Traveling Crock Pot, Third Edition

I am honored, as ever, to have the illustrious Becky Issenman photograph my food!

I literally didn't remember to take a single picture of the finished products so if you'd like to see any of these recipes realized, check out Mrs. Becky's shots.

Menu

White bean soup with sage and prosciutto
(Not as much fat comes off prosciutto as the pancetta recommended in the recipe.  I prefer a flaky crisp on top of my soup and thus, prosciutto.  If you do as well, find some extra lard or butter to sweat your onions and garlic in.)

Bouef Bourginon
amended from food.com


Bouef bourginon is famed for being an enormous, time-consuming dish.  This is not untrue.  But you can take the heart of the dish and reduce it to be more amenable to the average cook who does not wish this dish to be the centre of their universe for five or seven hours.

I will show you my version listed below.  Keep in mind that these measurements are flexible--this has been adjusted to my taste but frankly, there are so many flavors that are so powerful here, you can fake it pretty well with any approximation of the recipe.  You can see this sentiment in the ingredient list itself--I want you to chunk and smash vegetables.  This is not a science.

That being said, while the ingredients are not exact, the method is.  Please read carefully--some professional tips I've learned to take this dish from good to great follow.

Serves 6 

specialty tools: cheesecloth (optional, but very useful)

3 oz thick-cut bacon
1 1/2 lbs stewing beef, trimmed of excess fat and cut into cubes
1/2 large onion, chunked
1 large carrot, chunked
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 bay leaves
several large sprigs thyme
several large sprigs parsley
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 Tbsp tomato paste
2 1/2 cups red wine, divided
2 1/2 cups beef stock, divided
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, quartered
2 Tbsp butter
 9 small carrots, preferably a selection of colors, with healthy green tops.
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Cook off the bacon.  Once cooked, remove from pan and retain rendered fat in pan.  Note: Lardons are original in this recipe; I find thick-cut more accessible.  Thin-cut won't stand up to the dish.

Pat the beef dry.  This is that critical step so many of us learned from Mrs. Child.  Wet meat will take a hundred years to sear at which point, you will have cooked it through and that's not what we want here.  We want to get a nice, sealing crust on the meat.  So get the pan smoking-hot and drop in your cubes.  Sear until good and brown (this involves not touching them) and flip.  You may need to add more oil to the pan as you cook.  The meat should not be crowded and batches will be necessary. 

Achievement Unlocked: The Perfect Sear

Set all seared meat aside.  Place the chunked vegetables in the same pan and give them a light caramelizing as well.  Place vegetables and garlic into a bowl.  Toss with 1 Tbsp of the flour.  Add garlic, bay and herbs and toss lightly.

You will have what professionals call sucs in the bottom of your pan.  The brown, crispy flavor-wonders left behind by your meat and veggies.  Put the pan back on the heat and warm.  Pour in half a cup of the red wine and the tomato paste.  Stir with a gentle tool (I prefer a wooden spatula I have), scraping the pan gently to release the sucs and mix the tomato paste into the wine.  When you aren't feeling any more resistance or you can see the sucs have released into the wine, you've officially deglazed a pan.  Take it off the heat.

Achievement Unlocked: Deglazing a Pan

Place the beef in the dutch oven.  See the juices remaining on the plate?  Pour those into the deglazed pan.  That's 100% flavor you don't want to lose.  Toss the beef with the remaining 2 Tbsp flour and season with salt and pepper and place in oven for 3-4 minutes.  Toss the meat to turn, return to oven for another 3-4 minutes.  Turn the oven down to 325.

Crumble the cooked bacon and sprinkle it over the beef.  Take your cheesecloth and lay it over the meat.  Layer the vegetables and herbs over top.  The cheesecloth will allow all flavors to permeate and mix and, in a few hours, it will also allow you to lift the vegetables cleanly off the meat.  No picking thyme and parsley mush off your meat!  (Hat off to Bouchon for this tip.)

Cover meat and vegetables with wine sauce from your pan, remaining wine and 2 cups of the stock.  Throw on the lid.  Cook for at least 3 hours, more if you need the time.

Twenty minutes before you pull the dish out of the oven, prep the carrots.  Peel them and slice them lengthwise, leaving half an inch of green at the top of the carrot.  (Scrape around the top of the carrot with the edge of a knife to ensure no dirt is clinging to the place where the greens meet the carrot.)  Have two clean pans out.  In one large pan, sautee the mushrooms on high heat with butter, browning as you go.  In the second pan, place the carrots with the remaining 1/2 cup of stock.  Bring to a low simmer and braise until bright and crunchy-tender.

