A Play on Food

A twist on two cuisines from the barest of raw materials = delicious food humour

Taste & See: I haven't been grocery shopping since I cooked that big Thai meal a few weeks ago, which means I'm down to doing things like tossing a can of chili & a can-opener in my bag for lunch. It also means, incidentally, that the other night when it came time to eat dinner- frozen burritos and cans of chili already used up- I got to play my favorite game: turn the remnants of passable food from my fridge and make it into an edible mean. Well, who am I kidding: I wouldn't be happy with something merely edible. When I clean out the fridge, I shoot for greatness. Which made the other night's challenge more of a challenge than usual, given the meager contents of my fridge.

The other night my raw ingredients consisted of:
- half a lime
- whole dried red chili peppers
- half a can of bamboo shoots
- 1.5 onions
- half a can of coconut milk/cream
- some cloves of garlic
- a bag of frozen shrimp found hidden in the back of the freezer
- spaghetti noodles [who doesn't have that hidden in the cupboard somewhere?]

When I found the shrimp I perked up. Shrimp, garlic, & onion are a time-honored combination; surely I could do something with that . . . I browsed through a few cookbooks for shrimp recipes for inspiration, hoping for a nice light white-wine cream sauce recipe to go over the spaghetti. I was initially a bit frustrated, as I kept running into Asian-inspired shrimp-based recipes but nothing calling for my general ingredients. Then genius struck; why not make a play on food? I envisioned a dish that would trick you into taking it for a simple Italian pasta, but with flavors that would tease with hints of something unusual; food humour, if you will. Aha! Now to execute!

After briefing myself on a few techniques with the Joy of Cooking in an effort to boost my technical skills I began with the familiar, stir-frying the garlic and onions on high in a big pan with a touch of Lime Riesling oil from the same company that made the oil I used in Dinner in 5 Minutes or Less, Redux.

An old housekeeping tip: "always have garlic & onion frying up when your man comes home from work." That way, you can entice him into thinking dinner is on its way, when in reality perhaps it is still in a box waiting to 'just add water', when the man is out of the way with his feet up watching TV. While one hopes times have changed just a bit, the smell is still enticing, and can certainly fool dinner guests into thinking you're truly almost ready [and whipping up something truly wonderful] when in fact you don't even know yourself what comes next. I didn't have dinner guests coming, but garlic & onions are still a great way to reassure yourself dinner is going somewhere.


Meanwhile, per the Joy of Cooking I popped my frozen shrimp in boiling water for a few minutes, counting from when the water began to boil, then removed them and set them aside. Using the same water, I boiled a few whole chilies momentarily to soften them up & allow the flavor to better be absorbed into the sauce. I then added a little over a half cup of wine from a bottle brought back to New York from Food & Wine week- I used a crisp but not too dry Chenin Blanc from Snoqualmie Winery, but any white wine that isn't too sweet will do.


I then added the chilies to the onions, which added a nice splash of colour to the otherwise overwhelmingly whitish dish.


When the wine was mostly absorbed, I added coconut milk & bamboo shoots and turned the heat down a little. The coconut milk left in the can wasn't quite enough so I added a bit of 2%-- though I'd have used more coconut milk or half and half if I had it.


Finally, I added a pinch of salt & ground pepper and about a tablespoon of lime juice to the sauce before tasting it. It was surprisingly un-sweet; I associate coconut milk with a sweet flavor and it tasted odd not to have it here. This dish isn't intended to be as complex [or as sweet] as, say, a coconut milk-based curry- but I added a dollop of palm sugar [you could use brown] that brought the flavor up to a nice full balance.



I poured the sauce over the noodles & shrimp and finished off with a bit of grated lime rind for colour- though what I would have done for some green onions to really add a punch. But making do with what you have is the whole point for these things, notwithstanding changes I'd have made with a few more raw materials. Think of it as a typical shrimp-garlic-onion cream sauce livened up by using coconut milk instead of cream, if you like. Or is it a modification of the shrimp-coconut-chili recipes into a parallel of a typical white wine cream sauce? Not quite Asian, not quite Italian, but the final dish didn't turn out half bad.

Flattering but just not true:

Per the comment on the previous post, I should make clear I have never & will never take money to write something good about someone's food product. But I am flattered by the insinuation that enough people read this for it to even be a worthwhile investment. An incorrect suggestion, but flattering nonetheless.

Nope, the grape-seed oil is really that good. Will update tonight with another tasty meal prepared the other day using Lime Riesling.

