Andrew Mark Veety

Flipper Freddy’s Polish Pickles

When I was about 5 or 6 my parents packed up their drab green mid-seventies Chevrolet Impala and we set sail along the highways from Arizona to our new home in New York. As my parents arranged to buy our first home in New York, we lived with my Grandparents in Pine Bush, a small farming town about 90 miles outside of New York City.

We ended up living in the farm house my mother grew up for several months. While most of my attention as focused on playing with Matchbox’s cars in a mound of dirt near the driveway, I can remember being intrigued by the dark and steep stairs into the basement, its walls lined with mason jars filled with the bounty of the past summers harvest. It seemed my Grandparents would pickle just about everything they grew, beans, beets, carrots, celery and my favorite to this day, cucumbers.

As I attempt to garden myself and shop our local farmers markets when in season, I have a greater appreciation for the multicolored jars in my grandparents basement. Not only is canning, jarring and pickling a great way to extend a harvest into the fall and winter, it is a tradition that I hope to pass long to my children. The simple act of making pickles forces us to slow down and appreciate where our food comes from, and our relationship to it. Free from chemicals and preservatives, we are taking the best our gardens have to offer and saving a part of it to enjoy later.

With this in mind, this morning at the Tower Grove Farmers Market I came across a basket filled with Kirby cucumbers, each one seemingly as big around as they were long and most likely picked within the past 24 hours. I selected a dozen of the best cucumbers I could find as well as three heads of fresh garlic.

Placing my find on the scale, the farmer running the booth smiled and commented “Pickles”. I grinned and continued my shopping, but in the back of my mind I was thinking not only about the pickles that I would make when I got home, but also of all the possibilities they offered, wingmen to a future sandwich and perhaps a cookout where my pickles rode high on burgers along with fresh tomatoes, onion and lettuce.

Making refrigerator pickles at home is cheap, easy and produces a vastly superior product than what lines the shelves of your local grocery store. Once made, they will keep in your fridge for weeks. That is if you can restrain yourself from frequent visits, fork in hand for a taste a few every time you pass through the kitchen.

What follows is my recipe for Flipper Freddy’s Polish Pickles, in honor of my Grandfather, made in quart sized mason jars. As you make yours, just multiply the measurements below by the number of jars you have.

3 large Kirby cucumbers
1 Tablespoon fresh grated horseradish
Several cloves of fresh garlic, chopped roughly
10 Peppercorns
1 Teaspoon of mustard seed
1/2 Teaspoon sugar
1 Tablespoon Kosher salt
9 Oz. Water
5 Oz. White vinegar

1. Prepare a water bath for your jars, letting the jars and jar collars sit as you prepare your ingredients.

2. In a saucepan, combine water, vinegar, salt and sugar, heat until near boiling and combined. Remove brine from heat.

3. Slice or quarter your cucumbers and set aside.

4. Grate Horseradish and set aside.

5. Peel and chop fresh garlic and set aside.

6. Remove jars from the bath using a set of tongs, letting as much water as possible drain back into the bath, arrange in a conveyor belt fashion near your workspace.

7. Add horseradish, garlic, peppercorns and mustard seeds to your jar, then pack your cucumbers in, leaving a small headspace near the top.

8. Ladle brine over your cucumbers, enough to cover. You may need to shake each jar a little to eliminate any air pockets that may have developed.

9. Cap and hand tighten each collar, set aside on a countertop for several hours to cool.

10. Hand tighten collars again, reserve to fridge.

Your pickles should develop a great, spicy kosher pickle flavor over the next week to 10 days and will keep for weeks. Enjoy.

Float Trip Picnic Chicken

A simple pleasure of Midwest living is the "float trip". Coolers are packed with beverages and food, and then friends take off down the river in rafts, tubes and pretty much anything else that will, well, float. Ideally, when asked by friends and coworkers on the east coast why I live in Missouri with the heat, floods and tornadoes, I should point to the float trip as one of many reasons.

I was asked to make something to eat for a recent float trip, so I racked my brain and cookbook collection for a meal that would travel well in the Midwest heat while still feeding a large group. I decided that I wanted to make cold chicken, but there were several obstacles that I wanted to tackle before serving my waterlogged friends. At issue was how to prepare the meat so it would remain moist up to a day after cooking and what to do with the rubbery skin that can ruin an otherwise perfect piece of chicken.

