Recipe: Spiced Boiled Peanuts

Again, credit where credit is due, this recipe is adapted from the one within the pages of the stellar publication, Saveur Magazine.

Also, I think Boiled Peanuts are something that allow for great creativity, so do whatever you want and see how it goes.  Any kind of spice would work (mustard seeds, cardamom, etc.) and I think the boiling liquid could be altered in lots of interesting ways (soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, maybe even some red wine, etc.).  The one thing to keep an eye on would be the salt since you don't want to go too heavy on it.  That being said, boiled peanuts are kind of a salty snack, so be aware of that going in!  Also, these are called out as "Spiced", but they're certainly not overly hot.  To read all I had to say about these, you can go here.

Paprika, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, crushed red pepper, cinnamon, bay leaves and garlic do a spicy peanut make.

Ingredients:

2 lb. raw peanuts

1/2 to 1 cup kosher salt (depending on how salty you want them)

¼ cup sugar

1 tbsp. coriander seeds

1 tbsp. fennel seeds

1 tbsp. whole black peppercorns

1 tbsp. crushed red chile flakes

1 tbsp. hot or mild paprika

2 bay leaves

2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed

1 stick cinnamon

1. Rinse the peanuts in a colander thoroughly as they are often dusty.  I've seen some recipes that recommend soaking the peanuts for a bit before boiling, but I did not opt to do that.  It may cut down on cooking time, I suppose.

2. Throw everything you have into an 8 quart pot with a gallon of water and bring it all to a boil.  As you can see in that top photo, the peanuts will be floating, which might cause you to be somewhat distressed, but fear not, they'll eventually get saturated a bit and will settle in to the water (see below).

  

3. Once you reach a boil, turn the heat down to medium-low in order to maintain a good simmer and get ready to wait...for quite a while.  You'll want to stir the peanuts and move them around fairly regularly, but know that you've got a minimum of 4 hours before they're ready and it might be as much as 6 hours.  The longer you cook them, the softer they'll get, but I felt they were good around the 5-1/2 hour mark.  You'll also want to keep adding in water as it boils away and the level drops.  You might be able to prevent this by covering, but I just maintained the level by adding in more water.

4. Sample the peanuts after 4 hours by dipping one out, letting it cool and then cracking it open.  Once you have the texture you like, shut off the heat and let the peanuts cool down IN the liquid.  This is an important step since that when a lot of that brine and the flavor it brings gets into the shell.  You might also want to put a lid on the pot that's slightly too small in order to keep the peanuts submerged.  Let them cool for at least an hour.

5. That's it!  You can eat them warm right from the pot or store them in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.  I'd drain the liquid off before refrigerating.  If you like them warm, you can always reheat in the evil microwave or something like that.  Enjoy and, as I said, you can make adjustments as you see fit (less salt, more spice/heat, etc.).

P-nuts, Girl

I think I've noticed a trend of late.  It seems that my creative pursuits involve me either trying to please someone in my life or recapture a time when I was happier and life was less complicated.  This is often true in the music that I write and listen to, but it seems the most obvious lately regarding culinary activities.

My first entry in this blog series was Deviled Crabs, which is a perfect example of the latter situation.  They were something that I grew up with and I remember them being in the house even before I had the desire to sample one.  It's a massive understatement to say that the "someone in my life" thing mentioned above has been somewhat of a challenge lately, so most of my culinary goings on have been all about nostalgia.  Deviled Crabs, Ice Cream...even Glazed Donut Grilled Cheese is kind of juvenile even if I didn't actually eat them as a kid (and, from the musical side, my recent Stardust blog was all about my past).  Frankie, my English Bulldog, doesn't care one way or the other about my cooking, so I guess it's time for more recapturing of childhood.

You see?  He couldn't care less.

Boiled Peanuts were something my Dad brought home to our house from as early as I can really recall.  If you're not familiar with them, odds are you did not grow up in the South as they are a staple there.  Well, at least they were, I'm not sure if they still are.  I grew up in the suburbs of Bradenton, FL, which was pretty much Anytown, USA, and still pretty much is.  We regularly ventured east to the more rural part of town though since my family owned a bit of property out that way on which we had built a small cabin.  Many weekends were spent out there and it is now the property where my parents live (in a house...the cabin is gone).  It's not as rural as it once was, but you still see horses and cows and U-Pick farms and the like, which I'm fully in favor of.  The "Local" thing was happening in places like this before the "Local" thing was even a thing.

