Itadakimasu

Itadakimasu is the Japanese way of saying grace before a meal. A way of thanking everyone who contributed in the preparation of that food, from the people who grew the food to the people who made the meal. I've long thought before every meal we should take the time to remember and acknowledge where and how our food comes to us. To thank the plants and animals for giving their life to sustain ours. It seems to me in thanking just a god, you lose our immediate connection to the physical world around us. In a world of cubicles and boxes, where physical contact is more accidental and brutal than kind or purposeful, it seems more important than ever to remember our interdependence, that it can be a beautiful thing. Itadakimasu is a nice, simple way of saying all that.

Cooking Without Money

I was delighted to find out that there's an Italian dish called "potatoes with escaped lamb" (patati con agnello scappato). The dish contains no lamb, thus the "escaped lamb"! I got all this in Amanda Hesser's NYT article "1971: Mrs. Sebastiani's Malfatti". "Mrs. Sebastiani's" features an Italian peasant dish made with bread, spinach and Parmesan. Hesser explains, "It’s a more direct descendent of the cucina povera from which the dish originates, when cooks would make a meal of bread and what few ingredients they had."

Hesser's article reminded me that I wanted to blog about cooking on the cheap. At the moment, there's a real worry about "recession obesity", the fear that with less money available for fresh fruits and vegetables, people will eat a diet of Spam and empty carbs, thus becoming even more obese than they already are. The thing is, in many parts of the world, the poor eat nutritionally, and oftentimes, well. It's just that in the US and Britain, people have forgotten how to cook well on a budget (they also don't know how to cook). And they've forgotten about cheap vegetables like kale, cheap cuts of meat like pork legs, and complex carbs like beans. I frequently advise people to buy a good Italian cook book because so many of Italy's great dishes are based on cucina povera. I don't know of any cuisine that makes beans taste so good. And the recipes are so simple that you don't really need to know anything more than how to boil water. And if you can't get filled up on pasta e fagioli (pasta and bean soup), you need to see a doctor.

For a simple pasta e fagioli recipe, click here. The recipe is from Epicurious and directed at Americans so all the ingredients are easy to find.

One last thing, most Italian recipes will call for expensive Parmesan (and don't use the thing in the can because that is not Parmesan). I can't afford Parmesan. So I'll buy a small piece of Pecorino or Piave. Also, for cooking, most Italians use the cheaper Grana Padano, saving Parmesan for grating on top of dishes right before serving. I've heard that Grana is creamier and that's why it's preferred for cooking.

Squirrel Cuisine

We have a lot of nasty tempered squirrels around the house and I'm always kidding my husband by saying that he should go out and shoot a bunch for dinner.* Well, I guess I wasn't the only one thinking this because now there's a whole industry in Britain revolving around wild squirrel meat. Yes, nouveau squirrel cuisine has arrived.

I think I should begin with a little history lesson. This one is called The Battle of the Red and the Grey. Once upon a time in Merry Old England, the cute little Red Squirrels lived very happily in the cozy countryside, nibbling nuts and playing alongside the Hobbits and the elves. And then one dark day, an evil armada of North American Grey Squirrels arrived, devastating the landscape. The invading squirrels were big and nasty; the invasion was swift. Poor little Red Squirrels.

But all was not lost. Hearing the cries of the little Red Squirrels, the Gamekeepers of the Nation rose and began shooting the hell out of the nasty Grey Squirrels. Now, Gamekeepers are a thrifty lot. They don't like anything to go to waste. So what did they do with the piles of dead Grey Squirrels? Why sold them to pubs for the public to eat, of course! Well, imagine their surprise when fancy chefs (and even TV chefs) started buying the squirrels by the wheelbarrel full. And they're getting creative. One hotel restaurant is turning the nasties into mock Peking duck.

So how do nasty Grey Squirrels taste? According to an article in today's NYT's Dining & Wine section, it all depends on what the nasties have been eating. If you order squirrel pie, hope your dead squirrel lived on nummy nuts. Apparently, the NYT couldn't get enough of the story, going into a depth rarely explored in that publication.

If you'd like to cook a squirrel, the Guardian website has a squirrel pastie recipe (pasties are basically Welsh empanadas).


*For details, click here.

What I Just Cooked: Beans and Swiss Chard

I saw this basic beans and Swiss chard recipe on a Lidia Bastianich show. All I needed to do was blanch some chard in unsalted water, which I did. Then I drained the chard and chopped it up after letting it cool. The rest was even easier. In a large frying pan, I threw in sliced red onions, garlic, tomato paste, cooked white beans, and crushed canned tomatoes and sauteed the whole lot in some hot olive oil.* What I found really interesting was that you fried the tomato paste before adding the canned tomatoes. As the beans started to coat in the paste, I got the idea to throw in a small amount of dark brown sugar — something about the coating beans made me think of Boston baked beans. I really regretted not having any bacon to throw in. At last, the Swiss chard was added and the dish was finished. Lidia suggested using this as a side dish to meat but I just ate it as the main.

