What's Cooking (Take Four)

[Jenise]

I'm going to make an extravagant not-quite-flourless chocolate cake tomorrow. It's a Silver Palate recipe that I made several times in the past but have not made in 20 years. It calls for nearly a pound of chocolate, a pound of butter, a dozen eggs, two cups of sugar, and one cup of flour. The cake is dense, rich, sweet... 20 portions in a 10-inch springform. It's chocolate neutron matter.

Were/are you a big fan of the Silver Palate book? Were you a customer at their shop?

Last night I made suanla chaoshou, Sichuan hot-and-sour wontons. This was the signature dish of Mary Chung's Restaurant, for many years a beloved fixture in downtown Cambridge MA for area computer nerds. It consists of boiled wontons on a bed of mung bean sprouts with a delicious hot-and-sour sauce poured on top. For my version I cooked the wontons in chicken stock with the hot-and-sour sauce added and then the bean sprouts thrown in at the end and just blanched. So mine was more of a soup. Chaoshou is the Sichuanese dialect name for wontons. It literally means "folded arms" and refers to the crossed ends of a folded wonton.

-Paul W.

I'm going to make an extravagant not-quite-flourless chocolate cake tomorrow. It's a Silver Palate recipe that I made several times in the past but have not made in 20 years. It calls for nearly a pound of chocolate, a pound of butter, a dozen eggs, two cups of sugar, and one cup of flour. The cake is dense, rich, sweet... 20 portions in a 10-inch springform. It's chocolate neutron matter.

Were/are you a big fan of the Silver Palate book? Were you a customer at their shop?

Big fan of the first two books. Never went to the store.

Silver Palate has the best Marinara Sauce on the market. It is low-sodium and tastes like a Marinara should. I always have it in my pantry. It has held up well to some of my tweaks.

[Jenise]

In spite of the great sadness I'm living under these days, or perhaps even because of it, I asked a friend to pick up a corned beef for me at Fred Meyer (a Kroger store, and the pkg was Kroger brand) yesterday so I could make this most favorite of dinners, even if I was the only one eating it. The leftovers would last me for days. WELL, imagine my surprise when I opened the package and three pieces of meat and one wad of fat tumbled out. This wasn't a Point Cut Brisket as the package claimed, it was just odd bits of stringy meat, irregularly shaped from multiple knife wounds, that had been pushed into a triangle and sold as Point Cut Brisket.

I cooked them anyway, but the meat was tough and disappointing.

Too bad, Jenise. I thought those things only happened to me. FWIW, I bought a point-cut corned beef at Smith's and it was great, but then it turned out they had absolutely no cabbage left. So I had to trek to another Smith's, which had an abundance of cabbage. While there, I spied asparagus for .99/lb so I bought some. But after I was rung up, I examined the receipt. I had been charged $3.99/lb. After some hassles concerning a gift card and a credit card, I finally was handed the difference in cash.

Today, my house smells of cabbage, Fabreze, and dust as a result of having 60 mph winds and dust being kicked up. We now have a brownish-gray sky to admire. Oh, well. It's March. At least I don't have juniper allergies that hit this time of the year. And it's really bad this year. A lot of people are suffering.

Two dishes I'll be making sometime this week: sambar and idli; pork lo mein.

-Paul W.

That wasn't very good, Jenise. I hope you contacted the store manager, took pictures of the meat, and let them reimburse you. With all the commotion going on at my house after the flood in the back part, I totally forgot about my Irish dinner, which I cook every year without fail. I hope I can get a good beef brisket from my grocer and make my dinner for next week.

[Jenise]

Karen, I'm not at all able to leave the house right now. And the few breaks I get, I have more productive things to do with my time than rant to a store manager who doesn't give a darn--most don't--though yeah, were these normal times I'd have taken it back.

Tonight I'm going to make rice with ground meat and peas. A tasty one-dish meal that's easy to feed Bob.

