Apple Strudel

I give up on bakeries in London. They claim to sell Apple Strudel but the product you get is not Apple Strudel as we know it. Certainly not as New Yorkers know it.

So, I finally gave up and decided to make it myself. I've made apple strudel for many years when I couldn't buy the real stuff at a good Jewish/German bakery but never tried in London as the apples in the UK are nothing to write home about. They're great for cider and make very tasty apple sauce but they just aren't pie apples being the wrong texture and generally insipid. However, yesterday a neighbour stopped by with a bag of apples she had just picked from an old tree on her allotment garden. They looked gorgeous and the flavour - wow, spicy and  sweetly tart, yum! Strudel and pie - here we come!

So, here's the recipe. If you are in the US, try using Winesap apples or similar spicy, strongly flavoured firm apples.

Ingredients for the filling:
800g/1lb 12oz cooking apples, peeled, cored, cut into small chunks
50g/2oz unsalted butter
100ml/3 fl oz water
100g/3½ oz caster sugar (granulated sugar in the US) - cane sugar, please!
1/2 to 1 tsp ground cinnamon - to taste
large handful of fresh breadcrumbs (you must use fresh, not bought dried stuff)
Optional: 3 Tbsp raisins soaked in rum or OJ to plump them (I'm a purist and omit these.)

For the pastry:
50g/2oz unsalted butter, melted
5 sheets filo pastry
fresh breadcrumbs
icing/confectioners sugar, for dusting
Greaseproof/baking parchment paper

Preparation method
1. If you are going to use raisins, soak them in a bit of rum or OJ before starting.
2. Peel, core, and cut apples into small chunks.
3. Cook the apples in a pan with the butter, water and sugar for 5
minutes, or until the apples have softened slightly, but still retain their
shape and are al dente.
4. Remove the pan from the heat, add the cinnamon, raisins (if you're using them)
and the breadcrumbs and stir to combine (the breadcrumbs will bind
everything together). Set aside to cool.
5. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
6. For the pastry, cut a piece of greaseproof paper a little larger than your
baking sheet to assemble the strudel on. This will also help you to roll it into
the assembled shape. Unroll the filo dough sheets and cover with a dish
towel to prevent it drying out. Spread out one sheet of filo on the paper,
and brush with the melted butter. Lightly scatter with a bit of the breadcrumbs
and a bit of sugar.  Repeat the process with all four sheets, placing
them on top of each other, brushing with melted butter each time and
scattering a bit of bread crumbs and sugar on each.
7. Spoon the apple mixture along the long side of the pastry about an inch from
the edge and roll up, longest side first, into a parcel, seam-side down. If you
have too much apple mix, just hold that aside. You can either roll the finished parcel
onto the baking sheet and discard the paper or trim the paper a bit and use that to
lift the parcel onto the baking sheet and let it bake on the paper.
Press down the ends of the parcel gently to seal in the filling.
8. Brush all over with the remaining butter and bake in the oven for 25 -30 minutes,
or until the top is crisp and golden-brown. (Check the strudel after 15 minutes;
if it is browning too quickly, reduce the heat a little. )
9. Remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet. When cooled, carefully
slide the strudel onto a platter or cutting board and dust with icing/confectioners sugar.

Ribsticker

I came home tonight with defrosted chicken breasts and very little else to craft a dinner from. So, I made a Ribsticker, which is what I call my throwing shit together to make something healthy, tasty, and filling.

Prep certain ingredients first. I had three enormous chicken breasts which I sliced into cubes, as well as one very large onion that I gave a rough chop to.

In a large, high-walled pan, add some olive oil. This recipe makes a fair amount of food, so don't be too scared to add a few tablespoons. Crush ~8 cloves of garlic and allow to simmer in the oil. Once they start to brown, immediately add the onions and allow those to simmer for a few minutes. Add the chicken and stir it around for another 4 minutes or so. Add some frozen corn and frozen peas, leave for a few more minutes. While doing do, add salt, pepper, and some paprika. Add one can of (low sodium) chicken stock, and another can worth of water. Stir in roughly a cup of breadcrumbs. Myself, I had Italian style, but decided to use some panko I had laying around. It would thicken the liquid without adding any kind of a flowery flavor or anything. Turn heat to high until the mixture reaches boiling, then turn heat down to a simmer. Cover and leave for ten minutes.

