Dinner! 2013 (Part 4)

[Anna N]

Wow. still delicious!

chop some of your leftovers up and make a "CK + Potato + Carrot" "salad"

Id eat the skin right now while its still Hot!

See post #388 in the lunch thread. How about hash instead of salad?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Panaderia - I love those spiral dishes. Have any pics of a dish unobstructed by tasty treats?

See The Sexy Tableware Topic for my dishes uncluttered by food. They're heavy hand-painted Cuenca pottery.

[gfweb]

Courtesy of USAirways. Could be worse...

[mm84321]

Sweetbreads in three courses...

With girolles

In celery puree with cinnamon, viola flower tempura

Glazed with soubise and parmesan

[Plantes Vertes]

Couldn't sneak them into a dessert, eh?

[patrickamory]

Ashen - good point. I used regular tamarind paste (though actually I probably put in almost twice the recommended amount - I find that the tamarind I can get here is rarely sour enough). But it's a seafood dish from Kerala, so one would expect kodampoli to be used. I have some and will try that next time!

[Franci]

Had been waiting all summer to make this dish. Now that tomatoes are at their peak, I did. Ratatouille cooked in salted butter, from Alain Passard's book, The Art of Cooking Vegetables. Truly delicious.

Ahhh, I want to make this! Saving for next year. Just looking at your photos guys, since I'm not cooking much these days...

Edited September 7, 2013 by Franci (log)

[patrickamory]

Chicken with vinegar (cu liu ji) from Land of Plenty.

[Anna N]

Chicken with vinegar (cu liu ji) from Land of Plenty.

chicken_with_vinegar.jpg

It looks delicious, Patrick. Was it?

[Steve Irby]

A somewhat quick and different take on using boudin. I defrosted a few links of meaty homemade pork boudin that was pretty acidic from the addition of red wine vinegar and a little loose by the addition of too much stock. After steaming the boudin I stripped it from the casing, rolled into balls, and served with pasta dredged through the broth with wilted greens.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Steve Irby (log)

[patrickamory]

Thanks Anna, yes, it was. Incredibly rich from the egg white and corn starch batter.

I used the green-capped oelek sambal sauce as a substitute for pickled Sichuan chiles based on internet recommendations. I'm definitely going to seek out the real thing next time - I suspect it will add a subtlety currently lacking from the dish (though it was still yummy).

[mm84321]

Scottish Grouse. Soaked in milk for 12 hours, then salted and left for a day.

Legs braised and mixed with a bit of foie gras, stuffed in turnips

Breasts roasted in duck fat and butter on their crowns, left to rest, tail side up, for around 10 minutes, then reheated in a 500 oven for 2 minutes.

Sauce was made with the carcass, some vegetables and juniper, then broken generously with rendered foie gras fat.

Edited September 7, 2013 by mm84321 (log)

[Arey]

I remember years ago reading articles on game, one game bird you were supposed to hang until its skin turned greenish, another recommended hanging one sort of game bird by its tail feathers, and when the bird fell off its tail feathers it was ready. Do people still hang game birds, and if so how has it changed from Victorian/Edwardian days?

[Anna N]

Thanks Anna, yes, it was. Incredibly rich from the egg white and corn starch batter.

I used the green-capped oelek sambal sauce as a substitute for pickled Sichuan chiles based on internet recommendations. I'm definitely going to seek out the real thing next time - I suspect it will add a subtlety currently lacking from the dish (though it was still yummy).

Thanks, Patrick. I have the book and have only tried a few recipes so far but all have been very interesting. I have been intoduced to some new tastes and that really is my reason for exploring non-Western cuisines. I seem to recall Ms. Dunlop discussed these pickled chiles on her website. Must check again.

[Anna N]

Doro Wot (Ethiopian spicy chicken stew) from Saveur magazine. Recipe is available on line. Really needed injera (Ethiopian teff flour bread). The store-bought roti that I thought would be a poor substitute had grown some intriguing flora so it was binned. Australian Shiraz is NOT an appropriate drink to accompany a dish that incinerated most of my oral mucosa!

