Salsiccia all'uva

Once upon a time, I had a hankerin' for some sausages. I sure do love them sausages!

photo by spigoo

...I remember during my short (and, to date, only) visit to Deutschland eating Wurst mit Kraut. Oh my goodness! There I sat, in the Kneitinger Biergarten, located on an island in the middle of the Donau (Danube) river, my Maßkrug (1 liter beer stein) in hand, würstel, kraut und sharfen senf before me. It was a magical moment, magic that brought forth many liters of beer, with nary a stumble nor slur. That's my kind of magic!

At any rate, even though the Germans are well-known for their sausages, meat stuffed in a casing is done all over the world, and has been for quite some time. A quicky wiki tells us that the first sausages were likely made by early humans, stuffing roasted intestines into animal stomachs. As early as 589 BC a chinese goat and lamb sausage làcháng (臘腸/腊肠) was mentioned. The Greek poet Homer mentioned a kind of blood sausage in the Odyssey (wikipedia.com). Evidence suggests that sausages were already popular both among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and most likely with the non-literate tribes occupying the larger part of Europe. Check out the Cook's Thesaurus for a look at some of the many worldwide wursts.

This night's recipe originates in Italy, specifically Umbria. I love Umbria. 'Rolling hills and river valleys darkened by chestnut groves and elm forests, "this landlocked region's overwhelmingly medieval character harkens one back to the mysticism and mysteries of the Dark Ages" (initaly.com). The cuisine of Umbria is rustic yet refined. Mushrooms, truffles, lentils, chickling peas, farro, prepared and cured meats, boar, olive oil, and wine are some of the region's specialties.

photo by pizzodisevo

Years back I bought Julia della Croce's wonderful cookbook of Umbrian recipes. Here is a link to a preview on Googlebooks. There are so many amazing dishes in this book, but the one featured here couldn't be more simple or delicious: sausages with grapes. According to Signora della Croce:

Some place the origin of this recipe in Foligno, which lies south of Perugia, although it is found throughout the region. In southern Umbria, particularly in the vicinity of Orvieto and Terni, green grapes are used. In Foligno, the sausages are paired with the "black" wine grape. Locals conjecture that the dish originated during the vendemmia, the "grape harvest," when the fruit was plentiful and quick hearty dishes had to be prepared to fuel those laboring in the vineyards.

This recipe serves 4 people, and you'll only need:

• 8 sweet Italian pork sausages

• 1/2 cup of water

• 3/4 pound seedless black or red grapes, stripped from their stems

Now, I have made this recipe (true to form) many times, so this time around I decided to twist it up a bit. Instead of sweet Italian pork sausages and black grapes, I used pork sausages with lemon and thyme, and green grapes. If I had some, I might have deglazed the pan with a little Orvieto Classico! I pretty much stuck to the recipe, though...

Use a sharp knife to poke a few holes in the sausages before cooking them. Select a seasoned cast-iron skillet or heavy-bottomed pan. Put the sausages and the water in the pan over medium heat. When the water has evaporated and the sausages have begun to color lightly (after about 12 minutes) add the grapes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to cook, pricking the sausages occasionally to release excess fat, until they are browned all over and cooked through, and the grapes begin to release some of their juices and soften (about 20 minutes longer). Do not prick the sausages too much, or they will dry out. Transfer the sausages and grapes to a warm platter or serving plates leaving behind any fat, and serve immediately.

I choose to serve them with some garlicky red chard with a squeeze of lemon, and some crauti. Buon appetito!

Eric Ripert's 'Salade Monique'

So we're sitting in the computer lab for our staff meeting, doing what else but surfing the internet! Tee-hee. A colleague of mine was browsing through my blog and asked "Where's the vegetarian section?" Alas, I have no veggie-only section per se, but I do have quite a few veggie recipes. Regardless, I happened to have a bunch of photos from a veggie meal that Lissa and I had just recently eaten that were waiting to be posted. The meal was a wonderful salad: Salade Monique.

