Harissa-rubbed lamb, roast goose served two ways, grass-fed beef and other wonders

My goose is cooked

Come the holidays I was at Giant Supermarket trying to make hard choices: grass-fed beef at a discount, or lamb?

Franklin Street Cafe & Grill - Hagerstown, MD

A little South in your mouth

We're not all Keystone State, all the time--we venture outside once in a while, and one of our favorite places to venture is this little corner nook on Franklin (Route 40 West) and Jonathan Street in Hagerstown MD called (of course) Franklin Street Cafe & Grill--arguably not just the best place to taste Southern/Soul food in South Central PA (not a big deal, we're north of the Mason-Dixon line) but also the best place to taste it in Hagerstown, MD (which is a big deal, a very big deal).

Thanksgiving Tuesday

Pasta Monday

Working this Thanksgiving--but what can you do? Happens all the time in this business--so Thanksgiving in our household was Tuesday November 24 instead, on my day off. 

Only my weekend really started Monday, so for dinner that night we got a pound of extra-large shrimp (16/20) for nine dollars, thawed in salt water (tastier that way). Threw the shells into hot olive oil and butter and fried till crispy orange (wasn't cooking the shells so much as flavoring the oil). Discarded the shells, tossed in sundried tomatoes I'd soaked in warm water to soften, added four cloves of garlic, pepper flakes, and--get this--a can of small smoked oysters. Squeezed a lemon over everything as I didn't have any white wine (lemon probably works better anyway--clean bright tartness to contrast with seafood, as opposed to wine's bitter acidity).

Wasn't exactly creating, wasn't exactly following a recipe--just took from what I've read (Mario Batali's stuff in particular), and what I remember from a chef who once prepared pasta in front of me, in a tiny hole-in-the-wall Italian place in Gilmore Avenue Greenhills, back in the nineties. The chef had a spiky temperament; once tried to refuse me entry because his place was closed (at 5 pm?!) and only relented when I raised my voice (strictly in bewilderment, not anger--no really, I wasn't mad). But his food had a divine grace; he taught me that smoked oyster trick, which presumably would work even better in a cream sauce (though my olive oil and butter was plenty rich enough). 

Boiled the pasta a minute short of cooking time, dropped it in the simmering sauce (folks in the know know that the sauce will thicken from the noodles' starches, while the still-cooking pasta will suck up flavor from the sauce). Three minutes short of the pasta's cooking time I tossed in the shrimp to cook, cut the heat. Topped with a handful of flat parsley:

Garnished the bowl with a few turns from the wooden pepper grinder I bought in Udine and a splash of fine Tuscan olive oil, then served quickly while still hot (the guests wait for the pasta, not the pasta the guests). Al dente noodles spiked with pepper flakes and garlic and smoky crustacean and sharpened by the juice of a lemon; shrimp so fresh it was crispy, and an oil-and-butter mix infused with the brininess of shrimp shell. Not too shabby? Hope so.  

Thanksgiving Tuesday

For the turkey I'd heard of a spatchcocked turkey--a turkey with the back snipped out and the carcass spread flat. Easier to prepare, juicier meat (thanks to the skin's fat dripping all over its flesh), added bonus of crispy skin, takes only ninety minutes to cook, more or less. Who could resist?

Only the kosher turkey I got for free from all the Giant Foods bonus points I earned in the past month weighed seventeen pounds, and the recipe called for a 12 to 14 pound bird tops--otherwise it wouldn't fit in the oven (spatchcocked, remember?). And they were right; looked all over town for a pan wide enough to fit, couldn't find one. Checked the article's comments section and learned I could deconstruct the bird--cut it in half, for starters. Rubbed the bird with oil and pepper (no salt as a kosher meat is always salted), laid it on top of a bed of celery, onions and carrots, garlanded it with sprigs of thyme. Hence:

Side dishes included Brussels sprouts with chorizo, the recipe starting with sprouts blanched in salted water for six minutes, then dunked in ice:

Next fried chorizo (I could only find pepperoni-style slices, not whole sausages) and onions and garlic in medium-high heat:

Spooned the chorizo in a bowl, turned the heat up to medium-high, seared the sprouts till golden brown. Added back the chorizo, mixed, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Then there was a simple cornbread and oyster stuffing--was thinking of using a recipe from epicurious.com, realized it was asking for twelve cups (ninety-six ounces!) of cornbread which was more 'bread than I can find, much less handle (the above recipe had more reasonable proportions). 

So: fried onions (but not celery--can't stand the stuff, go figure) in butter, in a twelve inch cast-iron pan; crumbled the cornbread into the pan, with salt, pepper, eggs, parsley, and oyster liquor; added milk because I'd spilled the oyster liquor and didn't have enough to moisten the bread.

