The first gumbo I watched being made was in the kitchen of my dear friends Todd & Jen Mouton near Bayou Teche in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.

My second gumbo was made in the Hurst Street, New Orleans kitchen of my dear friends Hans Andersson and Whitney Stewart.

Mindful of these introductions, Gumbo is as sacred to me. My attention rests on the value and beauty of these friends whenever I begin this dish and when I serve Gumbo, our table is always full of friends. There is no need to show off. No one to impress. This is honest, beautiful – and as my friend Susan Hessey would say – murky food.

Gumby, Gumbo & The Holy Trinity

Last spring, we decided to have a gumbo making party where I taught a bunch of friends the technique I’d learned in Breaux Bridge and New Orleans. Do you feel the richness of this friend-to-friend transfer? You are about to take part in it. Thanks for that.

Gumbo?

The word ‘gumbo’ comes from a west African word for okra, a common element in stews there.*

The filé comes from the Native American thickener: dried and powdered sassafras leaves.

The roux comes from the French.

The chiles, from the Spanish.

The dish is rich with the history of the land and cultures from which it came.

*I actually don’t use either okra (or tomatoes in my gumbo). For some folks, this automatically disqualifies it. But gumbo is more a technique than a recipe. And you’ll find that Louisianans themselves will scrap about this right to the edge of the table, and then open a beer for each other and happily dig in.

“First, You Make A Roux…”

…Most distinctive Louisiana dishes begin with this phrase.

A roux is essentially equal parts fat and flour cooked together as the base for the dish. In classic French cooking there are 3 roux designated:  light, blond and dark.

In Louisiana, I’ve heard of 17: When you couldn’t vary the ingredients of your diet, you could vary how long and how hot you cooked the roux.

I like the roux as dark as I am brave enough to get it: coffee, dark chocolate brown.

But first: The Holy Trinity: Onion, Celery, Green/Red Peppers

Playing of the sacredness of Gumbo and friendship, we have what Louisianans call ‘the holy trinity’: green peppers, celery and onion.

Before you start a roux, these need to be chopped and at hand. They are the brakes you will apply when you think the roux is about to get away from you. (A burnt roux signals the Monopoly rules: Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Give up or start again.)

The proportions of these three are negotiable, though in my gumbos there are often a scosh more onion and pepper in the mix than celery. You’ll want a nice pile of each ready before you heat the pan.

Making The Roux

For a gumbo large enough to justify the time, I usually use 3/4 – 1 c of fat and the same or a little bit more all-purpose flour. [Don’t be tempted to use whole wheat: the germ will burn.]

I heat the oil in a heavy, enameled cast iron pot and then whisk the flour in all at once when the oil is hot.

There are brave chefs out there who get a skillet smoking hot, add the oil and then the flour and whisk like crazy.

The advantage of this boldness is it’s really fast. The danger is you’ll burn the roux and have to throw it out. I consider this technique interesting and exciting, and for a practiced hand. If you are making gumbo three or four times a year as the seasons and ingredients change, what’s the rush? Easy does it.

Once the oil and flour are combined, then the stirring begins. Set the whisk aside and choose a heat-proof spatula or a wooden spoon or spatula. While the surface of the roux looks fine, the bottom of the roux can burn if you take a phone call, get distracted, or are dicing up ‘the holy trinity’ (a subversive phrase, I suppose), so pay attention.

The roux will begin soupy. It will often then get lumpy as it darkens and the glutens are cooked up, then it may relax again into a darker soup as it progresses toward the point where I chicken out and add vegetables to slow it down.

Here’s a progression of photos of our roux in progress:

Onions First!

From books of the wonderful New Orleans chef John Besh, I learned to selectively add just the onions when the roux is frighteningly dark and close to burning. This allows the carmelization of the roux to progress a little further. Once the moisture from the celery and peppers gets in the roux, it’s darkening days are over.

Now, if you like a dark roux like this, you may have broken down all the gluten in the original flour. If the gumbo doesn’t thicken up the way you’d like at the other end of cooking, you can either add some beurre manié (equal parts butter and flour blended at room temperature) to thicken it at the last minute, or make a second lighter roux just for thickening.

For me, getting the flavor in that dark roux at the beginning sets the dish. There have been times when I’ve added the onions to a roux and let them begin to sweat that the whole mixture looks like a brownie mix of melted dark chocolate. This is a thrilling thing to see in a pan on your own stove. Take it from me.

Peppers, Celery, Garlic, Cayenne/Seasonings and then a Flavorful Stock

When you’ve judged either that 1) you’re weary of the stirring, 2) you’ve run out of time for this part of the dish, or my favorite 3) you’re in danger of burning the roux even with the onions in it – add the diced celery, peppers, garlic, cayenne pepper and some salt and pepper.

Many ‘cajun’ spice mixes consist of salt, cayenne, onion and garlic powder in various proportions. If I grab one of these, I get it without the salt. The rule of thumb advanced by some manufacturers for their product is ‘when it’s salty enough the spice is just right.’

Maybe for someone.

I prefer to control the salt and spice separately.

That said, I do like having a little “Slap Ya Mama” in the cupboard. It always gives me occasion to say, “It’s so good it’ll make you wanna slap ya mama, and you KNOW you’re not supposed to do that!”

Available at:  http://www.slapyamama.com/?gclid=CI2_54H3urMCFQUFnQodREEAEw

I am often using a few of my favorite dried Mexican chilés in my gumbo. Know who you’re cooking for and follow your nose.

The Stock

The roux and the stock are critical to the distinctive flavor of a gumbo.

When I make seafood gumbo, I make a roasted shrimp shells & fish racks, bay leaf, celery, carrot infused stock.

When I make smoked sausage and smoked turkey gumbo, I’ll use the bones and shards of my home-smoked Thanksgiving turkey and make a stock with onions, celery, bay leaves, parsley, carrot and parsnip trimmings. You get the idea. Same with duck.

The marvelous thing about gumbo is that what actually goes into the gumbo depends on what’s available and what you want.

I’ve made vegan gumbo with vegetarian sausage, fried tofu and tempeh. It’s vegan food that is off the chain. The diet may be restrictive, but that shouldn’t stop any cook from making remarkable food.

When making stock, take care to begin with the ingredients in cold water and only add cold water to replenish the stock as it evaporates, as needed. Skim it regularly and try to keep it from boiling: a simmer is what you want. Boiling stocks cause them to be really cloudy. For gumbo they don’t need to be clarified, but a nice stock is a nice stock. You might use some of it for something else….

