80 Plates: I Left My Heart in Myanmar

So yesterday, Melissa was coming over, and Michael and I were preparing the shopping list when I pulled out my Essential Asian cookbook and decided we should do another country while we had company—my guests are my guinea pigs!  I looked through the book, skipping the countries in Asia we’d already done and hit on the section on Burma, which is officially known as the Union of Myanmar (and has been since 1989).  To me that sounds like some kind of cult.  I don’t know diddlysquat about Myanmar, so I looked it up and it turns out that it is the largest nation by geographical area in Southeast Asia.  It is bordered by China, Laos, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India.  Coming from a country that borders on only 2 other countries, I find that kind of fascinating.  It also sounds like and looks from the pictures I’ve seen like a beautiful country.  So it has that going for it, which is nice.

Anyway, I paged through the cookbook and found a recipe for Burmese chicken and it sounded like the kind of thing we would all enjoy, so I decided to take a crack at it.  In all, it was an extremely easy recipe to make.  I substituted boneless, skinless chicken breasts for a whole chicken cut up, since none of us is keen on skin and bones.  The preparation is very, very simple.

I heated up some oil and chopped up some onions.  Unfortunately, I had let the oil get a little bit hot while I was chopping so there was quite a sizzle when the onions hit the pot!  I didn’t want them to brown, so I stirred the heck out of them and reduced the heat and in a minute or so, they were quiet and just kind of cooking away.

In the meantime, I began measuring out spices while Melissa attempted to keep Leah from screaming in my ear.  This dish took A LOT of spices, and they are all in the bowl below, but in order, they are bay  leaves, turmeric, chili powder, cardamom (nearly as damned expensive as the stupid saffron!), cumin, coriander, ground and fresh ginger, cinnamon, lemon grass, and garlic.  Seriously, I managed to find a jar of cardamom for $11.50 instead of $15.00 and I need A QUARTER TEASPOON!  Fortunately, next weekend I am doing 80 Plates: African Feast, and I expect to need at least some cardamom.  Otherwise, it’s going in the Ebay pile so I can recoup my losses. hahaha

Once the onions were nice and soft, I threw in all the spices and it made a beautiful brownish paste almost.  The smell was intoxicating, to die for, I kid you not. 

Then all I did was put in the chicken (I cut each breast into 2 smaller pieces), stir it around to coat it, top it with a bit of chicken broth and let it cook for 45 minutes.  Voila!  Burmese chicken!

I served it with (what else?) mashed potatoes, curry chili rice (from a mix from the Asian foods section at my local grocery store), and peas.  Melissa is already attempting to figure out how to modify the recipe to make it in the deep covered baker from Pampered Chef that she and I each own, and I think that is a stroke of genius.  I think it would lend itself to that very well and cook up in probably half the time. 

I am looking forward to turning the leftovers into a fabulous chicken salad.  I really don’t care for reheated chicken very much, to me it tastes kind of funny, but I love curry chicken salad, and while this doesn’t have any curry in it, it has a similar sensibility about it and I think will lend itself well to sandwiches the rest of the week!

Next Saturday, we will be doing 80 Plates: African Feast, as I mentioned.  Looking at the world map I did a few weeks ago, I noted that Africa remains mostly blank.  This is in large part because when you research African cooking, you get a kind of overview, it is hard to find recipes from any one specific country.  However, I persevered and I will be cooking dishes from Angola, Somalia, Chad, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Egypt, and South Africa.  It will be appetizers and desserts for a small crowd of friends and family.  If you are interested in attending, drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do!

80 Plates: From Russia With Love

My family on my father's side is half-Russian. Specifically we are from Belarus, and interestingly, when Michael met a few Russian people when we were living in Boston and told them my last name/maiden name (for those who don't know, it's Cherepon), they immediately knew Belarus! I find that fascinating, because if someone in the US says their last name is Smith, we wouldn't know that all Smiths live in Texas. So I was really fascinated by this.

Anyway, I'm pretty good with Eastern European and Russian cooking. Every year, my sister and I put on a big feast in January and do a lot of traditional cooking. I could certainly have counted that towards 80 Plates, but I felt like doing something from my family's countries of origin that I hadn't done before. Recently, the Fredericksburg Library had its semi-annual book sale and I went to the preview show and found a Russian cookbook. Inside was a recipe for beef stroganov and I decided that's what I'd make.

But wait a minute, those of you who have attended may ask. Haven't I eaten beef stroganov at your house before? Why yes you have, my fine friends, but you've eaten it the way my mom taught me to make it, which is quick, easy, and fool proof! To make that beef stroganov, all you do is add one pound of stew beef, one envelope of onion soup mix, and one can of cream of mushroom soup to your slow cooker and let it cook all day. It's quick, easy, and yummy, but not what I'd call "authentic".

