I love Paseo. And I am procrastinating from writing my thesis

Mariana -- I'm curious to hear more about how your summer went...how did you like your job and enjoy L.A.? Did you have any exciting adventures, and, probably most relevant to this blog, did you find any special places to eat? That's one of my favorite things about living in new places -- sleuthing out new favorite spots to eat. In Portland, I'm currently semi-obsessed with a place my friend Allee introduced me to -- The Waffle Window. They serve a waffle with bacon, brie, and basil. This is perhaps one of the greatest combinations involving a waffle that I have ever eaten (other than perhaps Roscoe's fried chicken and waffles -- in my mind that is debatable though). I think I hear some people in Belgium crying in jealousy.

The flip side of this is that it is always sad to leave beloved places behind. One of my favorite places in Seattle is a tiny sandwich shop called Paseo that sells an amazing pork sandwich. It has delicious pulled-pork, cilantro, jalapenos, caramelized onions, garlicky mayonnaise, romaine lettuce and crispy, crunchy bread. I'm pretty sure that I took you there when you visited me in Seattle. Since I can't regularly enjoy this sandwich, I decided to attempt to recreate it in Portland.

Before recreating it I, of course, had to do some research. I'm definitely not the first blogger to attempt this recipe. A friend pointed out this version to me. And this blogger went so far as to measure the sandwich and count the onions. I admire such attention to detail.

My attempt went pretty well -- I made a tasty sandwich, though it didn't fully capture the magic of Paseo -- the flavors were a bit off. I adapted a recipe for Cuban-style pork from Cook's Illustrated. Unfortunately, my kitchen is sadly lacking both a usable dutch oven and a bbq, so I had to adapt this to my crock-pot (this recipe is in someways similar to crock-pot carnitas). It worked fine though! Really though, I realized I just need to take a trip to Seattle to enjoy the original -- for the time being, that is, at least until I crack the recipe code.

Attempt #1 at Paseo's Cuban Roast

My attempt at this sandwich was pretty loosey-goosey in terms of the non-meat components. I suspected (and continue to believe) that the meat is going to be the hardest part for me to replicate and wanted to focus on trying to get that right this time round. So, I don't have exact preparation methods or proportions for the other ingredients (or the meat really -- I prepared three pounds of it and snacked on it for the rest of the week). I think this is fine as everyone likes slightly different proportions of the ingredients on their assembled sandwich(es). As a warning this meat is not very labor intensive but it takes a while -- there is an overnight brining and a slow cooking in the crock-pot.

Components of the Cuban Roast Sandwich from Paseo

• Cilantro (to taste -- probably about 7 or so sprigs per sandwich)
• Jalapenos (to taste)
• Caramelized Onions (again to taste)
• Aioli (I used this recipe and thought it work pretty well, though I added some relish and hot sauce. I put about a tablespoon on each sandwich)
• Romaine Lettuce (probably about 2 lettuce leaves per sandwich)
• 1 Baguette (I used Grand Central bread and it worked really, really well)
• Cuban Style Pulled Pork (my adaptation below)

Cuban-Style Pork Roast

adapted from Cook's Illustrated, August 2006

Pork and Brine

• 6 quarts cold water
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 cups table salt
• 2 medium garlic heads (separate the gloves and gently crush them)
• 4 cups orange juice
• 3 pound hunk of Boston Butt pork

Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a large stock pot, making sure to dissolve the sugar and salt. Cut 1-inch-deep slits in the meat (seperating them by about 2 inches) and place the roast in the brine. Let it hang out there at least overnight and up to 24 hours (this long in the brine + the crock-pot might make the meat too tender though).

Garlic-Citrus Paste

• 12 medium garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 1/2 tsps ground black pepper
• 6 tablespoons orange juice
• 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Process the first 5 ingredients in the food processor. Pulse until these ingredients have formed something resembling a coarse paste. Add the liquid ingredients (starting with the orange juice) while the processor is running. Once all the liquids are added, the mixture should be a smooth paste. Set aside.

Remove the pork from the brining solution and cut into 2-3 inch chunks. Coat the pieces of pork with the delicious smelling garlic paste and place in crock-pot. Cover the pork with water (only add as much water as necessary to cover the pork -- about 4 cups) and cook on low for 8-9 hours.

Remove the pork from the crock-pot, let cool slightly, and pull apart using two spoons. In order to get a nice, crispy texture on the pork, fry the pieces of pulled pork in a medium-sized pan (If, like I did, you plan on eating sandwiches throughout the week, only fry up what you are going to immediately use).

Once the meat has nice and crispy parts go ahead and assemble the sandwiches to your liking. Yummers!

