Writing With My Mouth Full

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    • Apple Peel-Brined Pork Loin with Baked Purple Figs

      When trying to figure out our September apple menu for Supper with Strangers, I naturally turned to pork because pork and apples make a good combination. A more recent New York Times recipe featured duck and figs that looked very autumnal and just made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Duck breast was out of our Supper budget, so I found some nice pork loin and stole the idea of figs from the recipe.

      The apple peel brine came from watching the Dr. marinate pork chops when we closed the summer season in Montauk a couple of weekends ago. The sweetness of the brine penetrated the pork meat and made it juicy; cooked just right and the meat is succulent and moist. The baked apples and figs were a nice side to make the meal complete. A Coast of Spain blend of Cabernet, Merlot and Tempranillo was the perfect match.

      Ingredients:
      1 pork loin, tied in butcher twine
      1 apple, sliced thin
      1 apple, peel and meat peeled using a peeler
      1 small tub of figs, sliced in half
      3 tbsps sugar
      1 tbsp juniper berries
      1 tsp all spice
      1 tsp black peppercorns
      3 bay leaves
      oil, salt

      1. Two days before cooking, make the brine. In a small saucepan, boil apple peels and meat with sugar, juniper berries, all spice, black peppercorns, bay leaves in 4 cups of water. Season with salt. Simmer until water is reduced to about half. Remove pot from heat and let completely cool before adding to pork loin.
      2. In a glass baking dish, marinade the pork loin in the brine. Just use enough brine to submerge the pork almost halfway. Turn pork loin over after a day.
      3. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 300º. While preheating oven, remove pork from the brine. Heat a large skillet with some oil and brown the pork loin on all sides. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with foil and roast for about 25 minutes or until the pork feels like the meat below your thumb.
      4. In the meantime, combine figs and apples in a separate baking dish and drizzle some oil. Bake for 15 minutes. Set aside. Save the juice.
      5. Remove pork loin from oven to a chopping block and let rest for about 15 minutes before slicing into 2-inch thick rounds. Serve with baked apples and figs and drizzle the fruit juice over them.

      Related post/s:
      Join us at Supper once a month
      September Supper with Strangers photos on Flickr
      Pork and apples make a classic combination

    • Porchetta

      110 East 7th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A
      212/777.2151
      $9 for a pork sandwich, without tip
      ♥

      For Italians, porchetta means boneless pork roast that’s moist and juicy. Chef and co-owner Sara Jenkins doesn’t stray away from that definition: my $9 pork was no joke. The meat was shiny; its own fat glistening in between the two slices of Sullivan Street Bakery ciabatta bread. There are little surprises of crunch and soft gelatinous cubes of fat–my jaw hurt from chewing but I couldn’t stop eating.

      I’ll return to try it with some of my own chili sauce, although it was well-seasoned that it didn’t really need any extras to make it more satisfying than it already is. The $5 side of potatoes were roasted in pork fat and tossed with some burnt pork ends. The bitter and garlicky broccoli rabe was a good balance to all the fat.

      It took me ten minutes to walk from work to this new Porchetta branch in the east Village and another five to get my lunch order, but it took me two hours to digest one of their fatty-licious sandwiches.

      Related post/s:
      I haven’t checked out the original Porchetta branch in Brooklyn, but Fette Sau comes to mind when I think of pork in the borough

    • Peach Cobbler

      When I try to cook something and it comes out of the oven fragrant and then it actually tastes good, I always wish I baked more. I got my hands on some ripe and bruised peaches today. I knew they wouldn’t hold even if I just ate them with yogurt for breakfast, so I thought cooking them was the way to go. I’ve tried this recipe before and for some reason I added more flour and it came out bread-y. This time, I was vigilant about following the measurements and waiting for it to bake on its own. Spain…On The Road Again on CBS kept me company until I had to eat a piece of Cia dessert.

      Ingredients:
      8 ripe yellow peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced into 1/2 inch thick wedges
      1 cup sugar, divided 2/3 cup and 1/3 cup
      1 tsp grated lemon peel
      1 1/2 tbsps lemon juice
      2 tsps vanilla
      2 cups all purpose flour
      1 1/4 tsps baking powder
      1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
      3/4 cup (6 oz) butter, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
      2/3 cup whipping cream

      1. Preheat oven to 350º. In a large bowl, combine peaches, 2/3 cup sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice and vanilla. Let stand at least 15 minutes, stirring several times.
      2. In another large bowl, combine flour with remaining 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder and nutmeg. Using your fingers, incorporate butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add cream and stir just until dough holds together.
      3. In a greased shallow square baking dish, spread fruit at the bottom. Using your hands, crumble dough evenly over fruit.
      4. Bake oven until fruit mixture bubbles in center and topping is golden brown, about 1 hour.