When you pop the bourginon out of the oven, pull the vegetables and herbs out.  They will be virtual mush--they were just there to flavor so you can green bin 'em now.  Skim meat and other residue out of sauce and into a clean cup.  Let the liquid sit long enough fat rises--defat the liquid and pour the remaining sauce into a saucepan.  Give it a strong simmer for 10 minutes or long enough to reduce slightly.

To serve, place meat, mushrooms and sauce in a bowl.  Top with three carrot halves of varying colors. Throw bread on the side of the plate for sopping up this ruby goodness.

If you're somehow blessed with leftovers, this stew only gets better as it sits.  Combine all ingredients and refrigerate.



Green Leaf Salad with Parmesan Crisp and mustard-garlic-parmesan dressing

There is really nothing to this salad.  Go wash some red lettuce, grate half a cup of parmesan and juice a lemon.

Now arrange the lettuce on the plate.

Pile the parmesan in a hot frying pan and use the back of a spoon to smooth out into the size of a circle you're happy with for your crisp.  Let it melt until the cheese is bubbling and sunk into a fine lattice.  Using a very thin tool, flip the parmesan and let it get golden on the other side.  When complete, transfer to salad or save.  Crisps are physically delicate but will keep well.  I made four crisps plus a little for the dressing with this half cup.

For dressing, mix together a teaspoon of mustard (a crunchy mustard is ideal in my opinion), very finely minced garlic (this is a dressing--don't cheat on your mince-work or you'll regret it) and half a tablespoon of parmesan.  Mix with a touch of salt, plenty of black pepper, lemon juice and olive oil.  Season to taste and let sit as long as possible before the salad is served to let the flavors meld.

Blue Cheese Walnut Bread
(Heed warnings in the comments section about the different rising times, particularly if you're not familiar with non-machine bread making.)

Cheesecake with Caramelized Apples and Salted Caramel Sauce

The cheesecake is a version of the one already on this website but sans chocolate and with a vanilla bean stirred into the milk and sour cream I warmed together for extra volume due to the lack of chocolate.  The crust was graham as here but I added cinnamon and cardamom.

Caramelized apples may be made by peeling and slicing an apple.  Toss the apples in sugar and cinnamon, ensuring thorough coating of the sugar.  Melt butter in a frying pan and when it is very hot, place apples evenly through pan.  After 2-3 minutes, flip apple.  Try to get a nice brown coating on either side; this is the sugar caramelizing and will give wonderful texture.

The caramel sauce recipe linked here has a great step-by-step guide and pictures.  Just remember melting sugar is hotter than boiling water so DO NOT under any circumstances touch it until cooled.  I did not add salt to my initial product but finished the plate with fleur de sel.

Decadence

Remember how I said I'm not lavish?

I said nothing at all about decadence.

My favorite thing about having guests over is cooking for them. Therefore, when two of our very good friends came over, I broke out all the stops for dessert.

I chose cheesecake, obviously because I'd never made it before and I was trying to impress people. Sounds logical, right?

Let me repeat something: I'd never made cheesecake before. And yes, this recipe is mine. I have discovered a so-far well-tested procedure for new recipes and thus far, it's working out pretty well. There is also the added benefit of being able to tell you what I screwed up because, as a first-timer, my mistakes were visceral and obvious.

For one thing, I started too late. The above picture was taken before the cake had properly set, accounting for it's slightly gooey appearance. But dinner was done and I wanted to try it so bad. (For the record, taste is unaffected at this point, but the finished texture of cheesecake is more appealing to me.)

Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about Christie's Corner in brief. That link will take you straight to her no-crack-cheesecake bible page, which I also studied extensively before undertaking this work. Christie, a fellow Cana-jun, eh, appears to be a fabulously lovely lady who runs a great food blog. Proof: My cake did not crack. She does a whole lot better than that, even, but that's for another post.

Chocolate Cheesecake with Decadent Accents

I'm going to be honest and tell you this should probably be a two day project of yours. The toppings are enough work for one day and the cake itself for another. It also feels like less of a crush this way. And trust me. This is so worth it.

You do, of course, have the option of not following the recipe and making your life a little easier by omitting complicated sauces and toppings and just getting to the damn cake. Just a thought. I won't be mad.

