No time for too much detail, but here are some recent dishes.
Chicken arroz caldo, Filipino comfort food from Jun-Blog. I made the chicken stock from scratch yesterday. I scoured the city fruitlessly (NPI) for calamansi, and even bought rangpur limes from Eataly, but ended up using regular limes as Jun recommends.
Beef pad prik king adapted from David Thompson. I made the curry paste from scratch, but anyone used to cooking Thai food in NYC will recognize the shortcuts used from the photo above – brined green peppercorns in place of fresh, Thai basil in place of the often unfindable holy basil (if anyone knows a source in Manhattan besides Bangkok Centre Grocery, which is often sold out, please let me know. Note that what is marked as “holy basil” in the fridge at Kalustyan’s is actually Thai basil.)
Madhur Jaffrey’s kheema, a Delhi slow-cooked ground beef dish from her first cookbook, is one of my regular favorite heartwarming dishes, and always a pleasure to make. It’s one of those meals where the various flavors waft in succession from the pan as the dish cooks, so that you gradually smell the meal in advance. It’s like eating twice. This is an easy variation she supplies after the main recipe, with peas. They’re a great, sweet & textural addition.
Kala chana (black chickpeas) made from Neelam Batra’s 1000 Indian Recipes. This is an inconsistent and difficult book for me, because I don’t cook in the quantities she recommends (frequently making a cup and half of a given paste or masala), and spices don’t always scale well. However this recipe turned out delicious.
I’ve been eating a TON of legumes, in fact, and will post more about those in the weeks to come. I’ve actually accidentally cooked vegan for a few days in a row. (I even realized I could make a full vegan meal including pasta puttanesca by substituting Marmite for the anchovies.) Anyway, if you’re into beans (and I highly recommend Russ Parsons’ no-soak method if you’re worried about all the prep time), then check out the excellent Rancho Gordo site for dried heirloom beans. Their Good Mother Stollards are meaty, earthy and with incredible depth. Expect them to take over 2 hours with the no-soak method, but boy are they worth it.
I leave you with a picture of the Good Mother Stollards below. Just some aromatics during the cooking, topped with chopped chiles. They are also great with Rancho Gordo’s “oregano Indio,” which is like Mexican oregano but more intense, with a citrusy lemony undertone.
That’s really “tampiqueños” but WordPress chokes on titles with special characters.
This is a straight-up recipe from Diana Kennedy’s Essential Cuisines of Mexico. Unlike her tamales recipe which I posted about a couple years back, this one requires no interpretation from the experts. Just make sure you leave your tortillas out a day or so, cut into 6 triangular pieces each, to get properly stale before commencing.
The green in the sauce comes a combination of tomatillos (tomates verdes) and grilled poblano chiles, which are quite mild. The former need to be simmered for a bit to soften them; the latter you need to grill over a flame (an open gas burner works fine) until thoroughly blistered and blackened on all sides. Both go into the food processor with fresh cilantro and epazote (I used dried epazote because that’s all I could find) plus white onion and salt.
Then – in a manner surprisingly similar to Thai chile pastes, you fry the sauce in vegetable oil (I’m guessing originally in lard, but I could be wrong – apparently the pre-Hispanic recipes fried the salsa dry), and add some chicken broth.
Next you fry the tortilla triangles until “they just begin to stiffen but not brown” (harder to judge than you might think), bring the sauce to a boil, and stir in the tortilla pieces. You need to find just that right consistency between too crisp and too soggy. As Nils pointed out to me, it’s a peculiarly Mexican thing.
Finally an enormous amount of fresh cold items are put on top: roughly chopped cilantro, thinly sliced large radishes, hardboiled eggs, roughly chopped white onion and hand-crumbled queso fresco. It’s the contrast between the just-sauced tortilla chips, redolent with the tart smokiness of the sauce, and the crisp fresh ingredients on top, that makes the dish. It’s essential to get the balance right. You serve the dish immediately.
Sopa de lima, or lime soup, is a Yucatecan dish. This version is from Wednesday’s New York Times article by David Tanis, a welcom reprieve from a rather sad front page piece focusing on gluttony… did you know it takes a 42-mile walk to burn off the calories from a typical Thanksgiving feaast, blahhhhhh I don’t care.
Obviously you can use the leavings from any poultry feast. However as Tanis points out, turkeys were domesticated in Mexico centuries earlier than they were here, and even exported to Europe before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Still, the hard part is the first part: roast a large bird and have sufficient leavings. In this case, I had roasted a 14-pound turkey using a combination of the Russ Parsons dry brine and Elmer Grossman’s Hungarian-American steam-foil-bag technique from Saveur, and had a hefty, meaty carcass, an unused neck (long story) and quite a few meaty bones.
I simmered these into a broth as per Tanis’s recommendation last night. I also left some tortillas from one of the vendors at Essex Street Market out to stale. That was the limit of my prep – most of the rest of the stuff was here around the house.
The recipe calls for roasting and grinding cumin, coriander seed and black pepper, which go into a mirepoix of (white) onion, celery and carrot, along with a cinnamon stick, garlic and salt. (Sidenote: when did Mexican and Caribbean cuisines pick up these spices? Presumably from the India trade, because cumin, coriander seed, black pepper and cinnamon are so clearly subcontinental in origin? Or?) You add the broth to that and simmer 15 minutes – an intoxicating 15 minutes, I might add. A man explained to me on Thanksgiving Day that smelling food is one-half the way to eating it, and he is absolutely right.
The rest is completely straightforward and as per Tanis’s article. I put in a pinch of Mexican oregano because I had some and because Diana Kennedy calls for it in her recipe which is, however, entirely different. The one thing I’d add is that you should not stint on the salt, even if you started with a well-brined turkey and despite the fact that the recipe calls for unsalted broth. Whatever salt is in the turkey is well diluted by the 12 cups of water, and you will need plenty more.
I love how green the garnishes are in certain Mexican dishes. I completely spaced on the avocado – it would have been nice, I’m sure, but I didn’t miss it. This dish is just fantastic.
Red-braised pork, or hong shao rou, is a popular dish in Sichuan province (there’s also a Hunan version that was allegedly Mao’s favorite dish). It’s also known as wu hua rou, or “five-flower pork,” because of the layers of skin, fat and lean in each piece of the meat.
It took me two tries to get this dish right. I initially used pork belly from Chinatown and the recipe from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty (known in the UK as Sichuan Cookery). I found the meat too fatty and the sauce underflavored.
