YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE TRANSFERRED AGAINST YOUR WILL TO RFS! MUHAHAHHAAHAH

Back To RFS? Soliciting Opinions.

So I know I am probably the most annoying blogger of all time, what with all of my blog/format flopping, introspection, and generally hard to follow antics. But I have found that the old Ridiculous Food Society of Upstate New York blog still gets a lot of traffic and interest from around the interwebs. I am wondering if this whole new blog thing was worth it, I kind of have a soft spot in my heart for the old blog. Should I just shitcan Mr. Dave's Pantry and go back to my original project?

Price Chopper's Brand Pre-Cooked Bacon. A Review.

I know that I have been trying to keep this blog fairly bacon free, but when I saw this I had to purchase and review. This is Price Chopper brand precooked bacon. I have never actually bought precooked, convenience bacon before so my viewpoint could be somewhat skewed by not having a basis for comparison.

The stuff was fairly cheap, I don't remember exactly, but it was under 3 bucks. The packaging is pretty drab and institutional with kind of a Warsaw Pact feel to it (In Soviet Bulgaria bacon buys you!). I opened it up and was greeted by a plastic pack of bacon slices separated by wax paper.



The bacon slices appeared very long and skinny and were virtually paper thin. Following the instructions on the box I placed six slices on a paper towel and microwaved for 45 seconds.



Verdict: This was the strangest bacon that has ever passed by my grease drenched lips. As I stated before, this stuff was very, very thin. Kind of like bacon paper. It was rigid and "crisp." I put crisp in quotes because it was not a normal bacon-like crispness, but more of a strange brittleness. Sort of reminiscent of some veggie bacons that I have had. The flavor was very surprising as well. I expect inexpensive bacon to have a certain saltiness. This bacon was almost bland! There was none of the aggressive salinity that you would expect from a cured pork product. It was nearly flavorless, it was like having odd, greasy, communion wafers in your mouth.

I know that this stuff is probably contract produced it some far off bacon plant (probably in Mexico). Price Chopper very likely has little to do with the production, but if you are going to slap your logo on a product you have to take some accountability for its quality. This stuff is nasty, for shame Price Chopper! I expected more from you.

Kasia's Sauerkraut Pirogies

I saw these Kasia's brand sauerkraut pirogies at the grocery store (Guilderland P-chops on Western) the other day. Sauerkraut and pirogies are two of my favorite food groups, so a mash up of the two I had to purchase. They were a little more expensive than other frozen pirogi brands (these were sold unfrozen), a little over five bucks.

I fried them up in some butter (this has been a very fattening weekend) until golden brown. I detected a nice sour aroma from the kraut while they were cooking.



Fried onions are a requisite pirogi accompaniment in my world.



I threw a couple on a plate with some onions and good mustard.



Verdict: I was a little surprised when I bit into one to discover that the filling was entirely comprised of sauerkraut, sans potato. I don't know why, but I expected some sort of kraut/potato mixture. The pirogi dough crisped up nice and was fairly tender, a little noodle-like for my tastes, but pretty good. The sauerkraut filling was just a touch bland, not as tangy as you would expect. With the onions and mustard they were good, not great. I expected a little more considering the price, these really were not any better than Mrs. T's which are like 2 bucks a box.

Stuffed Peppers and Hungarian Lecho

It always seems that the first couple of weeks of summery weather make me crave produce. I was entirely too lazy this weekend to make a foray to one of our local farmer's markets so I had to make do with Price Chopper's. Luckily, it seems that the grocery stores anticipate my cravings and offer some good sales. I picked up the above pictured peck of peppers. I decided to make some good ol' stuffed peppers as an excuse to make use of my new meat grinder (see here for more on this). With some of the left over pepper matter I made a simple Hungarian sauce/condiment called Lecho.

I started by lopping the tops off the peppers and throwing them into some salted and boiling water for about 5 minutes. Any peppers that were to ugly to be stuffed, I chopped into large pieces and threw in as well.



Next I prepared the meat. I got a nice piece of chuck to grind up.



Here she is after being ran through the coarse plate on my grinder.



I am a huge advocate of grinding your own meat when I recipe calls for it. This way you can control the quality of the end product. It is you who chooses the meat and controls the fat content. Who knows what icky bits and ends the grocery stores are throwing into their industrial grinders. Plus, it always adds a fresher quality to your dish.

I sauteed up a medium onion and a few cloves of garlic.



When this is done I take it off the heat and add the ground beef (eyeball how many peppers you have to judge this amount), one can of tomatoes that have been hand squished, plenty of salt and cracked pepper, and an amount of cooked white rice roughly equal to the amount of beef (I cheated here and used some white rice left over from Friday's Chinese take out). I don't want to cook the meat at this point as some recipes do. I like the meat/rice mixture to cook in situ, kind of like pepper robed meatloafs.



Stuff the peppers and place them in a baking dish that will not allow to much space between the peppers, in this case I used a bundt.



