Singapore Chili Crab

This time of year, Dungeness crab is for sale, but it's past its prime. The meat isn't as sweet as it is in December and January, so eating it plain is always a disappointment.

But my friend Emily had a terrific idea: bathe the crab in Singaporean chili sauce. A frequent traveler to Southeast Asia, she has enjoyed it many times and wanted to try the recipe with our local species.

I headed out to her beach house on a recent, glorious Sunday, accompanied by my dog, Mickey, to learn how to make it. We compiled a bunch of recipes from the Web and concocted one that sounded both do-able and delicious. It was both.

SINGAPORE CHILI CRAB

Adapted from various recipes by Emily Friedman and Mandy Erickson

Chili crab is considered to be the national dish of Singapore. It consists of crab pieces in the shell in a sweet-spicy, tomato-based sauce. There is no standard recipe; it's like beef stew or chicken noodle soup—everyone has his or her own version. I had it on a trip to Singapore in 2011, when I was trying to learn a bit about the country's health care system. My hosts took me to one of the classic chili crab restaurants, the name of which I didn't get.

For this recipe, we made some concessions to convenience. Most recipes suggest using raw (although dead) crab and letting it cook in the sauce. Mandy and I opted for cooked crab. We also chose not to make our own tomato ketchup or chili paste. Those of you who don't have access to some of the Asian ingredients can always substitute.

The amounts for many of the ingredients are somewhat approximate. —E.F.

2 cups water

10 tbsp. (about 3/4 cup) tomato ketchup

3 tsp. cornstarch

2 tbsp. regular, brown, or caster sugar

1-2 tbsp. vegetable oil (we used canola)

8 garlic cloves, minced

2 shallots, minced

6-8 red Thai chiles, finely chopped (These provide the heat for the sauce, so feel free to use fewer; I wouldn't use any more.  Two long red chiles can be substituted.)

1-2 tbsp. or more grated galangal (This is an Asian rhizome that is often used in place of ginger, to which it is vaguely related; regular ginger can be used. If you do use galangal, be aware that this stuff is hard as a rock and must be peeled with a sharp, sturdy knife. It does, however, have a delightful fragrance and taste.)

1 stalk lemon grass, peeled and finely chopped (This stuff is also very hard; peel the first few layers off before chopping and only use the bulb and maybe 2 inches above it.)

3 tbsp. oyster sauce

2 eggs, beaten

4-6 spring onions (scallions), sliced thinly

3-4 tbsp. fresh-squeezed lime juice (more if you like, which I do)

5 tbsp. fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves

2-3 tbsp. kecap manis (sweet soy sauce, available in Asian groceries; if you use regular soy sauce, you may want to increase the amount of sugar)

2 large cooked Dungeness crabs, cleaned and broken into pieces

Mix the water, ketchup, cornstarch, and sugar in a large bowl.  Stir with a fork or a whisk until well blended and cornstarch and sugar are dissolved.

Heat the oil in a wok or large, deep skillet. Sauté the chopped garlic and shallots until light brown (this takes only a few seconds). Add the chopped chiles and sauté until you can smell the spice, which won't take long at all. Add the ketchup mixture slowly while stirring. Add the oyster sauce and mix well. Let simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. While it is simmering, add the eggs and stir well so that they don't curdle. Add the lime juice, scallions, and about half the coriander (cilantro) leaves. Stir to mix well.

 

(At this point, the sauce is extremely spicy and a bit raw-tasting. So after 15 minutes or so, turn off the heat and let the sauce sit for 10-15 minutes to allow flavors to blend and soften.

Re-heat the sauce to a bare, gentle boil, stirring to keep it from burning. Add the crab pieces, making sure that they are in contact with sauce and partially covered by it. Reduce heat and warm the crab thoroughly, about 10 minutes.

You can serve the crab in a big serving bowl with the sauce poured over it; however, leaving it in the wok will keep the dish warm.

Serve several pieces of crab in individual bowls, with plenty of sauce, and sprinkle with the rest of the cilantro.

Serve with steamed jasmine rice.  On the side, we had stir-fried Asian long beans that were cooked with soy sauce, garlic, and minced shallots.

The Case of the Missing Duck Bones

The biggest scandal in the neighborhood of my youth concerned a duck carcass. My sister Anna, then a teenager, had prepared canard a l’orange for a potluck held at the home of a neighbor: the dish was exquisite, and with it she cemented her reputation as the finest cook on the block.

Once the party was over and we began gathering our serving dishes, our family discovered the duck carcass missing. We had anticipated a rich stock from the meat and bones, knowing it would add complexity to cassoulet or soften the bite of asparagus soup. But the serving dish on which my dad had carved Anna's culinary masterpiece was empty. Puzzled and disappointed, we carried it home.

