My First Goat, with Mojo

I received a special treat in my 4505 Meats Butcher Bag, a bone-in goat shoulder roast that was over 3 pounds. Goat! I have never eaten or cooked goat before, what a fun adventure!

Goat is the most popular meat in the world and yet it is rarely served here in the United States. Similar in flavor and texture to lamb, goat meat is very lean and is best cooked in a braise or a combination of roasting and braising to ensure juicy meat.

At first I was a bit daunted, I didn’t want to mess up such a beautiful piece of meat.

Researching goat recipes on the internet was great fun and I thought of making birria, which is a traditional Mexican stewed goat dish with lots of chile. Then I thought of making a goat adobo, which is again a braise with a careful balance of vinegar and sweetness that is from the Phillipines. I kept putting it off though, and I realized it was my fear of making a mistake that was holding me back. I have never actually eaten birria before and it has been years since I have had adobo. How could I accurately make a dish when I wasn’t sure what it should taste like? I could make the dish taste great but it might lack the authenticity that I desired.

Time passed and then I found a bottle of sour orange juice from Miami in my pantry and I realized, that was IT! I would make a mojo marinade and then slow roast the goat.

Usually the Cuban’s use pork marinaded in mojo, but why not the goat? I have made it with pork many times, you marinate the pork shoulder in sour orange juice, garlic, oregano, a little cumin, olive oil and salt and pepper and roast it slowly covered with foil for the most part until the roast is tender and yet browned and glazed on top. The pork is sliced thinly and made into sandwiches with lightly pickled red onions and pickles and melted cheese, or my family just like to eat it sliced for dinner with pickled red onions and a cheesy potato dish on the side.

I made up the marinade in a ziplock bag, I just threw everything together quickly. The garlic this time of year is especially wonderful. The skin is just barely formed and it is so tender and fragrant. I love how my hands smelled after mixing up this mojo marinade.

I slid the meat into the bag and ensured all of the garlic and oregano were distributed evenly, and then placed the bag into a dish and put the whole thing in the fridge overnight.

The next day was a work day and all day long I thought about how wonderful my kitchen was going to smell once the goat started roasting. I wanted to use my wonderful vintage porcelain chicken roaster from the famed Taylor & Ng. This roaster was a gift from my dear A___ one year, it is such a treasure as they are no longer being made. When it’s not being used it lives under my coffee table as a decoration! Doesn’t everyone decorate their homes with their cookware? In the living room?

The advantage of this roaster is that it is quite capacious, and roasts and browns the meat but keeps in the moisture, rendering the chicken or other protein rich and juicy. It is pure magic.

I removed the meat and then strained out the herbs and aromatics into a strainer to go on top of the meat, leaving a bit of the marinade in the bottom of the roaster. The meat went onto a bed of sliced fiery and eye-watering Spanish onion. A sprinkle of salt and pepper and into the oven it went with its chicken lid. I added a few unpeeled carrots as well, as I love a roasted carrot almost more than meat itself.

All of the recipes I found on the ‘net said a goat roast of this size should slow roast for 3-4 hours in a slow oven, e.g., 325 F, after bringing the roast up to room temperature. The warming process of my roast took 2 hours but the enclosed browning environment of the chicken roaster must have sped up the cooking process. My roast was done at 2 hours and 15 minutes, with an internal temperature of 180 F, the meat was so tender to a fork’s touch and had withdrawn perfectly from the bones.

The garlic cloves that I had strewn on top were caramelized too! There was a pleasant amount of juices left at the bottom of the roaster, which I defatted it and used it as is.

Despite my taking the roast out of the fridge the moment I got home, and the quicker than anticipated roasting time, the goat mojo was done very late in the evening, it was past 10:30 pm, so I let the meat rest for a bit in a tin and then put everything away in the fridge for another evening. I did carve off a nugget and the goat did taste like lamb, but a more elegant and softer flavor and so very, very tender. I think that goat is my new favorite meat over lamb now.

The following night, I had my great friend D___ over for a goat dinner. I carved the meat and saved the bones for stock, and laid the meat and carrots and onions in a gratin pan and wiggled out the completely gelatinous juices over the top, and let them warm gently in the oven. I had obtained three enormous bunches of rainbow chard from the farmers market with the widest and thickest stems I had ever seen, they were gorgeous! I removed the stems and sauteed them until tender with lemon olive oil and slivered garlic and then made my mom’s delicious bechamel sauce to spread over the tender vegetables and topped the whole thing with soft levain bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese to become a gratin.

