Tzatziki

We've recently been eating gyros with some frequency. Decent quality frozen gyro meat can be found at both Sam's Club and Costco, and make for an easy dinner. We upgrade the meal with homemade pitas and tzatziki. Tzatziki is not hard to make, and works very nicely both as a topping for gyros and as a dip for chips or crackers. Although our garden failed to produce cucumbers this year, making tzatziki was a good way to use them up last summer. 

My tzatziki is based on one from Wanderlust Kitchen, but I've made a few adjustments. The main thing is that they recommend allowing the grated cucumber to drain overnight, which I find simply does not work. Instead, I recommend pressing the water out by hand. I happen to be out of white vinegar, but had plenty of fresh lemons for cocktails. This works completely fine. Basically, use whatever means available to get some acidity in there. Adding some chopped herbs at the end is nice, if they are available. I used spearmint from the garden this time. Mint and lamb are a classic combination, so this makes sense if using for gyro sandwiches. 

We made our gyro sandwiches with sliced white onion, tomato, and chopped romaine lettuce. For the pitas, we've been using Molly Yeh's recipe. We're still experimenting with how to perfect them and get them to puff up. In any case, they are a lot better than store bought once, which aren't the easiest thing to get around here.

Spicy Potatoes

Over time, I've blogged most of the dishes in regular rotation in our household, including such favorites as adobo chicken, roasted mushrooms, and grilled cutlets. Roasted potatoes have been a core part of my repertoire almost since I started cooking, which was reflected in a very early post. Several years ago, I started adding paprika to them. This version, which Ariel dubbed "spicy potatoes," quickly became a staple. I even made small jars of the spice mix (along with my rib rub) to give to guests at our wedding. 

For years, I've made these potatoes by mixing all the ingredients together and throwing them in the oven. If you're in a rush, that works perfectly fine. Recently, though, I've been experimenting with parboiling them first. This idea was inspired by Kenji's recipe, as well as a video by Adam Ragusea. Although this takes a lot longer, the result is a soft interior with a crispy crust. We usually serve them with a mix of Kewpie mayo and ketchup. Although we call them "spicy potatoes," they aren't actually spicy in the sense of heat, just that they use spices. Try a little cayenne pepper, or some sriracha mixed into the sauce, if you like.

Roasted potatoes are a versatile side dish with a great result-to-effort ratio. With the long shelf life of potatoes, they are also excellent pandemic cuisine. We enjoyed these as part of our anniversary dinner, along with steak au poivre. Steak frites is a classic for a reason, and these potatoes can easily substitute for fries while be much easier and less messy to make.

Upgrade: Pimm's and Lemonade

Today, Ariel and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Perhaps not the way we had originally envisioned, but it was special nonetheless. We started off our evening with glasses of Pimm's and Lemonade on the porch. It's a special drink for us as it was the "signature drink" at our wedding, and was a big hit with the guests. My Pimm's recipe back in 2012 was one of my earliest posts. I make it a little differently now, so this is a great time to do an upgrade.

First and foremost, I make the drink stronger now than I used to. Since Pimm's is only 50 proof, it's still quite a low alcohol drink. For comparison, the Tom Collins has almost twice the alcohol in it. I think it's important to make sure the flavor of the Pimm's cuts through the soda. Part of the fun of Pimm's is really going nuts with the garnishes. For this, I cut the cucumber an angle to get a big, wide piece. The sprig of spearmint from the garden completes the summery picture. What I've done here is a traditional Pimm's, but any fruit you want will work just fine.

When I was setting up the wedding plans with our bartenders, it was decided that doing all five garnishes for every glass would be too time consuming. What they ended up doing is infusing the Pimm's ahead of time with all five, and serving it out of a large dispenser, which was a very nice presentation sitting on the bar. Each glass just got the cucumber and orange. We ended up with a few bottles of the infused Pimm's. We did a taste test today, with one glass made with the infused Pimm's, and the other made with an unaltered bottle from the cabinet. They were almost indistinguishable, but non-infused one tasted a little cleaner. So, if you're just making this for yourself, there's no need to get fancy.

This post is also, entirely by accident, a big milestone for No Free Lunch: my 200th blog post! My interest in the project has definitely waxed and waned over the years, and my output has been particularly lean over the last few years. However, I'm pleased to say I've really rediscovered the fun of writing about food lately. A quarter of the 200 posts have come in the last year alone. While my pace will no doubt slow once classes start, I hope to continue posting regularly. It's been a great creative outlet during the pandemic, and one day I will look back at these posts as a real time capsule. 

