Eat BBC's 50 Things To Eat

Oh, how to explain? Reindeer is caribou. Not Donner or Blitzen. And I’ve had it cold-cured. At the holidays. Why?

Well, did I mention my crazy godfather? Yeah, there are many, many, many other stories about my crazy godfather (the atheist in charge of my spiritual upbringing…its best not to ask) and some are entertaining in that dark and better-to-laugh kind of way.

Anyway, I think I was maybe 10 or 11 when he was visiting and brought the dark and lovely meat to the house when he was visiting. It was brought out and sliced with care and passed along to the kids with a mischievous gleam in his eye. The meat was salty and mild, but different. After all these years, I can tell you it’s a lot less mild than venison and more like a stronger grass-fed beef, if that makes sense. But salty since it was salt-cured. (Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some salt!)

Of course, the mischievous gleam turned into full grin and then laugh as he announced we were eating Rudolph. Thankfully, we’d heard from a kid across the street that Santa was our parents, so it wasn’t anywhere near as traumatic as he’d been hoping and we moved on and were able to enjoy our exotic snack.

It’s definitely an interesting taste and worth an eat. Just don’t tell the kids it’s Rudolph during the holidays. ;)

Wow, where to even start with Paella…because there is no one version of the stuff. To be safe, I’ll call it seafood and rice with the occasional appearance (but not shocking) of chicken and even rabbit (which is really on the occasional side in the US, but not in other places where the lapin is prized for its fantastic flavor) and don’t let me forget the sausage…or the SAFFRON!

But this makes it sound simple, doesn’t it? Not that it’s super difficult, but many a recipe will promise to help you make Paella. And you’ll throw in some shrimp and chicken and rice and be told where you might buy some saffron and voila – you’re done.

Not so much. Look, I know Alton Brown speaks out against the uni-tasker and all, but let me stick up for the paella pan – or at least for the wok. Because you really can’t cook paella in the same pan you’ve been cooking spaghetti sauce in (don’t even talk to me about baking it in a ceramic casserole dish). The pan DOES actually serve a purpose. See, it’s a wide and shallow pan. First of all, you can cook the metric ton of food evenly upfront. Secondly, you can get the awesome crispy rice crust that is the hallmark of a good paella. When you’re eating paella, you should be able to have a mix of everything including perfect and crispy rice. If there’s no crispy rice, this was likely cooked as a giant casserole and it’s just not the same.

I will say this is one of those recipes where there’s no one right way to make it. However, if you want to make me happy, I want to see mussels, shrimp, chorizo and chicken mixed into mine with the crunchy bits. Everything else is pure bonus.

So, I’m in the midwest. One would assume that my opportunities for sushi would be rather limited. I’m fortunate – a major Japanese auto-maker and a rather large student/academic population are in town, so we have some rather amazing pockets of places.

We also have the ubiquitous grocery-store sushi like everyone else. Which, truth be told, has gotten much better over the years. Actual chefs in the stores instead of frozen trays being shipped in…but definitely not my first choice. Or fifth…well, the seaweed salad isn’t bad.

Anyway, first things first – not all sushi is raw. It’s not even all fish. And we’re not just talking the fun Americanized rolls. I’ve had the fortune of traveling to Japan and the things you’ll find as part of sushi (and sashimi) there are a far-cry from tuna. By the by – best thing ever? FRESH Wasabi…not the powdered kind. Amazing. We’ll talk about the horse sashimi later…

Anywho, a few of my hints and how-to’s:

- Pick the place that either has close proximity to an Asian grocery or has the most Asian customers. NOT just wait staff – but customers. I find a little more pride and a lot less trendy. I also can find the hamachi kama – grilled hamachi cheek – on a regular basis. Best.Appetizer.Ever.

- So you want to eat at the sushi bar. I’m of two minds on this. If you want to see a ton of stuff being made, eat there at prime time, but remember that your attention may be limited and your service slow. But you’ll see a lot of great work. If you’re looking to bond a bit with the chefs, you’ll have to go often and you should go during off-hours. That’s when you can get the chattier ones. Freebies aren’t guaranteed and my scores generally have been things like fried shrimp heads and free sake in Japan (apparently, I’m an adorable drunk when it comes to melon sakes!).

• Do NOT make a soup of your soy sauce. No mixing of wasabi and the hot pepper flakes into the soy sauce. Just don’t. Keep it virginal.
• Dip your sushi pieces into the soy sauce fish side in – NOT rice-side in. Not good with the chop sticks? Don’t worry! Sushi is an acceptable finger food.
• The Ginger slices don’t go on the sushi slices. They’re palate cleansers between different piece types.
• Shrimp tales are edible. Really.
• Before coating your pieces in wasabi, taste them first – the chef has already put some on the piece between the sliced fish and the rice. If he sees you slathering your sushi with wasabi without tasting it, he may give you your next pieces with a lot of extra! (It’s the asking for salt and shaking it on a dish without tasting it first equivalent.)

