What's Cooking (Take Three!)

I made Edie her first Elvis sandwich for lunch today. She liked it. I do, too.

I love the Better than Bouillon, as well. I have the large jars of the beef and chicken and use them often. This morning I ran out of chicken stock, which I always cook my dried beans in and added and the Bouillon. The beans give off such a great pot liquor, all good.

Better Than Bouillon fan here, too. I can make the resulting broth as strong or mild as I like.

[Jenise]

I made Edie her first Elvis sandwich for lunch today. She liked it. I do, too.

Peanut butter and bananas?

I made Edie her first Elvis sandwich for lunch today. She liked it. I do, too.

Peanut butter and bananas?

Slices of toast with peanut butter, mashed bananas, bacon and then grilled in butter. There other slight variations.

I've frequently eaten for many decades plain bananas with peanut butter. Good combo.

[Jenise]

I eat a banana every morning for digestive purposes. I could happily add a grilled peanut butter sandwich to that, but I would pass on combining.

[Jenise]

Tonight for dinner: chicken and dumplings.

A banana and a peanut butter sandwich sounds so good to me too. Mine would have some of my home made strawberry jam which I make chucky, but only a little as I am not a huge fan of jam. Made it every year for Gene as his mother did. Still have some in the freezer, slowly working on it.

I've found that stock and broth freeze well. I pour leftovers into an ice cube tray and freeze them. This gives you a convenient size when a recipe calls for a small amount of stock/broth.

-Paul W.

I eat a banana every morning for digestive purposes. I could happily add a grilled peanut butter sandwich to that, but I would pass on combining.

If you ate them separately in the morning at one sitting, it would be essentially the same thing.

A friend liked raisins and he liked bread but not combined, so over time I baked bread for him containing dried cranberries. No problem. Later, I baked bread for him containing currants. No problem there, either. Then, I baked bread for him with raisins, calling them currants. No problem.

It took a couple of years, but now he has no problem with raisins in bread.

[Jenise]

I'm full of contradictions like that, Larry. I don't like raisins, I don't care for chocolate. But I like chocolate covered raisins. I can live with raisins in toasted raisin bread but I'll pick them out of a cinnamon roll. Again, not a fan of chocolate and I really don't like vanilla bean, but chocolate chip ice cream is a favorite. But you wouldn't fool me on the raisin-currant thing. In fact, I find currants rather gritty. Not that I see them here, but in England (where I lived for awhile) they were quite common.

[Jenise]

So last night we had chicken and dumplings. Background: I didn't grow up with this dish. First time I had it was at a relative's home, I might have been 16. LOVED IT. Another ten years probably passed before I had it again, didn't love that one at all. Eventually I started making my own modeled on my uncle's version: whole pieces of braised chicken in lots of yellow-colored gravy amply seasoned with sage and onion. The dumplings were drop style from Bisquick+water.

These days, no more Bisquick. The dumplings might contain thyme or chopped chives and chopped peanuts. Point is, though, I've never had a recipe. I make it on instinct and it probably only comes around once every 3 years or so when the craving strikes. Yesterday, I had a whole chicken and all day to start the process from scratch.

So I decided to use a recipe this time, do something different. I was especially interested in exploring the southern style, flat/rolled out/cut dumplings in a sauce with shredded chicken, wherein the dumplings would shed enough flour to thicken the stock. This concept is totally new to me.

So I found a recipe for Cracker Barrel's version, never had it but they're famous for it, and thought it somewhat plain-sounding I figured the ratios for broth and dumplings were durable and I could/should amp up the seasoning.

The result? Not what I expected. I followed the dumpling recipe exactly. They puffed up big and then deflated just like the recipe described, but though I cooked the whole caboodle at least five minutes longer than required the dumplings were pretty solid and tasted undercooked. Loved the way they thickened the gravy, though, and enjoyed having the chicken in pieces (I didn't shred, but tore them into largish chunks) so that no knife was needed.

More work needed.

I'm full of contradictions like that, Larry. I don't like raisins, I don't care for chocolate. But I like chocolate covered raisins. I can live with raisins in toasted raisin bread but I'll pick them out of a cinnamon roll. Again, not a fan of chocolate and I really don't like vanilla bean, but chocolate chip ice cream is a favorite. But you wouldn't fool me on the raisin-currant thing. In fact, I find currants rather gritty. Not that I see them here, but in England (where I lived for awhile) they were quite common.

Virtually no one knows what I sometimes put in my bread: Goji berries (wolfberries). But they're colorful and taste good. I wonder if you could figure them out.

Virtually no one knows what I sometimes put in my bread: Goji berries (wolfberries). But they're colorful and taste good. I wonder if you could figure them out.

As long as you stay away from Mrs. Lovett, we're all good.

I can't think about Mrs Lovett without remembering the time Elaine Paige played her at NYCO . She had a huge number of small steak and kidney pies (with ST inscribed in top crust) made, gave out to every cast and orchestra member. Lots of people heard the word kidney and cringed, Betsy ended up with extras and I ate 62% of my livetime S&K pie consumption in one week.

