Sausagy nonsense

My pal Lucie sent me a link to a recipe for Merguez sausage. I printed out a copy, but now the darn thing is locked behind a firewall! The only thing more nonsensical than locking things behind membership-only firewalls is putting it up for all to see and THEN locking it away.

I’ve made some minor changes. It’s my recipe now.

(Why pork? It seems to be one of the few meats I can still tolerate.)

Toast heaping half-teaspoonfuls of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, and fennel seeds until slightly smoky, then grind in a spice grinder.

Add this to 1 lb of ground pork, along with 2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh cilantro, 1.5 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of paprika, and 1/2 teaspoon of Spanish smoked paprika (you can substitute red pepper flakes or cayenne). Mush it all together with your hands, and when it’s all nicely mushed, form it into sausages.

No, I haven’t tried them yet — I’m letting them air-dry in the fridge — but they smell lovely. I’ll keep you posted.

D.

Tofu burger, anyone?

Shades of The Freshman: Exotic Meats.

I think I could live my whole life without tasting lion meat, but 6-count shrimp? I’m tempted.

D.

Eat! Eat!

Koreans must be Jewish.

Or at least the Korean ladies who serve food at Korea House in Concord. Just like yesterday, I thought I was playing it smart ordering only an entree and no appetizers. I’m here in the East Bay by myself, after all (it’s a call weekend and I have to stay close to the hospital), so I have to be careful not to order too much food. Once again, the restaurant had different things in mind.

Have you ever been to a Korean restaurant? They set out lots of little dishes of treats:

I had nine dishes in all, not counting the entree, the bowl of rice, and the dish of noodles: soup, seaweed, bean sprouts, steamed broccoli, my oh so favorite little fishies, fried tofu, and a variety of pickles. No kim chi, sadly. I think they’re trying to be unique. “We are a kim chi free Korean restaurant,” something like that.

I could have finished it all, too, along with my entree (fried king fish), but the Korean gals, you know the Jewish ones, kept coming by and with their best Yiddishe accent saying “eat, eat,” they would refill my bowls as fast as I could drain them of food. “OH, you like the fishies?” She brought a bowl with four times as many fishies. “You like the omelet? You like tofu?”

AAACK! NO! NO MORE!

Eventually I understood their devious plan. They want their customers to take home leftovers. That way, you’ll remember them longer. I know I will.

Do they treat all of their customers this well, or just me? One of the nurses who works in our area recognized me and chatted me up on her way out. I suspect she gave the waitresses the Secret Korean Wink that meant “stuff this one silly, he’s a good guy.” Then again, maybe they stuff everyone silly.

Good thing I ate early. I always tell my patients that the three-hour rule* can easily become the four-, five-, or six-hour rule if you come away from the dinner table stuffed. Last night I finished dinner late, and oh boy was my stomach griping about it.

SO — have you eaten anything fun lately?

D.

*Nothing to eat or drink except for water for three hours before bedtime. That’s rule number one for refluxers like yours truly.

VD! Yay!

Yes, Happy Valentine’s Day.

I made Karen a sweet potato pie. Actually, I made Karen AND Jake a sweet potato pie, but since Jake didn’t like it, I guess I made it for me and Karen. I wasn’t going to eat more than a forkful but how could I resist Jake’s uneaten pie?

I found the recipe on Cooks.com. The pie light and fluffy, not heavy like a store-bought pumpkin pie. Maybe that’s why Jake disliked it so much. He’s used to leaden fillings and par-baked crusts. This crust was well baked, baby, cuz I nuked it!

Recipe below the fold.

(more…)

‘Tis the Season

For latkes! Below, my recipe for potato pancakes (from a 2005 post). But first: anyone up for live blogging tonight, or are y’all still Christmasing?

Latkes (potato pancakes)

For my wife and son, both small eaters, I use one good-sized russet potato, one small onion, and two eggs.

Peel and coarsely grate the potato. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and toss to mix. Over the next few minutes, the potato will give up some of its water. You can pour this off, but in my experience the ultimate pancake is only subtly different.

