What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Tonight virtually a repeat of Pumpkin's birthday dinner: blood sausage and herbed goat cheese en croute, the parcel accompanied by sauteed maitake -- this time with baby bok choy -- and condimented with mustard and cranberry dressing.

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Speaking of baby bok choy, I bought these at my local asian bodega and they had three kinds!: a very small specimen with very small, crinkly, dark leaves (as dark as kale), a slightly larger specimen called "Shanghai" with smooth medium-green leaves, and an unnamed specimen larger than the others with straight narrow stalks. I didn't know there were three kinds.

[Jenise]

Jeff, I believe your first kind are the secondary crop of standard large white/green bok choy that has bolted. The variation, complete with blossoms would be indicative of that (I think). But yes, many kinds of choy. I sure miss being able to shop in the asian stores on the other side of the border for such things.

Last night we had tacos. It was a splendid dinner that came together like an episode of chopped. I had a small block of already pressure-cooked pork belly, ten shrimp left from a 3 lb bag, a sliver of nappa cabbage leftover from a salad days ago, some small street-taco sized corn tortillas purchased about 3 weeks ago, a partial onion, some cilantro from Thursday's posole, and some kumquats purchased for no reason at all except "how cool". I sliced and seared the belly, then in the same pan seared the shrimp which I'd lightly tossed with salt, tequila and red chile flakes with sliced kumquats. The shrimp, kumquats and cilantro formed one set of tacos, and the pork belly lime-juice dressed nappa cabbage, onions marinated in the oil in a jar of chiles plus some of those chiles made up the others. Absolutely fantastic.

Tonight: a new recipe, a Spanish one for pork braised with sliced onions, cinnamon, cloves and other spices. Probably over rice.

Thanks, Jenise.

I have been on-and-off admiring kumquats in my local shops. I like them (heavily) candied. I think you can make an interesting orangeade with a blender, water, and (lots of) sugar. Not sure what else to do with them, other than arrange slivers on top of other things for the heck of it.

Happy new year everyone.
I had a package of “sourdough” mix proving and Martha Stewart on the telly making soft pretzels. Which of course led to me turning part of the dough into bagels.
So a small loaf and two Parmesan onion bagels are on the cooling rack, looking goood.

I have been on-and-off admiring kumquats in my local shops. I like them (heavily) candied. I think you can make an interesting orangeade with a blender, water, and (lots of) sugar. Not sure what else to do with them, other than arrange slivers on top of other things for the heck of it.

I agree that candied kumquats are delicious. The resulting syrup is also a great ingredient for many things (including cocktails). But in their plain state kumquats are a fruit that can be eaten like any other! I think the problem is finding good ones with enough depth of flavor (and not just a sharp tang). When I lived in California they were a core part of my winter fruit rotation. But since moving back to the East Coast, I have not seen any worth eating plain.

Lettuce and the Brassicas are biennials. The first year the plant produces the squat, compact, almost stemless head of leaves we think of as lettuce or cabbage. It dies back to the roots over the winter and in the second year produces a tall stem with widely-spaced leaves. There are flowers at the top of the stem. Having produced its seeds, the plant then dies. If the climate isn't warm enough at the start of the first year growing season, the plant will switch to the second year growth pattern. This is called bolting. We found out the hard way that New England is too cold to grow iceberg lettuce. It bolted on us. The leaves were fine to eat, but you don't have the lettuce head. The Brassicas are sort of the pinot noir of the vegetable world in that they are genetically unstable and prone to lots of strange mutations. Hence Brussels sprouts, where you have the second year stem, but instead of individual leaves you have miniature complete first-year cabbage heads.

We get two types of miniature bok choy in the markets around here. One is labeled baby bok choy and has white stems and dark green leaves. It looks just like a miniature of conventional bok choy. The other is labeled Shanghai tips. It's shaped like a miniature bok choy but has green stems and paler leaves. We also get Chinese flat cabbage, which looks like a regular cabbage that has been sat on by an elephant. It has pale, tightly packed leaves.

-Paul W.

I scored two 1-lb pkgs of Wagyu ground beef today for $1.29 each. Thinking about recipes in which to use.

I scored two 1-lb pkgs of Wagyu ground beef today for $1.29 each. Thinking about recipes in which to use.

Would seem to defeat the purpose: Wagyu is unusually tender but ground beef has no structure.

I scored two 1-lb pkgs of Wagyu ground beef today for $1.29 each. Thinking about recipes in which to use.

Would seem to defeat the purpose: Wagyu is unusually tender but ground beef has no structure.

Maybe so, but it's still cheaper than any kind of ground beef. And some restaurants sell expensive Wagyu or Kobe hamburgers, which I've never tasted, but I may now at Chez Greenly.

[Jenise]

More flavorful fat, that's the Wagyu advantage.

