Steel Cut Oats

Week: 14
Ingredient: Steel Cut Oats
From: Martin's, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Oatmeal

I am not in to health food. At least, not in the I’m going to eat this food that doesn’t taste good because it provides such and such health benefit sense. That’s why I was a little skeptical of steel cut oats at first. My impression was that they were just another health food fad. However, several of my friends have told me how great steel cut oats are, so I figured it was time to give them a try. An oatmeal taste test, steel cut versus rolled oats, seemed appropriate.

I bought some steel cut oats, and to my surprise, the nutritional information was identical to the nutritional information for the rolled oats I already had at home. Health food? Ha! At least not any more than regular rolled oats (which really are quite good for you). Wikipedia did say that “steel-cut oats may have a lower glycemic index than instant oatmeal,” but I was comparing them to old fashioned oats, not instant, so I’m not sure if that still holds true or not.

I made both oatmeals according to package directions. The only notable difference in the cooking directions was that the steel cut oats needed 10-20 minutes to cook while the rolled oats needed only 5. (Do old fashioned oats really only take 5 minutes to cook? Or is it possible my oats were mislabeled and really were quick oats? Sometimes you can’t be sure when you buy the store brand ...)

Conclusion: It seems to me that the differences between steel cut oats and rolled oats are kind of like the differences between brown rice and white rice: nutrition, cooking time, flavor, and texture. Only, with the oats the variations are smaller than with brown and white rice. The one exception is the texture. While I didn’t note much difference in flavor between the steel cut and rolled oats, the difference in texture was significant. The rolled oats made oatmeal that was ... like oatmeal. (How else can I describe it?) The steel cut oatmeal had a little more bite to it; it could almost be called chewy. It kind of reminded me of buckwheat. Anyway, I liked it. I won’t be replacing all my rolled oats with steel cut oats, but they will find a place in my pantry. And, like brown and white rice, I will find uses for both kinds of oats at different times.

Pearl Sugar

Week: 13
Ingredient: Swedish Pearl Sugar
From: King Arthur Flour
Recipe: Liège Waffles¹

Until about a year ago, I liked waffles. Then I had a life-changing experience. It was one of those fateful days, when a series of circumstances were laid out in front of me such that there were no decisions to be made. All I could do was follow the single course of action as it was revealed. Unaware of the magnitude of the events taking place, I followed that course to its inevitable conclusion: I love waffles.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I was not going to let the waffle iron Danny gave me for Christmas (or was it my birthday?) go to waste. Or was I? In fact, that waffle iron sat untouched for years (no more than three) in my pantry. Then it finally saw the light of day ... when I removed it from the pantry to pack up for the move to my new house. Once unpacked, the waffle iron found a new home in a new closet ... where it sat for a few more years (no less than three).

I still remember the Saturday morning when it happened. I was watching Food Network (as I often do on Saturday mornings), and I was hungry (as I often am when I am watching Food Network). Sometimes all the shows on Saturday morning follow a theme, and the theme that day was breakfast. As I watched the Food Network chefs cook bacon and French toast and hash and eggs and so much more, I lamented the fact that my own kitchen was so poorly stocked—no meat, no potatoes, no bread, no cheese, no fresh fruit—no way to make any of the delicious things I was seeing on TV. I resorted to perusing Joy of Cooking² (another frequent pastime) in the hopes of finding some breakfast food that could be made with only the barest essentials from my pantry and refrigerator. That’s when I discovered waffles.

Maybe “discovered” is not the right word. It is not like this was the first time I had ever eaten a waffle. But this time was different. Somehow the simplest ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, eggs, butter, and milk) combined into a masterpiece. It was love at first bite. I didn’t even bother with a plate. Or a fork. The only reason I did not eat straight out of the iron was that I put one waffle on a cooling rack just long enough to get the next waffle started. After three waffles, I realized I had eaten the equivalent of half a stick of butter. That almost didn’t stop me, but in the end, prudence won out, and I saved the rest of the waffles for later.

For a few months after that, waffles became regular fare at my house. I experimented with other flours, different recipes, and I even used a plate and fork when I experimented with different fruit toppings.

Of course my waffle pursuits also included some internet research. That is how I learned about Gaufres de Liège (Liège waffles). Liège waffles are yeast-raised waffles with added pearl sugar which caramelizes as the waffles bake. I have never been to Belgium for the real thing, but they pretty much had me at “caramelized sugar.” I had to try them.

Pearl sugar was not the easiest thing to find, but that is only because I did not try the internet first. I ordered some from King Arthur Flour (along with a bunch of other fabulous ingredients), and when it arrived I was surprised at how small the “pearls” were. I do not know where I got this idea, but I was expecting something approximately the size of a peppercorn. It was actually a little smaller and looked a lot like pretzel salt.

