Garlic Stuffed Turkey Thighs

It was nice to chop my garlic today while listening to music. It feels like a needed pause. And the garlic? I've had little opportunity to cook, so it is incredible informative to actually peel it. I'm cooking only with culls -these are bulbs that I have found to have one dried clove or the occasional rotted clove that I take out of the marketable supply. There's been several this season thanks to a very wet May and incredibly dry air this summer.

This afternoon these two turkey thighs, stuffed to the hilt with garlic, rosemary and others will be grilled at my friend Mark's place. It will be alongside several other meats brought by others.

Looking forward.

Grilled Turkey

Once you've had it, there's no other way. 

I buy the boneless turkey thighs from Di Paola at Greenmarket -they're at many of the locations. A piece this big runs about 15 bucks and feeds four. Depending on the type of grilling arrangement, I'll either put lots of herbs inside and tie the two pieces up with butcher's twine to slow cook or simply rub the herbs all over the pieces and grill straight. Olive oil and garlic, salt and pepper. Always moist and tender. You'll love turkey when you don't have to eat it.

Pasta, Pea Shoots, Woodsy Mushrooms, and Wild Garlic

The last thing I ever intended for this blog was to talk about food or cooking. To be fair, I began blogging with aesthetic gardening, flower gardening, with nothing of the vegetable kind, in mind. Since then, I began reading what others were saying around their gardens, and of that became an awareness of the accord between the garden and the kitchen.  It may be hard to believe, but I never gave that much thought, and most often saw the produce of any vegetable garden I have tended as a source of fresh vegetables to eat uncooked, there in the patch. 

But all this has changed, hasn't it? I am now a dedicated foodie, a forager, a farmer, my kitchen a forum for fresh and fancy foods? No, not really. Although I have a few tricks up my sleeve, my meal palette is actually quite limited, and my time for cooking quite the same. But the media does like talk of food way more than gardening, enough so that garden talk has become the preamble to food discussion. And I suppose that makes sense, especially as we talk of vegetable, ahem -food, gardening.

This Thursday I'll head down to the WNYC studios to record 20 minutes of talk with Amy Eddings about gardening peas, and more specifically pea shoots, and maybe some chat about city vegetable gardening, garden blogging, and community gardening. I hope to figure out a way to drop the word artist and frankmeuschke.com in there somewhere, maybe as a .exe, one that surreptitiously opens only after the 20 minutes has been edited down to the broadcast five. In preparation, I'm constructing statements on the confluence of painting and gardening.

As it so happens, I have had WNYC over for dinner once before, several years ago. My family's turkey stuffing was on the table, and Leonard Lopate and Ruth Reichl were guests. Ruth, editor of the now defunct Gourmet magazine, mentioned that the recipe had reminded her of polpettone. If you were listening, you may have heard the crickets, because I had no idea what that was and had little interest in admitting to my ignorance (until now, apparently). So, like everyone else, I looked it up online afterward, to find it's essentially meatloaf, Italian style, albeit more interesting than your average American loaf of ketchup, onions, and ground beef.

This time my guests would like to have pea shoots for dinner and I've harvested just enough to experiment with a pasta recipe before my appearance on Thursday. Of course, my instinct is to relate how delicious it is to eat them raw, snipped right off the plant, washing optional. After that, wouldn't one want to have it in a salad with the slightly bitter and snappy fresh greens also harvested now, a dash of olive oil and lemon, salt, and pepper? Those really are the first things to talk about and two things I've already eaten this spring. A way to eat cooked pea shoots is in a simple stir fry, which I made the first time I ate pea shoots several years ago, after I bought a rubber-banded bunch for one dollar from Hmong farmers at the Minneapolis Farmers' Market.

