Sweet Potato Cakes and Saffron Cauliflower

So, this is a double-header from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. 

We got the book a few days ago from Amazon, after making his Black Pepper Tofu a couple of times and falling down dead from it. Ottolenghi’s true gift is a flawless and astounding sense of flavor. He’s using the same stuff we all are, good veggies, standard spices, an oven and a frying pan, but his food doesn’t taste like anyone else’s. Every bite is a prayer to the gods of taste and goodness.

The other night the Woman on the Verge made his lentils with tomatoes and gorgonzola. It was, well, it was fucking amazing.

The oven dried tomatoes were a revelation and something I am going to steal for many, many meals in the future. Just quarter your tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with thyme, and roast in a low 275 oven for an hour and a half. It turns them into a kind of cross between sun-dried and fresh, reminiscent of pizza almost, but vibrant and fresh and rich and mellow and oh my god. And I am not a big tomato fan. These are going into any dish I can shoe-horn them into from now on.

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So, last night we’d both been busy all day. We decided to split the cooking and each do something from Plenty. Yolie made the sweet potato cakes and I took a run at the Saffron Cauliflower.

Here’s what you need:

Sweet Potato Cakes

Barely adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty

Serves 4

2 ¼ pounds peeled sweet potatoes, cut into large chunks

3 teaspoons soy sauce

¾ cup flour

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon white sugar

3 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion

½ chipotle peeper, chopped, including the seeds if you want a bit of heat

Unsalted butter for frying

1. Steam the sweet potato chunks until completely tender, about 30 minutes, tossing occasionally. Let the potatoes drain, uncovered, until most of the liquid is gone, about an hour.

2. Toss the drained sweet potatoes with the remaining ingredients until completely combined and the potatoes have been mashed. Be careful not to over mix, to ensure that the cakes aren’t tough. The mixture should be sticky, if it is too much so, add a bit more flour.

3. Melt one tablespoon of butter in a cast iron skillet or non-stick frying pan. For each cake, take a tablespoon of the mixture and plop into the pan, flattening into a cake with the back of the spoon until the cakes are about 2 inches in diameter and less than a half inch thick. Brown each side of the cake, about 4-5 minutes per side. Pop the fried cakes into a warm oven to keep until serving. Add a bit of butter to the pan for each round of cakes. The potato mixture will keep, uncooked, in the refrigerator for a couple hours between frying. Serve the cakes hot, with the accompanying sauce.

Sauce

3 tablespoons Greek yogurt

3 tablespoons sour cream

1 tablespoons olive oil

Juice from half a lemon

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Salt and black pepper to taste

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Amazingly good. Enough said.

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Saffron Cauliflower

One medium cauliflower, chopped into florets

One medium red onion, sliced into rounds

1 tsp saffron threads

1/3 cup boiling water

2/3 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup good green olives, pitted and halved

3 tbs olive oil

2 bay leaves

handful chopped parsley or cilantro

salt and pepper

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Preheat your oven to 400. Place the saffron threads into a small bowl and pour the boiling water over them. Allow them to steep for a minute or two while you mix all the other ingredients except the parsley or cilantro into a large bowl. Add the saffron threads and water and mix well with your hands. Place the mixture into an oven safe dish and cover with foil. Bake for fifty minutes, stirring once halfway through, until cauliflower is soft and everything is redolent with the scent of saffron.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

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This meal was astoundingly good. I’m a pretty dedicated carnivore, but I did not miss my meat here. This meal was deeply satisfying, with a rich and strange flavor profile that just kept me kind of moaning and rolling my eyes as I tucked in to another bite of goodness. The crispness of the sweet potato cakes with their creamy insides, dolloped with the tangy richness of the creamy topping was pure magic. And then the saffron cauliflower, all warmth and mellowness, with the surprising sweetness of the raisins and the salty brine of the green olives, and the matter-of-fact solidity of the cauliflower- it was like borrowing a really good wool sweater from your buddy who runs a food stand in a middle-eastern bazzar, comforting and odd at the same time.

