Fresh in Chinatown

This past Monday Josh and I decided the folks that COULD make it to burger night all lived south of 14th Street so we decided to hold meeting no. 2 at HIS apt in Chinatown. To save time with grinding the meat and prepping the fixins for our burger this week, I went ahead and had the butcher grind the beef for me. Just ask. Any combo of sirloin, chuck & brisket is a good bet.  For the cow I used half chuck, half brisket.  with pesto, roasted fresno peppers, smoked mozzarella and vinegar shallots and a challah roll.

After some research on preparation, and seeing its results, its always good to make the patties a few hours ahead of time and kept chilled and shapely until cook time. The freshest meat obviously, after ground, should be vibrant bright red, almost pink in color. you don't want to muck around with shaping it. Too much patting together can result in too dense a burger.

The only ingredient I used to make the patties is an equal parts worcestershire and water combo. They'll be coated with sea salt and pepper all around the outside when the burgers are ready to cook. Seasoning your beef before cook time will suck all the good moisture out.

mix 1 TBSP each of worcestershire and water, clump the beef into a ball about the size of a handball working back and forth, wetting your hands a few times. put your ring mold on your work surface and press it down making the sides come up just a hair bigger than the middle which will eventually puff out when cooked. keep dabbing your fingers and wetting the burgers flipping it over once so you end up with nice hockey puck discs about 3/4 inch tall and 4 1/2 inches in length. line a baking sheet with parchment and carefully place them and cover them with plastic wrap and toss in the fridge until cook time.

Earlier in the week, I went Chinatown to buy my ingredients for the pesto and fresno peppers.  All Chinatown's are fairly different but all pretty similar in in terms of what you'll find...and can be hard to navigate as a non-Cantonese speaker...BUT a world of difference and variety from Whole Foods.

'Whole Paycheck!'

Off the topic of burgers for one sec. you haven't experienced a coconut bun quite so fresh out of the oven, so soft and yeasty, until you've tried the buns at Sun Sai Gai on Canal Street.

Sun Sai Gai: nyc's best coconut buns hands down

I'm not bun crazy but Julian insisted I pop in for this one. His cousin Adriana discovered these one summer when she interned downtown and...the rest is history. A few bites in and you hit the unassuming coconut center jackpot! Screw coconut bread. If you stick a jamaican patty in the middle of this, its guaranteed goodness.

a few shots walking through Chinatown

Snapper

Two toppings for this week, other than the vinegar shallots we used with fonduta in week one. I made basil pesto, with marcona almonds and straight up roasted some fresno peppers on the stovetop, charred, deskinned, deseeded and sliced thinly before drizzled in olive oil to rest. the pesto was perfectly  rustic and nutty. [Josh has a pine nut allergy].  I meant to grab a can of artichoke hearts. a little trick when making a pesto, artichoke hearts and basil makes pesto a bit more creamy, great for burgers.

Basil pesto and marcona almonds

cook fresno's on low heat, turning a few times. the skin comes right off

Before putting them in olive oil I tried feta over the fresno peppers

Josh & I discussed making simple syrups as a good combo to the burgers and fries.  I tried one version lemongrass and another with ginger, a few peppercorns and dry chili flakes to add a little heat. Once cooled, we added a few teaspoons to a cup of ice and soda water. Bobs your uncle! So easy

Shhh its steeping!

Burger night was a success. 

[semi] Caprese Burger. from top to bottom: Challah, pickled shallots, fresno's, smoked mozzarella, beef, pesto, challah. I instant pickled some baby carrots in a rice vinegar/forest honey to go with 

The challah bottom couldn't handle the weight of the burger but the egg taste goes really well. Overall, flavors really seem to balance each other. the nuttiness in the pesto was key. next time, I'll try blending the artichoke in the pesto for a bit more creaminess. Otherwise flavors were balanced and, aside from the small bun, it held together well. 

