Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Awesome End-of-Season Avjar (Roasted Red Pepper and Eggplant Dip)
Sweet peppers and eggplant roasting on my gas burners.
For weeks, I’ve been meaning to post this delicious recipe for tangy, smokey avjar, the Balkan roasted red pepper and eggplant dip that’s known as “Serbian salsa.” At least we still have some local peppers and eggplants at markets here, thanks to an unusually late summer harvest that was otherwise miserable for farmers.
Avjar: The tangy, smokey finished product, all blended up.
I first encountered the spread at Ziba’s Pitas, a favorite (and the only) Bosnian food cart in Southwest Portland. Unfortunately, apparently she uses the jarred version. Hey, at least Ziba makes her own dough for the flaky, stuffed pitas.
Reading about Vanessa Barrington’s new D.I.Y. Delicious cookbook inspired me to make the dip (scroll down for the recipe). It’s easy to roast the peppers and eggplant on your stove-top if they are powered by gas. Of course, roasting does make a bit of a charred mess on the burners that your husband may complain about later. But avjar is worth it. Feel free to adjust the ratio of red pepper to eggplant in the recipe. I like mine more red peppery (sweeter) than I made it last time, and I see some recipes, like the Julia Mitric’s one for NPR, call for more peppers. And don’t worry about not having Aleppo pepper. I’m pleased with the results I’ve gotten using regular paprika. Then there are recommended ways to preserve avjar, like they do in the old country. But I’m not sure how the food safety behind this approach would check out. I decided to just freeze some (that hadn’t been cooked to death first) instead.
Avjar is a great appetizer spread to put out, perhaps alongside some homemade hummus, when you have people over. I love it slathered on crusty French bread and topped with a crumble of goat cheese or feta for creamy contrast. I’ve also been known to eat it by the spoonful right out of the bowl.
I like it served as brushetta, on toasted French bread, with a little crumbled feta on top.
Thank you, Mrs. Eggplant Head!
Chinese-Thai Chanterelle Stir-Fry
Improvised stir-fry with chanterelles, carrots, tomato, beet greens and fresh banana peppers, with Thai basil, Shaoxing wine, soy, honey, a splash of fish sauce--surprisingly good. Lots of minced garlic and ginger sauteed in oiled wok first.
It's prime chanterelle season! The wet weather yielded a good harvest. One of the bright spots of fall!
We’ve got such meaty fresh chanterelles at markets this season, I can’t find enough ways to use them. My default recipe is Ivy Manning’s whole wheat pasta with chanterelles, which always appeals. I’ll have to also check out this salad recipe of hers. Then we’ve topped pizza with sauteed chanterelles and slip them into tomato pasta sauce. But I’d never tried them in an Asian stir-fry, until tonight.
Sauteed chanterelles cook down into velvety morsels with concentrated flavor. They’re so much more dense and complex than the shiitakes I usually use in stir-fry. For this impromptu dish, we began with hot peanut oil in the wok, in which we quick-fried some minced ginger in garlic. Then in went the cleaned and sliced chanterelles, then the carrots, then some salt, then after they fried a bit, some Shaoxing wine to deglaze the pan. Then we added chunks of a whole fresh tomato, which cooked down into a sauce, and fresh banana pepper and finally some wilted beet and turnip greens long neglected in the fridge. And pieces torn from a bunch of browning Thai basil, which reminded me to later add a splash of fish sauce. As it cooked, I splashed on a drop of sesame oil, light soy sauce and honey. Just before turning off the wok, we mixed in some day-old Basmatic rice. It was a Chinese-Thai fusion dish, which isn’t uncommon. At our local Thai restaurant, Dan likes to order “drunken noodles,” which is basically stir-fried broad-cut Chinese noodles or chao fan.
Any other suggestions of what to do with chanterelles before this fleeting season runs out? I’d love to go foraging again sometime. But I’ve lost some motivation since they’ve been relatively inexpensive at the market, often less than $10 a pound.
Ivy Manning's whole wheat pasta with chanterelles, from her beautiful Farm to Table cookbook.
Oaxacan Chileatole De Elote (Chileatole Of Fresh Corn)
Diana Kennedy's Oaxacan soup, with sweet corn from Luke Beene's organic Southtown Corvallis urban farm.
