From Mark Bittman's post about why he's fasting to protest "Congressional budget proposals that would make huge cuts in programs for the poor and hungry." He writes:
"This isn’t about skepticism, however; it’s about ironies and outrages. In 2010, corporate profits grew at their fastest rate since 1950, and we set records in the number of Americans on food stamps. The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all American households combined, the effective
Cast your mind back to 2006. Al Gore informed America that the planet was getting warmer as jeans grew skinnier and the Chinese River Dolphin was declared extinct. And who can forget sitting on the edge of their seat as Pope Benedict XVI issued his first encycylical?
But the number one thing I heard in '06 was "You have to see Little Miss Sunshine!!!" I never did. The number two thing I heard was "you have to try Mark Bittman's no-knead bread!" I did, five years later.
First off, you were all wrong. It wasn't Mark Bittman's no-knead bread, it was Jim Lahey's, and Bittman made that clear. But as I recently learned, Lahey is as good of a baker as Bittman is a publicist. This bread really is the best that you can make at home.
However the title of "no-knead" is somewhat misleading. No, you don't have to knead it, but you do have to fold it a few times, flour a work surface, and handle the dough, and that's kind of like kneading. There are other bread recipes where you do none of those things -- I'll be sharing one soon -- and so the fact that this bread isn't kneaded per se is not its most distinctive quality. Someone else has probably pointed this out in the past five years, but as you can tell, I'm a little behind the Times.
Instead of Mark Bittman's No-Knead Bread, as this recipe has become commonly known, a more accurate title would be Jim Lahey's Slow Rise, Low Yeast, Preheated Dutch Oven Bread. Because the technique is what sets this bread apart, and that's what gives it its perfect moisture, crumb and crust. My only problem was that our old bacon-seasoned cast iron Dutch oven (originally Elise's grandmother's) filled the kitchen with smoke as it heated. Almost makes me want to buy an enamel one. But who needs another hefty kitchen implement when you've got open windows, a damp bandanna tied like a bank robber, and an inhaler?
We made the bread as part of our new Valentine's Day tradition of having a meal at home made from whatever ingredients we want instead of eating out on what many chefs consider the worst night of the year. (In the above photo you can see Elise dramatically whisking the tinfoil off of the broccoli rabe.) Also on the menu were local oysters and defrosted chicken liver-and-Maker's Mark pâté from Christmas. Like Sylvester Stallone's character in Demolition Man, it survived the freeze quite well. In addition to baking the loaf of JLSRLYPDOB, I enacted another Bittman-influenced culinary fantasy: oven fries with pimenton aioli.
Lahey/Bittman's loaf is now available in regular, whole grain, and speedy. If you haven't tried it yet, you definitely should. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an endearing hipster dramedy to watch.
I've been on a fried rice for breakfast kick, and I've been experimenting with how much vegetable matter one can add while still calling it fried rice. The answer: lots.
Two factors make this breakfast almost as easy as toast. The first is that I always have a big pot of rice around for the dog, whose food we cook (ground turkey, brown rice, sweet potatoes) due to his sensitive stomach. The second is the menagerie of wacky root vegetables constantly streaming in from my winter CSA.
I pour enough oil into a pan to barely create a film across its surface. I add the chopped up veggies, which vary, but often include carrot and various radishes: daikon, black, watermelon, and "mystery." Sometimes I'll add some sliced cabbage, but the point is versatility, and every vegetable I've tried thus far (celery, spinach, turnip, leeks) has worked.
When the veggies are just beginning to soften up -- I like them crunchy and sometimes don't even bother cooking them -- I add the rice and a splash of water to rehydrate it. Then I clear everything to the sides of the pan, add another wee bit of oil, turn up the heat and crack in an egg. Sometimes I quickly scramble it, sometimes I let it fry and then mix it in. Sometimes I don't use an egg. Again, versatility is the key ingredient.
Then I plop in a scoop of chili paste and a splash of soy sauce and mix it all up. I was using sesame oil too, until I ran out, and then I found that I didn't miss it.
Fried rice can be divine, especially if you use Mark Bittman/Jean-George's crispy ginger and garlic trick and get all fancy by packing it into a ramekin before plating it. But I think of this version as morning workhorse fried rice. It's quick, it's easy, and it helps me chip away at the root veggie stash.