The recipe comes from one of my favorite books, Eric Ripert and Michael Ruhlman's A Return To Cooking. The Global Gourmet describes A Return To Cooking as:

"Ripert's journey back to his culinary roots. Over the course of a year, Ripert left his famed restaurant Le Bernardin for a short stretch each season: Long Island, Puerto Rico, Napa Valley and Vermont were his carefully chosen destinations. Using local seasonal ingredients, Ripert became inspired by the countryside settings and the home kitchens where the group gathered. Each locale "dictated" its own dishes."

The beginning of the book starts with Ripert's relections on a meal that was an homage to his mother and grandmother: Smoked Salmon Croque-Monsieur, Salade Monique, and a Peach and Plum Tart. "This is why I'm here" he said "I want to leave the chef that I am and let the cooking fill me again."

The salad was name after Ripert's mother, Monique. Ripert recalls:
"I cooked at her side when I was a boy. She's the one who said to me, 'Be a chef, and you can be anything.' She cared about food. She shopped everyday at markets. I don't think she set foot in a grocery store-ever. She worked but would come home every day to make lunch. Often they were big rustic salads. It's only when I'm putting the ingredients together in a big bowl-an abundance of blanched and raw vegetables, apple, avocado, radishes, potato, haricot verts, corn, all from a roadside market-that I recognize where this salad comes from."

This is so much more than just a cookbook. Again, from the Global Gourmet... "A Return to Cooking's recipes are interspersed with narratives offering insights and suggestions prompted by the moment: Ripert reflects on the difference between soups and sauces; how to recognize the freshest fish; on a chef's process; on the power of the vinaigrette; how to poach or roast to perfection, and much more." The narrative that has inspired me the most is on "how a chef becomes a cook." Ripert explains that:

"'Chef' is a title. A chef can be good or bad or everything in between...Chef denotes a job. But when you are a cook, that is what you are. It's your spine and your soul. It suffuses all that you touch. When you see the soil bursting with young lettuce, with tomatoes, with light green vines of peas, all the molecules between your gaze and those vegetables are charged with the energy of cooking. The air sparkles."

Indeed, this musing could be thought of as the foundation of the book itself, and for me, it is certainly the most beautiful. It helped me find pride in myself and in my cooking. I am not a trained chef, but I am a cook. Anyone can be trained as a chef, but how to become a cook is not something that can be taught.

Cristina Velocci wrote an article on Ripert's homage salad in the Oct/Nov 08 issue of Private Air, in which she posted the recipe:

Salade Monique

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS:
1/2-pound small potatoes
1/4-pound haricots verts, ends trimmed
1/4-pound asparagus, tips only
1 ear corn, shucked
1/2-pound mesclun greens
1/4 hothouse (seedless) cucumber, cut lengthwise in half and thinly sliced
12 grape tomatoes, halved
2 scallions, white part only, thinly sliced
2 radishes, thinly sliced
1/4 green banana pepper, cut into tiny dice
1/2 avocado, thinly sliced
1/2 apple, cored and thinly sliced
Fine sea salt and freshly ground white pepper
2 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

It is important to note that true to Ripert's homage, one should purchase what is fresh, local and in season, so if some of these ingredients are unavailable, buy what is and looks good.

METHOD:
Place the potatoes in a small pot of cold water, add 2 tablespoons salt, and bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a small knife, about 15 minutes. Drain and cool in the refrigerator. Once they are cool, peel the potatoes and thinly slice them.

Place three pots of water over high heat and bring to a boil. Add salt to each pot. Drop the haricot verts, asparagus, and ear of corn into the pots. Blanch until the vegetables are tender but still a bit crisp: about 3 minutes for the asparagus and corn and 4 minutes for the haricot verts. Plunge all the vegetables into an ice water bath to stop the cooking.

Cut the corn kernels off the cob.

Place the greens and all the vegetables and fruit in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the balsamic and olive oil over and toss to coat. Divide the salad equally among six chilled plates.
Serve immediately.

"Eric Ripert's food is delicious sustenance, but here it has arrived entwined with usable lessons: When you cook, you do more than simply pay attention to the season and place, to ingredients that are close and fresh. When you cook-when you really cook-you pay attention to your past. When you cook, you welcome ghosts, and you honor them."

