Recipe: Quick Kapoon (Lao Chicken and Coconut Soup)

Posted on February 22, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Quick Kapoon

Quick Kapoon.

Quick Kapoon is thanks to some member quotes on the Lao and Asian Kitchen Cooking Facebook group; I faithfully followed the House of X Tia recipe but realized I could get almost the same result with some dramatic shortcuts. For those not familiar, Kapoon is similar to the Thai soup called Tom Ka Ga. It’s a beloved taste of home for Lao people; any mention or picture online produces murmurs of appreciation. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
Breasts from a supermarket rotisserie chicken, plus the juice at the bottom of the container*
24 oz water or chicken stock
1 can good unsweetened coconut milk (Chaokoh or Aroy-D brands preferred)
1 stalk lemongrass (optional)
3 slices dried galangal (optional)
3 makrut (formerly kaffir) lime leaves (optional)
1 T neutral cooking oil
2 shallots or 1 small red onion, peeled and chopped fine
6 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 can Maesri Red Curry Paste
1/2 can Mesri Sweet Thai Noodle Sauce (optional)
1 can (10-15 oz) sliced bamboo shoots
1/4 c fish sauce
Dried vermicelli rice noodles, 1 “nest” per person

Method: remove the skin from the chicken breasts and peel off the bones; shred with your hands as small as possible. Make a stock by mixing the juice and gelatinous goodness in the bottom of the chicken container into water; add some bouillon cubes or paste or use prepared chicken stock if you like. Add the optional lemongrass, galangal and lime leaves if using and simmer 25 minutes to develop flavors.

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan and sauté shallot and garlic until translucent but not browned. Stir in the red curry paste (you don’t have to start with the whole can, but don’t worry about overspicing because it’s mild compared to other Seri pastes) and sweet noodle sauce if using. Stir until aromatic. Add shredded chicken and bamboo shoots and 1/4 can coconut milk and stir until heated through and well-combined. Add fish sauce, the rest of the coconut milk and the chicken stock and heat until bubbling.

Soak the vermicelli noodles in very hot water just until they soften, about 5 minutes. Place each nest in a serving bowl and pour over the soup. Christine Tia serves this with a spicy slaw; our Chinese coleslaw should work well and it doesn’t need to cure so you can serve it right away.

*You could also use two raw chicken breast halves and simmer them in the stock/water for 20 minutes; then proceed per recipe.

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Recipe: Boston Market Creamed Spinach

Posted on February 17, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Boston Market Creamed Spinach

Boston Market Creamed Spinach.

Boston Market Creamed Spinach has a secret ingredient that’s not really a secret because they tell you on their website: cream cheese. So if you look up a copycat recipe and it doesn’t include cream cheese, it’s bogus. Makes about 4 big servings.

Ingredients:
20-24 oz frozen chopped spinach (the packages vary in weight and we used 2 12-oz package of chopped leaves)
6 T butter
¼ c all purpose flour
1 c whole milk or half-and-half
1 t or so Kosher salt
4 oz cream cheese, softened*
2 T onion, finely chopped
1 T garlic, finely chopped
¼ c grated parmesan or romano cheese
¼ t grated nutmeg (optional)

Method: make the béchamel: melt 4 t butter and stir in flour; cook until flour loses its raw smell but not until it browns; add ½ salt and stir in milk slowly till sauce thickens. Mix in cream cheese which will melt and incorporate with the sauce. Meanwhile, melt remaining 2 T butter in a medium saucepan; stir in onion and garlic and sauté on low heat till translucent and add water and spinach. Cover and cook over low heat until spinach is defrosted and hot, maybe 10 minutes. Stir in béchamel and parmesan cheese. Taste for salt; you’ll probably end up using the rest of your 1 t. Add optional nutmeg if you like; they don’t use it at Boston Market but it goes great with creamed spinach. Serve hot as a side dish with roast meats.

*There is a shortage of cream cheese in the supermarkets right now and I was lucky enough to find a tub of whipped cream cheese at Walmart. It works great for this recipe because it’s already softened.

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Recipe: Galbi (Korean Short Ribs) with Ssamjang Sauce

Posted on February 15, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Galbi Plated

Galbi plated, with red lettuce and ssamjang sauce.

