Pho

Before we get any further, this dish is pronounced FUH, not FOH or anything else. I’m a stickler for pronunciation, so please get this one right.

It’s currently an über trendy dish in America, but has been as common as a hamburger in Vietnam for almost a century. Pho is basically an Asian version of a classic noodle soup- chicken, pork, or beef, etc. It is eaten any time of day, but it’s actually most often served as breakfast in most of Vietnam. We had it for dinner tonight.

I recently got Charles Phan’s first book, Vietnamese Home Cooking, after all the success and fun I’ve had with The Slanted Door. We’re real busy (closing on a house and moving AGAIN), so I’ve only managed to cook this one classic recipe from it so far, and the timing was perfect because it’s been rainy and in the 30s here; perfect weather for a house to be filled with the heat and smells of chicken bones and ginger simmering all day. I’m sure I’ll do more complex stuff once things settle down.

Pho Gá

A simple but flavorful Asian chicken broth ladled over rice noodles, chicken, scallions, and cilantro, garnished with fried shallots. It’s served alongside fresh lime, bean sprouts, jalapeños, and basil, the idea being that you add the fresh herbs as you eat, so they never get soft or soggy. Comforting and delicious- light if you eat a little, filling if you eat a lot.

Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington

Kara went to DC this week with the entire 8th grade of Greenhill. So you know what that means… I cook forbidden food! Not really forbidden—Kara has a pretty flexible palette—but she is not a fan of lamb, is severely allergic to clams, and she probably would not be interested in seeing a whole quail on her plate. So I pulled out my favorite cookbooks and went to town.

Braised Eggs with Lamb, Tahini, and Sumac

This is the cover recipe for Jerusalem (their picture is prettier, but they cheated!—It’s heavily modified from the actual recipe). The book’s description is what interested me most: "This concoction is Jerusalem fusion food at it’s very best. It incorporates traditional elements that are purely Palestinian with ingredients characteristic of various Jewish cuisines, and puts them all together in a completely nontraditional way.” The flavors were AMAZING and perfectly balanced. Lamb, onions, garlic, pistachios, pine nuts, harissa paste (a red chile-based hot sauce with spices like caraway and cumin), topped with cooked tomatoes, cilantro, and a sauce made with Greek yogurt and tahini paste. It’s sprinkled with sumac, which is a delicious spice that is fairly mild with citrusy notes and is becoming very popular in the US, I suspect in part because of this chef. Truly a masterpiece recipe.

Chili-Lime Glazed Grilled Quail + Fire Roasted Poblano and Sweet Potato Hash

I noticed Texas quail at my favorite market, so I had to pick it up for this week, and I knew Jonathan would be the perfect person to share it with. He picked this chili-lime glazed recipe from a few options I gave him and I came up with the sweet potato hash side. Both were simple to make with few ingredients, and absolutely delicious.

Soba Noodles with Eggplant and Mango

The title pretty much says it all, but it’s dressed in a sauce similar to shari-zu (sushi dressing- rice wine vinegar, sugar, and salt) and perked up with cilantro and red onion. Soba is the Japanese word for buckwheat, by the way, so that’s what the noodles are, and they are delicious. Another Ottolenghi recipe, this time from Plenty. That book’s difficult for me to cook from because the recipes are either very high in fat (which makes me a little uncomfortable), or loaded with veggies that Kara is not a fan of. She loves fruits and I love veggies, and the reverse is not true. No matter what, I have LOVED every recipe I’ve made from it. This one did not disappoint.

Clams with Butter-Lime Sauce + Hainan Chicken

Both of these are from The Slanted Door and, just as almost everything else I’ve made from that book, they are simple, subtle, but deep in flavor all at once. For this meal, I invited Nora over (very dear friend, walking distance from where we live now)- I know she likes Asian flavors.

The clams are an excellent illustration of the impact the French have on Vietnamese cuisine, thanks to French colonialism. It’s essentially a French dish using sake instead of chardonnay, with the addition of Thai chiles and fish sauce. I think the blend of French with Asian cuisine is one of the reasons I like Vietnamese food so much.

Hainan chicken is one that Charles Phan has always had on his menu even though he says it's never been a best seller. It’s boiled, so the skin is rubbery, not crispy, but his mentality is that that’s the best way to really experience chicken at it’s purest. A fair assessment, and tastier than it sounds. It IS really good. The ginger-chicken broth is then used to make a rice pilaf (rice cooked in flavored broth, often seared in fat first, as in this case). The dipping sauce served alongside the chicken is what seals the deal- Thai chiles, ginger, garlic, lime and fish sauce- pungent in a good way.

