Corduroy Orange

Dear Corduroy,
I am working with a cookie recipe that calls for 1 cup shortening and 1 cup butter.  I don’t have shortening, but I do have margarine.  I’ve heard margarine has lower fat content and more water than shortening, but I’ve also heard it’s ok to substitute margarine for shortening.  What do you recommend?

–Short-stuff

Dear Shorty:

I recommend you ignore the recipe’s suggestion to use half shortening and use nothing but butter.  If it’s a sugar cookie recipe, that will make it a bit harder to roll out and cut successfully, but the upside would be much better flavor.

If you’re wedded to the idea of using a substitute fat, margarine is somewhat better than shortening, i suppose, because at least it has flavor.  Though, the flavoring used in margarine are typically the same as is used in microwave popcorn; and that flavoring additive has been implicated in lung disease in workers at popcorn factories (read this for more info).

An interesting side note on margarine: though we think of it as a vegan option, when first introduced, margarine was decidedly not vegan or even vegetarian.  It was made from cooking cow udders down with beef fat to produce a butter-like flavor out of pieces of the animal that would otherwise have been discarded.

Dear Corduroy Orange -

A friend of mine is interested in buying Beaver from his local Farmer’s Market and cooking it up, since it’s not a meat you often see for sale.  This also means he’s not sure how to prepare it.  He’s been looking at various receipes, but based on your knowledge, are there better ways to prepare this type of meat?

Thanks,
Curious in STL

I thought you could go to jail for trying to buy beaver on the street.  Wait, no, that’s for trying to rent it.

Seriously, though, I didn’t even realize that beaver was a meat that could be purchased, so I’d be interested in how it tastes.  I have absolutely zero experience with beaver preparation, so I don’t know that I’d trust my expertise in this area.  I do know, however, that it is a rodent; and I’m pretty sure it has some healthy musk glands that i assume the butcher responsible for dressing the carcass will have removed.

In general, though, I anticipate that it would have a somewhat strong flavor, and that the best results could probably be achieved by braising it (such as a stew or a pot roast).  As such, my recommendation is to season the beaver with salt and pepper, sear the beaver in a large cast iron pot, browning both sides.  Remove the beaver from the dish, and add a chopped onion, about a half dozen whole cloves of garlic, a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms, a bit of diced butternut squash, and perhaps some diced, peeled apple (season the vegetables with some salt and pepper as well).  Return the beaver atop this bed of vegetables.  Add enough vegetable stock (I’d hesitate to use beef or chicken stock because you don’t want to interfere with the taste of the beaver itself.  On the other hand, using plain water would likely dilute the flavor of the finished product) to cover the vegetables and go about halfway up the meat.  Bring the stock to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and let cook for three hours.  Serve with an accompaniment of mashed potatoes if desired.

Please let me know how your friend prepares his beaver, and how it comes out in the end.

Corduroy–

Our mother (in-law) is coming to visit soon and she’s just been diagnosed as having a wheat allergy.  We’re trying to compose a general menu for what we’ll be eating while she’s here, and are coming to a stumbling block for breakfasts.  Beyond the standard eggs, bacon and fruit, I’m having a hard time coming up with variety for breakfast.

Our sister (in-law) may be coming as well, and she is lactose intolerant.  So, wheat- and dairy-free options would be nice, if you have any suggestions.

Gadzooks!  I’d neve really thought about how few traditional breakfasts don’t have wheat in them!  Nonetheless, you should be able to come up with several possibilities.

Omelettes are basically within the realm of eggs, so you may have thought of them already.  I kind of prefer them to eggs over easy as a way of welcoming guests, as they’re a bit more elegant.

I sometimes make a lasagna-ish dish that substitutes very thinly sliced potatoes for the noodles.  While I usually serve that as dinner, it would make a nice savory breakfast casserole.  Simply slice the potatoes as thinly as possible.  Layer in a greased baking dish, add a filling (I like some fresh baby spinach and some lightly sauteed mushrooms; cheese is optional) and add another layer of potatoes.  Salt and pepper each layer of potatoes as they go in the pan, and finish with a final layer of potatoes on top.  Bake at 350 F for about 30-40 minutes or until the casserole is cooked through.

For a wheat-free quiche, try making a pie crust out of chickpea flour.  It won’t have the same texture as a crust made with wheat flour, but it should be passable.  Of course, this option includes dairy in it.

Rice pudding usually has some milk in it, too; but it would make a nice breakfast dish.  You could also go for oatmeal, I think–oats aren’t wheat, last I checked.

Yet another wheat-free but dairy-inclusive option would be smoothies.

I’m sure other options exist beyond these few, though they aren’t coming to mind immediately.  So, i’m going to throw the question open to the small portion of internet users who read this page: any ideas for tasty dairy- and/or wheat- free breakfasts that would make good food for company?

