It's not always about looks

A smoked ham hock is one of those items off a hog that will never win any beauty contests. It comes to you still wearing its skin, now dark and leathery from the smoker. Sometimes, a few wiry hairs still jut out from the skin, a reminder of its provenance. A thick bone protrudes from its centre, making it obvious that there isn't much to it but bone. I was more than a little intimidated the first time I freed one of these from its butchers' paper. I just wasn't sure that I wanted it in my pot, especially with that hair. Did this thing really belong in a cooking pot? (The one pictured above is a much nicer-looking specimen than my first hock. Hair-free too.)

But I quickly came to appreciate a smoked hock for what it was. It isn't always about looks, you know. See, a smoked ham hock is an ingenious thing. The hock is the cut from a hog's hind leg between the foot and the ham proper. Unlike the ham, there isn't much meat to the hock. It's mostly bone, skin, and tough connective tissue. And what meat there is is pretty lean. For these reasons, it's not a much sought-after cut. It takes a little work to get to a hock's goodness--a long, low, simmer. So the smoking is one way to make it worthwhile. As a smoked hock breaks down in its cooking liquid, it gives off a lot of flavour--smoky, porky, woodsy flavour. Like I said, ingenious.

Now, maybe early January isn't the best time to be extolling the virtues of pig parts. But one of things I like most about a smoked pork hock is that a little goes a long way. Drop just one meaty hock (remember, it's mostly bone) into a pot with some onion and water and set it to simmer, and you're on your way to something special. That's the idea, anyway, behind Kemp Minifie's hoppin' John collard stew. You let your hock simmer away the afternoon, returning just to add some black-eyed peas to the pot after an hour and some collard greens an hour after that. It's my favourite kind of winter cooking. You can leave things to bubble merrily on their own and wander off to daydream, read, or do a load of laundry. And when the day's light has faded, you just return to fish out the hock, separate the meat from skin, fat, and bone, return the meat to the pot, and then ladle some of that stew over a plate of rice.

Pork and beans and greens might not exactly be your idea of how to start off the new year. But the smoked ham hock and the culinary tradition behind it--the resourcefulness of it, the ingeniousness of it--really appeal to me right now. These are ideas I can get behind, ideas I want to carry with me the  whole year through. And, if nothing else, who doesn't like a pile of silky collards, smoky meat, and creamy beans floating in porky broth on a cold winter's night? Just don't forget to bring your favourite hot sauce to the table too. Happy new year, everyone. 

Hoppin' John Collard Stew
From Kemp Minifie via Gourmet

1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 tsp hot red-pepper flakes
1 meaty smoked ham hock, about 1 lb in weight
10 cups water
1/2 lb / 1 1/4 cups dried black-eyed peas, picked over and rinsed (don’t soak)
1 lb collard greens, center ribs discarded and leaves chopped
Hot sauce to serve

Cook onion in oil with 1/2 tsp salt in a deep heavy medium pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 8 minutes. Add red-pepper flakes and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add ham hock and water and simmer, partially covered, 1 hour. 

Add black-eyed peas and simmer, partially covered, 1 hour. 

Stir in collards (add water if necessary for a soupy consistency) and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until greens are very tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. 

Remove ham hock and chop meat, discarding skin, fat, and bone. Stir into stew and thin with water, if necessary, then season with salt.

Serve over rice and with hot sauce at the table. The acidity of the hot sauce helps to cut through the rich smokiness of the stew.

Serves six.

Sumptuousness for the new year

If I'd had things my way, I'd have woken up late New Year's Day to a bowlful of this minestrone--warm, nourishing, vegetal, and earnest. I'm a firm believer in starting the year with a good soup. After all that splendid holiday fare--the roasts, the potatoes, the mounds of sweets--it's exactly what I need. 

