Good Deviled Eggs Are a Simple Pleasure. (Especially When Made with Bacon From Rolf's)

Today I had a sudden craving for deviled eggs, don't really know why. I always say that cravings are your subconscious mind's way of getting you to eat some nutrient that your body is lacking, so I usually obey. Before I get into how I made this batch of oeufs, did you know that there is a deviledeggs.com? Apparently I am not alone in my appreciation of these dainty morsels. I find that using some quality ingredients can elevate this dish from its reputation as a kitschy hors d'oeuvre into something very enjoyable.

I stopped over at Rolf's Pork Store in Albany to stock up on wurst for the impending holiday weekend. A little early I know, but I have a very busy schedule this week. Anyhow, I picked up a nice slab of their house made bacon. I decided this would add some great flavor to the yolk mixture.



This stuff smelled great, real smoke as opposed to the fake, pre-sliced, grocery store crap. I cut off and diced about 2 ounces and crisped it up in my little casserole.



While the bacon was cooking I began the hard boiling of the eggs. I use the classic immerse in cold water, bring to full boil, reduce and simmer for 10 minutes, and then shock in ice water method. For the eggs I had some nice, organic brown eggs with the pleasant little speckles and spots on the shells.



Sploosh, into the ice water. I think they look pretty in the water with the ice.



When the eggs where nice and cool I peeled, chopped in half, and removed the yokes to my food processor (you are probably saying, "yeah, no shit" to these instructions but I include them anyways). In addition to the bacon I am adding some Manchego cheese.



I have found this "Gran Maestre" brand to be of extremely high quality for a shrink wrapped grocery store cheese. I tried the Iberico the other day and was duly impressed.

Some German hot mustard will also go in the mix.



Aside from the bacon, cheese, and mustard just a little whole milk, pepper, and hot paprika go in the food processor until smooth. The bacon is salty enough to season the yolk mixture. Notice I omit the prepared mayonnaise of many recipes. I hate the stuff and find it unnecessary. I forgo the piping bag and just kind of spoon the mixture back into the egg whites. Here they are before the obligatory sprinkling of paprika.



There you have it, delicious deviled eggs. I know most people eat these cold or at room temperature, but I like to sprinkle with a little more cheese and then run them under the broiler for a little bit. This gives the eggs a nice warmness with the added texture of some browned cheese on top.

I guess this was quite a lot of time to devote to a bunch of eggs but they were pretty damn good with the bacon and all. If you are going to do something, you might as well go all out and do it up good.

Extreme Rice!!! My new favorite video.

In my tradition of bringing to you strange, vaguely food oriented video clips that I come across (see here for "How not to make bread" and "Salty Ham"), I give you "Extreme Rice." This one is probably my favorite and I am not really sure why. Enjoy.

What is 'the' Capital Region Food?

So there has been some discussion lately on making the Neba the official food of the Capital Region. See Mr. Barnes' post on Table Hopping here regarding this. There has even been a Facebook page made in support of the Neba (self indulgent shout out to them because they reference this blog). On the Table Hopping post there seems to be some disagreement with many locals voting for the Capital Region mini hot dog ala Charlie's or Gus's as the best suited item to represent our glorious area of the Empire State (I hate to say it but this option is towards where my heart truly pulls). In the past I have written about both the Neba (see here for Return of the NEBA!).



As well as the Capital Region Hot Dog Micro Region.



Let us all settle this right now. I have instituted a poll in the upper right hand corner of the blog. I am casting the first vote for hot dogs. Opinions are welcomed

Mr. Dave's Survival Food Reviews: Powdered Peanut Butter

One of my innumerable idyosyncracies is that I am a pseudo-survivalist nut job. I live in constant fear of a zombie apocalypse where I might have to head to the hills and hole up for a while. Pursuant to this, when I see a shelf stable product that strikes my fancy, I like to give a review for the benefit of myself and other like minded individuals. See my review of Red Feather Brand canned butters and cheese if this kind of thing interests you.

