Tips from Culinary School: Tip #1 Duck Breast for Chickens

Culinary school has been an amazingly enlightening experience. I have learned so much about ingredients, technique, organization, and flavor balance. Much of it has been ingrained after many weeks of practice and refinement. There are a few tidbits, however, epiphanies even, that are quick to learn and indispensable once you know them. The first trick of the culinary trade I want to share with you is how to perfectly cook duck breast.

Duck is scary. Even the most accomplished home cooks, who don’t bat an eye at the thought of roasting whole turkeys, searing tuna, or grilling swordfish, quake at the thought of the duck breast. Duck can so easily become both greasy and dry with its rich but lean flesh and thick fatty layer of skin. What you need is some way to melt this fatty layer, keeping just enough to be crispy and tasty while keeping the flesh moist. Here’s how it’s done.

Season a boneless (but skin on) breast of duck liberally with salt and pepper. Place it skin side down in a cold, dry, heavy-bottomed sauté pan. This means the pan should not be a non-stick pan. The pan should have no oil or butter or Pam spray or anything of the sort in it. The pan should be “sitting on your counter” cold. Put the pan with the duck in it over a low flame and do nearly nothing for 15-20 minutes. Do not move the breast. Do not flip it over. Every once in a while, pour out the fat that accumulates in the pan (tip the pan while holding the breast in place so it doesn’t fall out). After about 15-20 minutes, you will start to see the flesh facing upwards change in appearance (it becomes redder, almost leathery and more convex). The skin will be nice deep brown on the bottom. When these two things happen and you can no longer see a line of white between the brown skin and the flesh, turn the duck breast over, very briefly searing out the rawness of the flesh side. It should be on the flesh for only about 45 seconds, just becoming grayish-red. Feel free to pick up the breast and hold with a pair of tongs to evenly sear this flesh, getting the rounded parts. Let the breast rest on a rack with the skin side down for about five minutes to redistribute the juices. Put the breast skin side down on a cutting board and slice with a sharp knife (with the skin side down it will make it easier to keep the crispy skin in tact and on the pieces of duck). Enjoy with any number of sauces, on a salad, on sandwiches, etc.

Perfecting vs Inventing

If something is worth doing. . .well some people would say it’s worth doing in the newest, most ingenious way you can think of doing it. Why make meatloaf when you can curried ostrich meatloaf? Who needs regular old lasagna when you can make foie gras and morel lasagna with balsamic gastrique? Why? Because meatloaf and lasagna are delicious in their “natural” state. Period.

I’m not saying that cooks, whether they are professional chefs or home cooks, shouldn’t be creative. Of course they should, that’s what is amazing about food, there is an infinite number of ways to cook it, pair up flavors, and play with textures. Take a lovely piece of halibut and try to come up with the most exciting way to cook it and try to think of the most brilliant thing to serve it with and voila you are a genius, if only for the length of the meal. However, some things need to not be about innovation but about perfection. Instead of wracking your brain to reinvent the cheeseburger, wrack your brain, experiment, and find the absolute best way to make a cheeseburger. Try different grinds of beef, more fat, less fat. Try mixing the salt and pepper in the meat, try forming the patties and only salting the outside. Toast the bun, don’t toast the bun. Believe me, it will not be boring, there is something wholly satisfying about making something simple and traditional the very best way you can imagine making it. You will be surprised how much the people who eat it respect it as well. While a clever new concoction of halibut, ramps, and shitake mushrooms might be gobbled up with gusto at a dinner party, people will gush, tell tales, and beg for the recipe for the perfect chili. They will then pass that recipe down to their children and their grandchildren, probably somewhere along the way claim it is theirs. . .but oh well, it’s that perfect chili that matters, isn’t it.

And so here is the perfect chili. Feel free to take it as your own. Serve it at your next Super Bowl party, make it every chilly Sunday throughout the winter. Pack up the leftovers, freeze them and reheat them on a bright winter afternoon after you come in from ice skating. But whatever you do, please, for the love of food, don’t reenvision it in the style of Thailand, or add tofu, fava beans, or anything else of that ilk. All you have to do is make this one.

