Recipe: Thai Red Curry with Basil

Posted on December 15, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Thai Red Curry with Basil

Thai Red Curry with Basil

Thai Red Curry with Basil is the spicy/sweet/sour dish designated “chili basil” at your local Asian fusion place, where you specify the flavor base then add protein of choice. It’s very fast and easy to make with Maesri Prik Khing Curry Paste. Technically it is supposed to have green beans, and lots of them, but I prefer to add standard aromatics and serve my vegetables in a second dish. Serves 3-4 as a main dish over rice or noodles.

Ingredients:
2 T vegetable oil
1/3 to ½ can Maesri Prik Khing Curry Paste*
½ c green or red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 small red onion or shallot, coarsely chopped
½ c sliced mushrooms
1 lb boneless protein such as pork, chicken, shrimp, squid, tofu cut into bite size pieces
½ lb green beans, parboiled and cut into 1 inch lengths, optional
1 T lime juice
2 t fish sauce
Water, about ½ c
Small handful of basil, mint or shiso leaves, coarsely chopped (optional but desirable)

Method: heat oil in wok and add curry paste; stir and fry till it becomes very aromatic. Add bell pepper, onion and mushrooms and stir to sauté for a minute or so until just soft. Add protein and stir fry just until cooked through. Add green beans if using and cook until just hot. Add lime juice, fish sauce and water and stir the mixture. You want a good amount of liquid/gravy so if it all evaporates add more water. Finish by stirring in the bitter herbs off the heat and stir just until wilted. Serve hot, over rice, with garnish of cilantro and lime wedges if desired.

*Maesri’s recipe calls for using the entire can, but I find that way too spicy. The amount recommended provides plenty of flavor and a decent amount of heat. If you find you need more heat, serve some Nam Pla Prik Manao Kratiem (Thai Crack Sauce) on the side.

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Maesri Thai curry sauces

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Maestri Thai Curry Sauces

Our collection of Maestri Thai Curry sauces

Maesri Thai curry sauces come in little cans in a wide variety of flavors, and can be used to create a complex flavor profile in minutes. Each can is not much more than a buck in my Asian market so it’s tempting to stock up with more than you’re ever going to use. Surprisingly, they’re not much more expensive on Amazon: a six pack with two each red, green and yellow curry (presumably the most popular flavors) is only $10 with Prime shipping. (Warning: affiliate link!)

Maestri Recipe

Recipes are printed on the cans in tiny, impossible to read type. Click on the picture to enlarge it for a better look.

Maesri has a demonic layout artist who insists on putting a recipe on each can in tiny black type on a dark background. Fortunately, we have high resolution cameras in our phones these days and it’s easy enough to take a closeup picture then blow it up so the recipe becomes readable.

Almost all the recipes are the same, actually: stir-fry the contents of the can in coconut milk (the liquid in coconut milk will quickly boil away so it becomes an effective cooking oil), then add ingredients and another can of coconut milk. The proteins and vegetables recommended will vary from sauce to sauce and of course you can make your own modifications.

Our favorite is an outlier in that it uses oil, not coconut milk, for the stir-fry: Prik Khing Curry Paste. It’s only slightly more expensive at $10 for a four-pack on Amazon and can be used to create the familiar spicy/sweet/sour dish designated “chili with basil” (that’s the base, you choose the protein to add) in your neighborhood Americanized Thai restaurant.

Little in size, big in flavor, Maesri Thai curry sauces make great stocking stuffers. Check ‘em out!

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Release the quesabirria!

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Quesabirria Taco Setup

Quesabirria Taco Setup with tacos, consommé, garnish

We were supposed to be in San Francisco this week, but the trip was cancelled due to rising COVID numbers. One of the things on our checklist was a visit to the Mission for quesabirria tacos, specifically to El Patron where they’re $1 off on Tuesdays. So, of course, we had to try making them at home.

Birria is a red meaty stew with an intense flavorful broth (in Mexico it’s called a consommé though it’s not clear like a French consommé) which is typically served separate from the meat. The ingredients include various dried chiles, aromatics and a range of spices including small amounts of warm spices like cinnamon and cloves. The meat was originally goat but it seems to be made almost universally with beef these days, since beef is much cheaper and more available than goat.

