Enjoy a Slice of Germany - Flammkuchen!

Just one slice....well, maybe two...and another beer...

In Germany, Flammkuchen, or Flame Cake decorates nearly every restaurant menu.  When you’re at a fest, look for the long lines. But, among the hungry multitudes, you’ll need a plan.

Plan A:  Pick out a fest, any fest.  Elbow your way to the beer stand and while you slug down your first liter of malt and hops, waddle over to the stone ovens billowing out clouds of flavor.   Hey, it’s autumn, it’s fest time, it’s Flammkuchen time! Too many hungry swine ahead of you?

Plan B:  Grab another liter, link arms and join in a drinking song, and wait.

Can’t find a fest?  Go get your eyes checked!  But, don't’ despair.  Whether you call it Flammkuchen or as the French say, Tarte Flambé, you can be a culinary hero and amaze your lazy friends in your very own kitchen.  

Tarte is a good name for this dish.  Simple.  Hot.  Delicious!  Easier to make than any girl you dated in high school.  The perfect appetizer before, during, or after a football game, or as part of an inebriation ceremony.

Get started before the crowd in your kitchen gets restless and starts pawing through your liquor cabinet.

The crust is severely thin and crisp, almost like a cracker, but the savory taste is all there.  No, it’s not just a thin crust pizza.

Here’s how you do it…this rendition serves 3 men who don’t give a damn, or 14 ladies who are trying to persuade each other they really don’t eat that much.

First preheat the oven to 425ºF (220ºC), then make the crust:

1 1/2 Cups flour

1 Teaspoon salt

A sprinkle of pepper

A sprinkle of nutmeg

1/3 Cup water

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Pour in the oil and water and stir with a fork.  Knead by hand until the dough no longer sticks to your fingers.  Provided you’ve used enough flour, this takes no time at all. If it’s still sticky, add a little more flour.

About the size of a man's fist.

Dust your counter well with flour.  Roll the dough out as thin as possible.  I’m talking Wheat Thins® Cracker thin. 

I'm talkin' thin!

Prepare the topping.

3/4 Cup crème frâiche (with herbs is best) If you can’t get crème frâiche, try sour cream, mixed with little bit of heavy cream.

I used traditional toppings, but any topping in any amount will do.  For those who are anal-retentive, or control freaks, I offer these measurements:

3 heaping Tablespoons chopped onions

3 heaping Tablespoons lean, diced bacon

3 heaping Tablespoons chopped pepperoni (the little green, pickled peppers, not the sausage)

Put the bacon and chopped onions in a frying pan and gently sauté until the onions are limp and the bacon nearly crisp.

Place the thinly rolled dough on a baking sheet, spread moderately with crème frâiche, then sprinkle on the toppings.  Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until the edges are getting a tiny bit charred and the crème frâiche is bubbling….after all, this is Flame Cake!

Raw, naked, and ready for the oven.

There’s also a sweet version. Instead of the savory toppings, just sprinkle sugar over the crème frâiche and add your favorite dessert toppings.

Oh yeah!  You be da cook o da hour! 

Ladies, kiss the cook!  Guys, grab him another liter of beer!

For the neighbors who followed the aroma, get the dog to chase them out of the yard, unless of course they brought more beer.

Out of the oven!  Smell that aroma!

Magazine Monday #81: Peanut butter, chocolate chip, and bacon cookies

I have to admit, until today, I hadn't ventured into the whole chocolate-bacon flavour combination craze. But as is common with me, strange cravings come upon me suddenly, and I get to thinking about recipes I've come across that didn't appeal to me at first glance but all of a sudden seem like something I just have to have right now. This recipe was one of those times.

Thank God - and my mom! - for Food Network Magazine! In the most recent issue, they had a recipe for peanut butter, chocolate chip, and bacon cookies, and so I made them this afternoon when a craving inserted itself into my brain.

The recipe is here.

Usually not a fan of savoury items paired with chocolate, these cookies were awesome! In fact, I think they could have used more bacon than what the recipe called for. I didn't put the chilli powder in the dough because I thought that was going a bit too far and seemed a bit too weird, but the bacon paired with the peanut butter and chocolate was just great. The cinnamon was a perfect little hint of spice. My dad came over and I fed him some, and he thought they were the oddest combination of ingredients out there - and he couldn't taste the bacon. So next time, more bacon! Also, I had to add a few tbsp of milk to the dough as mine was too dry to form into balls.

Other than that, a totally keeper recipe!

Christmas Breakfast

So, as if were weren't full enough from the previous night's Christmas Eve feast! Because on Christmas morning, it's time to bring on the Benny!

Yep, we have Eggs Benny on Christmas morning, accompanied by bacon and sausage. Usually, Dad provides the bacon in the form of this double smoked stuff he got from a local butcher, but the butcher closed shop during this past year, so dad no longer had access to his favourite bacon! Well, we made do with regular bacon, and we also had traditional English sausages made by another local butcher (who doesn't smoke anything). The sauce is from a package. The eggs are poached by yours truly. We also had fried potatoes, mimosas, and special coffees with Kahlua!
And we had a great guest for breakfast on Christmas morning, too! His name is Crushy and he's my SIL's friend's dog! He was so great! He's half American Bull Dog, and 1/4 each Pit Bull and Blue Heeler. He was so happy and mushy and just great company!For other Christmas pet shots, go here!

Solstice Dinner 2009 - Part One

Simply put, last night was fabulous. I was worried I wouldn't have enough food, but that was ridiculous because I came home with a crapload of leftovers. I'll be feeding myself this meal for the rest of the week! There were 8 of us altogether, and the company was great.

My organization paid off and cooking the actual meal went very smoothly and almost seemed too easy.

So, let's start off with the main star of the show, the spiral cut, sausage-stuffed, bacon latticed pork loin roast.

