Waterblommetjiebredie

I recently had some company over at my new house for a crazy nerd gathering. One of my friends has traveled damn-near across the globe, but she's originally from South Africa, and we often talk about one of my favorite subjects, which is South African food. I've dabbled in a few things in the past, like old favorites Bobotie as well as my favorite drunk food Bunny Chow. We collaborated on a few of her favorites like Periperi Chicken too. Prior to her visit, I had been browsing over a South African cookbook I bought a while back, and thinking of anything hard to find over here that I could ask for.

The first was Elephant Biltong, which not surprisingly, is near-impossible to get. I did get Springbok Biltong, which was awesome though. It's similar to venison jerky, but imagine a little clove, allspice, or garam masala on it. No real reason for this other than sating a round of post-drinking munchies.

The second thing on my list was Waterblommetjies.



I like typing the word, I like saying the word. Afrikaans is a hilariously awesome language. It translates into "water flower" which is a polite way of saying that it's something that long ago some Voorstrekker (ie, Ted Nugent or Jeremiah Johnson or Bill Brasky) spotted growing in a stagnant ditch full of water and decided it would taste delicious with his freshly-killed Springbok. All it would take would be a little stewing, and it just so happens that the word for stew in Afrikaans is bredie. Hence, waterblommetjiebredie.



Stuff you'll want:

• 2 1/2 pounds of roasting meat (ideally, lamb, mutton, or game, but I used beef short ribs to great effect too.
• 2 pounds waxy potatoes (ie, don't go makin no damn mashed potatoes son), diced
• 1 giganto onion (or, 2-3 smaller ones), diced
• About 2 pounds of waterblommetjies (you can get em on Amazon if you can't hop on the dakadak to Pretoria)
• 1 granny smith apple, peeled and grated
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 1/2 cup of water
• 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 bay leaves
  
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp periperi (african bird's eye chili powder, again, Amazon) or cayenne pepper (at minimum you weenie. You want to add more, I know you do)
• 1 tsp black pepper

You'll want your dutch oven for this. Crank up the stovetop to about medium-high heat. While you're doing this, towel off your short ribs and rub them down with a bit of salt. Start to brown them on each side. All we want is the look and the smell really. They'll get cooked fully later.


Once each piece is browned all over, remove from heat.


In the juices left in the dutch oven, add your butter and then your onions & salt, and turn the heat down to low. Cover and sweat those for a good 20 minutes, then return your meat to the fray.



Add the water & wine. Put your lid on, preheat your oven to 350, slap it in there for 2 hours, and forget it exists till your time's up. Remove again to the stovetop. Your meat should be getting tender enough to come apart a bit, and you can shred it with your spatula or spoon as you go.



My picture of the stupid shredded apple survived, but not my picture of the waterblommetjies themselves. They look somewhere between swamp thing and a leopard, and smell like a wonderful cross between good olives and asparagus.


Thanks, Google image search! Mine looked pretty much like that, yeah!

Too bad I didn't get a snap, because after that, I tossed the apple, potato, and waterblommetjies into the melange.


To this hearty mash, I added my nutmeg, pepper, bay leaves, and periperi. I tasted it, and added more periperi still. When my particular heat affinity was reached, I simmered for another 30 minutes with the cover on, killed the heat, then tossed in my raw garlic at the end.


I topped the "stew" over another Afrikaner dish - funeral rice, which is basically a pot of rice fried into some butter, turmeric, cinnamon, onions, shredded carrot, and raisins.

What I love about South African food is that it's completely unsophisticated stuff that seems very familiar to any of us who have or had a grandmother who liked to cook. So much of it is old timey and homey, but it's also coupled with a few exotic flavors to remind you that you're eating something just a little different.

Skin

So, I've procrastinated this long enough. Time to roll up my sleeves and get back to blogging. Yes, I'm still in the long process of settling after the move. No, I'm not done yet. I'm having camera issues in the interim, so if I do get some snaps off, they will be of dubious quality, be warned. I just can't neglect this any more, and I love sharing the work I'm doing, even if I don't have pictures at hand.

