Sausage Rolls

What do you do with Italian sausage?  This is the question in its entirety that I googled yesterday trying to think of something to do with the two sweet Italian sausage links sitting in my fridge. I quickly crossed of the most common options:

• Sausage sub/hero/on a bun: not what I wanted, had no buns, kinda boring
• Pasta with sausage: again, just seemed boring and uninteresting for dinner, and I'm generally not a big pasta fan at all, so....
• Risotto, perhaps with spinach: I love risotto in restaurants, but never like it when I made it at home...probably due to my unwillingness to use a stick of butter and lots of cream and cheese. 
• Pizza...a worthy suggestion, but it happened to be the reason I bought the sausage (and used a link) in the first place, so going back to it seemed "cheating"...
• Hmmmmm....that's about where my ideas ended.

So, hence the google search, which pulled up lots of ideas...for sausage heroes, sausage pasta, sausage risotto.  Le sigh.  But wait!  An unassuming link promised something I'd seen mentioned many times on The Food Pornographer's website, perhaps an Australian tradition but not one I'd ever had - Sausage Rolls!

Basically, you make a meatball-ish mixture using the sausage meat, encase it in puff pastry, slice the logs into bite-size pieces, and bake them up into little pop-able morsels, serving with marinara sauce to dip.  Sounds delicious, right?  Why have I never had something so good?!  It was time to remedy the sitch.  And, I figured, if I made a giant spinach-and-veggie salad to be the major space-holder on our dinner plates, I could sneak these indulgent treats by as a side, rather than a main.  Dinner was planned!

Turns out defrosting puff pastry in the microwave is not a good idea - something I could have figured out, but didn't, and had no time to spare anyway.  Unrolling my sticky, melty puff pastry and trying to roll it out was not a fun process, boys and girls, but I made it work.  However, I think it might have impacted the puffiness of my rolls - although, thankfully,not their taste.

How did they taste? Delicious!  Mixing the sausage meat with fresh (challah) breadcrumbs, milk, onion, garlic, and seasoning kept it tender while also freshening up the flavor.  The pastry got nice and crispy, with an irresistable browned top that kept us reaching back for more.  Plus, it streched 1/2 a package of puff pastry and 2 sausage links to at least 36 appetizers, making it fairly economical.

In addition, we've got a spare log in the freezer (though had I not saved it I bet we could have eaten the whole thing), so it's an easy make-ahead and cook-when-needed appetizer. And...c'mon, pastry and sausage?  What's not to like.

The Southern - Chicago

The Southern.  Has the. Best. Fried. Chicken.  Let's let that sink in for just a few minutes.

I'm no expert on fried chicken - far, far from it.  I rarely eat it, and can probably count the number of times I've ever had it on both hands.  It wasn't a food we ever, ever ate growing up (although I spent a fair amount of time begging mom and dad for KFC buckets).  I've never had homemade fried chicken from anybody's home.  I've only ever had KFC, Popeyes, and Stanley's fried chicken (a Chicago bar serving up barrels of peanuts and Sunday "chicken and waffles" brunches).  My scope of fried chicken exposure is shockingly small.

Yet for weeks I've had this inexplicable craving for it.  A and I both have been "threatening" to pick up fried chicken buckets on the way home, and contemplating paying $16.95 for West Town Tavern's Monday night fried chicken special (a great neighborhood restaurant, by the way.  It's nice but not "fancy," inexpensive but not cheap, with a menu that's both familiar and inventive - and worth every cent.  Go.)

After going to a friend's father's wake yesterday, our group was in need of something to nourish our souls and bellies.  After a short debate of the many options along one arbitrary stretch of North Avenue (Uberstein, Lillie's Q, Piece) we settled on The Southern - "a central gathering place where the tallest order of the day is a cocktail, conversation, and relaxation."  It's been hyped (justly, we found) since opening earlier this year for its riffs on southern food, elevating the homestyle recipes without making anything seem fussy or fancy.  The rough-hewn wood tables, many fireplaces, and southern rock playing in the background reinforce this casual, at-home, comfortable vibe - but the food is much better than most home kitchens!

We started with the Southern Mess - a take on Poutine, made with hand-cut fries, smoked tasso ham gravy, and locally sourced cheddar cheese curds that had been broiled to a caramelized perfection.  This disappeared in rapid speed.  Fries covered in gravy and cheese - yeah, it's not hard to make something like that palatable, if not great.  But this is Grrrrrrrreat, sayeth Tony the Tiger.  The curds were not greasy at all, as blankets of cheese are wont to be, and the smoky, salty ham gravy was a nice taste and textural counterpoint to the chewy curds and crispy fries.