Pea shoots are sweet, a little nutty, distinctively pea, but without it's starchiness. They go well with earthy, woodsy ingredients, so I went to the farmers' market on Cortelyou to pick up cultivated mushrooms more exciting than the usual baby browns I can get around the corner -but those would work, too, in a pinch of any kind. The yellow and gray oysters were 7.99 a half pound and the hen of the woods was the same. My brown paper bagful cost me ten even. Dry, fresh mushrooms are fairly light-weighted and you'll get your money's worth in flavor.

I went to Caputos on Court to pick up some guanciale, fresh ricotta cheese, parmigiano, pecorino toscano, fresh pasta (out of pappardelle, out of fettuccine, had to settle for linguine), and ravioli. I bought the "wrong" ravioli, and left that out of the evening's exploration, saved for Wednesday when I will cook them with farmers' market asparagus and the remaining mushrooms. The guanciale is a cured, but not smoked pig jowl, a delicately textured "bacon," that reminds Betsy of flavors somewhere between turkey skin and pancetta.

Wild garlic, Allium vineale, has a very earthy flavor, with subtle hints of garlic and shallot. I foraged these from the fields at the beach farm on Saturday, clipped the roots and stems, peeled the first layer of skin, washing thoroughly, and chopped. You can find wild garlic in most any woods or unmowed field right now in the metro area.

I have been growing peas in house as well as at the farm. Those on the right are cut from mature, beach farm plants, earning them the right to be called shoots, as opposed to the sprouts seen on the left. There may be some confusion about which should be called shoots on the web, but there is no doubt in my mind about which is which. Recently sprouted peas should be called sprouts, while mature vegetation cut for eating can be called shoots, but should be called pea greens to save from any confusion. Don't confuse pea sprouts with mung bean sprouts, which are an entirely different food.

The field grown pea shoots are robust, leafy, and with flowers -a mouthful of fresh pea flavor.

The in house sprouts are similarly flavored, although I expected them to be less so, and slightly more tender, but without flowers, and an altogether different eating experience because of their diminutive size.

I sliced the guanciale, pronounced gwan-chee-ah-lay, and crisped it to a light golden brown over low heat. I poured the rendered cheek fat into a bowl for later use -it's liquid flavor gold. After placing the the guanciale on the side, I placed a couple of pats of unsalted butter in the pan and softened the wild garlic. Then I cut up some of the mushrooms, which were very clean and required no washing (nice! no water), and tossed them in. Meanwhile the salted water was boiling and ready to receive the fresh pasta.

I added a splash or two of cream, two spoonfuls of ricotta, two spoonfuls of the liquid guanciale fat, two spoonfuls of pasta water, some salt, some pepper, a dash of nutmeg. After draining the liquid from the pasta, I chopped the pea shoots into one or two inch pieces, and tossed them into the saute pan. The key to cooking with pea shoots is to not wilt them -just warm them up. Throw them in at the last minute and the heat of the food will do that. I stirred the whole mixture, quite sloppily, together and grated some parmigiano on top.

All in all, I think it came out pretty well, although I have some after eating thoughts. The first thing is more shoots -I wanted more shoots in the dish, yet I cut pretty conservatively at the farm because I am hoping for a few snap peas. The second is the ricotta, which I added haphazardly, and I think the dish could do without, or maybe just one spoonful. And lastly, the mushrooms: When I sampled the oyster mushrooms, I thought they were quite strong and opted for a greater hen to oyster ratio, but after cooked, the oysters lent a woodsy flavor and the hens seemed overwhelmed. Its possible that the dairy overwhelmed all of them and would consider making this with olive oil and butter, omitting the cream altogether. 

One final thought about eating pea greens (shoots). Eating the tendrils raw, they are tender and easy to eat. However, I find that when you cook them, they toughen up just a bit.  With this in mind, my recommendation is to cut the tendrils to one inch or less in length when cooking them, while leaving the leaves, flowers, and branches larger. Or you can simply remove the tendrils altogether, snacking on those while you cook.

