Uwajimaya is a fantastic, Japanese-focused superstore located at the mouth of Beaverton, just east of the 217 on Beaverton-Hillsdale highway.

Like many places in Beaverton, they have a parking lot.

A bookstore features a wide selection of manga, thus ensuring that at some point you will encounter a skinny white guy with a goatee. Or a perv exploring the possibility of satisfying his J-Girl, Lolita fetish.

Uwajimaya features a bunch of Japanese electronic cooking appliances that no doubtedy showcase advanced, fuzzy logical capabilities. Factoring in Moore’s Law, combined with Kurzweil’s prediction of Singularity, soon these rice cookers will subjugate humans to make rice for them.

Lots of twee kitchen gadgets are here to sate your predilections for mindless consumerism.

A wonderful, colorful selection of instant ramen beckons you. The usual Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, Taiwanese, Thai, Malaysian, Singaporan, Laotion suspects.

And an unrivaled selection of instant bowl noodles, including a few Japanese import brands that—at as much as $4+ for a single serving—are a bit rich for my MSG-laden blood.

This Korean permutation was created by a person who obviously has never seen Soylent Green (R.I.P Charleston Heston - “…cold dead hands”? You made good on your promise).

Fresh (non-fried) ramen is also well represented here. I eat these often.

Uwajimaya has your prepared Asian sauce fix. It’s a bit more pricey than other Asian markets in town, but the selection is superlative and the shelving aesthetics are worth at least 10-20 cents.

One thing no other Asian market in Portland can touch is the selection and quality of Uwajimaya’s produce. In this photo alone you’re looking at pea shoots, Japanese eggplants, bitter melons, lemongrass, long beans, turnips, assorted exotic greens, etc. They selection of choys is only rivaled by Fubonn.

Buddha’s hands. If you stare too long, you might have an acid flashback.

In the fridgerated aisles, you’ll find an excellent variety pickled vegetables, including cucumbers WITH MSG, kimchis, menma, radishes, and assorted mountain roots.

The deli features many pre-made Asian/Hawaiian specialties, available in combo and plate form.

You’ll also find grilled and lacquered meats and seafood, ready for you to take home to construct your own donburri.

The meat section features Carlton Farms pork, and many thin, pre-sliced cuts in case you want to bust out a shabu shabu or Korean BBQ party at your own home.

Live seafood waiting to be mercilessly slaughtered is availble in case you wish to indulge your macabre fetish.

The fish counter. What more can you say? Impeccably fresh, with a nice variety. That’s 3 types of pokes you’ll see there, including a spicy tako (octopus) salad, and a delicious wakame seafood salad.

Blocks of pre-cut, sashimi-grade protein is available for carry-out.

Including sashimi-ready portions chiseled for immediate consumption.

Here are the pokes in case you didn’t believe me earlier, you fucking bastard.

This is a typical take for me when I leave Uwajimaya. Notice the European beer. They feature a few key German, Belgian, and Baltic brands on top of the Asahi Extra Drys and Kirin. They even have the 375ml versions of Unibroue’s La Fin du Monde and Maudite, which I haven’t seen elsewhere, and the 750ml Don de Dieu which is a beer that makes me happy and stuff.

Connected to Uwajimaya’s hip is the wonderful Hakatamon. This is the subject of a future post.

Most of the time, I just grab a pair of chopsticks from the deli register and eat the tako in the parking loft.

Back at home, I like to generously sprinkle poke with togarashi and eat it.

Same with the chuka wakame salad (I’m still trying to figure how to make this stuff).

Hmm, this also gives me an idea.

I’ve got some of this…

…and some Japanese cucumber.

Uwajimaya Salad

• 3.2 ounces (or $2.40 worth) Albacore tataki
• 1/3 pound (or $2.64 worth) hiyasi wakama chuka salad
• 1/2 japanese cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced wafer thin
• One, singular green onion “pole”, minced
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons tamari
• Ground white pepper

Combine.

Uwajimaya

10500 SW Beaverton Hillsdale
Beaverton, OR 97005
(503) 643-4512
Directions

Thursday, April 17th | 6 comments

This is a wonderful recipe that takes me back to my childhood. My father would make this dish for special occasions, such as Arbor Day, or, interestingly enough, on Nooruz, which is the Kyrgyzstan celebration of New Year that is actually commemorated in the spring. Despite the fact that he had never visited Kyrgyzstan, or had any ties whatsoever—ethnic or platonic—to this landlocked Central Asian country, my father fashioned himself as quite the Krygyz-ophile.

He once even went so far as to befriend a traveling group of Uyghur circus performers, who sponsored his admittance into their homeland in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China with the intention of leading him on a cross-border incursion into greater Kyrgyzstan (this was at the height of the Cold War). Unfortunately, while navigating the highland border crossing, a mule ate some of the psychedelic peyote buttons smuggled back by one of the Uyghur guides (scored during a night of reveling in Bisbee, AZ) and ended up killing half the expedition in a mad rampage.

My father’s life was spared when, in a fit of desperation, he frantically grasped at and accidentally—in a mad flailing—impaled the crazed beast with the dagger end of a kefta kebab skewer. The trip was cut short as the surviving members returned to base camp in order to properly lionize my father with song and fermented yak spittle. Then the Chinese Red Communists came in and imprisoned my father against his will, details of which I will not go into as they were documented in the 1997 movie Red Corner (starring Richard Gere), which is based loosely on my father’s travails.

Nooruz Dumplings (or Arbor Day Stew, or National Heroes’ Day Fricassée, or Administrative Professional’s Day Ragoût)

1. Construct a lanyard from girded twine reinforced with titanium filaments.
2. To this attach a bulb of elephant garlic using ordinary helicopter cabling hooks, and loop around your neck.
3. Extract exactly 43 seeds from a dozen (or so) preserved Moroccan lemons.
4. Using a vernier micrometer (in a pinch, a digital caliper will suffice), extract the top .002 millimetre sheath from each seed using your best carbide-based honing stone. Bless with elephant garlic by waving the lanyard exactly 2 cm above in exactly 7 counter-clockwise concentric circles (progressively diminishing in size, you may choose to honor the Golden Ratio…your call). Set aside.
5. Meanwhile, in a large stockpot, pour 2573 milliliters of witchhazel stock over one free-range ham hock and the hoof of a middle-aged albino alpaca, and bring to a rapid boil.
6. Add 2 tablespoons of tincture of wort (recipe to follow), stir, and lower to a low simmer.
7. Bless the stock with garlic lanyard, this time maintaining a 5 cm seperation cushion, doubling the number of concentric circles (again, the Golden Ratio comes highly recommended), but this time use clockwise rotations, except on the very last (14th) rotation.
8. Light an incense.
9. In a non-stick 12-inch sautee pan, bring 2 tablespoons non-GMO rapeseed oil to smoking point over high temperature. Sear 8 ounces of lean, cubed Virginia Oppossum tenderloin (that has been sprinkled with Tamil peppercorns and Gibraltan sea salt) for 1 minute. Then take the garlic lanyard, smash against your forehead with a force strong enough to maim a small child, and then add to pan with lemon seed shavings and one gingko nut. Stir-fry until the papery garlic skins become translucent.
10. Hermetically seal these ingredients with your favorite brand of high barrier plastic, and place inside a thermal immersion circulator and allow to cook sous vide at exactly 185 degrees Farenheight for a fortnight.
11. When the meat has been cooked, plate in a shallow dish, top with a ladle of stock, and garnish with a dollop of wort tincture (recipe to follow).

