A Korean Meal in K-Town

Watermelon juice and soju, grilled octopus, and why yes! that's spam in the last picture! Memories of the Americans, and indigenizing rations to make them more appetizing. (The Philippines has a similar concept too.)

Shrimp Shells

If you buy fresh shrimp, save the shells. Boil in water for about 10-12 minutes, and it will make an amazing umami-laden shellfish broth.

Cod with Stir-Fried Pea Shoots, Beluga Lentils & Carrots

Medieval Recipes for Spring Fever

Almost every civilization has a system by which they link food with bodily "humors" and attempt to control it.

The Romans had one, and India has one. China has a very elaborate one.

The "humors" (= dosha) in the Indian Ayurvedic system are called vāta (wind), pitta (bile) and kapha (phlegm.)

While the system dates back to the second millenium BCE, there is a particularly intriguing book written by a royal physician in the 16th century.

Ksemakuthuhalam was written by one Ksemasarma (clearly an attributive name rather than a real one since ksema means "welfare".)

Let's get right off the bat to the one of the best recommendations:

During spring season, one should overcome the buildup of vāta, pitta and kapha by respectively embracing, kissing and enjoying intercourse with a damsel in the middle of her youth, moon-faced, lotus-eyed and made-up for the occasion.

The CC wonders what he recommends for a damsel with the buildup of vāta, pitta, etc. Perhaps a moon-faced, lotus-eyed, etc. young man? Or a moon-faced, etc. damsel?

In any case, spring is here and the CC, quite clearly, has all of his dosha's completely and utterly out of sync. It's time to overcome all this buildup of vāta, pitta, etc.

Let's get medieval!

A Sensational Woman in a Man's World

Anne Vallayer-Coster may very well be forgotten now but it's important to know that she was recognized as a progidy in her time. Her precocious talent was recognized, and rewarded at the French court particularly by Marie Antoinette.




What ended her career was the French revolution and the guillotine. Still she managed to maneuver her way by painting for Napoleon and died at a ripe old age.

Her masterpiece is the Still Life with Lobster.

In order to understand why it must, absolutely must be a lobster, you must read this.

Chickpeas & Cod & Clams - Oh My!

A Medieval Evening

The CC is making a lamb tagine with apricots, dates and almonds.

He just made his own ras el hanout and the house smells like a garden.

Pictures and recipes to follow.

Polenta

Let's get the obvious out of the way first.

Polenta is delicious but it's a pain to make. Thankfully, it's not difficult, it just requires a Zen attitude where you do nothing but stir. Patiently. (Bring a book and learn how to read it with the other hand!)

The discovery of the New World is what made corn popular in Europe. It transformed ancient food patterns into new ones with the discovery of a "cheaper" cereal.

Polenta is finely ground corn meal that is cooked slowly with water, salt and spices. It needs to be stirred frequently to prevent it from sticking, and this is boring. Also, towards the tail end it has a tendency to splatter so one must be careful.

Traditionally, it was made in a copper kettle that was hung over the fire with the kettle being whirled while the housewife walked back and forth doing her chores. The "mush" was poured out from the spigot and nobody asked too many questions.

Today alas, we have to stir it manually in an open pot over the stove. At least the non-stick coatings make this a relatively straightforward job!

There are multiple ways to enjoy it afterwards.

One is as a wet mush which is served as an accompaniment to meats, gravies, etc.

Another is to cook it and then pour it into a dish (and sometimes baked) where it will solidify into a "cake" which you can then cut up and serve with meats, gravies, etc.

Third is to take the solidified version and fry it again in olive oil or butter and some herbs to amp up the flavor. If you mentally thought that this is how you reheat it in older times in the absence of a microwave, give yourself a gold star.

The CC frequently makes it with dashi instead of plain water to give it a bit of an umami oomph.

Like all dishes that have multiple incarnations, preferences abound. The CC's is for the solider version.

An Ode to Fried Onions

They are brilliant of course, particularly on topping rice as many a mujaddara-fan probably knows.

They are a bit of a pain to make so the CC decided to do some scientific tinkering around. He quickly realized that if you could have the onions lose moisture naturally before frying then the frying would be faster, and there'd be less splattering (both worthy goals to pursue.)

