Nomasutra

So I tweaked a NYTimes Food recipe a bit and it was uber nomtastic. 4 tbsp butter, 1/2 cup white miso paste, 2 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar- microwaved to liquefy, mixed well. Spatchcocked a chicken and slathered the mix under the skin and on surface, let marinade overnight. A day later, preheated oven to 375F and took out of fridge and lined a baking pan with foil. Added wee itty bitty potatoes (halved some slightly larger ones). Added a wired rack on top and laid the chicken across so pan drippings would land on potatoes. Cooked for 50 minutes. Lifted wire rack aside, added asparagus in a single layer over the potatoes. Put chicken on wire rack back on top. Another 30 minutes or so in the oven. Worried skin was overbrowning so turned chicken over for about 15 mins of its cooking time. When cooked through, moved wire rack aside and let chicken rest. Added soy, sesame oil, mirin, and rice wine vinegar to asparagus and potatoes and stirred through. Scattered sesame seeds on top. Carved chicken and served together. SO toothsome, savory, and delicious! I might try with ghee next time so as to avoid fear of burning. It would have benefited from a touch of time at a higher temp to really crisp the skin. Definitely adding to the rotation.

I’ve also used a Nigella Lawson recipe as a great jumping off point– whole chicken cut into pieces, marinated, baked on a tray with sausages.  Her original combi includes a lemon cut into eighths and squeezed into a bag and dropped in, an onion cut into wedges, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, dried sage, and dried mustard.  Sort of a traditional English roast, great with bangers or a mild sausage.  You could also use chorizo and season with orange zest and juice, oregano, cumin, and a touch of paprika.  Let the sausage selection determine your spice blend, and you won’t go wrong.  I’ve also realized I can prep ziploc bags of these mixes, complete with veg, at the weekend, and just dump onto a tray and bake for a hands-off weeknight supper, which is awesome.

Today’s mix is the second time I’ve made it, and one I’ll definitely keep in the mix– Merguez cut into chunks, rounds of sweet potato, onion, chicken pieces with skin and bone, olive oil, a lemon cut into eights and squeezed in, and dried mint, cumin, cinnamon, parsley, and paprika, along with a splash of rose water.  I put it on a foil-lined baking sheet in a single layer at 375F for 45 minutes, and then upped to 425F for another 20 mins or so.  Once I pulled it, I transferred the chicken to a plate, and dumped a bag of baby spinach into the tray of sausage, sweet potato, and cooking juices, and tossed it around to let it wilt.  Served with a bit of goat cheese crumbled on top, and a side of Trader Joe’s tzatziki for dressing/dipping.  Highly recommend!

Also, don’t forget that you can easily pull the chicken and then toss it, and pan juices, along with pasta of your choice.  Add a little pasta water and/or stock if needed, some cheese, and maybe some mix-ins.  I like using dried cranberries or cherries rehydrated with the pasta water, sauteed pine nuts, crumbled goat cheese, or a good amount of parm or pecorino.  Cherry tomatoes either raw or roasted are good.  Add some chopped fresh herbs and a sprinkle of cheese on top, and you’ve got a crowd pleasing meal.

Doesn’t look like much, right?  And yet, that dish contains the most succulent, tender,  rich, spicy-sweet-creamy-unctuous-indulgent butter chicken like pretty much ever.

Let me start by saying this post is WAY overdue.  Not just that I’ve not written in a while, but also, I have a friend who has pressed me for this recipe since well before I even started this blog.  I’m sorry for the delay, but I hope my reasonably decent measurements make up for it!

So, how do you get this deliciousness in your face?  Cut up around 2 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken (I strongly prefer thighs, but I know many like white meat, wrong though they may be).  In a big ziploc bag, add in around 1/2 cup of full fat Greek yogurt, a couple of tablespoons of lime juice (the bottled stuff is fine), a tablespoon of ginger paste, 3/4 tablespoon of garlic paste, and 1 1/2 heaped tablespoons of Shaan tandoori masala.  Add in the chicken, and leave to marinade in the fridge overnight.

The next day, add 1 1/2 tablespoons of besan (chickpea flour, also called graham flour) into the bag and shake about.  Empty the contents onto a foil-lined baking sheet, and put in a 375F oven for 30 minutes.

When the chicken is cooked, take 1 1/2 sticks of butter and melt in a pot.  Add about 3/4 of a large tube of tomato paste into the melted butter, and cook on medium, incorporating it and letting it come to a sizzle.  It will separate a little; keep stirring.  Add in the cooked chicken, scraping in any pan liquids/bits.  Stir through, and let the flavors mingle for a bit.  Add in around 3/4 cup of heavy cream and around 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.  Stir through, and let it gently warm through.  Turn off the heat, and you’re done.

Now, you can shortcut this and use rotisserie or other cooked chicken, and just move to the butter part (add in your Shaan masala when you throw the chicken into the butter/tomato paste mix).  It’s a decent alternative, and great when you do leftover Thanksgiving turkey this way.

However, when time permits, do try it the longer way– marinating the chicken gives a greater depth of flavor, the tartness from the yogurt and lime tenderize the chicken and offset the spiciness of the masala, and the besan adds a lovely coating to the meat as well as thickens the sauce.

Serve over fluffy white rice or with naan or roti for dipping, and keep a good cardiologist on speed dial if you make it often.

With work, travel for work, being sick for a bit, and getting 2 more tranches of our stuff from overseas, I haven’t made time to update this blog for a while.  We’ve cooked and eaten lots of good stuff in the interceding weeks, and I’ll just touch on some highlights.

