Go East, Young Taco

Faced with a 1945 recipe for Fried Scallion Cake, I thought, Fun! Easy! Let's up the ante. Make the cakes into tortilla-like wrappers for Chinese tacos.

Turns out the tacos were a very good idea. But I was wrong about the Fun! and Easy! part. The recipe, published by Buwei Yang Chao in How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, should have been a dead giveaway, particularly the bit where it instructs you to

roll up each cake (as you would roll a carpet) and then twist into a standing spiral, like a fattened water-heater. With the rolling pin, flatten the spiral from the top down...

Huh? Well, it made for an adventure. Take a look...




The moral? DO surprise your friends and family with a Chinese taco night ... but DON'T use Chao's recipe! Unless you know how to roll a sticky gob of dough into the shape of a fattened water-heater.

These Scallion Cilantro Pancakes look tasty and much thinner than the naan-like cakes I was able to make -- the better to roll up all the yummy fillings. The cilantro would be a welcome addition to the happy hodgepodge of filling flavors.

And speaking of those fillings, I suggest five-spice pork (or turkey? or firm, crumbled tofu?), Chinese pico de gallo, Napa cabbage with a light dressing (or plain), bottled black bean sauce (I heated mine just before serving) or hoisin sauce. You could also toss in some very thinly sliced red peppers, chopped sugar snap peas, or crushed, toasted almonds.

Now, doesn't it feel good to know you've got your menus set for Chinese New Year and Cinco de Mayo?

食飯 and ¡Buen provecho!

Five-Spice Pork

1 pound lean ground pork
2 heaping tablespoons five-spice powder
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger (optional)
A little bit of oil for cooking
1/2 cup scallions, chopped

About 2 hours before serving, combine the pork, five-spice powder, soy sauce, and fresh ginger. Chill until ready to cook. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Swirl just a teensy bit of oil in there. Add pork and scallions and cook, stirring often, until pork is cooked through and not a speck of pink remains, about 10 minutes.

Chinese Pico de Gallo

1/2 cup finely chopped boy choy
1/4 cup finely chopped crunchy bean spouts
2 tablespoons minced scallions
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons hot sesame oil, or to taste

About 2 hours before serving, combine all ingredients. Taste and add more hot sesame oil if desired. Chill until 20 minutes before serving.

Napa Cabbage with a Light Mirin Dressing

3 cups shredded Napa cabbage
1 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Mirin (rice cooking wine)
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Just before serving, combine all ingredients and toss.

Strangechicken

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chartreuse

We're getting to the point in this project where the remaining "to do" recipes are those that, for whatever reason, still ... remain.

There's Philadelphia Pepperpot Soup. Starring role: tripe. For those of you not well versed in bovine anatomy, that's stomach. It's not that I'm faint of heart. It's just a food that one can find any number of reasons not to make cow tum-tum soup. And I have. But now that it's nearly summer, I'm regretting having avoided it all these months. Here's hoping for one more chilly Sunday.

And then there's Potted Lobster: essentially, lobster terrine. Sounds delicious, yes? And it's an economical way of stretching one lobster to feed many. But the thought of picking apart a lobster and not getting to immediately dunk that sweet flesh in a pool of melted butter -- heartbreaking. I'll have to make that sacrifice soon, just not yet.

Fortunately, the results of a dish I once feared -- Chicken Chartreuse -- are encouraging. The recipe, published by Mary Lincoln in her 1884 work, Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cookbook, put me off, if only for the cooking method. We are to "put [the mold] on a trivet in a kettle and steam for three hours" (or one hour if the sausage and chicken is pre-cooked.) I mean, kettle? Trivet?

But with two months to go 'til I complete my year of cooking historically, I had to do like the Puritans and carpe diem -- with or without kettles and trivets.

I made Chicken Chartreuse for an informal drinks party with my New York posse. Also on the menu: my most-requested feta dip and a big ol' pot full of sangria.

**Hot food blogger tip: if you fear disaster, serve plenty of drink!**

But I needn't have worried. The Chartreuse had a texture that calls to mind a slightly looser paté, with flavors that are as familiar as matzo ball soup. On crackers, it made light and satisfying party fare. The concept -- bits of tasty stuff mushed together and steamed -- accommodates interpretations and improvisations galore. Just be mindful of maintaining the proportion of wet-to-dry ingredients.

I'm providing both the chartreuse and sangria recipes -- but you could definitely get away with serving just the former. No booze required! Now that Pepperpot Soup may be another story....

Chicken Chartreuse

I used truffle-flecked sausage links, but perhaps a rosemary or a red pepper flavor would suit you? Also consider substituting other types of cooked meat, and vinegar instead of lemon juice.