      Related post/s:
      Rhubarb crumb cake is a good one for spring
      Or you know, you can just skip the fruit and go straight to bacon

    • Melon Prosciutto Mozarella Salad

      I’m spending the last weekend of the summer in Montauk and I wanted to make a salad last night that evoked that warm-but-chilly late afternoon air. We opened a bottle of wine and divided the duties in the kitchen: the Dr. cranked up the grill while I stayed indoors to prepare the side dishes. Earlier in the day, we stopped by the Amagansett vegetable stand to buy fresh produce. I was inspired by the fresh mozarella and the fragrant melons, as well as the spicy arugula and extra large parsley leaves. A quick stop at the deli got me some prosciutto to add.

      Ingredients:
      a small chunk of a melon, sliced in slightly larger pieces than the mozarella
      a few pieces of prosciutto, torn
      fresh mozarella, sliced in small pieces
      a handful of parsley, roughly chopped
      a handful of arugula, roughly chopped
      juice from half a lemon
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. In a small bowl, make the dressing. Whisk in lemon juice with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
      2. In a salad bowl, toss in the melon cubes with the mozarella. Add in prosciutto and the greens. Gently dress with lemon juice and olive oil mixture so that the salad doesn’t muddle.

      Related post/s:
      Try bresaola if you don’t like pork

    • Where to eat in Fort Lee, New Jersey: So Kong Dong

      Soondooboo is Korean for the tofu that doesn’t go through the process of compression. It’s soft, silky and slushy, and dear lord, it’s the perfect spicy stew after a long day under the hot, beating sun. Soondooboo chigae, or soft tofu stew, is usually made with minced pork or clams and then flavored with garlic, scallions, sesame oil and the ubiquitous red pepper powder. Everything is boiled over intense heat using a ceramic pot that doubles as a serving a bowl. Raw eggs are served with it so that you may plop one in to add to the broth’s consistency.

      If you ask Koreans where to get the best soondooboo in Los Angeles, I would be surprised if they didn’t say So Kong Dong on West Olympic. I’m still not sure if the two restaurants are related; I’m just glad we have one in the east coast.

      So Kong Dong is at 130 Main Street in Fort Lee, New Jersey. You can’t reserve a table and there’s a bit of a wait on weekends, but you can call 201/242.0026 and order ahead for pick-up.

      Related post/s:
      See, I eat in New Jersey
      I even cross the bridge for ramen

    • Tomato Preserve

      I couldn’t ignore the beautiful photograph that accompanied Amanda Hesser’s recreation of a 1948 tomato preserve recipe in The New York Times Magazine last month. I cut the recipe short and marinated the tomatoes in sugar for only a few hours instead of overnight. I didn’t seed the tomatoes either, nor did I remove the lemon slices when I stored the finished product in a glass jar. My version still came out nice enough to spread in toasted baguettes and crackers.

      Ingredients:
      8 plum tomatoes
      3/4 cup sugar
      3 cloves
      1 stick cinnamon
      a small knob of ginger, peeled, sliced
      1/4 of a lemon, thinly sliced, seeded

      1. Boil some water in a small pot. Skin tomatoes by cutting a shallow X in their rounded end. Add tomatoes in the boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove the tomatoes using a slotted spoon and let cool. When cool enough to handle, peel off tomato skins.
      2. Layer the tomatoes and sugar in a small Dutch oven. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours.
      3. When ready to cook, put all the spices in a cheesecloth and add to the tomatoes along with the sliced lemon. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring and gently crushing often, until the tomatoes have become slightly translucent and the syrup is thick and begins to gel. Don’t boil the syrup, or the tomatoes will fall apart.
      4. Remove the spice bag. Remove Dutch oven from heat and let tomato preserve cool before transferring to a resealable glass jar.

      Related post/s:
      Tomatillos are related to tomatoes

    • Momofuku Ko

      163 First Avenue off 10th Street
      https://reservations.momofuku.com/
      about $300 for two, with beverage pairings, without tip
      ♥ ♥ ♥

      I was so busy at work last week that I didn’t even have time to be excited about our upcoming reservations at Ko. When Cameron told me she wanted to take me out to thank me for showing her the Philippines last month, I thought, You’re welcome; don’t be silly. But when I received an email from her a couple of weeks later with our Ko confirmation attached, I squealed, Noooooo.

