Category Archives: Home Cookin’

Home Brew Char Siu

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One more from the Year of the Ox dinner.

Nothing fancy but very tasty: homemade char siu, Cantonese style roast pork. Marinated to make it flavorful and tender, steam roasted over hot water to keep it moist, then a searing stopover under the broiler for a crispy-edged finish. Leftovers destined for fried rice…or perhaps a noodle dish…wait, maybe a stir fry….

(Guess I’ve gotta give this more thought. Watch this space!)

Here’s to a healthy, prosperous, and happy New Year of the Ox!

新年快乐!

Xīnnián kuàilè!
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️
 
 

Chinese New Year 4719 (2021)

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The Chinese observation of the Lunar New Year is upon us: it’s 4719, the Year of the Ox, known for his determination and strength. Fortuitously, the Ox also possesses great patience, and I am positive that he will be standing by us diligently throughout these distressing times until next year charges in like a raging Tiger and we can all celebrate together as we once did.

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But even a pandemic can’t stop us from embracing all of the traditions that make this holiday so extraordinary. One that I particularly enjoy is the way in which wordplay and homophones factor into the selection of traditional foods specially prepared to mark the occasion. For example, at festive gatherings a whole fish will be served, because the word for fish (yu) is a homophone for surpluses.

Now frankly, I could use some surpluses these days and the notion of a whole steamed fish festooned with fresh ginger and scallions appealed to me. However, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to any Chinatown fish markets this year and since I’m cooking for one, the idea that I might find a small enough whole fish locally seemed to be a lost cause. But as I traversed the aisles of my neighborhood supermarket, what to my wondering eyes should appear (I know, wrong holiday), just lying there all alone, curiously out of place in the meat case, was this diminutive porgy, the only one to be seen.

Because it came from a chain operation, I expected it to be prepped and ready to face my culinary endeavors head on. But no. Removing it from its plastic wrapped Styrofoam tray, I found it very much unscaled, ungutted, uncleaned – in other words, totally intact! It’s not that I’m averse to prepping a fish – I’ve done it plenty of times – but I was surprised that this was how it was packaged at my local white-bread American supermarket.

Since it was the only one if its ilk in the case and seemingly untouched by human hands to boot, it occurred to me that it might have been freshly caught, straight out of the Gowanus Canal, perhaps. (“Hey, let’s see if anybody’ll buy this!”) I mused that it might lend a certain aromatic je ne sais quoi to its flavor profile. Since this is the Year of the Ox, a bullhead catfish might be a more appropriate choice – after all, it would cover both bases – but this rogue porgy was all I could land. In any event, I obviously lived to tell the tale and I’m happy to report that it turned out to be quite tasty.

But how that porgy got there is still a complete mystery to me. Which reminds me of another Lunar New Year tale when my inner ox was thwarted in attempting to access a particular nian gao (the traditional sweet rice cake and a homophone for high year) no matter how much determination and strength he could muster – and what should have literally been a snap became a classic mystery.

Curious? Please read my very short story, “The Case of the Uncrackable Case!”

新年快乐! Xīnnián kuàilè!

 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️
 
 

Dal Palak

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It was one of those days when I didn’t want to put a lot of thought into what I’d make for dinner; I opted for easy vegetarian fare: masoor dal (red lentils, aka football lentils) – orange in the package but yellow after cooking – prepared with chopped onions, garlic, ginger and a bunch of Indian spices and herbs including curry leaves, plus fresh spinach (palak) to greenify it. On the side, two kinds of papadums, thin Indian crisps that fry up in a trice.

It was also one of those days when I didn’t write down which spices and herbs I had used because I was too hungry to care and then the dish turned out to be great.

I’ll never learn.
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️
 
 

Ackee & Saltfish

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Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica and Ackee & Saltfish is arguably its national dish. You may have heard that parts of the plant can be toxic if improperly harvested and this fact might give you pause, so allow me to put your mind at ease: canned ackee is never poisonous and you just can’t get fresh ackee around these parts. (If you go foraging in Jamaica, you’re on your own!)

Straight out of the can, it looks a bit like scrambled eggs, but don’t let appearances deceive you; the texture is delicate and fragile and the flavor is mild, making it the perfect foil for the more robust saltfish.

Saltfish is cod that has been packed in salt and dried as a means of preserving it. I won’t go into a history lesson here but it’s been around for about a thousand years (the technique, not the fish itself). Alternate names are bacalao, bacalhau, or baccalà, in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian respectively – because I will always go into a language lesson here 😉. It’s readily available in neighborhoods where those languages can readily be heard; one of my favorites is the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, largely but not exclusively Portuguese and Brazilian, where you’ll find stores that specialize in its many forms. But if you shop elsewhere, fret not: it’s usually obtainable in the fish section of refrigerator or freezer cases at a supermarket near you. And it’s incredibly versatile.

