Pork Vindaloo (Cook's Illustrated)

Soups and Stews 2010

• 1 (3 1/2-pound) boneless Boston butt roast, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
• Table salt and ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 medium onions, chopped coarse (about 5 cups)
• 9 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 3 tablespoons)
• 3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro leaves

If you can't find a Boston butt roast, you'll have to trim down a 5-pound picnic roast.

After wrestling with the roast for about 1 hour.  Thank god I had a boning knife.  My chef's knife was clearly not up to the job.

Bone, skin, and excess fat.  I guess I could've rendered down the fat, but I didn't want to bother.

Mise en place.

Browning the pork.

Cook the onions until softened.

Add garlic and cook until fragrant.  Add flour and spices and stir until onions are evenly coated.  Gradually add in the broth.

Add all the rest back in (except for the cilantro and I didn't haven't any on hand) and throw in the oven for 2 hours.

I realize that I don't really know what I'm looking for in a vindaloo.  It's practically the only dish I order when I go to an Indian restaurant, but it's widely variable.  I've never see it with pork, and I didn't necessarily find the choice of meat appealing.  Oh well, maybe someday I'll find the elusive ultimate version.

Pub-Style Shepherd's Pie (Cooks Illustrated)

Fall Entertaining 2010

Filling

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 large onion, chopped fine
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped fine
• 2 pounds 85 percent lean ground beef
• Table salt and ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 5 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 3/4 cut low-sodium chicken broth
• 3/4 cup beeer
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
• 1 cup frozen peas

Topping

• 2 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
• Table salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/3 cup heavy cream, warmed
• Ground black pepper
• 1 large egg, beated

Mise en place.

The recipe called for a mild malty beer.  ATK prefers O'Doul's nonalcoholic amber ale, but I tried to find my best bet in a large bottle at JP's Harvest.

Cook onions and carrots until soft.

Add beef, salt and pepper and cook until browned.  Add tomato paste and flour and cook until darkened.  Add cream and cook until it splatters.  Add broth, beer, soy sauce, and thyme and cook until mixture is thickened but still saucy.

Stir in peas.

Oops, I guess I neglected to remember to melt the butter and warm the cream.

Shepherd's pie covered in mashed potatoes.  I ran a fork over the top and dragged it over the surface to create ridges and painted it over with beaten egg.

Bake until the filling is bubbling and then run it under the broiled to get everything golden brown.

I thought it was a suitable enough shepherd's pie, but I would've loved a thicker, richer sauce.  Maybe I'll attempt a more traditional version next time?

Penne with Pumpkin or Winter Squash (HCE)

• Salt
• 1 medium pumpkin or butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled and seeded
• 2 tablespoons butter or extra virgin olive oil
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1 pound penne or other cut pasta
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, or to taste
• Pinch sugar (optional)
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Mise en place minus the pasta which was already underway.  This is the first time I used the shredding disc in the food processor.

Probably way too much squash.

I've actually made this dish before a couple years back.  It's a great dish but I didn't have nearly enough Parmesan on hand so its richness was definitely missing.  Oh well, it's a shame that I didn't make note of this earlier.

Braised Duck with Apples and Calvados (HCE)

• 1 whole duck, 4 to 5 pounds, excess fat removed and cut into 8 serving pieces
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
• 2 pounds purple-topped turnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 pound Granny Smith apples
• 1/4 cup Calvados
• Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish

Mise en place.  Calvados is a French apple brandy.

Browning duck.  This marks the first time I've ever worked with duck.

The thyme, bay leaf, garlic, Calvados, and some water are added to the duck and the pot is roasted for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. 

Then the apples and turnips are added and the dish is basted every 10 minutes until the duck is done.

Even though Granny Smiths are the sturdiest apples (in terms of cooking), they disintegrated over the period of time that the dish was cooked.  I figure they should have spent less time in the oven than the turnips, but the dish was well-flavored.  I brought it to a holiday party and everyone who sampled the dish thought it was excellent.  Even though I couldn't spur each one of them to add a bit of the sauce to boost the effect.

I tried to save the duck fat but failed.  Rather than grabbing a mason jar, I chose to use a random recycled Goya jar.  I heard a pop as I poured the fat in and apparently that was the sound of the bottom the shirring off.  Oh well.  I will know better next time.

Kung Pao Noodle (Lucky Peach 5)

Roy Choi

Soy Marinated Chicken Thighs

• 1/4 C soy sauce
• 1 T mirin
• 1 T rice vinegar
• 1/2 t sesame oil
• 1 T orange juice
• 2 dried arbol chiles
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 1/2" piece peeled ginger chopped
• 1/2 onion, cut into 4 pieces
• 1/2 T kosher salt
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs [I messed up and read this incorrectly but it's an easy fix]

I apologize for not taking a picture of the unblended ingredients, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Kung Pao Sauce

• 1 head garlic
• 1/3 cup chili-garlic sauce (or sambal)
• 3 T chili oil
• 1/3 C fish sauce
• 1/3 C rice wine vinegar [Couldn't locate this so I use a mixture of rice vinegar and rice wine]
• 1/3 C soy sauce
• 2 T sriracha [For whatever reason I didn't own sriracha yet.  Instead I used extra sambal.]
• 1/3 C minced lemongrass
• 1/3 cup kochukaru (Korean chili powder)
• 2/3 cup Thai basil leaves, loosely packed
• 2 t sugar
• 1 t sesame seeds, roasted
• 1 lime, juiced

Chop off the top 1/2" off a head of garlic.

