Salt Addict: Food I made

At the end of last weeks post I promised a poll to decide what I would do with the plums I was to gather from a friends backyard. I didn't do that because I forgot. So to make up for it I went ahead and made the plums three ways. This post will be about how I made preserves, ketchup and bbq sauce from the nearly 20 pounds of italian plums I was able to pick from my friends tree. Just follow the three easy steps below in order to have your own delicious plum condiments.

Step 1

   Find a suitable plum tree. If it's not your tree, you may need to attack in the middle of the night dressed in black and using night-vision goggles. People will protect their plums with deadly force and extreme prejudice. If you have a friend with a tree, promise them returns of delicious foodstuff not to exceed ten percent of gross weight.

Step 2

Pick the plums. Daytime or night mission, the end goal is the same, gather the plums without plumetting (harf) to your ~~death~~ broken limb or until you can't take the spiderwebs clinging to your arms and face anymore. Is that a spider crawling on your face? Probably. Eject yourself from the tree at once if there is any doubt.

Step 3

Follow the remaining 47 sub-steps. I sure think I'm funny don't I?

Plum Preserves

An easy one but so delicious, and the best thing is you can keep these throughout the long falintering* months to combat the winter-time-no-good-fruit blues. This recipe came out slightly tart, which I like(see flapjack review). You can add more sugar if you must. I also added some lemon peel to give it a marmaladiness.

Yield 4 Qts
8 1/2 Lb   Italian plums
3 Cups     White sugar
2 Each    Lemons

Wash the plums, remove the pits and cut into thick slices. Given the amount of plums I used the slicing disk in the food processor. Peel 1 lemon and julienne the skin. Make sure not to peel too deep, the white part of the lemon peel will add too much bitterness. If your peel has a lot of white on it, use a sharp knife to scrape it off before you julienne. Next, juice both lemons and combine all ingredients in a large pot. Heat on high until the mixture starts to boil. Reduce to medium high flame and continue to slowly boil for 1 hour.

Take that Saveur Magazine, I can make my pictures look like yours!

That's it. It's almost too easy. The point of course is to have these preserves throughout the winter and canning them is a sinch. Fill each pint jar (or whatever size jar you want) to about a half inch from the top and place in boiling water caner for 15 minutes.

*Falintering - This is Seattle's winter for those that live outside the region. Essentially there are two seasons here, 1 month of summer followed by 11 months of falintering.

Plum Ketchup

The decision to make ketchup wasn't hard for me. I know a lot of people don't like it but I find it tasty. Apparently, ketchup is the main source of Umami flavor in the US. While I don't think you'll be getting much umami flavor out of a plum, the spices that go in to flavoring Ketchup happen to be spices that go really well with plums, the most prevalent of which is clove.

Yield 3 Qts
7 1/2 Lb     Italian plums
2 C       White Sugar
1/2 C         Apple Cider Vinegar
1 C            Brown Sugar
2 ea           Onions, small dice
4 ea           Garlic cloves, minced
1 T            Cloves
1 T            Coriander seeds
1 ea           Cinnamon Stick
1 t             Whole Black Peppercorns
2 T            Kosher Salt

Start by cleaning, pitting and cutting the plums or slicing in the food processor. Add to a pot along with the white and brown sugar, vinegar, onions and garlic. Heat on high. In the meantime make a sachet with the remaining ingredients excluding the salt. Stir frequently until the mixture comes to a boil, reduce to medium high and cook for 1 hour, stir regularly. Remove sachet and blend the mixture with blender or stick blender. Add salt and adjust to taste.

Eggs meet plumchup, plumchup eggs.

Again, you can easily can this. I canned two pints and reserved the rest for the following recipe.

Plum BBQ Sauce

Even though there are ketchup detractors out there, they are often the same people who love BBQ sauce. What they don't realize is that the BBQ sauce we are all used to, is doctored ketchup. There are many types of BBQ sauce but the one you're thinking of right now and the one most people associate their taste buds to is Kansas City style rib sauce. This sauce should go great on grilled chicken.

Yield 2 3/4 Qts
2 qt           Plum ketchup
1 c          Dark brown sugar
1 c          Apple cider vinegar
1 c        Molasses
2 T            Cholula® hot sauce
14 ea         Dried arbol chilies
1 T            Sweet paprika
1 T            Garlic Powder
1 T            Onion Powder
1 t             Ancho Chili powder
1 t             Mustard powder
1/2 t          Cayenne
10 Turns   Black pepper
1 t             Salt

In a sauce pot, heat your ketchup to a simmer. Grind the arbol chillies in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Add all ingredients except for the salt and simmer for 30 minutes stirring regularly. Check for seasoning and add salt if needed.

Too easy. I used Cholula hot sauce because it uses arbol and pequin peppers, pequin being my favorite. If you want to make this spicier, use a habenero sauce or maybe maybe a vial of pure capsaicin if I don't like you. Good luck with that.

In case you were wondering where the idiom plum crazy comes from, here's a good explanation. Today's promise for next week, that there will be a next week.

I will not apologize for the lack of posts these last couple of weeks. I also will not apologize to those who find the pig to be an unnaturally dirty animal. Pigs don't go out of their way to smell, they will do what's necessary to survive and humans found out that letting them sit in their own feces on concrete floors does not harm them as it might some animals.

Last summer I had the pleasure of visiting local, sustainable farms throughout the Skagit Valley and several of these farmers raised pigs. The pigs were allowed to eat grass and walk around large enclosures. They were also given feed and shelter. While the pig prefers to hang around their own and close to shelter, it does not purposely roll around in it's own feces as some imagine. They roll around in dirt and mud to cool themselves. They don't smell great, but what farm animals do? Ever smell a male goat in rut? Ever clean out a chicken coop? Perhaps been on the wrong end of a cow?

Now I will apologize. This post isn't supposed to be a rant about the pig. It's actually meant to be about the Pig Roast that me and my unsavory group of friends just put on.

This 6th annual event featured a pig with some interesting changes I hadn't played with before. The first few times we followed the Cuban method to a T including the marinade which features a lot of garlic and sour orange juice called Mojo. Last year I did 3 pigs for various events and for all three did more classic american bbq flavors. This year with the help of Sous Chef Jude Cruz, we went for Asian flavors.

In past years I've received the pig the night before in order to splay it open and marinade it. This year I decided to give myself an extra day to let the pig sit in a cure consisting mainly of cilantro, salt and water. The cure was rinsed off the next day but I found it did a good job of getting some salt deeper into the meat.

Another big change was the addition of a second pork belly. The belly itself was butterflied so that it would stretch over the already butterflied big. This gave us a huge pocket to stuff the pig with all manner aromatic and flavorful veggies including lemon grass, garlic, ginger, daikon and galangal.

Last but not least, the curve ball. Being the great communicator that I am, I did not tell Justin(Pig Roast Host Extraordinaire) about the plans for the pig. In uncanny Justin fashion, the man managed to get a free pastrami from the folks at Roxy's Diner. I was promptly contacted and told to add the pastrami in the pig. Conflicted about adding a Jewish cold cut to my Asian pig, I pushed back. Surely this marriage had never occured before and would not work. After some fighting that mimcicked Restaurateur v. Chef, the man with the pocketbook won. If I were any chef worth his salt, I would've flipped the pig off the table onto the ground and stormed off in a rage of expletives, french ones at that. It's best this didn't happen, as it turned out the pastrami was the best part according to a lot of people. C'est la vie et merde.

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Below are some pictures. If you feel uneasy about whole dead animals, get over it and enjoy.