Corned beef doesn’t exactly conjure images of glamour and sophistication; nevertheless it’s one of those things I get a craving for it roughly once a year. How convenient that my craving happened a short while before St. Patrick’s Day so I can share my results with you lot (I’m told that’s a right Irish way of saying things- correct me if I’ve misspoken). 

Supermarket corned beef, in my experience, is tough, plagued with a lingering flavor of skeevy salt, and downright bilious in many cases.  Doing it right, which means doing it yourself, really only takes a bit of planning, is more economical and tastes infinitely superior.  I borrowed the corning technique from Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie with only minor adjustments based on my own taste preferences.  I’m a bay leaf fanatic, so I doubled up on those since my bay leaf tree is only too happy to oblige me with her radiant foliage.  I started with a lovely first-cut brisket that I picked up for a song from my favorite butcher in Pike Place Market.  The capable butcher men are always eager to help now that they know I write a Seattle food blog and they can log on and check out the crazy things I do to their meat. 

The brisket needs to sit in the cure for five days in order to achieve proper “corning,” which is great because it gives you lots of time to think about which sundry delicacies you’ll serve alongside it.  I also pickled some vegetables using a salt-brine rather than vinegar and let those get nice and infused over the five day period.  I came up with two appetizers that at first seemed slightly incongruous to me but in retrospect I realize there was, in fact, a common thread uniting the meal.  Appetizer “A” consisted of bresaola, which is air-cured beef, wrapped around stracchino cheese topped with a leaf of mache lettuce.

 Next up was an inventive take of seared foie gras.  I had gluten-free folks coming to dinner so the toast squares I might have normally served the foie gras with were out.  I decided to be inventive with the base of my dish and use baby artichoke halves as the “bread” to the foie gras’ “butter.”  I halved them and cooked them in pear butter in the Sous Vide Supreme for two hours at 183° and they were perfect in texture.

  They took on a touch of sweetness from the pear which matched the rest of the dish well.  I topped the artichokes and foie gras with a pear-Sauternes sorbet I whipped up while the artichokes were stewing.  I steeped anise, cardamom, clove and nutmeg into the sorbet and those flavors really brought out the delicate taste of the foie gras. 

Have you realized what everything has in common yet? Every course features something that has been cured, aka something that falls under the vast realm known as charcuterie.  It is interesting that charcuterie is today considered a delicacy.  Much like necessity being the mother of invention, charcuterie at its source was really just a means of preserving food so it would last longer before the era of refrigeration.   Nowadays we don’t technically need to cure meats, so it’s moved into the domain of luxury and often the price of good charcuterie reflects that.  It’s a fun world in which to dabble; oftentimes all you need is an inexpensive cut of meat, some salt and a bit of time. 

Back to the corned beef.  After it finished curing in its rock star juice, I rinsed it and bagged it along with some homemade pickling spice liquid and plopped it into the sous vide bath at 176° for 26 hours.  For those of you battling with the sous vide/foodsaver bagging liquid issues, I’ve finally come up with a bit of a workaround.  I know many people freeze the liquid into a solid so they can suck all the air out. I also know Thomas Keller feels the foodsaver is unacceptable and everyone should really be using a $3,000 cryovac that really does the trick of sucking all the air out even when there’s liquid in the bag.

  Short of spending three grand or taking the time that I don’t often plan for to pre-freeze my liquids, I’ve found myself SOL on several occasions now.  It helps to use gravity, ie hold your bag below the foodsaver as you’re sealing and it will be harder for the foodsaver to suck up any liquid.  The other really great trick that has been working wonders for me is a double bagging system.  First I pack the corned beef (or whatever) and liquid into one foodsaver bag without sealing it.  Then I insert this bag sideways into a second, larger foodsaver bag.  I seal the outer bag and it’s able to get a ton more air out since the liquid is all trapped in the inner bag.  It’s not a perfect solution but until I have a spare three grand lying around, it will do. 

The time and temperature seemed to be just right, and I’m glad I went with my gut instead of listening to all the random voices on the internet.  If I had an extra day or two to play around I would have been really tempted to do a 48 hour cure at a lower temp, perhaps closer to 134°, but now that I’ve achieved a result I’m immensely satisfied with I think I’ll stick with it next time too. 

 The only truly great solution to this problem would be a parallel tasting. Don’t you think the good folks over at Sous Vide Supreme should lend me a second sous vide machine so I could throw in two briskets, two sea bassies, two Silkie chickens and two Jerusalem artichokes all at different times/temps to get down to the real nitty gritty of culinary perfection?  There are plenty of scientific studies on the affects of different sous vide temperatures and what happens to the sinews and muscles not to mention gasses released by the meat. 

 I would opt for a different approach, however, one that defies scientific logic in many cases.  After all, aren’t some of the greatest culinary feats in history achieved by happy accident? I’m thrilled to note that my typical “cook-by-feel” approach seems to work in the sous vide bath thus far, I only regret not being able to mess around with multiple times, temps,and preparations simultaneously so I can arrive at a final consensus sooner.  After too many words (why am I so long-winded) I will leave you to your gastronomic devices, any questions on sous vide corned beef? Leave me a comment and I’ll hit you back.