Tincture of wort

• 3 kilos assorted wort, including but not exlusive to Adderwort (aka Snakeweed), Blue Navelwort, Bullock’s or Cow’s Lungwort, Golden Ragwort, Laserwort, Mallowwort, or Sea Milkwort. However, I would advise against using Hemlock Dropwort, which imparts a slight bitterness that is not very pleasing to the palate.
• 1123 milliliters of common bog liquid
• 5346 milliliters desalinized North Sea water
• One nutmeg berry
• One tablespoon Brewer’s yeast

Bring all the ingredients to a boil in a pressure cooker, and cook for one hour. Decant the liquid using Spanish Moss as the filtering medium, then wash the residue, puree, and set aside. Reduce the liquid by 1/2, add 1/2 teaspoon of agar agar, pureed residue, and 1/8 a thimble of sodium sulphate. Stir well and salt to taste. Mixture with thicken as it stands.

Tuesday, April 1st | 2 comments

Now that I’ve made basic noodle stock and char sui pork, here’s one of my favorite soups to enjoy in the comfort of my own home. It enjoy it as a great weekend breakfast.

Soy Sauce Eggs

• 6 eggs
• 3/4 cup soy sauce
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons rice wine or chinese black vinegar
• Few dashes chili oil
• Any “tincture” you want (garlic, ginger, five spice — you’re the boss)

Boil eggs for 5 minutes. Carefully drain and shock in cold water/ice. Carefully peel.

Place eggs into shallow saucepan with the rest of the ingredients. Slowly bring to a steaming bath. Allow to steep over low temp for 30 minutes or more, flipping eggs often. Remove eggs from liquid and allow to cool.

Here’s the finished product.

These are wonton noodles. You can find them at most Asian markets for under $2/pound of fresh noodles.

Soup vegetation suggestions

Bok choy and other choy-type cabbages
Spinach
Mushrooms, shitake and otherwise
Bean sprouts
Celery greens/leaves

Garnishes

Soy sauce eggs
Char sui pork, sliced
Onion, sliced paper thin
Green onions
Cilantro
Chili oil/paste

Assemble

Bring 1 1/2 cups of basic noodle stock up to a boil. In another pan, bring enough water to temp to boil 1/4 to 1/3 pound of fresh wonton noodles.

Simultaneous add the vegetables to the boiling stock and noodles to the boiling water. Stir accordingly for 90 seconds. Kill heats.

Strain noodles, and immediatly place into large soup bowl. Throw in your garnishes, and pour over broth and veggies.

As a final touch, grind fresh black and white pepper.

Wednesday, March 19th | 1 comment

I’ve described my process for making unnaturally red char sui bbq pork. Here’s what you can do with it. Make a sandwich.

I’ve made bánh mì on this blog a couple times in the past. Here’s a bbq pork bánh mì, with the requisite radish and carrot garnish, that, incidentally, if you leave to marinate on the counter at room tempurature for more than a few hours it will then smell like crusty taint seeped in an ass perfume.

Ass Salad

• Equal parts daikon radish and carrots (julienned, roughly—I prefer flatter pieces)
• Rice vinegar and sugar (1 tablespoon sugar for every 1/2 cup of rice vinegar)

Combine and mix thoroughly. Allow to assify at room temp for an hour or two and then stick in the fridge.

Garnish

For me, I need cilantro, jalapenos (preferably sliced length-wise), cucumber (essential), pickles, and Maggi.

I also usually prefer to sub in a conventional french roll from a local bakery, as opposed to a Viet/French bakery, whose crust I feel aren’t substantial enough to agnonizely pierce the top of my mouth. Label it gastronomic S&M, if you will.

Slice up your char sui pork. Assemble the sandwich. I like to lightly toast the bread.

A fully dressed sandwich. One of those rare moments in life where you think maybe all of it is really worth it.

Saturday, March 15th | 1 comment

This is a standard soup broth, primarily used as a base for Asian soup meals, that I like to keep on hand. It is multi-purpose.

• A bunch of pork neck bones (i.e over a pound)
• A whole chicken, or bunch of chicken bones (equivalent to a whole chicken)

You can find pork bones for soup at any Vietnamese store.

Chicken suggestion: If you’re using a whole chicken, I suggest you “poach” the bird under a low flame for 45 minutes, then remove, allow to cool. Then, strip the meat from the carcass, setting it aside, and return the bones and skin and backbone and wing tips etc. to the pot with the pork bones and bring the liquid back to a boil over high heat then lower to low simmer.

Chicken suggestion #2: There’s a Vietnamese store on 65th/Sandy called Thanh Thao market. They come highly recommended. In the meat freezer, you’ll find small, bony birds labeled as “stewing chickens”. They will look like emaciated carcasses. I’m not sure if these unfortunate chickens were way into themselves and hard drugs and eating disorders, but they look the part. In fact, these stewing chickens do not look unlike Nicole Richie. You can use this things for stock.

Add to the stock pot (already filled with your carcass components) the following in any combination/entirety:

• Large knob of rinsed ginger
• 3-4 large carrots (i’m a lazy ass who always has peeled baby carrots on hand–1/2 package)
• 1 large onion
• 3-4 stalks celery
• 3-4 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon white peppercorns
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
• the stems of an entire bunch of cilantro

Bring to a boil. Reduce to the lowest possible heat setting and simmer for 12 hours.

Strain. Maybe even twice (especially if you’re OCD). Store, freeze, and use as needed.

Friday, February 29th | 1 comment

Here’s a secret.

I use the packet.

Yep.

The ingredients list of a representative packet, which you can pick up at any Asian store for anywhere from $.69 to $1.19. Reputable brands include Noh and Mama Sita. What’s not to like? Anti-caking agent…yum.

Here’s the deal. This marinade is pretty standard, and you can forego the packet, but I eat with my eyes. I need the red. I get off on the red. Eating something red really indulges a fetish I can’t fully explain.

And if that means I eat a bit of food coloring, I’m ok with that. Isn’t this molecular gastronomy? And it is “natural”. It’s a derivation of anatto/achiote. And probably cochineal beetle.

Char Sui Pork

• 2 pounds pork of various sort, preferably a fatty cut like country style ribs (if I’m using something like a pork shoulder, I like to trim fat and tie it back up with butcher twine )
• 1/2 packet commercial char sui seasoning. I prefer Noh brand, which is plenty RED
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons rice wine
• Couple squirts chili oil (more RED!) or sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder

Combine all ingredients except for the meat, and mix well to create a nice slurry, sludgey liquid. Pour over meat and use your hands to really get the marinade in there. The meat should be red. If it’s not sufficiently red enough, I would add more of the char sui seasoning or perhaps slit your jugular and allow the contents to spill all over the pork.

Allow to marinade for at leat 4 hours, more if you are like me and like flavor.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the pork on a sheet pan or wire rack, reserving marinade, and roast for 20-25 minutes. “Lacquer” marinade with a brush every 10 minutes, three times (an additional 30 minutes or so).

Remove, allow to cool, and slice up.

This marinade is equally delicious with spare ribs. The marinade is equivalent to the brining that I usually do when I cook ribs, though I would tent the ribs with foil in a 250 degree oven and steam/roast/bake for 90 minutes before finishing off/lacquering on an open flame grill.

Often, at Asian markets you can find individually sliced ribs for the purpose of making individual, cha sui ribs. Here’s those ribs marinating with a loin or two. Acknowledge the red.

And the pork all cooked up.

Now that you have a lot of char sui pork on hand, you can use it in stir fries, banh mi sandwiches, salad rolls, and, my favorite…

…as a topping for noodle soups.