The Berkeley, California, neighborhood where we grew up lies a few blocks from Chez Panisse and the specialty food shops surrounding Alice Waters' restaurant. Over the years, the influence of the Gourmet Ghetto permeated the surrounding neighborhood, and many of us became fanatical about food.

In our family of six, with two working parents, my siblings and I each cooked one night a week. We four kids were unabashed disciples of the culinary craze and attempted, with varying success, such dishes as bacon-wrapped grilled sweetbreads, handmade pasta, and squid and leeks in red wine. During dinner, the chef would face a critique from siblings and parents on how better to cut up a chicken or when to add garlic to a stir-fry. Learning to cook a sumptuous dish was nearly as valued as bringing home a good report card.

While our household carried the gastronomical torch (prompting one visitor to remark, the morning before a party, "The Ericksons are cooking, and all is well with the world"), our neighbors vied for runner-up, and dinner parties were a competitive business. Every Sunday morning, up and down the street, aspiring chefs were poring over the food sections of The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle and stashing recipes for future parties. At block parties we dined on coq au vin, wild mushroom ragout, and home-baked sourdough bread.

Naturally, much of the neighborhood gossip concerned cooking and food, and soon after the duck party, the grapevine told us where the carcass had gone. Another neighbor at the potluck had bagged it while the rest of us were finishing a chocolate hazelnut torte. He spirited it home and prepared the stock, which now filled his freezer.

My father confronted him. Our neighbor admitted taking the carcass but asserted that, as a leftover, the spent duck was as much his as anyone's. The two of them, both lawyers, argued about it for months. The stock, alas, is long gone.

* * *

Duck a l'orange is a surprisingly simple dish. It consists of a duck, roasted, and a sugary orange sauce. The fatty, gamy meat balances the sweetness of the sauce, and the entire dish is a guilty pleasure.

The most difficult part of the dish is handling the duck -- both roasting and carving it. While roast duck is the most tempting meat I have encountered, I rarely cook it. The bird is so fatty, and cooked at such high heat, that the duck fat liquefies and ascends to coat the walls and ceiling of the kitchen. If you don't have a well-ventilated stove (which I don't), make sure to crank up a fan and open all the windows. It also helps to trim as much fat as possible from the duck before consigning it to the oven.

When it comes time to carve the bird, you'll find that although it has already given its life, the duck doesn't easily give in to the cook. The joints stick together stubbornly, and tendons pull the meat tight against the bone. Use patience, a very sharp carving knife, and lots of red wine for your guests.

Duck a l'Orange

Adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking

-4 oranges

-1 5-pound duck

-3 tablespoons sugar

-1/4 cup red wine vinegar

-2 cups duck stock

-2 tablespoons arrowroot blended with 3 tablespoons port

-1/2 cup port

-2 or 3 tablespoons orange liqueur

-lemon juice

-2 tablespoons softened butter

Remove the peel from the oranges and julienne; simmer the orange peels in a quart of water for 15 minutes.

Wash the duck inside and out and season with salt and pepper. Place 1/3 of the orange peels in the cavity of the duck and truss it.

Set the duck on a rack and in an oven preheated to 425 degrees. Roast for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 350. The duck should take about 1-1/2 hours; you'll know it's done when you prick the thigh and the juices that run out are faintly pink.

While the duck is roasting, boil the sugar and vinegar until they form a dark brown syrup -- this will take several minutes. Remove the syrup from the heat and add 1/2 cup of duck stock. Place it back on the heat, on simmer, stirring while adding the rest of the stock. Whisk in the arrowroot mixture and stir in the remaining orange peels. Simmer 3 to 4 minutes.

Cut the peeled oranges into segments.

When the duck is finished, remove it from the rack and set it on a platter. Return it to the oven (but leave the heat off).

Drain nearly all the fat from the roasting pan; add the port and boil the liquid down until it is 2 to 3 tablespoons. Strain port into the simmering stock mixture. Stir in the liqueur and add lemon juice if needed to cut the sweetness. Whisk in the butter.

Place the orange sections around the duck, pour the sauce over all, and serve.

This piece first appeared in the Daily Gullet on May 14, 2004 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=home

The Miracle That Is Bacon

Occasionally I make a white bean and sausage soup, mostly because the ingredients are on hand and it's a relatively easy and healthful dinner. My version originated with a recipe in a soup cookbook, though I've long since stopped referencing the recipe. The soup was never great, but I kept making it because I couldn't figure out why it wasn't better. It always seemed to taste flat, though I've improved it by sweating the vegetables and cutting down on the tomatoes.

