75 replies to this topic

[Liza]

I find the reason I don't cook for company anymore is that I can't find anyone who will enjoy it, or appreciate it. After the planning, the shopping and the cooking, it's a major let down to look round the table and see people shovelling food down or commenting, "thass good". D. and I cook for eachother or for my food-lovin' brother, who got treated to buffalo burritos last Sunday.We go for Osso Buco a lot and other one pot dishes, because we used to trot out Charlie Trotter cookbooks and the like and realized simple food tasted just as good if not better.

[Bux]

Liza, that's not unusual. When I cook, it's usually out of interest in what I'm doing and less out of any interest in pleasing my guests. I mean I'm glad to share the results of my day's (or week's) work with friends, but the menu and the dishes were picked more because I wanted the challenge. Pick a hobby at random and my guess is that people pursue it out of the interest of the pursuit and not to show it off. When we had the time and energy, my wife and I might spend two or three days shopping, preparing and cooking a dinner for eight, but if she threw together a Puerto Rican stew or asopao in a few hours, our guests would not only have as good a time, but many would prefer it. In fact, it we want to feed 20-50 people, she can throw a 20 pound leg of pork in the oven where it will cook virtually unattended all day, or even overnight with less effort than a small dinner party. It may require someone to help serve and clean up, but that's another story. There's also a big pot of rice and pigeon peas of course. I will either buy an assortment of olives, ham and dried sausages for an appetizer or spend as long as I want making hors d'oeuvres, but no one really cares which I do besides me. The coconut bread pudding is made the day before. For the most part guests are so happy to just enjoy themselves and not feel they have to make clever compliments about the food. The multicourse plated Martha thing is what we do for our entertainment, the Nigella thing is what the guests really enjoy.

[Jinmyo]

I must admit I do try to educate the pallettes of those I cook for. But I'm not really interested in hearing compliments about the food, just what they noticed. In fact I once made some damn wild mushroom pies with some store-bought shells and people fought over the leftovers and one woman telephoned her mother about it being the best thing she has ever eaten. I was so disgusted that they liked this so much more than what I had made the previous day (which was much more nuanced) I said that I would never make it again. That was six years ago and I haven't. Humph.

[stellabella]

Wilfrid and Cabrales, I have to admit my spine is tingling as I never thought I'd ever read  the words "I envy you"  on a site visited by so many food-ologists.

And I fear getting off-topic again, as I am wont to do, but:  I ate guinea pig in Ecuador, where they are raised like chickens for daily consumption.  I had it first at the restaurant of the Hotel Aya Huma in Peguche, where it was served to me whole.  It's eyeballs had been fried away, and it tasted like the dark moist meat of wild fowl, not exactly chicken--I was being snarky--

--and I encountered it in the street in Salasaca, where a woman was frying pieces of it on the bottom of an up-ended oil drum, with chunks of what looked like grits.  I had to have some.  I then asked the dumbest question of my life--Can I try some grits?  Duh, they were potatoes--and delicious, soaking up all that guinea pig fat.

FYI:  guinea pig is an Andean staple--I don't think they eat it in the lowlands.

[cabrales]

I ate guinea pig in Ecuador, where they are raised like chickens for daily consumption.

stellabella -- Please consider discussing the size of the guinea pigs you had. If they're as small as the ones normally kept as pets in the US, I wonder why they would be raised for purposes of their meat, unless they were particularly tasty. Also, did you sample the head portion (since you mentioned calf's heads in another post) and the tail (do guinea pigs have tails?)?

[Wilfrid]

Stellabella, thanks for the details.  I must turn up the New York location which is lost among my papers somewhere.

Bux, I think you speak a brave truth when you say that cooking is not necessarily for the pleasure of your guests.  I plead guilty too.  I have had a number of guests show up, waving a bottle of wine, and hoping to, er, chow down on some good home cooking, only to find they have to sit very quietly and politely at a formal table setting for several hours while I ply them a series of dishes out of nineteen fifties France.  I honestly think most of them eventually enjoy the experience, but I know some of them have found it a bit startling.

[Rachel Perlow]

I'm continuing the Guinea Pig discussion on the New York board.

[Rachel Perlow]

When we had the time and energy, my wife and I might spend two or three days shopping, preparing and cooking a dinner for eight, but if she threw together a Puerto Rican stew or asopao in a few hours, our guests would not only have as good a time, but many would prefer it.

Please, I need your recipe for Asopao. I haven't had a decent version since our trip to Puerto Rico and I've been pining for it. You could email it to me if you don't want to post it, but if you are willing to post it, a new thread in cooking would be appropriate.

Thanks in advance, Rachel

[tommy]

Please, I need your recipe for Asopao. I haven't had a decent version since our trip to Puerto Rico and I've been pining for it. You could email it to me if you don't want to post it, but if you are willing to post it, a new thread in cooking would be appropriate.

