Gizzards - I need help

The dish I made

I need help in preparing gizzards. Feel free to offer any tips or advice on the gizzard. I have about a cup of gizzards in my freezer waiting for me to do something with them. Read on, this is my story of the gizzard.

The dish I made is as follows:
local organic free-range gizzards
local oraganic smoked lard
locally made fettucine
anchovies
pepper
grated parm

I cubed up the gizzards, and sauteed these in bacon drippings I saved from bacon from a local organic pig. I wanted the gizzards to have lardon quality to them. I then added a couple anchovies, some grated pepper and the topping was ready. I boiled up some of Lazzaroli's fettucine pasta (I love Tom Lazzaro's pasta a lot!), and topped it with the sauteed gizzards and a generous sprinkle of grated parm. The flavor was exactly how I wanted it, it had a really nice BBQ wood smoked flavor to it from th bacon drippings, the anchovies added that special umami saltiness to the dish that I really love, and of course the fresh made pasta is wonderful. The only problem was the gizzards, they were chewy, with an under cooked tendon tooth feel. It tasted great, but with a bad tough gizzard texture.

This is the 1st time I have cooked gizzards. My grandmothers and my mother used to cook these things, and never made me eat the dishes they cooked with them. I took no interest in gizzards, tendons, even liver as a child, and I never watched my relatives prepare gizzards. To prepare my dish, I made a mistake in not calling my mom, and not googling gizzards for cooking tips and help.

When we was in Lesmont, France, a tiny little town with only one restaurant that closes at 8 pm, I had the most delicious salad course at the tiny restaurant (will blog about this place later). The salad was a lovely bed of green lettuce, then sprinkled on top were bits of lardon, diced sauteed gizzards, and a hot poached poulet egg. When I tapped the egg with my fork, egg yolk oozed warmly over the salad making a rich sauce. The French lardon, please, there is nothing better than this version of pork and pork fat! I just can't go back to industrial packed USA bacon. The gizzards seemed to have been sauteed in the lardon fat, and had such a great tender bacon texture. I was trying to recreate this gizzard experience. The bacon source I have here in TN isn't like the French lardon, but it is good, tasty, and offers the right texture and smokey flavor. If I wanted to add an egg to the dish I have a great local organic free range egg supplier. Even the gizzards are from a good local farm. The crux of the issue is how I prepared and cooked the gizzards.

Ok, please, anyone out there cooking gizzards these days? Let me know what I should do with my gizzards to make a good gizzard dish!

Hurry Curry

For this summer, most everything that we are eating in my house are locally grown veggies and meats. Last week I went to the Whites Creek Farmer's Market for my veggies, honey, cheese, and the Nashville Farmer's Market for my meats and fruit. I got home with all this great stuff and decided to make a yellow coconut curry stew. I have decided that my flavorings for food can be international because there are so many great flavors in the world. I just don't want to be stuck with just onions, garlic, thyme, oregano, sage and basil. So how did I make this dish? Well, it includes a can of coconut milk, and a can of pre-made Thai yellow curry paste. I have made my own curry paste before from base ingredients, but boy, what work that is. It is ultimately worth it in fresh flavor that would WOW your friends, but... Remember, I am a lazy cook, and canned curry paste and dinner on the table in under 1 hour is a delight for me.

All my ingredients are locally grown except for the sauce. I browned two different kinds of white potatoes in a little bit of local bacon drippings that I have been keeping. Yummy smoky goodness!

I cut up a couple small onions, minced a few cloves of spring garlic, and dumped them into the pan with the potatoes to sweat.

I dumped in on top of the potatoes and onions, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, and chard and beet stems to give a crunch like a celery stock would. I wanted this veggies to be crisp, so I did not let them cook in the pan too long before I added the curry sauce stuff.

I added slices of chicken, poured on the coconut milk, curry paste and a few shakes of fish sauce (aka liquid salt). Curry in the Thai theme never seems right without a shake of fish sauce. For vegans, soy sauce will suffice, but Thai themed curry is sooo much better with fish sauce. The fish sauce is what makes the Thai food characteristic, as toasted sesame oil makes the Chinese food characteristic. This was a delicious dish (not to be confused with SNL's delicious dish). I may have to stop into my local Asian Market to get more coconut milk!

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Curry

Fruity Experiment

I went to my local international market to see what I could find. The original K&S market down on Nolensville Rd isn't tidy, in USA grocery store standards, but it doesn't seem to matter to the shoppers who go there. This market includes many common ingredients used in most Asian, Mediterranean, and South American nations. This market is packed every Saturday with people who look like they represent ever corner of this earth. It is refreshing to me to feel like Nashville does have an international presence, and the culinary landscape of Nashville is expanding to include, not only Southern traditional cooking, but international flavors of the world. The ancient wars over spice trading makes more sense to me now, when my yearning for excellent international flavors, tastes and food grows, and access to these things are still difficult in my town.

My last trip to K&S was to find Spanish olive oil to cook with, and to see what I can see. I stopped in the produce isles and decided I was going to make a fruit salad with fruits I have not used before. Was this going to be a mistake, or a gold mine? Well, this is what I bought.

one green Chayote
one white Ya Li
one orange Kiwano

I do not know how to pick these fruit, so I just jumped in with a little hope that I picked good ones, and put them in my basket. They are really pretty aren't they?

I got home and sliced open these fruit, and this is what I saw. I definitely had to shift plans with the Kiwano Horn Fruit. I was thinking it would be like a little kiwi or cantelope inside, and what I got was a green slimy seed covering with the texture of soup jello before it is chilled, and little seeds that remind me of the white seeds of an immature or seedless watermelon. The scent was green like a grassy cucumber, and the flavor of the green slime was like a very intense cucumber. The Kiwano was definitely announcing its presence as a high liquid content fruit/veggie, but I just did not feel like it was appropriate for my fruit salad.

