A meal fit for the Joads

I've been thinking, lately, about bacon. Thinking about it a lot. Or, I should say, somewhat more than is usual, since it's not exactly rare that I have bacon on the brain. Why the pork dreams, you ask? Well, I've been re-reading John Steinbeck's masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, a book that sits high atop the American literary canon, peering down and perhaps sneering just a little bit at all the books stacked up below--and deservedly so. I think I first read the book in seventh grade, and it certainly made an impression on me at the time. I don't think, however, that as a child I could truly understand and empathize with the crushing plight of its central family, the Joads, nor could I really appreciate the flawlessness and innovation of Steinbeck's prose. In short, I'm glad I made the decision to pick up the book again (and you should, too!)

But I'm getting off track--let's get back to the bacon. You see, in The Grapes of Wrath, the rise and fall of the Joads' fortunes can be reliably tracked by one thing: whether or not they have "side meat" sputtering away on the stove. In one of the early scenes of the book, when prodigal son Tom returns home from prison, he finds Ma in the kitchen in a classic scene of domestic tranquility, removing "high brown biscuits" from the oven and "curling slices of pork" from the pan. The book, here, carefully constructs for us a whole, complete picture of family life that is about to be torn down, shattered, trampled and spat upon by the powers that be, or Big Business. The bacon is just one of the things that assure the Joads they are safe, at home, together. But it's a persistent image. All throughout the rest of the book, Ma, Pa, Tom and Al all bring up side meat--repeatedly. As soon as they've got some coins in their pockets or even some credit at the rapacious company stores--they're spending it on side meat. When they're all out, things are bad. But when there's some bacon frying in the pan, it's a small victory; the sound and smell of the crackling pork, and the nourishment it brings, reminding them that they are still human, that they're still a family unit.

Now, bacon doesn't hold the same resonance for me, but it sure is darn delicious. And the Joads' constant yearning for it definitely got me hungry. That's when I put down my book, put on my coat, and strolled down the street to Jubilat Provisions, a Polish-owned meat shop that bursts at the seams with a seemingly endless variety of house-made kielbasa and other sausages, as well as various types of patés, smoked and cured meats, fresh Polish baked goods and jars and cans of imported delicacies of every stripe (it's one of my favorite food stores ever. Do yourself a favor and check it out the next time you're having a BBQ). And one of the best items in the house is the thick-cut, double-smoked bacon. I picked up a little less than a pound, using it first in an Austrian potato strudel that my friend Patricia and I brought to a potluck over the weekend, then, of course, crisped up in a pan for breakfast, and when I still had some left over, I thought of the Joads. Although they're not southerners, they eat (when they can manage to) what I think of as soul food: biscuits. Pie. Warming stews. Lots of things fried up in grease in a cast-iron pan. As it happened, my mom had made Southern-Style Barbecued Pulled Pork, and had given me some of the leftovers. So I had that component down. There's not much that goes better with pulled pork than good old fashioned collards do, and that's when I figured out how to use up my bacon. Finally, I wanted something sweet and starchy, but less heavy than cornbread, something that would fry up nice in my iron pan: I found a recipe for a type of corn griddle cake and worked from there. The resulting meal that I sat down to was warm and comforting, with sweet, soft meat; melting, smokey greens; and crisp, nutty, savory corn cakes. This plate's for you, Joads.



















Traditional Southern Collard Greens
Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 large bunches collard greens, washed, with tough stems removed
4 slices of bacon, cut into a small dice
Half an onion, sliced very thinly
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Preparation:

1. In a deep, heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pot, heat the bacon over a medium flame until it starts to sizzle and render its fat, about 3 - 4 minutes. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is tender and translucent.
2. Take several leaves of greens, roll them into a tight bundle, and slice them into long ribbons of medium thickness, adding them to the pot and stirring as you go. Repeat, in batches, with remaining greens. Season greens with salt and pepper, add about 1/2 cup water, and cover the pot. Drop the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally and adding more water if necessary, until greens are very soft but not mushy, about 35 - 40 minutes.
3. When greens are done, shut off the heat and add the apple cider vinegar. Taste for seasoning and serve.


