mixed greens with fried prosciutto and paneer in a cara cara vinaigrette

Tonight, I threw together a salad from things lying about the fridge. It gave me a chance to practice the technique of segmenting oranges, and to write about paneer, a fresh cheese so easy to make yourself you'll wonder why no one told you sooner.

I always encourage substitution and experimentation, but this salad was SO BLOODY GOOD that if you wanted to duplicate it exactly, I've provided the exact ingredients below.

That being said, for substitutions, the most obvious might be parmesan crisps instead of prosciutto (for the veggieheads), any vinegar instead of white balsamic, and any orange instead of cara cara.

You'll need:

paneer, aka fresh cheese (see below)

a cara cara orange, segmented

a whack of mixed greens

white balsamic vinegar

red grapes, halved

prosciutto

olive oil

pepper

salt

Segment an orange by cutting its top and bottom off (about a centimetre) so it sits flat on a cutting board. Using a filleting or other long thin knife, carefully cut away the rind in gentle arcs from top to bottom. You should have a naked orange now, preferably with no pith left on the flesh. Slice alongside the natural segment dividers in the orange, creating skinless, pithless wedges of orange.

You'll be left with an orange "skeleton", which you can squeeze into a small mixing bowl; this juice will be the base of your dressing and you should have at least a tablespoon or two of it.

Fry some prosciutto in a bit of oil until crispy, then break into chips. In the same hot pan, use the juice you just squeezed to deglaze any bits of prosciutto, and reduce the volume of juice by half. Add your vinegar, a pinch of salt, and fresh ground pepper, reduce a bit further, then take off the heat and whisk in a glug of olive oil.

Assemble the salad starting with your greens, then layering on your orange segments, grapes, cheese, and prosciutto chips. Pour the dressing, still warm from the pan, all over your salad. By far one of the tastiest salads I've ever had.

PANEER:

A fresh, acid-set, unripened cheese made from three simple ingredients you almost certainly have in the kitchen. Tasty, healthy, ready in minutes.

You'll need:

1 litre of milk (whole is ideal, but I used 2% and it worked out just fine)

a glug of regular white vinegar

salt

a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth (though you could even use your hands!)

Bring milk to the boil. Once roiling, add a glug of vinegar, and watch. If your milk doesn't separate into curds and whey within seconds, keep adding small splashes of vinegar until it happens. Once the whey is as transparent as its going to get (meaning that your milk solids have fully separated into curds), strain the lot of it through a sieve or cheese cloth, or if you have neither on hand, let the mixture cool and simply drag the cheese out with your hands and wring it dry. Rather inelegant, but if the curds have clumped well, it'll work fine. Discard your whey, unless you own pigs, in which case you should mix it into their water for a high protein all-natural supplement.

Season with salt (and pepper and other spices if you want), and store in an airtight container in the fridge. The paneer should keep for up to a week, but I wouldn't venture much longer.

It's best fresh, and lovely on salads, with fruit, layered into lasagna, eaten with curries, or used in place of ricotta (omit the salt if you're throwing it into desserts).

rump roast

Premium top sirloin and rump roasts were on *massive* sale at the grocery store today, and at $2.50/lb, I bought two: one to roast, and one to cut up and freeze for a good stewing beef later. I have all sorts of things to say about why meat should never be this cheap -- namely, the idea that $2.50/lb doesn't begin to reflect the true cost of raising, feeding, killing, and shipping an enormous mammal -- but being an almost-starving actor with an inordinately high rent... I bought it. Pollan forgive me.

There's something so beautiful and primal about a roast: fire + meat, at its simplest. You could dress it up all fancy, but this cut is so tasty, I used the simplest of rubs.

You'll need:

top sirloin or rump roast (look for "prime" or "premium" if you're going to dry-roast, as opposed to braise in a liquid)
freshly ground or cracked pepper
beer or wine (red or white)
a few garlic cloves
mustard powder
garlic powder
onions
salt
oil

for the gravy:

wine (i prefer white here)
lemon juice

corn starch
butter

Let your roast come to room temperature by leaving it out of the fridge for about an hour, then pat dry with paper towels. Thickly slice or wedge some onions, enough to fill the bottom of your roasting pan (which should be just big enough to fit your roast). Sprinkle some pepper and drizzle a bit of oil onto the bed of onions.

If you like garlic and your roast is 3 pounds or larger, use a thin, sharp knife to pierce slits in the meat and insert slices of garlic into them. If your roast is smaller than 3 pounds, either make your slices really thin, or mince and mix it into the rub below, since your cooking time won't be long enough to really let the garlic melt into the meat.

