At the risk of belaboring the PIZZA! thing, I finally got around to making a great pizza for Sunday breakfast and taking pictures.
In the first picture you see a Vicolo cornmeal pizza crust on my pizza peel with a little olive oil applied, a cheese grater, my Early Girl tomato sauce, some Spanish olives, Mike’s cheese curd, a leftover red onion and smoked mozzarella.
Then it’s fully topped, then baked.
That was so good I ate way more than my normal 1/3, and then Carol polished it off.
Chinese dumplings (part of dim sum meals) are easy! If I sound a bit like the Frugal Gourmet by loudly announcing this, it may be because Jeff Smith has gone a long way to proving this to me. And I’m not just talking about buying wonton or gyoza wrappers at the store and filling them with a ground pork mixture, I’m also referring to the act of making the dumpling wrapper dough, which is no more complicated than making fresh pasta — maybe even easier (because you don’t have to cut it to ribbons). It’s certainly easier than making gnocchi because you don’t have to boil potatoes ahead of time.
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Cooks Illustrated just published (Jan-Feb 2006, issue #78) an article by Rebecca Hays breaking down “Hot and Sour Soup at Home” as only they can do. They also claim to have turned it into “a 20-minute dish.”
I recently had a bit of surplus pork loin on-hand, and a pot of fresh chicken broth, so I went ahead and made a pot, something I hadn’t done in probably twenty years. The last time I made this dish I used a recipe either from The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee or The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: Chinese, Greece, Rome by Jeff Smith. Since both books are so old, I’ve reproduced those recipes below.
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Based on Bill Neal’s Southern Cooking
This is the third version of Brunswick Stew served at my Super Bowl Party. It is unique in that it includes rabbit, carrots, celery and cabbage, as well as the “usual ingredients.”
Finding a rabbit was a bit of an adventure. Continue reading
My first post as an Ensign in the Navy was as Communications Officer aboard the USS Tulare AKA112, stationed in San Diego. For a guy who had never been out of Ohio until he was 19, this was a paradise! The Tulare, named for Tulare County in California where the redwoods grow, was an Attack Cargo Ship (AKA), basically a merchant cargo ship configured for Navy use. We carried the boats used in amphibious landings. We’d hoist the boats out of the cargo hold and drop them gently (usually) into the ocean, where Marines from the Attack Personnel Ships (APA) would swarm aboard.
So we were a big ship with few people aboard. Luxurious. As an Ensign, I was assigned a stateroom shared by only one other Officer! This may be the only type of ship in the Navy with that luxury of space.
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Pork… Left… Over, or
Fabulous Pork and Vegetable Saute
The pork wasn’t that great to begin with. It was a so-called Country Rib, which is the first two ribs from the top of the loin. Carol almost always rubs and roasts that, and there are always leftovers. It tastes more like a pork roast than a tenderloin or pork chop, and it’s fatty enough to be nice and moist and juicy. Yum. But this one seemed like a different cut, with a different texture, more dry and chewy. It was okay, but not Yum.
It’s Saturday evening, not much goin’ on, “What’s for dinner?”
“I want to make this lettuce wedge with Roquefort dressing I saw on TV,” Carol said, “and there’s that leftover pork, but I don’t know what to do with it.”
“I’ll do something with it,” I said, “give me 20 minutes notice before you want to eat.”
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“JERUSALEM ! ! !” cried the taxi driver, as we topped a long hill and first glimpsed the white buildings of the ancient city, before plunging into another deep valley.
I had read O Jerusalem, a book by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre, dramatically describing the events, places and people of the 1948 War of Independence, and I was thinking of the battles of the Latrun Heights and Bab el Wad as we sped through these sites, along the modern highway from Ben Gurion Airport. But the hills are steeper and the Wadis deeper than I had imagined, or could have imagined; an Ohio boy living in Boston.
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My mom made this for us as kids in Ohio, and it usually made an appearance at church suppers and whatnot. I loved it!
Spam, as the meat of choice, was just right. Its saltiness and soft texture blends well with the salty over-processed texture of the canned vegetables, and is set off by the crunchiness of the canned noodles.
Who knew this wasn’t the real deal? There were no Chinese restaurants in Columbus, Ohio in the ‘50’s, or if there were, we didn’t go there.
Mom didn’t settle for just the can of chop suey, she made her own additions of the extra vegetables, but you needed the can of chop suey to get that dark brown sauce that was so good. This was a staple in our house.
Years pass and we’re living in Newton with kids of our own, Julia Child on the TV, and a new Vulcan restaurant range with six burners. So I go about recreating my mom’s chop suey using fresh bean sprouts, fresh vegetables and even fried, fresh Chinese noodles. And I made my own sauce, no cans for me (okay, water chestnuts and bamboo shoots are still canned). I stuck to the Spam, because after all, that’s “American.”
Folks, it ain’t the same.
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So simple: flour, water, olive oil, salt, honey, and yeast. Top with whatever. And yet…
One day, somebody said on the radio, or I read somewhere, or Carol said that somebody said… but it doesn’t matter, “Two slices of pizza is the perfect breakfast.” This lit up my eyes and my senses. All my life I’ve been trying to find a breakfast.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Eat three balanced meals a day!
As a kid, I was force-fed cereal and milk. If I didn’t feel well, my mother would give me milk toast. That was pretty good. (Butter a piece of toast, and submerge it in a shallow bowl of warm milk. The butter melts and makes yellow streaks on the surface of the milk. How can that be bad?) I’ve tried the traditional eggs every way with meat any way or without. Pancakes… French toast… All this stuff is fine… after 10:30 in the morning. Before that, I wanna wretch. I even tried Carnation Instant Breakfast. Yuk.
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(That would be Roast Beef, of course. I don’t know why we started calling it “Rose Beep,” it must have come from a kid or an Asian waiter or somewhere… anyway, it’s stuck on us.)
For Christmas 2001, Carol got me (as requested) a TempTime model DTTC digital thermometer & timer. It has a probe that you stick in the meat and a long sensor wire leading to the control module with a large digital display that I can read without my glasses! How have I gone so long without it???
To go with that, a four pound standing rib roast of beef. Wow.
So from Christmas until Saturday that big honker has been “dry aging” in the refrigerator. (Beef on a rack in refrigerator with dry towel on top… change towels daily for 3 days.) Carol saw a recipe on the TV [Alton Brown’s Good Eats] where you put the roast (canola oiled, salted & peppered) in a 200 ° oven until the internal temperature reaches 118 °… take out to rest and cover with foil. Rest until the internal temp is 130 °. Meanwhile turn the oven up to 500 ° and stick the meat back in for 10 minutes or so to brown. Deglaze juices with 1C water and 1C red wine and reduce by half. Crinkle 4 sage leaves, add to the sauce and cook for one minute, strain. (4# roast took 1:40 to 118 °)
We did that.
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eats for one 