Bresaola Pintxo

This being the second to last CharcutePalooza  challenge, I couldn’t help but start counting the days until the winner is announced.  That slightly unsettling feeling of anticipation also permeated the November curing challenge.  Time was the name of the game this challenge, but good things come to those who wait.

 

Although a lot of my recent cooking has been influenced by my trip to Spain a few months ago, I decided against making chorizo for this challenge.  I wanted to make something I'd never had before, and after flipping through the options in Charcuterie, I found bresaola to be the only option that would satisfy both the CharcutePalooza parameters and my own personal quest to try new things.  However, that's not to say the final usage of the bresaola didn’t reflect some of the things I experienced overseas.

 

 

Having done all 12 challenges at the time of this writing, I can definitively say this was the easiest challenge in terms of the difficulty of producing the meat product and difficulty of producing the final composed dish.  When you boil it down, the manual labor involved in curing something is minimal: salt the meat, wait, rinse the meat, hang the meat, wait.  Easy on the muscles, but tough on the brain.

 

 

 

During the period the meat was hung out to dry, several things ran through my mind:

• This thing is going to taste so awesome.  I can't wait!
• Oh cool, some small specs of white mold have started to develop.  Hopefully that keeps the bad mold away.
• Wait a second, does that small white spot look sort of fuzzy?  I don't think so...I think it's ok...
• Crap, what if that spot really was fuzzy?
• What the heck, how is half of the surface area suddenly covered in fuzzy green mold??
• Wiping the fuzzy green mold with a brine solution seems to have gotten things under control.
• Will I get botulism?
• Great...fuzzy green mold is back again.  Time to try a vinegar wipe down suggested by a fellow CharcutePaloozer.
• Phew!  Two weeks of no fuzzy mold!  Vinegar > brine solution.
• What??  Fuzzy white mold one day before I plan on cutting into this baby...
• Oops...the meat has lost 45% of its mass.  I hope that doesn't have any adverse effects.
• Hopefully the vinegar in the pickled pepper and salt in the olive kill any pathogens.
• Here goes nothing...
• I'm not dead or incapacitated!
• Curing is magical.

 

Like I said: easy on the muscles, but tough on the brain.  The final composed dish, or more appropriately pintxo, was inspired by the pintxos found in the Basque country.  I also figured I should make something simple so the bresaola could shine.  I didn’t want all that waiting and worrying to be in vain.  One of the most popular pintxos in the Basque country consists of fresh anchovy, olive, and I believe pickled piparras peppers.  At one particular stall at the Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid, this pintxo served as the basis for a wide array of pintxos that all followed a similar template: a protein, a pickled something, and an olive.

 

From this template, I made a pintxo of bresaola, pickled banana pepper, and an olive.  Salty, briny, and sour in one bite.  I did plan to use olives that I’d recently started curing from fresh, but sadly they were still extremely bitter.  I was genuinely surprised how much herb flavor came through in just a thin slice of meat, and that herbal flavor was nice in the bite.  Overall, I was happy with how the bresaola and the pintxo turned out and found myself eating the bresaola plain after running out of olives.

 

Bresaola Pintxo

Mise En Place

1. Thinly sliced bresaola
2. Pickled pepper
3. Pitted olive

Method

1. Skewer one olive, one slice of bresaola, and one pickled pepper onto a toothpick

Homemade Ramen With Hot Dogs & Corn

Often times when my dad was too busy to cook a proper meal, he would make a bowl of Sapporo Ichiban instant ramen and fortified it with a hot dog and canned corn.  The corn my sound odd, but its sweetness goes well with the saltiness of the hot dog and instant ramen broth.  Once I became old enough to boil a pot of water and make instant ramen by myself, I carried on his tradition whenever I needed something to eat in a pinch.  Eventually, I’d come to add my own personal touch to instant ramen by using Mexicorn instead of plain canned corn.

With this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge being hot dogs, I was motivated to make one of the most treasured fast foods from my childhood completely from scratch.  Not only would I make the hot dogs from scratch, but the noodles, broth, and Mexicorn as well.

By now, grinding meat has become second nature.  However, emulsifying meat was new territory.  I was pretty paranoid when the meat was being blended in the food processor.  Fears of the emulsification breaking ran wild through my head as I’ve broken a mayonnaise once.  Thankfully the emulsification came together without a hitch.