Mix a generous palmful of salt, about as much fresh pepper, and a heavy pinch each of garlic and mustard powder, then coat the roast thoroughly with it. If you've never cooked a roast before, the amount of salt you're applying will seem like too much. It's not.

At this point, you could sear the roast in an oiled pan, or cheat: an in-oven sear is splatterless and almost as good. Set your oven to a fast broil (at least 400F), drizzle your seasoned roast with oil, place on your bed of onions, and broil fat side up until nice and brown. Then turn your oven down to 325F, pour some beer or wine into your roasting pan, and cook for 20-25 minutes per pound, including the initial broil time. If you've got time to kill, you can roast as slowly as 250F, but you should loosely cover with a piece of foil since it's going to be sitting in there in the ballpark of anywhere from 4 to 6 hours. If choose the latter, this is when a meat thermometer comes in handy. And a good book.

Let your roast sit for at least 10 minutes before carving it or all your juices will end up on the cutting board (some will anyway). While waiting, make a quick gravy out of your beer/wine/onion/drippings concoction by tossing the lot of it into a saucepan on high heat and reducing it to taste. Alternately, you can discard the onions and use only the liquid, or use just some, or chop or mince them into the sauce, or slap it into a blender, etc, etc...

Mix a teaspoon or two of corn starch in as much water to form a slurry. When your gravy is reduced to a good, punchy beef flavour, add just enough of the slurry to thicken, then toss in a nub of butter, a splash of wine, and a squeeze of lemon juice. If you don't have lemon handy, a bit of any vinegar or acid will do. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

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on the side...

Every manner of TV chef will tell you to "sear your meat to lock in the juices", which is an out-and-out lie. Searing your roast beforehand will actually decrease its volume and moisture compared to a slow and consistent roasting without searing. What it will do, and why you should still sear your meat, is to add big, caramelized, meaty flavour to your roast. Experiment on a smaller scale with two equal pieces of stewing beef and a 350F oven (or two giant roasts if you have the time!) to prove it to yourself.

ginger

I learnt a brilliant new technique for using ginger in recipes today!

Previously, I'd go to the trouble of a rasp or grater to shred then squeeze ginger "pulp" when I only wanted the juice. Particularly with older hands of ginger, you really don't want tough fibres sticking in people's teeth. Young ginger isn't so much a problem, since it quickly dissolves away when cooked. Problem is, the average grocery store doesn't stock good young ginger, and older ginger have a more pungent, mature flavour profile that I personally prefer in heavier dishes (stews, Asian stir fries, curries).

So... take an old hand of ginger, wrap it in plastic wrap, and freeze it (at least overnight). Then when you need ginger juice, just thaw and squeeze the hand right into your dish! Crazy easy.

Those who remember high school bio will recall the razor-sharp edges of ice crystals, and how they expand to puncture and rupture the once-rigid plant cell walls, causing most frozen vegetables to thaw soggy and limp (celery being the best example for its high water content). The same happens to ginger, and you'll find that once thawed, it becomes a kind of ginger-soaked sponge -- PERFECT for flavour without the fibre.

cabbage

By now, every doctor, food journalist, and TV chef has had the chance to proclaim the virtues of cruciferous veggies (anti-inflammatory, alkaline, high fibre, low-cal, etc). The better known of these include broccoli, cauliflower, horseradish, and the much maligned, oft-cooked-shittily, farty-mc-fart-fart cabbage.

The good news: Pound for pound, it's the cheapest vegetable in any grocery store, it lasts for ages in your crisper, and it's got loads of health benefits. In short, the perfect student vegetable. Save the $10.99/lb fiddleheads for impressing friends (or poisoning enemies -- I'll write an article some time) and take it from someone who's been in school for 21 years: Eat More Cabbage.

Cooked cabbage smells like a gassy dog when it's cooked too slowly or too long. The always awesome Alton Brown devoted a Good Eats episode to this phenomenon, which involves the decomposition of cell walls with heat, which releases mustard gas (yes, that kind of mustard gas, albeit way less concentrated, and not synthesized).

One obvious alternative is raw.
You'll need:

cabbage
apple cider vinegar
dijon mustard
honey
mayo
salt and pepper

It's a basic coleslaw recipe! Shred the cabbage into sizes you'd like to eat. Thinner strips will soak up more dressing, thicker strips will eat like a horse at a feed bag. Whisk a dressing together from a good glug of cider vinegar and a big dollop of mayo, and ease in some honey and mustard to taste. Toss with your shredded cabbage, and salt and pepper to taste.

