Cotoletta alla Palermitana

Every once in a while, I stumble onto a simple recipe that becomes an instant favorite. My yogurt-marinated kebabs and matzo-breaded scotch eggs were somewhat recent examples. Readers certainly know I'm a fan of schnitzels and all their international cousins. I happened upon cotoletta alla palermitana a few years ago reading a Wikipedia article about cutlets. In Italian, the name essentially means a Palermo-style cutlet. I had never eaten it, never heard of it, and certainly never been to Palermo. At first glance, a breaded, grilled cutlet sounds a little strange. Very little is written about it in English, so I read a few Google-translated recipes and tucked the idea away.

Fast forward to a several weeks ago. We had recently arrived in Vermillion, and I had just equipped myself with a new Weber grill. 

I decided to give the cotoletta alla palermitana a go, and it was a revelation. Think of it as a lighter and easier version of the more familiar wienerschnitzel or cotoletta alla milanese. No messing around with oil frying or egg washes, just throw it on the grill. The crunch isn't quite the same as a fried cutlet, but the grill still browns the coating nicely. I make it with boneless, skinless chicken thighs, but I am confident chicken breasts, pork loin, or veal chops would all do well with this preparation. Still, it's hard to beat the juiciness of the chicken thigh (as Jacques Pépin says, the best part of the chicken).

I've been having fun with the farm share boxes and figuring out what to do with everything. I served the cutlets with a ratatouille of onion, zucchini, garlic, and tomato from the farm box and eggplant and parsley from our garden. I sautéed the ingredients separately and let it simmer together, covered, while I prepared the cutlets.

Ingredients

• 2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 6 pieces)
• Salt
• Black pepper
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 sprig fresh parsley
• 1/2 lemon

Note this is actually more breadcrumbs than I needed, but I would rather not get too low while I am dredging. You could probably cut it down to about 2/3 of what I had and be fine.

Instructions

Preheat grill before preparing the chicken.

Put a piece of plastic wrap over the chicken and pound with the flat side of a meat hammer or a soup can. Pound to about 1/3 inch thick. Getting them very thin is less important than getting them to an even thickness. You can trim off any large pieces of fat before breading.

Season both sides with salt and pepper. Pour out the olive oil into a dish and generously brush both sides of the chicken with the oil. In a shallow bowl, mix the breadcrumbs, cheese, and oregano. Press each piece of chicken into the breadcrumbs, flip, and coat the other side.

Grill the chicken on high heat, placing the cutlets directly on the flame. Cook until browned on both sides and cooked through, flipping occasionally to get even browning. As the cutlets are relatively thin, I leave the cover open.

When done, chop the parsley and slice the lemon into wedges. Sprinkle parsley on the cutlets and serve with lemon wedges. 

Escargots in Compound Butter

Bonne fête from Vermillion! There's been a lot of changes here at No Free Lunch, and I've really fallen behind. I have some more posts in the pipeline where I'll talk a little more about that. For now, let's celebrate our sixth Bastille Day with escargots! Escargots have been a family tradition since I was very young, and we often have them for Christmas dinner. I've seen and heard of many different preparations for escargots, but the simple classic can't be beat. The most iconic preparation involves baking the snails inside shells, but lacking those, ramekins work well. Make sure to have lots of bread ready to absorb the delicious compound butter.

The butter is closely based on Jacques Pépin's recipe from Essential Pépin, including fresh parsley and chives from our garden. It ended up being a little too salty, so adjust to taste. The bread pictured is the baguette made daily at Vermillion's own Mister Smith's. Grandpa's French bread would be a great option, as well. 

We rounded out our dinner with pan roasted chicken thighs with mustard sauce (recipe forthcoming at some point!) and sautéed crookneck squash from this week's farm share.

