The government is adding six names to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Memorial Day. I didn't know that they could add names to the Wall if a death is traced to injuries suffered during the War.

11:53:20 PM    

While last night's chili stewed, I kept myself busy making lime mousse from The Silver Palate Cookbook (guess I was in a Sheila Lukins mood). I had made it several years ago—I don't remember when it was but I still lived with my parents—and I've wanted to try it again every since I discovered Nellie and Joe's a year or so ago.

The mousse is pretty easy to make. Start out melting a stick of butter in a bowl set over a pan of boiling water. While it melts, beat together 5 eggs and 1 c. sugar until "foamy". Stir the egg mixture into the melted butter and keep stirring until it thickens into a custard. The recipe said about eight minutes, and that turned out to be spot on for me.

As I was making the custard, it occurred to me that I should have added the zest of 5 limes to the custard as it cooked, rather than following the recipe and mixing it into the cooled custard along with the 3/4 cups lime juice. I think there would have been a couple of advantages to this—more flavor, the zest would have softened, and if I wanted to I could remove the zest after the custard cooled. Since I ate my last serving standing over the kitchen sink spitting out pieces of lime zest, I'm going to make sure I do it that way next time.

In any event, following the recipe I let the custard cool and served the chili. After dinner, I checked the temperature on the custard. It had reached room temperature, so I started beating 2 c. heavy cream until "almost, but not quite, to the point where it would become butter" as the recipe called for.

Since I didn't buy any extra cream, I fretted over the Kitchen Aid, calling my wife in to advise on how close she thought we were to the butter point. Eventually I decided the cream was stiff enough, though I'm still not sure how close it was to becoming butter. I think before I try this recipe again—or any other calling for walking the line between whipped cream and butter—I'm going to beat some cream until it reaches the butter stage to see how far I can really go.

I folded the custard into the stiffly whipped cream and poured it into large souffle dish to refrigerate for four hours. Since it already past 10:30 p.m., it wouldn't make it as desert, but would await me for an after-breakfast snack this morning.

9:30:18 PM    

A laid back food weekend this week. Last night, we had a venison chili from Sheila Lukin's USA Cookbook. I started flipping through the chili recipes looking for something easy to do with the ostrich that we had in the freezer.

My goal was to use up some of the meat that we have in the freezer, and when I read the recipe for Nice and Hot Venison Chili remembered that we had a couple of pounds of venison shoulder in the freezer, too. For meat, the recipe combines 2 lb. of venison shoulder with 1 lb. sweet Italian sausage. The spice comes from one chipotle chile— which I increased to two, 2 t. cumin, 2 t. chili powder, and 1/2 t. red pepper flakes. I increased all of these and added some paprika and garlic. Additional flavor comes from 1 t. oregano, 2 c. beef stock, 2 c. crushed tomatoes, 1/4 cup tomato paste, and 1 lg. onion.

The recipe calls for the ingredients in the pretty much the logical order. The onion cooks in olive oil until soft, then the sausage goes into the pan. The recipe suggested adding the herbs and spices to the meat as it cooks, but I opted for toasting about half of each with the onion and garlic, which I added for the last couple of minutes of the onion softening. Then I added the rest when the meat started to brown.

To keep the foul taste of deer fat out of the chili, you cube the venison and browned in another pan. After adding the venision to the chili pot, you the stock, tomato, tomato paste, thechipotles, and 1 T. dark brown sugar. Simmer for about and hour, then stir in one diced red pepper and simmer for another half-hour. Before serving, stir in 1/4 c. chopped parsley.

I served the chili with brown rice, and we sat down to enjoy it with the Iron Chef on TV.

  

The Boston Globe Food section talks with a local barbecue chef in Smoking success. Citing the lack of a homegrown barbecue tradition, he offers a take on the traditional NE clambake for the pit.

On the plethora of 'cue options at the local home store:

''It's overkill,'' the chef of BB Wolf's New World BBQ is saying of the plethora of barbecueing equipment available today. ''You walk into any store, say a Home Depot, and, well, I'm a professional and I'm overwhelmed.''

2:00:28 PM    

Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages describes 117 herbs and spices with indices based on geography, name, part used in cooking, and more. There's also a search engine.

1:28:20 PM