I spent Labor Day weekend in the kitchen. I went home to see the husband—as well as the peaches, tomatoes, grapes, eggplants, peppers, arugula, chard and basil. A quick trip, in all respects. I caught a bus, I boarded a plane (cool thing about Colorado: the RTD, which, with my faculty pass, allowed me a roundtrip ticket between campus and DIA for just $5).
I had so many plans for the abundance that resulted from a few heavy rains in my absence these past few weeks. And I accomplished just a fraction of what I had envisioned.
But still, I made progress. That basil above? And the deep purple variety below? Both went into a massive batch of squash-basil soup, which went straight to the freezer until one winter night, when one or the other or both of us decide to open that tub for a taste of summer.
I made gazpacho, too, with the sweetest little medley of tomatoes in so many shades of red, orange, yellow and purple.
The eggplants had a roasting and a smashing into baba ganoush with plenty of tahini, garlic and lemon.
And the peaches…. We’re working our way through baskets of wonderfully luscious fruits (best after sitting on the counter for a day). But Saturday evening, I took a batch of peach salsa to a little gathering down the road. A simple salsa with a sweet-tangy twist:
Peach Salsa
Seven or eight medium-sized peaches, diced
Chopped white onion and shallot
A little minced ginger
A smidgen each of ground cinnamon and cloves
Several pinches of hot New Mexican chile powder
A little salt
A big squeeze of lime
Mix, let sit a few hours, then eat with chips. And that’s it! All you need is a peach tree to get it started….
I got a yen for wild betel in Vieng Xay, in a laid-back local market that sold an assortment of lunch pickings—sticky rice, sour bamboo, tangy dollops of jaeow, spicy little meatballs and grilled buffalo (above, middle, left of the balls) that had been mixed with onions and spices, wrapped in betel leaves and grilled over flames. Something happens when wild betel is cooked. It pops with fragrance, in an earthy, minty, almost flowery bouquet. It’s stunningly delicious, and I know of no other leaf that compares. (Plus, it fights atherosclerosis—at least in rabbits.)
In Vietnamese, that leaf is known as la lot. And by the time we were deep inside Vietnam a week later, we’d eaten our way through myriad mixtures of meat cooked in wild betel (usually grilled but sometimes fried). In Sapa, our Hmong friend stuffed a batch of betel leaves with ground pork and spring onion, nothing more, and plopped them into a splattering wok of hot oil. They fried to a beautiful brownish crisp—and tasted heavenly.
We’re back home in New Mexico now, but we’re blessed with a great Asian market. I found betel (it’s sold on the stem; if packaged neatly on a tray with stems removed, it’s probably the chewing betel —not what you want for this dish). Using Andrea Nguyen’s recipe as a guide, and recalling the flavors we’d had in Vieng Xay, this is the recipe that emerged:
Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 package wild betel (about 25 leaves)
1 stalk lemongrass
several cloves green garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon curry powder (I used Penzeys Maharajah)
Method:
1. Soak several bamboo skewers in water.
2. Mince one stalk lemongrass (tender insides only) and a few cloves of fresh green garlic (or ordinary garlic, small fragrant cloves preferred for a sweeter, less biting flavor)
3. Mix ground beef (I used lean grass-fed, which tended toward the dry side; I might add a bit of minced pork next time) with lemongrass, garlic, salt and black pepper to taste, a few squirts of fish sauce and 1 tablespoon Penzeys Maharajah curry powder. (My brother and sister-in-law had given us a whole box of Penzeys curries just before we left the country. We’d hardly had a chance to use them; this was a perfect excuse). Let sit at least one hour.
4. Clean the leaves and flatten, placing shiny side down on the counter and stem pointing toward you. Fill each leaf with a small, long strip of meat mixture. Roll the leaf lengthwise around the meat and skewer. The skewer will hold the leaves in place. It’s OK to leave a little extra space around the ends of the meat, but don’t overfill the leaves.
5. Drizzle the skewers with oil and grill over medium heat with vents open until leaves are slightly charred (but don’t burn). Serve with your favorite spicy sauce. I made a Lao-style jaeow with smoked morita chiles pounded with garlic, galangal and fish sauce.
