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The Hirshon Thai Rabbit Curry – แกงกะหรี่กระต่าย

May 7, 2019 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Thai Rabbit Curry Image Used Under Creative Commons License From twitter.com

Citizens! In Thailand, a once-in-a-generation event has captivated the nation and the world – the 3-day inauguration of the new Thai King!

Vajiralongkorn (Thai: วชิราลงกรณ), reigning title Phrabat Somdet Phra Vajira Klao Chao Yu Hua[b] (Thai: พระบาทสมเด็จพระวชิรเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัว; born 28 July 1952) is the King of Thailand since 2016,

He is the only son of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit. In 1972, at the age of 20, he was made crown prince by his father. After his father’s death on 13 October 2016, he was expected to accede to the throne of Thailand but asked for time to mourn before taking the throne.

He accepted the throne on the night of 1 December 2016. His father was cremated on 26 October 2017. His coronation just took place from May 4-6, 2019.

The Thai government retroactively declared his reign to have begun on 13 October 2016, upon his father’s death. As the tenth monarch of the Chakri dynasty, he is also styled as Rama X. Aged 64 at that time, Vajiralongkorn became the oldest Thai monarch to ascend to the throne.

Congratulations to all the Thai people on this momentous occasion – let’s celebrate with a classic Thai recipe!

There are few things that bring a brighter smile to the face of the mighty TFD more than finding recipes using game meats. I have always been flabbergasted that more people refuse to eat rabbit – an incredibly tasty white meat that is sustainable, delicious and deserving of a far more prominent place in kitchens worldwide!

Rabbi meat is also incredibly lean – it has 50–100 g dissectable fat per 2 kg (live weight). Based on a carcass yield of 60%, rabbit meat is around 8.3% fat, while beef and pork are 32% fat and lamb 28%.

As noted on livestrong.com:

Rabbit is considered to be a specialty meat in the United States, but it was commonly consumed during the mid-20th century as a wartime food. It is eaten in various other countries as well, including Malta, France, Italy and China. This meat is rich in nutrients and is a healthy source of animal protein.

They can easily be farmed, given their small size. However, they are also an often consumed type of wild game. Both wild and domesticated rabbit have some substantial nutritional differences and are also considered to be fairly different in terms of depth of flavor.

In every 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of domesticated rabbit, you will find:

20.1 grams of protein, which is 40 percent of the daily value (DV)
9 percent of the DV for iron
7 percent of the DV for potassium
5 percent of the DV for magnesium
17 percent of the DV for phosphorus
14 percent of the DV for zinc
43 percent of the DV for selenium
298 percent of the DV for vitamin B12
8 percent of the DV for thiamin (vitamin B1)
12 percent of the DV for riboflavin (vitamin B2)
45 percent of the DV for niacin (vitamin B3)
16 percent of the DV for vitamin B5
29 percent of the DV for vitamin B6

According to a 2016 article in the Journal of Livestock Science, herbs, spices and botanicals are often added to rabbit feed to improve digestion, prevent illness and provide antioxidants. When they are fed these additives, it increases the amount of antioxidants in their meat, thereby enhancing its nutrition.

The fat content is fairly low in comparison to other proteins, making it a lean meat. In fact, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, rabbit meat has one of the lowest fat amounts and highest protein amounts of many typically consumed meats.

Although it is low in fat, rabbit meat is rich in healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, like omega fatty acids. There are 220 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids and 860 milligrams of omega-6 fatty acids in every 100 grams of domesticated rabbit. There is a bit less than half of the amount of these fatty acids in wild rabbit meat, but this number is still fairly high, considering how little fat wild rabbit has in comparison.

Although meat from wild rabbits has less fat, it has more cholesterol. There are 81 milligrams of cholesterol in every 100 grams of wild rabbit compared to 57 milligrams in domesticated rabbit. This is still less cholesterol than that contained in other commonly consumed meats.

Based on the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, there is not any limitation on how much dietary cholesterol you can consume. This is because dietary cholesterol is no longer considered to be bad for your health.

According to the American Heart Association, it’s actually saturated fat and trans fat, rather than dietary cholesterol, that influences the cholesterol levels in your blood. If you’re concerned about your cholesterol and you eat this meat often, you may want to consume more wild rabbit. This is because wild rabbit has less saturated fat, despite its higher cholesterol levels.

