tucking in

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Moka Express

In my quest to find a great replacement for my afternoon cup of coffee, having ditched the pod machines and spent a solid year tuning and enjoying my pour over game, Santa was kind enough to bring me a moka pot for Christmas this year.

And I’ve been having a great, well-caffeinated time learning to use it.

As I understand it, the moka pot is a bit old fashioned. Originating in Italy, it was a popular home brewing gadget after the Second World War but prior to the proliferation of the drip machine.

A three part contraption, the funnel-filter in the middle is filled with ground coffee and as the water boils in the bottom chamber it pressure-rises through and up, percolating and filling the upper chamber with espresso-like coffee.

The result is not a true espresso, though it’s close. An yet it’s much stronger than drip coffee.

I’ve been mixing hot-to-boiling water into mine at a ratio of roughly 1 part moka brew to 2 parts water, and the result is an almost-Americano-like drink that is full of flavour and body in a way that even my best drip coffee pour overs have trouble achieving.

About a scoop and a half of ground coffee fills the filter and less than ten minutes on my simmer burner has a steaming cup of better-than-average-joe in my mug and ready to fuel the afternoon office push of video meetings and budget plotting and government paperwork.

None of this is push button, but between my pour overs (which are cheap, fast, and simple) and my moka pot americanos (which are slower, use a bit more raw ingredients, but overall tastier) I think I’m narrowing in on some old fashioned solutions to a modern problem: single serve simple afternoon coffee for the work-from-home desk jockey.

At the end of the day, my whole scheme here is one of reducing the number of plastic, disposable pods I formerly used to create mediocre (and relatively expensive) afternoon cups. Pour overs and moka pots are about exploring something quick and easy in the coffee brewing effort.

And overall I’m rating this adventure quite high.

Also… the Coffee Singularity Has Arrived

I asked ChatGTP how to make coffee with a moka pot. Here’s it’s answer:

A Moka pot, also known as a stovetop espresso maker, is a simple and traditional way of making coffee. Here’s the basic process for using a Moka pot to make coffee:

  1. Fill the bottom chamber of the Moka pot with cold water, up to the level of the pressure valve.
  2. Add ground coffee to the metal filter basket in the middle chamber, tamping it down lightly.
  3. Assemble the Moka pot by placing the middle chamber with the coffee and filter basket on top of the bottom chamber with the water. Make sure the gasket and filter plate are properly in place.
  4. Place the Moka pot on the stovetop over medium heat. Do not use high heat or let the water boil.
  5. As the water in the bottom chamber heats up, it will begin to create pressure, forcing the water through the coffee and into the top chamber. Once the coffee has started to fill the top chamber, you can hear a gurgling noise, at this point you can remove it from the heat to prevent the coffee from getting burned.
  6. Once all the water has passed through the coffee, the pot will make a distinctive “hissing” sound, indicating that the coffee is ready. Carefully pour the coffee into cups, being careful not to burn yourself on the steam or hot metal.

Note that, Moka pot often extract a strong coffee with a bold, rich flavor and a thick crema on top. Also remember, to clean the pot after each use, to ensure that you’ll always get the best flavor out of your coffee.

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Scratch Soup

Regular readers may recall that following a hearty New Years Eve dinner with friends, I upcycled the leftover beef bones and made a big pot of new years stock.

Beef stock.

Yum.

…which, of course, can be used for all sorts of amazing things, and in particular homemade soup.

I make soup quite frequently, but claiming that I follow any sort of recipe is quite far from reality.

I tend to make scratch soup.

Soup. From scratch. From whatever.

For example, the scratch soup I made recently from my (also recently) made beef stock looked a little something like the photo below:

Scratch soup has a little of this. And a little of that. And a little of this other thing, cooked together into a lovely, luscious meal in a bowl.

For example, this bowl of scratch soup looked a little something like this:

a (kinda) recipe

2 cups beef stock
2 cups of water
1 tablespoon of flour
1 tablespoon of olive oil
handful leftover roast beef chunks
the leftover peas and carrots from dinner
a bit of leftover chopped onion
the remains of that bag of dried pasta
salt, pepper, and a squirt of hot sauce

Using up leftovers, scrounging bits of vegetables from the refrigerator, gauging spices, and adding bits that make texture and flavours and spicyness to what you and your culinary audience likes… this is what makes a good scratch soup.

Tomorrow’s soup might look a lot different. For example, I know we’ve got a half can of black beans, a partial bag of gnocchi and a leftover sausage in the fridge. Sounds good to me, but the day after that those same ingredients will be gone and I’ll be working with a new collection.

Scratch soup is whatever you make it.

Maybe you use leftovers.

Maybe you keep a few key ingredients handy or frozen nearby.

Maybe you go simple.

Maybe you love complexity.

Ultimately it’s your scratch, to itch with whatever you think would make a great soup.

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taking stock, making stock

New Years Day and it’s officially 2023.

We host a party every new years with our camping friends. We don’t camp on new years eve, but instead we cook a big meal in our warm house and then wander over to the park to skate or sled or (if they’re not cancelled like last night) watch the fireworks.

We play games. We talk. We drink and we cook a big meal.

We splurged last night and spent inflation-grade prices for a huge piece of beef prime rib that we cooked and carved and served.

Left over was a small stack of beef bones that I carefully shaved the best bits of meat off of and then promptly hid in a baggie at the back of the fridge. Gnawing on a big old bone would not be unheard of with our crowd, but I was saving these for my New Years Stock.

Recipe

beef bones and leftover trimmings
onion
garlic
carrots
parsley
celery
bay leaves
spices
water

In a big ol’stock pot, bring it all to a boil then let it simmer for as long as you can. Four hours, for hours, for ever. Ideally about five to ten hours of cooking renders all the beef tissues and pulls all the aromatics from the vegetables and turns leftovers into a golden-hued liquid that is amazing for all your upcoming cooking needs.