Corn Griddle Cakes
Adapted from epicurious.com
Makes 12 - 15 cakes

Ingredients:

1 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for brushing the griddle
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk (or sour 1 cup milk with 1 tsp. white vinegar or lemon juice)
1 cup thawed frozen corn kernels

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized bowl whisk together the dry ingredients (cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, pepper, and sugar).
2. In a small bowl whisk together the buttermilk, egg, and melted butter.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stirring to combine (don't worry about a few lumps). Stir in the corn kernels.
4. Drop the batter into a buttered cast-iron skillet set over medium heat, dropping about 1/4 cup batter at a time. Cakes will be about 3 - 4 inches across. Cook until browned and crisp, about 3 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining batter.

*Note: these cakes can be eaten savory or sweet. They were delicious with my Southern dinner and equally so the next morning reheated with additional butter and drizzled with maple syrup.

Simple but good

When people are first getting to know me, they discover pretty quickly that I'm obsessed with really into food, and they invariably ask me this question: "So what's your favorite thing to cook?" I never know quite how to respond to this, because I really, truly, don't play favorites with my food. What I enjoy about cooking is the creativity and invention at work in it; the sense of freedom that I feel in choosing ingredients that I think might go well together and then attempting to unify them, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, with the flavors and cooking techniques that I surmise will do the most justice to those ingredients. What I'm trying to say is that 99% of the time when I'm cooking, I'm just winging it: not following recipes and rarely making the same dish on a regular basis, because what I love most about the process of cooking is how it's new every time.

Since that's a pretty long answer, what I usually say goes something like this: "Well, I like to cook lots of different things, but what I like best is simple food." And it's true. Though there are exceptions to the rule, you'll notice that most of the recipes I share on this blog are very intuitive, with few steps: the kind of food that even people with little cooking experience could make easily. For me, it's a kind of bang-for-your-buck thing: with the type of food I make, a relatively small amount of planning and labor can often yield an extremely satisfying result. I try not to get too touchy-feely about the process of cooking when writing on this blog, but the truth is that sometimes it seems almost magical, like some sort of alchemy: putting in but salt and heat and time, and then sitting down to something that is truly complex, with layers of flavor and shades of richness.

The following recipe definitely fits that description. The ingredients are as follows: chicken, soy sauce, brown sugar, star anise and lime. Count 'em: 5. I just made it up one night when I had some chicken thighs to use up (as I often do), and a craving for Asian flavors (as I often do). It won't deplete your pantry, and it'll take about 15 minutes from start to finish: it's simple, but it's good.



















Soy-Braised Chicken Thighs with Star Anise and Brown Sugar
Serves 1

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs
Salt
Pepper
Vegetable oil
Dark soy sauce
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 star anise pods
Water
Half a lime

Preparation:

1. Generously salt and pepper both sides of the chicken thighs and sear them in a wide, heavy pan set over high heat until well browned on both sides, about 6 minutes. Remove chicken from pan and set aside.
2. Drop the heat under the pan to medium. Add about 1/2 a cup of water to the pan and stir to deglaze. Add about 2 tbsp. soy sauce, the brown sugar and the star anise; stir to dissolve the brown sugar, then drop the heat so that the mixture bubbles slowly. Add the chicken, cover, and cook until chicken is tender, about 12 minutes.
3. Remove the lid and allow sauce to evaporate until it is quite thick and coats the chicken in a sort of glaze. Taste for seasoning. Eat the chicken over noodles or rice, squeezing the juice of the lime over it before you do.

Tofu for carnivores

I love tofu: firm or silken, smoked or not, freshly made or prepackaged, I'll happily take them all. I also love meat. I happen to really, really like tofu and meat together, as in, in the same dish.

If this pairing seems incongruous to you, then you've probably missed out on many of the best dishes that Asian, particularly Chinese, cuisines have to offer. You see, in America tofu has acquired a pretty poor reputation for being the wan, tasteless, colorless and textureless ingredient that people sub in for meat, resulting in such unfortunate products as Tofurky, Boca Burgers, and the like. You can't taste the tofu in these things at all; it's covered up, hidden away behind a thick veil of salt, herbs and spices.

Asian cooking takes a different stance on tofu. It's a revered ingredient, one whose smooth texture and clean flavor is as at home nestled in among a medley of vegetables as it is sitting shoulder to shoulder with, say, some pork...shoulder. Rather than attempting to substitute tofu for meat, Asian recipes oftentimes place the two together--a sort of yin and yang, if you will forgive the terrible, terrible pun, a harmonious, balanced relationship that allows both ingredients to shine. Some of Asia's most famous dishes--such as Chinese mapo dofu, Korean kimchi jjigae, Filipino tokwa't baboy, and Thai pad thai--all call for both meat and tofu. All are delicious.

