Late update!

Hi gang!

This will be a simple update, but here is the latest. I've not been doing a lot creative lately, so I don't have as much as I'd usually put here, but there are two things I'd like to share.

The first is cast iron. I've been working on the small Griswold #3 pan, and am really happy with how its come out. Here's a before and after for you, top and bottom:

This is the bottom of the pan, before cleaning.

And the top/inside of the pan, before cleaning.

And now, drum roll!

The bottom of the pan, after cleaning.

And the top/inside of the pan, before cleaning.

Amazing, no? I'm really really excited about how these are coming out! I've only had the chance to work on the one, and I was using the oven cleaner method for this pan. I plan to try a lye bath for the next couple of pieces, I'll let you know how that goes.

The next update isn't anything spectacular, just sharing my latest breakfast meal: Chorizo and Egg Burritos with cheese and potatoes. Generally, I make my meals for a week, and I've been making these for a couple of weeks now, slightly varying the recipe as I go along. I am afraid I don't have any pictures, but here's how the recipe generally rolls out with variables in parenthesis:

5 flour tortillas (preferably made with lard and not too thick)

10 oz of loose Chorizo, pork or beef will do (loose meaning not chorizo links, but loose like you'd find breakfast sausage)

5 eggs

Grated Cheddar Cheese to taste

(3 small red potatoes)

(1/4 of 1 white or yellow onion)

If using potatoes, par-cook the potatoes, either in the microwave or by boiling. If boiling, cut beforehand into around 1/4 inch squares. If using microwave, cut after they cool a bit. Cooking time will vary depending on your microwave.

If using onions, cook onions on medium-low heat until they become translucent in a nonstick pan. At this time, add the chorizo into the same pan, and continue to cook at  medium-low to medium heat, letting it loosen in the pan until it becomes fine and slightly caramelized. Set aside to let cool. (if not using onions, cook chorizo as above)

Break the eggs into a small mixing bowl and whip together, either with a fork or whisk. I usually lightly wipe out the pan the chorizo was cooking in and then dump the eggs in to scramble, also on medium-low to medium heat until just barely done.

Heat each tortilla either in the microwave or using a pan on the stove, until the tortilla is pliable. (I generally put them in the microwave one at a time, for about 15 seconds) Combine your ingredients and roll as you would roll any tortilla, either as a burrito or a taco.

That's it for this round! Everyone stay cooking and stay tuned for updates. I'll try not to go so long between updates next time.

Happy cooking!

Antiquing In Michigan, February 2012

Antiquing? What does that have to do with kitchen stuff? Well, I'll tell you...

It has to do with getting some vintage cast iron! I made out like a bandit this trip, and ended up with 6 different pans, which I'll show you below. I didn't pay more than $15 for any one of these items, and they're all in completely restorable condition, and will look amazing when done. For now, here are each of them (click on image for larger version):

Pan 1:

Pan 2:

Pan 3:

Pan 4:

Pan 5:

Pan 6:

That's it! And that's also it for this entry... I don't have any new adventures in cookery to share yet, but I'll have something more interesting next time. For now, enjoy the pans, and I'll let you know when I have them cleaned and seasoned. I'm hoping to try a few new techniques as well, so will let you know more about that when the time comes. 

Happy cooking!

Delays, delays...

Sorry for the delay gang, I know its been a while since my last entry.

I have to admit that there's not been a lot going on here lately, January has been a rather low key month, though I assure you I've been coming up with more ideas. Most of them involve meat, and a few involve chili, though I'll not give away too many details. In another turn of events, there will be a lot more meat to do things with if all goes well this February. Its looking like there may even be some venison to talk about! I'm very excited about that possibility, I really do love venison. Its such a versatile meat, and I can't wait to bring new things to the site with some of my ideas. In the meantime, I'll try to post here and there with some of my ideas or with some of my experiments with what I do have around. Maybe even bacon, because it just makes everything better. ^^

For now, keep cooking, and see you next time!

Winter Chili Festival MMXII (2012)

Hello food fans!

Tonight's entry is about something near and dear to my heart: Chili. I love making chili, likely more than I love eating it, though I do love a well made chili. So much so, that I've gone to some great lengths to learn more about chili, its origins, and its varied styles, before settling on my own make, which is a Texas style chili con carne, which I can't get enough of.

About a month ago, I met a newcomer to my workplace, who had brought chili to a staff meeting that I wasn't sure I wanted to be at. His chili made my night, because even though it wasn't a traditional Texas style chili, it was made well and had wonderful flavour. I spent most of the night, in between staff meeting topics, asking him a bunch of questions and discussing my love of chili with him as he did the same with me. Well needless to say, we shortly thereafter determined we needed to get together to cook some chili.

