What's Cooking (Take Three!)

"The recipe calls for pork belly cut into small cubes. I've had pork belly in Thai restaurants before but this is the first time I've used it in my own Thai cooking."
Paul, I have chunk of pork cheeks frozen in the freezer, would that work as well as pork belly?

I think pork cheeks usually are best in a braise, rather than being rendered quickly.

Chilean Sea Bass is my favorite fish! Love it, and when I can find it, I buy it. It is on the endangered fish list, so is not readily available all the time, but since our local meat shop brought in a huge fresh fish dept, I can find it there most times . Putting it over a bed of asparagus and that dressing on top is a match made in heaven.

Thanks for the information about the pork cheeks, had no idea they might be tough. I saw Rachael Ray make a pasta dish, using it well browned along with lots of leeks, wine, and Romano Cheese. Sure looked good. I bought all the ingredients, even the square pasta she used, but used the leeks another way and never got back to it. She cut it up very small, I wonder if that made a difference.

[Jenise]

Karen, I love Kung Pao anything. It's one of the two benchmark dishes I'll order in a new Chinese restaurant just to have an understanding of their cooking style. Dry or wet, complex or simple, overly sweet or not, it's all there in that one dish. I wonder if this dish exists in China or if its another one made up by American Chinese restaurants--I bet Paul knows.

Speaking of Paul, last night I made that Tuscan chicken dish Paul mentioned. Had friends over. Started with a chopped salad (cucumbers, walnuts, radicchio, frisee, blue cheese) and finished with whiskey. Oh my aching head!

Kung Pao Shrimp tonight from a NY Times recipe. Good but seriously hot (I can't believe I'm saying that, but I do eat the chiles, too).

You're not supposed to eat the chiles in Kung Pao dishes, just as you're not supposed to eat the bay leaves in Western dishes. The chiles are there to impart flavor to the other ingredients. They also serve a decorative function in the final appearance of the dish. That being said, I'm enough of a fire-eater that I do usually eat one or two of the chiles (I don't eat bay leaves, though).

There's a Chongqing dish called la zi that involves a tremendous amount of dried chiles (handfuls), as well as ground chiles and Sichuan pepper in the meat marinade. Here is a picture of a finished dish of la zi ji (chicken). As the caption at the Mala Market for this image reads, "Would you like some chicken with your chiles?".

When I read Fuchsia Dunlop's cautionary notes about it in her recipe for Kung Pao, I found out I'd been making a beginner's mistake and overcooking the chiles. When they are first added to the hot oil, they are only supposed to be stir-fried until they have just released their essential oils. Then you add the meat, which cools down the mixture and protects the chiles from burning. The chiles are ready when they've changed color slightly and you can smell the aroma. This only takes seconds. If the chiles start to turn black, they're overdone and will impart a burned taste to the dish. I used to cook the chiles until black.

-Paul W.

I wonder if this dish exists in China or if its another one made up by American Chinese restaurants--I bet Paul knows.

Gong bao ji ding is an authentic Sichuan dish. For the authentic version, see the recipes in Fuchsia Dunlop's books or at the Mala Market. In America it's received a treatment similar to what has happened to Mexican chili. Just as the chili outside the Southwest has strayed pretty far away from the original, so the Kung Pao Chicken at most Chinese-American restaurants is usually modified, usually by being soupier, milder, or having more complicated ingredients. Not to say that these versions aren't tasty in their own right--many of them are.

You see the same sort of thing with sweet-and-sour. It's authentically Chinese. The basic theme is always the same--battered and deep-fried meat in a sauce with sweetness from sugar and sourness from tart fruit and/or vinegar. Each region of China has their own version. The overseas Chinese restaurant version, with it's lurid red shade (from food color), came originally from one of the Cantonese versions.

Like Jenise I tend to use Kong Pao as a gauge for a restaurant's general style of Chinese dishes.

-Paul W.

Kung Pao Shrimp tonight from a NY Times recipe. Good but seriously hot (I can't believe I'm saying that, but I do eat the chiles, too).

