Falling Onto the Turnip Truck

One thing that people who like to cook seldom admit is, “I’ve never cooked that before!”, or its cousin, “I simply don’t know what to do with that!” For me, two vegetables in particular fall into both these categories: turnips and cauliflower.  For turnips, it's the former; as for cauliflower in particular, it’s the later. I freely admit that I have no idea what the hell to do with cauliflower. Does anyone really eat the cauliflower on those ubiquitous veggie party platers with the ranch dressing dip in the middle. (I always feel a little sorry for all that uneaten cauliflower on those trays, but it looks like brain and tastes like styrofoam.)

This past weekend, I decided to change all this. Recently, on a clear, bright Saturday morning, I headed out to Pepper Place Saturday Market to buy turnips and cauliflower and figure out some way to cook them.

©2103 Chris Terrell

Damn! No cauliflower! But I did find some turnips. Before revealing how I cooked the turnips, here's a little background.

Turnips have been cultivated and eaten in Northern Europe for centuries, particularly in England and France. It is a root vegetable that is typically roasted or used in soups. Turnips need to be peeled before cooking and, according to Julia Child, par-boiled before cooking to reduce their bitterness, especially if they are “winter” turnips. The turnips I bought were white and didn’t resemble the purplish ones I had passed by in my local Piggly Wiggly. Consequently, I asked the earnest young hipster at the stall what kind of turnip this was and he said “Hackerrai.” “What?,” I replied. (Thinking this was some kind of obscure Game of Thrones reference to which I was not privy.) According to Mr. Hipster, hackerrais are mild and sweet and can be braised, roasted, boiled, sautéed, glazed, fried, or even eaten raw. (I’ll pass on eating them raw—carrots are about the only raw veggie I like.) My limited Internet research also turned up that hackerrai turnips were developed in Japan in the 1950s (who knew?!), even though they are smaller than regular turnips—not at all Godzilla-sized. 

©2013 Chris Terrell

The finished product!

When I got back to my humble kitchen, staring at those pale specimens resting on my counter, I wondered: “Now what the hell do I do with these! As I usually do in such situations, I consulted Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and The Joy of Cooking. Both books had good turnip recipes, so I combined the two and came up with turnips braised in butter and beef stock. I borrowed Julia’s use of beef stock and the JOC’s trick of reducing the cooking liquid to a syrup and pouring it over the turnips. (Believe it or not, the JOC recipe called for less butter than MAFC.) 

I must say, the turnips weren't bad. The turnips had the consistency of potatoes with the sweetness of carrots, but with just a touch of tartness that you would get with Brussels sprouts. Will I cook them again? Probably. As is the case with most vegetables, simple works best. Braised turnips would make a great addition to a nice roast on a cold winter’s eve. Here’s the recipe:

Braised Turnips

1½ pounds white turnips, scrubbed and diced
1½ cups beef stock
3 tablespoons butter
sea salt to taste
pepper to taste
chopped parsley to taste

Put the turnips in a large, heavy-bottomed pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes. Drain the turnips and set aside. Meanwhile, return the pot to the stove and turn the heat on to high. Add the stock, butter, salt, and pepper. Stir until the butter is melted, then add the turnips. Turn the heat down to low, cover, and simmer until the turnips are tender—about 15 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the turnips to a serving dish. Then turn the heat back up to high and boil the cooking liquid until it reduces to a thin, syrupy glaze. Pour it over the turnips and serve piping hot.

'Shine On!

"Bug Juice"

©2013 Chris Terrell

I recently got my hands on some moonshine. And just in case the NSA is reading this blog, I will not name names. And yes, it did come in a Mason jar! I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I opened the jar, I was pleasantly surprised by the aroma. This was some pretty complex stuff and it tasted even better! It was not that fire water I had heard about from watching The Dukes of Hazard as a kid. It was smooth, with just enough of a honey-sweetness and notes of vanilla and toast. This got me thinking. Why shouldn’t it be good? After all, most commercial liquor has homemade roots. I’m sure Laphroaig  got its start in a cooper pot-still supervised by a cantankerous Scot, and Jim Beam was probably once made in the back woods of Kentucky, just a few steps ahead of federal tax agents.