I cover these in some canned tomato sauce. I have found that good old, cheap, canned Hunt's tomato sauce works best for both stuffed peppers and glumkies. I don't know why, it has that certain thin sweetness that I find hard to replicate in my own kitchen. Sprinkle some bread crumbs on top and throw into a 350 degree oven for a little over an hour. They come out looking very tasty.



Invariably, when making stuffed peppers, you are left with an assortments of odd bits and tops. Some people simply chop these up and throw them into the stuffing, but I like to whip up a little lecho. This is a very simple, paprika based, Hungarian, pepper dish.

Start by heating some oil and butter. Normally, I am pretty anti-butter but the original dish would have used lard (I didn't have any on hand) and I wanted to add a little richness.



Simply peal and chop the remaining parboiled peppers and throw into the grease with a little chopped onion and garlic. There should be a good amount of oil in the pan because you kind of want to fry the vegetables.



After about 5-7 minutes add some good, hot paprika. About this much.



When you start to smell the paprika, season, and throw in a can of whole tomatoes. Crush up the tomatoes with a spoon and let it cook for about 30 minutes.



The lecho is great spooned over the stuffed peppers, on some noodles/rice, or slathered on whatever else you can think of.



There you have it, stuffed peppers and lecho. Good, simple, sloppy, home cooking. Me and the wife gorged on these and then went for a pleasant after dinner stroll with baby Giblet. I love warm, late April, New York evenings.

Tiger Sauce-age. Inauguration of My New Meat Grinder/Sausage Stuffer

My birthday is coming soon so the lovely and ever generous wife procured for me a Cabela's meat grinder/sausage stuffer. Here it is-



See here for Cabela's selection of grinding/sausage making products. This is one of their mid range models, it was recently discounted to almost half price! The discount enticed me to request of the wife an upgrade from the KitchenAid mixer attachments I have been using previously (for past sausage making experiments see Bacon Sausage and Red Wine Pistachio). Something that amused and excited me about the Cabela's grinder is that it came with a Kibbeh making attachment (see here for my kibbeh recipe). Kibbeh is a distinctly middle eastern (national dish of Lebanon for one) food, so it is pretty funny that the down home, outdoorsy, Cabela's brand slapped its name on it. You figure that they would have balked at associating their name with a maker of "terrorist" food (that is a joke lest you think I am being serious).

I decided to christen the new appliance by making some of what I call Tiger Sauce-age. Tiger Sauce is one of my favorite hot sauces. It has a spicy, tamarind fruitiness that is absolutely delicious. Look for a bottle at Hannaford's, I think they have it.



The tiger sauce will provide much of the flavor and spice for this sausage recipe. For the meat I am using about 5 pounds of cubed pork loin.



Pork loin is a rather lean cut of meat for sausage, so to bring some fat to the party I am going to also use about 2 pounds of pork belly.



It is important that all of the meat be very cold, almost frozen, before grinding so the fat does not melt. I passed all of the meat chunks through the grinder with the coarse plate installed. I seasoned the approx. 7 pounds of meat with an entire bottle of Tiger Sauce, 2 table spoons of hot paprika, 1 table spoon of sweet paprika, 6 or 7 teaspoons of salt, lots of cracked pepper, some red pepper flakes, 4 table spoons of sugar, and a can of chicken broth.



For just a little more fat and flavor, I am going to throw in my sausage secret. I partially freeze and than finely dice (not grind) about another bound of fatty salt pork. This gets mixed in by hand prior to stuffing. I find the fatty little chunks add a nice textural component to the sausage



I attached the stuffer tube to the meat grinder and filled up some 32 mil. hog casings. I didn't do links here, I kind of like the looks of a giant sausage coil on the grill.



I was very satisfied with the performance of the Cabela's grinder. I would say that it cut about 25 to 30 percent off the prep time as opposed to the KitchenAid setup. It has much more horse power and can grind partially frozen meat with no problem. I love making sausage, so I don't mind putting out the dough for something that is purpose built. I think when all is said and done, the 70 dollars I paid for the new grinder is cheaper than what the KitchenAid rig cost anyways.

I love this sausage recipe. It produces a nice, spicy product that is equally good grilled or smoked. You can replace the Tiger Sauce with your hot sauce of choice to mix it up a little. I am thinking of doing a green chile pork sausage using some of the green Tabasco that I have been seeing around.

Refrigerator Door "Special Sauce"

I am a big condiment guy. I love mustards, relishes, and hot sauces of all varieties. Because of this, the door of my refrigerator is usually a mess of tightly packed jars and bottles. This fine Saturday afternoon I decided to tackle this situation and attempt to toss out anything that has been living in there for more than a year or two. Does one man really need 5 kinds of mustard? Absolutely I say, but the wife is of a differing opinion.

When I had thrown out anything that might have been slightly toxic or spoiled, I was left with the above pictured selection (some ketchup too, I forgot to put it in the picture). When I was looking at all of this stuff an idea hit me! I always wanted to have my very own "special sauce." I decided to mix a little of everything up in equal amounts and see if it came out any good.

