Robbie Burns

This Saturday we are invited to a Robert Burns birthday party. We have gone to this party several times in the past -- the hosts don't do it every year, but every 2 or 3 years. Sometimes they hire a piper. Always the dress is formal and those with Kilts and sporrans wear them, with tuxedo jackets. There is always haggis, and always a Scotsman who recites Burns' ode to the haggis, including acting out stabbing the haggis with a skean du.

Anyway, last time I was assigned the Cockaleeky Soup, and I did something like what I had had at a restaurant in the past. I made it visually as similar to a Japanese soup as I could, while preserving the flavors of Cockaleeky. So I made an extremely rich chicken broth -- Keller's recipe includes a pound of chicken feet which makes the mouth feel rich and sticky. I kept the broth as clear as I could. I cooked white potatoes to just the right tenderness, and I bought a few rotisserie chickens from Costco and cubed up the breast meat. The potatoes and breast meat looked like tofu cubes. I think I thin-sliced some carrots, and I cooked some leek greens to tenderness and put those in so that they looked like seaweed. I included a little piece of prune because I heard that was an essential ingredient in the original.

I am thinking of doing pretty much exactly the same thing this year. It was pretty popular when I did it before.

After the lengthy dinner (we must have our neeps and tatties) there is generally a single malt scotch tasting, followed by multiple cases of DUI which usually escape the notice of the authorities.

SO have you ever participated in a Robbie Burns party?? What did you cook?? What foods did you enjoy?? Do you consider haggis fit for human consumption (unlike the state of Florida which banned the importation...)??

Like Haggis. Like Burns. Never partied with the both.

Haggis is OK -- but I'm not sure why one would eat it NOT at a Burns supper!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis

It's a nice touch to douse the stuff with Scotch.

BTW I found and bought a packet of this. I think I knew it wouldn't really be useful...

[Jenise]

BTW I found and bought a packet of this. I think I knew it wouldn't really be useful...

And if not useful, grounds for great amusement. NEVER open that packet, ever.

What a great dinner party idea: I love themes! Friends in L.A. recently did a Tom Jones (he of English literature, not the Welsh singer) party, and guests were encouraged to bring the oldest wine they had in their cellar plus a younger version of the same grape to serve as a 'flite'. Even the men wore lace. I would love to have gone to that one.

And no on haggis. Haven't been offered the opportunity, though I'd accept it were it offered.

Jenise, I put haggis over toward scrapple or blood pudding. In a way it's like any other "sausage" but it has a strong flavor from the liver, and it is dark and crumbly. I'll eat some but I wouldn't ask for seconds.

I think I am stressing a little about this soup. I looked up photos from Jan 2009 to remind myself what I did. You can see the plan clearly in the dry-prepped bowls. And then you can see the "fail" -- that broth is uber-delicious but it's not CLEAR. Of course the real cock-a-leekie soup isn't clear either, but Japanese soup is. It's frustrating, I could have perfectly clear broth if I just use the commercial stuff, but then it wouldn't be delicious. One of the most reliable tricky methods for clarifying broth is to freeze it and then collect the clear melt water. But that gets rid of that rich mouth-feel from the gelatins in the chicken feet. Suggestions?

bowls2.jpg

soup2.jpg

[Jenise]

I see your problem. But when you say "commercial", are you referring to the chicken stock or the gelatine?

A quick aside: I thought of you the other day when I opened a can of Swanson's chicken broth from which I planned to make a quick aspic. Swansons used to be very pale and clear, hence my choice of it when purchasing something for that purpose. Egads, was it cloudy, an opaque milky yellow-white. Really offputting. I had to whip together an egg white and some diced vegetables to fine it with. While doing that my thoughts turned to your comment about preferring Campbell's (which I agree is the most concentrated available) and the fact that in Canada Campbell's sells not just chicken broth but chicken consomme, something I've never seen before although C's beef consomme has been around since I was a baby. Wonder if you guys see the chicken consomme on the east coast, or if indeed it's only sold in Canada (there are a number of Campbell's products exclusive to our northern neighbors).

