on the kitchen steps

Ravioli di Coniglio

2008-08-12T23:14:00.003-05:00

As I meandered through the Nashville Farmers Market one meltingly hot Saturday morning, I happened to pass the stall of Chigger Ridge Ranch. John and Debbie Mays raise lamb and rabbits on their hormone, antibiotic, herbicide, fungicide, and insecticide free farm in Charlotte TN. While I wasn't in the mood for lamb that morning, I was intrigued by the rabbit. Turns out they had sold out for the day a wouldn't have more for a couple of week due to holidays and processor schedules.
So I would have to wait. And wait. Then I had scheduling issues that made me wait... I thought I would never lay hands on a little cute furry bunny wabbit to grind up into forcemeat for rabbit tarragon sausage.
I did finally catch John and Debbie on a fine (read miserably hot) Saturday morning with a fine stock of individually frozen leporidae and separately packaged livers. I chose a nice looking rabbit and a single pack of livers and I was off to make sausage.

While I don't have pictures of the act, boning a rabbit carcass is not an easy task. While the legs are similar in size and shape to chicken legs, that's were the similarity ends. The bones are different and the meat is a little more resistant to removal from said bones. Plus all the connective tissue makes it interesting. After a few minutes with a good sharp knife I had a pile of meat that resembled so much chicken. It wouldn't look that way for long.

My grandfathers meat grinder served well to render the chunks into a nice fine textured ground meat. The livers (ground also) added to the meat served the same purpose that pork fat would serve in regular pork sausage, flavor and binding. My hands were covered in meat and liver, so snapping a pic was out of the question at the time. Picture ground chicken in a bowl and you will have the visual.

So here is my take on:

Rabbit Tarragon Sausage

1 1/2 lbs ground rabbit meat
1/2 lbs ground rabbit liver
1 tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black or white pepper, finely ground
2-3 tbsp fresh minced tarragon (I like a lot of tarragon)

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and until thoroughly combined. Try to keep the mixture cold so that the forcemeat doesn't "break". (separate the fat and lean)
To adjust the seasoning, poach a tsp of the sausage either wrapped in plastic wrap in gently simmering water (180°) or sauté over medium heat until well done 3-4 minutes for both methods.

Once you have a nice batch of sausage you need some way to deliver it to your unwitting culinary guinea pigs or to your family. Whichever group you have easier access to and might be more ~~gullible~~ receptive. Remember, not everyone digs the prospect of noshing Thumper. ("heheh heheh" evil chuckle)

I decided on ravioli. Pretty easy to make. Or so I thought... The first batch of pasta was a might on the thin side and kept blowing out during sealing. The second batch was a little thicker (one notch on the pasta roller machine thicker) and was better suited to making the little pasta dumplings.

1 tsp of sausage per ravioli is what I went with. I didn't want to overload the pasta.

I topped the little bugger with a scant 1/4 tsp of ricotta and a pinch of good parmigiano reggiano.

The I used a pastry brush to dampen the edges of the pasta with a little water, folded it over and carefully sealed it. I made sure to remove as much air as possible so that the ravioli wouldn't explode. I trimmed the edges with a pastry crimper and was all set.

So how to cook and serve... 3-5 minutes in gently boiling, salted water (they float to the top) then a quick sauté with a little butter. Plate and drizzle with a little beurre noisette (brown butter).

Again no pictures. Both times I served these was not in my kitchen and I had forgotten my camera. I actually meant for my one ~~guinea pig~~ friend to take pictures when I did dinner with he and his wife, but I forgot.

I really enjoyed the light texture of the rabbit. It has a deeper flavor than the look-alike chicken and is more substantial without being heavy.

Rabbit is going to become a staple protein in my kitchen, just not too frequently. (It's slightly more expensive than other white meat. But nutritionally better.)

I recommend trying rabbit. I recommend getting it from John and Debbie at Chigger Ridge Ranch. Saturdays at the Nashville Farmers Market. Tell em Chris sent you.

Cheers

Chris

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, this post was in no way sponsored, endorsed or solicited by Chigger Ridge Ranch.

But they do got good meat - psst try the lamb sausage too.

Cherry 2000

2008-08-11T13:25:00.001-05:00

I read a number of other gastronomic bloggers, celebrity and otherwise, but rarely (never in fact) have I jumped on a post as quickly as this one from Eric Ripert. His post for Raspberry Clafouti was so simple and inviting that I had to try it. I had to try it that night. I had to try it immediately. Like some kind of Pavlovian zombie, I lurched into the kitchen, drooling in anticipation.

Now I am not overly fond of Raspberries but the recipe printed at the bottom of the post has cherries listed as the fruit and Eric says point blank that it was originally made with cherries, so not a qualm was had when I made the substitution to black sweet bing cherries.

So... I recommend you pop over for the video and try it. Here is my version. Double the recipe, using fresh cherries (pitted of course and halved) and vanilla bean instead of extract.

My mise.
(from top left clockwise: 2 cups cherries, 6 tbsp ap flour, 12 tbsp half/half, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 vanilla bean, 2 eggs, 2 tbsp butter)

Butter the skillet and coat with sugar, add the cherries.

Batter poured and ready to bake.

Baked. 15 minutes at 400 in my handy little convection toaster oven. Not a Cuisinart but just as functional.

Service for one.

Self saucing dessert. My clafouti basically made it's own Créme Anglaise because it didn't cook through 100%. Mind you I loved it this way! Wouldn't change a thing.

Simply stated this desert is nearly fool proof. Might want to keep an eye on it during the last 5 minutes that it doesn't burn.

This taste goooooood. Smack yo mama good!

Cheers

Chris

Now your cooking with acid!

2008-08-06T23:11:00.001-05:00

Wednesday nights for me are a time to relax on the lake while repeatedly keeping myself from drowning.

I am a white water kayaker and as practice for those times when the river says "you can't float right side up now" there is the activity referred to as an Eskimo Roll.

I meet up with other like minded nut jobs and we take turns flipping over and then righting ourselves, or we spend unbelievably long 30 seconds upside down underwater wondering if someone will come rescue us before we decide to swim.

All of this boat rotation causes much hunger, so we gather together on the shore after such antics along with our flat water brethren and we eat. It's a pot luck dinner that can go either way, Feast or famine . It's a roll of the dice.

So knowing that I would be floundering in lake water Wednesday then chowing down with my friends I stopped in at Publix and picked up a few tidbits to make one of my favorite summer dishes.