Escabeche de Peixe

We hadn't seen Eli and Yael since their wedding, and Eli had asked me if he could borrow my (that was once his) truck to do a dump run. Absolutely was my answer. I left for work on my skate and when I arrived home the truck, as I had expected, was gone. What was surprising, though, was the 600 page Brazilian Cookbook that was on my doorstep. "I am passing this on to you as I have failed to use it, and know you will bring it to life" wrote Eli on the inside cover.

Well now the pressure is on...I had better make something soon, lest I too fail in the book's resuscitation. Pois bem, tonight is Brazilian night. I asked Lissa what sounded good to her, and even though we did fish last night with E and Yael we decided on fish again tonight. Now, peixe asado con cerveja? Pudim de peixe? Peixe com molho de coco? Escabeche de peixe?? Yes, that's the one...escabeche de peixe frito: pickled fish. Escabeche basically means pickled (In Spain, you will see jars of pickled beets, for example, labeled remolacha en escabeche) and most versions of this dish are served just like that...pickled, jarred and eaten cold.

However, as I often do, I strayed a bit from the beaten path. I decided to serve my escabeche de peixe warm, and even served the escabeche itself on the side, and I used coconut vinegar! I know, I'm crazy...a vida louca, brother. Also, the recipe called for dredging the fish in flour, but I decided to up the ante and make a beer batter. Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe as it's written. And it came out delicious!

I started with rice and beans. When I don't have the time or foresight to soak my own beans, I just buy canned beans and supe 'em up a bit. The recipe I used as inspiration is tutu de feijão no.1 (from Olga de Sá Pires, from Minas Gerais). Alas, my pantry is void of farinha (farinha is yucca meal, and is used in Brazil to thicken sauces) at the moment, so I had to thicken my tutu by simply letting the liquid from the beans reduce. Check this post on the Perfect Pantry about the process of making farinha. O.K., back to the beans... First, bacon. I diced up two thick slices of heaven-aka bacon-and rendered the fat, browned it all up, and then drained the grease into a separate saucepan.* Then I poured in two cans of black beans and a bay leaf, and left it to simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste and you have yourself a bean dish instead of just a boring old can of beans. Bacon makes everything better.

*Remember that saucepan with the bacon grease in it? Heat it up and toss in a diced onion. This will become our rice. Arroz Brasileiro. The recipe calls for "shortening, oil, lard, or bacon fat, but not butter." The secret here is to fry the onion and the rice in the fat for about 10 minutes over a low flame. Then you add chopped tomato or tomato sauce and the water, bring to a boil, cover, reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.

Once the rice and beans were on, I started on the escabeche. Again I stylized the recipe a la Miquel...it called for a cup of oil, but I only used a couple of tablespoons for lubricant, and maintained vinegar as the lead role here. Sliced onion gets sauteed in olive oil with bay leaf, ground ginger, salt and black pappercorns. Once the onions have browned slightly, the juice from 1 lemon and 1 lime, along with 1/2 cup of vinegar (coconut for me, but you could use white or red wine or even apple cider vinegar). Bring to a boil. Normally, one would then pour this over the fried or poached fish or chicken (or...), but I simply poured it off in to a bowl and chilled it in the fridge. Then I began dealing with with fish. I purchased some nice fillets of black cod from our local monger and cut them into medium-sized pieces. Salt and pepper on both sides, then a quick, light dredge in plain flour. Then they go for a swim in a beautiful thing...beer batter. I used a bottle of Belgian white ale I had in the fridge, a cup and a half of sifted flour, and some sweet paprika. Whisk it together to remove any lumps, and look lovingly at the little air bubbles, knowing that they will be responsible for the fabulous crunch that you will soon crunch into.


Well, that's about it. I threw together a simple salad of arugula and palmito (heart of palm) dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette so it wasn't all deep-fry and bacon, and opened a bottle of Portuguese Vinho Verde from Aliança. All the while, mind you, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Seu Jorge, Ellis Regina and a slew of other fantastic Brazilian artists were infusing my meal with sweet melodies. As if I didn't already want to go to Brazil enough already....

Asian Collard Parcels.

