More Cheap eats........

Part ‘2’……. of the stupid newsletter that

 seems to go on forever……………

When I started writing this - back in the middle of August -  I thought I’d just give you a few real tasty ideas for easy to prepare, inexpensive meals.   Well much to my surprise it turns out that all my very favorite meals (with the exception of a couple of veal dishes and Thanksgiving dinner) are inexpensive and easy to prepare.  Every time I thought of one recipe – five more came to mind.  I’m trying to trim it down to a manageable size, but I’m not having much luck. Bear with me and I’ll try to finish this sucker before Christmas.  I looked over the first chapter of this ‘Cheap Eats’ ditty and I realized it really wasn’t very Mexican at all.  I’ll try to stick to Mexican stuff this time.   Let’s start out with ‘Bistek Ranchero’ one of my all time favorite Mexican meals.  I have no idea exactly where it originated but this traditional dish is served in every part of the country with very few regional changes.  Here’s how to make a world class steak ranchero for very little money.

Bistek Ranchero

The word ‘bistek’ (beefsteak) makes most of us gringos think of a big ol’ slab of

T-bone or a rib eye or New York however, until relatively recently these cuts didn’t even exist in most of Mexico and in many parts of the country they are still referred to as ‘cortes Americano’ (American Cuts).  When I first started to travel in Mexico the prevailing thought in your average ‘carniceria’ (butcher shop) was ‘beef is beef’ and I could buy filet mignon for the same price as chuck. Anyway bistek ranchero is almost always served in thin strips about an inch or two long – about the size that those fake Mexican restaurants cut into fajitas.  It is simply well browned thin steak simmered in a Ranchero salsa until it is very tender.  It is a very liquidy dish and about a third of the time it is actually served in a bowl.  When it’s on a flat plate the broth is almost slopping over.  It almost always comes with rice and beans and tortillas, so half the fun is sopping up the liquid.  In Mexico it is served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s great to serve to guests because it’s authentic, almost no other gringos cook it, most Americans have never even heard of it, it’s easy, it’s cheap, it’s almost impossible to screw up and you can make it well in advance.  I occasionally put it on my breakfast menu as a special and Gerardo (my cracker-jack breakfast chef often makes it for the employees meal.  Here’s how I do it at the restaurant:

Parts list

Beef…………………………almost any cut of beef will do.  I use sirloin at the restaurant because I charge a lot for it and it makes the tourists feel secure to see the word ‘sirloin’ on the menu.   When I’m making it at home I buy what the butcher calls simply ‘carne para cocer’ (cooking meat).  I don’t know what cut it is, but it’s usually the cheapest beef they have. It’s a big boneless, roasty looking thing (probably a rump or some kind of chuck) that I have them slice into thin steaks – about the thickness of my pinky. A pound and a half should feed four hungry people.  This is also still good after a day or two in the fridge. 

Garlic…………………………. Chopped – at least a couple of cloves

Tomatoes……………………. Two or so nice ripe red tomatoes chopped into large pieces - about the size of a marble.  Since commercial tomatoes are so crummy I use the ones the Mexicans call ‘salades’ because they are usually redder and tastier.  I think in the states they are called ‘roma’ or ‘plum’ tomatoes.

I medium onion………………peeled, cut in half, sliced and separated into half rings.

1 or 2 poblano chiles…………stemmed, seeded and cut into strips

Jalapeno chiles (optional)…. actually everything is optional but I like this dish on the HOT side so I cut a couple/three jalapenos into thin rounds, seeds and all. Sorta like slicing a salami.

Chopped cilantro

Cooking it up

I think that most of the cheap cuts of beef taste a lot better than the expensive cuts.   The other side of that coin is – unfortunately – the cheap cuts are usually very tough and chewy.  The way to make them tender, very tender is to cook them slowly in liquid for a long, long time.  So that’s how we cook this dish.  However, the Ranchero sauce is prettier, has a better texture and a fresher crisper taste when it is cooked for a shorter time at higher heat.  So if you follow all the other recipes you either get crisp, pretty sauce with chewy meat or tender tasty meat with an overcooked mushy sauce.  Not to worry.  Do it my way and you’ll have tender meat in a bright, spicy, fresh tasting sauce

This recipe uses pretty much exactly the same ingredients as all the others.  The reason mine is so much better than everybody else’s is in the method of preparation.  Over the years I have proved to myself that meat cooked in liquid is always a lot better if it is really well browned.  If you cut the meat into strips or chunks and then try to brown it - it will leak a lot of liquid and simply stew in its own juices.  This is the way everybody else does it and the way all the recipes tell you to do it.  I’ve never been real good at following instructions so I do it differently.