This powdered peanut butter is care of Bell Plantation, Inc. and the product is available online at their website. I paid the very reasonable price of 15.96$ for a case of 4 jars. I did not think that this was that bad, typical "survival" type foods are usually price gouged. The PB2, as it is branded, lists only 3 ingredients: salt, sugar, and peanuts. This is a good thing because I expected it to be chock full of thickeners and other chemicals. To prepare it is a simple 2 parts powder to 1 part water. Here is what the stuff looks like prior to being mixed.



As 85% of the fat has been removed you get a lot more shelf life before the stuff starts going rancid. It is also much, much lighter than hauling around a jar of the real stuff. I mixed in the requisite water with a spoon and very quickly the mixture coalesced into a very peanut butter-esque looking substance.



I tasted some of it and it did indeed taste pretty much like real peanut butter. Maybe a little heavy of a hand was used with the sugar, but all in all, it was pretty normal tasting. I spread some on a whole wheat pita and if you had not told me, I probably would not have known that it was anything other than regular old jar peanut butter.



This stuff gets a thumbs up from me. It is a great combination of portability, long shelf life, and cost effectiveness for a food that you might have to throw in your ruck and move out with. My culinary side (as opposed to my ammunition hording, paranoid side) thinks that the powdered peanut butter would also be an interesting component in all sorts of savory and sweet dishes. I will have to experiment further.

Dorito Chilaquiles

Let's just say that I am not a big Doritos fan, actually, prior to this I can not remember the last time that I consumed a Dorito. However, the other day (through a comedic misadventure that I will not get into here), I was left in possession of this giant bag of aforementioned corn chips. It had been sitting on top of my fridge for a while and it has been sort of scaring me a little with its garish, day-glo ugliness. Two flavors of corn chips in one bag? I can't live at that speed. The Doritos marketing also includes a couple pet peeves of mine. I hate when the word "zesty" is used in the description of pretty much anything, and I also hate johnny-come-lately fad flavorings like chipotle. Chipotles have their place and it ain't in a bag of Doritos.

Anyhow, as I have probably stated before, I hate wasting food of any sort. I made it a mission to think of something to do with these and I came up with Chilaquiles. This is a popular Mexican dish which generally utilizes fried, stale tortillas. It is good and frugal way to deal with leftover tortillas and is universally known as a hangover cure. I decided to substitute the Doritos for the corn tortillas.

I began by spreading a thin layer of the chips in a small casserole. Whilst I was doing this I snapped one up and ate it. Maybe it is because I am not in the habit of eating too many chips/corn chips, but I was shocked by how salty they were. They taste like eating a packet of taco seasoning.



A couple cups of green chile sauce goes over the top of the chips. I make a very simple green sauce by pureeing a couple fresh jalapenos, couple pickled jalapenos, some onion, some fresh garlic, salt, pepper, and chicken stock in my blender. You don't want to drown the doritos in sauce, just make sure there is enough to be soaked up by them.



On top I threw some diced grilled chicken and some shredded cheese. Into the oven covered at 350 for 20 minutes goes the pot. It came out looking and smelling pretty good.



I spooned a little into a bowl. The Doritos had absorbed the sauce and softened to the point were they were almost disintegrated.



I actually kind of enjoyed this, as weird as it seems. I will say that after my first bite I found myself thinking, "man, this would be so much better done with real corn tortillas eaten over some good refritos." I think the Doritos are not sturdy enough to stand up to being cooked in a sauce. As much time as I spent down on the border, I never came across Chilaquiles. It seems to be something that I will add to my culinary repertoire as I am always looking for a good hangover cure.

"Sauce Your Dog." Have I mentioned lately that I love Stewart's?

Of course I have mentioned lately that I love Stewart's (see here for a couple posts). This gas pump advertisement at the 155 Stewart's in Guilderland made me laugh. "Sauce your dog" sounds like something a pirate would say (i.e. "Aaargh, if ye don't swab the deck I will sauce your dog, Aaargh!"). Also, I love anytime the word "fixin's" is used in a sentence. "Fixin's" make anything better. Stewart's hot dogs with meat sauce are fairly satisfying if you are in the mood for that kind of thing. I actually almost went inside to get one after seeing this advert but restrained myself as it was a little too early in the morning to present this challenge to my colon.