One day last week I decided to throw in a strip of bacon, only because there was some left over in the fridge. Lo and behold, that was the ingredient the soup had been missing. It went from dull to umami-full. Bacon is surely a cook's godsend. Here's the recipe:

White Bean and Sausage Soup

1 cup white beans, soaked for several hours or overnight
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 strip bacon
1 stalk celery
1/2 carrot
1/2 medium onion
1/2 pound sweet Italian sausage
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 large tomato, peeled and chopped, or 1/2 can chopped tomatoes

Drain the beans and add 4 cups water along with the bay leaf and thyme. Bring to low boil and cook until soft (1 to 2 hours).

While the beans are cooking, chop the bacon, celery, carrot, and onion. Heat a Dutch oven or other heavy pot and add the bacon and vegetables. Cover, lower the heat to a simmer, and stew for 20 minutes.

Add the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces, and stir in the garlic. When the meat is cooked through, add the tomatoes.

Add the beans, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for half an hour.

Leaves with Attitude

One Saturday morning in late February, several years ago, I was cruising the farmers market, looking for an interesting fruit or vegetable. I wanted a treat, but I wasn’t finding much. Late winter is not a good time for vendors of produce.

An elderly woman had occupied one of the stalls. She was selling only one vegetable, a green with sawtooth leaves that sprouted small broccoli-like flowerets. I asked what it was and she answered, “Chinese broccoli.”

 “Chinese broccoli,” I’ve noticed, is a catch-all name for any green that takes well to stir-frying, but as it was only 50 cents a bunch, I bought one. At home I searched through my cookbooks and found a drawing in the Chez Panisse Vegetables that matched my Chinese broccoli exactly. It was broccoli raab; a recipe with penne, garlic, and Romano cheese was included. 

I took one bite of the concoction and fell under the spell of broccoli raab. It’s bitter, spicy, pungent, and powerful. Nothing like its tame namesake, broccoli raab lets you know you’re alive.

Since that day, whenever I find broccoli raab at the market, I make the pasta dish. And whenever I see it on a restaurant menu—nearly always as a side to smoked pork or sausage—I order the entrée that includes it. I’ve grown it, too, with limited success. It’s very picky about timing, and the bugs love it as much as I do.

It’s probably not surprising that Italians, with their unabashed zest for eating, introduced broccoli raab to the United States. Brothers Stephen and Andrew D’Arrigo (of the Andy Boy dynasty) started cultivating it in the early 20th century. It now grows in California, Arizona, New Jersey, Ontario, and Quebec and is sold around the country under a host of names: rapini, cima di rapa, Italian turnip (broccoli raab is a distant cousin of the turnip).

Broccoli raab is sometimes available in a regular supermarket; if you can’t find it, try specialty markets or Italian grocers. It’s available year-round, but it’s best in late fall, winter, and early spring. The flowers should not have opened, and the cut end of the stalks should be green and smooth. If you like your vegetables to bite back, go for bunches with big leaves.

Like most people with a strong personality, broccoli raab won’t get along with just any other food. If it’s not the star, it must be accompanied by other brisk ingredients. Spicy Italian sausages and smoked meats will stand up to its assertiveness, as will potent seasonings such as extra-virgin olive oil, vinegar, pungent cheese, and hot pepper flakes.

It won’t take just any treatment, either. Boiling it is the culinary equivalent of a lobotomy—it loses all its punch, becoming insipid and gray. Broccoli raab is best when sautéed in oil.

My desire for other vegetables has waxed and waned over the seasons, but broccoli raab remains a delicacy. That day in the market I had hoped to find an agreeable fruit to toss into a gallette. Instead, I found a vegetable with a big attitude. Perhaps it was the serendipity of it all, but I fell in love.

Broccoli Raab with Penne

1 large onion

8 cloves garlic

2 bunches broccoli raab (1-1/2 pounds)

extra-virgin olive oil

red pepper flakes to taste

salt to taste

3/4 pound penne

red wine vinegar

Romano cheese

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Add the pasta and stir, drain when it’s done, then set aside.

Meanwhile, thinly slice the onion and garlic. Wash the broccoli raab, cut away the stems, and chop the leaves and sprouts coarsely.

Cover the bottom of a large sauté pan with the olive oil and sauté the onion over high heat. When the onion has begun to brown a little, add the garlic, pepper flakes, and salt. Toss, then add the broccoli raab and a splash of water. Lower the heat and cook until  tender, stirring or tossing frequently.

Taste the broccoli raab and add seasoning as needed. Splash on additional extra-virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar. Add the freshly cooked pasta to the pan and toss. Serve with grated cheese.

American Cheez

There is one day a year when you get to eat — are required to eat — the most low-brow of low-brow cuisine. While the Superbowl Sunday menu includes some strong suggestions (Buffalo wings, chips and dip), what it essentially calls for is cheesy, all-American food.

