Kashkar Cafe – Samsa, Two Ways

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Instagram Post 9/30/2018

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While preparing for my ethnojunket through Little Odessa, I passed Kashkar Café, 1141 Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn, and grabbed a few items to bring home. Kashkar serves the food of the Uyghur people, a primarily Muslim ethnic group who live on the Chinese/Russian border near Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan; as you’d expect, the fare is a blend of Chinese and Central Asian cuisines.

Samsa are baked (usually in a tandoor or clay oven), filled with a tasty lamb/onion mixture, crisp outside, moist inside, and often decorated with a few nigella seeds. On the left, a large, round one (triangular samsa are common too), one to an order. On the right, Samsa Parmuda, four smaller pieces to an order, same filling, but easier to divvy up on a food tour! The white bun in back is Yutaza, a plain, steamed multi-layer bread, a little like a Chinese bao but denser.

Photos of a dine-in experience to come soon.
 
 

Pecel Ndeso’s Indonesian Kue

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Instagram Post 9/29/2018

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Here’s the first in a series from another visit to the monthly NY Indonesian Food Bazaar at St. James Episcopal Church, 84-07 Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens. These are kue (diminutive Indonesian sweets/snacks) from Pecel Ndeso’s booth; the disk-shaped twosome are serabi solo. There are many regional variants on serabi; most are made with rice flour but some use wheat flour, and most call for coconut milk. Green almost always implies pandan flavor, while brown indicates palm sugar. The cutaway view reveals the puffy, airy interior.

One of my all-time favorite snacks is anything that involves sticky rice pressed and sweetened with coconut milk. The Indonesian fulfillment of this wish is wajik, which I posted about on 8/16. Usually diamond-shaped (wajik is the Indonesian word that describes a diamond or rhombus shape), this sweet, green blocky rendition is infused with pandan and contains bits of jackfruit, another weakness of mine.

More to come from the bazaar….
 
 

Chuan Tian Xia – Chengdu Dragon Handwriting

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Instagram Post 9/26/2018

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These light dumplings came from recently opened Chuan Tian Xia at 5502 7th Ave in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. The combination of a little knowledge and more research leads me to think that menu item “Chengdu Dragon Reading Hands” (成都龙抄手) might be better translated as “Chengdu Dragon Handwriting” but that’s still not much help in determining their contents or the derivation of their fanciful name. Can anyone enlighten me?
 
 

Chuan Tian Xia – Fish Flavored Eggplant

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Instagram Post 9/25/2018

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Fish Flavored Eggplant. Don’t be misled by the phrase “fish-flavored” – it neither contains nor tastes like fish; rather this delicious Sichuan yuxiang (魚香) sauce refers to a combination of ingredients, a little sweet and sour, a little spicy and salty, often used in preparing fish. New kid on the block in Sunset Park, Chuan Tian Xia at 5502 7th Ave, Brooklyn, did a nice job with this one.

Stay tuned; more to come….
 
 

Snowy and Icy Mooncakes

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Instagram Post 9/24/2018

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Today’s the day! In addition to the traditional mooncakes that abound in almost every Chinatown bakery for Mid-Autumn Festival, you might see these trendy snow skin versions that hail from Hong Kong. Think mooncake meets mochi: rather than dough-based and baked, the skins are almost like the sweet Japanese glutinous rice cake, but not quite as chewy. These snowy and icy mooncakes must be kept chilled. Here are four of the many delicious varieties.

The snowy flavors are contemporary: strawberry, mango, orange, pineapple, honeydew, peach, peanut, taro, chestnut, green tea and red bean; one version featured durian flavored sweet bean paste with bits of the fruit, enveloped by a skin of almost almond paste texture and flavor. Icy mooncakes come two to a box with imaginative flavors like pandan bean paste with chocolate pearls (tiny crispy, candy bits, crunchy like malted milk balls, but probably puffed rice), dark chocolate bean paste (the skin is like mochi with chocolatey paste on the inside and a piece of dark chocolate or a bit of cream cheese nestled within), durian, mango, blueberry, custard, chestnut, black sesame, strawberry, and cherry.

To learn more about the holiday and these delicious treats, please check out my Chinese Mooncakes Demystified post.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋节快乐!
 
 

Chuan Tian Xia – Mixed Fungus

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Instagram Post 9/23/2018

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Classic Sichuan cuisine, this Mixed Fungus (巧拌木耳) from newcomer Chuan Tian Xia at 5502 7th Ave in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park is elegant in its simplicity. The wood ear fungus is lightly touched with a tangy soy/vinegar/sugar dressing and accented with red and green chili peppers, garlic, and a bit of red onion.

Stay tuned; more to come from Chuan Tian Xia….
 
 

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival – 2018

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Instagram Post 9/21/2018

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A visit to any Chinatown bakery this time of year will reveal a spectacular assemblage of mooncakes (月餅, yue bing) in a seemingly infinite variety of shapes, sizes, ornamentation, and fillings, all begging to be enjoyed in observance of the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated this year on September 24th. Here are two pandan mooncakes, one with preserved egg yolk and a mini version without, from Fay Da Bakery at 83 Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

To learn more about the holiday and these delicious treats, please check out my Chinese Mooncakes Demystified post detailing their similarities and differences in an attempt to shed some light (moonlight, of course) on their intricacies.
中秋节快乐!
 
 

Chuan Tian Xia – Pork with Garlic Sauce

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Instagram Post 9/20/2018

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Sichuan restaurants are rare in Brooklyn’s Chinatown and Chuan Tian Xia at 5502 7th Ave is the newest in Sunset Park. First in a series, here’s an attractive presentation of Pork with Garlic Sauce; cucumber slabs provided the foundation for this creative bit of architecture.
 
 

The Case for Kholodets

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Instagram Post 9/19/2018

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When I was a kid my mother would stash a can of Campbell’s consommé in the refrigerator until its contents congealed – her attempt at Cordon Bleu cookery. This actionable offense was my unfortunate introduction to aspic. It wasn’t until years later that I learned that aspic could be delicious.

This is kholodets (холодец), a savory meat aspic popular in Russian and Eastern European cuisines. Chilled meat stock gels naturally because of its high collagen content although gelatin is sometimes added to double down on the texture. Formerly a wintertime addition to the menu, contemporary refrigeration has made kholodets a year round treat.

I couldn’t resist backlighting this example that’s mostly chicken with a clandestine carrot slice or two set into aspic. Its appetizing flavor is anything but neutral; neutral gelatin would be gross, right? If you think of it as “meat jello” or some kind of weird delicacy, you probably won’t like it; I suggest approaching it with an open mind (and an open mouth) and try to appreciate it for what it is – in this case, cold chicken in its perfectly seasoned jus – rather than what it’s “sort of like”.
 
 

Purple Dough – Cookies

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Instagram Post 9/18/2018

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Purple Dough is the name, but green dough is in evidence as well. Located at 38-05 69th St in Woodside, Queens, this new bakery has a Filipino perspective on creative custom baked goods. Shown here are ube and coconut-pandan cookies: soft, chewy and sweet, they were the most modest items in the case and were absolutely delicious.