[Jenise]

People keep bringing me food, I don't have much opportunity to cook these days. Yesterday someone brought me a chicken pad thai from a local restaurant which I stir-fried to refresh, and added more cabbage, bamboo and peanuts to. Delish! Someone also brought me four chicken thighs from something they saw Katie Lee do Karen's favorite TV show. It was marinated in soy sauce and sweet tea, she said, then oven-roasted.

Jenise, have you checked out a home helper facility where folks who have had drug testing and background checks done come into your home to assist when needed? My home helper happened to be a dog. When I left, I put Gene in his chair. The dog sat on his lap and would not leave him. They both took a nap, and when I arrived home, they were safe, sound, and asleep. In all those years he only did one bad thing, he was mad at me, which happens increasingly as it gets worse. So he put a leash on the dog and took off. I got home and was terrified. I called neighbors who called others and we soon had a search crew out looking for him. He was found within 10 minutes. I was notified and boy did he get a talking to by me and the person who found him. He never again did that. We had a lot of silver alerts when I worked for the police. I had a team of volunteers who could be called out for searches, if called early enough, they could usually be found.

Tonight I'm trying for the first time Lebanese moussaka with five-garlic-clove sauce*

The recipe is for four, so I'm halving it but I have my doubts about the accuracy of the recipe. For instance, it uses 3 medium aubergines (1kg), well I got 2 medium aubergines and they don't weigh 500g,so 3 wouldn't be 1Kg, and the times given are unbelievable - 10 minutes for preparation? And the cooking time of 1hr is proved unbelievable: recipe text says 20 + 15 +30 which is 1h5mins, but I reckon it'll take longer.

So I'm going to start now, allowing 1h50m.

I'm not using tahini, I'll make the garlic sauce without.

I've got a nice Southern French Carignan to go with it.




*recipe at https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/m ... eera-sodha

I often times find time estimates to be ...um..optimistic. That said, I could probably do the cooking in that recipe in less than an hour- as there is no reason not to cook the onions and garlic while the eggplant cooks.
And at least for the most common variety of eggplant/aubergine here (purple Italian), under 250g would be quite small, not what we'd call medium.
Hope it turns out well, look forward to your report

I'm making a quick beef pho today from Once Upon a Chef, a lady I follow who is a trained chef, delicious flavors but not the long hours of the traditional way of making. I love it for lunches.

That is rather scary, Jenise. Too bad folks don't demand those things. However, I recall years ago when Gene and I were RVing, how surprised I was when visiting grocery stores up there and into Canada and how different cuts of meat and availability were then.

Spring has sprung here in the valley, and birds are happy. Mallard ducks have visited my pool twice, (happily, they have not taken up residence) roses are leafing out, and the rosemary shrub is full of purple flowers. Yesterday, I put chicken legs, thighs, wings, and 1/2 of a breast in the marinate using buttermilk, tabasco, and juice from Bruno's peppers. Today, I am turning the pieces again and adding fresh rosemary. The pieces will be coated with Oven Fry, a product I discovered decades ago, and love better than any other breading I tried homemade or boxed. A side dish of Farro cooked in chicken stock, sun-dried tomatoes, lemon, and parmesan cheese. Veggies will be a stir-fry of broccoli, red onion wedges, large mushroom slices, and garlic. I am craving beans again and placed an order with Rancho Gordo for a new bean plus Midnight Black beans which I love. If they arrive today, I may put on a slow cooker, if not, will wait until later in the week. Happy Spring everyone!Well

I decided to use fresh cherry tomatoes, for the Farro, and added a parmesan rind, truffle butter... grated Parmigiano, and fresh sweet basil will be added over the top.

Breakfast today was eggs Benedict with asparagus, accompanied by strawberries and blackberries. Used up all my eggs except for a couple, which I'll use in a Russian sharlotka later today. Gotta make some bread, too.

