Goodies First

Chain Link: Tim Hortons

I cannot wait for the Clam and Ham combos and boxes of Timbits to invade Manhattan. I don't really even eat doughnuts (I really want to type donut) but Tim Hortons (love the unnecessary unapostrophed S) reminds me of being on vacation. And with all the poutine swarming the city, we might just have a mini Montreal on our hands.

I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that my boyfriend's mom gives him stuffed animals or that he keeps them. He used to have a toy rabbit we named Tim Horton but I haven't seen the thing in years. Ok, maybe naming stuffed animals is the worst.

Timbit photo from Good Deed a Day

Oh Canada

According to a recent Nielsen survey, 21% of Canadians prefer the "cuisine of my country," their number one choice with American food down at 12%. With the exception of French-Canadian fare, which only dominates in one province, is Canadian food really all that different from American food?

I can't think of single Canadian restaurant in NYC, though I think now-dead, The Inn LW12, was supposed to be but really only did things like put Canadian bacon in a Caesar salad.

In Hong Kong there was a restaurant, Canucck, selling itself as "modern Canadian cuisine." Of course they serve poutine, but then they also have jerk bbq wings with blue cheese dipping sauce so I'm just as confused as before.

Image from Health Canada

La Vaguada

Ok, this is it, no mas. I'm finally finished the with sporadic Madrid recapping. But I would feel empty inside if I didn't briefly mention my mall excursion. I always visit a mall when on vacation. Obviously, I only travel to big cities, but even Penang had one, which only surprised me a little since Asians have quite an affinity for mall culture. Only Mexico City posed problems with its Santa Fe mall hidden way on the outskirts, inaccessible by public transportation. (Not really surprising at all considering their seeming lack of a middle class. Maybe that's why NYC can't sustain a proper mall either, too-rich and too-poor all smooshed together.)

Madrid had more than one centro comercial to choose from; we picked La Vaguada because you can get there smoothly on the subway. I figured it would be a rinky-dink Manhattan Mall atrocity, but it was the real deal with an enormous supermarket, or rather a hipermercado, Alcampo, that was way larger than Fairway, and that was just the bottom floor. Upstairs, they sold washing machines, plus-size smocks, saws, and more relevant to my needs, a cheap corkscrew. I should know the answer to this since I cover retail topics at work (I’ll look into it tomorrow) but why do we not have grocery stores inside US malls? Here, I'd appreciate the convenience. In other countries, for the fun of experiencing packaged foreign food.

I feel self-conscious taking photos inside grocery stores, but do regret not capturing the entire towering aisle heaving with hoof-on whole jamon. Canned seafood is also allotted an unusually large proportion of shelf space.

The heart (or I guess if you were corny like me, you could say stomach) of any mall is its food court. I didn't know what to expect from a Spanish food court. And it wasn't really fast foody (no Cinnabon but a homegrown chain Canel Rolls with savory versions like cheese and bacon) but a level ringed by sit down restaurants and tapas bars (and a hair salon, movie theater and video store), almost exclusively Spanish in culinary style.

Bocatin is a taberna specializing in sandwiches, a.k.a. bocadillos. Way in the background is Gran Sol Marisqueria  and Cervecería. I like that beer is prominently mentioned everywhere. Drinking in an American mall just seems weird.

The non-Iberian offerings included The Wok, Istanbul, L'Alsace and Cantina Mariachi. It was also hard to ignore the plywood covered a giant coming soon ad for Taco Bell, fittingly with a larger than life packet of mild salsa. The first public (naval bases don't count) Taco Bell in the country opened not so long ago in December. The chain has never been a success in Europe (or Mexico, duh) so I wonder how the Spanish will take to Crunchwraps.

We chose a random casual eatery, Cervecería Gambrinus, that I later saw all over the place. Their logo is a portly pageboy’d Falstaffian guy called Gambrinus. From what I could deduce the lore is German not Spanish. Maybe it’s like our use of Friar Tuck in association with drinking establishments.

I love gambas al ajillo, maybe even more so for the saucy remnants. I could just pour the shrimp, chile and garlic infused olive oil into and dish and eat it alone with crusty bread.

Ok, so we ordered chicken wings, a.k.a. alitas. You get what you deserve doing such a thing but we were curious. Pallid tomato sauce inevitably accompanies fried chicken parts in other places (marinara in Hua Hin). I realize putting blue cheese or ranch dressing on poultry is an American abomination.

Because I'm childish this café gave me pause. I thought a bit, and duh, it's a cute abbreviation of Vaguada Mall.

One of the cool things was that despite housing a clean modern supermarket (and a weirdo smallish storefront that only sold packaged frozen food—can you imagine an entire store devoted to Tombstone Pizza, Banquet Chicken and Hungry Man Dinners?), the shopping center also had a series of rows emulating traditional market stalls: seafood, produce, dried legumes and nuts, butchers, cheese and the like.

Just across the way, on the same floor, was a tattoo parlor. Not so traditional, I would say.

La Vaguada * Monforte de Lemos 36, Madrid, Spain

Heat of the Moment

What if you were a person with such fervor for an obscure dried pepper that you were compelled to embark on a pilgrimage to glean all there is to know about this hallowed chile, ultimately writing about it, then the very same month your journey is published you read another tale of regional dried pepper obsession?

Gourmet’s John Willoughby travels to Turkey to learn more about his beloved Urfa and Maras peppers, resulting in a feature titled “The Heat of the Matter.”

In the pages of Saveur, “Sweet Heat,” (you can’t read the actual article online; they’ve always been very piecemeal about posting content) chronicles Francine Prose’s quest for Peperoni di Senise in Matera, Italy.

If I were an editor, I would’ve opted for "Heat of the Moment" but maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic for Asia videos.

If the two authors don’t already know each other, they totally should. There’s serious BFF potential here.

Borderline Offensive

I just saw this supposedly controversial Burger King ad for the Texican Whopper while in Madrid (yes, I watch lots of TV on vacation just like in real life, but Rock Star and Ghost Whisperer are learning experiences when en español) and didn't realize is was specifically a Spanish product. I assumed it was a silly American-made commercial. It's not terribly offensive unless I'm missing something, though I've never been the most culturally sensitive person. I'm certainly not alone; read a real Texican's perspective on Guanabee.

I'm not sure about the Texican Whopper but if time had permitted, we would've tried the "gourmet" ciabatta-based McDonald's burger being advertised like crazy (but not so advertised that I can remember the product name). Cheddar and emmental? Nuts.

On the fast food track, I was shocked and excited by the presence of Guatemalan fried chicken chain, Pollo Campero, in Madrid. We planned to stop by after seeing Watchmen (really not my thing but it surely beat Hotel Para Perros) but post-midnight on a Sunday is slim pickings (I still don't get Madrid's reputation for being a night city—bars close at 2am) and the gates were already down. Instead, we opted for Vips, the only nearby eatery still serving, and I ordered a strangely charred yet not fully cooked quesadilla with salsa so mild it verged on tomato puree. That was sort of Texican-inspired, now that I think about it.

I swear we had a chain along the Oregon Coast in the '80s called Vips that had a rabbit mascot. Could it possibly be the same company?

Sunday Night Special: Fish Head Curry

Who says Twitter is good for nothing? Every time I get back from Singapore (ok, I've only been three times—I'm not trying to make it sound like it's a regular part of my life) I intend to try making a fish head curry only to instantly forget after quickly getting caught up in NYC again.

Thankfully, I was re-reminded by a tweet from The New York Times' Pete Wells, about the glory of fish heads. Who knows what he ended up doing with his piscine score? I knew exactly what I would do after getting my hands on a nice meaty specimen.

Where he picked up a $15 tilefish, I was limited to what the Chinese market I happened to stop by had on offer: a 99-cent-per-pound mystery breed. I have next to zero capability for discerning fish species by sight so I asked what kind of fish these came from only to hear, "fish head!" in response like I was the dumbest person on earth. (I felt the need to mention I'd recently made a fish head curry while doing a phone interview with Zak Pelaccio and when he asked what kind of fish I'd used, I lied and said snapper because I didn't want to admit my fish ignorance. He then said I should've used something oily like salmon. I'd agree with the oily, though I've never had a salmon fish head curry. Then this morning I read about the kerfuffle involving Mark Bittman using overfished red snapper and realized that I’m not only incapable of  identifying fish by sight, but the imaginary me also cooks endangered species) No need to press the matter and I'd only be out a couple bucks (plus lots of prep time) if the fish sucked.

Its face seemed a little slim and long with a little fleshy appendage that mimicked a goatee. Fish heads I usually see curried are fuller, broader. The dreaded red snapper is often recommended in recipes and I’ve also seen a call for threadfin, which I don’t think are common here.

One of these days I'll learn that no matter how many cookbooks I possess or experience I have with eating the cuisine, Malaysian-Singaporean food will never taste the same in my hands. Seriously never. I'm stymied as to what causes my food to always turn out flat and dull. I can't attribute it to lack of fresh ingredients because my Thai and Chinese food usually turns out pretty good. I'm clearly doing something wrong.

The first issue was deciding on a recipe. Every one I found was slightly different so I adapted a few based on what sounded right. Fish head curry uses dry spices, not a fresh paste or rempah, since it's a Singaporean specialty of Indian origin. Ok, there's also a Nyonya version but the curry everyone associates with Singapore is served at Indian restaurants and not so much at hawker centers.

Therefore, you need curry powder and lots of it. One thing I've discovered is that Malaysian recipes often specify the type of curry powder you need, none of that generic madras business. They seem to have two distinct blends: fish and meat. I picked up packets of each on a visit to Kuala Lumpur but that was a few years ago (perhaps the first step on my route to dull food was using old spices). It seems that main difference is that fish curry powder doesn’t contain clove, star anise, cinnamon and cardamom like the meat version.

The recipe I was following called for five tablespoons and unfortunately, my little packet only contained around four. So, I spent a bit of time grinding and making my own supplementary powder based on the recipe below, which I've left as is. Even cutting down those numbers by a third, I ended up with two whopping cups of the stuff, used an entire bottle of coriander seeds and still came up short. Grams to ounces confuse me. I had no idea what an insane quantity I was concocting until it was too late. I filled up the spice grinder with dried chiles three times and still didn't have the 50 grams per my digital scale!

You also might want to know about "curry seeds," which are called for in many recipes. From what I understand this is a blend of whole fennel seeds, cumin seeds, brown mustard seeds, fenugreek and black dhal in proportions that I’m not sure about. I didn't have the dhal.

Once you have your blends ready to go and your vegetables and aromatics prepped, the rest is easy. There aren't really any shortcuts since we don't have brands like Prima Taste here that sell ready-to-use mixes that aren't half-bad (I've tried a few of them). I'm loving this fish head curry "party pack." Now, that's my kind of party. James is trying to finagle a way to get his company's Singapore office to send us a bunch of these packets. I'd be curious how the fish head curry blend tastes because…well, my rendition didn't end up impressing anyone.

My pot of fish was wrong, even by looks (and I don't just mean that it's ugly anti-food porn). The consistency of the liquid should be thinner, oilier and ruddy. Mine was creamy even though I thinned it down with water. James insists the versions we had in Asia didn't contain coconut milk. I agree that they seemed sharper and soupier but every recipe I found included at least a little coconut milk. I would go easy on it.

The fish, itself was mild and inoffensive. I'm sure it could've been fresher but it was amazingly cheap. This whole dish probably cost under $8 (if you only count the portion of the $2.89 bottle of decimated coriander seeds that were actually used for this). Even at such a bargain, I'm going to lay off the Singaporean experimenting for a while because it's too much effort for lackluster pay off.  But I feel compelled to write out a recipe, anyway, because I don't think that was the problem.

Ingredients
1 whole fish head, about 3 pounds
1 tablespoon mixed curry seeds for fish curry (optional)
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, chopped
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 onions thinly sliced
5 tablespoon fish curry powder made into a paste with 1 /4 to 1 /2 cup water
10 okra pods
3 tomatoes, quartered
10 chiles slit into half lengthwise
20 curry leaves
1 /2 to 1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon tamarind mixed with 1 cup water
1 cup coconut milk
5 tablespoon sunflower oil        

Fish Curry Powder
250g coriander powder
60g cumin powder
150g chilli powder
30g turmeric powder
20g black pepper powder
10g fenugreek powder

Rub fish head with salt, then wash and pat dry. (I’m just repeating what I’ve read everywhere. Rather than seasoning with salt, this step seems intended to remove “fishiness.”)

Heat oil in a wok or saucepan, add the curry seeds and stir fry over high heat for two to three minutes till the seeds pop. Add garlic, ginger, onions and stir fry till fragrant. Add the fish curry paste and brown over low heat, till oil raises to the surface. Sprinkle water if the paste begins to burn.

Add the coconut milk, tamarind juice, salt, sugar and curry leaves. Bring to a boil, stirring. Add the fish head, along with okra, tomatoes and chiles.

Simmer for 15 minutes or until fish is cooked.

Adapted from Sylvia Tan's Singapore Heritage Food and the Singapore Tourism Board

Maybe it's impossible to perfectly replicate Singaporean fish head curry in Brooklyn. I've suspected as much and Laura Shapiro's recent Gourmet.com post, "Food Doesn't Travel" reinforces this notion.

