tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57504114008658996472024-03-12T21:41:25.283-07:00Cooking the Food of LoveThe FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-48234257156956531392009-11-12T11:04:00.000-08:002010-02-10T21:31:12.661-08:00I'm not dead<span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;">If you've been following this blog over the few months of its lifespan so far, you may have noticed the uncomfortable pause of the last several weeks.<br />
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Rest assured, I haven't abandoned the project, and will be resuming regular publication shortly. The unplanned break is the combined result of a couple of things I wasn't expecting: First, there's that major irritation called "Real Life," which has a way of getting underfoot at inopportune moments; and second, I'm experiencing a significant degree of writer's block as I consider how to attack my next entry.<br />
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That would be the final installment of the Chicago Restaurant Adventure, which is proving remarkably resistant to cogent analysis. I've been thinking about how to approach the subject, and have started different versions of the essay half a dozen times, only to run out of steam and delete the effort with frustrated resignation.<br />
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I'm still feeling a little stymied, but I'm not going to surrender. I will crack this mental coconut, and get myself back on track, pursuing the blog's central objective. I've continued cooking in the interim, so I have several dishes I'll be able to knock out in quick succession.<br />
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That is, of course, after I conquer the conceptual mountain on which I'm currently bivouacked.<br />
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Thanks for your patience.</span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-42992741364249568422009-10-05T02:15:00.000-07:002009-10-05T14:39:56.819-07:00A foodie interlude — Chicago (part three)<span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Before I get started, I'd like to welcome all the new readers I've been seeing the last couple of days, as a result of some very kind and generous words of praise and encouragement I got over at <a href="http://yearonthegrill.blogspot.com/2009/10/praise-and-thanks-to-cooking-food-of.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">My Year on the Grill</span></a>. This has sent a number of you my way, looking for enlightenment on Persian food and, apparently, pictures of edible dildos. I can't promise the latter, but we got lots of the former. Glad to see you here, and to have your interest and comments. (And for everyone else, go check out YotG. Lots of great stuff over there.)<br />
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Okay, so, returning to the discussion already underway: In my last entry, I described the wild meal the Princess and I enjoyed at <b>Moto</b>, Chicago's temple of molecular mischief. The following day, we visited a pair of Chicago institutions, two places which could not be more different from Moto, or each other.<br />
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<a name='more'></a></span><b>Friday afternoon: <a href="http://hotdougs.com"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Hot Doug's</span></a>.</b><span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><br />
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Hot Doug's, for the uninitiated, has been a major cult destination for Chicago foodies for many years. In their current northside location (the previous one burned down), they serve up a dizzying array of, as the proprietor says, "encased meat products." That's right: hot dogs.<br />
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<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm2UKupRI/AAAAAAAAANs/TrRdTdkRuhk/s1600-h/hotdougsexterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm2UKupRI/AAAAAAAAANs/TrRdTdkRuhk/s320/hotdougsexterior.jpg" /></a></center><br />
Hot dogs? Only hot dogs? How, you ask, can something as simple as a hot dog inspire such loyalty among the city's culinary cognoscenti? Cook a wiener, toss it in a bun, throw on some condiments; what else is there?<br />
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Fear not, my friend: Hot Doug's will show you the way.<br />
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There is absolutely a reason why this place has been a favorite of food people since it opened. Why, every day, there is a <a href="http://www.lottieanddoof.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/img_6105.jpg"><span style="color: #cc0000;">line out the door and down the block</span></a>. Why it was featured on Anthony Bourdain's show a while back (see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3Xin_P9kc"><span style="color: #cc0000;">this clip</span></a>, starting a little after the two-minute mark). Why bloggers far and wide have waxed rhapsodic about the joint (<a href="http://www.skilletdoux.com/2006/04/hot_dougs_or_wh.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">one</span></a>, <a href="http://fifth-city.com/blog/food/2009/03/review-hot-dougs
"><span style="color: #cc0000;">two</span></a>, <a href="http://foodmakesmehappy.blogspot.com/2009/08/hot-dougs-where-you-can-find-endless.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">three</span></a>, and Google for dozens more). And why it is a must-visit eatery in the Windy City.<br />
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I'll give you a hint: It's only partly the food.<br />
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Oh, sure, the menu is spectacular. In addition to the <a href="http://hotdougs.com/menu.htm"><span style="color: #cc0000;">already huge regular listing</span></a>, there's an ever-revolving lineup of blindingly original special creations posted on the wall as you enter. You've got your regular beef and pork sausages, plus luxury meat (lamb, foie gras), game (elk, say, or antelope), and exotica (alligator, kangaroo). The toppings are elaborate, and sound more like gourmet pizza than hot dogs. It turns out that the long, slow line is a bit of a blessing, because it takes ten minutes just to read the menu, let alone start to narrow down your choices.<br />
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The wondrousness of the Hot Doug's experience has been covered in depth on other sites, so I'm not going to talk too much about the food proper. If you click the blog links above, you can review a wealth of pictures and descriptions, covering everything from "Blue Cheese Pork Sausage with Sir William Pear Creme Fraiche and Roasted Almonds" to "Merlot and Blueberry Venison Sausage with Three-Berry Mustard and Stilton-Apricot Cheese." In their descriptions, they sound weirdly pretentious and awful, like trying-too-hard-to-be-trendy California-style overkill. Trust me — they're not. I won't belabor the point, because again you can visit those other blogs (and more besides) for a detailed report on what it's like to bite into one of these masterpieces of gluttony, but the Princess and I can confirm, first hand, that Doug's hot dogs are incredible, and well worth the pilgrimage.<br />
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(Naturally, any time a place like this earns overwhelmingly positive notices, garnering effusive praise for high-end treatment of a lowbrow product, it inevitably attracts clots of naysaying cynics, negative natterers who snark from the margins in calculated opposition to the prevailing view. Some take the position that it isn't as good as everybody says it is; others say it's just a hot dog, get over yourselves. For representative samples of the back-and-forth, see the comments sections below the articles <a href="http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2008/08/anthony-bourdai.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">here</span></a> and <a href="http://gapersblock.com/drivethru/2009/04/07/hot_doug_drop_delivering_encas/"><span style="color: #cc0000;">here</span></a>. For my part, I'll just say this: I've been to Hot Doug's, and the naysayers can get stuffed.)<br />
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So, yeah, the food is really good: fast, original, hearty, and damn tasty. (And also, I should mention, shockingly affordable. The classic Chicago dog was a buck seventy five, fully loaded. The most outré options were maybe eight bucks. And French fried potatoes, cooked in duck fat? Three fifty.) But that's not all that makes this a worthwhile experience. There's one more critical ingredient in the mix — an aspect I haven't really seen any other bloggers or reviewers discuss, but that is, nevertheless, a uniquely ineffable element in the establishment, something that sets Hot Doug's apart and which no other similar outfit can claim:<br />
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Doug himself.<br />
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<center><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm1-V6bZI/AAAAAAAAANk/OTGvsQwovwE/s1600-h/dougsohn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm1-V6bZI/AAAAAAAAANk/OTGvsQwovwE/s320/dougsohn.jpg" /></a></center><br />
Owner-operator <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3fEzmNVshc"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Doug Sohn</span></a> is never not behind the register. He's always there, taking your order, acting as the face of the restaurant, and in general riding herd on the whole operation. On a day he can't come in, or when he's on vacation, Hot Doug's is closed. It's that simple.<br />
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And he really does make a difference. When you arrive at the counter, you have maybe two minutes with Doug during which you place your order and complete your transaction, and possibly engage in a little chitchat. Those two minutes could stretch to five, if you're suffering from indecision over the cornucopia of choices, or if you're an idiot who didn't read the menu and wants to order a cheeseburger. And during that brief span, Doug is warm, friendly, and engaging, yet briskly efficient in conducting business. You feel, absolutely, that you're getting Doug's undivided personal attention, even if it's for just a few moments.<br />
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Think back to the last few times you got counter service somewhere — Starbucks, the gas station, whatever — and try to remember a feeling that the functionary behind the register actually looked at you as a fully present human being, instead of as the next widget rolling past on the self-propelled conveyor belt that is the service line. And, seriously, can you blame them? They hear the same twenty or thirty phrases several dozen times per hour all day long: it's completely understandable that they'd zone out, and send most of their brain elsewhere. Not to mention the fact that we, the consuming public, almost invariably treat the individual on the other side of the counter as less than a person, and more like an order-taking cyborg, a machine covered in skin and topped with a desperately dorky paper hat. It really is a borderline-inhumane job. Under those circumstances, it's a rational defense for people to go on autopilot.<br />
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Doug Sohn doesn't do that. He knows that the service experience is a big part of how you will remember your visit, so he takes responsibility for it himself. You step up to the counter, and he looks at you, greets you, and connects with you. He answers your questions, records your order, and sends you on your way, not mechanically, but person to person. And he does this all day long, party after party after party. It seems utterly exhausting to me, and I have no idea how he does it — but he does, and it is, I am convinced, as much a key to the success of Hot Doug's as the (very high) quality of the food.<br />
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He seems to know this, too. He has been asked, repeatedly, why he doesn't open a second location (or more), or why he doesn't outright franchise. It would certainly be possible to ramp up production of the physical product, making more sausages and ordering more toppings and hiring and training more staff. As long as the lines are (our wait was forty-five minutes), and as far as people have to come to visit his restaurant, he could easily double his revenue with another outlet.<br />
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Yet as often as people ask him this, he repeatedly declines to consider the possibility. He doesn't want to compromise, and anything that stretches him too thin, as an individual, would endanger what he sees as the essential qualities of the Hot Doug's experience. Maybe this makes him a control freak, that he insists on staying at the counter and serving as the face of the business, and maybe he's leaving a ton of money on the table with this stubborn refusal to be objective about his business prospects.<br />
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But he honestly, genuinely doesn't seem to care. He runs his business his way, and he's successful, wildly so. He has hundreds of loyal customers in Chicago, and thousands of foodie fans ranging to points beyond, and the kind of publicity no amount of money can buy — and he looks truly happy to be doing what he's doing. It's hard to argue with that.<br />
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And by coincidence, later, we went to a restaurant that, I think, offers an object lesson in exactly what Doug is afraid of.<br />
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</span><b>Friday evening: <a href="http://www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/grill.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Frontera Grill</span></a>.</b><span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><br />
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For over twenty years, Rick Bayless has been bringing to Chicago diners the authentic Mexican food he's encountered on his travels south of the border. His empire has three faces: There's Topolobampo, which has a fine-dining feel (with prices to match), and his most recent venture, Xoco, is a grab-and-go sort of quick-meal eatery. Frontera Grill is the original, the flagship, a mid-priced establishment in the heart of downtown.<br />
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<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm1B-z1gI/AAAAAAAAANc/gae-By3MHnk/s1600-h/fronteraexterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm1B-z1gI/AAAAAAAAANc/gae-By3MHnk/s320/fronteraexterior.jpg" /></a></center><br />
Bayless himself is a well-known figure. He's been on public television for decades; his half-dozen cookbooks have been best-sellers; and <a href="http://www.fronterakitchens.com/shopping/food"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Frontera merchandise</span></a> has been appearing in grocery stores nationwide. A couple of months ago, Bayless won Bravo's first "Top Chef Masters" competition. His high profile and relentlessly good-natured promotion have kept the crowds coming at his Clark Street headquarters.<br />
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The Princess and I met our dining companions, all three Chicago locals, a few minutes before our scheduled reservation. The hostess told us they were running late, and it would be a little while before we'd get our table. We took the <a href="http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/restaurant-pager.htm"><span style="color: #cc0000;">pager</span></a> and elbowed our way into the bar for a cocktail. The place was jammed, and deafeningly loud, so we wedged ourselves into a corner and ordered, and drank, standing up.<br />
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Half an hour after our reservation time, the pager buzzed, and we threaded our way back to the front. The hostess led us on a weaving path through the over-crowded dining room, squeezing past tables and dodging customers and servers in the narrow walkways. We crammed ourselves into a corner table and began reviewing the menu.<br />