Pumpkin

Just because I hadn’t sent out a food email in a while and I saw a theme develop here:

Spicy Pumpkin Soup with Avocado Cream

The spicy comes from a fair amount of chipotle peppers and adobo sauce- very smoky, and very spicy. Puréed with onions and garlic and lots of pumpkin. Seasoned with cumin and smoked paprika, topped with sausage and black beans, with a creamy avocado sauce stirred in to cut the heat. Quite inventive and perfect for fall.

Pumpkin Seeds

Of course, you always roast the seeds! This time I tossed them in a sweet and spicy barbecue blend of my own invention. LOTS of spices here, but standouts are salt, brown sugar, smoked paprika, ancho chili powder, cumin, and garlic.

 

Butchering Nobu

Nobu wins again. It IS impossible to cook anything in his book the way he cooks it. Even with substitutions in ingredients and cooking vessels, you cannot do Nobu at home without intense planning and connections to restaurant suppliers. That doesn’t mean you can’t make tasty food inspired by his recipes though!

Scampi with Spicy Lemon Garlic Sauce

This was the appetizer, and I forgive you if the presentation looks unpalatable to your Western eyes (Kara was served just the tails). I couldn't find the exact type of shrimp he calls for here, but langoustines made a decent substitute. They taste like lobster, not shrimp, but they’re much smaller, so you just want MORE! The lemon garlic sauce made with reduced sake was delicious and I have some leftover, so I may use it with some shrimp or scallops tonight. Here, they’re resting on a small bed of baby celery leaves. It was an insanely luxurious dish and way too small.

Toro Toban Yaki

Essentially, seared tuna, three kinds of mushrooms, broccoli, and asparagus served on a heated platter drenched in clarified butter and a light sake, citrus, and soy sauce. Almost all of Kara’s favorite ingredients in one dish. But...

I can’t find toro or a toban in Dallas. All I got right was the yaki. Toro is the highly-prized fatty tuna belly- most of which is shipped to Japan or high-end restaurants. A toban is a covered ceramic dish used to cook food in and serve it hot (I can find them online, but not locally). Yaki basically means grilled or broiled, so yeah, I got that down. I used fresh yellowfin (ahi) tuna, and I served it all in a heated cast iron skillet to mimic a toban in the most disrespectful Southern American way possible. All the precision of Japanese food razed in one fell swoop. I also couldn’t find any of the mushrooms that he called for except shiitake, but I got some other similar fancy ones to stand in. Ultimately, it was very tasty—very luxurious again—but it was a far cry from a real Nobu experience. Perhaps I can come closer in the future with a great deal more planning and preparation, though finding the required rare cuts of fish will remain near impossible.

Nobu

This weekend I finally got to cook from a cookbook I got for my birthday by celebrity chef, Nobu Matsuhisa. He cooks traditional Japanese with Peruvian influences. The introduction to the book promises that you can’t duplicate any of his dishes due to both the rare ingredients, many of which can only be found in Japan, and also his kokoro, or the heart that any individual imparts to their own food. I knew he was right on both counts, but it sounded like a challenge to see what I’d come up with.

I’d handle my own kokoro, or cooking with love, as I call it, but I was scouring the Internet to understand half the ingredients, and I do a lot of Japanese cooking! Luckily, there are some great Asian markets in Dallas. The one I went to this weekend kind of blew my mind with its wealth of fresh seafood, but it quickly descended into the panic attack-inducing experience of the Ikea maze (plus no one spoke English). I left with the best options I could find.

Nobu also subscribes to the concept of many very small courses, each just giving you a few bites. The idea is to leave you wanting more, but moving on to try something else, which again you will want more of. When the meal is finally complete, you’re not stuffed, but satisfied, yet still wanting one more bite. Each of these recipes claim to serve four, but that’s only if you make a dozen separate ones, which he suggests. As I do not have a team of chefs or a commercial kitchen to achieve this, I settled for just cooking for two without halving the recipes, and served each as quickly as I could. This amounted to 3 dishes, each served as they were completed, evenly spread across about 6 hours of cooking.

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Seafood Ceviche, Nobu Style

Perhaps the essence of Japanese-Peruvian fusion, this dish contains a blend of white fish, shrimp, squid, and octopus, along with cucumber slices, tomatoes, and cilantro, dressed with a citrusy ginger-soy sauce. Very bright and fresh and perfect for summer.