Back to your problem, though: I agree clearer would be better. So, probably would a slightly lighter color. You could divert the eye by adding a layer of finely chopped chives to the surface. Otherwise you have to go back into your process and maybe break your broth out into two steps, one with the chicken feet to extract the gelatine and the other with the chicken etc to make a clearer broth that you can fine before blending it with the gelatine portion--if you did not already do that. You could also cut out the parsley (presuming you added one) in your bouquet garni, to elminate it's darkening chlorophyll tendencies--I always add parsley, or not, depending where I want my final color to be (ditto whether or not the chicken is browned first).

Thanks Jenise. Glad to have someone helping me think. I have seen what you are talking about, even the commercial broths can be cloudy.

ANYWAY I have read through Thomas Keller's directions for chicken broth -- he is constantly working to produce a clear product, and I don't think I have ever done it exactly the way he describes. Changes in heat are very gradual, you actually put the chicken backs and necks into a big pot of COLD water and slowly bring it up. When it gets brothy (skim skim skim) you add TWO QUARTS OF ICE to chill it back down, the idea being that you can solidify the fat and get rid of that. That is right before you add the carrots, leeks, and onions.

I think I am going to have to make an effort to make a 100% Keller style broth and not cut even the slightest corner. That includes the unpleasant job of having to go to butcher shops and ask for chicken bones and backs. I think one thing I did last time -- since I want to just use the meat from Costco rotisserie chickens, I have the carcasses left over -- cooked chicken bones and parts. It is convenient to just toss those in with everything else. I will have to reserve those for a different chicken soup, and only use raw chicken parts. Of course you have to detach the kidneys or whatever organs remain attached.

Wonder if the Asian market is a good place to go looking for my five pounds of chicken backs? I know it's a good place to find the feet.

I have never successfully done the clarification step with diced vegetables and egg whites -- I have seen it work, Jacques Pepin did it on TV, and I bet I could get it to work. But with 4-5 quarts of broth it just seems so daunting!!

[Jenise]

It will depend on the Asian market. I find them often at one of the regular stores around here whose clientele tends to be less affluent.

But yes, if you're using already-roasted chickens, you'll get a lot more white protein out of those bones than you would from fresh. Another consideration, just buy drumsticks and wings. You can typically get drumsticks pretty inexpensively--probably more so than you can backs etc--and tempering with the white meated wings gives you the balance of perfect chicken flavor. Clever idea, Keller's use of ice, which I never would have thought of. When I make broth I tend to start with a whole chicken and supplement it with some leg-thigh combos, start it in cold water, heat it up slowly and all that. My broth takes longer but come out pretty clear because it's never allowed to boil, which I know you know to avoid at all costs. But I never want to not do it with meat because I absolutely adore stewed chicken and have so many uses for it, and it does make the richest broth of all.

Good luck!

It must be three or four years since I took part in a Burns supper. Our hosts, kitted out in their tartans (kilt for him, sash over white gown for her) laid on a grand Scottish dinner for twelve, complete with the traditional addresses and entertainments. Dancing to the bagpipes out on the patio first of all (in the warm Australian night, with the fostered baby kangaroos looking on, bemused). Then, interspersed between the courses at the table, the Address to the Haggis, The Immortal Memory, the Toast to the Lassies (which got fairly risque), recitations and songs. I sang "What Can a Young Lassie" somewhere between the main course and the dessert.

(To digress slightly, I think my favourite Burns song is "Ae Fond Kiss". If someone had written that song for me, I'd think it was worth seeing him go home to the wife. Such beautiful words.)

Frank, that cock-a-leekie soup looks very good. I don't worry about a slight cloudiness in the broth - makes it look 'real'. The local poulterers bone out the chickens on premises and will sell chicken frames cheap - I've found two or three of these in a big pot of water boil up to a lovely broth.

As for haggis, a good haggis is tasty but a bad haggis is disgusting.

Jenise, good to know that avoiding cooked carcasses might help the problem.

And Matilda, you are so right, these occasions are just so memorably warm and colorful. There is such a spirit of everyone dressed up and looking beautiful and ready to have fun. Plus great food, recitations of poetry, and one song after another. We're not Scots and I don't think the host or hostess is either. I don't know what the Scottish is for "gaijins" but that would pretty much describe a good half of the guests. Of course one reason for the party is that SOME of the guests are Scots through and through with a thick burr accent.

I enjoy all of the songs, of course we generally have to be warned into the proper solemnity for "Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled..."

I'm not a fan of the monkey suit but I will gladly pull it out of the closet for a Burns party. Looking at the picture from 3 years ago -- it looks like I replaced the Tux jacket with a Japanese Haori, which I suppose went along with the soup!!

