Chuck Falzone

Chocolate puddin' pop ice cream

2011-11-10T09:00:00.000-06:00

Katie and I had a great time with our ice cream machine this summer. This is the second of a few posts on my favorites of the recipes I came up with. You may think that prime ice cream season has passed, but my lovely wife has taught me that ice cream has no season.

This chocolate ice cream has a creamy density that reminds us of Jello Pudding Pops.

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
3/4 cups sugar
5 egg yolks
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate (chips or, if bar, chopped in pieces)
1.5 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

Heat 1 cup heavy cream just to a simmer in a small pot. Remove from heat and add semi-sweet chocolate. Let sit for a few minutes (so that the chocolate softens), then whisk til smooth and chocolate is fully incorporated. Set aside.

Meanwhile, combine milk, sugar, cocoa powder and the remaining cup of cream in another pot over medium heat, stirring now and then. While this mixture is heating, whisk egg yolks in a bowl. When the milk and cream mixture just reaches a simmer, remove from heat. Temper the eggs with about a quarter of the milk and cream mixture, then whisk the eggs into the pot. Stir over low heat until it thickens a bit, then pass through a strainer into a bowl, discarding any cooked bits of egg that stay in the strainer.

Add the semi-sweet chocolate mixture to the same bowl. Add the salt and vanilla, combine well, and refrigerate until well chilled. It will set to nearly a pudding consistency. Churn in an ice cream machine until thick, likely a few minutes less than usual. Remove to a sealed container with a layer of plastic wrap pressed down against the surface of the ice cream and place in freezer to harden at least a couple of hours.

Enjoy in a Cosby sweater.

Pancetta

2011-11-09T13:23:00.000-06:00

Last Christmas, my wife, who knows me quite well, got me a book called Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Though I read through it, picking out recipes I was most interested in, I didn't actually begin making anything from it until a week ago, when I decided to start out by making pancetta, the delicious Italian bacon that's not smoked but is air cured.

First step: procuring a chunk of pork belly. I knew I'd seen pork belly cut in strips as regularly carried product at Super H Mart, a fantastic Asian supermarket that has a location nearby. I asked a guy in the meat department if he had a big piece he could sell me and he didn't bat an eye. Didn't realize til I got to the checkout that it still had the spareribs attached.

But hey, I can use spareribs, so I went ahead and took it home like that. Once the spareribs and the skin came off (and into the freezer-- ribs for barbecue, skin to flavor soup, beans, etc.), I went from having a little more than the five pounds called for to a little less. And honestly, this pork belly is a fair bit more lean than what you expect from bacon. Next time I'll seek out a fattier piece.

From there, I got my dry cure together: kosher salt, black pepper, pink curing salt, brown sugar, juniper berries, bay leaves, thyme, nutmeg and garlic. Rubbed it all over, then into the fridge in a plastic bag to ooze liquid for a week.

This past weekend, it came out of the fridge, feeling more firm than you'd expect raw meat to feel, and with no smell at all. I rinsed off the cure and sprinkled the lean side with black pepper. Then I rolled it into a log, tied it up tight, and hung it in the basement.

There it'll stay for two weeks. I have a nice little corner where it always stays dark, the temperature this time of year stays around 60 to 65 degrees, and humidity around 60%.

I'm running a humidifier a few hours a day and am able to keep it in the 65% to 70% range. That should be pretty close to ideal conditions. When it's done, well the first thing we'll do is just fry up a few slices, but then pasta carbonara will get made.

Truth is, I could call it done now, but a couple weeks of dry curing will intensify the flavors. It's tough waiting, though.

Honey vanilla ice cream

2011-11-04T13:19:00.002-05:00

Goes great with ripe peaches. Remember
that for when peaches are in season again.

Katie and I had a great time with our ice cream machine this summer. This is the first of a few posts on my favorites of the recipes I came up with. You may think that prime ice cream season has passed, but my lovely wife has taught me that ice cream has no season.

I wanted to use the fantastic honey we get from our village's farmers' market in an ice cream, but couldn't find a recipe that sounded quite like what I had in mind. I ended up using this recipe as a starting point and modifying it a bit. It came out great and went especially well with ripe peaches, which also came from the farmers' market.

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup half-and-half
2/3 cup honey (preferably a distinctive, strongly flavored honey)
1 vanilla bean
2 eggs
1/8 teaspoon salt

Begin warming the cream, half-and-half and honey in a small pot. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the pot. (Don't throw away the scraped pod-- either use it to make vanilla sugar, or add it to the pot as well, removing it later.) Stir to dissolve the honey and distribute the vanilla, and bring the mixture just to a boil. Remove from heat.

