Chana Daal: Trust Me You'll Love This

Not actually hard to make! 

I never actually meal plan before I go to the store. Shopping with a mission tends to drive me crazy since there's always one semi-obscure ingredient that goes missing or is too expensive to justify buying and stashing it in our tiny cabinets, where all manner of novelty spices and legumes lurk, awaiting release.

Because of this, I occasionally buy things simply because they fascinate me. I've got at least 5 types of wheat product, 5 types of rice, 3 types of lentils and various peas - some of which I own simply because I was too anxious to try something new. I'll not even touch on my spice fetish.

I have a special curiosity for South Asian food, which is why I wound up bringing home a bag of Chana Daal a few months ago. Unfortunately, nobody in my immediate family will touch anything spicy or leguminous, so until today I had no reason to cook it, except perhaps to hear the sweet gnashing of my lovely family's teeth. It actually only came out today because Tam has sworn off high FODMAP foods and I needed to dispense with some garlic and onions.

Needless to say, I'm happy I tried it.

Chana Daal is one of the may varieties of lentil and pea that bear the surname daal. The Chana variety is a yellow spit pea, which takes forever to cook, but which has a delightful taste and texture when you prepare it right. Daals are quite popular in Indian cuisine since there is a general aversion to sattvic (corrupting) foods in Hindu and Jain culture and a rejection of violence (ahinsa) in Jain eating in particular. I should note that this dish would not make the cut for Jain eaters since it contains both things that grow beneath the ground, which are bad, and tomatoes, which are ambivalently naughty. The long and the short of it is that Indian cuisine from all over the subcontinent is rich in amazing vegetarian and vegan dishes, many of which are founded on daals.

Chana Daal was called Bengal Gram by the British, possibly because they encountered it in Bengal,  but the version I'm making is based more on a cross between Delhi and  Punjabi recipes (which are not all that different, to be frank).

You'll want to wash and soak your daal overnight and maybe even microwave them in a bowl of water several times because they take FOREVER to cook. Pressure cookers are apparently highly recommended.

The daal is served with a seasoned oil garnish that you pour on top, but which I accidentally cooked into the dish. It was delicious either way.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups chana daal (yellow split peas)
1 tomato + 2 stewed tomatoes chopped
1/2 small onion chopped
1/4 cup green pepper
4-5 cloves garlic, grated or crushed
1 inch ginger grated
1 1/2 tsp sugar
salt to taste
oil

Spice mix
1 tsp Kashmiri chili powder (or another chili powder)
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp plus kasuri methi leaves (fenugreek) or fenugreek powder

Spiced oil mix (tadka, or tempering)
2 tbsp-ish oil or butter ghee
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
5-6 curry leaves

Step 1: Prep your daal
Wash, Drain and soak your daal for a day, then microwave it or pressure cook it to soften

Step 2: Make your masala
Heat oil in a pan, then sweat your onions and pepper until the onion goes clear, then add the ginger and garlic and cook for a minute, then throw in the tomatoes. Cook until the moisture evaporates off, then add your spices and stir about a bit. The volatile aromatics in the spices get along great with the oil, so doing this will help you get the most flavor out of your food.

Step 3: Mix it together
Add the daal to the masala mix and then enough water to cover everything (and then some). You'll have to cook this down a bit. Add the salt, sugar and kasuri methi leaves here if you've got 'em.

Step 4: Cook for a long time
Self explanatory, I hope. When it starts to get soft (after an hour or so, you're on the right track)

Step 5: Prep the tadka
Add the oil to a pan and  heat on high, then add the spices. You'll want to have a pan cover to hover over the spices after the mustard seeds start to pop. This step harnesses the aromatics in the spices and gives them an exciting new flavor. You can pour this over the top at the end of the dish (as you're supposed to do), or, like me, dump it in early and let the whole spices release into the mix. Curry leaves smell quite pungent, but are really good.

The Daal is done when the onions disintegrate and the peas are mushy.

It's great on its own, but is typically served with bread or rice and some raita (yogurt sauce). Your house will smell like the spices for days, which is glorious, and frankly probably better than what it usually smells like (probably dog). 

Soy Ginger Nile Perch

I'll admit that I lied about increasing the frequency of my posts, or at least that while my spirit was willing, my flesh was weak. Let's ignore the usual prurient reference of that quote for a moment and just move on to my new recipe...

Nice sauce smear there Chief :p

So one of the great finds since we've moved here to the Emirates has been the Nile Perch, a monstrous abomination of a fish that can grow as long as an adult human and probably could eat a baby if you fed it one - not that you would even think of doing that, dear reader. But despite the possibly high content of human baby flesh in its diet, (or perhaps because of it...?) the flesh of the fish is surprisingly tender and flavorful. Imagine the leathery blandness of a piece of cod, and then imagine the opposite, and you've got the Nile Perch. Since the Perch is a freshwater fish, I'd say the flavor and texture are actually kind of a combination of bass and walleye. It takes well to pretty much anything  you throw at it. I've breaded and fried it, baked it and pan-seared it with a mustard cream sauce.

Its flesh has been compared to Chilean Seabass (aka Patagonian Toothfish), though it's likely none of us really knows what that is like. Apparently, the Patagonian Toothfish has been fished to near extinction, so if you order it in a high end joint you're likely just eating its cousin, the Antarctic Toothfish and paying way too much for the privilege. The Seabass actually got its name when a guy named Lee Lantz correctly deemed "Patagonian Toothfish" to be a shitty marketing tag, so he changed it to something more palatable - much as how Goosefish are now Monkfish and apparently Sea Urchins used to be called "whore's eggs."

Freshwater fish have actually played an incredibly important role in the history of food among the upper classes of a number of societies. The Chinese kept lakes in some of their larger estates to provide a steady supply of fresh fish in landlocked areas, and in Europe fish ponds were kept as early as Roman times. European nobles were especially keen on maintaining fish ponds on their properties, in part because they were attractive, but also because they had to refrain from their usual fare of meat (oh so much meat) on Fridays and during fasts, lest they risk angering the Lord, or at least the Papacy. The fish could either be consumed locally or sold at a premium in local markets, where merchants in towns were able to pay high prices for relatively rare fish meat (getting actual seafood even 20 miles from the coast usually meant getting it old, smelly and pricey).

The recipe is criminally easy, but quite tasty. Since acquiring Nile Perch will be tough for most of you, you can use firm fleshed white fish like Goosefish (Monkfish!), Grouper, or even Halibut, but try to avoid tough stuff like Snappers or  Cod. And stay away from the whore's eggs.

Marinade Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 inch of ginger thinly sliced
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1/8 cup honey or maple syrup
juice of 1 orange
1 tsp canola oil

For Sauce: combine Marinade with
2 tbsp sugar
2 star anise

2 fillets of Nile Perch

Step 1:
Marinate the Perch in the ingredients for an hour or so

Step 2:
Preheat the Oven to about 375. I imagine that my oven is preheated to 375, but the stove we currently suffer only increases in 50 degree C increments, so you have to jockey between way too hot and too cool, and even then it's a crapshoot.

Step 3:
Put both fillets on baking paper and bake for about 25 minutes, or until the flesh flakes away. Don't overcook it, for God's sake.

Step 4:
Take the remaining marinade and make a sauce out of it. I know this is going to sound weird, because you just soaked fish in it, but you want the flavors of the fish in the sauce for richness. Add the marinade and the two tablespoons of sugar and the star anise to a small saucepan and reduce until you have a thick consistency. Cool a bit and fish out the chunky stuff.

Serve over rice with some sort of green. I usually use steamed broccoli or pak choi. 

Khaleej by Belly?

Dear Reader (hi mom),

I apologize for neglecting you for so long. It's not that I haven't been cooking or engaging in fringe professional historical work for the past year, it's that I was too lazy to document it for the rest of you. I'll admit that this is because I'm lazy and selfish and terrible and understand that there are no actual consequences for being lazy and selfish and terrible on the internet. Come to think of it, those may actually be prerequisites for its use.

But things have changed. (Oh how they've changed!)

Our adventure in Beirut ended not in the fiery cataclysm that so many of you had hoped for, but, rather anticlimactically, in an actual job. WHICH, I turned into a real professional historical temp at the AUB, then parlayed my success there into a sparkly new gig in the Gulf. Remarkably, my new employers actually read this blog and still decided I was the sort of individual they wanted to have around them for the foreseeable future.

Though we've only been here a month and a half, the Emirates has already demonstrated itself to be an oasis of sorts (Ha ha. No more puns) for the fledgling epicure. If you want something, it's available somewhere for a price. And usually that price is oddly less than you'd expect to pay.

As they are forced to cater to at least five continents worth of expats in addition to the needs of the local population, supermarkets here are really the first I've seen to truly deserve the epithet. Imagine Best Buy grafted onto Walmart with a top notch seafood section, a bakery serving everything from turnovers to Persian flatbread, a cheese cooler that stretches for miles and a produce selection that occupies an acre and has a section dedicated to South Asian foods, which include terrifying gourds that appear to be in the terminal stages of an advanced sexually transmitted disease (don't ask how they got it).

The sheer opportunity presented by this has already crippled me. I've swapped one cooking rut for another but shall work through it, dear reader, with your help.

