Snoots

Over the last couple of weeks we have had several big meat processing days here on the Ranch with a couple of goats, a number of duck drakes and 4 plump mature rabbits slaughtered, butchered, processed for the freezer.  We try not to waste anything from these animals and enjoy many of the  "nasty bits" (tongues, hearts, livers, kidneys etc) from many species. 

Planning for the  use of these special "bits" reminded me of an unusual BBQ restaurant we encountered during a cross-country road trip 18 years ago where I finally ran into a nose-toe-tail menu that was more than I could handle.

ON THE FOOD ROUTE

Summer, 1993

"SNOOTS"

WARNING: The following account is a true story.  While it did take place in the real world, the participants were highly trained and experienced foodies in exceptional good health with extensive health insurance policies.  Please do not try this on your own without proper training and supervision.

The building we’d been directed to had definitely seen better days.  It looked like the kind of ramshackle waterfront shack one might glimpse through the dank mist on a dimly-lit night in an old mystery movie (in black and white, of course) - the kind of place where dark figures lurked in the shadows and serious trouble is thick in the air.  Except that there was no waterfront here.  It was mid-day in St. Louis; no one was lurking in the shadows and the only thing in the air was the smell of serious bar-be-que.

This particular culinary adventure began for us, as they often do, with the most innocent of circumstances.  We’d been forced by family obligations into making a long road trip from Arizona to Connecticut.  We’d done this trip before and had found that by pushing it, and taking the most “direct route”, we could make the 2500 mile journey in less than 3 days.  We’d also made the trip taking the “scenic route”, eschewing the interstate highway system, making lots of stops at “points of interest”, taking lots of pictures, and doing our leisure best to act like real tourists.  This time we had a new plan for plotting our itinerary.  We would develop “The Food Route”

Armed with the classic book “Road Food” by Michael and Jane Stern, food writers and restaurant reviewers of some repute, we planned a convoluted and circuitous route with the goal of eating at as many of their noteworthy regional food joints as we could manage.  We went as far as to plan out where we should try to spend the nights so that we could, theoretically, have dinner at classic crab shack, sleep a few hours, then be back on the road early enough to make it for breakfast to a diner in the next state which, they professed, served the best grits in the country.  The plan was shear, inspired, gluttonous, madness. 

During this epic journey, Kathryn, me and our two dogs, hit more than 12 rood food establishments featured in the book including a café in Hatch NM for their green chile breakfast, 2 back road dives in rural Kentucky for authentic burgoo, several rib shacks in Texas, an historic diner in Oklahoma City for their enormous “Biscuit Debris” breakfast, a BBQ/steak house in Kansas City MO - famous for their “Burnt Ends” and a gourmet ice cream parlor in southern CT for their renowned “Sweet Cream Ice Cream”. We ate and drove, and ate and drove some more, stopping at nearly every interesting looking hash joint, diner and BBQ hovel we came to – not just ones from the book.  We were on a mission.  Some of our meals were just plain bad, many were quite good, but one meal out of all the ones we had on the trip stood out as truly unforgettable.

The meal was at a place in St Louis called “C&K”.  The book described C&K as an authentic soul-food barbecue and suggested trying something called “Snoots” - an interesting-sounding BBQ’d dish featuring the nose of a hog. I’ve always been pretty adventuresome with my eating habits and pork is pretty much pork right? So, as soon as it was clear that our route would bring us close to “The Gateway City” at about lunch time, we knew we’d have to hunt down C&K and give it a try. 

After several wrong turns we found our target looking very much as described in the first paragraph above.  Not much more than a roadside stand left to wither in the foreboding ambiance of a quasi-industrial area and, most definitely, appearing to be on the "wrong side of the tracks".  The physical presence of C&K might have been daunting to some, but it didn’t really do much discourage us.  In previous years of scouring the country for good-eats, we had come to realize that the best and most authentic regional foods you can find are often well off the beaten touristy track, and are usually situated in the otherwise marginal areas of town. 

