cia – Page 68 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Where to eat in Jersey City, New Jersey: Dosa Hut

My first exposure to dosas was from Hampton Chutney and, I must admit, wasn’t the most authentic. I still like eating at Hampton Chutney once in a while even though they’re overpriced and I’ve since searched for good, and less expensive, dosas in the city. Shit, I’ve even spent several hours trying to make a Nepalese version at home.

My parents and I met up with Honey and Paolo in Jersey City to check out a Filipino man in the suburbs who apparently can give you the same diagnosis as a chiropractor and help you as much as a physical therapist can. My father has always complained of lower back problems; my mother almost broke her hip and wrist when she fell off a ladder; I still have a busted left knee from hiking the Pyrenees. He didn’t accept any kind of payment–though we ended up buying tocino and longanisa from the wife who makes them at home–so we didn’t see any harm in visiting him.

An hour later, we were famished. Honey drove us to Dosa Hut for lunch where I introduced my parents to vegetarian meals that actually made them full. My parents, always hard to please, refer to all kinds of South Asian food as “Bombay”. They’ve never seen a dosa before and wouldn’t be able to tell one curry from the next. So when I ordered, I asked the lady behind the counter what made their “special dosa” special. It contained cabbage, green bell peppers and onions and was fit for two people. The flavor wasn’t as special as the classic dosa however, stuffed with cheese and parsley. It didn’t seem much at first, but it was deliciously light yet still filling. The crepe itself was crisp and the different chutneys gave my folks a good education about dips outside of the usual Filipino soy sauce and vinegar.

Oh, my left knee has been okay since that visit.

Dosa Hut is at 777 Newark Avenue in Jersey City, New Jersey and is all vegetarian. You can call them at 201/420.6660.

Matsugen

241 Church Street at Leonard
212/925.0202
$75 for tasting menu, without drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

66 was a long time ago but entering Matsugen reminded me of those long lunch hours I used to take to eat at an expensive restaurant and only pay lunch prices. I had a delicate dim sum meal back then, even before Chinatown Brasserie opened, and it cost triple what I would have paid at Jing Fong. No screaming waiters, though, and the white tablecloths remained white even after several dumplings and shumais.

Contrary to popular belief, Jean-Georges Vongerichten is not the chef at Matsugen. Put together the Matsushita brothers wanting their first U.S. mainland restaurant and Jean-Georges needing to replace 66 and you have a high-end Japanese restaurant in a beautifully-designed Richard Meier TriBeCa space. It’s more chic than Honmura An (ahh, more memories!) and it’s more serene than EN Brasserie.

Is it expensive? Definitely, especially if you’re used to Sobaya like me. But if you want to impress, it’s a good place to go, not just for the soba noodles made in-house, but also for sushi, sashimi and even shabu-shabu (also considerably more expensive than Shabu Tatsu’s). If you spend some time looking at the menu, you can get away with paying less than a hundred dollars for two. You won’t be achingly full, but you’ll get the idea why a big-time chef like Jean-Georges would be satisfied with only being behind the scenes on this one.

If you don’t want to be bothered with the several pages of Japanese food with detailed descriptions, the $75 tasting menu when we visited included uni with yuzu jelly–a beautifully assembled starter that’s as creamy as the freshest sea urchin around–a sushi plate, a lobster salad, a bowl of hot soba and a dessert. I highly recommend the hot soba in duck soup and the hot soba with Japanese yam. The noodles yield freely and the broth is so clean: refined Japanese food has never been better.

Pork Roast Thai Green Spices

This Jamie Oliver lamb recipe may seem to require a lot of ingredients but once you have them, all you need to do is toss everything together to marinate the meat. I substituted the lamb with pork roast and served it to guests for my mother’s 61st birthday. I didn’t even use salt because all the herbs were enough to give the roast a delicious Thai-inspired flavor. You’ll find how amazing the lemongrass smell lingers in the meat even after several reheats of the leftovers.

Ingredients:
1 pork roast, bone-in, about 5 pounds

For the marinade:
1 stalk lemongrass, cut in short pieces, smashed
10 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
1 medium-sized knob of ginger, peeled, sliced
half a head of garlic, minced
half a bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped
4 Thai chilies, chopped
juice from 3 limes
olive oil

1. Marinate the pork roast. Pat pork roast dry with a paper towel. Transfer to a large glass container that you can use to marinate. Stir together the olive oil and lime juice in a small bowl and drizzle all over the roast. Stuff every nook with garlic and herbs. Cover with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight.
2. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 425Âº. Remove the pork from the refrigerator and let rest at room temperature until oven is ready. Place an empty aluminum foil-lined roasting pan in the oven while the oven is pre-heating. When oven is ready, transfer the roast to the pan and cook for 45 minutes.
3. Reduce heat to 325Âº and roast an additional hour, or about 10 minutes per pound. Using a meat thermometer, the thickest part of the roast must be around 130Âº. Remove to a chopping block and let stand for half an hour before carving.