I don't know these people and I don't endorse their derogatory terminology for "Southern Folk"...ahem.

On the drive out east to spend the weekend at the cabin, I would often look out the window to see a guy on the side of the road that looked like a less clean Larry the Cable Guy with a propane rig, a big pot bellowing out steam and a piece of cardboard on which was written "BOILED P-NUTS".  The word "peanuts" was always misspelled that way.  I have no idea why.  Really, you're just saving yourself writing one character since the dash counts as either the "E" or the "A"...is this really that much more efficient or space-saving?!??

But I digress...we would often stop on our way or my Dad would stop later if he was out and saw them.  Honestly, at this point, I would guess it has been close to 20 years since I've had them, but I still remember the taste like it was last week.  Dad would bring them home and, if I recall correctly, they'd usually be in a plastic bag, which was then put inside of a paper bag that was inevitably spotted with moisture from being loaded in straight from the roadside cauldron.

I'm going to have to implore you to just make these if you've never had them since describing them is kind of tough.  I've heard someone say recently that they are like the edamame of the Deep South and that's actually a pretty good start since the ritual of eating them from the pod/shell is the same, but I think there's something more interesting and complex going on with Boiled Peanuts over Boiled Soybeans.  You can definitely tell they're peanuts, but the character of them is markedly different from the roasted peanuts that most people think of when they think of "peanuts".  Also, they are soft in texture and quite wet and juicy (insert inappropriate joke here).

Boiled Peanuts are made using either Green Peanuts (meaning fresh and recently picked) or Raw Peanuts (meaning fresh peanuts dried in the shell, but not roasted or salted or anything like that).  Honestly, you will likely have a hard time finding green peanuts unless you have a Latino or Asian market nearby that happens to have them in the store during the season.  From what I understand, they don't last very long, which is why most of them are dried; raw peanuts, once dried, will last a very long time, which is why you'll have a much better chance of finding them this way.

Again, be sure you are getting the right thing.  Raw Peanuts will be labeled as such, but most of the in-shell peanuts you see in store will be roasted.  It's worth asking someone at the store for help since, if they do have them, they might not be in an obvious place.  Additionally, as a friend of mine found out the hard way, if you just eat dried, raw peanuts as they are, you'll not be happy an hour or two later...so, yeah...don't do that.

As always, I give credit where credit is due and the recipe I'm using here comes from the brilliant Saveur Magazine.  I've never boiled peanuts myself, so I figured I'd try this recipe first even though it is clearly a different spin on what I grew up with.  The next time I make them, I might try to go the traditional route, but, honestly, I think you'd just take this recipe and eliminate everything but the salt to end up with the flavor I know from my childhood.  The recipe I used though might be good for the modern palate since it employs spicy, flavorful things like fennel, coriander, crushed red pepper, garlic, etc.

Interestingly, the flavors and aromas are not dissimilar from what happens when I make fresh pickles (the Half-Sour Pickles blog is forthcoming!), but with a spicier note.  It makes sense though since the end result is kind of Peanut Pickle-esque.  Speaking of aroma, if you're sensitive to a lot of spice, you'll want to open the windows since these did kick up a lot of strong smells that caused me to cough a bit.

Finally, the best part, they couldn't be easier to prepare.  You just throw it all in the pot and let it simmer for around 4 hours. You have to stir and keep the water level up, but while you're doing that you can easily do laundry, watch a movie, read a book, feed a goat, varnish a neighbor...low-maintenance cooking!

Recipe can be found here!

Now My Consolation is in the Stardust of a Song

You know those albums that Rod Stewart and his ilk put out in the late '90's/2000's where he'd sing a bunch of standards?  The ones that were terribly popular and eventually lead to volumes 7, 8 and 9 of the same pap despite the fact that they really weren't any good?  If you ever bought any of them, go throw them out...I'll wait...