This is the Galbi (Korean Short Ribs) prep we used for our Galbi vs Bulgogi Taste Test. Serve it with ssamjang sauce (recipe below) and lettuce leaves for wrapping plus rice and your favorite banchan and you’ve got a luxury item that would cost you $30 or more in a good Korean restaurant. Serves 4.

Ingredients
2 lbs or so beef flanken ribs*
1/3 c soy sauce
1/3 c water
¼ c honey
1 t ground black pepper
2 c Korean pear, cored and peeled
8 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 t chopped ginger
2 T toasted sesame oil
1 green onion chopped
2 T walnuts
Red lettuce leaves for serving

Method: mix all seasonings in a mini-chop; the result will be a spreadable thick paste. Rub into meat on all sides and edges and marinate at least 6 hours and ideally overnight. Prepare the ssamjang. Grill quickly (grilling is essential for this dish; if it’s too cold to fire up the BBQ put off making Galbi until you have warmer weather) until the meat is medium rare, taking care not to let it burn. Serve hot with lettuce leaves for wrapping and a pair of scissors to cut the meat off the bone.

Ssamjang Sauce ingredients:
5 T doenjang (Korean soybean paste)
3 ½ T gochujang
3 garlic cloves
1 green onion, coarsely chopped including some of the green part
1 T sesame oil
1 T toasted sesame seeds
2 T walnuts
Water or cooking wine as needed

Method: blend all ingredients in a mini-chop, adding as much water or wine as needed to make a spreadable paste.

*Flanken ribs are short ribs that are cut across the bone into strips interspersed with a little ring of crosscut rib bone. This is “LA Style”; in Korea the ribs are cut along the bone and then butterflied to produce a strip of meat with a bone at the end. We prefer the LA Galbi because it’s fun to gnaw on the bone.

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Recipe: Cincinnati Chili

Posted on February 13, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Five Way Cincinnati Chili

Five Way Cincinnati Chili

Cincinnati Chili is not actually chili in the way we think of it down south; some versions do not even include chili powder. It’s more like the meat sauces with warm, Greek-inspired spices we slather on our hot dogs in upstate NY. Add the traditional accompaniments, aka “ways”, and it becomes a satisfying one-dish meal. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
2 c water
1 lb ground beef (not too lean, at least 10% fat)
1 medium onion, finely chopped in a mini-chop
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped in a mini-chop
8 oz can tomato sauce
1 T cider vinegar
1 T Worcestershire
¼ t ground black pepper
¼ t ground cloves, or 3 whole cloves
¼ t ground allspice
1 ge bay leaf
1 tKosher salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1 T mild chili powder (we used Toné)
½ t ground cumin
½ oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

Two Way Chili

Two Ways

*For the “ways”:
½ lb spaghetti, cooked just a bit past al dente
16 oz can kidney beans, salted to your preference and warmed
½ c chopped onions
1 c grated cheddar cheese

Three Way Cincinnati Chili

Three Ways

Method: break up ground beef into a medium saucepan; then add all other ingredients. Bring to a boil then reduce to a low simmer and cook, uncovered, for 2 ½ hours checking occasionally to keep it from burning. (That’s a long time but it’s what most of the classic recipes call for; it’s probably ok to cut a few minutes off.) At the end of this time the liquid should have reduced by half and the chili should be thick but not solid. Cool to room temperature then refrigerate at least 6 hours and preferably overnight.

Four Way Cincinnati Chili

Four Ways

In the morning, remove the fat which has accumulated on the surface of the pot (or leave it in if you like. Discard bay leaf and reheat chili. Serve hot with preferred ‘ways”.

*Our photos show the ways in order of assembly, but most Cincinnatians would say cheese is the “three way” product. That may be the only thing they agree on, because there are many versions of the recipe and everyone insists theirs is the only true chili. We went with a recipe that claims to replicate the chili served at the Skyline chain, which is the only time we’ve tasted it in the wild.

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Recipe: Asparagus with Smoked Ham

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Asparagus with Ham and Lemon.

