ethnicish

I think sometimes Americans think about ethnic food as EPCOT. Lotsa different countries with easily accessible cuisines all in one place.

I get to live somewhere diverse, where I can get Korean barbecue, Peruvian rotisserie chicken, and Ethiopian injera all on the same block.

However, this causes me to believe that I can achieve that level of diversity in my home cooking. Despite my unwillingness to buy specialized ingredients or equipment or even research a recipe.

Er… mixed success.

What the things I make generally have going for them is that they originate with beautiful fresh vegetables. Plant based, baby!

Here is a lovely and colorful selection of spudlets.

 

I gave them a chopsie and a roastie. (Drizzled with oil. Baked at 350 til tender). And I topped them with some mushrooms partway through the cooking process so the mushrooms roasted too.

 

And then, my friends, you know what happened? “Mole”!

Not mole. Not the actual mole sauce from a specific region of Mexico that takes special kinds of chilis and about twenty four hours worth of labor to make its subtle, nuanced flavor.

No, here’s how I made mole:

I made some tomato sauce (it was homemade, I had that going for me). Then I dug around in the back of the pantry to uncover a dried chile. I think it was a New Mexican? Then I rehydrated that chili in hot water. I stuck it in a food processor, along with my tomato sauce, and some cumin, and some cocoa powder. And then when it seemed kind of abrasive I had a moment of genius and mixed in some leftover pureed squash, which added a soft sweetness that went perfectly with all the other flavors.

And it made…

actually really really good “mole”. Who knew?

So I stirred together my roasties, the “mole”, and some leftover shredded chicken to make a stew of sorts and it was fantastic!

Note: a common theme in this post will be that foods can taste good and be extremely ugly. Bear that in mind.

 

While roasting and things were happening, I made some highly ghetto guacamole. By combining some diced avocado, diced tomato, onion powder, cumin, crushed red pepper flakes…?

It wasn’t my best. My best is even lazier and basically entails mixing mashed avocado with salsa. Plus some extra garlic salt and lemon juice.

 

Still, with some nice tortillas for dippage, this made for a surprisingly delicious and well rounded meal.

 

One ethnicity finished, and rated…

Authenticity: C
Flavor: A-

… and, like Epcot, mere moments later, another ethnicity begins!

What do these spices signify to you?

If you said INDIA, you are correct!

The main reason I initially felt like cooking Indian food is that we had okra, and one of my favorite ways to prepare okra is with Indian spices.

 

I roughly adapted a recipe in Lord Krishna’s Cuisine, one of my favorite cookbooks that details a variety of Indian vegetarian recipes. I probably adapted it TOO roughly and skimped on the oil TOO much, because though the variety of spices was beautiful and colorful and well-rounded in scope, it was just too dry. Sigh.

I did not just make that okra, though. I apparently had an Indian food VISION. In part due to the fact that we had oodles of fresh farmer’s market produce. I fancied some eggplant.

I really really wanted to make bhaingan bartha, because I love love love ordering it at Indian restaurants and don’t want to be a slave to eating out. SO, I winged it. Surprise surprise.

As most of the recipes recommended, I roasted the eggplant in a very hot oven (they said you could also just toast it over a stove burner, but I have an electric stove so that option was not available to me, alas)

 

And I got to cooking some onion, cumin and mustard seeds, hot pepper, garlic, ginger

 

Then I added the soft roasted eggplant, a buncha tomatoes, and some liquid. It was essentially a stew, at least the way I made it. So that was groovin’ on low on the stove.

BUT WAIT. I also got some (similar looking) spices, onion, and pepper going in a (similar looking) pan to make some chickpeas, because what is an Indian meal without chickpeas? (Also, yknow, it’s good to eat protein).

So with the brown rice I’d started at the beginning of this whole endeavor, I had EVERY SINGLE BURNER GOING.

And this was a few weeks ago, when it was still HOT. Steam facial!

Things began coming off the stove.

The okra was delicious in its spicitude but dry in its texture. Live a little, Lele. Use some fat.

  

As for the eggplant, it had a nice texture (the eggplant flesh and tomatoes got all velvety) but the flavors were a little bland.

And it was just not the transcendental experience to which eating bhaingan bartha in an Indian restaurant can elevate one’s consciousness.

It was… eggplant and tomato stew. Yawn. I really want to hang out with someone’s Indian grandmother and have her teach me how to make bhaingan bartha. Anyone?

    

Chickpeas and rice. I make both of these things all the time. They tasted like they usually do. Pretty good.

 

So this was a lot of effort… a lot of chopping… a lot of pans.

Eh.

