Homework

I believe I mentioned that I have a book due on July 15, and am consequently in what we refer to as Book Deathmarch.

This, consequently, is what the interior of my fridge looks like right now.

My household has been eating, this past week, mostly courtesy of what’s been found in the freezer and the garden.  Right now in the fridge there are two packages of seasoned tofu, two bottles of beer, some garlic scape pesto, half a dozen eggs, a chicken carcass waiting to be turned into soup (that’s the plastic box), a quarter of a container of soymilk, Vitamin D liquid, some olives, some miso, some garlic, and the Magic Forest of Pickled Peppers And Other Condiments.  Oh, and pint of cream because I keep meaning to make caramels for someone and it keeps not happening.  There are some breadcumbs in there too, and almond meal, popcorn, and, in the plastic baggie you can see just poking out of the door, some salt cod.  The rest of the door shelves contain condiments of all sorts, from pomegranate molasses to four kinds of mustard.  And the cat’s insulin.

The cupboard is also starting to look a little less like its usual self.  There’s a big hole where several bags of dried beans used to be, the muesli stocks are pretty much gone, there’s no more peanut butter.  Even the tea cupboard has some wide open spaces in it, a state of affairs so rare as to be shocking.

It’s kind of an interesting challenge to feed yourself and your household when the fridge mostly holds condiments and not many things with which one could reasonably use same.  It strikes me that this task might be easier and less stressful if I just went out and did the hunting and gathering.  I guess I’ll have to carve out some time and do that.

A couple folks have asked, so here’s the approximate method for DIY salt-fermented chiles.

You need about a pound of chiles of your desired degree of hottitude.  Wash them, remove the stems, and chop them coarsely.  I often bung them in the food processor and whir them until they are mostly coarsely chopped with a few bigger and a few smaller bits.  It saves a lot of time.

Put your chopped chiles in a large bowl. Add about 2 Tablespoons kosher salt for a pound of chiles, and combine thoroughly.  Feel free to knead the salt and the chiles together if you like.  Pack salt and chiles into a clean glass jar or jars and put lids on them loosely.

Leave the chiles out on the counter at room temperature for about 2-4 days depending on how warm your kitchen is.  Less if it’s warmer, more if it’s cooler.  They’ll give off some liquid and you’ll see some little bubbles starting to form in the liquid.  Stir things around some with a chopstick, put the lid(s) back on (still loosely) and put your jar(s) in the fridge.  Every day or two, stir things around some more with a chopstick.  In about a week to ten days your chiles will be sufficiently transformed that you can start using them.

They will continue to improve over the space of a couple of months.  If you use them at a steady clip you’ll figure out eventually how much you have to make in your initial batch so that you will not run out until after they’ve had a chance to reach their peak.  What their peak is, of course, is subjective.

If things get fuzzy, remove the fuzzy bits and carry on.  If things start getting blue or grey, though, or it smells like a horrible dead thing that has died horribly, throw it away and start over.

And if you are even more adventurous than this, you can use Andrea Nguyen’s amazing recipe for homemade fermented Sriracha sauce.

Whooboy, it’s been a time around here, chickens.  I’m deep, deep in the crunch, though not yet in the weeds thank God, with a book deadline July 15.  So if postings get a little catch-as-catch can, fear not, it’s just that the book has eaten my head, my hands, and probably my cooking time, as well as pretty much everything else.

I did get to cook yesterday, though, as a celebration of both my finally finishing a complete draft of the whole book (cue vuvuzelas!) and a dear friend’s birthday (cue birthday cake!).  I made a Mexican feast: carnitas, frijoles, pico de gallo, veggies from the garden, sliced avocado, and bought a kilo of fine, fine tortillas from Tortilleria Sinaloa across town in Fell’s Point.  (I never want to live in a town without a good tortilleria again.)

So tonight I’m having leftovers.  Chopped chard and purslane from the garden topped with a bunch of carnitas and several large spoonfuls of pico de gallo.  In the little dish, some Korean-style pickled daikon.  And in the big quart Mason jar, a big ol’ vat of iced tea with plenty of lemon juice.  Just think of the pickled daikon as Korean curtido.  Muy rico no matter what.

What do you eat when you’re pressed for time or not feeling much like cooking?  The day after I’ve done a service for the pop-up restaurant I am usually both, and meals can be a bit of an afterthought.

One of the nice things about the pop-up restaurant situation, though, is that the leftovers usually come home with me.  They need to be used up to avoid waste, of course, but that’s the boring reason to use up leftovers.  Much more interesting is the part where, even though I’ve spent a couple of days with the particular foodstuff(s) in question already, I get to enjoy some pretty darn good food.  When the food was good to begin with, leftovers are hardly a trial.