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None of us ever having been there, the Chicagoans included, we decided to ask our server for advice. She was sweet and fun, and obviously proud to work at Frontera; but she was also clearly overworked, with too many tables on her radar. For example, after she described the entree specials, I asked if she knew the source of the seafood (not an uncommon question from serious diners). She said she wasn't sure, and then paused. I requested that she find out before I make my decision. She composed herself for a moment, clearly aware that this meant another couple of minutes before she could get our order in, and then nodded and went to check.<br />
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All through dinner, there was this subtle pressure to keep things moving. It wasn't overpowering, or obnoxious, and didn't really interfere, but it was unmistakable. This isn't all that surprising, because the place was jammed wall to wall with people having a great time. It's obvious that everyone is there for the scene, to have cocktails and chatter and laugh. In this situation, people will sit at a table and socialize, taking their time eating, which plays havoc with the restaurant's reservation schedule. At a place like Frontera, which is popular and in-demand, this creates uncomfortable tension between competing objectives: The restaurant wants to move people in and out, to serve as many parties as possible; but the diners want to hang out and enjoy the boisterous energy. In this equation, the food is secondary.<br />
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And that's too bad, because the food is actually pretty good.<br />
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<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm0QmF_uI/AAAAAAAAANU/2CyXMgJHzzo/s1600-h/fronterafood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Sspm0QmF_uI/AAAAAAAAANU/2CyXMgJHzzo/s320/fronterafood.jpg" /></a></center><br />
Our appetizer starters — empanadas, matchstick fruits with spices, stuffed mushrooms — were all simple and flavorful. We also got a ceviche sampler, which was very fresh and nicely balanced. Our entrees were expertly prepared; the meats were beautifully cooked (even the fish special I chose was perfectly rare, exactly as I'd asked), and the sides were good complements to the centerpiece proteins. Desserts were nice, with attention to texture as well as flavor.<br />
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It's a conventional dining experience, to be sure: appetizers, entrees featuring a big hunk of meat surrounded by starches and vegetables, followed by dessert. The difference at Frontera is that the Mexican recipes are scrupulously authentic. (Given my family background, Mexican food is something I know a bit about. I may need to learn Persian cooking, which is the point of this blog, but as far as Mexican dining is concerned, I can tell you, Frontera gets it right.)<br />
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The sad thing is that I don't think most of the restaurant's patrons really know the difference. If pressed, I'd be surprised if the majority of the people could explain what distinguishes a plate at Frontera from the roughly equivalent version at, say, <a href="http://www.chevys.com"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Chevys</span></a>, or another corporate chain offering Americanized Tex-Mex.<br />
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Why should I be concerned about everybody else? Why can't I just enjoy the food in front of me, and tune out the rest? Because, as a service business, the restaurant needs to respond to, and take care of, the needs of its diners. And with people coming in just to hang out and party, without much regard for the food as long as it's reasonably tasty, the feel of the restaurant, overall, is drifting toward a fairly corporate experience. This is supposed to be the flagship for the Rick Bayless project, bringing true Mexican food to the U.S., but the individual character of the chef, and the particularity of his mission, is being diluted by the day-to-day reality of the business. This definitely affects how it feels to be there; I had to work hard to perceive the food amid the distractions.<br />
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That doesn't mean we didn't have a good time. We leaned in close so we could hear each other amid the hubbub, and we shared bites from one another's plates. We grinned and yummed our way through dinner, and let ourselves be carried away a bit by the energetic environment. At the end of the night, we were quite satisfied; the company was great, the food was good, and the price was right.<br />
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But, thinking back, I don't really remember the night in terms of specifics. In a lot of ways, it was less the proud focus of an individual chef's life's work, and more like a higher-end chain restaurant — like a Buca di Beppo, say, or maybe Cheesecake Factory. I wouldn't necessarily choose, myself, to patronize one of those places, but I'm happy to go with friends and family when invited (I'm not a <i>total</i> snob). I just keep in mind that the emphasis will be on socializing, and not eating.<br />
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And it's unfortunate, to me, that that's what Frontera Grill seems to be turning into, or has become. Rick Bayless is a better chef than that, and he has one of the world's great (and underrated) cuisines at his disposal. He's not presiding over an empire; he has three restaurants, right next to each other: one fine-dining, one mainstream, one quick-and-casual. And yet it feels like you're in some outpost of a huge chain. Thankfully, what's on the plate is still better than chain food, but danger signs abound.<br />
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And right there, I think, is the big, blaring warning that Doug Sohn hears every time he's approached with the prospect of expanding his humble hot-dog eatery into a multi-store culinary kingdom.<br />
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And Hot Doug's is exactly what I found myself thinking about as I reflected on Frontera afterwards. The quality of the food at the two places — taken on their own terms, in the sense of what they're trying to achieve — is probably comparable. Still, at the end of the day, I was remembering Hot Doug's with much more fondness than Frontera. And I seriously think that the service experience is what made the difference.<br />
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At Hot Doug's, we were face to face with Doug himself for probably three or four minutes; at Frontera, we got personal attention from staff (hostess, servers) for maybe four times that. But I still felt like we really "met" Doug, and were recognized and welcomed, in a way that we didn't get at Frontera. There — again, like at a chain restaurant — we, as customers, were treated as minimized entities, like freight to be shipped to the table, fed, and shipped out. Given the choice, I would much rather go stand in line at the hot dog place.<br />
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So what does this have to do with Persian cooking?<br />
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There's a concept in Iranian culture called <i>tarof</i> (or "tarouf," or "taarof"). The word itself doesn't have a translation in English; it's a code of conduct governing the relationship between host and guest. It's not about rules of behavior for one or the other exclusively: rather, it defines how both parties are supposed to interact with one another. Basically, the host offers the guest everything in the house, short of the shirt off his own back, and the guest politely refuses all offers, claiming to want not even a glass of water. Host and guest dance around each other, negotiating, in subtext, what will <i>actually</i> be offered, and accepted.<br />
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The Wikipedia article is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taarof"><span style="color: #cc0000;">here</span></a>; or, you can let this very funny British-Iranian comedian tell you about it:<br />
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Now, I'll be honest: I've never really understood <i>tarof.</i> I've certainly had it explained to me, but it's been difficult to grasp, mostly because I haven't grown up up with it. For native Iranians, it's totally natural to engage in this implicit negotiation, to do-si-do around one another for a while before arriving at some mutually (and socially) acceptable compromise. We in the U.S. are much more direct: if you offer me something, and I want it, I'll take it; and if I offer you something and you refuse, I won't offer it again. Which makes me, according to the rules of Iranian society, rude and uncultured.<br />
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I will say, I do recognize <i>tarof</i> when it's done badly. In one household the Princess and I occasionally visit, the couple divides this responsibility; one of them makes conversation, while the other sits silently, watching the guests with predatory attention, looking for opportunities to leap forward and be hospitable. The problem is, it's done without grace, and is aggressive and ostentatious.<br />
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It goes like this: "Would you like some fruit? Yes? Good, here's the plate. Oh, you only had one piece? Perhaps you're tired of fruit; would you like some pastry instead? I'll just shift the fruit plate to the other side of the table, and move the pastries closer to you. Well, now, I don't see you eating pastry. Let me refill your tea cup. You don't want more tea? All right, I'll be back with some water. And as long as I'm up, I'll move the fruit plate closer to you again, in case you've changed your mind. Wait, let me hold the plate right up to your face, so you can get a clear view of your options."<br />
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In situations like this, it's clear that for many Iranians, <i>tarof</i> is treated as something of a competitive sport, an opportunity not to simply be gracious, but to out-gracious one another. It's an obvious contradiction — <i>Look how modest I am! No, look at <b>me</b>, I'm the most modest person ever!</i> It's crazy; but it's a core element of Persian culture.<br />
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And yet — going to Hot Doug's and Frontera on the same day provided a unique, and illuminating, juxtaposition.<br />
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The difference between the two restaurant experiences is simple: Doug, basically, means it. He is a natural host. It takes stamina, obviously, but his personality makes him a perfect fit for his role. At Frontera, by contrast, the hospitality is manufactured, and deployed only to the degree necessary to maintain complacency in the patrons. It's just above the threshold at which diner discontent starts to become a problem for the business.<br />
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Some of you will be getting the picture, I think. We don't have <i>tarof</i> in this country, so what's happening at Frontera isn't a perfect match for the Iranian custom, but the clear contrast between Frontera and Hot Doug's helps illuminate, at least for me, what <i>tarof</i> is really about.<br />
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As I see it, some people are naturally gracious, naturally generous. Some people, it goes without saying, are not. And most people fall somewhere in the middle.<br />
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In the U.S., we're familiar with the experience of, for example, sending out party invites, and hearing offers of assistance from some proportion of the attendees. "Can I bring something?" people will say, or, "Can I come early and help set up?" Other people make no offer, and simply show up empty-handed. And even among those who do make some kind of offer, there's a fraction who fail to follow through on their agreement, and either "flake out" or bring less than they said they would. We're used to this; we simply accept that some people will be pleasant, and some will be jerks (albeit, in some cases, temporarily), and adapt accordingly.<br />
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What <i>tarof</i> does, as I see it, is turn this around. Rather than tolerating people's selfishness, it mandates a cultural code of generosity. Elaborate social behaviors have arisen and evolved around the expectation of graciousness.<br />
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The reality, however, is that even with such a code, you still have the same basic proportions of people who are naturally generous versus naturally selfish. Some people are genuinely, unaffectedly gracious, and <i>tarof</i> comes easily and organically to them; it's basically how they'd act anyway, and <i>tarof</i> just gives them a consistent framework to organize and channel their energies. Many more people would like to be gracious, or at least want to be perceived as such, but it doesn't happen without effort and conscious attention; for them, <i>tarof</i> offers a clear-cut rulebook they can follow. Their behavior will be a little artificial, necessarily, but at least they're working to fit in.<br />
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And then you have the jerks, the people who, in the U.S., say they'll bring beer to your party but show up at the door bringing only a lame excuse that clearly says they had no intention of fulfilling their promise — or the people who, party after party, never offer to help in any way. Maybe, under <i>tarof</i>, it's exactly these sorts of jackholes who make a nuisance of themselves, calling flamboyant attention to their own conduct. Maybe they're the ones who give the tradition a bad name, who deliberately and scrupulously over-observe the expected manners. Maybe this is what creates such annoyance about the whole idea of <i>tarof</i>, per the video clip above.<br />
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I could be reaching too far on this, of course; I could be indulging in unfounded speculation about a still-unfamiliar culture based on the lucky happenstance of an interesting experience. Maybe the Princess will chuckle and roll her eyes and say, "Yes, dear, you're very smart," which is code for, stop being a doofus. For now, though, I'm going to treat it as an operating hypothesis, and see where it takes me.<br />
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And if I'm not wrong, if it turns out there's something to it, then I'll get to be amused that an insight about Persian culture came about because I had a Mexican dinner after a quintessentially American lunch.<br />
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<b>Next, and last in this series:</b> A meal beyond imagination.<br />
<br />
</span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-3884820473069254192009-10-01T15:32:00.000-07:002009-10-01T15:44:08.628-07:00A foodie interlude — Chicago (part two)<span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;">The Chicago restaurant adventure gifted me by the Princess ran from Thursday to Sunday. Here, in order of attendance, is how it all went down.<br />
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</span><b>Thursday night: <a href="http://motorestaurant.com/"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Moto</span></a>.</b><span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><br />
