April 2008
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Month April 2008

Entries 5 Total

Fette Sau

Apr 30, ’08

354 Metropolitan Avenue near Havemeyer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718/963.3404
about $60 for four, with a gallon of beer, without tip
♥ ♥

In case it hasn’t been obvious, I love pork. I was having a bad day and all I wanted was to get a couple of drinks where I can sit outside and enjoy the warm weather. I wanted to forget, even for just a few hours, that a family member was in the hospital. I wanted good food so that I can feel happy in my stomach and then stronger in my heart to accept whatever bad news that may come next. I was even willing to take the L to Brooklyn to find that kind of comfort, as far away from Bellevue Hospital as I could.

I was with great company including Scott Gold, the author of The Shameless Carnivore: A Manifesto for Meat Lovers, and we talked about the experiences he wrote in his book during his quest to eat 31 kinds of meat. (I don’t want to ruin the book for you but among my favorites are the hunting for squirrels, salivating for the caribou and spitting out the bull’s penis.)

He shared his stories as we picked on the oh-so-moist and fatty brisket, spicy and snappy pork sausages and the perfectly cooked pulled pork. We couldn’t deal without some veggies so we also ordered the broccoli and the potato salad–both helped cut the fattiness on our palates. The baked beans were barely touched but I saw through the empty glass gallon of beer by the time we wiped our hands clean with Wet-Naps.

German for “greasy sow”, Fette Sau not only provided a great place to enjoy the warm night air, it also gave me a chance to appreciate and enjoy what was around and in front of me: enjoyable company and a happiness-inducing plate of pork.

Related post/s:
Scott Gold’s The Shameless Carnivore is a good read for meat lovers
What’s in your tote bag? Oh, an 8-pound pork shoulder

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Tomatillo Sauce

Apr 29, ’08

I’ve made salsa verde before using different kinds of greens: parsley, mint, basil and capers. This version fits its Spanish name more because it uses tomatillos, those green tomatoes you see in your grocery store covered in an onion-skin husk.

Ingredients:
8 tomatillos, thoroughly washed, halved
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 Jalapeño peppers, stemmed, seeded, chopped
1/4 tsp sugar
juice from half a lemon
salt

1. Place tomatillos cut side down on a baking sheet. Place in broiler for about 8 minutes to lightly blacken the skin.
2. When done, pulse together all ingredients in a food processor. Season to taste with lemon juice and salt. Transfer to a large container with a seal. Let cool to room temperature before storing in refrigerator.

Related post/s:
A really green salsa verde
Part of my Mother Hen project: omakase bento #5

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Pickled Ramps

Apr 28, ’08

In a week’s time, New York City has gone from spring to summer. Temperature was up 76 last week and I wore shorts to work. Good thing the produce at the farmers’ market was still in spring mode because I couldn’t have celebrated the warm weather without having my first ramps of the season. I got my early batch from Whole Foods for $19.99 a pound. F that! A bigger bunch in Union Square was $2.50 each when I stopped by the next morning. Because I was able to afford a few bunches, I decided to pickle them.

Make sure you wash and clean the ramps thoroughly. From the farmers’ market, the roots were intact. I cut them off and washed them with the water running; the onion skin from the stalks easily came off. I cut off and only left about an inch of the greens. I set the leaves aside for another recipe. Shichimi togarashi is a Japanese spice mix used to flavor soups and noodle dishes. You can buy a small bottle from Sunrise Mart if you’re in Manhattan, or else make your own.

Ingredients:
4 bunches of ramps
2 cups rice-wine vinegar
1 cup white sugar
salt

For the shichimi togarashi:
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 tsp sesame seeds
3 curls of orange peel
a very small knob of ginger, peeled, crushed
1 sheet of nori

1. Bring all the ingredients, except the ramps, to a full boil in 3 cups of water until sugar dissolves.
2. In a pickling jar, place cleaned ramps and pour in the pickling juice. Using a small tea cup as weight, make sure that the ramps are completely submerged. Let cool to room temperature.
3. Seal jar and store in the refrigerator for about 5 days.

Related post/s:
Ramps with pancetta or bacon is the way to go if you’re not into pickling

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Stir-Fried Black-Eyed Peas

Apr 23, ’08

The ginger-garlic paste I made three weeks ago is proving to be very useful. I first made it for dilled vegetables when I started cooking for some of my co-workers. I have since used the batch I stored in the freezer for two kinds of kimchi and now for this dish. It’s so much easier than peeling and chopping garlic and ginger all the time. And because they’ve been puréed together, the paste is much more fragrant. I love snapping a frozen sheet of it and just waiting for a few minutes before throwing it in a pot of vegetables.

This is the first time I’ve cooked with black-eyed peas. I’m only familiar with it from Cameron’s traditional New Year’s dish. She made it for our group when we welcomed 2007 in Florida and again in Austin last January. This take is more northern than southern; in fact it’s a northern Indian specialty in Punjab, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi according to Monisha Bharadwaj’s India’s Vegetarian Cooking.

Ingredients:
3 cups of black-eyed peas, soaked in water overnight then drained
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
a handful of cilantro, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp sugar
oil, salt

1. Heat some oil in a large Dutch oven. Toast the cumin seeds until fragrant. Stir in ginger-garlic paste and cook for 1 minute.
2. Add the black-eyed peas and sprinkle in the chili powder, turmeric and garam masala. Cook for another minute. Add the tomatoes and sugar and season with salt. Mix and add 3/4 cup of water, cover and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat and simmer until the peas are tender. Mash some of them to add thickness to the sauce. Turn off the heat and mix in cilantro before serving.

Related post/s:
Part of my Mother Hen project: omakase bento #4
Make your own ginger-garlic paste and store in freezer
I also make my own garam masala spice

Comments (1)

Dirty Rice with Brussels Sprouts and Tofu

Apr 22, ’08

Southern cuisine’s “dirty rice” gets its name from the offal pieces they add in their rice. Comfort food often contains more than its fair share of fried stuff as well as heavy starches and some people say “dirty” is also taken from that. I honestly fucked this dish up so I had to literally scramble and rename it “dirty”. I stir-fried the Brussels sprouts and carrots with the salted black beans and then browned the tofu. When it was time to turn the tofu over, they just fell apart. Fuck it, I thought, and I just mixed everything together.

Mark Bittman recently featured canned black beans and I immediately recognized them as the 89-cent cans I see in Chinatown. Filipinos call them tao-si because the black beans come from long string beans we call sitaw. Reverse that and you get taw-si. The spelling changed to make it sound more Chinese. Oh, those Filipinos! I knew they were salty–the beans, not the Filipinos–but not that salty, so I added rice to the dish to fix it up. Sometimes, the most wonderful dishes come out of mistakes made in the kitchen.

Ingredients:
2 small buckets of Brussels sprouts, hard tips sliced off, quartered
a handful of baby carrots, julienned
1 package of extra firm tofu, sliced into strips
1 can of salted black beans, drained
2 cups of steamed white rice
juice from 1 lemon
1 onion, finely chopped
oil

1. In a large skillet, heat some oil. Sauté onions until translucent. Add black beans and cook for 1 minute. Add Brussels sprouts and carrots and stir-fry until carrots are tender. Set vegetables to the side and make room to fry the tofu.
2. Add some more oil if necessary. Brown the tofu on one side. When turning tofu over to cook the other side, they may stick. That’s okay. You can mix them up with the vegetables and make a scramble. Add rice and continue to mix until fully combined. Add lemon juice to control the saltiness of the black beans.

Related post/s:
Part of my Mother Hen project: omakase bento #4
Stuff tomatoes with rice this summer

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