What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Another lover of sauteéd beef and peppers. I also love a good summer tomato and beef stir-fry.

I use Joyce Chen's recipe for stir-fried beef with peppers. It's the second dish I ever learned to cook.

-Paul W.

Paul, I have your recipe for Stir-Fried beef with Peppers. It is very good, and I always use flank steak.. I can never find the Shaoxing wine so use regular sherry.

Made eggs benedict with ham and asparagus and homemade hollandaise. Yum.

[Jenise]

Harley the biker Pug won last night so dinner was not prepared after all. Cowboy steak and wasabi mashed moves to tonight instead.

[Jenise]

Baby bok boy and sesame noodles with Chinese roast duck tonight.

I am seeing bok choy in our market that looks like bok choy, has the white thick stems with dark greens, however the whole thing is about the size of a large broccoli head. Have never seen or grown anything like that before. My baby bok choy was always a single plant, and about 3 inches tall. I bought one, and used it in a stir-fry and again in a soup I made for lunch. Very tasty.

[Jenise]

Most American markets now carry "baby bok choy"--light to medium green upper leaves that fades to a lighter green at the base, each 4-6" tall. They grill well and make good garnishes but the leafy end doesn't stand up in a stir-fry.

Most American markets also carry large bok choy, dark green upper leaves and white stems, and a head will usually be around a foot tall. They have tremendous flavor and I stir fry them alone as a side dish for Asian meats and for fried rice which adds great flavor while reducing the carb load. Maybe you're talking about these kind?

What no American market in my experience carries are the tiny versions of the latter color scheme--I can only get those at Asian markets. Usually 2-4" tall, and they're my favorite--they are true babies. I split a few in two the other day to finish in a bowl of pho, cut side up, they're tasty and the rich colors really add to a dish. Last night I cut the leaves off the stems (best way to clean them anyway, they can be quite silty) and stir fried them with Chinese dry noodles. Sesame oil and soy sauce were all that was needed for seasoning. They looked like this, but with noodles, too: https://www.sunset.com/recipe/bok-choy- ... m-stir-fry.

Sounds like you're talking

Paul, I have your recipe for Stir-Fried beef with Peppers. It is very good, and I always use flank steak.. I can never find the Shaoxing wine so use regular sherry.

Dry sherry works just fine. Shaoxing is readily available at all the Asian markets around here, but in order to get around liquor laws it's adulterated with 5% salt solution. Boston's Chinatown probably has Chinese liquor stores where potable Shaoxing is available, but I never went looking for it. I did once find a Chinese grocery that sold something labeled "Shaoxing Cooking Wine" that caught my eye because it was 3X more expensive than any other brand. Looking carefully at the label, I noticed that it didn't have the usual "5% salt solution added", and that it bore the usual Surgeon General's alcoholic beverage warning. I bought it, and as I suspected it turned out to be "real" Shaoxing intended for drinking. It's very nice and almost a dead ringer for a Manzanilla Sherry. For cooking, I'll stick with the usual salt-added stuff, just as I wouldn't use a Nuits-St,-Geirges for beef bourguignon.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

My friend's Chinese mother always uses a cheap Scotch. Flavor's good and it holds up without decay in Hawaiian un-airconditioned heat. But hey, last week I bought a bottle of Shaoxing at the Asian market in Seattle. I'll bet it's the 5% salt stuff--I didn't look at it carefully and I'll sheepishly admit I didn't even know that I should. But, d'oh, I didn't need to be over 21 to buy it, so....

[Jenise]

So yeah, I checked. No mention of salt on the front label but "cooking wine" and 6% sodium reported on the back label. So def not the good stuff.

Thank you Paul. I've looked in every Asian grocery I go into for unsalted Shaoxing wine and not finding any think it must be a lousy store not carrying that item. I do substitute dry sherry but always feel that I must be missing something. I've even avoided recipes not wanting to substitute but I now know better on both accounts.

Jenise, do you make your own Chinese roast duck?

Our local supermarket carries both full-sized and baby bok choy. They also carry a variety of baby Chinese cabbage that looks like baby bok choy but has green stems. This is labeled "Shanghai tips".

-Paul W.

Yes, like Paul, my HMart carries bok choy, baby bok choy, baby bok choy tips, shanghai, baby shanghai, shanghai tips.
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_to ... y-bok-choy
In full size, I think the "bok choy" has more % stem than the slightly thinner Shanghai (which can be good if you need to cook longer)
The baby and the tips (which are smaller, more delicate baby) are constructed pretty similarly.

