There’s been a fair amount written about “American Chinese food,” which as some of you probably know is its own culinary vernacular with its own history and traditions — see also Jennifer 8. Lee’s book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, among other sources, or the neat little piece in the first issue of Lucky Peach about yatka mein — that centers around how Chinese food adapted to America and Americans adapted to Chinese food.  I don’t have or pretend to any kind of encylopedic knowledge on the subject, though I find it fascinating.

Partly it interests me because it’s relevant to the way I cook.  I cook a lot of Chinese and Chinese-influenced food.  In terms of ingredients, I cook what I can get that’s good and fresh that I enjoy.  And, especially in summer, a lot of what meets those criteria is what grows here and what is native to the landmass that I live on.  Squash.  Beans.  Sweet corn.  Tomatoes.

Which is, in essence, also what a lot of Chinese cooks did when they came to America, and what a lot of Chinese cooks do today when originally American ingredients show up in Chinese markets.  I have never encountered a vegetable that a Chinese cook couldn’t and didn’t happily make use of.  Just because things like tomatoes and sweet corn aren’t native to China doesn’t mean they haven’t become part of the Chinese food culture.  They have, with a vengeance.

One of my favorite Chinese recipes for high summer includes both corn and tomatoes, as it happens.

I first discovered the Cantonese penchant for combining corn and tomato in the form of corn soup with tomato, which is usually made with chicken broth for its base, and seasoned with ginger and a little garlic and some sesame oil and maybe some cilantro.  Sometimes it has minced velveted chicken in it, sometimes egg beaten and swirled into the boiling broth to make “egg flowers” or “egg clouds,” sometimes a little soft tofu cubed and dropped in just long enough to heat all the way through.  You can also make it with a broth made from boiling corn cobs after you’ve sliced off the kernels, which is actually quite nice, sweet and comforting.  Or you can make the corn cob broth, then simmer chicken or pork or dried mushrooms in it.  Or more than one of those things, which takes things from merely nice to quite decadent.

This was very very good.  Then, later, I encountered stir-fried corn and tomatoes, I think in a recipe by Mary Tsui Ping Yee if I’m not mistaken, and I think my heart skipped a beat.  You need roughly equal quantities by volume of sweet corn cut off the cob and tomatoes, chunked into largish but still bite-sized pieces.  Don’t waste your heirloom tomatoes on this unless you are growing them yourself and have a surplus.  You want a reasonably firm tomato for this.  Field tomatoes are fine.  Plum tomatoes are good too.  So long as the tomato has good flavor and a good amount of acid, it will be just fine.  (Don’t use yellow tomatoes.  They are like a certain flavor of Regency heroine, pretty and highly-bred and anemic.)

You’ll want a fairly goodly amount of green onion, diced, about half again as much by volume as either of the other vegetables.  You need a little cooking oil, like peanut or canola.  You need a little brown bean sauce, which is a concentrated semi-fermented salty paste you can get at Chinese markets.  A blob about the size of an egg yolk seems to work out OK most of the time for me. (Or you could use some dark miso, which would be different but still good.)  A skosh of Asian sesame oil.  And you’ll want to have on hand a few tablespoons of cold water in which a couple teaspoons of cornstarch have been mixed.

It’s a simple simple dish.  Heat the wok, swirl in a little cooking oil, add the corn, stir-fry until it’s starting to brown in places, add the tomatoes, toss in the  brown bean sauce (how much depends on how salty it is, and how big a quantity of veg you are cooking — you can figure it out, it’s not rocket science), stirfry as the tomatoes release some water, and to finish the dish, throw in the green onions, stir, and then add about half of the cornstarch/water and stir it well while letting it heat through to activate the thickening power of the cornstarch.  If this doesn’t thicken the dish adquately — it should end up like a thick gravy — add the rest of the cornstarch/water and stir it well and let it cook for another minute or two.

Serve with rice.

If your bean paste is not super salty, you may want to add a little soy sauce or fish sauce, depending on how you roll.  Black soy is nice because it is slightly sweet, which plays well with the sweet corn and sweet tomato.  Fish sauce is funky and salty and a revelation with tomato in any capacity.  Fish sauce with sweet ingredients is definitely a South Seas sort of move.  It’s delicious either way, in Taishan or Iowa or anywhere you have corn and tomatoes and an appetite.

                          

I’ve never had problems getting people to like these dishes.  They are all eminently lovable.  I’ve only had problems getting people to try them, to warm up to the idea that sweet and savory can not only be friends, but be greater than the sum of their parts.

Which is why I am coming to you now with this very simple, very satisfying, delicious winter soup.  There are lots of recipes for this basic soup floating around.   There are different ways to spice it, and different ways to finish it, but the basic soup itself is simple, cheap, and delicious and it takes advantage of winter produce. You can make it for a weeknight dinner, because it is quick and the prep work is pretty minimal.  It also keeps well and freezes beautifully.

