Tuna Puffs

This is the kind of dish you might be embarrassed to serve to company. You could probably fancy it up by using some kind of artisan bread, and going with seared ahi or tuna steaks or something with better foodie cred than canned tuna. But when you're not worried about impressing anyone, this is comfort food that will take you straight back to your childhood.

And in honor of childhood, this recpie is being submitted for the Food for Plastic Challenge III. Tupperware will be donating some of the sales to the Boys & Girls Clubs. Head on over and vote for this if you like it.

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Ingredients

2 small cans tuna (6 ounces each)
4 hamburger buns
2 large eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise (don't measure this, see below)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

Before starting, turn the oven on to 450°, and set the rack at least 9-12 inches from the top. Open the tuna and drain well.

Set the tuna aside and separate the two eggs. No, this does not mean put one egg on the left side of the table and the other egg on the right side of the table. (Smart alec.) It means separate the white from the yolk.

There are lots of tools that are supposed to help you with this, like this one:



You're supposed to crack the egg into the separator, and the white will drain out through the hole while the yolk stays behind. But I can't figure out which hand to hold it with while I'm using both of mine to crack the eggs. I think you're supposed to crack the eggs one at a time into a cup, then pour it into the separator thing. But if you do that, you end up with an extra cup -- and the separator -- to wash when you're done.

That's why I do it the way I learned growing up. Crack the egg in half, then pour the yolk back and forth between the two halves, letting the white run over the edge.



Do this for both eggs and you should have about a quarter-cup of egg whites and two yolks.



If you want to really go all out, take the two yolks and make your own mayonnaise. If not, either give the yolks to your dog or dump them down the drain. Eggs are about a dollar a dozen, you can afford to dump out two yolks.

Mix as much mayonnaise as you like into the drained tuna. Some people like it nearly dry, some like it soupy. If you've never made tuna fish and you're not sure exactly how much mayo you need for two cans, just mix in one spoonful at a time until it looks right. Although if you've really never even made tuna fish, I don't know that you should be playing with the oven.

Now we're going to turn the whites into a meringue. That just means whip it until it gets light and fluffy. Put the whites in a large bowl and go at it with a beater.



If you're going fast enough, you should see them starting to foam up almost immediately.



Keep going until you have a bowl full of white fluff.



Now you're ready for assembly. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. (It doesn't make a difference to the food, it just makes cleanup easier.) Lay out the hamburger buns, and divide the tuna evenly among them.



Top each one with a spoonful of the whipped egg.



Then a little of the mozzarella.



Now switch the oven to the broiler setting and put the pan in. Don't worry if it hasn't finished pre-heating yet, you just want it to not be cold when you start cooking. Don't walk away. The cheese will start to bubble in less than a minute. You'll get a really good idea of where the hot spots are in your burners by looking at the tops of the tuna puffs when you pull them out.



If you want them to be evenly finished, swap them around on the pan to put the less-finished ones under the hotspots. As long as you don't have any completely raw, though, you can plate them up with a little variety in done-ness. Let the kids pick which ones they think are "better" and you take the rest. Really, though, they'll all be good.

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 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.

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.

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 happe