Breaded Tenderloin Sandwich

Indiana was my home from 2011 to 2018, a period of time which not only birthed my career in academia, but also this blog and my interest in writing about food. Indiana is surrounded by places with famous local specialties, including Cincinnati (chili), Louisville (hot brown, mint julep), and Chicago (pizza, hot dogs, Italian beef, and more). Although it's not as well known in other parts of the country, most Hoosiers would probably tell you the breaded tenderloin sandwich is their state's most iconic food. Versions of this sandwich can be found at restaurants all across the state. There are subtle variations in how they are made, but if the pork cutlet doesn't hang well outside the bun, it's not a tenderloin. I've seen some as big as a few inches on each side. My personal favorite tenderloin was from our local spot in West Lafayette, Dog N Suds, located just around the corner from our old house. A side of cheese curds and root beer in a frosty mug completes the experience. 

The tenderloin has a lot in common with cutlet dishes from around the world, which regular readers know I love. The breading process uses the classic flour-egg-breadcrumb combination, but the breading is usually coarser and more heterogeneous than a Wiener schnitzel. I used crushed saltine crackers to achieve this, and I think it worked very well. Most diners cook the cutlets in a commercial deep fryer, but for the home version, shallow frying in a skillet gets the job done. The pork is meant to be the star of the show, and the supporting players are up to personal preference. The bun is a usually a basic hamburger bun. The classic toppings are ketchup, mustard, and pickles, but feel free to add others. We put in some lettuce and Kewpie mayonnaise. I had some cucumbers that were on their way out, so I made my own pickles loosely based on Kenji's recipe. 

This is a pretty simple recipe, but one that transports me back, much like the Duane Purvis All-American. Tenderloins do show up in Iowa, as well. The only place I've seen them in South Dakota (so far) is Tastee Treet in Yankton, which serves it with a piece of cheese. While that would never be done in Indiana, it's an interesting variation. It reminds me a bit of how Germans like to sauce their schnitzels, to the horror of Austrians, who only garnish theirs with a lemon slice. When it comes to such debates, if it tastes good to you, you did it right.

Chairman Mao's Red-Cooked Pork Belly (毛氏紅燒肉)

Red-cooked pork belly is popular in many parts of China, with each region having its own version. I first mentioned this dish in this year's birthday special, but I have been working on the recipe since last year. My love for red-cooked pork belly goes back further still. I still remember eating Dongpo pork belly, the local specialty, in Hangzhou back in 2009. It's become almost a must-order at Chinese restaurants. My recipe is based on the Hunanese version, which first came to our attention at the wonderful Lao Szechuan restaurant in Sioux Falls. Maoshi hongshaorou translates to "Mao family red-cooked meat," though rou by itself typically implies pork. The name refers to this supposedly being the favorite food of Chairman Mao, who was a native of Hunan. He may have been wrong about many things, but definitely not this. In my opinion, it's one of the world's most delicious foods, and as you will see, not too difficult to make.

This recipe is my own, but I used several different sources in my research. These included Peimei (volume I, in the Western China section), The Woks of Life, The Kitchn, and Asian Dumpling Tips (based on Fuschia Dunlop). My main frustration making this and other hongshao dishes is what to do with all the liquid. Many recipes claim it will reduce during cooking, even though that cooking is covered. This makes no sense. Peimei says nothing at all about it. What I did here is uncover the pan and continue cooking for another 30 minutes, then remove the pork and boil it down. I don't go as far as some, which reduce it to just a coating for the pork as I like a little to soak into the rice when serving. The extra uncovered cooking also ensures the pork gets incredibly tender, which the initial hour does not always achieve. A lot of fat renders out of pork belly during cooking, but no source I have found mentions skimming. The fat left in the sauce is what gives the pork its characteristic sheen when coated.

The Mao-style pork belly seems to differ from other hongshaorou varieties in its inclusion of spices. The seasoning profile is quite similar to my recent post on Noble Consort Chicken. I used ginger, star anise, and Chinese cinnamon. Chinese cinnamon, also known as cassia, is distinguished by thicker bark than the more common Ceylon cinnamon. The sauce is sweetened with rock sugar, which I got at a Chinese store, but it should work fine with regular white sugar. With my supply of Shaoxing wine gone, I've gone back to Amontillado (Pastora, a cheap one from Trader Joe's). It's definitely not the same, but it does work. The pork is from Costco. We usually cut it up when we get it home, and then freeze in two batches.

