Potato Salad With Bacon and Egg

I've always liked my potato salad much drier than what you usually get from a store. The dressing is mostly mayonnaise with just enough vinegar to add some "bite" to it. And hard boiled egg ... lots of hard boiled egg.

So today's recipe is a little bit of a departure, since the dressing is a bit thinner than I usually do. Of course, that's because I made the mayo from scratch. Using rendered bacon fat instead of vegetable oil.

Have I ever mentioned how Everything Is Better With Bacon?

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Ingredients

4 pounds mixed red and white fingerling potatoes
1 pound bacon ends (see below)
9 large eggs
2 celery stalks
1/4 large sweet onion
2 scallions
5 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon celery seed
salt and pepper

Directions

Prep

Hard-boil six of the eggs. You can do this step however far in advance you want. If you simply put them on first, before you start prepping everything else, they might be done by the time everything else is ready. I do them ahead just so I don't have so many pots going on the stove at one time.

Since the bacon in this recipe is going to get diced up anyway, I got the ends when they were on sale at the butcher. I always buy up all of it whenever I see it there, and freeze most of it. Then I dice it while it's still mostly frozen.



You can see how much easier it dices while still frozen.



Trying to do this with thawed bacon would be a total mess.



Clean the potatoes in the sink, the same way as in the Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe. Then chop them into bite-sized pieces.



I left the skin on, because peeling fingerlings would take forever.

Cover with water and add a couple of tablespoons of salt. This will get some flavor into the potatoes, so you won't need to add as much at the end.



Now add the bacon to a pan over medium heat ...



... and cover with a screen. These things are great for keeping grease out of the air while still letting steam out.



Cook the bacon, stirring occasionally, until it is just starting to turn crispy. Scoop the bacon out with a slotted spoon so the fat drains back into the pan.



Reserve the fat in something with a good spout, so you can pour a slow stream. You're going to use it to make the dressing.

While the bacon fat is cooling, deglaze the pan with three tablespoons of cider vinegar. Scrape up all the stuck-on bits from the bottom.



Add the potatoes to the pan and toss to coat. Leave the potatoes in to soak up all the vinegar.



While the potatoes are soaking up the vinegar, using up to a cup of the bacon fat, two eggs and two tablespoons of cider vinegar, make mayonnaise the same way as in the Buttermilk Ranch recipe. Toss the potatoes a couple of times while you're working on the mayo, to make sure they soak up the vinegar evenly.

Peel four of the hard-boiled eggs and dice them with a wire slicer. Dice the onion, celery and scallion. Chop the thick end of the scallion roughly, but keep a small amount of the flat part separate, minced fine for a topping.

Assembly

Now you should have five or six bowls of ingredients: potatoes, bacon, veg (onion, celery and scallion), dressing and egg.



Combine the bacon and veg in a mixing bowl.



Add the dressing and potatoes and toss gently to combine.



Mix this as little as possible. You don't want to smash the potatoes. Redskins hold up better. Use them unless you're using up leftovers. Add the egg and -- gently again -- stir to combine. Then transfer to your serving bowl.



Peel the two remaining hard boiled eggs and slice them in one direction. Place them on top of the salad, then top with the reserved scallions.

How To Dice Hard Boiled Eggs

Have you ever seen hard boiled eggs diced into those perfect little cubes and wondered how they did that? It's really easy to do as long as you have a wire egg slicer. I'm generally not a fan of single-purpose gadgets in the kitchen, but this one makes the cut.

Start by cutting perpendicular to the long axis, the way you would if you were just going to do slices.



Holding everything together, turn the egg a quarter turn and slice again.



One more quarter turn -- it's going to be really hard to hold it all together now.



And that's it.

How To Dice a Bell Pepper

There's lots of slow ways to seed and chop a pepper, and a couple simple ways. I like this one. Start by cutting off the top as shown above. You want to cut as close as possible to the base of the stem.



