Lemony Chicken and Orzo Soup

adapted from Bon Apetit Magazine

serves 4

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 medium leek, white and pale-green parts only, halved lengthwise, sliced crosswise 1/2″ thick

1 celery stalk, sliced crosswise 1/2″ thick

12 oz. skinless, boneless chicken thighs

6 cups Poultry Stock from The Local Butcher Shop

1/2 cup orzo

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

2 lemons, sliced in half, 1 half for each serving

Season chicken with salt and pepper and bring to room temperature.  Heat oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat.  Add leek and celery and cook, stirring often, until vegetables are soft.  Add chicken and stock.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, 15-20 minutes.  Transfer chicken to a plate.   Let cool, then shred chicken into bite-size pieces.

Meanwhile, return broth to a boil.  Add orzo add cook until al dente, 8-10 minutes.

Remove pot from heat.  Stir in chicken and dill.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serve with lemon halves for squeezing over (it needs this brightness).

Pork with Lentil, Orange, Avocado, and Basil Salad

from Martha Stewart Living Magazine

serves 4

2 dried bay leaves

1 cup French green lentils

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

4 boneless pork chops (each about 5 oz. and 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick)

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

3 navel oranges

3/4 cup roughly torn basil leaves

1 small shallot, minced (2 tablespoons)

1 Hass avocado, chilled

1. Bring 8 cups water and the bay leaves to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Add lentils and reduce heat.  Cover with a round of parchment paper and a pot cover and gently simmer until tender, 25-30 minutes.  Drain lentils.  Let cool completely (about 30 minutes spread out on a baking sheet).  (Lentils may be made 1 day ahead and refrigerated.)

2. Pat pork chops dry and season them with salt and pepper.  Bring them up to room temperature (about 20 minutes).  Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Cook until pork is browned and just cooked through, flipping once, about 6 minutes.  (If you want some of the fat to render out and get crispy, lean the chops against the sides of the skillet to allow the fatty edges to have direct contact with the hot skillet.)  Let rest on a platter, tented with foil, about 5 minutes.

3.  Meanwhile, finely great 1 teaspoon zest from 1 orange.  Cup the peel and pith from remaining 2 oranges.  Cut into 1/4″ thick pinwheels and then quarter the pinwheels, reserving juices.   If necessary squeeze the zested orange to measure 1/4 cup of orange juice total.

4.  Toss together oranges, 1/4 cup juice, the lentils, basil, shallot, 2 teaspoons oil, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.  Add any juices from resting pork.

5.  Halve, pit, and peel avocado.  Halve each half lengthwise, then cut into 1/3-inch slices crosswise, and fold into salad.  Spoon salad, over pork, garnish with basil, and drizzle with remaining oil.

Chicken, Fennel, and Artichoke Fricassee

from Martha Stewart’s Living Magazine

(comments in parenthesis are mine)

1 whole chicken (about 4-5 lbs.), cut into 10 pieces

Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 fennel bulb with fronds, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch wedges, 1/4 cup fronds reserved

1 can or jar (15 oz.) water-packed whole artichoke hearts, drained

1 small red onion, cut into 1/2-inch wedges

1 cup poultry stock

1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar

3 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

1. (Heavily season chicken pieces with salt and pepper and bring up to room temperature – about 45 minutes on the counter).  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Heat oil in a large ovenproof skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking.  Brown the chicken pieces on all sides.  Transfer pieces to a plate.  Pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat (mine didn’t leave any fat in the skillet so I added more oil).  Reduce heat to medium-high.  Brown fennel wedges, artichokes, and onion in skillet, stirring occasionally, 2 to 3 minutes.

2.  Return chicken pieces to skillet.  Add stock.  (The liquid should come half way up the chicken pieces.  If not, add water.) Transfer to oven.  Braise until cooked through, 18-20 minutes.  Transfer chicken and vegetables to a platter.  Reduce braising liquid over high heat to about 1/3 cup.  Stir in vinegar.  Pour sauce over chicken and top with fennel fronds and parsley.

