Harissa #2

 

My friend Jack, brought me 2 pounds of Super Cayenne chiles. They were kept overnight in the 'frig and the next morning, in my propane bbq, fire roasted, most for 10-12 minutes, a few that didn't get the flame first for another 4-5 minutes.

In total that was 

964 grams of Super Cayenne (raw weight before roasting)
950 grams -- after roasting

After removing the burnt skins, removing the stem they weighed: 476 grams.

That's quite a loss of product, but I'm not unhappy. The 2 pounds was but $10.00 (US dollars in September 2018).

Here are the remaining quantities of ingredients.

Salt 8 grams
Brown Mustard seeds 20 grams
Caraway seeds 25 grams
Cumin (powder) 15 grams
Garlic, fresh 8 grams (paper husk removed)
Garlic, granulated, 5 grams
Pickled Lemon 25 grams
Mint, leaves, fresh 10 grams
Rosewater 4 grams
Lemon juice with it's zest, 43 grams
Olive oil, as needed to make a paste.
Sodium Benzoate .7 grams (700 milligrams)

Sorry, I don't have these in ounces and 1/10 of ounces.

Wearing gloves, I peeled the skins and de-stemmed the chiles. Into the food processor bowl with metal blade went the chiles. Over that the mint leaves and fresh garlic, left whole.

In a spice grinder went the salt, caraway, mustard, and cumin. That was reduced to a fine powder and poured over the mint and garlic. Next the juice and zest of the lemon were tipped in.

About 30 pulses got the mass to a fine enough puree to allow the processor to run continuously until the ingredients blended and pulled into a mass. While the machine ran, extra virgin olive oil was added. I eyeball this. It's not hard to see how much olive oil is needed.

Next, the bowl with it's ingredients not fully blended was weighed and the sodium benzoate weighed on a scale that can resolve (weigh accurately) tenths of a gram. As only seven/tenths of a gram of benzoate salt is needed, it must be an accurate weight. After it was added, the processor bowl was replaced and the mass mixed a few more times.

Refrigerate after standing on the countertop a few hours to allow the flavors to meld.

Béarnaise sauce

There was a time when the wealthy had greenhouses and could grow plants. Therefore, they could make delicacies any time of the year. The tarragon and chervil were always available. I can get chervil at the Farmer's Market only when the weather cooperates. I ran a netsearch on Béarnaise sauce and the citations returned are all a monotone. Martha Stewart's is the same as Epicurious', as Ina Garten's, as New York Times'. The guy at the Food Lab gets closest to the original. There may be another reason that this sauce is no longer made and I'm again guessing it is too much work. But haute cuisine is worthy of re-creating. So here goes. Words in brackets are mine.

Larousse Gastronomique. Page 817.

1 tbs. chopped shallot
2 tbs (3 tbs) tarragon and chervil [sic]
a sprig of thyme
a fragment of bay leaf
3 tbs vinegar
3 tbs white wine
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of mignonette pepper
2 egg yolks
1 tbs water
1 tbs water
4 ozs butter
a squeeze of lemon juice
a pinch of cayenne pepper
1 additional tbs of tarragon, garnish
1 additional tbs of chervil, garnish

None of the above recipes from these experts use the cayenne or bay leaf. My guess about the tarragon-chervil confusion is 2 T tarragon and 1 T chervil. But my instincts would prefer 2 T chervil. Your guess?

I'm giving the instructions in a proper order.

Take the butter from the frig and set on the counter to come to room temp. Chop the tarragon, cover and reserve. Chop the chervil, cover and reserve. Peel and chop the shallots. Reserve. Crack the eggs and separate the yolks. Reserve the yolks. Save the whites for other uses. Cut the lemon for convenient squeezing. In a mortar, crush the pepper.

In a small saucepan, put the wine and vinegar. Add the tarragon, chervil, thyme and bay leaf. Season with the salt and a pepper. Reduce by ⅔, remove from heat and bring to room temperature. Mix the yolks with the 1 tbs water. Whisk the sauce over very low heat. As soon as the eggs begin to thicken the sauce, stir in the butter in ½ inch cubes, one or two at a time, whisking continuously.

Season the sauce [add more salt if needed], sharpen the sauce with lemon juice and cayenne. Strain. Finish off with the tablespoons of chervil and tarragon. Keep warm in a double-boiler.

