Week #26 Taiwanese

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Carol

The cuisine of Taiwan borrows heavily from southern China and also from Japan, thanks to 50 years of occupation early last century. I’m still trying to figure out the differences, but at this point I don’t see a lot. Still, I’m glad for the opportunity to feast on dumplings, which are incredibly popular in Taiwan.

Din Tai Fung Dumpling House in Arcadia is a veritable palace of dumplings (they have locations in Taiwan, too, but for now a drive into the next valley will have to do). We knew it had to be a good choice as soon as we walked up–the place was buzzing and full, with people waiting both inside and out. When we left it was still busy. To our surprise, some friends popped in and were seated at the  table next to ours. “We’re on the way to Palm Springs, but we just had to stop off for some dumplings!” they said. Instant party!

The restaurant has windows into the kitchen, so you can keep an eye on the progress of all the dough that’s being made fresh by a battery of nimble fingered dumpling wranglers (say that three times real fast!). I had to shoot this photo through a covered glass, so the quality’s not great. But you can see the guy in the foreground to the left rolling out lengths of dough and pinching it into pieces that his compadres behind him will roll out, fill with all sorts of meats and vegetables and crimp into the appropriate shapes. Everything is made by hand here, every precise fold on every delicate dumpling.

We went with our friends Andy and Mai, who are regulars here, and we let them navigate the menu for us.

 We started with xiaolongbao or “soup dumplings,” juicy dumplings filled with pork and crab and steamed. The operative word here is “juicy,” because when you chomp down on them, they squirt broth into your mouth…and onto your shirt if you’re not careful! If they’ve just arrived at the table it’s best to nip a tiny hole in the dumpling and carefully slurp out the soup, so you don’t burn yourself. But don’t wait too long–when these delicate dumplings cool, they tend to stick to the parchment paper beneath them and can tear when you try to pick them up. And you don’t want to lose a drop of that yummy broth.

 These steamed half-moon dumplings are filled with well-seasoned chicken–flavorful with onion and ginger, but not hot. Each dumpling has a different shape, so if you’re a regular here, you can look at a steamer basket of dumplings and know instantly what’s inside them.

These steamed shrimp and pork shiaomai look like tiny volcanoes about to blow shrimp out the top! They’re both tasty and fun, and the shape makes them easy to pick up, which is handy if you’re a klutz with your chopsticks.

 
Does this dumpling look more like a large mushroom or a tiny chef’s toque for Remy, the rat in Ratatouille? 
The shrimp and pork wontons with spicy sauce were especially good. We ended up dunking the dumplings into the sauce as well. (The menu read “wanton with spicy sauce,” but I’m not going to debate its morality!) Like the shiaomai, the pork and crab dumplings and a few other dishes on the menu, the wontons combined meat with seafood, something I’m finding quite often in Asian meals that doesn’t seem to show up on Western menus.
Okay, so it’s a dumpling house, but we were seduced by the homemade noodles as well…
Beef noodle soup is a popular fast food in Taiwan, and it made a great add-on to our dumpling feast. This bowl of noodles contains spicy roast beef and bok choy in a super-rich broth. In spite of its popularity, beef isn’t consumed with much frequency in Taiwan, because the family oxen are valued for the chores they perform. It would be akin to eating your pickup truck, I guess.
  Mmm, just saying “pork mincemeat sauce” makes me drool. This mixture included tiny cubes of firm tofu, which gave the sauce varied texture, while the edamame provided a fresh touch.
   
  
Just because it’s not a green bean house that doesn’t mean the dumpling house skimped on the sides. These green beans sautéed with garlic were seasoned to perfection. In fact, they made me lose sight of the dumplings for a few minutes.
 
Porkaboo!  These pretty pillows are buns filled with pork meatballs and then steamed. Every fold of every dumpling and bun was perfection–a work of art.

Here’s my lovely spread. The tiny dish between the soup bowl and teacup is filled with black vinegar and slivers of fresh ginger. Dipping the dumplings into it helps cut the richness and give them a little extra zing. Some people opt for soy sauce instead, but black vinegar provides a lot of flavor without the added sodium. Black vinegar isn’t just about the sour–it’s a full-flavored sauce all on its own, a grain-based vinegar that is aged similarly to balsamic. And you can always add a little soy and hot sauce to create your own custom blend.