My mom, dad, and sis came out to the house this weekend, which was a treat. I got to cook for everyone, and mom helped out as my sous-chef fry lady. We rocked out a never-ending stack of ruffle-cut kettle chips & fried okra fingers (with homemade remoulade, because I love making it). We also had a bit of black-eyed peas, which mom also helped with, and some trout I bought from Grow Alabama.

This is where the story is funny. See, I knew my trout was whole, and I figured it would be a snap to fillet it out. Well, not quite. I'm not at that level of awesome quite yet unfortunately. Instead of fillets though, I decided to stuff the trout with herbs, squash, and shallots and pouch steam them with some brown butter. There was just one catch - I underestimated my sister's aversion to icky fish skin! Now, if you don't like the stuff you can easily peel it away so that's not a problem. Still, it got me thinking.

We're living in a boneless, skinless dystopia, and in a world where people put bacon on all sorts of inappropriate dishes, how are people still hesitant about eating fish skin and chicken skin? It's connective tissue, salt, and fat. It comes together to not only form a deliciously crunchy layer on pan-seared and roasted dishes, but it also holds in moisture. People opt for skinless meat, realize they're often eating dry meat, and overcompensate with sauces and marinades. I would shrug it off if so many of them weren't looking down their nose at skin and the added fat in it, when their sauce is often loaded with the stuff.

This isn't in any way a slight to my sister. She thought what I thought the first time I was confronted by skin on a fish. (1) Ew gross and (2) How do I get it off. All I'm hoping for is that more people give skin a chance, and pack their bags to Flavor Country.

I'm still alive, take two

Hi guys, sorry it's been damn-near a month without any updates. Moving's complete and we're just in that never-ending task of unpacking and getting things just right. The good news is that I've got my dining room set put in and I'll be expecting my pots and pans rack soon.

I've been very busy with other things too. Having a lot of company over to enjoy Dragon Con, plus hosting a lot of hungry nerds at my new abode. Everybody seemed to love tacos de lengua and hommous. Today, a friend of mine from Hawaii but originally South Africa will be schooling me on Afrikaner cuisine. If you read my blog at all, you know that this is going to be awesome. Expect Peri Peri chicken, Waterblommejiebredie, Bunny Chow, and other things shortly.

Bye for now!

I'm still alive

...just moving, is all. We closed on our house yesterday and this weekend is a mad and exhaustive dash toward getting things into and eventually out of boxes. I'm going to be a little beside myself for a while so bear with me.

I promise to resume your regularly scheduled programming (and with a bigger, nicer, gas-powered kitchen) in the very near future!

Mandolines are the bees knees. Also, red bells!

I really don't have much going on right now, and I'm pretty hand-to-mouth with my cooking while we prepare to close on our house. I've had to divide my kitchen into sections that I can pack away and things that I will subsist on until we pack everything else.

That's beside the point though. I want to talk about my mandoline, and why it rules. I have about five hundred pounds of squash thanks to the CSA, my wife's friends, my grandpa, and anybody else who's given me very tasty and seasonal squash. I'm sort of at a loss on what to make with all of this great squash, and then I remembered I had a mandoline, so I set out to make gratin out of a few squashes.

For those who don't know, a mandoline is an inclined plane with a super sharp guillotine blade on it. You vary the thickness between one side of the plane and the blade side by fractions of an inch to get very thin slices of food very very very fast by just sliding your food item along the plane back and forth. I wasn't quite prepared for how awesome it was at slicing the hell out of squash, and I think I blacked out during the process because when I came to I was less three goose-neck squashes and there was a huge mound of potato chip thickness squash slices. Oops!

Of course, I used up every bit of it to make a gratin with asiago cheese, rosemary, and breadcrumbs. Tasted so nice I made it twice, even.


Now, what's that scorchy-lookin red bell pepper doing in this picture? Glad you asked (if you did!) Remember way back when I planted peppers? Well, my red bells matured last week, and I finally got to trim 'em and use 'em. I was excited because in my opinion its my first real bit of produce that I've grown. I don't really consider the hot peppers and herbs as the same because they're more of flavor additives. A big juicy sweet red bell is it's own zip code of importance. I wanted to have fun with it.