I could write down some arbitrary quantities, but I never use them. Everything you read will use exact cups and tbsps and all that nonsense, but all these quantities are arbitrary -- all just someone's personal preference -- and there's no reason why mine are any more correct than yours. The best measuring tool is your own sense of taste. The exception to the rule would be baking, which is scientific (literally, in that chemicals and organisms are reacting in exact quantities), but if you can trust in taste and intuition, the universe is your oyster. So for the sake of oysters and the known universe, I'll approximate relative quantities throughout this blog, with only the occasional precision measurement if absolutely necessary.

Cabbage the second.

Cooked cabbage doesn't have to be your grandma's rancid cabbage rolls. The key to cooking cabbage is to be fairly quick and even with your heat. And of course, some help from a few familiar strong flavours doesn't hurt.

You'll need:

cabbage (duh)
salt
sugar
yogurt
an onion
cider vinegar
white vinegar
chicken stock
sherry or other wine
a granny smith apple
chorizo or other tasty sausage
sriracha or other tasty chili sauce

Dice the sausage and fry it up in a bit of veg oil until crispy and pretty brown. Remove and reserve. In the remaining oil/fat, cook some thinly sliced onion on med-low heat until golden. Crank the heat to med-hi, toss in your cabbage, and add a glug each of sherry, cider vinegar, white vinegar, chicken stock, a diced apple, a heavy pinch of salt, and a small handful of sugar. Give it a good stir and lid it for a minute. Then, unlidded, keep stirring until your cabbage is fork tender or done to your liking, and remove from heat. Strain the cabbage and put the liquid into a saucepan to reduce on high heat. Once it gets quite thick -- it should, from the sugar and sherry -- remove from heat and add sriracha/chili to taste, a few dollops of yogurt, and the crispy sausage. Whisk it up, and toss it with your cooked cabbage.

Modest-looking, but totally delicious, I gah-ron-tee.

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on the side...

• Use freshly ground black pepper, or don't even bother. The oils and piperine in black peppercorns begin decomposing as soon as they're exposed to air and light. See for yourself -- buy some pre-ground black pepper and taste a quantity of it about the size of a peppercorn. Then chew an intact peppercorn... if you can take the heat. Pre-ground is absolute shit. Use it to add fake dirt to your dishes and as traction for your icy driveway. Once it's spent, get a good (opaque) grinder with carbon steel teeth -- easily had for less than $20.

pan roasting

The great thing about being a foodie and a photographer is... well...

I've been busy posting food pics of experiments and creations in a little Facebook album of mine, but those tiny captions won't hold the many things I have to say about the joys of cooking, so I'm cannibalizing my own material here. So to speak.

Pan roasting is one my most favourite kitchen techniques. It's simple, tasty, and makes you look like a pro chef with minimal effort.

You'll need:

pork chops
paprika
cooking oil
a few cloves minced garlic
julienned red chili (to taste)
heavy cream (or half-and-half if that's what ya got)
white wine
butter

Season pork chops with salt, pepper, and paprika (I like a sweet smoked Hungarian), and slap it on an oiled, oven-safe skillet at medium-high heat. Brown the one side, then flip once and throw it into a preheated oven at 375°F. Cook to your liking -- this one I photographed is cooked way past my liking because I forgot how thin the chop was. (As a sidenote: some people are terrified of pork that's not cooked to well-done. Don't be -- pork is loads safer today than in our parents' time.)

Set the chops aside (tent it with foil to rest, if you like), and put the pan back on the stove. Add a few cloves of minced garlic and some sliced red chili, then deglaze with a generous splash of white wine. Then add a glug of heavy cream, and keep stirring and simmering until it's thick enough to call a sauce. Take it off the heat, add a dab of butter, add salt and pepper to taste, and you've got a killer pan sauce.

I've got the sauce here on my chop with some steamed asparagus. Serve with potatoes or some good bread and butter, and you've got a quick and tasty dinner that's good enough for guests and looks like a million bucks.

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on the side...

• Hot pan, cold oil, dry meat. Patting your meat dry before putting it into a hot, well-greased pan is the difference between fragrant brown and mushy grey. Cold pan = stuck meat, and worse still, it'll steam cook instead of frying and browning. Ditto if your meat's soaking wet (i.e. a drippy defrosted steak), and the scalding splatter's no fun either. If you've got time, let your meat come to room temperature before cooking.
  
• Add butter at the end of a sauce. High heats change the flavour of butter and cook a lot of the aroma out of it. Adding butter after a sauce has come off the heat means you use less of it and taste more of it.