At long last, my years long quest may be nearing its end. The Meat Hook (here's its blog) in Brooklyn has started selling the secreto [UPDATE 4/2012, just realized that last link was broken, now fixed], the mysterious cut of pork I had only encountered in Portugal and Spain, way back in 2007. What I specifically tried was secreto Ibérico, from the famed black footed pigs, and we had it several times over the course of the trip, and each time was fantastic. It is a highly marbled cut of pork, but not too fatty; the veins of fat are small and well incorporated into the meat, in a similar fashion to kobe beef and not large streaks of fat like a typical belly. You simply grill it quickly over very high heat, and the surface gets crispy while the interior fat melts and leaves the meat moist and bursting with flavor. It also retains the texture of a nice steak.
I returned from the trip determined to find if there was something equivalent I could get here, but I was utterly stymied. Even when overseas, I asked every time to get an explanation of where on the pig the cut came from, but between the language barrier and my host's uncertainty, I never got far. I figured I could always ask google, and even he was stumped. I found a handful of pages in Spanish which google translated but left me still confused, and there were some blogs (some with with pictures) proclaiming how great the stuff is (here, here, here, here, here, and here). There were a couple discussion boards with some info but mostly leaving me in a wash of other terms for Spanish cuts. I even found a site that had a diagram with the cut labeled, but it was cartoony and didn't help. I asked a Portuguese waiter I had at an excellent meal at Cru one rainy evening when most every reservation had canceled and Chef Shea Gallante was really showing off for us. I asked anyone and everyone who I thought might know, but I was still at a loss for useful info. I asked the butcher Tom Mylan at one of his early pig butchering classes in the back of the Brooklyn Kitchen store in 2008.
He too had no idea. It was time for me to give up. But two long years later, Tom Mylan has come through for me. I read about it in Time Out last week:
We didn’t think that pork belly could get much better, but leave it to the Spanish to prove us wrong—turns out they’ve been hiding the best part of the pig for years. Fortunately for us Yanks, Tom Mylan, of artisanal Brooklyn butcher The Meat Hook (100 Frost St between Manhattan and Meeker Aves, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-349-5033), has done some sleuthing abroad and returned with a little-known porcine gem: The secreto—literally “secret” in Spanish—is a tender strip of pork hidden beneath a thick layer of belly fat...In Spain and Portugal, where he first tasted the cut, butchers traditionally carve out the meat and save it for themselves, eating it seared with garlic and herbs.
Miracle of miracles! I can almost taste it. I have not gotten a chance to get over there to get some yet, but I intend to soon. As luck would have it, Mylan was serving some tasty bacon sausage at the Bid Against Hunger event I attended on Tuesday so I mentioned the secreto and how I had asked him about it years ago, fulling expecting that he had no recollection and his new find was a coincidence, but it turns out he did remember and my query it was what got him on the trail at first. Like, me, he first tasted it in Portugal, but he was able to figure it out. And then bring it to me. Sweet.
If you have not tried the butchering classes, I recommend them; very fun. I did a lamb class as well. Since I can't find, or apparently neglected to take, pics of my secreto dishes, I've leave you with some butchering pics from years ago before my blog was born. Someone else claimed the head:
The final display:
From the lamb class, I got some belly and shoulder, as well as the tounge and the sweatbreads which I took home and cooked:
Well, nothing like a Mixology Monday to give me the kick in the pants I need to put up a post. This month's eponymous theme is “Brown, Bitter and Stirred” over at the blog of the same name, hosted by Lindsey Johnson. Now this is a theme that is near and dear to my heart. Nothing beats the pleasant ritual of stirring a scant few ingredients, perhaps some silent contemplation during a short pause to let the mixture "cook" for a moment, then straining the silken nectar into a glass of perfectly balanced heft. Thirsty now aren't you?
Falling under the umbrella of this theme are many timeless classics, the Manhattan, the Sazerac, the Vieux Carré; these cocktails are also at the top of my list of favorites. But today I want to talk about an even more simple classic and how easy it is to tweak it to create satisfying and excellent variations. That drink? The Old Fashioned.
Aged spirit, sugar, water, bitters, ice; done. Or simply spirit, bitters, simple syrup and melted ice; skip the added water. Beautiful. Perfect in fact.
