Three-Day Pickles (HCE)

• 2 pounds Kirby cucumbers
• 6 tablespoons kosher salt
• 2 cups white or white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup pickling spice

Toss halved or quartered cucumbers with 2 tablespoons salt and let them sit in a colander for 2 hours.

Bring remaining ingredients to a boil along with 2 cups water.  Let steep for 5 minutes.

Of course I make my own pickling spice.

Pickling Spice

• 2 3-inch cinnamon sticks
• 10 bay leaves
• 2 small dried hot red chiles (like Thai) or 1 tablespoon hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1/4 cup mustard seeds
• 2 tablespoons allspice berries
• 2 teaspoons cloves
• 2 tablespoons black peppercorns
• 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 2 teaspoons cardamom seeds
• 2 tablespoons dill seeds

Pat cucumbers dry with paper towels and put in a nonmetal bowl.

Pour over bring and let cool to room temperature.

Transfer to airtight jars or containers and refrigerate.  The pickles are ready in three days and are then good for another three weeks. (I just realized I wrote down the expiration date wrong and just corrected them)

At various points in time, I used to make pickles every weekend or every other but have down so in a couple of years.  Ideally, I love adding habanero peppers and fresh dill during the brine cooling process, but as it tends to happen, I blanked while at the shopping market.  Added some habaneros the next day to the top of the jar, but that's certainly not a perfect situation.  The pickles are still pretty good and certainly not my best effort.

Hopefully I get back into the habit without forgetting ingredients in the near future since they are a good snack that aren't full of fat or sugar.

Jerked Pork (WBR)

• 10 scallions
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 or 2 habenero (Scotch bonnet) chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, more or less
• 1 boneless pork shoulder (picnic or Boston butt), about 6 pounds

Combine the first six ingredients and enough lime juice to make a paste.  Poke a bunch of holes into the shoulder and rub and poke that stuff in.  Couldn't find habaneros sadly when I was shopping which is kind of heretical, but I did the best I could with some jalapenos.  Marinate preferable overnight.

I realized afterward that I probably shouldn't have been so particular about trimming off the fat (considerable) from the shoulder.  Well, duh; part of this was still edible after 4 hours at 300, "basted" occasionally with merely lime juice.

The result served over coconut rice (Basically rice cooked with coconut milk.  It involves slightly different technique than the normal way and it's kind of foolproof I think).

Of course most of the meat was barely edible, but we made do with some Bulls' Eye Sauce for moisture.  I'm curious enough to do an ATK version of this.  Maybe even the charcoal grilled with that smokes wood and allspice berries to mimic the traditional way of smoking it over pimento wood (aka wood from the allspice tree).

Cochinita Pibil (Slow-Cooked Achiote Pork)

from the Rick Bayless iPad app

• 1/2 3.5-ounce package prepared achiote seasoning paste
• 3/4 cup fresh lime juice (divided use)
• Salt
• 1/2 1-pound package banana leaves, defrosted if frozen
• 3 pounds bone-in pork shoulder roast
• 1 large white onion, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
• 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 large garlic cloves, roasted in their skins, then peeled
• 8 medium (about 3 ounces total) fresh habenero chiles, roasted and stemmed
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 24 corn tortillas, heated (optional)

An awful lot of limes to make out to 3/4 cup lime juice. I had bought a bottle of juice earlier in the event that I'd be lazy.


Mise en place.
Threw a few radishes in the mix because my red onion wasn't all that large. Also, quick lime-pickled radishes are pretty much my go to garnish/vegetable with Mexican food. Which it appears I will be doing more often in the near future.


Lime juice, salt and El Yucateco achiote paste. It struck me as weird that it is also known as annatto paste when I've been led to believe that annatto is only used for color.
After eating this dish and researching on Wikipedia, recado rojo (Yet another name for this!) is:

a popular blend of spices from Mexico. Originally a Mayan blend, it is now strongly associated with the Mexican cuisine of Yucatan and Belizean cuisine. The spice mixture usually includes annatto, Mexican oregano, cumin, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, garlic, and salt.^[1][2] The annatto seeds dye the mixture red, and this gives the meat or vegetables it seasons a distinctive red hue.

And there I was wondering how the hell the dish was seasoned with just annatto. Silly me.


Blended until there were no obvious lumps and about ten more seconds. (Though some remained)


Lining my Cuisinart Multi-Clad stockpot with banana leaves.
It somehow got left off my shopping list, but shopping for them at Chinatown would have given me the same anxiety even if I had thought ahead. I didn't notice until I had pretty much given up that there's another freezer by the produce section at C-Mart and a frenzied phone call to my mother (I swear to God I've seen her use them on occasion). Ask the employees she says, but I only get dull stares and then I get ignored.
I'm sure this asking them is an okay proposition if you speak the language.


