Jess is one of my friends who recently is getting into home cooking.  This has been a real treat for me!  Just in the past couple of weeks we’ve been swapping recipes and attending some great foodie events.  She exudes passion and makes her friends her number one priority.  Jess, I’m excited to continue cooking and swapping recipes with you!

The ingredients are really simple!

Jess gave me a basic recipe of rice, chicken stock, and ginger.  Chicken meat is simmered with the rice to become soft.  The rice is seasoned with salt and white pepper and the final soup is garnished with green onions and cilantro.  I noticed that one of my new favorite cookbooks, Vietnamese Home Cooking also has a recipe for rice congee but under the Vietnamese name Chao, so I cross-referenced that with Jess’ recipe.  Finally, I remembered my mom adding barley to a similar style of soup and went for that. The result was a delicious success.

I fried the shallots slightly differently than the cookbook I used.  Try the recommended way first.

 The flavors and textures of the topping are a great and necessary contrast to the soft soup, so be creative and add what you’d like!

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This soup is perfect on a chilly, rainy day or when your body could use some healing.  Don’t be turned away by the idea of “rice porridge” having an unusual texture – this recipe is full of flavor!

Please check out Erin’s food blog!  She picks accessible comfort-food recipes and also likes to share her food adventures and experiences within the city.  I love her sense of humor about when recipes don’t work out for her and when they really, really work out for her!

It was such a treat when her package arrived – she really went out of her way to find some funky local Brooklyn treats and pantry staples that I am excited to use. Thank you for the beautiful package and letter, Erin! You are exactly why Foodie Pen Pals is so fun and so enlightening – I learn so much about different regions of the states and their culinary treats! I’ve discovered so much about Brooklyn-based companies, as you’ll see below!

On the left, Erin sent Sugar Plum Fairy Jam with Shiso and Ice Wine from Brooklyn-based Anarchy in a Jar – what an incredible flavor! I had to try some, but want to save this for a really special dinner party with the best bread and butter I can find. I’m thinking the Apricot Walnut Bread from Columbia City Bakery!

In the middle is New York City-based ISH Premium Horseradish. What’s funny is that I received and opened this package the night after I finished making and eating the Roast Beef on Weck recipe. If you recall, my grocery store was out of pickled horseradish, and I totally could have used this! So, I’m saving this special jar for the next time I make this sandwich! The ISH website is pretty fun. They have a recipe section to help you find ways to use their product. I think I’ll be ordering a couple more of these jars, the ginger and garlic ones sound amazing and I know some friends that would LOVE the Beet ISH.

On the right, Erin sent some Stone Ground Mustard from Wyoming Buffalo Company that she obtained from a recent trip. Since I’ve been on a sandwich kick lately, this will go fast! I love that I’m excited to use everything in this package!

Check out the flavors on these chocolate bars from Madécasse Chocolate: Sea-Salt and Nibs, Arabica Coffee and Cinnamon and Sakay. I haven’t yet decided if I will save them for a fancy baking project, because they’re so tempting after a solid rock climbing session. So far… I’ve been good. Waiting for that perfect recipe. Perhaps some pain au chocolat ala Aly of Fudging Ahead? These bars are a real treat to receive for Foodie Pen Pals, thank you so much Erin!

Finally, a funny coincidence happened with the last yummy thing Erin sent me. This is the Snack’r Candy Bar from Liddabit Sweets, another Brooklyn-based company that got started selling their candy at the Brooklyn Flea Market (which is definitely on my list of stops when I visit). Check out the ingredients list on that page – this bar has a similar composition to a Baby Ruth, but tastes so much better and you know the ingredients are quality. I loved this, and can’t wait to try more from their company. Next to the candy bar is the brand new Liddabit Sweets cookbook, which I obtained by attending their book signing and candy-making demo at the best cookbook store out there, Book Larder! This was within the same week of receiving Erin’s package – what a coincidence huh?

Here’s Liz Gutman and Jen King getting introduced to their Seattle audience, ready to demo a marshmallow recipe!