If you got it just right, you'll be able to pop the stem out with your thumb, and then pull out the membrane with the seeds.



Cut it in half and trim out more of the membrane.



Some peppers have four lobes, some have six. Separate all the lobes so you can get the last of the membrane.



Slice the pieces lengthwise.



And that's it.

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing with Home-made Mayonnaise

As much as I prefer cooking from scratch, there are a few things that require so many ingredients that I'll give in and just buy it. Worcestercire sauce is one of those. (But I'll be fixing that soon. Stay tuned.)

Ranch dressing used to be another thing that I'd just buy. Not any more. Now that I've got my technique for fresh mayonnaise down, I don't expect to ever have to buy ranch dressing again.

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Mayonnaise

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive pomace oil
1 egg plus one yolk
two teaspoons white vinegar or lemon juice or a mixture of both

Directions

You'll see that I included the immersion blender (AKA stick mixer) in the ingredients photo. You can do this by hand, but I don't recommend it unless you're looking for a good workout.

Start with the yolk and a couple of tablespoons of the oil in a the narrowest cup your mixer will fit in. (Mine came with a matching cup. Handy.) Blend for a couple of seconds. With the blender runing, drizzle the rest of the oil in very slowly. If the oil separates from the egg yolk you won't get a nice creamy mayo, you'll get a greasy lumpy mess.

As you get more practice you'll know just how fast you can add the oil. Unfortunately, you'll find out exactly where that point is by going over it and ruining the batch. If you do that, start with a fresh yolk and a couple teaspoons of oil, then start adding the "broken" batch in a spoonful at a time.

Once you've got all the oil added, add the second egg and the vinegar and/or lemon and hit it with the blender again. Poof, instant mayonnaise.



If you think that looks a little thin for mayonnaise, you're right. By leaving out the second egg white, you get a creamier texture and a richer egg flavor. I think it works better when using the mayo as a sauce or, like I'm doing here, as an ingredient in something more complex.

Dressing

Ingredients

1/2 cup mayonnaise (see above)
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 scallions
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoons parsley
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
(Note: I left the white vinegar from the mayonnaise ingredients in the shot. Oops.)

Prep the scallions by cutting off the root end, including most of the white section ...



... then cutting off the papery part of the green end.



Then chop it thin all the way down its length ...



... and scoop everything back together for a second run through with the knife.



You want to end up with a pile of very finely chopped scallion.



Mince the garlic and add everything into the bowl.



And mix well.

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I'd love to show a picture of this dressing on the broiled carrots I did that night. Unfortunately, I knocked my camera off the counter while working on the pork roast. It's in for repairs right now. If I can't find a loaner by this weekend, I may not have anything new to put up next week. I've got my fingers crossed that it's a quick fix ... and inexpensive would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

Beef Roast

I always keep a vacuum-sealed beef roast in the freezer. (Usually there's a pork roast right next to it.) With two hours notice I can have it on the table. Sure, it's better fresh, but it's an easy thing to keep for emergencies.

As soon as as you decide you're going to make it, put it in the sink -- still in the vacuum pack -- and fill the sink with hot water. Don't worry that you'll cook it. The center will be so cold that the outside will barely get soft. For a really large roast you might need to warm the water up once or twice.

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Ingredients

3 pound beef roast
kosher salt
fresh-ground black pepper

Make sure the roast is up to room temperature before starting. Try to select one with a nice layer of fat on one side. Put that side on top when you roast it, and it will self-baste.



Set the oven to 200° to preheat while you get the roast ready. Coat generously with salt all the way around, including the ends.



Then give it a coat of coarsely ground black pepper ...



all the way around.



Next, insert the probe from your electronic thermometer. Measure the distance to the center of the roast the same way you would with a standing rib roast.



Set the alarm on the thermometer for 120° and put the roast on a rack on a flat pan in the middle of the oven. Pull the roast when the alarm goes off.