There’s more, but those are the big ones. In the end, though, if you seem like a nice person, no one cares. It’s all about the effort you make.

My must haves? After hamachi kama appeterizer? Honestly, I’m pretty simple. I love fish roe, tamago (the egg), tuna, sweet shrimp and scallop. I’m also a sucker for the fancy rolls. We go to Aki Hana and they have tons of cute ones. We’ve been on the wasabi roll kick for a while – it has jalapenos on top!

The good news is that if you don’t like raw things, fish or even meat – there’s still sushi for you – and it’s all good! Just try it and have a box of sake and you can’t go wrong. Or a bottle of the melon stuff – it makes you adorable!

This one I just need to be better about for entries and for tracking down a few of the items.

It stays!

Shark steak is one of those things I’ve had the misfortune of having either okay or horrible experiences eating. I get the appeal – it’s a really solid fish that you can grill like actual steaks. Grill marks and all. And it’s a hearty meal without all the fat of red meat, yada yada yada.

It also requires expert care when it is caught – if it isn’t bled properly, you’re in for quite the not-so-pleasant surprise when you buy it. Sharks already have a unique way of eliminating their urine – they don’t pee like humans. They store blood in their bloodstreams and secrete it through their skin. So when a shark is caught and killed, if it isn’t bled properly, you end up with a lot of uric acid in the meat.

This might seem like a no-brainer, but most shark meat will have a light ammonia smell – some stores and restaurants have a really bad idea of “light.” And when there’s a ton of shark, it’s more difficult to judge whether you’re smelling the whole batch at once or some really badly butchered steaks. At a restaurant, you can send it back. If you buy it and cook it, it becomes a pain to return it to the grocery.

So, with all of this…is the shark worth it? Well, I suppose if it’s the good one. But this is a lot of effort and avoidance of ammonia smells and tastes. Perhaps the makers of this list were fortunate enough never to have had bad shark or to have bought bad shark and ended up tossing it rather than deal with the trouble of the customer service counter at the grocery over less than ten bucks.

Of course, I hardly ever notice it for sale anymore in the grocery – maybe a lot of folks did go in and complain over less than ten bucks…

Venison is Bambi. Of course, one no longer has to actually hunt Bambi or burn down an entire forest to enjoy venison. It’s available at the butcher and comes with the advantage of being rather tasty – but expensive. I’d gotten some and husband freaked out at the over $20/lb cost. Until, of course, we compared this to his hunting gear costs that covered all manner of shotgun, handgun (with scope) and compound-bow costs for deer hunting that had resulted in years of hunting that had netted exactly 0lbs of deer over the years. That’s right – not a typo – ZERO pounds of deer. He didn’t go hunting that many days, nor did he have the resources to go to the better parts of our state to hunt…but at a cost per pound…I was still way under. Not to mention…a lot less cleanup and warm entrails.

On that note, venison is much lower in calories and a lot leaner than beef. If you buy farm-raised, you eliminate much of the worry of gaminess and you aren’t forced to eat concoctions of milk, wine and lord knows what other 24-hour + marinades and 3 day cooking methods folks insist on using. Frankly, the gamines really only comes from poor eating conditions and/or poor butchering conditions. So if you have some really good hunters that are skillful field dressers and the conditions in the area have been good (no drought, plenty of food to eat), and they took care of the meat – it won’t taste gamey.

So my favorite dish? Venison tenderloin. Because it’s crazy easy. You basically can crust or season the tenderloin with whatever spices you like, even salt and pepper. Heat up a cast-iron skillet and sear the tenderloin for 45-60 seconds on each side (you’ll rotate it even on the ends). While you let the tenderloin rest, you deglaze the pan with wine and butter for a simple sauce. You’ll cut the tenderloin and it will be medium-rare/rare (you don’t want to go any more than medium-rare because the meat will become shoe leather). Serve. MMMMM-good.

Salmon really is my favorite fish. It’s also my heartbreak fish. There are a number of things that can go very, very wrong with salmon when you eat out – failure to take out pinbones, failure to scale properly, overcooking, an awful sauce, blackened…you know the drill.

But done right, salmon is practically a superfood. Between the omega-3s and the relatively low calories, this is a protein that packs a punch. Plus, it tastes fantastic. You can grill it, broil it, bake it, poach it or make tasty croquettes from it.

Or you can begin your first step into home curing and make your own lox at home. That’s right, your own fancy cream cheese and lox on bagels. And it’s crazy easy. And about 1/4 the price of buying your own at the deli. All you need is access to fresh salmon (get to know your fish guy – he’ll at least have the flash-frozen that he will have thawed and can call fresh) and then you need to have these super-fancy ingredients I like to call sugar, salt and pepper.

I’m not making this up.

Okay, brown sugar, kosher salt and pepper. Seriously. You make a rub out of this (1/4 cup salt, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 TBS pepper – per pound of salmon), rub over prepared salmon, wrap in plastic wrap, keep in container you can drain liquid from daily, refrigerate for 5 days. Rinse – you have LOX!

