Eat Cook Live

There are very few I would trust to make a drinkable bacon beer.  The beer nuts over at Rouge Ales are among of those few.

Much like Dogfish Head, Rouge Ales is willing nurture and execute insane beer ideas.  While the mad scientist concoctions may not fit my everyday drinking style (or budget),  I’m constantly impressed by the expanded conceptions of beer.  The Bacon Maple Ale–ingredients including Briess Cherrywood Smoked Malt, Weyermann Beechwood Smoked Malt, House-smoked Hickory Malt, and Applewood-Smoked Bacon–was no exception.

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Appearance:  Rusty haze.

Smell:  Maple and a lot of smoke.  Like opening a pack of quality thick-cut smoked bacon.

Taste:  My first thought actually wasn’t bacon, but breakfast sausage drizzled in maple syrup.  As I tasted and smelled the bacon flavor grew into a sweet and savory combo.  However, as the beer warmed, a sharp bitter finish began to develop.

Mouth:  Medium carbonation.  A little creamy.

Overall:  This beer is a ton of fun.  Though the bitter finish rains on the parade a bit.  I can’t see myself drinking this often, but feel it would make a great morning beer with a plate of eggs.

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Ah, the summer has been great.   Insanely busy, but great.   Lots of travel, social activity, that whole real job thing keeping me off the blog.  But after next weekend things should calm down a bit.  Almost perfectly, the Fifth Annual Minnesota State Fair Day is coming up on August 18th to mark the wind down of summer–just as the real MN State Fair marked the wind down of my childhood summers.

Last year’s MN State Fair Day was fantastic.  And, having been involved in the 2012 planning, I know this year is going awesome:  Sweet Martha’s Cookies,  cheese curds, Midwest beer, fried pickles, corn dogs, fried Twinkies, fried Oreos, and funnel cakes!   I can feel my arteries clogging just thinking about.

So CLICK HERE and buy your 2012 Minnesota State Fair Day tickets.  The fun starts at 2:00 PM on Saturday, August 18.

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After dinner at Punch with my Madre, we headed over the St. Paul institution that is the Grand Ole Creamery.  An ice cream shop that draws Twin Cities denizens to escape the heat of the summer.

As its name suggests, the Grand Ole Creamery serves up the heavy creamy stuff in a seemingly endless list of flavors in waffle cones made on site.  I’ve enjoyed countless summer ice cream cones at this establishment.  It was great to finally return after more than four years.

This place is a treat, even in those dark Minnesota winter days.

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The night before I grabbed my last MN burger lunch with my dad at the Bulldog, I grabbed my last MN dinner with my madre at one of our favorite spots.

Punch Pizza takes the Neapolitan pizza seriously.  Punch is among the few U.S. restaurants to be certified by Vera Pizza Neapolitana (V.P.N), the Naples organization that oversees that quality of those wishing to take the V.P.N title.  Aside from the three letters, the title means that Punch makes some of the best Neapolitan pizza you can find outside of Naples.  Better than some I’ve had in Naples.  Really freaking good pizza!

The certification means an eagle’s eye attention to ingredients and process.  The pizza is cooked at 800 degrees in a bell shaped wood fired oven.  The high heat creates a crispy crust with a doughy layer under the toppings.  The uninitiated might think the crust is burned.  It’s not.  That crisp, with the occasional blackened spot, is exactly how it should be.  It’s a unique style of pizza perfectly designed to celebrate quality ingredients.

My mother had the margherita.  As always, it encapsulated the prefect simplicity of basil, mozzarella, and crushed tomatoes.  I  opted for the vesuvio (spiced salami, saracene olive, cracked red pepper, piparras pepper, and basil).  The vesuvio was good, but in my selection my mind was too much on one of my favorite Brooklyn haunts, Toby’s.  There was just to much going on.  I should have kept things simple and ordered the margherita extra, a prefect combination basil, mozzarella di bufala and crushed San Marzano tomatoes.   Similar to the regular margherita, but made with absolutely the best ingredients to be found.

Eating at Punch took me back to innumerable dinners with friends and family over amazing pies and back to Naples.  If you live in the Twin Cities and haven’t made your way to Punch yet, now is the time!

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My posting has been sparse lately, in part due to an 11 day trip back to Minnesota.  A trip that has left me backlogged with food I want to write about.  Tragically, the timing and heat of the trip limited the amount of actual cooking I got in.  Though, I did get in a couple good grills with the boys.

I’m starting off with one of my favorite Minnesota spots that I’ve so far neglected to mention here:  The Bulldog.  This fine establishment can be found on Lyndale in Uptown Minneapolis–which, despite its name and for reasons I’ve never been able to figure out, is located south of Downtown Minneapolis.

Back when I used to live in Minneapolis, I think it was safe to call me a regular.  I can’t count the number of burgers and beers I’ve taken down with friends at this spot.  So, after working through some of my Twin Cities must eats, this spot was an easy choice for a last lunch with my father.