 I trim all the visible fat and nasty gristle from the steak and throw it in a big, very hot skillet with a little oil and maybe just a tad of butter (not very Mexican but butter makes everything better).  If the skillet is good and hot and greasy the meat will brown quickly – turn it over and brown the other side. When it’s good and browned on both sides set the meat on a plate and cook the next steak in the same pan and so on till all the meat is browned and stacked on the plate.  You might have to add a little more oil or butter between steaks but go easy on the oil.  When your stack of steaks has cooled enough to handle - cut the steaks into the size pieces you want. Try to save as much of the juice as you can.  Turn the heat back on (medium-high) under the skillet with all the meat drippings and good bits stuck to the bottom and toss in all the sliced up steaks and any juice on the plate.  Add enough water to just cover the meat and scrape up all the good tasting stuff stuck to the pan. Bring it to a boil – then turn it down to a slow simmer and put a lid on it.  The only thing you have to watch for is that all the water doesn’t boil away.  You can plan on letting it simmer for at least an hour, but check it after a half hour.  If it’s starting to get tender and still has a lot of liquid – I leave the lid off and continue to simmer, letting the broth reduce to about half its original volume.

 Meanwhile I’m starting the salsa in another pan.  I put a little oil in the pan over medium heat and toss in the onion, garlic and chiles.  I stir fry them for a couple of minutes until the onions get translucent and the chiles have started to soften, then I toss in the tomatoes give a stir or two add a little liquid – if all the liquid hasn’t evaporated from the meat I use some of that – put a lid on it and turn it off.  I then wait patiently until the meat is just about ready and I dump the sauce with it’s liquid into the skillet with the beef and simmer for just anther five minutes or so.  Sprinkle in some chopped cilantro and serve it up with lots of hot tortillas and some rice and/or beans to slop up the juice.  Another great way to serve this puppy is over a taco-stand style baked potato.  If you do it this way you can skip the rice and beans and serve a nice crisp salad for a hearty and inexpensive meal -

Taco stand baked potatoes

There’s about a jillion types of taco stands in Mexico.  Street vendors specializing in one kind of taco - cabeza, birria, vapor, chicharon, carnitas, dorado, cochinita pibil, carne asada - if you can name a cut of meat there is someone making it into delicious tacos.  Then there are sit down taquerias, open early in the morning for breakfast tacos and burritos, and lunch taquerias with a large selection of tacos, and my favorite the dinner hour and late night taquerias open till the wee hours.  Virtually every late night taqueria in Mexico also serves ‘papas’ (potatoes).  They’re not really baked, but they’re close.  I love baked potatoes and have since I was a little guy.  Lots of butter and sour cream and some chives – it just don’t get much better than that.  I think that the perfect baked potato is light, fluffy and has a relatively crispy skin.  I further think that the person who decided to wrap the potato in aluminum foil was a moron.  Wrap it and you keep the moisture in, which is exactly what I don’t like.  The skin stays soft and the potato is actually steamed rather   than baked.  If that’s how you like them then wrap the suckers, but here’s how I make my baked potatoes.

 I don’t use any fancy gourmet designer potatoes just an ordinary #1 baker - Idaho russet.  I wash it pretty good since it grew up in the dirt, dry it and poke a few holes in it with a fork.  Sometimes I coat it with cooking oil because I hope that makes the skin crispier, but I’m not convinced that is true.  I bake them hotter than most  (400 – 450) and start checking them in about 35 minutes.  When the skin feels crispy and you can squeeze them or stick a fork in with no resistance – they’re done.  For taco stand potatoes I let them cool till I can handle them – actually I’m usually so impatient that I burn my fingers. Cut them open the long way, spread them and chop up the meat, leaving it in the skin. Put a lot of butter or your favorite non-dairy substitute (yecch!) and some grated cheese on it.  Stick it under broiler or in a toaster oven to melt the cheese or you could even wrap it in the dread foil and put it backing the oven for a couple of minutes. Unwrap it and serve it with your favorite salsa or even better top it with some of the delicious steak ranchero or some homemade chili.