Jenise, as I'm an Eric Kim fan, found this interesting (if you can access through paywall)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/dini ... cipes.html

Regarding chicken and dumplings, most recipes I've seen recommend White Lily self-rising flour. You definitely want a low-gluten all-purpose flour (i. e., not bread flour). One site said that if you don't use self-rising flour you'll get heavy dumplings. Of course you could add the baking powder yourself to conventional all-purpose flour. The recipe I found calls for 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt per 1 level cup of unleavened all-purpose flour.

-Paul W.

Time for something simple but tasty tonight: Cantonese stir-fried beef with bell peppers.

Yesterday I found some ultra-fresh ginger root at the local Indian grocery. It was springy to the touch, very juicy, and tender.

Has anyone out there grown ginger plants? I planted some ginger root in a pot once and it produced stems, leaves, and flowers. A Botany professor from India that I know cautioned me that ginger won't thrive in New England soil and he was right. I tried transplanting the ginger outside in the spring, with hopes of harvesting a crop of ginger root in the fall. It produced more shoots but the roots were infested by nematodes and black rot and unsuitable for culinary purposes. Ginger stems and leaves have the same wonderful aroma as ginger root and apparently are edible, although I've never eaten them. Ginger shoots turn up in some Chinese seasonal stir-fries.

-Paul W.

Having grown up in GA and NC, I was shocked the first time I had "chicken and dumplings" that had these huge drop biscuit dumplings. I grew up with the rolled out/cut into strips style.I've learned to be more ecumenical.

[Jenise]

Dale, my husband who loves the drop biscuit style told me "never again" for the strips type, but I still really really want to know how/why that works and why mine didn't turn out well. I can't believe that what I got is what it should/could be. And for Paul, the quantities you list are exactly the Cracker Barrel recipe. I used 2 c AP flour, 1 T baking powder, salt and I don't remember how much water. But the dough was lovely to handle and roll out, so the hydration was perfect. That recipe suggested 1/2 inch thickness on the rolled dough. I went closer to 3/8. Dale, in your world, what's the ideal thickness?

Tonight I'm making a recipe I found on The Mala Market. It's chicken with black bean sauce, but made with Lao Gan Ma chile oil with black bean. I've seen this, or something very like it, served as a table condiment in Chinese restaurants but I've never cooked with it.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I'm crazy about chile oils like that, Paul. I recently got a jar from Momofuku, and I'm putting it on everything.

Among other things, I made a pot of basmati rice. 2:1 ratio, 10 minutes simmer + 5 minutes sitting. Perfect texture. I marvel because we usually have a mix of brown / wild rices and they basically never cook up this nice.

For some strange reason I am craving chili beans. So, when I get back home later this morning, I am pulling out the ingredients and getting to work. Making a pot full, then putting some in the freezer. Mine is not what many consider classic but it is what our family loved. Hamburger, onions, garlic, celery, kidney beans, tomato sauce, Grandma's Spanish Seasoning (which is called somethin else now) s & p, Hatch Chiles. Sometimes I put out pickled red onion, pickled jalapeño, and cheese. I think today, I MAY just top with a bit of cheese.
Lunch will be a salad made with beautiful red leaf lettuce I got at Farmer's Market, a type of very small cukes and I cannot recall what they were called, tomatoes, radish, and a lemon vinaigrette.

Lao Gan Ma has a very extensive line of chile-based sauces and related products. The owner of my local Thai grocery is a big fan and says she uses them in just about everything except coffee.

There are several preparations of crushed chiles in oil with other spices and items including peanuts: Spicy Chili Crisp, Hot Chili Sauce, and Fried Chili in Oil. They're all rather subtly different. Then there's the Chili Oil with Black Bean, which is what I used in last night's recipe from The Mala Project. This one doesn't have any peanuts in it. They also have products called Hot Bean Paste and Spicy Bean Paste--no idea how they differ with what I used yesterday. Then there's Pickled Chili, which is just chopped fresh chiles, vinegar, and salt. It looks like it might be a good substitute for Sichuanese pickled chiles (I've been using Huy Fong Sambal Oelek as a substitute). I have a jar of Oil Chili Condiment with Mushroom but I haven't tasted it yet. Ditto with their Chili Oil Beancurd.and Hot Tasty Cabbage Vegetable, which aren't officially marketed in the US but I found them in an Asian grocery.

Last night's Chicken with Lao Gan Ma Black Bean sauce (recipe at The Mala Market) came out very tasty. The original calls for dark meat chicken and green beans. I couldn't find any boneless chicken thighs so I substituted breast meat instead, and I'm not fond of green beans so I used green bell pepper instead. I like the technique of putting a char on the onions--it adds that special nuance that is so wonderful in restaurant-prepared lo mein.

-Paul W