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Before I talk about the restaurant proper, I need to explain something. There's a relatively new subgenre in the fine dining world called "molecular cuisine" or "molecular gastronomy." It's also classified as "postmodern" or "experimental" food, among other labels. The most famous practitioner is Ferran Adrià, whose Spanish restaurant <a href="http://www.theworlds50best.com/module/acms_winners?group_id=1&item_id=38"><span style="color: #cc0000;">El Bulli</span></a> has been setting the standard for cutting-edge cuisine for many years. The idea behind the approach is to use the latest food technology to transform conventional dishes and ingredients into unexpected forms, surprising the diner's eye and taste buds. Adrià is the guy who came up with foam, for example, and lately he's been spinning foie gras into cotton candy, along with <a href="http://www.time.com/time/innovators/culinary/profile_adria.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">other experiments</span></a>. Chefs around the world have followed his lead, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wylie_Dufresne"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Wylie Dufresne in New York</span></a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heston_Blumenthal"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Heston Blumenthal outside London</span></a>.<br />
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Many tradition-minded critics reject this kind of food, accusing it of being coldly scientific, and suggest that the interest in chemistry and technical innovation, the transformation of kitchen into laboratory, distracts from the sheer pleasure of eating. Personally, I think those assertions are hogwash; there is tremendous pleasure in food that stimulates the mind as well as the tongue. Arguments about technology are even dumber, because unless you're cooking meat on a stick over an open fire, you're using something somebody had to invent at some point. It's not as if the Druids suddenly shoveled perfectly-made pressure cookers and waffle irons out of their peat bogs, after all. It's fine if you don't like it, of course — food is, quite literally, a matter of taste — but the critical position that this kind of cooking is objectively "bad" is simply stupid and unsupportable.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Now, that doesn't mean it's always brilliant — putting foam on a plate just to put foam on a plate is equally as pointless as melting cheese on something just because it's cheese. And, yes, some chefs do lose sight of their objectives, and obsess over transforming the temperatures, shapes, and textures of ingredients without stopping to ask themselves <i>why</i> they're doing it, which can create a train wreck at the table.<br />
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But when molecular gastronomy is used correctly, chefs and restaurants are able to give their diners a truly unique experience, elevating the food into the realm of culinary theater, treating the plate as a venue for something approaching performance art. At its best, this type of food is thought-provoking, surprising, and occasionally hilarious. It confronts the diner with their unspoken assumptions about food, and expands the boundaries of what it really means to eat.<br />
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Chicago's <b>Moto</b>, headed by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/technology/circuits/03chef.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Homaro Cantu</span></a>, is one of these next-generation establishments. It sets itself apart from similar eateries by indulging in the furthest extremes of whimsy; whereas some molecular gastronomists present their restaurants as somber culinary temples (and reject the "MG" label), apparently pursuing the serious-gourmet-food designation the harsher critics deny them, Moto goes the opposite direction, embracing a playful silliness bordering on the ridiculous. It's Barnum and Bailey on a plate, complete with clowns and dancing bears. Metaphorically, I mean. Putting an <i>actual</i> dancing bear on the table would be a health code violation. I assume.<br />
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And clowns, as they say, taste funny.<br />
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So you have an idea of what I'm talking about, consider this: At Moto, <i>you eat the menu.</i> The server brings you a piece of cardstock about the size of an index card, with ragged edges. Printed on one side is the ten-course tasting menu. On the reverse is the twenty-course grand tour. You review the menu, and make your selection. And then — you eat it. On our visit, the menu was stiff and crunchy, and tasted like garlic bread.<br />
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An even better example was a late course in which conventional Southern flavors were reassembled in a truly unique visual configuration... Well, see for yourself:<br />
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<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SsUPocm__6I/AAAAAAAAANE/XAEbWSifHHg/s1600-h/motocigar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SsUPocm__6I/AAAAAAAAANE/XAEbWSifHHg/s320/motocigar.jpg" /></a><br />
</center><br />
Wrap your brain around this: It looks like a cigar, but it's not. Basically, it's a pulled-pork sandwich. Seriously.<br />
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The center of the "cigar" is filled with slow-braised meat (and vinegared accents), contained in a wrap of gently wilted collard greens. The cigar band is more edible paper, and the "ash" is a mix of slightly crushed white and dark sesame seeds. And the plating device, you'll note, is an ashtray. The dish arrives in front of you, and your brain says, <i>Urk.</i> Your nose immediately begins searching for the familiar musky-sweet aroma of cigar smoke, but it's not there. Your stomach lurches slightly as you realize you're expected to pick this thing up, this unappetizing Freudian stink bomb, and <i>eat</i> it.<br />
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When this appeared, the Princess and I stared at it, and at each other. Then we started laughing, and finally, we ate the cigar. And it was <i>delicious.</i><br />
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That's pretty much how it goes at Moto: the flavors are familiar and fulfilling, even if the presentations are unusual, ranging to the outlandish. That cigar dish has been a classic at Moto for a while, so if you go, you're likely to see it. The other dishes rotate in and out as the experimenters in the kitchen explore the boundaries of their creativity. What doesn't change, though, is their obvious interest in staying right in the center of the sweet spot for recognizable and satisfying tastes.<br />
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In fact, if there's anything disappointing about Moto, it's that their food isn't <i>more</i> challenging. Many of the courses we had weren't just inspired by but deeply rooted in classic junk-food fare, from <a href="http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q99/Jenn8866/FOOD/WordPress/TGIFridaysPotatoSkins.jpg"><span style="color: #cc0000;">potato skins</span></a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%27more"><span style="color: #cc0000;">s'mores</span></a>. Something strange is put in front of you, something you don't recognize at all. Then you take a bite, and sense memories explode within you.<br />
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As you eat, it's easy to imagine the scene in the kitchen: The creative team gathers around a takeout box from TGIFriday's or Chili's, and as they pull out one salty grease bomb after another, they say to themselves, "We know people love eating these things, so let's figure out how to put that experience on a plate while eliminating all the bad stuff that makes you feel guilty about it." The result of this effort is, say, the very best version of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_wings"><span style="color: #cc0000;">buffalo wings</span></a> you've ever had. That may well be a laudable achievement, but at the end of the day, it's still just a buffalo wing, even if it does look like this:<br />
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<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SsUT986gUWI/AAAAAAAAANM/HDacKy6jI2k/s1600-h/motobuffwing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SsUT986gUWI/AAAAAAAAANM/HDacKy6jI2k/s320/motobuffwing.jpg" /></a></center><br />
You are, in other words, not <i>tasting</i> anything particularly new. The mismatch between what you're <i>seeing</i> and what you find in your mouth does create an enjoyably fascinating experience, sometimes remarkably so. But despite Moto's cutting-edge reputation, it turns out they aren't scrapping the whole rulebook. They want you to be uncertain, perhaps even uncomfortable, as you examine each new dish; but when you bring the fork to your mouth, they want you to relax into happiness.<br />
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The tension here, the conflict between the kitchen's desire to shake you up and yet still give you a friendly hug with every dish, is evident in the occasionally-too-rehearsed patter spoken by the servers as they deliver each course. It's clear that they're accustomed to people being thrown a bit by the food, so they've developed some routine descriptions to help hand-hold guests through the meal. As soon as I figured out that this was what they were doing, I started interrupting (carefully and politely), asking questions about various aspects of each plate, hoping to communicate that I didn't need the overly-memorized "welcome to what we do" speech for every course. With rare exceptions, they refused to be parted from their scripts, which became increasingly tedious. With the restaurant having the profile it does, you'd think the staff would be able to adapt a bit when they recognize the diner at the table as a non-newbie.<br />
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That was a minor complaint, though, and in general the meal was very successful, entertaining and delicious and thought-provoking. I'd definitely recommend a visit, and would be happy to eat there again, after a suitable pause to allow Ringmaster Cantu and his staff to concoct a whole new lineup of circus acts.<br />
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Which leads to the question: How can I contextualize all of this into the current Persian-food cooking adventure?<br />
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You may be surprised, given the unbridled wackiness of the Moto experience, but the lessons here are actually pretty obvious to me. Based on this dinner, I would describe Moto's mission as, simply, "comfort food, evolved." Take something familiar and delicious, reorganize it to offer some sensory surprise, and there you go.<br />
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Consider, for example, Moto's approach to French onion soup. The classic dish has deeply caramelized onions in a bit of broth; that's topped with bread and cheese, which is melted under the broiler until just browned. Very hearty flavor, very smooth and satisfying in the mouth. The Moto version keeps the aroma and taste, but reworks the mouthfeel. You get a shallow bowl with deeply cooked onions, and a smear of cheese across the back. The server adds a splash of caramel-colored broth, which further softens the onions and melts down some of the cheese smear. Topping everything is a puffed-onion chip, which tastes like a Funyun, and provides the starchy crunch that in the classic soup is found in the crouton. It's an extremely thoughtful reorganization of a very familiar dish, and forces you to think hard about the original — what you like about it, what you might miss in this version, what's not in this version that you <i>don't</i> miss, and so on. As a result of eating this, the next time I have the classic soup, I will slow down and really savor the luxurious softness of everything as it coats my mouth. That's really the heart of the dish, and I know this because Moto's dish reminded me of what's important here.<br />
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You see what I'm getting at?<br />
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Iranian food is very much about comfort. Start with a familiar base (typically onion), build up flavors (sweet, sour, savory), incorporate aroma (herbs, saffron), and present it as a mound of deliciousness in a family setting. As I've said in previous entries, the cuisine is very, <i>very</i> old, developed over hundreds and thousands of years, which means it's dominated by a number of classic preparations. One of the interesting things about eating with (and cooking for) Persians is that, at the table, while you will frequently hear the compliment, "This tastes good," you will just as frequently hear someone say, "This tastes <i>correct.</i>"<br />
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It's the old two-edged sword of tradition. On the one hand, something is traditional precisely because it has been found, consistently, over a very long time, to be good, and to work. If you stick to it, you'll be reasonably assured of success. On the other hand, unthinking adherence to tradition can be a trap; it creates a sort of procedural prison from which it's difficult to extricate oneself, in order to consider new ideas. Many of the world's great cuisines, from time to time, have found themselves straightjacketed by old thinking, at risk of becoming "museum" food; consider how, in France, "nouvelle" cooking was basically a revolt against the stern codification of Carême and Escoffier.<br />
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Since I'm working straight out of <i>New Food of Life</i>, and sticking very close to the recipes as written, I am consciously allowing my cooking to be limited by this very traditional mindset. I'm happy to be hemmed in, for two reasons. First, I need to learn what I'm doing; I have to understand the rules before I can start to tinker with them. I mean, I can't install the gargoyles on the eaves until I'm sure the foundation is stable. And second, because the food is still largely unfamiliar to me, even the stodgiest old recipe is very new on my tongue. It's not fair to call something "museum" food if I've never visited the museum, right? As far as I'm concerned, I don't care if a recipe is a hundred years old, or a thousand; if it tastes good, it tastes good. And, in general, Persian food tastes pretty damn good.<br />
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Nevertheless, even as I carefully execute recipe after recipe as shown on the page, I am pondering, in the back of my mind, opportunities to put my own personal stamp on the food. How might I reorganize this dish, I ask myself, to put forward its best qualities, the things that make it a classic, but in an interesting new way? At the end of the stuffed-potato entry, I mentioned finding a variation on the recipe, where the potatoes are mashed and used to make croquettes; that's a good example. Further: Could I incorporate the torshi, or the yogurt, directly in the kufteh? Can I make a saffron pasta instead of rice? Maybe with rice flour, like <i>ho fun</i> in China?<br />
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Naturally, there's a risk in doing that, in departing from tradition. Classic dishes are classics for a reason. Change the preparation, and you may lose something ineffable, and wind up with an inferior plate of food. Maybe the overall flavor profile won't be as robust, as satisfying. Maybe the balance will be off. Maybe it'll actually taste actively <i>bad.</i> You have to be careful about this sort of experiment; maybe it'll be successful, and your diners will be amazed and impressed — but maybe it'll be a catastrophe, and someone will be dispatched to retrieve a chicken bucket from KFC.<br />
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(Naturally, any sort of departure from the classic approach will inevitably offend the close-minded traditionalists, the people who say the food is "correct" rather than <i>good.</i> Those people, I don't care about. They want to eat museum food, they can suck my Renoir.)<br />
