jr conlin's ink stained banana

Recently, the topic of cook books came up. Truth be told, i kind of miss them.

i don't mean recipe books. There are plenty of those, full of lush pictures of carefully crafted cuisine staged under perfect lighting and designed to be the dining equivalent of women's magazine covers. Beautiful, but you know damn well that whatever you try just ain't gonna look like that. We have some of those too, and as reference books, they're useful, but i'd hardly describe them as real cook books.

My mom gave me a set of books fairly early on that had some of her favorite recipes. One of my personal favorites is Beard on Bread, a tome authored by James Beard. Good Mr. Beard was a contemporary of Julia Child, an avid researcher, writer and food critic, and because of that wrote chapters that informed, instructed, and enticed you to try something different. Because of that, his books are still legendary. Think Harold McGee, with examples.

Honestly, the only thing that comes close to that now are the publications from America's Test Kitchen, and to a somewhat lesser extent some books by Alton Brown, although neither of which are the kind you'd want to just pick up and start reading.

About the only books that come close to real cook books as far as i'm concerned are ones by Anthony Bourdain, but even those are less about how to prepare the dish than everything around it.

i guess it comes down to the simple fact that once you master the fact that you don't need to have your stove up to max heat to make tomato sauce and that roasting spices before you use them is actually a pretty good idea, you're less interested in finding yet another variation for fried pork chops with grilled onion dip. (Yeah, i thought it was gross when i heard it too.)

Sadly, i'm betting those just don't sell that well.

i must be weird.

Tonight, Anne Marie and i went to Andy's Barbecue. Long hailed as "the best barbecue in the South Bay". i'm a good deal more depressed about finding good barbecue now.

Understand that i grew up on Carolina barbecue, which is mostly pork, and mostly consists of taking said pig and spit cooking it for anywhere from eight hours to several days. It's served with a vinegar sauce and slaw with peanuts.

Thing is, there's not a lot of fat.

i hate fat.

If you watch all the cooking shows or other foodie kinda things, they always go on and on about their love of "rich marbled meat". Sorry, no thanks. You can keep your super fatty Kobe, for me the best cuts are from an Angus flank, grilled, with a good char on the outside. Gimme thin cut, bone in pork chops seared on the stove, then finished in a 350° oven 'til they're the consistency of lean bacon. Extra points if you trim the outside fat off. Sausage just ain't right 'til it cracks and is crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside.

To me, fat waters down the taste of what you're eating. Get rid of the grease and you really taste the flavors and seasonings.

That's kinda why i wasn't that into Andy's. i ordered the brisket and got through maybe two slices of the small mountain of meat in front of me. The rest? Well, i'm thinking that if i fire up the grill and cook it at 300° for another 3 hours, it'll be worth dabbing with a bit of sauce, but for now? i think there was less fat in the golfball sized wad of butter they dumped on the baked potato.

Oh well, next time i want barbecue, i guess i'll have to do it myself.

Recently, Anne Marie signed up for the Cook's Country magazine. For those that are curious, that's one of the publications from the folks that do America's Test Kitchens (a show like Alton Brown's, but with less sock puppets).

It's got a lot of good recipes and guidelines in it, but there's also a column that i swear is there for pure comedy reasons. In it, there are folks looking for their lost bits of heritage.

That or they're hoping that you lose your lunch.

Believe it or not, i know of tomato butter. Interested in trying some? Go get yerself an 8 oz. jar of unsweetened apple sauce and four cans of tomato paste. Blend. Serve on toast. Know, just as you begin your second chew, exactly why kids don't clamor for big helpin' spoonfuls of the stuff every fall with their pork chops. Also realize that i didn't even mention that a good many recipes also include cinnamon in this delightful pool of purplish acid.

As a side note, you can use the rest for Purple Slime Molds for your next LARP. Trust me, nothing will go near them.


But wait, there's more!
i feel a little bad for this one. i'm betting her grandfather was a really nice guy. i'm also betting that when he concocted this recipe he was probably thinking "Hey, Corn and pimentos isn't bad. You dress deviled eggs with pimentos. Let's mix them together and we'll be in business forever!" See, now, i'd never go near a dish like this, nor would i go near someone who ate it because i know that the sort of reaction the flora living in one's lower digestive track would have to the combination of the sugars from the corn plus the proteins and sulfates from the egg whites. Perhaps this individual is hoping to harness this new source of a nearly unlimited supply of methane.

Possibly by fitting a hose from the drivers seat straight into the engine intake.


And finally…

Green Walnuts (for those not familiar with Germanic Cuisine) are immature walnuts that are usually pickled. They have a tart/sour taste to them rather than the creamy/nutty flavor you normally get. Not a huge fan of them myself, but i can see where some folks could well be.

Now imagine a sweet green sauce with the distinct flavor of, well, crunchy floor varnish mixed in with your eggs and you can see why this assuredly mild mannered 90+ year old woman might have a slightly different taste in mind.

Yeah, look, there's a darn good reason that many of these recipes are hard to find.

