Something we gut-wrenchingly miss about Italy: the plentiful celebratory festivals that take place in small towns across the countryside. A typical Saturday in Piedmont would consist of Jonas and me revving up the Alfa to hit the hills in search of a gathering of townfolk united in their reverence for classic Fiat 500’s, white truffles, esoteric antiques, gelato, formaggio, vino, et cetera.  One of our favorites was the Festival delle Sagre, translated that’s the Festival of Festivals.  It takes place in the town of Asti, famous for great wines (Barbera d’Asti, Asti Spumante), horseracing (The Palio), and its close proximity to the heart of the best white truffles on earth, tartufo bianco d’Alba.  The festival is a great place to sample rustic Piedmontese cuisine in a large-format, entirely informal setting.  It is also a great place to drink plentiful amounts of wine poured directly from large glass damigiane (carboys, casks, huge glass vessels used to store wine) and have a sinfully good time.

One of the more memorable dishes on hand at the Festival delle Sagre is carne battuta, which means (now get your mind out of the gutter here) beaten meat.  The longer version, carne battuta al coltello just means beaten with a knife. In other words, you cut up chunks of raw, very high quality beef or horsemeat, then beat it into submission (and tiny little pieces) with a super-heavy meat cleaver.  It’s like the Italian version of the French dish Steak Tartare, only with different flavors.  Typical Piedmontese additions would be lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and perhaps some herbs. I have seen people add cream as well, though rarely.

In my case, I wanted to top my battuta with a quivering quail egg because I thought it would add a nice, carbonara-like texture to the finished plate.  I started with extremely fresh Wagyu filet mignon cut from the center of the tenderloin and trimmed of any oxygenated pieces just before preparation.  Then I roughly chopped it before going to town with my man-sized meat cleaver. I beat up half a pound of filet so much my arm is sore today, no kidding. Perhaps I am just a big wimp!

Once I had my perfectly beaten cubes, I used a fork to stir in lemon juice (one small lemon for half pound of meat), olive oil-to taste, ½ c of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, ½ tbsp chopped fresh oregano, and Maldon salt.  I then plated the battuta using a cookie cutter as a form, topped it with a sous vide quail egg (you could just soft boil too), and sprinkled on some fresh pepper.  I served the battuta with celery and carrot ribbons because they are nice to break up the mouth feel of the meat.  It’s a great appetizer for a more adventurous dinner party, of course you’d want to be sure everyone was ok with raw meat before you wasted all that delectable filet.

Since time immemorial, mankind has brought his food from a live state to the plate in short order. Sadly, the amazing modern preservation techniques discovered in the last 100 years have had the unfortunate side effect of causing major disconnect between the cock and the coq au vin, or in this case the prawn to the plate.  It is so disheartening when I think of my personal experience with this travesty, I almost feel like chalking up nearly 20 years of my life as “lost years” merely because of lack of awareness and education.

I was a firmly established young California girl when my father got the idea to move his bi-racial city-dwelling family to the Ozarks of Idaho and plop us down on 10 acres complete with horses, cows, ducks, goats and even the odd stork or bullfrog.  The townfolk weren’t entirely standoffish to my black mother and two much-darker-than-me older siblings, but let’s just say we weren’t winning any Idaho family popularity contests.  Consequently my parents tried to make up for my lack of human friends by putting me in primary charge of bottle-feeding a feeble baby cow I named “Slobber.” Slobber and I were fast friends and became inseparable all summer long.  When I returned to California at the end of the summer for a month-long visit with relatives, I cried all the way to the airport over losing my bovine companion.

The day I got home from California, my dad had made a special meal of hamburgers to welcome me home. He proudly asked me if I knew where the hamburgers had come from, to which I excitedly replied “McDonalds?” He said no, and encouraged me to keep guessing. “The store?” Nope. He chose that moment to reveal to me the source of the meal I was eagerly licking off my fingers. “These hamburgers are made with meat that we received from butchering your cow, Slobber.” At first I didn’t understand. The disconnect between animal and food was really so vast to my mind that I really could not fathom meat coming from a living, breathing kind-souled loppy-eared animal I had just said goodbye to weeks previous.  Once the lesson sunk in, it was so overwhelmingly shocking that I vowed never to eat meat again. That vow lasted nearly twenty years and all I can think of now is “what a waste!”

