Preservation Link Roundup 3/4/10

Serious Eats' Slice, reviews a pizzeria in Indianapolis (Indianapolis: Maria's Pizza Still Going Strong After 50 Years). The featured pie? A "Sauerkraut Special":

Bringing everything together was the named star of the pizza, the sauerkraut. This grossly underutilized pizza topping provided a zestiness that demanded I continue eating well after I was full.

Nina Corbett has an excess of lemons and was running out of energy for the more strenuous forms of preservation ... so, she put some lemon zest in a jar of vodka with a little sugar and rosemary (Lemon Rosemary Vodka). Frankly, making liqueurs is definitely a great way to preserve without a lot of effort. And experimentation with flavors is entirely up to you.

Steam Kitchen posts a crowd-pleasing and simple recipe for stuffed dessert wontons (Chocolate Wonton Recipe). As she notes, you don't have to fill the wontons with chocolate. Try your favorite jam, conserve, marmalade or pie filling. How about strawberry preserves as the filling and then drizzle a little ganache on top?

The OC Weekly's food blog, Stick a Fork in It, discusses the Murcott Tangerine, also known as a "honey" tangerine, noting that they are excellent for marmalades (Murcott Tangerines). Might I suggest that they're easily separated sections make them excellent for canned sections in syrup? They make a great local version of the canned mandarins that are popular in various salads.

The Kitchn provides a traditional recipe for pickled red cabbage (How to Make Easy Pickled Red Cabbage). These can be kept in the refrigerator, but no processing time is provided. Twenty minutes in a boiling water bath would make them shelf stable. I like to use red wine vinegar in mine however, with an occasional foray into apple cider vinegar (especially with green cabbage).

The Denver Post (via the Washington Post) falls in love with kimchi (Kimchi is Really Some Hot Stuff). Some good ideas for using kimchi in the article, I hadn't thought of using it in a dressing (such as for a turkey), but it makes sense.

Serious Eats reports on the slowly growing prevalence of kombucha (Kombucha: The Acquired Taste for Funky-Tasting Fermented Tea). Good stuff and easy to make at home. Ask me about it at the market.

Real Food Fans found the instructions for an old 70s-era water bath canner in one of his mother-in-law's old recipe books and harshes on it for, supposedly, encouraging people to water bath can low acid things like soups, vegetables and seafood (Somehow They Didn't Die).

Slipped into the book a few pages later ... [was the] instruction booklet, hand dated "July 75," for a WestBend water bath canner. "Ideal for Water Bath Canning...OR Soup * Stew * Spaghetti * Sea Food * Corn-on-the-cob." Uh...ideal if you're looking for a way to cull your family and reduce your food bills, I suppose.

Leafing through the instructions themselves, there is no mention of any of these "or" items, just the usual high-acid vegetables and fruits. And there is a disclaimer on the top of the inside front page, shown below. [image in original]

Phil is not certain his mom canned soup. Even if she didn't, I'm sure others did, either missing the disclaimer, or not knowing enough to figure out what constitutes high- or low-acid foods, or not understanding that failure to use the proper canning method could kill you.

Actually, I'm not so sure about that. Just because in the year 2010 not too many people know about proper canning techniques, doesn't mean that canning knowledge was in short supply in 1975. Many more people likely had experience with canning and access to people who were experienced canners. They probably knew better than to can soup and seafood without a pressure canner. Clearly, the pamphlet meant to say that the canning pot was good not only for canning, but you could make soup in it as well. Actually, that is why I don't recommend specialized canning pots, but rather a good stock pot for a boiling water bath.

Still Blonde After All These Years is giving away two copies of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Preserving Food ($330 Complete Idiot's Guide Giveaway March 3- March 13). You just have to comment on the blog ... but read the post for full instructions.

Sustainable Food from Change.org provides a short introduction to canning (Yes, We Can! A Brief Guide to Home Canning). Cool, but can we stop with the "Yes, We Can" stuff already?

Preservation Link Roundup 2/26/10

Small Measure has announced the ingredient for March's Can Jam (March Can Jam: Alliums!).

From tender, green scallions, chives, scapes, ramps, and leeks to papery, husky onions, shallots, and garlic, the Allium family is the vegetable world equivalent of the guest who shows up at 6:50 p.m. for the cocktail party that begins at 7:00-by showing up early and as motivated as possible, they get the party started. Alliums are ready for the good times to begin again.

As noted in the announcement, be sure to use a tested recipe or properly acidify your alliums for water bath canning as they aren't acidic enough on their own.

Kevin West discovers the awe-inducing fragrant properties of bergamot a little too late (Bergamot: What Not To Do).

While cutting the fruit, I got an inkling of its strength and added only one of the two [bergamots to six pounds of oranges]. But after the heat of cooking unleashed its full fury, even that one fruit proved to be 99 parts too much. Its intensity burned the lips, and its smell—so alluring in the infinite dilution of eau de cologne—caused me the same panicky, suffocating feeling as do certain industrial cleaning products.

Read the whole thing.

The Paupered Chef hates vodka. It isn't my favorite, but the Paupered Chef despises it. So, when he ended up stuck with a partial bottle of the stuff, he turned it into an infused, or compound gin (Homemade Compound Gin (No Bathtub Required)). The results aren't the equivalent of a high-quality distilled gin, but good enough that the vodka-hating chef may actually buy some vodka just to make more homemade gin. Might I also suggest making some homemade aquavit as well?

