Knife's Edge - Restaurant Rants & Raves

I Guess It's the Hustling Hotties

This just in from one of our new customers "gives Delfina a run for their money. Now I can show off to my SF friends".

I'm telling you, get good-looking people to be courteous, hard-working and caring and you'll go a long way.

BTW, "hustling hotties" is what the most recent Zagat called our staff.

Quoth the Raven

I'll get back to real blogging anonce. I just got our new computer set up(yes, we had one go down, no data lost but still a couple of days of reconfiguration.) For the time being here's a pic of Edgar lit and unlit.

Mummy

A big "aw shucks" goes out to all who commented on the pumpkins. Ced I'll tell you how quickly. Get your picture, preferably a B&W image though that doesn't really matter. Get it onto your computer. If you have a program like Paint Shop or something like that  open the picture with that program and then outline the head or main image in a lighter color then eliminate the background. Greyscale the image and if you feel it's necessary adjust the contrast to bring out the details. PSP has a "posterize" function which essentially reduces the colors in the image. Use that function. Then replace some of the grey colors until you have 3 colors, black, light grey and white. You might need to replace some of the darker grey with black. Remove any speckles by coloring in with the main color from that area. If the area is predominantly white, with a few speckles of grey and the grey isn't part of a detail like the hair or something, color it white, etc. Now, make sure there are no unconnected black or grey areas in the middle of white areas. Widen any thin black or grey areas which look like they might break during carving. Now, turn this manipulated image into a negative.

To carve your pumpkin, wash the pumpkin well. Use a glue stick or spray adhesive to place your pattern on the pumpkin. Obviously you have prepared the pumpkin by cutting the requisite hole and removing the seeds. I cut the hole through the bottom as it is easier to light that way. If you have a very thick pumpkin you'll do well to scrape away some of the inner wall behind your pattern.

Here's where the Dremel is really handy. If you have one you can just start carving, leaving the paper on the pumpkin. If you are using hand tools you first have to poke holes through the pattern to trace it (BTW, print an extra pattern for a reference). Once this is done, remove the pattern and start to carve. The grey areas you're carving the flesh away but not going through, the black areas you are cutting and removing entirely and the white areas are being left alone. Voila, a mummy. I know this isn't a great photo but I think this one is hard to photograph because there are very few actual holes where the light comes through and the flash gets in the way. So Biggles, I may be able to carve for the competition but I sure can't photograph. This is a poor example of the process. Johnny Cash is a better example of the photo transfer.

A few tips. A nail or something sturdy is a good poker. The pumpkin carving kits in the supermarket actually have decent little saws in them. For carving the fine lines I have a Speedball carving kit that is used for I believe, linoleum block prints. It's got a little handle and a few changeable tips that look like "vees". Don't remove the entirely cut-out areas until you're finished carving.

Then stick your light underneath and in the areas where not much light is coming through, scrape away the inner wall. I have a clay working tool that makes a good scraper. I also recommend using a constant light source like a bulb rather than a flickering candle. The candle does provide some mood and ambiance but you want the world to see your creation dammit and that flickering light just doesn't cut it.

Next up (hopefully) Edgar Allen Poe.

I haven't forgot about you pig enthusiasts, but Halloween has me sidetracked. We'll get to headcheese in a bit.

The First Pumpkin of the Season

Has come and and gone. He lasted only two days because I had a 25 watt bulb in him. The new one, of which I don't have an acceptable photo, should fare better since he's only being lit with a 15 watter.

Halloween is by far our favorite holiday, as anyone who knows us would guess. It's the only one we really decorate the restaurant for. Last year I carved probably 10 pumpkins total, made anatomical displays for the entryway and meringue bones for mignardises.

We've also started closing for Halloween night and having an employee appreciation party. This year we're having it at our house rather than the restaurant. I'm thinking a cauldron of bollito misto.

This one of Johnny, is from last year. He had died that year and I swear he visited the pumpkin since after he had been glowing in the window a day or two the pumpkin literally hopped off its base and dropped to the floor.

This year I should be able to really go nuts since the GM bought a Dremel. I tried it on the pirate above and didn't really like it and reverted to the hand tools, but this morning I did the mummy (photo later) with it and it ROCKED. I loved it, except for the noise.