Last night I attended the 'It Really Ties The Room Together Burlesque: a Tribute to the Big Lebowski'. The narrator, 'The dude', started it off great. very Jeff Lebowski-esque, a little more Jewish. throwing out 'Lebowski' trivia in his bathrobe, sipping his white russian chatting it up like in his living room. Anita Cookie comes out first and next thing I know she's completely nude, on her back, legs to the audience! I didn't realize the Public Theatre was X-rated :) it ended pretty abruptly with an amateur feel about it all.  Afterward I didn't get that pang of satisfaction from seeing good art. I realized, because its burlesque, more than other art forms, these days for some reason its taken less serious by the performers because of it's content. At least I got to see an old cowboy lassoing 15 ft loops over my head. [he didn't get naked]

Menu for this Monday: homemade Chorizo burger with roasted peaches and pork belly. Big up the PORK!

bike & I

chard stems, parsley & arugula salad-smoked whitefish, beets & almonds

At least global warming gets us outside to play this winter. otherwise we'd be stuck inside without food adventures to new places. Julian and I wanted to get inspired and went to the Fat Radish for some slooow cooking. Possibly the best, and prettiest chicken pot pie I think I've ever eaten. dijon never tasted like such a good [main] ingredient.

Fat Radish

chicken pot pie

Next we took the L to the Morgan Ave stop to Bushwick to find a place called Roberta's which is like a hideout in the woods version of Freemans. Total Brooklyn vibe and you really get to revel in the coolness. or warmness. you can tell in the warmer months this place gets exciting with a nice sized roof garden that supplies the restaurant which specializes in beer and brick oven pizza. But now in Feb, each room, not counting heritage radio station which uses their glass room to broadcast during service, is decorated with old furnaces giving it that lodge feel that keeps spilling into new rooms. Coffee's up front at the cafe if you want that. Or the Tikki, an bar army tent out back, for a change of pace.

Bushwick

Roberta's 

heritage radio in the background

I learned about liquid chlorophyl through Julian who started taking it to clear away his acne. its LIST of benefits makes it definitely worth looking up. It boosts red blood cells, it cleans your stomach and acts as a deodorizer for the body. Julian uses the Bernard Jensen brand Chlorophyl with mint and adds 1 TBSP to a cup of water and the juice of half a lime. you can also just use straight up as a mouth wash. I made a glass and put it up to the light and limes acidity made a cool little picture with Frida.

since I started pickling last week theres one too many rice vinegar bottles sitting around the apt. not counting the 8 bottles of Chef Jonathan Sawyers homemade vinegars I was sent home with. And Ive been also trying to get a version of a very good beans and greens recipe down. Swiss chard or dandelion greens sautéed with some beans. canellini beans are always a good choice as they get creamy when they get soft. The vinaigrette i made is a simple Asian combo. rice vinegar, honey [ forest honey ] and a dash of regular or toasted sesame oil. that combined with my pickled ingredients like my beets that I can cut into small moons makes for a perfect opportunity for a nice winter salad.



Best Winter Salad
whitefish, beets, feta, marcona almonds with asian vinagraitte. This is a leftover salad. If you don't have beet and chard get creative and trust yourself with anything laying around your fridge. kidneys, lentils, celery ends, a sliced up hard boiled egg, pomegranate seeds, nuts. whatever suits your style.

Roasted beets
preheat your oven to 400.  toss 3 whole, preferably small (tangerine sized) scrubbed beats in tinfoil big enough to be able to fold beets into like an envelope. season with a dash of olive oil and any vinegar. season with salt & pepper, wrap up and toss on the top rack of the oven for an hour. when done they should be able to easily stick a fork inside. give them a toss and let cool. peel them. they should come off easy. slice and quarter beets and quarter again until you have mini half moons. it makes a nice shape for a salad. or a pickle. or save for snacking.

Red Chard and Cannellini Beans. Sambal and red vinegar

swiss chard
any color of chard is slightly bitter and varies slightly in taste depending on the variety.
I cooked with the red chard but didn't use my stalk which is just fine to do. The stalk is just as tasty and a little sweeter so save them if you don't use. heat up a nonstick pan. just cut them up into rough inch sized pieces and toss in the pan with a glug of olive oil (any light oil works). season with salt and pepper while tossing around and getting it color for about 5 minutes. for the last 30 seconds, toss in a few dashes of rice vinegar which will caramelize it nicely. season to taste and save for the salad

Rice Wine Vinaigrette
in a small mixing bowl combine 1 T rice vinegar, 1 T sesame oil, 1 t honey and whisk together.

