01/23/09 - Haiga Rice, Uni and Monkfish Liver

Haiga rice is a partially milled short grain rice, so it still has some of its husk or bran. This supposedly makes it a better rice for diabetics, and it also gives it a richer flavor and hearty texture. We followed the recipe from the Seattle Times which involved washing the rice, and then letting the wet rice sit for a half an hour before cooking it. It wasn't at all like brown rice. In fact, it was the best sushi rice we have tasted.

Ankimo has a subtle flavor. There is a mild livery note, but it is a lot like foie gras and unctuous. We served thin slices of it on our potato chips, which were a perfect complement. The sweet potato chips were best, but the combination was rich and delicious, sort of a foie gras Napoleon. Maybe that is reaching a bit, it was a great combination and we ate most of the ankimo in one sitting.

They are sold packed in little wooden boxes like the one shown on the right. Each box has its own little lid so that the boxes can be stacked without the delicate eggs getting crushed.

Our experiment was successful, and we actually got to use that bag of haiga rice. We'll be watching the member specials at Catalina Offshore Products to see if we can come up with any new ideas. If you are interested at all, you can sign up as a member pretty easily. You don't have to be running a restaurant. Hmm, the mackerel filets look kind of interesting, and we've never tasted geoduck clams. There's still plenty of room at the Kaleberg frontier.

12/28/08 - Turkey With Three Sauces

12/15/08 - Smoked Steelhead

The results? Did we mention that we've already eaten all three pounds of fish? Yeah, they were that good.

12/03/08 - Cardamom Cookies

Bake a batch of these cookies, with or without cookie molds. You might even want to make them a bit thick. These are wonderful shortbread cookies. Shortbread cookies are what Lorna Doones are supposed to be but aren't. Your whole house will be scented with butter and cardamom, and if you like the baking scent of cinnamon, you will be ecstatic with the scent of cardamom. They are perfect for Christmas baking which is when all these old fashioned spices come out of the back of the cupboard and into the oven where they belong.

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbsp heavy cream
• 2 tbsp orange zest (or more)
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups flour

Divide the dough into four parts and press them into flat rectangles. Let them rest in the refrigerator for 15 to 30 minutes or so. (We actually skip this step which is why our cookies aren't much to look at, but they taste just as good as better rested cookies.) Roll the cookie dough out to about 1/8 inch (or as much as 1/4 inch) on a floured work surface. If you have a speculatius cookie mold, you can use this, otherwise just cut the cookies into 2 inch by 3 inch squares and put them on a baking sheet. Bake for about 8-10 minutes at 350F. (We use a convection oven and special baking sheets, so we get quicker results.) Bake until the edges are brown.

08/24/08 - Uni Toast

• 320 grams (four flats) sea urchin roe
• 2 tbsp butter
• 6-8 scallions, cut into little slices
• 1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• lemon juice to taste (perhaps half a lemon)

We recommend serving this dish with either good sourdough toast or Jasper White's breadsticks.

07/28/08 - Luau 2008

You can find out more about the mechanics of the feast on our luau page.

07/06/08 - Bones Diablo

This is a distinctly unfashionable dish. It is based on prime rib bones. It contains butter and more butter. It makes a Carnegie Deli pastrami sandwich look like a dietary treat. A small portion has enough fat to clog nearly 623,451 aortas. We love it. For safety reasons, you probably can't find a recipe for it in any modern cookbook. In fact, searching Google for "bones diablo" recipe gets you nothing.

We have an old James Beard party cookbook, so we're all good to go. We toasted up the bread crumbs, melted the butter, boiled the tarragon vinegar, roasted the bones and cooked down the veal stock. (Yeah, we have veal stock just sitting around). It didn't take all that long to make. We spiced up the sauce with mustard, worcester sauce, tabasco and lemon juice, and we were soon dining on breaded beef bones.

We are now in a fat induced stupor which will probably last for several weeks, or at least until we get hungry again which may be sooner. Bones Diablo is what beef is meant to be: rich, fatty, and flavorsome. The only known antidote is red wine. For reasons of public safety, we won't include the recipe here, but we may be persuaded to answer discreet inquiries.