Hi, I’m writing to you from the Adult School of Montclair and I’m hoping you can help spread the word about an upcoming lecture we are hosting on the raw milk movement. Sadly, registration for this program is currently low and we may need to cancel if we don’t get more sign-ups. We’d really appreciate if you could give us a mention on your blog and if you happen to be in the area, we hope you can join us.

Thanks,

Jonathan Hayter

Jonathan–

I’m not sure you really want my publicity–after doing exhaustive research on raw milk including tasting, farm visits, and a visit to the Turner dairy, plus a heck of a lot of reading, I came to the conclusion that it’s just not safe for city-dwellers who are importing it long distances to drink, especially if they won’t be using it quite quickly.  Even if bacterial counts are low on purchase, the milk is  a fertile breeding ground for pathogens, the most insidious of which is listeria, which is virtually omnipresent.

Not only that, but the claims made by the raw milk advocates tend to be a bit outlandish, especially when they gather the credible (enzymes that are killed in the pasteurization process aid in digestion of milk, thereby making raw milk something that even the lactose intolerant can tolerate, eg) with the incredible (it cures everything that a snake oil salesman says his product can cure) and the outlandish (pasteurization proponents, they claim, rely on outdated studies; whereas pasteurization proponents that I have read cite studies from as recently as the late 1990s, perhaps more recent, whereas the Weston A Price people rely on studies from the 1920s-1930s and even cite a list of doctors who lived in an era when the sun was believed to revolve around the earth as “leading medical authorities of their day” who advocated drinking raw milk (I might point out that pasteurization didn’t exist in their day for them to be able to differentiate between pasteurized and raw milk; in addition to which there have been remarkable advancements in medical technology in the intervening years since they kicked the bucket.  Read more of my thoughts on the topic by browsing my milk category.

Nevertheless, I am an advocate for folks getting all the information they can for themselves and reaching their own conclusions, so here are the details of the lecture:

Slow Food for Thought: Raw Milk
Monday, 7-8:30pm, November 3 @ George Inness Annex, Montclair High
School, Chestnut St & Park St., Montclair NJ 07042

Join a champion of raw milk who will demonstrate the happy fact that raw
milk tastes better. Learn why it is better for your health and better
for the planet. Taste flavorful foods prepared with milk from grass-fed
animals.

Presented by Kirti Rahi, chef/owner of Piquant Bread Bar & Grill, New
Brunswick, NJ. Tara Bowers, Director of the grassroots group Foodshed
Alliance.

Registration is available online at www.adultschool.org.

Any epidemiologists out there who want to go and provide the speaker (and audience) with their educated vantage point would have my blessing (though probably not Mr. Hayter’s).

I made a chicken breast with a citrus glaze and it was too sweet what can I do to cut the sweetness? I thought rice vinegar and something along those lines. Any help would be appreciated.

Without seeing the exact recipe, I’m not sure I can offer specific advice: much of what I could tell you would have to do with specific ingredients being used, and the exact application of the glaze (is it applied at the beginning or the end of cooking; is the glaze also being used as a sauce at the table?) If you happened to have an electronic copy of the recipe that you could forward to me, I could take a look at it and see what I might suggest.

In general, though, I’m a bit wary of relying on sourness or bitterness to cut sweetness. If you get the proportions wrong, it can backfire on you. Also, it could interfere with how the glaze sets up on the chicken. If you’re using leftover glaze as a table sauce, I’d actually recommend cutting the sweetness in those circumstances with some fat, whether in the form of butter or cream. Even if not using the glaze as a sauce, fat might be the answer: serve the glazed chicken with a rich cream sauce and that will cut through the sweetness a bit. I’m a big fan of blue cheese, and I’m thinking citrus glazed chicken with a little Gorgonzola sauce might be nice.

Another answer might just be to cut back on the amount of sugar used in the recipe—but again, if you can provide me with a copy of the recipe, I can give you some more specific advice.

If you have a culinary question, email me and I’ll try my darndest to get you a worthwhile answer.

Lots of talk about “properly seasoned” and “good care”. How would one do those things with cast iron, exactly?

—Meadow

I’ve got basic tips on caring for and seasoning your cast iron posted here and they’re all still valid, though I have an updated and somewhat easier suggestion for seasoning your cast iron.

The method I suggested in my previous post, rubbing it with oil and putting it in a low oven, works great—but it has a tendency to fill your house with a bit of smoke. You can get seasoning results that are about as good just by heating your skillet up on the stove top and rubbing its entire interior with oil, then letting it cool. Repeat a few times, then following the last heating, flip the skillet over and rub its exterior with oil (feel free to repeat a few times, but wipe away any excess oil between heatings or you wind up back at the problem of a smoky house).

See also: tips on cleaning cast iron and an index of all my cast iron posts.