We arrived solidly at lunch time and were pleased to see the large number of older cars and trucks packed in around the place.  The door in was blocked by a huge black man’s back and as we peered around him as best as we could, we could see another two or three sets of black men’s shoulders ahead of him.  Just past all of them we could just make out the service counter.  Apparently this was a take-out-only establishment.  More bodies packed in behind us and the line out the door lengthened. It was the lunch rush.

The place was really humming.  Everybody else seemed to know each other and cheerful greetings were loudly tossed back and forth above the cacophonous background din.  As the line inched slowly ahead I strained to here what the locals were ordering and, to my relief, heard “Snoots” called out several times.  I guessed we must be at the right place, and indeed it seemed to be a popular item.

Finally it was our turn at the counter.  Glancing at the menu painted on a board over the over-worked looking woman’s head we saw listings for “Snoots”, “Tripe” and “Pig Ear Sandwich” in addition to the more typical "Ribs", Chicken", etc, along with a few of side dishes and beverages.

The counter woman looked at us rather curiously but having just re-read the paragraph in the book about the place and after having listened to the previous customer order I confidently called for “an order of Snoots and a Rib Sandwich” (Kathryn not being quite as adventuresome as I).  The woman’s curiosity seemingly turned to mirth as she crookedly smiled and she hollered our order back to the kitchen where we could see a flurry of black hands in motion building meals on thick paper plates.  We paid and within a few moments we had our two large, foil-wrapped packages, a couple of sodas and were elbowing our way out the door we'd just come in.

We’d already been driving way too much that day to consider eating in the truck so we picked out a bit of an embankment off the parking lot overlooking C&K, brought the dogs out to run a bit and settled down to explore our lunches.

I’ve mentioned that I’m pretty adventuresome about food.  With that comes a real effort to not have any pre-conceived notions about any new foods I’m about to try but I have to tell you I was not prepared for what I saw upon opening that package.  My surprise at the sight before me may have unfairly tainted my impression of the overall experience and biased my judgment against the meal as a whole.  Be that as it may, shock might be close to what I was feeling when I peeled off the foil from my already-sagging paper plate, lifted off the top piece of soft white bread (for apparently Snoots was served as a sandwich) and saw the better part of a pig’s face, still very recognizable beneath the thick red sauce, staring back up at me from the plate.

I kid you not, there were nose nostrils, chubby little cheeks and, I SWEAR I saw hair on his "chinny-chin-chin" . 

OK, I told myself, it can’t really be that bad... look again. 

Well I looked at it and, sure enough, it looked back at me. 

I'm sure that it is moments like these that are responsible for more than a few conversions to vegetarianism but despite now knowing what really happened to that  "little-piggy-who-went-to-market"; despite seeing  his face in comfortably repose in a bed of potato salad, pillowed on a slice of fluffy white bread, I was still determined to try it.  I mean, there were lots of other people ordering this very same menu item so there must be something truly special going for it (and it certainly wasn’t the presentation or esthetics).

So, I closed the top slice of bread back over the sandwich, trying to ignore the image of a doctor covering a deceased patient with a sheet that flashed through my mind, and using both hands, I raised the massive, drippy mound to my mouth and took a big bite. 

It was a doomed effort from the start.  As my teeth sank into the sandwich I felt the thick, crisp meat parts sliding away from my mouth.  The entire package disintegrated in my hands, falling back onto the paper plate with a great “thunk”, leaving me with a small mushy mouthful of Wonder bread, potato salad and a little sauce.

About this time I began to wonder if this wasn’t all some great trick on us out-of-town white folks by the people in the restaurant. Yes, paranoia was truly setting in.  Were all those seemingly nice people, even now, all clustered around the cracked and streaked windows, watching, pointing and laughing at us up on the hill?  Were they taking photographs for their secret back-wall rogues gallery?  Was this culinary monstrosity, now splattered in my lap, actually representative of the “Snoots” that the regulars got when they ordered it? 

