Posts from the ‘Cooking up a Storm’ Category

Sunday Night Special: Roast Chicken & Lentils With Mustard Vinaigrette

I’ve never roasted a chicken, plain and simple, and that doesn’t seem right. After reading the article in the New York Times’ food section this week about Simon Hopkinson and the “most useful cookbook of all time,” I was reminded that I’d received Roast Chicken and Other Stories for Christmas last year but it got lost among all the other cookbooks I’ve accumulated since December.

The title cracked both my sister (who sent the gift) and I up, as if roast chicken was a self-evident story. Just wait till you hear the one about cod. As it turns out the book really is quite useful, straightforward and anecdotal. I enjoy cookbooks where you get a sense of the author’s personality (assuming they have a likeable one) and opinions.

I think roast chicken is one those so simple it’s hard to do right things like making an omelet. And why bother when you can pick up a perfectly good rotisserie chicken for around $6. I also shy away because this is the type of preparation where the bird itself makes a difference. I’m a horrible person who buys grocery store chickens. I tried imagining what a specimen from Bresse, or more accessible for Americans, a Blue Foot, might taste like. Maybe next time. Maybe never. I can’t even justify paying $20 or so for a run-of-the-mill organic chicken. I’m not there yet. Antibiotic-free was as far could go.

I’ve worked with whole chickens before, but I tend to make things like adobo or curries, never anything European. I hadn’t ever used fresh tarragon before this recipe. One notable difference between ordering from Fresh Direct instead of going to Chinatown is that you don’t have heads and feet with tiny toenails to deal with, though these bony feathery spikes sticking out the wings weirded me out a bit. And there seemed to be more neck attached than usual.

The roast chicken recipe is here on Culinate; it’s really very simple. I had minor trouble, the same trouble that plagues me every Thanksgiving and makes me glad I won’t be cooking a turkey this year. Any juices that are supposed to accumulate in the pan for basting, dry up and burn, then the bird still isn’t cooked after going well beyond the recommended roasting time. And the wine intended to go with the meal gets finished too quickly because there’s so much time spent waiting around for dinner. Ok, I can’t blame my drinking on the oven.

This time I added white wine to the pan to ensure extra liquid, and the drying up problem still happened. And after 45 minutes in the oven with 15 minutes resting with the door open, the skin still wasn’t as brown as I’d like and the juices weren’t completely running clear when I tried slicing the meat. I ended up having to put the chicken back on 350 for an additional 20 minutes. I swear it’s the crappy Magic Chef brand oven that I’ve had in every Brooklyn apartment. The temperature is clearly not accurate.

The chicken survived, but I wasn’t completely wowed. I hate to admit that despite all my butter rubbing and herb and lemon stuffing, the flavor was more subdued than I’d like. The flesh was really moist, though. Maybe it just needed more salt. I’m a chronic under-salter and with all the recent salt-is-the-devil articles, I’m becoming even more paranoid about my health.

No, I’m not going to make it all pretty for a picture (as if I ever do). It’s just me eating tonight and I don’t want to wash extra plates. You get the idea whether or not it’s sitting in the pan.

Trying to maintain a French-ish theme, I also made Salade Chaude aux Lentilles Avec Vinaigrette à la Moutarde minus the salad part. No arugula, just the green lentils in a vinaigrette. I hate to admit that these rich, tart legumes were tastier than the chicken.

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Sunday Night Special: Colombo Chicken Curry & Green Bean Mallum

Yes, this is food from last Sunday. I’m not foretelling the future. I would forego mentioning this meal altogether (I document my cooking very infrequently because honestly it’s not that exciting and lately I just haven’t had the attention span) but Sri Lankan food is something different for me. I don’t know that I’ve ever cooked the cuisine before and I’ve only tried it twice in restaurants.

A friend was savvy enough to find my Amazon wish list and order “Mangoes & Curry Leaves” for my birthday last month. Unfortunately, I wasn’t savvy enough to keep said list up to date and already had the book. No problems, that’s why I love Amazon. Even though I wasn’t the buyer, I was able to exchange it for the same authors’ brand new cookbook, “Beyond the Great Wall.”
I took the opportunity to add “1080 Recipes,” the supposed Spanish “Joy of Cooking,” into the order. Now I’m faced with some serious skimming. I realized that 1080 is a lot of recipes, but I had no idea the book would be a massive 2 ½ inches thick (yes, I measured it).

