Weird Crap I Cook: Coniglio al Cioccolato

I’m once again writing from a plane over the central US.  In the “According to Jim”-quality sitcom of my life, the episode where I traveled to Las Vegas for a jewelry trade show would likely end up as an audience favorite.  I know earrings go in ears because the word “ear” is right in the product name, but other than that I am pretty clueless.  I’ll let you know how this all goes.

A couple of days before Memorial Day weekend, Kristi discovered a block of dark baking chocolate in our cabinet.  It was leftover from a monster box of expensive baking items that our downstairs neighbors Hollye and Steve left us when they moved out late last year.  H&S were great neighbors and always had ingredients that recipes called for and I didn’t own, and now those spices and ingredients are all in our cabinets.  Anyhoo, For some reason when I saw the chocolate my first thought was a Sicilian dish called coniglio al cioccolato that I’d heard of, never seen on a menu, and wanted to try.  So that is how on a beautiful Memorial Day, a holiday synonymous with grilling, I ended up cooking a rabbit in dark chocolate on my stove top.

I think I first saw this dish on a food show, likely a Bizarre Foods Italy episode.  As I’ve become more of a fan of Mexican mole and other savory chocolate sauces, my interest in cooking this one myself grew.  It sounded awesome with the bitterness of chocolate and vinegar balanced with the sweetness of raisins and wine.  Plus I had a rabbit in the freezer.

Had no idea what I would use this for when I bought it but I was so happy to see it in the grocery store that I wanted to encourage them to order more.  I am aware I am just a meat hoarder at this point

I hadn’t cooked rabbit since a camping trip in 2009 when I roasted one whole over a Hermit Island campfire.  That one was decent, but more recently I’ve enjoyed a few chicken fried variations in restaurants and an awesome braised rabbit pasta last week.  I knew I would have to break down this rabbit before cooking so I removed it from the package and gave it a good rinse in the sink.

I think I referenced how much the pheasants I cooked a couple months ago looked like rabbit and I still feel that way looking at this.  I also recognize how disturbing cooking a small animal can look at this stage

The inside had been cleaned of the lungs and all parts of the digestive tract but still had the heart, liver, and kidneys attached along with some loose fat in the belly.  Very easy to remove, and although I hadn’t planned on it, I knew I would end up having to at least sample them.

To clarify, I’m never bummed out when I find stuff like this since I like trying new things, but I wish I had known so I could get some crusty bread or something.  Straight organ eating can be a little aggressive

Back to the rabbit.  I watched a couple youtube videos on how to break down a rabbit before getting started.  The top result was filmed from about a football field away and was the least helpful thing I’ve ever seen, but the second was a helpful hipster type with good tips.

The front legs come off easily since they are seemingly only connect by muscle.  The rear legs were also easy to remove but required a little more work starting with cutting back toward the legs along the ribs.  Then folding the rear legs towards the front, snapping the back bone and separating with an easy cut.

The cleaver was for getting through the back bone and separating into two rear legs.  I am absolutely terrified of taking swings with the cleaver, I mostly gently apply it to the meat and put all my weight on it (which means I am becoming better with a cleaver with every year of weight gain)

After getting the legs off, the final step was separating the ribs from the loin and belly meat (apparently called a backstrap), then cutting each section into two portions.  I struggled a bit with what to do with the loin; remove and cook on it’s own or braise it with everything else?  No animal loin braises well from my experience, it always ends up a little dry, and some would say that rabbit loin is the best part (though I prefer the rear leg).  Anyway, I decided to leave it all intact since I didn’t have ideas on how to cook the loin if it wasn’t going to braise with everything else.

The cracking of animal bones is one of those activities that only happens when Kristi isn’t home or is napping.  I’ve learned that if she overhears that, the odds of her actually eating the finished product decreases exponentially

The recipes I referenced all recommend soaking the rabbit for a few hours in white wine, olive oil, and bay leaves.  Since I was trying to do this one authentic, I was going by the book with recipes which made me feel like stupid jerkface Brother Tim.  Look!  I’m cooking what I am reading everybody!!!  And now you are reading about me reading and cooking!!!

Three buck chuck and dried McCormick bay leaves, just like they’ve done it in Sicily for a thousand years

The rabbit headed into the fridge for a few hours and I moved on to cooking my lunch of rabbit offal.  Got started with a tablespoon of butter in a hot sautee pan before adding the seasoned heart, kidneys, and liver.

I haven’t enjoyed a kidney since Morocco, but I had faith in these little dudes just because rabbit is so mild in flavor to begin with.  We’ve hit the part of my flight where the passenger next to me starts sneaking looks at my word document and wondering what the hell I’ve been doing for the past hour.  Won’t be opening my iPhoto again for awhile

After a few minutes, I gave the offal a flip and added a pour of white wine to deglaze the pan and cook down for a couple minutes.  The heart and kidneys I ate straight out of the pan pretty much.  The heart was a little chewy and minerally, not my favorite, but the kidneys were soft and had a nice mild liver-y flavor.  Pretty dece.  The livers went onto toasted pieces of the only bread I had in the house: Thomas’ English Muffins.

