Haymarket Salad

I discovered the Boston Haymarket mere weeks after I moved to Boston in 2000, and for a couple years it was my very favorite place in the city. Friends from out of town would come to visit, and I would take them not to the Prudential Center, nor to Harvard Yard, nor to the Freedom Trail. No, I would drag them grocery shopping, to the Haymarket.

The Haymarket, you see, is the closest thing to a third world vegetable market that I have ever seen in this country. Vendors selling all manner of fruits, vegetables and fish set up shop on the sidewalk, throwing substandard or spoiling produce to the ground. Throngs of people representing every immigrant community in the metro area clog the sidewalks. Someone hoists a dead goat over his shoulders and heads to the Halal butchers, manoevering carefully through the crowds.

To be sure, the vendors at the Haymarket do not demonstrate the most diplomatic of behaviors. And the other customers have no problem elbowing and shoving the timid out of the way. The Haymarket has its own specific rules of behavior: Make up your mind quickly, keep your money accessible so that you don’t hold everyone up by digging around for your wallet in your backpack, and most importantly, never, ever touch the produce. It was always a gamble. Those peaches could be bruised and rotting; they could be hard and green. Ask the vendor, and you would be assured that they are perfect.

The prices made it worth the risk. Those peaches whether rotting, green, or ripe, were no more than 10 for a dollar. For a graduate student living on student loans, the Haymarket made the difference between feast and famine. Every Saturday morning, my roommate Anh and I would take the T to downtown and return only twenty dollars poorer, our arms aching with the effort of carrying a week’s worth of groceries for four people.

When we returned, we got to work cooking for the household for the week. Because we never set off with a grocery list, cooking the week’s food was always an improvisational affair. This salad was born one Saturday, early in the fall, from a random selection of what looked good, and what looked cheap. This lucky marriage of roasted peppers, olives, avocado, eggs, scallions and lots of parsley proved to be just right for lentil salad; the perfect vegetarian lunch or antipasto.

The following year, I moved into a different apartment, further from a T station. Anh graduated a year ahead of me and moved away; it no longer made sense to travel so far for cheap groceries. Eventually, I stopped going there at all, especially as my financial circumstances improved and piles of cheap but risky vegetables became less appealing. I miss the Haymarket, but even more, I miss the rhythm of our Saturday and the way our weekly excursions shaped our lives. The journey on the T, the time spent discussing our histories, food, and the cuisines our mothers taught us. I miss spending a whole day in the kitchen, talking and laughing. Now that I look back at it, I can’t believe I even had the time to devote a whole day of the week to food.

Unfortunately, I can’t foresee having that kind of time ever again, but I’m grateful for all I learned from my Saturday trips to the Haymarket: how to improvise; how to cook plaintains, taro, and various gourds; the taste of fresh dates and fresh tamarind. Most importantly, I have several recipes that have stayed with me over the years, that I still crave from time to time. Like this simple salad.

Lentil Salad

As you might expect from such auspicious beginnings, this salad lends itself easily to substitutions, additions and omissions. The avocado, however, is an essential ingredient. Even though there’s only one per cup of dry lentils, it’s rich decadence mitigates the austerity of the lentils.

I use Le Puy lentils, and I recommend you do too. They just taste better and have a better texture than ordinary green lentils. If you can’t find them, the green lentils will do.

1 c. Le Puy lentils
salt
1 red bell pepper, roasted, peeled and diced
1 bunch scallions, white parts and a bit of green chopped finely
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 c. olives, pitted and chopped
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced into quarters
1 avocado
packed 1/4 c. parsley, chopped
a squeeze lemon juice
olive oil
red wine vinegar
freshly ground pepper

In a medium saucepan, cover lentils with 2 inches of water. Bring to boil, then salt and simmer 20 minutes. Taste and check for doneness. You want them soft and cooked through, not mushy and disintegrating. (Other kinds of lentils will take less time, keep an eye on them.) Drain and let sit in colander.

While the lentils are cooking and draining, take the opportunity to boil eggs, roast and peel bell pepper. Dice avocado and sprinkle with fresh lemon juice. Chop remaining ingredients. Combine lentils and vegetables. Mix gently, splash with red wine vinegar and a drizzled of olive oil. Taste and adjust seasonings with additional salt and pepper, and more olive oil and’or vinegar if needed. Top with hard boiled eggs and serve at room temperature.

