cumin beef

Another recipe from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, and this one is really a keeper. We were introduced to cumin lamb and beef at our old favorite (and much missed) Chinese restaurant Szechuan Bistro, and ordered it nearly every time we went there, but never tried to make it ourselves. Since the Greenwood arsonist burned the place down, we haven’t been able to get it anywhere locally. Now, well…I may not be able to reproduce their spicy green beans with tofu as yet, but at least I can have cumin beef. Any time I want!

Part of why this was so successful was the beef. The recipe suggested sirloin, so I hunted out a package from the freezer, from our half-cow from Skagit Angus. All of the beef we’ve gotten from them has been spectacular, but this was particularly excellent – chewy but very very tender, with a full beef flavor and a nice amount of fat marbled throughout. One of the best tasting pieces of meat I’ve ever had. Dumping a lot of cumin and hot chiles on it didn’t hurt it at all, though.

We served this on Japanese-style white rice, with a lot of stir-fried kale on the side to cut the richness of the meat. I also used some of the leftover beef to make a sandwich with roasted peppers, which I can also recommend highly. God,  I’m making myself hungry.

Cumin Beef

adapted from the Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

marinade:

• 1 Tbsp Chinese rice wine
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt

stirfry:

• 1 pound sirloin, cut into thin slices
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1 Tbsp garlic, finely chopped
• 2 hot green chiles, seeded and chopped
• 2 tsp dried chile flakes
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 scallions, finely sliced
• sesame oil

Combine the beef in a bowl with the marinade ingredients and mix well.

Original recipe instruction: heat 2 cups of peanut oil in a wok to 275°. Add the beef and stir gently. As soon as the pieces have separated, removed them from othe oil and drain well. Set aside. Pour out all but a few spoonfuls of the oil.

What I did: put a wok over high heat and add 1/4 cup of peanut oil. Add the beef in batches, stirfrying briefly until it begins to color and the pieces separate. Remove from the wok and set aside. Add a spoonful or two of fresh oil to the pan.

Then: Bring the wok back up to high heat and add the ginger, garlic, chiles, chile flakes and cumin. Fry briefly until fragrant, then add all the beef back in and stir well. When it’s cooked as much as you want (I left my beef a little rare), add the scallions, pour in a bit of sesame oil and serve with rice.

chicken noodle stirfry

Last week, after Thanksgiving, I absconded with my father’s copy of Fuchsia Dunlop’s Hunanese cookbook. I gave it to him for Christmas last year but don’t have a copy myself, so I spent the holiday sighing over the recipes until he offered to let me borrow it for a while. Ha!

I adore Dunlop’s Sichuan cookbook and make stuff from it constantly, but I’ve been intrigued by the spicy, yet more subtle flavors of Hunan. Some of the recipes use pungent ingredients like preserved vegetables, fermented tofu and salted chiles, but many are very simple and lightly flavored with soy, rice wine and aromatics. It seemed like the perfect type of food to make in the inevitable detox weeks after Thanksgiving.

The first thing I cooked, after we got home and I was feeling a bit frail, was this lovely chicken and mushroom stir-fry with rice noodles. The recipe called for dried shiitakes, which I don’t have, so I used the excellent fresh shiitakes that are grown locally. I was also delighted to find thin-cut chicken breasts at our Co-op, which made it easy to sliver the chicken. The dish was very good, full of vegetables, and refreshing after a long week of heavy eating, with just a little kick of spice to keep it interesting.

Stir-fried rice noodles with chicken and mushrooms

adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook

• 1 lb chicken breast, cut into slivers
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp rice wine
• about 10 fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 pound rice noodles
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp salted chiles (I haven’t made these yet, so I used Thai pickled chiles)
• 1 package bean sprouts
• 3 scallions, cut into 1 inch lengths
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• sweet chile sauce (optional)

Combine the sliced chicken in a bowl with the soy sauce and rice wine, mix well and set aside.

Cook the rice noodles in boiling water until just done, drain and rinse. (I know everyone always says to just soak them, but I’ve tried this and I’m tired of crunchy noodles)

Put a large wok over high heat and add a couple spoonfuls of peanut oil. Add the chicken and fry until the pieces separate, then add the mushrooms, ginger, garlic, and chiles. When the mushrooms are soft, add the bean sprouts and cook for a moment, then add the noodles and scallions and mix it all up. Add a bit more soy sauce and a little sesame oil to taste. Serve as is, or with additional soy sauce or Thai sweet chile sauce (what we call “sauce for chicken” in our house).

the Thanksgiving report

Considering that we didn’t even know where we’d be having Thanksgiving until a few days ago, I think things worked out pretty well.

