What's Cooking (Take Four)

Paul, would be great. You remind me that I have a whole pkg of fresh snowpeas that I should plan on using very soon. The week will get away from me very quickly.

The Cantonese stir-fried beef with green peppers recipe is very versatile. In addition to snow peas it works well with asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower. Since I always have leftovers I don't make it with broccoli or cauliflower. Although they're fine right out of the wok, the brassicas tend to go stinky when reheated.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I combine all sorts of meats and vegetables, Paul. I don't make a specific named dish so much as I make 'wokness' based on mood and what's on hand. But not, like never, broccoli. Much as I like it in other types of foods, somehow broccoli with ginger and soy sauce tastes bitter to me. And god forbid someone (like a restaurant) just throws it in the wok without blanching it first so it's yellow and hard when supposedly 'done'. Don't like that one bit.

It has been my experience that if broccoli is yellow, it is past its prime. I always toss it out. I buy lots of veggies, and sometimes one gets buried in the bins of the fridge, and I forget about it. The other day, I bought a nice head of cabbage because it was small, not like the giant heads that are appearing in the grocery stores now. I came home and was putting everything away, only to find out I had a new head of cabbage already in the fridge. There will be a lot of cabbage dishes in my lunches and dinners for a couple of weeks. I miss cooking for Gene; he was always up for new things to try, and was my taste tester. He did not mind eating leftovers either, something that many folks dislike.

And god forbid someone (like a restaurant) just throws it in the wok without blanching it first so it's yellow and hard when supposedly 'done'. Don't like that one bit.

You'll notice that the beef-with-green-peppers recipe calls for a preliminary stir-fry of just the veggies--about a minute or so, until they just start to change color. Then you remove them from the wok, stir-fry the beef, and then add the veggies back. The preliminary stir-fry of the veggies is to, as the Chinese say, "break the rawness".

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I understand that, Paul, but it doesn't work well with broccoli which both looks and tastes better if blanched (or Chinese steamed in a wok with a little broth which cooks away). Anymore, few restaurants take that important step. They seem to load up on broccoli for both color and as in inexpensive space-taker.

[Jenise]

In answer to the title question: 35lbs of braised flatiron steak, 90 crepes, 8 lbs of mushrooms, 7 lbs of zucchini, 3 lbs of chestnuts....

Yowza! That's a lot of cooking.

I'll be spending this afternoon folding wontons.

-Paul W.

Only 3# of chestnuts? How will anybody find them?

That reminds me, I've only roasted chestnuts twice this season. I should go get another batch. They make some smoke but I really like them.

[Jenise]

They're going to be a garnish. And I cheated, didn't roast them myself. It's a middle eastern product I found at Costco. Six envelopes containing around 20 chestnuts for $7 at Costco. I've tossed them with black truffle salt.

I've had those packaged roasted chestnuts, although I used them to mix in with mashed potatoes. I thought they worked really well, although I've never roasted my own so I have no good comparison.

I scored three gallons of peanut oil today for $30. That should last me a while.

And we got invited for a Xmas buffet at the Sheraton (same place we ate on Thanksgiving). Yay!

I brought 78 (one package of wonton skins' worth) deep-fried pork wontons to the New Hampshire Astronomical Society's annual December pot luck get-together. That used up about 1/2 the filling I'd made from a pound of ground pork. I'll spend Sunday afternoon with another wonton folding session. These will be destined for soup and boiling and so will be the leaf wonton fold as opposed to the flower fold. I'll be dividing them into packages and freezing them. Wontons are great to have around for a quick,convenient soup or meal.

-Paul W.

A very old family recipe, baby back pork ribs drenched in low-sodium soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic powder, mignonette pepper, and Real Salt. baked in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. Tomato Paella, made with Bomba Rice, white wine, evoo, onion, garlic, tomato paste, saffron, Spanish pimenton, salt and pepper, topped with one red and one yellow heirloom tomato, sliced into thick slices, sliced parsley and basil for garnish. A salad dressing made from 1 small lemon, diced very fine, fresh lemon juice, honey, garlic, salt, pepper, fresh thyme leaves, and evoo. This will go over coleslaw made with green cabbage and shredded carrots.
The Paella is cooked on the stove, then finished in the oven so the tomatoes can roast and get a slight char.

Made a few fun things over the past week. My favorite part of Thanksgiving was the key lime pie with an insane amount of key limes, squeezed by my own hands/arms for over an hour. Deliciously tart. As I said to my family, no commercial operation would ever use this much key lime juice because it would ruin their profit margin! Thankfully not an issue at home...

Also tried my first batch of membrillo. Quinces were so wonderfully fragrant and the membrillo was of course delicious. But it didn't set as firm as the commercial versions. Perhaps I need to cook even longer, use less water, will see on the next try.