The More Tuscan The Better

Living in a bloggy vacuum, I find it hard to believe that internet reviews and being "the latest 'in' place" scored 1% and 0%, respectively, in a global Nielsen survey of criteria diners consider when choosing a restaurant. Are we the only victims of Yelp and Minetta Tavern?

The number one factor was type of cuisine at 33%, and that's sensible. What I was kind of surprised by is that after the "cuisine of my own country/local area," the top two were Italian and Chinese tied at 14%. I figured those were just American favorites. I guess one takeaway is that the world loves noodles whether sauced with marinara or as the basis of lo mein.

Showing how slowly trends spread across the globe, Spanish cuisine, heralded for the last decade in foodie circles, scores dead last. Seeing how most Americans (and I do feel it's an American phenomena) think Spanish and Mexican food is the same thing (as opposed to New Yorkers who call anything Caribbean Spanish—ain't no mofongo in Madrid…um, at least I don't think, I'll check next week when I'm there and could be eating my words) I'm not shocked that Iberian fare has an image problem.

Taking It to the Streets

Writing about Southeast Asian street food served indoors would be my ultimate assignment because I love the region's cuisine and have a fetish for dining in malls abroad (ok, here too). 

Robyn of EatingAsia got to live my dream for the Wall Street Journal. It's really not her beat, though. She and her husband (both Americans who I met during my 2005 Kuala Lumpur trip shortly after they had moved there) are really masters of the street food scene. Ok, scene sounds overblown but they know what they're doing.

I've been to quite a  few of the venues mentioned in the article: Madame Kwan's, StraitsKitchen, Food Republic and Lau Pa Sat (as a foreigner I consider that a real hawker center not so much "stylish street food"). I've  also eaten at Bangkok's MBK Shopping Center, though not the specific restaurant mentioned. I recently had my sights set on Central World or Siam Paragon, but Suvarnabhumi Airport ruined my end-of-2008 vacation. And yes, I'm still bitter.

I'll Keep on Truckin'

Happy to report that my painful 45-minute wait at the Financial District banh mi cart a few weeks ago was likely an aberration. Or maybe the hype has already dissipated (though not banh mi mania in general—I swear in the last 24 hours I’ve read about ten recently opened or about to open Vietnamese sandwich purveyors).

I just picked up a #1 and two summer rolls (which I’m saving for dinner so no word on them) and only spent about three minutes in the process. It should be noted that they now have a $3 shrimp cocktail (six pieces) and a posted phone number for pick up orders made before 11am: 646-996-8990.

I’ll admit that I’m curious about what a Vietnamese shrimp cocktail would be like. I don’t recall ever seeing such a dish on any restaurant menus.

By the way, I’m baffled by commenters (then again, I’m frequently amazed by the blowhard-ness of commenters. Yesterday I was supposedly schooled on the inauthenticity of sweet and sour chicken at a Korean restaurant. Well, duh, and no amount of culinary knowledge will stop me from ordering non-traditional dishes if that’s what I feel like eating), specifically the commenters currently going batshit over the $8 banh mi at newly opened An Choi (and before that, it was the $7 banh mi at Park Slope’s new Hanco’s).

Seriously, who cares if someone wants to overpay for a sandwich. If that offends you, then clearly you’re not their target market and if it turns out to be rip off they’ll have to adjust their prices to stay in business. It's the evergreen no one will pay good money for "ethnic" food debate. I can see both sides; I'm seriously averse to $15 tacos. I’m well aware that the $5 Financial District banh mi costs more than a typical Chinatown version but it’s not Chinatown and I’m willing to pay a $2 premium for convenience (not atmosphere in this case, obviously) because I have no other options in this neighborhood. Quibbling between a $3 and $8 sandwich? We’re talking dollars here, even in a wretched economy I’m not going to spazz over a few bucks, especially if the sandwich is actually good.

I’m not crazy, however. Yesterday I briefly went insane and made reservations at Per Se for Friday night after reading everywhere how easy it is to now score a table there since the entire world is destitute. But after the reality of a $275 dinner set in, I chickened out and cancelled. That’s a lot of money for a gal with a lower middle class salary (by NYC standards, of course). I'll have to settle for being price gouged on banh mi, instead.

Stung by Jollibee

I honestly didn’t have high hopes for a Valentine’s Day treat involving Chickenjoy or spaghetti studded with frankfurters at Jollibee on opening day. In the Philippines the homegrown chain is way bigger than McDonald’s. There’s serious nostalgia at work (though not for me, obviously). I could see from blogs that the East Coast’s first branch in Woodside, Queens was tempting visitors from as far as Toronto. James’ Pinoy coworker was packing up his family and heading in from New Jersey’s outer reaches.

I wanted a piece of the action, but went in cautiously expecting a crowd. Sure enough, around 4pm there was a line composed of anxious customers wrapped around the block. We estimated at least a four hour wait. Ack. (Sorry about the oddly colored photos--I'm still getting used to my Christmas gift camera and forgot to change a setting because I rarely take outdoor pics.)

I could stand to wait a few weeks for the hype to die down. Remember how quickly Pollo Campero mania faded? After the initial ruckus, the Guatemalan fried chicken chain couldn’t even sustain enough business in Sunset Park to stay open (there’s still one in Corona, though).

So, we had an impromptu late lunch at Sripraphai instead. No waiting and no photos necessary since I order nearly the same thing every time (crispy watercress salad, crispy pork with chile and basil, drunken noodles and a curry—this time a super bony, more fiery than usual catfish version with apple eggplants).

Since no one gave me holiday candies I gifted myself with assorted mithai from Delhi Palace. These colorful sugar bombs will kill you, total diabetes in a box (seriously, everyone thinks that blacks and latinos are the kings of insulin resistance, but Indians have the highest rate of Type 2 diabetes in the city, which I only remember because the New York Times’ article on the topic last year, “Bedeviled by the Sugar Sickness” was illustrated with a photo of Delhi Palace)  but I love the creamy sweet assault on rare occasions.

I almost would’ve forgotten it was Valentine’s Day if I hadn’t been handed plastic wrapped flowers by a waitress at Sripraphai  just before she ran out. By the time we were done eating, the usual Saturday night hordes had amassed in the lobby and outside…and yep, there was still a massive queue at Jollibee. I’ll be back.

Tortas and Lomitos

I wouldn’t exactly call it an epiphany but Saturday I woke up (I’d like to say bright and early but it was more like 11:30am) with the strange and sudden urge to know more about Mexican food. Not just to eat it, that’s easy (despite all of the transplanted complainers who seem incapable of looking beyond lower Manhattan), but to cook it more too, maybe even learn more about the cuisine first-hand (I know Oaxaca is a gastronomic destination but I’m thinking Merida).

Just how a certain subset of white dudes seem unable to resist an Asian girl, I have a fetish for the food (though I rarely dabble in the Korean or Japanese realms). It’s illogical and uncontrollable. Maybe I’m drawn to noodle soups, dumplings and curries because of their very foreignness. Though by that logic I’d also be a goulash or fufu fanatic, which I’m not. I think it’s the complexity of a spice blend or layers of sweetness, salt and spice that appeal. How lots of mixed up tastes blend into something exciting. But that’s not unique to Asian cuisine.

My resistance to Latin American food, Mexican specifically, stems from the feeling that I should know more about it. I wasn’t really raised with it, it wasn’t served in local restaurants growing up and I certainly wasn’t handed down any kitchen wisdom from a knowing abuela (nor an Anglo mish-mash grandma—to this day, I can’t recall my mom’s mom who’s still very much alive, cooking anything, period, let alone notable. My only memories involve puffed wheat cereal from enormous 99-cent store plastic bags, slicing Neapolitan ice cream from a rectangular carton into slices with a knife, and a mock apple pie) and yet it seems really accessible. I mean, I could be south of the border in a few hours by plane and even communicate with people (on a very rudimentary level, to be sure) when instead, I fantasize about locales that are literally my polar opposite where chitchat is futile.

I think that’s the scary thing. No one expects a foreigner in Malaysia or Beijing to know everything or to be able to speak Malay or Mandarin. You risk looking like a stupid American even when trying your best. But cultural floundering feels more shameful in a country so nearby, and one with which I share a heritage.

While cobbling together ingredients in Sunset Park for dinner, I discovered that epazote is easy to come by while recado rojo is not (they even sell the Yucatecan paste on Amazon so it’s hardly obscure). I (or rather James) had to make it from scratch.

In the mean time, a torta was in order. We stopped at Ricos Tacos. My sugar and starch limiting means very few sandwiches in my life. But sometimes you simply need something gut-busting between two pieces of bread, in this case a fluffy bolillo. My pierna was a serious mess, only compounded by the copious amount of string cheese, avocado, beans, pickled jalapeños, and yes, mayonnaise, normally my nemesis. But just like with the banh mi, my aversion is waylaid by overall awesomeness.

I wouldn’t say that Ricos Tacos specialty are tortas, that’s just what I wanted. That might be the advertised tacos arabes, a take on schwarma stuffed into a pita. Maybe next time.

I can say that intrepid DVD hawkers know no ethnic boundaries. African-Americans tend to stick to subways and blankets strewn across sidewalks while Latinos and Chinese ladies prefer the restaurant-to-restaurant roaming approach. I have no interest in discounted copies of Hotel for Dogs, though that doesn’t stop genuinely interested others from completing transactions while eating.

What seems to be uniquely Mexican are roving bands setting up shop in tightly packed eateries. No stage or prior arrangements necessary; these are not Filipina entertainers. We happened to be sitting near the door, therefore entitled to an accidental front row seat when a five-piece band, accordion, stand up bass and all, decided to give the jukebox a run for its money. No one seemed to mind. There’s no way this wouldn’t wreak havoc anywhere else outside of a subway car.

Because one can never have too much pork (I’d already eaten two strips of bacon as breakfast), dinner was to be lomitos, based on a recipe from Diana Kennedy’s Essential Cuisines of Mexico. This was thrifty because we used leftover scraps from the Super Bowl ribs that had to trimmed St. Louis style.

These were eaten with soupy black beans and corn tortillas. Simple. Not the prettiest, but tasty.

Lomitos
1 tablespoon simple recado rojo
2 tablespoons Seville orange juice or substitute
2 pounds boneless pork, cut into ½-inch cubes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or pork lard
12 ounces tomatoes, finely chopped
½ green bell pepper, finely chopped
2/3  cup finely chopped white onion
2 teaspoons salt
1 small head of garlic, unpeeled
1 whole habanero chile or any fresh, hot green chile
2 to 2 ½ cups cold water, approximately

Dilute the recado rojo with the orange juice and rub it into the pieces of meat. Set aside for about 30 minutes to season.

Heat the oil in a skillet and fry the tomatoes, pepper and onion together over fairly hight heat, stirring well and scraping the bottom of the pan from time to time, for about 10 minutes. Add the salt and set aside.

Toast the whole head of garlic on a griddle or comal, turning it from time to time, until it is browned on the outside and the cloves inside are fairly soft. Toast the habanero chile.

Put the meat into a large, heavy saucepan with the water, which should barely cover the meat. Add the tomato mixture and the toasted, unpeeled garlic and chile and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer the meat, uncovered, until it is tender—about 1 hour. (The sauce should be of a medium consistency; if it appears to be too watery, turn the heat higher and reduce quickly.) Serve hot.

Hamburger Helper

All of this fenugreek talk has got me thinking about exotic spices. You know, like American Hamburger Mixed Spices.

While perusing Sunset Park’s lovely Rossman Farms, better known to me as The Produce Store, I noticed a new friendly black-and-white cat that hangs out by the cabbage and a moderately revamped side room.

One shelf was filled with a brand of Israeli spice blends from a company called Pereg that looks like Perez in the script font. American Hamburger spices jumped out at me in two different packaging styles. I’m actually not sure what American hamburger spices are. Based on the photo (no, I didn’t look at the ingredient list) it appears the jar may contain chile, garlic, coriander, allspice, cumin and salt, not sure. Isn’t adding packet of Lipton onion soup mix as wild as we get in this country?

Other blends include Meatball, Falafel, Kabbab and Za’atar, the source of monkfish trouble on last night’s Top Chef.

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together

While french fries and hotdogs aren’t an unusual duo, wieners and fries as a standalone dish is bizarre by most standards. And as it turns out, the unhealthy duo is more international than I ever knew.

I’ve always associated the two with salchipapas, the Peruvian treat that’s not too hard to find in NYC. Here’s a basket I recently had the pleasure of digging into at Urubamba.

In December I was shocked, (ok, no Asian food combos really surprise me after finding the 7-11 Big Gulp mashed potato meal) to encounter crinkle-cut fries and sausages commingling behind a glass counter in a Singaporean food court. This one leaned heavily on the meat.

Photo from The Last Appetite

Let’s not forget the Korean fry-coated frank.

Photo from kevincrumbs on Flickr

Resto La Banquise in Montreal serves poutine with cut up hot dogs. I’m sure other Quebecois eateries must do the same, though I’ve never noticed such a thing on any visits. I’m not sure if the curds and gravy would distract or add to the meat and potatoes.

Photo from Slice

And now Italian pies in my own backyard? Ziti pizzas have always given me the heebies. I won’t even stand for rice in my burritos so pasta on pizza is beyond the pale. I assumed this was Brooklyn hubris, but no, it’s an honest to goodness Neapolitan style.