Thursday, February 28th | 1 comment

This is essentially a red chili stew that can be made with either pork or beef. The key here is low and slow, and long, which allows the collagen of the meat to break down and become fall-apart tender. My adaptation here is fairly spicy; you might want to tone it down if you’re trying this at home.

The can of commercially made chili sauce may sound like an unnecessary shortcut to you. That’s your right. You’re entitled to your opinion. I just like the way it sort of “rounds” things off. You could omit and increase the liquid and dried/powdered chili if you feel like riding that high horse.

Carne Guisado

• 3 pounds beef shank, beef chuck, or pork shoulder, trimmed of excess fat (probably around 2 1/2 pounds), cut into one inch pieces
• Flour
• Vegetable oil
• 1 28 oz can Mexican brand red chili sauce (such as Las Palmas)
• 1 1/2 cups beef broth
• 4 dried guajillo chilies, stem and seeds removed
• 1 onion, chopped
• 7 cloves garlic, forced through garlic press
• 1/2 teaspoon pasilla chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon chile de arbol powder
• 1/2 teaspoon new mexico chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 dried habanero peppers, stemmed
• 1/4 bunch of cilantro, torn

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Put guajillo chilies in a small saucepan and cover with 1 cup of beef broth. Simmer on low for 20 minutes. Remove chilies to cool.

Split the chilies, and using the back of your knife, scrape the flesh from the inside of chili. Discard the skin.

Put meat pieces into a large mixing bowl and dust with flour, and mix to coat lightly. Heat vegetable oil in cast iron dutch oven, and brown beef.

Add the the rest of the ingredients, stir to mix, and bring to a rapid simmer.

Cover and transfer to oven. Wait 2.5 hours, remove cover, stir, and return to the oven for another hour. Make sure you don’t eat those habaneros.

There are a couple ways I like to consume this. One way, as you can see in the first photo in this post, is with a mildly seasoned rice.

Rice

• 1 cup long grain white rice
• 1 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 white onion
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon or so vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon anatto seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Put oil in small saucepan, add anatto seeds, and allow the seeds to perfume/color the oil over low heat for ten minutes. Drain oil into large saucepan and throw away the seeds.

Heat oil over medium heat, add onion and sweat. Add rice, garlic, spices, and saute for a couple minutes. Pour over broth, stir, cover, and simmer over low for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to sit for half an hour. Remove cover and fluff rice.

Another option I enjoy is shredding the meat with a fork.

And enjoying it in taco format with your favorite table salsas and chopped onion/cilantro.

Or the next morning fry up a couple corn tortillas and an egg. Put the egg on top of the tortilla, top with shredded stew meat, add a few spoonfuls of the sauce, top with queso fresco, and put under the broiler for 30 seconds. Top with chopped onion/cilantro and a squirt of hot salsa.

Tuesday, January 1st | 6 comments

I like the New Seasons butcher counter. It’s a shame, as my entire life in Portland, I lived biking distance to a New Seasons (Sellwood, then Concordia, then Arbor Lodge), but now that I live in Southwest there’s no longer a New Season super close-by. However, there is a Fantasy Video Adult Superstore.

I digress. New Seasons has a variety of ground meats and sausages of various derivations, sold by the pound, ground and prepared on the premises. They have a nice selection of ground chicken, including an excellent spicy Italian sausage. After seeing Je Mange La Ville’s take on Italian Wedding Soup, I decided to give it a shot using New Seasons spicy chicken sausage, rolled into meatball form, which added a nice undulating heat to the soup. And instead of a small Italian pasta, I used orzo, which is more associated with Greek cuisine. And I didn’t add the egg, which to me would remind me too much of egg drop soup. I also added other stuff. So think of this as…

Italian Divorce Soup (with a Pre-Nup)

• 3 quarts homemade chicken broth
• 1 pound ground, hot italian chicken sausage
• One tablespoon butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 stalks of celery, leaves and ends trimmed, split lengthwise then sliced 1/4″ thick
• 3 or 4 decent sized carrots, peeled, sliced into coins
• 8 oz. sliced button mushroom
• Entire bunch of green kale or chard, chopped
• 1 garlic cloved, minced
• 3 sprigs of thyme
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning or marjoram
• 3 bay leaves
• 4 ounces dried orzo
• Salt and pepper

Roll those meatballs.

Melt butter in large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions, carrots, and celery, season with dried herbs and some salt and pepper. Sweat vegetables for a couple minutes. Raise heat to high, add white wine, and stir for a minute or two.

Add garlic, mushrooms, kale, and pour chicken broth over everything, and bring to a boil. Add meatballs, lower heat to low, and simmer for ten minutes. Add orzo, and continue to simmer for 20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to your tastes. I find soups much more pleasurable allow it to sit and “steep” for a while before eating. Your results may vary.

Enjoy it on a cold, rainy day, of which we have many in Portland. If you live in some place that’s perpetually sunny and warm, you can still enjoy a hot bowl of soup before your environment becomes inhabitable and your society eventually erodes.

Saturday, December 1st | 5 comments

Now that the NFL is entering crunch time, college football is about to sharpen its muddled bowl picture, and Tom Brady is busy girding his loins to inseminate another supermodel or actress, it’s definitely wing season. And it’s about time to bust out an alt-wing recipe to mix things up a bit. Think of this recipe as the Devin Hester of wings — explosive, and even though you kinda expect what’s coming, you can never really prepare for it and you’re caught flat-footed when it arrives. That is probably the lamest thing I have ever written.

This is a simple recipe for some delicious wings. There are only five ingredients, but one of the most important ingredients isn’t even an ingredient at all—it’s actually the grilling. It’s essential to grill these wings outdoors over a charcoal flame. It really rounds out the flavor. If you decide not to grill over a charcoal flame, I will assume no liability.

Here are the ingredients. There’s a Loation store on North Killingsworth that sells frozen lemongrass that’s finely minced. It’s a real timesaver, as lemongrass freezes real well. Also, whenever my Mom visits, she insists on buying a couple heads of lemongrass and mincing them with steady knifework, and packages it up for freezing, so it always seems I have ready-to-use lemongrass on hand. Just make sure you get as fine, fine, fine as possible. You’ll also see here that I’m using my own pickled bird chilies. Use fresh ones, or make your own pickles…or freeze them, as they also freeze well. I find it impossilbe to use an entire package of bird chilies that I buy at the store before they go bad (and they are difficult to find loose by the pound), which is why I often freeze or pickle half of them immediately.

Grilled Fish Sauce Wings

• 2 dozen wings
• 4 or 5 tablespoons finely minced lemongrass
• 9 or 10 thai bird chilies, finely minced
• 6 cloves of garlic, forced through a garlic press
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 6 tablespoons fish sauce

Mix everything together, and set aside to marinade at least 2-3 hours, longer if, like me, you like tasting stuff with more taste.

Grill them up. I’m not going to tell you how to grill. If you don’t know how to grill, just give up already and get a MySpace page or something.

Now root for Matt Shaub and the Houston Texans this Sunday because I used my two of my top 3 picks for LaDanian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates and those fuckers don’t seem to score at the same time this season. The third pick was Mark Bulger and he’s decided to be a total pussy this year.

Thursday, November 29th | 3 comments

Caramel Sauce

• 2 or 3 tablespoons palm sugar
• 2 tablespoons or so water

Make caramel sauce by melting palm sugar in small saucepan (preferably stainless steel). Add water and stir until consistency is reached.

Chicken

Get an entire chicken and cleaver it into logical small pieces, “breaking” the bones of the main cuts.