So this year I constructed a baking dish of that all-time winner, layered Mexican dip. Unable to find a recipe that worked for me, I devised my own, and for the first time ever, bought a jar of cheese.

In developing the recipe, the only real questions were what the layers should consist of, and in which order they should lie in the baking dish. Sour cream was out, as I find it obliterates all the other flavors. Refried beans, cheese, guacamole, and salsa were the obvious participants. As for order, I went with specific gravity, figuring the beans were the heaviest, followed by the Cheez Whiz, Cuisinart guacamole, then Safeway's fresh salsa.

It was a great hit. Be sure to serve it with hearty chips (Casa Sanchez thick and crispy worked great) as it's dense.

Layered Mexican Superbowl Dip

Two cans refried beans
I jar Cheez Whiz
About 2 cups guacamole
2 cups salsa

Shmush the beans into the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Microwave the Cheez Whiz until it's melted and spread over the beans. Let it cool a little, then spread the guacamole over the Cheez Whiz. Pour salsa on top.

Tools of Dessert

For Christmas Alex received a crème brûlée kit: a butane torch and six ramekins. So on Boxing Day, when family members dropped by for the third day of present opening, he decided to put his tools to use. Unfortunately, the traditional method of making crème brûlée — stirring cream and eggs over a double boiler while it slowly thickens — required too much patience for a 14-year-old, and the result was sugary soup.

Last weekend he wanted to re-try, and I found a better recipe on the inner tubes. This one requires baking the custard in a slow oven: no stirring required. (Thanks to Walter S. Burton's aunt Carol for the recipe.) However, the butane torch also requires some restraint: to get a golden, crisp sugar crust, you need to hold it at a distance and slowly move the flame over the sugar. Our crème brûlée was set on fire and well blackened. But I've always liked my marshmallows well burnt, so I was happy with it.

No-Stir Crème Brûlée

2 cups cream
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
Light brown sugar for topping

Heat oven to 275°. Whisk together the first four ingredients and pour into four 7-ounce ramekins. Place in a baking pan in the oven and pour hot water in the pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cook for about an hour — it's done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool, and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Sieve an even, 1/4-inch layer of brown sugar over the top of the custard and torch until it forms a crust.

Lunch with the Computer

One of my favorite fall-back-on lunches is Asian-American noodle salad. I almost always have the ingredients, and it’s a great repository for leftovers, especially roast chicken and crudite.

It’s based on a classic Chinese noodle salad with peanut butter dressing, though I use spaghetti instead of egg noodles, an idea I took from my Taiwanese sister-in-law, who’s had to make do with American ingredients.

It’s perfect for rainy days, when lunch means taking a break in front of the computer, watching YouTube or Hulu.

Noodle Salad

1/4 pound spaghetti

cucumbers, celery, bell peppers, bean sprouts, or other crunchy veggies

sliced green onion

chicken, pork, or tofu

Dressing:

2 tablespoons water

1 and 1/2 tablespoon peanut butter

1 and 1/2 tablespoon oil

1 and 1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 and 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 and 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Boil the spaghetti until it’s done. In the meantime, slice the veggies into strips and the meat or tofu into cubes. Combine the dressing in a small container.

Rinse the spaghetti in cold water and place it in a big container with the veggies and protein. When you’re ready to eat, pour the dressing over the noodle salad, cover the container and shake it well.

The Leftover Challenge

Articles about Thanksgiving leftovers usually talk about turkey. But their focus is misguided, because cooked bird is easy to find uses for. The mild meat takes on almost any seasoning, and it can be repurposed into all kinds of dishes: enchiladas, salad, soup, mole, casserole (if you’re so inclined), hash, and pasta. And hardly anyone’s going to thumb their nose at a turkey sandwich.

Here’s the real challenge: cranberry relish (from Joy of Cooking: grind 1 pound of cranberries with 1 orange, add 2 cups of sugar and let it sit in the fridge for two days). Every year I make the cranberry relish, and for that reason, it always comes home with me. Because no one takes more than a tablespoon, I leave with nearly as much as I arrived with.

So this year, on that nothing-to-do Friday after Thanksgiving, I got to baking and created this recipe. It’s a sweet bread whose slices are dotted pink and orange. I’m guessing it will work with any leftover cranberry dish as long as it’s well sugared and has a texture of thick tomato sauce.

Mandy’s cranberry relish bread

2½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup salad oil
1½ cups cranberry relish
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease and flour a regular-sized loaf pan.

Sift the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl combine the oil, relish, and eggs until well blended. Add the relish mixture to the flour and stir until just combined.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 50 minutes. Let it sit until it’s completely cool before cutting.