Oh, and a beer or some portion of one usually also winds up in the gumbo. A little red wine in a dark roux is also not a bad thing, but I lean toward an amber beer or a lager.

Strategies for Different Gumbos

With a seafood gumbo, like the one we were making in these photos, you have to make a flavorful seafood stock. The seafood itself goes in minutes before it is served to keep it from overcooking and becoming tough and lifeless: shrimp, oysters, portioned fish fillets (deboned)…any seafood will do, including crab, lobster, etc. There is no way to get the flavor into the pot early without a nice stock.

With sausage or meat gumbo, you can brown the sausage and the meats to get a flavorful fat with which to make the roux. Once browned, remove the meat from the pan, take a sight measurement of the fat there and add what you need to bring it up to the amount you want, add the flour and proceed with your roux.

I always make or adjust a store-bought stock. I’m nourishing my friends and family. That’s sacred to me. I only cut a corner when I don’t have time. If I have time, I spend it on my friends and family.

Simmering and Serving The Gumbo

Some simmering is in order once all the vegetables have been added and sweat out, and the roux has been thinned with stock, a little beer, etc. At this point, it can be consigned to a medium over, covered. (There are those who darken the roux in the oven, too, but I prefer being with it. If I’m too busy for that, I’m probably too busy to make gumbo.)

The fully cooked meats and sausage,  or the uncooked seafood and shellfish are added in the last few minutes of cooking and just heated or cooked through.

Gumbo is served over rice.

There are those who put a scoop of chunky cold potato salad with dill pickles in it right in the middle of a serving. I don’t, but I understand the urge.

I always put some filé powder in the gumbo just before serving and have some on the table for people to add to thicken up and flavor their own servings as they like.

A nice, crusty French-style or sourdough bread is nice to have at the table to mop up the last little bits of the gumbo in the bottom of the bowls.

And if your guests make the mistake of serving themselves gumbo by fishing out all the meaty parts and leaving the broth, take over the serving:  this is a poor people’s dish, more like a soup with a few ingredients in it.

It’s not a beef stew and shouldn’t be treated as such.

It’s more civilized: a dish of at least four cultures coming to a table of friends near you.

With a stand of leeks in our little organic garden patch out back, my wife Barb and I decided that we should make some Potato & Leek soup for a combination Hallowe’en potluck/Celtic music class gathering she was cooking up.

The soup essentially includes the two star ingredients, potatoes and leeks, a little bacon, and some stock, salt and pepper to taste. Simple.

But, for the leeks: only the white and very palest of the pale green parts are favored, and there’s a lot more leek above those highly prized bits that seemed like it was destined to go directly to the compost pile.

My Scottish nature bridled at that.

Augmenting the Stock

So, to augment the chicken stock I was going to use, I washed and cut the best of the leek greens into a pot and diced up a diced carrot, a couple ribs of celery, adding a bay leaf and some garlic. I sweat these for a few minutes in a little olive oil, then deglazed the pan with a little dry Vermouth and added the stock.

A guy could skip this step, but it only takes a few minutes to set up and makes a huge difference in the finished soup.

Simmer below a boil, at least until the carrots and celery are tender, longer if you get a head start.

The Bacon

It is here that the vegetarians squirm and omnivores begin to drool: Bacon.

Even ordinary bacon is a powerful flavor enhancer. But, not by chance, I had some of Allan Benton’s Hickory Smoked Country Bacon on hand.

Allan Benton’s small smokehouse in Madisonville TN, his slow cure, and personal care have catapulted his bacon and dry-cured country hams into the culinary stratosphere.

Benton’s cured pork products have become the darlings of the current generation of fine chefs from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. His country ham has been compared to Prosciutto and Serrano ham from Europe, products he didn’t know about until his hams caught on.

“What I’m doing, any hillbilly can do in their backyard,” Benton says. “It just takes a tiny bit of knowledge, a little bit of salt and sugar – and a lot of time.”

You can – and I recommend you do – purchase four, roughly one pound packages of this bacon for $24 plush S/H at http://bentonscountryhams2.com/hickorysmokedcountrybacon-2.aspx. (According to their website, the wait time can be as long as three weeks, but my order arrived more quickly.)

Proportions

I used roughly a quarter pound of bacon, nearly four pounds of potatoes, six leeks from the garden (of varying diameters), two cups of amended chicken stock and a splash of milk, though I would have preferred cream.

Cutting and Building the Soup

With the warm stock ready on the back of the stove (stock vegetables softened and strained out), I cut the bacon into a 1/4” dice, the potatoes into a similar dice (if one added carrots, they would be diced similarly: I did not), the whites of the leeks were halved lengthwise and then cut into 1/2” pieces. And we’re ready to go.

Render the bacon over low heat until it’s released most of its fat, but not gotten crispy.

Add chopped leeks, stir for a minute or two to warm.

Add diced potatoes. Add some salt and fresh ground pepper.

Stir and turn the mixture over as it warms through and begins to soften.

Adding the Stock

Add the warmed stock 1/2 c. at a time, like you were making risotto, stirring it in and allowing it to warm through before adding more.

Once all the stock is added, turn the heat to the lowest setting and let it cook until the potatoes are softened.

At that point, you may add milk or cream, but do not boil the soup after adding dairy.

Correcting the Seasonings

As the soup simmers, you can check the salt and pepper balance. Additional seasonings might include a little thyme, another bay leaf, a dash of cayenne or other chile pepper.

You will find that the smokiness of Allan Benton’s bacon carries this dish far above any other Potato Leek Soup you’ve ever had. This is why Benton’s products are so prized. A small amount of Benton’s hickory cured bacon provides more flavor than a large amount of the bland supermarket bacon we were raised on (and loved).

My eyes (well, nose and tastebuds) have been opened.

And I still have three pounds of Benton’s bacon in the freezer and a quarter pound defrosted in the fridge.

This is how rural, poor people get to feel rich. It has ever been thus.

You should learn and practice good kitchen hygiene:  separate cutting boards for meat and vegetables, cleaning cutting boards which have touched raw meats with boiling water or a weak bleach and water solution, and taking care to clean your knives and hands after working with raw meat and before turning right to the salad. E. coli or Salmonella can be unpleasant in the young and healthy, and deadly with the elderly, the very young, and people with compromised immune systems. You should establish habits in the kitchen that will minimize accidental contamination and prevent the movement of bacteria from meats and eggs to vegetables.

Food Safety Temperatures and Times

Years ago, a doctor friend told me that there was basically no such thing as what we commonly call the ‘stomach’ flu:  it’s food poisoning.

