Poverty Food

I get paid every two weeks. As soon as I get paid I go out and buy a liter of Hendricks Gin, bottles of decent wine, lobster tails, truffles, veal chops, whatever catches my fleeting fancy, for I owe it to myself to indulge myself, dammit. Half of my household budget is gone by Monday, the rest is spoken for, and I am imitating Mario Battali, living off of hooves and entrails, by the next week (I must give credit to Bourdain, who calls Battali and chefs like him "lips and hooves" chefs, those who love to take the most humble ingredients and create magic with them). So my life is a series of fortnightly cycles, veering between lobster, foie gras, and Veuve Cliquot, and the humblest of poverty food served with box wine.

So, today I am going to talk about my poverty food discoveries and inventions. Its getting harder and harder to economize, this much is for sure, as the Emeril-watching foodie masses (fucking johnny-come-lately bastards, I was here first, you fucks) have started snapping up all the veal shanks and skirt steaks and hangar steaks and who knows what else has been a bistro-comfort food fad lately. But there are still some neglected meats out there.

Lamb shanks. I can still get big old lamb shanks for $3 or $4 each, and one feeds two people, at least two people whose new years resolution was smaller portions. These are tough and ugly, filled with connective tissue and sinew, but when slow cooked, in a sorta mediterranean-morrocan style with beef stock, maybe some cumin, some tomatoes, garlic, onion, anise, beans, and something sweet, dried apricots, currants, even just raisins, and served with plain couscous, they are just to die.

Lamb ribs. These are a very odd item my grocery store throws out there every now and then, almost the entire rib section of a lamb, they look like a whole slab of pork spareribs, just smaller. These sell for about $0.99 a pound. They are very very fatty and rich and artery-clogging, but its possible to render them into a real treat, again it calls for long, slow cooking to coax out all the fat and leave only meltingly tender lamb. Genuine barbecue-smoking is best, but that would take hours and cost more in charcoal and hardwood chunks than a years supply of these things, so instead, a long, slow braise in the oven, in a tightly sealed pan with some kind of liquid, I am fond of oriental sweet-hot things on ribs, some thai sweet and hot sauce, some Soy Vey teriyaki, one of my favorite things on earth, some pineapple juice, even orange juice, for just a bit of acid. Then when the fat is almost gone, a short time on the gas grill, basting with your sauce of choice, again, I prefer homemade, clear, zingy asian tasting barbecue sauces for lamb, and the result is something unique, the texture and feel of eating pork ribs, except its lamb, smoky, tender, falling-off-the bone-lamb, and its so rich that 2 or 3 ribs is a whole serving, s a rack could feed 4 or 5, for $3.00.

Veal Breasts. A veal breast is a big chunk of the veal's rib section, I am not sure where it comes from, but I think its forward and up high, and its about the size of a laptop computer. These also sell for $0.99 a pound, but they are big so a whole one can be $5. There will be 4 or 5 very large rib bones, and on one side of the ribs, one or two inches of meat, I believe this is what would be the brisket, but when its veal, they don't bother to cut it out and sell it as veal brisket, they leave it attached to the bone. Most recipes suggest taking this big hunk of meat, slicing under that slab of meat, and stuffing it with something, and then braising it forever in a huge braising pan. I don't like this, its a crude, ugly dish, and there are massive amounts of fat in with the meat, it actually looks like a slab of bacon with strips of meat running through the fat. So instead, I get out the filet knife and go to work, first remove the whole slab of meat and fat from the bones, then trim the fat, as much as possible, from the meat, until you have a square, flat slab of meat, say 3/4 inch thick and still the size of a laptop. You can take this, lay it flat, season it, throw chopped garlic and fresh herbs on it, maybe even some proscuitto or a piece of bacon, then roll it up like a joint and wrap securely with kitchen twine. Season the exterior, and then sear it all over in a good pan. Hmmmm. Then you get out your pressure cooker. You chop up all those huge rib bones, because just as a side benefit making this dish, you are going to wind up with a quart and a half or so of real veal stock, which you feeze and use a tablespoon at a time in every single thing you cook because it adds richness and gelatin to everything. Throw the bones in the pressure cooker with bay leaf and onions and celery and carrots, then add water, a few chicken boullion cubes, season, and place the rolled up veal breast in there, and pressure cook for an hour. When its done, you have many options, you can make a nice, white stew of some kind, even a pasta sauce, with some of the stock, shitake mushrooms and onions, thats good, lots of herbs; or you can put the roast back in the oven for just a bit and serve more as a roast, with whatever on the side you wish. Lots of variations on this I will take up later. Save that stock.

Prosciutto de Parma for $3.99 a pound. Yup, available almost everywhere, if there is a large enough Italian-American population that your local deli stocks and goes through prosciutto, and if yhour local deli is dumb. The deli stops slicing the prosciutto once it gets down to about the size of your hand, nobody wants to pay $15 a pound for little pieces of prosciutto. So these ends get sold in the "ends" bin, usually for $3.99 a pound. You're chances of coming across one in the bin, however, are low (or if you live in elite environs, your store might be the kind that would never do such a thing as put the deli "ends" out for sale), so you've just got to ask. Nothing like carrying home your own little miniature whole prosciutto. I love the stuff and put it on salads all the time, and use it to flavor or stuff other dishes. Its good to have your own little slicer, by the way, that and the pressure cooker are instruments I could not live without.

So thats it for poverty food for today. I know, I know, it was all baby animals, I can't figure this out, I suppose I have PETA to thank for the fact that the cheapest cuts of meat anymore are the off-cuts of veal and lamb, they are just too politically incorrect to become a fad, unlike the hangar steak and such. Oh, for something from a grown-up animal, there is chuck eye steak. Chuck eyes look a little like a filet mignon, taste much better, are quite tender, are the perfect size for a sensible portion, and usually sell for only $3.00 a pound or so. Great, great buy.

If the economy continues to melt down at this rate, I will soon do more on the topic, maybe something on where to find poke sally, and how to remove the anal glands from a muskrat.