Hold the Mayo

Or not. Depends upon what you are slathering it upon. Corned beef or pastrami sandwiches on rye … well not so much, unless you are my mother. Take her into any good deli and she will inevitably order corned beef on white bread with lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise. You can only imagine the horrified look on my New York born-and-bred husband’s face when she does that. Really, Mom?

That aside, there’s a lot you can do with a good dollop of homemade mayonnaise. Stir it up with some chopped fresh herbs and scallions, thin it with a little lemon juice and serve it up with a nice piece of grilled fish. Combine it with a healthy dose of horseradish (preferably the homemade variety) and maybe a little sour cream and give your steak a big wallop of flavor. Add some garlic and turn it into an aioli for shrimp or grilled vegetables. Do something similar with a hit of pesto.  Or, have yourself a retro little salad by blending mayonnaise and ketchup into a thousand island dressing, then spooning it over a big wedge of chilled iceberg lettuce.

What would a BLT be without mayo? Dry and boring, that’s what. Potato salad? Deviled eggs? Pimiento cheese? I'll stop ranting now.

So without further ado, here is a recipe for mayonnaise. Try it just once and you’ll never go back to those processed versions (sorry, Hellman’s). Like most of what I post here, it’s ridiculously easy and it will live for several weeks in your fridge, giving you lots of time to experiment. Oh, and just think how impressed your friends and family will be!

MAYONNAISE  (adapted from Scott Peacock's "The Gift of Southern Cooking"

1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 egg yolks (I use extra-large)
1 1/2 cups peanut or canola oil
1 tablespoon hot water

Place the vinegar, lemon juice, sea salt and mustard into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Blend briefly until dissolved, then add egg yolks and whisk until smooth.  While mixer is running, add the oil drop by drop at first, then in a slow stream until all of it has been incorporated and the mixture is emulsified.  Beat in the hot water until mayonnaise is smooth and creamy.

Store in the refrigerator in a tightly covered container.

Yield:  about 1 1/2 cups

*  I always make this in my electric mixer, but you can do it in a food processor instead.  You can also make it by hand with a big bowl and a balloon whisk which means you won't need to do any weight-lifting at the gym that day.

*  I know I post a lot of Scott Peacock’s recipes here, but there’s a reason for that and it's because they are trustworthy. I’ve used them in both a restaurant kitchen (Watershed) and my own home kitchen for years and I can vouch for that. I would tinker with them, but instead I will stand by that old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

*   I also know some of you are going to look at this recipe and say “Oh no, this calls for raw eggs and I can’t go there.” That’s your choice, and I certainly respect that. I’ve made the choice to use organic, free-range eggs for my mayonnaise and have never had an issue. Farm fresh eggs are even better. It goes without saying that if you know where your eggs come from, the lesser the chances of contamination.   As you know from earlier posts, I think it's well worth the trouble and expense to seek out farm fresh eggs.

http://nevertrustaskinnycook1.blogspot.com/2010/08/cake-and-eggs.html

The Real Reason We Went to St. Martin

I don't know who coined the phrase "everything's better with butter" (Land "O Lakes, maybe?) but I agree!  Especially when the butter in question is Normandy butter. 

We ate a lot of it last week in St. Martin.  Every.  Single.  Day.  Breakfast consisted of that blood orange juice I told you about, along with strong coffee and a warm baguette slathered with butter.  Disproportionately, I might add, meaning more butter than baguette.  It was worth every pound we gained, too (notice I did not say "ounce").

The grocery stores and restaurants on the French side of St. Martin rely heavily on the daily Air France flight which arrives from Paris laden with fois gras, butter and wine.  No wonder Grand Case is the gastronomic capital of the Caribbean!  No wonder this is our favorite vacation spot!

Speaking of airplanes, one of the favorite pastimes on the island is heading to the Sunset Beach Bar to watch them land every day.  That's because huge planes (yes, even 747's) come in low, right over the beach, stirring up vortexes of sand and blowing unsuspecting tourists into the water.  Same thing happens when they take off.  Watching this has become something of a national sport, particularly if you're hanging out with a drink at the bar next to the runway!

Here's what I mean:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w8YHZlv0Ao&NR=1

As usual, I've gotten WAY off track here.  Where was I going with this?  Oh yeah .. butter!  Make it yourself!  It's easy and oh, so good.  Heck, if you've ever attempted to make whipped cream and walked away from the mixer, then you've made it before.  Buttermilk, too.

HOMEMADE BUTTER AND BUTTERMILK

(This recipe and method comes from Daniel Patterson, chef/owner of Coi in San Francisco.  It was published in the New York Times Magazine on 7-1-07).

