I love simple.  Especially when it involves tofu.  This month’s Saveur has an article on street snacks of Sichuan, and one of the dishes is called “flower bean curd”. I tried it last weekend, and wow, was it good.  Basically you just heat up some soft/silken tofu in hot water, then slap it in a bowl.  Over the top you pour some

• soy sauce
• chili oil
• black vinegar
• Sichuan preserved vegetables (I used preserved turnips)
• roasted soy beans (I had peanuts, so used those)
• ground Sichuan pepper corns (really hard to get.  I used the Japanese equivalent, called sansho)
• the recipe called for chopped green onions, which would have been good, but I didn’t have any

Enjoy.  Very tasty, quick and filling.  Since the stuff gets pored over the top, each diner can decide how spicy they want it.

I love a good gumbo.  There’s not much better than a rich hearty bowl of gumbo with plenty of greens and some andouille.  Personally I prefer mine with okra, but since my wife is an okra-phobe, I usually make file gumbo at home. 

This weekend I undertook the gumbo from one of my favorite soup books, The Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread Cookbook, by Crescent Dragonwagon.  It’s a great book, and a truly fine gumbo, but it definitely takes a commitment.  You have to separately make a roux, saute some vegetables, and mix up a spice paste in a food processor.  Once all three of those are done you start the soup proper, into which goes a mess of greens.  Once the greens are cooked, you throw in the other stuff you’ve already prepared.  What comes out the other side is then your gumbo “base” which for my family actually makes three batches of soup, so I freeze most of it. 

To make the soup, you throw in some of the base with more soup stock and your meat of choice, be it andouille, chicken, crab, shrimp, whatever.  This weekend I stuck with andouille.  Our local New Seasons carries a great nitrate free smoked andouille that was perfect for gumbo. 

It’s a good 2–3 hour undertaking, but well worth the effort.  Everyone pretty much licked there bowls, so I call that a success.

There’s a perennial debate in the SCA about what is “authentic” or “period” cooking.  In the SCA context, “period” means “correct for the time period under study” which in my personal case is 10th Century Scandinavian.  For the SCA in general that tends to mean “anything prior to 1625”.  That’s a lot of food to choose from.  Added to that is that fact that outside a very few documentary examples, we don’t have hardly any recipes.  Particularly for “dark age” periods like mine.  If only a small percentage of the population can write, they probably aren’t writing recipes. 

Anyway, I’m a firm believer in the idea that you can create “period” food from two things, 1) studying the archaeological record, and 2) knowing how to cook.  We have a very rich archaeological record available which for many times/places allows us to know exactly what foods were being eaten, how they were preserved, and what equipment was used to cook them.  Add to those facts an understanding of food and cooking, and hey presto! you’ve got what I argue is “documentable” food.  I gave a class on this subject at Estrella last week, and it seemed to be pretty well received.  I had some very interesting people in my class including two practicing archaeologists, which was pretty cool. 

On a (slightly) different note, there’s a debate currently raging on one of the SCA cooking lists about serving people food that they are “comfortable” with.  There seem to be two broad areas of thought.  One says that as an educational organization, it’s more valuable for us to introduce people to foods that they are probably unfamiliar with and thus broaden their horizons and educate them about the way our thinking about what is food have changed.  The other says that what is really important is making people happy and “comfortable” and that is best achieved by picking “period” recipes that are most like familiar modern foods.  This includes things like “macrows” which is essentially macaroni and cheese.  While I have nothing against macaroni and cheese, I think serving only that kind of food at SCA feasts or other food gatherings is missing an educational opportunity.  The education aspect of macrows is basically “the more things change…”.  I’d rather make food that challenges our modern assumptions and opens people up to new possibilities. 

On the other hand, what I certainly don’t advocate and wouldn’t tolerate is someone coming up with a whole menu of deliberately “challenging” foods.  As in, “let’s see how weird we can be and freak everybody out”.  That’s just egotistical and exclusivist.  I don’t like that for the same reason that I never liked nouvelle cuisine back in the bad old 80’s.  It makes people feel as if they are being left out if they don’t like it and that’s not what it should be about.   

So, to try to bring that rant to some sort of reasonable conclusion, I’d advocate shooting for the middle way.  Introduce people to new ideas, but don’t scare them away with stuff that’s deliberately outrageous.  To pick an example from Ancient Roman cuisine, you’ll get much further with vinegared cucumbers with mint (not something many modern people would be familiar with) than you will with stuffed doormice.  If you could find doormice anyway.  Or stuff them. 

I was contemplating what to make for dinner last night and finally decided on some Ethiopian food.  I had a bunch of hardboiled eggs left over from a party over the weekend, which put me in mind of Doro Wat, the Ethiopian chicken dish that often includes hardboiled eggs.  On top of that, I had a batch of berbere in my freezer that wasn’t getting any younger.  To go with, I made some Ethiopian lentils, was was a snap since I pretty much always have some quick cooking red lentils around.