The now obligatory shot by the window.  Used the contents of the pan as a sauce.  This marks the second time I’ve carefully prepared liver and then served it over toasted English muffins after the triggerfish livers last summer

The livers were mild and livery like most other small animal livers.  Pretty delicious with the white wine and brown butter sauce over the top.  Pretty good lunch.

After a couple hours in the marinade, I heated up a little olive oil in a large pan to brown the rabbit pieces.  After removing the bag from the fridge, I shook the excess liquid off of the rabbit pieces, loaded into the hot pan and reserved the leftover marinade.  Once all pieces had some good color, I threw chopped onion, carrots, and celery into the pan and cooked until transluscent, then added the rabbit pieces back to the pan.

That looks like way too much mirepoix, for the amount of rabbit but I was following directions.  Not sure if I mentioned this but my sister in law was in the process of throwing this pan away when we obtained it and I easily get more use out of it than any other pan we own.  If I have mentioned that before my apologies since it was barely worth mentioning the first time

Once the rabbit was well nestled back in, I added the leftover marinade, bay leaves, a half cup of white wine vinegar, salt, crushed red pepper, and more cloves than I’ve used in any other dish.  The lid went on and the pan was left to simmer over low heat for an hour.

Did I mention Maroon 5 is playing a concert just for the tradeshow attendees?  And it’s a beach themed party?  There’s a good chance this will be the most awkward event I’ve ever attended in my life.  I think the uniform for the evening is Hawaiian shirt, sockless black loafers, salt and pepper chest hair, and different shaded gold chains.  I’ve heard Jewelers know how to party

When the hour was almost up, I chopped down a few squares of the dark chocolate to make it easier to melt.

The recipe called for more chocolate than this but I had to draw the line.  I also recognized that the recipe I saw called for regular dark chocolate and this stuff was 99% cocoa.  Insanely bitter stuff

The chocolate went into the pan with a half cup of currants (replacing raisins) and a half cup of pine nuts.  I also added a few pinches of sugar to combat the lack of it in the chocolate.  I was surprised that it immediately melted but I struggled to get it well stirred in without the meat falling apart since it had already braised tender.

Not a finished product but I was able to get it stirred in without making too ridiculous of a mess.  Cooking with chocolate is no good for a borderline OCD cook.  It took all of my will not to wildly spray Fantastic everywhere and taint the entire batch of food

Once all ingredients were well combined, the pan was left to simmer for another 30-40 minutes and reduce the sauce a bit.  Regardless of how much it reduced, I recognized pretty quickly that this was a lot of sauce for a wittle wabbit.

The other thing I recognized was that I was not being super considerate to my wife by serving her an animal she wasn’t comfortable with in a sauce she wasn’t comfortable with.  So, I got going on a mushroom risotto that started with a lot of truffle butter, onions and garlic.

The flavors don’t make a ton of sense together, but that doesn’t really matter if the risotto is tasty enough. Again, this was a warm memorial day and I was making stick to your ribs Sicilian/Italian comfort food. I might stick to steaks for July 4th and Labor Day

The rabbit was looking and smelling pretty good despite the odd combo of aromas in the kitchen.  It was like I was making truffle chicken brownies or something.  I wish the sauce had reduced a little bit more, but it looked ready to plate and the rabbit was very tender.

No mistaking that as a big pan of melted chocolate.  I was very tempted to add cayenne to make it more mole-like at this point, but I was trying to stick to the script and not make some sort of Sicilian Mexican thing.  A couple sample tastes were encouraging though

I gave Kristi and I each a rear leg since that was the meatiest piece with the least bones and I took a piece of the backstrap/loin as well.  I topped both pieces with a big spoonful of the rich and chunky sauce then piled up some risotto on both plates.  Was pretty cool seeing the extremely white pieces of meat once we cut into the dark sauce.

Saturday flights to Vegas are pretty bro heavy.  I should see if any of them are going to the jewelry show too. “Did you guys see that Effy has a new line of cat-themed emerald jewelry?!?! I know right?!?!”

For me, a pretty delicious dinner.  The truffle flavor on the risotto wasn’t very strong but you got some nice waves of it here and there.  The rabbit was tender and juicy but the normal knock on rabbit is how lean it is and not filling, which the sauce braising liquid more than made up for.  The chocolate sauce was very rich and had a lot of flavor from the wine, currants, cloves, and mirepoix plus the combined bitterness of the chocolate and vinegar.  The carrots and celery still had a bit of crunch texture that was a good contrast to the soft meat.

Kristi struggled a bit and couldn’t quite get into the flavor of meat and chocolate.  I was under the impression she liked Mexican mole but I probably should have asked before I started cooking.  She powered through though and ate the whole leg while the rest went to work with me for easily the oddest lunch I’ve ever consumed at my desk.

Next week will involve the grill I’m thinking.

Foraging for Food: Yellowfin Tuna

Labor Day weekend brought a trip to LBI for a few days of relaxation, friends, family, and good eating.  It also brought a generous invitation from my buddy John and his brother-in-law Frank to join them for some deep sea fishing on Saturday.  This one is gonna get a little wordy on the front end and a little visually graphic on the back end, just like an old fashioned orgy at Gore Vidal’s house.  That joke has no place on this blog but, as long as we’re breaking the fourth wall, this is going to be a MONSTER post.