Next up: I take on the Nile Perch, a fish that could swallow a toddler and would gladly do it for the sheer hell of it, but which tastes delightful in a soy glaze. (It's gotta be from all the toddlers).

Oh my God! Why are they in the water with it?!
Photo taken from Google Images http://www.ventureco-worldwide.com/africa/uganda/fishing-for-nile-perch-at-murchison-falls-uganda/

Chorizo - the Mexican Variety, Not the Little Snausage Links

I really miss Mexican food here. Unfortunately, because my wife is from Minnesota, she regards Mexican cuisine warily, if at all. I can forgive this, because of course this is a segment of America that, among other forms of individual and collective lunacy, stubbornly clings to "duck, duck, gray duck" (ha ha!) and fries anything that it can catch and impale on a stick at its reprehensible state fair. Though I love her still, her pepper phobia really limits the frequency with which I can crack into the vast hoard of Mexican spices that I smuggle back here each summer.

Now that the family is safely in Arizona, (a glorious land with Mexican restaurants on almost every corner and streets paved with masa), I can actually begin using this stuff. Since I'm cooking for myself, and thereby feeling lazy, I'll just make chorizo.

This is really, really easy and can be tweaked however you like. If you have adobo from chipotles, you should definitely add it.

The Chorizo itself
1 pound ground beef or pork or whatever (not people, you monster!)
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp Mexican oregano (grind or crumble it up)
1 tsp garlic powder
2 cloves fresh garlic
1/2 tsp cinnamon
salt, lots of salt
1 1/2 to 2 tbsp (or to taste) apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp chopped cilantro
pepper

Preparation
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup red bell pepper/jalapeno/whatever (again, not people, you monster!)
oil
4 eggs
dash of milk
paprika
salt
pepper

Step 1: Prepping the Sausage (yes, chorizo is sausage)
Flatten out the meat in a non-reactive bowl (that's glass or plastic, the vinegar is an acid and will leetch out metal) and sprinkle the dry spices, salt, herbs, cilantro and garlic, mix together, then add the vinegar and mix again. Let sit for about 15 minutes to an hour or so. You can add too little vinegar and salt here, so you will have to guesstimate. If necessary, you can taste the meat after it's cooked a bit and add some more later.

Step 2: The Veggies
Mince up the onion and pepper and set aside. Easy, right? Think again! No, actually it's pretty easy.

Step 3: Eggs
Crack the eggs and add them to a bowl, then add the milk, spices, salt and pepper and beat them all together. Bonus points for not getting shell in the mix. Extra bonus points if you can crack the eggs with one hand!

Step 4: Cooking
Add oil and then sweat the onions and peppers in large pan until soft, then turn up the heat to medium high, heat a bit, then add the meat. LET IT BE. If you move it around, it'll break up into the little mouse turds that you see at Taco Bell, and I assume that you'd not want that if you're bothering to read a blog about cooking. Allow it to brown and form the meat into larger clumps. After 5 minutes, flip the meat. The moisture will run out and boil away - let it. You can taste some of the meat at this stage to confirm salt content. Add more salt or spices as needed (probably paprika and chili powder)

Step 5: Eggs
When the pan is pretty dry, add the egg mix to the pan. Let it cook for 30 seconds, then flip. them over to ensure the eggs are done on both sides. Turn off the heat and cover the pan for a few minutes. You can add cheese here if that's your thing.

Serving:
I like to add a bit of labneh on the side of this, but Mexican crema or sour cream works too. Eat with tortillas or in a burrito, garnishing as you please. 

Potato Leek Soup. With Bacon.

A few nights ago I sent my wife and son back to America for good.

The feeling of leaving a place that has become home to you is unsettling, and not a little disorienting. The uncertainty of the future and the transience of the present make for bad times in general, so I thought a bit of comfort food was in order. And what is more comforting than bacon? Thanks to Salah, we had a few extra slips crammed in the back of the fridge that we had to use anyways before they went slimy, so I decided to kick up  my usual potato leek soup with a bit of porcine bliss.

Leeks are generally neglected in American cooking, probably because they're hazardous to break down if you're not used to them. Much like spinach, if you're careless about your leeks, you'll get a big mouthful of grit, which is sure to ruin dinner for all but the most hardened Pica sufferers.

Until a few centuries ago, leeks had a pretty ignominious history. Though they taste heavenly, they were generally regarded as peasant food in the classical era, the Roman elites preferring a ghastly array of beasts encrusted with expensive spices and doused with garam - a seasoning made by fermenting fish, much like Worchestershire sauce or the process of isolating MSG. The poor, knowing better, and being too poor to acquire spices anyway, seasoned their food with herbs they grew in their gardens, including leeks.

Their delicate flavor is a great pairing with potatoes and butter, which makes them ideal for soups, which generally taste fantastic with both. I add carrots to mine to jazz up the broth a bit, and a bit of nutmeg for kicks.

Chilled and blended, this is called vichyssoise, which seems like it should be French but was apparently first popularized by the chef at the Ritz in New York in 1917. Being ridiculously simple, I'm sure it existed in some form or another before that.

Some notes: This soup tastes great with bacon as a garnish, but any sort of smoky flavor addition would work for those who don't dig on swine. To make it halal, simply remove the wine, which is just an enhancer here.

Ingredients

3 tbsp butter
1 large potato
1 medium carrot
2 large leeks
1/4 white onion
4 cloves garlic
2 strips bacon
1/2 c white wine
3 cups broth (or water)
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp fresh thyme, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 cup cream
a touch of freshly grated nutmeg
salt
pepper

Step 1: Prep
Wash and finely chop the leeks. You'll cut off most of the green ends and the base, then cut them along the length. This will allow you to wash the internal leaves, but don't disassemble them since you'll need them together to cut them efficiently. (see this link for a guide) Finely chop the onion and add it to the pile of leek. Mince the garlic and set aside. Cube the carrots and potatoes and set aside in another bowl.

Start to bake the bacon at 375 degrees, checking on it frequently to ensure that it's not overdone.

Step 2: Cooking
Melt the butter in a pot and add the onions and leeks. Sweat them on low medium heat until they're soft, then add the garlic. Add the roots, herbs, wine and broth, cover and let it cook down for a while.

Step 3: Blending
Remove the bay leaves and partially whip the soup with a stick blender, leaving some chunks for texture. Salt it, return the bay leaves and add the dry spices (except pepper, which goes in last) and the cream. Chop the bacon when it's done and add it as well. The texture should be somewhat smooth and thick, but not like oatmeal.

Step 4: To serve
This goes great with fresh French bread. Crack some pepper over the top and it's good to go! 

Japanese Beef and Shiitake Mushroom Noodle Soup: The Musty Glory of Umami

I think I mentioned this on here before, but did you know that Umami has its own website? That's kind of like Brown having its own website, except slightly more understandable since "the fifth taste" was only recently accepted by whatever set of clowns accepts that sort of thing into official classifications. From an epistemological perspective, it's kind of jarring when this sort of things happen. You think you know that there are 9 planets, and then some cynical bastard nixes Pluto. You think you can live just knowing sweet, sour, salty and bitter, and then you meet umami.

This has to be extra traumatic for Americans, whose main encounters with the rich and undeniably prurient character of umami has until recently mainly centered around old garbage and unwashed undies (AA Gill's female companion incisively identified the scent/flavor as "bottom"). But man, were we missing out.

Umami is best eaten in mushroom form. For Europeans, this was traditionally in the form of truffles. My own personal favorite comes from farther east: shiitake mushrooms. You'll mainly find these little ordureous jewels dessicated and shrink wrapped in the Asian section of supermarkets (even in Lebanon). Reconstitute them beforehand in your broth or in a bowl of hot water, which  you should save for later use.

As a brief confession, I pieced this recipe together because Tam has walking pneumonia, which sounds far more dangerous than it actually is on account of the action verb they throw onto it. I had talked myself into the shiitakes the last time I was at the store and had been itching to do something fun with them, so I figured I'd take advantage of my wife's infirmity in the most constructive way possible.

You have four stages to this recipe:
1. Make the broth
2. Make the noodles
3. Make the meat
4. Combine

Ingredients:
5 shiitake mushroom caps (stems removed and saved for later use)
egg noodles (I was forced to use tagliatelli), if you like more broth use less, if you like it chunky use more

For soup:
1/3 cup thinly sliced carrot (plus one for broth)
1/3 cup shredded cabbage
1/3 cup thinly sliced onion
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion whites and stems
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp raw sugar

For beef
1/2 pound beef
1 tbsp oil
garlic cloves, knife-crushed and minced
1/4 tsp minced fresh ginger
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp raw sugar
pepper

Recipe Prestep:
You need to make your own broth for this, or at least you should. I usually scoff at those bastards who are always turning their nose up at those who don't want to waste dishes and minutes of their lives making stock for every single dish, but since the broth pretty much is the dish, just do it. You can do veggie, or like me, take the used chicken carcasses you've been collecting in the freezer for Christ knows how long and toss them in a pot with a few green onions, a roughly chopped carrot, a bay leaf and some salt. After you've boiled this down for a while until it's brothy, turn the stove off, scoop the detritus and throw it away, then add the mushrooms (caps only) and cover for a few hours to let them reconstitute and release their smutty goodness.

