Swiss Beer Fondue Macaroni and Cheese

Today I really had a craving for macaroni and cheese.  Usually I do the whole thing myself, make the béchamel sauce, grate the cheese, etc.  But today, we didn't have any Cheddar cheese.  Or milk.  But in the back of the fridge, I had my emergency package of Trader Joe's Swiss Beer Fondue (this thing has an obscenely long shelf life so you can keep it in the fridge for months).  Um, I'm not sure why TJ decided to do a fondue with Swiss beer — fondue is usually done with wine and kirsch — in addition, when was the last time you heard of Swiss beer?  Swiss beer is hard to find even in Switzerland, so all in all, it's kinda weird.  Well, the idea, that is — the Swiss Beer Fondue is actually pretty good.

To make the macaroni and cheese, I just smeared the thick goodness all over cooked conchiglie shells (the small ones) and put it in the oven.  So how did it turn out?  Pretty good.  Nice boozy smell all over the house.  Nice oozy cheese.  Took care of my craving!

BLD Tweet A Dish

When I found out that one of my favorite restaurants, BLD, has an on-going Twitter contest for free food, I knew I had to enter.  I really like BLD.  It's just one of those great neighborhood places where you can go for good food and good wine, where the staff is knowledgeable and friendly, the atmosphere both fashionable and relaxed, where you're perfectly free to dress up or dress down — you can even bring your kids.  Unfortunately, it's not the sort of place I can go to too often because most of the entrees are in the $15-$27 range, and when you're pinching pennies, even a $6 hamburger can seem formidable.

So how does the contest work?  You go on Twitter and suggest a dish that BLD might want to make for its Thursday night special.  Past winning dishes have included chicken and dumplings and Moroccan tajine.  I suggested that yummy Portuguese dish of pork and clams.  Well, much to my surprise, I actually won.  I mean, I never win anything, and I'm one of those poor suckers who enters everything.  I can't tell you how many stupid hoops I've jumped through, from writing slogans for lawn mowers (we really needed one) to designing t-shirts with eco themes for a hopeless chance at a Smart car.  Well, finally!  Who knew all those hours of reading cookbooks would pay off!

The prize for Tweet A Dish is a complimentary 3-course meal for two!  And that includes wine!  I was in heaven...!  Originally, I thought part of the deal was that you had to have the special you suggested, but, no, the staff said we could both order anything we wanted!  BLD is just so generous.  Absolutely no fine print involved.  As our waiter Peter said, "We just want you and your guest to have a good time."  And boy did we.  The featured wine for the night was this incredibly fun, delicious white from Slovenia called "Jarenincan" (Crnko winery), an interesting blend of riesling, sauvignon blanc, and chardonnay which made for a slightly sweet flavor with the most floral, fruity aftertaste — starting off with that how can anything go wrong?

Of course I couldn't wait to try my special.  I'd noticed that on the menu, the dish had become "Portuguese sausage and clams".  I hadn't realized that there were two similar Portuguese dishes, one with pork and clams done in an Alentejo style, and another with sausage and clams called cataplana, which is a specialty of the Argave region and is more like a bouillabaisse with lots of seafood.  BLD did the cataplana version, only with their own spin, making it more like a risotto, or, paella, I suppose.  The dish was very delicious, full of flavor from the shrimp stock, and with plenty of nice heat.

It was such a wonderful evening, with all my thanks going to BLD.  They really go all out to make the Tweet A Dish winner feel special, and it's that kind of graciousness which makes L.A. a fantastic town.

Iced Peach Tea

 (These are peach blossoms.)

While shopping at Whole Foods, I was caught by that wonderful floral smell of ripening peaches and ended up buying three.  I'm always wary of buying peaches at supermarkets as they never ripen, or if they do, they just become mealy and tasteless.  (Avocados too.)  And sure enough, while these peaches continued to produce an amazing amount of fragrance, they never properly ripened, wizening and drying out instead of softening.  I tried tasting one, but the tannins nearly bit all my taste buds out.  So what to do?  I couldn't throw them out.  In desperation, I peeled and cut them up and threw them in a pot with water and tons of sugar.  The stewed peaches were OK, but the resulting sugar syrup was phenomenal.  I knew instantly what to do with the syrup — make iced tea!  Using my favorite jasmine green tea, of course.  If life gives you hard peaches, make iced tea! :)

BTW, I'm really not liking how these large fruit producers are now breeding fruit just for smell.  A pretty nasty way of tricking us shoppers.  Why I'm buying most of my fruit at farmer's markets.  Although, I have to say, I've been very impressed by the fruit that's on sale at Trader Joe's.  Their small watermelons have been real winners, nice and sweet with good texture, and I was very happy with the avocados that were on sale in May.