I accepted the invitation almost immediately, then spent the following days nervous about whether I would end up being yet another visitor on the boat that vomits for 15 hours straight.  John dealt with a whole lotta anxious questions about how the day would unfold.

That look says, “I don’t understand what you are talking about, but I can already tell from the tone of your voice that I’m not going to like what you do in our kitchen when you get home.”

You might remember the Hard Four crew from last year when they saved me the head and collar from a 45 pound yellowfin.  Some of the stories from the boat, like the tournament last summer where they landed over 300 pounds of Bigeye tuna, are like food Cialis for me.  My excitement to see it all firsthand greatly outweighed the sea sickness fears.

The day started at 3:40 in the morning after a delirious night of sleep due to some questionable raw oysters.  The crew for the day was Frank, John, Colman (photographer of the tuna shot from last year), Captain Mike (or “Zoo”), Frank’s father-in-law Big Rich, and Whitney, Frank’s brother-in-law.  Solid crew.  Once on the boat,  all of us except Zoo passed out for the 3+ hour trip to Hudson Canyon, some (including myself) aided by a solid dose of Dramamine.

Once we arrived at the fishing grounds, we got out of the PFDs and waterproof suits we wore for the wet ride out and got ready to do some fishing.  Generally I just tried to stay out of the way at this point since I had no idea how anything worked.  After Frank, John, Colman, and Zoo moved around for 10-15 minutes we had eight lines spread out along the two outriggers and a couple teaser lines in the water.  Lots of high-fiving and general excitement for the day of fishing ensued.

Johnny and Me.  This was taken later in the day, but that was a lot of words in a row and a lot more to come.  Here’s a little thing: I was borderline unable to pee on the boat due to an inability to keep my balance and general stage fright.  I am still disappointed in myself for this

Within 10 minutes of getting the lines out, the distinct sound of line flying out of a reel filled our ears and Colman dropped the rod into his fighting belt.  We let the line run out for 20-30 seconds to see if any other fish in the school bit, but eventually pulled all other lines in to let Colman reel in the fish.

In apparently typical fashion, Colman told us that the fish on the line “felt small” and was “likely a skipjack”.  Eventually what looked like a keg with yellow tips came up off the port side, Frank gaffed it right behind the gills, and we were officially on the board.  Let’s just say that the feeling for me was like seeing Christie Brinkley in Vacation for the first time when I was 9.

A beauty of a Yellowfin.  Doesn’t do the size any justice but that was a large fish box.  Look at me using proper angling terms!

And then…. not much.  We had an awesome day of catching up with friends new and old, eating a ton of homemade deli sandwiches, listening to music and waiting for the lines to run out.  But, we didn’t see much action in the following 4-5 hours and headed back with just that one beautiful fish that made it all worthwhile.

I don’t think I had any understanding of how large the yellowfin was until we returned to LBI, I picked it up, and struggled mightily with its weight.

I think this picture was taken while I was taking a breath or something.  I was incredibly strained the whole time I held the fish and look way too relaxed in this foto

The yellowfin weighed over 60 pounds and generally looked like the most wonderful thing I had ever seen.  I had no business holding it since I had no part in reeling it in, but I still did everything short of a Tawny Kitaen on the hood of a Jaguar photo shoot with that fish.

Johnny on the left, Frank in the center.  They may never get how much this trip meant to me, and I may never understand why it meant so much to me.  I just love having a part in getting my own food, especially when it’s delicious.  Also, I have a double chin all the way up to my ears.  That can’t be healthy, right?

After a few more rounds of photo shoots with various combinations of people, Zoo got started cutting the loins out of the fish.  It was pretty impressive to watch and a reminder of what a perfect food tuna is with how much of it is edible.

It was extremely impressive how quickly Zoo took this thing apart.  Zoo was also a good reminder that I wish I had better nicknames.  He earned his due to some child modeling when he was younger and the 2000 Ben Stiller film Zoolander, but it’s also a good fishing captain nickname

The size of the slabs of meat coming off had me salivating, but of course I was also pretty excited for the stuff that was leftover.

Ridiculous looking meat coming off that fish

Zoo was nice enough to leave the organs all intact on the tuna since they are mostly contained within the area inside the collar.  I asked around to make sure no one else was hoping to take home the body.  Much to my surprise there wasn’t a ton of interest, so, lucky me.

That’s the stomach hanging out of the head area.  It’s never good when you are excited for a food that dogs sniff at then slowly back away from without sampling

After wrapping the body in a few layers of trash bags with the help of Big Rich, I gave the requisite hugs and handshakes all around, grabbed a share of the loin meat, and headed to the car.  The body rode in the front with Kristi (she was extremely excited about this) while Janet rode in the back with her fishy smelling father.

Once back at our Beach Haven house, I took a quick shower then brought the tuna into the kitchen.