Authenticity: B- (the spices were legit but the chickpeas were canned)
Flavor: C

Finally, my dad just returned from Thailand. He just sort of… wanders over there once or twice a year, teaches Asian businessmen about Facebook, and returns. (He spends the remainder of his time in his yard and garage).

Anywho, I very kindly picked him up at the airport in rush hour. So I went ahead and helped myself to some of the curry pouches he brought back.

Green curry paste!

Straight from Bangkok!

I would enlighten you about the ingredients, but they were all written in Thai (in my opinion, an exceptionally beautiful alphabet). If anyone can read Thai and translate, I’d be eternally grateful. Kup khun kha! (<< spelled wrong, I am sure).

I knew the curry paste would go nicely with some of the ingredients my mother had picked up at the farmer’s market. Yes, more eggplant in the same week. She buys eggplant like it’s her job. She loves it. A lot.

(I mean so do I. I am certainly not complaining. Actually, eggplant love runs in the family. My aunt Kathy ate in the North End while traveling to Boston over the weekend and awesomely sent me a play-by-play of each of the courses she and my uncle Tom ordered. Like other families are with fantasy football, we are with fantasy eating! Anyway, one dish they shared involved ‘eggplant bonbons”. It sounded so tasty!)

Anyway, these lil eggplants were particularly vibrantly hued specimens.

 

But wait, you ask, what is that colorful, caterpillar reminiscent item in the corner.

Any guesses?

   

FRESH GINGER! Isn’t it gorgeous? The taste is special. Which I was actually counting on, because though I had an authentic Thai cookbook (I got it at cooking school in Thailand!) I lacked some of the ingredients. I hoped that this mild, special ginger flavor would resemble galangal, which is what the recipe actually called for.

The source for said recipe was this book:

The thing I like… and hate about the book is its casual measurements and ingredients. “Handful”. “Mixed vegetables”. Those of us who like freedom with our recipes no doubt respond well to this. But honestly, when venturing into a cuisine with which I am less familiar, I crave the order of a concrete recipe. But also lacked a lot of the ingredients (kefir lime say what?!)

  

So I improvised.

Lacking an all-purpose wok type instrument we had in our cooking school, I used a nonstick skillet. I put it on highish heat (as we did throughout our Thai cooking training), drizzled in a bit of peanut oil (which can stand high heat) and then added a healthy quantity of curry paste.

WHOO BABY! If you have any sinus blockages, I highly recommend simply heating up some green curry paste.

I let it get brown and aromatic (cough cough cough) and then added my ginger, which I’d minced, and eggplant, which I’d cut up into bite sized pieces.

Eggplant really craves tons and tons of oil, and just looooves soaking it up. Being scant on oil, the eggplant only sort of browned, but I cooked it til it was a bit blistery.

 

Then it was brothifying time!

I mostly used vegetable broth (homemade, dontcha know), but of course one cannot have green curry without:

  

With just the little bit (1/4 cup?) of the coconut milk I originally added (compared to probably a cup of vegetable broth), it thickened the mixture up beautifully.

  

(see those thick and creamy looking bubbles!)

However, the eggplant had to finish cooking.

And, though the cooking school where I’d learned my recipe was vegetarian, I had some leftover chicken to add, which I first shredded:

Fortuitously enough, the chicken had been marinated in honey and lime (as well as, er, tequila), and those sweet and sour flavors perhaps contributed to the finished curry?

I also added some flavoring: you were meant to use a mix of light and dark soy sauce but since I only had one kind of just regular soy sauce (is that light or dark?) and knew for a fact she’d included that in the recipe to omit fish sauce, a classic Thai ingredient, I just continued to be unvegetarian and added both soy sauce and fish sauce.

More vegetable broth to finish cooking the eggplant to tenderness and heat up the chicken. Cooked covered, a bit longer. Added a dash of coconut milk as a final flavor enhancer and thickener. Throw in some fresh basil leaves. Not thai basil, just basil basil.

Anyway, apologies. This green curry was delicious but fugly. What it was not was green.

   

On the bright side, I’d give myself the highest rating for it.

Authenticity: B (Yes, I didn’t have kefir lime leaves and galangal, but the curry paste was legit! As was what I served the curry atop, see below!)
Flavor: A

There were no leftovers! (Well I mean… Steve was over. So there usually aren’t. But it was really good!)

As a vehicle for the curry, I used not rice (as is typically the carb of choice in American Thai restaurants), but the starch that served as a bed for the curry when I made it in Bangkok: noodles!

Made out of rice, a product of Thailand. An elephant on it and everything!

