Chinese cooking in quarantine

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Minimal Ingredient Example

Chinese Cooking in Quarantine: dish made with cabbage, onion, mushroom and pork.

Wall Street Journal has an article on how Shanghainese are currently coping with a city-wide lockdown due to COVID. Among the tools is a website that helps cooks prepare flavorful Chinese food in quarantine with very few ingredients, i.e. what you happen to have at home.

Cook YunYouJin Chinese

Cookyunyoujin website, in Chinese.

We gave it a look, starting with translating the home page using Google Translate. (In Chrome, the option should appear in a window at top right if your browser is set to English as the default language). You choose your ingredients, specify what cooking equipment you have, and then are served a menu of dishes that can be made with what your have.

We specified cabbage, onion, mushrooms and pork and said we have a wok. We were then served up a video from BilBili that shows the dish being made. You can translate the text on the page but not the audio and the recipe does not appear in the notes as it usually does on YouTube, so a bit of guessing was involved, especially with the amounts of the seasoning:

Napa cabbage, ½ head sliced lengthwise (we had specified generic “cabbage” which should also work)
Shiitake mushrooms, half a dozen whole, fresh or dried
100 g (estimate) pork belly, sliced into ½ inch x 2 inch strips
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin
1 bunch green onions, including the green part, sliced into matchstick lengths
1-2 T Szechuan red peppers (mild), each cut into 2-3 pieces with scissors
Salt
Grated ginger
Oil for stir fry
Soy sauce, light
Soy sauce, dark

Method: chop the cabbage into strips about ½ x 4 inches (the video shows some nice technique). Divide in two bowls, with the denser pieces from the bottom of the cabbage in one bowl and the pieces from the tops of the leaves in the other, and reserve. Boil water (just enough to submerge the mushrooms) with ½ t salt (or is it sugar?). Blanch the mushrooms so they are hydrated but not fully cooked. (The insides are still white in the video). Thin-slice the mushrooms across the cap and reserve.

Cook Yunyoujun English

Cookyunyoujin home page, translated into English.

Clean out the wok and add ¼ c neutral cooking oil. Stir-fry pork until the fat begins to render and it loses its pink color, then add garlic and ginger and stir-fry briefly. Add the bowl with denser leaves of cabbage cabbage and stir fry until cabbage begins to wilt. Add mushroom slices and stir-fry until they are softened and the white color turns to beige. Add the other ½ of cabbage and cook briefly so it is still crisp. Add 3/4 t salt, 1 T grated ginger, 2 T light soy sauce and 1 T dark soy sauce and toss to combine. Finish the dish by adding the sliced green onions; toss until they are heated through but still crisp. Serve with rice or on its own.

The above is just one random example. Check the ingredients in your kitchen and see what you can come up with!

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Recipe: Midcentury Chinese Pepper Steak

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Chinese Pepper Steak

Midcentury Chinese Pepper Steak.

Elsie Lee says this Chinese Pepper Steak recipe, which appears in her hard-to-find Easy Gourmet Cooking, cannot be improved on. It’s a midcentury classic; if you grew up then you will immediately recognize the taste profile of celery flavored with soy sauce as what we thought Chinese food was supposed to taste like. Not that it’s bad by any means, and no less an authority than Fuchsia Dunlop uses celery in some of her recipes. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1 ½ lb round steak
1 or more large green bell peppers, seeded and cored and sliced into strips lengthwise
2 T olive oil
2 T chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
½ c celery, sliced
1 t soy sauce
3 T cornstarch mixed with 2 T water
1 c beef stock

Method: slice the round steak across the grain into very thin strips. (It helps if the meat is almost frozen when you do this.) Sear quickly in olive oil in a hot skillet till no red meat remains, but don’t cook any longer or it will get tough. Add bell pepper slices, onion, garlic and celery to the pan and toss to coat the vegetables with the oil and cook them just a bit. Add ½ c beef stock and cover; simmer 5 minutes. Mix in the cornstarch/water combination and stir until the stock begins to thicken; add the rest of the beef stock gradually. (You may not want all of it.) Serve hot, over rice.

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Back to Ethiopia and injera

Posted on April 21, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Ethiopian Combo

Our Ethiopian combo plate. From top right: ground beef with fenugreek; a simple green salad (chopped fine so you can pick it up with a piece of injera), shiro paste and kale.

