What's Cooking (Take Four)

Tonight was the last of the Thanksgiving turkey. Whipped up a batch of mashed potatoes and pan-seared some brussel sprouts to go with. (There's still gravy but now there's still mashed potatoes!)

Last night I made one of my favorite winter dishes: carrot, sweet potato, and red lentil soup. Simplicity itself: chop a sweet onion, saute it until soft, add chopped carrots, sweet potato, and red lentils (aka masoor dal) with Moroccan seasonings (ras el hanout and harissa), add 8 cups of chicken stock, bring to a boil, simmer until the veggies are soft, then puree with an immersion blender. Served with a big dollop of Greek yogurt and sprinkled with nigella seeds (aka kalonji).

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Tonight I am hopefully feeding my BIL a birthday dinner. (He has a bad cold, though, and may not recover enough). If he bails we'll still have another couple to feed. In anticipation I've made a smoked trout and leek mixture to serve on baguette crisps to go with champagne and a cream of french onion and espresso soup. Salad will figure into it somehow and there will be a duck main course (deconstructed cassoulet if John's here, magrets with an orange gastrique if he's not) then a cheese tray for dessert. I can't make up my mind--lack of sleep.

Dirty Rice is the famous Louisiana rice-and-offal dish that gained notoriety in the US via the Popeyes fast food chain (alas, Popeyes discontinued it ). I found a recipe called Creole Chicken and Mushroom Dirty Rice. This calls for chicken pieces, rubbed in Creole seasoning, browned, then the cooking finished by placing the chicken on top of Creole Mushroom Dirty Rice as it cooks. The Mushroom Dirty Rice is cooked with chopped Cajun Trinity (onion, green bell pepper, celery), tomatoes, and three cups of mushrooms, including reconstituted dried porcini, and seasoned with Creole seasoning. The rice is cooked in the porcini soaking water.

I made this last night, but just the Dirty Rice part. I didn't miss the chicken.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, much as I love some of the individual ingredients in your dish, would look askance at tomatoes in the rice. Would suggest to me a wet/soggy result, which I dislike where rice is concerned.

I take it you're not a Spanish Rice fan, then.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Tomato sauce to flavor a broth is fine, but whole or chunks of tomatoes and thicker broths mean wetter rice, and yeah that's not high on my list.

Tonight: dinner for one: a bowl of ramen doctored up with a poached egg, butter, cheese, sesame seeds, and surimi. (Runny yolk ftw.)

Tonight is the New Hampshire Astronomical Society's annual Christmas pot luck supper. I am bringing fried wontons and Chinese plum sauce*. This afternoon I folded up one whole package of Shanghai-style wonton skins (about 70) and deep-fried them. The filling is Joyce Chen's recipe from her Joyce Chen Cook Book.

-Paul W.

*Plum sauce is the real, original condiment, as opposed to the spiced applesauce they serve at old-school-tie Chinese-American restaurants and call "duck sauce".

Tonight: dinner for one: a bowl of ramen doctored up with a poached egg, butter, cheese, sesame seeds, and surimi. (Runny yolk ftw.)

The legendary Choi Perfect Instant Ramen!

Paul, the Astronomical Society is lucky to have you! And nice timing for dinner with the meteors!

It's been a nonstop rain again, and I am craving chili—and yes, mine has lots of beans in it. However, today, I am entertaining a great-granddaughter for lunch. She is bringing her 15-month-old baby boy and the baby's father whom I have not met?? We decided on pizza and salad for lunch. They are getting theirs and my gourmet vegetarian version is to be delivered at noon. Should be an interesting time. Tomorrow I am making the chili that I have made for years and my family loved it. I am putting on a pot of beans to cook today to add to the canned kidney beans. Chili will be served with cheddar and jalapeno cornbread.

[Jenise]

Bob's son is with us for the weekend and interested in Asian food, something he rarely gets in Austin TX. So tonight I'm doing baked chicken leg-thighs with lemongrass and a spicy coconut milk-Lan Chi sauce. I'll add kaffir lime leaves to the rice for the match. Probably a cucumber larb-like salad to start.

The Asian-inspired dinner sounds delicious and he will love it. I love larb.

Jenise,

Have you managed to find a source for Lan Chi products? I got several jars of the chili paste with garlic (green label) before Lan Chi left the US market. Are Lan Chi products available in Canada?

-Paul W.

We ate pizza at Chuck E. Cheese for lunch today. It was a friend's son's second birthday. First time for us to experience the loud chaos. The 2-year-old was clueless about what was going on, including the myriad presents he received. But Edie enjoyed it and too many slices of cake.