It is thought that moonshine gets it name from the moon-lit nights that provided just enough light to make the stuff and to see the tax man cometh, yet enough darkness to hide from same. Moonshine is referenced as early as 1785 in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue as “white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, and gin in the north of Yorkshire.” So apparently, it is not an American invention after all, though us Americans (especially Southerners) have taken it and run with it. Speaking of running, we probably owe NASCAR to bootleggers making ‘shine in the South. To get this stuff to “market,” one needed a good driver and a fast car to evade the law on the winding backroads of the American South. The best of these bootleggers became  the forerunners of today’s NASCAR drivers.

Moonshine has always had a backwoods, bad-boy reputation, especially because of its potency (though the proof of homemade moonshine varies widely). This reputation is reflected in some of the slang used for moonshine, such as: fire water, popskull, stagger soup,  busthead, and my favorite, panther piss. The stereotype of the folks who have traditionally made moonshine has not helped its reputation either: Snuffy Smith types camped out in the hills and hollers of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s as if the mere mention of the word moonshine or Mason jar triggers in one's head that dueling banjo song from the movie Deliverance.

Moonshine, however, is gaining respectability. Here in Alabama, Jamie Ray is making legitimate moonshine in Bullock County at High Ridge Spirits, Alabama’s only licensed distillery. http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/08/alabama_shine_veteran_beer_mak.html He calls his spirit Still Crossroads Alabama ‘Shine. And Chris Hastings, the chef and owner of the restaurant Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, Alabama, recently beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America with a course that incorporated some homemade ‘shine.

So the next time, you are down in our neck of the woods, grab some ‘shine—legit or not (I won’t tell). You could be pleasantly surprised as I was, when I sat back on a cool October evenin’ with a nice glass of squirrel whiskey. I'll let you know how I feel in the morning!

Madeleines (After Trial & Error)

Marcel Proust referred to madeleines as a “seashell cake so strictly pleated outside and so sensual inside.” I couldn’t agree more—the madeleine is one of my favorite treats. In fact, almost every Friday morning, I grab a package at Starbucks on the way to work. 

Apparently, I'm not the only one who likes madeleines. The British pop duo The Pet Shop Boys reference the madeleine in one of their songs, Memory of the Future:

Over and over again

I keep tasting that sweet madeleine

looking back at my life now and then

asking: if not later then when?

Like many things culinary, the origin of the madeleine is obscure and subject to debate.  According to Larousse Gastronomique, there are two possible creation myths. The first is that Avice, the chef to the famous French statesman Talleyrand, began baking a pound-cake mixture in aspic moulds.

The discover of the madeleine?

Others, however, believe that the recipe is much older and originated in the French town of Commercy, which was then a duchy under the rule of Stanislaw Leszczynsky.  Apparently, during a visit to the castle in 1755, the Duke was very taken with a cake made by a peasant named Madeleine. Thus began the fashion for madeleines (so named by the Duke). The madeleine really hit the big time when the Duke’s daughter, Marie, who was married to Louis XV, introduced it to the royal court at Versailles.  

As much as I like madeleines, I had never made any. That changed this past weekend, when I decided to give it a try. I was surprised to find that madeleines are pretty simple to make, at least when you remember to add a key ingredient! (More on that later.)

©2013 Chris Terrell

The first step was to get a madeleine pan. While I normally eschew any kind of baking that requires special pans or equipment, I made an exception this time. So I stopped by the nearest Sur La Table and grabbed one. (I really did get just this one thing, which is amazing. SLT is like the Walmart of cooking stores—it is nearly impossible to go in and buy one thing (e.g., a spatula), and not walk out of the store having spent a couple hundred bucks or more (e.g., sous vide machine)!

Next, find a recipe. After looking at several, I landed on one from one of my latest cookbook acquisitions: I Know How to Cook by Ginette Matzot. It is the French version of our Joy of Cooking or the Italian Silver Spoon. And while the title sounds a little silly to an American ear—in French, Je sais cuisiner, sounds sexier—it is a great French cookbook.  Here’s the recipe (doubled), found on page 807:

Madeleines

½ Cup (2 sticks) butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

4 large eggs

1½  cup superfine or castor sugar (if you don’t have this, take regular sugar and grind it in a food processor)

2½ cups flour (critical ingredient!)