To prevent this, many cookbooks and cooking authorities encourage the overcooking of food: sacrificing texture and flavor to err on the side of safety. If you take care with your food and your kitchen safety habits are in place, overcooking food in this way is unnecessary.

The old rule of thumb is that cooking food until the core temperature is 167 °F / 75 °C (or above) will ensure that harmful bacteria are destroyed.

But, the temperature at which harmful bacteria are destroyed can be lower, provided the core temperature is maintained for a specified period of time. To wit:

140° F / 60° C for a minimum of 45 minutes

149° F / 65° C for a minimum of 10 minutes

158° F / 70° C for a minimum of 2 minutes

167° F / 75° C for a minimum of 30 seconds

176° F / 80° C for a minimum of 6 seconds

One needs to remember that these recommended cooking conditions are only appropriate and will protect your diners if initial bacterial numbers in the uncooked food are small. Cooking does not overcome poor kitchen and food preparation and storage hygiene.

Internal Temperatures for Specific Meats:  From Master Chef Tom Colicchio

In 2000, Tom Colicchio authored one of my absolutely favorite cookbooks:  Thinking Like A Chef. I’ve given away a dozen copies over the past decade. His premise in this book is that there are a number of basic techniques that one should master: roasting in the oven and on top of the stove, braising, sautéing, making stocks and sauces. Then go play with your food.

Colicchio de-constructs specific dishes, offers a wonderful array of ingredients which he like to have on hand (salt-cured lemons, for instance). The book has recipes, but is technique-oriented, which pleases me deeply. I learned a lot from his work here and, if you haven’t seen this book, my guess is you’d enjoy it.

In Thinking Like a Chef, Colicchio provides a very useful chart of internal temperatures. He encourages his readers to touch their food, and learn how it feels when a steak is rare, medium rare, or well done. Pairing personal sense knowledge with a good meat thermometer will gradually equip you to know what’s going on in your pans. His motto is “test early and often.” You may remove a roast from the oven 5-7 degrees before it is done and it will finish cooking and reach the desired temperature while it is resting.

Here’s the information Colicchio provides in his excellent book, Thinking Like A Chef:

Red Meats:

120º F. ­– rare (red, cool center)

125º F. – medium rare (red, warm center)

130º F. – medium (pink center)

135º F. – medium well (small pink center)

140º F. – well done (no pink)

Pork or Veal:

140º F. – medium

150º F. – well done

Poultry:

170º F. – dark meat cooked

160º F. – white meat cooked

Fish:*

120º F. – medium rare

130º F. – medium/cooked through

*Colicchio notes that density and thickness of fish portions varies so widely that these temperatures and hence cooking time can only approximated. Firmness, flakiness and color will be your best guides for fish, and with time, you’ll be able to judge these other meats as well.

Smoking Ducks, Turkey & Fresh Kielbasa

Thanksgiving this year was quite temperate here in southern Vermont. I took advantage of the milder than usual temperatures to fire up the smoker and prepare meats for our Thanksgiving table, as well as for a gumbo we were planning for later in the fall.

Smoking takes much of a day, so if I’m going to spend six or seven hours tending a small fire every twenty minutes or so, I’ve taken to filling the smoker with meats. I also tend to keep a guitar and a good book close by.

In the time it would take to smoke just 18 lb. turkey, I prepared two ducks and a couple pounds of fresh kielbasa, knowing I’d freeze most of what came off the smoker for future meals.

My Grill:   A Char-Griller   Smokin’ Pro Model  #1224

This grill with a side firebox, sells for around $180 comes with cast iron grates that have enough mass to hold the heat when a cold piece of meat is placed on them. When given time to preheat, they leave those lovely grill marks. When I was picking a grill, the side firebox and cast iron grates were non-negotiable.

Their product name notwithstanding, these grills are not built to withstand consistent professional use. These grills are economical backyard or driveway rigs that will serve the occasional smoker well. They are generally available at Lowe’s here in the United States.

You’ll want to get a more accurate temperature gauge. The one in the lid may be as much as fifty degrees off, which can ruin a meal.

Smoking Meats

You’re going to want to hold the meat at a low to moderate temperature (180 –220 ºF) for some hours. The size fire you build will depend on the outdoor temperature. If it’s the 4^th of July in North Carolina, you’ll use half the charcoal to start when compared to Thanksgiving in Vermont. Point made.

To keep the meat from drying out, I buy a couple of heavy duty, disposable roasting pans which sit nicely under the grates in the barrel grill and fill them about 1/2 full of water. These will humidify the meat and catch most of the drippings. I clean these out and reuse them, recycling them when their useful lives are over.

You’ll build a small charcoal fire in the side firebox and soak chunks of oak, hickory, maple or a fruit wood in water to cover for at least 30 minutes, adding them to the fire to create the smoke.

You may ‘mop’ the meat once an hour or hour and a half with a sauce of your choosing. ‘Mop’ is used for both the little implement (bigger and faster than a little basting brush) and the sauce. Every time you open the grill, you’ll lose temperature and that will extend the cooking time. Mops (the implement) makes quick work of basting. Some people ‘mop,’ and some don’t. The humidifying water pans under the grates will give you some flexibility in how often you’ll open the grill to do this.

I tend to smoke birds for between 4 and 6 hours, often wrapping them up in heavy-duty aluminum foil with some of the ‘mop’ and bring them up to safe eating temperatures either on the grill or moving them inside to an oven. There is more on safe food temperatures and times below. Every cook should know this information. Learn the temperatures for different meats and safe food practices and don’t poison your friends and family.

Choice  of  Wood  for  Smoking

There is a great deal made in the advertising world of smoking with particular woods:  Apple-smoked bacon, Hickory-smoked Barbecue, etc.

In practice, you choice of wood for smoking makes an almost imperceptible difference in taste of the finished product, unless you decide to use a resinous wood like cedar, mesquite, or pine. These woods will leave a distinct turpentine-sort of aftertaste and are to be avoided.

The cedar and mesquite are lovely for grilling something, which happens quickly. But you’ll be disappointed in the flavor if you use them for smoking something. So, stick with the hard woods and fruitwoods for smoking: hickory, oak, maple, apple, pear.

Preparing  a  Big  Bird

Let’s talk turkey: at around 245º F (which is on the high end for smoking) your bird will take roughly a half hour per pound.

For a twelve pound bird you’re looking at approximately six hours at that temperature. [If bands of thunder showers roll through and your grill isn’t covered, as it did on my grill last September in Wilmington, North Carolina, all time estimates are out the window. What should have taken four or six hours took eight to ten. But the food was killer! Really.]