A Prophet

This post begins a new series of writings on our blog by guest writers. We’re excited to lean on our vast community of friends and colleagues to tell their stories, informing your food choices by sharing their experiences and viewpoints. Bill McCann is a butcher at The Local Butcher Shop, and came to us by way of his own butcher business in the Valley.  He has been in the business for almost 40 years and he brings a wealth of knowledge and skill to The Local Butcher Shop.  His stories are wonderful and everyone here at The Shop hangs on his every word.

Back in the day, 1973, I was working at a small meat processing plant in a college town in Eastern Oregon. These were the days before Slow Food, the writings of Michael Pollan, or even the Food Channel on TV.  The place where I worked bought cattle, hogs, and sheep from local farmers, and in turn sold meat to local stores, restaurants, schools and other institutions within about a hundred mile radius of the plant. In the grand picture of history, this was really not that long ago, and at that time, a good part of our country purchased their meat from a similarly short supply chain.

One Friday afternoon, we finished our work early and I set to mucking out the pens where the day’s supply of hogs, sheep, and beef had spent their final hours.  The guy helping me with the chore was one Francis Phillips, a really likable sort, about forty-eight to fifty. Francis was a butcher, but he was a lot of other things as well – carpenter, truck driver, well-rounded cowboy with a voice like Jimmy Rogers – but most importantly, he was a prophet.  The two of us worked side by side cleaning things up and with plenty of time left, we stopped to take a break.  It was a beautiful spring afternoon, so we sat in the sun, smoked a cigarette, and watched the cars and trucks go by on the interstate a few hundred yards away. As we smoked and talked, a big truck with a Safeway Stores logo on its side came into view and passed us.  Francis glanced at the truck, shook his head, and looked at me and said: “Those bastards! In a few years most folks in this country won’t even know where their food comes from.”

I was a little puzzled by his statement, but it stuck with me. Many people working in the meat business already had a low opinion of Safeway because they had stopped using carcass beef and instead relied on parts and pieces broken down at one centralized large plant here in the Bay Area that serviced all their stores.  As butchers, most of us looked down on the Safeway model as an insult to our trade, but Francis saw the real long-term implications.  Safeway wasn’t evil, it was just reacting to market forces, and it was a bit ahead of the other chain stores in doing so.  Even then, it was difficult to find skilled butchers who could get things done in a timely manner, and ensure a profit off each carcass.  By taking the really heavy lifting and the more skilled knife work out of the local store and placing them in a controlled industrial environment, some real efficiencies could be achieved for a chain. Safeway wanted to create a foolproof system that would guarantee profits every time. The system would be copied by at least two other grocery chains here in the Bay Area (Lucky Stores and Alpha Beta). With the help of IBP (Iowa Beef Products) in the Midwest, Safeway would go on to become the national model.

The search for efficiency makes sense for large-scale food production, as the labor cost for skilled butchers can seemingly threaten profits.  But that in turn causes workers to lose pride in their work, and the trade is pulled down by the “gravity” of this efficiency until it is threatened entirely. Up until recently, this was the case with butchery too.  But here I am, forty years later, experiencing a sort of “grace” lifting us collectively up and out of the prophecy that my friend Francis warned me of. This grace is the local food movement, that seems to be taking shape across the country, and is evidenced in my own life as a butcher at The Local Butcher Shop.

There you have it:  Gravity and Grace. This new model that we are working on here in Berkeley and in other cities around the country is a work in progress.  It is certainly not the least expensive way of buying meat for you or your family, but it is ethical and enriching, and supports a revival of these lost trades.

With the passage of time and a couple of moves away from Eastern Oregon, I eventually lost contact with my friend Francis, but I know that he would approve of what is going on here in The Shop, although he would also get a chuckle out of the fuss that some of us make about the food that we eat. I am a butcher, not a writer, but in the future, I would love to share with you, our patrons, more bits of wisdom that Francis and other fellow butchers shared with me back in the day.  When you shop here at The Local Butcher Shop, you are supporting local ranchers and a tradition that people like Francis Phillips come from. And I know that I will never get enough of the likes of that.