Not only is Ackee & Saltfish delicious, but it’s simple to prepare. Cover the saltfish with cold water and let it soak in the fridge for about three days (but at least 24 hours), changing the water periodically. If the water is clear and if you taste a tiny bit of the fish and it isn’t salty, it’s ready for prime time.

The basic recipe, abbreviated: Sauté diced bell peppers (red or green or both), onions, minced garlic, fresh thyme, Scotch bonnet peppers (to taste) and seasonings in oil (I use bacon fat), then in stages add diced tomato, chopped scallions, and the fish, broken into chunks. The final step is to gently fold in the ackee, attempting to keep it in large pieces (like I said, fragile).

It’s served for for breakfast or brunch with any of fried dumplings, plantain, breadfruit, avocado, johnnycakes, or, in this case…

…callaloo (amaranth or taro leaves).

I kick it up with Jamaican Pickapeppa sauce and it’s shown here with Guyanese mango achar simply because I had it on hand.
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️
 
 

Cuba Meets Brooklyn

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This is Bistec de Palomilla, a Cuban dish, included here because in my last post, Rome Meets Buenos Aires, I mentioned that I repurposed some chimichurri I had made to accompany it (see photo) and a friend asked about it. Although I don’t usually make slabs o’ beef, I was intrigued by its eponymous label in the meat case of the otherwise white-bread supermarket: not Beef Top Round Steak (which this is), but Bistec de Palomilla. Perhaps they realized that customers have figured out that it’s one tough although certainly flavorful cut of meat, and it might sell better if it had a more exotic name. Or maybe they saw me coming.


Sometimes the recipe is made from cube steak or butterflied (palomilla means moth) round steak providing a head start in the tenderization process, but it still requires some TLC to coax the best from it. The first step is to pound it into submission and marinate it overnight in lime juice, garlic, and seasonings (including oregano and cumin) along with some sliced onion. It’s typically pan fried – I did this one in a cast iron grill pan – and typically served with the rice and beans that, alas, didn’t make it into this photo.

Answering for a friend. 😉
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️
 
 

Rome Meets Buenos Aires

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Back to the freezer and fridge foraging for fodder because it’s too cold to go out shopping when I already have food at home.

I had stashed a bag of four cheese ravioli in the freezer reserved for when my diet was over – but for some of us diets are never over, especially when serving quarantine time during a pandemic. Black truffle oil and freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano had been slated for the final fillip but frankly, the truffle oil on hand tasted pretty lame – more likely it was 2,4-Dithiapentane oil – so remedial measures were required.

Peering into the fridge, I spotted a jar of chimichurri I had concocted when I made Bistec de Palomilla not too long ago. Chimichurri, the Argentinian condiment used to elevate grilled meat, features garlic and cilantro along with a few other piquant elements so it makes its presence known and would be worth the experiment here.

A few dabs later and I’d say it worked pretty well.

Didn’t help the diet though.
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️
 
 

Smoked Turkey Chicken Soup

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The wind chill factor makes it feel like what??

Fine. Damn the mediarologists! Full speed ahead! I guess this is going to be another one of those weeks where I don’t venture outside for any reason, which means that whatever I eat will come from the freezer, the fridge, and my cornucopious pantry. A good one for hanging out in the kitchen and cooking, I’d say.

Here then is a wintertime soup cobbled together from smoked turkey wings and necks that had been hibernating in the freezer, simmered long and low in previously homemade chicken broth along with carrots, cabbage, and some herbs (which were on the way out anyway).

Simple pleasures.

More to come….
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️
 
 

Pongal

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Pongal, the holiday, is a four day long harvest festival occurring around mid-January (on the 14th this year) that is observed primarily in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu but like most spiritual anniversaries can’t really be confined to a specific geographical area, diasporas being what they are. One of the most important holidays celebrated by the Tamil community, it is characterized by social gatherings, time-honored rituals, prayers for health, happiness, and prosperity, and, of course, traditional foods. Bidding farewell to the winter solstice and marking the beginning of the sun god’s annual ascent in the zodiac, each day of the holiday features its own set of conventions. It is the second and principal day on which pongal, the dish, is prepared.

The word pongal means to boil or spill over and the seasonal milk plus newly harvested rice preparation does indeed overflow as it cooks, symbolizing the abundant harvest for which participants exuberantly give thanks. The dish manifests in two varieties: sweet (chakkara or sakkarai pongal) which calls for jaggery (unrefined cane sugar) along with raisins, cashews, and spices like cardamom, and savory (ven or khara pongal) which emphasizes an array of more potent spices and herbs.