I love the way those words play together; Asian collard parcels. Collard greens are a member of the brassica family, and are classified in the same cultivar group as kale and spring greens. The name collard is said to derive from Anglo-Saxon coleworts or colewyrts ("cabbage plants"). They are very nutritious and the leaves can grow to be quite large, which make them a prime candidate for parcel creation. Similar to Polish golabki, or German kohlroulade, these are little parcels of joy made by wrapping softened greens around a meat filling, an simmered in a saucy sauce of sorts. I used ground beef for my filling, and I 'asianified' the ingredients and sauce.

I began by finely dicing and sauteing a Japanese eggplant. Then I added some minced ginger and garlic, then a can of straw mushrooms. A splash of soy sauce and some sliced green onion, then let cool before adding the beef. To the beef I added one beaten egg and a tablespoon or so of chinese five spice powder, then mixed in the eggplant mixture.


Meanwhile, I blanched (3-4 minutes), drained, and iced my collard greens. Then I cut out most of the large vein running down the middle of the greens so they are more pliable. Now you're ready to roll. Place a small handful of your filling in the center of the deveined collard. Fold the sides inward, then roll lengthwise. Wrap each bundle with 3 collards. I ended up with 4 bundles. Then I packed them in an 8 x 10 ceramic loaf dish, poured in some mushroom broth, covered them with foil, and baked at 400° for about 35 minutes. To finish the dish, I topped the parcels with a simple pan sauce (garlic, hoisin and soy sauce) some toasted and chopped cashews and some thinly sliced green onion.

I served these fabulous little meat packages with my favorite cabbage salad. Blanched cabbage and thinly sliced red onion (salted, left to rest, rinsed, then squeezed dry) tossed with rice wine vinegar, salt, sugar, toasted sesame oil, sesame seeds, black pepper and cilantro. This time I decided to top it off with some crispy shitakes! The whistles go WOO-WOO!

Fry Poke Chops

O.K., time for some 'poke' chops. I sure do love me some 'poke'...it's versatile, it's (relatively) cheap, it can be lean, it can be fatty, and perhaps most importantly, it's tasty. This night we cooked some bone-in center cut chops, also known as top loin chops, or strip chops. Eventually they will be pan-fried and topped with a dollop of sour cream and pineapple chutney, alongside braised red cabbage and mutsu apples, wild rice, and a simple spinach salad. First we talk about some of the sides...

I started with the cabbage. This is a classic accompaniment to pork, and something that my family (being of Danish heritage) always serves for Christmas-eve dinner. Thinly sliced cabbage, diced red onion, and peeled and diced mutsu apples braise in apple cider vinegar, sugar, and spice. I kept it pretty simple spice-wise, just a little salt, pepper, and a pinch of coriander. Let simmer, covered, for 1 hour. You may want to adjust sugar seasoning to taste if it's too sour. Once the cabbage was in the pot and simmering, I got some rice going. I love wild rice, and the black japonica rice blend from Lundberg is my one of my favorites. Diced onion sautees in butter, add 1 cup of rice, stir to coat, add 2 cups of broth, bring to a boil, cover and turn heat down and simmer for 45 minutes.

Then I started on my chutney. This photo here is of the first round of chutney, that I ruined. I had a ripe pear and had peeled and chopped. After adding some red onion and other spices, I grabbed a jar of ground dry ginger to tap in a little sprinkle.....oops. There was no plastic shaker lid on it. Tap in a little sprinkle turned in to pour in a huge scoop. I tried to save it. Alas, it was the pear chutney's time to go. Damn. Oh well, think quick, what other fruit do you have lying around that would be happy on pork? Not much fresh...open the freezer door and, shizam! Frozen pineapple chunks:

I will make a pineapple chutney. O.K. So, hindsight being 20-20, I poked (apropos, seeing the drawled swine title of this blog) around I found that I did have some fresh ginger. So that got minced, red onion diced, into a hot pan, a dash of spice (salt, pepper, cumin), pineapple joins the party, a splash of lime juice, a liberal sprinkle of sugar (me and my liberal sprinkles tonight!), and leave to simmer. Since the chunks couldn't easily be chopped when frozen, once everything had heated though and cooked down a bit, I emptied the contents on to my cutting board and chopped it up with my trusty cleaver. Then back into the pan to stay warm.