Carefully folded in the oysters; added a can of smoked oysters because--1) well, it was only one can left and I felt I should finish up my supply, and 2) you can't have too many smoked oysters. Dotted the surface with butter, like so:

Stuck the pan in the oven @ 350 F for forty five minutes till browned, and it came out looking like this:

Not bad, right? Right? Crispy crust, sweet 'bread, briny oysters. Tasted great by itself, even better with turkey gravy.

Speaking of which you wouldn't believe how quick the turkey cooked: a hundred minutes--barely enough time to do all the other side dishes, and we were done:

Took the neck, browned it in a pot, then simmered with carrots celery onions in chicken broth for an hour; cooked flour in butter till dark, then carefully ladled the broth in till I had a thick gravy; moved the crispy beauty above to a plate, then poured all that turkey goodness into my gravy. Added a few tablespoons of Maggi's Seasoning for that added punch of umami and to leave my guests guessing "what on earth is that...?"

The finished feast you see at the top of this post (spatchcocked turkey; Brussels sprouts with chorizo; cornbread and oyster stuffing); the finished plate looked something like this:

That incidentally isn't just cranberry sauce but actress Madhur Jaffrey's cranberry chutney, easiest thing in the world to make (because she basically threw together whatever she had on hand): boil cider vinegar, sugar, chopped garlic, ginger and cayenne pepper in a pot for fifteen minutes till thick; add whole cranberry sauce; season with salt and pepper; cool and serve.

So--fatty poultry (perfectly seasoned, as it was kosher) with deep dark gravy; crisp sprouts with spicy sausages; a sweet cornbread-and-oyster stuffing; the sweetest tartest spiciest cranberry sauce you ever tasted. Indian meets Latin American meets Jewish/New American in a Filipino household--you could probably do a lot worse. 

The next day was of course leftovers, warmed in a microwave:

Which I submit still looks pretty darn good, especially with a bottle of chilled Kedem grape juice.

And that's all, folks. Tonight I go to work, though I take with me a container of turkey and dressing and gravy, a side container of chutney, and a thermos full of that ice-cold juice. Not perhaps a lot to be thankful for but--I submit--enough. Which is sometimes the best we can manage in this O so uncertain life.  

Fusion Latin American Restaurant

Fusion Latin American Restaurant sits on an obscure spot on west King Street--but it's a beautiful little obscure spot, worth hunting out. I mean--check the above photo out: you feel as if you're walking down a little European sidewalk and have stumbled across a tiny cafe.

Tocino del Cielo (Bacon From Heaven)

The most decadent dessert I ever had

--is possibly a little Spanish custard I found in one of the more cono eateries in Manila: Tocino del Cielo, which translates alternately as 'Heavenly Custard' or 'Bacon from Heaven' or 'Heavenly Bacon' (I like to call it 'Holy Pig' myself).

Momma B's, Route 30, and Inka Kitchen revisited

Comin round again

So you visit a place and eat and like the food and write about it--then what? You visit again, and sometimes, or at least these three particular times, you find something new.

Chambersburg AppleFest (October 17, 2015)

October 17 last weekend was the Chambersburg AppleFest, the sort of tiny town festival most folks take for granted but really shouldn't--aside from the crafts, preserves, carvings, potpourri, good-luck plantings and crystals on display and available for sale there's also (and you know what my focus is and almost always will be) some excellent street food to be had, hot and plentiful and at reasonable prices.

Route 30 Family Restaurant

Route 30 Family Restaurant on 30 just east of I-81 used to be Chris' Country Kitchen, closed down, got bought up by new management and seems brighter and cheerier than before:



Dropped by mainly for breakfast, so that's what I'm focusing on. A little more expensive than the previous  kitchen, but their menu's more ambitious, and the portions as big if not bigger.

The last steak-out

Again from M & M Meats in Jim's Farmers Market, downtown Chambersburg: was gazing longingly at some beautiful ribeyes I spotted through the display glass. Was asked: see anything you like? I said: the ribeye looks great, but the price--$12.99 a pound? I suppose with the cost of beef skyrocketing you can't keep prices the way they were, and--what's that? You're letting me have it for $9.99? Really?

Two steaks then, please, two inches thick each. 

Korean Bulgogi House

Back in 2007 I'd visited Jeonju for their Film Festival  and managed to sample a dish called bibimbap. No not a boxing videogame sound effect--a bowl of rice with vegetables meat and sweet chili sauce topped with a fried egg, the national dish of Korea they say but also Jeonju's particular point of pride.

So imagine my surprise four years later when this place opened in my town: Korean Bulgogi House, on 408 West Loudon St., Chambersburg Pa (717 263 0419), opposite the Sheetz gas station. The spot was originally a Salvadorian restaurant (not bad); then a Tex Mex joint (not as distinctive); then decided to abandon the Latin vibe and go Asian--and this was the result. 