Soup Steps:
1. Let the mushroom caps sit in the broth for a few hours and avoid the temptation to keep tasting it. The flavors that they release over time are amazing. If my life had a tastetrack, I'd have that on repeat.

2. Prep your other ingredients in the meantime. Do the veggies first and toss them all together into a bowl, then mix the garlic, ginger, sugar and soy for the meat and put in another bowl large enough to handle it and the raw flesh you'll soon be adding to it.

3. Chill the meat in the freezer for about 30 minutes before cutting, or just don't unthaw it all the way, then carve off paper thin slices of it at about a 20 degree angle. The thinner the better. They retain flavor well and give a nice texture to the soup. Mix this with the aforementioned garlic marinade and let sit for a bit.

4. Prepare the noodles - When they are flexible but still undone, drain and put aside. You'll add this in the final step.

5. Remove the reconstituted mushroom caps, chop roughly. Heat the broth to a simmer, then add the mushrooms and cover for about 5 minutes.

6. Heat a frying pan on medium high with about a tablespoon of vegetable oil and add the beef. Let it brown and stir a bit until it's dry. If you pull it too soon, you lose the caramelized soy-sugar-ginger-garlic that makes this all worth it. It'll only take about 3-5 minutes. Set aside. In case you missed that last part, DO NOT ADD IT TO THE BROTH.

7. Turn off the broth and add the noodles and veggies, then cover for 10-15 minutes.

8. To serve, spoon the soup into a bowl and add the meat to the top. Cashews are a nice topper, but they're not necessary. 

Mesir Wat: The Unexpected and Unexplained Glory of Ethiopian Lentils

I was first introduced to Ethiopian food at Zemam's in Tucson, a homey little place that, like many of the best Ethiopian experiences I've had, kept its kitchen literally right next to the dining room. My relationship with Zemam's was always somewhat equivocal. The food was usually adequate but occasionally amazing, and when my grandfather invited me there he always claimed to have shown it to me first, like it was some sort of state secret. I always had to point out that I had actually known about it before he showed me, and that I had actually invited him there first, and that I had also invited him to Gandhi's first, though he always denied it. He always paid, so I wasn't too obstinate. 

However, were I to pin down the best experience I've had with Ethiopian food, it was on our Dora trip, when after asking a random African person on the street where to get African food, he took us down a creepy side street and into someone's house. The two Ethiopian ladies who had been sitting and smoking argileh looked at us like we were crazy, but eventually rounded up a table and some chairs and dealt with us as their friends trickled in to listen to Bob Marley, drink giant al-Mazas and eye us suspiciously. Although the kitchen was right next to a smelly, poorly cleaned pit toilet, and although I'm pretty sure I saw at least one Lebanese pimp, the Mesir Wat that she served us was unlike anything I've ever had. I've been working to replicate it ever since, and tonight I may have come as close as I'll get. 

A fun cultural note: Mesir Wat is apparently quite popular during Lent and those times when people are forced to swear off meat. I'm pretty sure I'd eat this even if there was meat around. This is criminally inexpensive to make and goes well with rice if you can't find the spongy, sour teff flour bread, injera. 

So without further ado, here's the recipe (before I forget it). 

**** NOTE****

Before you start, you need to make your berbere paste. Berbere is technically just a delicious spice combination that gives many Ethiopian dishes their distinctive ruddy pepperiness, but it's extra awesome if you mulch it up in the blender into a paste with a bit of wine, onion and garlic. I'd post a recipe, but frankly I've not found it better than the one you can find here. I add extra fenugreek because I like smelling like maple syrup for days. 

Mesir Wat Ingredients

1 cup orange lentils - which are essentially red lentils split and without the skin

1 medium onion, minced

4 cloves garlic, crushed and minced

1 - 1.5 tsp fresh ginger root, minced

1 tomato, seeded, cored and minced (peeled too if you can)

2 tbsp berbere paste (see above)

2-3 tbsp oil or butter

1 tbsp paprika

1 tsp turmeric 

1 tsp fenugreek

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp raw sugar

salt 

lots of water

Step 1: Prep

Soak your lentils in water for about an hour. Mince up your onion, garlic and ginger and throw them into a blender or food processor and spin them until they are pretty pasty. Get your tomato ready to go and set aside. 

Step 2: Onion Paste

Heat the oil in a pot on medium and add the onion paste until the water is cooked off. Then add the bebere paste and cook for about 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently  to prevent it from burning. When the onion is cooked, add the tomato and the spices and continue cooking until the tomato has begun to cook. Add the sugar and tomato paste. 

Step 3: The Lentils

Drain the lentils and toss them into the pot. Immediately cover them with water, bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to low and simmer covered for about 30-40 minutes. Towards the end, you'll have to stir to keep the lentils from sticking to the bottom. The consistency should be very soft. If the water cooks off too fast, add a bit more and recover. Salt to taste. 

In Praise of Pigflesh: Stepped Italian Pork Shoulder Roast with Mushroom Red Wine Reduction over Creamy Polenta

I've been reading Piero Camporesi's The Magic Harvest, which is essentially a history of food and food culture in Italy. It's alternately appalling and alluring, but it's gotten me hooked on Italian foods that one normally does not encounter in American or Lebanese restaurants.

Like with Mexican food, which encompasses a mind bogglingly broad range of cooking styles, the Italian food that we most associate with Italy is actually a rather limited part of the Italian food culture. No, I don't mean the Olive Garden. But also that. I'm talking about spaghetti in marinara sauce, which was essentially a product of the mid-19th century. As in the Middle East (which received its first tomatoes around 1830), Europe was rather leery of many of the foods from the New World until either government intervention or cultural catalysts pushed them to adopt the new items. Tomatoes were considered suspiciously voluptuous for some time until they were popularized in a ubiquitous cookbook that dominated the food publishing scene in the late 19th century. Potatoes were fed to pigs, in spite of the fact  they made all sorts of sense for the inhabitants of the barren central Apennine mountains of the Italian peninsula, who had barely subsisted for centuries on primarily chestnut flour.

Speaking of pigs... I always feel bad about posting pork recipes or recipes with booze in them (albeit cooked off booze) since one of the only people who actually seems to read these posts (hi Tricia) does not eat either. But if you really wanted to you could swap the pork for a fatty cut of beef and add more broth/drippings to the sauce in lieu of wine. 

Corn, also an American import to Italy, rapidly took off and supplanted millet and even wheat in some areas in the northern regions in importance. This led to a boom of pellagra in the late 19th century, but also the delicious corn polenta which we know and love. Northern Italian cooking had an interesting practice of using leftovers as parts of the next meal. Leftover polenta would either be remelted and made again, pan fried, crumbled up to use as a crust, or whatever the enterprising Italian lady in the kitchen  decided on. 

Pigs were always great peasant food since, unlike cows, they didn't require huge plots of land to feed, they didn't destroy your environment like goats and sheep, and they could sleep in the house with you if needed (his happened a lot in premodern society). Although they stank terribly, they did eat garbage, and, when fattened and slaughtered properly, had the flesh of angels. 

This recipe will take about as long to write as it took to cook, so bear with me. 

The Pig Part

1 pound of pork shoulder, as fatty as you can get it

olive oil

chunky sea salt

3 garlic cloves

pepper

allspice

thyme

rosemary 

Step 1: 

Preheat the oven to 475. Take your shoulder and slice it in 1 inch slabs that will lay flat onto each other. Lightly oil the bottom of a pan (this will be floating in oil by the end, so I'm not sure this is even necessary) and reassemble the chunks to form a roast. 

Step 2: 

Cut the garlic cloves into paper thin slivers and place them and a helping of sea salt between each of the meat slices. 

Step 3: 

Generously salt the top of the meat with sea salt, gently sprinkle on a touch of allspice and thyme and a good amount of rosemary. Crack some fresh pepper on top and put it in the oven. Make your sauce and polenta now. 

Step 4: 

After 15 minutes of high heat, turn the oven down to 350 and cook for another 45 minutes covered in tinfoil. The meat is done when it's shrunk and sitting in a puddle of pig fat. 

To Serve: 

Slice paper thin pieces against the grain of the meat at a 45 degree angle. If you don't know what that looks like... well. Keep the fat attached to the meat, it's the flavor and also should have crisped up nicely and will broadcast the flavors well. 

The Sauce: 

6 -8 crimini mushrooms or whatever

2 tbsp butter

2 shallots minced

3/4 cup red wine

1/2 cup pork drippings or broth

1/4 cup cream 

salt

1 tsp sugar

three pieces of fresh thyme  

This is a pretty standard recipe for a mushroom wine reduction. I add sugar because it makes everything taste better and cuts the sharpness of the wine. 

Step 1: Prep
Mince the shallots finely (look up how to cut them if you need to) and put aside. Slice the mushrooms in half and then in half again and chop them as thinly as possible. 

Step 2: 

Heat the butter on medium heat in the pan and throw in the shallots, cooking them until they're soft, then add the mushrooms and the thyme sprigs and cook for about 5 minutes until the mushrooms are cooked. 