Honestly, the full instructions can be found at Food Mayhem, but it is that simple. Delicious!

I suppose we have an obsession with breakfast in America – after all, when a place like Denny’s has people standing in line for a free breakfast, there’s something there.

There are a gabillion chains serving breakfast – between Denny’s, Bob Evans, First Watch, Waffle House, House of Pancakes and a few others I’m not remembering right now, you can always get a passable breakfast. But what is this love of the American Diner?

I think it’s because it’s like going to a place like Jack & Benny’s where you know the owners are local, the restaurant is likely all staffed by family and the while the food really is something you could just as easily whip up at home – the place makes all the difference in the world.

This place just decided to add extra seating two years ago – before then, it was maybe 30 people. And they wouldn’t ever be pushing you out the door on a weekend, even if they had a line of folks waiting to get in. Your omelets were huge, pancakes as big as the plate. Coffee constantly refilled. You always get hashbrowns and toast – because these people don’t know about the anti-carb people.

I think this is on the list not so much for the food part, but for the feeling. A real diner is about the friendliness and the people that serve you. The food is good and honest, but not fancy. It will fill you up and keep you satisfied. Best of all, you’re usually supporting a local business owner that did this because they wanted to run a nice neighborhood joint – not someone that had visions of celebrity cookbooks in their heads. Better yet, if you’re there in the off-hours, you’ll find some great conversation to be had.

Squid! I have some frozen in the freezer at this moment. It is a much-maligned creature. First Jules Verne gives the Giant Squid a bad rap in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and then it turns out that they exist!

And then every two-bit restaurant on earth makes horrible calamari. That’s right, I said it. Horrible calamari. You know the kind – breaded within an inch of it’s life, deep fried and served with two or three different sauces in hopes that you won’t notice that you’re being served rubbery bands of ick.

This is no way to eat squid.

First, let’s discuss good calamari. Good calamari does not go to a chain restaurant pre-breaded where it’s dumped still-frozen into a deep-fat fryer by a guy who had 10 minutes of training on how to listen for the “beep” sound earlier in the day.

Good calamari has two schools of thought. There’s the marinated school – those that will swear by an overnight buttermilk marinade method. This will tenderize the squid via enzymes in the buttermilk, which means you really have to try to make them rubber. The next day, it’s batter and fry without crowding them. The second school is the flash fry – generally, this is a lighter batter (panko bread crumbs get popular) and a mere 15 or 20 seconds in hot oil. This gives the squid no time to get tough at all, but requires a fresh product.

If your server can’t answer which method is used or if they go, “it just comes breaded and frozen,” just skip the calamari. You’ll be disappointed. I will say that there was a time Buca di Bepo (of all places!) used to be the overnight-buttermilk place, but I don’t know if their expansion has moved them towards the frozen-bag or not. So don’t be shocked to asked.

This is not to say that all squid is fried. There is the beauty of the stuffed squid. This is usually a braised or pressure-cooked dish and something that you’ll find at authentic Mediterranean-type places. If you get a chance, branch out and try it – you’ll thank yourself later. Squid isn’t a super-bold tasting vessel, but there’s an underlying sweetness to it that begs to be paired with really bold, acidic flavors. This means you get rich olive oils, tomato sauces, loads of herbs and all sorts of bold flavors. It’s harder to come by, but worth it.

Squid – worth it!

I am guessing by the title here, that BBC knows we all have these restaurants. They have an authentic-sounding name, an astoundingly long menu with enough choices to choke a horse, offer a dizzying array of beers and free chips and salsa as soon as you sit down. The Margaritas aren’t so bad either. Your food arrives hot and fast on colorful plates and there are usually leftovers.

I think we all know that this is somewhat watered-down Mexican cuisine, but we love it all the same. There’s something comforting in the melted cheese, the generous sides of refried beans and the tremendous mounds of rice. Have I mentioned the chips? The beauty of these is that they’re generally made on site from leftover tortillas – if you’re lucky, you get a fresh batch.

By the by, I’m not talking about the chain-chain version – I mean the outfits that are clearly staffed by individuals that have moved here and cook adapted cuisine to make a living. I’m sure that they look at their Fajitas and wonder, “why am I serving something I’d never serve at home?” much as their cousin in immigration will look at General Tso’s Chicken and chuckle to themselves – but it’s all good.

I have a carry out menu by my side, although I barely know why – it’s almost always the same order for us:

No. 82
No. 149
No. 37

Another fine sign – you order by number. It does make things easier. Oh – you need translation?

No. 82 Queso Fundido (which is a Chorizo and Cheese dip)
No. 149 – Fajita Quesadilla (it’s like two meals!)
No. 37 – Pollo a la Diabla (Chicken in a Spicy Sauce)

Every once in a while we branch out – and then, it tends to be things like Enchiladas. You can’t go wrong with those. Too bad I already have chicken marinating…today would have been a good day for carry-out!

Oh, and our place? El Vaquero – which has quite a few places here in town. It’s a sort of local chain, but not a chain-chain.