White lasagna -- an experiment

This week was going to be ravioli, but I had a lot of mozzarella left after last week's chili-cheese fries. I mentioned to my wife that I'd have to figure out something to put it in, and she suggested I do a lasagna.

Now I had already done that once before. But I wasn't thrilled with how the top came out, because I neglected to cover it for the first half-hour. So this would be my chance to fix that.

But as we were talking about it, my wife mentioned a white lasagna that she used to make in college that everyone thought was great. Figuring that [WARNING: impending understatement!] college students aren't always the most reliable food critics, I decided to look for some recipes.

Wow, there's a lot of them.

There were quite a few that had a white wine sauce, with or without mushrooms. Bunches that had chicken stock. Lots with spinach or peas or other greens in them. But I wanted to go simpler than that. So what follows is an experiment that mostly came out just how I wanted. There are only a couple changes I will make the next time.

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Ingredients

cheese filling

1 lb ricotta
1/2 lb mozzarella, shredded
1/2 lb provolone, shredded
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 stick (4 tbsp) butter [see note below]
4 large eggs

meat filling

1-1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb Italian sausage
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp basil pesto
salt and pepper

pasta

1 cup flour
2 large eggs
2 tsp kosher salt

topping

1 cup Parmesan, grated

Directions

The noodles

Start by making the pasta as shown in the previous entry. Roll out the noodles using a pasta roller.



I ended up with eight sheets of pasta, roughly 6 inches wide by about 9-12 inches long, using setting 7 of 8 on my roller. Since I would need three layers about 9 x 13, this is plenty to cover everything with a little overlap, and still have a bit left over. Set all the noodles aside and start on the meat.

The meat

Brown the ground beef and sausage together in a large frying pan with salt and pepper.



While that is going, dice the onion fine and mince the garlic. Once the meat is well browned, drain it very well. The meat needs to be very nearly dried out before baking, or the end result can be soggy. Don't wipe out the pan, though. You'll need just a little fat to sauté the onion and garlic.

Return the meat to the pan, make a space in the center, and add the onion and garlic.



Cover the onion and garlic with meat and cook over low heat for a couple of minutes. Then mix everything and sauté until the onion turns clear. When the onion is finished, add about a quarter cup of water to the pan to deglaze. Don't measure it, just put in enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan. Scrape everything up with your spoon or spatula, and toss everything well. This step adds an amazing amount of flavor back into the meat.

Add the pesto and mix well. Keep it over low heat and stir occasionally until the water has steamed off and the bottom of the pan is dry again, then remove from heat.

The cheese

Melt the butter and pour it into a mixing bowl. You can do this by hand, but I prefer the stand mixer. Add the ricotta and break it up well with a spoon or the mixer.



Add the cream and eggs and blend well on low to medium speed. You don't want to whip the eggs into a meringue.

The assembly

Make a work space where you can put the meat, cheese filling, two bowls of shredded cheese, and lasagna pan all together.



Using a ladle, put enough of the cheese mixture in to cover the bottom of your pan.



Pay attention to how much you need for this step. Scoop the same amount, plus half, into a separate bowl and reserve for the top layer. (With practice, you'll be able to gauge this without reserving any.)

Cover the bottom of the pan with a single layer of noodles. You want the edges to overlap a little bit so they'll stick together when they bake.



Notice that I had to cut several pieces to fill the whole pan. It won't make a difference in the final product as long as you have a good overlap.

Now scoop half the meat into the pan.



Spread it around evenly, then add half the remaining cheese sauce -- assuming you've reserved some for the top layer -- over the meat.



Top with either the mozzarella or the provolone cheese. (I did the mozzarella first, not that you can tell in the pictures.)



Add a second layer of noodles.

For the second layer, I used a different method for loading the fillings. Simply add the cheese sauce into the meat and mix well. Don't scrape the mixing bowl to get every last bit. You'll see why shortly.



Spread this mixture evenly over the noodles.



I tried both ways to compare, and can say that without a doubt this second method is much easier to work with.

Top this with the remaining cheese -- mozzarella or provolone.



Then one last layer of noodles. Try to make this layer as flat as possible so the cheese sauce covers evenly.



Scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl to get the last chunks of ricotta. (I told you I'd come back to it.) Use these to plug gaps between the edges of the noodles and the pan so the sauce doesn't all run down. Cover the top layer of noodles with the reserved cheese sauce.



Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake at 350° for 30 minutes.

I had some pasta left over. While the lasagna was in the oven, I sliced the extras into thin noodles and boiled them up. Add a little butter and give the girls a quick snack while they waited.

After 30 minutes, remove the foil ...



