Friday, February 20th, 2009
We found lots of elegant restaurant fare in Hanoi. This deconstructed paella with three kinds of rice was a treat at Green Tangerine, a charming little spot near the Water Puppet Theater. The pastries at Afternoon Tea at the Hotel Metropole were exquisite and a trio of soups made a lovely starter for a fabulous end-of-the-bike-tour banquet catered by the hotel.
But my strongest culinary memories of Viet Nam cluster around the profusion of wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables. In “Catfish and Mandala” the aurthor describes Viet Nam as a country of “skinny people who eat all the time.”
So how come I gained weight there? Could it have been a few too many croissants, fried spring rolls and crispy pancakes? If so, they were worth every ounce.
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Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
The mountainous area around Dalat is a gardener’s paradise. Vegetables, flowers and coffee trees thrive. While pushing my bike up a particularly steep hill I noticed poinsietta bushes as high as my shoulders, covered in blooms.
The central market is one of the most interesting we visited. These artichokes had stems 10-12 inches long and looked as beautiful as Castroville’s finest.
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Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
This pretty little platter had two more fresh spring rolls in the top left hand corner of the tray, but I’d quickly snarfed them down before I remembered to pull out my camera.
One of the women on our trip has reached spring roll saturation. “Not another one, ” she vows. But I haven’t begun to tire of them and have been enjoying them at lunch and dinner most days.
In the lower left are some tasty little beef rolls, encased in a leaf whose name I have forgotten. Crispy fried shrimp and green papaya salad on rice crackers complete the platter. This and an icy cold local beer made a perfect poolside lunch.
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Sunday, February 15th, 2009
After a marvelous dinner at Morning Glory in Hoi-An (my favorite fare of the trip so far) we went back to the restaurant the next day for a cooking class. I’ll be posting recipes after I get home and have a faster internet connection.
Pictured are the ingredients we used to marinate boneless, skinless chicken thighs – yup, we used all of them and the results were fabulous, though I went a tad heavy on the chile paste.
When I get home I think I’ll train the grandkids to do Viet Namese-style mise-en-place for me.
“Here, my angels. Start chopping.”
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Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
These tiny bird’s eye chiles are seriously hot. Every meal in Viet Nam has included a tiny saucer holding one or two chiles cut into small pieces. And a single small piece is enough to turn a bowl of pho or serving of noodles fiery hot.
Our meals in Hue have been outstanding. Well, a lunch on a boat cruising down the Perfume Rive was mediocre, but the views were great., and the other meals have been marvelous. At a lavish lunch yesterday we were served an interesting mixture of rice paste mixed with minced shrimp, steamed in banana leaves. A similar mixture, this time steamed in small ramekins, was part of a multi-course dinner. Very delicate and delicious.
On to Hoi An tomorrow.
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Sunday, February 8th, 2009
On our first day in Viet Nam we headed straight for the huge bustling market. When you consider that dried shrimp are used sparingly as a seasoning, the above looks like a life-time supply.
Such glorious piles of fresh fruit throughout the market. I was told these are called dragon fruit although I’m sure there is another name for them Here the flesh is as red as the exterior, but in other varieties it’s a beautiful cream color flecked with tiny black seeds.
Besides one ill-advised restaurant choice our first night, the food has been splendid. Pleasantest surprise has been the vegetables. Sauteed lotus tendrils, anyone?
By Casey Ellis, . Filed under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
Have I got a blog for you.
Oh, I hear you: You’re sated with food blogs. You barely have time to keep up with Dorie and David, Pim and Matt, Mollie and Michael R. You certainly aren’t going to relinquish time reserved for reading Becks & Posh. Or the insanely wonderful Carol B.
I understand. I have more blogs on my various readers and feeds and e-mail lists than I’ll ever admit. But I recently added another to my culinary cornucopia and you’re going to thank me for sharing.
Here’s the back story:
Permanently perched on the coffee table in my beach house sun room is a charming little book titled Pane e Salute: Food and Love in Italy and Vermont by Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber– a book I love to curl up with when the late afternoon sun is shimmering on Monterey Bay. The once colorful cover is now bleached into soft shades of blue-gray but the writing within still sparkles.
Recently I decided to google the authors to see if they still cooked and baked and ran a restaurant in Vermont and traveled to Italy and wrote about it all. Or if they even were still a couple.
Oh, Google, how I love ya.
Seven years after Pane e Salute was published, the authors are still together, still operating their oesteria/bakery and still writing. They have two books coming out this sprng: “In Late Winter We Ate Pears” — a re-release of Pane e Salute with a new forward and updated epilogue and a book on wine.
In the meantime, read Deirdre’s blog.
I’m getting on a midnight plane to Viet Nam tonight and still owe my Chronicle editor a column and have bills to pay and laundry to run and the cat to haul out from beneath the bed, so I don’t have time to tempt you with photos and recipes and excerpts and other enticements.
Just this once, trust me.
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Thursday, January 8th, 2009
Since I coudln’t go to Le Chaufourg for New Year’s Eve dinner [the inn is closed during the winter, to say nothing of the Dordogne Valley's being a bit more of a trek than even I am willing to make for a meal] I happily went to
La Posta. As always, it was wonderful, including an appetizer of the best ravioli I’ve had in ages: butternut squash filling, tender pasta, browned butter sauce–ho, hum, you are thinking, but you think wrong.