Ceviche.

Turns out I have been butchering the pronunciation and spelling for a long while calling it sir-viche. Now I am not sure how to say it so I am just gonna drop the r until someone that speaks Spanish corrects me.

The seafood chosen for this recipe need not match the list below. Just make sure that it is as fresh as you can get. Not fresh seafood is not yummy.
Conch is not a common item in Nashville but Publix in Goodletsville has it, the guy will have to thaw some for you but they gots it. K&S World Market on Nolensville Rd might have it as well.

4 oz deveined shrimp peeled, 25/30 count 10-12 shrimp cut into 2 or 3 pieces each
4 oz bay scallops or 4 oz sea scallops cut into ½ inch dice
8 oz conch sliced 1/8 inch thick slices
1 large Grouper fillet approximately 12 – 16 oz cut into 1x1x ¼ inch thick slices
4 smallish calamari 4- 6 oz – bodies sliced into ¼ inch rings and tentacles split in 2
4 oz fresh Bing or black cherries – pitted and quartered
1 lbs cherry or grape tomatoes
½ a medium red onion sliced into wedges
¼ cup chopped cilantro
1 oz sun dried tomatoes - julienned
1 large or 2 medium gloves garlic mashed into a paste with the side of a knife
¼ tsp red pepper flake
dash or 2 of hot sauce – I like habanero based sauces. Lots of flavor without adding as much vinegar as the average pepper sauce.
Juice from 2 oranges about ½ a cup
Juice of 8 limes
Juice of 6 lemons
Salt and pepper to taste just before serving.

Mix everything in a bowl and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.

Alternatively reserve the conch until 15 minutes or less before serving as it tends to toughen up the longer it “cooks”. Technically the seafood is being “denatured” not cooked but the end result is the same.

I didn't take any pictures today but there are bazillions of pics on the web. Google returned 1,630,000 hits and Food Network has 71 recipes...

So my best advice is chose firm, non oily, white fleshed fish, - grouper, tilapia, sole, snapper etc etc. Use only fresh citrus juice. Dress it up with spices you like.

Cheers

Chris

The other white cheek.

2008-07-21T15:20:00.001-05:00

Installment # 3 in the Charcuterie posts is Guanciale. First let's work on pronunciation. For those of you who, like me, do not speak Italian this is a puzzling word to pronounce but after many web searches and a conversation with former resident (but not native) of Italy, I have narrowed it down to 2 possible pronunciations. Gwan-see-ah-lay and gwan-chi-ah-lay. That out of the way, on the the meat of the matter.

The first step in any of these more esoteric recipes is to acquire the main ingredient, in this case UNCURED pork cheek, otherwise known as hog jowls. Uncured being the hard part... At the Nashville farmers market you can find salted and smoked hog jowls by the bushel basket, literally. This being a city of "southern food", hog jowls and ham hocks play a major part in a lot of southern cooking, soul food included. However, I wanted pig cheek au-natural. So I called up Danny at DW Farms and placed an order for 4 cheeks.

On the appointed day and at the appointed place, I picked up the jowls. 2 smallish 2 larger.

Let me just say this, I have never really been freaked out by a cut of meat until now... It's not the muscle tissue, or the location of origin from the animal, it was the bristles of the 2 smaller cheeks that could be felt on the skin side.
All I can say is someone needs a Mach 3. <shiver> ewww.

I trimmed the nasty bits (glands and the like, some bristles, again ewww) and started the cure.

Kosher salt, sugar, garlic black pepper corns, and thyme. Quite a simple cure.

I doubled the amount of cure due to the amount of pork I decided to process. Just a little over double the weight.

I spread a layer of cure in the bottom of a big plastic container.

Then laid in the washed, trimmed and dried jowls. A layer of cure, a layer of meat, a layer of cure, a layer of meat then the rest of the cure.

Pop on the lid and chuck it in the fridge for 7 days, or until the jowls are uniformly firm. Turning and rotating every other day.

After 7 days it looks like this.

Not a lot to see in that one, so how about this. Ready to rinse and hang

After a little shower in the sink, I used a very sharp knife to poke a hole in the thinner end of each jowl and used butchers twine to hang them to dry.

As you can see the skin on the smaller two guanciali turned a little gray. This would be remedied by the drying process.

After 3 weeks of hanging the skin has turned all mahogany and pretty... The two large guanciali did not have skin.

Here are the first couple of slices.

This stuff is really fragrant. Slightly floral from the thyme and a little pungent from the garlic. There is a meaty aroma also that is really hard to pin down.

The flavor is also floral-ish but very porky and works very well as a traditional ingredient in alla carbonara.

If you can lay hands on uncured pork cheeks and a copy of Charcuterie, I recommend making this.

It may not be for everyone but I like it.

Cheers

Chris

Dontcha hate to get your cheeks pinched?

2008-07-20T11:25:00.001-05:00

I would have never expected to enjoy this particular cut of beef, but cheeks are brilliant! The need some special treatment but the results, if handled even 3/4 correctly are outstanding.

Those of you who familiar with The French Laundry at Home will have more than likely already seen this dish fully blogged by Carol, and done with humor and style and great camera work...

Well for this blog you might get 1 of those 3... And even I don't know which one it will be... So without further rambling obfuscating I give you partial Tongue In Cheek from the French Laundry cook book.

I was inspired to try this part of the recipe by my experience with the Braised Veal Cheeks that I had at Roosters in Charlotte. Also I found beef cheeks for some ridiculous price like $1.25 a pound.

So with my newly acquired beef cheeks (Carol is dead on when she said that beef cheeks is fun and funny to say), I cracked open my, coffee table extravaganza, copy of, The French Laundry cookbook.

It starts by unpacking and trimming the cheeks. (Squeamish alert!)

The little pile of meat at the front of the picture is the part that I didn't keep, silver skin and membranes.

The second step is to make a batch of the Red Wine Marinade found on page 190.

1 bottle of good red wine (this will come back to bite you if you don't use a decent wine.) carrots, leeks, onions, garlic, flat leaf parsley, thyme and bay leaf.

Everything goes into a pot and is brought to a boil. The recipe states... "Tilt the pan away from the burner and carefully ignite the wine with a match." This is rather nerve racking in a kitchen with 8 foot ceilings and no commercial fire suppression system. It's also the best way to make sure that the alcohol is burned off so that it doesn't cook the meat while it is marinating. (Note to self: Make sure fire extinguisher is charged, as a precaution)

If you look closely you might be able to see the flames.

