Fat Tuesday at Chez Flannestad.

Beans and aromatics.

Cajun Triumvirate.

Rancho Gordo Sangre de Toro Beans.

Flour into hot oil.

About half way there.

Veggies into the cooked roux.

A nice skillet corn bread.

Bar prepared.  How many drinks can you think of with these ingredients?

Choose your own spirit for the Sazerac!

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo with Okra.

Beans with Collard Greens.

Anita MADE a fantastic King Cake.

I am slightly disturbed by this photo.  OK, I may not have been thorough in removing all the bouquet garni from the beans.

Guests included the lawyer, the ice cream maker, IT Manager/Musician, the artist/DJ, and the blogger/photographer/tech couple.  I dunno, sign of the times that just about everyone has a “slash” in their life’s work, but doesn’t quite have the same ring as, “Butcher, Baker, and Candlestick Maker.”

Our new acquaintance, the ice cream maker, and I have been working on Sazerac Ice Cream.  We’re up to Iteration 4 now, and while still a work in progress, this one was the best so far.  It is tough to get enough of the Whiskey flavor and still have the ice cream freeze.  We served the Sazerac Ice Cream with Anita’s King Cake.  Mrs. Flannestad got the Baby!  Guess that means she’s making the cake next time!

My super hero wife was again away last weekend, this time in LA working on a ridiculously high profile project for what she calls “The Place”.

I had an evite to a fantastic party, but was feeling like I needed a bit of downtime.

Between B.A.R. certification, friends being in town, and birthday celebrations, recent events had gotten a bit off the rails.  Too many blurry nights.  I really needed a night at home with the dog and cats to regroup.

But I was just feeling too lazy to put together my usual bachelor dinner, a pot of jambalaya.  Fortunately, bone-in chicken breasts were on sale at Good Life.  I rubbed them with Gremolata, put a sage leaf under the skin, and draped some, (unfortunately not Boccolone,) Pancetta over the top and threw them in the convection oven at 375F.  Then I covered some potatoes with water and set them to boil.

La Goudale appeared this week at our local grocery.  Interestingly, the brewers claim La Goudale is based on, “…an original medieval recipe, Goudale is a historic name.”

I tend to like lighter Belgian Saisons and Singles, which seem to be relatively rarely brought into this country.  Just kind of tired of overly “big” beers.  You can keep your triples and your Imperials.  Just give me something nice that goes well with food and doesn’t hit me over the head with the hammer of sweetness and alcohol.  Goudale fits into this profile, being fairly dry, not overly sweet, or particularly strong.  Initially not seeming overly complex, it did show some enjoyable subtleties of flavor as it warmed.

Pulled the breasts out when they hit 145F.  Sauteed some sliced spring onions and spinach in butter.  Drained and smashed the potatoes.  Stirred the sauteed veg into them along with some sour cream.

Sliced the chicken breast and served it with the potatoes.  Shoulda maybe made a pan sauce, but like I said, this was a lazy, bachelor dinner, not an impress the significant other kind of thing.

This is my much “loved” copy of “Classic Chinese Cuisine” by Nina Simonds.

Hot as it was this week, I decided I would make “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” from this book. No way I was creating any more heat than necessary in the house. Plus it is a quick and easy to make dish.

This is actually a great weeknight meal, if the weather is intolerably hot or not. If you have these ingredients in your pantry it takes minutes to throw together the sauce, chop a few veggies, and boil the noodles. You can also make it with any other nut butter, if you don’t like Peanut Butter. Almond, Cashew, whatever.

Quite possibly the trickiest thing in this recipe is poaching the chicken, without making it dry or tough. Even many restaurants *cough*Pomelo*cough* can’t seem to manage this. If you bring it to a boil too quickly it turns into chewing gum. Ideally, you’d seal it in a cryovac bag with rice wine, ginger, soy sauce, and garlic and sous vide it. Lacking sous vide equipment, place the bone on breast in a pan large enough it can be covered with cold water. Add a splash of soy sauce and rice wine. Crush a garlic clove and a couple ginger slices and drop them in the water. Using medium heat, bring the water up to not quite a simmer. Cover and reduce the heat as low as you can. Continue to cook until the breast reaches 145 at its thickest point and the broth is clear. The dish would also be tasty made with tofu instead of chicken.

