Summer Corn Chowder

Ran into some terrific corn in Chinatown on the trip back from Boston, and decided to make a light evening meal of it.

Here's the recipe.

Vaangi Baath

Finally, the moment of truth.

Yeah, the whole thing is fussy and work but deal with it. As the CC said before, this is one of the joys of life.

The recipe is a myriad of textures. Each bite is different if you make it right because of the sheer multitude of textures in the combination.

(Source: modified from Cooking at Home with Pedatha.)

Ingredients

1 cup rice
1/4 tsp turmeric powder

2 tbsp vaangi baath podi

2 japanese eggplants (cubed)
1 potato (diced medium)
1 green pepper (diced medium)
1/2 cup peas

for tempering

1 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp urad daal
4 green chillies (sliced vertically on one side)
1 tsp asafoetida
12-16 curry leaves

the paste

1/4 cup dry coconut
2 green chillies
1/2 bunch coriander leaves (yep, leaves only!)

the powder

1/4 cup urad daal
1/4 cup chana daal (bengal gram)

Recipe

Boil the rice in plenty of salted water with the turmeric until just under soft. Drain, let cool and set aside.

Roast the dry coconut until golden. Grind with the green chillies and coriander leaves into a fine paste with the minimum amount of water possible. Scrape into a bowl.

Dry roast the two daals on low heat until they turn golden. Grind to a fine powder. Set aside.

Add half the paste, the vaangi baath podi to the rice and mix gently. (This can most effectively be done with your hands so jump in there and mix them gently.)

Heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds until they pop; add the urad daal. Add the rest of the tempering ingredients (curry leaves, asafoetida, green chillies.)

Add the chopped vegetables, and stir-fry without adding any water until done. (The order, in case it is not obvious, is necessarily potato, green pepper, eggplants.)

This step takes a looooooooooooong time so the CC advises that you chill during this step (and yes! the not adding any water makes all the difference in the world!)

Add the peas, the remaining half of the paste, and all of the prepared powder. Cook for 3-4 minutes on a low flame.

Mix all the ingredients together and serve.

Vaangi baath

Sea Urchin

It looks like "baby poo" but it tastes like the sea, all iodine-y and squishy. A completely acquired taste (which you may have encountered by its Japanese name, uni.)

It is totally necessary to first appreciate the role of texture as a primary determinant of culinary excellence. The Chinese capture the notion best by calling the idea of texture as kou gan or "mouth feel". Not a whole lot of prizes for guessing which side of the divide the CC comes down upon.

Just for the record, what you're eating are the gonads of the creature, and that's the only edible part. That it was considered an "aphrodisiac" by parallel association should be obvious.

The Happy Threesome

This trio may be clichéd but it works: walnuts, stilton, pears.

In the modern culinary world, this trio is really like watching your great-aunt put on the latest hip flower-laced jeans and rappin' it out with Fitty Cent.

Which is embarassing.

However, your great-aunt was alive before Fitty so it's important to know why she's the way she is.

It's the sweet-salt combo plus the crunchy-velvety combo. Texture matters so do the taste buds.

Sweet are the pears and salty is the stilton. Crunchy is the texture of the walnuts, and differently crunchy are the pears; velvety is the stilton which blends beautifully with the equally velvety texture of the chewed walnuts and pears.

What's most important to note is that humans may have evolved but their palates haven't. We still love the same things our two-thousand year old ancestors did.

That still means sweet, salt and fat, mes amis, and rappin' it out with your great-aunt.

Zuppa di farro con borlotti cannellini e ceci

A wondrous medley of textures and tastes. A bit of work to prepare but unforgettable.

Tastes wonderful when reheated, and served at room temperature barely warm.

Summer's just around the corner. Why not make it?

Recipe

1 cup farro (emmer wheat, substitute with spelt)
1 cup borlotti beans
1 cup cannellini beans
1 cup dried chickpeas (ceci)

10-12 tomatoes (yes 10-12, read below)

3 cloves garlic (crushed, CC used spring garlic)
3 sprigs rosemary

sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

olive oil

dried bread crusts (one/few per guest)

Recipe

Soak the beans and the farro SEPARATELY for at least 12 hours.

Cook them separately in lots of water until al dente. Cooking times vary. This is the hard part.

(If you have a pressure cooker, cook the beans for 10-11 minutes, basically just barely under par-boiled. You must still cook the farro separately, and skim it.)

Meanwhile, bring water to a boil, and dunk the tomatoes until they "float" (10 minutes roughly.) Pass them through the finest sieve of a food mill to get your tomato pulp.

Fry 2/3rds of the garlic; add the tomato pulp. Cook at a low heat for 30 minutes. Regular readers of the blog know the drill. Skim, baby, skim.

Add the rest of the garlic, the rosemary, salt and pepper, and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Add the beans and the farro. Cook for 15 minutes or so until the flavors "blend". You may need to add some water to replace some of the reduction.

Serve over dried bread crusts drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

Farfalle with Mushrooms and Hazelnuts

Shockingly simple. Only the Italians can nail such simplicity.

