Of all the places he thinks is ‘bizarre’, Andrew Zimmern decides to go to Wisconsin for his latest episode of Bizarre World. I don’t think the other half blinked once while we were watching it last night. The reigning world champion in log-running and rolling was Andrew’s guide at the Lumberjack World Championships. She went to high school with the other half.

I was busy wondering why I’d never seen any of the places featured in the show. Zimmern makes Wisconsin sound interesting! The other half suggested an intrastate road trip next summer.

There was a grocery store in Milwaukee that caught my eye: Mercado El Rey. We had found a great taco place in the Mexican area of town when the other half had an internship in town several summers ago. Remember the heavy metal/Goth Mexican taco truck? But we hadn’t known about this grocery store. If only. In the back they serve all sorts of cooked delights, one of which is pozole, a hearty soup featured on the show.

When I took a bus trip down to Mexico City from San Antonio almost a decade ago, I tasted pozole for the first time. We were starved from puttering around the city, which is about 10X bigger than NYC, with a subway system to match, and wandered into this white-tiled soup station. It was so satisfying and rich but light, and this was a time when I didn’t really drink soup!

The main flavor components of pozole are tripe, hominy, roasted pepper and oregano. I remember I was in shock of some other culture besides Asians using tripe, and in such a different fashion. It was earthy, like rolling around in mud.

Fall and winter are all about soups now. Here in Jersey, we have to pay for our own heat (another reason not to move here!), so drinking soups are a way to save on the electric bill, but soups are also great one-pot cooking: just add pasta, noodle or rice and you’re set.

In the freezer we had the leftover packs of innards from my dinuguan-making adventure. I like pozole with offal-funk, but if you are shy, you could use any ’safe’ part of the pig. I had a big chunk of snout in this pack. I think it could be a better option than tripe, because it retains some QQ after long soaks.

As for pepper, it’s best if you had some sofrito stocked up in the fridge, or you could use chopped dried smoked chiles. I had some roasted red pepper in a jar so I used that. I have a mother stock (basically the dregs of the soup from last night, strained) that I transfer to the new soup. But if you don’t, Better than Bouillion is good, and doesn’t take up too much space. As long as the main flavor profile is intact, it’ll taste like the real thing.

By the way, if you want to make menudo, just subtract the hominy and amp up the spice factor.

Ingredients:
chopped tripe, but any offal will do
hominy (frozen is better than canned)
roasted chili pepper (pick your fav)
dried oregano
cumin
sofrito (or separately, minced garlic, onion, cilantro, bell pepper)
salt & pepper

Boil tripe or innards until easy to chop up ~1 hr.

Add all ingredients in pot with water (stock if you have it handy, if not, just make sure you add more of the flavorings). Simmer on low at least 15 min. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with pico de gallo, sour cream, tortilla chips, chopped cilantro and/or slices of avocado.

So I was minding my own business reading a comic book and lo and behold a recipe tracks me down. This is a cake from A Wizard’s Tale, the story of a nice wizard who is supposed to be evil and reign terror on the village below his castle.

The wizard’s buddy (the toad) was cursed a long time ago because he stole the evil wizards club’s massive book of ev-il. Now the nice wizard is sent out on a mission to retrieve said book from the princess who was entrusted with it and beamed out of this dimension by the last beam of sunlight.

Our bumbling wizard travels too far forward in time and lands in NYC present day where the princess is a granny living in Queens. She serves him this sunshine cake at tea time and he’s hooked…

You’ll have to read the book to see what happens.

Ingredients:
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 lemon rind, grated
1 tsp almond extract
1/3 tsp cream of tartar
pinch salt

Sift flour, measure, sift 4X more. Measure and sift sugar. Beat yolks with rotary beater until light colored and thick. Gradually beat 1/2 of the sugar and the lemon rind and almond extract into the yolks. Set aside.

Now beat the whites with a wire whisk until frothy. Add cream of tartar. Beat until stiff enough to hold up in peaks, but not dry. Folk in remaining sugar. Cut and fold some of the white mixture into the yolk mixture. Fold and cut in the flour and salt, then the rest of the white mixture.

Place in an ungreased sponge-cake pan (with center tube). Bake 1 hour at 325 degrees. Invert pan; when cool, remove cake.

*** I would serve the cake with fresh whipped cream and berries.

Here is the cute poster for this Sunday’s NYC Dumpling Festival:

We shan’t be going to it because the other half decided we must get spiritual on Sundays now. Last week, we visited the Unitarian Church (the Caucasian version of Buddhism) in Summit after our previous disastrous attempt to go to the ghetto one in Orange. This one was much nicer, though the demographics were a little too bourgeois and elderly for us. The best part was going to lunch at the Summit Diner downtown.

Yes, it really is that awesome. The interior has backless stools along the counter, and booths on the opposite wall, all reds and browns (wood-paneling). The food is pretty much greasy spoon stuff, except their huge breakfast sausages were like the ones at Tom’s Restaurant on the UWS, whose sausage is the standard by which I judge all others. This one is up there. The Greek men behind the counter were bantering and having a grand ol’ time while going through the motions in almost a precious ritualistic fashion. It was a great show. Next we’ll be checking out the church near our Asian Food Mart, so we can go food shopping afterwards.

I am a fan of things wrapped in flour. Now that I’ve mastered the potsticker/dumpling, bao, and eggroll (which isn’t featured above), it’s time to move onto three items which I’ve never seen: idli, palitaw and kuih koci. They all cook by using a steamer. Pierogi and gnocchi are out because of the other half’s potato issue. Until I have time to gather the ingredients and make them, I’ll reserve judgment on which one will be added to my repertoire. I’d also convert them to a savory flavor.

By the way, that Tang’s brand dumpling is probably one of the grossest things I have ever put in my mouth, no QQ and the filling falls apart. I know how to boil a frozen dumpling and those, my friends, are impossible to boil. I’d really feel sorry for the contestants at the eating contest if those were the ones they are forced to scarf.

One wrapped delight I miss is zhongzi, which Mother used to make but it took all day and forever. There used to be a place in Chinatown that sold 10 or more varieties with different ingredients, each only $1. I could get my fix then, but they still lacked that authentic Taiwan flavor, that earthy dirty umami. I’m including the classic recipe from my childhood (via the secret blue spiral notebook with yellowing pages), but I’m thinking it’ll also make a great rice cooker treat. It’s fun to eat the dumpling out of your hand, but I ain’t got the patience no mo’.

Ingredients:
Sweet glutinous rice (don’t cheap out, get the Japanese brand)
raw peanuts
pork with skin and fat layers
dried shittake mushrooms (rehydrate in water overnight and julienne)
fried shallots
100 year old duck egg yolks (dislodge from whites)
five spice powder
soy sauce
salt & pepper
bamboo leaves
twine

Soak rice in water overnight. 1 cup = 2 zhongzi. Pour out excess liquid.

Soak peanuts with boiled water ~4hrs. Steam in rice cooker. Shake dry and put in bowl.