Once I couldn't get anymore vapors to ignite it was time to let the marinade cool.

I but the cheek in a one gallon zip-top vacuum bag and poured the room temp marinade in with it, sealed up the bag and stuck it in the fridge over night.

After a 8 to 12 hour soak, I removed the meat and strained the marinade into a pot and brought it to a boil. The vegetables are reserved for later.

While the marinade was getting it's boil on, I dredged the cheeks in all purpose flour and started to brown them in a little peanut oil (my de facto cooking oil). It took about 3 minutes a side for the cheeks to get brown and crusty and ready for the next steps.

The marinade, once boiled and reduced a bit was strained again, this time through a coffee filter. Not part of the original recipe but I wanted to remove any little icky bits that the skimming didn't catch.

Per the recipe I had about a cup marinade.

The vegetables left from the marinade got a quick saute in the pan used to brown the meat.

Let me just say that throughout the process nothing had really tasted all that great, and the colors were almost disturbing... purple leeks and carrots, freaky. I did figure out the issue with the off flavor and this is were the quality of the wine comes into play... Cheap wine is not the best idea. I don't mean Thunderbird cheap but not anything I will buy again. Lesson learned... I get it now even though I am not much of a wine person. Good wine = good food.

So now that I had all the parts ready, I was hoping that my bad choice of wine wouldn't ruin the final dish, but I had to put it together to find out.

Cheeks, marinade, vegetables, veal stock and water to cover went into a loaf pan of all things. I used a loaf pan because of the overall volume it held was just over what was needed to hold the ingredients without diluting the marinade/stock too much with water.

I covered the meat with a parchment lid... Neat idea. Cut parchment to the size and shape of the cooking vessel with a vent hole in the center so that the meat is protected from caramelizing and allows a little evaporation. Mr. Keller says "It's like having a lid and not having a lid at the same time." How Zen...

I cooked the cheeks for 4 hours at 300°, then let them rest for 30 minutes before even removing the parchment. That's a long 30 minutes, but worth the wait.

For the final plating I did a quick sauté of fingerling Yukon Gold potatoes and sliced the cheek into half inch slices. I also reduced some of the braising liquid until it was satiny smooth and coated the back of a spoon.

Oh Damn! it was good. My worries about the wine flavor were put to rest with the first bite. This had has good a flavor as the veal cheeks I had at Roosters. The texture was very nice but not as good as the veal. I really enjoyed the dish, and I learned lessons while making it. Two hallmarks of a good recipe to me.

I will make this again when the temperature is a bit lower. It's a perfect late fall or winter dish.

Anyone else out there tried variations on French Laundry recipes? Did they work? Did they fail? Tell me about what you experienced.

Cheers

Chris

If life hands you lemons, make lemon cookies.

2008-07-09T16:55:00.001-05:00

Many of you will know exactly what the phrase "cookie dough sale" means. For those of you who don't, let me splain...

The ubiquitous candy/trinket/candle fundraiser sales of our school days have been augmented by the sales of 3 lbs tubs of cookie dough with nearly the mythical self life of Twinkies. (Actual shelf life of the dough frozen, is 12 months). The dough cost between 10 and 13 dollars depending on the flavor.

Now this is not an item I would buy if little Timmy knocked on the door hawking his wares to fund raise for his school field trip to the science center, but when my nephew called at the beginning of his school year, (in perfect compliance with the Do Not Call Registry, since I brought and consumed cookies the previous year) I played the part of dutiful uncle and agreed to purchase a tub-o-cookies.

I chose the German Chocolate cookies, seeing as that is probably my favorite cake, I thought they would be tolerable.

After a few months and the inevitable memory lapse about the purchase, I received a call one Saturday morning with a cryptic message informing me that my sister-in-law would be at certain small/square hamburger joint, at a certain time and would have my "stuff"... I arrived at the aforementioned time and place feeling like I was ready for a shady drug deal and took delivery of my rapidly thawing tub of joy... Once home I tucked the tub away in the garage freezer until such time as I needed on demand cookies.

This morning, that time arrived... I had actually planned for the event by removing the dough from the freezer last night and leaving it out to thaw.

I imagine that you, dear reader, might be asking yourself "what the hell do lemons have to do with German Chocolate cookies...?" or maybe "What the hell is he yammering on about today...?" I will do more 'splaining'.

Over the weekend I purchased a bag of lemons from the local chain grocery store, I found a little mold on one, then a second, then third and fourth lemon this morning, and knew that if I didn't harvest the lemon juice quickly, I would have moldy additions to my compost pile, and a couple of wasted bucks.

So I wind up in the kitchen with 2 dozen German Chocolate cookies and a half a cup of lemon juice... Now what does anyone worthy of the description "curious" do with 2 dozen cookies and a half a cup of lemon juice? Sprinkle a little juice on a cookie of course...

You could have knocked me over with a feather... Turns out the combination is actually really really good, and I'm not even fond of sweet lemon preparations.

So, lessons learned today... Chocolate and lemon CAN go together, and the scary tub-o-cookies can be turned into a decent desert.

I recommend finding a nice chocolate cookie recipe and drizzling fresh lemon juice on them while they are still warm... I also recommend you find way to get rid of the remaining cookies other than standing over the cooling rack eating cookies and growling at your family members when they venture too close to you...

Surprises happen all the time... Be open to them.

Cheers

Chris

Peter Pan-cetta

2008-06-26T23:34:00.001-05:00

Garlic Cloves
Pink Salt (Nitrite)
Kosher Salt
Dark Brown Sugar
Black Pepper
Juniper Berries (crushed with the bottom of a small sauté pan)
Bay Leaves
Fresh Ground Nutmeg
Fresh Thyme
Pork Belly

These ten ingredients are the alchemic start to the wondrous substance referred to by the Italians as Pancetta. From the Italian for belly: pancia. Belly people, as in pork. Or more commonly BACON. "Gimme what's in tha bag..."