And will add some more Thai stuff soon too . . . :)

Dinner in 5 minutes or less, redux

Faux gourmet lesson du jour: Shell out for a yummy ingredient today, make an amazing meal in 5 minutes tomorrow.

Taste & See:Tonight I received an invitation to an event at the last minute. Fortunately the event itself was a mere five minute walk from my apartment, but I still had only an hour to make my 30 minute commute, eat, change, and walk over. Problem?

If so, you clearly haven't read my faux gourmet entry about seared tuna steak. Luckily I'm just enough of a Superwoman to have thrown the other half of the frozen tuna pack from Trader Joe's in the fridge to thaw this morning [to see what I did with the first half, re-read the entry on seared tuna steak.] It took all of 5 minutes to whip up a quick spice rub while the pan got nice & hot, then sear it ever so briefly. I took in a few bites in between transforming from Friday scrub dress to all dolled up and made it to my event with time to spare.

I bring it up not merely to convince you that it truly is that easy, but because the spice rub was surprisingly tasty. No, it was incredible. Genius. Perfection itself. However, I owe this feat in no small part to one of my brilliant discoveries from Food & Wine Weekend: Apres Vin Grape-Seed Oil.



This new home-grown company from my beloved hometown makes the oil with grape seeds left over from all those wineries. The oils take on subtle hints of the different grape varietals' seeds [Chardonnay, Merlot, Reisling] from which they are pressed. As this chart, a photo I will no doubt reuse, illustrates, wine by itself occupies an enormous range of flavors:


To the natural flavors inherent in the seeds are added a variety of other flavors to make some amazing combinations: Lime Reisling, Roasted Garlic Chardonnay, Chipotle Merlot, etc. According to the label, they're separated, dried & cold-pressed with European expeller presses. As a side note, I love the fact that we Americans tend to oooh and aaah over anything with the word 'European,' as if that added an automatic chic/class bonus. In any case, regardless of whether it comes from anything European, these oils are phenomenal. A few interesting facts:

• Grape-seed oil has high amounts [relatively] of the good fat (polyunsaturated) & half the saturated fat of olive oil. It's also high in anti-oxidants.
  
  
• You can use them as you would an olive oil, but they have a higher smoke point [485 degrees], making them more versatile for hot cooking.
  
  
• The oils are made from what would otherwise be waste. And the 'waste' from the pressed grape seeds? Made into pure Merlot or Chardonnay flour.
  
  
• Other products made from wine-waste by this company: wood stove pellets, paper & ink, and Chardonnay bio-diesel fuel.

For more, see NPR's recent report. You might not believe me, but I know you believe NPR. The company's website also supplies recipes for their oils, in the unlikely event you run out of ways to experiment yourself. I had the opportunity to sample these oils at one of the many wineries visited during Food & Wine Weekend.


Now, normally I would just take my free sample and run but these oils had something special. I was blown away by the potency of just a few drops of oil on a bread cube. My palate isn't the most refined, so I usually roll my eyes at the bougie olive oils samples at street markets and in fine food stores, but for once the oils actually came through with an undeniable burst of flavor. I happily used the fact that I probably consumed 10 oz. of the oils in free samples as an excuse to shell out for a holiday pack, five 10 oz bottles in flavors of my choosing in a lovely wooden crate:

Which brings me full circle to that tuna. In case you forgot, I already raved about the tuna at approx. $4/lb. I used half a serving tonight, so $2 for the tuna. I rolled it in a mix of whole fennel seeds [I just bought a new bottle & was eager to use them!], white pepper, a splash of seasoning salt, a hint of red chili flakes and a bit of dried parsley. The total amount of spices was about 2 tbsps. Even though I just through it together at random, the mix complemented itself, and the tuna, perfectly. The red & green added a nice bit of colour to the tuna, while the fennel seeds provided a nutty undertone with the chili kicking in a nice lingering bite.

To that I added the crowning glory, 1 tbsp ApresVin Merlot Fume' grape-seed oil, which provided a disproportionately delicious smokiness and kept the tuna moist. A $10 10 oz bottle contains 25 tbsps, so my splurge was a mere forty cent investment in this meal. And what a worthwhile investment it was!

Correction & Wine Weekend Preview

First, let's get business out of the way. Thanks to my friends P & S who, after reading the Giow Ba Mee Moo Dang entry from a while back each reminded me that luk chin refers not to fish balls, but to meat balls generally. To get fish balls, you have to order luk chin bla, bla meaning fish. That said, I have found I tend to get fish balls when I just say luk chin, so you may be safe [if you like fish balls, that is] either way.