These two explained how they were close friends while studying Pastry at the French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center). Their dynamic together is great to witness. I loved their pride in showing off their massive two-year project.

Jen then started to demonstrate how to make marshmallows. It’s so much easier than I thought it would be!

It does require a candy thermometer, however, and you do need to be conscious of temperatures as you mix things together.

Demonstration kitchens – how handy is that mirror?

Sample marshmallows made by Rachael Coyle using the Liddabit Sweets recipe.

We also got to try “Roni-Sue’s Best Ever Buttercrunch” from the book – this was ridiculously good, like a much better designed Almond Roca!

We were a spoiled audience (this was just my first cup)

The cookbook is essential for anyone with a sweet tooth.  Liz and Jen told us their goal was to create a cookbook that could be used as a reference, the modern standard for accessible candy-making today, as the existing ones now are for skilled professionals or relatively out-dated.  And the variety present in their recipes is excellent.  I’m excited to cook through this book to make gifts for the upcoming holidays.

Thank you Erin for such a wonderful package – I enjoyed every single thing you sent!  And if not for you sending Liddabit Sweets, I would have had no idea about the company and to check out their cookbook debut.  And now I’ve got a great cookbook to work through (and maybe a few cavities from that candy bar)!

My Foodie Pen Pal to send to this month is Karlie, a college freshman in Colorado. She asked for quick and healthy snacks to support her college lifestyle… I decided to try to keep local, and didn’t completely honor her health request (I tried though! It’s hard!).

 On the top left is some Uncle Woody’s Caramel Corn from the Seattle Popcorn Company.  I like that this snack has relatively fewer calories compared to some other treats.  The brown bag is Cherry Almond Granola from Columbia City Bakery, another morning favorite.  The healthiest thing in here is likely the bag of dried strawberries from Simply the Best, that awesome fruit stand at the entrance of Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle.  On the bottom row we have the Caveman Bar locally made in Washington State. To the right of that, we get a little less healthy.  There’s a bag of buttery sables from Le Panier Bakery, also in Pike Place. Finally, I included some home-made brownies I made using Baked’s famous recipe, with some walnuts added.

You can find more information at the Foodie Pen Pals main page and check out the reveal posts here! A big thanks to Lindsay of the Lean Green Bean for organizing a great program!

This post is going to be an example of a relative ”failure” in the kitchen, or as Melissa Clark of the New York Times would call it, “recipe-developing”.  While I created a stock quite similar in taste to the restaurant, the colors are quite different!  The stock is expected to be milky in color due to the fat content and the simmering marrow bone – mine was golden like a rich roasted chicken stock.  My base recipe was called “Milk Stock”, so I’m still not quite sure what went wrong.  I’ll be attempting to master this again for sure.

This still made a delicious stock (which I used for an extremely flavorful congee, recipe in a forthcoming post).  So please enjoy Hot Pot Stock experiment #1!  This stock is an extremely rich and more flavorful substitution for any asian recipe that calls for a chicken or pork stock!

The type of meat bones and the spices used are what make the broth!  You’ll find most of the uncommon ingredients at most Asian grocery stores – they’re also pretty good about having meat cuts for stock already packaged.

Be aware, the “secret ingredient”, black cardamom pods, can be extremely expensive at normal grocery stores!  I spent $22 on a 4oz bag!  Now I know you can get them at more affordable prices in Indian or Southeast Asian grocery stores.  The flavor was definitely present and noticeable in a positive way, so try not to leave it out.

I decided to use a base recipe for “Milk Stock” from Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo.  There is no actual milk or cream in this recipe – the creaminess should come from the high fat content in the stock.

Since I couldn’t find fresh ham at my tiny local grocery store, I substituted smoked ham hock.  This could be what changed the consistency of my broth, so I’ll be adhering more exactly to the recipe next time!  I adapted the rest of this recipe simply by adding more ingredients - mainly aromatics and spices.

You need to blanch the meat first to remove impurities.  Here we have a pigs foot wrapped around the pot (gross, I know, but necessary for flavor and for the collagen), some chicken legs and smoked ham hocks.