Of course, this is only for home use. Unfortunately, according to Grubstreet San Francisco, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control is cracking down on housemade infused spirits - tarragon-infused vodka one of the victims (Bars Running Scared as Alcohol Board Cracks Down on Infused Booze). Apparently, the law was meant to prevent bars from increasing the alcohol content of distilled spirits, but is now being interpreted, broadly, to prohibit altering the spirits in any way. Heaven forbid bars make good, interesting drinks.

Anarchy in a Jar alters a blood orange marmalade recipe they posted last year - removing the meyer lemons, since they were overwhelmed by the flavor of the blood oranges (Blood Oranges Zest My World).

Put a Lid on It makes a "real jam" for her honey with strawberries from the market. I'll note that last week was the first time since last season that the strawberries at the market started tasting like strawberries again, instead of pretty, but tart and fairly flavorless berries. Still, being a chef and all, there has to be a twist, and PaLoI turns to a chef's not-so-secret helper, Culinary Artistry. Everyone should have this book. It is an encyclopedia of flavor pairings. Look up an ingredient and the book will let you know what flavors go well with it. From this, PaLoI gets the idea of pairing the strawberries with balsamic vinegar (Strawberry Balsamic Jam).

The sequel, The Flavor Bible, is also a must have. When you want to change up a jam with an additional flavor, consult one (or both) of these books for some flavor ideas. I also use these books to cook from the pantry. When I have an ingredient and I'm not sure what to do with it, I look it up in one of these books and I am usually inspired to make something with it.

The New York Times continues coverage of the tomato bribery scandal - and the details keep getting worse (Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food):

In addition, prosecutors say that for years, SK Foods shipped its customers millions of pounds of bulk tomato paste and puree that fell short of basic quality standards — with falsified documentation to mask the problems. Often that meant mold counts so high the sale should have been prohibited under federal law; at other times it involved breaching specifications in the sales contracts, such as acidity levels or the age of the product.

The scope of the tainted shipments was much broader than the bribery scheme, touching more than 55 companies. In some cases, companies detected problems and sent the products back — but in many cases, according to prosecutors, they did not, and the tainted ingredients wound up in food sold to consumers.

The prosecutors say the product wasn't a health risk, but read the whole article. Seriously, read the whole thing.

Preservation Supplement to LA Times Food Section 2/11/10

This week's LA Times Food Section is a bit all over the place with dumplings for Chinese New Year and Crack Pie (no, not that sort of crack). There are a couple of articles that touch on food preservation, however.

The first is on the difficulties that artisan spirit makers are facing (Sober Times for Artisan Spirit Makers).

The craft brew movement has resulted in a plethora of artisanal beers everywhere you go. It's virtually impossible to keep up with all the varieties, let alone the brewers. Still, without a thriving beer movement there are so many lambics, bocks, and rausch beers that we'd never have the opportunity to try. Similarly, in the last few years there has been a movement to create artisinal and craft hard liquors; whiskeys, rums, gins, etc. Unfortunately, though this sounds like a good idea, actually getting a business off the ground is a lot more difficult than it seems.

Although the article doesn't mention it, I think one of the problems is that it is illegal to distill spirits at home (no moonshine). Artisanal beer got a huge boost from homebrewers. I think it is safe to say that there wouldn't be much of an craft beer movement without the training and experience many artisans gained through homebrewing. Moreover, the existence of drinkers who learned to drink more sophisticated beers through homebrewing created a ready-made market for artisan beer. Because of the anti-moonshine laws, the same can't be said for spirits.

Repeal the prohibition on moonshine, I say ... give a boost to our artisanal spirit makers!

However, just because you can't distill your own vodka, doesn't make you can't make your own infusions and liqueurs. One suffering business talked to in the article makes saffron- and tarragon-infused vodka. Fruit liqueurs are also very easy to make - add fruit, sugar and vodka - let infuse for a few weeks, strain and bottle. Fantastic.

"The Find" visits a Lebanese restaurant this week (Middle Eastern Food to Dig into). Unsurprisingly, pickles are not mentioned. Yet, you will almost always find pickles with Lebanese food. Kabees el Lift, turnip pickles (colored red by beetroot), are the classic. Kabees el Qarnabeet, pickled cauliflower, is also very common.

Perhaps pickles weren't served, but chances were they were simply ignored by the reviewer. There are space constraints, of course, but pickles are too often ignored in restaurant reviews.

By the way, the "pungent, creamy garlic paste" the reviewer liked both with french fries and grilled chicken? It is most likely Toum. Absolutely fantastic stuff. I highly recommend giving it a try ... like aioli, it goes with many different things. Not really a food preservation thing, but this stuff is really, really good.

Finally, the reviewer was impressed with the hummus, one of my favorite condiments. Hummus is something that I throw together in ten minutes whenever I need a quick dip or spread. I'm able to do this because I've pressure canned the garbanzo beans already, so I just have to open the can, rinse and drain. Highly convenient ... and cheap, since you can often find that dried garbanzo beans are quite inexpensive in the right ethnic supermarkets.