short cut to short cake

I don’t care for most desserts; they’re far too sticky-sweet, and lack interesting flavors. I do like a good pumpkin pie, or a good apple pie made with fresh apples, or most anything baked fresh, with fresh fruit, and served warm. A few weeks ago I had wonderful mixed berry shortcake at the home of friends, carefully prepared by their ten year old daughter. The baking shortcake filled the house with a wonderful aroma, and the finished dish was delicious. It’s exceptionally simple to make, too. All you need is a basic biscuit recipe, sugar, fresh or frozen fruit, and whipped cream. If you grew up eating those faux shortcakes made with miniature prepared sponge cake “shortcakes”, you’ll find this a revelation:

Strawberry Shortcake

You can use a baking mix- in which case I’d use Jiffy Mix, as it’s made right in Chelsea- and the recipe is right on the package (along with a picture of an assembled short cake):

• 2 cups "JIFFY" Baking Mix
  
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
  
• 3 Tbsp. melted shortening (or butter)
  
• 1/2 cup milk
  

Or you can make it from scratch, in which case simply substitute 2 cups of flour + 3 teaspoons baking powder and ½ teaspoon salt for the Jiffy mix, and add another tablespoon of shortening or butter.

Cut the shortening into the dry ingredients with a fork until you get a nice mealy texture, and then slowly blend in the milk until you get a soft, but not too sticky batter. If it’s too wet, just add a bit of flour or mix.

Knead this mix for a few minutes- Jiffy’s recipe says “20 times”- and then pat or roll it out on a floured rolling board to a thickness of ½”. Using a biscuit cutter, or a large mug or glass, cut the dough into 3” rounds and place on a baking sheet (you should get 6 shortcakes from this recipe.) Bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes.

While the shortcakes are baking, wash your fresh strawberries, remove the stems, and slice them in half. Sprinkle them with just a little sugar. (If the only berries you have a frozen, thaw them ahead of time.)

As soon as the shortcakes are done, remove them from the oven, split them in half and place, cut side up, on serving dishes. Place a mound of berries on each, followed by a large dollop of whipped cream, and serve immediately.

(n.b.: You can top each finished assembly with the other half of the shortcake you split, which is the old-fashioned way of doing it, in which case this recipe serves six. Or you can just serve them open, in which case it serves 12.)

tea time

Chinese bakeries aren’t terribly common around Southeast Michigan but we have at least two that I know of. One is on John R, South of 14 mile road, in a small strip mall that also contains a decent Chinese restaurant (Mandarin Dining), a good Chinese grocery (China Merchandise) and a Chinese barbecue. The other is Eastern Accents in Ann Arbor, on Fourth Avenue, North of Liberty. Both offer a good selection of baked sweet and savory buns and cakes, although the Mt. Clements shop has a bit more of a selection of some of the dishes that tend to appeal to more purely Chinese tastes.


We usually think of Chinese cuisine as being dominated by rice as a starch, but that’s in the South. In the North, wheat is grown, and the cuisines of that region haves plenty of noodles and breads. The food you find in Chinese bakeries combines traditional Chinese ingredients and methods with those of the West, the result being a sort of hybrid cuisine that appeals to both tastes.


The most common savory you’ll find in a Chinese bakery is the baked bun, or bao, typically stuffed with pork and seasonings, though there are chicken buns, tuna buns, vegetable buns and of course sweet buns as well. My favorite hybrid cuisine is the hot dog bun, which is simply bun dough wrapped around a hot dog and baked. Something to keep in mind if you’re dining out with a picky youngster.


Sweet buns include cakes covered with fruit, various puddings made with fruit and agar, pineapple buns, custard buns, custard tarts, and that most Chinese of flavors, the red bean paste bun. Sweetened red beans are used in many Chinese sweets. This sounds odd at first until you consider that we do very similar things in the west with sweetened vegetable pastes, like pumpkin pie.


Then there’s my personal favorite, the sesame ball. This consists of a ball of sticky, glutinous rice, with a sweet or savory filling, rolled in sesame seeds and deep fried. Eastern Accents has these filled with bean paste, but a more traditional Chinese bakery will also have them stuffed with a filling made from dried shrimp that is out of this world. They’re oily, and very rich.

Traditional bakeries also typically feature Zongzi, a sort of dumpling made from glutinous rice, with a sweet filling, like red or yellow bean, or a savory filling, with include pork, Chinese mushrooms, salted egg, and chestnuts. They're wrapped in banana, bamboo, lotus or pandan leaves and steamed, and server steaming hot at the table. I often buy a half dozen of the savory type, frozen, at my local Chinese grocery and keep them in the freezer at home for a quick lunch. Three minutes in the microwave and you've got a very filling, rib-sticking meal.


Glutinous rice is also known as sweet rice, or sticky rice- but don't confuse it with the short grained Japanese rice used to make Sushi that some call "sticky ricy". This is a different animal entirely. It's mainly grown in Thailand and Laos, where it makes up over 80% of the rice crop, but it's eaten all over Asia. Despite the name, it actually contains no gluten; it's termed glutinous for its texture. If you've ever had Japanese moochi, you've tasted it. Moochi is made by pounding the steamed rice until it develops the smooth, elastic consistency characteristic of good moochi.

I don't have a really reliable home recipe for Chinese buns or Zongzi, but I do have a pretty good peanut butter sandwich recipe, so let's go with that instead:

• Toast two slices of real rye bread- the proper kind with caraway seeds and a dusting of corn flour. I recommend Avalon or or Whole Foods. Zingerman's comes close but doesn't have the caraway.
  
• Spread both sides with natural peanut butter- smooth or chunky, your choice.
  
• Add a layer of sliced banana, and (this is the secret part) a layer of sliced strawberries.
  
• Assemble sandwich.
  
• Cut in half for easier handling.
  
• Eat.
  

soup, glorious soup

Soup is the absolute best winter food. There’s nothing better than coming in from a cold day outdoors than a bowl of steaming soup, whatever kind it may be. And soup can be one of the easiest dishes to make. It can be as simple as canned stock and some assorted leftover vegetables and meats. A few cans of stock, some washed and drained beans, and some noodles, and you've got a soup.


I always have the makings on hand for various soups- dried beans, soup stocks of all sorts, herbs, onions, whatever. I like Minor’s concentrated soup bases; they’re far superior to any bullion, and better than most canned soup stocks, too. A lot of restaurants use them as the base of soups and other dishes. A spoonful can go a long way in pepping up stews and gravies, too. They’re sold through wholesale suppliers, but Holiday Market carries them as well, and they’re also sold mail order through a number of suppliers.


Saturday night we were heading out to the theater, and a quick search of the fridge revealed about 8oz of shrimp- not enough for two main dishes, but plenty enough for two big bowls of soup. I also had some Chinese vegetables- don’t know the name of this one, but you could use any leafy Chinese green vegetable, or spinach- some Hong Kong style Scallop noodles (long, thin egg noodles flavored with scallops) and other ingredients that suggested a big steaming bowl of family style Chinese soup.

I started with a quart of chicken stock, and a little extra water, since the noodles would add some more flavor to the soup. In went a little garlic, a dash of sesame oil, a little chopped green onion, and two bunches of the noodles (about 8oz). When the noodles were almost done, I tossed in the shrimp.

While the soup was cooking I cut a small package of firm Japanese-style tofu into ½” cubes, and placed half the cubes in each bowl. When the shrimp were done, I divided the noodles and shrimp into the bowls with the tofu, poured in the hot soup, and that’s it.

grill of my dreams, i adore you

My George Foreman grill gave up the ghost a few months ago, after years of use and abuse. It still got hot, but the non-stick surface had become non-non-stick, and the plastic cover had holes large enough to stick a finger into. Thus into the trash it went.

I spent some time looking for a replacement that would do everything the Foreman would in a more rugged, larger package. There are a lot of tabletop grills on the market these days, and not all are suitable for the kind of cooking I like to do. Some are strictly for grilling sandwiches- Paninis being a currently fashionable snack. Some are darn near impossible to clean. The Foreman models have a little plastic drip pan for gathering fat and drippings that sits in front of the grill and makes a mess.


My first near choice was the Cuisinart GR-4 “Griddler”, but while it looks very ‘pro’, I’ve had varying luck with Cuisinart appliances in the past., and some of the reviews at Amazon pointed out a number of flaws- uneven cooking, poor temperature control, and poor insulation. Add to that a $120+ price and I decided to skip it for now.



My next stop was Overstock.com, a favorite resource- I had just purchased a new faucet assembly for my upstairs bathroom there. (Solid brass, $49. Can’t beat it.) They had the Villaware UNO Compact for $44.99, a healthy discount off the usual $80 discount price, and it looked pretty solid, so I ordered it. And surprise, it’s as solid as it looks. The bottom heating plates lifts out for cleaning, and there’s a sliding drawer inside to collect fats and juices. Sorry, George, I have a new friend. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t make full contact on both sides when grilling things thinner than about ½”. (And of course as it’s been discontinued there aren’t many left to be had.)

