Today I am going to share an interview I had with Brian Treitman, a CIA trained chef who has started a Southern Style BBQ place, called B.T’s Smokehouse. He has set this mobile BBQ joint up in the most improbable place, in the parking lot of a seasonal campground at the side of a road here in sleepy south central Massachusetts.

When I noticed the sign for his mobile smoker and food stand that said “Southern Style BBQ” my first cynical reaction was, “Sure there are rednecks in Massachusetts but does this one know about southern BBQ and what exactly is “southern-style”" and my next thought was, “Ok, now I need some Southern Style BBQ, no matter which state this person might have in mind!” Remember, I have lived in the south a long time and have been exposed to quasi-grilling in the mid-west, the dry rub beef-a-rama that is Texas, the hot heaven that is New Orleans, and the curious hodgepodge that is Georgia.

I am SO guilty of assuming anything and I am so fantastically thankful I stopped in to check it out.

Turns out, this modest shack at the roadside was conceived and is run by a CIA trained chef who just moved back home from his time working in some great kitchens in Napa Valley and Boston, MA.

Brian Treitman is immediately likable because he lacks all pretense. You walk up wondering what its all about, this crazy idea of a BBQ shack in rural New England and as soon as you meet Brian its absolutely all about the food. Its a great experience.

In a sneaky, subversive way that I completely approve of, the smoker sits on the back of this custom made smoker-mobile shack thing, pumping out divine BBQ pheromones.

If you stop and get out of your car, you are drawn in like June bugs to a porch light, buying BBQ is a forgone conclusion.

Its primeval, its instinctual, its almost painful if you can’t eat the BBQ right there.

Let me tell you, spending time there doing a photo shoot and chatting without stuffing my mouth full of juicy smoky pork butt, chicken, and beef brisket hurt me bad.

Needless to say, we had a feast of it when I brought my haul home after the shoot. We ate so much, well, I could smell it’s woodsy, smoky siren lurking about the kitchen for days afterward. We had some extra sauce so we did smell it days afterward as we used it to cook some other things we had at home.

What follows is our interview, conducted both in person and by email. I can not thank Brian enough for his patience in taking time away from his busy day and his expecting wife, who is just too nice to not get to know better some time soon!

I hope you get a sense for how neat these two people are and the hard work it has taken to make this place a reality. If you can make it out to south central MA or if you are coming up here for the Brimfield Antique Show (where he sets up BBQ chiefdom too), DO come on over and visit his smoker-mobile.

You will NOT be disappointed.

In this interview you will learn:

• How Brian came to be a BBQ dude in a smoker-mobile in the middle of New England
• His background
• That he worked for Ming Tsai
• What its like to work for Ming Tsai
• A vignette of how 9/11 skewed the world of Ming Tsai, Blue Ginger, and the Food Network
• What kinds of BBQ Brian does
• His vision for the smoky future

Could you tell me about some of the great restaurants that you have cooked at?

My first cooking job was at Bertucci’s in North Andover, MA. This is where I got my first taste of cooking with wood. I was a pizza and pasta cook there in high school. Next I went to Olympia, WA, to go to college at The Evergreen State College where I got a degree in Evolutionary Science. I also ran the restaurant there that serviced the housing community. I went to Evergreen to get an education. I knew I wanted to cook, but I wanted an education first. From Evergreen I moved to Florida where I was a sous-chef at a high-end country club. It was my first taste of fine dining. My responsibilities there ranged from breakfast cook to banquets to running the evening dining room kitchen. There were weeks where I would get there at 5:30 in the morning to set up breakfast cook breakfast and lunch, then run upstairs to prep dinner banquets, then go back downstairs to put out dinner service for 100 people, taking a small break in between to put out a banquet for 250 people back upstairs. After a year of doing this, working under three different executive chefs, I decided to go to culinary school so that I didn’t get stuck in country club fare.

I applied to the CIA in Hyde Park and started there in October of 2000. I loved it there. I went to class from 5 am till 4 pm, and then worked at the on-campus bar during the night my first year and Hobbnobin Pub across the street my second year, running their kitchen. For my externship I went to Wellsley, MA, and worked at Blue Ginger with Ming Tsai. The Executive sous chef at the time was Tom Berry. It was a great experience. I spent most of my day doing prep, and then spent an the last couple hours of my day on the line helping where I could.

After culinary school I went to work in Napa Valley for Jan Birnbaum at his restaurant Catahoula. Jan was a favorite chef of mine that I had met at his other restaurant, Sazerac, in Seattle. Jan had spent his formative years working with Paul Prudhomme in New Orleans. Jan quickly took me under his wing and become a strong mentor for me. His food, high end comfort food, was right up my alley. There we took southern classic cuisine and put a fine dining spin on it. His food was all about love. From signature dishes of Pork porterhouse with pickled cabbage red eye gravy and soft sexy grits to the ever popular crispy catfish with Mardi Gras slaw and a spicy lemon butter sauce, the flavors never stopped. I was the sous chef at Catahoula working under chef de cuisine Chris Aken.

When Catahoula closed in 2003, Chris and I were asked to become part of a new restaurant in the same space called Stomp, like crushing grapes. The owner Robert Simon had another restaurant in Pasadena, CA, called Bistro 45. Chris and I got the opportunity to run the restaurant, both front and back of the house. We had full menu control and Chris got to show off his food. We did things like lamb chops with a black pepper waffle cone filled with fresh spring vegetables and a port fig sauce or scallops with an apricot crepe lasagna and apricot reduction.

Before I left we were starting to do some very cool food based on the types of things that are doing at El Bulli in Spain and Clio in Boston, MA. We had a 25 course tasting menu that began with a golden egg, a quail egg wrapped in a caramelized inverted sugar shell, and ending with blue cheese cotton candy accompanied by honey comb crisps.