At Giant we found cheap marrow bone rounds about an inch thick.  My husband put a pan on high heat and seared them off on both sides, added in mire poix, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, and lots of water, brought to a boil, then turned down and simmered, for a gorgeous fond brun.  The it got a squirt of tomato paste and was reduced further to make demi glace.  We made sure to shove out any stuck marrow into the liquid before discarding the bones.  Voila, the perfect base for sublime deliciousness.

That night, we made an amazing beef stew.  In a ziploc, I put in a little flour along with some dried mustard, thyme, rosemary, and parsley.  I added in cubed stewing beef and shook it about.  In a big pot, I let some oil and butter heat up, and then seared off the meat.  I then added chunks of potato, turnip, and carrot, and softened them a touch.  I deglazed with some red wine, then poured in some of that lovely demi glace.  Threw in fresh thyme, a dried bay leaf, a good dollop of dijon mustard, salt, and pepper, and let it cook for 75 minutes or so.

Added in chunks of mushroom and let it go another half hour.

Ladled it out and topped with shavings of fresh horseradish.

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It was the perfect sick day food– rich, hearty, nourishing, and with a little kick to help clear the sinuses.

We froze the unused demi glace, and I’d had it in mind for a while to make French onion soup with it.  Some light Googling led me to a revelation.  It’s possible to caramelize onions in a slow cooker.  That’s a full-on game changer, y’all.  So, of an evening, I sliced up a big old mess of onions, and threw them in the slow cooker with a large knob of butter, some oil, a few sprigs of thyme, and some salt and pepper, set it to low, and let it go all night.  I woke up to lovely smelling, browned, softened onions.  A good bit of liquid and not quite as “roasty” as pan caramelized, but with a fraction of the active time/work, a totally worthy substitute, in my view.  I plan to make batches and freeze at some point.

Anyway, in the morning, I dumped in the demi glace stock, and set the time to 9 hours on low.  I came home to an indescribably delicious smell.  To finish, the soup just needed a few glugs of Worcestershire and good balsamic, as well as salt and pepper.  SO GOOD!

But I’m not one to stop at simply nom when we could do a little work and go full-on nomgasmic.  We’d had a couple of frozen steaks which were of good quality, but somehow slightly disappointing as steak, with a bit too much gristle.  For the second pair of them, I let them partially defrost and then sliced them very thin with a sharp knife (easier when still a bit frozen!).  I got a cast iron pan going with some garlic oil, and sauteed mushrooms.  I turned the heat up and added the thin-sliced steak.  I also added some mustard, Worcestershire, and prepared horseradish, as well as salt and pepper.  I let it cook through and allowed most of the liquid to evaporate.

I then pre-heated the oven and cut thick slices of good sourdough bread.  I loaded the meat mix onto the bread, and tore off bits of taleggio cheese which I added on top.  I popped it in the oven for the magic to happen.

When it was ready, I floated the open-faced cheesesteaks on the French onion soup:

The bread soaked up the goodness, but since it was thick-cut, hearty bread, it retained enough structural integrity that we could grab it and take bites.  Oh man was this incredible.  Melty cheese; tender, savory meat and mushrooms; toothsome bread with the right amounts of crunchy and chewy; and umami-licious soup.  It’s like French onion soup and a cheesesteak and a French dip were on the Island of Dr. Moreau to be fused into a delectable Frankenfood.  Seriously, you should make some version of this meal in the cold season.

We also had another great “slow cooker plus” meal at some point in the past few weeks.  It started with crockpot pork shoulder, which went in with onions, bell peppers, a couple of canned chipotles in adobo, canned tomatoes, naranja (sour orange juice), a little bunch of culantro (a bit like cilantro but its own thing), ancho chili powder, Mexican oregano, cumin, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.  Cooked on slow all day.  When I got home, I pulled out the pork and shredded it with 2 forks.  Then I took corn tortillas and briefly dipped them in the cooking liquid, filled with shredded pork and crumbled queso fresco, and rolled.  I placed them close together in a baking dish.  Spooned on some of the cooking liquid, some jarred salsa, and some crema.  Added shredded cheddar on top and baked up.  Those enchiladas were stupidly tasty, and did not need the guacamole we added on top, though that didn’t hurt.

We also found time these last weeks to take a couple of cooking classes at Sur La Table, which I’ve really enjoyed.  From the Spanish meal, I especially loved a salad which has you roast off chunks of peeled pear with thyme and olive oil to puree into the dressing which includes olive oil, honey, and sherry vinegar.  It gets drizzled over chunks of pear, Serrano ham, and Marcona almonds along with a heap of baby spinach.  The flan was also excellent!  And just this morning we learned about the complex joys of laminated dough, which is how you make croissants from scratch.  Yum and then some.

I won’t say I’m entirely caught up on my culinary reporting, but that’s more then enough for now!

We’re back in the DC area, after, for me 6 years overseas, and 3 years for my husband.  We both have beloved friends and colleagues based here or temporarily around, and we ambitiously decided to have all of them over for a Saturday brunch.  Judging from Facebook RSVPs and thinking there would be some attrition, we prepped food for about 30-35, but we should have nearly doubled our estimates, because everyone came, the food was nommy, and it went fast!

My husband made his classic southern biscuits, but with creme fraiche.  They looked delectable, though neither he nor I had one-  they were snapped up like the proverbial (and literal) hotcakes.  Ditto the crustless muffin cup quiches I made.  That involved sauteing thin sliced leeks and onions with butter, a touch of sugar, and some black pepper.  Those got placed in lined muffin tins.  Custard mix was 6 whole eggs, 6 yolks, and 1 1/3 cups of half-and-half, plus salt and pepper.  Poured over the filling and baked at 375F for about 20 minutes– they rose up puffy like little souffles.  I used this as a jumping off point:  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/crustless-mini-quiches-366969.

