Crispy bits enrobed in velvety gravy

Recently a good friend of mine spent his Sunday mornings perfecting his biscuit and gravy recipe. For weeks he toyed around with different sausages and studied Alton Brown footage to hone the delicate amount of flour needed to bind the milk into a velvety cream. In our regular discussions I explained the finesse of making the gravy including the gentle browning and rendering of the sausage. At just the right time, adding the flour to the sausage which helps to relieve clumping issues when adding the room temperature mil while whisking. And finally the tiniest pinch of nutmeg to round out all of the flavors.

While I have yet to taste a batch of his recipe, I am confident that he has a handle on the gravy but he still uses tube biscuits. Don’t get me wrong fluffy, perfectly layered dough popped and unraveled from a shiny tube is a much better way than frozen or precooked biscuits any day. So many people are intimidated by biscuit baking, leaving it up to machines in a factory; making your own is easer than you think if you keep a couple of things in mind.

The recipe I use for our biscuits and gravy dish at brunch on Sunday morning comes from our crispy, slightly translucent edged and dog ear (from buttery fingers) and dog eared paged copy of the “Joy of Cooking. (click here for the recipe).” I modify the recipe a bit adding 1 tsp of baking soda and substituting buttermilk for the milk and I brush the biscuits with milk instead of butter before baking. I double the batch and precess it in a food processor until the frozen butter bits are about half the size of a pea. The dry component of the recipe works even better after being frozen and you can pull out as many biscuits as you need instead of baking by the dozen. A major shift from the recipe that I use is something that comes with the experience of many batches, some close to perfect and plenty of failures. I start with the dry component in a mixing bowl, a fork and some ice cold buttermilk. I splash in some buttermilk and start to mix with my fork until the clumps begin to get larger.  Set the bowl aside for a few minutes and let the flour absorb the buttermilk. Grab about a three inch ball of the dough and almost turn the bottoms inside the bottom creating a rough , almost spiky surface. those spikes will create crispy little craters that give a delicate crunch after being enrobed in velvety gravy. Brush the tops lightly with milk and bake at 450 degrees until the biscuit comes off the nonstick baking pan and has a subtle thump when tapped.

The only way that I truly enjoy eating biscuits is fresh from the oven (popped from a shiny tube only if desperate). Making them for family and friends is rewarding, but can be a mess. Next time you get the craving, let me make and clean up the mess, drop into Niche, I bake a fresh batch of them every Sunday just before we open.

A splash of vinegar, a glug of oil and a bit of sunshine

I think most will agree that summertime salads are a staple at backyard barbeques, patio parties and outdoor picnics. However, the type of salad dressing that best compliments such warmer weather fare often seems up for debate. When walking down grocery store aisles, rows of multi-colored, textured and stabilized dressings provide shoppers with hundreds of choices. To create a summer salad dressing that is both light and can be made to suit the tastes of most everyone, I want to explain the basics of creating a vinaigrette.

Vinaigrettes, the combination of oil and vinegar, are typically made of three parts oil to one part vinegar. However, this basic ratio is relative to the amount of finished dressing that can be made, as small as 3 teaspoons oil to 1 teaspoon vinegar, all the way up to 3 gallons oil to 1 gallon vinegar. If you like your vinaigrette a bit more tart you can use two parts oil to one part vinegar, but be weary to let the dressing sit on your salad for long, as the lettuce will wilt much faster.

When making vinaigrettes, don’t feel confined to just using vinegars, but try using naturally acidic juices from citrus fruit and even fruit juices like that of berries or apples. These juices just need a splash of vinegar before mixing with oil. Allow the vinegar to sit or macerate with onions, garlic and ginger, along with salt and pepper for 20 to 30 minutes before mixing. This will allow the flavors to be extracted and the salt to dissolve.

When choosing oil, select an extra virgin olive oil that is very aromatic, but don’t feel confined to using the Italian staple.  I encourage you to experiment using other oils both for their flavor and for their texture, like peanut, corn, vegetable, sesame and even nut-infused oils. When creating Asian style vinaigrettes I tend to make my own blend of oil with peanut oil, for its light texture and add a little sesame for flavor. To infuse other flavors into oil gently warm up a neutral oil like vegetable or grape seed on your stovetop in a sauce pot over low heat with aromatic spices and/or ingredients. Allow it to sit at room temperature until cool before straining and making the dressing.

I don’t think that there is or will ever be a comprehensive collection of all the possibilities of vinaigrette and I hope there never is. As long as a cook at any level can understand the basic ratio and has an appreciation for the elemental ingredients of vinaigrette, the possibilities are infinite, bound only by the imagination. The next time you walk down a grocery aisle or through the farmer’s market; let your imagination run and experiment with different flavors and textures in your salad. Whatever you do, don’t confine yourself to a recipe, as the result of creativity almost always leads to something unique.

Summers Syrupy Sweet Drops

With the dog days of summer now upon us, the sun shines late in the day and leaves many of us craving sweet refreshment. If you’re like me, nothing beats an ice cold beverage to cool off with in the late afternoon. A little sugar just seems to sweeten the rest of the day. Let’s take a look at the sugars used to sweeten summertime drinks.