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

zest of one large lemon

Preheat oven to 400℉. Grease madeleine pan with butter. Whisk the eggs and sugar with an electric until the mixture turns white and triples in volume. Slowly fold in the flour and butter, then the vanilla and lemon zest. Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Makes 24

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 8-10 minutes

As you can see this is a fairly simple recipe. That being said, however, I had a tough time with this one. Maybe I was tired; maybe I was distracted (twin 11-year-old boys clamoring for the finished product); but the first batch was an unholy mess. When preparing the batter, I noticed it looked a bit odd. Perhaps a bit too thin and almost curdled. Oh well, I thought, it is probably suppose to be this way. What did I know, I had never made madeleines before! After 10 minutes, I looked into the stove. They...looked...done….even if they had an odd yellowish color. 

©2013 Chris Terrell

Proust is rolling over in his grave!

Once I took them out, however, they collapsed into a gooey mess in the pan. I was flummoxed.  What happened?, I thought. I glanced over at page 807 of the cookbook and there in plain Helvetica was the word FLOUR! Oh crap! I forgot the flour! In baking, that’s like forgetting to lower the landing gear on an Airbus A380 on approach to Narita International Airport. Perhaps the Insouciant Chef had finally lived up to his name!

©2013 Chris Terrell

Anyway, I rebounded and started over. I added the flour and put another batch in the oven and, a mere ten minutes later, out came perfect madeleines. My kids gobbled them up. I was redeemed!

When a Man Is Small, He Eats Twinkies!

M.F.K. Fisher, in her essay, When a Man is Small, wrote “[w]hen a man is small, he loves and hates food with a ferocity that soon dims.” Later she writes, “[S]ome foods are utterly delicious, and he thinks of them and tastes them with a sensuous passion which too often disappears completely with the years.”

This essay got me thinking about the foods I once loved but haven’t eaten in years and, quite frankly, would find revolting if forced to eat them now, even on a deserted island with Kira Knightly. These were foods that I once gobbled up with a mindless intensity, blissfully ignorant of their blandness, chemical notes, or over-processed and over-salted construction. But damn did I love them at the time! While I would like to say that the following chronological list reveals some kind of culinary growth, each one is as banal as the one before it. Here they are: Vienna Sausages, T.V. Dinners, Hostess fried fruit pies, and Hot Pockets (don’t judge!).

OK, let’s start with the Vienna Sausage. That round, little, pale “sausage,” tightly packaged seven to a can. (This was actually a trivia question during trivia night at a local bar recently!). True story:  when my twin boys were just starting out on solid foods we gave them cans of what appeared to be Vienna sausages, but which were actually called “meat sticks.” I’m not kidding! I guess this was a marketing improvement?!  Well, I had to try one and, “oh my God!” I bleated, “these taste like shit!” Neither I nor my boys have had “meat sticks” since!

Moving up the culinary hierarchy, my next stop is an icon of Mad Men America: the T.V. Dinner! I’m talking about that aluminum, four-sectioned,  school-lunch-tray variety of the late 60s and 70s. Damn, did I love T.V. dinners. (When my Mom pulled one from the grocery sack, I got more excited that a senior citizen yelling “bingo!” at Shady Pines nursing home!) My favorite variety was fried chicken, perhaps because I grew up in the South; though this probably irked my Mom—though she didn’t show it—because she made damn good fried chicken. Of course, there was always that mystery desert at 12 O’clock. It was either some kind of chocolate or cherry concoction.

Speaking of cherry concoction, the next item on my list is the Hostess fried fruit pie. I must have eaten one of these every day for lunch for six or seven years. They came in various fruit flavors: cherry, blueberry, apple, and peach. As if the caloric count was not high enough, they also came in cream flavors, such as lemon, chocolate, and vanilla. My favorites, however, were the fruit ones, especially blueberry. Recently, I was in a handy mart getting some water and Gatorade for one of my son’s soccer games, when I spied one of these puppies. Out of curiosity, I flipped it over to take a gander at the calorie count. (We didn’t have these in 1981, or if did, we ignored them!). Holy shit! It was something life 4,235 calories. That’s enough to feed an entire village in the developing world! Hell, that’s enough to feed half of Hollywood!

