The food groups of Facebook

Posted on November 11, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Squirrel Stir Fry

Squirrel Stir Fry, from Our Hmong Table.

“I came home and saw my dad hard at work mincing meat on the wooden chopping board. If my dad’s cooking it’s going to be good. He spent a long time in the kitchen today and I didn’t know exactly what he was making, until I saw the head of a squirrel by the side of the minced meat…”

Tub Thao, post in Our Hmong Table on Facebook

We’ve previously posted about our experiences in some Facebook food groups, specifically Aspics with Threatening Auras and Questionable Vintage Recipes. Facebook believes we are up for more adventure so has made some suggestions we’ve happily followed, and you can too. In most cases you just need to agree to obey the rules of the group.

Our Hmong Table is maybe our favorite, with lots of socializing and good fun mixed in with the recipes. It seems like kapoon is the solution for any cooking need. What do rich Hmong bring to a cookout? Nothing that’s why they’re rich. You get the idea.

Korean Cooking is focused on authentic preparations of dishes the members may have tried, often with suggestions from other members. Recently there were numerous posts on what to do with too much shiso/perilla, a problem we had a couple months back.

Lao & Asian Kitchen Cooking has a lot of nice photos but relatively few food prep tips. And Pho Is Life is mainly about how to get a good bowl of soup in the Minneapolis area. (There is no geographical distinctions to the groups; Korean cooking seems pretty spread out while Our Hmong Table has a lot of suggestions from California’s upper Central valley, Fresno up to Sacramento, which we can check out next time we are in CA with a rental car.)

Best of all, the groups seem relatively cordial, with respect for newbie questions and very little of the finger pointing and sarcasm that pervades much social media these days. (Though maybe that’s because of good moderation.) Check ‘em out!

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Recipe: Pav Bhaji (Mumbai street food)

Posted on November 9, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Pav Bhaji with condiments

Pav Bhaji with typical condiments: chopped onions, lime or lemon wedges, chopped cilantro.

This is the Pav Bhaji I made in Minita Sanghvi’s cooking class, taking notes frantically because she cooks from instinct, not recipes. The quantities for some spices seem quite small but the dish was not lacking flavor; feel free to add more if you like. Makes 10 main course servings.

Ingredients:
3 large potatoes, about 2 lbs, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
8 oz cauliflower florets, fresh or frozen
8 oz peas and carrots mix, frozen
2 medium onions, preferably red, peeled and chopped medium fine
8 cloves garlic
½ green bell pepper, seeded and cored and coarsely chopped
¼ t cumin powder
½ t turmeric
½ t nigella/galonga (optional)
¼ t asafoetida (this spice is used by Jains who are not supposed to eat onion or garlic; since those are already in the recipe I would consider eliminating it)
½ bunch cilantro (reserve the rest for garnish)
2-4 oz butter, ghee, neutral oil or a combination (Minita used a full stick of butter; I did half butter, half peanut oil)
2 jalapeños, stemmed but not seeded and finely chopped
8 garlic cloves
2 t Kashmiri chili powder (can substitute non-smoked paprika but the flavor is not the same)
3 T Pav Bhaji masala (essential; buy from Amazon or an Indian foods store)
28 oz can diced tomatoes
Salt to taste (maybe 1 T)

Dinner rolls:
Butter
Kashmiri chili powder or paprika for rolls
Salt
Chopped onions (for garnish)
Chopped fresh cilantro (for garnish)
Quartered lime or lemon (for garnish.

Method: cook the potatoes in a good amount of salted water until just tender; add cauliflower, peas and carrots after a few minutes so all are cooked tender. Drain and reserve. Sauté onion in butter or oil mixture over low heat, gradually adding spices and stirring as you go: first the garlic, then jalapeños, then cumin, turmeric, asafoetida, nigella, Kasmiri chili powder. When the onions are tender and spices are well blended and aromatic, add the tomatoes, then the drained vegetable mixture. Add Pav Bhaji masala and salt and adjust seasoning to taste. Mix with a stick blender or stand blender to your desired preference, lumpy or smooth.

Slice dinner rolls in half and heat in a toaster oven or skillet with a good amount of butter. Serve with the pav bhaji along with chopped onions, lemon or lime slices and chopped cilantro for garnish.

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Pav Bhaji, where have you been all my life?

Posted on November 7, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
First Pav Bhaji

Our first Pav Bhaji.

In the midst of a competitive campaign for a local city council seat, my friend Minita Sanghvi took time out to teach an Indian cooking class. She gave us a choice of 3 dishes we could make. One of them was Pav Bhaji, whose picture showed what looked like a buttered roll sitting next to a vegetable stew. Parker House rolls in Indian cooking? Got to try that!