For the chicken, I sauted (in ghee) some red onions and chopped Anaheim chiles until soft, then through in some garlic and ginger, followed by a generous (probably 1/2 cup) of the berbere.  When that heated up I added around 1 cup of red wine and another of water, and threw in some boneless, skinless chicken thighs and cooked in until the chicken was tender.  Then I added some shelled hardboiled eggs and brought it up to temperature.  The part that’s a hassle is making the berbere, so whenever I do I tend to make a double or triple batch and freeze what ever is left over. 

The lentils went about the same.  Red onions, Anaheim, garlic and ginger, about 1/4 cup of berbere, 2 cups of split red lentils (the kind you use for Indian food) and water to cover and then some.  Cooked until the lentils were falling apart.  Remember as with any pulses or beans, don’t add any salt until they are soft, or they never will be.  Salt to taste at the very end. 

Not too shabby for a weeknight if I do say so myself.    I’ve got a little berbere left over still, which is just crying out for some lamb this weekend…

I have no idea how they got into my house, but I recently discovered a jar of pickled green peppercorns in my pantry, so I decided to use them. 

I’ve been reading Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices by Andrew Dalby (which is a very interesting book, BTW) and he mentions that once upon a time preserved green peppercorns were very popular in Europe, but that they’ve mostly been replaced by the dried form we’re used to.  Anyway, it got me interested, so I put some in a spaghetti sauce last night, which came out quite well, I thought.

I started with some onions and garlic, then added the green peppercorns, maybe a 1/2 tablespoon or so, and healthy amounts of basil, oregano, and some fennel seeds (which I love in spaghetti).  Then in went some celery.  When it all cooked down, I threw in some meat balls, and a few tablespoons worth of capers.  It went over pretty well with the family too.  Ivan even wanted some for breakfast this morning, so it couldn’t have been too bad.   I’ve been using Westbrae Natural’s whole wheat spaghetti, which has a very nice texture.  Their spinach spaghetti is also really good, but Gwyn tends to freak out over the green noodles, so there are days when it’s just not worth it…

So if you happen to come across some pickled pepper (not pickled peppers, mind) give them a shot.  They added a very nice, mellow peppery taste without much heat.

Sunday morning I made a big batch of this egg dish called Parsi Egg Curry, or “ekoori”.  My Dad learned to make it when he lived in Singapore in the 80s, and it’s been an extended family staple ever since.  There are various versions, but this is how I made it…

Saute the following until soft:

• chopped onion
• fresh garlic, minced
• fresh ginger, minced
• fresh chiles, minced.  I usually use jalapeno or serrano.
• this time I used fresh tumeric root, minced, since I happened to find some.  Very groovy stuff.  Turned my hands totally yellow, but very good flavor.

Throw in

• ground tumerix (if not using fresh)
• ground coriander (don’t be shy.  I used maybe 3 tbl.)
• ground black pepper and salt to taste
• fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped

Then scramble and toss in some eggs.  Cook as you would scrambled eggs. 

It goes really well with pastries and some kind of breakfast meat.  Growing up we always had Russian coffee cake (yeast risen, heavy on the cream cheese and blueberries or peaches) and corned beef hash.  This weekend I served linguica and raisin bread, which worked out well.

Enjoy.  It’s really easy to make, and very flashy as a brunch dish.

My birthday (the 34th do date) was last Friday, and my Mom took us out to a fabulous Italian restaurant in Seattle called Buca di Beppo.  I usually shy away from Italian restaurants, since I tend to associate them with neighborhood places that serve crummy food with way to much cheese and not very tasty tomato sauce.  The phrase “gut bomb” comes to mind. 

Buca di Beppo was a whole different order of Italian food.  Very fresh, not at all greasy or over-cheesed.  The tomato sauces were very fresh and vibrant.  We got the “kitchen table” which is literally in the kitchen, so we got to watch the head chef at work and see how everything got cooked and served up.  The part that was the most fun was that all the food is served up “family style” so everyone shares all the dishes.  We started with some of the best fried calamari I think I’ve ever had (and we managed to wrest some away from my son Ivan, but not too much) that was served with a spicy tomato sauce.  Then a very nice Caesar salad, with some of the nicest anchovies I’ve had in a long time.  The kind that make you wonder why people don’t like anchovies.  With the salad came a round of garlic bread with melted fresh mozzarella over the top.  Very nice, and not overly greasy. 