Make it or endure regret forever.

(And contrast the slippery woodsy mushroom texture with the crunchy hazelnuts and the chewy pasta.)


Ingredients

1 lb shiitake mushrooms
1/2 lb "other" wild mushrooms
1/2 cup blanched hazelnuts (roasted, crushed, read below)
2 garlic cloves (crushed)

6-7 dried porcini mushrooms

salt
pepper

farfalle (cooked al dente)

Recipe

First preheat the oven to 450F. Roast the hazelnuts for 8-10 minutes. You will be able to "smell" when to stop. Be careful not to burn them. Pull them out and cool.

Here's a nifty trick. After they cool, wrap in plastic wrap, and crush with a heavy rolling pin. That way they are easy to control.

Meanwhile, reconstitute the dried porcini mushrooms with warm water. After 10 minutes or so, dice them. Retain the water.

Fry the garlic, then the mushrooms diced coarsely. Finally, the diced porcinis, salt and pepper. Read this post on salt first.

Last of all the water in which the porcinis was reconstituted. You need to filter the water. Just use a triangulated paper napkin as a conical filter (woo-hoo, it's high-school chemistry time!)

Reduce as needed.

Add the hazelnuts right before the al dente farfalle. Mix well, and serve.

The CC has also seen the dish finished off with cream. Both are excellent. The one without the cream is more interesting because the wild mushroom taste stands out.

Salt

A post on salt. Ridiculous or relevant? You decide.

The CC is rapidly coming around to understanding the view that controlling salt is a key to controlling perception of taste.

Try this next time. Make a soup/stew without the salt. Taste it. Add salt. Taste it again.

Even y'all will find it obvious. Even fairly obvious flavors (like acidity) will reveal themselves only in the bold light of salt.

First up, we talk about commercial salt.

Drop it. NOW.

Iodine?

You get plenty of iodine, my love. You eat out enough, and they use plenty of iodized stuff. This is not our forefather's generation. So skip it. You don't need that much, anyway.

Next up, the cost.

The cheap sea salt (far from bad, incidentally) is a dollar cheaper than the commercial crap at the CC's local store.

So you don't live out here in New York, you claim? So drop two more dollars and skip a coffee, fer cryin' out loud!

Next up, the need for powder v. crystals.

This is the first serious objection that the CC will actually entertain because it matters. It's all good and dandy to drop sea salt crystals into a broth, or a soup, or a stew but what happens if you need to eat steak? Or popcorn?

This is serious no-messin' around territory. The CC is serious about his popcorn.

You need to invest in a "pepper grinder" and then fill it with salt. Or keep the commercial crap around anyway (this is a bit of a cheat but we're OK with that on this blog here as you might have noticed, just as long as it's not too egregious.)

At any rate, upgrade your salt.

Kapi (gkapi)

The motherlode.

The stuff that tests your commitment to serious Thai cuisine (and most serious Far East cuisines.) The line that separates the women from the girls.

The initial smell while frying? Intense; not entirely unpleasant but decidedly an acquired taste.

The initial smell while roasting? Over-the-top intense. Definitely a test of character and commitment to the culinary arts.

The taste? Indescribably silky-smooth "mouth feel" that is completely impossible to replicate + a layered complexity to the dish + umami up-the-wazoo.

How is it made? Perhaps you don't care to know in the spirit of not wanting to know how sausage is made. If so, bailout now.

Basically, there are these tiny shrimp called keuy, and they are macerated with tons of sea salt, and left to dry. The stuff is then macerated again with more salt, and left to dry, and so on and so forth until you get the above smooth dark-brown almost-purplish paste.

The stuff lasts pretty much indefinitely. Nothing is going to grow in that amount of salt.

The quality of the ingredients matter as does the care taken to produce it. Folks in the "know" are just as sniffy and snooty about their shrimp paste as they would be about the finest parmigiano-reggiano, or the finest miso or the finest mangoes.

Just for the record, here's a translation table:

Indonesian: terasi
Malay: belacan
Vietnamese: mắm tôm
Filipino: alamang

In practice, the CC has most commonly encountered the Thai + Malay words. Why, he cannot possibly tell you.

Go forth and enjoy. May all your sauces be rich and complex.

Coconut Balls

Goodness, gracious, great balls of ... coconut.

Ingredients

dried coconut shavings (dried is crucial!)
condensed milk

Recipe

The CC using canned stuff? Try it first. You will have time to talk back later.

The recipe is simple but unfolds in two steps.

First add, the dried coconut shavings to the condensed milk and mix to form a stiff dough. The quantities depend on the kind of condensed milk and the size of the shavings. Basically, form a firm dough which should NOT be too wet. Then let it sit for 30 minutes or so.

What you then need to do is shape small balls out of it, and roll them around in more dried coconut shavings to coat the outside and give it texture.

Lay them all out on a tray. They taste better if they are slightly cool so you can refrigerate them till your guests arrive.

