Fish-Fragrant Pork

This dish doesn't actually have any fish in it, it's just that the salty, sweet, and sour flavors in it are common in traditional Sichuan fish dishes. This is a fast dish for when you want something interesting but don't want to spend much time in the kitchen. Just make sure you keep it moving as you're cooking on high heat, and you might pepper gas yourself if you don't have the vent exhaust on.  See Chinese Ingredients for pictures and substitutions of ingredients.


1/2-3/4 lb lean pork, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 can baby corn
handful black fungus, re-hydrated and sliced
2 t grated ginger
2 shallots, sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 T pickled chiles, chopped
hot chiles to taste, chopped (optional)
oil to fry the meat
2 T chile bean paste
Stock to thin sauce if necessary

Marinade:
1 T soy sauce
1 T water
1 T cornstarch

Sauce:
2 T soy sauce
1.5 T Chinkiang black vinegar
1 T Shaoxing rice wine
2 t sugar
1 t salt, or to taste
2 t corn starch
2 t sesame oil
1/2 t black pepper, ground
3/4 t Sichuan pepper, toasted and ground

Marinate the meat for 15-20 minutes, then fry it in very hot oil for 30 seconds.  Remove the meat and set it aside, and drain off all but 3 T of the oil.
Combine the sauce ingredients.
Heat the oil on high until almost smoking, then add the hot chiles, garlic, ginger, and shallots, and stir fry for 20-30 seconds.
Add the bean paste and stir fry for another 20-30 seconds.
Add the rest of the veggies and stir fry for another minute.
Add the meat back in an continue cooking for another 30 seconds to a minute.
Add the sauce and cook just until it thickens; add some stock if it is too thick.
Adjust seasoning if necessary, and serve with rice.

Nam Prik Pao

So if you're in the Lansing area, please ignore this as Nam Prik Pao is horribly disgusting and you should avoid it at all costs. For those not frequenting the same stores I am, the stuff is like crack. It's a delicious combination of caramelized shallots, garlic, and chiles. I'm pretty sure you could spread the stuff on cardboard and it would be award winning. For my tastes, a spread on just about any sandwich involving cheese, or a dose in most curries is dynamite. Look for the Pantai brand "chile paste with soya bean oil". A spread on an English muffin with cream cheese and a fried egg may ruin you forever. I haven't tried making it myself from scratch as it's rather intensive, but I'll take a chance at it and post the results before long.

Limburger

So I decided that I needed to try Limburger cheese, since I'd never had it before. It was something of an adventure, but honestly one I think you should try for yourself.

First impression from smell: no where near as bad as I expected, though it does kind of smell like the treats I feed my cat.

Eating a thick slice on a cracker: OH MY GOD the ammonia. It's rich and creamy, but it's also bitter, a little sour, and has that ammonia punch that hits you right in the nose hairs.

Eating a very thin slice on a cracker: Rich and creamy seems to predominate, though there is a little bitter/sour on the aftertaste. The nostril burning ammonia seems to be completely missing, and it's generally a rich and complex flavor that you could easily grow to love.

Overall, a good cheese for snacking, just make sure to eat it in small amounts.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

A slow cooked Italian-American meat and tomato sauce for pasta. It takes some time with all the browning, simmering, and lots of ingredients, but it's the kind of thing that you can do while reading a book or watching the game and not putting a lot of work in to it. This also makes more than enough for you to freeze some for easy future meals. You could make it without the smoked tomatoes, but they really add a richness and depth to the sauce.

1 lb hot Italian sausage
1/4 lb ground beef
2 oz salt pork, in small cubes
1 carrot, minced
1 celery stalk, minced
1 onion, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
heavy pinch dried basil
pinch dried oregano
2 bay leaves
scant pinch nutmeg
2 28 oz cans crushed san marzano tomatoes
1/3 C cream
1/4 t ground pepper
~1 t dried rosemary
2 T butter
2 T olive oil
1/4 C chopped Italian parsley
handful dried maitake or porcini mushrooms
handful dried smoked tomatoes, or somewhat more oil packed smoked tomatoes
3/4 C beef stock
1 C water
crushed red pepper to taste
salt to taste

Soak the mushrooms in hot water, when soft mince, and save the soaking water.
Render salt pork over medium low in olive oil and butter until crispy. Remove, leaving the fat in the pan.
Thoroughly brown the sausage and beef on medium high, remove, leaving the fat in the pan.
Add the onion and brown thoroughly over medium heat.
Add the carrot, celery, garlic, and mushrooms, and saute thoroughly over medium for 8-10 minutes.
Add everything (including the reserved mushroom liquid) except the cream and the salt and simmer for at least two hours, covering or uncovering as necessary to get the right thickness (it may thicken when you blend in the next step, so it's okay to leave it a little thin, but you don't want to cook much after the blending).
Blend with an immersion blender to get the right consistency, add salt, and allow to cool somewhat.
Add cream, mix in, and adjust salt.
Serve on spaghetti.

Tortillas

Heaping tablespoon of lard or shortening
1 C flour
healthy pinch of salt
water to correct consistency

Mix the salt in to the flour, then cut in the shortening. Mix in the water slowly while working the dough until you get a good ball. Refrigerate for 15 minutes wrapped in plastic wrap. Pinch off small balls and roll out THIN. Cook in a dry cast iron skillet until golden on both sides.
Alternatively, add in 1/4 t of baking powder when adding the salt for a fluffier leavened tortilla.