There were also sweet dumplings for dessert, but by this point we were ready to roll out the door like beach balls. Maybe next time we’ll get one less order of savory dumplings and save room for the sweet. And then maybe not. Once you get started it’s so easy to say, “Just one more…oh, and that looks good, too…”

Posted in 52 Cuisines in 52 Weeks | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Week #25 Rustic French

Posted on March 6, 2010 by Carol

A lot of people think of French food as oh-so posh and la-di-da. Anyone who’s dined at a high end French restaurant would be justified in making that assessment, what with the classic plating, pretty garnishes and all the other niceties of haute experience. But then there’s rustic French, which is more reflective of the necessity of using everything available and letting nothing go to waste, a legacy of hard times throughout the centuries. French cooks have done such an exemplary job of taking their resources and producing something good, that you’re convinced it must be fancy. Americans are wealthy enough (relatively speaking) to chuck out the bones, organs and other odd bits they’ve grown unaccustomed to eating–or that they connect with lean times. But these are the parts that make some of the best, most satisfying food, and French cooks are masters at utilizing it all.

This is what I kept thinking about as we enjoyed our rustic French dinner recently. I noted throughout the evening that our meal looked like a study of food preservation methods. Since it was late wintertime, this meal reflected what we’d be eating when we’re relying on our reserves of food and awaiting the return of springtime and a new growing season.

We had the good fortune to dine with our friends, Bert and Noel, who have spent a considerable amount of time in France for more years than they likely want to admit. Bert knows his way around France–and French cuisine–like he knows his way around his own house, so we went to Cafe des Artistes in Hollywood with our own personal authenticity meter, and we let him order. It was a nibbly night, meaning we enjoyed a succession of appetizers and dishes to share around the table. I’d eat every meal this way if my dinner partners were always amenable. It’s a good way to try a lot of dishes, and it’s more fun to share and discuss.

 
The house paté and house rillettes were served with onion marmalade and cornichons and lots of toasted baguette slices. Marmalade is a tasty way to preserve onions when you have a bumper crop. Cornichons, of course, are tiny pickled cucumbers. Rillettes and paté represent similar methods of preserving meat for future use, paté by collecting, grinding and seasoning meats, then pressing the mixture into a mold and cooking it.
  
Rillettes is meat cooked slowly in its own fat, then pulverized with some of that fat and seasoned to form a rich spread. It keeps well when you spoon it into ramekins and cover it with a thin layer of fat, which seals out the air. The cornichons and marmalade added the sweet and sour notes that kept these fat-happy meats from being too rich.
  
 This Alsatian tart flambée was made with farm cheese, bacon and onion. Of course, bacon and cheese represent ways of preserving pork and milk for later consumption. My only problem with this tart was that as a Tennessee farm girl, naturally I assume all bacon will be smoked. The French just don’t do it this way. Still, it was really good, but if I ever make this tart, the bacon I use will be smoked!
  
No, the French don’t call it French onion soup! Soupe a l’oignon gratinée is good way to utilize a surplus of onions once you’ve made enough marmalade. When you slowly, slowly, slowly cook down those onions, you discover how much water there is in them, and when it’s all cooked away, you’re left with a little bit of rich, sweet yummy onion confiture. Simmer this with some beef stock, made with those bones you didn’t throw away. Ladle it over some stale bread that you didn’t throw away just because it was stale (it’s good for making croutons, too, by the way), grate some cheese over it (gruyere for authenticity, emmental if you’d rather) and hit it with the heat. Et voila! You have one of the best, most nourishing and satisfying bowls of soup ever.
 
Our concession to France’s north African influence was an appetizer of grilled merguez sausages, made of lamb. We dunked them into harrisa, which added a zingy little accent to our French meal. Maybe it’s not as ubiquitous as Indian food is in England, but still such dishes are growing in popularity around France.
  
You can’t get any more hearty-peasant than cassoulet–duck confit in a pot of beans and veggies with browned crumbs on top. Confit is a method of preserving meat, especially pork, duck and goose, by cooking and storing its own fat–similar to rillettes, except that those pieces of confit are kept whole. This dish and these meat preservation methods originated in the southwest of France. I’m not proud of it, but hey, I snatched that duck leg!
 