That lesson could have been so meaningful, reverential, important, and yet it was tragic, heart-wrenching and completely off-target for what it was intended to accomplish.  Once I cautiously stepped back into the waters of carnivorousness, I did so armed with education and respect. It is crucial to understand that there is an impact to popping back chicken nuggets like they were kernels of corn, and that impact can be traced back to a single animal.  Eating animals is not something that should be taken lightly, but it is something that we were born to do.  For this reason I feel like I should personally be comfortable with every step of the process from live animal to filleted fish, so I try to trace that process with every piece of meat I eat (yes, I consider fish meat since it is an animal and we eat its flesh).  The process of how animals are butchered for human consumption is not always pretty, but don’t you agree that you should be able to stomach it if you desire the finished product? Out of sight out of mind just won’t work in our global society, as history has shown time and again.

We need to understand these processes in order to determine whether we are okay with accepting them, and for this reason every food chain should be transparent. You should be able to ask your local butcher where he sources his meat, and if you get any response besides the names of actual farms and ranches, know that there is something wrong with the picture (shame on you BILL THE BUTCHER).  Further, I feel everyone should at least witness if not partake in the humane taking of an animal’s life for the sake of our dinner.  If you can’t take it, should you be eating it? I have documented my own experience with killing my own Thanksgiving turkeys, and am constantly educating myself in this realm.  It has had a twofold effect on my. On the one hand I am nearly cured of the squeamishness I used to exhibit around gizzards, livers and the general blood and guts present in any animal slaughter.  On the other, it has caused me to eat less meat.  This is a two-part reaction. First off, I now only want to eat meat that I trust comes from a clean, humane, organic-if-possible (but then, what does that even mean?) source.  Secondly, meat really is a big deal, and it should be treated as such. Americans eat more meat than most other nationalities and yet we are the most disconnected and squeamish about the process.  I tweeted out a picture of some chicken head and foot stock I was making recently and half the responses were along the lines of “ew” and “gross.” I am sure these same people don’t think twice about spearing into a juicy chicken breast, but come on people, isn’t it incredibly wasteful to just leave the whole damn animal by the wayside so you can suck salt off drumsticks and braise breasts in barbecue sauce?

I’m going to step down off my soapbox now, whew, guess I really needed to get all that out. I realize there are a lot of buzzwords going around right now surrounding the “sustainable” “organic” “farm-to-table” “foodie” movement, and I hope my words don’t simply add to the unintelligible din, but THIS SHIT IS IMPORTANT, PEOPLE!  Take responsibility for what you eat.  Ok, enough said.  All that was a preamble for the wacky live prawn experience I had last week.  In Seattle at Mutual Fish you can buy live spot prawns that come from Hood Canal, WA. They are so fresh you can eat them as sashimi, i.e. completely raw.  I had some friends over for the prawn-cooking experience and I’m happy to report that most of them were completely ok with the fact that we would be killing the prawns in order to eat them. I mean, seriously, what is wrong with people who still don’t seem to get that just because you didn’t do it yourself doesn’t mean that they weren’t alive at some point before you ate them. If you feel this way you should be VEGETARIAN.  Practice what you preach.  And eat the whole god-damned animal aka SUCK THE HEADS. In many cultures it’s considered the best part.

I had some help from some amazingly creative people on twitter in coming up with this preparation, which is basically like a Mexican tequila shot version of drunken prawns.  It’s easy. First you put live prawns in a pan (something deep like a Le Creuset bouillabaisse pot works best I learned the second time around since the little buggers jump high) then you douse them in tequila. Let them get a tad drunk and sleepy, then light the tequila on fire. Don’t worry if it doesn’t all burn off- this adds flavor. Obviously higher heat tequilas will burn more.  Next up, douse them in cilantro, oregano, lime juice and enough Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt to cover them completely.  It’s pretty important to use Diamond Crystal Salt because you don’t want to waste a ton of really nice finishing salt on them since you’ll need a few cups. On the other hand you don’t want to use Morton because it is much saltier than Diamond Crystal and imparts a saline flavor on the prawns.  This is a good general kitchen salting rule, by the way.