No, it's nothing fancy. But it's cheap, tasty, easy to make, and stick to your ribs. I'm getting to the point where I have very little food in the house (need to do shopping soon) so it's at this time in the month when I start making things like this.

A City Dweller's Pulled Pork

I should start by saying that I never had pulled pork in my life up until maybe 3 years ago. Understand that it's not something New Yorkers, let alone Jews, make with great frequency. Too, we rarely went out to dinner. When we did, it was to various restaurants, but never BBQ- I can't recall any particular barbeque places in New York when I was a kid, though there are plenty here now. Steak restaurants, sure, but not BBQ. When we drove to Florida or some such, we stopped off at Chatanooga for Choo Choo's BBQ. I'm damned if I remember what I would order- probably steak or a burger- I loved those, and hated ribs.

Come to that, I never had a rib that I enjoyed until about 5 years ago, when I was introduced to beef spare ribs. Ribs with actual meat on them, not just pure fat on a bone? My world was well and truly rocked. Grilling we did plenty of in the summer. Back then, nobody (again, in New York) put sauces on the meat you put on the grill. I don't know if it occured to anyone. Then in the mid-90's, A1 steak sauce had a series of commercials where they suggested putting the steak sauce on the steak before grilling it. Steak sauce on the steak...before you grill it? It sounded just crazy enough to try. We did, thought it was okay, tried it another time or two, then decided that we liked our steaks grilled regular, thanks, with the steak sauce afterwards.

In any case, as I got older, I tried things like carnival chicken, which had barbeque sauce put on before it was cooked. I hated it- as far as I could see, the stuff just burned and made the entire chicken taste like burned garbage. I couldn't see the point of it, and I wished they wouldn't do it. But I keep an open eye for new things. As time passed, more and more BBQ places opened around New York, and I had my chance to sample them. My impression is that they are generally terrible, and that New Yorkers don't know dick about good barbeque.

There's a place up by Columbia called Dinosaur BBQ. With a name like that, it brings to mind The Flintstones, with the giant ribs that make the car fall over. And didn't we all wish we could have those ribs just once? I heard from so many damn people about how amazing it was, I couldn't wait to try it. It was awful. Understand, I tried a combination plate which gave be several different meats, plus I tried what everyone else ordered. Dino's could make some tasty sauce. But the meat was utterly flavorless. It tasted like something from a cafeteria. The texture would be fine, but the meat itself somehow had no flavor, I couldn't figure it out. I still can't. I guess they must have realized this, because they drowned the meat in sauce. To my mind, a sauce is always meant to compliment the flavor of the food it is on, not attempt to mask or drown it out.

Yes, I am aware that my pearl onions tend to drown in my cream sauce. That's because I always make too much cream sauce, never buy enough pearl onions, and I've found that people fucking love to put the cream sauce on their mashed potatoes.

Anyway, have you ever had a taste in your mind that you know that something can or should be? Well, I knew what pulled pork should taste like. The taste, texture, everything. I found a place in New York that will make it, but they are hellishly expensive. Plus, as near as I can tell, that's the only thing that they can make right.

Now, I live in an apartment. Though I have a balcony, I am not allowed to barbeque on it (except with my electric grill) and smoking food is just right out. How then could I make something like pulled pork? Well, one of the things I asked for when I got married was a slow cooker, as I know just how great they are to have for some things. Could I pull off a pulled pork with one?

Well, what did I have? Traditionally, you use pork shoulder, tough and fatty and cheap. Well, it's a meal based on not having much money, naturally. So, what meat did I have? I pretty much only buy meat that's on sale, so it'll have to do. What I had was pork loin. Not tenderloin, but the entire loin. Well, the pork loin in cross section is essentially a large oval of meat with a thick bottom layer of meat, like a mushroom cap on a fat stem. Not exactly right, but hell, it's what I have. I had bought the entire loin for about 13 bucks, brought it home and sliced it into sections of about 3.5-5 pounds each and shoved most of them in the freezer. This one was fully defrosted when I used it.

At night, I coated the pork loin in paprika, sea salt, pepper, and onion powder. Be generous. The loin then went into a ziplock bag and had the air mostly removed, then was shoved in the fridge overnight. In the morning before heading to work, I took the loin out and put it into the slow cooker, crushed a few cloves of garlic over the top, set it on slow cook, and went to work.

