I could care less about this recipe. I had leftover pork tenderloin from a stir-fry dish the night before and needed to use it up.

That’s not to say this isn’t tasty. A good cut of meat and herbs and butter and you’ll have a hard time going wrong. I’m just not much interested in it anymore.

So why the hell am I writing this?

Every Boring Step

1. In a food processor, combine a couple garlic cloves, a shallot, and a few fresh sage leaves. Short pulses.
2. Add a few pads of chilled butter. More pulses, until all is combined.
3. Take a portion of pork tenderloin and cut lengthwise down its side. Slap a bunch of butter in there and seal it up. Lucky for us the butter itself should do fine to seal up the pork and all things arterial.
4. In even more butter, sear the top and bottom of the tenderloin in an oven-safe pan over high heat. Move to a 400°F oven until the internal temperature reaches 150°F or about 20 minutes.
5. Remove, let rest, and serve whole or slice as you see fit.

You see that brown crap in the picture, sitting lazily under the six ounces of pork tenderloin and metric fuck-ton of butter? It’s roasted barley. It was boiled, dry roasted, and resaturated into something that will haunt my dreams until I find a good place for it.

Should be a fun week. I’m looking forward to the next post.

What we have here is the baby born out of my first draft of Gumbo. Just like last time, this was influenced heavily by a recent post at No Recipes.

What we also have here is a new category on Food Goes In Mouth: Oops!.

I think a good percentage of food bloggers subscribe to a philosophy of “If it aint good, don’t blog it.” That’s just fine, and I understand why. Personally, I don’t want this blog to become one of a million databases of amateur home recipes. I find it boring. I imagine you, my tiny band of readers, would find it boring.

Honestly, I fuck up food more times than I get it right, but usually in small, controlled doses with one or two ingredients. Little experiments. But if I shared every minor success and failure that would be both boring and exhausting. I don’t need to post multiple times a day because I successfully microwaved a burrito or added too much pepper to some rice.

I’m just going to divulge in the true disasters. Like this:

What I Used

• Chicken Stock, homemade
• Celery, chopped
• Red Bell Pepper, sliced
• Yellow Bell Pepper, sliced
• Onion, sliced
• Flour
• Goose Fat
• Sage, fresh
• Bay Leaves
• 86% Cacao Chocolate, chopped
• Andouille Sausage, diced
• Crab Meat, fresh
• Sweet Hungarian Paprika
• Cayenne Pepper

What I Did, Part 1

1. In a cast iron pot, render one part goose fat. (That’s it in the picture above.)
2. In another pot, bring the chicken stock to barely a simmer.
3. Slowly add equal part flour and stir like you’ve never stirred before for about half an hour over medium-high heat until the roux reaches a chocolate brown.
4. Add vegetables, herbs, spices and sausage then reduce heat, letting the roux mixture cool.
5. While stirring, add 6 parts chicken broth. Bring to a boil and if the gumbo seems too thick, add more broth until desired consistency is reached.
6. Simmer for 30 minutes. Remove bay leaves.

Earlier that afternoon I went to Port San Luis, picked some fresh live crabs out of the tank at Pete’s Pierside, and had them cooked for me. At this point I pulled some of the cooled crab meat out of the refrigerator and stuck it on top of a bowl of this Gumbo with some steamed rice at the bottom. This is delicious. This is what you see at the top of this post.

But wait, the chocolate! Everything so far, except for the goose fat, is pretty standard. The addition of some chocolate was the one serious deviation I had planned, so when a roomate said, “Hey, did you put any of the chocolate in here?” I said, “Oh shit!” I was excited to add this in and see what happened.

Now, in my head the chocolate would primarily change the color and consistency of the sauce more than the flavor. This may still be a good idea or a horrible one, but I wouldn’t know, because this is…:

What I Did, Part 2

1. Blow culinary load prematurely and add too much chocolate to the Gumbo. Change dish name to Nicely Spiced Chocolate Soup. Ruined.

How frustrating! I took so much care bringing a roux to that color for the first time. How could I just go dumping so much of a strong ingredient in with reckless abandon? Ruining a dish with that much love in it can knock the happy out of you, and it took me a full day to come out of it and say: Screw it. You learned. Time to move on.

