Honey Olive Oil Gelato
If you don’t believe me that olive oil ice cream is a thing, simply ask Mr. Google. I did the research myself and discovered that, apparently, it is fucking fabulous.
Luscious. Just like me.
If you don’t believe me that olive oil ice cream is a thing, simply ask Mr. Google. I did the research myself and discovered that, apparently, it is fucking fabulous.
Making it myself was a moral imperative.
I was inspired by Meredith Kurtzman’s gelato recipe as described in Molto Gusto by Mario Batali and Mark Ladner.
But I also thought, “What about a little honey in there?” No too much - honey could easily overpower the delicate flavors of olive oil. But just a touch, I thought, would complement it.
I never get tired of being right.
You need some really really really good olive oil for this. Not some shit that you found in the back of your cabinets. Definitely not the “good stuff” you got three years ago and have been saving because it’s so special.
Olive oil goes rancid, folks. The shelf life is about 18 months, and after opening, a month or two. If I catch you putting rancid oil in anything I will have words with you.
”Have words” is code for “call you a motherfucker and kick you in the gonads”. Just FYI.
Olive oil tasting. One had gone rancid and was chastised as an example to the other olive oils, then thrown away. I ended up going with the one on the left. It was leafy and spicy and super yummy.
Next, let’s talk honey. You don’t need much, so make it count. I used Tupelo honey- it’s a special thing in South Carolina, where I am currently sheltering.
Tupelo honey has delicate sweetness and floral aroma. I know this because I tasted and smelled it (The more you know…). In the recipe, I started with just 2 tablespoons, tasted the custard, then added a touch more until I could barely detect the honey over the eggs and vanilla. Perfect.
Whatever honey you use, taste it first. Adjust. Taste the custard. Adjust. You are creating your own masterpiece. You do you.
Lastly, salt. You know that post I did on salt where I talk about using finishing salt on sweets? Bitch, the time has come!
Break out your fleur de sel and add a generous sprinkle when serving.
You’ll thank me.
I never get tired of that, either.
Shit You Need
8 egg yolks
1 cup, minus 2 Tbs, sugar. Or, however much honey you add, subtract in sugar.
3 cups milk
1 1/2 cups cream
2 Tbs plus 2 tsp honey. Adjust for your particular honey as previously described. Oh, so you thought you could just skip to the recipe without reading all the bullshit I write? You thought wrong, motherfucker!
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 cup very fine quality extra virgin olive oil. The best shit you can afford. Taste it first. Make sure it tastes fresh overall, and that it carries the flavors you want in your final gelato - grassy, nutty, spicy, etc.
Fleur de sel or other super bitchin’ finishing salt
Keep Calm and justeffingcook
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together egg yolks with 1/4 cup sugar. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan (preferably saucier, if you have one) heat milk, cream, salt, and remaining sugar on medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
When the milk mixture begins to simmer, remove from the heat. While whisking the yolks constantly, slowly add about a third of the hot milk. Then pour the egg mixture into the pan, again, while whisking constantly.
Return the pan to medium-low heat and gently cook, while stirring, until the mixture reaches 180 degrees Fahrenheit on and instant-read thermometer.
Remove from the heat and strain mixture into a mixing bowl. Add vanilla.
Optional - stir over an ice bath to cool. I think the purpose of an ice bath is to cool the mixture evenly and prevent weird texture things from happening. I’ve done it this way, and I’ve just thrown it in the fridge to cool, and so far haven’t noticed a difference.
Cover with plastic wrap, letting it settle directly on the surface of the custard. Cool in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, churn in your ice cream maker per the manufacturer’s directions.
In the last 10 minutes of the churn, add the olive oil.
Serve after a few hours in the freezer, or stick your face right in the ice cream maker (unplug first - please learn from my experience).
Sprinkle with salt, and have at it.
Super sexy, amIright?
Crab Cakes from Fresh Claws!
Pretty, right? Well, shit’s about to go south in a big way.
Pretty, right? Well, shit’s about to go south in a big way.
You know how you go the farmer’s market and get all inspired or some shit? Yeah, happens to me all the time. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t.
