Celery-psychedeliac (root)

Before getting into this post, I have to apologize for the long hiatus. Hopefully it won't happen again. We Clams haven't stopped eating, lest anyone worry. In fact, we may have moved up, just slightly, in the culinary world.

In Clams-related news, esteemed Clam Brett Daniels is now officially in culinary school. The rest of our lives are better as a vicarious result. He has lots of cooking homework, so dinner get-togethers are becoming an even more frequent occurrence than they were previously. The two of us have recently been getting into cooking with celeriac (aka celery root) when we can get our hands on it.

My local grocery store, Tony's Finer Foods, is the kind of place that caters to a largely latino clientele. This means that the produce section tends to include a wide variety of root vegetables that I have no experience cooking with. Celeriac appears to be right at home in this crowd, although, to my knowledge it isn't a classic ingredient in latino cuisines. What I do know, is that it kind of looks like a knobby, weird coconut. Or something. See for yourself:


Flavor-wise, it's really unique. Very distinctive tasting - there's an unmistakable celery note, but it's also nutty and rich.

The Clams got together recently for a weeknight dinner, and Brett had some celeriac on hand. While Brett dealt with the chicken he was roasting in his cast iron skillet, I got to work making a celeriac mash. I was a bit tentative, and kept things simple. After peeling and chopping the celeriac and a couple of russet potatoes, I boiled them until they were fork-tender. After that, I mashed them with butter and whole milk, and seasoned them with white pepper and sea salt. The end result was quite good, but left me wanting to work with celeriac again in a slightly more experimental context.

Which leads me to brunch this morning. I used a celery root I had lying around to make a gratin, and I'd say it was a good step forward.

RECIPE: Celery-psychedeliac Gratin
**I used Anthony Bourdain's Gratin Dauphinois recipe as a jumping-off point for this.

1 celeriac, about 1 pound
4-5 small yukon gold potatoes
1 medium leek
1 fresh sprig each, thyme, rosemary, flat leaf parsley
2 cups heavy cream
5 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
salt
pepper (ideally white, but black works too)
a dash or two of nutmeg
small slice of butter
grated cheese of your choice - (I used fontinella, but I could see gruyere or another deep-flavored white cheese working well)

Preheat oven to 350. Peel celeriac with a knife, slice it and the potatoes thin (1/2 to 1/4 of an inch). Place these in a large pot or dutch oven with the cream, add 4 of the garlic gloves and the herbs. Chop off the green leaves of the leek, and slice the remaining white part thinly. Add sliced leek to the mixture with the celeriac. Bring the cream up to a simmer. Add nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes. While the mixture simmers, take the last garlic clove and use it to rub the interior of a gratin dish or an 8x8 baking dish. After you've given it a good coating of garlic, use the butter to evenly grease the dish. After simmering, discard the herbs and garlic from the cream mixture. Pour the mixture into the baking dish, spread evenly, and top with a thin layer of grated cheese. Season with a bit more salt and pepper if you want. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the cheese has turned a nice golden brown.

I served this with eggs, bacon, and sourdough toast. But it would definitely be a good side dish for any number of dinners.

The Clams vs. Paul McCartney

I know this isn't entirely fair, as Sir Paul isn't (by his own admission) much of a chef, but here it goes anyway.

At some point - presumably when the internet was still more of a novelty - Paul decided to apply his characteristically cheesy persona to the art of internet cooking instruction. Here's his resulting instructional video: mashed potatoes with Paul.

So there you have it. The McCartney method for mashed potatoes.

Paul's potatoes in summary:
-potatoes
-salted water
-non-hydrogenated margarine
-organic sea salt
-semi-skimmed milk
-chopped onions
-fresh parsley (as a garnish, if you're feeling wild)

No offense to Paul, but these are some boring-ass mashers. I'm not saying that they wouldn't have their charm - I like standard mashed potatoes as much as the next guy. But geez, the guy's a vegetarian, you'd think he'd know how to zazz the potatoes up a little bit. (Hats-off to Murderface for the word "zazz.")

In response to Paul's recipe I thought I'd put forward my own mashed potato dish. Here it is:

Mashed potatoes, Clam style

-6 to 10 white potatoes
-1 to 3 sweet potatoes (potato ratio can vary as much as you want, really)
-unsalted butter
-milk (whole is the best, obviously)
-1 large bunch collard greens, or other leafy green such as chard or kale
-about 8 cloves garlic
-extra virgin olive oil
-salt
-fresh-ground black pepper
-ground chipotle, cayenne, or smoked paprika (choose one, or skip)

Scrub all potatoes thoroughly but do not peel. Set a large pot of salted water on high heat, chop the potatoes roughly and toss them in the water. Boil for about ten minutes, or until easily pierced with a fork.

While the potatoes are boiling, peel and mince the garlic. Set a saute pan on medium heat, add a few tablespoons of butter. When the butter has melted add the minced garlic. Saute until garlic is fragrant, but not brown. Remove pan from heat.

Wash and chop the collard greens, removing the rib from each leaf. This may take a while, so it might be advisable to do this ahead of time. There are a few options with the chopped greens. Your goal is to cook them briefly in order to soften them up - but in my opinion you really don't want to overcook them. I suppose you could toss them in with the potatoes for just a minute or so, before you take the potatoes off the heat. But I typically use an extra dutch oven or other large pot and heat a bit of olive oil or butter in it. I then add the greens, cover the pot, and let them cook down just a bit, until they're wilted and reduced in size.

Once the potatoes are done, take them off the heat, drain, and return the potatoes to the pot. Toss some butter in with the hot potatoes. I'd recommend using a decent amount - at least half a stick. Mash the potatoes as the butter melts. I like a relatively coarse mash, but do it to your own liking. Add the garlic/butter mixture and the cooked greens. Give the whole thing a bit of a mix to get an idea of the overall consistency, then add milk until you get the consistency you want. Season with salt, pepper, and a spicy pepper, if you're into it.

This recipe is very flexible, you can really experiment all over the place, if you feel like it. For instance, when you're at the milk-adding stage, you can easily add little or no milk, and use something else to smooth the mixture out instead - such as yogurt, buttermilk, olive oil, or some combination of these with the milk. Yogurt and buttermilk are particularly nice if you want to get a slight tart taste.

And that's it. I'll let you be the judge, but I think I can safely say that The Clams totally win this one. In your face McCartney!

*disclaimer* The Clams still really love the Beatles, but are still of the opinion that Paul tends to be a total chach.

FEEDBACK: Burzum Burgers

Well, concept number one came to fruition. As firework-crazy madness overtook Chicago with the sunset, we Clams and some friends sat out on the porch, waited for the coals to reach an ideal temperature, and made preparations for our metal-themed feast.


We had successfully procured a hunk of head cheese (pictured above) from a local Polish deli, and taste-tested it around the group - consensus: it wasn't disgusting; tasted a bit like corned beef in fact, but with a more gelatinous texture.

And so the Burzuming began.

RECIPE
Burzum Burgers
For the patties, we combined equal parts spicy Italian sausage and ground beef. Then added eggs and rolled oats until we reached the desired consistency, then, to taste: dark molasses, salt, pepper, garlic.

Once grilled, we toasted the buns with slices of provolone, and topped the burgers with mayo, mustard and avocados - and of course liberal slices of head cheese.

As it turned out, we were all pretty happy with these burgers. The patties came out very well, but beyond that the head cheese was a nice, if hilariously excessive, topping. Fun to try. Kuma's Corner can buy this from us any time they want.

RECIPE
Clams Corn Pone
We also grilled up some of our classic corn - which we prepare by making a paste of butter, garlic, queso cojito, salt, pepper, and either chopped basil or cilantro. Roll the corn ears in the butter mixture, grill (it's nice to let the flames get excited for a few minutes, then cover the grill and let the corn smoke a bit). Then when the ears are done, put them on a plate and sprinkle them with lime juice and chipotle or cayenne pepper.

Last but not least we prepared a 4th of July favorite - Jalepeno Boner Bites. We don't remember why they got their name, but just bear with me here, because it's a good recipe.

RECIPE
Jalepeno Boner Bites
Soak some bamboo skewers in water prior to starting. Then take your jalepenos, cut the stems off, halve, and de-seed. Fill the jalepeno halves with cream cheese, wrap each half with a strip of bacon, and skewer. Grill these on a relatively low-heat grill (the bacon grease will reignite even a very calm fire). Let the skewers get a bit flame-kissed, but then you'll probably want to cover the grill so things don't get out of control.

Boner Bites, fresh off the grill:
Burzum prep station:
Burzum vision:

..........exactly..........