Gizzard Paprikash

While I was home over the holidays, we got together with some friends and butchered a number of chickens -- hens who'd stopped laying, roosters with asthma, roosters in general. Nobody else was particularly interested in the organs and feet, so I took those. Gracious. Those old roosters grew dragon's hide on their feet! I dunked the feet in boiling water for five minutes, clipped off the toenails, and then my mother and I painstakingly peeled off the outer layer of scaly skin before making stock of them. That dragon stock was gorgeous. You could have walked on it and not fallen in.

But this is about the gizzards and hearts. Gizzards and hearts are delicious dark, dark meat -- almost blue, they're so dark -- but they take a little stewing to become tender. The gizzard is a powerful disc-shaped muscle in the chicken's neck, which grinds seeds and grass. To get the partially digested food out of the gizzard, you have to split it open and peel the lining out, which is why gizzards have that clam-shell shape when you buy them.

When considering what to do with my bucket of gizzards and hearts (besides make an enormous pot of gravy), I recalled a delicious dish of zúza paprikás, a.k.a. gizzard paprikash, I had one evening in Budapest. And I recalled a page or two I'd spent an entire day translating from a Hungarian cookbook, and from these two recollections I made a very delicious, convincing gizzard/heart paprikash for supper. It was boldly orange, piquant and creamy.

Back in San Francisco, I wanted to compare my recipe to that in a book of mine called Cooking with Love and Paprika, a 1966 cookbook by Joseph Pasternak. To my alarm, he makes a distinction between Hungarian paprikash and Transylvanian paprikash; according to him, my recipe is Transylvanian because it includes sour cream. How perplexing. Well, the zúza paprikás I had in Hungary most definitely had sour cream in it, just like practically everything I ate there (oh sigh!). Also, a good bit of Transylvania used to belong to Hungary, so maybe it's a moot point.

Many Hungarian dishes start with rendering some minced smoked pork fat in a skillet. Unfortunately, I cannot walk two blocks to the nearest market hall and ask for a kilo of smoked Mangalica fat from the butcher. (Nor can I ask for a kilo of goose gizzards, or a quart of pickled peppers ladled from the brine vat, or get my jug filled up with raw milk for a handful of forints -- sigh, sigh, and sigh.) So I would recommend frying a few slices of bacon at a fairly low temperature for a long time, so the fat renders out without burning at all. Pour the clean fat into a jar, eat the bacon, and clean the sticky stuff off the skillet before putting the fat back in. This will give you good fat with a nice smoky flavor.

You may chop the gizzards or hearts before cooking them; when cooked, a whole gizzard tends to be a bit more than one mouthful. You can also remove the "hinge" in the middle of the gizzard -- this is the most sinewy part -- and then the gizzards will become tender much sooner. I lazily left my gizzards whole.

Mince a large onion fairly fine, and let it cook in the fat in Dutch oven till soft and clear. Push the onions to one side of the Dutch oven and briefly brown about a pound of gizzards and/or hearts on the other side.

Add salt and a large peeled, crushed tomato (or a tablespoon of paste), and a ton of fresh sweet paprika, 2-3 tablespoons.* Pour in enough chicken stock** to cover the gizzards, cover the pan, and let it simmer for about three hours, until the meat is tender. Undercooked gizzards are unpleasantly squeaky on the tooth. If you trimmed the gizzards, they may only take an hour or so to cook.

If the dish seems too liquid (soupy, not stewy), remove the lid and let it boil down for a bit. When it's done cooking, add a couple of cloves of finely minced garlic and turn off the heat. Swirl in sour cream or creme fraiche to taste -- at least half a cup. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Paprikash is traditionally served over little egg noodles (tojásos tészta). As you can see in the picture above, I sometimes enjoy it on potatoes.

You can also use this recipe to make straight-up chicken paprikash. Break a small young chicken down into drumsticks, thighs, wings and breasts. It will only need 45 minutes or so of cooking time, and you can let the chicken pieces make their own stock as they cook. Add the breasts towards the end of the cooking time so they don't get overdone. Old stewing birds will take about three hours, just like the gizzards.

*About the paprika: it really needs to be good if you're not just sprinkling it on deviled eggs for pretty. Fresh means less than a year old. Sweet means it's made from sweet peppers, not spicy ones. It's hard to find non-sweet paprika in the United States, so you probably don't need to worry about it.

**You probably expect me to say "or water" here. But I won't do it. If you were making a custard that called for milk, would you use water instead? Only a very slight exaggeration. Vegetable stock also doesn't work. Neither does most of the "chicken broth" you can buy in stores. Unless the stock is made from bones and tendons, there will not be gelatin in it, and gelatin is necessary for that silky feeling on your lips. And that silky feeling on your lips is necessary for happiness. Okay, fine, you can use water if you're really in a pinch, but don't make a habit of it. Also, if you've gone to the trouble of tracking down chicken gizzards, you're probably in close proximity to some chicken backs or feet, too. Just simmer them for a few hours before you make supper.