So, let’s move onto high school and college. Now we’ve come to the Hot Pocket. I have no idea who came up with this concept. And hopefully the person who did has been convicted as a war criminal at The Hague. For those of you who are not familiar with the “Hot Pocket” concept, it is a pastry (almost like an empanada) filled with cheese and some kind of “meat product”—not to be confused with the aforementioned “meat stick”. The Hot Pocket is placed in some kind of sleeve (at least it was) and put in the microwave for a couple of minutes. What comes out is benign looking, but filled with a molten core hotter than Three Mile Island. How I got through 11^th and 12^th grade and 4 years of college eating these things I do not know. But damn I loved them at the time.  The last time I ate one was June 22, 1993, and it made me deathly ill. I’ve not eaten one since. If I’m going to get sick on food now, it better be locally sourced foie gras or P.E.I. oysters.

What I knew now, I didn’t know then. And what I truly enjoyed then, I find vile now. Nonetheless, that doesn’t diminish the apparent joy such food gave me then. Everything is relative. Going back to Fisher’s essay I mentioned above, she wisely, and more eloquently than my oscitant ramblings, captured how our taste in food changes and how food changes us over time:

But we must grow old, and we must eat. It seems far from unreasonable, once these facts are accepted, for a man to set himself the pleasant task of educating his palate so that he can do the former not grudgingly and in spite of the latter, but easily and agreeably because of it.

So the next time you go to the grocery store and take your buggy down those aisles of highly processed exemplars of American industrial acumen, say to yourself: “Wow, I thought the frat parties were bad enough…. !”

Chili! Football!

© 2013 Chris Terrell

Chili and college football: 

Like Sonny & Cher!

Now that football season is in full swing, my culinary thoughts turn to chili, even if the thermometer still peaks into the 80s here in Alabama in mid-September, just a few days before the official start of fall. Chili is the ultimate dish for cooler/cold weather, which is my favorite time of year to cook. Full, rich food and crisp, cold air pair together like foie gras and Champagne. 

Now, when I talk about chili I mean chili con carne—with meat. None of this vegetarian or, God  forbid, vegan stuff for me. (Anthony Bourdain referred to veganism as the Taliban of vegetarianism.) I need serious protein to sustain me through the highs and lows of your typical grind-it-out SEC football contest.

Speaking of SEC football, I recently made my first batch of chili for the season during a highly hyped SEC game involving a love-him/hate-him quarterback and a love-him/hate-him football coach. I certainly needed more than chili to get me through that one! At least a six-pack!

I’ve been making chili for many years now. In fact, it may have been the first thing I made on my own for myself. (I don’t count the “Rookie Cookie” recipe from the kiddie section of the newspaper when I was a kid—I think it was something made with peanut butter.) I started off with a recipe from The Joy of Cooking and went from there. The great thing about chili is that it's cheap; you can make a lot of it to last you several days; and it gets better after a day or two. 

I never make my chili the same way twice, but here’s a pretty decent approximation of how I make it. I know there are several long-running feuds in the chili world: beans vs. no-beans; tomatoes vs. no tomatoes; blah, blah, blah. I don’t care. Take this recipe and flush it for all I care (this is chili after all!) or modify it as you see fit. 

The Insouciant Chef's Game-Day Chili

Serves 6-8.

Ingredients

2 lbs ground chuck or ground sirloin
1 15 oz. can of peeled whole tomatoes (crushed by hand)
2 8 oz. cans of light red kidney beans, drained (sometimes I go with dark in late winter….)
1 large red or Spanish onion, finely chopped
2 medium green, bell peppers, finely chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
3-4 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, finely chopped with sauce from the can depending on how hot you like it
Ancho chili powder
Chili powder
2-3 medium bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream, cheddar cheese, and sliced green onions to garnish

Preparation

Brown the ground meat in a sauté pan over medium-high heat until nicely browned.

Drain the fat and place meat into a large stock pot or Dutch oven.

Sauté the green peppers and onions in olive oil or butter for a minute or two and then sweat them for about 5 mins. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant (about a minute) and then add to stock pot.

Add everything else (add the powders until you get the desired heat) and heat to a very mild simmer and stir occasionally for about 2-3 hours while you watch football.

Garnish with some sour cream, cheddar cheese, sliced green onion, and serve with tortilla chips. Serve with good beer, though by this time in the game you have moved on to the PBR. And savor the victory if your team wins.  (Mine did, by the way!)

Friend Me on Facebook and Follow Me on Twitter!