      I gave up trying to get a reservation the first time I actually saw a green check mark on their Web site. As soon as I clicked it, I waited nervously for the page to refresh, and then, Sorry, that spot was just taken. It’s like waiting for your lottery numbers to show up on TV: the ball rolls out and you think it’s one of your picks; only it’s a 6 and not a 9 when it finally stops spinning. Momofuku Ko is the first restaurant I know of that uses only a Web site to take reservations and I suppose it’s a good way to keep the die-hard David Chang fans excited. All of us need someone who is willing to click their mouse off once in a while.

      At 6:15 sharp, we were seated in the middle of the bar with a couple to our left and a group of four at the other end. The other seats were waiting for the 6:30pm guests–stacking them up this way is their version of turning tables over efficiently. By the time we were eating our fourth course, a newly arrived couple to our right was pouring over the wine list. The night’s pace was swift; our matching wines, beer and sake kept coming until the first of two desserts. I felt like I had to keep drinking to have no more than two glasses on my table. Although I played catch up with my drinks, I kept up with all eleven courses, including the bouches. The portions weren’t French Laundry nor Blue Hill sizes. I wasn’t comatose at the end of our two-hour meal. Perhaps a little tipsy, but quite happy and content. Here’s a rundown:

      1. A delicately small toasted English muffin with pork fat and chives
      2. A Ssam tribute of pig’s head torchon with mustard

      One of the first two came with a light and crunchy chicharron and Japanese salt.

      3. Fluke sashimi in buttermilk (!) with Sriracha hot sauce and yuzu paste covered in poppy seeds
      4. Matsutake mushrooms in hot broth of bacon and dashi, a dish that reminded me of Tojo’s sable fish soup in Vancouver.
      5. A beautifully smoked soft-boiled egg with onion sous-vide and caviar served with potato chips
      6. An out of place corn-filled ravioli with Cotija Mexican cheese; I liked it more than I expected.
      7. Maine halibut in pepperoncini purée and burnt onions with finely-chopped kohlrabi and radish in basil oil
      8. Lychee with Riesling gelée and pine nuts and then covered in grated foie gras. Grated. Foie. Gras. This dish blew me away and I couldn’t stop talking about it. Everything melded in my mouth like Dippin’ Dots, only more luxurious and decadent than anything I’ve had this year. “Son of a peach” indeed.
      9. Perfectly, perfectly cooked duck–the surly Asian man behind the counter (who wasn’t David Chang) had skills–with Chinese long beans, chestnuts and bean sprouts in cherry sauce.
      10. Lychee sorbet in sesame “sand”; my quotes but perhaps a Thomas Keller-influenced naming convention
      11. Strawberry and peanut butter halva with a sickeningly sweet yellow cake ice cream. I told you, I don’t like sweets.

      David Chang is so lucky to be the name on almost every foodie’s tongue today: five years in the east Village and he’s still making waves. Ko is obviously his and his staff’s playground and you can feel that they’re cooking for themselves and serving what they want because they know people will follow. I can’t help but feel proud that this Asian American is at the top of his career right now. How I wish all talented and deserving chefs out there get the same chance to cook and perform the Momofuku way.

      Related post/s:
      It’s all about finesse at French Laundry
      Comatose at Blue Hill at Stone Barns
      Star-struck at Tojo’s
      Boy, was I reminded by Momofuku fans that I got the wrong review

    • Crispy Vegetable Rolls

      It felt great to be cooking in the kitchen again. After a summer hiatus, I signed the usual group up again for my omakase bento lunches. A day out in New Jersey playing $40 buy-in volleyball with some friends got me a slightly twisted ankle, so I couldn’t really stand too long to cook something elaborate. I did most of the work here sitting down. My legs also hurt from too much exercise in one day, so I ended up using my entire CSA share from last Thursday instead of going out to shop for more ingredients.

      Ask any non-Filipino out there about Filipino food and they’ll most likely tell you about lumpiang Shanghai, or the fried egg rolls we adapted from the Chinese. Like any traditional recipe, this not only involves a lot of preparation, but also an almost precise way of frying to get them crispy. Wrapping them is a whole other business I’ve learned from my mother and from rolling other things–it takes practice.

      To cut down on chopping and cooking time, I used a peeler to get the vegetable meat as thin as possible. When ready to serve, all I had to do was fry them in medium-low heat to brown the wrapper since everything inside is already cooked. You can make these ahead of time and they keep in the freezer, stored in a Tupperware, for up to two weeks.

      You can find spring roll wrappers or “shells” in the frozen section of any Asian grocery store. I like the Wei-Chuan brand because they’re springy enough to make the rolling easy, but also thin enough to brown quicker.