So, before delving into my two new acquisitions I gave “Mangoes & Curry Leaves” another look. Who knows when I’ll have a chance to get back to it. All I knew is that I wanted to make something using chicken because I had bunch of bone-in thighs that needed using up. Colombo Chicken Curry fit the bill and only required the purchase of cashews and two tomatoes.

I do way more Southeast Asian than South Asian cooking so I’m used to pounding lots of herbs and fresh chunky things in a mortar and pestle. This style is more about toasting and grinding. I was shocked that I actually had every spice on hand: cumin seeds, coriander seeds (and used every last bit) fenugreek, cinnamon sticks and cardamom (not the pods, unfortunately). Interestingly, a spoonful of white rice and three times as many cashews also get tossed into the skillet, browned, then pulverized.

The end result, stewed with chopped tomatoes, grated coconut and coconut milk is complex in a way that’s hard to describe. I wouldn’t say that it tasted Indian or Malaysian but it definitely hinted at both. Just like whenever I infrequently attempt Malay curries, the flavor is rich, spicy but slightly flat like something’s lacking. Part of this is my inability to salt properly but I think the big issue is freshness of ingredients. It’s not like I live anywhere near the Spice Islands. Who knows where my spices came from and how long they sat around before sitting around in my kitchen.

I took one of the side dish suggestions seriously and read up on Green Bean Mallum. I’ve never heard of this vegetable dish. Luckily, EatingAsia has reproduced the recipe using sword beans. You’re not likely to find anything that exotic in the NYC area or probably anywhere in the U.S. but green beans work just fine. Better than fine. I really loved this condimenty side, maybe even a little more than the chicken. I ate this with brown rice like a hippy during the rest of the week and it was amazing and super spicy.

I was wary about shredding the beans, ultimately using my so-so food processor, because I hate fiddliness. But the texture was necessary. Whole beans would’ve been too substantial and dominated the dish. Really, the grated coconut is almost equal in prominence. Which reminds me, if you hate coconut I totally don’t understand you and you’ll hate both of these dishes.

Essentially, you cook the beans, shallots, turmeric, grated coconut, green chiles (I didn’t have Maldive fish or recommended substitute bonito flakes so instead sprinkled a few dashes of fish sauce) illogically with no water or oil in a covered pot for ten minutes. That’s it. You could totally do this with carrots, which I think wouldn’t be wholly untraditional. Though soggier, you could probably use a shredded green like spinach too.

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Up in Smoke

I don’t know a lot about barbecue, smoking, grilling, curing, any of it. And I’m just not wound up enough to learn the nuances. (I ate at Dinosaur BBQ last weekend after seeing the kind of long and confusing Dark Knight in Edgewater, NJ, and I didn’t even feel compelled to update my old write up. Not because barbecued meat isn’t great but because I don’t have much of anything to say about it.)

But James bought a smoker on what I think was a whim. I’m convinced that he’s trying to keep up with a coworker who owns a whole building with a deck and yard. It’s hardly a contest. We had to set this smoker up indoors, downstairs, just near an open door…in the same space my damp laundry was hung to dry. My pants now smell like a campfire. And the coworker with the bigger smoker just up and bought a caja china so we’re screwed.

So, I didn’t participate much in the creation of our smoked ribs. And I don’t even know if we did this right. It might’ve been a disaster but the end result wasn’t too bad, the meat was just a little tough and maybe even a little too smoky, dare I say cigarettey (that woman on Tyra last week who loved eating cigarette ashes would’ve been happy). I think the instruction book was full of shit and had us cook the ribs first. Are you really supposed to cook meat before smoking it? And do you bake or grill? And if you grill, that's a lot of rigamarole to smoke on top of that process. Does smoking cook meat? I’m totally confused and promise to read up on these matters before a second attempt.

The pork was rubbed with a mysterious spice blend–celery salt and ground mustard were the only ingredients I caught a glimpse of–and sauced with a combination of Daddy Sam's Bar-B-Que Sawce and Rancho Gordo Rio Fuego hot sauce.

The corn was freshly shucked and sauteed with scallions, red pepper, jalepeno and given a squeeze of lime. And no, none of it came from the greenmarket.

This smoking venture needs more investigating. Lamb might be fun, or cheese, maybe nuts? I’m not quite ready for the stuffed and smoked moose heart yet.