I used 1 tablespoon of each of the following items-

Soy Sauce
Worcestershire Sauce
Colman's Mustard
P-Chops Italian Dressing
Boar's Head Horseradish Sauce
KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce
Grey Poupon (Country Dijon)
Grey Poupon (Dijon)
French's (Yellow)
French's (Spicy Brown)
Prepared Horseradish
Heinz Ketchup

It didn't look so scary when I mixed it all up.



I dipped a spoon in and gave it a taste. Not bad, not bad. Very sweet and vinegar tasting with a lot of smoke flavor (I assume from the BBQ Sauce?). It kind of reminded me of the mustard based barbecue sauce you get down south. I actually think this would make a pretty good chicken marinade. In any event, it was interesting and I decided to call it "Refrigerator Door Special Sauce." Now, I think it would be a funny and interesting experiment if all you other fellow food bloggers out there tried this yourself to see if your particular blend of randomness comes out at all palatable. Then you can foist it on all of your friends, all the while alluding to some ancient family sauce secret.

Ugly Food is Good Food- Pork Pottage

I have always been intrigued by the concept of Pottage. Pottage was the cornerstone of many an English serf's diet during olden times. The concept is fairly simple, you would have had a constantly bubbling cauldron of a pease or oat based porridge boiling away over your kitchen hearth. Whatever odd bits of meat that you could afford, or whatever herbs or vegetables came from your kitchen garden would have been added on a constant basis. One pottage would often have cooked away for a couple of weeks at a time. I decided to make my own pottage of sorts, albeit with somewhat more exotic and expensive ingredients than what would have been available to our forefathers.

For the veg component I used some hot pickled cherry peppers, onion, garlic, and a couple poblanos. This dish was pretty much born of the fact that I had a bunch of languishing ingredients in my fridge that I needed to utilize.



I rendered off some cubes of salted pork belly for the cooking lipid.



When there was a good amount of fat in the pan I sauteed the roughly chopped veg until just soft. I then added some cubed pork loin.



A note on the protein: The day after a holiday, in this case it was Easter, is the best time to buy large amounts of a given "traditional" protein. You will find great deals on ham and pork roasts at your local grocer, trust me. I picked up this lovely, eight pound, center cut, pork loin at P-chops. I used about a pound of this for this recipe and froze the rest.



For the legume portion of this pottage I used some Bob's Red Mill 13 bean soup mix. It is not really soup mix, just a bag of 13 different kinds of beans, lentils, and peas (they expect you to add your own soup fixins' and follow a recipe on the back).



I soaked a couple of cups of the beans over night and then drained and washed. I don't know why, but I found the colorful beans to be somewhat beautiful. Don't you think?



The beans, pork, and, sauteed veg went into my modern day cauldron, i.e. the enormous crock pot that me and the Misses got for our wedding. If you ever need to braise a full size turkey, let me know. Note that I used nary a spice save some salt and pepper. I love the simple heartiness of the flavors given off by the pork, legumes, and aromatics by themselves. You don't really need any other spices or herbs mucking everything up. I let the pottage simmer for about ten hours on low. When done it looked deliciously ugly.



I served my self a bowl of this over a nice scoop of plain white rice.



If there was a dish that summed up everything I love about food, this simple stew would be it. It is simple, unpretentious, hearty and plainly good. A bowl of this makes me want to go hitch up some oxen, or hoe some fields or something. I thank anyone reading this for indulging my historical food fixation, but you really should try your own variation on this theme.

A White Castle Man Reviews BK Burger Shots (Immature Humor too)

Normally, I am not a big Burger King/McDonald's type of guy. I am pseudo-health conscious so I tend to avoid fast food restaurants. However, I have a serious soft spot in my heart for White Castle Sliders (see here for my Castle Casserole on the RFS blog). As we don't have a White Castle locally they are a rare treat. I saw the burger shots reviewed over at Dave's Cupboard a while ago (see here) and decided to give them a whirl.

Upon purchasing the box I was shocked at the size and weight of the package. It was probably about 5 inches by 8 inches. I got the six pack.



They looked kind of big for sliders, but otherwise they didn't look too bad. The Burger Shots looked like normal BK burgers but smaller. They didn't have the steamed bun look of a Castle slider. My first surprise was when I went to grab one. All of the buns are kind of connected like in a package of grocery store hamburger buns. But this isn't all. The burgers are also connected in some sort of weird binary-burger formation! See below-



***If you are offended by immature humor of the lowest sort please stop reading here***

Ok, I immediately started giggling when I saw this weird burger shape. I have the sense of humor of your average 12-year-old boy and I immediately decided that the burger-thing looked kind of like a wrinkly brown nutsack. Wolfman's nards perhaps (Go watch Monster Squad if you missed this reference).



As far as taste goes, if you have ever had a BK cheese burger you have had a burger shot. The only noticeable difference is the size.

I mean, come on Burger King. Is it saving you that much time not having individual sliders? If you are going to try to steal the popularity of another venerable fast food chain's product, do it right. This is almost as bad as when Dennie's had sliders on the menu that were really a patty melt cut up into smaller pieces. Shame on you Burger King.