The Trooper

During a summer of disappointing crops — mealy, tasteless tomatoes; sullen basil; green pomegranates; and squirrel-ravaged beans — there was one bright spot in my garden. My butternut plants yielded 11 lovely, large fruit. The vines spread all over the patio and invaded their neighboring planter boxes, but I let them misbehave as long as they produced.

For about a month now, I’ve been trying to use up the squash: roasting cubes along with a chicken, adding mashed squash to cornmeal mush, and giving one to our housecleaner, Francisca, who praised my calabazas bonitas and described the cinnamon-enhanced turnovers she makes from them.

But my favorite use for them is a squash cake found in The Victory Garden Cookbook, a lifesaver for gardener-cooks. The only difficult part of the recipe is peeling a squash, steaming and mashing it. If you used canned pumpkin, it’s the easiest cake on the planet.

Butternut Squash Cake

1 & 2/3 cup sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 & 3/4 cup mashed squash or one can pumpkin

2 cups flour (or whole-wheat pastry flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

a good grating of nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350° and grease a 13x8x2-inch pan. Mix the sugar and oil together; beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in squash until well mixed. Stir together the dry ingredients and add to the wet mixture. Pour into the pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry.

Impossibly Delicious

A favorite dinner of my adolescence was squid and leeks in red wine, a recipe my dad found in Simple French Food by Richard Olney. It strikes me as a feat of creative genius, realizing that those three ingredients would make a succulent stew. Who would ever think?

So, when it came time to harvest my barrel of leeks, naturally I cooked them with squid and red wine. The dish, which simmers for hours, is a meltingly soft stew topped with buttery croutons. The baguette that didn’t become croutons will mop up the broth; the leftover red wine makes for perfect pairing.

The trick is to keep the dish at a bare simmer: you want to preserve enough liquid so the croutons have something to soak up, but cook it at a high enough temperature that the squid and leeks will soften to the butter stage. I’ve had trouble with this, despite the fact that I have two stoves to work with. One day I’ll hit upon the correct stove, the right setting, and the perfect pot; then squid and leeks will be a breeze.

Squid and Leeks in Red Wine

2 pounds squid, cleaned and sliced into rings

2 pounds leeks, the white and pale green parts cut into 2-inch lengths

1/4 cup olive oil

salt

2 tablespoons flour

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon marjoram

1 bay leaf

8 garlic cloves, cut into thin slices

2 cups red wine

1 cup water

croutons fried in butter until crisp

chopped parsley

In a heavy, low-sided earthenware or copper pot, simmer the leeks with salt until they are lightly browned. Turn them carefully to avoid breaking them. Set aside.

In the same pan, sauté the squid at a higher temperature until their liquid is nearly evaporated. Add flour and sauté for a minute, then add herbs, cayenne, and garlic. While stirring, slowly pour in the wine, then the water. Let come to a boil, and gently add the leeks back to the pot. Simmer, covered, for 2 hours.

Cover the surface of the stew with croutons, sprinkle on the parsley, and serve in the pot.

Cooking Peachy

Peach pie is one of those foods I just don’t get. Cooking peaches destroys their delicious, fruity essence, so why ruin a batch of the fresh fruit by turning it into a pie?

Still, I have found one recipe that will lead me to sacrifice a peach to the oven: Lee Bailey’s peach cake. While the heat eliminates the peaches’ perfume, the peach-batter interface that results is so good it’s a worthwhile trade. The recipe produces something closer to a pudding than a cake, and its crisp, peach juice–enhanced top is to die for.

I have found good peaches at many markets, but the most reliably excellent ones are sold at the Alemany Farmers Market. I will drive up to city and fight the traffic early Saturday morning just to buy peaches from Regier Farms of Dinuba. I often buy a flat — enough that I’m willing to donate a few to the cake.

Incidentally, this recipe comes from Lee Bailey’s Soup Meals, whose soup recipes are ho-hum while its dessert recipes are fantastic.

Peach Pudding Cake

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup softened butter

2 eggs

3 or 4 peaches, peeled and quartered

1 - 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

Heat the oven to 350°. Butter an 8- or 9-inch springform pan. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix the 3 tablespoons of sugar and the cinnamon and set aside.

Cream the butter and the rest of the sugar well, and add eggs one at a time. Slowly add the flour mixture until well mixed, and spread the batter in the pan. Top with the peaches and sprinkle with the lemon juice, then coat with the sugar-cinnamon mixture.

Bake about an hour, until the cake is a dark golden color. Serve warm. 

Too Cute

At the Redwood City farmers market last weekend I came across a bin full of tiny little purple-black eggplants, the variety that must have given the vegetable its name. I had no plans for cooking eggplant, but they were so adorable I couldn’t resist buying a bagful.