After blanching and draining the dirty water, refill the pot and bring the meat to a boil again.  This time, you’ll have to remove the scum using a spoon until the liquid boils mostly clear.  I really recommend doing this – both to keep the broth clean, and also because the taste does get negatively affected if you don’t skim this off!

Place your meat carefully in the slow cooker.  I reserved the liquid it was boiling in – skim off the rest of the scum that might be in the liquid and set to the side for now.  It’s time to add the rest of the ingredients first!

The ingredients packed this full!  Luckily my 6.5 quart Crock-Pot could handle it.

After simmering for 8 hours…

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While I thought I should use a formal recipe instead, this was enough of a learning experience to reverse engineer, and I was relatively accurate in taste, so I think this should count.  Hooray!  I’ll post a recipe that uses this stock at the beginning of November – look forward to it!

Finally, want to know something funny?  While researching why my soup might not have turned milky, I found out that Little Sheep actually sells their stock for home cooks online! Unfortunately it uses MSG, so I think you’re better off trying my recipe or someone else’s over ordering this.

The Kaiser Roll (or “Weck”)

The recipe tells you to mix the dough until you see it suddenly come together. Mine never really clumped together and reached only this consistency – probably means it needed more liquid.

I added a bit more water to get the dough to come together. I wasn’t excited about how it looked, but it required an overnight rest period in the fridge…

And the dough came out of the fridge this smooth! Beautiful, huh?

Excuse the composition – dividing the dough into six rolls.

The Mile End Cookbook gives a nice demonstration on how to roll a kaiser roll. Essentially, you roll the dough into a strip, tie it into a double knot, and then tuck the ends in at “2 o’clock” and “10 o’clock” at the top of the roll.

I had trouble rolling the risen dough in a way that preserved its integrity, and ended up having to pull some of the dough to get it long enough to a tie a knot. I’m pretty sure this is what ruined the texture of the actual bread and made the roll a little too dense. So don’t be like me!

Shaped vs. unshaped dough. My 10″ x 15″ cake pan was a perfect size!

I didn’t have caraway seeds, so these aren’t technically Weck rolls. The egg wash contains salt, pepper, white and black sesame seeds and some garlic powder. If I had dried onions (in a spice jar) I would have added that too.

Terrible photo of the finished roll, but it’s the only one I have! The number one critique that I got for the bread is that it wasn’t sweet enough – American sandwich buns are generally rather sugary and I think this was what my friends were expecting. So feel free to add a couple more teaspoons of sugar if you think you’d have the same expectation!

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The Roast Beef

I actually got this beautiful roast from my tiny local grocery store!

The finished roast.

Not a great picture, but I want to show you how the beef should still look “rare” in the middle – this is natural for roast. The roast is moistened for the sandwich with a “beef jus” – I’m going to give you a simpler recipe than in the cookbook I referenced.

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The Sandwich

You finish the sandwich with some kind of pickle (horseradish was suggested, but my grocery store was out, so I used sauerkraut – I know, I know) and condiments of your choice. I used a Beaverton horseradish cream I found at Dot’s Deli and some tarragon mustard I found at the Calf & the Kid. Make your own pickled horseradish if you can, the Mile End book has a recipe too!

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Guest Feature

I borrowed my friends’ toaster oven in exchange for some of these sandwiches. I was telling them about how I submitted some pictures to FoodGawker and they were rejected – but I didn’t mind, because I know I have a long way to go with food photography and FoodGawker actually gives you reasons why your picture was rejected. What a great way to learn! My rejections are due to my compositions being too cluttered – I’m just too close to the food, and for the ones I provided, there was no good focal point present.

One friend, J, posited he could take some better pictures with that feedback, so I gave him the camera and let him loose.

Keep in mind, my experience is that most photographers always take several shots before they reach that perfect one. I’ve decided to show his process – it’s a little more interesting than mine.

Unfortunately, their kitchen is pretty… colorless… and the lighting leaves a lot to be desired.

Well, I took this one. My handsome friend preparing the meat for the sandwiches!

He wanted a shot that included the entire kitchen. I think it does add some character!