Step 3: 

Add the wine and cook on medium heat until almost completely reduced, then add the drippings/broth and sugar and continue to cook down. Salt to taste at this point. 

Step 4: 

When the liquid is largely evaporated and there's a nice goo in the bottom of the pan, turn off the heat and add the cream to the pan, stir, and cover. 

The Polenta

1 cup polenta/corn meal

4 cups water

1 tbsp butter

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cream

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/8 cup honey

salt, lots of salt

Polenta is a pain in the ass. 

Step 1: 

Boil the water. Whisk in the polenta slowly to keep it from clumping. Add the milk, then turn down to very low and cover. 

Step 2: 

Continue stirring every 5  minutes to so to keep it from burning to the bottom of the pan or creating horrid clumps. 

Step 3: 

After about 30 minutes, uncover and stir until the consistency is what you'd like. Mix in the cream, cheese, honey, butter, and salt until it tastes good. Remember, this is not a standalone, but will be the starch to help carry the other flavors. 

Step 4: SERVE IT. 

It will harden quickly, so make sure it's dished out IMMEDIATELY or you'll have polenta clods on plates. 

To Plate: 

Dish out Polenta on small plates, Remove one slice of the pork and shave thin slices of it and artistically arrange on the plate (see above). Spread the sauce over the top and you're done. 

Beef Stroganoff: Not the Stuff You'd Find at the Bottom of an Outhouse, Though It Looks Like It

Beef Stroganoff is one of the most repellent looking dishes you can cook. It's chunky and brownish and roughly the consistency and color of the terrifying pat of feces that always sits immediately below the seat of all National Park pit restrooms.

However, it has all of the makings of an American classic for two reasons: 1. It contains beef and mushrooms as primary ingredients, and 2. It can be cooked from a packet. Because of this, most of us have never actually eaten decent Stroganoff. The prepackaged stuff tastes unremarkably like "brown" until you add sour cream, at which point it tastes kind of like sour cream. 

Stroganoff actually is Russian in origin, (which means it's really French in origin), though there are conflicting stories about exactly how it came to be, both involving members of the countly Stroganov family. The first guess is that it was the brainchild of an anonymous chef who worked for the toothless old Grigory Stroganov in the late 18th century, who created a dish that the old fellow could gum to his satisfaction. The latter theory attributes the dish to Pavel Stroganov's chef, Charles Briere, who won first prize with the dish in a cooking contest  in 1891. As a trained historian, I give far more credence to the first claim for two very good reasons: 

1. The dish itself is atypical of the noble food that was popular at the time, and frankly has the aura of the decrepit about it. The gumming theory  just makes sense. 

2. There is an entry in a cookbook published in in 1871 that refers to a similar, far simpler dish for middle class housewives. Whatever Beiere used was already in circulation - it's possible that he just made it more exciting. 

And Stroganoff can actually be rather exciting. America got its first published taste of it in John MacPhearson's 1934 cookbook Mystery Chef's Own Cookbook, which added Worcestershire sauce to heighten the flavor. As I mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Worcestershire is made using fermented fish sauce, much like the Roman garam. Which, coincidentally, is how they originally synthesized MSG, that magical flavor enhancer. 

I serve my Stroganoff over a plate of buttered noodles, but it occurred to me that it might be good on short grain rice if you were so inclined, or even polenta if we're going to get crazy. 

A fun modification struck me a second ago - why not try using dark, malty beer (like Moose Drool) to deglaze instead of wine? 

Ingredients for Beef Stroganoff

1 pound of beef, cut into thin strips

8 cremini (brown) or white mushrooms 

1 onion

3 cloves garlic

1 tbsp good paprika

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 cups beef broth

1/4 cup red wine for deglazing

1 tsp raw sugar

1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

flour for dredging 

2 tsp fresh parsley

sour cream/creme fraiche/lebneh

oil

1 tbsp butter

salt

pepper

Prep Work: 

1. Chop (I mince for the texture) your onion and put aside. 

2. Destem your mushroom caps, cut them in half and then in half again and chop thinly - add these to your onion pile. 

3. Smash the garlic cloves and mince them up - put them in a bowl to add to the onions when cooking

4. Shave off rather thin strips of beef at a 45 degree angle to the grain and dredge them in flour, salt and pepper.

Step 1: Beef

 Heat oil in a deep flat bottomed pan on medium-high and brown the meat for about a minute, then pull off and set aside

Step 2: Your "veggies"

Ha. Onions are roots and mushrooms are fungi, no veggies here (parsley is a leaf). Anyway, add the butter to the same pan on medium heat now, melt it, and then add your onion and mushrooms. Cook until the onions are soft, then add the garlic and cook for about a minute. 

Step 3: Wine! 

Stir in the paprika and tomato paste, then add the wine and scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze all of the delicious crud that has accumulated. This will cook off pretty quickly, at which point you add the broth, Worcestershire sauce and meat, then turn down the heat to low and cover. Cook for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently to keep it from sticking to the bottom 

Step 4: Noodles

Make your noodles. I like fetuccini noodles for the texture, but pappardelle would work even better. Butter them up at the end. 

Step 5: Finishing

Turn off the Stroganoff as the noodles start to get soft. Let it cool for a minute and then add the pepper, check the salt and add a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche (we use lebneh) and stir it in. Let it rest a bit, then serve it next to or on the pasta. 

Thai Panang Curry - As if There Was Another Kind of Panang Curry

Sorry about the overuse of adjectives in the headline there, but since there's a pretty significant difference in style between the South Asian curries and most of the Southeast Asian Curries, I thought I'd clarify to make things easier on everyone.

For reference: Indian, Sri Lankan and Pakistani curries are often a bit thicker with almost a gravy-like consistency and frequently have tomato or onion based sauces. They can have meat, vegetables, fish, or cheese, and are flavored with a variety of spices depending on the region. Your typical example here is tikka masala, which (fun fact) was originally made with Campbell's tomato soup as a base. Gross huh?

 I imagine that tikka masala is the big pot that all of the restaurant workers spit in out of disgust for the customers who order it. I think that every member of the food service industry hates one or two things on the menu and despise those who order them by extension. As a barrista at Borders, I would plead with people not to order the soup, which was often days old and not fit for consumption by thoughtful animals. If they insisted, I would punish them by giving them an extra large helping.

Southeastern Asian curries, on the other hand, are lighter, thinner, filled with vegetables and herbs and are usually based primarily around coconut milk. Thai, Filipino and Vietnamese curries fit into this category. The spicing for these curries is also usually a bit milder, though you can always add more interesting flavors if you feel the curry is lacking. Whereas an Indian curry powder might contain 15 ingredients, a Thai curry might only have two or three powders to augment the herbs and base ingredients. Our dear friend (and chef) Adam Shepard made us an amazing Thai curry when he was in town that we missed terribly, which led to today's batch. Although I prefer chicken and tofu in my panang curries, we had beef since I had it on hand.

Panang is a variety of red curry that uses galangal and lemongrass. Since I cannot get fresh galangal or lemongrass easily in Beirut (though the chef at the Jai kitchen swears it is occasionally sold in Dora) I substituted fresh ginger and bay leaves. It is freaking delicious though. There would have been pictures but we ate it immediately.

Curry Ingredients:
1/2 pound meat of some sort (or tofu)
2 cups coconut milk
1/2 red bell pepper
1 green onion
1 carrot, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
a handful of basil leaves
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 heaping tsp garam masala/curry powder
1/2 tbsp chili flakes or paprika
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp raw cane sugar
salt to taste
crushed salted peanuts and basil slivers to garnish

The Paste:
1 small-medium onion
4 garlic cloves, smashed into a paste
1 inch of gingerroot, peeled and finely shredded
2+ tbsp oil

Prep:
1. Slice your meat very thinly and brown on medium high heat in a pan with some oil and salt. Remove from the pan and reserve for later.

2. Slice the green onion basil, peppers and carrot. Put the carrot with the meat and the pepper, onion and basil on another plate. I slice the peppers into very thin inch long strips, which gives them a nice taste and texture, and slice the green onion at a 45 degree angle towards the root. to make the cut bits look like a pokey straw.

3. Make a paste from the ingredients listed above. A blender is really nice for this, (add oil to help it along, not water), but if your power is out while cooking, which is admittedly not likely outside of Lebanon, you can finely mince it and then mash it up with a mortar and pestle like I did.

4. Prepare your wet ingredients (coconut milk, fish sauce, peanut butter and the sugar) in a bowl and have it ready to dump in at a moment's notice.

5. If you're making rice, you may want to start it now.

6. Put the bay leaves and spices in a bowl and have them ready to dump in

7. Put the peanuts in a different bowl for similar purposes.

The Cooking:
1. Heat a deep flat pan on medium and add the paste, cooking for about a minute or two, at which point you add the spice bowl and continue stirring for about 30 seconds.

2. Add the wet ingredient bowl and scrape whatever sticks to it into the pan. Allow it to begin bubbling, then turn the heat to low and cover. You'll cook it like this for about 10 minutes.

3. Add the meat and carrot and cover, cooking for another 10 minutes.

4. Add the chopped vegetables, cover, and turn off the heat. I usually let it rest for a few minutes and then serve it up.