Still makes me want to join the fun and see if anyone can help me chase down a childhood favorite of mine, pickled herring sorbet with chocolate sprinkles.

We're going to be updating our 1950's era kitchen to something slightly post Donna Reed. Perhaps even something early Zee. To achieve that end, we've hired a designer who has informed us that we're abnormal.

Apparently, unlike the vast majority of humanity, we don't rely on the microwave.

In fact, i'll employ the nuclear option maybe twice a month at most. i get that the microwave is basically a steamer, it just works on the water inside stuff instead of bringing it from the outside. That's ok, but i like things that are crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside and you just don't get that from exposing stuff to a magnetron. (Honestly, next time you want to heat up some leftover Chinese, grab your skillet, get it to medium-high heat, toss in the Kung Pao and keep it moving. It'll be done in about the same amount of time. The only real trick is to get the food out of the skillet and get water in the skillet before those sugary sauces solidify on the sides. Use the nuke for the rice if you want, since that needs steam.)

This, of course, leaves me with a question. Should i install a microwave (mostly for resale), or go with something else, say, an Advantium oven. At nearly six times the price of a microwave, it ain't cheap, but it's not a uni-tasker. i don't believe that i'd be cooking steaks in it (Sorry, Alton. We disagree again. That fillet looked like crap.), but i could lose the toaster oven (oddly, i may have to keep the original toaster)

Of course, something like that is complicated. That means more stuff can and will break, and it kinda goes against my "KISS" mentality.

The other option is just get a damn microwave, and keep the toaster oven for small jobs like i do now. Less crap to have to repair in the future. Less reading required before making dinner. Less slightly seared gray steaks.

Hell, if i really need a second oven to keep things warm, i can put a few $2 unglazed tiles on the gas grill, light a single burner and use that, like i've done before.

i dunno. While the idea of cooking with light appeals to my geekly nature, i'm havin' a hard time justifying it.

Any thoughts?

If you go to most Hawaiian barbeque places, chances are pretty good that you're going to be lied to. Oh sure, they'll have slow cooked Pua pork, maui style ribs, and maybe even barbequed chicken cooked in a light terriaki sauce, but they won't have something you'll find on damn near every local's grill. They're not going to have Huli Huli chicken.

Tonight, i came about as close to making proper Huli Huli as a hauli can get. Real Huli Huli, is pretty much a family secret and consists of a surprisingly small set of ingredients as well as a pretty diligent cooking method. Still, it's summer, and dammit you owe it to yourself to at least try this.

You Will Need:
1 Fryer sized Chicken (fresh) cut into parts.
1/3 c. Ketchup
1/3 c. Shoyu *
1/3 c. Rice Wine Vinegar
1/4 c. Crushed Pineapple (in juice, not syrup)
1 tbsp fresh ground ginger (or about 1/4 tsp ground)
few shots of fish sauce. **
1 grill (charcoal or gas with a smoke box preferred)

Ok, first off, a few things to note. *Shoyu is, technically "soy sauce". i wish Steve still had his diatribe against Kikoman's but yeah, there's a difference to the stuff. i went with a lite salt Japanese Shoyu. As for the second ** fish sauce is much like shoyu and likewise runs the gamete from moderately light (Worcestershire) to some of the thicker "make the neighbors move to another state" varieties sold in the hazmat section of the local asian market. You only want a bit of this, so use whatever you like.

One last thing of note: Huli Huli chicken is not what one would call "5 star cuisine" made from only the finest ingredients. i've seen recipes that call for things like white wine and chicken stock. Ignore those. This is beach food. You should be able to get everything in one go for $20, total, and it gets cheaper for the next batch because you've got most of the stuff left over.

Right, on to the prep. Dump all that is not chicken or grill together. Stir. Dump about half of the sauce into a plastic bag with the chicken bits. Let it chill in the fridge (preferably overnight, but half an hour will do).

As for cooking, get the grill to about 450° (or coals to white and grill about 6 inches above) and add the chicken. Flip and baste every five minutes, starting with the sauce that's left in the bag, then follow up with the other half of the sauce you kept. For you gas folks, after about 10 minutes, back your gas grill down to 300° remember to baste every time you turn. i'm going to also say the obvious here and tell you:
1) don't use a fork to turn food on a grill, use a pair of tongs. Forks tear up the food and let the juices run out before they can work inside the meat.
2) yes, the sauce will caramelize. With the sugar in there, you bet it will. Neat freaks should obviously avoid cooking this. Folks with gas grills know how to clean stuff like this off. Charcoal grills may require some additional assistance.
3) You're backing off the temperature to mimic what happens with the coals. There should be black bits of sauce, but the whole thing shouldn't look like a chunk of chicken flavored coal. If you notice things getting too black, back off the heat. If you don't see anything getting black at all, add some more heat.

The chicken will be done in 40 minutes. (Wings will be done far sooner, obviously, so pull them off after 25 minutes or so.)

Serve with sticky rice (short grain CalRose or jasmine would be best), some sort of green (locals would probably pick macaroni salad), and beverage of choice.

As always, you know if you're doing a good job when your neighbors start to drool.