How to Make a Wedding Dress, Part One

When I was about four, I saw that dainty ladies pinched their skirts up and walked with pointed toes (probably in a book, because all the women I knew wore plaid and denim). I knew I should be just as dainty as these storybook ladies. Daintier, even! I lifted my skirts as high as I could and pranced around like the queen of daintiness, until my mother told me I wasn't allowed to wear skirts to church if I flashed everyone.

When I was about seven, I vowed that I would never, ever, ever wear jeans. Denim was entirely too uncomfortable, stiff, and modern. I preferred calico dresses, with buttons down the front. "I will not even wear jeans when I am a TEENAGER," I said. I pretty much held to it, wearing long flowing skirts all through high school and the first year of college, up until that day I cut off all my hair.

This is my wedding dress design problem, see. I have too long a history with fantastic dress-ups. I know how to sew a wizard's cloak, how to turn thrift-store negligees into fairy gowns and spiderwitch tatters, how to cut a cardboard sword from the Arabian Nights. I'm getting married; I can't screw it up now. All my younger selves are standing in a dainty row, waiting to see their dreams fully realized in my wedding dress. So I lay awake at night, thinking about sashes and gores and trims and petticoats, and wondering what Mlirriiken the Wizardess would wear to her wedding. And what would you wear to a pirate wedding on the Purple Island? Or hell, to the polyandrous weddings in Midderwynn? These are ponderous, ponderous questions! I tossed and turned.

I thought about buying a wedding dress. There are all kinds of professional magical seamsters, on Etsy and elsewhere, who spin gossamer gowns out of seashells and hickory nuts. They could certainly do a better job than I. I thought about embarking on the most epic thrift-store-scouring mission in the history of used clothing. Wouldn't scavenged laces and ruffles be fun, and cheaper than sewing?

But that line of dainty young selves shook their heads. When would I ever again have the chance to make a dress entirely out of my dreams?

On a flight home, I filled a sketchbook with drawings. The businessmen on either side of me must have thought I was some kind of overgrown eight-year old, hurriedly filling pages with sketches of nearly identical dresses. With my imagination finally loosed, the possibilities and abstractions drove me crazy. I have designed skirts before, and designed fitted bodices before, and made dresses from patterns before. But designing a whole dress required entirely too many choices -- and I knew my vision needed to crystallize before I could set to with my scissors and pins.

Also, you know how hard it is to make a flat map of a round earth? HA. Spheres are EASY. They are so predictable. Mapping a body is the real challenge.

In part two: how to actually make a pattern, instead of just talking about it.

Ring-Making Recipe

Lately, I've been thinking of white wool and green silk almost as much as I've been thinking of eggnog and avocados. There's a lot to be done when you get engaged! And of course I want to make marrying-time as fun and arduous as possible, so here I am, revving up the sewing machine and finding my anvil.

Actually, I was prepared for these rings to be a lot more difficult than they were. My father helped expedite the process, sending me home with a full ring-making kit. I find that assembling my materials and tools is the hardest and least rewarding part of any project, so this was a great boon. The kit included: sandpaper in an array of fine grits, a cylindrical file, a small hammer, and two 1930's silver quarters that he mounted on bolts. Quarters newer than 1964 have copper cores.

The bolt gives you something to hang on to when you're hammering. The washers also give the quarter stability, so an errant hammer-stroke doesn't fatally warp the quarter.

For my anvil, I used one of the stones from my grain mill. Holding the bolt so the quarter was vertical, I tapped the edge of the quarter, turning it between taps to avoid making flat spots. I did that for half a day. The rim of the quarter widened as it flattened, and the diameter of the quarter shrunk. When it reached the predetermined size of W. Crawford's finger, I took it off the bolt.

I started using the narrow file in the bolt-hole. Silver dust was flying! Then I wrapped a slightly wider metal cylinder in medium-grit sandpaper and removed the rest of the middle. At that point, you could no longer tell it had once been a quarter.

The rest was just sanding. The ring fit W. Crawford perfectly, and he promptly went to work making one for me, of daintier dimensions.

Also, it's only illegal to destroy coins if you plan on reusing them as currency.

Buttermilk-Soaked Buckwheat Pancakes

I never, ever vary my breakfast routine. I get up at dawn and putter about for a few minutes until my hunger wakes up. Then I move with a swiftness. I heat the skillet, toast a slice of homemade bread, and circle back to the skillet to crack in two eggs. The eggs barely make contact with the pan. (Over-easy is the term, but we called them "gook-out" when we were young.) Then the toast pops, and the butter drips down through its chewy holes, and I tuck in. Once my hunger wakes up it's a growling beast.

