Favorite Cookbooks

Since we've done a number of cookbook posts now, I figured that I would put together a little index page for the sidebar. This is that index page.

As I'm sure is the case with most foodies, we have a lot of cookbooks. The picture above shows a cross-section of just a couple of the shelves we have devoted to this obsession. We thought it might be fun to highlight some of our favorite cookbooks and recipes from them that we like.

Holiday Food - Mario Batali Italian celebrity chef and über-restaurateur Mario Batali has quite a few cookbooks out these days. This one is probably our favorite. A collection of recipes traditionally served during Christmas and New Year, it isn't a very large cookbook but there are some real gems in it.

Mexico One Plate at a Time - Rick Bayless Bayless is one of the more prominent voices heralding the delicious diversity of regional Mexican cuisine. All of his cookbooks are good, but this one, designed as a companion cookbook to his PBS series of the same name, is the one we use most frequently.

Charcuterie - Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn A great starting point for anyone looking to take a step into the wonderful world of cured meats. And trust me - you do want to take a step into the wonderful world of cured meats. Warning, though, this hobby can easily become an obsession.

The Balthazar Cookbook The signature cookbook of the famous Manhattan restaurant. We've never been to the restaurant, but we love the book. In particular, we love it for its selection of excellently detailed recipes for delicious fish dishes.

Garden Upgraded!

All new gardeners at the Pacific Beach Community Garden are initially given a half-sized plot. As you can see on the right of the picture above, ours is pretty full.

What to do about it? Annex the plot next to us, of course!

The timing was perfect, since the garden just got a load of compost in. We've turned the soil in the new plot, mixed in compost, and now we're ready to get planting.

It will be great to have the extra space as we start ramping up toward summer.

The Balthazar Cookbook

The Balthazar Cookbook is perhaps our single favorite cookbook for fish recipes. Named after the well-respected restaurant in Manhattan, it is certainly not specifically about fish, but for us it is those dishes that really shine.

It also happens to be one of the best written cookbooks we have. By that I don't mean it is full of witty banter (not that I am at all averse to color commentary in a cookbook), but rather that the recipes themselves are superbly detailed and easy to follow. Not the hurriedly mal-adapted and underspecified instructions you often get in a restaurant cookbook.

When making fish dishes from these recipes and others, we do not generally worry about using the precise fish specified. Instead, we use what we can get locally that fits the style of the dish.

Favorite Recipes:

Cod Mitonnée This was our first go-to dish from the book. The rich broth is what makes it - reduced until it is very intense, full of flavor and reminiscent of a French onion soup. It is like getting a soup and a main course all in one.

Roasted Halibut with Crushed Potatoes, Almonds and Tomatoes A dish we keep coming back to. There is something super-satisfying about the way the potatoes, tomatoes and almonds taste together and how they accent a perfectly cooked piece of fish.

Cod and Cockles with Parsley As tasty as it is beautiful. The intense green from the parsley dominates visually, but doesn't overpower the other flavors.

Black Bass with Caramelized Onions and Corn The sweetness of the corn and caramelized onion is wonderful. We are looking forward to corn season to again be able to make this dish with freshly-picked corn. Maybe from our own garden, this year?

Braised Short Ribs Just to prove that there are non-fish dishes in the book. Short ribs may be a bit cliché these days the way they seem to be strewn across most every restaurant menu. This is for a reason, though - they are fantastic. They also make for a very good short rib pot pie...

Hot-Smoked Chicken

While "Low and Slow" may be the rule when it comes to us using our smoker, every rule has its exceptions. We sometimes use it more like a standard barbecue, but with smoke as an added bonus.

Hot-smoking chicken is one of our favorite applications of this technique. The smoking takes less than a couple of hours, so as long as you've prepped your chicken ahead of time you can smoke it and eat it for dinner all in one evening.

We put a spice rub (see the recipe at the end of the post) on the bird either the night before or the morning of smoking. While it is better with more time, it still works fine even if you only do it a few hours before you want to start smoking the bird.



Fire up the smoker to about 300°F and place a foil covered empty water pan into the cooker as a drip tray. Put on smoke wood (pecan and mesquite are nice), and smoke the chicken at 300-330°F for 60-75 minutes or until the temperature of the breast meat is just over 160°F.



The result is tender and juicy, lightly smoky and packs a flavor punch and some heat from the spice rub.