Over the last few years, I've taken to selecting thighs as my cut of choice when preparing chicken. It's a shame they are so often overlooked as they are affordable and have a great meat to bone ratio. Also, the dark meat thigh stands up to abuse that would dry out its white meat counterpart, the breast. I almost always rub or brine chicken thighs before cooking, with some of my favorite combinations being an overnight soak in lemon juice, olive oil, scallions, garlic and tarragon or simply using my house spice rub.

For this float trip, I decided on barbecuing chicken using my go to dry rub to impart flavor, saving my friends from the glorious mess resulting from barbeque sauce covered hands.

My house rub is super easy and follows the pit master approved ratio of 8 - 3 - 1 - 1:

8 parts brown sugar
3 parts kosher salt
1 part chili powder
1 part other (can be any combination of spices and herbs, as long as it equals 1 whole part)

The beauty of this formula is that as long as you stick to the ratio, you can use any measurement you would like, be it tablespoons, cups or gallons. I usually make a large batch and keep it in a sealed shaker for chicken and ribs. I've also been known to jar it and give away at the holidays.

What follows is a two day process for making my cold picnic chicken.

Day 1

The afternoon before I planned on making these thighs, I washed, scored and carefully peeled back the skin (don’t totally detach) on each so I could season the meat with my rub. After seasoning, I folded the skin back and placed the thighs on a wire rack resting inside a baking sheet. Then I applied a second coating of the rub on top of the skin, covered loosely with foil and then placed in the coldest part of my fridge, the bottom shelf, for an overnight rest.

This method helps to solve one of the problems I was worried about, keeping the chicken moist as it cooked. The salt in my rub acts very much like a brine, drawing the natural water and salt out of the chicken to its surface, then back into the chicken hours later as the chicken reabsorbs the water and most of the rub. The net result is a "brine" that flavors the meat with the rub while keeping the chicken moist.

I alluded to how I approached eliminating soggy and rubbery chicken when I referenced scoring the skin before applying the rub. For each thigh, I used a chef's knife to cut inch long channels in the skin without cutting the meat. In general, chicken skin is full of fat which will not completely render during cooking - it has no way to escape and remains trapped under the skin. Scoring the skin provides an escape route for fat, allowing it to baste the chicken while cooking and letting the skin form a thin crispy layer.

Day 2

The day before our trip and my planning and prep work completed, I started a one zone fire in my grill, allowing me to cook the chicken thighs skin side up over low and slow indirect heat. Using a mixture of natural lump charcoal and apple wood chunks, I smoked these thighs for four hours at 225 degrees, replenishing the fuel supply as needed to maintain a consistent temperature. Several times during the process, I rotated the thighs skin side down over the hot zone, rendering out additional fat and to crisp the skin. I was quick to remove the chicken during flare-ups, and each thigh was not exposed to direct heat more than a minute or two in total.

After four hours on the grill, I brought the chicken inside, placed on a clean wire rack and baking sheet, covered with foil and left in the bottom shelf of the fridge. My wife and I shared a piece for lunch and it was everything I was looking for, moist, smoky with great barbecue flavor and thin crispy skin.

Bringing it all together:

The next day I packed the thighs into a cooler along with some other snacks, ice, beer, and what I am told is a float trip requirement, Jell-O shots. We enjoyed a great day on the river with friends and shared a fine lunch of cold picnic chicken on a sandbar before continuing on our way. Sure I got sunburned so bad that if you placed me on a bun I'd look like a lobster roll, but it was a great day nonetheless.

Roasted Garlic Strip Steaks with Texas Potatoes

I helped throw a bachelor party recently, and for me, bachelor parties mean steaks and steakhouses. In this case, we decided to bring the steakhouse into the home, with a dinner before we ventured out for the evening. In thinking about the menu, I took some time to reflect on one of the two bachelor parties I had last year, and the meal we took in at the Strip House in Manhattan. I used the ultra thick strip steaks simply accompanied by a whole head of roasted garlic from that dinner as the inspiration for these roasted garlic strip steaks cooked over a fire of natural lump charcoal and large chunks of mesquite.

While I have never been able duplicate the amazing steaks that I’ve had at my favorite steakhouses, I’ve been able to come close at home. Keys to success include knowing your butcher and planning for heat management.