Coconut Balls

Sabudana Vada

If you come away from this recipe thinking that this is the bastard love-child of this and this, you would basically be correct.

Isn't that the point? To understand the underlying unity of the subject?

Ingredients

2 boiled potatoes
1 cup sago (soaked)
1 cup crushed peanuts
ginger-green chilli paste
1 tbsp cumin

salt

1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves (missing below)

Recipe

Soak the sago as described here. Boil the potatoes, and mash them.

The crushed peanuts, ginger-green-chili paste, and the spices.

Toss in the sago, and the mashed potatoes.

Mix together. You may need to add some water but don't add too much.

You can just pan-fry them, or bake them.

Sabudana vada

Malaysian Fast Food

What better way to welcome a New Year than Malaysian fast food featuring "fried jellyfish"?

It's called pasembur, and being a street dish, the CC is sure it has myriads of incarnations. This rendition featured the afore-mentioned jellyfish, tofu, hard-boiled eggs, bean sprouts, cucumber, and turnips in delicious sweet-salty sauce.

The CC also ate asam laksa which is definitely not for the faint of heart. Features noodles in a tamarind broth heavily laden with shrimp paste. Definitely an acquired taste but then what interesting food isn't?

An exotic farewell to the previous year, and a scrumpalicious beginning to the present!

Sabudana Khichdi

Many moons ago, a Chinese work colleague of the CC's asked him why all Indian food tasted like mush. To him, the texture of the food was very important (and rightfully so!)

The CC replied that what he ate in the "Indian" restaurants was hardly characteristic of real Indian cuisine.

To that end, the CC invited the colleague to his place, and not very surprisingly, he (and many others) were utterly delighted at the textural variety exhibited in this simple dish.

The dish is traditionally served with yogurt (thus making a complete meal if a tad carb-heavy.) It's utterly delicious. (The photographs are recent, of course.)

Ingredients

2 cups sago
4 serranos (chopped very fine)
1 cup peanuts (broken)
2 tbsp cumin
1 large potato (diced)
chopped cilantro (lots)
juice of 2-3 limes
salt (to taste)

good Greek yogurt (to serve alongside)

Recipe

Just use the food processor to coarsely break the peanuts, and then chop the serranos real fine.

The key thing is to soak the sago in ice-cold water for a few hours. Basically, it's going to soften via osmosis. To test whether they are ready or not, just pick one out, and press it. If you still feel a hard center, it's not yet ready.

After that, just drain the water, and dry the sago on a towel (as shown below.)

Soaking the sago
Drying the soaked sago
green chillies; crushed peanuts; chopped cilantro
fried cubed potatoes
The potatoes should be cut into smallish pieces. The CC has great success in "pan-frying" them in a non-stick skillet. The taste is outstanding without the grease.

Fry the green chillies, followed by the peanuts.

Add the potatoes and the sago, and stir it vigorously. The sago is going to start clumping no matter what. You just want to control it by stirring.

The cilantro and the lime juice should go in at the very end.

Sabudana Khichdi

Wood Ear Mushrooms

Also known as tree ear mushrooms, and frequently seen in dried form in Chinese stores by the Latin name auricularia auricula.

They are filled with an unbelievable amount of iron (traditionally used for anemia) and tons of nutrients. However, to cook them safely you must follow instructions.

Soak them in warm water for about 30 mins or so, and discard the water. The slippery texture and delicious taste belies how nutrient-laden they are.

Conch (in New York)

So the CC has actually gotten off his ass, and wended his way to find conch in New York.

It's frozen but that doesn't affect the texture so it's great! Also expensive but worth it.

Sichuan Food

Last night, the CC had dinner at the most amazing Sichuan restaurant. They were told not to dumb down the food for the foreigner (the CC was the only non-Chinese person at the restaurant) but they did a slight dumbdown anyway. Oh well!

Vegetarians definitely need not apply here (or in general, for traditional Chinese food.)

For cold appetizers (traditional), we had seaweed, jellyfish and pig skin (three dishes.)

For the main course, we had carp.

Corn Chowder

After a short work week, the CC had a hankering for some corn chowder. But it's too hot here in New York to have a heavy meal.

What follows below is not a "true" chowder (no bacon or cream), but it's so unbelievably good that the CC rushed to blog it.

Ingredients

4 leeks (diced coarsely)
12 corn cobs (shucked, kernels removed -- keep 3 cobs, cut in half)
2 yellow bell peppers (diced)
1 potato (diced)
1 bunch parsley
broth (or water)
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp celery seeds
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Recipe

Fry the leeks until they are soft. Add in the caraway seeds, celery seeds, and black pepper, and fry for 30 seconds or so. Toss in the bell peppers and the potato, and fry for 2 minutes or so. Add the corn cobs, and 4/5th of the corn kernels, and the broth.

Bring to a boil. Skim. Turn down the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Blend the entire mixture with the parsley in a blender. Add it back to the pot, throw in the rest of the corn, and simmer for another 15 minutes.

Serve with crusty bread.