For some reason, I thought the local sweet corn season was over. Or that it never really happened, with all the poor weather we’ve had this year. So I was happy to find delicate fresh ears of corn at Luke Beene’s stand at the farmers’ market today. I arrived at closing time (as usual), rushing around in a panic to buy this sweet end-of-season produce (corn and raspberries) before it’s too late.
Had a corn revelation today. Cut the cob into chunks and only then slice off the kernels. That way they don't spray everywhere. Your knife stays closer to the cutting board.
Finding the corn meant I could make Diana Kennedy’s Chileatole De Elote (Chileatole Of Fresh Corn) soup. I knew Mexicans made soups with floating chunks of corn still on the cob, but I’ve hardly tried them. This recipe is from Kennedy’s beautiful-sounding new love letter to Oaxaca cuisine. The recent NPR piece set in her lush vegetable garden and kitchen cast a spell on me. There’s just something about Oaxaca. Of course, it’s the only place in Mexico we’ve been, but we’re not alone in believing the cuisine, with its moles, is among the best in Mexico. That’s where we did the Seasons of My Heart cooking school. And we continue to enjoy Oaxaquena comida here in Corvallis, as a majority of our Mexican immigrant population hails from that state.
Longjing Xiaren with Tiny Oregon Pink (Bay) Shrimp
Dragon Well Green Tea Shrimp with sweet and sustainable (unfortunately precooked) Oregon pink shrimp.
Somehow blogging has gotten away from me again, with the start of the new term. Evenings are chilly here now — fall is in the air. Pumpkins and other orange-fleshed winter squashes fill the markets, while we’re still enjoying the last of this fickle summer’s (mostly green) tomatoes, cukes and zukes. I’m trying to enjoy it all (and put some food up as time allows) before it slips from our grasp.
I’ve been reporting from the Coast some for KLCC. In Newport recently, I had a chance to pick up some extra-fresh (and sustainable!) tiny Oregon pink shrimp at Local Ocean. I thought they might most resemble the sweet, Chinese river shrimp you can’t find here. I needed them for the Longjing xiaren (Dragon Well green tea shrimp) recipe I ran with my recent NPR Kitchen Window column. Only problem is the Oregon shrimp only come pre-cooked. So I just cooked them as quickly as possible with my recipe. They fell apart a bit, but still had a sweet, mild taste. I especially recommend dipping the sauteed shrimp in sherry (or similar brown) vinegar for an umami punch. That’s how the Longjing Xiaren were served at the tony 28 Hubin Road restaurant at the Grand Hyatt in Hangzhou.
Just whatever you do, don’t use canned Oregon pink shrimp from Trader Joe’s. I was excited to find them, but they’re disappointingly mushy and fishy. I tried in vein to make a shrimp salad with them. There are other salads I’d like to try with the fresh specimens, such as this Asian shrimp salad from Portland-based Newman’s Fish Company.
Sorry, Trader Joe's: Your canned Oregon shrimp are mushy and fishy, really anything but crisp.
Ningbo Crab with Sticky Rice Cakes (Nian Gao)
The most memorable dish Chen Leilei made for us, with fresh live crab and their roe.
My poor attempt to recreate the dish, with too-small, roeless Maryland blue crab.
For more Hangzhou recipes, check out my NPR Kitchen Window column.
Cleaning and cutting up live crab is not for the faint of heart.
I had no problem watching Hangzhou TV chef Chen Leilei do it when she gave me a cooking lesson back in China in August. But I had more trouble when I tried to recreate the recipe, using too-small Maryland Blue crabs, with my dad in Virginia.
Chen’s Ningbo Crab with Sticky Rice Cakes (nian gao) was about the best thing she prepared for us at her apartment in Hangzhou. We met her at a local, open-air wet market, where she picked out the still-swimming fresh crabs. At the market, she also bought those pillowy glutinous rice sticks (nian gao) so much fresher than the refrigerated or frozen “rice ovalettes” (known as dduk in Korean) you find at Asian markets here.
The finished recipe, from the seaport of Ningbo just east of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, had the perfect balance of salty, sweet and umami flavors smoothed out by the presence of the dry sherry-like Shaoxing wine. This ubiquitous cooking wine is central to Hangzhou dishes and shows up in much of Chinese cuisine. Pick some up at your local Asian market and use it to enhance any stir-fry or dipping sauce.