6 cups organic heavy cream (preferably not ultra-pasteurized)
Sea salt to taste (optional)

Pour the cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk.  Tightly cover the top of the bowl with plastic wrap and start mixer on medium-high speed.  The cream will go through the whipped state, thicken further then change color from off-white to pale yellow; this will take at least 5-8 minutes.  When it starts to look pebbly, it's almost done.  After another minute the butter will separate, causing the liquid to splash against the plastic wrap.  At the point, stop the mixer.

Set a strainer over a bowl.  Pour the contents of the mixer into the strainer and let the buttermilk drain through.  Strain the buttermilk again, this time through a fine-mesh sieve set over a small bowl and set aside.

Keeping the butter in the strainer set over the first bowl, knead it to consolidate the remaining liquid and fat and expel the rest of the buttermilk.  Knead until the texture is dense and creamy, about 5 minutes.  Strain the excess liquid into the buttermilk.  Refrigerate the buttermilk.

If desired, mix salt into the butter.  Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate. 

Yield:  this makes approximately 2 cups of butter and 2 cups of buttermilk

Two things:

Be very careful when placing the plastic wrap over the bowl of the electric mixer.  Make sure it's secure enough that it won't get wound up on the device that turns the whisk - trust me on this.  It happened to me once when I was making sponge cake for tiramisu at Star Provisions and it took me over an hour to remove the tightly wound plastic from the stem of the mixer.  Not fun!

And don't throw away that buttermilk!  It's sweet and delicious.  Stay tuned for the next post.....

Passover Hell

If you are Jewish, you understand the gefilte fish at Passover thing.  A necessary evil.

But, if you are like me, you also have your standards and you refuse to eat fish from a jar.

A conundrum.

It therefore means you have to make your own gefilte fish.  Horseradish, too.

Oy veh.

So here we go.  You're coming with me on my "Passover Hell" journey.  By the time we finish this, you guys are gonna wish I was still blogging about Meyer lemons. 

Here's what I don't get about Passover food.  It's heavy.  Really heavy.  It coincides with the beginning of spring when we all want to lighten up our menus and escape from the soups and stews of winter.  It shows up when I don't want to eat brisket, gefilte fish and matzoh ball soup!

Alright, I had to say that.

Guess we have to start with gefilte fish, which starts with fish stock.  Yuck.  You really don't want the recipe, do you?  All it does is stink up your house as you simmer it for several hours.  Unfortunately you need it so you can poach your fish balls in it (yeah, that's what gefilte fish really is).  In my case, I used 10 pounds of whole tilapia which I simmered with onions, carrots, celery root, whole peppercorns and cinnamon sticks.  I'm surprised every cat in the neighborhood didn't come sniffing around my house the day I made it.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I made it last week and put it in the freezer).

I'll thaw it out tomorrow and make the fish balls on Sunday.  Stay tuned for that exciting event.

Haha, here's what happened when I made the stock last week.  I had two huge stockpots simmering on the stove.  When the stuff was finally done, I carefully strained it into containers and threw the solids in my kitchen trash can (lined with a 13-gallon garbage bag).  It was around 9pm, we had finished dinner and cleaning up had commenced.  Henry offered to take the bag out to our big trash can in the garage.

You know what's coming.

Stubborn bitch that I am (who, me?) I ignored his offer and lugged it out there myself.  It was heavier than I expected, but I wasn't about to ask for help.  I heaved it up into the big green trash can, didn't quite make it, the bag hit the side of the can, split apart AND DUMPED THAT FISH GORE, GUTS AND BONES ALL OVER THE GARAGE FLOOR.  My language at that moment cannot be repeated here.

Poor Henry.  He immediately came out, opened the garage door to let out the smell and began cleaning up my colossal mess.  He deserves a medal.  Especially since I lost it and started laughing hysterically at the whole thing.  I mean, what else can you do?  It was actually pretty funny.  I think he wanted to kill me, though.

The good news is we dumped enough Clorox around so there is no residual odor.  Well, except for the Clorox....

On to horseradish.  Fresh, that is.  No jarred stuff for me on this one either.  Let me tell you though, this is not for the faint of heart.  It will pretty much take your head off and it makes wasabi look like cream of wheat. 

KILLER HORSERADISH

1/2 pound fresh horseradish root, peeled and chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
Pinch of salt

Place about 1/4 cup or so of the peeled, fresh horseradish in food processor.  Pulse until horseradish is ground, then add rest of horseradish in small handfuls.  Add vinegar and water and blend until mixture is ground up with no lumps remaining.  Add salt (to taste).

Be very careful when you remove the top to the food processor after grinding the horseradish.  Trust me, the fumes will bring you to your knees.  I had no eye make-up left after my experience with it. 

This is probably enough horseradish to kill everyone

at both Seders

Yield:  about 1 cup.  Use it judiciously.  It's lethal.