They sat around looking cute until the hot weather threatened to deflate them and I was forced to act. I found a promising recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian cookbook, a veritable encyclopedia of vegetable and bean recipes. The recipe was pickled eggplant in Sri Lankan style, and it specifically called for baby eggplant.

I was forced to change a few ingredients, as my local Asian supermarket was bizarrely bereft of lemongrass and I couldn’t bear to buy holy basil when I have five Italian basil plants going to seed in my backyard.

With these alterations it still made a fine accompaniment to a lunch of curried lentil stew. The cinnamon, according to my Sri Lankan brother-in-law, is an essential ingredient of Sri Lankan curries.

Pickled Eggplant in Sri Lankan Style

1 pound baby eggplants

salt

pepper

turmeric

oil for frying

1 cinnamon stick

small handful of basil leaves

half an onion, chopped fine

2 jalapeños, sliced

1 tablespoon ground brown mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons sugar  

2 garlic cloves, peeled and pressed

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger

2 tablespoons vinegar

Slice the baby eggplants cross-wise and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and turmeric. Let them sit for half an hour, then pat them dry. Chop each slice into quarters.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large frying pan and sauté the eggplant until it’s reddish-brown. Remove from the pan and drain.

Add more oil if needed; sauté the cinnamon stick for a minute, then add onion, jalapeños, and basil leaves. Fry until the onion is translucent. Let cool.

Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and add the eggplant and onion mix. Let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Win Some, Lose Some

I planted zucchini this year — just one plant, but of course it’s producing pounds each week. I don’t even like zucchini, but the teenager makes a couple of recipes that include it, so I thought I’d be a supportive mom and provide him with a supply of squash.

I’m finding, though, that if I harvest the zucchini early, when they’re 4 to 6 inches long, they’re less bitter and watery than their larger cousins. Chopped, they make a nice veggie saute along with corn kernels and tomatoes. Sliced, they’re great in a frittata. And when I miss a day of harvesting and they grow too large, I make zucchini bread.

I made four mini loaves for my first match in my tennis league. I lost the match, but my bread won, receiving praise and multiple requests for the recipe. It’s modified from The Victory Garden Cookbook, a lifesaver for gardeners.

The difference between this and other zucchini bread recipes is that the squash is salted and squeezed of its moisture, making it more like bread and less like pudding.

1 pound zucchini

1-3/4 cups flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup canola oil

rind of 1 lemon, grated

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped walnuts

Grate the zucchini, salt it well, toss it in a colander, and let it drain for about 30 minutes.

Combine the flours, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon. In another bowl, beat the eggs, then add the sugar, oil, lemon, and vanilla.

When the zucchini is ready, combine the wet and dry ingredients. Squeeze out all the moisture you can from the zucchini and add it to the batter along with the walnuts.

Bake in a greased bread pan (or four mini loaf pans) at 350 degrees for about an hour (about 40 minutes for the mini loaves). When the bread is done, it will have a golden brown top, and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean. Let the bread cool before you slice it. 

Ugly but Delish

During a family trip to the mountains with a pile of teenagers, we were faced with two challenges: 1) bringing enough food and 2) finding protein that would keep well. With only coolers and block ice providing refrigeration, and the closest store a harrowing 45-minute drive away, we needed to plan ahead.

Ham and cheese are obvious choices, but my folks came up with something better: Grandma Jennie’s pickled beef tongue. The vinegar helps preserve the tongue, and it’s a sizable piece of meat that feeds a crowd, even when five are teens who’ve spent their morning hauling wood.

The pickled tongue made excellent sandwiches, with nothing more than mayo on sourdough.

Grandma Jennie’s Pickled Tongue

Cover one beef tongue with water and boil until barely tender. Remove from the liquid and immerse in cold water. Save boiling liquid. When the tongue is cool enough to handle, skin it and cut out fat.

To the liquid add 3/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon pickling spices, and a handful of fresh oregano. Simmer for 15 minutes. Let the liquid cool and pour it over the tongue. Set it in a covered bowl in the refrigerator. It’ll be ready in about a week.

When Fruit Falls off the Tree, Make a Tart

Last night, while minding my own business in my own living room, a neighbor knocked on the door and handed me a shopping bag filled with Santa Rosa plums. I believe these plums, a consequence of his backyard tree, were in retaliation for all the cucumbers I foisted on him last summer.

But they were gorgeous, deep-purple plums, their skins almost bursting with juice. I set them on the kitchen counter, where the warmth of the evening lifted their fragrance, begging me to eat them or turn them into pastry.

So pastry they became. I have a list of pies and cakes that I must make every year when the appropriate fruit is ripe, and plums demand that I make plomukaka, or purple plum tart. This recipe, from Beatrice Ojakangas’s The Great Scandinavian Baking Book, is too easy. The butter for both the crust and the filling need not be hard-cold, but it should not be soft.