Chili

1 lb ground sirloin

1 medium yellow onion, chopped medium fine

1 large (28oz) can Tomato Sauce

1 small (14.5oz) can Chopped Tomatoes

1 small can (15oz) pinto beans

3 T neutral oil

3 T all-purpose flour

1/2 c ground cumin (may seem excessive, but it is the secret)

1/4 c chili powder

3 T fresh ground black pepper

1 small red onion, finely chopped for garnish

2 c shredded cheddar or Colby-jack cheese

Salt

In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, sweat the chopped yellow onion, salted lightly in the oil on medium low heat until slightly soft but not brown. Season the ground beef with salt and 1 tablespoon of both the cumin and the chili powder. Add the ground meat to the onions, turn up the heat to high and brown the ground beef. Do not drain the fat and juices released by the ground beef. Sprinkle the flour evenly onto the cooked meat and cook for 1 minute stirring constantly. Add the tomato sauce, chopped tomato, and drained but not rinsed beans. Stir to combine, make sure to get the solids at the bottom of the pot. Add all of the cumin and chili powder and black pepper. Stir to combine. Bring the chili to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and cook uncovered for 30 minutes to 2 hrs, stirring occasionally. The longer it cooks the better it will be. Serve the chili topped with shredded cheese and finely chopped red onion. The chili is also delicious served over pasta (chili-mac) or over corn pancakes (corn bread batter with a tablespoon of vegetable oil added to thin, cooked on a griddle or in a pan like regular pancakes). Leftovers store wonderfully in the fridge for a few days and in the freezer for a few months.

An Affair to Remember

When Ian and I starting dating, his friends definitely fit the starving artist profile. They had all just finished or were finishing their film degrees at NYU. They lived in postage stamp sized studio apartments or 3-bedrooms with 6 roommates on avenues with letters. Socially, I was thrust into a world of intense discussions of steady-cams, jump-cuts, and Sidney Lumet over Brooklyn Lager and the occasional reasonably priced Shiraz. This was not a world entirely unknown to me, although the subject of film certainly was. I came from the world of theatre, and it was pretty much the same drill, except the Brooklyn Lager and reasonably priced Shiraz was served over heated discussions of Brecht’s Alienation Theory and the modern validity of Method Acting. Food was never exactly top priority at these gatherings. Our nourishment mostly consisted of late night slices and burgers and mushroom burgers from the now oh so sadly defunked 7A restaurant in the East Village.

So, when Ian and his old friend Gina concocted a plan to have a dinner party recently, reuniting the scattered old gang, with Gina and myself at the food helm, I have to admit I was trepidatious. Would these brilliant film minds want to turn their thoughts towards food long enough to praise me the appropriate amount to support my moderately fragile food ego? Would they go all artsily and/or fartsily veggie or macrobiotic causing me to reevaluate my entire menu?

Oh me of little faith. We really have all grown up. It was a bit shocking really. Gina and Ian’s invite asked everyone to bring two bottles of wine. The three of us assumed many would flake or bring the undrinkable. Lo and behold, every single attendee came dutifully with two delightful bottles in hand. My hors d’oeuvres set out to start the night were not only gobbled up happily, but interest was paid to them; wondering what was in them, commenting on their general yumminess, etc. The rest of the evening followed pat.

I suppose we’ve all been out in the world for some time now. Sitting in that room, a heated debate on the final scene of There Will Be Blood to my right, a discussion on the relevance of the Sundance Film Fest to the real independent filmmaker to my left, and me deep in a ponderance of local vs. organic food with one of Ian’s former A.D.s, I realized that growing up does not mean you lose your passion. What growing up means is that you share your passion with people outside of your little world and want to know about people’s passions outside of your own.

Goat Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

10-12 large button mushrooms

1 small (approx. 4 oz) package of plain young goat cheese

1/4 cup plus 2 T dried plain bread crumbs

1/4 t fresh thyme finely chopped

4-5 sun dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and finely chopped

3 slices of bacon chopped in ¼ inch pieces raw and sautéed to crispy –or- ½ lb sweet Italian sausage browned and drained

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Clean the mushrooms and fully remove the stems (a melon baler is helpful). Remove the dry end of the stem and finely chop the rest of the stem and set aside. Place the mushroom caps, stem side up on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until just tender about 7-10 minutes. When they have cooled slightly, pour out all of the liquid that formed while baking. In a bowl mix the mushrooms stems, bread crumbs, thyme, sun dried tomatoes, and cooled sausage or bacon. With your hands, break up the goat cheese into the mixture and mix all completely (hands are the best way to do this). Taste and season the mixture with salt and pepper. Stuff the mushroom with the mixture, mounding it up as much as you can. Sprinkle the stuffed mushrooms with additional bread crumbs and drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until just golden brown and warmed through.