Now, on to the pork. These chops were to get a breading treatment, and I had recently seen Sunny Anderson bread up some poke chops on her show Cooking For Real. Sunny said her secret was cornstarch. 1 cup of all-purpose flour + 1/2 cup of cornstarch = crispy. I gave it a try, and they were fantastic! I just pan-fried mine in a little canola oil instead of deep-frying them in shortening but they still formed a great crust. Another little trick was adding some hot sauce to my egg wash (before dredging). I have heard elsewhere, too, that it is best to have your seasoning underneath your breading, so your spices don't burn. Cook on med-high for about 4 or 5 minutes per side, or until the internal temperature reaches 140-145° F.*

*A note on cooking pork safely: the risk of trichinosis is nearly nonexistent in the U.S. nowadays, and even if the trichina parasite is present, it is killed when the temperature of meat reaches 137° F. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Pork Board (have to) recommend cooking pork to a final internal temperature of 160°, but given the leanness of today's pork, such recommendations result in dry, tough meat. The folks in Cook's Illustrated test kitchens find that cooking pork beyond 150° is a waste of time and money, and cook thinner cuts of pork such as chops to a slightly rosy 140-145°. If you are paranoid about salmonella contamination, you must cook (any type of) meat (including beef!) to 160° to ensure that all pathogens are eliminated. (from Cook's Illustrated, The Best New Recipe Cookbook)

So, when my digital thermometer registered 140°, I threw them poke chops on the plate! Dropped a dollop of sour cream and a spoonful of chutney over the top, plated up my sides and garnished the plate with some fresh chives, and sat down with my gal for a lovely meal.

The wine of the bean. Bunna...Qahweh...Coffee.

Not sure what other culinary product is more interesting than coffee...so before I get in to my own personal affair with coffee, let's discover some of the intriguing history surrounding the plant(s) of the Coffea genus.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word coffee comes to us (1598) from Turkish kahveh, from Arabic qahwah "coffee," said originally to have meant "wine," but perhaps rather from Kaffa region of Ethiopia, a home of the plant (coffee in Kaffa is called buno). I'm partial to the apparently less-likely etymology, from a truncation of the Arabic qahwat al-būnn, meaning "wine of the bean." Ooohhh. Sexy. I think I'm even going take it one step further and call it qahwat al-būnn min Kaffa, wine of the bean from Kaffa (not sure if that's how you would really say it...I've only gotten to Lesson 2 in my Living Language Arabic Coursebook).

I also prefer the apparently less-likely story of the origin of coffee: Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goat-herder (or was he really a prince??? ...nod to Akeem Joffer) who discovered coffee by chewing on the red beans of Coffea arabica after noticing the gleeful dancing of his goats after they had done the same. In my mind, this is how coffee came to be, but the more credible story is perhaps even more beautiful. Sufis were probably the first coffee drinkers, using it as a stimulus to stay awake during late night Dhikr (remembrance of God). Each Sufi order or lineage within an order has one or more forms for group dhikr, the liturgy of which may include recitation, singing, instrumental music, dance, costumes, incense, meditation, ecstasy, and trance. (Touma 1996, p.162). No alcohol allowed? No problemo! Power a pot of coffee or three and spin around for a while like the Mevlevi....

(photo by Elainne Dickinson)

O.K., enough history (although there is so much more to be said), let's move on to the harvest and roast. The two most cultivated species are Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora. Arabica is considered to be the better bean, with more flavor and acidity than robusta (Coffea canephora). As you might suspect, Arabica counts for about 3/4 of worldwide cultivation.

