Writing With My Mouth Full

Fennel and Celery Root Salad

It’s so nice to step out of the gym at 4:30pm and squint because it’s so bright outside. We New Yorkers like our different seasons, but oh, nothing is as sweet as welcoming spring. I’m actually way ahead of the weather with this recipe because I think of fennel in a cold salad as a summer produce: bright and fresh.

If you have a mandoline, you can make a better presentation with this salad, but a sharp knife will do as long as you use extra care especially with the celeriac. A very good Parmiggiano is necessary, although Piave cheese will do okay, too. Add to the salad’s brightness by plucking a few flat parsley leaves from its stem and serving them whole.

Ingredients:
1 fennel bulb, sliced thinly
1 celery root, peeled, sliced thinly
3 sprigs of parsley, leaves plucked from stem
Parmiggiano Reggiano cheese
juice from one lemon
oil, salt, pepper

1. In a bowl, toss fennel and celery root with lemon juice and some salt. The lemon juice will keep the vegetables’ color until you’re ready to serve. Add parsley leaves and season with pepper. Drizzle a generous amount of good olive oil.
2. Before serving, slice some cheese and add to the salad.

Inakaya

231 West 40th Street between Seventh and Eighth
212/354.2195
$65 for two, with drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

Inakaya is a good place for two kinds of dates: one, an awkward first date when neither have to nervously talk but still have a good time; two, a long-term couple date when almost anything can slip by and forgiven by the end of the night. For the first couple, they can’t really have a quiet conversation while dining at Inakaya because it’s a robatayaki, also known as robata, or an open grill where every few minutes a chorus of waiters and chefs shout and repeat customers’ orders. For the long-timers, they may be amused with the very lively setting and shrug off another date night out.

The Dr. and I belong to the latter. We were to meet midtown for dinner to eat sushi, but we didn’t want to spend too much money. I was at the new Muji store inside the New York Times building and noticed Inakaya next door. It was only a week old when we visited, but it was already packed with Japanese salarymen who perhaps wanted to support the establishment’s efforts. There were a few families as well and the younger kids seemed to enjoy all the screaming. Some of them even participated in the mochi-making presentation by the window where a giant pestle is used to mush up the soy.

The robatayaki‘s origin leads back to the city of Sendai in the northeast region of Japan. The chefs sit on their shins wearing ninja-like socks surrounded by carefully-selected fresh ingredients. At Inakaya, it’s orchestrated how they kneel and reach out for the produce and they use the same fluid moves to serve the finished dishes. Long wooden paddles are used so that the chefs can reach you from across the grill while the rest of your order is served by kimono-wearing waiters.

The food can’t get any better for something across the Port Authority bus terminal. The oysters came from the west coast, and even though they lightly touched the grill, they still tasted like the ocean. The day’s sashimi special came from Tsukiji Market that morning but I don’t remember it being out of our budget. We unfortunately skipped the beautiful marbled meats that were displayed in front of us–we weren’t in the mood for red meat–but we couldn’t say no to the buttery uni.

It’s nice to know that there’s a place to go to to escape the mediocrity of Hell’s Kitchen and the awfulness of fast-food kingdom at Times Square. Now I know where to eat if I ever find myself at the bus station or the AMC movie theater next door even if it means putting up with a little bit more of noise.

Pulpo a la Gallega, Galician Octopus

The two-or-two rule I apply for squid also applies when I cook octopus. You either tenderize it for 2 minutes or two hours; anything other than those times, your octopus will be chewy and inedible.

At the Filipino grocery store in Jersey City, I found a small frozen block of octopus for under $5. I wish I bought more because this Galician salad was so easy. It might take time to cook the octopus but once tender, it’s like tossing a simple salad together.

Ingredients:
1 octopus, about 2 pounds, thawed, beak removed if necessary
4 medium potatoes, peeled, sliced
smoked paprika
salt

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a generous helping of salt. Put octopus in water and, when it returns to boil, cover and lower the heat to simmer. Cook for no more than 2 hours, until octopus is tender. When you have 30 minutes to go, add the potatoes and cook until tender.
2. Remove octopus and potatoes from pot of water and drain. Slice the octopus into smaller pieces. Separate the potatoes on a platter and sprinkle with paprika. Distribute the octopus on top of the potatoes. Drizzle with olive oil and season with some salt.