Usually, the Southern offers its fried chicken only as a reserve-in-advance, 6-person-or-more, part-of-a-family-style-dinner dish.  Except, as luck would have it, on Wednesdays, when since two weeks ago the Chef has been offering half a fried chicken, a homemade biscuit, and mushroom gravy as a $14 blue plate special ($3 Abita beers are also on special every Wednesday - score!)  When we learned this little fact, well, 2 or the 3 had their minds made up for them - it's fried chicken for dinner tonight.

According to our server, Chef Cary Taylor marinates the chicken in buttermilk and spices for two days before breading and frying the chicken.  And, much like the two-dip fry technique used to make the best french fries, he fries it once, cooks the chicken through in the oven, then returns the chicken to the fryer to crisp it up again before serving.  A unique process, no doubt, but would it be worth it?

In a word, yes.  Lest you think the three-fold technique would dry out the chicken, it didn't.  The perfectly cooked chicken was very moist, tender, and flavorful.  The crust and skin were unbelievable crispy, with a hint of spice.  Perhaps, just maybe, I wanted a bit more salt on the chicken.  But, then again, I want a bit more salt on just about everything, so let's chalk it up to a salty preference on my end.

Besides the great food, cheap beer, interesting cocktail menu (punch bowls - seriously?  I'm coming back just for one of those!) and inviting atmosphere (you could easily stay a long, long while), the service was pretty awesome.  Except for one 10-minute time frame where we never saw our server, he (and his bussers/runners) was mostly spot-on with recommendations, timing, filling empty drinks, bussing plates, and answering questions.  Above and beyond that, exec chef Cary was out and about the entire night, talking to every table multiple times and genuinely wanting to make sure everyone in his place was enjoying themselves.  Whereas sometimes I might find this intrusive, the people here just seemed friendly and, more importantly, invested in what they were doing.  Which was being awesome.

In a word, go to The Southern.  Say hi to Cary, too.

CHEX MIX, For Claire

Oy, listen here.  Miss Claire requested, and I'm here to deliver.  That most mystic of snack mixes, that wonder of cocktail parties, that favorite food of hyperbole-loving bloggers.....

CHEX MIX.

Yes, chex mix.  You know what it is, and you know you love it.  If you don't...well, then, we just can't be friends.  But how can't you?  It's salty, savory, garlicky, crunchy, full of all sorts of bad for you salty bits.  What's not to like?  Unless you're talking about the pre-made bagged chex mix, which is basically repulsive (although the cheddar jalepeno flavor looks strangely appealing...)

It's the little things that make a difference in the mix, and one of them is quite shocking:  I don't use chex in chex mix.  Not usually, anyway.  I prefer crispix.  THE HORROR.

Crispix to me are the best of both worlds, combining the wheat and corn in one crunchy bite.  But, I use chex sometimes (half the time), because I do like to mix corn and wheat chex together to have different bites, and it amplifies the amount of chex-to-other-stuff ratio - which is good when you live with chronic pickers, the people who seek out their favorites out of the bowl.  A high school friend once ate every single chex out of a bowl, leaving all the lonely cheerios, peanuts and pretzels behind.  I was enraged.  Why would you do such a thing?

Then, I thought, perhaps I'm the one being a touch overly dramatic about the whole situation.  It is, after all, just a snack mix.  But it's not.  It's so much more.  And it wasn't drama, folks.  It was WAR.

Anyway Chex Mix is just one of those universally appealing, ultra-simple, "what gourmands might turn their snooty noses up at but will still eat handfuls of repeatedly" foods. You probably all have an idea how to make it, too, since a variation on the recipe is on just about every Chex box out there.  Mine, I don't know if it's similar or different, cause it's just the way mom makes it, so it's the way I make it.

Make it often, and invite me over. Click the "more" link to learn, well, more.

Sweet & Spicy Snack Mix

I have this problem with Racheal Ray.  And, surprisingly, it's not the perkiness.  

