Ma's Modern Butter

Did you ever read the Little House series? I loved Laura’s pioneer adventures, following her family from the big woods of Wisconsin to the prairies of North Dakota. I read them all, repeatedly, and enough that...

Sorry, I have to digress into a side bar here, because I remember that when I failed an eye test in 4th grade and learned that I needed glasses, the woman administering the test pointed to my Little House book and suggested condescendingly that maybe I needed glasses because I read “such big, thick books.” Um, what? Pretty sure that’s not how eyesight works, lady, and my Accelerated Reader points were off the charts, ok? I kind of want to go back in time and scream at her about the importance of children’s literacy, but like, I’m so over it, I swear.

ANYWAY.

Of all the books, my favorite was always the first one, Little House in the Big Woods, for its descriptions of how the family put up food for the winter (the food scenes from Almanzo’s book were always a close second). Pa slaughters pigs and taps trees for syrup, and then Ma makes sausages, head cheese, and maple candy, and Laura gets to eat the crispy tail from the pig and I think they play soccer with the bladder or something. 

My very favorite though, was the description of how Ma turns fresh cream into butter, by churning it until the solids form a dripping ball of fresh butter, then mixing in fresh carrot juice for color and salting it for flavor, and then pressing it into a mold to form sticks. As a kid who grew up eating margarine, this sounded like heaven. 

When my obsession with The Great British Bake-Off led to me watching the Master Class series and the part where Mary Berry showed me how to “churn” my own butter, well, 22 years of repressed Little House memories came flooding back to me, and I was ready to go all Frontier House on my heavy cream. Unfortunately, while fresh butter may sound like heaven, as someone whose arms get tired whisking eggs, the churning part sounds like hell. 

Luckily, I have a modern helper in the form of my stand mixer! So I bought some heavy cream and put it to work, then added some mix-ins for a modern flair. My toast and my popcorn are thrilled, and I think Ma Ingalls would have been proud.

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Homemade Butter

Makes 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter. I could not find the original Mary Berry video I watched, so I followed the tutorial from The Kitchn.

• 1 qt heavy cream
• sea salt (optional)
• mix-ins, for compound butters like (truffle oil, black pepper or blueberries and lemon zest)

1. Beat heavy cream in the bowl of a stand mixer (or hand-held electric mixer) at high speed to whipped cream and then keep on going until the cream separates into solid curds and water (about 2-10 minutes depending on how much cream you are mixing). 
2. Gather together the solids into a strainer or cloth and squeeze and rinse with cold water until water runs clear. You want to be sure to get all the butter liquid out; this will turn the butter rancid within a few days if not. 
3. Gather rinsed butter into a ball and squeeze it together as much as you can and rinse again. If you want salted butter you can mix in 1/2-1 tsp of sea salt at this point. Dry with a cloth or paper towel, wrap tightly in plastic, and store either in the fridge or freezer.
4. To make compound butter: for truffle black pepper butter, mix in 1-2 tbs truffle flavored olive oil, black pepper and sea salt to taste, then stir well to combine. Wrap tightly in plastic and store as in step 3. For lemon blueberry butter, mix the zest of 1 lemon, sea salt to taste, and about 1/4 cup defrosted frozen wild blueberries (if you want the blueberries more liquidy, cook a bit to break them down, then cool completely before adding) and mix in well to combine. Wrap and store as in step 3.

Notes:

• Just a note here, you can have fun with your butter mix-ins and flavors, but I’m not advocating replacing store-bought butter. This is not a cost-effective way to get your butter fix, but if you find you have run out of butter but have some heavy cream on hand, or if you just want to use up extra cream, this is an excellent solution.
   

Maple Blueberry Turkey Sausage

On any given weekend, there's a good chance I'll head to my local Whole Foods for groceries on a Saturday or Sunday morning. And if I do, there's also a good chance that on my walk there, the smell of pancakes and sausages cooking at the diner down the street will waft my way, triggering my breakfast cravings that I probably haven't addressed yet.

Which is why, when I get to the store, I am often powerless in the face of the sausage section of the meat case. Sausages probably aren't on my list, but it won't matter. I will be buying breakfast sausages to fry up as soon as I get home. 

Recently, I noticed that the store was selling an intriguing breakfast sausage, a pork version flavored with maple syrup and...blueberries? What? I had to try it! It sounded just weird enough to be unexpectedly great.

And it was! But my desire to eat like, four of those sausages in one sitting was maybe going to become a problem, so I thought about the giant bag of frozen wild blueberries in my freezer and decided I could remedy this potential problem, by making my own batch of sausages, with turkey instead of pork, so I could lull myself into a false sense of virtuosity. Also? I just happen to really, really like turkey sausage. And turkey burgers. And anything with ground turkey.

Thanks to the wonder that is The Food Lab, figuring out how to make my own sausage at home was stupidly easy. Turns out, the trick is salt and some time. Who knew? So I threw together a mix of turkey, maple syrup, and blueberries and let it all hang out overnight. The next morning, I shaped the mix into link shapes and fried them up. These sausages were flavorful, a little sweet, a little salty, and with the springy texture of the best breakfast sausages. I somehow managed not to eat the whole batch, and stashed some away in the freezer for future breakfasts. I'm sad to report that I finished these off on Sunday, but it's not a problem, I'm definitely making more!

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Maple Blueberry Turkey Sausage

Adapted from The Food Lab

• 1 lb ground turkey (not breast meat)
• 1 1/2 tbs maple syrup
• 1 tbs kosher salt (or 2% of the weight of the meat)
• 1 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup wild blueberries (drained and thawed if frozen, see note)

1.  Combine all ingredients in a bowl until well mixed, cover with plastic wrap or transfer to a plastic, sealable bag and refrigerate 12-24 hours.
2. When ready to cook, massage for 5 minutes by hand (this is obviously easier and less messy using the bag).
3. Heat a pan with a little oil over medium-high heat. Shape meat into patties or links and cook until well browned and cooked through. Serve hot!