According to my cookbook:

Created in the late 19th Century for a Russian count, "bef Stroganov" has become one of the world's most famous dishes. The recipe that follows is the classic Russian version. The numerous European and American variations called beef Stroganov do not in any sense reproduce the dish as it was originally made.

So there.

I gathered up my ingredients and you can see the fairly dismal looking picture in the cookbook in my ingredient picture. This cookbook was published in 1969 and has not exactly aged to perfection. Looking through it, I had to laugh at the photo of a Ukranian family sitting down to have their Easter breakfast, with two bottles of vodka on the table right in front of the kids' places at the table. Hilarious. Anyway, the only thing I did that varied from the directions was to buy the beef already cut into strips by the good people at Wegman's. I didn't want to stand around slicing beef all day.

To start, you combine dry mustard, sugar, salt, and just a dash of hot water to make a paste. I added about a tablespoon of hot water and wound up with more of a slurry than a paste. So my guess is that maybe even a teaspoon or water would do the trick.




Then it was time to slice up some onions. I needed four cups, which is about four onions' worth. I love this picture of the onion slices stacked in my grandma's measuring cup. The onions are very strong indeed, but I once read in the Old Farmer's Almanac that if you slice onions while keeping a piece of bread in your mouth, you won't cry, and I swear to God it works. At least for me. So there's your tip of the day.

As you can see, I bought the mushrooms pre-sliced, one pound of them. It would have been cheaper to buy the mushrooms in bulk and slice them myself, but I was feeling lazy so I let someone else do the work.

Now the first real part of the cooking made me nervous--you place some oil in a pan, turn the heat on high, and let the oil sit in there till it starts to smoke. Um, no thanks. I let it get good and hot till it was kind of running around the pan and kicking up bubbles, but I didn't wait to see smoke before I threw the mushrooms and onions in there. Then all you do is reduce the heat to low, cover the pan, and stir the veggies around from time to time for the next 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile, it was time to cook the beef. You cook it in two batches, since you use two pounds. This time the directions say to let the oil get hot but not smoke. Well, I just let it get to the same temperature as before with the onions and mushrooms and then threw in the beef. It got kind of bubbly and funny looking, but I guess that's what was supposed to happen! It cooked up just fine and then I got to add it to the mushrooms and onions, which I had drained off and returned to their happy pan.



From there on, it's pretty basic. You add in the mustard paste and some salt and pepper. Unfortunately, this did not photograph real well, but you can sort of see it there?



And then you add a dollop of sour cream at a time, mix it in, and wait for it to make a nice kind of sauce. I used fat free sour cream, and I do think the sauce might have been a bit thicker had I used regular, but I was willing to sacrifice a heavier gravy for a healthier option.




And then it was time to eat! I had mine over egg noodles and Mike had his with mashed potatoes (I had to pick the beef out of the mushrooms and onions for him!). I also had a nice side of steamed veggies and he did not.




YUMMMMMMMMMMM.

I love making beef stroganov the quick and easy way, but man was it good to eat it the traditional way as well! Apparently it is traditional to serve it with crisp potato straws over the top of it, but I liked it our way just fine and dandy.

And I have to say, as I was making it, I was thinking it was one of the easier dishes I have made as part of this experiment. There were very few dishes created, unlike the usual sinkful of dishes I usually have to do, and since I was able to buy a couple ingredients pre-prepped, it made it even faster!

I really enjoyed this taste of the motherland. Yum! Maybe someday I'll eat it at the Kremlin with other heads of state. haha

80 Plates: At War With Our Bellies

So I finally have a few minutes to blog about our culinary journey in the Mediterranean. I had been in the mood for Greek food for a while, so I decided to go for it one day. I knew my sister would be over and that she digs cucumbers, so I knew she'd help me eat up tzatziki sauce. I am attempting to make peace with the cucumber, but it is one of my least favorite vegetables. I'm getting there though. From that came our menu of souvlaki and tzatziki from Greece. Then I decided if I was going to do that, I might as well add Turkey to the mix. Greece and Turkey have a long history of disagreements (the granddaddy of all international conflicts some might say), and it turned out that we were all kind of grumpy with each other as a family that day, so I enjoyed the cooking as it matched the mood of the household. I scanned my copy of "The Essential Mediterranean Cookbook" and found a recipe for zucchini patties in the Turkish cooking section and voila! A menu was created.

