Pig - - Page 27

by rooms

Why Waste Perfectly Good Bacon Grease?

So I was at the ‘real’ grocery store the other day; I don’t go there very often because I do 75% of my food shopping at Tran’s Market. Anyway, whenever I do go I usually stop by the fish counter because I love seafood, but I like to eat it the day I buy it. So I picked up some Haddock, and then I noticed they also had these beautiful creatures called Mahogany Clams in the display.

They have a thick shell like a quahog and similar size, but much more beautiful. I asked the guy about them, and he said that he didn’t know what they were like, but probably good, not very good sellers because people didn’t know what they were. A ringing endorsement.

I live in Maine; apparently we don’t like to try new things here. I asked if they were local and he said he thought so, pretty much all their shellfish is local. And they were 15 cents a piece! Cents, my friends. There was even a little cents sign. Remember the good old “c” with a diagonal line through it? I was sold.

I picked up a dozen and a half.

My plan was to make clams casino, which I had never made, but knew contained bacon. I looked up a bunch of recipes and the common theme was mix some stuff with butter, cook your clams until they just open, put the butter mixture on top with a bit of already cooked bacon and broil until brown. Something about throwing out all that perfectly good bacon grease and then using a bunch of butter just didn’t make sense to me, so my version of bacon-y good mahogany clams casino after the jump.

by BS

Gansie Fever is Spreading

TVFF has been hit. Bon Appetit has been hit. And yes, BS has been hit (sorry, mom). 2009 is officially the year of egg yolk on everything. This breakfast-for-dinner dish was inspired by the “best breakfast ever” shot in our girl El’s Morrocan food porn photos. Admittedly, my hastily-invented creation looks a little less profess than that one, but it is runny, eggy, deliciousness neveretheless. Here’s what I did:

in Cheese / Eggs / Pig / Sandwich / Trends 2 comments

by BS

Pig Progress: Very Necessary Eating Inventions Roundup

– “Cook better, look better, bite better” with the triple-spiral slicer Wunder Weener.

– Everyone give a big round of thanks to Sweden for FINALLY inventing a 100-percent real bacon product that comes in a tube. Behold Squeez Bacon.

– And at long last, a product that gets that bacon-y smell where you need it the most: Bacon Lube.

*I’ll let you readers decide which, if any, of these new products are April Fools jokes. Personally, I’m going to go ahead and believe in them all. The world is better that way.

More Bacon: Recipes, raves and other bacon bits in Endless Bacon.

in Bacon / Endless Bacon / Pig 2 comments

by BS

Panamaniac

Hola! As I’m sure all you loyal ES-ers noticed, I was totally MIA last week. Thanks to all you contributors for picking up the slack while I was off chillaxing in the Caribbean. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how mad I am to be in front of a computer and not on the beach right now. I’m also sure no one feels the slightest bit bad for me. If it’s any consolation, a large section of my forehead is peeling off as I type (it’s not easy being this white!)

OK, enough about non-edible topics. Let’s talk food. A bunch of people had told me that Central American food outside of Mexico can be disappointingly bland. This was not remotely the case in Panama. Sometimes it was really simple, like plain black beans over plain white rice with a simple slab of beef or chicken, but it was always tasty and there was almost always some spicy chili sauce on the table to add. On with the show:

Carimañolas are a Panamanian specialty. Boiled yuca, stuffed with ground beef and deep fried. Effing delicious. It’s like a fried mashed potato bite with a juicy meatball inside. Proving once again that anything can be improved by deep-frying it.

Far and away our favorite thing. We kept going back to this tiny little counter place to pick up more of these “tortillas.” They’re little deep-fried balls of cornmeal, kinda like hushpuppies but even greasier and more filling. I thought it was weird that they were called tortillas but I guess when you think about it that just means “little cake” so it works. By the end of the week we were totally regulars with the lady who sold these.

Mas fotos despues del jumpo…

in Drinks / Fish / Food Travel / Photos / Pig / Red Meat 11 comments

by broadandpattison

It’s Only Natural To Compare March Madness To Food

With the first day of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament upon us, there are a few questions we need to answer:

1) Can you out bracket our Commander-in-Chief?
2) How much money can you cost your company by watching espn360, instead of doing work?
3) Can you come up with 5 better NCAA players/coaches to food analogies than the ones below?

The challenge is simple: Think of a popular NCAA player/coach and ask yourself, if they were food, what type of food would they be?

We’ll start with an easy one:

1) Rick Pitino = Kobe Beef Cheeseburger

Let’s not kid ourselves here. Rick Pitino looks GOOD. He dresses nice, he slicks back his hair, and he probably has a nice watch. But, the guy also comes to play. Having a good time isn’t good enough for Rick Pitino. You can’t wear a white suit and not mean business. Kobe beef cheeseburger? Not all that different. It is always presented well. It’s a slamming good time, but don’t be fooled by your excitement; you better bring your A-game when you take down a Kobe burger.