Asparagus with Smoked Ham and Lemon

Asparagus seems to have an affinity for smoked pork…. Bacon, prosciutto or in this case some fine Benton Ham. I added half a preserved lemon but you could also just use lemon juice. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1 lb asparagus, with the ends snapped off and stems peeled if it the stalks are big and woody (not needed in the pictured example)
2 oz (a couple thin slices) smoked ham or prosciutto, or 4 pieces of crisp bacon
1 T olive oil
½ lemon or 1 T lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste (be careful with the salt as the ham is already salty)

Method: if using ham, cut into bite size pieces and fry until crispy over medium heat, 5 minutes or less. Add asparagus and toss to coat the stalks. Depending on the thickness of the stalks, you might add a little water and cover and steam for a couple of minutes; if they young like the stalks in the picture you can skip this step and just sauté until tender but still crisp. When you are satisfied with the doneness, add lemon juice, salt and pepper. If using bacon, crumble over the asparagus just before serving. Serve hot.

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Recipe: Lao Steak

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Lao Steak Sliced

Lao Steak, sliced for serving.

Here’s the Lao Steak recipe from House of X Tia. The author says the marinade would be good on chicken or pork as well. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
2 steaks totaling 24 oz or so. We used New York strip but ribeye would work as well
2 T oyster sauce
1 t fish sauce
1 ½ t brown sugar
1 T finely chopped garlic
½ t Kosher salt
½ t ground black pepper

Method: mix all ingredients except steak in a Ziploc bag until sugar is dissolved then add steaks and mush in the marinade. (You could also marinate in a dish, but this thick sauce takes particularly well to mushing.) Refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight, mushing the bag from time to time to redistribute spices.

Lao Steak

Here’s the steak after reverse sear. Cooking on a rack in the oven made some nice “grill marks”.

To cook, heat a grill or cast iron pan and cook to your preferred doneness; or use the reverse sear method in which you start with a 275 degree preheated oven. Place the steak in the oven on a wire rack and roast to a little rarer than you would like it. Christine Tia recommends 30 minutes for medium rare or until internal temperature reaches 115 degrees; we were going for rare and took our steaks out at 20 minutes. We found temperature control in the oven to be imprecise and would consider using a sous vide bath instead if you want to reverse sear. To finish the steak, which will be nearly done without browning, sear in in a very hot cast iron pan with a little oil for 1 ½ minutes per side.

Slice the steak into thin strips across the grain for serving. In Laos you would serve this with sticky rice and the diner would pick up a slice using a wad of sticky rice as a utensil, then dip into a chili vinegar sauce. The crispy charred bits (produced by the brown sugar) are particularly prized.

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Food for Thought: House of X Tia

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers

Christina Tia is a Lao cook who shows a lot of media savvy in promoting her YouTube channel through Facebook, Instagram and more. She’s been doing it skillfully for several years yet has relatively few views (in the tens rather than 100s of thousands) perhaps because of the specialized interest in Lao cuisine. She definitely deserves a wider audience.

We followed her Lao Steak Recipe and produced an excellent result. (Let us know if you catch the blooper regarding the cut of meat she’s using, at the very beginning.) And when someone asked on Lao and Thai food for an easy Kapoon recipe, there were several links to this video.

One mild criticism: for someone who is so skilled in social media, Tia is lax in policing her own work. She forgot an ingredient in the YouTube steak video, and Kapoon spent some time without sound. If you’re paying attention, it will be easy to catch these errors and work around them. But most creators would have fixed the flubs to begin with.

There’s also a lot of good technique in these videos. While remaining true to traditional results, House of X Tia does not hesitate to find workarounds for ancient methods using modern kitchen tools and facilities. She’s smart, practical and well organized.

House of X Tia is yours to explore for free on YouTube, so get to it. Learn about a new cuisine and help push her subscriber numbers a lot higher. Check it out.

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Prep a perfect pickle plate

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers

 

Pickle Plate

Now that’s a pickle plate!

Comfort Kitchen, an upscale burger joint in our town, puts together an excellent pickle plate. Browse the pictures in their Yelp listing and you’ll see how it has evolved over time. There’s always a cucumber pickle, always pickled onions, turmeric pickled cauliflower, pickled carrots and some kind of wild card pickle that varies with the seasons.

The goal seems to provide the widest possible variety in the ingredients, how the vegetables are cut and how the pickles are seasoned. You can put some on your burger and much the rest… pickle heaven! And the menu price (as I recall—pickles are on hiatus at the moment) is around $4 which is easy on the wallet yet entails maybe a 10% food cost for the establishment.

We decided to put together our own pickle plate and were particularly pleased with the result. Here’s the deconstructed view of our components, going clockwise starting at 12 o’clock:

Turmeric Cauliflower Pickles: there are favorite at Comfort Kitchen and it’s easy to see why. They’re a perfect sweet/sour balance and the exotic whiff of curry and turmeric makes you feel heathy.