5. Serve in a bowl with a plate of rice on the side. Garnish with shreds of basil and peanuts.

6. AND VERY IMPORTANT. When you eat it, don't dump it all together for Christ's sake.  (Tam loves to do this, which dismays me to no end). Use a spoon to dip up a bit of rice, then scoop the curry onto the spoon. This way you taste all of the flavors without the starch of the rice overwhelming things.

French Roasted Chicken: For Lack of a Better Adjective

Appropriately, I'm writing this entry while taking a break from a snoozer of a book on the historical supremacy of French cuisine and the creation of a notion of cuisine that predated the Revolution but which really took off during the era of French nationalism that characterized the period of Revolution and Empire. (The irony being that this era coincided with the French people being generally starved and decrepit from constant warfare). The majority of the book is a polish job on Antonin Careme,  the Bobby Flay of the early 19th century, but it does have some interesting points on what made modern French cuisine so different in an era.

Notably, its simplicity. As Careme penned his authoritative and highly critical works, the aristocracy and high bourgeoisie was still working through its obsession with choking down rare cuts of various beasts encrusted in an inch of nutmeg, cayenne, cinnamon and Christ knows what else. The obsession with spices, which we can originally blame on the Romans, was more a tip of the cap to conspicuous consumption than to flavor. Careme, in a move which would define French cuisine, rejected overspicing in favor of the more refined flavors obtainable through herbs, essences and stocks. The ingredients became the centerpieces of the cuisine, and it was a good thing.

It is worth mentioning that Careme was also a snobby prick who couldn't resist a chance to show someone up, a trait which endeared him to me immediately in light of my ongoing hate affair with Pinterest. Although it's a great place to stumble onto good recipes, excellent blogs and great ideas, these are generally isolated islands of excellence afloat in a buttery sewer of American food culture. Here, simplicity refers not to the ingredients, but to the recipe writers themselves. Every time I see the word bake used as a noun, I get an urge to kill.

So to pay  homage to Careme and throw the finger to the boobs of Pinterest, here is a simple, relatively healthy and really cheap chicken recipe that can be prepared in minutes, baked in about an hour, and keeps well for leftovers for the next day. It's what we should be making at home, not "bakes."

French Chicken
4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs (or a whole chicken, make sure you cook it longer...)
2 potatoes
2 carrots
10 garlic cloves (crushed and depapered)
1 small onion cut into wedges
4 shallots (or more onion)
4 sprigs of parsley
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
4 sprigs rosemary
2 tsp dried thyme powder
salt
pepper
butter
olive oil
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup water

Prep:
1. Take the chicken out of the oven an hour beforehand to allow it to reach room temperature, which will help it cook evenly. Preheat the oven to 475.

2. Soften about 1/4 cup of butter and mince up a few thyme and parsley leaves and mix in a good amount of salt and pepper and dried thyme. Set aside. This takes about 5 seconds, don't be put off by the idea of herbed butter.

3. Cube the carrots and potatoes, chop the onion and quarter the shallots, and throw the fresh and dry herbs into a large bowl. Douse them with olive oil, salt and pepper. Really, don't undersalt this. If you think you've got enough, just toss in a bit more for good measure. Mix well.

4. Place the vegetables in a glass pan and pour the wine and water over them.

5. Lube up the chicken pieces with the herbed butter and glob any of the remainder on top of the thighs. This will melt into the pan and mix with everything else beautifully.

Cooking:
1. Put the pan in the oven at 475 for 25 minutes to seal and crisp the chicken.

2. REDUCE THE TEMPERATURE to 350 and cook for about 30 minutes until the legs appear to have shrunken noticeably. With a full chicken, cook for at least 45 minutes, or until a meat thermometer says it's okay. You don't want to underdo it.

3. Baste a bit and let the pan sit for about 10 minutes to rest. 

Tylor's Cookie Guide

Cookies should always be wonderful, and it always baffles me that they so frequently are not. Their chemistry and our biology should ensure that they are always amazing. What are three of the most important things that we need to make stuff taste good? Sugar, fat and salt. That's essentially cookies right there, with a few things cut in to give them substance and flavor. You don't even need to cook the damn things and they're delicious.

How can you mess that up? Part of the problem is that I think people try to make things too complicated or too cute or healthy. To prevent this, here are my guildelines to guaranteed good cookies, followed by a set of links to failsafe recipes that I use. I've listed my own modifications if you want to be extra naughty:

The Guidelines:

1. NO healthy substitutions are permitted. Be honest with yourself. If you were really concerned about your health or getting rid of that stubborn belly fat, you wouldn't be eating cookies in the first place, so why not actually enjoy them? Applesauce is no more a substitute for butter than gravel is a substitute for chocolate chips. Many of these items are chemically necessary for your cookies to behave properly - this is why you don't cut out milk or eggs from a recipe that calls for both. Frankly you should know better. Avocados for butter? Get out of my kitchen!

2. Remember the key acronym: ATM. No, not that version. Nor the other one. Always Trust the Mormons. The Mormon church, in its cruel wisdom is always attempting to harness the white hot sexual energy surging through its adolescent children and divert it towards aprurient activities. For boys, this means sports and random violence.  For girls, they prefer activities that will ostensibly  help prepare them for marriage. Like baking. Or knitting. Or scrapbooking. Anyways, if you've ever eaten cookies made by a Mormon friend you'd know what I'm talking about. They're glorious.

3. Don't leave the kitchen. Timing and temperature are two additional keys to making your food taste good, so it does you no good if you're dicking around on your computer, not realizing that your oven is actually 20 degrees too hot and your soft oatmeal cookies are now chipboard. Our oven is so terrible that it's actually impossible to predict how hot the interior will be at any given moment, so this is doubly important for me.

4. Use baking paper. It's way easier and more effective than silicon sheets, which don't crisp the bottom properly.

5. Halve the recipes. Most of them are made for large families of doughy, inert children and you'll wind up with more cookies than you can conscionably dispose of.

Here are a few excellent recipes for your run of the mill cookies. I've tried all of these, so if they turn out poorly, it's probably your fault:

Oatmeal Raising Cookies - I added about a teaspoon and a half of cinnamon, a dash of clove, a bit more salt and twice the vanilla.

Lemon Cookies - A contest winner from among Mormon bakers. No bullshit, these are good. No mods needed.

Chocolate Chip Cookies - A good basic recipe that doesn't skimp on the vanilla.

Also Chocolate Chip Cookies - A more advanced recipe that is amazing.

Snickerdoodles - This is a heavyweight among sugar cookies. Always use the butter only recipes, half-crisco has half the flavor. Add some almond extract if you want to blow some minds.

That should do you. Peanut Butter cookies have been left off because I don't make them a lot since peanut butter is pricey and bad here. I also do a great chocolate cookie, but you may as well make brownies.

Cheers. 

Murgh Makhani: Butter Chicken: Pretty Much What it Sounds Like PLUS garam masala recipe

Curry is really not a summer food. It takes a lot of time to get your mise en place in order, which you should be doing anyways, but more importantly, it's terribly hot here in Beirut in the summer. Miserably hot. I'm from Arizona, and I think I'd prefer hell to Beirut in August since I hear it's a dry heat.

But since our friend Dylan made it into town this week, we thought we'd have him over to celebrate his arrival and to obviate the need to go out, which is expensive and terrible and usually not plausible with a 2 year old. The butter chicken, in contrast, was delicious and pretty cheap. Someone calculated the cost of the naan as $.16 a serving, which is reasonable even for a cheapskate such as myself.

For those of you who don't have Dora (a part of town where the domestic workers congregate on Sundays with great Filipino and Sri Lankan food) a mere 10 minute bus ride away, spices may be problematic. Fenugreek leaves are amazing, but good luck finding them. I make my own garam masala because I have a spice grinder and lots of weird whole spices, but you can use generic "curry powder" if you really want. It'll taste different, but that's not always bad. Mine is a Punjabi inspired sort.

Try making the naan, it's well worth it. Otherwise, serve this with basmati and you'll be very happy with the results. It's less "authentic" than some recipes, more authentic than most, but it tastes really freaking good.

Garam Masala Ingredients

5 green cardamoms
6 black cardamoms
4" of cinnamon stick
1/8 cup whole cumin
1/4 cup whole coriander seeds
2 bay leaves (I stem and vein them)
1 tbsp peppercorns
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp fenugreek
1 1/2 tsp dry ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Step 1: Put in a spice grinder and blend. Make sure it's a grinder you'll never use for coffee, these tastes will not be coming out of it anytime soon.

Murgh Makhani Ingredients
8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 1/2 large onions
5 ripe red tomatoes, skinned, cored and seeded
1/2 cup crushed tomatoes
1/3 cup red bell pepper
2 inch piece of ginger minced finely or turned to paste
6 garlic cloves, minced finely
2 tbsp fresh cilantro/coriander leaves chopped
juice of 1 lemon
5 cashews powdered
2 cups water
1/3 cup cream
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp cooking oil
salt

Spices and herbs:
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tbsp garam masala
2 bay leaves
1/2 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves
1 tsp fenugreek
1/2 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp muscovado or other poorly processed sugar

Step 1:
Marinate the chicken in the juice of 1 lemon and some salt for about 30 minutes. While this is going on, prep your vegetables and skin, seed and blend your tomatoes with the crushed tomato.