So there you have it. Go ahead and do all the steps but the last one. Hell, go ahead and do the last one without foolishly rushing things and let me know if a little chocolate does work well to finish a Gumbo. Or if it doesn’t work well, I’d appreciate knowing that as well.

I have another “Oops!” I need to share with everyone soon, but it will require a story…

I want your help. I NEED your help. But more on that later…

Over a week ago Marc at No Recipes posted a kick-ass recipe (I know, ironic right?) for Shrimp and Duck Gumbo. I haven’t tried to cook gumbo in maybe four years. Reading through the post it became obvious I needed to give it another shot.

I mean come on, all the components are perfect for a California coastal town! Fresh produce? Fresh seafood? My new found bounty of goose fat in the freezer? I’ve got everything I need!

But see, you don’t just start chucking goose fat around like it grows on trees. If I plan on using ingredients I regard as precious, expensive, or just plain a pain in the ass to get, I’ll make a first run just to work out any major flavor problems beforehand. As with this example, it’s done quick, taking shortcuts and disregarding a few standard procedures entirely. You’ll see: adding the rice straight to the gumbo pot? What the hell is that? It was at a friends house, I had to get it done quick, and I didn’t want to use an extra pot.

Oh, and a trazillion dollars to whoever invents the goose fat tree.

What I Used

• Onion, diced
• Celery, diced
• Green Bell Pepper, diced
• Red Bell Pepper, diced
• Serrano Peppers, diced
• Garlic, minced
• Andouille Sausage, cut into bite sizes
• Large Shrimp, shelled and deveined
• Chicken Broth
• Old Bay Seasoning
• Sweet Hungarian Paprika
• Bay Leaves
• Flour
• Butter, clarified
• Short Grain Sushi Rice

What I Did

1. In a pot melt some butter, add salt, and sweat the Holy Trinity, garlic, and Serrano peppers.
2. Remove them from the pot, add more butter, add flour, and make the roux, stirring until it reaches a medium blond color.
3. Add the chicken broth and fully incorporate the roux. Add Andouille, old bay, bay leaves, paprika, and the vegetables back in. Simmer for 20 minutes.
4. Add the shrimp and cook for an additional 10-15 minutes.
5. Add the rice to the same pot and cook for per the rice packaging directions. Do not do this after adding the shrimp. Do this so that it syncs up with the shrimp being fully cooked.

You’ll notice the ingredient list is almost identical to Marc’s. I’m missing a few things. I’ve obviously completely horked the typical gumbo procedures. But it’s fine, I got what I was after.

No flavor problems. Time to do this for real.

By the way, you may notice the picture looks a little different. I shot it with my friend’s D80. This wasn’t even going to be a post at first but he had it lying around so we said What-The-Hell. I’m glad because it gave me this chance to elaborate on my process, but more importantly ask:

What should I do?!?! I already know the procedural changes I’ll make. I know a couple of the ingredients I’ll change. But there’s so much potential for awesomeness here I want to take any suggestions you might have. Seriously, shoot away in the comments.

I include the caveat-indicating asterisk in the title of this post because I find the idea a bit absurd without it. What the hell is “traditional” Pozole?

When you tell somebody you’re making Pozole you’ve really said little more than, “Hey, I’m going to cook something stewish with hominy and chiles.” With three colorful varieties of rojo, verde, and blanco Pozole dating hundreds of years back, this would be enough to describe how varied this dish can be. However, with this boost in recent history of “post-modern” or “new-age” or “whatever-the-poo” style cuisine, we’re seeing even more interpretations.

At times these reinventions of classic Mexican comfort food seem disingenuous, there simply to be clever, allowing well-to-do clientele to pay $15+ for a bowl of something vulgar turned fine-dining showcase. These modern twistifications may even be superb, delicious creations, but I fear only when removing the diner from the equation. I for one cannot disassociate the word Pozole from my father’s rendition of my childhood.

At times, I’m sure, these modern offshoots stay true to somebody’s past and blow the diner away. Final scene of Ratatoille style.

Anyway, where I am going with this is: “Traditional” Pozole is relative for each individual, much in the same way everyone probably imagines something different when presented with the words, “beef stew”. With that in mind, I intend to begin playing with the Pozole I know and love. I hear the best place to start is at the beginning, so last week I made a version true to what I know.

What I Used

Some of the ingredients in the final product are homemade, so let’s break this down a little.