If you are refridgerating leftovers, be sure to bring to room temperature before serving.

Two Roasted Vegetables and a Tale of Childhood Trauma

Roasted Butternut Squash and Roasted Brussels Sprouts

The publication of Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook has set off a veritable storm of discussion about the best ways to get your children to eat their vegetables. Jessica Seinfeld’s own methods include tricking the kiddies by baking spinach into brownies and squash into macaroni and cheese. She even goes so far as to suggest leaving an empty box of Kraft macaroni and cheese on the counter while you working your magic with various pre-pureed vegetables. I will refrain from entering the fray here with my own (very strong) opinions on the matter, other than to share a repressed memory which emerged in the wake of all the coverage about childhood food trauma.

As a child, I liked vegetables. Kale, cabbage, broccoli, bitter gourd, asparagus: I ate them all. I never even knew that I wasn’t supposed to like them. Until the day I was at my best friend’s house during Brussels sprouts night. Vicki’s mom was from England and her cooking was, unfortunately, very British. On that evening, she carried a large, sulfurous-smelling dish to the table. “Brussels sprouts!” she announced. “Now, no complaints,” she said, catching the expression on Vicki’s face. “You both have to finish your Brussels sprouts before you leave the table.”

You both? I look up in alarm. My own mother was not only a good cook, but was philosophically opposed to forcing her children to eat anything she didn’t like herself. The circumstance of being forced to eat something disgusting was unprecedented. Surely I wasn’t expected to eat whatever lurked inside that bowl.

But without further ado, Vicki’s mom heaped a large mound of greyish-green, slimy, overcooked Brussels sprouts onto my plate. What could I do? I choked every Brussels sprout past the large lump in my throat to get away from this nightmare of a dinner as soon as possible. They tasted every bit as horrible as they looked and smelled.

More than twenty years later, this injustice still rankles. It’s one thing to force your culinary ineptitude on your own child; it’s quite another to force it on someone else’s. It was years before I learned to like Brussels sprouts again. And what of the injustice done to the sprouts themselves? What on earth did the poor Brussels sprout do to deserve such a fate as being boiled to greyish-green sliminess?

Surely Brussels sprouts deserve much better treatment. It’s just as easy to roast the sprouts briefly in a hot oven to caramelize their natural sugars, making them succulent and slightly sweet.

And if your kids still won’t eat Brussels sprouts, try slow-roasting butternut squash, dusted in flour and generously drizzled with olive oil. It’s the contrast of textures that make this dish. The flour and oil render some of the squash pieces crisp, while others bake to a satisfying chewiness. The squash at the bottom of the dish becomes smooth and silky.

And if your kids don’t like the squash either, then give them a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese and enjoy these roasted vegetables yourself.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

The very best Brussels sprouts have been kissed by the first frost of autumn. Make sure that the sprouts are fresh; avoid ones with yellow outer leaves.

Brussel sprouts, cut in half
enough olive oil to coat
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Toss sprouts with olive oil. Spread on cookie sheet. Roast 30-40 minutes, or until sprouts are tender when pierced with the tip of a sharp knife.

Butternut Squash Provencal

1 butternut squash
1 clove garlic, minced
5 tbsp flour
1 tbsp fresh sage
salt and pepper
olive oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Peel butternut squash, making sure to remove every trace of pale orange and green that lurks beneath the surface of the peel. Make sure the deep orange flesh is exposed completely. Remove the seeds and the stringy flesh attached to the seeds. Scrape cavity thoroughly. Chop squash into 1 in cubes.

Toss squash in flour. Place in buttered casserole, making sure to leave excess flour behind. Generously salt and pepper the squash, sprinkle with minced garlic and sage, and toss again. Generously drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 2 hours, or until squash is completely tender when pierced with tip of a sharp knife.

