Fun Playing With Freddie's Polish Boy

As many of you know, one of Cleveland's favorite culinary sons has "made good" with a starring role on daily national television - Michael Symon, who appears on ABC's The Chew. The Chew debuted about a month ago, replacing the long running soap opera All My Children. The DVR has allowed me to see many of Michael's exploits (and you can watch complete episodes via The Chew's website). On Wednesday October 19, 2011, Michael demonstrated a Cleveland classic: the Polish Boy. The Polish Boy consists of grilled sausage or kielbasa on a hotdog bun and topped with coleslaw, french fries and BBQ sauce. Symon said that sometimes pulled pork is added - I've been told that such an addition turns the sandwich into a Polish Girl.

Who would tell me such a thing? The fine folks at Freddie's Rib House, which opened in April 2011 at  5361 Mayfield Road, Lydhurst OH, that's who. You can reach Freddie's at (440) 449-9400 (no website). Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday, noon to 1 a.m. Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.

I've eaten there a number of times, but held off posting about them. The people are really nice, but they had some early kinks to work out. Things seem well in hand now. Except for the fries, which I'll get to shortly. Owner Andre Wheeler is the son of the restaurant's late namesake Freddie Wheeler, and he was working the order counter my first two visits. The original incarnations of Freddie's served for years downtown, but the urban location closed shortly after the Lyndhurst spot opened. Take out or eat in at one of four four-tops.

After watching The Chew Crew devour Symon's Polish Boys Wednesday night, I had a hankering to eat one myself yesterday. And I knew where I could satisfy that craving - Freddie's! Here it is - a "deal" for lunch at $4, including a can of pop (regular price is $5 just for the sandwich). A larger size is available for a dollar more.

Usually, I would eat something this messy with a fork - but inspired by Chef Symon, I tucked the foil back into the bottom end of the package, picked it up, and just dove in. Crunchy from the grill, the sausage skin gave way to tender, juicy saltiness that was complimented by the slightly sweet, yet tart (and obviously housemade) cole slaw. The fries, which are cut in-house from whole potatoes, were a bit limp, but full of potato flavor. The BBQ sauce was reasonably well balanced between heat and sweet, but applied perhaps a bit too robustly. My hands and face were a mess after eating this, but oh was my tummy happy!

Here's a Polish Girl I sampled on April 15; it was also messily delicious:

 Other items I've enjoyed at Freddie's since April are below:

Fried Perch Lunch, April 13, 2011

My first meal from Freddie's consisted of a generous portion of frozen perch that was hand-breaded to order and perfectly deep-fried, accompanied by the house made french fries. Everything Freddie's serves is prepared to order - either call ahead, or expect to wait at least ten minutes.

This bag, one of several in the restaurant, could be seen from the ordering counter - a sign of the authenticity of the fries. I believe that they store the raw, cut fries in water to prevent oxidation, then fry them to order. As Chef Symon explained on the The Chew, the better technique is to blanch the fries in 300 degree oil (which would also solve the oxidation problem) and THEN fry to order at 360 degrees. The single-fry method explains why the fries don't get very crisp. But they do taste delicious, and contain no artificial ingredients or processing.

Andre told me that I had to try the wings, and so went my third meal:

Meaty wings, fried to exquisite crispness. The Wing Dinner contains a generous portion for $6.25.

Plus house-made cole slaw.

Plus fries, and two slices of bread (which you can sort of see in the upper left corner), together with a cup of Andre's BBQ sauce.

A friend joined me on my next visit, and we started by sharing an order of onion rings:

Though clearly not made from scratch, the rings were fried to hot crispiness and were most enjoyable.

My friend had a fried tilapia sandwich (all of the sandwiches come with fries):

I opted for the Rib Tips:

Both lunches satisfied and offered good value for the price. The rib tips were melt-in-your-mouth tender and not overly sauced.