You can do a 10-12 lb. bird whole with some aromatics loose in the cavity (a cut up apple, onion, rosemary, garlic). Anything bigger, I cut in half, which with an 18 lb. turkey is exactly what I did.

I left the ducks whole and just tied them up with butcher twine to hold the legs and wings in close to the body and prevent them from drying out too much.

I usually cut the back bone out of a big bird and then split the breast. I salt and pepper it, and often use a dry rub mixture of four or five dried Mexican chiles, finely ground espresso coffee, and brown sugar. You can loosen the skin carefully and slip some in between the skin and the meat.

Once this is all done, I use a couple of long skewers to catch the leg and the wing on the split bird and pull them close to the body. This allows me to move them around on the grill and turn them easily if I want to and keeps the leg and wing meat more moist.

I’ve been known to wrap pork shoulders and loins, as well as turkeys and ducks tightly with plastic wrap with this chile mixture and park it in the basement refrigerator for three or four days before starting the fire.

It’s not necessary, but, well, it doesn’t hurt…if you can plan that far ahead, you’ll taste it.

A  Small Fire,  A Good Book,  & A Guitar

One of the great pleasures of making slow food like this is that you’re not going to want to get too far away or be too distracted from the task at hand. For me, I consider this a little island of enforced leisure: I get a good book, some seltzer or a beer, keep a guitar at hand and refuse to do any other meaningful labor when I’m smoking. Dear President Clinton:  It goes without saying that I don’t inhale.

When I was in college, I was saved from many a rowdy night by simply demurring: I’ve got some bread going. When you make bread or you smoke meat, you’re going to be staying home. Rather than a penance, I consider it a luxury that pays me twice:  some quiet time and great food at the end.

Kitchen Hygiene

You should learn and practice good kitchen hygiene:  separate cutting boards for meat and vegetables, cleaning cutting boards which have touched raw meats with boiling water or a weak bleach and water solution, and taking care to clean your knives and hands after working with raw meat and before turning right to the salad. E. coli or Salmonella can be unpleasant in the young and healthy, and deadly with the elderly, the very young, and people with compromised immune systems. You should establish habits in the kitchen that will minimize accidental contamination and prevent the movement of bacteria from meats and eggs to vegetables.

Food Safety Temperatures and Times

Years ago, a doctor friend told me that there was basically no such thing as what we commonly call the ‘stomach’ flu:  it’s food poisoning.

To prevent this, many cookbooks and cooking authorities encourage the overcooking of food: sacrificing texture and flavor to err on the side of safety. If you take care with your food and your kitchen safety habits are in place, overcooking food in this way is unnecessary.

The old rule of thumb is that cooking food until the core temperature is 167 °F / 75 °C (or above) will ensure that harmful bacteria are destroyed.

But, the temperature at which harmful bacteria are destroyed can be lower, provided the core temperature is maintained for a specified period of time. To wit:

140° F / 60° C for a minimum of 45 minutes

149° F / 65° C for a minimum of 10 minutes

158° F / 70° C for a minimum of 2 minutes

167° F / 75° C for a minimum of 30 seconds

176° F / 80° C for a minimum of 6 seconds

One needs to remember that these recommended cooking conditions are only appropriate and will protect your diners if initial bacterial numbers in the uncooked food are small. Cooking does not overcome poor kitchen and food preparation and storage hygiene.

Internal Temperatures for Specific Meats:  From Master Chef Tom Colicchio

In 2000, Tom Colicchio authored one of my absolutely favorite cookbooks:  Thinking Like A Chef. I’ve given away a dozen copies over the past decade. His premise in this book is that there are a number of basic techniques that one should master: roasting in the oven and on top of the stove, braising, sautéing, making stocks and sauces. Then go play with your food.

Colicchio de-constructs specific dishes, offers a wonderful array of ingredients which he like to have on hand (salt-cured lemons, for instance). The book has recipes, but is technique-oriented, which pleases me deeply. I learned a lot from his work here and, if you haven’t seen this book, my guess is you’d enjoy it.

In Thinking Like a Chef, Colicchio provides a very useful chart of internal temperatures. He encourages his readers to touch their food, and learn how it feels when a steak is rare, medium rare, or well done. Pairing personal sense knowledge with a good meat thermometer will gradually equip you to know what’s going on in your pans. His motto is “test early and often.” You may remove a roast from the oven 5-7 degrees before it is done and it will finish cooking and reach the desired temperature while it is resting.

Here’s the information Colicchio provides in his excellent book, Thinking Like A Chef:

Red Meats:

120º F. ­– rare (red, cool center)

125º F. – medium rare (red, warm center)

130º F. – medium (pink center)

135º F. – medium well (small pink center)

140º F. – well done (no pink)

Pork or Veal:

140º F. – medium

150º F. – well done

Poultry:

170º F. – dark meat cooked

160º F. – white meat cooked

Fish:*

120º F. – medium rare

130º F. – medium/cooked through

*Colicchio notes that density and thickness of fish portions varies so widely that these temperatures and hence cooking time can only approximated. Firmness, flakiness and color will be your best guides for fish, and with time, you’ll be able to judge these other meats as well.

The Smoke ‘Ring’ in Smoked Meats

When you smoke a light colored meat like a truly barbecued smoked pork shoulder, turkey, or chicken, when you cut into it you will find that the smoke has penetrated the meat and left a red color to a certain depth. This is known as the smoke ‘ring’ and is a sign that the meat before you has been smoked for a long time and come by its rich smoky flavor honestly.

Nitrites are added to the large cuts of pork that become smoked hams as well as to sausages not only to help create this pleasing red color which it will do, but also to prevent spoilage. I have never used nitrites and don’t plan on it. I mention them here only because if you’re surfing around, you may run across them.

Smoking Fish and Cheese

The grill I use is almost impossible to keep at around 100º F. or below, which is where it would need to stay to smoke fish (rather than just cook it), or cheeses (rather than just melt them). I’ve considered rigging up an external smoke box farther away from the fire box, but haven’t had the time or been ambitious enough yet to try undertake making the rig. I’m sure it can be done: you simply want the food further from the fire. If I get to it, I’ll write about it here.

…& Salt and Nuts

But I do smoke kosher salt (and could smoke almonds) in the rig I have.

Always use raw nuts, if you choose to try them. They’ll gently toast while they’re smoking. I haven’t tried them yet and can’t give you a time or technique. But with the principles outlined here, if you check them often, you won’t get into trouble.