After some research I learned that I’d probably not reduced sauce down sufficiently. I got a second piece of pork belly from Mario Batali’s incredible Eataly, which was significantly less fatty (although still with plenty of fat). I also took on some of the recommendations of eGullet user Prawncrackers, whose recipe for Dong Po pork on that site is served in UK Sichuan restaurants – he or she describes it as a “more ‘glamorous’ version of the dish.”
Below is the recipe that I used on my second try, which is a hybrid of the two approaches, and turned out fabulously unctuous & explosively flavorful. Served with white rice, roasted ground Thai chile powder and sriracha sauce on the side.
Some notes:
- the blanching is to rid the pork of any off flavors and make it easier to cut
- the deep frying makes the skin significantly more soft and delicate
- after 2 hours, the meat still had some chew, which I liked – you could take it to 3-4 hours to have it really melting
- like most braises and stews, it will taste even better after a night in the fridge! but is wonderful the day of as well
enough vegetable oil for deep-frying
1 1/2 lb boneless pork belly, skin still on
2-3 inch piece unpeeled ginger, smashed with a cleaver or heavy pestle
3 scallions, cut into 3 pieces each (white and green parts)
1 whole star anise
2 dried red chiles (I used Thai chiles)
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 tbs palm sugar
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1/3 cup dark soy sauce
1/2 cup Shaoxing rice wine
1 1/4 cup good brown chicken stock (ours was homemade from an old Gourmet recipe)
Bring a pot of water to the boil, blanch pork in boiling/simmering water for 10 minutes total.
Fill wok with enough oil to half submerge pork belly. Over highest possible heat bring to 325-350 F. Put pork belly carefully in oil, and deep-fry top for 1 1/2 – 2 mins, then carefully turn over and deep-fry the bottom for about the same time, keeping temp in that range as best as you can, also maybe 30 seconds on the sides and the thicker end of the belly if necessary. Remove pork to a plate with paper towel and allow to cool. (Prawncrackers said to pat meat dry at this point but I forgot.)
Cut belly into 2-3-inch chunks, leaving each piece with a layer of skin and a mixture of lean and fat.
Heat 2-3 tbs oil in a Le Creuset dutch oven or similar over very high heat, add ginger and scallions, and stirfry for 1-2 mins or so; add pork chunks, continue to stirfry for 1 min or so, add the rest of ingredients (the liquid should just barely cover the meat – adjust quantities for your pot, keeping proportions – do not dilute the mixture too much with the stock), bring to a boil, then let simmer gently over a low flame half-covered or uncovered for at least 2 hours.
A new take on the classic frittata which warms both the kitchen and the cockles is the green chili frittata. Contrary to popular belief the frittata is no longer your mother’s go-to for a pot luck and over the years has taken on myraid variations. The reality is that these days it’s acceptable to make anything into a frittata which is fantastic because of the dish’s versatility. Is it breakfast? Is it lunch? Is it a late-night snack? The simple answer: Yes.
Personally, I like to quench my sweet tooth with a nice banana frittata or if I’m feeling crazy the completely off the wall “Christmas Frittata” (even when it’s not XMas… hehe!!) but I recently tried something a bit more middle of the road and agreeable to everyone. The green chili frittata was great because it retains the familiarity of your standard frittata while adding a hefty kick. It’s like an old friend with a wild new haircut!
And do I even need to mention the frittata’s staying power? It’s just as good after a quick nuke as it is straight from the oven.
10 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 7-oz. can diced green chili peppers, drained
1 16-oz. container low-fat cottage cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup melted butter
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease 9×13 inch baking dish. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in the green chili peppers, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese and melted butter. Pour into prepared baking dish. Bake 15 minutes in preheated over. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and continue baking 35 to 40 minutes. Cool slightly and cut into small squares. Enjoy!
Another variation on a David Thompson recipe, this seasonal dish uses pumkpin, though any squash could potentially be used. If using pumpkin, select a small, heavy “pie pumpkin” over the large ones used for jack-o’-lanterns. Pierce from top with a heavy knife, then carefully carve into two pieces. Scoop out the inside and separate the seeds from the pulp. Discard pulp. Roast seeds on an oiled tray, salted, in one layer, in preheated 325-degree oven for about 25 minutes. Stir and turn after 10 minutes, and several times thereafter. They make a nice snack.
Carve half of the pumpkin into lozenge-shaped pieces, about an inch by an inch square, and about a half-inch thick. Be sure to remove the peel. Soften in a pot of boiling salted water for about 5 minutes or less.
The paste for this curry is relatively simple and very adaptable to different recipes, so make a bunch and save in the fridge – it will keep for months:
10 dried long red chiles (seeded, soaked in cold salted water and drained)
large pinch of sale
1 1/2 tbs chopped galangal
3 tbs chopped lemongrass
2 tsp finely grated kaffir lime zest
1 tbs chopped & scraped coriander root
1 tbs chopped red shallot
2 tbs chopped garlic
2 tsp shrimp paste (first loosely wrap in foil, then roast in a 450-degree oven for 5 minutes)
Pound each ingredient in a mortar and pestle until it becomes a paste, then add the next one, continuing until you have a fine paste.
You will also need:
1-2 lbs nicely marbled shell steak or ribeye, chopped across the grain and diagonally into 1X1X1/2″ pieces
oil for deep frying
large pinch of white sugar
2 tbs fish sauce
1/2 cup stock or water
5 kaffir lime leaves, finely minced
bunch of coriander leaves
Deep-fry the steak in 350-degree oil for about 10-15 seconds – you don’t want it cooked. Discard all but 5 tbs of the oil. Fry 3 tbs of the curry paste in the oil over medium heat until fragrant – about 5 minutes. Season with the sugar and half the fish sauce. Add the steak and stir until cooked – probably only 2 minutes at most – add the pumpkin pieces just before the steak is done, and stir thoroughly. Moisten during this process with stock or water if necessary – it’s probably not necessary, you should not have a “sauce” with this dish, which is why it’s called dry. It should be extremely oily and fragrant. Taste and adjust for seasoning – it should taste salty, hot, rich and slightly sweet in that order – add up to the remaining half of the fish sauce if needed to balance the flavor, being very careful not to overdo it.
Stir in the kaffir lime leaves and the coriander leaves and serve with jasmine rice, nam pla prik and other sides.
Myths are being exploded every day in the online foodiverse. Just as it’s been discovered that you can easily make no-knead bread, so also it’s been discovered that you can make no-soak beans (read that thread in its entirety before setting out on your journey). While this is not exactly revelatory – beans are not soaked overnight in many cuisines – a variety of myths have been exploded, namely:
1. soaking beans makes them cook faster – FALSE
2. soaking beans reduces those “side effects” – FALSE *
3. adding salt to beans at the outset increases cooking time – FALSE
* the main way to reduce “side effects” is to eat more legumes, or eat Beano. personally, I don’t happen to suffer from them so there.