The last ingredient I want to mention is pork stock. I made this myself from two pork butt bones, simmered for about 5 hours with ginger and scallion. It's super meaty tasting and I'm looking forward to trying it in other dishes. I also stripped the meat off the bones and added some light soy sauce and scallions for a delicious treat Ariel called "the most unbelievable thing you've ever made." Since I had it, I threw it in here, but you can certainly just use more water. As with all my homemade stocks, I don't add salt until I actually cook with it, and this dish is a perfect example for why that is. With the amount of soy sauce I used, hongshaorou the salt level is just about right as it is. Remember, you can always add more, but you can't take it away.

Shrimp Bisque

Several months ago, Ariel and I attended a cooking class in Sioux Falls led by Lance White, who runs a cafe and catering business. He demonstrated four dishes: Caesar salad, shrimp bisque, a deconstructed beef wellington with mashed potatoes, and cream puffs. While all the food was good, the shrimp bisque, which he presented as a template to produce all sorts of simple soups, was the most interesting to me. Throwing in the shallots and garlic, skin and all, was particularly eye opening. This recipe is my version of the dish I learned from Chef Lance. A traditional bisque has a lot going on, and this recipe is not meant to be that. It is a quick and easy way to get a tasty soup on the table with readily available ingredients. 

I appreciated that Lance emphasized cooking by feel and didn't give exact recipes. It was more about applying the techniques and mindset of professional chefs to home cooking. Although I try to be precise in my recipes on the blog, my day-to-day cooking is a lot looser. I have to force myself to measure to write the recipes, which can sometimes lead to overthinking things. Any of the proportions here, like most of my posts, can be adjusted to taste. 

The main difference from the original is that I make a homemade shrimp stock, where he used Better than Bouillon lobster base. I'm unable to get that around here, but with my stockpiles of frozen shrimp shells, making my own stock is no problem. What I do here is very similar to my Chinese stock, but I use the classic French mirepoix instead of ginger and scallion. Doing this increases the time required, but it's a mostly unattended 2 hours that can be done well in advance. I also make double the needed stock, so the next time I can just defrost and go. I am also continuing to experiment with potato starch as a thickener. The original used corn starch, which is perfectly fine, too.

Tom Collins

As of a few months ago, I knew basically nothing about cocktails. Not only had I made very few, I hadn't even drank many either. I don't go to bars often (even before the pandemic), and usually order beer or wine. A few of the things I inherited from Grandpa were his cocktail shaker and his 1972 edition of the Old Mr. Boston bartender's guide. While this book is a little outdated, there are lots of great resources online. Looking for something to do at home, I started experimenting. The Tom Collins is one of the first I tried, and I've since made several of them while tinkering with the recipe.

The Tom Collins is very much a classic cocktail, which dates back to the 19th century. The name refers to the traditional ingredient of Old Tom gin. Old Tom is a precursor to the modern London Dry gin, described as being a bit sweeter. London Dry took over the market, and Old Tom is relatively difficult to find now, especially in my area. As such, I make the drink with London Dry, but if Old Tom is available, it might be a good idea to use less simple syrup. I made this one with Tanqueray, but I also like it with Beefeater. The flavor of the drink is basically a boozy lemonade, but the juniper from the gin is also very present. It's a tasty, uncomplicated cocktail best enjoyed sitting on the porch on a summer day. The proportions are worth playing around with. Going to a full ounce of lemon juice is also nice if you like it a little sharper. The Collins formula can be extended to include a variety of other spirits, as well.

Going forward, you can expect to see the occasional cocktail show up here. I'm going to follow a standard format, consistent with American bartending, which measures everything in fluid ounces. It's helpful to remember an ounce is 2 tablespoons. With drinks, it is especially important to measure citrus juices, since fruit varies so much in how much juice you get out of each one. I will also list necessary equipment, recommended glassware, and recommended garnishes. The Tom Collins lends its name to the tall glass in which it's typically served. The Collins glasses I use are the 14 oz. GODIS glasses from IKEA.

