What's Cooking (Take Four)

Another big pot of green chile stew and tortillas. Seemed perfect for today. Plus I'm saving myself for my friend's prime rib and fixin's tomorrow.

[Jenise]

Yesterday I made a tuna ceviche to take to a NY Eve dinner. (Tuna, green onions, cilantro, chopped tomato, fresh jalapenos, lime juice, chili crisp).

Today I made a pot of black eyed peas and collard greens with a smoked ham hock, just one variation of our NY day tradition of black eyed peas and the one that appealed to me most yesterday when I was shopping. That said, I learned that frozen collards are no substitute for fresh. Might as well be spinach--I should have pivotted to fresh kale when I couldn't find collards.

My contribution to last night's progressive dinner was a Nigerian salad, from Serious Eats. It was shredded cabbage, carrots, and lettuce with chopped scallions, green pepper, Roma tomatoes, cilantro, and cucumbers. The dressing was a mix of mayo, lime juice confectioner's sugar, Dijon mustard, and sherry vinegar. You dress the salad, strew some sliced tomatoes and cucumbers on it, and then put canned black-eyed peas on top. I threw a little more dressing on them. (I left out the hardboiled eggs called for in the recispe because......I felt like it.) It was quite good, and I received some nice comments on it.

Today's glazed meatloaf sliders also came out well.

I made a thick red sauce yesterday: sausage and peppers, basically; served with casarecci, which I shall never buy again as they are far too wiggly to stay on either fork or spoon.

Today, I walked to the good fish store but they were closed. So, I went from there to the good butcher and got a 4# boneless lamb roast and some baking potatoes. The lamb had been butterflied already so I unrolled it, spread a paste of garlic + rosemary + s&p + pink peppercorns + lemon juice + olive oil all over it, re-rolled and tied it, and did a reverse sear. (Lamb is the perfect thing for a reverse sear!)

The oven only goes down to 270*F, but I persevered: 90 minutes for a 4# roast; while it rested for 30 minutes I finished up the baked potatoes at 400*F, then upped it to 550*F for the sear. Tabled with Le Piane 2020 Boca Vino Rosso "Mimmo" and I am in heaven... red meat and red wine.

I'm going to wash that all up and make a tiramisu, I think.

[Jenise]

Jeff, wild coincidence, but your lamb roast is almost identical to what I am planning to make tonight. Same size boneless roast on which I plan to spread a mixture of butter and mustard with a serious amount of chopped olives. I was planning to serve martinis to start (martini's+olives, get it?) to take advantage of a windfall of gin I received recently.

I am, however, not feeling well. It's 3 a.m. and I'm up because of that, and for the life of me I can't imagine eating meat anytime soon so I am probably going to bail on this dinner.

But that aside: your oven's lowest setting is 270F???????????????? WTF?

Do tell us about your gin windfall.

I felt the same way about lowest oven setting. WTF.

I have two large organic chicken breast halves that I marinated in a white wine mix, then brushed with a good olive oil, seasoned, and placed on a roasting pan. Seasoned carrots surround them on one side, and Brussels Sprouts on the other. I had two large Russets to use up, so I cut them into bite-sized pieces, dressed them in olive oil and paprika, then tossed them with an onion and dip seasoning packet. Later, I will make a salad, and I am thinking of baby spinach, satsuma mandarins, a few caramelized cashews and pistachios, and a lemon vinaigrette.

Not food-related, but our community just went through and is still experiencing a 50-year flood event. Many businesses were flooded and had to close for repairs. Several homes were totally flooded, lost all their belongings. I am so thankful that Gene and I decided to buy on a plateau on the east side of town, further away from a mountain range on the west side. I've been through two flood events with property since we moved here in 1963, and it is a horrible experience. This happened very fast. My favorite furniture store has been here for 50 years, a beautiful business, family-owned. They surveyed their property before leaving for a lunch break and came back to a disaster 90 minutes later. Thankfully, their son and another employee were able to move furniture away from the intrusive entrance.

[Jenise]

Do tell us about your gin windfall.

I felt the same way about lowest oven setting. WTF.