After getting married in October 2006, with Chris as my best man, I moved to Brimfield, MA, and got a job in Boston at Spire Restaurant as interim [[Chef]]. My job there was to hold down the fort for six months until the restaurant could be re-concepted with Ken Oringer from Clio as the Chef. It is now called “KO Prime“. While there, I got to help run it, with the help of two other sous chefs; a very popular upscale fine dining restaurant. By the end of Spire, I had helped reshape the kitchen staff and policies and also updated most of the menu. I was asked to stay on with Chef Ken and Chef de Cuisine Jamie Bissonette, from Eastern Standard, but declined to open my smokehouse and be closer to my wife Marni and soon-to-be daughter Lilli.

What was it like working for Ming Tsai?

At first working for Ming was a little intimidating. He would walk in, give a little nod, and rush off to the next thing he had to do. It didn’t last long though. Pretty soon after I started, so did football season. We would all meet up at a field in Wellsley,MA, and play two hand touch and then Chef would take us out for wings and beer. When I started, I was deemed the “Kitchen Bitch“. The sous chefs would change the menus and come up with these lists for me that felt like I would never get through them in a week, let alone every day. I plugged away at them everyday, never really seeing sunlight until they were done. I remember I cut my hand one day on the slicer and needed to see the doctor. The exec sous chef took over my list that day and found a whole new respect for me. He only got through about a quarter of it. When I left, they actually brought in two externs to cover what I had done solo.

It was good working for Ming. I got to work with him one-on-one a handful of times, either putting out a benefit dinner (just the two of us from the prep kitchen), to working on a test recipe he would hand me for his bottled products.

I was working for him during 9/11 when he had gotten stuck in Fiji, where he had been filming one of his food network shows. I remember listening to him on the speaker phone and the concern in his voice for us as he told us how and what he wanted to do with the restaurant on the days following the attack.

That was the week he quit the food network.

It took Ming two weeks to be able to get home from Fiji, finally flying into Canada and renting a car to drive back to Boston. The week he got back, he was supposed to go to New York to film East meets West for two weeks. He told them he needed to be with his family and restaurant and that these were more important. In the end, he had to leave the Food Network to be able to stay with his family.

I have a lot of respect for his values and the way he does business. If he couldn’t be at the restaurant every night he would call or his wife would stop by. His staff has been with him almost since the beginning. There is very little turnover there, with the exception of the line cooks who move on to learn more somewhere else.

How is it that you decided to move from the fine dining restaurant world to the sole proprietorship of your BBQ business? (how did you get the idea? Were you always into BBQ?)

I have been cooking fine dining in different restaurants for different chefs for the past 12 years. I enjoy this kind of food on occasion, when I go out to eat. Most of the time, I want something that isn’t going to satisfy just my eyes and mouth, I want something that will satisfy my soul.

I want there to be love in the food.

I try to cook my BBQ the way you think BBQ should taste. When you think about a pork rib, in your mind it is tender, succulent, ready to fall off the bone with a little smoke and glazed with a flavorful, spiced, sweet sauce. You want to lick your fingers – no need for a napkin. You want to dip the bone into the drippings that are left and then suck it dry. That’s the way I try to cook. I have always been the guy at gatherings that slowly walks over to the person manning the grill and works his way into taking over. No matter where I have cooked, I have always been the guy at the backyard party manning the grill. But BBQ isn’t the same as grilling.

BBQ takes time.

It is a process. Smoke is involved and wood is involved. BBQ, unlike grilling, happens by way of indirect heat at temperatures of 140° to 225°.

I got started doing real BBQ a couple of years ago when I was living in Napa Valley. I bought a little Charbroil Smoker at Home Depot and started to experiment for my roommates and friends. When I first moved back to Brimfield, my parents and their friends put the idea in my head to do something at the Brimfield Antique Show. Over then next couple months, I started to formulate ideas of how I would bring it all together. I started searching the internet for concession trailers and smokers. I found some stuff that I liked and then started to look into how I would ever afford to buy a trailer and smoker that cost upwards of $35,000.

In discussing this with family and friends, I started to get offers of what can I do to help. I also know this guy who welds. Pretty soon, I was ordering trailer parts and pieces of steel. My first order arrived as a set of axles and tires in February and I slowly watched as it started to come together. Every morning, as I drove off to Boston to go to work, I would look at the progress that was being made.

Visit the gallery of photos which shows how the trailer was made!

As things started to change at the restaurant and when I found out my wife was pregnant, my priorities also started to change. I felt I had a decent resume and didn’t want to go back to being just another sous chef. It was time for me to run the show. With the trailer almost ready and the transition at the restaurant happening at just the right time, it was easy for me to walk away and start out on my own. Not really on my own, I have a lot of support from my wife parents and family friends who really made it all possible.

Building the trailer was really an amazing thing. Looking back on it, it had all the parts of a really good movie… It all started with my dad, who is a general contractor and who was supposed to help me do most of the actual building and finish work, but he fell on a job and shattered his shoulder. A metal plate and seven pins kinda put the nix on any major building help from him although he was great moral support. After that happened it was kinda like watching a movie where a town comes together to make something happen. The last couple days were really tough. It was four days before the first Brimfield Antique Show

I had been out of work for two weeks with no income and the trailer was just a shell no inside walls, no plumbing, no floor, and minimal wiring done.

All of a sudden extra people just started showing up to lend a hand. The main person that had really been a huge help who I most everything to, Mitch Fraizier, lost his brother to cancer the morning of the day we were going to finish the trailer. That was when I really felt everyone pitch in. I couldn’t be there to help finish building because I had to cook, but about ten people, including Mitch, spent most of their day pitching in. It was rough, but after the first night of cooking, we had a little party at the trailer with ribs and bourbon to celebrate getting it done.

