take 43 Cultural Cuisine Field Trips in my own kitchen

This recipe is from Nepal, via this book.

Lentils are my favorite legume (aside from perhaps peanuts and very fresh peas). They are by far the easiest of beans to cook, and also the quickest. I’ve made them tons of different ways, but never in a proper dal style (with the lentils so soft-cooked as to be falling apart).

This was very simple and very good. Red lentils (masoor dal) with spices, chopped tomatoes, chopped spinach, lemon juice, and cilantro. One thing that was slightly odd about this recipe is that it directed me to sauté the spices and aromatic vegetables separately from the lentils and then add them later. I’m not sure if I like this method, or what reason there might be for it. Seems to me like just a way to dirty another pan.

However, the finished product was delicious and comforting (although not at all photogenic). I ate it with leftover jasmine rice – basmati would have been more appropriate, but jasmine is what I had.

I have been wanting to try these for ages, but have not yet been able to find a dim sum restaurant – the only Chinese around here is pretty Americanized. I finally found this recipe . Not sure about the authenticity, but I appreciated the fact that it was very detailed about how to construct and cook these.

I was somewhat unsure at first – the filling was great (how can you not like barbecued pork?), but the dough has no salt and was much stiffer/drier than any dough I’ve worked with so far. And I’m definitely not yet a master of shaping bao – I think I know a bit better now, but they were pretty homely looking (which is why there are no pictures).

They took a long time to make but were not difficult. And they are awfully tasty (although next time I will adjust the filling to dough ratio – in my opinion there is not enough filling in them).

It’s always interesting to me how different cultures come up with essentially the same type of food from different angles. Char siu bao – bierrocks – pulled pork sandwiches – sloppy joes. All basically the same food, yet all wonderful in their own way.

I finally went to visit the Asian supermarket (one of several, actually) and was amazed. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, and is kind of shabby/dusty inside by American supermarket standards, but oh my gosh. SOoooo much stuff. Not much in the way of fresh produce (although good quality garlic and ginger were available at much lower prices than the usual supermarket), but pretty much everything else. Lots of cold cases and a big frozen section. Homemade tofu and kim chi. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and even some Indonesian ingredients! I found everything I was looking for, and then some.

And tons – TONS – of stuff I just didn’t recognize or couldn’t identify. That was the most exciting part. I can’t wait to find out what all of it is, and what to do with it.

I think this might make up for the total lack of availability of dried Mexican chiles in this area.

Big plans for the ingredients I purchased today. More to come in this space this weekend!

My sister gave me this book for Christmas, and it’s wonderful – covers the whole world, and works to put food in cultural context, also! SO neat!

Aside from stealing ground beef out of the meatloaf bowl before cooking, I’ve never officially had beef tartare of any kind. But raw meat doesn’t scare me one bit, so I tried this recipe today. It’s from Hot Salty Sour Sweet (almost time to return that book to the library! sad), and originates from Yunnan province like the last recipe I made. It was a fun excuse to use my huge Thai granite mortar, something I really don’t do often enough.

Kind of time-consuming but ultimately simple. Toasted some Szechuan peppercorns (something else I’ve never had) with salt, then ground them up fine. Minced the raw steak, then pounded with some of the pepper-salt in the mortar until it was a paste. Mixed in the cilantro leaves, and served with cuke slices.

I can safely say that I love raw beef and will make other recipes in which it stars. I don’t know if I wholly loved this recipe, but I didn’t hate it and was intrigued. If you’ve never szechuan peppercorns, I can’t really describe the flavor – it’s not exactly hot or spicy, but it numbs the tongue a bit. And the odor is kind of unfamiliar and citrusy. I liked it, but I’m not sure I like it in this preparation. I’m not sure it goes well with cilantro. Or perhaps another flavor was needed for balance. I will have to try it in mapo tofu sometime.

Anyway, though it wasn’t stellar, it was good. Many cultures have raw beef preparations, and I still have some pieces of beef tenderloin in the freezer so…I will probably be visiting the raw beef paradigm in this space sometime soon!

Today’s field trip took me to Yunnan, a part of China that runs along the northern Mekong. According to Hot Salty Sour Sweet (yeah, I’m just gonna keep plugging this cookbook – it’s THAT good), there are a lot of tribal peoples in Yunnan, and they eat a lot of pork and rice.

