Stock: Make Some

What you're looking at is this: 1 (one) lobster carcass, frozen shrimp shells saved from the last few months, 2 (two) leftover pickerel fillet pieces, including tails and some meat, 2 (two) large cut up white onions, a handful of baby carrots, 1 (one) half lemon, 1 (one) fist-full of celery roughly chopped (if chopped at all), several dashes salt, a pinch of peppercorns, and whatever herbs that are in your cabinet.

Or on your windowsill, if that's not too much to ask.

In the past, I've made stock using fresh herbs wrapped in a bouquet of cheesecloth (which comes out easily like a teabag at the end). Either way, the process is always the same.

1) Bring all to a boil
2) Simmer on low heat with lid on for as long as you can
3) Strain

Freeze it, 'fridge it, make ice pops with it - see if I care. But what I can promise is that not only will your house or apartment smell like you've been slaving over a stove for a decade, but your chowder, gumbo, soup, and bisque recipes will also absolutely glow with flavor thanks to your easily made, homemade, stock.

So, on the theory side, think this: stock is a broth, used in place of water. Usually, stocks are made from a combination of meat and vegetables. Any combination. You can make a delicate stock or a stronger stock, depending on the amount of time you leave it on the stove. Particularly with red meat stocks, you'll want to scoop off the coagulated blood and proteins that rise to the top, but leave the fat that surfaces. The fat will help during the cooking process and can be removed afterward if you're about to cook with your stock. If you freeze it, keep the fat on the top of the stock and freeze, removing it later on when you do use the stock.

cooking on a fire: lamb with root vegetables and asparagus

If that doesn't break your heart, I don't know what will.

This summer, I rebuilt what was my grandfather's outdoor fireplace. As a kid, during summers, we'd use the thing occasionally for marshmallows, bonfires and such. This past summer, I cooked on it once, then was instantly captivated by the whole idea of it, which sparked the rebuilding plans. I installed a lip on either side of the bricks to stick out just one inch (maybe less) to perfectly support a grill rack over the flames. It was among my proudest experiences of the season.

Thursday night, two days before putting this delightful piece of meat on the fire, I purchased it from the local Key Food - a half leg of lamb - for about $18. It weighed close to 3 lbs., actually at least three pounds. That night I went home, pounded out about 7 cloves of garlic in a mortar and pestle, rubbed said garlic on outside of lamb with sea salt and pepper and wrapped the whole thing up with plastic wrap. But not before some good olive oil and four branches of windowsill-grown rosemary.

Then, this weekend, I transported this puppy up to New Jersey, got some coals going, put 'er in a tin foil tent/package, added a little more olive oil and let it sit for about three hours.

All week, cooking on a fire had been on my mind, and I was originally thinking brisket, but settled on lamb, which is one of my favorite foods. It was just me and Dad heading up to the lake, and I was pretty sure he didn't care for lamb all that much (turns out he doesn't mind it at all; I was wrong) so I figured there'd also be some steaks or burgers going over the flames, too, but nope. Friday, mind you, Friday, I read in the Times this whole, long glorious article by Michael Pollan about a 36-hour outdoor cooking feast he recently took part in.

It was that article that gave me the idea to cook some root vegetables in the ashes and embers, and on the way up, I picked up some turnips and parsnips, along with some asparagus I figured I'd toss on the grating.

So, some logistical things you'd probably secretly wonder/worry about regarding cooking outdoors.

1. First, you aren't really cooking over true flames. Flames provide much more heat than you'd need, but not the kind of prolonged, steady heat that you'd need to cook a piece of meat that's of any substantial size.

2. If you're just starting out, use charcoal. Buy a medium-sized bag of charcoal and pile them up in a pyramid if you don't have one of those metal charcoal-lighting devices. Because it is more fun, I prefer to do is start a true wood fire, then pile on the charcoal, add in some more wood, then have sort of a mix.