I have an odd random question for you. My dad was from Pittsburgh, and he always wanted his steak “Pittsburghed” (meaning it was pink/red in the center but blackened on the outside). Is this a real thing, or is it just something my dad made up? I never thought to ask while he was alive, but my husband and I were talking about him the other night which made me think of this.

–Courtney 

Courtney:

Pittsburgh rare is indeed an actual way of serving a steak: burnt on the outside, raw in the center.  In recent years, some people have taken to asking for their steaks ‘Pittsburgh medium’ or even, I recall, ‘Pittsburgh well’ (overcook it and then burn it to a crisp, please!).

The story behind this phenomenon dates back to the steel mills where, as I understand it, workers would often take raw steaks with them for their lunches and then slap them on the mill’s furnace to cook them.  Problem is, the furnaces were so hot (they were designed to melt steel, after all) that the outside of the steak would singe before the inside even cooked.

Funny thing about food is how you can develop a taste for something (I think of the story Larry Lagatutta [Enrico Biscotti's owner/ head baker] tells about the old Italian woman who would go into the bakery asking if they had any burnt bread because it was what she ate as a child and she really enjoyed it).  Stranger still is how you can pass that taste along.  The end result is that while not exactly a popular way to eat steak, restaurants will have occasional requests even from people who never set foot in a steel mill to serve their steaks Pittsburgh Rare.

Do you have a question about the world of food?  Email me and I’ll do my best to provide an answer.

What do you think about this cleaning tip to clean your cast iron with some dish detergent applied with a cut potato?

–Joe

I couldn’t disagree more.

There’s no way I would ever expose my cast iron to dish detergent. The entire function of detergent is to break down oil—and oil is exactly what you need to build up a good seasoning on your cast iron.

Instead, I recommend scrubbing it clean with a stiff-bristled brush that is dedicated to the purpose of cast iron (ie not used on any other dishes) and drying immediately with a rag or a paper towel. When your cast iron is young, it may be advisable to rub it with a thin layer of oil before putting it away, but once it has blackened nicely, so long as you dry it well before putting it away and don’t expose it to dish detergent and don’t leave it sitting around for two days with crud in it because you just don’t feel like doing the dishes, it ought to do just fine.

If you would like to clean it with something other than a stiff bristled brush and hot water, heat up a good layer of kosher salt in the bottom of it and then use a rag gripped with tongs to scrub the pan with the hot salt. The abrasive action of the salt will get every last bit of anything stuck in the bottom of the pan without harming the pan’s seasoning. Just be certain not to throw the hot salt into the trash can immediately!! The salt will be hot enough to start a trash fire until it cools down. Instead, pour the salt off into a metal container to hold it until it cools, at which point you may safely dispose of it.

Anyone who was with me in the audience for the Anthony Bourdain lecture at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland (Pittsburgh) last night heard Mr. Bourdain compare the programming on the Food Network to pornography: watching actors on screen going through motions that you yourself probably won’t be replicating anytime soon. He contrasted that with Julia Child, who inspired the nation to improve their cooking skills and elevate their cuisine.

I just want you to know that I’m here to help. I want to assist you in recognizing your knife as the most important tool in the kitchen and aid you in learning to use it more efficiently and effectively. From there, once you have the ability to dissect your vegetables instead of chasing them around the cutting board, you’ll find any recipe easier to follow and reproduce, from home fries to cassoulet of beef. Learn to use your knife like a pro.

Moreover, I’m here as a resource for your questions. Email me your culinary problem, and I’ll offer you expert advice. I can almost guarantee you that you won’t find another chef with my expertise who is so easily accessible. Mr. Bourdain? Most certainly not. But, fortunately for you, i work for free under relative obscurity and don’t have to worry about an influx of thousands of emails per day. Which isn’t to denigrate the breadth of my knowledge or the quality of my expertise, but to point out that you have access to my brain that you wouldn’t to Alton Brown’s or Anthony Bourdain’s or Mario Batali’s.

So, take advantage. Step up to the plate and answer Mr. Bourdain’s challenge. Elevate your cuisine.

Jesse–

Recently a chef tried telling me that Steak Tartare is perfectly safe to eat, that I shouldn’t worry about the possibility of E. coli contamination. He claimed that the spinach outbreak of 2006 was evidence that leafy greens are more dangerous than meats. That doesn’t seem quite right to me. What do you have to say on the subject?

–A reader in MA

Steak tartare is ground, raw beef. As it is served raw, it is no different than any other raw meat product and it carries with it the risk of bacterial infection. Specifically, as beef, it can be tainted with E. coli. E. coli is naturally present in a cattle’s digestive system and during the slaughtering process, the cattle’s intestines can be torn apart, resulting in the meat being splattered with fecal matter. While the beef is washed before it is further processed, packaged, and sold, some bacteria may remain on the surface, resulting in a surface contamination.

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