We have four continents represented: North and South America, Asia and Europe. I have little hope for Africa but there must be something in Australia. Probably with a fried egg and beets tossed into the mix

Is anyone familiar with other examples of fry-wiener goodness?

The Friendly Skies

Leave it to the Taiwanese. First they stirred up the pot with their lavatory-themed restaurant, Modern Toilet, and now they’ve recreated airplane dining with A380 In-Flight Kitchen. Airline food has a bad rap, but plastic trays would be step up from toilet bowls, don’t you think?

Photo from Reuters. See more.

Cookbooks Worth a Look

Check out my list of Accessible (Mostly) Southeast Asian Cookbooks on Flashlight Worthy. Yes, people still read books.

Give Me a Break

Even though I’m off the sugar, I was excited when a coworker brought back green tea and sweet potato flavored Kit Kats from Japan this week. I was just going to take pictures, but how do you not taste unusual varieties of candy from afar? I bit.

The green tea had proper bitter undertones; you’d probably be able to identify the flavor if pressed to do so. Maybe the creamy pale green color would help, too. But in the U.S., orange signals sweet potato even though not all yams, sweet potatoes, whatever (I know they’re not the same) are so brightly hued. Orange dye wouldn't  have even helped the butter yellow wafer because it  tasted like super sweet white chocolate and nothing more, not even a hint of vegetal goodness.

Word is Japanese Kit Kats have been known to come in limited editions flavored with corn, watermelon and salt, and even soy sauce. Check out the Japanese KitKat Flickr pool that includes chiles, McFlurry, macchiato and more.

What You Do Prata

1/2 I’m not ashamed to admit that a good food court is one of the few things in life I can get excited about. And by good, I mean a well-curated space offering diverse foodstuffs from the Asian continent. Essentially, an indoor hawker center (I’m not persnickety about hygiene but I do love me some air conditioning).

Singapore really takes the cake in this genre, which isn’t surprising since they prefer modern tidiness over grit. Yes, some might say soulless compared to say, Malaysia, Vietnam…or really anywhere in Southeast Asia. Of course you can eat outside in Singapore too; it’s just that everything’s organized and regulated in comparison.

I love the Food Republic concept. I even watched a television segment about its founder while recuperating in our hotel (one of the many evening spent lying in bed rather than gallivanting around town—I got like zero drinking accomplished on vacation). The thing about these restaurant collections is that for the most part, they’re not mega-chains, many are extensions or evolutions of local eateries, and you won’t find all of the same establishments in each mall.

I first stumbled upon a Food Republic in the Wisma Atria and they had a little of everything: Hainanese chicken rice, herbal soups, sushi, dim sum, laska and so on. We vowed to return for dinner but after spending all day going from mall to mall (nearly all of the shops on Orchard Road are connected) we had strayed too far to go back, plus, we’d already discovered a million other places where we wanted to eat (ultimately, My Mum’s Place in Paragon across from the always packed, distressingly named, Spageddies.)

Our last night in Singapore, after eating so-so Indonesian food at House of Sundanese in Suntec City we did the mall-to-mall crawl and eventually found ourselves in another Food Republic. This one was classy and designed to look like a library with green-shaded desk lamps, wood tables, book wallpaper and padded leather signage. Seriously? A library-themed food court full of amazing Southeast Asian treats in a ginormous mall?! I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced this level of awesome before.

We desperately need an NYC Food Republic. The equivalent would be going to…well, we don’t have real malls in Manhattan. But imagine a giant suburban mall at Union Square. There would be a food court but minus any McDonald’s or KFCs (they would be in the mall, as they are in Singapore, but not as part of the food court). Instead, you might find some of the beloved Red Hook vendors. You couldn’t get DiFara but definitely those Artichoke guys (they’re expanding, right?). Obviously, street cart favorites like Kwik Meal and Calexico could be there. You could go trendy with a salumeria stand, porchetta and charcuterie too. There would have to be bbq, bagels, oh, and deli food and hot dogs but not Junior’s or Nathan’s who would certainly jump on the wagon, Rachael Ray would also want her burgers represented but the public would demand a Shake Shack satellite (I say the public because I’ve never eaten there. Weird, I know) Will Goldfarb could pretend Picnick never happened and get in on the desserts. Duh, and a speakeasy stall, mixology for the masses. Alcohol is one thing Singaporean malls totally lack because they are lame that way. There would have to be drinks. The theme could be Gangs of New York and it could be decked out like Tamanay Hall. Or maybe the Immigrant Experience, yes, the second location in midtown would have Ellis Island memorabilia everywhere. I see pushcarts, newsies and chamber pots.

Do note the books tucked into the shelves in front of the stands. No eating in the library?

Many of the Food Republic shops are showy with big picture windows letting diners watch their Chinese donuts being kneaded, cut and deep fried in a giant oil-filled wok. Or their prata being rolled out and filled with tasty stuffings…

I could only make room for something small, I mean, I wasn’t going to not try something, so James and I shared a cheese prata with the default vegetarian curry containing a lone okra pod. The griddled pancakes weren’t too oily and there was just a hint of mild white cheese (I couldn’t say what type). There’s no getting around the fact that prata are heavy, though. I restrained myself from ordering two and then thought twice when I noticed the woman in front of my getting three (if I were truly nosy, I could’ve followed her to see if she was dining with two others). I am always humbled by the culinary fortitude of Asian girls.

I didn’t realize the name of the stall was What You Do Prata until we were leaving. Despite the silly moniker, the food is a notch more serious. They have guy who makes your prata on demand. I was kind of paralyzed by indecision because in NYC we only have roti canai, no choice of filling or sauce. Here, you could have egg, onion, cheese, combinations of those or meat, but then I think chicken or mutton makes a prata become a murtabak. And there were curries in steam table trays behind glass. Everyone else seemed to know what everything was despite no labels.

Typically in Southeast Asia I haven’t been stymied by language barriers, Singapore is super English-friendly, it’s the food customs. I was thinking of this when I read about Ferran Adria being taken to Katz’s. Even though he could communicate with the Dominican counter guy in Spanish, it’s not like he knew how and what to order.

Roti canai, a flaky, layered pancake that’s always served with a little cup of curry that usually contains as small bone-in chicken piece and one potato chunk, is something you’ll often see as an appetizer in Malaysian restaurants in NYC. I’ve since realized this is weird. For one, what we call roti is prata in Southeast Asia. That’s fine, just a semantics issue. It only occurred to me this time, on my third visit to Singapore, that roti, prata, whatever, isn’t even Malay (though it could be argued that it is Malaysian). It’s something you find at Muslim Indian stalls, a style that I’ve heard called mamak (don’t know if that’s an un-PC term or not). So, Malaysian restaurants in New York, which are run by ethnic Chinese serving Muslim Indian food, are really no different than the American restaurants run by Brits or Australians in Asia that serve tacos, bbq and Cajun food all together.

But more importantly, I have no idea how to categorize prata. Prata is a Singaporean bastardization of Indian paratha so is it Singaporean because it's part of the country's culture or still Indian? Malaysians would claim prata too and they are more Muslim than Singaporeans so is it also Malaysian? Ok, I'm going to call it Malaysian and Singaporean but not Indian, convoluted as it may seem. The closest local example I can think of is whether gyros are Greek or American. It's crazy when food starts making me think like a librarian.

What You Do Prata * Suntec City, 3 Temasek Blvd., Singapore

J.Co Donuts & Coffee

1/2 I wonder if people in Malaysia read about fast food sensations on NYC blogs? Probably not. I keep tabs on a few Singaporean and Malaysian blogs, and one of the things I find most fascinating are foreign trends. In the mid-2000s I kept hearing about Rotiboy, which I eventually tried.

Last year I started noticing internet chatter about Indonesian donut chain J.Co. I was particularly amused by their use of outré ingredients like cheese. And the alcapone donut combined with a bullet hole motif on the company’s cardboard boxes was kind of sassy.

So, when I was unexpectedly faced with a big J.Co Donuts café with seating (I always imagined them as a take out counter) at Bugis Junction right after a fun stop at Raffles Hospital, a block away, I had to sample the wares even though I’d just eaten sweet, buttery kaya toast.
One vacation problem is that I use the break as a license to snack with hedonistic abandon. I’d buy anything that caught my fancy whether or not I had an appetite for it at the time. Consequently, lots of snacks sat around the hotel room not getting eaten at their prime.

I thought getting four donuts to share with another was being kind of gluttonous, but I had nothing on the two teenage boys in front of me in line who got three donuts apiece on a plate to eat right there on the spot.

These donuts, mocha and tiramisu, had a glossy unusually thick layer of frosting that would be gooey if fresh and warm. When I tasted these the next morning, they were still good but the chocolate had hardened like Magic Shell. It was almost like having a candy layer atop a donut that wanted to flake off in chunks.

Green tea tasted like green tea; I’m more into the color than the flavor. The most interesting donut by far was the cheese. James was scared of it, but I thought it had grotesque charm. I actually prefer hole-in-the-middle non-filled donuts just for the sweet bready yeastiness. This has all that softness with a salty melted parmesan-esque (funny, I just looked up their own description and it's "New Zealand cheese." I told you Southeast Asia was obsessed with Kiwi dairy) coating. I expected something more bagel-y, but nope, it was a genuine donut encased in cheese just like it looked.

It wouldn’t make a half-bad breakfast treat, especially if it had some bacon crumbles sprinkled on. Though being Southeast Asia, they’d most likely use “floss,” the ubiquitous flaked jerky that shows up in strange places.

J.Co Donuts & Coffee * Bugis Junction, 200 Victoria St., Singapore

Basquing in the Glory

Maybe because I have tenuous ties to both Nevada (my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother both lived in the Silver State) and Basques (my father’s mother’s mother was Basque, though not in Nevada, Texas, more like. Would that make me 1/8 Basque? That might as well be zero, as I don't think anything less than a quarter counts for squat when claiming ethnicity), I actually read an article, "Meat and Greet,"  in today’s T Magazine.

Normally, my attention span for the section is next to nonexistent. I can’t get enthused over $13,000 shell-encrusted busts (statues not décolletage) and $4,300 capes. But dwindling cultures in far-flung parts of the country are interesting. It kind of reminds me of the incongruous Luso-American Cultural Center, a block from my apartment. There aren't any Portuguese in Carroll Gardens that I'm aware of, the building stands.

This isn’t Basque like the brand new Txikito--close in spirit to modern Spain--this is hefty mutt fare that has steeped in America's West for over a century. I’ve never tasted this style of cuisine, though I imagine the paella and lamb steaks are the equivalent of Italian-American veal parm and spaghetti and meatballs. I’d like to try it, though I’m not sure when I’ll have the opportunity. Idaho and Nevada, two Basque hotbeds, aren’t exactly on my radar.

Photo from Mike's Gallery

Please Sir, Can I Have Some Más?

I’ve never been to a Sam’s Club, which I think is like a Wal-Mart owned Costco, right? But I still love the idea of Mas Club, a warehouse store devoted to products shipped from Mexico.

I don’t know how this will translate here since we’re more of a plantain than a tortilla city. They’ll probably only put them in Texas, Arizona and California. Ok, nevermind, we don’t have Sam’s Clubs in NYC anyway.

In New Jersey and the outer boroughs I’m accustomed to big Asian supermarkets but we don’t really Latino equivalents, at least that I’m aware of. That’s why I was so wowed by Mariana’s in Vegas a few years ago. That market is probably no big deal to West Coasters where freshly baked conchas and myriad types of tripe are easy to find.

I would like to pretend that I grew up eating wonderfully nuanced Mexican food, but the truth is that my family’s favorite venue was Taco Time. The regional chain was/is better than Taco Bell because they deep-fry their skinny burritos, which are like a cross between a chimichanga and a flauta and they serve Mexi-fries, glorified tater tots. I very rarely get homesick for the Northwest but I have fond Taco Time memories.

Thanks, But No Thanks

Yes, I suppose it’s one month to Thanksgiving. Time to make reservations if that’s your type of thing or start scouring the magazines. My holiday issues have been pouring in. And as much as I get a soothing sense of calm from planning Thanksgiving meals, I’m kind of relieved that I’ll be out of the country November 27.

Potatoes, yams, pumpkin pies, pecan pies, stuffing…it’s all starch and sugar (and turkey is flat out dull), things I try to avoid while also trying to not talk about it too much because frankly, who cares what you’re trying not to eat.

I’ll board a plane at early the 27th and won’t touch ground until it’s Friday night in Bangkok. Too soon for personal homesickness, but Americans (I rarely encounter Americans in S.E. Asia—mostly British, Australians and Germans) in the mood for “traditional American dishes such as roasted whole beef tenderloin sliced with jalapeños, smoked Texas BBQ pork ribs, Louisiana baked darn salmon and California BBQ Chicken with a glass of California wine,” will find that most of the big hotels put on Thanksgiving meals like this example from the Novotel.

Hong Kong, where I’ll be a week later, takes quite a different approach to the holiday. Would you fancy a HK$880 ($113 USD) menu serving Kumamoto oysters, warm horseradish and tomato broth, fresh crayfish and okra soup, prosciutto, roasted pumpkin and sage salad, slow-roasted turkey, foie gras and chestnut stuffing with shaved Brussels sprouts, cherry-yuzu soda and pecan and dark chocolate tart, vanilla bean ice cream and bourbon caramel? At least that’s what they were serving last year at Felix in the Peninsula Hotel.