After dipping my toast in the warm yolks and sliding the whites through the dripped-down melted butter, I can more leisurely turn my attention to things like sauerkraut and tea. It's a splendid breakfast, so splendid that when I make fancy breakfasts for other folks, I still make myself eggs and toast.

Indeed, I never, ever vary my breakfast routine. Except for yesterday. And today. The folks at the farmer's market didn't bring eggs on Wednesday, being too busy with tomatoes. I am such a snob that I just can't tolerate the sight of ordinary commercial eggs anymore, not even the expensive organic omega-3 faux-family-farm eggs. They look flaccid and mucilaginous, not at all muscular and perky and bright like real eggs.

So I went back to an old recipe I was saving for the dark of the year when real hens cease to lay. It's a recipe that was outdated before it was published a century ago. Helen Marsden, the endearingly nostalgic author, bemoans modern methods and the modern fear of inconvenience. But back then, "modern methods" meant baking powder instead of soda. And "inconvenience" was taking the time to soak your batter overnight. These days, breakfast itself is the great inconvenience.

Take heart, though! She assures us that "the setting overnight ... is in fact a very simple and convenient process, consuming only a few minutes and doing its leavening work in accordance with nature's chemistry during the long hours of the night."

It turns out that nature's chemistry is delicious, and truly easy. There's nothing in our modern repertoire quite like these buckwheat cakes. You know the spongey sour Ethiopian flatbread, injera? The cakes are spongey like that, but more delicate on account of the milk, and not sour. Like a cross between crepes and injera. They're tiny little chewy toothsome morsels. She calls it "light nothingness." Yes, that's true, but they're also satisfying -- they fill you up without the midmorning pancake crash. I ate a dozen and they kept me humming till lunch.

Real Buckwheat Cakes

This recipe makes enough pancakes for two hungry people, with maybe a few left over for a third person who generally prefers coffee to breakfast.

The night before, put two cups of buckwheat flour in a large bowl with a cup of sour milk (buttermilk, kefir, whey, or clabber), and a cup of water. Whisk until all the lumps are gone. Add a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of molasses, and whisk in. I think Marsden assumes you're using toasted buckwheat flour (the grey-colored kind, readily available), but I usually prefer freshly ground untoasted buckwheat groats.

Put a tea towel over the bowl, a plate on top to hold it on, and a thick dish towel over the whole thing. Set it somewhere warm. I put it directly on my stovetop over the hot spot from the pilot light. A radiator would also work. It shouldn't be so hot that it hurts to touch -- that would kill the fermenting bacteria.

In the morning, heat a cast iron skillet over a medium-high flame. Don't let it smoke. Add a teaspoon of baking soda to the batter, and whisk it in until it's all bubbly and evenly distributed.

Grease the skillet well (use ghee, lard, or bacon fat -- or butter, if you're careful not to burn it). Marsden says to use a "cooking-spoonful" of batter for each cake. It's not a lot. These are little guys. Put four or five in the skillet.

Flip them when they have bubbles in the middle. Remove when they're brown on the bottom and re-grease the skillet before you put the next round in.

Serve hot with gravy or butter. Or syrup, if you must, but I warned you about the pancake crash.

Hint

Helen Marsden recommends an innovative pan-greasing device: a piece of fat pork stuck on the end of a fork. I suppose I could keep it handy in a little jar on the back of my stove; no more running around for the butter knife between pancakes. In fact, I could even use the fat-pork fork for my ova over-easy.

Hollandaise

Hollandaise! It's mayonnaise, but with butter. Do you know why that makes it hollandaise? Because in Holland they fry their bacon in butter. Yes, and it's delicious. The only confusing part is why I never made hollandaise until today. And that confusing part is also an embarrassing part -- hollandaise is one of the Mother Sauces!

But at lunch today, hollandaise became a simply ineluctable condiment. I was making a salad, and realized that I wanted some butter. Sadly, there was nothing to spread it on, since I had just run out of bread and wouldn't be baking till tomorrow. And then I knew what I had to do: dress the salad with butter, of course. The time had come for hollandaise.

I went straight to the stove and made it. I didn't stop to look in a cookbook or ask the Internet. My conviction was complete, and left no room for doubts or hesitations. I cracked the egg, I melted the butter, I beat it. A pinch of salt, a splash of vinegar. In less than five minutes, I returned to my salad, and poured over it a glossy golden ribbon of sauce, and became a whole woman again. I can still feel it, shining inside me.

Hollandaise

Gently melt 3-4 tablespoons of butter in a small pan. Turn it off as soon as it is melted. For the hollandaise to be really sunny, use butter from grassfed cows.

Separate an egg (and fry the white; why not?). Put the yolk in a small jar or bowl and beat it well. For the hollandaise to be even more sunny and golden, use an egg from a pastured hen.