When you think about it, I should admire her.  She's the first to admit that she's not a chef--she's a cook.  She rose to stardom by finding a niche and filling it--evidently filling it very well, if her now pervasive media presence is any indication of her popularity.  She earned a loyal following by doing something I fully support--stripping the difficulty from making new, exotic, interesting recipes and bringing quick, easy, and filling recipes to the masses, and giving people the confidence to branch out in their weeknight cooking.  Plus she seems just like a regular person--not a food genius, not a perfect technician, not a super-skinny spokesmodel (GIADA, i'm looking at you.  There's no way you eat the food you cook.) 

All of these things, I love.  I actually like her show, aside from cringing every time she says "EVOO" or markets some product with a twee name like a "spoonula." None of these things, however, are my problem with her.

It's her recipes.  

She's got tons of great food ideas.  But, by and large, at least with her recipes that I've made, they're VERY poorly tested.  The balance of ingredients is way off (like her sausage and spinach drunken risotto that called for 3 cups of red wine, and buried all other flavors besides wine in the finished dish).  The recipes lack specifics when they are seriously  needed, or just plain don't work.  Rarely do I make a recipe of hers without carefully monitoring it every step of the way, ready to fix, adjust, and abandon it halfway through if needed. When you stop paying attention to her recipes and trust them, more often than not you wished you'd modified something halfway through.  

This snack mix is no exception (I'll get to that) but DAMN if it isn't good.  Incredibly addictive, spicy and sweet, it's one bowl you can't stop reaching into.  The first time I made it, however, I was certain it would be a dud.  See, you cook butter, sesame seeds, brown sugar, red pepper and soy sauce on the stove, then stir in chow mein noodles and spread it out to harden into crunchy bits.  

But, because the recipe doesn't say how long to cook the caramel or to what temperature, there is no way to tell if it's reached the right stage to harden, instead of just congealing into a sticky mass--not the consistency you want in a snack mix.  Faced with this traumatic result, I just stuck the whole sheet into the oven for 15 minutes, hoping it would get the job done--and it did!  It dried out the sticky, crunched up the chewy, and resulted in this getting made a second time--and probably many more times to come.  


This is a crunchy, sweet, spicy, salty, slightly exotic snack mix that is worth making, especially when you've had one too many bowls of chex mix or gorp...or just want to try something different.  Adapted recipe after the jump. 

Crunchy Baked Onion Rings

It all started with an idea, a bookmarked recipe that had languished, untried, in my internet bookmarks folder for months.  A recipe which, a few months ago, I finally got around to making--with pretty successful results, mind you.  The rings baked up crisp and crunchy and oh-so-onion-y.  Not the same as beer-battered onion rings, something I will only eat when I know they're going to be good....OK, well, any time I want them to be good, or see them on the menu, or just want to eat mediocre ones.

What can I say, I love onion rings. The battered ones, to be specific.  Usually breadcrumb coating doesn't float this boat, but if you take the bath in hot oil out of the onion ring equation, you're not going to get get anywhere starting with raw batter.  No, when replicating fried foods in the oven, you have to start with something crunchy if you hope to get anywhere worth eating.

The problem I had with the original recipe--another Martha Stewart gripe--is the amount of work involved on the front end.  Granted, anytime you crumb or batter something, there are going to be a number of steps--dip, shake, dredge, shake, dip, shake, etc.  Not to mention all the dirty plates that stack up--which becomes an issue in a city apartment with the world's worst dishwasher. I had a big issue getting the batter to coat the rings, which then became a bigger issue getting the crumbs to stick to the batter (although they stuck to my fingers just fine...).   There had to be an easier way.

Would it be wrong to eat them like this?

So, internet, I just went for it.  I started off with a trick I read about from Pioneer Woman--soaking the onions in buttermilk to mellow their flavor and start the whole thing off on the right foot.  Thirty minutes later when I removed the onions, I knew we were on the right track--the thick buttermilk was already clinging to the rings. I stacked the rings on a plate, leaving most of the buttermilk in the bowl, and dumped in some flour, hot sauce, and seasoned salt.  I made a thicker batter this time around, hoping to amplify the stick factor (yeah, ew, that just sounds nasty).  All the rings went back in and got stirred around until evenly coated (a step I forgot to take a picture of).  A quick dip in a panko pool--no issues with sticking this time--then onto the hot, oiled sheet, and 25 minutes later we had this:

I love you, rings. 

Which, friends, is pretty much heaven.  Recipe after the jump.

I got SKINS...they're multiplying

And I'm losing control....

Can you blame me?