It was simply wonderful.

Also, these meals are no-fuss, dead simple, and usually pretty quick to throw together. You need time to prep and roast the vegetables, but you can have a glass of wine or read some poetry once you’ve got them in the oven, and then find yourself getting distracted as the house fills with the wonderful smell of the food you are about to enjoy.

I don’t know of a more pleasurable enterprise than chopping up and running your hands over real good fresh food, mixing it with spices and cooking it in your own small home to feed it to people you love, yourself included.

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Namaste.

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Black Pepper Tofu

This freaking killer meal comes from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, but has been adulterated by me, mostly by simplifying the sauce, using only a single type of soy sauce instead of three. You do what you like, and if you have all three, knock your socks off. I’ll go into more detail when I go over the recipe. For now, all you really need to know is that

1. I don’t really like tofu all that much.

2. This is one of my favorite meals in the world.

There’s lots of prep involved, but the meal itself is very simple, there’s almost nothing to it. Which only reveals the genius in it. This is spicy and sweet and fragrant and unctuous and wild. It makes you want to rub it all over your body.

Okay, so, here we go.

Black Pepper Tofu (adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi)

2 14 oz packages of firm, fresh tofu
Cornflour, to dust the tofu
Vegetable oil, for frying
butter (1 stick) YES!!!
12 small shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
4 red chillies, thinly sliced
12 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tbsp chopped ginger
4 tbsp crushed black peppercorns
3 tbsp sweet soy sauce
3 tbsp light soy sauce
4 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp caster sugar (superfine sugar)
16 small, thin spring onions, cut into segments a half inch long
rice for serving- i used brown jasmine, which was nutty and flavorful. white jasmine might be better. you use what you like.
Cut the tofu into one inch blocks and toss them in cornflour, shaking off the excess. Pour in enough oil to come  half an inch up the sides of a large frying pan, and bring up to frying heat. Fry the tofu in batches in the oil, turning the pieces as you go. Once they are golden all around, and have a thin crust, transfer to a paper towel.

Remove the oil and any sediment from the pan and throw in the butter. Once it has melted, add the shallots, chillies, garlic and ginger, and sauté for about 15 minutes on low-medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the contents of the pan are shiny and totally soft. While you wait, crush the peppercorns, using a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder. They should be quite coarse.

When the shallots and chillies are soft, add the soy sauces and the sugar, stir, then stir in the crushed pepper. Warm the tofu in the sauce for about a minute, then add the spring onion and stir through. Serve hot with steamed rice.

What could be simpler?

First things first:

Back to the base for debrief and cocktails!

Lemon Mint Mango Sling

2 0z. carbonated lemon drink

2 0z. mango nectar

1.5 oz frozen vodka

lime peel

mint leaves

1 0z. simple sugar

combine, muddle, stir, enjoy.

Okay, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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Okay, so take the tofu out of the package, rinse it, pat it dry, and lay it out on some paper towels. Cover with more paper towels, and put a heavy cast iron skillet on top to press the water out of the blocks of tofu. When you’re ready to cook, your tofu will be ready. The more moisture you can get out of the tofu, the better it will cook up. Change paper towels once or twice if you like.

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Chop up your veggies. Get ’em all together. This is the hard part.

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See how easy that was?

A note on the chilies. I didn’t have any fresh ones, so I took my bag of dried chilies and put a handful of them into a bowl of warm water for fifteen minutes. I sliced them and rinsed them in the bowl under flowing water to let the seeds drift away (mostly).

Look at all that garlic and ginger!!!

Yum-bo.

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Cube the pressed tofu and dredge each piece in corn starch. I do each piece separately so I can ensure good coverage and shake off the excess, which will cloud and dirty your oil if you don’t do it. Get the oil nice and hot, and fry up a batch at a time. As the oil gets hotter and hotter, moderate the flame and also you can fill the pan with more tofu to bring the temp down and keep the oil from scorching. Don’t rush this. Don’t take the tofu out until they are browned and golden and crisp. Wait longer than you want. Take ’em out and drain them on a paper grocery bag.