I did have issues stuffing the hot dogs, though.  I lost the small plastic propeller from my sausage stuffer Kitchen Aid attachment which caused the meat to extrude unevenly.  Although I was successful in the end, stuffing was a bit harder this time around.  To smoke the hot dogs, I again used the method of starting the stovetop smoker on the stove for 10 minutes and then transferring it to the oven for about an hour until the hot dogs came to temperature.

The task of making the ramen noodles from scratch seemed ambitious at first, but once I got started I realized how easy it is to make a basic noodle (as long as you have a pasta roller and cutter).  Making the noodles simply amounted to mixing the dough in a stand mixer, portioning the dough, running the dough through a pasta roller, and running the dough through a pasta cutter.

One notable thing about the ramen noodles was the addition of xanthan gum.  Inspired by Tom’s modernist ravioli, I added 3 grams of xanthan gum to my 300 gram batch of flour.  True to his word, my noodles didn’t stick together at all even in the absence of a dusting of flour.

When I gulped down my first spoonful of soup and happily slurped the chewy noodles, I was taken back to my childhood.  I could picture myself sitting in the kitchen in Southern California filling my stomach with instant ramen packed with umami.  Only this time, the umami came from a broth consisting of homemade dashi and homemade pork stock rather than an MSG-laden packet of soup base.  Also, the smokiness of the bonito flakes in the dashi complimented the smokiness of the hot dog quite well.

Overall, the dish and challenge was a resounding success.  Not only did I get to relive a moment of my childhood, but I learned how to make an emulsified sausage, ramen noodles, and dashi (which I will be using a lot in the future) from scratch.

 

Ramen Noodles

Via norecipes.com (with an addition of 3 grams xanthan gum)

Ramen Broth

Via citrusandcandy.com

Mexicorn

Mise En Place

1. 250 g corn, cut from the cob
2. 130 g bell peppers, skinned and diced

Method

1. Melt a pad of butter in a pan over medium heat
2. Add corn and bell peppers to pan and saute for a few minutes
3. Salt to taste

Pho-Spiced Corned Beef Banh Mi With Purple Yam Fries

I really enjoy foods that are briny and pickle-y, so I was ecstatic when I read that this month’s CharcutePalooza challenge would be corned beef.  Simply making corned beef hash or straight up corned beef with braised vegetables would’ve been perfectly enjoyable for me, and although a Reuben is one of my favorite sandwiches of all time, those options all felt a little uninspired.

During a recent conversation with my mom, we got on the topic of pho as I told her about the mighty fine bowl I had at Pho Kimmy.  With the aromatic scent of star anise, cinnamon,  fresh herbs, and beef broth permeating her childhood memories, she recounted the times she spent at the pho place her grandpa owned and operated in Vietnam.  However, her fondest memory of the eatery was not of a succulent bowl of pho but of a comforting impromptu sandwich her grandpa would make for her whenever she visited.

The sandwich consisted of only four ingredients: tender brisket straight from a cauldron of simmering pho broth, Maggi, pepper, and a baguette.  Simplicity was the key to keeping his grandkids happy and satiated.  This story gave me the idea to make some sort of sandwich using pho-spiced corned beef as opposed to traditionally-spiced corned beef.  Rather than brisket, though, I decided to use beef tongue because I appreciate the amount of fat and flavor it has.

Despite the fact that I’ve worked with tongue many times in the past, I opted to try my hand at skinning it raw rather than cooked after seeing a video of someone doing it masterfully.  This probably wasn’t the best idea.  It took quite a while to do because I failed to skin the top part off in one fell swoop.  My enthusiasm for trying out a new butchering technique threw a wrench in what was otherwise a no-brainer recipe.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far from doing these CharcutePalooza challenges, it’s that basic charcuterie is really easy.  The amount of active time spent in the kitchen is very minimal, and the tasks required are not complicated.  Corned beef is no different: make the brine, stick the meat in the brine, wait a few days, cook.

When it came to making the brine, I used charred onion and charred ginger for the aromatics and yellow rock candy instead of sugar.  These ingredients are essential to any pho broth and help give it its distinct flavor.  After the brine worked its magic for a few days, I turned to Thomas Keller’s Under Pressure and put my sous vide setup to work.

After 24 hours in the water bath, the meat was super tender and moist.  The flavor was distinctly that of a cured meat, but the aroma and undertones were  undoubtedly that of pho.  In its chilled state, the amount of visible fat marbling found in the beef tongue was enough to make my mouth drool and my arteries cry.  Now that I had easy part done, I had to think of what I wanted on my sandwich.