Mushroom Umami Pizza

Several years ago, I dated a guy who hated mushrooms. He ranted about mushrooms the way vegans rant about veal. You could hardly get him to be in the same room as a mushroom. The saddest thing about this relationship (and believe me, there were many sad things about it) is that I stopped eating mushrooms too. Why do we do this? More than one friend of mine has become vegetarian under the influence of a vegetarian partner. While I understand the draw of the ethical foundation of vegetarianism, it’s curious how such conversions end with the relationship. In any case, my ex’s mushroom-rage was hardly philosophical in nature. The only argument he could come up with against mushroom-eating had to do with the fact that mushrooms are fungi. Like yeast. Except that he had no such problem with bread.

I have noticed that all of my friends who change their diets to that of their partners’ have one thing in common: they are people who love food and love sharing the pleasures of the table with the people they love the most. A great meal that can’t be shared somehow misses the point. So I stopped eating mushrooms, because as long as I was with mushroom guy, it didn’t make sense to eat mushrooms alone.

Maybe the moral of the story is that compatibility of palette is as important as all the other things on my already-long checklist. Food is meant to be shared, and this pizza cries out for a great bottle of wine and a table surrounded by people you love. Crunching into the crust is a pure hit of meaty mushroom umami: a puree of mushrooms topped with even more mushrooms. The pizza is creamy with pungent fontina and fragrant with garlic, both sauteed with the mushrooms and minced and sprinkled raw over the dough before topping and baking.

As for the mushroom-hating ex-boyfriend, I was sad when the relationship ended, but it never would have worked anyway. Had I stayed with him, I never would have discovered this pizza, and that would have been a real tragedy.

Mushroom Umami Pizza

While the pizza above was made with American fontina, which was perfectly serviceable, the real, creamy Italian Fontina Val D’aosta elevates the pizza from delicious to transcendent. There are other, cheaper Italian fontinas which are also good, just make sure to avoid Danish fontina, which stinks. (And this is coming from someone who loves stinky cheeses. Danish fontina does not stink in a good way.)

2 cups mushrooms–I usually use a mixture of button, crimini, and if I can get them, wild mushrooms such as wood-ears, chantarelles, or shitakes
1 shallot, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c. heavy cream
salt and pepper
4 oz. fontina (preferable Val D’aosta)
3 portabello mushroom caps, thinly sliced
2 tbsp. parmaggiano reggiano cheese, grated
1 tbsp. parsley, minced (omitted in the above photo)

2 rounds pizza dough, rolled as thin as possible
1 clove garlic, minced
drizzle of olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven as high as it will go (500-550 degrees).

In a food processor, process the mushrooms until finely chopped. (I do this in batches as I have a small food processor.) Saute shallots and garlic in the olive oil until soft and golden. Add mushrooms. Mushrooms will exude a fair amount of liquid. Cook until this liquid has evaporated. Stir in cream, take of heat, and season with salt and pepper.

Slice fontina. This may be easier if cheese is partially frozen.

Place rounds of pizza dough on a floured peel (if using a baking stone) or a floured cookie sheet. Scatter clove of finely minced garlic onto the dough, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. With the back of a spoon, spread the mushroom puree on the dough. Top with the thin slices of fontina and the sliced portabello caps. Sprinkle pizza with parmesan cheese and slide either directly onto baking stone or place cookie sheet into the oven.

Bake 7-8 minutes if using a baking stone, or 15 minutes with a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with parsley, cut with a pair of scissors and serve.

Source: Todd English, The Figs Table

Pizza: The Perfect Thin Crust and Veggie Pepperoni

Update: The pizza crust below is perfectly serviceable, however, I have discovered a pizza crust that’s even better.  Check it out here.

Although pizza-making is technically easy and not as time-consuming as you might think, it creates an unholy mess. The dough sticks to your hands; everything you touch acquires a sticky veneer that hardens into a dried glue. Every kitchen surface ends up covered in flour. And your clothes? Wear an apron, or even better, the clothes you wore when last painting your bedroom.

But the reward of kneading, waiting, rolling, and the inevitable clean-up is a light, crispy dough that’s the perfect vehicle for tomato sauce, arugula, buffalo mozzarella, or anything else you dream up. So invite your friends over, don’t tell them that they’re expected to clean the kitchen, and divide the labor. Pizza is meant to be shared.