3. To do the actual cooking, spread the charcoals around the outer base of the fire pit, so that you're cooking in the middle, where there isn't too much heat. You can always replenish the charcoal or stir it around if you feel there really isn't much any heat in the middle, but a good indicator is this - the middle cooking space is too hot if you can't hold your hand there for more than three seconds.

4. It helps to not touch anything. Anything at all. Make sure the fire's OK, but other than that, walk away, get a cold one, or do some fishing.

5. Think about finishing your food - meat or otherwise - over true flames to impart a smoky, elemental flavor. It's worth putting in the extra firewood and getting the heat up, plus it's enjoyable.

So, I did all that. Somewhere in the middle of the lamb cooking, I took the turnips/parsnips and literally threw them into the ashes. No washing, no cutting, no oil, nothin'. Only thing was that I left them in while finishing the lamb (which - pictured above - I had unwrapped from the tin foil and placed directly on the grating) and grilling the oil-salt-pepper asparagus.


At least one turnip turned out looking like a burnt golf ball, as did half a parsnip.

The lamb finishing went really well. It sizzled up and turned golden brown and crusty. I turned it over a few times to hit all sides, then threw in the towel. Done.

Yes, I let the lamb sit while Dad prepared some emergency lentil soup, but there was no need for a backup plan. It was perfect. Medium for me on about half of it, well-done for Dad on the other half. Easy as that. The crusted outside was crispy, mildly salty, and delicious. All was heartwrenchingly juicy. That old, classic, comforting lamb flavor in a beautiful piece of meat cooked in a rustic, smoky way outside in the fall.

And the veg.? Great. You could taste the flames on the asparagus and you got a mild, tasty little char on the root stuff, which was great. They came out roasted just the same as if roasted inside an oven. There will be more ash/ember cooking in my future, and there should be in yours, too.

An omnivore forages in New Jersey

Foraging in Jersey: Hook-Caught Catfish with Greens

By Mike Benigno
for Eat* Like a Vegetarian

Last summer and this, I’ve been thinking more and more about foraging for wild food. Some time off, put away the watch, ditch the cell phone, live off the land. Or at least pretend to.

While it may have not worked out too well for Chris McCandless in Into the Wild and I haven’t read the Krakauer book that inspired the movie, I’ve been building a small library of “livin’-off-the-land” food books, with the centerpieces being two works by Euell Gibbons, Stalking the Blue Eyed Oyster, and Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Asparagus is Gibbons’ guide to living off of wild, foraged food, identifying and proselytizing about close to 50 types of hunter/gatherer treats found right here in the northeast.

At and around Kittatinny Lake, my grandfather used to forage for cardone, a green, leafy weed that grew about as big as a large fern. Staring out the window of the car, walking to get the mail or while rooting around the yard, he’d memorize where plants were and when it was harvest day he’d be on his hands and knees, knife in the ground, uprooting the plants before piling them high on the backyard table. The stems were breaded and fried like chicken cutlets and came off the frying pan like stringy celery but milder and coated in fried goodness – pure, down-home comfort. They were usually gone or close to gone before anyone had ever sat down at the table.

Last week, the catfish were good for hooking. Over the course of the week with a friend, we managed to hook over 20 pounds of catfish, the biggest being a 4-pounder, with several that were over 3 1/2. On Tuesday evening I picked through one of two good worm spots I discovered, foraged the bait and got out to fish the sunset still-water between 6:30 and 8 (the best daytime action). I was on my way back to the dock when I thought I’d try a spot just off a house directly across from ours. Sure enough, I landed a high-3 lb. catty, came home, relaxed, dispatched the thing, then filleted it in the backyard. Last few years, I’ve gotten filleting down to about ten minutes for a catfish, much less for a bass.

I used a sharp knife, a pot of ice to keep the filets chilled and fresh, and proceeded to first cut the head off, pull out the guts, slit the bottom, then cut one filet off as close and even as possible. I got both sides off in two clean pieces, flipped them, skinned the outside, put them back into the ice water, then went back for the bottom flaps which didn’t make the filet cut (two fatty pieces near the pectoral fins). Inside, I washed off all, made an egg wash, coated them in what was meant to be a coating for fried chicken that I’d picked up (a kit from Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller’s simple California restaurant), and put them into about a half-inch of hot stove-top oil until golden brown. I sat down outside with the golden filets with some horseradish sauce, along with a side of mixed collard greens and red kale, cooked in some bacon with onion.