It was from Asia that I took my cue last night when I decided I wanted to have a light, flavorful and balanced soup for dinner. I had made some Chinese-style chicken earlier in the week, and as a result I had a whole potful of chicken broth flavored with ginger, scallion and Szechuan peppercorns leftover. To give my soup a sort of Thai inflection--bearing tom yum soup in mind--I heated up the broth with some crushed lemongrass, poaching some additional chicken thighs at the same time. When the chicken was cooked through, I shredded it and added it back to the broth, along with some sliced shiitake mushrooms, some diced drained tofu, and some soba noodles. When the noodles were just cooked, I added dashes of dark soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar to taste and topped off my bowl with some thinly sliced scallion. Utilizing Chinese broth, Thai herbs and Japanese mushrooms and noodles, this soup was definitely all over the map. But the one thing about it that I think all those various nations could appreciate is its perfect union of meat and soy.



















Asian Soba Noodle Soup with Chicken and Tofu
Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade, if possible flavored with aromatics such as ginger, scallion and garlic
1 stalk fresh lemongrass
1/2 a block extra-firm tofu, or use smoked tofu
2 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin removed
8 - 10 shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 generous handful Japanese soba noodles
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Dark soy sauce
Sesame oil
Rice wine vinegar
Salt

Preparation:

1. Drain the tofu: cut the half block of tofu in half again, this time lengthwise. Place the two pieces on a deep plate lined with paper towels, then put a heavy plate on top. Weight it down; I used a large can of tomatoes. Place in fridge and allow to drain for at least a half an hour.
2. Heat the chicken broth. Add a length of lemongrass that you have crushed with the back of a knife. Add the chicken thighs. Bring the broth to a gentle simmer and cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 8 - 10 minutes. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and let cool in fridge.
3. When chicken is cool, shred it with your fingers and place the meat back in the pot. Remove the tofu from the fridge and cut it into small, evenly sized cubes. Add them to the pot. Add the sliced mushrooms and bring the soup back to a simmer.
4. When soup is simmering, add the soba noodles. Cook until they are al dente, about 6 - 7 minutes. Discard lemongrass. Add dashes of soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar to taste. Salt to taste and garnish soup with sliced scallions.

Birthday fun (with pork)

January 9th marked the 24th year in a row of my existence on this earth, and, also, marked the second year in a row that I chose to celebrate the occasion by feeding a huge, slow-roasted hunk of pork to my friends. For my potluck dinner/birthday party this year, I stuck with pork shoulder because it's a) ridiculously cheap, b) ridiculously easy to make, and c) feeds a ridiculously large number of people. Plus, it's a delicious cut of meat that fills your apartment (and stairwell, and foyer) with a heady, tantalizing, rich aroma during the six to seven hours it spends basting in its own porky juices in your oven. I don't keep many traditions, but I like the fact that one of the few that I observe involves consuming a large section of a pig once yearly.

So I had the pork shoulder, and I prepared it much the same way as the pernil that I made last year, marinating it overnight in a potent blend of chopped garlic and onion, chili powder, olive oil and vinegar. The next day, I slow-roasted it at 300° for, well, the entire day. But after that, all bets were off. I was serving pork shoulder again, but I wanted to mix up my preparation. I decided to convert the pernil into southern-style barbecued pulled pork. I mean, how can you go wrong with that? (Answer: you cannot.) So after six or seven hours when the pork shoulder emerged from my oven glistening with crispy fatty crackling and virtually melting off the bone, I pulled off great big hunks of meat, and, with almost no effort needed at all, shredded them up into long, soft strands. I piled these into a big heavy pot, then folded in a sweet, smokey, homemade BBQ sauce as well as (shhh) a healthy ladle of pork fat drippings that I had rescued from the bottom of the roasting tray. I then turned on the heat again, though this time on top of the stove, letting the pork cook into the sauce over a low heat for about an hour. The pork came out just as I had hoped: moist, tender, and full of sweet and slightly spicy flavor:








And let's not forget the cornbread. After all, what's a southern barbecue without cornbread?








If every year finds me surrounded by good friends and copious amounts of pork, the future looks like a bright one to me!