There are many different schools of thought on pizza crust. I am of the thin, crisp school, a disciple of Todd English and his Figs pizza. The secret to a light, crispy crust is wet, sticky dough. Yes, it’s a pain, but resist the temptation to add more and more flour to the dough, making it easier to work with. A drier dough will yield a thicker, breadier pizza crust. Keep a butter knife nearby to scrape the webs of dough from your fingers. Swear if you need to.

I named this pizza after a friend from graduate school, who invited me over and served me this pizza on a cool fall evening. We had both just started our Master’s programs, and bonded over food,wine and bluegrass music. The combination of flavors is genius. Susanna and I were both vegetarians at the time (actually, I was quasi-vegetarian), and the combination was at once startlingly delicious and oddly familiar. Then I realized that the combination of sweet caramelized onions, salty olives, and sour sun-dried tomatoes evokes the salty tang of pepperoni. I’ve lost touch with my friend Susanna, but whenever I eat this pizza, I think of her and wonder what she’s cooking now.

Todd English’s Pizza Crust

This crust recipe makes 4 generous individual sized pizzas. While I don’t have a pizza stone, keeping a stone in the oven and preheating your oven an hour before hand will make the crust even crispier.

2 tsp yeast
1 2/3 c. warm water
1 tsp. sugar
2 tsp olive oil
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
3 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. salt

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the water, and let sit ten minutes. (Don’t stress about the yeast being alive–if the yeast is within date and the water is bath temperature, you won’t go wrong.)

Add olive oil to water, beat in whole wheat flour. Add 2 1/4 cup of the all-purpose flour. Sprinkle salt over. Keep beating until mixture is uniform and dough gets stickier and stickier.

Here’s where things get even more sticky: Sprinkle 1/4 c. flour over the dough. Begin to knead, folding the dough over itself, push, then turn a quarter and repeat. (If you use a large enough mixing bowl, you won’t need to put the dough on the counter.) Soon, the flour will be absorbed, and the dough will become sticky again. Add another 1/4 c. flour and repeat. Repeat with the remaining 1/4 c. flour. Dough is ready when it springs back when poked with a (flour-covered) finger. If your dough isn’t ready, but you have used up all the flour, you may sprinkle tiny bits of flour onto the surface of the dough so you can keep kneading.

Divide dough into four equal parts. Place on a flour-covered cooking sheet, cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1.5 hours.

Take a round of dough. Sprinkle flour on the top of the dough. Flour a rolling pin, and roll dough as thin as possible–this is key.

Pizza Susanna

I usually make 2 different types of toppings per crust recipe. This recipe makes enough topping for two pizzas.

2 large yellow onions
1/4 c. white wine (opt.)
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 c. black, brine-cured olives, pitted and chopped (Kalamatas wouldn’t go amiss here)
1/2 c. sun-dried tomatoes, chopped (if not oil-packed, soak in warm water)
1/2 c. chevre
parsley

Preheat oven as high as it will go (usually 500 or 550 degrees Fahrenheit). If you are using a pizza stone, it should preheat for an hour. Thickly slice onions. Heat olive oil, add onions, then reduce heat to very low. Let onions cook over low heat until completely reduced and soft, almost like a jam, at least 20 minutes, possibly longer. If onions are sticking to the bottom of the pan, deglaze with white wine and continue cooking.

Place the rounds of dough either on a well-floured cookie sheet or a pizza peel (if using a pizza stone). With the back of a spoon, spread onions on the pizza dough. Top with olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Crumble chevre over the pizzas.

Either slide pizza directly onto pizza stone and bake for 7-8 minutes, or place cookie sheet in oven and bake for 15 minutes.

Sources: Susanna Drake, Todd English’s The Figs Table

Hybrid Cuisine: Mjaddarah travels

Mjaddarah with South Indian Spices

I have always been suspicious–some would say insufferable–about fusion-cooking, and after some of the things I’ve seen, I think I have good reason to be. At a fancy restaurant this weekend, I encountered a “Vanilla butter poached lobster with sweet onion risotto and a red curry reduction.” Seriously? Curry and vanilla? How could that possibly, possibly taste good? People in the know say that these kinds of lunatic flavor combos are indicative of the youth of Minneapolis’ culinary scene, but still.