      Ingredients:
      spring roll wrappers, thawed and kept moist by covering with a wet paper towel while wrapping
      1 pound of green beans, stringed, finely chopped
      2 medium carrots, peeled, and then shaved using a peeler
      2 kohlrabis, peeled, and then shaved using a peeler
      2 potatoes, half-boiled, peeled, and then shaved using a peeler
      1 red bell pepper, seeded, finely chopped
      3 cloves of garlic, minced
      red pepper flakes
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. Heat some oil in a large skillet. Sauté the garlic until light brown. Sauté all the vegetables, adding the ones that take longer to cook. In this case, green beans first, then kohlrabi, followed by the carrots and the red bell pepper. Add in the cooked potatoes 2 minutes before turning the heat off. Season with chili flakes, salt and pepper. Set aside.
      2. Wrap and roll. On a chopping block, lay out one of the wrappers flat. Spoon a little bit of the vegetable mix onto the bottom end of the wrapper. Fold that end over to cover the stuffing and then fold half an inch from the left and the right over to seal the sides. Continue to fold over the bottom until you make a roll. Set aside with the opening side down to keep it closed until ready to fry. Do this until you’re out of vegetable mixture or wrappers.
      3. When ready to fry, heat some oil in a shallow skillet. When oil is almost smoking, slowly add each roll to fry with the opening side down to keep them closed. Using tongs, gently turn each roll over to cook the other side. Both sides should only be a lightly toasted color.
      4. Remove each roll to a stainless steel colander. They will sweat and lose crispiness if you put them on paper towel right away.

      Related post/s:
      Part of my Mother Hen project: omakase bento #16

    • Tomato- and Ricotta-Stuffed Squash Blossoms

      I’ve stuffed goat cheese in squash blossoms before but we want to be more creative and adventurous with our Supper with Strangers. When Cameron and I sit down (and drink) to plan our monthly menu, we immediately think of the more well known dishes and try to cross them off our list. When we came up with August’s tomato theme, I begged that please, please, no caprese salad.

      We could have saved squash blossoms for autumn but a light, almost foamy texture with a thin crisp of a vegetable flower, was just perfect to start off a summer meal. I tried this recipe the only way I know how: coating the blossoms with flour before frying. But the flour only weighed down the delicate blossoms so I ended up skipping the batter. One of those Asian strainer ladles is useful to fry them quickly and remove them from the hot oil.

      Ingredients:
      12 fresh squash blossoms, stamens removed
      5 tbsps ricotta
      1 heirloom yellow or orange tomato, pulped removed and set aside, diced
      juice from a small lemon
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. In a small bowl, combine ricotta and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper.
      2. Gently stuff the squash blossoms by spooning half a dollop of the ricotta-tomato mixture inside. Do not overstuff. Lightly twist the blossom ends to shut close.
      3. When ready to fry, heat some oil in a deep skillet. Before the oil starts to smoke, Fry up to 3 blossoms at a time using a strainer ladle. Try to swish the pot so that the entire blossom gets some of the hot oil. When they start to brown, remove to a stainless steel colander. They will sweat and lose crispiness if you put them on paper towel right away. When cool enough to handle, then you can transfer them to a plate lined with paper towel until ready to serve.
      4. Serve with some of the tomato pulp and season with salt, pepper and a squirt of lemon juice.

      Related post/s:
      Join us at Supper once a month
      August Supper with Strangers photos on Flickr
      Squash blossoms with goat cheese

    • Brick Lane Curry House

      306-308 East 6th Street on Second Avenue
      212/979.8787
      about $200 for five, without drinks, without tip
      ♥

      I’ve never heard of phaal until it made the Omnivore’s Hundred from verygoodtaste.co.uk. From that site’s must-eat list, I checked off 75 items that I’ve tasted and eaten. Among the other 25 is phaal, or phall, a South Indian curry dish that is supposedly spicier than the more familiar vindaloo. I was intrigued.

      My co-workers wanted to order lunch delivery and Brick Lane Curry House’s menu satisfied the meat eaters plus the vegan and vegetarians among us. It took about an hour for the food to come and when we opened the lids of the containers, I have to admit I was very disappointed at the small amount of food. The lamb chops, infused with tamarind, ginger and garlic, while tender and tasty, were small and didn’t hold up to my growling stomach. I had to compensate by eating extra portions of rice. I only had a small taste of the vegetarian and the vegan curries, and I couldn’t tell the difference from the two sauces except for the fact that the vegan version had a smattering of white onions. The Goan fish dish was the best in the mix with its green chiles and coconut flavor enhanced by vinegar. Was it buttery? Oh, yes, it was.

