5 Things That Should Be in Your Kitchen

#4 - Food Processor

Yes, they can be expensive. Yes, the potential number of available attachments threatens like baseball cards.

But a good food processor can do certain things that are time consuming when done by hand, which might otherwise be a deterrent.

Here's the thing: you can ignore almost all the attachments.

I use a garage sale special Cuisinart DLC-7, and I only own four attachments: the dough hook, the vegetable chopper, the grater and the metal blade. Of these, I only use the last two with any regularity.

I fear skinning my knuckles, so I would never shred potatoes or grate cheese if not for the Cuisinart. Those also take too long by hand, whereas the Cuisinart is like lightning. I'm not being a baby -- prep time is important if you're making a lot of dishes at once.

The metal blade can handle almost everything else: kneading bread and pasta dough, powdering chili pods, milling smoky tea for barbecue rubs, and pureeing anything.

One thing -- a Cuisinart is only mostly indestructible. Parts will break, so know your model and part numbers when cruising garage sales and the Goodwill.

5 Things That Should Be in Your Kitchen

#3: Bacon

Don't give me that "Noooo, it's greasy" crap: you love bacon.

If it will help, you can call it American Pancetta, because that's really all it is.

The great thing about bacon is its versatility. Not only can it be cooked to so many different outcomes (soft, medium, crisp, ultra-crisp), and used in so many different dishes (omelets, BLTs, burgers, salads, soups, appetizers -- the list is almost endless), even the leftover liquid fat has uses.

I usually cook up a half-dozen rashers every other week just to have them handy, and refrigerate them wrapped in Saran. The fat from the skillet should be poured into a metal container with a plastic lid and also kept in the fridge.

Then consider using a teaspoon or two of bacon fat when you ordinarily might use corn oil, olive oil or butter -- when browning chunks of beef or chicken, for example. Or massage some into a whole chicken, season and roast.

I like the Niman Ranch applewood-smoked natural bacon, which is raised using humane and sustainable methods. Most supermarkets stock it now, often on sale for under $6.

5 Things That Should Be in Your Kitchen

#2: Noilly Prat Vermouth

If you like to make Asian food, especially stir-fries, "sherry wine" is an ubiquitous ingredient in many cookbooks. The problem is that most people likely don't have sherry, and since it seems like a lot of trouble for something you drizzle around the sides of the wok when the dish is almost done, I think most of us just leave it out. I know I used to.

But once you do use sherry, the difference sans sherry is glaring, and you can't go back.

Don't buy expensive sherry. Since you're cooking with it, the alcohol boils off and the remaining essence mixes with the food. Thus 'quality' sherry is not required.

Instead, $7 will get you a bottle of Noilly Prat that could last you a decade. Vermouth is just sherry with more sugar, and gives dishes the same flavor.

Try Noilly Prat in Chinese meatloaf, or in a regular stir-fry. Only a half-capful needs to be added, as noted just drizzle it around the sides of the wok at the end, just before you combine all the ingredients. You won't be sorry.

5 Things That Should Be in Your Kitchen

#1: Toasted Flour


You know those times when you're trying to make a soup, gravy or sauce, and it turns out too thin? It's too late for the corn starch, a trick that works best before you add the water. Sure, you could try to mix some corn starch with a TINY bit of water, but there is a very high probability of a lump of unblended corn starch staring back at you from the pan. No one wants that.

Toasted flour is what you want in such situations, a teaspoon or two blends nicely into just about any hot liquid. Here's how to do it.

Tools:
A wok. I prefer the round-bottom kind.
A metal spatula, business end curved to match the curve of the wok

Ingredients:
White or unbleached flour

Procedure:

• Heat wok to almost-high.
• Put a quarter- to a third-cup of flour in the wok bottom. Sift through a wire strainer to remove lumps.
• After 30-45 seconds start scraping/stirring flour at 10-20 second intervals. Make sure you scrape/stir the flour off the bottom of the wok.
• Adjust heat as flour heats up; do not let it brown too fast or it will burn. Watch the edges of the pile of flour for browning.
  
• After a few minutes the flour will start to darken. Now scrape/stir continually.
• Flour is done when medium-golden. Dump it into a bowl and toast another batch.

After you think you have enough, let the flour cool. Store in an airtight container.

A word about Wondra. It is flour product that dissolves fast even if the liquid is cold; this is achieved by removing most of the protein and adding gelatin and some malted barley flour. This is all well and good, but I never need to thicken anything cold, and toasted flour achieves the same thing with ordinary flour. So if you have flour already, why spend another three bucks on Wondra?

The best use I've found for toasted flour is that it speeds up the creation of mac & cheese. No more trying to brown the flour-butter mixture for umpteen minutes! Just melt the butter, throw in some toasted flour, blend, and proceed with the cheesy goodness as you normally would.

Bye Bye, Black(faced) Sheep

Maintaining the natural environment can mean sacrifice.