When there’s good cheese to be had, for me it trumps dessert every time. Goat cheese, bleu and morbier with dried fruits and nuts were the perfect finish to our meal. France boasts several hundred cheeses, so we have our work cut out for us. What a happy chore that would be…

With a meal is this satisfying, accompanied by a generous flow of Cote du Rhone, why would you need fancy presentation and such? I’ll take rustic cuisine over haute any day!

Posted in 52 Cuisines in 52 Weeks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Week #24 Oaxacan (Mexican)

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Carol
Lately this “52 Cuisines” project has been heavily weighted toward Asian food–obviously the blog itself has been!–so it’s time to visit a different hemisphere for awhile and explore another of Mexico’s many cuisines.

The cuisine of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, contains a dizzying blend of indigenous ingredients, like chocolate and peppers, with the Arabic contribution of nuts, raisins and spices brought to the region by Spanish explorers. (Our hemisphere repaid the favor by sending tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chocolate and peppers to the rest of the world. Not a bad trade, I’d say.)

Antequera De Oaxaca is a modest little restaurant on Melrose between Koreatown and Paramount Pictures. This strip of Melrose has tons of great finds, and Antequera is the place to go for Oaxacan food cooked by Oaxacans for Oaxacans. I met Pat for lunch there, and we sampled an array of eats, with an eye toward carrying home plenty of leftovers.

Black beans are popular in Oaxaca, sometimes simply smashed and smeared over a tortilla.
 Pat ordered what looked a bit like a Mexican pizza, a giant, super-thin homemade tortilla topped with the smashed black beans, Oaxacan queso, tomato slices, cabbage and avocado. This is about as light and as vegetarian as a Oaxacan meal can get, unless you opt for a very basic salad. A smart choice if you don’t want to fall into a postprandial coma at siesta time. Or if you’re constantly training for marathons, like Pat is!
  
a quartet of memelas

In the memelas the black beans were spread on each of these four masa cakes, then topped with Oaxacan cheese and chorizo (12:00), zingy, flavorful chicken (2:00), pork (5:00) and beef (9:00) and a slice of avocado. A pleasantly warm salsa on the table provided a little extra kick. I appreciated our server bringing the  memelas with this assortment of meat so we could sample them all. The chorizo was surprisingly mild, while the chicken was the one that carried a surprising punch.

The masa cake is a flat bread roughly the size and shape of a hamburger bun bottom, and while it didn’t feel at all greasy, toasted on a grill, I’m sure it was loaded with lard, so lush was its texture. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, with a nice bit of char from the grill. Okay, so that’s not umami–I wonder what it is in the carbony flavor that so appeals? I think I could have eaten an entire basket of masa cake and been quite happy.
 Stew made from goat ribs–all those little bones give the broth extra richness.
I just had to give the goat stew a try. It was tasty and only a wee bit gamy. A generous squeeze lime helped tame it. It came with a roll of fresh, hot tortillas, so I could fish out hunks of goat meat and make my own tacos with fresh onions, jalapenos and cilantro.

  
Horchata: a rice drink that is lightly sweet and refreshing. This one had pecan pieces and chunks of cantaloupe in it.


While Oaxaca has a diverse cuisine to match its diverse landscape, it’s probably best known as “the land of the seven moles” (although there are many more) and we’re not talking little animals. This region’s cooks are the ingenious souls who took chocolate and made something savory with it.
  
These don’t look like much, but they’re the secret to great mole. At 2:00 is poblano, a red chile mole base; at 6:00ish is pepita, or pumpkin seed, and at 9:00 is almond.

A typical mole recipe calls for about two dozen ingredients, but it can contain even more. Making it is understandably a labor intensive endeavor, so you have to set aside a day to do nothing but roast and toast, chop and pulverize and mix, so you can make enough mole to last a really long time. It’s fun to do in a group, and the effort is worth it. If you dissolve a couple of generous spoonfuls of one of these pastes in a little broth, you’ll quickly create the most wonderfully flavored, richest sauces you can imagine. Pour it over the meat of your choice, or drizzle it over an enchilada or into a taco. It’s bliss. Forget the bottled stuff–try making your own mole sometime. Be sure and invite over some eager friends to help share in the chores and the rewards.


I have a trio of moles on hand (they’re in the photo above) that I picked up at L.A.’s Central Market, a downtown treasure trove not only of fresh produce but of authentic Mexican eats. The green mole is made of pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and is mildly spicy. The almond mole is redolent of toasted almonds and packs some heat, while the poblano mole is chocolaty-good and contains the heat and smokiness of an array of dried chiles.