We spooned out rich slices of goat and tender roasted carrots and garlic cloves, and heavenly rich scoops of chard gratin with its crunchy top and then spooned the savory meat juices over the plate. It was Negroni night and we really enjoyed the complimentary flavors of the herbaceous and tart cocktails with the goat.

Despite my initial fear over cooking this kind of meat, I am now completely in love with Goat Mojo and plan on making it many times again.

Decadent Pleasures: Fried Chicken (Part 1)

Fried chicken has long been a decadent pleasure of mine and apparently it’s a family tradition as well. I came across photographs of my grandparents and great grandparents and a gagillion of great aunts and uncles and assorted family picnicking the backyard eating fried chicken and mashed potatoes. They did this a lot.

With this genetic predisposition I’ve always made excellent fried chicken using a variety of methods, American, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and even a Turkish version, albeit not authentic, but always delicious.

Last night I went out to dinner at Miss Ollie’s in historic downtown Oakland with some dear friends to try out their fried chicken and rum cocktails.

Fried chicken and rum punch is almost as heavenly as fried chicken and rosé Champagne.

The amazing Miss Ollie’s uses some sort of magical chopped parsley, onion, and perhaps lemon mixture and stuffs it under the skin before she batters and fries her chicken. Holy cow was that good!

At lunch today while I was nibbling on the amazing leftover chicken wings and some her delicious fried Kale with shredded cabbage and carrot pickle I had sort of a brainstorm. I was trying to think of what is in this concoction of Miss Ollie’s, and then my mind wandered over to Margaret Fox’s recipe from Cafe Beaujolais of gooped potatoes. Potato goop is a delicious mixture of garlic and herbs, parsley and olive oil that she tosses with cubed potatoes and then roasts in the oven until everything is crunchy and succulent and heady with aromatic herbs.

Would it be completely outrageous of me to use a similar type mixture stuffed under the skin of my fried chicken?

I thought of how fond I am of brining the chicken first using a brine similar to what Ad Hoc does but using buttermilk.

That’s when it hit me. I don’t really have any plans this weekend. I’m going to make fried chicken in a decadent way.

You can almost see the gears turning…

Contemplating Eggs and The Lack Thereof

Last week I ate a Sushirito, a burrito sized sushi roll, and unbeknownst to me it contained tamago, the Japanese rolled omelette. It wasn’t on the menu and I told the preparer and the cashier I was allergic to egg, but still they added it to the roll. I ate two bites and started to feel funny, within minutes I was having a severe allergic reaction.

I took 2 Claritans as my immunologist instructed, then took another one. By this time my tongue was tingling and my throat felt like it was closing up to I went a block from my office to an urgent care center, they promptly sent me to the ER. The ER staff were great and gave me a whopping shot of steroids and some massive antihistamine and noted a rash developing all over my arms, chest and back, and that my throat was closing up and my tongue was swelling up. After 4 hours of medication and monitoring I was allowed to go home with a handful of prescriptions.

In the days that followed I was dealing with the “hangover” of this allergy reaction, a hugely busy workload and a severe family health emergency. The steroids I was taking prevented me from sleeping but also gave me insane energy and insomnia to deal with all of these crises.

A few days later it really hit me. It’s been two years since these weird food intolerances appeared. Technically they are not a true allergy as the blood and skin tests were negative. But there is no denying that I’m having an anaphylactic response to eggs.

I had a bad night realizing all of the foods that are now shut off to me, probably forever. All of my life I have never given a thought to what I ate, except whether it tasted good or was well prepared. Now I can never relax my vigilance just in case the next allergy attack proves to be more serious. I carry an EpiPen and I read labels. When I dine out or eat prepared foods I have to place my trust and my life in the hands of others.

Did I mention that I have major control issues? I have always, in my quiet and diplomatic way, maintained an iron grip of control over my life. Now, this doesn’t help me, matters are out of my hands. It’s terrifying and frustrating.

