A word on lamb

Dinner went over well, I think, and the only reason we have an ass-ton of leftovers is the fact I cooked for eight and there were five us (two of whom have small appetites). But that’s how it always is when I cook for people, there are always leftovers.

For the lamb stew, I knew I would have to take steps to make the lamb less lamby. I was raised on lamb chops so the meat’s gaminess doesn’t bother me. But I know it bothers other people. Figuring that the gamy flavor comes from the fat, the first thing I did was to trim as much fat as possible from my cut, a boned leg of lamb. I cut it into chunks and trimmed away even more fat.

The next thing I did: I macerated the meat in salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, Spanish smoked paprika, coriander, cumin, lots of cinnamon, and a little bit of allspice and clove. That sat in my fridge for a couple of days. On the morning of the dinner, I floured the pieces and browned them in bacon fat and olive oil. Add some duck stock, a couple of bay leaves, and the diced up piece of bacon that had contributed its fat; bring to a boil. And now the real trick, the whole point of this post: I did a slow simmer in a 220 F oven for 3 or 4 hours.

There were enough spices on the meat that I didn’t need to adjust the seasonings one bit. I prepared my vegies separately (onions, carrots, yams, apricots, which I know are not vegies), added them in towards the end of the cooking time, and garnished with fresh parsley and cilantro.

Oh! The key point. Almost forgot. I poured off all the juices/broth from the meat and separated out all but about two tablespoons of the fat. No lamby gaminess! The meat was fork tender and tasted of lamb, but not overwhelmingly so. The cinnamon and other aromatic spices came through clearly.

Making b’stila with duck confit is probably not worth all the bother. It was better than the chicken version, but not that much better. We’re talking about a dish that’s pretty damned good to begin with. Still, it had been a few years since I had made a confit, and I was curious to try it again. Guess I could have made a duck salad with it. Ah, next time.

D.

The menu

Back in med school, we used to have dinner parties for our friends. A lot of dinner parties. Paul Prudhomme’s barbecue shrimp was a favorite, since it was easy to prepare, tasty, and impressive. Up north, once we’d made some friends who were foodies (and, thus, would reciprocate in kind), we ventured into more elaborate territory — like raviolis in a browned butter and sage sauce.

Tomorrow night, we’re having my partner and his wife over for dinner. Mind you, I like to get complicated just for the fun of it, but it helps my motivation to know that his wife loves to cook. Thus, there’s at least some thin sliver of hope for reciprocation.

Here’s the tentative menu . . .

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The allure of comfort food

This afternoon, I took my son to the doctor’s office to get his flu shots, and afterward we went out to lunch at Tahoe Joe’s. I’ve been gaining weight for the holidays, a lot more than I usually do around Christmas, so I tried to order something skimpy. Soup and salad.

The soup was cream of mushroom, and it diverged but little from the Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom of my childhood. I’m sure I haven’t had this since I was single-digits, and oh boy did it take me back. I had vivid memories of our old home, of the bowl, of the way I would let it cool so that a skin would form on top, and then I’d spoon off the skin (my favorite part) and wait for another skin to form. I remember how the mushrooms were those tiny little cubes. The mushrooms today were actual slices, but other than that, the flavor was identical.

I remembered the black-and-white TV in our den that we’d watch while eating lunch. Remember having to walk up to the TV to change channels? Remember adjusting the rabbit ears?

I used to have Saltines with my soup. Today, no Saltines. I missed them.

Meanwhile, part of me realized that this soup was really vile and that I’d rather be eating any other type of soup. I had hoped for “real” cream of mushroom, you know, the kind of stuff I would make were I to make it at all, but instead the restaurant went for the old familiar. Which was cool in a way, but ultimately yucky.

I didn’t finish it, but I came awfully close.

D.

There must be a trick

I have a pizza peel. I have a stone. But for the life of me, I can’t get the pizza to slide from peel to stone.

I floured the peel and sprinkled corn meal on it, then checked to see that my dough would slip around okay. It did. I skimped on the tomato sauce, since I can recall problems with a damp, doughy crust when I’ve used too much sauce, and I didn’t want to make the whole thing too heavy (sliding problem, once again). I didn’t particularly care for the idea of adding sauce, cheese, and meat once the dough was already in the oven, since inevitably I give myself a hell of a burn reaching into the oven. So I loaded up my pizza and then tried to slide it off the peel.