I made a risotto, using grease from cooking lardons to soften the onion. To that I added rosemary & mozzarella, then returned the lardons to the dish to stir. I carefully cut the tops off the peppers, de-seeded them and removed the inner ribbing, then filled them to the top with risotto. Put each pepper in a ramekin, and into a 500 degree oven for 12 minutes to get this:



The sweet bell was fantastic against both the pork and the rosemary. It was softer in parts and firmer in parts, but still all fork tender and I'd honestly put that against any bell I've bought at the store in terms of how potent the flavor was. It was very serious business.

I just wish I had more bell peppers now. I'll have to plant more later.

Rosemary baked chicken, and I didn't make it.

So we decided to have a late dinner the other day of roasted chicken with rosemary and some beans with lardons and herbs. I handled the beans, and my wife took care of the chicken. She cleaned it, she stuffed it, she baked, basted, the works. I gotta say, after roasting a few birds of my own, she's a better touch at it. It was tasty beyond words. The breast meat was still tender and moist, the skin was perfectly crackly, and rich fragrant rosemary and aromatics just filled every bite. So just as a word of warning, the next poultry served up as a roast is probably not my handiwork!


She also made peanut butter cookies this weekend but, alas, that is another tale to be told!

One year anniversary...and a little something extra

Title says it all. My wife and I celebrated our first year of marriage tonight. Nothing big, nothing fancy. We didn't go out to eat or do a super-crazy multi-course meal. I told her I loved her, she told me she loved me, and we had a little meal. She, of course, got her lobster, which she insists on cooking herself. I made a meal of fresh figs, prosciutto di parma, spanish manchego cheese, and balsamic vinegar.


You might ask why the low key first anniversary? Well, we're both saving up like mad and getting ready to buy a house. In fact, we'll be closing on it within the next few weeks. That's one heck of an anniversary present to and from the both of us. I won't diverge from the scope of this blog though, and I'm sure you're already wondering what the kitchen is like. Here's an appetizer or two:


Oh yeah, the rest of the house is nice too ;-)

So, wish us luck. There's been a reason I haven't been blogging much lately after all! Hopefully the work will pay off and you'll be seeing pictures from a much larger, well-lit, and all around nicer venue in the very near future.

Remember kids: sodium alginate + calcium chloride = "caviar"

So, as a really cool part of my chairman's award prize in the ICSA southern food contest, I got a baggie of a weird cream-colored powder called "sodium alginate" and another baggie of a grainy white stuff called "calcium chloride". Concerned that somebody maybe sent me drugs, a bomb, or terrible terrible poison, I mashed the internets for a minute or two, and suddenly realized what pure awesome I had received.

The two chemicals can be used to make foods with a texture almost exactly emulating caviar. I'm not a scientist, so don't grill me too hard on the science of it. You make a juice out of "something" and add a little of the sodium alginate to that to gel it up and make it a little thick. Then you put that in a syringe. In a water bath, you add calcium chlorate, then slowly drip in your juice mixture. The drops set immediately upon hitting water, and the reaction of the alginate and chloride start to create a skin that holds the liquid inside. You then let it sit for a good 30-60 seconds, fish out the pearls of caviar with a skimmer, and immerse in another water bath to stop the chemical reaction.



The power and potential for this stuff is huge. Vegan caviar with truffle oil would be pure evil, but I'm wanting to get a can of concentrate orange juice to make fruit caviar, top that on a cloud of whipped cream, and put that on a vanilla cookie or something to make a weird dreamsicle flavored thing.

Tacos de Lengua

I've got a thing for tacos, you see.

No, not Taco Bell. Mind you, it's a fantastic inebriation stop-gap or hangover cure, but it's marginally food. A giant curved yellow tortilla chip, loose hamburger meat mixed with MSG and "tomato flavor" with bland lettuce and plastic cheese. What can you expect for a few cents at a place that's considered bargain basement by the American Tex Mex industry, I guess.

No, not that sort of taco. Not even a good Tex Mex taco. You see, I just refuse to believe Tex Mex as a genre has any business making them. Burritos? Enchiladas? Tex Mex does these well, and I love em. Tacos are just one of those things that are best done with a more Mexican flair.

