A Socially Distanced Menu: Week 2

Welcome to part two of my two-week coronavirus menu. Late in the previous week, we heard our favorite Chinese store, the Hong Kong Supermarket in Sioux City, was temporarily closing due to the evolving pandemic. We decided to make a quick trip to stock up on supplies there and at Sam's Club. This definitely augmented our options, but didn't change our plans too much. With new cases mounting in Sioux City, we probably won't be back in a while. We had great variety in the week's meals, including some old favorites dating back to the "classic" (2012) era of No Free Lunch and some new ones, as well.

Sunday: I made my version of pollo a la plancha, which I featured in a post. It's always a great thing to discover another easy, versatile chicken dish to have in the repertoire. This can easily be done with either breast or thigh.

Monday: Of all dishes in need of a post, crab pasta is perhaps the most overdue. This is a dish completely of my own invention, loosely based on the aglio e olio concept. I saute onions and garlic, add chopped imitation crab (as I've written before, a very underrated ingredient), and then add pasta with some pasta water. Some chopped herbs finish it off. It's one of those things best not overthought, and I usually don't measure. That being said, a recipe is forthcoming.

Tuesday: The original plan of defrosting some walleye from the freezer was replaced with some fresh salmon from Sam's Club. I've been getting skin-on salmon more often these days, and working on my technique to get it crispy on cast iron. This time, though, I went for skinless and the tried-and-true panko crust. We had the roasted mushrooms I wrote about earlier as a side.

Wednesday: While I am a fan of mapo doufu, Ariel is not, mostly due to her dislike of Sichuan peppercorn. As such, I hadn't made it in a long timed. In my original post, I used extra-firm tofu because anything softer wouldn't hold up well to frying. I now view the frying step as superfluous, and I think it's more of a Peimei quirk. As such, I think a softer tofu works better, but you can only get firm and extra firm in this town. Such is life. In any case, I omitted the Sichuan peppercorn and just added a bit to my own portion and toned down the heat by mixing regular bean sauce with the hot bean paste. Pea tips, which we picked up at the Chinese store, are always a welcome side dish. Relative to my previous post, I now use a lot more garlic, thinly sliced instead of minced.

Thursday: Chicken and mushroom pasta returned, better than ever with the addition of the mushroom juice I saved from Tuesday. As one typically doesn't have that on hand, I would now recommend adding a little soy sauce (mix of light and dark, if available) to the braising liquid to add some extra depth.

Friday: I handed the reins over to Ariel here, and she made waffles from Stella Parks' recipe on Serious Eats. We had never made yeast-based waffles before. Like pretty much all of Stella's creations, they turned out great. I added a side of roasted potatoes, seasoned with the spice blend I put together as a gift for our wedding guests. A post on that is definitely coming soon. We had just enough leftover potatoes to make a pseudo-tortilla for lunch the following Monday.

Saturday: When we initially planned out the fortnight's meals, we left one day as "freezer figure it out," meaning we would throw something together based on what we had in the freezer. This often means cooking some frozen dim sum (potstickers, har gao, and buns) or heating up a frozen container of soup. This time, though, I pulled out a ribeye steak, which we shared as a steak au poivre. I used my own recipe from 8 years ago, which I'm pleased to report is pretty good! I had some green peppercorns on hand this time, which have a milder flavor and are definitely the way to go for this dish. Since I had the cognac out, I made myself a sidecar, which was quite delightful. I think grandpa would be pleased to know his cocktail shaker and glasses are being put to good use. As I experiment more, and the coronavirus situation drags on, you might see drinks pop up more often on the blog!

A Socially Distanced Menu: Week 1

Coronavirus has brought about many changes. Economists, for one, are likely to study the impact for years to come. That being said, we can all try to make the best of it. With everyone staying home, creative and resourceful cooking is more important than ever. We are only going grocery shopping every other Sunday, so we've had to plan ahead 14 days worth of meals to make sure we don't have to go out. Despite (or maybe thanks to) this, we've been eating quite well. Let's take a quick look at what we did for the first seven days of our last set of meals.

Sunday: I made pulled pork, similar to my existing recipe, but done in the Instant Pot. I cut the pork into chunks and browned it before pressure cooking for 30 minutes with a natural release. I skimmed off the grease and reduced down the sauce. The pork was incredibly tender and juicy, and done in a fraction of the time. For dinner, we had the pork on baked potatoes, inspired by Big Daddy's, one of Ariel's favorite spots from her Tulsa days.

Monday: Back in February (a lifetime ago, it seems), we attended a cooking class in Sioux Falls led by Lance White, a local chef and caterer. Probably the most interesting thing we learned was his technique for quickly making soups, specifically shrimp bisque. My version used a homemade shrimp stock I made using shrimp shells and vegetables. I also made a Caesar salad loosely based on Kenji's recipe.

Tuesday: I've been making Chairman Mao's braised pork belly regularly over the last year. My version is loosely based on one from the Woks of Life. I'm sure a full recipe will appear on the blog once I have experimented a bit more. I paired the pork with broccoli stir fried with garlic.