Rahsaan, years ago, I purchased a Breville juicer. Great appliance, and I have been using it for years for my Lisbon lemons and, this year, for Bearr's limes. I do enough of each to fill 4 ice cube trays, of different sizes, plus clean up in 45 to 60 minutes. I love it, and it is so easy to use and clean.

https://www.breville.com/en-us/product/ ... P600SILUSC

Rahsaan, years ago, I purchased a Breville juicer. Great appliance, and I have been using it for years for my Lisbon lemons and, this year, for Bearr's limes. I do enough of each to fill 4 ice cube trays, of different sizes, plus clean up in 45 to 60 minutes. I love it, and it is so easy to use and clean.

https://www.breville.com/en-us/product/ ... P600SILUSC

It does look like a nice appliance. Although key limes are so small, do you think it would get out all the juice? I have a juicer tool that effectively performs the same motion, but it was less effective so I went with a more precise tool that requires me to apply pressure to the limes myself..

Although brand-wise, we have a Breville electric kettle that gets heavy use and works very well...

I've decided that after folding the rest of the wontons this afternoon I'm going to celebrate by making Sichuan suanla chaoshou. This was the signature dish at Mary Chung's restaurant (alas, now closed) in Cambridge, MA, near the MIT campus and long the haunt of the school's computer geeks. Chaoshou ("folded arms") is the Sichuanese dialect term for wonton. Suanla chaoshou is boiled wontons in a hot-and-sour sauce. At Mary Chung's it was served over a bed of mung bean sprouts. I plan to do that tonight.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Chaoshou ("folded arms") is the Sichuanese dialect term for wonton. Suanla chaoshou is boiled wontons in a hot-and-sour sauce. At Mary Chung's it was served over a bed of mung bean sprouts. I plan to do that tonight.

-Paul W.

Double down, I'm coming for dinner!

Rahsaan, years ago, I purchased a Breville juicer. Great appliance, and I have been using it for years for my Lisbon lemons and, this year, for Bearr's limes. I do enough of each to fill 4 ice cube trays, of different sizes, plus clean up in 45 to 60 minutes. I love it, and it is so easy to use and clean.

https://www.breville.com/en-us/product/ ... P600SILUSC

It does look like a nice appliance. Although key limes are so small, do you think it would get out all the juice? I have a juicer tool that effectively performs the same motion, but it was less effective so I went with a more precise tool that requires me to apply pressure to the limes myself..

Although brand-wise, we have a Breville electric kettle that gets heavy use and works very well...

If there is any juice in the fruit, I am sure it will get the juice out, the top starts out pointed and gets larger near the bottom. I had some small lime halves and it juiced just fine

Home all day working on holiday cards, so we decided to make Molly Stevens's Seven Hour Leg of Lamb, aka gigot à la cuillère. We bought a 3 lb. bone-in leg of lamb frozen that day, and the cooking time was a bit abbreviated to six hours, but it turned out extremely well. Lamb can sometimes veer into the gamy territory, and this recipe showed all of the savory character of lamb but never did that. As promised, the carrots and turnips kept their shape and it was lovely to have a complete meal at the end.

I adore leg of lamb and used to make it often. Thanks for the reminder. Your dinner sounds great.
Just for fun, here is a lamb shank recipe that I have made many times, and it is very good.
When I first made this recipe for guests, I noticed that at the end of cooking, it was not a very pretty piece of meat. I was thinking I should take the meat off the bone before serving it to guests, who may be surprised by the looks of the meat and bone. I took a chance and plated it the best I could and served it to each individual as I plated. One of my male guests could not wait and took a few bites of the lamb, and before I sat down, he said, "Karen, this is the best lamb I have ever had." I was stunned as I had not revealed yet what I had cooked and planned on telling everyone when I sat down. I was relieved to know it was a winner.
https://whatscookingamerica.net/karenca ... s_wine.htm

It turns out that a while ago I posted recipes both for wontons in general (including photos of the folding process) and for suanla chaoshou (both Mary Chung's-style and Fuchsia Dunlop's recipe):

wontons

suanla chaoshou

-Paul W.

Also tried my first batch of membrillo. Quinces were so wonderfully fragrant and the membrillo was of course delicious. But it didn't set as firm as the commercial versions. Perhaps I need to cook even longer, use less water, will see on the next try.

Many years ago I made an apple and quince pie. The recipe called for halving three quinces and boiling them in a bottle of Sauternes until they turn pink. The fruit goes into the pie, and the sauternes jells into membrillo.

So, never mind this 'water' of which you speak!

Many years ago I made an apple and quince pie. The recipe called for halving three quinces and boiling them in a bottle of Sauternes until they turn pink. The fruit goes into the pie, and the sauternes jells into membrillo.

So, never mind this 'water' of which you speak!

Ha! That is an alternate approach...