork tacos,. This is a riff on CorinneTrang recipe for wok fried rib tips.He uses a pork shoulder that has been marinated in  a mix of hoisin and fish sauces.There is also a tablespoon of sriracha sauce for heat along with fresh garlic and ginger.The pork is first precooked in a five minute saute to give it color. It is then put into the slow cooker after a scant amount  of the hoisin sauce is poured into the slow cooker's bottom.It is cooked for five to seven hours until the meat is so tender it can be shredded with a fork. Mr Sifton adds a green cabbage slaw that's chock full of other veggies as a filler to go with the pork. He also includes a cake recipe. Baking in a slow cooker is tricky at best . The batter doesn't always cook through which leaves a raw middle not to mention burnt edges.Mr. Sifton got the recipe from Momufuko's great pastry chef, Christina Tosi. It is a buttermilk one that also has the addition of brown sugar.It should be cooked for four to six hours and the result is a dense kind , sort of like a pound cake with caramel edging.

Slow cooking recipes can be sophisticated and fun. It can even cook elegant cakes  along with delicious dishes, worthy of any gourmand. It just takes patience and some prep time to create perfectly cooked meals.

Super Bowl Super Foods

This Sunday will be a paean to football and all kinds of snack foods.Unfortunately Americans turn to outside sources as opposed to making their own quick bites.That shouldn't be.You can create a tasty snack filled homemade platter for SuperBowl Sunday. Sam Sifton, one of the New York Times' great food writers , asked this question in yesterday's New York Times Dining section.He came up with a tasty and much better solution than a list of take out phone numbers.He has updated three classic Sunday football dishes, fried chicken ,nachos and clam dip.These are the perfect dishes to serve not just for a football themed day but for parties as well.His fried chicken is heavenly.This is a Coke brined chicken where it's marinated in a mix of The soda ,thyme and hot sauce infuse the meat with a sweet and fiery flavor.The crust is a mix of flour ,cayenne pepper along with onion and garlic powder.It's fried quickly in a mix of peanut oil and lard. If that's not enough Mr Sifton gives us an old classic clam dip and a new one ,nachos.Clam dip was almost a requirement for every party thrown during the 1950's.Thanks to the season being one for fresh clams ,you can make a very fresh dip using the freshly caught seafood along with sour cream.Again cayenne pepper and Worcester sauce give the dip zing.Serve with potato chips for a classic treat or fresh veggies for a healthier twist.Nachos ,another game day must, are made with a shredded pork shoulder moistened with lime juice instead of the usua Ground beef.This is layered over tortilla chips along with more lime infused sour cream.Crunchy radishes not only decorate it but give it a nice pop of sharpness. Cilantro is then sprinkled on for more flavor as is another layer of meat ,sour cream and cheese. Game day dishes don't have to be take out fumbles.They can be hot, fresh and inspired.It's a great way to celebrate a modern American tradition.