Cube pork into 1″ chunks (so each piece has fat and skin) and stir fry. When meat is opaque add shittake mushroom, soy sauce, five spice powder, salt&pepper. Saute ~5 minutes.

Pour pork mix liquid into rice, add peanuts and fried shallots. Add salt, but not too much because the duck egg yolk is plenty salty.

Cut duck yolk with string or knife.

Soak bamboo leaves with warm water until limp. Wash in cold water and put aside.

Get twine and cut ~30″, tie 10 together with a knot on one end.

Assemble zhongzi by placing two leaves at a slight ‘v’ (one larger, one smaller), fold into small pocket. Put down a layer of rice, add pork mix on top, some more rice, half a duck yolk, top with rice. Bundle up and wrap around the middle with twine.

Boil a big pot of water. Add zhongzi and simmer for 1.5 hours. Unwrap and eat with soy paste (thick soy sauce) and chili paste.

***For rice cooker method: Don’t soak the rice. Add rice and all ingredients into rice cooker. Fill up to the line matching the number of cups of rice plus a little more for the extra stuff, mix well. Cut soaked bamboo leaves and place loosely on top (just to absorb the fragrance). Cook as you normally would for rice.

10/28/2009 update: So I tried my above rice cooker method and it wasn’t a good idea to place the bamboo leaves on top. It prevented the rice from steaming properly, and since my cooker is based on indirect heat, there lies the rub. So, instead, I would soak the bamboo leaves until they get pliable – while the rice is cooking – then drop them in on top of the rice after it’s done. The leaves are so fragrant the sauna should percolate the aroma nicely. Also, add more water outside the rice cooker during the cooking since you’ve got extra bulk to cook (this is only if you’ve got the old school style rice cooker).

***There’s many variations on the bamboo-leaf wrapped dumpling, savory and sweet. Each region and country in Southeast Asia also has a version. Here is the Vietnamese style from Serious Eats. Asian tamales are the best.

Today we were in Westfield craving a malted chocolate shake. While getting sandwiches at the Robert Treat Deli where they only have egg creams, I chatted up the cashier to find out why it’s so difficult to find a good milkshake in New Jersey. She referred us to her childhood favorite, Holsten’s, in Bloomfield.

We had been eagerly awaiting the Sonic that is opening on Highway 22, but we stopped at one on the way home from Philly, and they put Whoppers in theirs, so it was extra sweet with a caramel undertone. A good malted chocolate shake has got to be fudgy, thick, and not too saccharine. This one was a disappointment.

The cashier said she used to take her kids to Holsten’s, and they made their own ice cream and candy. It is now also famous for being featured in the last episode of The Sopranos and is part of the Sopranos tour of New Jersey. We booked to it after we dropped Mother off at the airport. At first glance, we were pretty much in love.

We sat at the counter on red swivel stools, across from the other side that sold a bunch of chocolates and T-shirts, laminated menus, and other odd paraphernalia you would find at a five-and-dime store from the 1950’s. There are booths in the back, with a mural on the back wall. The other half thinks it was a painting of windows and an outdoor scene. There was a backlit original plastic menu posted on the wall where you replace each letter by hand, like the signs in front of old gas stations or schools.

We ordered the shake we’d been craving, and also a scoop of vanilla ice cream. That’s the standard ice cream to get if you want to know if someone knows how to make ice cream. The poor kids serving at the counter really use their brute force to scoop that stuff up.

I got my ice cream first. It had great QQ, was super creamy, perhaps the most non-sweet ice cream I’ve ever had, very dense, but not as chewy as the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. It would be a perfect vehicle to add into their Fizzes featured on the menu, a drink made of seltzer, juice and ice cream.

They had one thing on the menu that caught my eye, Wet Walnuts. Sounds like a Sopranos character. The ambiance was so New Jersey, kinda musty and kitsch, but just the thing that’s missing in a lot of the diners that we’d been. There was one in Hoboken that could have been up to snuff, but the shake we got there was watery.

The other half got the chocolate malted. Though it was a little low on the malt flavor, the chocolate part really hit the spot, like they used dark chocolate. Our resident shake expert explains:

Q: What makes a good milkshake?

A: The proper ratio of milk to ice cream. Other added ingredients also impact the proper texture. If it’s too milky, then it’s like you’re just drinking flavored milk. If there’s too much ice cream, then you must consume it with a spoon, which makes it an entirely different animal, in the category of a Wendy’s Frostee. There should be a difference between restaurant milkshakes and homemade ones. I prefer my homemade milkshakes with a little bit more milk and blended so there are small bits of ice cream in the milkshake. Malt makes any shake better. A restaurant milkshake should be smoother because they have the special blender.

Q: Does Holsten’s cut the mustard(milkshake)?

A: Yes (grin). It was smooth and chocolately, with the good amount of milk. You had to shake it up each time to get it flowing. Inertia is the sign of a good shake.

When I was a kid, we used to go to a Swensen’s ice cream shop next to the Ralph’s supermarket. It was small and filled with booths lined with dark wood paneling. Around the top of the room was a model train on tracks that went round n’ round. I would always get cookie’s n’ cream on a sugar cone and watch that train zoom.

Holsten’s has got it right. I hope it doesn’t become too overrun by tourists or close down because downtown Bloomfield decides it needs a modern makeover. We’re going to get a box of truffles for the Grandmas this holiday season. Their font on the gold boxes reminds me of See’s Candies.

The cashier told me to go back and let her know what I think of Holsten’s. Someone’s about to get a great big hug and maybe even a sloppy kiss!

My Filipino friend mentioned during our housewarming piglet-out that there’s a secret sauce that they use to accompany roasted pork: mang tomas. He was going to get me a bottle from the elusive Filipino market in the wilds of Queens, but I thought, why not try to find a recipe and make it myself?

I’m still waiting for him to get back to me on his mother’s review of my first ever attempt at dinuguan via her recipe. I did add a secret ingredient which I thought I tasted in her version but wasn’t in her list of ingredients: grated ginger. His only comment was we didn’t use enough blood. The stew is supposed to be very thick and hide all the bits of offal, like molten black lava creeping down the volcano in Hawaii’s national park. I told him our Asian mart didn’t have any cow’s blood, and I figured one tub of pig’s blood would be enough. I agreed with him though, it’s all about the black sauce oozing on top of the white rice.

I found out after the party that the other half’s intake of innards has increased 100% since meeting me. I am so proud. In this incarnation of dinuguan, I used pig heart, tongue, snout, kidney, stomach, intestine, blood, and just for variety, beef tendon. Ha, take that, Thomas Keller! I didn’t even use up all the offal we bought. There are more portioned out packets in the freezer for future experimentation in perfecting this soul-stirring dish. (As I write this post, I am chomping down some dinuguan leftovers for lunch.)

I started looking up this mysterious tangy-sweet-sour-spicy chili sauce that you automatically get from the piglet man in the Filipines. I came across this blog post which goes into the history of a butcher named Mang Tomas who invented the eponymous liver sauce. A sauce based on an innard? Fantastic! I figure the guy probably had tons of innards laying about after slaughtering thousands of piggies and thought, why not have a dipping sauce made from the piggy itself? It’s a beautiful circle of life/foodie (loodie?) kind of thing, don’t you think?