Goodness.

That’s what I’m talking about!

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Okay, time to get crazy. Throw you a stick of butter in your pan. Melt it. Toss in your ginger and garlic. Let that go a few minutes to soften up and get golden. Then add your scallions.

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This is starting to smell good now.

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Add your chilies and let this simmer for fifteen minutes or so, until everything is softened up.

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This is a few minutes shy of ready.

Now work on your sauce and grind up your peppercorns.

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So, where Yotam calls for light soy sauce and sweet soy sauce and regular soy sauce, I just used a bunch of regular soy sauce and added a couple of tablespoons of molasses. And don’t use a mortar and pestle for the peppercorns. Use a grinder, way easier.

Now, just add the sauce and the peppercorns to the pan, stir in your tofu and the scallions, and when it’s all gooey and warm, throw it on some rice and go to town.

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Get ready for the raves!

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It might be bragging to say so, but the woman on the verge said that this was her very favorite meal I’ve ever made for her.

Run and tell that, homeboy.

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This serves four easily. Don’t try to save it, eat it all.

I served this with some of the kimchi I made yesterday, and a batch of David’s roasted brussels sprouts, which deserve a post of their own. They are phenomenal.

Seriously, who knew you could do this? Just get in the kitchen and work a little bit and come out with something that makes you feel like your sorry life is really worth living, if only so you can eat some more really good food! It is crazy.

It’s like being able to make my own crack.

Only tastier and it takes longer to kill you and it doesn’t fry your brain and the cops don’t toss your ride looking for brussels sprouts and tofu, man.

Woot.

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Namaste, bitches!

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David Chang’s Napa Cabbage Kimchi

 

Here’s what David says about his kimchi:

 

 

At Momofuku, we make three types of kimchi: Napa cabbage (paechu), radish (from long white Korean my dishes or, failing that, Japanese daikon), and Kirby cucumber (oi). Our recipe has changed some since I learned it from my mom, who learned it from her mom. I add more sugar than they would. We let the fermentation happen in the refrigerator instead of starting the kimchi at room temperature and then moving it into the fridge when it starts to get funky. At the restaurant, we let the kimchi ferment for only a couple of weeks, instead of allowing it to get really stinky and soft. There’s a point, after about two weeks, where the bacteria that are fermenting the kimchi start producing CO2 and the kimchi takes on a prickly mouthfeel, like the feeling of letting the bubbles in a soft drink pop on your tongue. It’s right around then that I like it best.
Makes 1 to 1 ½ quarts

 

INGREDIENTS
• 1 small to medium head Napa cabbage, discolored or loose outer leaves discarded
• 2 tablespoons kosher or coarse sea salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 20 garlic cloves, minced
• 20 slices peeled fresh ginger, minced
• 1/2 cup kochukaru (Korean chile powder)
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/4 cup usukuchi (light soy sauce)
• 2 teaspoons jarred salted shrimp
• 1/2 cup 1-inch pieces scallions (greens and whites)
• 1/2 cup julienned carrots
DIRECTIONS
Cut the cabbage lengthwise in half, then cut the halves crosswise into 1 inch wide pieces.

 

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Toss the cabbage with the salt and 2 tablespoons of the sugar in a bowl. Let sit overnight in the refrigerator.

 

 

Combine the garlic, ginger, kochukaru, fish sauce, soy sauce, shrimp, and remaining ½ cup sugar in a large bowl. If it is very thick, add water 1/3 cup at a time until the brine is just thicker than a creamy salad dressing but no longer a sludge.

 

Stir in the scallions and carrots.

 

 

 

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*Drain the cabbage and add it to the brine. Cover and refrigerate. Though the kimchi will be tasty after 24 hours, it will be better in a week and at its prime in 2 weeks. It will still be good for another couple weeks after that, though it will grow stronger and funkier.