Wednesday: With a box of whole squid in the freezer, I made fried calamari. I used potato starch to make the coating, which yields very crispy results. This idea was inspired by using potato starch to coat karaage (Japanese fried chicken), and is definitely worth a post in the future. I paired this with more Caesar salad.

Thursday: The pulled pork from Sunday came back as a filling for quesadillas. We had pinto beans with onion and garlic as a side. Considering how much I enjoy them, and their utility as a quick, easy meal, I'm surprised I've never actually blogged quesadillas before.

Friday: The leftover stars aligned for lunch. I used the leftover tortillas, pork, and beans from Thursday and leftover rice from Wednesday to make Mission burritos. For dinner, Ariel made Kenji's white bean soup, adding some chicken sausage.

Saturday: We made Molly Yeh's pitas (from Molly on the Range), tzatziki (Wanderlust Kitchen), and hummus (modified from Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe in Jerusalem), and combined with some frozen gyro meat from Sam's Club to make sandwiches. The meat is a great convenience product for something that's not easy to do at home.

Overall, the week's selections were a nice mix of easy standbys and some new experiments. I'll follow this up soon with our menu from the second week!

Roasted Mushrooms

I usually feature main dishes or, often, one-pan meals on this blog, but easy side dishes that allow you to focus on the main dish are an important part of a cook's repertoire. I've been making some version of these marinated, roasted mushrooms for several years. The dark/light soy combination is one I use quite often and one that complements mushrooms well. The long roasting time gives the mushrooms ample opportunity sweat out liquid, concentrating the flavor, a technique I owe to Kenji. I reserved the liquid and added it to a particularly tasty batch of braised chicken and mushroom pasta a few days later.

I usually use cremini mushrooms for this dish, but you could really use any kind. In researching this post, I discovered the three types of mushroom you typically see at the supermarket (around here, anyway) are actually all the same mushroom. White/button mushrooms are at the most immature stage. As they grow, they turn brown and become cremini mushrooms, sometimes called "baby bellas." The most mature mushrooms are the much larger portobellos. I generally find the creminis have more flavor than the white mushrooms.

Pollo a la Plancha

Last month, I wrote about trying a Cuban dish called pollo a la plancha during our San Diego trip. It's a simple dish consisting of chicken cutlets grilled on a griddle and topped with onions. I was surprised with how much I enjoyed it. A few weeks ago, I threw together my own version for a quick Passover-friendly lunch. Ariel later told me how much she liked it, which is usually a one-way ticket to a blog post. As I'm not too experienced with Cuban cuisine, I won't claim this is particularly authentic, but I can guarantee it is delicious.

My original version used a boneless, skinless chicken breast butterflied and separated into two cutlets. This time, I had some thighs on hand instead. I think either cut works equally well, so go with whatever you have. This recipe ends up using only half an orange and about 3/4 of a lime, so I encourage you to use the leftovers to make yourself a drink. I served with rice, but a salad works, too.

Pesach in the Pandemic

Celebrating Passover in the depths of a pandemic was always going to be a challenge, but as the Passover story tells us, the Jews are a resilient people. Our Zoom seder went off with surprisingly few glitches, with people joining in from such far-flung locations as Boston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and even London. 

With classes moved online, I've been as busy as ever with work. Finding a creative outlet and taking some time doing something else has been very welcome. Passover, while throwing its usual culinary curveball, always presents an interesting challenge. As I've written before, wheat and barley (other than matzo) are prohibited during Passover. Additionally, Ashkenazim also avoid other grains and legumes. It's actually this second part I find more difficult, since both rice and beans (two very important components of Chinese cooking) are eliminated. In this article, I'll briefly discuss the highlights of this year's Passover cooking. 

For the seder, I made a brisket, based on Daniel Gritzer's recipe. It's not too far off from my existing recipe. I cooked half of the 9 pound brisket that was part of our Sam's Club run about a month ago. This was, in my opinion, my best brisket yet. As usual, I made it in my extra-large saute pan instead of a roasting pan. It's definitely a specialized piece of equipment, but it's become a real workhorse in my kitchen for braising. Being able to sear a 4 1/2 pound slab of meat and braise all in the same pan is definitely a plus. We also had matzo ball soup and gefilte fish. 

Passover standbys from the last few years made return appearances throughout the week, including scotch eggs and probably too many Brazilian cheese breads. Chopped liver was the only Passover staple missing from the menu, since all the local stores were out of chicken liver, for some reason. We are truly living in unprecedented times.

I added to the repertoire with some new chicken breast dishes, including a Kosher for Passover schnitzel. Later on, I marinated chicken cutlets in lime juice, orange juice, olive oil, cumin, and paprika, pan fried them in olive oil, and served with sauteed onions and garlic. Rice would have been a welcome addition, but I had to do without. Another simple meal involved skin-on salmon fillets with quinoa. Since it is not technically a cereal grain, quinoa is generally considered Kosher for Passover. 

