Food Trucks Page 14
Sailor Jerry: “Ryan lived in New Orleans and apparently ate rum cake quite a bit there, so he really wanted to incorporate that into a doughnut, so we soak the hot doughnut in a rum sauce, give it a rum glaze, and then top it with cinnamon and sugar. Beware: It definitely has its fair share of booze.”
Mother Clucker: “Similar to the Flying Pig, the idea behind this is salty meat with something sweet. Since chicken and waffles is such a classic, I figured it wasn’t too much of a stretch to sub a doughnut for the waffle, but instead of using syrup I came up with using honey butter for the icing and then laying the freshly fried chicken strip on top of that.”
PB&J: “I could eat PB&J sandwiches every day if my clothes allowed it, so I thought why not do this combo with a doughnut, injecting it with grape jelly, icing it with peanut butter, and adding peanut butter morsels at the end.”
Heavenly Hash: “When I was growing up my mom would top her homemade brownies with a layer of marshmallow crème, then pour chocolate icing on top and call it ‘Heavenly Hash.’ It was so amazing that I used the same flavors on this doughnut and dedicated it to her.”
( SIDE DISH )
Real estate developers have been threatening to turn the strip of food trucks at 1600 South Congress into a hotel for a couple of years now, but thanks to the recession (sorry, hoteliers), this mobile food court might be safe just where it is for a while. One or two of the vendors here seem to rotate quite frequently, with one barbecue trailer disappearing and another popping up in its place every few months. But three of the destinations in this lot seem cemented in place, despite their wheeled status. Jaynie Buckingham and her Cutie Pie Wagon (www.cutiepiewagon.com) are tough to miss—both she and her wooden hitch trailer are decked out in hot pink, with pink and purple feather boas for that little extra bling. From housewife to household name (well, in Austin at least), Jaynie got her start after taking first place in a 2008 pie competition hosted by the Driskill Hotel, bringing home the blue ribbon with her mother Betty Lou’s buttermilk pie. This Southern staple is sweet and creamy, like buttery custard poured into an endlessly flaky crust—there’s a reason it’s the best seller.
Cutie Pie sits smack-dab in the middle of the strip, anchored on one end by The Mighty Cone (www.mightycone.com). Austin chef and restaurateur Jeff Blank opened his critically acclaimed restaurant Hudson’s on the Bend twenty-five years ago, and he’s been synonymous with Hill Country cuisine ever since. After selling twenty thousand of his “Hot & Crunchy Cones” over the three-day Austin City Limits Music Festival, Jeff decided his culinary invention needed its own year-round truck. He dropped a cool $70,000 on a state-of-the-art trailer outfitted with air-conditioning and a full kitchen with enough fryers to keep up with the demand for those cones. What’s all the fuss about? Jeff concocted a signature coating of cornflakes, almonds, sesame seeds, arbol chile flakes, sugar, and sea salt, and he rolls just about anything that’ll sit still in the mix, then deep-fries it in a bubbling vat of canola oil. Plump shrimp, boneless chicken, even ripe avocado aren’t immune from the Hot & Crunchy treatment (although, honestly, you could put that stuff on tree bark and people would wait in line for it).
At the opposite end of the lot is the senior of the scene, impossible to miss and beloved by Austinites young and old. A gleaming silver Airstream sporting a giant frosted cupcake shooting out of its roof, the Hey Cupcake! (www.heycupcake.com) trailer is a beacon of nostalgia and relentless temptation at any time of day. Wes Hurt launched his sweet stop in early 2007, with a roster of cupcakes in classic flavors like red velvet, carrot cake, and simple yellow cake frosted with fudge. In the few years since, Wes has grown the business into four trailers (all identical Airstreams) and a brick-and-mortar cupcake shop. He’s also invented the Whipper Snapper, a take on the Twinkie that injects the cupcake with a shot of whipped cream (think Hostess Cupcake, but better). These handheld habit formers will eventually have you looking at your reflection in the Airstream hoping that’s a fun-house effect staring back at you.