One of my first tests was grilling some of the tilapia fillets I’d bought at Costco the other weekend. I brushed them with a mixture of olive oil, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and parsley and tossed them on the grill. Result? Perfect, and no sticking, either. Cleaning was a cinch, too. The next night I did shrimps done similarly, and they cooked well, although the upper grill surface didn’t make contact with the shrimp, so it was more like frying in a covered pan. In both cases the excess oil drained away into the drawer and was easily removed.

Grilled Tofu, Mushroom and Pepper Sandwich

Last night I tried grilling some tofu and some portabella mushroom, which I like to use in making sandwiches for when I’m in a vegetarian mood (it happens.) I started out by making a very simple marinade:

• 1/2c olive oil
  
• 1 T crushed garlic
  
• 2T chopped parsley
  
• salt and pepper
  
• some balsamic vinegar
  
• couple of minced shallots
  

Into this went a large portabella mushroom cap and a package of firm Chinese tofu, sliced ½” thick. You want a tofu that is a little porous, and will absorb some of the marinade.

I grilled the mushroom first, until it was well done- about 10 minutes. Next the tofu, until it was browned a little, and had cooked enough to change the texture and firm it up somewhat. [n.b.: Grilled tofu looks a bit like mozerella, and it has some of the texture of a low-moisture mozerella. If you're looking for a substitute for mozerella to make a vegan dish, there's a a suggestion for you. Of course tofu doesn't melt like mozerella, and if you're on a vegan diet, God knows why you'd be reading this blog.]

Last, the sandwich was assembled. I took an Italian roll, split it open, and put in the cooked mushroom, a layer of cooked tofu, some strips of marinated roasted pepper, a little salt, and some parsley. (Often at this stage I’ll add a couple of anchovies, too.)

A few mixed greens on top, and the assembled sandwich went into a plastic container to be carried to work. We have a toaster oven there, so before eating it I gave it 8 minutes at 400 to crisp up the crust and warm it through. If I was going to eat it at home, I'd probably just put the whole thing back into the grill for a few minutes.

stuff and nonsense

Much of cooking is like chemistry: Measuring, mixing, and using heat to initiate reactions. Baking is like that. The other part of cooking is the mechanical part: Cutting, fitting, filling, stacking. That’s more like carpentry or perhaps bricklaying. I would think there’s a major sociological inference about gender to be inferred from that, but after Larry Summers’ experience at Harvard I’m not going to go there.

I enjoy the mixing and the measuring as much as the next person, but there’s an attraction to the mechanical, probably because it’s the more difficult aspect of cooking. Anyone can follow directions, but boning a chicken? Ah, that requires la technique. Not that I have any technique (or that I can bone a chicken without creating what looks like an accident scene involving a poultry truck), but I do have a few tricks learned from experts.

One of them has to do with filling and stuffing. After spending what seemed like hours trying stuffing dozens of small peppers from my garden with a teaspoon, it occurred to me that what I needed was a pastry bag, that ubiquitous tool that bakers use for piping frostings and fillings. I didn’t have one, though. I did have some heavy duty freezer bags, and I seemed to recall seeing some TV chef do this at one time. (Or possibly a boatbuilding magazine. The technique works with epoxy, too.) I filled a freezer bag with the stuffing mix, cut off a corner, and holding the freezer bag like a pastry bag, I finished stuffing the peppers in jig time. That started me on my Great Stuffing Adventure.

The first experiments were to discover what vegetables can be stuffed, and the answer is All of Them. Peppers are an obvious choice. Zucchini can be cut in sections, cored, stuffed, and placed in a baking dish with the cut sides up and down. Tomatoes can be stuffed if you use a fleshy variety, hollow them out a bit, and don’t stuff them so full that the filling causes them to burst. Cucumbers aren’t something you’d normally think of cooking, but they can be stuffed in the same manner as zucchini, and are tasty when cooked.

You don’t have to limit yourself to vegetables. Every second-rate seafood restaurant seems to serve the same microwaved Flounder Stuffed with Crabmeat entrée’ that you can buy individually wrapped and frozen at Superior Fish or most groceries, and you can do as well or better at home. I personally like stuffing squid. Preperation is easy- you don’t even have to prepare the squid yourself (even though it’s very easy) as you can buy cleaned squid in most any market. (If you’ve never had squid, why not? It’s tasty, has a nice texture when cooked, and there are lots of good recipes for it.)

Seafood Stuffing:

Mix together:

• an egg
  
• 1 can of crabmeat (drained)
  
• 8oz raw shrimp, chopped
  
• 1 finely chopped shallot (about 1/4c)
  
• 1 stalk chopped celery (about 1/4c)
  
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
  
• salt and pepper
  
• few shakes Old Bay seasoning
  
• enough bread crumbs to thicken the mixture a bit
  

Stuffed Squid

Prepare the stuffing as above

Pipe into cleaned squid, leaving a little space for expansion of the stuffing and shrinkage of the squid

Close the end with a toothpick

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a good skillet, and lightly brown the squid on all sides

Lower the heat, add a quarter cup or so of white wine, cover, and let simmer for about 20 minutes. Cut in 3-4 sections and serve.


Here's an Asian variation:

Stir-Fried Stuffed Squid

Mix:

• 1/2lb ground pork
  
• 1 t minced or crushed garlic
  
• 1 T finely chopped onion
  
• dash pepper
  
• 1 t fish sauce
  
• 1 T light soy sauce
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1 t cilantro, chopped
  
• 1 t sugar
  

Stuff the squid as before, and steam for 15 minutes.

Let cool, and cut each squid diagonally into 1" slices

Heat a few T peanut oil in your wok, and add:

• 1 clove garlic, chopped
  
• 1T ginger, minced
  

Stir briefly

Add the squid, and stir fry about 4 minutes.

Add:

• 1 T oyster sauce
  

Stir fry another minute, and serve.

ma petit chou

One of my absolute favorite dishes growing up was stuffed cabbage. I think just every culture has something like stuffed cabbage, with a mixture of meat and starch cooked in a plant leaf, whether it’s Polish Galumpki, Lebanese Malfouf Mehshi. The Chinese have scores of variations on this theme, using both edible and inedible leaves to contain a mix of rice and various meats and vegetables which they cook.

Most all stuffed cabbages share common ingredients

• ground meat
  
• a starch to absorb juices released in cooking
  
• an egg to bind everything together
  
• onions or some other allium for flavoring
  

You can improvise freely within this formula, using any sort of meat, or protein, and any sort of starch. I’ve used ground turkey, soy granules and tofu for the meat component, and bread crumbs, bulgur (cracked wheat) and orzo for the starch.

You can use different wrapping materials, too. Any edible vegetable matter works well; the same recipe can be used for stuffed peppers, or stuffed squash blossoms. If you use minced shrimp, rice powder, garlic and scallions, and substitute thin noodle dough for the cabbage, you’ve got Chinese dumplings.

But as everyone knows, proper stuffed cabbage should taste exactlylike the one their Mother served them when they were growing up. I’m no exception.

Mom’s Stuffed Cabbage

Carefully separate the leaves from a cabbage.

Boil the leaves briefly- a minute or two- just until they become limp. Or freeze them overnight and let them thaw the next day.

1. Mix the filling:

• 1 lb ground beef
  
• 1/4 cup rice (or ½ cup matzoh meal)
  
• a medium onion, chopped fine
  
• some minced parsley
  
• 1/2t salt
  

2. Heat in a saucepan:

• 1 large can tomatoes
  
• 1 small can tomato paste
  
• 1/2cup brown sugar
  

Simmer until the sugar dissolves, then remove from heat and allow to cool.

3. Slice two lemons thinly.

Now to wrap the cabbages. This is the exact same procedure used for wrapping tortillas, or Chinese Moo Shoo Pork, so if you know one technique, you know them all):

Place a cabbage leaf on the table, stem end toward you, and put a lump of stuffing on the part of the leaf closest to you. How much stuffing? As in much of life, the only way to learn is trial and error.

Fold the bottom of the leaf over the stuffing mixture.

Fold the sides of the leaf over the part you just folded.

Roll the leaf forward, completing the wrap, and secure it with one or two toothpicks.

4. Cooking:

Pour some sauce into a stockpot. Arrange a layer of stuffed cabbages, then a layer of the sliced lemons, then more sauce, cabbages, and so on until you’ve used up all the ingredients. Pour any remaining sauce in. (If you don't have fresh lemons, you can just add 1/4 cup of lemon juice to the sauce, but it won't have the aromatic flavor you get from the oils in the peel.)

Simmer for about an hour, let cool, and then refrigerate overnight. This is very important; you need that time for the flavors to mix and develop.

The next day, warm and serve.

Some people like to add dried fruit, like rasins, apricots and prunes to the mix. Could't hurt.

Simple Pleasures

Sometimes simple food is best, especially when it’s Mom Food- food that evokes memories of growing up, when Mom was always there with a hot, hearty meal that would warm us up on cold winter nights.

Meatloaf is sort of the ur-Mom Food, I think; just the smell of meatloaf is enough to take most of us back to childhood. This is pretty close to the recipe I grew up on. (Note the exotic ingredient- Worcestershire Sauce!)