Tacos should be greasy, hotter than hell fire, and full of bracing flavors. Lettuce BAD. Cilantro GOOD. Cheese BAD. Guacamole GOOD. Refried beans BAD. Raw onions or radishes GOOD.

It's just a different style, and I realize people do like Tex Mex tacos. I'm just not that guy.

I left for work today, but before I went out the door, I switched my crock pot on and dropped in a big beef tongue, and cracked open a can of chipotle peppers and adobo sauce. Set those to a low braise while I went off to work. There it remained for eight hours until my wife came home to baby-sit it. I came home with groceries a while later. The beef tongue has a membrane on the outside of it, so we removed that and shredded the meat. I then chopped a few cow-horn chilis from my garden to toss in there too. Took some corn tortillas, charred them slightly on the cast iron skillet, then ladled the meat and chipotle mixture onto each tortilla. Chopped cilantro, a little onion, and sliced up a lime, and food was created.


Beef tongue is really great stuff, if you're adventurous enough to try offal. It braises like pork, which is to say that you have beautifully delicate meat that shreds easily, but the flavor is still robust and beefy like a good roast. The smoke in the chipotle and adobo pairs to that very well, and even strong flavors like cilantro and raw onion don't crowd it out. The acid in the lime cuts the greasiness a bit, which is good.

I gotta admit that I was breathing fire during this. Nose running, big smile on my face, with adobo sauce dripping off my chin. The only thing I could've used was a cerveza, or maybe a glass of cool coconut water or agave juice. As it stands I had a big bottle of water, and I drank it all.

Definitely give this one a try, especially if all you have to define a taco is what you've seen on the Late Night menu.

Beer reviews, round two

Hey guys, sorry its been a while. Was going to try and make the beer review thing a bi-weekly thing, but I just don't drink enough beer for that, lol. Still, figure we should have some beer reviews, whenever I get around to drinking some, that is!

Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout:


Poured from 12 ounce bottle into pint glass

Appearance: Opaque Ebony with thick tan head over 1". Head recedes quickly with little to no lacing on the glass.

Smell: Dark chocolate, tea, small scent of tropical fruit.

Taste: deeply toasty malt, butterscotch, cola, and a little coffee. Finishes with acidity.

Mouthfeel: Medium-heavy, carbonation very weak.

Smells great, but the taste is kind of unremarkable. For the money, there are better Imperial Stouts available to be had. It would go well with something with dark chocolate. For some reason, I seemed to like this more at Brewfest, but when I settled down and took a whole glass slowly, it didn't really shine through :(

Sam Adams Blackberry Witbier:


Poured from 12 ounce bottle into pint glass:

Appearance: Cloudy amber. Head a creamy white, 1". Receded with no lacing.

Smell: Blackberries all over the place. There's nothing else at all.

Taste: Berries immediately, melting into a nondescript malt, petering off after swallowing.

Mouthfeel: Light weight, light carbonation. Pretty average Hefeweizen feel.

I really am not impressed by this. It comes on way too strong with blackberries, and there's nothing else expressed in the character. Even then, you'd think they'd be kind enough to finish astringent or with some acidity or both. Blackberries do that, so why not this beer? Instead, it sort of loses its flavor after the swallow, almost like the taste going out of a piece of gum. Avoid this beer, it's not good. If you're gung ho for a fruit essence beer, you can do a lot better.

Duvel Belgian Ale:


Poured from 11.2 ounce bottle into pint glass:

Appearance: Very pale blonde color and clear. Beautiful bubbles constantly rise throughout. Head is over 1.5", creamy and frothy white. The head recedes gently, leaving heavy lacing on the glass.

Smell: Champagne grapes and alcohol esters

Taste: Dry champagne immediately on hitting the tongue, then releases a bouquet of perfumed, but not obnoxious hops. Hints of apple and buttery malts upon swallowing, but cleaned up immediately by the hops, leaving a completely cleansed palate.

Mouthfeel: This is where Duvel leaves most beers in the dust. It completely transforms upon hitting your tongue, to the point where you're not sure which part is liquid and which part is foamy deliciousness. So much of the flavor develops in the rich carbonation that you really should drink it in a glass that's good at preserving those bubbles. Once they're depleted, the mouthfeel, and therefore, the taste change. The way that the liquid transmutes into airy foam also has a way of deceiving your tongue into thinking it's a vastly lighter beer than it is. One of the best mouthfeel experiences I've had.