And that was especially true of this past holiday in particular. Christmas was one thing, but New Year's Eve was really something else. My boyfriend and I were visiting with his parents, and they'd invited a few people over to celebrate. You have no idea how much we ate. We set the table no less than three times over the course of the evening. We had three dinners that night, each broken up with a few drinks, some cards, and a little pool. First came the meatball soup, the piles of smoked and cured meats, and a kale salad. Then there were cabbage rolls (glorious), sausages, and a luxurious cabbage gratin. Finally, as we rung in the New Year, there was a pork loin, potatoes, and Brussels sprouts on the table. (And of course there was dessert.) The Romanians know how to run a feast (but I should have known that already).

The next day, there were leftovers galore, so I waited until I was back in Chicago to make this much-needed soup. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't bother making my own vegetable stock. But I wanted this soup to be positively virtuous, so homemade stock it was. And after a string of lazy days, it felt right. All that scrubbing, peeling, and chopping was meditative, renewing--and well worth it, besides. The stock gives the minestrone its depth, sweetness, and complexity. It's the heart of this soup, really. It makes it just about as sumptuous as any humble vegetable soup can be. And at the start of the year, that's all the sumptuousness you might really need.
Happy 2012, friends.

January Minestrone

Adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Note: Make ahead. As with many soups, this minestrone just gets better in a day or two. If you aren't serving it all at once, only blanch as much chard and cook as much pasta as you'll need immediately. You risk overcooking them otherwise. Umami. Don't overlook the parmesan. The vegetables can't do it all on their own. The parm gives the soup the satisfying kick of umami it needs. Vegans, you'll have to make up for it in good-quality soy sauce or tamari. Parmesan rind. You can also improve the depth and flavour of any vegetable broth by adding the rind from a wedge of Reggiano. Think of it as the vegetarian's ham knuckle.

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish
2 cups finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 cup diced celery
Salt and pepper
2 bay leaves
8 parsley branches
6 thyme sprigs
9 cups vegetable stock (recipe below)
Rind from a piece of Parmigiano Reggiano (optional)
3 cups cooked white beans (I used alubia blanca but cannellini would be just fine) 
Soy sauce, to taste
1 small bunch of Swiss chard or kale
2 1/2 cups cooked small pasta (I used ditalini, small and thimble-like)
Thin shavings of parmesan, preferably Parmigiano Reggiano

Heat the oil in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot with the onion. Saute over high heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Add the tomato paste, parsley, garlic, vegetables, and 2 teaspoons salt and cook 3 minutes more.

In the meantime, tie up the aromatics with kitchen twine or bundle them in cheesecloth. Add them to the pot along with the stock, and the rind, if using, and bring to a boil.

Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes. At the 15 minute mark, add the beans to the pot.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously. Blanch the greens until bright, just a minute or two. Drain them and run them under cold water. Remove their stems and chop the leaves finely. Set aside.

Taste the soup for salt and season with freshly ground black pepper. If it needs more depth, stir in some soy sauce, starting with 1 tablespoon. Remove the aromatics.

Just before serving, add the greens and the pasta to the soup and heat through. Serve with extra virgin olive oil drizzled into each bowl, a generous grind of pepper, and the parmesan.

Serves 6.

Basic Vegetable Stock

Adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Note: Volume. My 5.5-quart dutch oven just fits all of the liquid and vegetables. If you don't have something nearly as big, you might try simmering everything in 2 quarts of water to make a more concentrated stock and then diluting it with an additional 3 cups of water for the minestrone.

3 small onions
3 large carrots
3 celery ribs, including a few leaves
1 large bunch of scallions
1 1/2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
12 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
12 parsley branches
9 thyme sprigs
2 bay laves
Salt

Scrub the vegetables and chop them roughly into 1-inch chunks. Heat the oil in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot. Add the vegetables, garlic, and herbs and cook them over high heat for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently. The more colour they get, the richer the flavour of the stock. Add 3 teaspoons of salt and 3 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth.

Makes about 9 cups.

Kitchen Rhythms

With few exceptions, I'm the kind of girl who always cleans her plate. Thighs be damned, I'm just not one to waste food. And it doesn't stop at the table. Sometimes, when I should be thinking about the page right in front of me or the lecture going on, just briefly, I start turning over dinner possibilities in my head. Spinach languishing in the fridge? Creamed spinach over pasta tonight. Heavy cream about to expire? Biscuits for the morning. I hate to see things go to waste, and it drives the way I cook and eat.

