I have been unfair lately. While it’s been fun brewing feet in malt beverages and fashioning cakes into thinly-veiled approximations of lady bits, the authenticity that makes Salty Seattle Salty Seattle has been lacking. You see, I don’t really eat like that, I eat like the food in this post, and it’s not nice of me to keep it from you for so long. I hope you haven’t forgotten about the part of this site that brings you wildly-experimental yet lustily edible food, because it’s back with a vengeance herein.

goose in cranberry sassafras brine

I am a fortunate girl. Whenever a spate of emotions crescendoes, I’ve always known I could turn to the kitchen to assuage the overflow that threatens to seep out. The holidays are a naturally-stressful time, and that, coupled with the fact that my heart feels like it’s been pummeled by a lathe the past few months, have made for a season of jejune spirit.

There is a good chance many of you feel similar, while the sources of our angst may be different. We would all do well to take a moment and remember the things that add meaning to our lives, because it’s easy to forget. You are someone’s daughter or son, and they love you, no matter where they are. You are a mother, a lover, a trusted friend, or a resident nut job, and someone appreciates and admires you for it. There is a whole lotta unconditional love floating around this world, and whenever it fleets out of grasp, figure out a way to tap in- it will help immeasurably.

My tap-in is cooking, and I had forgotten that what with all the smoke and mirrors around lately. Thankfully I found this feast- its inspiration- somewhere inside myself, and I think smoke and mirrors is a very appropriate theme. Life can be smoke and mirrors- relationships, jobs, moments forced to crisis, the social milieu, a facebook status update that doesn’t tell the whole story, or a tweet that decocts a life-changing moment into 140 characters. It’s our job to extract truth and beauty from the surface and to distill the undercurrent of veracity beneath.

I want my food to speak to the world. I want to execute the perfect bite that not only causes a deluge of pleasure, but also changes the way we think about life. The relationship between food and life is intrinsic; as time passes, tastes change.

This meal reflects my soul laid bare of smoke and mirrors as a 33 year old woman who has made mistakes, caused pain, endured dissonance, birthed, married, cried, lied, told the difficult truth, and who welcomes the future- whatever it may bring.  I know I can handle it and I will do so with strength and grace, and maybe the occasional f-bomb thrown in to keep it real.

The basis of this meal is Stella the Goose, whom I bathed in cranberry sassafras brine then smoked using sassafras wood. I used elements of root beer because what roots in life surely roots in food, and also because it is the perfect liquid to toe the tightrope between sweet and savory.

smoked goose with mache

Root beer is an old-school beverage made from an amalgam of several roots- sassafras, sarsaparilla, and licorice along with wintergreen and birch bark. I also added star anise. It is so satisfying to make- I will go into greater detail in a later post. The roots infuse and ferment along with molasses and yeast over the course of several days to produce a rich, complex flavor profile that changes over time (much like the human palate-hence applicability to the crux of this meal).

parsnip gnocchi with root beer cranberries

Root beer and cranberries marry very well; in fact I made a cranberry glaze using root beer as the liquid and I’m not sure I’ll ever visit classic citrus-cran again. The cranberry glaze basted Stella as well as provided a tart counterpoint to the light-as-air parsnip gnocchi I paired with it.

smoked hay-infused parsnip gnocchi

In keeping with the smoky theme, I vacuum-packed parsnips with smoked organic hay and allowed them to cook slowly en sous vide so that the hay would impart a woodsy, austere aspect that balances the natural sweetness of the parsnips. The resulting gnocchi was texturally delicate yet robust flavor-wise with a heartiness that transcends potato gnocchi, perhaps due to the hay-infusion.

brioche rising

Because this was a holiday feast and I would be in the kitchen for days anyway, I baked brioche both so I could use it in the dressing- it is THE PERFECT stuffing bread- and so wayward starving souls could have something warm, buttery and gratifying to keep hunger at bay while I masterminded my meal.

goose organ stuffing

The dressing was simple, made by sautéing goose gizzard and neck, deglazing with vermouth, then tossing in brioche, goose heart and liver, and a classic mirepoix with thyme. A little smoky goose fat and duck stock pulled it all together in the oven, though it is largely a stovetop dressing if there ever was one, making it an easy dish to augment an oven-heavy meal.

brioche stuffing with cranberry root beer foam

I served the dressing in parfait layers with cranberry-rootbeer foam. This is a great example of something many consider to be firmly embedded in the realm of molecular gastronomy (foam) blending with traditional fare to create an amalgam that is transcendent of either style of cuisine.

parfait

The job of truly great food is not to make you wonder how it was done, but to be so good it doesn’t matter- all you can do is relish it. This is why many who practice modern cuisine object to the “molecular gastronomy” label. If you like it, just eat it- don’t be preoccupied with how it was made.

salsify root, unpeeled and peeled

With a further nod to roots, I treated salsify root like the bonnie prince it is and sous vided it then caramelized it in vanilla-laced fat. I cut it into matchsticks and served it “poutine-style” smothered in root beer gravy and goose fat pop rocks made to resemble cheese curds. I made the rootbeer gravy by sautéing mirepoix in goose fat, creating a roux, then adding my fresh-brewed rootbeer along with some duck stock until I’d reached the ideal viscosity and flavor tone.