Halal Meat

I braved Fairway in the middle of a Saturday, yet couldn't convince myself to pay 12 dollars for a Murray's whole chicken, nor spare the cash for the lamb I was thinking of. I did pick up some baby octopus, all the way from the Philippines, for $3.99 a pound, after being inspired by it at Babbo a month ago. When I am at Fairway, I am looking for deals, not getting caught up in the smorgasbord. 

Afterward, I stopped in one of my local halal butchers for a whole chicken, keep the head, and maybe some lamb or beef. The whole chicken was $4.50, sold, but the lamb the tough kind, and the filet mignon would only be let go whole. What they did have, which I haven't seen since last year when the butcher offered some for me to try, was the cured/smoked beef steak you see below. I do not know the reason that it is sold at this time -for a festival, or holiday, or just because now is a good time to start up the smoker. It's made in house, is only $7.99 a pound (and it's light weight), is very lean, and fairly tender. Flavor is smokey, of course, but the texture is closer to a salt cured meat than a dried jerky. Sliced thin, it almost melts in your mouth. If you can find it, try some. 

Lamb's Leg Adapted

From Marie's. Turned out quite well, though I suspect her leg was of higher quality than mine. Cooking instructions, just right. Pink inside, rested, tender. Nice.

Mackenthuns

Yesterday evening, we stopped into Mackenthun's (Mak-en-toons), Minneapolis area's best local food offering. What do they have to offer? One word -meat.

We bought blueberry summer sausage, garlic summer sausage (to add to the the venison summer sausage we already have from the local hunters), cranberry turkey wild rice bratwurst (the best brats I ever had were this summer's blueberry wild rice brats from the same), German sausage, and Mackenthun's original brats.

We are freezing these to bring back to NYC with us. 

Tonight I am making a duck we picked up from the same. It's my first duck and have little idea what to do with it. 

Gaunza In Pictures

Chop, Fry, Drain, Set Aside, Add, Mix, Stuff

One lb mushrooms, one lb genoa salami, one big onion, one bunch Italian parsley.

Fry the onions, then toss in bread crumbs to lightly toast. Some salami fell in. Oops.

Set aside, add one cup grated pecorino romano.

Fry salami and mushrooms.

 1 lb ground pork (seasoned), 2 lb ground beef. Fry, drain, set aside.

Two cups dry, 4 cups wet, Basmati rice -heresy to mom, better to me. She reads the blogs. She doesn't trust different rice.

Add two cups sauce to the cooked rice.

Mix the pork, beef, salami, mushrooms.

Add the onions, bread crumbs to the mix.

Stir in the rice -quantity to your taste. I used most, with one wet cup remaining. Add parsley.

 Almost done. Really.

 

As many eggs as you wish, boiled, sliced, mixed in.

Now, stuff the bird with it. Just as good in a chicken as a turkey -maybe better? You'll have extra. Be prepared to be stuffed yourself.

Recipe linked to here.

Unreal American

I've been frustrated over the last decade by the conversion of relatively inexpensive, commonplace Italian foods into high-priced delights in NYC. In the 1990s, I could buy fresh Italian loaves for 75 cents, pecorino romano for 4.99 a lb. in Italian neighborhoods. Part of the change is inflation, but the other part is that the working class Italians that used to be the regular customers have become the minority in gentrified Williamsburgh and Carroll Gardens. They've moved out.

That, of course, is the story of NYC. I live in an extremely diverse, immigrant's neighborhood that, from what I hear from old-timers, used to be Italian and Irish. What is lost for Italians is gained by everyone from Albanian to Bangladeshi, Polish to Pakistani, Russian to Ukrainian and me. Food is pretty inexpensive in my neighborhood because people simply won't or can't pay what is being payed in other neighborhoods (I get sticker shock when we're in the Minneapolis suburbs). Five Sunkist oranges for 2 dollars (always), four kiwis for a dollar (now), asparagus bunch for a dollar (now, from Peru), even Organic Valley milk is 2 half gallons for $7 (every day), smoked Kielbasy for 2.99 a lb., and think about the halal butcher's filet mignon for $7.99 a lb.

In my neighborhood, not only can I afford something like real Basmati rice, I have to choose from 5 brands. Ten pound bags go for ten dollars at a local Pakistani market and the bag has a zipper lock. If I buy American basmati, which by every measure is not the same thing, it is often 5 or 6 dollars for the pound. I understand and appreciate that it is more expensive to produce rice in the U.S, but the problem for me is that it is not basmati. No matter how much I spend, the texture is different, the length of the grain is different, the stickiness (or lack of it) is different. So, much like the American counterpart of Italian products, I avoid them. But I am lucky, extremely so, to live in my neighborhood, and have access to these markets that help sustain me.

This year's gaunza will be made with Indian basmati rice -a lighter, better rice than what my family traditionally uses. We will see if my mom notices the difference.

Marie's Mushrooms

Marie and Vince found a bunch of oyster mushrooms in some unnamed park in the tri-state region. Ha! We can't all become foragers! Right? Well, I was the lucky recipient of a portion of what must've been a truckload. I wished I had that perfect oyster mushroom recipe, but alas, I did not. What I did have was blue potatoes, butter, herbs and garlic. And chicken breast. And a saute pan.

In the bag -so many!

The 'gills' suck up water and hold it. Not too much washing, she warned. Over concerned about mites and beetles, I probably soaked in the salty water too long - a minute is too long! These were tough, took a ringing and a squeezing well.

Blue potatoes.

The plate.

Sauteed mushrooms, butter, garlic, herbs, splash of wine, and sliced chicken. Chard on the side, along with potatoes. I think we could have eaten the shrooms alone, but this sort of cooking is not part of my particular cooking skill set -always in experiment, certainly not for guests, mode.

We enjoyed it thoroughly, and somehow it was more enjoyable because these were Unnamed Park mushrooms. Gonna have to get our hunt on.

If Your In For Some Cake Humor...

Although this is meatloaf, it's certainly disgusting, but I like the bacon diaper. See the cakes here.

What About All These Peppers

So many peppers, what to do? How can one eat all these Caribbean hots and Habeneros, and Hungarian hots?

I chopped up 6 or 7 of the sweet bells which have been turning yellow in the bowl. I added one habenero and two caribbean hots. My left hand, the holding hand, is still burning. I sauteed these with some xvoo and then added other veggies on hand. Over brown rice with chicken -all for the coming days' lunches.

But still have more peppers to use.

Seafood "..."

I made this last night and I thought it came out pretty good for, as we used to say, just winging it. Half pound of shrimp, full pound of sea scallops, the rest is vegetable, spices, xvoo, and chardonnay. One fennel bulb, one long red pepper, one onion, some carrot, some broccoli, a tomato, some cherry tomatoes, some parsley, much garlic -all chopped, tossed in the pan with xvoo. Then the white wine, and spices (sage, oregano, thyme, pepper, salt, what else?). The seafood and some butter. Cook it up and spoon it over some brown rice.

Batali's Green Tomato Spaghetti

The question was what to do with all those green tomatoes. The answer: Mario's green tomato spaghetti.

What I had: mint, basil, parsley, garlic, green tomatoes.

What I didn't have: parmigiano, arugula. Trip to Golden Farms -baby arugula, perfect. Uh, no, not that parmigiano. Oh well, use the pecorino Romano I have in the fridge.

The 5 green tomatoes, 1/4 cup of mint, basil, and parsley and two small cloves garlic thrown into the mini-processor and chop chop, grind grind. Salt, pepper (he says generously). The red bits were from a semi-ripened tomato.

Cook ye spaghetti. Toss the whole mess into the hot pasta with a 1/4 cup of XV OO.

Plate er up and grate some cheese. The fruity-nutty flavor of parmigiano would have been better than the salty kick of pecorino Romano on this dish. Why don't I have any in my fridge?

Horseradish?

I thought Marie had a recipe for beef with horseradish, but it was lamb with... Before I looked it up, I was at our local pantry and saw horseradish, and by God, they all looked like this! Really, this is what it looks like before it finds its way into a jar? Now, what do I do with this? Keep it clean.

BBQ Turkey

At the farm on the beach, a gardening neighbor with tons of herbs gave us a branch of rosemary. We both thought lamb, but didn't want to pay the hefty price. This morning we went to the Cortelyou farmer's market and bought boneless turkey thigh from DiPaolo, with plans to BBQ.

I rolled the turkey with rosemary and garlic, tying it up with butcher's string. Salt and pepper.

A little overcooked, because we were socializing with our neighbors instead of watching the grill. Still, it was moist and tasty.

Carbohydrate Couple

This Friday, my wife Betsy and I are going to the greater Utica, NY area. She is in a 15K run called the Boilermaker, which takes place in and around Utica. We will be "camping" in our new old van and cooking over fire on Friday and Saturday evening at a campground near a mountain stream. Conveniences include fire ring, water spigot, picnic table, and shower nearby at $15 a night.

I'm not much for tents or sleeping on the ground. So van sleeping has proved to make camping seem all the more palatable. I bought two 1/2-inch thick exercise pads (24x72 and resilient) and a queen size foam mattress pad to top those off. This sleeping concoction will sit in the rear of the van, seats removed, over the carpeted (and fairly padded) floor. All that is left to find is a good mosquito net, because open windows is a must.

For dinner on Friday, before we settle in, we'll head to the local market to buy some meat for barbecuing. On Saturday, my wife wants to stick by the tradition of having pasta before a long run. I wouldn't disagree, I love pasta. She suggested fried and I was in love all over again.

Rewind. It's 1974, Hither Hills State Park, near Montauk, NY. The family is on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic. There are picnic tables, and a fire box (cement block with iron grate). Grandpa is boiling water and heating sauce over the coals. This was barbecue -pasta and meat sauce. After, came the perc coffee on the old coals, at nightfall, while kids chilled by sunburn and ocean breezes sat wrapped in blankets sticky with beach sand.

Fast forward. Wait. I don't think we'll go that far. We'll make pasta at home and cart it up in the cooler. We'll bring the cast iron skillet, xv olive oil, the pecorino. Start up the fire and fry pasta in the cool air of a mountain woods' evening. Yep. My grandparents are long gone, but they would be proud.

Chicken And Rice, Halal Cart Style

In a time pinch, I grab the 5 dollar chicken and rice at the Halal cart outside of work. Today, I had an extra 5 minutes, so I went to 60th street, towards Columbus Ave. I saw another Halal cart and thought enough to give it a try. The first question asked after I ordered the chicken and rice was, "Plain rice or spicy rice?" Spicy rice, of course. The rice was darker and the meat was whiter than at the other cart. Hot sauce please, also thicker and darker.

This Halal cart chicken and rice was superficially the same meal as the cart outside of our building, but in taste and texture, another meal altogether. First, the rice was a basmati type, light and long -not the firm, short grain rice of the nearby cart. The rice was also white, not tinted warm and light red, but had been colored by the collection of spices added. It had hints of ginger, cumin and cardamom and was fire hot. The whole dish was less salty too, and without the reddish coloring on the meat. The light, loose rice and small chunks of chicken were harder to pick up with the plastic fork, causing me to eat much slower than I normally would (eating while working has led me to be a rapid eater, shame on me). The heat led my nose to run, fabulously hot was this 60th street cart.

Now I have it in my mind to try to get to try all the carts within 5 minutes. I'm glad that these Halal carts are not being trucked out of the same depot with the same ingredients and recipes. I've not been cooking much lately, in a cooking funk I suppose. I need some new inspiration, I need to have some new meals out.

Kiwi Salad

Wow, Kiwis are cheap -often four for a dollar. I love the tartness and the crunch of the tiny seeds. All the Kiwis I've been getting lately are from Italy, a top producer of Kiwifruit. Although they are grown in every hemisphere, Kiwi are native to regions of China.

I threw together a salad of mixed greens with a slight amount of lemon and olive oil. Then I cut up some Parmigiano-Reggiano and tossed that on top. Then sliced some kiwi and tossed that on too. I was pleased.

Mignon Parmigiana

I have an Italian American mother who doesn't like much -but tomato sauce, pasta (family says macaroni for all shapes) cheese, and meat. So, no surprise I tend to cook this way. But after leaving home, you start eating other people's food and growing your taste. Unlike Ma, and whatever Batali says about real Italians liking mushy broccoli, I like broccoli sauteed firm with garlic and drizzled with a good olive oil, salt and pepper. I chose bread instead of pasta cause it was hot enough in the apartment without a steam engine going. Fairway in Red Hook (across from my wife's studio on Van Brunt) was having a crazy deal on fresh mozzarella (3.99/lb). I bought three -froze two. A can of LaValle san marzanos I had stored from some crazy deal they had on those a few months ago. Basil -garden. Fairway again, they had a deal on filet mignon (4.99/lb) in one of those wet-age bags that I do not prefer -but still a deal for this meal. I cut it up and froze some. Sliced the rest 3/8ths thick, covered it in breadcrumbs and fried it up in xv olive oil, lightly browned. Then into the dish with the sauce and cheese. Its very hard for me to cook for one, which I'm doing all summer. Fortunately I'm learning that leftovers are good. My mom always told us we needed to finish the pot(that meant the rest of the pasta) insisting we'd be hungry and this left an indelible urge to eat everything.

Dip the steak in egg. Then cover in bread crumbs.

Fry it up in the pan.

Have the sauce ready to go. This one has mushrooms.

In a dish layer the steak, sauce, and cheese. Throw some basil on top and yummy.

Home Made Street Meat

I eat this about once a week, purchased from a halal cart on the sidewalk in front of school. We don't have many choices in our neighborhood for a quick bite, and this meal checks in at 5 bucks and is relatively healthy (chicken, rice, not greasy). I thought this meal would be quick at home and maybe even more tasty. I added more broccoli than the man at the cart seems ever willing to give me and added the peppers for flavor. On the street, vegetables are 99 percent iceberg lettuce and a slice of tomato. I omitted those, working only with what I had on hand, but add those too if you wish. I can only imagine that I missed a spice in my home made street meat, but that said, I think the cumin and paprika approximated the street experience.

For two plates, plus lunch leftovers:

• 1-1/2 cups rice with added sweet Hungarian paprika for color cooked in the rice cooker
• 1 cup frozen peas into the rice cooker
• 1-1/2 lbs boneless chicken thighs.
• as much broccoli as you like
• 1 onion -sliced
• 1 Italian red pepper -diced
• 1 hot pepper, any kind -diced
• oil, your choice
• paprika
• cumin
• salt and pepper
• optional hot sauce
• optional yogurt or sour cream

Cook your rice as you wish. I added the frozen peas to the rice because my cooker is big enough to accommodate cooking both at the same time. Also, the cooker keeps the finished rice done while I am waiting on the chicken.

Chop up the chicken. I put the chicken in a cast iron skillet and into the oven at 325 degrees with some olive oil, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. I cooked it for about 1/2 hour and pulled it out of the oven (watch the hot handle!) to drain off the fat. I threw into the skillet the sliced onion, chopped peppers, and broccoli florets along with some more paprika, stirred it up and placed it back in the oven for about another 1/2 hour.

Serve the rice and chicken together. I add lots o hot sauce. You could also eat the meat and vegetables alone in a pita.