A knotting acquaintance

You gotta love any kitchen tool that you can get at Home Depot. At the top of my list of must-have hardware-store cooking gear -- along with an inexpensive Microplane and a blowtorch -- is a simple ball of string. Or at least it’s my favorite until Thomas Keller figures out how to sous-vide with duct tape.

String, specifically cotton butcher’s or kitchen twine, is one of the most useful things you can have in your kitchen. Think about it: With just a simple length of twine, you can tie roasts, wrap a bouquet garni or sachet, tie off sausage links, hang charcuterie, tie roulades, hang yogurt and other items in cheesecloth to drain, support stuffed meats or vegetables, reconstruct cuts of meat, and truss all manner of poultry.

And don’t forget quick fix-it projects and crocheted potholders.

Twine is one of those kitchen tools, like plastic wrap and parchment or wax paper, that we often take completely for granted. But consider how many ways you already use it -- and allow for a few new ones -- and you might want to pick up a few more rolls the next time you’re at the hardware store.

Not only is twine inherently practical, but there’s also a simplicity about a ball of string that’s oddly comforting.

So ordinary as to be mundane, made of basic cotton (don’t use plastic or plastic-coated, which will melt, or jute, which can be too stiff), a well-wrapped cone, not unlike Keats’ well-wrought urn, operates as a metaphor for kitchen organization.

“I use twine all the time and every day,” says Michael Cimarusti, chef-owner of Providence restaurant on Melrose Avenue, who admits that it drives him nuts when the stuff goes missing from his kitchen.

Cimarusti -- who learned how to tie knots while fishing as a kid in New Jersey and how to use them in a kitchen while at New York’s Le Cirque restaurant -- uses twine to shape steaks, truss birds and wrap roulades. He also suspends cheesecloth bags of roasted vegetable purees to drain, using the puree and the collected juices in recipes. He even uses twine to tag the lobsters in his restaurant kitchen’s lobster tank. (The strings float up, like lines without buoys, from the lobsters’ anchor-like claws.)

Tying cuts of meat and wrapping whole birds with twine helps them keep their shape, which makes for tidier and more uniform cooking. Twine can keep stuffings firmly inside roulades or the cavities of birds. And it can fasten items that you want to keep on the outside, such as herbs or slices of bacon or pancetta (a technique called barding).

“The hardest thing about string,” says Melisse chef-owner Josiah Citrin, who uses twine to tie meat in shape before cooking it sous-vide, among many other things, “is to make sure it’s not in the meat when you serve it.”

Don’t lose the string

Citrin isn’t joking. It may seem obvious, but string can sometimes get lost in a beautifully roasted turkey, or maybe you’ve just forgotten it during its long hours in the oven.

One way to remember the string in your dishes is to make further use of it. Keep it wound around a roast or roulade while you slice it -- this helps keep any stuffing or barding intact and also makes portioning easier -- and then cut and remove the bits of string when you’re done.

Michel Richard, chef-owner of Citrus at Social Hollywood, demonstrates some of his favorite uses for kitchen twine in his cookbook “Happy in the Kitchen.” Richard encircles lamb loin with twine before wrapping it in plastic and poaching it; he ties a lamb shoulder into a “melon,” reconfiguring the meat by the simple process of trussing it to form the specific shape he wants.

Tying is important when reassembling cuts of meat that have been boned, especially if they’ve been re-formed around the bone. Tying a standing rib roast or a large rack of lamb helps prevent the layers of meat from separating during roasting.

“You can use [twine] as a belt too,” says Richard, who reports that he learned the art of knotting “from tying my shoes.”

A note about knots. Although there are many knots to choose from -- there are more than 2,000 in “The Ashley Book of Knots,” perhaps the definitive book on the subject, published in 1944 -- the square knot is probably the most useful in the kitchen. Just tie two overhand knots, left over right, then right over left: The tidy results will look like two interlocking loops.