Toss the now-lidded pot into your oven on super high heat.  Cook for about five minutes (don’t overcook or they’ll be tough) then pull them out and rinse them from the salt.  Reserve some of the liquid to flavor the hominy mixture.

To make the hominy mixture, sauté equal parts celery, carrots & shallot in butter in a dutch oven. Add chipotle in adobo and garlic to taste. Add hominy, chicken stock & tomato. Season with oregano and pepper. To finish the hominy add some of the reserved tequila-prawn liquid to taste. It will be salty, so as you’re adding, test the saltiness of the hominy and stop when you’ve achieved the right flavor balance.

Place a portion of hominy on the plate and surround with cooked prawns.  Squeeze lime over everything.  Put out discard bowls so guests can shell and set aside the exoskeletons, heads and tails as they eat.  Believe it or not, kids love this super-interactive, fun meal, just be sure the alcohol from the tequila has really dissipated if you serve to little ones.  The head-sucking bonus with this dish is that not only are you getting the supposed-best part of the prawn, it also tastes quite a bit like a tequila shot.  Here’s a short video of the prawns being corralled into the too-shallow frying pan. I learned my lesson and used the Le Creuset the next time.  *video not for the faint of heart.

For several years I have had the desire to host a salt-tasting party, I simply lacked the impetus. Until now.  You see, I’ve always felt the salty soiree should have serendipitous timing all around, and that wasn’t possible in days gone by.  For me, everything had to be essential, perfect, balanced.  The food, the guests, the salts, the level of engagement- the whole shebang.  When I finally decided a few months ago that the signs were looking auspicious to host the party, it was a right nice feeling. Right nice indeed, because I’ve been stewing over the concept for so long, there really wasn’t much to settle on.  Except for incorporating some new obsessions in terms of food (can you say sous vide?) and making sure the guest list didn’t go entirely jabberwocky with too many tasters and not enough salt, all the pre-planning was a cinch.

I planned a from-scratch menu deliberately devoid of salt to encourage tasting and pairing. Notables included sous vide custard duck eggs, sliced heirloom tomatoes, no-knead baguettes by Patrick aka best breadbaker in the world, homemade cottage cheese, homemade burrata, a slew of Italian cheeses including a three-milk Robiola and Bra Tenero, jicama, fava beans and honey, sous vide potatoes and beets, and edamame.  Whew, if that wasn’t a salt-less mouthful I don’t know what would be.  I did not forget the dessert category, which consisted of maple caramels, chocolate pavé and triple chocolate truffle tart by Patrick, and four types of ice cream: rhubarb crème fraiche, coffee hazelnut, quadruple chocolate and goat yoghurt maple.

Since many members of the Seattle fooderati scene showed for the 70+ person party, there were countless other notable culinary creations from the likes of Michael Natkin, the man behind Herbivoracious, Jenny Richards of Purplehousedirt, Lorna Yee from The Cookbook Chronicles,  Marc Schermerhorn of the infamous @marcseattle twitter feed, Keren Brown aka Frantic Foodie, and many more.  The lovely and talented Jeanne Sauvage of Fourchickens, brought me a carton of homegrown eggs that I’ve been coddling as though they were babies; I want chickens and ducks so badly I can taste them, but that’s a story for another time.

For the tasting itself, I lined my dining table with over 60 empty vessels and assigned each one a corresponding number.  We created a master list on the Ipad that contained each number, then, when attendees brought salt, they simply chose a vessel, told us the number, and we catalogued each salt into the secret master list.  This way the tasting was truly blind.  I raided my own global collection of salt and filled roughly twenty of the vessels, and once all the guests had proffered their hand-selected salts, we had 63 samples.  I established four categories for the tasting: Best Overall Tasting Salt, Best Blended Salt, Best Pairing-Savory, and Best Pairing-Sweet.  My graphic designer neighbor Cyndy created ballots so folks could cast their votes, and I’ve just tallied the results, which are molto interessante indeed.