Now, one thing troubled me, and I'm still not 100% sure if I made the right decision. There is a thick layer of fat on one side, while the other side shows just meat. Do I put the meat fat side down or not? Well, I dind't want the meat to dry out, so the more indirect heat through the fat seemed wise. Plus, it would help to render the fat and have the pork sit in the juice and fat. On the other hand, if I put it meat side down, as the fat cooked it might work its way down the meat to keep it juicy. But then the meat touching the bottom might be dried out.

In the end, I put the fat side down. On returning home, I found that the juices had cooked out of the meat, and it was half submerged in them. I removed the loin with a couple of forks to a cutting board. The fat easily scraped off of the bottom of the meat and was discarded. The meat was- well, it's a bit dry, though not terribly so. I tasted a piece, and it was certainly flavorful, and wasn't tough or anything. At that point, it had been slow cooking for 9 1/2 hours, then kept warm for about another hour. That's because my slow cooker only goes to a max of 9.5 hours. In any case, you can feel free to try doing it for less time, whatever you like- I have a long workday, so I don't have much choice. That, and the cut of meat is tricky to keep completely moist.

I shredded the pork with a pair of forks, then added them back to the broth in the slow cooker. If you don't have much liquid, feel free to add a cup of broth. While that sat there, I made up a batch of my Awesomesauce (see recipe earlier, but essentially it is roughly 1/3rd honey, 2/3rds Heinz ketchup, and a bit of wasabi, cooked together until smooth). I made roughly 2-2 1/2 cups, and dumped that into the slow cooker as well. The food was stirred a little with a wooden spoon. The slow cooker was then set for another 2 hours and left to sit. It's there right now, so I don't know how it'll come out, but I'll edit in a little bit and let you know how it goes.

So, yes, the purists out there will scream and cry. But pulled pork is a meal about poor people taking what is on hand and doing what they can with it. That describes me pretty damn well, and it's about all one can do in an apartment. If you tried this and liked it, or have your own varients, I'd love to hear 'em!

Edit: Well, I am pleased. Not as good as I'd hoped, better than I expected. The taste is great, the pork is tender and flavorful. It's not melt-in-your-mouth the way true pulled pork is, but it's still very pleasant indeed. The only thing I would change is the liquid. The sauce ended up being a touch thin. It coats the pork beautifully, but it's just a touch too thin. I guess I could add a little flour or something, but it's not that big of a deal- I use a slotted spoon to take out the pork, but it's still thick enough to travel with the pork. Maybe it's just fine, but I should have shredded the pork a little bit more, or maybe made a little more pork, I dunno. In any case, it's a damn good start. The flavor is mostly that of the sauce, but there is still a touch of the flavors from the spices on the pork meat, enough that you get just a nice little tingle.

Still, I'd like to try it with proper pork shoulder at some point- see if the meat would be more flavorful. The barbeque sauce does admittedly mostly drown out the flavor of the pork- between the sweetness of the honey, the slight vinegar from the ketchup, and the flowery spiciness of the wasabi, it's hard to find the spiced pork in there. Maybe next time, I'll add less of the sauce, but it's a first attempt.

That said, it's still a damned tasty first attempt, especially on some kaiser rolls.

BBQ Sauce

You'd think I'd be too busy to post with all of my work on the Bletchley Everest Challenge but I just realised that I haven't shared my BBQ Sauce recipe. This is an approximate recipe because the strength of your vinegar or ginger may vary so please taste and adjust! Stir as you go along so the flavours blend properly.

To cover 2 racks of ribs or 2 steaks

1/2 cup tomato ketchup - don't use the cheap stuff!
1/4 cup soft brown sugar (the darker the better)
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 - 2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon dried ginger
1 teaspoon Worcester sauce
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce

Stir and taste. You'll probably need more sugar but it's better to add after you taste. Maybe add some old rum or something if you want to dilute it a little.

 I usually marinade my meat in this for 24 hours before cooking. This is good for the oven and the grill.

