Things I ate this summer

Summer's not quite over, but all my travels have ended for the season. I saw a lot of friends and ate a lot of good food. Of course, I didn't take pictures of any of the friends and only took pictures of the food if I happened to think of it. Nonetheless, this series of images recounts some of the fond memories along the way.

To start the summer off, one of HRH's old friends came to Buffalo. We saw a lot of Rust Belt points of interest here, but I felt quite lucky to find a Southern staple being served up at my favorite local out-of-place restaurant, Lagniappe's. Displaced as it was, the crawfish boil provided a fitting start to my summer adventures.

On our way to Richmond, VA, HRH and I stopped in Ridgeway, PA to have lunch. We almost ended up at some nondescript pizza joint, but happened upon the handsomely named Pennsy's Cafe instead. I ordered the best club sandwich I've ever had. They make it with their own wheat bread, thick slices of baked ham, locally cured bacon and just the right dab of mayonnaise. Yum.

In Richmond, we had our best meal at The Black Sheep. Of course I forgot to document the experience. However, we also had a good meal at Millie's (rather fancy) Dinner. Above is one of their egg "messes," which is basically an omelet. But a good one!

On our way to Atlanta, HRH and I stopped in Lexington, NC to eat Western Carolina-style barbecue at the appropriately named Lexington Barbecue. HRH had her first pulled pork sandwich there, but I ordered the plate.

Following one good tradition with another, I ate the above banana pudding at a friend's wedding in Hunstville, AL. It wasn't as good as my favorite banana pudding (made by the groom's grandmother), but it wasn't bad. I also had some good barbecue at a wedding in Atlanta. I forgot to take pictures, although that pig was raised by the bride's mother. Southern weddings, bless 'em!

I ate my first bite of Spam while visiting family in Austin, TX. My dear Auntie took me to a going away party for some band from Okinawa. They wanted to cook everyone a real Okinawan meal, so we all indulged in fried Spam with scrambled eggs smothered in ketchup. It wasn't as bad as one might expect, really.

I had one of my tastiest meals of the summer in Chicago at Pozoleria San Juan. I've been eating posole since I was a kid, but that was the first time I'd ever eaten it outside my home. It was great. HRH ordered the green posole, I ordered the red, and we split a torta de chile relleno. I'm not proud, but very satisfied, to say that we cleaned our plates.

The next evening we ate duck, fried scallops and Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce at Sun Wah Bar BQ. I'd skip the scallops in the future and save more room for the duck.

Lastly, I share a photo of something I actually made myself. Still, though, I have to thank a friend for introducing me to shakshuka. It's a great thing to do with the plentiful tomato harvest this time of year, and the ease-to-deliciousness ratio is high.

Next up, music. I swear. I'm here to share more than my own dietary habits.

Hatch Chili

It's Hatch Chili season. Every year in September the city of Hatch, New Mexico celebrates with a festival. Suddenly, the small town in southern New Mexico swells from a population of 2,000 to about 30,000. Foodies and chili fans congregate to taste the fruit in various forms (sauces, jams, powdered, candied, roasted and stuffed with anything delicious) and to enjoy the carnival events.


I've never attended the festival, but one of Austin's fancy schmancy grocery stores imports plenty of chilies to go around and even hosts a miniature version of Hatch's festival in the parking lot. Come to think of it, though, I don't think I've ever attended that festival either. I learned about Hatch from my Auntie, who makes the meanest pork and chili pepper stew I've ever tasted. Actually, "meanest" probably isn't the right word. Hatch chilies are fairly mild as far as chilies go. Once roasted, they have a complex flavor that blends sweet, tangy and picante. That perfect combination has encouraged the well-deserved adulation, not only because the wonderful flavor, but also because eating Hatch chilies doesn't wreck the taste buds. I admit, though, that Auntie's stew has given me the hiccups on a couple of occasions. I think maybe she added some spice, but it could be that she got a lively batch. Individual chilies can vary a bit on the Scoville scale and green Hatch chilies tend to vary more than most.

I picked up some mild Hatch Chilies a couple weeks ago because I got excited for the season. But when I got home I realized I hadn't a clue what to do with them. I certainly wasn't going to attempt a stew, since that dish had already been spoken for. G-D had some pork chops, though, and since I'd already learned that pork and Hatch Chilies pair nicely, I decided to make a sauce for smothered chops.

First, the chilies need roasting. I've roasted other chilies before, so I sort of had an idea how to go about it. Unfortunately, however, I've never had complete success. There are a lot of tips out there on the internet for roasting in the oven, with the broiler, on the grill, over a gas range. I've tried all except that last, which is, incidentally, the method Auntie recommended to me later. Rather than suggest time limits (which vary widely depending on who you ask), I'll suggest heating the chilies until they blister and begin to blacken. If you don't roast them long enough it gets difficult to remove the skin at the end. That's the problem I tend to have. After you remove them from heat, put the chilies in a plastic bag (or tupperware, or a bowl covered with plastic wrap) to steam for fifteen or twenty minutes. That will help loosen the skin some more. Once they're good and soggy, you can remove the charred skin. If you can't get it all off, don't fret. A little roasted skin adds a lot of flavor to the sauce.