Dough

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1-1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons ice water

Filling

1 pound fresh plums, cut into quarters and pitted

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 425°. For the dough, combine the flour and sugar, then cut in the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles cornmeal. Quickly stir in the water and form into a ball. Roll out into a 12-inch circle and place the pastry inside a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Turn the edges over so the rim is double thickness.

Arrange the plum quarters, skin side up, over the dough. Combine the remaining ingredients until well blended, but still crumb-like, and sprinkle over the plums. Bake for 20 or 25 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. Cool slightly; serve while it’s still warm. 

Backyard Caldo

Several weeks ago, my housecleaner, Francisca, stopped me as I was clearing out of the house. It was 7:45 a.m., and my Spanish isn’t what it used to be, but I tried hard to concentrate, listening for words I recognized such as “sábanas (sheets),” “vacuum,” or “Comet.” I heard none of these, but I did catch the phrase “sopa de pollo.” Chicken soup?

Francisca led me into the backyard, to my sugar pea plot. Fingering the delicate, new shoots, my Guatemala-born housecleaner explained that the leaves make a tasty chicken soup. I’ve had pea shoots stir-fried, but for the first time I sampled the young pea shoots raw. They’re tender and sweet, tasting mildly of sugar peas. It’s no surprise that birds will eat the plants down to their stems if I don’t cover them. As the plant matures, the older leaves grow tough and bitter, and I no longer have to worry about protecting them.

I hesitated to take Francisca’s suggestion, as I so love sugar peas, I was loath to steal any shoots and curb the plants’ production. But now the peas are nearly spent, so there was no harm last night in plucking leaves from the few remaining shoots of new growth.

I made a classic caldo—a popular Central American soup of chunks of vegetables and meat in a simple broth—and tossed the pea leaves in at the last minute. Barely cooked, they remained sweet, fragrant, and pleasantly chewy. We improved the broth with Meyer lemons, as that’s what’s in the backyard, and Iguana golden habañero pepper sauce, which has been sitting in the pantry since it appeared in a stocking Christmas morning. Both were great additions.

Caldo de Francisca

1-1/2 quarts chicken stock
6 chicken thighs
1 chopped onion
6 small potatoes, cut in half
1 zucchini, cut into large chunks
1 large carrot, peel and sliced into large coins
2 ears corn, broken into sections
a handful of young sugar pea leaves

Bring the stock to a boil and add chicken thighs. Simmer 10 minutes, skimming off any foam. Add vegetables and simmer another 10 minutes. Add pea leaves and simmer another minute. Serve in large bowls with warmed tortillas, lime or lemon wedges, and hot sauce.

Green Chile Covers the Southwest

While traveling with my friend Laury in Colorado and New Mexico last week, I kept encountering “green chile” on menus. The references confused me: Steaks, enchiladas, burritos, and hamburgers were all said to be served with green chile (always mentioned in the singular), frequently “smothered” in this green chile. How can a single green chile smother a steak? And why would it want to?

I finally realized that “green chile” is a sauce, not a vegetable. Rather, it’s a sauce prepared from the vegetable. New Mexican chiles, close relations to Anaheims, are charred, steamed, peeled, and chopped, then stewed with onions, spices, and bits of pork to make a thin sauce. Red chile, sometimes offered as an alternative to green chile, is made from the same variety: Allowed to ripen, the chiles are dried, ground, and formed into a sauce. The heat level of either color can vary, as it does with chiles, depending on the climate, the individual plant, its ripeness, and whether seeds and membranes are removed.

I’m told that in the Mountain West, burritos are never served wrapped in foil—they are always prone, sauced with red or green chile. A green chile cheeseburger can wear a bun or a sauce-soaked flour tortilla. Green chile stew is simply green chile with chopped potatoes. Chile tops French fries, grilled chicken, vegetables, and eggs. If you order something and the server asks “Red or green?” he or she is talking about the sauce. If you answer “Christmas,” you’ll get both.

Laury’s green chile recipe

8 fresh chiles (Anaheim, if you can’t find New Mexican)

2 tablespoons veggie oil

1 chopped onion

2 pounds trimmed boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 tablespoon flour

1 tsp ground cumin

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 cups chicken stock

Char the chiles over a gas flame, grill, or broiler until blacked. Steam them in paper bag 10 minutes, then peel, seed, and chop. Heat a saucepan over medium heat; add oil and onion and sauté until soft. Add pork and cook until the juices evaporate and the pork browns, stirring, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with flour and stir until incorporated. Add chopped chiles, cumin, and garlic, sauté 5 minutes. Add stock and simmer one hour, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cherimoya: Animal or Vegetable?

