Offal/Odd Food Blog

A buddy's new blog. Take a look at his first post and let me know what you think:

Edit - I should also mention that he's worked in several fairly well known restaurants in the DC area (2941, Nora, and somewhere else I can't remember), so it's not just about eating stuff that would gross out most people, but rather about preparing properly.


http://oddfooddude.blogspot.com/


Here's the introduction:

What: This is a blog with recipes, pictures, descriptions, and hopefully a little history of the odd food that I cook. By "odd," I mean things you wouldn't typically find at your average American bar-be-que such as hamburgers, hot dogs, or obese Southerners. You're probably not going to see dog or deep fried turds on my menu, but if you find a vendor for, say, otter balls, I'm open to suggestion.

Why: I've always had an adventurous culinary spirit and luckily enough for me, my friends and family are (usually) willing to try it. The stranger the food, the better. I thought this would be a great outlet to share my trials and tribulations with odd food. It also gives me something to do on Sundays when my meathead friends are watching football.

When: Hopefully at least once a week, but ultimately whenever my schedule allows it.

Where: Any kitchen that I can squeeze myself and some ridiculous ingredients into.

How:
She hath been dubbed "The Ivory Dragon." In addition to this amazing hand-made 10" Chef's knife, I also have a plethora of other blades and gadgets that will be used here.

First post - Monday, August 17, 2009
Sea Squirt
I was initially intrigued by sea squirt because I had passed it in the Korean market and not once had I seen even the most wizened old crone pick one up. This was strange to me for two reasons. 1) Little old Korean ladies are always buying things like tripe, chicken feet, and massive jugs of mystery goo, and 2) that place looks like a swap meet for the Asian-American Centenarian Club. Sea squirt's unpopularity at such a venue indicated to me that it is indeed an odd food.

The sea squirt/ascidian, or Halocynthia, is a marine invertebrate filter feeder that preys on plankton in cool, shallow water. This hermaphroditic critter is eaten all over the world, but mainly in Japan (as "sea pineapple"), Korea, Chile, parts of Aboriginal Australia, and Europe, under the entirely more appetizing moniker "sea violet."

Traditionally the sea squirt is eaten raw, over rice, or in heavily spiced stews, so at first I figured I'd stay the course. It was, however, very difficult to find anything about the preparation online and certainly in none of my cook books. When inquired about a recipe, the snarky teenager at the seafood counter scoffed at me like cooking sea squirt was as natural as his emo haircut and then mumbled something entirely unintelligible. Upset that I clearly just got punked by a pimply sixteen-year-old who listens to bands like The Promise Ring and knows the names of multiple mascara brands, I hastened back to HQ.



Boom. A sea squirt. The smell was quite fishy, which instantly made me wary. Typically when buying seafood or choosing a life partner this odor indicates that freshness is a no-no. But hey, this is a sea squirt, and who was I to say this was a bad thing? The sea squirt's texture and color were very similar to that of a toad. And by that, I mean disconcertingly bumpy and brown (or deep umber if you want to get all fabulous about it.)

I began the dissection process. Now The Ivory Dragon is absurdly sharp and responsible for numerous hunks of skin missing from my fingers, so when I couldn't crack a dent in the "shell," my first thought was similar to that of Mama Cass's probable last: Clearly, I have bitten off more than I can chew. The only thing interesting was that certain orifices were releasing...yep, you guessed it, squirts of a clear liquid. So I changed up my strategy and tried the hairy left side (see picture) or what I like to call the merkin end. Butter.

Interestingly, the "shell" came off like the skin of a mango, revealing the rubbery inside and a whoooooole lotta juice. Here's the mess in all its glory:



No, this isn't your baby cousin's latest bowel movement after happening upon that unsuspecting gallon of Plenty of Pulp Tropicana. The bottom yellow...thing is the "edible" part. Upon first taste, I was quick to disagree. I read somewhere the Japanese ate sea squirt raw, so I crossed my fingers and dove in. The juice itself was briny and not unlike that of an oyster. The innards were tangy and almost caviar-like. The flesh itself was soft, slightly rubbery, and overwhelmingly soapy tasting. Now unless you're like my brother, whom my family suspects developed a four-letter lexicon at a young age because he just couldn't live without the ever-so-fresh tang of Irish Spring, the taste of ammonia is decidedly off putting. It was at this point I figured I'd hide the sea squirt in a cheesy mass of homemade pizza. How can pizza be bad, right? Plus, I'd already made the dough the day before.

White Sea Squirt Pizza

No Need to Knead Pizza Dough

1/4 tsp. dry active yeast
1 1/2 C. tepid water
1 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. sugar
2 T. olive oil
3 C. flour
corn meal, as needed

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir with a spatula. The resulting dough should be slightly stiff and very sticky. Cover the mixture with Saran wrap and let it sit and rise for 12 hours. After this period, heavily dust a counter top and your hands and pat the mixture down to release the air bubbles. Quarter the dough with a pastry cutter or knife and form balls, keeping the "tucked" end down. Roll the balls out to a 8-10" round/square with a floured rolling pin. Apply corn meal liberally to an oven pan and slightly to the top your crust. Placing corn meal against corn meal, set your pizza crust on the pan. You're now ready to go.



Pickled Sea Squirt

3 sea squirts, julienned
2 C rice vinegar
1/3 C sugar

Pickling Spice Mix:

1 cinammon stick
1 tsp. coriander seed
3 bay leaves
10 whole black peppercorns
10 whole white peppercorns
1 tsp. whole allspice
1 tsp. whole clove
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 large nub ginger, cut into coins




Add all the ingredients other than the sea squirt and bring to a simmer for 2 minutes. Add the sea squirt and simmer for 20 seconds. Drain, rinse, and dry.