Into the bowl toss beets, a handful of roughly chopped marcona almonds, and a handful of canned and drained cannelloni beans. add a few handfuls of washed and dried baby arugula, a few tears of washed flat parsley and the warm chard. I had some leftover smoked whitefish salad and crumbled some feta overtop and tossed it in together. In nyc you can get a good whitefish salad at the lobster place in Chelsea Market. It gives a great smokiness to the salad. tuck in and enjoy

Zen & Art of Cast Iron Maintenance, Pickling & Burgers

Todays the official end of Hair. The Broadway show. The tour. and now back to the drawing board. [happy day after Valentines day]. Lee's friend Ramsy recommended a good barber called Contesta Rock Hair that gives a good and fairly inexpensive haircut [$65]..at least for being a get-the-job-done, metro kinda place. Its a chain of salons around the world. check them out. They do good work.

Julie was my stylist. she was chopping my hair I'd grown for 2 years, since I started 'Hair', since I started blogging. not to get sentimental but its a kind of a big deal. I asked if she could make my hair have that classic buzz on the sides, longer on the top kind deal. But not as ballsy as the Williamsburg hipster type with that Michael Pitt haircut from Boardwalk Empire

speaking of...catch Lee in a nice cameo on Boardwalk Empire...as the scared shitless liquor warehouse robber who doesn't confess and he finds out the hard way not to fuck with Knuckles. I'll let you see for yourself in a few weeks..

the world of Lee, the Jew

'this is some of your past you're cutting off...Memories your letting go of', Julie said. and she went on chopping with precision. I literally felt like I stepped into a new person as she went on, as corny as that sounds:) and the vibe made it very comfortable in the salon. Very Zen :)

my history in the palm of her hand

As I'm delving into the menu for this truck, all I've been eating is burgers lately.  If your in nyc and ever in the mood to sample 3 BOMB tasting burgers, you can find it within about a 3 block radius. In the West Village. The White Horse Tavern, The Spotted Pig, and Corner Bistro who specialize in the brick oven burger.

I went to White Horse Tavern to meet Lee and Jen after my cut. Jen, who I did Hair with is still in previews for 'Carrie' down the street at the Lucille Lortel. Go check her out. but from what I hear don't go with the movie in mind for what you expect. I love their burger and fries for $7. Its one of those old taverns that you don't feel guilty about slowing down in a fast moving city like new york. dark walls, big windows with lots of natural light, imagining the spots here where Kerouac and Hunter Thompson wrote, and Bob Dylan  hung out.

Last night was burger recipe testing with Josh uptown at my apartment. To fill you in, I met Josh Terrill through Larkin who i did Hair with. He had the same idea I did about opening a burger truck so I pitched the idea to Josh, who's a social media/music manager for Warner Bro's at the time....about the possibility of a burger and fry truck. he was on board.  As we're putting together the logistics of what it takes to run and maintain a burger truck, in NJ, and a culinary venture we're fairly new to, we decided to run a weekly test kitchen to begin compiling our menu. Each Monday we'll feature a new burger and fries, and/or side items (mostly pickled), and play around with homemade spritzers. Maybe with ingredients bringing mint, lemongrass, ginger, seasonal ingredients into it...all that good stuff.

We started it off with the classic beef burger. It was an excuse for me to test out my first [ antique ] meat grinder. It was a gift from Jenny and Matt and the crew at the GreenHouse Tavern. Thanks again Tavern. It was truly a worthwhile and memorable experience.

