Scruffed not Charred

I am a fan of Adam Perry Lang's Charred and Scruffed, especially as it pertains to the secrets of cooking over open flame. His recipes never fail to disappoint, and even those that seem counterintuitive (clinching, for example, which means cooking directly on the coals; or microplaning charcoal into sea salt) beckon with force.

But I do have a few issues with Adam. One is that his technique threatens to overpower good beef with two flavors too many. Let's face it. Presalting a ribeye with a mix of garlic powder, garlic salt, sea salt, black pepper and cayenne, and then hitting it with a baste of butter, oil, twenty different herbs, lemon juice or vinegar might be a bit much, especially when you hit the cutting board with a dressing and then top it with a finishing salt. It's a lot of work, and the result may or may not be any better than a fine steak grilled and treated in the french style--that is to say, seasoned and then served with a pat of butter.

I also have a few observations about cooking that are worth listing here. All of this presumes that you are cooking a 2 1/2 inch thick ribeye, cowboy cut.

1. Go ahead and score the meat. Scoring the meat increases surface area for the seasoning and for the crust when it forms.

2. Heat the meat. I put it on as the fire is warming and let it warm up with the grill. This starts the cooking process and, more importantly, smokes the meat a little.

3. If you are a salt nut, then season the steak both before and after the heating process. I personally think it is unwise to do so. Season generously in advance, build up your meat paste, and then warm it and then let it sit.

4. Make sure that the coals are white. The grill hits 700 well before its time, so to speak.

5. 6 minutes of direct grilling at high heat (1 minute a side) seems to do well for creating a crust. Then close the grill and close the dampers, keep the temp around 350-415 degrees. Flip once.

6. 17 minutes total cooking time produces medium rare. SO, 5 1/2 minutes per side.

Instead of the Perry basting sauce. I made some sage and salt butter and used that during the grilling process. It sizzled wonderfully and I avoided the flareups that produce the acrid flavors in the crust. Also--much easier.

Timing and heat are vital, but if points 4 and 5 are considered together, you have a pretty good idea of how to time these steaks. I didn't put a whole lot of charcoal in the pit, and so when they burned white, it didn't throw up as much fire and heat as it otherwise would have. Nonetheless, the heat is somewhat irrelevant because once you close up the vents the heat will sit down at 400 pretty easily.

The steak could be rarer without being raw. Maybe cut it to 4 minutes per side.

Riffing on the Carbonara

One of my great guilty pleasures is preparing, cooking, and eating Spaghetti alla Carbonara. It is a fundamentally easy dish with minimal preparation, but is nonetheless fresh and creamy and delicious every time. My daughter loves it, and so it could easily slide into a staple position at dinnertime. It also works quite well as a Primi, I would think especially if it precedes fish or lamb or something less substantive.

But to make it a staple is a problem. First of all, no matter how one riffs on the carbonara, it is what it is: a pound of pasta soaked in five different kinds of fat. Consider the base sauce that I use: cubed pancetta crisped in olive oil into which I add sliced garlic before throwing in half a cup of wine. The noodles are coated in a mixture that begins with Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheese, to which I add anywhere from 2-4 eggs depending on whether I am excluding whites (general rule: 1 full egg, and then either 1 more, or 2-3 yolks more). So, to review, noodles coated in uncooked eggs and unpasteurized cheese into which I pour pig fat and olive oil. The healthiest part of this meal, aside from the handful of chopped parsley I toss in at the end, is either the fried garlic or the cheap Italian white wine that informs the sauce base.

So, not so good. At least, not so good for the heart and arteries and blood pressure. The whole meal strikes me as some kind of sodium and cholesterol conspiracy designed by pharmaceutical companies who really really really want to sell us those fancy drugs to make our numbers turn out right. But they won't get me. I cut the cholesterol by cooking with a glass of Dubonnet or Noilly Prat on ice, having a Burgundy-style pinot noir with the wine, and finishing with either a second glass of wine or a really nice bourbon. I figure that'll clean out the arteries and lower the blood pressure without resorting to a handful of pills. And if not, the booze'll get me before the cholesterol does.

Quinoa Tabouli

Quinoifik

This one is hardly original, but it meets a couple of demands made by my diet. Because I assiduously avoid meat products before six, I have a hard time meeting my protein needs. Or, at least, I am pretty sure that I have a hard time meeting my protein needs. One cannot be sure given the shifting sands of dietary wisdom precisely how much protein one needs in a given day, but a day of vegetables and fruit eating certainly makes protein difficult to locate. Obviously I could turn to soy, but I don't really like tofu that much and have heard some nasty things about too much soy in the diet.

Grains are a good, but not great, source of protein. My farro salads and steel-cut oats in the morning provide some--typically close to 5 g. of protein for each serving I have. Quinoa, however, is a better source, providing 8 g for the same serving.

My Quinoa Tabouli is simple. I chop up a garlic clove, or green garlic (came in my basket from Vegetable Husband this week), a couple handfuls of parsley, and a finger full of chives. The latter herbs all are produced in abundance in my garden.