Chicken Stock

• One chicken, carcass or whole
• Celery
• Onions
• Carrots
• Parsley

Chili Powder

• Dried Arbol Chiles
• Cumin, whole & toasted
• Annatto Seed
• Salt

Final Pozole Additions

• Hominy (Mexican Style)
• Boneless Pork Ribs, cubed & untrimmed
• Garlic, whole & peeled
• Dried Oregano

What I Did

Chicken Stock

1. Place parsley, onion, carrot, celery in a stock pot and place the chicken on top.
2. Fill stock pot with cold water until everything is submerged.
3. Bring to a simmer slowly.
4. If you are using a whole chicken, after about 50 minutes on a low simmer remove the poached chicken meat and find something awesome to use it in. Put the carcass back in the pot.
5. Simmer and skim ever hour if you can. I did this for 12 hours but there’s really no point in doing it past 8. I’m just weird, and it may have even been detrimental.
6. Strain and use, or if you happen to be making it for later use, cool rapidly in an ice bath and either store in the refrigerator, or freeze in the freezer if you’re making things way ahead of time.

Chili Powder

1. For each arbol chile, remove the stem and break the pod in half. Try to remove a majority of the seeds. It will be hot enough on its own. I used ~20 chiles and it was on the strong side of a medium spicy. Mild New Mexico chiles could easily be substituted in part or whole to adjust this.
2. Place toasted cumin seeds, annatto, chiles, and sea salt into a coffee/spice grinder and pulse until it’s all a fine powder. You may need to start the chiles in a food processor until they’re small enough for the grinder.

Pozole

1. While you have the chili powder in the spice grinder, go ahead and add the oregano and pulse that into the mixture.
2. Brown the pork cubes, using just a touch of canola oil if needed. Do not trim fat off of the ribs.
3. Simmer the chicken stock and add the hominy, garlic, chile & oregano powder, and pork cubes.
4. Normally I would keep this at a low simmer for a few hours. This time I used a Crock Pot for the final Pozole creation (as it is the largest pot I own right now) and left it for six hours. I’m not a huge Crock Pot user, but I was surprised how well this worked.

I could go on about this for days, but this post is long enough as it is. The dish is to be served with an array of potential additions. Cilantro, lime, tortilla, radish, cabbage, the list goes on. I’ve strayed from my father’s version in so much as I’ve used homemade (and spicy) Chili Powder, homemade Chicken Stock (no added water), and I browned the pork.

I’d really like to talk about this in the comments, though! Do you have a Pozole recipe that brings you back to your childhood? Maybe a favorite restaurant version you would like to bring to my attention? Do you think my version here is insane and I have no right calling it Pozole? Discuss.

If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m a relative noob when it comes to cooking. I started taking an interest in preparing food five years ago, during my second year of college, when I finally felt independence (no more dorms!) and food wasn’t constantly a stumble away. I started thinking about making tasty food four years ago when I lived with my grandmother for two summers (more on that in many future posts). And I didn’t start taking an interest in preparing my own food creations until a couple years ago. As I continue learning how to chuck ingredients together at certain times in certain doses, I’m occasionally amazed at some of the foodstuff we buy in restaurants that can be made just as scrumptious and for waaaaaay fewer little green rectangles.

For me, egg rolls are the epitome of this cheaper-and-better category. Maybe it’s because the Chinese cuisine in San Luis Obispo is ridiculously sub par. With the exception of one place in town, it’s downright horrible. The good news is anybody, even a white kid from the Olive City can wrap up some tasty egg rolls at home for nearly nothing. I got about 32 rolls out of the following recipe for seven bucks.

What I Used

Egg Rolls

• Ground Pork
• Bok Choy, rough chopped
• Carrots, julienned
• Egg Roll Wrappers
• Soy Sauce
• Ginger, chopped
• Flour

Dipping Sauce

• Luscious Soy Paste
• Rice Cooking Wine
• Ginger

What I Did

Egg Rolls

1. Combine ginger and ground pork and brown in skillet on medium heat, set aside in mixing bowl
2. Stir fry bok choy on high with a splash of soy for a couple minutes until tender, add to bowl
3. Repeat for carrots
4. Mix bowl contents together
5. Make a flour paste out of flour and water to use for sealing edges
6. Lay out wrapper with one corner point at you
7. Place a couple tablespoons or so (depending on wrapper size) near front corner
8. Fold front corner away from you and over filling, then fold the side corners in to the center
9. Continue folding tightly away until you almost hit the far corner
10. Slop a tiny bit of flour paste onto the inside of the far corner and fold up to seal
11. Drop into a vat of hot oil (canola in my case) as close to 450° as possible until crispy brown
12. Move to paper towel or drying rack, let cool and dry, serve