Another benefit is less easy to describe, but I'll try. And that is the feeling I get from eating rice, chili paste and almost-raw root veggies first thing in the morning. If toast makes me feel like I'm dangling my feet off of a happy cloud, this makes me feel like I'm planted up to the shins in warm rich dirt. It's not a bad way to feel when kicking off the day.
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Recipe: Root Veggie Laden Fried Rice
about 1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
about 3/4 cup finely chopped root veggies, such as carrots, radishes and turnips
1 egg
1/2 tbsp of chili paste
a dash of soy sauce
olive, canola or peanut oil, about 1 tbsp
1. Briefly saute the veggies on medium heat in a little of the oil, about three minutes.
2. Add the rice, add a splash of water, cover and cook for a few more minutes until the rice is moist and warm.
3. Clear a space in the center of the pan. Add a little more oil into the center of the pan, set heat to high, and crack in the egg. Once the white is cooked through, turn off the heat, add the chili paste and soy sauce and mix it all up.
4. If you want to get fancy, pack it into a ramekin or other mold and stamp it out onto your plate.
5. Have a grounded day.
Much was consumed during recent days of revelry.
Going back to Chanukah, at Amanda's Annual Hot Oil Party we made olibollen: the yeasty Dutch donuts (translation = "fat balls") for which our dog is named. And here's a picture of the canine Olibollen knocking a snowball out of Elise's hand.
Knocked out by Elise's hand was this fabulous chicken liver pâté. We used MB's recipe, substituting Maker's Mark for cognac, going with my beloved "because that's what we had" principle of cooking.
The bourbon turned out to be a welcome addition. If I ran a gastropub, I would have to serve bourbon pâté, and would be obliged to write something obnoxious about it on the menu, using the phrase "with a distinctly American bite." Later we mixed Maker's Mark with champagne, which was dubbed a Pagne-Maker or a Cha-Ma (for the Jews). Because that's what we had, and because we'd had too much.
Christmas was spent feasting with former T&F contributors Dave and Karen. Karen made cassoulet, and while she chopped the bacon, the heavens showed their approval by spilling buttery light all over the kitchen.
While the cassoulet gurgled, we warmed gingerbread cookies on the lid of the Dutch oven.
Dave made an aspic from a Chez Panisse cookbook. It was like chicken salad from space.
E. and I made D&K some edible presents. These included too-gingery apple sauce, pink kraut, currant-coconut granola and anise-black pepper cranberry-cider compote. Yeah, we're foochebags.
Perhaps the crowning achievement of holiday season eating was a breakfast of homemade bagels and lox.
Earlier in the week Karen cured gravlox, and I made scallion bagels using a foolproof Joan Nathan recipe that ran with one of my first articles. I let the dough sit in the fridge overnight, which was an improvement. I also over-greased some of the pans, which means a few bagels came out with their butts fried in olive oil. Again, an improvement.
Hope you ate well too.
"So here's my question for every politician who has ever riled up an audience with the notion that liberals will 'force' people to eat their vegetables: Why is it okay to encourage people to buy junk food if it’s not okay to encourage them to eat vegetables? And if it’s not okay to encourage people to buy junk food, then why is the government still doing it?"
http://markbittman.com/socialists-tell-americans-to-eat-their-veggie
Mark Bittman's latest is classic Mark Bittman. He takes a simple kitchen element, in this case a machine rather than an vegetable, and through his patented blend of debunking and innovating, he causes us to see it anew, and as a world of nearly limitless possibilities.
He's made me feel this way before about countless ingredients, from mussels to chickpea flour, and now he's turned his inspiration-ray towards the food processor. Through the eyes of the Minimalist, the food processor no longer looks like a clumsy kitchen appliance: it is a gateway to a better you.
Much more inspiring than his microwave argument.
A sobering thought from Mark Bittman's latest article on fish:
"It takes three pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon."
After braising two of the now dubiously cool Niman Ranch lamb shanks, I found myself staring into the pool of leftover liquid, thinking "now what?"
We served the shanks on the bone, in the center of the table, with in-apartment tortillas to cradle the hand-torn meat. The lamb was great, but so much of its umph was left behind in the juices it had cooked in, and there was only so much of it (lots) that we could spoon over our meat.
As I gazed into the bowl of orange juice, fennel seeds, onion stock, whole peppercorns, garlic cloves, and lamb fat, I suddenly had a vision of incredibly flavorful flatbread.
