Kith & Kin

Grandma Hackknife has been agitating to see her grandkids for a while, so we chose this past weekend to have her come down to the commissary and spend some quality time with them. This enabled Mrs. Hackknife and me to sneak into the city for a nice adult dinner on Saturday night. Our original plan was to visit Purple Pig (the city's latest homage to all things pig parts prepped in an Italian fashion); however, this plan was thwarted by the shutdown of Michigan Avenue due to filming for Transformers 3 pretty much right outside their front door, so we fell back to Plan B: Kith & Kin. K&K is a relatively new restaurant located in Lincoln Park, mere steps away from the Hackknife ancestral homestead at 2119 N. Racine. Unfortunately, no valet was available and the usual dearth of legal, non-permit street parking in the neighborhood was exacerbated by the annual Sheffield Garden Walk this weekend, forcing us to drop the car about 4 blocks away (I'm sure the ancestors had a much easier time finding spots on Racine for the Model T back in the day).

Feeling a bit frazzled, we arrived about 10 minutes late for our 6:15 reservation, but we needn't have worried as the place was less than half full, populated mostly with bar patrons. The decor was upscale, but most of the diners (and the servers, for that matter) had sort of a hipster fashion vibe going on, meaning we were a bit overdressed. After pre-meal drinks (martini for the missus, a capirinha for me), we chose two appetizers, or what they call "crocks": a duroc pork creton (which is a spread w/spices, similar to a rillette) and a brandade de morue (another spread, this time w/salt cod, olive oil, and potato). These were both served w/tasty crostini and both were delicious to the bottom of the crocks. Our entrees were equally good, with Mrs. Hackknife ordering a baseball steak (American Wagyu, very nice) slathered with anchovy butter on a bed of chickory and me choosing a bowl of orzo mixed with shrimp, dill, okra, and veal heart confit. Now, this was my first experience eating heart of any type, not to mention one from a baby cow, but I've been trying to be open-minded about organ meats as I continue to listen to Anthony Bourdain extol their virtues. Looking at the strips of heart in the dish, I expected them to have a squishy consistency, but they were actually firm and tender, with a flavor and texture not unlike pot roast (not bad, actually).

We were both too full to indulge in dessert or cheeses this time, but I suspect we'll be back to K&K before too long.

Mitsuwa Japanese Marketplace

This past week, Hackknife Jr. has been attending a gifted math class offered by Northwestern University for precocious youngsters such as himself (obviously, he gets his brains from his mom). Unfortunately, this has required me to drag both children out of the house by 8 am and haul them to the class site in Glen Ellyn up a construction-choked 355, no easy feat I can assure you, even without Hackknifette barfing up grape chunks all over her clothes and car seat on Tuesday morning. My reward for this tap dancing act was Wednesday morning off during classtime while the baby stayed home with Grandma. After stopping at a bakery for a fruit tart and a quick trip to Toys R Us for a swim vest (see the aforementioned NC trip in my last posting), my ultimate destination was a Japanese marketplace in Arlington Heights, Mitsuwa. This complex includes a grocery store, food court, liquor store, bakery, travel agency, arts/crafts shop, and a video store, all targeted to satisfy the myriad Japanese expats working at electronics companies in the area, as well as intrepid gaijin like myself. If you are a fan of Japanese cuisine and culture (as Mrs. Hackknife and I are, having spent 2 weeks touring Japan in 2005 before the progeny arrived), there is no better place to visit probably in all of Middle America. It happens to be located just a bit more than a mile from my childhood home in Mt. Prospect, and, amazingly, I never visited it in the 10 or more years that it was open while I was living there (of course, we're not Japanese, knew no Japanese people, and had someone asked me in 1991 what "unagi" was, I probably would have had visions of something you might find in an adult bookstore).

This was my second visit to Mitsuwa and certainly the first since I caught the extreme foodie bug a year or two ago. The smells and sights are well worth the trip. I wandered slowly up and down the aisle of the small grocery store (catching the attention of the security guard, who probably was wondering what kind of nefarious activity I'd soon be up to), marveling at the bizarre produce, the multiple freezers full of fresh cut fish for sushi and meats for shabu shabu, packages of dried noodles, rice cookers, fish sauces, and shrimp-flavored chips. I picked up a bottle of ponzu sauce (citrus-spiked soy sauce), some green tea cookies, exotic-looking fruit chews for the kids and milk caramel Pocky for Mrs. Hackknife (her favorite).

