cold weather cooking

[trillium]

The Pacific Northwest is actually having a real winter (with snow and freezing temps..gasp!) and that lovely stir-fried luffa, fresh water chestnut and shrimp just doesn't seem right when it's this chilly out. So now I've been doing lots of cold weather stuff like braised shortribs with anise, chun pay and red tofu or lap yuk with taro. What are some favorite cold-weather dishes that you've been cooking (or would like to cook)?

regards,

trillium

[Betts]

Hearty soups, anything with beef and almost anything roasted. I'm in Minnesota and the meat and potatoes diet is a way of survival for 6 months of the year.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Borscht.

I've been fighting something and haven't wanted to cook diddly -- but boy, am I craving Borscht.

[Big Bunny]

In one book, Ken Hom gives a recipe for a beef stew cooked in chicken stock

with peppers, star anise and cinnamon - served over egg noodles.

Two-inch cubes of beef, and heavenly, hot noodles.

If I were at home, I'd find the exact book.

BB

[trillium]

Um, maybe I should have specified Chinese? (but this is in the Chinese forum!!)

As for your meat and potatoes, that's pretty much what taro and lap yuk are, but you eat a lot less of it (on rice) and lots of vegetable (yu choy or cabbage is nice right now).

regards,

trillium

[Mabelline]

Yum, cold weather cooking. Chili w/ cornbread. Ham hocks and anything. Roasted anything. Potato or any kind of soup. Fresh bread. Tagines with couscous.

edit to say oops- we crossed posts.sorry

Edited January 5, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[Busboy]

Chili; onion soup; and chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, over warm polenta. Not necessarily all at the same meal.

Big red wines.

[Mayhaw Man]

Venison Chili (with LOTS of beans).

I am making some tonight as we have gone from sunny and 80F for the last few days to rainy and bleak and 40F currently. There is currently a large abundance of venison in the freezer at my house. I am going to make hot water cornbread and a ceasar type salad to go with it.

Last night I concocted ducks in olive gravy. It is made thusly:

Brown four mallards in a very hot oven (500 F). THis takes app. 15 minutes turning a few times.

Meanwhile I roughly chopped 4 onions, 2 cups celery, 1 cup red and one cup green bell pepper, and 10 cloves of garlic (garlic was not strong so I used alot).

I made a roux of 1/3 cup duck fat (you could easily sub oil, I just had the fat) and 1/3 cup flour. I made the roux very dark ( I use the P. Prudhomme cajun napalm method of browning flour in oil over VERY high heat. You burn it every once in a while, but it beats stirring for thirty minutes ).

Veg was thrown into roux and wilted.

Veg mix was placed into the bottom of a dutch oven and ducks were placed on top. I added two cups duck stock, 1 cup burgundy, 1 cup parsley and 1 cup cilantro, 2 tsp. Tarragon, 2 tsp. basil, 1tsp crushed black pepper and one tsp crushed white pepper, 2 tsp sea salt, and 4 bay leaves (all herbs were fresh and coarsely chopped)

This was placed (covered) into a 325F oven and baked for 2 hours. At the end of two hours I added 1 cup green olives (w pimientos) and one cup black olives. Ducks were cooked an additional thirty minutes

This was really, really good. I served it over orzo along with a salad and french bread. Delicious and easy.

Why is this in a Chinese thread? Or have I missed the point? Again

[browniebaker]

Unctuously delicious red-braised pork shoulder! Cubed, nicely fat and well-marbled pork shoulder is browned. Minced garlic and chopped scallion are added and sauteed to release their flavors. Then the ingredients of the sauce are poured in, to cover: 2 parts water, 1 part soy sauce, and five-spice powder and salt to taste. Optional additions are large chunks of bamboo shoot, whole or halved dried shiitake mushrooms, large squares of fried tofu, and peeled, whole hard-boiled eggs.

Served over white rice, this is the comfort food of my childhood. In fact, my mother made this dish for me just last week when I went home for the holidays. There's nothing like it.

Oh, lest anyone forget -- my mother's particular injunction for this dish is, "No sugar!"

[Pan]

There's a good recipe for chicken and chestnuts in Lilah Kan's cookbook (or the one my parents have, anyway). Nice hearty dish for winter, I think.

[Big Bunny]

Clay pot = comfort food!

[Carolyn Tillie]

Um, maybe I should have specified Chinese? (but this is in the Chinese forum!!)

As for your meat and potatoes, that's pretty much what taro and lap yuk are, but you eat a lot less of it (on rice) and lots of vegetable (yu choy or cabbage is nice right now).

regards,

trillium

Okay - I'm sorry... I didn't look at the forum from which it originated - just that it was an active topic.

Mea culpa.

[trillium]

Unctuously delicious red-braised pork shoulder! Cubed, nicely fat and well-marbled pork shoulder is browned. Minced garlic and chopped scallion are added and sauteed to release their flavors. Then the ingredients of the sauce are poured in, to cover: 2 parts water, 1 part soy sauce, and five-spice powder and salt to taste. Optional additions are large chunks of bamboo shoot, whole or halved dried shiitake mushrooms, large squares of fried tofu, and peeled, whole hard-boiled eggs.