This method, developed by Russ Parsons, takes a total of 90 minutes, often less. Essentially you preheat your oven to the level that will keep the beans at a steady simmer (about 300F for me), and bring the beans to a boil on the stove with some salt and about an inch and a half of good cold water. Then put the beans in the preheated oven for 75 minutes. Add aromatics, if you desire, about halfway through. At the end, taste for salt and serve over steamed white rice.
For the red beans shown at top I used Goya kidney beans and added a few smashed cloves of garlic, some bay leaves, and fresh sage leaves and summer savory from the garden. I think the savory works terrifically well with this dish. See photo of “aromats” above. (Not shown: a tiny bit of dried red Thai bird chile, de-seeded and crushed.)
Check for salt before serving over rice. Of course a full battery of hot sauces should be made available, plus some freshly ground black pepper and (in this case) a side of asparagus and some leftover chicken on top. (If I’d had time to make a fresh tomatillo salsa, that would have been perfect.)
I also tried black beans two ways. Again, the dried beans came from Goya.
The first way was simple no-soak black beans, prepared with the aromatics as for the red beans shown above. The result looked like this:
For the second way, I sauteed some shallots, garlic, onion, sage and chopped fresh green bird chile in olive oil, and added the cooked black beans to this soffrito, and sauteed for a bit longer.
This way came out more succulent-smelling and slightly more attractive-looking as well:
BUT! Strangely, I preferred the simple black beans with the aromatics (which of course could be varied a million ways). They were “beanier”. With the sauté, the garlic in particular took over the dish and made into something different. Not necessarily worse, but also not necessarily necessary with real dried no-soak beans like this. Try the earthy, simple version first and see how you like it.
As previously discussed, at last night’s Amoeba in-store, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks played an FCC-friendly rendition of their ‘Mirror Traffic’ jam, “Senator“. This morning, we send a hearty congratulations to Wayne J in Buellton, CA whose timely radio-ready replacement was chosen by the band & will be rerecorded on a new version of the song to appear on the backside of what shall be the most limited 7″ that’ll ever emerge from these four walls.
(Patrick left me to do the Matador Update, so I’m also filling in on the food blog)
Puffy Bread has been a staple on the Farrell breakfast table for years. Here’s what you will need:
- Pancake batter
- 1 tsp baking powder (if pancake batter is a couple days old)
- 2 pieces of whole wheat bread
- 1 stick of butter
- 1 liter of milk (carton-form)
Add baking powder to batter if necessary. Dunk a piece of bread in the batter. Warm a cast iron skillet using medium heat.
Turn the piece of bread over and really slosh it around. The sloshing technique will really work the batter into the bread. You will appreciate the gooeyness this creates from the first bite and even moreso at 1:30am when you return from clubbing to finish off what your daughter couldn’t.
Place 1/3 stick of butter in the skillet. Once butter is fully melted and a bit bubbly, add the fully sloshed bread to the skillet. Flip after it gets a bit carmelized. And repeat the cook.
Remove this piece from the skillet, add less maple syrup than you would want and serve to your daughter. The second piece is always like 5 times better because it’s less crusty and more evenly golden brown. The difference is almost imperceptible to a 4-year old unless her lame-ass mom narcs you out. So ensure mom is elsewhere doing something like taking a shower or watching Project Runway on Amazon Instant Video. The “oh honey, i got breakfast this morning, you go relax” method is your ticket to 2nd piece glory.
As for partaking, there are many methods but I prefer this one.
Cut the puffy bread into 1.5″ x 1.5″ inch squares. Take the carton of milk, open and create a rounded, slightly beveled edge on the lip of the carton to ensure a wide, even outflow. Skewer 4 to 5 of the pieces onto a longish fork and place into you mouth. Chew slowly at first, working the puffy bread into a delicious, maple syrupy paste. Once you can breathe a little bit, grab the carton of milk and start drinking, upping the viscosity of the paste into a swallowable consistency.
Once you’ve swallowed, rinse the mouth with more milk. And then take a couple moments before repeating so that your daughter doesn’t develop any poor eating habits by watching you eat too fast.
There are many permutations of this recipe. Different types of bread. Different types of toppings. The “my kids drank all the milk” dry method. But start simple, permutate thoughtfully, but always enjoy!
As a followup to last week’s post about Thai salads, here is a variation on that apricot salad – this time with braised slivered pork and mint. Although not shown in this photo, the salad contains crispy dried shrimp as well.
Any pork will do, but a fattier or more cartilaginous cut will work best. Blanch from a cold water start (salt the water), change the water if you like, bring to a boil again and braise – and be sure to remove when still slightly pink.
It’s not that these salads are meant to be eaten in summer, it’s just that they are best and easiest in the summer in New York – and of course are appropriate for the temperature.
Apricots are in season here right now, and I happened to have some, so I threw together the salad above tonight. Deep-fry the dried-shrimp till crispy (about 15 seconds), then drain and dry on paper towels. It’s essential to have good dried shrimp. These ones come from the Phillipines.
Toss the apricot slices with some salt and let sit for 5 minutes. Sprinkle on the dried shrimp and some chopped fresh mint leaves. The dressing should be composed of 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup fish sauce, 2 tbs palm sugar and 1/4 cup granulated sugar, heated gently until the dry ingredients are dissolved, then the mixture cooled, and finally mixed with 1/2 cup fresh lime juice (just before serving). Obviously cut down the amounts for the size of the salad – I made one-fourth the amount of the dressing recipe for the salad shown above. That said, “Thai salads are not so much dressed as anointed liberally” – David Thompson.
For variations on this theme, braise a bunch of cartilaginous pork and then sliver and scatter over the salad. Substitute fresh shrimp for dried – boil it briefly. Or get large shrimp and butterfly and grill them.
The best known Thai salad is som tumm, or green papaya salad. It comes from Isan in the northeast of Thailand (New Yorkers should check out the excellent new Isan restaurant Zabb Elee in the East Village) and shares similarities with the cuisine of nearby Laos. The above shot of the ingredients is misleading in some respects. The apple eggplant was destined for a curry, not the salad. And you really should use snake beans (also known as yard beans) for the salad, not regular Western green beans, though the latter will do in a pinch.