Liver would be a perfect vehicle for dipping not just meat because it’s pureéd creamy and thick. Maybe with some crudite? It is touted as ‘all-purpose’ on the Mang Tomas brand of bottled sauces available online. Nowadays though, there doesn’t seem to be any actual liver in the ingredient list. I think they use breadcrumbs as a substitute for texture and bulk, like I did when I made the vegetarian moussaka. Oh for heaven’s sake, isn’t that just wrong?

Ingredients:
1 pound liver (chicken is most tender)
1/2 cup native vinegar (Datu Puti brand)
1/2 cup bread crumbs (toast some bread and crumple up)
5 Tbsp minced garlic
1 minced onion
salt & pepper to taste
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 hot pepper (optional)

Saute onion and garlic till fragrant. Add chicken liver, chop up beforehand or mash up with fork when cooked through, ~ 5 minutes. Add all other ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes until flavors well combined and sauce thickens.

Use an immersion blender to zap into a fine dipping sauce.

Don’t forget to order the lechon!

My vacation month is over…the other half is off traipsing upstate New York in the Finger Lakes region with Mother and I’m alone contemplating the last couple days of freedom before another long commuting month begins. Reflecting on some bad meals during these road trips, I realize I must live in a place where great food is easily accessible. An unhappy belly makes for cranky jeju. And that really ruins everyone else’s day.

In Stowe, Vermont, we visited the von Trapp Family Lodge overlooking Mt. Mansfield. The hills were indeed alive. Traditional European cooking like you find in Austria is generally heavy, full of sauces and stews. We didn’t dare venture into the actual hotel dining room, but trudged down the hill to the “Austrian Tea Room,” which we suspect was built for nosy tourists like us.

It was nothing like what I expected – a cozy Neue Galerie-type space with dark wood paneling and with waiters dressed in costume and thick accents. Instead, it was really a deli with spectacular views, one mountain overlapping another amongst shifting fog. But the food we had, a trio of Austrian deli meat with sauerkraut on rye sandwich, butternut squash soup, and linzertorte were surprisingly good and hearty.

The linzertorte was invented in Linz, Austria, and falls somewhere between a shortbread cookie and a pie with fruit filling. The recipe variations are numerous. The flavor in this  crust was pumpkin-y but nutty, with a good QQ. I loves me some thick crust while I abhor too much jammy filling. The linzertorte is perfect for me then, minimal jam and maximal crust. There was a book selling the recipe, but I poo-poo-ed it and thought it would be easy to find something authentic online. Ha, if only I could eat my words like I gobbled up that pie-cookie.

When we were eating our horrendous dinner at City Tavern in Philadelphia, (a ‘historically accurate’ reproduction of the same 18th century building and colonial fare, where the founding fathers dined and debated) the colonially-costumed waiter showed the Spanish couple next to us the dessert tray, which also had a linzertorte. Compared to the one at the von Trapp deli, this one had a dark brown burnt? crust, with more jam than I care to introduce to my tongue. We were already supping on a dry, yet braised, oxymoronic rabbit and rubbery (like raw kidney) metallic-tinged venison, so we were afraid to order anything else. If ‘open-hearth’ cooking is like when you cook directly over the camfire flame, then how could a five-star chef manage not to sear a piece of meat? No wonder the colonists were angry enough to start a revolution. Their bellies made them do it.

Dave C. put it best in his yelp review of this establishment: Have you ever gone to Medieval Times in N. Jersey or where ever the hell else that place is located and have reenactors massacre each other  to vie for your attention?  Yea, … City Tavern is just like that, but without all the bloodlust… or fun. You basically eat and drink and watch people dolled up in colonial garb NOT murder each other. Honestly, I felt shame walking out the door, did you feel shame?

And so we left this historic tavern one Benjamin Franklin lighter but with two angry bellies. My hang-up with linzertorte lingered though, so I found this one with a story and unique method. Our resident baker will have to tell me whether it works. It’s copied below:

As clarinet soloist with more than a hundred orchestras—and as recitalist, chamber musician and innovative jazz artist—Richard Stoltzman has earned an international reputation.

Like many musicians who are constantly on the road, Mr. Stoltzman enjoys sampling the local cuisine, but when he’s home he loves to do the cooking himself, especially baking. Early in his career, he took some classes at London’s Cordon Bleu school. The actual process of baking pleased him so much that he continued his training during summers at Marlboro.

Mr. Stoltzman first made a linzer torte in 1974, when Rudolf Serkin asked him to bring along a dessert following a Mozart concert in Vermont. Recently he presented his linzer tortes again for a pre-concert supper at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

Mix the flour, cocoa, cinnamon and cloves together in a bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and beat in 1/2 cup of sugar. Beat in the egg yolks. Gradually blend in the almonds and the flour mixture to make a thick batter.

Using about half the batter, spread an even layer, 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick, in the bottom of an 8- or 9-inch round baking pan with a removable bottom. Spread the jam over the batter to within 1/2 inch of the edge, taking care not to break the layer of batter.

Spoon the remaining batter into a pastry bag fitted with a large tube, 1/2 inch in diameter. Pipe 3 to 5 parallel lines of batter straight across the layer of jam from one edge to the other. Give the pan a quarter turn and pipe 3 to 5 more parallel lines across the pastry from edge to edge. Pipe the remaining batter around the edge. (Any excess batter can be used to form round cookies on a baking sheet. Fill the cookies with jam and bake for about 10 minutes or until golden.)

Refrigerate torte for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300° F.

Beat the egg white with the remaining sugar and the water until frothy. Brush this mixture over the pastry strips and the edge. Place the linzer torte in the oven and bake for 1 hour. Allow to cool completely.

Before serving, sift confectioner’s sugar over the top. Remove the sides of the pan and serve.

Ingredients: Linzertorte
(Ha, I found it!)

1 1/2 Cups Butter
1 Egg
3 Rounded Cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Cup Currant Jelly
1/4 Cup Almonds, Sliced
1 1/2 Cups Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 Cups Walnuts – Ground
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Cloves
1/2 Cup Raspberry Jam
Confectioner’s Sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Flour and grease two 8 inch pans. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light (either by hand, with a mixer or a food processor). Add egg, walnuts, flour and spices. Mix into a dough and then roll into a ball. Divide dough into quarters. Press a quarter of the dough into the bottom of each cake pan. Cut one of the remaining quarters in half and press each half up the sides of both pans. Cut the remaining quarter of dough into 12 pieces and set aside.

Mix the currant jelly and the jam together. Spread half of the mixture into each of the walnut crust shells. Roll out the remaining dough into round strips and crisscross on top of the jam mixture-three pieces each way. Press the side crust down to connect with the strips. Sprinkle the top of your torte with almonds and bake until golden brown and the jam mixture bubbles.

Cool, remove from pans, then sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.