Mom's Meat Loaf

Mix:

• 1 lb ground beef
  
• 1/4c rice
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
  
• 1/4c ketchup
  
• 1 egg
  
• dash Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
  
• salt & pepper
  

Pack about half this mixture in a glass loaf pan. Now take two or three hard boiled eggs, and set them lengthwise in the loaf, buried to about half their depth. Fill in with the rest of the meat mixture.

Bake at 350 for about an hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. This is important; if you serve it too hot, it’ll fall apart, and all the juices and fat will run out.

Now slice the loaf in ½” slices. Each will have a slice of egg in the middle, and at least one person you serve it to will be absolutely puzzled as to how you got the egg to stay together as it cooked.

Now that we have a proper 1950s dish, we need a proper accompaniment. One of my favorite dishes as a child, and one of the first things I learned to cook, was creamed cabbage. It’s simple, rich, and filling, and chock full of butterfat, so it’s not what I’d call health food, but once in a while I suppose it’s okay:

Creamed Cabbage

Quarter, core, and shred a medium sized cabbage.

Melt a quarter stick (!) of butter in a large skillet over medium heat

Cook the cabbage, stirring, until it’s very soft

Add a half cup of cream or evaporated milk, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until it thickens a bit more. Serve with meatloaf and cholesterol lowering drugs.

more chicken

I bought another rotisserie chicken last Friday, this time from Holiday Market, and once again when you can get a well-cooked chicken for $4.99 it’s hard to justify all the work and cleaning involved in cooking a chicken at home. But sometimes it’s worth it, like when you’re trying to impress a date, or when you’re in the mood for something a little different from the standard market fare.

This is a dish I learned from a friend who grew up in Hong Kong and now resides in Australia. It’s very simple, and very authentic Chinese home cooking:

Chicken Rice

Part 1: The Chicken.

Place two crushed garlic cloves into a whole chicken (don’t trim the fat) and then rub salt all over the bird.

Place the chicken in a large pot.

Add enough water to cover- at least a couple of quarts- and a few pieces of crushed ginger, and bring to a boil.

Lower the heat, and gently simmer until the chicken is done- about an hour.

Carefully remove the chicken from the pot, sprinkle some salt over it and then rub a few teaspoons of toasted sesame oil all over the chicken. Let it cool.

Part 2: The rice

Heat up your wok, pour in about one tablespoon of peanut oil and add:

• 1T ginger, minced
  
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed and finely minced
  

Fry briefly, until aromatic, and add

• 4 cups long grain rice
  

Stir the rice until it browns slightly.

Now, if you have a rice cooker, add the rice and 8 cups of the broth from cooking the chicken into the cooker and flip it on.

(If you don’t have a rice cooker, bring 8c of the broth to boil and cook the rice in that.)

And voila, chicken rice. Serve with the chicken that you’ve already chopped up and some chili sauce.

don corleone, don adams, don pardo, don ameche....

Yesterday I wrote about a simple Thai omelet served over a bowl of rice that I had at a local restaurant, and noted that most far Eastern cuisines had something similar. One of my great favorites is Donburi, a simple homestyle Japanese dish that can be prepared without any special techniques or hard to obtain ingredients. But before we talk about Donburi, let’s talk about rice.

Japanese rice, known to some as “sushi rice”, is a medium-grained rice that’s shorter, fatter, and a good deal starchier than the long-grained rice found in Chinese or Indian cooking. (Interestingly, most of the best Japanese rice is actually grown in this country.) Cooking it requires a slightly different technique than long grained rice.

For instance, the rice should be rinsed thoroughly before cooking. This was once a necessity, when the rice was polished with talc, but is now done to remove excess surface starch. Japanese rice is always cooked in a covered pot, although today a rice cooker is preferred.

Japanese Rice

1. Measure one cup of short-grained rice.
   
2. Place in a large bowl of cold water, swirl around, and drain.
   
3. Repeat until the water runs clear.
   
4. Place the drained (but still wet) rice in a pot with a tightly fitting cover, along with one cup of water, and let it sit for 15 minutes to an hour.
   
5. Bring to a boil over high heat. (you’ll hear it bubbling)
   
6. Immediately lower the heat to a very low simmer for 15-20 minutes.
   
7. Remove from heat and let stand covered for another 15 minutes.
   
8. Remove lid and fluff rice.
   

Of course with a rice cooker you can skip half the steps. If you like rice, I strongly advise buying a rice cooker, as they can also be used for steaming vegetables, making casseroles and other uses. Buy a good one; I bought a tiny 2-cup Panasonic model for $40 when I was in grad school, and used it for close to 20 years.

Now that we have a bowl of fluffy rice, where were we? Oh yes: Donburi. This isn't quite what you'd be served for lunch in a Tokyo home, but it's a pretty good approximation of a restaurant Donburi:

Oyako Donburi (Mother and Child Rice Bowl)

In a small saucepan, cook:

• ¼ small yellow onion, sliced very thinly
  
• a sliced shiitake mushroom, either fresh or a dried one you’ve soaked
  
• 1/2 cup dashi (Japanese soup stock)
  
• 1/2t sugar
  
• 1t Japanese soy sauce (shoyu).
  
• about 2oz thinly sliced chicken breast- that’s about a quarter of one breast.
  
• a green onion chopped into 1” lengths.
  

Cook over low to medium heat until the onion is soft and the chicken is cooked- about 3 minutes. You don’t want it to boil dry.

Gently pour a beaten egg on top of the mixture and cook until it sets.

Serve over a bowl of rice and sprinkle with toasted nori.

About dashi: You can buy concentrated, instant or freeze-dried dashi, which is made with dried bonito flakes, konbu (seaweed) and other seasonings, at Oriental markets. Or in a pinch, you can use a chicken stock. It won't taste like real Donburi, but it'll be pretty good.

Nori is sheets of pressed, dried laver (seaweed), the same stuff used to make sushi. You can buy ready-to-use crumbled or shredded nori, or prepare your own:

Pass a sheet of nori over a gas burner a few times on each side. It should chnage color and become crisp. Crumble over dish.

(There are a lot of Japanese groceries in Southeast Michigan, thanks to the auto industry. I like Noble Fish, on 14 Mile in Clawson- a place well known to discriminating sushi eaters as well.)

omelet you in on a secret...

About five years ago I dropped into one of the many Thai restaurants that dot Oakland County (Spice of Thai, at 515 S. Lafayette) around mid-afternoon, when the place was empty and one of the staff was eating a late lunch or perhaps an early supper. When the waitress came by to take my order, I pointed at the employee eating her lunch, and asked, “Can I order what’s she’s having?” The waitress was surprised, but said yes, certainly.

She returned five minutes later with a bowl of rice topped with a sort of omelet, served atop a bowl of rice, and a bottle Sriracha hot sauce, which seems to be a fixture in many Asian kitchens. “Tastes better with this”, she suggested. I squirted a bit on and tasted. The staff watched anxiously as I took by first bite. It was delicious, and I said so. They relaxed and went back to work.

I noted a number of familiar flavors and colors- a bit of ground pork, some cilantro, fish sauce, and a bit of toasted onion and garlic. Back home I couldn’t resist trying to duplicate the recipe. Here’s what I came up with:

Thai Omelet

In your wok, fry:

• 2oz ground pork (just a little, for flavor)
  
• about 1 scant teaspoon fried garlic (optional)
  

The garlic can be found in the Thai section of larger Oriental markets. Stir while you’re cooking this so it stays loose.
Beat together:

• 2 eggs
  
• about 2t Nam Pla (fish sauce)
  
• about 2t chopped fresh cilantro
  
• dash sweet soy
  

Now toss a handful of bean sprouts into the wok, stir briefly, pour the egg mix into the wok and cook over medium heat until set. Serve over a bowl of rice with Sriracha.

Every Oriental cuisine seems to have a similar dish. Chinese diners are familiar with egg foo young (although the dish that is served in most restaurants is far from what's served in Chinese homes). Japan has its donburi, which is made with a variety of ingredients; when made with chicken and egg, it's called Oyako Domburi, or "Mother and Child" Donburi, and Paul Simon celebrated it with his song "Mother and Child Reunion". But more on that later.

pescado frito.... and chips.

I am not as great a world traveler as I’d like to be, and as a consequence there are many dishes I have yet to sample around the globe. But I feel safe in saying that I doubt any could be as bad as the gyros I had in a fish-and-chip shop in Durham, England in 1990. Actually, pretty much everything in that chippie was dreadful; the gyros were just the crème-de-la-crap, as it were. I was at least relieved to learn that many of the locals shared my opinion; a student from London I spoke with described the food served there as “vile” (although he did so in the plummiest London accent imaginable.)

Anyway, I thought about that while reading a history of Fish and Chips that repeated the common story that Fish and Chips were introduced to London by Joseph Malin, who opened the first combined fish-and-chips shop in London in 1860. But fried fish and fried potatoes were well known in England long before that; Charles Dickens mentions a “fried fish warehouse” in Oliver Twist (1838).