[Jenise]

Wow, learned something. Thanks, Dale. The word 'Shanghai' is not used to differentiate between the two types of bok choy we're discussing in any of the Asian markets I've ever shopped at. Certainly not at Uwajamaya, whose two stores in Seattle are H Mart sized, nor any that I used to shop at in So Cal (pre H Mart's invention). I'll check for that next time I'm in an H Mart.

[Jenise]

Having Canadian friends over tonight. Was debating doing a duck risotto or reverting to what I call Gramma Food. The duck because I have a pot of stock in the fridge right now, and the other because I've been so hungry for pork chops with mashed potatoes and a milky pan gravy. The latter would retain all the essences of my grandmother's preparation but would have elevating flourishes suitable for what some people call 'company food' though, to be honest, I think anything I make for us on a daily basis is good enough for company food.

But my duck source didn't work out so it's pork chops for the win. Emphasis will be on onions. Chops heavily dusted in onion powder (that's the Gramma way, my grandmother only had two seasonings besides salt and pepper, and they were garlic and onion salts), but the rest will take it many steps further: onion petals for garnish, chives or melted leeks in the potatoes, onion tart for a bread item with the salad, and so forth.

Tonight I made Agnello Arrosto con Finocchi -- roasted lamb with fennel. 2.5# of lamb shoulder, cut up and heavily seasoned with garlic/fennel seed/s+p; 3 heads of fennel, cut and parboiled; I added some carrots and oyster mushrooms; then all roasted at 450* for an hour. Very lamby and delicious.

[Jenise]

Jeff, that sounds delicious. Jealous of you being able to get whole lamb shoulder--it's nonexistent here.

I'll be making Thai green curry tonight.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I'm committed to steak for tonight though in fact I don't really want it; saw giant choice porterhouses at a local market yesterday for $9.98/lb and couldn't resist. Maybe I'll just freeze it and do potstickers, which sound much better (and lighter).

Jeff, from what you posted, I am assuming a lamb soulder does not need the longer cook time like a pork shoulder or lamb shanks? I have never cooked one of those before.

I traded 1 dozen very large Lisbon Lemons, for 1 dozen organic brown eggs, biggest eggs I have ever seen. The egg carton top would not close. So this morning, I scrambled two eggs, added buttermilk, sauteéd tomato, green onion, Le Gruyére Cheese, a dash of Tabasco, and Mexican Oregano, s & p. Topped off with garden chives. Delicious! A fresh pineapple spear, and a few raspberries on the side and I am set until dinner.

[Jenise]

Jeff, from what you posted, I am assuming a lamb soulder does not need the longer cook time like a pork shoulder or lamb shanks? I have never cooked one of those before.

Not Jeff, but that would be a no. Like us up here, you probably have two options when buying lamb chops down there: the little porterhouse style cut or the "steak" cut, which is essentially in the lamb what the old fashioned chuck blade steak or 7-bone roast is in beef. That steak cut comes from the shoulder. When I was a kid our markets in Whittier (outside of L.A.) sold whole shoulders. I've not seen them on the west coast since--just sliced into those 7-bone steaks. It is, btw, my very favorite cut of lamb for marinating and grilling. More bone, more gristle to deal with, but the best flavor. And never gamey.

Jeff, from what you posted, I am assuming a lamb soulder does not need the longer cook time like a pork shoulder or lamb shanks? I have never cooked one of those before.

Not Jeff, but that would be a no. Like us up here, you probably have two options when buying lamb chops down there: the little porterhouse style cut or the "steak" cut, which is essentially in the lamb what the old fashioned chuck blade steak or 7-bone roast is in beef. That steak cut comes from the shoulder. When I was a kid our markets in Whittier (outside of L.A.) sold whole shoulders. I've not seen them on the west coast since--just sliced into those 7-bone steaks. It is, btw, my very favorite cut of lamb for marinating and grilling. More bone, more gristle to deal with, but the best flavor. And never gamey.

Yes. And, to be crystal clear: I did not get a boneless shoulder, though I will ask for it next time. I got five of the 'steak cut' chops cut up on the band saw in the back of the store. It is a very tender and tasty cut; a great shame that it has silver-skin and bones running through it.

I see three styles of lamb chops down here:
-- rib chops (which come in regular and 'baby', in racks or cut up, with the riblet or not, Frenched or not, with the fat cap or not),
-- loin chops (the porterhouse-looking ones), and
-- shoulder chops (the steak-looking ones).

I much prefer ribs to the other two.