“A palomar is my favorite knot to use while fishing,” says Providence’s Cimarusti, who mostly utilizes the square knot for cooking, “but alas, it’s useless in the kitchen.”

Maybe a palomar knot would work for a cooking method called a la ficelle (“on a string”), in which a whole bird or piece of meat is tied up and hung to roast in front of a fire. This bucolic trick was supposedly invented by French novelist Alexandre Dumas (Dumas pere, whose book “Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine” was as influential in some circles as his novel “The Three Musketeers”), who was said to have used the method with a whole lamb.

If you don’t have a fireplace handy, a more convenient French recipe for boeuf a la ficelle can be accomplished with little more than a cut of beef, a pot of broth, a bit of string and a long-handled spoon. Essentially, it’s just poached beef, served medium-rare with some bread, condiments and a few blanched vegetables.

To make it, wrap a rump roast with a long piece of string, tying the meat securely and then use the tails at the end to suspend the beef in a soup pot so that it clears the bottom. Use the handle of a long wooden spoon as a bridge over the top of the pot and tie the ends of the string to the handle.

A flavorful broth

You can poach the beef in plain water, but a subtle homemade broth of carrots, leeks and celery root brings out the beef’s lovely notes. If you’re cutting vegetables to blanch anyway, you’ll have a lot of scraps. Instead of throwing them out, use them to make the broth. After the beef poaches, let it rest, then cut it and arrange the warm slices on a platter alongside the blanched vegetables. It’s an entire meal as still life.

Herbed pork loin is even better when it’s barded with bacon, a simple method that’s kind of like wrapping a present without tape. Here two tenderloins are rubbed with minced sage and garlic, then covered with apple-wood-smoked bacon. Lengths of twine, spaced out at even intervals, secure the bacon to the pork.

As the pork roasts in a hot oven, the crisping bacon adds moisture and flavor. Add some quartered apples (neither peeled nor cored, they add a pretty, rustic look) and fresh sage leaves part way through the roasting. The rendering bacon fat and accumulating pan juices caramelize the apples -- and make an awesome quick pan sauce when deglazed with a little wine.

For a roulade with a bit of a kick, make a spicy filling of chiles, red kale and toasted pepitas and spread it on pounded chicken breasts. Rolled up and tied with string, the roulades are then seared in a skillet before being finished in the oven. While they’re cooking, a simple side dish of hominy and diced bacon takes only a few minutes.

Or if all this seems too much for you, just soak a bit of twine in water (to prevent it from burning, Cimarusti says), tie it securely around a juicy New York steak -- the taut string plumps the meat and allows it to cook uniformly -- and throw it on the grill.

And if you leave enough string attached, you can even use it to reel in your steak without ever leaving your patio chair. You can’t get much more practical than that.

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food@latimes.com

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Boeuf a la ficelle

Total time: 2 hours, 25 minutes

Servings: 6

Note: You will need kitchen twine and an 8-quart soup pot for this recipe.

1 (2 1/2 -pound) beef rump roast, trimmed of all fat and silverskin

4 leeks

1 large celery root

1/2 pound carrots

1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, washed

1 large onion, cut roughly into eighths

2 fresh bay leaves

4 sprigs of fresh thyme

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

4 small dried chiles

6 quarts water

Crusty country white bread, cut into thin slices

Coarse salt

Mustard, either Dijon or whole grain

Horseradish, freshly grated or prepared

2 tablespoons salt

Good quality olive oil, optional

1. Using a length of kitchen twine, tightly wrap the roast, tying it four times around lengthwise and once around widthwise and leaving two long ends loose on either side. Holding the ends together, suspend the roast inside the pot, measuring so that the roast is about one inch from the bottom of the pot. Tie the ends in a loop around a wooden spoon long enough to bridge the top of the pot. On the outside of the pot, using a marker or a piece of tape, mark the point at which the top of the roast sits. Put the tied roast on a plate and allow it to come to room temperature.