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Consideration of that risk is exactly why the food at Moto was so instructive. As far out in left field they get with the composition of the ingredients, they never lose track of the flavor; they never forget that we want to enjoy what we eat. The food may be doing spinning gyrations on the plate, but when we put it in our mouth, we smile and sigh. That cigar dish is completely off the wall, but if you were to tear it down and make a little pile out of it, it'd fit perfectly in the potluck line at a Virginia church social. It's hilariously grotesque when it appears in front of you, but in terms of flavor and chew, it's classic Southern cooking, to the core.<br />
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And that's exactly what I need to bear in mind, as I build my Persian-cooking repertoire. I really enjoy taking recipes apart and reassembling them, but just as at Moto, I can't lose sight of why I'm making the food in the first place. It's definitely true that, for someone like me, Moto provides solid reassurance that you can take a dish really, really far — you can push it to a ridiculous extreme in its organization and presentation. Without question, it's tremendous fun to reconfigure the ingredients, and try to delight the people at my table.<br />
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But at the end of the day, if it doesn't taste good, then what's the point?<br />
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<b>Tomorrow:</b> Two of Chicago's best-known and best-loved food destinations.<br />
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</span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-48808688872593344382009-09-30T23:42:00.000-07:002009-09-30T23:53:04.049-07:00A foodie interlude — Chicago (part one)<span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Although I love to cook, and frequently do, I don't make dinner every single night. Sometimes, I like to go out, and let a professional handle the cooking duties. As I said in the first couple of entries of this blog, there are some fantastic restaurants around, in my hometown and elsewhere, and I'd be crazy if I didn't take advantage of opportunities to visit them.<br />
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And despite what the Princess and my family might tell you, I am not, I assure you, crazy. Not completely, anyway. (Okay, hush.)<br />
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Naturally, being a foodie, when I have a memorable restaurant experience, I am consumed with the desire to talk about it with anyone who will listen. If you have a foodie in your life, you already know this; after their first visit to New York, for example, they spend the next several days, or weeks, totally failing to shut up about how amazing the city's pizza joints are, the difference made by the super-hot coal-fired ovens, the unique crunchy-chewy texture of the crust, and on and on, until you just want to hit them in the face with a hammer. I'm not that bad (I hope), because I at least try to confirm interest in my listener before I start babbling, but I definitely do have the impulse.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>And that includes here, on the blog. I have a platform to discuss food, so when I have some food to discuss, it's unsurprising that I'd want to write a little something here about my experience. The tricky bit is, "Cooking the Food of Love" has a clear mission, and a narrowly defined subject. I don't want to just blather on, regardless of how interesting the restaurant might have been (and in this case, I think it's <i>very</i> interesting). Yes, I want to talk about the adventure, but I also, ideally, will relate it to what I'm doing here. A tall order, given the agenda at hand, as you will soon see — but I've given it my best shot.<br />
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So if you're looking for another piece of the <i>New Food of Life</i> puzzle, an actual recipe formally dissected and presented, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'll get back to that routine shortly. As noted above, this series won't be entirely devoid of Persian-food content, but it won't be the usual. I hope you enjoy it anyway.<br />
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Because I certainly did. Unreservedly and enthusiastically.<br />
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The context is this: The Princess and I just shared a birthday milestone. In one of those odd life coincidences, we discovered, shortly after we met, that our birthdays are exactly four weeks apart. And not just the date, either, but also the year: She was born literally twenty-eight days after I was. (Yeah, I know. I'm robbin' the cradle, here. Dirty old man, dirty old man.) We came into the world on opposite sides of it, her in Tehran, me half an hour outside of Los Angeles. It's funny, isn't it, how life can bring two people together after such a circuitous journey.<br />
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We've been celebrating our combined birthday milestone in lots of ways. Our families have been exceptionally generous with party arrangements and gifts, and we've gotten to see, and hear from, many friends over the last month. The absolute highlight, though, came from the Princess: Her present to me was a restaurant crawl in Chicago. Four days, three nights, all about the food, in one of the greatest restaurant cities in the world.<br />
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Yeah, I know. You don't have to say it. Believe me, I say it to myself many times every single day: I'm a lucky, lucky bastard.<br />
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And now, I'm going to tell you all about it.<br />
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<b>Tomorrow:</b> Restaurant number one.<br />
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</span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-65726677932080133832009-09-21T20:47:00.000-07:002009-09-21T21:00:25.287-07:00Dolmeh-ye sibzamini — or, something I will never make for my mom<span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><i><b>Note:</b> The National Council of Inadvertently Hilarious Food has asked me to warn you, the reader of this blog, that the following entry contains at least one picture whose viewing may trigger the violent ejection of liquids from your nose. Please proceed with appropriate caution.</i><br />
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I mentioned, in my second entry here, the "meat problem." As I review recipes and plan my journey through <i>New Food of Life</i>, I have been struck by the carnivorous tone of the book. Outside of the dessert chapter, it's rare to find a dish that isn't centered on meat; everything incorporates some form of beef, or lamb, or chicken, or is cooked with broth. The first ingredient in nearly every recipe in the "Vegetables" chapter, it seems, is "ground meat." The vegetables aren't prepared and eaten simply as vegetables; the meat is blended right in.<br />
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This, obviously, is not how we're used to eating in America. We're accustomed to meals composed of discrete elements, of easily identifiable and entirely separate players. Here's the protein centerpiece (pick one: steak, fried chicken, slab of meat loaf), here's the vegetable side (corn, broccoli with cheese, green salad), and here's the starch (mashed potato, garlic bread, dinner roll). With the exception of soups and stews, our plates are carefully demarcated into taxonomic zones, each occupied by a representative of its type. (Idle speculation: perhaps the inevitable result of our obsession with the food groups?)<br />
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Many international cuisines don't bother with this slightly fussy partitioning, and are happy to throw everything together. There's the Chinese stir-fry, of course, or some biryanis, or Thai curry stews, to name just the more obvious examples. Heck, how about pizza? And Persian recipes are no different. When you think about it, why not break down the borders between the food types, and make a single dish containing everything? It's just a different way of thinking about eating.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Now, it should be said that the book's preoccupation with meat, as I understand it, is not necessarily strictly traditional. If I'm hearing the Princess correctly, Iran's rural population, in practice, can't always afford to feed themselves meat at every meal; they have better things to spend their money on, and slaughtering valuable livestock is not done on a whim. They carefully save their resources in order to treat themselves and their family and neighbors during celebrations (weddings and such) and holiday festivals. Apparently, it wasn't until the slow rise of an affluent middle class, and the concentration of wealth in the cities, that meat became an expected part of regular eating, and only among certain segments of the population. Even now, the Princess tells me, it's still common in the hinterlands to sit at a table whose dishes are largely vegetarian, with protein added only in the form of eggs and dairy.<br />
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Naturally, this leads me to ponder the historicity of the recipes in <i>New Food of Life.</i> It makes sense, given that the book targets a middle-class readership, for the recipes to reflect their upscale roots. And, sure enough, author Najmieh Batmanglij has written other cookbooks, including <i>Silk Road Cooking</i>, which is a collection of vegetarian recipes. In that book's introduction, she says:<br />
<blockquote>When contemplating the cookery of Iran or of the Middle East, for example, most Westerners think of meat kabobs, which certainly are popular fare, especially as street food and for celebrations. But Persians eat meat sparingly at home and, as in every other culture, save extravagant meat dishes for special occasions and grand festivities. On the other hand, they prepare a wide range of grain, vegetable and fruit dishes, delicious creations barely known outside of the country.</blockquote>Which brings me to the selection of this week's recipe. These apparent contradictions were buzzing around the front of my mind as I leafed through the "Vegetables" chapter, reading recipe after recipe in which a core of meat-based stuffing is surrounded by a non-meat enclosure of some kind.<br />
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And then I landed on the description of one dish, and something clicked. I said to myself, "Oh, the hell with it. I'm makin' meat and potatoes."<br />
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Hence: <i>dolmeh-ye sibzamini.</i><br />
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"Sibzamini" means "potato," so that part's obvious. The word "dolmeh" may ring a bell for some people; you will probably recognize "dolma" (or "dolmades") from the menus of Greek restaurants. We're most familiar with this in the form of stuffed-and-wrapped grape leaves, containing a mix of rice, spices, and usually minced meat. There are lots of other versions, though. The word is originally Turkish, and means, literally, "thing that is stuffed (filled)." Basically, if you can fill a vegetable with a stuffing, you can make dolma.<br />
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Iran has the grape-leaf dolmeh, but other forms can be found. Cabbage-leaf dolmeh are common, for example (and I'll be making those shortly). <i>New Food of Life</i> has recipes for stuffing eggplants, bell peppers, tomatoes, and so on, and I'll get to all of them eventually. On this day, though, since I was simultaneously contemplating the differences between American and Persian food and the role of meat on the Persian table, the moment I saw the potato recipe, I knew it felt right. This, I thought, would be a fun way to sidestep the "meat problem" — I'll just do meat and potatoes, Iranian style: potato, stuffed with meat. On the side, I'll throw together a quick (and noncanonical) salad.<br />
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Here's the ingredient lineup:<br />
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<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaQJjCtyI/AAAAAAAAALk/ojF9V7GDRIA/s1600-h/A01_ingredients.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaQJjCtyI/AAAAAAAAALk/ojF9V7GDRIA/s320/A01_ingredients.JPG" /></a></center><br />
It's pretty obvious how this is going to come together. The ground beef, onion, herbs, and tomato paste make a filling, along with a bit of the liquid; the potatoes get hollowed out, and stuffed; and then more of the liquid is used to braise the filled potatoes. The eggs are the only vaguely unusual component: they get hard-boiled, chopped, and added to the stuffing.<br />
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After peeling the potatoes, though, I realized that the recipe doesn't make clear how they're supposed to be prepped. It says to cut off the tops, and then remove some of the potato flesh to make a shell. You can do this two ways, though — horizontally or vertically — and the book doesn't say which one. Do we lay the potato on its side, cut off a wide slice, and make it into a boat? Or cut off the tips, stand it on its end, and hollow it out like a chimney? I checked with the Princess, and she didn't know; she'd never had this dish before.<br />
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Trying to visualize the end product, I decided that the vertical presentation would be more fun and dramatic, and asked the Princess to help carve the potatoes while I sliced the onions. (She hates raw onions, and is sensitive to the smell. Whenever we're cooking together and divvying up tasks, I take the onion job.)<br />
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It's sort of an odd thing to do, so she had a bit of trial and error, figuring out the right knife, and the right way to do the carving. (If you try this yourself, a long, thin, serrated blade turned out to be the way to go.) And a few minutes later:<br />
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<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaQ0jNTiI/AAAAAAAAALs/tssNG3xtFPo/s1600-h/A02_carvedtaters.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaQ0jNTiI/AAAAAAAAALs/tssNG3xtFPo/s320/A02_carvedtaters.JPG" /></a></center><br />
She does nice work, eh? They look a little like bones, as for ossobuco.<br />
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Then the potatoes get sauteed until golden brown:<br />
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<center><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaRjnxmjI/AAAAAAAAAL0/-2jmJpPlWoE/s1600-h/A03_browntaters.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaRjnxmjI/AAAAAAAAAL0/-2jmJpPlWoE/s320/A03_browntaters.JPG" /></a></center><br />
This accomplishes two things. First, browning develops flavor, as I mentioned in the previous post. But just as important, for this dish, it gives the potatoes some structural integrity. They're peeled, and as they braise, they will soften. If they didn't have the crust, they'd simply fall apart, disintegrating into starchy slush. I mean, I like mashed potatoes just fine, but that's not what we're making here.<br />
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While the potatoes are working, I'm also browning the onions, of course. However, it's not the usual step: The recipe actually has me brown the onions and the ground beef <i>at the same time!</i><br />
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<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaTQEJUkI/AAAAAAAAAL8/WknyGzuEIE0/s1600-h/A04_onionsmeat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaTQEJUkI/AAAAAAAAAL8/WknyGzuEIE0/s320/A04_onionsmeat.JPG" /></a></center><br />
I know, it's totally, totally crazy. I felt like I was throwing out everything I'd learned up to this point.<br />
<br />
As that settles into the skillet, I carefully remove the browned potatoes from their oil, stand them up to drain, and grab the end caps that had been removed before the centers were carved out. Then I spend a minute or so rematching the pairs, comparing size and cut of each cap to make sure it goes with its parent potato. I know, I don't really <i>need</i> to do this. But I have the time, and I'm a little bit... let's say <i>particular</i> with my cooking, so I go ahead.<br />
<br />
<i>Let's see... Little one goes here...</i><br />
<br />
<i>This looks a bit bigger...</i><br />
<br />
<i>Oh, maybe the potato's upside down, maybe the cap goes on the other end...</i><br />
<br />
<i>Turn this a little bit... Okay, that fits...</i><br />
<br />
I take a quick break to stir the onion and meat in the skillet, and then return to my task.<br />
<br />
And after a few more moments, I've got everything matched.<br />
<br />
I step back to evaluate my handiwork.<br />
<br />
Behold.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaUSl0eeI/AAAAAAAAAME/rDOUwzN5u8I/s1600-h/A05_taterdongs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaUSl0eeI/AAAAAAAAAME/rDOUwzN5u8I/s320/A05_taterdongs.JPG" /></a></center><br />
Yeah. I know. I had the same reaction.<br />
<br />
I stood there for a moment, blinking, as if unable to process what I was seeing. I think I actually said, "Um," out loud.<br />
<br />
Then I started to laugh.<br />
<br />
"Hey, baby?" I said. "Come here and look at this."<br />
<br />
"Sure." The Princess appears next to me.<br />
<br />
A moment of silent consideration. The kitchen clock is ticking.<br />
<br />
This, just to remind you, is what she's looking at.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaUSl0eeI/AAAAAAAAAME/rDOUwzN5u8I/s1600-h/A05_taterdongs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaUSl0eeI/AAAAAAAAAME/rDOUwzN5u8I/s320/A05_taterdongs.JPG" /></a></center><br />
She has the same reaction I do. She stares blankly, and then she snickers.<br />
<br />
"This can't be right," I say.<br />
<br />
She nods. "I bet we were supposed to make boats," she says.<br />
<br />
"Yeah."<br />
<br />
But, too late now. And it doesn't really matter; I'm sure it's going to taste just fine. Plus, there's more cooking to do, including a braise in tomato juice. That will probably change the color considerably, not to mention the texture, thus reducing or eliminating the, uh, the visual effect.<br />
<br />
And, ultimately, it's just us having dinner. It's not like anybody else is going to see these things.<br />
<br />
<i>Hey, wait a minute...</i><br />
<br />
Anyway, I turn my back on our temporarily phallic dinner, and work on finishing up the meat stuffing.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaV82bDyI/AAAAAAAAAMM/YIPDHyMSGfs/s1600-h/A06_cookedfilling.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaV82bDyI/AAAAAAAAAMM/YIPDHyMSGfs/s320/A06_cookedfilling.JPG" /></a></center><br />
A little stirring and sauteeing later, and we're ready to stuff.<br />
<br />
I transfer the potatoes into the Dutch oven where they'll be braised, and begin spooning in the filling. And hey, they look better already.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaWUmmK3I/AAAAAAAAAMU/YQ8cF1BVCxI/s1600-h/A07_stufftaters.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaWUmmK3I/AAAAAAAAAMU/YQ8cF1BVCxI/s320/A07_stufftaters.JPG" /></a></center><br />
I was definitely curious about the amount of stuffing, and how far it would go in filling the potatoes. It seemed like quite a bit, and I was pretty sure there'd be extra; as I was working I was thinking, in the back of my mind, about what to do with it. An omelette the next morning, perhaps? Maybe a breakfast burrito?<br />
<br />
I needn't have worried. The proportion was almost perfect:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaXRJTozI/AAAAAAAAAMc/Bod6jdTsHok/s1600-h/A08_nofilling.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaXRJTozI/AAAAAAAAAMc/Bod6jdTsHok/s320/A08_nofilling.JPG" /></a></center><br />
Two mouthfuls later, and the skillet is empty.<br />
<br />
Almost ready to braise. All I need to do is add the tomato and stock, and replace the potato caps.<br />
<br />
Which gives me this very creepy result:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaYu2WsYI/AAAAAAAAAMk/MOjZnkOYhBo/s1600-h/A09_tatercaps.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaYu2WsYI/AAAAAAAAAMk/MOjZnkOYhBo/s320/A09_tatercaps.JPG" /></a></center><br />
<i>STOP LAUGHING.</i> What are you, twelve?<br />
<br />
I drop the lid on the Dutch oven, concealing the Dionysian tubers from the delicate eyes of the world, and set the timer for a good long braise. Periodically, I will be lifting the lid and spooning a bit of the liquid over the potatoes, keeping them moist. Because of the heat, my eyeglasses fog up a bit each time, obscuring my view of what's going on. Thankfully.<br />
<br />
While the potatoes are cooking, I whip up a lemony green-bean salad. It's not from the book, and there's no recipe; it's just an improvisation. Quickly braised beans, torn romaine, citrus vinaigrette, some toasted Marcona slivers, a little cheese — just something cold and green and crisp, alongside the meat-n-pataters.<br />
<br />
Finally, the timer goes off, indicating the potatoes should be done. I turn off the heat and remove the lid, and I find, to my chagrin, that one of the dolmeh has collapsed:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaZ4q6FHI/AAAAAAAAAMs/PRCgffj3Yp8/s1600-h/A10_collapse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgaZ4q6FHI/AAAAAAAAAMs/PRCgffj3Yp8/s320/A10_collapse.JPG" /></a></center><br />
The others are okay, though, and with a combination of a cautiously applied spatula and some painfully burned fingers, I get the stuffed potatoes out of the pot. I plate up a spoonful of the salad, and set the dolmeh next to it.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Srgaa-HvhJI/AAAAAAAAAM0/a0T8A8_HtbI/s1600-h/A11_dongplate.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/Srgaa-HvhJI/AAAAAAAAAM0/a0T8A8_HtbI/s320/A11_dongplate.JPG" /></a></center><br />
The Princess and I regard it with quiet bemusement. Then we eat.<br />
<br />
How does it taste?<br />
<br />
All by itself, a bit meh. The meat filling was delicious, but there was a lot of fairly bland potato starch, and its taste and texture was pretty overpowering. Adding <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torshi"><span style="color: #cc0000;">torshi</span></a> helped a lot; the sourness stimulates saliva production, making the potato much easier to eat. The next time I try something like this, I'll probably follow <a href="http://www.persianmirror.com/cuisine/side/side.cfm#sib"><span style="color: #cc0000;">this variation</span></a>, where the potatoes are cooked and mashed and formed into a ball to contain the stuffing, very much like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquette"><span style="color: #cc0000;">croquette</span></a>. That way, I can add some flavor directly to the potato, and more easily control the proportion of starch to filling. Maybe I could incorporate torshi and <a href="http://www.irantour.org/Iran/food/Mast.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">mast</span></a> directly into the stuffing. Hmmm.<br />
<br />
Oh, one more thing to mention: Before we ate, as we were eyeing the unfortunately suggestive object before us, the Princess touched my arm.<br />
<br />
"Wait a second," she said. "I have an idea."<br />
<br />
She laid the dolmeh on its side, and cut it open:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgacHrSI8I/AAAAAAAAAM8/l-7TtJah7LI/s1600-h/A12_betterplate.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrgacHrSI8I/AAAAAAAAAM8/l-7TtJah7LI/s320/A12_betterplate.JPG" /></a></center><br />
Now it sort of resembles a hot dog, which is sort of funny, and hardly authentic. But considering that it no longer looks like a <i>GIANT PENIS</i>, I have to conclude, it's a dramatic improvement.<br />
<br />
"Next time," we said, "we're carving the potatoes into boats."<br />
<br />
Yeah, except, here's the punchline:<br />
<br />
Browsing <i>New Food of Life</i> on a later night, I found a full-color picture of the completed dish. And after all of this, it turns out, we did it correctly: the potatoes are hollowed vertically, stood on end, and the caps are set on top. See for yourself, it's on page 44. Which means that this is a recipe that goes into the archive, because I can't think of anybody I'd be comfortable serving it to.<br />
<br />
Well, unless I'm asked to cater a bachelorette party. That'd be <i>awesome.</i><br />
<br />
Next up: C is for cookie.<br />
<br />
</span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-47376976389961099692009-09-16T15:55:00.000-07:002009-09-16T15:59:54.082-07:00Esfanaj-o-porteqal — or, orange you hungry?<span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;">As you might expect, after the preceding adventure into the land of "bonus meats" (an old term describing the nonstandard bits of the animal; look down the left side of <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19430118&id=bwsOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yHwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6136,1771508"><span style="color: #cc0000;">this 1943 newspaper page</span></a>), I was in the mood for something a little less, let's say, <i>intense.</i> I love to eat those unusual dishes, but the preparation can be a bit of a burden. And when I think about making comfort food, it's as much about the cooking as the eating.<br />
<br />
Few things say "comfort food" to me the way stew does. Thick, chunky, steaming with aroma: I start eating with a fork, and then I lift the bowl to drink the luscious gravy. And making a stew is hardly any effort; cut up a bunch of stuff, gently precook it in the right order, throw everything into a pot, add some liquid, and leave it for an hour or four. No sweat.<br />
<br />
In Persian food, stew is called <i>khoresh.</i> There are lots of different kinds, just as in the West. And the process for making them? Browsing through the Khoresh chapter, they all look easy peasy, same as their American cousins. There's a couple of small Iranian twists, of course, but overall, the khoresh seems like a straightforward adaptation of a very familiar approach. Cut, prep, dump, stew. Eat.<br />
<br />
Comfort food, here we come.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>I chose the particular khoresh sort of at random. Poking around in the chapter, I see a lot of promising-looking flavors. I'll get to all of them in time, but for now I want something middle-of-the-road; I want it to be interesting, but I also don't want to use all the really good ones too soon.<br />
<br />
The recipe for orange-spinach stew catches my eye. At first, it seems like an odd flavor match, but then I remember all the California-style salads I've had where a bed of baby spinach is dressed with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-_O4vJqRw"><span style="color: #cc0000;">supremes</span></a> of mandarin or whatever. Add a little meat, and you've essentially translated a familiar salad into stew form.<br />
<br />
By the way, a note on the name: In <i>New Food of Life</i>, the recipe is listed as "Esfanaj-o-porteqal (Saak)." <i>Esfanaj</i> is spinach, and <i>porteqal</i> is orange (which is also <i>narenj</i>, depending on context; <a href="http://www.iranian.com/GuiveMirfendereski/2005/December/Narangi/index.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">see here</span></a>). "Saak," I don't know what that is. I can't find a translation online; however, based on a lot of searching, I'm speculating that it's a corruption of "saag," which in India refers to a dish of stewed and/or pureed spinach (<a href="http://www.whats4eats.com/vegetables/saag-recipe"><span style="color: #cc0000;">more info</span></a>). The more I learn about the region's cuisine, the more I'm struck by how fluid the culinary borders really are; these folks have been traveling and trading for thousands of years, and it's not surprising to see a lot of blurry lines everywhere, both in recipes and in terminology. (Similarly, it's not an accident that the word "narenj," meaning orange, has an echo in the Spanish word "naranja.") Again, I'm speculating, so if someone with better knowledge wants to offer clarification in the comments, I'd be appreciative. And since I don't know for sure what it refers to, I've left it out of the post title, above.<br />
<br />
That having been established, let's proceed to the kitchen.<br />
<br />
These are my ingredients:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRJEmGKSI/AAAAAAAAAKE/B9P3OMjqtG8/s1600-h/A01_ingredients.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRJEmGKSI/AAAAAAAAAKE/B9P3OMjqtG8/s320/A01_ingredients.JPG" /></a></span></center><span style="color: black; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><br />
Pretty much what you'd expect. The spice jars are saffron (of course) and turmeric, and the chicken quarters are dark meat, which I think stands up better to stewing. (The recipe gives the option of either chicken or red meat.) The rice flour is an interesting item; it'll be used to thicken the broth, but I'm not used to seeing rice flour outside of Asian food. Checking with the Princess's mother, it's actually a fairly common ingredient, but Iranian cooks will typically make it themselves. Everybody has lots of rice in the pantry, so throwing a couple of handfuls into the grinder is easy. I wanted a finer texture, so I got a package.<br />
<br />
Also, the recipe calls for a large quantity of spinach, as you can see. No, that's an understatement; I need a <i>buttload.</i> Which meant, per the picture, filling my shopping cart with those sealed bags of salad. I always feel guilty buying them, especially this time, since I wound up with several wads of plastic to throw away. I would have preferred to visit the farmer's market, but it just didn't work out in the schedule. Next time.<br />
<br />
To begin prepping, first, grab my knife...<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRKkkVRBI/AAAAAAAAAKM/ql4o-ELCUO8/s1600-h/A02_knife.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRKkkVRBI/AAAAAAAAAKM/ql4o-ELCUO8/s320/A02_knife.JPG" /></a></center><br />
<i>So... pretty...</i> Wait, where was I?<br />
<br />
One of the onions gets sliced thinly, as usual, and the other is grated.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRLqu_AEI/AAAAAAAAAKU/7uDYpdo8UDU/s1600-h/A03_onion.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRLqu_AEI/AAAAAAAAAKU/7uDYpdo8UDU/s320/A03_onion.JPG" /></a></center><br />
I cut up the chicken, and throw it in a pan for a quick sear, along with the grated onion.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRM5b4TXI/AAAAAAAAAKc/aKJK77Q1OBo/s1600-h/A04_sautechicken.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRM5b4TXI/AAAAAAAAAKc/aKJK77Q1OBo/s320/A04_sautechicken.JPG" /></a></center><br />
This is pretty standard cookery, no matter what country you're in. Before stewing the meat, you want to give it a nice golden-brown crust. You're not cooking it through; that'll happen during the stewing phase. At this point, you just want some color on the meat. Some people will say you're "sealing in juices," but that of course is <a href="http://www.chow.com/stories/11751"><span style="color: #cc0000;">nonsense</span></a>. It's a particularly goofy assertion in this kind of situation, where the meat will be submerged in hot liquid for the bulk of the cooking time. No, all you're doing is developing <a href="http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/meat/INT-what-makes-flavor.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>flavor</i></span></a>; browned meat simply tastes better. Hardly surprising that this very common technique would be found in Iranian cooking.<br />
<br />
While that's working, I also have to steam the several pounds of spinach greens. This, as it turns out, is a bit of a challenge. Raw spinach is fairly loose, in the bag, and doesn't really want to pack tightly under the best of conditions; the weight required by the recipe, therefore, represents a surprisingly large volume. The average home cook, using, say, a bamboo steamer in a wok, or a steamer basket in a pot of water, will probably have to separate the spinach into several batches.<br />
<br />