What follows is my attempt at translating Chen Leilei’s recipe. And if you’re squeamish about live crab, try boiling them in salted water for two minutes first before you dismantle them. Just stun them unconscious first (by hitting the head against the cutting board), so they aren’t boiled alive.
Ningbo Crab with Sticky Rice Cakes
Makes about 4 servings
2 live crabs, weighing about a pound total (mature females with roe if possible)
1/3 of a 2-pound package of sticky rice ovalettes, separated and softened in hot water
Small bowl of cornstarch for dipping crab
2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
2-inch knob of ginger, peeled and cut into slivers
3 teaspoons sugar
1 cup water
1 bunch scallions, quartered lengthwise and sliced into 2- inch strips (or use a mix of scallions and garlic chives or Chinese leek flowers)
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1/2 cup Shaoxing wine
1.Stun the crab, remove aprons and carapace (reserve whole back shells for stir-fry) and clean out guts and lungs. Quarter crab and bash the shell a bit with cleaver so flavor will seep out when it cooks. Dip exposed meat in cornstarch to keep it in the shell and add texture. Separate the rice cakes and soak them briefly in hot water to soften them. Drain them.
2. Heat canola oil in wok. Add slivered ginger and stir-fry a minute, until fragrant. Add crab pieces (including the whole carapaces) and stir-fry about 4 minutes, until the shells turn red.
3. Add the Shaoxing wine, half the scallions, soy sauces, sugar, rice cakes and water. Cover with lid and simmer about 2 minutes, until done.
4.Remove lid and stir in remaining scallions. Plate and serve, with crab crackers if necessary.
Chen Leilei picks out the crab.
Cleaning the live crab. That orange roe is crucial for flavor.
Cutting up the whole crab.
Dip the exposed meat in cornstarch before stir-frying.
The much smaller live Blue crabs I used from the Asian market. Next time, I’ll try it with larger Dungeness or Red Rock out here in Oregon.
These immature crabs had no roe to flavor the dish. Crab roe is really big in Shanghai and Hangzhou cuisine.
Ha-la for Rosh Hashanah (and Our Two-Year Anniversary)
20 oz. Ring O' Challah from New Morning Bakery in Corvallis. The stuff is more dense, eggy and sweet back East, but this is a decent substitute. Hä-lä, as the bakery spells it out phonetically, is no longer a rare delicacy here.
Our first night in Corvallis, almost exactly two years ago. Funny, Dan has returned to sleeping on the floor some. He thinks it's good for his back. We need to get a tatami mat.
It’s September 2010, which means we’ve been here exactly two years now. Though after another summer mostly out of town, it somehow feels like we’re moving in once again. It’s a time of new beginnings. With the new school year and approach of fall (it’s friggin’ cold here!), somehow it makes more sense to celebrate the new year now instead of in January. It also just so happens to be the two-year anniversary of this blog!
Yet walking around the Corvallis Farmers’ Market yesterday with a gal from back East who is new to town, I realized how comfortable I’ve finally gotten here. I’m especially grateful for the farmers, chefs and activists who make our local food community so vibrant.
Speaking of Rosh Hashanah, this article on kreplach, the Yiddish dumpling, made me nostalgic. I only made them with Nonny (and my mother) once, but I have fond memories of rolling out the dough and stuffing the wontons that day. Nonny’s mother’s kreplach recipe calls for cinnamon-spiced chopped brisket or roast beef, but any leftover meat can be used. Maybe I’ll try a vegetarian version, since we feel compelled to eat less meat these days.
Any other Jewish foods (Ashkenazi or otherwise) to out try this time of year? I plan to make Stuffed Swiss Chard (like dolmades) once I stop testing Hangzhou recipes for my next NPR column. Enough Chinese food already:)
Local challah, local Honeycrisp apples from First Fruits Orchard, local Honey Tree Apiaries honey for a sweet new year. Plus, a real honey wand I picked up in Brazil. Now, I see the beauty of these things. Less sticky mess when drizzling honey.
Diva Cukes and Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes
Sweet Sun Golds are finally ripe.