Cooks Note: the wine vinegar reduction of 3 fluid ounces becomes, when reduced 1 fluid ounces. There is a spelling error in the Larousse Index. Under the Sauce category the spelling of the sauce is Barnaise.

Salty Duck Eggs

After 21 days "on the salt", the eggs were the same as they had never been salted. As my Chinese pal agreed the method below is the correct procedure to make salty duck eggs, I cannot understand what went wrong. I ate one of the eggs, poured over hot rice. It had no bad flavor or taste. It had no "off" smell. I am not sick days later from eating it. Sorry.



Chinese cooks do wonderful things with eggs. Duck, as both eggs and flesh is one of my favorite foods.

Duck eggs are quite expensive compared with hen eggs. A dozen hen eggs is under $3.00 (Feb. 2015 prices), while duck eggs range from 65¢ to $1.50 each. And the $1.50 is by the dozen.

While shopping in Chinatown, I found 5 for $4.00. Expensive, but I'll eat an egg for lunch with some other ingredient and that's going to be a fine meal.

Pleasant Aroma

The duck eggs I have seen come wrapped in a nylon mesh bag. This is far from ideal for transporting them, so I took an empty egg crate into Chinatown and transferred the duck eggs into it. The styrofoam container can hold 5 duck eggs with sufficient space in between the eggs to prevent damage. So my expensive ingredient got home safely.

INSTRUCTIONS

for Salted Duck Eggs

Ingredients and Batterie de Cuisine

duck eggs

liquor of at least 50% or 100 proof

salt

plastic wrap

bowls as necessary

If the eggs have dust or minor debris on them, wash and dry your eggs. In a small bowl, just big enough to hold the egg, put the liquor. In another bowl put the salt. Quantities here are dependent on the size of your bowls or containers. I have a plastic Tupperware storage "jar". I filled it with about 4 fl. ozs. of liquor. In a larger stainless steel bowl, I put about half a cup of fine salt.

Cut a piece of plastic film at least 8 inches long. You can adjust the length after you wrap the first egg. Roll the egg around in the liquor for 10 seconds and then in the salt. Be certain that the entire eggs is moistened with the alcohol. We are sterilizing the surface of the shell. Transfer the egg to the sheet of plastic wrap and put it in a bowl. Repeat with all the duck eggs. Place the bowl in the sun for half a day in summer and a full day in winter. The eggs need some sun to feel the salt.

Now comes the scary part and if you are squeamish about authentically made food, and have read this before starting on making the salty eggs, QUIT NOW!

After the eggs have had a sunbath, put them into the egg crate and set it in a cool, dry place. I'm leaving mine outdoors on the patio, where the squirrels and birds cannot get to them. The eggs must now age for 4 weeks (30 days). Every week, the eggs must be (to use the old technical culinary word) overhauled. In plain English, turn the eggs over so that the top is on the bottom. This helps the salt penetrate evenly. DO NOT REFRIGERATE. Eggs in the refrigerator will have their moisture removed.

At the end of four weeks, remove the plastic wrap. No need to remove the salt from the shell. Put the eggs in a pot covering them by two inches of water. Bring the pot to a boil. When the water boils, immediately remove from the heat, cover and rest for 17 minutes. Remove the eggs from the pot and allow to cool to room temperature. Now the cooked eggs can be refrigerated.

Use within two weeks.

卤水 鹵水 Lǔshuǐ Chinese Master Sauce

One of the most difficult to translate foodstuffs of China is, what in the West is sometimes called: Master Sauce but goes by a myriad of names depending on which cookbook author you are reading. Translated from the Chinese, it is lǔ shuǐ and  sounds like low-schway when spoken in English, yes, only 2 syllables.

Prefatory Remarks. Please take them for what you find as worthy in them.

1 - Good food is work. Period. You cannot stint, shortcut or cheat. 

2 - Master sauce must be returned to a boil every few days. More frequently in summer than winter. Refrigeration will allow a day or two more of avoiding the work of re-heating, but the object of this sauce is to be using it up and replenishing it with more soy, gin (see Notes, below) and spices. The brine becomes more sophisticated with each addition of more flavors. Legend has it that there are pots of lu shui going back in families for generations.