Oh, it's not a big deal. It's called Harris Island gin, and it's made from sugar kelp on some tiny almost uninhabited Scottish island where there's this distillery, a one-room schoolhouse and a fire engine. Or something like that. Sometime back I tasted it on Vancouver Island and fell in love; I had never been enraptured by a gin before. Apparently I mentioned this to a friend in L.A. who set about locating some and gave me two bottles two weeks ago, which I risked life and limb to get home with in my suitcase. I already had one full bottle standing by, so now there are three. For a widow who never drinks this kind of thing, that's a windfall.

Jeff, wild coincidence, but your lamb roast is almost identical to what I am planning to make tonight. Same size boneless roast on which I plan to spread a mixture of butter and mustard with a serious amount of chopped olives. I was planning to serve martinis to start (martini's+olives, get it?) to take advantage of a windfall of gin I received recently.

I am, however, not feeling well. It's 3 a.m. and I'm up because of that, and for the life of me I can't imagine eating meat anytime soon so I am probably going to bail on this dinner.

I like the flavor profile -- I am a big olive fan -- so let me know how it turns out... once you get to it.

But that aside: your oven's lowest setting is 270F???????????????? WTF?

Ya got me. I'm just a renter here. The people responsible are Italians: it's a Bertazzani stove.

I was kinda surprised myself, and had to quickly re-jigger my ideas about exactly how to achieve a reverse sear with the oven practically at roasting temp. I decided that the thermometer does not lie so checked after 90 minutes. Spot on and I proceeded with the rest of the cooking.

And that's not all. Fussy, fussy beast. If you don't hold the knob just so it won't light. I had to try six or seven times! Once it's on, it's fine but sheesh.

Nicely done, Jeff!

And wow, Karen - I had no idea things were like that up in Redding right now. Glad you're high and dry.

Our younger daughter, a major salad-eater, was here for the holidays. That, combined with the fact that I made the Nigerian Salad for New Year's Eve means that we have a lot of salad-type stuff in the produce bin. So tonight, I threw together a salad with romaine, cabbage, cuke, tomato, celery, and white beans. Dressed it with EVOO and some Pedro Ximenez vinegar. It was fine and something of a necessity given all of the high calorie eating of the last couple of weeks.

I used to go out for Saturday lunch to Peking Garden in Lexington MA. They served dim sum for lunch every Saturday and Sunday. This was not the Cantonese style of service where you choose items from carts pushed amongst the tables. Most of the same items were available but you ordered from a menu.

One of my favorites that I ordered frequently was stir-fried rice cakes with pork (chao niangao rou). Rice cakes are made from a dough of glutinous rice flour and water. The dough is shaped into a long roll about 1" in diameter and then cut on the diagonal into 1/8" thick pieces. The result is a thin, flat oval shape. When cooked they have a pleasant, chewy texture. They are available at Chinese and other Asian markets, usually frozen or dried.

I've never made chao niangao rou at home before but I found this recipe and so I'm going to try my hand at it tonight.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, I've never had or seen rice cakes in a Chinese restaurant. Here on the west coast they are considered Korean. In fact, as someone who has shopped Asian stores like forever, I've only seen these more recently and in stores that also carry gochugang and other Korean stuff. But otherwise, no. Looks like a great dish, though.

[Jenise]

Jeff, clearly though it was designed to not go lower than that, right? It's just somehow broken/stuck at that point? Lots of poor reviews out there. They're a hot looking machine but apparently reviews like this below are quite common:


Jenny Gibson
US
•
1 review
Updated Dec 28, 2025
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
DO NOT BUY Bertazzoni.
Worst and most Expensive bad decision - Do not buy Bertazzoni. Bought the 48" dual oven range in 2021 and before it was year old, the door/paint color had burned. Clearly the door was not closing properly and the heat/steam was burning it. Bc i was within 1 year, they did cover the door replacement and a local tech who was suppose to be certified, installed it. The door still didn't seem to close all the way but after a lot of adjusting he left and indicated we should be good to go. The door continued to burn and within the next year, same problem. And the 2nd smaller oven began to lose the ability to hold its temperature. B/c i was now outside of the 1 year warranty, they would not help me, even though the door was clearly the exact same problem as was reported and repaired within the first year. So now i am on the 4th year, the large oven door has a bad singe/burn discoloration, the 2nd oven is unusable, it no longer heats above 200 degrees and just this evening, the large oven door burst and shattered while we were cooking a pizza. Now the large oven is unusable. I have reported the issue, and am hopeful and will also try to contact the local salesperson who sells to our large supplier here, b/c this is nuts. $9100 range and within 4 years, this many problems. Model: PROF486GDFSBIT serial # 033075. A lemon but as i peruse other reviews online, seems Bertazzoni gets a mixed bag of reviews on their product as well as their customer service. And the exploding oven door, seems to happen to others. Seemed absolutely crazy to me and scared the hell out of us when it happened, but others have had this happen and one user, had it happen multiple times on their same range.