Raw dinner of rice wine vinegar- and-sesame oil-marinated cukes and cherry tomatoes bathed in olive oil, garlic and basil and tossed over pasta.
Maybe I should only try to blog during the academic term, and then I wouldn’t leave my readers hanging come summer. Believe me, I so wanted to blog these past few weeks, and have the pictures and notebooks full of musings to prove it. But the Great Firewall of China wouldn’t let me. WordPress.com and Facebook are blocked; though news sites such as NPR and the New York Times (which was in 2000) now aren’t. How I now treasure the freedom to troll the Web at leisure.
My first eggplants.
My first peppers, too.
One delicate zucchini. When more come, I'll turn to these recipes.
It’s refreshing to come home to garden-fresh veggies after two weeks of slurping down greasy sauces and fatty pork belly. Thanks our dear accupunturess friend, our tomatoes, eggplant, beans, cukes, zucchini and herbs remained watered in our absence. So today, orange Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, Diva and slicing cucumbers, some small strawberries, basil, tarragon, some baby eggplant and gone-to-seed fennel welcomed us home. Sweet, raw goodness. For a light dinner, I marinated the cherry and yellow pear tomatoes in olive oil, garlic, basil, tarragon and salt and pepper. I shaved in a delicate zucchini and small green pepper (also from the garden) for good measure. Then we served this raw sauce over pasta. To ease the transition back from Asia, I quick-pickled the cukes with seasoned rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, red onion, garlic and a tad of salty ume plum vinegar. Dan was tired of those flavors. But somehow they still had some lingering appeal for me.
Corn, Tomatoes and Melons from a Sacramento Valley Roadside Stand
Ripe tomatoes for 49-cents a pound. Local, yes, but obviously not organic.
The tedious drive down I-5 from Corvallis to the Bay Area is not one we hope to make again anytime soon, at least not there and back as we did in one weekend. But we had a wedding in Napa, and since our budget and patience have been drained by summer travel, driving seemed preferable to flying.
There were bright spots along the way: a satisfying outdoor lunch at The Cottage in Cottage Grove, spectacular views of Mount Shasta and gourmet tacos and agua fresca in Ashland. But the most memorable stop? A nondescript roadside stand on Highway 20 near Sacramento, just before we exited for I-5 N to Redding, and finally, Oregon. We passed it by, but I made Dan turn back. Summer corn, which isn’t quite yet ripe in cooler Corvallis. Melons. Giant Beefsteak tomatoes. I didn’t care if they weren’t organic. At least they were local, grown (perhaps with copious amounts of synthetic fertilizer and fungicides) in the fields that backed up to the stand. In the hot California sun.
The Charter Family Fruit Stand, on Highway 20 and King Road, just before you exit for I-5 towards Redding.
It was Sunday afternoon and packed with customers. They husked ears of sweet corn, sitting in heaps on ice, five for $1. Green bell peppers were five for $1, too. Tomatoes were 49-cents (marked down from 65-cents) a pound. At the farmer’s market, I think I’ve paid up to $3.50 a pound for organic tomatoes. Here, generic orange-fleshed melons were 2 for $1, as were fragrant cantaloupes; large honeydews and mini watermelons were just $1 each. The produce was local, fresh and cheap, and people couldn’t get enough of it. We grew giddy ourselves, coming home with such bounty for less than $10. I’m still committed to organic agriculture, but I choose local over pesticide-free produce shipped in from China or Latin America. And this farm stand makes affordable, healthy produce available to the masses.
Sweet corn on ice. I'd never seen that before.
As we drove home, I planned to make gazpacho and Mexican-style roasted corn with these treasures. I remembered seeing this melon gazpacho recipe, but tonight, didn’t allow enough time to macerate the ingredients in lemon juice. Instead, I turned to Mark Bittman’s far simpler tomato-melon gazpacho. The quick sautee in olive oil really brought out of the flavor of the still unripe orange-fleshed (with a honeydew-like rind) melon we used. I also finally peeled and seeded tomatoes using the proper technique, though I’m still not sure it’s worth the time.