So, in an effort to help me get over these feelings of sadness I need to get it off my chest. I’m pissed I can’t eat quiche, poached eggs, hollendaise, Green Goddess dressing, salad Niçoise, Caesar salad, waffles, soufflés, meringues, dacquois and Pavlovas, macarons and deviled eggs. No matzo balls, fresh pasta, donuts, cookies, lemon curd, freaking lemon meringue pie, tuna salad sandwiches, aioli and frittatas, pot au cream, custard, my Granny’s tapioca pudding recipe, BLTs with a thick smear of mayonnaise and creme brûlée. I’m going to miss the Creme Brûlée Guy. A lot.

Fuck you, eggs, I hate you.

I don’t like how sick I get after eating eggs now. It’s super scary. I need to avoid them diligently just in case this intolerance gets more sensitive and the reaction gets more severe. This is a true threat. So why do I miss these things? It’s in my head, a sort of denial. I need to get over it and move on.

But for today I am angry and bitter.

Fucking eggs. Fucking beautiful eggs.

Chicken Mock Pot Pie

It was one of those nights. I came home from work cranky, sore, hungry, and exceedingly broke.

I surveyed the emptiness of my refrigerator and found a partial carcass of a roasted chicken from the other night and spotted a box of Bisquick stashed in the corner of the pantry. Perfect, it’ll be a mock chicken pot pie kind of night.

I made myself Negroni, because of course I have all the ingredients for that, but no vegetables, for Pete’s sake I am even out of pepper. But I muster onwards, sipping a few sips of my cocktail made me feel a little better, they also accentuated the urge to have something decent and slightly hearty for dinner.

I looked in the freezer and found a little bit of frozen spinach and some frozen corn kernels and spread those in the bottom of one of my beautiful oval casseroles. I picked out most of the meat from the chicken carcass and added all of the pan juices and sauce from the chicken into the casserole. This went into the oven to get bubbly, while I pulled out that ubiquitous box of Bisquick. I measured out the mix and grated in some cheddar cheese and sprinkled in as much black pepper as I could from the tiny porcelain chicken salt-and-pepper set that I keep on my dining table. I mixed up the biscuit dough with my hands and patted it rather flat between my palms and laid it on top of the casserole filling.

My chicken mock pot pie went into my convection oven while I relaxed at the kitchen table finishing up the latest issue of Lucky Peach. The aromas of Campari, orange and gin were slowly eclipsed by the baking smells of biscuits, cheese, and chicken.

This is certainly not haute cuisine but it is wonderful comfort food and I’m grateful to be able to cook a decent dinner out of my pantry. I am grateful for a pantry full of great things, including very fine gin.

Nine more days until payday!

hal’s Negroni

Snacky Food – Padron Peppers

In just about every high end bar in San Francisco this time of year you will find padron peppers on the menu.

Padrons are mostly mild frying peppers, sautéed until blistered and limp then showered with sea salt and eaten while warm with your fingers, preferably sipping something high octane.

I saw mostly mild because there is always one sneaky pepper that is h-o-t, zippy enough to make you yelp and throatily say, “Whoo!” and reach for your glass. What clever bartenders, eh? Round two coming right up.

Padrons are also nice snacks before dinner at home or for lunch with goat cheese and crackers to quench the heat.

Today for lunch I did just that, I warmed up my skillet to medium high, sloshed in a bunch of olive oil and sautéed the peppers for a few minutes.

Spooned out onto a plate to cool a minute and sprinkled with Maldon crunchy salt, the padrons glisten invitingly, begging to be picked up by a tiny stem and chomped in one bite.

(Recipe here)

Padrons are also full of Vitamin C so I felt no guilt devouring the whole bowlful.

Chiles are like sunshine for your soul.

A Lot of TLC

It’s been a tough week. Pogo is gone, my surgery day came the next day and I was so happy to have a dear friend scoop me up and take me to her home for some TLC and good company.

I learned to use my scooter and to sleep with one leg hiked up in the air, to go to the loo and never touch my right foot to the floor (much trickier than you would think, try it sometime!) and to catnap in between pain pills.

I learned that Costco has the best leakproof thermal cups ever and bubbly water is the perfect drink when one is feeling squiffy. It is possible to live on saltines and candied ginger for quite a few days. I’ve learned enough physical pain mutes the heartbreak of losing my best furry friend, a tiny bit, for a little while.