*** just received text from the other half: trip diverted to Delaware Water Gap due to inclement weather upstate.***

We just returned from a short trip to Philly, as a respite in between camping trips, but mostly to finally eat some real cheesesteak! I’d never been to the City of Brotherly Cheesesteak, but the other half has. Suprisingly, the city is also filled with all sorts of wonderful ethnic nosh, and a Chinatown that rivals Manhattan. We may be moving out of the armpit very very soon…

What is a cheesesteak but a soft Italian roll, thinly sliced steak, and Cheez Wiz? It can’t get any simpler or primal than that. The roll is of utmost importance, the QQ factor has got to be just right, not too thick, but with a very chewy skin you teeth can tear at. I had an authentic one once, at Tony Luke’s, when there used to be a cute outpost on 42nd St., off 8th Ave. The boxy interior was made to look like you were outside, at a carnival, with an awning over the order window. The next time I had a craving, it was gone.

Before we left, we gathered some opinions on which particular joints to sample. The other half made a list. Off we went. We arrived in the late afternoon, and the concierge said, “No, don’t go to Pat and Geno’s, that part of town is way too scary for you two to handle.” Well, he was definitely thinking that because he was trying to steer us to Tony Luke’s around the corner. I told him, “Yo coz, we lived in Harlizzle, fo’ shizzle!”

Well, anyhow, he mentioned Jim’s Steaks, which the other half had heard of, so off we went. His ’seven blocks down’ turned out to be in the southeast corner of Center City, which is the main downtown area, at least 20 blocks or so. By the time we crawled up to the door, we were expecting A LOT.

Jim’s is in the funky South Street area, where it’s more artsy and young grungy types  hangin’ out. The black and white decor is super fresh, like a diner but more edgy. There’s seating on the second floor, with stools and round wooden tables. We made the mistake of ordering onions on our cheesesteak. The taste of onions really overwhelms the whole sandwich, making it unclear which part was oversalted, the limp onions or overcooked meat. The flavor also reminds me of a sausage sandwich with onions and peppers, which you could get at any ol’ street fair. This was not a good way to start the tour:

We didn’t know until the second cheesesteak that Jim’s is really hoodwinking those who don’t know by chopping up the steak into tiny bits. This decreases the textural value and makes you think you aren’t really eating steak at all. This also increases the likelihood that the meat will be dry and overcooked. Well, at least the ambience was nice and chill.

That night, I vowed to right this injustice by going to the Tony Luke’s by our hotel. We walked right past it because it looked like this, all commercial chain and stuff:

This looked nothing like the place in NYC, which had a carnival font and the whole name spelled out. Online, there’s a dispute to whether this place really is Tony Luke’s. On the official website, there’s only mention of one location (it wasn’t this one). The guy is too busy trying to be a famous movie star or something, maybe because of his stint on Throwdown with Bobby Flay, which he won if I remember correctly.

At the time, I assumed it was affiliated, and I asked the guy at the counter, “Hey, when are you going to open another place in NYC?” The guy goes into this rant about franchising and name rights which made my head spin. Our resident trademark expert tells me that when you buy a franchise, you can only use the name so many times, and maybe they violated something in the contract. I don’t know about that stuff, I just want some good-friggin’ cheesesteak when I’m in NYC.

So what about the sandwich? Well, it is good, much better than Jim’s because it has sheets of thinly-sliced steak and is not dried out beef jerky:

You can see it wasn’t pure steak though, check out the bits of gristle. That’s okay with me, adds more flavor. The thing with the Cheez Wiz was there was so much it was gooshing out from every which way, which is not too elegant or tidy when you are eating it on top of the hotel sheets. This one had way more meat in it than Jim’s too. The bread was tops, shiny and chewy on the outside, soft and steamed on the inside surrounding the meat.

The menu at Tony Jr.’s is vast – they even have ostrich burgers. They’re also known for their alt-cheesesteaks: pork and broccoli rabe. I tried their cajun fries, which seemed to be Old Bay covered potato sticks. I wish it came with tartar sauce.

After taking a day off to sample Chinatown and the historical City Tavern, home of 18th century Revolutionary recipes, we stopped by Pat and Geno’s on the way out of town. Philly is the home of the one way street, but once you throw in Passyunk Ave, which runs diagonally, you are really asking for trouble. We managed to squeeze onto a sidestreet and walk onto the corner which houses the two joints staring each other down:

We headed to Geno’s first. It is really gaudy, all orange. I bet it’s a neighborhood spectacle at night, all neon ablaze. Geno’s give you a lot of attitude, misplaced patriotism perhaps?

Inside I saw there were bright orange booths, but we didn’t sit down because we were going to do a side-by-side tasting with Pat’s. The other half spied these stickers on the window and was pissed. What’s with this hypocritical xenophobic stuff? Aren’t they Italian? Isn’t money an universal language?

The Cheez Wiz on this steak was liquid, not thick and creamy, like maybe someone added some spit or something. It was bubbly like spit anyway. The steak was thicker cut but the thin Wiz really spoiled it. Not to mention the way immigrants are when they think they’re the big cheez now, just because they’ve been here longer. We’re never eating there again.

Onto Pat’s, much more in line with what you want an original cheesesteak place to look like, dingy and mom/pop.

There was no posturing here, maybe because Pat’s knows their cheesesteak is the best.

This cheesesteak is so cocky they don’t cut it in half, and it has a right to be: perfect meat taste, savory but not salty, thick Wiz and a hearty QQ bun. Hands down, the best of the four.

Ingredients:
Top Round/Ribeye/Strip (whichever cut suits your mood)
salt & pepper
Cheez Wiz (you could try to make your own bechemel, but why bother?)
Italian roll

Freeze the meat for ~1hr to make it easier to slice, by hand or mandoline.

Sauté meat and tent with fresh roll to steam a little. ~ 1 minute (I like my meat rare!)

Spoon on warmed Cheez Wiz on the side.

Why are egg rolls called egg rolls? They don’t have eggs in them, unless you’re making the Taiwanese version which has strips of eggs, but then they are called popiah. There is also the fluted flaky pastry that is an egg roll, which either has eggs or yellow no. 5. Some say the huge carbo bombs you get at Chinese take-out places are egg rolls. Wiki says they are the ones dipped in egg wash after you wrap them up, before they’re fried.

At our housewarming party last Sunday, I featured an egg roll I procured from my high school Vietnamese friend’s mom. These are light golden gems that are so crunchy they just put a smile on your face. I was lucky to eat them a couple of times when they threw big parties back in the day. They are so good I fantasized about them off and on since then. Finally I got my grubby hands on the recipe and made them for this occasion.

I never order egg rolls at restaurants because I was spoiled by these. Also, only tourists pick that item. There’s usually something more authentic and spicy to eat. And I never ever included them in my Chinese take-out order until I met the other half, who apparently is a fan. I find them too gummy or undercooked or greasy. The filling is also too mushy with watery tasteless vegetables. Toan’s egg rolls are none of these wretched things.