Dip Taco In Broth

How to make the tacos. Dip tortilla in broth…

We looked at many recipes in both English and Spanish and found more commonalities than differences. Some cooks brown the meat first, others just dump it into the stock. Some prepare the stock before cooking the meat. We opted to brown the meat and cook everything together for maximum flavor. We used a large chuck roast, guajillo chiles for rich toasty flavor and de arbol for heat. The spice mixture overall was closest to this recipe, though we did not use an Instant Pot.

Crisp In Skillet

Crisp it in the skillet…

After cooking the meat about 4 hours to falling apart consistency, we separated the meat and shredded it by hand. The stock was strained and moved to the refrigerator overnight so we could remove some (not all) of the fat which had congealed on top. In tasting the next morning we added considerable salt and a couple more guajillos since the chile flavor didn’t stand out enough. Another hour on the simmer ring, and it was time to make the tacos.

FOLD OVER TACO

… Fold over to melt the cheese.

Quesabirria tacos are an interactive exercise in which diners get to curate the meal to their satisfaction. A tortilla is dipped in the broth and transferred to a griddle or cast iron skillet, where it will sizzle as the cook adds a generous amount of meat and melty cheese. (We used a generic “Mexican blend” found at Walmart; the most important thing is that it must melt easily and evenly). After a moment the taco is folded in half, then flipped. It is ready to remove when the cheese is oozing out the side.

By the time the tacos reach the diner they have dried out with the heat and can be opened to add ingredients. Cilantro, a squirt of lime juice, chopped onion and jalapeños are essential. A small container of the consommé is provided for dipping the taco. It’s really messy eating, and really good. And you don’t have to go to San Francisco to enjoy it.

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An open letter to Mr. Jeff Schnoyer of Dallas, TX

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Highland Park Cafeteria sour slaw

Highland Park Cafeteria sour slaw.

Dear Mr. Schnoyer, your LinkedIn profile still lists you as the owner of the Highland Park Cafeteria in Casa Linda Village. Although this beloved Dallas institution has been permanently shuttered in the wake of the pandemic, you have teased at releasing some or all of your treasure trove of recipes. (That’s according to our archive; your former website is no longer active and Google warns us not to click on the link because it might expose us to hackers.) This makes us hungry for what is in our view the deepest and darkest secret of them all, the formula for the cherished sour slaw.

We have labored relentlessly, if not recently, to get to the bottom of this mystery. In 2012, we purchased a takeout container of slaw at the cafeteria and then prepared several test candidates at our mother’s house in Dallas. Now she is gone, as is the house, along with the cafeteria, so this experiment cannot be repeated. We later published a Hail Mary recipe which was probably influenced by a search for “sour slaw recipe” online which produced a number of not helpful results.

A couple of new developments have since come on the scene to offer a potential breakthrough in this very cold case. First, the recipe for Shanghai-Style Pickled Cabbage Appetizer which we worked up to match a local restaurant’s dish turned out hauntingly close to the sour slaw of our dreams. And second, the resolution of digital cameras (including smartphones) has gotten much better allowing us to identify things we could not identify before.

Poppy Seds

High resolution iPhone 11 photo shows poppy seeds are kidney-shaped, not round.

You will certainly recognize the dish at the head of this post; it’s our canonical shot of an actual bowl of HPC Sour Slaw. We are sadly aware we will never again encounter this item in the wild. Blow it up to maximum resolution and look at the “seeds” used in the dressing. At the time we speculated they were either celery seeds or more likely poppy seeds. But using today’s technology we can discern that poppy seeds are kidney shaped, So what are these random and irregularly shaped grains? Ground black pepper, same as in our Halal Guys taste test! Right, Mr. Schnoyer?

Copycat Sour Slaw

This week’s inferior sour slaw copycat, made with “cole slaw mix”.

That’s a nice solution to a fairly minor detail, but the sauce on the slaw is the main event. Very early on we assumed there was little dressing and most liquid was exuded by the cabbage. After the Shanghai slaw recipe mentioned above, we are now certain that your cabbage was processed in a similar way, rubbed with salt and allowed to cure slightly but not to the point of wilting, before rinsing and draining for final prep. (We once ordered a bowl of HPC sour slaw which was very different than the norm. It was crunchy and not very flavorful. We now realize it was simply too early in the cure.)