Welcome to the Family

This year for Christmas families collided. There was nervous trepidation, frantic preparation, nail-biting anticipation, and finally, perfect assimilation. No, we did not have a worldwide Stamm Family Reunion (shudder). There were no sudden marriages to members of feuding families. As a matter of fact, it was just me, Mom, Pop, Liesl (little sis), and Ian (boyfriend). There was an outsider, however. . .a leg of lamb.

Ian and I have been quite the holiday jet setters since our inception as a couple. We have spent holidays in West Palm Beach, Asheville, North Carolina, good old Brooklyn, and even Mexico (ah Christmas in Mexico, hands down the BEST trip I have ever taken, details for another time, another blog entry). Strangely, we have not been able to head back to my roots, Kenosha, Wisconsin (a medium size “suburb” of Chicago right over the Wisconsin/Illinois border) for a holiday since we’ve been together.

My family is big on tradition. Mom and Pop sill decorate our Christmas tree not with fashionable color coordinated tinkling ornaments, but with cardboard evergreens pasted with cheerios painted red and yellow (Liesl and my handiwork from many moons ago), psychedelic colored wooden ornaments my parents painted on their first Christmas married, and, well, you get the sentimental picture. We have “normal” traditions like watching A Christmas Story on Christmas Eve, and not so normal ones, like giving blood at the local blood center Christmas Eve day. What we don’t have is a specific food tradition on Christmas Day. So, this year, I decided to take a cue from Ian’s family and make the famous Ogden Family Leg of Lamb.

Drama #1: Ordering the Meat

In New York City, in large part, we live like Europeans - food shopping wise. We don’t have the space for expansive grocery Mega-marts. So, instead we have small grocery stores that have staples (but are not necessarily known for their meat, produce or fish), outdoor green markets, small butcher shops, fish mongers, cheese shops, candy stores, and the like. It’s all very continental. However in Kenosha, Wisconsin they have the Mega-most of mega-groceries stores, Woodman’s. . .and that’s where you get everything. And in their football field upon football field expanse, it does seem like the really do have everything. However, if you want a specific kind of large cut of meat, you generally have to call ahead to get the exact cut and size you want. I put this mighty task in Mom’s hands. Let’s just say she was bamboozled. The probably well-meaning grocer she spoke to decided that she needed a partially-boneless leg of lamb, not an actual whole bone-in leg. Well, that’s just plain blasphemy to any chef. Why would I EVER want to get rid of a perfectly wonderful flavor packed bone for holly’s sake? And even if I did want to take a bone out of something, by Scrooge, I can do that my self, thank you very much.

Luckily, I caught wind of the folly before it was too late, made a call myself, and gave that grocer what for. Well, actually, I just calmly told him we wanted the full bone-in leg and he said sure, no “what for” was really necessary.

Drama #2 Will there be enough?

Now, judging the amount of lamb for the traditional Ogden Family Leg of Lamb is quite similar to judging the amount of turkey you need for Thanksgiving. The actual amount you calculate is needed to eat at the big holiday meal is really only about 30% of the meat you actually need to order. For, of course, there are sandwiches. Lamb sandwiches made late Christmas night, the next day, the next, and so forth, hopefully, can arguably overshadow the big meal itself. There is a specific way to make them, and they are sublime. You must cook chunks of lamb in a sauté pan in butter until they are heated through with a little color on the outside. Pile these warm scrumptious pieces on whole grain sandwich bread with mayo and raw sliced red onion. Enjoy easily one of the best sandwiches you will ever have.

Drama #3 Will it, could it, ever really be as good as grandma’s/mom’s?

I’m sure Jacques Pepin and Thomas Keller don’t cook as well as their mothers and certainly not as well and their grandmothers. Maybe that’s not entirely true, but I’m positive there is at least one dish passed down through the generations that try as they might they just can’t quite do as well as their maternal linage. My grandma’s ace in the hole is pork roast and gravy, and my mom’s cheese pie is impossible to replicate. So, could I hope, even with years of culinary curiosity and my recent culinary training, I could even come close to those hallowed legs of the Ogden family’s past?