No go.

I used a large spatula to loosen the pizza from the peel, working circumferentially to lift every last bit from the wood. It still wouldn’t slide.

Fortunately, I could fold the pizza over and make a calzone, which for some bizarre reason slid very nicely onto the stone. Still, I’d rather have had a pizza. The meat inside a calzone never gets crispy the way pizza meat does.

I’ve become quite good at pizza and focaccia doughs. I start the dough at around noon, first making a sponge of 1 cup of unbleached flour, 1 cup of water, and a packet of yeast. I whisk it up along with a half teaspoon of salt and about a teaspoon of honey. Wait for it to get frothy — about an hour or so at room temperature — then whisk in another teaspoon of honey, half teaspoon of salt, another cup of flour, and a good bit of olive oil, maybe 2 tablespoons. The dough may be a little wet, but that’s okay. You still have another rise to go through. After that, you can turn it out onto a floured wooden board, and as you knead the dough, you can work more flour into it to make something that looks like pizza dough.

If you’re making focaccia, don’t bother kneading or working in extra flour. Turn the moist dough onto parchment paper and use a large plastic spatula to push and pull the dough into the right shape. Add your toppings, then bake at 450 F until done.

Now, if I could get the damn thing to slide off the peel, I’d be in business.

D.

Makes Lola’s look like the 7-11

Here in Bako, I’ve found an Indian market, two Chinese markets, a Middle Eastern market, a Vietnamese market. I was beginning to despair of ever finding a market like Lola’s in Santa Rosa, where I could always find a quick and tasty meal for dinner, whether it be perfect tamales or a savory hunk of carnitas. The other day, I mentioned this to my medical assistant. Today, she brought me an ad for Pro’s Ranch Market.

Pro's Ranch Market, the Caesar's Palace of Mexican Groceries

Wandering Pro’s Ranch Market, I felt the same way I do whenever I visit Powell’s Books in Portland: I could spend all night here. I was already running late, though, so I hadn’t the time to look over the outdoor cocina, barely skimmed the offerings of the indoor cocina, and generally did a poor job exploring this wonderful place. I did notice at least four types of homemade mole (and chose the Oaxacan mole, which I hope is mild!), three different styles of chorizo, and a huge tray of pig snouts. In the pastry section, I rejoiced at finding a sweet potato pie. Yes, we’ve already tried it. Yes, it’s delish.

Un-adventurously I bought chile relleno and tamales, the sweet potato pie, wedding cookies and bunuelos (flour tortillas deep-fried and dusted with sugar and cinnamon). I goggled at the various organ meats and fresh yogurt and enormous slabs of flan and bushels of dried chiles . . .

I’ll let you know how the chicken in Oaxacan mole comes out.

D.

Hectic stew

Things be jumping in the next few days. I’m in the OR tomorrow, bunch of middlin’ cases, then it’s down to LA for Part II of Kize College. I spend Wednesday night in Pasadena, Thursday listening to speakers, back here Thursday night. Friday morning, I’m doing a big case in the OR, then patients in the afternoon. Busy, busy week.

So I’m trying to figure out different things to do with beef stew. Aside from the usual mushrooms, celery, onions, bell pepper, and garlic (and red wine, tomato sauce, bay leaves, etc.), what can I do to make the whole thing jump? I suppose I could google it and look for variant recipes. I make a good beef stew (or so I’m told — I can’t sample it, thanks to my vile beef allergy), but I suspect it’s the same old same old.

D.

Pineapple crisp

Jake’s fourteen today!

For his fourteenth birthday, I made him his favorite food, focaccia, as well as candied yams and hickory-smoked pork baby back ribs. For dessert, he wanted one of my rhubarb crisps, but there was no rhubarb to be found. Instead, I made a pineapple crisp.

You can find the basic recipe here at allrecipes.com. Since I’ve made a number of changes, though, I’m going to repeat the recipe below.