I began the sauce by sautéing half a chopped white onion in olive oil. After they were soft, I added three or four cloves of crushed garlic and kept that over medium heat for another two minutes. Then I added several pinches of flour until I got the thickened consistency that I wanted. Immediately after thickening, I added the chilies, which I chopped up after peeling. The chilies were a bit wet and sticky, so I let them simmer over medium-low heat for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Once everything seemed to gel together, I added about a cup and a half of water. I would have preferred stock, but I didn't have any. Water worked fine. Finally, I stirred in chopped cilantro, powdered coriander, salt, a squeeze of lime, maybe small amounts of black pepper and cumin, I can't remember now. I let that simmer on low for about twenty minutes, until it began to thicken again. After it cooled down, I poured half in a zip-lock bag with the pork chops to marinade over night. The other half I reserved for topping the chops post-grilling.

This sauce will keep in the fridge for a week or so, which makes it easy to prepare lots at one time and save some for later dishes.

The next evening I used the skillet grilling method that G-D and I learned about earlier in the summer. Normally she plays Grill Master, but we were leaving for Chicago the next morning and she had other things keeping her busy. So, I took the task and, approaching it with nearly complete ignorance, I forgot to grease the skillet. As anyone might guess, the chops sizzled, stuck to the cast iron and broke apart into smaller chunks of meaty debris. Luckily, the cuts were pretty big, so even with large chunks falling off we had passable chops. I left them on for about seven or eight minutes, flipped them, and let them cook for another seven or eight minutes. In that time a miracle occurred. The meaty debris transformed into an unencased sausage that absorbed all the Hatch marinade. Unencased sausage? Yeah, well, that's what I decided to call it. The unencased sausage is the stuff in the middle of the plate, and it tasted great.

To serve, I reheated the leftover Hatch Chili sauce and poured it over the four largest chunks of meat, creating a plate of kinda-smothered pork chops. I think smothered pork chops are traditionally covered in their own gravy, but this created a similarly juicy and flavorful dish. We ate them with grilled corn and green beans. Later in the week we made cheddar-jalapeno mashed potatoes that I think might have been really good with these chops. Another time, perhaps. I don't when I'll make these again, but I definitely want to do more with Hatch Chilies. Auntie came over for a taste and said the sauce wasn't bad. "Maybe a bit more lime next time. I don't know, that might not be it, but it needs something." A ringing endorsement! Well, anyway, an invitation to keep cooking.


For more information about chilies, check out The Chile Pepper Institute's excellent website.

Skillet Grill

Michael Ruhlman invited Peter Kaminsky to post an entry at his blog, and Kaminsky offered up a recipe for skillet grilled pork tenderloin with orange confit. G-D and I decided to try it out with some pork chops and it went pretty well. If you follow the link you can see how pretty the tenderloin looks before cooking. Above is an image of our pork chops after a few minutes on the grill. They don't look quite as striking after they've cooked, but they sure were tasty.

The confit is pretty simple, but as a first-timer I ran into a few snags. First, I was using very large oranges, which changes things a bit. I wish I had cooked them longer. They simmered for about thirty mintutes, and while that was enough, the softer they get the easier the white pith is to scrape away. Another six, seven, eight minutes would have made that last part much quicker. Second, the recipe says that after submerging the orange zest in oil that the confit will keep for up to a week, but it doesn't say how long to let it settle before pouring it over the pork. We just let it sit for a few minutes. Tasting the left over oil after dinner, though, made it clear that a few hours will give the orange time to infuse the oil with its flavor. I'd recommend doing the confit a day ahead. Let it hang out in the fridge over night. That will give it plenty of time to turn delicious and will also make the pork a very simple, a very quick operation.

The grilling part is really pretty easy once the confit is done. There are only three other ingredients: Fresh thyme, salt and just a little brown sugar. The best part is the skillet. We'd never tried putting a skillet on the grill before, but it works wonders. The fat doesn't fall off and flare the coals, which can often crisp the outside before the inside has a chance to cook. Instead, the fat collects around the pork, keeping it tender and tasty. And with the coal smoke, the meat still collects that grilled flavor. The skillet grill is such a good idea its hard to believe we didn't think about it before. Well, whatever. We'll certainly be thinking about it again soon.

Thanks to G-D for the photography. Here's another image, this time without the flash. Obviously you can't see the pork as distinctly, but it captures the warmth of the dish much better. As G-D said, it's the porque glammir shotz.


Update: 8/16/2009

G-D and I attempted the orange confit and pork recipe again with the help of my Auntie and a few changes. I did the confit about the same, with just a splash of brandy added to the oil. I'm not sure it was noticeable by the time the pork arrived to our table, but it sounded like a good idea.

The cut of pork and the cooking method were the biggest changes. We had a four-pound loin roast, which took much longer to cook than half-pound chops. That being the case, we decided to cook it in the oven on low heat for about two hours. While I got the confit together, Auntie started the roast with a simple milk and pepper sauce, garnished with two fresh rosemary sprigs. About an hour and fifteen minutes later we pulled it out of the oven, added salt and fresh thyme, then covered the whole thing with the confit.


We didn't use any brown sugar this time, not for any reason in particular, I don't think, but just because I forgot. Oh well. It was more complicated on the whole, and quite good, but probably not entirely worth the effort. The best addition was the simplest: onions sauteed in red wine and olive oil. We served that on one side of the platter and the confit on the other, leaving the pork with just the herb sprigs. See below.