The Chayote gourd, I was hoping would be like an apple, was not. It was really hard, like cutting into an uncooked sweet potato, the flesh was very dense, and I felt like I was scraping off tartar and plaque while trying to bite into a piece of Chayote. This fruity gourd has virtually no scent, no flavor and a very stiff texture. It makes jicama seem like it is extra juicy, extra aromatic and extra sweet. I cute this beauty up into small bite sized piece for the fruit salad in hopes that there would be more flavor later

The Ya Li pear was a small white pear with a less intense sweetness than the bosc. The texture is smoother than a bosc, and it is somewhere in between an apple and pear. This fruit was a winner for my fruit salad, and I diced it up.

The fruit salad became a can of diced pineapple, the diced Ya Li and the diced Chayote. I left out the Kiwano green slime, although it might have added a nice springtime fresh scent to the salad, but I did not like the texture of the seeds. I could have put the seeds and green slime in a blender, but I am lazy, and that would be another item to clean up later. The pineapple and Ya Li were very good. The Chayote, in its denseness, did not absorb any of the pineapple juice, and remained hard and bland as ever. I am surprised that the acid in the pineapple juice did nothing to breakdown the Chayote at all.

The innards of the Kiwano

The fruit salad was not a big success. Oh well. The Chayote, I think would be better cooked. There is a winter melon soup popular in Chinese restaurants in New York, where there is a light broth and diced up comfort food winter melon in it. On a small scale, the Chayote maybe a good substitute for the winter melon, but I do not believe that Chayote would lend much flavor to the soup. I am betting that the Chayote is better cooked than raw because I think cooking would open up the flesh to absorbing the surrounding flavors like a potato would. That is it, I am on to my next food adventure.

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Kiwano
Chayote
Ya Li
Fruit

bars and oats

The other day, I saw a co-worker eating this square thing that looked really good. It was about the size of a brownie, but had nuts, dried cranberries and oats in it. It was a home-made granola bar! I must have stared a little too much as he enjoyed eating his treat, that the very next day, he brought in 2 bars for me and the recipe. Oh those bars were so good! I hoarded them, and ate only a little bit at a time, making them last all day.


I never really liked store bought granola bars because they are too sweet, too hard (break a tooth hard), too fake and chemically, or too padded with horrible empty calories like cheap marshmellows or cheap chocolate bits. When I am in a pinch, and have to eat a manufactured granola bar, I regret it everytime. The sugar content of those things makes me sugar crash later, and it starts a blood sugar cycle for the day that I could never keep up with. The fake filler chemicals skeeves me out, and makes me wince.

I never knew I could make a granola bar that I could love! Back in college (the days of the earthy crunch hippies) the "good for you foods" were devoid of any sugar, honey and fats, and it was like eating dry cardboard, soggy cardboard or paste. Not that I ever ate paste, but some of that "health food" of that time was as close as I could imagine paste to be. That type of food is not appealing to me. I like flavorful ingredients and a nice good texture. During my college days, I just never had anything made with whole oats that tasted great, and felt great to eat it too.


I never knew that I could make a granola bar that I love! Shall I divulge the recipe? OK.

Dry stuff
4 1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
shakes spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise, and clove
a little salt
a smidgen of vanilla
1/2 cup nuts
1/2 cup dried fruit of choice

wet stuff
2/3 cup honey
2/3 cup oil

dump dry stuff in bowl and stir up a little 'til combined. dump wet stuff in the bowl and combine until all the dry stuff is moistened. pre-heat oven to 350F. Take a 9x13 pan and line with non-stick Reynolds Wrap, or grease pan really really really heavily. Take mixture, and press tightly into the pan. Bake for 25 - 30 min until golden. In the 30 min wait, go to your computer and read my blog. Take out, and let rest for 10 min. Turn onto a cutting board. Cut into 24 squares while still warm. Any crumbs are to be eaten by the chef.


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Chicken Soup Solves Everything

It has been winter in Nashville for about 3 weeks. Yes, you read that correctly, it has only been wintery weather here for 3 weeks. Before that, it was autumny, perfect weather outside for exercise, and there were even a couple mosquitoes still flying around. Oh, what a short 3 weeks will do to the memory, as we sit here complaining about how cold it is outside. Of course, since I live in the south USA, it really isn't that cold, and we are leaving the house without hats, scarves, gloves or socks! We are just not used to 30F weather anymore.


Anyway, to solve the cold weather blues, I made some chicken soup. I had chicken bones in the freezer from a roasted chicken I made a few weeks ago, and I brought that out for the stock. I made the stock fairly traditionally with onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, garlic, a pinch salt, pepper, and some dried thyme that I saved from my organic herb garden back in October. I don't have butchers twine, so I did not tie up my thyme. As per usual, while we ate the soup, we had to pull out the thyme twigs that I was unable to remove during cooking. I don't want to use anything to tie up herbs besides clean, no-chemical string because I have visions of my soup turning chemically blue like in the Bridgett Jones movie.

We love mushrooms, so I added a quart of sliced creminis in the soup. To give the soup some teeth, I added a couple handfuls of barley. I love beef barley soup, so why not make chicken barley soup? I also added fresh diced carrots, celery, onions and chicken to the soup.

Here is my cup of chicken soup. At the very top of the cup you can see a thyme leaf stuck to the rim. Isn't it amazing how that mostly water pot turned into an almost creamy hearty soup? The soup was yummy, and exactly what a cold winter day called for.

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chicken soup