2) Hasheem Thabeet = Fruit by the Foot

Hasheem Thabeet is really, really tall. He’s also pretty skinny. You think he might be a pushover, but he isn’t. He’s actually quite intense. In fact, at the beginning of games, you might think you want a piece of him, but after a few drives to the basket, you realize you probably don’t. Enter: fruit by the foot. The longest and skinniest of the long and skinny variety. It always sounds like a good idea. “Yea, no big deal, I can put down a foot of chewy fruit tasting dessert.” But as you stare down that last bite, you don’t want anymore.

3) Gerald Henderson = 7-Layer Nacho Dip

Look, Gerald Henderson is freakishly good. He jumps out of the building, frighteningly quick, and scarily athletic. Is he polished? Probably not. Are his fundamentals ready for the next level? Maybe. But the fact remains, he has all the ingredients. You know what else has all the ingredients? 7-Layer Nacho Dip. Is it perfect? No. There are always certain ingredients that you like more than others and favor when you go in for the dip. But it’s also ridiculously good, no matter its imperfections. I mean, you don’t make it to every single sports-watching party by accident.

in Cheese / Pig / Red Meat 6 comments

by tvff

When The Wife’s Away…

…I eat like a six year old. Yep, those are tater-tots.

Hey, I didn’t feel like cooking and I had a rather large burrito for lunch so I wasn’t in the mood for a multi-course meal. But I do have a point beyond inviting you to laugh at my culinary transgression.

The more interesting item in the back is a fried egg sandwich that contains a special ingredient — an impulse buy during my last trip to the grocery store. That slice of porky goodness is the pride of Trenton, New Jersey…Taylor’s Pork Roll.

in Bacon / Breakfast / Eggs / Pig / Sandwich 7 comments

by gansie

And On Wednesday She Cooked Two Dinners

Monday night I went to Belmont‘s book club meeting where she served an African-inspired hearty, pureed, spicy (canned) squash soup. It was the color of puke but was absolutely wonderful. Perfect for a cold, winter night. All of the bookies are waiting for her to post the semi-elaborate recipe. I do know, however, that she spiked the soup with red wine and whiskey. And right there I vowed to myself to abuse 80’s liquor cabinet on behalf of our meals, kinda like this truffle amazingness. A selfless host indeed, Belmont took the time to shake up a blood orange vinaigrette and a salad full of fresh spinach and blood orange segments and the bitch doesn’t even like fruit. She’s a real crowd pleaser. Plus the from-scratch vanilla pudding.

So that was Monday.

Tuesday I attended a press dinner at the very new Inox. It was all the way out in Tysons so I was <this close> to not trekking out there. But, good lord, I’m glad I sacrificed some oil for the tasting dinner:

endive salad with blood orange (two salads with blood orange in two days!) paired with the creamiest nugget of bleu cheese – and I hate that usually funky shit;
red snapper in a lively ginger-lemongrass curry bouillon which also had beautiful indigo colored-basil seeds floating around – had a great, and surprising, kick;
lobster, glorious lobster;
pink slices of pan seared duck downed with bites of artichoke, fennel, olives and sun dried tomato;
crispy, meaty skate wing and a pudgy scallop;
elderflower soup which scared the shit out of me because it looked exactly like a jellyfish (did anyone else get forced to watch seven pounds??);
a chocolate bread pudding with – GET THIS – kalamata olive oil sherbert infused in the creaminess. First you receive traditional chocolate, but then it’s salty, and tangy, and briny and holy shit it tastes like an olive, but there is no olive, just the essence of an olive. It’s a real trick on your brain. A beautiful trick that I would gladly fall for again;
fruity, light, juicy pineapple dessert, but I couldn’t keep my tongue away from the chocolate-oliveness;
ended with petits fours;
lots of wine throughout served by the cockiest, driest sommelier I’ve ever encountered. His demeanor was actually refreshing compared to the normal ass kissing wine expert. He was still kinda a dick though. But only in the nicest possible way.

So that was Tuesday. And sorry, Amy, for taking the LONG way home.

Anyway, I was tired from two nights out, plus I’d been living with a cold for the past few days, and I was excited to get back into the kitchen. It’s funny how much I missed it there. And this is how I know I’m really crazy. You know how everyone is like, oh, I only want to make one meal, one meal in one pot, something easy on a week night. Well, I like cooking so much that I enjoy making 80 and I different dinners. They’re usually similar in scope, but contain different ingredients.

Here goes crazy.

in Bacon / Cheese / Endless Bacon / Fowl / Pig / Recipe / Veggie 6 comments