Other Ingredients

• 1 knob (3 inches) of ginger
• 3 or 4 garlic cloves
• 4 or 5 small bird (thai) chilies
• Black pepper
• 1/2 white onion, slivered
• 2 or more tablespoons of fish sauce
• Water
• Salt if you want
• Half a package of green onions, chopped

Peel the large knob of ginger. Cut it into very thin “sheets”. Cut half of the sheets into fine julienne, and set aside. Combine the remaining ginger in mortar with garlic and chilies. Pound.

In a dutch oven or large sautee pan, add just a touch of peanut oil, and pounded aromatics, slivered ginger, sautee for a minute or so, then follow with the chicken pieces. Stir fry for a few minutes until the chicken is lightly browned.

Add caramel sauce, fish sauce, onions, and enough water to cover the chicken pieces. Stir and bring to a boil, then reduce to very low simmer, stir, and hit with black pepper. Partially cover and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

Turn off heat. Garnish with chopped green onions and let sit for half an hour. You may need to salt/add more fish sauce at this point to your preference. Serve with steamed jasmine rice.

Saturday, November 3rd | 1 comment

It’s National Meatloaf Appreciation Day. All the cool kids are doing cool things, conjuring up loafed meat dishes worthy of praise, like Michelle @Je Mange la Ville, who is doing things with her usual aplomb.

Me, I got nothing. I was dreaming up a layered meatloaf with alternating layers of ground pork and veal with whole cloves of roasted garlic, wild mushroom duxelle, topped with a tomato jam, but I’m moving to a new house and have spent the last 4 weeks up to my butthole in paint and bleach and hammers and kitchen shelf liner.

So I’m trotting out out an old post. Consider it made from “recycled post-consumer and post-industrial waste”. This is for kefta kabobs, which is a form of loafed meat, in this case around a metal skewer.

Happy National Meatloaf Appreciation Day. Now appreciate the fuck out this tired, recycled post, bitches.

I like kebabs. I particularly enjoy the Kefta kebab, which is ground meat formed around a skewer in kebab-like fashion. I like saying the word kefta. It’s one of those words, like película and Kofi Annan, that you never grow tired of saying. I remember when Congress a couple years ago was debating the merits of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, I secretly wished the debate would draw out into a longer, more contentious debate than it had at the time, just because I enjoyed all the talking heads uttering the acronym “CAFTA” (which was close enough for me). Each time I watched the news I’d get hungry.

You can make this with beef or beef and lamb as well. New Seasons sells ground lamb, though keep in mind it is very fatty and will imbue quite a gamy scent into the atmosphere for some time. My wife was all bothered and stuff, but the deliciousness factor made her harangues worth it.

Kefta Kebab

• 1 and one-half pounds ground beef or lamb (or both!)
• 1 bunch chopped fresh Italian parsley, reserve a couple tablespoons (to cook with rice)
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 3 or 4 garlic cloves, forced through a press
• 1 white onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Ground pepper
• Salt to your taste

Combine everything in a large mixing bowl and mix together with your hands. I like to use long, flat broad metal skewers — mold the meat around the length of the skewer and pat to form an elongated, rectangular patty.

Heat a grill pan over medium-high and brown skewers on each of the 4 ends, 2 minutes or so each side. Remove and let sit for a few minutes.

You can eat this skewers by themselves. But c’mon, man, don’t be such freak.

Rice Pilaf

• Olive oil or butter (2 tablespoons)
• 2 cups basmati rice
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 chopped tomato
• Pinch of saffron
• Salt

Preheat oven to 325 F. Rinse and soak rice in water for half hour. Drain. Heat oil or butter in a medium saucepan (with a tight fitting lid) over medium heat. Add onions and sweat for a couple minutes, then add garlic, rice and saffron and sautee for a couple minutes. Add tomatoes, salt, and broth. Bring to boil, cover, and place in oven for 20 minutes. Allow the rice to sit on stovetop for 10 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

Sumac Onions

• 1 white onion, halved and sliced
• Ground sumac
• Olive oil

Sautee onions in oil. Hit with sumac when they start to caramelize, and serve over kebabs.

I like to squeeze lemon over the kebab, onions, and rice.

Thursday, October 18th | 4 comments

Larry Craig, God bless him, is not only a wide stance restroom stall pioneer, but also an aspiring gourmand.

Super Tuber is a great snack that uses one of my favorite vegetables: The Idaho Potato. Of course, I suppose any type of potato could be used, but I cannot guarantee that a Super Tuber made with anything but a true Idaho potato would taste as good. Sincerely, Larry E. Craig, United States Senator

Super Tuber

• 1 hot dog, cook’s choice
• 1 Idaho baking potato, 7 to 10 ounces
• Mustard for dipping, any style
• Other condiments as desired such as cheese sauce, sour cream, chili, chives, bacon pieces or black olives.

Wash and dry potato. Rub with shortening or butter. With an apple corer or small knife, core out the potato center (end to end). Push hot dog through the center. Bake until potato is cooked through.

The emphasis and strongly bolded instructions above are entirely the work of this blog’s editor.

Sometimes life really is so very awesome that it really does make you wonder if there’s an excellent plan devised by Yahweh or Jesus or Vishnu or Odin or the pagan gods or something.

Friday, October 12th | 3 comments

This is a classic Vietnamese seafood soup with a flavorful stock that draws flavor from a crab (or shrimp) paste “whip”, tomatoes and — like nearly all southeast Asian soups — fresh and distinctly aromatic herb garnishes.

The genesis for this version of Bún Riêu was the leftover carcass of a Diestel turkey. Pork pork neck bones were added as the stock starter, in addition to a combination of seafood-ish elements. Traditionally, if you are going full out, you’d get a whole crab and use that as your stock starter.

A big flavor component in this particular Bún Riêu was imparted by a couple dried seafood ingredients. Dried shrimp and dried scallops are added when simmering and removing the stock, adding a wonderful complexity. Dried shrimp are an easy score - most Asian (and all Vietnamse/Thai) markets will have them, and on the cheap, too. The dried scallops are another issue. They can be spendy, but they’re big on flavor, so a little goes a long way.

Here’s a commercially available crab paste which can be used for the protein “whip”. This brand is Taste Nirvana.

A Thai brand.

One thing I appreciate about Taste Nirvana is the seal on their label boasting of being 100% Real. When I cook, it’s important to me that the ingredients I use actually exist.

I’ve used shrimp sauce as well. A note on shrimp sauce: Shrimp sauce can come in a variety of forms. Lee Kum Kee makes a version that looks like a sludgy concrete slurry that’s probably best used to pave parking lot structures. Stay away from it. The kind you want is pinkly hued with a fair amount of crimson oil.

This version, in particular, had the word “Bún Riêu” right there on the label. Amazing, the serendipity. Don’t use the concentrated Thai variety (which is a very thick, dark red paste), Malaysian, or the Filipino versions.

A note on garnishes: I’ve added freshly poached shrimp and scored filets of squid, in addition to sliced raw onion and green onions. Fresh herbs really are essential to Bún Riêu - cilantro and the mint are vital, IMO. Spearmint, saw leaf herb, thai basil, in addition to more exotic herbs like fish mint and Vietnamese coriander (rau rahm) — it’s all good. Bean sprouts are essential, as is a squeeze of citrus (I prefer lemon with my Bún Riêu). Other garnishes could be a pinch of chiffonade of lettuce and banana blossoms.