The Quinoa cooks on a 2-1 ratio. Boil the water, 1 tbsp. of butter and salt, add quinoa, reduce to simmer, cover, and cook for 12 minutes. Pop the lid--you'll know if it's ready. Please don't overcook it. Even five more minutes will turn it into an usable mush.

Drain Quinoa, but leave in the pan. Then add 1 tbsp of olive oil. Allow the Quinoa then to sit and relax for the next four or five minutes. I then add the herbs and begin mixing. I squeeze a quarter lemon on the tabouli, add some salt and pepper, and continue stirring. Let it relax another few minutes, then try it. Adjust seasoning.

One cup of Quinoa is giving me four salads, parsed out in individual containers. They are a nice supplement to my farro salads for a daily lunch. My only complaint is the garlic, as I don't seem to do well with raw onions or garlic anymore. Alas! old age is upon me.

Real Men Massage Kale

Kale is upon us. In the roughneck neighborhood I call home, grown men talk about it in familiar tones. Pickup trucks sport bumperstickers ordering one to "eat more Kale." It shows up at barbecues and crawfish boils and pig roasts. Kale is here.

Kale Amidst the Chaos

Because I have trouble finding good preparation for Kale, I was ecstatic when a salad recipe suggested by a friend worked out so well. Start by massaging the kale with olive oil--just enough to wilt the lettuce and ply its texture, but not enough to make it too oily. Add sesame seeds and mango in proportions agreeable to common decency. Prepare separately a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper.

The salad will keep for days in the fridge, and makes for great lunches if dressed the day of. So go ahead. Massage the kale.

Can we be vegan before six?

Mark Bittman cut a deal with his doctor some six years ago, who advised him to give up meat. He'd turn vegan, he said, but every night at six (when the moon was just right) he'd transform into a carnivorous beast, sating his appetite with whatever flesh he chose to pounce upon that night.

Apparently, the diet worked, and he has a new book coming out about it, which I might well want to get at some point. But the point of this rambling post is to note that I made the same bargain a couple of years ago. While not vegan, I have been solidly vegetarian until 6 pm every day without fail. Of course, I exclude from this the occasional breakfast meat or egg (once every few weekends) and the once every two months or so pilgrimage to farmburger for lunch. (Speaking of which, I am overdue...) But day in and day out, my lunches consist of a mass of fruits and vegetables.

Such a diet is not always comfortable. Raw vegetables don't sit well with me, and as such I tend to avoid them--especially raw onions, broccoli, and cauliflower. When the tomatoes are ripe in the summer, I make endless tomato pita pockets, dressed with Spectrum's omega-3 mayonnaise and clover/alfalfa/broccoli sprouts. In fact, I eat so many tomatoes in the summer that I'm fairly certain some rare blood disease solely attributable to massive tomato consumption is my future. For this, I blame 4th & Swift, the restaurant that introduced me to Cherokee Purple tomatoes (and still probably the best tomato salad preparation I have ever had). But come October, the last of the tomatoes are off the vine and come November the last of them are ripening. Even green tomatoes at this point end up somewhat mealy in texture and grumpy in flavor. Finding another lunch staple has been, to say the least, difficult.

lunchy salads

But no longer. A trip to Empire State South changed this when I discovered the grain salad. I have always avoided grains on the idea that they were sugar and thus to be avoided. But now that I have turned away from most super-refined sugars, grains have proved a great way to fill the void. Lunch is now a farro and arugula salad, usually with sliced green olives and Parmesan cheese, dressed with a red wine vinaigrette. I add an apple and a banana, or sometimes blueberries, or any measure of the three in order to make it a proper lunch.

Farro, Steel Cut Oats, and Quinoa

Making oatmeal. Only this one had quinoa in it. Not to be repeated

Breakfast, which I once skipped on a regular basis, is now almost always steel cut oats loaded with fresh blueberries or strawberries (if I can find any), walnuts, raisins, and/or dried apricots. The grain cereal eaten at 6:45 holds me until 11 or 12, depending on when I eat lunch. And on the weekends, I use the oatmeal to make pancakes for Maia. That makes the pancakes *almost* justifiable.

My typical oat preparation is simple and rewarding. First, I start the kettle. Then I toast one cup of dry oats in a tablespoon of butter. Once they are fragrant, but before they burn, I add three and a half cups of hot water and bring to a boil. This usually takes not time at all. Then I cover the oats and remove them from heat and let them sit overnight. By morning, they are ready to go. This preparation has never failed me.

Not all of my experiences have been good. A tantalizing article in Bon Apetit asked the question "did you think Quinoa was just for savory salads?" Why yes, I thought, I did. But the article recommended an ambitious hot cereal recipe calling for half oats and half quinoa, as well as raisins and cinnamon and cardamom in the pot. As above, the recipe recommended letting the porridge sit overnight after bringing to a boil. For serving, it recommended any number of nuts and fruits and--and this should have given me pause--a drizzle of maple syrup.

By the end, the article had answered its own question: "Yes, Quinoa is just for savory salads." Never again.