Well, I tried my best with the meal.  Having given up on the sandwich idea I picked at the meaty portions that looked the least offensive to me.  In describing it I would call it a cross between chicherones (fried pork rinds) and tripe.  There was an interesting richness to the very dark meat, especially in the cheeks, that had some appeal.  On the other hand, I did not care for the crunch of the cartilage behind the nostrils and the over-all greasiness was a turn-off, as was the hair.  Having had animals around most of my life I know all about getting hair in my food and it doesn't really bother me.  Having hair growing out of my food is something else altogether.

Speaking of animals... after a while, having eaten all I cared to and having given up caring if the whole neighborhood was watching my reaction to the food, I started throwing pieces of snoot meat to our dogs (a big yellow lab and a black lab mutt), who had been patiently sitting and watching us eat.  Normally not allowed access to “people food” I expected them to jump at the opportunity and devour the offerings with the same gusto with which they demolish the roasted pig ear treats we would buy for them at pet stores from time to time.  To our surprise, they wouldn’t even touch the morsels, only licking off some of the potato salad from the pieces I'd tossed them.

Accepting their judgment as the final straw, I wrapped up the rest ,tossed it in the trash, and off we went... back on the road toward our next culinary adventure.

In the years since and with the advent of the internet I have since checked in on C&K from time to time.  They still serve up a full BBQ menu (including snoots) to rave reviews.  To this day I don’t know if those were the best snoots on the planet, but just not to my taste, or something considerably less.

My sister has a theory about food and eating that goes something like "If you've had the herring in Denmark and didn't like it, face the fact that you just don't like herring".  I guess I'm going to have to say that I just don't like snoots. 

Butchering Rabbits

We used to raise rabbits for meat here on the ranch.  Once we overcame our initial start-up difficulties and converted to a "colony-style" system of raising them we ended up being so successful with them that we soon got overwhelmed.  The expression "breeding like rabbits" is more than just a cute saying.  We were butchering out 20-30 rabbits a month from just 4 breeding does and one buck.  It was crazy.  How much rabbit can 2 people eat? A lot, it turns out (especially once you run out of freezer space!).

Doomed by success, we soon got weary of the whole thing and sold off the breeding stock, getting out of rabbits all together.  That was almost 10 years ago.

It took a few years but we eventually came to miss fresh rabbit meat.  Not long ago we made friends with a very nice couple who live a few miles from us who raised rabbits to sell so, from time to time, we again had the opportunity to eat rabbit.  A few weeks ago they told us they too were getting out of the rabbit business and asked if we wanted a few of their older breeding does to butcher.  We worked out a trade: four rabbits for a couple of goat wethers and a duck drake.

The does were beautifully healthy, well-kept and quite large.  We put them in an enclosed area of the chicken coop we usually use for chick brooding for a few days until we could make time for a butchering day.  Butchering rabbits is a little different than poultry and quite different than butchering larger animals so here's a brief, fairly complete (ie graphic) photo essay on the subject.  Kathryn and I work as a team on this.  We are very efficient and and it goes very fast.

Fetch the Rabbit

 

Stun/Kill the rabbit with a quick, decisive blow to the back of the head

 

Remove head and allow the rabbit to bleed out fully

Skinning #1

Skinning #2

 

Skinning #3

Skinning #4

Gutting (do not puncture the innards!)

The Good Stuff (heart, kidneys, liver (bile duct still needs to be removed)

Cut up into sections: 2 leg/thighs, 2 front "quarters", 1 loin per rabbit

Pan o' rabbit parts, ready for frying/stewing etc.

Fresh Tomato-Herb Soup

One morning's harvest

It's only mid June and we are, already, experiencing an over-abundance of tomatoes... and these babies aren't even from the garden but from the few plants still going in the greenhouse!

