tropical fried catfish 'n grits

When I first looked at the ingredients I was given by my dear friend Brian for our bit of culinary fun, I was initially a little scared. Smoked almonds, bananas, kale, and catfish (although he initially chose the even scarier gefilte fish) -- I was seriously beginning to question whether these could be brought together into one cohesive dish.

Banana vinaigrette on kale-wrapped catfish filets? Mashed green bananas layered with catfish and kale for a mock-shepherd's pie? What the hell was I supposed to do with smoked almonds? I could work with three of the ingredients, but always had a problem incorporating the fourth. Sometimes it was the almonds that gave me fits, but more often it was the bananas -- their texture when cooked leaves a little to be desired, unless you're eating bananas Foster or banana bread. But in a conversation with my other foodie friend, Gavin, my problem was solved.

"Do you have a dehydrator?" he asked. Um, no. Ron Popeil devotees notwithstanding, who keeps a food dehydrator in their house?

"Because some dried bananas might provide a nice crunch."

Crunch. Catfish. Fried catfish. Traditional, yes, but still -- how about pulverizing some banana chips? Hmmm... and the smoked almonds, too. And mixing them with some breadcrumbs for a slightly sweet and nutty breading? Bingo.

What to serve it with? Grits, duh. Fried catfish and grits are perhaps the pinnacle of what southern cuisine has to offer this great nation. And the kale? Treat it like the über-traditional collard greens, but upscale -- and with the tropical notes in the fish, perhaps a pan-Asian flare?

It all sounds crazy, but it was crazy good. So here's the recipe...the picture will have to get uploaded later since I forgot my camera at work, but I'll definitely make this again:

grits
1 cup grits
1/2 cup water
salt
white pepper
2 1/2 TB quick-cooking grits
2 TB butter

Combine the milk, water, and a pinch of salt and pepper in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the grits and simmer until soft (1-2 minutes). Finish with butter. Taste for seasoning and adjust thickness with milk if necessary.

ginger and kale with bell peppers
1 pound kale, chopped roughly
kosher salt
2 TB vegetable oil
1 TB grated ginger
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
3 TB soy sauce
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp of sugar

Blanch the kale in a large pot of boiling salted water (should taste like the ocean), stirring occasionally until the stems are almost cooked (about 6-8 minutes). Drain and dry well (in a salad spinner or squeezed in a clean towel). Set aside until ready to finish.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ginger and peppers and sauté until they begin to soften (2-3 minutes). Add the kale and cook until warmed through. Add the soy sauce, pepper, and sugar.

tropical fried catfish
1/4 cup dried banana chips
1/4 cup smoked and salted almonds
1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs (fresh is preferable)
1/2 cup AP flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 catfish fillets, about 6 oz. each
kosher salt
black pepper

Grind the almonds and banana chips in a food processor until fine (2-4 minutes). Combine with breadcrumbs and set aside. Season both sides of catfish fillets with kosher salt and black pepper, then dredge lightly in flour. Dip each fillet in egg and then bread with the breadcrumb mixture.

Heat a 12" skillet over medium-high heat with enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pan until the oil shimmers. Fry the breaded catfish in the pan, about 3 minutes per side. Drain on newspaper or paper towels when cooked and serve immediately.

plate assembly (serves 4 light eaters or two heavy ones)
Divide the hot grits in the bottoms of four (or two) wide bowls and top each with a fried catfish fillet. Mound the kale and peppers on top of the catfish and serve with several ice-cold beers, preferably from Louisiana.

surpise ingredients...

As mentioned previously, two friends and I have agreed to take part in a Next Iron Chef-style throw-down. Brian, Gavin, and I have chosen ingredients for each other and will be working on our dishes post haste. In addition, you can look forward to them guest-blogging about their experiences as well.

Without further ado, the secret ingredients:

• Brian selected the following ingredients for me: catfish, bananas, kale, and smoked almonds.
• Gavin selected the following for Brian: bacon, curry, water chestnuts, cabbage (any kind), and oyster sauce.
• Finally, I selected the following for Gavin: turkey drumsticks, ricotta cheese, shiitake mushrooms, and semolina flour.

Our agreed upon rules allow for use of standard pantry items (which for us can be pretty off-the-wall), but the spirit of the game asks us to feature our chosen ingredients. It will take us a few days to create our masterpieces, I'm sure, but look for dishes soon, along with photos of our wannabe-haute cuisine.

Until then, eat well!

surprise, surprise, surprise...

This week's episode of the Next Iron Chef America challenged the chefs two ways. First, they got to choose the "secret" ingredients for each other. They could have been really mean to each other, but for the most part the combos that they doled out were not terribly outrageous. After that, they found out that they had to cook outside on grills and with a very limited pantry.

I was thinking about something I might be able to cook that was inspired by this episode when it hit me -- I could invite two friends to join me in choosing ingredients for each other and then we would all share our thoughts and recipes.

Very graciously, my buds Brian and Gavin agreed to join in this fun. We're in the process of selecting ingredients for each other and then will get on to cooking them up.