      Now back to the phaal, exaggerated by the restaurant as an “excruciatingly hot curry” but correctly described as “more pain and sweat than flavor”. Need to know more than that? When the sauce hits your tongue, you get the sting right away and then it sits and slowly burrows. (Un)fortunately, as soon as your tongue goes numb, the spiciness is replaced by bitterness, and at that point, all you want is either some more rice or more Goan fish curry. Michael above, though, talks about how it hit his sinus right away; he didn’t even feel the spiciness in his tongue.

      I’ve had my share of spicy food, and up to this day, nothing beats the pickled Scotch Bonnet peppers I had in the Big Corn Island in Nicaragua. Go taste the phaal for yourself at Brick Lane Curry House and get a free bottle of beer when you finish a whole serving on your own.

      Related post/s:
      My Omnivore’s Hundred, still being updated
      Memories of Nicaragua, 2007

    • Tomato Paella

      Paella seems to be in the news lately. Mark Bittman featured this vegetarian-friendly recipe a few weeks ago and I took note to recreate it for our August Supper with Strangers. Over the long weekend, a grilled version was featured in the Sunday Times Magazine.

      I had time to test Bittman’s recipe, but I found it hard to cook the rice in under 30 minutes. I tried his way the first round using the oven but some parts remained undercooked. I felt like there was so much maintenance to make sure the rice was evenly cooked. For my second try, I left it on top of the stove but it still needed so much attention I just had no patience for it.

      So for Supper, I committed the worst paella sin there could be and used a rice cooker to make sure the dish went well for six guests. It did: the rice was fluffy, not sticky, and I didn’t have to keep adding vegetable broth. The initial few cups I used kept it cooking with just a simmer. It’s almost blasphemous, I know, but the paella turned out well. I grilled some lamb chorizo to go with the dish and some thinly-sliced aubergines as a vegetarian alternate. I topped both versions with grilled tomato slices and poured over salted tomato pulp to make it moist.

      Ingredients:
      4 cups of short-grain rice
      1 pack of vegetable broth
      1 large heirloom tomato, thinly sliced
      1 onion, finely chopped
      2 cloves of garlic, minced
      2 tbsps paprika
      1 tbsp tomato paste
      half a bunch of parsley, finely chopped
      oil, salt, pepper

      If using:
      1 eggplant, thinly sliced, seasoned with salt and pepper, grilled
      1 rope of lamb chorizo, grilled, and then sliced

      1. Heat a skillet and add some oil. Sauté garlic until golden brown. Add onions and cook until translucent. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in tomato paste and paprika and cook for another minute. Add rice, stirring constantly, making sure everything is well-combined.
      2. Transfer everything to a rice cooker and add vegetable broth. Cook like you do white rice.
      3. Five minutes from being done, when the rice has settled but there is still some broth simmering, top with tomato slices to cook in the remaining steam.
      4. When cooked, turn off the rice cooker, stir the rice and sprinkle with parsley. Let sit in the cooker until ready to serve. Served with grilled chorizo or eggplants.

      Related post/s:
      Join us at Supper once a month
      August Supper with Strangers photos on Flickr
      Eating paella in Barcelona
      Cauliflower Pilaf is one vegetarian dish I’ve made at home

    • Saravanaa Bhavan

      81 Lexington Avenue corner of 26th Street
      212/684.7755
      about $45, with one drink, with tip
      ♥

      The Dr. remembered a suggestion he received from one of his co-workers for some dosas in Murray Hill but the name escaped him; all he knew was that it was long and unpronounceable. Luckily we caught a glimpse of Saravanaa Bhavan’s sign as soon as we turned the corner on Lexington Avenue.

      I wanted something new and I decided on two dishes I’ve never heard before after scanning the menu. (The Dr. stuck with the more familiar vegetarian dosa.) The adai avail reminded me of the hard work I put into making my own chataamari, grinding the lentils by hand using a simple mortar and pestle while watching TV. It was pasty but the texture was still grainy: unmistakably homemade.

      The onions were apparent in the kaima idli, and I couldn’t stop eating. The spiciness also lingered after several spoonfuls. I slathered it with the raita, the yogurt-based dip, to keep it together. I found a new favorite and I was addicted. The salted lassi wasn’t exactly the best match but I just had to try it and cross it off my recent must-try list.

      Go to Saravanaa Bhavan if you want to stray away from the usual curries and if you don’t feel like paying double at SoHo’s Hampton Chutney. The scene is a New York City one, full of family life and color.

      Related post/s:
      Nepalese Stuffed Chataamari recipe
      Chinese Mirch is down the block