The Quest for Pliny The Younger

What do you think of when you hear the name Pliny the Younger? For some it takes them back to history class and back 2000 years to the time of 79 AD when he wrote about his uncle and adopted father Pliny the Elder saving those from the destruction of Mt. Vesuvius. For other it brings to mind one of the top rated and one of the best beers in the world. For me this was a quest to taste one of the most sought after beers there is today.

I have only recently been into drinking beer. I was one that would have the occasional Coors Light and more recently Hangar 24's Orange Wheat. My husband decided to try beer again as he could taste some of the best beers in the world at a fraction of the price of the best wines in the world. We started attending beer and food pairings at our local craft brewery Hangar 24 located in Redlands, CA. In doing this my eyes and palate have been opened to a whole new world.

With the new knowledge and taste I became one to try some of the more unique and highly rated beers. We found a local market that would get small quantities of some of the great beers in the world such as Russian River's Pliny the Elder and Blind Pig as well as the genius creations of Mikkeller the nomad brewer. With these beers we would try out some of our own pairings. During this time we also started going to beer tasting parties where we would have anywhere from 20 to 40 beers to sample from all over the United States and the world.

This brings you up to date a little of my beer history. As you can see it is a very short one, but one of quick learning and appreciation of the fine crafted brews. I discovered during this time I like pilsner's, wheat beers, scotch and brown ales, boozy strong beers that taste more like liquor than a beer. I can appreciate a good IPA even a double IPA if it is paired well and not overly hoppy. I am not a fan of the overly bitter and hoppy tastes.

Through Facebook I had seen a posting from Eureka Burger, a local restaurant that brings in some of the finest beers, this simple message PTY. Having heard of the legendary beer I knew what they were saying and it was confirmed in later postings that Pliny the Younger would be coming to Redlands. They didn't say when other than soon. This posting was HUGE in the beer world especially in Redlands where the other known place to try PTY was in Northern California at the Russian River Brewery where this beer is created. The posting appeared toward the end of the week right before the President's Day holiday weekend.

A little history about PTY. Pliny the Younger is a triple IPA, yes I said TRIPLE! It got its name after the Double IPA Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Elder the man lived 23-79AD and in brewing notes is contributed for writing about hops and the brewers at Russian River sought it fitting to name the Double IPA they were creating after the man who wrote about such an important ingredient in the beer world. When they created this Triple IPA they could not name it anything but Pliny the Younger after the son of this man.

I continue now with my quest for PTY. My husband, who had wanted to try this beer, was out of town and I told him that The Younger was coming, when I did not know, but hopefully it would be after her returned on Monday, President's Day, from his trip. Facebook had been quiet about the PTY other than speculation on the postings when it would arrive all weekend. That takes us to Monday. Eureka Burger posted again. This time with the cryptic number 2. All the post was the number 2. What did that mean? Two hours, two days? WHAT???? Once gain the comments were nothing but speculations. Until, someone posted they called and were told 2 o'clock we would have PTY.

This left me with a dilemma; do I go without my husband or not go? I talked to Doug and he said for me to go. So our daughter and I went to Eureka Burger for a late lunch. We got there just before 2 and the place was packed. People inside jammed the bar area and every seat was taken. We put our name in and were told 60 to 75 minutes. Okay, I could do that. I'm starving, but I can do that, I just hope they don't run out the beer before I get in. 

We ran into friends outside while waiting and they told me to expect hoppy. Hoppy? Oh no I do not like hoppy beers, but I am here and I am going to do it anyways. We patiently waited and after 30 minutes our name was called. That wasn't so bad. First thing I did when the waitress came I told her I wanted the sampler. They were only pouring the beer in 5 ounce pours and in a 4 beer sampler. I can't honestly tell you if they were serving it alone since I never asked. In the sampler you received some of Russian River Brewery's finest beers, Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig, and Damnation.

Russian River Brewery's PTY, PTE, Blind Pig, & Damnation

My sampler came well before our food did, but I dove right in. My first sip of Pliny the Younger was not what I was expecting. I did not know at the time that this beer was a Triple IPA, but I would never have known it was an IPA at all because it was creamy. Did I call a Triple IPA creamy? I did. It was so smooth and well balanced that it just glided over my tongue. And at that point I know I had done it. I had tasted one of the beers thought to be the best in the world. I also did this with a bit of sadness as I couldn't share this with my husband. 

The other three beers were good, but not as good as The Younger. Was it the hype that made it taste better or was it actually that good? I cannot tell you for sure, but I could taste the hops in The Elder and Blind Pig. I enjoyed Damnation more than the other two, but not as much as The Younger.