One of the kinks I was hoping they'd work out, though, concerns the sides - priced at $3 each. When last I ordered any, in May 2011, the portions were very small for the price point. For example, the cole slaw:

That cup didn't hold more than 2 ounces of product. Yes it is house made and delicious, but for $3, I wish they'd move up to the next cup size. Same issue with the mac and cheese side order:

This cup didn't hold more than 3 ounces, I'd guess. It tasted nice, but wasn't anything special and didn't go very far. I do not know whether anything has changed in regard to this issue in the intervening months.

At first, the baked stuffed potato seems pricey ($8-10). But the portion is huge (chicken, steak or shrimp, plus chopped broccoli, onion, cheese, mushrooms and green pepper), especially for lunch. More important - it was one of the best tasting items I've had at Freddie's (hold the mushrooms on mine, please):

You can see bits of seasoning atop the cheese; I have no doubt that this sprinkle added to my enjoyment of the dish. 

Freddie's seems to have solved it's early issues with utensilry, nakpins and beverages. So - if you are in the Lyndhurst area and are in the mood for a Polish Boy or Girl, or ribs, or fried chicken or fish (and yes, they offer grilled chicken also) - Freddie's can be a fun choice to play with Southern-inspired comfort food. It certainly slaked my Symon-induced Polish Boy craving!

Fun Playing with Lasagna with Help From Ohio City Pasta and Michael Symon

Lasagna is one of those foods, like meatloaf, that everyone's mom makes and it's all good. And I don't know about your mom - but my mom's lasagna rocks. I still can't exactly duplicate my mom's delicious lasagna, but to me, it was always the best lasagna.

Bob and I planned to shop at the West Side Market last Saturday and pick up the December installment of my Ohio City Pasta prize - and I'd been fantasizing about making a lasagna with fresh OCP pasta sheets and frozen garden tomatoes. I don't usually follow a recipe when making lasagna, though I do like to consult a couple of "reference" recipes when constructing the sauce. For years, my "go to" for this purpose has been from Dom De Luise's "Eat This, You'll Feel Better," which I've annotated with tips from other chefs I respect. But I knew that Michael Symon's book Live to Cook had a sauce recipe, which is why I reached for our copy of this book last Friday night. It turned out that the Iron Chef included his mom's lasagna recipe! And that recipe contained some unique elements, like using pork neck bones in building the sauce. I couldn't wait to try it.

The recipe's ingredient list practically begged for a trip to the West Side Market. I knew we could get every ingredient that we didn't already have, including pork neck bones and fresh mozzarella. We'd also defrosted a pound of Miller Livestock Co. ground beef (which we could have bought at Foster's Meats at the WSM if we didn't already have) and a pound of spicy Italian sausage from our Breychak Farm hog (we could have gotten lovely sausage at the Market if we'd needed it). The only deliberate variation from Michael's recipe would be the use of fresh pasta from OCP rather than dried. I was excited to photograph and blog this meal because it would be loaded with fantastic, locally sourced ingredients and promised to taste so good. I anticipated those photos capping off a post showing off the Ohio City Pasta prizes from October, November and December (don't worry - I'll be showing you October and November shortly in another post).

After a Saturday morning of running around and shopping, about 3pm, I propped open the book and began to follow the recipe. If I use an actual recipe when cooking (which isn't often), I like to follow it pretty exactly  the first time I use it - how else will I learn anything new? However, over the next two hours, it became apparent that somehow, the recipe contained a few wrong turns.

When Alton Brown signed our copy of "I'm Just Here For More Food," he made a point of correcting a typo that found it's way into a recipe for pizza dough (page 238) that he told us could kill him - the "chewable children's vitamin C" in the recipe proof sent to the printer somehow came out of publication as "aspirin." Alton told us that he is deathly allergic to aspirin, and this fact made the publishing error just a bit ominous, even though it was sheer happenstance. My friends Linda and Fred Griffith have written no fewer than six cookbooks (one of which won a James Beard Award), and they also tell me that these kinds of things happen more than you'd think between final proofs and publication. So - I regret that a long day and late dinner made me rant to my Facebook friends about  some glitches in the published lasagna recipe. Of course, it isn't every day that people who are involved in the creation of a published cookbook are also reading your FB posts - but I now know on very reliable authority that the recipe for "Mom's Lasagna" on page 234 of Live to Cook has a couple of publishing errors. And while those errors led to some extra fussing and achy feet last weekend - they did not detract from the ultimate deliciousness of the dish. Which by coincidence, Michael's mom actually made for him the very next day!