Trash Talking

I love Singapore to death. I would move there in a heartbeat if given the option. Even though guidebooks view it as a two-day-and-under starting point for more exotic Southeast Asian travel and anyone who knows anything about the orderly island believes it to be authoritarian (I think the only association many Americans have with Singapore is that Michael Fay caning incident) and sterile.

I love it because I love rules (not that I actually follow them) and orderliness. While much of Southeast Asia is smoggy, smothering chaos, Singapore is as easy as (durian) pie. It’s Asia in cuisine but everything is in English and communication problems are few. Air conditioning is in abundance, and everything is spotless; no touts, no street beggars, lots of malls--even the occasional homeless cat is well behaved. Hawker stalls spell everything out for you, almost always in English and often with photos. I think that’s why intrepid foodies sing the tiny city-state’s praises. Calvin Trillin and Tony Bourdain immediately come to mind.  

As I’m researching dining for my second Thailand trip, I’m reminded of how intimidating it can be to face a menu lacking a single English word (minus the baffling “T steak”), even on the Coca Cola logo. Even Beijing and Shanghai weren’t that opaque. Five years ago when I first visited, I was underemployed and actually had the free time to listen to Thai language tapes and attempted to learn a few characters. I’m not so delusional this time. I’ve been formally studying Spanish for over a year and still have the vocabulary of a dimwitted toddler.

But Singapore is not all magical chili crabs and happy bowls of laska. There is a dark side. I’ve found my new cheer-up Flickr pool, Ugly Singapore. I’m frequently petty, it doesn’t take much to set me off or ruin my day. NYC can be exhausting and loud and soul crushing…and then I see people in Singapore genuinely upset about Oreos left in the frozen chicken section at a grocery store and everything is put in perspective. Ok, I’m not uptight at all.

If one stray bag of garbage on the side of the road is enough to set them off, imagine how they’d take the perpetual trash bag heaps in New York or street couches. Now, if they would just spend more time making babies instead of documenting society’s ills…

Thai menu photo from ImportFood.com

Caught Between the Mooncake and New York City

These unnaturally colored mooncakes exemplify why I love places like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. They’re not afraid to experiment with food, and I don’t mean in a molecular gastronomy way. Both of my visits to the region happened to fall during mooncake season and I was amazed each time by the number of modern varieties. New York’s Chinatowns are still firmly entrenched in the traditional baked red bean cakes not these rainbow hued “snow skin” types.

Of course tradition has its place. But I don’t think that quality ingredients and crazy presentations need be mutually exclusive. I think much of the reason why I can’t get excited about local, sustainable, organic or whatever, is because while possibly tasty, it’s not very fun. Or maybe pristine produce and small producers just doesn’t rev me up. Novelty impresses me, I’m afraid.

I have no idea how this particular Chinese chef created his gummi bear and lavender flavored mooncakes or achieved those shades of pink and blue. Probably not naturally--is that a problem? It doesn’t bother me, but I’m also fine with fake green pistachio gelato, red velvet cake…and even Velveeta.

Big Boys Kitchen via The Kitchn

Olympic Flavor

While the Chinese government is busy combating menu Engrish, McDonald’s, the world over, is promoting Olympic-inspired edibles. Chop suey burgers in Latin America? Ok, I guess they’re going to be called Beijing Burgers according to the Wall Street Journal.

The only McDonald’s country sites where I could find photographic evidence of this hamburguesa de Beijing were Argentina and Colombia, and it’s even better than expected. The China Menu includes said burger with a ginger sauce, black and white sesame seeds on the bun and yes, chop suey. There are also fried rice sticks and a banana caramel sundae.

Though not on the website, I was able to glean a few details about Australia and their "Flavor of the Games" promotion. McDonald’s down under will be serving burgers called The American, The Euro, The African, The Asian and The Australian.

I know Aussies put peculiarities like beets, pineapple and fried egg on their burgers. The Asian will probably involve wasabi, sweet and sour or soy sauce. What I’m dying to know is what’s on an African burger—that’s way open to interpretation (let’s hope it’s not raw fermented sour dough).

Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

I don’t generally promote products (I don’t even talk myself up), not so much because I’m ethical but because no one asks me to (fyi, I do tend to shy away from companies that claim God is their CEO, and no, I'm not making that up). However, I do have a soft spot for Asian cuisine (I’m tentatively planning a Singapore/Malaysia trip for November, my third foray to S.E. Asia) so I don’t have a problem mentioning The Miele Guide, a new antidote to Western-focused restaurant best-of lists that’s planned for publication in October 2008.

Voting is open to the public until July 31st so if anyone has strong opinions about the best restaurants in Asia, you should pay a visit. I’m going to vote as soon as I figure out a way around the Visa cardholder requirement (Visa is a sponsor—no, they don’t charge your card). I have like six Mastercards, though I may have a Visa hiding somewhere.

Singaporean super-blogger and tastemaker Chubby Hubby, has the back-story. It’s kind of his project. 

Zero-Calorie Steak

After all this recent beef talk, I was happy to chance upon papercraft steaks. Made in Japan, of course.

Yanking My Chain

Lucky me. I’ll be heading to Buenos Aires just in time try Argentina’s first Starbucks, which opens today in Palermo, the neighborhood I will be residing in tomorrow morning.

Ok, I have no strong opinion on Starbucks one way or the other (as you saw last week, I totally patronize coffee carts) but I do love checking out US chains in foreign countries. I did have a green tea éclair at a Beijing Starbucks and a red bean scone at a location in Shanghai, and I didn’t feel like a dirty American for doing so.

I’ll only be away for a week, and I have no idea if I’ll be posting or not. I tend not to while vacation because I’m just not that plugged in and I’m not deluded enough to think anyone would notice a seven-day online absence.  I never miss my cell phone (which could have something to do with the fact that I only got my first one last year and use it like never) but I always check e-mail because I’m old (wasn’t it declared geriatric like two years ago?)

So, tonight I’m off to eat grass-fed beef, dulce de leche and maybe even a newfangled “mate latte.” Adios.

Photo of now-gone Forbidden City Starbucks by Miguel A. Monjas via Bloggle

Seoul Food

Seoul Categorizing Dogs as Livestock

I’m not judgmental about cultures that eat dog (maybe because I’m a crazy cat lady) or any other pet-like creatures. I wouldn’t say I’m thrilled about the idea, but imagining pups as livestock is kind of funny in an abstract way (not so much in a realistic way after you skim through a few animal rights sites).

All sorts of new debates could be had over things like free range or factory farmed dog meat, best breed for flavor or maybe someone could start an obsessive single ingredient blog a la Slice or Burrito Blog.

Cafe Culture

Japanese creations never fail to amaze me (I’m still marveling over cucumber Pepsi and vending machine costumes as camouflage against rapists) and sometimes they double whammy me within minutes of each other.

First, I heard about Butlers Cafe where Japanese women can be treated like princesses by cute western men. Kind of Disney and creepy yet intriguing.

Shortly afterward, I was skimming Cha Xiu Bao and became even more astonished by Café Edelstein, a dreamy restaurant where geeky girls are served by faux well-bred, boarding school-educated gentlemen. The types of gay-ish boys featured in Shōnen-ai manga.

I think this is awesome because freakish fantasy services typically seem geared towards males, cosplay restaurants in particular. They just don’t do this type of thing here, at least not for grown women. Little girls have over-the-top American Girl Café but beyond grade school weirdo role playing restaurants certainly aren’t acceptable.

We just get stuck with Medieval Times.

Shrimp Sambal Tea Sandwiches

Do you ever create something (arguably) edible and can’t decide whether it’s genius or disgusting? I just possibly made the most grostesque yet edible sandwich that I wouldn’t recommend anyone replicate.

I was going to make shrimp sambal tea sandwiches from Singapore Heritage Food over Christmas break but never got around to it. I figured it would be a good in-the-office-alone meal. I share close quarters with three others who don’t strike me as appreciative of funky odors. Yesterday, I felt self-conscious about the Sichuan snapper and water spinach leftovers I ate at my desk. Fish isn’t work-friendly.

Last night I tackled this recipe because I was afraid the loaf of white bread I’d bought for the purpose was probably on the verge of molding. All you really do is grind dried shrimp, shallots, fresh and dried chiles and then fry in oil and season with salt and sugar. Yet, I botched it somehow.

They include a photo, which makes the filling look crimson and moist. I had an idea in my head of how it would taste; hot, sweet and kind of sticky-jammy like a Thai paste that I used to keep in the freezer. But it was nothing like that. As you can see, everything's salmon-colored and crispy.

The dried shrimp didn’t get soft enough or break down flossy enough in my mini food chopper (I’d never heard meat referred to as floss until I went to Malaysia) so rather than a puree I had more of chunky blend of shrimp jerky. And when cooked with dried and fresh chiles and shallots, nothing really melded. The flavor wasn’t bad, but the consistency was loose to hold together between bread.

I needed a binder that wasn’t high fat. Mayonnaise makes me wary on a good day and I didn’t have any in the fridge, anyway. Greek yogurt to the rescue. Why not? It’s no weirder than a tuna salad sandwich, really. I was going to add lime juice and the tanginess sufficed. However, the yogurt dulled the hotness so I added a blob of jarred sambal. Nice.

The thing is that the paste tastes much better eaten plain than on bread. It was like starchy dryness compounded with salty dryness. And now I have a headache, which I'd like to blame on the sandwich. Oh, and I completely stunk up the apartment and the hallway. I’m starting to think that I’m immune to fishy, fermented scents (though not stinky tofu) and a destroyer of recipes.

Eve of Destruction: Penang-Style Roast Chicken

Don't you love the television's blue glow?

I feel funny using recipe titles when they include someone’s name, mostly because it seems overly familiar when you don’t know the person being honored. So, this Penang-style roast chicken from James Oseland’s Cradle of Flavor is technically called Kevin’s Spiced Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Penang Style. Thanks, Kevin.

I don’t know why Eurasian food seems fitting for the holidays, it’s not as if I raised cross-culturally. I think my lack of culinary traditions means that I can substitute whatever I’d like for Christmas dinner. As I mentioned in my previous post, I originally thought of devil curry, a Portuguese-Malay mishmash that often includes canned sausages, but then I realized that I had already made it in 2005. I guess it wasn’t that memorable. To be honest, it was kind of bland and not worth tinkering with in 2007.

Another Eurasian holiday dish curry feng sounds fascinating to an organ meat lover like myself. But lungs aren’t even legal to eat in the U.S. (the recipe I found from Rasa Malaysia calls for lungs, though most others I’ve found do not) and there’s something mildly gruesome about sitting alone chewing on stomach, hearts, intestines, liver and whatever else is in this curry. Kidneys are meant to be shared.

This year I’m unusually lazy even though I have free time galore. I wanted Southeast Asian food without much fuss. Sometimes it’s fun to scour the city for ingredients and spend time chopping and pounding. Sometimes you just can’t be bothered. The only component the average American might not have on hand for this recipe is the kecap manis. I could kick myself for tossing out a bottle a few months ago (instead of a plastic top it had a bottle cap and the crinkled up piece of foil I’d been using to stop it up started to gross me out).

But heading to Chinatown (which is only four subway stops from my apartment, so no complaints) would allow me to pick up some sides. I’m normally all for an everything from scratch approach, but when you’re cooking for one hardcore details can slide. You only have to please yourself. Why make pickles from scratch when sliced sweet and sour turnips and carrots are only $2.29? I like a crunchy, tangy condiment with roast meat, especially Asian-influenced preparations.

Pungent, sweet and spicy shrimp paste encrusted green beans interspersed with whole shrimp were a perfect side for an East-West entrée. Lady fingers (okra) or petai (stink beans) might’ve been uber Malaysian, and they were available from Skyway where I made my purchase, but green beans made more sense in this context. No need to be un-American.

We buy most of our meat from Western Beef because it’s cheap, they have every cut from every animal imaginable, and we’re not caught up enough with organics or free range ethics to have a problem with grocery store flesh. So, the $1.99/lb “fresh young chicken” at Hong Kong Supermarket actually seemed kind of pricey, but I only needed a little guy, 3.5 pounds. I noticed at the check out counter that the chicken was whole, head on, which I’ve never dealt with before.

I’m not squeamish about animals as food (though I certainly don’t want to hang out in slaughterhouses, I don’t understand grown ups who get freaked out by meat with bones. I’ve known many non-vegetarians who can’t cook chicken because skin, veins and bones creep them out) but I was a little perplexed by the head. I’ve never had to chop one off (I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to, but this recipe was unusually specific and said to remove head, feet and cavity fat) so I guess I’m sheltered. Even Kid Nation participants had to kill chickens. I felt bad because I don’t have a cleaver and had to saw the poor thing’s neck.

Then, I realized it still had legs and feet. I eat chicken feet, no problem but I don’t think the dim sum comes with tiny toenail claws. There were still quite a few feathers left on the bird, too. I learned more about chicken parts this Christmas Eve than I’d anticipated. The tag on the chicken’s wing indicated that it came from my old stomping grounds, Greenwood Heights (yes, I always called it Sunset Park but I’m trying to be un-anal and modern). There are a lot of live poultry markets over there, but I’ve never had the nerve to patronize one.