Sausage Formulas

When making sausage I use percentages, like bakers do. This way the recipe can be immediately adjusted to the amount of product you're trying to produce or the amount of meat you have. The following are my notes from a sausage class I taught at the farm where we buy our pigs. Among the interesting people attending were a fellow who told me he has lived for the last 15 years on roadkill and a couple just back from Peru, who gave me this:

Look closely at that package. I don't think I'll be drinking this myself but I guess it's a fun thing to have as a curiosity. Onto the formulas

2-3 % salt is the norm. Fat should be between 15-25%. A good pork shoulder usually has the right ratio. If it seems lean to you, add back fat. Many commercial products have up to 50% fat. The seasoning percentages are for total meat and fat. Example: 4# meat + 3/4# fat (64 oz X .2=12.8oz). Total mass for seasoning is 4.75# or 76 oz. For the Italian formula below this equals 1.5 oz of salt and fennel seed, 1.5 oz fresh chopped garlic or .75 oz garlic powder, and .375 oz chile flakes. The smaller amounts can be converted to grams to make measuring easier. There are 28 grams per oz so 42 grams each salt, fennel and fresh garlic, or 21 grams garlic powder, 10 grams chile flakes.

 

Italian Sausage:

 

2% salt

2% fennel seed

2% garlic or 1% garlic powder

.5% red chile flakes

 

 

Chorizo:

2.5% salt

1 jalapeno per 2# meat

.25 C red wine vinegar per 2# meat

1% ancho chile

2% paprika

.75% cumin

.375% black pepper

.375% cayenne

.15% coriander

1 bunch cilantro per 2# meat

 

Breakfast Sausage:

 

3% salt

1% sage

1% black pepper

.25% red chile flakes

.5% thyme

 

Andouille:

 

2% salt

3% paprika

2% garlic

2% sugar

1% black pepper

.75% cayenne

.375% red chile flakes

.15% thyme

Pinch mace

.5 C water per 5# meat

I usually grind everything together to help with the distribution of the spices. Your grinder should be  cold, your meat should be cold. I put both the grinder parts and the cubed meat in the freezer until I'm ready to grind. If the meat and grinder are warm, the mixture will be mushy and crushed, not ground.

The next step is quite important. Mix well. You really want to work the mixture and force a semi-emulsification. Otherwise when you go to cook these the fat will exit immediately and you'll be left with a crumbly, dry, flavorless sausage. For a fully emulsified sausage like a frankfurter, you'll take a bit of ice water and combine that with the meat mixture in your food processor and run the machine until the mixture is gummy.

Many grinders come with a stuffer attachment so you can grind and stuff in one pass. These usually go too fast for me and I'd rather have the control that stuffing by hand affords. Unfortunately that means investing in a sausage stuffer, which is essentially a large cylinder with a screw-driven pusher on the open end which forces the mixture into the stuffing horn, over which you have put a casing. Casing the sausage and tying them is my favorite part of the process (well, other than the eating) so I wouldn't be without one but for the home sausage enthusiast it might be a bit much. If you don't want to deal with casings you can certainly for the sausage into patties, or alternately, roll into a log in plastic wrap, tie the ends well, cover with aluminum foil and poach gently to make the sausage shape. Or use the stuffer attachment on your grinder. I beleive Kitchen-Aid has one.

For casings the most practical for home use are regular pork casings. These are the small intestine of a pig. Your butcher should be able to order you some. For larger sausages like cotechino you'll need what they call hog middles. These are also what chitterlings are made from and to some have a strong smell. For really large sausages like braunschweiger, mortadella, cervelats, etc you'll need hog or beef bung which is just what you think it is.

All natural casings should be well rinsed, commercial varietites mostly to remove the salt in which they are packed. Put one open end over the tap of your sink and run the water through. Place over the stuffing horn like you're putting on a condom, being careful not to let air get inbetween the casing and the horn, tie one end in a simple knot and you're ready to go. As you extrude the sausage mixture be careful of air bubbles, this is less crucial on fresh sausages (ones you'll eat in a few days) than it is fermented sausages like salami but it's still good practice to keep your sausages bubble free. If you see a major pocket, prick it with a needle or a push pin. Once all your mixture has come through the stuffer, tie the other end. Don't make the sausage too tight if you intend to tie them, otherwise they have a tendency to break.

The way I tie is really easy, but too complicated for me to describe by writing, so you'll just have to find me and get a demonstration if you want to learn that part of it.

Makin' Bacon

So, where were we with this pig? I think at this point we should have some hams brining. Now onto the bacon. Just about any fatty piece can be cured and if you wish, smoked. A year or so ago guanciale (jowl bacon) was all the rage, now chefs are pushing lardo (salted back fat, although it sounds like Madison Avenue's idea of a "new and improved" product. Buy Lardo!). There's American bacon, known as streaky bacon in other countries, British back bacon, pancetta, Canadian bacon (known there as "ham", a cured, smoked loin), there's also streak o'lean (American lardo) & salt pork (more American lardo).

