A New Adventure - Mexican Inspired Oxtail Soup

I want a place to put my adventures. In life I've eaten many kinds of ways, and now I do my own thing. It's largely gluten free, often paleo or close to it, homemade with no cheats. But if you bitch about my food I will throw down and make a gluten filled, covered in dairy meal. I just might make my own cheese. And yes, I would be making the bread.  

Apparently Photos Count As Content. I made this meal with a friend, and the plating could have been better but we'd been at it a long time and were tired. Yay tacos!

I don't want to share with you my life history or what I like to do in the summer. I will tell you about food and how to cook it, and share my knowledge about food with you. I might talk about places to shop and things that pertain to food and my feelings about it. But I'm not telling you about my grandma or what I like to do on my perfect Sunday. I might tell you about food I've eaten. 

Apparently if you don't blather on for a while and talk about random ass shit browsers think that you have no 'content' and won't list you in the results, also how much time people spend on your site and blah, blah, blah. Also, everyone wants money for everything so all the sites are teeming with ads. Such bullshit. So, I have to have 'content'. 

I will give you a little story about my post I'll Bet Your Gluten Free Dumplings Suck. I took the recipe off. People were stealing my methods and then passing them off as their own (such is life and I'm not saying I haven't done it), I had an idea to start a business and needed to keep that a secret. It didn't happen (though I had much support from many fans, and several moms of rich children who can't eat anything but bark begging me to supply them with dumplings). I'm not giving you that recipe. I know what it is. I know how to do it, it's time consuming and a pain in the ass. Get the book Asian Dumplings by Nguyen and figure it out yourself. 

So.. Let's begin.

3 Day Mexican Inspired Oxtail Soup

I recently got a sous vide machine stick thingy mabobber. It's not the machine that holds water. It's a stick that you use a pot to make your own jerry rigged sous vide. You can buy these for a about $110-$200 online. I was very excited, the things I could cook slowly! I have been thinking 'what's the difference between this and a slow cooker?' Easily answered, slow cookers cook at one or two specific temperatures, and this can cook at any temperature I want it to. You want flavored oils? Easy (I now have like 5). You need pasteurized eggs? Done. Perfectly cooked meats, blah, blah, blah. 

I also came into possession of a pressure cooker. Between these two things, I've really upped my game. 

The one thing that apparently you can cook in your sous vide, that you might not think about is soup. I've been doing it, and it's really the way to go. Though, I've devised the slowest way to go about making soup known to man. But I'll bet my soup will blow your socks off. 

Let's get started. NOTE: There's several parts to this, you do what you want, you want to use unicorn blood instead of broth? Go ahead, but I don't want you posting comments that you changed the recipe and it didn't come out and this sucks, or that it did come out and was amazing. That's not my recipe and I don't give a rat's ass how your recipe went. I'll just delete it. 

This is a multi day recipe. It took me three days to make. 

Mexican Inspired Oxtail Soup

4-5 bowls

The Broth

Save your various veggie scraps in a gallon bag in the freezer until you have it full. Items might include:

Onion ends and skin (the skin has flavor)
Green onion ends
Carrot bits and peels
Celery bits and leaves
Pepper bits
Tomato ends
Herb stems (basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme)

Once your bag is full, pull out your pressure cooker and dump the contents in. You might add to it:

An onion
A broken up carrot
Garlic
Bay leaf

For this recipe I had processed a bunch of Hatch Chilis and saved the tops from about a pound or two of them and put those in. 

Add water (NO SALT)

Cook according to your pressure cooker's instructions. I cook mine for about 40 minutes. Strain. Put into ice cube trays and freeze and seal in freezer bags. You can also (if you are crafty about it) put it in your seal a meal and freeze flat bricks of broth. I make 2 C. bags and label them. You will need 4 C. of stock, frozen.