I started out with the tzatziki since I felt it should all kind of blend a while. I used a combination of recipes from the Mediterranean cookbook and the Food Network. It seems all tzatziki recipes are more or less the same--cucumber, yogurt, garlic, mint, lemon juice, and some use sour cream and some don't. I went ahead and used fat free sour cream to try and make it a tad healthier. I apologize that the cucumber is missing from the ingredient picture! I started grating it before thinking that I needed to photograph it.

So step one is to grate a seedless (English) cucumber. You can usually find these in the produce section wrapped in plastic, as opposed to 'regular' cucumbers that are just out in their skins. Why is this? I wondered that myself. "Regular" cucumbers are waxed to retain moisture and prevent rotting. English cucumbers are shrink wrapped. Why? I don't know. That's just how it is. Anyway, I grated it and I have to say, this is one of my favorite 80 plates pictures just because I like how green it is.



Then I added some salt and let those suckers drain into the sink.



Meanwhile, I measured out 1 cup each of Greek yogurt and sour cream. Greek yogurt is thicker than "regular" yogurt. If you can't find it, you can use the equivalent amount of plain yogurt. Put it in a strainer lined with cheesecloth and let the moisture seep out of the yogurt for a while before mixing it up.

Once the yogurt and sour cream were measured out, I added tons of garlic. I used up the last of the minced garlic I had and then minced some fresh garlic, which accounts for the two different colors. Then a little salt and pepper and voila! The base was complete!



All that was left was to put in the cucumbers and let the whole thing sit in the fridge for at least an hour, or longer if desired.



Then it was time to get the chicken marinating. I had decided on souvlaki, which is a dish I never order, as I love eating gyros when we go for Greek food. Alton Brown did an episode of Good Eats where he showed you how to make gyro meat on your grill, but I just felt like trying something new. Plus, only God knows how Vesuvius would handle grilling a big mound of gyro meat. But I digress. The marinade for souvlaki in all the recipes I scanned seems to be pretty much the same ingredients, only the quantities vary. Also, souvlaki is very popular as a pork dish, although we used chicken.

Into the food processor, I put olive oil, lemon juice (was super excited I got to use my new Pampered Chef citrus press for the first time!), thyme, oregano, onion, and garlic and pureed the hell out of it. It comes out as a kind of yellowy whitish looking marinade.




Meanwhile, I was soaking my bamboo skewers in water and I cubed up my chicken. I poured the marinade over the chicken and stuck the bowl in the fridge to sit for a while.



Then it was time to turn my attention to the zucchini patties. One thing that kind of got me about this was that yet again I had to buy a special ingredient (in this case, self rising flour) and used exactly 1/4 cup of it. You can bet I'll be looking for recipes to use it up! I don't really mind buying things like fresh herbs because they don't come by the pound. But it gets my goat to buy jars and bags of things that I need a minute amount of! Oh well :-) Enjoy my money, Gold Medal. You make good flour, I have to hand it to you.

Anyway, to start, you grate both the zucchini and the onion, and then place them in a clean towel and squeeze out as much moisture as you possibly can. I couldn't squeeze and photograph all at the same time, so you'll have to settle for my before and after pictures, which I guess look basically the same!




You will have to take my word for it--A LOT of moisture comes out when you squeeze these through a towel. I was actually quite surprised.

Once that's done, you add salt, pepper, flour, parmesan cheese, mint, parsley, nutmeg, breadcrumbs, and an egg and mix it all up until it becomes a stiff kind of mixture that holds a patty shape. Then I shaped the little patties up and all the food was prepped except for skewering the chicken, which I did pretty quickly!





So I fired up Vesuvius, and at the same time heated up some olive oil to fry the zucchini patties in. I figured the chicken would take longer, but in fact they took about the same amount of time, so I was running in and out between the grill and the electric frying pan to get everything done at roughly the same time.




Then it was time to eat! YUM! Wegmans had some delicious soft pita bread--I really don't like that brand that makes the real dry pitas, so I was thrilled to find soft ones--so we added that and the recipe for the zucchini suggested we serve it with fresh lemon, so I wedged some of that up as well! I also happen to like lettuce and tomato on my gyros and figured it would be good on souvlaki, so I put some of that on the table too. It was quite a feast.



Then it was time to fix up a plate and eat!


How amazing does this look, huh?!

Then Judy decided to take a picture of the family sitting down to eat, with me in it for a change. As I said, none of us was really speaking at this point, and a picture speaks louder than words. She snapped this picture and promptly burst into tears. But now when I look at it, it kind of cracks me up!



So then she told us we HAD to smile, so we all put on our game face and smiled--even Dottie. Leah declined to participate--hahahaha.