We last made injera, the funky Ethiopian flatbread, about 2 years ago so it was time for a refresh. Our ersho (starter) was still functional thanks to a layer of non-chlorinated water on the top (teff flour doesn’t mix with water like wheat flour but consolidates in its own layer) and using this recipe we had pretty decent product about 5 days later. Then came a period of travel, so the 6 or so leftover injeras went into a giant zip lock bag on top of a plate (so they wouldn’t crack) with a paper towel between each layer.

Three weeks later they were still viable (the top layer showed spots of mold after a couple more days) so we made the components of the beyanetu, or combination plate, you see here:

Ye’shiro wot: a paste made from spicy shiro, a ground legume mix we picked up in San Francisco.

Ye’zelbo gomen b’karot: a vegetable dish with kale, carrots and onion.

Minchet abish: spicy ground beef with fenugreek.

Stored Injera

Our injera after 3 weeks in the fridge, stored in a zip lock bag with paper towels between the layers.

The first two were from the wonderful Teff Love cookbook, the third from Ethiopia: Recipes and Traditions from the Horn of Africa (affiliate links!) by Yohanis Gebreyesus, a TV chef in Addis Ababa. We don’t like the latter book as much, but it has meat recipes which Teff Love lacks.

None of these dishes knocked us out with its flavor, but together they were a very satisfying combination. Ethiopian food isn’t something most folks are going to make at home due to the number of special ingredients as well as the strangeness of eating with your hands. But if you’re going to a large city with an Ethiopian market (or if you’re willing to pay the up charge and order from Amazon) be sure to pick up some teff flour (or packaged injera), shiro, berbere (ground chili mix) and dried koseret and besobela. The last two are strongly flavored leaves akin (in taste) to oregano or basil and they’re essential in making ye’quimem zeyet, the flavored oil which appears in almost every dish.

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Food for thought: 2nd Easy Gourmet Cookbook

Posted on April 19, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers

“All these recipes are useful—which cannot be said for much of what appears in print. Cookbooks are useful mainly to spur the brain, by reminding a cook that she hasn’t served veal in a long time.” You and I might find quite a few nits to pick in the above statement, but it’s a fine example of midcentury food writing.

That’s one reason to grab a copy of Elsie Lee’s 2nd Easy Gourmet Cookbook. The other is the recipes. There are quite a few “unexpected combinations” which turn out well, including this recipe which I’ll paraphrase for Rara Ovis (p. 98):

Start with a boneless leg of lamb—the chunks wrapped in twine in the butcher case are ideal—and 8-12 peeled cloves of garlic. Slice each clove lengthwise into 3 or 4 slivers, then poke holes all over the roast with a paring knife and insert a garlic sliver into each. Season ½ c flour with salt and pepper then rub it into the surface of the roast and place on a rack in a roasting pan in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Now, mix 2 c strong black coffee and 1 c red wine and pour 1 c of this over the roast. Continue to cook for 40 minutes more (so 60 minutes total), basting and adding more coffee/wine as necessary every five minutes. (Elsie Lee suggests you recruit your guests to join you in the kitchen when you do this.) Remove the roast for the oven and rest 20 minutes. Slice thin for serving and offer the pan juices (which you might decide to reduce and deglaze) separately in a gravy boat.

Elsie Lee

If you look up Elsie Lee on Amazon, you’ll find quite a few paperback romantic potboilers. She was a busy lady. You won’t find “1st Easy Gourmet Cookbook” or “Easy Gourmet Cookbook” which long made me suspect the “2nd” was a marketing gimmick. But turns out it is called “Easy Gourmet Cooking” and I recently acquired a copy. I don’t recommend that one. Its goal is to prepare classic dishes in 30 minutes or less, which she does through the use of a number of canned items and prepared seasonings. But 2nd Easy Gourmet Cookbook is well worth a read, and an affordable used copy is easy to find on Amazon. Check it out.

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Recipe: Hotel Room Pickles

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Hotel Room Pickles

Hotel Room Pickles.

Hotel room pickles happened because we had some nice carnitas and wanted some Mexican-style pickled vegetables (escabeche) to accompany. We’ve noticed the taco shops no longer put out these assortments, probably a COVID casualty because sharing condiments is looked down on, so we made our own. You can do the same if you’re in a place with a kitchenette (like an Airbnb) or simply a microwave. Makes 1 c hotel room pickles, about 4 servings.