Naturally, that brought the humble refrigerator into light since modern refrigerators are dessicators. The fridge is a natural dehydrating agent since they dry out the main cavity to prevent growth of bacteria and mold. Sticking the onions sliced up thinly overnight in the refrigerator tends to dry them out which is not a good thing normally but it's brilliant for fried onions!

Buttermilk Roast Chicken & Green Bean Salad

This is the closest you are likely to come to the ethereal ideal of the Southern fried chicken without frying the chicken.

It pulls out all the tricks of marination to make it memorable.

Most importantly, it can all be made ahead of time and quickly assembled on a Monday (attn: office monkeys!)

Also, this assembly totally and utterly rocks for a picnic (or an office) eaten at room temperature.

For the vegetarians, the side salad is slap-your-mama good^™ so there's something in here for everyone.

It just requires a tiny bit of effort ahead of time. For about 5 minutes. Surely even you have that!


Ingredients (Buttermilk Roast Chicken)

8 chicken thighs, or legs (with skin)
2 cups buttermilk
5 cloves garlic (smashed)
1 tbsp sweet paprika
4 tbsp fresh ground pepper
2 tbsp sea salt

Recipe

Marinate the chicken with the buttermilk, smashed garlic, sweet paprika, pepper and sea salt for at least 24 hours. Preferably 48.

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

On a baking dish, arrange the chicken legs. (Throw the marinade away.) Drizzle with olive oil lightly and sprinkle some more paprika, sea salt and black pepper.

Roast for roughly 30 minutes until they are a bit brown.

Ingredients (Green Bean Salad)

1 lb green beans (trimmed)
1 large red onion
2 stalks celery
4 radishes (sliced real thin)
1/2 cup whole almonds
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp sea salt

olive oil

Recipe

Slice the onion into really fine rings.

Whisk the vinegar, water, sugar and the sea salt together. Soak the onion rings in the mixture for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour.

Heat a small skillet with the olive oil. Fry the almonds until they are golden. Remove and let cool. When cool, cut into halves or thirds. (Yes, this matters. Roasting the almonds is simply not the same here.)

Assemble an ice bath. Water + Ice.

Heat a pot of water. Dunk the trimmed beans into the boiling water for about 5-6 minutes until tender. Dump out the water. Dump the beans into the ice-bath.

Remove the onions from the pickling liquid. Keep the liquid.

Assemble the salad. Beans, celery, radishes, almonds.

Make a vinaigrette with the pickling liquid and toss everything together.

Slap-your-mama^™ while eating!

Pasta with Pistachios, Meyer Lemon and Broccoli

Nobody in their right mind would call this an "Italian" recipe.

It has California written all over it in the good sense of the word not the "other" one but the CC is not going to get into that particular Vietnam.

That having being said, it's quite an intriguing flavor combination, and with the right fresh ingredients definitely knocks it out of the park.

This being the season for Meyer lemons, and also the season where brassica fatigue has set in, is probably the right time to make something that will make your tastebuds perk up.

There are some real curveballs here at least if you are used to cooking Italian food. The "pesto" is heated up which sounded really strange but actually is correct once you understand which ingredients are being used.

This is a homage not "authentic" and should be clearly understood as such.

It's also freakin' delicious!

Ingredients

2 cups penne (anything long and tubular)
1 cup pistachios
1 cup parsley
1/2 cup mint
2 cloves garlic
4 dried red chilli peppers
1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano
2 Meyer lemons (zested and rest juiced)

1/2 cup olive oil (your finest!)

2 cups broccoli florets

parmigiano reggiano (grated)
black pepper

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Roast the pistachios for about 8 minutes. Let cool.

Grind to a coarse powder in a food processor. Set aside.

Meanwhile, put the lemon zest, parsley, mint, garlic, dried red chilli peppers, olive oil and parmigiano-reggiano in the same food processor, and grind to a loose paste.

There is some parallelism below so read carefully before execution.

For the pasta, heat some water with tons of sea salt. When the water comes to a rolling boil, add the pasta and let cook for 9 minutes. Add the broccoli and let cook for an additional 2 minutes.

Grab a cup of the boiling pasta water, and add it to the paste above. Add the coarse powdered pistachios and cook in a skillet at medium high heat for about 2 minutes.

Drain the pasta and the broccoli and put in a large bowl.

Add the cooked "pesto" above, and the juice from the lemons.

Toss, and let sit for about 4-5 minutes.

Serve with the parmigiano reggiano on top with additional black pepper.