My husband got back the following day and we decided to head over to Eureka Burger just on the off chance that there was some left. Once seated and we talked to the waiter he told us the two kegs of PTY was gone in 5 hours. The Elder was also sold out. I felt a little regret that my husband missed such a chance, but he was happy that at least one of us got to try it and there will be another keg or two next year.

Pliny the Younger with it's father Pliny the Elder 

Here is to all of your beer drinkers out there. To the quest of great beers and bottoms up. Sláinte!

Baking Challenges

Most people who know me know me as someone who loves to cook. But what they might not know is that deep inside I am a baker at heart. My earliest memories of baking were with my grandmother. I remember making lemon meringue and pumpkin pies with her.  She didn't always make everything from scratch, but she taught me a few tricks that I still use today.

There is something about baking that I love and find challenging. I don't know if it's the fact that baking is chemistry and for most things you cannot just throw ingredients together and expect great results. When you bake you have to be exact or what was supposed to be light and fluffy is now a brick and would damage your floors if dropped. As for having to stick to the recipe I do admit that because of that I do find myself a little more fearful to experiment with changing the recipe.

Since the internet is such a handy tool for finding recipes for just about anything you want to make nowadays I have for the most part have stopped buying cookbooks. Until this Christmas that is. Thomas Keller of the renowned French Laundry and Bouchon put out a book from his loved Bouchon Bakery and that became a must have.

The cookbook is as much a coffee table book as it is a cookbook. The pictures are incredible and would make any person browsing through it begin to drool. Surprisingly also many of the recipes are incredibly easy. I know many of you are thinking easy for her to say. But I am telling you the truth. You can make an olive oil cake in less than 30 minutes and have an impressive base for a wonderful dessert.  If you read the recipe thoroughly prior to starting the baking and follow the instructions you will be successful.

Are you flummoxed over a baking term? Thankfully the internet is here to make it easy for you discover the meaning without feeling like a complete idiot. The best way to learn is to practice and take thosse chances. You may nail it on the first try, but most likely it will be the third or fourth time before you get those desired results. There is nothing wrong with no succeeding, even the world's greatest chefs and bakers had disasters before they found the perfect technique and came out with the results they wanted.

Back to the challenges I love. I found a strawberry parfait in the Bouchon Bakery cookbook that I couldn't wait to make. Problem was all the steps and different recipes I had to make to get this one final product.  Step one: Bake an olive oil cake. Step 2: Make pastry cream. Step 3: Make buttercream. Step 4: Blend the pastry cream and butter cream together. Step 5: Assemble parfaits.

I told myself I can do this and I'll make it for my Bunco group. So the day before Bunco I proceeded and baked the olive oil cake. That was simple and I had to let it cool and freeze it to make cutting out the cake easier. Next was the pastry cream. That was pretty easy also as I have made this before. The worst part was running it through a fine mesh sieve to get out all the impurities.  Finally the buttercream. Now this recipe was different than the one I usually make for my cakes. This one had egg whites, boiled sugar, and then the butter would go in. You need a good candy thermometer and to watch the sugar so it doesn't burn. Pour the sugar into the beaten egg whites and once that mixture has cooled to room temperature you can add the softened butter to combine.

Finished Strawberry Parfaits

With all three steps complete I was able to blend the pastry cream and buttercream together and complete the final parfait the next day.  I had to modify the assembly as I was using smaller dishes than the recipe called for.  Once complete I placed the parfaits back in the refrigerator until they were to be served. 

I was pleased my Bunco friends enjoyed our dessert as there wasn't a bit left in any of the dishes.

I happened to have some leftover buttercream and pastry cream so I experimented with another way to use all the same ingredients and made another olive oil cake and put all the ingredients together more like a napoleon. In this manner I was able to serve more people and have an impressive cake.

Next time you think that something is too challenging for you, stop and think about it. Is it really that hard or are you ready to face that fear. Go ahead and take the challenge. What's the worse that can happen? You end up with cake? Go enjoy and have some fun.

Recreating an Experience and Making it Your Own

For the last several months my husband and I have been going to beer and food pairings. I have never been a big beer drinker. I was a Coors Light drinker for years and in the last few years I have become a fan of the wheat beer. We have a local brewery Hangar 24 that started offering Flight Formations where they pair a type of food with their beers. Man has this been mind blowing. Who knew some of these bitter beers were actually good?