Ingredients

• 20 escargots (1 small can)
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 sprig fresh parsley
• Breadcrumbs
• Bread, for serving

Compound Butter

• 1 stick butter (4 oz.)
• 2 Tbs fresh parsley, minced
• 1 Tbs fresh chives, minced
• 2 tsp garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
• 1/2 Tbs white wine
• A few grinds black pepper

Instructions

Drain the snails and inspect for any feed still inside them. If present, rinse it out. Bring the wine and stock to a boil in a saucepan or sauté pan. Add the parsley sprig and the snails. Lower the heat and poach for about 5 minutes. Remove the snails and store in the fridge until ready.

Combine the butter with the rest of the butter ingredients. This will work best if the butter has been left out to soften. Fold everything together. Both the snails and butter can be kept until ready to serve.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Divide the snails and butter into equal portions and place in ramekins. I used four, with five snails in each. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top. Place the ramekins on a sheet pan and bake for 12 minutes. 

Serve with baguette slices.

Passover Musings

With another Passover coming to a close, I wanted to do a quick post on how things went, the food that was had, and my general thoughts on the topic. I'm always fascinated by the intersection of food and other aspects of culture and history. While I won't say I fully understand Passover, I get a little closer every year. What has struck me most is how literally the Passover dietary restrictions are taken. My previous assumption, admittedly not based on much, had been that it was all symbolic and more about the spirit of the law rather than the letter. The only analogue I really have are Chinese festival foods, which are highly symbolic and considered good luck based on either puns, visual similarity, or old legends. For example, you have long noodles symbolizing long life, wontons folded to look like gold ingots, and zongzi for Dragon Boat Festival (commemorating a legendary event). In these examples, the food itself isn't what's important, it's what they represent.

Passover is not like this. The story goes that, during the exodus from Egypt, there was no time for the bread to rise. Consequently, this is commemorated during Passover by eating only unleavened bread -- matzo. In the ancient world, the New Kingdom period of Egypt included, grain, usually made into bread, was the staple food. In fact, Egypt would later become the Roman Empire's main source of food, and its loss to Muslim forces in the 7th century was a major blow to the crumbling empire. Five grains capable of rising are known as chametz, and must be removed from the home. Traditionally, these five are wheat, barley, rye, oats, and spelt. Note that this doesn't include corn and rice, which would have been unknown to the Mediterranean world at the time. The part I have a hard time with is that these grains, in any form other than matzo, are all banned, whether or not they have anything to do with bread or not.

The other category of foods, which I've talked a bit about in the past, are kitniyot. This is a broader class of items that are sort of chametz-adjacent. This is where other grains, such as rice and corn, as well as legumes come in. Although the origins of kitniyot are a bit hazy, the most common reasoning I've heard is that people might confuse these items with the five grains, an explanation I find a little unsatisfying. Traditionally, Ashkenazi Jews (the majority in the United States) were prohibited from having these items, as well. A decision from the Rabbinical Assembly overturned this a few years ago, but many people, Ariel included, have been reluctant to introduce these foods into Passover after so many years of tradition. It's actually these that give me the most trouble, as I can't cook with beans of any kind, rice, or corn starch. A quick survey of this blog would show you how often I use those ingredients. With wheat flour also knocked out, alternative thickeners need to be found. This is where tapioca flour comes to the rescue.

This brings me to our Passover menu. I actually really enjoy the traditional Passover foods, and we don't have them often during the rest of the year. The problem is that monotony tends to set in by the end of the week. These included:

• Braised brisket: I used my own recipe again, with some adjustments. As I could not use soy sauce for seasoning, I added about half a can of tomato paste and some Worcestershire sauce. For thickening, I used tapioca flour. I got a bag of Bob's Red Mill from Kroger, but you can probably get it much cheaper at a Chinese store. To avoid using soybean oil, I seared the brisket with schmaltz.
• Chopped liver: Again, using my own recipe, including the homemade schmaltz. If you don't mind mixing milk and meat, you can go the French route and use butter.
• Gefilte fish: As always, get the frozen log rather than the jarred kind. One day I'd like to make my own, but that time has not yet come.
• Matzo ball soup: Made by Ariel, as usual. We may experiment with the timing on this in the future, and try to rescue the chicken before it completely turns to mush. 