Bún Riêu

Preparing the Broth

• Pre-made pork bone or chicken broth or both. Obviously a lot…a couple gallons or more.
• 2-3 tablespoons tamarind soup paste or 1/2 Tamarind packet (such as Knorr)
• Two dozen shrimp
• A few cuttlefish/calamari bodies, sliced to create 1 or 2 inch “filets”, and scored horizontally
• Dried shrimp (a little more than a dozen or so)
• Dried scallops (four or five)
• Small handful Whole peppercorns (white and black)

Add all ingredients together, bring to a boil. Remove fresh shrimp and calamari once they are cooked through, and set aside as garnish. Simmer on lowest setting for an hour.

Preparing the “Whip”

• Crab or Shrimp paste (2/3 of small jar - see the note above)
• Dried shrimp and scallop from broth (above)
• 10-12 raw shrimp
• 1 egg + 5 egg whites
• Ground white pepper
• 2 finely chopped green onions

Strain the broth. Remove dried shrimp and scallops. Using a mini-prep processor, grind up the shrimp/scallops, followed by raw shrimp. Give a few pulses to get a coarse grind. Beat eggs in a large mixing bowl, and add all remaining ingredients and mix into a paste.

Finishing the Broth

• 1 white onion, thinly sliced
• Vegetable oil
• 3 large tomatoes, cut into 1/8ths
• Fish sauce aka Nuoc Mam
• “Whip” from above

Fry the white onions. Add tomatoes and onions into broth, bring to boil. Stir and lower to low grade, simmering boil. Season the broth with nuoc mam as needed.

Grab the “whip” mixture and, using a medium spoon, drop lumps of the mixture into the undulating broth. These lumps will soon cook, rise to the top, and create a networked island of protein floatillas.

Turn off the heat and let stand for a half hour to meld flavors.

Assemble and Serve

Boil rice noodles and rinse with cold water. Assemble 4 ounces or so in a bowl. Garnish with shrimp and squid, paper thin sliced raw red onions, cilantro, chopped green onions, basil, mint, cilantro, culantro, Vietnamese coriander, bean sprout, etc. I like to give the bowl a quick 20 seconds in the microwave to bring things up to lukish-warm.

Pour hot broth over the soup, making sure to get a few choice protein flotillas. Squeeze lemon and snip a bird chili. You’re there.

Closeup shot of a protein floatilla. The texture is hard to describe, and could be somewhat offputting for the virgin, but once you get a craving you don’t lose it.

Sunday, September 23rd | 7 comments

I recently had an accident while moving an in-window air conditioning unit in my house. Rather than get down on myself and lament how much of a worthless loser I am, I instead got a craving for skate wing.

Skate is very affordable, as this package from Whole Foods attests.

The skate from WF does include a thin, translucent sheet of bone that easily separates from the flesh once cooked.

Speaking of cooking, I simply salted and peppered the skate, and dropped it into a broad frying pan that had been coated with a good layer of extra virgin olive oil. I snipped some Mediterranean oregano, marjoram and parsley from the garden, and piled the herbs on top of the filet with a smashed garlic clove, and flipped to sear. Just a few minutes per side.

I removed skate, deglazed the pan with a shot of white wine and lemon juice, and poured over the seared filet (after removing that thin bone layer).

Of all the winged fish, skate is clearly the tastiest.

Sunday, September 16th | 4 comments

Continuing on the cold noodles post from last week, the hot months are here, and that also means gazpacho. On a hot day, I can eat a gallon of this stuff.

I like to blend my gazpacho (and use V-8), but add reserved chopped ingredients at the end, so there are two textures.

Soup

• 3 or 4 (depending on size) peeled, cored and chopped tomatoes NOTE: if you can’t get ripe tomatoes, use a fine brand of canned tomatoes (28oz)
• 2 cans V-8
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 red jalapeno, chopped
• 1 red pepper, cored, seeded, depithed, and coarsely chopped
• 1 English cucumber, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 2/3 red onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup (i.e. 1/2 a 16oz bag of peeled baby carrots) chopped peeled carrots
• 3 green onions, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, leaves only
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon or so sugar
• Few dashes of Worchestshire

Combine all the above in a blender. Blend to your liking. I don’t like it frothy. You can live your own life.

Garnish

• 1/3 red onion, finely diced
• 1/2 English cucumber, peeled and finely diced
• 3 chives, finely chopped
• 1/4 bunch chopped cilantro
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Stir the above ingredients into the blended soup. Chill in the fridge at least a day.

At times, if I’m feeling a bit randy, I’ll top this off with chopped kalamata olives before eating.

Monday, June 18th | 1 comment

This is a criminally simple soup, yet it’s very satisfying. Growing up, we referred to this as “canh” (literally, “soup”), and a fresh pot often sat on the back of the stove, recently simmered, waiting to be ladled on top of hot rice from the steamer.

This soup features a opo squash (“bau”), a large, long gourd with a pale green flesh. It is sold at all Vietnamese markets, and I’ve seen it at Fubonn and Uwajimaya. Some will describe the flavor as similar to zucchini. I suppose this is somewhat true. But I wouldn’t substitute zucchini in this soup anymore than I would substitue lime zest for lemongrass, or listen to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club instead of Jesus and Mary Chain, or masturbate to the mental image of Kirsten Dunst rather than Jessica Alba. OK, that’s a bit extreme. I actually listened to B.R.M.C. a lot, and Howl was a suprising changeup. And lime zest can add a nice flavor profile.

Squash and Shrimp Soup

• 1 large opo squash, or 2 smaller
• 6 cups water
• 1/2 pound shelled and deveined shrimp
• 6 green onions, chopped
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, leaves separated (discard stems), and coarsly chopped
• Coarse cracked pepper (I like a lot — probably too much — but that’s me)
• Salt
• Fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 sliced yellow onion

Using a small food processor, pulse the shrimp, half the green onions, and half the cilantro.

You could also do this on a wide cutting board. Lay the shrimp out, layer on the onions and cilantro, and go to town. I don’t like to go too minced out, though, preferring bits and pieces of shrimp to come through. Though shrimp meatballs could work just fine.

Transfer the meat to a bowl, and season with sugar, fish sauce (tablespoon or so), sesame oil, and pepper. Mix thoroughly and set aside.

Heat water in a large dutch oven. Peel squash, trim off ends, and cut into 1/2 inch discs, and then 1/2 juliennes. You can go real skinny, too — this was how my mom commonly sliced her squash.

Drop into pot and bring to a boil.

Once you have a nice boil, add sliced onion and use a spoon to drop small “dumplings” of the shrimp into the boiling soup.

Lower heat to a simmer, and salt (augmenting with a few squirts of fish sauce) to season to your taste. Once there, remove from heat, and throw in the onions and cilantro (but don’t stir). Cover partially and let sit for half hour or more.

I almost always serve this soup on top of a couple spoonfuls of steamed jasmine rice, and give it a couple squirts of Maggi to round out the flavor.

Monday, May 28th | 2 comments

This is a good recipe for any whole fish, but these small little pomfrets are well-suited to soak up all the flavors.

Marinade/Crust

• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 3 thai bird chilies
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Black pepper

Cut off the green fibrous ends of the lemongrass, and slice thin then mince as fine as possible. Combine with garlic, chilies, fish sauce, sugar, and pepper.

Score the pomfrets on a bias (this helps the flavor to seep into the flesh). Coat with marinade, and allow to sit for half hour or more.

Heat neutral vegetable (i.e. peanut) oil in pan, and fry the pomfrets on each side, 3-4 minutes per side.