When I tried to straighten this one, it didn’t even include the sandwich. Focal points!

He figured that the plating needed some balance. Our friend B contributed some roasted vegetables to dinner! Man the lighting gets harsh in there…

The final one from J – take that, cluttered composition!

Hmmm… my friends should really get some nicer countertops!

The Mile End Cookbook is great at presenting recipes as projects rather than fast solutions to getting dinner on the table.  Several recipes are actually are multi-stage and multi-day endeavors (their smoked brisket takes almost two weeks to complete!). So, I definitely recommend the cookbook if you love the challenge of a recipes-within-recipes, and want to try cooking a delicious sect of American comfort food.

The Egg Noodles

I was attracted to this recipe because it has you make your own egg-noodles. Home-made egg noodles are an act of love and so satisfying to consume when they’re finally prepared in a dish.  I’ve made egg noodle spaghetti several times for my favorite bolognese recipe, but I’ve never made the bow-tie shape.  My results may be “rustic” but it’s easier than I thought!

It’s important to make sure your dough is just soft enough to not be tacky and that you let it rest for an hour before rolling it out.  I like falling back on The Pioneer Woman’s formula of 1 cup of flour for every 2 eggs, 1 egg for each person/serving.  The Mile End formula was slightly different, as I’ll share below.

A pasta machine isn’t necessary, but I do really love mine. If you have one, I rolled my noodles out to Setting 4 – the cookbook suggested thinner than this, but I prefer chewier noodles.

If you dust the rolled-out dough with flour before you cut the noodles and shape them, it will be easier to store them in a stack as you let them dry for about an hour.

The book says you can let these dry overnight on a baking sheet in the refrigerator and then store them for future use.  Pretty cool!

The Kasha

Here’s the problem… when I went looking at a couple of grocery stores, even in the University District QFC which specializes in carrying Jewish ingredients, I couldn’t find any kasha.  I mistakenly thought this Cracked Wheat cereal was the same thing, but should have verified online that kasha in this recipe is made of buckwheat.  I just now realized I didn’t use real kasha as I was typing up this recipe.

Cooking the cereal still resulted in a delicious nutty smell, and it still tasted great altogether.  I imagine the same health and vitamin benefits as kasha are present.  But don’t be like me, and try to find real kasha if you want to make this dish!

The cereal is coated with egg, then toasted, then cooked - the aroma is wonderful!

Putting the Dish Together

The dish is of Ashkenazi Jew origin but is now known as a common carby side-dish in American Jewish homes. Still, some of my friends had never heard of it or its name. So I decided to take some liberties as the Mile End Deli has. I followed their recipe with including Chicken Confit and Button Mushrooms, and added some fresh sugar snap peas from the Ballard Farmer’s Market.

I also replaced the usual fried regular onions with fried shallots in a smaller quantity, and added garlic. After preparing all of the ingredients, it’s a matter of mixing everything in a large bowl and serving.

I like how the recipe was modified to become a good meal for either dinner or lunch. It’s relatively rich if you use chicken schmaltz, and the confit doesn’t help matters, but I appreciated the time it took to prepare each ingredient. It’s a loving dish I’d love to make again.

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I can’t even figure out if they’re available in Seattle.  There are brief mentions of knishes in Yelp reviews but as far as I can tell, none currently offered on the menus of any of the establishments, even the specifically Jewish-deli restaurants.

Since one of the golden rules of cooking is to always taste, taste, taste, well: I can tell you that the filling tasted fabulous on its own, and the dough was very buttery and comforting, but I can’t tell you whether my execution holds any water to the knishes you can get in New York or through a traditional preparation at home.  I found the knish relatively dry on its own, but it seems they are typically served with soups or several other dishes as part of a feast.

As I mentioned in my October goals post, one of the most fascinating thing about Jewish food is that there’s never just a recipe – there’s always a story, a history, a significance behind the dish.  According to The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden, knishes are a celebratory food of Russian origin (essentially descendant of the piroshki). They were the typical pie to be offered during event feasts (e.g. a circumcision or betrothal) but have since transformed into a ubiquitous New York street food.