Ingredients:
Carrots and/or other vegetables, ¾ c or so
½ c white or cider vinegar (white vinegar is very cheap, so use that if you are flying and will leave the glass container behind)
½ c water
1 t salt
¾ t dried oregano*
Optional seasonings: a few slices jalapeño, garlic clove, bay leaf, ground black pepper

Pickled Kale Stems

We used the leftover brine to pickle these kale stem discards. Not bad.

Method: peel the carrots using the edge of a spoon to scrape off outside layer (or use them unpeeled and wash well). Cut into ¾ inch slices on the bias. Place vegetables, seasonings, salt, vinegar and water in a saucepan or microwave-safe container** and bring to a boil. Simmer 10 minutes or so until carrots are just tender but still crunchy. (Other vegetables, like sliced red onion, may require just a minute or so of poaching after the liquid comes to the boil.) Cool to room temperature and allow to steep overnight to develop flavor before serving.

*Yes, we always travel with oregano. It’s useful to rescue underseasoned pizzas and subs, among other things. Carry it in a container clearly labeled “oregano” to avoid delays at TSA inspection.
**Don’t assume that hotel-room Styrofoam, plastic or paper cups are microwave-safe. Instead, save a microwaveable container from a takeout meal and use that. Or ask the front desk if you can borrow a glass or ceramic bowl.

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Chuckeye Dave breaks down a Benton ham

Posted on April 12, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers

For value and flavor, Burnt My Fingers readers would agree Benton’s Country Ham can’t be beat. The only question is which ham to buy. Whole Hickory Smoked Country Ham Deboned and Trimmed (item HSCHDT) gives you one magnificent chunk of whole boneless ham, plus separate packages of skin and bone with a lot of extra meat that can be opportunistically sliced off and popped in your mouth while you’re making beans or whatever. While Whole Hickory Smoked Country Ham Deboned & Sliced (item HSCHDS) gives you the same skin and bone packages, but the ham itself is cryovac’d into multiple packages (usually 3 of them) of thick individual ham slices.

The first time I ordered I got the ham slices because they seemed more versatile, but the downside was the lack of pieces with a large crossgrain surface area to be sliced for a charcuterie board. So I bought the whole deboned ham next time and, after the side packages were used up, stared at the main piece for several months because I was intimidated by the prospect of cutting it.

Now reader Chuckeye Dave (his nom de plume or, as Dave would have it, his nom de BMF) has solved this dilemma for us by showing how to break down the whole ham into usable pieces to freeze and defrost as needed. Let’s take a look.

Benton Country HamHere’s the ham after removal from its shipping box. As I recall, the hams arrive at my home in upstate New York just slightly cool, indicated they were frozen or very cold before shipping. They’re packed in butcher paper, not in a cooler.

Benton Ham Countdown A closer look at the main package of ham in its cryovac. Looks like it is actually three separate pieces which might be something new Allan Benton is doing to make the whole ham less intimidating.
Benton's Ham for FreezingNow Dave is breaking down the ham pieces for freezing. Looks like the big piece is pretty much intact but others have been cut into smaller pieces so there will be something to fit any use… to slice and serve, or chop and incorporate in a dish.Ham and Stock for SoupHere are the skin and bones, ready to be made into wonderful piggy juice. Dave, you left a lot of meat on those bones. Hopefully you will retrieve it and do something afterward like put it in a pot of beans.
Bentons Stock CookingAromatics and spices have been added to the bones and skin to make a really rich and delicious stock. (When we made our own ham juice we were purists and used nothing but the piggie parts.)
Bentons Skin and Bones
And here’s what is left over after the skin and bones were properly rendered to produce rich stock.Bentons Ham StockBenton’s ham stock, ready to go in the freezer for a future meal. Thanks for sharing, Chuckeye Dave!
BONUS! Here’s the info sheet that is packed with each order of Benton Ham,

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Food for Thought: EmmyMade

Posted on April 8, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
EmmyMade

EmmyMade prepares to cook rib steak in a glass jar.

I first heard about the Emmymade YouTube channel from a food friend who was about to attempt her rib steak cooked in a jar. Emmy Cho started a video blog while living in Japan in which she would unbox and prepare toy food kits sold for children, eg the Popin’ Cookin’ Crepe Maker. Now living in the US, she does something similar with recipes found on TikTok, eg Are TikTok CORN RIBS Worth The Risk Of Cutting Yourself In the Process?She also experiments with kid snacks like quesadillas made in a toaster—in fact, she has a scientist’s curiosity which would make her a great science teacher, and maybe that’s what she is in her day job.