This proved to be more of an adventure than we thought, and took about 2 months to really figure out. While we were trying to work out the logistics of work schedules and time off, and time to dedicate to a proper batch of chili, I happened upon a rare find at the grocery store: A Bhut Jolokia Chile. Many of you know this chile as a "Ghost Chile Pepper", and may have heard this name tossed around on the internet or on several popular cooking shows on various cable network shows. I was so surprised to see it, that I bought it immediately.

I told my coworker about this find while we were at work together, and suddenly not only did he want to try it in a good batch of chili, but so did a wide variety of people at work, both carnivores and vegetarians alike. This was the start of what turned into tonight's events: Winter Chili Festival 2012.

Every autumn, I make a batch of chili and bring it in to work to share with my coworkers. This past autumn, I made two batches, in deference to my vegetarian coworkers, and soon found that both chilis were gone in less than 4 hours. What a hit! I'd discussed having a second batch for the winter, though wasn't sure if I was actually going to do so, until I really started coordinating this chili event. Well, after getting everything worked out, it so happened that my coworker was able to come over this evening, albeit a bit later than I'd hoped, but who cares, we were getting together to have some wonderful chili, and explore the potency of this "Ghost Chile". What follows is the events of the day surrounding my making two batches of chili simultaneously. Here is where we start:

I began by getting out a half sheet pan and oiling it rather well, setting the oven to about 550 degrees, and putting out 2 Poblanos, 2 Anaheims, and a Jalapeño on said pan and letting these chiles roast in the oven until the skins were charred and black.

While the chiles were roasting, I chopped up a large onion, which turned out to be 2 cups per half:

By the time I was done with the onion, it was time to flip the chiles the first time, so using tongs, I did just that and let them continue to roast. I then set the two pans out on the top of the stove: my cast iron dutch oven and my medium stockpot, and put a little oil in them to get glistening over low heat. I kept turning the chiles in the oven until all sides were well charred, and I had this to look forward to:

I covered these and let them rest, while putting the onions into the cooking vessels to caramelize over medium heat, and adding a little salt. 

While these were going, I prepared one pound of stew beef for the one batch of chili, cutting it into chunks of a little larger than 1/4 inch each. After putting the beef back into the fridge, I opened up the canned, diced tomatoes I had been saving, a total of about 28oz per batch of chili, drained them, and waited. Once the onions were caramelized, I added the meat to the first batch, let it brown, and then immediately dumped each batch of tomatoes into their respective vessels.

While these were stewing up, I rinsed, de-seeded, and chopped up my roasted chiles and portioned them out for each batch: 1 Poblano and one Anaheim per batch, and the Jalapeño for the beefy chili.

As it turns out, the combination of the two larger chiles came out to about a cup each, which was perfect for what I was trying to accomplish: roasted chile flavour without overdoing the burn. After letting some of the water evaporate from the stewing tomatoes and onions, I lowered the heat to low so that the chili would continue to stew, but nothing would stick to the bottom. I then dumped each of these roasted chiles into their respective vessels.

I let these stew for about 20 minutes while I prepared my special spice mixes for the chili. Here is where I deviate a bit. I will tell you the recipe for these batches because its not something I've finalized, and I have a few more adjustments to make. This is not my competition chili, so I am ok with letting you know what is in the mix. See the recipes at the end of this entry for details. When the mixes for the first spice dump were finalized, this is what I ended up with:

I'm afraid I got a little lazy and didn't take photographs of the second spice dump, but since you are getting the recipe for this chili, you're not really missing out on anything. Anyway, the second spice dump isn't for a while yet, as this spice dump needed to get distributed throughout the stewing food. Once these were added, however, I am very pleased to say that the kitchen suddenly bloomed with aroma, as the colour of the chili also changed to that beautiful mahogany red that I love to see in a good batch of chili.

I let this stew for about 30 minutes. In case you haven't noticed, by the way, there are two spoons sitting on the stove. The reason for this is, again, that the chili on the right is a vegetarian chili, and I didn't want to mix up the spoons between the two when cooking. Veggie stays veggie and gets no mix of the content from the meat chili on the left.

I'm afraid that I'm a little shy of photos for this next section, but I imagine that you're tired of seeing photos anyway. The next step was to put in the stock for each batch. One cup of stock per, for that matter. Now generally, you can use either chicken stock or vegetable stock in the meat chili, because both are neutral enough to only add just the right amount of flavour to the chili without overtaking it. In the case of these batches, I used chicken stock in the meat chili and vegetable stock in the veggie chili.