 

 

 

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I double his recipe to make 3 quarts. Also, I make the liquid sauce with the carrots and the scallions at the same time that I chop and salt the cabbage. I let them both sit overnight, then in the morning I just drain the cabbage, pour the sauce over the top, and mix it up good with my hands and pack it into mason jars. You can eat it almost immediately without feeling bad about it at all. But like David says, it just gets better the longer it ferments.

I try to make this often enough that I don’t run out between batches, but I never make it.

 

This is such an amazing staple of garlicky goodness you can’t believe it. I put out a bowl of this any time we’re eating anything vaguely eastern in origin. Just a couple of bites of this sharp, pungent, brilliant kimchi makes a meal come alive. Its goodness is an emergent property that does not exist in any of the ingredients taken alone. Only after combining them and letting them stew in the juice of their own concocting does the miracle of kimchi occur.

 

To our everlasting benefit.

 

World without end, amen.

 

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Namaste.

 

 

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Shrimp Tagine

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Okay, I’m not gonna lie. This one is a little bit of work.

But if you put on some good tunes and pour yourself a beverage, you’ll get through it. And at the end you will have a rich, delicious mess of goodness in your bowl. This is a riff on Moroccan tagines, but we’re not using the traditional tagine clay pot and we’re not slow braising a leg or neck of lamb until it’s falling off the bone (which, by the way, would be a wonderful thing to do). Instead, we’re using fresh caught Mexican white shrimp, which has a rich flavor and very firm flesh, so it just gets a quick dunk in the pot for the last few minutes of cooking.

Everything else is pretty close to the classical Moroccan dish. Layers of sliced vegetables, a rich tomato sauce, olives and preserved lemons, all stewed together into something so rich and decadent and aromatic that you caint hardly stand it.

So, lets get started!

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What you need: (there’s more stuff after the marinade, so, don’t miss that…)

For the marinade:

A pound and a half of fresh, or thawed frozen shrimp. This is an excellent time to use Trader Joe’s red Argentine shrimp if you’ve got it.

A handful of chopped cilantro

A handful of chopped parsley

Tbs of sweet paprika

generous pinch of saffron threads, crumbled

TBS minced ginger

1/3 cup of olive oil

Juice from a large lemon

salt and pepper (generous)

Mix these ingredients in a large bowl, then add the shrimp and stir until coated. Refrigerate the shrimp for two hours or more. I like to put the shrimp into a large ziplock bag, squeeze the air out, and zip it shut. Takes up less room, and ensures everything gets in good contact with the marinade.

For the sauce:

Three pounds of plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped.

(I used fresh tomatoes from the farmer’s market, but it was a giant pain in the ass to peel and seed and chop them. Much simpler to open two 28 oz. cans of chopped tomatoes, and every bit as good if you ask me.)

3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed.

2 tbs cumin

salt and pepper to taste.

In a medium sauce pan on a medium flame, simmer the chopped tomatoes, garlic, and cumin until the tomatoes break down and turn from sharp smelling to mellow, about ten or fifteen minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside, or leave on a low flame while you prep and chop the veggies.

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The Veggies:

Four or five good sized carrots, peeled and sliced.

Two sweet onions, sliced.

Four fist sized red potatoes, mandolined or sliced thin.

One red, one green, one yellow bell pepper, sliced thin.

One half preserved lemon*, peel only, chopped or sliced thin

Half cup (or more)- (okay, more.) A cup if you can pitted green olives, sliced or chopped. I used Lucques, which were wonderful.