My confidence in producing some "modern" Passover-friendly food to break up the week is growing. Breading things like scotch eggs or baked chicken with matzo meal generally works fine, and we often have grainless meals like swai fillets with roasted broccoli anyway. As I noted above, soybean oil, as well as canola oil, are technically kitniyot, but this is where we usually compromise if we're frying something. 

The undisputed winner of this year's Passover, though, was Brazilian cheese bread. I first encountered them years ago at Fogo de Chão, but have never made them at home. Ariel made them using Elise Bauer's recipe, and they were incredibly good and very addictive. Although I was assured there is no problem at all (tapioca is Kosher for Passover), eating them felt a little bit wrong to me. They're bread, aren't they? This is where the spirit/letter of the law distinction really hit me. Although the cheese bread puffs up in the oven, it's technically not leavened, so it's allowed. Either way, they are delicious and will definitely be showing up on our table again next year, and probably before then.

Matzo Breaded Chicken

Welcome to Passover 2018, dear readers. While today's recipe is nothing groundbreaking, I think it's important for me to chronicle my adventures in kosher for Passover cooking. Last year, I hit a real home run by adapting an old favorite, Scotch eggs, into a Passover-friendly version. I plan to make them again next week. This recipe is another adaptation of an old standby. 

I've been making this breaded chicken recipe for many years, with a post on it in 2015. This is basically unchanged, except for swapping the regular bread crumbs with matzo meal. I've also given the chicken an undercoat of matzo cake meal (much more finely ground matzo). This uses a variation on the classic flour-egg-breadcrumb coating used in dishes like Scotch eggs and Wiener schnitzel. Instead of egg, I use a mixture of mayonnaise, mustard, and Sriracha sauce to boost the flavor. One aspect of this that warrants experimentation in the future is the oven temperature. I had some difficulty getting the matzo meal to brown (you can see the light area in the photo), and ended up broiling the chicken a bit at the end to compensate. 

Carr Valley bread cheese contains no bread and is therefore
kosher for passover!

Normally, as I understand it, the first two nights of Passover feature a seder, a holiday dinner that involves, among other things, readings of the Passover story, songs, and vast quantities of wine. We decided to do that tomorrow night, and have a simple meal tonight. The main dish was the breaded chicken with an appetizer of garlic-flavored Carr Valley bread cheese we picked up in Wisconsin. I broiled it in the toaster oven, and it was rather good on a piece of matzo. Tomorrow's meal will feature braised brisket and matzo ball soup. I'm also planning to make chopped liver to have throughout the week. Making this chicken dish is a great complement to chopped liver, as you can reserve the chicken skins to make schmaltz. In fact, the skins are rendering as I write this post. See the chopped liver recipe for details.

Ingredients

• 5 chicken thighs, bone-in
• Matzo cake meal for breading
• Matzo meal for breading
• 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup light mayonnaise
• Squirt of Sriracha sauce or other hot sauce (to taste)
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a sheet pan covered with foil. Remove the skin from the chicken and reserve for later use, if desired. Generously salt and pepper both sides of the chicken.  Spread cake meal on a plate and dredge chicken on both sides. 

Mix the mustard, mayonnaise, and Sriracha sauce in a bowl. Slather chicken all over with the mixture. 

Dump out the cake meal and spread matzo meal on the plate. Dredge the chicken pieces in the matzo meal and set on the sheet pan.

Bake the chicken until cooked through, about 30 minutes. I broiled the chicken for a few more minutes to get a little more browning on the coating.