The result was a modern day forage. I turned a few backyard worms into a catfish into a meal on a plate and sat in the same yard where my grandfather would stack up his wild plants. To boot, as I ate out back near the lake, the fish carcass still stood on the cleaning block.

Hey, this is America, right?

Mike Benigno is a freelance writer and self-proclaimed omnivore. He lives in Brooklyn where he can be found fishing in nearby Jamaica Bay with his video camera. He is the author of Lines In the Street, a blog about fishing in urban areas. He can be reached at mikebenigo[at]hotmail.com

An Omnivore Forages in New Jersey

Foraging in Jersey: Hook-Caught Catfish with Greens

By Mike Benigno
for Eat* Like a Vegetarian

Last summer and this, I’ve been thinking more and more about foraging for wild food. Some time off, put away the watch, ditch the cell phone, live off the land. Or at least pretend to.

While it may have not worked out too well for Chris McCandless in Into the Wild and I haven’t read the Krakauer book that inspired the movie, I’ve been building a small library of “livin’-off-the-land” food books, with the centerpieces being two works by Euell Gibbons, Stalking the Blue Eyed Oyster, and Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Asparagus is Gibbons’ guide to living off of wild, foraged food, identifying and proselytizing about close to 50 types of hunter/gatherer treats found right here in the northeast.

At and around Kittatinny Lake, my grandfather used to forage for cardone, a green, leafy weed that grew about as big as a large fern. Staring out the window of the car, walking to get the mail or while rooting around the yard, he’d memorize where plants were and when it was harvest day he’d be on his hands and knees, knife in the ground, uprooting the plants before piling them high on the backyard table. The stems were breaded and fried like chicken cutlets and came off the frying pan like stringy celery but milder and coated in fried goodness – pure, down-home comfort. They were usually gone or close to gone before anyone had ever sat down at the table.

Last week, the catfish were good for hooking. Over the course of the week with a friend, we managed to hook over 20 pounds of catfish, the biggest being a 4-pounder, with several that were over 3 1/2. On Tuesday evening I picked through one of two good worm spots I discovered, foraged the bait and got out to fish the sunset still-water between 6:30 and 8 (the best daytime action). I was on my way back to the dock when I thought I’d try a spot just off a house directly across from ours. Sure enough, I landed a high-3 lb. catty, came home, relaxed, dispatched the thing, then filleted it in the backyard. Last few years, I’ve gotten filleting down to about ten minutes for a catfish, much less for a bass.

I used a sharp knife, a pot of ice to keep the filets chilled and fresh, and proceeded to first cut the head off, pull out the guts, slit the bottom, then cut one filet off as close and even as possible. I got both sides off in two clean pieces, flipped them, skinned the outside, put them back into the ice water, then went back for the bottom flaps which didn’t make the filet cut (two fatty pieces near the pectoral fins). Inside, I washed off all, made an egg wash, coated them in what was meant to be a coating for fried chicken that I’d picked up (a kit from Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller’s simple California restaurant), and put them into about a half-inch of hot stove-top oil until golden brown. I sat down outside with the golden filets with some horseradish sauce, along with a side of mixed collard greens and red kale, cooked in some bacon with onion.

The result was a modern day forage. I turned a few backyard worms into a catfish into a meal on a plate and sat in the same yard where my grandfather would stack up his wild plants. To boot, as I ate out back near the lake, the fish carcass still stood on the cleaning block.

Hey, this is America, right?

Mike Benigno is a freelance writer and self-proclaimed omnivore. He lives in Brooklyn where he can be found fishing in nearby Jamaica Bay with his video camera. He is the author of Lines In the Street, a blog about fishing in urban areas. He can be reached at mikebenigo[at]hotmail.com