I'm not sure where it comes from. Maybe it's my family's stories--my mother growing up in a time and place where strict rationing was in effect, my paternal grandmother sharing her childhood dinners with eight hungry brothers and always winding up with chicken necks and fish heads (though, I'm told, that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing--the boys just didn't know it). But wherever it comes from, it's now a solid part of the rhythms of cooking and planning and eating in my kitchen.

Macarons are no exception to this. For every batch of macarons I've made, I've tucked away two or three egg yolks in the freezer with the promise of some later use. And what have I done with the last few of these? Why, put them to use in a seven-yolk pasta dough, of course.

I'm not particularly experienced with making pasta, but I love working with yolk-rich doughs. The yolks leave the dough appreciably smooth and supple, almost silken, inviting you to run your fingertips over it. And it's a wonder to see how, with a bit of rolling, a bit of flouring, your sunny mass of dough flattens out into near-paper-thin sheets, ready to be rolled up and cut into generous strands. Now, I'm sure that by any Italian grandmother's standards this was an appalling attempt. These noodles are unmistakably ugly. But I can assure you that they made up a blissfully rich and eggy bed for this bunch: caramelised onions, spinach, olives, and feta, with a squeeze of lemon, for good measure.

Seven-Yolk Pasta Dough: find the recipe at Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Thomas Keller's French Laundry Cookbook. 

Freezing egg yolks: egg yolks tend to get gelatinous after spending some time in the freezer. I advise adding a generous pinch of salt (or sugar, if you're planning to make something sweet) to each yolk you want to save and breaking it up a bit. Stored in an air-tight container, they should be good for another three months. Leave them to thaw in the refrigerator the night before you plan to use them. (Mine, this time, still turned out a little jelly-like--I'll be using more salt next time around--but if this happens to you, don't worry. Just be prepared to add a little extra liquid to whatever you're making to compensate, or reduce the dry component.)

With practice

A good macaron is really something special. It takes you by surprise--delicate, almost cloud-like, but intensely flavoured beneath its crackly, colourful shell. And, by all counts, such a macaron is not easy to come by--it's a bit of a technical achievement to get that smooth, shiny dome, that pretty, ruffled foot, that satisfying chew. I'm certainly not there yet with my macarons, but making them was something that I had to try and something that I intend to keep working at.

Admittedly, there are perfectly good macarons at the bakery down the street, and if this were all about getting my fill, I could probably just pop in there more often. But this, this is about the challenge. I'm learning to master something, bit by bit. Whipping egg whites to stiff peaks by hand? No problem. Folding ground almonds and sugar into those egg whites? Sure thing. Piping perfect macaron shells? Well, I'm still working on that one. Every new batch has come out just that much better than the last. I like seeing the improvement right on the half-sheet. It feels good to be working towards something tangible.

So, don't be deterred by the technical demands because that's all they are--demands that can be met with a bit of patience and practice. What's more, once you've gotten a handle on the basics, there isn't much to limit you. Stick to standard flavours like pistachio, lemon, and chocolate, or dream up your own (take, for instance, Pierre Herme's ketchup macarons).

Chocolate and Fig-Butter Macarons: my first success was variation on David Lebovitz's French chocolate macarons--I stuck with his lovely chocolate shells but decided that Kim Boyce's spectacular fig butter (find the recipe at 101 Cookbooks) would be the way to go for filling. The result? Rich, dark, and fruity macarons with that little bit of sophistication that port- and red-wine-poached figs lend. And, just in case you were wondering, there was plenty of leftover fig butter for morning toast and the occasional spoonful straight from the fridge.