Minita explained this was a favorite street food in Mumbai, and that it was heavily influenced by Portuguese colonization of the west side of India in the 16th century. The Portuguese brought tomatoes, potatoes, chili—and bread. Though the bread of that time would be nothing like today’s lighter white flour breads because the flour would have been darker and coarse ground and the yeast would come from a variety used to make alcoholic drinks.

The ingredient list included Pav Bhaji masala (affiliate link!), a special spice blend of “chilli, coriander, dry mango [aka anchoor powder], fennel, cumin, pepper, clove, cinnamon, black salt, big [black] cardamom & refined palmolein oil” according to the MTR package description. I went to my local halal market to find it and the friendly proprietor said “oh, you like pav bhaji?” in an approving tone and then “what are you going to do for the bread?” When I told him I was just learning to make it he sent me next door to Aldi where I found brioche dinner rolls, an excellent choice.

Cooking pav bhaji is fairly straightforward. You sauté chopped onions, garlic and green bell pepper in a lot of butter and add various spices as you go, then pour in a generous amount of chopped tomato. Separately, you boil until tender potatoes, peas, carrots and cauliflower. Blend it all in a blender or with a stick blender to the consistency you like (I chose slightly lumpy) and you’re done—except for the bread for which Minita used potato rolls from our local store. She added a good amount of butter to the skillet in which she had cooked the onions and heated the rolls on both sides till they were toasty and buttery, then sprinkled on Kashmiri chili powder (you could also use paprika) and salt and we were good to go.

I am not generally a fan of vegetarian Indian cooking because it is usually too bland for me, but this stuff was terrific, full of flavor and an excellent balance of warm spices, herbs and heat. I wasn’t sure what to do with the roll: make a sandwich? Dip it? Eat it in alternate bites with the stew? (Supposedly the sandwich was not invented until the 18th century, though Wikipedia points out that people had been documented eating meats wrapped in a bready covering since ancient times.) Turns out all the above work well.

Minita says pav bhaji, in spite of its vegetarian ingredients, is considered “junk food” in her home—perhaps because of all that butter. Makes me feel even better about eating it. She won her election, by the way.

Here is our pav bhaji recipe, based on the ingredients we cooked.

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What does cheesecake taste like?

Posted on November 2, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Strawberry Cheesecake

Fresh Strawberry Cheesecake is their most-ordered item, says the Cheesecake Factory.

The Wall Street Journal recently did a piece on how the Cheesecake Factory chain thrived through the pandemic by increasing takeout orders. One of the secrets, as Atul Gawande wrote in a famous 2012 New York article, is process—there’s a 500 page operations manual and a procedure for everything, including how to describe cheesecake.

“Adding your delicious descriptions helps guests find the cheesecake they’ll enjoy most,” the guide instructs employees. “Use words that are natural to you and be sure to include your enthusiasm!”

Here are 42 words Cheesecake Factory provides to prime the pump:

Amazing Baked Chewy Chocolatey Chunky
Covered Creamy Crispy Crunchy Decadent
Delectable Delicate Delicious Dripping Drizzled
Extraordinary Fabulous Fantastic Full Gooey
Heavenly Layered Mouthwatering Out of this world Oozing
Light Loaded Rich Scrumptious Silky
Sinful Smooth Soaked Soft Sprinkled
Sweet Swirled Tart Unbelievable Velvety
Yummy Yum-a-licious

What’s interesting to me is how few words actually describe the taste of cheesecake, and only a few more describe the mouthfeel. The rest are about the experience—how you will feel, about yourself and the dish, as you are eating it and how you will be perceived by others.

Some time ago, when I was writing professionally for a meat company, I made a post about how hard it was to come up with adjectives describing taste and mouthfeel without repeating yourself. I later did some catalog writing for Allen Bros., an upscale steak purveyor, and inherited a copy style which was about how “your guests” will react when you serve up your perfectly cooked meat: you paid a pretty penny for this steak, and you want to make damn sure they’ll appreciate it. But still, it always started with taste—that first bite that confirms to the eater this is the good stuff, a cut above the rest.

Cheesecake Factory is doing something different. They want customers they’re doing something special and not a little sinful, simply by ordering such a payload of carbs and calories. I am sure Atul Gawande would approve—especially because he is a doctor by trade (the New Yorker article was about how healthcare delivery should be organized more like the Cheesecake Factory) and these gooey, oozing slices mean lots of new business for his profession.

