How to cook

When I talk to people who don't cook I often find myself saying something ridiculous like, "Cooking is easy, it's mostly just paying attention to what you're doing."  Which I really think is true but is just about the most unhelpful statement you can make.  It got me wondering if I could come up with a formula for cooking, breaking it down into its parts, 10% this and 33% that.  So here is my list and percentages:

shopping 35%
     you can't make good food with bad ingredients
technique 15%
     it's easy to destroy good ingredients if you don't treat them right
history/knowledge/context/experience 5%
     mostly avoiding past mistakes or building on past successes
creativity 5%
     I think often over-rated in American culinary culture, the quest for the next new thing leads to more bad food...
patience 15%
     knowing when not to mess with it, waiting until summer for strawberries
paying attention 25 %
     cooking is an interactive and dynamic process

What do you think, would you assign different percentages or different elements?

Salt cured egg yolks

 

Allie caught me with the camera salting egg yolks.  Chef calls it "chicken bottarga."At the moment I completely could not remember what fish is used to make bottarga.  For the record, it's tuna, grey mullet, and sometimes swordfish.

Spinach & poached egg risotto

hooligan, midnight moon, sweet peppers

 

Our menu has changed a lot since we opened back in September.  We lose a dish most often because the season has changed and we can't get a key ingredient any longer of the quality that we need.  Sometimes, we just want to move on to something new, sometimes we just get bored.  My favorite dish these days is our risotto, one of our classics, on the menu since day one, with very few changes.  It's also one of our top sellers.  One night Scott had 17 orders come in all at once.  The risotto part of that is easy, but 17 perfectly poached eggs at the same time is no small feat.  

The ingredients are simple. Rice, butter, vegetable stock, fresh spinach (currently from the greenhouses of our friends at Visser Farms), two excellent cheeses, midnight moon and hooligan, a poached egg, and a sweet pepper relish. 

I have to tell you a little bit about those cheeses because they are a big part of why I love this so much.  Midnight moon is made by Cypress Grove from Humboldt County in California.  It's a slightly aged goat cheese that is the hands-down favorite among our servers.  Which is probably why it is also our best seller from the charcuterie and cheese menu.  It's mild, smooth, and nutty, reminiscent of parmigiano but not as powerful. 

The aggressive cheese in this mix is Cato Corners' Hooligan.  Hooligan is a stinky and flavorful washed rind cheese produced by a mother-son team on a 40-cow dairy in Connecticut.  It's intense and has scared away more than a few timid tasters, but it  is mellowed out in the risotto.  It's the tuba in this orchestra, unmistakable on its own but it blends in so well that you don't know it's there unless you look for it.

 

I don't know where Matt got the idea to put a poached egg on top of risotto,  but now that I've had it I don't ever want to make any kind of risotto without an egg on top.  I love breaking open the yolk and mixing it in to the rice, it adds that extra bit of richness that makes this so satisfying to my mouth, and stomach, and soul. 

The egg is topped with sweet pepper relish.  We buy fresh red, yellow, orange, and even, sometimes, ivory peppers.  Roast them, peel them, chop them, cook them with herbs, make them even more delicious. 

This is the dish I always want at the end of the night when I'm tired and hungry.  It's comforting and restorative.  It's a culinary Snuggie.

So many tortured metaphors in support of one simple $11 dish. 

MONTELLO MEATS

Standing rib roast from Montello Meats

Many meat lovers bemoan the loss of the family butcher shop these days, and with good reason. Really great beef requires excellence at several stages of production and this level is infrequently achieved. On the farm it is  essential to raise animals in a healthy environment which suits their natural habits: access to clean air and water, room to move about, and fresh green grass. At the slaughterhouse, care must be taken to keep stress levels as low as possible. And with beef in particular, the butcher plays a vital role.

All meats benefit greatly from a skilled butcher's expertise, but beef requires it most. Beef must be aged to become tender and pleasant to the modern palate. This takes place over the course of a minimum of two weeks and there are two ways to do it: wet aged and dry aged. In modern, industrial meat packing, wet aging is the preferred method. The carcass is cut to to large primals and vacuum sealed in plastic bags, boxed, and left to age for several days to weeks. During this time, lactic acid builds in the muscle tissue and tenderizes it. With dry aging, the carcass is split in two, sometimes four, pieces and left to hang in the open air.