You prepare som tumm in a Lao mortar and pestle, which unlike the solid granite Thai version (used for pounding curry pastes) is made of clay and wood. The salad ingredients are gently mashed together, starting with garlic and Thai chiles and then moving on to snake beans, dried shrimp, palm sugar, lime juice, cherry tomatoes, fish sauce and the green (unripe) papaya. You can julienne the latter with a mandoline or benriner, or do it the old-fashioned way, holding the papaya in your left hand and rapidly hitting the peeled surface with your knife until the surface is scored with parallel cuts, then shave the pieces off, the repeat.
This som tumm recipe mainly comes from Kasma Loha-unchit’s invaluable thaifoodandtravel site, with some substitutions based on David Thompson. But the accompaniment is pure Thompson – sweet crispy pork. This is a two-day preparation and involves pork neck with palm sugar, Indonesian sweet soy sauce (kecap manis), oyster sauce, salt and star anise. The pork is marinated in the syrup and then dried overnight, and finally, deep-fried:
The combination of the chewy, sticky pork with the crisp textures and tangy flavors of the som tumm is intoxicating.
I recently was fortunate enough to acquire an Ultra Pridewet grinder, a contraption from Southern India that I’ve been lusting after for some time. It promised to take some of the labor out of making Thai curry pastes, an unforeseen use that was discovered on this egullet thread. Up till now I’ve been pounding the pastes by hand, one ingredient at a time, up and down not round and round, in a large granite Thai mortar and pestle. The resulting paste is smooth and creamy, a texture that is impossible to achieve in a food processor or a blender with their metal blades. The wet grinder rolls massive stone “blades” over each ingredient, mimicking the action of a pestle, really pulverizing them (and not heating them and slightly “cooking” them in the process).
You see the result above – the paste for a dry red curry of chicken, sitting on top of the blade mechanism. The paste contains seeded, soaked dried red chiles, salt, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime zest, coriander root, red shallot, garlic and roasted shrimp paste. Here’s the finished dish:
I adapted the recipe from David Thompson, who makes it with lobster. I deep-fried slices of chicken thigh for about 30 seconds, so still slightly pink in the middle, removed the chicken, and saved 5 tablespoons of the oil. I then fried the curry paste in the oil for quite a long time until fragrant, and seasoned with fish sauce and white sugar. I then added baby bok choy and stirfried in the oily paste briefly until not quite done, and removed it. Re-added the chicken and simmered, moistening with some chicken stock, then re-added the bok choy and cooked until done (perhaps another 30 seconds max). I checked the flavor and balanced the seasoning – the curry should be quite dry and oily, and taste salty, hot, rich and slightly sweet in that order. I garnished with shredded kaffir lime leaves and cilantro leaves.
This is stir-fried minced beef with chiles and holy basil, another David Thompson preparation. The chiles are a mix of long, medium-hot green or red chiles for dark & earthy flavor, and the short, fiery, floral Thai bird chiles. It is cooked in a wok over extremely high heat (watch the garlic in the chile paste reconstitute itself in seconds and don’t burn it!), and seasoned with both light and dark soy sauce. The holy basil leaves must actually be stirred into the dish over heat and not simply laid on top as a garnish, since the intense lemony-minty flavor of holy basil only truly emerges when it is cooked.
Make sure you are buying true holy basil, with its small green leaves, not Thai basil with its large, purple-veined leaves and stems. They are quite different and serve different purposes. This does not stop many stores from selling Thai basil as holy basil, including the great Manhattan grocery Kalustyan’s (otherwise a terrific place to find Thai ingredients, including some that are hard to locate in Chinatown).
This is Thompson’s jungle curry – his recipe calls for duck and snake beans; in this instance I used chicken and apple eggplants. The recipe calls for two pastes, one of jungle curry paste (fresh green bird chiles, salt, medium chile, galangal, lemongrass, wild ginger, red shallot, garlic and roasted shrimp paste) and one of garlic, wild ginger, salt and more fresh green bird chiles. It is fiery hot but bursting with herbal flavor from holy basil and green peppercorns. Some of his ingredients I’ve not been able to find, including (on this occasion) wild ginger or grachai, and pea eggplants. I’ve substituted young ginger and mature ginger for the grachai and had great success.
I’d never made puttanesca before but it’s one of my favorite pastas. Astonishingly I wasn’t able to find a recipe in either Marcella Hazan or Ruth Rogers, so I went online and found this recipe in Diner’s Journal (uncredited).
You start by sauteing anchovies and smashed garlic for quite a while in plenty of olive oil. The anchovies dissolve almost immediately, creating a sort of brown sludge in which the crushed tomatoes, black pepper and salt (not too much salt!) will bubble for another 10-20 minutes. (This initial phase unexpectedly reminded me of Thai cuisine, which often combines garlic with fish sauce or shrimp paste.)
Now, make the pasta. (Your pasta water has already been boiling, right?) At the same time, add olives, capers and crushed red pepper flakes to the sauce and simmer for the last 10 minutes or so. This is why you have to be careful with the salt – the anchovies, olives and capers may well add enough salt on their own.
I garnished with fresh parsley and served with a salad of butter lettuce, hyssop and summer savory from the garden. This pasta is incredibly delicious and more-ish. Easy to make and easy to consume. It’s described as a winter dish by the Times, but it has summer written all over it for me.
This is David Thompson’s curry of boneless pork shin with green peppercorns. A highly unusual recipe from a memorial book, at first he thought there was an ingredient missing – “it shouldn’t work.” However it does work, and is extraordinarily delicious. Two hours of pounding paste last night, then an hour and half of heating, cracking, scooping, chunking and double-milking coconut this morning. Boneless pork shin is not easy to find in NYC, so I substituted pork shoulder on the advice of my butcher – the braise in coconut milk and lemongrass offshoots takes some time, so allow plenty of time for your guests (I kept them satiated with a shrimp paste relish, also from Thompson, with raw apple eggplants and snake beans). I didn’t have fresh peppercorns, alas, or holy basil (substituted Thai basil, not at all the same) – but this turned out oily, fragrant and unbelievably delicious. It’s all gone, so I guess it worked…. huge amount of effort, and no leftover paste, but definitely worth it. It’s in the “Menus” section of Thai food, where a lot of great dishes are hidden.
If you want a link let us know.
This thiyal is an adaptation of a Keralan shrimp recipe. The curry is made with a dark, sour sauce of toasted grated coconut, tamarind and browned onion. Like many Keralan dishes, it is anointed at the end with an oily stir fry of dried red chiles, curry leaves and mustard seeds. It’s deeply complex & satisfying.
The original recipe is for seafood which makes me wonder whether it didn’t call for kodampoli (also known as “fish tamarind”) rather than regular tamarind. The recipe comes from Maya Kaimal’s Curried Favors, which doesn’t ever call for kodampoli though it is a common ingredient in this part of India.