04/20/08 - Russian Easter 2008

In any event, we rounded up the usual suspects, including a particularly deadly version of Trotsky's Bane with a ton of wasabi and serious tequila. If Trotsky had been drinking this, they wouldn't have needed to waste the people's time and money on assassins. We also made some perushki with our own home made sauerkraut and some shitake mushrooms and nettles. For more recipes, check out our Russian Easter page.

The domes of Moscow were particularly lurid this year, with lots of dragee and extra dark red and green food dyes. Those supermarket food dyes are really too pastel for a serious holiday like Russian Easter. In any event, Moscow was once again saved from the monster Napoleon thanks to a liberal dousing of French brandy. As the flames rose, and the Frenchies retreated, we celebrated the irony with, of all things, champagne.

This year, we had even more realism. We had real snow in mid-April, just like they did in Moscow before global warming. It didn't stick, but the white flakes added to the festive mood.

04/18/08 - Sauerkraut

A bit over two weeks ago we took two heads of cabbage and ran them through the slicing blade of our trusty Cuisinart. Then, we tossed in about six garlic cloves for extra flavor. We packed the cabbage into a 3 liter storage jar and made up a pickling mixture of about a quart of water, two tablespoons of kosher salt, a teaspoon of peppercorns, a tablespoon of coriander seeds, and a half cup of apple cider vinegar. We brought this to a boil, let it cool and poured it into the jar with the cabbage. We had to add a bit of tap water to cover all the cabbage, but then, all we did was let it brew out in the garage. It has been mighty cool out in the garage lately.

Now, we have a delicious glowing green mass of preserved cabbage, and it is delicious. The cabbage has gotten that sauerkraut crunch, and the coriander seeds are wonderful in it.

04/06/08 - Smoked Steelhead

We started with a half a fish, filleted. That weighed about five or six pounds before we removed the skin. We marinated it overnight in a pyrex dish with one cup of light brown sugar, a tablespoon of peppercorns, two tablespoons of kosher salt and three tablespoons of whole coriander seeds. We rubbed the fish with the mixture and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, the pyrex dish was full of a thick brown liquid, a mixture of the rub and the water drawn from the fish by the salt. We set up a fire in our trusty Weber grill. We use hardwood charcoal from Hasty Bake. It has a cleaner flavor than briquets. We also throw in a chunk of apple wood from an old stump to give it a little fruit wood flavor.

When the fire is hot with perhaps half the coals turning white, we toss in the apple wood and set up for smoking. That means putting the fish on the grill, but not over the hot coals, and closing the bucket with the vents wide open. In a few minutes, the steelhead is smoking with a white cloud pouring out of the little vent on the grill lid.

We have learned, from a sadly overcooked batch of fish, that we need to keep an eye on the grill. If the fire is too hot, we close the vent a bit more. If the fire has gotten too cool, we have to open the grill for a bit, and sometimes add a bit more charcoal. It isn't like cooking on a stove or in an oven.

Sometimes, the fish is ready in as little as half an hour. That is, if it is thinly cut. Usually, it takes about 45 minutes, or even an hour. Done, of course, is a matter of taste. Once the fish is cooked through, you can smoke it down to leather. We like it a bit more tender, and we find that the flavor ripens after the fish is removed from the grill and let sit.

That's the Kaleberg Labs recipe, and that's some of the fish on the right. We used a real fast shutter to take that snap. You know how long food lasts here Chez Kaleberg.

02/18/08 - Home Made Penne For Macaroni and Cheese

For starters, we make our own macaroni, or rather, penne, using our hand cranked tube pasta extrusion machine. We stuff the pasta dough in the top, turn the crank and every inch or two cut off four nicely formed penne. The pasta dough is basically flour, eggs, salt and water, and we tend to make the dough a touch damp so it is a bit softer.