***

Second, and more exciting, I spent this weekend at this fun event. More than 50 other wineries in the area feature annual Thanksgiving weekend food & wine pairings, with many wineries bringing out reserves, barrel tastings, and new wines just hitting the shelves. My dad is the proverbial "town doc" and my mom works in the town's [only] schools. Between the two, they know just about everyone and it is always a treat to scurry from winery to winery where the wine-makers and pourers are family friends. The winery below is a long-time family favorite where the middle school ex-principal & my childhood baby-sitter both work and always give us [secret] great discounts.


We also had a great time playing with the family golden retrievers at Chinook & tasting wine from the Sunflower series to fight Sarcoma Cancer at Willow Crest. I can't launch into a full description now but I look forward to writing about the wine & food I sampled all weekend long.

As my friends in New York and California hear all too often, I'm proudly from a premier wine-growing region. While flipping through [the admittedly not-renowned for wine reviews magazine] Consumer Reports at my uncle's place after Thanksgiving dinner, I was happy to note that Washington Wines, along with more than a few from my town, were hogging spaces in the top ten. If you want a more reputable source, buy yourself a couple bottles of Washington wines after I finish my account of the weekend's festivities & see for yourself.

The Washington wine industry began in the 1900s with the technology that is responsible for every single tree in my town: irrigation. It survived Prohibition by selling to the Catholic Church. [I think even the most secular of my New York friends can thank the Church for that.] Apparently the whole industry temporarily collapsed after those snotty Californians went all the way to the Supreme Court to knock down Washington's laws protecting local wineries and open up the market in 1969. According to an article in Wine Spectator, the "generic" wineries fell & a mass market California winery [ie, they place adds in every cooking magazine I've ever read] began to dominate. But things have clearly picked up since then. There are at least 30 wineries in the vicinity of my 5,000 person town alone and Washington is the second largest wine producing state in the country. [And just because California is three times as big doesn't mean the wine is better!]

Three years ago, my town saw the entry of another remarkable piece of technology. I think this blurb from a neutral observer tells it best:

"October was a momentous month for the 5,000 residents of Prosser, in eastern Washington's Yakima Valley wine region. The town--home to 12 wineries, including Hogue Cellars and Snoqualmie Vineyards--received its first full stoplight. Turns out the increase in wine tourism (30,000 to 40,000 people visit each year) led to a need for better traffic control. "I never thought I'd see the day," said Hogue cofounder Gary Hogue, who was born and raised in Prosser. He's going to see it at least once more. The town will add a second traffic light this spring."

Yes, ladies & gentlemen, we're headed for the big time now.

Gaeng Hang Lay

A bit different than the Thai curries your momma makes, Gaeng Hang Lay combines the best flavors the North has to offer.

Taste & See: This curry from the capital of the old Lanna kingdom is more complex than spicy. The curry paste packs healthy doses of a number of particularly fragrant herbs and spices which, when left to simmer for a good while [or left in the fridge overnight] create shivers of delight.

I used to live in a little po-dunk province in Thailand called Nan. My host used to make a thick, earthy base in which she'd simmer tough pork on the bone for hours. I would smell it all afternoon, staring maddeningly at the clock. While the spicy sauce did its work, we'd go to the little "Fitness" center in the public park and work up an appetite. Oh the joy that filled my heart when we stepped back into the house, filled as it was with a sweet, full aroma, and sit down to heaping bowls of rice topped with chewy pork covered in delicious Gaeng Hang Lay.


For the longest time I thought it was a product of my host's imagination, as I had never seen anything comparable at restaurants. Since then, I have learned that my coveted curry is called Gaeng Hang Lay and hails from Chiang Mai. According to a fellow Thai food blog, it probably came to Thailand via Burma (hin means curry in Burmese), and is common communal festival dish in the north of Thailand, especially among the Shan ethnic group. The simplest iteration of the curry is pork fried in a mix of chilies, ginger, shallots, garlic and thua nao khep, or dried, flattened soybeans, as well as the hang lay spices. See notes below for more specifics.

Before I left my village home, I made sure to get my host's recipe. One day we sat down together and chopped up a storm: hunks of galangal and ginger, reedy stalks of lemongrass, round shallot bulbs like little purple golf balls, and pesky miniature cloves of garlic with paper thin peels.


With such a mix of raw ingredients it would be hard not to cook good food. In my host's version, everything is finely chopped and pounded in a mortar and pestle, with a handful of roughly chopped ginger sticks tossed in. We did not pre-marinate the meat, use coconut milk or tamarind, or top the final version with peanuts. The finished product was a bit woodsy; chomping through the sinuous pork covered in gobs of curry paste felt like something one should do after a full day chopping down trees or roping cows.

