Home Brew Char Siu

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👨‍🍳 Cooking in the Time of COVID 👨‍🍳

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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. ❤️
 
 

Dek Sen

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Part of what I’m calling the “Golden Oldies” series: photos from bygone days taken at restaurants that are still doing business, still relevant, and still worth a trip. These came from a number of visits; some made it to Instagram, others made it here to ethnojunkie.com, and still others never made it off my hard drive, so this is a collection that spans a few years of happy eating.

Dek Sen (literally “child noodles”), one of my favorite casual restaurants for Isaan Thai cuisine, has never let me down. Located at 86-08 Whitney Ave, Elmhurst, it has always been a stop along my Ethnic Eats in Elmhurst ethnojunket and will be again when things get rolling.

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Tiger Cry from the Starters section of the menu. Grilled marinated skirt steak with jaew sauce (chili dipping sauce). If this is what it tastes like when tigers cry, I guess those must be tears of jaew. <groan>


Dek Sen’s Tub Wann appetizer won’t leave you wannting: pork liver and red onion on a bed of greens. Ground roasted sticky rice for some crunch, lime juice, mint, scallion, and cilantro for some punch.


Zabb (very literally “delicious”) Wings. When you see zabb (you might also see zaab) it’s your clue that you’re dealing with food from the northeast region (Isaan, Isan, Isarn, et al.) of Thailand. Dusted with a crunchy coating that combines chili and lime, these wings are crisp, spicy, not at all greasy, and they definitely live up to their moniker.


Crispy Mussels Pancake, a signature dish. Fried egg pancake with mussels over sautéed bean sprouts served with Sriracha sauce.


The ever popular hot and sour soup, Tom Yum (“tom” means boil and “yum” means mixed). This one features minced pork, pork liver, fish balls, a perfectly boiled egg, bean sprouts, peanuts, scallions, and cilantro and is topped with fried wonton and fried garlic. Yum indeed!


Ka Nom Jeen Nam Ya (you might see khanom chin or other spellings). Khanom jeen are thin vermicelli noodles made from mildly fermented rice, here supporting “special curry chicken” with fish balls and fresh vegetables, a signature dish.


Pork and Pepper with Egg. A spicy offering with a focus on ground pork crowned with basil; the crispy fried egg on the side acts as a foil to the spice level of the pork.


Phuket Chili Fried Rice. Saw this one on the blackboard so I don’t know if it’s a regular. It’s redolent of homemade royal shrimp paste and served with mackerel, a boiled egg, and steamed vegetables.


And what’s for dessert? Rainbow Crepe Cake! This was only the 4,257,369th photo of Dek Sen’s rainbow crepe cake on Instagram! 😉 But I might just have been one of the first to mention that it tasted delicious as well. “Dek” means child in Thai and if this doesn’t have you channeling your inner unicorn, I don’t know what will.
 
 
Dek Sen is located at 86-08 Whitney Ave, Elmhurst, Queens.
 
 

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. ❤️
 
 

Happy Stony Noodle

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Part of what I’m calling the “Golden Oldies” series: photos I had posted on Instagram in bygone days that surely belong here as well, from restaurants that are still doing business, still relevant, and still worth a trip.

From a visit to Happy Stony Noodle, the Taiwanese restaurant located at 83-47 Dongan Ave, Elmhurst, Queens, on March 19, 2016.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)Three Cup Chicken. This appears on the menu as Chicken with Ginger & Basil but the Chinese characters, 三杯雞, are the giveaway. A Taiwanese classic, theoretically made using one cup of soy sauce, one cup of sesame oil, and one cup of rice wine, but usually tweaked a bit and fleshed out with additional ingredients including garlic, ginger, and in this case, basil. Good eats.

Ji Vegetable and Pork with Rice Cake. You might see ji cai (cai means vegetable); this Asian green is also known as shepherd’s purse because of the shape of its fruits. Just the right addition to this stir fry of pork and rice cake. Looks like comfort food to me!

Pork & Dried Bean Curd, Hakka Style. Two of my favorites tastes. With veggies even!

Oyster Pancake. A classic Taiwanese appetizer. If you’ve ever had Hangtown Fry, a dish dating from the days of California’s Gold Rush, you’ll see a connection, but in this case, sans bacon.

Pork Roll. Bean curd skin stuffed with succulent pieces of pork and more, fried to crunchy deliciousness.

Pickled mustard greens, an essential condiment at every table.
 
 
Happy Stony Noodle is located at 83-47 Dongan Ave, Elmhurst, Queens.
 
 

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. ❤️
 
 

Girasol Bakery

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My cat’s favorite catnip mouse had been missing for over a week. Every night, Mercury (he answers to Murky) would select that one particular, very special mouse from his box of about twenty, deposit it just outside the bedroom door, and meow vociferously until I, in grateful appreciation of his gift, emerge to retrieve it and offer a kitty treat in exchange. Every Single Night. But now, that mouse was gone, and clearly, since Murky had been failing to keep his nightly appointment, there would be no substitute. I missed his bedtime visit just as he missed that mouse.

Well obviously, given the circumstances, there was only one thing I could do: scope out every pet shop within a four mile radius of my apartment until I could track down an identical replacement. By the end of that afternoon I was ready to give up. Only one store remained on my list but miraculously, there was one such mouse in stock – the last one they had.

Triumphant, I started for home, but a few storefronts away I spotted Girasol Bakery at 690 5th Avenue in Brooklyn’s South Slope neighborhood. Being on a diet (thanks a lot, COVID), I’ve been scrupulously avoiding bakeries, “but it can’t hurt to just peek in,” I thought. Famous Last Thoughts.

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I’m a fan of bread pudding even though some versions can be a little dry, practically begging to be paired in a duet with drizzle of sauce. But this one was so moist, so luscious looking, it was undoubtedly a soloist. I caved.


Its display case neighbor was the archetypal Mexican dessert, chocoflan, aka “impossible cake”. A dark layer of chocolate cake oozing richness topped with a golden layer of creamy flan (they separate during the baking process, hence the nickname) proved irresistible, so okay, one piece, please. They’ll keep; I don’t have to eat them both at once.


Another case nearby flaunted tempting tres leches cake, that transcendent dessert drenched in three kinds of milk (sweetened condensed, evaporated, and heavy cream). Makes you wonder if you should consume it with a fork or a spoon. Or perhaps a straw. The trio should last for three days at least, longer if I divvy them up.

I arrived home with my treats and Murky’s new BFF. As I was enjoying a prudently tiny taste of each of the three goodies, he brought me his new mouse and laid it at my feet – as if to say, “Thank you.” Awww, Murky!

But then, one prudently tiny taste later, he brought me his old mouse and laid it at my feet – as if to say, “Psych!”

Damn. The ignominy of being outfoxed by a cat. Well obviously, given the circumstances, there was only one thing I could do: polish off the rest of the people treats in stark exasperation then and there. Diet? What diet?
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes. ❤️