* about 3 cups chopped fresh pineapple, cut into 1/2-inch (1 cm) chunks
* 1 apple, cut into similar-sized chunks
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 cup plus two tablespoons brown sugar
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup butter, melted
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Fearing a soupy crisp (which is what you’ll see at the allrecipes.com site), I stirred the pineapple with two tablespoons of brown sugar, then let the pineapple drain in a pasta strainer for about five minutes. Meanwhile, I preheated the oven to 275 F. I spread the pineapple onto a nonstick cookie sheet and let it dehydrate and caramelize a little at 275 F for about 1 1/4 hours.

I spread these chunks on the bottom of an 8-inch square pyrex dish. There was surprisingly little pineapple at this point, so if you’re a pineapple purist, you can probably skip the apple and simply start out with more pineapple, perhaps five cups. But this recipe came out so well, I’m going to push on and tell you how I did it.

Raise the oven temperature to 350 F.

I peeled and diced an apple and sprinkled the chunks over the pineapple. I figured this would add a little moisture, now that I had done such a great job sucking all the water out of my pineapple.

Combine all dry ingredients except for the cinnamon, then stir the egg and half the butter into the dry ingredients. I used a pastry cutter to create a slightly chunky mixture. Spread this mixture over the fruit, then drizzle the remaining butter over everything. Sprinkle cinnamon evenly over the crisp.

Bake at 350 F for 45 min, cool on a rack, and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Amazing stuff. Yes, it’s a bit of a hassle to prep your pineapple like this, but if you like that caramelized pineapple flavor, there’s no other alternative.

Jake never wants much for his birthday. For his fourteenth, he asked for a bowler hat and a book, Predictably Irrational. I bought him Osmos, which I blogged the other day, and I think I might buy him Machinarium, too, since the graphics are amazing.

Oh, how I love indie games . . .

D.

What’s in a Moon Cake?

We’re closing on our house this week, which means I’m taking the week off to get our crap moved from Santa Rosa to Bakersfield. Not my idea of a fun vacation; a necessary evil, that’s a better designation. So this morning I did some shopping at our local Chinese market to buy some bao and shumai. That way, Karen and Jake can steam their dinner tonight, and they won’t have to order takeout.

Karen told me “no more bean paste snacks” because the stuff I’ve brought home hasn’t been too fresh. But today, they had Moon Cakes. The real deal. The stuff you only find in Chinese markets a few weeks out of the year, since they’re a special snack for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.

According to this Anne-Marie Slaughter Op-Ed for the times (whence the pic), Moon Cakes

are the Chinese equivalent of fruit cake at Christmas – tradition demands that you have one, but no one actually eats one.

I beg to differ. Even the worst Moon Cake is better than the best fruit cake I’ve ever sampled — and I’ve made my own fruit cake, so I left out all that citron crap. But what’s in them? Anne-Marie again on one particular brand:

which is made with an Asian version of phyllo pastry and which has fillings of chopped nuts, red and green bean paste, poppy seed and lotus seed paste, as well asa number of more savory fillings, one of which smells a great deal like truffle.

I was always partial to the kind with a salted egg yolk in the middle — just weird enough to be memorable. Wikipedia claims they’re duck egg yolks. Ours contain egg yolks (no word on the ingredient list as to whether this yolk would go cluck cluck or quack quack), lotus seed paste, and hopefully very little melamine. Yes, they’re made in China.

Not surprisingly, there’s no single answer to the question, “What’s in a Moon Cake?” That Wikipedia article has a nice overview of regional differences in the treat. The Japanese, for example, rarely use salted egg yolks, and prefer red bean (azuki) paste to lotus seed paste. The Vietnamese use mung beans, sometimes coconut, and even durian, which would be a nasty surprise.

The cash register woman wanted to know if I was Chinese. Was she kidding? I told her I grew up in Monterey Park, which isn’t entirely a lie, and that satisfied her, for the obvious reasons. “I know the good stuff,” I told her. Which, sadly*, is true.

D.

*Because apparently, you just can’t find the good stuff outside of the Monterey Park / Alhambra / Rosemead corridor. Not in restaurant food, anyway. Not to save your gwailo soul.