This week we made up another batch of Shanghai slaw with the same formula of one part white sugar, one part white vinegar, 2 parts water. We didn’t have a whole head of cabbage on hand so we used a bag of premixed “cole slaw mix” along with a bit of chopped green pepper and diced tomato and, yes, a coarse grind of black pepper to replicate the HPC ingredient list. It was good, but way too sweet!

This made us realize how important the cut of the cabbage is to the finished product. Because it has so much more surface area, the cabbage in the cole slaw mix is saturated with the dressing causing it to become oversweet. The original Shanghai slaw was specified as being hand-torn into 3 inch pieces. This seemed way too big for us. A coarse chop, with a knife or a cole slaw grater, is probably just right and that’s what I believe we see in the picture above.

So, Mr. Schnoyer, we’re on the cusp of discovery but it would be wonderful if you could just tell us what the gosh-darn recipe is. And while you’re at it, how about the formulas for squash casserole and pecan pie?

Thank you,

Otis Maxwell
Burnt My Fingers

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Food for Thought: Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers

We purchased a used copy of the 1991 edition of Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine soon after acquiring a closeout bread machine circa 2010. The recipes were creative and the several that we executed turned out well. In fact, our Stuffing Bread is based on one of their recipes.

We returned to our copy this Thanksgiving to make the excellent Bread Machine Basic White Bread (which they call Pan de Mie) for leftover turkey sandwiches and were again impressed by the creativity of the recipes. And we discovered that there’s an updated version released in 2015 that is available on Amazon. (affiliate link!) There are at least some new recipes so no reason not to get this rather than the original 1991 edition.

Reviewers on Amazon complain about the fact that many (maybe more than half) of the recipes start in the bread machine but end up in the oven. In fact, that’s evidence of its creativity. They use the bread machine to mix the indgredients and for the first rise. Then you punch down the dough and proceed to shape it. If you already have the bread machine on your counter, this process is a lot more tidy than hauling out the Kitchenaid though you need to restrict loaf size to 2 lbs or under. Check it out.

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Recipe: Bread Machine Basic White Bread

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Turkey Sandwich on bread machine basic white bread

Leftover turkey sandwich made with very lightly toasted bread machine basic white bread.

This recipe for bread machine basic white bread is from the 1991 edition of the Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine cookbook (updated version available here). It made a perfect loaf for Thanksgiving turkey leftover sandwiches with Durkee’s dressing and cranberry sauce. The authors use semolina flour which worked fine for us, but if you want a more delicate crumb substitue durum flour or potato flour. Makes one 1 ½ pound loaf.

Ingredients:
1 ¼ c plus 3 T water
2 T unsalted butter at room temperature
3 ¼ c all purpose flour
¾ c semolina flour
2 T plus 1 t white sugar
2/3 c nonfat dry milk solids
1 ½ t salt
1 ½ t yeast

Basic White Bread

Our 1 ½ pound loafafter a couple of slices have been removed. Technically, this is “pan de mie” or “crumb bread” meaning it has very little crust and lots of tender crumb.

Directions: add the ingredient to the bread machine in order, so the liquids are at the bottom and the yeast is at the top. Process on basic bread setting.

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Review: Purple Carrot meal delivery program

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Purple Carrot Meal Kt

Purple Carrot meal kit includes a fresh onion and a lemon, delivered in an insulated box.

A giant insulated box arrives at your door. On opening it, you find several packets of cooking ingredients. You notice a smallish yellow onion at the end of one of the packets. Your reaction?

If you said “what in the world is that?” this service might be a good solution for you. The directions are clear and the ingredients are pre-measured, reducing the chance of mistakes even for someone with no cooking experience. If you said “that looks like an onion, but I’m glad I don’t have to go to the supermarket and buy my own” this service might also be for you. We’re amazed how half the traffic in our local supermarket nowadays seems to be Instacart or the store’s own employees, putting together orders for customers who don’t want to come into the store because of COVID or because they just don’t enjoy the experience.