We were buying shrimp from the Shrimp Guy and saw these pretty crab claws, fresh from the May River (it’s really a bay, so salt water…it’s complicated). Anywhoo, I thought, “Pretty crab claws! Let’s make crab cakes from them!”
I brought them home and gave them a little bath in boiling water for 5 minutes or so. As they cooled, I congratulated myself on having all the right equipment for the job, and got set up to harvest sweet chunks of meat from these babies.
1.45 hours in.
I cut claws. I scooped with the wee metal spoons….
An hour and a half later I had fucking crab confetti.
And not much of it. Barely enough for two small, kinda gritty, crab cakes from a pound of claws.
If this were a math equation, if would look like this:
1 pound claws + 1.5 hours = fucking disappointment
In conclusion, this is not the way to get chunks of crab meat for crab cakes. Instead, buy the best lump crab you can - either on line or in a local store.
Or do like my classy friend Rebecca and get a couple of clusters of king crab legs. Thaw those bitches and crack ‘em for gigantic chunks of delectable crab. She just snacks on that shit while she sips champagne. I endorse this behavior 100%.
The Best Pepper
If you read my salt post and thought my pantry was a little excessive, buckle the fuck up, because here we go.
Clockwise from top left: wild-harvested Piper longum, white Piper borbonese, Piper borbonese, red Piper nigrum Kampot, Xanthoxylum piperatum Sancho. Center: Piper nigrum Tellicherry
If you read my salt post and thought my pantry was a little excessive, buckle the fuck up, because here we go.
I hope to holy hell that you do not believe that pepper is something that comes from a shaker, because we would need to have words. No, pepper is a God-gifted nugget delivering a pungent heat along with sweet or floral or citrusy or piney flavors. Or several of those flavors at once. Unlike chile peppers, the heat doesn’t come from capsaicin, but from the compound piperine.
In addition to piperine, pepper contains literally hundreds of other compounds, giving this spice a bouquet of aromas and flavors, as well as other properties. Antioxidant, antibacterial, prodigestive, anticancer. Yup, it’s a special little fruit.
You heard me right, fruit. It’s the fruit of a flowering tropical vine. When harvested at full ripeness, we get red peppercorns. When harvested before fully ripe and dried, black peppercorns. If those unripe berries are either freeze-dried or preserved in brine, we have green peppercorns. When harvested fully ripe, and soaked and fermented to remove the outer fruit, and then dried, we get white pepper. FYI, pink peppercorns are not pepper. They are dried berries that are more closely related to cashews than to pepper.
You might be thinking, “There are only four kinds of pepper: black, green, red, and white. What’s all this buckle-the-fuck-up shit?”
Wrong! We have barely begun to count the peppers!
Let’s get taxonomic. Piper is the genus or what we can accurately call pepper. Your typical black pepper is Piper nigrum, of the black/green/red/white discussion. From that same species, there are variations depending on the region the pepper is grown.
Botanical illustration of Piper nigrum.
Tellicherry, Kollimalai, Malabar, Shimoga, Rajakumari, Mlamala, all from India, along with subtly different varieties form the Cardamom Hills. Then there’s Sarawak from Malaysian Borneo. Abong from Sumatra, Indonesia. Kampot from Cambodia. Phu-quoc from Vietnam. Yupanqui from Ecuador. Belem from Brazil. Ceylon from Sri Lanka. Penja from Camaroon, a wonderful white pepper. There are more, and they all taste different and wonderful.
Piper nigrum. It’s a fruit, see?
All those varieties? That’s just Piper nigrum, folks.
Piper cubeba: cubeb, or tailed pepper, is grown mostly in Indonesia. It is harvested and dried much like black pepper, but with aromas and flavors of menthol and camphor and allspice.
Piper cubeba. Who doesn’t love the old-timey botanical print?
Piper guineense, or Ashanti pepper, is a West African species of pepper similar to cubeb. It is less bitter and more herbaceous. It is sometimes used in the spice mix known as berbere, although Ethiopian long pepper (see below) is more commonly incorprated.
Dried Piper guineense.