Some of you might have guessed that this is a Charcuterie post. For those of you who didn't figure it out... It is.
Pancetta is the second recipe in the book and sorry for the time it took to get it to you... Pancetta is not a quick recipe like, say like Fennel-Cured Salmon, that take around 48 hours. Pancetta takes 7 days to cure and 3 weeks to dry. Some recipes I looked at had drying times upwards of 3 months.
This belly started it's inexorable journey to bacondom at the same time as the country/fresh bacon that was in the first official post from the masterwork that is Charcuterie... (Too gushing? Too wordy? But it's a really good book.)
As a matter of fact, the meat came from the same 14 1/4lbs belly as the fresh bacon.

There are 2 major differences between the 2 types of bacon.

1: The fresh bacon was smoked after it was cured. The pancetta was dried and not smoked.
2: There was a lot more to the cure. Fresh bacon only had 3 cure ingredients whereas the pancetta cure has 9.

Hard to see in this picture but that's 8 out of 9. I forgot the thyme until last minute.(Remember, no exact quantities cause that would be plagiarism, and thieving. Want to know, buy the book.)

The first part is pretty simple. Mix the cure ingredients together so that the pink salt is evenly distributed. Then give your belly a massage rubbing the cure mixture all over. The goal here is to get as even a coating of cure as possible on the entire belly.

See, simple... Next comes the second hardest part of the process. Wrestling the belly into the zip top bag without scraping all the cure off or getting it all over yourself. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that, next time I might try to enlist an assistant for this part. There is also a definite drawback to getting cure in the grooves of the zipper, damn things won't close if there is cure blocking the nifty zipping action...

Tick Tock... and through the miracle of internet time dilation, 7 days pass. 7 days of waiting patiently for the various chemical and physical reactions to take place, flipping the bag every other day so the cure stays evenly distributed. "...(a process called overhauling)..." Observe, a direct quote from the book, page 45 in fact. Proof I really am following the book.

Check the belly by poking it with your finger... If it's uniformly firm and not squishy, it is ready to go. If still squishy let it sit for an additional day or two.

What do we do now that the 7 days have past and the belly is not squishy? Time to roll it duuude... This, my friends, is the single hardest task in the whole process.

After rinsing all the cure off of the newly christened pancetta, you will be left with a slightly stiff and slippery chunk of meat, that you have to roll up very tightly. This is so not an easy chore. I would rate it somewhere between giving a cat a pill and trying to convince a 3 year old that spinach is yummy. I have to confess that due to the battle that transpired, I was not able to free my hands to snap a shot of the pancetta mid-roll.

After trimming the belly to square it up, I sprinkled the meat side with cracked pepper and rolled it as tight as I could, tying it as I went. I spaced out the butchers twine about every 1 - to - 2 inches.

I wrapped it in cheese cloth and prepared for another wait. This time a mere 3 weeks needed to transpire before I would be able to show you this!

Let me just say the it taste as good as it looks.

The first thing I made with it after it had dried was farfalle alla carbonara. (Expect a post in a day or so)

I also cooked the trimmings on the grill while smoking the fresh bacon. Let me just say again as I did in that first post... Grilled bacon rawks!

If you can find yourself a farmer to supply the belly and lay hands on a copy of the book, I really recommend making this. It's actually quite simple. Just takes a little patience.

Next up from the book. Gaunciale.

Cheer

Chris

Great Balls of Fire

2008-06-23T13:11:00.002-05:00

"Here, you have to try this..." she said sliding a sliver of mango across the cutting board. It was topped with a lurid, almost pornographically red sauce. Just a couple of little dots of the stuff, but I knew—oh yes I knew—that in those few small dots of color existed pain... If you weren't careful. But I trusted my host, wrangled the slippery piece of fruit from the board and popped it in my mouth.

Amazing! The mango was juicy and sweet with that slightly funny mango aftertaste, but this time somehow more mango than the un-garnished chunk I had just robbed from the cutting board. The heat of the sauce "woke up" the mango. I was enlightened, just a little bit.

So I am sitting in a ~~sardine can~~ airplane a couple weeks later on my way home, when out of the clear blue, BANG!!! Mango Sriracha Ice Cream... No shit. My brain thought that up... I thought it was freakin insane, but I was hooked on the idea.

I didn't write down any quantities while I was concocting but I will do better next time and post an accurate recipe.

I filleted 4 ripe mangos and rough chopped the resulting flesh and chucked it into a pot with 2 tbsp of sugar. The pot then went over medium high heat until it start to sizzle a bit, basically a sauté. I reduced the heat to a simmer and cook hell out of it until it reduced by at least a third and everything is very soft. Since I am guessing at a time for this post I would say 20 minutes or so.

The next step was to puree the fruit into, well puree. I also added 1/2 cup of cream and 1 cup of milk. More simmering, then "DING" you have about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of mango milk that need to be strained.

You lose about 2/3 to 1 cup of solids. You could leave this in, but I think it makes for a stringy mixture...

This is not stringy...

My end result was 2 cups of mango mixture ready to add to a custard style ice cream base.

Pretty standard mix, or at least my version of a standard mix. Less eggs than normally called for.

1 whole egg
1 egg yoke
1 1/2 cups milk (I didn't use more cream because my mango mix was already so creamy)
1/4 cup sugar

Heat the milk in a pot to just simmering, you don't want to scald it. While the milk is heating mix the egg and yoke in a bowl with the sugar... beat the hell out of this mixture until it starts to thicken (I'll take pictures next time.)
Temper the egg mix with the hot milk, adding little bits at a time while whisking. I added a tbsp at a time until I had doubled the volume of liquid in the bowl... If you do this too quickly you will get scrambled eggs. Add the tempered mix into the hot milk and stir gently until the entire pot starts to thicken. It's gonna be like a thin custard or pudding.

Chill everything down so it can be stored in the fridge until ready to freeze... I used an ice bath.

Everything in the fridge over night for a through chilling.

The next day I mixed the ice cream base and mango mix together and then had to figure out how much sriracha to add. I did little test batches of the mango puree with various amounts of sriracha.

The one thing I couldn't get around is how raw sriracha tastes... It's really quite harsh. The solution??? Cook it.

2 tbsp of the chili sauce mixed with 1 tbsp of sugar to make what truly looked like a chili sauce glaze after about 5 minutes cook time. (I didn't get a picture, it was cooking too fast to stop and snap one.)

Once I had, or thought I had, an acceptable ratio of chili to mango, I poured the final mix into my super handy ice cream maker. The batches are small but the freezing is fast... 20 - 30 minutes for ice cream ready to serve soft or put in the freezer to firm up.

Now all I needed was someone to ~~experiment on~~ taste it. I got my chance last week when I had dinner with my dad and stepmother.