 

I love it when recipes I’ve taken from books are already published on the internet. It saves me tedious typing and the bad karma associated with violating copyright. I’m pleased to see that Salon published this recipe and a few others, too. This is a very good cookbook--one of 2006’s best--that I never ever cook from for absolutely no reason at all.

Kevin's Spiced Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Penang Style

1 whole free-range chicken, 3 1/2 pounds (1.4 kilograms)
1/3 cup (2 1/2 fluid ounces/75 milliliters) soy sauce
2 tablespoons double-black soy sauce
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3 bay leaves
2 pieces cinnamon stick, each 4 inches (10 centimeters) long
6 whole cloves
5 small red or yellow onions (about 1 pound/455 grams total), each no more than 2 1/2 inches (6 centimeters) long, halved
1 1/2 teaspoons coarsely crushed black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 pounds (680 grams) small potatoes such as Yukon Gold, Peruvian blue, or Maine, no more than 1 1/2 inches (4 centimeters) in diameter

1. Remove and discard the fat inside the chicken (reserve the head and feet to use in stock if they were attached). Rinse the chicken and thoroughly pat it dry inside and out with paper towels. Tuck the wingtips behind the shoulders.

2. Place the chicken in a bowl large enough to hold it comfortably. Pour both soy sauces and the Worcestershire sauce over it. Add the bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and onions. Using your hands or a large spoon, turn the chicken a few times, making sure that some of the liquid, spices, and a few onion halves are slipped inside the cavity. Rub the inside and outside of the chicken with the pepper. Let the chicken marinate, uncovered, at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours. Turn the bird over every 15 minutes or so to distribute the marinade evenly. Its skin will darken a few shades from the soy sauces.

3. Toward the end of the marinating, preheat the oven to 450°F (220°C).

4. Place the chicken, breast side up, in a shallow roasting pan. Scatter the onions around the chicken, making sure that 1 or 2 halves remain inside the cavity. Rub the chicken inside and out with the softened butter. (I like to rub some underneath the breast skin as well, which helps make the breast meat juicier.) Pour the remaining marinade over the chicken, placing the cinnamon sticks and a few of the cloves inside the cavity. Cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil.

5. Roast the chicken for 20 minutes, then turn it over. Tilt the pan toward you and, using a large spoon or baster, baste the chicken and its cavity with the pan juices. Cover the pan once more with the foil and continue roasting for another 20 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, scrub the potatoes but don't peel them. Fill a 3-quart saucepan three-fourths full with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the potatoes and cook at a rolling boil until they are just tender when pierced with a fork, 5 to 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes well in a colander.

7. Add the cooked potatoes to the roasting pan. Combine them gently with the onions already in the pan and baste them well with the pan juices. Turn the chicken over again (it should be breast side up this time) and baste it once more. Continue roasting the chicken, uncovered now so that it can brown just a bit, until it's cooked. The total cooking time will range from 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. To test for doneness, using a fork, pierce the skin at the thigh joint and press down gently. The juices should have only the faintest tinge of pink. Or, you can insert an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh, not touching the bone. The chicken is ready when the thermometer registers 170°F (75°C).

8. Place the chicken on a serving platter. Pour half of the pan juices over it and allow the chicken to rest for at least 10 minutes before carving (this allows time for the juices to be absorbed by the flesh). Place the potatoes and onions around the chicken or in a serving bowl. Pour the remaining pan juices over the potatoes and onions. This chicken is best when served slightly warm. The flavors will be more pronounced and the flesh juicier.

Serves 4

The finished product turned out crispy and burnished from the molasses-based soy. The flavor was only slightly Asian, and not terribly Malaysian; the cloves and cinnamon almost felt Moroccan. I rounded out the chicken with potatoes, onions, my sweet and sour turnips and shrimp studded green beans.

 

Since I didn’t end up dining until 1am, technically Christmas day when I was going for an Eve supper, I wasn’t hungry enough to appreciate all the food. Um, and I’d just about polished off a bottle of Charles Shaw Shiraz by the time all was said and done so I’d lost a bit of my original focus. But I expect to fully enjoy my leftovers over the next few nights.

Most Wanted

That story of modern day slavery on Long Island was kind of a downer (as are most tales of indentured labor). But now that the perpetrators have been found guilty, I can focus on the strangest aspect of the case: the Indonesian women’s apparent affinity for doughnuts.

Both doughnut-related incidents are mentioned in consecutive paragraphs of today’s New York Times article:

“In the trial, a landscaper testified that one of the women had once approached him, indicated that she was hungry and uttered a single word: doughnut. He said he gave her some doughnuts and she ran back in the house.”

And it was a Dunkin’ Donuts employee who ultimately called the police:

“Finally, one of the women, Samirah, sought help by wandering into a Dunkin’ Donuts shop in Syosset one Sunday morning, slapping herself and uttering a word that sounded like ‘master.’”

They do have doughnuts in Indonesia, in case you were wondering. I was. Um, and they cover them in melted cheese and Oreos and give them names like the Alcapone.

J.Co Donuts photo from a touch of serenity

China: KFC & Pizza Hut

Yes, strange that I would start my China restaurant recaps with Pizza Hut. I really intended to steer clear of western food, I swear, but curiosity eventually got the better of me. Pizza Hut and KFC (both Yum! Brands) definitely seemed to be the dominant US chains in China. You might think of McDonald’s or Starbucks as the global evils, but pan pizza and fried chicken are prevailing in that corner of the world.

KFC got the better of me while killing time in the Beijing airport, which is far from a fun way to spend two afternoons (Singapore’s Changi airport is completely engaging but I’ve never needed to hang around for lengths of time). Though I later saw ads for buckets, simple fried chicken didn’t seem to be the attraction. All the combo meals were focused on sandwiches and wraps, and crunchy breaded cutlets between buns appeared to be the snack of choice. As English was non-existent on signage or spoken by staff, James pointed at a random picture and that’s the combo we split.

The bonanza entailed the popular chicken sandwich, four drummettes/wings, a creepy mayonnaisey vegetable salad that I didn’t taste out of fear and lack of cutlery and what tasted like orange Tang. I don’t really eat at KFC in the US so I can’t accurately compare the two. I don’t think extra crispy is our default, though.

I intended to get two egg tarts for dessert and somehow ended up with four. As far as miscommunications went, this was a fairly minor and tasty mishap. The little custardy pies are served warm and were way better than a fast food apple pie (yes, I’m mixing up my chain desserts).

Malls, each with a unique name and different stores, can span multiple blocks connected by overpasses and underground walkways. The only inevitable commonality are the KFCs and Pizza Huts. I only meant to peek at the Pizza Hut menu posted outside a corner location (there was also a Papa John’s nearby, but I’ve never been to one and didn’t think I should start in Shanghai). But after seeing appetizers like escargots and catching a glimpse of the slightly upscale interior, I had to try one of their seafood pizzas, no way around it.

I haven’t eaten inside a Pizza Hut in years (though I did briefly work in a drive-thru only one in college) so maybe they’ve fancified here too. Chinese Pizza Huts are more of a full service restaurant with soups, pastas and light jazz tinkling in the background.

I wasn’t bold enough to start with escargots, the New Orleans wings gave me pause; it was the cumin lamb meatballs that won me over. I just wasn’t expecting the cold marina-style dipping sauce that came on the side.

Because I’m a grotesque American (despite attracting a 98% Asian clientele, we got nasty looks through the window by some young white folks. I really don’t get the big deal. No one ever takes issue with Japanese chains like Yoshinoya or Coco Curry House that were all over the place. I wouldn’t have a problem if someone from China wanted to try mediocre Chinese food in NYC) I ordered the most expensive pizza (around $8) from their Gourmet Line. This doozy contained smoked salmon, shrimp and squid and was drizzled with creamy wasabi sauce.

Lacking any Italian-ness whatsoever in my DNA, cheese paired with seafood doesn’t bother me in the least. And sure, the dairy and spiciness dominated but the mix of flavors was strangely compelling.

KFC * Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing, China
Pizza Hut * Metro City, 1111 Zhaojiabang Lu, Shanghai, China

Deep Purple

I went on a mini Filipino baked goods binge this weekend. I think my fascination with blue rice nasi kerabu (I encountered another enticing photo the other day) spawned a more accessible in NYC ube craze.

These purple yam products have frustrated me into actually reading my camera manual and online tutorials to no avail. The purple I see with my eyes is much warmer and more magenta than the bluish deep color that shows up digitally. Unfortunately, you’re not getting finely tuned photos because around 2pm I had to abandon my mission. The urge to check out the Cat Show struck and I was forced to get out of my pajamas and hightail it in order to justify the $15 entry fee with 5pm closing time.

 

My first find was a slice of ube layer cake after a meal at Engeline’s (which I’m not detailing at this moment). As you can see from the photo, the guts got a little mangled, not from getting knocked around in the car but from crazy slicing. I expected it to be dense from afar, but it's actually a chiffon cake that's very light and not overly sweet.

 

After a stop at the Phil-Am market down the street, I came away with an ensaymada from a New Jersey bakery. These sweet rolls have always weirded me out a bit because of the mildly strange butter, granulated sugar and grated cheese topping. That’s not really a bad flavor combination but I’m more accustomed to cream cheese as pastry cheese. I used to have the same mixed feelings about cheddar cheese with apple pie. The ube filling is randomly and sparsely striated throughout the bun. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more swirling.

 

Ok, puto (which if I'm correct, isn't always a word used to describe an edible treat) are fairly bland and not ube affiliated at all (and somehow instead of fixing the color, I managed on narrowing the frame) but I couldn’t resist the purple muffin-ish blobs and then found a combo pack with all three colors available. These are simple steamed treats made from rice flour and the colors have no bearing on their flavor. I do love the springiness of sweets made with non-wheat meals, mochi being the most extreme. These bright fluff balls will be good for breakfast during the week. I was getting kind of sick of granola bars.

Sunday Night Special: Steamed Taro with Chopped Salted Chiles

My Hunan salted chiles from a few weeks ago were good and fermented (I’m not sure why fermented food seems desirable but liquids not so much. This very second, I’m 1/3 of a way through my first ever bottle of kombucha and I’m not sure if it’s likeable or putrid. I’m having a very tough time not letting the floaties get to me. A friend was raving about it, but then I reminded myself that in college she used to drink apple cider vinegar like it was soda) so I needed a recipe. I still don’t feel like it’s root vegetable weather but steamed taro didn’t sound like a bad idea.

But I didn’t end up buying taro, even though it’s not too hard to find disguised as malanga in Caribbean-oriented grocery stores. I saw it at Western Beef Sunday, where I picked up this adorable Croatian packet of seasoning that uses a semi-chopstick-like font.

Recently I picked up a frozen bag of something called ratalu at Patel Brothers. As I’ve stated before, I love all things Swad brand (their microwavable vegetable dishes in a box are only 99-cents--aren't Trader Joe's like $2.99?), so these magenta cubes drew me in. I figured they were taro and I could save all the cleaning and chopping (taro contains irritants—if you recall the Top Chef season two finale, Ilan got taken to task for not cooking his taro leaves long enough).

But according to web searches it seems that ratalu is a purple yam. I’m not convinced that it’s the same as Filipino ube yet. That was a strange find because just yesterday I decided that I would use my newish ice cream maker to create ube ice cream for a halo-halo experiment and had been wondering how hard it might be to find frozen (fresh is out of the question). Who knew I had in the house already?

I love it when someone else has already typed a recipe out for me. Steamed Taro with Chopped Salted Chile Peppers was posted on Serious Eats back in February when Fuchsia Dunlop's Hunan cookbook came out.

The one thing I’m not clear on is how the taro chunks are supposed to hold up or if they’re even supposed to. I’ve had taro in Chinese casseroles and it stays in squares. This mystery root turned to mush and I ended up just mashing it into a violet paste that tasted much better than it looked. You have to admit that it’s still prettier than poi.

It sounds silly, but the ratalu, whatever it was, tastes lavender. The flesh was barely sweet, more potato than yam and almost perfumey without being sickening like rose water (a personal aversion). The saltiness and mild heat of the chiles and black beans played off this hard to describe mauve flavor and created a dish that would almost go better with grilled meat than white rice. But I’m not one for double starches.

Am I Blue

When life gives you lemons, you're supposed to make lemonade, which is kind of stupid if you ask me. If I'm feeling blue, I look at blue food. It's kind of the same concept, right? Instead of dwelling on life's little annoyances, I culled nasi kerabu's greatest visual hits.

I’ve never seen nasi kerabu (Malaysian herbed rice) in person, but I’m in love with the idea of dyeing rice colors even though I’m not sure that I understand the logic behind it. I just don’t think blue rice would fly with the typical American consumer, which is one more reason why I have to give props to Malay Peninsula cuisine. These are not people who are afraid of rainbow hues--just look at the pans of agar-agar that masak-masak (yes, double words are another regional trademark) photographed at a Ramadan bazaar. The blue rice above, came from another such bazaar.  All we get at street fairs in NYC are grilled Italian sausages and mozzarepas.

Actually, I think a lot of modern cooks use food coloring rather than the traditional bunga telang/pea flower to achieve this look. (I know a lot of the intense purples in Filipino ube-based snacks aren’t naturally derived. Wow, this Pillsbury ube hotcake mix is one of the craziest things I've ever seen.) And not all nasi kerabu is even blue; most recipes I see don’t call for tinting at all.