How and where did you learn about “southern style” BBQ? (did you go on a que-vision-quest? Find a que-guru? Grow up with a que-dad/mom?)

Mostly I learned about BBQ by reading books, tasting food as we moved around the country, and watching competitions on TV. I have always had a decent palate and used to do all the marinades and sauces for grilling and BBQ growing up. I have plans, when time permits, to travel and explore the South, searching out the finest BBQ joints around.

Could you describe the different types of BBQ you offer? (sorts of brine, rub, aging, period of soaking, period of marination, period of smoking – don’t give any secrets away, just generalities)

I mostly do a dry style of BBQ. I start by rubbing the meat with a dry rub that I had custom blended. Then, the meat gets placed in the smoker and sits there without being moved for up to 14 hrs. The chickens go for 3 hrs, ribs for six, pork butt – for pulled pork – is 8-10 hrs, and the beef brisket is 12-14 hrs. The pork ribs are the only thing I do
moist. When they come out of the smoker they go into a flavorful liquid I make and simmer until you come buy to eat them. The other meats don’t see anything wet, besides their own juices and love, until I sauce them when you order them.

Hows business?

It started a little slow the first two weeks. I was a little nervous that maybe I might have to go get a real job before long, but it has steadily gotten better over the last 5 weeks. Each week is better than the last and things look good. I have a lot of repeat business and people are starting to talk about me, sending their friends to come see me from neighboring towns.

Do you have many competitors in this area?

Not really. I think the closest BBQ place to me is 20-30 miles away. The cool thing about BBQ is that lovers of it will drive to get it. There was a little tragedy in the BBQ world recently when Holy Smokes in West Hatfield burned down. It was a BBQ joint that had been built in an old church.

What made you choose this area specifically?

I moved here to be closer to my family. My parents moved to Brimfield, MA, about 8 years ago and I haven’t lived near them since high school. California also got very expensive. Since being here and getting all the help and encouragement I have from those around me, I know I made a great choice.

Do you have plans to remain in this location long? (as in winter, etc)

Eventually I would like to find a more permanent location. Somewhere where I don’t have to worry about when my water supply will freeze in the hose that brings it into my trailer. But for now, I have a good relationship with Lester, the owner of Village Green Campground, and I plan on taking a little time off this winter to enjoy my new baby, who is due to arrive Thanksgiving Day. I am hoping to still do some catering this winter to keep myself busy and If I can keep my water supply from freezing, you’ll find me around.

Do you do any unusual BBQ items? (BBQ salt, BBQ fish, BBQ gator, BBQ quail, BBQ opossum, what ever it might be? If not, would you do them on request?

We did a moose this past winter. It was gooood. I’ll cook just about anything. I cured and smoked a salmon this past week and may start running it as a special every now and then. For the most part, I am still getting my feet wet at this and want to make sure I am doing it right before I start to venture, but if someone asks I am game. We do have some ducks roaming around the campground.

Do you cater?

I do. I have some requests to roast some pigs and a couple of parties of chicken and ribs coming up. I am working on building another more portable smoker that would make catering a little easier. But I am available for any even you may have. With the fine dining background I can also do fine dining plated events. As I say in my brochure, “Pretty much anything your heart desires. Just ask and I will do all I can to make it right.”

Do you ship items? If so, which ones?

For right now, just my spice rub. I am going to work on getting my sauce in a bottle when I slow down going into the winter. There are a lot of regulations about shipping prepared foods that make it hard for me to do much else at the moment. We’ll see what happens down the road if and when I get a permanent home. I am also having hats, shirts, and sweatshirts made up with my logo that I will be selling and would be happy to ship.

Technorati Tags: Brian Treitman, CIA, chef, Texas, New Orleans, Georgia, Napa Valley, Boston, pork butt, chicken, beef, brisket, Brimfield Antique Show, Olympia, WA, Evergreen, Hyde Park, Hobbnobin Pub, Wellsley, MA, Seattle, porterhouse, red eye gravy, Catahoula, Chris Aken, Stomp, Pasadena, CA, Bistro 45, black pepper waffle cone, port fig sauce, scallops, apricot crepe lasagna, apricot reduction, quail egg, caramelized, blue cheese cotton candy, Brimfield, MA, Ken Oringer, fine dining, Jamie Bissonette, smokehouse, Ming Tsai, Kitchen Bitch, Fiji, food network, New York, soul, pork rib, Home Depot, trailer, smoker, general contractor, bourbon, dry rub, BBQ joint, Thanksgiving, moose

I find the whole chauvinistic “My BBQ is better than yours” shtick we are treated to on various food TV shows and writing to be artless and crude. Food SHOULD be inclusive and NOT exclusive. Food is not about testosterone-laden showmanship, nationalism, or any of those misplaced concepts.

Food should not be for a brag match, its not for a throw-down.

Such hubris turns me off and I really don’t care how delicious that BBQ might be.

I prefer to look at each BBQ experience for what it is – a personalized recipe that has its own unique attributes. Each way is good in itself and can be appreciated that way. Its exciting because this means that there are so many BBQs to try in this life!

Food becomes us when we eat it. It should be considered a nurturing experience, not a sport. Food should be made and offered with love. Food should be accepted with an open heart and appreciated for all and only what it is, a communion with our friends, loved ones and ourselves.

This is why I find sport eating, binge eating, throw-downs, cooking matches, etc, to be offensive.

I offer my recipe for slow roasted pork butt to you as a suggestion, only. You may likely have a much better recipe and I wish I could taste it!