A Wikipedia article suggests that fish fried in the Sephardic Jewish tradition- the original breaded, fried fish- came to Western Europe with Sephardim who left Spain and Portugal throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. And they in turn had gotten it from their ancestors, who brought it to Spain from lands further East. (n.b.: the Sephardim were first expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, and many are said to have settled in the Netherlands, so perhaps the history goes back even farther than that.)

What has gotten lost in the years following the introduction of Pescado Frito, as the Spanish called it, to England, is the proper method of making it, which is what we will be discussing today. Lesson book open? Sharpened #2 pencil in hand? Good. Let us begin:

The typical English fried fish recipe consists of filets of cod (and increasingly other species) dipped in a heavy batter made of flour, baking powder and water; some modern cooks use sparkling water to lighten the batter. But that's not how they did it back in the 14th century. The original recipe- and the first recipe served by Joseph Malin, it is said- used matzoh meal:

Sephardic Fried Fish

Pick some firm-fleshed fish fillets (say that ten times fast!) of your choice. Tilapia, haddock and mackeral are all good. In Australia they like Barramundi. Carefully pat the fillets dry and put aside. (You can also dip the fillets in flour to fully dry the surface but I'm trying to be authentic here.)

Beat 3 eggs well.

Now dip each fillet in beaten egg, and roll in matzoh meal until well coated, and carefully lay in a skillet with a half-inch or more of cooking oil. Olive oil is traditional (don't waste your money on extra virgin oil here) but you can use any lightly flavored oil. Turn and brown on both sides, and lay on paper towels to drain.

The English would eat this with salt and vinegar; I prefer the Mideastern/North African style of eating it with a spicy sauce, which, curiously (although not surprisingly) is also the traditional Southern African-American tradition. A little Frank's Red Hot Sauce is very appropriate. Mayonnaise spiced up with garlic, hat auce and a drop of dry or Dijon mustard is a great accomaniment. (You can further impress your guests by referring to it as aioli and implying that you made it from scratch.)

In Israel, I'm told, fried fish is typically eaten cold, with a variety of condiments- mayonnaise, lemon, horseradish, tomato sauce, and of course the traditional hot pepper.

As for the other half of the equation- chips: I don't care for most french fries; they're heavy, greasy, and lack flavor. My idea chip was a American Fries they used to serve at the Checker Barbecue on Livernois near 8 Mile Road in Detroit when I was growing up. The Checker is gone, and I don't have a deep fryer, but I do have a roasting pan, so so this is what I serve instead:

Roast Seasoned Potatoes

Scrub and quarter a pound or two of red or white potatos. I really like the Yukon Golds; they seem to have a lot of flavor. Small potatos can be cut in half, or if small enough, left whole.

Place the potatos in a large bowl, and add about 2t salt.

Now add enough olive oil to coat all the potatos, along with some freshly ground pepper, parsley, crushed garlic, and perhaps other herbs you might enjoy.

Spread the potatos out in a heavy roasting pan, and put in a 500F oven.

Roast until the potatoes are nicely browned on the cut sides, and serve hot.

o, fortuna!

We don’t have many good restaurants around the University and so every so often I start carrying lunches again. One of my favorites is tuna fish- but tuna fish my way. I don’t much care for the traditional (and flavorless) white tuna in water drenched in Miracle Whip on white bread.

First, you need good tuna. For me, that means light tuna, which is far more flavorful than white, and it should be packed in olive oil, not water, "broth" or some mystery "salad oil". As for brands, my current favorite is Genova, which is much better than the Progresso tuna I've tried; I often see it at Trader Joe’s. I've tried premium brands like Bonita del Norte but they don't seem to taste any better, and they cost a lot more.

You also need good bread. I like the Italian rolls I get at Holiday market, or Avalon Bakery’s “313” rolls, which are very rich.

And while onions are a nice addition, shallots are even better, and they seem to be cheaper and more available these days, too.

Best Tuna Salad Ever

Empty a can of light tuna in olive oil (with the oil) into a mixing bowl and add:

• A large shallot, chopped fine (or a small onion)
  
• About 2T of chopped celery
  
• A good tomato, with the juice removed, chopped coarsely
  
• A teaspoon of Dijon mustard
  
• Juice of half a lemon
  
• A clove of garlic, crushed
  
• A heaping teaspoon of capers and some of the vinegar they’re packed in
  
• A tablespoon of chopped parsley
  
• A teaspoon of fresh mint, because a friend of mine, a retired chef, told me that you must alwaysadd mint to a salad when you use tomatoes.
  
• two anchovies, chopped, or a dash of anchovy paste
  
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
  

Mix just enough to blend the indgredients together.

Put some mixed greens on your bun, followed by a dollop of the tuna mixture, and pop the sandwiches in your over or toaster oven at a high temperature just long enough to crisp the bun, and serve.

You can also use this as the basis of a salad. Instead of putting it on a bun, add the contents of a can of cooked navy beans, or canellini, or your favorite bean, rinsed and drained. Arrange mixed greens on serving plates and top each with a few spoonfulls of the tuna and bean salad. You can leave the tomatoes out of the tuna mixture, and arrange wedges on the plate instead, if you like. Some quartered hardboiled eggs would go well with this, too.

Ushpizim

We went to see Ushpizim Sunday, a little film from Israel that’s been getting a lot of attention, both because it was made by an all-Orthodox cast and crew, and because it’s a very good film, too. It tells the story of a very poor middle-aged couple living in a religious neighborhood in Jeruselam who are down to their last few shekels, when their life is upset by the simultaneous arrival of unexpected money and a pair of guests from the husband’s past.

Much of the film revolves around the holiday of Sukkot, during which Jews are commanded (Leviticus 23:33 ) to build a simple structure (a "sukkah") outdoors and to “dwell” in it, in order to commemorate the huts in which the ancient Israelites lived in during their trek in the desert. This is usually satisfied by building a simple hut with an open roof and having meals in it for the week of Sukkot. The word Ushpizim means "guests" in Aramaic, and during Sukkot it is considered an honor to host guests in one's sukkah; much of the film has to do with a pair of guests from the husband's past who show up during the holiday.

Sukkot is probably the most joyous of all the Jewish festivals, and part of the celebration involves holiday food. In my family, growing up, that meant traditional Eastern European food, like boiled beef, kugel (noodle casserole), chicken soup with knadelach (matzoh balls) and kreplach (dumplings filled with chicken meat), and other dishes that are familiar to anyone who grew up Jewish in this country.

The Israeli cuisine is quite different, as it owes more to the ancient cuisines of the area that were brought to it as Jews from Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and other countries streamed in following independence. A typical Israeli breakfast might consist of a salad like the following:

Israeli Salad

Score two cucumbers lengthwise with the tines of a fork. Slice them lengthwise, and lightly salt the surface. Let them sit for half an hour, rinse, drain and cut them into cubes.

Combine the cut up cucumber with:

• 8oz cubed Syrian cheese (if you can’t find that, use a mild feta cheese. If it’s too salty, soak it in cold water overnight)
  
• 1/4c grated and drained onion
  
• 1 finely minced green pepper
  
• Juice of a lemon
  
• 1/4c olive oil
  
• A few mint leaves, chopped
  
• Salt and pepper
  

Toss lightly, and refrigerate before serving.

Plenty of eggs are eaten in Israel, though not necessarily for breakfast. A very popular Israeli dish is shakshuka, an egg-and-tomato casserole for which there are as many recipes as there are Israeli cooks, it seems; this is my own, and may or may not resemble what you’d be served in Israel:

Shakshuka

In a wide, deep skillet, cook 2 or 3 green or red peppers, cored and chopped, in 1/4c olive oil until soft.

Add:

• 4 tomatoes- fleshy ones, like Romas- that have been cored and cubed (If you can’t get good tomatoes, canned are okay)
  
• 2t salt
  
• 1t paprika- sweet or hot, according to your taste.
  

If you like spicy food, this is the time to add a teaspoon or more of Harissa- a hot chili paste from Tunisia. If you don’t have Harissa, you can add the the hot pepper of your choice, or just more hot paprika.

Cook until thickened. Add a shot of concentrated tomato paste if you have it, particularly if your tomatoes don’t have a lot of flavor.

Now over the simmering mix, break six eggs, evenly spaced over the surface. Some people like to break them with a fork; some leave them whole. Your choice. Spoon a little of the sauce over each egg, and cook until set.

Serve with fresh pita bread.

Pita Bread

Dissolve 2t yeast in 1c warm water.

Beat in 1c unbleached flour, and let it sit and proof for 10 minutes

Fold in another 1-1/2 to 2 c flour, until you have a dough with a surface that’s not too sticky.

Knead for 5 minutes to develop the gluten, sprinkling flour on the board to keep it from sticking.

Lightly oil the dough and put in a warm (not hot) place in a covered bowl to double in volume (30-60 minutes)

Divide the dough into 12 parts.

Roll into balls, and press flat.

