Sunday, January 30, 2011

Just In Case You Were Wondering . . .

. . . about this blog's brilliant and witty author, here's a bit about me.

First off, I'm a tad bit narcissistic. No one but us self-absorbed types ever pen an "about me" section, FYI.

I don't work. I do the homemaker thing, staying at home to take care of my almost-two-year-old and her ancient creaking first-grader of a big sister. My husband works in IT for a union, which is a fancy way of saying that he fixes menopausal ladies' Outlook problems when he's not busy keeping hundreds of thousands of folks' vital information out of the hands of filthy dirty hackers. It also means he gets shit pay but *great* benefits, which is a huge plus for a hysterical hypochondriac like myself.

I say I don't work, but that's kind of a lie. My day starts at 6 AM when the baby starts flinging formula into my face (that's how she says GOOD MORNING, MOMMY! TODAY WE SHALL BE HYPER AND ANNOYING AND TEAR SHIT UP! I swear, it's like I have my own 28-pound punk band in a crib) and doesn't end until sometime after 8 in the evening when all the dishes are washed and the floors are swept and the laundry is clean and folded and bottle refills have been delivered and lullabyes have been sung and teeth have been brushed and husbands have been laid.

But dinnertime? It's pretty much the highlight of my day. All of these people whom I clothe and bathe and keep from wallowing in abject filth sit around the same table and eat what I've cooked and listen to what I say and the whole experience makes me feel like a halfway sane grownup for about ten minutes before the baby starts pushing the table into her sister's chest and the oldest spits out whatever vegetable I've cooked and I go back to wanting to drink nine pints of whiskey and light something on fire.

So this is why I blog about food. That, and the fact that I'm a REALLY FUCKING GOOD COOK, and also very funny and smarter than you. The Internet needs more people like me. We could almost compensate for Gawker.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

What's Spanish For "Goddamned Delicious?"

If I had to guess, I'd say "tacos al pastor."

Events are conspiring in your favor, my friends. Yesterday was both the first time I've had the delicacy known as pastor, a sweet-and-spicy pineapple-marinaded slow-roasted pork, as well as the first warm-ish sunny day we've had in ninety-three million YEARS. It put me in mind of oh-so-Midwestern Cinco De Mayo celebrations, where all we pasty-assed Kansans congregate and consume way too much cheap tequila and bland burritos and bitch about them damn furrners takin our jobs. Usually at On the Border or some other rape of all that is good and holy in the guise of a "restaurant."

But it's also the first real festival of spring where it's warm enough to hang outside, so it holds a special place in my tiny black heart, regardless.

So today, because the snow is starting to melt (I KNOW it's going to get ballscicle cold again next week, SHUT YOUR FACE AND QUIT HARSHING MY MOTHERFUCKING MELLOW) and I tend to get obsessive over new food, I'm making a big damn batch of pastor with homemade tortillas (you have Megan Stuke to thank for the latter, and you can find her immensely entertaining tutorial here, along with a recipe for queso fundido that has me kicking myself in the ass for not picking up some DAMNED POBLANOS while I was at the store. Shit.)

So. The pastor. The lovely delicious drool-inducing PORK. I don't care if it's the other maggot-infested purple HERPES meat, I'd still love me some pork.

First off, you need to make your marinade. (Disclaimer: I am not Mexican, more's the pity. I do not have a lifetime of experience cooking Mexican food. I don't even have a bitchy Mexican mother-in-law to tell me what I'm doing wrong (everything). So I am not claiming that this is anything even approximating an authentic pastor. It is, however, really really damn tasty, and even the most cracker-ass white girl (me) can make it at home.)

I went a little batshit, finaly having an excuse to buy up so many of my local Price Chopper's mind-boggling variety of dried chilis. Showing what I consider to be remarkable restraint (so remarkable that I rewarded my heroic act of self-denial by buying myself a pint of el Jimador on the way home), I limited myself to picking up only Guajillo, Arbol, and Ancho chilis. And a couple of cans of chipotles. In adobo sauce. Shut up.

As far as I'm concerned, you can use whatever damn chilis you want. I'm going for a sweet, smoky flavor with a little spice, but some people like to scream prayers while they poop. Who am I to judge? So I used probably four or five anchos, two or three guarillos, and two arbols, with maybe three chipotles thrown in because damn, I love their flavor. I tore the stems off, shook the seeds into the trash, and threw them into the food processor with some vinegar and lime juice, because the HELL if I'm going to spend all morning chopping peppers only to forget and rub my eyes and then spend the REST of the day contemplating suicide.