Big Rich helped me avoid disaster the first time I bagged this and forgot that the tuna’s razor sharp teeth would make short work of a trashbag. Fell right out onto the dock and almost into the water when I confidently lifted the bag to leave. Definitely one of the stupider moments in a long line of stupid moments on this blog

After laying down newspaper on the counter topped with plastic cutting boards and breaking out a cleaver and rubber mallet, I called in Marshall and Michael (at our house for the night) to take a look.  While they mobilized I pulled the body out of the bag and the scene they walked in on can only be described as crime scene-esque.

Didn’t take into account how much blood would be in the bag. Can’t beat the joke Marshall made when he showed me the photo and simply said, “Peter cooking”

First step was to remove all of the meat from between the ribs, the backstrap, and the belly strip and chop them all up to make a tuna tartare.  Then, I planned to separate the spine from the head and remove the majority of the organs to either throw away with the bones/tail or store them overnight in the fridge with the head.

There was a remarkable amount of tender delicious meat hiding in the nooks and crannies of the body.

From my experience salt baking fish, I’ve discovered that the meat between the ribs is often some of the best but the biggest pain to collect.  Most of the rib meat was easy to scoop out and the back/belly strips came off in long pieces.  Just awesome

After 10 minutes of mining I had over a pound of perfect looking meat.  I chopped the tuna coarsely and mixed it in a bowl with toasted sesame oil, siracha, ginger, salt, and a diced homemade pickle that was part of a batch we brought down from Boston.  The bowl headed into the fridge to cool down (the tuna was still warm, yikes) and for the the flavors to come together a bit.

While that rested, I got to work on mining the organs from the head.

Thanks to Marsh for the gigantic Mount Gay and tonic that kept me company through this process.  This shot is important to make clear that I am not insane for my love of tuna heads. Look at all the meat on that collar!

After removing the stomach Mooman insisted on emptying its contents and found what looked like a pound of whole squid.  Not edible since it had been sitting in stomach acid, but pretty crazy to see.  Threw away all that and the other unidentifiable organs but gave the heart and liver a thorough cleaning and bagged them for revisiting the following day.

The liver was a lot firmer than any other liver I had handled before, as was the heart.  Both are quite good when marinated and grilled, though I recognize I am going to have to sell them a hell of a lot better than that to get my friends to eat them after seeing this post

After wrapping up the head and getting everything in the fridge I was ready to serve the tartare.  Went with the simple route of serving with tortilla chips though I think it would have been even better with those addictive black rice crackers they have at Whole Foods.

This was a good-sized ceramic bowl and it represented about half of the tartare.  Lot of meat on that body. It didn’t stand a chance though, the six of us took the whole pile down within fifteen minutes.  Not the best fotos in this post but our LBI house has the lighting of a morgue in a horror film

The tartare was awesome with the ginger, hot sauce, sesame oil, and pickle adding good contrasting but not overwhelming flavor to the buttery, rich tuna meat.  It was so good.

With another cocktail on the deck we all headed to bed and I looked forward to dealing with the remainder of the butchery the following day.  Using a combination of the cleaver and a rubber mallet, I was planning to remove the collar from the head (without losing any fingers), then remove the gills from inside the head.  This post is abysmally long at this point, so I will cut to late in the grisly carnage.

Knew this was going to get messy due to the amount of blood in the gills so I lined the counter with pizza boxes this time around.  This looks awful but it barely competes for top ten worst fotos on this blog and there is at least some positive stuff going on here

The mallet and cleaver were so crucial as a pair this time around.  Instead of having to take big inaccurate hacks to get through tough spots, you can place the cleaver and then hammer it through.  Much better for my poor level of hand-eye coordination.

I disposed of the gills before rinsing the head and collars in the sink and separating the collar pieces along the jaw line.  Which yielded this:

So much friggin’ meat on those collars, like the tomahawk ribeye of the tuna.  One of the best grilling pieces of fish I have ever come across

The loins run from the nose to the tail, and unlike the tail that is filled with sinew and tendons, the head meat is delicious and tender.  Can’t wait to roast this whole thing

And thats it.  Future weeks will detail the meals I created with all of this meat.  They will also be much shorter posts.

Thanks again to Frank and John and the whole Hard Four crew for an experience that has had me glowing and stuffed ever since.  Just an incredible weekend.

Definitely more to come on all of this.

Weird Crap I Cook: Yellowfin Tuna Collar (Hamachi Kama)

Generally I enjoy all types of seafood and have loved sushi since I was first introduced to it when I was ten years old.  Tuna, in all varieties, has always been my favorite raw fish and I would guess I consumed 10 pounds of freshly caught raw Yellowfin tuna at the Four Seasons in Bora Bora (our honeymoon, but I am name dropping) in a 5 day period.  That trip got me addicted to raw tuna.

Oddly, I am not a fan of cooked tuna and won’t order it at most restaurants unless I am sure it will come out rare.  The only exception is tuna collar which I was introduced to by a Bizarre Foods episode a few years ago.  I first tried it at Jaes Grill in Brookline (now defunct) and found it to be very tasty and moist despite being completely cooked through.  Ever since I have ordered it whenever I see it on a menu.