Fish Slices with Tomato Sauce (茄汁魚片)

Without any premeditation on my part, the last four recipes I've posted have involved pork, so I'd say its time to shift gears and do some fish. Sweet and sour fish is one of those dishes I frequently enjoy when eating out, but had never tried making at home. Along with eggplant Sichuan style, it's often one of the first dishes I try at Chinese restaurants. There are a lot of variations, and I tend to prefer a more vinegar-forward profile rather than a sweeter one. Peimei has a sweet and sour fish recipe found in the Eastern China section of her first book (this refers to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces, along with the city of Shanghai). This recipe begins with chopping the head off the fish, butterflying and deboning. The fish is battered and fried to spectacular results, and Peimei comments that "most of our foreign friends prefer this way." I did not have a whole fish nor the desire to undertake this. 

What I did have was a pound of assorted cod bits I picked up at Trader Joe's for four bucks. I found another recipe in the Southern China section (Guangdong and Fujian provinces and the city of Hong Kong) that involved fish slices and a very similar sauce, called "fish with tomato sauce." The Chinese name is pronounced qiezhi yupian in Mandarin. I was puzzled by this at first, since the most literal translation would be "eggplant sauce fish slices." This being a southern recipe, I asked Dad for some context and found out the Cantonese pronunciation of qiezhi contains the key: keh jup, thought by many to be the origin of the English word ketchup. The usage of qie here is just an abbreviation for fanqie, the Chinese word for tomato. Amusingly, this literally translates to "foreign eggplant."

The recipe itself is pretty simple. Rather than battering the fish, we simply dredge it in cornstarch after marinating, much like in the sweet and sour pork recipe I posted three years (it's been that long already?) ago. As I mentioned above, I used cod pieces, which were of assorted shapes and sizes. This wasn't ideal, and I would recommend starting with proper fillets and cutting the slices to be more uniform. Cod worked well here, but other fish would do fine. I will probably try it with swai in the future. Overall, I enjoyed the dish, but would make it more vinegar-heavy next time to suit my own preferences.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. white fish fillets (I used cod)
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 10 (approx.) small black mushrooms
• 1/4 c green peas
• 1/2 c (approx.) cornstarch for dredging
• Vegetable oil for frying

Marinade

• 1 egg white
• 1 Tbs cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt

Sauce

• 3 Tbs sugar
• 3 Tbs white rice vinegar
• 6 Tbs water
• 3 Tbs ketchup
• 1 Tbs Shaoxing wine
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Instructions

Start out by soaking the black mushrooms in warm water. I press a folded paper towel on top of the mushrooms to keep them covered with water. Check after half an hour. If the mushrooms are still firm, chop in half, remove stems, and resume soaking. When mushrooms are fully softened, squeeze water out and dice.

Fish pieces marinating

After starting the mushrooms soaking, prepare the fish. Cut fish into small pieces, about one inch squares. In a large bowl, mix the marinade ingredients, add fish, and toss to coat well. Let the fish marinate in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

While the fish is marinating, mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and keep ready for later. This is also a good time to dice the onion.

Fish after frying

Preheat oil in deep fryer or wok to 375 degrees F. When the oil is ready, spread cornstarch on a plate and dredge the fish slices on both sides. Fry in batches until crunchy. Each batch should take no more than a minute in the oil. Set the cooked fish aside on a paper towel lined plate.

Sauce, ready to add the fish

Heat a small amount of oil in a wok on high heat. Stir fry the onion and mushroom for about one minute. Stir the sauce again and add to the wok. Add the peas and cook for another minute. Add the fish. Turn the burner off and toss to fully coat the fish. 

Notes

This is one of my most faithful recreations of a Peimei dish. I did increase the amount of peas from the original. The amount of mushrooms and peas can be adjusted to personal taste. If I made this again, I would probably also increase the vinegar-to-sugar ratio bring the sourness forward a little more.

Jägerschnitzel

As many of you no doubt know, I'm a great lover of schnitzel of all stripes. All the way back in 2012, I wrote a post on Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein and in 2015, I did the Japanese version. One variety I haven't done yet is the breaded tenderloin, an Indiana staple I'll have to start making for myself pretty soon. As I've discussed before, schnitzel is a very well-traveled little dish. As I understand it, Austrians are quite particular about how a Wiener schnitzel is prepared and served (with lemon and potato salad) while saucing schnitzels is more of German thing. I haven't asked an actual German or Austrian about this, so don't quote me. Whatever the origin, jägerschnitzel is a classic and an excellent one at that. 