The best (and most expensive) coffee results from manually, individually picked fruits because it provides uniformity to the coffee crop and does not allow leaves, twigs or other litters to interfere with coffee fruits. Usually you find twin-seeds in each coffee fruit but about 5% of coffee cherries (so the fruits are called) produce one, round, coffee seed. Those specimens are sold separately on the market as peaberry coffee. (madcoffeemaker.com)

(photo by Jake Liefer)

After the harvest, the seeds (beans) must be cleaned of the fruit remains. This can be done in one of three ways: dry, wet, or semi-dry. Instead of explaining the details of each possible step in the coffee production process, I will direct any of those interested to peruse a thoroughly written wiki page on the subject. I will give you a brief overview simply for the wow factor. From the plant to the cup, beans are:

1. picked
2. wet-milled (to remove the flesh of the fruit)
3. hulled (to remove any excess mucilage or parchment)
   
4. polished
5. cleaned
6. sorted
7. graded
8. (potentially) aged*
   
9. roasted
10. ground
11. brewed
    

*This aging business deserves some attention, and I will share with you the story of how I was first hipped to it. I was working at Cafe Mare, and on one of my days off, I popped in to say hello after having just purchased some beautiful coffee beans from a local roaster. The beans smelled rich, were dark black and very oily. The legendary Jean-Pierre (Calabrese, but born and raised in Alsace...hence the franquish name) took a grimacing look at my oily little coffee seeds and said "no good, man." He explained further that "It's going to be bitter. Eventually, you want to dry the beans before you roast them, so the oils come out and you get a sweet coffee. That's how we do it in Italy." Damn Italians, everything they do is good. So, I said enough history but here's a little bit more with respect to how "aging" came about:

All coffee, when it was introduced in Europe, came from the port of Mocha in what is now modern day Yemen. To import the beans to Europe the coffee was on boats for a long sea voyage around the Horn of Africa. This long journey and the exposure to the sea air changed the coffee's flavor. Once the Suez Canal was opened the travel time to Europe was greatly reduced and coffee whose flavor had not changed due to a long sea voyage began arriving. To some degree, this fresher coffee was rejected because Europeans had developed a taste for the changes that were brought on by the long sea voyage. To meet this desire, some coffee was aged in large open-sided warehouses at port for six or more months in an attempt to simulate the effects of a long sea voyage before it was shipped to Europe.

Although it is still widely debated, certain types of green coffee are believed to improve with age; especially those that are valued for their low acidity, such as coffees from Indonesia or India. Several of these coffee producers sell coffee beans that have been aged for as long as 3 years, with some as long as 8 years. However, most coffee experts agree that a green coffee peaks in flavor and freshness within one year of harvest, because over-aged coffee beans will lose much of their essential oil content.

(wikipedia.com)

So, just like Madeira and India Pale Ale, the glory of aged coffee was discovered serendipitously. I love when that happens.

(photo by Jeff Kubina)
Additionally, aged coffee requires a longer rest after the roasting stage to fully even out. Aged coffee tends to taste best at a dark roast, as this helps to accentuate the body. While aged coffee tends to be of high quality, you rarely ever see aged coffee in anything else but a blend. This is because even the best aged coffee has a taste that some feel is acquired. However, when aged coffee is used in a light bodied blend, it is highly effective. This is because the presence of aged coffee beans can add body without adding undue acidity. (ringsurf.com)


Man, this is a long ass post!!! We're not even to the roast!! At any rate, once the beans are roasted, they should be ground and brewed as soon as possible. It's not always easy if even possible to know when your beans are ground, unless...you are lucky enough to live in Oakland or San Francisco, where you can get beans from Blue Bottle Coffee Company. The founder's vow is: "I will only sell coffee less than 48 hours out of the roaster to my customers, so they may enjoy coffee at its peak of flavor. I will only use the finest organic, and pesticide-free, shade-grown beans. If they can't come to me, I will drive to their house to give them the freshest coffee they have ever tasted." The last time Lissa and I went to the city, we grabbed a cup at the at Blue Bottle in the Ferry Building. While I was patiently waiting for my perfectly pulled espresso, I lamented to the barista, "I wish there were a Blue Bottle in Santa Cruz." He said to me, "Well, why don't you go to Verve, their coffee is awesome."

Errrrrrrrp (record scratching). Verve?? Dank microroasters on the east side of the Cruz, what???? Yup, and their beans are the bomb. Turns out that there are killer microrasters popping up all over the place. Hopefully there's one near you already, or one coming soon. You can see on the top of the label, the roasting date. In a perfect world, I would have a beautiful little manual burr grinder to freshly grind my beans each time I brewed a cup 'o' joe. Alas, I do not have a fabu burr grinder, but it's all good. We keep our ground beans in a ceramic canister with a locking lid, and go through a pound in a week. Now, on to the brew...