RIP Jae's. Your awful signage didn't give proper credit to your enjoyable pan-Asian cuisine and surprisingly decent sushi

To continue this extremely long lead-in, for years I have been jealous of my buddy John and his tuna fishing trips with his brother in-law Frank.  Last year Liz (John’s wife) sent me a picture of the 130+ lb Bigeye tuna they caught and had me drooling at the huge slabs of meat they were pulling off.  I also noted that the fish head was being disposed of which is what 99% of fishermen would do (and what the Ryans did on our fishing trip).  Since I knew the collar was on there somewhere, and that I needed blog material, I asked him to save me the head of the next big tuna they got.

Lots of background.  Anyhoo, I nearly pooped my pants when I saw this text from John a week ago, “Got you a tuna head dawg.  From a 45lb Yellowfin.”  Well then.

Best picture message I have ever received. Big thanks to Frank Coulson, Mike Kirwan, Johnny, and Colman Currie (not pictured) for sharing their catch

When they butchered the Yellowfin, the head was wrapped in a few trash bags and placed in the freezer awaiting a visit from the Ryans.

Liz, Griff, Janet, Kristi. Griff is about 8 months older than Janet but I am pretty sure he was hitting on her

After hanging out at Liz’s (John’s wife) family house on Tuesday and Wednesday, including some sampling of the fresh Yellowfin, the frozen head came back to the Ryan LBI house.  Where it sat in the fridge ominously for a few days.

From my hogs head experience, I knew this would take around 3 days to fully thaw. Which explains the surrounding clams and leftover chowder from the weekend clamming festivities

I ended up waiting until Sunday to make an attempt at this.  My main problem was the complete lack of online support on how to butcher a tuna head and remove the collar.  Nothing.  As I sat on the couch exhausted from my friend Lenny’s bachelor party, I started trying to rationalize throwing out the head, but decided to give it a shot based on the few pictures of butchered collar I had seen online.

This move to the sink might not look like it, but it was a significant step

After cleaning up some tuna head leakage in the fridge, getting my knives ready, and setting up the counter with some cardboard for coverage, I removed the bags (4 of them to be exact).

No real way to give size perspective here. My guess is it was heavier than Janet and less heavy than the hogs head. I didn't enjoy that framing at all and will avoid dragging Janet's name into comparisons like that in the future

The collar is the area between the gill slit and the back edge of the skull (where the head was cut from the main body of the fish).  I think.  I don’t have any action shots in this post since I was supposed to be making pasta with clam sauce for Mommy Ryan and Kristi Ryan.  I advised them both to not enter the kitchen since I was, “doing some other stuff too”.

As I probed around the head, I saw that what I thought was the collar needed to be carefully cut away from the gills and hacked away from the top of the skull and the bottom as well.  I also observed that most of a Yellowfin tuna’s organs are located inside the skull.  After some careful trimming, dulling of my knives cutting through bones, and near finger losses, I came away with this:

Was able to remove both collars in one piece. I don't think that was an accomplishment, just the easiest way to do it

Leaving just the tip of the head in the sink.

Had two angles on this shot, but this one is nicer to look at. I considered trying to find a way to eat the eyes but realized I didn't truly enjoy eating eyes last time and there was other gross stuff to enjoy

First step was making a cut through the bone on the bottom side of the collar to separate it into two pieces.

The cardboard was essential. I should have tarped the walls as well since the kitchen was starting to look like a crime scene by this point

Removing the fins was very difficult and I did a job that would make any sushi chef cry in agony.  The first collar was removed mostly by pulling which tore some of the meat away; the second side was a lot of big swings with a heavily dulled knife at that point.  Then there was a ton of careful trimming of any bloody spots, areas close to the gills, and a rinse to remove what looked like small scales.  Eventually, I ended up with a couple poorly butchered Yellowfin tuna collars.

I wish I could produce something that looks well butchered just once in my life, but since I cook everything adventurous exactly once, I am never proficient enough to make it look nice

As I mentioned previously, there were indeed a few interesting organs hiding inside the head and neck.  I threw away the gullet and some stomach fat, but rinsed and kept the two organs that were easiest to recognize: the liver and heart.

The liver was easily recognizable, but I fell back on recollection of Bizarre Foods to recognize the heart

At this point I stepped away and reassessed.  I honestly didn’t think I would end up with anything edible, so I had to decide on the fly how I would cook everything.  The grill seemed like a logical choice, and after starting it I searched the cabinets and fridge.  I ended up mixing together a marinade/basting liquid of soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic, and a lot of brown sugar.

The brown sugar was a prominent part of a recipe for whole roasted Bluefin tuna head and sounded like an excellent idea. I took note of that whole concept for a future post

After the grill had heated up for ten minutes or so, the collars and organs went on.

The organs look pretty innocuous, but for some reason the collar looks disgusting in the early grill pictures

I left the gas grill on high and shut the lid for 5 minutes before flipping the liver and heart while the collars remained skin down with the lid open.

I brushed the leftover marinade on the collars a couple times during the cooking

After a few more minutes I pulled the organs off and flipped the collars.