I learned that a really, really good friend is one who waits at the pharmacy for an hour for stronger pain medication and then dabs anti itch stuff on your horrifyingly-similar-to-mosquito-bites rash the medication subsequently gives you without freaking out. It’s been a week of learning, of humility and of the love of a good friend. This is what friends do for another and it is a beautiful gift.

Suddenly though I was hungry and nothing tastes better than toast with peanut butter and Biscoff spread, hot tea then hot coffee and eventually chicken soup. Then, I was treated to a succession of lovely meals, small for my puny appetite, but so tasty that they instantly cheered me up while providing healing nutrition. All made while simultaneously refilling water cups, rearranging mounds of pillows, dispensing the much needed pain pills, gently applying ice packs and more dabbing of the anti itch stuff. Angel status achieved.

The new footwear.

Gyoza is fantastic, particularly at sunset.

Sometimes one can ask for a grilled cheese sandwich at breakfast, and get it.

Sometimes bonus bacon comes with it. Yay, bacon!

Yakisoba can be faked quite successfully with linguini, it’s called fusion!

And sometimes, cheese in a can tastes damned good. I know, but don’t judge…

Soon I will be home eating out of the freezer so I am treasuring these quiet times filled with TLC. A thank you seems inadequate but I do thank you, D___.

(Plus this…)

A Farewell

I miss you, my sweet boy.

Pogo ~ 1999 – 2012

The Forest Visits My Kitchen

I came home today to find this in my fridge. What could it be?

Voila! What a haul!

A full pound of black morels from an undisclosed forest in California.

My dear friends Anna and Robert went foraging this weekend for morel and found three pounds – I am one lucky friend to be gifted with so many. They have the magic morel eye.

I wrote about our divine morel dinner last year at Dinners at Anna’s and their haul that year was spectacular – seven pounds I think.

Imagine, walking through the forest and seeing this beauty, perfectly hidden in the duff, but only if you have that eye to recognize what lies delicately underfoot. I cannot wait to have a functioning ankle to join Anna on a foray someday. Someday soon.

Fresh from the forest they were very dirty and probably had “occupants”. I donned my beautiful, hand-sewn 70′s mushroom fabric apron and found my deepest and tallest bowl. I filled it with cool water and a good sprinkle of salt and started halving them and plopping them in the saline bath.

I ignored the pale tiny squirming worms that appeared on the cloth I was cutting them on. Ignore!!!

An incredible aroma filled my head: rich, woodsy, loamy and that unmistakeable morel fragrance. What beauties.

Some were short and squat, others were slim and tall, others were just massive.

They have a texture unlike any mushroom I have played with, full of nooks and crannies, firm and almost bouncy but fragile enough to crack in your hands if pressed too hard. A true, edible morel is hollow inside from tip to stem.  A false morel looks very different.

Not looking at the worm trails, not!

After their soak I pulled them out to heap and fill my largest colander. This is why one must wash wild mushrooms well.

Water so dirty it looked like soup, with about a 1/2 cup of debris

The forest slowly washes away. I lose count on how many changes of water I used but eventually there was a barely imperceptible bit of grit left in the bottom of the bowl. It was time for the morels to drain and relax a bit while I had a glass of wine (and feed the constantly squeaking cat who threatened to trip me as I moved about the kitchen).

I also took a little time to explore Hank Shaw’s amazing and nationally recognized blog for morel recipes, such as his favorite morel sauce for venison.  My pantry is well stocked and I just happened to have some veal demiglace and some good port, so I pulled those out.

I have enough morel to make a batch of this sauce several times over, so I decided to make one batch and then sauté the rest just in butter.

I  used an entire stick of butter in my skillet and when it was melted and a little browned I piled in the morels.  What a fragrance, my entire apartment was filled, it was heady and intoxicating.

After they cooked for about 10 minutes, their liquid evaporated and concentrated into the butter.  I heaped them into a freezer container and let them cool.  The sun had set, I had started drinking the port and I needed to get off my feet.  Farewell little morels, I will play with you soon!  They will rest in the freezer until I am ready.  What riches…

I hope there is no need to tell you that you should never eat wild mushrooms unless you are an expert, or happen to be friends with experts.  Even experts make mistakes which is why my friends limit their foraging to species that are unmistakable – again to an expert.  Eating the wrong mushroom can result in the death of your liver and kidneys and no meal is worth that risk.   If you have any question at all about a mushroom, don’t even touch it, and leave it to the experts such as those at Far West Fungi.  