You're not supposed to eat the chiles in Kung Pao dishes, just as you're not supposed to eat the bay leaves in Western dishes. The chiles are there to impart flavor to the other ingredients. They also serve a decorative function in the final appearance of the dish. That being said, I'm enough of a fire-eater that I do usually eat one or two of the chiles (I don't eat bay leaves, though). -Paul W

Whew! I'm glad I don't eat the corn husk wrappers on tamales like the Three Stooges did in one movie. Eating a bay leaf, though, can kill you, but in general I like eating the kung pao chiles whether or not it's de rigueur. I had bought new chile de arbols just recently so maybe they were hotter than my older ones. But the recipe called for a 3/4 cup (23 g) of chile de arbols for four servings, which is a bit excessive IMO. There was also a small amount of Sichuan peppercorns. The recipe came from Genevieve Ko, a food editor at the NY Times.

Also similar to Jenise, I judge a new Chinese restaurant by their kung pao chicken. Luckily, I eat at two Abq restaurants with similar kung pao taste profiles if I feel like dining out.

The greatest ratio of peppers to chicken that I know is guizhou chicken. I have had it, prepared by someone 'fresh off the boat', come to the table as a mound of hot peppers -- literally, a haystack on a plate -- with pea-sized morsels of chicken strewn throughout.

I like it, but a wine friend is fanatic for it, and he says this sauce is the key differentiator between 'chiles with chicken' and guizhou chicken: http://carolynjphillips.blogspot.com/20 ... table.html

Thanks for the pointer to that recipe, Jeff. Thai (bird's eye) chiles are readily available in quantity around here, but fresh, not dried. Chiles de arbol would be my substitute. Or maybe the paste could be made from fresh Thai chiles rather than reconstituted dried ones?

-Paul W.

I'm fairly new to the world of dried chili peppers. So far, I do not like them. Last summer I missed my window to get Hatch Chilies, which I blister on the grill and then freeze for using in many dishes I like. So, I decided to by a bag of dried Hatch Chilies. There is nothing left of them but seeds and skin. I used them in a pot of beans I made last week, and all I got was dry skin floating around in my beans, which I pulled out. I have used dried Chipotle, Arbol, Ancho, Guajillo and others which called for being ground up in a sauce of some sort. Did not care much for the flavor of those either. So, I have a large supply of dried chili peppers, and need to do some research to find out what I am missing.

[Jenise]

Chilean Sea Bass is my favorite fish! Love it, and when I can find it, I buy it. It is on the endangered fish list, so is not readily available all the time, but since our local meat shop brought in a huge fresh fish dept, I can find it there most times . Putting it over a bed of asparagus and that dressing on top is a match made in heaven.

Thanks for the information about the pork cheeks, had no idea they might be tough. I saw Rachael Ray make a pasta dish, using it well browned along with lots of leeks, wine, and Romano Cheese. Sure looked good. I bought all the ingredients, even the square pasta she used, but used the leeks another way and never got back to it. She cut it up very small, I wonder if that made a difference.

Costco seems to have it on hand all the time these days so I wonder if it's endangered status hasn't been updated or changed.

Re pork cheeks, I've only had them cured like proscuitto and you're right, it's fairly chewy meat. Dicing or lardon-like strips would be a good idea.

I'm fairly new to the world of dried chili peppers. So far, I do not like them. Last summer I missed my window to get Hatch Chilies, which I blister on the grill and then freeze for using in many dishes I like. So, I decided to by a bag of dried Hatch Chilies. There is nothing left of them but seeds and skin. I used them in a pot of beans I made last week, and all I got was dry skin floating around in my beans, which I pulled out. I have used dried Chipotle, Arbol, Ancho, Guajillo and others which called for being ground up in a sauce of some sort. Did not care much for the flavor of those either. So, I have a large supply of dried chili peppers, and need to do some research to find out what I am missing.

Did you rehydrate them first?

[Jenise]

I like it, but a wine friend is fanatic for it, and he says this sauce is the key differentiator between 'chiles with chicken' and guizhou chicken: http://carolynjphillips.blogspot.com/20 ... table.html

I don't think I could sell that dish to Bob. But I loved the side bar photo of her and this caption: "Over 10 million views and counting... Me in Sichuan, July 2017: The caption on this website literally says, "American old lady creates beautiful Sichuan dishes and spent 10 years writing a Chinese cookbook." Shoot me now."

[Jenise]

Karen, I love dried chiles and always have chipotle, Guajillo, Ancho and small Chinese chiles, usally Tsin Tsin I think the name is. One or three small ones invariably end up in soups--even chicken stock--not to the point of making them hot but adding something to the symphony of background notes that the soup would seem plainer without (a pot of chicken for chicken and noodles will include chiles, peppercorns, bay leaves, ginger slices, garlic and a few whole green onions). The chipotles add a nice smokey flavor to a pot of beans, and guajillos and anchos are necessary for salsas.

