Cacio e Pepe with Ramps

Cacio e Pepe is a very simple Roman dish, but it's a bitch to get right. It's just pasta, water, pecorino romano cheese, and black pepper: no oil, no cream, no egg, nothing else. But the cheese wants to glop up or stick to the pot/skillet. This is our second take and we're adding ramps  which we get at the farmers market during their short season.

Not the best lighting for the finished dish :-(

One of the better discussions I've seen on cacio e pepe is on Serious Eats; he blooms the pepper in oil to bring out flavor and uses a bit of butter. Since I have to sauté the ramps anyway, I'll do both in butter; we'll try and stay pure by not adding oil. We also use Serious Eats technique of low-water boiling to increase starch; you really don't need a giant pot of water!

I've tried this before with homemade pasta and it was too soft to withstand the physical beating necessary to emulsify the cheese, so use commercial dry pasta.

225 g Spaghetti pasta (1/2 pound, 1/2 box)
80 g Pecorino Romano cheese (3 ounces)
lots of Black Pepper, freshly ground
Ramps
Butter, unsalted

Ramps are in season at the farmers market

Boil the pasta in as little water as needed to cover, with a bit of salt, stirring to ensure the strands don't stick. Cook until a couple minutes away from done, very al dente.

Grate the Pecorino very fine on a microplane or rotary grater.
Grind the pepper coarsely.
Slice the ramp stems into smallish pieces that'll fit on a fork, and the leaves into larger slices that will wilt down a bit; keep them separate.

Mise en place is essential, this comes together quickly

Heat the butter in a nonstick skillet.
Add Ramp stems and pepper, cook until fragrant.
Add Ramp leaves and cook to wilt a bit.
Remove from pan and reserve in a bowl to add later.

Turn off the heat on the skillet so the surface can cool down, to prevent cheese sticking.
When pasta is about 2 minutes from done,
ladle some of the now starch-rich water into the skillet.
Add most of the grated Pecorino and stir into the water.
Use tongs to transfer the Spaghetti to the skillet and stir into the water/cheese;
it's fine if you have water dripping from the pasta.
Stir vigorously to turn the water, starch and cheese into an emulsion coating the pasta;
add more pasta water if it's too thick, and test the pasta for doneness.
Add the Ramps and a bunch more ground Pepper, combine.

Serve and top with the rest of the grated Pecorino.

Confession: my cheese glopped together as I stirred, and I stirred quite vigorously, shaking the pan with one hand and stirring with tongs in the other. The crappy quality of the photo and the garnish of pecorino hides the glops. I had turned the heat back on low, figuring I needed enough heat to melt, but that may have been a mistake.

The TalesOfAmbrosia blog has a very simple recipe that heats the serving bowl over the pasta pot, but then combines everything off heat in that bowl.  I really do think heat is the issue.

On Republica's Scienza in Cucina blog, the article Le ricette scientifiche: la cacio e pepe is very helpful; use Google Translate :-)

Lucky Peach has 3 recipes in the print edition, but this one online is quite explicit about excessive heat causing lumps; interestingly, he makes fresh pasta.

After some experimentation, keeping temperature low solves the glopping problem.
Before adding the cheese, keep the water between 55-65C (130-150F) so the cheese won't coagulate due to excessive heat; maintain this range as you add the other ingredients. You'll probably need to let the starchy pasta water cool a bit as it will be coming off the boil.

Pastrami #3: four curing variations

Our previous pastrami was too salty, it started with commercially-cured brisket; this time we'll cure it ourselves. To dial-in the salt, we'll do four brine variations: two salt densities (4, 8%) and two durations (3, 7 days). We'll then cook sous vide to a steak-like texture with a lower temperature than most: 72 hours at 135F.

Rhulman has a bunch of writing on pastrami brining but his cups and teaspoons measurements aren't the best for repeatability, especially for pink salt with its nitrates. He's added comments about weights, and indicates he uses a 10% brine because he's going to boil it to cook, drawing out the excess salt; he adds that he'd do 5% if he was going to cook by baking where the salt won't be reduced. His book is full of conversion errors going from volume to weight and he's never bothered to publish errata, so we're a bit suspicious of trusting his recipes.

ChefSteps talks about "equilibrium brining", which uses a brine concentration the same as you'd want in your finished product, rather than starting with a high concentration and hoping to pull it out of the brine before it gets too salty. (This is a similar approach to sous vide cooking where you cook it at the target temperature so you can never over-heat it). The also have a couple excellent posts on sous vide pastrami, including the "worlds largest pastrami".  More immediately useful is their very-clear is the "sous vide pastrami" which we're going to use as the basis for our variations.