[Jenise]

Larry, can't picture you at a Chuck E Cheese! Surprised there are any still around.

Paul, a friend brings them from Honolulu. It's the only place in these 50 states they're available. She goes often to visit family so my supply will never run out.

Tonight we're having salad (iceberg+avocado+parsley) and soup (French onion) with homemade hot rolls and butter on the side.

For a big wine event yesterday I made a large khachapuri. I used a mix of mozzerella, jack, feta, and farmer cheese because it was going to be nearly or totally impossible - even in NYC - to lay my hands on imeruli and sulguni.

As we spent all day decorating the tree, for dinner I threw together a meat loaf (meat mound, really, as no loaf pan was involved) and a normal-size khachapuri. I had enough ingredients to make two large so I'm going to make two regulars, just for us.

Jenise,

Have you managed to find a source for Lan Chi products? I got several jars of the chili paste with garlic (green label) before Lan Chi left the US market. Are Lan Chi products available in Canada?

-Paul W.

Lan chi products are available here in Redding CA, I just bought some paste and also checked the availability here...several stores carry it.

Friday's big wonton folding session used up a whole package of wonton skins but I still had a significant amount of filling left over. So yesterday was a second wonton fold-athon. Since these were destined for boiling, not deep-frying, I used the leaf fold rather than the flower fold. Now I have the opposite problem--I have 1/2 a package of wonton skins left over. I may slice them up into noodles.

-Paul W.

Breakfast this morning was a four tortilla, low carb, low fat, no bad anything, slightly larger than the pan, heated up a bit then added a mix of 3 eggs, low-fat cottage cheese, a bit of buttermilk, salt, white pepper, oregano, and fresh baby spinach, let it begin to set up on the stove, folded over and added Gruyere cheese on top then finished in the oven. It was a nice comforting breakfast on a rainy Monday morning, and I served it with a little homemade salsa over the top.

[Jenise]

Lan chi products are available here in Redding CA, I just bought some paste and also checked the availability here...several stores carry it.

Perhaps now, though that's news to me and why Redding?, but Lan Chi hasn't been available ANYWHERE EXCEPT HAWAII for years. It's departure from the American mainland set off a huge panic across the U.S. and if you google the name typically all you come up with is cries from bereft Lan Chi addicts trying to figure out where it went.

[Jenise]

Karen, are you sure it's Lan Chi? Like I said, it disappeared from all the usual places years ago. Some conversation from Reddit:

This has been my go-to for 25 years. It’s come and gone, and I’ll buy the lot when I can find it. It’s a Taiwanese product, and I fear that this time it’s really gone for good. Last time I saw it on a shelf was Dec 2019. I bought 12.

I’m down to my last jar. Ingredients: Chilli, Salt, soybean oil, garlic. (Yes, it says chilli)

It got harder and harder to find, and now the half-case I have will be the last I ever have. Lan Chi has been my mainstay since I first started cooking Chinese in 1979. RIP

I feel your pain, and yeah, it’s definitely been sporadic for years. No other chili paste compares. Can we hope it’s a pandemic shutdown and it will return? My last purchase was December 2019.

Heading tomy parent's house for the last Kung Pao chicken we may ever have. I am seriously upset about it.

Has anyone tried this as a substitute? https://themalamarket.com/products/red- ... oubanjiang

Yes, I have but no where near the same. Large flakes of chili skin in the mix. Garlic is not as prominent. The one thing I haven't tried is to blend it down - if possible - with a clove or two of fresh garlic. It might come closer with this modification.


And when I googled it just now, the only available source were private sellers on ebay, at $60-$600 per jar.

That Redditer is correct--the Pixian doubanjiang sold at The Mala Market is nothing like Lan Chi chili paste with garlic. As is pointed out, doubanjiang is made from fermented chiles and fava beans and contains the occasional large chunk of chile or bean. Many cooks run a cleaver through the doubanjiang to dice the chunks before using it. Pixian doubanjiang is a Sichuanese staple. But it's not one of the usual ingredients in kung pao dishes. Neither is Lan Chi. But Lan Chi chili paste with garlic makes a great convenience substitute for the pickled chiles and garlic called for in fish-fragrant dishes.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Not that it matters but that was not a single Redditer, each was a contribution by a different participant but all gathered to discuss the disappearance of a beloved product. Btw, Paul, I had an extra jar a few months ago and PMd you here to see if you wanted it, you never responded.

And no, not a usual ingredient in Kung Pao. But the concept is elastic enough to use it in place of whole chiles. I liked the idea, personally.