Chicken Riggies- the Signature Dish of Utica, New York

Recently, I was required to spend a couple of weeks just outside of Utica, NY. Utica is located right smack dab in the middle of the region us Upstaters tend to refer to as "Central New York" (as opposed to the North Country, Western New York, the Hudson Valley, or the Stinking Cesspits South of Ulster Co.). As you know (see here for our beloved Capital Region hot dog variation), I always strive to discover foods local to the various parts of New York and I was delighted to learn of the ubiquitous pasta dish of Utica- Chicken Riggies. I was served Chicken Riggies at the hotel at which I was staying and after some inquiries I learned that this dish is taking very seriously among Utica folk. On the surface it is a fairly simple pasta/chicken dish, but there is more to the story. There are contests and festivals devoted to the dish and every grandmother has her own variations and secrets. I decided to attempt a simple version that embodies the essential ingredients typical to the dish.

You begin with jarred, roasted red peppers as well as spicy, cherry peppers in vinegar.



It is important that you use jarred peppers, never fresh. Apparently, fresh peppers will remove the dish's essential "Chicken Riggies-ness." You want to put a fairly rough chop on the peppers and then saute them (I used olive oil, but a lot of recipes specifically call for margarine) with a good amount of finely chopped onion and garlic. Be pretty aggressive with the garlic, I used about 5 cloves.



When the vegetables are soft you simply add a couple of cubed chicken breasts, prepared tomato sauce, enough cream to give it a kind of pink look, a handful of Parmesan cheese, chicken broth, and just a dash of sugar. I used some Pede Bros. tomato sauce just to give a nod to a local company.



Cover and let simmer for about an hour and you have a nicely spicy, creamy, chicken and tomato stew of sorts.



This is alway served over Rigatoni. I am kind of ashamed of myself for making a major departure from tradition here, but I watch my refined carbohydrates and I could not find any palatable whole wheat rigatoni. I used some healthy penne that I found. This would probably get me summarily executed in Utica but I thought it came out rather good.



This is comfort food to help you through those long winters in the New York snow belt. A hearty and fortifying dish with a pleasing spicy pepper flavor. The wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe next week I will make the other local Utica/Rome dish that I found- Tomato Pie. This is pretty much "sicilian (doughy and square)" style pizza with just sauce (no cheese), eaten hot or cold.

On a side note, I was randomly in Syracuse and was persuaded by compatriates to eat at a Zebb's. Zebb's is a local burger chain kind of like a Chile's or any other horrid chain restaurant of that genre.



Zebb's claim to fame is they serve enormous burgers and have a "fixins'" bar with all sorts of burger condiments. Gag. Just what America needs. Anyways, something that I found interesting there was the wing sauce. They mix in bleu cheese dressing with the sauce prior to putting it on the wings. This makes for a sort of creamy wing sauce with chunks of cheese in it. As I am a bleu cheese fanatic, I enjoyed this concept.

Freedom Bread at P-Chops

I hope that I am not beating a dead horse with all of the "weird things Mr. Dave sees at P-chops" thing (see here for starters). Last night I found the above pictured loaf and felt the need to share. Apparently, we now can find gay-pride themed bread goods in the bakery section at the Guilderland Price Chopper. I very much wanted to purchase this loaf of garishly colored rainbow bread and immediately start making fabulous French toast and grilled cheese sandwiches, but I am a frugal man and hate waste. I knew that there was very little chance that the wife and I would consume more than a couple slices of the rainbow loaf. Here is another picture-



It was strange that I found this particular loaf on this day. Not even an hour previous I had spotted the rainbow adorned Fag Bug at the intersection of 155 and Western. Check out the Fag Bug website for the back story. An Albany girl's VW was vandalized due to her presumed sexual orientation and she decided to embrace the shameful incident in quite the witty and eloquent manner. Hooray for local activism!

Anyhow, lest you think that I am Price Chopper bashing (I am not, I am a fanatical, second generation frequenter), I wanted to include something positive. A couple weeks ago I was confronted with this upon entering the Guilderland location-



Free coffee and snacks to fortify you for your shopping adventure! I don't think you would be seeing this at the Hannaford up the road. For some reason I think of Hannaford as the Soviet Russia of the supermarket world. They are clean, sterile, and cruelly efficient and unfriendly. The Hannaford on Western in Guilderland is also the rude, middle-aged lady capital of the world in my opinion. If you want to see a festival of narcissism and lack of supermarket etiquette this is your destination. You will pull your hair out as some self satisfied, suburban house-frau parks her cart in the very center of the isle and proceeds to inspect a jar of gherkins for 20 minutes. All the while glancing at you dismissively with full knowledge that you would like to get by. It is too much for my nerves.

Whole Grain Bacon-Beer Mustard. The Condiment of Win.

I know I said no more of the Bacon Meme on Mr. Dave's Pantry (for all of my past greasy glory, consult the Ridiculous Food Society blog), but sometimes an idea hits you that involves bacon without any irony or kitsch. We have all been hearing a lot about the Baconnaise product. I have not tried it as I am one of those people who find the very thought of mayonnaise repellent. One day my mind wondered to the possibility of other condiments that would benefit from bacon and I landed on mustard. I love making whole grain mustard anyways, and I thought this would give me a good excuse.