We use a melitta cone and (unbleached) paper filter to make our drip coffee. Here's some tips on how to brew the best cup if you use a cone filter also: let the water cool for about a minute once the water boils (water should be 198° F), pour some water through the empty filter to get rid of any papery taste and to warm the cup, use 3-5 tablespoons of ground coffee (soft but still gritty) for every 8 oz. of water, pour the water over the grounds to let them expand, then as you are pouring the rest of the water, gently but steadily stir the grounds. Now, finally, the culmination of tremendous amounts of time, energy, and (hopefully) love, you have before you in a ceramic cup, qahwat al-būnn min Kaffa, the wine of the bean from Kaffa. Enjoy.

Roasted Chile Chili

We kept hearing about this heat wave that was supposed to hit Santa Cruz. Instead, over the weekend the fog rolled in (heavy) and it definitely felt like fall...cold fall. So, when it's chilly, make some chili! Now, chili is one of those dishes, like barbecue, that it highly disputed in origin and preparation. Goodchilirecipes.com gives us a bit of background on the some of the potential origins:

Some people say that chili was invented in Mexico during the 1800s, some will tell you that its origin is in Tijuana, Baja California, or Ciudad Jurez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The Mexican theory is that it was created to be served in cantinas, for outsiders, who wanted a spicy "Mexican" dish to eat, that was free or cheap. Original chili was made with leftovers from the meals and served for free to drinking customers. The chili recipes that originated in America were in wide use in pre-Columbian Mexican culture. Any stew made using significant amounts of chilies might be seen as a forerunner of all modern chili recipes.

There you have it. Now, I'm not going to go in to all of the hoopla surrounding recipe and preparation contention but I will say this: I used beans. Sorry Texas. My first inspiration was to roast some chiles. I love to roast chiles (or eggplants, or tomatoes, or whatever else you may want to roast and peel) right on the burner. You simply let them char all over, including top and bottom...the blacker the better. Then you want to let them sweat a bit, so toss them in a paper bag and fold it closed. After 5-10 minutes pull them out and the skins should slide off easily.


Once peeled, chop up your peppers and set them aside. Oh, by the way, I used one red bell, two poblanos and a jalapeño . The rest of the ingredients are pretty straight-forward: onion, garlic, ground beef, diced tomato, tomato paste, kidney and black beans, spices (salt, pepper, chili powder [which contains chile pepper, onion, garlic, cocoa powder, oregano, red pepper, cumin, cinnamon, cloves], cumin, and smoked paprika). If I had a slow cooker or a dutch oven I would have used that (I really need to get a nice cast-iron dutch oven). Alas, all I own at the moment is a big soup pot with a pretty thin bottom, which spells b-u-r-n. So really low heat and lots of stirring is what is needed to not end up with a blackened mess and a scorched-tasting chili. As I was looking for some chili tips in my beloved Cook's Illustrated New Best Recipe Cookbook, I read about a nice trick to keep things from simmering too briskly and prevent burning...a homemade flame tamer! Although store-bought flame tamers are inexpensive, if you don't happen to have one on hand, you can fashion one out of aluminum foil. Just take a long sheet of foil and shape it into a 1-inch thick ring that will fit on your burner. I happened to be out of foil (foiled again!), so I just stacked one of my iron burner grills on top of the other, like so:Time to build the chili...heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil, then add your diced onion and cook until translucent. Then add garlic, cook until fragrant. Add ground beef, breaking up with a wooden spatula, and cook until browned. Next I added my spices. (Some recipes will tell you to add spices later, but I paid them no heed). A splash of red wine, tomatoes, tomato paste, and beans join the party, bring to a boil, then turn down to the simmery-est of a simmer for an hour or so. I am always this precise. That's just about it. No cornbread tonight, though that's always a great side. I served a big green salad and some Rosenblum Syrah, which stood up to my roasted chile chili quite well. A dollop of sour cream, some diced avocado, and you're good to go. Enjoy!