I was blissfully unaware of any of these issues as I prepped the items needed for the sauce pan.

 

Chopped Farmers' Market Onion, Garden Garlic, Bay Leaves

Pork Neck Bones - Foster's Meats (WSM)


Hot Italian Sausage - Breychak Farms Berkshire Hog


Ground Beef -  Miller Livestock Co.


Ground Veal - Sebastian's Meats (WSM)

Unfortunately, the very first steps of the recipe became my undoing. The recipe said to sweat the onion and garlic in olive oil with salt, then add the pork bones and brown them, then add the rest of the meat and brown on medium heat. Oops. Moments after the bones hit the pan, I knew I was in trouble. The high heat needed to brown the bones would scorch the vegetables. So I scooped the bones out. Then I scooped the veggies out. Then I returned the bones to the pan on high heat to brown. But since I hadn't re-rinsed the bones, bits of garlic and onion were stuck to them, and yes, they burned. Ruined the fond. Luckily, the smallest piece of neckbone Foster's had was 1.5 pounds - a bit more than the 1 pound called for in the recipe. So even though I lost the fond, my sauce still had a fabulous depth of porky flavor. Note to self - always brown the bones first, then meats, then and only then veggies and only after removing said meats from the pan. No matter what the recipe says. The sauce also seemed to need more tomato balance, so I added a small can of tomato paste a bit at a time as the sauce simmered.

And [insert best Droopy voice] do you know what? Though it wasn't fun while it was happening (it was a pain in the buns to switch to a clean pan and to get everything in the right order, and we did try to save the scorched fond), and though the process took about two hours total because of the snafu - the final result was a mighty fine, mighty porky, yet still beefy sauce:

While the sauce simmered for two more hours, I assembled the ricotta cheese mixture. Thankfully, the recipe did not call for the traditional bechemel sauce, which would have required still more cooking prior to final assembly.

Fresh Ricotta - MEDITERRANEAN IMPORTED FOODS STAND: NW Corner of the Market

Fresh Mozzarella - MEDITERRANEAN IMPORTED FOODS STAND: NW Corner of the Market

Fresh Ohio City Pasta Sheets

The Ohio City Pasta was simply fabulous. I neither precooked it, nor did I slice it into strips, as some online recipes suggested. Due to the large size of the pan (Bob talked me out of using a smaller glass lasagna pan in favor of a roasting pan), it took two sheets of pasta to make each layer (which is why I didn't cut it up further). Also, I should note that OCP makes several flavors of pasta sheet, though we stuck with the traditional for this application.

Here, a layer of sauce is covered by the raw OCP, then a layer of sauce.

The ricotta was mixed with fresh parsley and oregano, and frozen garden basil, as well as farmers' market eggs and some of the fresh mozzarella that didn't like my attempt to grate it in the Cuisinart. A layer was spread over the sauce in the pan. Then more fresh pasta, sauce and cheese mixture. Since the fresh mozzarella didn't like the automated grating process (though to be fair, grating a similarly fresh cheese by hand on the box grater did work), I sliced the rest for the topping. That's how my mom topped her lasagna, anyway. A generous dose of grated Parmesan went on top as well, per the recipe. Covered and baked for an hour, then uncovered and baked for half an hour - we got this:

Another oops - I probably should have cut the pasta sheets into strips - we got a bit of an air bubble, which disappeared upon insertion of a sharp knife point.