I'm lucky to have a somewhat specialized piece of equipment, which allows me to steam all the spinach in just two passes:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRON7HLAI/AAAAAAAAAKk/hQO-BlDtcSI/s1600-h/A05_steamer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRON7HLAI/AAAAAAAAAKk/hQO-BlDtcSI/s320/A05_steamer.JPG" /></a></center><br />
As that finishes up, I see my chicken is about ready:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRPo0oCAI/AAAAAAAAAKs/tcAGvgQdswI/s1600-h/A06_chickenbrown.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRPo0oCAI/AAAAAAAAAKs/tcAGvgQdswI/s320/A06_chickenbrown.JPG" /></a></center><br />
So let's get the sliced onion browning:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRQx_SDaI/AAAAAAAAAK0/8o9XJfMYjXQ/s1600-h/A07_onionsaute.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRQx_SDaI/AAAAAAAAAK0/8o9XJfMYjXQ/s320/A07_onionsaute.JPG" /></a></center><br />
As that's underway, I pull the spinach out of the steamer. This is just the first half; amazing how much it shrinks down:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRR9vxDII/AAAAAAAAAK8/lZBRgjngWn4/s1600-h/A08_steamedspinach.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRR9vxDII/AAAAAAAAAK8/lZBRgjngWn4/s320/A08_steamedspinach.JPG" /></a></center><br />
Behind the spinach, on the left, is the orange juice that'll be going into the stew; on the right is the freshly squeezed lime juice.<br />
<br />
As the onions brown, the chopped parsley is added:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRTlDDHPI/AAAAAAAAALE/YBx0Ww9rzyU/s1600-h/A09_sauteparsley.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRTlDDHPI/AAAAAAAAALE/YBx0Ww9rzyU/s320/A09_sauteparsley.JPG" /></a></center><br />
Followed by the spinach:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRVqmM2aI/AAAAAAAAALM/3dsM0mLVmE8/s1600-h/A10_addspinach.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRVqmM2aI/AAAAAAAAALM/3dsM0mLVmE8/s320/A10_addspinach.JPG" /></a></center><br />
This is cooked for a little bit, and then the rest of the ingredients go in:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRWnXjqhI/AAAAAAAAALU/iBU_-MJ5C-U/s1600-h/A11_assemblestew.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRWnXjqhI/AAAAAAAAALU/iBU_-MJ5C-U/s320/A11_assemblestew.JPG" /></a></center><br />
And stewing commences.<br />
<br />
Note, incidentally, that there isn't any chicken stock or other broth here. The only liquid added is the juice (orange and a little lime). The rest of it is being given up by the spinach, the water absorbed and held during steaming. Pretty cool technique.<br />
<br />
An hour and a half later, along with a little bit of tinkering indicated by the recipe, and dinner is ready:<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRX7jN5mI/AAAAAAAAALc/BRx7mJvR4Eg/s1600-h/A12_plates.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SrFRX7jN5mI/AAAAAAAAALc/BRx7mJvR4Eg/s320/A12_plates.JPG" /></a></center><br />
This wasn't the most delicious stew I've ever made, but given what I was looking for, it hit the spot dead center. It smelled great; the chicken was tender, the spinach was on the verge of melting, and the tangy orange tied both together.<br />
<br />
If I were to do this again, I'd make a couple of tweaks, as follows:<br />
<br />
To begin with, it was a little undersalted. The recipe says to "adjust seasoning" late in the process, but I've been a little cautious there, for two reasons. First, I prefer to salt earlier during cooking than later; salt added early is incorporated into the food and makes it taste seasoned, whereas salt added later just tastes, well, salty. As I learn the proportions and techniques behind Iranian food, I'll be figuring out the balance of saltiness, so I can add the correct amount as early as possible. And, second, I know I have a heavier hand with the salt than some people, so when I'm cooking for others I have to hold back a bit. Between these two facts, I'm finding that my Iranian cooking, in general, is coming out underseasoned. That, obviously, will be fixed with experience.<br />
<br />
The other thing I'd do is try to fix the watery texture of the stew. Even though no broth was added, there's still a ton of moisture in the spinach. Some of it gets released when the spinach is added to the saute, and then it gets sucked back up again during stewing. The result, when plated, is a bit like squeezing a sponge. A few possible tricks come to mind (removing part of the spinach, pressing out the liquid, adding more rice flour to thicken, and stirring back in, for example).<br />
<br />
Oh, and the last thing I'd change? Serve <i>chelow</i>, saffron-steamed white rice, instead of the wild brown rice I chose. When I told the Princess what I was doing, she stared at me in disbelief. "Brown rice?" she said, blinking in confusion. "Not white rice?" Nope, I said, I'd like to try this. "But... that's not right!" she said. "Please, can I make white rice?" No, I said, I'm making dinner. "But it's not right!" This went on for half an hour, escalating in intensity, until she sounded like she was pleading for mercy from an executioner. I was firm, though; she's repeatedly told me she wants to eat brown rice instead of white, because it's healthier, and has insisted on my making the substitution wherever possible. And, with that in mind, I had something I wanted to try. So I resolutely stayed the course, despite the fact that her wounded expression made me feel like I was asking her to shave her head and dump all of her purses and jewelry in the landfill.<br />
<br />
The punchline: It would have been way better with white rice.<br />
<br />
Next up: A stuffed vegetable, and some highly inappropriate comedy.<br />
<br />
</span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-35984786082214708792009-09-10T15:24:00.000-07:002009-09-11T14:59:37.112-07:00Khorak-e zaban — or, how about some tongue?<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >I knew, when I launched this project, that I'd be exposed to some things I'd rarely (or never) cooked, or even eaten. Heck, that's what I was <i>hoping</i> for; it's sort of the point of the exercise.<br /><br />Nevertheless, despite the excitement about the prospect of the new, there's still the intimidation factor. Any time one attempts something one hasn't done before, there's the prospect of making mistakes and falling square on one's ass. Some of the recipes would be no sweat; for example, I've made lots of omelettes and frittate, and a kuku isn't all that different. But other recipes require me to handle ingredients I've never cooked, to wield my knife in ways I've never experienced.<br /><br />I was aware of that going in, so I planned to mix things up: do something easy, and follow with something difficult. I wouldn't let the daunting tasks pile up and loom; I wanted to knock them off here and there, building up the confidence bank and then spending it along the way. Which leads me to this, the third outing in my Persian cooking adventure.<br /><br />So what's my ingredient? Here's a hint:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqqZCq_sqVI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/WG8zx1IdLFc/s1600-h/cow-tongue.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 290px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqqZCq_sqVI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/WG8zx1IdLFc/s320/cow-tongue.jpg" alt="Moo." id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380280976027724114" border="0" /></a><a name='more'></a>That's right: beef tongue.<br /><br />Now, this is not to say I've never eaten tongue before. I have, fairly often. It's delicious, an underrated and underrepresented item on the American menu. I don't remember the first time I had it, but I know it was in a "classic" context, either a deli sandwich or a roadside taco, one of the places you're "supposed" to have it. Now, if I'm in a restaurant I trust, and I see tongue as an option, I'm as likely as not to choose it. I know people can react to the thought of eating tongue with squeamishness, but it doesn't deserve that response at all. Cooked properly, it's richly flavorful, and tender like butter.<br /><br />But while I've <i>eaten</i> lots of tongue, I had not, prior to this day, actually <i>cooked</i> it.<br /><br />Just to be clear, I didn't really expect the cooking, in the sense of the application of heat, to be much of a challenge. Tongue is a tough muscle, which means long, low, and slow, usually a braise, to break down the tissues and make it tender instead of rubbery. When I've asked restaurant chefs about their approach to the ingredient, they've consistently described cooking times of three to five hours. That, obviously, is pretty straightforward; just set it up and relax, keeping half an eye on things during the process.<br /><br />No, the challenge here would be in the idiosyncrasies of the tongue's preparation. The base of the tongue (where it was attached in the mouth) has lots of weird little cartilagey bits, possibly including shards of bone. The tongue is also covered in a layer of skin, which needs to be "peeled" at some point. I know some people are already shuddering; it's bad enough to think about eating a tongue, but to imagine <i>peeling</i> it first, that might be too much to ask. Peeling a banana, no problem; but peeling meat? For some, that's just strange. Me, the only strange part is that I'd never done it before, so I wasn't sure what to expect.<br /><br />Let's get to it, shall we?<br /><br />The basic preparation in <i>New Food of Life</i> is essentially a stew, flavored with mushrooms and tomatoes, plus yogurt. Here's the ingredient lineup.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBPgqQqDI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/QqLkjGePPpc/s1600-h/A01_ingredients.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBPgqQqDI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/QqLkjGePPpc/s320/A01_ingredients.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379973333335975986" border="0" /></a>I'm using a mix of red onion and shallot, because that's what I had in the pantry. The little bowl in the middle is leftover diced shallot from cooking breakfast a day or two before. The tomatoes are a mix of heirloom varieties, picked up by the Princess on a visit to the farmer's market. The spice jars contain bay leaf and whole clove.<br /><br />And, of course, there, on the left side, are the tongues.<br /><br />Here's a closeup:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBND-OulI/AAAAAAAAAJs/A8LtOM2LyTU/s1600-h/A02_tongueCU.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBND-OulI/AAAAAAAAAJs/A8LtOM2LyTU/s320/A02_tongueCU.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379973291275369042" border="0" /></a>Tongue: the taste that tastes you back!<br /><br />To begin, I prep my ingredients: slice the onions, chop the garlic, measure the spices, and eyeball the tongue with trepidation, wondering what surprises it will hold in store over the next couple of hours. I'm briefly thankful that my anxiety is private, that there's nobody else in the kitchen to observe me and talk about it, and then I remember that the tongue is one of the primary organs of speech, and if any ingredient is capable of talking, it's this one. I mean, it's not as if we describe gossipy people as wagging their kumquats.<br /><br />For reassurance, I remind myself that I'm using a bad-ass knife.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBKbd1CvI/AAAAAAAAAJk/QUlVxo6soAQ/s1600-h/A03_knife.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBKbd1CvI/AAAAAAAAAJk/QUlVxo6soAQ/s320/A03_knife.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379973246042311410" border="0" /></a>Ooo, <i>shiny.</i><br /><br />So: preliminary ingredients done, everything goes into a big pot.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBHsw1gQI/AAAAAAAAAJc/VSdtWD9quPg/s1600-h/A04_stock.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBHsw1gQI/AAAAAAAAAJc/VSdtWD9quPg/s320/A04_stock.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379973199145828610" border="0" /></a>This first stage, basically, is doing two things: First, we're cooking the tongues, of course. But we're also making a meat broth, which the recipe says is to be reserved, and (partly) used for the sauce. Stocks and broths, I've made plenty of times; but in my experience, when you're done, you've cooked most or all of the flavor out of your base protein (chicken carcasses, shrimp shells, veal bones, etc), and you can get rid of it. It's not very often to have something that infuses its taste into the cooking water <i>and</i> is kept for eating on its own. Quite a testament to the rich flavor of tongue, yes?<br /><br />Anyway, an hour and a half later, I'm looking at this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBE0dn31I/AAAAAAAAAJU/Jy6OU5Xhazk/s1600-h/A05_tonguebath.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBE0dn31I/AAAAAAAAAJU/Jy6OU5Xhazk/s320/A05_tonguebath.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379973149673119570" border="0" /></a>Notice the hard white shell-like layer. That's the skin, which needs to be peeled, as described above. And here, just for giggles, is a close view of one of the grodier bits. Check out these little rubber spikes — they look like something you're not supposed to drive over at the entrance or exit of the parking lot.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBBtRQ9sI/AAAAAAAAAJM/wDCuqFT5c_g/s1600-h/A06_tongueCU.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmBBtRQ9sI/AAAAAAAAAJM/wDCuqFT5c_g/s320/A06_tongueCU.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379973096202630850" border="0" /></a>(It's the weirdo stuff like this, I imagine, that turns a lot of people away from working with the more exotic ingredients.)<br /><br /><i>New Food of Life</i> calls for three and a half hours of cooking time for beef tongue, the skin to be removed at the end. However, in Googling tongue preparation, I note a definite divergence of opinion on the timing of the skin-removal step: Most experts suggest that the tongue should be cooked partway, then peeled, and then returned to the pot to finish cooking. Others, however, differ, and hold to the <i>New Food of Life</i> recommendation to peel at the end. Why? Nobody explains their reasoning, one way or the other.<br /><br />Since I've eaten tongue before, though, I expect a fairly soft texture to the meat when I'm done, and I can imagine it might be easier to work with an only-partly-cooked piece of meat than one that's fully cooked. After all, it's easier to peel an apple than a tomato. On the other hand, as far as I know, once the tongue is fully cooked, the skin might slip right off, like a sock. None of the reference sites I found, unfortunately, provides any justification for the differing methods.<br /><br />So, I make a command decision to depart slightly from the book, and I pull the tongues from the pot for a quick cooling bath.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmA92Lzr1I/AAAAAAAAAJE/Rqb-_0dmkXA/s1600-h/A07_cookedtongue.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmA92Lzr1I/AAAAAAAAAJE/Rqb-_0dmkXA/s320/A07_cookedtongue.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379973029876182866" border="0" /></a>I give them a couple of minutes — I don't want to cool them off completely, because they're going back into the pot to finish cooking; I just want them safe enough to handle — and then move them to the cutting board.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmA7SZaHKI/AAAAAAAAAI8/2B5DvGdOKlM/s1600-h/A08_tonguepretrim.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmA7SZaHKI/AAAAAAAAAI8/2B5DvGdOKlM/s320/A08_tonguepretrim.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972985909812386" border="0" /></a>I have to say, skinning the tongue is one of the weirder things I've done in the kitchen. It doesn't really behave the way you'd expect it to: the skin comes fairly easy off the top, but adheres stubbornly to the sides and underneath, forcing me to <i>shave</i> more than peel. I also find myself poking around in the base of the tongue — oh, okay, let's call it what it is, the <i>stump</i> — finding more and more little pockets of gristle and warm, greasy goo. As that goo leaks across my fingers, knife, and cutting board, the tongues start to get slippery and hard to handle.