Turn the oven up to 500°

Since the next step is going to be high temperature to produce a nice crust, you need to make sure the fat layer doesn't completely curl away. Pin it down with toothpicks every couple of inches around the entire fat layer.



When the oven is up to 500°, put the roast back in and keep an eye on it. You're looking for a good crust, it doesn't matter what the thermometer reads any more. Pull it when it looks good.



Right now, the heat is trying to squeeze all the moisture out. If you pull the thermometer probe, you will lose an unbelievable amount of juice through that tiny little hole. Leave it in for at least 15 minutes, or until you see the temperature start to go down. It will probably keep going up for several minutes as the heat from the outside distributes through the inside.

Now that you've let it rest, slice it thin, across the grain. Only slice as much as you think you'll go through at the current meal. If you have any leftovers, they keep better in one big chunk instead of already sliced.

Reassemble everything on a platter and serve.

Corned Beef Hash

I don't know what it is about Irish food, but the leftovers make the best breakfast. With the soda bread it's French toast, with the corned beef dinner it's corned beef hash. This is so much better than the stuff that comes out of a can, it's almost worth doing the whole dinner just to have the leftovers.

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Ingredients

several slices of leftover corned beef
equal amount -- or slightly more -- leftover boiled potatoes
small amount of leftover onion
lots of fresh ground black pepper
(If you're thinking this doesn't look like a very precise recipe, you're right.)

Directions

Dice the corned beef into small cubes.



Then dice the onions.



Then -- wait, don't get ahead of me -- yup, dice the potatoes.



Now that everything's diced, melt a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat over high heat in a non-stick or cast iron pan.



Put all the ingredients in the pan and add a generous helping of black pepper.



Toss occasionally until everything is warmed through.



Yeah, okay ... that was just showing off. You can stir it with a plastic or wooden spoon. Two or three minutes and you're done.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Corned beef isn't really a traditional Irish meal, it's more of an Irish-American one. I don't care about authenticity, I just care about having three days' worth of leftover Reuben fixings in the fridge.

This is a great meal for feeding a whole bunch of people without spending a bunch of time in the kitchen. You can cure your own corned beef with a week of lead time, but you can also find a nice fresh brisket at your local butcher. That's what I did here.

(See the next post for what to do with the leftovers.)

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Ingredients

3 corned beef briskets, 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 pounds each
5 pounds mixed red and white fingerling potatoes
5 pounds carrots
2-3 pounds onion
3 cabbage heads
For optional side dish
1 pound carrots
1/2 large onion

Directions

The main dish

Put each brisket in a separate pot. (I was feeding a large group. Cut down to one brisket if you're serving four.) Try for pots that are just large enough to lay the brisket flat, and at least 2-3 times deeper than the brisket. Include the juices from the vacuum pack -- assuming you didn't cure your own.



Add enough water to the pot to almost cover the brisket.



Bring to a boil, then reduce heat until the water is barely bubbling.

While the water is coming to a boil, start prepping the veggies. First peel the carrots ...



... cut off the stem ends ...



... cut into pieces a couple of inches long ...



... and cut the chinks lengthwise into slivers slightly bigger around than pencils.



Add the carrots to the pot with the beef brisket.



Next wash the potatoes thoroughly. The easiest way is to put them all in the sink and fill with cold water. Scrub each with a stiff brush until there is no dirt left on them.



Chop the potatoes into large bite-sized pieces.



By this time the brisket should have started changing color.



Add the potatoes, and enough water to almost cover them. Try to keep the veggies tucked down tight between the meat and the pan. You want to use the least amount of water that will cover everything to concentrate the flavors.



Next up is the onions. Cut the stems off and peel them.



Cut into quarters and slice out the root from the end of each quarter.



One more cut to make eighths ...



... and add them to the pot.

The optional carrot dish

Along with all the veggies in the pot, I did a separate dish of carrots and onions. For this I took half a large sweet onion.



Cut thin slivers of this one lengthwise ...



... so you end up with tapered wedges instead of rings.