Unfortunately, the soup lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. Dan declared it heresy to make gazpacho without garlic, but wouldn’t that overpower the sweet, delicate melon flavor? Maybe it just needed salt. I added a splash of balsamic vinegar to brighten things up. The bright orange soup presented well, at least, garnished with a dollop of yogurt and basil leaves. Anyone have better melon gazpacho recipes to recommend instead?
The corn, which we oven-roasted in the husk, was delicious. I still prefer my corn roasted on a proper grill, but we’ve never been big grillers. I’m still dreaming of that magical Mexican corn recipe from last summer. But my mother thinks it’s a crime to slather fattening butter and sour cream onto sweet corn. When it’s really good, she prefers hers without condiments.
Oven-roasted corn and tomato-melon gazpacho.
Food as Poison, Garlic as Medicine
Garlic from the garden, harvested before we left on the 4th of July: delicious, antiseptic medicine.
The offending Kani Salad with Heart of Palm and Mango. I mean, who orders that? Can't you just see the vomit-inducing bacteria on the pink, less-than-fresh pieces of imitation crab?
During this second summer hiatus, there’s so much food I consumed and want to tell you about: smokey barbecued ribs and craft beers in Asheville, N.C.; farm fresh micro-greens and local fruit juice pops at the tiny Penn Park market in Charlottesville, Va.; corned beef and pickled tongue sandwiches with health salad (kosher slaw) and half-sour pickles at Ben’s Deli in Queens; and most memorably the alluring foods we encountered on our recent trip to Brazil: the pillowy, ubiquitous pao de quiejo, the tropical fruit sucos, the pork part-studded feijoada chased by candy sweet-tart capirinhas; the melt-in-your-mouth rare rounds of rump roast (picanha) carved table side at a fine churrascaria steakhouse; the cold agua de coco sipped from machete-lopped young green coconuts along the wide beaches in Rio.
Sopa De Ajo (Con Flor De Calabaza if you have them): Mexican version of Jewish "penicillin" soup, a soothing and light dinner on the night we returned.
When has garlic, like this soft-neck bulb from my garden, ever let you down?
But unfortunately food poisoned me that final afternoon in Rio. To make matters worse, the offending meal wasn’t even memorable. I should have realized the imitation crab sticks in my salad (which I don’t even much care for) tasted less than fresh. After a trip of magical meals, the restaurant in question was forgettable, a nondescript Portuguese-Italian cafe with a yellow awning on Avenida Ataulfo de Paiva whose name I can’t remember, just down the road from the excellent Jobi (if only we’d lunched there one more time instead!). The draw of this nameless cafe on our last day was the outdoor seating. And after a week of heavy eating, I craved salad, even though some members of our party avoided raw veggies, given they chance they were washed in less than perfect water. Two salads with “kani” and that ubiquitous heart of palm caught my attention. “What’s ‘kani’?,” we asked the waiter, in butchered Portuguese. He returned with a pathetic-looking crab stick on a plate. So why did I spring for the “Salada de Kani com Manga”? The other ingredients appealed to me. Heart of palm, mango, buffalo mozzarella from the water buffalo they actually have in Brazil (not as good as the Italian variety, though), lettuce, corn, peas. The salad was unfortunately bland, with a plan olive oil and white vinegar dressing. I ate most of it anyway. Dan ate a tad of it, but avoided the now-suspect kani. Why didn’t I trust my instincts?
The poisonous salad, before tossing.
A little over an hour later, my stomach cramped up. I didn’t even connect the pain with the salad at first. I had a spot of lichi-flavored, probiotic-rich frozen yogurt (the stands are popular on Rio’s trendy streets). Then we shared just one last acai shake (blended with banana) while Dan ordered a sandwich for the airplane. Little did I know I would soon throw this all up in the bathroom of Rio de Janeiro’s surprisingly sparse international airport. That evening there, as we waited several hours for our overnight flight out to Atlanta, the stabbing cramps came in painful waves. I doubled over and squatted to contain the pain, as if almost in labor. Clutching the toilet, I whimpered on the floor of the public restroom, unaware of my surroundings. Luckily, I seemed to get much of the poison out just before our flight. I drank Coca Cola and gulped down some Pepto, ibuprofen and against my better judgment, some anti-biotic Flagyl given to Dan as a last resort from some upstanding Continental Airlines pilots. I discontinued the meds after three doses, per my father-in-law’s recommendation, but they seemed to help at the time. Hell, I would have taken morphine or heroin or anything that wouldn’t kill me, as delusional as I was with pain at that point.
