Foie Gras Jacques

John and Rebecca talk this week about Foie Gras. Find out about it's ancient history, it's Jewish connection, it's controversy and how it is processed. We also touch on some foie gras-making techniques on farms around the world. We start the episode by having a cozy catch up on the two weeks we missed and hear about the mountain of food John ate in Montreal (the trips that inspired this episode). Please rate and review us on iTunes and follow us on Spotify. Cheers!

Check out this episode!

Foie Gras Jacques

John and Rebecca talk this week about Foie Gras. Find out about it's ancient history, it's Jewish connection, it's controversy and how it is processed. We also touch on some foie gras-making techniques on farms around the world. We start the episode by having a cozy catch up on the two weeks we missed and hear about the mountain of food John ate in Montreal (the trips that inspired this episode). Please rate and review us on iTunes and follow us on Spotify. Cheers!

Check out this episode!

Road Food with Jim Meyer

John and Rebecca go on tour with comedian Jim Meyer. We learn about eating on the road, crazy shows in Montana, being offered meth way too many times and being run out of a podunk town. We also talk about dancing cowboys, Basque food in Nevada and horror stories from comedy condos. There are lots of laughs and tale telling. We hope you like it. Check out Jim's podcast Laughfinder at http://lfp.fakingitradio.com/episodes/ . Thanks!!

Check out this episode!

Road Food with Jim Meyer

John and Rebecca go on tour with comedian Jim Meyer. We learn about eating on the road, crazy shows in Montana, being offered meth way too many times and being run out of a podunk town. We also talk about dancing cowboys, Basque food in Nevada and horror stories from comedy condos. There are lots of laughs and tale telling. We hope you like it. Check out Jim's podcast Laughfinder at http://lfp.fakingitradio.com/episodes/ . Thanks!!

Check out this episode!

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack (And All the Other Garbage Baseball Food)

This week John Takes Rebecca out to the ballgame (her favorite place) and they talk about baseball food (traditional and very non-traditional). We cover the big three: Hot Dogs, Peanuts and Crackerjack and then get introduced to the modern and crazy foods sold at ballparks across the country.

After going through that panoply of garbage food we talk about one of John's favorite stories in baseball history: Ten Cent Beer Night. You might have heard about it but do you really know the craziness that happened? Join us and find out. Thanks for listening!!!

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Markey Market and the Farmy Bunch

John and Rebecca go local and take a trip to the Farmers Market this week. We find out about the history of the modern farmers market, get some do's and don't about market etiquette, some good facts and highlight a story that John relates to way too much. Please rate and review us on iTunes and follow us on Spotify. Thanks!

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Degustation Nation

John and Rebecca go rogue this week and break the formula to bring you a wide variety of weird and disgusting sounding cooking vocabulary followed up by a run down of awful food dishes served around the world (have you ever heard of a Balut?). There is a catch up for the last two weeks and John describes his experience with his son and the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi. Thanks for listening. Please rate and review us on iTunes and Follow us on Spotify (have we told you we're on Spotify?). Cheers!

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Vincent Price's Stuffed Frankfurters

Vincent Price at a ballgame handing his wife some frankfurters

As I said in the podcast You're the Wurst!!! my favorite cookbook is Mary and Vincent Price's A Treasury of Great Recipes. It's a fantastic collection of recipes from long forgotten restaurants around the world along with a few family recipes from the man himself (along with his wife Mary).

The pictures are great, most of the recipes are gorgeously classic and a few of the recipes are super quaint and of-their-time.

This is one of those recipes........ Well it was up until  few years ago.

This recipe would have been considered overkill or novelty with the way it's made, but in the last few years ridiculous recipes have become de rigueur for food sites to get clicks and eyeballs on their sites.

While it is a bit antiquated in the way it is written (I have adjusted the recipe to be easily followed), it could definitely be a featured recipe in a BuzzFeed video. It has everything today's crazy cooks want: meat, cheese, butter and bacon. You can't lose!

I love hot dogs and eat them often but I've yet to make this recipe. I will damn sure make this in the next few weeks though. The more time I've spent with this recipe the more it calls to me like a siren song that can't be denied after fighting a fruitless fight. Oh well, there are worse things in the world than eating a cheese filled, bacon wrapped hot dog right?