There is something about a potato skin that just screams out "INDECENT!"  It's a hollowed-out shell of a potato, often deep fried, then filled with all sorts of fatty, cholesterol-y goodness like cheese and bacon, then, if that weren't bad enough, you dip it in sour cream and/or ranch dressing.  Sure, they sprinkle green onions or chives on top, but that's not fooling anybody.  But, damn, are they good!

The problem is, it's really easy to make a really mediocre potato skin, which many places do.  And, if you're gonna be indulging, it should taste as good as it is bad for you.  No reason eating nasty food that's also nasty for you!

Awaiting their crisping in the oven. 

Personally, I have a few criteria that make a good potato skin.  First, thin skin.  I don't want half a potato--no, get busy scraping.  I'm a big believer in ratios--ratio of ice cream to cone; of filling to tortilla (or, why tacos are better than burritos); of bread to cheese; of sobriety to wine.... Anyway, I think a potato skin should be thick enough to be held in one hand, but thin enough so the relatively bland potato doesn't overwhelm everything else.

Pretend this is them after being crisped up, and I'll pretend I remembered to take that photo.

Second, DAMN, this is the hard one--they should be CRISPY.  Bake, fry, do whatever to the skin itself before filling--just make sure it's crispy.  Side note (you've gotta be used to these by now)--my previous favorite potato skin was at a hole-in-the-wall bar in Chicago, O'Neills, that is no longer with us.  Dank, dark, and a mere 10 feet wide, this smoke-filled ancient watering hole managed to put out great burgers, and great potato skins.  Although, sometimes you would notice a disconcerting amount of grease left over on the paper-lined basket...or dripping out of the skin itself....

Ready for the finishing touch in the oven...

Third, SEASON.  Why, pray tell, anybody would ever cook a potato any which way without a little bit of salt and pepper mystifies me, but they do.  You gotta season the skins before you fill them, people.  It's just an easy, basic thing to do--but it's easier to forget it than to do it right.

Gratuitous extra shot of skinny goodness.  Yes, one has a bite out of it.  Like I said before...can you blame me?

Other than that, there isn't much you really need to do to make a great potato skin.  Scoop freely, crisp up (I prefer brushing them with oil and baking the empty skins in a hot oven for 20 minutes), then fill, bake and serve.  Although I kid myself that baking them instead of frying them makes them healthier (which is why I also served them with Greek yogurt mixed with chives and S&P, instead of sour cream), there is really no denying that these are pretty indulgent.  But what's life without a little indulging?  Recipe, should you need it, after the jump.

Hostess Cupcakes

Cups of cake.

The wave of sin continues this week, my dear friends, with this little nugget of rich, chocolate-y goodness.  I've had an article torn out of Martha Stewart Living for well over a year.  An article that centers on CUPCAKES, the craze of the recent food world, spawning hundreds of cupcake shops the country over.  Shops selling cupcakes, only cupcakes, nothing but cupcakes, and bestowed with twee names like "sprinkles" and "sparkles" and "barf reflex."

Maybe not that last one.

Let's talk frankly here, friends.  Everybody loves cupcakes.  They're personal little cakes, they're miniatures (alone a factor of love for me), they're sweet and sticky and covered in frosting.  In the immortal words of Joey, "What's not to like?"

But this whole cupcake craze and darling "designer" cupcakes just strikes me as a bit much.  Cupcakes are good, but do we really need to go gaga over them?  Are they that special?   Aren't there a hundred other fairly common desserts (cherry pie; key lime pie) we could celebrate arbitrarily with the same fervor?  I guess I just don't get it---I have a hard time believing that there is a market for 30 cupcake shops in the city.  Especially when these shops sell only cupcakes--they aren't bakeries, they're just cupcake factories.  Whaaa?

Well, I'm missing the cupcake craze boat I suppose, but that doesn't mean I don't like cupcakes.  I just enjoy them the old-fashioned way--by making them myself.  Which brings us back to Martha and her lengthy, informative tutorial on how to make many types of cupcakes, mix-n-match frostings, and a whole slew of creative ways to decorate them.  When A's brother's birthday celebration was planned, I knew that, somehow, I had to make some cupcakes.

And with a glossy photo like this, is it any wonder I chose the Hostess Cupcakes?

Who wouldn't get drawn in by that photo?

Well, friends, as you can surely tell, my cupcakes turned out nothing like the photo.  Having professed before my impatience and lack of skill when it comes to baking, I accept a large share of responsibility for the 3-hour cupcake cooking fiesta that ended rather miserably.  But, Martha, you have some share of the blame too.