As I hope my readers have noticed, I try to make my posts thoughtful. At least in the sense, that I put a lot of thought into them. This, of course, takes time, which is why, with a busy job and two kids, I do well to publish one post a week. There are times, however, when a random food-related thought pops in my head or I come across something on the Internet that is interesting. None of these necessarily warrants a full-blown post. Consequently, I've created a Baked, Roasted, or Fried Facebook page (www.facebook.com/bakedroastedfried) and an Insouciant Chef Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/ctt3970). These will also have the added benefit of allowing more interaction with my readers. Consider these blogosphere's version of an amuse bouche!

Bon appétit!

Restaurant Review: el barrio restaurante y bar

El Barrio (Spanish for “the neighborhood), is located in Birmingham’s increasingly hip loft district. Don't let the name fool you, however, this is not your standard Tex-Mex restaurant. This is Tex-Mex with a twist because the chef/owners are not your typical Tex-Mex kinda guys. Brian Somershield and Geoff Lockert are graduates of Frank Stitt’s French-inspired kitchens, while the chief de cuisine, Neville Baay, is a classically trained private chef from New Zealand, who didn’t know anything about Mexican food before coming to El Barrio. No matter, because these guys are taking local, fresh Southern ingredients, classical cooking techniques, and using Mexican flavors as a building block to put together some of the most creative dishes in Birmingham.

For example, take their meatloaf. This is not June Cleaver’s meatloaf, but rather chorizo meatloaf with spinach, cotija-mashed potatoes & ranchera sauce. This being the South, there is even a corn dish, called Elote Asado (grilled corn on the cob, cotija, cilantro, chile and lime) and okra with fried with masa and served with spicy cabbage, chipotle, sour cream, cilantro and lime. Of course, you can still get tacos here, which you can order al a carte. There is the classic al pastor, made with chile-marinated pork and charred pineapple salsa. This is my favorite. Then there is the barbacoa, made with slow roasted beef, queso fresco, chipotle, cilantro, onion; and veraduras, made with avocado, charred corn, jicama, pico de gallo, pepitas, and house-made sour cream. There’s even a hamburger, the Barrio Burger, which is juicy and served with pickled onions and spicy mayo. Either bring a friend or ask for a to-go box.

Because this restaurant is built on a Tex-Mex chassis, you can still find chips and salsa and margaritas on the menu. But even these staples are given the El Barrio twist. The salsa is made fresh daily and is a little bit different every day. Some days, it may have corn, while other days, it could even have pineapple or mango. You just don’t know. 

Now let’s talk about the margaritas. El Barrio serves four different margaritas, and I must confess that I’ve tried them all and, yes, all in one evening. They are the El Barrio
(Sauza, Patron Citronge, lime, orange, & tamarind); the Tradicional (Cazadores, Grand Marnier, and lime); the Grapefruit Margarita (Sauza, lime, and grapefruit); and the Mescal (Monte Alban, El Jimador, lime, and agave nectar). While the El Barrio usually works in a pinch, if it is a Friday night, and I’m happy the work week is done, and I’m feeling particularly festive, then I go with the Mescal.

All this great food is served in a casual, but chic setting with reclaimed, rustic wood, zinc-top tables, and lights made from industrial roof-vents. (Think nice jeans and crisp plain black t-shirts.) One side of the restaurant consists of a floor-to-ceiling, Diego Rivera-inspired mural of curious complexity. Finally, all this is served by an efficient and attentive, but friendly wait and bar staff. 

Show up hungry, but be prepared to wait. El Barrio doesn’t take reservations, and the place fills up quickly. By  6:15pm you're waiting at the bar (not such a bad thing, however).

THE BASICS:

el barrio restaurante y bar 

2211 2nd Ave. N., Birmingham, AL
205.868.3737

Atmosphere 
Rustic, casual chic and cool lighting; large mural worth a table with a view. 

Sound level
Loud and lively.

Recommended 
Chorizo meatloaf, Al Pastor tacos, and Barrio Burger

Drinks and wine 
The wine list is not extensive, but has some good basics in all price ranges. Your best bet is to stick with Spanish or South American reds. My favorite is the Spanish red, Atteca Garnacha. Of course, the aforementioned margaritas never disappoint.

Hours
Tue–Fri Lunch: 11am-3pm
Tue–Fri Dinner: 5pm-10pm
Saturday Brunch: 10:30am-2pm
Saturday Dinner: 5pm-10pm
Closed Sunday & Monday

Reservations 
Not Accepted.