trans Fatty Blog

The Sound of Remington

By request, the sound of Remington. For a picture, click here.

That's "t-r-a-n-s-F-a-t-t-y-B-l-o-g-DOT-c-o-m."

Wok Season

A few months back I picked up an old spun steel wok in a resale shop for about three bucks. It was rusty, but the rust came off easily as I figured it would. Now it's time to season it, which will take longer.

The procedure is described on plenty of other sites, for example this one. I did the first round over a burner on my stove but next time I might try the grill outside to avoid smoking up the house. Over time, the wok should obtain a deep black patina like the one on my cast iron skillet. It's the beauty of a thing that can be maintained only through use.

Finishing Sauces

So... you've made brown stock, bought yourself a nice hunk of beef chuck, and made a terrific pot roast. Or, you've just roasted some poblano peppers and pureed them in milk or cream. Or you've just roasted your Thanksgiving turkey and you're ready to make gravy from the pan leavings.

Either way, you've got some liquid flavor simmering in a pot somewhere, and you're ready to transform that liquid into a fabulous sauce. Generally this involves three things:

1. Thicken the sauce
2. Adjust the seasoning
3. Finish with whole butter or cream

New Keyboard

A friend was so struck by all the writing I've been doing that he figured I must need a new keyboard:

It's a Remington Rand Deluxe Model 5, manufactured in the 1930s. It's in great working order, but the ribbon was a bit dry, so I went looking for a new one. Fortunately I didn't have to go far. There aren't many places left that repair and service antique typewriters, but one of them, Independence Business Machines at 1623 West Montrose here in Chicago, is right near my house. Steve Kazmier, the owner, rolled a new ribbon onto my vintage spool, and I'm back in business. He must have a good reputation, since he gets machines sent for repair from as far away as New York.

Here's what it sounds like. (That's "t-r-a-n-s-F-a-t-t-y-B-l-o-g-DOT-c-o-m.")

Now if I can just figure out how to plug it in to my computer.

Burning Sugar

As grill geeks may know, charcoal is made by heating wood (or wood chips) to about 1000° F in an airless environment. If you want to press them into briquettes, you can add sand, lime, and a bit of cornstarch as a binder, but all you really need, aside from the wood, is enough fuel to generate all that heat. Grain alcohol or petroleum works nicely if you can get it.

Or, take sugar cane fibers (left over after the valuable cane juice is extracted), seal them inside a 55-gallon drum, leave them there until they carbonize from lack of oxygen -- who knew? -- and bind them with a bit of cassava-root porridge. The resulting charcoal may be not quite the equal of your brand-name briquette, but if you live in Haiti, where both trees and rocket fuel are in short supply, this approach has some distinct advantages.

This method, developed by mechanical engineer Amy Smith at MIT, helped win her a $500,000 MacArthur fellowship for her work finding low-tech solutions to community problems using whatever materials are available.

Now that's what I call cooking with local ingredients.

Overproducing Espresso

Americans have taken a good idea and made it more trouble than it's worth.

I'm talking about espresso. In Italy, you walk up to bar in any corner cafe, order an espresso, and boom, there it is. It takes about a minute, and costs less than a buck, provided you don't want to sit down (exchange-rate Gods willing). Sitting costs more, but that's not what espresso is about. It's supposed to be a quick, flavorful, eye-opening jolt. Ordering a double seems like overkill, because espresso is about concentration, not volume. If one isn't enough, order another.

Compare that to the typical coffee chain here in America, where you line up behind the throng ordering grande this or triple that, then wait in another line where people pick up their drinks, most of which are more dairy than coffee. It's expensive, it's time-consuming, and it's not exactly slimming on the national waistline. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying we've missed the point, which is to reduce coffee to its concentrated essence. That's reduce, as in less, not more: your regular morning coffee minus most of the water. Here in the States we've turned that idea on its head, using espresso as an excuse to sell milkshakes and mochas for breakfast. If all you want is a simple espresso, it isn't worth the hassle.

Chili Update

Since the arrival of football season first got me started on braising, things have taken a downhill turn for the Packers, who have lost 3 games since that first win on Monday night. And here I was already making plans to post my Superbowl Chili Recipe in honor of the Pack. Maybe not this year...

Spinning the Pot

It's a political season. Last Thursday was the first presidential debate, followed by the usual round of spin. The real debate has been raging for months, and most voters have long since made up their minds. The election can't come soon enough for me. Don't get me wrong; my appetite for news and commentary is normally second only to my appetite for food (and maybe a few other things). It's the spin that wears me down. Things happen, or they don't, regardless of what people say about them, but that seems to matter less and less. Maybe that's what draws me to cooking. Put a hunk of beef chuck into a pot, add liquid and heat, and the result is undeniable. In place of spin, I offer pot roast.

Basic Pot Roast

This recipe for beef pot roast uses a combination of brown beef stock and red wine as the cooking liquid. If you don't have brown stock, canned chicken stock will do in a pinch. (I avoid canned beef stock, which has an artificial taste that doesn't go away no matter how long I cook it.)

The same basic procedure can be used to cook just about any tough, sinewy cut of meat or poultry: lamb or veal shanks, beef short ribs, duck legs, a well-aged stewing hen (coq au vin). The liquid and seasonings should be adapted to fit the main ingredient, but the method, known as braising, doesn't change.

One other thing: When you're at the butcher staring down that slab of beef chuck, you'll probably be thinking, that is one unattractive cut of meat. That's because chuck comes from the shoulder, one of the most-used muscles on the whole animal. But don't worry, those seams of connective tissue will dissolve and flavor the sauce. Try to choose a roast that has a regular shape and will hold together while cooking. The top blade roast is ideal (also called the top chuck roast or chuck roast first cut). Avoid the 7-bone roast, because the bone (shaped like the number seven, hence the name) makes it hard to cut. You can also choose a round or rump roast from the rear of the cow, which looks better in the store because it has less fat and connective tissue, but it also has less flavor.