3 - there is an -almost a debate at eGullet about Mastersauce. One poster suggests leaving the fat on top to prevent oxidation, while the sauce is refrigerated, I find this to be contrary to the thousand or so years that the Chinese have used this recipe. The URL to the discussion is: 

Lu Shui Chinese Master Sauce

Mastersauce, as I will call it, is used for poaching, braising, and parboiling. As a technique, it is a variant of the Chinese Red Cooking. The viand to be cooked is first simmered in water or stock until ¾ cooked. Then it is transferred to a pot of simmering Mastersauce.

Much like Chile con Carne, every family has it's own version of this sauce. Northern Chinese use some ingredients that are not used in Southern China. And vice versa. If you cook more duck than pork, you might like to use more tangerine than licorice. If you cook more fish than meat, you might like more licorice. The variations are nearly infinite.

Here is the recipe I used, based on Yan-Kit's Classic Chinese Cookbook. 

“12 whole star anise 
1/2 oz. cinnamon 
1 pod black cardamom 

Fruits of Visit to Chinatown

1 tsp cloves 
3 tbs fennel seeds 
4 tbs Sichuan Prickly Ash pericarp (peppercorns)
1/5 oz licorice 
1 oz dried ginger root 
2 ozs fresh ginger, unpeeled, bruised 
5 pints water (100 ozs)  
2 to 3 large pieces tangerine peel 
2 tbs. salt 
16 ozs thick soy sauce (this is sweetened soy sauce AKA Kecap Manis) 
2 ozs. thin soy sauce (also called light soy or superior)
5 ozs. sugar 
6 ozs. Shaoshing Wine 
2 tbs. mei-kuei-lu "wine" or gin (rose wine at 98 proof!) 

This is the basis of lu shui. 

Put the all in a triple layer cheesecloth pouch. Add water to a stock pot, add the pouch, fresh ginger and tangerine peel. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. This will make a ‘tea’. Add the soy sauces, salt, sugar, wine and rose ‘gin’. Simmer and stir to dissolve the sugar. Simmer 30 minutes total cooking time.” The author goes on to say that this sauce must be returned to a simmer every 10 days, between refrigeration. The author, writing and being published in England, give 5 pints of water as 100 ozs. That is English measure, 20 ozs. per fluid pint of liquid. In the U.S., use 3 quarts and 4 ozs.

I got lucky and found a cotton bag for 99 pennies. It is reusable. 

12 x 16 CM

Question: What is the purpose or use for Master Sauce?

Answer: To make delicatessen meats.

Per the instruction to parboil the viand, add the meat to a pot of simmering Master Sauce and finish cooking in it. Allow the food to cool in the sauce. It may then be served cold, or used as an ingredient in another dish, hot or cold.

I cannot give a better recipe than can be found at:

Soy Sauce Poached Chicken 豉油雞 and Master Sauce 鹵水

NOTES

This is Chinese "gin". It is rose scented. Quite powerful, but not as powerful as Mao Toi. Not as expensive, either. 

Usually written in English as lu shui with no accents, you may also see it as lo shu and lu shu and other variant spellings. Google will bring all or almost all variant spellings in the search results using lu shui.

The recipe given makes enough for 2 batches. One for beef and duck - strong flavored. Another batch for pork, chicken, tofu and eggs. Ideally, the batch of 100 ounces could be divided into 3 parts. One for meats, one for poultry and another for seafood. The cooking instructions are that the sauce in the pot must be surround but not cover the ingredient being simmered. That means a small pot to ingredient size ratio. Unless you are a restaurant, cooking large portions for sale, this will work. I cook a breast or a chunk of beef or pork and the quart size works very well.

ADDENDUM January 6th, 2015. With the help of Deborah Xu, a native of Guangzhou, China, I learn that her Father adds pig's feet to his lu shui. I have done the same with mine. If you like, have your butcher slice the pigs feet in half. This will help extract the osmazome from the feet. Upon cooling the lu shui will take on an entirely viscous state, which melts quickly once re-heated. I have made lu shui eggs with this and recommend it.