*A note on the preserved lemons. See that jar of artichoke hearts? Those are my lemons. What you do is simple, but it takes a few weeks before you can use them. Slice up a couple of lemons, enough to fill the container you’re using. The small jar I had held a couple of lemons. If you use a quart jar you’ll never run out but you’ll use six or eight lemons. Anyway, fill the jar with lemons and as you put them in, pack kosher salt over them. Fill jar with lemons and salt and refrigerate. In three or four weeks they’ll be ready. When you use them, cut away the flesh and just use the peels. Chop them up or slice them fine. The flavor they impart to a dish is incomparable- bright and alive with lemony goodness. They are absolutely essential to this recipe, so don’t make this until your lemons are ready or if you have a fancypants market that carries preserved lemons you can use store bought. I just don’t have anywhere local that carries them. I guess you could order them online, too.

Also, once my lemons are started, I throw in a few new slices every time I use the preserved lemons. I use them infrequently, so by the time I pull the jar out again, whatever I put in before are ready to go.

They are like homemade kimchi. Once you get used to having them around, you’ll want always to have them on hand.

Okay, on we go:

Here’s how she goes:

Put in the carrots.

Salt and pepper the carrots and add the onions.

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Salt and pepper the onions and add the potatoes.

Salt and pepper the potatoes  and add the peppers.

Cover with the tomato sauce.

Hell, yes.

Now, set your stockpot under a medium flame and cover it, letting the veggies cook until softened, about twenty minutes or so. Longer is okay, shorter isn’t so much. If the sauce is thick and you’re worried about the carrots scorching, add a quarter cup of water. It won’t hurt anything.

Once the veggies have cooked , you can add the olives and preserved lemons in a single layer on top of the tomatoes.

Now your shrimps go in.

Medium flame, let it bubble away, covered, until the shrimp curl up and turn pink. Should be just a few minutes. Don’t let them overcook or they’ll get too tough. Once they pink up, remove the shrimp and put ’em in a bowl or plate. Let the tagine cook, uncovered, until the juices have mostly evaporated, about five or ten minutes. At this point, I peeled the piping hot shrimp because my woman don’t like shrimps with the shells on. I do that for her out of love. You might enjoy peeling them at the table, one at a time, as you eat them from your bowl, which is more in the spirit of the Moroccan ideal.

A note about love while I’m on the topic. This meal involves a lot of prep, and how you go about it is essential if you want this thing to turn out right. You should be thinking of whoever you are cooking for all the while you are chopping and peeling and mixing together. This is true even if you are cooking only for yourself, in fact, probably even more true. You should imagine your beloved tasting each morsel, each tender shrimp, each vivid little chunk of preserved lemon, each bitter green olive, each sweet onion and soft, buttery potato. Cook with love. Keep it right up there in the front of your mind.

Believe me, you can taste it.

Okay, to plate, just stir up the tagine and fill a bowl with the vegetables and sauce. Top with some of the shrimp. Serve with a nice crusty loaf of bread to sop up the juices. You could have a salad of arugula and figs and almonds if you absolutely had to, but this is fine standing alone.

Trust and believe that.

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This recipe is pretty forgiving when it comes to amounts of everything. Use what’s to hand and make up the difference somewhere else. And use this as a jumping off point. You could add a lot more heat with red pepper flakes and some jalapenos, and then cut the heat back with some honey. Add a handful or two of dates or golden raisins. Add some garbanzos. Figs. Do the long, slow braise of some cheap cut of meat. Use chicken thighs one time, or turkey legs. Goat, if you’ve got it. Lamb. Add more cumin and turmeric.

The main thing is the love.

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That is all.

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Namaste.

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Buchons Au Thon, roasted potatoes, and roasted sweet corn with lime chili garlic butter.

 

 

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So, these little buchons au thon. Something my wife usually makes for me because I love them so damn much. They’re from Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life.

They are super duper easy, and taste both sublime and sleazy. I bought her a extra big muffin pan so when she makes them the next time she can make more. They are great with a simple salad for lunch or dinner, or I bet they’d be fantastic on a toasted english muffin for breakfast.