Menu:
1. Roast suckling piglet from La Valença
2. Dinuguan (my Filipino friend’s mom’s recipe)
3. Fried salmon fish head from our Portuguese fish monger
4. Toan’s egg rolls
5. Wisconsin rhubarb pie
6. Momofuku blueberry cream cookies
7. Vegetarian moussaka

Gotta shill for my neighborhood Portuguese pit master. Look at that beauty. I was about to chop it up with my cleaver when I realized the meat was so tender it was falling off the bone. Only the crispy thick skin kept it from falling apart. We’d been moved into our new apartment for ages, so this party was really just an excuse to buy one of these pigs. It was much cheaper than a piglet from Chinatown. This flavor is smoky as opposed to the five spice you’d get from the other, but it’s not a bad booby prize. I’d take it any day!

Anyways, back to the egg rolls. I knew there was a secret ingredient to Toan’s because I’d never tasted any filling like it before or after I had hers. Turns out it’s taro root, shredded, so you’d never guess it. It’s the key to making the filling bulky and mellow, a perfect contrast to the thin, crisp wrapper. I wonder how she came up with this combination, especially the Korean favorite of using mung bean threads in a dumpling-type setting.

There’s several different sizes of the wrapper. I chose the middle one, enough to get two bites out of one egg roll. The perfect amuse bouche. Make sure it is thawed completely, it’ll be easier to peel the layers off. It’s pretty fun, like pulling thin layers of bubblegum. To wrap up the Vietnamese burrito, place the filling in a diamond configuration above, bring the bottom corner up, pull it snug to the filling, roll up one half roll, bring the side corners in, one more roll, dab a thin schmear of the flour/water paste on the edge, and then roll it up to glue the cylinder together.

This is the consistency the glue should be. I rolled the pastry on top of a mini-stack of wrappers so the counter doesn’t get messy with drips of glue. If you can, get another set of hands to help roll these babies up, or the wrappers could start drying up too fast. I let them sit seam side down.

In anticipation of our foray into deep fryer mastery, we bought a gallon of peanut oil. When it’s hot, it smells like fresh roasting peanuts, unlike the bitter, almost sour aroma of frying olive oil. It also has a higher burning temperature, so you won’t char these precious egg rolls.

They were a big hit at the party, even though the filling burst out of the shells on some of them. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s because we wrapped them too tightly or I just fried them too long. Fried food done right can never go wrong.

Ingredients:
For filling:
4 small shallots, sliced thin
1 individual pkg (2 oz) mung bean thread noodles
1 lb ground pork shoulder
1 tsp garlic powder (coarse grind)
1 tsp ground pepper
2 Tbsp oyster sauce
½ lb grated carrots
½ lb grated taro root
½ medium onion, diced

For shrimp: (optional add-in)
~1 pound shrimp (size 36-40), peeled and deveined
2 tsp oyster sauce
Garlic powder
Ground pepper

For eggroll:
1 package (50-8×8 inch sheets) spring roll pastry, thawed to room temperature
Note: Brand – Spring Home: TYJ spring roll pastry (wheat-based)

Preparation:
For filling:

1. Sauté shallots in some olive oil until golden brown. Set aside.
2. Mix ground pork, garlic powder, ground pepper, and 1 tablespoon oyster sauce. Add sautéed shallots. Refrigerate.
3. Soak bean thread noodles in warm water to soften (~5 minutes). Drain and cut into 1-inch pieces.
4. Add bean thread noodles, carrots, taro root, onion, and remaining tablespoon of oyster sauce to meat mixture. Mix until evenly incorporated. Note: Do not overmix.

For shrimp:

1. Mix together shrimp, oyster sauce, garlic powder, and ground pepper.

For eggroll:

1. Separate spring roll pastry into sheets. Taking one sheet, add some of the meat mixture and 1 shrimp placed lengthwise. Roll. Seal with a water and flour mixture (with a consistency like glue). Repeat with the remaining sheets. Fry the eggrolls in a deep fryer at medium heat until cooked through and browned (<5 min).

Note: If freezing for later use, put the eggrolls onto a cookie sheet (slightly apart) and put into the freezer until the eggroll wrappers have dried and slightly hardened. Then put the eggrolls into a plastic or ziplock bag to store. Before frying, put the eggrolls onto a paper towel to thaw for about 10-15 minutes or until the outside wrapper has slightly softened. Fry as directed.

Dipping sauce: these really don’t need anything, but a fish sauce/sugar/chili one is classic, or the Chinese ginger/scallion/sesame oil combo would be great.

This morning we ventured to Hoboken, boyhood home of high school dropout and only child Francis Albert Sinatra. They should really just rename the town Sinatraville. But it was not for a pilgrimage to visit the haunts of ol’ Blue Eyes we wandered into this tiny hamlet in the shadows across the Hudson. It was because I wanted to eat a lobster tail made by the Cake Boss.

Sfogliatella is one of the most difficult pastries to make. It’s the Italian version of croissant dough, though crispy instead of soft and buttery. It mimics the look of a lobster tail, with a creamy or custardy filling. But the work it takes to roll out the dough, schmear it with lard and refold and re-roll makes my head spin. Then you shingle the dough, cut it a certain way to get the layers, and then inject it with another dough that poofs open the inside while it bakes. When it finally cools, you pipe in the filling.

I watched a mini-marathon of the TLC show and was quite amused by Buddy the baker who runs the joint, right across from old city hall. The other half is not so impressed by his mafioso management skills. Okay so he is a little obnoxious in that Jersey machismo way, and employs other thugs (unlike the hipster crew of Duff of Ace of Cakes – Note to TV producers: it would be funny to see them do a tag team cake-off) to do his bidding, but it seems like he really knows his stuff. Even his cannoli filling sounded good to a cannoli hater like me, mostly because it was mainly ricotta, cream cheese and butter, not sugary weirdness I’ve had in little Italy.

Hoboken is right on the water facing mid-downtown Manhattan with great views of all the landmarks like Empire State Building. The city itself is merely ~12 blocks by 16 blocks. The feeling is a mix of Brooklyn Heights/West Village/Willamsburg with the never-ending beautious blocks of townhouses in various stages of renovation. The eatery selection is electic. We had lunch at one of the many tiny restaurants book-ending the blocks, Sri Thai: frog legs (tastes like white-flesh fish, stringy like chicken) with basil and bell peppers, and soft-shell crab with tangy sweet mango salad. It was good, but not Sripraphai great.

Carlo’s is at the south end of town, and looks as pretty as a picture. The same cannot be said for the weird tense vibe inside with the gleaming countertops and very tanned help.

There was a sign plastered on the wall: beware! you may be filmed if you set foot inside. Some specialty cakes were displayed in front that looked better on camera. We decided to buy a lobster tail, a cannoli, and on a whim, a red velvet cupcake. They offered the cupcake with a buttercream or cream cheese frosting. We chose the latter.

Coincidentally, we had parked in front of another bakery that people raved about online, saying it was way better than Carlo’s. Giorgio’s has that old-time cobwebby look, which makes it more ‘authentic.’