[huiray]

Does anyone here on this thread do non-Dunlop recipes when it comes to Chinese (in the broad sense) dishes? Just wondering. Perhaps free-wing it without benefit of Dunlop? I also wonder sometimes if Chinese regional cuisine other than Szechuanese is appreciated here... ;-)

Edited September 8, 2013 by huiray (log)

[Anna N]

Does anyone here on this thread do non-Dunlop recipes when it comes to Chinese (in the broad sense) dishes? Just wondering. Perhaps free-wing it without benefit of Dunlop? I also wonder sometimes if Chinese regional cuisine other than Szechuanese is appreciated here... ;-)

Speaking only for myself I would have to say rarely. I have adapted her recipe for dry-fried beans to cabbage with onions but I don't feel I have enough of an understanding of the cuisines of China to just wing it. The more I cook from her books the more confidence I gain in understanding the ingredients and techniques. It is only very recently that Asian greens have begun to show up in my local supermarkets and for Asian stores to appear. You seem to cook quite spontaneously and I admire you for it. Do you have in mind other authors, writing in Eglish, that we might find enlightening?

[Franci]

Does anyone here on this thread do non-Dunlop recipes when it comes to Chinese (in the broad sense) dishes? Just wondering. Perhaps free-wing it without benefit of Dunlop? I also wonder sometimes if Chinese regional cuisine other than Szechuanese is appreciated here... ;-)

Huiray, I sympathize with you...I feel a bit like that when I see Americans just referring to Marcella Hazan for Italian cooking...but then I think better and understand that they ( dulop or Hazan) make foreign food approachable. Dunlop then, if you read her blog, is very down to earth, easy to like person. You are privileged in Chinese cooking...

[Steve Irby]

mm84321 - Your killing me.

gfweb - Your killing me too. When I fly the choice is between pretzels or peanuts.

[patrickamory]

huiray - well Dunlop has written a Sichuanese and Hunanese cookbook. I also cook from Grace Young, but her focus is technique rather than cuisine, albeit with a focus on Cantonese. The English-language Chinese cookbooks I remember using back in the '80s were not great. I'd be very eager to get recommendations for guidance in the other cuisines of the country!

[liuzhou]

Does anyone here on this thread do non-Dunlop recipes when it comes to Chinese (in the broad sense) dishes? Just wondering. Perhaps free-wing it without benefit of Dunlop? I also wonder sometimes if Chinese regional cuisine other than Szechuanese is appreciated here... ;-)

I do all the time. Particularly Hunanese. I also spend a lot of time with people of the Zhuang, Miao and Yao ethnic groups and do a lot of their food. There is more on this in the Chinese cooking forum area.

You may want to check out the Madame Huang's Kitchen blog by Carolyn Philips who posts here occasionally. It features a lot of regional Chinese recipes.

[rotuts]

mm84321 Yum!

[huiray]

Thanks for the replies, folks, regarding Szechuanese/Dunlop recipes/dishes. That's true, Liuzhou, you do cook other stuff. (Nice blog you link to)

Well, I actually don't cook much from cookbooks although I leaf through them to get ideas. I also often use the internet to look up online recipes. I actually have Dunlop's "Land of Plenty" :-) as well as other cookbooks on Chinese cuisine written in English but can't really say that one or the other is a "must-have" or is highly authoritative or useful to all, since I generally don't use the recipes there directly or word-for-word anyway (but sometimes do). Still, for those interested what I have lying around include:

Land of Plenty - Fuchsia Dunlop - mentioned above;

A Tradition of Soup (Flavors from China's Pearl River Delta) - Teresa M. Chen;

The Hakka Cookbook (Chinese Soul Food from around the World) - Linda Lau Anusasananan;

Classic Chinese Cuisine (I have both the hard cover edition and the later softcover updated edition) - Nina Simonds;

Madam Choy's Cantonese Recipes** - Choy Wai Yuen & Lulin Reutens (daughter of Madam Choy)

and, although not strictly "Chinese"... Irene's Peranakan Recipes** - Irene Yeo & Elaine Yeo (Irene's daughter)

**These are part of the "Heritage Cookbook Series". Other books in the series are: Robin's Eurasian Recipes, Madam Krishnan's South Indian Recipes, and Uncle Lau's Teochew Recipes. Each one details dishes from Singapore and Malaysia, mainly, done in the tradition of those cuisines referred to. They are slender "half normal sized" books, no pictures, recipes written out straightforwardly in a "just the facts ma'am"-style, with comments and some footnotes; with a personal preamble and back-story from the author relating to the subject matter. I linked (above) to the amazon pages for the two I have.

[liuzhou]

Perhaps you would get more feedback if you posted this in the Chinese cooking forums.

[gfweb]

mm84321 - Your killing me.

gfweb - Your killing me too. When I fly the choice is between pretzels or peanuts.

One of the perks of flying too much. US Airways has upgraded the food in FC a bit. Still some horrors, but occasionally decent stuff on domestic.