You bought a holiday ham from The Local Butcher Shop.  Now what?

1. Take Ham out of the refrigerator 2-3 hours before you plan to warm it

2. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees

3. Put the ham on a roasting rack in a pan

4. Brush with The Local Butcher Shop’s “special ham glaze”

To make your own, look here.

If you don’t have a brush, you can spoon the glaze on and use your hands to spread it all over

5. Cook/re-warm ham uncovered until thoroughly warmed

For a 6 pound ham this should take up to an hour and a half.  For a whole ham (12 lbs or so) it could take up to two hours

Re-apply the glaze every 15-20 minutes

6. Serve immediately or let it rest in a warm place

You bought a whole leg of lamb.  Now what?

1. Thoroughly season the lamb with salt and pepper

Chop Rosemary finely

Mortar a few cloves of garlic into a gooey state

Add the garlic goo and the rosemary to some olive oil

Smear the mixture all over the lamb

Cover the lamb with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator over night

2.  Pull the lamb leg out of the refrigerator 2-3 hours before you plan to cook it to bring it up to room temperature

3.  Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees

4. Put the lamb on a roasting rack on a pan, fat side down

Put the lamb leg into the oven with the exposed bone towards the back of the oven

5. Flip the lamb leg, so that the fat side is up, after about 45 minutes

6.  Cook for another 30 minutes

With a meat thermometer, check for done-ness by inserting the thermometer in the area that is the widest

The thermometer tip should hit the bone

Cook until the thermometer reads 125 degrees (probably another 15 minutes or so)

7.  Pull the leg out of the oven

Let it rest on the rack for at least 15 minutes

For carving instructions, look here

When Aaron and I got married, my Maid of Honor asked all of our friends and family to submit family recipes that they would like to share with Aaron and me to be compiled into a recipe book.  Here was the gist of the email she sent out:

“Dear friends and family of Monica and Aaron,

I am in the process of putting together a SURPRISE wedding cookbook for Monica and Aaron from their family and friends.  As foodies and incredible chefs, there’s no doubt that this cooking couple has a plethora of recipes to choose from.  However, the book that you can (and should) contribute to gives them something that other cookbooks cannot – your favorite recipe along with words of wisdom, love and luck for the happy couple as they begin their married life together.”

Isn’t that the best idea ever?  Well, we sure thought it was when we received the book.  The first page is a beautifully calligraphied recipe from Alice Waters and the Family of Panisse for Mexican Wedding Cookies, then’s Mom’s cheesecake, Veggie Burritos, Macaroni & Cheese, West Virginia cookies and on and on….

The brisket recipe that we use in our household comes from our dear friends Damon and Kathryn.  It goes something like this:

“Here is our technique for making brisket…it is an inexact science, but it is delicious…

Start with a cut of brisket that isn’t too lean.  Slice up some carrots, parsnips, and celery.  Ideally you want the same thickness and length of about 2 inches.  Wash fingerling potatoes.  Season the brisket with salt and pepper and bring it up to room temperature.

Get the Dutch Oven pot hot.  Add olive oil – just enough to coat the oven.  Brown both sides of the brisket and then add the vegetables (save the potatoes).  Add dry red wine and beef stock, enough to cover the brisket and vegetables.  I usually add a little more broth than wine.  Make sure your broth doesn’t have added salt.  I tend to add some tomatoes, bay leaves, peppercorns, and sprigs of rosemary and thyme…but I would also recommend making your own beef stock if your name is Aaron Rocchino. (You can buy Aaron’s beef stock at The Local Butcher Shop!)

Cover the oven and put it into a pre-heated oven.  Don’t think precise temperature matters, but I go low (350 degrees).  I try to leave it in the oven for at least an hour per pound of brisket.  About 90 minutes before you are going to eat, I would add the potatoes.  Alternatively, you can fish out the other vegetables and some broth, then bake those with the potatoes in a separate dish.

Damon recommends a rich red wine from the Rhone region, like a good Cotes-du-Rhone or Chateauneuf-du-Pape.”