I had thawed one of our Well Fed Farms chickens and salted it ahead of time, so that even if we got stuck at home by bad weather we’d have something to cook. Fortunately there was a break between storm systems, so we were able to travel after all. We took the chicken with us to my parents’ house, and it roasted up beautifully. While it cooked we drank Cava and ate Mt. Townsend Creamery Seastack cheese and Breadfarm bread, and my father and I made a joint effort on the stuffing.

Given that neither of us really had a definite idea of how to make stuffing, it came out really swell. Onions, mushrooms, a bit of celery, and lots of sage sizzled in a big skillet, then most of a loaf of Breadfarm Baker White cubed up and stirred in, then some butter and chicken stock, and about half an hour in the oven. It was everything we like in stuffing. My father did his world-class buttermilk mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce with orange, and I shredded Brussels sprouts and sauteed them until crispy.

The following night was a turkey at a friend’s house, more buttermilk mashed potatoes, totally different stuffing, more vegetables, and gravy (which we forgot to make the first night). And after both dinners, there was pie. I didn’t have my usual sweet potato pie recipe with me, so I tried one by Ruth Reichl, which we found online (I followed the recipe pretty closely, but added bourbon instead of rum). It was very good, a bit lighter and sweeter than the one I’ve made before. No-one seemed to have any complaints.

Also, there was a snowstorm on Thanksgiving day, to make the kitchen extra cozy.

disorganized

Everyone’s favorite question for the past week has been “Are you ready for Thanksgiving?” and my answer has been a resounding NO. The weather’s been nasty, our old snow tires turned out to be worn out and needed to be replaced, the basement drain clogged and had to be snaked out, there was an art show to put up and take down, and I have homework to do, and it’s frankly been a little difficult to think about Thanksgiving in any serious way. But I did thaw a large chicken, and I plan to stuff bay leaves under the skin and pretend it’s a very small turkey. We have lots of wine. Everything else will get figured out.

Canon

On Tuesday of last week, we had driven to Issaquah to pick up my work from an art show and decided to go home by way of Seattle. We ended up in Capitol Hill exactly at 5 o’clock, just in time to get a seat at the bar at Canon, Jamie Boudreau’s new place (which is in the old Licorous location, btw). And if that weren’t cool enough, our bartender turned out to be none other than the legendary Murray Stenson, previously of Zig Zag Cafe. He said he had only worked half a dozen shifts or so at Canon, and he was still feeling his way around the bar, but it was a true pleasure to finally get to watch him at work.

The cocktail menu had some interesting drinks on it, but none of them seemed quite what we wanted. Murray pierced us each with a penetrating stare and asked a few pertinent questions (clear or brown? bitter or sweet?) After a short interrogation, he determined that what I wanted was a drink made with either bourbon or rye, bitter or herbal in tone, but soft and easy. He whisked away and poked around in the shelves, returning shortly with a cocktail. A version of the Currier (this was the only drink name we were able to get out of Murray all night), it had Buffalo Trace bourbon, Rose’s lime juice, fresh lime and kummel, a caraway-scented liqueur. Really interesting, balanced and complex.

Jon’s first drink was a gorgeous concoction of excellent rum and amaro and I forget what else. It was delicious. I have no memory of his second drink, except that I know it had Campari in it. Dang, I knew I should have been taking notes. I do remember that we had a plate of ricotta gnudi with kale and shiitakes that was truly delightful and paired rather well with our first round.

As we sat admiring the liquor collection, my eye was caught by the tequila selection almost immediately over my head. I asked if I could have something with tequila for my second cocktail, and Murray’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah!” he said, and dashed off. The drink that appeared before me definitely had tequila and green Chartreuse, but I’m not at all sure what else. Some sort of juice, and a bit of lime zest. It paired perfectly with the Barron Point oysters we were eating.

Needless to say, Canon is an amazing bar (dare I say, even on a night when Murray isn’t working). We are SO going back as soon as possible.

lamb pizza variation

This was a really successful variation on our favorite lamb pizza. I topped it with the usual mix of ground lamb and sweet onions, flavored with cinnamon and tamarind, but then added butter-soft, long-cooked broccoli rabe. A recent issue of Saveur had a feature on vegetables cooked until very soft and sweet, and it occurred to me that bitter greens done this way would be a fantastic pizza topping, especially paired with the richness of lamb. I added mozzarella as well, but it would have been equally good with feta or no cheese at all.

gumbo!

Despite the fact that my husband adores gumbo and orders it frequently in restaurants, I had never made it myself until yesterday. I can’t imagine what I was waiting for.

