This month I cooked the Pickled Shrimp out of December’s Bon Appetit. I’m two issues behind, but I have done a BA post once a month since November of 2008. That’s dedication, homes.

I had pickled GA white shrimp at Abattoir, and it was rockin’, so when I saw this recipe, and my roommate brought back some shrimp from Savannah, I was on my way. It’s a relatively easy process, but it was slightly time consuming. Peeling shrimp sucks.

After peeling the freezing cold shrimp, they were cooked in the boiling mixture. I didn’t have celery seed or whole mustard seed so I cut that out. Personally I think having 6+ spices in a boiling mixture is a farce. There’s no way that after cooking the shrimp, then pickling them, that you’re gonna say “oh, is that a hint of cardamom?”.

The recipe says to boil for 2 minutes, but I think the shrimp were ready after just one minute. Like a goon I let them go another minute though. Why am a slave to instructions???

While the shrimp were chilling out (get it?) I put together the pickling liquid.

…and added the shrimp.

I refrigerated for about 4 hours, which is longer than the 3 specified, but shorter than the 6 hour max window. I’m guessing they get a bit stringy or mushy from the vinegar after 6 hours.

They were tasty, nice flavor, and I enjoyed it with the paired prosecco, but they were missing some of the “snap” of the pickled shrimp I had at Abattoir. I think less cook time and possibly less pickle time could help with that. As these shrimp were previously frozen, that could have something to do with it too. Also, this recipe took a bunch of time, so not sure I’m eager to do it again. I think pickling is more gratifying when the labor is rewarded by the fact that you have tons of picked stuff you can use for a long time, but in this case, you have a 3-6 hour window.

BONUS POST!!!

I made French Onion soup because I was reading about it and craved it afterwards. My soup was loosely based on the Thomas Keller recipe. Here we have a bunch of onions cooking for forty minutes.

Then deglazed with white wine.

Then I used the rest of my Ad Hoc beef stock and added the garni.

Then broiled it with cheese and crouton. Good snack.

* Note – no prize for pointing out my errors, jerk

But exploring an unfamiliar locale has its benefits and I was thinking about how I decide where I’m going to eat. I hit up the popular spots that are recommended to me, but in general, I’m way more adventurous than I was a year ago. Searching for the perfect hole in the wall has become sport, where each first step into a dingy, run-down chopped pork BBQ shack in a bad neighborhood becomes an exciting moment that has the potential to be my most satisfying and crave-worthy meal of the week. No PR firm. No marketing gimmicks. No buzz. No pretense.

The best BBQ sandwich you’ve ever had in your life is in the middle of nowhere in South Georgia, but maybe you’ll never know.

Seek these places out. Have some fun with it. See a crumbling building off a country road that says “Fried Chicken”? Hit the brakes.

Currently my favorite practice is to boot up my iPhone, find my location in Google Maps, then search for generic terms like “food”, “chicken”, or “BBQ”. The number of results is often surprising. Below are a few photos of my recent findings.

Menu at a country food shack in Hardeeville, SC (20 miles from Savannah)

Collards, fried chicken, potatoes/gravy, and the sweetest corn bread I’ve ever had

Jomax BBQ, who wouldn’t trust someone with such a credible looking photo?

Jomax’s chopped BBQ was damn good though. Some of the best I’ve had in a while.

Falafel from the Pita House in Greenville, SC. This place is fairly well known in Greenville. It’s one of the few places in town to serve this style of food, and I think the meats are weak, but the falafel, hummus, and tahini salad are outstanding.

Another time I was driving back to GA from Greenville, I searched for some options in Duluth. When I searched for “BBQ”, Ming’s came up. The duck was solid, and a good value.

The shrimp and red pork chow fun was my favorite though. Love the noodles in their chow fun.

If you’ve never had the yellow sauce of Carolina BBQ, it’s worth a go. This time I am embarrassed to say it’s from Maurice’s. I say that because I did a post on them a year ago and said I wouldn’t go back, but it was convenient one day. Their hush puppies are the best part.

Poppa’s Finest was another iPhone find. It was literally a trailer on the side of the road.

The potato salad was good, but the meat was suspect. As in, there were unidentifiable parts in the meat. I’m pretty sure I ate some plastic, or a really strange cut of meat. Eater beware.

Saigon Fast Food in Greenville is my latest favorite find. A small mom and pop Vietnamese place on East Pleasantburg Dr, the large menu is full of the usual suspects, including many types of banh mi. The first time I got the roasted red pork, but the bread was a little hard.

Next time I went for the shredded pork, and the bread was much better. It was heavy on the fish sauce, but I didn’t mind.