I had made the stuffing the night before, and here is what I used:

6 mild Italian sausages, casings removed (it payed to ask the butcher at LOGS exactly what was in the sausage as flavouring, and it turned out that it was just salt, pepper, and garlic - perfect)
1 onion, finely diced
about a cup of whole cranberries
about a cup of maple pecans (thanks to Jodi's parcel!)

I boiled the sausage meat and drained off all the liquid in a colander. Then I sauteed the onion, added the sausage to brown it, then added the nuts & cranberries.

I have a TON of this left over. I made way too much and only used about 1/3 of the amount for my one pork loin roast. Not sure what I'm going to do with the rest. I'll freeze it for sure, and I thought of stuffing a whole chicken with it...

The next morning, I assembled the pork loin roast. Spiral cutting this sucker wasn't fun, mainly because of the odd shape of the roast: it was kind of oblong. Dave's blog said to keep the knife parallel with the counter and slice as if you were peeling an apple. This seemed simple enough in my mind, but the reality was a bit different. It was quite tricky and I think I really bungled it up. You can see the result in the upper right photo in the collage. At one point, I even cut through the roast to the outside, and I though that would be disastrous when it came to stuffing that sucker, but the cut was in the right place and wound up on top in the end. So, once it was as flat as I could get it, I put the stuffing at one end and topped that with sliced mozzarella cheese.

The trickiness wasn't over yet! Now I had to roll this up and that wasn't easy as the stuffing kept falling out. I eventually just folded the flap of mean over the filling and tucking it under. That worked fine, and then it was time to truss, truss baby.

This was also tricky. I am not an expert trusser by any stretch of the imagination. The roast was too big for my silicone trussing thingies, so I had to use butcher's twine.After that, I seasoned the roast with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Next came the really fun stuff: the bacon lattice! This was fiddly, but luckily not too difficult as I've made lattice top pies. Same principle applies when making a bacon lattice. This took one and a half pounds of bacon and wasn't big enough to cover the entire roast. The spots that remained uncovered I just wound with bacon, not doing more lattice work, and decided that that wouldn't be my presentation side. But the top of the roast looked quite impressive when I was done. I secured the lattice at both ends with toothpicks. Then I wrapped the whole shabang in plastic wrap, put it in a pan, and threw it in the fridge until I was ready to take it to Jem & Shan's to roast for dinner (the dinner was at their place; I don't have enough room to entertain a group of 8).

So, at Jem & Shan's, I got out a roasting pan, oiled it, and threw the roast into it, then into a 350F oven. Shan & I estimated it would take at least an hour and a half. After an hour it was looking and smelling really good, at that point, I put in my electronic probe thermometer with alert on to dingle when it reached an internal temperature of 170F. I let it rest for 20 minutes while I finished up other things that were on the go at the same time.

Here it is - finished!
And here it is on a platter, after I sliced it:
The meat was tender and juicy and perfectly cooked. It was well seasoned and the flavours were excellent. Everyone was thrilled with the results. The previous night, Jem & Shan had had a friend come over and cook a meal for them, too, and coincidentally enough, this friend had also made a stuffed pork loin roast. He had made a really nice sauce for it that was pan drippings, white wine, pureed shallots and pureed apples...It was so good. We just added my pan drippings to that and a bit more wine and served it my pork loin! It was perfect. Incredible, actually.

Thanks to both Dave and Chris for inspiring this dish! You guys are awesome! While I couldn't BBQ this, I will have to try that when BBQ season is back, because that would definitely have taken this to the next level!

Here is the entire meal on my plate:Tomorrow, I'll post about my side dishes and dessert!

Full Flickr set here.

Bacon Mayo

Eons ago (OK it was last September, so nearly a year, then) I reviewed a book called Fat, by Jennifer McLagan. It's a very thought-provoking book to say the least, and after reading I decided to become a hoarder of fat.

When I say "hoarder of fat" I mean that in the mildest of ways. I skimmed all the beef fat off of my braised beef ribs to use in McLagan's cornish pasty recipe, wrapping it well after letting it solidify, and then freezing it. It's still there. I also started collecting my bacon fat whenever I cooked bacon. Because I don't eat that much bacon, and I tend to buy leaner bacon to begin with, it took me just over 11 months to save up the 1/2 cup of bacon fat required for McLagan's Bacon Mayonnaise recipe found on page 101. I kept the fat in a small ramekin, covered at all times, in my fridge. I finally, finally had half a cup last week.

Here is the recipe.

Bacon Mayonnaise, from Fat by Jennifer McLagan, page 101

1 egg yolk

3/4 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Sea salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

1/2 cup liquid bacon fat

Combine egg yolk, mustard, & lemon juice in small bowl of a food processr or blender and process to mix. Season with salt & pepper.

Have the bacon fat liquid but not hot. With the machine running, gradually add bacon fat until the mixture starts to stiffen & emulsify, about 2 minutes. Once it begins to emulsify, add the fat more quickly. Adjust seasoning. If it's too thick, thin with 1 tsp of boiling water.

I have a small food processor but even so, the yolk/mustard/lemon juice mixture was too small an amount to properly mix in the food processor. I ended up having to whisk everything in a bowl by hand after the first ingredients kind of stuck to the bottom of the food processor bowl.

Here is the finished product:

It tasted...OK. Not overpoweringly of bacon, surprisingly. In fact, it was a tad bland. To test it out, I put in on a great burger I made, served with grilled veggies.

It actually complemented the burger a lot, lending it a bacony flavour and an extra juiciness to the meat, since the mayo basically melted when it came into contact with the hot burger. Will this replace Hellmann's for me? No way. I can't see this being as versatile as Hellmann's and it just isn't the same. But it was a good experiement.

No, no more bacon fat hoarding!