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Recipe: Creamy Cucumber Salad

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Creamy Cucumber Salad

Creamy Cucumber Salad

Creamy Cucumber Salad came from a German food blog, and it does remind us of salads served at a meals-included Munich hotel during a stay long ago. Goes great with fish or in a smorgasbord-type setting. We’ve drastically cut back on the sour cream because the cucumbers throw off plenty of liquid on their own. Makes 4-6 appetizer servings.

2 large cucumbers, peeled, sliced in half lengthwise and seeded; or 4 seedless Persian cucumbers
1 T minced yellow onion
½ c sour cream
1 t Kosher salt
1 T white vinegar
1 t dried dill weed or 1 T fresh dill weed, finely chopped
¼ t sugar
Pinch of black pepper

Method: slice the cucumber into ½ inch slices and mix with the chopped onions. Mix all remaining ingredients except sour cream and let them hydrate for a few minutes, then add to the sour ream and mix to a uniform consistency. Mix in the cucumber slices and refrigerate 6 hours or longer before serving. Creamy Cucumber Salad will keep for a couple of days in your refrigerator and tastes even better the next day.

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Recipe: Smoked Baked Beans

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Smoked Baked Beans

Smoked Baked Beans. The dish used for cooking will be a goner, so don’t use anything you’re fond of.

Smoked baked beans are cooked along with your brisket or other smoked meat, taking advantage of the extra space on your rack if you have a barrel smoker, or the top level if you have a Weber Bullet like me. You are going to add all the flavor, so start with the cheapest canned beans you can find. Makes 6-8 servings.

Ingredients:
28-oz can baked beans (we used Great Value from Walmart)
2 T bacon fat OR 2 strips bacon
2 T brown sugar
2 T cider vinegar
1 medium onion
1 t Worcestershire sauce
½ t ground black pepper
Salt to taste

Great Value Baked Beans

Use the cheapest prepared beans you find. This can was $1.48 at Wal-Mart.

Method: cut 3 or 4 nice slices of onion across the grain to use as topping, then chop the rest. Add chopped onion to the beans along with brown sugar, cider vinegar, pepper and Worcestershire; if using bacon fat melt it and add that as well. Mix thoroughly and taste for salt; depending on the brand you may need to add more. Pour the beans into a shallow aluminum tray or other pan you don’t mind ruining. Top with reserved onion slices and bacon slices, if using.

Smoke along with your meat during the initial, smokiest part of the cook. You can take them out after that but there’s nothing wrong with leaving them in until you’re ready to remove the meat (or maybe wrap the meat and leave it to slow-cook, depending on your process). Serve hot with other BBQ fixins.

Smoked Beans BBQ dinner

A typical Texas BBQ dinner, including smoked baked beans.

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Texas Monthly BBQ guide jumps the shark

Posted on October 21, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Goldees Pit Bosses

The pit bosses at Goldee’s in Fort Worth are all in their 20s. Ranked #1 in the new Texas Monthly BBQ guide.

The annual Texas Monthly BBQ guide is eagerly awaited by Texans near and far. Will Snow’s retain its top ranking, or will some upstart along the lines of Franklin in Austin upset the post oak woodpile? What old standbys have lost their luster as a pitmaster retires or is called to the great smokehouse in the sky, and who are the young bucks/buckettes who will emerge to replace them?

Well, the Texas Monthly BBQ guide for 2021 is a bit of a departure. Snow’s and Franklin are #9 and #7 respectively, Kreutz’ is the only Lockhart smoker listed (as an honorable mention), and Miklethwait and Louie Mueller don’t even crack the top 50. In their place is an assortment of places serving novelties like brisket elote—”Layers of creamed corn, chopped brisket, queso fresco, cilantro, and hot sauce are a full meal in a cup” at #10 Panther City BBQ, Laotian sausage—”take a chunk, mash it into a bit of sticky rice, and dunk the combo into the spicy-sour jeow som sauce” at #1 Goldee’s Barbecue and, God help us, “an array of Instagrammable desserts” at #3 Burnt Beans Co.

What in the world has gotten into BBQ Editor Daniel Vaughn, and his monk-like attention to temperature stalls, smoke rings and burnt ends? Well, therein lies the problem. According to Texas Monthly, 37 staffers and 3 freelancers visited 411 barbecue joints to compile a preliminary list, and the “most promising candidates were then revisited by either barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn or food writer Patricia Sharpe, or both, to determine the top ten.” Notice the “or” in that statement. Some of the top places were not even visited by the Texas Monthly barbecue guru.

