Last week I was stumbling around midtown during a happy hour search for rehearsal dinner venues, and after eating a particularly horrid charcuterie plate at Publik House, I went for a cocktail at Ecco to cleanse the taste of Franco-insulting pâté from the roof of my mouth.

After receiving a very fine cocktail called The Castro Monk (bourbon and Benedictine) from the awesome bartender Eric, well, one thing led to another and I ordered a couple of appetizers. The octopus salad with olives and sliced garlic sounded good on paper, but it missed the mark for me, the octopus a bit chewy and the large raw sheets of garlic too hot and attacking. Though, I did enjoy the few bites with large Italian parsley leaves and diced olives.

I also ordered the baked egg with leeks, and though it sounds much like (and is quite possibly inspired by) the baked egg in celery cream from Miller-Union, it’s a bit different, the base being much heartier, with large bites of awesomely fragrant leeks. The crispy bread served with this dish are actually two little “sandwiches”, a thin sheet of ham inserted between each bocadillo. It was quite good, though my inability to wait a minute or two led to an extremely severed palate.

Isn’t my photo below artistic? It’s what happens when one takes a blurry photo in the dark and decides to screw around in post processing to make it acceptable looking.

As someone who claims to be really into cooking, it’s embarrassing to admit I’ve never done a proper batch of duck legs confit. Once I basically did it with the two legs on a whole duck I purchased, but I wasn’t able to render enough fat to fully cover the duck, so I had to use lard. Also, I didn’t cure the legs overnight.

With an 8lb tub of duck fat in my possession (seen dominating my fridge above), I was ready to rock for real. I ordered the duck legs from Star Provisions. Eight legs cost about $20 ($5 a lb). Next time I’ll double the order. The legs were seasoned with salt, thyme, brown sugar, and slivers of garlic and they sat overnight. The legs were rinsed, dried, covered by five cups of melted duck fat, then roasted in my oven overnight at 190F for about 11 hours. They were fork tender, but not completely falling apart.

I poured some of the fat back over the duck legs, but left the last few cups and refrigerated that separately so the juices/bits would separate from the duck fat. Below I’ve skimmed the duck fat off and added it back to the container with the legs. What’s left is duck gelee, which I’ve frozen for use in a sauce or soup down the road.

Below is the seven legs, completely covered. As I’ve removed all the duck meat juices, this will now stay preserved for months. Though, I doubt it will last that long.

That morning I took a still warm duck leg, seared it fat side down for 5 minutes, then served it with a sunny side up egg and a crab cake with remoulade that was leftover from dinner the night before. Breakfast surf and turf.

I got the remoulade recipe from my mom, it’s the best I’ve had. The ingredients in descending order are: Mayo, celery, scallions, parsley, capers, mustard, ketchup, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, Worcestershire, Tabasco, minced garlic, dry mustard, paprika, anchovy.

I forgot to link up to my last By The Glass post on Creative Loafing’s website. This visit was to Miller-Union, one of my personal favorite wine lists in town.

I’m still trying to find my voice a bit, as I think I’m using too much stuffy wine jargon. It’s been a lot of fun though. Look for some new and better posts soon!

Check out the baked egg and Loire pairing from Miller-Union here!

I had breakfast at The Social House the other day while my car was getting worked on at Gordy Tire (highly recommended). It was my second visit for breakfast here. The first wasn’t very memorable, not awful, but just not good I enough that I desired to return.

This second visit was another matter.

I ordered the mother daughter reunion eggs “benny” (fried chicken, eggs, get it?) Right off the get-go, the two eggs were very unappealing looking and one egg yolk had already been punctured. The potatoes tasted reheated and the chicken had a strange day-old texture, such that I couldn’t bring my self to eat any of the bite sized pieces after the initial taste. The accompanying hash brown cake was mushy and bland. It all tasted a bit….sad.

The coffee was good and strong!

I don’t usually use this site as a platform for negative posts, but in this case, I really can’t recommend going here if other options are readily available.

First there are some photos from my recent favorite restaurant in Columbia, Baan Sawan. The first few photos in the Flickr set are a month or two old, but after the first seven there are some new ones.

Then there’s the Wednesday burger from Motor Supply. It’s a mess, but I really like the soft texture and seasoned flavor of the meat.

Sushi at Camon, also in Columbia. Limited selection, but not too bad at all.

I braised some kale from The Local Farmstand. Chile oil, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, and dried chiles, simmered in chicken stock. My mouth was on fire.

This piece of jowl has been in the fridge for about 10 days. I’m still a bit skeptical that there won’t be an overwhelming odor of rotting pork when I get back to Atlanta tomorrow. After the cure, it will hang in my fridge for a few weeks to make guincale.

Recent breakfast that I enjoyed – bacon, garlic aioli, poached egg, grape tomatoes, thyme, paprika

Fresh off my trip to New York City, and completely guilt-ridden over the amount of money I spent, this past week I tried to eat as much food from my pantry as possible. One evening I made a quick, spicy tomato sauce with chickpeas over orecchiette with parmesan shavings. It was comforting.