We also had a mix of cheeses, and a nice store-bought pate with which I served cilantro and what really surprised me with its popularity, pickled daikon and carrots.  I had made a batch of http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2009/05/daikon-and-carrot-pickle-recipe-do-chua.html for home-made banh mi earlier that week.  For that, I marinated chicken thighs in soy, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, chili garlic paste, brown sugar, and lemongrass, and cooked it in our stovetop smoker.  I shaved some cucumber with a peeler, and layered that with the chicken, homemade daikon/carrot pickles, fresh cilantro, and fresh mint on a good baguette.  I slathered the bread on both sides with super easy homemade mayo–1 whole egg, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 cup of neutral oil, some powdered mustard and a touch of ready dijon, and blitzed with a stick blender until emulsified.  Absolutely delicious.  Incidentally, used the mayonnaise to dress good crabmeat from the local grocery store and piled into split top hot dog buns with a slice of (decidedly not homemade) dill pickle for a superb supper later that week, too.   But I digress.  I had excessive leftover homemade daikon/carrot, and since pate is a super popular banh mi topping, I decided to go fusion by offering French-style duck pate with it.  I loved the combi, and others (a vegetarian friend included) just loved the pickles I’d made!

Of course, I feel like a fancy brunch calls for something spectacular for the carving board, so I made up a leg of lamb with my mom’s recipe.  Make the marinade by running your food processor with plain yogurt (a thick, full fat one), garlic and ginger pastes, salt, slow fried onions (or make like me and use packaged fried shallots available at Asian grocery stores– I’ve used jarred onion jam in a pinch, too, in which case I omit the raisins since there’s sugar in the jam), a big handful of cashews (or almonds) and raisins soaked in water and lightly drained, and a heavy pinch of saffron soaked in a touch of milk or cream. When pureed, the marinade should be pretty thick.  Take a bone-in leg of lamb and make slits in it.  Wedge in dried chilies, garlic cloves, bits of cinnamon stick shard, cardamom, cloves, and bay leaves.  Coat all over with the thick marinade, and let it hang out for two days if you can.   Now, my mom has always done this in an oven bag and slow roasted on low.  I decided to go with the slow cooker.  America is truly a magical place, where one can buy crockpot liners to spare you mess, so I lined my pot, set the marinated meat in it, covered, and set in the fridge for 2 days.  I ended up cooking it on low for about 5 1/2 hours and on high for another 2 or so.  It was about 4 1/2 pounds; your mileage may vary.   Before serving, if you can get it, sprinkle on several drops of kewra (screwpine juice/syrup, available at Indian grocery stores) and leave covered til ready to serve.  I sliced it up and served some of the pan liquid on the side.  You could certainly reduce it, but it’s rich and delicious as-is.  Honestly, once I ran out of lamb and had latecomers, I ladled some of the gravy onto deli roast beef and got no complaints.  This was the detritus:

At sumptuous brunch buffets I also love the sushi and smoked/cured fish, so when I saw an intriguing recipe for cured salmon in the NYTimes, I knew I wanted to give it a whirl.  I got a just-over 3 pound center-cut side of salmon at Whole Foods.  I went to work on:  http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018116-beet-and-horseradish-cured-salmon?version=meter%20at%202&module=meter-Links&pgtype=article&contentId&mediaId&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FNAqQ7LkoJv&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click, but omitted the dill and cracked pepper (the latter was an oversight).  I just used the food processor to shred the beets in tranches, then did the horseradish in the same bowl. One tip– use a deep-ish sheet pan if you have it, because the initial mix looks reasonably dry, but once you add the kosher salt and sugar.  It gets extremely liquidy fast, and the spillage makes your fridge and other areas look like a crime scene, but the results are totally worth it.

Turned out super, super tasty– rich, tender, flavorful, succulent– everything you want in cured fish. I also made an accompaniment– a small package of goat cheese, a tablespoon or two of sour cream, lemon zest, dill, black pepper, chives, and a bit more of fresh grated horseradish. Amazing together!  I will definitely make again– it was honestly better than a lot of store/restaurant cold smoked salmon, which is decidedly pricier.

I also added some good balsamic and cracked black pepper to frozen mixed berries for a little tangy-fruity item, and, of course, a brunch requires something sweet, so I went with homemade cinnamon rolls.  I prefer a recipe actually drawn from a squishy savory roll and tweaked a bit:

1 1/2 cups warm water MINUS one tablespoon

1/2 tablespoon sugar

2 envelopes (of the 3-packs their sold in) of active dry yeast

Mix these together and let them foam.  Then add in:

1 egg

2 tablespoons of milk

In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, put in

5 cups of flour

2 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons of butter cut into bits

Mix that through with your fingers, going for a sort of wet sand texture.  Then use the dough hook attachment and pour in the liquid yeast mixture, and let it run until the dough forms a ball that pulls off the sides of the bowl.

Rinse a kitchen towel with warm water, wring out, and cover the bowl for 45 minutes or so.  Dough should double in size.  At that point, pour over 2 tablespoons of melted butter and run the mixer again til it’s incorporated.  Let it rest briefly.

On a heavily floured board, take half the dough and roll out to a big rectangle.  Spread with softened butter and 1-2 tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon (eyeball this part, it’s fine!)  Roll it up, cut into half and then halves again, and then once more (I get 8-10 individual rolls from each half of the dough) with a sharp knife, and place them pretty close together in a pie pan.   Repeat with second half of dough.  Cover, and leave in fridge overnight to have ready to bake for breakfast/brunch the next morning.  When you want to bake, turn your oven to 170F, and turn OFF when it hits temp.  Place the pie dishes with the rolls in there for 30 minutes or so for a final proof.  Take them out, then preheat the oven to 400F.  Bake for 15 minutes or so– they’ll be beautifully puffed and golden brown.

