Tag Archives: viking.meat

The BTF Ratio

11 Nov

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One of the most iconic dishes in Danish cuisine (and Scandinavian cuisine in general) is the endlessly customizable open-faced sandwich called smørrebrød. It may sound strange, but smørrebrød reminds me more of sushi than of sandwiches; there is a simplicity to them, an equation of staple food + staple food that seems at once primitive and refined.

I very much like the treatise on smørrebrød engineering drafted by London’s Scandinavian Kitchen, purveyors of high-quality Nordic foodstuffs. Of particular importance, I think, is the notion of the bread-to-filling (BTF) ratio, an essential consideration in any sandwich, Scandinavian or otherwise.

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A First Taste of the Second City

12 Oct

A snack in New York is a meal in Chicago.

Middle American Proverb

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The aphorism quoted above doesn’t mean that Chicagoans eat meals so insubstantial that New Yorkers would only consider them snacks. Actually, the meaning is something close to the inverse: Chicago is known for appropriating, embellishing, and augmenting New snack foods to the point that they must be called a meal. I have a theory that Chicago’s “second city” status has driven its citizens to assert themselves against the hegemony of Gotham in sometimes outlandish ways; it’s connected, I think, to the fact that Chicago is the American capital of comedy. I have read somewhere that being in a “second fiddle” cultural position (e.g. being a comparatively small country right next to a much larger country) creates a sort of collective inferiority complex that engenders a good sense of humility and humor. Canada, always drowned out by their loud, angry neighbors to the south, has also produced droves of famous comedians. I hear New Zealand is also famous for comedy, as is Osaka, Japan’s second city.

So, like being funny, perhaps turning ordinary New York food into bold, italicized Chicago food is a way for the Windy City to declare cultural independence. However, in truth I can only think of two foods that substantiate the proverb. The first is pizza. Both first and second city are famous for pizza, but Chicago deep-dish is so much more deserving of that fame. It’s two or three inches high, dense as a black hole, drunk with sauce and toppings, and it achieves a sort of Golden Ratio of crunch-to-chew. Chicago pizza is to New York pizza as a bowl of Ippudo Akamaru ramen is to Cup Noodle.

But of course, the Chicago specialty most distinguished from its New York counterpart is the hot dog. Hot dogs are fundamentally uncomplicated things, and this is exactly what makes people want to complicate them. Hot dog localization isn’t a Chicago-only phenomenon, of course. But as far as I know, the Chicago hot dog is the only variation that has any sort of reputation outside of its own metro area. The words “hot dog” follow “Chicago” as naturally as “cheesesteak” follows “Philly.” It is among a very select group of American local foods that are truly famous on a nationwide level (Wisconsin cheese being another).

Unlike burgers, I think hot dogs actually demand to be festooned with all manner of toppings. Hot dogs, even high-quality, well-prepared ones, are just too bland to eat on their own. The Chicago hot dog addresses this inherent flavor deficiency with the “Chicago Seven,” an arpeggio of tangy, lively fixings that harmonize with the mellow umami of the sausage: onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, a dill pickle spear, sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, and celery salt all piled into a poppy seed bun.* These ingredients alone would actually make a pretty tasty veggie sandwich; the hot dog itself is just a foundation, a meaty gesso onto which crisp, zesty colors are painted.

The Dog

Strangely, I have never had a Chicago hot dog, even though I grew up in Chicagoland and visit the city often. It has long been on my culinary to-do list, but for some reason it has escaped me every time I’m back home. It’s probably because Chicago offers an overwhelming abundance of dining choices, and I’m usually tempted by pizza or Mexican or Chinese or Japanese or vegetarian or Italian or whatever it may be while I’m down there.

But not this time. This time I was determined. I had always thought I would have my first Chicago dog at the Weiner’s Circle, a local institution where they serve a textbook sausage with a hearty side of profanities. Stephen Fry went there when he was touring the United States. But after consulting with local friends and perusing the internet, I settled on Hot Doug’s, consistently named Chicago’s best weinermonger – and it had a block-long line outside to prove it. Lines are always a good sign.

