Letting the Monkey Out to Play

Or, Of Chicken Feet And Cow Tongue.


Oh, how I've been a busy little monkey.

Upon realizing that I would be dead inside two years if I stayed in Florida, I said a puddly goodbye to Jimmy the Hapkido Chef and The Red Firebug, packed my shit, and hauled ass the hell on back to Oregon.

I stopped for a blurry and sleep deprived few days in Portland, said hello to some people who didn't want to see me, said hello to some people who did, and then trundled on to Eugene.

I landed on a Thursday, enrolled in college on a Friday, dropped off twenty some odd resumes on a Monday and Tuesday, went to Seattle for Thanksgiving with my son on a Wednesday, got back on a Friday...

My oh my how I've been productive, rising at seven in the morning, greeting the day bright eyed and bushy tailed, a can-do go-gettum attitude.

So tonight I'm getting shellacked, because the monkey wants out to play, and until I let him, he'll scratch at the patina of civilization I have inside my skull with a rusty nail until I punch someone.

I found myself staring at a checker at the market and thinking that if she didn't get off her phone and sell me beer, I was going to damage her in ways that would make even her nearest and dearest need barf bags when they saw the medical nightmare of tubes, siphons, pumps, breathers, and fluid processors that the last miserable days of her life had become.

So now I'm going to write about chicken feet and cow tongue, and why you should eat them.

When making a chicken soup, most people don't have access to large amounts of chicken bones to make a base stock with, instead relying on bases and cubes of bullion. The sad fact of the matter is that most chicken today is purchased boneless and skinless, which reduces a great many options you have for learning all the wonderful things you can do with a whole carcass. One of the great satisfactions in life (for me) is taking a whole chicken and breaking that fucker down into breasts, thighs, wings, pulling out the guts to make gravy with, frying the skin for cracklings, or throwing it into stock for a richer flavor, but one thing you just can't get, even if you buy the whole chicken from your supermarket, is chicken feet.

You usually have to go to a butcher or specialty meat shop, but they're worth it. You see, when you make a soup, most of the time it's thickened with a roux or corn starch, but when you make a stock with (well washed) chicken feet, and you let it go about its slow bubbling for hours, the gelatin in the feet breaks down and begins making a clear, naturally thickened, and extremely rich stock. If you have every made jello, you know that when gelatin is heated, it becomes liquid, but a thick liquid. If you take your stock made with chicken feet and refrigerate it, tah-da! Chicken flavored jello. Delicious.

Also, when you're sick, this naturally thick, viscous, rich stock makes the ultimate comfort food for homemade chicken soup.

Now that you've made really good chicken soup and chicken stock, get a mirepoix together (that's celery, onions, and carrots,) and brown the fuckers in a saute pan. The browning action is called the Milliard Reaction, otherwise known as caramelization, and it is the formation of a natural crust of sugar on the surface of your veggies. This sugar makes the flavor of the vegetables richer.

Now, through your browned mirepoix in a pyrex baking dish, cover it with some beef stock, some red wine, throw in some peppercorns and rosemary and plop a great fucking huge cow tongue in the center of the dish. The stock and wine should only be about an inch and a half to two inches deep, leaving the top two thirds of the cow tongue out of the liquid.

Cow tongue? Oh yes, cow tongue. Now, the cow tongue has very fine hairs on it, so you don't want to sear it off before you begin the cooking, or it will taste burnt. All you want to do is cover the whole dish tightly with saran wrap, then aluminum foil, and cook it on the lowest temperature your oven has for about oh...put it in when you leave for work, come home on your lunch break, check the level of liquid, recover it with wrap and foil, and it will be ready for dinner.

You see, for being such a huge chunk of tough ass muscle, the cow tongue and all of its connective tissue will begin breaking down when cooked at 200 for eight hours, the liquid will reduce to a delicious thick sauce, for straining and pouring over the meltingly tender tongue and whatever sort of potatoes you choose to pair it with.

I like garlic whipped mash potatoes made from red potatoes.

Congratulations, you now have a delicious chicken soup first course, and for mains you have braised tongue of beef with rosemary red wine sauce and garlic whipped mash potatoes. If you're a sick fuck, dessert will be chicken flavored jello.

My monkey is much happier now.