The term jägerschnitzel means "hunter's schnitzel" and refers to a cutlet with a mushroom sauce. There seems to be a lot of different opinions about what exactly is in the mushroom sauce and whether or not the cutlet should be breaded. As usual, I read several recipes I found online and concocted my own based on my preferences. While the classic Viennese style demands veal, I usually use pork or chicken (boneless thighs pounded thin are great for this) for my schnitzels, as both are cheaper and easier to get. On the topic of breading, I sort of split the difference and dredged the cutlets in just flour, skipping the egg wash and breadcrumbs. The flour coating promotes a nice crust on the meat, but by not breading I also dodge the shallow frying process. This uses a lot less oil and you can get straight into making the sauce without having to clean up in between.

Ingredients

Cutlets

• Pork chops (I made 2, but there is enough sauce for about 4 cutlets)
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Paprika
• Garlic powder
• Flour for dredging
• Vegetable oil as needed

Sauce

• 8 oz. mushrooms, rinsed and sliced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 Tbs butter
• 1 Tbs flour
• 1/2 c red wine
• 1 c chicken stock
• 2 splashes Worcestershire sauce
• Pinch of dried thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Vegetable oil as needed

Instructions

Prepare the mushrooms and onion ahead of time so they will be ready to go when it is time to make the sauce. If your chops have a bone attached, remove them and trim off large sections of fat. Place the meat in a gallon-size bag and pound to about 1/3 inch thick.

My chops had a weird little bonus piece

Heat vegetable oil in a saute pan on medium-high heat. Use enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. While the oil heats, season the cutlets with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Dredge in flour. When the pan is hot, shake off excess flour and place in the pan. Cook for a few minutes on each side, until the outside is well browned and meat is cooked to desired temperature, adding oil as needed. A little pink on the inside is fine for pork, and will prevent it from drying out. When done, move the cutlets to a plate and cover with foil. You may have to cook the cutlets in batches or multiple pans if you have a lot of them.

Mushroom and onion after butter was added

Add more oil to the pan. Saute the mushrooms and onions together until onions are well softened and mushrooms have cooked down. Season with salt and pepper. Add the butter and stir in as it melts. Add the flour and cook together a few more minutes, stirring frequently. 

The finished sauce

Deglaze the pan with wine and reduce for a minute. Pour in the chicken stock and add thyme and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a boil and reduce by about half, or to desired thickness. The sauce should be a medium thickness, still pouring easily but not spreading all over the plate.

Serve the cutlets and spoon the sauce all over them. This recipe makes enough sauce for about 4 cutlets. Extra sauce can be stored in the fridge for a few days.

Lion's Head Meatballs (獅子頭)

We recently acquired a copy the Joyce Chen Cook Book. Joyce Chen was a pioneering figure in the development of Chinese food in the United States. Chen is credited with inventing both the flat-bottomed wok and the Chinese buffet. After leaving China, she made her home in the Boston area. In her restaurants, potstickers were re-branded as "Peking ravioli" to appeal more to American audiences. Many Chinese restaurants in Boston still call them that. The book itself is out of print, but we found a very good quality used copy on Amazon. Like Peimei's books, this one also comes from the 1960s, but the perspective is from making Chinese food in the United States, as opposed to Taiwan. Chen's recipes are generally quite simple in terms of ingredients, but go into a lot more detail on the step-by-step instructions than Peimei does. As with Peimei, I'm going to be making recipes from this book, discussing them, and updating them for the 21st century. It will be especially interesting to see dishes that appear in both.

