If you’ve been paying any attention to my ramblings on kosherblog, you might recall my obsession with BBQ thermometers - or more specifically, my interest in creating the ultimate BBQ thermometer. I’m happy to report that I have succeded, and created the worlds first BBQ thermometer with an embedded web-server for remote temperature monitoring. Take a look at this screen-grab:

That’s a live graph of the internal temperature of a beef brisket (PROBE2), and the temperature inside the smoker (PROBE1). (Click the image for the complete screen-grab.)

Here’s what the device looks like. A non-descript black box with wires sticking out of it. And a Linksys wireless-internet bridge connect it to my home network. The thermometer and the bridge both need to be plugged in, so the area around the smoker had extension cords everywhere - not a problem as long as it doesn’t rain, right? The meat probes that I was using came from a neat little Williams-Sonoma meat thermometer that I bought on sale for $9. Relax - I’m not going to go into detail on the internal workings. Unless you ask me to

I left the smoker on while I went to work, checking the temperature periodically from my Treo 600. While I was at the gym that evening, my brisket reached the target temperature and I headed home to take it out. Here’s a picture of what I saw on my Treo. When I got home, I was greeted by a perfectly done brisket, complete with a delicious smoky crust. You’ll notice from the images that it was after midnight, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying a piece or two while I was slicing it up. A little slice of carnivore-heaven.

So there you have it - my BBQ obsession meets my inner electronics-hobbyist and creates a tool for better BBQing. If that doesn’t interest you, don’t worry - I’m currently working on a review of “Dr. BBQ’s Big-Time Barbecue Cookbook“, by Ray Lampe. I hope to have that ready for you tomorrow - with a recipe of course.

I thought I’d start my Kosherblog career with a chicken recipe that I enjoy. It’s from Step-By-Step Moroccan Cooking (not a kosher cookbook, but Moroccan recipes are easily adaptable). The recipe calls for preserved lemon, which can be purchased at specialty stores, or you can substitute the zest of one fresh lemon, as we do. Also, if you’re lazy like us, you can skip the first step and just add the raw chicken to the sauteed vegetables, along with the remaining ingredients. That way, you will only need one (13-inch) pan. (We typically skip the “browning” step in our chicken recipes. People say it adds something, but I can’t tell the difference.)

Without further ado:

Chicken and Olives

12 chicken pieces
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground sweet paprika
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped (you can substitute flathead parsley if you’re not a cilantro person)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
4 strips preserved lemon rind, grated
2 tbs. lemon juice
1 cup green olives

Combine chicken with spices in large bowl. Let stand, covered, for 1 hour. Heat 2 tbs. oil in a large pan. Cook chicken until well browned, but not cooked through. Transfer chicken to larger pan.

Add remaining oil to pan. Add onion and bell pepper. Cook over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring. Transfer to large pan with chicken pieces.

Add cilantro and stock, lemon rind, juice, and olives.

Simmer, covered, for 40 minutes, until chicken is tender and liquid has reduced.

I’m a confirmed carnivore. A Meat-for-Breakfast kind of carnivore. But, I also enjoy trying as many vegetarian meat alternatives as I can. I think that makes sense. After all, when you’re kosher you can’t have meat all the time. During the Nine Days I was looking through a new food magazine I picked up (CHOW magazine. FYI, I like the magazine a lot. It’s not as chock-full of recipes as some of the other periodicals I read, but the material was educational, entertaining, and as I later discovered - delicious). They had an article about vegetarian meat alternatives and the vege-meat industry, followed by a recipe that piqued my interest - Seitan Piccata. By the time I had a chance to make the dish, the Nine Days were over - but the dish will stay in my ‘meatless cooking repertoire’.

What is seitan, you ask? Seitan is a meat alternative made from wheat-gluten. It can be made at home, but I went to my local Whole Foods Market to pick up a package. Every available brand was Kosher, by the way. As it turns out, the package I bought was seitan-chunks, rather than cutlets - so I was making Seitan Nugget Piccata, but the taste wasn’t affected by it.

If you’re not familiar, ‘-piccata’ generally means a thin chicken or veal cutlet, dredged in flour and fried, served in a white-wine sauce containing capers and lemon juice.

