Smoked Pork Shoulder

This past Saturday Brandon and I, went out in search of something to occupy our day. Upon consulting with the food gods, we concluded that a smoked pork shoulder was best for their sacrifice.

A quick trip to the mexican market, and we were primed with fresh pork at a wonderfully cheap price. One of the things that I have learned in my travels is that immigrant communities have great food. Often times these various ethnic groups bring techniques, taste's, spices and ingredients from their native lands. They also tend to start off relatively poor, and subsequently the cost of feeding their generally larger families becomes an increasingly challenging task. High quality, affordable prices, and a grand variety is generally what I find when I end up in these markets. I've always joked at the thought of there being a "white people" price. However, I have never found concrete evidence on this. My father taught me that some of the best places to eat are where the cabbie's eat, not the tourists. Good food doesn't have to cost a lot, you just have to know where to go.

We chose to smoke out pork in hickory. Hickory is not a WOW wood, like cherry, apple or pear wood. Hickory offer's a nice balanced, concretely "smoked" flavor.

I choose to smoke in a much more traditional manner, with wood and charcoal. I use an all natural, wood charcoal, a few split logs, and hickory chips when I smoke foods.

These are all equally important. The natural charcoal, offer's a nice, consistent heat, which is free from glue's and chemicals. The logs, help to better regulate heat, as well as help with the effectiveness of the smoke. Lastly, the hickory chips, which is the foundation of the entire process. Wood chips need to be soaked in water prior to use. Otherwise, they burn at too rapidly of a rate, and the length of smoke is shortened drastically.

The smoker that I use, is a 15 year old, Home Depot special, that my father purchased when I was a kid. I still remember putting that together, and the curiousity we both had with the 6 extra pieces we had left over.

At one point, it had a propane attachment, for smoking or grilling, but that exploded at one point, and rendered useless. Now, it's a charcoal smoker and a damn fine one at that.

Back to pork.

The first thing that we did was dry off the shoulder. I then score the skin in a cross hatch, and pack the exterior with a dry spice rub, that I had made. More or less consisting, of paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, chili powder and cayenne pepper. I allow my shoulder to sit out side for no less then one hour. This is for two reasons. One. Smoke adheres to fat, forming a proper pelicle on the exterior of the meat is important, for achieving adequate smoke flavor. Two. Meat is refrigerated, and when you introduce a cold piece of meat, to a hot environment, the protein strands which make up that meat seize, leech out much more moisture resulting, in tough, dry meat.

While my meat is sitting out, I get a good hot fire going in the smoker. I want a good bed of coals by which to add my wet chips to in order to cause smoke. Most smoker's have thermometer's either built in or close by. But like, I said my smoker has been through a lot, and no longer has a working thermometer. A couple thousand pounds of meat later, my smoker and I are good friends. When my meat is around room temperature, I add the bowl of water to the smoker, fit in the rack's and put my meat in. 7-8 hours from now, dinner is going to be wonderful.

The fundamental principle in smoking is low and slow. I want to maintain a relatively moist, 250 - 275 degree heat to my meat. I'll do this, by watching my coals, maintaining an adequate amount of charcoal, wood and chips. I choose to add charcoal in smaller batches more often, and constantly maintain a log in the fire. I make sure that I have relatively constant smoke for at least 6 of those 8 hours of cooking. I know that my shoulder is done, when the meat begins to fall off the bone, ever so slightly. It's perfect, when I grab the shank, and it barely cracks away from the meat.

It was a great day of friends, food and cheap beer. One which we hope the food gods will bless us with again soon.

Sparkling Hard Apple Cider

As a culminating project for the Fall season of 2009, we decided to try our hand at making hard apple cider. Sparkling none the less. From scratch, no kit, no recipe, no real clue what we are doing... Well, sort of.

Brandon Lee and myself attended the CIA together from 2007 until 2008. In our time there, we were fortunate enough to do many crazy, wonderful creative and new things involving food.

For a period of time in all of that, we both sat on the board for the Brew club at the CIA. We did various things in the Brew club. We made beer, we drank beer, we went beer tasting, and yea. We drank beer. It was basically a drinking club, with an annual CIA budget and the kitchen space to do... pretty much anything that our heart's desired.... and desire we did. With the help of our colleague, Eric Matatics. Who's family has been making, beer, wine, and spirits for generations, in the good old hills of New Jersey. With Eric's generational knowledge, we stumbled our way through the production of brews all around. It was very interesting, learning the complex simplicity of brewing intoxicating liquids. Long story short, that was more then likely the seed which has brought us to this current food adventure.