I served it with spinach pachadi from the same book. This is a failsafe recipe – easy and delicious. The coolness of the yogurt plays off the spiciness of the chiles. The earthiness of the spinach and curry leaves permeates the entire mixture.
Three more Thai dishes, all adapted from David Thompson’s Thai Food. The first and second were served together.
Above is a Thai street food called neua pat bai grapao – stir-fried minced beef with chiles and holy basil. It’s unbearably delicious and very simple and quick to make. For an individual serving: Pound 2 long green chiles with 4 bird chiles and a large pinch of salt to make a paste in your mortar. Pound in 3 peeled garlic cloves. Heat a wok over high heat until extremely hot, add 1 tbs vegetable oil until extremely hot, fry the paste for about a minute, add 1/5 pound ground beef. Continue to fry and stir while breaking up the beef until mostly browned, about a minute. Add 3 tbs chicken stock (unsalted), a large pinch of white sugar, 1 tbs dark soy sauce, 1 tbs light soy sauce, sprinkle over a handful of holy basil leaves and serve.
I accidentally misread dark soy sauce as “black” soy sauce, a Thai variation that is sweet as well as salty. I’ve tried it both ways and can report that the black soy adds an extra dimension – make sure to taste and adjust seasoning at the very end though.
Holy basil is the basil generally used in spicy basil stirfries that you have encountered in Thai restaurants. It’s bitter and sharp and spicy compared to “Thai basil,” which is the Thai variant of sweet basil, the fragrant purple-stemmed garnish added to curries at the very end.
Kaffir lime juice dressing with grilled prawns (saeng wa gung pao) is confusingly listed under relishes in Thompson’s book, a hint that the Thai think of dish classification very differently from Americans. This looks and tastes like a salad to us. Thompson writes with typical understatement, “It has an unusual combination of flavors and textures that stimulates a flagging palate,” and that is true – it makes an excellent accompaniment to the minced beef stirfry above, served with jasmine rice and some prik nam pla.
The shrimp are grilled unpeeled, yielding a pleasant flavor of char. Once cool, you must peel, devein and shred them. They are then dressed with this fantastic dressing:
2 tbs kaffir lime juice
2 tbs Asian citron or mandarin orange juice
1 tbs fine white sugar
2 tbs fish sauce
and combined with the remaining ingredients. I used regular lime juice and mandarin orange juice (conveniently in season right now – the oranges are particularly juicy and rich) and the result is eye-poppingly delicious.
The remaining ingredients are idiosyncratic, to say the least:
2 bird chiles, pounded
3 red shallots, very finely sliced
1 tbs very finely sliced lemongrass
4 kaffir lime leaves, very finely julienned
2 tbs julienned young ginger
1 tbs julienned long red or green chile
handful of mixed mint and coriander leaves
If you’ve ever tried to eat even very fine slices of raw lemongrass or ginger, it doesn’t seem like this would work at all. For some reason, when all the ingredients are combined, they become perfectly edible, their texture and flavor balancing out the dressed shrimps perfectly. “The amount of shredding and the uncommon ingredients in this recipe suggest that it was originally royal food.”
Heavenly beef (neua sawarn) is another street food, “served with chile sauce and an ice-cold beer.” Totally fantastic. I used round, but Thompson recommends rump. The strips are marinated in a paste of coriander root, salt, garlic and white peppercorns, along with sugar and light soy, for three hours. You then press crushed coriander seeds into the beef and dry it in the sun until almost, but not quite, dry – about a full day. I used an oven set to just warm. You then DEEP FRY them in hot oil. Delicious!
By the way, Thompson has a new book devoted to Thai street food. If it’s anything like Thai Food, it should be fantastic, and the photos are supposed to be gorgeous. Unfortunately it’s coffee-table sized and difficult to use in the kitchen. Link is here.
Cucumber salad with crispy dried shrimp (yumm taeng kua). Sliced cucumber and red shallots in a dressing of fish sauce, palm sugar, white sugar, salt and lime juice, garnished with mint and coriander. Adapted from Su-Mei Yu.
Tamarind relish (nahm prik makam boran). Served with raw tomatillo, endive, baby carrots and pickled garlic. The relish consists of dried red chiles, tamarind pulp, salt, garlic, dried prawns and palm sugar pounded to a paste in a mortar and pestle. From David Thompson.
A dry red curry of shrimp (chuu chii haeng gung). The curry is called “dry” because it does not contain a large amount of soupy sauce, as “wet” curries do. A simple red curry paste is pounded (dried red chiles, salt, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime zest, coriander root, red shallots, garlic and shrimp paste), and then fried in the vegetable oil used to fry the shrimp, seasoned with white sugar and fish sauce, moistened with chicken stock (I simmered the shrimp bodies in the stock first), and garnished with kaffir lime leaves and coriander. I brined the shrimp beforehand; I should have cut down on the saltiness of the curry to compensate for this. Adapted from David Thompson (who uses lobster instead).
Crying tiger (seur rong hai), one of my favorite Thai dishes. Full details at the link. I used 20 bird chiles this time, but could have gone for even more. Next time I will try it with 30.
The crying tiger was even better cold a few days later. You can really see the green color imparted by the chiles and the crushed green peppercorns:
The meal was served with nam pla prik (chopped bird chiles in fish sauce, with a splash of lime juice in this case), and prik dong nahm som (minced chiles in vinegar sauce, with garlic and salt) on the side.
This green curry chicken was astoundingly spicy. I can go deep with the heat but this took it to a new level for me. Despite that it was really delicious – and texturally deep as well, the crunchiness of the red bell pepper offsetting the creamy Thai eggplant and the meatiness of the chicken.
The recipe comes from Su-Mei Yu again, but with a lot of changes (hers is for meatballs with different vegetables), so I’ll give it here in full.
First make the green curry paste. In a heavy mortar and pestle, pound:
9 minced garlic cloves in 1 tsp sea salt
15 minced bird chiles
1 tbs minced cilantro roots and stems
1 tsp minced galangal
1 minced stalk lemongrass (green parts and hard outer layer removed)
1 tsp grated kaffir lime zest
2 minced shallots
Slit lengthwise and soak in large bowl warm water with 1 tsp salt:
3 fresh jalapeno chiles
1 fresh guero or poblano chile
After 15 minutes, de-seed the chiles underwater, pat dry, cut into 1/2-inch chunks, and blend in food processor until pulped. Squeeze pulp in cheesecloth and reserve the chile juice in a bowl. Take remaining chile pulp and pound into the curry paste.
Mix the above with 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, and pound the entire dried spice mix into the curry paste.
Finally pound 1 tsp fermented shrimp paste into the curry paste.
