Slicing Sandwiches

Everyone claims that sandwiches taste the same way whether cut in half or on the diagonal but anyone with taste knows the "truth" - that diagonal-cut ones taste better!

To all that have struggled with this (and you know who you are!) you are not alone.

The CC is with you!

Ratatouille

Ratatouille over Couscous

Haitian Meal

The CC had been hankering for a Haitian meal and he received a ton of the right veggies courtesy of a friend's CSA so he decided to go all out and prepare a Haitian meal.

He had some vegetarian friends over for dinner so the beef was substituted by tempeh (the only reasonable thing that can stand up to a long marinade, and long cooking times without falling apart.)

Corn Fritters with Pikliz
Rice & Beans
Tempeh in Creole Sauce
(Source: Fine Haitian Cuisine by Mona Cassion Ménager.)

Beef in Creole Sauce

Ingredients

2 pounds beef (rump pot roast, sirloin tip or any beef cut suitable for braising)
1 bitter orange, or 2 lemons + 1 orange
1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 habanero chile
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
pinch of ground cloves
1 tbsp chopped chives
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white onion shavings
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf pasley
1 sprig of thyme
5 garlic cloves, peeled, and crushed
1 tbsp tomato paste diluted in 1 cup boiled water
4 cups boiled water
1 sliced white onion (for sauce)
1 sliced bell pepper (for sauce)

Recipe

Trim excess fat from beef. Cut meat crosswise into six fairly equal pieces. Rub meat with bitter orange. Rinse quickly with very hot water. Drain carefully. Put meat in a bowl and coat with orange juice, vinegar, chile, black pepper, cloves, chives, salt, onion, parsley, and thyme. Cover with plastic wrap, and marinate in a cool place for 30 minutes to 1 hour in the refrigerator or overnight.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy lidded 5-quart pan over high setting. Reserving marinade, add meat, and saute until beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add marinade, reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until juice thickens, about 10 to 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in a 3-quart heavy pan over medium high setting. Add garlic and sautee for 1 minute. Add diluted tomato paste and boil uncovered until all liquid evaporates, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add 3 cups of boiled water to tomato paste, mix well, and pour it over meat. Cover and cook until all liquid evaporates, about 45 minutes. The sauce should be thick. Remove meat and chile from the sauce. Season sauce with additional salt and pepper if desired. Add 1 cup of boiled water to the sauce, and stir in. Add meat and reserved chile. Reduce, uncovered, over medium heat until sauce thickens, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add onion and bell pepper slices during the last minute. Discard chile. Serve hot.

Rice and Beans

Ingredients

1/2 cup red kidney beans (soaked)
1/4 heaped tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tbsp minced chives
1/2 cup white onion (finely diced)
1/2 cup shallots (finely diced)
1 habanero chile
1/4 cup red bell pepper (diced)
2 bouillon cubes
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
3 cups bean cooking liquid (read below)
2-3 sprigs thyme
1 sprig parsley
2 cups long-grain rice

Recipe

Wash the beans, and bring to boil with 8 cups of water. Cover, and cook over medium heat with the lid ajar until the beans are cooked through, 45 minutes to 1 hour. The beans should hold their shape. Drain but reserve the cooking liquid.

Heat 2 tsp oil in a heavy pan, over medium heat. Add the beans and sauté until the beans are crispy about 7 minutes. Add black pepper and the cloves at the last minute. Set aside.

Heat 2 tsp oil in the same pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté till slightly golden. Add the onion, shallots, chile, chives and diced red bell pepper and sauté for 3-5 minutes. Add the rice and fry to coat with the oil. Add the bouillon cubes, cayenne pepper, thyme, salt and parsley along with the 3 cups of cooking liquid and the reserved beans.

Cook till the rice is done. (You may need to add additional cooking liquid or water.)

Roasted Summer Vegetables with Rosemary

Served on a bed of Israeli couscous with a dash of tartness added by a splash of vinegar.

Mushroom Barley Risotto with Late Summer Vegetables

Practical Lessons for Urban Herbs

As the CC has mentioned, he acquired a ton of them.

At the end of this summer, more than half have died. The survivors are mint, rosemary, basil and sage.

Now, admittedly, this has been the worst summer on record in terms of sunlight but still...

Clearly, the CC's skills do not extend to plants and their maintenance!

We shall see how many make it through the winter. The CC is not optimistic.

Still, there are lessons to be learnt and there's always next year. Here's what the CC has learnt so far:

1. Replanting is a skill. You need to pack the dirt just tight enough to transmit water to the roots but not so tight as to inhibit them. (This was the CC's biggest mistake!)
   
   
2. Don't buy plants at the farmers' market early in the season. Yes, the CC knows you are chomping at the bit but what is good in an open field simply isn't good enough in an apartment or even a terrace. Wait. Get robust herbs and you will get robust urban herbs.
   
   
3. Houseplants in summer need a little more water than is expected. Whether it's the urban concrete jungle or what, the CC doesn't know but it's true. Conversely, they need a lot less water when it's cooler. So you need to turn into a lean, mean, weather machine.

Omnivore

Something about growing plants and snipping parts off them appeals to both my inner carnivore and my inner vegetarian!

Habañero

Not to be confused with habañera which is a Cuban musical genre.

There is only one word for these babies - fire. Use with extreme caution. But they have a smoky, citrusy fiery taste that is both unmistakable and irrestible to the heat-lovers.

"Thai" Salad with Cucumbers & Peanuts

There's nothing "Thai" about the salad but it's made by keeping Thai cooking principles firmly in mind.

The dressing was made by blending galangal, Thai green chillies, some kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass in water and passing the result through a sieve. To that was added some nahm pla (fish sauce), lime juice and palm sugar, and turned into a vinaigrette. The resulting vinaigrette was complex - salty, sweet, sour, hot with just a little bit of a bitter edge. In short, "Thai".

To top it all there were thinly sliced cucumbers sprinkled with fine sea salt and crushed peanuts.

How you ask, gentle reader, did it taste?

It fuckin' kicked ass is what it did!

The Hamburger

Book by Josh Ozersky about the cultural history of the hamburger. Needless to say, the artifact is a lot more complex than one would've assumed. Who knew that White Castle was the original chain but for very complex reasons (both franchise-related and financial) lost out to the McD?

Great info on the reinvention of the burger in the 1970's as a 50's concept even though it was nowhere near as ubiquitous in the 50's. Rather, it was more of a 60's thing.

To put it differently, the nostalgia for the burger 'n shakes in the 50's never existed. It's a 70's marketing campaign imposing a false structure on past memory that never was.

And kudos to the author for compressing the entire narrative into a compact, well-edited, comprehensively-documented 133 pages!

Pikliz

This is a Haitian condiment/dipping sauce that packs a fiery punch.

First, the vegetables and spices are layered (cabbage, peppers, cloves, peppercorns, thyme, onions, peas, habañeros, garlic, french beans, carrots) with sea salt thrown in every few layers.

The dish cannot be made without habañeros so if you can't find any, don't bother to make it.

Over this is poured boiling vinegar and the whole lot sealed. It can be refrigerated and will last a long time.

(Oh, and the boiling vinegar stinks up the house but the pickle is worth it!)

Why doesn't the CC ever clam up?

Linguini with Clams

Tomato Orgy

A reader sent in their pictures of their canning tomato sauce for the summer.

Holiday

CC's on a holiday to Chicago. Back with culinary stories in a week.

Pasta with Vegetables, Anchovies and Tomatoes