Step 2:
Heat the oil in a deep pan on medium high until very hot, then put in your chicken thighs. Let them brown violently on both sides, then remove and put on a plate.

Step 3:
Turn down the heat to medium and melt the butter, then add your onions and red peppers. If you're using sriracha, you don't need the peppers, but they add a nice flavor. Sweat the onions until they're clear.

Step 4:
Add the garlic and ginger pastes, stirring frequently

Step 5:
Add your sugar/spice mixture and stir to combine.

Step 6:
Add the tomato mixture and stir to combine, then add salt. Your kitchen should smell glorious by now.

Step 7:
Add the water, then cover and cook on low heat for about 15 minutes. Now might be a good time to get going on your naan and rice.

Step 8:
Remove the bay leaves and blend your chunky curry into a fine paste using a stick blender or a blender/food processor. Add the cashews, return the bay leaves  and the chicken, cover and let simmer on low for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning on the bottom of the pan.

Step 9:
when everything is the proper consistency (gravy-like), turn off the heat and add your cilantro and cream, stirring to combine. Cover and let rest for about 5 minutes, then serve next to rice and naan with a cilantro garnish. 

Smoky Gazpacho: Because Why Not?

Gazpacho has always been a hard sell for me. In part because it contains every single thing I hated as a child,  and also because cold soup? This all changed after I bought a pint of salsa at Rosa's in Tucson, which is the best Mexican restaurant in town and of course it does not give you diarrhea, and discovered that I had forgotten to pick up chips upon arriving at home. Undaunted, I wound up drinking the whole tub of salsa straight from the cup. Since gazpacho is basically salsa with a few European modifications, I figured I could live with it if it was ever pushed on me.

I actually became a fan of the soup in 2010 on a trip to Barcelona, when I tried watermelon gazpacho in a desperate attempt to ward off scurvy after a week of crummy bar food. After dabbling with cherry gazpacho in a nice little cafe in Gerona I was hooked. 

This soup is great. It costs about $4 to make, you probably have some of the ingredients on hand, and it is tasty. One major disadvantage is that it's tough to make it a meal since it's basically just blended vegetables, so you might have to get creative with your condiments to stretch it. 

Note: You can add garnishes if you want to kick up the flavor a bit. If you want more Mexicany, add cilantro, but basil is also pretty great.

 The worchestershire seems weird, but it really works. The Romans had a seasoning they used for everything called garam, which was largely fermented fish (an ingredient in worchestershire sauce). Why is this important? Because fermented fish is how they derive MSG, a flavor enhancer! Do it, it's worth it. 

RECIPE

2 1/2 pounds of ripe roma tomatoes, skinned, and gutted

juice from aforementioned tomatoes

2 red onions

1 cucumber

2 small red peppers

1-2 garlic cloves

2/3 cup olive oil

3 tbsp good balsamic vinegar (a rich red wine might do if you want to get creative)
1/2 tbsp worchestershire sauce

juice of 1 1/2 limes

1 tbsp smoked paprika or chipotle powder

salt to taste (a lot)

Garnish

avocado 

cilantro or basil

Croutons

1 loaf of French bread or baguette

1 tbsp smoked paprika or chipotle powder

1/8 tsp pepper

olive oil

basil or Mexican oregano

Step 1: 

Boil water and prep another bowl of ice water. Cut out the stems into the tomato to remove some of the core, then throw the tomatoes in the boiling water for about 20 seconds, rotating them to make sure they are evenly heated. Pull them out and toss them into the ice water immediately and let 'em cool. The skin should peel right off. 

Step 2: 

Squeeze the tomato guts into a strainer and catch the juice in a bowl. 

Step 3: 

Chop all the vegetables roughly and add them to a blender along with the oil, vinegar, lime juice, tomato juice and spices. Blend and cool in the fridge overnight. 

Crouton Recipe

Step 1:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the French loaf into slices and tear them into chunks, keeping them as fluffy as possible.

Step 2:  

Put them in a bowl and pour olive oil down the sides and toss the bread to coat it, then slowly add the spices and try to cover uniformly. 

Step 3: 

Toast them until they're crusty and hard with no sponginess. 

That's it. 

Chicken Pasta in Bianco - the SO CALLED Alfredo Sauce

First, did you know there's such a thing as the "Umami Information Center?" It's predictably amateurish and is clearly the project of specialists with terrible social skills and the dating lives of eunuchs. Pity them. 

Second, I'll admit the title of this post is mysteriously inflammatory - at least if you consider the unnecessary capitalization of words to be the visual equivalent of raising your voice indignantly, as opposed to underlining, which connotes severity, bolding, which is to make a point, and italicizing, which is subtly prurient or merely identifying that something is written in another language. I have faith that my readership can tell the two apart.

There is actually little reason for controversy over the (SO CALLED) Alfredo sauce - it was "invented" by Alfredo Di Lelio for his restaurant, Alfredo, in Rome in 1914. The "Alfredo" was in reference to his restaurant/his name/his ego and had little to do with the actual ingredients, which were fabulously minimal. The original recipe was (pause a moment): fettuccine + butter + Parmesan cheese, which was tossed while the pasta was still hot and moist, allowing the melted butter and the cheese to form a smooth white sauce that evenly coated the noodles. I've never had it, but it (and its descendant in his follow-up venture, Il Vero Alfredo) is reputed to have been quite tasty by the types of assholes who write travel guidebooks. 

Of course, white sauces made of Parmesan cheese and butter had existed before Alfredo's fortuitous combination, and are still generally just called "in bianco". In fact, before the importation of the tomato and pepper a short few centuries ago, there wouldn't have been a lot of options other than cheese, herbs and oil of some sort (see pesto), so take that "invention" line as skeptically as you wish. 

My main problem with Alfredo's recipe is that it's terribly boring conceptually and I can't exactly write up a blog post telling people to just mix cheese and butter. It'd take seconds and, (admit it), you'd never read me again. Even the Pinterest crowd would spit on me. 

You may also notice that I fail to mention any sort of roux here. Although the combination of flour and butter that forms the base of so many amazing dishes and sauces is generally indispensable, I've actually dispensed with it here to let the other flavors shine as they may. Seriously, it won't need a thickener, and roux based white sauces tend to be kind of pasty and filling. Yes, this is actually the light  version. 

So, in the interest of keeping you impressed with me, I've complicated the recipe a bit, but it's really, really worth it. 

A warning (see above): 

Use boneless-skinless chicken thighs (see above...) for this recipe. First, when you brown them, they're fattier and release the oils that you're going to use to flavor your sauce. Plus, bits stick to the pan, get hard and taste like bacon cracklins. You're welcome. 

You'll also want to prepare the ingredients beforehand so you'll have them ready to go at the appropriate moment. If the butter is burning and you're still chopping onions, shame on you (see above). 

A suggestion: 

Why not saute some mushrooms to go with it too? Or bacon. Bacon. Bacon (see above). 

Another suggestion: 

This pairs well with wine. But make it something heavy enough to handle the cheeses.   

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, thawed 

olive oil 

salt 

pepper

lemon wedge

Fettuccine or Spaghetti noodles

1/4 c minced shallot or onion

3 crushed garlic cloves 

1/2 c butter

1/3-1/2 c light cream

1/2 c milk 

3/4 c shredded Parmesan cheese (off the block is best, not the powdered stuff) 

1/4 c Keshkaval/Romano/Provolone, etc. (something with a bit of umami to it - admittedly, the website dedicated to promoting "umami" does a terrible job of explaining it - just make sure the cheese is a bit funky)

salt

pepper

The Chicken:

Step 1: 

Heat a large flat bottomed (saute) pan on medium high heat until it's quite toasty (if you have a coated pan, this may not be a good idea since you'll burn off your non-stick surface), then add olive oil and salt. I salt the oil to ensure my meat is uniformly seasoned.  

Step 2: 

Add the chicken to the oil once it heats, spreading out the thighs with your spatula or fork or anything other than your hand for Christ's sake and let them brown nicely without fiddling with them too much. Add the pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice on them towards the end and let them cook a bit to form a crust and make your pan look like a nightmare. 

When they're done, (firm, not spongey), put them on a plate and set aside. Hopefully there's a bunch of brown gunk stuck on the bottom of the pan, which you'll want for your sauce - but you can also scrape up a bit of it as a garnish (again, it tastes like bacon!) 

Let the pan cool a bit. 

The Pasta:

Start boiling water with some salt and olive oil. Begin cooking the pasta early, but remember you'll need it just past al dente so keep an eye on it. Hopefully it'll finish at roughly the same time as the sauce. Drain it when it's done, salt  and add a bit of olive oil to keep it from forming a Gordian pasta knot. 

The Sauce

Make the sauce last. Why? Because I said so dammit. Also, because you want the sauce hot and not all congealed on the bottom of the pan when you plate up. 

Step 1: 

Heat the pan on medium heat with all of the residual the olive oil, salt, lemon juice, pepper, and chicken crud, then add the butter and deglaze the pan a bit (scrape it to dislodge the crud and dissolve it into the butter). The butter will take on a golden hue, at which point you toss in the finely minced shallot and cook for about 30 seconds until they soften a bit. Now add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds, trying to keep it from burning. 