The food court opened at 11 and I loitered around until it did, looking at the various menus and plastic food (just like we saw at restaurants everywhere in Japan) in front of the sushi take-out, noodle bar, Chinese dim sum shop, Korean bbq, and teriyaki burger stand. After much deliberation, I settled on a bowl of shrimp tempura udon from the noodle bar, savoring it down to the last drop of broth. As I hadn't really made much in the way of planning for dinner that night, my last purchase was a couple of tonkatsu bento boxes, one w/pork cutlet and one w/fried chicken, both with pickled veggies, rice, fish, and cold scrambled egg. On my way out (and I easily could have spent another hour or two there), I noticed what appeared to be a Japanese street food stand set up right by the front doors (it didn't open until 3 pm). Mrs. Hackknife and I both greatly enjoyed the diversity and quality of the street food we found all over Japan and this I decided would be the impetus for my next visit, hopefully not too far off.

Don Quijote

This month has been officially designated as "Travel Month" here at the Hackknife Commissary (hence the lack of recent postings). We packed up the family truckster and traveled to Youngstown, OH over the 4th of July weekend for Cousin Caroline's wedding, which will soon be followed by a longer car trip to Ocean Isle Beach, NC for the annual DeToro family beachhouse excursion (I'm sure this will provide plenty of fodder for future postings, probably in the form of Carolina BBQ joint reviews). Because we are insane, we also opted to make a last-minute day-jaunt to Indianapolis last Saturday (a mere 400 miles round-trip) for a 75th birthday party at Broad Ripple Park. The timing of our return home worked out so that we reached NW Indiana around dinnertime, prompting a stop at one of our favorite tapas restaurants, Don Quijote, located just a block or two from the Porter County Courthouse in downtown Valparaiso (the visit was also encouraged by an incessantly-howling Hackknifette, who was protesting her extended car-seat imprisonments of late). The folks running the place bill themselves as the only Spanish restaurant in Indiana and I, for one, am not in a position to debate this assertion.

This was our second visit to the restaurant, both times on a Saturday evening with the progeny while returning home from a day spent outdoors in the Indiana sun. Both times, Mrs. Hackknife and I have been very pleased with our food offerings, not to mention the hospitality of the place to overtired children reeking of sunscreen. We began our meal with fresh bread/garlic butter and a very tasty cold potato salad, washed down with a nice glass of red sangria. We chose to again do a combo tapas platter, which included tortilla a la espanola (omelet w/potatoes and onions), albondigas (Spanish-style meatballs), chorizo, champinones a la plancha (grilled mushrooms w/garlic and olive oil - as always, I politely declined this mushroom dish), and patatas bravas (potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce), plus we added on higaditos de pollo al Jerez (sauteed chicken livers w/onion, garlic, and herbs in a sherry sauce) and alcachofas rebozadas (french-fried artichoke bottoms). To their credit, the kids ate a little of these here and there, but were mostly satisfied with their kids menu choices. All 4 of us left the table full and feeling refreshed despite our earlier dosing of recirculated car air. One of these years, me and the missus will have to make an evening of it and return here (only 45 minutes east of the commissary) just the two of us.

Fun With Rhubarb

We've had a strange item in our farm box the last 4 weeks or so: rhubarb stalks. Having grown up in a household that never, ever once consumed rhubarb in any form, I can honestly say that I hadn't a clue what to do with it, other than not eat the leafy parts (somehow, I had heard they were mildly toxic - this is true, actually). Flipping through my ever-trusty Joy of Cooking, I found an easy recipe for rhubarb compote, which is essentially chopped-up rhubarb heated up in a pot with a lot of sugar until it turns into a jam-like spread. This ended up being a tasty concoction on toast at breakfast and also a good change-of-pace condiment for a turkey sandwich.

The following week came more rhubarb, and this time I opted to attempt a more conventional prep: rhubarb pie. Having never before made pie dough from scratch, I am more than a little ashamed to admit that I wimped out and bought the Pillsbury pre-fab dough (I know, I'm sorry, a pox on me), so essentially all that I created was the pie filling. You can see the end result above - a bit ghastly looking, but very scrumptious (Mrs. Hackknife loved it, but threatened me with bodily harm if I did fake dough again, Hackknife progeny as always wouldn't touch it). The worst part was cleanup as I needed an SOS pad (and practically a blowtorch) to get all of the baked-on parts off the glass pie dish. Note to self: use Pam next time.

I had told myself that cobbler would be the next rhubarb dish, and, lo and behold, here comes more rhubarb in the farmbox. My Joy of Cooking lists a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler recipe - presumably, the strawberries add a little sweetness to the tart rhubarb, so they match well together. I have to say I enjoyed making the cobbler more than the pie - the dough was easy to make from scratch (no pre-fab needed here) and you have the option of just laying it in pieces on top of the fruit filling, so it's like a pie w/no bottom crust. I didn't do a great job of flattening the dough enough since some of the cobbler slices were a little crustier than others, but overall, the feedback on the final product was very positive.

