Local and Seasonal: Rabbit and Rovellons

We've now been living here in Barcelona for a month and are enjoying the many different foods available at grocery stores and markets. At our nearby Bon Preu we picked up some rabbit sausage, and at the delightful Mercat Ninot we found rovellons, a wild mushroom much prized around here.

The sausages are mild and have very little fat, so we we cooked them covered with a little oil and pepper. For the fungus, we carefully cleaned them of their straw and soil, then followed this mushroom-nerd's recommendation to cover with water and boil it off to cook them, then finish with a saute with oil, garlic, and parsley.

We served them simply, with pa amb tomaquet, toasted bread rubbed with garlic and tomato, then a lashing of good olive oil and some finishing salt.

I've only had the rovellons once before, and these didn't seem as flavorful as I recalled, but I may have diluted the flavor with a bit too much water. In the market, they were 60€/Kg, so I don't want to mistreat them. I'll try them again at a restaurant, and want to explore other wild mushrooms we can readily find here.

Arroz Negro in Barcelona

Arroz negro with snails and some frizzante rosé wine on the terrace

Last week, we moved to Barcelona. We've got a lot of legal, financial, and repair work to do, so we haven't had a lot of time to cook (you can follow our adventures, starting with our move-in).  All of our cooking tools are on a ship somewhere between Baltimore and Barcelona, so we're improvising with what came with our apartment. But we can still whip up some dynamite meals. 

A couple days ago, we got some mussels from a local shop, and Irene cooked them with white wine, leeks, and so on -- very simple, very classic. With some country bread it made a good dinner. 

We had some extra flavorful liquid in the pot which we saved: we never through away flavor! I figured we could use it to make paella or something. 

Last night, after fixing things all day, we went out to Can Cargolet for a big pile of snails and a couple bottles of wine (36€=$36 for the entire meal). We couldn't finish them, and -- surprisingly -- they asked if we wanted them "para llevar", to take away; doggy bags aren't common here, but we couldn't let them go to waste.

When we went to the shop (Bon Preu, a rather nice grocery store a couple blocks away), we picked up some Bomba rice for paella, and asked one of the staff where the "tinto de sepia" was; the squid ink was in the frozen section, and was under 1€ for four sachets -- excellent. 

After returning from the urgent care, Irene picked all the snails out of their shells, and I simmered the shells in the mussel stock to extract more flavor. I sauteed 200g bomba rice in some olive oil, added a the strained stock -- reduced to 500ml -- and added the tinta de sepia. After 20 minutes, I added the reserved snails, and dinner was served. Quite a tasty dish, and as Irene says, "using things up". It's very similar to a paella, but looser, and we're not trying to get the crusty socarrat. Definitely worth doing again. 

Pizza for Outdoor Oven Crowd

We built an outdoor pizza oven but we really need about 10 people to make a pizza party worthwhile: it takes about a wheelbarrow load of wood for the evening and 2 hours to heat up. Once going, it runs about 900-1000F, cooking the pizzi in about 1-2 minutes (proper Napolitano style).  When folks are done making pizza, we let it cool, make bread at about 500F, then cool again and put a roast or pot of beans or stew in to cook overnight -- it'll be about 250F the next morning.

I wanted to come up with proportions for pizza dough that would be easy to measure and scale for a crowd this size, and max it out with our equipment's capacity. Here's the math then the final numbers.

Dough hydration (bakers' percentage: mass of water divided by mass of flour) should be 66-70%.

My Kitchenaid stand mixer can handle about 1Kg of flour at that hydration.

TODO: REWORK THE MATH TO START WITH 1660 - 1700g dough in bowl, then divide by an even 12 balls at 138-142g/ball.  If people can eat 2.5 balls, that's 4.8 people per bucket.

I used to figure 3 pizzi per person but we've had a lot of leftover dough, so here I'm backing that out to 2.5 p/p, assuming 142g (5 ounce) uncooked pizzi dough balls per person.