Tanner’s Big Orange is a Greenville fixture, and I couldn’t resist the urge for a chili dog. But the onions rings were fantastic – large, not too greasy, and they stayed very crisp. Worth the visit.

I had a chicken back and some bones left from the chicken I cut up for the Ad Hoc Fried Chicken, so of course I gave the cookbook’s chicken stock a try. The recipe calls for many more bones than I had (not to mention chicken feet) so I cut the recipe down by a third.

Like many of the recipes I’ve read in Ad Hoc at Home, the chicken stock recipe is very particular and thorough. Keller is adamant that you want a “clean” stock, so no chicken organs are included, and the rest of the carcass is thoroughly rinsed to ensure no blood will cloud up the stock. There are also relatively few vegetables – just a bit of carrot, onion, and leek.

The recipe instructs you to set the pot half way on the burner, to create a circulation effect that will drive the impurities to one side of the pot, making them easier to remove.

This stock had to be tended to for almost the entire cook time, which was one thing I’ve never done with stock; usually I just bring it to a simmer and leave it alone for hours. The heat was increased slowly to simmer, removing the obvious impurities along the way. Once it was simmering, I dropped in a quart of ice, which drives the fat to the top, making it easier to scoop. Then the stock was brought back to a simmer, continuing with the tedious cleaning along the way. See my impurities bowl below. Bleck.

After another hour of this, the stock had reduced greatly (partly through evaporation, partly through my skimming).

Usually I pour the stock through a mesh strainer, but once again Keller says this is a mistake that will cloud your stock. Instead, you are instructed to ladle the stock gently through both the strainer and cheese cloth. The recipe also makes it clear that you should not squeeze out any liquid from the meat.

Then the stock took a nice cool dip in an ice bath.

The stock still had a slight amount of fat in it, but it was very clear.

I’m not sure if mine was cloudier than is intended, but it was much cleaner than my usual stock. The smell was fantastic.

I was only left with two containers like the one below, so next time I make this, I’m going to be sure to wait until I have enough chicken parts to make this worthwhile. If my roommate is reading this, that’s why we have chicken backbones in the freezer.

I was working from home on Friday, and was extremely busy, so when I wanted to make a quick lunch, I threw together this soup. I didn’t have any thawed chicken on-hand, but what the hell, I made some “chicken” noodle soup. At least it smelled very much like chicken. It actually tasted great too. The stock was so satisfying, and I didn’t have to do much to it. Instant nourishment.

Here’s the quick recipe:

• Sauté for 5 minutes – 1/4 sliced onion with a 1” piece of unpeeled, crushed ginger
• Meanwhile cook noodles
• Add 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp curry powder, 2 cloves garlic confit, mix, cook 1-2 minutes
• Deglaze pan with splash of white wine, cook off all the wine
• Add noodles & stock, remove ginger
• Plate, add pointless garnish for dramatic effect
• Season to taste, I like lots of pepper in my chicken noodle soup

The yellow ring around the soup is the curry, not chicken fat. Not the most visually appealing soup, I know.

day 1 dinner: black bean soup with polenta – cost: $1.79

I’m finally settling down after a long Day 2 of Eat On $30, which already has proven to be both rewarding and challenging. I’m definitely learning that under these budgetary constraints, dining out isn’t really an option, and when I have to cook on a budget, some effort and creativity is required, unless I want to end up eating rice and beans every day.

There were a lot of good comments on my day 1 post, particularly in regards to whether I should use pantry items I have in stock. I voiced my opinion on this in the comments, and I think I’m going to stick with it, because I’m not going to waste certain items in my refrigerator just because I didn’t purchase them this week. But I am still on track to use less than $25 worth of food, and I am only using on-hand items that are reasonably affordable to someone with a minimum budget, such as flour, salt, vegetable oil, cayenne, and so forth. I feel like this isn’t exactly what Tami had in mind, but I’m still learning a lot.

I think today felt particularly hectic because I had to cook all three of my meals, I had a ton of work to day, and I’m also going out of town for the next two days, so I had to plan how I’m going to eat while traveling. Trying to fit it all in was tough. My day went like this: I started the day at 6AM with a workout in Piedmont Park, cooked breakfast at 7:15, started working in my home office, made lunch at 11:45, worked until 2:30, cut up my whole chicken and started a pot of chicken stock with the carcass, rehydrated dry black beans in boiling water, then got back to work. I checked the beans/stock a few times and once I was done with work at 7PM I strained the stock. Then in preparation for a couple of meals later in the week I made refried beans and a red enchilada sauce. At some point I also started the chicken noodle soup for tomorrow.