I don’t know what it’ll take to get these knishes into a formal restaurant or food truck here in Seattle, but I do know that the flexibility in filling could allow for some delicious fusion flavors.  I’d love to see a curry-based filling (essentially a Jewish samosa?), or a knish with some pickled daikon and carrot (a banh mi dumpling?).

I also considered Mile End‘s Knish recipe for my first attempt. They don’t form the dough into a round ball like most knish recipes suggest, but they’re a little more decorative in presentation and flavor.  The book offers several more ideas for savory knish fillings.

Due to my unfamiliarity with the pastry, I followed Smitten Kitchen’s recipe exactly.  So if you’d like to try your hand at this, please check out Deb’s very informative post!  The only change that I made is that I divided the rolled-up, filled dough into fourths instead of thirds, making smaller knishes.  Other than that, I strongly recommend making the red potato, kale, leek and cream cheese filling – it’s a delicious potato salad even on its own!

Step 1: Get off the computer and out of your house

Plan to go apple picking at a local Washington orchard on a beautiful 80 degree day. Comment loudly how strange it is to experience such good weather during October in Seattle, but, of course, you’re not complaining! Muse about how Seattle “owes it to us” after the crappy Summer-that-wasn’t-a-Summer of 2011.

Step 2: Pick a Really Solid Place for Brunch

We enjoyed brunch at Fat Hen in the neighborhood of Ballard and grabbed some pastries “for the road” from Honoré Bakery.

Step 3: Apple Picking!

Fueled up, drive out to the middle of a beautiful nowhere, grab some plastic bags (that’s how you know you’ve left Seattle city limits) and pick apples until you can’t carry the bags anymore!

 Aly, I am so grateful for your friendship and influence

Step 4: Apples. Oh my Gosh Apples. So Many Apples.  What Are We Gonna Do With Alla Dese Apples.

Make sure you forget what types most of them are, so you have no idea which is best suited for what. Maybe you shouldn’t have danced around all 12 rows of the orchard picking willy-nilly whatever you thought looked pretty. MAYBE.

Step 5: Bake All the Apple Things

Chocolate Apple Pie from Kayotic Kitchen (minus 4 apples)

Apple Turnovers from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (minus 2 apples)

Sample recipe here, use the dough to make dumpling wrappers and fill with the same filling.

Apple Hamantaschen

Using the same dough as the Apple turnovers, filling is Trader Joe’s Fig Butter mixed with diced apples (subtract 1 apple).

Apple-Walnut Bread

Using the Golden Raisin and Walnut Bread recipe from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes. Subtract 3 apples.

Spiced and Spiked Apple Cider

My team at work held a shipping party for finishing our project, so I made some boozy fresh cider using Kraken rum. Minus about 20 apples!

And Still There Are More Apples…

I still have about 25 apples and some pears left to work with. Here are some recipes I’ve saved that I hope to get to, once I can stomach looking at these fruits again. My hand is still healing, so that eliminates most recipes that need the apples to be peeled or specially cut – hence gravitating towards the more “rustic” recipes so far.

• A savory Apple, Cheddar and Rosemary Tart with Dulce De Leche Glaze using puff pastry and Seattle’s own Beecher’s Flagship Cheese!
• A really delicious looking Apple Custard Pie from Use Real Butter
• When I first started cooking and baking a couple of years ago, I made this Apple Cranberry Crisp several times. I think it’d go great with Molly Moons’ Maple Walnut ice cream! See also her Pear Cranberry Gingersnap Crisp.
• I think my mom would melt for these Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars
• My friend Justin tells me I need to work a standard Tarte Tatin recipe into my repertoire
• If you’re STILL wondering what the heck to do with all those damn apples, I recommend looking at search queries of “apple” over at Tastespotting and Foodgawker

• The base recipe comes from the Chinese cookbook (read: cooking textbook) that I’m going through called Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking.  This book details a Baked Duck Recipe where the meat is marinated in oyster sauce, and then a fried rice recipe where the juices and meat from the Baked Duck are incorporated. Unfortunately, I dislike oyster sauce, so that recipe wasn’t going to happen.
• One of my favorite Taiwanese restaurants, Facing East, serves a Pickled Radish Fried Rice dish I haven’t seen elsewhere.  I’ve been meaning to emulate it for awhile.
• I bought a pair of duck breasts at Rainshadow Meats.  I’d never cooked duck before, so I was excited to find a use for something this high-quality and rare in my consumption.

