Cooking Techniques and Kitchen Gadgets

The supermaket shelves are lined with bbq sauces, ketchup, salad dressings, and marinades. Over the past couple of years, I have stopped purchasing almost everything and anything, such as the list above, that can easily be made with pantry ingredients. I have always made my own salad dressings, I keep jars of homemade barbeque sauce in the fridge, and making fresh salsa could not be easier. My freezer is filled to capacity with chicken stock, beef stock, vegetable stock, marinara sauce, bolognese, pesto, doughs of all kinds, and red enchilada sauce.

I have spent the last three months trying my hand at ketchup. The first few batches were very “vinegary”. Others were too spicy. The rest were too thick. I have lots of ketchup that I can not throw away. I have found ways to use up the not-so-perfect ketchup. My BBQ sauce calls for 4 1/2 cups, I slather my turkey loaf with ketchup before baking, and my homemade baked beans uses 28 ounces of ketchup. Needless to say, I have a lot of barbeque sauce on hand. Who wants some?

From the N.Y. Times

There is undeniable pleasure in a plain beef burger — juicy, tender, and well browned over a backyard grill — but there’s even more in a jazzed-up one. If you begin with pork, lamb or beef that you buy yourself and grind at home, and continue by adding seasonings aggressively, you’re on your way to a summer full of great “burgers” which are, in essence, sausages in burger form.

In fact, I wondered while making (and eating) my first pork burger of the grilling season: Why would anyone make a plain burger? Why would you begin with supermarket ground beef — whose quality is highly questionable and whose flavor is usually disappointing, if not depressing — and then cook it without much seasoning beyond a few crystals of salt? Ketchup, after all, does not fix everything. Even adding mustard, pickles and so on, right down to mayonnaise, doesn’t give you good-tasting meat.

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Braising is one of those cooking techniques that's made for winter. When you've got the time and you're stuck indoors on a cold day, braising low and slow is the way to go. Almost anything can be braised, but tough cuts of meat like beef chuck, lamb shoulder, and pork shoulder are the best. Under a tight-lidded pot, these meats go meltingly tender—with the touch of a fork it falls apart.

The key to a flavorful braise is the liquid. Many classic recipes use red wine or beer, such as ale or stout. But braising in soda, either ginger ale or cola, also produces mouthwatering results. Since a standard cola recipe uses a number of ingredients (including roots, spices, and herbs), the soda acts like a very flavorful broth. It all lends wonderful flavor to the meat. This pork shoulder braise features the flavors of Mexican cola.

To enhance the flavor further, I add balsamic vinegar for tanginess and brown sugar for sweetness. Dried cherries lend another level of flavor as well as texture. Since I love cherry cola, it's a win-win. After braising the meat, I like to reduce the liquid to create a luscious sauce. Simply serve the pork thickly sliced with the sauce alongside plus some boiled or mashed potatoes—it's the perfect Sunday dinner.

My friend Gianni — one of the original Fat Boys – called me today. He’s been buried in work for a couple of weeks and we haven’t been much in touch.
“Mikey, I had the cacio e pepe at Eataly last night. You gotta try it; it’s the best cacio e pepe I’ve ever had.”

This was at 2:00 in the afternoon and it was raining. I had kind of settled in for the day.
“Life is short, man. Have I ever led you astray in terms of a plate of pasta? This is the stuff of legends.”

“I’ll meet you at the subway in ten minutes.”

Gianni, of course, was dead on about the pasta. We ate at the bar, so that we could watch the guys work the pasta station. Also because the tables were full. I sipped a primitivo; he had rosé. We shared a cauliflower, fennel, celery root and Asian pear salad – all sliced trasparente — which cleansed our palates and sharpened our senses.

Then came the spaghetti cacio e pepe and I must say, Gianni was not blowing smoke. This was a first-rate bowl of pasta, which, by the way, we did not share. Neither of us feels particularly comfortable nor genetically directed toward that concept. We each had our own privately owned and controlled bowl.