For my first Joyce Chen creation, I'll be looking at shizitou, literally translated as "lion's head." These are large, soft meatballs made from ground pork, so named for their resemblance to, well, lion heads. They aren't the most common thing to see in Chinese restaurants, so I often order them when they're available. Shizitou are a classic dish of eastern China, and I ate quite a few of them in Shanghai. I've featured a lot of western and southern Chinese dishes on the blog, and I really need to delve deeper into this region. I've preserved most of the original Chen recipe here, though I have scaled it down to one pound of meat rather than two pounds. I did, however, use the original amount of sauce, and I don't think it would have been enough sauce for the full two pounds. Overall, I think Chen nailed it here, and they turned out great. Next time, I may tweak the seasoning a bit, but the texture was perfect.

There is nothing particularly unusual in this recipe, but this is a good time to discuss the various kinds of Chinese cabbage. There are three main types you'll commonly see: napa, bok choy, and Shanghai bok choy. I use napa a lot, and you can see it popping up as a component in many different recipes here. For eating on its own, though, I prefer Shanghai bok choy. Compared with regular bok choy, they are smaller (about 6 inches long as opposed to a foot) and the whole thing is a pale green instead of white stalks with green leaves. They are tender and mild and also work well as the center component of lovers' shrimp. While you can usually find napa and regular bok choy in supermarkets, I usually only see Shanghai bok choy in Asian markets. The last thing I wanted to mention is MSG (monosodium glutamate). Chen adds a little of it to the meatballs, and it shows up in a lot of her recipes (and a few of Peimei's, as well). I omit it, not because I buy into the fear mongering surrounding it, but because I expect most people won't have it on hand. 

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 1 lb pork shoulder, with fat
• 2 Tbs + 2 tsp light soy sauce
• 1/4 c cold water
• 1 tsp Shaoxing wine or Amontillado
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 Tbs cornstarch

Coating

• 2 Tbs cornstarch
• 1 1/2 Tbs water

Sauce

• 1/2 c water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 Tbs dark soy sauce
• 1/2 Tbs light soy sauce

Everything else

• Vegetable oil for frying
• 1 - 1 1/2 lb Shanghai bok choy (can also use regular bok choy or napa)
• 1/2 Tbs cornstarch
• 1 tsp water

Instructions

If using whole pork shoulder, grind the meat. Chen recommends running the meat through the grinder twice. Since I had already ground my pork, I chopped it with my knife a bit. Combine the meat with the rest of the meatball ingredients. Mix well and let set in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes.

Meat after resting

While the pork is resting, mix the cornstarch and water for the coating in a bowl. Heat a little vegetable oil (just enough to cover the bottom) in a dutch oven or saute pan on medium heat. 

Forming the meatballs

Divide the meat into four equal portions. Form each portion into a ball and roll in the cornstarch mixture to coat. Carefully place each meatball in the pan. Fry until browned. 

Meatballs frying -- note the white cornstarch coating

Carefully turn to brown on as much of the outside as you can. When flipping, make sure to loosen the bottom with a spatula first. The mixture should be quite loose, so the meatballs will naturally flatten a bit. 

Ready to braise

When done browning, remove the meatballs and set aside. Drain the excess oil from the pan. Add the water, sugar, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce for the sauce. Place the meatballs back in the pan and bring to a boil. Back off the heat to low, cover, and cook for 90 minutes. Flip the meatballs halfway through. 

Stir frying the vegetables

While the meatballs braise, prepare the vegetables. If using Shanghai bok choy, remove the bottom half inch and separate the sections. The center core can stay together. Rinse well to get rid of any dirt. If using regular bok choy or napa, cut into 2-inch slices after rinsing. When about 10 minutes of the meatball cooking is left, stir fry the vegetables on high heat. Vegetables do not need to be cooked through, just browned. I did this in two batches -- do not crowd the wok.

Before going in the oven

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Arrange the vegetables in a casserole dish. Place the meatballs on top. Mix the last 1/2 Tbs of cornstarch and 1 tsp of water into a slurry. Add to the sauce and pour all over the meatballs and vegetables. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve with rice. If you start cooking the rice about when you start the vegetables, it will finish at about the same time.