This simple formula naturally lends itself to tinkering, but it is easy to maintain the integrity of the base. You can swap the traditional whiskey for a rum, say, or a brandy. Or you can use a different sweetener. Or just opt for a change of bitters. (Check out Cocktail Kingdom or The Boston Shaker for some great ones.) Or any combination thereof. It's almost hard to go wrong. You want tequila? Try this Oaxaca Old Fashioned. Superb. Want to try maple syrup and a hint of Bacon? There's PDT's Benton's Old Fashioned. A revelation, but still eminently relatable. Here's a variation I recently came up with; the name is a shout out to last week's Mad Men episode The Chrysanthemum and the Sword:
The Dandelion and the Katana
2 oz Hibiki 12 Year Blended Japanese Whisky
¼ oz green tea simple syrup (or slightly more to taste)
Stir and strain into chilled DOF, I prefer neat but over a rock or two if you insist
For the green tea simple, just drop a couple green tea bags in for a few minutes as the syrup you make is cooling. The Hibiki has a floral quality to it, which I think is complemented by the tea notes and are nicely echoed by the floral component of the bitters, making for a nicely elegant drink.
This next one I had at Le Bar du Plaza Athénée (before supping at the sublime Taillevent). Listed on the drink menu was "Thierry's Mind: whatever the head barman decides", which I asked for, noting I was a whiskey fan. This being Paris, he suggested Cognac, I agreed, and the drink that appeared has become a staple, never failing to remind me of my trip:
Thierry's Cognac Old Fashioned
2 oz Cognac
¼ oz demerara simple syrup (or slightly more to taste)
Stir and strain into chilled DOF, I prefer neat but over a rock or two if you insist
Hope these give you some ideas to play with, remember, it's hard to go wrong, and enjoy.
ps...speaking of katanas, here are some gratuitous pics of the new toy I brought back with me from Tokyo, forged and signed circa 1381 by Bishu Osafune Morimoto. I'd meant to post this before, but I'm still way behind on finishing Japan posts.
We were in Japan for the peak of cherry blossom season, so naturally we did some viewing, or Hanami. Here are some of the more arty shots I got.
Ryoanji Temple:
This is from the Imperial Palace East Gardens:
Quoth the Raven:
There was a real crowd in Ueno park to view the blossoms:
I enjoyed this crane in the old town area of Kyoto:
These are the rare Omuro Sakura variety of cherry tree at Ninna-ji Temple, the grounds were filled with families out for a picnic:
Ok, I think these are plum blossoms but they are still nice:
Speaking of seasonality in Japanese meals, guess where I had this one, complete with soy-cured firefly squid, green seaweed and bamboo shoots, dried baby fish, and a jellyfish and surf clam salad:
Believe it or not, it was on the ANA flight on the way out to Tokyo. I was getting this great stuff and wasn't even there yet! This was actually pretty good, and damn excellent for an in flight meal. I had to mention it because it was so impressive, but also because it was the first time I had either firefly squid or (more impressively) jellyfish. In fact, the jellyfish was my favorite part of the meal.
Wow, I completely skipped out on posting in May, and I'm just making it in under the wire for June. Fret not however, because I have a good excuse for neglecting the blog, the excuse being that I've been very busy traveling the world, and collecting good material to blog that I expect will take me quite a while to catch up on. The travels of which I speak took me first to Japan, then a brief stop in New Orleans for Jazzfest, followed by a jaunt to Seattle before embarking on a sailing trip through the San Juan islands and up into Canada on a 34 footer manned by just me, the wife, and her uncle, then a weekend in Portland before heading back East, and next finally a week in a villa in Tuscany's Chianti region, book-ended by a few days in Florence. I know, tough life. But like I said, busy, and no time until now to post. I've got some good stuff to work through, and they'll surely be interspersed with more timely posts, so please forgive the tardiness and stay tuned. I'll start with my first night in Japan, where we supped at the excellent RyuGin...
First, I want to give credit where credit is due to ChuckEats, whom I do not know except through his blog which I stumbled upon, but whose blog I leaned heavily upon when selecting restaurants to patronize on my trip. In fact, we made it to three of the places he spoke highly of; in addition to RyuGin, we also hit Sawada and Koju. He did not steer us wrong. I followed his advice for several reasons. Firstly, there are a mind boggling number of restaurants in Tokyo; even coming from New York it is thoroughly overwhelming. Having a place to start made it much easier to narrow down the countless choices. To illustrate, when the Michelin guide for Tokyo came out, it awarded both more total stars and more three star destinations than Paris. In fact, whereas most Michelin guides include many un-starred but recommended restaurants, the Tokyo guide had no room for merely recommended places since it filled the entire book with starred establishments. The second reason for using the recommendations was that is was exciting reading another review and seeing pictures of the food weeks before the actual trip; the anticipation itself was fun, which was greatly aided by the visual aids. For example, here's his review of his trip to RyuGin. Looks good, doesn't it? The third reason is because I knew I was very likely to trust his opinion since we had similar opinions on many places where we both have dined, eg Masa (my post) or Momofuku (my post). Ok, sorry for the long intro, on to the good stuff.