Grill on a large skillet or pan, first turning the pita when it starts to bubble and again when it’s browned.

that's using the old noodle

A while back a group of archeologists found the world’s oldest noodle is China, thereby settling the argument once and for all about whether the Chinese sent noodles to Europe, or vice versa. The noodle (see picture) was found together with a set of bowls (and, it has been rumored, two envelopes, the smaller one labeled “soup mix”.) The noodles were determined to be in the neighborhood of 4,000 years old.

Six of us were having Lo Main (Chinese soft noodles) along with four other dishes at Ann Arbor’s TK Wu restaurant (on Liberty, just West of Border’s) the other night, and while they weren’t 4,000 years old they were very good indeed. TK Wu is one of those rare Chinese restaurants that actually serves Chinese food, and not just American-Chinese food, which at its worst is what Calvin Trillin called “lumps floating in brown sauce”, and at its best is what my Chinese friends tell me is what they consider their junk food- heavy, greasy, sugary food that is to Chinese cuisine what MacDonald’s is to Escoffier.

Wu’s has a lot of dishes that are completely unfamiliar to the typical diner raised on American-Chinese food. A few, like Stewed Beef Tendon, rely on textures that most American diners find off-putting, but most others, like the “TK Wu Special Tofu”, while perhaps unfamiliar to American palates, are something that most diners would enjoy. I’ve had a few dishes there that I’ve read about, like tea-smoked Chicken, but never been able to find cooked by a proper Chinese chef.

Wu’s also serves Bubble Tea, something rather new to me but very familiar, I discovered, to one friend’s sophisticated 8 and 10 year olds. This is a sweet drink made with various combinations of tea, fruit extracts and syrups, milk or soy milk, and tiny cooked tapioca pearls. Sometimes bits of coconut jelly are used instead of, or along with the tapioca. The concoction is drunk through a large straw (so that the pearls don’t get stuck). It originated with street vendors in Taiwan in the 1980s, and is reportedly very popular there and in Hong Kong, and is spreading throughout the rest of the world.

I admit I have yet to try bubble tea, although I had a similar concoction made with tapioca pearls and basil(!) at a Tibetan restaurant a few months ago. (More on that some other time.) I usually stick with plain water, or tea when dining at Wu’s, as I find that sweet drinks make it difficult to taste the food.

Other dishes I’ve enjoyed at TK Wu are the “Giant Oyster Mushroom with Mixed Seafood”, various vegetable dishes (braised Pea Tip, Long Bean and a sublimely delicious Eggplant with Garlic), as well as some other’s familiar to most diners, like Sesame Chicken (which, at Wu’s has the most delicate and soft chicken I’ve ever had in this dish). I’m specifically planning on trying their Salt-and-Pepper Squid, which I’ve had at other restaurants; it’s a simple dish of cut up squid tubes, slashed diagonally, lightly salted and peppers, dipped in a little corn starch and lightly deep fried.

All of which leads us to today’s recipe for, you guessed it,

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

This is an exceedingly simple dish that is filling and satisfying- perfect for student budgets and tastes, too. I first came across it while reading Jimmy Breslin’s The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” in my teens:

Bring a 3-4 quarts of salted water to boil in a large pot.

While this is heating, bring 2/3c good olive oil in a saucepan to a medium heat.

Add perhaps 1t of red pepper flakes and 2 or more cloves of garlic, smashed and minced. If you’re a Southern Italian, double the amount of red pepper. If you’re a Sicilian, quadruple it.

Cook the garlic in the oil, but do not let it brown.

Add 2T chopped flat parsley to the oil and let that cook a little. Lower the heat so it doesn’t burn.

Add 1lb of thin spaghetti (spaghettini) to the boiling water.

Cook until al dente, immediately drain, and toss with the oil and spices.

In Breslin's book, Kid Sally and the other rebellious mobsters couldn't afford to add cheese to their spaghetti, but you can, so add perhaps 1/4c good reggiano parmesan, toss, and serve.

look sharp. be sharp.

Probably 90% of the kitchens I’m in have a set of kitchen knives so dull that they can only manage to cut via a combination of hacking and sawing away at the foodstuff under attack. Most of the owners of the knives would like them to cut the way they did when they were new, but don’t know how to go about getting that really sharp edge. If you’re lucky, like a friend of mine, you live in a neighborhood where a little old man goes down the street every week in a tiny three-wheeled Cushman cart, collecting knives, and returning them sharpened a few days later. That’s not terribly common these days, though.

Cookbooks typically recommend that the home chef “buy an Arkansas stone, and learn how to use it” which is nonsense. Using a stone properly takes a lot of practice, and that’s not something you’re going to get from a bi-annual attempt at restoring two or three blades. I do a lot of sharpening, not only of my kitchen knives, but my woodworking chisels and planes, and frankly, I can’t put a good edge on a kitchen knife, either.

I always distrusted powered sharpeners- usually they consist of a couple of carborundum wheels that are good at removing metal, but not so good at putting a keen edge on a blade. But a lot of people who should know told me that the Chef’s Choice sharpeners were very good, and that they were used in a lot of professional kitchens. So I bit the bullet and bought the Chef's Choice 110 Professional Diamond Hone Sharpener that Amazon sells for $79.95. It has a set of diamond wheels for putting an edge back on a dull blade, and a pair of diamond hones for maintaining and edge, and son of a gun, it actually works. They have a wide range of power sharpeners and hones, ranging from a basic hone for $59.95, or a sharpener alone for the same price, through various models up to a $399.95 commercial model that does all this and probably waxes your car, too.

Once you have a sharp knife, the trick is to keep it sharp, so it doesn’t need a weekly trip through the grinder. To do that, you need to hone the blade every time you use that, and the traditional tool used to do that is a sharpening steel- that steel rod on a handle that comes with the fancy knife sets you got as a wedding present. Using a steel is a lot easier than using a sharpening stone, but it still helps to have someone show you the technique; I was taught year ago by a friend who’d done time in the kitchen of a French restaurant. And most importantly, you need to use that steel every time you use a knife. That’s the trick.

There are alternatives to the steel- there’s the honing station on the Chef’s Choice sharpeners mentioned earlier; you can buy simple, hand-held ceramic hones (usually mislabeled as “sharpeners”) for a few dollars that even set the blade angle for you. I’ve often seen Chinese chefs hone the edge of their cleavers on the unfinished bottom edge of a stoneware plate. All of these work well; you just have to do it.

Speaking of knives, you don’t need those huge sets of knives so popular in custom kitchens, and you don’t need to spend $200 to buy a fancy kitchen knife to get a useful tool. I follow the recommendations of Anthony Bourdain in his book Kitchen Confidential, who recommends just three knives:

• An 8” chef’s knife
  
• An offset handle serrated knife
  
• A paring knife.
  

That’s it, and that’s all you’ll ever need, unless you have some special applications in mind, like cleaning fish or butchering your own cow. A good chef’s knife can be had with a composite handle for under $40, and will handle most of your slicing, chopping and other prep needs. A stainless steel, offset handle serrated knife can be had for even less, and is handy for vegetables, bread, and things like tomatoes that are hard to cut without squashing. Most of the things a paring knife is useful for can be done with the chef’s knife, but it’s handy to have for those moments when you find yourself inexplicably driven to make radish flowers.

And now that you have a set of sharp knives, I give you:

The Perfect Tomato Sandwich


Take two slices of good white bread- I'm partial to Avalon Italian Farm Bread, from Avalon Bakery on Willis in Detroit- and lightly toast.

Spread a thin layer of mayonnaise (no "salad dressing", no Miracle whip. Mayonnaise!) on each slice.

Slice a ripe, flavorful, acidy tomato that has a good tomato smell. If you can't smell it, don't even bother trying to make a sandwich.

Lightly salt and pepper the tomato.

Arrange a layer of mixed greens on the bread, followed by a layer of tomato.

Top with the other bread slice.

Eat.

the oyster the oyster split, split

Back in elementary school we were taught that the first European settlers who arrived in this country subsisted on fowl, which they hunted, and corn and beans, which the Native Americans taught them to plant. (Although I do think that farming had arrived in Europe by then.) In more recent years the mention of hunting has disappeared from the children’s history books, and they are now led to believe that either Colonel Sanders and Ronald McDonald were on the Mayflower, or that the New World was settled by vegetarians.

All of which is beside the point, except as a way of getting around to noting that one of the most abundant foods in the New World, and one that sustained both the Native peoples and the new immigrants up through the 19th Century, was the humble oyster. Reading diaries of the early settlers one often comes upon complaints of having nothing to eat but oysters yet again.

Oysters were very familiar to settlers from the British Isles who had long harvested the sea, and were familiar with recipes for things like oyster stew, oyster pie, and oyster ketchup. (If you’re curious about oyster ketchup, here’s a 19th Century recipe from Mrs. Beaton’s Cookbook:

490. INGREDIENTS - Sufficient oysters to fill a pint measure, 1 pint of sherry, 3 oz. of salt, 1 drachm of cayenne, 2 drachms of pounded mace.
Mode - Procure the oysters very fresh, and open sufficient to fill a pint measure; save the liquor, and scald the oysters in it with the sherry; strain the oysters, and put them in a mortar with the salt, cayenne, and mace; pound the whole until reduced to a pulp, then add it to the liquor in which they were scalded; boil it again five minutes, and skim well; rub the whole through a sieve, and, when cold, bottle and cork closely. The corks should be sealed.
Seasonable from September to April.
Note - Cider may be substituted for the sherry.