It is a game meat that can be easily cooked in a variety of ways. It tastes similar to birds like turkey, pheasant, guinea fowl or chicken. It’s also very similar to chicken from a macronutrient perspective.

You can cook rabbit meat just as you would cook any other type of lean meat and use its bones to create flavorful stocks. However, be aware that it’s a bit easier to cook domesticated rabbit meat than wild rabbit meat. The meat of domesticated rabbit is typically more tender and fatty.

It’s easiest to cook rabbit meat in wet heat, as part of a pie, stew or casserole. Alternatively, cooking it on low heat over a longer period can also provide you with tender meat, which is particularly suitable if you’re planning on roasting.

You can find rabbit dishes all over the world. It’s also used to make a variation of traditional Portuguese sausages known as Alheira as well as Maltese stews, like Stuffat tal-Fenek. Rabbit meat and offal are also regularly consumed in spicy street food dishes throughout northern China.

Thailand, especially Northern Thailand, has a long history of enjoying rabbit and few preparations of this delicious meat are more tasty than this rabbit curry recipe from the region. It is by no means a difficult recipe, just be sure and use my recommended ingredient brands and you’ll be guaranteed of a superb meal for you and yours! You can buy my favorite fish sauce brand here.

Battle on – the Generalissimo

The Hirshon Thai Rabbit Curry – แกงกะหรี่กระต่าย

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Ingredients

For the paste:
9-12 dried red Chiles de Arbol, deseeded, soaked and drained
pinch of salt
2 tbsp. finely-chopped lemongrass
1 tbsp. scraped and finely-chopped cilantro root - if unavailable, use cilantro stems
1 tsp. finely-chopped peeled fresh turmeric
2 tbsp. finely-chopped peeled fresh krachai (galangal)
2 tbsp. finely-chopped peeled red shallots
1 tbsp. finely-chopped peeled garlic
1 tsp. Chinese fine shrimp paste - TFD likes Lee Kum Kee brand
***
For the curry:
1 ½ cups rabbit stock (preferred) or just use top-quality chicken stock
1 ½ cups Thai coconut milk
3 kaffir lime leaves (optional but recommended)
large pinch of soft brown sugar or to taste
¼ fresh pineapple, cored and diced
2 tbsp. fish sauce - TFD endorses Red Boat Fish Sauce 40°N brand
1 bunch Chinese broccoli, cut into small pieces (preferred) or use broccolini or regular broccoli
1 sliced onion
3 ½ ounces green beans, tips removed
¾ - 1 lb. thinly sliced rabbit loin meat
***
boiled or steamed jasmine rice
deep-fried holy basil and coriander or finely chopped coriander
shredded deep fried leeks (optional but recommended)

Instructions

Make the paste in the usual way by pounding all the ingredients together in a mortar and pestle (or use a blender…). Start with the hardest, driest ingredient and a little salt, pound until it is broken down, then add the next hardest ingredient, etc., ending with the softest one. This can be a long process.
Bring the stock and coconut milk to the boil, then season with the sugar and most of the fish sauce plus the kaffir lime leaves. Dissolve 3 tablespoons of the paste into the liquid.
In a wok, add some lard (preferred) or oil and add the broccoli until partially cooked. Add the onion, beans and pineapple, stir-fry until just barely cooked.
Add the meat and cook until it has just changed color. Add the stock and coconut milk mixture. Taste and season with the rest of the fish sauce or curry more curry paste if necessary, then leave to stand for five minutes before serving. Serve with rice and apropos garnishes.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-thai-rabbit-curry-%e0%b9%81%e0%b8%81%e0%b8%87%e0%b8%81%e0%b8%b0%e0%b8%ab%e0%b8%a3%e0%b8%b5%e0%b9%88%e0%b8%81%e0%b8%a3%e0%b8%b0%e0%b8%95%e0%b9%88%e0%b8%b2%e0%b8%a2/

The Hirshon Tennessee Doodle Soup

April 11, 2019 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Doodle Soup Image Used Under Creative Commons License From AtlasObscura.com

Citizens! There can be no doubt clouding your perception of the glory of the almighty TFD – and know that my relationship with coincidence and fate is the true stuff of LEGEND!