Since I'm using dried peppers, I scraped the resulting mess into a saucepan with the juice of one lime and one lemon, most of a Dos Equis (any lager will do, but I'm a sucker for themes), a shot of tequila because I wanted an excuse to open the bottle before 11 am, the juice from two cans of pineapple chunks, Mexican oregano, paprika, cumin, and two packets of Sazon brand Achiote (Note: if you use this achiote, do not panic if your poop turns an alarming shade of orange for a while. I don't know what's in it, exactly, that is such an efficient poo dye, but damn.) Simmer this whole mess until the dried peppers aren't so dry anymore, or about half an hour. Do not turn your back on the very curious and slightly evil toddler at this point, and for the love of all that's holy, DO NOT go to the bathroom while she has access to your stirring spoon. Um . . . I mean . . . haha, what? Move along, CPS, nothing to see here.

While it's simmering, you want to chop the hell out of some pork. You can use a tenderloin, a butt roast, (heh. BUTT!) or a big package of chop ends and centers that's been marked 50% off because it's probably going to spoil in two hours. I recommend the latter, because if there's any application in which you can get away with using almost-spoiled pork, it's in a dish that has a metric assload of spices and is also cooked for hours. This is why we invented spices and cooking with fire in the first place, right?

Chop it up into the thinnest, shreddiest bits you can. If you're using a roast, I recommend that you start cutting on it before it's all-the-way thawed. (What? You're not using a roast that came out of your deep freeze? What are you, a motherfucking Rockefeller? Tell your damned maid that meat is easier to cut up when it's kind of frozen. Damn.)

Then chop up a couple of cans of pineapple, mix that into the marinade, and smoosh the whole thing up with your by-now August-Underground-worthy pork. Cover that mess up with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for a minimum of four hours, but overnight is best.

The cooking is the easy part. You want a low, slow oven. I recommend no hotter than 250. Spread the sticky porky mess out in a pan, put a handful of pineapple slices over that, cover with foil, and roast it for a few hours. Add more beer if it starts to dry out.

If I have to explain to you how to use this to stuff tacos, or roll it up into enchiladas, or stick it between two slices of good bread and start throwing around the word "tortas" like you've ever even once been south of Oklahoma, they you're a worthless excuse for a human being and don't even deserve to eat this awesome food.

The Process . . .

Cooking (with the exception of baking* and that fruity molecular gastronomy shit) is an ART, not a science. To train artists, they used to make them copy the works of The Masters until they no longer had to think in terms of color theory and composition, but their eyes and hands conspired happily no matter how drunk or fucked up from mercury poisoning they happened to be. You should think of recipes the same way, especially if you emulate me and go searching for recipes that call for half a cup of wine just so you have an excuse to open and then drink a bottle before 4 pm.

For one thing, the novice cook should choose her recipes wisely. If you're learning theory and technique from some asshat on AllRecipes.com who thinks I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! is an acceptable cooking fat, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Second, you need to keep in mind that you're only following a recipe so that you can get a feel for proportion and order of execution. Once you start skimming recipes to reassure yourself that you're not forgetting any little fiddly ingredient, once you start reading recipes and going, "oooh, this would be so much better with X," you're ready to stop knocking off the Mona Lisa and start composing original work.

Most of the time, I start craving something I've known how to make since I was seven, and just throw it together, and at some point I'll knock back a few doubles and write out a witty tutorial for all you pleebs. Others, I'll eat something that's just so utterly fabulous I can't stop obsessing until I've figured out how to make it myself, but better.

In the latter scenario, I'll spend an afternoon or two Googling recipes. The first results on the page are always for some bullshit from AllRecipes.com where Bertha from Salt Lake City says "Jambalaya is such a hassle to make, but here's my aunt's recipe for a jambalaya tater tot casserole!!! My sister-wives love this!!"

There's only one reason to ever, EVER click through to AllRecipes: to point and laugh. And maybe to troll the comments board.

Use common sense. If you're looking for a recipe for authentic pho, you probably don't want to waste your time with that link from QuickAndEasy.com. If you're brushing up on pan-fried chicken, SouthernCooking.net is most likely worth your time. If you really needed to read this paragraph, go look at porn or Oprah clips and get the fuck off my blog.

So I'll go through and find five or six awesome authentic recipes for whatever it is I'm trying to make. And I'll compare them; most of the time, aside from small deviations in proportions, they're nearly identical at the root. I'll make note of what ingredients are constant, what ingredients change, what methods I know from experience work well. I might find one recipe that calls for an impressive array of spices yet uses a MICROWAVE, FOR TIT'S SAKE in the cooking process, and another which sounds pretty bland in the seasoning department but has instructions for an interesting technique I've never screwed around with before.

After I've got all these different variations on the theme floating around in my head, I go all Dr. Frankenstein on that shit, and after I've tasted it and confirmed my highly-inflated opinion of my own genius, I send that tasty-ass monster shambling on down the Intertubes to you. You're welcome.