These were dark to begin with, but charred sugars and soy sauce gave a dark on darker coloring contrast

About the crispiness and char I was hoping for. I wasn't planning to eat the skin or anything. That would be, you know, gross

While the collars cooked some more, I headed inside to sample the heart and liver.  At which point I discovered that my camera is now permanently in a Janet picture taking-friendly mode that does not take food detail shots well.

Here's the liver. It resembled every other cooked liver I have seen

Annnnnd the heart. This is about as rare as I wanted it and looked a lot like beef

The liver tasted like liver.  Liver with a mild fish flavor.  Not quite as strong as chicken/beef/pork liver but you could definitely tell what it was.  I was good with that after one bite.  The heart on the other hand was awesome.  Tasted like a great piece of rare tuna with the texture/density of a beef steak and a little bit of mineral flavor.  I would definitely eat that again, possibly raw if the tuna hadn’t been frozen.  Back to the collars.

The marinade gave the meat a great color. Wish the grill marks were a bit more pronounced, though

From my few experiences, there is no nice way to serve tuna collar which is likely a contributing factor to why it isn’t on more menus.  Anyone interested in eating it needs to pick pieces of meat off the bone using chopsticks, and there is no easy way to break it up into individual servings.

Although it looks like the first bite, it was actually the second. Had to clarify that since my hands have never looked this nice and Kristi was surprisingly game to try the collar

The collars were incredible.  This has less to do with my skills than the freshness and quality of the catch, but it was seriously delicious.  I generally think fully cooked tuna is fishier than the rare variety, but that wasn’t the case with the collar meat.  It’s very tender like the meat near the salmon skin, but not as fishy tasting and distinctly tuna.  My best impartial witness for claims like this is Kristi since she is not overly adventurous and hates fishy tasting/smelling seafood.  After one bite, she dove in, as did my mother, and it quickly became an appetizer feeding frenzy.

Last action shot I could pause for. It was actually an enjoyable part of the experience to pick around and look for a nice pocket of meat

The sweet and charred flavors from the marinade added heavily to the enjoyment and I would definitely use a similar marinade if I ever made this again.  After a few more bites, I left the dish for a short time to finish my pasta with clam sauce and returned to find this:

There were a few pieces of meat we missed, but I'll give this clean plate club status. Call it in Ma Dowley!

Final note to the post is that I really appreciated the tuna head from Hard Four crew and hope that they will think of me after future catches.  I will happily take any future tuna heads and do this again.  Same goes to any other readers who go tuna fishing, just give me a little notice and I will be there.  It’s a really, really good piece of meat.

No ideas for next week, will try to think of something.

Weird Crap I Cook: Italian Liver Sausage

“This isn’t going to have a happy ending.” – Detective William Somerset, Seven

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Last Sunday I headed to the Italian Market with Tim to show him the market where I purchase all of the raw ingredients to make great meals while he criticizes me.  The Italian Market has a couple restaurants, fresh pasta vendors, cheese and cured meat stores, seafood, and a large assortment of butcher shops.  Most of the butchers sell freshly broken down meats, but a few make assorted sausages including my favorite butcher: Cappuccio’s.

Cappuccio’s has a lot of standard butcher shop fare, along with some more exotic items like veal kidneys that got this DB’s mind racing.  However, I still have a little bit of an organ meat hangover from Morocco so I instead focused on their large variety of homemade sausages.

Thought I would need to hit up Google images for this photo but was psyched to see that Carolyn, Kristi's mom, took this shot when they visited in January. I never remember my camera anymore, so the Best of Philly post will likely be all google imaged

Just as I decided to go with their pork, provolone, and broccoli rabe sausage, Tim marched in front of me in line and ordered two pounds for himself.  Freaking jerk, givin’ me pressure to adhere to social norms and not order the same thing, I’ll show him.  Which is how I ended up inquiring about the “Sicilian liver sausages” hanging outside of the refrigerated case that looked like this:

The familiar background should be a hint: I bought it

 

This stuff was hard as a rock and looked extremely dry and deflated.  I, of course, was very intrigued.

Sunday is a slow day at the Italian market and they are mostly just selling the leftovers from the weekend, so the shops staff accordingly.  We weren’t exactly working with Mr. Cappuccio.  This became clear when the sign on the sausages said “Sicilian Liver Sausage” and the butcher said “Northern Italian Sausage” to us when we asked.  As it turned out, the butcher was right about that, he was just wrong about everything else including cooking directions.

Breaking my organ meat hiatus, I bought the smallest strand of sausage that they had and headed home.  A couple days later I returned home from school hungry for lunch (business school makes you feel like a 5 year old again) and decided to cook up the sausage.  Which is what this post is about.

Looked a little like dried chiles. Smelled like dried chiles mixed with wet dog

According to the B team at Cappuccios, the best way to cook the liver sausage is in a pan with water, covered for about 20 minutes.

Every window was open in the apartment and I specifically timed it so that Kristi wouldn’t be home for 6 hours. Serious smells as this really got going

After 20 minutes, I took the lid off annnnnddd… it really didn’t look any different.  I was expecting them to hydrate and plump up but there was none of that, just a lot of funky looking water.