“Classic Chinese Cuisine” is one of the first cookbooks that opened my eyes and tastes when I was in college and had my first food service jobs. One of the first time I realized that if I followed a recipe from a cookbook, I could make something much tastier than many of the restaurants I had been going to. Chinese cuisine was my first enthusiasm, thanks to this book. “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” is one the first recipes I remember making from it. Just between you and me, I checked out “Classic Chinese Cuisine” from the public library. It was due for return on April 22, 1989. I’m sorry if you have been trying to check it out. The “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” were just so good, I knew I needed to make far more things from the book. It’s not something I’m proud of.

Recently our local grocery has started carrying beer from a small Scottish Brewery called “Brew Dog”. Fond as I am of Stouts, I’ve been curious about their Rip Tide Imperial Stout.

Martin and James were bored of the industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominate the UK market. We decided the best way to fix this undesirable predicament was to brew our own beers. Consequently in April 2007 BrewDog was born.

Both only 24 at the time, we leased a building, got some scary bank loans, spent all our money on stainless steel and started making some hardcore beers.

We are dedicated to making cool, contemporary and progressive beers showcasing some of the world’s classic beer styles. All with an innovative twist and customary BrewDog bite.

Well, that’s cool.

With Mrs. Flannestad away for the weekend, I’d not done real well on the whole feeding myself front this weekend. Figured I should at least give it a go tonight.

Got some nice Salmon and Fingerling potatoes at Avedano’s. Fennel and Kale at Good Life. So… Thinly sliced fingerling potatoes, fennel, and chiffonade of tuscan kale. Some olive oil and cream. Idea is a quick gratin. Tossed in the oven at 400 F.

Salmon fillet, with a rub, garnish, I don’t know what you call it… Mustard, finely minced onion, thyme, tarragon, lemon zest, splash of vermouth, olive oil.  We used to make a main course something like this at a restaurant I worked in.

Hm. Rip Tide is tasty, but more of a UK style Porter than an Imperial Stout. OK. But doesn’t quite have the backbone to stand up to the alcohol level.

Salmon on top of the mostly cooked gratin. Oven at 425 F.

Sorry for the focus. Really this was one of the more successful and interesting dishes I’ve cooked recently. Nice textural contrast. Crispy potatoes and kale at the edges. Delicious rich salmon towards the middle.

Just hope I can make it again once Mrs. Flannestad gets back!

Recently it seems like there has been a lot of Belgian brewers who are attempting to adapt American beer styles to Belgian beers.

I guess it is sort of tit for tat, as so many American brewers are now attempting to brew Belgian style brews!

Buffalo Stout caught my eye at the local grocery. A cowboy-themed Belgian stout! Crazy!

No idea what the text there says. Ingredients, however, are, “water, malt, hops, yeast, and refermentationsugar.”

It’s on the sweet side, it must be admitted. But not cloying.  I had no problems finishing most of the bottle while making dinner, and I don’t have a huge tolerance for overly sweet beers. Probably less sweet than many of the Imperial Stouts made in the US.

Plus, the use of Belgian yeast strains plays out nicely in the late flavors, giving it a interesting complexity not usually found in American Imperial stouts.

Speaking of cross over attempts, a video was recently made public which showed Anthony Bourdain (Of the Travel Network’s No Reservations), Chris Cosentino (Of San Francisco’s Incanto restaurant), and Lance Winters (Of Hangar One/St. George) cooing over an experimental flask of foie gras vodka (Winters: “the distillation room looked like a lipo suction clinic while we were making this!”). If chef’s are gonna start getting all up in bartender’s grills, I figured I might as well do the same.

Stopped on the way home to pick up some chicken breasts to convection roast. Made a sort of paste or rub out of juniper berries, black pepper, lemon peel, rosemary, salt, and olive oil. Moistened it further with Anchor’s Junipero Gin.

Roasted at 400 F until cooked through.

Served with a porcini mushroom and summer squash risotto. Salad with capay farms heirloom tomatoes.

I don’t know about the “Foiedka” cross over, but I can say that both the Buffalo Stout and “Gin Marinated” roast chicken were both successes!

Ooof, been a while since I did a Beer of the Week Post!

We resume your regularly scheduled programming with an old favorite, Brewery Ommegang’s Abbey Ale.

An American version of Trappist Ale, Ommegang Abbey was the first beer brewed by the Brewery and one of the first very good American beers in the Belgian “Dubbel” style. Sweet, but not cloying it is a great beer to serve with pork, duck, or other rich roasted meats.