The last item really says it all. We're talking salt & pork here. Other ingredients like sugar & aromatics, or other processes like smoke, are optional. Myself I use 5 parts salt to 4 parts sugar. From there you need 1 ounce of that mixture per pound of pork. Rub it in well, place in a container, cover with plastic wrap and put something on top of it for weight. I usually stack hotel pans with the other parts of the pig that are awaiting processing to start things off. Liquid will leach out of the meat and some of the sugar will turn to liquid as well so you'll want to drain this after a few days. Two weeks or so for your basic cure will be fine.

If you're then doing anything like guanciale or pancetta you'll want to hang this. Somewhere cool,  basements are great if you have one that you can keep rodent-free. For pancetta, rub some garlic, black peppercorns and red chile flakes onto the meat side of your belly. Roll into a tight log, tie with butcher's twine and then age approximately 1 month. Traditionally you'd do this pressed between planks and progressively tighten them but most of us don't have the setup for this. Also, you might want to just use straight salt for the curing mix for pancetta rather than the salt/sugar mixture. A friend from Switzerland remarked how sweet most American cured pork products are. Guanciale you'll rub with chiles and black pepper and let hang for about 45 days. I use our keg fridges for curing. They're set at about 50 degrees, a little cooler than I'd really want for the curing and a little bit on the dry side but it's a good compromise. My sous calls these types of preparation "pork lox"

For American bacon after your belly has cured for about 2 weeks, get the smoker going (your choice of wood, I usually use apple) and smoke to your desired degree of smoke flavor. If you have dogs don't don't do this in the backyard. Believe me, I learned the hard way.

Tomorrow sausage formulas. Yes, I said formulas.

Four Star Digression

Last Sunday we got some major press. Not the cover of Food & Wine or anything but for us, major press. We saw it was out the morning we were leaving for our monthly SF trip. So, when we got to the city we decided we needed to celebrate. The recent review of The Ritz Carlton stuck in my mind, especially the description of the spot prawn sashimi, with deep fried shrimp heads, fresh wasabi and the two slurries of salt & lemon juice.

When I made the reservation they asked if we were celebrating a special occasion. I said, "Yes, we just got a glowing review in the ....". They asked if we had any dietary restrictions or allergies and at first I said no but called back immediately after to say that we didn't drink alcohol, thinking they might send a glass of champagne or something to mark the special occasion.

When we arrived the staff was wonderfully attentive, despite my lack of a jacket. We decided to try the 9 course tasting meal, since it was described as being two entirely different courses for each person, customized to our preferences. The GM has some fussy food likes and dislikes, which were handled with aplomb by the staff at Nobu last year and we figured the Ritz should be used to dealing with special requests.

I'm not going to describe all the food because I took no notes, and frankly the food was mostly unmemorable. I wish we had had the experience  Fatemeh  & C. did. Instead I'm going to talk about how they handled the evening.

There was no mention of our "special occasion". Now why would you ask for the information if you're not going to do anything with it? I'm sure the reservationist had a high-speed connection right in front of him. Using my name and the and the publication's name he'd have seen we were restaurateurs. Given that information they had an opportunity to really make an impression and wow us with something that we'd talk about for years.

Then the alcohol thing. Again, if you are armed with this information why would you present wine lists ? Or send out food with alcohol based gelees, which happened at least twice during the meal.

The 9 courses were basically selections from the current menu. Nothing wrong with that but the way it was represented was a bit different. Like we'd be getting something other than what was listed. The sashimi was good but not the experience Bauer raved about and the flavors in all the courses were exceedingly subtle.

Two thoughts occurred. One: we are coarse, peasant-like Philistines with palates like tongue depressors or Two: the chef is deliberately toning down the food in order to not overpower a wine a diner might order. I also realized we had had a similar reaction to the food when we tried Charles Nob Hill when Ron Siegal was chef there.

We left still on a high from our recent good news, but while we could have been exhilarated we were both a little disappointed. And certainly much poorer.

Don't get me wrong. None of the food was bad and there were some fun moments. The candy cart at the end of the meal is a nice touch. The technique in the kitchen was impeccable. Tiny brunoise lemon zest in the sauce (twice actually), wonderful texture on the panna cotta, excellent presentation of the salmon course with the sauce running down the special steamer plate to form an additional course below the original plate. But they seem unlike Ben and Karen Barker, afraid of flavor. My sous chef joked that perhaps we missed the part on the menu which read "flavor, $50 supplement".

The real quibble I have is the lack of personal attention. I felt as though I had been through the "special occasion" machine. The service was attentive, but soulless. When we hear about people's celebrations we try to wow them on the fly as it were. Actually we try to wow everyone, but when hear people are celebrating we try to make it more special, even if it's just something like making sugar numbers to decorate their dessert to commemorate an anniversary. If we had a whole day to prepare and if were billing ourselves as a special occasion restaurant I'd like to think we'd treat visiting cooks and general managers like royalty. And if they didn't drink we'd respect that in every way possible.