GENERAL MANUAL MEAT GRINDER RULES

fyi Save yourself the time and, unless your making something similar to beef or tuna tar-tar, the meat grinders better kept as a kitchen decoration. unless your works better than mine.  Definitely invest in a good Hobart or Kitchen Aid brand. Its worth it.

cleaning try and stick to lemon juice or a natural cleaner. commercial cleaners/ non natural detergents will fuck it up.  I slice a lemon in half. grab the halves, one at a time, and squeeze a little juice onto the iron as you give the iron a thorough rub down. as the juice empties out,  you can invert it and use as a scrub that way.  now wipe it dry with a paper towel. [and have a cigarette] Now's the point when you treat you'r cookware like lifelong partners. LIFE partners....you ever lucky enough to witness a gay introduce their significant other as my partner or worse, my life partner ?? moments when you want to laugh but have to hold it.

seasoning cast iron. for manual meat grinders, disassemble all the parts and keep all parts but the handle,  submerged in lard or oil. when ready for use, wipe it off with paper towel and bobs your uncle!

for skillets, set your oven to 300F. once your pot is washed and dried, empty 1 TBSP of bacon grease, lard, or olive oil [ for you vegetarians] onto a paper towel and give the inside of the pan a good rub down. toss it in the oven for 25 minutes and repeat a few times. Now its ready. So high fat content food like beef and pork work the best when cooked in these pans and the fat flavors it.

the burger test kitchen. beef burger. we used equal parts brisket and short rib. The grinding turned into such a chore at one point because the gristle kept catching on the blade that we decided to just chop with the food processor, and works MUCH quicker.

I did a spin on the lamb burger at the greenhouse tavern and made fonduta cheese which is fontina [soft cows milk semi stinky] cheese whisked quickly over a double boiler with whole milk and a few yolks. I wiped the foduta on the top half of the bun. We added a simple spoonful of a mignonette to top the burger, which is a minced shallots and a dash of sugar in red wine vinegar. I used Chef Sawyers Rose Vinegar but red wine is similar. The taste was great. the shallots and fonduta with the beef and brioche. not quite as medium as I wanted. and the texture didn't totally gel in the grinder and left the meat tangled in a few spots.  all old cast iron grinders are not equal just because its parts were all made out of a mold. Some will work and some won't so don't get too frustrated when your meat is not grinded with more modern tools.

We formed just the beef patties into 1/3 lb nice hockey pucks without anything in, including salt which if added, sucks the fatty moisture out too early. So we salted generously just before dropping it on the flattop. next time I'm going to try a dash of worceshire and and pre salt the burger to see what happens with the moisture aspect. we also tried some thin feta slices over the burger. too salty. we didn't like it. Burger wise feta works better with lamb...we didn't play with ketchup. next we're gonna play with a tomato chutney or roasted fresno peppers or possibly a tomato pesto. we shall see.

I canned for the first time this morning. Something my mom raised my family on that mustve just rubbed off. At one point as a kid, my mom canned year round and Pop raised and butchered rabbits in the garage:) from their Mennonite days at Reba Place. My mom canned year round and they collected all their other food from co-ops and WIC and for a city as big as South Bend, they kinda lived off the land...and on the CHEAP.

Nicks Best Potted Pickles: daikon radish, kabocha squash, watermelon radish, chili, and fennel, and vidalia's with Sawyers Viogner Vinegar and Apricot Sake Vinegar. For pickling, try and stick to rice wine vinegar. not rice vinegar which is different.

fyi- this is quick pickling so theres no sterilization involved. also, look for kabocha squash this time of year. Its next to the butternut squash most markets but because people aren't familiar, they don't bother to try it out. Its actually better and cheaper than butternut squash. It looks like a cross btwn a circular squash and a dark green soccer ball thats partly flat.

Butcher Heaven

I must have used the power of the secret and secreted a culinary education for myself after Hair ended its tour in Cleveland. here's what happened...

Hair's Closing night party Sunday after the show at the Green House Tavern goes down as one of those beautifully successful nights on tour. I always dread an end that doesn't feel like an end. But when our producer Joey Parnes got up to address everyone, I knew in his great NY dialect, his speech was going to be affective. Parnes was talking to us about the network we have created and are still forming from this show. And the power of Hairs message of peace and equality and what it does and how we'll each carry on that message after tonight.  I thought to myself how great this was.  You have the cast & crew of the Broadway musical Hair that on many levels (corporate & personal) truly DOES practice this message of human equality and nonviolence with this staff at the Green House Tavern, which stands for essentially the same thing. But lean a little towards food. As the 1st first certified green restaurant in Ohio they follow basic principles of organic and environmentally friendly ingredients, sourced from the local community and to recreate classic recipe's. Love people, serve them good food. Its pretty simple.