It was an easy, extraordinarily delicious success—thanks to those ambrosial leaves. Some recipes call for grape leaves as substitutes, but I’m with Andrea on this: grape leaves offer none of the fragrance. HOWEVER, I’ve been thinking of using grape leaves (since we have ginormous quantities growing in the backyard) in a different sort of way—stuffed with ground lamb, perhaps, and Mediterranean spices? Dolmas with just the meat and spice, minus the rice? Drizzled with lemon and olive oil, served with hummus and olives? Just a thought….
We have much to celebrate and even more to ponder this weekend, as many happenings converge. So pull up a chair and pour yourself a glass of this: nimbu pani, an Indian “lime and pepper refresher,” with recipe courtesy of Christine McFadden and her book, appropriately named, Pepper (wonderful book, and I can’t wait to try her recipe for homemade peppery truffles—yes, the chocolate kind). This simple drink is relished as a perfect antidote to hot weather. Though Jerry and I didn’t drink this nimbu pani in India and Sri Lanka, we downed myriad spice-infused beverages revolving around a sour/tart base. The combination quenches the thirst while cooling the body with a zippy kick.
Just four or five small-ish limes, a tablespoon or two of sugar, a pinch of salt, lots and lots of freshly ground black pepper, a bit of chilled water and ice—that’s all you need to serve two. Squeeze the limes, mix with the rest, pour over ice and top with water. Add more pepper if you like. This is one helluva zinger drink.
I served this to a couple of friends last week. Usually, when the four of us gather, we dive straight into a barrel of adult content—no non-alcoholic drinks in our little crowd. But I wanted them to savor this—and savor we did, smacking our lips at the hot limey goodness.
And then we got to thinking.
Tequila.
Oh yes.
Oh yes, yes, yes!
Add a jigger of tequila to the above recipe and you have what the four of us believe to be the best summer creation so far—perhaps of all time. So pull up that chair and take a swig.
Now, then, what are we celebrating? And pondering?
Saturday is the 65th birthday of Burma’s most famous lady, whose name is least uttered within her country. (She’ll spend the day in detention, as she has many birthdays before.) Sunday, in these parts, is Father’s Day. It’s also World Refugee Day. And Monday is the official start to summer, the Solstice. I’m not sure how these events need or need not intertwine for everyone. But I’ll raise my glass in praise of dads, and this wonderful universe that gives us summer every year. And I’ll wish for a world of calm, with peaceful homes and happy birthdays for all.
If you’ve read my previous post — a 9-day diary of Lao village food — you’ll fully understand the importance of chile in every Lao meal. And you’ll recognize that chile takes the form of jaeow, a paste that’s pounded with mortar and pestle.
One morning, I follow Huang and Louen, the two cooks, into their thatch hut to see just what sort of magic happens in there. I expect a simple process—but not quite as simple as this: Huang peels the skin off a clump of fresh garlic, the homegrown type with tiny cloves and purplish stems. Into the mortar they go. Meanwhile, Louen de-stems about 25 hot little red chiles that have been cooked in ash. She pats them twice (to remove the ash), then into the mortar they go. So, too, do a few teaspoons of salt and copious amounts of MSG (common in Lao food). Louen pounds the mix on the packed mud floor while the fire burns hot in the corner.
That’s it. It takes 30 seconds. So simple. Louen rinses the mortar with river water and tosses all that extra essence of the pounded ingredients into a wok atop the fire. Then she adds that cooked water into the jaeow, and we have our mealtime companion.
Garlic, chiles, salt and MSG–four ingredients, yet the flavor is so much more dynamic than that. The secret is a combination of smoky chile and fresh, young local garlic (as opposed to big cloves from China, which are popping up all over the region, particularly in Thailand—but not here… another story, another day).
In Laos, there is a name for every type of chile paste. I’ve decided to call this one Yum! jaeow.