Well, I made Liège waffles. As with most yeast-raised dough, they took a while to make, but they were not difficult. I did make a sticky mess because I tried to work the dough by hand. In hindsight, I should have spooned the dough into the waffle iron. Nonetheless, the waffles came out nice and golden-brown. However, I was quite disappointed that the sugar did not caramelize. (That was, after all, the selling point for me to try Liège waffles!) Without the caramelization, they were essentially really sweet waffles. They had a slightly yeasty flavor and a chewy texture—kind of like a soft pretzel but sweet instead of salty. Not quite what I was hoping for, but far from terrible.

Conclusion: Pearl sugar probably needs a higher temperature to caramelize properly. I might be out of luck when it comes to Liège waffles because my waffle iron does not have an adjustable temperature. On the other hand, sugar that does not melt so easily is perfect for sprinkling on top of baked goods. I might try to make Liège waffles again, but if I have similar results, I will save the rest of the pearl sugar for other uses.

¹I found the recipe for Liège Waffles months ago somewhere on the internet and printed it out. I never imagined that I would have cause to use the link again, and, Google as I may, now I cannot find the same recipe. So, my apologies for not citing my source correctly. Thank you, unknown sharer of recipes on the internet.

²Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, & Ethan Becker, Joy of Cooking, 75th Anniversary ed. (New York: Scribner, 2006), 71, 646-647.

Quail Eggs, Part One

Week: 12
Ingredient: Quail Eggs
From: Great Wall Supermarket, Falls Church, VA
Recipe: Lowell Eggs

As I considered what to do with this week’s ingredient, I thought about all my favorite ways to eat eggs. Of course, eggs are important components in many things—cakes, custards, meatballs, and on and on. But I was thinking about dishes where the egg is the star. It is hard to imagine a place where eggs are more of a star than in their traditional place on an American breakfast plate.

When it comes to your basic breakfast eggs, I typically opt for scrambled. When I was growing up, the rest of my family seemed to prefer fried eggs to scrambled eggs. But not me. In fact, I think I even went through a phase where I did not like fried eggs at all. It was something about the yolk—I didn’t like it firm, I didn’t like it runny, and I didn’t like it anywhere in between either. Fortunately, I grew out of that, but my preference is still for scrambled eggs.

To cook quail eggs for the first time, scrambling just seemed wrong. I did not want to lose the integrity of the egg’s structure; white and yolk should remain separate. So, I decided it would have to be fried eggs. But not just any fried eggs—Lowell Eggs.

Lowell Eggs?

I have many fond memories of trips to North Carolina as a kid. Some of my family lived there, and we would visit from time to time. There was always plenty of good food to eat (especially the barbecue from Parker’s), but one of my most vivid food memories is watching my Great Uncle Lowell cook eggs. He did not cook eggs the way Mom did, and it made an impression on my brother and me. We dubbed them Lowell Eggs, and here is the recipe ...

Lowell Eggs

Ingredients

• Sausage, not low-fat
• Eggs

Preparation

1. Fry the sausage.
2. Remove the sausage from the pan.
3. Fry the eggs in the sausage fat left in the pan.
4. Serve with salt and pepper.

That’s it. I absolutely cannot imagine a better fried egg, so that is the way I decided to fry my quail eggs. For authenticity, it would have been nice to use some of the big, fat, spicy, delicious sausage links we often get in North Carolina. However, there was no time for a road trip, so I settled for some local-ish (made in Virginia) bulk sausage I found at Kroger (which was quite good). As the sausage fried, it filled my house with an oh-so-enticing aroma (which was not-so-enticing when it lingered in my house the next day). The tiny quail eggs cooked very quickly in the hot fat, and took on the savory flavor of the sausage. Classic Lowell Eggs ... in miniature!

Conclusion: The quail variation of Lowell Eggs was delicious, but other than the tiny size, I could not discern much difference from the standard chicken egg version. Maybe that can be blamed on the wonderful sausagey flavor, or perhaps a side-by-side taste test would have made flavor differences more obvious. A slight disadvantage of quail eggs is that you have to cook so many, but the speed at which they cook pretty much makes up for that. In the end, quail eggs have the advantage of being absolutely adorable, and that is enough reason for me to use them again.