Check back for the ingredient lists and the follow-up post with a recap of our experiences!

sous vide steak

This week's episode of The Next Iron Chef featured a theme of opposites: the first challenge was all about simplicity and creating the perfect amuse bouche, while the second challenge was about getting downright freaky with food -- the chefs had to produce two dishes using a multitude of "molecular gastronomy" inspired appliances and chemicals.

While neither molecular gastronomy nor its tools are new to the culinary world, none of the chosen chef-testants seemed to be at all familiar with any of it. At all. In fact, the easiest (and most ubiquitous) technique of molecular gastronomy -- sous vide -- seemed almost revelatory for some of the chefs. In this technique, food is placed under a vacuum (the literal definition of sous vide) and then immersed in water or placed in a special oven at a low temperature -- typically the desired temperature of doneness. For steak, that can range from 120-145F, (depending on how you like it), while chicken breasts are typically cooked to 160F. The food is then left for anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days -- the great thing about this technique is that you can't overcook your food, as it will never get hotter than the surrounding air or water.

Danger alert: At temperatures lower than 140F, dangerous bacteria can multiply pretty rapidly, possibly causing extreme gastrointestinal distress, or worst case scenario, death. For this reason, I do not recommend that home cooks utilize this technique for longer than three hours.

OK, now that that bit of scariness is over - I decided to try a hybrid technique that I adapted from British chef (and famous molecular gastronomist) Heston Blumenthal. He suggests slowly cooking a steak in a very low oven (130-140F) for up to 24 hours and then slapping it in a very hot pan for a few seconds to develop a nice crust. My oven doesn't get that low -- 170 is its lower limit. My crock pot set to "warm," however, will hold water at about 125-130F for two to three hours without having to make any manual adjustments. (In testing, I did have to add ice after about 4 hours to bring the temperature back into the correct range.)

Knowing this, I liberally salted and peppered three dry-aged NY strip steaks and then rubbed them down with smashed garlic and a bit of olive oil. Next, I sealed them up, using a recent Christmas present from my wife -- the FoodSaver Advanced Design Vacuum Sealer. I would say that it did a fairly good job of removing most of the air. There was probably less than a quarter-sized bubble left in there -- this showing up only after the bag was heated, which makes sense since even 130 degree air takes up more space than the cool air of my kitchen.

By the way, FoodSaver does not in any way, shape, or form advocate the use of their product for sous vide cooking. Neither does the maker of my Crock Pot, Rival Corp. Both of these companies, when called, said something to the effect of "we do not condone or endorse the use of our product for that purpose." That being said, I didn't feel like I was taking my life into my own hands, as I was keeping everything meticulously clean, etc., etc.

So, I dropped the sealed bag of meat into the lukewarm water and waited. And waited. I knew that our dinner guests would be arriving at about 7 pm, so that gave the steaks about 3 hours in their warm bath. Right before we sat down for dinner, I removed the steaks from the vacuum bag and took their temperature -- Hallelujah! Each one was clocking in at 131F -- perfectly medium-rare. The problem, of course, was that they were 131 degrees through-and-through. There was no crust -- I had a steak that was all "inside."

No problem, of course, as shortly before the company arrived, I fired up my grill and left it on its hottest setting. I took the steaks and slapped them on the ripping-hot grill, leaving them there for 30 seconds before I gave them a 60 degree turn to create some nice hatch-marks. I then flipped them over and did the same thing. Total time on grill -- about 2 minutes. For curiosity's sake, I took the steaks' temperature again and they managed to go up to about 135 -- still in the perfectly acceptable medium-rare range.

The steaks didn't have to rest much, since they weren't subjected to very much intense heat. As soon as I brought them to the table, I sliced them against the grain and served them to my guests. Every one of them commented that these were absolutely incredible -- possibly the best they had ever had -- and I agree with them. They had everything that I look for in a perfect steak -- beefy flavor, well seasoned, nice crust, tender and pink inside, and terrifically juicy.

While you can achieve this on a grill by itself, there is no way that you could get the steak so uniformly cooked -- these steaks had an almost micron-thin outer gray layer, while the rest was juicy, pink perfection. Anyway, if you're up for some food science fun, give this technique a try. You won't be disappointed!

goat milk rice pudding

I watched the premier of the Next Iron Chef on the Food Network this weekend (a blow-by-blow account can be found here). Eight already-famous chefs (at least to foodies) from around the country were invited to compete to become the fifth Iron Chef. Their first challenge was to disassemble several types of protein and vegetation (debone a chicken, fillet a salmon, French a rack of lamb, shuck some mollusks, etc.). This was probably a tough challenge for some, as all of these chefs have brigades working for them whose job it is to prep ingredients -- Chef Traci Des Jardins even admitted as much. Anyway, I initially thought this to be all about speed, but in reality it was about efficiency -- in other words, quality speed. The winner wasn't the first chef (Morou) who finished, rather, it was the first chef who finished everything up to host Alton Brown's exacting standards - Aarón Sanchez.