For icing, use 3/4 cup powdered sugar, a couple of tablespoons milk/cream/half-and-half, and a teaspoon of vanilla.  Pour that over the warm rolls and let set slightly before serving.

Note that if you want to add vanilla to the batter, feel free, just take out that amount of water (I did a tbsp for this last batch, but can’t comment on the taste difference as I didn’t get a cinnamon roll at the party, either 🙂  )

The food was great and it was genuinely wonderful to see so many of our dearest friends.  However, going forward, it will probably be more reasonable to have smaller groups of people over so we can lavish them with a better attention: food ratio!

So, this is a round-up of some meal highlights from the past week.  One was amazing lasagna that my husband made; I’ll ask him for a guest post so we can come back to that another time.

The next is a glorious chicken/merguez/veggie stew in the slowccooker.  It involved a batch of good frozen chicken stock, chicken thighs with bone and skin, great lamb merguez, 2 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, 1 1 sweet potato, 4 carrots, and half of a giant onion.  Cut the veg into chunks and get it into your crock pot with the meat and stock.  Add in a bit more garlic paste than you think you need, a few good squirts of tomato paste, ground cumin, ground cinnamon, and a touch of chili powder.  If you want to throw in a can of chickpeas and/or mix up the veg, by all means, go for.  Then turn it on low overnight, and awaken to a delectable smell which has you excited about dinner all day.  Or turn it on in the morning, that works, too.  For couscous I use a ratio of 2 3/4 water to 1 1/2 of grain.  Boil the water (or stock, when I’m making a couscous salad), turn off heat, dump in the grain, cover.  After 5-10 minutes, uncover and fluff.  Serve with that gravy, veggies, and meat, and slurp heartily.

Another day was a simple steak taco.  Get a large-ish decent but not indulgently pricy steak from a good butcher, if possible.  Marinate it in scant amounts of garlic oil, Mexican oregano, and ground cumin, cinnamon, ancho, and chipotle, along with some sort of acid– I did a touch of apple cider vinegar, but lime would also be great.  Let it sit for an hour or two.  Sear it in a very lightly oiled cast iron pan on medium-high, 3-4 minutes per side depending on thickness.  Pull it out and let it rest; drop frozen corn kernels into the pan to char them up.  Prep the “Mexican pimento cheese” I’ve posted about before (http://nomasutra.com/index.php/2016/09/11/of-weeknight-dinners-asian-marinades-and-such/), and a batch of guacamole which I’ve also previously posted (http://nomasutra.com/index.php/2016/05/14/meximelt-someones-heart/).  Let the corn cool a bit and add it to the cheese mix.  Warm through corn tortillas in the cast iron pan on very low.  Slice the steak against the grain.  Slather the corn/cheese mix on the tortillas, add strips of steak, and top with some guac.  It’s not tidy, but man is it yummy.

What to do with leftover guac if you manage to hang onto some?  The next morning, make crispy bacon, and slather it with the guac on toast for gorgeous bacon sandwiches.

Speaking of bacon, in case I missed an easy recipe from last week, I also recommend salade liegoise.  Boil potatoes, and over the hot water, steam some good frozen green beans (the long whole ones, not the cut up bits which tend to not retain any snap when heated).  Cut bacon into small bits or use lardons, and cook till crispy.  Set bacon aside, then reserve most of the grease.  In a bit of it, saute chopped onion until soft.  Add a bit more of the grease, some apple cider vinegar, a dollop of dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and a glug of half-and-half or heavy cream.  Whisk through and cook for just a couple of minutes.  Dress the rest of the ingredients with it.  Happy nomming!

So though last week was a short one with the Monday Labor Day holiday, it was also the first week that my husband started at his new job, and I knew cooking at home might be challenging.  So, last weekend, I planned ahead and got a couple of marinades going.

The first was a similar to how you’d season fried chicken, but for a bake.  I got the idea from a friend who got it from another cooking blog, and so I ran with it.  In mine, I used buttermilk, pickle juice, salt, pepper, brown sugar, powdered mustard, and smoked paprika.  I loved the flavor, but realized after baking it in the oven at 375F that I really should have used our stovetop smoker since I’d used skinless, boneless chicken, which can dry out a touch.

For sides, I roasted asparagus drizzled with garlic oil and tossed with salt and pepper at 425F for about 15 minutes.  OMG, sooooo good!  The frilly bits get a little crunchy, and it’s super yum.  I also pan roasted fresh corn on the cob– just let it hang out in a cast iron pan over medium heat, roll from time to time, and watch for it to get little brown toasty bits.  Mine took quite a while, 35 minutes or so while the other stuff was roasting.  Your mileage may vary based on the heaviness of the pan and the heat you use.  I put together a riff on Mexican street corn dressing that ended up being sort of a faux-Mex version of pimento cheese.  Mayo, sour cream, salt, ancho chile powder, dried cilantro (fresh would be good if you have it), and a big handful of the “Mexican cheese blend” shred.  It needed a touch of tartness, and in the absence of any citrus in the house I just went with a splash of white wine vinegar.  Lime juice would have been good, but man, this stuff was ADDICTIVE.  We slathered it on our corn, dipped our asparagus spears, and even swiped some of the chicken through it.   Total winner, winner chicken dinner.

For the other marinade, I did my old stand-by for carrots, which is this one:  http://www.closetcooking.com/2015/03/maple-dijon-roasted-carrots.html and doubled it.  Poured half of it into a big ziploc, and added more garlic paste, ginger paste, sweet chili sauce, fish sauce, mirin, and a good dollop of gochujang, and then got the chicken in there.  Used the smoker for the chicken, and tossed the carrots with their marinade and roasted.  Solid.  Gochujang adds an amazing savory, sumptuous umami, and I highly recommend that you experiment with it.