At 8:30PM I finally started cooking tonight’s dinner, and I came up with a meal that was fairly ambitious for me: Pepin inspired chicken thigh, polenta (leftover) “crostini” topped with chicken liver pâté, carrot puree, and fried chicken rind. If this were top chef, I would say this was “beak to foot cooking”, or maybe something witty like “three way poule”. It came out decent, though I slightly burned the chicken skin on the thigh. The poorly lit photo below make it look more burned than it was though.

The amount of planning and cooking has been more tedious than expected, which I think hits home another another point regarding this challenge. Cooking healthy, creative meals on this budget isn’t just tough to manage because of the money – the effort and time required  is just as problematic, further solidifying my respect for those that manage to deal with this situation every day.

day 2 breakfast: black bean soup leftovers over corn tortilla with a poached egg – cost: $0.78

day 2 lunch: ground pork stir fry with leftover noodles and rice from yesterday – cost: $0.82

cutting up the chicken

preparing the chicken liver

searing the chicken thigh (started with too hot a pan, burned the skin)

dinner 2: chicken thigh + mushroom, carrot puree, fried chicken rind, broiled polenta crostini + chicken liver pate – cost: $1.13

fried chicken skin, which I removed from a breast I used for the chicken noodle soup

chicken liver close-up

Dinner parties like this one are a fun & economical way to pool resources and try a ton of great wines, and it’s also a good excuse to pull out all the stops and get a little ambitious in the kitchen. I can’t wait to host something like this myself and pay back The Dude for his hospitality.

We started with a few snacks, including Thomas Keller’s Gougères. I probably ate five of them, still warm from the oven.

The meal officially started with the Salad of Haricots Verts, Tomato Tartare, and Chive Oil. Holy hell this ruled. The tomato flavor was so concentrated, it was absolutely stunning. I would never imagine the combination, but the cool, crisp blanched beans in whipped cream played perfectly with each explosive bite. The stacked frisee, chive oil, and reduced balsamic added to the incredible aesthetic and overall deliciousness of this dish.

Next up was the Bouchon French Onion Soup. This takes an exasperating 8+ hours to make, but once I tasted my first heaping spoonful of gooey gruyere, sweet caramelized onion, and well seasoned beef broth, I think any other onion soup I try from now on will be pedestrian.

The photo below is from Rowdy, I love the way they look coming right off the broiler. The splattering of cheese and broth across the sides of the bowls is an awesome display of unkempt perfection.

With the soup we had an ‘89 vouvray, which had developed the deep color of a well aged Riesling, and a similarly sweet palate reminiscent of apricot and rich apple cider. I would have never guessed it, but this wine went amazingly with the soup. Even though the onions were sweet, the pairing was more balanced than I expected. It was an absolute treat.

I’m already plotting my recreation of this soup, now I just need to find some old vouvray for the killer combo. I can’t convey enough how urgent it is that you get in the kitchen and try these recipes. And feel free to send me an invite.

As FB said, this site is great for all your nerd-news needs, and they do touch on cooking topics quite a bit. A geek has gotta eat too.

A few highlights:

Mario Batali’s video on pasta and sauce makes a great point. Just like with pizza, one of the biggest errors you can make is to have too much sauce. The sauce is my favorite part, but good pasta should be allowed to show its stuff. With pizza, the mistake is even more dire – you’re going to be left with soggy pizza.

While I disagree with a few points in Gordon Ramsay’s “Perfect Scrambled Egg” video, it’s well done and shows how much care can be given to the simple egg. View my post on scrambled eggs here.

The onion video is a must-watch if you end up in tears every time you chop an onion.

Finally, don’t miss Christopher Walken’s video on how he roasts a chicken with pears. It’s weirdly interesting.

For lunch I generally stay close to our office, and I hit up something real fast like Jersey Mike’s (which I like, by the way), but on occasion I stop off and get something different. You can barely see in my phone camera picture below, but in a strip mall off Augusta Road in West Columbia, there’s a small spot called Taqueria Mi Pueblito that I’ve probably dined at a half dozen times.

It’s actually bigger and nicer inside than expected, but I rarely see more than one or two tables occupied, and I’m always the only gringo, which is a shame. The servers are friendly, the space is clean, and they offer the Tex-Mex dishes you don’t often find at real taquerias.

The salsa is quickly served in a real molcajete with warm chips. The salsa is the thin restaurant style, but much more flavorful than most places, really good actually. I noticed a refrigerator full of Jarritos, so I ordered my favorite flavor and made my menu selection.