Another Trip to Eats in Stuyvesant Plaza

I always enjoy poking around Eats in Stuyvesant plaza (and posting about what I get). The establishment has a nice selection of specialty "gourmet" type groceries, meats, and cheeses. I have purchased a lot of cheese and meat from Eats but I have not purchased any of their in-house prepared foods. When I saw this tasty looking macaroni and cheese I decided to give it a try. It was really very good with a nice tang of Gorgonzola under the general cheddar flavor. Just the right consistency as well, creamy but not soupy, which is my preferred mac and cheese style. Maybe I will start picking up stuff from Eats more often, their knishes looked pretty solid as well.



I also picked up some truffle infused Chevre which looks just delicious.



I always appreciate a personal touch in customer service, so I had to give some credit here as well. I was pushing my daughter, wee Giblet, in her stroller and the proprietor inquired as to whether it would be my first father's day (it is). She gave me the above pictured cheese cutter as father's day present and I thought this was very nice of her.

My First Wolff's Biergarten Trip

Last night, after having to put it off for weeks, I made my first trip to Wolff's Biergarten. I don't think I need to go into how much I appreciate good wurst as it is a frequently discussed subject on this blog. So it goes with out saying that I had been salivating over the thought of digging into some of their weisswurst about which I have heard good things. Wouldn't you know it, I got overwhelmed by the Friday night crowd and never got it together to order food. I consoled myself with several giant Franzikaners and decided that I would definitely have to come back at a more low traffic time to sample the food. The above picture is of the order of Currywurst that my friend managed to get. I was green with envy as it looked and smelled absolutely delicious. Anyways, as far as I am concerned Wolff's is a solid operation and I thoroughly recommend a trip down there if you are one of the few Albanites who have not already been.

Price Chopper "Chinese" Sausage

As you know, I have somewhat of an unnatural obsession with Price Chopper. P-chops is our local, Upstate New York, big-box supermarket chain and is a delightfully strange place to shop for groceries (see here for past reviews and observations about this subject). I noticed the above pack of sausages in the meat case last night. These are "Chinese" sausages and their glaring red color instantly caught my eye. It looks like Price Chopper is trying to get into the flavored/themed sausages racket. There were also some four cheese/garlic type and a couple others that I don't remember. Anyhow, this was sufficiently weird to warrant a purchase and taste test.

I don't know that I have seen too many fresh Chinese type sausages around, you usually see the dried kind at the Asian markets. A quick perusal of the ingredients yielded fairly standard sausage ingredients with the addition of "Chinese Barbecue Sauce." There was a vaguely char siu-esque smell to the sausage and the red color lent me to believe that this is what they were going for.

For a first test I wanted to simply prepare a couple links. As it is the middle of the week I had to settle for a grill pan as opposed to an outdoor grill.



I had kind of suspected that these guys were chock full of some manner of sugar, be it corn syrup or granulated sugar, and this fact was confirmed with the speed that the sausage blackened along the grill lines. I decided to butterfly the sausage to ensure the insides got cooked.



When they were good and done I took a bite. There was, in fact, a slight char siu taste to the "Chinese" sausage. However, they were really very sweet, almost candy sweet, with no spicy flavor to counterbalance this fact. I was kind of perplexed as to how eat these, not thinking that they would be very good on a bun with mustard. I have some moo shu wraps and some curry ketchup witch might be pretty tasty. I think I might try some sort of rice dish with the rest of the sausage. A follow up is sure to follow if any future creations are conceived.

By the way, does anyone else find this product to be kind of out of left field for P-chops? It seems like they very recently have been getting into all sorts of weird prepared products. I wonder what is up over at the Golub headquarters.

Mother in Law Sandwich

I first learned of the Mother in Law Sandwich from the Food Reddit (see here for the article). This sandwich is to be found at the hot dog carts of the Chicago area and is comprised of many of the same ingredients as the Chicago style hot dog. Instead of a hot dog on the bun there is a corn-roll style tamale. Not too long ago I had ordered a Chicago Hot Dog Condiment pack from the Vienna Beef company and last night I made a batch of the corn-roll tamales. I was all set up to assemble the sandwich.