 

Here’s how to do them:

 

Ingredients:

11 ounces canned (water-packed) chunk-light or solid albacore tuna, drained
2 cups finely grated or shredded Gruyere cheese
2/3 cup creme fraiche
5 tablespoons tomato paste
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
3 tbs chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease 14 wells of a extra big-size muffin tin with nonstick cooking oil spray.

Place the tuna in a medium mixing bowl; use a fork to break up pieces any larger than a dime. Add the cheese, creme fraiche, tomato paste, eggs, onion, parsley and salt, stirring to thoroughly combine. (The mixture will be a soft orange-pink color.)

Divide the mixture evenly among the muffin wells. Use water to fill any empty wells halfway full to prevent those wells from scorching. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the tops and edges of the bouchons are set.

Carefully pour the water out of the muffin wells, then dislodge the bouchons by running a rounded knife around the inside edges of their wells. Let them sit for 2 to 3 minutes, then carefully extract them and transfer to individual plates (2 for each portion).

They will collapse a bit as they cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

 

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Seriously, damn good eats.

 

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The corn was broiled in the Grillevator with the husks on for half an hour. The husks caught on fire and the corn kernels seared and charred nicely. While that was cooking, I melted 3 tbs of butter in a little dish and added a minced clove of garlic, juice and zest of one lime, salt, pepper, and cayenne and let that mix and meld together. For the last few minutes of cooking, I took the corn out, tore off the burned husks, rinsed the ears quickly under cold water and rubbed off any silk or charred husk, then slathered them in the butter mixture and put them back in for four or five minutes.

 

Holy crap for crap, batman!  Tasted just like summer.

 

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Roasted potatoes are small yellow or reds, chopped into one inch squares, slathered in olive oil, salted and peppered, and baked high and hot at 425 for 45 mins. Shook up and flipped a few times as they go.

 

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It were good.

 

 

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Namaste.

 

 

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Lime & Garlic Pork chops with potatoes romesco and roasted broccoli

This was just an excuse to

A. Eat pork.

B. Make Suzanne Goins’ potatoes romesco.

So, I got some thin sliced pork chops and put them in a big ziploc baggie with olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and a couple of cloves of minced garlic. I put them in as soon as I got home from the store so they could marinate in there for a few hours. But I bet an hour would be fine.

The broccoli is from farmer’s market. Drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper, and three cloves of garlic, roughly chopped. In a 400 oven for thirty minutes or until semi-charred and caramelized. Easy-peasy.

The potatoes went in the 12″ cast iron skillet, dressed in olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, and a few cloves of garlic. Cover with foil and bake in a 425 oven for fifty minutes or until those potatoes are soft.

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Romesco sauce:

Romesco Sauce
5 ancho chiles, or seriously, whatever dried chilies you have on hand.
2 tablespoons raw almonds
2 tablespoons blanched hazelnuts
1 1/4 cups(!) extra-virgin olive oil
1 slice country bread, about 1-inch thick
1/3 cup canned tomatoes, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 lemon, for juicing
A splash of sherry vinegar (can’t find it? Use a mild wine or balsamic vinegar instead)
salt

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Make the sauce:

 

Remove and discard the seeds and stems from the chiles, then soak them in warm water for 15 minutes to soften.

Strain the chiles, and pat dry with paper towels.

 

Meanwhile toast the nuts until they smell nutty and are golden brown, in a 375 oven or just in a skillet under a medium flame.

Heat a large sauté pan over high heat for 2 minutes. Add 2 tablespoon olive oil and when it’s hot, fry the slice of bread on both sides until golden brown.

 

Remove the bread from the pan and cool. Cut it into 1-inch cubes and set aside.

Return the pan to the stove over high heat. Add 2 tablespoon olive oil and the chiles and sauté for a minute or two. Add the tomatoes. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring often until the tomato juices have evaporated. Turn off the heat and leave the mixture in the pan.

 

See how easy this is?