When researching a trip to Malaysia in 2005, I relied a bit on Lonely Planet World Food Malaysia and Singapore (which I now know was photographed by the always on trend Chubby Hubby) and kept coming back to a photo of Kelantanese woman placing bean sprouts on top of a plate of blue rice. It reminded me of a childhood impulse to keep returning to engrossing illustrations in picture encyclopedias. Unfortunately, my ‘80s Childcraft set is in storage across country (or at least I hope it still is—it freaks me out to think that I still have at least ten boxes somewhere in Portland with records, books, kitchenware and possibly a few clothing items which are probably so ‘90s that I could now re-wear them and be in fashion. Er, I might’ve gotten rid of the Childcraft books now that I think about it) so I can’t look up the exact photo I’m thinking of.

I’m fairly certain it was the “Look and Learn” volume on science that contained an image of a tableau of food that was supposed to be unappetizing because the colors were all wrong. I think there was a green orange, black cookies, white butter, a pitcher of milk that wasn’t white, and a few more items. There had to have been something atypically blue but I can’t say for sure. I thought the food looked cool rather than disgusting. Childcraft is the reason I know about anything I know today and why my knowledge level is that of a nine year old.

I have a few recipes for nasi kerabu in cookbooks, though in print and on the internet there are many more for nasi ulam, which is kind of the same thing; they’re both herbed rice salads but nasi kerabu is the one that’s usually blue. So many of the dishes in my cookbooks that sound unusual and worth tackling are next to impossible because we just don’t have access to the same ingredients. For this dish you need bunga kantan, daun kesom, cekur leaves, kaduk leaves, turmeric leaves and more depending on the version. I have basil, mint and frozen pandan and kaffir lime leaves covered but that’s it.

When and if I get back to Malaysia (I had originally planned on Langkawi and elsewhere for vacation 2008, and am still trying to figure out how China became the destination instead, not that I'm complaining about going to China) I’ll have to seek this dish out.

More on nasi kerabu from Cyber Kuali

Photos from:
masak-masak
Cheat Eat
kleinmatt66 via Flickr
Felix KL via Flickr
hazlini5555 via Flickr

Putting Burritos to Shame

I was vaguely aware of the tortilla artist (yes, tortillas) Joe Bravo, but was re-reminded of his existence via Guanabee yesterday. Strangely, he’s not alone. There are a lot of folks who enjoy messing with tortillas.

Roundaboutly speaking of tortillas, I couldn’t find any outrageously staged al fresco photography in September’s Gourmet. I was confused for a spell. While doing an initial flip through, I saw an article on Salvadoran food in L.A., another on taco trucks in unexpected cities and a recipe for Dominican sancocho. My, how multiculti.

Duh, then I realized it was the Latin American issue. A welcome enough theme. They managed to make a spread on Puerto Rican food look romantic (nothing against the cuisine, but in NYC it’s hard to think of it minus fluorescent lights, formica and steam tables). The closest thing to an outdoor shot is a little girl inspecting a roasting pig head on a grill, illustrating an article on Cuban Miami. That, I like. No zany lighthouses or idyllic farms in sight.

Moz photo from The Great Tortilla Conspiracy on Flickr

Bak Kut Teh

After the world’s shortest detox ended in digestive turmoil, I was scared to eat anything even though I was starving. (And now just to torment me, James has taken up the master cleanse. He’s been at it for nearly two days now and is a serious pain to be around. I predict that there won’t be a day three.)  I decided to move away from the raw minimalism of the health nuts and look towards the Chinese food as medicine approach. It’s much tastier.

Really, I’d just been looking for an excuse to use my older than I’d like to admit package of bak kut teh spices that I picked up some time ago in Kuala Lumpur. This is a mostly Malay, also Singaporean “pork rib tea” that’s more like an herbal soup with meat. Food from that corner of the world engenders strong opinions (the number of food bloggers from Singapore and Malaysia is mind boggling) and every region puts their own touch on preparations. I’m not even going for sheer authenticity. I made do with what I had.

Just getting up and to the stove with my stomach churning and head pounding was hard enough. I would’ve loved to have added tofu puffs, chopped my pork ribs into smaller hunks and served the bowl with a fried crueler but I didn’t have the extra additions and a cleaver is still on my wish list. Ah, no clay pot either.

I based my recipe on the one from Rasa Malaysia, but the thing is no one explains how to handle the myriad spices and dried bits that come with the mix. I’m like a Malaysian who opens a bagel shop and makes varieties covered in white chocolate and Oreo crumbs (I think they're confusing bagels with donuts). It’s obvious to a New Yorker why that’s wrong. I was clueless as to what got added to the broth, what should be wrapped in cheesecloth for steeping and what beyond the ribs and soup are meant to be eaten.

I took a look at Amy Beh’s recipe on Kuali, and she explicitly lists what should be cooked loose and what should only flavor the broth. The trouble was that she uses Chinese terminology so I had to Google Image everything and match it to the herbs in my package. The other trouble was a lack of cheesecloth. I ended up cutting a piece of old underwear and tying it up with a string. I told James it was a t-shirt to not gross him out. I’m not even sure that a cotton-poly blend allows proper flavor escape.

This was not a photogenic meal in the least but it was amazingly aromatic. Lightly medicinal and bitter, but warming and slightly sweet from the cinnamon, tangerine peel, star anise and wolfberries. It smelled like a Chinatown herb shop. And obviously, the richness of the pork ribs permeates everything. It’s kind of fake healthy because it’s fatty, but that’s the beauty of nourishing Chinese food.

Can-Do Spirit

I’m not sure how one becomes a “culinary critic of tinned foods” outside of simply declaring yourself as such, but I do like the notion. A few weeks ago, I was speculating on how the French can make eccentricity chic, but it’s the Japanese who make batshit crazy cool.

Ok, collecting canned food isn’t exactly crazy (and I’ve never understood what guano has to do with mental instability). I’ve been known to find and hoard a few oddball foodstuffs but I don’t have outlets like Chika Takai. She serves canned food in a restaurant, has published a book translated as “Canned Food Maniacs” and guest spoke and produced a menu for Nichiro’s 100th anniversary celebration.

I’m not even wild about canned food (though I love spicy Thai catfish in a tin) but I’m impressed. I now want to become the foremost culinary critic of chain restaurants.

And You Thought Radish Roses Were Fancy

Radishes aren’t a loathe like melons or malta, but I could do without them in most circumstances. (Daikon is another story. A good story.) When they come with tacos I might take a nibble or two because I hate to waste. I kind of thought radishes were good for nothing until I heard about Noche de Rábanos a.k.a. Radish Night in Oaxaca. Not that I’ve witnessed it first hand, but it appears to be a freaktastic folk art blitz that takes place right before Christmas. I’ve always dug Chinese and Thai fruit and vegetable carving but these inedible sculptures are something else altogether.

Radish Night [Planeta]
La Noche de Rábanos [Aqui Oaxaca]
Radish Festival Photo Gallery [About.com]

Photo from Beverlita on Flickr

Turning Macanese

So, I’m gone for a week and now Macanese food is the new hotness? I have no idea why this irks me, though I’m sure I could get to the bottom of my annoyance if I dwelled a bit (isn’t that what therapy is for? Figuring out your feelings? I couldn’t say because I’m not one for paying for such indulgences. I’m certainly not going to waste $100+/hour on why I’m bothered by a restaurant with the already off-putting name of Employees Only deciding to open a Macanese restaurant).

I’ve eaten food in Macau (and am still kind of kicking myself for not trying Joel Robuchon a Galera) and the traditional Chinese-Portuguese culture is really a dying breed even on the island, itself. I don’t see how it could transcend gimmickry or approximate authenticity on this island. (I’ve thought the same of Wild Salmon. The only food I ate in the NW were burritos and jo jo potatoes.) Maybe they’re trying to ride the Fatty Crab hip-Malaysian wave. I would be curious to hear what dishes would be served at this mystery eatery since I suspect food will be secondary.

Ok, I’ve dwelled for a few minutes and have gotten in touch with the shriveled black nugget that is my soul. I think I’m annoyed because this is actually a good idea, an idea I might have if I had any inclination towards restaurateurship or chefhood (which I don’t—there’s not an entrepreneurial capillary in my body) but that it’s going to be bungled by smugness or irony and smothered by a pointless scene. Eating there will not make me feel happy and I don’t enjoy unnecessary unhappiness.

Beefing up the Selection

It’s just a grocery store but I’ve always had a thing for Western Beef, at least the Ridgewood headquarters. It’s not remotely fancy, I can’t get my Kashi bars or Fage yogurt, just Quaker and Danon, but it’s certainly a notch above Associated or C-Town (Friday the NY Post had a funny full page ad where C-Town price compared a pile of around 25 Krasdale items to the name brands and showed how you’d save like $75).

I was excited this past weekend to see that WB has revamped/reorganized its “ethnic” offerings, which consists of a bounty of Latin American and Caribbean brands with a few Eastern European items tossed in. You’re shit out of luck if need anything Asian besides Kikkoman or Roland duck sauce (in humungous jars). I don’t know that they increased their offerings but they’ve tidied up the shelves, erected mini flags from countries of origin and put signs out front advertising their diverse products. I thought they might’ve actually alphabetized since Argentina was first, but then Peru snuck in near the start of the aisle and all rhyme or reason went out the window.

They also tidied up an entire row devoted the only other foodstuff in existence (besides melon) that I can't abide. Malta is an acquired taste that I just can't acquire. 

I couldn’t resist this little Colombian box of Triguisar. I'm sure it is seasoning, though the translation reads "economic dehydrated mixed condiments" that consist of cumin, pepper, garlic, annatto, something they translate as curcuma (ah, turmeric), yellow dye, corn starch and corn rice. I’m not convinced of its tastiness but like the straightforward directions, “it should be cooked with the foods.”

Not only was the Western Beef so bizarrely empty that I could wheel the cart around unimpeded, the same non-crowdedness occurred at Target the same Saturday afternoon. We got a parking spot next to the door instead of having to drive in circles and there were actually shopping carts instead of the usual empty patch of dirty carpet where they’re supposed to be. It kind of freaked me out. Plus, instead of the normal reggaeton blasting at WB interspersed with an angry employee yelling for his keys, soft jazz was lilting from the speakers. New management or something more malevolent?

More: western beef

Sunday Night Special: Pork in Caramel Sauce & Pickled Bean Sprouts

While trolling the internet I used to save recipes I might seriously make in a word document ingeniously called recipes. I haven’t touched or updated it in years. But I was reminded of its existence on my hard drive after eating a pork tenderloin in caramel sauce at Silent H a few weekends ago.

The first recipe I ever added to my list was Mark Bittman’s take on this dish, beef tenderloin in carmelized sugar, from an October 30, 2002 New York Times. It was really easy and unbelievably good (quick enough for a Monday night—I’m fudging the category because I didn’t cook on Easter). I made it once. In an effort to strive for authenticity, I looked in a few Vietnamese cookbooks and online sources but I decided to stick with his version.

It appears that this recipe also can be found in his The Best Recipes of the World (click on Southeast Asia on the left menu), a book I had completely forgotten existed until literally about two hours ago when I decided to watch a taped version of Bittman’s new TV show that aired this weekend. I didn’t realize the show was a tie-in with this book. It was a fitting coincidence that I decided to crack out the ol’ carmelized meat recipe when I did.

I substituted semi-thick pork chops for the beef called for and just cooked the meat a little longer. I’ve never exactly pinned down umami but I imagine that this dish is teeming with it. The sauce would almost be too salty if it weren’t for the hefty dose of melted sugar, which turns everything gooey like a piquant fishy candy. That’s a good thing.

Beef Tenderloin in Caramelized Sugar

4 pieces filet mignon, each 1 inch thick
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup nam pla, or to taste
1 large onion, cut in half-moon slices
1 teaspoon black pepper, or more.

Put a 10-inch skillet over high heat. Wait a minute. Add meat, and brown on both sides. Turn off heat, and place steaks on plate.

A minute later, add sugar to pan, and turn heat to medium. Cook, gently shaking pan, until sugar liquefies and begins to bubble. Cook another minute until it darkens, then turn off heat. Mix nam pla with  1/2 cup water. Carefully add liquid, and turn heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring constantly, until caramel melts into liquid. Add onions, and cook, stirring, about 5 minutes. Stir in any liquid that has accumulated around meat.

Stir in black pepper, and return meat to pan. Cook over medium heat, turning meat once in a while, until it is done to your liking (about 5 to 8 minutes for medium-rare). Taste, and adjust seasoning, then serve, spooning onions and sauce over each steak.

Serves 4

As a side, I made an even simpler accompaniment of pickled bean sprouts from Nicole Routhier’s The Foods of Vietnam. I halved this recipe because as tasty as they are, you can only eat so many bean sprouts and they don’t keep well.

Pickled Bean Sprouts
Dưa Giá

1 pound fresh bean sprouts
1 bunch of scallions, cut into 2-inch long sections
1 tablespoon salt
½ cup white vinegar

Mix the bean sprouts and scallions in a large bowl.