It's a good clean, dry beer with outstanding carbonation and very light weight. I'd be partial to having this with some delicate seafood or anything with simple and seasonal vegetables. To give it a wine analog, I'd think that anything you could drink an Alsacian Riesling with, you could also drink with Duvel. Fantastic beer.

He'Brew Messiah Bold American Brown Ale:


Poured from 12 ounce bottle into pint glass:

Appearance: Opaque dark chocolate body. Head about 1", almond colored. Recedes quickly with little lace.

Smell: A little cherry, vanilla, cola, and oak. Overall muted.

Taste: Deep toastiness, chestnuts, oak. Hops roll to the back of the tongue and it finishes bitter, with some lingering aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Medium body, light carbonation. Pretty average compared to other brown ales.

It's a bit earthier than average brown ales, and really doesn't express much caramel or malt, letting the hops at the end do the talking. If you're looking for a really well-made brown it's probably not it, but it's not disagreeable either, and is easily drinkable. I'd pair it with maybe some roast beef or sausage, something with a bit of heft to it. Would do alright with barbecue, and let the hops clean up any sweetness in the sauce.

Tommyknocker Imperial Nut Brown Ale:


Poured from 12 ounce bottle into pint glass:

Appearance: Nearly opaque, deep chocolate body. Head over 1", well tanned. Heavy lacing retained on the glass as it slowly recedes.

Smell: Butter, a little woodsmoke, cherries, some esters

Taste: Starts toasty initially with good nutty flavor, then becomes incredibly rich, with butter and maple taste coming through and dominating the malt. No presence of hops, just persistent richness. Finishes as it begins on toasted malts, with a lingering crusty bread taste on the tongue. Doesn't fully get rid of the sweet maple, and it mingles and gets a little cloying, with a little acidity.

Mouthfeel: Gentle carbonation, milky weight. Sticks to the tongue after swallowing. Typical of the style to a large degree.

It's completely lacking in subtlety so it's probably not the brown ale you pick if you want a magic carpet ride. Still I can't help liking it. It's heavy handed, juvenile, boistrous, and delicious. I'd totally want this with dessert. A pecan pie ala mode or maybe ice cream with dulce de leche, see where I'm going? The coup de grace would be flapjacks, but that's obvious when you taste it and it feels like you're kissing Mrs. Butterworth. If you want a better crafted brown, Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan or Rogue's Hazelnut Brown Nectar are better quality, but for some reason this is just as fun.

Anchor Breweries Old Foghorn Barleywine Ale:


Poured from 12 ounce bottle into pint glass:

Appearance: Deep ruby, translucent body. Head over 1", creamy, off white. Receded gradually with very slight lace.

Smell: Fragrant hops, oak, alcohol esters, orange zest

Taste: Citrus fruits at first, scented with coriander and lavender. Hops are persistent from beginning to end, very fragrant, but never dominating. Doesn't quite end clean, acidity lingers a little after swallowing.

Mouthfeel: Gentle carbonation, and a little more heft than the light flavors would suggest.

First barley wine I've had, and if this is typical of them, I hope I have more! Hops complement the citrus, which is tough for some beers to do. Hops either come up way too strong in most, or are dull and get washed out. There's no bumps on the road, so you get to enjoy both of them. I'd love to grill up some fish like maybe salmon and have it with this one. I bet a good baked chicken or turkey with some fresh green beans or spring veggies would be great.

Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock:


Poured from 11.2 ounce bottle into pint glass:

Appearance: Nearly opaque mahogany with a nearly 2" head of chestnut foam. Receded gradually with almost no lace.

Smell: Cocoa, cherries, tobacco

Taste: Very rich toasted malts, creamy chocolate sweetness. Finishes with a wash of smoky flavor and lingers a while on the tongue.

Mouthfeel: Rich and milky. Carbonation is very gentle and doesn't disrupt the comforting flavor.

Certainly the best bock I've tasted so far. It's a very rich and filling beer, but one that's easy to please. If you could make room for it, it would probably pair a bowl of chili or even gumbo and taste fantastic.