You are not going to learn any new techniques watching her videos; her kitchen skills are basic but solid and she carefully explains and shows what she’s doing. The production value is quite high and she takes time out, like a radio announcer, to do promos for sponsors like HelloFresh (they aren’t offensive and you can easily skip by them). Mostly, the videos are entertaining and after watching you’re going to be glad you saw how she makes ghost pepper mac ‘n cheese but probably won’t want to do it yourself. (The Coyote Poop/Candied Cheetos and a few other inspirations notwithstanding.)

There’s also an Emmymade website where you can find her recipes the old-fashioned way, in written form, along with lots of ads. (I’m now thinking she doesn’t need a day job.) By the way, that rib steak in a jar is basically beef stew. Check it out.

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Recipe: Chicken Rice from Supermarket Rotisserie Chicken

Posted on April 4, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Chicken Rice

Chicken Rice from Supermarket Rotisserie Chicken.

Chicken rice is a Hainanese recipe in which tender poached chicken is served over rice cooked in a rich chicken and ginger stock. It’s supreme comfort food that has spawned a number of fast takeout places in the Bay Area (and probably elsewhere) such as the Rooster and Rice chain. And you can make a very flavorful approximation using the juices that accumulate in the bottom of the container of supermarket rotisserie chicken. This recipe was developed from the always-reliable Woks of Life. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
One supermarket rotisserie chicken, regular flavor
2 stalks green onion
Fresh ginger, peeled, total about 1/3 cup
8 or more cloves garlic, peeled
1 c jasmine rice
Kosher salt to taste, if needed (the chicken stock may be salty enough)
Neutral oil to sauté

Method: debone the chicken, taking care to lift the breast meat from the breast bone so you leave the breast meat and skin intact. Reserve the breast meat and save the rest of the chicken for another use. (Of course, you could also serve the thighs, wings and drumsticks and collect the bones afterward.) Transfer the bones and the backbone section (don’t bother to try and debone this part) and all the juices and gelatinous consommé from the bottom of the chicken container to a saucepan.

Make the stock: simmer the chicken bones and juices with 4 cross section slices of peeled ginger and two whole green onions (cut off the roots and cut the rest into 3 or 4 pieces to fit your pot) over very low heat for 2 hours until rich and flavorful. Remove bones and spices and strain; chill the strained stock until fat solidifies on top.

Prep the chicken: skim off the fat from the strained stock and transfer to a saucepan. Return the chicken stock to heat and add the reserved chicken breast. Simmer 30 minutes so it can absorb the flavor of the stock. Lift it out of the stock and transfer to a bowl full of ice water. Chill 10 minutes, then remove from the ice water bath, carefully pat dry, and wrap tight in plastic wrap. (The purpose of this process is to preserve the firm flesh and tight skin on the chicken breast. You won’t have the pale delicate skin of a poached Hainanese chicken but the texture and flavor will be similar.)

Make the rice: heat the reserved chicken fat in the saucepan until any residual water is cooked out and it stops sputtering. Add a little neutral oil if needed to coat the bottom of the pan. Add 2 cloves chopped garlic and the rice and sauté a couple of minutes over low heat. Add 2 cups of reserved stock (if you have less than 2 cups, add water to make up the difference), taste and add salt if needed. Simmer, covered,  over very low heat for 10 minutes, taking care not to allow the stock to boil over, then turn off heat and let it rest 30 minutes while you assemble the rest of the dish.

Make the dipping sauce: process ¼ c peeled ginger and 6 cloves garlic in a mini-chop until it forms a paste. Sauté in 3 T neutral oil for just a couple of minutes to take the edge off the raw taste. Transfer to 4 serving-size ramekins.

Assemble the dish: carefully remove plastic wrap from chicken breast and cut crosswise into chopstick-friendly slices about ¾ inch thick. Plate the rice, assemble the chicken pieces on top and serve with the dipping sauce on the side.

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I made fried chicken in an air fryer

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Air Fryer Fried Chicken

My air fryer fried chicken had good crunch and color.

“I made fried chicken in an air fryer” would be a nonsensical statement to any serious cook, who of course knows the device cooks through convection and heat rather than frying. But the target audience for an air fryer probably doesn’t care and probably isn’t going to use it for cooking food anyway but for reheating chicken tenders and French fries like our teen.