A recent food blog kerfuffle over Pad Thai got me thinking more about authenticity, innovation and fusion. As much as I rail against such atrocities as vanilla flavored curry reductions, I’m not as much of a purist as I pretend; I do mix cultures and flavors in my kitchen and on my plate. I just hope that I can respect and understand my ingredients a little better than Chef Vanilla-Curry, who I doubt knows a curry (whatever that is) from a curry leaf.

I don’t know what Lebanese or Jordanian cooks would say about this spin on Mjaddarah, the Middle Eastern dish of rice, lentils, and caramelized onions. I’ve adapted it by adding the holy trinity of mustard seed, curry leaves and dried red chile. I’ve also increased the proportion of rice to lentils, making this version a close cousin of the South Indian family of flavored rice dishes.

But I hope I’ve kept the essence of Mjaddarah: Thick wedges of onions, slowly simmered in a pool of fragrant, green olive oil. The onions caramelize over the course of half an hour, acquiring the sweet, deep, dark, rich flavor that only comes from slow, gentle heat. The result is a mild, subtly perfumed side dish that still manages to be richly luxurious (it’s all the olive oil). It’s heterodox origins make it compatible with almost everything: Grilled butternut squash, sauteed bitter greens, pan-roasted fish, tandoori chicken, or, as I did this week, with Paula Wolfert’s kefta. But for the love of God, don’t toss in any vanilla beans.

Heterodox Mjaddarah

Use good rice. Don’t skimp on the olive oil. Or if you do, don’t tell anyone you got the recipe from here.

1 c. basmati rice
1/3 c. green lentils (I use French Le Puy)
1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1/2 stick cinnamon, crumbled a bit
1 small handful curry leaves
1 dried red chile
2 med. yellow onions, sliced thickly

1. Soak basmati rice in water to cover. Set aside.
2. Boil green lentils in 2 1/4 cups water for 10-20 minutes. (Use the longer time if using French Le Puy lentils.)
3. While lentils are boiling, start the caramelized onions: Heat olive oil in wide, shallow pan. When oil is hot, add mustard seeds. Mustard seed should spit and crackle. Lower flame to medium and add cinnamon, curry leaves, and red chile. When aromatic, add onions. Lower flame to medium low and let onions simmer 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, stir occasionally, and remove from heat if they get too dark.
4. Here’s where things get tricky. If you feel confident in your rice cooking abilities, drain rice and add to lentils. Add more water if you think it’s needed. If you aren’t used to eyeballing the rice/water proportion, drain lentils into a colander, reserving lentil cooking water. Measure cooking water and add or drain water as needed to make 2 cups of water total. Return lentils, rice, and water to pot.
5. Bring to boil, add 1 tsp of salt to rice. Cover, lower heat, and leave to cook for 20 minutes.
6. Remove rice from heat and let stand five minutes. Pour caramelized onions over rice, mix gently as not to break the rice grains, and taste for salt.

Sources: Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Vimala Maguire

Feels like Home (almost)

Shortly after I moved to Minneapolis at the beginning of the summer, I lost the ability to cook. Everything I made was off in some way. I overbaked my clafoutis, I burned a batch of banana bread, I undercooked caramelized onions for Mujadrah so that they remained crunchy and harsh tasting. My new stove cooked flank steak to an unappetizing grey, the accompanying tomatillo sauce was bitter, and I ate the whole disaster with stale, tasteless corn tortillas from the corner Mexican grocer. Nothing tasted right; nothing felt right.

Pack up all your worldly possessions, move them across the country, and start life anew in a new city where you know no one and can’t find the grocery store without getting lost. No wonder I felt so dispossessed, no wonder the one pleasure I could always count on wasn’t available to me.

But life continued, and things slowly improved. I ate dinner every night at a local South Indian restaurant where the food tastes as if it had come from an auntie’s kitchen. My pots, pans, and spices arrived from Boston, and in the act of putting things in their place, I made friends with my kitchen. My loneliness abated as I met people, and made a few friends. My neighbors, Kassie and CJ came by with a housewarming present, a dinner invitation, and advice on what to do in the not-entirely-unlikely event of finding a needle in my yard. They had a wealth of information on the many Minneapolis farmer’s markets, a good vegetable market, and a great meat market. With the routines of shopping, picking produce, meeting farmers and butchers, I began to put down roots, however shallow. The butchers at Clancy’s now know my name. I’m a familiar face at Farm in the Market and the Produce Exchange as well. And with knowing the people who have grown and raised my food comes a connection to this place that makes me food come alive. I’m not home yet, but I’m getting there.