ChefSteps uses a 4.1% salt brine (plus sugar and other pickling spices, and pink salt), and lets the meat brine for 7 days. We'll split our brisket into 4 chunks and use both a 4% and 8% concentration, and brine for 3 and 7 days.

We'll make one 4% brine then split into two buckets and add extra salt to one to bring it to 8%. To expedite, we'll heat everything to dissolve Sugar and Salt in half the total required water, then add ice to bring it up to our desired volume in each bucket.

5.14 Lb Brisket (2.33 Kg) split in 2, each 1135 g
For 4% Brine: 180 g Kosher Salt

Brine

For combined, concentrated Brine:

2.5 L Water (we'll dilute to 4.5 L with ice later)
328 g Sugar
180 g Salt (we'll increase this for the 8% bucket later)
30 g Pink Salt
41 g Black Pepper

34 g Coriander Seeds

5 g Yellow Mustard Seed
4 g Pink Pepper Corns
2.3 g Fennel Seed, whole
1.6 g Cinnamon, whole
4.3 g Chili flakes
0.35 g Clove
0.25 g Bay Leaf,
5 g Garlic Powder
5 g Juniper Berries

Add half the water, 2.25 L, to a pot with all the ingredients above, bring to simmer and dissolve Salt and Sugar.
Divide between two containers, at this point they'll both be 4% salt.
Add an additional 180 g Salt  (WRONG see below) to the second container to bring it up to 8%.
Add an additional 2.25 L ice water split between both buckets to chill them down.
Add 1135 g Brisket slab to each

THIS IS WRONG: the high-concentration should be 8% of 2.25 L for the one bucket, so 180 g total; we get 90 g from the combined big brine, so need another 90 for the second bucket, not 90 g + 180 g in 2.25L = 10.8% brine. TO FIX, we can dilute: need 3.375 L to bring this down to 8%; add 7.5 g Pink Salt and 82 g Brown Sugar to balance and don't worry about the spices. Next time: 180 g in combined plus 90 in 8% bucket.)

(In retrospect, I should have made a combined batch of the dry spices and sugar and pink salt, then divided those, dosed each with the correct amount of Kosher Salt, and simmered separately to avoid confusion.)

Store in fridge for 3.5 days, turning slabs once a day to ensure they're evenly brined.
Cut each one in half, and return one half of each to their buckets for 3.5 more days;
wrap and store the 3-day brined pieces until time to smoke and rub.

Dry Rub

Remove all from fridge, drain and dry -- and note which is which! :-)
Make a rub using Chef Steps' list:

37 g Brown Sugar
37 g Salt, kosher
36 g Black Pepper corns
27 g Coriander Seed, whole
5 g Juniper Berries, whole
4 g Chili Flake
5 g Garlic powder

Grind Pepper, Coriander, Juniper and Chili in a spice grinder until a bit more coarse than fine; you probably should do these separately so you can actually grind the Juniper that tends to bounce around more than grind like the dry Coriander; mix with the rest.
Pat into the four slabs coating all surface.

Smoke

Place on wire rack to allow airflow.

Cold smoke 12 hours; it was about 40F/2C out today and we used an  "A-Maze-N" cold smoker tube that keeps the smoke going without producing much heat.

Vacuum bag each piece individually and freeze until ready to cook sous vide.

Cook Sous Vide

Cook sous vide, directly from frozen for 72 hours at 57C/135F.

Results: Disappointing

We removed each hunk from its bag, sliced and put on plates with hidden labels indicating the brine and brine time for a blind test. I could tell when slicing that some were much tougher than I expected, than the previous trial with factory-cured brisket.  Below are our tasting notes, ordered from best to worst.

3.5d @ 4%: Best

Texture OK.

Good smoke.

Too sweet.

Outer smoked edge dried out, though.

Most tender texture.

7d @ 4%

Tough again in outer edge.

Chili heat is inappropriate.

Outer edge is ropey.

More chewy than 3.5d@4%.

3.5d @ 8%

More tender than the worst one, but still too chewy.

Less salt than the worst.

Meh, barely acceptable for serving to guests.

7d @ 8%: Worst

Way too chewy.

Burn from salt.

Terrible texture even in center.

Unpleasant chew. 

Ropy edge.

Don't serve to friends.

Overall defects

When the meat cooled, even the best one turned chewy, almost beef-jerky like.

Was the 12-our smoke drying it out?

Back out sugar.

The spice crust was intrusive.

Even the lowest time and concentration was pink throughout from the nitrates, so we've got enough time/intensity.

Cloyingly sweet.