2 Pork Chops.
2 Granny Smith Apples, peeled and thinly sliced.
1/2 teaspoon Caraway Seed.
Sauerkraut.
1/4 # Pancetta.

Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Sear Pork Chops in an oven proof skillet. Remove chops from skillet and skillet from heat. Toss apples with caraway seed and line the bottom of the pan with the apples. Place pork chops on top of apples. Cover with Sauerkraut. Pancetta on top of Sauerkraut. Place in oven until pork chops cooked through.

Remove pancetta from top and chop. Remove sauerkraut to bowl. Remove chops to plate. Toss apples, sauerkraut, and chopped pancetta. Spoon on top of chops and serve with roast potatoes and cold beer.

Say a Brewery Ommgang Abbey Ale!

Swine Flu, eh.  Twitter, maybe.

But Carne Asada Fries?

Frankly, if you’re going this route, why not go all the way?  To me, Chorizo, rather than Carne Asada would be doing it up in style.

Edit: My friends over at Married…With Dinner dropped me a note to tell me Carne Asada Fries are something of a Southern California phenomenon.  A friend of theirs recently wrote up a blog post about the subject.  Check it out: Carne Asada Fries. Bong Not Included.

In case you’re wondering where this mad mash up of Canadian Poutine and Mexican food can be had in San Francisco, I spotted it last Friday as a lunch special at Carmelina’s Taqueria in the Millberry Union on the UCSF Parnassus campus.  Perhaps next week, I will risk life and limb for an in the flesh photo.

Persimmon identification, part two for Tiare.

The other sort of persimmon that it is possible you might run across is called a “Fuyu Persimmon”.  As you can see, it has a flatter shape than its cousin the Hachiya Persimmon.

Unlike Hachiya Persimmons, Fuyu Persimmons are edible when still crunchy and firm.  A lot of times you’ll see folks eating them out of hand like apples.  Being a weirdo, I like to peel both apples and persimmons before eating.

I’m trying to think of what other food they are most similar to and coming up a bit empty.  Maybe a bit like a crunchy pear, but sweeter and without the acidity?

Few other fun Persimmon facts:

All the persimmons on a single tree ripen at the same time, making them a very seasonal fruit.  Here in the San Francisco area, they are available from early November through Mid-December.

You can let Fuyu persimmons “ripen” until they are pudding-like and soft.

Technically, you aren’t letting persimmons “ripen”.  They are ripe when they are crunchy.  The technical term is “bletting“.  But really, you’re mostly letting them rot a bit.  Other than Persimmons, Quince and Medlars are also at their best after, ahem, “bletting”.

If you don’t have time to allow Hachiya Persimmons time to “blet”, you can just freeze them.  When they thaw again, they will be soft and their astringent character will be gone.

This is for Tiare who was asking me how to tell “ripe” Hachiya Persimmons…

Unripe Persimmon, yellowish and firm.

Leave them out on the counter until they turn deeper orange and are soft to the touch:

Mmmmm…

It’s like nature’s pudding. Soft and sweet.

And while I’m at it, I might as well pimp one of my original cocktails which feature them as an ingredient…

Winter In California

2 oz Germain-Robin Fine Alambic Brandy
3/4 oz Hachiya Persimmon Puree*
Juice 1 Satsuma Mandarin
1/2 oz Orgeat
1/4 oz Pimento Dram

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker to chill. Strain into cocktail glass.

*To make Persimmon Puree, simply use a very soft Hachiya persimmon, wash, take the leaves off of the bottom, cut in quarters, (check for seeds and remove if you find them,) drop in a blender, and buzz until pureed. If you let Fuyu persimmons hang around until they are soft they can also be used.

Every once in a while I’ll walk into the Bayshore BevMo and see a grocery cart full of clearance items in front of the store.  Usually I don’t pay much attention as it is most often filled with awful industrial liqueurs or grape-juice-plus-oakdust type wines.  However, a couple weeks ago I was pleased to see a few bottles of Scaldis Noel.

And how could you pass that discount up?

Scaldis Noel is a very strong (12%!) Belgian Ale, best described as similar to an English or American Barley Wine style ale.  It is surprisingly easy to drink for its strength and gains tremendous complexity and interest as it warms in the glass.

It was a perfect after dinner complement to our meal of pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes, roasted apples, and sauerkraut.