Despite some recent strong opinions to the contrary on one culinary chat site (here: Acceptable uses of home grown tomatoes) I'd rather use my tomatoes by any means while they are fresh and at their peak rather than hang on to them in hopes that I will somehow be able to eat all of them, simply sprinkled with a little sea salt, before they go bad.  A fresh tomato-herb soup is as a good a utilizer as I know.

I usually start by cooking a bunch of tomatoes in a little butter until the juices have reduced by about 1/2.  As a variation I will sometimes first roast the tomatoes until the skins are black  for a deeper color and different flavor to the end product. Once well-reduced, I puree the tomatoes in a food processor and strain out the seeds and skin, pressing well on the pulp to extract every drop possible. 

This goes into a sauce pan and is thinned with milk (goat's milk in this case) to get the flavor concentration I am looking for.  I bring this to a boil and thicken slightly with a blond roux, adjust the seasonings (mostly salt and lots of ground pepper), and add some chopped fresh herbs.  Basil is an obvious choice but chives, thyme  and/or summer savory are all fine additions.

We like our Fresh Tomato-Herb soup served with a few toasted bread croutons tossed in for a contrasting/complementing texture.

Chicken Pot Pie

Tonight's dinner was Chicken Pot Pie and it really was "as easy as pie".

A couple of days ago I thawed a package of 4 each skinless chicken legs and thighs (from our own ranch-raised and butchered Cornish-Rock cross birds) and poached them until tender in a well-seasoned chicken stock. When done, I took them out of the stock to cool, strained the stock and got it chilled.  When the meat was cool enough to work with I carefully separated it from the bones, cartilage  and sinew and chilled it too.

Today I peeled and cut up about 6 carrots, an onion, 5 celery ribs and a dozen medium- large mushrooms and poached them all in the reserved chicken stock until almost tender.  While they cooked I picked over the chicken meat once more and cut it into small bite-sized pieces.

When done, I removed the vegetables from the stock then thickened the stock with a blonde roux, adding a little chopped parsley, leaf thyme, ground black pepper and adjusting the salt.  When thickened sufficiently I added back in the veggies and chicken and brought, once more, to a light boil then removed it from the stove.

While the veggies and stock were cooking I made a rich lard pie dough.  My recipe is:

Rich Lard Pie Dough

4 cups flour

2 tsp salt

12 oz cool, firm lard (home rendered as in my case is best)

4 oz water

1 egg

1 TBS red wine vinegar

Method

1. Combine the flour and salt well.

2. Cut in the lard lightly (I used the paddle on a tabletop mixer with a VERY light touch).

3. Combine the water, egg and vinegar well then add all at once to the flour mixture and combine just until the mixture holds together.

4. Turn out of the bowl and mix lightly with your finger tips to moisten any dry bits, wrap and let rest for at least 15 minutes. Can be refrigerated at this point but I prefer to  work with it at room temperature.

 .....................................................................

One of the people I was cooking for has bad food allergies to legumes so I ended up making two pot pies.  I removed about 1/3 of the chicken mix to an 8"x2" cake pan then added frozen peas to the remainder, heated it through again, and then moved it into a 10'x2" cake pan.

I then rolled out the dough for lids for the two pies (make them a bit bigger then necessary so you have enough dough to make a nice fluted edge), put them on and cut a few steam vents.  I had some left-over dough so I also rolled out and cut a few decorative pieces for the pies (leaves and such), applied them and washed the whole tops with an egg yolk wash.

Just before dinner I baked the pot pies in a 375F convection oven for about 35 minutes until they were bubbling well and the crusts were done and nicely browned.

New Beef

It's been a while since my last entry.  Over a month, in fact (as has been pointed out to me by several followers - thank-you very much!). 

First our satellite internet service went down and we were without service for almost 2 weeks waiting for the repair guy to come out.  Our service is with WildBlue and I'm not shy about saying that their customer service sucks. That said, they are the best of a bunch of bad options for anything above dial-up internet in our extreme rural area.  When we learned how long we were going to be without service we immediately called WildBlue's biggest competitor in the area; Hughes Satellite.  They told us they could be out in 2 to 5 days so we signed up.  We've got a business we're trying to run here and email and web site work is an integral part of it. Well, their customer service is even worse than WildBlue's and, despite numerous calls to them and their designated installation company it was several days AFTER we finally got WildBlue service back that they finally called to set up an appointment to eventually come out. Arrgh. 