<br /><br />All told, it takes me about forty-five minutes to bring both tongues to what seems to me to be an acceptably clean state:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmA3x2zgRI/AAAAAAAAAI0/x76VH1qwajc/s1600-h/A09_tongueskinned.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmA3x2zgRI/AAAAAAAAAI0/x76VH1qwajc/s320/A09_tongueskinned.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972925635133714" border="0" /></a>That's unexpected time I will regret later, in terms of delaying dinner. With experience, I'm sure I could do this a lot faster, knowing how the skin behaves under the knife, and where all the unwanted bits are lurking. Still, when I looked at the clock, I was surprised and dismayed at the elapsed time. The recipe says preparation time should take 20 minutes; that's just not realistic for even a modestly seasoned cook. Something to bear in mind.<br /><br />Anyway, the tongues go back into the pot for another couple of hours, giving me some leisurely time to prepare the rest of my ingredients.<br /><br />Mushrooms first. I'm not much for repetitive tasks, but I actually enjoy slicing up a big pile of mushrooms. Must be the earthy-foresty scent.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAzt7FVMI/AAAAAAAAAIs/qx-sRzAxOXY/s1600-h/A10_mushroomraw.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAzt7FVMI/AAAAAAAAAIs/qx-sRzAxOXY/s320/A10_mushroomraw.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972855859860674" border="0" /></a>And then the tomatoes.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAv15c5dI/AAAAAAAAAIk/vX0pWyzWA6U/s1600-h/A11_tomatoes.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAv15c5dI/AAAAAAAAAIk/vX0pWyzWA6U/s320/A11_tomatoes.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972789281023442" border="0" /></a>Just look at the color of these. Beautiful. Night and day from the blandly orange interiors of your typical supermarket hothousers.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAsyoQ3XI/AAAAAAAAAIc/uOZSQFS3P78/s1600-h/A12_tomatoCU.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAsyoQ3XI/AAAAAAAAAIc/uOZSQFS3P78/s320/A12_tomatoCU.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972736864017778" border="0" /></a>Finally the timer goes off, and I pull the tongues out of their broth.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAnLsgkdI/AAAAAAAAAIU/ASFY_TrVbxQ/s1600-h/A13_tonguetrimmed.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAnLsgkdI/AAAAAAAAAIU/ASFY_TrVbxQ/s320/A13_tonguetrimmed.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972640513495506" border="0" /></a>The smell of the kitchen is amazing. It's sort of like a hearty beef stew, but with this wild undercurrent: not gamey, exactly; maybe <i>primal.</i> I've got another half hour to forty minutes before I can serve dinner, and my mouth is already watering.<br /><br />I carefully slice the tongues into medallions, holding them gingerly with my fingertips because those suckers are <i>hot.</i><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAjqMp__I/AAAAAAAAAIM/Af5mREtbOJE/s1600-h/A14_tonguesliced.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAjqMp__I/AAAAAAAAAIM/Af5mREtbOJE/s320/A14_tonguesliced.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972579981918194" border="0" /></a>Now I get to saute the veg for the sauce. I know from experience that cooking mushrooms can be a little finicky; they have a lot of moisture, and reduce a lot in the pan. However, if you overcrowd them, they give up that moisture in the form of steam, which interferes with browning, which is where the flavor comes from. If you have a small pan, you need to cook your mushrooms in batches; you can't just pile them in, or you'll wind up with shrunken, tasteless blobs.<br /><br />Fortunately, I am not restricted to a small pan. Time to bust out this bad boy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAfeOtwJI/AAAAAAAAAIE/z20WAvl4AW4/s1600-h/A15_panempty.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAfeOtwJI/AAAAAAAAAIE/z20WAvl4AW4/s320/A15_panempty.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972508049850514" border="0" /></a>It's sort of hard to tell, perspective-wise, just how big that is, so here's my ten-inch chef's knife laid across the bottom.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAcQwofsI/AAAAAAAAAH8/vPQItKWIh44/s1600-h/A16_pansize.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAcQwofsI/AAAAAAAAAH8/vPQItKWIh44/s320/A16_pansize.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972452894408386" border="0" /></a>Honey Comb's big, yeah yeah yeah; it's not small, no no no.<br /><br />(By the way: The pan was a gift from my mother. I'm extremely picky about my kitchen gear, so I had a moment, or more than a moment, of ugly ingratitude about it. I subjected my family to a lecture about what separates a good pan from a bad pan, and I expressed some skeptical hope, if that makes sense, about whether this pan would measure up. I later found that this pan is made extremely well, distributing heat evenly and efficiently, and that there was no reason for me to be such a dick about it. And even if there was reason, even if the pan was a piece of junk, I was still being a dick. I apologized to my mother, and quietly resolved, in similar future situations, to keep my concerns to myself. I'm apologizing again now. Sorry, Mom. I love the pan; it's <i>perfect</i> for applications exactly like this one.)<br /><br />We start with some butter:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAZLWAd0I/AAAAAAAAAH0/oJcBovURDdQ/s1600-h/A17_panbutter.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAZLWAd0I/AAAAAAAAAH0/oJcBovURDdQ/s320/A17_panbutter.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972399900948290" border="0" /></a>Brown the onions a bit:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAUHC-x9I/AAAAAAAAAHs/1i9ohb4vsjU/s1600-h/A18_panonions.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAUHC-x9I/AAAAAAAAAHs/1i9ohb4vsjU/s320/A18_panonions.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972312848058322" border="0" /></a>And then add the mushrooms.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAPtWd5zI/AAAAAAAAAHk/-dHgRN4hTDo/s1600-h/A19_panmushrooms.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAPtWd5zI/AAAAAAAAAHk/-dHgRN4hTDo/s320/A19_panmushrooms.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972237230991154" border="0" /></a>Notice that the mushrooms make a single layer, more or less, with some open spots where the pan is visible. That's what you want to see. If your pan isn't big enough to hold the mushrooms in a single layer, and you can't see the bottom through the piles of sliced fungus, then you'll need to cook in batches. Or ask your mom to get you a giant pan at Godzilla's supply store. Either way.<br /><br />(Incidentally, I have a giant cast-iron pan, too, but since this is a tomato-based sauce, I can't use it, lest the acid in the tomatoes damage the seasoned bottom, and render the pan nonstick.)<br /><br />(And speaking of tomatoes...)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAMNUa1gI/AAAAAAAAAHc/oJCm6gB0d-M/s1600-h/A20_pantomato.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAMNUa1gI/AAAAAAAAAHc/oJCm6gB0d-M/s320/A20_pantomato.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972177092859394" border="0" /></a>I cook that for a while, letting the tomatoes break down, and then add the final ingredients: some of the reserved tongue broth, the yogurt, some lime juice, and salt and pepper. This gets simmered for a bit, and reduced to a sauce.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAI5nrkzI/AAAAAAAAAHU/w32N-JyibiU/s1600-h/A21_pansauce.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmAI5nrkzI/AAAAAAAAAHU/w32N-JyibiU/s320/A21_pansauce.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972120265331506" border="0" /></a><i>New Food of Life</i> doesn't provide an explicit warning here, but I have to be careful about my heat at this point, because if you overheat yogurt, it will "break." That is, it will curdle, or separate, the solids coming out of emulsion with the thin liquid whey. It's why, when you make a cream sauce, the recipe always says to bring the dairy (milk, cream, whatever) just to a boil, and then reduce the heat immediately. If you let the boil continue, the dairy will separate. It still tastes okay, but the texture will be unpleasantly clumpy, and if you have more cooking to do, the dairy won't behave the way it's supposed to.<br /><br />Ten minutes later, we have dinner.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmACeHgImI/AAAAAAAAAHM/ql_Xxxp6wn4/s1600-h/A22_plates.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SqmACeHgImI/AAAAAAAAAHM/ql_Xxxp6wn4/s320/A22_plates.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379972009803391586" border="0" /></a>The sauce is a little bit thin, and could have stood another ten minutes of careful reduction. Alternatively, rather than worrying about breaking the yogurt, I could reduce the sauce with just the broth, and stir in the yogurt later.<br /><br />By the way, note the plate of greens in the background. This is <i>sabzi khordan</i>, a traditional Persian salad composed of fresh herbs, roughly torn, with green onions and radishes for bite, and cheese for salt and richness. It doesn't warrant a recipe of its own in <i>New Food of Life</i>, but it's mentioned in passing, toward the beginning of the book, among the lineup of appetizers expected in a Persian feast. It's described as an "assortment" of raw vegetables and herbs, "usually" including this-and-that-and-the-other. Everybody makes it a little differently, using whatever is most convenient, which is why it doesn't merit a formal recipe; it's more a thrown-together thing, with ingredients balanced in proportion to get the correct fresh-plus-mint-plus-spice quality. The strong herb flavor is definitely an acquired taste for the American palate, which looks at salad as a mix of frequently bland greens with the flavor provided by whatever's been added on top. <i>Sabzi khordan</i> is, assuredly, not that kind of salad. Once you get what it's about, though, it's pretty refreshing, and very healthy.<br /><br />In general, the meal turned out pretty well, though again the sauce needed further reduction, and in the end four hours wasn't enough cooking time for the tongue. Maybe these American tongues were bigger than their Iranian counterparts; maybe my interruption to cool and peel should have been balanced with more than the additional half hour of cooking time I gave them. Maybe both. Regardless, another hour in the pot would have made them even more tender and delicious. The taste, though, was outstanding, luscious and rich, with the sour yogurt and lime juice weaving everything together, producing a lovely but subtle savory tartness.<br /><br />Postscript: After we were done, at the Princess's suggestion, I returned the remaining slices of tongue to the pan with the leftover sauce, and turned the heat to low for a while. We wanted to reduce the sauce to the proper consistency, and as long as we were doing that, some more cooking time on the tongue would help their texture. And I have to say, the next day, this tasted even better than the first day; the meat had a more buttery chew, and all the flavors had matured and combined beautifully.<br /><br />It would have been perfect, except that, in the process of reheating and reducing the sauce, I broke the yogurt. Oh well.<br /><br />Next up: Stew, Iranian style, and a unique combination of flavors.<br /><br /></span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-45149816528145033152009-08-24T10:08:00.000-07:002009-09-10T15:18:00.465-07:00Kuku-ye nokhod sabz, kufteh baqali — or, going kuku<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">Like I did on day one, I wanted to keep my second day of the Persian cooking adventure on the simple side. But the first day had gone well enough that I felt comfortable ramping up the complexity a bit. So whereas I had started with one cooked dish and a raw salad, on this night, I'd have two cooked dishes.<br /><br />Also, to minimize distractions, so I wouldn't have to be going back and forth between them, I chose one baked, and one slow braised. In addition, the baked dish would be another kuku, following the kuku of the first night. I learn best by repetition, so making a kuku two outings in a row would help solidify the technique in my mind.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>Regarding what, specifically, to make, my choice was, as usual, ingredient-driven. The Princess had come home from the local farmer's market the day before with some lovely fresh fava beans. They're one of the signposts of summer for people who pay attention to seasonal ingredients; the flavor is bright, almost nutty, without that odd muskiness that turns some people off lima beans. The only reason more people don't work with them is that breaking them down is a not-inconsiderable pain in the patootie. If you like to meditate for long periods in the kitchen, or if you can swindle somebody else into doing the work for you, by all means, don't hesitate to grab a pile of these whenever you can:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKu36EoqI/AAAAAAAAAHE/318aexr5h08/s1600-h/a1_unshelledfavas.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373580212036739746" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKu36EoqI/AAAAAAAAAHE/318aexr5h08/s320/a1_unshelledfavas.JPG" /></a> (As always, all pictures are clickable for a larger view. Also, at the request of a reader, based on the preceding post, in-line pictures will be larger starting with this entry.)<br /><br />So, with these beautiful beans winking at me, I poked through <i>New Food of Life</i> for a bit, looking for a promising option. Searching out of the index, I found a meatball recipe. That seemed a little odd, but it turned out to be a "variation," a recipe-alternative described in a paragraph after the primary preparation. The main recipe is "Rice Meatballs," <i>kufteh berenji</i>, with an alternative of <i>kufteh baqali</i>, meatballs with lima or fava beans. The main recipe is herb-heavy (tarragon, chives, savory, etc); the variation replaces these with the fava beans. (The other two variations, for the record, were "sumac" and "curry." Curry you should know; sumac is a sour berry I first encountered in Turkish food, in powdered form. That one I'll have to come back and try later.) I've had meatballs with legumes before (lentils, mostly), as well as many varieties of meat loaf with all manner of goofy stuff cooked in, so this sounded nice.<br /><br />(Short digression for an interesting language note: <i>kufteh</i> is meatball in Farsi, the language of Iran. Now, if you've had any Greek food, then you probably recognize the word, since they have an equivalent, <i>kefte.</i> And you'll sometimes see meatballs called <i>kofta</i> in Indian food. According to <a href="http://www.reference.com/browse/Kefte"><span style="color:#cc0000;">this page</span></a>, there are many other cousins, from <i>kofte</i> in Turkey to <i>kufta</i> in Bangladesh. Obviously this can't be a coincidence; there has to be a common source, right? Well, there is: Persia. All of these countries and their kay-vowel-eff-tee-vowel meatballs are copying from Iran. More details at the link.)<br /><br />(And in the next entry, the Princess will explain how Japan got their word "kimono" from Persia.)<br /><br />(Okay, back to the recipe.)<br /><br />Where was I? Oh right, the big pile of fresh fava beans on my cutting board. Time to get to work. I turned on the radio, opened a beverage, and started peeling.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKsGSemhI/AAAAAAAAAG8/jy7SOFbOvT4/s1600-h/a2_shelledfavas.