Done?  In the trash?  Good.

Now go buy Willie Nelson's Stardust and listen to the man that originated this whole idea and the only one to have ever done it right.  And saying that he did it "right" is a terrible understatement, but I'm hoping the redheaded stranger gives me a pass on that one.

Willie Nelson is a brilliant songwriter.  He wrote tons of great songs that he himself made popular, but he also wrote "Crazy" (Patsy Cline), "You Were Always on my Mind" (Elvis Presley and, later, the Pet Shop Boys) and plenty of others.  When he released Stardust in 1978, the country music world likely thought him mad.  He was one of the biggest names in country at this point (and, keep in mind, this is when country music was amazing and didn't completely suck the way it does currently) and he was a highly respected songwriter...and now he was releasing an entire album of covers.  And not even country covers, but standards from the 30s and 40s.  If ever there was an album that had "bad idea" written all over it, this was it.

Never underestimate the brilliance of Willie though.  The record, produced by no less than Booker T. Jones, was HUGELY successful and still regarded as one of the highlights of an enormous career that still goes on today.

Go listen to it.  It's on Spotify, you can download it through iTunes or Amazon or I'll let you borrow my copy of it.  You can hear how much Willie loves these songs (they were all favorites from his younger days) and that's something that's kind of gone from modern music for the most part.  Not all of it, there are plenty of exceptions, but...it's just different.

Personally, the record has massive significance to me, so, yes, I'm a bit biased, but the world supports my appreciation for it, so I know I'm not off-base with my assessment.  It was released in April of 1978 when I was 5 years old.  I'm not sure when my parents purchased the 8-track (that was definitely the format we had it in!) and I can't be sure as to when I heard it first, but I heard it MANY times over the sound system that we had running through every room in our house.  It immediately causes me to think of my Mom and Dad, my brother, my grandparents...it, along with a couple of other 8-tracks, was the soundtrack to my childhood, which is something that I really love.

The album evokes emotions in me similar to the ones I feel when watching the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  I absolutely love it, but it brings me great sadness...while also making me happy.  That is contradictory, yes, but, somehow, it makes sense for me.  Hearing it causes me to miss people I love.  Those that I have lost to death from my family, relationships that fell apart and even those that are still in my life, but might just be far away.  I still remember being very upset while lying in the dark in my then-girlfriend's bedroom the night after my Grandma Jackson's funeral and listening to the whole album.  I was sad and upset, but it also helped me to just listen to it with someone else that cared about me.  It's an album that still does that to me to this day...it makes me sad and causes me to miss others, but it brings me comfort, too, so I don't think I'll ever stop listening to it.

The song that hits me the hardest is still "Moonlight in Vermont", an amazing song that has the unique quality of no rhyming lyrics.  That may not sound that odd when you read it, but think about nearly any song and it will have lyrics that rhyme.  "Moonlight in Vermont" is almost a free verse poem that someone just opted to set to music and it works beautifully.  I'm not sure why it makes me as emotional as it does, but, well, it does.  The title track and "September Song" are also standouts.

And, finally, it has an AMAZING photo of Willie on the back in the most ridiculous hat/jacket/neckerchief combo that still brings me great joy.  Go listen to it!

Recipe: Glazed Donut Grilled Cheese Sandwich

OK, let's be honest, you can probably figure this recipe out for yourselves, but here's the original blog where I described all this and below is what I did!

Ingredients:

1 Glazed Donut (whatever brand you like)
2 slices of Kraft American Cheese
2 tbsp butter, softened

Yes, you only need one donut and there are two here.  I had to do a quality check, didn't I?!?!

1. Slice the donut in half like it's a bagel.  This is a sticky affair, but you're not making this sandwich to stay clean dammit.

2. Spread a tablespoon of butter on the cut side of each half OR you can do it on one side, put that down in the pan and then spread the other tbsp on the exposed side.

3. Make a sandwich with the 2 slices of cheese between the donut halves.  Remember, you're putting the sticky, glazed side against the cheese and buttering the more bread-like interior of the donut.

4. Preheat a small frying pan over medium heat and then put the sandwich in there, butter-side down.  Keep an eye on it, but it'll probably brown up nicely in a minute or two.  Once it does, flip it over and let it cook for that same amount of time on the other side.

