Immersed

I received many things for Christmas this year: a pair of socks, a hat, books, a hand-made yellow belt made to look like Swiss cheese. But the best gift of all was the immersion blender. Perhaps the cutest and most handy of all culinary power tools, an immersion blender (stick blender, burr mixer, whatever you care to call it) is as my brother most eloquently put, “like the food processor… on a stick.” I’m not sure I can give you a better description: it is practically a double blade with a long handle and a guard, that you can stick into soups, sauces, smoothie glasses, milk pitchers, or anything with reasonably steep sides that contains the ingredients you want to blend together. I have immediately put it to work foaming hot milk for cappuccinos, since I lack a milk steamer. Later on I found out that you can do a single serving of whipped cream in a tall juice glass, and that lumpy gravy can be easily mended with about a half a minute of immersion blending. The best part of this tool, and the reason I don’t simply rely on the blender or food processor for the same tasks, is the clean-up and convenience. The head of the immersion blender pops off with the push of a button, and is easily washed– even the blade is easy to get to and rinse off, and for a really fast cleaning, you can forego removing the blender head and just stick it into a pot or sink full of hot water, turn it on for a few seconds, and voila.

Alright, that’s my dreamy extolment of my newest kitchen gadget, the baby of my many kitchen tools. I must add a few words of caution, however: my baby and I have gotten into some mischief in the kitchen (though luckily while no one else was watching). Here are the top things you shouldn’t try with your new immersion blender, unless you were planning on repainting your kitchen anyway.

1)   NEVER turn the blender on before putting it into the material to be blended. Picture filling a blender with vegetable soup and then turning it on without putting the lid on. You’ll not only be repainting the walls of your kitchen, but also the ceiling, cabinets, floor, appliances…

2)   Don’t try blending large chunks without liquid. Dry ingredients like flour and sugar can be blended together as long as the container is deep (and in the absence of a low-speed option, you have a towel or plastic wrap over top to catch the dust cloud). But things like, say, frozen blueberries can turn into lethal shrapnel if there isn’t any liquid to keep them together.

3)   Don’t lift the blender out of the blended material before turning it off. This produces roughly the same effect as turning the blender on before putting it in. Once you’ve gotten the hang of how your burr mixer handles itself in different ingredients, you can lift it up just enough to incorporate air into the ingredients, which is quite useful for meringues and whipped cream. However, this requires some skill and careful control, because the head of the blender tends to suction itself to the bottom of the container. Pull up gently while holding the container down firmly, or turn the blender off and hold it in the middle of the liquid before turning it back on, but expect it to pull down immediately.

4)   Always make sure your container is well grounded. Be it a sauce pot, glass bowl, plastic cup (many blenders come with a graduated blending cup), or other container, please make sure it is either heavy enough to fend for itself, or held down. Without this precaution, the blender can quite easily send the entire container spinning off, spraying its contents along the way. As a general rule for mixing anything, it’s good to have your container sitting on a towel or rubber mat, rather than a polished countertop that will let it slide willy-nilly.

Other than these basic concepts, it’s hard to go wrong with an immersion blender: they’re adorably compact, easy to clean, easily unplugged and stored away when you’re finished with them. I have blended an individual smoothie and a 5-gallon pot of soup with the same simple tool, and have just started exploring the possibilities in the realm of mixed drinks.

And my mother hasn’t noticed the splatters of blueberry on the ceiling yet.

Gjetost

Today, my younger sister set a block of what looked like light brown clay in front of me, and told me to taste it. Although wary, I could always trust my sister to find delicious and unique food items, so I sliced a piece of and put it in my mouth. At first, I thought it was a type of butter toffee- I was hit with a creamy, slightly salty caramel flavor that reminded me of caramel apples. But then the entire flavor rounded out to include something I was not expecting: cheese. Really good cheese. The combination of caramel and cheese was incredible, the texture somewhere between fois gras and an extra-smooth hard cheese, the finish leaving you with a strong craving for apples. After reveling in my facial expressions, my sister gave me the package to look at, afraid to try pronouncing the name herself. The label read “Gjetost– Norwegian Goat Cheese”. I was lost on how to pronounce it as well, but determined to figure out what made it so delicious.

Gjetost, better known as Brunost (“brown cheese”) in the rest of the world, is made only in Norway and Sweden. Traditionally it was made solely from goat whey, carefully boiled down for several hours: as it cooks, the natural sugars in the whey slowly caramelize, creating the uniquely sweet flavor, gorgeously smooth texture, and color. Somewhere along the way a farmer's wife, the traditional maker of Brunost, decided to start adding cream to the whey, creating an even thicker and smoother cheese. This product caught on with the rest of the world, and is now sold throughout Europe, and in many grocery stores in North America and Australia. Now, Brunost is made with a mixture of whey, cream, and milk, and can be both goat and cow's milk, although from what I've found goat whey is always used. If the mixture is cooked for less time, keeping the water content above 30%, Prim is made– a spreadable version of Brunost that I have yet to find in a US grocery store.

Brunost is delicious and decadent by itself, but reaches it's fullest glory when backed with a crisp red apple (green can overpower the sweetness with tart). It shaves beautifully, and the color adds an amazing touch to a cheese plate. Traditionally eaten on a plain rye sandwich, I tried it toasted on top of apples and wheat with excellent results: it melts into a warm, spreadable texture more like peanut butter than cheese. I have dreams of lightly battered cubes of Brunost, fried and dusted with cinnamon sugar, or Brunost fondue with apples, brazil nuts, bread, and perhaps gingerbread cookies to dip. Unfortunately, it is imported in small quantities and is rather expensive, but I've heard it can be made at home.... I wonder where I can buy some goat whey?

Sources:

Harbutt, Juliet. (1999). Cheese. Minocque, Wisconsin: Willow Creek Pr.

http://thecheeseandwineshop.co.uk/guide-to-gjetost.asp

Mac & Cheese

       I think there can be no greater comfort food than maccaroni and cheese with truffle. Maccaroni and cheese is a dish known to almost every American child, whether it be the disturbingly orange boxed kind, or Grandma's homemade cassarole of melted cheese and noodles with crunchy bread crumbs on top. I was in love with both when I was little, and the box of uncooked noodles and orange powder was one of the first dishes I learned to make for myself.

       But now I am grown up, and my taste in food has widened and deepened to the point that maccaroni and cheese is seldom thought of. As a student of the culinary arts, I would be mocked by friends and family for even glancing at that little blue box with the 3-step illustrated instructions on the back. No, now when I make maccaroni and cheese, it must be a masterpiece before the looks of “I could've made this myself” or worse, “my 8-year-old could've made this himself” are quelled. Sometimes I simply surprise people by changing the type of noodle: three-cheese maccaroni turns into something of restaurant caliber when orzo is used instead of the traditional indelicate elbows. If my critics are already wise to that game, I'll spice it up with a little cumin and serve with a touch of salsa on top, or add thyme and white wine, served with a french accent. But my favorite, oh my favorite way to turn maccaroni and cheese into a dish worthy of self-satisfaction and soul-fulfilling joy, is to add truffles. I treat this method as a sacred ceremony, starting out with a rich cheese sauce: I prefer white cheddar, the more local the better, sometimes smoothed out with some aged mozzarella and a little parmigiano. These are melted together with milk over a low flame, never adulterated with flour, sometimes thinned with butter. Then the truffle: just a touch, finely grated or chopped, with a splash of truffle oil into the cheese. The aromas created as the truffle warms and blends into the cheese is, for me, the best part of the whole process, perhaps even better than sitting down to eat it at the finish. As the cheese and truffles are becoming friends, the pasta must be cooked– this should not be an afterthought, as perfectly cooked pasta is just as important to the final dish as the flavors are. Here, you may use whatever type of pasta you like, but I find that mini penne or those indelicate elbows work best for catching cheese and flavor, while still being easy to fit into your mouth and savor properly. After the pasta is cooked and drained, it can be mixed directly into the cheese, moved off the heat immediately, and scooped into a serving dish. If you're the finishing-touch kind of person, sprinkle shredded cheddar and a little parmigiano on top, then broil just until the cheese is starting to brown. Breaking back through this mantle of melted cheese at the table will create a burst of savory steam that only adds to the effect of the first bite.

Pho

He said he was going to a restaurant to get pho. I asked what pho was. He said, “Uh, it’s like a noodle soup…. They say it's the nectar of the gods.” Most normal people would’ve replied with something like “oh” and moved on, pushing it out of their short-term memory and into the dark recesses of things that go under the category of “I know I’ve heard of it, but I have no idea what it is”. But I am not most normal people. No, I am the cat that curiosity has yet to kill, and so hours later, when I returned to the world of internet access, I looked it up. I browsed websites and recipes and even a YouTube video, taking it all in with eager eyes, helped along by some Mika and Dave Matthews for background music.

So, my findings on Pho:
Firstly, it’s pronounced fuh, but with a slight curl at the end, kind of like you’re asking a question (“fuh”? are you serious?). It is the national dish of Vietnam- and not just a symbol, like our silly American state birds or flowers (what is New York’s state bird, anyway?), but a nationally loved and honored dish, eaten at every table. This simple beef and noodle soup is an art form to the Vietnamese: the stock itself is carefully crafted from beef, beef bones, sometimes chicken bones as well, and a distinct mixture of roasted ginger, anise, onions, and cilantro. After that, the seasoning depends on who’s making it, since many families or individuals have their own secret combinations for the perfect stock. When the stock has reached perfection, the boiled beef is left in and simple rice noodles are added. In some restaurants, especially those in the US, the diner gets to choose which specific seasonings to add, along with toppings and other ingredients. In its home country, cooked or raw beef is often an option, sometimes accompanied by chicken or even chewy beef tendon instead. Whenever beef was on short supply, pork pho was made. But pho is always available in Vietnam, and now it has become an international delight, found and enjoyed all around the world.

Post-script Notes:
•The YouTube video, narrated by a convincingly foreign accent named Kai, was quite entertaining. I now know that if I’m making Pho and I see any froths build up in the broth, I am to carefully spoon them out every ten minute or so.

•I say it is now an international delight, but I’m just saying that because that’s what everyone else is saying. This is the first I’ve ever heard of Pho, obviously, and I’ve never tried it myself. I’m hoping my original source will get back to me with details on how it was.

•New York’s State Bird is the Bluebird. Its state flower is the rose, and its state tree is the sugar maple (we’re so original here in NY). To top it all off, our state song is “I Love New York”. Who would’ve thought?

Last and most important note:
•When I first said “I’ll have to look that one up”, I wasn’t intending to write a 500 word essay on it. It just sort of happened... I guess I’m bored, or I just always need to be doing something that feels useful, or I’m just mostly insane. I suspect the third choice is most likely, or D) All of The Above.