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Hot Doug’s ain’t just a hot dog stand – they are a self-proclaimed “Sausage Superstore,” and much of our 45-minute wait was spent mulling over what to order from the surprisingly exotic and epicurean menu. For me, there was no question that I would have “The Dog” with everything. But I couldn’t leave without trying one of their specialty sausages: I considered the tequila and black bean chicken sausage, the cherry-apple pork sausage, and of course, the Salma Hayek (“Mighty, mighty, mighty hot!”). Ultimately I decided to splurge on the foie gras and Sauternes duck sausage with truffle aioli, foie gras mousse, and sel gris (a recent re-addition to the menu following the repeal of a citywide ban on the king of offal).

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The resultant feast – a Chicago Hot Dog and a Foie Gras Duck Sausage – was like a culinary odd couple, an utterly wrong combination that nevertheless must exist, if only to act as foils to one another. The Dog was brash, spicy, and snappy, but also humble and inviting. It does have something to prove, that’s for sure, but it can’t disguise its Midwestern geniality. The Duck was silken, ripe, and decadent – yet somehow just as loud as the Dog, an ostentatious display of conspicuous consumption. Both sausages were perfection, especially between sips of the perfect accompaniment: old-fashioned birch beer.

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I cannot recommend Doug’s duck fat fries, which sound awesome and smell fantastic, but taste like nothing at all. But the fries are immaterial anyway, since the Dog really is a meal in itself. Certainly, it is one area where Chicago is second to none.

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Hot Doug’s
3324 North California
Chicago, IL 60618
773-279-9550

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Viking Five: Chicken

28 Feb

On account that I find it fun and easy to compile lists of things, I am starting a new feature on my blog: Viking Five. These will be lists of what I consider to be exemplars of any given category. In most cases, I don’t have the experience or knowledge to create what might be called definitive “top five” lists, so these are simply five personal recommendations. Please add to the lists by leaving comments!

I’m starting the feature with a food that is often overlooked – but when it’s good, damn is it good. Chicken is so frequently bland and dry, a rather pointless thing to eat when prepared or processed witlessly, but if it’s prepared well, then there is almost no meat I’d rather eat.

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Zankou Chicken
Los Angeles, California

Taco trucks aside, there may be no LA food institution so cherished as Zankou Chicken. The darling of streetsmart food critics like Jonathan Gold, Zankou is beloved among all strata of Los Angeles society, including the loyal Armenians that invented it. It’s so good that Beck name checks it in a song about having a threesome on Midnite Vultures. I must say, there is something very nearly sexual about the buttery, delicately spiced skin and the voluptuously tender and juicy meat of a spit-roasted Zankou Chicken. And that garlic sauce is a wicked aphrodisiac.

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Yangon Restaurant’s Hot and Sour Deep-Fried Chicken
Bagan, Myanmar

All of the chicken I ate in Burma was really good, which I suspect has a lot to do with the fact that there aren’t any industrial chicken farms there. “Free range” isn’t even a meaningful category there, because the chickens just roam free around people’s houses. Our drivers had to hit the brakes a lot to dodge them – along with cows and lots of dogs. The Burmese chicken that stands out in my memory was a searingly spicy, addictively tangy dish of crispy and succulent fried chicken, perfumed with an immoderate amount of garlic and green onions.

Jitokko Sumibiyaki
Miyazaki, Japan

One thing I miss about Japan is the thrill of discovering new meibutsu. The Japanese present their unique regional cuisines to the rest of the nation with an enthusiastic pride, and the rest of the nation eats it up. Food and drink, along with flowers, temples, and hot springs, really seem to be what drives domestic tourism in Japan. For salmon, go to Hokkaido; for soba, go to Nagano; and for chicken, go to Miyazaki. There are at least two very famous Japanese chicken dishes originating in Miyazaki: the tartar saucy chicken nanban, and my favorite, jitokko sumibiyaki: literally, charcoal-grilled local chicken. It’s as simple as it sounds, and so very good. Miyazaki chicken has a firm texture and a fantastically buttery quality that sings beautifully with the smoky, blackened flavor of charcoal grilling.