Well, it was delicious. The lamb was succulent and the potatoes that cook along with the roast were lusciously rich. All in all, it was a success. My family was all compliments, as was Ian. I have a sneaking suspicion though, knowing what I know, what I’ve come to terms with, it was not quite as good as the Ogden women’s. I’m o.k. with that. I have to be. . .

Ogden Family Leg of Lamb

Whole leg of lamb

Fresh Garlic, chopped fine (as much as you can stand, don’t be shy)

Dried Rosemary (fresh really doesn’t work)

Paprika

Small, waxy potatoes, such as Red Bliss, peeled and cut in quarters or thirds

Olive oil (not extra virgin) or Neutral oil (canola, etc.)

Preheat the oven to 325

Rub the lamb with oil. Rub the lamb with lots of garlic, a sparing amount of rosemary, plenty of salt and pepper (make sure to salt it well, it is a big piece of meat), and dust with paprika. Place lamb fat side up in a roasting pan (without a rack) and cover the pan with foil. Roast the lamb for about 30 minutes per pound until thermometer inserted in the meatiest part of the leg reaches 165.

While roasting, parboil the potatoes until they are about ¾ of the way done (remember always start potatoes in cold water and just add a little salt to the water-the salt can break down the potato). Drain the potatoes and set aside to fully dry. In the last hour of cooking the lamb add the potatoes to the bottom of the pan, rolling around in all the juices. Also, at this time, take the foil off the roasting pan. Every 15 minutes in this last hour turn the potatoes so each side gets covered in the juices. For the last 30 minutes of cooking, if the lamb is not sufficiently browned, turn the oven up to 400 to brown the meat. When the lamb reaches 165 and the potatoes are tender, take the roasting pan out of the oven. Take the lamb out of the pan to rest 15-30 minutes before carving (leave the potatoes in the pan and cover with foil to keep them warm). Carve in the lamb in big chunks, not slices.

I haven't died

As you may have noticed, I am on a bit of a hiatus for the holidays. . .I promise more exciting food talk soon. Stay tuned!

Art for art's sake? Food for food's sake.

I’d like to get a little theoretical for a moment. I know, thus far, my posts have been light and recipe centered, focused on specific foods and how they immerge from my life. I do hope, however, that you’ve been able to pick up on my dirty little secret. While my tales are actual occurrences from my life as a not-as-young-as-most-of-my–classmates, culinary student living and loving in New York City, they are really about how I think food and life intertwine.

I read something disturbing on Saturday in a book by one of my, dare I say, idols in the culinary-lit world. Michael Ruhlman on page 13 of The Soul of a Chef says, “Poetry is an art form. Cooking is a craft. (Oh, I know how the foodie blowhards – and even a lot of chefs – love to talk about food as art! But I’m sorry, noodles spun into towers and designs on plates with different-colored sauces do not equal art, so don’t talk to me about food as art or chefs as artistes.)”

Well, certainly Mr. Ruhlman is correct, in a way. Plating is not art. It can be a pretty and a sometimes ingenious craft. Anyone who has ever eaten at Grant Achatz’s Alinea (or at his last gig Trio) can confirm that. If you don’t believe me, check out this wackiness: http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/pages/gallery/gallery_cuis.html

Art is not simply arranging things - paint, bits of clay, musical notes, or food - in a pattern pleasing to the eye. Art is how the arrangement and how the items themselves inspire thought, feeling, and even action. How do you like that all you art scholars worldwide?! I figured it out for you! While this may be a facile statement on the oh so complex subject of art, I think there’s something to it for our discussion here. The artistry of cooking, food, chefs, and grandma in her kitchen is not what the food is or even how it tastes, but what it can do to you. What could be more truly artistic than making something that with one glance, one whiff, one tiny taste can send your mind rushing back to October 28, 1984 when you in your red corduroy jumper walked hand-in-hand with your mom along delightfully muddy paths of the Apple Holler orchard in Bristol, Wisconsin. . .your hands sticky with the honeyed-tartness of Macintosh and Red Delicious picked, tasted, and bushelled? I’ve had an apple pie that could do that. What could in one eye and heart opening meal of impossibly pillowy gnocchi and decadently rich and tender osso bucco make you plan a week long trip that leads to a month sojourn, which leads to a new life in a new home with a new purpose? I’ve had a meal, which has made me come close to that, oh so close.