Dough at 66% hydration:

(2.5 * 142g) dough/person = 1 * X flour + 0.66 * X water
355g dough/person  = X * (1 + 0.66) = X * 1.66
X = 355 / 1.66 = 214g
Flour: 1 * X = 214g
Water: 0.66 * X = 141g

Dough at 70% hydration, likewise:

X = 355 / 1.70 = 209g flour and 146g water person

If the Kitchenaid can do about 1Kg flour per bowl, we can get 2.8 people at 355g 66% hydration.
Let's round down the dough balls a bit so we can round up the people to a full 3:
1000g / 3people = 333g/person  is 201g flour and 132g  water per person,
and each person eats 2.5 dough balls, so 333g dough /1.66 = 201g flour and 132g water.
Whew!

I bulk ferment in 2 liter buckets, and this will hold 1000g flour and 66 g water, so for one bucket that feeds 3 people, we get:

1000 g Flour, Caputo 00
 660 g Water, cold (for 66% hydration)
     1 Tbs Yeast
     2 Tbs Salt, Kosher, coarse

I use a low-knead long-rise ferment, so combine those in the Kitchenaid until all the flour is incorporated.
Dump into fermenting buckets and let rise over night for 1 to 3 nights in the refrigerator.
Take dough out of chill about 3 hours before eating time (it takes 2-3 hours to preheat the overn).
Divide and form into dough balls

I'm doing some fuzzy-math here because I don't want fractional dough balls.
If we can handle 1000g flour and 660g water, we've got 1660g dough.
Divide by a nice round dozen and we get 1660g dough / 12 balls = 138g / dough ball.
So make 12 dough balls, each 138g.

I put them on the lid of an under-bed box, and cover with the bottom of the box to keep the dough from drying out. I've seen others putting each ball into separate plastic tubs, but that's a lot of tubs.
Mist with oil and let rise until ready to shape and bake.

Isaan Sour Sausage "Sai Krok Isaan" from Night + Market

Dacha described her favorite Thai sausage and it scared me: raw pork and rice, left to ferment at room temperature for several days. I then saw the same in Kris Yenbamroon'g book "Night + Market" and decided to give it a try. He uses Jasmine and Sticky Rice, while Dacha wasn't specific. I'm trying Kris' first, because he gives plenty of details and the book has good pictures. It's fermented 2-4 days to develop a lactic tartness, then refrigerated to stop fermentation, and grilled. I'm augmenting his measurements with my metric measures as we made the recipe.

1     C     165 g  Cooked Sticky Rice

3/4   C     130 g  Steamed Jasmine Rice

2     Lb    900 g  Pork Shoulder, ground (80% fat)

3/4   C     140 g  Minced Garlic (2-3 heads!)

1     Tbs    13 g  Sugar

2 1/2 Tbs    30 g  Kosher Salt

2     tsp     6 g  ground White Pepper

6     ft      2 m  Sausage Casings

Cook the Sticky Rice and Jasmine Rice as appropriate to their style, then cool.

Peel the Garlic and mince in a food processor. 

Cut the Pork Shoulder into strips that fit your meat grinder's feed tube, chill it well, then grind.

Grinding the Pork; rice top left, minced garlic top right

Combine ground Pork, well-separated Rice, Garlic, Sugar, Salt, Pepper and make sure Pork and Rice are evenly distributed with no clumps that would prevent fermentation.

Chill again, then stuff into Sausage Casings; we use a Kitchen Aide grinder/stuffer attachment, but if you're a masochist, you could use a funnel or Asian soup spoon.

Filling the casing, top left; pork mixture in bottom right

We used more Jasmine Rice to finish the grind so it would push the last of the Pork mixture out of the feed tube into the casing. We then tasted the last runnings of the grind and rice after frying -- rather good, a bit salty, but promising.

Filled casings, fit to be tied

Tie with butcher's twine ever 1 1/2 inches or so: don't twist first, it stretches the skin so much it breaks.

This will be served in 4-5 link portions, but I didn't bother leaving gaps and using double-ties: it cut easily enough and held its shape once dried.

You should probably figure out how to hang them before you have your raw sausages ready to go as this can be a fussy process, and you don't want to screw around more than you have to with raw pork.