Let's ghoul this! (see what I did there?)

Mary and Vincent Price's Stuffed Frankfurters

4 Frankfurters (hot dogs)
1 tablespoon butter
2 medium onions
2 slices of sharp cheddar cheese- Let's call it enough cheese to fill 4 hot dogs
4 Strips of bacon
4 hot dog rolls
mustard

Special equipment:
toothpicks

• Saute the onions in the butter in a pan over medium heat until the onions are soft and light brown.

• Cut a lengthwise slit into the hot dogs

• Fill the hot dogs with the cooked onions

•Top the onions with enough cheese to cover the length of the dog.

•Wind one slice of bacon around the stuffed hot dog in a spiral until the dog is covered. Secure the bacon in place with toothpicks.

• Place under a boiler and cook until the cheese is melted and the bacon has browned. Alternately, you can cook in a pan until crisp.

• Place the dogs onto a bun and top with mustard (the only condiment you should use).

Enjoy!


You can double this recipe perfectly for a whole pack of hot dogs (not the buns though), but I wanted to present the recipe as it was written.

If you make this, please post a pic for us on our Facebook page. You can also reach us on our Instagram page or Twitter page.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Cheers,
John

You Butter WERK!!!

©2017 John Houser III

On the You Butter WERK!!! episode of the podcast we covered butter. The recipe I  said I would put  up here is as simple as I described it. There's not way you can do it wrong. i mean, you could royally fuck it up by not following the recipe in the way it written (read and re-read the recipe before attempting).

That said......

This recipe is more of a guideline. You can switch out different herbs for each other. Make sure to use the basic proportions (i.e. butter to herb ratio) and you'll be fine.

The tricky part of this whole business is pushing it into a log (I will refrain from a poop joke here). it may seem complicated but after you do it once or twice you'll never have to sweat it again. Just make sure to use parchment paper. It's a little more forgiving than plastic wrap for beginners and you have all of that parchment sitting around doing nothing anyway. You do have parchment paper right?

Let's mix this up.

Rouxde Cooking School Herb Compound Butter

1 pound butter-  room temperature
1 tablespoon chives
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoon sage
1 clove garlic- chopped and mashed into a paste
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Special equipment
Parchment paper- 16 inches to be safe
metal sheet pan

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients until incorporated and homogeneous. Scrape all of the herb butter onto the middle of the parchment. Fold the parchment over the top of the butter and then while holding the bottom half of the parchment, use the edge of the sheet pan to push the butter that's under the parchment into a log shape (see the video below). Roll the log completely up in the parchment and twist the ends so it looks like you have a giant Cheech and Chong joint.

Place the butter joint into the fridge for at least an hour to help firm everything up and melt the flavors.

To use, just slice off coins to the thickness you desire and make whatever you're topping instantly more delicious.

Enjoy!

Sweet Child O' Brine II

This week on the Rouxde Cooking School Podcast we talked about salt. It's the most important ingredient in the kitchen as far as I'm concerned and it's transformative properties make it easy to see why it was used for centuries by apothecaries, witches and warlocks as a main ingredient in their wares.

We have covered brine before but this one is different.

Yes, there is more than one recipe for brine. They can go from fairly complicated (like the holiday brine to very simple (this one).

This recipe will be considerably less complicated and as basic as you can get. It will also change your life. Yeah....... I said it!

This basic brine will make you the Acme of your friends meat cooking masters.

While this brine will make it easier to put color on whatever chop or thigh you are cooking, be sure to constantly flip your food. The sugar in the brine mix makes it easy to burn  the food. Be careful and flip the meat as much as you can. Flipping the meat more than you think helps to keep the meat from

Like I said this is a basic brine. If you want to get more complicated, you can add things like  sage, thyme, rosemary, onions, celery, cinnamon, bay leaf and other spices, fruits or vegetables to steer your meat into the flavor profile you need to match your recipe.

Ready for a crazy simple recipe? Let's do it dear reader!!!

Rouxde Cooking School Simple Brine

1 gallon water
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar

In an extra large container to hold a gallon of fluid, place ingredients together in the bowl and whisk or stir until items dissolved together into a clear liquid.

Done.

Yup, that's it. Dead simple right?

you're now ready to use it for chicken, pork or vegetables (yes veggies, it's basic pickling).

Cheers!