There’s a more obscure mole called manchamanteles, a.k.a. the “tablecloth stainer,” because it’s made with lots of charred tomatoes. I’ve not found this one yet, but I’m eager to try it, with lots of napkins!

Chicken mole tamale: a rich, happy-making treat wrapped and cooked in a banana leaf. This time the mole is on the inside rather than the outside. A squeeze of lime helps balance the richness.



We’re not even scratching the surface here on Oaxacan cuisine. There are chapulines–crickets–which were not on the menu the day we went to Antequera De Oaxaca. I had them a couple of years ago on a jaunt to Mexico, so if you want to read about it, check out my blog entry on chapulines and huitlacoche. 


My colleague and friend Nancy Zaslavsky is passionate about Mexico and its food. If you want to learn more about the cuisine of Oaxaca–and if you want to visit and learn to cook the local specialties–check out her culinary tours of Mexico. She’s been carrying guests to Mexico for years now and teaching them to cook authentic Mexican food on its home turf.

Posted in 52 Cuisines in 52 Weeks | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Durian: King of Fruit & Fruit of Kings

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Carol

…as the saying goes in Thailand.

Durian is especially beloved amongst the Thai. It’s rich and smooth, with a consistency similar to that of an avocado, and a sweet lush flavor all its own. But you’re forbidden to bring it onto a bus or into a taxi. Nor can you carry it into a public building. Walk into your hotel with a durian tucked under your arm like a football, and you’re sure to be relocating soon. Why?

Because in spite of its flavor, this fruit’s odor is so outrageously rank as to make dog breath seem positively perfumy. Its smell has long strained the bounds of hyperbole for adequate descriptors, including sweaty gym sock and rotten egg….actually rotten anything!

 I was surprised to find this woman selling cut durian on the street, so tightly are its possession and transport regulated.

It’s really large, so you can’t just buy one and munch on it like an apple while you’re out in the open. You have to carve through its thick, spiny exterior to reach the soft, creamy pockets of fruit inside. Its fragrance–odor is more accurate–is most assuredly off-putting, but durian is addictively tasty.

 Here’s the fresh stuff. Durian is creamy, with a consistency similar to that of an avocado, and a sweet delicate flavor.

While durian is available much of the year, the season runs from late spring into early summer, when you can find the best and sweetest specimens. It’s readily available dehydrated and made into a paste, which you can either bake with or eat right out of the tube. Durian is also dried into chips. Think banana chips, but thinner and with more flavor.

 
Durian paste is available in these tubes that are about the size of cigars. The larger size looks like a package of golden cookie dough.
The paste delivers the flavor with only a slight odor.
 
These lovely cakes remind me of Chinese lotus cakes, but they’re filled with durian paste. They’re sweet and tasty with none of the stout odor of the fresh durian.
 
Durian chips are an incredibly popular snack. They carry none of the pungent smell of the fresh fruit.

A couple of years ago I had some ice cream in L.A.’s Thai Town that was made from fresh durian. It was simultaneously sweet and savory, with a back-flavor of garlic. Or was it sulfur? Hmm. No matter, it was intriguing but good. And it makes me consider that old smelly-as-tasty conundrum. Some of the stinkiest cheeses have the mildest yet richest flavors. I don’t understand it, but I appreciate it. The same is true with durian.

I realize I’m not doing much to sell it, but durian is actually a lovely fruit, once you get past the smell. And you should, if you get the opportunity. If you live in a town with a strong Asian presence, chances are the Asian groceries carry it when it’s in season. This won’t provide the best example of how tasty it is, though, since it will have been picked green and shipped halfway ’round the globe. Still it’s worth a try. If your travels ever take you to Thailand–and they should–you should seek it out. But don’t let your nose boss around your taste buds. Let them have their say. If for no other reason, you’ll claim some amazing braggin’ rights!

***The obligatory disclaimer: I went to Thailand as a guest of Thai Tourism Authority. That said, I’m not interested in urging you to stay at particular hotels or to dine at particular establishments or to seek out specific amusements, but rather to enjoy the cuisine, whether you dine in Thailand or in a Thai restaurant in your hometown. And to take a crack at making Thai dishes yourself. There’s much to love about a cuisine so varied and flavorful.