I think I spoke briefly in the last newsletter about a chef’s creative process.  ‘Steal a recipe, change it slightly and claim it as your own’   Well, you have actually witnessed my creative process at work.  In the course of writing this ‘cheap eats; newsletter I have made up an entirely new “traditional” Mexican dish.”  It will appear on my menu in October both as an appetizer and as a main course.  Last issue I wrote about ‘albondigas’ and you can’t get more traditional than that. This time around I got ‘bistek ranchero’ also traditional.  The next time you’re in Cabo you can have my very own, very traditional, Felix’s original “ALBONDIGAS RANCHEROS”   I’m gonna make them for the first time this Sunday but I know they’ll be good.  I’ll I’m thinking of calling them ‘Albondigas Rancheros con Fideos’ and describing them as a sort of Spicy Mexican spaghetti and meatballs.   I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Mexican style potato pancakes

Actually these are my grandmother’s potato pancakes that I learned how to make by watching my mom.  Which I guess would make them Polish-Lithuanian style, but I had a Mexican restaurant.  So I added some chopped jalapenos and cilantro and had another  great appetizer.  On the menu I describe them as ‘Mexican-Polish Fusion’ -because the yuppies seem to love the word ‘fusion’- but they’re really just Grandma Anna’s ‘latkes’.  For probably more than 40 years every time I’ve seen potato pancakes on a menu I ordered them – in Jewish Deli’s, German and Hungarian restaurants even the occasional Polish or Russian place and I have never had any near as good as these.  You can feed a whole bunch of people for almost no money and they’ll all want your recipe. Here’s how to make them:

Parts list

Potato or potatoes………… peeled with any ugly eyes or brown spots gouged out.  Over the years I’ve fooled around with lots of different potatoes but I keep coming back to the good ol’ Idaho russet. I buy the biggest ones I can because it’s a lot less work to peel one big one than a bunch of little ones.  Also I look for smooth, evenly shaped spuds because they are easier to peel.  You’re gonna need fewer potatoes than you think – one big baker will probably feed 3 or 4 normal people.

Onion…………………………. I use one medium onion for each large potato.  I have never used anything but white or yellow onions but I don’t think it really matters.

Egg……………………………. One egg for each onion/potato.

Salt……………………………. Go easy on the salt – if you put in too much you’re screwed but if you don’t put in enough it’s no big deal ‘cause there’s salt on the table

Making the pancakes

There’s no way around  it - you have to grate the peeled potatoes.  I use a box grater(a square 4 sided grater available most everywhere).  One side has big holes – for hash browns or cheese – one side is the same but with smaller holes, -one side has slots for slicing, and the last side is nothing but little sharp edges designed to take skin off your knuckles.  Can you guess which side you have to use? Yep and there is no other option.  If you want these great pancakes you have to risk bloody knuckles.  I’ve tried every kind of grater and all the blades on a food processor even tried a blender  it just isn’t the same.  So be careful as you use the grater.  Or at least try not to bleed into the mix and make sure you pick out any little pieces of skin.  Anyway grate one of those big ol’ peeled potatoes into a bowl then grate about half that amount of onion into the same bowl.  You should now have a bowl of mush at the bottom of a pool of liquid, which is rapidly oxidizing and turning an ugly brown color – not to worry. You want a liquidy batter but you don’t want a pool of liquid  so pour off most of the liquid and stir.  When the batter is right add a raw egg and stir it in.  you can look forever and you will never find another potato pancake recipe that does not use some kind of filler – bread crumbs or flour usually, which is why these are so much better than all the others.  The reason I use such a runny batter is because I like the way the edges get lacy and a little burnt and you will too.

I cook them in a cast frying pan – the thicker the pan the more even the heat – but I have done them on a griddle and in cheap thin pans as well.  Get the pan good and hot and add some neutral tasting oil –corn or safflower works good.  Use more oil than just coating the pan but we’re not deep frying these suckers either.  When the oil is good and hot but not smoking hot, start making the pancakes.  I use a regular kitchen wooden spoonful of batter for each pancake.  I’ve never measured but I’m guessin’ it’s just about a heaping tablespoon.  Be careful because when you add the wet batter it might splatter and you don’t want to get a hot oil burn on your raw knuckles.  The batter should be thick enough to mound up in the pan – use the back of the spoon to press it down into a thin pancake about the diameter of a tennis ball.  If the batter doesn’t mound up but runs all over the pan like soup – it’s too thin, so pour off some of the ugly brown liquid and try again.  If they do mound up and have irregular lacy edges when you press them down, you got it just right.  Leave a little space between them so you can turn them without breaking them up.  Don’t touch them or poke around – just leave them alone until  the edges on the first pancake is good and crisp and starting to burn.  If you try to turn them too soon, they will break up.  Cook them on the other side until they look done to you. Stack themo n a paper bag or towel or something to absorb some of the extra oil.  You can keep the first batch warm in the oven awhile you’re cooking the rest but they are so good hot, right out of the pan  that I usually just stay at the stove cooking and sending them to the table until everybody says ‘enough’. The second side is never as brown or pretty as the first side so serve them good side up.   Okay, replace the oil that got absorbed by the first batch and keep cooking until the batter is gone.  Serve these guys with sour cream or apple sauce or both.  I salt them then pile a big dollop on each pancake and eat them out of hand like a taco.  I know that not everybody likes the same thing.  I have even heard that there are some strange folk who don’t like chocolate or garlic(though that’s hard for me to believe) so I rarely make guarantees.  That said - I have never met anyone who didn’t like these pancakes.   You can keep the left over cooked pancakes in the fridge for up to a few days and reheat them in very lightly oiled pan.  They’re not as good as right out of the pan but they’re still better than all the others.  Please try this one, you’ll love it and save money too! The second time you make them you can fool around with chopped jalapenos or cilantro or you could even throw in a bunch of oregano and call them ‘Italian Style”. Let me know how it turns out.

The ugly truth about pasta

When I was growing up in New York the Italian side of my family ate pasta on daily basis – much like Tony Soprano – home made ravioli, lasagna, manicotti, shells, spirals, linguine, and spaghettini among others.  They were all called simply ‘macaroni’.  You bought the macaroni at the local Italian deli in bulk out of big bins. It was sold by weight and was all the same price.  What the hell happened?  Do you know what the difference is between fettuccini and spaghetti?  One is flat and the other is round.  There is no other difference!  Same taste, same exact ingredients.  Why then does the fettuccini come in small fancy boxes from Italy and cost an arm and leg? I’m blaming the celebrity chefs and the vast international yuppie conspiracy.  You know the difference between good old egg noodles and expensive pasta in a fancy box from Italy?  Well the pasta is made with water and the noodles made with milk and butter. Oh, and the noodles seem to be more tender.  Why then are expensive boxes of imported pasta considered gourmet items and egg noodles thought of as cheap junk?  Yeah, I’m’ blamin’ the Yuppies again. 

So the next time someone tells you of the glories of imported semolina and egg tortellini– just look them in the eye and say “BULLSHIT! NOODLES IS NOODLES”!  Tell them you know that is true because the salsa king said so.  So quit wasting your money and start buying egg noodles and generic domestic pasta. Here’re  a couple of real cheap, real easy to prepare meals folks you serve them to will think are really high toned gourmet dishes – unless you tell them the truth.

Bulletin

Dammit, the Mexican government has just issued another hurricane warning for Cabo.  We can expect hurricane Lane – maybe a force 2 – to hit us within the next 24 – 36 hours.  I feel like we’re playing Russian roulette.  One of these times it’s gonna get us.  I’ll keep you posted.

I guess you know I have some small reputation a  creative chef – I’ve been featured on the food channel, made salsas on all the morning shows in Reno, been interviewed by ABC-TV In Chicago and ChilePepper magazine did a feature article on me.  I may have thrown that all away with these last two newsletters.  If word gets out that I confessed that I actually like noodles and think that cheap egg noodles are just as good – or better – than expensive imported pasta, I might get a late night visit from the food police.  They’ll haul me before the high tribunal before Chief Justice Emeril and associates Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay.   I fully expect that they will take away my whisk and strip me of my silly hat and march me away in chains.  Well, to hell with them.  Here’s some more heresy for them: 

‘Balsamic vinegar and exotic olive oils are a fraud’. 

‘Truffle oil is a bigger fraud’

'I’m not even sure that arrugula is food’ 

‘Gravy should go on top of the meat’

‘Al Dente just means not mushy’ 

If they need more Evidence that I’m a true apostate – here’s my thoughts on Cottage Cheese:

When I was a little kid, when I wasn’t eating macaroni with my Italian relatives my mom, brother and I lived with my Polish-Lithuanian grandmother ‘Anna the Red’.  On Saturdays she would often take off on the subway and return with fresh copies of Laisve (a Lithuanian language newspaper), the Daily Worker and a bag full of weird groceries.  I would stand around the kitchen table, eyes wide as she unwrapped these bizarre items. It could be pig’s feet or a pile of brains – maybe a whole cow’s tongue or a pig liver.  My favorite was something she called

 Kuh-bah-see – a three or so foot long bright red sausage as big around as my wrist.  She almost always brought a package of Farmers Cheese.  She’d coil that big ol’ sausage into a pot of boiling water and let it simmer all day.  Somewhere along the way she’d cut a head of cabbage into six or eight pieces and toss it in the pot.  When the cabbage was cooked way beyond ‘al dente’ she’d take it out and set it aside while the Kuh-bah-see continued simmering. When the sausage was done she would fry the cooked cabbage in butter with maybe a little bacon grease until it started to brown a little around the edges.  In another pan she would heat some cooked noodles in butter with lots of crumbled Farmer’s Cheese when the cheese got melty she’d pile the noodles on a platter and top them with the cut up kuh-bah-see and fried cabbage to which she had added some whole pepper corns that had simmered with the sausage.  Shortly thereafter we moved to California and have not seen fresh kuh-bah-see or farmers cheese again.  And to this day I have yet to come across a fresh kuh-bah-see anything like what my granma cooked.  It wasn’t until I was an adult in Berkeley that I realized that kuh-bah-see was nothing more than my granny’s pronunciation of kielbasa.  I might add that those vacuum packed pre-cooked kielbasas in your supermarket don’t even come close to the real thing.

Which brings us to the real skinny on cottage cheese.  The homemade farmer’s cheese my grandma bought looked a lot like cottage cheese on steroids.  Soft and shiny white but the curds were gigantic – some as small as peanuts others as big as walnuts.  When we moved to California my mom missed her noodles and farmer’s cheese and when she discovered that cottage cheese was a good substitute – bingo,  it was back on the menu and we ate buttered noodles with large curd cottage cheese often. I still do but until recently I wouldn’t tell anyone – I did it in private.  Cottage cheese was a joke - low class and trashy.  No one will even admit eating it, much less liking it.  If someone saw cottage cheese in my fridge I would claim it was left by my daughter in law.  How could a professional chef admit liking something as plebian as cottage cheese?

I would drive far to find a market where no one knew me to buy cottage cheese. When I got to Cabo there was only one market that sold cottage cheese and everyone I knew shopped there, so I would wait till late night, put a bag over my head, dash in grab a carton and dash out. I finally came slowly out of the closet and served buttered noodles with the dreaded cottage cheese to some friends.  I used a large curd, which most people are unfamiliar with and when it melted and got all creamy not one person identified it as cottage cheese.  They asked ‘hey, what was that cheese and where can I get some?  I of course modestly explained that it was a rare Italian cheese called ‘Riccotalini’, that I got mail order from the small Tuscany village of Farrellini in the anchovy growing region of the Italian Alps, I have subsequently discovered that the homemade ‘Farmer’s’ Cheese my grandma brought home was just a kind of Cottage cheese – as are ‘Pot’ cheese and ‘Hoop’ cheese.  You can tell all the food snobs that virtually all the world’s great fresh cheeses are just cottage cheese in disguise.  That would include ‘Paneer’ from India, Neufchatel from northern Normandy, quesos blanco, fresco and requeson from Mexico, chevre from france, and all the different kinds of ricotta from Italy including the rare and expensive Ricotta scanta which is basically cottage cheese gone bad. Oh, and halloumi and feta from Greece as well as castelo blanco from Portugal and a cheese from Germany called quark.  If cottage cheese is junk and no one eats it why does every dairy section in every market in the country have a vast array of this humble cheese?

Hurricane update

Hurricane Lane made a right turn and is headed away from Cabo.  Looks like we

dodged another bullet.

I use a mixture of cottage and cream cheeses at the restaurant as a filling for blintzes and, with a little added sugar and vanilla, my stuffed French toast.  At home I toss some into my macaroni and cheese. I often heat up some chopped garlic in butter add some cooked noodles and cottage cheese(I prefer a large curd) stir it around until the cheese softens and starts to melt. I eat them as a side dish with fresh ground pepper.  I have also been known to add chopped spinach, a beaten egg and grated parmesan and use it as a main dish, much like fettuccini florentine. Try heating the garlic, butter and noodles with large curd cottage cheese and fresh basil.  You can use cottage cheese a substitute for expensive ricotta in lasagna, manicotti or stuffed shells or with chopped spinach and a little oregano as filling for ravioli.  So you no longer have to be embarrassed about eating cottage cheese – unless you eat it in green Jello with grated carrots.

Once again, the stupid newsletter is running on and on.  I apologize – once I get started I seem to lose all control and just ramble on…….and on………and on.  Sorry.  I’m discovering that my culinary tastes and preferences seem to have been firmly in place by the age of 8 or 9.  I wonder if that’s true of every one.  Also, I’m a little embarrassed by the direction the newsletter is taking, but it seems to have a mind of its own.  I started out to teach you something about traditional Mexican cuisine and I wind up trying to get you to eat cabbage, noodles and sour cream.  Go figure.

Okay, one last recipe and then you can get back to the important stuff.  This is another favorite of mine ranking right up there with Thanksgiving.  You can serve it as a casual family dinner, a traditional Christmas or Easter dinner, an elegant dinner party or a just casual Super Bowl buffet.  Best of all – if you can boil water you can make it just as good as Emeril or any of those other TV buffoons. And you only need one pot to do it.  Well,,,,,, ,maybe two. 

Boiled ham dinner

Whether you’re cooking for a special occasion or are just lusting for a great home cooked meal, you can’t go wrong with this great American classic.  This is probably for a Sunday dinner – because it’s not something that you can throw together after work.  The ham is going to cook for 5 or so hours.   This qualifies as ‘cheap eats’ because ham is still one of the least expensive cuts of pork.  On the other hand you’re going to buy a ten (or so) pound ham so there is an initial investment.  If you’re a yuppie with too much money you can buy a real Smithfield ham over the internet direct from Smithfield, Virginia – but expect to pay between 100$ and 200$ for one  ham fed-exed to your door. A real Smithfield ham is slowly dry-smoked, packed in salt and aged for a year or so.  Before you can cook them you have to soak them for 24 hours then scrub them with a stiff brush and then do some other stuff.  The recipe that follows is for a regular smoked ham from your local butcher or market.  If you got $200 for a ham you probably got enough money to hire someone smarter than me to come in and cook it for you.  However if you would like to cook a great American meal that has everyone saying ooh and aah – read on.

Parts list

1 ham……………………….. get any name brand ham or ask your butcher for a recommendation.  They come  ‘whole’- which I have never cooked - ‘Butt End’, or ‘Shank End’.  Get either the butt or shank, but make sure to buy one labeled butt ‘half’ or shank ‘half’.  If they’re labeled butt ‘portion’ or shank ‘portion’-  the center cut ham steak(the best part of the ham) has been removed.  Either end will taste about the same  - the butt is meatier and has more fat – it  also has the hip bone ,which makes it  a little harder to carve.  I’m not sure why, but I always get the butt – probably because my mom did.  Anything over 8 pounds is considered a big half ham.  Get a big one!

Potatoes……………………. Any kind of potato will do – I’ve used large new potatoes, baby new potatoes, large red and baby red but I always come back to the good old Idaho Russet.  I can’t tell you how many potatoes because I don’t know how many folks you’re having over for dinner.  If you allow one good sized spud per person you’ll probably be okay.  Whatever size spud you use get them all about the same size so they’ll cook in the same amount of time. 

1 cabbage…………………... I really like the cabbage and have some great things to do with the leftovers so  use more cabbage, but one should be more than enough for this dinner nothing fancy - just a head of regular green cabbage will do if you’re serving fewer than ten people – more than ten, get another cabbage.

Carrots………………………I’m not a big carrot fan  but others seem to like them and they look pretty on the table. Use how ever many you want and cut them whatever size you like – just cut them all about the same size

I didn’t include any herbs or spices because you don’t need any for this basic, real simple dish, but later on in the cooking process I give you a couple of options to use pepper corns, caraway seeds and chopped parsley.  So, like always, read all the way through before starting to cook this feast.