Southern-Style Barbecued Pulled Pork
Serves 12 - 15 (with leftovers)

Ingredients:

1 pork shoulder, 8 to 10 pounds
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large onion, quartered
2 tbsp. fresh oregano leaves or 1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tbsp. sweet paprika
1 tsp. ancho or other mild chili powder
1 tbsp. salt
2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil as needed
1 tbsp. wine or cider vinegar
1 recipe Sweet and Smokey BBQ Sauce (see below)
Reserved pork drippings, as needed

1. Score meat’s skin with a sharp knife, making a cross-hatch pattern. Pulse garlic, onion, oregano, paprika, chili, salt and pepper together in a food processor, adding oil in a drizzle and scraping down sides as necessary, until mixture is pasty. (Alternatively, mash ingredients in a mortar and pestle.) Blend in the vinegar.
2. Rub mixture into pork, getting it into every nook and cranny. Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge. Let marinate for 12-24 hours.
3. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Remove plastic wrap from pork and place in a roasting pan, filling the bottom with about a half inch of water. Roast pork for as long as you can, or six to seven hours (you cannot really overcook it), covering the skin with foil if it starts to burn. Remove foil before cooking time is over to allow skin to crisp well.
4. Let meat rest for 10 to 15 minutes, then pull off pork cracklings (serve these with lime, hot sauce or both. You won't be disappointed). Using your hands, tear all pork meat off bone in big chunks. When all meat is removed from the bone, shred it into a large, heavy pot, using either your hands or two forks--either way, this is a messy job.
5. Fold in the majority of the homemade BBQ sauce, as well as a good ladleful of pork juice and drippings reserved from the bottom of the roasting pan. Cook, covered, over low heat, or until pork is completely soft and tender and has absorbed a good deal of the sauce, about 1 hour. Taste and add more BBQ sauce, drippings, or seasoning as needed.


Sweet and Smokey BBQ Sauce
Makes about 3 cups

Ingredients:

2 cups ketchup
7 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp. water
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
12 dashes Tabasco sauce
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. sweet or smoked paprika
3/4 c. dark brown sugar or more, to taste
3 cloves garlic
2 chipotles en adobo plus 2 tbsp. adobo sauce
1 tsp. salt
Ground pepper to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cook for 45 minutes or until sauce has thickened, stirring often to prevent burning and adding more water as necessary.
2. Puree until smooth with a stick blender. Taste for seasoning, adding more brown sugar or salt as necessary.


Skillet Cornbread
Adapted from epicurious.com
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. yellow cornmeal
1/4 c. sugar
1 c. milk
1 large egg
1 sticks (1/2 c.) unsalted butter

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Place several small pats of butter into a large cast iron skillet and place skillet in the oven. (If you do not have a cast iron skillet, butter a large, shallow glass baking dish and set it aside.)
2. Melt remaining butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat.
3. In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cornmeal and sugar.
4. In another bowl, whisk together melted butter, egg, and milk. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. Batter will be thin.
5. Remove skillet from oven and pour in the batter. Place in middle of oven and bake until golden brown and cooked through, about 35 minutes. Remove skillet from oven and cool on a wire rack.

A Bronx feast fit for a Baron

A short while ago, the intrepid members of the MTA Dining Car eating club convened once again. This time our mission--to enjoy cheap, bountiful and authentic eats--would not be so easily attained. That's because we decided to venture far, far into the Bronx, taking to our beloved IRT in somewhat diminished numbers and riding almost to the very end of the 6 line. Why suffer through such a long commute? you might ask. The answer is simple: we had been inspired.

You see, for several weeks, my cohort Kiera and I had been eagerly following the hilarious, creative and informative antics of filmmaker Justin Fornal, aka the Baron Ambrosia. A self-described "quaffer of culinary consciousness" whose theme song queries, "he doesn't rest, he only feasts, how will he soothe the savage beast?" the Baron is a veritable ambassador for the culinary riches of the borough of the Bronx that he calls home. In his expertly written, colorful short videos that often include elaborate plots, songs, and dance numbers, the Baron visits restaurants, cafes and takeout spots all over the Bronx that are turning out reasonably priced and reliably delicious food. Just don't look to the Baron to provide any recommendations for white tablecloth fare: the man is all about bringing our attention to inexpensive, come-as-you-are neighborhood spots; the kinds of places that locals revere but outsiders might never otherwise notice.