Your finger in the corner is optional.

5. That's pretty much it!  Get it out of there and put it on the plate.  It'll be hot and the cheese should be nicely melted.  You might want to let it sit and cool down for a minute, but it'll be a long minute.

Enjoy your next EKG on me!

Donut Make My Brown Eyes Blue

Aww...they're friends.

Alright, let's get this disclaimer out of the way right at the top:

1. I'm not saying this should be a part of your daily routine.
2. I'm not saying this is good for you.
3. I am saying it's actually pretty damn tasty.

I read an article a few months back about a place in Ohio (Cincinnati, I believe) that served nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches.  Now I'm sure they offer your standard, run-of-the-mill Kraft single on white bread, but the appeal is that they offer a ton of varieties.  Being a fan of this most simple yet overly delightful sandwich, I read on.

It was then that I read about one of their more popular and more unique offerings:  The Glazed Donut Grilled Cheese.

Like it or not, you read that correctly.

At first, I think my thought was, "The what??"  But then I thought it over a bit and realized it made complete sense.  I remember being pretty young when my Dad tried to talk me into melting a piece of American Cheese on top of a piece of apple pie (it's a Southern-type thing) and I thought he'd lost his mind.  Eventually, he wore both my brother and me down and we tried it.  It kicks a great deal of ass and I highly recommend it the next time you have apple pie.  It would work equally well with a good cheddar, too, but I think Kraft American is probably how it started down south.

So, yeah, I liked cheese with sweet apple pie, I've had plenty of cheese plates that feature fruit and honey...maybe this place in Ohio was on to something!  Only one way to find out...

Kind of like the pie example I cited above, I think the sandwich would be excellent with cheddar and maybe some smoked turkey or something like that added to it, but for my first foray, I decided to stay traditional with 3 ingredients:

1. Glazed Donut

2. American Cheese

3. Butter

Well worth trying and experimenting with!  Get the highly complex recipe here.

Just like mama never used to make!

Recipe: The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World

Go check out the blog here if you missed all the ever-so-exciting information I provided you with earlier!  If you can't be bothered to go read that over and you want to get right to the ice creamy deliciousness, just know that this is a slightly modified version (2% milk instead of whole milk, half-and-half instead of heavy cream) of Jeni's Ice Cream's Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World.  Also, you'll see that I've broken it up a bit between the ice cream base and the chocolate component.  After you have the base, you can pretty much take it anywhere you want as far as flavors go.

Ingredients:

Ice Cream Base:

2 c. milk (I used 2%)

4 tsp. cornstarch

1 c. half-and-half (or heavy cream if you want)

1/2 c. sugar

2 tbsp. light corn syrup

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

3 tbsp. cream cheese, softened

Chocolatey Goodness:

1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa

1/2 c. brewed coffee

1/2 c. sugar

1-1/2 oz. bittersweet chocolate (I used semi-sweet, but I'd go with a higher percentage, darker chocolate the next time)

1. Make the ice cream base first: In a small bowl, stir together 1/4 cup milk and the cornstarch; set the slurry aside, but don't forget where you put it...you'll need it later. In a 4-qt. saucepan, whisk together the remaining milk, the half-and-half (or heavy cream), sugar, syrup, and salt; bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then cook for 4 minutes. Give the slurry another stir (the cornstarch tends to settle pretty quickly) and then whisk the slurry into the hot milk mixture. Return to a boil and cook, stirring, until thickened...shouldn't take more than around 2 minutes.

2. Place cream cheese in a decent-sized bowl and pour in about 1/4 cup hot milk mixture; whisk until smooth and then whisk in remaining milk mixture and let it all cool off a bit.

(Note: what you now have is your standard ice cream base. With this, you can add in all kinds of crazy stuff and make whatever kind of ice cream you want.)

3. Onward to the chocolate sauce: Bring the cocoa, brewed coffee, and sugar to a boil in a 2-qt. saucepan over high heat; cook for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and stir in the bittersweet chocolate until the whole thing is smooth.

Look how happy the towel is at the thought of the pending merger!