In this case, a half-empty tub of the filling that was used in pork wonton came home with me yesterday, and since it had been opened and partly used, I wanted to make sure to use it up promptly.  I also wanted to make sure it was really well cooked, just to be on the safe side.  I tipped it into a blazing-hot wok and let it  render out a little of its own fat and juices, added a small slug of double black soy sauce, then fried it to a nice golden brown, letting a few patches get some crust on them to intensify the flavor.

While the pork was cooking I cleaned a few big handfuls of tender spring arugula (that’s rocket to you speakers of British English) that I’d picked up at the Saturday farmer’s market from my go-to greens vendor, Gardener’s Gourmet.  I filled a big bowl, the kind I use for bibimbap and other one-bowl feasts, with the greens and then scooped a wok ladle-ful of the sizzling meat over it, doused it with a tablespoon or two of ginger-infused Chiankiang vinegar and a dollop of chili-garlic paste.

The verdict?  Excellent.  I kept a backup bowl of extra greens on the table and just kept adding arugula to the bowl until I had eaten all the meat.  The fattiness of the pork balances the bitterness and astringency of the greens perfectly, without hiding that great nutty quality that good arugula has.  The vinegar and chili-garlic paste gave it the right blend of acidity, salt, and savor that tied it all together.

Next time I make wonton filling, I’m going to make extra, so I can do this on purpose.

Very Basic Pork Wonton Filling

1 pound minced or coarsely ground pork, preferably a somewhat fatty cut
2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
4 teaspoons dry sherry
1 teaspoon double black soy sauce  (or use regular soy sauce if you don’t have the double black)
2 teaspoons cornstarch
4 dried black mushrooms, soaked in boiling water 30 minutes, stemmed, caps roughly minced
8-10 water chestnuts, peeled and finely chopped
about 1/2 cup finely chopped scallion, white parts primarily
2 Tablespoons oyster sauce
ground white pepper (to taste) (optional)

Thoroughly combine the pork, garlic, sherry, soy sauce, and cornstarch. Let stand 10-15 minutes.  Mix in the mushrooms, water chestnut, scallion, oyster sauce, and pepper, if using.  Cover tightly and refrigerate 1 hour or longer before using.

Ginger-Infused Chinkiang Vinegar

2 cups Chinkiang vinegar
1/2 cup finely minced peeled fresh ginger root

Place vinegar and ginger root in a sterilized glass jar.  Cap the jar.  Let the vinegar stand at room temperature 24 hours, then refrigerate 1 week before using.  Store the vinegar in the refrigerator.  You can use both the vinegar itself and the ginger that is in it.
Sweet Chili-Garlic Paste

15-40 dried chiles of your choice (fewer if they’re big, more if they’re small) stemmed and seeded, inner membranes removed
boiling water
8 or more peeled cloves fresh garlic, to taste
4 or more Tablespoons Chinese yellow sugar, Mexican panela, or other unrefined sugar (jaggery, gur, piloncillo, rapadura… whatever you’ve got or can lay hands on), to taste
1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
neutral oil, like peanut oil, grapeseed oil, canola oil

Soak the chiles in boiling water for 20 minutes, until fairly pliable.  Some kinds of chiles may need to soak longer.  You are looking for a consistency like that of fruit leather.  Drain the chiles and shake the excess water off of them.

Put the chiles in the bowl of a food processor along with the garlic, sugar, and salt.  Add sufficient oil to almost cover the chiles and puree at high speed until the mixture is as smooth as you can get it.  You will need to scrape down the bowl a few times.  Taste as you go and, if needed, correct the balance of flavors by adding small amounts of sugar or salt, or additional half-cloves of garlic.  Pack into a clean glass or plastic container, cover, and let sit at room temperature 6 hours or overnight, then refrigerate.

Do re-taste this after it sits a while, because the flavor of the chiles will bloom over time and thus the flavor balance can change quite a bit.  Taste it before you refrigerate it, and correct the seasonings as you like.

Note: For a mild chili paste that is very versatile, use dried guajillo chiles, which are quite large and have a nice smoky presence that I find smooth and likeable.   Serrano chiles are delicious in this, and are hotter although still not scorching.  I’ve never made it with anything hotter than serranos, but you may feel free to let your conscience be your guide.

At today’s food sampling event at Mill Valley, I garnished the mushroom-celeriac pecan pate with quick pickled onion. Enough people asked me how I made them that I thought I should share the procedure with you here.

Quick Pickled Onion

Peel, trim, and halve an onion. (Red, yellow, whatever you’ve got is fine.) Slice thinly and place in a heatproof, nonreactive bowl. Pour boiling water over the onion and let stand for about 10 minutes. While it is standing, in another bowl mix 1 cup rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar, 3-4 Tablespoons sugar (to taste), and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Drain water from onions. Pour vinegar mixture over onions and let stand as long as desired, but at least an hour or two. You can store the onions in the vinegar mixture. Do not discard the vinegar mixture when the onions are gone, you can use it for more onions, or you can add other vegetables to it — thinly sliced cucumber or celery or carrot, etc., if wilted briefly in a boiling-water bath, are all nice.