Now, we understand these are tough times for traditional media, and Texas Monthly needs to appeal to a younger demographic to stay afloat. And establishments that serve the public must evolve as well. We grew up near the first 7-11 store in Dallas, which was referred to as “the ice house” by old-timers because that was their most important product when self-cooling refrigerators were a relative novelty. These days you can probably buy a bag of ice at 7-11, but you’d have to look for it.

Frankin Barbecue

An array of smoked meats from #7 Franklin. Not very Instagrammable, but mighty tasty.

But… barbecue is all about the meat. And while we love the sides (especially when the place takes a novel twist on a standard, like the poppy seed slaw and buttermilk pie at Miklethwait), they should never be allowed to steal the show from the main attraction which is the classic cuts of beef, pork, sausage, maybe chicken or turkey, prepared to the best of the pit boss’ ability.

It’s clear that the reviewers were entranced by the novelty of imaginative entrees and clever desserts (we refuse to use the I-label) and as a result they lost track of the reason they were reviewing. People travel long distances and wait in long lines in search of a transcendent BBQ experience and “sassy kimchi, vinegary braised cabbage and sausage, and terrific pork hash (a.k.a. rice with a meaty gravy) … [and] cheddar cheesecake with a dab of apple butter … worth a return visit” (at Leroy & Lewis, #5) ain’t it.

If you want to read the rankings in full, Texas Montly is behind a paywall but you get two articles for free. The top 10 is here, and the also rans here. Read fast, because we predict this will prove a one-year experiment and we’ll be back to the regular rankings in 2022. The one silver lining about this train wreck? For now, the lines are likely to be shorter at Snow’s.

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Recipe: Best Way Eggplant Parm

Posted on October 19, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Best Way Eggplant Parm

Best Way Eggplant Parm.

Best Way Eggplant Parm uses a flour-and-egg wash when cooking the eggplant slices. This creates a barrier to keep the slices from absorbing excessive oil, plus it provides another layer of flavor that’s similar to breadcrumbs but without the grease. Only possible drawback is that the slices tend to come apart when you cut them. If this bothers you (it doesn’t us) you can reassemble on the plate, slice the product cold then reheat in microwave, or build a shorter stack in a wider pan. Serves 4 as an entrée.

Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant, about 1 ½ lb
Kosher salt, maybe 1 T
2 T olive oil
1 egg
1 c all purpose flour
1 t Kosher salt
½ t ground black pepper
1 c good tomato sauce
2 T tomato paste (optional)
1 c grated mozzarella
¼ c grated parmesan or romano
1 t oregano
1 t garlic powder or 4 cloves garlic, chopped fine

Battered Eggplant

Egg-battered slices waiting to be assembled into Best Way Eggplant Parm.

Method: peel the eggplant and slice crosswise into ¾ inch slices. Sprinkle both sides of each slice with salt and rub it in to be sure the surface is thoroughly coated. Stand the slices up in a colander for an hour or so to leach out excess liquid then dry thoroughly with a paper towel or clean cloth (you want to remove some of the salt as well as the water).

Heat the oil to medium-high (about 350 degrees) in a non-stick skillet. Make your dredging mixtures: thoroughly mix flour and spices in a plastic bag; dilute egg with a little water and beat. Dip each slice in the flour, then the egg, then lay it in the heated skillet.  Don’t crowd the slices; cook in two batches if needed. If temperature is right it should sizzle when you put it in the pan then cook till the bottom of the slice is a light golden brown. Flip and cook the other side to the same light golden brown. Test for doneness with your finger; if the slices are not very tender and yielding give it another couple minutes with the heat slightly lowered. When the slices are done, transfer to a paper towel to drain.

If you are using tomato paste, mix it into the tomato sauce; this will give you a deeper, richer flavor. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Assemble the dish in a loaf pan or 9×9 glass pan which has been buttered or oiled to prevent sticking. Start with a thin layer of sauce, then a layer of eggplant slices, then a layer of mozzarella. Sprinkle on some parmesan, garlic and oregano. Repeat this process till all the eggplants have been used with the top layer being cheese and spices. Bake 30 minutes or until the cheese is thoroughly melted. Slice and serve. Eggplant parm reheats well and should taste as good or better the next day.

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Top five recipe posts of 2021 on Burnt My Fingers

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Halal Guys Sauces

On the left, the original Halal Guys White Sauce; on the right, our adaptation.