I got to inaugurate a new piece of kitchen equipment during this recipe which made me happy. I have been keeping any eye out for a mortar and pestle for quite some time, so when I saw this solid, stone beauty at Marshall's for only 12.99$ I had to grab it up.



I started by cracking about a half cup of yellow mustard seeds (this is going to be a fairly small batch of mustard) in the mortar. This takes a lot of elbow grease, so you might want to use a spice grinder. You don't want to obliterate the seeds. I like a whole grain mustard with some tooth, it is even OK if some of the seeds stay whole.

The next step is to soak the seeds in a flavorful liquid overnight. As this is going to be a beer (beer and bacon is a perfect pairing, most likely forged by Satan himself in the whorey netherworld) mustard I am using some proper, Upstate New York, Adirondack Lager care of the Saranac company out of Central New York (Oneida County, I think).



I used about a cup of beer along with a half cup of Malt vinegar and a half cup of white, distilled vinegar. This goes in your fridge over night.



The next day dump the whole lot into a small sauce pan along with plenty of cracked black pepper, salt, maybe a 1/2 teaspoon of mustard powder, and the barest pinch of sugar to knock away a little bitterness. This should sit at a bare simmer for about an hour and a half.

When the cooking time is over, strain the seeds out and reserve the liquid. I threw the now softened seeds into my little food chopper deal.



Pulse lightly, again I am not looking for a totally smooth mustard, and add some of the reserved liquid until you have the consistency you desire. Stop here and you have a delicious, malty mustard on its own. But I will continue on with some further additions.



Next, I cooked up some very well done bacon (totally crisp, but unburnt).



I chopped the bacon up until very fine, some of it degrading into almost a bacon powder, but also leaving some bacon bit sized pieces. I want the flavor to thoroughly permeate the mustard, but some actual textural bacon might be nice as well. I then simply mixed the bacon up into the mustard. I thought it would benefit by some time in the fridge to allow all of the tastiness to meld. After a suspenseful few hours I pulled it out and dipped the old chef's tasting spoon (my finger) into the small mustard jar. Pretty darn good I say! But it needed a little kick. I went with my undisputed favorite prepared mustard, Colman's English.



Careful with this stuff, it packs a wasabi like punch. I used about a table spoon for the cup of bacon mustard. This added just the right spice and took the bacon mustard to its full potential.



I have not really experimented with how to best utilize the bacon beer mustard, I wanted to share the recipe as soon as my little fingers could type. Right now I am thinking grilled cheese (New York Cheddar of course) and mustard sandwich on some good bread. But the possibilities are endless. Imagine a Nathan's Famous with bacon mustard on a steamed bun, can you live at that speed!?!

Homemade Green Tea Vodka

I recently sampled some of Firefly Distillery's Sweat Tea Vodka at a friend of mine's house. I am no sweet tea fan, it is diabetes in a cup, but I really enjoyed the concept of an alcoholic, tea based spirit. I am a tea fanatic from way back and I could never get into all of the available tea alco-pop type malt beverages (Twisted Tea I am looking at you). It came to me that a green tea aperitif of sorts might be very stimulating and delicious, so I decided to try my hand with the very simple recipe to follow.

I started by preparing a simple syrup of 1 pint water and 1 pint sugar. Just bring it up to a boil and allow the sugar to dissolve. Whilst this was still hot I added scads of good quality green tea bags to steep.



For the vodka I chose the Luksusowa brand. See here for my previous Bacon Vodka Experiment utilizing Luksusowa.



Luksusowa is a Polish brand of potato (pretty rare these days, except for the prohibitively pricey Chopin brand) vodka that is relatively inexpensive. Seeing as I am going to be adding quite a bit of flavor, I don't mind using an inexpensive vodka.

When the simple syrup/green tea was good and strong I poured it into my decanter. I used a 50/50 split of vodka and tea syrup.



I took an experimental sip and was pretty impressed. It was nice and sweet with a good, strong green tea flavor. I hazard that it should sit for a couple weeks to let all the flavors come together and do their things, but it already was a pretty decent liquor. I can see this being delicious on the rocks, in a cocktail, or even utilized as a culinary spirit (a green tea parfait sounds good to me).

Stay Classy Canajoharie

There will be subsequent posts on my latest food odyssey into deepest, darkest Central New York (Oneida County, Utica specifically) later this weekend, but I had to share this gem that I came across on my way home. My gas light came on right around the Canajoharie exit off I-90, you know, the home of the Beech-Nut factory. The closest gas off the exit is "Betty Beaver's Fuel Stop." Aside from the obvious innuendo, notice the protruding, plastic breasts on the anthropomorphic female beaver. God I love upstate New York.