I didn’t use the whole can of Roma tomatoes or chickpeas, so the next morning I was trying to think of what I could use them for, when I recalled the recipe for “eggs in purgatory” I had read in the March issue of BA. The recipe calls for artichoke hearts, which I didn’t have, but I had everything else and figured chickpeas would make a fine replacement.

This recipe couldn’t be simpler. First I diced the potatoes and boiled them. Meanwhile I sautéed onion, then garlic and thyme, then added the tomatoes, covered the sauce pan, and cooked it for ten minutes. After that, I added the potatoes and capers and cooked for a few more minutes. I estimated all ingredients as I was just cooking this for myself but also wanted to use up all my tomatoes and chickpeas. 

I transferred the sauce to a small baking dish and cracked an egg in it. Two eggs would have been better.

It cooked at 375F for twelve minutes.

Then I hit it with Parmigiano-Reggiano.

What a delicious and hearty breakfast. I loved the acidic zing of the capers. Artichokes would be a nice touch, though it was plenty flavorful and substantial without them. You could easily make the sauce ahead of time and whip this dish up in less than fifteen minutes, twelve of which are inactive so you could go take a shower, watch YouTube, make coffee…you get the point.

As soon as I saw the recipe for this month’s post, I ear marked the page and knew this would be the recipe I’d make. I’ve been wanting to deep fry an egg for a while, well, because I love deep frying, and I love eggs. Double bonus that this recipe comes from Jeremy Fox, chef at Ubuntu.

I started by soft boiling the egg in lightly simmering water.  Like a dumbass I didn’t gently lower the egg into the water, I dropped it in there, and it cracked when it hit the bottom. Instead of cooking another egg I just let it go, curious if it would still work. The egg spilled out of the shell slightly, but cooked instantly and created a seal in the opening. After plunging in the ice bath, I peeled the egg, and though the egg is shaped funny in the bottom, it all worked out.

For the bed I quickly sautéed some kale and turnip greens.

Then breaded the egg in the panko/flour mixture. Instead of semolina, I used Korean potato starch.

The egg didn’t get quite the exterior that is shown in the recipe photo, so perhaps using the exact instructions will provide that more even and rich coating.

The remoulade was easy and tasty. I didn’t have mayonnaise so I quickly made my own using a method I found online last year. Crack one egg in a tall, plastic measuring cup, add 1 Tbsp of cider vinegar (lemon juice is often used, but I didn’t have any – any acid will do), 1 tsp of Dijon mustard, and a pinch of salt. Then stand up a hand held immersion blender in the cup and pour in 200mL of olive oil. Mix until it’s whipped into mayonnaise. Easy.

Note – I didn’t add cornichons, tarragon, or hard boiled eggs to my remoulade because I didn’t have some of that stuff and it seemed a bit tedious for a sauce that tasted great without them. Though, this recipe comes from a restaurant, and that’s one great thing about restaurants – they take the time to do things I’m too lazy/busy to do.

How did it taste? Fantastic. Deep fried eggs, with a creamy yolky center, spiced up with sriracha…that one is quickly being added to the super easy yet cool repertoire.

Thanks to my brother Thomas for the chopstick/plate/spoon set seen in these photos.

I started by making refried beans. I had some Rancho Gordo black beans soaking in a water/garlic/bay leaf mixture from the previous day. Shown beside it are the Napa-based Rancho Gordo Rosa de Castilla beans, part of a joint venture called the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc project, a partnership with Mexican bean growers to promote and ensure the survival of heirloom Mexican bean varietals. 

You can get a lot of great bean cooking ideas from the RG blog. The next day I ended up sautéing the rosa de castilla beans in bacon fat with onions. These beans are fantastic. You can buy RG beans online for $5-6 a package, or you can also pick them up at Star Provisions for $8.50 a package. $5 a package is expensive, but you get a lot of varietals that you won’t find around Atlanta, and the taste is 300% better than store brand beans.

I also ordered some Mexican oregano from RG, which has a slightly stronger and more distinct oregano flavor.

The beans weren’t quite tender yet, so I sautéed some onions and garlic, then added the beans, water, fresh ground cumin, chile powder and cayenne until they were soft and the liquid was almost totally reduced. Actually, these black beans never really got as tender as I wanted. And I cooked them a long time, probably an hour, adding water a few times.

I don’t have a masher, so I used my “mallet”, which also has the potential to be the most dangerous weapon in my kitchen. I mashed up the bean mixture, added some olive oil, and turned up the heat to finish the beans.

While all of this was going on, I also cooked some bacon and crisped potato cubes. I began creating the burritos – tortillas, then refried beans, then queso, potato, and bacon.

Followed by rice and scrambled egg. When I cooked the scrambled egg, I cooked it like an omelet, keeping it in one large piece. My thinking is that there would be less surface area of egg exposed to the deep freeze, so there’s less chance of textural issues when they are reheated.

I ended up making five burritos.

I ate one right away.