The first step may be the hardest, knowing your butcher. I have several that I visit here in St. Louis depending on what I am cooking, and I keep coming back because each take the time to talk with you about the product you are buying and how you would like to prepare it. They will also cut and trim to your specifications. For this meal, I made my way over to the meat counter at Whole Foods, who carry beef that is free range and grass fed while remaining free of hormones and antibiotics. They also do custom cuts, so in quick order I was out the door with four two inch thick New York Strip Steaks, weighing a total of 89 ounces.

I prepared these steaks very simply. First I roasted off two heads of garlic in the oven with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. After about an hour in the oven at 350 degrees, I let the garlic rest and cool before running it through a garlic press and into the olive oil I used for roasting. I added some more olive oil, covered and reserved for later that night. A few minutes before grilling, I spread the roasted garlic and oil mixture over the steaks along with kosher salt and fresh pepper.

The next key to grilling great steaks is heat management. In this case, I built a 2 zone fire using natural lump charcoal and a bed of mesquite wood. The first zone should be hot and large enough to put a good sear on the steaks, while the second should allow the steaks to finish with even, low heat.

As the grill was heating, I put my cast iron skillet over the hot zone and used that heat to start the universal steak house side, potatoes. As the bachelor was from Texas, I imagined what I would make if I was a cowboy, cooking out over fire on the range. The result was what I called Texas Potatoes.

In the skillet I combined six good sized Yukon gold potatoes with the skins on and sliced into disks, four thick slices of bacon, cut into half inch sections, red onion, kosher salt, pepper, and a stick of unsalted butter cut into eight pads. For the thirty minutes it took for my coals to come to temperature I kept the skillet over the hot zone, folding the potatoes over occasionally and letting them fry in the bacon fat and butter.

Is it healthy? Probably not. Is it tasty? You bet your ass.

After thirty minutes, I moved the skillet to the cooler zone of the grill and individually grilled slices of potatoes over the hot zone to get some marks on them. I did these about 10 at a time, and then added them back to the skillet.

When the coals were ready in the hot zone, I grilled each steak for three minutes on each side, turning 90 degrees once for crosshatched grill marks. After six minutes I moved each steak into the cooler zone to finish, about ten to twelve minutes for medium rare. When they were done, I removed them from the grill, covered with foil and rested for about ten minutes, reserving the juices to top the steaks when I plated.

I served these steaks and Texas potatoes with sautéed spinach, a fresh horseradish and chive cream dipping sauce, and a bottle of 2002 Chateau la Grande Roche Cabernet Sauvignon that I have been cellaring for just such a meal. We finished things off with glasses of 15 year old Balvenie single barrel single malt whisky – the perfect ending to a steakhouse meal at home.

Best of luck to the bachelor and to you in your summer grilling adventures.

A list of my favorite Steakhouses, in no specific order:

Andria’s – O Fallon, Illinois
Angelo & Maxies – Manhattan, New York
Capital Grill – Multiple Locations
Citizen Kane’s – Kirkwood, Missouri
Gallagher's – Manhattan, New York
Gene & Georgetti – Chicago, Illinios
Peter Lugar – Brooklyn, New York
Rod’s Steak & Seafood Grille – Morristown, New Jersey
Smith & Wollensky – Multiple Locations
Sparks – Manhattan, New York
The Strip House – Manhattan, New York

A New Religion in Mecca

The title of this post is a tip of the hat to the book “A New Religion in Mecca: Memoir of a Renegade Brewer in St. Louis” by Tom Schlafly. The book details the challenges, struggles and at times blind trial and error of starting a craft brewery in the shadow of the Anheuser-Busch brewery here in St. Louis. The title seems to fit me as June turns to July, and I absorb some changes to how I’ve done things for some time.

The first change involved a much needed personal inventory of my skill set at work. For some time, I’ve moved between the roles of project manager / business analyst and architect as required. My personal development has been shortsighted at times and non-existent others, mostly because of the demands of project work - who has time to attend training, no matter how important it is?

After some soul searching around the dinner table, I decided to try to focus my efforts on developing a base of technology skills that would complement the ones I have developed through 10 years of IT experience. A balancing of the pros and cons lead me to the conclusion that learning some SQL and perhaps attempting to teach myself Java using Eclipse as an IDE would be beneficial.