Cooking With 5 Ingredients, Part 2: Pork Confit Hash With Pepperoncini

Continuing my 5 ingredient series (see here for Part 1: Tortilla Espagnole) as well as finishing up my pork belly confit posts with this one. I made up some Pork Belly Confit Hash for my Sunday breakfast this weekend and I chalk it up as an unquestionable success. The 5 ingredients involved in this dish are: pork belly confit, pepperoncini (vinegar peppers), onion, potatoes, and olive oil.

I began by chopping up a goodly amount of the pork, about a cup and a half. I chopped it up into a fairly small dice (it kind of shreds during cooking anyways) and sweated the pork in some olive oil. I don't really want to brown the meat at this point, we are just trying to get it to release some delicious fat in which to cook the tatties and veg. I remove the pork with a slotted spoon leaving the oil and fat in the pan.



Next, I ready my secret hash weapon. Pepperoncini.



I stem, seed, and roughly chop the whole jar, I love the vinegar flavor and the mild spiciness these peppers bring to my hash. If you are opposed to spice I would use less. The peppers, 5-6 smallish tatties, and a medium white onion go into the pan with the fat and oil. I like a rustic chop on all of the components, not too big not too small.



The vegetables should cook slowly until tender, I cover the pan to let them steam cook. When they are done I add the pork confit, turn up the heat, and allow to brown nicely. I like my hash very crisp and well done, almost burnt.



Remember to be careful with your seasoning as the pork confit is already very salty, a little cracked black pepper may be all she needs. I like to serve my hash with a fried egg (runny yolk of course).



The pork belly confit makes for a wonderfully rich hash. The vinegar/spicy flavor of the pepperoncini goes delightfully with the unctuousness of the pork. If you don't happen to have any pork belly handy, any other left over meat you may have would go wonderfully in this very simple recipe. Corned beef, roast beef, or even sausage finely chopped would work equally well.

Continuing Instance of Price Chopper's Weirdness With Frosting

If you remember, a couple weeks ago I posted on the RFS blog about Price Chopper in Guilderland selling heinous tubs of frosting in the yogurt aisle (see the post here). Well, last night me and the wife spotted another example of P-Chops trying to foist inhuman amounts of frosting on the public at large. I couldn't get really good pictures without buying the monstrosity, so hopefully you can get the gist from these ones. Above and below is the so-called "Brownie Dippers." What it is is a giant pile of "Bettercream" frosting surrounded by cubes of brownie. I guess you are supposed to scoop up globs of the frosting with the brownie chunks, the thought makes me shiver a little. Here is a top shot,



And here is another angle, you can even catch a glimpse of the P-chops maniacally smiling bunny cake.



Again, is it only me who throws up in his mouth a little thinking of eating mass amounts of frosting? I tend to wipe the frosting flowers off regular cakes, but I guess I never really had much of a sweet tooth. Anyhow, point being P-Chops is really weird sometimes.

Mr. Dave's Honey Walnut Lardy Cake

It is funny how certain foodstuffs cause little ripples and buzzes through the internet cooking universe. Lately we have been hearing a lot about good 'ol, creamy, white lard(Mr. Barnes of Table Hopping agrees). I have always been a lard enthusiast so I thought that I would share this tasty little yeast cake recipe (Mr. Daves Honey Walnut Lardy Cake, I love naming recipes after myself) with everyone. I have made some departures, I am not too big on the traditional sultanas and currants so they are omitted. If you are squeamish about gratuitous amounts of saturated fat from the pig you may want to stop reading.

I will be using about 3/4 cup of lard in this recipe. "Where did Mr. Dave get that Lard?", you might ask. Why, straight from the pork belly confit pot that I have in my fridge. "But Mr. Dave, won't that make your lardy cake taste a little porky?" Maybe I say, but do I care? Very little is my answer. The lard that me British forefathers would have used in this recipe was probably not quite as sterile and flavorless as the stuff you pick up in the grocery store these days, so I am OK with some porky undertones. I would hate to waste all the excess lard from the confit, and hey, any flavor that it might add might actually work out well. Here is the room temperature lard.



For the dough, you are going to want to whip up whatever simple white risen dough recipe that you are fond of. Mine is simply about 2 cups flour, pinch salt, teaspoon yeast, tablespoon sugar, and enough water to bring it together (kneaded of course). This should be enough for a loaf sized lardy cake. Let it rise until doubled.



When the dough is ready, roll it out on a floured surface until about a 1/4-1/2 of an inch thick. Smear with a thin layer of the softened lard and then sprinkle liberally with some demerara sugar and cinnamon.



Fold it into 3s, pinch the ends shut, and then repeat the process twice. On the last iteration we will introduce the "filling." I use a very simple filling composed of honey and walnuts. I leave chopped walnuts to soak overnight in a roughly equal amount of honey. This is tasty for lots of pastry/danish type things.



Spread about a cup of this on top of the rolled lardy dough.



Carefully make it into sort of a jelly roll and put in a well larded (what else?) loaf pan. I poked some decorative holes in mine.



Into a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes (should be very well browned) and we have this.



Now we are at an important step that you should not skip. Do not remove the lardy cake from the pan! It must sit until cool so that the dough can reabsorb all of the delicious lard/sugar/honey amalgam that has seeped out into the pan. This is what gives a lardy cake its unctuous and rich nature.