Crust

1 1/4 cup graham crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 unsalted butter, melted

Layer

4 oz dark chocolate

Filling

3 (250g or 8 oz) pkgs cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate, melted
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp extra-strong instant coffee*
1 tsp vanilla

For the crust, pour the graham and the sugar into a bowl and mix. Melt the butter and pour over the graham. Mix some more. Grease the pan, add your parchment paper layer at the bottom if you're going to, and then pack the graham into an even layer on the bottom of a 9" spring form pan. I left this in the fridge to give it some solidity while I was making the next layer.


For the filling, melt the chocolate. Go long and slow with it in a double-boiler. That sounds fancy. I melted this in a cheap, metal bowl sitting in the mouth of a just-simmering pot of water. Don't actually allow the bowl to get immersed in the water--good way to burn the chocolate. In my case, it probably took longer because my pieces were perhaps larger than some. I hate chopping chocolate--it's messy and flies everywhere and smears into things you didn't even think it was near. But I wanted that "snap" layer Christie's page mentioned, so goddamnit, I chopped chocolate. I then spread that over the graham layer as quickly as possible--it moves best when hot and you just poured it onto a cool if not cold surface. Try to make this a THIN layer--think about cutting a slice of cake through that solidified chocolate.

Throw these two layers in the fridge while you make the filling.

We're down to filling, people. This is an exciting moment. For some of you, this is the only moment, and I don't blame you a damn bit. I would've eaten this stuff out of the bowl. Happily.

Leave the cream cheese out a good long while. It needs to be room temperature if not warm to beat properly. Otherwise you do get little dots of unmixed cheese in your filling. I did, in fact. And I left those bricks out for hours. I'll flat-out warm them a touch next time.

Full disclosure: I beat this with a stand mixer. You can totally do it with the power of thine arm, though. It's just going to take longer.

Beat together the cream cheese and the sugar, starting with one chopped block of cheese and adding the rest gradually.

Add the second batch of melted chocolate. This is a labor of love. It takes a long time to melt this much chocolate. Read a book while you idly stir.

Slowly, gently, beat in the sour cream and the rest of the liquid ingredients. I believe that the science says that if you beat rapidly and fiercely, you'll add air to the batter and artificially inflate the cake. It's a heavy cake; it'll fall on itself when it cools and you'll be sad.

Pour that filling into the pan. Bake for approximately an hour at 300 degrees. Slow and steady.

I used the bain marie technique, and as I say, no cracks. It was a little fussy, though. I will probably try without next time, just to see.

Give it an hour or so to cool outside the bath once it's done baking. Then throw it in the fridge for at least four hours, preferably overnight.

Pomegrante Puree


Look at that colour!

I fixed this portion of the dessert up before the cake was a figment of my imagination. Originally, I intended for it to be a substitute for pomegranate molasses in one of Mrs. Rule's vinaigrettes but after tasting it, decided it should be an addition to, oh, just about everything.

2 cup pomegranate arils
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Throw arils (I found a regular-size pomegranate to be about 2 cup's worth) and water into a small pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer, covered, for about fifteen minutes.

Throw the contents of the pot into a blender. Blend until arils are pulverized, but do not expect a puree at this point. The seeds at the heart of the aril will studiously avoid your blender's blades. Pour the pomegranate back into the pot through a metal sieve. It's helpful to use a flexible spatula to mash the remaining seeds back and forth, scraping the bottom of the sieve to preserve as much of the aril's pureed flesh and juice as possible. Discard seeds.

Add maple syrup to the pot and stir well. Bring the mixture back to a simmer. Allow to simmer covered for five minutes to make sure the syrup and fruit is blended, then remove cover and reduce for approximately twenty minutes to half an hour, depending on your desired consistency. Remember the puree will thicken as it cools as well.


So, you're done? I congratulate you. I will tell you what I did to plate it, then. Though, I'll warn you, I'm no expert and it probably could have been presented much more beautifully.

I knew this would be heavy so I used the sauces (yes, multiple, as you'll see in a moment) as something to relieve the palette. Firstly, I poured a pool of the pomegranate puree beneath the cake. I set a slice of the cake down right in the middle of it. Then I drew an arc of creme anglais
around the side of the plate. I set a couple of mint leaves into the cream for color and a little infusion, if they sat there long enough. Then I pressed a finger-full of slivered almonds into the top of the slice for a peak.

And...there you have it. An absurdly decadent, ridiculously time-consuming chocolate cheesecake that will make you close your eyes and press your tongue through the chocolate just to feel it.

*Extra-Strong Instant Cofffe

2 1/2 Tbsp hot water
1/2 tsp instant coffee

Love a little coffee spark in my chocolate. Mix ingredients.