Smokehaus Recipe: Smoked Whitefish and Blue Cheese Pizza

I don't know what took us so long to put our smoked Lake Superior whitefish on pizza - we certainly have tried every other Smokehaus goody this way. The whitefish is a perfect match for the blue cheese, as they are both somehow subtle and pungent at the same time, and neither seems to battle the other for a primary flavor position. The egg, while admittedly a little too far on-trend, is a beautiful garnish and adds a neutral flavor and a glamorous texture to the pizza. And let's face it - there's never too many eggs, especially in Smokehaus-land. We've adapted this recipe from the Cashel Blue website.

Cashel Blue Cheese and Smoked Lake Superior Whitefish Pizza

Ingredients:

1 8-10’’ pizza dough

Olive oil for drizzling

1/3 cup fresh spinach

1/3 cup smoked whitefish, de-boned, skinned, and flaked

2 oz Cashel blue, crumbled

1 large egg

Salt and pepper

Pecorino Romano for garnish

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Roll out your pizza dough and set it to rest for 15 minutes or so. If you have a pizza stone, be sure to preheat it. We just use an inverted baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal, on which we also built the pizza. If using the pizza stone, build your pizza on a cornmeal-sprinkled peel.

Drizzle the dough with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with the spinach leaves, then the whitefish, and finally the Cashel blue. Create a small well in the center of these ingredients and crack your egg into it. Season the egg and the pizza with salt and pepper.

Place pizza in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. Garnish with shavings of Pecorino Romano. By the time you're done shaving the cheese onto the pizza, it should be set and cool enough to cut. Slice, eat, and rejoice.

Smokehaus Recipe: Corned Beef Supper with Roasted Vegetables

Unlike most grocery store corned beef, our corned beef is fully cooked and ready to go. This means that you can rip off a chunk or two before you set it on the stove to boil, and it also means that it will not release the usual amount of tallowy scuzz that a raw product is prone to do. However, because it is already cooked, you must simmer it long enough to become tender. This recipe will also work for any old corned beef brisket: just follow the raw meat's cooking guidelines.

As my mother (the finest corned beef supper-cooker in the world) advised me, the most important thing to remember is timing: the vegetables and meat need to be ready at roughly the same time.

Smokehaus Corned Beef Supper with Roasted Vegetables 

Boiled Elements: 

1 corned beef brisket – 3-4#

3 med onions

4 stalks of celery

1/4 cup of pickling spice

5-7 cloves of garlic

1 head of cabbage – we use green, but napa, bok choi, or baby bok will work

salt and pepper to taste

Roasted Elements: 

5 carrots

2 turnips

3# small white or red potatoes (roughly 1 1/2 inch diameter – but fingerlings will do)

7-10 cloves of garlic

2-4 Tablespoons of olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Course-chop onions and celery and peel the garlic cloves. These will contribute to the flavor of the boil, creating a sort of court bouillon effect which will season the meat, steam the cabbage, and eventually reduce into a sauce. Combine them along with the pickling spice in large stockpot and add brisket. Submerge in water, and put the whole shebang on a high-temp burner. At this point, you may add the salt, but I like to wait an hour or two and taste what the broth is doing; the meat will lend (or leach out) salt, but probably not enough. Once the mixture is boiling, reduce the heat so the broth is at a lazy bubble.

The meat will need to bathe in this boil until it is tender – about 3 hours. You may need to add more water during this process. For the last 20 minutes of cooking, quarter the cabbage, add it on top of the boil, and cover the pot.

When the meat has been lazy-bubbling for an hour and a half or so, start the vegetables.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Peel and course-chop the carrots and turnips. The goal is to get all the vegetables to cook at the same time, so just make sure they are consistent sizes. Scrub your potatoes and leave them whole. Crush the garlic with a flattened knife. In a large mixing bowl or in your baking dish, combine all the vegetables with enough olive oil to lightly coat them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Dump this mixture on a lipped baking sheet or in a roasting pan and pop it in the oven. After 20 minutes of roasting, use a spatula to upset the vegetables – this will allow more complete caramelization. Use this agitation method throughout the the roasting process. The vegetables should take 45 minutes to an hour to roast – they should be soft and caramelized when done.

When the meat and cabbage is tender, remove them to a large serving platter and tent with foil. Strain the broth through a mesh strainer into a pitcher (we used a mason jar): adjust salt and pepper to taste – now you’ve got sauce! Discard the aromatics.
Serve the vegetables and meat together and adorn with your brothy sauce. Real good with lager and blueberry cobbler (but what isn’t?). If you have leftovers, you’re in luck: corned beef hash in the morning!

Catering is us

We have been working hard on a

catering menu

these days: our goal is to offer trouble-free platters as well as carefully composed appetizers or "bites." Smokehaus food is unique, delicious, and beautiful - making it ideally suited for events. Our approach is to keep it simple and let the food speak for itself. After all, no amount of saucing or shaping can torture our stuff into anything better than what it already is: elegant, straightforward, and irresistible.

Goodbye January, Hello Love

We had a marvelous December here at the Smokehaus - but neglected our blog in the flurry. No longer: check back to catch news, special limited-quantity gift boxes, and recipes galore.

For February, we've put together a sweet little gift box in honor of a dwindling cold snap, Valentine's Day, and a terrific crop of Pepperoni. Click here to get a closer look.

 Thanks for a wonderful holiday season, everybody. We plan to keep the good times rolling!