When conceptualizing the sandwich, I tried to work in as many pho components as I could.  Thai basil, cilantro, green onion, and Sriracha were all shoo-ins, but without any hot pho broth, I needed something to cut the fattiness of the tongue.  Luckily, I still had plenty of pickled radish and carrot from when I made pancetta.  The acidity and crunchiness of the pickled vegetables also served as a substitute for the squeeze of fresh lime and bean sprouts that are commonly added at the table to a bowl of pho.

As for the hoisin sauce, I decided to force myself to find a way to incorporate its flavors into a side dish.  Setting constraints like this can lead to some great ideas that may have otherwise gone untapped.  However, I first had to figure out exactly what hoisin sauce was made of.  To my surprise, the main ingredient in hoisin sauce is sweet potato.  At first, I considered a sweet potato puree, but thought sweet potato fries would be a more appropriate accompaniment for a sandwich.  Furthermore, I opted for purple yams because I was curious to work with them; I’d only worked with the powdered form of purple yam in the past.

The sandwich as a whole came out well.  With each passing bite, I couldn’t help but think of it as a pho banh mi, hence I’m labeling it as one.  Although the purple yam fries didn’t taste exactly like hoisin sauce, the flavor was familiar enough and did a decent job of adding sweetness to the plate just like hoisin sauce does.

When it comes down to it, my pho banh mi simply can’t compete with my great-grandpa’s ad hoc sandwich due to the sentimentality surrounding his, but if it can evoke just a single cherished memory in my mom’s mind (or anyone for that matter) then I’d consider it a success.  The ultimate success would be if new memories are formed and those thoughts percolate into yet another inspired creation.

 

Spice Ratio For Brine

Mise En Place (By Weight)

1. Two units cinnamon
2. Two units star anise
3. Two units fennel seed
4. Two units coriander seed
5. One unit clove
6. One unit Sichuan peppercorn
7. One unit black peppercorn

Method

1. 40 g (1.41 oz) of spice for a 1.27 kg (2.8 lbs) beef tongue in 2.4 L (2.54 qts) of 5% brine

Aromatics Ratio For Brine

Mise En Place (By Weight)

1. Three units onion
2. One unit ginger

Method

1. Char onion and ginger over open flame or under broiler
2. 500 g (1.1 lbs) of onion and 167 g (0.37 lbs) ginger for a 1.27 kg (2.8 lbs) beef tongue in 2.4 L (2.54 qts) of 5% brine

Pho Banh Mi

Mise En Place

1. Pho-spiced corned beef, chilled and thinly sliced
2. Thai basil, stems removed
3. Cilantro, stems preferably removed
4. Green onions, diced
5. Your favorite pickled vegetable
6. Mayonnaise, preferably homemade
7. Sriracha (optional)
8. Hoisin sauce (optional)
9. Baguette

Method

1. Heat baguette in oven
2. Construct sandwich to taste.  Sometimes structural integrity can be improved by placing garnishes on the bottom beneath the meat.

Roasted Bone Marrow

If there’s one thing that can make or break a bowl of pho, it’s the broth.  One of the keys to making good pho broth is having a good amount of bones, preferably beef marrow bones, in addition to whatever cut of meat is being used.  When I make pho, I typically use marrow bones to fortify an oxtail base.

 

Sometimes, though, I go a little overboard with the amount of marrow bones that I buy for pho.  It’s easy to do when they’re only $0.29/lb.  The Chinese butcher that I get my marrow bones from takes fresh, whole leg bones and saws them down to 2-3 inch chunks upon ordering.  Unused bones usually go into the freezer for a future batch of stock, but this time I thought I’d roast them off and spread the marrow on some bread.

After about 15 minutes, the marrow started to pull away from the bone.  Based on the “recipe” I followed (I mean, all you have to do is stick bones in the oven), the marrow was ready.

I may have pulled them a little too soon because there were some parts that were pink, but I was afraid if I left them in the oven for too long the marrow would simply melt away into the pan.  Spread over a piece of bread and salted to taste, the bread tasted like it was dipped in rendered beef fat.  Essentially, that’s what it was.

As tasty as rendered beef fat is, I regret not waiting until I had some lime and cilantro on hand.  That would’ve done well to cut the fattiness of the marrow.

Roasted bone marrow

1. Beef marrow bones => oven ~15 mins @ 450 F, cut side up, until marrow is soft and pulls away from bone
2. Harvested marrow + bread + something acidic + something bright + salt => eat