... and top with the Parmesan.



Place under the broiler until the Parmesan is bubbling and starting to turn brown in spots.



This could take several minutes or could be less than 30 seconds, depending on how hot your broiler gets and how close you put the pan.

Remove the pan and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes before slicing. If the cheese inside is still too liquid, the slices will slide apart as you serve them. Still great taste, but not so great presentation.

Next time

I made this with a whole stick of butter. Next time I'll cut that in half. When I removed the foil to add the Parmesan, there was quite a bit of butter bubbling up around the edges of the top layer of noodles.

Also, after deglazing the pan with the meat filling, I didn't cook off enough of the water. For my next lasagna I'm going to try piercing a few holes in the foil to allow more steam to escape.

Chili-cheese fries cooked in beef tallow

Fries used to be cooked in beef tallow. They were crispy golden pieces of goodness. Restaurants liked tallow because they could use the same tallow for a month as long as they didn't burn anything and they kept it clean.

Then the food police decided frying in beef tallow was bad for us. Ask them for the medical studies proving any connection between animal fats and heart disease and all they have is a study where they force-fed rabbits -- vegetarians without the ability to process animal fats -- a diet of powdered animal fat. If you think the result of that study were obvious before they did it, you don't understand how medical research funding works.

Funding, right. Who funded that study? If you guess that it was the people who made vegetable shortening, then you do understand how medical research funding works.

So for the past century we've been frying in vegetable shortening. The fries don't taste as good, so restaurants add chemicals and artificial flavors to the fries and the shortening. The oil goes rancid quickly and has to be changed every day. But before they change it, they're frying in carcinogens. You know, the stuff that causes cancer.

And even if you manage to keep it from going rancid, it's still 100% trans fat. And now the food police have realized how bad trans fats are, so everyone is scrambling to find a replacement. The same people who gave us bogus studies in support of vegetable shortening are now giving us new formulations of processed vegetable oil that look pretty much like animal fats.

So after decades of trying to replace beef tallow, it turns out the best thing for frying is ... beef tallow. And if you know what to look for, you can still get it for home use.

Following are directions for rendering tallow from beef suet, then a simple chili recipe for topping the fries. Although to tell you the truth, these fries are so good it's almost a shame to top them with chili.

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Ingredients

3 lb beef suet
6 medium Idaho/russet potatoes[1]
1 lb ground beef
28 oz crushed tomatoes (one large can)
1 large green pepper
3 small onions
5 cloves garlic
1/4 cup - 1 cup chili powder (see below)
2 tbsp bacon fat
1 cup each cheddar and mozzarella
1/4 cup real bacon bits
salt and pepper
popcorn salt (see below)

Directions

Rendering suet into tallow

Start with three pounds of suet. You can get it from your local butcher. They probably won't have it at the grocery store.



You would think from looking at it that this would be a flabby, sticky, greasy, nasty mess. It's actually very dry, stiff and waxy. You don't want to handle it too much or it can start to melt. Keep it in the fridge until you're ready to start cutting and it should be fine.

Dice everything into pieces about a half-inch square and put it all in a deep pan.



The one in the pictures is an 11-inch pan. Three pounds of suet filled this pan about two inches deep.

Fill the pan with enough water to just barely cover all the suet.



If you compare the photo above to the previous one you might think it looks much more than "barely covered". You would be right. Suet floats. Fill slowly and pay attention.

Put over high heat until the water starts boiling, then turn down to medium. Cook until the water is boiled away then turn heat to low. By this point you should have lumps of mostly-rendered suet floating in hot liquid fat.

Set a second large pan or pot next to the first, and place a colander in it. Place a paper towel in the bottom of the colander, or line it with cheesecloth. Using a slotted spoon, scoop the floating suet out and into a potato ricer.



If you haven't seen one of these before, it's just like a garlic press but much larger. It will take quite a few loads to get everything through the ricer. Squeeze the suet out into the colander, then scrape the remains out of the ricer, also into the colander.

Once you've processed all the chunks through the ricer, press the fat through the colander with the back of a spoon. Remove the paper towel and all the scraps left in it and dispose of them. Put a clean paper towel in the colander and pour the fat from the first pan through it.

NOTE: You'll be working with extremely hot fat, which can cause serious burns. Don't try to do anything else at the same time ... like take pictures. Yep, I took a break from shooting pictures. I didn't want a repeat of the tempura flounder incident. Next time I do suet I'll get help with the camera work.

Chili

Dice the onion and pepper fine and mince the garlic. Since this will be going on fries, you don't want huge chunks of veggies like I would normally do in my chili.



