What's Cooking (Take Four)

Tonight half a Costco rotisserie chicken goes into Sichuan koushuiji, a dish of chicken in a chile/sesame sauce, served cold (room temperature). Perfect for hot, muggy days. The Sichuan name for the dish literally translates as Saliva Chicken. Mouthwatering Chicken more accurately captures the connotation of the dish's name.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I love the sound of that, Paul, and have to admit I never considered using a rotisserie chicken in that way--great idea.

Costco Chicken is awesome. I love it and have made casseroles, tacos, and salads with it.
An easy fix to a quick and delicious meal.

Made cod tonight. Started it in a pan for some color then transferred the pan to the oven to finish cooking through. Neither one of us was pleased with the texture of it... rather mushy. I'm guessing it was over-cooked. I may use the seasoning blend again but I'll just take control of the cooking on top of the range.

[Jenise]

Jeff, I'd suggest it was old, not overcooked. Or possibly frozen and held too long before thawing.

A neighbor gave me fresh caught cod from the ocean a few days ago, it was fine, but my favorite white fish is Chilean Sea Bass and Halibut. I have to go to our local meat and seafood market for it, and rarely get to that part of town anymore.

Jeff, I'd suggest it was old, not overcooked. Or possibly frozen and held too long before thawing.

Not possible from this shop. Could be that fish, of course.

There is a whole category of Sichuan dishes such as koushuiji that involve plainly-cooked chicken served cold (room temperature) either with a cold sauce or as a garnish on a hot dish (like the chicken breast shreds used as a garnish in traditional American Chinese restaurant-style chicken chow mein). The Chinese way to prepare the chicken is to start with a whole chicken that is lightly seasoned with ginger and then either simmered or steamed until just done. Then it's allowed to cool before being used in the dish. Cold Costco rotisserie chicken makes a wonderful--and very cost-effective--substitute. Koushuiji calls for adding some of the ginger-flavored juices from the chicken to the sauce. Taylor Holliday at the Mala Market suggests that if you are using a rotisserie chicken, add a tiny bit of ginger to the sauce along with some of the chicken juices from the bag. That's what I did.

I'll be using the other half of the Costco chicken in a Chinese chicken-and-bean-thread noodle soup. The Costco carcass will then be used to make chicken stock. I have a bunch of bags of frozen chicken wing tips, bones, and whatnot that will also go into the stock, along with a package of chicken feet. That'll free up a bunch of space in my freezer.

-Paul W.

Paul, not Sichuan, but Betsy often makes "Danny Kaye's Chinese Chicken Salad" from Jacques Pepin, starts with ginger poached whole chicken similar to what you describe
https://kristinsfavoriterecipes.wordpre ... anny-kaye/

Out of curiosity, you obviously cook a lot of Chinese (especially Sichuan) and Thai recipes (and a few other Asian cuisines, though maybe not Korean or Japanese). Did you spend some time there, take classes, or have Chinese friends? You seem to have a good track on what is authentic/traditional

[Jenise]

Last night for dinner I made a true Farmers Market meal: everything came from my outing on Saturday. Two fat slices of grilled sourdough bread topped with beet greens wilted with sliced fresh garlic in olive oil and topped with a little crumbled local goat cheese. It was heaven.

I love Chinese and other foods like this, and have turned some of the stir-fries into soup. It has always been successful, very tasty, fun, and less messy. I have an Asia cookbook which has recipes made in the slow cooker. I have a wok but rarely use it as it is buried in a closet. So I tend to use a regular pan, and I dislike that fine spray of oil all over my cooktop. My fault, I know. With the soup methods I have done, there is little oil, if any used.

Out of curiosity, you obviously cook a lot of Chinese (especially Sichuan) and Thai recipes (and a few other Asian cuisines, though maybe not Korean or Japanese). Did you spend some time there, take classes, or have Chinese friends? You seem to have a good track on what is authentic/traditional

I cook a lot of Chinese and Thai and some Indian. I got into Chinese cooking when I first learned to cook in 1976. My mother and I were watching an episode of Joyce Chen Cooks where she showed how to grow your own mung bean sprouts, and then gave a simple stir-fried pork recipe featuring them. These days just about every supermarket carries fresh bean sprouts but back then you could only get the canned ones, which were ghastly. As a recently-graduated Biology major growing bean sprouts appealed to me and I carefully noted the process. My mother wrote down the stir-fried pork and bean sprouts recipe.

So we bought some dried mung beans at a health food store and a week later I had a whole mess of fresh bean sprouts. My mother said, "So what now?" I replied, "You're going to make that pork and bean sprouts recipe." Mom said, "No, you're going to make it. You're going off on your own to grad school and it's high time you learned to cook." So I ended up making stir-fried pork with bean sprouts and it was delicious. I was hooked. I bought Joyce Chen's cook book and started making the recipes in it and the rest is history.

I did, years later, take a course in Chinese cooking. The main thing I learned from it was tricks of the trade that meant I could cook a dish without using every bowl and measuring vessel in the kitchen. Things like knowing the capacity of the scoop and ladle and using them to measure ingredients. The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee was my second cookbook. The recipes in it were authentic except for some substitutes for ingredients you couldn't get outside China. I also got some cookbooks printed in China in both English and Chinese that were helpful in figuring out authentic methods and ingredients. I'm very fond of Sichuan cuisine and have found the cookbooks by Fuchsia Dunlop (who studied Chinese cooking in Sichuan) very helpful. She makes it plain where she has adapted a recipe to Western ingredients or techniques and explains how it's done in Sichuan.

