Balsamic Mustard Fish Sauce

This is just a quick little post before I head out the door to buy my knives (!) for school. A full-on school-focused post should be up a bit later...not sure yet if it will be "later" in the tonight sense or the before-class-on-Tuesday sense.

I haven't been making extravagant meals or desserts at home lately. I guess it's because I've been busy with going to school, reading for school, and planning for school. But, of course, with anything I do end up making, I have to make it interesting somehow. No ho-hum food creation is allowed in my kitchen. Or, rather, I'm never satisfied with just ho-hum if I'm the one making and eating it. So when I decided to fry a piece of frozen fish for my late-morning protein needs, of course I had to come up with some sort of tasty thing to go with it. And, thus, Balsamic Mustard Fish Sauce was born.

I was craving something sweet and complex, a little spicy, and a little savory. None of the condiments (pre-packaged or otherwise) in my fridge fit this description. So I took some balsamic reduction I had on hand (sweet & complex), added some whole-grain mustard (spice and texture), and dashed in some fish sauce (savory/umami). The fact that the "fish" in the name of this sauce is a double entendre (fish, referring to the fish sauce ingredient & fish, referring to the thing I put it on) was just a bonus.

And so it begins...

Tomorrow marks the first day of my 'official' culinary journey. It's my first day of cooking school! I'm not fully prepared, technically speaking. I'm still waiting on my books to arrive in the mail, and I haven't purchased my knives yet. But otherwise...I'm so ready. I started planning this a year ago, and amidst all the mind-changing...deciding not to move to NYC after all, then planning to go to Seattle Central starting Fall, then thinking I would have to wait because I didn't have enough money, then finding out with less than a week until classes start that I received a financial aid grant...I've at least known this whole time that I'm going to start this.

Maybe I'll quit halfway through and decide to work my way through the kitchen ranks (as if I won't have to do that anyway), perhaps I'll decide that I don't want to cook for a living, after all...but I'm doing *this* right now. And that small fulfilled commitment to myself is enough to keep me going through this quarter, at least. Anything more than 3 months ahead is too far in the future to plan for, anyway.

So I have this idea that I'll blog about my culinary school experience, for general entertainment and for prospective wannabe-chefs...but I can't guarantee that I'll be doing any sort of regular documentation. My overall online blogger presence has been pretty sporadic, even this last month that I've been unemployed. I can, however, guarantee that I'll write at least once this week...and at least a handful more posts in the future, whenever the urge strikes me. That's the best I can do right now, and I'm ok with it.

The Sour Cherry Pie Journey, Part One: The Pits

The above photo is documentation of an event which rarely occurs in the greater Seattle area (or, at least, it's rare in my experience).

I've read and heard about sour cherries enough over the last few months that as soon as I saw the first local cherries at the market, I started scouring every fruit hawker's stand for a glimpse of these fine specimen. Before this year, I had no idea that sour cherries were anything notably different than just...cherries...which happened to be kinda sour. But oh, was I wrong.

Brandied Cherries

It's cherry season! And actually, it has been for a (proverbial) minute now. The first thing I decided to do with fresh local cherries (besides get some and eat them right away) was preserve them in alcohol for use in cocktails. Though I'm sure I'll find many other tasty uses as I make my way through the jar in my fridge.

This recipe/how-to mentioned a few different kinds of alcohol one could use for a homemade version of maraschino cherries. I thought brandy might be nice. But when I was at the liquor store, I saw only expensive and unappealing bottles on the brandy shelf.

Enter: tuaca. Pax brought it home from the liquor store a little while back, and it's now a staple in our home bar. It's nice and vanilla-y, and not uncomfortably sweet, compared to other liqueurs. Since it's brandy-based AND delicious, I decided to use it.

To make it, I heated a pot on the stove with water, raw cane sugar, a few whole cloves, and some cracked cardamom pods. Once the sugar was dissolved, I took it off the heat, added the liqueur, then poured the solution (spices included) over the cherries I had ready in a mason jar.

And that's it! Yummy boozy cherries for cocktails/desserts/whatever!

If you give a man a fried squash blossom...

This is what his face will look like:

...especially if he's never had them before.

'Gus Soup

...His name, as I ought to have told you before,
is really Asparagus, but that's such a fuss
to pronounce that we usually call him just "Gus"

I happened to have a lonely bunch of asparagus and a few other odd bits of veggies and herbs on hand last night, so I made this soup for dinner. It may seem odd that I made a soup in the middle of July, but Seattle is currently the only place in the country, it seems, that is *not* experiencing a drought/heat-wave/hell-on-earth.

This was an entirely vegetarian soup, not just a veggie-centric one. I think it was the first time that I've made a vegetable soup without a meat stock base. And I came to realize last night that it's really not that difficult to make a mouth-gasm-inducing vegetarian soup. All it takes is a shitload of veggies, and a bit of time.

I started out by boiling the tough, woody ends of asparagus, plus the frozen veggie & herb bits I had in some water. I let that simmer for a good hour or so, while I chopped up some onion, minced some garlic, did some laundry, and cut a portobello mushroom and the rest of the asparagus into pieces. Then I sauteed the onion & garlic in some oil and butter for a minute or two, and added the asparagus and mushroom. I strained the solids out of the simmering stock (to which I'd added a couple big pinches of salt and a crack or two of black pepper), then added the sauteed veggies and some crushed up dried rosemary. While the soup continued to simmer, I deglazed my sauteeing pan with some balsamic vinegar, let it reduce a bit, and poured it into a little bowl.