2. Meanwhile, halve the leeks lengthwise and wash them to remove all dirt. Trim the leeks, reserving the green trimmings to make the stock (place them in the pot). Trim the white parts into sticks no thicker than one-half inch wide and 2 1/2 inches long.

3. Peel the celery root and slice it into sticks about one-fourth inch by one-fourth inch by 2 1/2 inches. Save the trimmings and add them to the pot with the leek trimmings. Peel the carrots and slice into sticks about the same size as the celery root. Add the trimmings to the pot.

4. Stem the parsley and finely chop the leaves. Add the stems to the pot along with the onion, bay leaves, thyme, peppercorns and chiles. Cover with 6 quarts of water and place the pot over high heat. As soon as the water comes to a boil, reduce the heat to a low simmer. Simmer gently, uncovered, for 45 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, assemble the bread, coarse salt, mustard, chopped parsley and horseradish and arrange on a platter.

6. After 45 minutes, strain the broth through a large strainer, discarding the vegetables and reserving the hot broth. Return the broth to the same pot, add the 2 tablespoons salt and bring to a rolling boil.

7. One at a time, blanch the carrots, celery root and leeks in the broth until crisp-tender. They’ll each take about 2 minutes after the broth has returned to a full boil. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain and add the vegetables to the platter.

8. Return the broth to a simmer, adding additional water if necessary to make sure that the level of the liquid reaches the mark you made previously. Lower the roast into the liquid, then bring the broth back to a simmer. Cook the roast to desired doneness, about 25 minutes for rare (a thermometer inserted should read about 120 degrees).

9. Remove the roast from the liquid and rest for 10 minutes on a cutting board. Slice the roast into very thin slices. Arrange the slices on the platter, alongside the blanched vegetables, condiments and bread. If desired, drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the vegetables. Serve immediately.

Each serving: 506 calories; 48 grams protein; 48 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams fiber; 13 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 119 mg. cholesterol; 2,834 mg. sodium.

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Bacon-wrapped pork loin with roasted apples

Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Servings: 6 to 8

Note: You will need kitchen twine for this recipe. Ask your butcher to trim the pork loin of any fat and silverskin, or do it yourself.

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon fresh sage, minced

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

2 trimmed pork tenderloins, about 2 1/4 pounds total

1 pound thick-cut bacon, preferably applewood-smoked

6 medium-sized apples (such as Galas), quartered (not cored or peeled)

About 12 sage leaves

1 cup dry white wine

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. In a small bowl, combine the garlic, minced sage, salt and pepper. Rub the tenderloins with the mixture, then sandwich them together so that there’s a layer of herbs inside. Set aside.

2. Cut 10 (12-inch) lengths of kitchen twine and lay them vertically on a cutting board, about 1 inch apart. Lay down a horizontal row of two slices of bacon end to end across the twine, overlapping the ends of the slices by about 1 inch. Lay down 4 more rows, overlapping the slices lengthwise by about one-fourth inch and making sure that the resulting rectangle of bacon is centered over the twine.

3. Place the herb-coated tenderloins on top of the bacon. Place 3 more horizontal rows of bacon on top of the loin, overlapping the slices as you did the ones beneath. Working from the center out, pull each string around the bacon and tie it fairly tightly at the top: It should be tight enough so that the bacon is firmly in place but not so tight that it’s difficult to tie. Make sure that the bacon covers the pork. Repeat so that all the strings are tied, wrapping the overhanging lengths of bacon at each end around so that it forms a package. Trim the ends of the twine.

4. Place the wrapped pork in a roasting pan large enough to accommodate it and put it into the oven. Roast for 25 minutes, then turn the pork so that the top browns as well and scatter the apples and sage leaves around the pork. Roast for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted into the center of the roast registers 145 degrees (it will rise to about 150 as it rests) on a meat thermometer. Stir the apples after about 10 minutes so that they roast evenly. Remove the pan from the oven.

