The true poached egg, part 1

Let me admit, I have egg on my face. I got into a discussion with Steve about poached eggs and he thought it was an egg cooked in water, whereas I thought it was an egg cooked in a poaching "cup". My mom used to have an insert that held four cups over a frying pan, letting the eggs cook via steam.

But true poached eggs are cooked directly in water. The steamed variant has become popular and is now commonly called a poached egg, hence the confusion. As I discovered, true poached eggs take some practice, so the poaching cup is a welcome face saver. To help keep the egg together in the boiling water, two tricks are (a) put some vinegar in the water, which hastens the solidification of the whites, or (b) create a vortex in the middle of the pan, by spinning the water. I liked the idea of poaching, because it is healthier and you can get a runny yolk that has been uniformly heated.

I tried making a vortex the first time, aka the "spinney" method and it was miserable failure, partly because I hadn't brought the water to a full boil before hand. The egg was also still a bit cold, so it handily dispersed into the swirling water into an embarassing egg cloud. After 45 seconds, I removed what remained of the egg (about 50% of the white with the intact yolk). I had found a fine sieve cleaning out a kitchen drawer yesterday, so I used it to scoop almost all of the remaining egg white. And then the water really started to boil, and the remaining 3% of white solidified and puffed up like a meringue. It was a bit surprising to see how much volume those dregs of egg white could produce. After more scooping, I finally had a relatively clear pan of water for try 2.

I added a bit of vinegar, brought the water to a boil, lowered the heat and slide the egg in from a bowl. And once again, slivery tendrils formed as the white spread. But what else could I do, so I let it cook. After about a minute or so, I carefully removed the egg, which was about 80% of the white around a soft yolk. It really was most of the egg. And I realized that this is maybe what they do at restaurants. If you lose 20% of the white, the customer isn't any wiser for it. Anyways, the next time, I'll put the egg in a ladle and let it solidify a bit in the ladle before letting it loose.

During this time, I also snuck the remainder of the first egg back in to cook it a bit more, since it was still a bit underdone. I put the two eggs on a thick slice of toasted rosemary potato bread, topped it with some sliced havarti and smoked gouda (which came presliced from Costco) and cut up some ripe Early girls from the garden.

It didn't seem like a premier sandwich. And the egg dripped all over the plate. But the tomatoes were superbly juicy and sweet, and the cheese added a rich almost buttery taste. All in all, a messy but delicious sandwich.

Messy, badly poached egg
(I haven't perfected this recipe, so follow at your own risk)

1 egg

Break egg into a bowl or a ladle. Bring a pan of water to a healthy boil and add a dash of vinegar. Lower the heat so the water is fairly calm.

Slide the egg as gently as possible into the water. Optionally put the egg in a ladle and let it firm up before letting it go. Some of the white will start to separate. Ignore this. Simmer until the white is done, but the yolk is still runny. Remove with a slotted spoon. Serve immediately.

Sage corn dumplings

Let it be stated that dumplings are my wife's family recipe. Not mine. Their holiday tradition on Christmas eve is to have shrimp/egg salad, fresh mushroom soup, some salad and vegetables, and of course dumplings. At this point I've had countless of these meals (mostly because I can't count).

The shrimp salad has varied from good, to fantastic. One time they had to use langosteens instead of shrimp, with great results. My brother, Ted, was raving about this years afterward.

The mushroom soup is a rich, hearty cream of mushroom soup. Start with Campbell's cream of mushroom and then add lots of fresh cooked mushrooms. Don't be too fancy, just use the standard white button mushroom and perhaps some creminis. And don't forget the butter.

But it was always the dumplings that were the heart of the meal. However, flour is one thing I just haven't cooked with much, and so it was a challenging and daunting recipe for me to even contemplate. I mean, the ingredient list is enough to scare off anybody sane: flour, eggs and that hard-to-find milk. The eggs shouldn't be from any old animal, but should be from the elusive "chicken". Good luck finding those! And the cooking process requires years of practice to learn how to boil balls of dough in water. Yeah ... right.