Labor Day Ribbing

Labor Day, and didn't have the cash to buy steaks, so what did I do when confronted with M & M Meats' glass display counter at Jim's Farmer's Market downtown?

Bought ribs. 

Not just any rib, beef ribs. Megasized contusion-forming-when-swung-at-head ribs. Meaty mighty megalomanically massive ribs. Of beef.

INKA Kitchen

INKAntado

Anthony Bourdain in his old TV show No Reservations made an impulse visit to a legendary hole-in-the-wall in Washington DC called El Pollo Rico, which served something called Peruvian roast chicken (the segment starts 18 minutes into the show). The place was packed, and not just with regulars; out-of-state visitors and even foreign tourists have lined up to order, including myself. 


Now our little burg has acquired our very own Peruvian chicken joint, and I don't have to drive ninety minutes to order; just take Route 30 east of I-81, right next to KFC to try some of the best chicken in town. 

You heard me. I say this standing next to the Chambersburg Branch of Korporate Franchised Chicken, with a straight solemn face. 

"Best chicken in town."

Trickling Spring Creamery's grass-fed beef

How spoiled can we be when we have our own creamery (actually there are others--we'll get to them)? Our own buttery milk, our own buttery chocolate milk, our own organic ice cream, our own cheddar?

Andrews Farm Market

Andrews Farm Market west of St. Thomas, PA doesn't really look like a fruit store, more a warehouse or barn...but between you and me and the walnut tree they put out some of the sweetest juiciest local fruits I've ever eaten, and believe me I've had a few.

Summer's end

The end of summer

Fall just around the corner (no really--turn right and there's a five foot drop) and I have yet to grill. Believe it or not, have not broken out the giant bag of All-Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal, to smolder away in a starter chimney (Charcoal starter easier you say? Why would I want to eat gasoline flavored meat? Gas grill? 1) I like making things harder for myself; and 2) I like the smoky primordial uncertainty of it all, cooking the way my Cro-Magnon ancestors did, millennia ago).

Momma B's in Chambersburg

Momma B's 

I promised to write about local eats, and you can't get any more local than this: located on 565 Lincoln Highway East past the hospital and nestled under the neighborhood Travelodge, Momma B's owner promises always fresh never frozen meats and fishes, locally sourced, reasonably priced, simple diner fare, cooked in what may be the cleanest kitchen in town (the owner/chef/manager is willing to have you step in and take a look yourself if you like--he's that proud of his establishment).

I'm back! Roast beef, grilled green onions in Romesco sauce, duck roasted with plums, and more

Summer cooking, had me a blast
Summer cooking, happened so fast, 
I met a roast crazy for me,
Met a duck cute as can be,

Summer days sizzlin away,
To, uh oh, those summer nights

Well-a well-a well-a huh!
Tell me more, tell me more
You render all the fat?
Tell me more, tell me more
Did you toss in a cat?

Had to take some weeks off to focus on a massive piece on science fiction films; now I'm back with a vengeance.

From North Square Farmer's Market, Bernard's beautifully smoked and grilled jerk chicken

Summer again, and beef cheeks in a chocolate-wine sauce

 Summertime!

Shopped at Hess Farms and managed to score the gorgeous fruits and vegetables seen above (down PA 316 between Stitely and Poe Road--drive on Wayne Avenue past Giant, past the new Sheetz gas station, past the intersection between Wayne and New Franklin Road till you see their sign). 

The zucchini and broccoli were turned into a chop suey with prawns; the strawberries were insanely sweet, far more flavorsome than anything from a supermarket; the shortcake was for cutting into chunks, to be layered with sliced berries and whipped cream (as if! The fruit was gone before the day was done). 

The best steak I ever ate (so far)

Know how some folks say the perfect steak starts with the perfect cut of meat? I suppose we can go all dry-aged wagyu imported from Japan, grilled in a La Cornue Grand Palais Range; truth is I have only so much cash, even less time, and no proper equipment to speak of other than an eight-year-old electric range and a properly seasoned cast-iron pan.
  
I subscribe to a slightly different statement: the best steak you can cook starts with the best steak you can find.

Chambersburg summer produce: an introduction and preview

Don't know why I'm doing this--not as if I don't have enough writing to do. But someone's got to point out some of the places to eat and buy the wonderful produce I've been finding here, there, between acres of corn and alfalfa fields, far from the interstate-crossing crowd.

The stuff in the photo above, for example, all bought during a wild foraging trip we took summer of 2014; thing is the places visited will be ready with their produce this summer, and you can find em too if you take the time and effort to try (I'll try help with whatever contact information and links I can find).