Repurposed Aarnio Bubble Chair as Wine Chiller

Before I get to that I want to mention some of the notable salts on display that evening, representing six continents.  Janna Wemmer from Secret Stash Salts brought a dizzying array of her expertly-blended salts, including bloody mary salt, smoked chipotle, and lavender rosemary to name a few.  She is a locally-focused artisan producer of the finest blended salt available in the Pacific Northwest, and her salts should be included in any representational goodie bag of local products.  Local foodie-about-town Traca Savadogo was able to get Mark and Marjorie Fuller of famed restaurant Spring Hill to donate some of Mark’s ancestral Hawaiian red clay sea salt, aged 25 years,  which was one I made sure to sneak a reserve of for later use.  Apparently the aging process sweetens the deal, and I mean that in a literal sense.  The kind folks over at Marx Foods heard about the tasting and donated some perfectly structured Portugese Flor de Sal for our tasting pleasure. I’ve been finishing with this one for a few weeks and am very happy with the crystal structure and depth of character.

Every party is bound to have one jester, and this soiree was not immune.  Our non-food-obsessed neighbor thought it would be quite funny to cart in a salt-lick, which he did with much pride to much snickering.  We had to give it a fair tasting, so we chipped some off the old block and put it in a vessel, much to the chagrin of the poor folks who tasted it.  Oddly, it did receive one vote; some kind soul nominated it in the savory pairing category for its complementary taste with radishes.  Many of the salts travelled here from around the globe, but only a few did so expressly to be tasted at the party.  One such salt was a Waddenzout brought all the way from Amsterdam by Robert and Patrick. I sure hope that one didn’t have any extra Amsterdam-additives in it, if you know what I mean.  Another well-travelled salt came from my amazing friend Emily (Happy Birthday, Baby) who sent over some Korean Bamboo salt from Ulsan, where she is teaching for the year.  Lily and Rodney brought forth a slew of salts from Vancouver BC made by Edible Canada.  Of the twenty or so salts I personally contributed, besides my homemade salt, many of them came from the Portland-based salt boutique The Meadow.  If you think of the most esoteric salt in all the lands and are scratching your head as to where to find it, chances are you’ll find it at The Meadow, which is my go-to salt destination, both online and in the flesh.

Alright, enough of me waxing lyrical about one of the greatest substances on earth- let’s see the results.  The winner in the best overall finishing salt category is the timeless classic, Maldon Sea Salt. It’s crystal structure alone is a thing of marvel; I really believe this salt should be one of the wonders of the world because it comes in the form of little dissolving pyramids. I love other salts equally for different things, but I am not surprised that Maldon unanimously won the grand prize.  There were four salts tied for second place in this category: Trapani Sea Salt, my own sea salt, Secret Stash Salt’s Lavendar Rosemary, and Pangasinan Star.

The winner of best blended salt goes to Black Truffle Sea Salt.  A very close second goes to Secret Stash Salt’s Lavender Rosemary Salt.  Tied for third place here are Evergreen Edible Salt and Wreck Beach Edible Salt.  Best Pairing-Sweet has three salts tied for first place. They are: Murray River Pink Salt, Maldon Sea Salt, and Tahitian Vanilla Salt, all being paired with caramels. In fact, caramels were the favored vehicle with which to sweetly taste salt.  The trickiest category was Best Pairing-Savory.  I think it’s because there was so much food it was difficult to get consistency.  Five salts tied for first place in this category. They are: The Drive Edible on heirloom tomatoes, Tahitian Vanilla on Eggs (maybe these voters had a few glasses of wine?), Sale alle Erbe delle Mar Lunghe (salt with herbs from the long sea) on Patrick’s bread, Haleakala Ruby on heirloom tomatoes, and Murray River on mozzarella and edamame.

these glasses did not stay empty for long

Alright, this was a bloody long-winded post, so I’m going to wrap it up.  It is my goal to showcase the winners in all categories and do some refined tasting with them in a more controlled environment. I’d like to perfect some pairings and suss out which qualities about each of the winning salts made it memorable for tasters.  Expect to see more salt in this space soon, but then, you probably already knew that.  Have a salt-sational day!

all the salts- the morning after

PS- special thanks to Lisa Page Ramey for providing some of the mid-party action shots; there was a lot going on and our camera languished in the corner for much of the evening.