Pizza Topping

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 T. oregano, chopped
1 T. garlic, minced
handful of arugula
5-6 deli-style slices Monterey Jack cheese
large handful of Asiago cheese
pickled sea squirt, as needed
kosher salt & cracked black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450. At an extremely light simmer, saute the garlic and oregano in the oil until the garlic is translucent. Apply the oil very lightly to the top of the pizza dough. Season the dough with salt and pepper, then layer with the Monterey Jack cheese. Layer then with the sea squirt and the arugula and finally finish with another layer of Asiago cheese.



I'll be honest: I didn't really have the cojones or confidence that the squirt would be masked even by the cheese and garlic at this point. I wussed out and layered one half of the pizza. After 8 or 9 minutes in the oven, I removed the pizza and voila!



I was right: it was still impossible to escape the soapiness of the sea squirt. But hey, at least the other half was good! The chances of me eating this over rice or raw again are akin to that of me surviving a maximum security prison yard after arguing with a guy named Lord Shank over which bunk I'd get, but in retrospect I would probably eat it in a cioppino or bouillabaise.

Next post: Chicken feet.

All the links were actually hyperlinks so sorry for my poor knowledge of html


Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Chicken Feet
You've probably seen these gnarly little guys hanging in Chinatown windows while wondering just exactly how much frickin' bribe money the county health inspector is getting under the table. The first time I saw chicken feet up close I thought that one should either be floating in a jar of formaldehyde on a shelf in Jeffrey Dahmer's pantry or attached to Chris Elliot's arm in Scary Movie 2.

While certainly spidery looking, ie not at all appetizing in appearance, the gelatinous properties of chicken feet make for a welcome addition to stocks and soups (due to their abundance in cartilage) and in some very tasty Chinese, Phillipine, Jamaican, and African dishes along with the fowl's head in a dish known by the giggle-inducing name "walkie talkie."

While this wasn't my first time (thus eliminating the need to ask my 16-year-old female friends if this could finally be "the one") with chicken feet, I'm still relatively green to the dish I chose to tackle, fèngzhuǎ (translation: Phoenix talons). I decided on this dim sum staple, or my Szechuan-influenced take on it, because a real-life Asian person who tried my version before told me her mom would like my recipe, so automatically (at least in my mind) my street cred rested somewhere between that of Deebo's (http://www.tampresents.com/images/lister.jpg and Vassillis Paleokostis's. http://www.badassoftheweek.com/paleokostas.htmlAnd after the sea squirt fiasco, I'd been walking around my kitchen feeling like the decidedly less intimidating Guido the Killer Pimp.http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-co...7/02/Pimp4.JPG



Boom. Chicken feet. The smell? You know, kind of like raw chicken. I wasn't really sure how to pick up this item at its most fresh, so instead I picked ones with the least amount of black talons and thus, by my reasoning, the least likely to be poised to strike atop my chest in Kill Mode while I drool obliviously into my pillow. The texture of the feet was slightly ribbed on the skin--like an unyielding elbow--and akin to hard rubber when prodded. Hopefully this would change before I ate it.

Szechuan Chicken Feet

1 package chicken feet (1+ lbs)
1 T ginger, minced
1 T garlic, minced
2 tsp Sriracha (or less, depending on your heat tolerance)
1/2 C ketchup
1 T sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 C chicken stock
1 T Chinese rice wine/sherry/sake
1 1/2 T peanut oil
scallion, to garnish

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the chicken feet and cook for five minutes. Strain the feet and clean them with a sharp knife by removing all the nails and the cushioned pads on the "palms."



Heat the peanut oil in a Dutch oven or large pot and sear the feet on medium-high heat until caramelized and lightly browned. Remove the feet and add the ginger. Sweat the ginger for 2 minutes and then add the garlic. After another minute, add the stock and rice wine to deglaze the pan, scraping any brown bits off the bottom. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, and reduce the heat, bringing the liquid to a light simmer. Cover and continue to cook at a light simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for another 10-15 minutes, or until a thick sauce has developed. Serve with rice and garnish with scallions.



I always avoided fèngzhuǎ in Chinese restaurants with the same sort of flared nostril wariness that Beavis & Butthead exhibit when watching a video by the band Winger, but this was actually pretty darn good. Spicy, succulent, and gummy (both texturally and in terms of how to eat it), if you don't mind the fatty consistency you just might gnaw your way into a food coma. Ware the cartilage and make sure to keep it classy by bringing some pungent lemon wet wipes because this is one sticky dish.



Next post: Beef tongue

The pictures kind of suck - that's the goal for this weekend, to work on getting a proper digital camera and learn how to use it to photograph food properly.

It's actually not my blog, one of my good friends is writing/cooking. I'll be participating this weekend in some beef tongue tacos. Again, pretty standard fair in some countries, but would probably make most American stomachs turn. It's not easy to find foods that are odd in all countries.

The meal after that is going to be making pork head cheese - once again, standard stuff in a lot of countries, but I think it would be hard to get a lot of Americans to eat it once they know what it is.

Any suggestions for things we should eat?

Good idea for the geoduck - I've wanted to try that ever since I saw Hung make something with it on Top Chef a few years back.

Nope, more like...

Halfway through the cooking of the beef tongue - it's pretty ugly... but smells delicious.

We're doing roasted tomato salsa to go with it as well. Pretty excited for it all.

Just had my first taste of tongue - it's awesome. A lot like pork butt cooked for pulled pork in texture, going to put together our tacos now. Delicious so far.