Waste not, want not

I went to Trader Joe the other day and reached for a pre-packed bag of salad greens. The Joe working in TJ said "Not that one, it expires today". He gave me a bag with greens with a date of next week. He then continued to take bags and bags full of perfectly edible produce off the shelves.  I felt I was watching mega-waste in action, and it did not sit well with me. 

 

I recently red The Apprentice - my life in the kitchen by Jacques Pépin. His humble beginnings not only made him appreciate the less desirable parts of animals and produce. His mother's restaurant only could make a profit if they kept the food cost low and used every single leafs and stem. Ditto organs and bones. They went so far as to save the tomato skins and seeds to make tomato stock when making tomato concassé. Same with the stems from parsley and the cut off from mushrooms.

Anthony Bourdain called restaurant cooking the art of transformation; turn undesirable products into dishes people want to eat.

I am by know means at their level, nor do I pretend to be. I just hate to waste food. Case in point: We didn't eat rice in days, so the left over rice in the cooker was already turning hard. Since throwing out would be a sin, I decided to the next best thing. Turn the rice into congee, or rice porridge for breakfast.  It is as simple as phi: put the rice in a saucier, cover with water. Simmer for hours until the rice is completely dissolved resulting in a smooth porridge. Just make sure you stir the congee so once a while to prevent burning your precious pot. 

How much grain is still left over is subject of intense debate, depending where you are from and how your mother cooked congee. 

You could eat this with Pork Sung, fermented bamboo, pickles or the like. I like mine with smashed ginger, white pepper and either white fish or marinated ground pork. But then again, my mother never made congee for me: it's my white skin :-)

Another quick tip. 

I usually only need use the caps from mushrooms, leaving me with stems. Take stems, sautée them for a couple minutes with a shallot in a little butter. Add water, thyme, left over parsley stems and a bay leaf. Cook for at least 45 minutes. Strain the broth and reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Use this mushroom demi-glace whenever you cook vegetarian. They will thank you for the restaurant-like taste of your dishes.

Of course I buy a lot of whole chickens, so the entire chicken can be used. By the way: next time you make chicken stock, add the giblets. Your stock gets a much deeper mouth feel. 

And yes, I still throw more than I want to. It is a work in progress 

Grilled lobster with compound butter.

Ingredients 

• Live lobster
• Compound butter.

Buttering
Compound butter is going to augment the taste of the lobster. In order to prevent the butter from becoming too overpowering, stay away from very powerful spices like cardimon, cloves and such. Another point is to start with butter at room temperature. This butter will be soft and easiest to handle.

For me the following ingredients work the best:
a couple cloves of garlic smashed into a puree
parsley
chives
salt, pepper and lemon juice

I use a food processor to mix all ingredients. However, make sure the garlic and herbs are chopped finely. With all the butter, the food processor will not do a good job of chopping the herbs if they enter in too chunky.
Continue pulsing the food processor until you have smooth, rich and creamy butter.

Lobstering
if you are looking for a guide on how to best kill your lobster, check this out:check this out: It is very insightful and helpful. Usually my killing spree is the steaming method. Take the biggest stock put you can find (I had a 10 quart pot which is perfect for this), put a little bit of water in the bottom and place a steaming rack on top of it. Take your lobsters straight from the fridge into the pot and close the lid. In 2 minutes the lobsters are dead and can be handled.
Cut the lobsters lengthwise and remove the sack.

Grilling
Fill the lobster with compound butter and place them meat side up on the grill. After a couple of minutes turn over, add more butter and cook on the grill until the butter starts to sizzle.

Eating
'nuff said.

Perfect Risotto

Every time I try to make risotto, I brace myself for the contineous stirring required. At least 30 minutes of stirring, adding a little bit of liquid at a time until the kernels open up and release their starch.

I always struggle with the amount of liquid required. Sometimes too wet, sometimes not completely cooked through. Blame the gene pool, my grandmother was not northern Italian.

Thirty minutes during which I cannot do anything else. Mostly in that time I have visions of perfect accompanying side salads, roasted peppers antipasta, mushroom tapas, even chicken milanese as a second course. Ah, the waisted time.

There must be a better way to make perfect risotto each time without chaining myself to the stove. I know that restaurant cooks don't cook each risotto serving from scratch, but still make each plate to order. How do they do that?

The answer is parboiling. During prep they cook the risotto until just done, right before it starts to open up. When it is time to assemble the plate, they sautee the rest of the ingredients and cook the rice in the mixture until perfectly cooked.

Parboiling however is not easy. Again it depends on how much liquid you need to use to create the right consistency, which requires skill and training. How can us simple house cooks mimick this without a stage in an Italian restaurant?

Well: risotto is rice and rice you cook with your trusty kitchen companion the rice cooker. I measure out a cup (perfect for 4) and add enough liquid to cook the rice. Same way as I would cook any other rice. I just replace water with chicken stock.

Out comes perfect rice. My risotto was never better.
Here is my risotto recipe:

• 1 cup of cooked risotto
• 1 onion diced
• 2 garlic cloves minced
• 1 red bell pepper diced
• couple of asparagus cut on the bias 1 inch thick (when you feel like them, of course)
• pancetta diced
• white wine
• parmagiano cheese

Render the pancetta and sautee the vegetables until translucent
Deglaze with white wine
Add the risotto
Add a little bit of stock and stir for a couple minutes until the kernels burst open
Finish with the cheese and maybe a little bit of milk

As you can see I ommit the butter and cream from the recipe. It is just too rich for my taste, and for our household's taste buds it is not required.