Author: Patrick L

Nuts to That! A Celebration of Peanut Butter

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Tomorrow – the 24th of January- is perhaps my favourite food holiday of the year.

Peanut Butter Day!

Yep, a whole day devoted to just peanut butter! I’m seeing parades with beige banners, complete with majorettes tossing their batons whilst smiling through clenched jaws because their teeth are stuck together with the ol’ pb, and Peter Pan scarfing contests. The works.

I absolutely adore peanut butter, you see. I can go months without sex, but not without peanut butter. It is, for me, the mortar on which the bricks of my life are placed – the greatest solace and greatest reward. And, in a rare show of patriotism on my part, it absolutely must be American.

None of that organic crap for me. That peanut butter that separates in the jar, and tastes gritty and flat even when you stir it back together. Nope. My peanut butter requires the added salt and sugar, and the emulsifying agent that makes it so smooth. Because for me, smooth it must be. And there’s a reason, it turns out, why only American peanut butter works. It’s all about history. So come with me now as we take a skip through the history of the peanut, and the ensuing butter.

First off, let’s dispel a myth or three. Continue reading “Nuts to That! A Celebration of Peanut Butter” →

It’s Popcorn Day! Celebrating Our Favourite Banged Grain

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Every year, on January 19th, the United States of America celebrates Popcorn Day. And short of Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November), Apple Pie Day (May 13th), Root Beer Float Day (August 6th) or Peanut Butter And Jelly Day (April 2nd), I can think of no other food holiday that is as quintessentially American.

We love the stuff.  It’s everywhere.

No movie or baseball game is complete without it.  According to the good folks at Encyclopedia Popcornica, Americans consume 16 billion quarts of popped popcorn every year, equaling 52 quarts per person. A quart a week for each of us, then.

Popcorn is so ingrained (ahem) in American culture, that we not only eat it at ball games and the movies, we eat loads of it at home, and – like the Balkans, who must have got the idea from us – we use it to decorate Christmas trees.

We even briefly used it as packing material. American films are often derided by foreign critics as “popcorn entertainment.” Popcorn even played a major role in the development of that other great American invention, the microwave oven. Continue reading “It’s Popcorn Day! Celebrating Our Favourite Banged Grain” →

The Inevitable Lemon

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There are three things that are inevitable in my life: Death, taxes, and that at some point in my day, I will reach for a lemon. Actually, perhaps four things, as it’s also inevitable that at some point in their blogging life every food blogger must write a post extolling the virtues of the lemon. And here I am, to do just that.

There’s an old saw that goes “If Life gives you lemons, put nine in a bowl.” I’d have a better use for every one of those lemons. Lemons are so absolutely essential to how I cook and how I live in my kitchen. It’s not that I want all my food to taste lemony, but rather that they’re so dang useful. They’re the cornerstone of my cooking. I never don’t have at least one lemon to hand, even if it is a scraggy quartered thing lurking in the nether recesses of my fridge.

In fact, once when taking part in a radio program about matters foodie, I was asked “What food item do you always have in your kitchen?”, and instead of answering something appropriately glamorous like “Pink Himalayan Sea Salt” or “Truffle Infused Honey”, I heard myself say “A dried up quarter of a lemon in my fridge. Inevitably.” Continue reading “The Inevitable Lemon” →

The Tale of The Lonely Lasagna

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A couple of weeks ago, I was brought up short by a moment of hubris.

What happened was this: A very dear friend, who has known me as well as my family since college and with whom I, in fact, used to live, came to stay the night. On her last visit we had sampled a local Vietnamese place so this time we’d be eating in. Thence came my moment of hubris. Secure in the knowledge that my culinary prowess would thrill her whatever I made, I asked “What would you like me to cook?”

Warning: If you are tempted to ask a guest, “What would you like me to cook?” … take a deep breath and don’t.

Don’t Ask

Never do this. You’re hosting a dinner, not taking requests at the cocktail lounge out by the airport.

Don’t put people on the spot (unless they’re family, in which they’ll likely demand a given dish before you’ve even asked). Guests somehow never say “Oh I’m sure whatever you make will be divine!”, thus freeing you up to make the fiendishly impressive Middle Eastern feast you’d been planning. Instead, they will ask for precisely the dish you just cooked last week and can now barely bear the thought of. Or worse, they’ll say what my guest said: “Oooh! How about you make your lasagna?”

My lasagna? What could she be thinking? I don’t have a lasagna! I’ve never made a lasagna in my life. And that’s what brought me up short: I HAD NEVER MADE A LASAGNA IN MY LIFE. Continue reading “The Tale of The Lonely Lasagna” →

Spatchcocking Psycho

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It started a few weeks, back, under the cover of night.  I’d been aching to try it for a while, but it seemed so difficult and dangerous that I was nervous about an actual attempt. I’d read about it of course, and even seen a few videos on one of those specialty YouTube channels. They made it look so easy, but still I was afraid I’d wind up with a mangled corpse and a kitchen saturated with blood.

A Decision Made

Finally I plucked up the courage to try my hand.

I waited until I knew there would be no witnesses to catch me should I fail. I brought my victim home, put on my apron and sharpened my largest, heaviest knife. Then, with a drink to steady my nerves, I sneaked up behind my victim, and set to work.

The relief and pride as the job was done were immense. And later, as   I gazed down at my victim lying spread-eagled before me and sampled the juicy morsels of tender flesh, I knew I would do it again. And again and again. This was not some dark adventure to try only when the moon was full or when I could hold out no longer against my dark desires. This would happen regularly, perhaps once a week if I was lucky and could find people to share my new compulsion – and if my freezer could hold the rising tide of body parts. I had become a man obsessed.

Yes. Spatchcocking chicken had changed me forever.

You may have heard of Spatchocking as “butterflying,” but that’s far too pretty a term for what this process involves.

Spatchcocking – not to be confused with Spatchcock, which is a culled immature rooster, or Spitchcock, which has to do with eels- is when  the backbone of a chicken is removed and the chicken is flattened out, ready for grilling or roasting. The term  is apparently an Irish word, which is another culinary reason to thank them, along with flavored potato chips and chocolate milk.  It’s been around since at least the 18th century, though it’s such a brilliant way to prepare a chicken for cooking that I’d be surprised if nobody had thought of it sooner. Spatchcocking has regained popularity for a while now, mostly because it’s perfect for the barbecue.

Flattening  a whole chicken like that allows you to grill it in one piece, like it’s one big piece of meat. And who doesn’t go berserk for a big piece of meat?

Now that’s all well and good, but why lose my mind over it? Continue reading “Spatchcocking Psycho” →

The Bread Baby

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Does anyone remember that craze back in the 90’s, where people gave each other little pocket sized computer thingies that you had to ” feed” and “bathe”, or they pinged in an annoyingly loud manner? Or that episode in “Frasier” where Niles attempted to simulate fatherhood by looking after an eight pound sack of flour for a week? No?

I had forgotten them too – but they all came rushing back to me in the early hours of the morning about a month ago, when I found myself under the glare of my kitchen lights, giving it the full Colin Clive and screaming, “It’s alive! IT’S ALIVE!!”

That’s Dr. Frankenstein to you, thank you very much.

I was making my own sourdough bread.

Moreover, I was learning – all too painfully – that making your own sourdough bread is not about the baking the bread, but rather about making the “starter.” And making a sourdough starter is uncomfortably like looking after a small baby for an extended period of time. There’s a lot of feeding and changing, quite a bit of gas, the regular disposal of beige goop, some malodorous smells, and far too much fretting and crying.

How did I get to that darkly cinematic moment in my kitchen in those wee small hours? Not naturally or easily actually. Continue reading “The Bread Baby” →

The Spicy Truth About Vanilla

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Vanilla. We all know vanilla. Naturally warm and sweet, it’s the base note of dessert in the Western World, from the scoop of vanilla ice cream served with apple pie in the US to the warm custard poured over crumbles in the UK or baked into tarts by the Portuguese.

It’s that essential ingredient in cookies and cakes and puddings. It takes the edge off chocolate and coffee, and lifts a mug of hot milk to dreamy bedtime heights. One might even say that vanilla is the umami of the sweet palate.

Vanilla’s Bad Rep?

But vanilla gets a very bad rap these days. There’s a perception in this day and age that vanilla is somehow boring. In our quest for ever more exotic flavours of ice cream we’ve derided the humble but pure pleasures of a well-made vanilla ice cream. Other spices like star anise and  cardamom, lovely though they both are,  have become so achingly hip that good old vanilla seems like a dull, almost matronly staple in comparison. Vanilla has to be dressed up as “French Vanilla” or ” Genuine Madagascar Vanilla” or “Vanilla Bean”. We’ve even-horror of horrors- begun to use the term “vanilla” to mean boring, unimaginative sex. It’s as if vanilla has become the Doris Day of spices.

And that’s not fair. Continue reading “The Spicy Truth About Vanilla” →

Making Stock & Roast Chicken Othello

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This week finds me typing merrily away as my homemade chicken stock reduces over a low heat, ready to be labeled and frozen in one cup-size containers.

Also just in the freezer are the remaining three portions (in individual containers of course!) of the batch of Chicken Paprika that I made for our dinner tonight. I had made my Roast Chicken Othello on Sunday, you see, and had saved the carcass for just this purpose. As it was a small carcass, I also roasted a couple of chicken thighs and added them when it came to making the stock along with:

  • a couple of onions
  • a couple of carrots
  • fresh thyme – the remainder of which also went straight into the freezer for future use
  • two bay leaves
  • some black peppercorns
  • and a healthy dash of salt

Then let it simmer away for several hours. I always take the lid off for the last hour or so, so the stock reduces and intensifies in flavor.

The Roast Chicken Othello, by the way, is quite the nicest way to roast a chicken.

What you do is

  • blend together three tablespoons of runny honey and one tablespoon of softened butter
  • slather it over the chicken
  • roast at the highest your oven will go for the first 20 minutes – basting from time to time – or until the skin turns a very dark brown (hence the dreadfully un-pc name).
  • turn the heat down to medium for the remainder of the cooking time. This, by the way makes for a shorter cooking time, so check the chicken about fifteen minutes before you would usually.

It also almost hermetically seals the chicken, and makes for an unbelievably juicy and sweet bird, so much so that you don’t even need gravy.

Don’t stuff the bird, but instead shove a lemon half and a clove or two of garlic in the body cavity to balance the sweetness of the honey and you have yourself a feast o’ fowl.

One Man’s Attempt To Snack Like A Princess

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“Life,” the writer Shirley Conran once famously noted, “is too short to stuff a mushroom.”

Now however much I may disagree with her about stuffing mushrooms (gorgeous little button mushrooms stuffed with a brandied chicken liver mousse! meaty portabello mushrooms stuffed with brie and garlic and walnuts!), I must concede that Ms Conran was not on some anti-fungal crusade. She was, instead, making a much larger point about the uselessness of engaging in needlessly fiddly and time-consuming activities simply to prove their status or- even worse- their worth. Boiled down, if you think that presenting the world with a stuffed mushroom is what will finally show them all that you have it all and can do it all, you’ve probably got a very skewed idea of what having it all and doing it all actually means.

This thought, amongst a colorful array of others, occurred to me the other day when I faced up to the realities of a challenge I had set myself: making homemade potato chips. Continue reading “One Man’s Attempt To Snack Like A Princess” →

What American Food Means To Me

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Earlier today, on the eve of that Birthday of the United States of America, the 4th of July, Deborah posed a real, well, poser of a question:   “What is American food?”

On the surface, this was a very easy question to answer. “Hamburgers!” “Hot dogs!” “Apple pie!” “Chop suey!” “Barbeque!” “Pizza!” were amongst the most vociferously voiced suggestions. And despite the fact that each of those originated in another continent (if not country), I completely agree.

But as an amateur food historian, I could counter those with “Popcorn!””Peanut butter!” “Turkey!” “Cranberries!” as each of those foods are actually native to the USA. Well, … Okay, so peanuts are actually native to South America, and the peanut butter we eat today was possibly loosely based on a Cuban culinary practice-but it became peanut butter in the USA. And no, it was not invented by George Washington Carver, but I’ve covered that story here.)

And anyway, I started to think about the question in a different, more personal, way. Continue reading “What American Food Means To Me” →