You can set up an impromptu kettle-and-trivet steaming combination with a deep baking dish and a couple inches of water.

9 ounces (1 heaping cup) of cold cooked chicken, minced
2 chicken sausage links, minced
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
1 tablespoon chopped capers
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Pinch of cayenne
2 eggs, beaten
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Butter a two-cup mold. Press the chicken mixture into the mold and cover. Fill a baking dish with about 2 inches of water. Place the mold in the water and bake for 1 hour. Allow to cool completely in the mold. To remove the chartreuse from the mold, dip the mold briefly in hot water,and slip a thin, sharp knife around the edge of the chicken to loosen. Serve chilled with crackers.

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer.

Saving-Face Sangria

1 bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Rioja, Zinfandel, Shiraz)
1 lemon cut into thin slices
1 lime cut into thin slices
1 orange, peeled and cut into wedges
1 & 1/2 cups rum
2 cups grapefruit juice

Combine all ingredients, chill, and serve.

Serves 4.

The Great Compromise

For nine months, I've met every challenge that the cooks of yore have thrown at me (or so I like to think). But there are times when this historical food blogger is stumped.

Take a gander at this recipe, published in The "Settlement" Cook Book (1903), by Mrs. Simon Kander:

Matzos Pudding

• 3 matzos (soaked, pressed and stirred until smooth)
• 10 eggs beaten separately
• 2 large apples (peeled and grated)
• 1 cup goose fat
• 1/2 cup white wine
• Grated rind of a lemon
• Sugar to sweeten
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir one-half hour and lastly fold in the beaten whites. Grease form well, bake in a moderate oven one-half hour and serve with wine sauce, six eggs, one cup of weak wine, sugar to taste. Stir constantly until it thickens as it is apt to curdle.

I mean, what is this? It starts with a porridge of unleavened cracker crumbs ... morphs into imitation bread pudding ... and ends with an egg-and-wine sauce for good measure? Is it even a dessert? And what's with the goose fat?

Since starting this project, I've often studied this recipe, intrigued by the unusual use of traditional Passover crackers but baffled by the directions and uninspired by the ingredients. And after my disappointment with that utterly pointless Irish potato concoction, I'm wary of strange puddings.

The official title of The "Settlement" Cook Book was "The Way to a Man's Heart." Molly O'Neill writes that the title "was quite in earnest, since poor cooking was often a source of marital strife."

They say the key to a good marriage is compromise, so I decided to negotiate with Mrs. Kander. I'd take her suggestion for Matzos Pudding, but I'd be making a few changes.


To begin with, goose fat was out: a custard of milk, cream, and eggs suits the modern palate, and brings us back into comfortable bread pudding territory. To give the dish more substance, crushed matzos made room for leftover whole wheat bread. Lemon peel? That could stay. But I added some Eastern spices (vanilla, cardamom, and star anise), inspired by a recipe for Lemon-spice Bread Pudding with Sauteed Peaches by Tasha Garcia and Julie Taras.

And in the produce section of Whole Foods, gazing at perfect, speckled globes of Asian pears, I found more inspiration. Two apples in the pudding became four pears in the sauce. I chose a variety, all at the peak of ripeness: two Comice, one Bosc, one Asian. I riffed on the classic dish of pears poached in wine: pears stewed briefly in lemon juice, butter, and red wine. A perfect compromise between Garcia and Tara's sauteed peaches and Kander's very rich wine sauce.


For the pudding, I followed Garcia and Tara's recipe fairly closely, but substituted half-and-half for their combination of whole milk and cream because it meant one less purchase at the store. And I added matzos, of course, broken into pieces. I mixed most of the matzos into the bread-and-custard mixture 20 minutes before baking, so that the matzos would soak up some of the cream and flavor, but reserved a handful to sprinkle on top just before sticking it in the oven.

The result was heavenly and wholly original. Matzos added a welcome crunch to the mundane (but wonderful!) mushiness of bread pudding. Lemon and spices and pears and wine make for an all-encompassing experience, like a goose down comforter on a cold winter's day (you see? We got some goose in there after all). The recipe below was a group effort -- Garcia, Tara, and Kander all contributed their part -- and I'm immensely proud of it.


Matzo-Bread Pudding with Pears in Wine Sauce

The subtle flavors of whole seasonings -- a vanilla bean, a few cardamom pods, and a pair of star anise -- add a great deal to the dish, but if they are unavailable, you may substitute vanilla extract and ground cardamom and star anise.

