Braised Oxtails with Celery Root Puree and Curried Shallot Rings

Okay, so I may have ripped off fellow Michigan boy Grant Achatz* a little on the presentation here. But really, can you blame me? Grant's got mad game... Anyway, I invited the guinea pig, aka Jenni, over tonight to help me test a dish I'm planning on making for my mom and a few assorted relatives on the 22nd of this month. The test run went reasonably well, and it would seem that all systems are go. Follow along if you're so inclined:

THE OXTAILS

Ingredients:
2 lbs oxtail pieces
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 large shallot, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, diced
1 leek (white parts only), roughly chopped
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 celery rib, diced
2 fresh thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup parsley stems
2 1/2 cups beef stock
2 1/2 cups dry red wine
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper

Process:
Season oxtails, on all sides, with salt and pepper. Melt 2 Tbsp butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add oxtails, brown on all sides and remove from pan. Deglaze the pan with 1/2 cup of the wine. Reserve dissolved fond/wine mixture, and wipe out pan. Melt 3 Tbsp butter over medium heat, and add shallot, leek, onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Saute until vegetables are soft and just beginning to caramelize. Put the oxtails back into the pan and add the wine, beef stock, thyme, bay leaves, parsley stems and deglazed fond/wine mixture. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cover pan with lid slightly ajar. Braise for about three hours, until the meat begins to fall off the bone. Remove oxtails and set aside. Strain braising liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a saucepan. Discard vegetables. Add cream to braising liquid, bring to a boil and reduce to 1/4 of the original volume (you'll know the sauce has reduced enough when the bubbles take on an unusual appearance and seem to stack up upon one another; it's difficult to adequately describe, but you'll know it when you see it). Finish the sauce with a little butter, and set aside.

THE CELERY ROOT PUREE

Ingredients:
1 good size celery root, diced
1 medium russet potato, diced
1 small yellow onion, diced
Equal parts whole milk and water
4 Tbsp butter
Salt and pepper

Process:
Place celery root, potato and onion into a large saucepan. Add milk and water to cover. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook until vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes. Strain vegetables, return to pan and puree with a hand masher or immersion blender, over low heat. Add butter, and salt and pepper to taste, and continue to puree until a smooth consistency is reached.

THE SHALLOT RINGS

Ingredients:
1 shallot
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp curry powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 quart canola or peanut oil

Process:
Cut shallot into 1/8 inch slices. Stir together flour, baking powder, curry powder and salt. Dip shallot slices into flour mixture to coat and set aside. Whisk egg and milk into flour mixture to form batter. Dip floured shallot slices into batter to coat and set onto a rack to drain. Repeat, several times if necessary, until slices are heavily coated in batter. Heat oil in a saucepan to 380F (a deep fry thermometer is helpful here). Deep fry batter coated shallot slices for 3-5 minutes until golden brown.

Reheat oxtails, sauce and celery root puree as necessary. Plate with shallot rings. Eat. Enjoy.

Jenni's assessment of the meal: The meat was good and the sauce was excellent, but the shallot rings were a little carbon-y (I let the oil get a bit too hot).

*(Metro-Detroit-bred) Chicago wunder-chef Grant Achatz is currently undergoing treatment for squamous cell carcinoma. We, which is to say I, at Macerating Shallots wish you a speedy recovery, Grant! Get yourself well and get back in the kitchen, where you belong...

Fire in the Disco! Fire in the Taco Bell!

I headed out this evening with a couple of friends to see some fine Detroit rock & roll (that's pronounced DEE-troit, by the way...) at the Doug Fir.

Unfortunately, we missed the opening band, We Are the Fury (who are actually from Toledo), but we got to the show in time to catch the Gore Gore Girls. I enjoyed their set, but I wasn't as impressed as I felt like I should have been. Their formula is a good one, somewhere between Josie and the Pussycats and the Detroit Cobras, but they just didn't quite sell it. The musicianship was there, and frontwoman Amy Gore did manage to channel a pretty impressive Joan Jett-ish sort of energy, but they seemed too, I dunno... nice. Perhaps the Cobras have ruined me for this sort of thing. Rachel Nagy pretty much defines the boozy punk rock torch singer archetype, and once you've seen her do her thing, well, even Storm Large falls a little flat. But still, if the GGGs come to your town, they're well worth checking out.

Next up was Electric Six. These guys have been around since the nineties, and it seems like they've been through Portland a couple times in the last year or so, but I only got around to seeing them tonight. I was not disappointed. This is a band that clearly enjoys working a crowd. They offer up a little something for everyone, weaving together elements of punk, disco, garage rock, arena metal and new wave, with a little vaudevillian showmanship thrown in for good measure. And of course, they couldn't get out of the building without playing their signature song.

As this is, at least nominally, a food blog... We met up before the show at the Morrison Hotel, where I had the pork tenderloin and spicy sausage ragout, served over polenta. Very tasty!

GWB: World Leader or Summer Footwear?

This video was shot hours before the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on a resolution to officially recognize the Armenian genocide. Now here's what GW said in a letter to the Armenian National Committee during his 2000 campaign:

"The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime... If elected president, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people."