Roast Leg of Lamb

For the love of meat, Jake Dickson of Dickson Farmstand worked in several farms, a butcher shop and a slaughterhouse. All the effort paid off and he thought of a brilliant business plan: buy your upstate produce online and pick it up in the city from the back of his truck. I bought a boneless leg of lamb from Ehrhardt Farm in Jersey Hill, one of the highest elevations in Tompkins County, New York.

I also ordered a package of fatty bacon and ground pork but I’ll focus on the leg of lamb so that you can replicate it for your end-of-year dinner.

Ingredients:
1 4-pound boneless leg of lamb, tied up with butcher’s twine
salt, pepper

For marinade:
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup white wine
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 sprigs of thyme
2 sprigs of rosemary
oil, pepper

1. Marinate lamb. Pat leg of lamb dry with a paper towel. On a chopping block as a work surface, drizzle olive oil all over the lamb and rub with pepper. Stuff every nook of leg of lamb with garlic and herbs. Transfer to a large glass container that you can use to marinate. Combine orange juice and white wine in a small bowl and pour into the container to marinate the lamb. Cover with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight. Make sure you turn over the lamb after several hours to soak the other side.
2. When ready to cook, remove the lamb from the fridge and let rest at room temperature. Arrange two racks in the oven: the middle rack to hold the lamb and the lower rack to hold a roasting pan to catch the drippings. (Spread chopped carrots, parsnips and onions in the pan for some roasted veggies to go with the lamb.) Preheat oven to 425º. Place the empty aluminum foil-lined roasting pan in the oven while the oven is pre-heating.
3. Cook the lamb. Remove the lamb from the container and pat dry with paper towels. Generously salt and pepper all sides of the lamb. Place directly on middle rack of the oven; the roasting pan below will catch the drippings. Roast for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 300º and roast an additional hour, or about 10 minutes per pound. Using a meat thermometer, the thickest part of the lamb must be around 135º for medium-rare. Let stand for half an hour before carving. Use just the drippingsand/or the roasted veggies to serve with the lamb.

Pasta E Fagioli, Italian Pasta and Beans Soup

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / Not a creature was stirring,…
Are you kidding me? Whoever the author was wasn’t in my parents’ house on Christmas Eve. It’s definitely not quiet in ours right now: my mother is vacuuming, my father is moving stuff around and I’m simultaneously getting the leg of lamb and pork roast ready for our noche buena, clanging around the kitchen.

I’m not a regular churchgoer, but you can count on me to attend Christmas Eve mass even if it’s cold outside and boring inside. Because it’s also the eve of my birthday, I’ve always found mass quite comforting before I turn a year older. Wherever I am, I make it a point to attend mass for my birthday. After mass, we dive in for dinner and eat until a little after midnight–Christmas Day itself is just recovering from the night before.

This pasta e fagioli recipe, or “pasta and beans” in Italian, is a hearty (and affordable!) filler to keep the hunger pangs away at least until after church, but not too heavy that you would want to skip the main attraction on the dining table. I used Goya pinto beans here because one package was on sale for 99 cents and substituted the Parmesan cheese for Manchego.

Ingredients:
1 cup pinto beans, soaked overnight in water
2 cups mini penne pasta
4 slices bacon, chopped
3 large beefsteak tomatoes, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 sprig of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
Manchego cheese
salt, pepper

1. Drain the water from the soaking beans. In a large saucepan, add 3 cups of water and bring the beans to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for an hour, or until tender. When done, transfer beans and water to a large container and set aside.
2. Using the same saucepan, cook the bacon until crisp. Add the garlic and sauté until light brown. Add the onions and sauté until translucent. Add the herbs, carrots, celery and tomatoes and stir to combine. Cook until carrots are tender.
3. Return the beans and the water to the saucepan and let simmer for 30 minutes. Add more water if you want more soup. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Add the macaroni and simmer for another 10 minutes, or just enough to cook the pasta. Stir occasionally. Ladle into bowls and grate cheese on top before serving.