Long pepper comprises three different species that I know of. There may be more - I’m no expert. There is Piper longum from India, also know as pipli, Piper capense from Ethiopia, also known as timiz, and Piper retrofactum, the Balinese long pepper. They come from similar flowering vines as Piper nigrum, this time with tiny fruits, each about the size of a poppyseed, jammed together on a stalk. Compared to Piper nigrum, long pepper is considered more flavorful, with a slower onset heat and lingering flavor.
Dried Piper longum.
Now, if you looked closely at that first photo, you may have thought I was trying to pull one over on you. And you were right! Which of those kids is not like the others? Xanthoxylum! Not a “true” pepper, in that it isn’t in the genus Piper, but included because it’s rad!
There are several species in the Xanthoxylum genus that give rise to important culinary peppers. The most famous is Sichuan pepper, one of the ingredients in Five Spice powder. You may also come across Andaliman pepper, Mahkwan pepper, and Sancho pepper. These peppers all pack an amazing lemony scent and taste, and make your tongue go all numb and tingly. Cool, right?
I’ve saved my favorite for last. Piper borbonense. Is it The Best Pepper? If you have learned one thing from this post, hopefully it is that there can be no best pepper with all the world has to offer. This however, is my Best Pepper.
Part of the reason I put this baby at the end was that only the hardy souls who could make it this far would learn this magical secret. Because I don’t need a whole bunch of yokels buying up all the good shit. But if you’ve lasted this long, I figure you deserve it.
Piper borbonense is known as voatsiperifery where it is grown on Madagascar. It is a wild “tailed” pepper like cubeb. Harvested by hand, like truffles and diver scallops. It’s super complex and I love it so hard. I put it in a special grinder that I keep with the Himalayan salt. I only let the people I really really like use them.
What does is smell like? Pepper, sure. But it’s also earthier than typical pepper, with hints of cardamom and nutmeg. There’s also a floral/citrus thing happening in there that’s hard to put a finger on.
What does it taste like? For me, in addition to the pepper heat, there are sweet spices and lemony high notes. It’s got layers.
Maybe this will be your special pepper, too. Or maybe you’ll fall in love with the flavor profile of kampot, or timiz. Now imagine all those amazing subtle notes and grinding them over a simple lemon butter sauce or a plank of salmon or even a green salad.
The people eating your food may not know why it’s so good. They will probably just think you are a really fucking great cook.
You win.
The End.
ERMAHGERD!!! (Duck Confit)
Welcome to this week’s installment of Fucking Delicious Fridays! This week I have a conundrum. How to categorize duck confit?
Welcome to this week’s installment of Fucking Delicious Fridays! This week I have a conundrum. How to categorize duck confit? For as you know, my main categories are Ridiculously Easy, Worth the Work, Shit you Need, Bitch, Please, and coming soon, Fucking Fails.
Duck confit is pretty simple to do. It’s a stick it in the oven and walk away to do other shit for a while sort of thing. The hardest part of the whole recipe is picking meat off bones, but even that it easy because it should fall right off if you look at it hard enough.
Still, it involves finding duck legs and probably special ordering them, and then you have all this glorious duck fat at the end, which should not be thrown away, but strained and used for other things. So for those reasons, it’s gone in the Worth It Anyway category.
All that being said, this shit is like crack, and it will make your house smell like the home of a fucking culinary genius.
Duck confit is where you cook the legs of (rather chubby) ducks in their own fat. Which is possibly the best idea anyone ever had, though arguably lands in evil genius territory along with sharks with laser beams on their heads.
Seriously, it is genius, because back in the days before refrigeration, this way of preparing and storing your game meat kept it edible all year long. By storing meat in the fat you cooked it in, it created a hostile environment for icky disease-causing bacteria. Those little fuckers need oxygen.
So duck confit is a practical solution for the dystopian future of your choice, whether it be alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, or sentient robots. You’re welcome.
Plus, it’s insanely fucking delicious. Did I say that already? Well, it’s worth repeating.
You may ask, “So then I have a bunch of ridiculously delicious duck meat. What now?” The traditional use is cassoulet, a delicious French beans and wieners sort of dish (the townspeople will be sharpening pitchforks and lighting torches at the comparison…oh, well).