Step 2: 

Turn down the heat a bit, then add in the cream, stirring to mix it, then immediately add the cheeses. Stir until they are melted, then add the milk until the mixture is smooth. 

Step 3:

Crack some pepper over the top and salt it if it needs it (it shouldn't, but you don't want to underseason your food). Fresh parsley is a nice touch, if you're so inclined. 

Plate it up with the pasta on bottom, sauce next, then the chicken, thinly sliced over the top. Seriously, this is damn good and really easy to make. 

Cauliflower Pizza Crust: Or Why Pinterest Will Destroy Us All

I'm going to try to keep this relatively short today since I have little time and I'm actually much more interested in posting about my awesome lentil soup, and my equally awesome stick blender.

However, since cauliflower crust seems to be a current Pinterest star, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon to make vicious unprovoked attacks on the people who have already posted about this before me - all of whom made tonight's dinner possible. For the record, I hate Pinterest. I joined it a long time ago to share my bad attitude with other people through my cruel and misanthropic "Stupid Shit People Post on Pinterest" board, which has probably made people cry. But it's okay, because it's the internet and I don't know them. Right?

Don't get me wrong, I love the taste of cauliflower and it's got all sorts of wonderful antioxidants (plus nicotine!) that make consuming it much more nutritiously rewarding than the the savory, soft, crisp yet yielding crust that usually bears my pizza toppings. However, Pinterest has two primary flaws that always draw my ire (even though I've found my favorite cookie recipe there):

1. 90% of things include cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

2. People make bizarre substitutions for no apparent reason and people want to try it because they think it makes them foodies

These are actually just symptoms of the main problem, which is that the vast majority of the random bored people who make up the site's usership are completely devoid of taste or sense. If there is any way that the apostrophized plural becomes acceptable in standard English usage, Pinterest will be to blame.

But I digress. Actually, this whole article has been a digression.

Anyways, the origins of this recipe are apparently Weight Watchers, or some other fraudulent support organization. The aim of using cauliflower rather than flour was to cut out the carbohydrates and gluten in the recipe that make pizza crust so delicious and yet so invariably fatal in the first place. As I sympathize with the gluten free crowd, I can't knock them for wanting a nice pizza crust recipe, but my ongoing irritation with the posted recipes is that people who don't have gluten allergies insisted on cutting out the flour while complaining about second degree burns received when their crust dissolved in their hands.

Flour is a great binding agent, so I added it back to the recipe. It also makes the recipe taste wonderful, gives it a firmer texture, and absorbs the moisture of the cauliflower, which means  you don't have to squeeze it in a teacloth and accidentally get water all over the young child who's always playing near your feet with glass or rusty things he found under the stove.

Also, I scaled back the amount of cheese and egg demanded by the bloggers - one person, who was clearly a jerk anyways, called for 2 goddamn cups, which her pictures show had clearly incinerated in the oven. Use flavorful, dry cheese, not tons of it.

Also, some other crank claimed you needed 2-3 eggs, which is insane since you're  not making omelet pizza.

A word of warning: the operation is a two stepper.

1. Construct and bake the crust

2. Load and rebake the pizza.

Since I trust you know how to make tomato sauce, add cheese, etc., I'll just give instructions on the crust.

Apologies for lack of pictures, we immediately devoured the pizza. If you want to visualize it, take a few seconds to imagine a pizza, then continue reading.

Ingredients
1 cauliflower
1/2-2/3  cup shredded pungent cheese (I used emmental and a touch of pecorino for its sheepy sharpness)
1 egg
1 cup flour
2 tsp or more salt
pepper
1 tsp basil

THE STEPS
1. Chop up and boil your cauliflower until it smushes nicely with a potato masher. Mash it as much as you like, if it's smoother it'll have fewer protrusions to burn in the oven.

2. Preheat the oven to 425

3. Add the rest of the ingredients, saving the flour for last. Mix it in until it's a nice paste (you may need more or less than a cup, but 1 cup is a good estimate for most cauliflowers.), then spread it over a piece of baking paper in whatever crust shape you like. A thicker crust is less likely to burn or fall apart, so I'd say make it at least 1/2 inch. (Like you know what that looks like by eyeballing.) Smooth the edges and stick it in the oven when it's hot enough, perhaps making a little dam around the edge for your ingredients to make it look like your crust rose, much like McDonald's does with its wretched compressed pork product sandwich, the McRib.

4. Bake for about 12 minutes, turn, then bake another 12. The crust should be golden brown and might bulge in the middle. This is good since it means it's holding together.

5. Remove crust, add pizza ingredients, then reinsert for another 5-10 minutes.

Voila. 1 hour and you've got weird vegetarian pizza that tastes pretty good.

I'm still not a convert from real crust, but this is a nice change of pace if you're feeling pudgy. 

Persian Pomegranate Walnut Chicken Stew and Spiced Rice

Even with the crazily broad range of things we experiment with  in our kitchen, such as letting an 18 month old beat his own scrambled eggs, there are times when we hit ruts. "Doro Wat again?!" Tam will pout sadly into her plate. For the  most part, we fall back on certain recipes because they are easy, cheap, delicious, or in season (which is a matter of special concern in the winter time in Beirut), or just because we were thinking of the country in which they are popular.

It's on this last point that we've sadly been neglecting Persian food. (Sidenote: thanks to our awesome landlord, we are also now curling our toes on a freshly lent old Persian carpet).  Though one tends to hear a lot about Iran in the news here in Beirut, the non-political aspects of Persian culture tend to slip one's mind due to the fact that there is a real paucity of actual Persian people here. I'll not speculate on the reasons behind this, but suffice to say that many Persians and Turks still seem to hold rather unflattering views about the lands of "Arabistan" that are more bound to stereotype than reality.

Of course, at times through history, Persia was roughly equivalent to the Asian version of 18th century France. Their smooth, rather cutesy language was the patois of the obnoxiously cultured, their luxurious artisanal goods ubiquitous, and their fine dining contagious. The meze consisting of small dishes of vegetable and pulse appetizers so closely associated with Eastern Mediterranean cuisine nowadays had their origins in the Persian east, and were readily adopted by the Farsophile Turkish tribes in Anatolia, the Arab Mediterranean, and even Greece and Cyprus. Tapas? The thought at least owes some credit to the guys who sat on their stolen Peacock Throne, but  not much, because Tapas are terrible.

Because this is so different from anything I usually cook, I have to give credit where it's due. However, I've made a few improvements on the recipe to give it some richness, so I feel less bad about posting my version.

Be sure to check out the aromatic "pilau" recipe linked in the original recipe, which is a nice starch pairing that this obscenely rich dish desperately needs. (That's the first time I've used "aromatic" unironically in a long time). I'll give my own version as well, but just because I know some of you don't know how to operate hyperlinks. I cannot claim that this is in any way authentic, because, you know, I'm not Persian, but it's damn good. And pretty terrible for you. .

If you have good Lebneh or Greek yogurt that isn't just regular yogurt with thickeners added to it, try that as a garnish with a sprig of cilantro. If you don't have pomegranate molasses, try melting down grape jelly and cutting it with pomegranate juice to get the sweet/tanginess of the "Dibs Roman."

Persian Pomegranate Chicken "Fesenjan"

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil
3 chicken quarters
2 big onions - finely cut in the food processor
2 cups walnuts, finely chopped in the food processor (seriously, make 'em like flour)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups water or broth
2 tbsp brown sugar or sugar in the raw
5 tbsp pomegranate molasses
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp pepper
salt

Step 1:
Toast the walnuts in a pan on medium low heat until they start to smell nice. Don't burn them. I don't even have to tell you why that's bad. When they're done, dump them on a plate or in a bowl and set aside. When they're cool, blend them into a fine powder and set aside.

Step 2:
Blend up 2 onions finely in the food processor and set aside. Now mix the spices and the sugar into a bowl, and set that aside too.

Step 3:
Brown the chicken in a deep pan with the olive oil, searing the outside and making sure to leave some of the delectable little brown chunks in the bottom of the pan for the onion frying. Take them out when the outsides are nicely browned and set aside. Notice a pattern here? You'll be doing dishes for days.

Step 4:
Add the butter and 2 tbsp of oil to the pan, allow it to heat, then add the onions. Cook them until they're clear and most of the moisture has evaporated off of them (much like you'd do for a curry), then add the chicken and water, bring to a boil and then cover and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Step 5:
At this stage, the pot looks really gross. Pull the chicken for a moment to help you mix better, then suppress your gag reflex and add the ground walnuts, garlic spices, pomegranate molasses and sugar. Stir well and put the chicken back in. The resulting glop will remind you of when you forgot to wash your lettuce when in Mexico, but as I always say, if it looks about the same going in as it does coming out, you've probably made the right choice. Cover and turn heat to low and slow cook for another hour, stirring occasionally and salting frequently (this needs a lot of salt to balance the sweet).

Step 6:
If you'd like, pick the meat from the bones with about 15 minutes to go, which should make for easier eating.

