» Chef Fo0bar Presents

Article posted on Nov 8

Chef Fo0bar presents: Sausage Roll Prerelease

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 8, 2009, 8:29 pm

Most of the dishes I've presented here have turned out well. However, I thought I'd document a dish that didn't work out the best, but still has potential for improvement. A culinary beta, as it were.

A discussion about "sausage rolls" started in IRC this evening. Sausage rolls are pretty simple, just sausage and seasonings inside a dough wrapper, and are popular in the UK, Ireland and Australia. I decided to try my hand at a variation, as a single sausage loaf, designed to be cut into slices and served.

I took a tube of crescent rolls, but instead of pulling them apart into triangles, I left the sheet of dough intact. I then spread a pound of Jimmy Dean "sage sausage" (you can use regular sausage, with some sage rubbed into it) over the dough, leaving some room on the sides and top. I then rolled the dough and sausage into itself, much like a cinnamon roll. Crimp the top and ends, patch up any exposed areas of dough, and put into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. I always leave a baking stone inside my oven, and put the mega-roll directly on the stone.

This was the result. I pulled the loaf after 25 minutes, and you can tell it was still a little pink in the middle. But another 5 minutes in the oven cooked it all the way through. I really liked the flaky outer crust, but the inner dough pooled in the middle, and was... well, doughy. It wasn't the consistency I was expecting.

It was certainly edible, but next time I'll make a few changes. Namely, instead of one rolled loaf using the entire sheet of crescent roll dough, I'll split into 4 quarters, still leaving the diagonal perforations connected. That way there is no inner dough, and the result will be a more consistent baking experience. But again, overall I liked the idea of using crescent roll dough, and baking directly on a baking stone turned out well.

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Article posted on Oct 10

Chef fo0bar presents: Baked stuffed shrimp

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 10, 2009, 11:55 pm

Here's another one from the family cookbook. The shrimp is great, but I've got to say that the cracker mixture is where it's at. I could simply munch on that if I had to.

Ingredients:
* 1 lb shrimp, peeled and de-veined (cooked is fine)
* 8 oz (2 sticks) Ritz crackers
* 12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) melted butter
* 2 tbsp lemon juice
* 4 tbsp white wine
* 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
* 2 tbsp chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the butter, lemon juice, wine, worcestershire sauce, and parsley together. Crumble the crackers in a large work bowl, integrate the wet ingredients, and mix half of the shrimp in. Layer the rest of the shrimp on a 8x8" pan, and distribute the cracker mixture on top of the shrimp bed. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

If, like me, you do not go through enough white wine to use a little in cooking, I've found that 2 tbsp gin works equally well.

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Article posted on Jul 13

Chef fo0bar presents: Sushi

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on July 13, 2009, 11:53 pm

Tonight I made sushi. The rice recipe is here, but you really need to see the Good Eats episode, as it deals with all aspects of sushi making, not just the rice. Actually, the rice is what I feared the most, as I've never had good luck with rice, and sushi rice is more complicated. That part actually worked out the best. It was fluffy and sticky, and didn't mush up.

I had Krab and avocado, but forgot the cucumber, so it's a Mostly California Roll. I was afraid to make it inside out, so I made regular Maki rolls. The first roll was way too big. The other 3 were decent. Pretty ugly compared to a sushi bar, but it all tasted the same in the mouth. And I ate too much, as is tradition with sushi. And then I tried to compensate with lots of water, as is tradition with sushi. This will be an interesting evening.

Always tip your sushi chef.

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Article posted on May 30

Chef fo0bar presents: coffee syrup, etc

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 30, 2009, 6:44 pm

My New England roots are showing.

A coffee cabinet, coffee milk, and a bottle of coffee syrup.

While I'm from Green Bay, most of my extended family is from Rhode Island. There, coffee is king. Iced coffee is pretty much understood countrywide now, but this is a relatively new thing. Before chains such as Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts expanded nationwide, iced coffee was limited to pockets of the US, Rhode Island included.

But I'm not here to talk about iced coffee. I'm here to talk about, among other things, coffee milk. Coffee milk is the official state drink of Rhode Island, and is pretty analogous to chocolate milk. It's milk, mixed with coffee syrup.

What is coffee syrup? It's simply a coffee-flavored sugar syrup, and is distinctly Rhode Island. You may be able to find bottles of the stuff in parts of New England as a whole, but pretty much every grocery store in Rhode Island will carry bottles of Autocrat and Eclipse brand coffee syrup.