Speaking of Asian marinades with gochujang, we earlier also had a real success with Korean short ribs.  We asked the butcher to cross-slice the bone-in short ribs they had on hand, and it worked very well.  I pretty closely followed  http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014547-korean-style-short-ribs.  I just used a firm-ish Bosc pear.  I’d recommend cutting the sugar in half and upping the gochujang quite a bit, but that’s to our taste, so you do you.  Also, our broiler was weird and mostly useless so after repeatedly trying it and getting no browning, we ended up moving to tried-and-true cast iron.  Maybe just go with that.

To accompany, I made crab fried rice.  I cooked the rice in boxed stock the day before (1 cup rice : 2 cups stock).  I then cracked a couple of eggs and stirred around like for a scramble, and then, here’s the weird cheffy thing I learned from a cooking show, tossed the cold rice all through the raw egg to coat all the grains.  When you then cook quickly over high heat, it adds yummy egg taste and texture throughout.  I usually season my fried rice with soy, rice vinegar, fish sauce, and a touch of something sweet, like a Teriyaki marinade.   I used a package of some sort of “Asian stir fry veg mix” from the grocery and a tub of fresh crab claw meat (on sale!).  Topped with green onions, it was excellent. and we later had the leftover rice with a runny egg on top and some Filipino longanisa sausages.

We also did sandwiches and leftover chili one night for supper this week.  Deli roast beef and comte cheese on split hot dog buns with horseradish, dijon, and mayo– mad yum.

Oh, and one other recipe/combo recommendation for this post, one for breakfast.  One of my favorites, which I ate almost daily from the coffee bar at my office in Vienna, Austria– a brown bread sandwich with egg salad and a slice of ham or salami.  Make egg salad as you’s like (I go simple, mayo, mustard, salt, pepper, and in this batch some green onion).  Put a little bit on either side of the bread and the sandwich meat in the middle.  Super tasty and a nice change from breakfast standards.  Can be made the night before and packed easily for a bite at your desk if, like me, you can’t manage to wedge in a morning meal and also getting ready in time for work.

So, back in October 2010 I wrote something:

I find it somewhat remarkable that I, born and raised in Fremont, California, now resident in Vienna, Austria, can lift the lid from a pot on my stove and smell my grandmother’s kitchen in Kolkata, India.  It is deeper than muscle memory, and perhaps even deeper than sense memory.  It is almost primordial, tapping into the reptilian part of my brain which remains hard-wired to crave the comfort of rice, boiled eggs, potatoes, and ghee when I feel unmoored.

I am the product of generations of fierce women, strong, courageous, some of them progressive to the point of perceived radicalism.  And all of them, as far as I know, have shown their love through cooking and feeding people.  My own mother, herself well-loved, cosseted, even, managed to make it to the age of 21 rarely having prepared a meal.  Then she married my father, in a leap of faith which only time proved was not entirely foolhardy or just plain crazy.  She moved halfway around the world- as I find myself doing, every 2-3 years, though in my case I have pledged myself to the United States government.  I suppose my choice is no more explicable, and State was pretty much a stranger to me when I signed the contract, too.

In any case, my mother found herself a young, new bride in a foreign land and had to learn to recreate the tastes of home.  She had help, both from my father, who had missed Bengali food so much that he learned basic dishes, and from fellow wives who were a few years ahead of her as immigrants.  Indian grocery stores were few and far between then, and trying to cobble together ingredients must have been difficult.  Nevertheless, she enjoyed being in the kitchen, and she, too, had a deeply rooted sense of hospitality.  It was unthinkable that she would not demonstrate her care for family and friends through that time-honored tradition, nemonthonno, the inviting of people for a meal.

As far back as my childhood memories stretch, my mother has been an exceptional cook.  Even when she first started a business, she could prepare the family dinner within an hour of getting home.  Four burners meant rice, lentils, a vegetable, and chicken or fish, for the most part.  I grew up watching her cook, hearing stories of both her own mother and my dad’s, the types of dishes that people no longer made because it was too much effort.  Never too difficult for my mom, though.  She kept the old traditions alive, but introduced shortcuts and adapted with new ingredients.  How she learned to recreate mishti doi (Bengali sweet yoghurt) in an American kitchen is perhaps something I should ask her!

Now I find myself following in her footsteps.  I move to foreign countries, I try to figure out the food, and then I find a way to cook the dishes that taste of my childhood.  It is one of the small ways I carry my home with me, like a snail or a turtle or a nomad.  It is a link to my heritage, an unshakeable connection, which, more than speaking Bengali or occasionally wearing a sari, reminds me of my personal history.  Like our cooking, and like all the women in my family, it is layered, complex, a balance of sweet and savory, richly textured, and not easily conveyed in a mere recipe.

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I realized that what prompted that note was how my own grocery shopping upon arrival at a new place diverges quite a bit from my cohort.  Some crave peanut butter and jelly, others want Kraft mac and cheese, bologna is the vice of choice for a few.  Me, I want to buy the ingredients to make a chicken curry and white rice, ideally Basmati.  It’s the taste of my childhood, comforting, and restorative.  Most importantly, making it transports me back to when I was a carefree kid while simultaneously reassuring me that I can take care of myself.

Once we finally moved into our apartment that we expect to stay in for our 2 year-tour in the DC area, I began building my pantry.  And the birthday celebration of a dear family friend took us to New Jersey, where I made it a point to hit a big ol’ Indian grocery store to collect some of my staples.  I won’t outline the full list, but I’ll say that for any sort of Bengali meat or egg curry, the basics include turmeric, chili powder, bay leaves, whole cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and bay leaves.  These curries also require onions, garlic, and ginger– if you’re like me, as my mom calls it, “a sucker for convenience,” jarred garlic and ginger paste come in handy.   If you can get your hands on it, mustard oil is good to have on hand, as is a fresh bunch of cilantro (coriander leaves).