Hamburger Buns

Today, I really wanted to make hamburgers for lunch.  Unfortunately, we didn't have any buns.  I thought about making a quick trip to the store to buy some, but then the thought of those horrible tasting store buns made me think twice.  I had several bun recipes but those recipes take four-five hours with all the rising and stuff.  And then I began to wonder about  Ken Hom's baos (see post below for recipe).  They only take about 30 minutes.  Would they make good hamburger buns?  The answer was a decisive yes.  They made fantastic hamburger buns, flavorful, tender yet sturdy enough to stand up to all the juices of a good burger.  I only made two small changes.  I added about 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the dough, and, instead of steaming them, put them into a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.  This is now my go-to recipe for any kind of bun:  hamburger, sandwich, hot dog.

BTW, I made the hamburger patty from some tri-tip I got at Costco.  $4.99 a pound and packed with flavor — not like supermarket meat at all!

Chinese Steamed Buns

Our family is crazy about Chinese stuffed buns, the ones called baos.  Usually, we'll make a special trip to a restaurant to get some, but every once in awhile, I actually feel like making them at home.  And they're not as hard as you'd think they'd be to make.  For the bun part, I like to use a recipe by Ken Hom which is extremely easy.  For the stuffing part, I just put in whatever is around.  Like ground pork, garlic, ginger, frozen peas, cellophane noodles, carrots, etc.  The only trick, if you're using nonfatty pork loin, is to add some cold water or else the stuffing could get very dry.

Baos can be baked or fried, but mostly, they're steamed.  The ones I cook at home are the steamed version.

Recipe for the Chinese steamed buns
(adapted from Ken Hom's Illustrated Chinese Cookery):

6 fl oz warm water
1 packet of yeast
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of oil (something without much flavor like peanut)
13 oz plain flour

Mix the water, yeast and sugar in a large bowl.  Leave for about 10 minutes, at which point the mixture should be foaming.  (If it isn't, you've got dead yeast and will have to go and get some live ones.)  Add the flour and mix until you have a nice, smooth dough (if it's too sticky, add more flour).  At this point, you can just make steamed buns.  Just roll out the dough into a large snake and evenly divide the snake into as many pieces as you'd like.  Put a little piece of parchment paper on the bottom of each piece and let rise for 30 minutes.  The parchment paper keeps the buns from sticking to whatever tray you've put them on.  And then steam for about 10.  (Uh — you should know to use a steamer of some kind, right?  I have a two-tiered one I got at a Korean store.)

Recipe for stuffing

About 3 - 4 pork loin cutlets, ground
half a carrot, chopped into tiny squares
garlic, minced
a teaspoon of minced ginger
1/4 cup of defrosted frozen peas
3 tablespoons of cold water
1/2 teaspoon of salt
lots of pepper
cooked cellophane noodles, finely chopped

Now the secret here is to make sure the pork loins are ground to a paste.  I do it in a small food processor.  Add all the ingredients and mix extremely well with your hands.  You MUST use your hands.  It will be gooey, but that's what you need to have a moist stuffing.

Now to assemble the baos, take a small chunk of dough and swirl it around both palms until you have a rough ball.  And then flatten it, again with your palms.  Unto the little pancakes, add enough stuffing to fill about 85% of the pancake.  Now, very gently, pull the dough up and around the stuffing, going around and around.  You should get little rough points meeting up at the center.  Pinch together the points and twist.  Now you have a bao!

Grease the bottom of your steamer (I find Pan pretty good).  Fill the steamer with the baos, not crowding them too much, as the baos will rise.  Let rise for about 20 minutes. And then steam for about 10 minutes.

Rosemary Helps Reduce Toxins in Grilled Meat

I always get nervous about grilling meat because of all the cancer concerns.  Cooking meat at high temperatures produce something called heterocyclic amines and supposedly, these things are linked to cancer.  Even though I have a family history of stomach cancer, I try not to remember this because who can resist charred meat?  Come on — it's primeval.  Just the smell of the grill significantly raises my happiness index.  So I was really interested in reading a recent NYT article about rosemary and how chemicals in rosemary counteract the nasty heterocyclic amines.  Unfortunately, I find rosemary overwhelming and don't use it very much.  Luckily, other marvelous ingredients like lemons, onions and garlic do the same thing!

I wonder if people instinctively knew this because all these ingredients are classic parts of marinades.  In Greece, it's olive oil, garlic, and rosemary.  In Asia, onions, garlic, and sometimes lemons or limes.  Seems like too much of a coincidence...