What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Jenise]

Karen, your description rings a big bell--we both grew up on the same version of tamale pie, it was a recipe that appeared in one of the ladies' magazines of the time. Ground beef, canned tomatoes, canned black olives, big pieces of onion and green bell pepper thickened with corn meal. I remember, thru the lens of a child's simple palate, loving it but am fairly certain I wouldn't love it today--or at least I'd see a dozen ways it could be improved.

I checked the spice cabinet and it turns out I don't have amchur after all. I have a related product--dried tamarind powder (imli podi).

I make my own berbere from a recipe I cobbled together from several Internet sources. I make up the ground spice powder ahead of time and add the moist ingredients (garlic, ginger, red wine) and the paprika just before use to make the paste. The quantity of berbere needed for one recipe of doro wat calls for only tiny amounts (1/8 tsp in some cases) of each individual spice so I find it necessary to scale up the recipe for better control over the proportions of the individual spices. I've also tried the Whole Foods berbere and like it very much.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Karen, your description rings a big bell--we both grew up on the same version of tamale pie, it was a recipe that appeared in one of the ladies' magazines of the time. Ground beef, canned tomatoes, canned black olives, big pieces of onion and green bell pepper thickened with corn meal. I remember, thru the lens of a child's simple palate, loving it but am fairly certain I wouldn't love it today--or at least I'd see a dozen ways it could be improved.

Oh, and corn! Canned or frozen. But no crust--the cornmeal goes directly into the tomato stuff.

[Jenise]

Tonight I'm makung a choucroute garnie. I have enough to feed 18, but am only inviting six over. We'll be eating it for days and it will be years before I want to see this dish again.

Hilarious mishap: I went to the trouble of buying genuine European fat frankfurters in Canada last week to go with some smoked pork chops I brought home from the Okanagan Valley and smoked brats made by a friend of mine. The pork chops were beautiful and I knew they'd be better (less salt, less preserved flavor, no fake smokiness) than anything I can get here, and that was the inspiration. I put the frankfurters in a pan on med-low heat this morning and went about other business. Wanted to cook them first to get a good broth to blend with wine for the overall dish. About half an hour later I returned, lifted the lid and screamed. Each, that is all six, had split and flayed themselves open lengthwise. Flayed FLAT. Triple F word! So I dug around in the freezer and pulled out a thing of "Black Forest Frankfurters" made by American deli company Dietz and Wasson, or something close to that. They've been in my freezer for almost two years, purchased for an event that never occurred. And so I cooked those. Bob and I tasted each: no contest. Super salty, tough, yuck. So the European frankfurters got cut into pieces and those are in the pot--not beautiful, but by far the tastiest option.

Tonight it is chicken enchiladas, with a green sauce, topped with caramelized onion jack cheese, black olives, and Hatch Organic Nacho Sliced Jalapeño Peppers. A side of asparagus grilled on the cooktop, and drizzled with a chili-infused olive oil, finished with a drizzle of tomato vinegar which I am loving.

Tonight I'm makung a choucroute garnie. I have enough to feed 18, but am only inviting six over. We'll be eating it for days and it will be years before I want to see this dish again.

I only ever had choucroute garnie once--at a seafood place in Marseille. "How can you eat out in Marseille and not have bouillabaisse," asked my dining companions. "Because I hate fish and seafood," I replied. When the plate containing the single order of choucroute garnie arrived, I was immediately reminded of the title of the B. Kliban cartoon book: "Never Eat Anything Bigger than Your Head". The portion was enormous, and indeed bigger than my head. We all made a good dent in it. It was absolutely delicious.

I also learned that night not to drink Alsatian marc de gewurztraminer. It tasted fine but the headache the next day brought on by that one small glass was horrific.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

In Marseilles? That's kind of hilarious. I didn't realize that you didn't like seafood, though in retrospect I can't remember you ever posting anything about it. Some childhood trauma involved in that?

Well, I didn't end up with the leftovers I thought I would. I plated modest portions in the kitchen to make sure that every serving had each of the kinds of meats available, then put the pot on the table for people to help themselves to seconds of. Had four takers--there's not much left! We won't have a chance to get tired of it afterall. It was WONDERFUL.

Tonight I'm doing grilled pork chops served on top of a "Noodle Bake" recipe from a 1953 pamphlet from Metropolitan Life Insurance that I found in Bob's grandmother's cookbook.

Tonight I'm makung a choucroute garnie. I have enough to feed 18, but am only inviting six over. We'll be eating it for days and it will be years before I want to see this dish again.

I only ever had choucroute garnie once--at a seafood place in Marseill. "How can you eat out in Marseille and not have bouillabaisse," asked my dining companions. "Because I hate fish and seafood," I replied. When the plate containing the single order of choucroute garnie arrived, I was immediately reminded of the title of the B. Kliban cartoon book: "Never Eat Anything Bigger than Your Head". The portion was enormous, and indeed bigger than my head. We all made a good dent in it. It was absolutely delicious.