I let these stew uncovered for about another 30 minutes, watching the liquid reduce, and then added spice dump part 2. I then covered both of the vessels and let them stew for about another 30 minutes. By the time I took the lids off, the aromas were amazingly fragrant, and I ended up with chili that looks like this:

Now I know what you are all wondering: What about the "Ghost Chile"? Well, the fact is that my company hadn't arrived yet as of the time that the chili was nearing its completion, so I uncovered the chili again and created my Masa Harina slurry, which I use as a thickener in all of my chili. Since I don't have a photograph of that, I will post a photograph of the ground/dried spices I used to compose my mixes:

With the thickener in, I again covered the chili for about another 15 minutes and then uncovered it while I let the remaining excess of liquid reduce. About this time, my coworker finally arrived, and I removed the "Ghost Chile" from its bag, put on rubber dishwashing gloves, washed my hands with the gloves on, grabbed my favourite paring knife, and cut into the chile.

I have to say, that while there was only a mild scent of the fruit, the non-scented fumes from the capsaicin were airborne within seconds, and we had a very mild bit of coughing to deal with before we stripped the seeds from the inside and saved a few, then sliced the chile into ribbons and dumped it into the veggie chili. After letting that cook for about 10 minutes, I turned off the burner on the meat chili, and then added drained black beans to the veggie chili. After letting this cook for about 15 minutes, we were ready to eat.

I had everyone (except my partner) sample both chilis, and the responses were overwhelming. I'm rather self conscious about my own cooking at times, even when I know its good, and I found that my self confidence, while humble, was justified. I got rave reviews on this chili, both batches. I was very surprised, too, because this was the first time I'd ever bothered to write down my chili recipe as I made it. Usually I just guesstimate as I go, and it comes out good. But this time, I made a recipe. I'll share the recipes for these chilis in their raw form, since you already have the cooking guidelines in the entry.

I have to say that after eating this with my friends, and having lots of fun conversation and story telling afterwards, that Winter Chili Festival MMXII was a smashing success! The chili was a hit, and I think I'm ready to take the next step in preparing a competition level chili for the next Chili Festival. As I sign off, I'll leave you the raw recipe as I jotted it down. 

Happy cooking, everyone!

Spectral Chili:

1/2 tsp Ground New Mexican Chile

1/2 tsp Ground Chipotle Chile

1/2 tsp Regular Chili Powder

1/2 tspx2 Ground Cumin

28oz diced tomatoes, drained (if canned)

2 cups of yellow onion

1 roasted Poblano Chile, seeded

1 roasted Anaheim Chile, seeded

1 diced/chifonade Bhut Jolokia Chile, seeded

1 cup vegetable stock

1/2 cup of hot water & 1/2 tbsp of Masa Harina mixed well

1 can of black beans, drained

Kim's Kickass Chili Kon Karnal:

1/2 tsp Ground New Mexican Chile 

1/2 tspx2 Regular Chili Powder

1/2 tspx2 Ground Cumin

28oz diced tomatoes, drained (if canned)

2 cups of yellow onion

1-2 pounds of stew meat of your choice (in this case, beef)

1 roasted Poblano Chile, seeded

1 roasted Anaheim Chile, seeded

1 roasted Jalapeño Chile, seeded

1 cup vegetable OR chicken stock

1/2 cup of hot water & 1/2 tbsp of Masa Harina mixed well

Cast Iron Update

Hello again, food people!

So I found out another reason why I was getting that mottled coating in my cast iron skillet. I was cleaning today and decided to do a slight experiment after having let my skillet sit a little too long before cleaning: I cleaned it out and re-wok'ed it, and then set it upside down in the hot oven to dry a bit after a very light coat of oil. I checked it in 10 minutes and I found out why this is a bad idea. I quickly remedied it, but here's the gist of why this has been happening in the past.

Many of the methods for curing/seasoning the pan suggest that when you wipe your pan down, you then invert it and put it in the oven. While there's nothing wrong with putting it in the oven, putting it in upside down is the issue. When you put the pan in upside down, even if you have the thinnest of oil coatings, it doesn't drain evenly over the rest of the pan, and you get patches where there is oil and where there is not oil. If you leave it like this, it will bake in that way, and you will have an uneven surface.

One thing that Black Iron Dude recommends is that if you have a skillet with an uneven surface, make certain that you wipe it down regularly during regular cleanings and reconditioning to make certain that oil doesn't pool. This is indeed important, especially when you consider that to avoid the mottled surface we're trying so hard to get away from, you need to have the pan upright in the oven. Oh yes, the oil will pool, and if you simply put your pan in there with a coat of oil, and the cooking surface facing up, you get deposits of gummy oil in odd places on the pan (depending also on how level your range is), even if your oven is at 500+ degrees, that you will have a royal pain cleaning out later on.

Anyway, that's it for this little escapade, hopefully I'll have some actual food to show you next time I write, I'm hoping to do some photo-worthy cooking this week, so we'll see if that works out.

