Once upon a time, back in ol' 2007, the husband and I journeyed to Portland, Oregon and fell in love. Not with each other, that is, we were already madly in love with each other......with the place and its people, its weather, its public transportation system, and its many, many wonderful restaurants. We had only to ask a stranger walking down the street or riding the bus next to us what was their favorite restaurant/artisanal bakery/microbrew pub and not only would we receive an immediate answer, but a handful of runners-up in case the one they had suggested was closed, too far a walk, or simply not our cup of tea (or house-roasted fair trade coffee). These people are opinionated and take their eating and drinking seriously. In the case of the man who first directed us to Pambiche, he didn't merely give us the address of the restaurant, he walked us from the streetcar we had all been riding together to the stop where we'd meet the bus we needed to take, gave us detailed directions as to where to transfer and where to get off, suggested what to try on the menu, and sent us on our merry way--with coupons!
He didn't work there. I think.
Cuban-style Pambiche (it's located at 28th & Glisan, Portland people) won us over immediately with its gloriously vibrant paint job, inside and out, its lively music & atmosphere, and......oh yeah, the food, have I mentioned the food? Amazing. See?? I had a plate of marinated roast pork with black beans and fried yucca slices that I still dream about to this very day.
In honor of our very first Pambiche dinner (which has since been repeated a few times, although sadly not as often as we'd like, since we live in Phoenix), Mike and I recently re-created a Cuban style feast at home. We marinated a pork tenderloin for hours in a bath of lime juice, olive oil, cumin and garlic, then sauteed it lightly and served it with fresh cilantro. There was a sofrito-based side of spicy black beans. And there were.......(happy sigh).....fried plantains.
Fried plantains with Mike's special 'pink sauce.'
Black beans stewed with sauteed onion, garlic and sweet bell peppers from my garden, seasoned with cumin, chili powder, and a splash of lime juice.
The best way to make fried plantains that we've found is Alton Brown's way (isn't that usually the way it goes? Recipe follows at the end of this entry). Alton prefers that you use green plantains, the ones that resemble a very unripe banana. They're quite a bit firmer than the ripe version, which makes absolute sense when you get to the step where he has you soak them in garlic-enhanced salt water, albeit briefly. Trust me, soft, ripe plantains cannot abide this particular step (ask me how I know, go on, ask me how I know!) and will crumble on you, so stick with the green ones. Once they're cooked they are tender, garlic scented perfection, golden and crispy on the outside but soft and yielding to the teeth on the inside.
And the best part is, you can use the leftover bits of pork and black beans to make Cuban tacos the next day! Win!
If you're somehow still hungry after dinner (and I promise I won't tell on you if you are), you can cap things off perfectly with a beautiful little flan, just like we did on our first night at Pambiche. They're made in tiny individual ramekins, so you won't feel like you're devouring a huge dessert portion all by yourself (unless, that is, you eat your partner's as well!). And there's fruit and greenery, see, pineapple, mint? If there's fruit it must be healthy! Cheers.
Flan with Caramelized Pineapple
1 1/3 cup sugar (divided into two 2/3 cup portions)
3 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 large eggs
1 cup fresh pineapple, sliced into small chunks
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
pinch of salt
fresh mint for garnish
Place 2/3 cup of sugar in a small saucepan and add just enough water to dissolve it, about 1 tablespoon. Heat on medium heat, swirling the syrup in the pan occasionally, but never stirring it. The syrup will boil for a while until it starts to turn brown. The trick to making caramel is to watch it carefully and to remove it from the heat while it's still a shade lighter than you'd like it to be (caramel keeps cooking in a hot pan, even as you're pouring it into the ramekins it's still cooking.......it can also burn in seconds, go on, ask me how I know this!). Once it has turned a very light nut brown, remove it from the heat and immediately pour the caramel into the bottoms of 6 ramekins. Set aside.
In another saucepan, heat the milk with the other 2/3 cup sugar until it reaches a boil. Stir in vanilla. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for about a minute. Whisk in the hot milk, in very small amounts at first to avoid scrambling the eggs (this process is called tempering). Pour the milk mixture into the ramekins on top of the caramel. Place all 6 ramekins in a large oven proof dish. Fill the dish with water to about 2/3 the height of the ramekins.