Then it was finally time to dig in! The ceremonial first bite picture of the General--you can see that I remembered his mashed potatoes this time! No more rookie mistakes for me, no sir! Now I love Mediterranean food and I love Greek food, and I always thought it would be beyond my capabilities to actually prepare. How pleased I was to be proven wrong. This was a delicious meal that all of us truly enjoyed! We actually thawed our relations and really enjoyed ourselves during the meal--good food is definitely the antidote to rage :-)

We will be eating this again, no doubt in my mind. Try it yourself sometime and see!

80 Plates: Ecuador and Emily!

So a few weeks ago, I was looking back over the 80 Plates blog and saw I had a couple comments--my first comments ever! I was so excited! I opened the first and it was from my friend Emily. I've known Emily for nearly 5 years, although we haven't hung out a whole lot, mainly because I've been down here and she's up north, but thanks to the magic of Facebook, we've reconnected! So her comment read that if I ever wanted Ecuadorian recipes, I should let her know. I dropped her a line that, yes, I would love to have some and would she want to be a guest chef? She said she would, so we made plans and this weekend she came down and we caught up, hung out, cooked, and ate! :-) I was doubly excited about this, because Ecuador is a country I hold very dear to my heart. My family hosted an exchange student from Ecuador from 1995-1996 and he is still very much a part of our family. So to taste a dish that my brother Franc might enjoy was very exciting indeed.

Emily's mom married an Ecuadorian fellow back in the day and put together a cookbook with a bunch of recipes from all over Latin America. Emily brought it with her, and as you can see, we all had a nice giggle over the old school Print Shop cover of "La Cocina Hispana". Emily selected two of her favorite recipes, Pollos Borrachos (Drunken Chicken) and Tia Nicolina (Corn Casserole) and a new one to try Crema de Chocolate (Chocolate Mousse). She has generously agreed that I can share the recipes here, so at the end, I'll post the recipes for you to try if you want to! Emily also generously provided all the groceries and when Leah got crabby from her cold, Emily did most of the cooking. Emily is officially one of my heroes of 2009!

We decided to start with the Crema de Chocolate since it needed time to rest after being made. The recipe calls for just 5 ingredients, so it's super simple to make. I got to work melting chocolate and butter together while Emily separated the eggs. She was really excited to get to use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and I was somewhat surprised that it didn't find its way into her bag at the end of the night--it was love at first mix! :-)




After the chocolate was melted and the whites were whipped with some sugar, we tempered the egg yolks with a bit of the warm chocolate so we wouldn't make scrambled eggs. Eventually, Emily had about half the chocolate in with the eggs and the eggs were good and tempered and not scrambling, so we put the chocolate-egg mixture into the pan with the rest of the chocolate and cooked it again for a couple of minutes. Once it looked right, it was time to add the egg whites!




We folded the entire thing together until it become a wonderful mousse. Emily topped it with a bit of orange peel (I didn't know they sold that in jars in the spice aisle!). It was then supposed to chill for several hours, but we only had about an hour and a half till supper time, so we decided to put it into the deep freeze.





Then we moved on to Tia Nicolina, the corn casserole. This was not a terribly difficult dish to make, mainly because Leah started throwing a total hissy fit in the midst of the preparations and Emily took over :-)

I helped with the food processor bit, though! I processed 2/3 of the corn into shrapnel which was fun. I think processing frozen things is good for sharpening the blades too, so that was a bonus. (Or at least, my manual suggests occasionally chopping up ice cubes in there to keep the blades sharp.)



Emily meanwhile beat butter in a dish until it was fluffy, and then added cornmeal, brown sugar, cream cheese, and salt to the corn I had processed and the whole corn that had been left alone. It was really starting to smell just fantastic! She let the mixer do the hard work towards the end, and I don't blame her one bit! That's what that stand mixer is for!









Once that was completed, it was time to assemble the casserole! Emily explained that what would typically be done was that the casserole dish would be lined with corn husks, the filling would go into the husks, and then the husks would be folded over top of the casserole and that would be how you would bake it. She declined to do that this time, so we went ahead and used aluminum foil in place of the corn husks. To assemble the casserole was quite simple. She poured in one half of the corn mixture, and then spread green chilis over top of it. Then she sprinkled a half pound of Monterey Jack cheese (can't be bad!) and covered it with the remaining corn mixture. Voila, it was ready to bake for one hour!






The final piece of the Ecuadorian puzzle was Pollos Borrachos, or Drunken Chicken. Emily describes this as her ultimate comfort food, the thing she goes to when she needs a taste of home. Again, I was more or less forced to take a back seat in the kitchen by my cranky daughter, but Emily was an awesome sport about it and said she really enjoys cooking so she was happy to do it. (Leah is back in training to become human this week! You're in my army now, Kosior!)