-Paul W.

What a great story ( I love both the biology major wanting to experiment and mom saying you cook it!).
Hard to imagine writing down a recipe while watching these days with everything online.
Your autodidactic (mostly) knowledge is a boon here, thanks

Hard to imagine writing down a recipe while watching these days with everything online.

There are cooking videos where they are teaching technique so don't give exact quantities. So I *do* have to write those down, estimating the quantities, then go try them and adjust.

So we bought some dried mung beans at a health food store and a week later I had a whole mess of fresh bean sprouts. My mother said, "So what now?" I replied, "You're going to make that pork and bean sprouts recipe." Mom said, "No, you're going to make it. You're going off on your own to grad school and it's high time you learned to cook." So I ended up making stir-fried pork with bean sprouts and it was delicious.

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

Hard to imagine writing down a recipe while watching these days with everything online.

There are cooking videos where they are teaching technique so don't give exact quantities. So I *do* have to write those down, estimating the quantities, then go try them and adjust.

True, but when Betsy does that, she can pause, backup, etc as many times as she wants!

Any recipe I have seen online is usually printable from the website. I do that a lot, but have been trying to CURE myself of that because I get a whole stack of them piled up in my kitchen that I never make. But I keep printing them, I've cut back some. I have cookbooks, which I love to browse, and several binders of family recipes all rated and with comments such as, "dad loved, me not so much". Sometimes I just wing it.

Last night for dinner I made a true Farmers Market meal: everything came from my outing on Saturday. Two fat slices of grilled sourdough bread topped with beet greens wilted with sliced fresh garlic in olive oil and topped with a little crumbled local goat cheese. It was heaven.

Sounds good, Jenise. What did you do with the beets? I love beet greens and the golden beets. When I see them at the Farmer's Market, I snatch them up. I love them with vinegar.

We went for a country walk. Lots of ripe fruits along hedgerows that had fallen to the floor, but when we looked up they were too high for us to pick. Then we saw Mirabelles* on the ground; the first few trees were too high but we picked some from lower branches on the next two: then we saw several trees like this

mirabelle.jpg

We picked 1.7Kg and made two jars of jam, a 4 portion crumble, and I stewed some in a little water.


All was delicious, and I thought the crumble, which we finished last night, was the most flavoursome.

*small golden plums, about the size of a cherry tomato , bit larger than a plump olive.

...then we saw several trees like this...

Serendipity! Mirabelles are very lovely. They make a beautiful golden liqueur, too.

[Jenise]

Sounds good, Jenise. What did you do with the beets? I love beet greens and the golden beets. When I see them at the Farmer's Market, I snatch them up. I love them with vinegar.

I haven't dealt with the beets yet. The goldens are tiny, fifty cent size, and I'll slice those thinly and add to salads. I am mildly allergic to raw beets--the purple ones make my mouth feel like it's growing horse hair--but the goldens are okay in small amounts. The other beets I bought, the chiogga which is my very favorite (less sweet, delicately earthy), will get cooked. End stage unknown at this point but likely sliced and made into a salad with a horseradish vinaigrette.

[Jenise]

Today I'm making lunch for Bill Spohn's lunch group. The wine theme is Southern Rhone and I'm preparing a room temperature meal of potato-artichoke-olive salad with slices of pork tenderloin drizzled with a golden oregano pesto and garnished with thin pickle slices I made yesterday.

When I get home tonight: plums.

Golden beets are picked small for taste. Most beets should be picked at golf ball size for a sweeter taste. So says the organic farmer I asked. He said golden beets are healthier and do not bleed like red. Many folks have issues with the red as they stain surfaces. I usually put a paper plate under the red beets when I need to cut them. If I forget to do that, they stain my cutting board, but a squirt of Clorex Clean Up takes it right out.
A little research says: Baby Gold beets are harvested young for their edible roots, stems and leaves. 10-12 inch green leafy stems ascend from the Gold beet's rough deep orange, bulbous root. Beets have the highest sugar content of any vegetable and Gold beets are the standard of sweetness. Their flavor is smooth and creamy with just a hint of earthiness. The flesh of the baby Gold beet is bright yellow and unlike Red beets, its coloring does not bleed, though it retains its color when cooked. Beet greens have a similar semi-bitter flavor to swiss chard. Gold beets can be harvested at any time during their growing cycle. If left to mature the roots can reach up to an average of three inches in diameter.

[Jenise]

Going to the neighborhood wine gig tonight. Fried chicken is being supplied, so to go with that I made a salad that's a cross between mac and cheese and broccoli cheddar soup. I used good old Kraft out of the box, added lots of black pepper and no butter, then cut two bunches of broccolini into half inch pieces and blanched it to par-cook and bring out the emerald color. It's all chilling now and I'll combine everything with oil & vinegar just before I go. It's my own creation so no one will have had this before, but both constituents will be recognizable and welcoming to most without being the fat and carb load that is regular mac & cheese.