This is what I served.

The sauce is a basic blackberry puree. 1 quart of blackberries and enough sugar to make it sweet, (sugar quantity depends on the berries) boiled, strained of the seeds and chilled.

Reactions were, as expected, a little delayed due to the creep up factor of the sriracha. It's a little hit in the back of the throat. Lots of mmmmm's and ahhhh's and in general fawning praise, which is to be expected from parental units but I think it was honest reactions not parental pandering. A success on that night.

I also had a couple of culinary professionals evaluate this concoction. The reviews there were mixed... One chef said point blank that he didn't care much for tropical fruit, so that review was a bust. The other guy really like the texture but is a purist about flavor, so the mix of mango and chili was not really something he liked. The pastry chef at this local eatery agreed to give it a review when I made another batch. I would like a dessert persons opinion.

My final thoughts...
The sriracha might not be the best chili sauce to use for an ice cream because of the savory elements built into that sauce. I might try it with a really strong pepper jelly next time.
In the end I liked the flavor and the heat working together.

I will try this again with better recipe notes.

Cheers

Chris

All's shell that end's shell

2008-06-17T18:17:00.001-05:00

About 25 years ago I had my first raw oyster. It was not pleasant. In general, up to that point I had enjoyed oysters prepared in various ways, fried, stewed, casseroled, but not naked. Little did I know that the tub of raw oysters my mother had procured to concoct an oyster casserole for the Christmas Eve dinner, was not the same critter as the Bullhead canned oysters to which I was accustomed. These, unlike the canned variety, were uncooked. I popped a cold, slimy, ovoid of shellfish into my mouth and was immediately aware that something was amiss. This was not the pleasant liver textured, nugget of intense flavor I was used to, but an alien creature, cold, slightly gritty, and mostly tasting of salt water. Why did people eat these things? Ewwwhhk. I would spend the next 25 or so years avoiding raw bars and raw sampler plates. Until recently.

Some of you are aware of my admiration for Anthony Bourdain. No so much as a chef, but as someone that communicates a passion for food in a way that really hits home for me. So it was with no small amount of envy that I read his description of his first oyster, "at a witless age 9...".

"I took it in my hand, tilted the shell back into my mouth as instructed by the now beaming Monsieur Saint-Jour and with one bite and a slurp, wolfed it down. It tasted of seawater ... of brine and flesh ... and somehow ... of the future.

Everything was different now. Everything.

I'd not only survived -- I'd enjoyed.

... The genie was out of the bottle. My life as a cook, and as a chef, had begun.

Food had power."

I had not enjoyed... I had nearly urked. How had what he eaten been so different from what I had eaten. Besides the obvious difference in freshness. Turns out that would be key. Freshness is absolutely the key to oysters on the 1/2...

To that end I went searching for fresh. I even went so far as to tell my sad story to one of the fish mongers at Whole Foods. He took down my name and number, promising to call when the next shipment arrived. That's pretty fresh for Nashville. Unless you can fork out the dough to have them flown in...

Fast forward 2 weeks. I stop by Whole Foods to pick up a few things and to enquire about the state of oyster shipments. A different fish monger this time, assures me that there had indeed been deliveries of bi-valves since I had been in last, and that yes I was still on the call list and he was terribly sorry that no one had called. Determined to fulfill his customer service mandate he offered me a free dozen on the next shipment. I was happy to accept.

But I would thwarted in my plans to have fresh oysters... 3 additional weeks pasted and while stopping in on my way to a Memorial Day party to grab strawberries and cream, I head back to the fish counter to give someone what for. I spoke with fish monger number 1 and he remembered me after looking in "the book" and seeing his own hand writing. There was not however a note about the free dozen. He did however offer me a serious deal on a case. An entire case for 17 bucks, approximately 25 cents per oyster, given a count of 70 per case.

I now had fresh oysters and a shiny new shucking knife - and a party to go to where there was most likely not a place to store a box of mollusks. A 2.99 white foam beer cooler from a gas station and a bag of ice fixed that issue.

I had a nice time at the party, I offered fresh shucked oysters to any and all who wanted to try them. I didn't have many takers. But that's where I had my first decent (but not wonderful) raw oyster. I wasn't overly impressed but I wasn't grossed out either. I came to the conclusion that I would give the next raw bar I found myself at a try.

I have since shared a dozen in two different restaurants, in two different states. I think I understand now what Bourdain was talking about. I had a clue about fresh...

So now after all that chatter about my first time failure and mid thirties redemption with oysters, I get to the final point of this post... After the Memorial Day party I still had the lions share of a case of oysters to content with...

So I set about to shucking... I counted about 70 critters needing pried from their mother of pearl homes, which means I actually got a better deal that I had figured, seeing as nearly 2 dozen had been shucked at the party (most of them cooked)

I ended up with nearly a quart of the little snots, and a few decent shell inflicted cuts on my left hand.

One of my favorite dishes growing up was oyster stew. So simple, 1 can of Bullhead oysters, 1 can of whole milk, 2 tablespoons of butter, and enough pepper to turn the whole mixture black...

I wanted to try a fresher version, so I started out with about an ounce of un-smoked bacon in a saucier. I rendered the bacon for about 5 minutes then added a little butter.

Next came the oysters. 8 or so, just over 1/2 a cup.

A pinch of salt, and 8 turns of my pepper mill, 1 tsp chopped flat leaf parley and a tsp of minced tarragon simmered in 1 and 1/2 cups of whole milk for about 15 minutes.

More pepper added to the bowl makes this a bit of an ugly plating - but the flavor was killer.

For now I think I will leave the shucking to professionals and stick to cooking oyster when at home. But I can say with pride that I didn't let on bad experience keep me from learning to really enjoy a creature many refer to a snot on a shell...

Cheers

Chris

No rest for the wicked

2008-06-10T00:04:00.001-05:00

It's late or early, depends on how you view the clock. For me it's late... It's late and I can't sleep. The pillows are too soft, the bed is too hard, I need a drink of water - I can't shut down my brain. That's the hard one.

What's got me all riled up you ask... Politics, Religion, work life, social life or lack there of? D - None of the above...

What's got me all twisted in knots tonight is the realization that while I really love food, love to eat, what I love more is the process. Turning raw pork belly into bacon - or asparagus, butter and lemon into something that made my father say "WOW!" - hearing a friend "mmmmm" over black walnut cherry ice cream. More than eating, I love making... It's always been more fun to cook for others. To feed people.