Last night we went Hawaiian vacation food: black cod that had marinated for 24 hours in yellow miso and fresh lime and clementine juices. I pan seared them (miso creates such GREAT color), and served them on pan-crisped noodle pillows, with finger lime beads on top and small bok choy and snow peas on the side. Excellent. No wine last night.

I'm making some Creole sauce tonight to go with the leftover jambalaya. Also some ratatouille.

By the way, this topic doesn't seem tp be pinned anymore??

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Nope, still pinned up!

Last night we had a cold cheese and vegetable platter followed by pork schnitzels with broccolini. I'm trying REAL hard to empty my freezer of things that have been around a long time, so a small boneless pork loin got divided in two: last night's schnitzels and the divine loin strips braised in onions and apple cider from earlier in the week.

I'd say half my freezer is taken up with the ice cream maker bowl and various forms of ice (cubes, cold-paks, etc.). Food doesn't get very old in there because there just isn't room for it!

[Jenise]

Jeff, you should live next door--we could take care of each other. I haven't had the big cocktail sized ice cubes I love to make since Covid started because there's never room, not even for the little four-block size. As soon as there's space I fill it with meat or seafood. I don't even have the room I'd like to have to freeze leftover sauces. And I don't buy any prepared food--I just shop at Costco.

I'm wavering about what to have tonight. I'm full from lunch which was OFS--a small jar of ground artichoke hearts, a tomato, a wee bit of garlicky French cream cheese, two slices of sourdough bread, 3 eggs and half a cup of half&half extended with water became one of the best stratas I've ever had. No recipe, just using some leftover stuff I had around that called to me.

Dinner will either be a chicken and bok choy stir-fry on plain rice, or an orzotto with all the flavors of buffalo chicken wings which I saw Sara Moulton make on Ming Tsai's show. I can't make up my mind if that's elevated snack food or ridiculous mommy cooking--but the flavors got in my brain and I happen to have the ingredients needed (with a Cholula/Tabasco combo standing in for real Buffalo sauce) so it's being considered.

Had our first Wagyu burgers tonight. Incredibly tender. Yum.

[Jenise]

We also get Chinese flat cabbage, which looks like a regular cabbage that has been sat on by an elephant. It has pale, tightly packed leaves.

-Paul W.

For all the time I spent in Asian stores in So Cal, never saw those until I moved up here. Do they actually press them into those shapes? Looks like it, but I don't know.

[Jenise]

Last night I ended up going Chinese. You might call the dish Chicken Kung Pao Suey, or Wokness for short, in that the combo of ingredients bore no resemblance to any classic combination you'd get in a Chinese restaurant. Chicken, Bok Choy, bean sprouts, pea shoots, green onions and peanuts got stir-fried in a spicy garlic sauce on matcha rice.

Chinese flat cabbage just grows that way. It's the same Brassica species as bok choy and not the same species as conventional green cabbage.

-Paul W.

Tonight: wagyu bavette, baked potato, and a saute of bok choy with maitake.

And I made a tray of vegetable gratin, in the style of Robin's much-beloved fennel gratin (from 2013!). And, it dawns on me that, after parboiling 5# of butternut squash and a huge head of fennel, that the parboil water is now vegetable stock. I have bottled it up and will use for rice or something. An unexpected prize!

[Jenise]

That's a lot of butternut!

Tonight, in my quest to work down the freezer, I'm roasting a turkey leg-thigh combo. Yesterday I cut slits in the skin and slathered it all over with the spice rub from a new recipe for Iraqi Roast Chicken. The rub is pretty hot since I mistakenly reached for the Habanero olive oil not the plain one, and so this morning I poured a can of blackberry cider over it by way of a quick brine. I'll roast it later with cut lengths of celery and serve over kala jeera and kaffir lime rice. A red bell pepper salad will start.

The rub is pretty hot since I mistakenly reached for the Habanero olive oil not the plain one, and so this morning I poured a can of blackberry cider over it by way of a quick brine. I'll roast it later with cut lengths of celery and serve over kala jeera and kaffir lime rice. A red bell pepper salad will start.

Gosh, what problems you have!

[Jenise]

Just one crisis after another....

[Jenise]

Last night I prepared slow-roasted salmon topped with fioretto cauliflower and a light dill sauce which followed a baby kale salad with a bright garlic-lemon dressing. An 09 1er cru Burgundy with that.

Today for lunch we'll have stuffed avocado salad--langoustines tossed with cherry tomatoes for the stuffing. And tonight: chicken cordon bleu! Something I like but oddly have never made. Mine will use muenster cheese instead of the classic swiss and either rosemary or thyme will be in there too.

I'll be making Fucshia Dunlop's recipe for Ants Climbing A Tree this weekend.

-Paul W.