[Robin Garr]

Where's Barb Freda? She used to do an annual Burns party with a real haggis, and we were lucky enough to go to a couple when she was in Louisville. It wasn't the full monty with the entire sheep's pluck - lungs are hard to come by at urban butchers. But it was mighty close, and as authentic as I remember the haggis in Edinburgh. It's really not as disgusting as it sounds - think of a mild but well-flavored meatloaf.

OK, me on left (semi Japanese) with Ginny and Dave, our host and hostess.

burns_09_s.jpg

I think at the peak of my enthusiasm for things Japanese I bought the Japanese "kilt"... Hmmmm

Re clarity of stock.
I have found over the years that I can achieve a good clear stock doing the following.
Start with fresh raw, frames, wings whatever bits you have available, cover with cold water and bring slowly up to the simmer.
As it reaches simmering a lot of the proteins, blood etc coagulate and rise up as surface scum, thorough skimming of this now and over the first few minutes of the cooking process makes for good clarity. Obviously dont let it boil madly, a gentle simmer does the trick. After cooking, meticulous removal of fat and straining through a fine cloth usually produces a good clear stock.
I confess that I don't very often add all those aromatics, veggies etc as I think it makes the stock too sweet and can affect the clarity, so purists should just ignore this!LOL and I have had a traumatic experience with "the raft"

Frank,
It's not the most elegant approach, but if you want to clarify your stock -- given your profession -- why not procure a vacuum filtration flask fitted with a 47 µ nylon filter? Put your stock through that and it'll be as clear as the day is long

Mark Lipton

Barb, you sound almost exactly like Thomas Keller, and that is a compliment!

It makes me think his technique is really likely to work. As Matilda pointed out, given the hybrid nature of what I want to do, the broth only has to be a LITTLE clearer than the 2009 version and I can just relax and feel satisfied.

Mark, sounds like that would work but it would take a while to put some 4 qts of chicken stock through that system. Better not to let it get cloudy to begin with.

I need to get my ingredients and get started TODAY.

OK I bought a 5+ pound tray of mixed chicken parts -- wings, drumsticks, and thighs.

If I wanted to salvage out the thigh meat in edible form I should take it out after maybe an hour? The meat that is in the stockpot at the end of the process is completely flavorless.

I picked up a pound of frozen chicken feet at Kam-man (golden gate) so I am ready to roll. Will spend a few hours in my office and then get started when I come home.

Persevere in your obsession, Frank. We're all fascinated by it.

Matilda/Frank: Yea, I've done the Toast to the Lassies a couple or few times and it's an awful lot of fun. And although I've worn the kilt more than a few times, and had a fondness for it ever since I played a Scotsman in a play (Lachlan McLachlan in The Hasty Heart, a comedic tearjerker) I don't get into full rig anymore.

I also can't stand haggis, primarily because of the liver component...don't like liver and lights...so if I'm doing a dinner I focus on one of the great dishes of Scotland, the Finnan Haddie. What a wonderful dinner that makes too.

[Jenise]

I hear you guys, btw, re the raft. I've read a lot of very complicated recipes/procedures, but it doesn't have to be that hard. Downloading pix of our Havasu trip just now I found that I took a picture of the terrine I made from the can of milky white Swansons broth I mentioned earlier. I had no ground meat to use as protein and only one egg which, in my haste, I added to the finely diced onion and carrot I decided to include for more home-made color and flavor (hopefully), before whisking so my egg white was barely foamy. Based on conventional wisdom not much should have come of that, but whisked into the pan just that way and simmered for about 45 minutes (no punching down), it cleared the ugly broth beautifully which this close-up of the resulting terrine shows quite well. (This was a very successful attempt to cross two Burgundian style ideas, an herbal potato salad and jambon perseille terrine made from my motherlode of proscuitto, to serve as a sliced first course salad involving a bed of bibb lettuce chiffonade and a shallot vinaigrette). Don't fear the raft! It's your friend.

IMG_3172.JPG

(This was a very successful attempt to cross two Burgundian style ideas, an herbal potato salad and jambon perseille terrine made from my motherlode of proscuitto, to serve as a sliced first course salad involving a bed of bibb lettuce chiffonade and a shallot vinaigrette).

Wow, interesting thinking Jenise, and I bet it was really delicious.