The second challenge was a bit more difficult for two reasons. First, it was a dessert challenge, -- and if you watch any reality food shows, you know that chefs usually have no dessert chops whatsoever. Second, the Chairman apparently likes weird desserts, because the chefs were required to incorporate some very odd proteins into one of their two sweet concoctions. The other had no requirements, save for using what was available to them. This was made even more difficult because standard dessert components like cream, sugar, or butter were not available. Improvisation abounded and some fairly decent looking desserts were made.

The weirdest thing I noticed, though, was that two chefs -- independent of each other -- made a goat milk rice pudding as their non-weird dessert. The judging panel wasn't exactly wowed by the rice pudding (in fact, one was deemed to al dente) -- but the thought of making rice pudding with goat's milk haunted me (in a good way) all day. I already knew what I would do -- as soon as I got home from work, I would just replace the cow's milk with goat's milk in my favorite rice pudding recipe. Luckily, my grocery store carries Meyenberg Goat Milk (in both whole and low-fat varieties) and I had everything else I needed.

The results? Nothing short of wow. I love rice pudding, but often find that its flavor is kind of one-dimensional -- it usually needs cinnamon, orange zest, or a little rum to wake it up. Not anymore. The goat milk brings a complexity to the pudding that is, to quote the fake James Lipton (played by Will Ferrell), scrumptrulescent. It is grassy and reminiscent of spring, although the warm rice pudding would be a great addition to a cold autumn night.

I urge you to try it -- the sugar kind of tames the "gameyness" normally associated with goat milk. This single substitution elevated rice pudding from stodgy (if not comforting) to sublime.

goat milk rice pudding
2 1/2 c water
1 1/2 c goat milk
1/3 c sugar
1 c arborio rice
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
toasted pistachios for garnish

Combine the water, milk, sugar, salt, and rice in a 3 quart saucepan. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to low (the mixture should be just barely simmering). Cook uncovered for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The pudding should be thick but still wet and the rice should be cooked through. If the pudding is too stiff toward the end of cooking, feel free to add water a tablespoon at a time until the pudding is the consistency you desire. Add the vanilla off the heat. Serve warm or cold, sprinkled with pistachios for crunch.

If you are a sweet-n-salty lover and want to get real adventurous, sprinkle some crumbled feta on top as well.

a bit of kitchen alchemy

I was reading this article in the NY Times (written by Mr. Food Science himself, Harold McGee) and was fascinated by the atypical use of gelatin to filter any particulate matter out of a stock or puree, resulting in a liquid which possesses the flavor essences of whatever you happened to be making -- essentially a way to make a consommé of whatever you might want.

That got me to thinking (sometimes dangerous, in this case helpful). One of the things that separate restaurant chefs from home cooks is the chef's access to various stocks -- an ingredient that most home cooks don't have the time or inclination to prepare. As such, we are left with broths in various forms (home made, concentrates, pastes, boullion, and ready-to-use). These are fine products, especially if you have access to quality brands. But they lack one very special thing: gelatin.

Stocks are usually made of the bones of an animal. Either freshly butchered or roasted, they are then slowly and gently simmered, allowing the various proteins in connective tissues (collagen chief among them) to turn into gelatin. Sometimes aromatic vegetables are included, but salt almost never is, as stocks are usually reduced later and would then become too salty. Stocks are then typically clarified by some means and then refrigerated, ready to use at a moment's notice.

Home made broths are usually made from the meat of an animal. While the meat is full of flavor and protein, it's not the kind of protein that will turn into gelatin. This is a problem, as it is the gelatin in a stock that gives it, to quote Alton Brown, "lip-smacking goodness." Essentially, gelatin provides a fatty, unctuous mouthfeel (in a good way) that gives soups and sauces more substance.

My immediate thought was, "Why not add gelatin to a broth?" I tried it and, frankly, it works. One packet of gelatin for every 6 cups of liquid gave it the same texture as long-simmered stock and filled in remarkably well where stocks were called for. So feel free to experiment with this substitution.

If you're in need of a recipe, try this one for mushroom barley soup if you are in an area that is starting to get chilly:

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion , cut into medium dice
2 medium carrots , cut into medium dice
2 medium celery stalks, cut into medium dice
12 ounces domestic mushrooms or wild mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thin
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup canned tomatoes , cut into medium dice
6 cups chicken stock (home made or a quality store brand)
1 packet unflavored gelatin
1 cup pearl barley
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley leaves
Table salt and ground black pepper

Heat oil over medium-high heat in a soup kettle or Dutch oven. Add onion, celery, and carrots; sauté until almost soft, 3 to 4 minutes. Add mushrooms; sauté until softened and liquid almost evaporates, 4 to 5 minutes longer. Add thyme, bay, and tomatoes, then broth, gelatin, and barley; bring to simmer. Reduce heat to low; simmer until barley is just tender, 45 to 50 minutes. Stir in parsley, adjust seasonings, including salt and pepper to taste, and serve.