I made Bittman's socca, a staple in my kitchen, but instead of water I used the rich slurry described above. The lamby liquid worked perfectly with the slightly sweet chickpea flour, and the flatbread/pancakes were studded with mashed potato-soft chunks of garlic and onion. My test batch was so good that I made a whole stack of them for company the next night, simply mixing the braising liquid with the chickpea flour and pan frying on the range.
I'm thrilled to have found yet another way to close the kitchen loop. Often my braising liquid is made up of odds and ends anyway, so the thought of stretching it out into one more meal really tickles the stingy environmentalist in me. Luckily, it also appeals to my inner glutton.
And what else are you going to do, throw it out?
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Recipe: Leftover Braising Liquid Flatbread
Simply follow any of Mark Bittman's recipes for flatbread, substituting leftover braising liquid for water.
Monday's post on Bitten reminded me how much I enjoy reading Mark Bittman's blog posts. Sadly, his blog rarely features them anymore.
Bittman has posted several times on Bitten in the last week or so, which has been refreshing. Until recently, his role seemed similar to that of a deist creator: having set the clock in motion, he then appeared to have skipped town.
Bitten remains a captivating food blog, my favorite, but it's not always the peek inside the kitchen that produced How to Cook Everything that at first it promised to be. Which is understandable - the man is very, very busy.
Bittman often serves us as much Bittman as we can digest, leaving fans like myself satiated if not full to bursting. Every week you get a column, video, five recipes and a handful of other posts, not to mention the occasional Today Show appearance, new book, or TV show featuring Gweneth Paltrow.
The man waltzes between the bowels of professional kitchens and the sun dappled country lanes of Spain as if it were nothing. He is everywhere that pertains to food.
But if his range seems vast, it's nothing compared to depth of his accessibility. Everyone likes Mark Bittman, from serious chefs to home cooks to the little darlings of the food blogosphere. If you google the phrase "I love Mark Bittman," there are 570 results. If you google "I hate Mark Bittman," there are a scant 2.
Which is why I was so thrilled when he added blogging to his repertoire. Mark Bittman, benevolent emperor of food, was now hosting skillet-side chats. But bit by bit Bitten filled up with posts by his friends, colleagues, and readers that weren't me. At first it was novel, but then I realized how little of Bittman was left in Bitten. And how much Ed Levine there was.
A word on Ed. Ed seems like a great guy, and a stellar cook, but I find his tone to be somewhat antithetical to Bittman's you-can-do-it mantra. And they're both aware of it, with Ed referring to himself as a "maximalist," the yang to Bittman's yin.
But Bitten isn't the Minimalist column, and Ed does technically fit into the mission statement listed in the about section of the blog:
"On Bitten, he chews on food and all things connected to it."
Ed's posts fall under the "food and all things connected to it" part, though I had assumed that the "he" referred to Bittman. It all makes me wonder just who's hand is grabbing that carrot.
Bittman wants us to believe that any food, even if it's just vegetables, can be prepared at home without wreaking too much ecological or nutritional havoc. In contrast, Ed enjoys tauting readers with labor intensive, cream laden foreign delicacies, name dropping expensive restaurants he's eaten at in Europe and then mentioning how he's managed to prepare their signature dishes just as well in his own kitchen.
At first glance his posts appear to have that same can-do spirit as Bittman's, but on closer inspection one notices a sort of can't-do, nanny-nanny-boo-boo tone to his writing. Bittman is not only minimalist, but populist. Ed is not only maximalist, but elitist.
And that's part of Mark Bittman's thing. He has values (i.e. no animals during the day), but he refuses to pin himself down to any one label. He's vegetarian friendly, but not vegetarian. He likes locally grown food, but still shops at a supermarket. He remains open to all things edible in the interest of having fun with food and making everyone feel included. I just like it best when it's he that's doing so.
One gets the sense that he isn't able to regularly maintain the blog while trotting the globe in search of pancakes, and so his colleagues cover for him. And a world that includes a Bitten compromised largely of guest posts is still better than a world with no Bitten at all. But no one beats Bittman at writing for Bitten.
As I've noted before, this blog is in large part a response to Bittman. He's been a huge influence and there's no two ways about it: you'll notice in the labels section at right that the frequency of Bittman posts tie with those on fermentation, and I can think of no higher compliment. So in case there's any doubt, despite my criticism, let me make it perfectly clear: I love Mark Bittman.
That should bring it to 571.