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Sunday Night Special: Rib-Eye Steak with Pan-Seared Grape Tomatoes

I don’t usually make cover recipes but the July Gourmet’s Porterhouse Steak with Pan-Seared Cherry Tomatoes seemed very simple (it’s been too humid for any serious cooking lately) and gave me the excuse to try the Grazin’ Angus Acres’s beef at Carroll Gardens’s tiny Sunday farmers market. Unfortunately, tomatoes aren’t really here yet (I just ate three cherry tomatoes in my Pret a Manger cobb salad and the tartness was none too pleasing, though the salad overall was better than expected) and I had to settle for regular grape tomatoes.

Yes, it’s a little strange that when food prices are getting out of control, I decide to start paying double for meat. I’ve never been one for organics and this isn’t something I’ll be able to make a habit of, I was just curious about American grass-fed beef after my steak binge in Buenos Aires. I did opt for a rib eye instead of the porterhouse because the latter tends to be large and there’s no convincing myself to spend $40+ for one piece of meat. I kind of justified the $23/lb rib eye because I decided to stop taking a $50 monthly prescription (not birth control pills—heavens). Maybe I can swing a locally raised steak once a month, which is plenty for anyone.

The meat definitely turned out more rare than medium-rare. It’s my own fault for not using a thermometer even though I have two, one digital, the other old-fashioned. You would think that I would’ve learned after six years of using an undercooking Magic Chef brand stove (it is not lost on me that my fancy Carroll Gardens apartment has the same exact lame stove that was in my former crappy Sunset Park apartment. Yes, there’s something sad about paying 3.73 times as much rent and still getting the same cheap appliances and 15 inches of counter space) and countless Thanksgivings with a turkey that takes an abnormal amount of time to reach doneness that I would compensate and cook my meat for longer than recommended (six minutes in this instance).

Regardless, this a fitting showcase for pristine beef. I tried to savor each bite and detect differences from the usual cuts I buy from Western Beef. I don’t doubt that I could tell the difference between a grocery store steak and one fresh from the farm; meat isn’t as esoteric to me as say, wine tasting. As I’ve said before, beef isn’t my favorite meat because it’s usually overwhelming, murky and one-note. This steak had a clean flavor, if that makes any sense. I noticed the biggest difference when I gnawed bits off of the bone and the shreds were just slightly gamey, kind of like some country hams and Spanish cured pork. The basil, tomatoes and garlic were slightly sweet without distracting from the meat. 

Of course, Gourmet’s photography is 50 times more attractive than mine. But it's the taste that counts, right?

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Sunday Night Special: Chopped Wing Bean Salad & Clams with Basil and Chiles

Sunday nights are the worst. There’s always something vaguely important that I’m supposed to be doing so I come up with a cooking project (or just watch lots of TV—I’m very disturbed that the quippy, marginally humorous talking head commentary concept has been co-opted by home and gardening shows, like you really need little pseudo-comedians yukking it up about landscaping jobs gone bad) to occupy my time instead. I’d probably be rich by now if I knew how to tame procrastination.

I was supposed to be doing my state taxes (I got my tiny federal refund way back in early Feb. because I’m quick to claim cash) and writing a review of the scary renovated Palm Court in the Plaza Hotel, but instead I decided to make my own nam prik pao.

There are a million minutely different variations. I chose one from David Thompson’s Classic Thai Cuisine that’s fairly sweet. I love the palm sugariness but it could’ve used a few extra chiles. After making it, I noticed Kasma Loha-unchit’s rendition used double the dried peppers. Well, he does call his jam rather than the more commonly used paste.

Strangely, I never use blogs for recipes and stick to cookbooks like an old lady. It's an odd bias considering I skim 50+ sites almost daily. But after the fact, I noticed there was a useful nam prik pao recipe on Chez Pim.

Roasted Chile Jam
Nam Prik Pao

4 cups oil
4 cups shallots, sliced lengthwise
2 cups garlic, sliced lengthwise
1 cup dried shrimp, rinsed and dried
10 dried long red chiles, deseeded and chopped
1 cup palm sugar
1/2 cup thick tamarind water
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoon fish sauce

Heat oil and separately deep-fry the shallots and garlic until golden. Add the shrimp and chiles and deep-fry for 30 seconds or until fragrant; drain. Puree the deep-fried ingredients together in a food processor, moistening with 1 cup of the oil from the deep-frying to facilitate the blending. Transfer the puree to a medium pot, bring to a boil, then add the palm sugar, tamarind water, salt and fish sauce. Simmer, stirring regularly, for about 5 minutes, or until quite thick and tasting sweet, sour and salty. Store in an airtight container.