Does this sound nit-picky? Perhaps it's just me but when I ask someone a question I'd like to think I really listen to the answer and hopefully respond appropriately.

I didn't post this to slam the Ritz. I'm certainly not saying don't go there. I do think they blew the details though.

I also realized I am just not a four star kind of guy. I sometimes have fantasies about opening another "better" (read pricier, smaller) place but I realized that is just not who I am. I don't want a hushed atmosphere, where people feel intimidated (our waiter at the Ritz's words, not mine). I want a lively place where people feel great about themselves. Hopefully that's what we have.

Our great news continued with the release of the 2006 Zagat. Although our food numbers remained the same (I'll go into the Zagat ceiling in another post), our service numbers climbed higher with the staff being described as "hustling hotties". We're closing for Halloween to have a staff party. Anyone who knows us and our staff will know why. We're having t-shirts made to give them  which read either <our name> Hustling Hottie, or Zagat Rated Hustling Hottie. What's your vote ?

Back to the pig soon.

Hamming it Up

I've been typing recipes for the last few hours. We changed the dessert menu tonight and we're leaving for SF on Sunday morning so I needed to make sure all the new items are in the book before we leave. So I'm tired of typing recipes. But I didn't want to leave you folks sitting there with your pig in many pieces and not knowing how to proceed. I probably won't finish in this post (I have to sleep sometime) but I'll get you started.

Before we go on too much further though I should say I was remiss in not having you make a curing mixture and brine before you started cutting. To start you'll need salt and sugar. I use sea salt for pretty much everything in my kitchen, kosher salt works well also. If you're a kosher salt user you might have to put a little bit more salt in your mix than I do because the granules are larger.

So 5 parts salt to 4 parts sugar. That's easy huh?  From there season according to your use. I usually add 4 or so bay leaves, and a small handful of black peppercorns. For use with smoked bacon I'll add a Tbs of cloves, one of coriander and a few grinds of allspice. For unsmoked, cured bellies (like pancetta) I'll increase the peppercorns slightly, add a Tbs of red chile flakes and 2-3 Tbs of garlic.

To turn this into brine use 1 qt of mixture to 1 gallon of water. Again season according to use. For brining hams I'll add 30 or so juniper berries, 10 cloves, 15 allspice berries, 3-4 bay leaves and a quarter cup of peppercorns per gallon. I go back and forth on mirepoix and usually think it doesn't add to the mix. I will however toss in any parsley stems that happen to be lying around. Bring this to a boil and then cool it down before using. This way you have a useful brine bucket before you start the butchery.

While you can get quite scientific about brining hams a la Paul Bertolli's very complicated ham curing recipe you can have a more relaxed approach to the process as well. The main thing is you want to get the brine into the ham and the best way to do this is with a brine injector. If you think this looks like something your dentist uses on you, you're pretty much right. It's a giant syringe, with a blunt tip and holes in the needle part of it. You suck the brine up into the syringe, poke it into the meat and slowly inject the brine into the muscle. You can see the muscle swell so you can be sure you're getting it inside. If you were really desperate and you had a smallish leg you could conceivably get by with savagely stabbing the leg with a knitting needle hundreds of times and hope that all the brine penetrates. The issue here is spoilage folks. This needs to cure for around 2 weeks, give or take. What happens to unsalted meat after 2 weeks in your refrigerator? So if you intend on making any hams, break down and buy a brine injector. You're worth it.

Take your time, make sure you inject all the way into the deepest part of the muscle. Do this in a container because the brine will leak out of the holes you're making. You may have to pierce the skin with the tip of your knife because the end of the brine injector is blunt.

Once you're sure you've gotten brine to every bit of the interior you need to cover the entire leg with brine. Then you let this cure for approximately 2 weeks. You can cook it after 10 days and I'm not sure I'd keep it any longer than 3 weeks. A word of caution, this ham will not be pink. There are no nitrites in the brine so the ham will be greyish/brownish. If you or your loved ones have to have a pink ham, you'll have to use curing salt or sodium nitrite. Strengths of the mixtures differ. You should refer to your particular mixture for how much to use for your batch of brine. The taste will also be slightly affected. I'm not a no nitrite kind of guy. Like most things, when used in excess it's not so good but in small quantities just fine.

I won't instruct you on roasting the ham once it's ready. You can come up with your favorite ham recipe on your own. I will say that once brined you can also smoke the ham if you have a smoker big enough, but I prefer the taste of unsmoked ham.

That's it for tonight. I know we still have a big pile of pork to get through but that's all I can do for now.