Potato Pavé

New food recipe. I'd seen some IG Reels where someone said Potato Pavé was one of their family's favorite comfort foods. It sounded and looked pretty amazing...I mean, who doesn't love potatoes? 

Most recipes call for using heavy cream but I didn't have any and didn't feel like running to the grocery store, so I used half and half. Some recipes also incorporated in buttermilk in place of some of the cream, so there's room to experiment. Some recipes called for different herbs, but I have a pot of rosemary in the back yard, so that's why I went with it.

A couple other notes, a lot of the recipes also tell you to trim your potatoes into rectangular shapes. This helps ensure your slices are more uniform which makes things easier when you get to the layering step. I trimmed my first few but towards the end I was mostly just peeling them. It actually worked out well as I needed some different widths and lengths to fill in my loaf pan.  

One last note, this recipe isn't hard but it takes some time to make. Plan ahead, or like in my case, make it day 1 and serve it day 2.

Here's the recipe as I made it today.

Ingredients

1.25 to 1.5c Half and half, or heavy cream, or a blend of the two. Optionality, substitute some buttermilk for part of the cream. 

2T Fresh rosemary, finely chopped

2t Garlic, minced

1t Kosher salt, heaping 

3-4 lbs Russet potatoes (preferably large with similar size and shape)

1/4c Butter, melted

Black pepper

Olive oil

Directions

1. Combine cream, rosemary, garlic, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Prepare potatoes by washing, peeling, and trimming to uniform lengths. 
3. Preheat oven to 350.
4. Using a mandolin slicer, slice over the bowl containing the cream mixture. Remember to occasionally stir them to make sure each side is coated with the cream mixture.
5. Once all potatoes are sliced, line a loaf pan with parchment paper and begin layering the thin potato slices. Do your best to keep the layers as uniform as possible.
6. Every 3-4 layers, drizzle about 1 tablespoon of melted butter over the layer, then add a pinch of salt and black pepper. 
7. Repeat step 6 until you've used all potatoes.
8. Fold parchment paper to cover the last layer, or trim it to be level with the top of the loaf pan. 
9. Cover the loaf pan tightly with aluminum foil, then bake at 350F for 1 hour and 20 minutes. 
10. After 1:20, remove from oven and use a skewer, fork, or knife to check to make sure the potatoes are fully cooked in the middle of the pan. If they're not, put them back in the oven for 10 minutes then check again. 
11. Once fully cooked, you're going to press the loaf and allow it to cool to room temp. The easiest way is to use a second loaf pan filled with weights (e.g. cans of vegetable) to gradually press down on the layers as it cools.  Remember to place a later of parchment between the potatoes and the second loaf pan. I also lined the second loaf pan with a kitchen towel to insulate the canned vegetables from the potatoes. Allow it to cool to room temp (a small fan blowing on the pan will help).
12. Transfer the whole setup (second loaf pan plus weights) to the fridge and chill for several hours or overnight. 
13. After chilled, remove the potato loaf from the pan using a spatula to loosen it along the edges.  
14. Discard the parchment and slice the loaf into 1" thick slices.  You can also slice these in half for smaller serving sizes. This will yield blocks about 1" wide x 1.5" long x 2" deep (or however deep you layered them).
15. Heat a pan over medium-high heat with a thin layer of olive oil. 
16. Place the potato blocks in pan (it should immediately sizzle) and cook bottoms until golden brown, 1-2 minutes. 
17. Carefully turn and cook all sides until golden brown, about 1-2 minutes per side.
18. Serve and enjoy.

Read more...

Another Shrimp Ceviche Recipe

It’s no secret I love Mexican food. I posted a ceviche recipe recently thatI’ve made a few times now and it turns out great. My only complaint with that one is it’s a little light on juice/liquid in the finished ceviche. My wife also loves avocados and asked me to find one that includes avocado. So I stumbled across this recipe that had great reviews and seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I love cilantro and a whole bunch may seem like a lot, but it works. The peppers will give it a nice medium spice level. 

Pro tip, I use this style vegetable chopper gadget that my wife got off Amazon. It’s awesome for quickly preparing things like salsa, pico, ceviche, etc. 

Here’s the recipe as I made it. 

1# Gulf shrimp, peeled, deveined, and tails removed 

Juice of one whole lemon plus enough lime juice (~9) to measure a total of one cup combined juice

1 Bunch cilantro 

4 Serrano peppers

2 Roma tomatoes, diced

1/2 Medium-large Red onion, diced

1 Jalapeño pepper, diced

1 Medium cucumber, peeled and diced

1 Avocado, diced

1T Clamato

Salt and black pepper to taste

Sugar to taste

Marinade

1. Juice lemon and limes so that you have 1 cup of combined juice.
2. Roughly chop cilantro and transfer to blender.
3. Add a pinch or two of salt to blender.
4. Remove stems from Serrano peppers, roughly chop, and add to blender. 
5. Add enough juice to the blender to allow you to blend the cilantro, Serrano peppers, and salt (I used about 5oz). Pulse the blender a few times, but you don’t want to make a purée; you still want good sized pieces of cilantro leaves.
6. Cut the shrimp into small pieces (I usually cut them into thirds) and transfer to a glass bowl.
7. Pour the blended juice, Serrano, and cilantro over the shrimp along with the rest of the juice, and stir with a spoon until well mixed.
8. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to “cook” for 20 minutes.