If you have room in your smoker, it’s always nice to smoke some salt. Smoked salt makes a lovely gift and lends its smoky flavor to things in the middle of winter here in Vermont, where, unless you’re cooking something in the wood stove, that flavor is simply not available to us. I’m a fan of smoked Paprika, but haven’t tried making that at home. I fear that the grill I have would be too hot for it.

It doesn’t take more than a couple of hours to imbue coarse Kosher Salt with a wonderful smoky flavor and you can simply put a cup or so of Kosher Salt into a disposable pie pan and rest it in the smoker along with your meats. The salt on the surface will absorb the smoky flavor and color. And it will form a protective layer over the rest of it, so you should stir the salt now and again. It doesn’t matter how hot it gets. You’ll love having it around the kitchen.

Let’s Smoke Something

I hope you’ll give smoking a try. With my first try, I was amazed that one could make food that tastes that wonderful in your own back yard or driveway.

It is still one of my principle delights and a couple times a year, when I’m off the road and done with touring, I make it a point to fire up the smoker and make plans for a smoked turkey and sausage gumbo, or barbecue.

May have to write about Louisiana roux and gumbo next! We’re planning a gumbo lesson for friends here this Sunday. I’ll hope to document the process for you.

Best wishes and good cooking!

Seared Pistachio & Wasabi Encrusted Tuna

Garlic Scapes, Snow Peas and Baby Spinach

Pan fried Ziti with Feta and Kalamata Olives

This meal began as I was making room in our freezer for nearly twenty pounds of fresh pick-you-own strawberries. Something had to go.

Pulling out a couple of flash frozen tuna steaks, eyeing the bowl of pistachios on the counter, and knowing that, if we’re going to get garlic out of the garden, we’ll have to keep it from going to seed, and that we had snow peas ready for picking…these thing all conspired to determine the menu. With the pan fried ziti (a planned leftover from the fridge), the easiest and final piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Tuna

We know that, by being near the top of the food chain, these big fish concentrate mercury in their tissues. This is a profoundly sad part of living in the world we’ve made. We eat tuna rare and rarely, favoring fish lower in the food chain that live shorter lives and have less time to concentrate industrial toxins in their tissues. Children should not be eating tuna at all.

The oceans, which used to seem so big, are now small compared to the amount of toxic elements falling, being poured and running into them. We definitely need to start aggressively exploiting decentralized, non-toxic, renewable energy sources. Anything you can do in this regard will help. Go turn off those lights in the other room.

I opened the heavy bags in which the tuna was flash frozen somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific, and smelled the ocean. This is what you should smell. Anything else is bad news.

I washed and dried the tuna steaks, cut each steak in half across the grain, and set them out on wax paper and paper towels while I prepared the crust ingredients.

Pistachios & Wasabi crust

We shelled the pistachios with admiration for any restaurant that tries this sort of dish. Then I took a piece of that open-mesh plastic bag that onions come in (I always keep a piece of this in the kitchen somewhere), and wrapping up the shelled pistachios rubbed them vigorously against one and other in the bag, which strips a lot of the papery cover off the nut meats while making a big mess. I do this over a large cutting board, but you’d have to clean the counter, too.

I put the pistachios in the third, and only, nut-chopper that has ever worked and quickly rendered them a step toward pistachio dust. Adding a couple of heaping tablespoons of powdered wasabi (Japanese horseradish powder, familiar to sushi enthusiasts), I combined these and poured them onto a plate.

Press the tuna steaks firmly into the nut and wasabi mixture, turn it over and do it again. Lay them out on a plate and refrigerate them loosely covered with wax paper. This will help set the crust mixture and keep the tuna bright and fresh.

Garlic Scapes & Snow Peas

Garlic scapes in this case came from our crook-necked garlic beds in the back yard, but this time of year you can find their cute curly-cued little necks at farmer’s markets and in some better fresh vegetable departments.

I slivered these lengthwise, leaving pieces about an inch to an inch and a quarter long, doing the same to the snow pea pods, cut on the diagonal and set them aside together.

Baby Spinach

This stuff was so alive at the farmer’s market this morning that it was literally talking to me. I couldn’t leave it there. When I got it home, I washed it in a big mixing bowl of cold water and spun it dry in my salad spinner, then wrapped it up in paper towels and put it into a plastic bag. It would keep for days like this, but why? Dinner!

Did I mention the Red Onion?

Um, no. Well, all this green on the plate (wasabi, spinach, snow peas, garlic scapes…did I mention the pistachios?)  and the dreamt of red center of the seared tuna steaks called for a red garnish of some sort. I nearly forgot this when we made the plates and had to go back and take photos a second time.

I peeled, halved and sliced the onion into 1/8^th inch rounds and put them into a rice vinegar and sugar mixture into which, in an inspired moment for a meal some weeks ago, I had put a curl of cinnamon bark for a day or so.

Left for about an hour before the meal was ready, this garnish sent the whole plate over the top with just a hint of the (by then, forgotten) cinnamon. It was a revelatory detail.

Cooking

This was the tricky part:  everything seemed to want to be cooked at the same moment – the tuna hot and fast, the snow peas and scapes medium, the spinach slowly…

Snow peas and scapes went into a spacious pan first to sweat with a little olive oil and then out into a bowl to keep warm.

On Green Things: If you want things like spinach and snow peas and green things to remain green, you have just under 9 minutes of heat before the chlorophyll breaks down into an unappetizing kachi grey. Vinegar will do this almost instantly, too, cooking the plant material and rendering it a dull and unhappy grey. I cooked these for about two and a half minutes or so, saving their crunch and their beautiful color.

Tuna searing next in my biggest, heaviest hot cast iron frying pan. You want room around the fish for the heat to escape, searing just the cooked surfaces, not the interior or the sides.

Once the tuna was in the pan, I turned a mountain of spinach out into the pan I’d used for the snow peas and scapes and turned it carefully on low heat, minding the tuna at the same time.

Turning the tuna, I set a cookie rack over some wax paper on the counter to receive the tuna from the pan. Removing the tuna carefully, I set it on the racks to rest, cool a bit and become sliceable. Try to slice this fresh from the pan and you’ll ruin it.

I turned the spinach some more and shut the pan off before the last leaves were wilted, turning them under the cooked portions and letting the residual heat do the rest.