Makes an insane amount, maybe three cups, possibly closer to four but it doesn’t really go bad and for all the effort you might as well do it up big.

I’m not a Thai food expert, obviously, but I think this not-crazy-spicy paste can kind of be added to anything. You can use it as a vegetable dip, to season soups like tom yum, and a few spoonfuls gussy up stir-fries, too.

I specifically made mine as a component for a wing bean salad (yam tua poo) I’d made a few summers ago. There were leftover rotisserie chicken and green beans in the fridge that needed to be used up, and thought of this recipe No, there aren’t wing beans around these parts but I survived.

I couldn’t even say if this is a legitimate recipe—I’ve never seen anything like it and similar ones online includes ground pork. I haven’t cooked much from Joyce Jue’s Savoring Southeast Asia because it seems more like a coffee table book (that it’s a Williams-Sonoma book weirds me out) but authentic or not, this is a tasty dish.

Tamarind water, fish sauce, fried shallots, palm sugar, fried garlic. I didn't make the shallots from scratch because I only had two bulbs on hand and this plastic tub needed using up.

Chopped shrimp and chiles. I didn't deep-fry the ingredients, but rather sauteed on high heat with a generous amount of oil.

Raw puree

Final glossy product

Chopped Wing Bean Salad
Yam Tua Poo

1 tablespoon salt
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, about 6 ounces
1/2 pound winged beans, long beans or green beans, trimmed
1/4 cup unsweetened grated dried coconut
1 red jalapeño chile, seeded and thinly sliced

Dressing
1/3 cup coconut cream
2 teaspoons roasted chile paste
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoon fried shallots
1 ½ tablespoons fried garlic
3 tablespoons unsalted roasted peanuts, crushed
Coconut cream for garnish (optional)

Poach the chicken breast (you don’t need me to detail that) or use leftover skinned, shredded chicken parts like I did. Dark meat isn’t scary.

Blanch the beans, keeping them green and crunchy.

Toast the coconut in a dry pan until it turns golden. Set aside.

Combine chicken, beans and chopped chile (I never see red jalapeños or even Anaheims and used a few tiny Thai chiles instead) in a large bowl.

In a separate smaller bowl, mix coconut cream, roasted chile paste (the nam prik pao), lime juice, fish sauce and sugar.

Add the dressing to the chicken and beans and toss. Sprinkle with toasted coconut, fried shallots and garlic and peanuts. Mix before serving.

Serves 4-6

If I didn’t know better I would say that the end product looks like a green bean casserole, canned onions and all. But the creaminess is all-coconutty and Campbell’s free. I would’ve preferred more beans to chicken but I’d underestimated the amount of leftover vegetables and overestimated how much meat was still on the chicken. Sweet and spicy is the overall theme, and it makes for a great not-terribly-carby lunch, if you care about that sort of thing. Even if you don’t, it’s a good lunch or light dinner.

That was all I was going to make but I had picked up a couple pounds of clams the day before, so I searched Dancing Shrimp: Favorite Thai Recipes for Seafood by Kasma Loha-unchit for ideas and came up with an easy recipe that also used my nam prik: clams stir-fried with roasted chile sauce and basil (hoi pad nahm prik pow).

I would’ve gotten into trouble on Top Chef because there was a tiny bit of grit in a few of the shells. Not enough to ruin the dish, but you definitely don’t want to hear a crunch when eating mollusks. Instead of using the prescribed water or broth I threw in a few tablespoons of the thin coconut milk leftover in the can from the wing bean salad. It upped the richness quotient a notch and mixed with the chile paste and clam liquor created a sauce that was so good I didn’t mind eating it with brown jasmine rice.

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Sunday Night Special: Super Bowl Edition

Despite having next to no interest in sports whatsoever (I blame it on a Portland upbringing—the Trailblazers were the only pro team we had) our Super Bowl party always ends up being bigger than expected. Even with a healthy-sized apartment, thirty-plus guests can be a challenge.

