What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Lol, Jeff, on the 'hemlock' comment.

I'll be a-gulping that before you see me in the same room as stuffed cabbage.

A black manhattan mixes a very dark amaro in place of the vermouth element, add rye or bourbon.

Hm.

To Paul: I like the sound of that. I guess the rice flour makes for a crispy/crunchy bite on the wing?

Indeed, the rice flour gives you extra crunchy wings. Garlic dominates the flavor (only to be expected with a whole head of garlic in the marinade). The Thais serve this with a sweet and rather hot chile dipping sauce.

-Paul W.

Another bowl of cold sesame noodles. This time I upped the amount of grated fresh ginger and I swapped out half the red pepper flakes for szechuan peppercorns. Better. I think a swirl of harissa will be good next time.

That sounds very close to the classic Sichuan strange-flavor seasonings. There are a lot of Sichuanese cold (room temperature) noodle dishes, dan-dan mian being the most famous. Sesame--seeds, toasted oil, and paste--is a frequent flavor component. I especially like these dishes on summer days when it's too hot to do cooking.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Last night I seared some Argentinian red shrimp to serve over truffle-marinated white asparagus, only to find the shrimp fishy and therefore inedible. These were a frozen product from Trader Joe's. Never again. Oddly, Bob didn't taste what I did and ate his--interesting difference in our sensitivities.

Tonight I'm cooking for the Picky People, and doing a dish I suddenly remembered from long long ago wherein blue cheese and cream are added to a brown pan sauce to pour over pan-fried filet mignons. I happen to have two large 3" thick prime grade steaks to devote to the cause. Also going to try them out on a cocktail called a Paper Plane: 1/4 ea lemon juice, orange liqueur, amaro, and bourbon, using the orange-y Washington state amaro that swept the Italian challengers in our recent amaro tasting.

[Jenise]

I especially like these dishes on summer days when it's too hot to do cooking. -Paul W.

Speaking of Chinese food on hot days, do you ever make drunken chicken? I absolutely love that dish--it's another I'd always planned to get around to, but haven't.

...find the shrimp fishy and therefore inedible. These were a frozen product from Trader Joe's. Never again. Oddly, Bob didn't taste what I did and ate his...

Those can be dangerous differences! It sounds like everything was ok, and Bob didn't get sick. But whenever I have any doubt with shellfish, I throw it away. Which can be an issue in the summer.

That sounds very close to the classic Sichuan strange-flavor seasonings.

Hm, thanks for the reference.

There are a lot of Sichuanese cold (room temperature) noodle dishes, dan-dan mian being the most famous. Sesame--seeds, toasted oil, and paste--is a frequent flavor component. I especially like these dishes on summer days when it's too hot to do cooking.

Sounds like a good idea to me, too.

Speaking of Chinese food on hot days, do you ever make drunken chicken? I absolutely love that dish--it's another I'd always planned to get around to, but haven't.

No, never made that one. At least not the Shanghai version. There are several Sichuan cold chicken dishes that start out by marinating and then steaming the chicken. I usually do a shortcut and use one of those supermarket rotisserie birds as the source for the chicken meat.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

From having it in Chinese restaurants, would presume the chicken is marinated after cooking, but I could be wrong. I think I mentioned here once ordering it in a Vancouver restaurant and being told no they wouldn't let me order it, because white people don't like it. I was sure what he meant was that many non-Chinese order it not realizing it's a cold dish and were disappointed, but he didn't even bother to find out if I knew that or not. He just said no. I didn't bother to argue--but I didn't go back to that restaurant!

Speaking of Asian food, tonight I'm doing Chicken With Basil and Mint since I happen to have a lot of both on hand.

Jenise mentioned a savory scone earlier, which made me realize I hadn't made scones for a while. So breakfast today was scones (not savory), fried eggs, and bacon. Simple but tasty.

[Jenise]

Today I'm making a tomato and olive foccacia from a Milk Street recipe that intrigues me, wherein the batter is so wet you essentially pour it into the pan. I long long ago had a crust that I'm guessing would have been from such a recipe and I've been dying to find out how to replicate it.