Lobster Salad with Spicy Lemon Dressing

The title pretty much says it all, but I can add that it’s garnished with crispy fried garlic slices, you can see the lightly grilled shiitakes in there, and I used a custom blend of wild baby greens and shoots. Again, the dressing had several Japanese influences in its ingredients. Nothing short of luxurious.

Soft Shell Crab Roll

The above dishes are less straightforward than they sound, but truthfully the ones in his book I thought would be easiest for me were the sushi rolls, and this was by far the most difficult. They’re wrapped in finely sliced daikon on the outside (like a cucumber-sized white radish common to Japanese cuisine) using a technique that after a few careful tries I knew was just inviting a visit to the ER, so I improvised my own inferior technique. Otherwise, each roll (not each piece pictured here) contains one whole deep fried soft shell crab, flying fish roe, avocado, wasabi, chives, and obviously sushi rice. Wrapped in nori, then the daikon. This one had to be on our menu because it was one of Kara’s favorite dishes when we went to Nobu Malibu just before leaving LA. It was delicious, but tricky to make. His kokoro may be a bit more experienced than mine, but I was just as spirited for a first try.

East Texas Boar Balls

Somewhere in Middle-Of-Nowhere East Texas, there is a guy named Claude who has driven all his life without a license. Claude and his brother trapped a wild hog. Tsagoi and Claude butchered the hog. I wound up with 3 pounds of its meat in ziplock freezer bags labeled with a magic marker, “backstrap” and “fry meat”. So that’s how this meal happened. Thank you Claude, Brother, Mom, and Tsagoi. Sorry, Hog, but thank you, too.

I brined and grilled some of the backstrap like steaks, and I mixed the leftovers with the "fry meat" and ground it and made meatballs- my failsafe way to taste a meat and make sure it’s tender and juicy. I didn’t add much seasoning- just salt, pepper, parsley, and fennel (a great combo for pork). In case it ended up dry (it didn’t), and because I won’t do bottled on a meal like this, I cooked up The Meatball Shop’s BBQ sauce- heavy on sugar and cumin. Yum.

I served it with rustic sides to honor its wild flavor. I give you…

Grilled Wild Hog Backstrap, Boar Balls, Smashed Turnips with Fresh Horseradish, Collard Greens, and BBQ Sauce, cuz #EastTX

The balls were a great idea and came out fabulous. The grilled backstrap took crazy sawing to get through, but was tender when eaten. Tasted like pork tenderloin, but just a little different, hard to put my finger on. Mom says, “wild”.I’ll take that.

Biblical Eggplant

Ever since we moved into this new house, every time I come down the stairs from my office, I happen to see the cover of Plenty, and every time I see it, I want to eat it. So today I made the cover recipe.

Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

Roasted eggplant with a creamy, garlicky buttermilk and greek yogurt sauce, topped with pomegranate and za’atar. The eggplant is allowed to absorb lots of olive oil before it’s roasted until it’s very tender. The pomegranate (which I could rarely find in LA but is easy to find here) serves both as sweetness to balance the tart sauce as well as crunch to balance the soft texture of the eggplant. Za’atar is a fragrant herb used in Middle Eastern cooking and is likely what the Bible frequently refers to as hyssop, but also commonly refers to a spice blend that includes sesame seeds, salt, oregano, cumin, and sumac (a delicious citrusy herb). I used the spice blend here. It rounded out the flavors to keep the dish savory.

 

Light Summer Fare

After the fun with pheasant, as sworn, I’ve been doing a lot on the grill and also been using plenty of farmer’s market veggies (meat too- they have local rabbit at half LA's price!). However, standing over a fiery grill when it’s already over 100º outside is a very different experience from enjoying it’s warmth while surrounded by the cool ocean breezes of LA. Here are a couple recent highlights:

Vegetable Paella

From Plenty. Red and yellow bell peppers, fennel, artichoke, limas, tomatoes, kalamata olives, onions, garlic, and of course paella rice flavored with saffron and smoked paprika.

Seared Tuna with Grilled Ratatouille, Israeli Couscous and Deconstructed Pesto
Just a fancy name for tuna on top of some big couscous, tossed with grilled squashes and dressed with olive oil, pine nuts, and torn basil leaves. Nicely seasoned and very light and fresh though!