To make matters worse, Sarah's mom visited and a friend of ours had these dumplings 5 years ago and has raved about them ever since, begging us to make them again. Of course, not knowing the secret to this rare and mysterious dish, I could only return her helpless pleadings with a blank, clueless look.

It was two or three Christmas Eve's ago that I had finally had enough. Butter that is. You see, Sarah's parents fry the dumplings in butter for a one reason. Lots of butter. So the dumplings just become conduits for butter and salt. They taste great, but they were just too rich for me. So the next time I had them I vowed to have some plain, un-butterfied ones. And they were fine, though a little on the plain side. So the next time I visited, I tried frying the dumplings for a good long time, so they would get a nice browned butter crispness. And that was very tasty, though still too rich.

(Pictured: corn sage dumplings just out of the boiling water, waiting to be fried up. The pan is a Scan Pan, which is partially non-stick but can be cleaned with steel wool. The grass is watered 3 times a week.)

The breakthroughs came in a hurry, over the last 4 month interval, when we were visiting her parents place regularly. (1) Use olive oil instead of butter, which does not make the food seem so over-the-top rich. And it fries a bit better than butter. This was a smashing success. (2) Let's add some fresh herbs to the dumplings. The first time I tried rosemary and basil. The rosemary was quite nice but the basil washed out completely in the process of boiling, which I suspected it would. At home, I dared to make these dumplings on my own and then tried sage which was surprisingly good. (3) I've begun using a lot of fresh corn cut from the cob and inspired by recipes from the cafe at work, I tried adding fresh corn to the batter.

Voila! A true masterpiece. If you only try one recipe from my blog this is the one I recommend.

Sage corn dumplings
(Serves 4 to 6)

3 eggs, free range if possible
1/2 cup of milk, I use 2%
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups of white flour
salt and pepper
medium handful of fresh sage leaves
2 ears of fresh corn, roughly 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups of corn
olive oil, for frying

Crack eggs in a large mixing bowl. Add milk. Beat eggs and add salt and pepper to taste. Add flour in 1/3 cup increments, mixing until the flour is fully absorbed, before adding more. This is neither a careful process nor a super fast process. Smooth out any large flour lumps, if necessary. The resulting dough should be a very thick sticky liquid. If it feels more like a solid, aka, you wet loaf of bread, add a bit more milk until the mixture thins out. It does not take much milk.

(Pictured: dumpling mixture with lots of corn and sage. The Domain Mourchon was a winery we actually visited on bike after a steep climb (according to my wife), and was a Wine Spectator 91, but I found it thick, dense but not that interesting, perhaps needing some more time. The Quivira was a good solid Zin.)

Wash sage and chop into small pieces. Cut corn off the cob. Add sage and corn to the dumpling mixture and mix into. This will roughly double the volume of the mixture.

Bring a large 4-8 quart pot of water to a boil, optionally using the corn cobs to flavor the water, which are then removed. Spoon dumpling mixture with teaspoons into boiling water. When the dumplings have been floating for 45-60 seconds they are done. Remove dumplings and drain.

Heat a frying pan with a thin layer of olive oil. When the oil is hot (a water drop splatters), add dumplings. Fry for a minute or so until the bottom side is browned. Turn dumplings and repeat until dumplings are browned to your satisfaction.

Serve as is with salt and pepper, or with a country gravy.

(Pictured: caprese salad with sun gold tomatoes, Costco rotisserie chicken, corn and sage dumplings, described in this article, mushroom chicken gravy and a date, orange, kumquat salad of arugula topped with Parmesan.)

Smoky red beans and rice

(Pictured: early girl tomatos, smoked Creole sausage from Ditmers, spices, green zebras, Ridge 2005 Carignane, which had a marvelous raspberry note in a smooth refined body, garlic, hot peppers, a Wusthof paring knife, some left over Tourist wurst, yellow onion whole and chopped.)

Let me admit this recipe, OK, multi-year obsession, started because of Popeye's Red Beans and Rice. Yes, Popeye's, the fried chicken chain that serves southern fast food. Greasy, not so healthy fast food. Comes to the restaurant in a mix in a box or a bag, so the staff can make it on the spot, fast food. But tasty, tasty, the best darn chicken and red-beans-n-rice fast food.