Basic Cauliflower-Apple Soup

2 small or 1 large onion, minced

3-4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 small head cauliflower, diced fine

4-5 medium cooking apples (I like Winesaps or Northern Spy), peeled and diced fine

2 quarts stock (this works well with either chicken stock or an onion/celery/carrot veg stock)

olive oil

salt

Heat a large heavy-bottomed pot and add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom.  Add the onions and sweat them for several minutes until they begin to get translucent, then add the garlic and give it a minute or two to become fragrant.  Add the cauliflower, toss to coat, and then do the same with the apples.  Now add the stock — the stock should at least be equal in volume to the cauliflower and apples, if not slightly more.  You can add a little water if you need to.  Simmer until the veggies and apple are soft, about 15-20 minutes.

Using an immersion blender OR in small batches in a blender (you do not want boiling soup to spurt out the top of your blender, trust me on this), puree the soup.  You can puree it completely so it is silky smooth, or you can puree it partially so it is slightly chunky, up to you. Return it to the pot and simmer another 15 minutes or so.

While it is simmering, taste the soup and salt it, adding salt gradually and tasting after each addition.  How much salt you need will depend both on whether or not the stock you used was salted, and on how salty you like your soup.  Remember that you can always add more salt, but its a real bitch to remove it once it’s in there, so do be careful.

This makes a good basic soup that is nutritious, reassuring, and satisfyingly substantial.

There are Many Happy Variations you can also try:

Creamy Cauliflower-Apple Soup: Substitute a quart of milk or unsweetened faux-milk of your choice for a quart of the stock.  Be careful not to let it boil, especially if you use dairy milk.

Protein-Enhanced Cauliflower-Apple Soup: Puree 12 oz. soft silken tofu into the soup.

Coconut Cauliflower-Apple Soup: Substitute two cups unsweetened coconut milk for two cups of stock.  Phenomenal if you also do one of the spice variations along with the coconut milk.

Curried Cauliflower-Apple Soup:  Add your favorite curry powder to taste during the second simmering period.  This need not contain hot chili, although it certainly can.

Masala Cauliflower-Apple Soup:  Instead of curry powder as above, use your favorite ground garam masala blend.

(You can try many other spice mixtures in this soup, too, as it is a great canvas for that sort of thing.  Ras el hanout is great, so is Chinese five-spice mixture.)

Try strewing the soup with roasted crispy salted pumpkin seeds, as a garnish.  Or make some nice crunchy garlicky croutons with olive oil and garlic-rubbed stale bread and scatter those on top.  Or fry some cubed tempeh until it’s crispy and brown and use that.

And so on.

It’s good, I promise.

                          

This is what happens when I take my own advice.  It could be what happens when you take my advice too, if you’re so inclined.  Have some greens along with it.  We had steamed gai lan.  Fantastic.

                          

This is one of those dinners that is not for the kind of person who is afraid of mixing things on the plate.  I caramelized zucchini in a tablespoon of olive oil with whole cloves of garlic — a medium heat, with infrequent stirring and a good stout pan, will get it done in a reasonable amount of time — and then fried two eggs over easy in the residual oil left in the pan.  After breaking the yolks, I ate the garlic and zucchini with yolk and bits of eggwhite and some black pepper.  Sublime, especially because I made a nice cucumber salad to chase it with.  The salad is a riff on the cucumber salad from Friday last, only since I had no cilantro left I used some onions pickled in rice vinegar that were lingering in the back of the fridge.  Salt-fermented chiles add a little dimension and floral heat.  A fine contrast to rich eggyolk and unctuous-yet-nicely-crusted zucchini and garlic.

These tomato babies were hanging out in their fetching green hats, soaking up the sun when I went out in the garden a little while ago.

Ushi likes to watch over the garden and supervise me while I work.

                          

This is a dish that falls squarely into the category that my friend Jeannette calls dolce far niente cooking.  Perfect for hot weather, it is light and cooling but has strong, invigorating flavor.  And, as the dolce far niente thing implies, it requires hardly any effort.

You’ll want a couple-few cucumbers, a healthy-sized bunch of cilantro (yes, cilantro is a vegetable, now hush), a couple cloves of garlic, and a hot chile or two of your preferred degree of heat.  Additionally you’ll need some salt, some rice vinegar, a little sesame oil, a colander, a bowl, and a knife.  Proportions may be varied to suit your tastes and the number of mouths you’re feeding.

Peel your cukes if the skins are thick or bitter, or not if they aren’t.  Seed them if they’re the kind with lots of watery seeds, or leave them intact if they don’t.  Cut the cukes into happy bite-sized pieces and strew with a tablespoon of salt, toss, and let sit while you clean and coarsely chop your cilantro and your chiles.  (If you happen to have a jar of salt-fermented chiles in the fridge, this is a good time to use them.  You can also use drained chopped pickled chiles if you like.)

