Twice-Fried French Fries (Redux) - Video

I know I have already done a blog post on this, but these fries are so good that I had to video the process and give a few more details.

The mighty russet potato.  The correct consistency for a fry, and more importantly, the traditional spud for the process.

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

 When thinking about one's favorite dessert, ice cream comes to mind for most folks, from kids to adults.  There is some mystery about the construction of excellent ice cream, magic even, that prevents most from giving it a shot.  However with some inexpensive equipment and readily-available ingredients, the home chef can whip up an enviable batch with both ease and only a modest investment in time.

Shucking An Oyster - VIDEO

Oysters are an acquired taste and are thought of as a regional treat, but they are both healthy for the environment as cleaners of the the bays in which they reside, and for consumption due to their high zinc and protein contributions.

Making Roast Turkey (or Chicken) Gravy - VIDEO

Besides the family stuffing, gravy seems to provoke the most debate, and have a certain family propriety to it.  Your gravy will conjure up memories of childhood Thanksgivings or other holidays, and strange gravy will fall flat on your memory banks.

Thick or thin? Giblets or smooth? Salty or bland?  Each family seems to have a tradition.  But gravy, while a simple concept, is not so simple in execution.  Remember those lumpy, starchy gravies of youth (maybe even of today)?  Gravy is more than a mixture of stock and thickener.  It is the unifying element on the plate, the sauce in which all the important meal elements swim.  Isn't it worth a little effort?

Making Butter At Home. Good Stuff - VIDEO

Making butter at home is both simple and delicious with the right ingredients, tools, and technique.

Butter is simply the liberated fat from cream, which is generally stored in the emulsion that is cream.  The trick is to use agitation to combine the tiny fat globules into a growing mass until all the fat is liberated from the solution.  Chemistry. 

Making Fresh Pasta At Home

Carbohydrates have become the scourge of American diets, cursing some of the best comfort foods of the ages such as potatoes, pasta, and bread.  But each of these culinary elements is the spice of life.  Who can imagine a pot roast without mashed potatoes, roast chicken without stuffing, and any Italian dish without pasta and Sunday gravy?

I have been making fresh pasta for years, but grudgingly, with hand-kneading of the dough and a simple hand-cranked Atlas pasta machine that must be close to 30 years old at this point.  The heavy manual labor and time involved had put my pasta-making skills on hiatus thanks to kids/life balance.  But some new techniques and some investment in a few tools has made the process infinitely more simple and quick, allowing for same-day turnaround for an excellent product.  And there is nothing wrong with bragging rights for making your own product.

Smoking a Pork Butt in a Garbage Can Smoker

When summer comes around, outdoor cooking beckons and with little room in our Georgetown home for a standard offset smoker, the family retreats for part of the season to Narragansett, Rhode Island.  There we have more space to play, and more time to cook on weekends.  This past weekend we pulled out our homemade garbage can smoker from the garage for a low a slow smoke of some cured pork butt (also know as a pork picnic).  This cut of meat is comes from the shoulder of the pig, is relatively inexpensive (although prices for pork have recently skyrocketed due to PED, a porcine virus that has been killing piglets), and requires long cooking or braising over low heat to bring out both its tenderness and full flavor.