The most important question when evaluating meat-alternatives has to be “How did it taste?” I’m happy to report that it tasted great. As the magazine article pointed out, meat-replacements are generally best with strong flavors & sauces. I mean, seitan and tofu and the others are basically tasteless - I wouldn’t judge them against meat until after cooking. These are raw ingredients - not like a Morningstar Farms sausage patty or burger.

When I cut into my seitan-chunks, I discovered a network of bubbles, very similar to the inside of a sponge - but it didn’t bother me. If I made the recipe with cutlets, there would have been more seitan surface-area to dredge and fry, and the inside of the cutlet would be less noticeable, if at all. Also, the next time I make this, I’ll probably use butter - which would violate the Vegan philosophy of the recipe’s author.

Enjoy.

Seitan Piccata
CHOW Magazine

6 seitan cutlets
whole-wheat flour for dredging
1/4 C olive oil
1/2 C diced shallots
1/2 C diced onion
1 t minced garlic
1/4 C drained capers
1 C dry white wine
1/4 C fresh lemon juice
1 C vegetable stock
4 T margarine
1 C chopped fresh parsley
1 t sea salt
1/2 t freshly ground pepper

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a saute pan. Dredge the cutlets in flour and shake off the excess. Fry about 30 sec. per side. Set aside.
2. Heat remaining oil. Saute shallots, onions, garlic and capers until soft. about 1-2 minutes.
3. Add the wine and cook until it is reduced by 1/2. about 5 minutes.
4. Whisk in the lemon juice and cook 3-5 minutes more.
5. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 minute. Whisk in margarine, salt & pepper. Pour over the cutlets & serve at once.

In a triumph for the kosher cheesemaking community, Jamie Forest of HonksAndSirens.com is successfully creating camembert at home. (An update with photo is also online.)

For me, it’s inspiring to see folks actually follow through with making cheese, and it’s incredibly helpful, too. Cheesemaking recipes are many, and the books out there are pretty decent, but nothing beats reviewing someone’s detailed, first-person descriptions and photographs of the whole process (well, nothing except actually watching someone make cheese).

Jamie notes, though, that he couldn’t find kosher-certified Penicillium Candidum, the bacteria that gives mold-ripened cheeses their white rind. I don’t know of any, but I’m also not sure if bacteria need certification. Any leads?

While Ariel Sharon’s disengagement rages on, there’s some good news to report from the Jerusalem Post: a fish (Barbus grypus) that the Talmud suggests tastes like pork has been identified in Iran, and Israeli scientists are figuring out how to raise it in Israel.

The Babylonian Talmud, which contains numerous discussions about the fish, specifically notes that some of its organs taste like pork (although how the sages were able to make the comparison is not clear).

The great commentator Rashi wrote that it was the brain of the fish that tasted like pig meat, and that it served as a kosher option for people who yearned to eat the forbidden meat.

Full Article

OK. The Nine Days are over and it’s time for a (late) write-up of the non-meat cookery I experimented with this year. Of course there’s no reason why the meatless cookery can’t continue beyond the nine days - it just always turns out that way. Probably something to do with my carnivorous nature. This years’ ‘projects’ included Cedar Plank Cooked Salmon and Grilled Pizza.

Cedar Plank Cooked Salmon - everyone is familiar with “cold-smoked salmon” aka lox. Cedar plank cooked salmon is a “hot-smoked salmon”. A seasoned side of salmon is placed on a cedar board that has been soaked in water, and then the fish and board are placed together onto a heated grill. The board is supposed to smolder and give off smoke that seasons the fish as it is cooking. Supposedly, it’s the way the American Pacific Northwest Indians cook their salmon. Of course, nothing is keeping you from using any fish you want - salmon just seems to be the ‘original’ recipe. I can’t really call this cooking method “grilling”, because the wooden board is between the fish and the fire. Not really “smoking”, because the temperatures are too high. I think it might qualify as “indirect grilling”, but I’m going with the simple “cooked”. My seasonings were ultra-simple: a dry rub of salt, pepper, sugar, cumin and garlic-powder. The package suggested maple syrup (very pacific northwest), but I didn’t have any. I’ve used this same spice-rub for broiled fish.