Happy Easter, everyone. I know it’s technically spring, and many of you are just waking to the season’s first blossoms, the mercury’s first climb toward warmer temps. But here in Vientiane, it’s summer through and through. It’s an Easter skillet—and we’re frying in the middle of it. By 9 a.m. the sun’s too strong to face. A walk around the block makes the body a salt lick. The only reasonable action: drink another lime juice (as I am right now at Joma). Call it nam manao, nuoc chanh da or tuk kro’chma—it’s Southeast Asia’s answer to lemonade, made with little limes. I’ve been loving the stuff ever since my long-ago semester in Hanoi. I remember that first broiling afternoon, and my introduction to Co Phuong, who ran the drink shop on the ground floor of the Ministry of Education Hotel (my four-month home away from home). She served me that first sugary glass of fresh lime over ice, and thereby taught me the key to battling intense tropical heat.
Lately, I’m finding more and more Asian menus offering lime juice (or lime freezies) blended with mint—so much mint, the drink comes speckled with garden green dots and a big, fresh sprig at the top. Brilliant. It’s so simple, such an obvious thing—yet I’m not sure I’ve ever served this to friends back home on a hot summer day. Rest assured, you will find this drink at the Redcoates hacienda, come June!
Even if your Easter is battered with wicked spring winds (or, heaven forbid, snow), tuck this one away for a sunnier day. When the flowers bloom, the birds sing and you prepare for summer’s first barbecue, remember to quench your guests’ thirst with this:
*fresh squeezed lime
*crushed ice
*sugar to taste
*a bunch of mint
Simply blend and enjoy—and embellish, if you like. A little gin? Vodka? Perhaps rum? Or SAKE!
…especially when the holidays coincide with someone’s birthday. And especially when that birthday happens to be a biggie. What better excuse for a surprise? It took weeks of elaborate planning and cunning artistry (I’m a bit disturbed to discover how well I can lie). The stories involved sick cats, holiday recipes and neighbors who needed a ride to the airport—only to pick up their parked car and enjoy the afternoon in town. The birthday man was surprised, indeed. He literally fell in the doorway to the greeting of friends hiding in every corner.
We all ate heartily on Saturday night. That part involved his sister’s ingenious idea to cover the kitchen table in dishes he’s loved through the ages: mac-n-cheese as a toddler, pork chops as a teen, enchiladas in his 20s and Indian curry thereafter. Add to that spinach-feta pasta, Burmese golden rice, overflowing cheese plates, piles of olives and grapes, mountains of hummus (yes, with garlic!), chips and crackers, homemade fudge and Indian barfi for dessert. Don’t even get me started on libations…. Every guest had a hand or two in the celebratory kitchen.
But I must tell you in detail about the curry: Velvet Butter Chicken (Makhani Murgh). The recipe comes from a $2 gem I found a few months ago in a used bookstore: Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking. My kitchen hasn’t been the same since. “This chicken preparation is a classic example of the true flair and skill of Indian cooks,” Sahni writes. Well put.
Here’s what you do: you make tandoori chicken in your oven. Not just one, but two. You chop the little birds and rub the meat with tenderizer and lemon. Then you marinate the chicken for many hours in a mixture of garlic, ginger, roasted cumin, ground cardamom, red pepper, paprika and yogurt. When ready, you brush the birds with ghee and bake them in a hot oven, at least 500 degrees.
Much later, you cut the chicken into many pieces. You blend together tomatoes, green chiles and ginger. Then you essentially make ghee, using a whole stick of butter, which is used to brown the chicken pieces. Add cumin and paprika to the remaining butter, then pour in the tomato puree and thicken. THEN you add the chicken, salt and 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream (this is NOT a light recipe). Add MORE butter and plenty of garam masala (she’s got a good recipe, heavy on the cardamom, plus cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, cumin and coriander). When it’s all cooked, top with cilantro and you’ll taste it: you’ve created a little pot of heaven. It is simply a divine party dish, for any occasion. But the heavy cream, generous butter and roasted spices make it perfect, I think, for this festive winter season.
Happy holidays. May every kitchen be so richly blessed. And may every kitchen shelf contain a copy of Julie Sahni’s classic book.
Mother of Vietnam, at the Vietnam Women’s Museum in Hanoi. The statue, nearly 12 feet tall, represents strength and beauty among Vietnamese women. She supports her child on the left shoulder and stands as a symbol of motherly love for the country.