Nika’s Pork Butt “Rub’n Soak”

Ingredients:

• 5-7 lb bone in pork butt with a good fat cap on it
• 1/2 C brown sugar
• 1/4 C garlic infused vinegar
• 1/2 C organic tamari (wheat free soy sauce)
• 3 tablespoons roasted sesame oil
• 1/2 C olive oil
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons sea salt
• 2 vidalia onions
• 3 large portabello mushroom caps
• 5 large carrots, peeled but whole

Directions:

Take up some of this solution into an injector and inject the pork butt in many places, especially right next to the bone.

Put meat and everything else except for the veggies in a large ziplock baggie, expel all the air, and leave in the fridge overnight.

The next day, turn the oven on to about 225 F.

Cut the onions and mushrooms up into large chunks ad place these and the carrots on the bottom of a roasting tray.

Put the meat on the veggies with the fat cap on the top. Pour the marinade into the pan as well.

Cover with foil and cook for 4 hours.

Turn the heat up to 350 F.

Remove the foil and cook until it gets as dark as you like it. The sugar in the marinade will make it turn dark pretty quickly.

I could of shredded it but I don’t like that texture so I diced it. As you can see below, I served it on whole wheat burger buns and with some delicious organic Sage Chipotle pinto beans (below).

Organic Sage Chipotle Pinto Beans

Ingredients:

• 1 lb organic pinto beans
• 2 quarts organic chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 pinch rubbed sage
• 1 cube Knorr® Chipotle MiniCubes (yes, this is definitely NOT organic)
• 1 medium vidalia onion, medium slice

Directions:

Soak the beans overnight after sorting. The next day, rinse the beans carefully and then bring up to a light boil in the chicken stock. Dn not boil the beans really hard, just simmer. Skim off the foam. Continue to de-foam. Once foam stops forming, add the bay leaf, the sage, the Knorr® Chipotle MiniCube, and the onion. Simmer until the beans are tender.

Salt to taste when serving the beans.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: BBQ, sport eating, throw-down, pork butt, tamari, roasted sesame oil, olive oil, garlic, sea salt, portabello, carrots, Sage, pinto beans, organic, bay leaf, rubbed sage, vidalia, Knorr, Chipotle, MiniCube

(This post will appear on the Paper Palate blog, a member of the Well Fed Network)

Book review of Camilla V. Saulsbury’s Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy

I had never heard of panna cotta before I saw it made on Iron Chef a few years ago. I obviously do not frequent many Italian restaurants, mainly because I live in an Italian restaurant wasteland where white dinner rolls (you know, the kind that you buy at Stop and Shop ready to pop in the oven to “bake”) are served along with bologna antipastos (practically right out of the grocery store packaging). No, you can bet panna cotta will not be on any local menus.

Seeing it made on Iron Chef is a very different thing than making it yourself. I actually never had a hankering for it until I agreed to review “Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy” by Camilla V. Saulsbury and I am so glad that I decided to try a panna cotta on for size. I recommend this type of food and this cookbook in particular to both beginning cooks and the more experienced. You will not be disappointed.

First, let me tell you about the most fundamental lesson I learned from this book – panna cotta is extremely easy to make. You are essentially making a custard-like concoction without any eggs. You do this by replacing their eggy magic with powdered gelatin.

The cover is fantastic, a raspberry vibrancy that sets off a poppy seed panna cotta to excellent effect. If you are visually cued like I am, you will be drawn in by the cover, seduced into exploring the panna cotta.

In it’s mere 128 pages, this book packs in quite a lot of fantastic information about what panna cotta is (literally means cooked cream), the fundamentals of making a panna cotta, and a treasury of recipes that will definitely inspire you to try a few out.

Just inside the front cover, the book has several pages of color photographs that depict some of the recipes. These are not as beautiful as the cover but they serve to illustrate the variety of panna cotta forms and presentation possibilities.

The introduction provides an excellent grounding in panna cotta First Principles. Do not skip this chapter because it will give you the basic understanding of this eggless custard that you can then use to design you own creations.

The recipes are organized into six chapters:

• Top-10 Panna Cotta Favorites
• Chocolate, Caramel, & Spice
• Fruit Panna Cotta
• Spirited Panna Cotta
• Enlightened Panna Cotta
• Savory Panna Cotta

In the “Top-10″ chapter, you will find recipes like vanilla bean, PB&J, toasted coconut, cinnamon panna cotta and others.

Chapter Two has quite a few tempting recipes, such as mayan chocolate, pink peppercorn (sweet!), cannoli, chai, and five-spice & honey panna cotta. There will certainly be a dessert there for everyone in your family.

Chapter Three explores the use of fruits such as mango, hachiya persimmon, roasted pear, and even sweet pumpkin!

As you might have expected, the “Spirited Panna Cotta” Chapter (Four) delves into recipes that use alcohol, recipes such as late harvest reisling, mint julep, limoncello & mint, and even white chocolate amaretto panna cotta.

Chapter Five, “Enlightened Panna Cotta,” provides “lighter” versions with ingredients such as evaporated fat free milk and reduced fat sour cream in decadent sounding recipes like ricotta-honey, cafe brulot and linzer panna cotta.

In the final recipe chapter, “Savory Panna Cotta,” Saulsbury gives recipes for the panna cottas which I personally find the the most attractive. With recipes for butternut squash, porcini, asparagus, cauliflower and gorgonzola panna cotta, you will impress friends and family with flavorful and unexpected appetizers that can really set the scene for a memorable dinner.

Saulsbury is able to, in a very small number of pages, put you on track to making your own panna cottas and encourages you to strike out on new paths, exploring your own part of the pana cotta universe. I found her writing encouraging to the uninitiated, namely me, and I soon found myself innovating a new recipe on my first time out of the panna cotta gate.

I would recommend this book to any of my friends and family and I look forward to trying out more of these recipes.

What follows is my first panna cotta, inspired by Saulsbury’s Thyme Goat Cheese panna cotta. The family, from toddlers, pre-teens, to adults, all loved this savory appetizer.