My apologies for not posting since last week, but I've been swamped. Literally: I'm visiting family in Florida. Yes, like Mark Bittman, my parents live in Delray.
There are many obvious differences between South Florida, where I grew up, and Maynard, MA where I now live. For instance, when I go swimming in Massachusetts, there's nothing in the water that can kill me. In Florida, there are many things.
The windows of my apartment look out over maple, walnut, and beech, none of which currently have leaves. But as I type this from my mom's porch I see palm trees, strangler figs, live oak, and Spanish moss, all cloaked in undying green.
Besides myself, there are some species that somehow manage to thrive both here and there. Blue jays and squirrels, for instance. I even saw elders in bloom at a nearby wildlife refuge, though they also grow on the pond behind my apartment that so recently was skateable. Our elders won't bloom for weeks, but I'm amazed that one variety of the plant can endure sub-zero temperatures while the other can withstand the constant gawking of sunburnt tourists.
But the greatest divide lies in the kitchen garden. As you know, mine has nothing but a tuft of sorrel and a few garlic sprouts. But my mom's has, in various stages of development...
Mango.
Avocado.
Meyer's lemons.
Lizards.
And the pineapple pictured at top, plus nine more, all grown from sticking the cut-off tops of other pineapples into the dirt. No aspect of life in New England, except being cold, is that easy.
Sadly, despite the drastic differences in locale, supermarkets in both MA and FL are full of the same exact stuff, most of it horrible: hard plums from Chile, flaccid asparagus from Mexico, and tomatoes grown by slave labor.
I dream of a world were regional food is more distinct than just saying hoagie or grinder, and not just for gastronomic reasons (there's also environmental, social, political and spiritual fruits to reap). Thankfully, we're getting closer to it.
Photography Note: You'll also notice a completely different quality of light in these photos than in any I've taken up North. As in the Low Country pics, the light down here is much whiter.
Like silly putty, this recipe was stumbled upon completely by accident. Like America, I'm sure someone else had stumbled upon it first.
I wanted pancakes, but didn't have milk (be it cow, nut, grain, or bean) or eggs, and I was in a fluffy mood. I cast about the refrigerator and paused when I saw the yogurt. Yogurt: kind of like eggs and milk mixed together, right?
Wrong. It's better. These pancakes were so light and fluffy that I had to tether them down. I'd previously thought that MB's beaten egg white pancakes were the fluffiest, but these have those beat. Yes, these beat Bitten's beaten ones.
Sure they were poofy, but were they also moist? As moist as the day is long, and I'm not talking about the day of the winter solstice. I'm talking about about that sprawling summer solstice day. In other words, they were extremely moist. The yogurt also imparted a pleasant, savory tang.
On Sunday I skated across Walden Pond and found myself on top of a body of water I had only previously been in or under. The yogurt must have had the reverse experience when mixed into the pancakes. Used to sliding around on top, it suddenly found itself deep within them.
The only downside is that the cooking process probably nullifies the probiotic content of the yogurt. But you know the old saying: you've got to break a few billion bacteria to make pancakes.
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Recipe: Yogurt Pancakes
1 cup mixed whole grain flours (I used barley, spelt and corn)
1 cup plain yogurt (or whatever it takes to look like pancake batter)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon
Gently mix all of the above, leaving it lumpy. Marvel at its fluffy nature.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased skillet (I used a non-stick pan, no oil at all, and they really didn't stick.) Once bubbling, flip, cook briefly on the B-side, and cook again until golden.
Mourn bacteria.
Mark Bittman's post on savory breakfasts seems to have struck a chord with many of us. For some, it might be novel: having food for breakfast instead of breakfast food.
A longtime proponent of starting the day with salt, this morning I made a variation on the ever present theme of savory oats, with eggs, garlic, collard greens and plenty of whisk-crushed black pepper.
If you prefer things like pop-tarts, saying "I could eat you for breakfast" simply becomes an empty threat. But if you eat breakfast like I eat breakfast, the phrase is nothing short of menacing. All the more true if you're talking to a vampire (garlic).
In all seriousness, eating real food first thing in the morning makes me feel invincible. Like I can slug my way through the day's tasks undaunted, my stomach full of power. I've been around a lot of sick folks lately, and I can't help but feel that my healthful savory breakfasts have helped me escape the wrath of their pathogens.