One more round of rhubarb and this last time, I wanted to make something a little more decadent. Cooks.com lists a recipe for custard rhubarb crisp, which I found to be similar to that for the cobbler; however, it also includes eggs, cream, and butter, soooooo.......one would expect that it might taste a bit more luxurious (and you'd be right). This prep got the ravest reviews of the 4 rhubarb dishes, but also falls into the category of "eat only once a year or so lest you take up residence in an early grave". Thankfully, we have now gone a couple of weeks with no rhubarb in the farmbox, thus giving me a brief respite from continuing to watch the needle on the bathroom scale inch slowly upward with each passing week of dessert-topia.

I'm including the recipe for rhubarb compote below. If you'd like either the pie or cobblers recipes, please drop me a note and I'll send them to you.

Combine in a medium saucepan:

4 c. 1/2-inch pieces rhubarb
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar

Let stand at room temp until the rhubarb exudes some juice, at least 15 minutes. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the rhubarb is tender and the liquid thickened, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool without stirring. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or for up to 2 days. The compote will thicken when chilled.

Tartar of Marinated Trout

About 2 years ago, the commissary shut down for a few days so that we could all travel to Quebec City for one of Mrs. Hackknife's conferences. During the trip, she and her fellow co-workers attended a teambuilding event at a local cooking school - out of this, we returned home with a number of French-Canadian recipes, all of which sat on the cookbook shelf until such a time as yours truly felt competent enough in the kitchen to attempt some of them. Whilst flipping through the recipe file the other day seeking something to throw together for a nice mid-week meal, I stumbled across this recipe collection and homed in on the trout tartar.

We like fish. We also like raw fish (at least the missus and I do). I have never prepped a raw fish dish before, but the recipe sounded so ridiculously easy that I had no qualms about trying it, up until the point at which I had to actually find a pound of trout fillets. Now, I have no regular seafood purveyor (there are none within about a 30-mile radius of here) and the local Large Corporate Supermarket told me that they rarely carry trout (odd, I thought, seeing as we live in a state bordering one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world and trout is a freshwater species). Our local specialty grocery did have some, but only the whole fish. Had a fishmonger been working at the seafood counter either time I showed up (the butcher was the only one around), I probably could have gotten him (or her) to fillet it for me, but after the second time, I basically said "$#^&% it, I'll figure out how to fillet the stupid thing myself" and high-tailed it out of there with a fish (see photo of our victim above).

Armed with instructions/pictures from my Joy of Cooking and a sharp knife, I proceeded to slash the magnificent creature to shreds, yielding 9 ounces of meat from a 2-pound fish (I don't know where exactly that ranks as compared to a skilled fish prep cook, but I suspect it's somewhere in the neighborhood of "shameful"). On the upside, I did manage to pull out all of the bones, leaving me with a minor moral victory to build on for next time.

1 lb. trout fillets
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. capers, chopped
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
bitter greens (endive, escarole, or radicchio)

Remove skin from trout fillets. Cut fillets into small dice and place in a non-reactive dish. In a small bowl, combine all remaining ingredients except greens. Pour over trout, cover, and marinate in refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Serve on greens (I also threw a tostada underneath to add a little texture and make it portable).

Poor Man's Cassoulet

One constant of being in charge of vittles for the Hackknife family is the continuing need to menu plan. Just when you think you're done for a bit, you realize that the next meal is just around the corner (it's not like we're skipping dinner, say, every Tuesday) and you've got to come up with your new dog-and-pony show (which often times resembles a meatloaf). This past Saturday night, I was faced with the option of punting (i.e., take-out pizza) or finding a reasonably simple dish to assemble for dinner and I found it in a pile of recipes from Mrs. Hackknife's cousin Glen (you'll recall that he's the source of the pork chop recipe from an earlier posting). Cassoulet is a dish consisting of meat, beans, and vegetables - essentially, a fancy French term for stew. The beauty (as is the case with most stews) is that you can throw in just about whatever you have left over in the fridge. We already had bacon, carrots, chicken, and fresh basil, so it was a pretty simple matter to get the other ingredients and cook it up.

(Editor's note: my bistro cookbook contains a cassoulet recipe that has, among other delicacies, duck confit in it, which is a multi-day undertaking in and of itself to prepare, so I don't believe we'll be attempting that one anytime soon).