Sounds good. A high-hydration foccacia should have a really good texture.

How do you like Milk Street?

Shangha-style drunken chicken is a surprisingly simple dish. Indeed, the chicken is marinated overnight after steaming. There's a lot of shaoxing wine in the marinade (that's the drunken part). Scallions, ginger, and ground black and white pepper are the seasonings during the steaming.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Sounds good. A high-hydration foccacia should have a really good texture.

How do you like Milk Street?

That foccacia was the best I've ever had anywhere!!!! Nicely bubbled moist crumb, outstanding crunchy texture after a 17 minute bake, and exceptional flavors from the two toppings plus oregano, fennel seed (not in the recipe, my addition), maldon salt and pepper. Why would I ever eat pizza slathered in cheese if I could have this? This is the foccacia of my dreams.

And to Paul re drunken chicken: definitely something I'll make sure I get around to this summer. Chinese food is awesome across the border but totally sucks here in Bellingham. The food we want we have to make ourselves.

Great! And fennel seeds go well with tomatoes.

I just discovered that fennel pollen is sold as a spice. A bit expensive but it sounds intriguing.

[Jenise]

I just discovered that fennel pollen is sold as a spice. A bit expensive but it sounds intriguing.

I had/used it once at a class I did at the Culinary Institute, and was so impressed I ordered some later. But what I had at the CIA was a fine golden powder, and what I ordered turned out to be tiny brown twigs. Never ended up using it. Obviously, there are vast qualitative differences. Beware!

When I first moved to Nashua, NH back in 1980, the area had the most ghastly collection of Chinese restaurants I'd ever seen. Not only were they all Chinese-Polynesian, they were bad Chinese-Polynesian. At one of the better ones (still in business), I was served a cold pu-pu platter. I never went there again. The worst was a place called Cathay Island that didn't just have bad food but was downright dangerous. A year or so after I arrived in NH they were shut down by the health department. The new tenant (an excellent Chinese restaurant called Ming Garden) had to strip the kitchen walls down to the cinder blocks and have them steam-cleaned. I used to go to the bar in one of the worst of the places because they had a sit-down Ms. Pac-Man machine. I was there one time drinking a mai-tai and playing Ms. Pac-Man when I felt hungry and ordered an egg roll. Big mistake. It gave me heartburn.

The Chinese restaurant scene around here has improved vastly and it's mainly Mandarin-Sichuan or hybrid Chinese-Japanese now.

-Paul W.

I just discovered that fennel pollen is sold as a spice. A bit expensive but it sounds intriguing.

I had/used it once at a class I did at the Culinart Institute, and was so impressed I ordered some later. But what I had at the CIA was a fine yellow powder, and what I got when I ordered some was tiny brown twigs. Never ended up using it. Obviously, there are vast qualitative differences. Beware!

How would you describe the flavor?

[Jenise]

The powder: excellent. We were using it in ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and potatoes. The twigs: nothing like fennel I've ever known.

[Robin Garr]

I just discovered that fennel pollen is sold as a spice. A bit expensive but it sounds intriguing.

I had/used it once at a class I did at the Culinart Institute, and was so impressed I ordered some later. But what I had at the CIA was a fine yellow powder, and what I got when I ordered some was tiny brown twigs. Never ended up using it. Obviously, there are vast qualitative differences. Beware!

How would you describe the flavor?

I have fennel pollen here and use it often in risottos. I got a sample from a local chef and liked it enough to order a larger tin from Amazon when his supply ran out. His was a little more subtle, the Amazon batch a little stronger, but it smells/tastes like ... fennel!

Interested to hear Larry's thoughts.

[Jenise]

Robin, was yours a powder?

I had a fennel pollen phase several years ago, been awhile, need to order more.
Jenise, it sounds like you got the actual pollen. Sometimes shipped that way to preserve freshness, you just need to run it in your spice grinder. Much better than way actually (equivalent of peppercorns vs ground pepper)

I think those tiny brown twigs were the anthers from the flower. As previously observed, like peppercorns vs. ground pepper.

-Paul W.