Using a paper towel, grease a small casserole dish with bacon fat ...



... until it is thoroughly coated.



Add a layer of carrots ...



... and a layer of onions ...



... then more carrots, onions, and carrots again. Season with salt and fresh-ground black pepper.



Add several dollops of bacon fat, a couple of tablespoons' worth in all.



Cover this and place in a 350° oven.

The cabbage

Now back to the main dish. Core the cabbage heads and cut each wedge in half, making eighths -- same as you did for the onions.

If you've been taking your time up til now, the corned beef has been simmering for three hours or more. If you haven't been taking your time, do it now. Take a break until the briskets are done. Then, without dumping the water, carefully fish all the veggies and the meat out into their own bowls.



Then load the cabbage up into the water you just cooked everything else in.



Make sure the water stays at a low simmer. When you take all the meat and veggies out it will want to start boiling.

If you did the extra carrot carrot dish, turn the oven off and put the bowls of carrots and potatoes in the oven to keep warm. Otherwise set the oven on its lowest setting before putting everything in. Leave the meat out to rest.

After the cabbage has been going for about 15 minutes, take the corned beef and slice it across the grain.



You absolutely do not want to cut this with the grain unless you like stringy, chewy meat.

Once the beef is sliced, scoop the cabbage into a bowl along with a little of the water. Don't worry about trying to drain it, let it come out in the bowl.



If you did the extra carrot dish, toss the carrots together with the onions before serving.

How To Core a Cabbage

Cutting the core out of a cabbage is pretty easy. But you can also make it hard on yourself by trying to do it the same way you'd cut the stem out of a tomato. Cabbages are too big and too firm to do that. Here's the easy way.

Cut the stem off the cabbage head.



Cut in half through the stem ...



.. then in half again through the stem.



Now you've got a wedge with the core at one end.



Slice the core out.



And that's it.

How To Make Pasta

(If you think you've seen this before, you're right. It's been updated with a couple more photos.)

Making fresh pasta is like renovating the kitchen before selling your house: it always pays off. And like renovating the kitchen, it takes a little work to get to the payoff. The upside is that once you've learned the technique it's so easy to do you'll keep finding excuses to make it again.

The simplest version is a basic egg pasta. This is what you'll get in Italian restaurants ... and the kitchens of Italian grandmothers. It's just one large egg and one-half cup of flour. Mix it and roll it out and you're done. That's all there is to it.

Okay, that part was an exaggeration. There's a bit more to it than that.

Start with a spotlessly-clean non-porous surface: stainless steel, marble, Formica, etc. (I've seen this done on wooden tables, but the cleanup is a nightmare.) Make a small volcano with the flour.



Add the egg and one teaspoon of kosher salt to the well in the center. (I'm doing two eggs and a whole cup of flour in the pictures.)



Beat the egg(s) with a fork, and start pulling flour into the eggs a little bit at a time. Once there is enough flour mixed in that you can't beat the egg any more, pull the rest of the flour in and start "cutting" it in with the edge of the fork.



Make sure there is a good layer of flour over the top and start kneading it with your hands.



Knead the pasta until it is all the same consistency. It should be smooth and elastic, and not sticky. If it is sticking to either your hands or the work surface, add a little more flour. This is the step that takes practice. No matter how many times you watch someone else do it you're going to have to learn for yourself what it should feel like.



At this point, you can turn your pasta into any shape you want. I'll assume you're going to do some kind of flat noodle: lasagna, linguine, ravioli, etc. Some pretentious food snobs might say you have to roll it by hand. They're idiots. Restaurants that make their own pasta all use motorized pasta rollers. And every Italian grandmother I know has a hand-cranked model somewhere in the house.

Some models are just a little different in how the pasta runs through them. Check the directions when you get one. The basic idea is that there are two adjustable metal rollers that you pass the pasta through.



