the seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake

For my birthday -- six months ago -- I got some soft-shell crawfish, which have been sitting in my freezer ever since, because they were damn expensive and I wanted to be sure I did something "worthwhile" with them.  Then I realized it had been six months, and that I should just make a dinner I liked.

Now, you probably remember from your biology classes in some single-digit grade that many crustaceans (and other arthropods) molt as they grow, shedding its old exoskeleton so that it can grow a new larger one.  The softshell so-and-so is the so-and-so right after molting, before that hard shell has developed.

I was familiar with two kinds of softshells: crabs and lobsters.  Softshell lobsters are just like regular lobsters to all appearances, except that there is proportionately less meat inside -- but you eat them the same way, boiling them and breaking them open and whatnot.  Softshell crabs, on the other hand, have a soft, pliable shell, and can be eaten whole, shell and all.  In New Orleans, they're usually battered and deep-fried.  The softshell crab poboy is something I'd get two or three times a year; the flavor isn't quite the same as regular crab, but I always liked it.

Softshell crawfish are like softshell crab.  The whole thing is edible, shell and claws and the whole nine yards.  I'm guessing the reason they're so expensive is because of rarity -- for all the years I lived in New Orleans, I'd never heard of them or seen them offered anywhere, though since then the softshell crawfish poboy has become a frequently blogged-about item at Jazzfest.

I really didn't know what to expect.  When I opened the container, many of the crawfish claws had either become detached from the bodies, or detached themselves as I picked them up.  These are fragile things compared to regular hardshell crawfish -- maybe that's another reason for the rarity and expense?  I don't know.

I decided to cook up just a few of them, in case I discovered something critical about them in the process.  It worked out fantastically, and I made the same thing with the rest the next day.

Softshell crawfish, tomato sauce, smoked grits.

Softshell crawfish: deep-fried in a batter of buttermilk, cornmeal, self-rising flour, and Old Bay.

Tomato sauce: bacon debris (left over from making the sweet potato bacon hash), roasted tomato puree, chopped hot cherry peppers, demiglace, malt vinegar.

Smoked grits: grits cooked in the stovetop smoker; mixed with boiled peanuts, peppadews, and two cheeses (aged gouda and cave-aged gruyere).  Cooled overnight, cut into squares, reheated in the oven.

So good.  I don't know how to describe the softshell crawfish.  There's a definite crawfish flavor, obviously, which a texture sort of ... halfway between softshell crab and sauteed crawfish tails.  There's not as noticeable a distinction between the shell and the inside as with softshell crab -- it doesn't feel as much like, well, eating a whole animal.  And the crawfish flavor is ... it's like discovering a new part of the crawfish.  You can tell it's crawfish -- not shrimp, not crab, not lobster, but crawfish -- but it's noticeably different from the crawfish you've had before.

I figured there was a chance this was something I'd just have once out of curiosity, but no, I would definitely do this again.

they asked me how I knew

I have, and love, a Cameron Stovetop Smoker.  This isn't a piece of equipment you'll often find praised, because what it isn't is a substitute for a proper outdoor smoker (or an indoor smoker with its own ventilation).  If you want to make real barbecue -- a big hunk of pork or beef, or a chicken or turkey, smoked until it develops a smoke ring -- this is not the way.

However.

Many people, like me, can't use a "real" smoker without considerable inconvenience (there are a couple places in my condominium development where I could use one, none of them near my kitchen) and don't have the means to install a professional indoor smoker.  What's more, even a basic and not terribly great outdoor smoker is an expensive piece of equipment.

The stovetop smoker cost me $30.  It comes with enough wood chips that most people will never use them up, and if you do, refills are cheap.

The way it works is you put it on your stove, put fine wood chips inside, put the tray over those, add your food, and close it up.  The wood chips smolder, and after about twenty minutes begin smoking your food.  The smoke alarm will not go off.  Trust me, mine goes off during oven cleanings sometimes, while searing steaks, and so on, and the smoker has never once set it off.  That's an improvement on the way I used to smoke things.

Essentially, your food is cooking in a small, somewhat moist, low-temperature oven.  That's why it won't work for everything.  This isn't an ideal cooking method for everything, and it's a pretty slow cooking method.

That's also the strength.

It's excellent for fish (I don't think I've tried shellfish yet).  I love using it for smoked meatloaf.  It's great for cooking potatoes in the smoker and then mashing them to make smoked mashed potatoes -- though the potatoes take 2 to 3 hours to cook, rather than the 20-30 minutes if you simmered them.

But some things benefit from a slow cooking time.  I'm able to smoke butter -- I just put it in a small pie plate and put the pie plate in the smoker tray -- because it can sit in the smoke for a long time before coming anywhere near to burning.  Fresh mozzarella will take on some smoke flavor by the time it starts to melt.  

And grits ...

Grits apparently benefit tremendously from a slow cooking time.  Not only does the combination of smoke and salt give them a bacon-like appeal, but cooking slowly -- these took three and a half hours, maybe four -- makes them silky and luxurious without being mushy.  Ridiculously good.

I cooked 3/4 cup grits in 3 cups of water in the smoker, with just a little homemade celery salt for seasoning (I make crazy good celery salt, it's a weird thing to take pride in).  Once they were cooked, I added a pat of smoked butter, a little crushed red pepper, and a generous shredding of Pecorino Romano cheese.