"poutine" of salsify, root beer gravy and goose fat pop rocks as "curds"

Neutral pop rocks are available through willpowders.net and to make the goose fat pop rocks I just combined them with powdered goose fat, made by mixing maltodextrin with the fat. The pop rocks provided an effervescent antidote to the rich caramel muskiness of the salsify, not to mention adding an element of surprise. Life is full of surprises, curveballs- it’s an accomplishment if you can mirror that in a dish to great effect.

Losing myself in the kitchen is the transglutaminase that binds the mechanically-separated chicken nugget that is my life.

The success of the elements of root beer juxtaposed with smoke and mirrors has been an enlightening reaffirmation that cooking is my best therapy. Writing is a close second, so no matter how murky the waters, at least I know I’m doing what I love. Now let me show you how to brine and smoke a goose:

Sassafras-Cranberry-Brined Smoked Goose

• 1 young, organic, fresh goose (Stella was a 9 pounder- this is enough brine for a bigger bird too)

To brine:

• 6 liters water
• 400 grams Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
• 1 pint cranberries
• 20 grams sassafras
• 3 lightly-crushed star anises
• 40 grams roughly chopped ginger with peep on
• 20 lightly-crushed black peppercorns
• 2 kilos ice (plus more for an ice bath)

1. Bring all ingredients but ice to a boil in a large pot with lid on. Remove lid and stir occasionally. Boil for approximately five minutes, or until the cranberries have popped.
2. Remove from heat and pour into a container large enough to hold the brine plus the ice. Set the container in an ice bath. Add the 2 kilos of ice to the brine and stir until dissolved and cooled. You may have to put in the refrigerator to cool completely, though I find that the ice bath works fine.
3. Either in a container large enough to hold the bird, or in a food-safe plastic bag, combine the goose and the brine. Allow to brine for 24 hours for a 9-12lb goose, slightly more if the bird is larger, slightly less if the bird is smaller.
4. Remove from brine, rinse, and let goose dry for 6-10 hours before smoking.

To smoke:

1. Stabilize smoker at a temperature of roughly 200°F. I used sassafras wood, but I imagine apple or cherry would work very well also. It is very important to place a grease catcher of some sort on a lower rack under the goose, since geese have so much fat.
2. Smoke the goose, maintaining 200°F for two hours, periodically re-stoking with wood. You don’t need to bother with an internal temperature thermometer with goose, since you will be finishing in the oven. After two hours, remove the goose from the smoker (be sure to keep all the lovely fat) and transfer to a 400°F oven to finish the bird. For a 9lb bird, one hour was sufficient, but basically finish until the bird is 165°F internally. Let rest for ½ hour before carving. This will give you time to do something lovely with all that goose fat.

Duck Breasts brined in salt and pears then rendered to a crisp before being infused with smoky tea. If Casablanca could ever be a dish, this would be it. I mean, how tragically romantic does that sound? And then sliced on the bias (more, more baby, please!) served with cranberries, pea shoots and sweet potatoes from the land of geisha-cool itself- Okinawa? I am so there. Let’s start at the beginning.

Brining 102, let’s call it, since brining 101 was more than likely covered in your house last week what with all that turkey. I bet you didn’t add fruit to your turkey brine though, did you? But guess what- you could have and it would have been delicious, though for turkey I would probably have suggested citrus. You probably added lemon, but you could’ve done just as well with super-seasonal satsumas- oh so good with tender turkey. But duck, duck is another matter. In fact, you rarely hear about brining duck, which is a shame. Sure, for confit one prepares a “dry brine” of sorts, but in general, gamy, earthy duck is an oft-overlooked bird in the realm of brine.

