What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Jenise]

The recipe's in that book. It has the five spice but is enhanced with five more, like fennel seed, which are roasted. The result is warmer than the original. I used it the other night to season a rack of lamb.

ou are your friends guardian angel in disguise Christina, what a lot of patience and love you gave to your friend.

Yesterday was another day of heavy work for the second weekend in a row as our boys took turns coming up to help with my husbands 900 square feet of work shop and attic above it. Yesterday, we tackled boxes from Amazon, and other places, that I thought he was breaking down and putting in the recycle bin. Nope, he was saving them all. So, after a long day of dealing with boxes. son wanted a classic family dinner and I gave it to them. Rib Eye Steaks, and a fillet mignon for us ladies, marinated, and then grilled outside on our Weber Gas Grill. Yukon Gold potatoes brushed with garlic infused olive oil and then coarse sea salted onto the skins, and then baked. Roasted veggies, carrots, brussells sprouts, garlic, red onion, roasted with olive oil, sea salt, red pepoper flakes, and Chico Honey. I had Tirimisu and Chockolate Tuxedo Cream Cakes for dessert, but we all forgot about them. I also forgot to serve a salad of fresh, sliced oranges, and avocado slices, dusted with chili powder and fresh lime juice. Our son found a huge box of family photos dating back for decades, so we separated them into piles for the three kids, to be distributed later.

Leftovers !! The chicken liver ragu/ pappardelle birthday dinner was a success and paired wonderfully with a 1977 Bertani Amarone. Had the leftovers tonight with a 2017 Appassimento from Puglia. Another perfect match bringing out sweetness in the wine. I will definitely do the chicken liver ragu again next fall/winter. It is wonderful. I am very surprised at how well the leftover homemade pappardelle fared. Texture still quite toothsome. I had about 6 oz chicken livers left over from the ragu recipe so made the Food and Wine Chicken Liver Mousse yesterday and served it on home made rye toasts with Sea Buckthorn jam as appetizer last night at a friends house. Intense pleasure.

Tonight: as I had a partly-used package of wonton skins, I made them up. Some with a pakora filling (potato, peas, "curry" seasonings), some with softly-sauteed vegetables dosed with soy sauce and Five Spice, and some with chicken seasoned with soy sauce, fresh ginger, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar. Oven baked so very crispy and not at all oily or mushy. Good but I will tweak a bit for next time.

[Jenise]

Jeff, I brush wonton/gyoza skins with olive oil and bake them to make crackers for seafood tartares and ceviches, but I've never considered baking them stuffed as you did. And I don't know why, GREAT idea.

Tonight's the Mexican dinner I made a separate thread about. I'm most excited about my idea for fusing Korean bo ssam sweet heat and Mexican carnitas (riffing off a Rick Bayless recipe for honey-chipotle glazed spare ribs, again sweet heat). It's one 9 lb pork butt cured then baked with a chipotle-honey glaze--to be pulled in hunks from the bone and nestled in warm tortillas with a cabbage/cilantro and pepita slaw. Should be fantastic. I've made two other main course items. Oh, and I made a ground turkey chorizo for putting a sensible meat layer in the chile relleno pie. I had not intended to do that originally, but since a guest is bringing jalapeno poppers I need to make the pie something different than a flat version of what they bring.

Jeff, keep us posted on your tweaks. Interested in how they don't dry out when you bake. I would like to try that method of dumpling cooking.
Jenise, the Mexican dinner sounds wonderful. Anxious to hear how all turns out.
Making a very ordinary Midwestern dinner tonight. Pork schnitzel, braised onion, celery and potatoes and steamed asparagus [holding my breath but they looked fresh ]

Jeff, keep us posted on your tweaks. Interested in how they don't dry out when you bake. I would like to try that method of dumpling cooking.

My scribbles on the recipes, so I remember for next time:
- the pakora were very good, that's just customizing the curry profile; I used a jarred curry powder boosted with ground fennel seed and nigellum seeds so maybe add a bit of cumin or caraway?
- the vegetable ones were fine, just ordinary so maybe pick better veggies to start with => water chestnuts or lotus root for some crunch, I wonder whether capers or chopped cornichon would perk it up?
- the chicken ones were dry; I had omitted the corn starch and the sugar from the original recipe; still not sure I need the sugar but the corn starch (possibly with a spoonful of water) would make a thick sauce that would retain moisture; I've had similar problems with a pork blend but it may just be that my inability to use onions or scallions is depriving the mixture of critical moisture and zing

Thinking cap goes back on when I get to it again.

Betsy made curry laksa/Curry mee (chicken and greens in a coconut milk curry with curry leaves, lemongrass, etc) with lime accents. Delicious.
The fun part cooking was this weekend farmers market seafood purveyor had monkfish liver. I bought a nice portion, washed, cleaned (though fishmonger had really done 99%), marinated in soy sauce, then marinated in sake. Rolled, steamed. Ankimo! Served with grated purple daikon with shichimi togarashi and ponzu. Big hunk of liver, so I sent portions with Betsy to quartet rehearsal (first violinist and violist both raised in Japan).

Furikake. I know it is available in most any Asian market but it often has MSG, anticaking agents and other undesirable stuff. My friend has been tweaking recipes for some time and asked for help for big batch making. After the making we had hot rice bowls to do taste tests on various batches. Very interesting how heat transformed ingredients especially accentuating the ones with shiitake mushroom powder [ microplaned dried shiitake ] and bonito. One could easily OD on rice with this stuff. Glad we ate with chopsticks.

You are now the second person to mention to me about grating things I wouldn't think to grate. (The other was frozen garlic cloves.)
Does the mushroom taste disappear in a puff of umami or can you still discern what was added?