Roman Inheritance

If you look back far enough, human taste hasn't changed much and you can spot the modern in the ancient and vice versa.

Apicius refers to a collection of Roman recipes compiled somewhere in the late fourth to early fifth century. It's attributed ot Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmand who lived in the first century (and hence the collection is extraordinarily unlikely to have written by him.)

Recipe 89 goes as follows:

Coliculis conditis ut supra superfundes alicam elixam cum nucleis et uva passa; piper asparges.

Over the young cauliflower, seasoned as above, pour boiled spelt with pine nuts and raisins; sprinkle with pepper.

The "as above" refers to an earlier recipe (87) where the sauce consists of garum, olive oil, wine and cumin topped with fried leeks.

Even though the CC has translated coliculis as "cauliflower", it could equally well have been cabbage or broccoli, or even all of them (all members of the brassica family really.) There is considerable leeway here.

You can see the similarities in a classical Sicilian recipe that uses pasta instead of boiled spelt (perhaps couscous would be closer?) with cauliflower, onions (substituting for leeks), anchovies, raisins and pinenuts. The only difference is the seasoning which calls for saffron not cumin, and the tomato paste which is entirely New World for reasons explained here.

The anchovies are the exact replacement for garum which is nothing more than a fish sauce made with anchovies. The Thai nahm pla or the Filipino patis are the closest modern equivalents.

You too can eat like a Roman gourmand. Indulge!


Pasta with Cauliflower, Anchovies, Raisins, Pine Nuts & Saffron

Ingredients

2 cups rigatoni (or penne.)

1 head cauliflower (separated into medium-sized florets)
1 large red onion (chopped)
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup raisins
6 anchovies (preferably salt-cured)
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp saffron

olive oil

sea salt
black pepper

breadcrumbs

Recipe

Toast the breadcrumbs and set aside. Toast the pine nuts until golden. Be careful not to burn them. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil at medium heat. When shimmering, add the cauliflower and fry languidly for 6-8 minutes. Add the onions and fry for a further 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, and the anchovies and fry. The anchovies will "dissolve" as they fry. Add a cup of water, the raisins, sea salt, and black pepper, and let cook at low heat.

Meanwhile make the pasta until al dente. Drain.

The cauliflower mixture should be just slightly on the wet side. If dry, add some more water.

Toss in the saffron, and the pasta, and mix thoroughly.

Serve with the roasted breadcrumbs on top, and more black pepper if you like.

Spicy Curried Clams with Chickpeas

This is clearly a French thought on how to Indianize a recipe.

The CC expounded long ago and on length on the role of curry powder in the global 19th century economy so there's no point in repeating that.

The recipe is awesome. And quick. And nutritious. And weekday compatible.

So just grab a baguette, pour a glass of steely dry white wine, agree to not quibble about the origins and just enjoy it, alright?


Ingredients

18 clams
1 small red onion (chopped fine)
1/2" ginger (julliened)
1 green chilly (crushed)
1 clove garlic (crushed)
2 tbsp curry powder
1 cup white wine

1 cup chickpeas (cooked)

sea salt
black pepper

1/2 cup cilantro leaves
1 lime (juiced)

Recipe

The recipe is fairly obvious.

Cook the chickpeas. The CC promises not to scoff if you use canned. However, it's best to cook them ahead of time.

Fry some olive oil at medium heat, and toss in the onions, ginger, garlic and green chilly paste. Fry languidly for 6-8 minutes Toss in the clams. When coated, toss in the white wine, black pepper, and the curry powder. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer.

As the clams open, remove them and place them in the serving bowls.

Add the chickpeas, and reduce until it's a wet mixture but not too dry. Add some water if its too dry. Serve over the clams. Add lime juice, and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with crusty bread.

R.I.P. Katy Dalal

This is clearly two years too late but the CC just found out.

One of the doyennes of Parsi cooking passed away.

She was an archaelogist by training, and a cookbook writer by avocation. Her books are accurate and detailed as would befit a scholar. Produced in the days where substance matters more than form, they are tough on the eyes but delicious in the belly. Even the title was inviting Jamwa Chaloji (Let's Partake).

Farewell.

(Link: Obituary.)

Farmers' Market Haul

Some really excellent broccoli, parsley, pea shoots (a bit early!), carrots, clams, some cod.

They didn't have any marrow bones. Oh well!

Weekday Ramen