4. Let the sauce cool down a bit and then stir it into the ice cream base. You can try to ice the bowl down and get this chilled quickly, but your best bet is to just put the whole thing into the refrigerator. Several hours would work, but overnight would be ideal. The colder the mixture is when you put it into your ice cream machine, the better off you'll be.

5. Pour the well-chilled mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions. I find it's usually pretty much ready to go after about 20 minutes, but just keep your ears open. When it starts to slow down and struggle a bit to turn, that means you're ready.

6. I know you want to just start eating this now like soft-serve, which you are more than welcome to do, but, ideally, you'll pack it into a container and put it into the freezer for a few hours. It'll set up that much better and you'll get nice scoops out of it after that. Again, you'll be happy to see that it's nice and soft and creamy and not at all ice-crystal-laden!

Note: Ice cream does not have to be stored next to a piece of frozen ahi tuna, but we highly recommend it...or not.

Makes approximately 1 quart of ice cream.

I'll See You on the Dark Side of the Ice Cream

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.  If you've never heard of it, I feel fairly confident when I say that you likely will soon.  I can't imagine the ice cream world is an easy one to break into on a national level, but it seems that Jeni Britton Bauer is poised to do just that.  Bauer opened a shop in Columbus, OH, that eventually failed, but she refused to give up and opened a new one a little while later and that one most definitely did not fail.  In fact, it has lead to a total of 9 shops in Ohio, 2 in Tennessee and national distribution for her products.  Not only does she make great ice cream, but she makes creative and interesting ice cream.  Ingredients include goat cheese, roasted cherries, sweet corn, buttermilk, beets, cucumber and plenty more.  But even if you don't live in Ohio or Tennessee or near one of the distribution areas, you can still see what all the hubbub is about by making some for yourself (that's right...I said, "hubbub").

In June of this year, Jeni published her very first book detailing how she does what she does.  If you're a fan of ice cream, which you should be, it's well worth your $15, so go buy it here and I'll wait...

Is this the first book ever published on making ice cream at home?  Yes.

Oh wait, I meant no, it certainly is not.  There are other good books out there including one from a couple of guys that I'm sure were inspirational to Jeni Bauer at one point in her life, Ben & Jerry.  The big difference you'll see with this book though is that none of the recipes call for eggs.  Most of the ice cream books that I own teach you how to make frozen custard.  They don't SAY that's what they're teaching you, but, if you want to get technical about it, that's what you're making when you freeze an egg-based mixture.  Don't get me wrong, this technique can and does allow for an extremely tasty end product, but I was curious about Jeni's egg-free technique and there are a couple of interesting twists.

The list of non-standard ingredients include cornstarch, corn syrup and cream cheese and they ARE in there with a purpose.  Your standard frozen custard-style ice cream contains eggs because eggs thicken up your ice cream base, which results in a creamier ice cream.  The eggs really don't overwhelm the other flavors, but you are cooking them a bit (and you have to be careful not to let them scramble in there...you'll not win any ribbons at the county fair with scrambled egg ice cream), so they do add a certain "egginess" that might mask some more delicate flavors.

So you need to thicken your ice cream base, but you don't want those emulsifying bastards we know as eggs in there...what to do?  Yes, I'll end the suspense now: this is where the cornstarch and cream cheese come into play.  If you've ever made Chinese food at home, you likely used cornstarch (or maybe arrowroot) to thicken up your sauce in the final steps.  It does the same thing here and it results in a soft, creamier ice cream.  The cream cheese contributes the same kind of thing.

The corn syrup is really just another type of sugar, but it has a tendency to crystalize less than regular old sugar...again, less crystals means smoother, less icy ice cream, which is a good thing!

I've made frozen custard-style ice cream many times and it's great, but it does tend to get icy in the freezer pretty quickly.  Jeni's techniques really do eliminate that issue, so I'm a fan.  I made a super dark chocolate version (recipe to follow in a separate post...oh, wait, it's right here!), but you can pretty much adapt any ice cream recipe to work with this technique.  And if you pick up the book, you'll have lots of recipes to experiment with, so get at it and bring me over all of your excess!  DO IT NOW!!!