5. Remove the roast from the pan and allow it to rest on a cutting board. Place the roasting pan over a medium-high flame on the stove, using two burners if you can. With the apples and the sage still in the pan, deglaze with the wine, scraping the bottom of the pan to dislodge any browned bits. Simmer until the sauce reduces by about two-thirds and thickens slightly, about 3 minutes.

6. Slice the roast, using the twine to keep the bacon in place and to help portion evenly. Once the roast is cut, remove the strings. Serve immediately, with the roasted apples and the pan sauce.

Each of 8 servings: 325 calories; 33 grams protein; 15 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 12 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 91 mg. cholesterol; 557 mg. sodium.

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Chicken roulade with red chard, pepitas and chiles over hominy

Total time: 1 hour, 25 minutes

Servings: 4

Note: This recipe requires kitchen twine.

2 large dried ancho chiles

4 large boneless and skinless chicken breasts

1 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1/2 onion)

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 bunch red chard, deveined and chopped, about 4 cups

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 chipotles in adobo sauce

4 slices of bacon, diced

3 cups hominy, drained and rinsed, or 1 (29-ounce) can

Zest and juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoon minced cilantro

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Soak the ancho chiles in a bowl of boiling water until softened, about 15 minutes. Drain the chiles, squeezing out any excess moisture, and remove the stems.

2. Meanwhile, place one chicken breast on a work surface between two pieces of plastic wrap and, using a mallet or heavy saucepan, carefully pound it to a one-fourth-inch thickness. Work carefully so the chicken doesn’t tear and you get a uniform thickness. Sprinkle one-fourth teaspoon salt over the pounded meat. Repeat for the remaining three chicken breasts; wrap them in the plastic and reserve at room temperature while you make the filling.

3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, toast the pepitas, shaking the pan frequently as they pop and turn golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and reserve, setting aside 1 tablespoon of the toasted pepitas to use as a garnish.

4. In the same skillet, cook the onions and garlic in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat until fragrant and beginning to color, about 4 minutes. Add the chard, allspice, cinnamon, black pepper and remaining one-half teaspoon salt. Continue cooking until the chard has completely wilted, about 4 more minutes. Remove from the heat, but keep the pan on the stove.

5. In the bowl of a food processor or blender, blend the toasted pepitas with the anchos, chipotles and a little of the ancho soaking water to form a rough paste, rather like pesto. Add the paste to the pan with the chard mixture and stir to combine.

6. Place the chicken breasts on a work surface, remove the top piece of plastic wrap and divide the chard mixture evenly among the chicken breasts. Spread the filling on top to within about an inch of the edges and, one at a time and working from the top of the narrower side, roll the chicken around the filling to make a roulade. Repeat with the three other breasts, being careful to keep the filling encased by the chicken and discarding the plastic wrap.

7. Tie the end of a long piece of kitchen twine around the roulade near one end, knotting it at the top. Continue wrapping, making about 5 or 6 turns and making sure that the roulade is compact and fairly tight. Knot at the end and trim the ends of the string. Repeat for each roulade.

8. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat. Place all the roulades in the pan and sear them until golden brown, turning them as they cook so they’re evenly colored. Place the pan in the oven and roast until the meat is firm throughout and a thermometer inserted reads 165 degrees, about 25 minutes.

9. While the chicken is roasting, cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-low heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crisp, about 5 minutes. Add the drained hominy to the pan with the bacon and cook until the hominy is warmed through, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and add the lime juice and zest.

10. Slice the roulades, still tied, into medallions. Remove the twine and serve on a bed of the warm hominy. Garnish with the remaining pepitas and, if desired, cilantro.

Each serving: 616 calories; 51 grams protein; 33 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams fiber; 32 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 116 mg. cholesterol; 1,559 mg. sodium.

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latimes.com/dailydish

See how to do it

Go online to find your step-by-step guide to using the butcher’s slipknot to create a perfectly shaped roast.