Thanks in advance, Rachel

what is Asopao?  i'm going to Puerto Rico in a couple of months, and would like to become a bit more versed in what they have to offer, culinarily speaking.

[Rachel Perlow]

It's a type of fish soup/stew. Where are you going in Puerto Rico? There's been some discussion over on the Caribbean board about the restaurants there.

[cabrales]

I had been reading about the influence of Arabic cuisine on European

Adam -- Skortha alerted me to a book called "Medieval Arab Cookery" by Maxime Rodison, A.J. Arberry, Charles Perry, Claudia Roden. Not that I know what this means, but the book contains A.J. Arberry's translation of "A Baghdad Cookery Book" ("kitab al-Tibakhah", a 15th century cookbook).  Is this one of the books you are reading?

http://www.kal69.dia...com/isbn912.htm

http://www.geocities.../bookreview.htm (scroll down)

[A Balic]

Cabrales -  sorry, I have just haven't had time to write a well thought out statement on the subject.

At the moment I am reading Clifford Wright's excellent book "A Mediterranean Feast". He also has a very good website:

http://www.cliffordawright.com

I have also been reading some online material by Charles Perry:

http://www.daviddfri...ieva....nts.htm

And books by Claudia Roden and Philippa Pullar's "Consuming Passions".

This new book sounds very interesting, I wonder if Simon publishes it?

[cabrales]

This new book sounds very interesting

Adam -- Note the book seems significantly overpriced on certain US-based Websites. Its price is more normal on Amazon.co.uk (there might be better deals elsewhere on the Web). It is written by people whose other works you appear to be reviewing.

[Wilfrid]

It's a type of fish soup/stew.

Not only that.  You can get asopao de pollo or de camarones, even de cangrejo.*  All the versions I have eaten involved a fairly thin but tasty broth, flavoured at least with garlic, onions, cilantro and an appropriate stock.  Bit sof fish or chicken float aorund in it with some vegetables, often bits of boiled potato or some rice (but it's not thick with rice).

It's a Dominican dish too, and my Beloved could certainly cook it.  However I would have to stand over her taking notes to get the recipe.  





*Chicken, shrimp, crab.

[Rachel Perlow]

I'm sure asopao is all those things, but I'm recalling from a trip to Puerto Rico about three years ago! I had asopao relatively recently at a fancy Dominican place in NJ, Casa del Faro, but it wasn't what I remembered.

All recipes welcome. Perhaps a new thread in cooking would be best.

[Bux]

Asopao probably varies conisderably from house to house as Latin-Caribbean cooking may be far less codified than French. Than again try and get a definitive version of cassoulet. My wife describes it to newcomers as "soupy rice." The way she serves it, as well as the way I've had it in restaurants in Puerto Rico is in a bowl. You must use a spoon for the soup, but in some preparations you may want a fork or a knife and fork to eat the meaty ingredients. It's far wetter than a paella, but far more rice than chicken soup with rice. Puerto Rican asopao is thick with rice. I don't recall seeing potato, but it wouldn't surprise me to find one with potato in it. The same goes for vegetables, although a garnish of (usually canned) aparagas, peas or roast pepper strips is commonly found on many dishes. Can't say it I recall it on any asopaos

As a distinction, I would say it's a Puerto Rican dish and not a Cuban one, although I've seen it in Cuban restaurants. Apparently it's also a Dominican recipe. I'm least familiar with Dominican cooking.

Cocina Criolla by Carmen Aboy Valldejuli was the standard reference cookbook for Puerto Rican cooking. We have an old Spanish language edition, but I believe there has been an English one.

In our house three asopaos have been standard. asopao de pollo - with chicken and chorizo, asopao de mariscos - with seafood (shrimp, squid and maybe mussels or clams) and chorizo (may also have chicken) and asopao de gandules - with pigeon peas and pork. Not sure if this one has chorizos or not and I'm not sure why the gandules (pigeon peas) get star billing over the pork. If my wife has made a significant improvement on the recipes, it's the use of stocks to replace any water in the cooking. Ours are always a full flavored broth. Canned chicken broth will work in a pinch. Stock made from shrimp heads and shells is good for the seafood asopao.

Time will tell if Wilfrid or I get to take notes first. There is no written recipe for asopao in the house. I'm not sure where the name of this dish come from. I suspect from the word for soup. The "ao" ending is I think, the proper and original spelling, but Puerto Ricans have a habit of eating the ends of words and quidado (caution/watchout) is pronounced as "quidao" just as "pescado" is "pescao" when spoken and I once saw a "tony" menu in Puerto Rico on which asopao appeared as "asopado." I don't think there's any literary support for that back formation. That exhausts my information on the subject for the moment, but I think I've replied in the Caribbean forum on restaurants down there. We haven't been there much since my wife's parents passed away. my bother-in-law is an architect down there, but he comes here all the time on buisness.