Sites like Only in Rhode Island can ship you bottles for a pretty decent price, but I decided to try my hand at making it from scratch, based on what I remember it tasting like. I think I've come close at a simple recipe, but I suppose I'm going to have to order a few bottles of the "authentic" stuff to compare, as it's been well over a decade since I've had an authentic Coffee Cabinet (more on that later).

Coffee syrup

Ingredients:

* 2 cups double strength coffee
* 3 cups granulated sugar
* 4 tbsp (1/4 cup) light corn syrup

Brew the coffee. I found that 1/2 cup grounds to 3 cups water will produce a little over 2 cups of very strong coffee. Thoroughly combine 2 cups of the coffee, the sugar, and corn syrup in a large saucepan over high heat while whisking often. Bring the mixture to a boil, then immediately take the pan off the heat and reduce the heat to low.

Do not walk away from this! Once the syrup hits a boil, it will foam up in literally about 3 seconds. If you don't move the pan off the heat, you will be left with a stove covered in napalm. (No, thankfully this is not known from experience.)

Bring the pan back to low heat, and simmer for 10 minutes, whisking occasionally. After 10 minutes, remove from heat and cool for at least 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the syrup is cool enough to handle, transfer to a dispenser bottle. You should have almost exactly 3 cups of syrup. I initially tried a generic squeeze bottle, but I later found that a 24oz pancake syrup bottle works perfectly.

That's not maple syrup.

What can you do with coffee syrup? Coffee milk is the first suggestion. Simply combine 2-3 tbsp of syrup with 1 cup of milk, and stir for coffee milk. You can drizzle over ice cream, or even make coffee ice cream!

Or you could make a coffee cabinet. I've heard several versions of the etymology of "cabinet", but it's what the rest of the world would call a milkshake. Everybody has their own preference on how to make a milkshake/cabinet, but here's my favorite:

Coffee cabinet

Ingredients:

* 3 scoops coffee or vanilla ice cream
* 4 tbsp (1/4 cup) coffee syrup
* 1 cup milk
* 4 ice cubes

Combine all ingredients in a blender and pulse.

Coffee ice cream would be better than vanilla, but the only place I can find coffee ice cream is a store brand at Safeway, and it tastes pretty wretched. I'd like to buy an ice cream maker to make my own, but can't justify buying another kitchen appliance that'll be rarely used.

Oh, and the irony here? I don't drink coffee.

Update: New concoction:

Caffeinated Russian

The name was invented by teferi, who immediately disavowed it.

* 2 parts vodka
* 1 part Kahlua
* 1 part coffee syrup
* 2 parts cream

Combine vodka, Kahlua and syrup in a Old Fashioned glass with ice. Float the cream, and stir lightly. This is a standard variation of a White Russian, but with a twist: when first trying it, I forgot about the properties of the syrup and only lightly stirred. The coffee syrup mostly stayed at the bottom of the drink, giving you a pleasant kick of coffee at the end.

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Article posted on Mar 27

Mummified meats

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 27, 2009, 5:45 pm

Much better. Thinner slices, better meat, longer drying and a tweaked recipe made all the difference. It's very peppery, just a little hot, and only a slight hint of worcestershire.

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Article posted on Mar 26

Beef Jerky update

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 26, 2009, 7:53 pm

Following up on yesterday's post, I pulled the jerky yesterday morning before heading to work. It was ok, but not great. I'll try to rationalize why:

1. It wasn't completely dried. I only froze the beef for an hour last night, and ended up slicing it a bit thicker than I wanted. It ended up being about the same thickness as the gas station jerky you get that's sealed between two pieces of plastic. While there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, it does take longer to dry, and 12 hours wasn't enough. It was still a little bit squishy in the middle. Not terrible, but it wasn't totally preserved, and wouldn't have been able to last for more than, say a month.

2. Wrong meat. I got a middle of the road top sirloin from wal-mart, and there was a little too much fat hiding out here and there. Again, doesn't totally ruin jerky, but fat is the first thing to go rancid in jerky, and also would have contributed to only lasting a month or so in an airtight container.

3. The recipe included WAY too much worcestershire sauce. It was a bit of a put-off for me.

So I ate my losses and decided to try again. On the way home today I stopped by a local butcher (Butcher Boy), and got 1 1/2 pounds of "London broil" (flank steak), with very little marbling and very little fat to trim. The price per pound was about the same as I paid for the top loin, too. I froze it for a solid 2 hours, sliced it as thin as I could, and played around with the recipe. I used a full recipe, but only used about 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce instead of the 2/3 cup called in the recipe. I've got 3 teaspoons ground pepper + a handful of whole peppercorns, paprika instead of red pepper flakes (which I did in the previous batch but forgot to mention; that part was good), and I threw in a few drops of Tabasco.

I'll start the fan before I go to bed (about 2AM) and leave it running until I get home from work the next day -- about 15 hours -- and give it a check before deciding on more time.

Oh, and to those who were wondering about the filters -- they worked out very well, and can definitely be used over and over.

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Article posted on Mar 25

Line your air filter with beef, and a fresh, beefy scent throughout the house will be your reward!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 25, 2009, 9:31 pm

Actually, I'm making beef jerky, according to this recipe (halved, 1 pound of beef). The beef is chilled, cut into thin, long slices, marinated, and placed on accordion furnace filters. A blank filter is placed on top, and the whole thing is bungee corded to a box fan. Here's the final setup, before being placed on my patio:

For the record, the filters are cellulose/poly air filters, not fiberglass. They ran me about $7.50 for a 3-pack, and obviously aren't usable as furnace filters after they're used to make jerky. But they should be reusable for future jerky batches.

I'll let you know how they turn out when they're done tomorrow.

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Article posted on Mar 14

Chef fo0bar presents: Pad See Ew

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 14, 2009, 6:13 pm

I first tried Pad See Ew ("fried with soy sauce") at a Thai restaurant in Seattle about 5 years ago, while staking out the city for potential colonization with friends. It was a few blocks our hotel, and we basically ended up going there every other night of the week. But, while there are many Thai restaurants in Reno, very few if any seem to serve Pad See Ew.

Years later, I decided to give it a whirl myself. This was not an original recipe, so I'll defer to the site I got the recipe from, and just note my experiences:

I did not get thick/dark soy sauce, and instead opted for the "normal" kind. It didn't really affect anything, in my opinion.

I cut the leaves of the Chinese broccoli from the stems, and cooked the stems before the leaves, as the recipe suggested, but I did not cook the stems long enough. The result was a woody, bitter taste that threw off the final product. In the second batch, I simply left out the stems, and it was great.

I used sesame oil for the cooking as well as the marinade, since I had it available for the recipe. The resulting taste was not unpleasant, but was overpowering. I'd recommend sesame oil for the marinade, but something with a lighter taste for the cooking. The recipe recommends grapeseed oil, which I have no experience, but I'd recommend regular olive oil.

If you don't have a wok (I don't), use a large stainless steel frying pan. I did this for the first batch (pictured), which made a horrible mess on the pan (lots of gunk stuck to the bottom of the pan), but in trying to scrape it down as I cooked, the burned bits came off into the dish, and actually tasted great. For my second attempt, I used a large nonstick pan, which was a lot easier to work with, but resulted in a blander flavor.

So, rice noodles. It's literally rice and water, extruded into noodle shapes and dried. As such, there are a variety of shapes. Pad See Ew is traditionally made with broad rice noodles (about an inch wide, and cut into rectangles). However, all of the local friendly megamarts only seem to carry fettuccine-sized rice noodles. The Asian supermarket on Fifth street carries a variety of sizes, but only seems to up to about 1/4", which is what is traditionally used for Pad Thai. This is the size I ended up using.

Rice noodles are my new favorite substitution for rice, can be used pretty much anywhere rice is called for, but preparation is completely different. The normal method is simple: Break the noodles out into a large pot of warm water, and let them sit for 30 minutes. All they need is this re-hydration. They can be boiled, but will come out grainy and sticky, and should only be used in a frying situation (but the soak method is still preferred).

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Article posted on Dec 23

Chef fo0bar presents: Combo cheeseburger, Kroll's style

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on December 23, 2008, 12:14 am

Wisconsin is not necessarily known for its health food. I have a hard enough time explaining cheese curds to people, not to mention why they must be breaded and deep fried. But today's recipe I blame on the Germans -- namely German influence on Northeast Wisconsin cuisine.

Down the road from Lambeau Field is Kroll's, a small-town diner. You seat yourself in any of the booths, browse the menu, and when you are ready to order, you press a button next to the table to summon a waiter. Kroll's has a wide menu, but is particularly known for its burgers. You can order hamburgers, or bratburgers from the menu. And while not on the menu, you can ask for a combo burger, which is a hamburger patty and a bratburger patty. And what makes Kroll's burgers unique is that each burger is served with a pat of butter between the bun and the meat. No, the bun isn't buttered per se, but a pat of butter is put directly on the underside of the top roll, along with the other condiments. The butter is mostly melted by the time you eat the burger.