The source of these authentically Thai noodles? No, my dad did not attempt to pack delicate rice noodles in his suitcase.

Those are a product of my EPCOT neighborhood :D

Lele saves the day

This post was written by my ridiculously cute boyfriend. Any and all comments are his own, and do not reflect the opinions of me.

He writes:

In the midst of a resource crisis, Lele turns meager pickings into delicious dishes

     

Lele accepts onions from Jordin Bert during her mission to turn scratch into scrumptious.

Let’s set the record straight right off the bat…this is not a Lele post. This is her lucky boyfriend who had the fortune of seeing Ileana turn an eclectic mix of odds and ends into a full-blown dinner miracle.

This is how it all went down...

Staring off into the Delaware River with drinks in hand and appetizers nearby, Ileana, my sister Jordin, and I tossed around ideas for how to live life well that evening. We pondered spending our night in Manayunk, a cozy suburb of Philadelphia that butts up against the Schuylkill River, or spending the evening in Philly, in the boughs of a rooftop deck.

But heavy thunderclouds rolled in, and it got oober [Lele as editor: uber!] nasty. Our visions of celebration under summer skies were stymied.

That’s when Lele brought up the idea of cooking at my sister’s place. Cue heavenly music. Our original plans were to each pick up fresh provisions and prepare our own dish de glory for a family style feast. However, stopping for provisions wasn’t as easy as we’d imagined. We stopped at the Italian Market and Reading Terminal Market to find both places closed, before 6 pm.

Jordin and I were both pretty glum. Ileana tried to cheer us up. She assured us that we could make something fun and delicious with the food Jordin had at her apartment. But my sister was leaving in three days for a trip back to our hometown, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and the bounty in her cupboards was pretty lacking.

Yet, the ever-creative Lele made it her mission to cook us up something wonderful with the limited resources in my sister’s apartment.

Finding one very ripe mango and shrimp in the freezer she exulted, “I think we can make mango curry!” My sister and I exchanged this “really?” look with each other, but neither of us put it past her.

Ileana borrowed my sister’s mac and found a recipe that she could loosely work around.

Her creativity started simmering.

Ileana: “Do you have any spices?”

Jordin: “I have these if they’ll help.”

Ileana: “Coriander! This will work!”

The next 40 minutes were magic. Ileana chose spices from my sister’s spice rack and random other ingredients to make one of the most delicious curries I’ve ever tasted.

(Note from Ileana: Jordin didn’t have curry powder so I made a basic curry spice mixture with mustard seeds, coriander seeds, garlic, ginger, sweet onion, and a bit of cayenne. Then I added water and cooked down an oldish mango and the tomatoes. Pureed them with milk, finished with shrimp. It actually was really good!)

She took old desiccated baby carrots, cooked them in the oven with a pinch of olive oil and puréed them with my sister’s tiny handheld blender. To finish them off, Ileana was hoping to add some honey, though Jordin didn’t have any. Lele made do with maple syrup; she drizzled a bit on top of the carrots. SOOO GOOOOD!!!!

 

Before our trip to Philly, I packed two tomatoes, bok choy, garlic, one lemon, two sweet potatoes and a big zucchini, because I didn’t want them to go bad over the weekend. Ileana, put these ingredients to use.

With spices and a pinch of oil, she browned the zucchini to perfection.

(Note from Ileana: the fresh garlic from the farm MADE this)

She found some romaine lettuce and an apple in my sister’s fridge and made a salad adding bok choy and lemon. She let the sweet potatoes bake until they were soft and scrumptious.

(Note from Ileana: Jordin’s Buddha makes for way cuter food staging than I will ever have!)

And she used the tomatoes I’d brought in the curry.

Watching Ileana’s art unfold before me and my sister’s eyes was so spellbinding. Beyond the enjoyment of having such a creative blend of flavors complement each other, I got to watch my sister be happy around Ileana, the woman who makes my life so full.

Lele’s Resources:

- Shrimp – One frozen bag in freezer
- Mangoes – 1
- Iffy Spice Rack
- Bok Choy – 1 bag
- Apples – 1
- Baby carrots – ¾ bag
- Sweet Potatoes – 2
- Zucchini – 1
- Garlic – 5 cloves
- Onions – 2
- Maple Syrup
- Olive Oil

To Philly we go

An alternate title for today's post is Gems. Not the sparkly, rock--based kind you wear on your body. The kind that are sometimes called "hidden gems", "unexpected gems", "genuine gems". Places that may (or may not) be off the beaten track. In my case of course, eating places. The kinds of places where you find great food, happy customers, and the kind of ownership that you want to support with your patronage over and over.