So, where is the cheese? We put the cheese on the top. Our favorite is a good aged gruyere, but some folks use Swiss cheese instead. We spread a cup or so of grated gruyere on top and pop the whole dish into the broiler. (It helps if you make the bechamel in a sauce pan that can go in the oven). When the cheese is molten, the dish is ready. Comfort is at hand.

02/07/08 - Marrow Bones

Marrow bones are more or less inedible, unless perhaps you are a dog with very strong jaws. The marrow inside, however, is delicious. The taste is somewhere between beef and butter, or perhaps between butter and beef, or perhaps beefy butter. In any event, it is very rich. This is not diet food.

Marrow bones are easy to make. Just put them in a pyrex pan with some white wine, enough to fill the pan to a quarter inch or so. Bake them at 450F for about 45 minutes. The marrow will be oozing and bubbling. You can check it with a meat thermometer if you like, but we'll go with oozing and bubbling. When in doubt, let it cook a bit longer. You don't want to eat raw marrow.

While the marrow roasts, toast up some good bread in the oven. We had some pain levain which was great. Chop up some garlic and rub it on the toast. Sprinkle lightly with a little fleur de sel, or other good coarse salt. (Yes, this garlic toast is pretty good on its own, but it's even better with marrow). When the marrow is ready, poke it out with a fork, a spoon, a chopstick, a crochet hook, or whatever you have handy. Professionals may use a marrow spoon, but we Kalebergs are strictly amateurs. Cover the toast with a nice layer of molten marrow and take a bite. Smile.

01/01/08 - Updated Cassoulet Recipe

11/29/07 - Lacinato Kale Salad

The recipe is simple. Take a bunch of lacinato kale, clean it, remove the stalks, roll it up and cut it into thin strips, perhaps a 1/4 or 1/3 of an inch across. Toss it with a couple of cloves worth of minced garlic, a teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes, a tablespoon of olive oil and lots of lemon. Some lemons are juicier than others, so sometimes a half a lemon will do it, but sometimes we'll need as whole lemon's worth.

It's a light, refreshing salad, and real taste of the North Olympic Peninsula.

10/03/07 - Moroccan Steamed Lamb Shank

Now, set up the steamer with lots of water. The cooking time is an hour and a half to two hours. You want the shanks tender. Rub the shanks with the saffron-pepper butter. Put the parsley in the steaming basket as a base layer. Then put in the shanks and the peeled onions. Seal the thing up. Check now and then to see if the steamer needs more water, and after 90 minutes start checking to see if the meat is falling off the bone.

When the shanks are ready, mix a few teaspoons of ground cumin with some salt to make the dip. Use gray salt, fleur de sel or kosher salt for better balance and a nice crunch. This is an amazingly good dish. The lamb will be silken and redolent of saffron.

08/05/07 - Black Douglas Cod - A Northwestern Treat

This dish was suggested by a dish we had at Coupage, a Korean fusion restaurant in Seattle. They served arctic char marinated in fir eau de vie, and it was quite good. This dish has a slightly stronger flavor, and the light green notes of the fir buds come across as rather bright and fruity. No, it doesn't taste like wood pulp.

You might want to check out Clear Creek Distillery, the folks who make the eau de vie, or check out the Washington State Liquor Board for availability.

05/05/07 - Peashoots and Asparagus at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market

We are just back from the Farmers' Market, and we have to report that spring is moving along.

Westwind Farm has the most amazing asparagus. We've never tasted any this good before. Go for the big fat ones, if there are any left when you get their. When you get them home, peel them and steam them, or boil them. Also, this may be the last week they have their nettles, so hurry up if you want to dry making nettle soup or ravioli.

The Johnston Farm is selling pea shoots, a sure sign of the season. They also have their baby potatoes, lots of herbs, carrots and coriander.

Harley at Dry Creek Farm says that his salad greens are doing nothing, but he does have his eggs. His organic oats are also doing well, but the cold weather has slowed things.

Nash Huber has great looking Swiss chard and lots of little cauliflowers. We bought three bunches of the stuff, so we'll be making our Swiss chard and tuna spaghetti again real soon.