Let’s discuss for a moment, shall we, the merits of dry versus wet brine. Now I’m just a bored housewife, self-taught in the ways of the kitchen and mostly steeped in so much wine that I probably couldn’t tell an arse from a shoulder anyway, but I have some opinions nonetheless. Take them with a big ol’ grain of salt, but not one of the grains of salt from the brine, because I’ve been told that duck infused salty brine isn’t exactly sanitary. Not that I heed that advice- I’m completely willing to lick a raw duck breast to see if it’s sufficiently salted, and if that is the way god wants to take me from this green earth, I’m more than okay with it. Yes, duck flesh brine poisoning would be an A-Ok way to go if you ask me- much better than perishing in the bottom of a porta potty while unsuspecting party poopers drop loads on your head (Sorry, I just read about this fetish today and I can’t get it out of my mind. I’m sure you’re real excited to talk about food now, aren’t ya?).

Back on track. IMHO, dry brine (or curing, as it were) is great if you want  well-salted skin, but wet brine is better if you’re looking for just a hint of saline but, more importantly, you want to lock in moisture when cooking. I am ok with dry brine for small, single muscle cuts meant for cure or confit, but I much prefer wet brine for whole birds, and breasts etc that don’t get cooked slow and low over a long period of time. Duck breasts fall squarely into this category because they most definitely should never be served at any temperature over medium (I prefer medium rare, in the 130-135°F range).  I add whole pears, cardamom, juniper and clove to the brine because those are all things I associate with both smoke and holidays. This time of year that’s kind of a prerequisite to cooking, and I used Grant Achatz’ flavor bouncing technique to determine that they would combine well.

Enough about brine- let’s talk smoke and sear. My curmudgeonly mother happened to be present for the lusty duck fest 2010 and she took one look at the breasts and said, “There is no way I am eating those things. Don’t you have any lean chicken breasts?” After I clutched my heart in horror remembering that I came from a family of Lunchables and Hungry Man TV dinners back in the day, I attempted to assuage her fears over the visible inch of fat on the luscious breasts. You see, those poor little duckies need that layer of fat to survive the cold, migratory winters.

That doesn’t mean you end up eating the fat though, no, you sear it off and make yourself some nice duck yum in which to fry potatoes and all manner of bland things that are greatly improved by the addition of fat. The searing is accomplished by slashing a crosshatch pattern in the fat layer, then frying them in a hot skillet while the fat renders. A key to this process is periodically pouring off the fat into a waiting vessel so that it doesn’t overspurt and fresh contact between fat and pan is constantly made.

After the breasts are seared down to a point, smoke is a wonderfully-decadent element to introduce. Rather than smoke in a wok, which is traditional when making tea-smoked duck, I simply added tea to a hot dutch oven and let it begin to smoke.  Then I tucked the breasts-flesh side down- into the pan and replaced the lid. Mere seconds on that side sears them perfectly and infuses them with a deep, rich smoke that is also effervescent. Served with duck fat-roasted Okinawan purple sweet potatoes,  cranberry compote and pea shoots, this is a dish you won’t soon forget.

Pear Brined Tea-Smoked Duck

Serves 2-4

• 2 duck breasts, Moulard, Muscovy or Pekin all work well
• 2 c water
• 2 c ice
• ¼ c kosher salt
• 2 pears, quartered
• 4 cardamom pods, crushed
• 6 juniper berries, crushed
• 4 cloves, crushed
• 3 tbsp loose green tea

1. Heat the water, salt, pears, cardamom, juniper and cloves in a medium saucepan until the salt has dissolved. Remove from heat, add the ice and stir until cool. Make a crosshatch pattern on the fat side of the duck breasts with a very sharp knife to allow for permeation. Place the cold brine and duck breasts in a ziplock or shallow dish and allow to brine overnight. Remove from brine and pat dry.
2. Place a dutch oven with lid over medium high heat. Once heated, place the duck breasts, fat side down, in the pan. Fat will render quickly and fill the bottom of the dutch oven. As it collects, periodically pour it off. This process takes 5-10 minutes depending on the thickness of the layer of fat. You will know most of the fat has finished rendering when a crust begins to develop and it takes on a lightly-charred look.
3. At this point, remove the breasts from the dutch oven, pour off the fat (a little remaining is fine) and drop the tea into the oven. Cover for 30 seconds. Open quickly so as not to let too much smoke out, and replace the breasts, this time flesh-side down. Cover the lid and sear for two minutes on that side, quickly remove the lid, turn the breasts back over, and sear for an additional two minutes for medium rare. (this may vary depending on the thickness of the duck breasts- a thermometer read of 134° is a good goal)
4. Remove the breasts to a cutting board and slice on the bias into strips. Serve with cranberry compote, pea shoots, and Okinawan sweet potatoes roasted in duck fat.