You run the pasta through on the widest setting, then each pass through you go one step thinner. If the ribbon coming out gets too long to handle, just cut it in half with a pizza roller or sharp knife.



And that is all there is to it.

You can really go crazy getting other attachments for cutting special shapes. My favorite is the linguine. I leave the pasta a bit thicker than you normally would for linguine, then put the noodles in my chicken or turkey soup. The flavor is amazing. The texture of the thicker noodles is fabulous. And because they're not dehydrated, the noodles are cooked about three or four minutes after you add them to the soup.

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I recently read about someone else's first experience making pasta. It reminded me how many times I had to do this before I really knew what I was doing. Here's some tips:

1. Start with just one egg, not two like I did above. It may not look like much, but that's all you're going to need to feed two people and possibly have leftovers.



2. The flour-to-egg ratio is not an exact science. You want to keep adding flour until the pasta is no longer sticky. Getting this right is just going to take practice. (But hey, it's one freaking egg, you can afford to practice.)



3. After running the pasta through on the widest setting, fold it in half and run it back through again. You want to do this at least three or four times, until it's coming out in a smooth sheet. Toontz is right that overworking it can make it tough, but underworking it will make it clumpy and uneven. Again, you'll just need to practice.



4. Get all the sheets rolled out, get the water boiling, and put the pasta into the water as soon as you cut the noodles. Don't hang it to dry first. Unless you're storing it, there's no reason to dry it first. You'll want to work sort of fast, so it's all cooked at about the same time.



5. With fresh pasta it's a little better to under-cook than to over-cook. Unless you like mushy pasta, then go ahead and cook it as long as you like.

Pan-fried Chicken in Butter

I've been described as something of a "skin freak" when it comes to chicken and turkey. So it always catches me by surprise when someone says that they prefer skinless chicken breasts. Not as a dietary issue -- which is misguided anyway -- but they actually don't like the skin. Baffling.

That doesn't mean I can't still do a fabulous skinless chicken breast. Oh, sure, it's cooked in butter. But as long as it's skinless, people seem to be happy. I can work with that.

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Ingredients

2 chicken breasts -- boneless, skinless
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup flour
kosher salt
coarse ground black pepper

Directions

The first two steps will improve any chicken dish you make: start with the chicken at room temperature, and pound it thin. The longer it takes to get the center cooked, the more likely it is the outside will be tough and dry.

Pounding it doesn't take any special tools, either. Start by laying out a long piece of plastic wrap on your counter. Sprinkle it with a little water so the chicken slides around instead of tearing. Start with one breast, and fold the plastic over so the chicken is covered.



Using a heavy-bottomed skillet -- like the one you're about to cook the chicken in -- pound the breast until it is as flat as you can make it. Start from the thickest part and work your way out.



Compare the size of the pounded breasts with what they looked like in the ingredients picture above.



Coat the breasts on both sides with a generous helping of salt ...



and pepper.



Put the flour in a dish or shallow bowl, one that is large enough to lay a breast out flat in it. Place this dish, and the one with the breasts, on the stovetop next to the frying pan. Divide the butter into a couple of small pieces and melt it over low heat.



Once the butter is melted, dredge the breasts one at a time in the flour ...



on both sides ...



and shake off the excess.



Lay the breasts in the butter, with a little space between them.



Keep an eye on the pan to make sure the butter doesn't start smoking. (It's okay for the flour and butter to turn brown.) If it smokes, remove the pan from the heat until the smoke stops, turn the heat down, and keep going.

Cook on the first side until the thinnest edge starts turning white on top ...



then flip them over. Make sure there is still a little butter underneath when you flip them. If there's not, add a little bit before putting them back down.



Cook on the second side until there is no more pink showing around the edge.



Let the breasts rest for at least five minutes before cutting.

Pizza Soup

My junior high school cafeteria was probably no better or worse than the average cafeteria. But there were two things they made that were exceptional: pizza, and pizza soup. The pizza was thick and cheesy, and I never heard anyone say a bad word about it.