Begin by putting one of the de-husked tamales on a bun. In Chicago they would have used one a steamed poppy seed bun, but here in Albany, NY I substituted a good ol' Freihofer's bun.



I had previously made some very simple hot dog style chili. You could probably save yourself the time and buy some canned product.



Slather the tamale with a good amount of the chili. Next step is to put on a couple of the Sport Peppers and some onion. I used sauteed onion, raw is traditional, but for some reason I just never can get into raw onion on my hot dogs. I find that I just don't like the texture.

For the cheese I used some Oaxaca that I had picked up.



This is probably another departure from tradition, I don't think too many hot dog carts in Chicago are using Oaxaca, but you have to make a recipe your own, right?

I sliced the sandwich in half before consuming for dramatic affect. Again, I apologize for the generally poor quality of my photos. I am sticking to my guns with the whole only using my iPhone thing. This is due to the fact that I think it is kind of silly to pose food and get all fussy about it (no offense to any more fastidious and professional food bloggers).



I then proceeded to gobble up the Mother in Law Sandwich. You wouldn't think that a tamale on a bun would work, it seems kind of strange. Almost like eating an oatmeal on rye or something like that. However, in this case all of the flavors and textures go together very well. It is exactly the type of food that I expect as an inexpensive lunch from a street cart, i.e., flavorful, filling, and delightfully bad for you. I recommend this heartily to anyone who has the opportunity to consume one during their travels.

Mississippi Delta Hot Tamales

I love Mexican style tamales, I feasted on them during my time in the South West. It upsets me that it is kind of hard to find them around here. Goya makes an anemic frozen product and a decent place to get them prepared is at Pancho's on Central Ave (see here for some particularly good ones I had there some time back), but other than that we are in a tamale wasteland. I recently learned about another variety of the hot tamale during my research into the Mother in Law Sandwich. Read all about the Mississipi Delta Hot tamale and its history on the Greetings from the Tamale Trail blog. In preparation for assembling the Mother in Law sandwich I prepared some corn-roll style tamales by loosely following the recipe found there.

I began by soaking some corn husks in warm water for a couple of hours.



My favorite Mexican tamales always had pork filling, but it seems that this style generally uses beef. As much as I am loathe to buy meat from Walmart, I let my curiosity about a product sway me to make a purchase. I had been seeing this "Carne Picada" at very reasonable prices.



It is pretty much just stew meat cut thinner, perfect for this application. I dumped the beef (about 2.75 lbs) into a pot of boiling water and let it go for a little over an hour. After this I reserved the liquid and pulsed the meat in a food processor with an onion until finely chopped, but not obliterated. You don't want a paste. Next step is to throw it in a pan with some oil, 2 tablespoons chili powder, tablespoon cumin, tablespoon hot paprika, tablespoon garlic powder, teaspoon cayenne, and plenty of salt and pepper. Only really need to cook the mixture for a couple minutes to let the spices cook a little.



I strained the cooking liquid through some cheese cloth and was left with a nice amount of good stock.



I added about three and a half cups of this stock to 4 cups of yellow cornmeal. Mix in about a cup of lard and season. It should be a nice stiff consistency, not at all soupy.



Now it is time to assemble the tamales. This is fairly simple, just spread a quarter cup of the corn mixture on a husk and spoon some of the meat down the middle. Roll the husk around the filling into a shape about the size of a cigar, fold up the smaller end, and secure with some kitchen ties or string.



To cook the tamales place them closed end down in a large pot. If there is a lot of open space prop them up (I used a bowl) so they don't fall over.



Pour in the remaining stock and then add water until the level is just short of the tamale tops. Bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour. You will be left with firm and deliciously tender tamales that fall easily away from the husk.



These came out spectacular. They were the perfect consistency and the meat filling had just the right amount of spice. At this point, I can not wait for tomorrow's project which is to prepare some hot-dog style chili (not chili made from hot dogs, but the kind of chili used as a hot dog topping) and construct the Mother in Law sandwich. I have high hopes for this, I love carb on carb combinations and this is right up my alley.