Odd Duck
FIND IT: 1219 S Lamar Blvd., Austin, Texas
KEEP UP WITH IT: www.oddduckfarmtotrailer.com
Pretty much every contemporary American small plates hot spot around the country is serving pork belly right now. They might be sealing it, then cooking it low and slow, using the sous vide method championed by culinary gods like Thomas Keller. They might also be serving it as a slider on a brioche bun, topped with pickled onions and fresh arugula. In fact, you could probably trip and fall into a dish like this in cities like San Francisco or New York. But only in Austin will you find sous vide pork belly on a 1980 Fleetwood Mallard travel trailer, finished to order on an oak-fired grill, sold for six bucks, and served under the stars in a gravel lot where BYOB is not only allowed but encouraged.
Odd Duck owes its name to the Mallard trailer, not to the fact that chef-owner Bryce Gilmore needs his head examined. He’s not any more odd than any other twenty-seven-year-old chef working a hundred hours a week turning seasonal, organic, local products into delicious small plates—he’s just doing it in a twenty-foot trailer. Painted tangerine orange, trimmed with white, and plastered with signs that announce the business’s tagline and Gilmore’s mission, “Farm to Trailer,” Odd Duck is the new kid on the block in Austin’s trailer scene. Bryce is from Austin, where his dad, Jack Gilmore, has been known for his chef skills for a couple of decades, earning himself a good rep first at Z’Tejas and now at his own restaurant, Jack Allen’s Kitchen. Not surprisingly, Bryce joined his dad in the kitchen by the time he was fourteen, then headed west to San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy, where he fell in love with farmers’ markets and eventually landed a job cooking at Boulevard under James Beard–winner Nancy Oakes. “As much as I love San Francisco, I love Austin more,” Bryce says. “Austin’s my home, and really, as I was getting exposed to all this stuff in San Francisco, Austin was also getting into the local food movement and the farmers’ markets were starting to get better. I felt like I wanted to be a part of the beginning of this and felt I had a lot to offer Austin. This trailer was the easiest way to do my own thing and cook some good food.”
So that’s what he’s doing, cooking good food and keeping the same hours as most “real” restaurants of his caliber: dinner only, closed on Sundays and Mondays. On those two days, Bryce is usually heading out to farms to restock and then prepping for the week ahead. He’ll buy a whole pig from Richardson Farms in Rockdale, then spend half a day breaking it down so that he can use every inch: belly for sliders, shoulder for braising in coffee, parts and pieces for sausage. He might also start to marinate quail that will eventually hit the grill to order, then get served up with roasted heirloom potatoes and garlicky aioli. There’s also rabbit leg that needs to be cooked for hours until the meat just falls from the bone to wind up a beautiful mess with kale and carrot salad. And his signature “slow-cooked” duck egg lives up to its name; a crippled turtle could cross the street before it’s ready, since it takes a more than hour-long water bath in an immersion circulator set to 145°F until the yolk takes on an amazing soft custard texture. That egg is always on the chalkboard menu, but the weather determines what you’ll see alongside. It might be goat cheese polenta and spring ramps, or fall’s finest grilled squash with sautéed wild mushrooms.
Odd Duck opened in early 2010, and most Austin diners seem like they’re still trying to wrap their heads around the menu, surprised when they wander over the lot from Gourdough’s and find slow-cooked rabbit leg for $6. But so far business is steady, especially when the sun sets, the lights strung up around the lot throw out a misty glow, and the beer and wine help folks endure the fifteen- to twenty-minute wait for trailer food. If a trailer like Odd Duck can make it anywhere, it’s probably in a town with a slogan like “Keep Austin Weird.”
Coffee-braised Pork Shoulder with Chiles and Sweet Potato
Serves 20
Serve this braised pork over polenta, or make tacos with the tender meat.