Next Time

Eliminate the smoking and use liquid smoke in the brine to eliminate ropy edge.
Eliminate the salt and sugar from the dry rub to reduce saltiness and sweetness and prevent desiccation; use only the spices and herbs.
We used bitchin' hot Korean chili flakes, reduce or use a less intense chili, or eliminate.
Remove rub for service.

Since the cure penetrated completely, our max time/concentration should be 4% for 3.5 days. Let's do a similar set of 4 variations:

3.5d @ 4%, 3.5d @ 2%
1.5d @ 4%, 1.5d @ 2%

Tortas de Aciete #1

We had these slightly sweet, anise-imbued crackers in Barcelona and really liked them. Even there they were expensive; here we saw Inés Rosales brand for $6 for a package of six 1-ounce crackers! Yes, they're still made by hand but at that price, we had to try making them.

The Inés Rosales crackers were said to be 24% Spanish Olive Oil, and many of the recipes we found had about that ratio of oil to dough. We found an excellent video on You Tube that showed the kind of texture we were looking for, but opted to start with a recipe from Fine Cooking. After making these a couple times, we've bumped up the anise, orange and oil, and changed the sugaring process a little.

Other recipes included sugar and anise liquor (e.g., Absinthe, Ouzo) in the dough, but this one used Orange Blossom Water which we happened to have. I'm converting some of the measurements to metric so I can more easily adjust and repeat next time.

75 g Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil (5 Tbs, 2.5 fl oz)
10 g Anise Seed (2 tsp)

280 g Cake Flour (2 Cup)
8 g Yeast (2 tsp)
3 Tbs Sugar
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
Zest from two Oranges, grated fine on a MicroPlane
7 Tbs Water
1 Tbs Orange Blossom Water

3 Tbs Sugar, powdered in spice grinder for topping

Heat the Anise Seed in the Olive Oil and brown a bit. Let cool.

Mix the Flour, Yeast, Salt, whole Sugar and Zest in a food processor.
Add the Water and Orange Blossom Water, whiz in processor.
Add the cooled (or just a bit warm) Oil and Anise Seed.
Process until well combined, it should start forming a crumbly dough.
Form into a ball, put in bowl, cover with cling film, and let rise until doubled -- about an hour.

Place non-stick sheets like Silpat or parchment on 3 half-sheet pans.
Preheat oven to 375F with convection, 400F without.
I put rubber O-Rings on my rolling pin so I could roll these evenly, and it worked perfectly, giving an even 1 mm thickness.
Don't flour your counter, the oil will keep them from sticking.

This dough weighed 17 ounces and I was shooting for the Rosales-sized crackers which are 1 ounce each. Divide the dough into 16 pieces, easiest is by cutting it in half repeatedly.

Roll each into a ball shape.
Roll them with a rolling pin, mine came out about 5-6 inches in diameter.
Transfer to a baking sheet with the nonstick sheet.
Dust with Sugar powder, I brushed it in with a pastry brush.
Bake at 400F convection until lightly browned. Mine needed 14 minutes.

Comparing the Inés Rosales with the ones that just came out of the oven, the Rosales are very delicate and fragile:

Rosales cookies are more flaky, but ours are "crispier" and have a pleasant crunch.

Black Pepper Vodka #2

I'm finally writing this down because we got the proportions right this time. Last time, it was so peppery -- even with a full bottle of vodka -- I had to add a second bottle to make it drinkable. And it was still a potent, fiery brew.  Despite the challenge, our guests gulped down all 1.5L in one evening and have been asking for more. This is for them.

TL;DR: crack pepper corns, soak in vodka 2 days, strain, serve chilled: bracing.

20 grams Black Pepper corns, cracked
750 ml Vodka, clean tasting

The vodka should be clean tasting, not cheap and rough, but you don't need to spend much: Luksusova (Polish, potato), Fris (Danish, wheat), and Sobieski (Polish, rye) are all a little over $20 for 1.5L at our local state-run liquor store monopoly. I joke that they're "utlity vodkas" because I use them to extract flavors for tinctures, amaros, limoncello, etc,  but these are all quite drinkable on their own; not special, like Tito's vodka, but fine quality, and I wouldn't use Tito's for this as it has too much of its own flavor.

Crack the Black Pepper corns; no, you can't use a pepper shaker full of that gray dust you liberated from the diner. Pepper corns have a pungency and earthiness you need. I use a mortar and pestle; if you don't have that, put them in a zip-top baggie and crush with a rolling pin, a booze bottle, or similar. You don't want powder, just to expose the flavorful white interior.

Add the Pepper Corns to the Vodka. Wait a couple days, giving it a swirl when you see it getting lonely.