Whisk the eggs and salt in a bowl, temper the eggs with about a quarter of the hot mixture, then stir the tempered eggs into the pot.

Stir over low heat til slightly thickened, then pass through a strainer into a bowl, discarding any bits of cooked egg that end up in the strainer. Place in the refrigerator until well chilled, then churn in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. Serve at a soft texture right out of the machine, or place in the freezer to harden for a few hours.

High on the hog

2011-08-13T20:57:00.001-05:00

At the store for bread today, I stopped to glance at the sale case in the meat department. And did a double-take.

"Wow, that's a big piece of pig!"

I picked it up. 8+ pounds of bone-in pork loin, ten ribs worth of it. On sale for a buck and a half a pound, down from over four dollars a pound.

Opportunities like this are the very reason we bought a big stand-alone freezer. I put the pork under my arm and headed for the checkout. Not only will it make for many, many meals for us, but I also got to play butcher!

Here's what it looked like out of the package:

And here's what I turned it into:

Twelve chops, half a rack of spare ribs, and a big, flat, triangular roast that I'll likely barbecue. All for twelve bucks.

(What is that roast, by the way? It's the muscle that was sitting right on top of the loin eye that I cut the chops from, and has a flat bone at one end. Is that where country ribs come from? Maybe one of you reading this has a better knowledge of pig anatomy than I do.)

The butchering was pretty easy, just separating the muscles from one another, taking them apart where they wanted to come apart. The only tough part was getting the piece of backbone off the end of the spare ribs. There's probably a right way to do that, and it's not the way I did it. But it got done.

And now it's all in vacuum sealed and in the freezer.

Walks in the woods

2011-08-09T10:11:00.000-05:00

The first day at home, yesterday, went pretty well, mostly uneventful. I want to make a habit, though, of getting out of the house at least for a little while every day that weather allows. So we drove two minutes to a little forest preserve nearby and took a walk on the trails. Josie fell asleep just about as soon as I get her in her Bjorn but I kept talking to her the whole time. She kept a grip on my finger despite being pretty well passed out.

We saw deer!

There are at least half a dozen forest preserves close by. As we went along, I imagined us making a habit of walking the trails as she grows, her holding onto my hand just as she was doing this time, pointing out the squirrels and butterflies, asters and queen anne's lace, stopping to watch the deer.

Perhaps, though, as she gets a little older, she'll actually stay awake.

This was a nice idea.

2011-08-06T20:13:00.000-05:00

Sure, good idea: put Josie in the Baby Bjorn and take her with when I walk the dogs. Katie and Brett came with, but the idea was to see how feasible it'd be to do during the week when Katie's at work.

Conclusion: not very feasible. When the dogs got to the end of their leads, it'd jerk Josie's head around a bit, and she didn't like that at all. And with a baby to keep an eye on, I was not able to limit Mugsy's wild mushroom consumption as much as usual.

And picking up after the dogs is... more complicated.

But it was a nice idea.

London Broil on the grill

2011-08-06T19:56:00.000-05:00

London Broil on the grill tonight. Grilled corn on the cob, too, and hobo pack potatoes. On the side, cherry tomatoes from our garden and a quick, improvised balsamic vinegar aioli that was good on both the meat and the potatoes.

Put a couple chunks of oak in with the coals. Not a long enough cooking time to call it smoked, but it did give it a nice bit of flavor.

The "aioli" I really just made it on the spur of the moment. Whisked up mayo, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, quite a bit of good, aged balsamic. Then loosened it up with juices that came out while the meat was resting. Came out looser than a traditional aioli, but not sure what else to call it.

For the potatoes, I quartered them and wrapped them in foil with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some ancho chile powder. Onions, green peppers, etc., would be happy in there, too, but tonight was just potatoes. Anyway, the bundle goes right in with the coals rather that up on the grill. Flipped it over` once. I know it more as a camping food-- you put it right in (a cool part of) the campfire. But works good on the grill, too.

Between the three of us, we didn't even get through half the meat. Lots of leftovers. I consider this a happy thing.

Me, at home.

2011-08-05T22:03:00.000-05:00

I get to spend a lot more time with this little cutie from here on out. As of now, I'm an at-home dad, hanging with Josie during the day and working part-time evenings from a home office.

It's going to be a whole new adventure and I'm really looking forward to it.

And I'm resurrecting this site to keep a journal of how it all goes.