 

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In a food processor, pulse together the toasted nuts, garlic and fried bread until the bread and nuts are coarsely ground. Add the chile-tomato mixture and process for 1 minute more. With the machine running, slowly pour in the remaining 1 cup of olive oil and process until you have a smooth purée. Don’t worry, the romesco will “break” (separate into solids and oil); this is normal. Add the parsley, season to taste with lemon juice, sherry vinegar and more salt, if you feel it needs it.

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Jesus, that shit is good.

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Once you’ve done roasting your potatoes, transfer them to a large sauté pan or transfer cast iron skillet to stove-top and heat on high for 2 minutes. Pour in the remaining 2 tablespoons oil, turn the heat to medium-high and wait 1 minute more.

Add the potatoes and smash them with your spatula or a fork until a little broken up.

Season with thyme leaves, salt and pepper and sauté them for 6 to 8 minutes until they are crispy on one side.

(If they are stuck to the pan, don’t try to move them, they will eventually release themselves).

After they’ve browned on the first side, turn them until they color on all sides.

Spoon the romesco sauce over the potatoes and stir.

(all stolen from Suzanne Goins via Smitten Kitchen. (Thanks, guys. Ladies. Whatever. I love you.)

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For the pork chops, I just took them out of the fridge about an hour before I started cooking so they could get to room temp. before I slapped them in the pan. Take them out of the marinade and dry them off and salt and pepper them and fry them up, about three minutes on a side under a high flame so they get browned but don’t turn to leather. These are thin, super thin, so they cook fast.

Oh, yeah, I made a lime and garlic vinaigrette to pour over the chops. Juice of a lime, clove of garlic minced, 1/3 cup olive oil, salt and pepper. Shake well, pour over the chops.

Shit fire.

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It was incredible.

The kid didn’t say anything much, but she filled her plate three times.

So, run and tell that, home boy.

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Namaste

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PS-

Aftermath:

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One of my quirks is that I really do enjoy cleaning up almost as much as cooking.

I like eating best of all, though.

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Coconut fried rice with fried egg and crispy garlic

 

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Okay, so after last night’s Maui-style short ribs with coconut rice, I had all this coconut rice left over.

 

And not much else.

 

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So, I vaguely remembered Mark Bittman doing something with fried rice and ginger and garlic. The main thing I remembered was the egg, topped with crispy fried up garlic and ginger. I looked in the fridge:

 

leftover coconut rice: check

eggs: check

ginger: no joy. crap.

 

But this is in the spirit of leftovers, so, no trip to the Cookie Crock for me. That would be cheating. Instead, I quick fry up some leftover green onions and my last two shallots.

 

 

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In my egg pan, I crisp up some garlic.

 

 

 

When the garlic browns and gets crisp, I take it off the heat, put it in a little dish

and set it aside.

 

 

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When the shallots and green onions are soft, I add in the leftover coconut rice and fry that up for a few minutes, letting the rice brown on the bottom of the pan and scraping up bits of that as I stir, until it’s all heated through.

 

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Quick fry up some eggs.

 

 

 

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Now just fill a big bowl with the rice. Some salt and pepper is nice. A big splash of soy sauce, a drizzle of sesame oil. Top with the egg, and then sprinkle the crispy garlic on top.

 

 

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It were pretty damn good.

 

 

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Here’s the thing. I could have made a peanut butter sandwich. Or a grilled cheese. Or heated up a frozen burrito.

 

But instead I got this creamy, crunchy, salty, pungent, sweet, gooey meal of goodness.

 

In about the same time.

 

 

Do what you can with what you’ve got. It doesn’t always work out, but shit, then you can have you your damn peanut butter sandwich anyway.

 

 

What have you got to lose?

 

 

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Namaste.

 

 

 

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Rapini and white bean pasta with andouille sausage

 

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Simple, rustic weeknight meal.