Watching the Baron's videos, we knew instantly that we had found a culinary compatriot who was championing our same cause. We trusted the Baron implicitly, and for our next eating club outing we wanted to take the Baron up on one of his suggestions. After we viewed the marvelous "Roti Express" episode (hint: it involves a Bollywood-style dance number. Need I say more?), we knew we had our place: the Coconut Palm Bar and Grill, a lively spot that serves up a large variety of Guyanese dishes.

Now hold up a second!--you might be thinking--what exactly is Guyanese food?! Prior to my dining experience at the Coconut Palm, I couldn't have answered you. For most Americans, myself included, any mention of the country calls up a sole image, that of the Jonestown massacre that occurred there in 1978; I had little idea of what present-day Guyana is like, and even less of what it eats. Now I know that Guyana is a melting pot in the truest sense of the word. It has a unique history: located on the northern coast of South America, Guyana has been colonized, over the ages, by no less than 4 superpowers: the French, the Spanish, the Dutch and the British. And if there's anything that colonizers like to do, it's bring slaves and indentured servants--loads and loads of 'em--with them to their new home country, so that they, you know, don't really have to worry about things like raising food, cooking, and cleaning. And bring help they did: from India, Africa and China, in particular. As a result, most of the country's modern-day population is comprised of the descendants of that multinational work force. A sizable segment of the population consists, too, of Aboriginal indigenous groups (see Wikipedia).

So what does all this demographic data mean in terms of the food? It means that the mark of all these disparate cultures is left on the cuisine in recognizable ways. Guyanese food is most strikingly similar to Caribbean cuisines; that's because Guyana lies directly south of the Caribbean island chain. Fans of Caribbean food will notice the prevalence of items like rice and beans, jerk chicken, stew chicken, oxtail and goat that the native populations of Guyana have been cooking up for centuries. More recent influences show up as well: those Indian immigrants brought over flatbreads like dhal poori and roti; the Africans carried over traditional ingredients such as sweet potatoes and peanuts; and the Chinese cooked up a variety of Guyanese-inflected Asian dishes such as fried rice, lo mein and chow mein.

All this and more is yours for the sampling at the Coconut Palm. The restaurant offers a vast array of traditional Guyanese dishes, and because the cuisine is so incredibly diverse you will get to experience an incredible variety of tastes and textures. When the Dining Car stopped in a short while ago, the friendly staff at the restaurant truly treated us to some bang for our (twenty) buck(s), starting us off with numerous plates of appetizers and, later on in the evening, setting up our very own personal buffet that positively brimmed with fluffy rices, tender stewed meats and aromatic breads. Oh--and how could I forget?--we had a very special guest in our ranks that evening. Can you guess who it was?






















That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the Baron Ambrosia himself showed up, bringing not only his lovely self but also an (intimidating) flask of scorpion wine (yes, with a real scorpion in it) procured in Vietnam:






















The Baron also (!!!) provided parting gifts for everyone: DVD copies of last years' holiday special, one for everyone, that he brought in a huge, orange, Santa-style sack. Look for the Baron's 2009 holiday special, airing on Bronxnet and online on New Year's Eve this year:






















The Baron was truly a generous, gracious guest and, of course, we have him to thank for discovering the Coconut Palm in the first place. We look forward to many a savory Bronx dining experience based on his recommendations and we want to offer him one final, warm thank you for his attendance! OK, now on to the (delicious, copious) food, starting with the appetizers:


Polourie: small, deep-fried balls of light chickpea batter, these taste like savory doughnut holes. What's not to like?



Potato balls: like balls of soft mashed potatoes, fried. Again--nothin' wrong with that



Fried fish: I don't recall what type of fish these were, but they were tasty



Fried shark. A suggestion of the Baron's, the chunks of fish were soft and flakey with a crisp greaseless exterior. Perfect



Blood sausage, aka blood pudding. Yum. There's that colonial European influence showing up


And now on to the buffet of main dishes. Here you can see Don helping himself to, from left to right, rice and beans; fried rice; curry goat; curry oxtail; and stew chicken:






















And, finally, here's a closeup on my (first) plate: starting with the fried rice at 12 o'clock and going clockwise you'll see a piece of dhal poori; stew chicken; curry oxtail; curry goat; and rice and beans:











A huge thanks to the interborough trekkers that make up our membership and to the helpful staff of the Coconut Palm, who provided us with heaps of fragrant, filling food! Interested in attending our next event? Join our mailing list by shooting an email to mtadiningcar@gmail.com.