I was a little hesitant to count this toward my goals because I’ve made fried rice before.  It’s one of my favorite meals.  It’s one of the few dishes I’ve learned from my mom (she makes it with lunch ham, and of course it’s the best fried rice out there).  I really like Smitten Kitchen’s ginger fried rice, which I made for my friends during a ski trip to Whistler.  I’ve experimented with Korean purple rice, brown basmati rice, and home-made char-siu.  I’m consistently wowed by the Thai Curry Fried Rice at Thai Tom’s - how do they get the moisture of the rice so perfect, the basil so crispy?

A lot of it has to do with a well-seasoned wok, with years and years of meat-and-oil based patina, so fried rice at home is never going to be like what you can get in the best restaurants unless I’m making it every night for 20 years straight.  So until I emulate the perfect crispyness and developed flavor that you can experience at Fatty’s Kitchen’s Beef Fried Rice in Waikiki, Hawaii, making fried rice is always going to be a learning experience.

As always with wok cooking, a mise en place is important.  I decided on pickled radish, green peas and green onions for mix-ins.  The pickled radish idea is from Facing East Restaurant in Bellevue, WA. The Thai basil is an influence from Thai Tom’s in the University District.  It’s also important to have your eggs pre-beaten before you start cooking.

I’ve never made roasted duck before.  Luckily I found a very simple recipe here that lets you achieve the roast within a cast-iron pan.  I was impressed with how quick this is to prepare.  It’s a good recipe to keep in mind for the next dinner you cook with someone special.

Duck is supposed to look a little raw in the middle, which is perfect if I were serving it alone.  I didn’t want it to be too chewy or soggy in the rice, though…

So I seared the chopped duck in the same cast-iron skillet to prepare it for mixing into the fried rice.

I actually forgot the get the rice at the grocery store… for a fried rice dish, I know… so I walked to a local restaurant, Paseo’s, and grabbed two 12oz containers of their rice.  Their rice is very special – I’m not sure if it’s cooked in coconut milk, eighteen sticks of butter, or something very similar, but it’s already very well-flavored.  This turned into an extremely rich dish.

Since the rice was quite fresh, I used a trick I read in an America’s Test Kitchen magazine awhile back.  Prepare a baking sheet with wax/parchment/aluminum paper for convenience.  Spread the rice out onto the baking sheet into a uniform layer.  Refrigerate the rice for at least 30 minutes.  This dries out the rice enough for frying.

I also didn’t have butter, sesame, or peanut oil available, so I ended up using what I had in the fridge… ghee!  I know, this fried rice is turning into quite the Frankenstein.

Scramble the eggs first once you’ve got your oil heated (the photograph wasn’t very attractive), then add your rice.  Continue frying – you want some light brown bits in the eggs and the rice grains!

Then you add your mix-ins and stir-fry until everything is heated through.  Season with salt and pepper by this point.  Some people add soy sauce… I wouldn’t.

Since this was such a rich dish, I only had about one cup of a serving. Don’t tell my recipe tester, but I had also mixed some of the duck fat that collected at the bottom of the cast iron skillet with the ghee to really get that duck flavor into the rice.  Perhaps this is more aptly named, “Heart Attack Rice.”  Portion well, though, and I think you’ll really enjoy this one!

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I’ll also take any excuse to head over to Melrose Market.  It’s a lovely indoor market in Capitol Hill, a Seattle neighborhood that always has ten million cool things happening.  This is where the hosting venue, Rainshadow Meats, our local “indie” butcher shop (so Seattle) is located.