Definitely a great way to enjoy a chicken. If you've been neglecting your smoker, this is an easy way to get yourself back into the groove.

Spicy Chicken Rub

You can make any quantity: if you use teaspoons you'll get about 1/3 cup (enough for about 2 chickens). Use tablespoons and you'll end up with a little less than 1 cup.

Ingredients:

3 parts New Mexican Red Chile Powder (substitute Ancho if needed)
3 parts Mexican Oregano
2 parts Paprika
2 parts Cumin
2 parts Dried Parsley
1 part Garlic Powder
1/2 part Cayenne
1 part Kosher Salt

Mix everything except the salt together. Grind in a spice grinder until the parsley and oregano are chopped very finely. Add the salt and mix thoroughly.

Hot Smoked Chicken

Season the bird either the night before or the morning of smoking. To butterfly your chicken, simply use some kitchen shears to cut down each side of the back bone and remove it. Then turn the bird over and press on the breast bone to flatten it.

Ingredients:

1 4-5 pound Chicken, butterflied
2-3 tablespoons Spicy Chicken Rub
Kosher salt
Smoke woods such as hickory, pecan, alder or mesquite

Sprinkle kosher salt evenly over the bird, on all sides (use about 1/2 teaspoon per pound). Lay the bird on a tray, skin side down and sprinkle with some of the spice rub. Turn the bird over, skin side up and sprinkle a generous portion of spice rub evenly on the skin. Store the chicken in the refrigerator, uncovered until ready to smoke.

Heat the smoker to about 300°F, add smoke wood to the fire, and place bird on the grill (use an empty water pan covered with foil as a drip tray). Smoke at 300-330°F for 60-75 minutes or until the internal temperature of the breast reaches about 160-163°F. Remove from smoker and let rest 15 minutes before carving.

Curds and Wine - Making Wine and Cheese in San Diego

Interested in making your own wine? Want to try your had at making cheese? Here in San Diego, you need look no further than Curds and Wine, a wine and cheese-making supply shop that friends of ours opened this past November.

Conveniently located on Clairemont Mesa Blvd. just off of the 805, they carry everything you need to get started. They have all kinds of wine kits:



and all of the required wine-making equipment (those red things are corkers):



The also have everything you need to make your own homemade cheese. Rennet and assorted cultures for all types of fresh and aged cheeses are stored in the fridge or freezer and there is plenty of equipment like thermometers, curd knives, cheese molds and books.



In addition to stocking equipment and supplies, Curds and Wine is also set up for people to do wine-making on premises under their guidance and using their equipment.

Soon after they opened, Sherry got a couple of kits started - an Italian Pinot Grigio and an unoaked Sonoma Chardonnay.

The process is quite simple. First, you stir in a little bentonite, a fining agent which will help achieve a clear wine:



Pour in the concentrated grape juice:



Then you top it up with water, pitch the yeast, cover it, and let the yeast do their thing.

After about a week, the wine is ready to be racked off the sediment and into a secondary fermenter:



After racking, you need to wait until fermentation is complete (usually another 10 days) at which point you'll stir in some stabilizers and another fining agent. Then, once again you wait. Depending upon the kit, the wine is ready to bottle in as little as two weeks or as long as five.



Before bottling, the wine gets run through a filter to clarify it. Filtration is optional, but can really make a wine sparkle.



Then it is time to bottle. They have a fantastic bottle filling machine that makes the process a breeze. Corking is also a snap. We had friends visiting on bottling day, so we were happy to get them to do most of the work allow them to participate in the wine-making experience.



To finish the bottling process, Curds and Wine has a label printer for creating your own custom look. We went pretty simple with ours, but you can use any image that you like.



With thirty bottles of each, I think we're set for a while...

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2010 - A Video

I finally got around to putting together a video from the footage I took during our Feast of the Seven Fishes this past Christmas Eve.

It was the first time I've done video editing like this - it was frustrating at first, but fun once I familiarized myself with the editing software (Sony Vegas).

Time Off

We recently had a great visit with our friends Tom and Elise, who came out west from Boulder for a few days between Christmas and New Year.

Elise is the proud new owner of the same camera I recently gifted myself (the Canon Rebel T2i), so I took a welcome rest from photography (I needed one after our seven-fish feast) and she documented the food during their stay.

Other than the "meta" shot above, I did take a picture to document our first whole octopus experience (from Catalina Offshore, naturally):



For the rest of the savory details, head on over to Elise and Tom's blog.