Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

Do you go all the way and use lard instead of oil?

 

Last night I made pork and mustard greens soup with Sichuan peppercorns and rice noodles. It was great. Sichuan peppercorns are kind of hard to find and not all Asian markets carry them. And they are not really peppercorns. They are the dried berries from a prickly ash tree. Very distinctive flavor and gives a mouth numbing effect that some find off putting but I find to be part of the experience. For a few years (1968 to 2005) it was illegal to import them because they could carry citrus canker, but now all import restrictions are lifted.

Tonight I am making chicken tagine with cous cous. Any excuse to use fennel.

 

Back in my youth when we visited the family dairy farm north of Green Bay and I was part of the chicken plucking task force they always used lard for frying chicken. It gave a deeper flavor but probably really bad for you unless you worked like a farmer from before dawn to sundown. My great grandfather used to eat lard sandwiches for lunch when working the farm according to my grandmother.

I use lard but only for making blocks for feeding birds.

 

I like to fry in safflower oil. It has a really high smoke point (you can get it really hot before it smokes) and has a neutral flavor. Avocado oil is also really good.

 

This is going to sound really bad but I sometimes microwave a Hebrew National hotdog in my microwave for 40 seconds.

Hebrew National is my second favorite hotdog. My first choice is Vienna Beef but I can't get that in Gainesville. That is the real Chicago dog hotdog. There is a place in Cedar Key that makes Chicago dogs close to perfection and it is a store that mostly sells tourist crap.

One time for Christmas a friend of ours sent us a Chicago dog kit with all the correct items. Poppy seed buns and neon green pickle relish included. Going back to my youth stuff. It was great.

I really don't miss deep dish pizza from Chicago, but I do miss Chicago dogs and Italian beef sandwiches. Actually my favorite deep dish pizza is from Urbana-Champaign. We have gotten close to making a correct Chicago Italian beef sandwich but to really do it right we would need a deli slicer and we don't have the storage space for something like that when we would hardly use it. We make something like a "pulled" beef version that tastes right but doesn't have the same texture.

 

Tonight is rapini (also known as brocolli rabe) with sweet Italian sausage and penne.

 

Tonight I have defrosted three frozen chicken enchiladas that we made with a green sauce for myself, my lovely wife, and my MIL. I am making dirty rice for my picky eater son that for some reason doesn't like chicken enchiladas.

Thinking that is not enough I also bought two green plantains for making tostones. I have some oil in the frig that I have recycled a few times and needs to be used or thrown out.

 

Tonight it is ground chuck burgers on the KJ and oven fries.

Yesterday afternoon my range was a mess and needed a cleaning. A perfect time to fry up those tostones. I spent about an hour doing a nice deep clean on the outside today. And also about time to clean the inside and doing a baking soda clean of the oven glass. Maybe just after Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Thanksgiving what is everyone cooking for Thanksgiving? I wanted to smoke some ducks but instead I am smoking a fresh turkey like we always do. Back in the day we had a Cajun friend that deep fried turkeys on Thanksgiving but he doesn't do that anymore. They were great.

 

Thinking back to my college days at IIT on the Southside of Chicago we would often go to a late night diner on Pershing Road called Dox. It was in a warehouse district and was mostly attended by truckers and Chicago police.

They had the very best Italian beef sandwiches. Not the beef but the toppings. The beef was great but the toppings were excellent.

They also thought it was funny that college kids went there but I had my steelworker cred so me and my crew were OK. And I was a real Southsider. Everyone else was either Northside or out of state and not exactly welcome.

It was 1970's Chicago.

 

I am so jealous. Normally I can only get collard greens. I love them but I prefer turnip and mustard greens. Or chard.

My wife doesn't like chard or beet greens and I love them. She says that they taste like dirt. Not going to get into that.

 

Once I figured out my own style I went to apple and cherry wood and stayed away fron heavy smoke. Hickory and mesquite overpower that taste of the meat in my opinion. Oak is a great neutral smoke and is the usual hardwood when you buy a bag of lump charcoal so no need to get any more.

I really liked the B&B lump charcoal that I used to be able to buy at my local Lowes. It was mostly post oak.

I screwed up a few months ago when a pecan tree fell down in m neighborhood. I should have gotten some wood both for woodworking and cooking. The pile of wood at the street vanished in less than one day.