6 slices bacon, chopped
1 cup onions, chopped
1 cup carrots, sliced
1 pound smoked sausage, cubed
1/2 pound chicken, cubed
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 cans (16 oz. each) white beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes, drained
3/4 cup beef broth or bullion
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp basil, chopped
1/4 tsp thyme

In a large skillet or dutch oven, cook bacon pieces over medium high heat. Remove bacon and add carrots/onions to drippings. Saute until onions are golden. Remove and add sausage/chicken, cooking until browned. Remove meat and add wine to deglaze the pan. Heat wine to boiling and return bacon, onions, carrots, and meat to pan. Add beans, tomatoes, beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, basil, and thyme. Stir well and let simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Saint's Alp/Clandestino Dinner

At some point during my perpetual quest to read about all things food, I came across an article in the Chicago Tribune describing a local underground supper club that goes by the name of Clandestino. What is a supper club, you may ask? This is a fairly new (i.e., within the last 10 years) dining concept by which a chef (or group of chefs) cooks for patrons outside of the standard restaurant environment, usually in a private residence. Typically, you need to be on the club's email list in order to receive information about when/where the next event is being held, hence the "underground" label. The concept allows chefs without a restaurant to continue to hone their skills and try out new dishes, while allowing the diner to have a unique culinary experience.

Feeling intrigued and a bit adventurous, I signed Mrs. Hackknife and I up for the group's June dinner, which took place this past Saturday evening. After ponying up the fee ($125 each, not a paltry sum), I received an email 3 days beforehand listing the dinner's location (a loft near the intersection of Chinatown, Bridgeport, and Pilsen on the near southwest side of the city), menu (6 courses with a strawberry theme), and instructions on where to park, etc. Upon learning that we would be in the vicinity of Chinatown, what is the first thought that pops into my demented skull? Why, wouldn't it be lovely if we could stop in Chinatown for a brief snack prior to consuming a 6-course meal? I just happened to have in my possession a copy of the May 13, 2010 Tribune Play section containing the insider's guide to dining in Chinatown, being saved in the Hackknife archives for this very purpose.

With great gustatory anticipation, we rolled into Chinatown at around 6, leaving plenty of time before our Clandestino dinner at 7, located only about 10 blocks away. Our destination: Saint's Alp, a Hong Kong-based chain of Asian teahouses serving small plates of tasty food as well. My guide tells me to order deep-fried tako balls (octopus fritters); alas, they are out (no doubt picked clean en masse by intrepid Chicago foodies clued in by the Tribune article), so we settle for deep-fried shrimp balls and crispy-fried bead curd cubes instead, both of which are delicious. Wash everything down with the taro (a flavor not unlike coconut and buttered popcorn combined) bubble tea, says my guide, and I do, and it rocks, with chewy black tapioca pearls lining the bottom of the glass, adding a wicked texture (note to self: next time, order the jumbo, not the regular).

Feeling pretty happy and not the least bit gluttonous, we pulled up to the loft space for our underground dinner right before 7. Inside was a sparsely decorated room with bright geometric paintings lining the white walls (very much like an art gallery). It turns out that the space is owned and lived in by, surprise, an artist. Joining us at our table were, well, mostly artistic, creative types: a young stagehand and his wife (who manages a framing store), a 50-ish woman who performs in a band that plays children's music and her husband insurance executive (people in the insurance industry are drawn to Mrs. Hackknife like moths to a flame), and the young female artist whose paintings were being exhibited in the room (accompanied by a young hip beau who seemed mostly disinterested in the evening's hoopla). I can only hope that they were all pleased to have us polar opposite folks (mathematician/consultant and scientist/former consultant/homemaker) in their immediate presence to break up the conversation a bit. All in all, about 40-50 people total (mostly young, stylish, urbanites) were poised to enjoy an underground feast.

And feast away we did - bacon-wrapped strawberry for Course #1, a cured slice of lake trout perched on a tostada-like flatbread (my personal favorite of the evening's menu) paired with a rhubarb tequila shot for #2, a small plate of fettuccine noodles in a mild garlic pesto with vodka lemonade (#3), a spinach/strawberry salad with a bacon-thyme vinaigrette and a strawberry mint mimosa (#4), a grilled walleye fillet with pistachio-oregano butter, english peas, tendrils, grilled mashed potatoes, and a bottle of Two Brothers Domaine Du Page beer (see photo above of Course #5), and last, but not least, a strawberry shortcake ice cream sundae with homemade strawberry beer (think non-alcoholic, like root beer).

All sounds delicious, right? How was it? Well, good in my opinion, but I wouldn't call it great, at least not for what it cost. The pesto was a little on the bland side (granted we make our pesto supercharged here at the commissary), the walleye could have used more of the pistachio-oregano butter, and the strawberry mint mimosa had too much, let's call it particulate floating in the liquid. The quality of the ingredients appeared to be good (and we should know as the chef told everyone he gets much of his produce from Genesis Growers, who also provides us w/vegetables at home each week), the cooking techniques appeared to be sound, and certainly the amount of booze included was ample. This may simply be what to expect when skilled people are prepping dinner in a environment that lacks the quality control/support system of a bricks-and-mortar restaurant. That being said, Mrs. Hackknife and I agreed that the experience was very worthwhile and we'd be interested in participating again at some point.