Strain into a bottle for serving or storing, if it lasts that long.

Serve chilled, straight.  Or use for a killer Bloody Mary:  our last batch was turned into Bloody Mary's with a heavy-handed 2:1 homemade mixer to vodka ratio, so nice all 2.25L disappeared in one brunch.

Moral of the story: make more than you think you will ever need. It probably won't be enough. It's inexpensive and doesn't "go off".

Pastrami Steak (Sous Vide Smoked Brisket #2)

We're going for a pastrami-flavored but steak-textured experience and this hit the mark: we could slice it while still hot into very thin strips without shredding.  We enjoyed the last time we did sous vide smoked brisket but thought it could use a bit more time than 40 hours to become tender, so we bumped it up to 69 hours -- again at 135F so we could keep the pink rare-beef look.

This one was a bit salty, however, and we think we know why.  Foolishly, we didn't keep adequate notes about our pre-cooking prep. We believe it was a factory-cured brisket we got around St. Patrick's day when they were on sale. If so, we would have then cold-smoked it, then "corned" by coating with spices, and finally vacuum-bagged it for the water bath. It'd been waiting patiently in our freezer for this event: we pulled it straight from there, still bagged with its seasoning, into the water bath and let it repose for almost 3 days.

When we took it out, it had released maybe a cup of flavorful liquid. Again, a bit salty, but worth mounting with butter and saving to brightening up mashed potatoes or something that needed a boost.

The procedure's a bit of an inversion on the classic pastrami which cures the meat in brine and pink salt (nitrites), then hydrates it to knock down some of the strong saltiness, then spices and hot-smokes, then steams for service. We didn't have a hydration step to leech out the excess salt that we expect is part of the factory cure. That said, while a bit salty when served hot, it was perfect when served cold on a sandwich. Curiously, there wan't much smoke flavor... but then again, I've not noticed strong smoke in commercial deli pastrami, nothing like Texas-style smoked brisket with smoke ring.

Next time:

Brine and cure at home where we can measure and control the salinity: a 5% by weight brine should give it flavor without becoming a salt-lick that requires a desalinization bath.  Same cold-smoke: we don't want to cook it here. Same flavorful spice rub (cracked pepper corns, bay, mustard seed -- classic pickling spice mix). Bag and freeze until the week you want to serve it, then almost 3 days in a 135F water bath.

Barrel-Aged Negroni, Manhattan Cocktails

Irene got me a couple oak barrels so we're barrel-aging some of our favorite cocktails: the Negroni and Manhattan. The hardest part is waiting! Newer wood and smaller barrels impart more flavor, older and larger take longer. We'll try them after 2 weeks. Both use our home made vermouth.

The Negroni's a bitter and bracing concoction, not sweet and sharp enough to have another and another. It's easy to make, even when drunk, since the proportions are 1:1:1.

We used the 1L cask, so:

• 325 ml Vermouth (use a tasty one, not an insipid one)
• 325 ml Campari
• 325 ml Gin (a tasty one, but not so refined you should drink it neat)

Mix and pour into the barrel.

The Manhattan is a classic, but I never cared for them until I used a really flavorful Vermouth. The Makers Mark bourbon is surprisingly inexpensive, more so than the rot gut you should never drink, but not so dear as the comparable Woodford, Basil Haden, etc.  We use some juice from Maraschino-style cherries we made, it rounds it out. For 2 Liters:

• 1350 ml Bourbon
• 450 ml Vermouth (tasty)
• 150 ml Cherry Juice

Time to Sharpen the Knives

We could feel our knives weren't sharp, but had lacked the time to fix them up until this weekend. Ah, what a difference: slicing lemons paper thin, the vesicles as transparent as glass.

Once a year or so I have to grind a bit of metal to restore the edges, then usually I can give them a tune up throughout the year. I've gotten lazy, now using an electric Chef's Choice 1520: I've ground all my blades down to a Japanese-style 15 degree angle, except the beefy Porsche in the top center which I keep at a European 20 degree angle for meats. It takes maybe an hour.

I started sharpening my blades with water stones but never developed the discipline I needed to maintain a 20 degree angle, let alone 15. I then got an Edge Pro Apex which is a jig that holds the blade and stone at just the right angle, but it would probably take me 2-3 hours to do all these blades.

We've also got a couple bread knives, and a whole flock of nearly-disposable paring and birds beak knifes we get from a restaurant supply store for about $5 each. My favorite above is the 10-inch Miyabi Japanese knife in the top left: thin, sharp, and light for its size, with beautiful construction including a rounded-over spine which is nicer in the hands -- a real pleasure to use.