The Ziti leftovers

The pan fried ziti were next (and actually only became a part of the meal because the timing worked out just right).  I fired up the heavy cast-iron pan I’d used for the fish and scattered one layer of ziti in it, gave it a shake and let them sit to crust up a bit on one side, while the fish was resting and gave them a toss later as the plates were being readied.

I touched up the edge on one of my Japanese sushi knives and carefully sliced two of the tuna steaks, fanned the slices out over a foundation of spinach topped with garlic scapes and snow peas and added the ziti to the side. Lightly pickled red onions on top, which as noted, I nearly forgot.

Dinner!

We set the table on the side porch and Barb said, “Maybe we should take some pictures…”

So, there you have it. Finally. Three weeks off the road, home at last, and not flat on my back in bed:  dinner for two.

Scott’s Smoked Jalapeno Shrimp & Grits

Many of my meals begin with an ingredient.

This Christmas a 24 oz. jar of “Smokin’ Dave’s All Natural Smoked Jalapenos” turned up under the tree. The thought of opening a 24 oz. jar of these babies and having them sit around in the fridge for months gave me pause. But, seizing the, um – jalapeno – by the horns, I opened the jar this week.

Amazingly rich and smoky, these jalapenos packed in vinegar were really HOT.

So, having returned from Charleston and the low country of South Carolina with a bag of stone ground yellow corn grits and a couple of cases of Blenheim’s Hot Ginger Ale, I decided to work up a version of the classic southern Shrimp and Grits.

The Day Before

Shrimp Stock for the Grits:

I shelled four pounds of medium shrimp, reserving the shells to make stock and sprinkled the shrimp themselves with some lovely Smoked Spanish Paprika from Penzey’s (a favorite spice vendor out in Ohio) and a mix of Cajun spices (cayenne, salt pepper, powdered garlic and onion-the usual) and set them in a sealed container in the fridge.

I drained all the liquid from the shells in a colander, heated up some oil in a saucepan and roasted the shells, a quartered yellow onion (with the skin on), the rough ends of a stalk of celery, black pepper, a pinch of salt, and six or seven bay leaves. After tossing them around until the shrimp shells had developed some good color and the vegetable started to wilt a bit, I took the pan off the heat.

After it cooled for a few minutes, I filled the pan with cold water and returned it to a low flame. Be sure to skim the broth as it comes to temperature. The proteins from the shrimp will cause the top to scum up and if left unattended that will cloud the broth. Better to get rid of that stuff as it develops. Skim every 10-15 minutes. Lowest heat you can imagine. At least an hour, more if you’ve got time.

Using this Shrimp Stock, I made up the grits a day early.

2 c. stone ground yellow grits

8-9 c. Shrimp Stock with water added as necessary.

Pinch of salt

Fresh ground pepper

And later:  2-3 c. of grated cheese (I used a Grafton White Vermont Cheddar)

When done:  fold in 1 c. minced drained, smoked jalapenos

I cooked them down slowly on top of the stove, grated a couple of cups of sharp cheddar cheese into them. When they were done, I mixed in about a cup of drained, minced Smoked Jalapenos. Laying out a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet with sides, I spread the grits evenly across the pan. I misted a piece of plastic wrap with oil and covered them up and allowed them to cool and set over night. Tomorrow, once cool and set, with a quick misting of oil, these will be cut into squares and reheated/crisped up in a 475 degree oven.

Day Of The Dinner

With The Shrimp:

While walking around the grocery store the next morning, I decided the dish needed:

3 bunches of scallions

2 beautiful red peppers (they were on sale)

1 lime, and

2 pretty, nice-sized red onions

The Grits:

I cut the sheet pan of grits into squares roughly 3 or 4 inches on a side, carefully lifted them out of the pan and set them apart on a cutting board, patting them dry with paper towels while being careful not to break the square’s edges or corners.

I preheated my cast iron griddle on an upper rack in a 475 degree over, leaving it for about a 1/2 hour more, once the oven reached temperature.

Once at temperature, I misted the top of the grits squares with oil and opened the oven.

I misted the griddle and quickly set the grit squares on it, enjoying their sizzling, leaving about a 1/2″ between squares. I figured on two squares per serving. I was planning on feeding six of us. Twelve squares. And a couple left over.

Closing up the oven, and figuring on leaving them alone in there for at least 30 minutes, I turned to the shrimp prep work.

The Shrimp Prep, Part II The Vegetables:

I cleaned and cut up the red onions and peppers into medium sized pieces and set them in bowls.

Cleaned the scallions and cut the greens into about 3″ long pieces, setting them aside.

Just before the grits were done, with the assembled guest standing around in the kitchen, I began the top of the stove work by preheating two large cast iron frying pans, (so the shrimp wouldn’t be too crowded and steam each other).

I divided the red peppers and red onions between the two pans dry, tossing them into the hot pans without adding any oil or fat. This allows the vegetables to char, rather than fry or sauté and is a wonderful way to add smokiness to any dish. Tossing them in the pans after a few minutes of letting them sit still and char, I removed them before they’d really wilted to a large preheated bowl and covered them with a pan lid, to keep warm and finish cooking through.

Time for a Beer and Conversation:

Squinting at the grits in the oven, looking for crispness and color, I decided to hold up for a moment and let the grits crisp up a little more before proceeding. I turned off the cast iron pans and opened a beer, joking around with our company, testing Barb’s appetizers. Yum. Barb? Guest spot on the blog???

The Shrimp III:

When the grits had the color I wanted and with everything else ready, I heated the pans up to scorching heat again and added a small pat of butter to each pan and some olive oil to keep it from burning. Swirling that around the pan bottoms, I added the shrimp, gave the pans a shake to distribute them and let them sit.

The idea here is to sear some part of the shrimp without moving them. If you start shaking the pan immediately, they’ll steam each other. If you move them about, they won’t sear. You must realize that you can’t get them seared all over without terribly over cooking them. So what you’re after here is to sear some part of each shrimp. After a few minutes, turn them and shake them up. Then leave them alone for a little while.

While you can still see some translucence in some of the shrimp, toss in the scallions.

I then added a splash of rum and flamed the shrimp to get them all hot and finish their cooking. I added the red onions and peppers back into the pans and squeezed half of a lime over each pan and turned them off.

We put two squares of crispy grit cakes on each plate, one lapping on top the other. A couple spoonfuls of shrimp and vegetables were strewn over the top and headed for the table. Where a secret ingredient was waiting.

The Secret Ingredient: A Homemade, Sweet, Smoked Jalapeno Hot Sauce

The thought of using only an ounce or two of those Smoked Jalapenos-and being stuck with a nearly full open jar on the refrigerator door-was unappealing to me. So, the morning before the meal, I decided to make a Sweet Smoked Jalapeno hot sauce to go with the meal.