The Other Things

2 lbs Beef Oxtail (if you can go to the butcher and get the biggest pieces you can, about 3 of them, I don't want to digress, the little pieces = FLAVOR, but sous vide often has space constraints)
1 Onion diced
1 Carrot diced
1-2 Jalapenos (seeded, not seeded, whatever you want) diced
1 can diced tomato
2 bay leaves
1-3 tsp Mexican oregano
1-2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp Avocado oil

SCROLL DOWN THERE'S MORE INGREDIENTS!

In a pan heat the oil and add the onion and carrot. Cook for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a pan, add a little oil and heat over medium high heat. Brown the ox tail on each side until crispy looking and golden brown. This doesn't need to be perfect, we're just adding flavor. Set aside. Deglaze the pan with a little water. 

In a bag that is going to work with your sous vide machine and hold all the ingredients (I use my seal a meal, it works fine and better than ziplock bags for long periods of time), put 4C. frozen stock (it needs to be frozen so you can seal the bag), the deglazing, veggies (all of them), spices and ox tail into the bag. Add about 1 Tbs kosher salt, more or less as you please, but about a tablespoon will be enough. Check your ingredients to make sure you put them all in the bag. Did you check? You can't just go add those things your forgot, go check again. Seal up the bag making sure there is no air in the bag (you might find as it cooks that there's some, this is ok, it's soup). At this point you can put it in the fridge overnight if you need to. 

Heat your sous vide machine up to 155 degrees F. Set the timer for 24 hours. When it's up to temp add the bag and attach it to the side of the container. I use my metal stock pot and some very strong magnets for this. Wait.

When it's done take it out and put the whole bag in a pot, sealed, and then in the fridge overnight. This GREATLY improves the flavor. 

Open the bag and scoop out all the oil and fat, this should be easy as it should be mostly solid. Remove the tail and put the rest of the soup into a pot and put over medium heat. Test for salt. Remove the meat from the bones and discard the bones (I actually kept mine, I added them to my beef stock bag, I wonder if there's more life in them. We will see). Chop up the meat, don't worry that it's not grey, it's perfectly cooked. Wait until the soup is heated up to add the meat and just warm through, or you could divide it up among bowls and just ladle the hot soup over. 

The Accouterments 

2.25 C Drained and Rinsed Pinto beans (I make my own, they're better that way)
2 Tbs Garlic oil 
2.5 oz Queso Fresco
2-3 Radishes
2 Tbs minced Cilantro

Using a mandolin and care slice the radishes and then stack up and cut into little strips. Crumble the Queso. In a pan over medium/medium high heat - heat the oil (make sure it's a big pan, and more oil won't hurt here). Fry the beans until they are crispy and set aside. 

Ladle the soup into bowls and top carefully with 1/4 C beans, .5 oz Queso Fesco, several radish slices and cilantro. 

Enjoy!

Pumpkin, it's a fall thing.

I'm on a pumpkin kick. It's widely avaliable in fall, and it makes great food. Through the years I have made pumpkin breads, cookies and cakes. These are all well and good, but I'm looking to branch out.

I have seen the so called pumpkin bisque in the stores to purchase, and even sampled some, and they are good. I decided though, that they don't have to be nearly so bad for you.

I started out with a mild failure. My husband, upon sampling my creation look at me and said it was grainy. He then proceeded to tell me that I was lacking in the amount of cream I used.

The next morning I strained the soup and it did help, he was right it was grainy. I thought this weird, and it brings me to something that I should have realized a while ago. My food processor is not new. I've had it for over ten years. The same blade for all those years, it is probably time to get a new blade. I'm not going to buy a whole new processor, they may look more chic, but they don't really look much different and they cost $200. Not only that I do have a large guilty feeling of getting rid of a perfectly good item, just because it's not in style. Manufacturing these machines isn't the most earth healthy thing. Pitching on into the trash isn't the green thing to do. I know I could take it down to the Goodwill and feel better about myself, but I still feel like it's just tossing crap because it's 'old'.