(Copyright 2007 Nika Boyce)

Basil Ginger Goat Cheese Panna Cotta by Nika Boyce

(Inspired by Saulsbury’s own Thyme Goat Cheese Panna Cotta found on page 124)

Makes 12 or so mini panna cottas with some left over for the cook.

Instead of the many tempting sweet panna cottas featured in this book, I chose to make a savory one. Saulsbury has several very tempting recipes for savories such as summer corn panna cotta, asparagus panna cotta, avocado panna cotta and many more. I adapted her recipe for thyme goat cheese panna cotta because I didn’t have the exact same ingredients that she called for. Instead of heavy cream, I used half and half. Instead of thyme, I used basil. I also added ginger because I seem to want to add ginger to everything these days and I wanted to see how it would do in this setting. Ginger, for me, was a wonderful addition.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons warm water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
• ginger, small 1/8 inch thick slice that is not minced but left whole
• several basil leaves, tear by hand into small pieces
• 8 oz goat cheese chevre, cut into small pieces
• 1 1/4 C half and half
• 1/2 C sour cream
• 2 slices hardwood smoked bacon, fried until crispy, allow to cool
• 1/2 red delicious apple
• 2 crimini mushrooms, medium size and sliced
• 2 large basil leaves for presentation
• sea salt

Directions:

Add the powdered gelatin to the 3 tablespoons of warm water and set aside to allow the water to be absorbed, at least 5 minutes.

In a heavy pot, bring the half and half, ginger slice, and basil leaves up to a simmer (over the lowest heat that will get you there), remove from the burner and add the gelatin. Mix until the gelatin is dissolved. Using a whisk, incorporate the goat cheese and then the sour cream.

I used a mini-muffin tin that I had coated with a good olive oil. I poured the panna cotta mix into this tin and then put it into the refrigerator overnight. Saulsbury suggests at least 4 hours.

I served this up two different ways. Not shown was how I had poured some of the excess mixture into a medium size baking cup. The next day I just stuck a spoon in to spread the panna cotta on matzos, very delicious and not fussy at all. The dry matzo and the rich panna cotta spread are a hit in this house now.

The photos show the second way I served this. I slowly fried some hardwood smoked bacon slices in a cast iron pan. I set those aside and sauted several apple slices and also diced apple and allowed them to drain and cool. I also lightly sauted some crimini slices. I assembled them, as show, with some basil leaves as the base, the panna cotta, a dribble of olive oil, a slice of apple (with the peel for color), a slice of mushroom, a bit of apple and bacon dice, and then long slices of the bacon for flair. The bacon, apple, and mushroom eaten with the panna cotta are a unctuous mix of savory, sweet, tart, and creaminess. Try to allow all garnishes to cool as hot items may just make your panna cotta melt.

(Copyright 2007 Nika Boyce)

Books of Interest:

• Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy by Camilla V. Saulsbury $11.53 US and £7.75 UK

Resources:

• Wilton Excelle Elite 12-Cup Mini Muffin Pan
• Chicago Metallic Gourmetware Non-Stick 12-Cup Popover Pan

Technorati Tags: Paper Palate, Well Fed Network, Camilla V. Saulsbury, Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy, panna cotta, Italian, Iron Chef, Saulsbury, egg, gelatin, seduce, panna, cotta, cooked cream, recipe, First Principles, design, vanilla bean, PB&J, peppercorn, hachiya, persimmon, roasted pear, pumpkin, reisling, mint julep, limoncello, porcini, asparagus, gorgonzola, Goat Cheese, appetizer, goat, cheese, chevre, basil

(Source: Hoffman Media, click image to go to magazine order page)

I watch only a few shows on the Food Network, two of those being Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” and Paula Deen’s “Home Cooking“. I do not watch the “Paula’s Party” show though, something about that show makes me feel uneasy. I am positively inclined toward Ms. Deen but am not what you would call a fan. I am only a fan of the Japanese Iron Chef, other than that, I watch without much fan-like adoration.

I am also not the sort to buy cooking magazines because I am not in the habit of buying in the “women’s magazine” genre. When I was a kid, I did have a subscription to Bon Appetit (I know, wierd, I was an odd one to say the least) but not to any of the pop culture teen mags. Thus, I am not jaded by other “women’s” genre food magazines. I get Food & Wine and Saveur but I did not compare them to this magazine, different concept.

When I opened this magazine, I wasnt really paying attention to the fact that it was a special edition. I was astounded that a food magazine would have zero interstitial ads. The only ads you will find are on the back and front cover. What you get instead is bombarded by page after page of simply delicious recipes, appetizing and dynamic food photography, and a huge dose of Paula’s personality.

This issue boasts 85 recipes, 20 complete menus (and they ARE, I got full just reading them, honest) and photographic suggestions of inviting table settings and decorations. In the back, you can find all sorts of high quality kitchenalia and dining room related objects carefully chosen from artists in Savanna and other people and places relevant to Paula’s universe.

Each of the seven recipe chapters starts with a nifty little box outlining the menu and then provides recipes. With no ads, they really pack quite a few recipes in on each page.

• Wake Up Sunshine – Ham and Cheese Quiche with Potato Crust
• Lunch Bunch – Molto Muffeletta (Paula’s vegetarian version of the resplendent New Orleans sandwich, too much bread and too little Italian cold cuts in my mind)
• Special Suppers – None of the protein dishes attracted me but the Lime Blueberry Tiramasu calls my name like a siren.
• Dinner from the Grill – Bourbon Beef Tenderloin with Sweet Bourbon Sauce and Sweet Potato Cheesecake with Streusel Topping (Pinch me, I think this sounds fantastic! When my grill thaws out, I will be trying this for certain)
• Casual Evenings – New York Strip Steaks with Terragon Melting sauce, Herbed Monkey Bread and pornographic Easy Chocolate-Cherry Cake
• Game Time Tonight – Mini Bratwurst Sandwiches (cute things. Little = eat more!) and Queen of Hearts Brownies (dainty decadence)
• After Dinner Delights – Hot Carmel Apple Cider

In the last chapter, “Quick and Classy Tabletops“, the table setups are so colorful and very textural.