Upgrade: Ragù alla Bolognese

I've previously posted two recipes in the category of meat sauces: a quick one from all the way back in 2012 and a recreation of Dad's late '70s version in 2015. This time, I'm going back to the roots of the style. Ragù alla bolognese is perhaps the most famous of all meat sauces. The dish originates in the northern Italian city of Bologna. It's a classic with a long history, so I did quite a bit of research ahead of time. The version in The Silver Spoon (Il cucchiaio d'argento - sort of Italy's answer to The Joy of Cooking) is a very traditional and simple take: just mirepoix, ground meat, tomato paste, and water. Traditional bolognese lacks any garlic or herbs and has relatively little tomato content. This is contrary to how I typically construct a quick pasta sauce. Instead, bolognese is all about showcasing the meat, which it does very well. There is so much flavor here, I didn't find myself missing those familiar standbys. 

I also consulted some more modern interpretations, including those of Kenji, Marcella Hazan (Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking), and a few others I found online. I constructed my version to respect the traditional version as much as possible, so I am keeping herbs and tomatoes to a minimum and also leaving garlic out. At the same time, I am including some of the more common ingredients that show up recipes I have found. Pancetta is a common addition, which I have switched out for the more affordable and accessible regular bacon. White wine, milk, and chicken stock provide the cooking liquid. The cheese rinds are my personal addition to give a little flavor boost during cooking. 

I conceived of this recipe very much in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Using a full four pounds of meat, it produces a lot of sauce. I froze most of it in bags to pull out for easy meals later. In the spirit of corona cuisine, this recipe would be highly adaptable to adjustments in the specifics. For the meat, feel free to experiment with more pork or something more interesting, like lamb or bison. Traditionally, the pasta of choice is fresh tagliatelle, but that's going to have to wait for the upgrade to the upgrade. I used rigatoni, a choice Marcella Hazan calls "irreproachable." Good enough for me!

Chicken and Mushroom Sandwiches

There aren't a lot of restaurant options in Vermillion at the best of times, but back when we could go out, Mr. Smith's was always one of our favorites. Nestled inside the local Ace Hardware, it's a great spot to go for a sandwich, fried chicken, or a loaf of bread. Ariel's favorite sandwich there is the portabella chicken breast. As we're staying home as much as possible, I decided to recreate the sandwich at home. This recipe makes four sandwiches. We enjoyed two with sautéed yellow squash from the garden and saved two for lunch the next day.

As the name suggests, the original sandwich uses chicken breast and portabella mushrooms. I cheated a bit and used chicken thighs and cremini mushrooms instead, which are what I happened to have available from our Costco run last week. The chicken is simply seasoned with lemon pepper, but if you have a preference for something else, go for it. For the bread, I used soft potato rolls. While these are great for hamburgers, I would ideally use something a little heartier. For toppings, we added some romaine lettuce, sliced avocado, and Kenji's ranch dressing.

As I don't tend to order the sandwich, I can't personally attest to how close it was to the original, but it did taste good, and Ariel approved. As sandwiches go, the filling was quite loose, so eating them was a bit of a mess. A better bread choice would have mitigated that problem, I think. If preferred, the sandwich filling could also be adapted as a rice or pasta dish, similar to my chicken and bell peppers. To do this, I would deglaze the pan with a little white wine and chicken stock, reduce and thicken with potato or corn starch. 

Steak Marchand de Vin

Bonne fête! It's that time of year again, when No Free Lunch celebrates Bastille Day with another French recipe. This time, I'm turning to the master, Jacques Pépin for inspiration. His book, Essential Pépin, is a treasure trove of ideas, most of which are quite accessible. This year's dish is a classic steak with a pan sauce, which hearkens back to my second recipe ever, though this is considerably more sophisticated. I even (unintentionally) used the same copper sauté pan, which is very effective for building a good sear on steaks and then developing a pan sauce.

Pépin translates the dish as "wine merchant steak," and describes it as a bistro dish. As I understand the term, a bistro is a small, informal establishment serving simpler and heartier food than a formal restaurant, originating in Paris. This is the kind of food that really appeals to me to try to replicate at home. "Pub grub" might be a good analogy in the British Isles, though bistro food tends to be a little more refined than that. This recipe is a reasonably close replication of Pépin's dish as written, though I've made a few adjustments to my own taste. For the meat, I've swapped out New York strips for some nicely marbled ribeyes I found at Walmart, of all places. I also increased the garlic and mushrooms, which is quite common practice in our house.