Sichuan Dry-Fried String Beans

I picked up a copy of Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty from the library last week. I skimmed through it before I checked it out because I wanted to see if the recipes were easy to do at home. I’m obsessed with this dry-fried string beans dish I always order when I’m eating at Grand Sichuan, so I made sure there was a similar string beans entry caled rou mo jiang dou. My mouth watered while reading the recipe and I knew I just had to do it pronto.

Before heading out to Chicago earlier this week, I pickled the string beans. Emptying them out when I was ready to make a Friday lunch, I couldn’t believe how fragrant it had gotten. The star anise and the ginger together gave the beans a most familiar smell: I knew I was on the right track.

Thank you to Fuschia Dunlop’s time in Chengdu! The recipes gave me an understanding of how much history came with each, but she’s deciphered them to make it easy to replicate at home.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of long green beans
1/4 lb ground pork
1/2 tsp rice wine
1/2 tsp light soy sauce
3 dried Thai chiles, snipped in half and some of the seeds discarded
1/2 tsp whole Sichuan peppercorns
salt
peanut oil for cooking

For the pickling solution:
4 dried Thai chiles
1/2 tsp whole Sichuan peppercorns
2 tsps rice wine
1 star anise
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 large finger of ginger, peeled, chopped in smaller pieces
1 cinnamon stick
salt

1. Pickle the string beans up to 3 days in advance. Wash the beans thoroughly and store in a pickling jar large enough to hold all the long beans. Meanwhile, boil about 3 cups of water with some salt until it dissolves. Add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for 5 minutes, or until water has reduced to more or less 2 cups. Set aside and let cool. When pickling solution is cool enough, separate the solid ingredients and stuff them in the jar with the beans. Pour in pickling liquid to fill the jar; there should be enough water to submerge all of the beans. Close tightly and store in the fridge until ready to cook.
2. At time of cooking, mix ground pork with rice wine, soy sauce and salt in a large glass bowl. Set aside.
3. Remove beans from pickling solution and chop into small pieces to complement the small grains of the ground pork. You can pick the brown tips and throw those away.
4. Using a wok or a large frying pan, heat some peanut oil until almost smoking. Add the pork and stir-fry until dry and crispy. Transfer back to the same bowl.
5. Add a fresh coat of peanut oil to the pan and heat. Add chiles and peppercorns and stir-fry until fragrant. Be careful not to let them burn. Add the beans and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the pork and stir-fry for another minute. Serve with a steaming bowl of white rice.

Bubby’s Pie Co.

1 Main Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn
718/222.0666
$45 for two, with a drink, without tip
♥ ♥

We descended on the island of Brooklyn earlier than we would want to be, but Bubby’s was already teeming with young families and baby strollers. We squeezed ourselves past the waiting crowd and told the maitre d’ we would take the two empty seats at the bar. At Bubby’s, the bar is the way to go if there’s less than four of you so you avoid the long wait, but you also sacrifice service.

At the bar, we ordered a bloody Mary and a diet Coke. We split the grass-fed burger and opted for a salad instead of fries and shared a side of two eggs over-easy and bacon. As soon as our plates were placed in front of us, it took more than ten minutes to start eating because we had to wait for our waiter to walk by so that we can remind him about the ketchup and mustard. I walked to the other end to find one of the two guys running the bar, but couldn’t find them. When one of them came out of the kitchen, I couldn’t get his attention until he returned to our side of the bar to hear the lady next to us complain about her eggs. (She ordered fried and got scrambled instead.) But when we finally started eating, it was a very pleasant burger, and not because we were extremely hungry but because it as juicy, perfectly medium-rare and well-seasoned. The salad was boring so we mixed in some of the egg yolks with it to give it a kick. In fact, forget about well-crafted salads when you go to Bubby’s: order anything that’s heartier and heavier than a bowl of freshly tossed vegetables and expect to wait.