I have that desire or disease to pull a "Buford", pack up my shit and head to Tuscany, meet Dario and the Maestro, eat some steak. But sadly I don't think I have the huevos to do something so radical. I have gotten kinda comfortable with my life. Maybe that's my problem. Why I can't sleep...

I have always claimed that I didn't want to be a culinary professional. Maybe I have been lying to myself. I love to feed people.

Maybe my ADD affected brain just gets bored to easily and cooking is one of those things that you can never totally master. You might be able to master a method, but you will never master all the variations.

Now that I paddled down that steam of consciousness, maybe I can sleep - or I might just lie here thinking about the "Possibilities".

Don't that just mess with your head.

Night all

Chris

Confit de Canard - Final Service

2008-06-08T16:29:00.001-05:00

Finding an adventurous taster is sometimes a daunting task. Food allergies, dietary restrictions, picky eaters, and uneducated pallets, all things you have to contend with when trying to find someone to give you a cage match brutal review of some dish you sent hours fussing over. I'm lucky... I found at least one taster that doesn't twitch at words like kidney, liver or gizzard. Willing to submit to my attempts at culinary voodoo. She said "My heart is breaking over how salty this is... you worked so hard." and indeed I had but I wouldn't have been happy if she had smiled at me and lied "It's wonderful...". Especially since I was eating the same chokingly salty prep of duck confit.

Yes folks, my Duck Confit was for the most part a failure. I say most part because buried deep in the heart of the thigh meat was a nugget of meat that was not like a salt lick. That one bite for me made up for the rest of the duck. It gave me a hint of what duck confit could be. Just salty enough, perfumed with the bay leaf, garlic, and cloves, melt in your mouth tender, lick you fingers good. Hell, lick your entire hand good.

If you read the two previous post in this series, Day 1-2, Day 3-4, you are aware of the time it takes to prep this dish. The final plating is done by crisping up the skin either on the stove top or in an oven.

My lovely taster granted me the use of her oven, broiler cranked up on high. I set the tray as high as it would go, and let the oven get rippin hot. While the oven was preheating I helped finish a mango, arugula salad. I also dropped two orders of Lemon Asparagus.(first posted here).

After a few minutes of preheating, the oven was ready and in went the duck. A few minutes later, as I was trimming the flesh from a ripe mango, for the salad, I caught a flash of light out of the corner of my eye.... What? Fire? Yep. Shit... The duck fat was kicking up and splattering on the broiler elements and creating quick little flashes of orange light as it incinerated into duck smoke. (Which actually smelled quite nice).

I moved the oven rack down a level, killed the power and left the duck to finish cooking in the cooling oven, while the salad and asparagus finished. My host turned on the commercial kitchen sized vent hood on, and sucked out the smoke in a matter of a couple minutes.

I imagine if you could seal off the kitchen entrances (3 of them), you could probably use the vent to create a NASA vacuum chamber for space suit testing... I am so jealous.

We plated the duck on the asparagus with the salad on the side. It was very pretty.

Let me just warn you... If you cook duck in this manner and want to make pron with it, you better do it quick. The duck is all moist and glistening right out of the oven, but within a couple of minutes, it goes a little dull, not so shiny. This in no way affects the flavor. I have a feeling that those pictures of in foodie magazines are primped and spritzed and mostly cold when the shutter was clicked. I would also like to say that the preceding paragraph is not in any way an indictment of my host taster's photography skills, just a warning... Take pictures of duck quick as you can.

The Lemon Asparagus got thumbs up and the duck thumbs down from my volunteer taster. The salad was killer but I can't claim that one even though I helped

Even thought it was a failure this time, I will be trying the confit again. I learned a lot as I usually do when trying something like this, and I still have 2 breast to turn into duck rillettes.

I recommend trying your hand at duck confit, but then again I recommend trying all the recipes I post.

Cheers

Chris

Bacon - A 3 part exposé - Film at 11

2008-06-08T01:48:00.001-05:00

Being on the road is a good way to be patient when making something like bacon. You can't poke and prod curing meat over a distance 430 miles in person. You have to do it by proxy. In this instance the person tending my pups obliged me in turning the belly on Humpday. But I am jumping ahead... A lot ahead.

Bacon:
Wiki says - a cut of meat taken from the sides, belly, or back of a pig that has been cured, smoked, or both.
Websters says - the back and sides of the hog, salted and dried or smoked, usually sliced thin and fried for food.
I says - one of the most versatile meat products on the planet, and not overly complicated to make.

I followed the recipe from a Charcuterie mostly too the letter. I diverge at the end of the process. Don't worry I share the details

The first thing I had to have to make-a da bacon was uncured pork belly. Not as easy to find as you might imagine. After a couple weeks of procrastination and online searching, I was finally able to procure a fine belly from Danny, proprietor of DW Farms in Pulaski TN. I called him during the week and he agreed to bring a selection of bellies of various sizes for me to evaluate. Like I have a clue about pork bellies...

I picked the big one. A little over 14 pounds. Danny had it in a cooler, frozen for the trip from his farm to the Saturday CSA location he has at a Nashville restaurant, where he also provides pig, albeit on a larger scale.

I took my plastic wrapped belly and put in my cooler for the much shorter trip home. Maniacal laughter rang out as I drove the 8 miles.

14 pounds of frozen pig does not thaw quickly, and I didn't want to damage the meat in any way so, I followed the old advise to thaw in the refrigerator. Overnight fridge thawing might work for a 12 ounce steak but not so much for this much meat. It probably didn't help that the fridge in question is extra cold. All told it was 4 days to thaw the pork, but once it was ready so was I...
NOT...! no pink salt (sodium nitrite with pink coloring added to distinguish it from table salt). Luckily for me, I was having lunch soon with a friend who just happened to be sitting on a stash of the pink stuff. She floated me 75mg, which will be paid back in the form of ready to cook bacon. Now I had pork and pink and a couple hours to get started.

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of "Basic Cure", which I had to produce using pink salt, kosher salt and sugar.

I am not going to post the exact proportions and here's why... I didn't write the book and if I post everything you need to know to execute the recipe then I am basically thieving from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, which would be BAD. Want the recipe??? Go buy the book, it's worth it. Back to the cure.

Salt - Kosher, Sugar - white, Pink Salt - well it's ummm pink.