There are a few ingredients of note to talk about. Pépin calls for a "fruity, dry red wine," and suggests Beaujolais. I used La Granja Tempranillo Garnacha, an inexpensive Spanish wine from Trader Joe's. Quite appropriately for pandemic cooking, we realized we were out of Dijon mustard when the sauce was about half done. I used hot Chinese mustard instead, and then kicked up the acidity with a small squeeze of lemon juice. Do what works in these strange times! The last interesting addition is potato starch, which I recently used in fried calamari. Pépin briefly discusses his preference for potato starch over corn starch for thickening sauces. Although well-known in Kosher-for-Passover and Japanese cooking, it's not commonly seen elsewhere. It worked very well here, and I plan to experiment with it further.

Chickpeas with Roasted Red Peppers

Although I typically feature main dishes on the blog, it's equally important to have easy side dishes in the cooking repertoire. This is especially true now, when access to fresh vegetables is more limited. This chickpea dish is perfect for this purpose. Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, and the bell pepper keeps relatively well in the refrigerator. It can also be left simmering more or less indefinitely while a more labor-intensive dish is prepared. In this case, I made fried calamari. 

This recipe is loosely based on a chickpea dish Dad used to make for his Spanish wine class. The original had Spanish chorizo, which is somewhat hard to come by in these parts. I converted it into a completely vegetarian dish by replacing the chorizo with a roasted bell pepper. Roasting a pepper is easy to do directly on a gas stove, but a grill or broiler work fine, too. 

This was also a good opportunity to show my (relatively) new saucier. A saucier is similar to a saucepan, but with sloping sides. They are perfect for a dish where there is need for both a saute and simmer. The sloping sides make tossing easy, but there is still enough volume for liquid. When cooking tomatoes or other acidic foods for a long period of time, I've read a nonreactive pan is best. Stainless steel, lined copper, or enameled work best here. The pan I used has a three layer construction which sandwiches conductive aluminum with nonreactive stainless steel.

Fried Calamari

I've enjoyed fried calamari for as long as I can remember. Back when people went to restaurants (remember those?), Ariel and I often shared a plate for an appetizer. I recently started experimenting with making calamari at home. Crunch is the difference between mediocre and great calamari, so I've tried a few different ways to coat the squid. Lately, I've been using potato starch, which is the basis of this post. Potato starch is a useful Passover thickener, but it has its place all year round.

I got the idea of using potato starch from making karaage -- Japanese fried chicken. The potato starch gives the calamari a great crunch, just as it does for chicken. At first, I thought this was a great innovation on my part, but it turns out karaage can be made with all sorts of things, squid included. Even if I didn't invent this dish, it's still a good one. It works best to dredge the squid a few pieces at a time. I have also tried adding the starch directly to the bowl of squid, but all the liquid turns it into a goopy batter that doesn't stick to the squid.

The squid I use come from Thailand. I get the 2 pound box from a Chinese store for $15. The size of these squid is about perfect for the classic fried calamari. They come cleaned already, so all you have to do is cut them up. This recipe makes a big platter, which was more than enough for dinner. While they are best eaten immediately, the leftovers reheated decently in the toaster oven.

Upgrade: Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee

Considering that I have one or two cups of the stuff every day, I haven't talked much about coffee on the blog. Coffee connoisseurship has really taken off in the last few decades, and I'll happily admit it's mostly passed me by. I know what I like, and that's a dark roast coffee, made properly and sweetened to taste. Consider this less a recipe and more a suggestion of how I like it. Although I enjoy a cup of hot coffee now and then, I mostly drink cold-brewed coffee these days. One of the big advantages is that it can be made well in advance, so I can put some in a Yeti cup and head out the door in the morning without boiling any water, and sip on it throughout the day. 

Being that I drink this nearly on a daily basis, it bugs me a little that my existing post is not very good. The biggest issue is that I didn't measure the beans correctly. The other improvement is the sugar. Since the pandemic started, I've been dabbling in making cocktails, so I've had simple syrup on hand. This is a much better way to sweeten iced coffee, as regular sugar tends to leave an undissolved sludge at the bottom of the glass. Here, I'm using demerara sugar to make the syrup. This is an unrefined cane sugar with a golden color often used to complement dark spirits in cocktails and for baking. I found this at the local grocery store, but regular sugar works fine if that's what you have. Cold brewing for a long time yields a fairly strong coffee, which I like to lengthen out with a larger amount of milk than I would use in hot coffee. I typically use soy milk, which has a nuttiness that complements the coffee well. Regular whole milk is good too, but I think skim milk is too watery to stand up to the coffee. Half and half works as well, but I generally use a bit less so it doesn't take over. 