> 2 dried ancho chiles
2 dried chipotle chiles
10 pounds pork shoulder, cut into 1½-inch cubes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, diced
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
3 large sweet potatoes, diced
8 cloves garlic, sliced
3 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons Spanish sweet paprika
8 cups brewed coffee
¼ cup sherry vinegar
2 bay leaves
5 sprigs fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh rosemary
5 fresh sage leaves
Place the dried chiles in a large bowl, then pour over enough boiling water to cover them. Cover the bowl and let the chiles steep for about 1 hour, or until completely soft, turning halfway through to make sure they are completely submerged. Once the chiles are rehydrated, drain, reserving the water, and scrape the seeds and veins from the chiles using the back of a spoon or a paring knife.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Liberally season the pork with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large ovenproof Dutch oven or deep cast-iron pan over medium heat. Working in batches, lightly brown the pork shoulder, then remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the onion, carrots, sweet potatoes, garlic, cumin, and paprika to the Dutch oven and stir to scrape the bottom of the pan while the vegetables begin to brown. Once they’ve softened and are lightly brown, deglaze the pan with the coffee and vinegar.
Add the pork back to the pot, along with the herbs, soaked chiles, the soaking water from the chiles, and enough additional water to just cover the pork. Cut a piece of parchment paper to the shape of the pot and place it directly on top of the pork. Transfer to the oven and cook for 2 hours, until the meat falls apart easily when pierced with a fork. Remove the meat with tongs and serve.
( SIDE DISH )
Given the state’s shared border with Mexico, it’s no surprise to find plenty of Mexican food in Texas. But even the most jaded Tex-Mex diner would be awed by the wealth of options at El Gran Mercado (S Pleasant Valley Rd. and Elmont Dr.), a weekend-only daytime flea market where the food trucks and trailers are certainly more of a draw than the blingy belt buckles and “gold” jewelry. Since 2006, Spanish-speaking immigrants preparing all manner of culinary specialties have been setting up shop in this concrete lot, nearly twenty operations in all, the majority Mexican but with a few Salvadoran and Honduran choices sprinkled in (as well as one trailer hawking that ingenious Sonoran-Southwest hybrid, the bacon-wrapped hot dog). The abundance of tacos, fruit cocteles, and elotes can overwhelm, but be sure to stop at Tacos Flor for a pambazo (think torta dipped in guajillo chile sauce), Mari Susi for lamb barbacoa, and Carnitas Santa Rosa for the namesake fat-braised pork. And if you see something you like the looks of but can’t muster the proper Spanish phrase to order, go for the universally understood request by pointing then pulling out cash.
Flip Happy Crêpes
FIND IT: 400 Jessie St., Austin, Texas
KEEP UP WITH IT: www.fliphappycrepes.com
Meet Nessa Farrow and Andrea Day-Boykin. They’re friends, their kids are friends, and most of their friends are friends, but Nessa and Andrea are also business partners. They’re the brains and brawn behind Flip Happy Crêpes, one of the first of Austin’s cool little vintage food trailers. Nessa and Andrea pretty much share a brain, and talking to them usually turns into listening to them, as they tend to go back and forth like two blue-haired ladies hopped up on decaf at the local bingo parlor. So rather than tell you more about them, let’s let them tell you about them.
Andrea: I don’t even know how it all started. When I was in Ireland, where my husband Patrick is from, I had a crepe that blew me away. It was in Galway, which is like Ireland’s Austin, and it was this Irish hippie guy making crepes out of a teeny tiny trailer, and I never got over it. So it was twelve years later and I’m still talking about this crepe. And you were like, “Let’s make them in a trailer.”
Nessa: I know, and I had never worked at a restaurant. Well, once as a hostess. My mom’s side of the family always had restaurants, and we would visit them when I was little. But I had no idea what we were doing.
Andrea: Because you’re not that interested in food. My husband, a chef, passed off the food bug to me. We actually met in a restaurant. I was the bartender and he was a cook at the Levy in New York. We stayed there a couple years, then moved to New Orleans, where he worked for Emeril. Then I came to Austin for grad school.
Nessa: Which is so weird, because I was in New Orleans going to Loyola at the same time.…
Andrea: But when I met you I was teaching art out of my studio.… Both our kids were five, going to school together. You were in film production and getting certified to be a teacher but …
Nessa: But then we were like, “Let’s do this,” and I would just drive all over looking for trailers and putting notes on people’s doors when I saw ones that were abandoned.
Andrea: We were driving around weird parts of town and the outskirts.
Nessa: Because we wanted a cheap one.