All that said, I do not see how these could be considered quick! The time I would have to spend in Pier One just buying all the stuff would be hours. Note – I will use any excuse to spend hours there, my toddler cries when she sees the Pier One sign though.

The tabletops are classy, certainly, but super complex. I think I would need a Masters in Design to accomplish this on my own. I am sure there are many readers here who have the desire and talent to do this (it is just beautiful) but I dont see my doing it any time soon. Its likely that one of my kids would either pull the tablecloth off with little flair or light a bonfire with candles and fancy linens.

I have only three beefs with this magazine:

1. I gained 3 pounds just reading the thing
2. I honestly felt lonely after putting it down because Paula looks like she has SO MUCH FUN
3. Paula’s photos can be a bit disconcerting at times because some of the shots make her look like she has a 1000 yard stare and her blue eyes are a bit too retouched to look natural. Note to Paula’s photographer, keep her giggling, catch her happy smiles and forget the Hello Kitty vapid look, it is a disservice to Miss Paula.

I can not recommend this Special Collector’s Issue ENOUGH.

If you see it on the news stand, grab it.

It will be out until May and sells for

• $7.99 US
• $8.99 CAN

Technorati Tags: Hoffman Media, Food Network, Alton Brown, Paula Deen, Home Cooking, Paula’s Party, Iron Chef, cooking magazine, genre, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Saveur, magazine, special edition, recipe, appetizing, food photography, menu, Savanna, chapter, Quiche, Muffeletta, Lime, Blueberry, Tiramasu, Tenderloin, Bourbon, Cheesecake, Streusel, Strip Steak, Chocolate, Cherry, Cake, Bratwurst, Sandwiche, Brownie, Carmel, Tabletops, Pier One

I am slowly, ever so slowly, finding stores within a 50 mile radius of where I live that have the ingredients I need to make Colombian and also Japanese foods. The first 30 miles of that travel is through a foodie wasteland so don’t be impressed with the distance I travel for food .

One ingredient that I have found that reminds me of my childhood is this pack of sausages from Colombia called “Chorizo Montañera“. The spices are exactly like the salchichas I remember my grandmother and mother making and then hanging from the “rafters” in the kitchen. They would dry and release this transcendent aroma.. exactly like these sausages.

If you are a Colombian far from home or your abuela or mamá, try to find some of these and give them a try.

Technorati Tags: ingredient, Colombian, Chorizo Montañera, salchicha, abuela, mamá

While shopping at my membership shop-o-world-a-ramma, I could NOT restrain myself from buying some truly massive cuts of meat. I got this pork loin that was as tall as my 3 year old, no kidding. As a consequence, when I strolled past the cookbook isle, pushing my straining cart and skipping over the trail of popcorn dropped by said three year old, the “Essentials of Roasting” by Williams and Sonoma caught my eye.

Look at the cover of this hefty book, could you resist? Pure eye candy.

The eye candy is all over the book, glistening roasted morsels of all kinds adorn the pages. There are plenty of useful photo series too of how to truss a bird or roll up a roulade, etc. The photography in this beautiful book was done by Noel Barnhurst. Mr. Barnhurst’s portfolio site reveals more of his delicious images and that he has worked for some of the best food magazines like Bon Appettit, other Williams and Sonoma titles, Williams and Sonoma catalogs, Eat + Drink, etc. I have a whole lot to learn from him.

When I got home, I portioned out all the hunk-o-meats but had some chicken breasts that had to be cooked or else poultry mutiny was a certainty. Chicken breasts always bore me and I fear their dryness. For these two reasons I decided to marinate them in the following mix: Worcestershire sauce, whole black pepper corns, rubbed sage, cracked pepper, sea salt, olive oil, mushrooms, and quartered shallots and thats about it. I WANTED to put in the wine but forgot. After a few hours, I put the mushrooms and shallots on the rack you see below, put the chicken over it, poured some of the wine over that, and layered bacon over each chicken breast.

even closer!

I popped the tray into a 350 oven along with some squash for roasting.

40 minutes later, these chicken breasts were perfectly cooked and very delicious.

I was not able to show you the nice crisped up bacon in the photos below because those were scavenged almost immediately. I do not cook in a vacuum, many scavenging gremlins inhabit my kitchen.

and closer still

Additional Resources:

“Essentials of Roasting” by Williams and Sonoma

Technorati Tags: shopping, meat, pork loin, cookbook, popcorn, Essentials of Roasting, Williams and Sonoma, eye candy, roasted, Noel Barnhurst, Bon Appettit, Eat + Drink, chicken breast, marinate, Worcestershire, wine, bacon

Around 11:30 or so last night, after debating various nominations ALL DAY LONG with other judges, I very nearly didnt want to ever blog or surf blogs again!

I know, its shocking, but true.

I must be ok because here I am today adding even MORE content to the huge food blogosphere (for better or worse). I have learned a lot and gained so much perspective from the exposure to so many different blogs. (Even if it did leave me quivering with hyper-exposure overstimulation syndrome, something I will call HOS for short).

I found the perfect visual personification of my experience over at Grab Your Fork’s blog in today’s post “Cafe Mix, Sydney“.

Visit, but for the love of all that is good and holy, be sure to be hungry before you go!