Some funny things came out of the event.  One, I think I was the only attendee not actually involved in the food industry. The other attendees were throwing around some big names in the Seattle restaurant scene.  It seemed like everyone knew each other!  Since I was taking photographs with my Nikon D5100 I was repeatedly asked if I was from a publication.  Nope, I’m just some kid with a food blog!  Still, I met some incredibly nice people with a wealth of experiences to share about an industry I’m almost completely unfamiliar with.

Two, the cookbook is pretty informative.  It’s essentially a textbook.  It tells you all the cuts available for a given type of beef, pork or lamb, what to look for, and then what you can do with it.   Almost every recipe is accompanied by a picture, a big plus for my preferences in cookbooks.

Finally, three, the coolest part of this event was watching an expert at work.  I recently finished “How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer.  The book goes into neurological detail with regard to how experts think – where someone is so trained and experienced, their thinking process is barely conscious to them as they execute their skill – they react on an emotional, rather than logical, level.  Since reading the book, I’ve kept an eye out for examples of people who are experts in their passions, no matter how unconventional the skill might be.  Attending the DJ Shadow concert at Seattle’s Decibel Festival was a treat to see, since the camera was trained on DJ Shadow’s laptop-less console while he mixed.  Watching Russell of Rainshadow Meats go through the butchery demonstration is another great example of a passionate expert’s mind at work.  At one point someone was half-way through a question about if a certain cut had any particular use for the shop, and without missing a beat Russell insisted, “You can use everything.  Everything has a place.”  Most of us attending will likely never butcher a pig ourselves, but everyone could learn something from witnessing someone that engrossed in his craft.

Please enjoy my documentation of the event!  As a forewarning, the pig butchering pictures are rather graphic, so don’t scroll further if you’re not ready to see that.

Rainshadow Meats at Melrose Market, Capitol Hill

Butchery Demo – Meet Russell Flint and his pig!

The Great Meat Cookbook Dinner

This was one of the best meals I can remember having for a long time. Everything came from the cookbook. We all built big plates and belly of very comforting, rich food. I was listening to strangers, new friends, divulge their deep knowledge of the food scene here in Seattle, restaurants and aspects and concepts that were totally foreign to me. Finally, it was on a whim that I bought the ticket to go here alone. I showed up on the tail end of a rather difficult day and it felt good to forget about everything else and be present simply in the pursuit of my own passions and interests.

Meeting cookbook author and meat expert Bruce Aidells!

To Start: Pickled Beef Tongue Tartine with Dijon and Pickled Onion

Valette Family Stuffed Whole Cabbage with marinara

Provencal Beef Stew, or, Jeff’s Daube

Roasted Ginger-Orange-Glazed Prime Rib Bones

Spanish-Style Roasted Rack of Pork with Pan-Roasted Romesco Sauce (this was brilliant)

My plate, or, how you know I have no formal culinary experience

I wish I could communicate the inspiration inherent in watching a person who truly exudes love for what they do. I hope the concept of experts exemplified will stick in your mind, at least, and you can keep an eye out for examples of passionate experts in your own adventures.

I had so much broth leftover, even after four bowls of soup, such that I’ve been including it in other Chinese recipes such as the Shanghai Rice Cake. If you’d like to make my Shanghai Rice Cake recipe and want that extra depth of rich flavor, definitely try making this broth!

The recipe is from Use Real Butter. I’m detailing how I modified it because some of the ingredients were not available for me, but I really recommend making the full recipe at her website. It’ll quickly become one of your favorite soups!

A dutch oven is wonderful, but not essential here – a stock pot or slow cooker would work just as well!

This is a large tea strainer from Sur La Table that was perfect for containing the spices for easy removal.

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In the source recipe, she continues to boil another beef shank and another herb bag in the broth for extra richness and to provide the stew meat used as a topping.

Here’s a picture of one of the bowls this soup made – clockwise from noon, the toppings here are steamed baby bok choy, cold wasabi pickle, lightly fried tofu, lightly stewed carrots and a poached egg. In the center, hidden, is the tender stew meat from the simmered beef shank. Garnish is green onions and red chili oil. Underneath that are fresh noodles and the stock. One of the first chilly weekends of fall would be perfect for making and eating this!