Category Archives: Recipes

Eisbein

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A panorama of Eisbein

Being no stranger to all edible parts of an animal and coming from German farm stock via my maternal grandmother, I like to make Eisbein (pork hocks) once every couple of years.

There are many recipes for this traditional German dish – called Schweinehaxe in Bavaria, BTW.  I’ve had them braised (which is how my family does it), roasted, and first boiled and then roasted.  If you roast them you’ll get a crispy skin, which yields a more visually-pleasing result, but I don’t care much about that.  I only care about what I want to have on that day – what kind of texture I crave.  Speaking of texture, Eisbein is not for everyone because you are dealing with lots of skin, fat and connective tissue.  Saturated fat content aside, if you never developed an affinity for these textures, then stay away.  If you are the kind of person who cuts every tiny piece of fat and gristle off a steak, stay away.  If your squeamishness is limited to wobbly skin, then find a good recipe that involves roasting.  On the flip-side, if you love Shanghai-style dishes that involve pork belly, you should like this dish, though it has a more limited flavor profile.  If you like oxtails, then no problem.

Family-style Eisbein

8 1-lb fresh pork hocks (these can come in sizes from small to humongous; clearly you’ll need to decide how many you need, but they make great leftovers, and I like to use a heavy-guage dutch oven, so I use enough hocks to prevent them from swimming in too much liquid )
1 gallon cold water (approximately – you need to cover the hocks to brine them)
3 T. kosher salt
1 t. black pepper
2 T. white vinegar
2 bay leaves
Water to cover

1)  Place the 1 gallon of water in a tall plastic container with 2 T. of the salt to create a brine; add hocks and cover
2)  Place in refrigerator and allow to brine overnight
3)  Drain hocks and place in dutch oven with remaining salt, pepper, vinegar and bay leaves
4)  Add water so that hocks are 4/5 covered
5)  Bring to boil and them simmer for about two hours – checking every now and then to see how they are doing, and to turn them over, if needed, without losing the skin, which may stick to the pot!  If you have 1-lb hocks, they should be done.  Pierce with a sharp knife; you’ll want them nice and tender but not mushy.  Large hocks will need to continue to simmer.
6)  Remove (carefully) with tongs and serve

Traditionally, this is served with boiled potatoes and sauerkraut*, but I had red cabbage on hand the day I made the ones in the photo, and this works well, too.

*Sauerkraut cannot be served right out of the can or jar!  If you want to make it the traditional way, then you need to rinse it well several times and cook it down with some peeled, grated potatoes.  Grate them right into the sauerkraut — you want the potato water, as well.  Use one average-sized potato for each quart of kraut and about a cup of water.  Cook it down until it’s a little gummy (which means the potatoes have cooked and released their starch).  Note that “real” sauerkraut is fermented using salt, and is the one German cooks still use.  Vinegar, used to quick-brine most commercially-produced sauerkraut in the US, results in an undesirable flavor and must be gotten rid of to the extent possible.

Final note:  If you wish to be frugal, mix unused cooking juices with a little white vinegar, pour into a plastic container over diced hock leftovers mixed with chopped pickles (you can even add some diced egg), via a cheese cloth-lined strainer, cool, cover and then place in fridge.  Next day, peel off the fat and you’ll have some nice headcheese.  This is why I don’t want an overabundance of cooking liquid, which would dilute the gelatin from the hocks.

Quick smoke-flavored salmon

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If you want to get a little smoke flavor into your fresh salmon before grilling or sauteing, you can do it with Lapsang Souchong tea.  Lapsang Souchong is a black tea from China’s Fijian province that is dried over burning pine.  No kidding, this stuff is so strong that your entire cupboard will smell like a BBQ pit if you don’t store it in an airtight container.  I hate drinking it, but employ it as a vehicle for imparting smoke flavor to various proteins all the time.

You can do this two ways:  make a strong tea and then brush it on, or use the whole, dried, leaves, which is what I do.

tea-cured salmon side

For a side of salmon, just lay it out and sprinkle a handful of the dried tea on the flesh, along with some Kosher salt.  Then roll it up, thin end first, and wrap tightly in plastic.  Toss in a plastic bag or put on a plate and store in fridge for a couple of hours.  Note that the longer you leave it, the stronger the smoked flavor will be.  My advice is to start with a two-hour “cure” first (or one hour, if the fillet is thin) and see how you like it.  Unroll and remove the tea and excess salt.  Prepare as you like, but it’s best grilled outdoors or on a grill pan indoors.

