chez pim

The Thai paradox: or, how Thai fried bananas keep you thin

Everyone's always talking about the French Paradox.  You know, the one about how the French eat all that fatty stuff, cheese, pasttries, and drink loads of wine but stay healthier than most Americans.  Well, there's another paradox we should all be pondering.  We should call it the Thai paradox.  Oh, no, I'm not talking about the protesters occupying both of Bangkok's international airports, simultaneously apologizing to stranded passengers for causing them "troubles" and hunkering down for the long haul, the country and her precarious economy be damned.  That's not so much a paradox as children throwing a gigantic tantrum.  I'm also not talking about the one where the "democratically elected" ruling parties insisted on nominating the brother-in-law of the dude they had just thrown out of the country for corruption (and myriads of other unmentionable crimes, be they real or imagined) knowing full well that it would just exacerbate the tensions.  And so it did.  And so here we are.  A stand-off of epic proportion, the "final battle" as they are calling it.  How tremendously sad.

No, no, I don't want to think of any of that.  I'd rather think about Thailand at her much happier times, about her much more precious assets than those supposedly stolen by the ousted PM Thaksin.  Yes, I'm thinking about the food, that intricate, delicate, and at times deliciously puzzling cuisine that is Thai food, the main cultural asset for which, I fervently hope, the tourists will return after this mess is over so they could see, feel, and experience the real face of my Thailand.

Let's get back to the paradox in question, shall we?  You must be wondering what it could be.  Well, if you've been to Thailand, I'm sure you've seen all that deep-fried foods we eat.  It seems if we can toss just about anything in a little batter and fry that baby we're happy to eat it.  Dip it in a sweet sauce or a spicy one.  Eat it wrapped in a fresh leaf of lettuce or by its own lonesome self.  Politely eat it off a plate or conveniently and unceremoniously dump 'em in a little paper bag for the road.  Yes, just about every snack-y street food-y stuff you get in Bangkok is deep fried.  Yet, look around Bangkok, you'd be hard pressed to find an obese Thai person.  We are a nation of people with the metabolism of a hummingbird.  Don't hate us because we're beautiful, we say: hate us because we can polish off this whole bag of deep-fried bananas and still be thinner than one of your thighs.  Ok, ok, I'm just kidding.  Well, half kidding. 

And, now, apropos of - not so much nothing as - a very bad joke, here I give you the recipe for Thai fried bananas, Kluey Todd, as we say on the streets of Bangkok.

Butternut Bourbon² Cupcakes

If you're wondering what I've been doing lately, don't look on the blog, look on Twitter.  I've been moonlighting as the jam fairy over in the kitchen at Manresa.  We have so much produce coming from the gardens at Love Apple Farm that we had to do something about them.  So I've been making jam with red tomatoes, green tomatoes, hot chillies, not to mention all the fabulous Meyer lemons and mandarins we harvested from Gene's farm.  The craziest thing about all this is that we sold them all already!  All of them.  Most even before I was done making them.  Pre-arrival jams, how about that, huh?  Who wants to trade in Bordeaux futures when you can sell jam futures?

Anyhow, today I want to tell you about the one I had the most fun making.  No, no, I'm not saying that I loved it the most.  I love all my jam children equally.  I'm saying I had the most fun making it, mostly because I think - quite shamelessly so - that it's such a brilliant idea.  The inspiration struck pretty suddenly, as I was rummaging in Manresa's dry storage looking for ingredients I could play with.  The produce I was working with that day was butternut squash - the garden had produced such an abundance the kitchen couldn't keep up, so in my bassine à confiture they go.  I'd been vaguely thinking about doing something with vanilla beans, then I found a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, just laying there, looking a bit forlorn, a light layer of dust covering the bottle's shoulder. Bourbon whiskey are aged in American oak, giving it a lovely vanilla aroma, which would compliment the Bourbon vanilla I'd planned to use in the jam.  And as far as I'm concerned everything is better with a little booze in it!

And I knew that was it.  Butternut squash, Bourbon vanilla, and bourbon whiskey.  That's my jam!  I even got the name right that very moment: Butternut Bourbon².  How cute is that, huh?  (Can you tell I used to be a geek?)

Thai-marinated fried chicken

If you've been to Thailand, you've seen those fried chicken carts at practically every street corner, with the giant wok smoldering like a witch's cauldron filled with dark, smelly oil that seems as ancient as the broken down cart itself.  What those carts produce are the bright, bright gold, impossibly crisp, mind-blowingly flavorful pieces of fried chickens, so good you willingly suspend all your hygienic concerns.  Who cares how long those chickens lingered in the tropical heat with only the dodgiest "refrigeration", who gives a damn about how many times the oil has been re-used.  I'm going to take a big bite and let that crisp, garlicky, chicken-y goodness shatter into a million little pieces in my mouth and just die happy.  Wouldn't you?

Luckily, you won't need to hop on a plane - or get a special dispensation from your doctor - before you can eat one.  I've figured out how they're made.  And it's so very simple.  The trick is, let me just come out and tell you, rice flour.  You dredge the chicken pieces in rice flour, that's what give them the crispiest skin.  I also marinate them in a paste made with garlic, oyster sauce, and fish sauce to give them a bit extra kick in the flavor department.