One such place is Cafe Sazon, a hidden treasure on a very unremarkable stretch of Columbia Pike (not far from Goodwill. No, not that one on Glebe. Not that other one on Glebe either. Yes, there are many Goodwills in South Arlington). We knew about Cafe Sazon because they're been great about making donations for work- we had a park cleanup and they provided us with breakfast for 100 (which makes it a shame that 25 people, tops, employees included, showed up, oi). Anyway, active in the community with delicious baked goods, double points, on my radar. Then we were hitting the road to go to Philly for a visit with Steve's sister and a trip to my friend's wedding, and Steve was out of toilet paper! So we knew we'd need a pit stop before we left (tmi?). Plus we were hungry, obviously (this is us). And there it was! Cafe Sazon!

They had, as I’d gotten to experience before, a beautiful selection of baked goods (anyone know what those awesome donut-looking things taste like?!)

But boy oh boy I love love love walking into a place and seeing this sign.

(Today there aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare pupusas!)

Instinctively I read it out loud, in Spanish, and then turned to the lady at the counter, inquiring, "Pupusas?! Que sabores tiene?" And then we chatted away in Spanish! Love love love when that happens. I am so rusty.

Anyway, Steve and I decided to split a few things, so we got a pupusa de frijol y queso (beans 'n cheese, baby!) and also the lentejas (lentils).

I was totally stoked to see lentils at a Hispanic, rather than Indian, place, and knew I had to try them. I initially thought it was a sopa (soup), because Steve said Cafe Sazon was supposed to have great soups, but she said it was just lentils, but it was "muy rico" (I love how the word rico is used in Spanish. I kind of want to just start using it to describe delicious foods all the time).

While we waited for food, I wandered around admiring how cute Cafe Sazon is. I love hole-in-the-wall pupuserias, but if enough people discover Cafe Sazon's charms they could have a real niche, because it has a much nicer ambiance than some of the delicious but less than well-decorated places that pop up in South Arlington.

And the food comes in pretty epic portions.

   

I was delighted to see two burly guys who'd been at work all day order the lentils right after us, and I could see why- this was a man meal! And yes, vegetarians, came with sausages and chunks of beef :D

I apprecated the flavor they gave the dish (though mostly ate around them, leaving the meat for the man), but I was loving on the chunks of carrot and heavenly potatoes that livened up the dish.

The chili sauce made a nice condiment, too!

  

And of course the pupusa.

Queso y frijol. Oh refried beans, how I adore you.

Loved the heaping helping of curtido (a tangy-sweetish cabbage slaw) that cam with it. Can't get enough of the stuff. I want to learn how to make it!

And then we were on the road to Philly, where we jammed to sweet tunes (Steve is the king of creating road-trip mixed CD's) and then had a moment of sheer panic in Delaware when the sky kind of just... vomited water in unbelievable amounts on us and we were going like 35 miles per hour on a highway... it was super intense. I am so grateful that Steve likes driving and does ALL OF IT on these trips. Anyway, then there was a hugely confusing interchange to get in the direction of his sister's place and we were lost... for awhile... and we finally made it and oh my goodness the wine and whole wheat spinach-mushroom pizza on her balcony was sort of the greatest experience ever. Then BED.

The next morning we arose refreshed and ready to watch Jordin's TV debut! She's in fashion school and has done some work with a stylist in the area prepping for TV appearances. That day, however, she was not only setting up the shoot at the station (something that required her to be there at 7:30 in the morning for a 9:45 clip, eesh!) she also appeared as an on screen *model* in a story about color blocking (ooh la la!). Very cool to see her on TV and cheer her on.

We spent a few minutes getting plans together, figuring out an agenda, and writing out plans (made complicated by the internet crapping out on us before we could get a reliable Google Map into downtown). We hit the road... and then got lost. For awhile. And there being no food in my belly, the whole thing just felt hugely catastrophic. But finally, finally, my friend Benjamin Franklin hooked me up (definitely my favorite founding father) and we made our way onto the expressway named in his honor and we were good.

And walked to READING TERMINAL MARKET! A magical place.

Steve and I were both so overstimulated on our own that we just agreed to split up, get our own food, and meet up ten minutes later.

I started with my favorite addiction: caffeine. I was JONESING! (In all honesty, with dazedness from lack of caffeine and general meanness from lack of food, I had not been real fun to be around for much of the morning)

Iced coffee restored my will to live… and buy food.

As for food, there were a lot of delicious looking options, but soul food was speaking my name!

I made a meal of my favorite sides (cornbread, black eyed peas which came with rice, and cornbread).