To prepare the coconut cream and milk:
Put 4 coconuts into a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Remove, cool, and then whack them around the center seam with the back (blunt edge) of a cleaver until they split in two. Remove the flesh, peel any brown spots, cut into 1-inch pieces and put into a heavy-duty food processor. Pulse and blend for 30-60 seconds, then blend for another 1 minute until pulpy. Add 3 cups warm water and blend for another 30 seconds. Remove mixture to a bowl and massage the meat 89 times. Press the resultant pulp through a very fine sieve and refrigerate the result. Add another 5 cups warm water and massage another 89 times. Press resultant pulp through a very fine sieve and refrigerate the result separately from the previous bowl. After about an hour, remove both bowls from refrigerator and skim off the hardened coconut cream on the top of each bowl and put into a third bowl. Combine the thin milks.
Curry ingredients:
3/4 cup green curry paste (as above)
3-4 tbs reserved chile juice (as above)
1 cup coconut cream (as above)
3 cups coconut milk (as above)
2 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs sugar
5-6 kaffir lime leaves, torn
5-6 fresh green bird chiles, halved lengthwise
3 lbs chicken thighs and breasts, skinned, boned and cut into 1/4-inch diagonal strips sliced against the grain
2 large red bell peppers, seeded and sliced into 1/4″ diagonal strips
8 golf-ball sized Thai eggplants, sliced into eight pieces each
1 cup fresh Thai basil leaves
In a large saucepan, bring the coconut milk to a boil over high heat. Turn heat down to medium, and skim off the coconut cream that rises to the top and remove to a 12″ skillet.
Add the 1 cup of coconut cream to the skimmed cream in the skillet, along with the green curry paste over high heat, blending well, and fry until boiling. Lower heat to medium-high and cook, stirring, until the oil separates. Add the coconut milk from the saucepan along with the reserved chili juice. When the mixture begins to boil, add the fish sauce, sugar, kaffir lime leaves and fresh chiles. Mix well and add the chicken.
Continue to stir and fry until the chicken is browned all over, about 5-6 minutes. Add the bell peppers and the Thai eggplant and cook until the chicken is done, about another 7-8 minutes.
Very important: at this point, taste for balance of seasoning. It is essential that sweet, salty, sour and spicy are balanced. Add sugar or salt to balance as necessary.
Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with the Thai basil. The dish may be served hot or at room temperature.
I served the curry with jasmine rice and a salad of pineapple and crispy dried shrimp. The salad is extremely easy to make:
First, cut a fresh pineapple into 1/2-inch chunks and place in a bowl.
Second, heat a quarter-cup of vegetable oil over a high flame until extremely hot and dump in 4 tbs dried shrimp. Deep-fry these for 30-45 seconds. Lift shrimp out with a slotted spoon and set to dry on a plate with paper towels.
Finally make the dressing:
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 tbs palm sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Heat all of these in a saucepan utnil the salt and sugars are dissolved. Remove to a bowl and allow to cool. Add:
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
Stir well. Combine pineapple with fried shrimps and pour dressing over to taste. Garnish with Thai basil if desired.
Subtitled “heavenly chicken stew” in Su-Mei Yu’s now out-of-print Cracking The Coconut, keang gai faa is emblematic of older Thai cuisine. Its base is what Yu calls “Big Four Paste,” a pounded mash of cilantro roots, garlic, salt, roasted ground white peppercorns, and roasted ground coriander seeds. Using your big granite mortar and pestle, you pound another four cloves of garlic and ten bird chiles into the paste, and fry that in vegetable oil. Into the fried paste goes a chopped-up whole chicken to brown, followed by fish sauce, water and mashed-up lesser galangal or kra chay (I substituted ginger). Slivers of Anaheim chile go in towards the end, and the dish is finished with chopped arugula leaves for bitterness (the original calls for fresh whole chile leaves, but those don’t exist around here).
Just some recent cooking… have not had time for regular food posts.
Ruth Rogers’s spaghetti carbonara, from the River Cafe Cookbook, with the addition of fresh spring peas (this was from last May). I recommend the combination.
Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe for Keralan shrimp with coconut from the sadly out of print A Taste Of India, which covers India’s regional cooking. This is the first time making it that I was able to find a critical ingredient, kodampoli or “fish tamarind.”
It is a dried fruit from southwest coastal India and imparts a complex sour flavor – a more interesting one than regular tamarind.
I served the shrimp with another Keralan dish, a pachadi made with spinach and yogurt. Like many dishes from Kerala, this one plays bitter and spicy chile flavors off the creamy saltiness of the yogurt. It’s a great combination.
Tripe florentine. The recipe comes from Marcella Hazan with some alterations, and is not for the faint of heart. That said, it’s nothing compared to the famous Julia Child episode where she makes tripes à la mode de Caen and has several entire beef stomachs on display to explain exactly what’s going on.
Another Hazan, this one much simpler: spaghetti with tomatoes and tuna. It was summer and I dressed it up with some fresh basil from the garden.
Bourbon Red heritage turkey for Thanksgiving. I did a combination of a dry brine and a very fast roast in a convection oven. Onions and apples inside for moisture, paprika, salt and pepper on the outside, and massive amounts of butter.
Spinach, mushroom and cheese omelet. The recipe is from Miriam Ungerer’s Good Cheap Food, and is all about French technique, which she sets apart from the usual American version with its much browner, dryer outside. Obviously I didn’t completely succeed in avoiding brown. Lots and lots of shaking the pan.
Another one from Ungerer, which she calls poached chicken à la creme but which seems to me like classic American comfort food. Essentially you poach a chicken with its giblets plus vegetables, garlic and herbs until it’s falling apart (much like preparing chicken for tamales), and then use the resulting stock, along reserved fat, heavy cream, lemon juice, sherry and mushrooms to make a luscious sauce. The addition of the peas was my idea.
This is a daunting Persian dish from Najmieh Batmanglij’s New Food Of Life called gormeh sabzi. There are several variations in terms of the meat, but the key ingredients are an enormous amount of fresh herbs (parsley, coriander and chives) which you fry down in oil, and a quantity of dried limes plus fresh lime juice. The dried limes are wonderfully sour and pungent and the aroma of the frying herbs is overwhelming. We made this one with boneless leg of lamb, but it can also be made with lamb shanks, chicken or just kidney beans.
Another Persian dish, this is a variation on rice tahdig where the bottom of the rice pot is lined with potato to form a crust of its own. It’s a nice change from regular tahdig.
Before I start I should acknowledge that my photo heavy and link-tastic post is directly inspired from noted blogger Ira Kaplan.
