Sauce-pocalypse Now (a tribute to Jay "Chef" Hicks)

EXT. JUNGLE - MEDIUM VIEW - DUSK
Chef and Willard cautiously walk through the dark underbrush.
We SEE fragments of them, LOSE them occasionally, and just MOVE through the jungle.
WE HEAR this conversation throughout

WILLARD: Chef?

CHEF: Yes, sir.

WILLARD: How come they call you that?

CHEF: Call me what, sir?

WILLARD: Chef. 'Cause you like mangoes and stuff?

CHEF: No, sir. I'm a real chef. I'm a saucier.

WILLARD: Saucier?

CHEF: Yes, sir. See, I come from New Orleans. I was raised to be a saucier. A great saucier.

WILLARD: What's a saucier?

CHEF: We specialize in sauces. Gotta be a mango tree here somewhere...Then, I was supposed to go to Paris, to the Escoffier School. But then I got orders for my physical.

They move deeper into the jungle.

CHEF: Well, I joined the navy. Heard they had better food. Cook school, that did it.

WILLARD: Oh, yeah? How's that?

Chef puts down his bucket and rifle, takes a leak. Willard takes a few steps farther in the jungle and then sits by him on a log.

CHEF: You don't wanna hear about that. They lined us up in front of a hundred yards of prime rib. All of us, you know, looking at it? Magnificent. Magnifique. Next thing, they're throwing the meat into these big cauldrons.

Willard has heard something in the jungle during this explanation. He becomes alert.

CHEF: All of it. Boiling it. I looked inside, man, it was turning grey. I couldn't fucking believe that one! That's when I applied for radioman's school, but they-

Chef looks up, seeing Willard standing a distance away, poised with his rifle. Willard signals to him to come cautiously. He motions to Chef to move with him, each covering the other. They walk a few yards from where they have heard something move.

For those of you who know the movie, the next scene is surprising, but I won't spoil it for you. For many years, before he started cooking, Jim thought that Chef was saying the "Scoffier" school. Duh. But since he gave Peta the Escoffier cookbook (translated by Cracknell and Kaufman), he knows better. He decided that he'd make up a few sauces before going deer hunting, since the kitchen would be far, far away for two weeks.

Getting a handle on the "mother sauces" has been a goal of Jim's for a while, so he decided to make a chicken velouté with the stock that he had recently prepared. This flour/roux based sauce differs from a gravy in the time that it cooks. The long cooking time of the velouté allows the starch granules time to explode and gives it a super smooth texture. The Escoffier book also mentioned that velouté could be used to make a velouté soup with the addition of a puréed vegetable and cream. We used the left over garlic and cream from the Cat Cora recipe for Halibut with Arugula and Cherry Tomatoes in a Sabayon. We added tarragon to make a Sauce Estragon and poured it over sautéed chicken breasts. Tasty treats!

While we're on the subject of sauces, we also made a Sauce Paloise out of the same cookbook. It sounds fancy, but it's just Sauce Béarnaise with mint subbing for the traditional tarragon. We served it over small lamb chops along with some beets.

Jim and Peta

Beyond Tomato-dome

Two 'maters enter, one 'mater leave!!, shouted the post-apocalyptically attired crowd at our tomato taste test, where we pitted Cherokee Purples [from the plant that Jim's brother gave him in April and we thought had died shortly thereafter] against Carbons. OK, it was just us two, but it was quick and fun and fairly decisive. The two heirloom varieties are both tinged purple-black with the Carbons being the darker of the two. However, the Carbon won hands down with a sweet flavor, mouth-watering flesh and a nice acid finish for a really round, complete flavor. No wonder it won a Cornell heirloom variety taste test.

The differences in growing conditions seemed to favor the Carbon. We had it in a half wine barrel on casters so that we could maximize its sunny hours and, because it was downstairs, we watered it and cared for it more than the upstairs Cherokee, which was in a very small pot (for a tomato), didn't receive much sun and appeared to be diseased for much of the season. However, the Carbon had to compete with a Fengyuan Eggplant and Red Sails lettuce for nutrients and water.

That said, we are guarding or few Carbons jealously, so don't get any ideas. "Break a deal, face the wheel!!" [That line makes more sense if you've seen the Mad Max trilogy as many times as Jim has.]

Yours (through the Wasteland),
Jim and Peta

Liquid Salad?

The tomatoes are here, finally! Well, actually, they've been ready at the Palo Alto garden for some weeks now, but we don't get there as often as we'd like. We're going tomorrow so that we can load up because, although the tomatoes are in here in Marin, there are still only a few. It's not the cornucopia that we expected. In other words, it may take a bit longer for this garden venture to pencil out financially.