Here are three ingredients that I used as the basis for mezze, the Middle Eastern equivalent of antipasti. They are certainly not indigenous Minnesotan foods, but I was very pleased to find all of them in my neighborhood.

1) Mâche. Who would have thought that you could find this French salad green at the Produce Exchange? I couldn’t find it when I lived in Geneva last summer. It’s the the freshest, most spring-like taste you can imagine. I ate mâche by the shovelfuls in France, thinking I could never find it once I came home. Now I can eat it all summer long.

2) Egyptian Double Cream. Despite my interest in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern foods, I had never heard of this rich, tangy cross between feta and cream cheese. I first tried it at the Holyland Deli, then found a more feta-like version at Bill’s. Both are delicious.

3) Giant Beans. I don’t know why this humble bean tastes so good; something about its meaty texture and full taste. I only know that it was always worth paying $2.50 for a quarter cup of “Giant Bean Antipasto” at Whole Food Market. Whole Foods never carried the dried beans though, but I found them at Bill’s Imported Foods on Lake Street. I’ve remade this salad with harissa paste and lemon.

I’ve been eating these little snacks while on the run this week; I’ve been too busy and exhausted to cook, and they are great to have on hand for a quick tea time snack. I have these with whole wheat pita, a holdover from my health nut days, but I’ve grown to prefer the wholesome, nutty taste of the whole wheat over flatness of white.

Obviously, you don’t need to live in Minneapolis to make these dishes. You can substitute regular white beans (even from a can in a pinch—just be sure to rinse them), feta cheese and any salad green.

Mezze Table

Giant beans with harissa and lemon
Egyptian Double Cream Feta with Herbs
Mâche Salad
Olives
Whole Wheat Pita Bread

Giant beans with harissa and lemon

Be sure that the beans are completely soft before you salt them. Judi Rodgers recommends chilling one or two briefly in the freezer before checking for doneness. I try to mash one on the roof of my mouth with only my tongue.

1 c. dried giant beans

salt
2 tsp. harissa (recipe follows)
½ lemon
1 scallion, green part only, chopped
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
olive oil

1. Cover beans with water and soak overnight. The next day, bring beans and water to rolling boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook beans for 1.5-2 hours. When beans are completely soft (you should be able to mash one on the roof of your mouth with only your tongue, when in doubt, cook longer), salt water generously and continue cooking for another 20 minutes.

2. Remove beans from heat, drain, let cool and mix with other ingredients. Drench with olive oil—this is not the time for a timid drizzle.
3. Let stand overnight in the refrigerator. It will allow the flavors of the dressing to better penetrate the thick bean. Let come to room temperature before serving.

Harissa

2 oz. dried red chiles
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp. ground coriander
salt
Olive oil

Soak dried chiles in boiling water to cover for 1 hour. When rehydrated, process in blender with other ingredients, adding olive oil to facilitate grinding. Store in refrigerator, covered in olive oil.

Egyptian Double Cream Cheese with Herbs

½ lb. Egyptian Double Cream Cheese or Feta
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. olive oil
2-3 tbsp. fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, sage, oregano, cilantro)
freshly ground black pepper

Process all in food processor. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Sources: Claudia Roden, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
Paula Wolfert, Couscous and Other Good Foods from Morocco
Judi Rodger, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook

In which I turn 30 and wrestle with a hunk of meat

Birthdays march inexorably in life, whether we’re ready for them or not. This year, I was most certainly not ready. New city, new friends, new house, no furniture, and a milestone birthday just around the corner. But if you must turn 30 under these circumstances, the best thing to do is to grab the birthday by the collar and dare it to make you miserable.

I decided to throw a party, my first official birthday party in years with lots of beer, good food, and time spent outside. A potluck barbeque. I would provide the meat, friends would bring the sides. Nothing says welcome to my life like a great piece of meat.