Several weeks ago we attended a beer and food pairing dinner at Farm Artisan Foods in Redlands. This was our first fine dining beer dinner there. Let me say all the food and beer were incredible. Roberto & his team outdid themselves. One of the dishes we had was a butternut squash ravioli with sage brown butter, served with Ommegang Scythe & Sickle beer. Now this was the best beer/food pairing that I have ever had.

Over one weekend we went out on a beer collecting trip. We went looking for some of the beers we had a few weeks ago at three different stores. We were lucky to find the beer from Ommegang and we brought that home. So now it was my turn to try to recreate the dish we had at The Farm.

Flour with a well with eggs, olive oil, & salt.

Now I was ready to get to work. I had some butternut squash from the farmer's market and I was ready to make homemade pasta. I happen to have Roberto's recipe for pasta so half the battle was done there. In the oven went the squash and then it was time to make the pasta. I like to do it the old fashioned way, by hand flat on the counter, no bowl required. Once the pasta was made and resting I went to work with the baked squash getting it pureed.

Roasted butternut squash.

Pureeing squash is easy. Once it is baked where a knife will slide in and out easily let it cool slightly then scoop the flesh out of the skin and put into a food processor or blender and pulse it until the flesh is creamy and smooth. Because squash has a lot of liquid in them I place cheesecloth into a strainer add the puree and let it drain for a few hours. With a large butternut squash you can get close to 1 cup of liquid from it.

Pasta dough with finished filling.

After several hours of separating the liquid from the puree, the squash was ready for me to make the filling. The filling consisted of the butternut puree, shallots, parmigiano-reggiano cheese, cream, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. More water evaporates when you heat the puree, so it becomes more solid than runny. Adding the cream adds a richness to the filling. While the butternut mixture was cooling it was time to roll out the pasta into sheets to start the assembly process of the ravioli.

Finished ravioli waiting for boiling.

After you assemble the ravioli you then cut out the shape desired and place on a floured pan so it does not stick while you are finishing the other raviolis. The ravioli does dry out a bit, but don't worry about it. You then bring salted water to a boil and add a few of the finished ravioli at a time as not to crowd the pot and cook until the ravioli is tender. About 7 minutes.

Butternut squash ravioli ready to be eaten.

While the ravioli is cooking in a saute pan melt butter and let it begin to brown. Add fresh sage leaves and allow them to crisp up. Once the butter achieves a nice brown color without burning remove from heat. Place finished ravioli on a plate, spoon over brown butter and sage, finish dish with grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese and parsley. It is now time to eat the fruits of you labor.

Making pasta may seem a bit labor intensive and time consuming, but in reality it can be done in less than an hour and fillings or sauces can be made while the pasta dough is resting. This is something you can get the whole family involved with and what kids don't enjoy helping make dinner? It is also a way to introduce your family to vegetables in fillings that they might normally not eat. Have fun with pasta and for the adults try a beer you wouldn't ordinarily have with food.  Enjoy!

The Next Master Chef?

Since the first episode of the reality show Master Chef I have been sitting back thinking, "I could do that." Season's 2 & 3 went by and timing wasn't in the cards, so I patiently waited for the casting to begin on Season 4.  Applying was simple enough by filling out an online form and then printing out 14 pages of application and releases. Then the waiting began for when the casting call would be.

In early October the email arrived with the information I had been waiting for. November 3, 2012 at Le Cordon Bleu in Los Angeles I would audition for Master Chef.  Now the question was what would I make?  The Master Chef website didn't give you much information other than you need to bring a dish prepared, there is no place for you to heat or cook the food.  I knew what I wanted to bring, roasted pork loin wrapped in caul fat with caramelized fennel and onion.  Thankfully I didn't have to worry about having it hot as the judging was not on temperature.

Shaking Hands with Gordon Ramsey

On Saturday, November 3, my husband Doug travelled with me to Los Angeles for my audition.  We arrived at Le Cordon Bleu at 10 am and see several hundred people and who was greeting all the contestants waiting in line? The infamous foul-mouthed chef himself, Gordon Ramsey.  He finally made his way down the line to me and I was able to say hello and shake the hand of the man that is feared by many chefs. 

After about three hours of waiting to go in for my audition, I was called in with about 19 others. Once we were in the room we had three minutes to plate our dish before they came around and photographed us and our food. Once they were finished with that we were interviewed about ourselves and our food was looked at and we were questioned about it.  I didn't know what to think and I was only asked why onion with the fennel and I was told I had pretty plating.

One thing I noticed while in line and while in the audition room was that some of us had three digit numbers and some had the letter V followed by three digits. They didn't have to wait in line as long as those of us with only the three digits.  When the judging was finished they were the only ones asked to remain while the rest of us were dismissed. 