Notes

In Shanghai, I often ate shizitou in a bowl of soup noodles rather than with rice. Chen also recommends that the meatballs can be made in advance and held in the refrigerator. As the braising process is lengthy, I like this suggestion. When ready, you can just start at the vegetable stir frying and bring the meatballs up to heat in the oven. She also notes that crab meat can be mixed into the pork. 

Birthday Special 2018

Happy birthday, Ariel! For the cake this year, I decided I had to step it up a little. I returned to the same recipes I used for 2015's cake. This was Mark Bittman's golden layer cake and chocolate buttermilk frosting. In that cake, I just poured the entire batter into a 9x13 pan. This time, I did what was actually prescribed by Bittman -- two 9-inch round cake pans. The actual layer cake construction was not as difficult as I was expecting. Bittman recommends placing the bottom layer upside-down so that the flat bottoms go in the middle of cake. There was still a gap around the edge, but I managed to fix this by adding more frosting and pressing down on the cake. Overall, I do think the improvement in presentation is worth the extra effort over a sheet cake. Since the cake becomes taller, frosting the sides is actually easier with the layer cake. 

For the decoration, we have the triumphant return of the ship cake! I was inspired by the 15th-16th century carrack, the ship that built the Portuguese empire. As always, I used the Betty Crocker cake decorating tubes, but I remain dissatisfied with them. I may have to investigate other options for next year.

The birthday feast included eggplant Sichuan style, potstickers, and Kenji's crab rangoons. If you've never made crab rangoons before, it's quite easy, and I highly recommend Kenji's recipe, which is heavier on the crab. I used imitation crab, which I maintain is one of the world's most underrated ingredients. 

Pulled Pork

If I had to choose one favorite cut of meat, it would probably be pork shoulder. It's a terrifically versatile cut that's popped up quite a few times on No Free Lunch, and it's usually fairly inexpensive. You can easily find a large shoulder roast (sometimes called a "Boston Butt") at most grocery stores, or at Sam's Club for a few dollars a pound. I generally separate the roast into two sections. I cut right at the edge of the shoulder blade to have a smaller bone-in roast and a boneless section that can be sliced into long strips for char siu. With the bone-in section, I either trim the meat off for grinding (the fat content is perfect for potstickers) or cook it whole, as I've done with this pulled pork recipe. If you trim off the meat, you can save the bone for making soup.

I have been a fan of pulled pork for years, but for some reason, I never tried making it at home until a few months ago. I did a quick survey of various braised pork recipes online to get a general idea, and devised this one myself. It is excellent in tacos, but can also be eaten with rice and some roasted vegetables. It takes well to freezing, and when I teach evening classes, I like having food ready to go in advance.

Chipotles in adobo are a key ingredient in this recipe. These are smoked jalapeños in a brown sauce, usually found in a can. I've been experimenting with these for a while, and most frequently use them as part of a marinade for grilled chicken. On their own, chipotles are very spicy, so you do need to be careful to add them in moderation. I've had no problem getting them from a regular supermarket. For the beer, I used a dark Belgian-style brew, but you can really use anything decent. The first time, I used a pilsner, and it turned out well. Although I haven't tried it, I would think something like Negra Modelo would be a great, affordable choice that's somewhat on-theme.

Ingredients

• 1 bone-in pork shoulder roast, about 4-5 pounds
• Vegetable oil
• Limes for serving
• Salt to taste

Rub (approximate)

• 2-3 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp ground coriander

Braising liquid

• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 bottle of beer
• 1 orange
• 4 chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp oregano
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• Chicken stock as needed

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat a little vegetable oil in a dutch oven or other similar vessel on medium-high heat. Rub the pork all over with salt and the rest of the rub. Brown the pork on all six sides, then set it aside.

Pork during browning

Add the onion and garlic to the pan and brown for a few minutes. Deglaze with the beer. Squeeze out the orange into the pan. Add the chipotles with a bit of their sauce, bay leaf, oregano, and soy sauce. Return the pork to the pan. Top up with chicken stock so that the pork is almost completely covered with liquid.