*Most baking, for most cooks. Some of us are just awesome, and can make shit up in ways that make the rest of you weep with envy. One of my temperamental muses, the lovely Bonnie Cherry, for instance, will get bored on a Thursday night and devise a recipe for some chocolate ganache-encrusted tidbit that, when shared, will elicit five marriage proposals and an offer of free rent. Myself, I can just throw flour and fat and salt at my pampered sourdough starter and come out with a loaf of bread that redefines the parameters of delicious. Most of you, though, need a mix and a recipe and a good hefty dose of angel magic to get a damned cake to rise, you poor bastards. So don't go screwing with baking recipes unless you've laid in a good supply of bulk flour and patience.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Listen. I love bacon as much as the next fat chick, but . . .

. . . you'll not find me posting links to "guy food" or "extreme cuisine" or even bacon-centric sites.

I do love me some bacon. I use it in a LOT of my recipes. And I love fat. If it comes from an animal and will conspire with my beloved bourbon to put me in an early grave, then by gods, my food is full of it.

But that's the thing. For my money, you have no business making chicken piccata without using AT LEAST a stick of butter. When that's your idea of a light pasta dish, then you just don't crave a three-pound quadruple-bacon cheeseburger. (A simple quarter-pound double will do.)

I saw a recipe a few weeks ago for some dude-food blogger's version of a "walking taco" (Frito pie if you're not some pansy-ass pasty-faced city boy whose momma probably fed him whole-grain bread. Please.) that called for multiple pounds of meat and A WHOLE GODDAMNED ROTISSERIE CHICKEN. This is just wrong on so many sad hipster levels .

First off, NOBODY EVER NEEDS THAT MUCH MEAT AT ONCE. Fucking KEVIN SMITH does not need that much meat at once, and I'm pretty sure that his entire creative process is fueled by pot, meat, and the pent-up man-boob sweat of a thousand adolescent nights spent wet-dreaming about female X-Men.

I know, it's about EXCESS, about how much you CAN eat, not how much you SHOULD eat. And here I blame a lifetime of being told that bland shitty food is a forbidden pleasure. Also the Food Network. When you combine fond childhood memories of Happy Meals snuck to you by Weekend Daddy with a constant barrage of OMFG LOOK AT THIS GUY EAT NINE POUNDS OF CORNED BEEF THIS IS TOTALLY WORTHY OF AIRTIME, you get these guys who think that stacking five Big Macs on top of half a dozen Egg McMuffins is the height of edginess. It's the Hot Topic T-shirt of rebellion cuisine.

Listen, posers. You can wrap your ground beef in ham and bacon up your sausage all you want. Some of us learned to cook with MOTHERFUCKING LARD and didn't even KNOW about this thing called "vegetable shortening" until we were in college. I'm betting you wouldn't have this obsession with ultra-fatty, ultra-meaty, ultra-MANLY food if you'd grown up with a can of bacon grease as a staple in your family fridge.

Tell the truth. Your mom made you eat organic bean sprouts, didn't she? Sometimes, late at night, when she'd had just a little too much Chablis and Ambien, she'd sneak into your room after your dad was asleep, silently pull down your comforter, and balance your chakras? It's okay. This is a safe place. You can say it. "My mom was a goddamned smelly hippie and I eat to fill the patchouli-scented hole she gouged out of my soul with her deodorant crystal THAT DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK, MOM."

Interestingly enough, the American culture of fatty fatty boombalatty fried food is a Scottish import. Yup, back in the good old days when men were men, women wore crinolines, and dark-complected people sang rousing harmonies while being beaten like rented mules, the South was importing white trash from Scotland, and slaves and crackers alike were learning how to make damn near anything palatable through the judicious application of hot hot fat. And the idea that it maybe wasn't a good idea to bread and fry fucking EVERYTHING was laughable, because when you have two chicken livers and a piece of hog intestine to feed your family with, you kind of don't mind piling on the hunger-satiating fat and delicious fried calories.

So yeah, the next time you stand around with fried Twinkie crumbs in your ratty-ass ironic beard, you can thank the noble (ahem) Scots for your cuisine of choice. Not that they'll accept your gratitude, of course. You'll be lucky if they chuck a deep-fried sausage-coated egg at your face and mumble something completely unintelligible but still indicative of their conviction that your mother blows goats on her day off from the donkey show (these are the people who use the word "cunt" as a synonym for "person," after all,) but at least you can rest easy knowing that you've been all mannerly and shit. If you really want to show your gratitude, you can hook them up with some of the Percocet you've been prescribed to combat the crippling pain you're now suffering from that nasty case of diverticulitis resulting from the mind-rending constipation brought on by a steady diet of meat, meat, and lameness.

Fucking hipsters.

. . . Because Dinah's A Real Bore When I'm Sober

Well, folks, here it is. I've been threatening for weeks now. In the next few days I'll be posting recipes you may already know and love from my Facebook notes, but don't worry, new content will be coming soon. New, bitchy content.