When we walked inside, there was a pleasant bell chiming our entrance. No one was in there, not even a counterperson. There were barely any pastries in the cases. It was dark and gloomy, but it felt so much better than the kelig lights at Carlo’s. There was a black and white monitor where I could see myself. I finally said, “He-llo?” A robust girl emerged and cheerfully handed us our sfogliatella and cannoli. We left feeling much more small-towned.

So the taste test commenced. Here is Carlo’s:

Here is Giorgio’s:

First, the sfogliatella. Carlo’s dough was much fresher and crispier while Giorigo’s looked prettier but was over-browned. The texture of the latter was hard to chew and rubbery. Maybe it was just old? The filling in Carlo’s was custard while Giorgio’s was fresh whipped cream. The former was too heavy, busting out of its shell. Giorgio’s filling was light and tasty. However, neither was something that was worth eating despite the amount of work it took to make it.

As for the cannoli, Buddy is proud of his 25¢ annual cannoli throwback day where their custom is to fill the cream to order. I thought we were going to get a freshly-filled one, but the mop-haired server was too busy flipping his hair out of his eyes, so he just grabbed a pre-filled one from a tray behind him. The shell is also harder to make than you realize. Buddy showed how he folded thin sheets of dough and cuts through many layers at once with a ring mold. Then he has to wrap them individually around a metal cylinder, drop them into a massive frying basket that takes the whole batch of 50 or so out at once before they’re burnt.

Carlo’s cannoli was definitely up to snuff, the best one I’ve ever had. The filling was light, not too sweet, with just enough tang from the cream cheese. The other half didn’t like it because it had too much cinnamon in the dough. We both didn’t like Giorgio’s at all, another soggy old pastry with the typical gag-inducing sweet gluey/gummy mess, like bad taffy with too much vanilla extract and again with the cinnamon.

The verdict: neither are worth the money (between $2-3 per pastry, by weight and individual pricing), but maybe I’d line up for that annual 25¢ special at Carlo’s if I could find out when that was. Oh, and the red velvet cake? Let’s not even get started on that soulless dry imitation of the real thing.

Uncle Phaedrus describes these sfogliatella recipes. I’ll try doing the same thing with pre-packaged phyllo dough. I’m not masochist when it comes to stuff like this. But first I gotta reverse engineer Carlo’s cannoli filling. That would definitely be a better option than the clumpy custard he uses.

“The ones I’ve had from commercial Italian bakeries seem to use the same dough they use for making their sfogliatelle pastries. The dough is a bit tricky to make, but I’m sure phyllo dough could be easily substituted. The filling (usually) is a mixture of stabilized whipped cream and pasticciera cream (pastry cream), or sweetened, whipped mascarpone, or just stabilized whipped cream.

I do not have a recipe for the filling, I usually just fold some stabilized whipped cream into the pastry cream to lighten it (about 1/3 stabilized whipped cream to a bit less than 2/3 very thick pastry cream).

Source: Immigrant’s Kitchen Italian by Cassandra Vivian

Recipe #1
Pastry
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup semolina flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup lard or better, melted

Combine flours, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Mix well. Add butter,
cutting it into the dough until blended. Slowly add water. Knead until firm.
Form into a ball, cover, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Filling
1 cup milk
1/4 cup semolina flour
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon of either
candied orange peel
lemon zest
candied fruit of choice
pinch of cinnamon
confectioners sugar
parchment paper, optional

Place a saucepan over medium heat. Add milk. Bring to a boil and slowly add
semolina flour. Stir constantly so as to avoid lumps. Simmer three to four
minutes, remove from the heat, pour into a bowl and allow to cool.

After five minutes add ricotta (which has been passed through a sieve), egg,
sugar, candied fruit, and sugar to semolina. Beat well. Set aside.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Divided it into two equal parts. Place on a
dusted pastry board and roll with a rolling pin into an 18 inch square. It
will become very, very, thin.

Brush the thin pastry with butter. Begin at one end and roll it like a jelly
roll. Cut the roll into a number of 3-4 inch pieces. Pick up one piece of
the dough in your hand. Press your thumb in the center of the pastry and
push it down to form a hole like a cup.

Fill the cup with 2 tablespoons of filling. Fold the cup until the open
edges touch. Gently press the edges together to seal the pastry. Set it in
front of you. Gently pull out the sides of the front to form a shell. Brush
the top with beaten egg yolk.

Repeat above until all pastry and filling are used. Preheat over to 425
degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place the shells on
the paper and bake for 15 minutes or until brown. Let the pastry cool on the
cookie sheet for five minutes. It will harden a bit. Then place on a rack.
When ready to serve and completely cool, sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

Recipe #2

1 cup water
1/2 cup ricotta
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/2 cup semolina
1 cup, 2 oz. flour
6 oz. butter
2 oz. strutto (reconstituted pork fat)
1 pinch cinnamon
3 oz. candied orange peel, diced
1 egg yolk

Bring the water to a boil, add a pinch of salt and pour in the semolina,
stirring so as not to form lumps. Cook, stirring for about 8 mins., stirring
constantly. Let cool. Make a fontana with the flour. Put half of the butter,
a pinch of salt and as much water as necessary to knead the dough to a
smooth and elastic consistency. Wrap the dough in a towel and let rest for
an hour.

Sift the ricotta; mix with the semolina, 6 tbs. sugar, a pinch of cinnamon
and the candied peel. Roll out the pastry with a rolling pin to obtain a
25×18-in. rectangle, 1/16-in. thick. Cut the pastry vertically into 4 strips
and place one on top of the other, brushing each one with melted butter. Let
rest for half an hour, and then roll up the stack of dough.

Slice the roll into 10 equal pieces with a very sharp, floured knife. Place
the pieces on the pastry board and roll them gently with the rolling pin,
first vertically, in an upward direction, and then in a downwards direction,
to give them an oval shape.

Turn the ovals over, place a bit of ricotta filling in the middle of each
one, brush the edges with egg yolk, then fold the dough over and press to
seal. Brush the sfogliatelle with melted strutto and place on a paper
greased with butter. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425ºF for 20 mins. Remove
from the oven. Brush with melted butter again, lower the temperature to
350ºF and bake for another 20 mins. Let cool, sprinkle with confectioner’s
sugar and serve.”

We just got back from a road trip to Vermont, the self-proclaimed home of the skinny pancake. Why they just can’t call it a crepe is beyond me, but unfortunately, any faint hope of a food grazing tour was sorely misplaced.

Vermont is known for its scenery, not necessarily its food. The former is breathtaking indeed, and alas, the latter is breathtakingly bad. The state is devoid of any real ethnic food diversity, except for the requisite Chinese take-out in every town. Some places can’t even get American food right, burger, fries, and milkshakes.

One thing that was constant on our trip was slurping at least one malt chocolate shake per day, to keep up our spirits due to the lack of tummy satisfying food that wasn’t greasy or fried. But there are also amazing degrees of deliciousness in a shake, depending on the amount of fudge, real or fake ice cream (frozen yogurt), ratio of milk to ice cream, etc…that is used. The two best ones were had at the Arlington Dairy Bar and the Malt Shop in Stowe.