Served over white rice, this is the comfort food of my childhood. In fact, my mother made this dish for me just last week when I went home for the holidays. There's nothing like it.

Oh, lest anyone forget -- my mother's particular injunction for this dish is, "No sugar!"

This sounds great, and different enough from the shortribs so it won't get boring. We have half of a pig parked in our freezer, so well-marbled pork shoulder won't be a problem. I have to confess though, that I always strain these sorts of stews and let the liquid settle over night in the fridge so I can remove the fat. I find there is still plenty left in the meat and it makes me feel better about eating it. I love the "No sugar!" part too, because I don't like the sweet versions of red-cooked stuff too much.

regards,

trillium

[trillium]

Why is this in a Chinese thread? Or have I missed the point? Again  

Cuz I wanted to hear about Chinese cold weather cooking?

But thanks for the recipes, they sound great!

regards,

trillium

[Louisa Chu]

Would love some beef tendon and turnip right now - it's freezing in Paris too. And my mom's red-cooked beef - and oxtail soup - especially the oxtail soup. All that fat seems so forgiven - even essential - in cold weather. Had a hard time justifying it when I lived in LA.

[Rhea_S]

I like the soups made with pork neck bones, winter melon and those seasoning packets with all sorts of seeds. It was probably some sort of medicinal soup because my Cantonese friends' parents were all into that. I also crave Ma-Po tofu, fish-flavoured eggplant and claypot chicken with lily buds around this time of the year.

[fresco]

We have a long, cold, winter without much sun here. So while soups, stews, etc., are comforting, sometimes it's pleasant to evoke much warmer, sunnier places, with Mexican food, satays and all sorts of stuff grilled on skewers, and margaritas.

[jo-mel]

Pan and Big Bunny are close! Lilah Kan's book has a recipe called Sizzling Chicken in Gravy -- her version of a clay pot dish she had in San Francisco at Bow Hon - a clay pot place.

I had a dish there with chicken and Chinese sausage similar to the one above. I combined the two, into one recipe, and it is my prime cold weather comfort food -- with lots of rice to sop up the wonderful gravy. I use dark meat chicken. White meat just doesn't stand up.

[trillium]

Would love some beef tendon and turnip right now - it's freezing in Paris too. And my mom's red-cooked beef - and oxtail soup - especially the oxtail soup. All that fat seems so forgiven - even essential - in cold weather. Had a hard time justifying it when I lived in LA.

How does your mum season her oxtail soup? I do it the same way I do shortribs (chun pay (aged tangerine peel), anise, pinch of 5-spice and red tofu) but I'm interested in other methods.

As for the fat, yeah, it does seem essential to leave it all in there (you don't get those pools of fat floating on top of the stew with my method) but I can't help it, I still have grad school pudge to lose. At least I don't cut the fat off the lap yuk like a friend of mine does, right?

regards,

trillium

[Pan]

Hmmm...My folks definitely have a cookbook that has a Chicken and Chestnuts recipe, but I guess I have the wrong cookbook in mind.

[wesza]

In Hong Kong the first items to become popular as the weather becomes cold are:

Dog Clay Pot Cassaroles at the Causway Bay "Tai Pai Tungs"

Snake Soups on Temple and Shanghai Steet in Kowloon.

Switching from Pork Hot Dogs to Beef Hot Dogs at the Movie Theatres.

Winter Melon Soup with Yunnan Ham

Shanghai Freshwater Crab

Hot Pots

Mongolian Grills

Sizziling Hassa Herring Smoked

Hot Sticky Rice Varieties

Pork Back Congee Street side

It seems to happen all at once as soon as it starts to cool down

Irwin

[Pan]

I thought Hong Kong was subtropical like Sarasota, Florida. Just how cold does it get there? I mean, Beijing has a real winter! Does it ever freeze in Hong Kong?

Edited January 5, 2004 by Pan (log)

[wesza]

I though Hong Kong was subtropical like Sarasota, Florida. Just how cold does it get there? I mean, Beijing has a real winter! Does it ever freeze in Hong Kong?

Michael: It hardly ever freezes but since it's pretty much surrounded by the sea it does become quite damp and cool.

The Hong Kong winters aren't to bad during the day, but temperatures can drop into the 40's at night but not often.

Since theres no central heating it seems colder then it really is so it seems persistant. I would see the actual temperature but still it felt colder that that to most of us living there. Maybe we were indulgent but we sure ate good.

Irwin

[ecr]

Sichuan pork and cabbage soup with "dumpling knots". Essentially sliced pork stir-fried with soy and garlic and ginger, then lots of shredded green cabbage and scallions. Add water to cover along with lajiao and Sichuan peppercorns and simmer till cabbage is tender. Dumpling knots (knobs of water/flour/salt dough as big as the end of your little finger) go in last. The result should be a thick soup chock-full of tender cabbage and very chewy dumplings --- with lots of ma-la tingle.

[Dejah]

Savory tang yuen with lo bak, dried shrimp, lap cheung, topped with fresh ground black pepper, splash of sesame oil, lots of chopped cilantro with a side dish of light soya, slivered ginger and ma-la oil for dipping yuen.