Very happy with last night's clams in bacon dashi (Momofuko). Had the correct bacon (Bentons). You use bacon instead of bonito flakes, simmer half hour, cool and skim. Then reheat, add potatoes. Remove potatoes, add clams (while cooking some bacon). As they open return potatoes, added a dash of mirin. Serve, with bacon pieces and drizzle with scallion oil (process scallions, grapeseed oil, and salt, press through cheesecloth). Used the bacon fat to cook brussels sprouts, which I drizzled with previous night's Vietnamese caramel sauce.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/06dGMR_ ... GWzLieSEkA

Pumpkin was away this weekend. On Saturday I auditioned a new fish restaurant for his upcoming birthday celebration (enjoyable but not going to work for him). On Sunday I made up a big pot of sausage, chicken, and tortellini soup, basically a simple vegetable soup but with homemade stock so good. I also made some snazzy upside-down endive tarts with honey, lemon, stilton, and caramelized pecans.

there is no reason not to cook the onions and garlic while the eggplant cooks.

That's what I did. They also needed longer time cooking that the recipe says.

for the most common variety of eggplant/aubergine here (purple Italian), under 250g would be quite small, not what we'd call medium.

Supermarkets carry only one type and they are all about the same size, They come from Netherlands where they are grown hydroponically under glass. Small ones are carried in ethnic shops. I've seen big thick ones when abroad.

Hope it turns out well, look forward to your report

Not a success. Mrs M said she didn't want it again. I think after cooking it should be left and warmed up the next day in order to let the flavours meld. Parsley was pointless. I thought when eating it that chillies would give it some 'oomph'. The wine was good.

Tonight I'm making northern Indian murgh pulao (chicken pilaf). It will be accompanied by lime pickle--traditional--and by sambar and idli--not traditional.

-Paul W.

Tonight I'm making northern Indian murgh pulao (chicken pilaf). It will be accompanied by lime pickle--traditional--and by sambar and idli--not traditional.

-Paul W.

Paul, are you using idli mix or making it from scratch? I made it a few times from a mix but didn't find it any better than the various local southern indian restaurants, though not everyone is lucky enough to have those. It is really nice to have idli and vada with a thali plate and all those sauces. How was your sambar?

I'm using idli mix. New Hampshire just doesn't have the climate to properly ferment the rice and dal. The idli mix is a snap to use: stir up the mix (it settles), fill the idli tree, steam in a large pot of boiling water for 12 minutes or so. The idlis come out perfect.

I've given up trying to make dosas. They sell dosa mix and I've tried it a few times, without much success. Either the batter sticks to the griddle or the dosas come out too thick. I suspect that there's some temperature control problem going on. But I'm not really motivated to do more experiments.

The sambar was delicious. The only fault is that the dal weren't as soft as I would have liked. The toor dal I used was old and dried out. I should have either soaked them before starting or extended the cooking time.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I have veal scallopini thawing. Will probably do schnitzels, but of course it has to end up bite sized so I can feed Bob. I have a bunch of "kale rabe", as the Coop called it. Looks like bolting shoots from a mature kale plant that survived the winter. Either way, will be interesting with the schnitzel.

Yesterday, the WiFi was out in No Cal, so I am late getting to this. I brined four thick bone-in loin pork chops, and because of time, I did not brown them first. I put them into a pan and put them into the oven. They were a disgusting grey color, but the flavor was great, and the chops were nice and juicy. I made a cauliflower mash using roasted garlic, butter, low-fat sour cream, and chives. I made a sheet pan full of large Brussels sprouts, carrots, red bell pepper, and a new seasoning using sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, lemon zest, salt, and pepper. I also cooked a pot of Royal Corona Beans, in chicken stock, and threw in a few tomatoes that needed using Mexican Oregano, and pineapple vinegar at the end. In all, it was a nice dinner, and will have it for the rest of the week.
I have not had much experience with brining, never saw a use for it, but I wanted to try the recipe I used. I like to marinate meats, and will not pursue any more pork chops to brine. I should get back to using our outdoor gas grill that is built on the side of the patio. There are lights and a large vent and a fan I can turn on during hot evenings. Gene did all that and I loved that way of cooking.