I indulged myself in California smugness recently when I bought a cherimoya at the farmers market. Only in our geographically diverse state do we enjoy such a vast selection of fruit, from tropical cherimoyas to mountain-loving pears.

The farmer had brought them up from Santa Barbara, where it’s warm enough to cultivate the fruit. Cherimoyas originated in the mid-elevation Andes; they can’t handle temperatures much below freezing, but they don’t like sultry weather either. They prefer the climate in Southern California, like so many humans.

With its round shape and markings reminiscent of scales, the cherimoya looks like a pangolin, a mammal related to the anteater, especially when it’s curled into a defensive position or taking a nap. The pangolin wouldn’t eat a cherimoya if it found one, and not because it might think the fruit was Uncle Frank: The pangolin eats insects.

California cherimoyas are in season in the spring. You’ll likely find them when they’re firm: Two or three days at room temperature softens them to their delicious, most edible state, when the fruit feels like a ripe avocado. If you want to keep them longer, store them in the fridge while they’re still hard.

Choose cherimoyas that are green rather than brown, have no cracks and are not overly soft. Cut the cherimoya in half and scoop out the flesh, avoiding the seeds, which release a poison when they’re crushed. I ate my first cherimoya with a spoon, right out of its own skin-bowl. It tasted a little like a pear with a tropical perfume.

A subsequent cherimoya became an agua fresca:

Flesh from 1 cherimoya

Juice from half a lime

2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 cup crushed ice

1/2 cup water

Blend until smooth.

The Sissy Drinker's Drink

White wine has turned on me. I used to drink it, like normal people, with poached fish and roast chicken. But lately every white wine of my acquaintance has become vinegar. I find it undrinkably acidic with a harsh aftertaste. My poor husband has tried everything—cheap bottles, expensive labels, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc. Alas, the only whites I can tolerate now are sweet dessert wines.

I have been reduced to mixing white wine with fizzy water—yes, it’s called a spritzer—which renders it potable. A spritzer is embarrassingly passé, so I can’t bring myself to order it in a bar or at a party. And, honestly, I don’t love it. But it’s more interesting than plain water, easier to swallow than fizzy water, and it contains about the right level of alcohol for a lightweight like me. I drink it in the privacy of my own home.

Once I resigned myself to spritzer drinking, I realized I didn’t have to limit it to white wine. Red wine and fizzy water is an interesting drink: it’s like a very dry soda—or a very dry, plain sangria. So I decided that if I’m going to water down my wine, I’ll do it in style. Sangria is my ideal drink: it appeals to my sweet tooth, I can drink two whole glasses without falling asleep, and my palate loves the tannins supplied by the red wine.

For a quick sangria, I’ll mix roughly equal parts red wine, fizzy water, and orange juice. Fresh-squeezed is obviously much better than the supermarket carton variety. The type of wine will change the nature of the drink, but as long as it’s a decent one, it’ll work. For a more sophisticated sangria, one un-muddied by juice, use sugar (a quarter cup–plus per bottle of wine) for sweetener; a quarter cup of brandy will round out the flavor.

Adding slices of lemon or orange, especially if you let them soak, will add a bitter edge as well as visual appeal. Apple slices are also cute, and delicious once they’ve absorbed the drink. 

Canned-Pumpkin Pie

Several Thanksgivings ago, I headed down a path of twisted logic that went something like this: Fresh berries make a better pie than frozen berries. Therefore, fresh pumpkin will make a better pie than canned pumpkin.

Because I had won the annual family fight over who brings pie to Thanksgiving dinner, I had an opportunity to showcase the best pumpkin pie ever. I announced to everyone that I’d be making a real pumpkin pie. This meant, of course, that I’d need to buy a pumpkin and process it myself.

I purchased a cooking pumpkin at the farmers market and went through the hell of hacking it up, scraping out the seeds, steaming the flesh, and mashing it to a pulp. I then added the usual ingredients—evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, and spices—as I’ve always been fond of the recipe from the pumpkin can label and didn’t see a need to monkey with it any further.

I proudly transported the pie, which came out a lovely burnt-orange, to my parents’ house. When the main course was finished and it came time for dessert, my sister produced another pumpkin pie. She diplomatically explained that her children, being kids, preferred the canned variety.

Alas, my pie was a bust. The pumpkin was stringy, and raw-tasting, and altogether too squashy. I set my slice down and fought for a sliver of my sister’s pie. My nieces and nephews knew the truth all along: Canned is the way to go. I haven’t veered from that path since.

I’d include the recipe for best-ever pumpkin pie here, but you can find it on the can label. If, that is, you can find one during the expected canned-pumpkin shortage. I’m going to stock up.