The skin become crisp and really holds a lot of flavor. This is great with plain, steamed jasmine rice. I’ll even scrape the pan of the leftover, browned bits of the crust (and oil) and eat that alongside the fish and rice.

This can also be adapted for a skinless filet (like halibut, above), but really works well with a whole fish.

Sunday, May 20th | 1 comment

As I was making kimchi, it occurred to me that the daikon and carrots I was prepping at the time could also do double duty as the garnish for some bánh mì down the road. As I considered setting aside some vegetables for some mandolin action, an idea was born…the kimchi bánh mì, using kimchi’d (that’s a transitive verb) daikon and carrots.

First of all, the lemongrass pork that serves as the protein for this particular sandwich.

Grilled Lemongrass Pork

• 1 pound boneless country-style pork ribs
• 3 stalks of lemon grass, ends trimmed, and minced like a motherfuck
• Few cloves garlic
• 3 bird chilis
• 1 inch knob of ginger
• Fish sauce
• Tablespoon sugar

Smash the ginger, garlic and chilis in a mortar to form a paste. Put in a bowl and combine with lemongrass and sugar. Add fish sauce and mix lightly until a thick sludge develops. Slather this all over the pork and allow to marinade for a few hours.

Get some hot coals going on one side of a grill, and grill the pork. If you’re using the ribs, you’ll want to alternate between the hot/cool side of grills, and give them some time…I dunno, 40 minutes? Just whatever feels right, I’m not going to nanny you. If you’re using a leaner cut like a tenderloin or even shoulder steaks, you’ll want to reduce the time of course.

While the pork cools a bit, get your sandwich house in order.

The bread. These are from a local Vietnamese bakery (behind the Pho Oregon on East 82nd). You can pick these up at Vietnamese stores around town (5 for about $1.50).

The garnish. I like cucumber on my bánh mì, and lots of cilantro. In this case I had some Thai basil, so I figured what the hell. And don’t forget the Maggi.

So here’s how it went down. I sliced up that pork, stuffed everything into a toasted roll, and topped with slivers of daikon and carrots I carefully extracted from my kimchi.

I think I ate three of them that day.

Monday, May 14th | 8 comments

This chicken curry is in my Vietnamese mom’s style, which is different from, say, quick cooking Thai versions, in that it’s a stew that simmers for a while.

I eat it primarily with crusty french bread to sop up the juices, and jasmine rice when the bread runs out.

• 1 entire chicken, cut up into pieces. Chop up each thigh and breast half into at least 2 pieces, bone intact. The bones make the gravy
• 2 or 3 russet potatoes, chopped into 2 x 2 inch chunks
• One yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• Small knob of ginger, minced
• 6 or 7 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 stalk of lemon grass, chopped into thirds
• 2 tablespoons turmeric
• 2 tablespoons prepared red curry paste (I use Mae Ploy brand)
• 1/2 teaspoon each ground cumin, coriander, and galanga powder
• One can coconut milk
• One container low-sodium chicken broth (i.e. Pacific brand - the larger)
• One tablespoon fish sauce
• Salt to taste

Dust the chicken with turmeric, cumin, coriander, galanga powder, salt. Swirl hot vegetable oil in a dutch oven, brown the chicken parts for a few minutes. Remove.

Add onion and ginger, sautee for a few minutes. Add garlic, lemongrass, lime leaves, and red curry paste, and sautee for a few minutes more. Pour in coconut milk, add fish sauce, bring to a simmer, return chicken to the pot and add pototoes. Pour in chicken broth, and add additional water (if needed) to fully cover.

Bring to boil, reduce heat to lowest setting, and simmer for more than an hour or so. Salt to taste.

Monday, April 30th | 2 comments

With the return of warm weather, it’s quickly becoming salad season. This is a crunchy, tangy, and healthy salad. Salad.

Vietnamese Chicken Slaw

This will serve probably 3-4 people as a main dish, and more if serving as an appetizer or if those people are diminutive, children, or drug-addicted models.

Salad Components

• 1/2 a cooked chicken, shredded (I like to use more of the white meat)
• 1 head green cabbage
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped coarsely
• dozen or so leaves spearmint
• 6 or so purple perilla leaves
• 6 or so thai basil leaves

Dressing

• 1 clove of garlic, forced through a garlic press
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• Juice of one nice, large juicy lime (or two smaller limes)
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 3 thai bird chilies, minced
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic chili sauce or siracha

Garnish

• Handful of roasted peanuts (no skins)

Dressing: whisk together all ingredients, and set aside to “steep”.

Crush the peanuts in a mortar with a pestle.

Chiffonade the cabbage. You can skip this step by buying those pre-cut coleslaw packages in the E. coli aisle of the produce section of your local mega-mart. There’s often carrots in the mix, too, so that will save you the step of shredding the carrots.

Get your herbs in order. What is perilla? It’s essentially shiso — a broad leafed member of the mint family. The versions utilized in Vietnamese cooking have a purple face. Chiffonade the perilla and mint, and along with cilantro, combine with the cabbage, carrots, and chicken in a large mixing bowl. Whisk dressing and pour over salad, and toss.

Garnish with peanuts.

Tuesday, April 24th | 2 comments

Kimchi is good. Although — like many things in the wide world of food that are good — it smells like shit.

When we lived overseas, for a while we had a Korean neighbor who taught my mom how to make kimchi (I was in the third grade). My mom at that point had made pickled vegetables (the most ubiquitous being pickled mustard greens), but these were mild concoctions. My mom I imagine was intoxicated by the heat and toxicity of our neighbors kimchi, which spent a few days taking a dirt nap, buried in her backyard.

My mom didn’t go that far, instead allowing a huge jar of kimchi to ferment on our kitchen counter. We lived at the time in a closed residential compound that had been designed by Dutch architects for (initially) expatriated Dutch workers and their families. As a result, our house was quite diminutive in an efficient, scaled down way — the Netherlands appearing to be a country that was built to 3/5th scale. It was quite possibly the smallest 5 bedroom house in the entire world - maybe 1000 square feet. Everything was scaled down to size — the bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, utility room. One load in our washer and dryer meant probably two pairs of jeans and five shirts. The icebox could barely hold a chicken. Our Atari 2600 game room was so small a third Missile Command spectator had a hard time waiting his turn without discomforting the others.

As a result of living in such cramped quarters, my Mom’s huge jar of rotting crap smelled like fucking shit. Oh man, my dad would bellyache like a whiny ass titty baby. He had a hard time with fish sauce, but this kimchi was another smelly beast altogether. The fact that it sat out for days, stinking up the whole joint, imparted a more criminal ignominy. Like most solipsistic white honkies, he had an aversion to anything that smelled stronger than ketchup that wasn’t his own fart. I kid the white people. I love them — they are good at starting wars.

My kimchi technique is slightly modified from a more traditional approach (as described on Zenkimchi’s excellent post), though I do use this technique as a template.

As with most of my recipes, everything is approximate. In fact, I’m not going to give measurements for most of the ingredients here. Just figure it out yourself, you’re a big girl. Take some responsibility for your life for once.

Kimchi

Vegetable components

• Cabbage
• Daikon radish
• Carrots
• Sliced red onion
• Chopped green onion
• Garlic
• Italian parsley
• Ginger

In this case, I picked up a couple long napa cabbages from Uwajimaya (around 2 feet long, but much narrower than conventional napa). I sliced the daikon into coins, and the carrots into matchsticks, and brined all these for around 8 hours in cold, salty water (1 cup kosher salt for every quart water). I used around 25 minced garlic cloves — no kidding — and a nice, shredded knob of ginger. The parsley may sound like an odd addition, but I like the freshness it adds to the mix.