Roast in foil at 400 degrees for 1/2 hour.

I bought like 20 stalks of lemongrass and proceeded to try to process them and was about to give up the ghost on this recipe when I didn't even get an 1/8 of a cup out of my efforts.

Some bitching on facebook led Jessica D to tell me that you can just buy this stuff at Asian supermarkets.  Jesus Christ.

This time I remember to take a photo.

The results.  I definitely didn't make a quart like the recipe suggested but just a little bit more than the actual recipe needed.  Afterwards I just sauteed just carrots, chicken tenders, and celery in it and ate it over rice.

The Rest

• 1 lb fresh Korean noodles (aka "Oriental Style noodle vermicelli") [Didn't feel like dragging myself to a Korean market and bought some relatively skinny Asian noodles that didn't need to be parboiled]
• 1 white onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 C minced lemongrass (from the bulbous end of the pants, outer layers peeled away)
• 1 C scallions, thinly sliced [Didn't have these since the bunch had rotted by the time I made this]
• 1 bell pepper, sliced
• 1 C bok choy, spinach, or watercress, cut into 1/2" pieces
• 1 C eggplant, sliced into thin batons
• 1 C chopped tomato
• 1 C dried arbol chiles [After picking these and sichuan peppercorns out of my mouth all the time when making the Momofuku rice cakes some time ago, I thought "Screw this."]
• vegetable oil
• a fried egg for each serving
• water
• chopped cilantro
• Thai basil, picked and sliced [See scallions]
• fried shallots [Oh damn, I forgot to bust these out]
• sesame seeds
• roasted peanuts
• fresh Fresno chiles, julienned

The chicken thighs after I ripped the skin off.  Broil these for five minutes on each side or until slightly blackened.

Mise en place all lined up.  Actual cooking flies by in a New York minute.

First saute the onions, lemongrass, and scallions (if I had them).

A minute later, add the vegetables.

Add the sauce and toss to coat.  Then add the noodles and do the same thing.

Voila!  Cooking this dish didn't exactly make me a bigger fan of Kung Pao although the leftover sauce was pretty tasty when I utilized it otherwise.  I wonder if it would've been even more amazing if I had the right Korean noodles for the dish.
Even though the recipe involves about 40-something ingredients, the prep is exceedingly minimal.

Banana Cream Pie (Lucky Peach 2)

Christina Tosi

• 225 g about 2 very ripe bananas
• 235 g (1 C + 1 T) heavy cream
• 55 g (1/4 C) milk
• 100 g (1/2 C) sugar
• 2 g (1/2 t) kosher salt
• 25 g (2 T) cornstarch
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 sheets gelatin (1 t powdered gelatin)
• 25 drops (1/2 t) McCormick yellow food coloring
• 160 g (1 C) confectioners' sugar
• 1 banana, between the mellow-yellow and sweet-spotting stages, peeled and cut into 1/4" slices

If the America's Test Kitchen's version of this is any indicator, Christina Tosi definitely isn't lying about the fact that this isn't the normal way to make a banana cream pie at all.  ATK basically takes a vanilla cream pie and layers sliced bananas in which is admittedly better than making vanilla pudding from a box and starting from there.

In my idol's version of this pie, she lets the bananas get all the way to their ripest points before making the pie itself.  Why shouldn't a banana cream pie borrow from banana bread in terms of the ripeness of their shared primary ingredient?  This should not be so revelatory.

To speed up the process, one can take a banana that looks like the one of the left (or even somewhat less dark) and throw it in the freezer.  Voila!, defrost and you have super-ripe bananas.

Filling mise en place.

Blend the ripe bananas, 75 g (1/3 C) cream [I screw up here and used it all.  I'm a retard.], milk, sugar, salt, cornstarch, and egg yolks.  Dump in a pan and whisk over medium low heat until it resembles glue in color and texture.

Add mixture, gelatin (bloomed in cold water to activate), and as much yellow food coloring as it'll take to satisfy your banana-colored dreams.  Refrigerate until chilled.

Second-day filling mise en place.

Whip remaining cream and confectioners' sugar until medium-soft peaks form.

Add banana mixture very gently until just combined.

FOR THE CRUST

• 1 recipe Chocolate Crumbs
• 8 g (2 t) sugar
• .5 g (a pinch) kosher salt
• 14-28 g (1-2 T) melted butter

Chocolate Crumbs

• 85 g (6 T) unsalted butter
• 105 g (2/3 C) all-purpose flour
• 4 g (1 t) cornstarch
• 65 g (2/3 C) cocoa powder
• 100 g (1/2 C) sugar
• 4 g (1 t) kosher salt

Mise en place.

Spread out onto parchment and ready to be popped into a 300 degree oven.

20 minutes later.

Process cool crumbs until they resemble sand.  Toss with remaining crust ingredients and press into pie tin.

Pour a quarter of the banana cream in and arrange bananas over.

Pour the remaining mixture over the bananas and refrigerate until firm.  I caved and cut into the pie too early, and by the time I was nearing firm slices of pie, my parents were over and I just gave them the rest.  Oh well, no glamorous photos of a slice of this even if there was one lurking in there.
My judgement in terms of taste?  SWOON.
Toxic to eat more than one slice in a day though.