Guido’s Half Sours: we were planning to use David Chang’s Quick Pickles as our cucumber component, but wanted to see how a lacto ferment would get along with a vinegar pickle. They went together just fine.

Pickled Red Onions: we used this recipe, but sliced them lengthwise rather than into rings so you end up with pickle strands which are easy to add to a burger. Not as Instagrammable as rings, but a more efficient use of product with very little waste.

Pickled Rutabagas: this is our hat-tip to Comfort Kitchen’s strategy of always including one novelty pickle. Based on our Pickled Turnips Mediterranean-Style recipe, but using the turnip’s denser cousin and without beets since we already had a red component in the onions.

Carrot Pickles with Ginger and Anise: we wanted to include a rice vinegar pickle, but this was a little mild compared to the other strong flavors and we might amp up the spices next time. (But do try the recipe on its own; not all pickles have to be intense.) If we had been using our rice vinegar pickled onion recipe, the carrots might have been pickled escabeche-style, with lots of oregano and garlic.

Comfort Kitchen pickle Plate

Here’s the pickle plate served to my Yelp friend Steve N. at Comfort Kitchen.

About the pickling method: all these were refrigerator pickles, designed for quick consumption within a few days, so we could skip the complications of a water bath for canning. Our general technique (see individual recipes for variations) was to boil the vinegar/spice liquid to bring out the flavors, add the vegetables to the cooking liquid and let it return to the boil, then cool to room temperature and transfer to refrigerator jars. For denser product, like carrots and rutabaga, leave at a simmer for a few extra minutes. For more delicate veggies, like cauliflower florets, omit the return-to-boil time.

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Recipe: Carrot Pickles with Ginger and Anise

Posted on January 22, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Carrot Pickles Ginger Anise

Carrot Pickles with Ginger and Anise. I got this nifty cutter to make the serrated slices.

Carrot pickles are a bit mild on their own, but they play well with others on a pickle plate. The ginger, anise and rice vinegar provide sweetness even without sugar. Makes 1 pint.

Ingredients:
3-4 fat carrots, peeled
1 whole star anise (or substitute 1/2 t aniseeds or fennel seeds)
½ inch chunk fresh ginger, peeled
2 cloves garlic
1 t Kosher salt
½ c rice vinegar
½ c water

Method: slice the carrots on the bias into ½ inch pieces. Bring all other ingredients to the boil in a saucepan then add carrots. Simmer 10 minutes or until carrots are just tender, then transfer to pint canning jar. After pickling liquid has cooled to room temperature, pour on top. Add 50/50 mixture of rice vinegar and water if needed to top off jar. Keeps in refrigerator for a week or two.

NOTE: recipe can be multiplied if you would like to can pickles following your usual water bath process. Or if you would prefer a fermented vs vinegar pickle, try this recipe from FARMcurious.


Here is the very efficient wrinkle cutter I bought on Amazon. (affiliate link!)

 

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Recipe: David Chang Pickles

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
David Chang Quick Pickles

David Chang Quick Pickles.

If you look on page 65 of your Momofuku cookbook*, you’ll find David Chang’s recipe for quick salt pickles. It couldn’t be simpler: slice cucumbers super thin, then toss with a mix of 3 parts sugar to 1 part Kosher salt. Allow them to sit ten minutes and you have the crunchy goodness that goes into his legendary pork buns. Depending on  your preference, you can rinse off the (considerable) liquid the cuke will throw off and dry with a paper towel, or just serve it as is.

Then, turn the page and you’ll find his master recipe for vinegar pickles: 2 c water, 1 c rice vinegar, 6 T sugar, 2 ¼ t kosher salt. He likes to line up plastic takeout containers on a counter, put a different veg in each one, and pour over hot brine to cover. Refrigerate a day or until it’s sour to your liking, then eat. We don’t like this recipe as much because it’s a bit heavy on sugar for our taste, plus we enjoy a greater taste variety in our pickles. But it’s still a solid technique and very easy.

*You don’t have the Momofuku cookbook? Then order your copy right now. (Affiliate link!!) Judging from the condition of our copy, it’s one of the most-referred to books in our kitchen. And as a bonus, you’re likely to pick up some useful kitchen lore (and cusswords) as you read.

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