Chicken Truck
Kitakyushu, Japan

One more for Japan – they do chicken right. At one of the schools where I taught, I used to walk to a nearby supermarket pretty much every day for lunch. I usually got some fruit and onigiri, maybe a pastry. But on certain days, there was this truck there. I think the truck was an outpost of a local restaurant, but I can’t remember the name of it. At any rate, this truck sold chicken – really good chicken. You could get the chicken wraps, or you could just go for a huge chunk of chicken, simply grilled with salt and pepper and probably MSG. I think it was the back quarter of the bird, neatly boned and flattened, full of fatty skin, just about as juicy and flavorful as chicken gets. It never failed to brighten my boring days as a human tape recorder.

Homemade Roast Chicken with Sausage and Chestnut Stuffing
Wherever you live

There’s nothin’ like a chicken you roast yourself – expecially when you rub it up with butter and herbs and serve it with a rich, moist sausage and chestnut stuffing. I’m not really much of a roasting guy (I’m more of a sautéing guy), so this week I took it upon myself to try something new. The result was a lovely, exceedingly juicy chicken with a delicate skin and deep flavor. Together with the stuffing, it is a rather rich dinner, so I served it with a palate cleansing salad of arugula and pea shoots with a lemon dressing.

The Chicken

1 4.5 pound chicken (get the free range kind, you cheapskate)
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
a few bunches of fresh herbs (try rosemary, lemon thyme, oregano, thyme, and flat leaf parsley)
3 bay leaves
1 onion
1 lemon or orange
paprika
salt
pepper

  1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF (205ºC).
  2. Clean the giblets out of the chicken, if they’re in there.
  3. Rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water, then dry thoroughly with paper towel. The bird should be very, very dry on the outside especially to help crisp the skin.
  4. Finely mince the herbs and mash them together with the butter and a pinch of salt.
  5. Quarter the onion and lemon or orange and stuff them into the cavity, along with the bay leaves and anything else you have to flavor the chicken: celery greens, additional herbs, apple peels, and garlic cloves work well. Pin the skin together to close the cavity with a toothpick.
  6. Rub the herb butter all over the bird, then season well with salt, pepper, and paprika.
  7. Put the bird on a rack and place in the oven. Roast for 10-15 minutes at 400º, then decrease heat to 375º (190ºC) and roast for another hour and a half (basically, you should cook the bird for 20 minutes per pound, plus the initial 10-15 minutes at a higher heat to crisp the skin).
  8. Remove the chicken from the oven and let rest for 10-15 minutes before carving.
  9. Thicken the drippings and add a spritz of lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce to make a gravy. Add a bit of chicken stock and/or cider or beer if there aren’t enough drippings.

The Stuffing

500 grams sausage meat
250 grams cooked, peeled chestnuts, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 apple, cored, peeled, and chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 pound (about six cups) stale bread, lightly toasted and cubed
about 1 1/2 cups medium-dry cider and/or chicken stock
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
about 1/2 cup fresh sage leaves, chopped
4 tablespoons butter
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

  1. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook until browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain the grease.
  2. Add the butter to the pan. Sauté the onion, celery, and fennel seeds along with salt and pepper until the onions are translucent.
  3. Add the chestnuts, apple, and sage and sauté for another few minutes.
  4. Add the bread cubes and sauté until they have absorbed almost all the butter.
  5. Add the cooked sausage, then the cider or stock a bit at a time, until the bread is quite soft but not mushy.
  6. Scoop the stuffing into a buttered baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes, or until top has browned. Serve with gravy.

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