Except that, as a recovering health nut and former vegetarian, I really didn’t know the first thing about how to barbeque a large hunk of meat. So I hit the books and the Cook’s Illustrated website. I decided on Jamaican jerk pork, inspired by this post and the idea of conviviality stoked by the lively, hot flavors of the Islands. Tradition has it that jerk was perfected by runaway slaves from West Africa, who hunted wild boar for sustenance, seasoned it with the wild herbs and spices from the hills of Jamaica, and roasted it in pits dug into the ground. Jerk marinades build on a foundation of Caribbean chives (usually replaced by scallions), thyme, scotch bonnet peppers and the all-important allspice berry. Jerk masters closely guard the secrets of their recipe, but common additions include garlic, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and soy sauce. For my marinade, I decided to stick with the basics, plus a healthy amount of garlic and a dash of soy sauce. I forwent the other dry spices in favor of a large dose of freshly toasted and ground all-spice. I tossed in a conservative three habanero peppers.

For the meat, I decided on a pork picnic shoulder. The shoulder meat of the pig is one of the toughest cuts, filled with muscle and connective tissue, but it’s also the most rewarding when slow-cooked for hours at a low temperature. While Boston butt seemed like it would have been a good choice, I went with the picnic. The skin, crisp and crackling is one of the best parts, according to Cook’s Illustrated. I also absolutely wanted the meat bone-in. The bone keeps the meat juicy and moist—one of the reasons why boneless chicken breast often tastes like saw dust.

Then came the challenge of procuring a locally-raised, skin-on, bone-in picnic shoulder. It’s not really the season, and every butcher I spoke to told me I could have one if I waited a month. I almost broke down and called Whole Foods when Clancy’s, makers of the best sausages I’ve ever had in my life, returned my call. “From one of our own suckling pigs: the most beautiful piece of meat you could ever ask for,” said the proud butcher.

The butcher had recommended I brine the meat. Soaking the meat in a salt water bath tenderizes the meat, ensures it remains juicy, and allows seasonings to penetrate deep into the meat. I tossed some crushed all-spice berries, a cup of sugar, and handfuls of garlic into the brine for good measure.

I was planning to cook the pork on a gas grill. Inauthentic they may be, but I didn’t want to be fiddling around with charcoal for the first time in my life with ten people coming over for dinner. Until a foodie friend mentioned that she had a smoker I could borrow. “I don’t know,” I hedged. “I’m not really that good with fire.” “Oh, it’s easy!” she responded. “Charcoal, newspaper, match. How hard could it be?”

Seduced by the promise of smoky flavor and tender, succulent meat, I borrowed the smoker. The day of the cookout dawned wet, cold, grey and miserable. Noon found me stooped over the chimney starter, poking wads of damp newspaper with matches as the 100% natural hardwood lump charcoal stubbornly refused to light. One hour later I was still at it.

Just when I was about to dissolve into tears and order out from Famous Dave’s, my friend called with wise council from her Barbeque Bible: “Roll a sheet of newspaper into a donut shape, as not to impede the flow of oxygen to the fire. If you need the newspaper to burn longer, moisten it with a little vegetable oil.” That did the trick.

Six hours later, guests arrived bearing bowls of cilantro inflected fruit salad, roasted potatoes, chana masala, rice salad, platters of chile-butter corn and the makings for mojitos. People gathered in the living room, talking, laughing, making friends, but getting hungrier all the time. Waiting for it to reach the spoon tender temperature of 190 with a house full of hungry people was just not an option. The smoky flavor of long cooked pork had been wafting all over the neighborhood for six hours, and it was driving me mad with hunger. I bunged it on a gas grill and turned up the heat. At 170 degrees, I gave up and took it off the fire.

The pork was delicious: the kind of meat that will invade your cravings at inconvenient times and places, like when it’s minus twenty degrees out, and the possibility of smoking is six months away. Smoky, succulent, juicy and flavorful down to the bone. The skin came off in charred, crisp bits that three friends picked at while I carved in the kitchen. The heat of the three haberneros was just barely discernable as a mild pleasant burn that intensified the smoky flavor. The real heat was in the sauce, the best combination of salty, sweet, herby and hot, with the bass note of warmth from the allspice. And yes, it was worth the days of research, the frantic race to the butcher, and the hours spent babysitting the charcoal fire.