I've never purchased dried green chiles--those sound awful.

My Chinese chiles are about two years old now so just this past week I re-ordered from Penzeys, and not seeing those I bought Arbols. Wonder if I'll notice a difference.

So, after a bit of research, Rick Bayless says the dried chiles should be pliable and not brittle. Mine are all brittle now, probably because I have had them for so long. The dried Hatch Chiles are the worse, very dry and nothing to them. He also said to buy from a place which has a high turnover of them. Perhaps I need to discard and start over with one smaller bag of Guajillo, which were the first ones I bought and seem to recall I had better success with those than any of the others.

[Jenise]

Good idea, Karen. Guajillos are milder and sweeter than most, with great color. Start there. You have a significant Mexican population in your town so finding fresher chiles should be easy.

I'm fairly new to the world of dried chili peppers. So far, I do not like them. Last summer I missed my window to get Hatch Chilies, which I blister on the grill and then freeze for using in many dishes I like. So, I decided to by a bag of dried Hatch Chilies. There is nothing left of them but seeds and skin. I used them in a pot of beans I made last week, and all I got was dry skin floating around in my beans, which I pulled out. I have used dried Chipotle, Arbol, Ancho, Guajillo and others which called for being ground up in a sauce of some sort. Did not care much for the flavor of those either. So, I have a large supply of dried chili peppers, and need to do some research to find out what I am missing.

Did you rehydrate them first?

Larry, yes I have done that.

[Jenise]

It's Monday so our meatless dinner is going to be a new pasta dish with a very different sort of cheese and tomato sauce. I'm excited, think it's going to be a winner and I'll definitely report back either way.

Jenise, your Chinese would be tien tsin. Those are the ones that I often use. I'm running out of them--time to order another batch from Penzeys. There are several varieties popular in Sichuan that the Mala Market sells. My local Indian grocery has about half a dozen Indian chile varieties, including Kashmiri chiles, which give a vivid red color to a dish. A lot of recipes for rogan josh and other Kashmiri dishes call for paprika to supply the color.

Yes, dried chiles should be slightly pliable and not brittle. For best results, store them in a resealable plastic pouch such as a Ziploc bag and force out as much air as possible. Over time dried chiles go stale and lose their color.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, I have powdered kashmiri chiles, and I adore that red color.

[Jenise]

Oh, and last night's pasta dish was INCREDIBLE. Been a long, long time since I've found a new recipe that was an instant star in my repertoire, but this is one. Will post separately.

[Jenise]

Last night we had Cowboy Steak. Dear god, it was good. Been too long since I last made one, perhaps a year. No reason why except, perhaps, a desire to eat less meat, beef in particular.

I am long on pomegranates since I can't resist the big boxes at Costco when in season and Karen's post about the vinegar reminded me of two Azerbaijani dishes using pom juice, molasses and fresh arils. In addition the soup has a small amount of split yellow pea or green or brown lentil, onion, garlic, turmeric, chile, cinnamon, vegetable stock, spinach leaves, mint, cilantro. Tart and sweet and complex, I like flavors like this.
The other dish is a braised lamb again using pom juice and molasses but seasoned with fennel, cinnamon, Turkish red pepper, turmeric, tomato paste finished off with cooked chestnuts and served with a plov of buttered rice with saffron, raisins, apricots and chestnuts. I'll do the soup tonight but save the lamb braise till Sunday

[Jenise]

I too love those flavors--in fact, I just placed an order for some Palo Cortado sherries which epitomize this kind of complex sweet-tart thing.

The other day a friend made rack of lamb that she swabbed in pomegranate molasses and black pepper. I'm guessing a few drops of vinegar went into that as well. I didn't get to taste it but I saw pictures--wow. I *SO* want that! The pomegranate molasses attracted lots of flame and while her meat was perfectly med rare the bones blackened and she got a great bark on a short cooking time. The results were magazine-ready.

I ran out of tasso last month. My usual source, North Country Smokehouse here in NH, no longer sells it by mail order. But you can order it for pickup if you're willing to drive out to Claremont, and that's just what I did yesterday. So tonight's dinner will be Cajun chicken and tasso jambalaya. Tasso freezes well, fortunately.

-Paul W.