Combine the salt, vinegar and 4 cups of water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cool until warm to the touch. Pour the brine over the bean sprout mixture. Marinate for at least 1 hour, or until ready to serve. Drain before serving.

Serves 4 to 6

Getting Your Jollies

Joel Stein is like a less wry Mo Rocca (I can’t help but mention at any mildly opportune moment that he sat directly in front of me en route to Chicago in February) laced with a touch of good ol’ fashioned Dave Berry. In a word, douchie. And apparently Time magazine has deemed him fit to write a food column. I hate voices of my supposed generation on any topic…but food? Really? It’s much better when they stick to two-liners on I Love the ‘80s.

Foreign fast food chains are a topic near and dear to my heart so I couldn’t help but peek at his first foray into culinary commentary, "The Hungry American." Uh, and maybe I’m misinterpreting his interpretation, but he seems to be of the mind that chains set up in America to try to appeal to us and get it all wrong. That might be the case if he were talking about Pret a Manger overdosing the U.S. with mayonnaise. Yet the examples he cites are California-centric, for one, but inaccurate since they are primarily restaurants catering to expatriates.

Minus the Jollibee burgers, this isn’t really “foreign American food.” I don’t think this Filipino chain is trying to entice the general public with gusto, and if they are then spaghetti topped with ketchup and sliced wieners is a charming yet off kilter business plan. I don’t know that the businesses in his commentary are trying to resell our culture back to us as much as that they’ve interpreted fast food for local audiences and are reaching out to immigrants who’ve settled in the U.S.

I don’t think Guatemalan Pollo Campero, at least in NYC, had made an effort to attract non-Central American customers. In fact, the one in Sunset Park went out of business for that very reason, the neighborhood was more Mexican and Puerto Rican and didn’t identify with the brand. Practically all cultures like fried chicken, we don’t own the concept.

And for Stein to posit that Beard Papa is interpreting donuts for Americans is insane. They’re not mimicking our fried dough, they’re making cream puffs. Japanese (and Asians in general) love French shit. I had great pastry in Hong Kong and Singapore.

And his conclusion is frighteningly self-revealing: “To them, it seems, we're a happy, efficient, fun bunch of guys, even if we act like total jerks when it suits us. They've figured it out: we're frat boys. And we like to eat like them.” Yikes. I wonder how those crazy Filipinos might re-create the beer bong, don’t you? And Nicaraguan jello shots? Just a matter of time.

Sunday Night Special: Menudo

Neither of my parents could’ve qualified as good cooks during the many years I lived with them. We probably ate breakfast for dinner twice a week and fried eggs, bacon, grated cheddar cheese and salsa wrapped in flour tortillas are the only thing I even recall my dad churning out. Breakfast burritos were about as Mexican as it got in my household, too. 

Well, Tex-Mex enchiladas, along with lasagna--another baked dish adept at feeding crowds--were my mom’s two company’s-coming-over standards. The one anomaly, which I’ll have to ask her about, was her taco technique. She would deep-fry corn tortillas when making tacos while all of my friends’ families used those crunchy shells from a box. I’ve since learned that the puffy oil-dipped style is Texan, a state no one on my maternal side has any ties to. I have no idea where she picked that up because she’s way more of an out of the box woman than an extra step type.

I’ve never been given a straight answer as to when either sides of my family came to America and where they even came from. The closest I could gather from my father was that his ancestors lived in Texas before it was a state. That’s kind of weird, like my relatives didn’t come from anywhere; they were just hanging out in America already. But I don’t see how that century-old-plus connection could’ve had any influence on my mom frying corn tortillas.

Episodes that only occurred a couple times in childhood often multiply in the mind years later. My dad likely bought a big can of Juanita’s menudo two or three times, though I remember it as a more regular purchase. I thought the crimson, lightly spiced soup crammed with monster-sized white pieces of corn was the coolest thing ever. It was much more exotic than Campbell’s bean with bacon, my favorite up until that point.

My father and I were the only ones who’d eat it. Tripe was alien and like nothing I’d encountered before. The fact that it was cow stomach didn’t bother me--I was never grossed out by things like giblets either and had no problem eating pet food on dares. My sister turned out the opposite and grew up into a vegan whom I think has loosened up and started eating cheese. Cheese is one animal product worth clinging to.

I liked anything different or underdoggy. When given a choice between blue and white Trax (Kmart’s house brand) or tan and sienna, I chose the dirt colored combo because they were uglier and not the Nikes I wanted in the first place. Eventually I grew to genuinely enjoy the contrary. Maybe a lot more kids had to wear Trax than I realized at the time since like it not, irony is such a trait of my generation. ‘80s kids are way more straightforward and jubilant (and could use a good spirit-crushing).

You don’t see menudo in cans much here, or even freshly prepared on menus. It’s standard weekend fare on much of the west coast but NYC doesn’t necessarily follow the rules. Yesterday, I visited a tiny lunch counter in the Bronx, Real Azteca, and they had pancita, a tripe soup which I suspect is similar to menudo if not the same thing. I was just in the mood for tacos, though.

It had never occurred to me to try and cook my own menudo but it seemed like the perfect Sunday afternoon project. I know menudo is morning food but I rarely get out of bed before noon (and I didn’t even go out drinking on St. Patrick’s Day).

Finding a good recipe proved more difficult than I’d expected. For one, I don’t own a single Mexican cookbook, which is plain sad. In fact the only Latin American cookbooks I possess are a ‘60s Time Life Foods of the World volume and Havana Salsa and Daisy Cooks, which were freebies because I reviewed them for the New York Post. Not counting multi-cuisine (primarily S.E.) Asian cookbooks like Hot Sour Salty Sweet, New Wave Asian, The Occidental Tourist and the like (19 in all), I have 12 Malaysian, 7 Thai, 4 Singaporean, 2 Vietnamese and even 2 Filipino and I never ever cook Pinoy fare. This Mexican cookbook situation must be rectified pronto.

I turned to the internet but every recipe seemed slightly off to me. The Diana Kennedy one floating around had no call for liquid which had to be a misprint and contained no seasonings whatsoever, possibly because it was for white menudo. I didn’t want white. Others were too fancy and called for bay leaves and employed bouquet garni. Some put chopped green chiles in the broth and I don’t think anything but red and dried chiles belong. I’m so not a recipe writer, so I borrowed bits from all over as part of the learning process and would change a few things next time. I’m not saying what follows reflects any authenticity but it felt right.

Menudo (attempt #1)

2 pounds honeycomb tripe
1 calf’s foot, chopped into chunks
1 white onion, roughly sliced
1 clove garlic, sliced in half horizontally
1 ancho chile, toasted and ground
1 sprig thyme
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1 28-ounce can hominy
1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
water
salt

For garnish
chopped cilantro
chopped white onion
piquin chile powder
lime wedges

Place calf’s foot, garlic and onion in a large pot and sprinkle with salt. Top with tripe and salt a little more, then pour water to cover all the ingredients. Add peppercorns, thyme and ancho chile powder. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer for about two hours.

Strain out the ingredients. The garlic and onion can be tossed, any meat from the calf’s foot can be shredded and the tripe should be cut into one-inch pieces. Return the meat to the liquid. Add the hominy and oregano. Simmer for another two hours.

Skim off any foam or oil that has accumulated on the surface. Add salt to taste and serve garnished with chopped onion, cilantro and chile powder and lime wedges.

Serves 6-8

Adapted from here, here and here.

I’m still not 100% sure about the process. Next time I would cut the tripe before cooking it. There wasn’t any meat on my cow’s feet so there wasn’t anything to remove and add the pot. And I was confused by the onions and garlic. I’m assuming they had to be strained out because menudo doesn’t have chunks of aromatic vegetables floating in it.

Even after adding ancho chiles, thyme and oregano, which weren’t a part of the original recipe I was following, the broth tasted a little flat. It smelled and looked richer than it was. And my tripe was too tough (I didn’t cook it as long as I’ve indicated above). But after re-heating the pot full the next day the flavors had melded and the meat had softened up. This is a work in progress and I plan on revisiting tripe soup after I do a little more research.

Sunday Night Special: General Tso's Chicken

Ok, this isn’t technically a Sunday Night Special, but I didn’t cook on the day of rest because I had a huge late lunch at Pio Pio. Tonight I made what I would’ve wanted to cook on Sunday night if I'd been hungrier.

I’m sure I’m not the first to discover what a deal Amazon’s free super saver shipping is. You’re entitled if you spend over $25 and they warn that it will take 5-9 days just to scare you off but it never takes that long. Just Sunday I ordered Fuchsia Dunlop’s brand new Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province (as well as Memories of Philippine Kitchens and Nueva York: The Complete Guide to Latino Life in the Five Boroughs [I'm trying to learn more about the Bronx]). I was inspired after killing time in the airport the day before, reading her recent General Tso’s chicken article off a handheld device from a copyright violating website. I couldn't believe that an Amazon box was sitting in the hall when I left for work this morning. Very impressive.

I must not get out much because I’d never heard of this popular chicken dish referred to anything other than Tso’s or possibly Tsao’s, and I grew up in a city completely lacking in authentic Chinese food. This Gau’s and George’s business is nuts (but then, I’ve also heard that you can get white bread with Chinese take out in Boston)

I’m all about the dark meat, despite always having a stash of listless Costco chicken breasts in the freezer. Thighs are so much tastier, so I followed this suggestion in the recipe. Unfortunately, we didn’t scrutinize the cooking instructions before shopping on Sunday afternoon and only picked up a pack of three thighs. To make up the difference, I tossed in a sliced chicken breast. There was no contest between the two cuts. Funny that General Tso has recently prompted a light vs. dark discussion elsewhere.

The only thing we had to pick up was potato flour and some gai lan as a side (I realize American broccoli would’ve been truer to take out form). Loosely based on a water spinach recipe in the Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, I stir-fried garlic, black beans and sliced red chile, then added the broccoli and covered for a few minutes to steam. I finished the dish with a splash of rice vinegar and a drizzle of sesame oil.

This Hunan by way of Taiwan recipe isn’t sweet as typical General Tso’s is, and that’s fine by me. (I just noticed that the recipe floating around on the internet is a copy of what was in The Times and has been edited differently than what's in the book. ) There is a Changsha version on the following page of the cookbook that looks nearly the same yet uses white sugar, more ginger and no garlic. I stuck with the more savory approach even though I will admit to enjoying the crispy, candied, hyper-battered, American-Chinese meat chunks. Lightly sauced, velvety slices of moderately spiced chicken aren’t so bad either.

General Tso’s Chicken (Taiwan Version)
Zuo Zong Tang Ji

4 boned chicken thighs with skin (about 12 oz. total)
6-10 dried red chiles
2 tsp. finely chopped fresh ginger
2 tsp. sesame oil
Peanut oil for deep-frying
For the marinade:
2 tsp. light soy sauce
½ tsp. dark soy sauce
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp. potato flour
2 tsp. peanut oil

For the sauce:
1 tbsp. double-concentrate tomato paste mixed with 1 tbsp. water
½ tsp. potato flour
½ tsp. dark soy sauce
1 ½ tsp. light soy sauce
1 tbsp. clear rice vinegar
3 tbsp. stock or water

Thinly sliced scallion greens to garnish

1. Make the sauce by combining all the ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.

2. To prepare the chicken, unfold the chicken thighs and lay them on a cutting board. Remove as much of the sinew as possible. (If some parts are very thick, cut them in half horizontally.) Slice a few shallow crosshatches into the meat. Cut each thigh into roughly 1/4 -inch slices and place in a large bowl. Add the soy sauces and egg yolk and mix well. Stir in the potato flour and 2 teaspoons peanut oil and set aside. Using scissors, snip the chilies into 3/4 -inch pieces, discarding the seeds. Set aside.

3. Pour 3 1/2 cups peanut oil into a large wok, or enough oil to rise 1 1/2 inches from the bottom. Set over high heat until the oil reaches 350 to 400 degrees. Add half the chicken and fry until crisp and deep gold, 3 to 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken to a plate. Repeat with the second batch. Pour the oil into a heatproof container and wipe the wok clean.

4. Place the wok over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil. When hot, add the chilies and stir-fry for a few seconds, until they just start to change color. Add the ginger and garlic and stir-fry for a few seconds longer, until fragrant. Add the sauce, stirring as it thickens. Return the chicken to the wok and stir vigorously to coat. Remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil and top with scallions.

Serves 2 to 3

Adapted from “The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook” by Fuchsia Dunlop. W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.

Food Felons

-- I can totally sympathize with this “Sweet Tooth Bandit” who spent nearly $700 at Swiss Colony using a stolen identity. I used to become desperate and tormented every holiday season when the unsolicited Swiss Colony catalog showed up on the mail. I would longingly page through the wish book, coveting the petit fours with all of my grade school being. I never ever got a single item from Swiss Colony and now that I have free will (and better taste in confectionary) I feel less compelled to order anything. If there’d only been an internet in the early ‘80s, who knows what havoc I might’ve tried to wreak.

--It’s not every day that fried chicken brings out the firebug in people. I do love the NYC brand name bastardization process. Somehow Kentucky Fried Chicken (don’t forget the Kitchen Fresh Chicken fiasco) becomes Kennedy Fried Chicken and then JFK Fried Chicken emerges.

