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.

Chicken Marsala

Recipe Source: Experimenting & The New Best Recipe by the people from America's Test Kitchen

Recipe Result: Damn good

I remember the first time I tried making chicken marsala in college, in the shared floor kitchen in my dorm. I didn't have a recipe, I just went by my friend Kelly's description of "you just saute the chicken breast, add some flour, add some wine, and you're done." How did that work out, you ask?

First off, I left the chicken breast cutlets way too thick, so it took forever to cook them all the way through. Then the idea of adding flour and then cooking wine left me with this nasty, thick, gooey substance one can maybe classify as a sauce. And I didn't even know how much wine to add, so I started with a few Tbsp, and I saw that all I had in the pan with the chicken was flour paste. So I added more wine, and more, and more, until half the bottle of cooking wine was gone. This girl who was also in the kitchen, and could not have possibly weighed more than 100lbs, said she was getting a buzz from the evaporating alcohol. The end result: inedible.... dang.

Eventually, when I was on an internship and had a proper kitchen and free time and had learned the wonders of cookbooks, I developed much better technique. Thinly sliced breast cutlets, dredging in flour, real wine instead of cooking wine, all that good stuff. And eventually my chicken marsala wasn't half bad.

Last year I got The New Best Recipe by Cooks Illustrated. The cookbook takes popular recipes and scientifically breaks down what ingredients and techniques work best. But I have to say, I disagree with parts of their chicken marsala recipe. The recipe says that between cooking the chicken and cooking the mushrooms, you fry some pancetta to re-grease the pan. I think the bacon-y flavor of pancetta is overkill in this dish, and it calls for too much butter. So I found a pretty good medium between my old recipe and the book's version, and it's worked well for about 3 or 4 iterations so far.

The potatoes on the side were pretty simple too, I won't put up a whole post about them. The recipe is from a Mediterranean cookbook, Olives and Oranges. All I did was take some young red potatoes -- the smaller the better -- and boil them until they're almost cooked through. Remove them from the water, let them become cool to the touch, and then cut each in half. Give each half a quick smash, season with salt, pepper, and dried rosemary, and saute in butter until they get golden-brown and develop a good crisp.

The recipe is after the jump, try it out!

Moussaka (Sort of)

Recipe Source: Just experimenting

Recipe Result: Not bad. Has good flavor, but doesn't really hold up on its own. Worked well as a sandwich, in a pita pocket with some salad.

I miss New York diners. Just like pizzerias, delis, and bagel shops, you're always likely to be within a stone's throw of a decent local diner. I also miss how practically every diner had not only the standard burgers and steaks, but also a Greek menu. One of my favorite Greek diner dishes is moussaka. Think Greek lasagna, with layers of tomato sauce with ground beef or lamb, eggplant, and potato (sometimes). The best I've had in Austin is at El Greco.

I've tried to recreate it a few times in a few different ways, but I find that it's a lot of extra effort to neatly prepare all those individual layers. So, you know what? This time I said "F-ck the layers." I just wanted some spicy, hearty beef and eggplant in an herby tomato sauce. Basically, this recipe totally strips Moussaka down to its elements.

What I ended up with tasted pretty good, but wasn't very stimulating. It felt a little boring to serve with rice and veggies like usual. So I bought some pita pockets and some salad, and made moussaka pita sandwiches out of it. Next time, I'll try to keep the eggplant chunkier and more noticeable to make the texture more interesting, and add some more fresh herbs and maybe some lemon juice to brighten it up.

Click on the "Read More" link below to find my recipe. Try it out, leave a comment to let me know how you like it, or if you found your own way to make it less lackluster.

Jerk Chicken Wings [Attempt #1]

Recipe source: The Real Jerk: New Caribbean Cuisine

Recipe result: Good flavor, skin could've been crispier, needed mo' fire (habaneros). But it got a good response from my friends.

Whenever I go home to Long Island, I have a list of foods that I need to have: pizza, bagels, mom's papaya smoothies, etc. But if I ever find myself in Uniondale near the Haitian barbershop I used to go to, I need to pick up some extra hot jerk chicken from Tropical Jerk, the Jamaican place across the street. It's masterfully seasoned and char-grilled to crispy perfection. For real, I'm tempted to even eat the bones... not just the marrow, the bones.