A divine and perfected thought had recently manifested within the unbounded mind of the Leader of TFD Nation – that I have seriously and egregiously under-posted on the culinary achievements of the rural American South. This must be rectified immediately and with purpose, forged into a Jovian thunderbolt of deliciousness set to strike your palate NOW.

Today, I received an email from my favorite gastronomic website – I speak of Gastro Obscura and if you are not subscribing to it – by all means, do so with haste! You’ll thank me – it’s a tremendous resource and great writing to boot!

Their latest recipe is for a dish I’d never heard of – a hyper-local regional dish so rare in its home state of Tennessee that even most locals aren’t aware of it outside of one small town.

I speak of “Doodle Soup” – and don’t turn your nose up at this simple recipe, it is (wait for it)…

Southern Hot and Sour soup!

As noted on doodlesoupdays.com:

Doodle soup is a broth that’s made from the drippings of roasted chicken or game mixed with salt, vinegar, cayenne pepper, water, sugar and flour. Typically, it is eaten as a soup with crackers or some type of bread or poured back over the roasted meat as a flavoring.

Today, there are many variations of the soup but the strong taste of vinegar remains a key characteristic of doodle soup.

To get a sense of the history of this soup (which only seems to date back to the mid 1950’s) You can watch this video to learn more about the soup and the town that birthed it.

The primary gripe people tend to have around this dish is that since the fat isn’t skimmed off the broth, it can be greasy. I’ve modified the recipe to skim ost of the fat – but not all of it. Feel free to leave all the fat in there for the original experience. I’ve also added some herbs and vegetables to the broth to increase the flavor and I use cornstarch instead of flour to thicken the soup.

Most recipes call for chicken or game as the meat – I’ve combined both by specifying some venison shanks for the broth – you can also use beef shanks if you so prefer. You can buy the shanks already cut up here, if you aren’t a hunter or lack access to a butcher who stocks venison.

I also amp up the flavor of the broth with some chicken demi-glacé – yes, it’s an “uptown” sort of change, but it really does make an enormous impact on the final flavor. You can buy my preferred brand here.

Lastly, there is a “holy war” between locals as to whether this dish should be served with crackers or biscuits – I fall firmly into the “biscuit camp”.

Don’t look down your nose on this recipe, Citizens – you’ll be depriving yourself of a tasty dish of the rural South if you do!

Battle on – The Generalissimo

The Hirshon Tennessee Doodle Soup

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Ingredients

9 ½ cups water mixed with 2 ½ cups white vinegar, or more to taste (decrease amount of water by the same amount of vinegar you add - you want 12 cups total)
2 large broiler chickens
1 pound venison shank, cut into pieces (totally optional TFD addition - omit, or use beef shank)
1 large bunch parsley
1 large bunch fresh thyme
3 onions, peeled and halved
3 tbsp. cornstarch, dissolved in an equal amount of hot water or stock
chicken demi-glacé to taste (TFD addition, totally optional but TFD really prefers it with)
Dried Chiles de Arbol to taste, but use at least 8 broken in ½ (stems removed)
***
Biscuits
Browned meat from the chicken and venison

Instructions

Bring the liquids to a boil in a very large stockpot.
Turn down heat add the dried chiles and meats, then simmer for 2 hours.
Remove meat, take off bones (discard bones).
Brown the meat with some oil in a pan, drain oil and reserve.
Add parsley, thyme and onions and simmer 1 more hour. In the last 15 minutes, add chicken demi-glacé (if using until you have a strong, good-flavored soup. If not using Chicken Demi-glacé, reduce until a good flavor and color is achieved.
Strain out all solids except the dried chiles and discard.
Let the soup cool and put in the fridge until the fat solidifies at the top. Remove ¾ of it and reserve to smear on biscuits with meal.
Return soup to a boil, and then stir in the cornstarch mixture until lightly thickened. Taste it - it should be very spicy and strong with the taste of vinegar. If neither, add vinegar and hot sauce to amp it to the correct flavor levels.
Divide meats between bowls, pour on soup, serve with hot biscuits smeared with butter and/or the chicken fat.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-tennessee-doodle-soup/

The Hirshon Medieval(ish) English Game Pie

November 11, 2018 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Hand Raised Game Pie Image Used Under Creative Commons License From patisseriemakesperfect.co.uk

My Citizens, your tenacious and gastronomically-obsessive Suzerain – the always historic TFD! – has a true and pure need to preserve the lost recipes of the past for your delight! After watching a brilliant episode of the Great British Bake Off on Netflix, I was inspired to share this historic recipe with you!