Notes:

• You can use fresh or frozen regular blueberries for this too; wild blueberries were what I had and their smaller size worked well with staying contained in the sausage, but use what you can find!

Sunday Supper: Bo ssam

What did you do last Sunday? It was Easter, so maybe your day involved a roast of some kind, maybe a ham? Or a leg of lamb? 

My day was very quiet. I recovered from accidentally-ish walking 12 miles on Saturday by laying on my couch, editing podcasts, reading, and watching TV. It was lovely, and as I went about my day, my apartment gradually filled up with the smell of a giant shoulder of pork slowly cooking and collapsing in the oven.

Hello.

I mention what I did all day Sunday to prove that this, the Momofuku Bo ssam, may just be the ultimate Sunday Supper. David Chang hasn't steered us wrong here. On Saturday night, give your pork a jacket of salgar (where my Parks & Rec fans at?) and tuck it into the fridge to sleep. Then, on Sunday, about 7 hours before you want to eat, shove it in a low oven, and go about your day. Seriously, just continue to do everything you were already going to do! The original recipe says to baste with pan juices after the first hour, but I didn't really have any pan juices until hour 3 or 4, so I didn't really baste and I'm ok telling you to ignore that step. 

About 6 hours later, after you've enjoyed a full Sunday, pull this baby out of the oven to rest, and assemble all your sauces and accompaniments. Snack on pieces of pork as you do this, as is the chef's right. Then, spread on a layer of brown sugar (optional if you have sensitive smoke alarms) and put it back in the oven, under the broiler, to crisp up.

Take it out, serve immediately, hopefully to a crowd, as this makes a ton. Or, you know, to yourself, and recognize that it's ok to make a massive amount of food for one. You're worth it, and you have a freezer.

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Momofuku's Bo ssam

Adapted from Sam Sifton 

For the meat:

• 1 bone in pork butt (shoulder), about 8 lbs
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup kosher salt, plus 1 tbs (optional)
• 7 tbs brown sugar (optional)

For the Ginger-Scallion Sauce:

• 2 1/2 cups thinly sliced green scallions
• 1/2 cup peeled, minced ginger
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce (light, if you have it, otherwise reduce the salt a bit)
• 1 tsp sherry vinegar
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

For the Ssam sauce:

• 2 tbs ssamjang (fermented soybean and chili paste, see note)
• 1 tbs gochujang (see note)
• 1/2 cup sherry vinegar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

For serving:

• cooked white rice
• lettuce leaves, such as bibb or butter lettuce, washed and dried
• kimchi

1. Place the pork on a rimmed baking sheet large enough to comfortably hold it (I used a quarter sheet pan with no issues). Pat the meat dry with paper towels, then mix together your white sugar and salt. Rub it all over the meat, cover in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 6 hours, but it's better to do this overnight. If you plan on cooking this same day, you'll be up at 6 am for this step.
2. About 7 hours before you want to eat, heat the oven to 300 degrees. Unwrap the pork and transfer to a roasting pan. Slide into the oven, and walk away. Just walk away. If you have pan juices and you want to baste after a couple hours, you do you, but otherwise, just let the meat cook and collapse in on itself. After 6 hours or so, remove from the oven to rest up to an hour while you make your sauces.
3. Make the scallion ginger sauce: Combine all ingredients, and taste and adjust for salt if needed.
4. Make the ssam sauce: Combine all ingredients and mix well. If you have trouble getting the mixture to emulsify, you can blend it, or do as I did and add about a teaspoon of mayonnaise and whisk it in. 
5. Prepare all your accompaniments. Make some rice, wash and dry your lettuce, get your kimchi into a bowl, sneak bites of pork.
6. When you are ready to eat, heat oven to 500 degrees. Mix remaining tbs of salt and brown sugar together and rub over the cooked pork (or skip the sugar if you fear it will lead to an interview with the fire marshall or an irate neighbor). Place pork back in the oven for 10-15 minutes. If you a using the sugar, it should create a dark, caramel crust or at least a smoky inferno. Serve immediately, with windows open, while hot, with all accompaniments.

Notes:

• I do love all the people in the original recipe comments who are like, "I made this except without the sauces and without the salt/sugar rub and the fat" and really, why?  Don't be like them. Yes, it's salty, and yes, it's fatty, but that's the point! I found that it helped to mix the crusty bits in with the middle bits, to really even out the saltier bites. And don't skip the sauces! They are easy but most importantly, extremely tasty and are there to balance the meat. The ginger scallion sauce especially is my new love. You may want to double the amount called for, since I went through the entire batch with only half the pork.
• I probably could have cooked it longer to get that true falling apartness in the middle, so I would say you could cook this up to 7 hours, initially.
• I may use a disposable pan next time, as the sugar didn’t so much as caramelize as fall into the pan and burn, which wasn't fun to clean. If you can't tell from above, I also would skip the brown sugar step next time, as my weak apartment ventilation can't really handle it. The sugar also didn't really stay on the pork, but other recipe commenters mentioned creating more of a paste with either cider vinegar or some of the pork juices. If you have a strong stove hood or an outdoor setup, well, I'm jealous of your candied pork bark crust.
• The ssamjang and gochujang are more widely available now, and gochujang at least is fairly easy to find at most grocery stores. Ssamjang can be found online (link below) or at dedicated Asian markets. I ventured out to a Korean market in the city to find it here.

ssamjang sauce (Singsong Brand) 170g

Chung Jung One Sunchang Hot Pepper Paste Gold (Gochujang) 500g