I was originally going to write about one of my true loves: record stores. I met my wife in a record store and my life still revolves around them, but this year there was a bigger theme than records in my life.
Going places and being with the people you love.
My wife’s family is from Butler, PA and we spent two weeks there this summer doing a whole lot of nothing. It was great. We went to a Bluesox game, we went to the drive in (Photo from noted Bulter native CongoEels flickr.) We went to Moraine state park to ride bikes, swim and have a picnic. It all ruled.
Some other places I went:
Columbus, Ohio. I finally saw the Gibson Bros and it was fantastic.
The Adirondacks
I love a good wedding and this was one of the best in recent memory, must have something to do with the day. The whole weekend was all so beautiful. We went swimming in this lake.
It was cold and awesome.
Scituate, MA
I grew up nowhere near the ocean so a clambake was nothing more than an Elvis joke. In real life it is so much more
The Lost Weekend
I’d never been to Las Vegas, I’m far to scared to actually gamble (too many records I want to buy with that money.) Everything related to the weekend wasz fantastic, but I never expected to be so taken with the surroundings.
My final trip of the year is going to be the best one yet, but it is supposed to be a surprise so if you see my parents don’t tell them.
Shanghai hairy crabs are available live from vending machines in China (I don’t know whether this is as cool as the gold bullion vending machines in Abu Dhabi):
Bitter melon (or karela if you’re from Orissa) is one of the most reviled and possibly one of the strangest looking vegetables. It’s always fascinated me and I was determined to try it, especially since I found this recipe on the rather odd (but very interesting) Mahanandi blog, written by an Indian cook from Houston.
The recipe combines sweet, sour and bitter flavors via jaggery, tamarind and karela. It’s one of those Bengali sorts of recipes that involves steaming the vegetables in a deglazed pan of flavored oil, then adding the other ingredients and spices to finish it off to a sort of vegetable stew.
Karela is covered with zillions of strange little wart-like bumps. I was relieved to learn that you peel these off (along with the skin) before slicing it into bite-sized pieces.
The caramel-ish sweetness of the unrefined jaggery combines wonderfully with the sour tamarind (though I wish the tamarind I get was sourer) and the karela, which is not as bitter as most people say (or maybe I like bitter).
It’s too hot to cook. It was 96 degrees F today in New York City! Here are a couple of non-labor-intensive dishes. Above is a pre-made, but very fresh, salad mix from a purveyor at the Union Square Greenmarket whose name escapes at the moment. It includes snow pea leaves, a variety of bitter greens, and flowers. I tried to do as little damage as possible with a small amount of good olive oil and red wine vinegar.
The illustration below shows Ruth Rogers’s very simple carbonara from her River Cafe cookbook. It uses 3 egg yolks beaten into 60 ml double cream, and emerges flawless every time – much lighter and creamier than Marcella Hazan’s version. I enlivened it with some freshly shelled peas – boiled, drained and sprinkled on top at the end.
I posted some time ago about Marcella Hazan‘s extremely simple (and not particularly Italian) roast chicken recipe. I make this all the time and have refined the procedure a bit. The result is absolute perfection these days.
Here’s the modified recipe – the key is to observe the ratio of weight to cooking time to the letter, to really loosen and puncture the lemons (whose purpose I now understand better), and to follow the trussing instructions to a tee. The addition of good paprika adds a really nice color and a smoky undertone. The higher temperature at the end leaves you with a really golden-brown, crackly skin – just be sure to disable the smoke detector before that part.
one 2.85 – 3.85 lb whole chicken (preferably Murray’s)
two small lemons
good, fresh Hungarian semi-sharp paprika (e.g. from The Spice House)
coarse sea salt or kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
butcher twine
trussing needle
Preheat oven to 350 F. Remove giblets and neck, pat chicken completely dry with paper towels, both inside and out. Put two tablespoons salt in a mortar, add a generous dump of the semi-sharp paprika, and a good amount of freshly ground black pepper. Grind with pestle. Season chicken thoroughly all over, inside and out. (You don’t need to use all the seasoning – it may get too salty – just make sure you have covered with a thin layer.)
Wash and dry lemons, then loosen their insides by rolling them with both hands pressed firmly on top until you can feel that the juice is flowing. Pierce them deeply all over at least 20 times each with the trussing needle. Insert into cavity of chicken.
Sew chicken closed with 18″ twine. If lemons don’t quite fit, use skin flaps and the pope’s nose to close the gap (I never remove any fat). Sew tightly. Truss legs tightly together so that they are pressed firmly against the breast (you may need the help of someone’s finger to get the knot right).
Place chicken upside-down (legs facing DOWN) in a glass baking dish and put in oven. Cook for 30 minutes at 350.
Remove chicken from oven and rapidly turn over (legs facing UP). Return to oven and cook for an additional 30 minutes (for a 3-3.85 lb chicken) or for an additional 25 minutes (for an under-3 lb chicken).
Now turn heat up to 450. Cook for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and carve. Save the juices that run onto the carving board and pour them over the chicken (and over the white rice, which I strongly recommend serving with this dish) – they are “perfectly delicious,” to quote Marcella.
Note: No basting is needed! Again, to quote Marcella, “This bird is self-basting.”
I’m not certain why this recipe is always such a success, but I think it’s due to the following:
- The salt opens the pores inside the cavity
- The punctured lemons inside the trussed-up cavity baste the upside-down breast in the first phase, keeping it moist
- The trussed legs protect the breast from drying out on the other side
- Because the breast is both moist and protected, it’s possible to cook the dark meat to the degree required for doneness
- The paprika lends the skin an appetizing reddish-brown color – appearance is a huge part of what makes things tasty!
Summer means hot dog season. I happened to be travelling around Western Mass., which is a hotbed for certain kinds of dogs (where New England intersects with the upstate New York types), so I stopped by a few well-known shacks.
In the Pioneer Valley, the foot-long dog rules, served of course in top-loaded New England style buns. Tom’s Hot Dogs in Whately, Mass. offers a steamed-foot-long, as shown above. I had one with yellow mustard and onion, one with ketchup and relish. Their homemade baked beans are also superb, redolent of molasses and flecked with pork and spices.
Not far away, in Leeds, Mass., is Scotti’s, housed in a long, twin-peaked roadside building. Scotti’s serves the same steamed franks (what brand are these?), but the recommended toppings here are chili and cheese:
The cheese is just very slightly melted from contact with the hot dog and the hot chili. The bun is not heated, grilled or steamed at all (very different from what you’d find in coastal New England). It’s absolutely delicious, the dog’s natural casing bursting with a crisp snap, and the aromatic chili and cheese just folding right in.