Serve with the rice recipe below, perhaps a daub of lebneh (strained yogurt) and a sprig of cilantro.

Aromatic Rice Recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Jasmine or Basmati Rice
3 tbsp oil
3 cups water or broth
1 tbsp safflower
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
6 cardamom pods
8 cloves
1/4 tsp coriander seeds
1.4 cup raisins (yellow preferably)
salt
lemon juice

Step 1:
Fry your spices in the oil to release their flavors, then add the rice and sautee until it turns white-tan. Many people screw up their flavored rice dishes, and it's usually because they didn't fry it up first to neutralize all the starch.

Step 2:
Add water, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cover and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Then fish out the sticks, pods, leaves and other offal that would otherwise cause a major dental catastrophe for the smartass who thinks it's cute to eat the whole spices or the clueless neophyte who doesn't know any better and who will never try anything more exotic than scalloped potatoes because of you.

Step 3:
Add the raisins and recover (adding more water if you need it), letting it cook until the steam starts to ebb. Check the firmness of the rice, adding water if needed or uncovering if it's a bit soft.

Step 4:
Taste for salt, then add a squeeze of lemon juice and let sit covered for 10 minutes, then fluff and serve.

Filipino Adobo Chicken and Fake Filipino Veggies

Since my more exotic recipes tend to get the most views, today I've decided to whore myself out to he mob and provide something from my southeast Asian repertoire. For those of you who flunked 5th grade geography, that's where the Philippines are located.

Shredded from the bone for Tam

Americans seem to know tragically little about the Philippines and their culture outside of Manny Pacquiao and Imelda Marcos' collection of between 2700 and 3000 pairs of shoes. This is especially unfortunate since we actually colonized them at one point - and isn't that how we know most of our obscure geography in the states? The Spanish-American war was actually largely started by U.S. naval actions in the Philippines, when Theodore Roosevelt, while filling in as Secretary of the Navy while his boss was gone on leave, unilaterally moved the U.S. fleet to the Philippines to attack once war was drummed up, pretty much instigating the ensuing American conquest of the Spanish colony. The upside (for the U.S.) is that Spanish fort was apparently armed with nerf weapons and the naval fleet lost only one person to heat stroke in the battle of Manila Bay.

Apart from the proliferation of Filipina nannies raising 30% of Lebanon's children, our little country has ties to the islands as well. Not surprisingly, of course, since Lebanese people wind up everywhere. Three of the Salibi (of Kamal fame) brothers made their way to the Philippines following the conquest of Cuba, where they made names for themselves as part of the U.S. medical and cultural projects in the islands. One of them actually served as an emissary to a group of Muslim Filipinos, who had resisted dealing with the conquerors, eventually winning them over AND translating the Quran into their native dialect. One of the brothers died in a Japanese internment camp, and another was carried at his funeral by General Douglas MacArthur.

Anyway, back on topic. Filipino food is an interesting mix of its cultural heritage (notably the its centuries of Spanish subjugation) and its local ingredients, which combine to form a truly vibrant and fascinating cuisine. It's got a lot of similarities to other regional fare, but lacks the flamboyance of Thai food or the measured elegance of Vietnamese. Some will love it, others despise it - Filipino food is a party in your mouth, but not everyone may be invited. I was only recently introduced to it by my parents when I was back in the states, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Today's recipe is for Chicken Adobo, which some faker on the internet claims gives it a Mexican origin. This is riotously incorrect, as Mexican Adobo (or adobado, as it's usually called) is made with red chiles and is nothing like the Filipino version apart from the fact that they're both stewed, which is where the damn word came from in the first place (etymology anyone?). So today's first lesson is don't believe everything you read online.

As a bonus, I'm including a recipe for a vegetable dish that I used as a side for this that I invented completely on the spot because I thought we needed something other than rice. It's delicious, but by no means authentic. And it's yours, so you're welcome.

ADOBO CHICKEN
oil
4 chicken quarters (skin on you pansy)
8 bay leaves
12 black peppercorns
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp raw sugar
10 garlic cloves

That's it.

A warning, the smell of this will peel paint while it's cooking, but it miraculously condenses into a delicious, not overly acidic dish at the end with a nice sauce. Don't taste it while cooking and recoil in disgust, it's always that gross until it reduces.

1. Your one prep duty is to husk, crush and sliver your garlic and put it aside. You can crush the whole cloves against the knife blade, pull away the paper/skin, and loosely dice.

2. Heat then oil a large deep pan that you can throw a lid on, then deposit your chicken quarters face down once the pan is hot. Brown them a bit to release the flavor.

3. Unceremoniously dump the rest of the ingredients into the pot and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer then reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for about 30 minutes until the vinegar and heat make the chicken tremendously tender, then uncover and cook for about 20 minutes until the sauce reduces down to a thick goo. Adjust sugar levels according to your preference, at this stage, and voila.

Sit for 5 minutes and serve with jasmine rice. Some like to strain the sauce, but this is absurd. It's delicious with all of the flotsam, just don't eat the bay leaves, which haven't become edible since my last post.

FILIPINOISH COCONUT VEGETABLES

Again, this was inspired by whatever I had lying around in the fridge and an investigation of other Filipino recipes, so it's in no way authentic. But it's damn good.
oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 green onion, minced
1 tomato, cored, seeded and chopped
1 potato cut into steaks
1 carrot cubed
1 cup shredded cabbage
thumb sized piece of ginger cut in thin slices
6 garlic cloves, crushed and slivered
1 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1 tbsp raw sugar
1/8 cup shredded coconut
1 tsp ginger
salt
pepper
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 c coconut cream (or 2 tbsp powder and a half cup water)

Step 1:
Prep vegetables according to their description above and mix the raw sugar, coconut and ginger together in a bowl to dump in. Keep the onion and raw ginger aside and put the tomato, green onion and garlic in a bowl to add at the same time. Everything else can go in together.

Step 2.
Heat a deep pan, add the oil and then the onion and ginger and let 'em soften a bit. After a few minutes, add the tomato/green onion/garlic mixture and cook until the tomatoes start to break up and lose their liquid. Finally, add the rest of the veggies and stir fry for about 2 minutes.

Step 3
Add the sauces, coconut cream and the sugar/coconut/ginger combination, stirring to combine, then cover and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the cabbage is soft and the potatoes are done. If you need, add more coconut cream or water to prevent it from drying out and adjust the salt, sugar and pepper as needed. In lieu of salt, you can also add more fish sauce.

It should smell gloriously coconutty, be sweet and savory and go well with rice. 

How Not to Ruin Scrambled Eggs: For Sara

Here's a quick post that's more a "for dummies" instructional guide than a real recipe, but since almost everyone I know makes eggs and a lot of them make huge messes in the process, I thought I might do some charity work on this fine Saturday morning.

Whether you know it or not, eggs are a vital part of your alimentary experience. They allow your baked goods to bake properly. When mixed with milk they do magical things (which is why you must never substitute out milk in a recipe that has eggs. It's chemistry, don't fight it). They contain protein, vital amino acids and zinc, which aid in muscle development and immune function. Plus, new research has emerged suggesting that they won't cause you to have immediate heart attacks, though new research emerges all the time purporting to prove all sorts of dubious claims, so perhaps you shouldn't go crazy with this newfound freedom.

Historically, eggs were one of the most important elements of daily life. Since most of the peasantry in Europe couldn't afford meat, or to buy new chickens, they substituted in "white meats" like cheese and eggs, which were free if you were lucky enough to own a cow or chickens. Chickens were especially important since they basically wander around consuming things and befouling their environment, much like common street gangs, but more edible. Though ownership has decreased significantly in recent years, especially with the increase in apartment living (the mess would be appalling), eggs themselves are generally still a highly affordable protein that even brain damaged monkeys could figure out how to cook adequately.

But, of course, there are tricks to that.

These tips are for those cooking with stainless steel or cast iron - if you use nonstick pans you could do whatever you wanted and the egg would come out basically okay.

Ingredients:
olive oil
2 eggs
1-2 tbsp milk
salt

other potential seasonings: pepper, thyme/zaatar, paprika, vegetables, cheese, truffle salt - the latter two should go in after the cooking process.

Steps:

1. Crack eggs into a bowl (practice doing it one handed - you'll get all the ladies/dudes) and mix in the milk and herbs (if you're using them). Beat the hell out of them with a fork or a whisk.

2. THE IMPORTANT STEP. DO NOT SKIM THIS. Heat a small pan on low-medium heat until it's actually hot (this makes the egg solidify quickly, makes cleanup a snap and shortens cooking time). Add a bit of oil to the pan and coat the bottom and the edges of the sides. If it's too hot, you'll get a singed crust on your egg and/or weird bubbles, which might taste just fine but isn't as nice to eat. If it's not hot enough, you get a mess.

3. Wait until oil heats up forming a barrier between the pan and the egg, then dump the well beaten mixture in. If you cover it, it'll fluff up faster.

4. Cook about 30 seconds until the egg starts to rise and the amount of liquid egg has decreased, flip, turn off the heat, wait 5 seconds and you're done. If you want cheese, add it now, cover to melt then serve.

If you follow my directions, you'll find I've changed your life forever. If you get different results, it's your fault. Try again.