I love these baby bok choys, especially when they’re on sale for 98 cents a pound.
They have a nice crunchiness, but not much flavor, so will later be fried up with one of these:
Edit: Later stir-fried with garlic, ginger, fermented bean curd & a little light soy, delish! (and a bit steamy in the pic)
The mushrooms will be used to take tissue samples, then eaten.
Maitakes grown in . . . ?
I couldn’t resist black radishes:
From what I’ve read on the tubes, the only thing that distinguishes black radishes from non-black radishes is that they’re, erm, black. Possibly good for a Halloween salad but t’otherwise kinda pointless.
Cafe Bustelo instant? Only because I’m making a washed-curd Edam/Gouda type cheese, and it’s going to get a rubbing with a mixture of instant coffee, cocoa, pepper, and oil.
What’s in the bag?
It’s a banana flower. They look so cute/sexy, and at $1.49/lb., how could I resist?
Well, based on what I’ve read on the net (after buying it), I probably should have resisted. Results later!
As a part of my previous investigation into the profundities of doubanjiang, I was going to make three separate batches of ma po dofu. Then realized that that was kind of pointless.
However, I did try a new version, based on what I read on the tubes. Most ma po dofu recipes call for cooking the tofu briefly in salted water . . . which seems a bit pointless, unless you’re using soft (silken) tofu. This one did, so I tried it. Stay tuned for the result . . .
I was able to find this amazing 73 percent ground beef!
This was a new brand of Sichuan peppercorn for me. Looked dodgy, but after I picked out the prickly bits, roasted it and ground it up, it was excellent.
Lots of ma, lots of la!
The silken tofu, even when ‘cooked’ in the almost-boiling salted water for 10 minutes (the recipe I used called for one minute, which would have been pretty much pointless) was still pretty soft, and no matter how gently I stirred, broke up somewhat. But the recipe also called for a more gentler seasoning, and the combination of that and the softer tofu was really nice. Maybe on another day I’ll make my usual stiffer and more macho ma po dofu, but for some reason this was perfect on a warm and rainy winter day.
If, like me, you love Sichuan (even if you spell it ‘Szechuan’) food, you know doubanjiang, even if you spell it ‘to banjyan,’ or even call it ‘chili bean paste.’ It’s the primary flavoring ingredient in ma po dofu . . . now matter how you spell that 🙂 which is probably my favorite Sichuan dish, or is it maybe dan-dan noodles? Both iconic, both delicious . . .
In any case, ‘chili bean paste’ is a bit of a misnomer, because that makes it sound like doubanjiang is made from chili beans, when in fact it’s made from fava (but you can spell that broad) beans, which are fermented along with chilis (but you can spell that chiles). Cheaper brands are made from soybeans, but the real thing, and one indication of quality, is that fava beans are used.
For a long time I’ve been using the Lee Kum Kee brand:
If you’re new to Chinese food, or even have some experience, and find yourself overwhelmed at your local Asian market, the ‘Lee Kum Kee’ products are always a good default choice. Not necessarily the best, but far from the worst. I’ve been using their ‘Toban Djan’ for years . . .
Until I saw this:
Sichuang Sauce for Spicy Dishes? It’s a “G” better than Sichuan!
I’m still not sure what to call it – – number two seems less than appetizing, but here’s the cap:
. . . so I’m going to call it Super Lucky. I hadn’t tried it, since I was still working on my latest jar of LKK.
Then there’s the internet. And the internet mavens tell tales of a legendary ‘chili bean paste’ from the mythological land of Pixian, where the Chinese capitalist overlords haven’t wrenched away the fava beans from their hardly working vats of long-term (three months, at least) fermentation, only to replace them with quick blends that the Western suckers will buy into.
So, it seemed hardly possible that you could buy a pound of authentic ‘Pixian’ doubanjiang from Amazon for less than eight dollars, and in brief, well, read on . . . there was one surprise to this story.
Here are our contenders:
Immediate observation: contenders #1 and #2 look similar, whereas the Pixian is darker and chunkier. So, on to the taste test: the LKK is good. Super Lucky is, surprisingly (since it was the cheapest), better, much more of a citrus punch, I believe from the Sichuan pepper. Also quite a bit hotter. Pixian tastes almost the same as Super Lucky.
. . . but biting into the Pixian is also distressingly like chomping down on a mixture of paste and something like plastic, just hard bits of what seemed to be food but could have been anything. Nasty.
So, in the interest of science, I sacrificed 1-1/2 tablespoons of each. They were rinsed in a tea strainer:
and here’s the result.
The LKK, on the left, looks pretty gritty, but in fact all of the bits were pretty soft. Super Lucky Number 2 is more consistent in terms of size, but a bit (only a bit) tougher in texture. The big surprise was Pixian, which was horrible.
You can certainly see that it was made from peppers and beans, but, really, if this had been fermented properly, the ingredients shouldn’t be so blindingly obvious. Even the beans aren’t soft, and instead hard and pretty much inedible. I’m not sure where the flavor, which was good, came from – – but this is completely unusable, unless maybe you whizz it up in a blender. Big disappointment.