I went to the market today in search of duck and came home with an eye of beef round with which to make bresaola. Yes, bresaola. The Italian cured meat. Yes, it takes more than a month to make. Yes, there are bacterial dangers. Yes, I will have to convert my old wine fridge to the tune of some extra cashola for humidifiers, temperature controllers and fans.  Yes, I am singlemindedly obsessed. But hey, at least I remembered the duck breast!

After I pored over bresaola recipes and whiled away the afternoon, I realized I needed to do something with my duck. Thank god for local produce and springtime! This recipe practically made itself.  I tossed salted, peppered and garlic powdered breasts into the sous vide at 140° for two hours while I threw together the rest of the plate.  The cherries have begun to bless us with their sanguine flesh here in Washington (can you believe it?) and what a season it promises to be. I bought a pricy pound but ate half of them on the way home they were so shazaam succulent.  I made a simple sauce from what I had left, simmering them with some vino dolce, adding a touch of broth, and finishing with freshly shelled peas just before I plated the dish. 

If you’re as big a fan of duck as I am, you’ll probably agree that there is no better accompaniment than potatoes fried in the rendered duck fat.  These fries were especially unctuous because I added some caramelized onions to the fat as well, making for a side dish robust enough to stand up to the duck.  Both the duck and the fries benefit hugely from the addition of my favorite thing on earth. NO, I didn’t toss a pair of Manolo Blahniks into the fryer, people, jeesh! I’m talking about SALT, not SHOES, but you’re right, maybe we’ll call them neck and neck vying for the “number one favorite thing” position in my heart.  And yes, I know I have the best baby on earth, Bentley Danger, but he doesn’t count because he’s a person not a thing. Eeenyways, back to adding shoes to duck and fries. I mean salt. 

You probably know by now that I love to make salt myself.  You may also know that my salt obsession was borne from my husband’s annoyance with me insisting on getting a new pair of shoes in every country we visit. I figured he’d be more amenable to salt instead, because it’s lighter on the luggage and on the pocketbook, which I think was his real beef.  I used several different salts in the making of this dish because different salts perform differently in different applications.  For the rapid brine (only rapid because I didn’t leave myself enough time) of the breast, I used plain old kosher salt. For the salt rub on the breasts in the sous vide bath I used Portugese flor de Sal from Marx Foods.  I tossed the fries with a bit of my own salt since I love it as a finishing salt on something hot for the way it melts.  I even added a little Maldon salt to the top of the cherry sauce since the little pyramids look so lovely and it helps balance the sweet flavor. 

Who knew you could employ four salts in one meal and truly justify different uses for all? I’m extra saline-sensitive right now because I’m hosting a salt-tasting soiree soon wherein my guests will be subject to a blind tasting of the salts of the world.  Do you have a favorite salt? One you can’t live without that is your go-to kitchen staple? If so let me know in the comments section of this post. I want to be sure to have a varied representation and not miss anyone’s nearest and dearest.

Last night’s dinner was really a mouthful. So many different elements played off eachother to compose each tasty bite it was hard to keep from shoving it all in at warp speed.  First let me talk about the mmmlicious Meyer lemons. The blogosphere is Meyer lemon-mad right now; everyone and their Nana is using them in everything from curds to pannacotta, limoncello to lemonade.  It’s easy to understand why, the little hybrid sweet tart buggers couldn’t be more delicious right now at this moment AKA go out and buy some Meyer lemons if you haven’t already.  I have purchased them to excess, so last night’s dinner was to be about combining elements in which a Meyer lemon cream sauce would work.  Making it was straightforward enough- sautee some shallots, oregano and zest in butter, add and reduce white wine, bring it on home with the addition of heavy cream, and adjust seasonings with lotsa Meyer lemon juice and a little salt and pepper.  Make the sauce last, it only takes ten minutes to come together. 