Happy Thanksgiving, the day after. I had not a moment to post yesterday. Our holiday began before the day’s light, up in time for an annual fun run/walk organized by Michael Thomas Coffee (next to the great little yoga studio I recently joined), with proceeds benefiting the Roadrunner Food Bank. We trotted through the frosty streets of Albuquerque’s Ridgecrest neighborhood, just as the sun began to warm the west side of the Sandias.
Then home—quickly!—to the kitchen, where everything soon blurred. But I do remember every little thing that went into the menu. Thankgsiving, of course, is not about gluttonous excess; but about about family and friends, giving and sharing, and gratitude for everything we have—right? But food fosters that. Food is a catalyst for wonder. It brings disparate ideas and far-flung relatives to the same table, to indulge in an edible peace.
When the Redferns arrived yesterday afternoon, we nibbled on pickled herring (Coates family tradition), smoked Gruyere, raw-milk Swiss cheese, a marbled brick of Irish porter cheddar. And those pecans, of course, followed by a classic recipe I’d wanted to try, the bagna cauda featured in the Times a few weeks back. Our guests brought the veggies, and we dipped to our mouths’ content.
That miso-butter bird? Oh, wow, did it work. And it did take nearly an hour to rub the whole thing. I slowly pushed through slick spoonfuls of the mixture, which warmed in my hands. I’m fascinated by the physics, as fingers massaged the outside while little pockets of butter and air moved like bubbles across the turkey, beneath the skin. I don’t know how long it took to cook the 15-pounder; it seemed hours longer than the recipe had said. We kept waiting for that thermometer to rise to 170; in the end, we cranked up the heat to 400, removed the foil “tent,” and let the bird brown to a crispy finish. Inside: succulent meat, not a bit overdone. Yum.
What else? Too much, really. Joanna brought her classic citrus cranberries, Jenny did her famous stuffing (for the gluten-eating crowd). We made a mountain of wild rice, Jerry’s jubilation cornbread with melted cheese and hot chipotles, nutmeg butter greens from the Silk Road Gourmet, and sautéed green beans and Brussels sprouts with chile and mint, a recipe from the last-ever issue of Gourmet. Even the Brussels sprout haters found this one edible.
We had curried red cabbage slaw, which I’m calling my Jewish mistake. I had selected the slaw from my Jewish cookbook, and in the heat of the moment I inadvertently started cooking the book’s recipe for sweet-and-sour cabbage. The two dishes share similar ingredients, so I combined them, and made something perhaps even better—red cabbage, onion, raisins, red wine, a little sugar, powdered Burmese curry and yogurt to set the dish as it cooled in the fridge.
Lately our friend Jon has been experimenting with soup, and when he served us his latest concoction last week, I had to have the recipe for Thanksgiving. It involves steaming red onion and zucchini, then blending with roasted garlic, avocado, a bit of tamari and olive oil, salt and pepper. I also added a few spoonfuls of the bagna cauda dip. Try it.
Whew. I am thoroughly stuffed, even as I eat leftover cornbread with cranberry relish for breakfast this morning.
And would you believe Jerry didn’t take a single photo last night? Some nights are like that, moments we live with only the pictures in our minds for later recollection.
I am reminded my first Thanksgiving in Asia, in 1996, when I spent a semester in Hanoi, studying and working with the Vietnam Women’s Union. Part of that job entailed teaching English to guides at the Vietnam Women’s Museum, the Bao Tang Phu Nu Viet Nam. For four months, the seven of us from the University of Oregon plunged into Vietnamese life, led by friends who showed us their world. On Thanksgiving, we wanted to give them a piece of America. Together, we cooked Thanksgiving dinner—not the traditional turkey, but some of our very favorite dishes—and we served it to 60 people packed inside the Women’s Museum, beside that golden statue of Mother Vietnam, pictured above.
Somehow, I ended up with no photos from that evening, either. But not long ago, I came across the journal I kept during my semester in Hanoi. This is what I wrote after that other, extraordinary Thanksgiving (with a few random scenes of Hanoi tossed in for good measure):
The view through my window overlooking Le Thanh Tong Street
We came together at 8:30 that morning for an entire day of chopping, stirring, dicing and frying. We made spaghetti, chile, tabouli, salad, punch and a whole lot of peace over sips of wine and dancing cleavers.