This has been a cold, snowy, flu-inducing winter, and in response I've upped my intake of the hot stuff (black and chili pepper, ginger, and garlic). Their bracing, medicinal qualities have gone a long way, and they rival coffee as an eye-opener.
I feel as healthy as a horse. And what do horses eat for breakfast? Savory oats.
After months of posting about the wonders of savory breakfasts, especially oatmeal, my contributions to the culinary world have finally been recognized by none other that Mark Bittman. In his latest Minimalist column, Bittman publicly thanks me in no uncertain terms. I quote:
"Here are a few more fast ideas for savory, mostly whole-grain breakfasts some of which come from readers of my blog, Bitten — for these I say a general “thanks”.
You're welcome, Mark.
True to form, today began with savory oats. Salt, barely cracked pepper -- more like quartered peppercorns -- and a seriously fried egg on top. In fact I don't think I've ever fried an egg as hard as I (accidentally) did this morning, yet the yolk remained soft to the point of spilling out over the oats. It was quite possibly the best oat and egg combo I've tried yet, and on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from whipping them together as I usually do.
Why don't I make oats and eggs like that every time? Because I'm stupid. Nothing else could explain it.
Let me know if you need any more pointers, Bitty.
Answer: flatbread.
A few months ago, Bittman wrote of the wonders of socca, a chickpea flatbread that is both versatile and facile. I believed he called it "instant starch." He and Conan (the food writer) then revisited the dish, and since then I've been hooked. Incidentally, the titles of both pieces are extremely pleasant to say: "The Saga of Skillet Flatbread" and "A Street Treat from Nice."
Thanks to their plug, socca has become an absolute staple in my kitchen. And why wouldn't it? It meets all of my criteria for perfect food: quick, easy, cheap, nourishing, and kind of weird.
I throw one together anytime I've got a meal that feels like it's missing something. I've baked, baked and then broiled, and simply broiled, and all are perfectly acceptable. If you're really going for speed, I suggest broiling and flipping. In my mind, the perfect socca is crispy on the outside and still moist and somewhat hummusy on the inside.
Luckily, the flavor of chickpea flour is generally more sweet and pea-like than with a canned garbanzo, so you've got that going for you too. I eat most of my socca straight up, but of course you can add anything you like to the batter or on top during or after baking. I imagine grated cheese would look nice and help ensure a good crunch.
By far the best socca I've made was one topped with the tomato sauce we put up at the end of the season. Each jar is a time capsule of summer, an explosion of flavor from a forgotten temperature.
So don't be a suckah; make a socca. And if you want to go all out, eat it in a sukkah.
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Recipe: Socca (aka Farinata aka Chickpea Flatbread)
-adapted from Mark Bittman
1 cup chickpea flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 to 6 tablespoons olive oil
Put a skillet under the broiler and set oven to "broil."
Mix chickpea flour with equal parts water, then add the salt and pepper. Whisk until smooth. Stir in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Cover, and let sit while oven heats, or as long as 12 hours. Batter should be about the consistency of heavy cream.
Pour 2 tablespoons oil into heated pan, and swirl to cover pan evenly. Pour in batter, and broil about 5 minutes on each side. If it looks dry, brush the top with more oil.
Cut it into wedges and serve hot.
I can't remember the first time I had granola, but shortly afterwards I wrote it off. As a kid, it was too healthy. As an adult, it wasn't healthy enough. What began as a wholesome, grain based snack had at some point morphed into candy for rich hippies. Until I made it myself.
Ah, the power of "homemade." After years of eating a food dictated by popular consensus, in your own kitchen you finally gain the satisfaction of unchecked creative control. Want a salty granola? It's your call. Granola dotted with marrow croutons? Yes, we can.
Making your own version of a commercially available food is deeply satisfying for any home cook on a budget, especially if you have control issues. When I made my first batch of granola, and I've made more since, it finally tasted how I've always wanted it to and it cost what I've always wanted to pay: next to nothing.
While it might seem like a specialty snack, I didn't even have to buy anything to make it. If you feel the need to load it with acai and gogi you'll have to make a trip to the obnoxious store, but otherwise you can make do.
I adapted Bittman's recipe to what I had on hand, combined with observations from having watched others make it in the past. My version is not candy, but I do eat it as though it were. And it makes the house smell like winter should.
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Recipe: Tons of Great, Cheap Granola
6 cups (real) oats
2 cup sunflower seeds (or whatever)
1 cup dried currants (or whatever)
1 cup dried coconut
1 cup honey
2 tbsp canola oil
pinch of salt
dash of cinnamon
Pre-heat the oven to 325. Combine everything but the currants and oil and mix well.