Once the veggies were soft enough (which only took a few minutes), I took the pot off the heat, and pureed the contents with my immersion blender. The last time I tried my hand at an asparagus soup, I overestimated the power of my blender and left the tough, woody end bits in the soup instead of straining them out. Even though that soup was cooking on the stove for several hours, the end product still had stringy fibers in it (bleh!). But not this time! Oh no! This soup had a perfect texture. And with all the leftover veggies in it, plus some rosemary for a bit of herbal focus, the flavor was spectacular! Much more complex than it would have been with just asparagus.

I garnished it with some goat cheese, the asparagus tips I reserved, and a drizzle of the balsamic reduction sauce. We had a last-minute dinner guest last night, and after the first bite, she looked at me with wide eyes and asked with sincere urgency, "What is in this?!" I love that a meal comprised of leftover vegetables can be so satisfying.

Spring Hill in West Seattle

Wherein I experience one of the best burgers of my life, and eat certain organs of a baby cow for the first time.

Inspired by this Serious Eats post, Pax and I decided to end our wonderful anniversary-ish day (spent mostly on a lazy sunshiney picnic at Green Lake) with what was claimed to be the "Best Burger in Seattle".

First up, here's our appetizer spread:

(Please excuse the horrible photo...it was dark...and this was taken on an iPhone...please don't shoot me...)


Cheese and baguette with apple butter pâté and honey-caramelized hazelnuts.

This was a very well-put together cheese plate. Only one kind of cheese (Dinah's Cheese from Kurtwood Farms), and it was a good one. Tasted like a very mild brie, and it was very creamy and spreadable. The combination of everything on the baguette worked beautifully. I noticed that the same plate was also offered on the dessert menu. If I were the chef (and this is just a matter of preference), I would have done the caramelized hazelnuts on the dessert version, and only spiced them for the appetizer.

Fried oysters with harissa-spiced mayo & salmon roe.

These were pretty perfect, if a little pricey, in my (admittedly seafood-novice) opinion ($12 for an order of 4). The presentation was lovely - they were served on a bed of sea salt. And I loved the little pop of brine each of the salmon eggs provided. :D

Fried veal sweetbreads with 3 house-made dips

This was the first time in my life that I'd ever eaten an organ of an animal other than liver. At the time, I was under the impression that sweetbreads were the brains. Pax had told me about his experience of eating goat brains at a bar once, and while I admired his audacity, I was still pretty skeeved out by the idea of consuming brains. However, after a cocktail or two, I surprised myself by 1) being open to trying them, and 2) actually liking them. It probably also helped that they were fried.

Of course, I've since learned that sweetbreads are not in fact brains, but, rather, they're either the thymus or the pancreas of an animal. Either way, they were delicious. They tasted like pâté, but with a more solid texture, like the fattiest, most tender meat ever. I don't know if I'll ever try brains in the future, but I'm at least more open to it now that I've tried these.

Now, about the dips...they were probably my favorite thing about the entire meal. There was a honey mustard, a barbecue, and a ranch. The honey mustard was very delicious (as it always is), though not particularly inspired. The barbecue was very smokey and quite sweet...not very tomato-y at all. I really liked it, and, for the record, the Texan sitting across the table from me approved wholeheartedly as well. The ranch! Ohhhhhmygoodnessgracious, the ranch! As someone who was repulsed by salad dressings (and pretty much every other condiment) her entire youth, only branching out to try simple dressings around age 18, and only very recently creamy & mayonnaise-based dressings...this sauce was better than I ever thought ranch dressing could be. It's what I've always wanted ranch to be! So fresh tasting! The dill! The tangy yogurty creaminess! I don't know if homemade ranch is always that good, but by god, I'm going to try to make some myself before the end of the summer! Thank you, Spring Hill, for showing me that the world really can be a magical place.

Right...ahem...well, anyway...now on to the burger!

It was kind of hard to cut it in half (neither Pax nor I were prepared for a full burger & order of fries each, so we split it), and it was pretty messy, overall. But no matter. It was spectacular.

According to the post on Serious Eats, the cheese is a combination of a couple different kinds, and I don't remember which cheeses, nor do I care, because it was EFFING DELICIOUS AND PERFECT.

The beef was crumbly and moist and very, very tasty. The house-cured bacon was "HOLY FUCKING SHIT ON A STICK!" according to my drunken notes I scribbled down before PTFO-ing once we got home. The bun was the only thing that could have been improved, I think. It was pleasantly chewy, but it wasn't nearly big enough or sturdy enough to keep all those moist bits together. But I'm not even sure I'd want to change it. I really think there's something to be said for a messy burger once in a while. It makes me feel all primal, with meat juice running down my wrist like that. And anyway, the best way a burger can command your attention is to not allow you to put it down without risking total sandwich destruction, so the burger totally won on that one.

And as for the fries?

Well, they were fried in beef fat. And the ketchup (homemade blended san marzano tomatoes with apple cider vinegar) was another condiment revelation to me.

What more is there to say?

Spring Hill is officially a win, in my book.

They even boxed our oyster shells up all nice! How sweet is that?!