What did they do to get that letter? Why do they have that letter? Why weren't anyone without that letter called to remain? Is this show somewhat prejudged? Those questions I do have still to find the answer to. What I do know is we were told that we were not all no's and that we could still be called back.  Los Angeles was not the only audition city and thousands of others will be going through the same process I just went through.

Will I be the next Master Chef?  I don't think that is in the cards. No matter the outcome I do know I had a great experience doing something I love. 

 

* During the premiere episode of MasterChef in May 2013 one of the people I saw at the audition with the letter V in front of their number did make it on to MasterChef as one of the top 100. She made heart shaped cookies. Laughable, I'm sorry, but it is. Also, during the show one of my friends from high school appeared on the show. She was never shown with her falcon or with her dish. She answered a casting call and did not audition. My realization is MasterChef is just TV, they want the ratings and don't really care to have the best cooks if they did they wouldn't have had a guy with giant waterbugs in the top 100. As I said I wouldn't change my experience, but if I knew then what I know now.

 

Caul Fat? What the heck is it?

Butcher's are a dying breed. What we know as butchers at our local markets are not really butchers, they are just meat cutters who know little about the animals and their parts. I went into the market this morning looking to see if I can order caul fat. What is caul fat you ask? It is a membrane found in pigs that is used for adding moisture and flavor to chicken, roasts, & sausages. Restaurants use this product to help hold together roulades of meat. It also adds flavor to lean meat and the caul fat is rolled over the meat and almost entirely disappears once the cooking process is finished.

Caul Fat

After not succeeding in getting the product ordered from my market I proceeded to call every meat processor within 30 miles and no luck. Some of them had no clue to what I was talking about.  In many ways this is scary. Who processes our food and where does it come from? Nothing is local anymore and it is all mass produced. No wonder we have so many recalls on meat!

After I started writing this post I made one more attempt at finding someone who had caul fat. I looked at Amazon.com and I could buy 10 pounds for almost $50 before shipping. What am I going to do with 10 pounds of this stuff?  Thank goodness I didn't have to resort to that because I found a place in Chino with the product. Hallelujah! Hottinger Family Meats is my life saver. Now I get to play around with the product.

Caul fat wrapped chicken breast

What am I going to do with caul fat? I decided to wrap it around stuffed chicken breast. The product is pretty easy to work with. My mistake was after assembling the rolls I put them back in the refrigerator. This made the meat and caul fat too cold so I didn't get the sear and color I wanted on the finished product. What it did do was add some wonderful flavor and moisture to a meat that can dry out quickly.

The finished product with mushroom risotto

Should you try using caul fat? If you can get it the answer is YES! Why not experiment and learn something new. Failure comes from not trying and expanding your knowledge in anything. To those of you who try this product I wish you luck and tasty eats.

Pressure Test

For years I have been fascinated by the much feared pressure cooker. I had never used one and I don't think my family had one when I was growing up.  All I knew about them were the stories of how they would blow up if you weren't careful. Careful? Yikes what does that mean? Can you leave it alone for 5 minutes or do you have to watch it and hold your breath hoping that nothing goes wrong? Pressure cookers have been around since the late 17th century so that can't be that bad can they?

One day last year I happened to be watching HSN and what comes on? A pressure cooker of course. This one wasn't the one like your grandmother had that was used on the stove top and you had to watch the temp and make sure it wasn't rattling too much on that stove top. No, this one was electric. Well I watched and learned all the things you could do with this machine. I decided I was in and ordered it. Now I had to wait for it to be delivered.

When the pressure arrived I couldn't wait to use it, but at the same time I was a little scared. Why was I scared? I have no idea other than having those horrible exploding stories in my mind. It took me a few days, but I was ready to use my new toy.  What to make? Something braised of course. A little secret to pressure cooker is you have to use liquid in it so making something braised or a soup is going to be the way to go unless you are using it to boil items.

My electric pressure cooker has a browning setting so it can get really hot and you don't have to start items in a separate pan on the stove. When you braise meat 9 times out of 10 the directions will tell you to brown the meat. Browning caramelizes the sugars in the meat and makes the dish taste all that much better.  Tonight's meat was oxtail and all I had to do was set it to browning add a little oil and it was time to brown the seasoned meat. Wow that was easy. I added my veggies and started putting in the liquids I was going to braise the oxtails in. For me that was red wine and some beef stock.