So how did it turn out? I think I'll give this concoction a B.

*In Lidia's version, she added red peppers instead of the red onions.

What I Just Cooked: Leek And Potato Soup

Leek and potato soup. This is such a simple soup to make. All you really need is water, a potato, and 1 - 3 leeks, depending on the size of the leeks. To make it richer, you can add the optional ingredients of milk or half-and-half or cream (depending on how rich you want to make it) and maybe some nice cheese (I like provolone but pecorino is nice too). To make the soup, you just need to peel and wash the potato, cut it into smallish cubes and put it into a medium pot. Add water just to cover. Bring water to boil, then reduce the heat to simmer. Add about a tablespoon of salt (or less to suit your taste or dietary requirements) and a sprinkling of pepper. Cook for about fifteen minutes. In the meanwhile clean the leeks. This is the only really tough part because leeks are a pain.

The way I clean leeks is this: first trim the leeks and get rid of all the tough green parts (the yellow and yellow-ish green parts are still good for soup); after trimming, take a large knife and cut the leek in half, beginning from just below the root (you want to keep the root attached because this will make it easier to clean); now clean the leek under running water, making sure to check between all the layers of the leek. But another way of cleaning leeks is this: cut off the root end; cut the leek in half; slice the leek the way you would slice an onion; put the cut-up leeks into a bowl; put water into the bowl; swish around and get the leeks clean; drain the leeks into a colander; rinse again with water; let drain.

If you cleaned the leeks my way, slice up the leeks. If you cleaned the leeks the other way, you're ahead of the game. By this time, the potatoes which have been simmering should be ready. Add the leeks and cook for another five minutes. Then, using either a blender or a food processor, blend the soup until it's nice and smooth. At this point, you can add the optional ingredients, the milk or the cheese or both. And serve.

Today I served the soup with little rectangles of toasted sour dough bread.

How did it turn out? I'd give it an A. It's a very filling soup. I used cream and cheese, with a garnish of sour cream. For a really cold day like today, boy, did I need the cream!

Cooking Korean Food with Maangchi

My husband found Maangchi's Korean cooking videos on YouTube. I liked them so much I went to her site and found a wealth of no-nonsense information on home-style Korean cooking. Even if you've never tasted Korean food, her recipes and instructions will have you making Korean food like an old Korean grannie. The fun and instructive videos are what really makes the site special. And what makes the videos special is Maangchi's sweet and out-going personality.

Here's Maangchi making tang su yuk, which is sweet and sour pork remastered to suit Korean palates. It's basically a Chinese dish which you'll usually find in Chinese restaurants catering specifically to Koreans, as well as in some Korean restaurants. I'm classifying it as sweet and sour pork but tang su yuk is usually made with beef, although more and more restaurants are now letting you choose either beef or pork. Personally, it's not a dish I like making at home. It's a lot of work and you have to really love deep-frying. And I don't. I've had most of my worst accidents deep-frying*. It's also one of those dishes that will almost always taste better at a good restaurant. There's something to be said about cooking a dish over and over again, night after night. Like practicing the scales on the piano.






*If you cook on a regular basis, you will not be able to avoid burning yourself. That's why I always have a tube of organic aloe vera handy, one with a very high concentrate of pure aloe vera. I've had extremely severe burns heal before my eyes using aloe vera. The trick is to slather it on thick and often. The gel becomes like a second skin, healing and protecting.

What I Just Cooked: Schweinshaxen

Schweinshaxen. I bought a small piece of pork leg, mainly because it was so cheap. Usually I steam-roast it, smearing it in fresh ginger and garlic. But I decided to go German this time. In a roasting pan (which at the moment is my old Cuisinart skillet), I made a bed of leeks, mainly using the tough green parts that aren't good for anything but flavoring soups. There, on the bed of verdant green, I gently rested my pork leg. This one had a nice layer of skin. In order for the flavors to seep in, I slashed the skin in several places. Then I gave the pork a rub down of coarse salt and pepper and garlic. It was now ready to go into the oven, which I turned up to 450 degrees. I also put a layer of foil over the roast to let it steam a little. After fifteen minutes, I turned the oven down to 300 degrees and removed the foil. I also poured some Paulaner Salvator beer over the top. From then on, every thirty minutes, I continued to shower the pork with Salvator. This is why I'm calling this Schweinshaxen. The overall cooking time was about five hours.

How did it turn out? I'd give my faux Schweinshaxen an A. Because the next day, the leftover pork had the most amazing aroma of beer. I love boozy meat. Absolutely amazing to eat cold!