Seasoning components

• Fish sauce (I used Three Lions brand - my usual)
• Gochugaru
• Crushed red pepper
• Paprika
• 1 teaspoon fermented shrimp sauce (your call)
• 1 teaspoon or so of sugar

Start with a large mixing bowl, and add all the spices.

Gochugaru is Korean dried red pepper. It’s intensely red. Paprika, again, may seem odd , but I like the “red” it adds. Also, the crushed pepper could probably be omitted, but I like the additional flavor layer it adds. It is important to note the gochugaru is the primary pepper component and you are using a lot. How much? That’s your call, but you’re looking to create a consistent paste when you add the fish sauce (and the shrimp sauce, if you’re using it). It should be a nice sludge that should should be ample enough to coat all your vegetables. If you’re feeling timid, you can create the sludge separately and mix it in stages with the vegetables to obtain your optimum level of intensity.

Once everything is mixed to your liking, transfer to a large jar or container and commence with the rotting. You can leave it out at room temperature overnight or transfer immediately to your fridge - I usually let it sit out for around 12 hours and then refridgerate. The opening photo shows kimchi in its infancy. I will sample the kimchi at this point, as there’s joy to be obtained from a fresh, bright batch of kimchi.

But as you can see, once it mucks around in its own rotting filth for a while, that’s when something special starts to occur.

Sunday, April 22nd | 3 comments

I like kebabs. I particularly enjoy the Kefta kebab, which is ground meat formed around a skewer in kebab-like fashion. I like saying the word kefta. It’s one of those words, like película and Kofi Annan, that you never grow tired of saying. I remember when Congress a couple years ago was debating the merits of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, I secretly wished the debate would draw out into a longer, more contentious debate than it had at the time, just because I enjoyed all the talking heads uttering the acronym “CAFTA” (which was close enough for me). Each time I watched the news I’d get hungry.

You can make this with beef or beef and lamb as well. New Seasons sells ground lamb, though keep in mind it is very fatty and will imbue quite a gamy scent into the atmosphere for some time. My wife was all bothered and stuff, but the deliciousness factor made her harangues worth it.

Kefta Kebab

• 1 and one-half pounds ground beef or lamb (or both!)
• 1 bunch chopped fresh Italian parsley, reserve a couple tablespoons (to cook with rice)
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 3 or 4 garlic cloves, forced through a press
• 1 white onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Ground pepper
• Salt to your taste

Combine everything in a large mixing bowl and mix together with your hands. I like to use long, flat broad metal skewers — mold the meat around the length of the skewer and pat to form an elongated, rectangular patty.

Heat a grill pan over medium-high and brown skewers on each of the 4 ends, 2 minutes or so each side. Remove and let sit for a few minutes.

You can eat this skewers by themselves. But c’mon, man, don’t be such freak.

Rice Pilaf

• Olive oil or butter (2 tablespoons)
• 2 cups basmati rice
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 chopped tomato
• Pinch of saffron
• Salt

Preheat oven to 325 F. Rinse and soak rice in water for half hour. Drain. Heat oil or butter in a medium saucepan (with a tight fitting lid) over medium heat. Add onions and sweat for a couple minutes, then add garlic, rice and saffron and sautee for a couple minutes. Add tomatoes, salt, and broth. Bring to boil, cover, and place in oven for 20 minutes. Allow the rice to sit on stovetop for 10 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

Sumac Onions

• 1 white onion, halved and sliced
• Ground sumac
• Olive oil

Sautee onions in oil. Hit with sumac when they start to caramelize, and serve over kebabs.

I like to squeeze lemon over the kebab, onions, and rice.

Monday, April 2nd | 3 comments

EatDrink&BeMerry asked for a Pho recipe, so here’s mine.

The Portland Angle

This Portland-centric info won’t help EatDrink&BeMerry, but he lives in Southern California, the land of Ranch 99 markets and over a quarter of a million Vietnamese, so I’m sure he’ll manage. (After all, he’s a resourceful guy who managed to score an entire segment in Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations LA episode!)

There’s a short list of stores I would consider for an all-inclusive Pho run. They are in my order of preference:

1. Thanh Thao market, 65th and Sandy.
2. Hong Phat market on Prescott and 99th.
3. Fubonn
4. Uwajimaya

Certainly, there are other stores.

The first two market are Vietnamese, Fubonn is pan-Asian, as is Uwajimaya, though the latter obviously primarily Japanese. But Uwajimaya sells fresh rice noodles, has an incomparable selection of Asian produce, and you can find bones necessary to make a fine stock.

But it’s at Vietnamese markets like Than Thao where you’re going to have certain details taken care for you. Like at the butcher counter you can get pre-bagged portions of beef leg soup bones, and oxtails by the pound.

I like to buy my meat pre-sliced from Thanh Thao market on 65th and Sandy - it’s lean, consistently thin slices of the eye of round. At $3.29/lb, it’s a bargain.

If you are slicing it from home from your own eye, you can freeze it for an hour before slicing. It’s key to get the meat as thin as possible. If for some reason round is unavailable, you could also in a pinch use london broil, but keep it cheap and lean. This is peasant food, and something like strip or ribeye would be wasteful. That’s not to say a frou-frou version of Pho Tai couldn’t be something like, say, raw buffalo carpaccio draped on fresh rice tagliatelli and poached with scalding hot, anise-and-lovage-scented brown veal stock, topped with julienne of cinnamon basil and saw leaf herb, but you wouldn’t see me making this in my humble kitchen (even if I had the ambition).

Pho Tai

Pho Tai basically means Pho with raw, lean beef (“Tai”). This is my favorite type of Pho, but it is also very good with braised, tender beef (commonly brisket — Chin), or with lean, cooked flank (Nam). With two types of meat? Pho Tai Chin.

The Broth

I like a fragrant broth. Many people would probably be bothered by the variety and proliferation of aromatics and spices in my Pho broth. I don’t care. I live life to the fullest, with wanton disregard for prudes and haters.

• A few pounds of beef leg bones (you could use oxtails — expensive, but tasty — and strip the meat from the bones for the Pho Tai Chin)
• 1 extremely large onion
• A bunch of water
• One cinnamon stick
• 6-8 star anise
• 10 cloves
• 1 decent knob of ginger, washed
• 3 allspice berries
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon white peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• Couple carrots
• Half bunch of celery
• 1 nugget of rock sugar
• Kosher Salt
• Fish sauce
• MSG (yes, MSG! Ajinomoto, of course)

Put the bones in a large stockpot and cover with water…say a full 12 inches over the bones themselves, and crank up the heat.

My mom impressed the following method upon me: peel the onion, and then stud that thing with cloves, really sticking the points deep into the onion flesh to make sure they are firmly implanted. Turn on the flame of your gas stove (or you can use a creme brulee or crackpipe torch) and, using tongs, scald that allium, turning to toast all the clove points and to get an even char all over the onion. Throw into the stockpot, and repeat with ginger.

Put the rest of the spices into a dry cast iron pan, and toast over high heat for a minute, and dump into the pot. Add carrots (unpeeled) and celery.

Disclaimer: for a clear broth, some people say to boil the bones, and skim off the “foam”. But I prefer just to allow everything to simmer for a buttload of time (the impurities seem to melt and evaporate away) and then strain.

So…bring everything to a healthy boil, then add rock sugar and reduce to simmer. Personally, I would have started this around 8am or 8pm, because this is going to take a while. Simmer for 6-8 hours. Yes…even overnight on the lowest of low settings.