Enjoy!

Butter-Basted Pan-Seared Thick-Cut Steaks with Pomme Frites (fried in beef tallow)

with Steamed Artichokes & Monica’s Family Sauce (Dijon and Mayonnaise)

Happy eating!

Here is a brief recap of the last two weeks:

The Monday after Thanksgiving we were planning on doing a Chicken Congee (Rice Porridge) but it seemed to make more sense to use turkey, so Turkey Congee it was!  I used the recipe from Charles Phan’s new book Vietnamese Home Cooking  .  This is a great cook book and I highly recommend it as a Holiday gift to yourself!

Tuesday – We used the leftover turkey to make a Chinese Turkey Salad.  Have you ever used Soy Vay’s Toasted Sesame Dressing?  I think it makes the best Chinese Chicken/Turkey Salad.  I chopped up some cabbage,  carrots and celery and toasted some cashews, added a bit of cilantro and some scallions and voilà!

Wednesday – White Shrimp with homemade red sauce, spaghetti, garlic bread and salad.  Check out this super cool trick to making great garlic bread from the Drizzle & Dip blog!

Thursday – dinner at Plum with friends.  Really good.

Friday: Crab from the SirenSeaSA Box!  I made crab cakes with this recipe from Food & Wine Magazine - they were pretty good! They didn’t stick together very well, so next time, I will add more mayo as a binder.  Served them with a frisee salad dressed simply with a shallot and champagne vinegar vinaigrette.

Saturday – Made Butternut Squash Stuffed Shells with a Lemon Sage Brown Butter Sauce from the Proud Italian Blog.  They were tasty – I would use more spinach next time and I like to pull the crispy sage leaves out of the butter before adding lemon juice.  If you leave them in, the lemon juice makes them soggy.

Sunday – We cut down our Christmas Tree after a wonderful Dim Sum brunch at Koi Palace in Daly City.  Have you been there?  It’s awesome!  We go every year before we procure our Christmas Tree.  Dinner was Quail Ragu served over creamy polenta.  Aaron made a big batch of Quail Ragu a few weeks ago and froze it.  It was wonderfully warming and perfect to eat in front of our tree!

Monday – Turkey Tortilla Soup - We still had tons of shredded turkey left over from the Congee/Chinese Turkey Salad…so I thought we could use it up in a Tortilla Soup.  I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Tortilla Soup recipe from the Doña Tomás Cookbook.  It is worth getting the book just for this recipe, though all of the other recipes are great too!

Tuesday – Spaghetti and Meatballs! I used 1/2 ground pork, 1/2 ground beef, some bread crumbs soaked in milk, egg, parsley, garlic and onion.  I baked them in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and then transferred them to the pan with homemade red sauce.  Simmered it all together for 10 minutes or so and then pulled the meatballs out, tossed the pasta with the sauce put it in bowls and added the meatballs on top and yes, covered it with cheese (on top of spaghetti…..).

Wednesday – Family Dinner – Our friends cooked up a mean chili with cornbread.  Delish!

Thursday - Tortellini with Pumpkin Alfredo.  This was good.  Next time I would add a lot more pumpkin as it was hard to taste the pumpkin.  Served with a frisee and pomegranate salad.

Friday – We went out for a drink and a bite at addesso.  I am a huge fan of their duck liver pate in scatola (in a jar).   A jar of duck liver pate, crostini and a cocktail is heavenly.

Saturday – Holiday Party!  We brought ground beef and hot dogs to throw on the grill…It’s so California to be grilling at a Holiday party…

Sunday – Night #2 of Hannukah! Latkes, Brisket and Brussels Sprouts!  Light the lights, sing the songs, spin the dreidles all night long!  This is a classic brisket recipe that seems to work!

Don’t forget to call to place your holiday meat orders!  And, we will be closed this Thursday, the 20th to prepare Holiday orders.

Cheers!

Well, that is a great question.  We offer three different methods:

Method One:  As featured in BerkeleySide, here are our recipes for oven roasting the turkey breast and braising the legs and thighs.  If you read the article, you’ll better understand why we recommend this method first.