Dreaming of Picnics

Spring is showing her pretty face and each morning that dawns mild and sunny makes my heart quicken and long for a picnic.

The mental image of lounging negligently on a patterned quilt laid over a soft patch of spring grass, a bit of dappled shade and slight airy breezes just barely stirring my hair while I sip chilled bone dry rosé out of a crystal glass makes me want to dash immediately into the kitchen to prepare my favorite picnic foods.

The fun thing about picnics is that they can be elaborate or casual, highly orchestrated or completely spontaneous. The formal picnics remind me of Hyacinth Bouquet’s “Afternoon of Riparian Delights” or the spreads laid out for the diehards at Opera in the Park. Casual picnics bring fond memories of feeling peckish in the car with Biggie and Luna, cruising around town to fill bags with bread, cheese, wine and fruit and finding an unoccupied table in SOMA to feast. My most favorite casual picnic is to grab a decadent sandwich from Molinari’s, some sparking wine in a paper sack from Coit Liquors and join the throngs of families, sunbathers and folks doing Tai Chi in Washington Park.

My dream picnic is a mix between the two, beautiful and elegant food, exceptional wine, a picturesque location with water and a small boat or two and good friends with nothing but lazy time ahead to lounge and chat and stare at the clouds.

The menu keeps evolving but today my dream picnic includes an emerald chilled spinach soup, creamy and fresh with a squiggle of parsley infused oil over each tiny cupful. The soup is kept perfectly iced in my S’well bottle and the parsley oil is in a tiny squeeze bottle from el cheapo Daiso.

The next course is lanky asparagus, crisp tender and reposing under a sprinkling of slivered preserved lemons and a walnut oil vinaigrette.

The savory is a glistening roasted chicken “melon”, an treasure from the files of Julia Child and Company. A plump chicken is boned and skinned and transformed into a luscious pate with cognac, shallot, batons of pale pink ham, bound up into a pouch of the skin and tied with kitchen string to form a melon shape. The “melon” is roasted until golden brown and served barely warm, slim wedges to pick up with one’s fingers to nibble on in a desultory fashion between sips of wine and buttered bites of excellent sourdough.

A small squat pot of mom’s chicken liver pâté gleams under its sheet of melted butter and sautéed scallions. A bouquet of fat red grapes laze in a basket within reach, for one to pop under the teeth between nibbles of pâté and asparagus.

Eventually our thoughts turn towards sweets. Packed away in the picnic basket are few exquisite petit fours and cannoli from Victoria Pastry and slices of chilled melon sprinkled with Riesling and flecks of mint, and a small board of cheeses.

There’s a half bottle of the wine left so we nibble on the cheeses: a button of creamy goat cheese with a pansy pressed on top, a gooey triple cream Mt. Tam and a tangy Point Reyes blue offset with brown buttered spiced pecans and crisp crackers.

After a little walk and admiring of the local gardens and spring blooms we return to cups of demitasse from the thermos and our sweet treats.

We might take a nap, go for a paddle or sail, play some croquet or perhaps get artistic with water colors or fountain pen for a haiku on the lure of spring. We chat and laugh over the remains of the afternoon before heading home to a warm bath, a stiff Scotch and a light salad and the remains of the chicken melon.

Julia Child’s Chicken Melon

Picnic Necessities

For any picnic and for the comfort and consideration of your guests please be sure to bring along these necessities:

• A blanket or seating for everyone, bring more blankets than you think you’ll need, people like to spread out and if the fog moves in an extra blanket can be handy.
• Picnic basics – plates, cups, glasses, cutlery, napkins (bring plenty!), paper towels, tea towels to lay out or cover the food, serving utensils, salt and pepper, a bottle opener and a sharp knife, wet napkins for sticky fingers, zip lock bags for leftovers, bags for recyclables, compost and waste. This doesn’t have to take up a lot of space, you can use compostable serving ware that don’t require taking home to wash. I have a basket of all these items plus a few tablecloths that store away neatly.
• Bottles of plain water and beverages for your lunch, bring extra drinks in case you have surprise guests, have a spill or get extra thirsty. You can always buy a big bag of crushed ice and let it sit in the shade somewhere for your picnic.
• Your lunch carefully stored in a cooler or chill bags with ice or freezer chillers for safety (hot foods got, cold foods cold!)
• Toys (for kids and adults) such as a frisbee, soap bubbles to blow, deck of cards, perhaps a rubber chicken. I am very fond of taking my shark shaped kite to beach picnics!
• Sun protection such as a hat, high SPF sunscreen, a scarf, sunglasses and sunscreen lip protection. These items are important no matter what the weather.