Sauté the onion, pepper and garlic in the bacon fat over high heat with some salt until the onions start to caramelize. (That means they're starting to get a little brown around the edges.) Push the veggies to the side so the hot center of the pan is clear.



Add the ground beef to the space in the middle. Add more salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the beef is browned.



Add the crushed tomatoes, stir well, then turn the heat to low once it starts bubbling. Add the chili powder to taste. If you like mild, go with ancho chile powder. It's sweet and smoky with barely any heat. For more heat go with chipotle -- roasted jalapeño. Or you can go with a pre-mixed chili powder.

French fries in tallow

Cut the potatoes into wedges, square-cut sticks, whatever shape you like. You can even mix and match, as long as everything is about the same thickness. Rinse the potatoes in cold water. If you want them to be extra fluffy, soak them for up to a half hour in cold water. The extra moisture will steam out as the potatoes cook, producing a lighter texture under the crispy crust.

Dry the potatoes thoroughly, then carefully add them to the fat. (Did I mention "carefully"?)



Don't crowd the pan. You don't want the oil to cool off, or the fries will get soggy. Once they reach a deep golden color, darker around the edges, scoop the fries out to a plate covered with one or two paper towels.



Once they're all done, add a coating of popcorn salt.[2]

Assembly

Put a single layer of fries on the plate, add a scoop of chili, a handful of cheddar and mozzarella, and a topping of bacon. Give it a quick hit in the microwave or under the broiler to melt the cheese.

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1) Medium potatoes are about the size of a baseball. Since russets are oblong, that means these should be a little longer than a baseball is but not as big around.

2) You can usually find popcorn salt in the snack aisle with the popcorn. It is ground finer than regular table salt, so it sticks better to snacks like popcorn and French fries.

A day at the West Side Market -- Cleveland, OH

Today's post will be a little bit of a detour. Before cooking real food, you have to buy some real food. For me, that starts -- and usually ends -- with a trip to the West Side Market.

Anyone in the Cleveland area who doesn't love the West Side Market either has never been there, or isn't into food at all. While it doesn't compare to markets in New York or L.A., there is more variety in this one spot than in most of the rest of the state combined.

Even the best grocery stores tend to stock only the most common foods. Some of them have a pretty good international foods aisle, but that will be mostly prepared foods. You're just not going to find fresh buffalo steaks at the local Dave's.


photo courtesy of Yvonne & Mark Sanderson
Focal Plane Photography

If you've never been there, the large red-roofed building is the interior concourse. You'll find meats, cheeses, prepared foods, spices ... pretty much everything except fruits and vegetables, which are in the outdoor arcade. That's the two long buildings that form a backwards 7 around the left side.

A typical visit for me starts with a quick trip through the vegetables to see what looks good for a side dish.



I don't usually buy on the first pass, since then I'll just have to carry everything for the rest of the trip. On a typical Saturday expect to see a pretty good crowd the entire day.



Maybe you can avoid the crowd by getting there earlier. I wouldn't know, I don't get up early weekends.

Some of the vendors have a little bit of everything. A one-stop-shop approach.



Others are more specialized, offering five varieties of onion, or eight varieties of apples.



In the picture above you can see the doors behind the stalls. The outdoor market was seasonal until a couple of years ago when they enclosed all the stalls with garage doors. It's not heated, so it can still get chilly in the winter. During the summer they can open everything up and it's almost like an open-air market.

On to the inside market.



This is classic early 20th century construction you don't see any more. If you need to make your purchases and get out fast, make sure to get a map to the vendors. From ground level, everything looks the same and it's easy to lose track of where you are.



Like I said, I don't get up early weekends. So by the time I get to the market it's approaching lunch time. Fortunately, there are quite a few places that offer ready-to-eat food inside. This includes everything from pizza and subs ...



... to fresh-made crêpes.



What you won't see advertised is that many other stalls that sell prepared food to take home will also warm it up for you. My daughters love the Pasties and Irish meat pies.



There isn't really a dining area, but up above the West end of the market is a balcony with a wide ledge that locals use as a mini-cafeteria.



I set the girls up with their pasty while I have either a meatball sub or a gyro.



From the balcony you get a good view of the whole place including:

Interesting stall decorations ...



Ridiculous variety ...



Personalized service ...



And of course more butchers than you've ever seen in one place.



After lunch, we head down to find a main course. This day we went with the rib steak.



Until I started going to the West Side Market, I never realized there were butchers who specialized in one kind of meat. I got my steak at Wencer's, which only does beef. Other stalls have only pork, or poultry, or sausages.



So, main dish in hand, I head back out to get the sides. Salad fixings ...



Asparagus ...



And fresh berries for desert.