I also had several trips off-ranch, including one to Phoenix to ship and pick up a couple of goat kids and a trip to Kingman AZ ( 5 hours each way) to pick up a small goat herd that was being disbursed.  Some of the goats and almost all of the genetics came from our herd so we were happy to welcome them back to the Ranch.

Then my sister and her husband arrived for a visit from Philadelphia.  We've been having a great time with lots of food-related tales I'll review here soon.  They leave tomorrow.

But TODAY we had a new arrival on the Ranch that I didn't have to go anywhere to get.  A brand-new calf was born to our Belted Galloway cow Bertie.  This calf will be our beef for 2013 (talk about advanced meal planning).  At least we're hoping it will be our 2013 beef.  We have yet to determine the sex of the little cutie but we have our fingers crossed that it's a bull we can castrate to a steer.  If it's a girl (heifer), we'll probably have to sell her as we are not set up to keep her from getting bred too early, and by her father before it is time to butcher.

Calf gets a drink

Bertie and new calf (LGD Donna stands watch)

Bertie (mom), new calf, and Boone (dad)

      Anyway, Bertie calved with no problems at some point during the day despite it being very windy(sustained winds in the 20-30 mph range all day with gusts over 55 mph).  This is Bertie's 6th calf for us in as many years.  You gotta love those heritage breed animals: tough, thrifty, great mothers and fathers and all-around easy to manage. Oh yeah, and very, very tasty!

Ham and Beans

I finally had the chance last week to use one of the ham shanks I'd cured and smoked a few months ago.

We were entering a very busy stretch as we approached the grand finale of this year's  kidding season with 10 does expected to kid within 5 days.  This was, of course, on top of our regular milking, cheese-making and other ranch duties.  It was more than the two of us could handle well so we asked some people Kathryn had met while giving a talk to a 4-H group if they wanted to help out.

Both the mother and daughter wanted to help over the course of the week but each had various schedule conflicts during that time so it worked out that one would come for a few days, then the other would come for a few days then the other would come back again for the big finish.  They would be staying in our Bunkhouse overnight (as there is no telling at what time of day a goat is going to kid) and we'd be supplying meals etc.

We expected to be ridiculously busy even with their help so I wanted to have a number of easy, heat and eat meals ready to go. One of the meals would be based on a big pot of Ham and Beans that I could make up a few days in advance and then just re-heat to serve.  This use is perfect as Ham and Beans improves with a day or so of letting the flavors marry and meld after  it is first made.

The way I make Ham and Beans it can either be eaten like a thick stew or thinned down a bit for a soup.  I personally prefer the stew but either way it is a full and satisfying meal, especially accompanied by something like a pan of cornbread hot out of the oven.

Ham and Beans

1. Rinse, clean and soak 1 lb of dried small white beans in triple their volume (or more) of cold, clear water for at least 12 hours.

2. Drain and rinse the beans in fresh water then put in a pot and cover with about three times their volume of clear water.  Cover, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer.  Cook several hours until the beans are just tender but not soft or falling apart.

3. While the beans cook prepare about 4 cups of mirepoix, roughly equal parts of 1/4" diced carrots, onion, and celery.

4. When the beans are at the tender stage, add a smoked ham shank or two (depending on how meaty they are). Add more water to almost  cover the shank if necessary.

5. Simmer until the meat begins to loosen from the shank bones.  Add the mirepoix and continue cooking until the meat falls off the bones and the veggies are tender. Remove from heat.

6. Remove the shanks and meat from the stew.  

      When cool enough to work with remove all of the meat from the bones.  Pick through it carefully, removing all sinew, veins, cartilage etc, then cut the meat into 1/2" pieces. 