Like I said, that's some funky looking water. Wasn't expecting that. Maybe that color reflects all the good flavors that it was drawing out of the sausages that I couldn't find anywhere when I ate it

After an additional ten minutes, I figured they weren’t going to tenderize much further and pulled them out to trim and test.  First step was removing all of the ties and excess casing.

Honestly, my thought at this point was that it was looking reasonably edible, like charred kielbasa or blood sausage

I cut off a piece and tasted it.

Can't tell whether tis picture looks innocuous or extremely intimidating

When the sausage was described to me, I expected the liver to be pureed and mixed with fat and some sort of cornmeal, rice, or oatmeal.  Instead, its a coarse chopped pig liver with a few spices.  The first bite was rough since the pieces of liver were rubbery, the casing was thick, and it was pretty dry.  The second bite was a better but overall this was not the easy to eat meal I was expecting since I was hoping it would be like Italian scrapple.

At this point, I had no ideas.  I was very close to completely giving up and throwing away the sausage.  Instead, I made the remarkably intelligent decision to add some more ingredients to be ruined by the sausage.  Started it out with throwing red onion and red pepper into a hot pan and letting them caramelize for ten minutes before adding pieces of the sausage.

You can tell from certain pieces in this picture how ridiculously dry the sausage was

After some time cooking together, I added tomato sauce and a few tablespoons of capers.  Because I really like capers and figured the salty/vinegary flavor would help cover up some of the unpleasant strong flavors from the sausage.

I really love capers. Kristi had a caper intervention with me because I kept ruining meals she loved with them

I stirred and simmered this together for 10-15 minutes before shoveling (some of) it into a sub roll, adding a sprinkle (in Peter terms) of cheese, and melting it under the broiler for a couple minutes.

Combine melted cheese and tomato sauce on a sub roll and its always going to look edible. Even if it's hiding some evil

I settled in for my late lunch and started eating.  The first few bites were decent, the sauce had some flavors I like and the hints of liver flavor were good.  However, every second or third bite tasted gamey, irony, and like the intestinal tract.  I have had this experience before with the Italian Market.

This sub was purchased on the same January Italian Market trip with Kristi's parents. It barely even looks like a sandwich in this picture because it got so soggy on the thirty minute walk home

Tripe, beef tongue, and chiles braised together and thrown on a sub roll. Plus some peppers and onions.  The tongue was quite good, but the pieces of tripe tasted very poorly cleaned and like they hadn’t been boiled on their own before braising.  That sub taught me that the occasional bite tasting like a poop chute makes the other bites not worth it.

So, while I ate the whole tripe/tongue sandwich, I decided it was no longer worth it with the liver sausage and gave up a little over halfway through.  All remaining piece of this meal were thrown into a bag and put into the trash outside to help get the smell out of the apartment.  At least the nice folks at Vila Di Roma let me in 2 hours before they opened to pickup a to-go order of meatballs so the trip wasn’t a complete bust.

These are sooooo good. I have to buy them every time I visit the market

A short postscript: I went back to the market this past Saturday since we had friends in town visiting and hit Cappuccio’s to buy some of their edible sausages.  Saturday is the big day for them, so they had their best crew working.  When I asked about the liver sausage and explained my trouble cooking it, the guy behind the counter said cooking in olive oil over water is the way to go.  The sausage won’t ever plump up the way I expected, but the casing and hard chunks of liver will break down a bit.  Regardless, he said 90% of his customers just eat it in it’s dried form like its a Slim Jim, which we both agreed was disgusting.  I won’t be cooking this sausage again.

Nothing beats kicking off a food blog post with a quote from a Morgan Freeman character, but it was my attempt to forewarn that post was a little all over the place and only mildly edible.  ‘Til next time.

Foraging for Food: Chickens

You know those posts where I collect, brutally murder and consume crustaceans?  Yeah, this is the same thing except with chickens.  I am going to do my best to avoid any gory or gross images and not get too far into the details.  But, I still want to explain the process since it was new to me and pretty interesting.

The #1 question, and one I asked myself a few times as I was holding the live animals, is why did I do this?  My brother John has raised a few chickens for the past 2 years after getting them at a relatively advanced age.  Early on they laid eggs regularly, but for the past year they haven’t been laying many and two of the four died of old age.  John was basically feeding and tending to two pets that would peck his eyes out if they ever managed to escape.  It was time.

With the opportunity presented, I accepted and we set a weekend morning date for me to travel up to NJ and have an old fashioned chicken slaughter.  Although I had never killed anything aside from fish and shellfish, I thought it was important for me to give it a try.

I’ve seen Food Inc., heard Tim babble about the Omnivores Dillemma, and I’ve complained about the semi-monthly salmonella outbreaks that affect 3 million pounds of food each time.  Blah blah blah.  I basically figured I can’t complain about where my food comes from if I had the opportunity to give it a try myself and instead chose to buy some styrofoam packages of massive chicken breasts.  I’d rather retain my right to complain and also act all high and mighty about knowing where my food comes from.  Like the previous paragraph.

So thats how I ended up killing two chickens with my hands then defeathering, cleaning, butchering and cooking them.  Lets kick this thing off by meeting those dudes!