I’ve never ordered anything besides the tacos, and today wasn’t any different. They do have some good looking seafood dishes, soups, and as mentioned, they’ve got the California burrito, the quesadillas, and the nachos. But you can get that anywhere. My choice for today – tacos al pastor, bistek, and chorizo.

A few minute later this glorious plate arrived, my photo doesn’t do it justice. These tacos were simple, but great. My meat selections generously filled the house made corn tortillas, of which my server was rightfully proud of, served with sliced radish, grilled onions, and another molcajete filled with finely chopped red onions and cilantro.

The al pastor (marinated pork, usually cooked on a rotisserie) was tangy and juicy. The steak was lean, with a nice crunchy crust from the grill, and the chorizo was greasy and salty as it should be.

In Atlanta we are lucky to have a lot of taquerias, but I’m not in the know of many spots in Columbia where you can get this sort of thing, so if you’re in the area and you haven’t tried real tacos, give it a go and let me know what you think.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m quite the “list & series” type of person, which really fits my Type A (uptight?) personality. I keep lists for everything. You ought to see my car mileage, maintenance, and oil records.

Before I dig into this post (TWIST!), I thought it would be an appropriate time to pass along some quick pizza news:

• Varasano’s announced that for $12.95 you can try every pizza on the menu. All the pizzas. $12.95. No-brainer.
• There is an awesome video chronicling a day at Una Pizza Napoletana in NYC. They are one of the most heralded pizza places in the country, and though the video is short, it’s insightful and shows the love that goes into making great pizza.
• The Food Network did an experiment to try to find out for sure – does the water used in pizza matter? Some people claim the NYC water is the reason why the pizza is so good up there, but I’m of the opinion that it’s a load of baloney. In my post on Pizzeria Venti, I stated my opinion on this matter, and the Executive Chef of Pizzeria Venti commented on the post with some interesting thoughts on why water from a specific area can be important. Check out the FN video here to see the surprising results.
• The first coal pizza oven in Georgia is coming soon, to Max’s, a Concentrics Restaurant. In case you didn’t know, the first pizza joint in the country, Lombardi’s, uses a coal oven, so this is definitely not a new concept, but it’s slightly ground-breaking for our area. As Cliff said, the pizza wars are going to be in full effect.
• Finally – would you pay $100 for this? Bricks seem to do just fine.

Back to the post at hand!

I was stoked to see that the April issue of BA had a section on pizza parties, and they had a few topping/sauce suggestions that seemed worthwhile. Also, I just received a mixer for my birthday, so I’ve been eager to make some dough.

My dough recipe is a dumbed-down version of Jeff Varasano’s – I had a post about it last September. My pictures sucked pretty bad back then, and my dough kinda did too. One problem was that I was using a food processor with a dough blade, and I had to sit there for 5 minutes and pulse the dough/batter mix every few seconds. It’s a real pain in the ass and the dough doesn’t get worked properly. With the mixer, I create the really wet dough (seen below) and can just set the mixer on low for 7-8 minutes before it’s initial rest, followed by the addition of the remainder of the flour.

After the 7-8 minute mix, the dough rests for 20 minutes. Then I start the mixer back up and slowly add the rest of my flour over the course of 6-7 minutes. When it’s barely workable, but still very wet, the dough gets dumped out onto my well-floured counter and worked into two dough balls.

Here’s what it looked like right before I put it in the refrigerator.

Now compare that dough with the picture above, which is from the last time I made pizza. See how much smoother it is when I use the mixer? My new dough was dreamy.

My brother Thomas was helping out and got started with the Arugula-Pistachio Pesto from BA.

Meanwhile I roasted some Roma tomatoes with fresh oregano, salt, and pepper.

Here the pesto is done and looking mighty green.

The other sauce we made from BA was their Roasted-Tomato sauce.

With our sauces ready, we were off and running. I used too much pesto but hey, worse things have happened.

This pizza was topped with the pesto, olive oil, sliced/steamed potatoes, and mozzarella. The dough was thin, crispy, and it even held up pretty well considering the extreme amount of pesto.

Next up – roasted tomato sauce, fresh jalapenos, mozzarella, and smoked Boston butt from Patak.

Weil called this “gumbo pizza”, and I have to agree with him. The sautéed red sauce plus the smoky flavor of the Patak’s meat was definitely reminiscent of gumbo. It was interesting…not my favorite ever, but actually not too bad.

Finally, the next day I created my last pizza. The remainder of the pesto, mozzarella, sliced onions, scallions, and sliced radish from The Local Farmstand. Yay for freshness.

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