After cooled, you should be able to de-loaf the cake from the pan very easily. Throw it on some wax paper and cut your self a hearty slice.



Brew yourself up a cup of proper English tea and dig in. This is a substantial cake and very filling, so moderation is the key. I think there are a lot of people out there who might be very squeamish about the use of lard in a sweet pastry dish, but it really has a negligible effect on the final flavor. Also, I only used 3/4 cup, I know of many pastry recipes that use much more butter (also a saturated fat) by weight than what is included here. Yes, saturated animal fats might be a little worse for you. But you are not going to scare me away from lard. Hard work and exercise combined with small doses of culinary decadence will never hurt, so enjoy your lardy cake I say!

Cooking With Less Than 5 Ingredients, Part 1: Tortilla Espagnole

I don't know if it is my Anglo-Scots descent or if it is something particular to my palate, but I have always most enjoyed very simple culinary fair. I am suspicious of most recipes that look like shopping lists in and of themselves. A very glaring exception to this rule is my love for Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine with their intricate uses of herbs and spices. So perhaps what I am talking about is a lot of the recipes I see flying around in popular American culinary magazines and on television (Food Network, I'm looking at you). You know what I am talking about, things like Macaroni and Cheese with truffle oil, lobster, cumin, a deep fried pumpkin, gray salt, herbs of Provence, motor oil, and the boiled essence of Mario Batali's gym shorts. Over thought bastardizations of simple culinary classics seem to abound for no other purpose than to wow the reader with all of the flair. In my opinion, this is one of the unfortunate byproducts of the recent "foodie" revolution.

This has inspired me to do a series of posts (I am all about series of posts lately, noticed?) regarding simple classics that focus on the quality of the ingredients and proper technique and only involve5 ingredients or less (I am not going to count salt and pepper as ingredients so pipe down out there math Nazis). I am going to begin here with the venerable classic that is the Tortilla Espagnole.

We begin with 5-6 smallish tatties and about half of a large white onion. You are going to kind of poach the veg in olive oil without trying to achieve too much browning. The potatoes and onions should be completely tender, so this is going to involve slow cooking for a relatively lengthy period of time. I have always found that the real star of this dish can be the olive oil that you choose. You are going to use a lot of oil here, I used almost half of a cup, so choose something with a nice flavor. Remember to season well.



When the tatties and onions are done, pour over 6 well beaten and seasoned eggs (the best you can find) and give it a good shake to get everything good and even.



Let this cook until firm on top and lightly browned on the bottom. Carefully slip it onto a plate, re-oil the pan and then flip it back in on the opposite side to brown again. When it is all done leave it to sit until only just warm, this is the best temperature at which to eat the Tortilla, trust me. Cut a hearty slice and dig in.



This is a very delicious breakfast or lunch. Please resist the urge to throw in cheese, red pepper, cumin, monkey liver or whatever else you have lurking in your ice box. Trust the myriad generations of Spaniards who have enjoyed this simple dish as it is and give it a go. You probably won't be disappointed and if you are, send me a nasty-gram in the comments and I will issue you a heart felt apology.

Pork and Beans (Pork Belly Confit and Beans that is)

As promised in my last post (A Man, a Pot, and Some Pork Belly) I have used some of the pork belly confit that I produced in a dish that I think was pretty successful. I called it pork and beans for convenience sake, but what I made was actually more along the lines of a pseudo-cassoulet (for another very successful cassoulet from the past, see Every Thing But the Quack, Part 2).

I began by soaking some small white beans (great northerns or the like) over night and then rinsing them well.



I also fished out a couple nice hunks of the pork confit from their lardy tomb. I chopped them up into cubes and put a little color on the pork in a skillet.



The pork, a carrot, half of an onion, a stalk of celery, and a clove of garlic went into an oven safe dish and were then covered in water and seasoned. Normally I love to cook beans in a schlemmertopf, but mine died in a horrible accident some time ago. The beans go into a slow oven, tightly covered, until the beans are almost tender. This is the "first cooking."



Upon uncovering the beans you will be greeted by a rich, porky aroma that will warm your soul. Remove the expended veg and skim off any scum that may have risen to the top.

The next step is to saute up a little more onion and garlic.



When you have some good caramelization, throw in a scant couple of tablespoons of tomato paste to give the whole dish a little body. Add the onion mixture to your bean pot, stir well, and then it is off to a 350 degree oven for a couple of hours.

While the beans were cooking I made some coarse bread crumbs out of about half of a day old baguette that I had. I sauteed the crumbs in a couple of teaspoons of pork infused lard from the confit pot until they were only just toasted.



Then I removed the bean pot from the oven and dumped the crumbs on to form a crust. Back into the oven she goes until the crumbs assume a nice brown color.



There you have it. Let the beans cool a little and then spoon yourself up a bowl.