My personal favorite is natural cane sugar. Every morning, I make a large café au lait and add more packets of Sugar In The Raw than I care to share. Processed from a large, quickly growing cane that grows close to the equator, the cane is cut, pressed of its syrupy juices and cooked until crystals begin to form. The brown color of cane sugar comes naturally from the cane and when separated from the sugar in the refining process it’s called molasses.

Be careful of the imitators that will take refined beet sugar and spray it with molasses to create a deceptive look alike. Yes, I said beet sugar. Unbeknownst to many, half of the “sugar” consumed in the United States is made from sugar beets. Sugar cane here in the U.S. is mainly grown in more tropical environments throughout the southern states. Refineries are required to label their sugar with beet or cane. Usually the package will say “pure cane sugar,” so if not specified, it’s probably made from refined beets.

Born and raised in Decatur, Illinois, the home of the major manufacturer of corn byproducts, I grew up not knowing that most of my food and beverages were sweetened with corn syrup. This topic alone has become a forefront issue in today’s health. A wealth of information can be found both for and against our country’s connection to sweets. Yet still, one of my favorite treats when I go shopping at La Huerta Supermarket for authentic ingredients is a small bottle of Coca Cola imported from Mexico. It’s sweetened with natural cane sugar and is a welcomed splash of refreshment.

When I’m cooking in the kitchen on a hot summer day, I also love to make a bucket of watermelon fresca for the crew and I. First, I make a heavy syrup from sugar and water and as I pull it from the stove, I throw in some zest of lime before allowing to cool. I juice a watermelon and a few limes, pour them over ice and add the lime syrup to sweeten. I usually make this in one of our house made ice cream tubs and love to shake it vigorously before serving.

However sweet you like your day or your beverages, be sure to take the time to enjoy the refreshment. It’s the sweetest of moments in the day that make it worth getting up tomorrow.

Cheese Toastie vs Grilled Cheese

Late one night while checking my facebook account I stumbled across a fan page for “cheese toasties” and felt a need to become a fan. I posed the age old debate the next day on Facebook and Twitter: cheese toastie vs grilled cheese, is there a difference? My blackberry rattled throughout the day in the kitchen with responses, some with strong conviction to the beloved cheese toastie those of us from my hometown of Decatur IL grew up with. What is this elusive toastie filled with cheese and why does it hold such a connection both with our youth and the town we called home? Is it an actual culinary term or is it just a form of solidarity for Decaturites who also boast of being the home of ADM, Staley (and their unique smells), the Chicago bears and even the DQ Blizzard capital of the world for a bit in during the 80’s?

While studying the culinary arts for many years, never did I find the term cheese toastie in the text of Gastronomique, Le Repertoire de la Cuisine, On Cooking or even James Beard’s many books. I have seen many menus in my career and only a few have listed a cheese toastie outside of Decatur rather grilled cheese seems ubiquitous on kid’s menus around the world.  As a Chef Instructor at the Le Cordon Bleu (CCA) in San Francisco my students would look at me cross eyed when I started lecturing on the finer points of the proper techniques and vernacular. I continue to take great pride when I can serve cheese toasties in fine dining restaurants and love spreading the word of velvety cheese encased in crispy golden brown, squishy bread goodness.

To me there is a stark difference between the “grilled cheese” and the “toastie.” Grilled cheese is usually made in a restaurant that has a high heat flat top grill. Two pieces of bread, usually utilized somewhere else in the menu, are sandwiched between the most kid friendly cheese in house (usually American). A puddle of a butter flavored, temperature stabilized oil is poured onto the griddle and the sandwich placed on top, cooked until brown and flipped into another puddle then smooshed down with a heavy spatula. The result is a semi soft around the edges sandwich with melted cheese in the middle and tasting like the griddle it cooked on. Not something to write home about.

The ethereal cheese toastie in my eyes begins with thinly sliced squishy white bread. Room temperature whole butter is spread in a delicate layer carefully covering every square inch of both sides of the bread before going over the heat. As for the cheese, while American is traditional and my personal favorite, I do love sharp cheddar, chihuahua or something really creamy and gooey like Rouge et Noir’s brie or Yellowbuck  Camembert on the occasion. One of my favorite dishes here at Niche is a smoked tomato - basil bisque with chive studded goat cheese toasties slathered with local artisan butter. A non-stick pan over medium heat sets the stage for gently placing the buttered bread down and allowing it to slowly crisp and become golden brown on the first side without pressing it down. Gently flip it over and season the top with salt and allow the other side to crisp. Medium heat will allow the cheese to melt slowly and bind both sides of the bread. From the pan, place the toastie on a cutting board and with a semi dull knife cut it in half. The semi dull knife will not only cut the bread but will pinch it, keeping the cheese where its supposed to be.

Maybe the cheese “toastie” is a term unique to Decatur like the way we pronounce  our main drag El Dorado or maybe Decatur is the genesis of a movement of warm cheese sandwichs that will spread through borders and time. Whatever label you want to put on it, the flavors and textures of 3 simple ingredients stirs warm memories from our past. Enjoy your “toastie”