I have cross-checked my host's version against several other recipes and come up with a few alterations/variations. Some use coconut milk, albeit in much smaller quantities than the soupy curries you typically think of, and tamarind paste. In mine, I relied on the good ole' blender to do the work for me instead of a mortar and pestle. I also used chicken pieces rather than pork, marinated in a fish sauce/spice rub the night before. Finally, I provided a bowl of toasted peanuts and Thai basil leaves for crunch and contrast at my guests' discretion.

A few notes on ingredients:

[Peanuts] If you're toasting your own peanuts, broil for just a minute or two, til you see the nuts start to brown. Immediately take them off the hot pan when you remove them from the oven or they'll continue to brown and burn, and you'll set off the fire alarm [as I did the other night] and have to toss the blackened peanuts and start from scratch.

[Substance] You could use this curry paste for a variety of substantive fillings- red pepper and potatoes, tofu, chicken, pork, beef. The pork cut traditionally used is called moo sam chun, or 'three level pork,' because it has meat, fat and skin. It is the pork belly fat cut of meat. I'd avoid seafood- imho the paste is too strong to allow the flavors of seafood to shine through. I think potatoes make a better vegetarian substitute than tofu, as the flavor is better absorbed, but this tofu version was nonetheless quite delicious.


[Galangal & Lemongrass] Galangal is a cousin of ginger but a bit tougher and spicier. Its often in large slices in tom kha gai, a coconut milk soup often found at US Thai restaurants. You can often get galangal and lemongrass stalks at Asian market, but if not, look for powders as substitutes. Not perfect, but better than nothing.


[Heat] You can use dried red chili peppers, though I recommend soaking in hot water a bit first to get them soft enough to blend into the paste. I used bird chilies, approximately 1 for every two people who will be eating the curry [or, about 1/4 the amount of galangal, ginger and lemongrass used.] Personally I could do a bit spicier, but it is always easier to add heat than tone it down later.


[Spice Powder] Gaeng Hang Lay powder, the spices used in the marinade, is available in packets in the US [see the yellow & green pack in the photo of the marinade] but you can make your own with equal parts turmeric, cumin, mace and coriander. If you don't have mace it won't kill you.

[Tamarind Paste] I also added a few tbsp's tamarind paste as an experiment, based on one recipe I found that included it. You can make it by boiling tamarind pods or buy it pre-made. It has a rich sweet and sour flavor that I thought would complement the other flavors well. The end result was pretty tasty, so at worst the tamarind didn't ruin it.

How to make the curry:

Part I: Marinade
Mix about 3 tbsp Gaeng Hang Lay powder with about 5 tbsp fish sauce [contrary to the picture, it really is fish, not squid] and 3 tbsp palm sugar [also easily available at Asian grocery stores; substitute brown sugar if necessary
Pour over about 2 lb of desired meat [or other filling]
Store in refrigerator at least 30 min, preferably overnight

Part II: Curry Paste
Chop equal parts ginger, galangal, and lemongrass; for proportions above I used aprox 1/4 cup of each; I used half the amount of garlic and twice the amount of shallots
Combine in food processor or blender together with 2 tbsp palm sugar, 1 tbsp shrimp paste [this can stink but lasts forever; keep in the fridge tightly closed] and 1 tbsp sweet soy sauce [Indonesian style, thick and syrupy]
Blend until it makes a paste with applesauce-like consistency. I had about 1.5 cups of paste in the end



Part III: The Curry
Heat a little oil in a pan and add chicken in its marinade
Add a few tablespoons of coconut water/milk [not the heavy cream] to tenderize the meat as it begins to cook
Stir in a few tablespoons of curry paste, more or less depending on how intense you want the flavor, once meat has begun to cook
Simmer the whole thing for as much time as you have, at a minimum letting the meat cook through fully [I also used tofu as my vegetarian alternative, which cooks much faster]
Add a bit more coconut milk if you like it creamy, or add coconut milk or water if the sauce reduces too much.


Enjoy!

NB: This recipe is a bit time consuming for all the chopping involved- but oh, so worth it. How about making it with friends Stone Soup style? Have everyone bring a half cup of one item chopped, blend it as soon as people arrive and put the curry on to simmer while you enjoy a round of beer & poker. You'll definitely want beer with this curry, btw; its a hearty, warm your tummy through and through kind of meal and a light beer provides a great complement.