7. Skim any fat that has risen to the top of the stew.  Add the meat back to the stew and re-heat to eat or chill for later use.

Asparagus

'tis spring, 'tis spring

Da boyds is on da wing.

My woyd!

How absoyd!

I thought da wings was on da boyds!

(an old family rhyme, origin unknown)

It's spring on the Ranch.  This year, as usual, the arrival of spring ushered in our annual windy season. Wicked winds, gusty winds, sustained winds, sandstorm winds.  Very unpleasant indeed.  It makes outside work much more difficult and wreaks havoc in the gardens.

Not only do the wind storms make starting vegetable seeds and plants outside risky to the point of being a reckless gamble, the winds move so much sand around that even well-established perennial plants can have a rough time of it.  It is not unusual for me to have to take our tractor bucket loader and remove 24-30 inch-high "blow sand" dunes from the garden several times between March and June.

Other than the wind, the official arrival of spring (at least in my mind) is heralded by the almost-miraculous appearance of the first stalks of asparagus. They are miraculous from the usual point of view that it's like magic to see those beautiful sprouts pushing up through the cold, hard soil every year but also that they can further withstand the relentless assault of wind and sand and be so productive. 

One year I was not able to get into the garden for weeks after a bad sand storm.  Eventually I got to the asparagus bed and started digging it out, using a flat-bladed shovel. To my surprise, my first shovelful not only removed a bunch of sand but it also cleanly cut and exposed about a dozen gorgeous white asparagus stalks!  This, of course, is how this great culinary delicacy is intentionally grown... as the first shoots of asparagus begin to show through the ground they are covered up with a few inches of soil.  This is repeated every time the shoots begin to show until they are large enough for harvest.  Preventing exposure to sunlight keeps the chlorophyll from greening-up the plants and limited exposure to air keeps them very tender.  Anyway, that year we had a nice harvest of a truly special accidental vegetable crop.

Despite some wild winds this year, the asparagus bed has somehow remained pretty clear of sand.  Maybe my wind screens (both vegetative and manmade obstacles) are finally starting to work. For whatever reason, the asparagus are doing great!  Since our first harvest a few days ago we have had daily yields of from 12 to 30 beautiful, thick and tall spears and they have been on our plates for every dinner.

Today's asparagus harvest
(and some tomatoes from the greenhouse)

Our asparagus usually goes from the garden directly to dinner prep but if I need to store them for a short while I'll give them a quick rinse in very cold water, wrap a moist paper towel around the base end of the bundle then wrap the whole bundle lightly in plastic wrap, leaving the top end open for ventilation.  The asparagus will last in the fridge veggie drawer this way for a couple of days with very little loss of quality.

Pan-Roast Asparagus

My favorite way to prepare asparagus is a very simple pan-roast. 

First I wash them really well.  Even though the sands are not piling up on them it is certainly blowing around a lot and they - especially the convoluted little heads - need lots of running water to prevent gritty food. 

After washing I'll trim the bottom ends just enough to remove where the skin is a bit tough. If the skin seems to be tough up more than an inch I will sometimes peel the bases. I'll then wash the spears one more time.

Next I heat a little butter in a sauté pan over medium-high heat.  When it is hot I put in the spears (trying to keep them all oriented the same direction for ease of cooking and subsequent serving) and give them a good sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Shake the pan fairly frequently to make sure that all the the individual spears get even pan-contact time.  If there is a lot of disparity in spear sizes - not an unusual occurrence for home harvests, I may withhold the smaller ones and add them part way through cooking the larger spears.

Cooking only takes a few minutes and I like them best if a few get a tiny bit of pan browning started.  Avoid too much browning or risk them tasting bitter.

Pan-Roasted Asparagus

This is one of the easiest, fastest and best vegetables there is, made especially good with freshly home-harvested spears. I could eat pan-roast asparagus at every meal, year 'round but the season is short so I'll just enjoy it while I can.