For the first time, I've added an equipment section to the recipe, where I will list specialty, nonstandard equipment. This recipe is designed for a 34 oz. French press. I've gone through a several French presses over the years, which eventually end up knocked off a counter. I currently use a Bodum Chambord, which I find a superior product to the slightly cheaper Bodum Brazil, because it comes apart more easily for cleaning. One of the best ways to "upgrade" the coffee experience is with whole beans, which stay fresh longer than ground coffee. If using a French press, it's important to have coarsely ground beans, to minimize grounds getting through the mesh sieve. Coffee grinders that use a blade can't achieve this, so a conical burr grinder is a necessary investment. I used a Kyocera hand-cranked grinder for years. While this is the most affordable option, it's also a little tedious to grind the amount needed for this recipe, and I've since switched to an electric one.

Esquites (Elotes in a Bowl)

Fresh vegetables are usually the basis of side dishes in our house, whether that's roasted Brussels sprouts or broccoli, or a salad. As such, vegetables have been the biggest culinary challenge during the pandemic. Since we limit our grocery store trips to every two weeks, any fresh vegetables we have left in the second week usually don't look too great. This is where frozen and canned products have to step in. These are the kind of things "foodies" tend to frown upon, sometimes for good reason. While some frozen vegetables are pretty hard to salvage, others can come to life with a little creativity. Peas, of course, are the staple frozen vegetable, but I've recently started experimenting with corn.

Ariel and I really fell in love with farm fresh sweet corn several years ago. One of the delights of summer in West Lafayette was buying a dozen ears off the back of a truck in the Pizza Hut parking lot. Unfortunately, once corn season is over, what shows up in the grocery store is a real disappointment, and when you can get it, it needs to be eaten immediately. Mexican-style elotes are one my favorite ways to make corn, but they rely on having good-quality corn, access to a grill, and a willingness to get mayo and cream in your beard. The solution: esquites, which are essentially elotes in a cup or bowl. One way to do this is to simply grill some corn and then cut off the kernels. Kenji has an interesting alternative, where he cuts the kernels off of raw corn, then cooks them in a wok. I had this in the back of my mind when trying to come up with a good side a few weeks ago and figured I would give it a go with frozen corn. The result was surprisingly delicious. Not as good as fresh corn by any stretch, but still really, really good. 

Everything in this recipe has a long shelf life, so it's perfect for pandemic cooking, as well as scratching the elotes itch in the winter. Cotija is a great cheese to have on hand. Like other hard, salty cheeses, it lasts for weeks in the refrigerator. The proportions and ingredients can easily be adjusted to taste. For example, I used sour cream because it's easily accessible, but Mexican crema can be used if available. If you have some fresh herbs from the garden, like chives or cilantro, go for it, but they're far from necessary. I served the esquites with adobo chicken quesadillas and a margarita. 

Grilled Adobo Chicken

Grills usually come to life when the weather warms up, especially in places where the winters are cold. I actually don't use the grill as much as I used to, which may be partially due to having a better indoor stove than our last house. It's also because I've discovered I can do a lot of "classic" grilled foods (burgers and steaks, particularly) better in a cast iron pan. That being said, there are quite a few dishes I always prefer to do on the grill. Boneless chicken thighs are probably my favorite thing to grill. They do well cooked to a high internal temperature, which gives ample time to develop browning on the grill. Taking out the bone allows more even cooking that doesn't take forever. My most common ways to prepare them are breaded cutlets and this marinated Mexican-styled chicken that's perfect for tacos, quesadillas, and the like.

We call this dish "adobo chicken" because it uses chipotles in adobo sauce, along with some of the sauce, in the marinade. It has nothing to do with the classic Filipino dish "chicken adobo," which is a vinegary chicken stew. Chipotles in adobo are a great product. You can take a few out with a little sauce to add a little Mexican flavor to anything, while reserving the rest in an airtight container, where they will last for months. Chipotles are smoked jalapeños, and as such are quite spicy. I remove the seeds to tone down the heat. Avoid touching your face after working with hot chili peppers of any kind. 

This chicken would be perfectly good as-is with some rice and beans, but we often use it as an ingredient. We made quesadillas with homemade tortillas from The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy. Making tortillas was easier than I expected, and are much better than the grocery store bagged ones. It's not something I would do all the time, but they are a nice treat if you have some lard on hand.