Jeff, with a strong breath the mushroom shavings from the microplane were flying around the room like snow, Very light weight. The aroma became quite intense when mixed with the still warm toasted sesame seeds but flavor and aroma did dissipate so we ended up doubling the quantity. The flavor came out when the mix hit the hot rice.
I use my microplane for raw, frozen and dried ginger as well as raw garlic especially when I only want a small amount [ almost never -: ]
Even the smallest holes on the box grater left chunks of mushroom that were too large. Fortunately they were easily pulverized between the fingers.
Wondering about your frozen garlic. I've never thought to do that. Do you do that to keep it from developing that sharp bitterness that comes with age because you have great excess ? When I have great excess I braise many cloves in olive oil and make a paste then freeze.

Jeff, with a strong breath the mushroom shavings from the microplane were flying around the room like snow, Very light weight. The aroma became quite intense when mixed with the still warm toasted sesame seeds but flavor and aroma did dissipate so we ended up doubling the quantity. The flavor came out when the mix hit the hot rice.

Interesting.

Wondering about your frozen garlic. I've never thought to do that. Do you do that to keep it from developing that sharp bitterness that comes with age because you have great excess ?

It's not my technique; it was suggested to me by someone who *does* want just a little garlic. She found that it's quicker to shave a bit off a frozen clove than to deal with fresh.

I have a variety of things in the freezer that are used in 2s and 3s or small amounts but are sold in big quantities:

Thai bird's eye chiles
curry leaves
kaffir lime leaves
galangal

The last two of these aren't available in this area and I have to mail order them from importfood.com. Dry kaffir lime leaves just aren't as good as fresh. Galangal gets all tough and fibrous over time, even more so than its cousin, fresh ginger root. I can keep fresh ginger in a jar of high-proof vodka in the fridge without it going all fibrous, but that doesn't work for galangal. Freezing slows the problem down to a manageable level.

-Paul W.

I'll be having sambar and idli tonight. I'm using a different sambar recipe from a village near Bangalore. This recipe has tomato in it.

-Paul W.

Not done with shiitakes, but for dried porcini I make mushroom powder by putting them in a spice grinder ( coffee grinder style). Very fine and no dust flying.

Good suggestion Dale, thanks. Not sure why I didn't think about that. These shiitake are freeze dried and very light weight with a surprisingly intense flavor grated and rehydrated. I keep them on hand because shiitake are not always looking great here.

This month's Food and Wine has an article by Lan Samantha Chang whose family emigrated from Beijing to Appleton, Wisconsin in 1965. This is my territory and her mother's make do stir fry is exactly how I had to make a stir fry even in 1984 when I moved here. The only ethnic store was a tiny Korean store because the only ethnic restaurant was Korean. Her family trekked to Chicago twice a year for non perishable ingredients and I went to Milwaukee for Italian ingredients. She never really experienced the real cuisine of her parents and to this day prefers the make do versions. Times have thankfully changed. We now have well stocked Chinese, Hmong, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian, Russian groceries. Making a Wisconsin beef stir fry tonight .

Christopher Ranch has organic, peeled garlic, in the refrigerated section. Inside the 6 oz.pack are several smaller packets with a good amount of garlic. One can take what they need, then put into freezer. I let the cloves sit for about a minute then cut how I want. They are delicious. I use mostly fresh, but when I don't want to chop, I know I can rely of the frozen.

I made a sharlotka, a one-bowl recipe dating back to the early Soviet days when ingredients were hard to get. And I just happened to have three apples. Pretty yummy for something so simple.

Larry, Russian women also call it guest on the doorstep cake because it takes so few ingredients and so little time to prepare. I agree, very tasty.

Jeff, keep us posted on your tweaks. Interested in how they don't dry out when you bake. I would like to try that method of dumpling cooking.

Oh, while I'm here, a snapshot:

2022-02-20 19.34.27 sm.jpg

After being inspired by Jenise talking about the pork roast cooked with Chipotle in Adobo and Honey, I went on a search for some recipes. I came across one for a port tenderloin but decided to use a small bone- in pork shoulder instead. It has marinated in fresh orange juice, fresh lime juice, local honey, sea salt, garlic powder, gr. Cumin, Mexican oregano, and 2 chipotle peppers in adobo since yesterday morning. I am cooking long and slow in the slow cooker.
A simple Mexican rice loaded with green chiles, non-fat sour cream, and jack cheese, and baked in the oven. Another side dish will be leeks cooked with half and half or heavy cream if you prefer, fresh thyme, salt, and Parmigiano-Reggiano added on top and browned.
I may also make a red cabbage slaw, with a very small amount of red onion, shredded carrots, and an oil, white wine vinegar, and honey dressing, for a different application tomorrow .

Half of a flank steak became Chinese stir-fried beef with bell peppers last night. I'll be using the other half tonight to make Sichuan dry-fried beef with celery.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Interesting riff, Karen. And Paul, I could eat stir-fried beef and green peppers every day of my life.

Tonight I'm planning cowboy steaks. I'll dredge Chuck Eye steaks in equal parts fine ground coffee beans, sugar and kosher salt and grill them to go with pan fried potatoes and onions and a garlicky green salad. We're going to a puppy's 1st birthday party at 4:00 so my plans might not survive, and if they don't--that's dinner tomorrow.

Last night I used the leftover roast pork to make a Portugese stew. I was torn, because the horrible news from Ukraine has soaked in and I was thinking instead of making a Ukrainian Plov for dinner, but I didn't think leftover pork roast would suit that (and the basmati rice Christina sent me!!!!) as well as fresh pork, where the re-cook issues would otherwise dissolve in a two-hour stew. So we went with the stew, and a chenin blanc from a British Columbia winery whose owner is Portugese--his family emigrated to that valley in 1955. As I said on the Instagram post I made about it, wine pairing doesn't always have to be about the grape.