I also learned that night not to drink Alsatian marc de gewurztraminer. It tasted fine but the headache the next day brought on by that one small glass was horrific.

-Paul W.

There was an Alsatian restaurant in Harvard Square for quite a while. The first time I was there I order the Choucroute Garnie because it had everything I loved on it. When the server brought the food to the table, she went to place this giant plate of food in front of me but pulled it back at the last second. When she came back with my food, there was even more meat on the plate.

I didn't realize that you didn't like seafood, though in retrospect I can't remember you ever posting anything about it. Some childhood trauma involved in that?

No childhood trauma involved. I just don't like the smell or texture of fish, crustaceans, or mollusks. I've never tried jellyfish or sea cucumbers (both occur in the Chinese repertoire), or sea urchins. There's a recipe for sea cucumbers in Virginia Lee and Craig Claiborne's The Chinese Cookbook. All the recipes in the book give two figures for the number of servings, depending on whether you're serving the dish alone as a main course or in the Chinese manner as one of several dishes. A typical yield would be 8 Chinese servings, 4 Western servings. For the sea cucumber dish the yield was 8 Chinese servings, 64 Western servings.

Fried clams came closest to being enjoyable for me, but the ones you got on the Connecticut shore generally had some sand in them, and I found the flavor too overpowering. I did like Howard Johnson's fried clams, though. "But those aren't real fried clams!" my friends said. "That's probably why I like them", I replied.

I did have two fish dishes that I really enjoyed. One was a smoked tuna steak prepared at the University of New Hampshire's culinary school. The other was a freshwater fish (trout, I think) served with lemon butter.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

For the sea cucumber dish the yield was 8 Chinese servings, 64 Western servings.

Paul, that made me laugh out loud!

As a child I hated all fish except for canned tuna in a tuna sandwich, but I adored shrimp. Also clam chowder, until the time I had one made with whole clams which I couldn't help but realize included the brains, heart and reproductive organs of an entire being, and that pretty much ended everything to do with me and mollusks of any type.

Not cooking today at home, so nothing to report.

Wow. that choucroute garnie is right up my alley, love that stuff...anything with sauerkraut.
For us, this weekend is Latin Style Roast Pork, from scratch black beans with onion, garlic, and spices, a rice dish with Hatch chilis, jalapeño, diced tomatoes, chipotle powder, onion, garlic, and chicken stock. Served with warmed tortillas. I'm going to tweak and add the Sierra Nevada Chilean Peppers with garlic and oregano to the onions on the bottom of the pan, the pork roast sits on. Meat is shredded into chunks and mixed into the onions....should be delicious.

[Jenise]

That sounds FABULOUS, including the tweak. Do you know of a recipe that was floating around a few years ago wherein meat's braised and pepperoncinis are added? Came out of the midwest I think. I kind of always wanted to try it, but never have.

Ree Drummond , the Pioneer Woman was where I first saw it done. She has a couple recipes for braised beef with pepperocini that are very popular. Pahuska OK is where she resides.

Also clam chowder, until the time I had one made with whole clams which I couldn't help but realize included the brains, heart and reproductive organs of an entire being, and that pretty much ended everything to do with me and mollusks of any type.

Bivalves don't have brains or reproductive organs. They do have hearts but their circulatory system isn't entirely closed so you can find their "blood" components kinda all around inside the shell, even mixed with seawater in places.

Bivalves don't have brains or reproductive organs.

Bivalves most certainly do have reproductive organs--how else do you think you get new bivalves? But they're not identifiable anatomically except by experts. They have neural ganglia, but not organized as a recognizable "brain". They use hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin to transport oxygen in their circulatory systems, hence their "blood" is a pale, watery blue.

-Paul W.

Jenise, if you feel that way about eating molluscs, I assume ortolan is off your menu.

-Paul W

[Jenise]

You bet, Paul, NO WAY. I'd starve first. But let's put it this way re clams etc: canned clams are essentially the pretty meat part, and whole clams include dark bits and little sacs. Whatever those are, they're a turn-off.

Tonight I'm having the Picky Couple over for dinner. This week's conversations about retro foods was a moment about a food they'd love and I wouldn't have to edit much at all to make it work for dinner: Salisbury Steak. Crab cakes will be the starter dish.

The dark bits and little sacs are the clam's digestive organs--the equivalent of our stomach and intestines. They are my objection to genuine fried clams. Clams, oysters, and mussels are filter-feeders. They take in water through their siphons as a source of both food and oxygen. Particulate matter is filtered out and shunted to the gut organs before the water is passed through the gills and then out the other tube of the siphon. Because clams live buried in sand, some sand inevitably gets in the gut. If you leave the clams for a few hours in sea water, they will expel the sand, but I've found that whole fried clams usually still have some grit, and I don't like that. Howard Johnson's fried clams were actually fried clam strips cut from the muscle of large quahog clams--stomach never included. Hence not as gritty, but for fried clam aficionados, eating them was like chewing on breaded rubber bands.