Cooking it up

 

Put the ham in a large pot and cover it with water- just plain water.  I’ve seen many, many recipes calling for bay leaves, vinegar, cider, ginger ale, brown sugar, mustard, chicken stock, bouquet garni, onions, cloves, mace, even hay, celery, allspice berries, horseradish, chiles -----blah, blah, blah.  Just cover that ham with cold water and bring it to a boil – then turn it down to a bare simmer.  FYI – water at a slow simmer is 212 degrees and water at a rolling boil is 212 degrees.  It doesn’t cook any faster at a boil so all you’re doing is wasting gas.  I almost never boil anything except rice and pasta to keep it moving so it doesn’t clump up- or to rapidly reduce the amount of liquid.  Once you got a simmer going – go take a shower or have a beer or call your mom or reupholster a couch.  That ham will simmer for 25-35 minutes a pound.   Check occasionally to make sure the water hasn’t boiled down – if it has add water to keep the ham covered and keep simmering.  If I remember I toss in a small handful (15-20) of pepper corns.  It doesn’t seem to do anything to the ham but I like to add some softened pepper corns to the cabbage a little further on in the process.  While all this simmering is going on you should wash the potatoes and cut out any really ugly soft spots.  Do not peel the potatoes leave the skins on!  Peel or scrub the carrots and cut them into a size you like (I have been known to buy those bags of pre-cleaned baby carrots and so can you). Cut the core out of the cabbage and cut the cabbage into large chunks.  If I use a medium cabbage I cut it in half and then each half into quarters - if I got the math right that’s 8 pieces.  If you wanted to do a real Autumn spectacular you could also use yams or sweet potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, turnips, winter squash or sugar pumpkin. I usually just stick with the potatoes and cabbage.  As the ham simmers, an ugly foam will collect on the surface – not to worry – just skim it off and dump it whenever it foams up. 

After it’s been simmering for 25 minutes or so a pound I start checking for doneness.  When the bone starts to feel loose and pulls away from the meat when you wiggle it, I stick a fork into the meat and twist it – when the fork actually twists meat out – it’s done enough for me.  Get the ham out of the pot and on to a big platter.  Toss the cabbage into the still simmering ham water.  While the cabbage is cooking you have to cut the skin off the ham.  The skin is as tough as a football – they actually make footballs from pigskin – so get a sharp knife and slice through the skin at the meaty end of the ham and peel It away.  Let the ham sit there and cool a little while you finish with the veggies. After the cabbage has simmered for about 15 minutes toss the potatoes and carrots in the pot too.  After another 10 or so minutes of simmering scoop the cabbage out with a slotted spoon and let it drain a little.  At this time I try to dig out some of those now tender peppercorns I threw in with the ham and put them in with the cabbage.  Once you get the cabbage out the potatoes and carrots will take another 10 minutes or so – they’re ready when you can stick a fork in them with little or no resistance.  While I’m waiting for the potatoes and carrots I melt some butter in a skillet and fry the cooked cabbage with the peppercorns until it just starts to brown a little also if you happen to have any caraway seeds in the house – toss some in the cabbage.  If I’ve timed it right everything is ready to go.  I always serve it family style with big bowls of potatoes, carrots and cabbage on the table for everyone to help themselves to.  I usually slice a lot of the ham in the kitchen and put it on the plate with the rest of the un-sliced ham.  I always have butter on the table and a bowl of sour cream as well so the guests can fix their own potatoes and the sour cream is good on the cabbage.

You have to have mustard on the table as well.  I’ve tried all the fancy mustards and I think that plain old Gulden’s brown mustard is still the best so I have both some Gulden’s and some regular yellow ball park mustard on the table.

It seemed to take a lot of words to explain but this is really a simple one pot boiled dinner and is probably easier to cook than to read about.  A cucumber – onion – sour cream salad is a perfect companion to this meal and can be made well in advance or while the ham is cooking. Here’s how to do it: peel a cucumber and slice it into thin rounds – peel and slice an onion thinly.  Break the onion slices up into rings and put them in a bowl with the cuke slices.  Sprinkle generously with your favorite vinegar.  I don’t like to use a red wine or a balsamic on this because it gives a muddy color.  I use a white vinegar and my first choice is rice vinegar.  If you have some dill(fresh or dried), sprinkle some in or add some chopped parsley for color. After the salad has sat in the vinegar for a while add sour cream stir and stick in the fridge until it’s time to put on the table.