The one-bowl chocolate cupcake recipe turned out perfectly--easy, quick, and good (if a bit dense).  But I wanted dense, to hold the filling I was going to insert into the recipe, despite its lack of presence in the original article.  Finding a recipe for cream filling was easy, but it turned out a little to wet (why did I choose the only one that called for a tablespoon of cream?  If none else do...maybe I should have listened to the majority).  So my too-soft cream got injected into each cupcake, a little messier than fluffy but tasting good just the same.

Messy, cream-filled moist cakebombs.  Ugly, but gooood. 

The real problems started with the ganache glaze.  The recipe states, with almost nothing left out: "Heat cream in small saucepan, then pour over chocolate.  Dip cupcakes in glaze and let set."  

This should have been a warning flag, especially given chocolate's temperamental attitude when it comes to baking. No more information, Martha?  I should have asked, heat the cream to what temperature? Scald it or boil it?  How best to incorporate into the chocolate?  What cocoa level in the bittersweet bar?  Are you sure this glaze will set?

Because it didn't.  It just didn't set at all.  Instead of that shiny, draw-upon-able surface in the glossy, my cupcakes looked like they were dipped in chocolate soup.  Pretty soon, all that soup soaked into the cakes, leaving these bald, misshapen cakes with melting cream oozing out the top.  PANIC MODE!

So I ate a cupcake to calm myself down. 

I fixed it the next day buy just buying chocolate frosting and covering up the mess, but with the soup and wet cream these were dense little cake bombs.  They are good, don't get me wrong, but they aren't delicate or dainty or anything other than a full-on cupcake explosion.  

And, Martha, you and I (and Rachel and Food and Wine and many others) need to have a little chat about 1.) Recipe testing (DO IT!  Don't just slap in untested, mishmash recipes from week to week!  Take the time to get it right, balanced, and good); and 2.) Photos of food.  Seriously, guys.  So often your photos don't even resemble the finished dish (like yesterday's Lentil Soup---the photo in the magazine CLEARLY showed a blended, homogenized soup, whereas the recipe itself called for nothing of the sort.)

That's the end of my rant...for now.

Guilty as Sin

Tastes like delicious. 

Have you read the "Serious Eats" website?  If so, you may be familiar with a fellow food nerd---although one whose skill, mainly, but also nerdiness far, far, FAR exceed my own--Kenji Lopez-Alt.  This epic King of Food Nerdiness has this scientific cooking series where he examines, tests, and refines the "best" way to make certain things.  Like how to shape a hamburger, when to season it, how the best __ to make.  That sort of thing.  It's entertaining for his clever, referential writing alone.  But, damn, the boy is good, and his meticulous methods are truly astounding, interesting, and make me glad he's there doing the testing so that I don't have to.

So when I saw these two recent entries, you know what had to be done:

Nacho Cheese Sauce
Ultimate Sliders

Oh, lord.  How many can I eat? Answer: at least three, and that's only by using restraint. 

Yes, because, Internet, you cannot just see a recipe for nacho cheese sauce and ultimate sliders and NOT make it, can you?  Because, if you can, well, you and your willpower can just take the high road, cause I can't pass it up.

One more time, for effect. 

Deconstructing the recipes is a little tricky.  The cheese sauce was awesome...but it most definitely was not the same thing you get at the baseball games and movie theaters along with your tortilla chip nachos.  It's distinctly cheesier--cheddary, tangy, and creamy.  It reminds me more of the Merkt's Cheddar cheese--a sharper, less creamy, but cheesier sauce--that you find in hot dog stands around Chicago for cheese fries instead of the aforementioned nacho product.  It's different, and each are special in their own way, but for now I'm sticking to this homemade version as the best of two worlds.  I probably sped up the melting step of mine a little to much, resulting in a bit of graininess in the finished product.  Overall, though, a quick and easy way to indulge a cheese fry craving at home.  Because I really needed to know how to do that.

The sliders I'm in a bit of the same boat.  Definitely not White Castle replicas, these are beefy and steamy and onion-tastic (my fingers smelled like a White Castle for at least 24 hours, despite repeated washings).  If you're craving WC, these probably will not hit your spot.  But if you're craving an awesome slider (see also Serious Eats for lengthy, arcane discussions about what is and is not a true slider) this will knock WC out of the ballpark.  For reals.