Oh Snap [Vol 4]: Sambal

I suppose I have a thing for chili pastes. I've already done one of these posts for harissa. They're so versatile, as condiments, sauce components, or ingredients for a spicy marinade.

I know of sambal as the main flavoring in lots of Indonesian and Malaysian dishes, especially Sambal Udang (chili prawns). And Malaysian has to be my favorite cuisine, so when I was in the Asian market and spotted an assortment of sambals, I thought "why the hell not try it."

Out of the many varieties of sambal, I randomly chose sambal oelek, whose ingredients include: red chili, tomato, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, and tamarind. So, yes, sambal is quite pungent by itself. How would I use it?

I didn't look up any recipes, so I thought of the simplest way to feature the sambal. Whole Foods had a sale on fillets of barramundi, a flaky white fish comparable to red snapper or grouper. The end result was a quick and easy dinner with a good kick of spice, topped with a cool mango salsa.

Ingredients:

- 1 lb barramundi fillet, skin on and bones removed, and cut into 4 portions

- 1 tsp sambal oelek

- salt & black pepper to taste

- 1 Tbsp vegetable or peanut oil plus some sesame oil for taste

- 1 mango, peeled, seeded, and diced

- 1 medium-sized shallot, finely diced

- a handful of cilantro leaves, chopped

- 1 Tbsp lime juice

Procedure:

1. Season both sides of each portion of fish with salt and pepper, and spread 1/4 tsp of sambal on the flesh side. Let them sit for 20-30 minutes.

2. Heat up the cooking oil and a splash of sesame oil in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Doing 2 portions at a time (so you don't cool down the pan too much), fry the fillet portions, skin side first for 4-5 minutes or until the skin is browned. Flip it to the flesh side, and cook until it's just become opaque white. When they're done, set them aside.

3. The salsa is easy. Dice the mango, dice the shallots, chop the cilantro, and mix it all with the lime juice. If you let it sit in the fridge for an hour, it only gets better.

Oh Snap [Vol 3]: Maison Bouachon

My grocery shopping this week was geared toward French meals. Salade Niçoise, Chicken à la Provençal, and Beef Burgundy. This means that I needed to buy some wine for the recipes, so I went to Specs, of course. Seriously, they have everything.

I decided on a Côtes-du-Rhône red. CdR is a region along the Rhone river in the Provence area of France, known for its rustic landscapes and slow pace of life, in total contrast from Paris. My friend Dom and I spent 3 days in Avignon back in 2008, and we absolutely loved the region, especially after we took a winery tour in the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine country. We loved it so much that, between the 2 of us, we brought back 12 or 13 bottles of wine :)

So at Specs, I was perusing the Côtes-du-Rhône shelf. I saw 1 particular bottle, and I caught myself from saying out loud "holy shit." It was from Maison Bouachon! That was the first of the 3 wineries where Dom and I were taken on our guided tour! This brought back some good memories of the trip.

The ruins of the eponymous Chateauneuf-du-Pape (new castle of the Pope)

Look at all those vines.

Mont Ventoux (of the Tour de France course) in the background.

With my rusty French, and our bilingual tour guide, Dom and I talked with the winemaker, who was a really nice guy. He wasn't snobby like the next winemaker we visited, and didn't turn his nose up at us for not identifying the aromas in the wine. He disliked people who have to come up with ridiculously flowery language for describing the wine: "an arrogant red," "notes of damp topsoil and granite," and other B.S. He taught us how to really find the aromas and told us to just describe what the wine feels like. We bought a good number of bottles from him. The next winemaker scoffed at us for not identifying notes of the local wildflower, the auberpine. We scoffed back by not buying a damn thing from him.

Oh Snap, What's That? [Vol. 2]

Harissa

I was walking down the international foods aisle at Central Market, looking for God knows what. Then, I spotted this guy:

Hello harissa.

I really can't remember where I had heard of it before. I checked my Mediterranean cookbook, and there was hardly a mention of it except for in a recipe that I never even considered making (raw turnip salad with harissa dressing). All I knew about it beforehand that it's some sort of spicy seasoning.

What is it really? Harissa is a hot chili sauce whose roots go back to North Africa, and is made up of chili peppers, tomatoes, and paprika. It's often used as a condiment, or to kick the spice up on other sauces, or as a marinade ingredient. The particular brand I bought, DEA, has a pretty prominent paprika taste to it, and a nice slow-building heat. Another observation about the can I bought, the company is based in Nîmes, France :)

After I tried tasting the harissa straight-up a couple of times, I realized where I might have had it before. Back when I was a grad student at Columbia, one of my favorite places to grab lunch was the Lebanese place on 113th/Broadway, Amir's Falafel. Seriously, my friend Wil and I would go there at least twice a week, their shawarma beef was like crack. But one of the things I liked most about the place was their hot sauce. It wasn't your typical Frank's or Tabasco, so heavy on the vinegar. It had a somewhat smoky chili and paprika flavor to it and delivered the heat, but it didn't add so much of an acidic bite that the standard American hot sauce has.

Actually one of my favorite things about Amir's Falafel is a memory of one time I had lunch there with Wil. The chalkboard at the front of the restaurant had some specials listed. I didn't pay the board much attention, I glanced at it as I walked to the counter and saw "Hummus". Wil pointed out that it was definitely written as "Homos." Awesome.

I did some searching to see what is a good way to use harissa in a meal, and I found a spicy North African-inspired chicken recipe. Check it out after the jump.

Oh Snap, What's That? [Vol #1]

Let’s say you’re walking through the produce section of Whole Foods or Central Market, and you notice they have some new exotic produce in stock. Among that selection is some freaky-ass-looking piece of fruit you’d never heard of before. Or maybe it’s something you’d seen once on Iron Chef or a Travel Channel food show, thinking it’s something you’d never see in your store. You stop dead in your tracks, in awe. If you’re anything like me, first thing that comes to mind is “How do I eat that?”


Buddha's Hand
Last week at the store, I encountered one of these guys at Central Market.



Seriously, how can you look at that and not want to take it home?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the “Buddha’s hand” or “fingered citron,” the world’s oldest cultivated citron fruit, originating from India and China. I saw it once on an episode of Iron Chef America. Alton Brown called out the Chairman lurking in the back of the Kitchen Stadium, holding and stroking the fruit like Dr. Claw with his cat. Someone, seriously, please give Mark Dacascos another action movie role. His Chairman act is just getting more and more depressing.

Citrons are different from other citrus fruits, like lemons and oranges, in that there is no juicy pulp under the skin, let alone juice. Historically, the Buddha’s hand has been used for its fragrance, to perfume rooms and clothing.

These are all facts I wish I had known before I bought one. How can I potentially eat this? Well, if I ever have a recipe that calls for a lot of lemon zest, and if I want a substitute that costs twice as much per pound, it would come in handy. But I have to say, the smell is great, kind of like intense lemon but more floral.


Yuzu
I also saw these next to the Buddha’s hand.



The yuzu is an Asian citrus fruit, mostly popular in Japan and Korean cuisine. The most common use I can think of is in shoyu ponzu, a Japanese citrus-flavored soy sauce. It kind of looks like a mandarin orange, but more spherical and lumpy. Unlike the Buddha’s hand, the yuzu does have pulp and juice. The flavor is like a really tart orange, or like a grapefruit but with half of the slight bitterness. I basically squeezed the juice out and made something like lemonade. Next time around, I’ll find a better application for it.