Well so the blade doesn't puree things anymore, just finely chops. I have found that my blender (with easily replaceable parts) also does a fine job with soups. Blenders are good things to have around. You can get universal new blades for a few bucks, new o rings come in multi-packs and cost around three bucks! My sister in law recently got her first blender, and this prompted a discussion in the family.

How many speeds do you need on that blender? I say two: on and off. I don't ever use the slower speeds, which is good because my blender has two speeds. If you say "oh the splattering that happens" you are overfilling your blender. Start with half of what you think should go in there, just a little, blend it up and then add more while the blender is running. I have also found, that for safety, a kitchen towel thrown over the lid of the blender and held down keeps all splatter at bay.

This is a recipe that seems to have unnecessary steps. Don't doubt me, you need to do them all.

Creamy Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. butter
1/2 roasted sugar pumpkin
1 large sweet onion
2 honey crisp apples
2 tsp Organic Better Than Bullion Chicken base
6 C. water
2 tsp. TJ's pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp. garham masala
pepper and a pinch of salt (maybe 1/2 tsp)
1 C. organic non-homogenized 1/2 & 1/2
1/3 C. buttermilk
Creme Fraiche
several slices of cooked bacon, crumbled
honey chevre (if you can't find it to buy take a bit of honey and mix it into your goat chevre)

Method:

Cut your pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and roast for about 20-30 minutes at 450.

In a large soup pot melt the butter, roughly dice the onions and apple. Add these to the pot and cook for about 12 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the pumpkin, roughly chopped and the water along with the chicken base and some pepper. Cover and simmer for 12-20 minutes. In a food processor or blender puree a bit of the soup. In a separate bowl, run the puree through a fine mesh strainer or cheese cloth, pressing the mixture into the sides of the strainer. Discard anything left over from the mixture. Continue this way until you have pureed and strained all of the soup. Wash the original pot and return the soup to it.

Over the lowest heat possible, add the spices and test the flavor. If needed add up to 1/2 tsp salt. In a bowl mix together the half and half, buttermilk, and a few spoonfuls of creme fraiche. Cook the bacon until crisp, pat dry and crumble.

Put a few spoons of the hot soup into the cream mixture, and stir quickly, repeat until you have added 1 C. of hot soup to the cream, tempering it. Then add the cream to the soup. Do not boil or simmer! Once you have added the cream to the soup, you cannot ever heat it quickly, you will ruin the soup. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle a bit of bacon and chevre onto the top. Serve with salad and french bread.

Harira it up.

So, if you've been reading from the beginning you would know that I had a deal with a farmer to purchase a lamb. I have not gotten a lamb from him. I'm not going to say it's all his fault, because after I demanded my deposit back and said that I was going to tell people about the type of business he does he offered me a lamb. I declined.

I will tell you what happened and why I declined.

Once upon a time there were four bridesmaids, and they loved the bride dearly. They decided to throw her a lua. It was to be wonderful, the smallest bridesmaid said "ooh, ooh, let's get a suckling pig!" and there was much rejoicing. She contacted a local farmer, who would sell her one at a decent price and gave him a deposit.

Two weeks before the lua, the farmer called the short bridesmaid and said she would not get a pig, but she could order one from someone else, but it would cost a lot more. She made other plans.

The wedding went off without a hitch, and the happy couple departed. The small bridesmaid called the farmer and reminded him that he said she could buy a lamb. He said yes and she gave him a deposit. When butcher time came, he did not call her. The bridesmaid sent him an email, and got a promise of a call and a slaughter date for her lamb. The call never came. Weeks went by and no call came from the farmer. The bridesmaid got really pissed off and wrote a nasty email and asked paypal to help her get her money back.

The farmer was clearly scared by her wrath and refunded her deposit and said she could have a lamb. The bridesmaid, still too pissed after the run around, no pig, and no lamb, told him where to stick it.

The end.

Basically bad business happening. I'm pretty sure I would never have heard from the man if I hadn't gotten pissy, and I don't want to do business with someone like that.