This recipe is really an odyssey, capturing a non-negligible(*) fraction of my cooking knowledge and time. It represents a pursuit of the unattainable, unless you have the $2.50 to actually order their red beans and rice, assuming you can find a Popeye's. (* Non-negligible is one of those precisely vague words scientists use to to mean some amount that cannot be ignored, but otherwise cannot be quantified. It's a word I used to use a lot. Now I only use it a negligible amount.)

It was many years ago that Steve took me to the now defunct East Palo Alto Popeye's. I innocently ordered the red beans and rice with my order. And it nearly ruined my life. That smokey, creamy, salty, smoked meat flavor blew me away. I had to have it again. But I shortly moved away to a spot in the Midwest where there were no Popeye's nearby.

So, after moaning about it for a few years, I started to try to recreate that dang recipe, working from memory. And I learned a thing or two. Firstly, red beans are not trivially available. You can find all sorts of other beans such as kidney beans, pinto beans, black eyed pea beans, just plain black beans, great white northern beans and even navy beans, but small red beans are a bit of exception. After a bit of searching, I did find them at one grocery store (Marsh), in a can. And you can usually find them dried. How important is it to use red beans rather than say pinto beans? Very important. You know why... because the recipe is called red beans. Would you make soy sauce without soy? I thought so.

(The picture shows beans I bought from Pak-N-Save. I've elegantly marked the beans 07/07 indicating when I bought them, since things have a way of aging in my pantry unbeknownst to me. The Beringer Chardonnay at $22 was pricey but quite nice, and Wine Spectator agreed giving it 92 points.)

Beans present an interesting dilemma. Canned beans are convenient. Just open can after can, rinse, rinse again, and then rinse a third time and cook. However, dried beans are the way of a true cook. There is greater variety to be had. And they are cheaper but have to be soaked. And I found the overnight soak method sucks. I still have to cook the things for 3+ hours. However the quick soak method of bringing the beans and lots of water to a boil for a minute or two, and then letting it sit for an hour or two works nicely. After the quick soak, you only have cook them for 2+ hours. So that's what I do, even if I have planned ahead and could do the overnight soak.

Anyways, back to my odyessy. The main challenge was to get the smoky, salty flavor. Sausage is key and I've played around with many variations. I just love hot Italian in general, so it's hard to resist but it's not the right flavor for this dish. Linguica is pretty good, but not quite there. Hot dogs... let's be real, we're trying to recreate a masterpiece from Popeye's so we can't be using any old sausage. Bacon, again, isn't quite right, being a bit one dimensional on smoky. I finally settle on bratwurst, as in the kind Johnston's makes, which is available pretty much anywhere. This is a raw pork sausage, not the white sausage I've sometimes seen called bratwurst.

I cooked this recipe maybe 10 to 12 times. A few times I experimented with Liquid Smoke. Man, is that stuff vile. It smells nice in dilute quantities, but up close, it's nasty stuff on both the nose and the palate. It's a big smoke and mirrors game with chemicals.

By the fourth or fifth time of cooking it, the beans were pretty darn tasty. I could invite people over and trust making it the main dish. While I hadn't quite reached the pinnacle of Popeye's, it was a fine dish nonetheless.

And then on a trip to Chicago, I noticed a Popeye's on the interstate. We had to stop there on the way back. And 4 years after my initial Popeye's experience I finally got to retaste my beloved smoky creamy red beans. And ... mine were better! Way, way better! The Popeye's beans were still tasty, but they tasted like fantastic red beans pre-made in huge quantities using smoke and mirrors and grease and then shipped in a bag that you could still taste. There was no actual meat in them, too. Huh? And the smokey taste was kinda fake. It's like finding out your Hollywood idol ... well you know the analogy.

And so I kept making my red beans. And also ordering it from Popeye's whenever we visited Chicago. I recall ordering 4 big orders with no rice to go, which I would take back in the car in our 2 hour ride. And immediately making a pot of rice when I got home to eat those mass vat produced red beans as freshly as possible.