Dipping Sauce

1. Stir ingredients together and cook on low-medium heat for 20 minutes
2. Bottle and/or serve

Here’s where I throw in the disclaimers. First, the dipping sauce is not traditional, nor by what I can tell even suitable for egg rolls. I just had the stuff around in the right quantities and I figured it would taste ok. The good news is the sauce does still taste good so if traditional dipping sauces isn’t a big deal, rock on.

Second, this actually comes out a bit bland in my opinion. My neighbors and family enjoyed stuffing their faces but I think this needs a much stronger savory note. Suggestions please?!

‘Tis the season for bacon! I want to get straight to the recipe because I’m including more pictures than normal. Of course, if you want more pictures of all the unholy food I’ve been cooking you can always check out my Flickr Photostream.

Warning: visually sensitive vegetarians may want to take precautions in case of nausea.

What I Used

• Pork Tenderloin
• Bacon
• Fennel, toasted
• Cumin, toasted
• Dried Arbol Chiles
• Salt
• Flour

What I Did

1. Toast up the cumin and fennel in the oven and grind with dried chiles in spice/coffee grinder
2. Combine 2 parts flour and 1 part salt with water to create salt dough
3. Roll salt dough thin on a well floured cutting board and lay bacon, tenderloin on top
4. Spread spice mixture on tenderloin and wrap bacon and salt dough around it
5. Bake in 350deg oven for 1 hr
6. Cut top or end off of salt dough, remove tenderloin, discard bacon and salt dough
7. Cut tenderloin into slices if you can keep it from falling apart when touched

Just ignore the other items pictured. One is a reduction of kiwi and onion, which is way too tart. The other is brown rice, which is cool and all but not exactly exciting.

For the record, this is a combination of barding, a technique for adding fatty moisture to meat, and salt-dough cooking, a technique for retaining moisture. The combination is another unholy means of roasting a pig in its own gluttinous fat.

Do you have any favorite recipes that take advantage of barding or salt doughs? Share them in the comments!

I have no intention of ever taking a picture of this dish with any sort of colorful garnish. I’m not a fan of useless food decoration. The lamb soup uses the mint. The chicken truly should include that basil. This thing we see above doesn’t deserve or warrant greenery. For a few reasons…

Monday Evening

• Me: what do i want to eat
• Patricia: foods
• Patricia: the eatable kind
• Patricia: or the noneatable
• Me: mmmmm
• Patricia: you should have something light.

What I Used

• Country Style Pork Sausage
• Flour
• Half & Half
• Biscuits

What I Did

1. Heat cast-iron skillet to medium and cook pork sausage
2. Remove sausage bits from the rendered fat and set aside
3. Add flour to fat and cook the resulting rue until flour is browned
4. Add half & half, salt, pepper, and stir until rue is thoroughly mixed (no lumps)
5. Add back the sausage and let simmer until thickened
6. Serve atop the biscuit/toast/english muffin of your choosing

I know what you’re thinking. “What a light and refreshing meal!”

Ok, so its the furthest possible thing from light. Oops. But there’s one reason not to garnish this dish with, say, some parsley leaves. It’s brutal and heavy and no amount of parsley is going to change the flavor or impression of this dish. Putting something green on it would be a lie.

As for this whole “Shit On A Shingle” title, SOS is the popular name in military circles for what is classically Chipped Beef On Toast. It was produced in mass in the middle of grueling campaigns and I don’t think I could ever put something like a sprig of thyme on top of that much history and connotation.

Though what I have made strays from the classic recipe, it was how I was first introduced to the SOS dysphemism as a teenager, having eaten it in this fashion early one morning before dove hunting. I’m interested in recreating the traditional dish now. But where the hell am I supposed to find chipped beef?!?!

Tuesday Morning

• Patricia: omg
• Patricia: white people eat horribly

Update: The next trip to the store I actually looked for chipped beef and found it. Game on.