New Years is a time for taking stock.

We make resolutions to be better or do better or feel better.

I made stock, which was a kind of literal taking stock of some things about using up leftovers and cooking even more at home and thinking about flavours and ingredients and other foodie-type thoughts.

Not a bad way to end the old year, and an even better way to start the new one.

Happy New Year.

Posted on episode 1

Preconceptions of Eats

December 2 of 31 December-ish posts

I’ve been dabbling in making pizza as of late.

Except.

Except having just been in New York City and now having a trip to Chicago planned for later next year, defining what exactly kind of pizza in which I’ve been dabbling is not so clear.

Pizza is bread with stuff, right?

After watching a dozen videos online with titles something like “ranking styles of pizza” or “why is New York pizza better than Detroit pizza” my brain has been aflutter with the actual definition of the food I’ve been trying to create, let alone setting down a strict approach that would serve me for the long term.

I have this preconception of pizza, and it comes from the fact that I grew up eating a very specific variety of medium-crusted disc with a slab of various meaty toppings sluiced between a layer of sauce and a top layer of cheese. I also worked for a summer in a pizza chain (formerly) called ‘Panagopolous Pizza’ (but now and since rebranded to ‘Panago’ likely because they got tired of people trying to order Greek food, as what happened to us numerous times over that summer in the mid-90s.)

All that is to say: pizza, at least the mental picture of pizza in my head, is something very, very specific and yet, open to interpretation.

Who or what are you leaving behind in 2022?

Preconceptions of eats.

I mean, that’s the goal, at least.

I’ve been dabbling in pizza-making lately, and none of that pizza I’ve made recently fits neatly into my former preconceptions of what my mid-90s self would have considered pizza made so-called correctly.

Up until the aforementioned “lately” I’ve long strove to make good pizza at home. I added a cast iron pizza pan to my collection about five years ago, and that fourteen inch circle of seasoned iron was the latest (and one of the greatest) additions to my pizza-making toolkit. Amazing crusts, for one. But alas, still merely another kitchen gadget geared at my goal of matching that mental image of the perfect pie.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that approach.

Not that seeing the thing in your mind that you want to create and striving to replicate it is at all a bad approach. Arguably, it is the foundation of understanding and education. By many measures, it is the core of becoming better at that thing you are trying to get better at. Practice by immitation.

I can’t say we ever really managed it tho.

That is, I can’t say that trying to create the pizza that existed in my mind’s eye was a goal that I ever really reached. We made great dough and in the last year our sourdough crusts have been tasty and devine. We’ve dabbled in ingredients and cheeses and sauces and temperatures. The thing is that homemade pizza in a standard home oven probably cannot ever compete with what any local pizza joint can crank out every five minutes with high-heat pizza ovens. Our idealized pizza was restaurant pizza and I don’t live in a commercial kitchen.

Preconceptions fall hard.

New York pizza is a style of pizza that seems to be as much religion as it is culinary art form.

Sitting in a little shop a couple blocks from the 5th Avenue branch of the Public Library, I don’t know if we found the best pizza in NYC, but we certainly found a great example of it. Three burly guys-guys behind the counter asked us to pick our slice and then they heated it up in a big slot of an oven before serving it on a paper disc and a checkerboard sheet of parchment. We folded it in half and bit into it and sat facing out onto the sidewalk where folks strolled by.

I could almost certainly find a recipe for that, a million recipes for everyone else’s attempt to replicate that, but there is more to it than making the dough just right or finding a spice that fits the right New York jive to call what I created New York style pie. As much as sitting on a wobbly stool overlooking a bustling street with sirens wailing in the distance, I just don’t have the tools in my house to do what they do in that Big ol’ Apple.

So what’s my point? That I can’t make good pizza as I imagine it? That good New York style is out of reach? That probably the same barriers hold true for Chicago, Detroit, Neapolitan, whatever. Just why bother?

My point is that pizza is all of those things and more. Pizza is a set of tasty food whose definition is broader than the narrow subset of examples that I happen to hold in my own personal mind. Pizza is bigger than my preconceptions of pizza.

I’ve been dabbling in making pizza lately and it looks nothing like any other pizza that I’ve ever made.

There’s probably a style, a name, a geography that belongs to whatever the pizza I’m accidentally making now most closely resembles. I’ve been making pizza that works with the tools I own. And it’s turning out really well.

Thick, hearty crusts that more closely resemble focaccia than pizza crust. Salty cheese blends. Spicy thick tomato sauce that doesn’t turn watery in my lower-temp oven. Cured meats and pickled peppers and even more cheese mostly on top, but loose along the edges of the big cast iron frying pan in which I cook it. I cook it in stages. I cook it to a crusty, crunchy dark brown. I cook it so that those cheese bits fall down the edges and fry on the sides of the pan. I cook it until the meat is curling and the cheese is bubbling and the crust is crisp and cracks when you take a bite.

If I could go back to the mid-90s and serve it to myself I’d probably like it, but I may look sidelong at my time travelling doppelganger and tell him it wasn’t exactly pizza.

So, who or what are you leaving behind in 2022?

I’m officially leaving that guy behind. I mean, I think I left him behind a long time ago. But I’m leaving him behind for reals and for good, I think.

Pizza is more than what’s in my head. Just like bread or doughnuts or cookies or other kinds of amazing food that I’ve been striving in mediocrity to replicate precisely at the cost of actual good flavours. Preconceptions of eats have been holding me back, I think, and next year, both overthinking it and completely ignoring my own brain.

I’m going to try to change that. Not just for pizza, but for a lot of things. Bring on 2023.