We started out by going to Red Barn Produce, which is one of the produce purveyor's that I use at Vassar. They specialize in local produce. Kevin Terr is the owner and operator there. Kevin is truly a master of his craft. He will buy produce from anyone. So long as it stands up to his standards. No chemicals. Period. No bullshit, no "just a little". NONE. I have been at the farm while an old man in a beat up truck, pulls up and sells Kevin 50 pounds of organic butternut squash, and 15 lb's of broccoli that the guy had grown in his garden at home. From small independent operators, to the large, 1,000 acre apple farms that are up here in the Hudson Valley. If it meets Kevin's standards he'll buy it. Knowing this.... if Kevin has it. I'll buy it.

Three Bushel's of apples later we left the farm in hot pursuit of Whisky.

Yes, local whisky is the only thing to drink on a beautiful fall afternoon of juicing apples.

Brandon, Forest, Andrew and I all went to Tuthilltown sprits.
Tuthilltown spirits is the only producer of local whisky. They buy local corn, rye, apples and grain, from local farmers. Ferment that grain, and distill the mash in beautiful copper stills. Tuthilltown spirits makes some of the absolute best whisky in the world. Whisky lovers will love it, whisky haters will enjoy it. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing, which everyone must try for themselves.

Still #1 Still #2

Thank you Gable, Cathy and the entire Tuthilltown crew for doing what you do.

Whisky... Check Apples... Check

Time for some juicing.

First we went about sanitizing everything we were going to use. The tables, the knives, the cutting boards, the buckets, the juicer, the funnels. Everything that comes into contact with the apple juice needs to be sanitized.

Then we went about juicing apples... and apples.... and 3 hours later we were covered in apple, the kitchen was covered in apple, the living room was covered in apple, and yea, we were tired of apples!

Fresh apple juice from a juicer is rose in color due to the color of the skin's of the apple. The typical brown color of apple cider is caused from oxidization. Fresh apple juice is a very delicious thing.

We are going to double ferment out apple cider.

We will bulk ferment our apple juice (5 gal) with champagne yeast (5 g) for approximately 90 days. Why 90 day? I prefer a dryer cider with a higher alcohol content. The longer I allow the yeast to eat the sugar, the dryer the cider will be, and the higher the ABV.

After the initial 90 days, we plan on bottle fermenting the cider for an additional 90 - 120 days.

We are going to remove our cider from the 5 gal tank. (at this point, the cider is alcoholic, but relatively low. 3.5% - 4.0 %) Our next step will be to filter our cider, this will remove any dead yeast, and apple sediment which will have settled during the initial fermentation.

We will then add 5% total volume additional sugar to the cider, and an additional 5 gr of champagne yeast. This mixture of cider, yeast and sugar will then be mixed, and bottled. We are choosing to use Aqua Panna bottles, for a few reasons. 1. Aqua Panna bottles are clear, and we want to be able to see what is happening in side. 2. Aqua Panna is the water of choice at the CIA, and they are plentiful. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, Aqua Panna bottles are produced with cap's. Which mean's that they can easily be re-capped. Which is a necessity when making a sparkling beverage.

The theory, is that the additional sugar and yeast which is formally referred to as a dosage, will create just enough Co2 and alcohol to finish our cider to the complexity that we are looking for.

Here we are straining the juice through a fine mesh strainer. This helps to remove some of the foam, and extra pulp which accumulates on top of the juice when it is juiced in a commercial juicer.

In a very simplified explanation, alcohol works like this.

The yeasts that are on the fruit, or in the air, or that you manually add, "eat" sugar and excrete alcohol and carbon dioxide, or Co2.

Whatever the sugar content of the given liquid you are fermenting is will directly impact the alcohol content of the finished product.

Sugar is measured on a brix scale in this case.

Half of whatever the brix level is, will be the alcohol content.

Example:

23 brix = 11.5% abv

23 brix is a relatively sweet liquid. Something like a wine grape or tart cherry.

I do not own a brix scale, and I I honestly have absolutely no idea what the approximate brix level is on my apple juice. From having fermented apples in the past in the process of making apple cider vinegar. Knowing the approximate acidity of the finished vinegar, I estimate that I will have a finished product with an ABV of 7.5% - 9.0%.

Currently, our cider is fermenting. I very joyfully exclaimed this morning, noting on my way out the door, that the cider was foaming, and bubbling. I could see as very tiny little bubbles rose gently to the top the jug. I will keep this updated, as the process continues...

Fall in the Hudson Valley

So, it's been a while since, I've posted anything, and I figure it's time. 