Quick-cured tea salon in a bag

Jon and bacon

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Bacon on sheet pans ready for the oven

Trays of bacon in the kitchen mean only one thing:  Jon is here.  Yes, I don’t use a frying pan.  I blast it in the oven at 400 deg. F. (convection), turning it over once during the process.  I don’t want bacon all over the kitchen.  Use sheet pans and parchment paper – but watch out for smoke that will set off your fire alarms!

Jon, who is like a son to us, has been Matthew’s closest friend for about 10 years.  He relocated to Santa Barbara for a job a little over a year ago and wants very badly to move back to the Bay Area.  He misses his friends and all the rest of what is familiar, though he agrees that Santa Barbara is “also pretty nice.”

When Jon’s here I like to make him a big breakfast the day he leaves, and that usually includes bacon.  I got up early today so I also put together some aged cheddar corn muffins, which involves crumbling 4 ounces of cheddar into your favorite cornbread batter and baking as usual.  If you use the one on the side of a box of Albers yellow cornmeal, you can’t go wrong since it is not a sweet recipe.

Corn muffins in the pan with cheddar cheese

I sliced a few ripe tomatoes and soft-boiled some eggs, which rounded out our big Sunday breakfast.

the family at a casual sunday breakfast

Faux gras recipe is pretty good

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Chicken Faux Gras on a cracker

I caught an episode of Diary of a Foodie from 2007 (Season 1:  Contraband Cuisine) the other day, and Ruth Reichl provided a recipe for imitation foie gras that she spoke highly of.  Since I don’t eat foie gras (French for “fat liver”) due to the force-feeding procedure involved in its production, I’m always happy to find a recipe that might reasonably mimic its taste and texture, which are mild and silky, respectively.  I figured that I had nothing to lose by trying it, since I’d be fine with a good chicken pate anyway.

The result was excellent, I think, in terms of texture and look.  If you formed this stuff to look like foie gras you’d be hard pressed to think it wasn’t the real thing.  Taste was good, but certainly fell short of real foie gras, which I expected, since I doubt there is any concatenation of ingredients out there able to match that buttery and mild liver flavor.

Final verdict:  All three of us really liked this recipe, and it is the closest I have ever come to foie gras.  If you think of it as a smooth, mild and creamy chicken liver pate, you’ll be fine.  I will be making this for the holidays, that’s for sure.

You will find the recipe on  the Gourmet website here.  Note that I did not bother with the gelee, and I made only half, since it is very rich and does not keep long.

SPAM is not mystery meat!

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Hawaii’s SPAM Cookbook

SPAM may be an acronym for shoulder pork and ham, or spiced ham, depending upon which resource you consult.  Hormel indicates that Spam Classic (I love that) is made from “pork with ham, salt [I’ll say!], water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite.  If you set aside the saturated fat, salt and processing, I guess it’s not as bad as a non-food item that’s sold as food.  I don’t know.  I like to have SPAM musubi or some SPAM and eggs a couple times a century, so it’s not such a big deal for me.  My father loved SPAM, since he ate it in the army, and he would often be seen opening a can with that crazy key resulting in a sharp ribbon of metal that would sometimes slide off course and become vewy intewesting.

When I make SPAM I use the turkey variety, which does not have mechanically-seperated turkey, by the way.  (The USDA requires that it be listed if used.)  This contains less saturated fat, and is the lesser of several evils.  While turkey SPAM does not have the texture of “real” SPAM (and that says something), I usually marinate it in a teriyaki-like sauce anyway, so it winds up tasting the same.

I found a simple recipe in Hawaii’s SPAM Cookbook that I adapted.  It tastes good served over rice – close to SPAM musubi, especially if you serve it with a few strips of nori and season the rice with sushi vinegar.

Soy Sauce SPAM

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup mirin
2 teaspoons grated ginger
SPAM, sliced; I use two 12-ounce cans for our family of 4 plus a large dog

1).  Bring all except SPAM to a boil in a low skillet; I use a large skillet so I am able to spread the SPAM out
2).  Lay in sliced SPAM and simmer over low flame for 3 or 4 minutes, turning over midway through

Serve with rice and have a bottle of hoisin sauce standing by.

Spam over rice in a bowl