Ready to go in the oven

Cover the pan and transfer to the oven. Cook for about 3 hours, until fork tender. 90 minutes in, check on the roast and flip it over. Remove the pan from the oven. Take out the pork and place on a plate.

After 3 hours of braising

Use two forks to pull the meat apart into shreds. The meat should come right off the bone and tear apart easily. Large chunks of fat can be discarded.

Removing the grease

Transfer the pork to a ziploc bag or other container and refrigerate for later. Place the entire pan of sauce in the refrigerator and chill for a few hours, or overnight. The excess grease will congeal on the top of the sauce and can be easily removed. Remove the bay leaf.

Ready to serve

When ready to serve, add the meat back to the pan and bring up to heat on medium heat. Stir to thoroughly coat the meat with sauce. Salt to taste. Serve with lime wedges to squeeze on the pork. Leftover pork can easily be frozen for later use.

"Potsticker" Sandwich

Happy New Year, everyone! As 2018 arrives, so does the 6 year anniversary of No Free Lunch. Sadly, 2017 was the leanest year in its illustrious history, though I've emerged from it as Dr. Wai. When I started No Free Lunch, I was midway through my first year of graduate school, a year where I learned a lot both in the classroom and in my evenings churning out seventy-four blog posts. It's still fun to go back and see how my approach has evolved. I am very proud of the few recipes I did manage to post last year, including one of my best Chinese dishes yet, two "modernized" takes on Jewish holiday traditions, and a fantastic blind dive into Pei Mei's Chinese Cookbook. I hope 2018 will be a fruitful year for this blog, and I already have the next post in the works. My new year's resolution is that I will be less of a perfectionist when it comes to recipes and give you a few more works in progress.

For the first post of the new year, I've got a real oddball that turned out incredibly well. Making a huge batch of potstickers can be time consuming and tiring. Sometimes you run out of dough, and have a little filling left, but not enough to justify another batch of dough. Sometimes you just get hungry. I have the solution: potsticker sandwiches. I've made these here and there over the years, but doing this post made me sit down and think about how to make them as delicious as possible, and I believe I have achieved it. Crunchy cabbage, gooey egg, and savory potsticker filling combine beautifully into a satisfying, self-contained meal. 

The ingredients are pretty mundane, aside from the potsticker filling that forms the center of the sandwich. I used ciabatta rolls for the bun here. While good, I think they are a little too robust for this sandwich, and a regular hamburger bun or the large-size King's Hawaiian would be best the way to go. For the greens, anything you have on hand is fine, but if you are using my potsticker recipe, you'll have some napa cabbage on hand. Just tear off some of the green leafy parts. I felt the sandwich needed some lubrication, and Japanese mayo (Kewpie is the most common brand) fits the bill nicely. If you've never tried it, I highly recommend giving it a go.

Ingredients (per sandwich)

• 4 oz. leftover potsticker filling (see my recipe, "Potstickers, the Hard Way")
• 1 Tbs panko
• Flour for dredging
• Vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 bun of your choice
• Cabbage or lettuce leaves
• Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie)

Instructions

Note that the photos here are for two sandwiches, which can easily be made in a single pan.

Mix the panko into the potsticker filling. Press the filling into a disk, about 3 1/2 inches across. Spread a little flour out on a plate and dredge the disk on both sides. 

Heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Fry the meat disk for a few minutes on each side, until well browned and cooked through. Set aside when done.

This pan from IKEA replaced the old, battered potsticker pan

Wipe out the pan and add a bit more oil. Fry the egg to your preference. For sandwiches, I like mine over medium, so that the yolk is still soft, but does not run out when you bite into it. While the egg is cooking, slice the bun in half and warm it up in a toaster oven.

To assemble the sandwich, squirt a little mayo on the bottom bun, add the greens, then the meat. Top with the egg and some more mayo.