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A friend’s recent birthday dinner featured Boudin of Chicken Livers, a lovely poached sausage based on chicken livers with toasted walnuts and shallots (from American Charcuterie by Victoria Wise which is a terrific book for anyone interested in making their own sausages, terrines, patés, and other meat products). In addition to these complementary ingredients, a hunk of “pork fatback” was called for — half a pound to be exact. To obtain this fat back, I extracted a hunk of badly butchered pork loin from the freezer, a refugee from a “Pork Processing Workshop” that I organized last October.

(“Badly butchered” because there were newbies wielding the knives breaking down two whole pigs that were meant to end up mostly as sausage, so the loin was not as plump and round as it could have been. Otherwise the meat was very good — young, tender, and sweet, having been raised organically and fed largely on beets for the last month of its life.)
Continue reading “Pork5Ways” →

I love daikon radish, maybe too much because I tend to grow too much of them at once. It doesn’t help that I’m the only person in my family who eats them.

I think back to fond childhood memories of hot summer afternoons when my father would enjoy a turnip and a beer on the weekends while watching a Red Sox game on TV. He would peel the fist sized white and purple root in one long spiral strand, then eat it slice by slice, pulling the knife across the edge of the sphere, using his thumb as a stop. If I were quiet, he might hand me a slice every so often. This crunchy cool vegetable would taste the way green looked, then provide a little scorching pop in the sinuses and out the ears. The aftertaste was best: a lingering mustardy burn that would persist in the back of the throat, reinforced by the occasional burp.
Continue reading “sour hot salty bitter stinky goodness” →

Ingredients:

milk
hot pepper seeds
salt
olive oil

Process:

1. Ten months ahead of time, plant two seeds in a small pot. Any cayenne type of hot pepper will do — Super Chile 100, or Matchbox are good varieties, especially for northern climates. Make sure it stays warm and moist with plenty of sun. If both seeds germinate, thin the smallest seedling before it gets its second set of leaves. Transplant remaining plant outside after threat of frost once the seedling is over four inches tall.

[It might be a good idea to call Brian and Valerie this far ahead of time to arrange access to Rougette de Pignan olive oil, and Sel de Guerande aux algues “Les Ouessantines” salt, just to make sure its on hand when you will need them…they make this dish extra special.]
Continue reading “Formaggio Rustica Romano” →