 

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Get a big pot of salted water boiling. Chop the tough bottoms of the rapini stalks off, then roughly chop the rapini into two inch sections. Get your pan hot, pour in some olive oil, let it get hot for a minute. Mince a couple or three cloves of garlic and toss into the pan, thirty seconds or so, until it turns golden and aromatic. Open a can of white beans, rinse and drain them, and add them to the garlic and olive oil. Add salt, pepper, and some red pepper flakes for warmth. Drop your rapini into the boiling water for three minutes, then fish it out with tongs and add to the beans and garlic and saute for a few minutes. Add a half cup of white wine and let that go while you do the pasta.

Add your farfalle to the boiling water you just cooked the rapini in, and cook that for nine minutes or ten. Drain, reserving a cup of the liquid.

Add farfalle to the beans and rapini in your skillet. Toss. Add a handful of grated parmigiano and the zest of a lemon and the juice of half a lemon. Add some of the reserved pasta water if you need more liquid.

Plate and top with more grated parm.

 

I also grilled up a couple of andouille sausages and added them to my plate and the kids plate. Left ’em off the woman’s plate cuz she don’t know no good.

 

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It were good enough. A nice winter meal, took about fifteen minutes altogether and tasted like you might have spent all day at it.

 

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Namaste.

 

 

***

Homemade soft-egg ravioli with white truffle butter sauce and roasted asparagus with shallots

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So, it starts out with a cup or so of whole milk ricotta, two egg yolks,  zest from one lemon, salt, and pepper….

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This is what it looks like after you mix the lemon zest, egg yolks,  salt, and pepper into the ricotta. Put it in the fridge now.

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Get you ready to make some fresh pasta.

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You know the drill. Flour, egg yolks, olive oil, salt, pepper. Six tablespoons of warm water. Whisk it together, slowly incorporating the flour from the edge of the bowl.

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Mix until you get a golden, crumbly pile of goodness….

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Turn it out onto a lightly floured working surface and knead for seven minutes, until the dough ball is elastic.

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Cut into four pieces and cover with plastic wrap, let rest for an hour on the stove.

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Smash the four pieces of dough into flat squares.

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Run the dough through your pasta machine. Two passes at setting one, two more at setting two, two more at setting three. Keep it lined up and straight.

Impose your will on the damn stuff.

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Lay out four fat strips of fresh pasta.

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Cut the pasta into sixteen four inch squares.

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Spoon a little ricotta into one square of pasta. Make a little depression in the middle.

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Put  the golden yolk of a farm fresh egg into the ricotta.

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Carefully lay the next piece of pasta over the top, being very careful not to pop the egg yolk.

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Brush the edges of the ravioli with egg and pinch it all closed.

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Like this.

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Now, roast you some baby asparagus with garlic and shallots.

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Yummm…..

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Refrigerate the raviolis for an hour or so, then boil them very carefully for three minutes each. Plate them with the asparagus, some garlic bread, and the leftover ricotta filling.

Make up a nice sauce like this:

Six tablespoons of water

Stick and a half butter

Tablespoon of truffle oil

Some shiitake mushrooms

Boil the water, add the butter, oil, and mushrooms, stir, take off the heat. Serve over the raviolis.

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Serve with the best wine you can find laying around.

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That’s what it looked like on the plate.

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It got the job done, I reckon.

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Namaste.

***

Black Eyed Pea Fritters with bacon, egg, and sweet chili sauce

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So, lots of opportunities to make shit up on the fly in this meal.

I made the fritters, (black eyed peas, a chopped onion, some red pepper flakes, an egg, a little apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, a quarter cup of water, all in a food processor until whipped up) and dropped them into a wok full of hot oil, where they promptly disintegrated. So I back-tracked, added panko and more egg to keep them together, and pan-fried them just like falafels. I wanted to serve these with bacon and a soft-boiled egg, but my soft-boiled eggs were too soft-boiled.

So, I fried the little boogers.

They turned out awesome! Perfectly round and soft and delicioso.

Plated them with a couple of small slices of bacon and drizzled them with the sweet chili dipping sauce, and served a roasted broccoli with anchovies on the side.

All in all, a very nice little meal.

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Namaste.

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