Not a recipe

Katie, we're being lazy bloggers. My excuse is that I just got home to Tucson last week, where I was greeted by a refrigerator whose circuit had blown days earlier—gnarly! And by "gnarly" I mean disgusting, gross, and disappointing after an 8-hour drive. I cleaned my refrigerator with bleach, then with Meyer's, then filled it with baking soda, and it STILL smelled horrible. I was a little afraid to put food in it and then to eat that food. That's only excuse #1. Excuse #2 is that school started this week and things are a bit hectic.

I found a solution to my smelly fridge problem, thanks to the internet: ground coffee. Take about a cup of ground coffee, put it in some sort of cloth—I used cheesecloth, but a clean, old sock would also work—put that in your fridge and, magic! No more smell!

I feel like smelly refrigerators are something that maybe other people suffer through but don't talk about because it seems so shameful and secret—but if we don't talk about our smelly appliances, how are we going to share solutions for getting rid of the smell? This blog, my friend, should be a safe space for kitchen secrets and shames. My name is Mariana and I had a smelly refrigerator, full of rotting meat and maggots. My refrigerator has been cleaner than ever for five days.

Also, since I've been talking about sausages and hot dogs all summer long, I want to share an article that finally gives Sonoran hot dogs the props they deserve. I like the girl who says, "The problem with American hot dogs is that they're American." What she really means is American hot dogs are boring compared to the glory of the Sonoran hot dog. Sonoran hot dogs one-up the American hot dog and make a mediocre thing wonderful—but let's not forget that without the solid foundation of the American hot dog the Sonoran hot dog wouldn't have been possible. Couldn't we use the Sonoran hot dog as a manifestation of that melting pot ideal of America that is so often praised but so rarely seen? Can the Sonoran hot dog be a metaphor for what it means to be American?

What's going on with your vanilla extract?

Cookie Cake Pie!

Mariana -- have you heard of cookie cake pie?? I hadn't until I saw a picture of it on my friend Winnie's facebook page a month or so ago and I've been so intrigued by it ever since. The name basically explains it all -- a layer of cookie dough baked in a pie crust and topped off with a layer of cake, frosting and sprinkles.

I think you can imagine why I was so curious about this creation -- my curiosity about this cake was almost child-like. This is the kind of dessert that had I stumbled across it at 8 years old, when I loved kittens and the color pink, I would have not been able to stop eating. It would have been requested at all holidays. (By the way, this is also the age that I bet my parents $50 that I could eat a dozen donuts -- unfortunately, I ate only two and a half before admitting defeat).

While it isn't as heavy as you might expect, there is no escaping the fact that this is pretty ridiculous. I'm pretty surprised this creation hasn't taken the world by storm, so I'm doing my part to spread the word. The original recipe is posted at the blog CakeSpy and I've posted the link here. I definitely recommend checking out this link, as my hurried pictures don't do this dessert justice.

When preparing it myself, I made a few changes from the original recipe, in part due to tips from Winnie. Though I love under baked cookies, I'm not a fan of underdone cake (and in the blog photo the creation looks a bit undercooked), so I baked the cake separately and placed it on the baked cookie/pie dough. I realize some people might consider this to be cheating, but I was happy with the results. I got the cake recipe from smittenkitchen and used my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe; both recipes can be halved, though I just froze the extras. Though as Winnie pointed out, the variations on this cake are endless -- different flavors of cookies and cakes can be mixed and matched.

Guest Post: Mariana's Mom's Trifle

*My mother's first guest post on our blog. Thanks, Mom!

For a get-together on a warm summer day in Tucson, a trifle always seems to be a great compromise between refreshing and luscious. Trifle is one of the very few great cooking successes of English cuisine.

The basic part of a trifle is the pound cake. You can either take it easy and buy one in the grocery store (not highly recommended), or buy a cake mix (not too bad), but I decided to go all the way and make my own. After hunting around on the Foodnetwork web site for a little while, I ran across the following recipe of Purely Pound Cake, based on a recipe of Gale Gand. It actually turns out to be basically the same recipe of a cake my mother pretty often makes, named quatre quarts, which means four quarters. The name comes from the fact that you use equal amounts (by weight) of butter, flour, sugar and eggs. Looking at this recipe, it explains why a pound cake is called a pound cake, something I never knew: it uses one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, one pound of flour and a dozen eggs! This recipe makes two pound cakes. You add of course some little extra things like a pinch of salt, some brandy, vanilla, whatever you want.

I decided to make only one pound cake. I used the following ingredients:

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
• 1 cup and a couple of tablespoons of sugar
• 6 eggs, separated
• 1/8 cup of brandy (I used Mandarine Napoleon)
• Pinch of salt
• 1 ¾ cup flour, sifted 3 times

Preheat oven to 325 °. Butter 1 loaf pan and line with parchment paper.