The pizza soup, on the other hand, was great mostly for the idea of it. I've never seen it on the menu anywhere else, and had to create my own recipe for it. The version below is probably far better than what they served, but I still get nostalgic for times when they served it.

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Ingredients

The soup

56 ounces (two large cans) crushed tomatoes
2 medium onions
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons dried oregano
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Toppings

home-made croutons
shredded mozzarella

Directions

Dice the onion very fine and mince the garlic. Sauté them over medium heat in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a teaspoon of salt.



Once the onion is clear and softened, add the tomatoes and oregano.



Add salt and pepper and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and insert an immersion blender. Work in circles until you've taken the soup from chunky ...



to thick ...




to smooth.



Add a cup or two of water, to thin it out from "pizza sauce" thickness to "soup" thickness. Just how thin this should be is a matter of preference. I like thick.

Set up an assembly area with the soup, croutons and cheese around the bowl.



A cup or two of soup, a handful of croutons, and a handful of cheese, and you're ready to serve.



Next time I'm going to put the soup in a nice tureen and bring it to the table so the girls can assemble their own. They love feeling like they helped make their own dinner.

Home-made Croutons

When I was growing up, the croutons you got in a box or bag at the grocery store were tiny little cubes, about the size of dice. Only restaurants had those big "fancy" croutons. Seeing a marketing opportunity, the manufacturers switched to a large size, which is all you can find in the grocery store now.

The problem is that store-bought croutons have always been pretty crunchy. This wasn't a problem when they were small, but the big ones are getting so they aren't even good on salad any more. The solution, of course, is to make your own.

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Ingredients

1/2 loaf stale un-sliced bread
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Slice the bread about 3/4-inch thick and trim off the crust.



Cut the slices into cubes, as big across as they are thick.



Note that I've saved the crust and crumbs. This goes into a zip-top bag in the freezer. When I'm making hamburgers or meatballs, the bag gets dumped in the food processor for a couple of seconds to make bread crumbs.

Now melt half the butter over medium heat in a large pot or frying pan.



Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and whatever seasonings you want. Here I'm using minced garlic.



Add the cubed bread and toss to coat. It will quickly soak up all the butter and olive oil. Add more butter and oil a little at a time, making sure all the cubes get a good coating.



Spread the cubes out on a baking pan.



Bake at 400° for about 10 minutes, turning the cubes once with tongs at about 8 minutes. Remove when they are golden all the way around.

How To Mince Garlic

In case you didn't already know, the smaller you chop garlic the stronger the taste will be. When you cut or smash the cell walls, you're releasing the oils that carry the flavor. If you want to go a little milder than you get with smashed or pressed garlic, or if you just hate cleaning the garlic press, you'll need to learn how to mince.

As a bonus, this is also a good technique for using cloves that are actually a little past their prime. It's better, of course, to get something perfectly fresh, but if you've already started on dinner when you discover your garlic has started to sprout, this can be a real time saver.

Note in the two cloves below that they're starting to put out green shoots.



These shoots can be very bitter if you include them. They also don't smash the same way the rest of the clove does, and they'll get stuck in a press. Luckily, if you remember that garlic is a plant bulb, you'll see how to fix it. Start by cutting off the base of the clove.



You have to do this even if they haven't sprouted. Next cut the cloves in half lengthwise.



This is what you couldn't see before slicing, and it's what would jam up a garlic press. Pry out the center part with the back of your thumbnail or the tip of a paring knife.



Now that you've got the green out, put the flat side down and hold two or three pieces together on the cutting board.1



Don't worry at first about trying to go fast like you see the chefs do on TV. Just do nice thin slices along the long side.



Once they're sliced, turn them sideways and go across the other direction.



Presto, minced garlic.

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1. A note on cutting boards. Plastic and glass cutting boards look nice and clean up easy, but they're really hard on the edge of your knife. Use wood if you have a choice. You don't want to mince garlic with a dull knife.