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.

Pasta in Garlic Oil

I guess I haven't updated this thing for a bit. It's partly because I haven't been doing many new recipes of note for a while (not successfully, anyway). But I've developed a couple of good dishes in the past couple of weeks that are in queue for posting. In the meantime, here's a simple side dish.

Sometimes I really don't feel like spending any more than 30 to 45 minutes making dinner. But you don't see me cranking out some nasty Rachel Ray recipe. No.

God, no.

I prefer to get some quick-cooking fish, prepared simply, with some fresh vegetables and another easy item on the side. Most of the time, I'll make rice with my meal; but to mix it up, pasta with a basil- or garlic-flavored olive oil. The most important things to making the flavored oil are:

1. Use GOOD extra virgin olive oil. It doesn't have to be a $50 bottle, or anything that fancy. But just don't use your regular old Local Supermarket Brand oil, claiming to be straight from Tuscany, but actually being the dregs of the process from some less-than-stellar oil producer. Quality is essential.

2. Don't overheat your pan! Olive oil has a low smoke-point; so if you get your pan too hot, the oil will start to vaporize and ruin the flavor. Also, burning garlic makes any dish have a nasty, bitter, charred taste. Keep the heat low, or medium-low, just enough to barely sizzle the garlic in the oil and release the flavor.

So Simple!

I Miss Kyoto

A close friend of mine was on assignment in Japan for 3 months, and she was planning to spend a few days in Kyoto. So I recommended the same ryokan (traditional B&B) that I stayed at. That ryokan is right next door to the bar where I met some really cool people, including the owner, hostess, and head cook of the bar (Shingo, Shigeru, and Chika). Shingo gave me some sweet parting gifts, and I wanted to repay the favor, so I gave my friend a couple small things: a Thank You note, one of my better calligraphy brush drawings from that trip, and a Longhorns pennant (since Shingo is into American college football). He quite liked them :)

I need to go back. Soon. Badly.

Easy Boeuf Bourguignon

Recipe Source: Everyday Food on PBS/Create

I'm lazy. I admit it. I've wanted to explore French cooking more, and I've taken a look at a bunch of classic Julia Child recipes. But all of the prep involved, the lengthy ingredient lists, and the sheer amount of butter involved were a bit of a deterrent. So when I found a stripped-down version of Boeuf Bourguignon on TV, I was eager to try it out. Besides, I've been on a braising kick since I got my enameled cast-iron dutch oven.

One of this recipe's ingredients is, plainly stated, "bacon." So I picked up the first kind that I saw at the market, thick-cut applewood-smoked. Following the recipe through, the end result was some really tender beef, but the wine/beef/herb flavors completely overwhelmed by the bacon. In other words, beef and carrots in bacon-smoke sauce, not as tasty as it sounds. But trying the recipe again with the non-smoked variety of bacon made a world of difference. You could really appreciate the wine in the sauce, get the sweetness of the carrots and pearl onions, and the bacon doesn't distract from anything else.

My initial failure with the recipe brought up an interesting philosophical question. Is there such a thing as bacon-overkill? Or is bacon capable of making a dish worse?

I mean, it's a fact that is ingrained into everyone's mind (every non-vegetarian or non-kosher/halal eater's mind, anyway), that Bacon Equals Better. To improve a salad, use bacon bits. For extra flavor in your chicken marsala, use pancetta. How can something as perfect as bacon possibly decrease enjoyment of food?

It's such a universally accepted fact that people are now buying bacon-flavored chocolate. I've actually tried it, at Whole Foods in a bacon-chocolate gelato. And it tasted like savory/sweet angels dancing upon my taste-buds. Umm... I mean it was kind of good. The lady next to me in line said "Oh, I've had bacon-chocolate before. My girlfriends and I had a bacon-chocolate tasting party last weekend." The first thing in my mind was "why the hell was I not informed of this baco-choco sub-culture?"

But I digress

Bon Dieu, c'est si bon

Chicken à la Provençal

This has to be one of my favorite dishes to make. It has a thick, hearty, tomatoey sauce; a nice acidic bite from the olives and anchovies; and the active prep time isn't very long. I've seen a few variations on this recipe, some calling for white wine vs. red wine. Personally, I like my Chicken à la Provençal to be a little heavier on the tomatoes, so I feel like red wine goes well with it.

I'd go with a Côtes-du-Rhone red, and not just because of fond memories of vast vineyards and bums peeing on restaurant doorsteps. I agree with the philosophy that traditional foods and wines from the same region always go well together. But I guess some further experimentation with the wine variety is in order.

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.

Haitian Braised Beef & Vegetables (Boeuf et Legumes)

Recipe Source: My Mom

Here's another dish my mom would make all the time when I was little, and I think I've finally mastered it. Nowadays, whenever I go home, I look forward to her making it. But when I was little, I thought it was gross as hell.