From some of my previous posts, you might know about my fondness for smoke-cooking and smoked-meat. All of my experiments to date have been with meat & poultry. I have to admit, I didn’t really enjoy this recipe - the smoke flavor was too strong. I can see how meats would have a more assertive flavor that mixes with the smoke flavor, but in this case the smoke flavor won out. Maybe my seasonings weren’t strong enough. Would a stronger/sweeter seasoning would mellow out the smoke flavor? I’m not sure. I would try it agin with a more assertive dry-rub or marinade, but this time, I would have rather had it baked or broiled. If you’ve had a better experience with plank-cooking, let us know about it.

One thing that this cooking method has going for it, is the absolutely easiest cleanup - nothing of the fish leaked over the sides of the board. When the board was removed from the grill, cleanup was done.

Grilled Pizza - I too experimented with pizza, but as opposed to jabbett’s Barbecue Chicken Pizza, my toppings were more traditional. But these pizzas were cooked on a charcoal grill. A method that I’m glad to say, created a delicious pizza.

I’ve seen recipes for grilled pizzas before, but I never worked up the nerve to try it myself. When this month’s Cooks’ Illustrated had a recipe for grilled pizzas, I decided it was time. Empty pizza dough rounds are put on a hot charcoal grill, until cooked on the bottom. The half-cooked dough is taken back to the work area, and the cooked side gets the toppings. In this case, the toppings were a spicy-garlic oil, diced plum tomatoes and cheese. (I know that some of the readers of this blog are cheese fanatics - please don’t shun me for using regular, supermarket, pre-shredded pizza cheese. The recipe called for Fontina and Parmesan. I used what I had handy.) After the toppings are in place, the pizza goes back on the grill, so the uncooked side can get done, and the cover is put on, so the toppings can melt.

As you can see here, when the cheese wasn’t melting fast enough for me (perhaps we piled it on too high?), it was time to bring out the blow-torch. After a brief torching, the cheese was nice and bubbly, and pizzas were done. Please be careful when you cook with a blowtorch. Kosherblog accepts no responsibility.

The pizza was absolutely delicious. The texture and flavor of the charred dough were very nice. Again, the next time I make this I will add more flavors/spices - the simple tomato topping didn’t have enough flavor for my tastes - but I never met a pizza I didn’t like. As long as the toppings are fairly dry and quick cooking, they should work out fine.

I had one dish that I meant to make on the Nine Days, but didn’t get a chance. So, I made it for dinner last night. The dish was Seitan Piccata, and It was great. Don’t know what seitan is? You’re going to have to wait for my next post to read about it. Until then…

There’s been a flurry of activity in the discussion area:

• ejacobs129 asks about mail-order baked goods
• lchayim asks about finding oval baking pans for challah
• Kosher COOKie asks about Japanese mayo for spicy tuna rolls

To help these folks out, sign up for the discussion area… it’s easy, all you need is an e-mail address.

It’s Tisha B’Av, so obviously the we’re all thinking about food, especially all that meat we’ve been abstaining from over the last nine days. Well, if you want to start your meat-eating week with a bang, do it with the newest, beefiest addition at Milk Street Cafe’s fleishig sandwich cart, the Marika Explosion:

One large wrap, stuffed with BBQ roast beef, pastrami, shaved steak, chili, and meat balls.

Mmmm…

Here’s the recipe that was published in last week’s Jewish Advocate, a perfectly suitable choice for the Nine Days. In fact, Lightlife’s KOSHER PAREVE Chick’n Strips are remarkably chicken-like in texture, so they may even satisfy your yearning for boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces. (Photo by the inimitable David Levy.)

BARBECUE “CHICKEN” PIZZA
Makes two single-serving pizzas

Notes:
• See our roundup of barbecue sauces to help choose one appropriate for this recipe.
• Refrigerating fresh dough after it’s made helps it develop a better texture, but make sure it’s back at room temperature before using.
• If you can’t slice your onion into very thin rings (I used one of those nifty Japanese ceramic mandolines), saute thicker slices before topping the pizza.
• If you don’t have a pizza stone, don’t buy one. An ideal (and cheap) alternative is covering your oven rack with several unglazed quarry tiles, available at Home Depot.
• If you don’t have a pizza peel, use a baking sheet that’s been turned upside down.