A multitude of recipes is extant, of course, some saturated with copious ghee (usually the savory variants), some shot through with coconut (usually the sweet), but most of the recipes I’ve found call for the addition of moong dal (mung bean or green gram) to keep company with the rice, similar to North Indian dal khichdi. For today’s culinary adventure, I decided to prepare the savory version.

After toasting the dal, I cooked it together with rice in equal parts (again, recipes vary, often with more rice than dal) using more water than customary to achieve the proper cohesive consistency; they’re prepared sans seasoning – all of the distinctive ingredients are folded in afterwards.

One of the essentials of many world cuisines involves dry toasting spices to bring out their essence. In addition to employing that technique, Indian cuisine takes it one step further by making a tadka, tempering whole herbs and spices in oil to bloom their flavors beyond dry roasting and to flavor the oil as well; it’s the foundation of many Indian dishes and one I frequently use. In this case, ghee provided the lipid component (make sure it’s high quality and fresh) and my “distinctive ingredients” were cashew nuts, cumin seeds, cracked Tellicherry peppercorns for their citrusy notes, curry leaves, grated fresh ginger, green chilies, a pinch of hing (aka asafoetida) and turmeric.

Simply fold the tadka into the prepared rice and dal mixture, cook for another minute or two, et voilà. The texture of the dish should be a little like risotto, think porridge rather than discrete grains like biryani – after all, it’s comfort food; some recipes even call for mashing the rice a bit. It’s often served with coconut chutney (see photo) and sambar.

I confess to consuming it with greedy gusto since this particular combination of cashews, herbs and spices really resonates for me; of course, now I’m craving the sweet version too. Next time!
 
 
Happy Pongal!
 
 

Rumpumpumpom – A Christmas Cocktail

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Okay, I freely admit it. As a countermeasure against COVID stress and concomitant dumbfounding national politics, I started listening to Christmas music earlier this year. Much earlier. Like when it was still light out at 8pm.

It seemed that every day brought some new, depressing wrinkle to the headlines, and in order to survive, many folks went on a quest to find something, anything, that would provide some meaning, a dependable sense of personal stability. For me, at least, there was comfort to be gleaned from hearing the cozy, ageless tunes of a generally happier time that, unlike the news, required no rapt attention, songs that just droned their continual backdrop of falalalalas, hohohos, and parumpumpumpoms.

Now, the essence of an earworm is repetition. Rumpumpumpom. Taken out of context, what does rumpumpumpom even mean? From its relentless, nagging reiteration, I kept sensing that the word itself was on a quest to find its own meaning – that sense induced, to be sure, because it was five o’clock Somewhere – another prophylactic conceit that has gained popularity during these times – and my appreciation for that pastime led me to conclude that the rumpumpumpom conundrum would be solved if only it had a proper definition.

And now it does.

Behold the Rumpumpumpom, my custom Christmas cocktail.

Start with a base of RUM mixed with Hood PUMpkin eggnog, in proportions to taste and proximity to the aforementioned hour of the day. Float a glug of POMegranate juice into the mixture and drag a toothpick (or similar) through it to create a festive holiday design (admittedly not my strong suit). Garnish with PUMpkin seeds. Et voilà: Rumpumpumpom with a raison d’être.

Much to my surprise, it actually worked. Rum and nog are a classic couple and the tangy tartness of the pomegranate juice cut the sweetness of the pumpkin eggnog. By the time I had finished tinkering, it was eight o’clock Somewhere and by then I was easily entertained by the red juice and green seeds accidentally providing unintended Christmassy accents. Time for some photos and a few final taste tests.

And now…it is midnight Somewhere. The quest has been fulfilled, the music has run its course, the room is silent and serene.
 
 
And Somewhere, Someone with more artistic talent and a steadier hand could no doubt squiggle a Paloma Picasso-esque Christmas tree to float atop this libation, perhaps even trimmed with a solitary pomegranate ruby at its apex — and we would toast the holiday together.
 
 
A boy can dream.
 
 
 
 

Winter Squash: Quashing Questions – Golden Papaya Squash

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Golden papaya squash, reputedly named for its shape, was new to me. Its flesh was on the dry/satiny-smooth side of the texture continuum which, I suspected, might fulfill an unspoken promise of sweetness, but this one needed some help in that department. (Remember: named for its shape, not its flavor.)


What you see here is my effort to rescue the situation with a glaze cobbled together from orange blossom water, brown sugar, melted butter and salt. Mission accomplished.

So there you have it. The final chapter in my thoroughly unscientific, absolutely non-exhaustive, utterly subjective treatise on diminutive winter squash.

Of course, now I’m facing a fridge full of leftover prepared squash, so I guess you know what I’m having for dinner tomorrow, right?
 
Pizza!      Sushi!!      Nachos!!!

ANYTHING BUT WINTER SQUASH!

 
 
 
(For those who are just joining us, the saga begins here.)
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️