For the pork: 1 kg pork belly, cut into 2″ strips, marinate in 1 Tbsp. Shaoxing rice wine or mirin, 2 Tbsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. saltpeter.
For the bacon: 3 kilos pork belly, cut into 2″ strips, marinate in cloves, cassia or cinnamon bark, star anise, 1/2 tsp. saltpeter, 2 Tbsp. Shaoxing rice wine or mirin, 2 Tbsp. brown sugar, 2 Tbsp. whole Sichuan pepper, and 3/4 cup salt.
Hang until dry, or until the neighbors ask why you have meat hanging in your garage.
For the pork: rub with 8 Tbsp. sweet wheaten paste, 4 Tbsp. fermented rice wine or Shaoxing rice wine, and 1 Tbsp. whole Sichuan pepper. Hang again.
For the bacon, combine 2 C. flour, 2 C. sugar, choice of peanut husks, cypress shavings (I didn’t have cypress shavings, used tea instead). Heat on two layers of tinfoil in wok and smoke the bacon for 20 minutes to 20 hours to taste.
After two hours, a lovely yellow hue, enough!
Lovely, lovely bacon, nice smoke taste on the outside:
T’other version got a beautiful rich dark red color. Steamed, then served with ground Sichuan pepper:
I love cheese. I love cheesecake. I love Basque ‘Burnt’ (it’s not really) Cheesecake most of all. It’s so good, the first time I made it, I ate half in one day. That’s half a kilo of cream cheese, almost a cup of sugar, and a cup of heavy cream . . . in one day. You can imagine the effect on what I will delicately refer to as my digestion.
It’s a doddle to make, but you do need a 9 or 10″ springform pan and parchment paper. Also a mixer, although you could probably use a whisk if you have a patient arm and don’t mind all that to-ing and fro-ing.
Put the oven on 400 degrees mark Fahrenheit or 200 decimal degrees. Cut a piece of parchment paper bigger than the bottom of your pan, put it on the pan base, then attach the ring and tighten. Cut a strip a couple of inches taller than the ring, then line the ring with it. Hint: a little butter or oil on the outside of the strip will help it to stick to the ring and make filling the pan easier. Rub the insides of the paper with butter or oil so the batter (mostly) won’t stick:
Beat one kilogram of cream cheese at room temperature with 1-3/4 cups sugar for five minutes, then add 1/4 tsp. salt and five eggs, beating them in one at a time. Keep on beating while slowly pouring in two cups of heavy cream, then 1/4 cup of flour. Scrape down the sides of your beating vessel with an implement and ensure that all is well incorporated. Pour into pan. Put pan in oven. Close oven door.
This is why you need the collar:
At 45 minutes it’s almost there:
Keep going until you’re ascared it’s burnt, then take it out of the oven and let it cool completely. Don’t even think of taking the ring off until it’s entirely cool.
If it looks like a giant round sunken burnt turd, it’s perfect:
The crust is slightly denser than the rest, is caramelized and has a (just) slight bitterness from the baking, so it’s the perfect foil for the creamy, not too sweet interior. Serve it with whipped cream or just naturel. Try not to eat half of it in one day.
In another post I mentioned my love for doubanjiang/to ban jiang/Sichuan chili bean paste, and I tried my hand at making it.
150g fava beans soaked overnight, then steamed until cooked but not mushy, mixed with 0.3g Aspergillus oryzae, two days at 90 degrees and high humidity:
Dried, then washed, mixed with 50 ml vodka, 40g salt and a bit of water, then allowed to ferment under the same conditions for two days, until:
One kg of red peppers, chopped fine (ish) and mixed with 40g salt, allowed to sweat for 8 hours, then the brine poured away:
Mix with the spices, glutinous rice wine, and oil:
She’s an institution – – I’ve been following her hints (mostly sent in by her readers) for longer than I can remember. Sadly, she’s only weekly in my local rag. Here are a few hints. I hope you find them as useful as I have.
After I offered the boys they sent me gin rickeys, and when the boys refused, promised not to spike their cocktails with tea or coffee; and after I told the girls they sent me that believing in a god (any god) was delusional, you’d think the Mormons would stop visiting me. Honestly, if they put down 1% of the money they spend on buying temple underwear and baptizing dead Jews, on some basic market research, they might get a better ROI.
I was just about to go down to the basement to rub my Taleggio (not a euphemism) when the knock came. Quick check – white-shirted, ties, 7 p.m., probably not here to give me a roof replacement estimate.
“Hello, I’m Elder XXX and this is Elder YYY. How are you this evening?”
I’d like to say that I’ve replaced their names with capital letters to protect their identities, but as soon as the word “Elder” came out, I sort of stopped paying attention.
“I’m fine, you’re Mormons, and I’m not interested.”
They just said “Thank you, have a good evening,” and went away, which is pretty amazing for Mormons, who tend to be persistent.
There’s a Mormon temple in MD, just outside DC:
You can’t get in unless you’re a Mormon, so most people see it from the Beltway (with a clever and contentious former railroad bridge graffito):