Population growth and Westward expansion of the railroads increased demand for oysters, which was met by increased harvesting and processing. The average annual harvest of oysters in Chesapeake Bay alone between 1834 and 1890 was 7 million bushels, and the annual per capita consumption was reckoned at about 10 bushels per year. Abraham Lincoln used to throw parties at his home in Illinois where nothing but oysters was served. Miners who’d struck it rich in California dined on Hangtown Fry, a simple dish of eggs and oysters that was costly owing to the expense of shipping Oysters across the country. Oysters weren’t just used for food; the shells were burned to make agricultural lime, crushed for use in road building and as landfill, and even ground up for chicken grit.

But after 1890, the harvest began to decline, as the oyster beds were depleted. Harvests fell to around 2-4 million bushels in the early 20th century, and disease further wiped out stocks in more recent years. Harvesting in this country became much more restricted; in some parts of the Atlantic coast, oyster dredging can only be done from sailing craft, and only for a very brief season. What was once the cheapest foodstuff available has become an expensive luxury.

At the same time, modern methods of shipping mean that we have a wide variety of oysters from around the world available to us year round- at a price, of course. The best way to enjoy an oyster is still to eat it raw, with perhaps a dash of cayenne, but there are two other recipes that I think show off the cooked oyster at its best:

Oyster Stew for 2
In a saucepan, heat a quart of whole milk with a bay leaf, 1T minced fresh parsley, and a pinch of nutmeg.

In another pan, cook a pint of shucked oysters in 2T butter until the edges begin to curl.

Add the milk, and salt, fresh ground pepper and Tabasco to taste. (A dash helps bring out the flavor with actually making it hot)

Serve with OTC crackers.

Fried Oysters

(Some people like to cook their fried oysters in cornmeal, or a mix of cornmeal and corn flour; I prefer breadcrumbs, which don’t make quite as heavy a coating.)

Drain a pint of refrigerated shucked oysters and dredge in flour.

Dip each oyster in beaten egg, and then in breadcrumbs, and then into a hot skillet with at least ½” of oil (peanut, canola, etc. Peanut is more flavorful. Don’t use olive.)

Cook on both sides until golden. Serve with Remoulade or spicy mayonnaise. Or make

Oyster Poorboys:

Hollow out a baguette

Spread with Remoulade sauce

Stuff with fried oysters, shredded lettuce, and sliced ripe tomatoes.

There are thousands of recipes and commercial products out there that purport to be Remoulade, and to be truthful, I’m not quite sure what constitutes an authentic Remoulade, other than I’m pretty positive it doesn’t have sour cream in it, like one variant I found. Most have a base of a mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, anchovy, and minced capers and sweet gherkins, to which is added salt, pepper, parsley, tarragon and a dash of Tabasco. Sometimes chopped hard boiled eggs are added.

I’m still experimenting. Follow your own tastebuds.

lettuce celebrate

For most of us growing up in Middle America, “lettuce” meant Iceberg lettuce. We had it in salads, on sandwiches, as a garnish under jello molds, and just about anywhere a green, edible, tasteless wrapping paper was needed. How this sad state of affairs came to be, I don’t know; certainly back when people grew most of their food, they wouldn’t have wasted effort on a foodstuff that most references describe as being 90% water, having no almost no nutrients, and very little flavor would they? It has even less flavor than its close cousin, Butterhead lettuce.

And yet, if we can trust the New York Times Sunday Magazine, it underwent a bit of a renaissance a few years ago in the form of the classic quarter-head of Iceberg lettuce drenched in Thousand Islands, which started showing up in fancy restaurants. Call me a Midwest hick, but for me, Iceberg lettuce with Thousand Islands dressing does not say Fashionable Dining so much as it says All You Can Eat Buffet At The Rotary Club.

Nonetheless, there is a dish I discovered close to thirty years ago, in a tiny booklet that came with my first good Wok, that elevates Iceberg lettuce to the level of something you might actually want to serve. It’s also a good introduction to some of the most basic techniques of Chinese cooking:

Stir-fried lettuce

Core and quarter a head of iceberg lettuce
Separate the leaves
Rinse and pat dry

Mix:

1 1/2 t light soy sauce
1 1/2 t sesame oil
1 t rice wine (or dry sherry)
3/4 t sugar
1/4 t fresh ground pepper (white pepper, if you have it)
3 crushed garlic cloves

Heat 2-3T peanut or canola oil in a large (14") wok until a bamboo chopstick bubbles when placed in the oil.

Add the garlic and lettuce, and stir fry for one minute.

Sprinkle with 1/4t kosher salt and stir fry for another minute

Add the sauce you mixed previously, cook one more minute, and serve immediately as part of a multi-course Chinese meal.

Viennese Waltz

Last week yet another Lebanese themed restaurant opened up on campus, which brings the total to four, out of perhaps fourteen (including fast food operations) within walking distance. Not surprising for Detroit, given that the metropolitan area has the highest concentration of people who can trace their origin to the Mideast of any American city, but it did get me thinking about the origins of different cuisines, and what is considered native food.

The last Lebanese-themed restaurant to open up (Byblos, on Palmer, between Woodward and Cass) had me guessing when I first entered: Was it Greek, or Lebanese? The name Byblos was the ancient Greek name for the Phoenician city Gebal, known today as the Lebanese city of Jbeil, so no help there. And the cuisine could have been Greek or Lebanese. I looked to the beverages section of the menu for the one clue that could unravel the mystery, and there it was: Turkish Coffee. No Greek restaurant is going to serve something called Turkish coffee, and no intelligent patron is going to order Turkish Coffee in a Greek restaurant. At least, not a second time.

The similarity in cuisines doesn’t stop there. All Mediterranean food is essentially Arabic food, and most Eastern European food has its roots in the Arabic world as well. A friend with Yugoslavian roots once waxed ecstatic to me about the cevapcici she and her then-husband had eaten at roadside cafes all though the country. These are little thumb-sized sausages made from a variety of meats, seasoned with nutmeg, paprika, garlic, and onion, and grilled with olive oil. Cevaps are pretty much identical (and phonetically similar) to the kebab of Turkey, or the kabab of Iran, India and Pakistan. The name means simply “gilled meat”, and the preparations and seasoning are similar in each country.

The reason for this dates back to to the Sixteenth Century- or perhaps to the Seventh, and the initial Arab conquest of Palestine. From that moment on, armies representing the European and Arabic worlds battled over lands from Jerusalem all the way to Vienna. And it was at the Siege of Vienna, in, 1683, when Kara Mustafa Pasha, acting in the name of the sultan, Mehmet IV, took the East’s last shot at the West, hoping to wrest away control of the Austrian Empire, and to avenge the loss of Suleiman the Magnificent at the Battle of Vienna in 1529.

Short story: The Turks lost, went home, and Arabia turned inward and away from the West for nearly 300 years. But all through the Fifteenth, Sixteen and Seventeenth Centuries the Ottomans had sparred with various European states, often occupying lands for many years; Hungary, for example, was an Ottoman state from 1526 to1683. During this time many of the customs of the Turks, including their cooking, took hold. And legend has it that a bag of coffee, found in the Turkish camps following their defeat in 1683, allowed Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki to open the first coffeehouse in Vienna.

Cevapcici (pronounced “cheh-vahp-chee-chee”)

Mix:

1 lb ground lamb
1 lb ground veal
1 lb ground pork
1 large yellow onion, grated
1T fresh parsley, minced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 T hot Hungarian paprika
2 T fresh ground black pepper
Salt to taste
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Form into thumb-sized sausages, or roll onto skewers.
Grill over open flame, basting with olive oil (you can broil them, too, but grilling is much better)

Serve with Cucumber-Yogurt Sauce:

Peel and grate a medium sized cucumber, and allow it to drain in a strainer.

Mix with:
1 pint yoghurt,
2 or more garlic cloves (crushed),
juice of half a lemon,
about 1t fresh mint
a pinch of salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste.

I made these for a Mediterranean-themed buffet a few years ago, after being challanged to find a good Cevapcici recipe by the Yugloslavian friend cited earlier. She liked them well enough that she walked off with all the leftovers (I made a lot of cevaps), and lunched on them all that week.

sweet mystery of life

Every year, as the Jewish Holiday of Passover approaches, a group of Coca-Cola fanatics eagerly search out special Kosher-for-Passover cans of Coke™. And throughout the year, many of these same diehards pay a premium price for Coke™ that’s bottled in Mexico. The mysterious link that connects these two seemingly disparate events is sugar.

Back in the 1970s, Japanese researchers discovered a way of producing high-fructose corn syrup. Makers of sweetened soft drinks, looking for a way to cut costs, quickly embraced the new sweetener, thus forever changing the taste of soft drinks (or what we in Michigan call “pop”). Almost every soft drink bottled in the US today is made with corn syrup, the exceptions for the most part being smaller “boutique” makers, like Jolt (“all the sugar and twice the caffeine”), and Jones Soda.