We also experimented with making matzo pizza. This consisted of pieces of matzo with some jarred tomato sauce, mozzarella, and sauteed sausage (left over from the scotch eggs). With a few tweaks, I think this could be really good. Even as it stands, the effort to result ratio was just fine. The main issue for me was that the matzo softened too much, and I ended up eating it folded like one of those "New York slices" that some people like to go on about. It did make me think about trying a "matzo nachos" experiment next year. 

I've never written about matzo brei on the blog before. Matzo is soaked in water and fried in a pan with eggs. It's not quite like anything else I've eaten, but always hits the spot. We made two batches this Passover. Ariel did her usual sweet one with cinnamon and sugar. I made my first attempt at it using Molly Yeh's savory recipe. I added some Chinese chili crisp to mine. 

By Wednesday night, we were hungry and running out of ideas and Ariel even proposed ending Passover early. I was pretty close to frying up a pan of potstickers, but managed to save Passover with a sausage hash, following Kenji's general advice. The baked eggs are a great addition that tie the whole thing together. To make mine, boiled the potatoes and sauteed the sausage. Then, I diced the potatoes and cooked them with some lard on high heat. Finally, I sauteed some diced onion and garlic, combined everything back in the pan, and baked for about 15 minutes with the eggs on top.

Seder Staples: Maror and Charoset

This year was the first time we made our own horseradish and charoset for Passover. These are both essential parts of the traditional seder plate. The seder plate contains several items symbolic of elements of the Passover story. Horseradish, known as maror (bitter herb), represents the bitterness of slavery. Charoset, a fruit and nut mixture, represents the mortar used in bricklaying. As part of the seder, maror and charoset are eaten as a sandwich with matzo. 

The horseradish recipe is a simple mixture of chopped horseradish root and vinegar. Usually, distilled white vinegar is used, but I started wondering if this would really be kosher for Passover. A little internet research revealed white vinegar is usually derived from some kind of grain alcohol, so is not kosher for Passover. As such, we used apple cider vinegar instead. Fresh horseradish is pretty strong stuff, but seems to mellow a bit in the refrigerator. It's a nice condiment to have with gefilte fish and brisket. Many variants of charoset exist all over the world, with different locally available ingredients. Ours is a classic Ashkenazi style. It's also left fairly chunky compared to some pictures I've seen of a more paste-like consistency. The toasted walnuts add a nice textural contrast.

Kosher for Passover Chicken Schnitzel

We're living in a strange time. It's been interesting noticing how people have responded to our new reality of social distancing. Since people are going grocery shopping far less frequently, buying habits have changed. We made a large Sam's Club run a few weeks ago, and they were completely out of dark meat chicken. Our local Hy-Vee and Walmart were also out of dark meat. Perhaps this is a reaction to the relatively low prices of these cuts. As is well-known on this blog, the thigh is my favorite part of the chicken, so I've had to deal with boneless, skinless chicken breast for basically the first time ever. 

Continuing on the theme started with my kosher for Passover scotch eggs, I wanted to do another easy variation of a classic dish that can be done for Passover. Pounded thin and fried as a schnitzel, the potential dryness of chicken breast is less of a problem, though I do still prefer thighs for chicken cutlets (see Cotoletta alla Palermitana). To substitute thighs in this recipe, use two boneless thighs instead of one butterflied breast. 

I use the basic flour-egg-breadcrumb breading technique here, substituting matzo cake meal (finely ground matzo) for flour and regular matzo meal (coarsely ground matzo) for breadcrumbs. The result mimics the traditional schnitzel, but with that distinctive matzo flavor in the background. As a final note, I used canola oil for frying, which is kitniyot, a broad category of foods avoided by some, but not all Jews during Passover. Ariel typically doesn't eat kitniyot, but usually makes an exception for cooking oils. If you want to avoid this, an alternative oil or schmaltz could be used.

The Duane Purvis All American

As of writing this post, we are a few weeks into the COVID-19 crisis. For me, this has included moving my classes online, which has left me as busy as ever without leaving the house. Even as cabin fever sets in, cooking and blogging are pleasures still available to us in these strange times. I have a few more posts planned as Passover arrives next week, so stay tuned!

We recently found ourselves reminiscing about the West Lafayette days. The Triple XXX restaurant, located a short walk down the hill from my old office in the Krannert Building, has been a Purdue icon for nearly 100 years. The restaurant came to wider attention from an early appearance on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. 

The Duane Purvis All American (like many menu items, named for a Purdue football star) is arguably the most famous offering at Triple XXX. It's a classic diner cheeseburger with one unusual addition: peanut butter. It sounds strange, but for some reason, it just works. The hot hamburger on top the peanut butter turns it into a bit of a mess, but a delightful one. I've done my best to recreate the burger based on my recollection and the restaurant's online menu. Although Guy Fieri didn't enjoy his Duane Purvis All American, I certainly do. As they say in West Lafayette, "don't be nervous, try the Purvis!"