Mix until... mixed? How about uniformly pale pink. Not too hard so far.

The next step in this little bacon makin venture, was to deal with the belly. It was finally thawed and ready to be divided and trimmed and in general fussed over.

TADA!

For a little perspective, it's sitting on a half sheet tray. Lotta meat. Enough for 2 recipes... Stay turned.

I portioned the belly into 3 roughly equal portions.

I picked one to reserve for that other project I mentioned and proceeded to apply the cure to the remainder. 1/4 cup per flitch (that's what you call a side of un-sliced bacon. Seriously... You can't make this stuff up.)

Within moments of applying the cure, I started to see it in action. Moisture was already being drawn out of the meat.

Now I am caught up with myself and the start of this post.

The hardest part of a project like this for me, is the wait... This time I had help being patient. I had to spend the week in Charlotte working. I asked my step-brother, who was kindly attending my pooches for the week, to flip the enormous 3 gallon zip top bags, holding the future bacon, on Wednesday.

Upon my arrival home Friday evening, I was pleased to find firm flesh in the bags. MR advises that it should only take week to cure a belly but not all belly are created equal and a thicker belly might take longer to cure. Firm flesh means competed cure, squishy flesh means not so much completed.

Mine seemed fine. Next steps, rinse, pat dry and cook.

This is where I diverge. Country bacon is best smoked in my opinion, and considering that my smoker is not a cold smokers it seemed an ideal method to cook the nascent bacon to 150° as directed. To that end I gathered up the necessary tools and headed out into the backyard.

The next 2 pictures are what I will now refer to as my Bacon Meez.

Rinsed belly, and probe thermometer, ever so sun dappled.

Hickory chips, soaked in water for the better part of an hour.

Bacon Meez ready, I lit up the fire box on my grill/smoker, and after a vigorous cleaning of the grates, I placed the belly in the path of the smoke.

Again, I am forced to wait while bacon transforms one more time. How long... Well if you do it in a 200° oven like the book says, then about 2 hours. Seeing as the temperature control on a charcoal fired grill/smoker is less that pin point accurate, I would estimate that it took twice the recipes stated time, but that's okay with me, I got to hang with my dawgs. No really... after a week away form home I was ready for some pooch time.

So what does 4 hours in the smoker get you? This...

Have you ever had grilled bacon, really fresh grilled bacon, thick cut fresh grilled bacon? Oh god... It's...

Grilled Bacon for pete's sake!!! do I need to say anything more!?

On that subject, I don't think so, but there is a final step. The newly smoked bacon needs to chill. I recommend stashing it in the fridge and going to dinner.

Later when you are back in your kitchen you can slice off a rasher or 3 and cook em up to see if you can give Oscar Meyer a run for their money.

I can hardly wait for a truly perfect tomato to pair with this bacon for the ultimate in BLT joy.

I don't know what else to say after that particular bit of food pron... Scandalous! and yummy.

The next recipe in the book is pancetta...

Coming soon, to a computer screen near you.

Cheers

Chris

That's it man, game over man, gameover!

2008-06-05T23:00:00.001-05:00

What - the - hell - was - I - thinking???

Where did I get the bright idea to tell the Restaurant Manager and Executive Chef of Rooster's Wood Fired Kitchen about this blog? I guess I just couldn't help myself... Like watching a train wreck...

It all started back in March when I had a wonderful meal at the restaurant in question. I wrote a review and it became my very first post for this blog. Effectively that review/post started this blog. So when Laura Lee, the manager, approached me tonight and it was obvious that she remembered me after nearly 4 months, I was more than a little impressed. She asked me how I had been and I lost control of my brain... and tongue... 'Blurt' is a good word for what occurred next. I told her about writing the review and how it was partial inspiration for the blog, and what I was doing with it. Imagine my chagrin when she said she wanted to check it out. But I kept my cool and said something on the order of "cool" with only a slight crack in my voice, panic welling up in the pit of my stomach... After a little more very polite conversation Laura Lee left me to my very tasty cream of mushroom soup with truffle oil.

My waiter, (whose name I never really did catch, sorry dude) brought my charcuterie sampler, comprised of pork rillettes, bresaola, cured duck, Serrano ham and speck. The rillettes, bresaola, and duck ham were house made and really really good. I asked the waiter if he knew what spice the bresaola was with and he confessed he didn't but would find out. He walked about 10 feet to Ramon the executive chef and asked on my behalf. I imagine the my surprise when Ramon came over to talk to me himself and he also recognized me just like Laura Lee did. He even remembered what I had for dinner. I was again done in... I started to babble about the blog and my charcuterie and smoked leg of lamb... I wonder how much of a dork I sounded like. I must not have made too much of an ass of myself because Ramon and I talked for a while about food and charcuterie and the restaurant world. It was really cool... and he wanted to see the blog too... bugger!

All told I spent 2 or so hours at Rooster's watching the cooks and chefs handle the first dinner rush, eating wonderful food and talking to staff. It was a kewl dinner. I even ordered the mac & cheese. I got to find out what cheese they use in the mac... Sweeet

I even did something I don't do often when on the road, I brought leftovers back to the hotel...

Clock wise from the top left Serrano, bresaola, rillettes, speck and in the middle the mac & cheese.

This has kinda turned into another review... So final thoughts:
Only had one creative criticism, the cream of mushroom was a little flat. On a scale of 1-10 it was an 8. It just needed something to brighten it up a little. On whole it still gets high marks for service, decor, and food.

Roosters will remain on my favorites list and is still number one in Charlotte.

If you make it to or live in Charlotte, go to Rooster's. Go a lot. Take bunches of friends.

Cheers

Chris

PS to Laura Lee and Ramon if you read this or the original post... The stools are only uncomfortable after an extended period of time, which I will gladly endure again the next time I am in Charlotte.

Food Network has a terrorist as a host???

2008-06-01T23:27:00.003-05:00

In a shear case of WTF!!!, Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online ad featuring Rachel Ray because she wore a black and white scarf that could be mistaken for a kaffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian garment and some people might think she is a terrorist sympathizer. There are even some "analyst" on an entertainment news show that suggested that she should have paid more attention to the clothes the stylist picked for the ad.

Now I am not particularly a fan of Rachel Ray but please...
If I never hear the phrase "E.V.O.O." it will be too soon... But Please..!
If I never see another episode of 30 Minute Meals, my eyes might stop bleeding... BUT PLEASE!!!