Not familiar with the show? Then you’re missing out on some of the best baking you’ll ever see!

The Great British Bake Off (often referred to as Bake Off or GBBO) is a British television baking competition produced by Love Productions, in which a group of amateur bakers compete against each other in a series of rounds, attempting to impress a group of judges with their baking skills, with a contestant being eliminated in each round, with the winner being selected from the remaining contestants that make it to the finals.

The show’s first episode was aired on August 17 2010, with its first four series broadcast on BBC Two, until its growing popularity led the BBC to move it to BBC One for the next three series. After its seventh series, Love Productions signed a three-year deal with Channel 4 to produce the show for the broadcaster.

The program was originally presented by Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, with judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. The current presenters are Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig with Hollywood and Prue Leith as the judges.

The show has become a significant part of British culture and is credited with reinvigorating interest in baking throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, with many of its participants, including winners, having gone on to start a career based on bakery, while the BAFTA award-winning program has spawned a number of specials and spin-off shows.

Now – as to game pie, a quintessentially British dish – or is it?

Game pie is a form of meat pie featuring game. The dish actually dates from Roman times when the main ingredients were wild birds and animals such as partridge, pheasant, deer, and hare.

The pies reached their most elaborate form in Victorian England, with complex recipes and specialized moulds and serving dishes. Modern versions are simpler but savory combinations of rabbit, venison, pigeon, pheasant, and other commercially available game.

Game pies were consumed by the wealthy in the days of the Roman Empire. Wilhelm Adolf Becker states that the emperor Augustus consumed pies that contained chicken, pheasants, pigeon, and duck.

In the Middle Ages, “bake mete” described a pie in which meat or fish is baked with fruit, spices, etc. The meats and sauces were placed in a tough and inedible pastry shell, or “coffin” with a lid sealed on, then baked. There was no pan: the pie shell itself acted as the container. Frequently the pastry was considered superfluous and was discarded.

The process of raising the sides of the pie to form a strong protective crust is described in old cookery books as “raising the coffin”. The term “mete” referred to the pie, not the meat: a 15th-century cookbook gives a bake mete recipe for a pear custard pie.

Describing the franklin in the 14th-century classic The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer said: “Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, Of fissh and flessh, and that so plentvous”. The best meat might be reserved for the wealthy, while their servants ate inferior pies made of the left-over “umbles” – liver, heart, tripes, and other offal, hence the term “eating humble pie”.

In medieval times, birds that might be found in a game pie included heron, crane, crow, swan, stork, cormorant, and bittern as well as smaller birds trapped by nets such as thrushes, starlings, and blackbirds. This is where the nursery rhyme with the lines “4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie” derives from!

The 15th-century cookery book “Un Vyaunde furnez sanz nom de chare” describes a croustade of veal, herbs, dates, and eggs baked in a coffin, but other sources describe croustades of chicken and pigeon.

Birds were often placed on top of game pies as ornaments, or ‘subtelties’, a practice that continued into the Victorian age. An 1890s edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management shows a game pie topped by a stuffed pheasant.

In a classic hand raised pie, hot‐water pastry dough is made by boiling lard and water together, adding them to flour, and mixing at once. The warm dough is kneaded ever so slightly until it is soft and smooth. It is then fitted either into a high‐sided pan or mold and “raised” by hand, starting from the base and drawing upwards to form the walls of the pie. In very olden times, this would have been done over an oiled wooden dowel, a challenge that actually happened on the Great British Bake Off episode that inspired me to create this recipe!

Now, my pie has as its foundation a recipe dating back to the Middle Ages – but it has been updated with modern measurements and techniques by a talented baker at yellowchimney.com. I have taken the liberty of tweaking the ingredients a bit and added my own medieval twist – using edible gold leaf and edible silver flakes to decorate the pie lid!