I also had a chance to visit New Orleans for Jazz fest a year or so later. This was exciting, as I got to taste the real deal, not some Popeye's "mockery" of the real deal. We went to a fine restaurant serving real Cajun food. And the red beans and rice was just terrible. I may not have even finished it all. Apparently authentic red beans and rice is a very bland dish to compliment the rest of the meal. Sausage flavor? Nope, unless they waved the andouille sausage near the 5 gallon pot of unflavored beans. Smokey? Nope, unless the chef lit up a Marlboro. Salty? Not a lick. (Get the pun?) It was blandsville followed by boredom. What the heck!?

Meanwhile I kept making a pot of my faux Popeye's red beans. And eventually, I found myself thanking Popeye's for making me chase after my faulty mental recollection of a mythical dish, which was really a gross distortion of the real deal. And after my red bean journey, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Smoky southern red beans
(Serves 6 to 12)

The quantities are approximate on purpose as there is a lot of latitude in making this dish.

16-32 oz dried small red beans or 48-64 oz canned red beans16 to 32 oz of chicken broth
16 to 32 oz canned whole, sliced or diced tomatoes of any formsalt
pepper

1/2 to 2 lbs of sausage, bratwurst or Cajun or creole or even Italian

2 tbs vegetable oil
(optional) 3 tbs Cajun seasoning, such as Paul Prudhomme
(optional) handful Chili power which is a mixture of cumin, chilies, onion and more
1 or 2 yellow or white onions
1/2 to 2 cloves of garlic
(optional) hot peppers or hot chile powder, your choice
(optional) celery leaves from the top of the stalks.

Quick soak dry beans. Drain and rinse the beans until the water is clear.

In a large pot, add the beans and chicken stock and tomatoes, not quite covering the beans. Bring to a boil and then let simmer, while preparing the remaining ingredients.

Fry up sausage if raw. Drain some of the fat away with a paper towel. Dump sausage into bean pot.

Chop up onion into small pieces. Smash garlic, remove skins and end bits. Chop coarsely. Heat oil or remaining sausage grease in a frying pan until hot and add spices for 15-30 seconds and then the garlic. Cook for 30 seconds; do not cook until it is brown. Add onions and cook until they are soft, perhaps 3 minutes. If you have hot peppers and/or celery leaves, bring the heat up back to med high and add the them to the spice-garlic-onion mix for 30 seconds until they start to release their oils. Dump the mixture into the bean/sausage pot.

Salt and pepper beans to taste. I like to add a good bit of salt. Add bay leaves.
Simmer beans until tender, which can take longer than expected, sometimes 3 hours. Optionally mash some beans against the side of the pan to thicken the sauce near the end.

Serve as is, over rice, over pasta or with hot buttered bread. Optionally top with freshly sliced tomatoes.

(Pictured: egg noodles, smoky red beans, 1.75 cups of green zebra tomatoes with di bufala mozzarella in an elegant serving dish. The Thorn Clarke 2005 Cab had a strong vegetal taste along with the ripe elegant fruit, making for a memorable wine.)

The first decision before starting to cook

Let's set the ground rules. You've picked out the recipe, and bought the ingredients. Now it's time to start the actual cooking. What's the first important decision you have? I'll make it easier by giving you three guesses.

1. What is the order you'll prepare the ingredients?
2. How are you going to manage your kitchen space, utensils and pots/pans?
3. What wine are you going to drink while cooking?
   

I almost always cook to a red wine. And since I'm not really pairing it with food, I go for a bold, fruity wine that keeps my interest on each sip. For me that means Shiraz or Zinfandel. I'd go

Last night as I cooked my all in spaghetti with smoked sausage, peas and egg, I chose a high end wine. The Orin Swift 2005 Prisoner, which is an unusual blend of Zin, Cab, Syrah, Petite Sirah and Charbono. It was quite nice but didn't live up to it's Wine Spectator 93 point expectations.
See my wine blog for lots more on wine.