Five Alarm Pheasant

Although we (mostly Kara) got the kitchen to a usable state within days of moving into our new house in Dallas, it wasn’t till last night that I finally had time to cook something new. While looking for duck, which is very hard to find here, I stumbled across pheasant, which I don’t recall ever seeing in LA but is readily available at our closest market now. It also reminds me of a wooden statue of the bird that stood near the dinner table at my grandparents’ ranch in Glen Rose, so this Southern treatment of it felt especially fitting.

Roasted Pheasant with Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding and Pan Gravy

Stuffed with aromatics and creole seasonings, the star of the dish came out perfectly cooked with crisp, golden skin, moist dark meat and tender white meat- similar to a nice roasted chicken, but a bit richer. The bread pudding is essentially like Thanksgiving stuffing, only rather than the traditional cornbread and poultry seasoning type flavors, it's made with white bread, more creole seasonings, mushrooms and onions sautéed in beer, and an interesting hit of molasses. The whole dish is topped with a pan gravy made with fresh orange juice and Rioja wine.

It was a fun first culinary exploration for Texas, although I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I learned the hard way why no one likes to oven-roast at 500º when the weather is close to triple digits even at night. At least we know the smoke alarms and the A/C are in tip top shape. Back to bug spray and barbecue for now I guess.

 

Black Pepper Tofu

Matthew was visiting this week so I was cooking vegan. This tofu dish has a crazy amount of freshly ground black pepper, plus some chiles- real spicy. Even Kara loved it, but I would have to dial the pepper back for her to eat more than a few bites. I served it with jasmine rice and Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger to help cool our mouths. Delicious.

More of the Door

Kara was in Dallas this past weekend, so I spent some time trying out more recipes from The Slanted Door. It’s definitely among my favorite cookbooks. She was actually disappointed that I cooked these without her, as she loves the book, too. However, she fostered a duck as a Junior Zoo Keeper named Lucky Ducky, and cannot bring herself to eat them. I get it. Squid, yes, duck, no. Anyway, I decided to get my duck on while she wasn’t around. She’ll still get some non-duck leftovers- like the killer quiche...

Spicy Squid Stir-Fry + Fried Shishito Peppers

Very spicy, but perfectly balanced with sweet—basil, red bell pepper, and pineapple—and salty fish sauce. Seriously amazing. The shishito peppers are great and I gather that frying them is common and trendy, but frying is unhealthy and at home it’s a mess, too. My Aunt Kit introduced me to peppers just tossed in oil, seasoned, and simply roasted in the oven. Not exactly the same, but I’ve done it many times since and I’ll stick to that method in the future.

Vietnamese Quiche + Duck Salad

You can’t get much more French-Asian fusion than this! The quiche is made from pork, mushrooms, glass noodles, delectable Dungeness crab, and of course, eggs. It’s insane how much flavor that crab packs. I thought a duck confit salad would be a perfect starter, in keeping with the French theme. Frisée, radicchio, and apples, tossed in a citrusy Asian vinaigrette and topped with duck. It was sinfully delicious, but I’m done with frying for a while now. (*Duck confit is essentially fried duck). **Since this writing, this salad has become a staple in our house, though I make it with chicken thighs, so we don't offend Kara's Lucky Duck**

Duck Porridge + Jicama and Grapefruit Salad

This duck porridge is similar to classic chicken and rice soup, but with duck stock instead of chicken stock, more rice, and with flavors like ginger and green onion instead of carrots and celery. The whole duck provided the stock, and then the breast and legs are served alongside with a bold dipping sauce made from ginger, chiles, fish sauce, lime juice, etc. Thinking of duck a l’orange, I made a salad with grapefruit as a starter. Another complex Asian-style dressing on top of a salad with red cabbage, jicama, and sugar-crusted pecans. Refreshing and fitting. This was actually a pretty light meal- soup and salad.

Lobster Pad Thai

Lobster Pad Thai

With huge seared scallops. And shrimp. Rice noodles, garlic, snow peas, bean sprouts, cilantro, carrots, and roasted peanuts, I could go on. Rockin’ a lot of stuff here.

Kara and I are making sure we visit our favorite restaurants before we leave LA, and an amazing local Thai place called Ayara is one of them. If/when you’re in LA, you really should go there. When we went the other night, they had a lobster pad thai special. But Kara’s fave is chicken fried rice and mine is their duck curry. So we decided I would make the pad thai myself and we’d stick to our favorites.

This was a challenge, but ultimately a success. When I put this much care into a dish with such expensive ingredients that can be ruined in a matter of seconds, plus rare flavors like tamarind and bold ones like fish sauce, it’s very satisfying to pull it off. Not bragging though; classic dishes like pad thai or even just methods to properly cook shellfish are easy to take for granted and I’m humbled by the experience of others that enables me to eat things this luxurious.