After some farmhouse ciders on tap I'm chatting up Chef Sawyers brain more about my burger truck and possibly thinking about getting a butchering apprenticeship somewhere in the city. You might have caught him deconstructing mint on Iron Chef in Kitchen stadium battling chef Geoff Zakarian. He didn't win but his mint parfait 'Stoner Sandwich' over waffle and chocolate crumbs is banging good. He asked if I'd stay and stage & I didn't have any obligations elsewhere now that tour was over so why not?

Stage [ pr: st-AHH-je ] is francais for apprenticing a chef. 

'Butchering's on Tues' Sawyer said.  call my assistant and we'll get you a room. we have hotel hookups all around downtown so don't worry. 'Its gonna be a fun week! and that was it. Sometimes life throws you curve balls. 

Ohio Pigs

My week stage was an educational beast! The cow and pigs and sturgeon came in at the beginning of the week. all are Ohio raised except for the sturgeon which was shipped the day before from New Zealand. the pigs and cows also come split in half so you get two of everything which is cheaper than getting separate cuts of meat. 

Ohio Beef

Sturgeon

Jenny Plank, one of the 2 sous chefs, gave me my demo's before I was left to cut on my own. she's like that classic, dry girl in the kitchen who you have mad respect for in her field. I was amazed at how many non culinary school folks there were and they're own stories of apprenticing...some for up to 8 months before getting hired like 'Danko', the pastry chef, who I also got to know well. Jenny's like a taller version of that Jeanine Garofolo 'chef Tatou' in the Pixar movie 'Ratatouille'.

My favorite job of the week was something she came up with called pig mittens. if you go from the front hoof of the pig all the way up to just past the arm joint and cut around, it resembles a 'mitten'. I hallowed out the meat and made my first sausage with sage, thyme and buttermilk soaked brioche. I then take the sausage and stuff the cavity as I sew up both sides of the skin and sew across the top like sealing a envelope. I pressed the needle (with the force of my whole body) through the half inch of skin and fat that had been drying for a day in the walk in. Its then roasted with herbs, braised in pork stock, cooled, and sliced deli thin. think homemade mortadella but surrounded by a layer of fatted flavor. 

once hallowed, the mitten dries out for 2 days in salt, chili, and coriander 

Bobs you're uncle!

On my last night, before service begins for the rush of pre-gamers for the Cavs match, Brian Goodman, the expediter calls the meeting to order. 

Brian's from jersey and falls much in line with a lot of the nyc sous chefs I met (like 'Josh' at the Spotted Pig)  who were mostly Jewish, in their early 30's, and a bit intimidating on their knowledge of food. Brian addressed problems that could come up and what to do in a worst case scenario's. Tickets are used here but minimally. All the orders rely on communication and teamwork from every person there-from the dish washer to the boss. It's very much a 'this is why we're here' vibe. To make good food, as and to have fun and play some music.

We all toss back vinegar shots. This is a ritual before service begins. Vinegars a probiotic after all. Tons of good stuff you're taking in.

At the end of the evening, everyone gathers for drinks. Danko and Jenny and friends, as a thank you for my week stage, gave me an old fashioned meat grinder.

'Something to help kick start your truck' said Danko. They also packed me up about 6 different bottles of Sawyers Vinegar he brews in his basement. a flight. from light to full bodied. Apricot sake, garlic wheat beer, viogner, rose wine, cote de haute, & vintage brook. I didn't fully appreciate the power of vinegar in what it can do to our meals and our bodies, until this week. Its worth a look.

I still haven't shaken the news about Whitney. Facebook still surprises me the things that ordinary people have the balls to say. this time about the number of people who kept bringing up her drugs and the tragedy of it all. Like Michael Jackson. even Joe Paterno. Instead how about steer toward what was accomplished. Or the doors these artists opened