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Saturday, November 29
MUCHAS GRACIAS, CON CHORIZO
by
Lloydville
on Sat 29 Nov 2008 08:46 AM PST
Once more, against all odds, my friend Jae and I managed to prepare a splendid Thanksgiving feast, applying minimal cooking skills with fiendish precision.
Jae made his famous creamy mashed potatoes, we roasted a gigantic turkey to perfection and we stuffed it with an improvised dressing consisting of croutons, celery, carrots, onions, three kinds of mushrooms (Portobello, shitake and oyster) and chorizo, the spicy Mexican sausage. An instant classic. Next year, I'm going to add even more chorizo -- it lent a bacon-y tang to the stuffing that was really spectacular.
Now the long days of turkey sandwiches begin -- and however many sandwiches are consumed during those days, I'll be sorry to see them come to an end.
Wednesday, November 19
LAMB CURRY
by
Lloydville
on Wed 19 Nov 2008 04:59 AM PST
My
curry is improvised from an old Joy of Cooking rule for stew and
various hints thrown out by my brother-in-law Simon, who makes a fine
curry, refined during his years in Kenya. (His goat curry, served at a
picnic by a river on the edge of the Nairobi Game Park, was my first
meal in East Africa, sometime in the last century.)
The
only real secret to simple, reliable curry, however, is Patak's Curry
Paste, available at many local supermarkets, worth tracking down at a
specialty store if not. (It can be had via Amazon as well.) You need a jar of mild and a jar of hot, so you
can mix to taste.
Start
with some vegetable stock. This used to be collected from the run-off
of boiled vegetables of every kind, but since we now steam our
vegetables, the liquor from soaked and boiled dried beans is a good
substitute, especially for curry. Pour enough of it into a stew pot to
comfortably cover the meat and vegetables you will be adding -- lean
chunks of lamb, or goat (I like to use chunks cut off of thick lamb
chops, with all the fat removed, but there are cheaper ways to go), an
equal volume of pearl onions, an equal volume of carrots cut into
pieces about the size of pearl onions, an equal volume of potatoes, cut
into chunks of a similar size, and three or four tablespoons of peeled
and chopped ginger root.
Begin
to warm the vegetable stock and stir in table-spoonfuls of curry paste.
I like a 2 to 1 hot to mild ratio, for a very -- very -- spicy but not
searing flavor, but do it to taste. About six table-spoonfuls at least
will be required. You can tell by tasting when you've got enough.
Bring
this mixture to a boil, then throw in the ginger and the carrots, cover
tightly and reduce heat to produce a steady but not furious bubbling.
After ten minutes, put in the lamb. After another ten minutes, put in
the onions and the potatoes. After another twenty minutes, cut off the
heat, let the pot cool, and then put it in the refrigerator overnight.
(This must be made the day before it is eaten.)
This
is a dish to fiddle with -- placing the lamb in later if you like it
rarer, the carrots in later if you like them crisper, the onions and
potatoes in earlier if you like them mushier, more or less ginger and
curry paste.
The
next day, put what you want to eat into a smaller pot (you can freeze
what's left, if any) and heat it up, thickening it with some dollops of
sour cream if you like. Serve it over basmati rice, and no other kind,
with, on the side, some mango chutney and raita -- plain yoghurt and
peeled, thinly sliced cucumbers, chilled -- and some kind of plain
bread (real Indian bread, like poori, is best but too hard to make.)
Drink beer with it.
Wednesday, November 12
ROASTED GARLIC DRESSING WITH GREEN CHILE
by
Lloydville
on Wed 12 Nov 2008 12:08 AM PST
I've shared with you a recipe for creamy queso añejo dressing from Rick Bayless's superb book Mexican Everyday. I've been testing other salad dressings from the book, without any great finds -- until I stumbled upon this one . . . roasted garlic dressing with green chile. It's incredibly tasty, incredibly easy -- and hot. Not for the faint of heart.
Roast one fresh jalapeño pepper and four to six unpeeled garlic cloves in a skillet over medium heat -- until they're slightly soft with dark brown blotches. This should take about ten minutes for the chile and fifteen for the garlic. Remove them from the pan and let them cool. Stem (but don't seed) the chile and chop it up coarsely. Peel the garlic cloves. Put them all into a blender with three-quarters of a cup of olive oil and one-quarter of a cup of balsamic vinegar. Add a bit less than a teaspoon of salt and blend thoroughly. Add more salt to taste, if necessary. Refrigerate until needed.
This will give you a wondrously spicy dressing for salads -- it will make even iceberg lettuce seem exotic. (You can use two seranno chiles instead of the one jalapeño if you want to totally wimp out.)
BUT WAIT -- THERE'S MORE!
Bayless suggests a variation on the above recipe, which makes an even more stupendous dressing. Substitute two canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce for the jalapeño. No need to roast the chipotles, of course. Add a teaspoon or two of Mexican oregano -- easily found in most supermarkets but you have to check the label . . . Mexican oregano is made from a different plant than regular oregano. The chipotle variant has a sweetish, smoky flavor which is irresistible.
These two dressings, between them, along with the creamy queso añejo dressing, will turn you into a salad-eating fool, even if the very word "salad" makes you gag.
Bayless, by the way, is well-known in food circles for his encyclopedic knowledge of Mexican cuisine and his imaginative takes thereon, and familiar to TV viewers from his cooking show on PBS. He's gained an added measure of fame recently because his restaurant in Chicago, Topolobampo, is a favorite spot of Barack and Michelle Obama, when they're dining à deux. One more reason to admire the good judgment of America's new first couple.
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