Pour in one drop of the melted butter. Beat it thoroughly, so that the butter is completely incorporated into a creamy, shiny emulsion. Repeat until you've added all the butter. (Towards the end you can add the butter in larger quantities, but don't stop beating until it's all smooth.)

Add some salt and a little apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. I think lemon juice is the preferred thing, but I didn't have any lemons today.

Note: this dressed one large serving of arugula-apple salad.

Also, now I'm beginning to doubt myself. Surely I've made hollandaise before today? In a little way, for a last minute supper? For crepes at breakfast? I'll ask W. Crawford. I make him eat so many things, and they just float away without recipes to weight them down. Or maybe I dreamt about making hollandaise. That's just as likely.

OH MY GOODNESS! I just had an idea. Hollandaise in Waldorf salad. No, better: browned butter hollandaise in Waldorf salad.

Purple Sauerkraut

At the farmer's market yesterday, there weren't any green cabbages, just purples, so I loaded three large ones onto my bike and pedaled away. I pedaled remarkably slowly, though, because I'd also strapped two dozen eggs to the rear rack, and every time I went over a bump all twenty-four eggs made a threatening rattle. By the time I got home, I'd imagined about twenty-four terrible ways my eggs could break, leaving me lump-throated in the middle of the street with eggwhites dripping down my cold, bare knees.

Ordinarily, I'd put everything into my pannier, where it would be somewhat cushioned from the bumps, and I could ride away swiftly. But I'd thought the market would be closed by the time I got off work, so I'd left my pannier at home. I'd also thought the sun would still be shining, and the air temperature would be within ten degrees of the temperature when I left the house. But San Francisco reverted, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of Fog moved upon the face of the waters. And the hem of my gown was above my knees.

Happily, the fog drove everyone away from the farmer's market, which meant that there were still eggs by the time I arrived! Along with many, many purple cabbages.

Most purple sauerkraut is treated specially, fermented with vinegar and spices (there is exactly such a recipe in The Lost Art of Real Cooking, in fact). But today I am just making plain sauerkraut and happening to use purple cabbage instead of green.

Purple Sauerkraut

Take three large heads of purple cabbage, rinse them, and peel off the outer leaves until you get to the shiny part. Quarter one of the heads and cut out the core. Slice each quarter into fine slivers and put them in a large bowl.

Add a tablespoon of sea salt and knead-squeeze-punch the cabbage vigorously until it breaks down and forms juice. Dump the kneaded cabbage and its juice into a one-gallon crock. Repeat with the remaining cabbages, using a total of 3-4 tablespoons of salt.

When all the cabbage is chopped and kneaded and put in the crock, press down on the chopped cabbage to submerge it beneath the juice. Clean the sides of the crock of any stray pieces of cabbage (cabbage exposed to the air will mold), and find a plate that just barely fits down inside the crock. A large jar might also work.

Put the plate upside-down directly on the surface of the cabbage, and press down on it to bring the juice up. Set a weight on top of the plate -- a jar full of water will work. Cover with a cloth and secure it with a rubber band. Set it somewhere warmish and out of the way, and check on it from time to time. Depending on the temperature, the kraut may be ready in just a few days, or it may take a couple of weeks. When it smells delicious and tangy, repack it into jars and put it in the fridge. Once it's fermented and refrigerated, you don't need to worry about it molding on top. You can eat it right away, or age it for a month or more in the fridge.

The color of the kraut will fade as it ferments, becoming more pink than purple. The purple will also eventually fade from your fingernails.

Beer Braised Lamb

Do you find that you only talk about recipes you hardly ever make? This is the third time this month that we're having beer braised lamb, and yet, all I've talked about are things like doughnuts that I eat about twice in three years.

The weather certainly has something to do with how frequently I put bony chunks of meat in a pot and simmer them all afternoon. I'm wearing sweaters and cats, see. The rest of you who are eating salad and peach ice cream can just save this recipe till your winter comes along.

You can use any properly bony cut of lamb for this dish, which is why it's economical. Things I have tried that work well: lamb neck pieces, lamb ribs, miscellaneous "bone-in stewing lamb," and lamb shanks. Shanks tend to be a bit spendier and frankly I don't know why, when lamb ribs are so much more unctuous.

Beer Braised Lamb

This recipe feeds two people with the possibility of some leftovers.

Take a pound of bony lamb, rinse it, and put it in a large heavy pot. Add a couple of sprigs of rosemary, a roughly chopped onion, plenty of salt and pepper, and the better part of a bottle of strong, sweet beer.

Cover and bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer at least four hours. During the last hour or so, check the level of liquid in the pot. If it's still deep and thin, let it simmer uncovered for a while. As the beer reduces, it will thicken and caramelize into an unctuous sauce. Yeah, I like that unct.

Note: if you double this recipe, don't double the beer! More meat in the pot will make the liquid level higher anyway, and if you add more beer it won't reduce and caramelize in time.