Spread the oil on two baking sheets, divide the granola between them, and toss lightly.
Bake until brown but not burnt, stirring as often as necessary (about 4 times, about half an hour.)
Let cool. Feel cool.
You might think that it would be difficult to make a vegetable unsuitable for a vegetarian, but it's not. In fact, if you order a vegetable dish at any French, Cuban, or Southern restaurant, there's a good chance that it will have equal parts vegetable matter and pork or duck fat. Is that wrong? Not necessarily.
I sautéed the above broccoli in bacon fat and then finished it off with a quick steam in reduced chicken stock. Before you ask yourself what kind of monster uses two different kinds of animals to make one vegetable, allow me to explain.
First off, like all meat that I make at home, both animal products featured here came from reliably sustainable sources, one just down the road. Second, you'll notice that there isn't any actual meat in the dish, just a couple natural remainders of a meat eater's kitchen: I make stock from chicken bones that I freeze over time, and the bacon fat came from what else but making bacon.
Using animal products as a teaser rather than a feature presentation could go a long way in improving the health of our planet, as many have already pointed out, most notably Mark Bittman. This is especially true when the animal product in question is leftover from a previous dish and might otherwise have been discarded.
I eat meat, but I eat way more vegetables, and in fact many dishes that I cook are either deliberately or coincidentally vegetarian or vegan. Straddling both worlds as I do, I am familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of both camps. But one thing is clear: when you cook broccoli with a little bacon fat and chicken stock, you'll want to eat a whole lot more broccoli.
Doesn't sound good, does it? Well it was.
Like most things I cook, this dish was born out of necessity. I was hungry to the point of headache, needed to use the clams, and had celeriac on hand thanks to my winter CSA.
For those who still struggle with the question of what to do with celeriac, here's my advice. Think of a dish that usually has both celery and potatoes, and just use celeriac instead, thereby killing two birds with one root vegetable. (Hmm, two birds and one root vegetable - that sounds good...)
Hence the pairing with clams, which are often served en chowder with both celery and potato. But the headache prevented me from thinking of any additional steps, so I went with a simple, clear soup.
As you may know by now, I'm a big fan of Mark Bittman, aka "The Minimalist," and this soup couldn't be more in the vein of his stripped down treatments. With only two ingredients, clam and celeriac, it was shockingly good, not to mention local, seasonal, and sustainable.
I sat down fully expecting a mediocre meal birthed from necessity and shellfish on the brink of freshness. What I got instead was one of the absolute best things I've tasted in recent memory. The pairing was unbelievably complementary, and the flavors rich, clean and bright. I slowly slurped spoonful after spoonful, completely absorbed in the marriage of surf and turf, almost in disbelief and how much there was to taste. Clams were clearly meant to release their liquor into soup, thereby creating an instant broth that you can catch every drop of.
And I'm glad I didn't spoil it with milk or other superfluous ingredients. It couldn't have been easier, and it couldn't have been better.
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Recipe: Clam and Celeriac Soup
clams (about a pound)
celeriac (about 1/2 of one)
Dice the celeriac, or celery root, into bite sized pieces.
Simmer in barely salted salted water until almost tender, at which point you add the clams, cover, and continue to simmer until they've opened.
When ready, some of the clams will have slipped out of their shells and some of the celeriac will have ended up in their place, which looks very funny. Garnish with coarsely chopped black pepper.
Serves two, or one with a headache.
An enthusiastic reader recently equipped me with a copy of Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuan cooking guide, Land of Plenty, as well the ingredients to get started. He recommended that I start with one of the chicken appetizers. I did, and I can't imagine an easier or more inspiring introduction to the cuisine.
I made Hot-and-Numbing Chicken Slices from the "Four Ways of Dressing Cold Chicken Meat" portion of the appetizers section (p.141). Essentially you poach a chicken and then dress the meat with a highly flavorful and extremely easy to make sauce. It's amazing, and you'd work harder on meatloaf.
Looking at the broth leftover from the poached chicken, I thought back to Bittman's column/post/video on Hainanese Chicken and decided to merge the two recipes. This meant cooking rice in the water from the chicken and serving the meat on top of it. 