I don’t usually think of tomatoes as particularly Chinese vegetables, but they worked very well in this simple dish. The recipe itself called for a mix of green and red tomatoes; I can see how green ones would hold up better. The red ones were all I had, and as you can probably see, they fell apart a little more than I expected.

Yes – very simple. One of the simplest-tasting Chinese dishes I’ve ever had. No garlic or ginger. Just stir-fried minced pork, green chilis, and tomatoes with a little salt, sesame oil, and a bit of cornstarch for thickening at the end. Nothing to it. The flavors worked together so well, though. The chilis added a bit of heat, but more of a pleasant tingling than a real burn, and the tomatoes, pork, and cornstarch combined to form a sauce that made me want to lick the plate. (So I did. :) I will certainly be making this again, and what’s so great is that it’s quick – easy (and easy to remember; I have the recipe basically memorized having made it once) – relatively cheap – and can use up those hard winter supermarket tomatoes that I never know what to do with. Score!

Eaten with jasmine rice and a side of sauteed rainbow chard. The chard is not traditional at all, but it was the only cooking green I had available.

If all the recipes from HSSS are this good, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and buy the book.

This recipe has also made me want to learn a LOT more about regions of China and their different cuisines. There are so many different styles in that one enormous country, and I’m unfamiliar with most of them.

Summer screams “beef!” to me. And enormous tenderloin steaks were buy-one-get-one-free today at the grocery store. And I’ve been craving more South Asian food.

This dish is from Laos. Near as I can tell, Laotian food is similar to Thai, but with more mint and less “sweet”. I got the recipe for this dish from Hot Salty Sour Sweet , a cookbook I heartily reccommend. Very rare thinly sliced steak tossed with a dressing of fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar, and mixed with scallions, shallots, chili peppers, and mint leaves.

Not for those afraid of red meat, heat, or the onion family, but really quite delicious. As written, this recipe is quite spicy. My forehead was sweating as I ate, a sensation I love in hot weather. Somehow it makes me feel cooler, at least once I am done eating. This was perfect with a side of jasmine rice, a cooling vegetable plate, and an ice cold Saranac lager.

Kind of a funny dish to pick, because this is a prime example of a Vietnamized rather than a Vietnamese dish – maybe that’s splitting hairs. It’s basically a ham sandwich with South Asian touches – a lightly pickled slaw of carrots and daikon, and a few spigs of coriander/cilantro. Doesn’t sound like much, I know, but I think it could be my new favorite sandwich. I’m extremely excited about the fact that I have enough fillings leftover to make a similar sandwich for lunch tomorrow.

It was extra-good because I had just-baked baguettes longing to be used up in the creation of something wonderful. The only thing that is not completely authentic is my choice of pork – the cookbook I had suggested a number of Vietnamese pork fillings, but I went the cheap/easy route and used Black Forest ham. Still super-delicious. I ate this with relish (I mean enjoyment not that green stuff) and a side of sauteed bok choi and garlic scapes.

Life is tasty.

Best stuff ever. I’m so glad to have the new-old (FREE!) GE food processor. It doesn’t look like much, and it sounds like a jet plane taking off, but I’ve never made hummus with such a nice light creamy fluffy texture before! And so fast! It is awfully tasty, but I’m not going to bother to post a photo because it’s not all that photogenic (unless you dress it up with parsley and other garnishes, which I am too lazy to do at the moment).

It’s kind of a vegetarian cliche, but I think it would be really tough for me to get tired of hummus. I made just the basic version today (chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon, salt), but there are so many possible additions. Not to mention other similar concoctions based on legumes and seeds/nuts. Now that I have a food processor, the sky’s the limit! Hey, I can even make my own nut butters now! (at least I think so)

No pita bread yet – it’s too hot to bake, really. I will post photos if I get around to it.

Not craving Chinese nearly as much these days – feeling more Mediterranean. Warm weather always makes me crave stuff like tabouli, baba ganoush, etc. Olive oil, garlic, lemon, tomatoes, eggplant, parsley, mint, etc. etc. etc. Yum! Too bad it’s too early here for really good tomatoes.

Paula Wolfert’s books are making me salivate even more. I want to make almost every recipe of hers that I read – she makes them all sound heavenly.

So – combine all that with the fact that I’m going to pick up a free food processor (via Freecycle tomorrow), and I think at the very least, a batch of hummus is in the works. I have made hummus before, but it’s not the same in a blender (and not nearly as easy). I’m also due for another bread baking session, so I might try my hand at pita bread at the same time!