I reserved the smoky vinegar from about half the jar of Jalapenos, seeded them (being careful to wear a latex glove on my non-knife hand), cut them into strips and then minced them, red and green together.

I poured the reserved vinegar into a heavy sauce pan, added a lot of sugar and also a fair amount of corn syrup (not an ingredient I normally have or use, but…) and I began cooking the mixture over low heat. Watching it thicken, I added more vinegar from the jar. More sugar (it was really spicy). Some white vinegar. Then more corn syrup. A tablespoon of kosher salt….

Just when I figured I had the mix about right, I added in the minced peppers and brought it all back to a boil.

I scalded some small canning jars and lids and then canned the sauce. We opened a jar for the table and a generous scoop of this stuff over all the shrimp and grits had members of the party figuring there must be bacon in the dish. It was really smoky! And the heat, balanced by the sweetness, set of the dish in a way that cried out for the cooking blog. So, here it is.

Timing:

My stepson, Jesse Ackemann, came by in the late morning to pick up some things and visit. We had a nice red onion, red pepper, and feta frittata for breakfast with the end of the last batch of sourdough bread. And, the lucky fellow got sent home with a jar of hot sauce.

Timing is everything in life. Just ask Jesse. Or drop by sometime. You’ll see.

The process of ‘cooking’ fish or shrimp in a citrus marinade is ancient and still common in Central and South American coastal communities. Lime, lemon, grapefruit and bitter orange juices are employed to denature the proteins in fresh halibut, mahi mahi, sea bass, flounder, shrimp, octopus, squid, tuna and mackerel.

Traditional flavorings vary by region and can include salt, onion, chiles, avocado, coriander, parsley, cilantro, hot and sweet peppers.

This citrus pickling of fresh seafood can take from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the fish chosen and the thickness of the cut. More delicate fish like flounder or other white fish may be served after a brief period of marinating, while octopus and squid may take as long as 3-8 hours, depending on how they are cut and prepared.

The Menu

I decided to make ceviche while I was out running around to the banks and the post office. Summer is a perfect time to have a cool entrée. And summer in Vermont, which can furnish us with cool evenings, makes a wonderful setting for a contrasts. I ran by the grocery and developed the meal as I went.

Ceviche:

6 fresh limes
1 lb. of fresh 26/30 count Shrimp
1 sweet Red Pepper
A spray of vine-ripened Tomatoes
1 medium sized Fennel root
2 ripe Avocados

Crisp Fried Zucchini/Potato Pancakes:

1 large Zucchini
3-4 Russet potatoes
2 eggs

Pan Roasted Broccoli and Vidalia Onion:

3-4 Broccoli crowns
1 large Vidalia onion

Advance Prep

The key to making Zucchini/Potato Pancakes is getting the moisture out of the ingredients, so the first thing I did was to grate the zucchini and the potatoes into a heavy colander, toss them with salt and set them to drain over a bowl deep enough so the colander would never be sitting in the juice.

Pressing the pulp down firmly, I extracted nearly three cups of liquid from the pulp and pouring it out found a 1/4″ layer of white potato starch in the bottom of the bowl, which I might have used to thicken something, but didn’t. Note to self. I covered the pulp in the colander with plastic wrap and continued to return to it the press it down now and then over the course of the afternoon.

I shelled, de-veined and cut the shrimp in half lengthwise to shorten their curing time. I zested two of the limes after washing them carefully and then juiced all six, combining the prepared shrimp, juice and zest in a covered container with about 1-1/5 tablespoons of kosher salt. I set this in the refrigerator and gave is a shake once or twice over the next six or seven hours. It is best if the juice actually covers the seafood you choose.

I then trimmed and split the broccoli florets into one bowl, seeded and de-veined the red pepper, trimmed and skinned the Vidalia onion, washed and cleaned the fennel, and washed two of the ripest of the tomatoes, set them aside covered with plastic wrap and went back to my guitar.

Dinner Time

Ceviche:

I drained the shrimp, which were beautifully opaque, reserving the lime juice. Dicing the red pepper, taking thin shavings off the fennel root to julienne, cutting the tomatoes cross-wise and seeding them prior to a dice to match the red peppers, I put this all in the lime juice reserved from the shrimp.

My wife halved and cut the avocados into slices and then crosswise into shrimp-sized pieces and these also went into the lime juice briefly.  Then all were strained out and let to dry for a few minutes.

The shrimp were patted dry and all these elements were combined in a large bowl and set under wrap in the refrigerator.

Broccoli & Vidali Onion & Zucchini/Potato Pancakes:

I heated up my favorite wok, cut the onion into chunks and tossed them in a little browned butter over medium-high heat, then turned down to medium low.

I heated up my biggest cast iron frying pan and put about 1/4″ of canola oil in it.

I tossed the broccoli florets in on top of the onion in the wok and covered it, turning the heat down as low as possible. And preheated the oven to 400 degrees, putting a sided baking sheet with a cake rack in it to receive the pancakes as they were done.

I combined two beaten eggs and some fresh ground black pepper with the well-drained and squeezed zucchini and potato pulp and tossed it around. Adding about 3/4 cup of this mixture to the hot oil in the frying pan I flattened it out with the edge of the spatula into a pancake 5-7″ across and let it brown well on one side.

I tossed the broccoli and onion mixture in the wok and uncovered it.

I turned the pancake using a second spatula for the top to keep it from splashing in the oil and browned the other side well. As these were done, I removed them in turn to the pre-heated cake rack/baking sheet rig in the oven until they were all cooked.

Plating Up:

We laid out fresh bib lettuce from the garden on the plates, put a crisp zucchini/potato pancake on that, eased a spoonful of the broccoli and Vidalia onion up against it and put a couple of heaping spoonfuls of the shrimp ceviche with red pepper, tomato, avocado, fennel shavings and lime zest on top of the pancake, opened a couple of beers and headed for the table.

Guest: Keith Murphy

Our neighbor here in what we affectionately call Brattleboro’s music ghetto, Keith Murphy, joined us for dinner and conversation on the side porch. The air was cool and relatively dry. Traffic on Washington Street was blessedly slow and infrequent. Our conversation meandered through music and politics, local personalities and the music business. Then we walked across the street to admire his new wooden fence.

You can hear Keith’s music at http://www.blackislemusic.com. and his work with Jeremiah McClain and Becky Tracy as “Nightingale” at http://www.nightingalevt.org. You will be delighted. Guaranteed.