Modern meat packers prefer wet aging because it is cheaper. It requires less cooler space, less labor, and produces higher yields. Dry aged beef requires room for air to circulate around it and the outside dries and gets trimmed off. Also, there is moisture loss, which means less money per pound per carcass (open a plastic bag of wet aged meat and the liquid pooling in the bottom of it would have evaporated during dry aging -- good for the packer, but not your plate).

The building of lactic acid takes place whether beef is dry or wet aged, so tenderizing takes place in both methods. Dry aging concentrates flavor, improves texture, and creates complexity and depth. Wet aging degrades texture and can sometimes contribute unpleasant metallic and sulfurous aromas and flavors. If you want a really great steak, you want it dry aged, but the expense involved has all but driven it out of the marketplace. Those who know, however, will happily pay the premium.

Enter Montello Meat Market. Tony and Tina Larson own this small butcher shop on the south side of Holland, Michigan and are of a dying breed. The family butcher shop has all but vanished from our culinary landscape and we are truly blessed to still have one in our neck of the woods. The Larson's buy grass fed, hormone and antibiotic free beef and age it in house for a minimum of 21 days. Then Tony and his oldest son Sam set to work on it, producing various cuts with artistry and obvious patience, practice, and skill.

Visit often enough, and you will eventually meet all of the Larson clan. They all pitch in to make a go of this truly family run small business. Tony obviously taught Sam, and like many butchers, guards that knowledge carefully. Brandon and I once asked if we could come follow him around for a few days to learn from the master, and with his trademark ear to ear smile and genuine good will, he politely declined. I don't think he actually said no, but it was clear that mentoring was for his heirs only. I will have to content myself with the fruits of his labors.

The Larson's are a perfect example of why buying from the little guy is so much more rewarding than giving your money to a big box store. The big guys can never give you the sense of confidence and community that comes effortlessly from Tony and Tina, not to mention the artisanship, the preservation of economically challenging techniques, and the simple damn deliciousness of a food treated thoughtfully, carefully, and with the health and happiness of the client being priority one.

Long live the corner butcher shop.

Going all out for New Year's Eve

Even though we have kept our New Year's Eve menu shrouded in secrecy we are now fully booked for that night.  I'm excited about the food that we're going to be cooking so here's a sneak peak.  Raw materials are arriving.  Prep begins in earnest tomorrow.  I was going to start on the boozy gingerbread steamed pudding tonight but I was unfortunately stymied by a lack of fresh ginger.  So, I blog instead.

Four geese going in brine soon.  They will then be air-dried in our cooler overnight before getting roasted whole.  Raised free-range in South Dakota by the Schiltz family, we got these beauties along with a healthy 30# bucket of goose fat, some fatty goose livers, and some goose wings.  We're not sure where the goose wings will end up yet but I'm excited about the possibilities just having them nearby.  Goose wings!  Who has ever had those?

We also have some really wild wild rice, not something that you have probably ever had, vastly different from the paddy grown "wild" rice that is readily available.  I've been bugging Millar to get some of this for years, since my days at Journeyman, and he finally ordered it for me.  We cooked some of it today, tossed in some herb butter and salt.  Really delicious.  I don't remember exactly but I think Brittany said it was "off the hook."

Other highlights: whole trout wrapped in prosciutto, confit pork shoulder, brussels sprouts with bacon, and roasted heirloom squash from Trillium Haven Farm.  Brandon's making sausages, Blair's making truffles, Chef is braising and roasting everything in sight.  And in the end we will set that steamed gingerbread pudding ablaze with some bourbon. 

Oh, and I think there will be some wine to go with the food, too.

Reserve's Farms: S&S Lamb

Death to stagnation! I would be writing about how great potted pig's tongue is, or would be, but Chef thinks it may not sell well. He's probably right, unfortunately. If, however, any readers would show interest via comment, perhaps you may see it after all. Our charcuterie should rightly have something that scares you. Something that makes you bring it up to your friends, or at the office. It makes you wonder what it's like..how gross and alien you perceive it to be. Then, after all this deliberation, you might have worked up the nerve to actually try it, and possibly even like it. I suppose I'm beginning to rant a little, but I feel better, and you are still reading. So, let us talk about one of our farmers.