1 package Smart Menu Chick’n Strips (www.lightlife.com)
8 Tbsp. barbecue sauce
1 Tbsp. cornmeal
1 lb. pizza dough, divided into two equal rounds (store-bought works great)
1 small red onion, sliced into rings as thinly as possible
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup shredded cheddar

1. Place pizza stone or tiles on bottom rack of oven, and preheat to 500 degrees.
2. Toss Chick’n Strips in two tablespoons of the barbecue sauce and set aside.
3. On a well-floured surface, spread dough round into thin 10″ circle using your hands or a rolling pin. (Shape isn’t important so long as it’s thin.)
4. Sprinkle half of cornmeal evenly onto pizza peel and lay dough over cornmeal. This will help you slide the pizza into your oven. Lightly prick dough all over to prevent dough from bubbling excessively in oven.
5. Spread 3 tablespoons barbecue sauce over pizza; sauce should just lightly cover dough.
6. Sprinkle 1/4 cup mozzarella over pizza, then about 1/3 cup Chick’n Strips, 1/4 cup cheddar, some red onion slices, and another 1/4 cup mozzarella. (You will likely end up with left-over Chick’n and onion)
7. Slide pizza directly on top of hot stone/tiles and bake for 10 minutes. Pizza will be golden brown around the edges and the cheese very bubbly.
8. Slide pizza back onto peel and remove from oven. Let cool a few minutes and cut into slices.
9. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

After about two years of evaluating the different kinds of pans we registered for and received as wedding gifts, I think I’ve come to some useful conclusions about what works for me in the kitchen. One, Calphalon’s hard-anodized flat-bottomed wok is a terrible choice for anything resembling stir-frying (hmm, a wok that ought to stir-fry, go figure). Two, despite Cook’s Illustrated’s never-ending love for All-Clad products, I just can’t get the hang of purely stainless-steel pans. My food just sticks way too much.

So, I’ve cooked and cooked and settled on a line of pans that works particularly well: Anolon Titanium. I have two now, a 12″ French skillet and a 5-quart covered saute pan. They’re dishwasher-safe, food develops a reasonable fond but rarely sticks on the hard-anodized surface, and it’s not the end of the world to use metal utensils with them. The stainless-steel handles stay cool and have a comfortable shape. Also, since the pans are heavy-weight aluminum, they retain and distribute heat very well. For all that, and the piece of mind that they’ll last a good, long time, I don’t even mind the price (skillet - $75, covered saute - $130).

The best of every world! But, in LeVar Burton’s timeless words, you don’t have to take my word for it: pick up an 8″ skillet at Amazon for $19 and give it a shot.

…and while we’re on the topic of changing kosher certification in the hopes of improved quality, this week’s Kosher Today newsletter reports that Pinnacle Foods will be changing its Duncan Hines cake mixes from pareve to dairy. While I was never very perturbed about the potential Stella D’Oro switch, this would deter me from making my grandmother’s delicious (and pareve) rum cake, so naturally I’m miffed!

To contact Duncan Hines, use this form.

So, as long as we’re talking about sauces… I just spied the label of my fresh, as yet unopened bottle of French’s Worcestershire Sauce. The label proclaims proudly, “NOW EVEN RICHER!” Apparently, “even richer” also means “less kosher.” No more OU heksher to be found.

No big deal, right? Well, to my knowledge, French’s Worcestershire was the sole pareve sauce of its kind [update: luckily not true, see comments]. Lea & Perrins, the brand synonymous with W-shire, contains enough anchovy to be designed “OU-Fish” and thus unacceptable for use with meat. French’s, however, with markedly less anchovy puree, worked well in kosher burgers and marinades.

I’ve sent a brief note to French’s hoping to find an explanation for the change. Will post a response when it arrives.

The latest issue of the Jewish Advocate featured a recipe crafted by yours truly as part of their “Nine Days” coverage — BBQ “Chicken” Pizza (recipe forthcoming). Since barbecue sauce completely replaced my pizza’s typical tomato sauce, I figured choosing the right sauce would be critical. The recipe was geared toward the average home cook, so I didn’t want to recommend making sauce from scratch (though simple recipes abound and would likely be worthwhile). Plus, supermarket shelves are rife with sauce upon sauce — certainly one of them would fit the bill.