Corn syrup does not taste like sugar, and more importantly, it does not meet the strict dietary laws of Passover, and so once a year, the nice people at the Coca-Cola Corporation do a special run of Coke™ made with real sugar, satisfying both Kashrut and those looking for a real sugar buzz. In Mexico, where they don’t have the taxes and subsidies that keep the price of corn low and sugar high, sugar is still used in all soft drinks, providing another way for true sugar junkies in this country to satisfy their needs. (I could go on and on here about corporate welfare, farm subsidies, Archer Daniels Midland, and so forth, but this is a cooking blog, not a political blog. Go read Reason magazine if that sort of thing interests you.)

But this may all change soon. After a decade in which sugar generally traded below 10 cents per pound, prices have shot up to between 18 and 19 cents in the last week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the demand for ethanol as an alternative fuel is the culprit. Brazil, a major producer of cane sugar, is now devoting 52% of its cane sugar crop to ethanol production, an increase from 48% a year ago. As oil prices continue to rise, other commodities that can be converted to alternative fuels- including corn syrup, corn oil, and various other plant oils- may soon follow this trend. The point of all this is, I suppose, that you’d better enjoy sugar while you can.

Which brings me to this story: Fifteen years ago I was served a very tasty cookie with a flakey texture and a toffee flavor at a relative’s house, and was informed by the guest who brought them- one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever been obliged to spend an evening with- that it was an old, secret recipe, involving an unusual technique, and she would not share it under any circumstances. One daughter-in-law, I was haughtily informed, was only given the recipe after six months of marriage.

I really dislike that sort of attitude, and so I put the word out on the net- something new back then- and received this recipe a few hours later:

Mystery Cookies

Arrange 40 Saltine crackers on a greased cookie sheet
Melt 1 cup butter (not margarine!) with 1 cup brown sugar, and boil for 3 minutes
Pour this mixture over the crackers.
Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven
Cut the squares apart, and press a sliced almond into each cracker as it cools

Variation: sprinkle the baked cookies with chopped nuts and chocolate chips, and return to the oven for a few more minutes to melt.

now you're cooking with...

"Now you're cooking with gas", my father used to say when someone found a particularly efficient way of doing things. That was no doubt a popular saying when he was a small child, and it still applies, at least to those who favor the big commercial gas ranges seen in some upscale homes.

All home chefs fall into one of two camps. There are the electric range fans, who will tell you it's cleaner, and neater, none of which is true, and the gas fans, who will tell you that all professional chefs use gas, which is true, but that's mainly because gas heat is so much cheaper. (There are also those fence sitters who will argue that ideally one should have a gas range and an electric oven, but personally, I banish them to that ring of hell that Dante reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crises.)

I was brought up on one of those ubiquitous GE electric ranges that used to be a fixture in homes, and indeed my house was equipped with such a range when I bought it. I'd still be using it if I hadn't replaced it with a gas range ten years ago, and it would probably be working better than my current range, too. But I am a believer in gas cooking.

Now when it comes to real believers, it's hard to top my pal Burt, who may not be known as a chef, but whose talents with the oxyacetylene torch are widely admired. Here's Burt's recipe for hot dogs as he related it to me the other day:

1. Impale your hot dog on a handy railroad spike

2. Holding the spike in a vise or tongs, heat the end of the spike to red heat with your torch

3. Slide the cooked dog off the spike and on to your bun.

Simple, elegant, and embodying the kind of showmanship that distinguishes the great chefs from the merely ordinary ones.

lunch among the ruins

I decided to bring lunch today, as (1) it's bitterly cold, (2) I thought I might economize a bit and (3) there's all this leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge.

So I made a chicken sandwich.

The first thing you need in a good sandwich is good bread, or in this case, a good roll. Holiday Market has great Italian rolls from a local bakery, made with olive oil. That's a good start. I sliced on in half and toasted it, which adds some flavor and helps keep it from getting too soggy. Some mixed greens are always nice. But what about a condiment?

Rooting around in the fridge I found mayonnaise- Trader Joes, which is cheap and certainly as good as Hellmans- and Dijon mustard. A teaspoon of mustard and a dollop of mayo makes a nice tangy dressing. But it needed more... ah, a jar of ligonberry preserves. They're sweet, but tart, and make a nice contrast to the sharpness of the mustard. About another teaspoon of that went into the mix.

Fruit and mustard may seem like an odd combination, but fruit mustards, or Mostarda di frutta are actually a very common condiment in Italy; the best are said to come from Cremona.

Here's a typical recipe:

You'll need about 2 pounds of your choice of mixed fruits- apples, peaches, pears, apricots, and oranges- a 1 lemon, 3 cups of honey, a quarter cup of ground mustard seeds, and a cup of white wine.

Start by cutting the fruit into dice- say, a half-inch.

Place the fruit in a saucepan with a tablespoon of the honey and the juice and grated rind of the lemon, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for a half hour. Let it cool.

While the fruit is cooling, bring the wine and the rest of the honey to a boil and reduce by one third while stirring. What you're looking for is the consistency of maple syrup. Add the ground mustard to this mixture, and allow it to cool as well.

Mix the syrup with the fruit, pack in jars, and refrigerate.

Try this with a variety of hot and cold meats. In Italy, it's served with boiled meats, much as the English serve mustard with sausages and cold roast beef.

Back to lunch: Toasted Italian roll, sliced chicken, mixed greens, and a fruit-and-mustard dressing. I'll pop it in the toaster over here at work for a few minutes, and wash it down with a cup of tea.

skewered again

I've been reading up on shrimp farming lately. I thought this was something mostly done in open ponds in the third world, but increasingly it's being done on a large scale in the industrialized world, too, in better (read: more sanitary) conditions, producing better quality shrimp. All you need are a number of tanks, brine, equipment to clean and recirculate the brine, and postlarvae (larvae which have passed through three stages.) To feed them, you can use a variety of materials, a popular one being freeze-dried arctic crustaceans (available under the Cyclop-eeze® brand name; sort of a Purina Shrimp Chow, I imagine). You can even feed them on their younger siblings; the developing shrimp will feed on tiny, newly hatched, first stage larvae. Ideally you move the shrimp from tank to tank as they develop, constantly putting them into fresh brine to help keep down disease and infestation with other organisms.


There's even a shrimp farm here in Michigan. Russ Allen, who started out farming shrimp in South America, operates Seafood Systems, Inc., a high-tech shrimp farm in Okemos which has been operating since the mid 1990s mostly as a research facility, developing cleaner, more efficient aquaculture methods, and breeding better shrimp. Allen hopes to eventually move into a larger facility where he'll be able to produce as much as 50 million pounds a year, for a price of 2 or 3 dollars a pound. In the meantime, though, he's supplying shrimp locally at $6.50 to $11.00 per pound. I haven't tried any of his shrimp, but Eric Villegas, the chef and owner of Restaurant Villegas in Okemos, raves about it on his TV show and features it in his restaurant. (You can read more about Eric at his web site.)

Most of the cheap shrimp sold in grocery stores doesn't come up to the quality of Allen's shrimp; most of the frozen shrimp I've purchased lately has been downright dreadful. I've learned from experience that the only way to get decent shrimp is to buy it from a good fish market, preferably shell on. I get mine at Holiday Market in Royal Oak, and they usually have very good quality. Good shrimp should smell like the ocean and be very firm to the touch; soft shrimp have been repeatedly frozen and thawed and will turn to mush when cooked.

I think the best shrimp dishes are the simplest ones that let the shrimp flavor come through. Dishes that bury shrimp in thick, heavily seasoned sauces are often just covering up tasteless shrimp with poor texture, like the "seafood chili" I once mistakenly ordered at Tom's Oyster Bar. Shrimp should be cooked until just done, firm and pink, and no more. Often that means cooking them separately and then adding them to the dish just before serving. Here's one of my favorite ways of enjoying really good, fresh shrimp:

Shell and de-vein the shrimp.

Mix together equal amounts of:

bread crumbs
olive oil
finely minced fresh parsley
grated parmesan cheese

Add salt, fresh ground pepper, and crushed garlic to taste

Combine this mixture with your cleaned shrimp, and refrigerate for a least an hour. Overnight is fine.

Skewer the shrimp on thin bamboo skewers, making sure that some of the mixture sticks to the shrimp. It's best to run the skewer through each shrimp twice, to help keep them on.

You can cook the shrimp right away, or refrigerate them again. They'll keep overnight.

To cook, place the skewers under a broiler, or on an open grill. Watch carefully, and turn them over when they curl up and turn pink. Serve on the skewer or off, as you prefer.

Tofu: it’s what’s for dinner.

Most tofu recipes seem to fall into one of two categories: Tofu as meat analog (tofu dogs, tofurkey) or tofu as a nondescript filler (tofu burgers). Here’s an exceptionally simple dish that treats tofu as tofu, and makes a great light summer meal.

You’ll need 1 package of firm Japanese tofu, and two tablespoons each of:

tiny Chinese dried shrimp
sesame oil
rice vinegar
chopped green onions.