For Christmas in 2008, my good friend Dominic bought me a Jamaican cookbook, written by the owners of a well-known Toronto Jamaican restaurant. Naturally, the first thing I had to try out of this book was the jerk chicken.

So what goes into jerk seasoning? Loads of allspice, ginger, nutmeg, black pepper, and hot-as-hell chili peppers. Traditionally, the recipe calls for Scotch Bonnet peppers, but down in Austin it's way easier to find habaneros, and they're just about the same in appearance and heat. Jerk sauce serves as a marinade for the chicken, before it's grilled to a good crisp. I don't have a grill, so I usually broil it, or sometimes braise it the same way I do in my Haitian chicken recipe. Typically I use thighs and breast, but this time around I made wings for my friend's Superbowl party.

You can find my recipe after the jump. Try it out and let me know how you like it.

Haitian Braised Chicken

Recipe Source: Mom

Recipe Result: finally mastered

Every Haitian mom has some variation on a dish of marinated meat braised with tomato and onion. I remember growing up and having this for dinner every Sunday, like clockwork. Back then, my friends would ask me what Haitian food is like, but I had no idea how to describe it. Now that I've been cooking for a few years and learned some techniques, I can say that the bulk of Haitian cooking is all about braising.

I've watched my mom make this several times, even had her walk me through the steps as she was making it. But there were a lot of subtleties that I had to figure out through practice. In a way, this dish is what really made me consider writing a recipe journal. I must have tried cooking Haitian braised chicken a couple dozen times before I felt like I mastered the recipe. Here's what I learned in the process.

1) Most of the flavor comes from the meat getting sufficiently browned, and the cookware you use for braising makes a pretty big difference in how well it browns. When I first tried braising chicken, I had been using my usual stainless steel sauce pan, but the browning would happen too fast and I couldn't get the meat to release its juices the way I wanted. Then my mom bought me a cast aluminum pot (technically, a caldero). Cast aluminum is used all throughout the Caribbean and Latin America because it's cheap and lightweight. It heats up a little slower than your average stainless steel pan, so it gives the meat a good gradual brown. A dutch oven would also be great to use.

2) The other primary source of flavor is tomato paste, and when it's added to the pot. When I started trying to recreate this dish, I would dissolve the tomato paste in the water that I would add as the braising liquid. But I was impatient with letting the liquid reduce and letting the tomato paste impart its flavor. I learned that adding the tomato paste while the chicken was still browning gave better color and more intense flavor. Before I understood that step, I would cheat and use some gochujang (Korean soybean/chili paste) for extra flavor. A little MSG makes everything better... right?

3) Patience is the key. When you add the water after the chicken browns, you really need to be patient and let it reduce on medium-high heat. If you have time, let the water reduce to almost half so you're left with a good, concentrated sauce. Then add more water and let it reduce some more. Though, I am still working out the optimal time to let the chicken brown before adding chicken and the optimal time to let the sauce form and develop flavor so that the chicken doesn't get overdone. The dark meat always comes out great, but breast meat gets slightly dried out.

Ingredients:

- 4 chicken thighs

- 1 half of a split breast (I pick up a pre-packaged split breast and then ask the butcher to cut it into 3 pieces for me)

- 1 lime, cut into thick wedges

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed/minced

- 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

- 2 tsp olive oil (for marinade)

- an additional 1 Tbsp olive oil for braising

- 1 Tbsp tomato paste

- 1 small yellow onion (3" diameter") or 1/2 of a large yellow onion (4" diameter), sliced into rings

- salt and pepper to taste

- a pinch (~1/8 tsp) dried thyme, or about 1/4 tsp of fresh thyme leaves

Procedure:

1) Rub each piece of chicken with the lime wedges. Then season liberally with salt and pepper on all sides. Arrange the chicken flat in container you can fit in the refrigerator. Add the 2 tsp of olive oil, the vinegar, and the garlic. Mix it all together, so all the pieces of chicken are marinating. Cover the dish and refrigerate, letting it marinate overnight.

2) Wash your hands. Seriously.

3) In your dutch oven, caldero, or whatever you have, heat the 1 Tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. When it's hot, put in the chicken so that the sides with the flattest surface area are face down. Let it cook for 10 minutes or so without moving the chicken. Keep it still so it browns nicely. When it does start to brown, throw in the 1 Tbsp of tomato paste and flip each piece of chicken. Toss all the chicken around so that the tomato paste gets spread around the pan, then let it sit over the heat and brown some more.