But if you have been to any remotely creative eating establishment in the last few years, you may have seen duck confit on pizza, in pasta dishes, in some elevated shepherd’s pie, you name it. One of my favorite restaurants in Minneapolis, Lat 14, has a pineapple fried rice that I get with duck confit. Fucking amazing.
One of their dishes inspired my absolute favorite-ist dish using duck confit: Pineapple fried rice with bacon and duck confit.
If you’re good, one day I’ll give you the recipe.
The recipe that follows uses the traditional French seasonings: garlic, thyme, peppercorns and juniper berries, because it was adapted from this recipe for cassoulet. But think of the possibilities! How about ginger and lemongrass? Galangal and kaffir? Oregano and dried chipotles? Garlic, orange juice and cinnamon….Hold the phone. Duck carnitas? Sounds like a future Fucking Delicious Fridays installment!
Shit You Need
6 duck legs, Pekin, Moulard or Rohan. I am being difficult here, because the place I order from typically sells in packs of 4. But 6 legs fit best in my baking dish, so that’s how I am writing the recipe. Figure it out.
6 Tbs kosher salt
Several sprigs of thyme
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 Tbs peppercorns. I use my Special Pepper for duck confit - it’s a Madagascan wild pepper called voatsiperifery. You can use regular peppercorns if you want, but if you have your own Special Pepper, this is the time to use it.
1 tsp dried juniper berries. Optional, I guess, but I think it really adds something.
Aromatic herb and spices for the bottom of your pan.
Keep Calm and justeffingcook
Day One:
Yes, this is a multi-day recipe. It’s not hard, it just takes planning. Quit whining.
Prick the skin of each duck leg in a dozen or so places with the tip of a paring knife. This helps the salt penetrate, and later will help the fat render from the skin.
Holding it in or over the bowl/dish it’s going to rest overnight in, sprinkle with 1 Tbs of kosher salt, back and front. Massage it in a bit. Place the leg in the bowl/dish.
Repeat with the remaining duck legs, tiling/stacking/nestling them in the dish.
Cover with plastic wrap, placing it down in the bowl right on top of the legs.
Place a plate or bowl on top of the covered legs, and put something on top to weigh it down - soup cans, grandma’s china, whatever.
Place in the refrigerator to rest between 12 and 24 hours. Don’t let it go days and days, or you will wind up with super salty duck jerky.
Salted and nestled and ready to chill… Dude. Chill.
Day 2:
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place the peppercorns, juniper berries, thyme and garlic in the bottom of a roasting pan. A 9x13 Pyrex baking pan works great here. If you have 2 of them, even better. You can use the second one to weigh down the first while the duck roasts.
Rinse the duck legs well and place in the pan, skin side down.
Cover with foil, and place something on top of the foil to weigh the whole business down - another baking dish, a cast iron pan, your worries and responsibilities (as long as they are oven-safe).
Place in the oven and walk away for two hours. Doesn’t it feel good to leave your worries and responsibilities behind, even for two hours?
Pull from the oven, remove the weighty object and foil, and flip the legs skin-side up. Place back in the oven to roast uncovered for 2 - 2 1/2 hours. The skin will be golden and the meat will have pulled away from the drumstick end.
Let rest at room temperature until cool enough to handle, then go for it. Pull the meat off the bones. Save the skin for duck chicharrones if desired.
Everything that’s left in the pan is: 1. duck stock 2. duck fat and 3. garbage. Pour it through a fine mesh strainer to eliminate the garbage.
For what remains, strain the top (fat) again, this time adding a square of cheesecloth to the strainer so that you get a lovely jar of golden duck fat without any floaties. Be careful to leave behind all the liquid at the bottom. That stock can be saved separately and used to flavor the next soup you make.
Hooray! You now have duck confit, a little stock, and duck fat. Make yourself some duck fat fried potatoes to celebrate!
After roasting for the first 2 hours, most of the fat from the skin is in the bottom of the pan.
After it’s all said and done: 1. Stock, 2. fat, and 3. garbage.
The sexiest pint of fat you’ll see anywhere.