I set out for the market yesterday morning intending to buy chickens as I’m about outta chicken stock and need to make more.  I came home with game hens, though, because the little buggers looked up at me all cute-like and said “Buy me, Linda, we’ve never been frozen, ran free when we were alive and come from a farm not 20 minutes from here. Let us meet our fate in your tasty kitchen, pretty please?” They had me at hello, plus dinner was only for four, so why not salt-encrust some game hens?  Then I could use their little carcasses to make a rich stock, plus it’s kind of fun to serve guests an individual bird all to themselves. 

I had some salt that needed using too, we made quite a big batch of it last time we went out seawater collecting and we’re planning a new collection mission soon, so I used some homemade sea salt to form the base of the game hen crust.  I like to do salt crusts because I love salt, but also because believe it or not, the salt crust keeps the meat inside so nice and tender it just falls off the carcass like melted butter.  Making a salt crust is easy, I’ll give you the ratio for one game hen, obviously for four, or a chicken, you’ll want to increase accordingly.  Mix four beaten egg whites with one pound of salt and 1.5c flour.  Add water until a medium-tacky dough is formed.  (You can add herbs too- they infuse flavor. I used oregano since it’s taking over my garden right now and is so fresh)

To encrust the bird, first stuff ‘em and truss ‘em.  I stuff’ em with half a lemon, half a shallot and a bunch of oregano.   Truss so that no pointy wings or legs puncture your crust.  Lay a base of crust on a jellyroll pan lined with parchment. Be sure the base is slightly larger than the bird, then set the bird on the crust.  Pack the remaining dough all around the bird, taking care not to leave any holes where moisture can escape.  Immediately put the bird into a 400° oven and cook for 15 minutes for the crust to solidify, then reduce heat to 350° and bake until an internal thermometer probe reads 160°.  Remove the bird from the oven, but do not remove crust- bird will continue to cook for another half hour or so since the crust acts as an oven.  When you are ready to serve, either remove the crust yourself or let the guest do it himself at the table for a more dramatic presentation. 

I knew that my little game hens would do well with a lemon sauce, so I wanted a starch that could handle it as well since encrusting the bird means you get no gravy as the crust soaks up the cooking jus.  My mind often leans toward gnocchi; it’s one of nature’s perfect foods.  Because the Meyer lemons have a touch of sweetness, however, I wanted to soften the starchiness of typical potato gnocchi.  Parsnips proved the perfect addition since they are a touch sweet themselves.  I used a ratio of 1/3 parsnips to 2/3 potato and it was just right. I’m not sure I’ll make plane ol’ potato gnocchi again anytime soon- try it with parsnip and you’ll see why.   I cooked my potatoes and parsnips sous vide before milling them with my potato ricer. Sous vide is perfect for gnocchi as boiling potatoes leaves too much residual water and makes for a gloppy texture, whereas sous vide doesn’t add any water, but nor does it take any away like baking can, often resulting in overly dry gnocchi.  If I didn’t have a Sous Vide Supreme I would cook the potatoes and parsnips by first boiling, then baking them before ricing. 

After the potatoes are milled into even texture, I add a touch of salt, some microplaned Parmigiano Reggiano, and I start adding flour.  The general ratio of flour to potato matter is 1/3-2/3, but I do this by feel.  You know you have enough flour when the dough doesn’t stick to your hands any longer and you can break off clumps and roll it into tubes without it leaving goo all over the counter.  Once you roll the tubes ¾” thick, cut them into ¾” pieces. At this point you can brand them with the tines of a fork if you are using a thin sauce that you want to adhere to the noodle better, but in the case of my cream sauce I wasn’t worried, so I didn’t brand them since I think they look prettier unadorned.  Cook them in gently boiling salted water until they float to the top, then remove them with a slotted spoon and keep them in a pan in a warming oven with a little butter to prevent them from sticking to one another.  You can start the lemon cream sauce when you’re halfway through cooking the gnocchi and your timing should be right.  Serve both the game hens and the gnocchi with the cream sauce drizzled over the top.

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. 

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