Strain broth through a fine sieve (it helps to own more than one stockpot — I own three. But I am a notorious hoarder). Sometimes I’ll cool the broth in the fridge, and skim off the coagulated fat “sheet” that accumulates. Other times I’ll just eat an unctuous first bowl of Pho, and then cool and skim later.

Bring back to a healthy simmer, and season with fish sauce (3 tablespoons?), salt, and a couple teaspoons of MSG. Do this in stages, and taste constantly. There is no magic formula — everything is approximate and requires constant salty bootstrapping to get it just right.

The noodles

Use fresh, thin rice noodles. Usually 99 cents for an entire pound. Blanch in boiling water for no more than 20 seconds, and then strain and bowl immediately.

Assemble

Bring the broth to a roiling boil. Drape thin slices of Tai over the noodles. Top with:

• Paper thin slices of onion
• Sliced green onions
• Chopped cilantro
• The leaves from a few sprigs of Thai basil
• A small handful of bean sprouts
• 2-3 torn pieces of culantro (ngo gai aka saw leaf herb)
• Fresh chilis (I like to snip two small bird chilis with kitchen shears, but sliced jalapenos are quite common)

Using a ladle, skim the scalding, boiling broth over the noodles, beef, and garnishes. Hit that soup with a couple dashes of nuoc mam (fish sauce) and the juice of half a lime, and give it a few grinds of white and black pepper. Enjoy.

Monday, March 5th | 5 comments

I ate this all the time growing up. My mom would make a dozen of these, and my brothers and I would eat them over the course of a day or two. It was an easy, go-to meal in our household.

I suppose you can call this a version of the ubiquitous Egg Foo Young. It’s actually known as Trung Mam Hap, but this is my take on the steamed Vietnamese egg dish. That version is more like a cross between a Japanese omelette for sushi (tamago) and a soufflé. I’m not a huge fan of the texture of Trung Mam Hap — for me it’s too light and delicate. This is more substantial and savory, in my opinion. I have enough emasculation issues already.

Egg, Pork (and Shrimp) “Pancakes”

• 3/4 lb ground pork
• 1/3 cup dried woodear mushroom strips, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes, and drained
• 2 or 3 minced garlic cloves
• 2 or 3 chopped shallots
• 3 green onion, chopped
• Cracked black pepper
• 1/8 pound mung bean thread noodles, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes, and drained
• 6-7 healthy dashes of nuoc mam
• 1/4 pound raw, chopped (very fine to almost a ground consistency) shrimp
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 6 eggs

Beat eggs in a bowl. Combine all ingredients (except eggs) in a separate, large mixing bowl. Pour eggs over meat mixture, and use your hands to really mix the shit together.

Pour out “batter” on preheated, oiled non-stick pan. Cover and cook over medium low for 5 minutes. Flip and repeat, uncovered.

I eat this with Maggi (the favored, potent, delivery vehicle of choice for MSG salt bombs) and steamed jasmine rice.

Saturday, February 24th | No comments

Banh cuon is a popular Vietnamese dish. There’s a restaurant in the Fubonn plaza, called Banh Cuon Tan Dinh, which, as you can guess, specializes in Banh Cuon. You could go there. They take credit cards and everything.

But here’s another tip for you: you can eat it at home as well, quite easily, for 1/3 the price. There’s a store on 99th and Prescott, called Hong Phat, and another on 65th and Sandy, Thanh Thao, that sell pre-made banh cuon. Don’t worry, all banh cuon is pre-made…you don’t whip up this dish on the spot. It’s a (slight) reheat and simple garnish effort, so as long as the banh cuon itself is of decent comport, you’ll be in a good spot as long as you’ve got your garnish act together. And it’s cheap…you can get nearly 3 servings out of a single to-go container.

First of all, what are banh cuon? Imagine it as a rice flour cannoli. Sheets of rice “pasta” or “crepe” are rolled around a filling consisting (usually) of seasoned and sauteed ground pork and wood ear mushrooms. The banh cuon are plated and typically topped with fried shallots, fresh herbs, blanched bean sprouts, and thin slices of cha lua (a fish sauce scented pork loaf, aka Vietnamese bologna). The whole plate is given a generous drink of nuoc cham, a Vietnamese condiment made with fish sauce (“nuoc mam”), chilies, sugar, lime juice, and often pickled garlic, and maybe dressed with some shredded carrots or even daikon.

The banh cuon themselves are rather labor intensive. I guess. My mom never made them much growing up, because one of her best friends was in business making Vietnamese specialties like banh cuon, bun bao, even her own cha lua, and selling them to the Vietnamese community (and a few Tucson area offices during lunch). This friend made amazing stuff, so what was the point in doing it yourself? So what I’m doing here, taking other people’s canvasses and coloring by numbers, is very much in the fine tradition of the Vietnamese-American experience. That, and marathon gambling, moth balls, yelling into phone handsets for no apparent reason, voting knee-jerkingly Republican, 2-foot spoilers on Nissan Sentras, drinking insane amounts of Hennessey, shaming your own children because their friend’s child graduated from UC Irvine with a BSEE in 2.5 years, harboring a healthy distrust of conventional FDIC-insured banking institutions, etc.

If you do want to make it yourself, here’s a very nice step-by-step post and wonderful photo gallery.

Hong Phat and Thanh Thao will give you the base banh cuon to work from. The sell these plastic to-go containers in their respective deli sections for only $5. One advantage of making them yourself: these are a bit on sparse end in terms of meat filling, so if you rolled your own you can be more generous. But since it’s only $5, they taste just fine, and I will be adding a generous helping of sliced meat topping, I’m not going to be a whiny ass titty baby about it.

Here are the toppings:

1. Bean sprouts. Blanch them in boiling water for about 10 seconds and then drain and shock them in an ice bath and then drain and set aside.
2. Cucumber. Peel, cut off the end, then score the blunt end three times, then slice thinly.
3. Cilantro. Chop up a bunch.
4. Mint (if you want to add that purplish mint and shiso then you’re well on your way in becoming the coolest person ever). Chop up a bunch, yeah?
5. Thai basil leaves (optional). I like it. Or not.
6. Fried shallots. You can do this yourself, or buy the dried stuff the sell on the shelves.
7. Nuoc cham sauce (recipe to follow).
8. Cha lua . Slice as thin as possible and then halve those thin slices.

First the cha lua. Most markets will sell this brand, sometimes in the freezer section. This will do, but Hong Phat has their own cha lua THAT IS DEEP FRIED. And this is the lean stuff, not the stuff with the strange, ringworm-type vein of organ fat running the length of the loaf. I’ll mention it once again, in case you missed it the first time. This cha lua IS DEEP FRIED.

Apparently, once it is DEEP FRIED, it magically takes on transformative taxonomical properties and becomes “cha chien”. Simply amazing.

For the sake of the scientific method, I present you the cross-section of THE DEEP FRIED cha chien.

So here’s the MO: plate the banh cuon. I would only use about 1/3 (or slightly more) of the portion you’ve just bought. Top with bean sprouts and tent with plastic wrap. Nuke in the microwave for 45 seconds.

Scatter a generous amount of cha lua on top. Top with herbs and shallots.

Spoon as much nuoc cham as you’d like — I won’t tell you how much because I’m not normal and eat way too much of this stuff. I don’t want to drag you into my world. I didn’t choose this life, and it isn’t for everyone. Ride the snake if you must.

Here’s an example of the work-in-progress. Notice the pool of nuoc cham at the bottom of the plate. After finishing the banh cuon, I will drink this. Don’t judge me. I’m not a role model.