Every year Barb makes these coffee cakes from a recipe she got from her sister-in-law, Sally Boscaljon.   Every year people ask her for the recipe, which she gladly shares.   The thing is,  it’s hard to explain in just words how to put this together, so here’s an illustrated recipe!  (The extra set of hands belong to Barb’s son Jesse who was part of the first-ever Bert’s Coffee Cake Ring!

The Recipe:

Bert’s Coffee Cake
(makes 4)

mix together like pie crust:
4 3/4 c. flour
1 c. butter or marg.
1/2 t. salt

Crush cake yeast with fork, add sugar and mix to liquid.  Add milk, eggs and mix.
(With dry yeast, dissolve in lukewarm milk, add sugar and eggs.)

1 1oz cake yeast or 2 pkg dry yeast
1/3 c. sugar
1 c. lukewarm milk
3 eggs

Add yeast mixture to flour mixture – it will be sticky!  Clean away from edge of bowl and pat with flour; cover and let chill overnight.

Divide in 4 parts.   Knead each  — the more the better.
Roll into rectangle like jelly roll.

Filling:
3/4 c butter or margarine
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1 to 1 1/2 c. chopped pecans

Note:  This is very generous.  You could cut back on the amount of filling, or on the amount of butter.  I usually add more cinnamon, though!

You can melt butter and mix in other ingredients.  Dot and spread as best you can.
OR…. Mix filling ingredients in food processor and spread crumbs over dough. If you opt for spreading crumbs, it’s helpful to press them into the dough.  Flour your rolling pin and you can roll them and stretch the dough out even thinner!  (Thinner=more layers!  Yum!)

Roll up like jelly roll and cut in two lengthwise – but not quite to the end.

Rotate cut sides to expose cut edges of layers

and then lay one half over the other to make twist.

You can invert the uncut end to expose the filling.

Pinch ends together and transfer to a greased cookie sheet.

Cover and let rise 1 hour or so in a warm place – it will double in size.

Bake in 350° oven for 20 minutes – watch carefully!

Option for ring:  use two of your four pieces of dough.  Roll and  cut as above.  Open both out straight  and cross at center.

Braid from the middle out and form into a ring,

join ends and crimp together.

It’s helpful if you have a cookie sheet without edges which you may be able to slide under your creation.   Or… get some extra hands to gently lift this onto your cookie sheet!  Bake as above.

Gabe’s Cooking Audition

On Tuesday August 19, 2008, I was scheduled for a cooking audition between 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm at Top of the Hill Restaurant and Brewery, a local establishment in Chapel Hill, NC. I had no idea what ingredients I might face when I walked through the door.

My instructions were as follows: prepare two servings of one appetizer, one salad, and one entree. And in the three dishes I had to use the ingredients I was given at least once throughout the courses. My ingredients were:

1. Salmon
2. Bratwurst
3. Strip loin (the vein-y end that no one wants to work with)
4. Shrimp
5. Red Onion
6. Poblano Peppers
7. Artichokes
8. Chopped Precooked Bacon
9. Butternut Squash

I played with several ideas for each of the dishes. The salad was the first one that was set in stone, while the other two flipped around a bit. I settled down and set to work.

Grilled Salmon Appetizer

First, I seasoned the salmon with a season I call ‘Powder de Gabriel’ – salt, pepper, granulated garlic (a fair amount), granulated onion, and a pinch of white
pepper. I grilled it on their open flame grill, quarter turning
it to get the diamond effect. Then I sauteed artichoke hearts
in butter with garlic, roast tomatoes, basil ribbons, and chopped
bacon, and laid the saute mixture over the grilled salmon. I finished
the dish with a zig-zag pattern of a Chipotle Remoulade that
Top of the Hill has in house. I reserved one serving and sent the other to the judges.

Grilled Blackened Shrimp with Pesto Vinaigrette Salad

For the salad, I first prepared a dressing by mixing their in-house pesto with their balsamic vinaigrette dressing, adding a little extra balsamic vinegar for flavor. I took the mixed greens they have in house and made a bed for my salad, over which I put basil ribbons, red onions, and sliced tomatoes. I prepared the shrimp with a dry rub consisting of small amount of flour, salt, pepper, granulated garlic and onion, a dash of cayenne pepper, and blackening seasoning (A note to my dad: I would have used curry and cumin but they were not at my disposal). I grilled the shrimp quickly on the open flame grill and scattered them on the salad.

Roasted Strip Loin with Poblano Peppers, Onions,
and Bratwurst Stuffing

I took the strip loin and sliced it into two pieces about eight
by 4 inches wide and about three quarters of an inch thick. I then
pounded it down to about half an inch thick. I season the
beef with their in-house beef seasoning and set it aside.

I sauteed the Poblano peppers with white onion in butter and a healthy amount of minced garlic. While they sauteed, I skinned and quartered the Brats lengthwise, and chopped it into little triangles. Once the peppers and onions were flexible, I threw in the bratwurst. After everything was heated thoroughly I took a handful of the pepper/onion/garlic/bratwurst combination and put it in the center of the beef and rolled
the beef around it, tying it with cooking twine. The meat went
into the oven at 350 for about twenty-five minutes and came
out a medium to medium rare. I plated it with steamed
butternut squash and sent it out front, starting the clock on the hardest 15 minutes I’ve had in a long time. I turned to the other cooks in the kitchen and said, “What do I do now?”

“Now,” they said, “You wait.”

The executive chef showed up in the kitchen about 15 minutes
after my dish was sent out. He called me over and pulled
out the second portions and said, “Let’s talk.”

After we had had a chance to discuss the dishes, he invited all the other chefs in the kitchen to try them. Everyone seemed to think that I had done fairly
well. A half an hour later, I had hours on the schedule at decent hourly rate.

It was a hair-raising, enjoyable experience.

A delicious meal prepared by our guest chef Eric Goodenough:

Cod with a topping of sautéed onions, red bell pepper, chipotle*, garlic, olive oil, freshly toasted and ground cumin, sea salt, fresh cilantro, one diced ripe tomato and juice of one lime.

Served with Brussels sprouts, sliced in half, cooked flat edge down in a pan with butter, rice, black beans and handmade corn tortillas from a latino market in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The black beans were cooked with minced onion, toasted and ground cumin and ground cinnamon and cured lemons.

*A chipotle is a dried smoked jalapeño. Put it in a dry pan and heat it up. This softens it and allows you to get the seeds out. For more heat, you can leave the seeds in.