Happy cooking!

Short update

Hi gang!

So just a quick update; the pan is working great thus far, wonderful non-stick, though not quite ready for cornbread... but the steak we made for Christmas came out wonderful. But that's not the best news!

We just got our oven replaced today, the maintenance person told us that we needed to have a properly working oven because he likes all the great things we make in it! Yay us!

There will be more updates once we get it broken in, so stay tuned!

Adventures in Cast Iron Part 2

Welcome back!

In case you need a refresher, we're talking about the pitfalls of small apartment ranges when using cast iron cookware. Definitely read the previous post for the start of this story, and I promise that when you get back to this entry, there will be better news.

So when we last left, I had just shown you the result of a pan reconditioning that did not take well at all. Why did this happen? There are a few reasons, not the least of which is my crappy stove. In fact, most of them have to do with my crappy stove. Rather than go into details about the stove itself, let me tell you what I did next to resolve the issue with the pan.

Again, I had to strip the pan down. I thought long and hard about what to do next with this pan, and about my own experiences with seasoning cookware from ages past. In fact, a quote from Star Trek III: The Search For Spock came to mind during my research:

"What you seek, has not been done since ages past! And then, only in legend!"

I'm afraid that when my mind is really trying to solve a problem, it often goes back to the beginning, and this turned out to be the best way to think in this situation. In this case, it was also a very geeky thought process.

Firstly, I needed to do more experiments with my stove. As I mentioned in Part 1, it is important to get a feel for your range before expecting to work miracles with it. I began by doing precisely what I mentioned last time: Using an oven thermometer to get a feel for how my oven actually is heating up, holding temperature, and if there were hotspots. Indeed there were. My oven heats to a higher temperature on the sides, particularly the left side, and is hotter at the top of the oven than in the center. My oven also takes more than 35 minutes to heat up, and when it does, it is often hotter than what the dial says. When I open it, the heat that escapes seems to not affect the right side of the oven, and it takes about 20 minutes to heat up a second time.

Next, I tested how hot my burners get, though not through any scientific method such as an infrared thermometer. I used my wok, oddly enough. Now I know what you are thinking:

How can she use the wok to test how hot the burners make a pan compared to the oven?

The answer isn't precise, but the theory bore out in the end. I used my wok in conjunction with the oil I was using to treat the pan. My cast iron skillet, right out of the (supposed 550 degree) oven, when coated with a light coating of vegetable oil, creates no smoke whatsoever, even though in theory, the smoke point of the oil should be well surpassed at this point. To be clear, I'd left the pan in the oven for about 45 minutes before testing it.

The wok, which is really a stir-fry pan, would cause the oil to smoke almost instantly when the pan had been on the burner for less than 5 minutes. When applying this test to the poorly mottled cast iron skillet, I found that not only did this hold true, but when looking at the surface of the pan, I also found that the pan did not heat evenly on the burner as it appears to in all the pan seasoning tutorials I've read.

Yes, I may have interpreted those tutorials too literally, but these experiments really paid off. When I stripped my pan down a second time and prepared to season it, a theory popped into my head about the initial seasoning of my wok, and how I developed a patina on it that was slicker than... well it was anti-stick, let's just say. So the approach I took to the pan this time was to dry it off in the oven again, and then crank the oven up as I had before with the bare pan in it, and then remove the pan to a burner set to high. After about 6 minutes of this, I wiped the pan down with a coating of oil to cover the entire surface, let it brown, and then move the pan around the burner so all areas of the cooking surface became heated evenly. Once the oil stopped glistening (and smoking too, for that matter), I repeated the process. I did this about 6 times before I put the pan back in the oven, upside down, with a sheet pan below it to catch any drippings, and turned the oven off.

My results were astoundingly different. This method gave me an incredibly smooth black patina that I have been building up ever since, which looked like this after the pan cooled from the first round of seasoning:

So what else did I do differently? I used vegetable oil with a high canola oil ratio (regular canola oil will work too) this time, instead of what some other blogs recommended (everything from lard, to generic vegetable shortening, to olive oil). When I'd seasoned my wok, I used sesame oil, which has a very high smoke point, well above that of canola (as I seem to recall, I'm sure someone will correct me on this if I am wrong). In fact, now whenever I coat the pan, the oil only smokes for a moment, and then it clears up. With the mottled pan from Part 1, the pan would smoke once it got hot, no matter how baked in the oil appeared to be.

Again, what I sought had been done in ages past: The method of creating a patina that worked on my wok, worked on my cast iron skillet as well. I have to say that I'm thrilled, and I continue to break it in with everything from bacon to burgers. When I feel the surface is just right, I'll give it the fried egg test. I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, that's the end of this chapter, and I hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Until next time:

Happy cooking!