When you smell a chicken coop, you don't immediately think, "food"

I drove over to John’s house on a chilly Saturday morning and finished my Bagels-4-U right as I was pulling into the driveway.  Not sure why I was confident that I could handle eating right before a relatively gross process, but it ended up not being an issue.  John showed me the setup he’d put together on his back patio while we waited for Tim to show up with the turkey fryer.

Thats a good looking killin' table

The key elements are the hose, the butcher block for some of the necessary cutting, my knives, the string for hanging, and my Starbucks iced coffee.  Because you do NOT want to see me before I’ve had my coffee…. LOL!!!!!   John also felt like we would need bleach (odd considering it would make the chicken inedible), lots of gatorades to stay hydrated, and printed instructions (I got my research done the night before).

With the dogs safely in the house and Tim heating water in the turkey fryer, it was time to get going.  John brought the chickens over from the coop in a small dog carrier.

Chickens are in the carrier on the left. The hedge clippers and the machete were both considered for the deed but I had a different idea that was less gross sounding

Alrighty, we’re going to take a break from photos for a little while despite Tim dutifully taking pictures throughout.  Just not necessary.  The chickens were removed one at a time from the carrier and relaxed by petting them while they laid on their back.  While still petting them, I laid the metal pipe shown in the previous photo lightly across their neck.  Stepping on the pipe at one end killed the chickens instantly.  Very quick, bloodless, and the chickens were calm until the end.  I learned about it online and it worked great.

Now, John, Tim, and I grew up in the suburbs, not on a farm, and this was all of our first time partaking in something like this.  When the first chicken was killed, we were all anxious and in various stages of panic.  There was a lot of shouting random things at no one in particular like, “Thats it!! Thats it!!!” and “Make sure its done!!! Make sure its done!!!” while the dead chicken wiggled its way into the flower garden and we were all frozen staring at it.  Although the subject matter is macabre, I wish there was third party video of how we were acting and what we were saying for thirty seconds.

Quick somewhat related sidenote.  Here are the top three things I wish I had video of:

1) Sports Live Sports: Conor’s senior year of college cable access television show.  I’ve never seen any of the 4 episodes despite calling into one.  I would love to see these episodes, and they supposedly exist somewhere, but I can only hope they show up on YouTube someday.

2) The walk to the bullpen: Game 5 of the ALCS, in between extra innings with the Sox fans and bullpen exhausted, Francona sends his starting pitchers to the bullpen.  There was no chance any of them would pitch, they either played the previous day or were needed for the upcoming days, it was just for show.  And it was glorious.  The exhausted Fenway fans went berzerk as Arroyo, Schilling and Lowe walked incredibly slowly to the bullpen taking it all in.  Sadly, I haven’t seen video of this event since it was initially broadcast live in 2004 at 12:30 in the morning.

3) Andrew Leonard on The Price is Right: Seven years ago, superfriend Andrew Leonard went to a Price is Right taping with 2 other friends, all in matching tracksuits.  They “sat” front row behind the contestants and spent the entire show on camera giving inaccurate and inconsistent price information to the contestants.  A few months later it was scheduled to air and…. Colin Powell pre-empted the broadcast to inform America that we were going to war with Iraq.  It has never been broadcast and the network doesn’t allow people to order tapes from the show.  So its gone forever.

Honorable mention to the prank show that asked Terrel Owens about rookies for 10 minutes straight back in 2004.  Now back to the slaughter.

When I was told by a family friend that I should wear clothes I don't care about, I immediately knew what shirt I'd wear. This Rolling Rock Town Fair 2.0 shirt has been making my upper body look like a cube for 10 years

After the chickens were killed, I cut off the heads and hung them from this tree branch so any excess blood could drain out.  After a few minutes, the chickens are dunked into a pot of ~180 degree water by their feet for 10-15 seconds to loosen the feathers.

John went with the giant poncho. In general all of our precautions were overkill

Once the chickens came out of the pot, the feathers were easy to remove by the handful with only a few larger ones requiring more effort.  This is where you start to see signs of what you buy in the store.

Very easy when you're removing them by the handful but got tedious when going back over your work. And John's shoddy work

And, after a few more minutes, you end up with… chicken.

I do look a little shell-shocked. I think the shaking from the initial adrenaline burst was subsiding at this point

Feet were removed at the leg joint.

I ended up muscling this a little bit and not doing the cleanest job. Whatever, I'm not going to eat the bones

After that, I went through the process of removing the neck, the crop, and all of the guts.  You don’t need to see that.  I was particularly bad at removing the crop which is a sack with two rocks attached to the chicken’s esophagus.  They don’t have teeth so its where their food gets ground up.  I couldn’t find it on either one and ended up cutting into it twice and then having to thoroughly rinse the meat.  At the end, I had this:

Just an awful t-shirt. I'm ok with the pose, though. I might need to do that one more often

This post is ridiculously long.  Hopefully I didn’t offend anyone or show more than you wanted to see.

Next week will be the butchering process and how to cook a chicken that is really old and make sure that it ends up tender and edible.  Should be a shorter post.