In the spirit of stretch-mark inducing cuisine, I will share a sparsely worded pictorial of what it takes to prepare a pig for a latino pig roast (traditional at Christmas and New Years).

Be warned, we ARE talking about carnage and reality here. If you are a vegetarian or of a delicate constitution you may not wish to scroll further down.

I am planning to do more of these in the future. One showing the making of salchichas (colombian sausages) (also see these pics) either by a butcher or myself (have to get a meat grinder 1st though). I also promise better pictures because today I will be taking delivery of a new flash bracket and 580ex flash for just these purposes!

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

One of my most enduring memories from Colombian Christmases would have to be eating tamales at midnight on Christmas Eve. Even though I now live way the h*ll north of the beautiful equatorial paradise that is Colombia and far from my mom, I set out to make my own tamales this year (first time for me). I have put together a few pictures of the assembly process to help you with the how-to. Since I was shooting in the kitchen with low crappy lighting and also taking care of three kids and dealing with a delivery man, all at once, my shots are not the best here and not in great focus. I apologize for that ahead of time!

This is best done surrounded by all of your favorite relatives (preferably mamas, abuelitas, and tias who know how to do this and who have all sorts of stories to tell) so that you have help and make it all go by quickly. I had just myself!

• 20 chicken thighs, skinned and defatted (save this. Can be rendered to crisps and schmaltz for other recipes).
• 20 pork ribs about the length of your finger with a good amount of meat on them. You’ll probably have to buy them as a rack and chop them up yourself. (If you don’t want pork ribs, use 20 chicken legs)

Marinade:

• 3 bunches of green onions, finely chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 heaping tsps of ground cominos
• 1 tsp of salt
• Pinch of ground annatto seeds

Hogao:

• 5 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
• 2 bunches of green onions, finely chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of ground cominos
• Pinch of ground annatto seeds
• 1/2 cup of packed, chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• salt to taste

4 C “La Venezolana” or “ArepaHarina” precocida (extremely fine precooked corn meal – you simply can not use any substitutes here, find this ingredient)

Tamales:

• 5 large carrots, peeled and 1/4″ sliced
• 2 cups of frozen green peas
• 5 large red potatoes, scrubbed, 1/4″ sliced (put in water to prevent discoloration)
• 8 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and 1/4″ sliced

Package of thawed/frozen banana “platano” leaves (latino food store), cut into 12 inch square pieces and rinsed in VERY hot tap water.

Clean string or cord used for tying meat roasts.

Aluminum foil

A very large crab or lobster steamer with a bottom rack and lid. Fill with salted water about 3 ” above the bottom rack.

Pique Sauce:

• 6 cleaned green onions
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of minced cilantro
• 1 tsp of ground comino
• 1/8 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup of white vinegar
• salt to taste

Directions:

Two or three days before:
Put the chicken and ribs in separate containers. (Or if you are substituting more chicken, you can put all the meat in one container). Prepare the marinade from the ingredients listed above, divide and put 1/2 on the chicken and the other 1/2 on the ribs. With your hands, work the marinade into the meats. Cover and refrigerate until the next day.

Saute the listed “hogao” ingredients in the olive oil until wilted, set aside.

Preparation of the “Masa”:
Corn dough or “masa”. Put 4 cups of “La Venezolana” or “ArepaHarina” in a large bowl or container. Slowly add 5 cups of lukewarm (not hot) water or chicken broth. You’ll probably have to use your hands to mix well. Most likely, you will need to add more water to get the “masa” to the consistency of cooked oatmeal or grits. This dough does not have the stiff consistency of “empanada” dough.

Assembly and cooking of the Tamales:
Place about a cup of the dough in the center of the banana leaf. Place one rib and one chicken thigh on top. Place about 3 slices each of the carrots, potatoes and egg on the meat. Spoon about 3 tablespoons of “hogao” on top of the vegetables and egg. Then spoon about a 1/2 cup of “masa” on top of all of this and gently spread as much out as you can. Now, fold the edges of the banana leaf over the filling so as to make a package. Do not let any of the filling show. If the leaf splits, just take another smaller piece of leaf and fold it around the package.

Tie up the package/tamale with the string or cord. Believe me, this tying up of the tamales in banana leaves takes practice!! After you have tied up the tamale/package, tear off a 12″ sheet of aluminum foil and wrap it tightly around the tamale. Continue with the other tamales according to the above directions. Stack the tamales all the way to the top in the steamer pot and turn up the heat to high. If your pot does not hold all of them, just refrigerate the rest until you can steam them later, or, borrow another steamer pot. When you hear the water boiling furiously, turn the heat down to medium. Always make sure that the pot is steaming and that there is enough water in it. Cover tightly and steam for at least 3 hours. After that time, remove the top tamale and open it up to make sure that the meat is thoroughly cooked. It should be falling off the bone.

Serve the tamales on a section of banana leaf. (Warn guests not to eat the leaf! A favorite Colombian story is that a Gringo was served a tamale. When he finished it he said,”Boy, was this delicious!! However, the lettuce was kind of tough!!” (har,har).

Some Colombians like to put “pique” on their tamales.

To make pique sauce:
This sauce/relish is similar to “pico de gallo” except it does not include the minced jalapeno. If you want to use jalapeno, you can, but it’s not legitimate Colombian. This relish is spooned into a bitten-off empanada or onto arepas, into tamales, etc. Yummmm! Its like a taste of sunshine!

Finely mince the green onions and the garlic. Add the other ingredients and let marinate for at least 2 hours. There should be enough liquid to almost reach the top of the relish. You may have to adjust by adding a little more vinegar.

I made enough to freeze (raw) and will see how they cook up out of the freezer at a later date!

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

Technorati taggage:
food, Colombia, Colombian, tamal, christmas, navidad, latin, latino, hispanic, tamales.

