Brunch: Poached Eggs with Corn, Chorizo, Basil, and Brioche Croutons

I am always on the look out for brunch food.  Brunch in Dallas and Texas in general is kind of a big deal, and although most of my friends prefer to while the day away on a patio somewhere (which don't get me wrong is pretty fantastic), I tend to spend my Sundays on my front patio because that requires neither makeup nor shoes.

This brunch recipe from The Food Lab's post on perfect poached eggs is pretty much perfect.  It includes crunchy brioche croutons, crispy Spanish chorizo (and for those of you in Texas, it's different from Mexican chorizo), slightly blackened corn, and a delicious butter sauce.  Add that perfect poached egg and it's one delectable meal.  

Truth be told, it's an involved meal.  And this is coming from someone who barely blinks an eye at involved meals and instinctually distrusts recipes that are overly simple.  That said, it's not difficult, just don't expect to get it on the table lightning fast.

But make sure it gets to your table because it is damn good and so worth the time.

I poach my eggs using my sous vide, which is as easy as dropping the eggs shell and all in the equipment and letting them swim for about an hour.  Then you drain off the thin white part and give them a quick dunk in gently simmering water.  That process is ridiculously easy and your eggs both look and taste spectacularly.

Kenji gives a lot of details on creating the perfect poached egg, both with a sous vide and without so scoot on over there and read it.  Your brunch menus will thank you.

Then whip this baby up at home and enjoy the fruits of your labors.

Brunch: Pulled Pork, Sweet Potato Biscuits, and Hatch Cream Sauce

So the title is a mouth full, but I couldn't figure out a way to shrink it down and not lose any of the deliciousness that is included in this meal.  I know I've said it before but brunch is my favorite meal.  I live for the days that I can spend a morning cooking something and the early afternoon indulging in it.  I'm always on the look out for that "perfect" brunch, and I think I may have finally found my holy grail of brunch.  But as fate would have it, what truly makes this meal special is the roasted hatch chili cream sauce, and hatch chilies are only available in Texas during August.  So this meal will sit patiently in my mind until I can get my hands on another case of hatch chilies.

Now I'll be the first to admit that you likely will not want to cook a giant hunk of pork shoulder (also called pork butt and Boston butt) purely for brunch.  I cooked the pork shoulder the night before for pulled pork sliders and saved half of the shoulder to use for breakfast.

There are several ways to cook pulled pork.  There is the fail proof crock-pot method that oddly enough uses some form of cola to cook the meat until it's falling apart tender.  There is the tried and true BBQ method, which involves smoking the meat low and slow for 12+ hours until it is falling apart and tender.  And, if you have the requisite equipment there is the sous vide and smoke method that I always use.

I've mentioned the sous vide in passing before,  but I have sadly never given my most absolute favorite kitchen gadget the proper posting it deserves.  But because it deserves its own post, I won't do it now either.  For now, suffice to say that sous vide is a method of cooking food that involves sealing it in a bag and cooking in a precisely controlled water bath.  The results are both outstanding and deceptively easy.

So for the pulled pork, I did the majority of the cooking in the sous vide.  I set my water bath to 175 degrees and allowed the meat to cook for approximately 10 hours.  The benefit with this method is that it allowed the connective tissue and fat to melt to nothing and left me with a sublimely delicious jous that I used after I shredded the meat.  Once my meat was largely cooked, I simply moved it to our grill/smoker and smoked it for an hour using mesquite chips.  This formed that beautiful smoke ring crust that you see in BBQ joints and it kept me from spending 12 hours tending to a fire.  I ended up with tender and juicy meat with a delicious smoke taste.

I'm not sure where I came up with the idea to pair the pulled pork with sweet potato biscuits, but once it was in my head I couldn't get it out.  I knew that the natural sweetness of the sweet potatoes would pair beautifully the the smoky and silky texture of the meat.   After that it was simply a matter of finding something to bring everything together.  And I knew creamy roasted hatch sauce would do just that.

It is no secret that I have a deep and lasting love affair with the hatch chili.  It is so obvious that my dad calls me every summer to tell me that he saw the Central Market semis on the way from Hatch, New Mexico (which is near where he lives) on their way to Texas.  I really have no idea what makes the Hatch chili so special, but they are the most complex and robust flavored chili I've yet to encounter.  I spend an entire year craving the Hatch chili and always keep some stocked in my freezer to tide me over during my wait.

Pork shoulder is a relatively fatty type of meat so it generally needs something tangy or something hot to cut through that fat or your palate will be overwhelmed.  This sauce provides both.  It is both tangy from the greek yogurt and spicy from the chilies and is the perfect accompaniment to the smoky fatty meat.  And best of all, the sauce is deceptively simple.  Jason was stunned when I told him how few ingredients were actually in it.

So enough of my poetic waxing.  Can you tell how excited and how much I love this meal?