Rachel Ray might make me want to "drink the Kool-Aid" but, going out on a limb here... I just don't see her as the terrorist sympathizer type.

Political Correctness run amok...

And with a final incredulous "PLEASE!!!" I am signing off in Charlotte.

Cheers

Chris

Bringing home the bacon

2008-06-01T18:51:00.001-05:00

I have been a bad blogger lately, lazy, uninspired, spring fevered, full of excuses and reasons to not post... Well, that time is over. I finally connected with a local farmer who will be able to provide me with a steady supply of farm raised oinker so that I can bring you... wait for it...

wait for it....

Charcuterie the blog... I am doing it. I am shooting for the moon. I am officially announcing that I will be preparing every recipe in Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's fabulous book. Ironically enough MR just had an interesting post that references a Wall Street Journal article about "cook-through" blogs. I have actually been teasing you guys with this plan for a while now... but it is official. I am doing it. I have not been in contact with the man himself and maybe some day I will, but for now I will just start at the beginning and go from there.

The first post in this series is actually here Confit de Canard -Day 1 & 2. It seems out of order but I started out with the duck confit because it was one of MR's inspirations and he spends more that a few sentences extolling the virtues of a properly cured, fat poached, and aged duck.

I will be posting the final duck confit post soon...

The next post in the series is Bacon, were I buy pork belly, borrow pink salt, and bind pig up in a roulade (bondage pig... sounds like a '70s punk band, but trust me when I tell you, Do NOT Google that phrase... <shiver>).

Some of these post will be either multi-post or long in the making due to the length of time it takes some of the recipes to complete. Prosciutto, for example can take up to a year to age.

I will try to post at least one Charcuterie post per week... Some might run to every two weeks. Budgetary constraints and all that jazz. (Unless there is someone out there that would like to sponsor me... no ads on this blog for the foreseeable future)

So now that I have blathered on about what I am going to do, let me offer a little proof of what I have started to do.

Looking forward to making everything... and you guys reading about it.

Cheers

Chris

Black Roads and Cherry Dreams

2008-05-14T15:20:00.002-05:00

Some situations can send you down a dark black road. Tragic love, desperate trauma, and sometimes if you are really lucky, the astringent tannins of a rock hard nut. Juglans nigra to be exact, or more commonly American or Black Walnut. The bad boy of the the nut world. Eaten alone they can almost choke you with the harshness of the tannins, but mixed with other ingredients they take on a whole new dimension of flavor.

The flavor brings back memories of rainy Autumn days sitting in my Pappy's garage with a framing hammer swinging await at the hard little shells, my Pappy using a nut pick to harvest the meat so that my Grandmother could make all manner of sweet treats, the extra stored in Mason jars in the freezer.

This is an ingredient that is kinda hard to come by in this day and age. I found a supplier of the near impossible to harvest nuts in Hendersonville TN. I have had the blasted things in my freezer for at least 2 months wondering when I would break out the rock salt and ice cream churn. Well this post by David Lebovitz about a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker caught my eye and I ordered one. Can't beat 20 bucks for Cuisinart anything... It arrived while I was on vacation and was one of the first things I unpacked when I got in. No rock salt needed, basically no ice cream maker mess. Sweeeet.

I started with a basic custard, actually the one from the little recipe booklet that comes with the IC maker.

1.5 cups whole milk
1.5 cups heavy cream
3 egg yokes
2 eggs
3/4 cup of sugar
1 vanilla bean

I reduced the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup cause I knew I would be adding honey later. I also omitted the vanilla bean as I was not making vanilla IC.

Bring the milk and cream to a simmer over medium low heat stirring often.
In a separate bowl mix the eggs, yokes and sugar until it turns a little paler and thickens a smidge. I thought I would hand mix it with a balloon whisk... I was wrong. The sugar makes it a very stiff mix. I switched over to my Kitchen Aid.

Once the egg mixture is as thick as you want it, add about a cup of the hot milk/cream. Do it slowly or you will have scrambled eggs. This is called tempering. (In my mind that sounds so condescending, but I figure some of you might not know why I do the things I do) Once the mixture is up to temp, add it back to the rest of the milk/cream and turn up the heat just a little. Still this over medium heat until it starts to steam and it coats the back of a spoon. Another clue that it is ready is when you coat that spoon... the coating holds its shape when you run your finger through it making a little trough. Finger paint on the spoon a little, relaaaax, it's just food. It should be fun.

You can chill this in an ice bath once it has thickened or you can just wait. It needs to be covered or it will develop a skin, which is yummy to eat but not groovy for ice cream makin'. I strained my custard through a wire mesh strainer, into a bowl then covered with parchment paper. Turns out I am out of plastic wrap.

I dry toasted about 1/2 cup of black walnut pieces over medium high heat, until there was a little smoke and I could smell the toasty goodness. Careful not to burn them.

Since the custard was still piping hot I lifted the cover and added the nuts.

A cup of split and pitted red cherries went into a 1 quart saucier with 2 tbsp of sugar... Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 10 minutes or until you get a thickened cherry syrup. The fruit will be softened as well. I wanted to use Bing Cherries but couldn't find any fresh.

Seeing as I had a rather thick custard I added the cherries too. Had I been using a thinner base I would have added the cherries and possibly the nuts closer to the end of the freezing process. Why??? So the additives don't all sink to the bottom and bind up the churn.

I chilled the mixture over night and this is what it looked like just before introduction to the IC maker.

Kinda gray ain't it...?

I already had the freezer bowl rock solid frozen, so this morning I added the mixture to the bowl and flipped the switch. I added the honey at this point. About 2 tbsp while the thing is spinning so it will mix well.

25 - 30 minutes later it was like a nice thick soft serve.

I scraped it into a storage container to store in the freezer for a while to firm it up even more.

I could have stuck a mint sprig in this to make it a little brighter but I am not trying to impress anyone with the pictures (riiiiiggghhht and if you believe that I have some land to sell you... I just plain forgot.)
Serve in a bowl with a spoon. Oh and it's very rich so you don't need a huge serving...

I can say without hubris that this is one nummy ice cream.

If you like contrasting flavors, the back of the throat bite of the walnuts really goes well with the sweetness of the cherries.

This is not a flavor for everyone. I grew up with it and I love it. It just might be a southern thang.

And considering the tannins, does anyone have any pairing suggestions?

Cheers

Chris