I just made a batch of this for lunch on the boat yesterday.  They were still a little crisp (and still dee-lish) even after a few hours in a cold box.  I'd show you a picture but we devoured them all before I could get the camera out from the cabin...

Chicken Soup for the American Soul

Last Tuesday was a very special moment, one which we will recall with perfect clarity, years into the future, precisely where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news.  Yes, that news.  That change arrived.  It's the moment we saw the very embodiment of our ideals.  Whether you believe in the much-maligned notion of the American Exceptionalism, this was truly a uniquely American story. 

Where was I, you asked?  I was home, like millions of you, glued to the television, watching with baited breath as the returns came in.  It's not the kind of night I wanted to spend a lot of time in front of the stove.  I wanted something simple to make, and something comforting, like the old cashmere sweater, a little frayed at the edges, I was wearing that night.  So I made a chicken soup.  My simple chicken soup, with ingredients that didn't require a special trip to the store.  Like my simple tomato sauce, it's something I've done for such a long time, and thought it almost too simple to even blog about it.  And, yes, it's David again who suggested I woite a post about it.

What's so special about the soup then, you asked?  Well, it's nothing special at all.  That's it.  It's made with just five ingredients: a chicken, an onion, a couple carrots and a couple more stalks of celery.  And the fifth ingredients?  Water.  Yes, just plain water.  And then some salt and pepper to taste.  That's really it.  I sometimes use a teaspoon of curry powder if I have some on hand.  Just a tiny amount, not to make it taste like a curry, but just enough to register a little complexity in the broth.  I cook everything just until the chicken is done, then remove the meat and cook only the bones for a little while longer, extracting every bit of flavor and body out of the bones, before putting the meat back in and serve.

This simple and intensely flavorful soup was the perfect food for the climate that night - comforting, renewing, just what we needed, a chicken soup for the American soul.

(Images from the Huffington Post)

Which way do you crumble? (Quince, apple and armagnac prune crumble)

You do do crumbles yes?  It's the easiest baked dessert in the world - manageable even by those who doth protest too much about not being a baker (hi Rachael!) and there's not a mix or a store-bought dough in sight.  You make everything yourself so you know exactly where each ingredient comes from, no funky stuff you can't pronounce or spell. 

All you have to learn is a simple crumble topping - super simple, if you can stir you can make it.  You can use that crumble topping to top pretty much any combination of fruit.  In the summer you can use plums or peaches, and in the fall you can try quince, pears, apples, or other fall fruits.  I also like to add some dried fruits into my fall crumble, apricots, prunes, or even ordinary raisins.  And these get even better if you soak them a bit in armagnac, rum, or brandy of your choice.

So, which way do you want to crumble?  This time I'm using poached quince I made a little bit ago from Gene's quince, and mixing them with some apples and Armagnac prunes I always have in the cupboard. 

Tomato, apple & rosemary jam (confiture de tomates et pommes au romarin)

I'm not sure when it happened, but it appears I've become Amish, or at least Pennsylvania Dutch.  With all the stone fruits I got from Andy, citrus, apples, and quinces from Gene, and all the produce we get from the garden, I'm constantly making jams, confits, and preserves just to keep up.

The most recent attempt is to use up all the heirloom tomato fruits left on the vines when we had to pull them all out after the recent relentless rain.  They are very late season tomatoes - yes East Coasters and Europeans, you may hate us, we have good tomatoes all the way into October - so they are not exactly perfect enough to go right onto the table at Manresa.  But they are still superb tomatoes, after all, they are Cynthia's!  (And they are biodynamically grown, even, but you knew that already, right?)

So it's not a question that we would let them go to waste.  I hit the book and google, looking for interesting recipes to do with late-season ripe tomatoes.  I found it right there in my jam bible, Mes Confiture, by Christine Ferber.  She suggests tomatoes, apples, and rosemary.  Intriguing, no?  So I tried a test batch, a small amount of ripe tomatoes, adapting and reducing the recipe down to a manageable size.  They turned out perfect, the tomatoes beautifully caramelized, the apple pedals deliciously toothsome, and all perfumed ever so slightly by rosemary, which sounded a bit suspicious but in fact simply heavenly.  It's also super easy, no pectin or any ingredients you'd have to go on a hunt for, just tomatoes, apples, rosemary, lemon, and sugar.  Oh, yes, and a couple jars to keep your delicious concoction.

Yesterday I started a batch with nearly 20 kilos of tomatoes.  They'll be finished today in the kitchen at Manresa, and they will be available for sale at the restaurant in the coming weeks!  How exciting! 

This jam is so delicious you can just eat it out of the jar with a spoon, but it is also versatile enough to go on butterred toast or even as a condiment for roasted duck or meat.  I might even serve it with some goat cheese as appetizer.  That is if I didn't finish them all with a spoon...

Spontaneous celebrations in Santa Cruz: President-elect Barack Obama!

Not the time to be apolitical: take a minute to watch this, please

What's big and red and eats rocks?

still in Vegas, and quite desperate for good coffee

No, you won't find it at Illy. It's surprisingly disappointing. And I'm not even going to mention the pastries there. Anyone has a better idea?