What were they calling that a couple years ago again? Oh right, a flip-flop! Incidentally, the HFAC passed the resolution, which moves it to the House of Representatives for a vote next month.

A special shout out to Amy, Juan and the rest of the crew at Democracy Now! on this one.

Saying Sayonara to Summer

While we're still getting the occasional sunbreak up here in the Pacific Northwest, Summer has been officially over for a couple of weeks now. And what better way to usher in the rainy season than with an end of Summer soup? This one incorporates apple, butternut squash, various root vegetables and a whole lotta butter and cream. It's loosely based on a recipe I picked up a while back from the Inn at Little Washington's website.

Ingredients:
One small yellow onion, diced
One Granny Smith apple, diced
One small Russett potato, diced
1 1/2 cups diced butternut squash
1/2 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced parsnip
1/2 cup diced turnip
One stick of butter
One quart of chicken stock
Two cups of heavy cream
Two Tbsp of maple syrup
Salt and Pepper

Process:
Melt the butter in a large saute pan over medium high heat. Add the onion, apple, potato, squash, carrot, parsnip and turnip and saute until the onion is just translucent, five to ten minutes. Transfer to a large saucepan or small stockpot, add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer until vegetables are cooked through, about 25 minutes. Puree the vegetables in the stock with an immersion blender, or a regular blender or food processor. Strain through a medium mesh strainer back into the pot. Add the cream, maple syrup and salt and pepper to taste. Bring the soup just up to a simmer before serving.

Top with a drizzle of creme fraiche and chives.

Quite Possibly the Worst Bar Name Ever!

Last night Jenni, Fuller and I met up at Maiden in the Mist, on the burgeoning strip along SE Morrison anchored by the renovated and soon to open Grand Central Bowl, which was opened about 6 months ago by the gal that runs the Sapphire Hotel on upper Hawthorne, for dinner and few pints (or in Fuller's case, a few hot toddies; that's his thing, go figure).

Before I go any further, I have to say one thing. "Maiden in the Mist" is, without exception, the worst name for a bar I've ever heard. Before I first set foot in the place a week ago, I had no idea what to expect, but to me the name said "lesbian pirate bar." To others it might infer a gathering place for grown men who play Dungeons and Dragons or collect model ships assembled inside of antique rum bottles. Am I being a bit harsh? Yeah, I suppose... And I do apologize if I've offended any lesbian pirates or scrimshaw nerds. But am I wrong? Is this not the worst bar name ever?

That said, everything else about this establishment is spot on. So spot on, in fact, that I could almost forgive the name and make "The Maiden," as it's come to be known (by necessity as much as by abbreviation), a regular hangout. This place is perhaps best described by what it isn't. It's not a dance club, a meat market, a music venue nor a restaurant. Rather, it's something akin to the Regal Beagle, for those of you old enough to remember Three's Company. Not too loud, not too sceney, just a comfortable hangout with an atmosphere characterized by a perfect mixture of downtown clubby and eastside casual, with good beers on tap, tasty music (old school Sonic Youth... oh yes) and a bar-food menu that's a notch or two beyond the everyday. I ordered the sliders:


Sliders seem to be something of a phemon here in Portland lately. Ten-01 regularly features them on their bar menu, and I've had them recently at the NightLight as well. For those of you not familiar with sliders, they're basically miniature hamburgers. Think of the haute cuisine ethic applied to the White Castle formula. The Maiden's version features caramelized onions and cheese, with a dollop of mayo. The patties themselves were a little over-done, but I can forgive that due to their use of local grass fed beef. Over-done or not, them were some tasty little burgers. And their bread pudding is decent as well:


From there we headed to the Slow Bar (nice place, but we didn't stay long enough for a report), then finished the night off with some shuffleboard in the wilds of Taylor street between 6th and 7th at the Speakeasy, a place known for its colorful regulars. Greg spanked Jenni quite handily (see photo up top).

So for all of you inner SE kids looking for something to do tonight that doesn't involve mackin' on the shorties at Holocene, get with your peeps for a bite at the Maiden followed by shuffleboard at the Speak... Can't go wrong!

2007's Most Creative Example of Recycling

Anthropologists of the future will be forced to come to the conclusion that ours was a society based on the worship of anthropomorphic hillbilly hip hop robots. Which won't be all that far from the truth...

A Caffe Mocha with a Specific Gravity Roughly in the Neighborhood of Kryptonite...

Jenni and I headed to the Portland Farmers' Market today, and after loading ourselves up with the good stuff, went to Sahagun to try their mocha.

This is not a normal mocha. It's an anomoly. A mutant. A dense, gooey and weirdly confrontational freak of nature. A more conventional mocha is to this one what Tom Clancy is to Fyodor Dostoevsky. What George W. Bush is to Abraham Lincoln. What Carrot Top is to Lenny Bruce. This mocha is built on estate grown single bean Bolivian chocolate, incorporates Stumptown Hairbender and is finished with a dollop of cream. It costs nearly a dollar per ounce, and is worth every last cent. Go experience it for yourself...

Oh yeah, their truffles ain't bad, either.