As I've said, my macarons still need a little work--especially when it comes to piping. I can, however, leave you with a few tips that I've found helpful to get you started (see also Tartelette and Not So Humble Pie for some more sound macaron-related advice):

Equipment

• a medium bowl for beating egg whites--glass or ceramic will do just fine but copper is best (see below, "Beating Egg Whites")
• a metal whisk
• a rubber or silicone spatula--the wider, the better for folding
• at least two-heavy duty half-sheets--stack these together for more even heat distribution and bake only one half-sheet's worth at a time--your risk cracking your macarons otherwise
• parchment paper
• a pastry bag
• a plain, round piping tip, 6-8 mm in diameter (I have an Ateco #12)
• a food processor, preferably--David Lebovitz says that the powdered almonds you get at the store aren't quite fine enough and recommends pulverizing them with your powdered sugar so that your macaron shells don't come out grainy. I don't think my local grocery store even sells powdered almonds, but it's easy enough to make your own (see below, "Almonds").

Beating Egg Whites

• If you Google something like "beating egg whites by hand," you'll likely be advised not to try it unless you have a copper bowl. Don't listen to that! With just a glass bowl, a metal whisk, a bit of determination, and the right technique, you can get lovely stiff and glossy peaks. I'm not sure how much of a difference copper makes (egg whites react with copper chemically, resulting in more voluminous and stable whites), but I'll be able to tell you in a few days. I just splurged on a Mauviel bowl--it was a steal on EBay--and can't wait to try it out. Update, 2012-02-12. Having made more than my share of soufflés in the past year, I can tell you that if beating egg whites by hand is your thing, a good copper bowl is certainly the vessel to beat them in. The copper gives you good volume and prevents you from beating them dry. Just make sure that you have a good whisk too. I wasn't all that impressed with my copper bowl until my old whisk broke and I got a replacement. Turns out that my old whisk was just extraordinarily bad for beating egg whites.
• Start with an impeccably clean glass, ceramic, or copper bowl. Any fatty residue will impede the development of the whites.
• Always start with room-temperature whites--they'll develop peaks much more easily. Aging your whites--that is, separating them from the yolks and leaving them in the fridge covered for a day or more--is also supposed to help with peaks. I haven't stuck to this advice consistently, but I have been using the oldest eggs lying around in my fridge.
• Another couple of things can help your egg whites along and keep them stable once they've formed peaks: (i) a pinch of salt added to your egg whites before you begin beating and (ii) just a touch of something acidic just as your peaks take shape--cream of tartar, lemon juice, or white vinegar.
• Start slow with your whites, letting them lose their elasticity until they get greyish and foamy. Then you can pick up speed.
• Once you start, don't stop. Your arm will get tired, trust me. Just switch to your non-dominant hand to give the other a break when you need it. Or, have a friend on stand-by in the kitchen.
• What you're looking to achieve is a thick, glossy mass of egg whites--when you take your whisk out of the bowl and raise it in the air, the whites at its tip should almost stand on end. I stop when my whites get thick enough that they get caught in the balloon of my whisk and become difficult to keep beating.

Almonds

• If you can't find powdered or ground almonds at the store, buy blanched almonds and grind them to a fine powder in your food processor.
• Or, if you have raw almonds on hand, like I often do, blanch your own and then grind them: for every 1 cup of almonds you have, bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan and blanch them for 1-2 minutes; drain them in a colander and run cold water over them until they're cool enough to handle; give each almond a squeeze to release it from its skin; discard the skins and leave your almonds to dry on a kitchen towel.

Folding

• Once your egg whites are thick and glossy, they're ready for the almonds and sugar. Carefully add them to your whites, grab a wide, flexible spatula, and fold the ingredients in gently: cut the egg whites through the centre with the side edge of your spatula and sweep the spatula beneath the whites towards the edge of the bowl, lifting the whites back towards the centre. Rotate your bowl a quarter- turn (90 degrees) and repeat until there aren't any visible streaks of egg white left. Don't be too timid with your folding, what you're looking for is something with the consistency of a paste. The macaron batter needs to hold its shape (you don't want puddles, like with my first attempt), but too airy a batter will leave your shells with little tails when you lift your piping tip away. (You can see this with some of my shells in the photos above.)