Beat two eggs in with the potatos. Add a heaping tablespoon of matzo meal (NO, flour or bread crumbs will NOT substitute) and mix well. Coarsely grate one small onion and add this to the mix. The onion is optional, but I think it adds considerable character. Freshly ground black pepper is a must.

The matzo meal will absorb some of the liquid over the next five minutes. That’s about as long as I have patience to wait. In a nonstick pan, heat vegetable oil (a thin layer — don’t skimp, but your pancake shouldn’t swim, either) until a bit of potato sizzles.

I make my latkes about three inches across. I flatten them slightly with a fork. If your cooktop doesn’t heat evenly, turn the pancakes before flipping. Before flipping, you want ‘em GBD, as Alton Brown says (golden brown and delicious). The second side will brown more unevenly than the first, but don’t worry about that.

Drain. Serve with sour cream.

Or just eat ’em hot.

D.

Chicken Thingie!

I finally got around to trying to replicate that chicken thingie at Nora’s in Las Vegas. (Sis, you really have to check that place out.) Not an exact replica, since I didn’t know how much my son would appreciate an orange sauce on his chicken. He doesn’t do “sweet” with dinner, not at all, and he’s sometimes resistant to “sour,” too. What kind of kid doesn’t like sweet and sour pork? My kid. But I digress.

So the challenge was to create perfectly cooked chicken thighs — tender meat, crispy and savory skin — with some sort of rich, flavorful sauce. Don’t get hung up on details here. Follow the general principles, and you can make a delicious Chicken Thingie, too.

(more…)

Sometimes I overdo it.

I must be feeling better. When I’m depressed, dinner more often than not is tamales and rice from Lola’s. Maybe I’ll make spaghetti with meat sauce (turkey, since my dumbass stomach thinks beef is aqua regia). Only a few times since we’ve come to Santa Rosa have I made Jake’s favorite, focaccia, which is really a shame since the recipe is so damned easy.

Tonight, I went a little nuts. I wanted to experiment with a few different things. First, I made those dates wrapped in bacon. This was astonishingly easy, but I have to warn you: (A) these little bastards are FILLING! and (B) this appetizer depends on the quality of your ingredients. Splurge on big, plump, moist Medjool dates, the kind you have to de-pit yourself. And buy a good quality bacon, too.

(more…)

Son of Rumaki

Wednesday night, we took my parents out to Nora’s Wine Bar and Osteria in the northwestern section of Las Vegas. We expected good-quality, upscale Italian, but we got a whole lot more for our money than that. Each of the entrees had a certain indescribable uniqueness, as if the chef had given more than a little thought to making the dish his own. Grilled Scampi, for example, had little in common with the shrimp-bathing-in-garlic-butter concept we all know too well. Imagine little lobsters split lengthwise, charcoal broiled, chest cavities filled with an herb-and-bread stuffing. (They weren’t lobsters. They just looked like ’em.) Freshest-tasting prawns we’ve had in a long, long while.

But I was even more impressed with their grilled chicken thighs, described in the menu as “mesquite-grilled” with “spicy Sicilian blood orange vinaigrette.” They might have grilled them over mesquite, but they finished them under the broiler, or perhaps in a deep fryer (although I didn’t detect the least hint of oiliness). The skin was that crispy. The vinaigrette was truly remarkable, a perfect balance of citrus flavors with a chicken reduction glaze.

Listed simply as “dates” on the appetizer menu: China Ranch dates stuffed with Parmigiano-Reggiano and wrapped in bacon. Wow. I tend to think “rumaki” whenever I encounter bacon wrapped around a soft center, but this had little in common with rumaki. I found a recipe over at Epicurious which looks about right. See what you think.

Definitely some great ideas for our next dinner party, whenever that may be . . .

D.

Soon

. . . I’ll have my chestnuts out of the fire.

From cannelle-vanille’s photostream.

Karen loves her chestnuts.

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. Score the hull (husk? whatever) by making an X with a sharp knife. I make each line segment about 1 to 1.5 cm long.

3. Put the chestnuts into a roasting pan of some sort, then lay it on the bottom rack of the preheated oven.

4. Roast for 25 minutes.

5. Peel (gingerly!) and eat.

What’s your technique?

D.