Glad to hear the raft can work so well!

[Jenise]

(This was a very successful attempt to cross two Burgundian style ideas, an herbal potato salad and jambon perseille terrine made from my motherlode of proscuitto, to serve as a sliced first course salad involving a bed of bibb lettuce chiffonade and a shallot vinaigrette).

Wow, interesting thinking Jenise, and I bet it was really delicious.

Glad to hear the raft can work so well!

Well, it solved two otherwise incompatible problems: I'd promised a course featuring proscuitto, but the female half of the couple who were our guests doesn't care much for meat, or at least being served it in naked hunks. Grinding the proscuitto and adding potato to the terrine did the trick while creating something elegant (I am never so happy as when I'm out there on my own, creating my own food) that I could feel confident they'd never seen before.

Jenise, obviously I think the way you approached that was -- genius!

Anyway.

The recipe I used for my broth is in Keller's "Bouchon" page 317.

It is looking honestly pretty clear right now. I have done several Keller broths in the past and so I own a Matfer chinois which helps a helluva lot. I also have a skimming tool that honestly looks like a nylon stocking stretched over about a 3 inch circular frame with a handle, and that has helped a lot too. Because it is rather flat and it clogs a bit, you can even get a lot of the fat globules off the top of the hot broth. The ice trick was OK but it didn't make the chicken fat solidify so it's good that I had an alternative way to skim.

Right now I have just put everything thru the chinois -- I am reserving the chicken parts to see how the meat tastes, I forgot to pull some out earlier. Everything goes out on to the balcony. There are indeed some advantages to living in the northeast where you can count on it being 40 F outside.

Tomorrow, I might do the raft, I might even add a few cans of Campbell's chicken broth to what I have made. It is very pale. Perhaps "the Campbells are coming!"

The rest of the soup ought to be a piece of cake.

ANYWAY. Louise is in Atlanta at a library conference so I have to think of doing things that would irritate her if she were here. One of them is making a big greasy mess in the kitchen. There are some others I could mention but some of those would probably irritate Jenise as well so I won't go there...

BTW on WB my friend actually prepared "Phoenix Claws" -- a Chinese recipe that used up the boiled chicken feet. The feet that I got are enormous and perhaps I should try that, but in Dim Sum restaurants I have never truly enjoyed the chicken feet, so it is a little hard to imagine that I could get them to taste good (to my palate)

Well, this is a little annoying. This morning I went and brought in the stock. On the good side, it had gelled, it is going to taste rich. It is "clear" as in the color of water. But it is not clear as in you can see a coin on the bottom of the pot. SO I tried the raft trick, with some chopped leek. I added a dash of vinegar to help acidify a little. Got formation of a beautiful raft, simmered another 20 minutes or so -- there were little "swimming" bits of egg still, so I ladled it through the chinois with a layer of cheesecloth for good measure. The visible eggy bits went away but it still was a bit milky.

So I transferred it into the fridge (too warm outside today) and got it down to about room temp, and now I am trying a second round. The first round -- 2 egg whites in 4 liters of stock. Second round, ditto, but no vegetable bits. It's simmering now.

Oh my, I just looked at it, beautiful snowy white raft. I set the timer for 22:22 and I am not going to bother that raft at all until it goes off. Slowly slowly.

FWIW our only trash pickup is on Friday (today) so I had to do my chicken tasting last night. Feet, wings, drumsticks, no flavor at all, pitched out. There were 4 thighs that were worth salvaging. So I think 2 Costco chickens will do, I can supplement the meat if necessary.

ANYWAY. I am hopeful about this second raft doing the trick. Will report.

PS It is looking pretty good. But I am down to 3 quarts! That's probably OK since I was planning to supplement it with commercial broth. Just hope my commercial stuff is CLEAR, I am counting on that. If not I suppose I know what to do. BTW it was hard to use 4 eggs, that is another Louise taboo. "Wasting food." I can certainly justify using the egg whites but she might see it as just having to do with my vanity or something. The broth DOES taste just as good if it's cloudy.

[Jenise]

Two eggs whites for four liters sounds a little underpowered, Frank. You based two on....?

[Jenise]

Oops, sent that before I was done. Wanted to add that my rule of thumb is one egg white per pint-quart. And I usually let it go for at least 30 minutes, 40 usually seems about right. If less is supposed to work, I've had better results from more.