This is really a great, simple, and flavorful dish. The pork confit gives a delightfully rich flavor to the sauce and the crispness of the breadcrumb crust goes superbly with the meltingly tender beans. The delicious shreds of pork are like hidden treasures among the beans. I find myself digging through the bowl, hunting for pork chunks kind of like how, as a child, I used to fish all of the brownie bits out of a pint of Ben and Jerrie's brownie ice cream. This substantial dish is perfect for the last few cool days of this year before I switch to lighter fair for the impending warm weather.

A Man, a Pot, and Some Pork Belly. (Instructions for Pork Belly Confit)

So, not too long ago I learned from Albany Jane of Albany Eats that the Asian market over on Central and Colvin in Albany sells fresh pork bellies. I was very excited by this prospect as I have been trying to get my hands on some of this delicious cut of pig for ages. When I finally got over to the market, I was actually worried that it would be just my luck if they were out of pork bellies. I was pleasantly surprised when I found shelves and shelves of them right next to the chickens and ducks (heads still on, with great resolve restrained myself from purchasing one of each). After sifting through them for a while looking for some good and meaty bellies, I picked this lovely package.



Once I got home I was a little perplexed as to where I was going to go with the bellies, but I quickly settled on doing up some pork confit. I know, I know, you are saying that this preparation is quite the fad among certain "foodies (god, I hate that word)" out there and you are tired of it. However, I am an unabashed confit maniac (see here for Everything But the Quack: Part 1, Duck Confit for a past experiment) and in my opinion this is a wonderful way of treating the pork.

A lot of people are intimidated by the term confit and instantly summon images of haute cuisine and snobby Frenchmen in silly hats. I assure you that confit, in fact, is a time honored farm house method of preserving meat developed in the days before refrigeration. It works on the simple concept that a salted piece of meat will keep nicely once encased in a lipid and stored at a moderately cool temperature. It is a happy accident that the method produces a wonderfully unctuous and versatile end product.

To begin the process I carefully skinned the bellies with a very sharp knife and cut them into more manageable squares of meat. The next step is to liberally salt each and every facet of the meat cubes with some coarse salt. You are going to, in effect, salt cure the meat over night in your refrigerator.



After 24 hours the meat will have given up much of its juices and will have shrunk significantly in size. You are going to want to wash the meat very well to get as much of the surface salt off as you can. At this point what you have is essentially very lightly cured but un-smoked bacon.



I picked an especially streaky and delicious looking hunk of pork out of this pile to immediately slice and fry up just to see how it would turn out.



I set these slices to sizzling in a pan and they began to brown up nicely.



When they were done cooking I drained them on a paper towel and let cool for a couple minutes. After that, I popped one in my mouth. Not bad, not bad, very much like the lardons that I have made from store bought salt pork.

After I was finished with this distraction I got back to the confit process. I chose some good ol', store bought, Whitecap brand lard as my lipid of choice. I set a couple pounds of the stuff to simmer in my little red Le Creuset over low heat.



When the snowy white lard had melted I very carefully slipped in the pork cubes ensuring that all were submerged under the surface of the liquefied fat.



Into the oven goes the pot, covered, for about 4 to 5 hours at 190 degrees. You are then going to want to let this cool down somewhat before spiriting it away to a cool and dark corner of your ice box. For a week. Trust me, this lets all of the flavors and textures develop in the way they should, please resist the temptation to immediately devour the fat-poached pork cubes.

Fast forwarding a week, we have something that looks like this.



It may be somewhat difficult to fish out a pork cube if the lard is in a cool and solid state, so let the mess come up to room temperature before you attempt extrication. When you finally get at the pork bellies they will look sort of gray and unappetizing.



Do not let the appearance deceive you! What you have there is some of the most flavorful and meltingly tender chunks of pork that will ever pass between your lips. The fat, meat, and delicious meat jelly that forms at the bottom of your confit pot can be used as components in countless preparations. So in that vein, this post is only the beginning salvo in a series of posts that I will be devoting to the journey of this humble pot of pork. I have several ideas as to how I am going to savor the fruit of my efforts here, so stay tuned if you are interested. Porky delight shall be shared by all.

A New Beginning

Hello everyone! I'm Mr. Dave. A very few of you will remember me as the writer of the now defunct Ridiculous Food Society of Upstate New York blog (click here for RFS's new home, or check it out via the link in the sidebar. There will be no new posts, but if you are interested in the old content it will still be there). I had a lot of fun writing that blog, but I felt that I was straying somewhat from my original "blog mission." That is to say, I think I was kind of becoming a one trick pony, a novelty act if you will. You know, the whole bacon meme and just a lot of other random weirdness and hit mongering that I was doing kind of got out of hand. Because of all of this I decided to reinvent my blog and get back to my roots.  I want to get back to exploring and documenting my culinary philosophy (a love of the food from the area in which you were born, old timey methods of food preservation, simple ingredients, the wonders of fermentation, etc..) in little purer fashion with a little less of all of the nonsense. This will probably cost me a lot of my previous readership, but thats OK.  I'm sure there are still a couple people out there who might be interested. In any event, I hope I will entice some of my old friends to come by and read an article or two from time to time and maybe reach out to some others who might not have necessarily read my old blog.