One of the biggest hits with the kids was the garlic mashed potatoes, which were made from new potatoes, and I think contained pretty much equal parts potato and garlic.   My personal favorite were the cannelloni, which were not in the least bit greasy, and served with a tomato sauce that was more like salsa, very dry so as not to make the noodles soggy.  We also had some chicken marsala (very good, but not my favorite style), some lovely sauteed green beans, a “macaroni” dish that was fusili with a light tomato sauce with chicken and broccoli called “macaroni rosa”, and a cheese pizza for Gwyn the picky 6 year old. 

Since we had the kitchen table, we got to see the food going by, which was fun.  For next time, both the chicken cacciatore and the baked shells with spicy sausage looked REALLY good.

The desserts were also fabulous.  We tried some bread pudding, some chocolate canoli, and a chocolate cake.  Three was too many desserts for 7 people, but we did our level best.  Well worth checking out, even if you think you don’t like restaurant Italian food. 

Thanks Mom!

I had some left-over ham in the fridge, so last night I whipped up a batch of split pea soup.  There are few things better on a cold winter night than a good split pea soup.  I went pretty simple:

• 2 cups green split peas
• quart of chicken stock
• an onion
• caraway, tarragon, and pepper
• diced ham
• chopped carrots and celery

cooked the peas in the stock with the onion until soft, then added the spices and ham.  About 30 minutes before serving, added the carrots and celery. 

About a year ago, I went out on a limb and used beef broth, and added some baby spinach.  My kids declared this to be “weird” split pea soup, and ever since have checked to make sure I’m making the “regular” kind.  So much for experimentation.

One of the new foodie books I got the other day is “In the Devil’s Garden: a sinful history of forbidden food” by Stewart Lee Allen.  What an interesting book.  It’s all about the history of food taboos, and how we relate to the food we eat.  I’m just about done with it, and it’s been a very fun read. 

The book is organized into the Seven Deadly Sins, and each chapter contains info about food restrictions/taboos that relate to that sin.  So under “Lust” he talks at length about foods that were off limits to various peoples because they might induce impure thoughts (think chocolate, among others). 

I read a few of the reader comments about this book on Amazon, and several people expressed concern with some of the authors research, and the fact that he tends to speculate.  I think they are missing the point.  This book is not meant to be a scholarly research work.  It’s meant to make us think about what we eat, what we don’t eat, and how we relate to our food and the foods of others.  In that context, speculation isn’t really a problem, since it encourages critical thinking.  I appreciate the fact that during these bouts of reflection, the author never tries to convince us that he knows “the facts”.  It’s a very conversational work.  When pursuing this kind of book, I don’t think it matters if the author puts down unverified tidbits of information, or things based on annectdotal evidence.  The fact that they are annectdotes (which came from a person) is interesting in and of itself. 

This topic is a favorite of mine, since I’m continually fascinated by the topic of why people do or don’t eat things, and this book has provided a lot of food for thought (pun intended).  And it’s a very fun read.  Mr. Allen has a fine sense of humor, and doesn’t take himself too seriously. 

Last night Vikki and I actually managed to sneak away for a date night, and at her suggestion we headed for New Seoul Garden in Beaverton.  Very tasty.  We hadn't been there in a while, and I'd almost forgotten how good their food is.  We opted for a BBQ table, meaning a table with a gas powered iron grill set into the middle.  We got some marinated ribs and sliced beef which come to the table raw for us to grill ourselves.  To go with the meat, you get a bowl of raw sliced garlic, some chili-bean paste, and a bunch of romaine lettuce leaves.  The trick is to wrap up pieces of grilled meat in the lettuce with garlic and bean paste, then eat like a little burrito-from-on-high.  Fantastic.  You can get about 10 different cuts of meat to grill, including pork, chicken, beef, goat or lamb. 

I also ordered a bowl of what is one of my favorite soups, called kimchee jige (or chige or cheege depending on how it's transliterated).  It's a soups of cabbage kimchee with tofu and sliced pork.  Very spicy, and just the thing for a cold winter evening.  The also serve a version with big chunks of black cod, which is also very tasty. 

The crowning glory of the restaurant, however, is the kimchee bar.  Kimchee is one of those things (like saurkraut) that you either love or hate, and luckily Vikki and I are both lovers.  New Seoul Garden used to bring you a platter with different kinds of kimchee on it, but at some point in the last few years they switched over to a help-yourself, all the kimchee you can handle bar.  Depending on when you go, you'll get your choice of 10-12 different kinds of kimchee, some spicy some not.  Last night our very favorite was some pea shoots (baby pea plants) with sesame oil dressing.  Crunchy, bright green and very flavorful.  There were also some really good, very spicy pickles that seemed like baby bok choy, only very tiny.  There was also some traditional spicy cabbage and radish kimchees, and some mildly flavored radishes and black beans. 

Best of all, there was enough of the soup left over for breakfast this morning.