The menu boasts a creative burger menu that is only matched by the Bulldog’s impressive beer list.  The burger list includes such amazing creations as the Stilton burger and the Hawaiian.  All the burger come with fries and everyone is under $10!  (The hot dog menu isn’t shabby either and is worth of an occasional departure from the burgers.)  The beer options are heavy on the Belgians but include great bottles from stellar U.S. brewers.

On this trip, I set my sights on the Humpty Dumpty (a fried egg, melted cheddar cheese, red onion, shredded lettuce, tomato and mayo).  This hangover cure used to come with a slice of ham.  And, as crazy as it sounds, I think the burger is better off without it. The egg is a great addition, but the ham just got in the way of the burger.

After eating, my dad and I turned to a few games of darts while we worked our way through a bit more of the beer list.

Great burgers, beer, and darts with the old man: a near perfect way to wind-down my last days in my home State.

The Bulldog
2549 Lyndale Ave S.
Minneapolis, MN 55405

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It’s been at least two months since I posted a recipe featuring bacon prominently, right? Good, because this one is pretty good, AND you can put it on vegetables and salad, so it’s totally healthy. Just pay no attention to the Paula Deen-esque ingredients, and keep telling yourself that.

• 3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 3-6 tablespoons 2% milk
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• Black pepper to taste
• 1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled blue cheese
• 1/3 cup crumbled/chopped, cooked bacon
• 1/4 cup minced chives
• 1 medium shallot, minced

Combine everything but the cheese, bacon, chives and shallots in a mixing bowl and whisk together. Start out by adding 2-3 tablespoons of milk and reserve the rest. Once this mixture is well combined, fold in the remaining ingredients. Now check the consistency and add the remaining amount of milk bit by bit until the dressing has the consistency that you like (keep in mind that if you are going to refrigerate this before serving, it will thicken up a bit). You can also adjust the amount of blue cheese you add, based on your taste for it. I like the taste of the blue cheese in the dressing, but less so the chunks of blue cheese you bite into. I think the next time I make this I’m going to try putting the blue cheese, milk, mayo and sour cream in a food processor to homogenize the mixture.

I’ve found this to be a very versatile dip/dressing. It goes well with salad, although its pretty thick and flavorful so it’s easy to overpower the lettuce; maybe add some arugala to balance it out. It’s a great dip for crudites or potato chips, you could put it on top of a burger, and the first time I made it I used it as a dressing on some boiled, cooled red potatoes for a kind of potato salad.  Give it a try and let me know what other applications you find for it!

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Note the crispy bottoms.

A good while back, I saw a link on a friends gchat status for www.skillshare.com.  It’s a great site that has a ton of local classes on everything from entrepreneurship to art to cooking.  After putting up gmail filters so Groupon, Living Social, and their brethren no longer dominate my in box, I started noticing the Skill Share emails again and decided it was time to sign-up for a cooking class.

I picked the dumpling making class in part because it fit well in my weekly schedule and in part because I’ve never made dumplings.The instructor Cathy Erway, a food blogger and author of The Art of Eating In (a chronicle of her two years of not dining out in NYC), taught the class from her Brooklyn apartment.  She was a great instructor and the class was a great break from the usual week night activities.

How to Make Dumpling Skin

Cathy first showed the eight or so of us how to make the the wrapper dough from scratch: Start with two cups of stifted flour and one cup of warm water and about a 3/4 teaspoon of salt.  Put it all together in a big bowl and  mix with a wooden spoon or your hands until you get a ball.  Transfer to lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and shiny.  Knead the ball.  Break off pieces and roll them out into about four inch diameter circles, nice and thin.  (Making them as thin as possible to handle is an art that makes magic dumplings.)

How to Buy Dumpling Skin

Though, as Cathy told us, unless you’re making only a handful of dumplings, you might go insane making them from scratch.  Making the wrappers seems to be a simple,  but time consuming process that can be replaced with store bough dumpling wrapper with minimal harm.  When you buy the wrappers, be sure to get the white, round dumpling wrappers.  The yellow ones are usually wonton wrapers and square shapes will just be trouble when you get to the filling stage.

How to Make the Stuff that Goes in Dumplings

The biggest lesson from this class was don’t be afraid to go a little crazy with your fillings.  You can keep it simple and traditional or create concoctions that will have deceased Chinese grandmothers spinning in their graves.

[DDET Classic Pork, Shrimp & Chive Dumpling Filling]

Makes 38.

• 1 lb ground pork
• ¼ lb shrimp, shelled, de-veined and finely chopped (optional)
• 1 bunch chives or scallions, chopped
• 1 cup finely shredded napa cabbage, packed
• 1 ½ tablespoons corn starch
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• ¼ teaspoon white pepper

[/DDET]

[DDET Asparagus, Mint and Feta Dumplings with Balsamic Vinegar]

• 15 round dumpling wrappers
• 1 bunch asparagus, tough ends trimmed, finely chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons chopped mint
• ½ cup crumbled feta cheese
• pinch of salt
• black pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients. Swap in other raw seasonal veggies such as zucchini or summer squash shredded with a box grater.