*One final note: I will be on vacation away from the land of technology in the coming weeks. I haven’t forgotten about my amazing readers, I just need a bit of r and r.  When I return I’ll be back with a vengeance, but in the meantime please enjoy this lovely springtime and join me in a virtual clinking of wine glasses. Salute, Linda :)

As many of you know, I’m participating in the United Way Hunger Action challenge this week.  What does this mean? Well, since I have a family of three, in Washington State we would qualify for $18 per day in food stamps.  The goal of the challenge is to try and live on that amount for five full days, so my weekly budget is $90.  Throw in the fact that Wednesday is my husband’s birthday and I’m trying to make it special for him, which usually equates to an off-the-hook feast, and I’ve got quite the challenge.  I also plan to stick to my usual habit of buying mostly organic ingredients if at all possible; let’s see if it can be done.  You may think I’m lucky in that I can count three people yet Bentley is merely a toddler.  Not so, because he knocks back three gallons of milk a week, and at $5.00 a gallon (for organic) that drops my budget down to $75 right off the bat, not to mention the fact that he eats bananas like a monkey on crack- thank god they’re cheap! 

This challenge has forced me to reexamine my shopping habits.  A typical day in the life of Salty Seattle consists of a nice long morning run around Seward Park with Bentley in a jogging stroller or at the gym if it’s crap weather,  followed by a trip to either Pike Place Market or Whole Foods (a necessary evil, I know).  Then we bring home the spoils of our shopping escapades and whip them into something elaborate and often excessive for family and usually several friends.  I often buy goods based on freshness, beauty, rarity, local origin, and organic status.  I do not often buy based on economics.  I also repeat this routine nearly every day of the week, which is a problem in that I don’t tend to plan meals that last a few days so I spend more each day.  First things first, I had to eliminate dinner parties this week.  Thank goodness we’re having the big birthday bash for Jonas on Saturday, as that wouldn’t have worked within the budget at all.  I go a bit crazy without lots of people around, but at $18 a day I have to watch how many mouths I can feed- whew, this is different. 

Luckily I don’t typically spend a lot on breakfast or lunch.  Bentley and I have cereal or oatmeal, then we snack throughout the day on leftovers from the night before or ingredients we’re prepping for dinner.  This week we’ve been keeping to oatmeal with brown sugar, prunes or bananas and pecans, and the cost for the family each day for that is $1.57.  That’s another $7.85 gone for the week, bringing us down to $67.15.  My Monday mission was to make something that would sustain us into Tuesday as well, and lo and behold, it provided lunch on Wednesday too.  I chose pasta e fagioli- Italian pasta and been soup.  It’s fricking fantastic, and not very expensive if you use dried beans, make your own bacon, and make your own pasta too.  I used only three ounces of homemade bacon, which equates to 75 cents, since my pork belly is $4.00 a pound.  I also grow my own herbs in the garden, so I factored in a miniscule amount for seeds and watering, but basically spent less than a quarter on parsley, oregano and bay leaves.  I also make my own salt, so the cost is nominal there.  Onions, celery and garlic are cheap, as are flour and breadcrumbs (leftover from homemade bread) from which I made the pasta.  Anchovies were a little expensive, but I only used three filets, so amortized the cost.  I found a screaming deal on organic 28 oz cans of tomatoes for only 99 cents at Grocery Outlet; in fact they are starting to stock quite a few organics- I will likely continue to use them as a resource. 

When the soup was all said and done I spent 7.32 assembling it, bringing my weekly budget down again to $59.83.  I feel pretty good about this because it fed the three of us for 2.5 days, but was mostly organic, very balanced from a food group perspective, and quite delicious.  Lesson One learned- make in bulk!  I did have to spruce up the soup with side vegetables for health and color, so I used carrot ribbons one day, and homegrown mache lettuce from the garden another. 

It’s now Wednesday, which is Jonas’ birthday.  The plan is potato gnocchi because it’s elegant yet spuds are cheap, even organic ones!  I’m going to splurge big time and make his favorite dessert of chocolate mousse, but I buy my chocolate in bulk 11lb blocks for $65 (since I tend to go through a ton making gelato) and I only need to use 6 oz, so it really equates to only $2.22 in chocolate, though it tastes so much more expensive J I will give a final weekly report in the next blog post, and in the meantime if you’d like to learn more, please visit the United Way website to hear about theYes We Can! Project.  Basically, they are trying to raise $10,000 to help fund a project where they rent out space at a local cannery.  With this cannery space, they are able to preserve food (veggies and other good things) that normally would go bad and distribute them to food banks.  It’s a great project that will help tons of families, will save food, and will help people eat healthier!