A Colombian breakfast is not just one thing, sort of like you might think a proper English fry up would be. I think that a Colombian breakfast can actually have many different possibilities limited only by the appetite, types of leftovers, and guided by the region of Colombia you are in/from.

This post discusses a breakfast that includes changua, arepas, pan de bono, and patacones. (I will talk about how to make each of those items below.) What you dont see is what you might have to drink with this meal. That could include aqua de panela, strong Colombian coffee, or even steaming hot chocolate. It could easily have been beans, rice, chicharrones, and fried eggs with a side of hogao. This breakfast is an amalgam of breakfasts I had as a kid at home and while on vacation in Bogota, Colombia.

This set of food may LOOK simple but it can take a while and lots of energy.

I would suggest starting with the Pan De Bono and I will cover that first.

Pan De Bono

Note: The translated ingredients and directions on the mix I show below are incorrect! I will give you the correct directions here in English.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of Pan De Bono mix
• 3 cups grated fresh queso blanco (farmer’s cheese – do not try to substitute this. Go to a latino market and get it fresh)
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1 cup milk

Directions:

Grate the queso blanco with a fine grater. It is fragile and will crumble/grate easily. Do enough to equal 3 cups. Try to buy enough so that you can eat some slices of it later.

Pour the mix, grated cheese, milk, and butter and knead until it comes together into a smooth dough.

Pinch off small balls and then knead a bit more and then roll out into little snakes about 3.5 inches long and 1/2 inch thick. Gently pinch the snake into a little circle and bake at 450 F on parchment for about 15 minutes.

While baking these circles will puff up and then brown. Remove and cool. Enjoy!

Next you might want to fry up your patacones. I have covered that in a previous post called How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones).

Next you might want to make you arepas.

Colombian Arepas

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Masa Harina (very finely ground corn meal. Do NOT use regular corn meal. I talk more about what to use below)
• 3 cups BOILING water (MUST be boiling)
• 2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

I suggest this brand of Masa Harina.

In a large bowl pour in 2 cups of harina, 2 teaspoons of salt and mix well. Add the 3 cups of boiling water and mix with a spoon. Before it cools much knead it with your hands. My grandmother starts kneading almost right away with her heat-tolerant asbestos hands! I cant do that so I let it cool a bit.Knead into a rubber not overly sticky ball. If its very sticky add more harina. I had to do that and feel that I need to work more on my technique!

Form the dough into little patties and then either grill or cook in a well seasoned cast iron pan. Its ok if the interior is a bit moist. These can burn easily and dry out easily. I like them toasty, adds nice flavor.

You can serve them with butter, slices of queso blanco, or even guava paste.

Here is a shot of a package of Guava Paste (super sweet).

Ok, now you have all the sides to the main part of the breakfast, Changua! This is a very rich concoction of milk and eggs that is quite filling and very welcome in the morning. My father ADORED changua and this dish reminds me so much of him that I actually feel sad when I think of it, make it, and eat it. I can still see him bending over a fresh bowl of changua, beaming with joy, inhaling the scent and blissing out on the flavor and the memories from Colombia. We lost my father in 1999 to brutal early onset Alzheimers Disease.

Colombian Changua

Ingredients:

• 4 cups milk
• 4 or 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup diced onions (I used vidalias)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Dash of cominos
• diced green onions, to taste
• diced cilantro, to taste

Directions:

Melt butter in a large milk-boiling-friendly pot, add onions and cominos. Saute on low heat until golden brown.

Add 4 cups of milk and bring to a rolling simmer (do not boil so hard that it boils over, that only puts you in a bad mood).

Once up to the boiling simmer add eggs Allow to simmer for between 5 and 10 minutes (some people like the egg well cooked, others like it barely cooked at all).

Add diced green onions and cilantro to serving bowls and then ladle out servings that include eggs and plenty of broth.

Enjoy with all the sides you made all morning long and then collapse on the couch for a leisurely nap.

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

Pot Roast with Cheese Popovers, Spaetzle, Carrots, and Peach Coulis

Pot Roast

Ingredients:
Pot Roast (a size that fits you pot and appetite, mine was just 3 pounds or so)
1 large white onion
3 cloves garlic
1 small packet Goya Azafran
1 small packet Goya powdered chicken stock
1 small can tomato paste
1 medium can stewed tomatos with italian herbs
1 large can of diced tomatos.
1 medium size packet of baby carrots

Directions:
Brown pot roast in heavy pot (that has a lid), remove once browned.
Saute onions, garlic, and goya seasonings on medium low heat, scraping up bits of meat browning on bottom of pot.
Once onions and garlic are translucent, add tomato products and bring to a boil.
Add meat back to pot, cover, and simmer for at least 4 hours.
Serve with spaetzle and cheese popovers.

Spaetzle

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
4 whole eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup water
Boiling water (I added stock to add flavor)

Directions:
Whisk eggs, add salt and nutmeg, 1/2 cup water, and mix well.
Add 3 cups flour, mix.
If you want to cut the on a board, add additional water to make a rollable dough (you may not need to add water to do this)
If you want to push it through a spaetzle maker or collander, add water until it is thin enough to push through the holes of the maker/collander with a spatula.
Bring water/stock to a boil and add batter to the liquid.
When spaetzle float to the top they are done.
You can remove to cold water and then saute in butter when ready to serve.

Popovers
I used King Arthur Popover quick mix, awesome stuff!!!!
(Buy it here)
I also added shredded cheese, as per the package.

Peach Coulis
Ingredients:
1 Peach (canned ok)
3 T sugar (I used demarara)
dash cinnamon

Directions:
Mix these ingredients together in an oven proof bowl, heat in oven while popovers are cooking, until it reduces to a thick sauce consistency.
Strain (or not, depending on the consistency you wish).
Serve on plate.