Pork shoulder, onion, and what I had no reason to believe was a sauce made of anything but annatto at this point.


Banana leaves folded over and then into a 300 degrees Celsius oven for 4 hours.


Thinly slice red onion and radish. Oh, and I sliced my finger too. Next time I use a mandoline, I'm going to wear a band-aid before I hurt myself as armor.


Yumminess.


Pan-roasting habaneros and garlic in a pan.


Softened and charred.


In the blender. I'm not sure why Rick Bayless suggests to start the blending before adding the liquid (lime juice). Reading what must be countless recipes at this point, this makes no sense since a blender can't do its job without liquid.


I had lost a few habaneros to decay in the fridge, but this salsa is mostly likely the spiciest thing I've ever made.

Not the spiciest thing I've ever eaten. I'd probably give that award to the first time I had Jerk Beef at Davis Square's Redbones. I couldn't believe how a restaurant served a dish that was inedibly spicy and that this was a popular dish to boot. Over the years, I've ranted about it, but never dared to order it again.
A couple years ago, I met up with friends there, and though I wasn't hungry, I ordered a slider of the meat. It was a perfectly palatable heat level. My lord, I wonder if they ever realized how bad that batch from five years ago was and if they threw it out or just keep serving it to dumb people like me.


Cooking has happened! The banana leaves lost their vibrancy of color.


Shredded the meat with a wooden spoon.


And I had some beautiful tacos. Still not a Bayless dish that I'm utterly in love with, but at this point I realize I'm looking for the chipotle. Not that I'm knocking the tacos that harshly. Although I probably wouldn't pass up Taco Bell if I came across one (They've disappeared in the Boston area), I've had authentic tacos at least five or six times in the couple years which is kind of a lot. And these totally stood-up among the best tacos I've had. Plus, two tacos were sufficient unlike what I imagine would've taken 6 tacos at Lone Star.

on chipotle: Surely I'll solve this issue when I make Camarones Enchipotlados (Chipotle Shrimp) in a couple weeks.

Hot, Sweet, and Sour Chickpeas with Eggplant (HCEV)

• 2 tablespoons neutral oil, like grapeseed and corn (Rather save the grapeseed oil for MMB recipes and corn oil is another thing Michael Pollan has successfully made me feel queasy about. So peanut oil it is.)
• 1 medium eggplant, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
• 2 hot fresh chiles, seeded and minced, or hot red pepper flakes to taste (Used a couple orange habaneros since I love spiciness. Boy, did it hurt when I threw them in the saucepan. I had me, the roommate I was cooking with, and the roommate who had is door open near the kitchen coughing the whole night.)
• 1 sprig fresh curry leaves or dried leaves (Interestingly enough, the Indian supermarket in Central Square on Mass Ave only has fresh leaves and I had to get dried ones from my Indian co-worker last fall when I wanted to make my own curry powder. Too damned tired to drop in and buy some last night.)
• 3 cups black or regular chickpeas, with about 2 cups of their cooking liquid (Used regular here. Oh, Mark Bittman, if only I cared enough to execute this to your highest standards; most of the time I do pretty well.)
• 1 tablespoon Sambar Powder or curry powder (The recipe for Sambar Powder did sound compellingly interesting, but I had some above-mentioned curry powder left that I plan on throwing out in a couple weeks, as per some of Bittman's other advice.)
• 1 teaspoon ground tumeric
• Pinch of asafetida [optional] (I bought a tiny container of this about two years ago at world famous Kalustyan's in Manhattan's Little India. Didn't attempt to wrench open the container until last night. Sure, shit's optional, but Indian food won't taste the same without. Also if you live in Boston, there's no real excuse when there are Indian grocery stores everywhere.)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon tamarind paste or freshly squeezed lime juice to taste
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Chopped cilantro leaves for garnish (I rarely even lie to myself about garnishing anymore by buying fresh herbs. I left out the ingredient below as well.)
• Chopped roasted peanuts for garnish

Mise en place.


Threw the food back in the pan to mix the whole thing up with a splash of Staci Z's lite coconut milk. Going into shopping at the Whole Foods in Symphony, I had to wonder why coconut milk wasn't on the grocery list, and after actually making the dish, it so called out for a bit of richness.
Though sauteing chopped habeneros was a thoroughly intense experience, I thought the dish wasn't overwhelming and had a nice slow burn. Staci differed on this point.