And so, around 10pm - dinner was served, and yes, it was a dinner worth waiting for. We added additional mozzarella to the top of the leftovers for the re-heats (remember, I lost a bunch of my original mozzarella topping to the Cuisinart, though it's in there!), but don't worry, the top layer of cheese only looks sparse - the taste and texture were simply marvelous.

The OCP pasta sheets added an even fresher and toothier dimension to the fabulous ingredients listed in the recipe. The only other note is that the final product needed more salt - I suspect that the raw pasta cooking in the lasagna pan may have sucked out some of the salt from the other ingredients.  But with a little sprinke of salt, the taste was sublime. No, this wasn't my mom's lasagna - but it was definitely a mom's lasagna and most worthy of the moniker.

I promise to show you October and November's Ohio City Pasta goodness in another post - but this lasagna seemed to deserve a post of it's own. And we will be enjoying it right through Christmas Eve!

So, what did this kneehopper learn? First - never ever put your brain in park when cooking - even if the recipe originated with people you adore and respect - there are so many ways it can go wrong. Listen to your inner cook if a step in a printed recipe seems a little off. Use amazing ingredients if you can; they can cover many cooking sins. And don't hesitate to laugh at yourself if things seem like they are getting out of hand. Chances are, it will still taste good! Follow these guidelines to play with your food and you will be rewarded with yummies.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate on Friday and Saturday (I'm going to my first ever Christmas dinner this year), and best of the Holiday Season to all!

Fun Drinking Left Handed Beer and Playing With Bar Symon Food for the Last time - Plus - an Interview with the Iron Chef!

I participated in an interview of Iron Chef Michael Symon with other local bloggers and food writers on Tuesday, October 12, and Bob and I enjoyed a fantastic beer dinner at Michael's Bar Symon less than a week later. But we learned the very next day (one week after the interview - Tuesday October 19) that Bar Symon would close at the end of October. Good times and not so good times in Cleveland's food world.

First - the interview. Here we were, asking about new restaurants, or in my case, pastry chefs, lemon juicing, and burger composition, even as the demise of Bar Symon was being worked behind the scenes. But work it one must - in my day job as a business attorney, I totally appreciate how difficult this process is for everyone involved with it and I don't envy anyone going through it. I am the second interviewer on the audio, after  Cleveland blogger Bite Buff.   Note - I am not planning to quit my day job just yet.

Michael shared, among other things, that he has a new restaurant concept in the works (involving smoked meats - but that was all he could say - any more and he'd have had to kill me). And one to three new B Spots. So, his restaurant group remains strong.

Based on what I have read since the Bar Symon news became public, we must chalk Bar Symon's failure up to the old axiom - location, location, location. A location that couldn't or wouldn't support it. We hope to see it again somewhere soon (though it does continue on in an abbreviated format at Quicken Loans Arena during Cavaliers and Lake Erie Monsters games).

In the meantime, Chef Matthew "Chatty" Harlan will return to Lolita as House Manager. Though I suspect that he won't be out of the kitchen too long - his passion for food is as strong as Michael's, as demonstrated by Monday's fabulous dinner. Matt's theme was a sort of "nasty bits" concept - using parts of animals that are not usually featured, such as frogs' legs, chicken thighs, and beef cheeks.

The dinner was part of Cleveland's Beer Week festivities. The featured brewer was Left Hand Brewing Company out of Longmont, Colorado. I've enjoyed Left Hand's beers before (the fact that I am left-handed has nothing to do with it - they just make good beer), and so when beer writer-afficiando friend Karen asked if we wanted to join her for this dinner, we said "yes"!

Light noshes - glazed nuts, cheeses, popcorn and crackers - were served with a welcoming glass of Polestar Pilsner. I did photograph most of the beers, but honestly felt that those photos didn't add much to this report,  so I'm omitting them - be assured though that every beer we tasted was lovely! The Pilsner was a crisp opener - as the gentleman from the brewery explained, a "naked" beer, because there is no place for it to hide! Balanced is how I would describe all of the beers I tasted from Left Hand. Almost perfectly balanced - hop head or malt lover, it did not matter. No beer tilted too far in either direction, but all were loaded with flavor.