 

                                                                                -TS Eliot

I don’t know what it is about the last stanza of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock that has always made me think of beets.  I mean sure, the word red is in there, and red is eponymous with beets, but I don’t think that’s it.  I think it’s because I get some vision of waiflike sirens with rosy cheeks and garnet lips billowing on fragile seashells on the crest of a wave.  Red lips and cheeks always bring beets to my imagination because I love to paint the faces of everyone in the kitchen with halved beets whenever I’m working with them.  If no one is game, I step it up another notch and take out my 12” chef’s knife, drizzle beet juice all over it and my finger, and commence to bloodcurdlingly scream. That get’s them every time, of course then they really won’t let me paint their faces since they’re so mad at me. 

I was in a TS Eliot kind of mood at the market last week so when I saw how bursting and succulent the beets looked, I had to gather them up.  I got a bunch of red beets and another bunch of Chioggia for color contrast and taste subtleties.  I wore out my texting finger sending out missives to put together a rosy bunch for the party (yes, pun intended) and got down to the business of menu planning while my beets merrily roasted away.  I knew I wanted to carry the beets from beginning to end of the meal but I wanted to do it in a way that wouldn’t beat people over the head by its obviousness.  Straight away I tackled dessert since that was going to be the hardest part.  I’m a fool for gelato and recently had success with the crazy flavor combination of garlic chocolate, so why not beet gelato?  Genius Jonas had the clever idea to top it with balsamic- fabu! Looks just like strawberry ice cream with chocolate syrup- not obvious at all. 

The main course and salad fell into place easily since I have two old standby recipes I’m always eager to serve involving beets.  The salad starts with a bed of greens- I usually use mache but couldn’t find them this time and butter lettuce is very much in season so that’s what I used.  I fry up rounds of chevre breaded in panko and intermix them with cubed beets and pistachios- it’s pretty dreamy.  This time I served it with some honey balsamic I put together, mainly to tie in the upcoming dessert. 

Probably my favorite beet dish in the universe is beet gnocchi.  Technically since you use beets and ricotta instead of potatoes, it’s actually more of a gnudi than a gnocchi (or ricotta gnocchi as some people call it).  For this one you must plan ahead as the ricotta needs to drain overnight to achieve the correct texture. 

That works just fine if you’re making gelato, though, as it’s ideal to make your custard the night before and let it completely chill in the refrigerator before you freeze it into proper gelato. 

 I serve it with a roasted red pepper red sauce because the contrast of the orange sauce and the pink gnocchi is to die for. 

Beet Gnocchi

• 2 small red beets roasted and grated
• 15 oz whole milk ricotta drained in cheesecloth over a bowl overnight
• 1 duck egg
• 3 oz parmigiano reggiano grated (more for serving)
• Fleur de sel and black pepper
• 1 c all-purpose flour plus more for work surface
• 4-5 tbsp butter

1.  Combine beets, ricotta, egg, cheese, salt and pepper in a medium bowl.  Stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.  Add flour and stir into a soft dough.  Cover and let rest in refrigerator for 1-3 hours. 
2. Pull the dough from the refrigerator and break off cup-sized chunks.  Roll in flour into 1” thick tubes.  Cut tubes every inch to form the gnocchi.  You can make a pattern on the top of them using the back of a fork if you choose.  Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover, and let sit a minimum of a half hour and up to three hours.
3. Boil gnocchi a few at a time in salted and oiled water for about one minute.  Transfer to a pan large enough to contain them all and dollop with butter to keep moist.  Keep them warm in a 200° oven until you have cooked all gnocchi and are ready to serve. 
4. Serve in your favorite sauce, I do a roasted red pepper tomato sauce but I wing it every time in terms of ingredients I have on hand, so be creative.  They have so much flavor you could get by with a browned butter sauce, but whatever you choose, pass plenty of parmigiano at the table. 

Beet Gelato

• 2 small red beets roasted and grated using large holes of a box grater
• 1 c raw milk
• 1 c heavy cream
• 2 egg yolks (I prefer duck eggs)
• 1 whole egg
• ½ c sugar

1.  Put the milk, cream and grated beets into a medium saucepan and bring to low boil over medium heat.  Meanwhile, whisk the sugar with the egg and yolks until well blended.  Once a low boil has been reached, temper the eggs by spooning a small amount of cream mixture into eggs and whisking vigorously so they don’t curdle. 
2. Add the tempered eggs to the saucepan, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.  Continue to boil until custard coats the back of the spoon, stirring constantly all the while.  This could take 2-4 minutes, but be attentive, you don’t want your custard to curdle.  Remove from heat and pour through a medium mesh strainer into a bowl.  Allow custard to cool completely (preferably covered in refrigerator overnight) before freezing according to the manufacturer’s instructions on your ice cream maker.  If you do not have an ice cream maker, freeze custard for one hour then remove from freezer and mix with an immersion blender until completely agitated.  Do this three times before a final freeze and you’ll have amazing hand-churned gelato. 

Sweet Balsamic Vinegar Syrup

• ¼ c sugar
• ¼ c water
• ¼ c balsamic vinegar

1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and reduce over medium low heat stirring occasionally until the consistency of honey has been reached.   Cool and spoon over scoops of beet gelato.