*Disclaimer: some images in this post may be considered slightly graphic in nature. I have chosen to present those images as thumbnails. Click to reveal a full-sized version. This post is an entry for Project Food Blog Challenge #4 which asks contestants to create an instructional photo tutorial. If you like it, vote using the Project Food Blog contestant widget in my right sidebar (scroll down) from 10/11-10/14.

As bloggers we have, at the minimum, a social responsibility, and, some argue, a journalistic one also.  Because of that, I inject a modicum of meaning into every wacky post I conjure. A how-to tutorial is a perfect place to make a difference, and I hope you take these words and pictures in the spirit in which they were intended. While this post is a departure from my molecular madness, I hope it becomes apparent that it’s all interconnected; after all, we need the raw materials before we can manipulate them in clever ways.

A brief history of why (sorry if you’ve heard this before, I’ll be quick): I was a vegetarian for over 20 years as a result of a traumatic experience as a child. My father bought me a calf one summer. I named him Slobber. I bottle-fed that wet-nosed gangle of awkwardness through his youth and we became best friends. Slobber had the run of our fenced acreage, but for me that wasn’t enough. I fashioned a leash for him from the ones we had for the dogs, and proudly walked him through the front yard, down the street, even to the neighbor’s house. I fed him the choicest scraps from my own plate and invented an imaginary world in which we were BMX racers, astronauts, or ice-cream vendors depending on the day.

At the end of the summer I went to stay with my grandparents for two weeks and when I came home, there was a hamburger on my plate. My dad asked me if I knew where it came from. The store? I answered, cautiously. No, we killed your cow so we would have meat for the winter. This was the first I had heard about eating our livestock; to me it was tantamount to cannibalism. Initially it catapulted me into my room in tears, and ultimately I made a stoic resolve never to eat a living creature. Nearly 30 years and a gradual return to omnivorism later, I look back at that as a missed educational opportunity. I should have been raising Slobber lovingly, but with the knowledge of why I was doing so.

Now I know firsthand that an animal raised with utmost care and then slaughtered to be eaten by reverential people is a vital thing. It took many years to get to this place, however, and I don’t want it to be the same for my child, which is why I try to get him involved in the process even at the tender age of two. It is imperative that we know where our food comes from. Yes, this is a trend among us who preach to the choir, so forgive me for beating a dead horse, but farm-to-table should not be a trend, it should be a given. With that in mind, I am going to show you how a chicken raised on organic feed and grass from a top-notch sustainable chicken farm in Washington- Stokesberry- leaves the field and lands on your plate.

a chicken tractor- note the eaten grass versus the ready-to-be-eaten grass

Once the chickens are old enough, they are taken to the pasture and are corralled in what are called “chicken tractors.” These are essentially 10x12’ floorless enclosures made from chicken-wire, wood and siding.  Every day, the chicken tractors get moved 10 feet to a new plot of grass. This is beneficial for several reasons. First, the chickens have fresh grass (and as much organic grain as they want) both to feed on, and to fertilize with their waste, thus creating a viable pasture for cycles to come. Next, the tractors protect the chickens from coyotes, raccoons and other predators.  Thirdly, because the tractors are not cramped, the chickens have plenty of room to roam within, yet not so much that they grow too lean and muscular, which is why chefs and consumers started taking issue with 100% free-range birds.

preparing to move the tractor (turkey in this case) to the next plot

Compared to a typical concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) where chickens are stacked a hundred deep and sometimes three high and never see the light of day, small-scale chicken tractors are palaces. (However Janelle and Jerry Stokesberry liken their chickens to urban apartment-dwellers. There’s plenty of space but it’s not McMansion-style living since that’s not a practical way to raise chickens- or people for that matter.) It is important to note that Stokesberry Farm is Janelle and Jerry’s livelihood. While they started the farm because they believed in providing healthy food to the community in a way that also fosters positive growth for the earth and people, they are not Pollyanna about what it means to run a business.  Their practices have to be streamlined and efficient while at the same time being mindful of good ecology. The concept of the chicken tractor is a great example of that because it is both humane and economically-feasible. Prior to the chickens being tractored in a particular pasture, cows are brought in to “pre-mow” the grass in order to achieve optimal height for the chickens, which drives home just how cyclically-sustainable this concept is. Incidentally, the chicken tractor was pioneered by Joel Salatin. You can read about his working farm and more on chicken tractors here.

weighing chickens

Stokesberry farm grows mostly Cornish Cross birds, and they are typically ready for butcher within eight to twelve weeks. The farm sells to local restaurants, butchers, and also at farmer’s markets. Restaurant chefs order birds with precise weights, so on the day of slaughter, Jon, the farm’s right-hand man, gathers birds from the tractors and weighs them. Assuming they lose roughly 30% of their weight when they are dressed out, Jon is mindful to select birds accordingly.