We have some friends who used to have a Bertazzoni. The thing had all kinds of issues, and they were not happy with it at all. It did look great, though.

2026-01-04 18.16.03 sm.jpg

Indeed, were it my pocketbook I would not buy this stove. Aside from the not-low low temperature, the oven is also kinda small and it has very over-built shelving. It also runs a fan whenever it is on -- not for convection, that has its own knob -- but to keep the control panel cool (that's what the manual says, anyway). The largest burner gives way too much heat; inevitably, I move pans off it to one of the other burners. There is no storage underneath: that lower panel is just for show.

It's as if the stove was designed by people who do not cook very much.

But it's in my house and I will make the best of it. Fortunately, I don't often use all four burners at once, nor do I put bulky/tall things in my oven.

So I did make the chao niangao rou last night. I made one mistake--I didn't cook the rice cakes long enough, or perhaps not with enough water.* They were chewier than they ought to have been. Otherwise the dish was a success and recalled my memories from Peking Garden. I used baby bok choy as the green vegetable. I'll definitely be making this again, but next time I will add a bit more water and I definitely will test-taste one of the rice cakes to make sure it's fully cooked.

-Paul W.

* Or perhaps they had dried out in the freezer, where they'd been for a long time.

But it's in my house and I will make the best of it. Fortunately, I don't often use all four burners at once, nor do I put bulky/tall things in my oven.

I think my the main problem with my friends' stove involved reliability. Maybe the fan that cools the control panel helps with that. You can get used to just about any stove as long as the thing works.

Picked up some chantarelles at the market yesterday, so dinner was an omelet with them, a little parm, and some crispy prosciutto. Not a normal sort of dinner for me but I'm on my own while my wife gallivants around Rotterdam, so I get to eat whatever sounds good at the moment.

Oh, I'm jealous! I love chanterelles and very few places near me carry them, and then only occasionally.

They are very spotty around here, along with fresh porcinis and morels. I'll usually buy them when I see them unless the price is too ridiculous. For example, our local food co-op had fresh porcinis for $99.95/lb. That was too ridiculous and then some.

I love chanterelles and very few places near me carry them, and then only occasionally.

Indeed. I've pretty much given up on eating chanterelles here. So rare and so expensive and even then they don't always look great, as they often come from afar. I think they can be found in the NY area, people bring anecdotal quantities to the Union Square market, but never lasts long.

[Jenise]

This year I got chanterelles as low as $20/lb in some of the Asian markets, but missed out any fresh/local, which are often findable but new developments to make room for ex-Californians has taken much of the prime hunting grounds.

I love chanterelles and very few places near me carry them, and then only occasionally.

Indeed. I've pretty much given up on eating chanterelles here. So rare and so expensive and even then they don't always look great, as they often come from afar. I think they can be found in the NY area, people bring anecdotal quantities to the Union Square market, but never lasts long.

I don't get to the Union Square greenmarket much these days; 'twas easier when I lived a block away.

The Union Market (a shop) sometimes has decent-looking ones, but I'm with you (and Colette)... if they're not good, they're not worth having.

I think ground-zero for chanterelles is Poland so the closer you are to there....

Last night I made pandi curry (Indian pork curry). It is popular in Coorg, a district of Karnataka in Southwest India. Coorg and Goa are the only parts of India that have pork dishes, and in Goa's case it's because it used to be a Portuguese colony.

-Paul W.

To go along with the pandi curry I also made kesari (saffron) pullao. You can find the recipe here.

-Paul W.