The women at the museum—we owe the night to them. We hired two to help through the day, and they worked from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., for $5. Yet we could not pay them more when the head of museum displays makes $25 a month after 10 years with the Women’s Union.
Van and Tuyet, our colleagues, were right there with us, dodging sparks from an uproarious fire and setting flowers ever so daintily on dozens of tables. And immediately after our draining day, they began cleaning and preparing the dining room for a wedding that would take place the next morning. Van planned to stay the night along with other women squatting in the kitchen, plucking birds for the boiling pots and stuffing shrimp paste into mushrooms.
I don’t know how we could have prepared dinner for 60 without all these fingers in the action. We couldn’t have, just as we couldn’t have done it without Ha’s expert tanslations. She joined us in the morning as Karen (the other Karen) and I gave our ingredient list to two women who would shop for us in the market. Miraculously, an hour or so later, a man on a motorcycle arrived with a crate of papayas, 2 kilos of tomatoes, 8 large onions, 1/2 a kilo of raisins, 1/2 kilo of cashews, 3 mangoes, big bunches of fresh herbs, a kilo of garlic, 5 kilos of beef, 5 cucumbers, 1/2 kilo of shredded carrots, 1/2 kilo of shiitake mushrooms, 1 kilo of limes, 4 pineapples and 5 logs of cinnamon—all for $30. Yes, logs of cinnamon (this was before I knew the histories and origins of cinnamon and I was surprised by the size). We asked for sticks and instead got branches two feet long and several inches thick.
After the market delivery was checked and double-checked, a girl rode up to the museum door with two huge hunks of ice strapped to her bike—half of our order. She returned half an hour later with the remainder, and we all took turns whacking it to pieces, which we threw into a 15-gallon pail of beer.
It was a beautiful day, down to the last minutes of sudsy water and many hands flailing about in a rush to clean the kitchen. Each of us had stood and spoken to our guests during dinner. I told the crowd I had never been so far from family and friends on Thanksgiving. Yet I’d never felt so close to home, either.
I’m getting a head start, but I fear I made these pecans a bit too early. They won’t last until Thursday. I do believe these are the liveliest pecans I’ve ever tasted, and I can’t keep them out of my mouth or my husband’s claws.
I came across the recipe for Candied Chile Pecans a week or so ago while paging through cookbooks in search of Thanksgiving inspiration. Somehow, the holiday seems a perfect fit for Utah’s little Buddhist restaurant, known as Hell’s Backbone Grill, and the resultant cookbook, With a Measure of Grace. The publisher sent me a review copy last year, but I hadn’t cooked much from it during the summer months we’ve spent at home. For some reason, with winter on the horizon, I feel more inclined toward Western mountain fare (which is getting a good share of attention these days). Plus, I’m endlessly intrigued by this speck on the (mostly) Mormon map that welcomes each summer a contingent of Tibetan monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery.
But let’s get back to this issue of pecans, before they’re gone. The recipe is ridiculously simple, requiring only six ingredients: 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 3 tablespoons Kahlua or espresso, 1 tablespoon Chimayo chile powder (I didn’t have any on hand, so I used powdered Assam chile), 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 cups pecan halves. Mix the ingredients and spread the pecans on a greased baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees, stir, then bake a bit longer.
The combination of chile and coffee gives these nuts an incredibly rich, smoky, blackened flavor that pairs perfectly with the caramelized sugar. I dare you make these now—and keep them until the guests arrive on Thursday.
Just a few samples of the myriad chiles we keep around. Looks like I was remiss in securing the cap on the Spanish paprika jar. I hate that when Jerry takes a beautiful photo but I’m fixated on the little flaws in my kitchen!
It’s been seven years since we spent Thanksgiving on American soil, and this will be our very first turkey in our own home. Come Thursday, I expect a kitchen full of in-laws and a house full of food. When I told this to my editor—or I should say former editor—he responded with two tips.
First, brine the bird for 24 hours.
Second, the best recipe ran in the November 2005 issue of Gourmet: turkey rubbed with miso butter. “Believe me, it’s great. For every November issue, of course, we had to do turkeys. The smart editors paid attention to what the cooks really flipped for, since it was all old hat to them. This is the one that they loved.”