And froze the other four. I wrapped them tightly in aluminum foil. I should have wrapped them first in plastic wrap, then in aluminum foil, as the aluminum foil stuck to parts of the burritos when I tried to unwrap them later.

Here is a frozen burrito. The frozen bean end looks gross. I cooked it in the microwave for three minutes at 70% power. Don’t ask me why I selected 70%. I’m slightly neurotic about choosing microwave power levels. I come up with all sorts of internal justifications regarding why I chose a particular setting. “I’m warming up a pint of chili? Well Jimmy, we don’t want to cook the exterior of the chili, we want to slowly warm the chili, followed by a quick nuke to ensure the chili surface is hot enough to melt shredded cheese. Let’s go four minutes at 40%, followed by sixty seconds at 100%”.

Guess what, they were pretty good. I ate one almost every day for the following six days, and I never noticed a degradation of quality from day one to day six. The eggs didn’t even taste weird. I wish I had used more cheese, which I think helps balance out the rice and beans, which get a bit dry upon reheat. But additional salsa helps with that too.

I drive to South Carolina one morning every week, so these were especially convenient for that trip. Right before I jettisoned Atlanta, I microwaved the burrito, wrapped it in foil, and went on my way. It was still warm by the time I hit Monroe, GA.

Burrito success!

I can’t believe it’s already Christmas. It always sneaks up on me. So is it any shock that I’m behind on buying gifts?

This Saturday I made a mad dash to try to wrap up my Christmas shopping, plus I needed to buy some stuff for a cheesy Christmas sweater/pot luck party that night. Instead of cooking I decided to get a spread of charcuterie and cheese from Star Provisions, but on my way there, I hit a pothole (seen above) on Huff Rd. and blew out two tires. Merry Christmas.

So as I sat there in my car waiting for a tow truck, across from the street from a speaker store that was blasting rap music in the parking lot (“I wanna, lick lick lick lick ya from ya head to ya toe”), thinking about how this was some sort of penance for prior sins, when I realized I was walking distance from urban pl8.

I walked over to find they were still serving brunch. I contemplated eating in so I could relax with a bloody mary, but decided missing the tow truck would be the icing on the cake, so I ordered huevos rancheros to go, then sat in my car and ate while the apartment complex security guard curiously watched me from afar.

I enjoyed the breakfast. Two corn tortillas with two sunny side eggs, salsa, refried beans, sour cream, and cilantro. You can’t really see the beans in the picture, but that was the best part. They created a refried bean cake and cooked it on a griddle so that it was crusty on the top and bottom. The salsa was above average too. Recommended. Also, the staff at urban pl8 are super nice.

The tow truck finally arrived and towed me to Gordy Tires, across from Flip. A little over $400 later, and I was on my way.

I finally did get that charcuterie at SP. It was a hit at the party.

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This photo has nothing to do with this story, but it’s my Sunday breakfast from this weekend. I’ve been making rice bowls a lot for breakfast since our house got a rice cooker. They are great for using up vegetables in the fridge. This one is rice + bacon + asparagus sautéed in bacon fat + two poached eggs + sriracha + soy sauce. Delicious.

To only make matters worse, I’m going to give you a Thanksgiving post, as if you haven’t seen one of those lately.

But at least I’m knocking another recipe out in the Bon Appétit series – Sourdough Stuffing with Sausage, Apples, and Golden Raisins. Not sure if I mentioned in on here before, but after my last Bon Appétit post, a publicist who works for BA/Condenast emailed me to tell me they were keeping up with my series, which is obviously flattering, and provides a bit of motivation to keep it up. And if Bon Appétit is reading this post and wants to put one of my dinner parties in their magazine (you know, one of those spreads where everything looks perfect and everyone has that Stepford wife smile?), just click on the “Contact Me” link to the right of this post.

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This recipe is very easy, so I’ll burn through it quick. Cut up sourdough and toast it slightly in the oven.

Cook the celery and onions as your brown the sausage.Then peel the apples (I used three Granny Smith), cube them, then sauté the apples in the sausage fat.

Mix up the bread with the onion, celery, cooked apples, and sausage.

Cook the herbs in the fat for a few seconds, then add them, plus all the fat, eggs, and chicken stock to the bowl and mix thoroughly.

I forgot to add the raisins and realized it after I had already put the stuffing in the oven. I ended up just sprinkling them on top which resulted in quite a few burnt raisins.

The raisin mistake made a big difference as it made the stuffing very bitter on the top layer. But other than that, it quite satisfying. The apple was close to the color of the bread, so each apple bite was an unexpected sour and sweet surprise.

The best part was the leftovers. I like leftover stuffing better, once the whole deal is really soft. I decided a stuffing omelet was in order, featuring gruyere. I think omelets are way too underutilized when it comes to leftovers. There aren’t many Thanksgiving side dishes that wouldn’t be at least decent in an omelet.

I would eat an omelet with any of the following fillings: cranberry sauce, turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, pearl onions, and mac ‘n cheese. I guess carrots and green beans don’t sound like the best mix, but you get my point.

This omelet was awesome by the way. Almost as good as my leftover chili omelet today.