One of the very paltry food highlights was the Ben & Jerry’s factory tour in Waterbury, where after a short $3 tour through its hyper-technicolor facility, you are treated to a hearty sample of an yet unreleased flavor that is only available in scoop shops. We were privy to the orange and cream: orange sorbet swirled with vanilla ice cream, basically, a creamsicle. It was quite delicious.

The cream and icy were a great contrast, and the taste was just tangy enough. I hope they release it worldwide soon. In the back of the factory, there is a ‘graveyard’ of retired flavors and a revelation of what ingredients go into the ice cream:

At the gift shop, we happened upon a recipe that has been haunting me ever since I tasted it on the streets of the night markets in Taipei when I was a teenager: fried ice cream. I remember the guy sweating bullets onto my ball of goop and mixing it back and forth on a flat grill. But if you think about it, is that really possible? Ack! What a find! When we recover from vacation withdrawl, we will surely try this baby out, using tempura batter since I don’t think the one I had was crunchy on the outside.

Woe is us, we never made it down to Red Hook to sample the infamous pupusas with a side of methane. When the Two Hot Tamales said their favorite food to eat with their hands was a pupusa from a market in Los Angeles, we decided it was now or never, to make it ourselves, that is.

A pupusa is a savory arepa, or a corn tortilla quesadilla, aka a South American flat dumpling. About a month ago, we tried making it according to instructions online, which said to stuff it by making a well in the masa, dumping in some filling and then rolling it out flat. That didn’t work at all.

See the filling was too messy, plus we didn’t have quesillo, which is the traditional cheese. We were trying to use a mix of shredded cheese and cotija. The masa is too crumbly to smooth out, and it doesn’t have any gluten so it’s almost impossible to stretch.

This was the end result, after some time on the cast iron grill. You can see the filling spilling out all over the place, very messy and inelegant. Granted this is a street food, but still, you gotta do it with panache. Actually this pic is really just a gratuitous shot of our fantastic bacon press.

We discussed an alternate plan. Why not just roll out two tortillas with the tortilla press and seal the edges, sort of like an empanada? That’s what we did tonight. It worked out pretty well, we think. The discs of dough were just a touch unwieldy to hold and press together at the same time.

This time we used the flat side of the griddle, to insure even heat, so there weren’t any lovely grill marks. But we were able to keep the insides in. Hurrah. The other half thinks now we made them too thin, although they did have that pleasant gooey grilled stringy cheese effect everybody goes ga-ga over.

What will version 3.0 bring to light? We’ll try to get ahold of some quesillo, if possible, or maybe slices of fresh mozarella, and attempt stuffing with other ingredients, perhaps some sort of ground meat. The first time, the accompaniment was a chunky tomato sauce with cilantro and cotija crumbles. This time, I whipped up a beef taco filling. Both are good, though I admit I would have preferred the toppings inside of my carb. Ultimately these babies are cheese-stuffed tacos, sans meat.

Ingredients:
masa (make according to bag instructions, add a pinch of salt & pepper)
sliced or shredded cheese (traditionally quesillo)

Flatten balls of masa, but keep them a little thicker than for tacos. Top one disc with filling. Place another disc on top. Seal edges with fingers or tines of fork. Alt method: seal 1/2 way around to make a pita pocket, then fill with yummies, and finally seal the rest of the way.

Grill on dry skillet or cast iron griddle.

Serve with meat sauce or tomatillo salsa. Finger-lickin’ good.

In preparation for our upcoming road/camping trip to Vermont, the other half decided to make some beef jerky. After our car burst into flames last week, we didn’t know if we’d be going anywhere, but the Scottish Spanish-speaking mechanic across the street saved the day and now Phil P is purring like a two-week old kitty again.

We had this block of beef top round from Whole Foods since two months ago, when our interest in making jerky truly was piqued. I get a little perturbed spending $7 for 8 tiny pieces of edible leather, and the bonanza sales at Target come with a hefty dose of MSG, my highway to headaches. We both like savory snacks so we figured it was worth dabbling into.

The butcher at Whole Foods had no clue which cut of meat to recommend (actually he said, “Beef jerky? We sell it right over there.”), so we just got the cheapest nice cut the other half would allow. It ended up being top round. Coincidentally, Go Meat Yourself announced its grand foray into the dehydrating arts. The advice was go with the leanest cut of meat.

When the frozen block of round was retrieved from the dark recesses of our freezer, it wasn’t too worse for wear. The other half used a marinade recipe found in The Joy of Cooking. We forgot about it for a week, and stuck it in the oven today. This is how the meat was trussed after cutting 1/8 – 1/4″ thick pieces, about 6 inches long.

The other half also stuck a wooden spoon in the door to allow evaporation of moisture. Jeju tip: This project is good for the wintertime as it doubles as a heat source. After about 4 hours in the oven, I sampled a piece, which was fully dehydrated on the outside, but the inside bits stuck together so those parts were merely cooked. Next time, we’ll splay the ends open with a toothpick or lay them out flat.

Some hours later (we kind of forgot about it while doing some house work), the finished product: homemade edible leather. The taste was not strong enough, and too greasy due to the wet marinade. I would swap out for a dry rub next time, with minimal soaking in soy sauce. All in all, pretty good deal for no more food-induced migraines.

Ingredients:
Whole Foods $5 Beef Top Round 1.5lbs –> ~.75lb jerky = 10 strips. Cut into 1/8 – 1/4″ thick  strips (try to keep the strips an even thickness), 6 inches long.

garlic grated
brown sugar to cover
soy sauce (enough to just soak meat)
pepper

OR

garlic grated
spice rub optional (your choice, we like a curry combo, Asian 5 spice powder, or Jerky jerk) with a little vinegar to make a paste

Assemble meat with marinade in Ziploc and let sit in fridge to marry flavors at least 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees F.

Hang on oven rack, stick a toothpick to hold ends away from each other. Place a piece of tinfoil underneath to catch the drippings. (If you are using good meat, this will really only be needed if using a wet marinade).

Dry for 4-5 hrs, or until you get that nice leathery look on the meat.

Tagged: beef jerky, recipe ]]> http://jeju.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/gittin-jerky-wit-it/feed/ 0 jeju just hanging stick a fork in it edible leather http://jeju.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/goa-goa-goane/ http://jeju.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/goa-goa-goane/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:05:35 +0000 jeju http://jeju.wordpress.com/?p=1930 ]]>

Andrew Zimmern is Anthony Bourdain without the snide quips and self-loathing. Both are globetrotting former NYC cooks who eat weird things wherever they go on their respective Travel Channel shows. What a gig. I like to watch their shows for the secret ingredients that go into exotic dishes.