Rinse your cukes in the colander and give them a good few shakes to get the water off.  They shouldn’t be too salty but they should be a little salty.  Rinse out the bowl.  Put the cukes back in the bowl with the cilantro and chopped chile.  Crush a couple cloves of garlic, or mince them, or however you prefer to render a garlic clove into something approaching a fine schmear, and add that to the mix.  Add a glug or two of rice vinegar and a glugette or demi-glug of sesame oil, toss, taste, correct the seasonings if need be, and serve.

If by chance you should recall, as you head to the table, as I did this evening, that you have an avocado that is on the overripe side, or even one that is just becoming ripe I suppose, seize it up immediately, peel it and chop it up and add it to the salad.

This is very fine as a side dish, especially with cold noodle dishes, fried plantains, or with fish or seafood.  It is also a delight as a main dish on a hot evening, particularly if you add the avocado.

                          

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.

                          

We ate a shrimp-broth based egg flower soup, black bean sauce tofu with bok choy, and smacked garlic cucumbers.  No rice, we usually don’t unless company’s in the offing, the better to spare my temperamental metabolic system.  Thumb-thick, winey-ripe blackberries for dessert.  Salutary indeed.

And so, back to work.

                          

Some of this weekend’s greens haul, a nice smallish head of napa cabbage, was cut into ribbons, sauteed with onions and garlic, and used as a base for a fava bean and ham hock broth.   Some of the scraps of ham perch on top, for extra juju. Especially with a starchy broth like a bean broth, using greens as a base is an excellent idea, and balances the textures well, whereas using a starch like noodles or rice would just get stodgy.

And speaking of ham hock… Miriam asked, in a comment on the previous post, where to look for local, sustainably-farmed meat and poultry.  This will be a Baltimore-centric answer, so I hope that’s what you were looking for, Miriam.

For convenience, you can go to Mill Valley General Store, at 28th and Sisson (2800 Sisson St. is the actual address).  They’re open Thurs-Sun and they carry meats from Gunpowder Bison, Wagner’s, Five Cow Farm, and I think perhaps others.  I know they’re working on bringing in chickens also. Mill Valley also carries a fine, well-chosen selection of local dairy, eggs, and produce and the freshness is impeccable.  I am particularly fond of the Five Cow Farm beef, which is always salutary.

At the Waverly farmer’s market on Saturday mornings,  you’ll find Broom’s Bloom’s stall.  They sell chicken, pork, and lamb, as well as eggs, all raised north of town.  Gunpowder Bison also has a stall at Waverly.  I’m not sure if Truck Patch Farm is selling at Waverly or only at the downtown (Sunday) market this year, but if you like pork, Truck Patch is  my favorite and I recommend them highly. (Truck Patch is also bringing in beef, I seem to recall, starting nowish… haven’t tried it yet but I expect it’ll be good.)

There are a couple of other meat vendors at the Sunday market under the JFX, but I haven’t actually shopped around too much as I so often get my meat at the Saturday market or at Mill Valley.  One whose meat I can vouch for, though, is the goat from Jeanne Dietz-Band at Many Rocks Farm.  It’s very well reared, well cut, and of high quality.

My standbys are Truck Patch for pork, Many Rocks for goat, Broom’s Bloom for lamb, Gunpowder for bison, and Broom’s Bloom again for chicken.    That said, I keep an eye out for specials and unusual items as they show up.  I recently had a lovely beef heart from Broom’s, and this ham hock was from them as well.

                          

Dining alone can be a challenge.  Even I sometimes get tempted not to bother cooking if it’s just me, especially when I am, as I am tonight, working late on a deadline.

I try, though, to do it anyway.  Gently, as a kindness, and not grumpily and rushed as if it were an insult to have to get some food into edible condition for my own continued upkeep.

The summer’s first slim zucchini, gently sauteed in olive oil with plenty of garlic and a pinch or so of dried crushed marjoram and oregano.  That’s the secret of zucchini that is meltingly tender but not disintegrating: slow, gentle sauteeing, not too much movement in the pan, use enough oil, and let things brown just a little to bring out the sweetness and provide a tiny bit of structurally crucial crust.

Eggs scrambled over a low heat with a couple handfuls of thinly chopped fat ends of sweet new green onions mixed in.

Salt, pepper, a glass of cold, smooth, friendly Vouvray that’s almost too sweet for this meal.

Here’s to solitude.

                          

Goodness, Wednesday dinnertime already?  That was how I felt when I walked into the kitchen tonight, with honestly no idea what to cook.  But I had boiled a batch of chickpeas yesterday, and we had a pound of kale in the fridge.  Beans love greens and greens love beans, but how to make it interesting?

The answer I came up with was to roast the chickpeas in a very hot oven, with lightly smashed whole garlic cloves, olive oil, and some crushed dried Aleppo pepper… and to braise the kale in a bit of water until it was tender… and to make a bit of a ragout that would bridge the two.  The ragout was a quick and dirty one, several onions caramelized with oil, with a handful of oil-packed anchovies, then the leftover half a can of diced tomatoes left over from Monday’s dinner.  Simmered for a while, they made a lovely chunky sauce that went well with both the kale and the chickpeas.

I think I may make it again.  On purpose, next time.