Noble Consort Chicken (貴妃雞)

A few weeks ago, a recipe in the Joyce Chen Cook Book called "Empress Chicken" caught my eye. I did a little translation of the Chinese name guifei ji, and discovered the real name is a little more interesting. The Chinese word ji means chicken, but guifei is more accurately translated as "noble consort." In Chinese history, a noble consort was one of the emperor's high-ranking concubines, who ranked just below the empress. I found a few websites claiming the dish was named for a specific Tang dynasty concubine, but like most food origin stories, this is almost certainly apocryphal. What the dish has to do with concubines is anyone's guess.

The dish itself is a classic example of a Chinese-style stew, known as hongshao, or "red cooking." I've made a few of these over the last couple of years, but this is the first to make it to the blog. The basic ingredients are soy sauce, sugar, and a selection of seasonings. Seasonings can include ginger, star anise, cinnamon, or bean pastes. This is the first one I've made that included mushrooms, and I found them a terrific addition. I use black mushrooms (dried shiitakes) a lot in various dumplings and stir-fried dishes, but stewing brings them to life in a new way. They basically last forever, so I tend to stock up when we go to Chinese stores. I used Chinese rock sugar in this dish, which is the traditional choice for this type of stew, but white sugar is fine if you can't get it.

Chen calls for 4 wings and 4 legs. Although I like chicken legs, I went with all wings for consistent cooking time. I scaled the whole thing up a bit to use a full package of wings I found at Walmart and played around with the proportions of ingredients based on what I like. The chicken comes out very tender, and the stewing liquid is full of flavor boosted by the mushrooms. That being said, the difficulty I tend to run into with hongshao dishes is that you have a ton of liquid at the end that is too watery to work as a sauce, but as you reduce it down it gets too salty. I don't think this is the traditional choice, but I think corn starch or some other thickening agent is the way to turn it into a sauce. I used 1/2 tablespoon, but I do think it needed more. I plan to experiment more with honghsao dishes, so you can expect to hear more on this soon.

Thai Yellow Curry with Pork

Today's post is my first foray into Thai food on No Free Lunch. It's definitely not an area of expertise for me, and I've mostly enjoyed it through restaurants. Ariel is a big fan, so we frequented the excellent Siam House back in Bloomington. These days, we no longer have such easy access. I have attempted pad thai a few times, based on Leela Punyaratabandhu's fascinating, five-part manifesto on the subject. Curry is a core part of the Thai repertoire, and probably the most accessible for home cooks, and that's where I'm starting here. Yellow curry is generally the mildest of the Thai curries, although it's still quite spicy by American standards. I definitely leaned on my Chinese cooking experience making this dish. While Thai cuisine, like many in the region, is influenced by China, it's very much its own thing. Don't take me as an authority on authenticity here (or anywhere, really). I do think I know what tastes good, though, and this dish fits the bill. 

The flavor base of Thai curry comes from curry paste. Most Asian stores have a selection of packaged curry pastes. Commercial curry pastes are very spicy, and even yellow curry paste really wakes up the senses. While making it at home could potentially yield better results, curry paste contains some hard-to-find ingredients. As such, I'm using this one from Mae Ploy. I only used a small amount of what was in this tub. Most curry pastes have a basic recipe on the package, which I used to get some sense of proportions, but ended up putting in a lot more meat and vegetables for the recommended amount of sauce. This yields a much less saucy result than I have typically seen in Thai restaurants. That's fine with me, as I think those usually have way more sauce than needed, but if I did it again I would increase the sauce ratio a bit. I was constrained by only having one can of coconut milk on hand. Increasing the curry paste, coconut milk, and water by anywhere from 50% to double would work.

The recipe is pretty loose here, and having limited experience cooking Thai, I'm not going for high authenticity, just what I enjoy. The pork is based on my recent beef chow fun recipe, but I pushed it in a Thai direction with fish sauce and coconut sugar. I have found coconut sugar in both Asian stores and the supermarket. The pork turned out just as tender as the beef did. The rest of the ingredients can be whatever is on hand. Potatoes and bell peppers are some other good options. I would recommend resisting the temptation to throw everything you have into the curry. I think one meat, onion, and then up to three other items (I used carrots, bamboo shoots, and tofu) is a good rule of thumb. As with fried rice, I like the individual ingredients to still stand out.