I followed three different recipes simultaneously, all from James Villas’ Glory of Southern Cooking, a used copy of which we recently acquired. He includes one seafood gumbo thickened with roux and okra, one with boiled chicken, sausage, roux and file powder, and another with seared chicken and some remarkably overcooked seafood but no roux at all. I wanted to include chicken, andouille sausage and prawns, and I had okra but no file powder, so I sort of combined them all.

First of all, I fried chopped bacon and sliced raw andouille sausage together, then scooped them out into a bowl, leaving the spicy fat behind. Then I fried pieces of boneless chicken thigh meat in the pork fat, taking it out when just cooked through. When the chicken was cooled enough, I shredded it and put it aside with the bacon and sausage. Then I added a quarter cup of white flour to the fat to make a roux, and cooked that for a while on low heat. Chopped onion, celery and bell pepper were mixed into the roux, then a bag of frozen okra. After all that had cooked for a bit, I put in chopped parsley (and a few celery leaves, since I had them), dried thyme, a bay leaf, a quart of chicken stock, and two cans of tomatoes. I let that simmer for about an hour, then put the meaty bits back into the pot. After another 30-45 minutes, we put on rice to cook, then added a pound of raw peeled shrimp to the gumbo and let it simmer quietly until the rice was done. I served the gumbo ladled over heaps of hot rice.

It tasted exactly like gumbo, and a really, really good one, too. This may have just taken up permanent residence in our cooking repertoire.

pumpkin-free Halloween

For years we’ve eaten pumpkin on Halloween. Often in the form of soup, with Yorkshire pudding and sausages alongside, and sometimes in ravioli. This year we decided to take a complete break from it. Instead I made an equally autumnal supper of pan-fried rainbow trout and a rather successful melange of Brussels sprouts, onion and bacon, which worked extremely well. The trout was from Skagit’s Own Fish Market and was just beautiful, lightly floured and fried in a bit of bacon fat. The bacon itself was from Skagit River Ranch, and I wish I could say I liked it better. Everyone we know has been raving about it for the last year, and I finally got hold of some (whoa! expensive), but good lord it’s sugary. It smells wonderful in the pan, like smoke and maple syrup, but it burns really easily, and after a few bites I feel like I’ve eaten a candy bar. Brussels sprouts made the perfect vehicle for it, giving the sugar somewhere to go.

We drank a bottle of Sones Cancion del Mar white wine, gave out a few Butterfingers to the neighbor kids, and didn’t miss the pumpkins at all.

a less thrilling braise

Happy November! I’ve decided not to do NaBloPoMo this year, but I do intend to try posting a little more often. I have enough other writing/photography projects going on that I’m not feeling up to the post-a-day commitment, but we’ll see how it goes.

We’re trying to work more new recipes into our menu planning, after what seems like  several months of making old standby-type stuff. We’re experimenting with pulling out a cookbook at random, then opening it and pointing to something. This is quite dangerous, as it can lead to strange meals of onion sauce or rice pudding, so we’re keeping it flexible. Last week I pulled out Falling Cloudberries, a book that I was wildly excited about when it came out but have never actually cooked from. I chose a promising Cypriot recipe for pork marinated in red wine and braised with coriander seed. It was, I’m sorry to say, kind of meh.

There was nothing wrong with the pork – a roast of well marbled meat from our last pig (which is nearly gone, except for several pounds of pork belly), which I whacked up and put in a bowl with two cups of red wine the night before. I had some issues with the cooking instructions, which optimistically say to sear all of the pork in a casserole until golden. Well, first, it’s soaked in red wine, and even if you dry it off first it’s not going to sear at all unless you do only a few pieces at a time in a very hot pan. Second, it’s soaked in red wine and is dark purple, and is not going to turn “golden” no matter what you do to it at this point.

I knew what she meant, though, so I fried the pork, added in the marinade, some garlic, bay leaves and five teaspoons of lightly crushed coriander seed, cooked it until the meat started falling apart, and served it with roasted pink fingerling potatoes and some lightly wilted arugula. It was…okay. The pork flavor was overwhelmed by the wine, and the coriander was incredibly strong and acrid, not to mention kind of a weird texture. The potatoes (which turned out fantastically) and greens helped to balance, but I didn’t really like it all that much.

The leftover pork was improved by chopping it up finely with the rest of the potatoes and cooking it up as hash with some sweet onion, then serving with an egg on top. That wasn’t bad at all.

Anyone else made this recipe, or anything else out of that book? I want to give it another chance but not sure what to try.

Sichuan red-cooked beef with daikon

I hadn’t necessarily thought this blog needed yet another recipe for red-cooked meat, but that was before I stumbled across a Sichuan version. This is, of course, out of Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty, like all our recent Sichuan recipes. It’s a perfect thing to make at this time of year, with the rich beef and ginger scent filling the house while cold rain beats against the windows.