-Paul W.

The dark bits and little sacs are the clam's digestive organs--the equivalent of our stomach and intestines. They are my objection to genuine fried clams. Clams, oysters, and mussels are filter-feeders. They take in water through their siphons as a source of both food and oxygen. Particulate matter is filtered out and shunted to the gut organs before the water is passed through the gills and then out the other tube of the siphon. Because clams live buried in sand, some sand inevitably gets in the gut. If you leave the clams for a few hours in sea water, they will expel the sand, but I've found that whole fried clams usually still have some grit, and I don't like that. Howard Johnson's fried clams were actually fried clam strips cut from the muscle of large quahog clams--stomach never included. Hence not as gritty, but for fried clam aficionados, eating them was like chewing on breaded rubber bands.

-Paul W.

I still fondly remember my grandmother taking me as a young child to Howard Johnson's where I'd order the fried clam strips. No idea when I first tasted them but I really liked them. Nowadays, I go crazy for steamed clams (I could eat a barrel's worth), but it's very rare when I get to eat them.

Bivalves most certainly do have reproductive organs--how else do you think you get new bivalves? But they're not identifiable anatomically except by experts.

They have tissues that shed eggs and sperm but it's not at all Tab A in Slot B: the female releases eggs into water in an inner chamber, while the male releases sperm into the sea nearby; she siphons it up -- yup, into the same tube as her breathing and her eating -- and directs the flow accordingly. This does not meet my criterion for sex.

They have neural ganglia, but not organized as a recognizable "brain".

Right. They have a network of nerves running all over but there is no Center of Thought.

They use hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin to transport oxygen in their circulatory systems, hence their "blood" is a pale, watery blue.

Kinda like the seawater.

If you leave the clams for a few hours in sea water, they will expel the sand, but I've found that whole fried clams usually still have some grit, and I don't like that.

Then your cooks aren't careful enough.

Howard Johnson's fried clams were actually fried clam strips cut from the muscle of large quahog clams--stomach never included. Hence not as gritty, but for fried clam aficionados, eating them was like chewing on breaded rubber bands.

I remember eating them as a child. Nowadays, for fry, I only eat belly clams, as they are much more tender and have more flavor.

Bivalves most certainly do have reproductive organs--how else do you think you get new bivalves? But they're not identifiable anatomically except by experts.

They have tissues that shed eggs and sperm but it's not at all Tab A in Slot B: the female releases eggs into water in an inner chamber, while the male releases sperm into the sea nearby; she siphons it up -- yup, into the same tube as her breathing and her eating -- and directs the flow accordingly. This does not meet my criterion for sex.

Bivalves--and indeed most aquatic organisms--do not engage in copulation. But that's not what you said--you said that they don't have reproductive organs, which is an entirely different matter. Water provides an excellent medium for sperm to swim in and to seek out eggs and this is how it's done by nearly all aquatic organisms. It's the only option for sessile organisms such as barnacles, oysters, and mussels--the sperm (and possibly also the eggs) are released to the aquatic medium and the sperm swim to and fertilize the eggs. This is the way that fish reproduce, too--the female releases an egg mass and the male swims over it, releasing the sperm. Same with frogs and salamanders. Copulation is an evolutionary hack that land organisms developed to get around the lack of water for the sperm to swim in.

-Paul W.

My apologies, Jeff. Light dawns over Marblehead--I now realize what you meant by "reproductive organs" is what I call "copulation organs". You're right--bivalves don't have those. Some gastropods do--particularly land snails and slugs. Land arthropods such as insects and arachnids do. Annelid worms do. Among chordates, I think only the amniotes (reptiles, mammals birds) have them.

-Paul W.

Jenise, if you feel that way about eating molluscs, I assume ortolan is off your menu.

-Paul W

My brother was visiting a few years ago. It was during the summer because he saw some hummingbirds at the feeders we had set up. His words when he saw them were "Why they are just a mouthful each. It will take a lot to make a meal."

My apologies, Jeff. Light dawns over Marblehead--I now realize what you meant by "reproductive organs" is what I call "copulation organs". You're right--bivalves don't have those. Some gastropods do--particularly land snails and slugs. Land arthropods such as insects and arachnids do. Annelid worms do. Among chordates, I think only the amniotes (reptiles, mammals birds) have them.

No worries, Paul.

Re land arthropods: I think lobsters also have specialized organs though, again, they don't quite do it like land creatures or chordates do.

I thought annelids had some peculiar mechanism?