Andrea: Yeah, because Craigslist had these really fancy Airstreams that were expensive. We just wanted one in someone’s yard for a couple grand, which is what you found from Crazy Cowboy Dan.
Nessa: Then Patrick and this other guy gutted everything, did all the electricity, put the windows in, the plumbing, eventually the air-conditioning. We started with two grills, you making savories and I made sweets.
Andrea: Patrick and I looked at French cookbooks and we used a classic French crepe batter. That crepe in Galway, I just wanted to taste it again. You know how things build up in your memory? I called him, the crepe guy, to ask him for advice. I just searched on the Internet for “crepes” and “Galway.” Like when I was in New Orleans and we got obsessed with the Cubano sandwich at this little divey place and just knew we were going to put a Cubano crepe on the menu. And I was always obsessed with one that Patrick made when he used to work at a café, one with spinach, feta, and roasted garlic. There was another one with roasted vegetables, sun-dried peppers, balsamic, harissa sauce, and cumin. And we always had the caramelized onions because we knew they’d be delicious on anything.
Nessa: Then we hit it hard. We just got everything up and running.
Andrea: We got really lucky. We were mentioned in Texas Monthly. We won Best Crepes in the Chronicle. It grew pretty quickly.
Nessa: Back then we would make a few hundred a day and the trailer would look like a tornado hit it. Now on Saturdays we’ll sell between four hundred and five hundred crepes in a six-hour shift. After the Bobby Flay thing aired the business quadrupled. We had no preparation. We got one extra cook and a few extra folding chairs.
Andrea: Yeah, because the Food Network told us, “In our experience, your business will quadruple after Bobby Flay’s Throwdown airs.”
Nessa: My family was out of town, Patrick was out of town. It was the worst time. People were coming from every state. The line would be like down the …
Andrea: That first shift was unbelievable. Nessa went in the middle of the shift to find another cook.
Nessa: I didn’t even know who Bobby Flay was. People were telling us about this Throwdown but we never heard of it. So then I watched the show and you kept saying “no” and I was saying “yes.”
Andrea: He made a duck chanterelle crepe, and his filling was totally delicious, but remember the problem was his crepe? His crepe was so rubbery. He pulls up in this $100,000 Airstream, brand new, so sharp and slick, and they pull out their awnings and his cooks storm out. It was so very exciting. But he was just working with pans, and the crepe iron gets so much hotter. So we had this really crisp thing going on.
Nessa: It’s not easy. It takes a while to get the hang of it.
Andrea: But after the show so many people wanted the Cuban and the bananas and we just couldn’t get the banan
as the way we wanted them anymore because we were making such huge batches. So we took it off the menu because we weren’t happy with the quality. Then people started asking about a restaurant, but I just couldn’t even entertain the idea.
Nessa: In the beginning we never talked about eventually doing a storefront because we had no idea it would even work. I don’t even remember what I was thinking.
Andrea: You weren’t. We never thought past opening a trailer.
Flip Happy Crêpes
Makes about twenty 12-inch crepes
6 large eggs
3 cups whole milk
1 cup water
3½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsalted butter, melted, plus more for cooking the crepes
2 (16-ounce) jars Nutella, for serving
Fresh sliced strawberries, for serving
1 cup heavy cream (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1 tablespoon powdered sugar (optional)
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and water. Whisk in the flour until blended. Add the melted butter and mix again just until combined, being careful not to overmix.
Heat a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat with about 1 tablespoon melted butter. Pour in ⅓ cup of the crepe batter, swirling the pan to spread it evenly over the bottom. Cook for about 2 minutes, until the underside has golden brown spots all over, then flip and cook until speckled on the second side, about 1 minute more. Transfer the crepe to a plate and cover with a kitchen towel while you repeat the process to make the remaining crepes.
To assemble, spread about 1½ tablespoons Nutella inside each warm crepe. Fold in half, then fold in half again to form a triangle. Top with the strawberries. If you want to finish it with a dollop of whipped cream, in a large bowl, whip the cream until it thickens slightly. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar and continue whipping until it forms soft peaks. Spoon the cream on top of the crepes and serve.