Chatty's Chowder with Frog Legs

We knew we'd be missing Matt Harlan's cooking when he shifted from Tremont's Lolita to Bar Symon  almost two years ago - it is a good hour each way to and from Bar Symon for us. This dish reminded me of how much we'd missed him - a scrumptious chowder, with plenty of toothy vegetables, tasty corn, and bacon. And something special - frog's legs! Frog leg meat was cooked into the chowder, and a single specimen, beautifully tempuraed, adorned the top of each plate. The chowder was served with the Sawtooth Ale.

Bone-sucking good.


Smoked Brined Chicken Thigh w/Jalapeno Creamed Corn, Bacon, Pickled Chilies

I can often take or leave smoked meat - but in this case, I wanted to take it all the way into my mouth! Matt did a fabulous job creating a dish that paired perfectly with the medium bodied and pleasantly banana-y Haystack Wheat. 

I'm afraid that a common mistake I still make when photographing meals is to not back out for the perspective shot. Had I done that with this dish, you would have seen a 5-6 quart dutch oven which contained this family-style course. One dutch oven per table, and there was plenty!

Pork Cassoulet w/Sausage, Prosciutto, Shoulder, Bacon

How can you not like cassoulet - especially when served up with the amazingly well balanced 400# Monkey IPA? To be honest - I'm not a hop-head, and I was a little concerned knowing that we'd be served two IPAs, among other hoppy things. But as noted, Left Hand is all about the balance - and that, combined with the well thought out combination of textures, flavors and spicing in Chef Harlan's food, let to another delicious course. Matt warned us to save room for the last meat course, though, and I'm so glad we followed his direction, because the best was yet to come.

Braised Beef Cheek w/Whipped Potatoes and Roasted Veggies, Chili, Cream

This was my favorite dish of the evening. I'm no stranger to beef cheeks - they are in the pierogie served at Michael Symon's flagship restaurant Lola, among other things. Cooked just right, as they were here, they fall apart on the plate and melt in the mouth.

Thusly. And with whipped potatoes, tenderly cooked root vegetables, a bit of chile bite, cream, and I swear  - a touch of cheese?  Simply perfect. Especially when accompanied by the every-other-year only Left Hand Twin Sisters Double IPA. A beer style that I might normally taste, remark upon the high quality of the ingredients (and hop bitterness) and pass to my husband - but not tonight. Another enjoyable beer, that might have been too hoppy for me anyway, had the food pairing not been so dead-on.

A Toast

Actually, we celebrated six toasts this evening - passed to various volunteers by the gentleman from Left Hand, who also took pains to ensure we really understood how to make a proper toast: with eye contact and a sturdy "cheers" after each toast was complete. The above gentleman really got into it (heck, he was several beers into it - so why not!). The beer he is toasting with is an amazing milk stout - even though it contained some major coffee flavor - that "balance" thing again made it not only palatable to this coffee-averse drinker, but a tasty counterpoint to new Symon Restaurant Group Pastry Chef Liz Wienclaw's dessert offering.



Chocolate Mousse Cake

The first thing I asked Michael Symon in our interview was about the new executive pastry chef for the Symon Restaurant Group. This was my first taste of Chef Wienclaw's work, and like the courses before it, it complemented the beer it paired with very nicely, and delivered with chocolate flavor, textural contrasts and overall yumminess.

Though we didn't know it at the time, the meal we enoyed on Monday was a worthy last bite of Bar Symon. Our sincere good wishes for continued success go out to all of those who worked at Bar Symon (from the front of house folk who provided simply fabulous service on Monday to the kitchen staff who realized Chef Matt's culinary vision) and we look forward to seeing you at Lolita, B Spot, Lola and other venues.  It was fun interviewing Michael Symon and even more fun playing with Chef Matt's food, Left Hand Brewing Company beers, and Cleveland Beer week. Go get some Cleveland beery goodness before the week is over!