So, one of the first meals I made in our new place was a game hen curry with plain Basmati rice.  The gravy was golden, redolent with spices, and the meat tender and flavorful, the smaller form factor closer to the size of chickens in India.  The rice was fluffy, each grain separate and long.

It started with a good glug of mustard oil in the pan.  Then a stick of cinnamon broken in half, 4-5 green cardamom pods (I pierced the tops with my nail), 8 or so cloves, and a bay leaf or two.  After they warmed through, I added in a medium diced onion, a couple of heaping spoons of garlic paste, and a little less than that of ginger paste.  Added in 2 game hens cut into 8 or so pieces each, and gave a good stir.  Added in a small tub of plain Greek yoghurt, some salt, turmeric, and kashmiri chili powder.   I brought it to a boil and then put the heat down to medium-low.  I then intended to cover it, and realized the pan was bigger than any lids I had on hand.  Fortunately one of our impulse buys at the Indian grocery had been a huge tawa (griddle for making rotis), which fit just perfectly over the top.  I let it simmer, covered, for 40 minutes or so.  When I uncovered it, there was a ton of liquid– the game hen and yoghurt did their work.  I then turned up the heat and let it evaporate a bit.  When it was reduced enough to look like a tasty gravy, I turned off the heat, scattered a massive heap of chopped fresh cilantro on top, and put the cover back on.

The rice was just good quality Basmati (I picked a random brand from among the Indian shop’s variety, drawn to the burlap sack that was neither the most nor lest expensive).  A cup of rice gets two of water, brought to a boil, then dropped to low heat, covered and left to simmer until all water is absorbed.

I heaped the curry over the rice, and had an enormously satisfying meal.  It was, as my family would call it, a “beautiful ananda dayak golden sloothha jhol.”  Ananda dayak is joy-giving, and jhol means gravy.  Sloothha is a word my mom and I invented which is sort of onomatopoetic for slurpy, juicy, saucealishiousness.   It was all kinds of happy-making, and took us a big step towards making our new place feel like home.

So, I did have a chance to cook a bit in the past 2 months or so, though of course less than I’d like, since we packed out from Mumbai, took a month of home leave, and have just begun settling into our apartment.  I’ll go back and fill in some blanks– kofta pullao, raita, homestyle Bengali chicken curry, Korean shortribs and crab fried rice…  But I haven’t posted in ages, and I need to start somewhere, so let me do a quick rundown of tonight’s meal.

I had been craving simple roast chicken, and so we nabbed an organic bird at Whole Foods.  I thought it would be a quick roast post-spatchcocking, but I didn’t account for how BIG chickens are here (even small-ish ones by comparison to the rest in the fridge case!)   Also, I my husband had tried his hand at homemade mayo with farmer’s market eggs, so I thought I could doctor it for a Caesar dressing, but, alas, it had gone bad.  Also when I dispatched him for Romaine, I forgot to tell him to get croutons.

So, I started a new batch of Caesar dressing in the food processor– 2 egg yolks, a very heavy squirt of anchovy paste, a load of minced garlic from a jar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, white wine vinegar, ground pepper, and juice of half a lemon.  I blitzed it and slowly drizzled in oil.   After a taste check, more garlic, Worcestershire, more oil (ended up 1 cup in total), and a decent amount of parmesan.  Trust.

A solid dressing addressed, I then hacked apart a half a stale baguette, tossed with olive oil, and got it into the oven for about 20 minutes of the chicken’s cooking time (at 375F).

I chopped the Romaine into a fine shred, added the croutons and some more parm, tossed it through with the dressing, and added the shredded, super succulent roast chicken on top.  Mega noms, just not the quick salad supper I had planned.  Worth, it though.  Maybe try it on a weekend.  😉

You might have noticed it’s been a while since my last post.  Sickness happened, and more time consumingly, packout happened.  The movers were very efficient in packing and boxing our stuff, and I felt awesome about how forward-thinking I was about getting some key kitchen items into our UAB (the air freight which reaches us pretty quickly, and which I’ll want ASAP when we move into our place in the DC area).  It was great until I realized… I barely left enough stuff to use for the two weeks we still had left here.  A lovely colleague brought me a colander, and with that, a large-ish non-stick pot, and a cheap plastic spatula, I managed one evening of pesto pasta with cherry tomatoes and bits of ham and salami.

I learned to make pesto from an enormously foodie friend whom I adore.  She’s the one who turned me on to steamed chicken at Uncle Chong, and she is an amazing cook in her own right.  I still use her pesto and vinaigrette recipes as staples.  The basic pesto recipe is around 2 cups of basil, a quarter cup of flat-leaf parsley, a handful of peeled garlic cloves, at least a half cup of pine nuts (toast them first if you’d like), a good sprinkle of salt, and 2-3 ounces of parmesan (grana padano is fine, too) broken into chunks.  Run all of it through a food processor and pour olive oil in from the top while it’s running until you’ve got a consistency you like.  Obviously adjust by personal taste.  I tend to under-oil so that it’s more versatile– a tighter pesto is easier as a spread on bread, can have cream added for a slightly different sauce, etc.  Also, it freezes well, which is why I had a batch on hand for an easy dinner with minimal kitchen gear.

Another day we used up leftover homemade pizza sauce by smearing it on ciabatta and adding sandwich meats and mozzarella and baking– a bit like french bread pizza, and very yummy!  And the last of the pizza sauce was cooked through with some ground pork for an easy pasta another night.

