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TWO MID-WINTER IDEAS

January 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Cassole_Cassoulet_YSSo far it’s been a cold and snowy winter here in ‘ da Nort ‘ …so what better time to warm things up with a fantastic dinner with your friends …and a non-intensive project that will pay dividends all year.The first is one we wrote about last January at length, a cassoulet based dinner, and the second, making your own homemade vinegar.

The cassoulet (the pot you make it in is called a cassole) can be as complicated or simple as you wish. This is a traditional French bean “stew” which would have been made, over a series of days, as ingredients were acquired as parts of other meals.
There is ongoing argument over what is the most authentic, and we won’t get into that one. See an article in “Departures Magazine” where Sylvie Bigar has done her best to walk the middle ground.
We have made Paula Wolfert’s recipe twice, once with simplifications, and then the full recipe including homemade sausage and duck confit. Doing it the full way made a big difference.
Paula swears the angle sided bowl that we make, also makes a big difference. Others use a pot more like our standard casserole. For other recipes. just Google “Cassoulet” and you’ll get a bunch. Once you get the basic idea, make up your own with what you have.
Then invite some friends over, open a bottle of wine, some french bread and maybe a bit of salad and you’ll have an evening to remember.
WINE VINEGAR

The second project is even easier, but takes some time and patience. Make your own wine vinegar. A pottery crock, like the Clay Coyote Vinegar Crock is perfect, but you can do it in other containers if you want. First check out this Sunset Magazine article that appeared last year.

/VINEGAR%20SUNSET%20ARTICLE.pdf
I’d suggest starting with at least one bottle and then topping it off later with more. You can get a mother from Beer-Wine.com. Once you have one, that’s all you’ll need as you can keep a bit in a jar for your next batch. We’ve experimented with freezing it and that appears to work, just as it does for sourdough.
It’ll take about 10 weeks for your first batch of red wine vinegar and 16 to 20 for a white wine batch. You’ll never find a commercial product that comes close. Use it in making sauces, a bit in almost anything to enhance flavors. Pasturize it and you can store it forever and make herbal vinegars, too.

Your Clay Coyote crock comes with instructions and there are websites all over the ‘net if you search for “homemade vinegar”.

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FLAMEWARE!

November 25, 2008 By 3 Comments

Here it comes, new CERAMIC FLAMEWARE from Clay Coyote Pottery. It’s ceramic cookware for stovetop cooking! We’ve spent nearly 2 years working on this to get it right…

It started a couple of years ago as Paula Wolfert was looking for a source for pots to emulate some of the indigenous cookware traditionally used over open fires and charcoal. trouble is, our modern stoves have much higher heat.
A few potters have made stoneware flameware over the years, but conventional wisdom was that it was risky and devilishly difficult.
Well, we can attest that it’s difficult, but after cooking with a number of pieces over the last 6 months, and recruiting a number of our friends to do the same, it’s ready for you.
The first piece is this skillet…

about 10 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep. Fry, saute, bake, roast…do just about anything. Good in the microwave, cleanup easily in the sink or dishwasher. Tom’s used it for eggs almost every morning for 5 months and finds it has much less of a tendency to burn food, and the eggs are more tender that in metal cookware.

Betsy’s been doing the same with oatmeal every morning in a small saucepan and with the same result.

Paula’s been doing a lot of work on cooking in clay, as she has for years, and has decided that it’s the way to go. “These are absolutely fabulous” she says.

Next was a cazuela, about 11 inches in diameter that Paula needed for gratins and some other dishes started on the stovetop, and finished in the oven. This one’s got a smaller ‘trumpet’ handle with a small ‘hot-pad tab’ on the other side for easy handling in and out of the oven. Betsy just used one to make an apple tarte tatin.

We’ve done a couple of saucepans but are just finalizing sizes and shapes. Finally, we did a 3 qt. casserole for Paula, and she found it made the best daube ever and that it cooked simmered dishes better on the stovetop than any crockpot does.

casserole photo by: ed anderson photography 1105 thompson lane petaluma, california 94952 707 981 7957 office http://www.edandersonphoto.com

We aren’t sure why these ceramic pots cook so well (and clean up even better). After a lot of testing, we think that it’s because the ceramic is an insulator, heat comes through more gently, so food has much less tendency to burn, even slightly. The secret, though, is to slow down, put the heat where you’ll need it eventually, and then wait for the pot to warm up. If you punch in high heat initially, the heat keeps coming through and can overcook the food. You also have to learn to either turn the heat down or off earlier, or remove the food as soon as it’s done. But these pots go from stove to table so beautifully that the turn down early is the way to go.

Right now glazes are limited to the one blue-gray shown. We’ll have more later, but never the same as our regular glazes. The clay that makes these pots possible limits the glaze possibilities.
As we get them ready, we’ll post them on the website for sale.

Filed Under: Clay Coyote Blog, Clay Pot Cooking, Foodie News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,