The Heat Goes On

Hell Is Other People


I completed the majority of this entry a month ago, so the references to the summer heat might sound odd. Still, the dishes are pretty good for a day when you don't feel like doing much cooking.

I spent the majority of the 80s in the U.S. Navy, running reactors and reactor protection equipment aboard nuclear submarines. In the early 80s, while the submarine I was assigned to was laying over in Guam for repairs, the crew was billeted in some old WWII vintage barracks up on a jungly hill. The place had no A/C, huge open-bay rooms full of bunk beds tented with mosquito netting, lots of perpetually-open windows, and just a few old slow fans for cooling. For our first few days, during the day, with temperatures in the upper 90s and humidity ditto, having become accustomed to the consistent air-conditioned comfort of the sub (well, except for occasional hot moments in the engine room) most of us just lazed under our mosquito nets, waiting for sundown and practicing our sweating. I remember one of the guys waxing rhapsodic about his hometown in Vermont. Making angels in pristine, new fallen snow. Getting a tongue stuck to a flagpole. Sledding in the mountains. Snowforts and snowball fights with his brothers. Apparently they were a very frolicsome family.

Lying there with what felt like a large tributary of the Mississippi running down from each armpit, the thought of snow didn't cool me at all. Maybe I was just feeling disagreeable, but my crewmate's burbling just reminded me how much I hated snow. I grew up in Colorado, skiing from pre-adolescence, and I absolutely hated snow then no less than now. I've never liked cold weather. Okay, I loved skiing—during which I could forget how cold it was—but I always wished it could have been possible to ski in warmer climes. That sweaty day in Guam, as I lay simmering in my own bodily fluids, I realized that, as bad as I felt, I've always preferred hot weather.

So what was keeping me in that hot room with those other shlubs, watching the geckos scurry across the netting? Was the humidity really that enervating? I mean, if I got up and Did Something, would I feel any worse? I decided not. I got out of the sack and strolled off toward town to find something to do in the beautiful sunshine. For the next several days, whenever I wasn't required to be on the boat, I was touring Guam—hiking in the jungle, birding, taking pictures, snorkeling, window shopping, restaurant hopping. Gradually, a few of my crew mates joined me on these excursions. What had started out as a soul-sucking layover in a suburb of hell turned into a free vacation in paradise.

Now, I'm not saying the heat was all in my head, but certainly there is a mental component to the malaise wrought by hot, humid days. So here I am in Austin, Texas, in one of the hottest summers in the past decade (temps in the triple digits, only occasional cool snaps down to the upper 90s), and I've been staying indoors with the air conditioning. As I noted last time, I get up at 5 a.m. to do my (almost) daily walks just to avoid the heat.

Well, last week, I finally took a plunge I'd been avoiding for a decade: I bought a grill. I don't think I'm suffering any kind of testosterone crisis, but I have been getting quite tired of heating up the whole house at every other meal. I also realized that I had been avoiding grilling because it didn't make much sense to stand over a hot grill on a hundred-degree day. Me, avoiding the heat? Why? CAVEAT: this blog entry won't include any grill recipes. I'm a grilling novice. Sort of. I've cooked on charcoal grills, and thirty years ago, I worked for a few months as a grillardin, but that was a long time ago. I have a lot to recall, relearn, reinvent. I've got a start on it—I've grilled chicken breasts, carnitas, tuna steaks, spatchcocked chicken, shrimp, sirloin kebabs, and pizza—but I'm not there yet, confidence wise. I'll get back to you on this.

Chill

Of course, one of the simple solutions to the heat is to avoid cooking, altogether. Salads, tartares, sashimi, carpaccios, crudos—no fire in the house means the house stays cool. Fresh baguettes or artisanal crackers from the grocery store round out the meal. That's more or less what I was doing, frequently, prior to getting the grill.

Last year on an episode of Top Chef one blogging food critic (*cough* pretentious jerk-off New Yorker *cough*) made a negative comment about a tuna tartare before even tasting it. Essentially, his complaint was, "This dish is so last year." Now, yes, I know that foods of one sort or another do go in and out of style, and I understand that the passion for a particular food or treatment can make it seem old even faster, but I don't think tuna tartare is quite there yet. In all fairness, I'm in Austin, maybe the restaurants in New York have overdone the presentation of tuna tartare. I hope not. Tuna tartare, done right, is sumptuous, rich, and satisfying.