Now, let's step back a minute: bratwurst. Bratwurst is a staple of Wisconsin grilling. Brats are usually in link form, and are often boiled (usually in lager), grilled, or both (boiled in beer, then seared at the end). Brats are also often made in patty form, and cooked as you would a hamburger (with a few limitations, as I will get to in the recipe itself).

Now, when I moved from Wisconsin to California in 2000, I simply could not find bratwurst in local stores. Nobody carried it. Same deal when I moved from California to Nevada in 2002. However, over the years, grocery stores started carrying brat links, usually Johnsonville brand (a company based in Sheboygan, WI). Today you can find both raw and cooked links in many grocery stores, so I'm assuming the brand has gone national.

Combo cheeseburger, Kroll's style

Calorie count: you don't want to know

Ingredients:

* 1 lb lean ground hamburger
* 1.25 lb bratwurst (5 quarter-pound links), raw, not pre-cooked
* 8 hamburger buns
* 16 slices American cheese
* Butter
* Toppings: Yellow mustard, sauerkraut, onions

Recipe:

Toast a hamburger bun. While the bun is toasting...

Take a bratwurst link and remove the casing. Start at the top and cut down the side of the link, then the casing should be able to be pulled off in a single, sticky piece. Cut the link into two, and take one of the 2 oz halves and form it into a thin patty. Take 2 oz of hamburger and also form it into a thin patty. (See pictures below.)

Grill both patties. This should take no longer than a few short minutes, since the patties should be "fast food" thickness.

When bun is toasted, add a pat of butter and condiments. The bratwurst is the star of this burger, and Northeast Wisconsin tradition dictates that only 3 condiments are acceptable for bratwurst: onions, yellow mustard and sauerkraut. You may subtract from this list, but you may NOT add. ESPECIALLY not ketchup. I personally go with just the mustard.

Layer hamburger, cheese, bratburger, cheese. Serve with fries and/or a pickle.

Makes 8 burgers, plus a leftover bratwurst link to do with as you please. Since you're only left with one, I'd skip the beer bath and go straight to the grill.

(By the way, the malt vinegar is decidedly a [New] England thing, and not a Wisconsin thing. Most of my extended family is from New England, so I'm allowed to cross cultures a bit.)

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Article posted on Oct 5

Chef fo0bar presents: Chotchkie's Nachos

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 5, 2008, 12:49 am

Sorry, took this on my cameraphone, since I couldn't find my real camera.

Growing up in Green Bay, every few weeks we'd make the half-hour drive down to Appleton to have dinner at Chili's, listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the way down (and thus, getting addicted to public radio at an early age). I didn't really care for anything at Chili's, with one major exception: I loved their nachos. A side order of nachos (12) was roughly meal sized, so it worked out great, though the waiter would always look puzzled when I ordered a "appetizer", and nothing else. To this date, I don't think I've ever had any "dinner" items at Chili's.

One thing always puzzled me though. How did each nacho look perfect, with chili and cheese going to every corner of the chip, but not overflowing onto the plate? And why was each chip completely flat, when 99% of the chips in your average bag are warped?

Today, it hit me: They fry corn tortillas flat, load them with toppings, cook them, then cut them into quarters. With that piece of the puzzle, I headed to the store to get the necessary ingredients. I took a guess on the composition of the chili, and it came out nearly dead on. So I present:

Chotchkie's Nachos

6" diameter corn tortillas (3 per serving)
16 oz refried beans (vegetarian has the best consistency in this case)
10.5 oz canned beef chili, no beans
Cheddar-jack shredded cheese
Jalapeño slices (fresh or pickled, your choice)
Chopped lettuce (which I forgot)
Sour cream

Combine refried beans and chili, and mix well. The mixture should have a very spreadable consistency.

Brush frying pan with oil, heat on medium-high. For each tortilla, brush each side with oil, then pan fry, using a slotted spatula to keep the tortilla from ballooning. When tortilla is golden brown, evacuate to paper towels and pat dry. Congratulations, you've made tostadas!

Spread a thin layer of the chili mix onto the tostada and top with a layer of shredded cheese. Microwave for approximately 1 minute. This will melt the cheese and give the tostada a half-flexible/half-crunchy consistency, similar to actual Chili's nachos. Using a pizza cutter, slice the tostada into quarters.

Arrange 12 nachos around a plate, overlapping slightly for full presentation. Top each nacho with a jalapeño slice. Add lettuce and sour cream to center.

Serve with pizza shooters, shrimp poppers, or extreme fajitas. Always make sure to wear enough flair when presenting.

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