When I saw pork cooked in milk as one of the entree choices, I looked no further on the menu. This dead-simple, dead-delicious dish is one of my favorites, even though its supposed-to-be-that-way curdled sauce would deny it any culinary beauty awards.
I didn’t pester chef Chris for the recipe. If you live near Santa Cruz you should treat yourself to eating his version — accompanied by wedges of fennel — straight from his kitchen. To make it at home, I highly recommend this recipe from the always reliable River Cafe in London.
Pork Cooked in Milk
1 4- to 5-pound boned loin of pork
sea salt and pepper
2 TB. olive oil
4 Tb. butter
5 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1 small handful fresh sage leaves (optional)
1.5 quarts milk
pared zest of 2 lemons, pith removed
Generously season the pork on all sides. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with a lid, just large enough to hold the pork. Brown the meat on all sides, then remove. Pour away the fat.
Melt the butter in the pan, add the garlic and sage leaves, and, before the garlic begins to color, return the pork to the pan. Add enough hot milk to come 3/4 of the way up the pork. Bring to a boil, add the lemon zest, and reduce the heat. Place the lid on the pan, slightly askew, and very gently simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours until the meat is very tender. Resist the temptation to disturb the meat.
When the pork is cooked, the milk will have curdled into brown nuggests. [Margin Note: this is when the "ugly" appears] Carefully remove the meat, slice quickly and spoon over the sauce.
Makes 6 servings.
[M.N.: You DO own the Rogers Gray Italian Country Cookbook, don't you? They've done lots of lovely books, but their first is still my favorite. Although it's out of print, I still find copies at www.abebooks. In fact, I ordered another copy today because mine is trashed from heavy use.]
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Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
When I can’t sleep I recall favorite meals rather than count sheep. High on the list are the dishes of red mullet I’ve eaten at Le Chaufourg-en-Perigord, my favorite inn in la belle France. So perfectly does the chef there cook this gorgeous little fish that often I’ll order it two evenings in a row.
But it’s not only the food that enchants at Le Chaufourg; the setting is sublime. Georges Dambier and his cousin Agnes have created an spot so enchanting that J and I have been there five times. On one anniversary J said he’d take me anywhere in the world to celebrate and I didn’t hesitate a moment. The photo of us at a table next to tall open doors leading to Le Chaufourg’s gardens remains one of my favorites.
But that photo is just an enlarged snapshot. The loveliest two photos in my home were taken by M. Dambier, one of France’s best and best-known fashion photographers of the 50s and 60s before he returned to the Dordogne valley of his youth to run an inn. One depicts a young Brigitte Bardot, the other the fashion idol of my teens; Suzy Parker. Copies of both appear — on side-by-side pages — in the luscious new book Paris Fifties: Regards de Mode.
If you love fashion and fashion photography, you should treat yourself to this book, available from Amazon.fr.
And if you live in a part of the world where you can buy fresh red mullet, don’t tell me how deliciously you prepare it. Envy is such an ugly emotion.
By Casey Ellis, . Filed under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
New cookie jar; no cookies.
This year I thought I’d try to stem my holiday avoirdupois accumulation by skipping cookie-baking, candy-making and plum-pudding-steaming. (OK, I haven’t steamed a pudding since 1964 and I can’t remember ever making candy, but I usually do fill numerous tins with homemade cookies.) This oven-avoiding sloth has had minimal effect on the scale, however, for while I am eschewing holiday baking, I am heartily embracing holiday eating.
Two weeks ago –at the Chronicle FOOD staff party– I sampled some absolutely sublime fare, including crisp little potato lakes, tangy miniature reuben sandwiches and chopped chicken liver that had me returning repeatedly to its little corner of the buffet.
Brought to the party by iconic Bay Area chef/author/teacher/restaurateur Joyce Goldstein, this was the best chopped chicken liver I’d ever tasted.
“Please tell me the recipe is in one of your cookbooks, ” I said to her. (She’s written over a dozen, including the recent Mediterranean Fresh)
“No, but I’m happy to share it with you,” she said.
And I share it here with you. Happy Holidays. Happy cooking. And feel free to send cookies.
Joyce’s Chopped Chicken Liver
8 tablespoons chicken fat or onion-flavored chicken fat from gribines ( see below)
1 pound chicken livers, well trimmed
2 to 3 yellow onions, chopped fine
3 to 4 hard boiled eggs
salt and pepper
Melt the chicken fat in two pans. In one, saute the onions until they are a dark golden brown. Reserve. In the other cook the livers until they are medium rare. There should still be quite a bit of pink but they should not be quivery. Coarsely chop the hard boiled eggs in the food processor. Transfer to a bowl.
You may chop the livers in the food processor. If you choose to chop these in the processor, just pulse them very quickly, and in very small batches. You do not want to lose the chunky texture. Add them to the eggs. Then add the browned onions. Add all of the pan juices. Do this while all the ingredients are warm. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If the mixture seems a little dry, add more chicken fat. Serve with matzoh.
Gribines:
Cut pieces of chicken fat into smaller pieces with a scissors. Put them in a large saucepan over medium heat and start to render the fat.
Slice twice as many onions as you had fat.
When the cracklings start to turn grey and the fat develops small bubbles, add the sliced onions and stir well. Cook until the onions and cracklings are golden brown, stirring occasionally.
Remove with a slotted spoon and drain briefly. Sprinkle with salt.
Save the onion flavored fat for cooking.
By Casey Ellis, . Filed under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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