Now I need to schedule a real picnic!

Nespresso Me

I live in the land of amazing coffee and the amount of coffee paraphernalia that has piled up in my tiny apartment is nothing short of astonishing.

I have a drip coffee machine, piles of unbleached brown filters, a gold filter, a coffee grinder, a Moka pot, an Aero press, two French presses, a vintage 1985 Braun espresso machine, a Turkish coffee pot and Turkish coffee grinder and a manual milk frother.

The weekend rolls around and I am still not satisfied with my home coffee. I get tired of going out to get a coffee and don’t have time to make a cup before I go to work. Sigh.

Then along comes a merger in my company with a French firm and every other office, except ours, gets Nespresso machines and some of our senior staff asked why don’t we have one?

Well, I’m working on this for the firm but I started thinking about me, what about my coffee needs??

I want need a decent coffee apparatus that is fast and is of very high quality. I can’t afford the Breville espresso machine and burr grinder I have been lusting after ever since my pal A___ got one nor do I have the physical room for them, but I do have room for a Pixie!

Say hello to my little friend.

Happily, Williams Sonoma was having a sale and I rather indulged in an impulse purchase of an electric green Nespresso Pixie with the Aeroccino Supreme automatic milk frother at a pretty discounted price.

Like many who are culinarily obsessed I get mad crushes on my new gadgets, but never like this. I am really in love with my Nespresso machine.

Yesterday I made my first espresso in my vintage Block demitasse cup. It was divine.

The aroma that filled The Roost, the immediate “rats tail” of coffee that hissed out of the machine, the thick crema that formed and made eyes in my cup, it was pure magic.

This morning I made a cappuccino and it was ready in under 45 seconds.

The frother made the best foam I have seen in a coffee shop or by my own efforts in quite a while, silently and quickly. I pushed the button, looked away, and it was done. The Pixie has a feature to customize the flow of water so I set it to fill to the perfect level in my Ittalia beaker.

Voila!

I sat at my little table for a few minutes, sprinkled bronzed grains of Demererra sugar over the creamy foam floating in my mug, stirred and sipped. I haven’t felt this level of contentment in the morning in a very long time.

Best of all my little break did not delay my morning routine. I am not a morning person and need an earthquake to get me out of bed. I mean this literally, we had an earthquake this week! Yet these past two days I have looked forward to getting up.

This evening I had a decaf espresso with a splash of bourbon and it was pretty amazing and comforting on this clear but chilly night. I need to get a lemon tomorrow because my favorite after meal espresso is one with a baton of lemon peel, twisted over the coffee and rubbed along the cup’s rim to release the lemon oil.

A word about the coffee itself. The little pods come in 16 different blends of coffee ranging in intensity, region and style. I haven’t yet tried them all but I am pretty picky about my coffee, my favorite being Blue Bottle, and am quite pleased with the strength, acidity and fruit so far from the Nespresso pods.

The pods themselves are BPA free and recyclable. The Pixie warms up in around 20 seconds and has some elegant features like a hidden receptacle for the empty pods and a removable water reservoir. It flashes a cool soft blue light along its front while it warms up or glows red when it wants more water. This is easy on the sleep-fogged brain no doubt, such clever designers.

The Aeroccino can make foam for cappuccino or lattes heated to the perfect temperature and also makes non-heated foam for iced drinks and has a non-stick interior. If you have ever foamed milk you will appreciate this particular feature as scrubbing off cooked milk from the pitcher and stem of the steaming wand is an unlovely chore.

Like I said, I’m rather gaga over my new machine.

I can’t wait until morning!

I was not compensated for writing this nor did I receive anything for free from Nespresso or Williams Sonoma. I am simply thrilled with the products and wanted to share my joy with you all. Santé!