But be careful. “The ONLY hard thing is getting the hang of rubbing the butter in,” he says. “You have to be very Zen and start out slow…. It takes a while to get the action to get between the flesh and the skin. Seems impossible at first. You don’t want to tear the skin at all (but don’t panic if you do a little bit). Zen, zen, zen. It gets really easy if you start slow.”
So there you have it. This is the Thanksgiving turkey we’ll be eating at our house (I’ll let you know how it turns out).
We’re having stellar days in the 70s but frosty nights in the 30s. It’s the end of the garden as we knew it. Onions, arugula, sage, mint, parsley, rosemary, thyme—they’re fine, for now. But the tomato and pepper plants have shriveled and browned. I made a quick dash to pick every last tomato I could before a particularly chilly bout of weather blew in. What you see above is the tomato patch that covered the entire kitchen table for more than a week.
Many have since ripened into juicy, red Romas suitable for sauce and fresh salads. But I spent much of last weekend in the kitchen dicing, slicing, blending, simmering all those green tomatoes into pounds and pounds of green-tomato bacon sauce and green-tomato salsa (cooked and raw). Success all around. But the absolute best recipe, I think, comes courtesy of my mother-in-law. It first appeared in the 1974 Ball Blue Book, “the bible for canning and freezing for many decades,” as Ma Redfern says. “Mine is falling apart, held together by a rubber band, and still has its price sticker for 97 cents. If it were whole, it would be worth $3.50 on eBay.” (If you get your hands on this 1974 edition, check inside the back cover for amusing instructions on “How to Preserve a Husband.”)
I’m posting the original Blue Book recipe below. But first, I’ll tell you of the adaptations I made, based on the ingredients at hand (and preference, too). The original recipe is titled Green Tomato Mincemeat, though neither Ma Redfern nor I have used the necessary suet to make it mincemeat. Instead, we’ve created more of a spicy, fruity relish. The day I began cooking, our local apple farm was closed (!), so I had far more green tomatoes and far fewer apples than the recipe calls for. I used tangerine rather than orange; that worked just fine. I added a splash of red wine, which was heading toward sour. I cut the sugar in half but added more raisins. However, I didn’t can the relish (ate some, gave some away, froze the rest—with thoughts of hauling it out at Thanksgiving). You might want to maintain the sugar content if canning the recipe. I also made two double batches (yes, we had that many green tomatoes), one with minced Hatch green chile for a spicy twist. It’s delicious. Both batches are. And they simply smell of the holidays. Here goes:
Green Tomato Mincemeat
Adapted from the 1974 Ball Blue Book
Ingredients:
2 quarts cored and chopped green tomatoes (about 20 small)*
1 tablespoon salt
1 orange
2 1/2 quarts pared and chopped apples (about 12 medium)
1 pound seeded raisins
1 1/2 cups chopped suet (about 6 ounces)
3 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup vinegar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cloves (I used whole, pounded with mortar and pestle)
1/2 teaspoon ginger (the recipe means dried, but freshly grated is much better)
Method:
Sprinkle salt over tomatoes. Let stand 1 hour, then drain. Cover tomatoes with boiling water and let stand 5 minutes. Drain well. Grate rind and chop pulp of orange. Mix all ingredients together and cook until mixture is boiling hot. Pour boiling hot mixture into hot canning jars, leaving 1 inch head space. Adjust caps. Process pints and quarts 25 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. (Note: if you don’t put suet into this mixture, it should be sufficient to process the jars for 25 minutes in a boiling water kettle instead of a pressure cooker.) Yield: about 10 pints.
*Ma Redfern tries to remove as much as possible of the tomato seed gelatin. I was lazy. I’d already spent an afternoon in the kitchen and I wanted to get out before midnight. I used the whole tomato.
You are currently browsing the archives for the Recipes category.
Welcome to my ramblings on food, drink, travel, politics, history and all the other avenues that converge in life. I’m a journalist, author and media trainer; and for five years I was Gourmet's Asia correspondent until the magazine's recent closure. I’m a bit obsessive in the kitchen. Much like my mother, I start thinking about dinner well before breakfast….
My books:
