Dinner 2015 (part 4)

[cyalexa]

That does look good. What kinda cheese?

 

thanks. Parm and pepper jack. Recipe called for parm and Fontina but I needed to use up the pepper jack.

[Okanagancook]

Bobby Flay's 16 spice rubbed chicken leg; mashed potatoes with a pesto swirl; stuffed zucchini 'cause I pick six a day...it was stuffed with sautéed zucchini cubes and cheese; arugula based salad from the garden.  Very tasty.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Cou-cou. One of my favourite Bajan foods. You could use up those okra in the cornmeal and some of those tomatoes in the butter sauce. I leave out the flying fish. Here is a reasonable recipe to riff off of (off of which to riff?)

 

I've been thinking about this recipe all day.  Not the least while harvesting the okra.  I was feeling smug having foisted a bag of tomatoes off on an unsuspecting friend...until I went out and confronted the plants again tonight.

 

I seem to be coming down with a cold.  The pork chop turned out (I think) to be a boneless chicken thigh.  Not sure.  Anyhow a liter of MR covers a multitude of almost everything,  And so much nicer than a glass of Nyquil. 

[suzilightning]

Checking out the local farms and found some basil and at least 5 different types of tomatoes so decided to dust off the pasta machine and make pasta with a walnut basil pesto that went with a tomato salad.  Johnnybird scarfed it up!

 

Next up this week something with the Saturn peaches and definitely a tomato pie.

[huiray]

Pork spare ribs & wolfberry leaves soup. Eaten w/ a piece of an "epi" loaf.

 

 

Short-cut pork spare ribs cut into individual riblets, blanched and washed ("fei sui"). Water, the cleaned riblets, smashed garlic (Music), salt, chicken stock, simmer; dried goji berries/wolfberries, simmer; washed wolfberry leaves,^¶ bring back to a simmer and cook for just a couple minutes more or so.

 

^¶See here (scroll down) for a pic of the leaves on cut branches used in this soup. One just strips them off by running one's hand down the branch.

Edited August 9, 2015 by huiray (log)

[huiray]

Mushroom stir-fry. Peanut oil, ginger, scallions, fresh blue oyster mushrooms, fresh shiitake mushrooms, fresh wood ear fungus, firm tofu (pressed further before cutting up), chicken stock.

 

Green & purple Chinese long beans (Vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedale) stir fried w/ ground pork tossed w/ garlic+oil plus Shaohsing wine & some fish sauce. White rice.

Edited August 10, 2015 by huiray (log)

[Anna N]

Thai influenced chicken-coconut soup.

[Okanagancook]

Lamb chops, grilled zucchini, roasted potatoes, sauce sliced mushrooms and green beans tossed in garlic mayo

[huiray]

image.jpg

Thai influenced chicken-coconut soup.

 

Did you have any rice with that?

[Anna N]

Did you have any rice with that?

What an odd and somewhat irksome question. I carefully chose the words "Thai influenced" to avoid being judged as someone who is attempting to hijack a cuisine that I am happy to admit I know very little about. If I say yes does that make me more worthy in your eyes? If I say no do I lose all my brownie points? Please explain your reasoning for asking the question.

[huiray]

What an odd and somewhat irksome question. I carefully chose the words "Thai influenced" to avoid being judged as someone who is attempting to hijack a cuisine that I am happy to admit I know very little about. If I say yes does that make me more worthy in your eyes? If I say no do I lose all my brownie points? Please explain your reasoning for asking the question.

 

No problem.  I simply asked if you had rice with it.  All you had to say was "yes" or "no". That was it. I was simply curious.  Everything else you said was in your own imagination.

[Anna N]

No problem. I simply asked if you had rice with it. All you had to say was "yes" or "no". That was it. I was simply curious. Everything else you said was in your own imagination.

Not imagination but experience.

Romaine lettuce topped with roasted mushrooms and blue cheese and dressed with a simple vinaigrette.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Anna N (log)

[Arey]

Well not all cultures regard rice as an important part of every meal.  For instance the Arapupu-Noxcxa peoples of the deepest parts of the Amazon (a hitherto undiscovered tribe of indigenous peoples) have never even heard of rice. Their main staple is the tuber of the
Xcha plant which they boil for days, and then mash vigorously.  It's a foul smelling and worse tasting mess which they render edible by generously dousing it with HP sauce.