Carefully place in 300° F oven. Bake for 40 minutes to an hour (bake until custard has set, test with your finger or by gently inserting a knife); make sure the water surrounding the ramekins does not boil during baking. Allow the custard to cool completely, then refrigerate.
To make the caramelized pineapple (you can do this while the flan is cooling), heat butter in a pan over medium high heat. Add pineapple, allow the pieces of fruit to cook until they are just beginning to brown on either side, stirring occasionally. Add brown sugar and pinch of salt (taste for correct amount) and stir for 30 seconds more, then remove from heat and let cool slightly.
To serve, run a knife just along the inside of each ramekin, then turn flan over onto a dessert plate. Surround with caramelized pineapple bits, garnish with fresh mint (this last step is, of course, completely optional. I happen to have an enormous, bushy mint plant that is slowly taking over the backyard--we call it MINTASAURUS--and so we use mint whenever the opportunity presents itself! Plus it makes it look all the more festively Cuban). Enjoy!
Fried Plantains, Alton Brown-style (original recipe from 'Good Eats' shown here)
Ingredients
2 cups water
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus extra for seasoning
1 1/2 cups vegetable or canola oil
2 green plantains
Directions
Combine water, garlic and salt in medium size glass bowl and set aside.
In a large (12-inch) saute pan, heat oil to 325 degrees F. Peel plantains and slice crosswise into 1-inch pieces. Carefully add plantains to oil and fry until golden yellow in color, about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes per side (the oil should come halfway up the side of the plantain). With a spatula or slotted spoon, remove the plantains from the pan and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, standing them on their ends. With the back of the spatula, press each piece of plantain down to half its original size. Then place the plantains in the water and let soak for 1 minute. Remove and pat dry with a tea towel to remove excess water.
Bring oil back up to 325 degrees F and return plantains to pan and cook until golden brown, approximately 2 to 4 minutes per side. Remove to a dish lined with paper towels, and sprinkle lightly with salt. Serve immediately, with pink sauce*.
(*Pink sauce is a creation of my husband's, some version of which I believe he may have originally gotten from Jacques Pepin. It's an easily made condiment and it tastes good on everything--french fries, avocado slices, sandwiches, fried plantains, everything! Take equal parts mayonnaise and ketchup and mix thoroughly with liberal amounts of hot sauce, to taste. The preferred hot sauce around the Orange & Salt kitchen is Arizona Gunslinger, but we understand if you don't, you know, live in Arizona and can't get your hands on some. Chipotle-style Tabasco is also wonderful.)
.......this blogger consoles herself over the end of her favorite long-running tv show with a bottle of sixty year old 'MacCutcheon whisky.'
Sigh.
Once upon a time, back in 2005, a group of my friends convinced me to start watching a tv show. I hated it at first. There were too many characters to keep track of, plus flashbacks, relationships, jungle monsters and polar bears. I complained week after week. Until, that is, I found myself loving our weekly get-togethers (at which dinner and good post-show conversation were always a main feature) centered around the show, and loving the show for its many 'Oh-my-God-did-you-just-see-that??' moments. Finally, I was just plain hooked.
Now it's 2010 and my group of friends, like our weekly LOST nights, have scattered and changed. And as all good things must, LOST itself came to an end this week. While I may no longer have a crew of rowdy 20-somethings with which to watch my favorite television show (toasting with a raised can of beer every time Jin said something in Korean, the smoke monster appeared onscreen, or Michael screamed for 'WAAAAAAALLLLLT!!!!'), I do have my trusty and beloved husband. He has watched every single episode of this show right by my side (I believe it should have been in our wedding vows....'Will you love, honor and cherish her....and will you watch six seasons of her favorite sci-fi island soap opera with her with minimal complaint and without asking silly questions like what exactly the smoke monster is or why the hell the bald wheelchair guy can walk and the Southern guy has to nickname everyone?'), and I could think of no better way to close this chapter of my life than with one final LOST dinner night.
And an excellent dinner it was! We had mahi mahi tacos in honor of the late Jin Kwon, fisherman of The Island (and close runner-up for my favorite LOSTie*) with roasted tomato salsa, creamy avocado slices and shredded cabbage. We had a delicious sliced mango salad in honor of the seemingly neverending supply of mangoes provided by The Island, lightly dressed with a pinch of sugar, salt, and fresh mint. And finally, we had brown sugar shortbread 'fish biscuit' cookies, branded with the DHARMA logo, for dessert.