Prepare Remaining Ingredients 

1. Finely chop the following ingredients: tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, and cucumber.  Combine in a large bowl.
2. Add Clamato.
3. Check the shrimp to see if the cooking process is complete; they should be opaque. If they’re not done yet, give them a stir and put them back in the fridge for another 10 minutes.
4. Once the shrimp are fully cured, transfer the shrimp and all liquid/marinade to the bowl with the remaining ingredients.
5. Add black pepper and salt to taste. Optionally, you can also add sugar to tame the acidity, but I didn’t add any.
6. Stir to mix well. It’s pretty much ready to serve at this point, but I usually give it another 15-20 minutes for the flavors to meld. 
7. Dice the avocado and add it right before serving.
8. Serve with tostada shells or your favorite corn chips.

Read more...

Grain Mill 2.0

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we moved to Florida and I had to leave certain things behind; this includes the cart/stand for my grain mill. I took off the important parts like the bare bones mill, the motor, the sheave, etc. with the plan to rebuild it in Florida. After finishing rebuilding the brew stand, I turned my attention to the grain mill and decided I wanted to change things up. Instead of the guillotine-like sheave, I decided I wanted to use a gear motor in more of a direct drive orientation. More details below.

Gear Motor

I was planning on buying a cheap gear motor on Amazon that included a speed controller. Currently these models sell for around $100-$130 on Amazon under various brand names and all appear to be made in China. Final drive RPM and torque vary quite a bit but I found one that seemed to fit the bill. The only problem was none of these motors had many (some had zero) reviews. The ones with reviews seemed to consist of five star reviews completely lacking details, or one star reviews describing all kinds of issues from the speed controller not working correctly to motors burning out once any kind of load was applied. Long story short, I decided the Chinese motors were questionable at best and to try to find a different solution. 

Thankfully I stumbled across some new old stock Bodine gear motors on eBay. These motors are manufactured in the U.S. and have a reputation for being really well-made and dependable and have been used in lots of grain mill builds. They’re also usually pretty expensive, retailing anywhere from $350 to over $500. Fortunately I was able to pick one up for a little over $100 and with free shipping. The model I got has a 15:1 gearbox, a final drive speed of 115RPM, and 68 inch pounds of torque. This is a slightly slower RPM than my old motor, but likely a lot more torque. I looked up the serial number on Bodine’s site and it appears this motor was a custom design intended to drive conveyor belts in a manufacturing setting. The motor can be run in both CW and CCW direction by wiring in a selection switch, but I decided to only run it CW. I did have to reach out to Bodine support for the correct wiring connections because since it was a custom spec motor, it used different wire colors than other gear motors in the same series. 

Bare Bones Mill

The bare bones mill is still the same Crank and Stein 2D mill that I used in my original build. Crank and Stein no longer sells this model, but they do sell a similar geared model. I replaced the original wooden mill top/hopper holder with a 3D printed one a few years ago. The printed one seems to be working great, so I decided to reuse it. I’m also reusing the hopper from the original build.

Mill Frame/Table

Like the previous version, the mill table is made from 1.5” square steel tubing. The top is made from 3/4” red oak plywood. I omitted the lower shelf where the motor was mounted and held the bucket to catch the milled grain. Instead, the bucket simply rests on the floor below the mill.

Build Details 

It’s a pretty straightforward build. The pictures show most of the details, but I’ve included some key points below:

• The mill and motor are mounted to the plywood top.
• The frame has six simple brackets for attaching the plywood top to the frame.
• The output and input driveshafts are different heights, so I made a spacer out of red oak to raise mill height. This spacer is permanently attached to the plywood top.
• The motor has a 3/4” keyed shaft and the mill has a 1/2” non-keyed shaft with machined flats. Linking the two was done using Lovejoy couplers and spiders. It’s important to note, these couplers will naturally handle slightly misaligned driveshafts, but you want to get them as close to perfectly aligned as possible to minimize wear and tear.
• I used polyurethane to seal all the plywood and wood surfaces.
• I welded three guides/stops to the frame to ensure the bucket is centered directly below the mill when milling. 
• I reused the same switch and power cord from the old mill.
  
• One other difference from the original build, this mill does not have casters. The “feet” are simply tubing plugs with rubber self adhesive pads.

To use, I simply slide a bucket under the mill table, fill the hopper with grain, then flip the switch. The motor seems to have plenty of torque and can be started full. Speed seems great and it does a really good job of breaking up the grain, separating it from the hull, while leaving the hull intact. For anyone interested, I use the default 0.045” gap. Historically, my efficiency is usually right about 83-85%. I’m pretty excited to have this mill back up and running. I have quite a bit of specialty grains on hand and plan to formulate recipes around them. I’ve also included a few build pics below.

Read more...