[huiray]

Well not all cultures regard rice as an important part of every meal.  For instance the Arapupu-Noxcxa peoples of the deepest parts of the Amazon (a hitherto undiscovered tribe of indigenous peoples) have never even heard of rice. Their main staple is the tuber of the

Xcha plant which they boil for days, and then mash vigorously.  It's a foul smelling and worse tasting mess which they render edible by generously dousing it with HP sauce.

 

But of course. Not even the Chinese regard rice as an important part of EVERY meal. Many the meals are there where one slurps a bowl of wheat noodles in soup or in another noodle dish, for example, or even have banquets where the dishes are heavy on the meats and sometimes no rice is even brought out at all. And so on. Most European cuisines have very little to do with rice but are heavy on the potatoes and bread, as you know. (Northern Italians, as one example, might have more rice in their cuisine)  Then there are interesting old quirks like some Chinese restaurants in France (or elsewhere) needing to provide bread for their patrons regardless of whatever was on the table; and any number of other tid-bits about stuff like that.

[Dejah]

Thai-influences Chicken Coconut soup would be perfect with a crispy baguette, or some of the lovely homemade bread that Anna and Ann_T bakes!

 

huiray: You gogi soup. I know you used re-hydrated berries. Is the leaves for soup variety of the gogi plant available in your markets? We have to grow our own. When I was at our farm property this afternoon, I noticed a new gogi plant about 5 feet from the original, planted 30 some years ago from a shoot of my mother's plant.

 

As we were out "at the farm" until past supper, we needed something quick: BBQ Beef ribs with Montreal steak spice while I stir-fried a package of rice noodles with beansprouts and green onions. Trying to clean out the fridge before we head off for a 3 week road trip.

 

 

[huiray]

 

huiray: You gogi soup. I know you used re-hydrated berries. Is the leaves for soup variety of the gogi plant available in your markets? We have to grow our own. When I was at our farm property this afternoon, I noticed a new gogi plant about 5 feet from the original, planted 30 some years ago from a shoot of my mother's plant.

 

 

Dejah, I get the wolfberry/goji leaves (枸杞菜) from one of my local Chinese supermarkets.  It's not always available, at least when I visit the place - the proprietress at this store knows my tastes and always alerts me to its presence when it is there when I walk in.  :-)  

 

I've stuck stripped stems of it (with the tips and some leaves and offshoots left on the stems) into water several times before and let them grow roots but never seem able to actually then plant them, and they just "fade away" eventually.  I stuck some of the stems from this most recent batch into another jar of water and I'll try to plant them this time!

 

The second half of the bundle of leafy stems I got recently went into tonight's soup – done with fish balls [Venus brand] and soft tofu chunks plus some sliced fresh garlic in chicken broth, with a beaten egg drizzled in right at the end. Yum.

 

[Dejah]

huiray: Is it traditional in "your part of China" to put garlic in your soups? I don't remember my Mom putting garlic in the Toisanese / Cantonese style soups...Ginger. cilantro, ham choy yes, but not garlic. I am curious...

[huiray]

huiray: Is it traditional in "your part of China" to put garlic in your soups? I don't remember my Mom putting garlic in the Toisanese / Cantonese style soups...Ginger. cilantro, ham choy yes, but not garlic. I am curious...

 

Dejah,

 

This has been asked by you before and we have exchanged some brief posts regarding the matter.

 

I come from a primarily Cantonese-Hakka culinary tradition^§§ as experienced in SE Asia, with a healthy dose of Nyonya influences plus a bit of Hokkien, Teochew and Hainanese influences as well.**  Even then, I wouldn't say it was "traditional" to put garlic in my soups, but it was not uncommon.  Mainland Cantonese soups would rarely contain garlic, true, but I believe there are some which do.  Cantonese traditions translated to the West Coast of the USA maintain, in my understanding, a relatively rare use of garlic in soups but there are some recipes which do use it. Hakkas^## use more garlic in their soups, and some folks add garlic to their chicken broth/stock when making it^¶¶ – so when they make all sorts of soups where they use that chicken stock there will be, by default, a garlic note in them. Hokkien and Teochew soups in my experience don't use garlic that much, too, but there *are * some – like Bak Kut Teh – where garlic is used in COPIOUS amounts. Ditto the Canto-Hoklo version of BKT.  Nyonya soups use garlic in various cases too, and some – like Itek Tim – use quite a lot of it especially if one were to look at the Northern Nyonya versions.