The Fall season up here in the Hudson Valley is a little nuts. First off, here in Poughkeepsie, we're a college town, there are four major college's all in a 10 mile radius, so there's the students. But I'm pro student, from recently NOT being one anymore, and from working at a College, I like students. They can stay. 

Second, is the leaf peepers. These are the people that have never seen leaves before. They generally come from NJ, or other inconsequential states. They drive real slow, slam on the brakes with no notice, and are an overall pain in the ass. They come up here to drive around, clog up traffic, look at the leaves and leave.  Now, tourism is great. I love tourists, they come and spend money. Leaf peepers on the other hand, must have left their wallet at home?

Lastly, and most importantly is the fact that the Hudson Valley is economically, an agriculturally dependent region. Many people don't know or don't recognize this fact, but the Hudson Valley has a very viable and active agricultural based economy. From the produce that's grown everywhere from individual back yard gardens, so the "mega" 200 acre farms. (Yes, I know that to most of the country 200 acres is barely a pot to piss in, but here in NY that's BIG. But then again, we'll buy a one bedroom apartment for 300k too. So, what the hell.) There is a fair amount of livestock that is farmed up here too. Typically grass fed beef, swine and goats. But there are the occasional yak, llama and sheep farms too. The Hudson River provides is with Blue shell crabs, sturgeon and a great disposal for bodies. Long story short, the Hudson Valley produces a LOT of stuff in a very small space. The Fall is the culmination of all of this, it's when farmer's markets are everywhere, the grocery stores are packed with local produce and even places like Stop and Shop are able to find some space for local foods. 

This year was a hard year for the farmers. This was a challenging year for everyone, but the farmers here in NY had it especially tough. With heavy rains all through May, June and into the beginning of July. Farmers had to adapt their fields to adapt to the heavy rains. Crops had to be moved, many were lost and even those that were able to be grown and harvested all too often fell prey to mold and mildew in the constantly wet environment. Although the overall yield was low in 2009, the  markets were full of some amazing stuff. Tomato's had a rough year, but August was a good month, and all through August and September there were some beautiful and delicious heirloom tomato's.

Plums, nectarines and Peaches were great, the supply was low, but the quality of the market selection was spot on.

Even in "Bad" years, there are always going to be successful crops, and those were some of ours.

It was a delicious, colorful, flavorful and exhilarating Fall up here in the Hudson Valley

The Hudson Valley is a fun place to live. Thousands upon thousands of people have come here to go to school, Marist, CIA, Vassar, DCC alumni. A select few have stayed and made it home.

As for me only time will tell, I do love the Hudson Valley but there are so many great places on this earth that I would like to call home one day too...

Long story short we're New Yorkers, we do things a little bit differently. Frankly, we're better then the rest of the world, and we're ok with that. So YOU stay at YOUR home, and when you DO visit, please buy, and proudly wear your "I [Heart] NY" shirt.  We like our local foods, we despise chemicals that don't give us that little "something" and generally speaking New Yorkers as a whole take about as much bullshit as your average drill sergeant.

Food in the information age is a different species. Back before we could iphone search all 233 types of apples and get flavor profiles right there in the produce department of the local grocery store and decide exactly which one would suite our current mood.  Food was a mystery to many people. Correction. Food IS still a mystery to many people, but as a whole getting better... Now, many more people are questioning their food, where it came from, how it was treated, what it was fed. There are now  a whole laundry list of concerns that people have with their food; where as before it was food, you were hungry, you ate it.

I deal with many concerned parents of freshman and prospective students almost every day. Whether it be in person, an email or an irate parent on the phone, I'm never surprised by the list of concerns that they may have for their son or daughter. Dietary restrictions and allergies aside. I get questions like: "what kind of soap do you use in your dish machines, and is it eco friendly? Are your egg's cage free? is your chicken natural? Cagefree? What percentage of your annual purchases are from local purveyors?  What do you do with the waste?"

Now, these are all very good questions, don't get be wrong, but the fact that people who do not work in the food or hospitality business to have the knowledge and where-with-all to come up with these questions is impressive. Consumers are getting smarter, and we as hospitality professionals are required to answer. The answer. There is a growing trend in natural, organic and bio-dynamic foods... Knowledge is power, but just because someone says it doesn't mean that it's right. There are a lot of idiots out there that know just enough to not know that they know nothing. So, question your food. Ask where it came from? Ask what it was fed, and how it was treated. When enough people start asking the right questions about the problems in the food distribution system is the only time that anything will be solved. So. For the meantime, I'll continue to buy my groceries at local, family owned grocery stores, buy my milk from a dairy farm that I can visit, and continue to know where my food comes from and what it eat. My food is REAL. I like it that way!