Method Two: We cooked our turkey on the grill for many years because a) it’s so dang tasty and b) it keeps the oven available to cook other goodies.  Here is link to the blog post I did last year with the recipe all ready to go!

Method Three: A traditional oven roasted turkey…I look to Alton Brown for his scientifically genius methodology.  In this article he explains why to brine, why not to baste and how to carve the turkey.  It’s a fool-proof method with great illustrations too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

With all of the hustle and bustle and the relief of the election being over, it is easy to forget that many people in New York and New Jersey are still without power, heat, water and food.  All the proceeds of our New York Steak sales this week will be donated to the NYC Food Bank.

Without further ado…here’s what we ate last week!

Sunday: We had a group of friends over for our quarterly MENU night.  Once a season, a group of us get together at our house and everyone brings produce and other ingredients from the market that appeal to them.  One person is assigned to bring the secret ingredient.  As people arrive, their groceries are displayed on the dining room table and once everyone has amassed, the secret ingredient is revealed.  We then create a 5-7 course MENU that uses the secret ingredient in every dish.  Our pantry is comprised of the groceries on the table and the staples from our cabinets.  This time the secret ingredient was SQUASHES! Our MENU ended up looking something like this:

• Fritto Misto with Red Kabocha Squash, Sunchokes, Potatoes and Sage Leaves
• Cabbage and Delicata Squash Salad with Pomegranate Seeds and Ricotta
• Green Kabocha Squash Soup
• Risotto with Butternut Squash and Squid
• Spaghetti Squash with a fresh Tomato Sauce
• Sausages and Squash Puree
• Apple and Squash Tarlets with Whipped Cream

Monday: I made a Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque with some of the leftover Butternut Squash.  I sautéed some onions, added cubed butternut squash and green apples and sage and covered it for a few minutes.  Then I added some vegetable stock and let it steam until the squash and apples fell apart when poked with a fork.  I put all of it into a blender and pureed it until it was smooth.  Back into the pot it went, added some salt and a touch of cream and served it with a dollop of creme fraiche and a fried sage leaf.

Tuesday: I am testing turkey recipes out for a BerkeleySide article that is coming out soon.  Tonight I made a Herb Roasted Turkey Breast with Cranberry Sauce, Roast Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Sautéed Spinach.  Delish!  I can’t wait for T-Day!

Wednesday: Lamb Burgers with Red Onion served with toasted Pita, Affi’s Aubergine spread (I love this stuff!), Pomegranate and Mint Salad, and Greek Yogurt with some Cucumber and Mint added.  Our friends Carrie and Ryan and their little Lobster Elsa were the only trick or treaters we got… More candy for us!

Lemongrass Beef Stew

Thursday: I tried out my first recipe from Charles Phan’s new cookbook Vietnamese Home Cooking.  I made Lemongrass Beef Stew and it was quite good.  Served it over some rice noodles and we were stuffed!  Here is a link to a really cute blog that has the recipe written out accompanied by illustrations.

Friday: More Thanksgiving recipe testing.  This time I braised a turkey leg and thigh in apple cider and poultry stock.  I served it with Shaved Brussels Sprout and Apple Salad and Fried Sweet Potato Chips.  The recipe will make it into the BerkeleySide article.  Just as we were finishing up dinner, Ryan showed up with two slices of Pear Galette still warm from the oven!  What a treat!

Saturday: We went to Benchmark Pizzeria in Kensington.  Peter and Melissa Swanson just opened this Pizzeria three months ago.  Pete was “Pizza Pete” at dopo in Oakland for many years and before that worked at Oliveto under Paul Bertolli.  The food was great; our antipasti platter was delicious and the pizzas were divine!  We also had Strauss SoftServ ice cream for dessert.  I highly recommend you check this place out!

Sunday: We had our Holiday Cooking Class at The Local Butcher Shop, so we snacked on Turkey, Duck and Roast Beef for dinner.  It was a great class and we look forward to doing another one this time next year!

Have a great week!