Now that all my ingredients were in the pressure cooker now was the real test, setting the pressure. My pressure cooker comes with two pressure settings, high and low. I was going to use high. I put the lid on, locked it, and set it to high. I have a timer on the pressure cooker and I set it to 45 minutes. Usually ox tail takes hours to become tender and fall off the bone, but with pressure you reduce your time. With the cooker being electric it was very quiet. It did make some noise at first when it was reaching the right pressure, but other than that nothing. That is until the timer went off.

When the timer went off the machine didn't turn off, it went to keep warm. Now I know that is not an option on stove top pressure cookers. I could be out of the room and not worry of any explosions. This was great. While it's on keep warm the pressure slowly releases, but it does have a steam relief valve if you don't want to wait. Time to eat.

I won't go into too many details, but the meat was juicy and tender. The flavors went through the meat and wasn't just in the liquid. The pressure pushes those flavors into the meat. To put it simply dinner was down right tasty. What did I have to fear? My kitchen was clean and I didn't have dinner splattered all over the kitchen like I feared. Did the pressure cooker pass the test? Did I? I think we both did with flying colors. The new electric pressure cookers are not the ones from grandma's day.

If you are asking what advantages are there for having a pressure cooker to braising on the stove or oven? Time and flavor are both advantages. You can take a frozen piece of chicken and have a wonderful flavorful fully cooked piece in 45 minutes compared to the time it would take to defrost and then cook the chicken.  Next time you question whether or not you should get a pressure cooker, go for it. You and your family will be pleasantly surprised.

A Fish Tale

My husband challenged me to recreate a dish we order just about every time we go to Caprice in Redlands, the brook trout. I accepted the challenge and went off to the grocery store to hunt down the ingredients. My local store didn't have brook trout but had its cousin rainbow trout so that had to do for this challenge. I returned home with two lovely whole trout. Now what to do?

Here is where the real challenge began. What did I know about trout? Nothing other than it has A LOT of bones. So now I was faced with the task of filleting the fish I bought. I have never filleted a whole fish before. I had some ideas how to do it, but I wanted to make sure I did it right the first time and I didn't leave more fish on the bones than I did on the fillets I intended to create. Where does one go to read about filleting a whole trout?  Why the internet of course. I found a couple of videos, but one was just what I was looking for and it showed me the simplest way to do it.

With my new found knowledge I was armed with I was ready to proceed. What do you need to fillet a fish? A sharp boning knife and a good large cutting board. With that at hand I was ready. Having a whole fish can feel a little intimidating. For a majority of Americans our food usually does not come to our homes with their heads on. But for this girl tonight's dinner had a head and I had to do something about that. So in Marie Antoinette's famous words, "Off with their heads!" And off they went.

Heads off, check. Now onto the filleting. This was a bit more labor intensive, but it is actually pretty easy with having the right tools. I said having a sharp boning knife was important and this is where it came in. Boning knives are narrow and very flexible and make making cuts very close to bones rather easy.I removed the spine and then I followed the rib bones like I saw in the video and they came off for the most part in one piece. Once I got one side done I proceeded to the other. It wasn't perfect, but I did succeed in getting almost no meat on the bones I was removing. Also, one side wasn't as pretty as the other. I knew in the end it wasn't going to matter once the meal was complete.

Trout Fillets

Think I was finished? Nope, by no means was I done. Now for the simple yet very important job of removing the pin bones. These are the inter-muscular bones in many fish and are actually floating bones not connected to the skeleton. These are the pesky bones that make eating fish not pleasurable if they are not removed. They are simple to remove, all you need is a fish plier or a very clean needle nose plier that you have pilfered from the tool box. You just feel along the flesh and you will feel these bones poking out. You just pluck them out. Be careful not to dig too much into the flesh. Once all the bones are out it is time to trim off the fat and clean up the fillet.

Time to cook dinner. Thankfully the trout Gods were on my side and nothing stuck when I was cooking the fillets in a stainless steel skillet. I wanted a crunchy skin and this was the best way to do it. Once the fillets were cooked I let them rest for a few minutes while I made a brown butter sauce in the same pan. When the sauce was done I topped the fish with haricot verts (thin green beans) and toasted sliced almonds and drizzled it with the brown butter sauce and finished it with a sprinkle of Maldon salt. Ta-Da! Time to eat.

Trout Almondine

Did I succeed in the challenge? Yes I did! It wasn't exactly like the dish we love at Caprice, but it was darn near close. I also succeeded in this challenge by learning how to work with an ingredient I had never worked with before. It was a great lesson. I learn by watching and doing. I think I also succeeded in finding a way to have something my husband and I both enjoy for a fraction of the price. Next challenge of this dish is now to make it for friends who also like fish.