The SQL will come in handy for increasing my skills in the business intelligence and reporting space, which will complement my project management and business analyst skills. Over the coming days I will install mySQL and begin running through Alan Beaulieu’s O’Reilly book “Learning SQL”. I’ve always learned the most when I can apply what I am absorbing directly to a personal interests, so once I’m done with this current set of lessons I’m thinking about attempting to use mySQL to develop a custom set of reports for my investment club. I’ve been thinking about using the tool to generate price vs. P/E tables and graphs for the stocks we collectively own and/or argue about.

The Java will come in handy as unlike many in my field, I did not progress up the ranks from programmer to architect. Instead I ended up an Enterprise Architect because I needed to be promoted someplace. While I have learned a tremendous amount about technology, I think having a working knowledge of a development language will help me in project work.

However, these new goals are not in of themselves the epiphany mapping to the title of this post as I set goals all the time. Instead the first change to come was moving from Microsoft Windows to Apple Macintosh (24 Inch iMac, 4GB RAM, 1.5TB of storage) as a stepping stone to getting started in expanding my development skills beyond HTML. Though more expensive up front, the Apple is quickly becoming the tool of choice for application development and has more than enough power to function as a home computer and learning and development platform.

The transition is now largely complete and like the advertising says, everything worked right out of the box. Because we live in a PC world, I also loaded Microsoft Vista Ultimate Edition using Fusion from VMWare. Interestingly enough, the install of Fusion and Vista went easier than any Windows upgrade or install I’ve ever done. In total, the entire process took about 3 hours, including beer breaks as it was a holiday weekend. I bought a laptop running Windows XP about 18 months ago, and the entire setup took close to 12 hours, including a 3 hour trip back to the store to replace the first laptop with a new one. Its easy to see why Apple has a cult-like following that is taking share.

I’ve been very happy with the switchover experience. Most of my existing files moved seamlessly across platforms, and what PC specific applications I did have are running fine in Vista. I’m most interested in the functionality of Fusion, which lets you take a snapshot of an instance of an operating system as you run, in this case Vista, on a virtual machine. Should Vista become corrupted from a virus or from mis-administering the machine, into the Mac trash it goes and I can recover to the snapshot install in minutes. I also plan on installing a copy of Linux as well in the near future.

While the first change was thought out and planned to some extent, the second was quite different. For the 4th of July, we were planning on having a barbeque with about 15 people attending. I got up early and was in the back yard around 9:30 AM to clean up my gas grill and get it ready for smoking ribs and then cooking food for the party throughout the afternoon and evening. I started up the grill to clean off some leftover grime from the cookout the night before and went about getting ready to start smoking three racks of baby backs around 11:00 AM. I came back in about 30 minutes to find the grill cold with hardly any flame coming from the 3 grill bars.

Faced with the prospect of attempting to repair a 6 year old gas grill before our party, my wife and I decided to head to Home Depot to price out a new one. I have been contemplating a move from gas to charcoal for some time, but there really has not been a reason beyond the desire to do it. On the quick drive over, I had to contemplate a move without research or thought beyond day dreaming about the change.

6 years ago, I bought 3 burner stainless steel grill at Lowe’s for about 400.00. This has been a great tool for cooking burgers and steaks. I even managed to “smoke” (as much as you can using gas) whole chickens and pork ribs with success. However, as I toiled away in my backyard, the world moved on to a price point approaching 800.00 - 1000.00 dollars for a gas grill, complete with 4 burners, side burners, rotisseries with counterweight systems and warming trays. We now need grills to match the SUV’s in our driveways. I was forced to face the fact that as a culture, we decided to move our kitchens outdoors. Who cleans these monsters? Can the average backyard chef even use many of the bells and whistles they have bolted onto the side of the modern grill?

Suddenly it was very easy to move away from gas to lump charcoal.

In short order I was on the way home with a charcoal grill that should capture the attention to anyone who desires a grill for their back yard. With a few hours to go and the help of my wife we had the new grill set up and smoldering at 210 degrees within 90 minutes.

The risks were great; a new tool, a new heat source and 15 hungry people at my house.