So I trekked out to my local Super Stop & Shop and filled my cart with sauces, ranging from the very cheap to the quite pricey, and only one that’s something of a local variety. I tasted the sauces plain and on pizzas. The results were somewhat surprising, and yielded a couple strong favorites.

On the cheap end were two Hunt’s varieties at $1.29 each, both certified by the OK. Hunt’s Original was simply sour ketchup, but the Hickory & Brown Sugar sauce shows a bit more character: moderately thick, dark, and with a definite (but slightly synthetic) hickory flavor. Nothing special when used on pizza.

For fifty cents more, KC Masterpiece Original (OU-certified) had a nice, lingering heat and slight smokiness, but seemed a bit too sweet. On pizza, though, it was quite imperceptible — flavor almost completely lost between the dough and the toppings.

Emeril’s Sweet Original, at $3.59 with a cRc heksher, was very sweet with a bit of maple flavor, but exhibited absolutely no heat or sourness — very one-dimensional. It was the least favorite as a pizza sauce.

The priciest variety, Bone Suckin’ Sauce, was a whopping $6.49 (OK-certified). This stuff was clearly not meant for pizza. It’s thin and very vinegary, though the apple cider vinegar was a unique twist. On the plus side, it had no unnatural or “industrial” ingredients. Save it for ribs.

Texas Best ($3.19 / OU) had a complex, almost elusive flavor — slightly more sour than it was sweet or spicy, but, on the whole, a well-balanced flavor and good thickness. On pizza, it stood up nicely.

The overwhelming favorite was a brand I had never tried before, but I picked it up because it was labeled “award winning” and “preferred by a majority of US restaurant chefs.” I figured that made it worth a try, but I remained skeptical; the vast majority of “US restaurant chefs” are drones who work at places like TGI Fridays and Applebee’s and are only expected to reheat mass-produced, over-marketed entrees with names like “pizza shooters,” “shrimp poppers,” and “extreme fajitas.”

Of course, I was put in my place when “Cattlemen’s” ($2.49 / OU) turned out to have a distinctive, tangy flavor, with just enough heat. Plus, it was dark, thick, and satisfying. On pizza, it was best equipped to match the bite of red onion and cheddar cheese and didn’t diffuse into the dough like lesser sauces.

So, if you have time and the inclination, make your own sauce and play with the different flavor components until you find the perfect combination. Or, save yourself the trouble, and give Cattlemen’s or Texas Best a try.

I’m betting that most of the Kosherblog audience knows about the Shamash.org kosher restaurant database, right? Of course you do. Have you heard of Google Maps? The other day, I was thinking of a great new web-service combining the two - and then I discovered that it had already been done. check out the Kosher Food and Restaurant Mapper at PilotYid.com. If you choose a metro-area (and optionally an address), the service will show you a map of all the kosher establishments that Shamash.org has listed for the area. Neato! (Works considerably better for, say, Boston - with 44 locations, than it did for New York City, with 134 locations.) Gets my vote for Best Web-Based Tool for the Kosher Traveler.

Since Tnuva products landed on these shores, I’ve been wholly unimpressed. All of their cheeses I’ve tried have been bland, over-commercialized, and uninspired. And Tnuva’s “Hard Grating Cheese” (their take on Parmesan) isn’t much different.

I first tried it in small chunks at room temperature, and I could hardly taste anything except the flavor of stale bread. Only for a brief moment after lots of chewing and determined tasting could I detect a slight bit of Italian cheesiness.

Not to be discouraged, I tried grating the cheese over a plate of pasta, and, when hot, detected a bit more flavor.

The price (on sale at the Butcherie for $2.50, normally $2.99) made it less than half that of Miller’s genuine Parmigianno-Reggiano, but Miller’s superior taste and texture is worth every penny.

Since Tnuva is Israel’s largest producer of kosher food, I figure I must be missing something. So I cast aside their English-language website and went for the straight dope… the Hebrew. In Israel, it seems, they sell a wider line of cheeses, including cheddar, provolone, and roquefort — varieties I’d be excited to try. Instead, they stick us with umpteen mediocre kinds of “feta-style” cheese. Go figure.