About an hour away, across the hills into the Berkshires, you can find the highly idiosyncratic Teo’s Hotdog Restaurant. Located off the highway in a difficult-to-find, nondescript strip mall, Teo’s is actually a super-real blue collar bar that also serves hot dogs. MINI-hot dogs:
It’s normal to order 6-8 of these, and wash them down with an ice-cold Bud served in a chilled goblet. All the other diners gave every impression of having eaten there every Thursday for the past 20 years. The dogs came in top-loaded buns (which surprised me this close to New York State) with a fine, bitter chili and onion topping.
When I returned to the city I found myself possessed with the desire to make hot dogs. For some reason I bought top-loaded buns (which I do love) but Sabrett’s hot dogs. Sabrett’s are classic NYC all-beef wieners, the kind you get from stands around the city. When I first moved to New York in the ’80s, Gerard, who had been living here for a couple of years, had become a hot dog connoisseur, and explained to me that the stands mainly sold two brands: Sabrett’s and Golden “D”. He preferred Sabrett’s, as do I, and told me that the brand on the stand’s umbrella could be misleading: you need to look at the brand on the sticker on the side of the stand. I’m not sure whether this rule still holds. In fact, I’m not sure that Golden “D” hot dogs are still made. I still love Sabrett’s dogs, and unlike most of my friends and co-workers, am happy to get a “grey-water dog” from a stand around town, loaded up with brown mustard and sauerkraut and served on a steamed side-loading bun.
ANYWAY, I decided to grill the buns in butter like we do in Eastern Mass. and in Maine. Loaded ‘em up with the Sabrett’s dogs, which you cook by dropping into boiling water, bringing back to a boil, covering, and letting sit off the heat for 7 minutes. The first toppings I used were French’s yellow mustard, ketchup and sweet relish, plus a side of bread and butter pickles:
Although the St. Peter’s ale washed them down just fine, there was something schizophrenic about having a salty, garlicky all-beef New York hot dog with yellow mustard, ketchup and relish in a buttery, grilled New England roll!
Even the best hot dogs are really condiment delivery systems, so I pulled out everything I had in the fridge, including an extra large sack of super-adulterated, heavily flavored Sabrett’s sauerkraut:
(Actually I forebore from pulling out European mustards, including two superb Irish ones that Fiona gave me – just seemed the wrong place for them.)
The magical combination for these dogs turned out to be the Sabrett’s sauerkraut with Mr. Mustard’s HOT mustard:
Love the design of that Mr. Mustard label. And of course, I steamed the buns this time – simply by putting them into a steaming steamer for about 45 seconds and then removing them with a pair of tongs.
This has been a brief survey of just a couple types of Northeastern hot dogs. There are of course many, many varieties nationwide, from Coney Islands to Michigans to char polishes. Serious Eats is doing a nationwide survey of them. I’m just going to name and link some of my favorite places:
Boston: First place mention has to go to the legendary Speed’s Hot Dogs. But I’m also a huge fan of The Wieners Circle on North Clark. It even has its own Wikipedia entry now. Just heaven (and basically an entire salad) on a roll – one that magically holds together with perfect proportions and explosions of flavor.
Los Angeles: California dogs are wonderful. My favorite in SoCal was Tail o’ the Pup, located in a building actually shaped like a hot dog. With typical lack of respect for their cultural heritage, the Californians have actually evicted the place. The structure has been put in storage for now. WTF? It’s not like they don’t have enough space down there. Not that New York is much better about this kind of thing (see: Gino’s Italian Cuisine closing… to be replaced by a cupcake place called Sprinkles???!?! O tempora, o mores…)
Seems slightly paradoxical, but in many cultures around the world, a hot spicy soup is the cure for those who are particularly averse to these stifling summer days. As the streets around Matador’s office become more and more steamy, providence informed that I post my take on a classic heirloom recipe that I discovered several months agone in Eric Hites’ essential ‘Everybody Loves Ramen: Recipes, Stories, Games, & Fun Facts About the Noodles You Love’. The publishers do not exaggerate, in this, “The Perfect Gift for The Graduate” the harmony you’ll find with instant ramen, between affordability and exquisiteness is elegant, and indeed, perfect.
Taking a slight left turn from Hines’ procedure, I find that Nissin’s “Cup Noodles” are superior to the standard brick-shaped “Top Ramen” packets. It’s easier to monitor the noodles, keeping them slightly al dente to enhance their natural nuttiness. The cups also feature much lusher dehydrated vegetables — sweeter corn, crunchier carrots, crispier peas. The broth fresher, more savory. While many prefer the chicken and beef flavors, I’ve taken a certain fondness toward the shrimp variety. It’s a classic and it came as no surprise to learn that in Japan, the shrimp flavor is simply termed “Plain” (though, the complexity in flavor is far from it). The more nouveau permutations of these favorings (Salsa Picante, Spicy Chile, etc) should stay on the shelf.
I find that there is a simple, yet delicate procedures that take a little bit of practice to get the perfect noodles.
I’ve taken a slightly unique approach to flavoring the soup. Add 3-5 dashes of classic Tobasco sauce — more if you’re feeling a little adventurous. I had to venture over to Williamsburg Brooklyn’s C-Town to find this variety as it’s become rarer and rarer to find in certain stores. But trust me, the trek was worth it: the combination of the slight sweet vinegary-bite (derived from the Tobasco company’s aging process) and the relatively moderate Scoville scale rating do not only contribute a slight tang, but I’ve found it draws out the natural umami flavors from the broth powder and baby shrimp. I’ve tried other hot sauces (Tapatio, Crystal, Frank’s, Sriracha, etc) which often yield interesting results, but I suggest that novices start with the “original”.
It is essential that you apply the Tobasco PRIOR to adding the boiling water so as to allow it to coat the noodles throughout the cup, otherwise, you’ll encounter an irregular bite. I’ve found that letting the hot sauce-soaked noodles marinate for a few minutes increases the evenness in flavor.
Bring several cups of water to a slow, rolling boil in a tea kettle or small sauce pan. As soon as the water begins to boil, turn the burner off and let the water cool to about 85-90 °C
Follow the directions closely on the packaging (lift portion of lid, fill water to line and let sit for 3-5 minutes). I’ve found the perfect time to be about 3 minutes and 23 seconds.
I paired my noodles with a 2008 Touraine La Tesniere. Wooden or ivory chopsticks are the preferred eating implements, but I’ve also found that using a plastic fork can also add to the traditional experience of enjoying your noodles. Sip the broth directly from the styrophone cup, as it rolls across your palate, the epiphany in flavor can be described as nothing short of nirvana.
