Kitchen Shears

Kitchen shears. Not a very romantic topic, but what in the kitchen is? Kitchen shears are pretty important though. I find it impossible to operate in the kitchen without them, especially in the age of over-packaging. A good pair of kitchen shears will cut through any plastic, no matter how tough, break cleanly through chicken bones, chop up herbs, cut raw bacon better than a knife, etc. On the other hand, a bad pair of kitchen shears will only enhance wrap rage. I had a bad pair; I used them for over ten years. When they finally came apart, I decided I wouldn't buy another pair until I'd done tons of research. Which is how I found my way to Shun Kitchen Shears. As sharp as any pair of shears I've ever had, and built to last, I now cannot live without them. It even comes with screwdriver blades, which I thought I would never use, but I actually did yesterday, tightening the screw on my cheap Ikea pot lid.

Nongshim Hearty Rice Noodle Soup

Nongshim runs some great ads. They always get me to buy their new instant noodle products. My latest try was their "hearty rice noodle soup" or duk bae kee noodle soup.  Nongshim tends to be hit-or-miss and this noodle was a bad miss.  The rice noodles take forever to cook, and if you follow their directions, the soup is just a gross mess.  But the ad is still great!

Basturma

By RosarioVanTulpe [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Today, for lunch, I finally tried a basturma sandwich. Basturma is an Armenian cured meat that reminded me a lot of Spanish cured hams, except that it's intensely flavored with spices like paprika, garlic, salt, and fenugreek. Doing some research, I found out that basturma is found all over what used to be the Ottoman Empire and can also be called pastirma. Apparently pastirma has the same etymological roots as pastrami but the two meats are worlds apart, since pastirmas are not cooked. Armenians make basturmas out of beef or lamb, but it can also be made from goat or camel.  I liked it, but a little goes a long way.

There's a great article about the basturma and what it means to Armenians by Nigol Bezjian. Just click here.

The Story Of Three Peppers

Every time a recipe calls for green bell peppers, I groan.  Because, these days, cultivated green bell peppers are pretty horrible:  rubbery, tasteless, old, and expensive.  Almost $3 a pound?  You've got to be kidding.  Most of the time, I just leave the peppers out.  But there are some recipes you really need a pepper for, like sloppy Joes.  So, what does a girl do?  How about replacing bell peppers with Anaheims or pasillas, my brain suggested as I browsed the produce section of an upscale chain supermarket with half-rotten vegetables.

The thing is, Anaheims and pasillas are almost half the price.  And they give really good flavor.  My only caveat is that if you use pasillas, make sure you fry them for at least ten minutes on low heat, because they're a bit tough.  Pasillas, which are actually poblanos, are usually roasted, so they need a bit more extra care if you're going to use them like bell peppers (apparently, US stores always mislabel fresh poblanos as pasillas).

Corn Pancakes á la Bindae Duk

One of my favorite things to eat is a type of pancake made with mung beans called bindae duk. But the problem with making this at home is that you need mung beans, which you have to soak for several hours and then grind. So I don't make it very often. But then one day, I was at a Korean restaurant in London and they served a kind of pancake made with cornmeal that was very much like bindae duk. I thought that was brilliant: a quick, easy way to make bindae duk using a very common ingredient. In addition, they'd added baking powder which made the pancakes fluffy and light. I really liked that. Of course, pancakes made with corn aren't the same as pancakes made with mung beans, but when you have a craving, they're awfully close, and so wonderfully hearty and delicious. Here's my version of it.

Corn Pancakes á la Bindae Duk

About a cup of very roughly ground cornmeal
About a 1/4 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 egg

Add water to the cornmeal, just enough to barely cover. Let soak for two to three hours. Add flour, salt, baking powder and egg. The batter should be fairly thick, but still runny, so if it's too thick, add more water. If too thin, add more flour.

Heat a skillet. Add oil. Wait until the skillet is fairly hot. Then fry up pancakes — the size is up to you.

There's also a dipping sauce, but it's fairly simple: soy sauce and vinegar, the proportion up to you.

Eating these pancakes with just the dipping sauce is pretty satisfying, but it's so much more fun if you add things like kimchee, green onions, bacon, etc to the pancakes. Just remember that you're going to have to fry up these ingredients beforehand, especially bacon. That's fairly easy. Just fry the ingredients in the skillet until they're mostly cooked and then scoop some batter right on top. Just be careful when you flip the pancakes over.

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.