Pulled Pork on Sweet Potato Biscuits with a Hatch Cream Sauce

Ingredients

• 2-3 cups pulled pork, cooked according to your preferred method

For the Sweet Potato Biscuits

Adapted from Key Ingredient

• ¾cup cooked mashed sweet potato (about 1 large sweet potato)
• ⅓ to ½ cup whole milk, as needed
• 1½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small bits

Instructions:

• Whisk the mashed sweet potato and the milk in a medium sized bowl until the lumps are removed.
• Using either a food processor (fitted with the dough blade) or a whisk, mix together the dry ingredients.  Cut in the butter into the mixture until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  
• I like to do all of this in the food processor and pulse several times.  It makes the process of making biscuits incredibly easy.
• Add the potato/milk mixture to the dry mixture.  Pulse/stir the mixture until it begins to come together, adding just enough milk to create a dough.
• Turn out onto a floured surface and shape the dough into a 1/2 in square.  Cut into biscuits using a biscuit cutter or a cup; I just use a cup.
• Bake a 425 on a lightly greased cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes until the biscuits are lightly browned.  Allow to cool slightly.

Hatch Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 Hatch chilies roasted and skins removed.  (If you can't find Hatch, substitute with jalapeno or serranos.)
• 1 cup greek yogurt
• 1 garlic clove, sliced
• the juice from 1/2 of a lime

Instructions: Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth.

To assemble, stack some pulled pork onto of a biscuit and drizzle with the hatch cream sauce.  Repeat and repeat and repeat.  You'll be happy you did.

I hope y'all love this as much as we did.  And let me know if you try it out!

Cook Something: Kolaches

Seriously Tasty Kolaches

On Texas I-35 somewhere between Hillsboro and Waco (or Dallas and Austin for those unfamiliar with Texas geography) lies the seemingly nondescript town of West.  However, West, Texas is home to the famous Czech Stop Bakery and Gas Station, where you can stock up to your heart's content on all sorts of delicious delicious pastries.  Kolaches, in general, are very common to the Central Texas region, which is likely a result of the Czech and German immigrants who settled in the area long ago.  I grew up eating kolaches and they've always been one of my favorite breakfast foods.

Fast forward to now.  There are no. decent. kolaches. anywhere. in. Dallas.  I have searched and searched and searched and simply cannot find any.  And because necessity is the mother of invention, I decided to make a batch one Sunday.

Sausage Kolaches
Adapted from here and here.

For the Dough

• 1 packet of yeast
• 1 cup whole milk, warmed (110-115 degrees)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter, plus more for brushing on the pastries.
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp kosher salt

For the Filling

• 1 package smoked sausage, cut in half lengthwise (I recommend Opa's Smoked Meats, if you can find it.  It's made in Fredricksburg, in Central Texas, so I'm not sure of its distribution area, but it's by far the most delicious sausage you can buy.  I always buy the Jalapeno and Cheese sausage.  It's so tasty.)
• Grated cheese and/or jalapeno, optional

Instructions:

• In a large bowl, combine the yeast, warm milk, sugar, and 1 cup of the flour.  Cover and let rise until doubled in size, which should take between 10-15 minutes.
• Melt the butter.  Beat the butter with the eggs and salt.  Add the eggs to the flour/milk mixture and blend.  Slowly add the remaining 2 cups of flour.  The dough should be soft, moist, and somewhat sticky.  Roll the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. At this point you may need to add extra flour if your dough is extremely sticky.  I probably added an extra 1/4 a cup of flour.  BUT be very judicious in how much flour you add, because the more flour, the more dense your pastries will be and the goal is soft and light pastries, not hard and dense ones.
• Put the dough in a greased bowl and allow to rise until doubled in size, about an hour.
• After the dough has risen, punch the dough down and allow to rise again in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours and up to 8.  If pressed for time you could skip this step, but I really recommend allowing the dough to do the second slow rise.  This rise will allow the dough to develop a more complex flavor and be tastier overall.  It's why those "no-knead" recipes work.
• After the second rising divide your dough into 8-12 even pieces, depending on how big your sausage is.  Roll the pieces into ovals and then flatten.  Place these on a greased cooking sheet and allow to rise for another 30 minutes, until slightly puffed up.
• Place the sausage (and/or additional toppings) on one side of the dough and roll the dough around the sausage.  Try to be gentle during the step, because you do not want to flatten the dough out too much.  If end up getting a little aggressive, you may want to allow the dough to rise for another 30 minutes before baking.
• Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes until golden brown and delicious.  Brush with some melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven.  Serve warm.

Most of the time involved in this recipe is just waiting for the dough to rise.  I highly recommend starting the dough in the evening and just letting the second rise happen over night.  Then you'll be able to get those babies on the breakfast table in no time.

And although these are not bona fide Czech Stop kolaches, they'll at least keep the cravings at bay until I take another trip down I-35.  Enjoy!