Let hang in a 75F/24C low humidity environment; it's winter when we did this so I hung them next to our boiler where it was 80F/25C and 15% humidity. Put a tray below to catch any fat that drips out.

25C @ 15% humidity, definitely not FDA certified

Hang 2 days, then Kris suggests trying one link. If not as sour as you'd like, try again in 12-24 hours, but he says more than 4 days doesn't improve sourness, only adds funk.

Pictures below are at 1, 2, and finally 3.5 days hanging. The skin and body become more tight, and the sausage loses its pink.

Grill on well-oiled medium grill until just a little pink remains inside, or a bit more. Since it was freezing rain outside, I cooked these indoors on lightly oiled cast iron, mostly covered so they heated through, and they browned nicely.

We served these with sticky rice, stir-fried cabbage, and a mixture of fried peanuts, citrus zest (tasty!), chilis, and thinly sliced ginger.

The interior was quite dense and uniform in texture. Surprisingly, it wasn't "sour", at least that's not how I'd describe it; maybe a little sweet but there was only a little sugar in the mix.

Comments

This was a lot more work -- and stress -- than the fragrant Thai Herbal Sausage we make from the Pok Pok book, and which Kris also describes in his book (Sai Uah).

The Sticky Rice was a bit of a pain to work with because... it's sticky, and clumps together more than the Jasmine Rice which is easier to distribute through the ground Pork.

When we do western sausage, we twist, alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise -- no need for tying. But here, since we'll want to cut off portions, so we use string. Just use a tight overhand with double-knot without twisting, so you don't stretch the casing so much it breaks; it's a pain to repair, and you don't want to mess with raw meat any more than necessary.

I'd like to make 4-5 link sections that are hung individually, because hanging 20+ links supported by one casing knot scares me: if it breaks due to the heavy weight, I'd lose my entire batch. Next time, I'd probably hang a pipe horizontally from the ceiling, then suspend several 4-5 link portions from it. When tying the links, leave some extra string so you can create a loop to hang them with a carabiner or other quick-connect clip to the pipe.

Tasting

Despite being known as "sour sausage" and Kris stating that many folks assumed the sausage included lime juice, this wasn't at all sour. While hanging, it had very little smell: a relief, for a presumption of food safety, but I would have expected a lactic aroma from the fermentation. Did I do something wrong? 

The good news is that it's been a few hours and we're not dead yet, or suffering the revulsion and convulsions of food poisoning. 

This was good, and unusual, but wasn't "insanely great" or unusual enough to do again, like I would do for the fragrant herbal Sai Ua sasusage we've made before.

Basque "Burnt" Cheesecake

I love cheesecake and the the burnt appearance of this impressed me; curiously, this cheesecake has no crust. If you don't feel like spending the 20 minutes and $17 to make this, you can order chef José Andrés version for only $109! :-)

I compared recipes from four sources, ignored the outliers, and took ideas from each; the ingredients and execution were quite similar. The Guardian provided terrific detail but used a smaller springform pan than mine, while Cooking Issues seemed too hot (the comments said as much). Bon Appetit and Tasting Table were nearly identical. I like the idea of the tartness of The Guardian's creme fraiche so I use a mix of heavy cream and sour cream here. Below, we add a bit of Salt for American cream cheese since the Basque version is a little saltier; the Flour or Cornstarch prevents weeping.

The original quantities are for a 10-inch / 25-cm diameter 6-cm high springform pan. For just the two of us, I got a 16x4-cm pan and scaled the recipe to 40%, but it's shorter (27% capacity, not 40%) so this recipe does NOT fit (a 20x4-cm  or 18x5-cm pan should accommodate this).

10in/25cm pan   16cm

-------------  -----   

2   Lb  900 g  360 g  Philadelphia Cream Cheese, room temperature

1.5 C   330 g  132 g  Sugar

5         5      2    Eggs

1   C   235 g   94 g  Heavy Cream

1   C   240 g   96 g  Sour Cream or Creme Fraiche

1   tsp   3 g  1.2 g  Kosher Salt (for American Cheese)

2   Tbs  15 g    6 g  All Purpose Flour (or Corn Starch)

Grease the springform pan with butter, and line it with parchment, with extra height about an inch above the sides. You can make strip around the outside and a separate disk for the bottom, or you can just press in a large sheet and smooth out the edges: the rough and rustic edge is a trademark of this cake, and  after trying to fit the sides and bottom separately, I can see why most preparations just layer perpendicular sheets!