Roasted Garlic Breakfast Sausage

3 lbs pork shoulder, cubed
2 oz salt pork
2 large cloves garlic
4 T fresh sage, chopped
1-2 heads roasted garlic (2 for the true garlic lovers, 1 if you don't want to smell like garlic all day)
1/2 C cold water
1/5 t ground black pepper
1 t crushed red pepper, or to taste
2-3 T peeled and freshly grated ginger
2 T kosher salt, or to taste

Mix all ingredients except cold water and chill for an hour. Run the mixture through a meat grinder. Then add the water and mix together in a mixer with a paddle attachment, or by hand with a large spoon.

Japanese Ginger Dressing

1/2 cup minced onion
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup + 1/2 T rice vinegar
2 T water
3 T minced fresh ginger
2 T minced celery
1 1/2 T ketchup
4 t soy sauce
2 t sugar
2 t lemon juice
1/2 t minced garlic
1/2 t salt
1/4 t fresh ground black pepper

Processor together; the onion flavor will be strong on the first day, but will mellow if left overnight in the fridge. Don't be afraid to adjust flavors if you like more or less vinegar, ginger, etc. in your dressing.

Cranberry Jam

I had some cranberries that I didn't use for Thanksgiving and ended up throwing in the freezer. I later turned them in to cranberry jam, which is quite good on toasted muffins with cream cheese. I'm guessing it's also going to go quite well on baked brie.

12 oz fresh or frozen cranberries
1 short cup sugar
1 C water
juice and zest of one orange
pinch salt

Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. The jam will thicken as it cools. You may need to use a spoon to crush some of the cranberries.

Dan Dan Mian

An easy, delicious Sichuan noodle dish. The base recipe came from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty, but I've modified it pretty heavily.  In this case the beef is used more as a sesoning, so it can be omitted to make it vegetarian.  See Chinese Ingredients for pictures and substitutions of ingredients.

~ 1/3 lb dried Chinese wheat noodles (I've also had good luck with some Vietnamese wheat noodles which only take 2-3 minutes to cook)
 2 T vegetable oil
handful of dried chiles, broken in half and seeds discarded
3-4 T Ya cai or Tianjin preserved vegetable, well rinsed to reduce salt if using Tianjin preserved vegetable
1/4 lb ground beef
2 t soy sauce
2 green onions, chopped
1/4 C pickled vegetables (optional, I use some that's a mix of mustard, day lily and cow pea greens)

Sauce
1.5 t freshly roasted and ground Sichuan pepper
4 T chile oil (preferably homemade, with chile flakes for more heat), substitute part of the chile oil out for vegetable oil for less heat
2.5-3 T tahini or Chinese sesame paste
2 T soy sauce
2 T dark soy sauce
salt to taste

Heat the oil and sear the chiles, then add in the Tianjin preserved vegetable and the pickled vegetables and saute till fragrant. Add in the ground beef and soy sauce and brown. When the beef is browned, add the green onion.  Remove from the heat.

While that's browning, mix the sauce ingredients together; the sesame paste should emulsify the soy sauce and the chile oil together. Boil the noodles according to the package instructions.

When the noodles and the beef are done, drain the noodles and add to the beef in the wok, then apply the sauce. Toss and serve.

Pastirma

It's getting cooler, which means this is the time to start curing meat, and this one is a rich, spicy, delicious cured beef common among many of the countries that made up the Ottoman empire. It originated in Armenia and is very common in Turkey though I was originally introduced to it by an Egyptian roommate in undergrad. It can also be called basturma or any one of a number of others depending on country.

A roughly 2 lb piece of beef like inside round. You want it to be fairly lean and with the grain of the meat running along the axis of the meat; you could use something like tenderloin if you want to shell out the money, but you don't want something thin like brisket. See note 1.
Salt for curing, you're looking for about a ten to one mix of kosher salt to pink salt* (see note 2)

Seasoning:
4 T red pepper powder (a mix of paprika and cayenne to taste)
1/2 t salt
1-2 t black pepper, ground
1/2 T cumin
3 T methi (fenugreek) seeds, ground
1 t allspice, ground
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed

Note one: this is a piece of meat that's going to hang at close to room temperature for a month, and likely won't be cooked, so get the good stuff. Don't just get stuff from the supermarket, but find yourself a good butcher and get to know them so you know you're getting quality meat.

Note two: You'll occasionally hear stuff about how nitrites aren't safe (and pink
salt is 6.25% sodium nitrite), but in small quantities it's just fine and occurs naturally in food we eat. More importantly, it inhibits the growth of botulism. I don't do any curing outside of short cures in the fridge without nitrite, and I wouldn't do any multi-month cures without nitrate.

* Trim the meat, then thoroughly coat the meat with the curing salt. Put in a dish and cover with plastic wrap before weighting down and refrigerating for 3-4 days. Turn the meat once a day, and when the time is up it should be fairly solid to the touch.
* When done, rinse the meat, soak it for 20-30 minutes, then thoroughly dry it.
* Run a piece of string through a corner of the meat, then hang it up to dry in a cool place (60 F, ~60% humidity) for two weeks. Check it regularly, and if any white or green mold is starting, scrub the whole time down with white vinegar. If black mold forms, or if the mold recurs, pitch the whole thing. Some recipes call for wrapping in cheese cloth, but that's just asking for mold.
* After those two weeks, mix the seasoning together with enough water to make a thick paste, then rub it all over the meat. Hang it to dry for another two weeks.
* At this point you're ready to eat, just slice it thinly and chow down (yeah, the dried seasoning mix will crumble off, but it's imparted its flavor); alternatively, sauteing some up in a skillet then scrambling some eggs with it would be a traditional use.