We splurged. We all should.

Bon appétit.

 

Vindaloo is Fun to Say

Not sending this to my entire food email list, but thought you guys might enjoy it. This was last weekend. More from Plenty. They should call it Plenty of Hard-to-Find-Ingredients. Made for a nice meal, pretty picture, and lots of leftovers though. I paired these three dishes on the author’s suggestion. Not sure of his reasoning, but I like a chef’s suggestion...

Fried Lima Beans with Feta, Sorrel, and Sumac

Tender limas lightly pan-fried in butter and olive oil. Sumac, again, is a tart spice, and feta is, of course, a tart cheese. Sorrel is apparently pretty common in many cuisines and goes by many names, but is hard to find here. It is also surprisingly tart and citrusy. I could only find sorrel at Whole Foods in the fresh herbs section in those over-priced 3/4 oz plastic boxes (not even at farmer’s market or Indian specialty shop). Since this recipe uses it as a main component, not an herb, I’d have had to spend $25 to get the full amount! Spinach and lots of lemon juice is a suggested substitute. I did buy one box of the sorrel so I’d know what I was/wasn’t missing. I cooked some and used the rest as garnish. It cooks differently from spinach, and definitely tastes very different, but I’d say his substitute is worth saving over $20 for this recipe.

Green Bean Salad with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon

Very fresh- blanched green beans, snow peas, and English peas tossed with nigella seeds (another new one to me) and mustard and coriander seeds lightly toasted in the hot olive oil that dresses the salad. Mild and refreshing, but every now and then you hit one seed or another for an exotic burst of flavor.

Two-Potato Vindaloo

Very complex flavors, used just about every spice in my cabinet. Between some red bell peppers, tomatoes, a dash of sugar, and sweet potatoes, this was really good, but a bit sweet for me. Warms up well and the flavors deepen after a day or two, so it makes great leftovers. I left out the heat, hoping Kara may be more likely to enjoy it, so it may be my fault the sweetness wasn’t quite balanced. Had to drive halfway across town to find fresh curry leaves for this, easily an hour round trip. Unlike most hard to find ingredients, in this case I stepped to the register and heard, “That will be one dollar.”

Veg

I plan on always eating meat, but I wouldn’t mind eating less of it for many reasons. After my success with the book, Jerusalem, one of the author's earlier books, Plenty, seemed to fit the bill as a contemporary vegetarian bible. Though a few recipes happen to be über healthy and/or vegan, that is not the aim. Many call for lots of egg, cheese, butter, and cream, and some even suggest meat pairings. But they’re all very bold and complex, with a clear focus on veg and unique stand-out flavor combinations.

Here’s my first set of dishes from the past few days:

Beet, Orange, and Black Olive Salad

Citrus and beets go great together- I like to make smoothies with the two. This salad also has radicchio, red onions, parsley, and a nice vinaigrette, but it’s the salty olives that set it off. They’re hard to spot in the picture because beets turn everything they touch vibrant magenta, but there are Greek Kalamata olive halves throughout.

 

 

Marinated Pepper Salad with Pecorino

Roasted red and yellow bell peppers marinated in a sweet Balsamic dressing, tossed with watercress, basil, and parsley, and lots of shaved pecorino cheese and capers. Very sharp, loaded with herbaceous flavor, and still refreshing.

 

Mushroom and Herb Polenta

For something that sounds potentially healthy, my God, it was sinful. Parmesan and rosemary butter in the polenta. Topped with Taleggio cheese, pungent and melty. The mushrooms were coated with truffle oil and tossed with crushed garlic, tarragon, and chervil. Every bite makes you melt. It was too rich to finish in one sitting but leftovers warmed up perfectly.

Stuffed Portobello with Melting Taleggio

Here’s what to do with the fancy cheese left over from the polenta. Mushrooms stuffed with celery, onion, sun dried tomatoes, and Parmesan and topped with Taleggio. Kara said the flavor reminded her of spaghetti (in a good way). Tarragon and sun dried tomatoes shined. Might be fun to do in smaller bite-sized mushrooms.

Pasta and Fried Zucchini Salad

Penne tossed with fried zucchini slices and edamame in a bright basil-parsley sauce topped with lemon zest, capers, and torn fresh water mozzarella. Very delicious and perfectly balanced. Though I served it as a main following the stuffed portobellos, it’s also suggested as the perfect picnic fare, and I think that would work well, too.