Another caveat: all measurements are approximations—guesses, really. I just toss in what looks right, taste, and adjust as I go along.

Tuna tartare Japonaise with fennel-apple salad
serves 4

dramatis personae

tartare

sashimi-grade tuna
one small carrot
two tablespoons minced chives
two tablespoons minced basil
one tablespoon sesame seeds
juice of one lime
one tablespoon tamari
two teaspoons wasabi
one teaspooon sesame oil

salad

one quarter cup pignolis
one medium Fuji apple, unpeeled, cored, and sliced thinly
juice of one lemon
one fennel bulb, cored and sliced thinly
one quarter cup radicchio chiffonade
four ounces ricotta salata, cut or broken into half-inch chunks

dressing

one teaspoon fennel fronds, minced
two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
one tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
one teaspoon tarragon vinegar
dash of tabasco sauce
one teaspoon Dijon mustard
black pepper
salt

quality of ingredients

I've never had any trouble with tuna steaks. for raw preparations. You want either the freshest, reddest tuna steaks you can find (first choice) or frozen steaks labeled "sashimi-grade." If you're selecting from fresh tuna steaks, the tuna should be glistening and slightly translucent and have a gentle, sweet aroma. If you smell even a hint of ammonia, pass it by.

Carrots should always be crisp. Don't use rubbery carrots; they tend to be bitter.

Chives should be deep green and neither limp nor bruised. Dice from the tips of the chives, which are more flavorful than the base.

Basil leaves should also be dark green and neither limp nor discolored.

Limes should be dark green (as much as half yellow is okay) and firm but not too hard. Unlike lemon zest, which softens with age, the zest of a lime desiccates with age and takes on a texture like melamine.

If you don't have tamari, you can use soy sauce. If the soy is too dark, thin it one-to-one with water.

Pignolis should be solid and free of blemishes.

Fennel bulbs should be white and firm. A few light brown blemishes are acceptable, but deep, translucent blemishes can't be removed. The fronds should be dark green and not wilted.

Fuji apples should be solid and free of bruises.

Lemon juice should always come from fresh lemons, not from a green bottle.

Radicchio leaves should be purple and white, and free of brown splotches. If the outer leaves are becoming brown at the edges, remove and discard them. The leaves underneath should be okay.

White balsamic vinegar is a fairly recent introduction to American supermarkets, and it's one of those special foods that excites a good deal of anger and excitement among purists. Frankly, I don't understand the problem. Real balsamic vinegar (labeled "aceto balsamico tradizionale") is made by cooking grape musts to carmelize them and then aging the resulting liquid in a series of successively smaller wooden barrels for a minimum of 12 years. The traditionally aged stuff costs a small fortune, and fine restaurants dole it out in drops. The stuff we get in the supermarkets that does not say "aceto balsamico tradizionale"—even the aged stuff—is made differently. Most of the commercial grade balsamico is made in Modena and Reggio Emilia, near where the tradizionale is produced. The commercial grade stuff is made by adding the same cooked musts to a little bit of wine vinegar. So, the only difference between white balsamic vinegar and the dark stuff is that the musts in the white balsamic aren't caramelized. What's really important here is that white balsamic is a tasty substitute for balsamic where the dark, caramelly richness of OTC balsamic vinegar would be inappropriate.

preparation notes

Unlike beef, tuna for tartare should not be minced too finely. A quarter-inch dice works great. This not only reduces the amount of work you have to do, it provides a dish with a better mouth-feel. Chopped too finely the tuna feels mushy. Mix the solid ingredients before adding the liquids.

For the salad, first, toast the pignolis over high heat in a non-stick skillet with no oil. Shake the pan constantly to prevent burning the pignolis. Once the pignolis are uniformly golden brown, pour them into the salad bowl. Slice the apples, put them in a small bowl. Toss the apple slices with the juice of one lemon and set them aside. Combine the fennel, pignolis, radicchio, and cheese.

Mix the dressing and set it aside.

When ready to serve, pour the excess lemon juice off of the apple slices and toss them into the salad. Dress the salad either just prior to serving or at the table.

Serve the tartare and salad with a baguette or similar crunchy bread.

Where's the Beef?

Not the Heat

In October of last year I had spinal surgery. My lowest disc had been ground to the consistency of hamburger, and—despite epidural steroid injections, physical therapy, and a river of opioids—my back pain just kept getting worse. So, they removed the disc and fused the associated pair of vertebrae. After the surgery, I spent a painful week in the hospital followed by two weeks in a rehabilitation facility. Returning home, a big part of my post-operative rehabilitation has been long walks. I've had my share of ups and downs with the rehabilitation process, but walking Lately, I've been trying to get in at least one long circuit (at least a mile and a half) every day.

A typical summer in Austin, Texas, means daily high temperatures in the triple digits, with humidity just high enough to ensure runnels of sweat just from walking down to the mail box. As I type, it's 3:30 in the afternoon, the temperature outside just hit 102F. My back-patio thermometer says it 96 degrees in the shade. I hear the sizzling trill of cicadas in the trees, and it's hard not to think of the neighborhood as a giant skillet. As much as I love the Texas heat, it's not the kind of weather you want for a long walk. It's also a bad idea to walk any time around or just after dusk. That's when the mosquitos come out, and they're wicked hungry. So, like a lot of other Austinite walkers, runners, joggers, and cyclists, I end up having to get up before dawn to get in my day's exercise. It works. I get in a long walk without being braised in my own juices, and I get to watch the sun rise.

I wish it were that easy to solve the cooking heat dilemma.

Baking is the worst. Crank up the oven to 400F for half an hour, and the house can heat up five degrees for the rest of the evening. Open flames, naturally, have pretty much the same effect. Too many cooked dishes in a meal can mean an uncomfortable night all around. Plus, no one really wants a meal that warms them up when the air is this hot. If I even mention soup, Princess V makes a sour face. Sure, we can eat lots of sashimi, carpaccio, tartare, and salads; and we do. After a while, though, the cold foods leave me wanting some of the complexity that can develop only with the addition of heat: roasting, grilling, sautéing. Also, summer places its own culinary demands on us. For most people, apparently, summer means grill marks. It's rare, this time of year, that you find a food-porn magazine without grill marks on the cover. I understand the attraction of the grill in summer: you get all of that caramelized, smoky goodness without heating up the house. Then again, standing over a bank of hot coals in 102F weather isn't the ideal cooking experience.

Continuing the Boycott

For me, summer has always meant hamburgers. I don't know where the association originated, but hot weather always leaves me craving juicy burgers with molten cheese. Ironically, I don't eat a whole lot of beef, and I never buy ground meat. As I mentioned in Beauty in the Beast Princess V is more than a little concerned about the possibility of BSE. Also, I find that beef makes me logy and generally plays hell with my digestion. I like the flavor of beef once in a while, but I can't eat much of it, and I try to avoid ground beef altogether. This is why I started experimenting with alternative meats, and I think I've come up with a success.

First, here's a brief run down of the failures:

• Bison. I love rare bison, but bison tallow is gamy. Bison burgers always taste a bit too much like liver, for my taste.


• Pork. Too greasy or too dry, and ground pork just doesn't hold together. Plus, the flavor profile is just wrong.


• Turkey. Lean ground turkey is way too dry and a little too sweet. Adding in a little dark meat helps a little, but the result is far too sweet.


• Ahi tuna. Luscious, but this is a burger? Also, this strikes me as a waste of good tuna. I can think of a thousand dishes I'd rather make with fresh tuna. Similarly, I have no interest in even trying shrimp burgers or lobster burgers.


• Chicken (version one). Lean ground chicken is as dry as lean ground turkey, but the flavor of pan seared ground chicken is more like ground beef than turkey.


• Chicken (version two). The grocery store carries a variety of ground chicken that's not so low in fat. As with the turkey, they mix in one part dark meat with three parts white meat. The result is moist, but the burger tastes too schmaltzy.

And the winner, believe it or not, is: chicken (version three). The secret is to replace the chicken fat with tastier fat. Blow off the pre-ground chicken, use lean breast meat, and add some good streaky bacon for the fat. Of course, everything is better with bacon.

For the sake of a little of the old bang/wow, it also helps to design your own condiments. Catsup and mustard seemed like no-brainers, and the chipotle in the catsup was begging for some avocado to balance the heat.

Chicken Sliders with Chipotle Catsup, Dijon Tapenade Mustard, and Avocado Cream

(serves six)

dramatis personae

four boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
eight slices center cut bacon
one teaspoon cornstarch
one teaspoon worcestershire sauce
two tablespoons olive oil (if frying)
black pepper

catsup

one small can tomato purée
chipotle chilis in adobo
cider vinegar
dark brown sugar
a pinch of kosher salt

mustard

one quarter cup niçoise olives (pitted)
two tablespoons non-pareil capers
three anchovy filets
one quarter cup dijon mustard

avocado cream

one large hass avocado
juice of one small lemon
juice of one medium lime
one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
one half tablespoon of avocado oil
one quarter cup milk

quality of ingredients

The chicken breasts should be free of freezer burn. These days, you'll find many options for high-quality chicken: free-range, cageless, hormone-free, antibiotic free, air-chilled. As far as I can tell, each of these adjectives adds a great deal to the cost of the chicken and next to nothing to the taste.

I like the fat-to-lean balance in center cut bacon, but that's also our go-to variety for breakfast. A good applewood, mesquite, or hickory smoked bacon might work. Possibly pancetta. I'd avoid the maple syrup stuff, though.

Some of the TV chefs and foodies of late seem determined to use extra-virgin olive oil for everything. As much as I love extra-virgin olive oil, using it in any high-temperature application is just stupid. Use a good quality olive oil if you're frying your burgers but leave the extra-virgin on the shelf.

Even if you live in an area (like Austin) where you can get dry chipotle chilis, the canned ones work better for uncooked sauces.

Be sure your cider vinegar does not say "cider-flavored vinegar" on the label. That's not cider vinegar. Some brands sell both cider vinegar and cider-flavored, so read the label every time you buy it.

Salt. I like kosher or sea salt. It doesn't matter which you use, but be aware that you'll use half as much if you choose to use table salt.

I prefer Niçoise olives in my tapenades. In a pinch, you can use kalamata olives for a tapenade, but in this case—for a mustard—I think the kalamatas would be too tart.

Taste the capers before you use them. Some brands are too salty to use directly out of the jar. If they're too salty, soak them in fresh water for a few minutes before using them. Be sure you don't get the kind steeped in balsamic vinegar.

Avocados are difficult to get at exactly the right degree of ripeness. If they're just a little too soft, they might be overripe. Overripe avocados have nasty brown portions. For this application, however, where the avocado will be puréed in a blender, it doesn't need to be quite as soft as it would for a guacamolé. Buy an avocado that yields to a slight pressure.

preparation notes

Cut away all the fat from the chicken breasts, dice the bacon, and combine the chicken, bacon, corn starch, and worcestershire sauce in a food processor. Process the ingredients until you no longer see chunks of bacon in the mix.

Wet your hands (ground chicken is very sticky) and form the chicken into patties at least one half-inch thick. Cook the chicken patties until they're golden brown on one side (about four minutes in a hot skillet, a little longer on a grill). Flip the patties and cook them until the other side is equally golden brown.

You can make the patties burger-size and serve them with hamburger buns or slider-size and serve them on biscuits or dinner rolls.

You may have noticed that I didn't list quantities for any of the ingredients for the catsup (except the tomato purée, but you have to start somewhere). I find most store-bought catsup cloying and vile, but I know this is a matter of taste. For this reason, you should make the catsup to suit your own taste. I recommend starting with one chipotle. Remove the stem, cut open the chili, and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Add the chipotle and the purée to a blender. Add a splash of cider vinegar, a teaspoon or so of brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Blend the ingredients until the chipotle is completely puréed. Taste the concoction. If you want it hotter, add another chipotle. Add more vinegar, sugar, and salt as your taste dictates.

For the Dijon tapenade mustard, first make the tapenade. Combine the ingredients in a food processor and pulse them a few times. The anchovy filets will disappear immediately. You just need to process the ingredients until the bits of olive are about the same size as the capers.

For the avocado cream, in a blender, purée the ingredients until smooth.