The texture of the eggplant or the cabbage. The big, wilted slices of onion... Yuck. By high school, I was indifferent toward the dish, but I focused more on the beef. But then Mom started using another cut of beef that had a big line of connective tissue down the center, which turned slimy when cooked. Again, yuck. But from time to time, she would use sirloin, and it was damn good.

I've tried to make this dish a few times. But each time, the meat came out too chewy and the sauce had no flavor. A few weeks ago, I found a recipe for chicken braised with apples and cider vinegar, and I tried a couple of things: (1) I gave the chicken plenty of time to brown really well, (2) I let it simmer in the liquid for over an hour. The result: the chicken didn't just melt in your mouth, it fell off the bone effortlessly.

So with those lessons learned, I tried again. I picked up some flat iron steak; it's light on connective tissue, but cheap and has a little bit of fat left for flavor. After marinating it overnight, I browned it well in a Dutch oven (even got a good, light char on some pieces), and let it braise with the eggplant and carrots for 90 minutes. In the end, the meat was relatively tender, the sauce was nice and savory, and this iteration was a success.

台灣 (Taiwan), Part 3: Braised Pork Belly

Recipe Source: http://www.nibbledish.com/people/anjelikuh/recipes/gua-bao-taiwanese-braised-pork-in-sliced-buns

One of the first things I realized about Taiwanese cuisine is that the pig is king. There's an abundance of good fish and seafood, and they do some pretty outstanding things with tofu. But pork seems to be the dominant protein over there, especially pork belly (滷肉, Lǔ ròu).

America's love affair with pork belly has been picking up steam. Just think of how many restaurants or trailers in the past year or 2 that have started serving main dishes out of big hunks of pork belly. It is the brand new hotness. Here's just sample of the porky goodness I had

Northern Taiwanese-style breakfast: a rice ball filled with braised pork belly, pickled mustard greens, tea egg, and crunchy fried pastry bits

Braised pork belly and cucumber on rice, topped with dried shredded pork (肉鬆, Ròu sōng)

Gua bao: braised pork belly, pickled mustard greens, tea egg, and sweetened crushed peanuts in a steamed bun.

When I got back home, I was seriously craving some gua bao, so I looked up a recipe. Whole Foods sells pork belly pretty cheaply by the pound, and the Asian market sells frozen buns and pickled mustard greens. Oh, it is on!

I had to make a few adjustments for ingredients, but in the end the pork belly was delicious. I realized that the recipe was a lot like one I tried from a Chinese cookbook, for "red-cooked pork." That recipe was a failure because I tried using lean pork loin. Cholesterol be damned, the fat is essential.

Before and After

I didn't look up how to make a tea egg, so I let some boiled eggs stew in the braising liquid with the pork, still delicious. I'd never used pickled mustard before, so I didn't know if anything special was done to it before it was served in Taiwan, so I just left it raw and chopped it. I told my friend at work, who's no stranger to Taiwanese pickled veggies, and shook his head in shame. Apparently, I'm supposed to sweeten it and cook it first. Whatever. It all came together pretty nicely with the buns and some chopped cilantro (Taiwan loves cilantro, and so do I).

Like the Detroit Grand Pubahs said, "we can make sandwiches."

Do you have any particular favorite pork belly (or bacon) dish? I wouldn't mind some inspiration for a future post.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 lb raw belly pork, cut to 1/2-inch thick slices

- 2 cloves garlic, smashed

- thinly sliced ginger, 3 or 4 slices, 1-inch long

- 4 green onions, chopped into 3-inch pieces

- 1/4 tsp Chinese Five Spice powder

- 2 Tbsp brown sugar

- 1/4 cup shao xing (rice wine)

- 1/2 cup dark soy sauce

- 1.5 to 2 cups of water (or enough to cover the meat)

- 2 soft boiled eggs, shells removed but edible parts still intact

- pickled mustard greens

- cilantro

- crushed peanuts, sweetened with some sugar

- steamed Chinese sandwich buns

Procedure:

1. Bring a Dutch oven to medium high heat and sear the pork belly to a good brown on all sides. No oil is necessary, the belly fat renders out nicely. But if you really want to, you can use a teaspoon of veg oil.

2. Once the meat is browned, add all of the following ingredients to the pot: garlic, ginger, green onions, 5 Spice powder, brown sugar, shao xing, soy sauce, and water. Bring the pot to a boil.

3. Once the liquid is boiling, lower the heat to medium and simmer for 1 or 1.5 hours. The braising liquid will reduce and thicken.

4. When the meat is done and the eggs are stewed, remove them from the braising liquid. Dice the eggs and the pork belly. Chop some cilantro and some mustard greens. Combine them into a bun, sprinkle the peanuts, and enjoy the sh-t out of your gua bao.