And when you get to spend your birthday surrounded by new friends, great food, and a damn good piece of meat? You almost don’t mind turning 30.

Menu

Jamaican Jerk Pork
Island Red Beans and Rice
Several side dishes brought by talented friends
Mango and Coconut Sorbets

Jamaican Jerk Pork

For the brine:
1 picnic pork shoulder, skin on, bone-in (mine was 4 pounds because it was from a suckling pig, but the full sized hog will give you as much as 7 pounds)
1 cup salt
1 cup sugar
1 handful allspice berries, crushed in a mortar
1 head of garlic, cloves bruised in a mortar (no need to peel)

For the jerk rub:
5 bunches scallions
5 cloves garlic
scant ½ cup whole allspice berries, toasted until fragrant and ground in a spice grinder
2 tablespoons freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons thyme
1-6 scotch bonnets or habanero chiles (I used three, but ended up wishing I had used more)
a squeeze of lime juice
a generous amount of salt (maybe 1.5 tablespoons)
soy sauce to moisten

For the sauce:
¼ cup distilled white vinegar
¼ cup brown sugar

1. Brine the pork: Using a sharp knife, lightly score the pork skin in a diamond pattern. Do not cut through to the meat below. Bring a few cups of water to a boil, then dissolve sugar and salt in the boiling water. Submerge pork in 3 quarts of water, using ice to bring the temperature of the water down. Add spice. Refrigerate and leave 18-24 hours.

2. Make the rub: In a blender, combine all ingredients except soy sauce in a blender. Add enough soy sauce so that the blender blades whir smoothly. If it seems like you are using too much soy sauce, add a little water, but be careful not to add too much. Process to a paste.

3. Marinade the pork: Anywhere from 1-6 hours before you start smoking, remove pork from brine, dry with paper towels. Rub as much marinade as possible in all the crevices on the pork, place in a baking dish, and return to the refrigerator. Store the remaining marinade in the fridge as well.

4. Smoke the pork: Build a charcoal fire, place coals in smoker. Remove pork from baking dish, reserving marinade in bottom of dish. Smoking time will depend on the weight of the shoulder. The butcher told me at least six hours for a 4 pound shoulder, a seven pound shoulder can take up to 12 hours. Leave lots of time for smoking! My smoker had a pan for water to help regulate the temperature, but I didn’t use this feature because I wanted to keep the skin crisp. The butcher warned me to keep the temperature around 200 degrees. There was no chance of it getting much higher than that, perhaps because of my inept ways with charcoal. Most of the time, the grill temperature hovered around 225 for me.

You can also smoke with an ordinary charcoal grill. Just pile the charcoal to one side, keep the pork on the other side, shield the pork with some aluminum foil and watch the grill temperature. (I bought a cheap grill thermeter for $10. )

5. Smoke until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 190 degrees for pull-apart tender pork, or as long as you can stand it. My pork was tender at 170, though it didn’t quite fall off the bone.

6. While the pork is smoking, make the sauce. Mix leftover rub with the vinegar and brown sugar. Boil until onions and garlic are cooked, about 5 minutes.

Island Red Beans and Rice

1 ½ c. dried red beans
3 c. rice (I used jasmine)
2 c. coconut milk
1 bunch scallions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 green chile, halved lengthwise
a generous sprinkle of salt

1. The night before, cover the bean in cold water and leave to soak.
2. Boil beans until tender, 1.5-2 hours. (You should be able to smash bean on the roof of your mouth with your tongue. When in doubt, keep cooking.)
3. Drain beans, reserving liquid. Measure reserved liquid, add coconut milk, plus enough water to make 5 cups.
4. Rinse rice and drain well. Add beans, coconut mixture, and remaining spices. Bring to boil.
5. When rice comes to boil, cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes.
6. After 20 minutes, turn off heat, leave rice undisturbed for 5 minutes before fluffing with a fork.

Sources: The Traveler’s Lunchbox, Cook’s Illustrated Website, How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbeque Techniques by Steven Raichlen, and the generous folks at Clancy’s Meat Market, Minneapolis, USA.
Carving the porkCarving the porkCarving the pork