For the pudding:
5 cups 1-inch bread cubes from day old bread with crusts
4 matzo crackers, broken up into small pieces
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)
3 cups half-and-half
4 cardamom pods, crushed (or a pinch of ground cardamom)
2 whole star anise (or a pinch of ground anise)
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt

For the sauce:
4 large pears, preferably different varieties, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

1. To make the pudding, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Toss the bread and melted butter on a large rimmed baking sheet. Place bread in oven and toast until golden, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into a medium saucepan; add bean. Add half and half, cardamom, star anise, and lemon peel to pan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes. Strain.
3. Whisk eggs, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Gradually whisk half and half mixture into egg mixture. Add bread and toss gently to combine. Cover and let stand at room temperature, stirring occasionally, at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours. Twenty minutes before baking, add all but about 3 tablespoons of the matzo pieces to the bread mixture and stir gently to combine.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 11 x 7 x 2-inch glass baking dish. Transfer bread mixture to prepared dish and sprinkle with remaining matzo pieces. Bake until just set, about 55 minutes. Cool pudding at least 10 minutes.
5. To make the sauce, combine the pears, lemon juice, sugar, and wine in a bowl and toss. Melt the butter in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pears; cook until juices thicken slightly, stirring gently, about 4-5 minutes. Serve the pudding warm or at room temperature with the pears.

WWJD?

My debut as a Washington hostess was not the cool-headed, pearl-strung affair I imagined as a little girl with big political dreams (and by little girl I mean a 26-year-old, last week).

It was a gorgeous day, demanding icy margaritas on a cherry blossom’d patio, not a less-than-happy hour or three spent near a hot stove. The only cherry blossoms in sight were the red splotches emanating from my over-warm cheeks.

There are times in life and in the kitchen when nothing seems to go your way. This was one of those times. The pork tenderloin was disappointingly fatty and oddly shaped and I was so generally frustrated that in attempting to tenderize it, I managed to tear it into pieces with a wooden cutting board. FYI: pork is not a punching bag.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that if Jackie Kennedy ever cooked – which let’s face it, is highly unlikely – she would never be reduced to a furrow-browed, damp-necked, expletive-spewing mess.

But despite its manic inception, the meal actually turned out quite wonderfully, including the ragged tenderloin, prepared according to Mark Bittman's genius and defiantly simple recipe (I adapted for a crowd and did the first browning in the oven).

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Jackie ever ate – which, let’s face it, is also highly unlikely – I believe she would have offered gracious endorsement of our delicate first course: cool vichyssoise soup.

My guide was a 1965 recipe from the notable 20^th century gourmand Michael Field, who edited the insanely popular and influential TIME-LIFE cookbook series. He explained that the decidedly Francophilian (not a word, but should be) leek and potato concoction we know as vichyssoise actually originated in the U. S.

Mr. Field instructs that “a cold soup tends to be pallid and should be pampered with a bit with good stock and thick cream if it is to make any impression on the palate at all.” Well, I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I detest like a pallid soup. I gave that vichyssoise all the TLC my poor tenderloin was missing.

The result was refreshing (no small feat considering how much butter and cream went into it), and, I believe, well seasoned (taking a cue from Michael Ruhlman in The Elements of Cooking, I seasoned with salt all the way through, from cooking the leeks to the final taste test.) My soup needed a bit of extra salt because I used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth to accommodate a vegetarian guest.

Mr. Field cannot underestimate the importance of a good stock – a point on which he and the well-bred, horse-loving Jackie would agree on – but I don't believe much was lost in translation to canned vegetable broth. The spirit of Franco-American diplomacy, of cool buttery sips and saucy cocktail chatter, reigned supreme. Jackie would have not only approved but maybe – just maybe – asked for a second helping.

Vegetarian Vichyssoise

Adapted from Michael Field, Michael Field's Cooking School, 1965.

4 cups vegetable broth
4 tbsp. butter
2-3 medium to large leeks, white and light green parts, finely chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
1 small onion, finely chopped (about 1/3 cup)
2 pints potatoes, sliced about ¼-inch thick
Several big pinches of sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper (or white pepper, if a perfectly white soup is important to you)
1 cup heavy cream
4 tbsp. finely cut chives

1. Melt the butter over low heat in a large, heavy skillet. Add the onion, leeks, and a big pinch of salt and cook slowly for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then and adjusting the heat so the vegetables barely color.
2. When the vegetables are soft and translucent, transfer them to a 3- or 4-quart saucepan. Add the stock, potatoes, another big pinch of salt, and bring it all to a boil. Reduce the heat at once, partially cover the pan, and simmer until the potatoes are soft and crumble easily with a fork. Remove from the heat and allow to cool enough to handle safely in a food processor.
3. Working in batches, pulse the soup in a food processor a few times – it shouldn’t be perfectly smooth, so resist the temptation to over-blend it. Taste for seasoning, add salt if necessary and a few cranks of black pepper.
4. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Serve in chilled cups with a sprinkle of chives on top of each portion.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.