 

Personally, I like the flavor profile of garlic in many of the E/SE Asian soups I make, so I end up adding it in not infrequently. However, I certainly don't *always* add garlic into my soups.  Not at all.  It depends on what I'm making and what my mood is.  Even when I make Itek Tim (a.k.a. Kiam Chye Ark Th'ng) (in Hokkien), as just one example, sometimes I put in garlic, sometimes I don't.  This doesn't mean that I view a dish as "anything goes".  Rather, I think of many dishes (especially named dishes) as needing some core elements – but there is a lot of grey area around those core elements.  Isn't that a common phenomenon, in all cuisines?

 

BTW - consider trying adding a bit of garlic into some suitable soups of yours one day - just for the hell of it - and see if you like it or not...

 

 

** And, of course, in the midst of the culinary heritages of cuisines from the Indian subcontinent, Malay, Java, Sumatera, Britain, elsewhere in Asia and Europe especially Portugal, etc

^¶¶ BTW, I generally don't add garlic into my chicken stocks.  I might add garlic later when I am making a soup with that stock, however.  :-)

^§§ More Cantonese than Hakka, with the Cantonese more HK/Canton rather than Toisan.^@@

^## Note to most of the readers on eG, especially those in Canada - "Hakka" as used here refers to the actual Hakka community, NOT the meaning that has been attached to the term in a lot of Canada and North America, especially Toronto, where "Hakka" more often than not refers to INDIAN-CHINESE food.

^@@ "Toisan" is not synonymous with "Cantonese" as a general category; but is a subset of "Cantonese".

Edited August 11, 2015 by huiray (log)

[Dejah]

Thanks, huiray. Appreciate your taking the time to explain again. Been AWOL from eGullet, thus forgetful

 

I will try adding garlic to a Chinese soup one day. Hubby may not appreciate it, but I might!

[gfweb]

Five spice braised short rib with chili pepper date paste.

 

[scubadoo97]

That looks delicious gfweb

[gfweb]

Thanks, Scoob. It was really good. I reproduced a Jeffery Zakarian dish I had in NYC a couple weeks ago. It surprised me at the time.

[Dejah]

gfweb: That chili pepper date paste sounds wonderful!

 

Still cleaning out the veg crisper before we leave on Thursday. Following Anna's Thai influenced coconut chicken, I also made Coconut Curry Chicken in the slow cooker for supper. Eaten with store-bought naan. Should have made them myself in the Big Easy, but it was wayyyy too hot outside! Heatwave on the prairies all this week. +32...feels like +40C!

 

 

Only 6 carrots and 10 little taters left for tomorrow.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I've been under the weather, and the previous three nights were just tomatoes.  Last night the power was off so dinner was particularly rustic:  a tomato out of hand, over the sink, by flashlight.

 

Because I had bought a bunch of food (other than tomatoes) which was now rotting, and because I felt a little better, tonight I made seared chicken with peaches from Louisa Shafia's The New Persian Kitchen, a book I recommend.  Basically blackened* braised boneless chicken breast with peaches, browned onions, saffron, turmeric, and cinnamon.  Quite tasty actually.

 

Served with scorched rice, sour cream, and, perhaps a little less traditionally, methode rotuts.

 

 

*I wish I had one of those new-fangled stoves that showed when a burner was on, but that's what the smoke detector's for.  Plus I put a liter glass bottle of grapeseed oil down on a very hot burner.  Why it did not crack and engulf my home in flames I am not entirely quite sure.

[Anna N]

First serious encounter with polenta both making and eating. ( I have a vague recollection of attempting grilled polenta squares at some point in the distant past.) Horror of horrors this was cooked in the microwave! I was so impressed with the ease of making it that today I will make a double batch, pour it into a tray and once again attempt some fried or grilled polenta squares.