Given my symptoms the Delta crew didn’t want to let me on the flight, but the prospect of spending the night in a grungy hotel (or worse, hospital) near the airport seemed unbearable. I somehow rallied just before the flight. I held a hot water bottle against my sore belly and Dan soothingly massaged it throughout the flight. In about 24 hours, I was mostly better, with some residual soreness/trapped gas deep buried deep in my abdomen. When we returned home, I made a cleansing Sopa de Ajo recipe with two heads of fresh garlic from my garden, a recipe we learned from the excellent Seasons of My Heart cooking school in Oaxaca. It’s rumored to protect against stomach trouble:) I’ll make it again with flor de calabanza if I find these zucchini blossoms at the market!
I returned home to uncover carrots and new potatoes in the garden: simple, trustworthy foods for a burned stomach.
How thankful I am for my health. And once again, this adventurous eater is chastened. The acrid horse chestnuts, the rabbit kidneys and now this suspect salad. When will BaltimOregon learn her lesson? Food, which is such a vehicle for pleasure for me, can also be poisonous. I now vow to eat more cautiously (but no less enthusiastically) in the coming year. Eating isn’t sport. Maybe this new mindset will help me finally shed that weight I’ve accumulated these past few years as well. How to diet without really “dieting”? Portion control, I suspect. Stay tuned.
Food Factory Miyake
Seaweed Salad with tiny, salty Japanese sardines (those little dots are eyes).
This one-man food factory slices up some ultra-fresh fish, including local Maine shrimp.
A refreshing sushi meal really started to appeal to me, with all the heavy eating we’ve been doing during this month of travel. We especially loved the food we had in Portland, Maine: the pillowy Sicilian slices at Micucci’s Italian grocery, the crispy duck fat-fried fries washed down with the Allagash wheat beer/homemade lemonade shandy I custom-ordered at Duck Fat, the addictive, buttery financiers from Standard Baking Company, the fine lobsters and steamer clams you crack open at any seafood joint. What we didn’t realize is that Portland is also great spot for sushi.
Micucci's stellar pizza.
My parents raved about Food Factory Miyake and I couldn’t wait to check it out. Chef and owner Masa Miyake is a one-man “food factory,” churning out inventive maki rolls, nigiri and sashimi combos in his 25-seat brick storefront space (with a Chinese takeout-sized kitchen). But diners misunderstood the restaurant name, so now it’s just Miyake. And apparently a second ramen-focused restaurant is in the works.
For lunch, the $15 sampler is the way to go. It began with a mesclun miso salad with grape tomatoes. Next, instead of the standard chalky miso soup, we sipped on bowls of sesame oil-and-scallion-dotted, umami-rich dashi broth. Then came a hamachi (yellowtail) scallion roll, topped with grated daikon (perhaps, I couldn’t identify it) and garnished with beet-red micro-greens (amaranth, maybe?). But first, I now remember, our waiter (who blogs at portlandfoodcoma.blogspot.com) brought us an amuse-bouche of delicately fried butterfish.
The hamachi roll.
Lagniappe butterfish.
For those squeamish about raw fish, try the Spicy Maine shrimp roll, coated with plenty of Japanese Kewpie mayo. In fact, our waiter recommended using Kewpie (because of its higher egg content) to make your own lobster rolls. He also punches up his lobster rolls with fresh tarragon (take that, Dad!). Miyake does its own version of a lobster sushi roll that’s drizzled with truffle oil, but weren’t looking for food that chichi. My mother-in-law also enjoyed her Salmon Lady roll with seared salmon and umeboshi plum paste. Also, tuna takaki appetizers may be a dime a dozen, but the pink gems are gorgeously presented in a salad here.
And if the sushi doesn’t fill you up, there’s always the old-school Tony’s Donut Shop (my father-in-law’s favorite). Though I hear the glazed chocolate cake donuts taste even better fresh-baked, at 6 a.m., on a frigid, Maine winter morning.
Tuna Takaki Salad.
Sushi sampler.
BaltimOregon to Maine 