Chipped Beef

Week: 1
Ingredient: Esskay Chipped Beef
From: Red Front Supermarket, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Creamed Chipped Beef (from the package)

I made a quick stop at Red Front this week to pick up a few ingredients for a salad I was supposed to take to a dinner the next evening. While I was there, I decided to see what unusual things Red Front carried. Certainly there would be something interesting in the small grocery store I have always thought was very ... Mennonite. The first thing that caught my eye was a small jar of “Dried Beef.” Immediately, I was reminded of my grandmother—not the Mennonite one, but the the Baptist one. I had seen such a jar in her kitchen many times. I always thought the little rounds of red-brown meat in an otherwise-empty jar were funny. Seriously, who buys meat that way?

Nonetheless, it seemed perfect. The weather was so cold outside, exactly the kind of weather that makes one want to sit down to a hot, fattening, oh-so-comforting meal. And chipped beef gravy, the only thing I knew to do with dried beef, was all of these things. I added the little jar to my cart and continued through the store.

When I passed through the refrigerated meat section, I noticed a small, plastic package labeled “Chipped Beef.” But if that was chipped beef, what was this dried beef I had found amongst the SPAM and Vienna sausages? I was anxious to get home, out of the cold, so I added the similar-looking, but sooner-expiring, thinly-sliced beef to my cart, and hurried through the rest of my shopping trip.

Back at home, with the groceries unloaded, I set out to find out the difference between dried beef and chipped beef. Food Lover's Companion did not let me down: “Chipped beef is also referred to simply as dried beef.”¹ It was not surprising that the two dried beef products I purchased varied only in packaging. “Dried Beef” had a longer shelf life because it was sealed in a jar; “Chipped Beef” was packaged more like a fresh lunch meat and would spoil without refrigeration. Oh well. One can never have too much dried meat, right? (Yeah ... right.)

On Saturday I made chipped beef gravy. Butter + dried beef + flour + milk + pepper. That is really all there is to it—so easy! And just as comforting as I expected it would be. I had no bread at home, so I made biscuits to go with it. Unnecessary richness! In the future, I will serve it on toast. Also, chipped beef is quite salty, so next time I may start by parboiling the meat and draining the water. I can always add salt, if needed.

Conclusion: Chipped beef is pretty much what I expected: dry, salty meat. But not so very long ago dry, salty meat was a staple, right? I should probably branch out and try something else with chipped beef sometime. But I will always know that a classic like chipped beef gravy—with toast—is an excellent comfort food for a cold, winter morning.

¹Sharon Tyler Herbst, Food Lover's Companion, 3rd ed. (Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 2001), 133.

Buckwheat

Week: 0
Ingredient: Wolff's Kasha (buckwheat groats)
From: Martin’s, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Creamy Kasha (Buckwheat) Cereal¹

My best friend recently discovered she has a gluten allergy. I bought her The Gluten-free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods for Christmas, but she already had it. So, I kept it for myself, and I will have a reference for cooking gluten-free when she comes to visit in the future. I browsed through the cookbook, and that's where I found “Creamy Kasha Cereal.”

The recipe was perfect for a blog post because (1) I have never cooked buckwheat, and (2) I had all the ingredients on hand. So, why did I have buckwheat on hand if I never use it? I had actually had a box of buckwheat sitting in my pantry, untouched, for quite a long time. I bought it after a trip to Ukraine, where I first ate this form of buckwheat. The plan was to try to recreate some of the Ukrainian food I ate, but I never got around to it. Fortunately, buckwheat has a long shelf life!

The buckwheat I ate in Ukraine was served with vegetables and a little meat, quite unlike this sweet breakfast dish. I prepared the recipe as written with one substitution: dried cherries instead of dried cranberries. While it was cooking, I was a little skeptical. The chocolaty aroma was nice enough, but it just did not look appealing. It was brown, lumpy, and watery. Despite cooking it longer than the recipe indicated, the wateriness did not go away. (Maybe I measured wrong?) Adding the cream at the end improved the appearance, but it was still a rather homely dish.

But, all's well that ends well. It was actually very tasty, like oatmeal but with a slightly different taste (buckwheat-y!) and texture (groat-y!). In fact, the texture was quite pleasant—not at all pasty like oatmeal can sometimes be. It was quick and easy too.

Conclusion: Buckwheat is an ingredient worth using. I won't be serving “Creamy Kasha” for company any time soon, but it is certainly good enough for a family breakfast. The recipe leaves plenty of room for variation—change up the fruit, add some nuts, use honey instead of brown sugar, etc. Next time I cook buckwheat, I'll probably try it in something savory—a pilaf, perhaps. If nothing else, buckwheat is a nice alternative to oatmeal once in a while.

If you are wondering why this post is not about capon, it is because I decided I wanted a proper roasting pan before cooking my Capon. I ordered one, and it should arrive soon. The capon was frozen when I bought it, so it won't hurt to keep it in the freezer another week or two. :)

¹Bette Hagman, The Gluten-free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004), 127.