This was actually a common decorative technique on pies made in the Middle Ages for the Royal Court, and I think it looks stunning and deserves a comeback in modern times! It is, of course, optional. Unlike in the Middle Ages, where the crust was inedible and discarded – mine is totally and deliciously edible.

A hand-raised game pie serves at least 20 people and it must be lavishly decorated in the spirit of its origins. A starter idea for pastry decorating may be found here.

My Citizens, this is a time-consuming but not difficult recipe if you pace yourself and follow the steps closely. Feel free to substitute similar game birds if one or more are unavailable to you. No matter what, you will be rewarded with a showstopper truly worthy to grace the tables of nobility or the final round of the Great British Bake Off! 😀

Battle on – The Generalissimo

The Hirshon Medieval(ish) English Game Pie

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Ingredients

For The Marinade:
3 blades of mace
6 whole cloves
10 black peppercorns
4 fresh bay leaves
peel of 1 orange
100 ml port
1 sprig of thyme
***
For The Filling:
500 g venison
500 g partridge
500 g pheasant
300 g chicken breast
250 g bacon
500 g pork belly
1 teaspoon of mixed spice, made by combining 1 Tbs ground allspice, 1 Tbs ground cinnamon, 1 Tbs ground nutmeg, 2 tsp ground mace, 1 tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground Ginger - Blend all spices together, and store the remainder in a sealed jar away from light.
***
For The Game Stock:
Bones and trimmings from game
1 onion
1 leek, split lengthwise and rinsed
150 g carrots
150 g leafy celery tops
1 tsp black peppercorns
10 juniper berries, lightly crushed
150 ml port
2 l water
6 leaves of gelatin
***
For The Hotwater Crust Pastry
670 g plain flour
235 g pork lard
100 g unsalted butter
10 g salt
3 whole eggs
350 ml water
1 egg
***
Edible 24kt Gold leaf sheets (optional)
Edible pure Silver leaf flakes (optional)

Instructions

To make the filling, slightly crush all the spices, mix with port, add thyme and orange peel.
Cut the game into thick slices, leave pork and bacon aside. Put the game into bowl with marinade, mix to make sure the marinade reaches all pieces evenly. Cover with a lid and refrigerate overnight.
Mince the pork belly with a knife. Cover with cling film. refrigerate overnight.
For the stock. Put all ingredients except for gelatin into the pan, bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 ½-2 hours until there is only 500 ml liquid left. You'll need gelatin at the assembling point.
For the pastry. Mix flour and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle of flour. Whisk the eggs a little and pour into the well, cover with flour. Heat the water, butter and lard in the pan till the fat is melted. Pour the mixture over the flour and mix thoroughly until the dough forms. Make a ball and wrap it with cling film. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes. Then let the dough cool at room temperature for 20-30 more minutes.
Take ⅓ of the dough and leave aside - it will make pie lead. Roll the rest ⅔ with rolling pin into a large circle enough to cover a high 8" cake tin including the sides up to the top. There should be some overlapping dough edges, do not trim it yet. Refrigerate the tin for 30 mins.
Assembling. Into the tin with pastry, put all the game and meat in layers in desired order. Season each layer with salt and pepper. Make sure there's at least one layer of pork belly on the top, so that melting fat pours to the bottom, preventing the game from becoming dry.
Roll the ⅓ of the dough and cover the pie. Seal the edges really well, push the overlapping sides to the lid everywhere. Then trim the excess pastry with scissors. make sure you left at least 1 cm of sealed pastry all the way round the tin. Use trimmed pastry to make decorations to your liking. Make a hole or two in the center of the lid to let the steam out. Beat an egg and brush the lid.
Bake at 200°С for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 150°C and bake for 1 -1 ½ hours. Take the pie out of the tin and bake for 40 -50 more minutes to achieve a golden brown crust. Once out of the oven, apply gold and silver leaf to the top as you see fit or in a decorative pattern.
Leave to cool completely.
Heat the stock. Dissolve the gelatin in it. Using a small funnel, fill the pie with stock through the hole in lid. Continue pouring the stock in until the pie is full. Place the pie into the fridge, cool overnight.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-medievalish-english-game-pie/