We’ve also, as you might expect, ordered in a fair bit.  And I realized that I haven’t as yet highlighted some of my Mumbai food favorites.  I’ll feature some here, and include links in case you want to track places down.

Swati Snacks is a must.  It’s a vegetarian street food place where the food is safe to eat.  My personal favorites are the pao bhaji– little buttery rolls served with a mix of vegetables and spices slow cooked til they melt together; pankhi chutney– some sort of flour lightly spread onto banana leaves and steamed, you peel it off into a little roll and dip into coriander chutney, tastes a bit like tamales and is super yummy; and an unexpected favorite– the lassi, which might have a touch of saffron, and is just absurdly good.  http://www.swatisnacks.com/

The Haji Ali Juice Center is another classic.  Now, loads of places have great fresh juices.  My recommendation at this place is absolutely a seasonal fresh fruit with “fresh cream.”  Not sure what they use– a mix of cream and condensed milk, or something else, but it is utterly decadent.  Sitaphal, or custard apple, is one of my all-time favorites, as is the mango.  Both extremely seasonal, so ask them what’s good if you go.  We’ve always driven up for carry out; it’s a bit like Sonic where they come take your order and then bring you stuff to the car.  Gorgeous views while you’re parked and waiting.  http://www.hajialijuicecentre.in/

Across the street-ish inland from there you’ll find Noorani.  Their chicken tikka byriani is absolutely excellent.  However, their kebabs can be hit or miss.

If you want truly stellar kebabs, I direct you to Shalimar.  I think there’s a few in town; we’ve usually had food from the one in Byculla.  If you’re a carnivore, you simply must to go to this place.  Mutton barra, galouti, and shami kebabs, and chicken malai tikka are superb.  http://shalimarmumbai.com/

Next door to it is another classic, Noor Mohammadi.  They’re rightly famous for the Sanju Baba chicken (allegedly the recipe came from Bollywood bad boy Sanjay Dutt), which you should try.  Many love the white byriani; I find it just okay.  The nalli nihari is also a solid choice (a meat dish with little bits of marrow on top).  But the real standout here is their Chicken Hakimi.  It’s a tandoori chicken that gets bathed in a ghee/yogurt sauce which is lighter than it sounds and utterly addictive when sopped up with flatbread.  Not to be missed.  http://www.noormohammadihotel.com/

Copper Chimney is a popular high-end Indian chain, and is reliably yummy.  Good mutton burrah and murgh malai kebabs, and quite a good butter chicken.  Their runaway hit, however, is the extremely rich, comforting chelo kebab.  It’s like a savory rice pudding cooked with butter and cream, studded with bits of white chicken tikka.  https://www.copperchimney.in/

Significantly cheaper and equally reliable is Jaffer Bhai’s.  Their “snacks” menu of fried items is tasty– particularly the cream tikka and mutton samosas, kebabs and rice dishes are good, the reshmi paratha is fantastic (a sort of buttery griddled roomali rotie, I highly recommend), and if you catch the weekly special, the kichda is quite good.  http://jbdd.co.in/

One of our all-time Mumbai favorites has been Mahesh Lunch Home.  They have 3 locations in the city, each with different menus and each fantastically delicious.  If you wind up at the Juhu one, have the Pomfret Lajabaab.  We usually go to the one in South Mumbai, and I will tell you the absolute perfect combo of items.  Look, you can disregard my advice and do your own thing– you’re unlikely to go wrong at this place because it’s all super tasty.  But if you want a sublimely satisfying meal, I recommend that you ask for:  Prawns Koliwada, Pomfret Bhuna Hua Tikka, a large-ish crab de-shelled and cooked with Butter-Pepper-Garlic, and a Seafood Pondicherry Curry with a side of Neer Dosa and maybe a couple of Appam.  Large group?  Add an Istew with fish or seafood of choice, and a prawn byriani if you’d like.  http://www.maheshlunchhome.com/  Others swear by similar coastal seafood restaurant Trishna, which is also excellent, though we prefer Mahesh by a very small margin.  A similar order would be great, and if there, make sure to order the Fire Grilled Squid.  http://trishna.co.in/

Britannia should also be obligatory on your food itinerary.  Have chicken or mutton cutlets, mutton sali boti with roti, and any of the berry pullaos.  Save room for caramel custard.  If you have a bigger group, spring for some mutton dhansak, as well.  There’s a reason this place has been featured in media, travel blogs, and the like.  It’s an institution in Mumbai, and for good reason.  It’s only open for lunch, no air conditioning.  The adorably ancient proprietor will regale you with laminated photos of himself with British royals, and also profess his love for Hilary Clinton and show you letters.  Admire him, and have a delicious meal.  https://www.zomato.com/mumbai/britannia-company-restaurant-fort

So, these are the places I’d recommend if you’re in Mumbai for a short visit and want to try the greats.  We certainly have other places we really like, but more as “regulars” and particularly for when we want to go out for non-Indian food.  Perhaps that might be another post.

We fly out in the wee hours of Friday, July 1, and for the next month or so, I’m pretty unlikely to be cooking.  Perhaps I’ll include restaurant or other food recommendations, or maybe post some previous adventures in cooking that I hadn’t gotten around to sharing.

My quest for perfect homemade pizza continues, and I am making steady inroads.  Again after much reading of recipes, I settled on a cup of warm water with 3 little envelopes of active dry yeast.  Let it hang out.  In the stand mixer with dough hook, 3 1/2 cups of flour, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 1 1/2 tbsps of maple syrup, and 1/3 cup of olive oil.  When yeasty water was frothy, added that, and ran the mixer on med-low until it formed a ball.  Covered the stand mixer bowl with cling wrap and then let rise for an hour.  At that point I divided dough into two, coated in a bit of olive oil, and put one ball in the fridge and one in the freezer (both in ziploc bags).