Mont Saint Michel -- St. Michael's Mount in anglais -- is one of the coolest places in the world, a medieval abbey that to the eye seems to grow from a rock that juts out of the sand on the coast of France.

In the old days the Mount would be cut off from the mainland at high tide, the water even covering the road. It was a major destination for Christian pilgrims, who would take the road or a risky walk across the sand from the east at low tide. In the modern era a causeway was built, allowing tourist-bearing cars and buses to drive to the base of the Mount.

But the causeway hampers the tidal action, so over the years the Bay of Saint Michel (it's the mouth of the Couesnon River) has silted-in. This has created areas within the tidelands that are now rarely covered by the tide. These areas have become meadows.

Because the Mount is a UNESCO World Heritage site, as well as the #1 tourist attraction in France, a project is being planned to restore the bay and tidelands. The causeway will be replaced with a bridge that will allow water to flow underneath and get the natural flushing action going again.

Unfortunately this means we are going to say goodbye to a particular delicacy: the Bay of Saint Michel sheep.

The silt-meadows grow grass that is naturally salty due to the seawater. Shepherds graze sheep on it, and as a result the resulting lamb tastes naturally salty. This lamb -- agneau de pré salé -- has become a highly prized dining experience, and it's one we got to try recently.


Junk food has given salt a bad name. Fritos are salty. The flavor of Saint Michel lamb is saline.

The dining room of our hotel, the Montgomery (right), is said to be the best in Pontorson, the last town before the Mount. Nothing about our lamb rib chops gave cause to doubt the rep.

For starters, the saline flavor was more like the essence of sea air rather than saltwater -- closer to an herb than a mineral.

Second was the mild, delicate taste. It barely tasted like lamb, just enough to be able to tell what it was. Again, essence.

We ordered it medium, but agneau de pré salé is becoming rare. Because of the causeway replacement project the sheep farmers see the handwriting on the wall, and are getting out of the business. Supplies are shrinking, and prices are going up. One day, Mont Saint Michel's ecosystem will be restored, but the sheep, a happy accident of man's interference, will be elsewhere. Just regular-tasting sheep.

Where's the boeuf?

Charolais (shar-o-lay) -- a big, docile sweetheart of a white French cow -- is a slice (sorry) of heaven.

They are raised all over the world now, but the ones I saw recently were concentrated in Burgundy, and in the Loire bread basket -- hey, that's a pain panier!

The way they do charolais at La Ciboulette (Beaune) is, I am assured by a Francophile, in the traditional French country style

Ordered medium-rare, the unmarbled cut cooked up firm yet not even remotely tough. The texture was not unlike a high quality buffalo steak.

The flavor of charolais is earthy, remarkably like lamb. I would use the term gamey, but a lot of unadventurous eaters (yeah lamb-haters, I mean you) confuse that with liver-y, and I don't want to scare anyone off.

Market day in Beaune (video below)

Best of all is a thin sauce of lemon and cheese (possibly Epoisses, the signature Burgundian cheese) poured over the charolais. These are not overpowering flavors, even though Epoisses is known for a stinky aroma.* I suspect the heat of cooking moderates the lemon and cheesiness. If I were making it, I would use the sequence melted butter - cheese - lemon juice - skillet drippings. Maybe a little white wine.

Bon apetit.

Of course, you have to finish the meal with a Calvados. Purely to aid the digestion, of course.

Cute and yummy.

24 seconds at Beaune market day

* We later had a chance to sample some Epoisses, and its stinky reputation is undeserved. It has an aroma, but it is in no way unpleasant or overpowering. And it may be the most complexly flavored cheese you'll every try -- nutty, buttery, with a distinct undertone of lamb.

Tourists on the halfshell

Elliott's (Waterfront) is on Seattle's Pier 57, so I was expecting tourists. Which was fine. It was a nice day, so the tourists sat outside, while we locals sat in the distractions-free dining room.

Normally I don't order seafood in local restaurants, because I know what we discharge into nearby waters. But Elliott's menu didn't specify the origin of the Pan Fried Oysters, so I ordered them on the calculation that there were decent odds they wouldn't poison me.

They may have been pan-fried, but they were also breaded -- something the menu failed to mention. The result was a crunchy coating like a McNugget, totally unwelcome and covering up the flavor of the tender oyster. The accompanying two dipping sauces were average -- one a risky mix of Jack Daniels and hoisin with too much of the former, the other a bland tartar.

I forgot to bring my CSI kit, so I'll trust the chef on there being garlic in the garlic mashed potatoes. This unfortunate mass of starch arrived lukewarm, and looked like it had been plopped out of the plastic wrap in which it had no doubt been wrapped prior to being reheated. If Elliott's is going to do formed mashed potatoes, the least they can do is use a Jell-o mold. That would be cute, at least.

All I can say is: thank gawd for the fresh sourdough rolls with whipped butter.