Trying to fit separate bottom and side strips was a pain

Combine Cream Cheese and Sugar in a stand mixer, and mix slowly until smooth and sugar is dissolved, scraping down as needed, about 4 minutes.

While mixer is running, add Eggs one at a time until each is thoroughly incorporated.

Add the Heavy Cream, Sour Cream, Salt and Flour, and mix until smooth, another minute.

Pour into prepared springform pan, and chill about 30 minutes so that the center heat will be delayed (this may not be necessary).

Preheat oven to 400F / 200C, then put cake pan on a cookie sheet (to catch drips) and bake for about 50 minutes, less for the smaller pan. The top should look quite brown, even though the center will remain jiggly. If not, leave it in another 10 minutes and check; repeat as needed. The temperature of the center should be 140F / 60C. My total time was 70 minutes, and my probe always measured near boiling, even though the cake was quite jiggly, not sure what I'm missing.

Remove from the oven and let cool, it should "gel". 

Remove from the springform pan and take off the parchment.

Serve warm or cool.

Dacha's Isaan Sausage

This one sounds a bit scary to me -- uncooked meat and cooked rice left unrefrigerated for 5 days. But I've gotta try it!  We recently tried a similar recipe from the Night + Market cookbook which you can read about.

2     pound  Ground Pork
1     head   Garlic, chopped
1     cup    Rice, cooked
1 1/2 Tbs    ground Black Pepper
1     Tbs    Salt
             Sausage Casing

Mix everything together, stuff it in the Sausage Casing.
Tie the sausage every 1 1/2 - 2 inches.
Put the sausages in a closed container. 
Leave it for 3 days (I like leaving it for 5 days) in room temperature

Bake in 350F oven for 10 minutes then turn and bake for another 5 minutes.

There are other folks who are doing this, and living to talk about it:
http://www.blazinghotwok.com/2011/05/new-and-improved-isaan-sausages-now.html
http://shesimmers.com/2011/04/northeastern-thai-sour-sausage-sai-krok.html
http://ahungerartist.bobdelgrosso.com/2011/04/ferment-this-northeastern-thai-sour.html

Fettuccine Alfredo a la Vanderminden

Our friends Peter and Lisa Vanderminden made this for us in college at their house in Schenectady, NY,  circa 1982. It may not be terribly authentic, but it's fast, simple, tasty, and indulgent. You can tweak the cheese: 50/50 works fine too. You can also augment this with peas, roasted red peppers, etc, if desired. This makes two generous dinner portions.

We make fresh pasta by hand: it gives a restaurant quality to this dish. Briefly: 100 g AP flour, 100 g coarse Semolina flour, 2 whole eggs, whiz in food processor until it comes together (under a minute), let rest covered in the fridge for at least an hour before rolling out and cutting.

1 C Heavy Cream (Light/Table Cream works too; milk will not)

2/3 C Romano Cheese (40 g)

1/3 C Parmesan Cheese (30 g)

1-2 clove Garlic, minced

1/2 tsp Black Pepper

1 Tbs Tarragon, fresh, chopped fine

2 Tbs Basil, fresh, chiffonade

8-12 oz Pasta, fresh, cut into fettuccine

1 Tbs Butter

2 Tbs Parsley

Cook the Pasta.

While the water heats and Pasta cooks, prepare the sauce.

Heat Cream, Cheeses, Garlic, Pepper, Tarragon, Parsley slowly in a covered bowl in the microwave (about 3 minutes of 30-second blasts), or a heavy pot over low flame, until cheese is just melted: you don't want it to coagulate.

Drain pasta.

Add pasta to sauce so it doesn't stick -- you may not need all of it; combine gently.

Garish with Basil, serve in heated pasta plates.