Mmm mmm mm. The beans 'n greens had that wonderful Southern thing where they'd clearly been enriched with some kind of... pork product, probably :D And the  cornbread was like wonderful dense cake! Delish.

Steve returned with his second salmon cake (the first of which he’d eaten, immediately, from his hand, at the wonderfully affordable- this was $3.99!- stall)

 

Also some IMMENSE pickles, one of which he bequeathed to me.

Tried a bite of hot pickle, too. Liked it!

And his "apple dumpling" (an Amish thing, perhaps?), which was swell. You had the choice of getting whipped cream or heavy cream... of course Steve went for the intenser heavy stuff.

    

Plus, yknow, I couldn’t finish any of my food. So Steve stepped in. And swore by cornbread-salmon-cake sandwiches.

We were sitting in the vicinity of this Indian/Pakistani restaurant.

They'd already earned my love by having naan samples, and then I noticed that they had a wide selection of lassis, that included more than just the traditional mango. Pomegranate?! Cardamom?! I asked the lovely lady behind the counter (the woman for whom the place was named, perhaps?) and she said her favorite was the cardamom. Um, SOLD.

But WAIT. I hand over my Visa and she says "Oh, there's a credit card minumum!" and I said, "Oh okay, let me get cash!" to which she replied "Don't worry about it!"

Yes.

This cardamom lassi, one of the most DELICIOUS THINGS I HAVE EVER TASTED, with the wonderful tang of the low-fat yogurt within, the wonderful warm spice of cardamom (it was green and it just said "cardamom" without mention of fresh or dry on it and I desperately want to know HOW THIS AMAZING BEVERAGE CAME TO BE), this subtly sweet. perfectly refreshing on a hot summer day, this tummy soother, this sublime concoction, was also FREE.

So I am trying to shout out to this GEM of a restaurant (and gem of a person) in the hopes that I will get her some publicity as a small reward for treating me so awesomely.

Anyway, then we're strolling and I see this sign and go, "Wait, what day is it?"

Yes. Then there were free crepes.

I really love watching people make crepes, and find it really sort of half the fun of going to crepe places.

  

Though my banana-nutella, that was fun too.

Money shot.

Oh and let's not forget Steve's strawberry pineapple, hard to go wrong.

Then to South Street! Home of fanciful stained glass stores…

Highly nontraditional museums, highly awesome trash compactors…

 

Oi, this graffiti I cannot even discuss. It involves the kids’ nicknames for us at work. They love Steve. They made up a mean song about me. Oi oi oi.

Ended up wandering over to Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, a whacky project made by an artist squatting on a vacant lot that’s now become a Philadelphia landmark.

Can you spot the self portrait?

Then a total foodie heaven: 

Want zillions of kinds of homemade ravioli? Yeah, they have that.

Very friendly proprieter showed me the machine. Tip to locals: when they roll the ravioli too thin (they weigh it and are very precise about it, I guess), they sell it for a DRASTICALLY reduced price. Like, 2 pounds of the fresh stuff for $7.

 

Scads and scads of spices…

(What is malva?)

  

Produce everywhere (got nice photogenic spuds, instead of the slightly alarming looking fish)

A house of cheese!

 

Mozzarella the size of baseballs!

Pesto buckets!

Ceiling cheeses ‘n salami!

We decided gelato should happen. My pineapple sorbet cooled off my overheated body nicely (all this walking was happening in the hot hot heat!)

 

And I can never just walk by a bakery, so we went into one that had beautiful traditional Italian pastries…

 

And Cookie Monster :D

Steve’s sister had joined us partway through this tour, so this was a perfect time for a hostess gift. So I got Jordin a beauteous strawberry cheesecake. I had what I think was called an Old Fashioned? It had apricot in the middle, at which point I was sold.

Then we were off to Cavanaughs for happy hour (which apparently had beer deals all day Friday… happy day?). I love love love getting to sit by water.

 

The hammerhead shark hanging above the bar continues the nautical theme!

 

Our waitress wasn’t especially helpful about pointing out the specials in addition to the cheap beer, so I got a cheap beer.

I don’t like beer. So I like Bud Light Lime because it tastes like water. I like water!

Also got some steamed shrimp (as well as a steak quesadilla I didn’t really touch). The shrimp was great, especially after Jordin just started eating them with their shells on and then I did too and the shells were not too hard at all (and you figure I probably amped up my calcium intake!) and were also covered in delicious Old Bay. Good call Jordin!

And then ominous clouds stormed overhead and there was a misadventure of dinner plans and we ended up playing clean-out-the-fridge-Iron-Chef and gosh it was fun but this post is already long.