In a Dutch oven, Emily heated up some oil and sauteed some onions and parsley that she had chopped up, along with some sesame seeds that she had not. What cracked me up about her cooking style was that she said she needed a tablespoon of seeds and when they got away from her and more like a quarter cup went in the pot, she shrugged and said something to the effect of, "That's how I roll." I have to get on board that train--I would have been attempting to pick out sesame seeds and somehow measure them!

Once that was done, Emily added a pile of chicken thighs. They had to be browned on all sides, so it took a while. Leah decided Emily needed help, so she guarded over the ingredients while Emily cooked.



Once the chicken was cooked up nicely, it was time to add spices. These were cinnamon, bay, cloves, and to make the chicken drunk, Emily added white wine. She said sherry would be more traditional, but she didn't have any on hand and white wine works fine. She also added vinegar and a bottle of olives, because she loves olives--only 16 were called for total, but she tossed in all of them, juice and all!



And then it was time to let everything do its thing and cook!! When it emerged from the oven and from the stove top, none of us could wait to dig in. The chicken made the kitchen smell so warm and inviting. I usually am not too sure if I'm going to like a savory dish made with spices I typically associate with baking, but one sniff and I knew I was going to love this chicken. The corn casserole was also smelling fantastic!




Our happy dinner party...



Michael's ceremonial first bite and my plate...




Oh. My. God.

It was amazing beyond all expectations. The chicken tasted so warm and happy and I can definitely see why you could find comfort in it. It tasted like home at the holidays. The corn had a real zippy flavor and was cheesy and warm and melty and crunchy. I had 3 helpings. I couldn't help it! It was so good!

It was with great sadness we finished but excitement in that we knew the crema was waiting for us! We removed it from the freezer and it was looking just fine. We dished it up and served it with a little bit of light Cool Whip--you know, because we are calorie conscious! :-) The chocolate was smooth and rich and heavenly--you would NEVER know that it had been made with eggs. It was like the best chocolate mousse I've ever tasted, and I usually make mine with heavy cream. It was a lot denser than a typical mousse. The only thing we all agreed upon was that we couldn't really taste the orange peel. Emily suggested that next time she makes it, she's going to add the orange peel in with the chocolate when it's melting to try and infuse the flavor throughout the chocolate and I think that will probably work!



Muchas gracias, Emily, I so enjoyed our visit and your cooking lesson! I'm super excited that Emily has volunteered to come back and teach me to make empanadas for Mexican night :-) Keep an eye out for a future episode starring this talented gal!

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As promised, here are the family recipes we prepared.

Crema de Chocolate

8 ounces sweet baking chocolate
1/3 c. butter
4 eggs, separated
2 T sugar
Finely chopped orange peel

In a small, heavy saucepan, melt chocolate and butter together over low heat, stirring constantly. Beat together egg yolks, and gradually stir about half the chocolate mixture into the yolks. Return all to saucepan and combine all chocolate with egg mixture. Cook and stir for 2 more minutes until thick and glossy. Cool to room temperature.

Beat egg whites to soft peaks. Add sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Fold in chocolate mixture and chill for several hours. Serve topped with chopped orange peel and whipped cream.

Pollos Borrachos (Drunken Chicken)

2 3 lb. broiler fryers, quartered
1 1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/4 c. oil
3 onions, sliced
1/4 c. chopped parsley
2 T. sesame seeds
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
1/4 t cloves
1 c white whine OR sherry
2 T vinegar
16 green olives

In large pan or Dutch oven, heat oil. Saute onions, parsley, and sesame seeds till onions are soft. Add chicken and cook over medium heat until brown on all sides. Add spices and cook a minute or two. Add alcohol, vinegar, and olives and simmer covered for 45 minutes until chicken is tender.

Tia Nicolina

3 cups frozen corn or 12 ears corn on the cob, corn removed
1 c. butter, room temperature
3/4 c. fine yellow cornmeal
1/4 c. brown sugar
3 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1 t salt
1/3 c. heavy cream
1/2 lb. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
4 oz. green chilies

Heat oven to 375. Puree 2 cups of corn in food processor in several batches. Beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in cornmeal, sugar, cream cheese, and salt. Stir in reserved corn kernels and corn puree. Blend in cream. Pour half corn mixture into baking dish lined with corn husks. Smooth top. Cover with chilies and cheese. Add remaining corn mixture and fold husks over top of casserole to cover. Bake 1 hour.