For reference, here's the menu, this is a jpeg but there's a link to a clearer pdf at the bottom of the post. (It was conveniently supplied to us in a beautiful small envelope at the start of the meal.)
This was an excellent way to start our trip. It had several "best I've ever had" moments (some of which were to be surpassed later on this trip, but that's a good progression). The first course of abalone was one of these moments. When I've had it in the past I've usually found it fairly tough, and frankly slightly boring in taste. This was a perfect specimen; a delicate and pure taste of the sea and, as advertised on the menu, perfectly tender.
The second course made it two for two in the best I've ever had dept. The Hokkaido Sea Urchin utterly sweet, perfectly fresh, and simply luscious. To my knowledge, I've never before had uni from Hokkaido, and it's my new favorite. If I had one criticism of this dish, I would have preferred more uni and less shrimp jelly, but that's only because the uni was so awesome.
The uni was followed by the dashi soup, which I recall liking, but further details elude me, so I'll just leave you with a pic.
Following are pics of the initial presentation and the dish after the reveal of the sashimi course, as the sea bream was hidden under a leaf. This course presented, for the third time of the night, yet another best in my life taste in the monkfish liver. I've heard it called the foie gras of the sea, and in previous tastes of the liver I've understood the reference but been underwhelmed, yet this time it truly lived up to its alternate moniker. This example truly had the melt in your mouth lusciousness of foie, with the requisite richness, but with a taste of surf rather than turf. We were instructed to try the two items together, and they did prove a heavenly match in flavor. I do have to admit that the sea bream, while tasting superb, had a too tough texture for my taste. However, I view that fact as an indictment of my palate and preferences, not of the selection or preparation of the fish. As a side note, the menu indicates that, like the uni earlier, the monkfish liver was from Hokkaido. I can only assume that a visit to that magical place would be nirvana. I intend to investigate in the future.
Next up was the "Baby Spear Squid", which, along with the next course, revealed a theme of extreme seasonality which was to graciously weave its way through our whole trip. Apparently the spear squid was near peak season, and in the case was stuffed with more squid. It was treated very simply, letting the ingredients shine, and as with the abalone in the first course, extremely tender.
Unfortunately this picture hardly does justice to the beautiful plating of vegetables we were served. I apologize, and also feel bad for depriving myself of a better aid to memory. In any case, this dish consisted of dozens of varieties of vegetable, each cooked (or not) individually. Some raw, some fried; blanched, steamed, sautéd, grilled, pureed, etc. Asparagus, mushrooms, carrot, herbs, fiddleheads, bamboo shoots, and on and on. I scarcely have a point of reference to compare this excellent mosaic of vegetables to. Really fantastic.
This dish of Charbroiled "Belly of Snapper" was the one disappointment of the night. I loved the flavor and texture of the Roasted Rice crust, but I found the actual fish somewhat overcooked.
The sukiyaki style Sendai Beef was an excellent example of top quality Japanese beef, with an interesting crumble of herbs and, if I recall correctly, something akin to dried shredded pork, which added an nice counterpoint of texture. The meatball in the background was fine but didn't rise to the bar set by the previous courses.
As with the vegetable dish, I am at a loss to convey how delicious this simple rice and shrimp was. (There is something I find strangely satisfying about consuming another entire creature whole, btw.) This was just plain good. Very nicely balanced, nice contrast of texture, and excellently seasoned. I can only dismay at the fact that I was very full at this point, and, being our first activity after hours and hours on the flight, somewhat tired, I had to decline the chefs generous offer to bring out an additional rice cource with baby sardines. I'm quite sure it would be a worthwhile experience, but I just could not in good consious take him up on the offer.
Dessert was overkill at this point, but the two desserts presented were creative and playful. They also continued a theme from the whole night of dishes with contrasting textures and temperatures. The first was a very cold frozen foam hidden inside a candy shell (expertly shaped to look like an apple) topped with a warm apple compote.
The first dessert was a frozen component accented with a warm sauce, and the second was a hot cake accented with an ice cream. I was approaching a coma from both the food and the travel at this point, so I'll let the diagram that accompanied the dessert speak for itself.