I discovered the regionally confused chicken Maryland when I was in Penang. I never ordered any, but it appears to be fried chicken served with fried bananas, fritters, fries and sometimes sausage or bacon. Does that scream Baltimore to you?

The unanswered question in this arson case is why a Twin Donut would be selling fried chicken at all. Franchises are so renegade in NYC--I recall there used to be a Blimpie that sold Thai food on the side and a Chinatown Popeye’s that hawked pork dumplings under the counter. I’m sure there are countless other examples.

--Ok, malnourishment isn’t a felony but if your eating disorder fucks up my commute something criminal just might happen.

$70 of Joy

When is a magazine worth $70? It doesn’t fight “stubborn belly fat,” so how to justify the expense? The cover price works out to a mere $2.30 or so but the $54 shipping from Malaysia kills me. I love Flavours more than almost any food magazine I’ve found, despite the fact that I’ve never cooked single thing from it. My subscription just ran out and I’m going to have to bite the bullet.

The writing is ok, the thing is rife with advertising/pr blurring usually reserved for small town dailies, they only recently started noting which restaurant reviews were anonymous (and vice versa), but the magazine taps into a twisty culture that I’m fascinated by. When people think Malaysia, they think quintessential street food and they’d be right. In fact, there was just a travel piece in the New York Times on the topic. I had some of the best dishes ever on my visit last year. The region’s residents are food crazy, and rightly so. Eating and obsessing on where to eat is a perfectly acceptable hobby. Makansutra had this niche pre-blog era. It’s no coincidence that many of the original food bloggers were based out of Singapore and Malaysia (I recall reading a few years back when Friendster was the big thing that after the U.S., Malaysia had the highest number of members) and they continue in their proliferation. Singaporean Chubby Hubby seems to currently have the corner on the slick, anything but amateur market.

But there’s not a lot of high-low mingling, it’s either hawker or haute. Western food frequently fills the gap in the middle. Malaysians might take offense at this, but as with many nationalities, their tastes tend to be provincial. They like what they know and are incredibly particular about minutiae like subtle differences in broth at various stalls. Yet they’re not so critical with foreign flavors. I was initially baffled how Thai food could be better in NYC than 100 miles from the Thai border. Most of what I saw tended to revolve around noodles or was something not terribly Thai dubbed tom yum (though I have to admit that tom yum pizza sounds like an awesome invention) in the way we’d stick pineapple on something and call it Hawaiian.

Flavours definitely dallies in the higher end but it is tradition-bound too. The tone is aspirational, occasionally fawning and sometimes misguided. I love the hodgepodge. Picking the January/February 2006 issue off the shelf randomly, the first ad for Maggi celebrates Chinese New Year with the tagline, “customs may change but good taste is forever,” which sums everything up. Honestly, I don’t even know what the original customs are—maybe that’s why I can enjoy how they jumble them all up.

Content from this issue includes "The New Oriental Splendour" and pictures pretty amuse bouches of prunes & bacon with pan-fried potato and cherry tomato with Chinese bbq meat; "New Year with the Nonyas," which features old school dishes like hati babi bungkus (pork liver balls);  "Old-fashioned Favourites," profiling nostalgic snacks from yesteryear like fah sang koh and ham chit soo that are completely bewildering to me; a column from a French chef who teaches at the French Culinary School in Asia on how to cook lamb, the premise being that “Malaysians do not know what to do with lamb.” The roasted lamb rack with tapenade & black olive mashed potato looks pretty good.

Then there’s an insane feature on truffles (Perigord black truffles were quoted at RM3,000 to RM4,000 per kg. Hmm, that’s $400-500 a pound, probably about right) with a recipe for truffle puffs, essentially typical curry puffs stuffed with foie gras and truffles. It’s probably tasty, despite its ostentatious premise. Not so palatable is a cocktail they’ve devised called an azur, which is a glass of Chardonnay drizzled with blue Curaçao.

They review a place called Fondue House and are sure to point out that recipes have been tweaked for local palates, many have low alcohol content or none at all, and the bacon cheese fondue uses beef bacon. Sometimes you forget when reading flashier publications that the country is predominantly Muslim. I recall being surprised that our room service breakfast at a perfectly modern hotel had a choice of beef bacon, turkey ham or chicken sausage. No pork to be found.

I’m enamored with how the mixed culture—Malay, Chinese, Indian, British, Portuguese—all put a mark on local cuisine and how this natural fusion informs how dining is interpreted. It’s a weird scene. Last year, in Kuala Lumpur, we went to Frangipani, a swanky creative restaurant, and were two of only eight diners in the vast space, all Caucasian.

  The concept hasn’t been fully embraced yet, and for good reason—it’s really freaking expensive. Our bill was around $150, more on par with a New York restaurant. Meanwhile, a bowl of laska at sit-down Madame Kwan’s goes for around $3.50, and locals complain (you can get it on the street for under one dollar). It’s like these Chinese monster malls filled with luxury goods but necessarily enough clientele. The transition is too fast and unattainable for the mainstream. (Coincidentally, there was just a related discussion on egullet about the lack of high end dining threads.)

I know it’s strange that I don’t enjoy this type of coverage when it’s home grown. Maybe that’s because New York is oversaturated with gloss. Or maybe it’s because Flavours’s style is highly un-American. When they mix Western flourishes in, which they often do, it’s European or Australian. Nods to the U.S. are nearly non-existent (they murder Mexican food—cajun spices, gouda and baked potato with your burrito?) Sometimes it’s fun being an outsider, totally unjaded and learning everything from scratch.

Sunday Night Special: Thai Beef Salad

I think it's generally accepted that salads are good hot weather food. It's too bad that salads tend to be really boring, or maybe I just hate the varieties that I make myself. I'd much rather eat a professionally crafted bowl of greens than suffer through my sad renditions.

Thai salads are easy to make, generally healthy and taste a hundred times better than some god-awful Caesar concoction. I went for beef because we had a Styrofoam flat of economy type steaks in the freezer. They weren't really suited for purist treatment, but became a perfect meaty sponge for herbs and spice.

There doesn't seem to be a hard and fast recipe for this dish (nor a proper name--I thought it was yam nuea, but the recipe I settled on was called nahm dtok, which must be off because Googling that phrase only brings up 25 hits. I suspect the dish is more Laotian, which may or may not have anything to do with its small web presence). Some are more like a larb and use roassted rice powder and chile powder rather fresh chiles. Tomatoes, scallions, or mint sometimes show up and sometimes don't. I went a little insane trying to find a definitive version.

Eventually, I just gave up and looked to David Thompson's Thai Food. It was one of the simplest recipes I found and the man knows his shit. My only beef is that he doesn't specify servings (perhaps this is explained somewhere in the book and I missed it). I would guess that using 5 ounces of meat would make this for one. I mean, Americans eat 12-ounce slabs at steakhouses. I suppose if you were being more Asian and serving lots of dishes with small portions intended 5 ounces would suit more eaters. But then, I treated this as a main entrée and doubled it for two.

Grilled Beef Salad
Nahm Dtok

5 oz. beef rump or sirloin
4 red shallots, sliced
2 tablespoons shredded pak chii farang
handful of mixed mint and cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon ground roasted rice

dressing
pinch of white sugar
3 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons fish sauce
very large pinch of roasted chile powder

First, make the dressing; it should be pungently hot, sour and salty.

Chargrill the beef to your taste. Slice beef, and combine with shallots and herbs. Dress the salad and sprinkle with roasted rice.

Serve with a wedge of cabbage and a few snake beans.

* * *

I didn't use the pak chii, which I just learned is culantro (a.k.a. sawtooth herb), not a super hard herb to find in many parts of NYC since it's popular in Puerto Rican cooking. I used to think grocers were just misspelling cilantro because they seem to enjoy doing that quite a bit, but that is the commonly used name here. And I used a mixture of shallots and red onion and tossed in half a tomato, just to use up produce that had been languishing in the fridge.

Northern Thai salads call for sticky rice. I happened to have the glutinous grain, but didn't have the proper set up. I really just need to buy one of those Thai rice steamers because improvising with a metal vegetable steamer in a large pot is a mess. You need cheesecloth and I just put the soaked rice in loose and it got too wet. The end result was more mushy than sticky, though it firmed up a bit after getting some air.

I opted for cucumber slices on the side. As you can tell from the photo I'm not presentation obsessed. The cucumbers had strips of missed skin still on and seeds that didn't fully get scooped out. I had also intended the meat to be rare, though it came out more medium-well. Gordon Ramsey would call me a donkey or a fat ass or something if he got a load of my kitchen standards.

Bonus Yam/Yum/Thot Fun

• And because I have a more than minor obsession with name brand bastardized recipes, here's a Kraft doozy that calls for peanut butter (unbranded), A.1. Teriyaki Steak Sauce and KRAFT LIGHT DONE RIGHT! Zesty Italian Reduced Fat Dressing. At least they have the decency not to use the word yum in the title.
• Hormel's rendition is a little less disturbing, but does make bizarre use of HERB-OX® Beef Flavored Bouillon Granules.
• Here's a most awesome adaptation from Hidden Valley that uses, yes you guessed it, Hidden Valley® The Original Ranch® Salad Dressing & Seasoning Mix. Or as us common folk call it, ranch dressing.

Sunday Night Special: Penang Fried Chicken

I woke up this morning wanting fried chicken. Hey, it happens. On those occasions when you practically drink until dawn, delicate light fare just doesn't appeal. Grease and spice, while probably not the wisest choice, is where it’s at.

I've never made or even tried Nonya style fried chicken, but I've always been intrigued by the notion. We defrosted a slew of drumsticks and I decided to make five my way. James is a purist and didn't want anything to do with my poultry aberration. Each to his own.

I'm looked at about five recipes before deciding on this one written by an American rather than a Malaysian. It seems that traditionally, the chicken is marinated, dried and then fried twice, that's it. But I like a little coating on my fried chicken, so went with a version that employs a light dredging.

Some make the curry powder from scratch. Some simply call for meat curry powder, a designation possibly unique to Malaysian recipes that always confounded me. They frequently specify fish curry powder or meat curry powder. Curry powder in America is kind of general as it is, though I have a bottle of Vietnamese and a can of Indian. It never occurred to me that different meats would require different spice blends, though it certainly makes sense. I made sure to pick up packets of each type, Baba's brand, while in Kuala Lumpur last summer. It looks like the main difference is the prominence of turmeric in the fish curry powder.

Though not always specified, when Singaporean-Malaysian dishes call for mustard powder I think they mean hot English style, like Colman's. Colonial influence, correct? Look no further than the Worcestershire sauce for that tip off. But I haven't found it in the few places I've looked, not even the new amazingly stocked Fairway. (But I could've missed it since they have this annoying display style of not putting like with like. Instead they separate pedestrian from gourmet. The standard cheddar and Monterrey jack blocks are in the back of the store, while all the artisanal cheeses are near the front cheese counter. Salsa shows up in three places: store-made with deli items, brands like Frontera in one spot and Old El Paso types in another.)

I ended up using the hair dryer technique to try and get the remaining marinade to stick to and sink into the chicken. It worked until the device over heated and did that scary thing where it just clicks off and won’t re-start. At least I didn’t blow a fuse. Combined with the warming-up deep fryer, I was probably taxing the electrical limits of my Brooklyn kitchen (two apartments ago, my fuse would blow if I used any combination of microwave, toaster or coffee maker at the same time as the hair dryer).

I think the oil might’ve been a little too hot, as the first batch turned out a bit dark after 12 minutes. The second batch fared slightly better. The flavor was subtle, but definitely noticeable. Slightly sweet and spicy, which was further enhanced by the Worcestershire dipping sauce. I like that sweet/meat combo, though. One of my favorite fried chicken experiments used a sugar and tea marinade. And I loathe sweet tea for drinking. For brining? Good stuff.

Rice might've been nice, white toast points traditional, but I ate my chicken starch-less with a spicy pickled cucumber relish.

Penang Fried Chicken
Inche Kabin

3 pounds chicken pieces
Salt, to taste
¼ cup dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon meat curry powder
2 teaspoon mustard powder
2 tablespoons ginger juice
3 tablespoons coconut milk
1 ½ tablespoons brown sugar
Canola or peanut oil for deep frying
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup rice flour or cornstarch

Sauce
1 teaspoon mustard powder
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 red chiles, sliced

Rinse the chicken parts well, pat dry with paper towels and rub with salt.

Whisk together soy sauce, curry and mustard powders, ginger juice (I used grated ginger, which is juicy but also a little chunky), coconut milk and sugar. Put chicken in a large zip lock bag and pour marinade over. Put in refrigerator and marinate for at least four hours and ideally over night.

Drain chicken pieces, shaking off excess marinade, place on baking sheet and let dry completely, about 3 hours. Alternatively, dry with a hair dryer.

Heat frying oil to 350 degrees.

Sift flour, rice flour and salt together in large bowl. In batches, dust chicken with flour mixture. Fry the chicken, a few pieces at a time, until golden and cooked through, about 15 minutes. Drain chicken on paper towels.

Mix all sauce ingredients and serve on the side.

Serves 4-6.

This recipe is an amalgamation of those found in the following books:

Terrific Pacific Cookbook by Anya Von Bremzen and John Welchman. Workman. 1995.

Nonya Flavours: A Complete Guide to Penang Straits Chinese Cuisine by Julie Wong (editor). Star Publications. 2003.