Fun Catering for 195 Hungry Friends

Last weekend - or was it two weekend ago? Bob and I were in charge of food for the 2010 Cleveland Area Mensa Regional Gathering ("RG"), which was a party "So Superior, it's Eerie!" We had a total of 195 people in the house (actually, a local hotel) for a weekend of food, fun, speakers, games, tournaments, friends, a dunk tank and book sale to raise money for the David Jaquet Scholarship Fund, and so much more. It was exhausting and exhilarating, fun and silly. And we raised a lot of money for the Scholarship Fund, which honors the late David Jaquet, a former President and activist in our Mensa chapter, and which offers scholarships available to any student enrolling in higher level education through an essay contest (you do NOT need to be a member of Mensa to qualify, and the national contest has additional scholarship opportunities available - check out info here).

The prep had begun weeks in advance of the event. One of our members was able to obtain an obscene quantity of lunch meats, bacon, kielbasa and hot dogs through her mom's place of employment. When she got redeployed due to her fiance's good fortune (he won an all-expense-paid trip to NYC the weekend of our event) - Bob and I swooped in to collect the bounty from her basement. It all just barely fit in our outbuilding's refrigerator, consuming both the fridge and freezer compartments:

Our Mensa-member farmers, owners of Mr. G’s Produce, 13213 Arlington Road, Norwalk Ohio, provided some gorgeous winter squashes, which I turned into 8 quarts of delicious soup:

Garden-Based Vegetable Stock Simmers 

Sadly, I neglected to get a photo of the final product. The squash halves were dusted with salt and pepper and brushed with melted butter, then roasted in a slow oven until tender. The insides were scraped out and blended with the finished veggie stock, then frozen. After reheating for service, a bit of heavy cream was added. It was heavenly.

Nick and Kelley also provided Eggplant a couple of weeks in advance of the event, which was prepped a few days before service.

Though it lacked the intense smokiness that a charcoal fire would have added, Amir's Tahini gave this babaganoush so much flavor and a touch of smokey tones:

Sadly, the only meal I got any photos of was Friday dinner - it just got too insane after that. In addition to the squash soup and baba, we served:

Lots of Cold Cuts - with Bread - at every meal!

Ham and Noodles, provided by a longtime member who always brings something yummy to the RG!

Keeping with our "Eerie" theme for the dinner, these blurry meatballs were called "Lake Erie Monster Eyeballs" - each had a single, strategically placed pea. Or at least they did, until they were tossed with the "Vinegar Splashed Meatball" sauce. Oh well.

"Soylent Green" aka Urban Herbs's Spinach Cous Cous with Lemon and Mint

Salad Bar - Lettuce and Tomatoes from our wonderful farmers!

More Salad Fixings: Plain Tuna, Farmers' Radishes (2 types) and Cucumbers, Mushrooms and Shredded Cheese

Vegan Chili, made by another RG Volunteer cook

We had other fabulous soups, Garlic Chicken and roasted Kielbasa, Tortellini Salad with Farmers' Tomatoes and Broccoli, Sushi, St. Josephat's Pierogies and Koko Bakery Pork Buns, plus beautiful and tasty cakes and other desserts made by our wonderful volunteers - so many delicious and beautiful  foods that I failed to photograph because I was too, um, busy. But there is one more photo.

Chocolate Covered Bacon with Almonds a la Iron Chef Michael Symon

We had lots of Chocolate Covered Bacon (milk and dark Belgian chocolate - thank you Caren and the Pittsburgh RG!). People seem to either love it or hate it, but it's become a Cleveland RG staple as much as our root beer floats, with craft brewed root beer.

As always, we had great fun feeding the masses, though we did suffer a casualty on our home stove when an igniter shorted out after tortellini cooking water splashed (AC Plumbing, Heating and Mechanical will complete that repair tomorrow - thank you Tony Caruso!). A great time for a great cause - we love feeding our many friends at these events! But much as I love doing this, at the end of the weekend, my feet remind me that I'm not ready to quit my day job yet.