[/DDET]

[DDET Cheeseburger/White Castle Dumplings ]

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2-3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons mustard
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 3 oz. grated sharp cheddar (or any cheese you prefer)

Mix everything but the cheese together, then fold the cheese in.

[/DDET]

We made the above in class and all were really tasty.  My favorite was the classic. Though the cheeseburger dumplings were really fun and made me want to experiment.

How to Fold Dumplings

So you have your dumpling skin and a great filling how do make a dumpling?  Lay the dumpling skin in your hand and put a spoonful of your filing in the middle.  If you’re using the purchased skins, you’ll need to dip your finger in water and trace a wet ring on the outside of the skin–this what will make it stick together in the next steps.    Fold the wrapper in half and pinch (so the two sides stick together) at the top.  Then pull a piece of the edge about half an inch to the right of the pinch over to the pinch, repeat down the side of the dumpling and do the same for the other side.  It’s a little hard to visualize, but the result should look like crescent moon.  Place the dumpling seal side-up while you make some more.

How to Cook the Dumplings

Cathy explained that the cooking process is really a combo of steaming/boiling and frying the dumplings.  The frying is what gives dumplings that crispiness we all know and love from our favorite takeout.  The steam is what gets the dumplings cooked through and through.

Heat oil in a large pan.  Once the oil is hot, place the dumplings, unsealed side down, into the pan.  Cooking unsealed side down, rather than on their side, will help get the awesome crisp you want.  Cook the little guys in the oil for two minutes or so.  Add enough water to the pan to cover about one quarter of the height of the dumplings, reduce heat to medium, and cover for four minutes. (It’s time to give ’em a steam bath!) When the water is gone, crackling sounds are a clue, the dumplings should be ready to scrape out onto a plate.

Serve with some soy sauce, maybe mixed with a bit of rice vinegar, and enjoy!

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So, I figured out why all of my phone pictures were turning out so, so incredibly terrible. Some genius at Samsung made the default picture size 640×480. So, even though my phone has a 5 megapixel camera, it was taking .3 megapixel pictures. Awesome.

Well, now that I figured that out, I can take MUCH better pictures when I don’t neccesarily have my digital camera with me. Like maybe when there is a special chef’s exhibition table in the cafe at work. Case in point:

THAT, my friends, is a grilled skirt steak, rubbed with Ancho chili and cocoa powder, on top of a sweetcorn griddle cake, topped with a shrimp-avacado salsa. It was amazing, and it was $6. I love where I work.

That is also clearly a much, much better picture than the one of the venison tenderloin you can see in the post below. And if you click on the picture to see the full version, you can really tell the difference. Its like I’m living in the future or something!

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I wish I had some fancy camera to capture this for you instead of my phone camera.

No recipe with this one today, just a picture and an exhortation: Go kill yourself a deer. Or, if you find all of your fall weekends occupied with debate tournaments – quit laughing, I’m giving back to the community – find yourself some family and friends with a surplus of this tasty critter in their freezer. This particular chunk of bambi came from my cousin Suzi and her wonderful, generous husband Ben. Now, if you take this latter option you will occasionally have to improvise your meal based on what cut of meat you get. If all you know how to do is make venison steaks you might be SOL when you end up with sausages or a roast. Luckily, all venison tastes amazing as long as you don’t overcook it.

This time I lucked out and got a package of venison tenderloin. Tenderloin! Maybe the best cut of meat on the whole animal! Quick side note – This is an uncomfortable fact that most hunters don’t share with people who eat venison but don’t want to hear about where it came from: the younger the deer, the better the meat. You can definitely tell the difference between a young buck with his first pair of velvet antlers and an old grizzled bastard that’s been dodging bullets since the last days of the Clinton presidency. Not saying you should only aim for fawns with spots, but it is a fact nonetheless. Back to the meat – if you should be lucky enough to get some tenderloin, keep it simple. This was rubbed with some sea salt, olive oil, fresh cracked black pepper, and chili powder. Cooked over some roaring hardwood charcoal, it develops a fantastic crust on the outside while staying tender and juicy in the middle.

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Before this week, I had a wine guy and a whiskey guy.  But I was missing a beer guy.  A man who not only knows his stuff, but has the stock to back it up. No more.  Today, on my walk home from the train, with a little guidance from my beer guy, I picked-up a new (to me) IPA.

10% ABV and 100 IBU.  Like Dale’s Ale, with also comes to us from Oskar Blue Brewery in Colorado, this bad boy comes in a can.

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Appearance:  A golden orange.

Smell:  Very light in this department. Hops and a little someth’n sweet.

Taste:  Hoppy.  Very little sweet.  The hops are strong, though not over the top, but the lack of sweetness emphasizes them.  A long and strong bitter finish which makes you want to keep sipping.

Mouth:  Good carbonation that foams nicely in the mouth.  Easy to drink.

Overall:  A solid IPA which at first reminded of Harpoon IPA, one of my go-to beers.  I would love for Toby’s Public House to have this around.  Unless you’re on a mission to try new IPAs, it’s not worth going out of your way to find; you can find equally good beers without the effort.  But if you see it, drink it.

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