4) Both sides of each piece should be nice and browned. Don't worry if you get some slightly burnt spots too, it adds to the flavor. Add 1 cup of water, or however much you need to nearly cover the chicken, like in the photo below. Dial up the heat to medium-high and bring the pot to a boil. Let the pot simmer on medium heat, and add the sliced onion, the thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. I also recommend a couple of dashes of hot sauce at this point, for the spiciness and the acidity from the vinegar. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. You can add more water if you want more sauce in the end.

Yields about 4 servings. Enjoy!

Steak au Poivre in Mushroom & Bourbon Cream Sauce

Recipe Source: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/steak-au-poivre-recipe/index.html

Result: really damn good

I don't cook steaks too often. I guess it's because steak dinners tend to feel pretty heavy to me, and a good cut of beef can get pricey. But last week, I did some mid-week grocery shopping and saw some good NY Strip steaks at a good price. It inspired me to try out a Steak au Poivre recipe I haven't tried for a year or 2.

The last time I tried this recipe, I really didn't like the sauce. I didn't have a taste for cognac yet, and all that cream diluted the sauce so much that it was almost flavorless. This time around I substituted the cognac for Kentucky bourbon, I reduced the amount of cream, and I threw in some mushrooms and rosemary for a deeper, more earthy flavor.

One big thing to keep in mind when cooking with alcohol (whether it's wine, whisky, etc), use a bottle that you would enjoy as a normal drink. If you're making Chicken Marsala, use real Marsala wine; if you're making Boeuf Bourguignon, use real Burgundy. Don't be a cheap-ass and use supermarket cooking wine, it's loaded with salt and just tastes bad. For this recipe, I bought a small (200mL), inexpensive bottle of Bulleit Bourbon. My bourbon-snob friend and even the owners my neighborhood liquor store give Bulleit rave reviews.

The end result was seriously good. I think I'll be experimenting with beef more often. You can find the recipe after the jump. Try it out and make it your own. Experiment with the bourbon:cream ratio , maybe even try some butter instead of oil. And do leave a comment to let me know how it works out for you.

Ratatouille [Attempt #1, sorta]

Recipe Source: n/a
Recipe Result: Good flavor, nice and light, but texture was kind of compromised by going overboard with the dried herbs

I say "Attempt #1, sorta" because I've tried this a couple of times and a couple of different ways, but never really documented it. What is ratatouille, aside from a great Pixar movie? It's a traditional eggplant and squash dish of southern France, or Provence. A friend and I got to spend a couple of days in Avignon and the food there was amazing, and for a little while after that trip I tried to recreate some of those flavors on my own.

In the process, I realized Provençal cuisine really reminds me of my mom's Haitian cooking. It's country/peasant-style cooking (compared to what everyone think of with French cuisine), and it relies heavily on tomatoes, onions/shallots, garlic, and good herbs. A lot of it is relatively slow-cooked meat + veggie dishes that warm you up inside and are deeply satisfying, kind of like a good bowl of chili. One important ingredient of Provençal food is anchovies. It sounds kind of weird at first, and by themselves they just taste fishy and salty. But when sautéed in oil, it adds a really nice depth of flavor to your dish. It's kind of like how fish sauce works in Thai food.

This time, I chose not to follow a cookbook or online recipe and tried to take an intuitive approach to it. One big difference between the standard recipe and my way was that I sliced up my zucchini into really thin rounds, (half-rounds for the eggplant to match the zucchini slice sizes). Traditionally you cut everything into cubes so everything is the same size, but I just wanted the end result to look more interesting.

I mean, doesn't this look more fun to put on your fork than some lame-ass centimeter cube? Not to mention that cutting the eggplant this way made it a lot easier to salt it, in order to draw out the moisture and make it easier to sauté. Look at those slices sweating after just 20 min.


One thing I realized I neglected upon finishing was that it could have been a lot more tomato-ey. I thought a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste with the cooking liquid would be nice and subtle but sufficient. It tasted good in the end, but it didn't taste like what I remember from Avignon. I'll add in some tomato puree or whole ripe tomatoes the next time. Also, next time I'll ease up on the herbes de Provence. I ended up putting in so much that the pieces of dried rosemary were messing with the texture of the veggies.


You can find my full recipe after the jump. Try it out, and please do leave a comment to let me know how it worked out for you.

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.