Pierre and Sharon Schierbeek & Family operate out of McBain, MI. Their land and animals are chemical free. Their animals fertilize their pastures as they graze on their land from spring to fall and their winter feed is harvested from their farm. They do not use hormones, antibiotics, supplements, or additives in their feeds. S&S lamb grow happy and healthy in this natural environment through their lives and after finishing they are processed by L & J Meats in Lake City, MI. Afforded humane butchering practices, these combined practices from farm to table directly translate the care and quality that has been invested into them.

At Reserve, we have cultured a good relationship with Pierre and his family and operations. We are currently talking about having Pierre raise specific breeds of hog for us better suited to our culinary aims. Those breeds are still being discussed, but Duroc and Berkshire are looking like good candidates. S&S Lamb are just one on many farms we use at Reserve, meshing well with the ethics we look for in sourcing our foods. They also supply us with the rabbit that has been on our menu lately, and eggs from time to time.

In addition to lamb, eggs and rabbit, S&S also sells beef, chicken, and goat. From cuts to wholes and halves and even some pet products as well. Their eggs are a steal at $3/dz when clearly inferior eggs are sold for more at the supermarket. They also sell 100% wool products harvested from their ewe flock. Find them at the Fulton Street Farmers Market every Saturday through the winter. Their store can be found here if you'd like to cook at home. If you'd like us to cook for you, well, you know what to do.

SUCKLING PIG

These two cuties come to us courtesy of Cherry Capital Foods. They are new a supplier for us, and so far have hooked us up with quail, a mangalitsa, smoked lake trout and whitefish, rabbit, and a few other tasty creatures all raised right here in Michigan. Their entire product line is comprised of Michigan meats, fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. and it was a great score for us to connect. But more on them later.

Suckling pig, as the name implies, is a very young hog raised solely on mother's milk and slaughtered before six weeks of age. They are usually quite small, under 20#s or so, and it's fairly rare to see them around on menus these days in West Michigan. The flesh is a beautiful, light blush pink and quite tender throughout. Sucklings are almost always cooked whole. Part of the attraction of cooking one is the show of bringing it in it's whole roasted glory to the table. The rest of course lies in the experience of eating it.

Because the animal is young, the muscle contains an enormous amount of collagen, a protein that when cooked turns to gelatin, giving the meat it's contained within (and its juices) a very full body and mouth feel. It is soft and rich, and because its diet is strictly milk, a very clean, slightly sweet flavor. No looking for the subtleties of chestnut or acorn finishing here. This is straight pork.

Suckling pigs are still eaten commonly in many parts of the world, central Europe, southeast Asia, Cuba. In the U.S., they were  once popular tailgating food and often graced a table in the American south when larger groups assembled. In Europe, they are commonly eaten at Christmas, at one time nearly as popular as roast goose.

Right now the piggies are having a stretch for two days before going into a mild brine for four. After the four day brine, they will hang again for two to dry slightly and let the salt even out. Then into the oven for a long, slow roast, finishing hot to provide plenty of crispy skin.

Next Friday and Saturday night, we will be serving the suckling pig at the apex of our first in house event in the wine vault, an extraordinary room downstairs that is usually only available for private functions. The menu is the same each night and includes paired wines. The dinner is limited to twelve people each night. This is a rare experience and it would be a shame to miss it.

CANAPE
Oyster with tomato and horseradish gelee
Midnight Moon gourgere with local chevre, truffle, and herb
Crisp pork rillon with fig and blue cheese
Poached farm egg yolk with piperade

SOUP
Pumpkin soup with lemon curd and pumpkin seed oil

PIGGY
Whole roasted suckling pig
Warm, house made apple sauce with pan drippings
House made guanciale braised Brussels sprouts, turnips, and carrots with Saba
Watercress, cheddar, walnut, pear, and pickled red onion salad with walnut vinaigrette
Celery root mash

DESSERT
Warm apple charlotte with rum raisin ice cream and Blis "Elixir"

Click here for more details, or to book a seat. Space is extremely limited.