However, we do have a few Carbon heirloom tomatoes, which are blackish/purple and have won a taste taste between ten other heirloom varieties, yet that we have not seen in our stores. We save these for slicing with a touch of salt, freshly ground pepper and basil. The Snow White variety is coming on line and there's even a Cherokee Purple in a small container. But this small amount of tomatoes, however flavorful, cannot quench our need for soups and tomato tarts. We like to be sick of tomatoes by the end of the season so that we can last until the next tomato season with the canned and frozen ones that we stow away.

So the tomatoes that we gathered from Palo Alto have had to do for soups. We started to make Gazpacho Andaluz the other day, but realized that it was a bit to cool for this cold soup, so we switched gears and made a Cream of Tomato Soup from The New Best Recipe cookbook which is reproduced below with our changes:

Cream of Tomato Soup

• 2 28 oz cans whole tomatoes in juice, drained and juice reserved, seeded [we used a variety of fresh tomatoes which we skinned and seeded by putting it through our new food mill]
• 1 1/2 tsp dark brown sugar [because we did not roast the tomatoes, we did not add the sugar]
• 4 T butter
• 4 large shallots, minced
• 1 T tomato paste
• pinch allspice
• 2 T flour
• 1 3/4 c low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 c cream
• 2 T brandy (or dry sherry) [we used the brandy]

Roast tomatoes, sprinkled with sugar, at 450 for 30 minutes on parchement-lined pan. [again , we did not do this step]
Melt butter over medium heat, add shallots, allspice and tomato paste and cook, covered, at low for 7-10 minutes.
Add flour and stir for 30 seconds, then add broth, whisking constantly. Stir in reserved juice and roasted tomatoes. Cover, bring to boil over medium, then reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes.
Strain mixture into bowl, puree solid tomatoes with 1 c strained liquid until smooth. Return to saucepan with remaining strained liquid, add cream and warm over low heat 3 minutes, then remove from heat and add brandy, season with salt and cayenne to taste.

So even with our changes and substitutions, the soup was perfect for a cool end of summer night. We want to do a taste taste against Campbell's. Bring it, soup boy!
OK, now on to the liquid salad part. Today was considerably warmer at lunch time, so Jim went back to the Gazpacho Andaluz recipe. It is terrific! It may have peasant origins, but it is smooth and luxurious. It's not at all like the gazpacho that we've had before, which is merely a soupy salsa. You can use the link to check out the recipe, but the only thing that we did differently was to dust the finished soup in the bowl with cayenne pepper and use a combination of red and white wine vinegar in place of the sherry vinegar suggested. We will pick up some sherry vinegar on the way home from tomato gathering and do a comparison soup as soon as possible. We used hard-boiled eggs and green onion as the garnish, but cucumber and croutons should work very well the next time.
Yours in nightshades,
Jim and Peta

It's Gone All Pear-Shaped...

Apparently, "going pear-shaped" is a bad thing in the UK and in Australia. Things haven't gone completely pear-shaped here, but we did glean two pear trees in Fairfax and came away with quite a haul. Perhaps 200 pears went to the Ritter Center in San Rafael and a few went into our recipes.

Jim made a Pear and Ginger Jam, a Pear Crisp and a Pear and Oatmeal Crisp AKA Crumble.

Pear and Ginger Jam

We can't really point to any recipe for the jam, really. We're getting a bit cocky with our jams these days. We just threw a bunch of peeled, cored, ripe pears and chopped ginger into a large pot with a bit of water and boiled away and then put the mixture through a food mill and added white sugar. Jim tried to get the mixture up to the jellying point of 220 F, but molten pear jam was getting everywhere. Plan to clean the flat surfaces in the kitchen and the floor after "jammin'". To get the jam to coagulate, we added a box of fruit pectin to what would become 9 pints of jam. The consistency is pretty good, but we would have preferred a bit more thickness.

Pear Crisp

While Peta made the tart below, Jim made the crisp. The recipe, from The New Best Recipes book, was average. Apparently, the true "crisp" has nuts and not oats, which make the fruit dessert a "crumble". Against his better judgement, Jim eschewed the whole grains, the only nod to health in the whole thing, and made the recipe to the letter. We won't reproduce the recipe here, but the crisp never really crisped up and the result was a solid "meh".

Pear Crumble

This recipe was a real disaster. Way too wet for the crust/crumble just from the appearance of it. We added more flour and oats ("Whole Grains!!", yells Jim). But couldn't salvage it. Oh, we're going to eat it, but we may have to go begging Jim's brother for his recipe.

Alsatian Pear Tart

Peta made an Alsatian Pear Tart. The pitfalls of this recipe were a very sticky, unrollable crust and a dearth of pears. We'd double up on them at least if we find another source of pears.

Jim and Peta