About an hour before ready to make pizza, took the fridge dough out and let it come to room temp for half an hour or so.  Then, added a couple tbsps of olive oil to my biggest cast iron pan, and put my dough in and patted it out to near the edges.  Set the oven to 170F and when it came up to temp, turned it off.  Covered dough pan in cling wrap and put in the oven for 30 mins to proof.

For this one, I went a little different on toppings.  Remember the weird gyro loaf I made?  It had been in my freezer.  I let it defrost in the fridge and cut it into thin slices.  I took one package of frozen spinach and let defrost, and drained very well, including squishing out excess water using a paper towel.  Sliced red onions and black olives.  Thin slices of haloumi.  And what about the base?  There, my friends, I had a genius idea.  About equal sized dollops of goat cheese, ricotta, and mascarpone, and, on the wise counsel of a foodie buddy, with red chili flakes and dried oregano whipped through it.

Once the dough proofed, I put the pan on the stove and added the base and toppings.  Then I turned the stove to med-high and let the bottom cook a bit, and turned the oven up to 550F.  Pizza went in for 15 mins, and came out looking like this:

The gyro meat and hallomi crisped up beautifully, and the crust was close to a Pizza Hut pan pizza texture.  The white base was gorgeous– creamy and a bit zingy, and a perfect counterpoint to the salty toppings.

You could easily leave off the meat for a delicious veggie version that I think would be a real hit.

Now, for the second batch of dough, I took it out of the freezer and let it hang at room temp all day.   Then I proofed it in the pan same as the first time, and carried on.  For sauce, I again did boxed tomato puree, a little can of anchovies including their oil, dried basil, dried oregano, shredded parm (please use the real stuff, not the canned sawdust), garlic cloves, sugar,  chili flakes, and cayenne.  Use a stick blender, taste, and adjust seasonings as needed.  Let me say that some variant on this will always be my go-to pizza/marinara-style dipping sauce, because it is splendid.  Toppings were bits of cooked sweet Italian sausage and mushroom with a mix of mozzarella and cheddar, with some parm shredded on once it came out, and oh how quickly we gobbled it up!

Now look, I get that if you’re in a place where pizza is pretty much the easiest, most reliable food to have delivered, it doesn’t make sense to invest this much time and energy in making it, so it might not be your sportsball watching go-to to make at home.  So let me hook you up with additional options.

First among these is buffalo chicken dip.  If you have a stovetop smoker (and I’ve told you before that you should!), smoke some boneless chicken of your choice for half an hour or so.  If you want to season it (I like packaged taco or fajita seasoning mix for this purpose) , do, but it’s not strictly necessary.  Or feel free to shred a store-bought rotisserie chicken or use any leftover cooked chicken you’ve got .  Put it in an oven-safe casserole dish and pour in a small bottle of Frank’s or similar hot sauce, a small bottle of ranch dressing (if you like blue cheese, go on with your bad self and use that), and a small package of cream cheese.  Using a fork, roughly mix the stuff together.  Cover in a layer of shredded cheddar, and pop in the oven at 375F for 30 minutes or so, until the cheesy top is melty and bubbly.  Serve with bread, tortilla chips, carrot/celery sticks, or whatever else you like.  It’s a crowd pleaser.

If, however, you want real wings and not just dip, let me tell you the secret.  Well, it’s not a secret, really, apparently Cook’s Illustrated started the trend, and there’s loads of knockoff recipes.  Take 2 dozen chicken wings and put them in a ziploc bag.  Add a tbsp of baking powder (please make sure it’s powder, NOT baking soda) and a 1/2 tsp of salt, and shake it about.  Now lay the wings skin side up on a baking rack set over a foil-covered pan.  Put in the lower rack of the oven at 250F for 30 minutes.  Then move the chicken to the higher rack and set oven to 450F, and cook an additional 35-50 mins depending on size of your wings.  This will provide you crispy, juicy wings without the oil splatters and mess of deep frying, and you can do many more at once depending on your oven size.  My saucing recommendations:

For traditional wing sauce, I use a 3oz bottle of hot sauce, a 1/2 stick of butter, 3 cloves of garlic grated on the microplane, a couple of splashes of vinegar, some powdered cayenne, and some Tobasco, all according to taste.  Just sauce the wings when they’re hot out of the oven.

Remember the yummy ginger/garlic/green onion dipping sauce I made for steamed chicken?  That is utterly glorious on these crispity wings!

And, if you want another sort of Asian wing sauce, a delicious, addictive, sticky-savory, “what IS that deliciousness” sauce, then start with a sesame paste.  You could use tahini if it’s on hand.  I didn’t have any, so I toasted a 1/2 cup of sesame seeds in a dry pan, then put in my food processor with 1 tbsp of sunflower oil.  So, now you’ve got toasty sesame paste.  Add an equal amount of miso paste.  Add rice wine vinegar, soy, fish sauce, ginger paste (or fresh grated), brown sugar, and Sriracha.  If you want to add a few squirts of wasabi paste, that’s good, too.  To use with the wings, once they’ve done cooking at 250F, coat them in the sauce before returning to the oven at 450F.

Now, for other chicken parts, just use the Asian sauce as a marinade and then bake at 375F for 40-50 minutes, and feel free to use the cooked sauce to toss with rice noodles or coat roasted veg.

Another game day food you might want to make is Muffuletta.  I jumped off from here:  http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/emerils-muffuletta.  Basically a mix of different types of olives, pickled veg, olive oil, vinegar, and Italian seasonings, blitzed in the food processor and left to hang out for at least a day to really meld the flavors.  Slather it on bread and add loads of Italian cold cuts and a couple of cheeses.

Happy eating, and hope your team wins the uh, whatever your championship thing is called!