All in all a fantastic meal. There is one thing I feel the need to address however. I can hardly be disappointed by this superb bar setting meal, but I think worth mentioning that the restaurant seems to have shifted closer to more traditional fare than the meal as described at ChuckEats. Not that this is a bad thing by any means, and I'd hardly give up the meal that I had given its quality really set the bar, or in fact many bars, but I would have probably slightly preferred to expect less experimental stuff. As much as I gushed about the food, it was actually probably better than I could convey in some cases. But I'm still a little jealous that I didn't get to try some of the dishes I had read about.
On last note: as we were pulling away in the taxi the chef literally ran out of the restaurant to greet us and enthusiastically wave goodbye with both hands. I kinda felt bad that maybe we had shuffled off too quickly after paying the tab and got the feeling he wanted to say goodbye, but we were dead tired. His send off did leave us with a great feeling however, which was a nice touch.
I'd definitely make a return trip. Highly recommended. Oh, and they speak excellent English.
Last weekend I was down in Texas Hill Country outside Austin for my friends wedding. And Hill Country means one thing, BBQ. Beef BBQ to be precise. We also had excellent Tex-Mex, naturally, but it's the BBQ I'll focus on here. Before this trip, my favorite BBQ was at Salt Lick, where some friends took me on a visit years ago. It's outside Austin, but well outside Austin. I'm talking complete boonies. You leave Austin and drive for a while through absolutely nothing until you approach the Salt Lick compound. The town it's in is called Driftwood, if that gives you any idea. And the compound is huge. The trip is worth it though. Note, it's BYOB. Oh, and I think it's all you can eat, a very dangerous proposition indeed. This is the kind of rib sticking food that you will taste the residue of on your lips the next morning (which is awesome, if perhaps a bit painful you get so full).
As luck would have it, the rehearsal dinner for the wedding I attended was at Salt Lick, so I got to revisit my beloved BBQ mecca. While perhaps not quite as awesome as I remembered from my first trip, it was still awesome. The sausage is my favorite. Oh, and some band called Reckless Kelly played for us that night too. I had not heard of them, but the Texas crew seemed very excited. I'm not a huge country fan, but they were pretty good.
Perhaps my favorite morsel of the weekend was the barbacoa, aka cow head, or "face meat" as my friend describes it, that I got Saturday morning (ok, afternoon). It was so luscious; everyone deduced how much I enjoyed it from the moans emanating after each bite.
It might not look like much, but it is as pure a distillation of beef as you can imagine. And where would you guess I obtained this beautiful food? That's right, the gas station next to the hotel, it says so in lights right on the sign. I was unfortunately a bit late for the breakfast tacos.
Shortly after enjoying my barbacoa, being in Texas, we headed for the shooting range outside Lockhart. I don't hit the range often, but the few times I have have always been quite fun. After playing with a wide variety of heavy artillery, a few of us rushed into Lockhart to squeeze in some of its world famous BBQ before heading back to get ready for the wedding. We decided to hit Kreuz Market:
There was quite a line even at 2pm, but we braved it and here you can see the fantastically aromatic smoke filled room where we picked up our grub:
Weighing out our bounty:
The motherload:
We tried the regular sausage and the jalapeno sausage, as well as the brisket (requested extra fatty, naturally). The sausage was fine, but not as good as Salt Lick's. Here, it was all about the brisket. Damn it was good. Salt Lick entered the weekend as my favorite BBQ place, but Kreuz left the weekend with the title. Moist, succulent, salty, smokey, perfect. We deliberately chose to sit int the alcove connected to the magical smoke filled room where we got our meat rather than the unconnected main dining room to further enjoy the fumes while we ate. My shirt smelled so much of smoke and beef I enjoyed it on the ride back to the hotel where I sadly had to change for the wedding and lose the lovely scent. Oh, did I mention that there is no sauce? You won't miss it. Oh, also, no forks. You eat with your hands.
Here at Kreuz a friend introduced me to the bubble gum flavored Big Red soda, which sounds kinda disgusting, which it is, but it's also kinda awesome at the same time and definitely grew on me as I grew closer to reaching the bottom of the bottle. I won't be stocking my fridge at home in NY with it or anything, but I suspect I'll enjoy it again next time I fund myself enjoying brisket in Lockhart.
Pantagruel: the boisterous, giant son of Gargantua in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel: he is a jovial drunkard characterized by rough, extravagant humor Pantagruel: 1. (in Rabelais' Pantagruel) the huge son of Gargantua, represented as dealing with serious matters in a spirit of broad and somewhat cynical good humor.
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