Anyhow I don't have a lamb and this makes me sad. I love lamb, it's tender and flavorful. I was also hoping to have some of those parts that are really hard to find, bits for haggis (don't worry, a Scotchtoberfest will happen, and you will hear about it), and especially neck slices.

I did luck out the other day and find neck and shoulder slices, and those are ok, a bit meaty perhaps, and lacking in the shear quantity of bone that neck slices have, but still a good soup cut. Lamb soup is wonderful. I highly recommend it. However don't use stew meat, or shank. What you need is lots and lots of bone. You could probably fake it with soup bones and stew meat, but you also don't have the connective tissue that the neck has. Also lamb neck slices are dirt cheap if you can find them. Like around a dollar a pound, regardless of how organic and pastured that meat is.

My favorite type of lamb soup is Harira, a traditional Moroccan soup. Normally eaten during Ramadan, I like to eat it during the week. This soup defiantly gets better with age so it's best to make a bunch at once. I usually make a big pot, freeze half of it and later we have soup again.

Ok, so you might have guessed, that I am not Moroccan and totally found this in a book, but it's so amazing, and I make it different than the books says, but it is still traditional. And if you serve it with Moroccan bread, it's about the best meal you can have.

I like to make the Moroccan bread, because it only takes one rise. That means that I can come home, start the bread, make a salad, heat the soup and in 1.75 hours we have fresh bread with no hassle. I will give you both recipes today. But only because I feel like I've been neglecting you.

On a side note, you might think I put a lot of salt into things, but I use Kosher salt, and because of the shape of Kosher salt, it actually takes up a lot more space, for the same weight, than table salt. If you use table salt, use a scant 2 tsp. for every Tbs. in my recipes. The reason to use Kosher salt is because it's good for sprinkling, it dissolves quickly and it sticks to food when you're salting meat or vegetables. It also does not contain iodine, which can impart a strange taste to your food.

Moroccan Bread

Ingredients for one loaf:

2 C. King Aurthur all purpose unbleached white flour
1 C. King Aurthur white whole wheat flour
1/3 C. milk - scalded and cooled
1/2 C. warm water
2 tsp. dry yeast
cooking spray
coarse sea salt

Method:

Spray a cake pan well with cooking spray, set aside. In a bowl mix the two flours together. Mix the yeast in the water and set aside for five minutes. Make a well in the center of flour, pour in your milk and yeast. Stir in a little flour from the sides of the well to make a thick batter and let sit for 15 minutes.

Mix in the rest of the flour, turn out onto a clean board and knead the dough well for 10 minutes. Pat out into a round the size of your cake pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour. Heat the oven to 425. Just before you put the bread in the oven brush it with water and sprinkle it with the coarse sea salt. Do not put salt into the dough. I know it's not there, that is on purpose. Salt inhibits yeast, and this dough is only risen once, so, no salt in the bread, the salt on top will be enough.

Bake the bread for about 45-60 minutes, until it is brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

This bread does not keep well and is best eaten fresh.

Harira

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs. lamb neck or neck and shoulder slices
1 Tbs. grapeseed oil
1 large onion - chopped
2 cloves garlic - minced
1 Tbs. ground cumin
1 Tbs. smoked paprika
1 Tbs. coriander seed - ground
1/2 bunch cilantro - chopped
several grinds of fresh pepper
2 Tbs. kosher salt
4 Tbs. tomato paste
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 C. yellow lentils
Cilantro and lemon to garnish

Method:

Get out a crock pot, and turn it onto warm. In a pan, add the oil and brown all of the meat a little at a time, being sure not to crowd the pan. Put the meat into the crock pot. Cook the onions in the oil left from the meat. When they are starting to brown and become clear add them to the crock. Put everything into the crock pot add water to just cover and cook on low for about six - eight hours.

With a slotted spoon remove all the meat and let cool slightly. Pick the meat from the bones and shred it. Return the meat to the crock and let cook for a few minutes. Skim the fat from the top of the soup before you serve it.

Serve the soup with bread, cilantro and lemon. This makes enough for about 8 servings.