a barrowful of chickens earmarked for Seattle restaurant Sitka and Spruce

After the birds are weighed, Jon cages them and brings them to Jerry, who operates the kill station. The kill station consists of three main areas: chicken slaughter funnels, a scalder, and a plucker. The slaughter funnels are conical with head-sized holes in the bottom. The chicken is placed upside-down in the funnel so that just the head peeks out-thus providing easy access to the jugular. There are several sizes of funnels, depending on the girth of the bird being slaughtered.

slaughter funnels

It is worth mentioning that the vast majority of chickens produced in the US are killed by a machine.  By removing the individual from the “dirty-work” aspect of the process, machine-killing also creates a disconnect from the accountability associated with taking a life. Because of this, we often forget that our meat was a living creature at one point, which can lead to over-consumption. Medium-scale farms like Stokesberry that still shoulder the burden of responsibility for their animals inspire their patrons to appreciate the valuable service they provide. If you can’t kill it you have no business eating it, which is why I jumped in and helped Jerry at the kill station, and later helped Janelle process the freshly-plucked birds. (I personally killed 12 birds of the near-100 we processed that day.)

plucker

Once the birds were upside-down in the funnel, we used a sharp knife to make a clean, deliberate slice across the jugular vein. It is quick and painless, I am told.

clean jugular cut

bleeds out

The birds bled out for several minutes, and then we moved them to the scalder. The purpose of scalding is to loosen the skin so the feathers will come out in the plucker. The ideal temperature to scald a chicken depends on the size and the skin thickness, but Jerry tends to make sure the water is between 145-150°F.

ready to be scalded

We hung several chickens by their feet from the dipping wand, then plunged them into the water all-the-while agitating them for 20-25 seconds (Jerry counts his seconds in “hippopotamuses” which I find endearing).

chickens in scalder

Plucking is perhaps the single easiest aspect of the slaughter process if you have a fancy plucking barrel, but the hardest if you have to do it by hand (like I did with these turkeys last year). We simply tossed the chickens (a few at a time) into the plucker, turned it on, counted 15 or 20 hippopotamuses, and all the feathers were gone, save for a few tail-feathers, which we took care of with pliers. Right after plucking, the head must be removed, which I found a little tricky, but got the hang of after I had done a dozen birds. You grab the legs with one hand and the head with the other, then stretch them apart while twisting the head upward, which causes it to snap free of the body.

chickens in the plucker

At this point the birds get passed inside to a room which adheres to a strict code of sterility. When I helped Janelle with the gutting I had to wear a hairnet and a special suit.

removing the feet

Different gutters do things different ways, but Janelle’s way made a lot of sense to me, especially compared to how I had done it in the past (which took 10 times as long).  First she removes the feet at the ankle joint with a boning knife.

off go the necks

plucking pin feathers

Next she cuts off the neck with a cleaver and uses pliers to pull out any remaining feathers. Then, she opens the cavity by cutting an incision around the anus of the bird and removing the scent gland. Next, she pulls out the entrails and gizzard, and finally the organs. The lungs are tricky- they stick to the ribcage and you have to sort of dig to get them loose. None of this goes to waste. They sell feet, necks, and heads to anyone who wants them, including private individuals who make stock or pet food. If something doesn’t get sold, it gets composted in their state-of-the-art compost pile. I know it’s odd to think of compost as state-of-the-art, but the Stokesberrys have it down to a science and it works like a well-oiled machine.

access hole / scent gland

pulling out entrails

After the birds are processed, they go into a cold water bath, where they stay overnight.  This is because by law, within 4 hours the chickens must be cooled to below 40°F.

water bath

I fear I have waxed too-verbose to explain the next steps of what to do with a chicken, but most of you reading this have probably roasted, barbecued, boned, sous vided, or grilled a chicken before, no? Three things are worth mentioning regarding post-gutting should you ever wish to bring a chicken from field to feast. The first is that rigor mortis sets in within a few hours after a bird is killed and you do not want to eat a chicken in rigor mortis. It makes it tough and gamey. The solution? Wait 24-48 hours, or until the legs move freely. This ties in nicely with my next tip- brine your bird. You’ve heard it before, but it really is imperative for succulent meat. You can do it during rigor mortis. I use a 5% salt/water ratio and I like to add sage, thyme, garlic and lemon to my brine. If you are going to roast the chicken, be sure to remove it from the brine, pat it as dry as you can, then let it dry further on a rack in the refrigerator. That way you will have perfectly crisp skin to go with your perfectly tender, personally-butchered chicken.