If you said “why in the world would somebody send me an ordinary onion in a great big expensive box?” then you’re in our camp. Not only is this a very wasteful use of materials and carbon, but we enjoy the experience of picking out our own food and would be crushed if that was taken away from us.

Purple Carrot is a unique service because it’s vegan. We had the opportunity to try half a dozen meals over the past couple of weeks, though we did not pay for them and were not comped. The best thing that can be said is that the recipes are quite good, which is to be expected as many of them were developed by old reliable Marc Bittman at the service’s launch in 2016. However, the recipes are available online and there are very few proprietary ingredients so you could easily make them yourself and save the money and gut-punch to the environment. (They do use animal replacements like vegenaise, but if you’re vegan you probably have such items on hand and if you’re not it’s easy to make non-vegan substitutions.)

Purple Carrot Ingredients

Some of the individually-packaged ingredients in a Purple Carrot meal kit.

The waste continues with the many small containers of portioned ingredients, such as rice vinegar or the vegenaise, though the containers might be repurposed for specialty oils or spice mixes in a mise en place. We consulted with a family member who’s ordered other kits, including Home Chef and HelloFresh. He confirmed that waste is an ongoing issue and said HelloFresh seems to use less packaging, but they pre-cut the ingredients which he didn’t appreciate because they seem less fresh that way

This article has a more exhaustive comparison of the services, though it doesn’t mention Purple Carrot. The writer also points out that these may be a healthier alternative to restaurant meals because they use less fat and salt. And if your cost comparison is an entrée in a moderate restaurant vs buying and preparing a comparable meal yourself and paying shipping, then meal delivery kits become a more attractive proposition.

If meal kits proliferate, maybe one service will reach the critical mass where they can deliver a reusable/returnable container, equivalent to the milk box on our porch which the local dairy restocks with milk and other items as they pick up empties. That would remove our biggest objection, and we might include them in our menu rotation.

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Your first Thanksgiving turkey

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
2017 Turkey

Follow our recommendations, and your first Thanksgiving turkey can look like this!

Local food blogger Deanna Fox commented on the radio that a lot of folks are going to be cooking their Thanksgiving meal at home for the first time, due to precautions that keep them from traveling to usual family meals. If this is your first Thanksgiving turkey, we have a few tips.

Focus on the turkey. Don’t hesitate to order takeout or just buy from the supermarket for sides and desserts. By successfully roasting your first Thanksgiving turkey, you will gain a life skill you can use year after year.

Allow ample defrosting time. We always publish our Thanksgiving tips post a day early because if you have a big bird and you take it out of the freezer on Tuesday, it’s almost too late. If you’re cooking for a smaller group, you probably have a 12 pounder and you’ll be fine if you take it out of the freezer now and transfer to the refrigerator to defrost for 3 days. If you need to speed up the process you can leave it at room temperature for part of the time or submerge the bird in its wrapping in room-temperature water in your sink. If you have a fresh bird, of course, you’re ahead of the game.

Brine your bird, or don’t. Stuff it, or not. (But if you do brine, rinse the turkey inside and out and pat dry before stuffing, otherwise it will be too salty.) Just have a plan. You really can’t go wrong if you have a strategy and stick to it. This year we are trying something new: a pre-brined small turkey from Trader Joe’s. No idea how it will turn out, but no doubt it will be good. Turkey can be intimidating because of its size and all the sturm und drang around the holiday but it’s a very forgiving protein to cook.

Finally, a couple of tricks to avoid a turkey day disappointment. The breast cooks much faster than the rest of the bird so you should always protect it during roasting. We like to soak a paper towel or cheesecloth in a generous amount of melted butter or olive oil, then drape it over the breast and cover with aluminum foil. The last 20 minutes of baking, remove the foil and the cover so it can brown to match the rest of the bird. Also, consider wrapping foil around the wing tips so they don’t get too crispy to enjoy.

That’s pretty much it… follow the above steps and you’re highly likely to end up with a great meal and a new skill. If you want to complicate things, check out our Thanksgiving clips post which has ideas and links for the big day as well as sandwiches the day after.