Last night, AZ was in Goa, India, world-renowned for its beaches on the western coast of the region. It was once a Portuguese colony, so there is Spanish ‘adobo’ influence in the cuisine. He was invited to a private home in the countryside where the women cooked sorpotel, a special occasion dish, like the Indian equivalent of Filipino dinuguan, all innards but with a nasty kick. I knew I had to look this up. If you come to our parties, don’t be surprised if this is served next time, heh heh.

Ingredients:
2 lb boneless pork shoulder (GFP)
1 pork liver, 1 heart, 1 tongue, 2 kidneys
1 cake pig’s blood
3 cups water
[12 dried red chillies/peppers
12 peppercorns
12 cloves garlic
1 inch piece ginger
1 tsp cumin seeds
8 cloves
2 one-inch pieces cinnamon]
¼ cup vinegar
½ cup oil
1 peg (shot) coconut feni (Goan special liquor, can sub with Malibu rum)
Salt to taste
6 green chillies/peppers, chopped
4 medium onions, chopped fine

Put all the spices except the green chillies/peppers and onion, into the blender/grinder with the vinegar and grind to a fine paste (or if you are lazy like me, use the powdered versions of the spices). Heat the oil in a deep pan on medium heat and lightly fry all the diced meat, stir frying continuously till it is lightly browned.

Add ground spices and stir fry 5 minutes. Add salt to taste, coconut feni, any remaining vinegar, chopped onions and green chillies. Cover with stock or water. Lower the heat and let the sorpotel simmer 30 minutes until tender. When the oil comes to the top and the sauce is thick, remove from the heat.

It is customary to serve sorpotel with sannas (fluffy rice pancakes) for special occasions.

Sanna Ingredients:
1 cup rice
1 cup grated coconut
Toddy (sap of coconut palm, palm wine) - 3/4bottle
Salt and sugar to taste

Wash the rice and soak overnight. Drain and grind the rice finely with some of the toddy.

Finely grind the grated coconut.

Mix the rice and coconut paste with salt to taste and about 4 Tbsp (or more) sugar. Add enough toddy to make a thick batter. Cover and keep in a warm place for about 3 hours until batter doubles in quantity.

Pour batter into flat plates or idli moulds and steam for 20 minutes. To check if the sannas are done, pierce with a knife.

Did you know they serve food at McSorley’s Old Ale House? From all the stories I’d heard, it was just a bar, like Cheers, but more manly macho macho man, all sawdust and broom handle mustaches. Last night, we dropped in after wandering the East Village for a good long while.

It’s a tucked away place in Cooper Square, on 7th Street, dead-ended by another street that’s named for someone obscure. The place is on the bottom floor of a tenement building, and has been the subject for many a painting.

The place is is begging to be photographed or captured in some way. I only got a shot on my cameraphone, but these historic pics add to the ambience that’s reeking from every crevice and cranny. Yes, there’s sawdust on the floor, but only a sprinkling. The best spot to hunker down is at the end of the bar, in the corner by the window, next to the pay phone behind the double door. That’s where we sat down, sharing a table with a guy reading a comic book.

First though, we ordered at the bar with no stools. I was dazed from trying to soak in my surroundings, so the other half (who’d been here plenty of times) got a dark. I squeaked, “What else you got?” Bartender said, “A light.” So that’s what I got. Easy. We’d been trudging the ‘hood trying to find this ramen place we’d been wanting to eat at, but to no avail. I wanted to eat something since I’m an alcohol super featherweight. There was a menu behind the bar:

Except the one I saw said ‘lamb’ at the top. I love lamb, that gamey tang filling my nostrils is one of the best visceral odors on Earth. Some would say body odor lite, but I beg to differ. I asked the bartender if it was any good, and ordered it. By that time, we’d gotten our beer, each came in two small mugs (the origin of the term ‘double-fisting’?). I could barely finish one.

The other half likes the dark because it is really smooth and easy to drink. Actually it doesn’t taste like beer, at least the bitter aspect of it. This is coming from a wino connoiseur. I like the light because it does taste like beer, just very fresh and full of hops. It reminded me of brewery tours where the whole compound smells like the grain. You can’t get it out of your nose. Here, it was bitter at the front end, then finished sweet. It hits you each time you take a sip.

The decor of McSorley’s is awesome, just beat-down weathered dark wood, all the scratches and dents in full view. The walls are covered with photos, newsclippings and references to all things Irish. We ate our dinner sandwiched between Ole John McSorley and Lee Harvey Oswald. The other half especially liked the small certificate hanging next to the window: The New York Police Department has deemed these windows to have the proper dim out capabilities. We’re supposing this was during one of the wars. I like how there was a foot gap between the end of the wall and the window, so the tourists aren’t oogling right over you.

My lamb plate arrived, all messy, on one of those thick beige ceramic oval plates. The meat was sliced thin, like roast beef, with brown gravy on top. In a mug on the table was a really super spicy mustard, the kind that burns your nostril hairs. I spooned some on everything, to the other half’s dismay. Beside the lamb were halved boiled potatoes that were warmed up and caramelized on the cut side. To round out the plate were bright orange carrot coins cut on the bias and zucchini half moons. My fork tine was bent askew so it was hard to pick up the peas scattered underneath.

The plate looked reminiscent of Swanson’s Hungry-Man dinners I used to eat, but the taste of the meat was far better. The lamb was succulent, without the gravy, done to the right pinkish rare. I know what we’re making come Easter. The potatoes were solid while the veggies could’ve been better roasted rather than just blanched. It’s what you expect from Irish food, but just a bit more refined. I can’t wait to try the other dishes.

A place like this has got to have its quirks, and McSorley’s doesn’t disappoint. Many working there were young, all with a slight pleasant Irish accent. Hanging over near the end of the bar is a T-shaped chandelier. Every Thanksgiving, the folks hang a turkey wishbone astride it and let the dust gather. It’s been a long time since that tradition began:

Adapted from Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson
Ingredients:
4-pound leg of lamb
2 two-ounce cans anchovies
1 small bunch rosemary
4 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced lengthways into 3 pieces
6 tablespoons butter, softened
Black pepper
1 bottle McSorley’s beer, dark or light (or 1/2 bottle white wine)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 bunch watercress, to garnish

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. With a small sharp knife, make about 12 incisions 2 inches deep in the fleshy side of the lamb leg. Insert a piece of garlic, half an anchovy, and a small sprig of rosemary into each incision. Push all of them right in with your little finger. Cream the butter with any remaining anchovies and smear it all over the surface of the meat. Grind plenty of black pepper over it. Place lamb in a roasting pan; pour the beer around it. Tuck in any leftover sprigs of rosemary; pour lemon juice over. Place in oven; roast 15 minutes.

2. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F; roast lamb for an additional hour, or slightly more, depending on how well-done you like your meat. Baste from time to time with the winy juices. Take meat out of oven; let rest in a warm place at least 15 minutes before carving.

3. Meanwhile, taste the juices to see if any salt is necessary (the anchovies should take care of most of the salt needs). During roasting, the wine should have reduced somewhat and mingled with the lamb juices and anchovy butter to make a gravy. If it’s too thin, reduce it some more on the stovetop.