Cut the tofu into ½” cubes, more or less, and arrange in two shallow bowls.

Heat the sesame oil in a wok or saucepan and toss in the dried shrimp. They should sizzle for a minute.

Toss in the rice vinegar and chopped green onions, and immediately spoon over the tofu.

Serve immediately.

Roman Holiday

The other night, a couple of us were trying to remember the name of a plant that was once central to the cooking of ancient Greece and Rome, but is now either lost, extinct, or simply unknown. The Romans called it Silphium, or Laser, and as far as scholars can tell it was a member of the Ferula genus, which includes a number of plants known to modern cooks, including Ferula assafoetida, a plant from which a resinous extract is extracted and used in cooking over much of the Indian continent, where it is known as hing. The Greeks and Romans ate the greens, used the resinous extract as a spice, and the dried stalks as walking sticks and rods. The Romans grazed their cattle on it, which may have contributed to its disappearance. There are about 170 species in the genus Ferula known today, and many are still used today for their resinous extracts; whether the Sylphium of the ancients still numbers among them is open to debate.

The Romans had a much more restricted palette of herbs and spices available to them than we do today; besides sylphium, they had pepper, salt, cinnamon, honey, wine, loveage, and a condiment called liquamen, a liquid made from salt and fermenting fish. (If you’re familiar with the cooking of Thailand or Vietnam, you’ve encountered their versions of this, known as Nuoc Cham in Vietnam, and as Nam Pla in Thailand.) If you find this off-putting, consider that the essential flavor of liquamen or its Asian relatives is not terribly different from anchovy paste; the Worcestershire sauce that many of us pour on steaks and chops uses a healthy dollop of anchovy as well. Liquamen was used by itself, or in making other sauces, notably garum, which typically included wine, honey, and other seasonings.

To end today’s lesson, here’s a recipe adapted from the great cookbook of the Roman epicure Apicius, who wrote the earliest known treatises on seasoning and cooking:

VITELLINA FRICTA (Fried Veal)

You will need:

2 lbs veal chops or cutlets
1 cup of dried yellow raisins (sultanas)
1T honey
2T white vinegar
2 cups red wine
olive oil
1/4 cup fish sauce
pinch pepper, celery seeds, cumin, oregano, assafoetida
a small minced onion

Bring the red wine to a boil and reduce by half.

Reduce heat to a simmer and add the other ingredients.

While this simmers, fry the veal in olive oil until well done.

Pour the thickened sauce over the veal in the pan, and let simmer another ten minutes. Serve to your reclining guests.

make a mussel!

I suppose I love seafood more than any other kind of food, and mussels are among my favorite bivalves. They're very easy to make, and I like to serve them as an appetizer or a first course.

You can buy frozen New Zealand mussels on the half shell in many markets for about $7 for two pounds, and a lot of restaurants use these, but fresh live mussels have a lot more flavor, and they're not that much more trouble.

As an appetizer you need maybe 1/4lb per person; as a first course, a half pound, and as a main dish, at least a pound. When you buy your mussels, make sure the seller picks them over and discards any with broken shells, or any that are open- they're dead. Mussels are usually shipped from the wholesaler in 2-lb net bags, and they're cleaer to buy that way, but you'll have to pick them over yourself.

Mussels used to come covered with seaweed and with the "beards"- actually the byssal threads that the mussels use to attach themselves to rocks- attached. Most mussels these days come cleaned and with the beards removed. If you do get mussels with the beard on, scrub the shells with a brush under cold running water and give each beard a yank towards the hinge to remove it. (If you yank towards the front of the shell you can damage the mussel within).

Along with being pre-trimmed and scrubbed, mussels also seem to come pre-purged as well these days, something I don't think does much for the taste as they're half starved when you get them. The old technique was to sprinkle some corn meal over the mussels a few hours ahead of time to get them to eat the meal and purge themselves of sand and mud. I find that placing them in cold water for 20 minutes is sufficient. Some suggest soaking them in cold water; If I have a big batch, I sometimes place them in a colander under a cold shower head.

Here's my favorite mussel recipe:

Heat some butter- say a quarter stick- in a large stockpot (big enough to hold all the mussels) with a minced onion, and some chopped parsely. Cook until the onion is starting to soften.

Now raise the heat to high- use your biggest burner- and add 2lbs of mussels and about a half cup of white wine, and cover tightly. Cook for four minutes, shaking the pot occasionally.

Open the pot, remove from the heat immediately, and strain the liquid into a small saucepan and put this on a high burner. Distribute the mussels into serving dishes while the liquid in the saucepan comes to a boil. Reduce the liquid a bit, and whisk in some heavy cream. Pour this over the mussels, and serve immediately with baguettes or farm bread.

a tale of two chickens

I've noticed an amazing explosion of Rotisserie Chicken happening around me lately- everyone from Costco to you local market has installed a roasting oven, and consumers are flocking to these chickens (pun intended) like... well, like chickens, I suppose.

Even China is undergoing a rotisserie chicken craze. The Wall Street Journal reported not long ago that Wall-Mart can't roast them fast enough. Rotisserie Chicken has become, to the new middle-class Chinese household, what Fish and Chips was to the English household in the late 19th century- a convenience food as well as a liberator that freed women from a time consuming task, and gave them more time for family, recreation, and work outside the home.

Anyway, I've tried a lot of these chickens lately, and they're all good- even the $4.99 Costco chicken I bought the other day that, according to the label, was soaked or injected with a mix of ingredients, including sugar. I wouldn't feel bad serving any of these to guests. But they're not as good as they could be.

The problem is that they don't use very good chicken. Or rather, they don't use very flavorful chicken. The typical roaster you buy in the market is a young bird fed on bland food, and simply doesn't develop much flavor. You can do better at home, simply because you can buy a better chicken- I like the Bell and Evans chickens my local market sells (a lot of better restaurants use them.) And you don't need a rotisserie to make the chicken- although if you have one, go ahead and use it.

Besides your chicken, you'll need a roasting pan, preferable one with a wire rack so the bird doesn't sit in the drippings as it cooks. Here's one way to do it:

The day before- or at least an hour before you intend to roast your chicken, rinse it under cold water. Now place it in a bowl full of cold water in which you've dissolved about 2T of salt for each quart of water. This helps plump up the chicken and makes it a lot more flavorful. (You won't have to do this if you buy a kosher chicken- it's already been brined)

When you're ready to cook:

Remove the chicken from the brine and pat it dry.
Cut a fresh a lemon into quarter-inch thick slices.
Peel and crush 3 or 4 (or more) garlic cloves.
Place the lemon slices and garlic into the cavity of the chicken, and truss the legs. (I.e., just pull the legs together, and tie them with a few wraps of cotton twine.)
Brush the skin of the chicken completely with melted butter (you'll need perhaps a quarter stick)
Sprinkle a little salt and a good amount of fresh ground pepper over the entire chicken.

Place chicken in a 400F oven for one hour. Poke it with a knife. If the juices run clear, your chicken is done. (If not, give it another 10 minutes). Cut the string, bring it to the table, and impress your company. Or yourself.

Beef- the other red meat

Let's start this off with a good hearty beef dish- the kind of thing that's so welcome on a cold February night. This one is simple in the extreme, and yet, at least one friend thinks it's the finest beef dish she's ever tasted:

Preheat your oven to 325.

In a large Dutch oven or skillet, brown a tri-tip roast on all sides, starting with the fatty side. If it's very lean, add a few tablespoons of peanut oil to the pot. Add a dozen small or 6-8 medium onions, quartered, while the roast is browning.

The tri-tip is a cut that's new to most of us. In The Complete Meat Cookbook, authors Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly write:

"In the old days, when butchers cut their meat from the whole beef, they cut sirloins with the bone in, and the tri-tip portion, a triangular chunk of bottom sirloin, ended up as a nondescript part of sirloin steak. Nowadays the sirloin is boned out whole at the packing plant, and the two tri-tips are separated, boned, and sold to butchers whole, thereby creating a new and tender cut."

You could also use a beef brisket, or a similar cut. Just increase the other ingredients proportionally.

Back to the recipe:

Transfer the browned meat and onions to a casserole with a close fitting lid- I use a 3-quart Le Creuset enameled iron casserole. They're expensive, but they have a much better fitting lid than most inexpensive casseroles. (If the lid on yours doesn't fit well, crinkle some aluminum foil and use that to make a gasket to seal the gap.)

Add a little salt- maybe a half teaspoon- some fresh ground pepper, 4-5 bay leaves, a dozen dried prunes, a couple of quartered carrots, and enough red wine to cover.

Place the covered casserole in the oven and bake 3 hours at 325, or until the meat is tender. Don't let it dry out- check after a few hours, and add more liquid if necessary.

Remove from the oven and let cool. Refrigerate overnight.

The next day, remove the bay leaves, slice the roast across the grain- this is very important- into thin slices, and replace in the cooking dish. Reheat- say, 20-30 minutes at 325- and serve. It should be amazingly tender, aromatic, and just a little sweet.