Really the whole thing is just a vehicle for the Sichuan peppercorn, the flavor of which is often described as "numbing." (Can numbing be a flavor? "Timmy, what kind of ice cream do you want?" "Numbing!!!") In this dish the peppercorns, which are really the berries of the Chinese prickly ash, are lightly toasted before being ground.
Since I don't have a mortar and/or pestle, I used a jar on a cutting board, and it worked fine. While you're toasting the peppercorns, your kitchen fills with a tantalizing and baffling aroma that lies somewhere between juniper and marijuana. Maybe that's why I'm so hooked on the stuff.
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Recipe: Hot-and-Numbing Chicken Slices (ma la ji pian) meets Hainanese Chicken
Adapted from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop (W.W. Norton) and Bittman's Hainanese Chicken.
For about 1 pound sustainably raised, cooked chicken meat (about 1/2 a chicken), cooled.
salt to taste
4-6 scallions, white parts only (I used onion)
4 teaspoons white sugar (I used honey)
3-6 tablespoons chili oil with chile flakes
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2-1 teaspoon ground roasted Sichuan pepper (I used 3)
Poach the chicken, then cook rice in the remaining liquid.
Cut or shred the meat, sprinkle with salt.
Thinly slice the scallions diagonally, 1 1/2 inches long, to form "horse ear" slices. Alternatively, thinly slice 1 small onion into whichever kind of ear you prefer.
Stir the sugar or honey into the soy sauce to dissolve it, and then add the oils.
Serve the chicken atop the rice and the scallion or onion atop the chicken. Sprinkle liberally with the ground "pepper" and serve the sauce on the side.
Get the munchies, repeat.
Remember those handsome poblanos I bought over the weekend? You'll see them, roasted and stuffed, on the left in the photo above. Everything else I made for dinner was great, but they almost ruined my night.
First the kitchen filled with smoke as I charred them under the broiler. Our fire alarm, which has actually gone off while I've been making toast, had a field day. Several times. Because I couldn't stand the beeping and couldn't tend the flames and fan the smoke at the same time, I cut the roasting time a little short. Of course the peels then stuck like squirrel fur to squirrel meat.
I had to scrape them off piecemeal with a knife, but since these were local, organic, heirloom poblanos, of course they were runty. The combo of the sticking skin, scraping, and their small size meant that I tore them to shreds in the process. Still, I managed to cram a bread and parmesan stuffing into their small, tattered cavities, and when they came out of the oven they had hung together, the cheese had browned, and they actually looked decent.
I thought I could finally enjoy my hard work until I took a bite. There was no flavor, only bitter, vengeful heat. I've always known poblanos to be delightfully mild with only a hint of capsicum, and I have a decent heat tolerance if I do say so, but these sent me open mouthed to the milk jug. Even in today's Bitten they're referred to as having "gentle warmth," but I guess there's just something special in the feisty soil of New England.
Still, what China's dealing with really puts things in perspective. Suddenly deciding between organic or local seems much less important than spending a month's salary just to find out if your child will live.
I have a confession. I can't dredge and dip. Oh, I can dredge. And I can dip just fine. But when a recipe calls for coating in flour and egg, the train just can't make it to the station.
First off, why do some recipes say flour first and then egg when others go in the reverse? Maybe that nagging uncertainty is what does me in. When I read Mark Bittman's recipe for Red Fried Fish, in which he dips his fish into a batter including already combined egg and flour, I thought I'd found the answer. Unfortunately, I was out of eggs. And flour.
But the idea of dipping into a batter rather than dredging and dipping sounded like it would work, so I mixed up some blue cornmeal with water and spices, including paprika, cayenne, cinnamon, and a dash of turmeric.
It should here be noted that, if you ever want an incredibly crispy fried fish, a fish almost imprisoned in an impenetrable shell, you should use cornmeal instead of flour. And I've said it before but I'll say it again: blue corn meal, paprika, and turmeric each goes a long way in naturally saturating a dish with color.
Anytime I eat something fried, I eat something raw to lighten up the meal. Not only is it a balance of texture and temperature, but it shows that something plucked out of the ground and basically unadorned deserves to share a plate with something more meticulously prepared. Hence this gorgeous fennel, simply sliced raw with salt and pepper. 
I would have spritzed on some lemon, but I didn't have that either. In a parallel universe, a more prepared Aaron Kagan was enjoying a nice fillet perfectly dipped and fried in flour and egg, his fennel nice and citric. But in this world, I was still happy, and full.
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