Eating on Mt Everest

As a fund-raiser for Bletchly Park ( http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/ ); the historic site of secret British codebreaking activities during WWII and birthplace of the modern computer, my daughter Astrid will be climbing to Mt Everest's Base Camp this August. Now Astrid is not a mountain climber nor a tekking sort in real life, but she is a serious supporter of Bletchly Park and thought it would be an exciting personal challenge as well as a great way to help raise funds to supper Bletchly Park. 


So - hint, hint - please consider a donation to help her efforts. Funds can be donated through Just Giving: http://www.justgiving.com/Astrid-Byro  (And if your company does corporate donations she's open to promo stunts, contact her for details.)

Astrid has a Mt Everest Base Camp Trek blog at http://abc-ebc.blogspot.com

Anyway the main food the Trek company says they'll be eating on the climb is LENTILS. Lots and lots of lentils. And garlic and onions and cabbage. Hmmmm...

If you know more about foods eaten on Mt Everest treks, please let us know. We're considering what recipes we could make for Astrid to bring along.

French Fingerling Potato Salad

Contrary to what you may think, (hell, what *I* may think) my father, when he wants, can make the best potato salad I've ever tasted.

The funny thing is that it took me ten years to convince him to make it again. See, my father likes to experiment with his cooking, as do we all. He would find something new, try adding it to something he loves, and if it works, was happy. If it didn't work, he would leave it in and try something else. The potato salad started with something simple and flavorful, the potatoes nicely cooked, not too much mayo, a delicious aromatic quality from the red onions he would use, and some salt and pepper. That was about it. It was simple and delicious. But as the years and the experiments went on, it changed. Finally, I refused to eat it anymore, and I know it hurt him. I genuinely did not want to upset him. But the potato salad had devolved to become a sludge of egg yolk and onion in mayonaisse with bits of green onion and very little potato. I prevailed on him to, just one time, make the potato salad the way he had ten years before. To humor me, he made it. And to his astonishment, he admitted to me that it was delicious and much better than what he'd been making for so long.

This is not to say that one should not experiment with recipes. That makes cooking dull. It also isn't to say that only simple recipes are good. This has been the big wave in cooking in the last twenty years or so, very simple dishes of 5 or fewer ingredients used to highlight one particular ingredient. I enjoy and appreciate this trend, but I also do not think that it necessarily is better or superior to food with many ingredients delicately combined and layered to provide a unique flavor and texture experience. This is all just my way of saying that though I tease my father about his cooking, he can actually make decent food. When he listens to me, anyway.

And that's my segue into today's recipe. I was making dinner tonight, simple cheeseburgers and fries, and I thought that it might be nice to do something different. I was thinking of throwing a Rapture BBQ this weekend, and wouldn't it be nice if I could try something out tonight for then? Well, I looked around for what I had. I could make a potato salad. Then I had an idea- why not a fingerling potato salad? Fingerling potatoes are small, waxy, delicate little potatoes, and it might be a chance to make a lighter version of the classic. Well, what the hell, why not give it a try?

Slice the potatoes into small pieces, then throw into a pot of boiling water. boil 4 eggs as well. I chopped a half of a large red onion pretty small (note- using the entire onion might not have been a bad idea). An equal amount of celery chopped delicately. I wanted to try using a piece of cucumber, but my cucumber was....weird. I just happened to have snatched a piece before adding it to the bowl, and it's lucky that I did. The cucumber tasted as though it had been dipped in a toxic waste barrel. My mouth burned, I shit you not. Out that went. But it would have been nice to peel the cuke, remove the seeds, then rough chop and add. Add the potatoes. Slice the eggs into 4 slices along the lattitude, then one long slice along the longitude. Add the eggs. Add equal measures of mayo and sour cream. No, this is not for any kind of health thing. I wanted it to be light and delicate, and sour cream is that. Plus, if you add too much mayo, it is nasty, but if you add too much sour cream, no biggie. Neither my wife nor I noticed the change.

Ideally, let sit in a sealed container overnight in your fridge.

Recipe's Forthcoming

I know I haven't posted here for a while, but I do plan to soon. Not much cooking lately, because there's pretty much no food in the apartment. Why? Because I've worn through 5 shopping carts in the last 6 months, and I'm going nuts. So, out of desperation, I went and bought a 400 pound capacity steel garden cart. It arrives thursday, so I hope to do shopping this weekend. Among other things, I get to test out my new cookware- like my new griddle, so stay tuned!

-Andrew