Chefs as artists: clearly not all of them are. Most cooks and chefs would never claim to be artists and would never want to be called such a dirty name. Some believe themselves to be, but really for all the time they spend arranging and all the time they don’t spend thinking, feeling, and remembering, they are really just painting Elvises on velvet. Maybe there aren’t even any chefs that are artists all the time, but there are certainly meals and dishes that are works of art. Some dishes can transport us not just to another place and time in our own past, but allow us to see a future we couldn’t fathom before we sat down at the table. If that’s not art, I sure as heck don’t know what is.

Oatmeal Wonderland

Baby it’s cold outside. . .New York City is all a flutter with winter pleasures and winter pains. Sure, Central Park (and Prospect Park, it’s younger, some say more intelligent sister) was breathtaking and glistening for approximately 6 hours after that first snow fall. Fifth Avenue is ablaze with giant star-shaped light installations and red velvet bedecked wreaths. It’s also a jumble of holiday shoppers, tourists craning their necks, angry cabbies with scores to settle, and well, general chaos. It seems a festive idea to bundle up in your puffer coat and scarf and shop till you drop, accomplishing all of your holiday shopping in one successful day. At least that was my plan last Saturday. Somehow it didn’t quite work out that way.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning with visions of shopping bags and crossed off holiday lists dancing in my head. Industriously, I made coffee and jumped in the shower. I immerged to find we were sadly out of milk. Now, I am a New Yorker, I must have my coffee light. So I quickly grabbed my coat to trot down to our local deli to pick up a gallon. Wowza McGowza, it was frigid out there. Colder than body parts of witches that will remain nameless.

After sprinting home with my milk, I sat warming myself with my coffee, cuddled in an afghan, desperately trying to summon the courage to go forth on my mission of commerce. Just as I was about to leap up, grab my purse, head for the door and not look back, Ian (my boyfriend) awoke, yawning and asking, “What’s for breakfast?” Hmmm, interesting, breakfast. “Can you make oatmeal?” he poked. Indignantly I replied, “Of course I can, I’m in culinary school for goodness sake. Just sit down, I’ll hook you up.”

Of course all of the bravado was to hide the fact that, truthfully, I couldn’t recall ever having actually made oatmeal. I have always been a cream of wheat girl myself. But to keep up my rouse, I would have to make, pretty much, the best oatmeal ever made. With only what was rattling around in my fairly barren kitchen, I pounded it out. If I have to say so myself (although, actually Ian said so as well, and the cat sniffed happily at it too) it certainly turned out to be pretty scrumptious.

Now, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wow, how productive she is, making a warm and tasty breakfast to fortify her on her valiant journey through the crowded New York City tundra to single-handedly finish all her holiday shopping in a single bound!” I must admit. I never went shopping. While certainly the oatmeal had warming, sticking to your ribs qualities, somehow after my steaming bowl on the couch with Ian, a nap and a pay-per-view movie seemed more in order than elbowing tourists to get at the last periwinkle cashmere scarf marked down to $29.54 at Century 21.

Maybe this weekend. . .although we do have some overripe bananas on the counter, they may do well in a little oatmeal themselves. . .perhaps a little maple syrup. . .

Oatmeal Indulgence

Serves 2

2 cups whole milk

1 ¼ cups Old Fashioned Oats

Pinch of Salt (VERY IMPORTANT, salt brings out the sweetness, don’t skip, one pinch of salt won’t kill you)

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 Granny Smith apple (or other tart, firm apple) pealed and cut in a small dice (cubes)

½ c pecans, chopped

1 t cinnamon

½ t nutmeg

½ T vanilla extract (real, imitation is a waste of money)

Combine milk, salt, and oats. Bring mixture to a boil and reduce to a low simmer. When simmering stir in cinnamon and nutmeg. Simmer stirring constantly about 5 minutes until thick and creamy. When the proper consistency, add the vanilla and ¼ cup of the brown sugar and stir to incorporate and dissolve the sugar. Pour the oatmeal into warm bowls and top with the chopped apple, pecans, and the rest of the brown sugar (split between the two bowls). Do not stir in the apples, pecans, and sugar. It’s more fun to do so as you’re eating!