Much like with the Apple, moving from gas to charcoal and wood just works out of the box if you’ve planned your moves ahead of time. The grill is large enough to lay out 3 or 4 racks of ribs to smoke over indirect heat. Maintaining a consistent temperature is easy as well, the grill has a door on the front for easy access to a tray holding your heat source. This tray can be raised and lowered at will to control the heat and for the production of a sear. A few extra lumps of charcoal and mesquite every 45 minutes is all that is needed to maintain 200 - 220 degrees - the perfect temperature for smoking and barbecuing meats.

After about 4 hours the ribs were done and the grill took 2 full chimney starters of charcoal and mesquite to cook 12 hamburgers, 6 large portobello mushrooms and 6 peppers at one time, easily besting the cooking surface of my previous grill.

For a day that could have gone so very wrong, I was really happy that everything came out so very right. The grill works well, but is not without it’s flaws. Assembly left something to be desired. The handles for the vents are plastic and attached to metal that is to thin for the job asked of them. Both get way to hot compared to the rest of the grill which seems to have a better construction. The fit and finish is a little suspect, the doors don’t sit right and the hood pops a little when the grill heats up before it sits on the grill surface. On the plus side the unit has heavy cast iron grates for searing and the process of cleaning ash has been well thought out. All things being equal, not a bad tool for around 200.00.

What follows in a photoessay for some impromptu baby back ribs, planned for a gas grill but smoked over lump charcoal and apple and mesquite wood chunks. This is a 2 day process that begins at your local butcher and can be applied to baby back / spare or St. Louis style ribs.

Day 1

1. Have your butcher remove the skin from the underside of the ribs or remove with a flexible knife at home. (This is a must. Any good butcher will perform this task upon request - if you can find a good butcher)

2. In a deep Pyrex dish or large Zip-lock bag, lay out the ribs and cover with pineapple juice. I soaked these ribs for about 8 hours, turning occasionally.

3. After a good soaking, pat the ribs dry, lay over plastic wrap on a large cookie sheet and brush with a mustard of your choosing, then coat liberally with spice rub. I make my own but store bought is fine, just watch the amount of salt in the rub. My rub for these ribs included brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, chili pepper, Old Bay, cumin, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. Don’t be afraid to use your hands and rub the mixture into the ribs.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and place into the fridge overnight.

Day 2

1. Remove ribs from the fridge at least an hour before you plan on starting, allowing the temperature of the meat to rise. This is a good habit to get into whenever you are cooking meat on a grill.

2. If you are using wood chips, place them in a water bath. I used dry wood for this go around as I didn’t have the time to soak the larger chunks of wood this grill can accommodate. I'm also not sure if its needed with this grill. Only time will tell.

3. Set up your grill for indirect heat and using a thermometer than you know to be calibrated (not necessarily the thermometer on the hood of your grill) let the grill come to rest at about 200 - 220 degrees.

4. Place a shallow tin of water (or liquid of your choosing) over the heat source. I find that this provides enough moisture to help the meat stay moist while it cooks.

5. Place the ribs on the opposite grill from your heat source and close the grill. At this point, the hood should stay down. I restrict opening the hood to once an hour when I rotate the ribs and refill the liquid. On my grill, I have a second door below the heat where I can add a small bit of wood or fuel and I’ve found that this set up allows me to keep the heat in the right part of the grill. Opening the hood lets most of the heat you’ve made escape, and your grill has to work to heat back up once you close it up.

6. For these baby back ribs, I went about 4 hours at 210 degrees. I started brushing the ribs with a wet mop barbeque sauce about 3.5 hours into the cooking process. Any earlier and you risk creating a burned layer of crust on your ribs.

7. After 4 hours I pulled the ribs and cut into 2 bone pieces. In a large mixing bowl I put a fair amount of barbeque sauce and added the ribs, tossing to coat. Make sure you serve with lots of napkins. Enjoy!

Afterthoughts:

These ribs were a cooking adventure and I really did fly by the seat of my pants for the most part. However, they came out with a nice smoke ring and were moist and juicy on the inside. Because of the late start time, I pulled the ribs early so I could get ready for cooking hamburgers and hot dogs. I’m sure they could have gone longer and gotten to the point where the rib bone can be twisted and pulled a bit out of the meat - the falling off the bone stage. Luckily I’m at the beginning of learning how to use this new tool, and my next batch should be even better than these were.

Re-tooling

I've been busy shifting computers, from a pc to mac. Very fun. I should be back and posting soon. In the meantime, check out a new favorite of mine - Photograzing.

Right up my alley.