But since the device was taking up space in our kitchen, and I wanted to do a fried chicken experiment anyway, I decided to give it a try. I was actually testing two things—something I was taught in marketing you should never do because you don’t know which contributed to the result—air frying vs oven baking, and buttermilk vs pickle juice brine.

Pickle juice brine is the technique allegedly used at a popular fast food chicken restaurant. We’d tried this before, using the liquid from a jar of Vlasic dills, and were not impressed. But this time we had some very interesting juice from a tub of Grillo’s dills which include lemon juice and dill fronds and a whole bunch of spices.

Mixed Fried Chicken

Air fryer vs oven roasted fried chicken. The darker pieces are air fried, and better.

We used chicken thighs of uniform size and brined one batch in the pickle juice for about 6 hours and the other overnight in unseasoned buttermilk. (The shorter pickle brine was because we didn’t want them to get too tart.) Then we drained and dried both batches, added a beaten egg to the residual buttermilk, and mixed up some flour with the Colonel’s secret herbs and spices.

The chicken thighs were dipped in the buttermilk/egg mixture, then dredged in the flour and four of them were placed on a rack to bake in a 400 degree oven. The other two (that’s all that would fit) went into a 5 quart air fryer that had been preheated to 370 degrees. We set the timer for 40 minutes for each, and turned them halfway through.

The result? The air fryer fried chicken came out fine. It was crisp and crunchy and properly cooked without being dry. The oven chicken was okay when it cooled and the coating solidified a bit, but right out of the oven it was soft and messy. I guess this is why most oven fried chicken recipes include an extra layer of panko or cornflakes. The air fryer cleanup was quick and easy, while the sheet and rack from the oven needed soaking followed by plenty of elbow grease.

Would I do this again? Not likely. I’m not afraid of actual deep frying, which would have delivered crispy tender thighs in under 10 minutes and without a lot of grease if you regulate the temperature properly. But I liked the air fryer fried chicken more than I expected.

And as to the chicken brined in pickle juice, it was great! The flesh had a nice tang and I do believe the brine firmed it up a bit. Compared side by side, the non-juice meat was bland and less interesting though it tasted fine on its own. This will require further investigation.

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When your sourdough starter goes bad

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers

 

Dead Sourdough Starter

This is what my 60% Hamelman sourdough starter looked like AFTER I refreshed it. Not a good sign.

My 60% Hamelman sourdough starter is no more. I had scooped up a wad (with the master’s permission) when I took the Wood Fired Oven class at King Arthur Flour back in 2012, nurtured it to a bubbly bloom, and used it regularly in my sourdough bakes. But I have way too many sourdough starters for no good reason and in recent years have gravitated toward just two of them, my San Francisco-to-Saratoga hybrid and the starter I got from Cheese Board in the Bay Area (definitely not with permission).

Sourdough Starter Orange

This is what was underneath the mold. Right texture, wrong color.

This week I decided it was time to feed and revive the 60% Hamelman sourdough starter, but when I opened the jar I found a crime scene. The healthy beasties had been overpowered by a foul smelling bunch and the starter, which should be off-white and sometimes gets some grey mold when you let it sit too long, was an angry orange with streaks of black and brown.

I carefully scraped off the top layer and the stuff on the sides of the jar. But what was underneath didn’t look good. It was still orange, though at least it had the stretchy texture of a healthy 60% starter. I took the cleanest glob I could find and tried feeding it with a formula of 100g all purpose flour to 60g water (which is why it’s called 60%, for the hydration).

The starter came to life in a couple of days, with shiny liquified patches rising up from what looked like dry flour, but the color was off—way too grey. Finally, after a week, I pulled it out of the container. And I got what you see here: the invaders had spawned themselves.

I am sure if Jeffrey Hamelman reads this he will have a hearty chuckle, because as any experienced baker knows there is no reason to keep more than one starter (or maybe two, the second one being rye…. Actually, a rye starter was the only one Hamelman used in his early years even if he was making white flour loaves). Given the same proportions and same ingredients (i.e. the flour), any starter will eventually take on the characteristics of the wild yeasts in its environment.

I’m hanging onto my ersho starter, made from teff and used for injera…. Actually I just reactivated it successfully after a two-year nap. But I’m afraid my Tartine starter, Larraburu starter and einkorn starter are on their way out. Sic transit gloria mundi.

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