Here are some Brussel Sprouts that are from a local farm. Thank You farmers market. Brussel sprouts come from a bush. They do no magically end up in plastic bag's, flash frozen, treated with potassium sorbate just to "ensure freshness"... Now,really isn't that just a little fucked?

Anyway. Enjoy.

Cheese?

The following was done previsouly to the post.



Cheese? Has anyone here ever made their own cheese.

Well we did. We bought 5 gallons of milk, 2 boxes of rennet and convinced ourselved that if nothing else this was going to be fun.



FYI: 99% of these stories are done with my friend, coleague, and fellow alumnus Brandon.



We started out very simple, an acidulated curd cheese.

This is when you will heat the milk inorder to parturize it and kill off an harmfull bacteria, and then add an acidic ingredient to your milk. This forced the cheese to curdle. Curdling is defined as: "Curd is a dairy product obtained by curdling (coagulating) milk with rennet or an edible acidic substance such as lemon juice or vinegar and then draining off the liquid portion (called whey)."



We used a very basic recipe, and ended up with disapointing results. The curd was too dry. (probably due in part to my agressive pressing methods)

For fun, and with little else to do with the cheese, we decided to treat it as one wouldif making feta, with a few changes. We chose to brine our cheese in a flavorful liquid for aprximately 8 minutes. This moistened the curd, and allowed some additional impartation of flavor.



Next we went a little more complicated. Farmes cheese.

we started out by making buttermilk, which is open for debate on the best way to make this. We did it by adding 1 oz of vinegar to 16oz of cold milk, and allowing it to culture at room temperature for several hours. Then refridgerating it overnight.

This time we added some additional flavors as well by infusing the milk with Black tea, Rosemary and Pineapple sage.

We cultured our buttermilk, added it to our cold milk, and began our cheese production.

The farmer's cheese had much smaller curds, which resulted in a springier, denser, texture. Something that we decided we liked.

We played with a variety of recipies, infusions and techniques until we developed a cheese which we like.
We also learned that our cheese does not melt, which gave us the idea of grilling our cheese much like the Greek cheese halloumi.

I would like to work with a cheddar culture next.
Hudson Valley cheddar cheese?


PLAY!!! Forget what your mother said when you were a child and play with your food.

Foodie Fun - CIA forrage

I have disigned this as an outlet. For myself, for my freinds and aquaintences and for anyone interested in food, fun, learning and education.

I am a cook. a chef. A jack of all trades; master of none. All I know if that food runs through my veins. I eat, sleep, dream and create food. I love it. Everything food I want to know more about.

I have recently accepted a job which does not allow me to cook anymore. As a result of this there is a HUGE void left in my life, one which I have filled with dinner parties, private catering and day dreaming of cooking again during otherwise boring management meetings.
This isn't about me, but it is written by me and will thus have my inflection.
I want to write about my travels, my experiences, and my day to day struggles with my current identity crisis.

To start off:

I live in the Hudson Valley and am subsequently very close to the CIA in Hyde Park.
I am a graduate myself, as are many of my friends. Long story short, anyone who has ever gone to the CIA, knows that summer vacation is 3 weeks, and always starts just before the 4th of July.
Yesterday was the last day of classes before the break, You can imagine how much food is leftover. It is given away to the students and faculty.

Well...
I had an opportunity to utilize some alumni privilages and made some collections myself.
Some wonderful Greuyer, and manchego cheeses.
House made salami's and hams, wild mushrooms, exotic herbs.
My refridgerator is currently a plethera of exotic and ottherwise expensive foods. I LOVE IT.

My first meal from my forrage was a simple Tuna wrap.
I carmelized some Shallots, grated some manchego and went to town.
The end result was a beautiful combination, of solid white albacore tuna salad, sweet and crunchy shallots, and a delightful creaminess of the Manchego.

It is an interesting, and non-traditional combination of flavors, ingredients and methods; however it did offer a delightful sandwich.

Recipie is as follows:
Solid white albacore tuna - 1 cn
Mayonaise - 1.5 oz
Relish - 1 Tb
Manchego cheese (grated) - 2 oz
Shallot - 2 oz
S+P - TT

1. Slice the shallots into 1/16" slices lengthwise
2. Carmelize the shallots in a very hot pan, with about .5 oz of oil.
3. Grate manchego cheese.
4. Incorporate all ingredients.

Enjoy.

More to come soon.