(* dude, I'm a Hurley girl for life.)
We had a great time watching the series finale. I'm not what you'd call a 'tv person' under normal circumstances; in fact, we cancelled our cable over a year ago, and the only television show I've bothered to keep up with regularly is LOST. In many ways, it's the end of an era. But in many other ways, it's just a tv show, and it's just as well that it came to an end when it did. The finale answered some of my questions about The Island, left many unanswered forever (no, really, what IS the smoke monster, dammit??), made us laugh (Mike) as well as cry (okay, me).
In order to truly look & feel the part of a crazed LOST fan, I wore my sweet 'WWJLD?' shirt. Please disregard the jammies and obvious bedhead.
'It's so pretty, Napa cabbage. So ruffly and drapey.'
I held a few of the loose, ruffled leaves against the leg of my jeans and sighed, considering them.
'....I think if I was going to make a dress out of any vegetable at all, it would be Napa cabbage.'
My husband, who knows me well enough by now to know that this isn't even remotely crazy talk coming from me, wisely held his tongue and kept slicing shallots and chopping mint. He's a smart man. It is very pretty though, Napa cabbage, although when it comes to uses I recommend eating over eveningwear. And what better way could there be to eat it than sliced into delicate ribbons and swimming in spicy broth and tender noodles, a few golden shreds of duck meat, diced tomatoes, and a sprinkling of fresh herbs decorating the surface?
This recipe for Vietnamese duck noodle soup (also known as bun vit mang), from the May issue of Bon Appétit magazine, is built on a solid foundation of flavors: first of all, duck. Yum. I think it's only fair to tell you that you might, in the absence of duck, be able to build a perfectly respectable soup on, say, chicken. But it's going to be missing that inherently wonderful, rich, ducky quality. Don't cheat yourself. It's a little difficult to find at our usual supermarkets (at least it is in our Phoenix suburb, your mileage may vary if you're in a more duck-loving corner of the world?), but we can always, always find duck legs at our local Asian specialty supermarket, so look around.
I like to think I'm an unconventional kind of gal. After all, I work as a painter for a living. I cut my own hair over the bathroom sink. I used to wear safety pins as earrings (yeah, it was an ill-advised phase in high school; I thought they looked wicked rad), and I've been known to make jewelry out of paper and feathers as well. I am what I think you'd call a 'fearless eater,' and there is almost no recipe on Earth that I won't at least try (unless it comes from the kitchen of Paula Deen, that woman terrifies me). But I must be more conventional than I realized, because as it turns out, I love to make Bundt cakes. Like, love it. There's something so satisfyingly structural about them, so finished from the moment they pop out of the pan. They're almost architectural, like desserts handsculpted by Buckminster Fuller (Google him, non-architecture nerds). And nine times out of ten, they need no more dressing to their curvaceous rounds and grooves than a simple dusting of powdered sugar, or the lightest back-and-forth drizzle of glaze. Oh yes. I like big Bundts (and ridiculously obvious blog post titles) indeed! So call me conventional.
Being the conventional, good wife-type that I am, as well as the recent recipient of a brand-new shiny Bundt pan (hooray for wedding showers!), I graciously and magnanimously allowed Mike to choose the flavor of our next Bundt. After all, I've put the man through so many of my kitchen phases in which I've been borderline-obsessed with learning to make my own bread or pasta or hot sauce or dumplings and nothing else, or the few months in which all I wanted to eat was hazelnut brown butter cake. Not wanting to be a kitchen dictator, I handed over the reins, and after a few minutes on Tastespotting (it's dangerous to linger there any longer) the verdict was in: Tiramisu Bundt Cake.
And look how pretty it is! David Bowie, Yoda and Peter Falk certainly seem to think so, anyway (there's a tantalizing peek into our weird, colorful little kitchen world for you). All golden brown, shapely perfection. Let's admire it for a moment, shall we?
Yes, yes, it's very pretty. But do you remember what I said before, the thing about nine out of ten Bundts requiring no further gussying-up than the lightest touch of powdered sugar or glaze? Well forget that, because this is the exception and I am about to cover this mother in a generous amount of boozy sweet mascarpone cheese--it is 'tiramisu' cake, after all! Farewell, glorious curves! It's for the greater good.