Flounder tempura

Ingredients

2 lb flounder fillets
1 cup flour
1 egg
1 cup ice water
several cups of frying oil or fat(see below)
salt and pepper

Directions

Prepping the flounder

Take each fillet one at a time and make sure there are no scales or pieces of bone left in.



Divide across the middle of the fillet.



Cut each piece lengthwise. On mine, there was a bit of a rough edge along the centerline where the ribs had been attached. If you have the same, trim out a little bit along either side of this line.



You can see that there is really not that much waste due to trimming the rough edges.



If you give the trimmings to your cat, don't be surprised if he doesn't go crazy for it like you expected. House cats are so used to canned food that they may not immediately recognize this as food.

The oil

I used olive pomace. You can also use beef tallow or lard, but avoid peanut oil or anything else with a noticeable flavor, which can overwhelm the flounder.

If you're using tallow or lard, and you typically reuse it, be aware that fish has a tendency to leave behind some flavor. Only use a fat that you're going to keep separate for frying fish.

Whatever fat you choose to cook with, use enough to fill a heavy-bottom pan about three-quarters of an inch deep. Heat it up to just below the smoke point, which will vary based on the oil you use. If you're using a solid fat like tallow or lard, start heating it before making the batter. If you're using a liquid, make the batter before starting to heat the oil.

The batter

Now that the fish is prepped and the fat is heating, it's time to make the batter. Tempura is dead simple to make, and with something as delicate as flounder you really don't want anything more substantial.

Start by beating the egg together with the ice water.



Add the flour and mix it gently, just enough to get most of the lumps out.



That's it. The batter is ready.

Fry time

Once the oil is hot, dip the fillets one at a time into the batter. It should be very thin. Let it drip off a little before putting it in the oil.



The oil will start bubbling furiously as soon as the batter hits it.



Don't drop the fish in, but don't go slowly either. Lay it in and get your hand back quickly. It's a good idea to wear long sleeves when deep frying. See the bottom of this post for what can happen when you don't.

Fry in several batches. There should be a little room around each piece, or they will stick together and not cook evenly. Turn them over once when the edges start changing color. It will probably take less than a minute per side.



When they are golden brown on both sides, remove the first batch to a plate with a double layer of paper towels.



Repeat with additional batches until everything is cooked. Don't worry too much about keeping the finished pieces warm. As fast as it cooks, unless you're making enough for a scout troop the first batch will still be pretty warm when you finish the last.

Arrange everything on a platter and serve with lemon and tartar sauce.



If you don't use lemon and tartar sauce, you might find the need for a little salt and pepper. Next time you make this recipe, add the seasoning to the tempura batter before dipping the fish.

The hazards of frying

Up above when I said to wear long sleeves, this is why.



The way I had the plates arranged on the stovetop, I had to reach across the oil to dip the fish in the batter. I was just dipping a piece when the last one popped.

Irish soda bread

Ingredients

4 cups white flour
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup melted butter
1-1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 cup brown raisins
1 cup white raisins
2 tbsp raw sugar (yes, sugar is listed twice)

Directions

Mix all the dry ingredients together.



Get your daughter to beat the egg and stir in the buttermilk.



Add the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl.



Stir briefly before adding the butter.



You don't want to add the hot butter directly to the egg, or the egg will cook. Now add the butter.



Mix well. Scrape the sides occasionally to get everything incorporated.



Make sure you get all the way down to the bottom. Dough hooks tend to leave a bit of dry ingredients on the bottom.



Once the wet and dry ingredients are well mixed, add the raisins.



Mix on slow.



This dough is very thick, and tends to wrap around the mixer. I've done this by hand before. I don't recommend it unless you're trying to get in a workout at the same time.



Scoop the dough out evenly into two floured pie tins. This dough will not pour.



Shape each portion into a round loaf.



You should have two even loaves.



Sprinkle a tablespoon of raw sugar on the top of each loaf. Don't measure, lay it on heavy.



You should have a generous coating over the whole loaf.



Bake at 375° for 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.



Insert a knife into the thickest part. If there is dough on it when you pull it out, put the loaves back in for another five minutes. Don't use a toothpick. The crust is very stiff, and can clean any wet dough off as you pull it out. The first picture below shows a little dough right near the tip, the next came out clean (except for some sugar from the top) five minutes later.





The finished loaves will be dark tan with a deeply-cracked surface.



The raw sugar sprinkled on top leaves a sweet crystalline crust.



Serve with plenty of butter. Keep leftovers to make French toast the next morning. Seriously, you want to do the French toast. It'll be the best you've ever had.

This last image links to a closeup of the deep crevices in the crust.