Chinese Weights and Measures

Ingredients	Water	Cooking Oil	Soy Sauce	Vinegar	Cooking Wine	Salt	MSG	Sugar	Cornstarch
1 pinch / 1 ml	1 g	.9 g	1.2 g	1 g	1 g	1.2 g	.7 g	.9 g	.4 g
1tsp/5ml	5 g	4.5 g	6 g	5 g	5 g	6.3 g	3.7 g	4.5 g	2 g
1 tbs / 15ml	15 g	13.5 g	18 g	15 g	15 g	18.5 g	11 g	13 g	6 g
1.76 fl. Oz / 50 ml	50 g	55 g	60 g	50 g	50 g	63 g		42 g	20 g
3.52 fl. Oz / 1 cup	500 g	549 g	600 g	500 g	500 g	630 g

N.B., the last entry under "Ingredients" seems wrong as 3.52 fl. Oz. is not 1 full cup. As this is Chinese measures, however, it could be that this is a teacup measure.

This table is very useful is you are a restaurant or caterer. It won't matter much to the home cook, but the table is provided as a matter of convenience.

Cedar Planked Swordfish - also know as Swordfish Oscar

Everyone who has eaten this says it's a first rate fish dish. And I say that too. 

Smoldering Cedar Plank

4 swordfish steaks (6 to 8 oz.)
2/3 cup of mayonnaise
1/3 cup of Dijon mustard
1 clove of garlic, mashed
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/4 tsp. of white pepper
1 tbs. of caper jar liquid OR
1 tbs. of lemon juice
6 oz. can of crab meat - well drained of all liquid

16 ozs. asparagus - peeled if thick

Use caper juice or lemon juice, not both.

High Heat Inferno

Mix the ingredients well, except the asparagus. Add the swordfish steaks and allow to marinate for 30 minutes minimum.

Do not soak the cedar plank. It is deliberately destroyed in this recipe to create the smokey flavor.

Using a portion of the sauce, spread a thin layer on cedar where you will put the steaks. Next, add the steaks and then cover the steaks on all exposed sides with the sauce.

Put the asparagus in a bowl or casserole and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Use tongs and mix the oil over the spears.

Preheat the grill 5 minutes, slide the cedar plank onto the grill, close the lid and cook 12 minutes. Add the asparagus and cook it for 3 minutes. So start the 'gus when the countdown timer reads 9 minutes to go.

Use a metal spatula to take the steaks off the plank.

COOK'S NOTE
The quality of the canned crab meat is part of the "making" of this dish. Drain all the liquid. The can of crab I bought was, in June 2014, about $4.00 at an upscale market. The next time I made this dish, I found a can of crabmeat for $2.00. I wish I had spent the extra $2 - this recipe deserves the best quality ingredients.

Mustard Made with Caper Vinegar - a strong flavor

I use capers in a recipe I created and posted about at this blog. When the jar of capers is empty, I save the vinegar that the capers had been packed in.

Today, I got out my Italian mortar and pestle and the following ingredients, pictured below.

Mustard flour, yellow and black mustard seed, capers in brine, shallot, powdered bay leaf, garlic, lemon and anchovies packed in olive oil.

This mustard is quite pungent. More so than Dijon. The liquid from the capers seems to lend extra strength to the mustard.

I had about 3 tbs. of mustard flour left in one of the bottles and started with that. The capers yielded about 100 mL of liquid. That turned out to be a lot of liquid.

I put 1/4 tsp. of salt and 1 tbs. of chopped shallot in the mortar and reduced that to a paste. Then I added about 1 tsp. of whole, drained capers and continued to reduce that to a paste. Once smooth, I added 1 tbs. of mustard flour and mixed it until it was thick. Next alternately, more caper liquid then more mustard flour was added. The trick here is to blend to a slightly thinner consistency (viscosity) than Dijon mustard as over a few days, the Caper Mustard will tighten up. 

Next I added 1/2 tsp. of sugar and 1/2 tsp. of powdered bay leaves. Mixing again, and adding more caper liquid and flour until I had used up the caper liquid, I must have used about 3 to 4 tbs. more of mustard flour before the recipe came together. At the end I added 1/2 tsp. of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Wonderfully that made about 4 ozs. of mustard. When I first thought of using the caper brine, I searched for mustard, caper and variations on the 'net, but couldn't find a recipe similar to this one. So, for now, this is a one-of-a-kind condiment.

For those of you who like bright flavored mustards, this is the number. I suggest you use it anywhere you would use wasabi. It would lend itself to fish dishes, too.

Please note that this isn't as much as a recipe, as it is a guideline for making a powerfully flavored mustard. I did not use garlic or whole mustard seed in this recipe, this time. Please experiment and report your findings. Thanks.