The greens, well -- nothing goes better with grits than greens.  These are turnip greens, collards, and Swiss chard, simmered for about four hours in plain water with two bay leaves.  I then adjusted the pot liquor with a little demiglace (super-concentrated pork stock), Texas Pete hot sauce, that homemade celery salt again, homemade smoked turnip salt, and a dash of Worcestershire.

Bliss.

bears battlestar galactica

I would suggest you get in the comfortable chair for this one, this meal's got a lot of ground to cover.

Let's talk about a few specific elements.

Corn.

Corn is pretty great.  I don't know what I'd do without the foods of the New World.  Even apart from the fact that corn kernels are the best canned vegetable and the best frozen vegetable -- though they experience some loss of flavor and texture, it's not nearly as pronounced as in most vegetables -- the sheer variety of forms corn can take is fucking staggering.  Let's break it down:

Cob and kernels.  Self-explanatory.  As demonstrated, usable to make caramel.  Note in passing that corn is the most underrated of all chowders, capable of excellence with only three ingredients (corn, cream, salt), though five is better (+bacon, +hot sauce).

Cornmeal.  Ahhh, cornbread.  When the weather is colder, I'll show you some couche couche, a fantastic and criminally little-known cereal made with cornmeal.  Cornmeal is also the basis for corn chips, tortillas, etc., and while I don't share the enthusiasm for corn dogs that some possess, I am an ardent supporter of fried cornmush.  Cornflour, similar to cornmeal but finer, is found primarily in fry mixes for chicken or fish, especially in the South.

Grits.  Superficially similar to coarse cornmeal, grits are made from coarsely ground corn (ideally stone-ground).  If you're a Yankee or foreigner, you probably haven't had grits.  You're missing out.  Soft and silky when first cooked, grits solidify when cooled, and can be reheated for a texture that's hard to describe, though similar to fried cornmush -- sometimes crispy on the outside, softer on the inside, somewhat like a French fry.  Grits are often compared to polenta but aren't quite the same, if only because the varieties of corn themselves differ -- just as slightly different varieties of corn are used for all these other corn forms.

Hominy.  Especially big kernels of corn that have been nixtamalized (treated with an alkaline solution) and hulled, which makes the corn more digestively useful, and therefore features in the cuisines native to the New World which were dependent on corn, as opposed to those cuisines which have developed subsequently which typically rely on flour (or rice, in Louisiana and the Carolinas) for their principal starch.  It's no coincidence that hominy survives in Mexican and southern cuisine, where corn has historically been most important.  But nevermind that: hominy has a very light corn flavor and a sort of spongy texture that's hard to compare to anything else.  It's amazing at soaking up flavors, which is why it is the key component of posole, one of the world's great soups.  Dried and reconstituted hominy is far superior to the easier to find canned stuff.

Popcorn.  Come on.  Awesome.  I still vividly remember the introduction of Smartfood.  My brother and I regularly argue over who will inherit my mother's popcorn popper, a standalone electric unit which uses oil in a curved bowl to pop the popcorn.  Air-popped popcorn, which displaced such units in the marketplace, and microwave popcorn, absolutely suck in comparison to oil-cooked popcorn, whether popped in a standalone unit or on the stovetop. 

Huitlacoche.  Technically not corn, this is a fungus -- a mushroom, if you're a marketer -- that grows on ears of corn, to the consternation of some and the delight of others.  It has only really been adopted by Mexican cuisine, perhaps because they call it huitlacoche, while gringos call it "corn smut."  The flavor is actually very subtle -- a little earthy, like cocoa powder without the acidity.

BOLD BOLD BOLD HELLO THERE.  Lima beans.  BOLD BOLD BOLD SHAZAM.  God, so many people hate lima beans, but here's the thing: the dried ones are not very good; the frozen ones are only okay; the canned ones are terrible (get canned butter beans instead).  You want to get them fresh, and they have a brief season.  Ideally, lima beans are slightly sweet, with a creamy texture.  They get mealier if they get bigger, and since my limas come from my mother's garden, where generally things are let to grow as big as possible, the ones I'm using do lean in that direction.  But I'm an experienced and satisfied lima-eater, I'm okay with that.  They're just not what I'd consider conversion limas.

"Lima beans" isn't bolded because every time I bold it, my browser crashes, even when all I do is restart the browser, open up Blogger, open up this draft, and do nothing but highlight "lima beans" and then press the bold button.  True story.  What the fuck, Blogger?  Motherfuck.  Fourth fucking time in a row now!  Pisswhistler.  I have employed an alternate means of emphasis.

Beets.  It was a long time before I loved beets, because I had grown up with Harvard beets -- pickled beets -- and was never fond of them.  I discovered plain old regular beets in New Orleans, and for whatever reason they became my standard side dish with fried fish.  Beets have a sweet (remember Mrs Howell?) and earthy flavor, and are sort of potato-like in texture, though they neither fry nor mash as well as potatoes do.  They're very forgiving when you roast or boil them in their skins, which then rub or peel off easily.

The stems -- which have a similar flavor to the beets, but lighter -- and greens (sweetish, tender) are both edible.

Lunch, then, consists of:

Succotash, which I have talked about before, a traditional dish of lima beans and corn.  I added tomatoes and sweet pepper in this case.

Beet "confit."  I covered slices of peeled beet in duck fat and cooked them at a low temperature until tender.

Smoked grits cake.  The grits were cooked in the stovetop smoker with salt and butter, and then combined with diced ham and my aforementioned "lactic corn," before being refrigerated.  A slice of the refrigerated grits was reheated in a pan with just enough butter to keep them from sticking.