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Recipe: Shanghai-Style Pickled Cabbage Appetizer

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Shanghai Style Pickled Cabbage

Shanghai Style Pickled Cabbage

According to Woks of Life, Shanghai-Style Pickled Cabbage is often served complimentary in mainland restaurants. It’s a perfect palate-cleanser between courses of barbecued Chinese meats and would be at home with American BBQ as well (like maybe a smoked turkey for Thanksgiving). In fact, it reminds us quite a bit of sour slaw. Makes 16 appetizer servings.

Ingredients:
1 medium head green cabbage, about 2 lbs
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into bite-size bits
¼ c Kosher salt
2 c water
1 c white sugar
½ t Kosher salt
1 c white (distilled, not rice) vinegar
2 bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, smashed
fresh or dried chili peppers (optional)

Method: cut the cabbage according to your preferred method into bite-size pieces. (Woks of Life likes to hand-tear it into 3 inch squares but those were a bit floppy for our taste; we recommend grating or chopping into shreds). Mix with the carrots and salt in a large bowl and work in the salt thoroughly with your hands until all surfaces have been exposed. Let it cure in the refrigerator 1 to 1½ hours, until liquid has started to pool in the bottom of the bowl, but not so long the cabbage starts to wilt.

Meanwhile, heat the water, sugar and ½ t salt with the bay leaves until sugar is dissolved. Add vinegar and cool to room temperature. Rinse the cabbage and carrots in several changes of water to wash out salt and press dry with clean kitchen towel or paper towel. Mix in the dressing and add smashed garlic and peppers to taste. Cure in refrigerator for 24 hours, stirring from time to time. (It will throw off more liquid.) Serve cold in appetizer portions.

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Results of our Thanksgiving Dinner Candy Corn taste test

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Thanksgiving Dinner Candy Corn

Thanksgiving Candy Corn flavors, top to bottom: Turkey, Green Bean, Cranberry Sauce, Sweet Potato Pie, Ginger Glazed Carrot, Stuffing.

You have doubtless been on pins and needles wondering about the results of our Brach’s Thanksgiving Candy Corn taste test. To recap, a few weeks ago we invited readers to send in a stamped self-addressed envelope and receive the six flavors Brach’s has been promoting as their Thanksgiving Dinner assortment and then participate in a comparative tasting via Zoom.

What happened? The post office happened. Mail was crawling at a snail’s pace at election time and nobody received their samples by the originally scheduled tasting date. So we tried again and succeeded last Sunday, November 15, and a merry time was had by all.

During the Zoom call, we asked participants to arrange their samples in the order shown above and then we guessed about what flavor was which. Green Bean and Cranberry Sauce were identified by color and it was a good guess that the solid orange corn was Ginger Glazed Carrot. To identify the other three flavors, we’d have to dig in.

Green Bean went first since we didn’t have a salad course, and this flavor was universally disliked. The most common complaint was a “grassy” flavor; nobody thought they tasted like green beans. Next we went with the flavor on the bottom which we thought might be turkey because of its yellow bottom (=meat) and brown top (=gravy). But one taster recognized a bready taste and we realized it must be Stuffing. This was also a highly unpopular flavor; like actual stuffing it combined a number of discrete tastes but unlike stuffing they didn’t go well together.

We tried the Cranberry to cleanse our palates and everybody liked this one in the way you like candy. But the taste was distinctly cherry, not cranberry; one of our younger tasters said it reminded him of a cherry Jelly Belly. Then we tried the one on the very top and that was the Turkey–but with the slightly rancid taste of turkey skin that has been in the oven too long. No fans for this gobbler. But the last two flavors hit it out of the park. Carrot had a delightful ginger essence and Sweet Potato Pie had notes of both ginger and cinnamon. I won’t say we were stuffed when we finished, but I will say none of us wanted any more candy corn.

I’ve attended several virtual tasting events during the pandemic, and this was the most successful yet. The small number of tasters (under a dozen, counting kibitzers at the various locations) meant everybody could and did participate in the commentary, and we were discovering together rather than being guided through the process.

If you want to conduct your own tasting, Brach’s Thanksgiving Dinner Candy Corn is now available on Amazon (affiliate link!) and if you act fast you can get it by actual Thanksgiving. For obvious reasons, this item is non-returnable.

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