Green Papaya Salad

One of my favorite salads is a green mango or green papaya salad (although I have to give green mangoes the edge). You usually see the dish on Vietnamese or Thai menus. I'd never really thought of making it at home until I saw a pile of green papayas at the store the other day. Well, why not?

Plenty of reasons, as it turned out. Green papayas are big. Like the size of butternut squash. And they get sort of wet and slimy. Peeling one is not an easy task. And trying to cut a large papaya into long strips, as required for a salad, is hard. Green papayas can't be easily managed with a knife. I ended up using my Japanese slicer, getting the papayas into the thinnest slices possible before hand cutting the strips. It took more than half an hour.

An easier way, if you're a master, is to chop it up with a knife while holding it in one hand. I posted a video of that technique below. Really an amazing thing to behold.

I didn't use the recipe posted on the video; I used a really delicious recipe I found at The Passionate Eater.

So what does green papayas taste like? When a friend asked me this, I wasn't sure what to say. Green papayas are basically unripened papayas, so they only have the vaguest papaya taste and are much more chewier. I wouldn't eat it plain, but somehow in a salad with a very fragrant and pungent dressing, they became addictive. The Passionate Eater describes the salad as a kind of slaw, and it definitely is a dish in which the sum transcends the parts.

Thai Eggplant

I really love Thai eggplants. They're small, sweet and perfect for curries. The problem is that you often have to get a package of two dozen or more. That's a lot of eggplants. So what do you do with them all? I decided to deep-fry half a dozen. In a nice light batter I adapt from Marcella Hazan*: flour, salt and water — enough water to make the dough pour like sour cream. I cut up the eggplants into quarters, dipped them lightly in batter and deep-fried for about five minutes in pretty hot temperature. To keep the deep-fried eggplants hot, I parked them in a 350 degree oven, which made them even nicer. Sorta like french fries. I'd definitely give this dish a solid A. But how can you go wrong with deep-frying?

*BTW, USA Today once took Marcella Hazan to Olive Garden for her take on the chain's "Italian" cooking efforts. It's a pretty funny article.

Green Papaya Shredder

Wow! This woman shreds green papayas in her hand with just a knife!

The Grid by SiliconeZone

This is a picture of my new love.


It's called The Grid and it's a potholder, trivet and jar opener. Made from InSILate, this potholder is safe to 675 degrees.

Now, I've been searching for a good potholder for years. I really don't like the traditional cloth ones because they're too clumsy and get really grungy (The Grid is dishwasher safe). So when the first silicone mitts and holders came into the market, I was really excited. But, unfortunately, they didn't live up to the hype. While they were wonderfully flexible and had a fantastic grip, they didn't give you much heat protection. With the one I have, after three seconds of holding onto something really hot, I get burned. Why can't they make one that's doubly thick, I've always complained. Well, The Grid is more than a quarter of an inch thick. Great heat protection with fantastic flexibility. And it comes in lots of different colors. Of course, it's not cheap — around $8, but hopefully it'll last me for years and years. There's also a mitt but it's half the width so I'm not really sure how well it protects you. Unfortunately, sometimes you do really need a mitt so I think I'll go and buy one.

Healthier German Apple Pancakes

Last night I did some bad tossing and turning so I woke up like a bear out of a cave (in other words, I needed some serious grub). Pancakes, bacon and scrambled eggs smothered in maple syrup? Sounded awfully good. So I got to work (did I ever tell you about my butler fantasies?)

My go-to German apple pancake recipe comes from Marcia Adams's Cooking From Quilt Country. Now Marcia's recipes feed armies so I tend to halve them. When I opened the page for the pancake recipe, lo and behold, I found a piece of paper with old notes I'd scribbled for halving the recipe! Great! So I put on my apron and got to work. A quarter cup of flour, a quarter cup of whole wheat flour (apparently, the last time I did this, I wanted a healthy version, thus the whole wheat — well, I didn't have whole wheat but I did have oat bran, so I used that), 1 tablespoon of sugar, 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder (yeah! get to use the homemade one), 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, 1 egg, and — this is when I realized something was wrong. Where's the milk? You need milk for pancakes. So I compared the original recipe to my notes. Hmmm. Some serious discrepancies. Like the original didn't call for baking powder or baking soda. And it had all sorts of goodies like nutmeg and vanilla. And apples. Whoops. Wrong notes.

Well, by this time I had pretty much everything all nicely mixed up in my reliable quart-sized Pyrex measuring cup. So I just threw in the milk and spices. I figured it was all good. And it was. I especially liked the addition of the oat bran. It made the batter much more flavorful and gave the pancakes a beautiful brown color.

Making the pancakes is really easy. So much preferable than doing little ones on the skillet. I don't follow Marcia's directions completely. Instead of precooking the apples, I just do it all in the oven like this. Preheat the oven to 470 degrees. Get a really good skillet (cast iron is best but I have an ancient Cuisinart that has stainless steel sandwiched in the aluminum). Put about a tablespoon of butter in it. Cut up a smallish apple very thinly. Put it in the skillet with the butter. Put the skillet in the oven, letting the apples cook while the oven is preheating. About five minutes into it, stir the apples around so each piece gets a nice coating of melted butter.

Meanwhile, mix everything for the batter. When the oven finally preheats, the skillet should be pretty darn hot. Pour the batter over the apples. Put the skillet into the oven. Now, at this point, you can follow Marcia and turn the oven down to 350 degrees. Today, I was too busy with the scrambled eggs and bacon so I forgot. But in ten minutes, I got the crispiest, nicest pancake! I'd definitely give this dish an A.

BTW, if you live in LA, go to Huntington Meats at the Farmer's Market for your bacon. They have the best apple-smoked bacon, thick, meaty slices that are so much better than Niman Ranch. Try to get the older gentlemen to help you. The younger ones so aren't into service. And they don't really know that much. Huntington also sells Moffat's chicken pot pies. Seriously good.

Too Scared To Shop

I had these two experiences shopping in the last month:

1. At Bristol Farms in South Pasadena, one of the employees climbs on top of the cheese display so she can rearrange the shelf above. Her dirty shoes were gripping the rim of the display.

2. At Whole Foods on Arroyo, an employee picks up some red kale that had fallen on the floor and puts it back in the produce display. This was kale that had been kicked around and run over by a shopping cart.

This is why I'm too scared to shop and too scared to eat.

Japanese Style Korean BBQ

In Japan, Korean BBQ is called yakiniku. The meat is flavored for Japanese tastes, but the experience is pretty much the same: large platters of beef or pork grilled at the table. But I think things are changing. I just caught the end of a program that showed one Japanese restaurant serving individual portions of meat. Usually, at a Korean restaurant, you order a platter of a specific cut or part (marinated/unmarinated steak, ribs, tribe, etc.). So, unless you're with a large group, you only order one or two platters. But in Japan, people wanted to be able to order a piece at a time, like at a sushi restaurant, so they could eat a variety of meat. I've often wished that myself! This is such a great idea and hope Korean BBQ restaurants here in the US follow suit.