Posted in Hungry Passport | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Thailand: Land of the Snack Attack

Posted on February 26, 2010 by Carol

Thailand is a land of snackers.

Meals center around a plate of rice with a few bites of different meat, fish and vegetable dishes to support it (not the other way around–RICE is the focus here). Or noodle dishes, such as the beloved Pad Thai. Always with fresh fruit for dessert. This type of meal leaves room for treats, which is a good thing, because Thais love their treats! Snacking in Thailand is quite a different thing than it is in the West, though. While candy bars, potato chips and fast food–especially anything fried–tend to be staples on the snack menu in the States, Thailand has quite different tastes, most of which are vastly healthier than ours.

Fresh fruit is popular, and considering the wide variety of fruit that grows in this tropical locale–and the sheer volume of it–that’s a good thing. I’ve never seen so much fresh fruit in my life!

It’s easy when you’re strolling down the street to find a cup of fresh strawberries or chunks of pineapple to snack on.

But with all that fruit, a lot of it has to be preserved. So dried fruit is a common snack, too. [One of the most popular fruits either fresh or dried is durian, but that section of the blog got so big it had to split off on its own. Look for it this weekend.]

These bananas are dehydrated and coated in honey–unbelievably sweet!
Coconut juice doesn’t get any fresher than this!

Fresh fruit juices are often presented in plastic bags with a straw inserted–I suppose because this takes up less space in the trash. With millions regularly sipping juice this way, all those disposable cups would add up in a hurry.

Sweet, salty, spicy & buttery–this fresh corn was one of my favorite walking-around treats.

The fresh corn sold on the street reminded Cecilia of elote, one of those great street foods in her hometown of Mexico City. There the corn is served on the cob, coated in a thin layer of mayo and dipped in grated cotija cheese and chile powder. That’s my favorite street food in Mexico City, so I was glad to find it here, too.

The Thai version of “street corn” contains butter, salt, sugar and chile powder. This guy keeps the corn warm in a cooker on top of a propane tank. When you order some, he ladles it into a bowl and seasons it especially for you, mixing it well so that every kernel has all the flavor it should.
Sausages and meats are also popular choices for walking-around food. A single Thai sausage carries the flavor of an entire meal!
mmm, flossy pork (curiously, pork in Thai is “moo”). Not really what I’d call jerky, but it IS dried meat.

Occasionally you’ll find more Western-styled snacks, but they’re the exception rather than the rule.

These freshly baked little treats were made of potato. Reminded me a bit of Bugles, with the flavor of Pringles, but fresh. Very fresh–still warm from the oven.


Then there’s toasted seaweed. It looks just like nori, which is rolled around sushi, but this is crunchy and easy to snack on, not chewy like nori. It has an aggressively healthy taste to it, almost off-puttingly so.

25 years? Seriously?!!

The only food I absolutely couldn’t stand while I was in Thailand was a bag of hard candy with the curiously cheerful name of Let’s Party! C’mon–how can you NOT try a candy with that name? I defy you! I picked it up in a 7-11 (yes, they have them there). They were individually-wrapped red candies. Cherry flavored? Strawberry? Raspberry, perhaps? or Red currant? They were none of the above. The best approximation of flavor I can provide is that they tasted like what I assume you’d get if you made cough drops out of lighter fluid. After about 20 seconds, the piece in my mouth–and the rest of the bag–went into the trash. An entire travel-sized bottle of Listerine couldn’t put a dent in the aftertaste.

This is a pretty decent record, though. It would be unusual to say I’ve disliked only one thing I’ve eaten in any 10-day period here at home. So to travel for this length of time in Thailand and encounter only one food I didn’t like is amazing.

So what’s my favorite Thai snack? Fruit that’s so fresh you’d swear it has added sugar is awfully good. So’s the corn. And Thai sausages are one of my favorite foods, period.

There’s still a particular fruit to consider…one of which I spoke earlier, one that will get its own blog entry in a day or two…

***The obligatory disclaimer: I went to Thailand as a guest of Thai Tourism Authority. That said, I’m not interested in urging you to stay at particular hotels or to dine at particular establishments or to seek out specific amusements, but rather to enjoy the cuisine, whether you dine in Thailand or in a Thai restaurant in your hometown. And to take a crack at making Thai dishes yourself. There’s much to love about a cuisine so varied and flavorful.

Posted in Hungry Passport | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment