Pat’s Meat Market

For corned beef, cook it low and slow and serve with the flakiest biscuits

March 16, 2016 / / Baking & Desserts, Mains, Recipes

There’s no secret formula to preparing corned beef except this one caveat: buy the best.  Unless you’re going to cure your own slab of brisket into a “corned” beef, buy from the expert butchers who do it up every year.

I could have gone to any one of the purveyors who brine their own beef like Pat’s Meat Market, Rosemont, The Farm Stand and Bisson’s ( 116 Meadow Rd., Topsham, 207-725-7215).  Whole Foods also has several brands of commercial grade corned beef, and if you’re bent on paying up for it you might as well get it there at a few dollars more per pound.  The cured brisket from Bisson’s was $6.99 per pound.

Since this is a work in progress, here is the corned beef (from Bisson's) that I will make tomorrow

Since this is a work in progress, here is the uncooked corned beef (from Bisson’s) that I will make tomorrow

Since I was at Bisson’s last Saturday I picked up my cured beef there, which comes straight from their brining barrels.  It’s available throughout the year well wrapped and ready in their meat case next to the bacon, hams and other smoked cuts of meat.

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Firm Family Favorite: Country-Style Ribs

February 17, 2016 / / Uncategorized

The success rate of recipes from newspaper food sections, magazines and the internet don’t have a high success rate of enjoyment or deliciousness. Still, I clip many from the New York Times, which are generally reliable and occasionally keepers. Though I’m rarely seduced by recipes in our Portland Press Herald food page, which is more of a food section containing wire copy recipes than those that are home grown.  But I do look forward to the Saturday food section of the Wall Street Journal in the section called “Off-Duty,”which features articles on food, lifestyle, travel, cars and fashion.  It’s the food features especially that tantalize–and one recipe in particular that I have made was so good it’s become a firm family favorite.  (The overall section, however, is more like a fantasy sheet advising where to buy six-figure cars to items of clothing and accessories that cost thousands.)

The adapted recipe  is a robust preparation for country style pork ribs that are marinated in a spice rub overnight and slow-roasted in the oven for several hours.  It hails from chef Damon Menapace of the Philadelphia restaurant Kensington Quarters.  The restaurant is part of a butcher shop that practices whole animal butchery from local farms.  The adjacent restaurant is highly regarded by Philadelphians.  Click here for the link to the food feature.

Slow roasted spice rubbed ribs served with a puree of celery root and potato and sauteed spinach

Slow roasted spice rubbed ribs served with a puree of celery root and potato and sauteed spinach

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As American as the classic beef stew

February 10, 2016 / / Uncategorized

If you choose wisely, there’s a wealth of information on the internet for the home cook searching for recipes or ideas.  I refer to it all the time.  Several of my favorite sites include Food 52, Chef Steps and Serious Eats.  Their recipes are fully tested to be virtually foolproof, and at Chef Steps they offer instructional videos that are extremely helpful.

One that caught my attention recently was the recipe for beef stew from Serious Eats. It turned out to be the essence of heartiness, a perfect beef stew.   Several components, however, of the dish are unusual—certainly different from the typical methods used for this simple preparation.

All-American Beef Stew adapted from Serious Eats

All-American Beef Stew adapted from Serious Eats

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Family style from yesteryear: Lowry salt, cube steak and classic macaroni and cheese with an exotic dish of roast carrots

February 3, 2016 / / Uncategorized

Classic macaroni and cheese (not mac & cheese, please), Ritz crackers, Lowry seasoned salt, cube steak, Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, these and many more are the dishes and main ingredients that I’ve re-introduced to my repertoire of simple home cooking.  They were the standard bearers in American kitchens in the last half of the prior century before we became enlightened to cook local without using processed foods.

Classics from yesteryear still easily found today: Ritz crackers, Lowry salt, Campbell's soup and butcher's cut cube steak

Classics from yesteryear still easily found today: Ritz crackers, Lowry salt, Campbell’s soup and butcher’s cut cube steak

But if you look at regional cookbooks focusing on country cooking you encounter lots of calls for canned soup popularized by Campbell’s or cracker crumbs of all kinds mostly Keebler saltines or Ritz crackers that fill meatloaf mixtures and handy-dandy casseroles.  While I haven’t thrown out my whisk to whip up classic sauces, I’ll use those canned soups occasionally as the base for a hearty casserole.   There’s a baked haddock dish, for instance, that I make with Campbell’s cream of shrimp soup mixed with milk or cream, topped with Cheddar and crushed Ritz or saltine crackers moistened with melted butter.  It’s delicious.  Could I prepare a version of the soup from scratch?  Of course, after hours spent making it.

It’s a dichotomy, I know, for someone such as myself who makes his own ice cream rather than buying store bought. I don’t even use canned stocks.  Even in a pinch since I always have the homemade brew on hand either in my freezer or easily assemble the few ingredients (wings and aromatics) for a quick stock that’s ready in less than an hour.

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Pork Cheeks, bourbon, ham and veal stock: navigating the territory of new cuts of meat made into a glorious dish

December 16, 2015 / / Baking & Desserts, Mains, Recipes

Pork cheeks are one of those cuts of meats gaining popularity with the growth of nose-to-tail butchery.  We have some excellent sources locally at such butcher shops as Rosemont, The Farm Stand, Maine MEat and Bleecker and Flam who get in whole animals that are carved onsite.

You’ll find recipes for these novel cuts in the new crop of cookbooks being written mostly by innovative restaurant chefs who either slaughter the animals for use in their kitchens or rely on local farms and producers who offer these esoteric finds.

For a Saturday night dinner party at home last weekend I labored through a fairly complicated menu that revolved around my stash of pork cheeks based on recipes from John Currence in his book “Pickles, Pigs and Whisky.”  He’s a James Beard award winner and has a group of restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi (see review).

Braised pork cheeks in bourbon veal and ham stock reduction over Anson Mills grits bourbon

Braised pork cheeks in bourbon, veal and ham stock reduction over Anson Mills grits

I say “stash” because they’re not in plentiful supply at the shops because a pig, after all, has only two cheeks.  And unless the butcher is cutting up several animals in the same week you need to order in advance.  For 6 people I needed 12 checks (about two pounds), which meant that the butcher needed to work on 6 carcasses.

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The infinite pleasures of classic meatloaf, a comfort-food favorite

December 9, 2015 / / Recipes

In the great wide world of comfort food, classic meatloaf is most everyone’s favorite dish.  Of course one’s idea of what constitutes the perfect recipe is open to interpretation.  I’m always on the lookout for tasty if not different takes on the dish. My mother, who was rarely inspired in the kitchen, was determined to make great meatloaf.  She dried every kind that came along.  One misguided attempt was made with bread soaked in milk and added to the beef mixture; the loaf was baked in an early version of a tabletop rotisserie.  It was awful! As a family we went out to eat often.

Classic meatloaf in tomato glaze

Classic meatloaf in tomato glaze

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Briefly noted: Does the Treehouse live up to its stone-cold stunner status Or is this restaurant the same as it’s always been?

November 13, 2015 / / Restaurants

Not every restaurant has to be cutting-edge to satisfy. But what makes a restaurant a “Stone Cold  Stunner” was my first thought when I read a recent Eater Maine post featuring the best restaurants of 2015 in various categories?  The way it works is that Eater selects the nominees and then asks readers to rate their picks.  Other categories include Hottest Restaurant, Best Chef, etcetera and etcetera.

In the category Stone Cold Stunner a very curious entry caught my attention. “Eating at the Treehouse really does feel like dining inside a giant, magical treehouse,” it said.

The bar room at The Treehouse

The bar room at The Treehouse

Huh?  What’s the Treehouse?  I must have missed this one in our great world of fine dining in Portland.  After looking at some of the posted photos I realized this was the former Pat’s Café, the local favorite and long-running eatery ( though intermittently closing and reopening numerous times) along the little food world of Steven’s Avenue (Siano’s Pizzeria and Pat’s Meat Market)  otherwise dominated by Deering High School and the Sisters of Mercy convent.

Still, there are so many new restaurants that are now part of our dining universe that could have—and should have–been nominated.  The rarefied rooms of Tempo Dulu come to mind as does the swath of urbane sizzle perfected by Union at The Press Hotel.  At least Evo—truly a stone cold stunner—is at this writing the front runner.

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Where’s the beef? The glorious cuts for the perfect roast beef and the master butchers who make the cut

October 7, 2015 / / Mains, Recipes

Nowadays the new popularity of the classic neighborhood butcher shop offers a vital methodology of quality that can include locally farm-raised meats.  And such catchall phrases as natural, grass-fed, pastured, organic, sustainably raised farm meats are part of the vocabulary.

The sirloin roast from Bisson's

The sirloin roast from Bisson’s

Throughout Maine the tradition of butcher shops has remained fairly constant abetted by the strength of Maine’s farmers’ markets where farmers go to sell their bounty of farm-raised beef, lamb, poultry and pork.

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