A slice of the finished product, in luscious detail.
It really looks more like an overgrown donut at this point than either a classic Bundt or a tiramisu, but hey. When there's this much creamy cheese, strong coffee and sweet sweet liqueur involved, how much do looks really matter?
Here's the verdict on the recipe: it's good. I love this particular combination of flavors, and I especially love the trick of separating this into three batches of batter (an espresso, a Kahlua, and a plain vanilla batter) and then marbling them together in the pan. It's pretty, and more reminiscent of a layered tiramisu than a cake that combined them into one homogenized mass would be. What I didn't love was the texture; even though I was warned by the original blog entry that this cake was a dense one, more like pound cake than classic vanilla sponge, I still wasn't quite prepared. We loved the taste but were hard pressed to eat more than a tiny slice each (although I have to admit to eating a slice right out of my hand the next morning with my coffee). Maybe I just prefer my desserts a little lighter in texture? Then again, a lighter cake might not be able to stand up to such a rich, heavy icing. More delicious research is obviously necessary!
Tiramisu Bundt Cake (adapted from original post here at Baking Bites)
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup espresso (if you are fancy......lacking a home espresso maker, I substituted the same amount of my usual, superstrong, morning French press brew)
1/4 cup Kahlua
Preheat oven to 325F. Grease and lightly flour your Bundt pan. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking power and salt. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla extract. Add flour mixture and milk to the egg mixture, a little at a time and alternating between each, mixing just until everything is incorporated.
Remove 1 cup of the batter into a small bowl. Remove another cup of batter into a second small bowl. Add espresso to one of the small bowls and whisk until well-combined. Add Kahlua to the second small bowl and whisk until well combined. Pour half of the plain batter into the Bundt pan and spread into an even layer. Pour the Kahlua batter into an even layer on top of the plain batter. Pour espresso batter on top of Kahlua batter. The flavored batters will be slightly thinner, and may spread into one another, but this will create a pretty 'marble cake' effect. Resist the temptation to mix or stir them. Carefully pour all remaining plain vanilla batter into the Bundt pan.
Bake 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cake cool in pan for 15-20 minutes, then turn cake out onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
Kahlua Mascarpone Frosting
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
4-oz mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup Kahlua
2 cups confectioners sugar
Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat at medium-high speed until very smooth and fluffy. Use a butter knife or offset spatula to apply the frosting to the cake in a thick, even layer. This frosting is pretty boozy, hopefully that's your cup of tea. It didn't stop me from eating a slice for breakfast the next morning, as I mentioned, but you might not want to take all your cues from me. I'm unconventional. ;)
( *aka, interesting finds from our local supermarket, Part One of many......)
So, I had lunch the other day with a few friends, one of whom I haven't seen since our wedding last November. This friend looked me straight in the eye in the manner of one about to begin a heart-to-heart and said, 'SO. I want you to tell me..........what was the weirdest thing you ate on your honeymoon??' Whew. That one I can handle. ;)
She was referring, dear readers, to our 2-week honeymoon in Hong Kong, one of the world capitols of eating as far as I (and 7 million Cantonese) am concerned, but certainly also home to many edibles that would fall under the categories 'weird' or 'bizarre.' I racked my brain--I mean, it's not like we ate snake (that was the rehearsal dinner, true story!). 'Um, I ate......a lot of questionable things in steamed buns? And I ate my first whole crab, but that was delicious? I discovered how much I like fried baby octopus on a stick....and I ate whole duck's foot stuffed with fermented soybean paste?' The last one had her turning a delicate shade of green, and I knew we had a winner. For the record, I really do love fried baby octopus on a stick, and I think it's a damn shame that it isn't regular street/fair food around these parts--I could sure go for one right now. But the entire episode got me thinking, just what constitutes 'bizarre,' anyway? One man's bean curd-stuffed whole duck's foot is another man's deep-fried Twinkie, after all. So, as Mike and I kind of fancy ourselves amateur Andrew Zimmerns (he of 'Bizarre Foods' fame on the Travel Channel), but are sadly lacking in the travel budget these days, we have decided to take our vacations in our imaginations and at our local supermarkets for the time being. At least until my book deal comes through. ;)
Up first: two contenders in the 'beverage' category from our local LeeLee Asian Market. The first of these was completely new to me, a Taiwanese canned thing labeled 'Rice and Peanut's [sic] Drink,' and........ohhh boy. Rice and peanuts it certainly tasted like. Rice and peanuts (and sugar) it certainly consisted of. See??
It was a weird beverage from start to finish. The thick texture wasn't unfamiliar or even unpleasant, it was slightly reminiscent of a Thai iced tea. But the vegetal, boiled peanut taste was a little strange, and the slight grittiness from the rice content was a little weird to contend with as well. Basically, it lacked the two things I love about a classic Thai iced tea: the intense, condensed milk sweetness and fragrant tea flavor....all this while possessing all the questionably drinkable (even gaggable?) qualities of a drink this thick and milky. It was a little difficult. As I called out to Mike, 'It's not bad! I just.........don't think I'm going to drink any more of it.' And sure enough the other half of the can languished in the fridge for a week.
Our second contender was a proven Laurel favorite from the past (and thus kind of a cheat, but when you've put yourself through canned-rice-and-boiled-peanut drink, what's a little cheating, after all??) known as 'Basil Seed Drink.' Brace yourselves, it looks horrifying. Are you ready?
See?? I told you. It looks like something from a petri dish in a fertility research laboratory, I know, but the taste and even the unusual texture should be no great shakes for anyone who is accustomed to & loves Asian style 'bubble tea.' Sure, the slimy, bubbly objects about to use your throat as a fleshy waterslide aren't tapioca 'pearls' but gelatinous basil seeds, but still. This honey-sweetened, popular Southeast Asian drink is honestly delicious, despite its resemblance to a tadpole-ridden water sample from the Black Lagoon. Ever so faintly licorice-y (even bubble-gum-y?) in the way of sweet basil leaves, the taste is mostly sweet and refreshing. The overall impression left my this drink is mostly that of the slimy, gelatin-coated seeds rushing past your lips with every sip, but if you can stand the sci-fi-like experience (or if you're into that sort of thing; apparently I am), it's quite a treat, really. Basil seed drink, who knew?? I think I love you.
Egg-citing? Egg-specially delicious? Egg-stra super special (and somewhat delayed) springtime egg-themed blog post? Oh, I just can't do it! No more egg puns from now on, I mean it.
This time of year, I find myself thinking a lot about eggs, and not just the chocolate coated, caramel centered kind, either. Maybe it's a deep primal urge that strikes at springtime, relating everything my metaphorical gaze falls upon to the cycle of new life and rebirth. Baby lambs, tender green buds, all things ovoid, that sort of thing. Or maybe it's just the ever-present shelves of those damned aforementioned chocolate eggs in the grocery stores. Regardless, it's been an EGGSTRAVAGANZA (ouch, sorry! that one just slipped out!) over here lately, and I want to share a few egg secrets with you. I had initially meant to time this egg-themed post to coincide with Easter Sunday last week, but real life and deadlines stepped in for awhile, and anyway readers......is there ever really a bad time to talk about eggs??
So, we at the Orange & Salt household discovered something a few weeks ago that I can only describe as culinary gold, which seems pretty fitting since they are, in fact, golden. At least on the inside. What we found is a desert plant nursery in South Phoenix that also houses a small farmer's market stand indoors, where they sell cartons of some of the most beautiful eggs I've ever tasted. After bringing home the first carton of chicken eggs (in a delicately hued rainbow of blues, greens and browns) and demolishing them in record time via some very serious breakfasts and quiches, we were ready to move on up to the deluxe dozen of duck and turkey eggs, if for no other reason than curiosity. Have you ever eaten a turkey egg before? Neither had we.
The duck eggs were not much larger than the chicken eggs we'd eaten previously (although they themselves were fairly large, so that's not saying much), just slightly more elongated. The turkey eggs, however, were jumbo-sized footballs by comparison! A little intimidating to say the least, but it's also hard to resist anything so adorably freckled, so we dove right into those first. I had to try my first turkey egg solo, simply hardboiled with just the lightest sprinkling of sea salt crystals and fresh black pepper standing between me and (at least, what I hoped would be) fine, fine turkey egg goodness.