Cream the butter using a mixer until light and fluffy (takes about 10 minutes). Add the sugar and continue mixing. Add 2 yolks at a time, mixing well after each addition. The mixture should still be fluffy. Add brandy and salt (the authors also added some nutmeg, but I didn’t like that idea). Add the flour in 3 batches and mix just enough to mix.

In another bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff. Add to the batter and mix well. This takes quite a while, and I did this by hand.

Pour the batter in the loaf pan and even out the top. Place in the oven for 70-80 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Let it cool a while and remove from the loaf pan, continue cooling.

I made the pound cake on the day before I used it. It could be made earlier, just wrap it in plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out too much. I tasted the pound cake and found mine a bit too dry, so maybe I baked it a bit too long.



The trifle itself is basically a mixture of pieces of pound cake, vanilla pudding, whipped cream and fruit of choice. I use a trifle bowl, which is a container with straight sides on a little pedestal. The whole thing looks very elegant. About the different elements of the trifle:

• I slice the pound cake into 1/2 inch slices and coat one side with some jam, in this case I used raspberry jam, but apricot is very delicious too. Cut in cubes.
• Use real whipping cream
• For the vanilla pudding, I use the simple packages you buy at the grocery store, but I always use the vanilla pudding that you have to cook (not the instant stuff) and the one that contains real sugar.
• For the fruit I used a mixture of berries: strawberries (sliced), blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. Use whatever fruit looks good at the store, but I would suggest to stay away from bananas as they tend to turn brown and mushy.


To assemble the trifle, start with a layer of pound cake pieces, then some pudding, fruit and whipped cream, and continue until the bowl is full, or you run out of ingredients. End with whipped cream and decorate with some fruit. Refrigerate. You should make this several hours ahead of serving so that the layers penetrate each other.

To serve, just use a big serving spoon and let your guests serve themselves in bowls. Usually they come back for seconds. Awesome English invention!

Vanilla Extract x 2

Again with the blog slacking on my part. It is probably fairly representative of my cooking pattern though -- sometimes I can't get enough of it, while other times it falls to the wayside. I continue to spend quite a bit of time thinking about what I want to make but ultimately don't prepare anything worthy of a blog post.

I'd been thinking about (and gathering the ingredients) to make vanilla extract for over a month. This last week my Aunt Helen pointed out that Cook's Illustrated also published a recipe for vanilla extract in their latest issue. I was intrigued by this recipe as it utilized a different method to prepare the extract (the vodka is heated) and a different vodka to vanilla bean proportion than other recipes I had read. Also, the extract is ready to use in one week, whereas other recipes take 2 or more months. This was also handy as I am currently out of extract. So, for the sake of scientific method, I decided to make both recipes.

I'm going to have a lot of vanilla extract -- almost 4 cups in all (I'm not much of a vodka drinker, so I figured I might as well use it all!). The smaller jar holds the Cook's Illustrated recipe (with a 1 vanilla bean to 3/4 vodka ratio) while the other holds the recipe I got off the lovely Joy the Baker blog. This recipe, like many many I have read online, uses a 3 vanilla beans to 1 cup vodka ratio. I used semi-cheap 80 proof vodka for both recipes, though the guy at the liquor store suggested Everclear. This might be genius. Everclear vanilla extract, however, will have to wait for my next extract adventure.

Vanilla Extract

From the October 2009 Cook's Illustrated (This is a tasty looking issue -- I definitely recommend picking it up)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup vodka
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 clean, sealable jar or container of some type

Using a sharp knife, split a vanilla bean down the center and scrape out the tiny seeds inside. Place both seeds and bean in the container. Pour the hot vodka into the container (a funnel was super helpful in this step). Let the mixture cool to room temperature. Close the container, then place in a cool, dark spot. Gently shake the mixture one time per day. In a week it (should be) ready to use -- I'll let you know how my batch turns out.

A small sampling of other sources for vanilla extract recipes:

• Joy the Baker
• Simply Recipes
• Chocolate & Zucchini

My mama told me...

She told me that sardines are good. So did David Lebovitz. And—it's completely true! Taking my mother's advice, I made an open-faced sandwich with toasted sourdough bread, sardines from a can (in soybean oil), and heirloom tomatoes; it was fantastic.

I have to admit, I was pretty wary of canned sardines even though (1) I know I like fresh sardines (especially fried, especially in Spain) and (2) I know I like other, canned fish (like tuna and anchovies). But I was still afraid that the sardines would be...fishy. And! They're not! I mean, they're fish, obviously, and taste like fish, but not in a smelly way. Rather, they taste like a different version of canned tuna, but meatier. And, sardines are a rather ecologically sound choice, compared to tuna or other, fancier fish.

Am I being ridiculous with my amazement over the goodness of canned sardines? Did you know about it? And, if so, why didn't you tell me?