The problem with hosting parties is that there’s little downtime; keeping the food non-fancy still ends up being a time suck. Buffalo wings have to be cooked in steady batches and even hands-off treats can be a distraction. But then, I’m easily distracted. I didn’t see much of the game or many of the commercials (I did watch the half-time show and was fully expecting "Don't Come Around Here no More") and only ate three measly wings (this was rectified last night when we fried up leftover chicken parts).

I’ve used the same tablecloth and dishware numerous times so if I was to compare Super Bowl parties past there would be uncanny similarities. Life is repetitive that way.

Nearly a quarter of the attendees were vegetarian so I couldn’t let them starve. Spanish-influenced empanadas with Manchego, spinach, almonds and raisins seemed un-boring.

We’ve been overwhelmed with dried goods after James ordered a Rancho Gordo sampler that arrived too late for his father’s Christmas present. I used the included cannellini beans for a healthy-ish bean dip that I livened up with white truffle oil and the recommended balsamic vinegar. I also added chopped sun-dried tomatoes even though the recipe only called for their oil, which apparently is very Mark Bittman. Carrot sticks, red pepper strips and these cheap bruschetta toasts I found at Western Beef went along with the mashed beans.

I’m generally biased against Food Network recipes but for something like hot jalapeno crab dip they seem right on. Do you want a highbrow crab dip?

Buying only two jars of dill pickles was a big mistake because the pickle chips disappeared within seconds. I never understood Costco’s giant condiment jars but now their purpose is perfectly clear. I used another Food TV recipe for the batter and Deann brought buttermilk dressing for dipping.

Cadbury Egg close up

Smooshed Kit Kat

Impromptu candy-frying erupted. That’s been known to happen when the deep fryer makes an appearance. Kit Kats, Snickers and crowd favorite Cadbury Eggs all got the hot oil treatment. We regretted not having cheesecake on hand since it makes a particularly decadent battered, fried treat. I think last year someone tried deep-frying a whole blackout cake, which is proof that drinking and frying are a dangerous combination.

After a handful of drinks, scary fratty cocktails start sounding good. James loves concocting an old ‘90s Baltimore classic, Surfing on Acid. Jagermeister, Malibu and pineapple sound absolutely wretched, though I have to admit the combo is more pleasing than the sum of the parts. Someone cracked open my blue wildberry cherries, and next thing I knew gummy bears were being added as garnish. These were my kind of people—no prompting from me was needed for such garish flourishes. And I wonder why I felt like death the next morning.

I thought this was a chocolate mousse cake and that it had been decimated. I got a tasty surprise last night when I found 3/4 of it in my freezer.  Oh, and it's a chocolate banana tart.

I can't forget the store-bought goodies. Football themed cakes are a must. 

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Sunday Night Special: Swiss Chard with Raisins and Pine Nuts & Flounder with Garlic Sauce

No matter how good they might taste, I have a knack for making my meals look sad and pathetic. This fish never stood a chance. 

This three-day weekend I finally got around to looking over a Christmas present, Jose Andres’s Tapas: a Taste of Spain in America. The same day I found a recipe in the new Gourmet that was very similar to one in the book I had my eye on. Synchronicity.

Jose Andres’s recipe used spinach, apples raisins and pine nuts while Gourmet’s version called for Swiss chard, raisins, onions and almonds. I love the Spanish use of nuts and raisins (especially with morcilla–which wasn’t called for in either of these—I’m just saying). I borrowed from both sources since I prefer heartier wilted greens to wet spinach and had a container of pine nuts that needed using up. Even though I liked the idea of adding a golden delicious and creating a pine nut praline, they didn’t make it into this version.

We already had a fish dish from Cooking Light (low fat isn’t exciting but I try to reign in my impulses during the week) on the roster that incorporated mayonnaise, so it was fortuitous that Gourmet paired their Spanish-influenced chard with a garlicky faux aioli topped halibut (strange, the way they've broken out the new Gourmet.com; the chard recipe shows up on Gourmet.com while the fish only appears on Epicurious). I had to use flimsy little flounder filets because that was what the original plan entailed.

I could’ve predicted that I’d like the sweet and oily Swiss chard more than the fish, but that’s mostly because I have a fear of mayonnaise even when I know rationally that it’s just eggs and oil. I think my perfect version of the vegetable dish would keep the chard, onions and smoked paprika I used in this one, add the apples and swap the pine nuts for almonds. Next time.

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