We reported our five most popular non-recipe posts of the year the other day; now let’s cut to the chase with the most-clicked-on recipes of 2021. As with the previous post, we’ve made an adjustment to upgrade the recipes that were preferred by our regular readers vs. those that were liked by the folks who flocked here in the depths of the pandemic and have since dwindled. The downgraded recipes (and there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just not in our top 5) are at the bottom of this list.

  1. Halal Guys White Sauce. It’s almost too easy to make the mild topping which is served along with the fiery red sauce at the iconic street food stands (and now strip mall locations). So maybe you should draw out the experience by reading this post first, followed by this one.
  1. Vinegar Peppers. This one is pure comfort food, and it’s an essential element if you are not eating out as much and recreating the menus of your favorite red sauce places at home. Do try the related recipe for Chicken Riggies, in which these peppers have a big role.
  1. The Colonel’s KFC Three-Bean Salad. We feel like our copycat recipe for KFC Cole Slaw is pretty close, but this one is a dead ringer. You’ll have to take our word for it since the fried chicken stores discontinued the bean salad, to the lament of many of our readers.
  1. Thai Chili Vinegar. We’re noticing a trend here: the most popular recipes of 2021 are also the easiest to make. This is the stuff that is on the table at every Thai restaurant in the world, providing sweet, sour and spicy all in one spoonful.
  1. Bone Bread. Ha ha, this is not at all easy to make and it’s also not a real recipe but a riff on a basic white bread with a ghoulish twist for Halloween. Munch it with some stinky cheese and maybe blood sausage while you’re waiting for the trick-or-treaters.

The also rans, two recipes that would have placed in the top five if we cut off our poll in February:

Amish Creamed Celery. A perennial favorite that will probably return to our top five next year. Celery has a lot of significance to the Amish, as explained in the post, yet we couldn’t find a recipe cooking with it so we created our own.

Instant Pot Sourdough Bread. The popularity of this post is doubtless due to the search gods, and we bet not that many people have actually made it. If you do, you’ll be rewarded with a sourer-than-usual product that may or may not be reminiscent of the loaves produced by the Larraburu Bakery in San Francisco.

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Top five non-recipe posts of 2021

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Lan Chi Chili Garlic Paste

Lan Chi Chili Paste with Garlic. We tell how to get it in top post #4.

It’s time to report the most popular recipe and non-recipe posts on Burnt My Fingers, measured by the number of clicks over the past twelve months. However, this year we have an unusual situation because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our readership more than doubled during the early months when everything was moving online. As things improved, many of these new readers peeled off toward better climes.

We appreciate their time on Burnt My Fingers and wish them well, but it doesn’t seem right to include them our annual top posts reports. So we are making a one-time exception and downgrading a couple of posts that were popular in the pandemic months, less so with our current readers.

  1. The Halal Guys white sauce mystery… SOLVED! This post has been at the top of our list ever since it was published in 2018. People seem to want to cut to the chase rather than reading this post which is about all the shenanigans leading up to our discovery. If you want to make your own version of the Greek-style white sauce served at the popular food stands and now strip mall franchises, dig in.
  2. Best mayonnaise taste test: Hellman’s vs Duke’s vs Kewpie. This post wasn’t published till we were four months into 2021, so it’s impressive that it vaulted into the #2 position. As with the white sauce post, be sure to read the comments. Some folks think we have it exactly right, while others say we’re full of hooey.
  3. The sauce that made Mr. Durkee famous. An ancient post (from 2010) that keeps ‘em coming year after year. Truth to tell, we only think about Durkee’s Famous Sauce at Thanksgiving turkey time, but there are a lot of folks out there who think differently. We had to revise it because the company that makes Durkee’s lost interest in the product and took down a lot of the links we’d originally provided. Our readers certainly have a different impression.
  4. Lan Chi Chili Paste with Garlic. A newcomer in our top five! Lan Chi is our preferred chili sauce for generic applications such as Chinese takeout, and it’s all but disappeared from grocery shelves for reasons explained in the post. We tell you how to get it, and a lot of folks seem to appreciate this.
  5. The truth about Amish buffets. A post from a few years back that has climbed in popularity during the Pandemic, maybe because readers like to dream about the good old days where you could fill your plate at all-you-can-eat buffets. If that appeals to you, this post might be of interest though the tips it provides are not currently applicable.

Who got cut to make room for these guys (at the #4 and #5 positions)? Test driving the Misen nonstick skillet describes an early user’s experience which is now obsolete a few product turns down the road. And The cure for watery steak solves a problem we didn’t realize we had. Perhaps our newer readers were cooking steaks at home last winter, then went back to their favorite steakhouses when quarantines were eased.

Next: the top five recipe posts of 2021.

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