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373580164357593618" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKsGSemhI/AAAAAAAAAG8/jy7SOFbOvT4/s320/a2_shelledfavas.JPG" /></a> The thing about fava beans is, they have to be peeled twice. First, you have to get the beans out of their pods, as shown in the picture above. Depending on their freshness, you might be able to pinch off an end of the pod, and then pull a "string" down the pod's seam, opening it like a zipper, allowing a simple slide of the thumb to pop out the row of beans. Or if that doesn't work, you may need to claw them free, digging inelegantly at the pods with your fingernails, tearing apart their green protective sheath, dragging the beans from the safety of their vegetal embrace into the cold, unfeeling chaos of the world. If you're like me, you laugh maniacally while you do it. Probably you're not like me. Probably this is a good thing.<br /><br />But then you're not done. You can see a tough, milky jacket on each bean. This has to come off, too. It's edible, but sort of unpleasant to gnaw on. Removal is relatively quick: a tearing pinch at the tip, and a squeeze, and the bean pops right out. But with three to five beans per pod, and a big pile of pods, it does take a while. This is the obstacle for many people, though obviously I think it's worth the effort.<br /><br />Anyway, forty-odd minutes later, you have this.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKpUu24NI/AAAAAAAAAG0/tTXyr6A49O8/s1600-h/a3_peeledfavas.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373580116695113938" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKpUu24NI/AAAAAAAAAG0/tTXyr6A49O8/s320/a3_peeledfavas.JPG" /></a> And with the beans prepped, I can assemble my ingredients.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKmLdNuJI/AAAAAAAAAGs/JK4VJFd33eg/s1600-h/a4_mise.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373580062665586834" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKmLdNuJI/AAAAAAAAAGs/JK4VJFd33eg/s320/a4_mise.JPG" /></a> A couple of comments here:<br /><br />First, that's a big package of dill sitting in the back. I have every good intention of setting up a small greenhouse and an herb garden one of these days, but the task continues to elude us, so it's grocery-store herbage for now.<br /><br />The unlabeled plastic container in the middle is tomato water. I made it as part of a dinner-party feast, and chose to substitute it here for the tomato juice indicated in the recipe. It has all the flavor of tomato, but none of the body. So I knew I'd have to keep an eye on texture as I worked.<br /><br />Regarding the container of beef broth, I know I should be making this myself, but I don't really enjoy making stocks with beef; considering the ratio of raw material and work to the result, not to mention the flexibility in using the end product, when I go to the trouble of making stocks, I prefer veal and chicken. Looking through <i>New Food of Life</i>, though, and thinking ahead, there's enough call for beef broth that I should probably just, y'know, get over myself.<br /><br />Speaking of meat, the recipe requests ground red meat, beef or lamb or veal. I love lamb, with its rich, moist fattiness. Since I'd be doing a slow braise, though, I was concerned that the very thing that makes lamb so yummy would also cause the meatballs to fall apart during cooking. So, instead, I chose to use a mix of equal parts beef and lamb.<br /><br />The recipe also includes cooked rice in the meatball mix. This isn't surprising; I've seen rice in meatballs (and meat loaf) before. Besides, it seems like every cuisine does something similar, adding a starch when forming things out of ground meat: Americans use bread crumbs, in French and Italian cooking you frequently see a <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/tools/fooddictionary/entry?id=3775"><span style="color:#cc0000;">panade</span></a>, the Spanish often throw in toasted bread cubes, and so on. Heck, my mom likes to add grated potato to her meat loaf, to great effect.<br /><br />The Persian approach, however, will depart enormously from other methods, as we'll see in a moment.<br /><br />For now, though, I'm cooking the rice. And one of the things you do when you cook rice in Iran is rinse it thoroughly. This gets the surface starch off, and is what makes the final cooked rice nice and fluffy, with individual grains. Sometimes you don't want to do that, as with Asian-style sticky rice, or risotto; there, the starch is integral.<br /><br />But for Iranian rice, well-rinsed is the way to go. So before cooking, the grains get a few minutes in a fine chinois, until the water runs clear:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKjY--rYI/AAAAAAAAAGk/2rg8s9N2UFQ/s1600-h/a5_rinserice.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373580014757260674" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKjY--rYI/AAAAAAAAAGk/2rg8s9N2UFQ/s320/a5_rinserice.JPG" /></a> While that's going, I cut up my onions, as usual.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKgW1uo6I/AAAAAAAAAGc/rcDVSIrM3t8/s1600-h/a6_cutonions.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579962641982370" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKgW1uo6I/AAAAAAAAAGc/rcDVSIrM3t8/s320/a6_cutonions.JPG" /></a> Based on the few recipes so far, and looking ahead to others, it looks like I'm going to be doing this a lot. Time to buy stock in the onion department down at the warehouse store.<br /><br />Of course, that also offers an excuse to show off my knife again:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKdvrGtYI/AAAAAAAAAGU/lN3SFXkg9Dk/s1600-h/a7_knife.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579917768701314" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKdvrGtYI/AAAAAAAAAGU/lN3SFXkg9Dk/s320/a7_knife.JPG" /></a> Behold! Excalibur! Forged when the world was young, and bird and beast and flower were one with man, and... never mind.<br /><br />How about we cook some onions. All righty then.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKa1rPZtI/AAAAAAAAAGM/JDzEyUufCmA/s1600-h/a8_sauteonion.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579867840276178" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKa1rPZtI/AAAAAAAAAGM/JDzEyUufCmA/s320/a8_sauteonion.JPG" /></a> You might notice here, I'm sauteeing the onions in a larger pot than usual. This is me planning ahead: Eventually the meatballs will be braised here, and I don't want to mess up any more dishes than necessary. So the onions get sauteed right in the final pot, and then the liquids are added (beef stock and tomato juice) to make the braising broth.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the rice, having been rinsed clean, is cooking:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKXsOuL4I/AAAAAAAAAGE/bN8ErhqzZC8/s1600-h/a9_cookrice.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579813765132162" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKXsOuL4I/AAAAAAAAAGE/bN8ErhqzZC8/s320/a9_cookrice.JPG" /></a> It gets cooked with the yellow split peas from the ingredient photo above, plus the fresh fava beans.<br /><br />And now, here's something smart: Often, when cooking rice, the ratio of water to grain is fairly specific, so the water gets absorbed into the rice, leaving only steamy, fluffy goodness. Here, though, there's a little extra liquid, which gets drained off, so it can go into the meatballs.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKT8moJ5I/AAAAAAAAAF8/DszkMgfiAfw/s1600-h/a10_drainrice.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579749440890770" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKT8moJ5I/AAAAAAAAAF8/DszkMgfiAfw/s320/a10_drainrice.JPG" /></a> One of the great secrets of Italian cooking is the use of the pasta water. If your pasta is at least halfway decent, the water in which it's boiled will take on a wonderful, salty-wheaty-eggy quality. Then you have the accompanying red sauce (for example), which is cooked slowly, getting thicker and thicker as the water steams out. You can thin the sauce to the correct consistency with ordinary water, but if, instead, you add some reserved <i>pasta</i> water, you unify everything, bringing together the flavors in a marvelous way.<br /><br />This is one of the gratifying things about this project: recognizing how the traditions of good cooking are not limited by geographic borders. The Italians know the cooking-water trick, and the Iranians, it seems, do too.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKQ7Fd0mI/AAAAAAAAAF0/ZX5jCLR01VA/s1600-h/a11_ricewater.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579697493758562" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKQ7Fd0mI/AAAAAAAAAF0/ZX5jCLR01VA/s320/a11_ricewater.JPG" /></a> There's <i>flavor</i> in that there water.<br /><br />But now, though, after the familiar, we get to something a little bit unusual. A <i>lot</i> unusual, actually.<br /><br />First, check out the proportions of the meatball components. That's a heck of a lot of rice, a comparable amount next to the meat, along with all the other stuff (herbs and such).<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKOPqmFOI/AAAAAAAAAFs/U_CiVAGCYUw/s1600-h/a12_meatballmix.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579651478590690" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKOPqmFOI/AAAAAAAAAFs/U_CiVAGCYUw/s320/a12_meatballmix.JPG" /></a> In the American equivalent, using bread crumbs instead of rice, there's be a quarter, at most, of the starch shown in that picture. Ditto for the European approach, which would have one or maybe two slices of bread. Here? The mix is half meat, half rice.<br /><br />And that's not all. The recipe calls for the ingredients to be mixed thoroughly, <i>kneaded</i> basically, for ten whole minutes, or until completely smooth.<br /><br />In Western cooking, this would be insane. You don't want to overwork ground meat, mixing it too hard with your hands; you want to touch it as little as possible, not squeezing, not homogenizing the fat and muscle tissue. The longer you knead the meat, the more your body heat melts the fat and opens up all the fibers, with the result being a meatball or a burger patty that's tough to bite into and then chews into mush. Instead, you handle it very lightly, leaving the fat unmelted, the muscle fibers tightly coiled, basically keeping the ground-meat texture and holding it together very loosely; that's what gives you the perfect moist-yet-crumbly bite of an American-style meat loaf, or hamburger. Kneading the meat mixture for ten solid minutes would result in disaster, beef hockey pucks at best.<br /><br />But that's why I made the rule for myself: Don't question the recipe.<br /><br />And it turns out, what happens here is that, as you work the mixture, the rice grains basically disintegrate, turning into a paste. The meat breaks down, yes, to what would be an undesirable state if this were a Western recipe; but then the rice paste coats everything, isolating little bits of the meat (and the herbs and everything else) and embedding them in a sort of a rice glue. The split peas also turn into mash; the favas fall apart a bit, but not completely, living on as bright green nuggets.<br /><br />After ten minutes, I found myself with a bowl of a fairly loose mixture, about halfway between dough (as you expect when you're making meatballs) and batter, a mix that just barely holds itself together in a meatball, and only when you hold it gently cupped in your hand. Fascinating.<br /><br />According to the recipe, these meatballs should be large, like oranges; the book suggests that the mixture will produce six of them. I actually wound up with seven, and they were more like the size of grapefruit.<br /><br />Working carefully, I formed the meatballs, and added them to the braising broth in the large pot.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKLYWhd-I/AAAAAAAAAFk/rHCvAcPf2yY/s1600-h/a13_ballbraise.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579602270713826" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKLYWhd-I/AAAAAAAAAFk/rHCvAcPf2yY/s320/a13_ballbraise.JPG" /></a> Those get to cook for almost an hour (with occasional dips of a ladle to moisten the tops of the meatballs with broth), which gives me time to work up the second dish.<br /><br />That, as previously mentioned, is a kuku. I knew I wanted to make one, because like I said, repeating things is, for me, helpful in learning them. It also dovetailed nicely with the meatballs; after I got those to braising for an hour or so, I could spent twenty or thirty minutes prepping the kuku, and throw it into the oven to bake for another half hour.<br /><br />A little bit of recipe browsing later, I had my choice: <i>kuku-ye nokhod sabz</i>, i.e. green pea. (Whenever you see "sabz," think "green.") It's another legume dish, it's very vegetable-heavy to contrast the meatballs, and it's got a ton of dill, the same herb as was used in the meatballs. In other words, it's complementary on multiple levels. Plus we had a huge bag of peas in the freezer that needed to get used up. As usual, that's going to tip the decision balance.<br /><br />Here's the ingredient lineup:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKIHwBlBI/AAAAAAAAAFc/XvtFUsYrd1k/s1600-h/b1_mise.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579546274665490" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKIHwBlBI/AAAAAAAAAFc/XvtFUsYrd1k/s320/b1_mise.JPG" /></a> Like in the meatball ingredient picture above, the plastic boxes in the rear contain dill. A lot of dill. More on this in a moment.<br /><br />Also, another brief word on equipment: my garlic press. Most garlic presses are kind of crappy, mashing the garlic instead of simulating a fine mince. But based on the recommendations of the smart people at <i>Cook's Illustrated</i>, I picked up this Kuhn Rikon model a while back:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKEnliUfI/AAAAAAAAAFU/PfxB5Ae90hw/s1600-h/b2_garlicpress.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579486101131762" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKEnliUfI/AAAAAAAAAFU/PfxB5Ae90hw/s320/b2_garlicpress.JPG" /></a> It's expensive, but it's worth it. Best garlic press I've ever used. And I use this one a lot. Plus, when you turn it over, it looks a little like a toucan, so you can have a little puppet show with yourself when you get tired and punchy. Highly recommended.<br /><br />Okay, so, first, we precook a couple of the ingredients. The peas get a quick blanch, and the onions... can you guess what happens to the onions? No fair peeking!<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKBWMOrRI/AAAAAAAAAFM/_XRqUIl1mFQ/s1600-h/b3_onionpeascook.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579429891976466" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLKBWMOrRI/AAAAAAAAAFM/_XRqUIl1mFQ/s320/b3_onionpeascook.JPG" /></a> That's right, the onions get browned. Ten points and a gold star for you!<br /><br />The recipe didn't specify this, but after I blanched the peas, I shocked them in cold water:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJ9gSO3AI/AAAAAAAAAFE/fXWfn3EHxLw/s1600-h/b4_peasshock.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579363882032130" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJ9gSO3AI/AAAAAAAAAFE/fXWfn3EHxLw/s320/b4_peasshock.JPG" /></a> This stops the cooking, preserving the bright green color and preventing the peas from getting mushy. Since they were going to be spending upwards of half an hour in a hot oven, I figured it wouldn't hurt.<br /><br />Then I chopped up all the dill. If you've never seen a whole cup of chopped dill in one place (I hadn't), here's what it looks like:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJ51B_vBI/AAAAAAAAAE8/FthBef_ICGc/s1600-h/b5_dillchop.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579300731599890" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJ51B_vBI/AAAAAAAAAE8/FthBef_ICGc/s320/b5_dillchop.JPG" /></a> Like a said, it's a truckload of dill. Smells amazing, let me tell you.<br /><br />So I mixed everything up, in the proportions indicated in the recipe, and wound up with something that didn't look or feel like the kuku I made before. Remember, it's basically a lot of filling with a little bit of egg to hold it together. But this time, the egg was barely distinguishable in the mix:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJ2S555_I/AAAAAAAAAE0/M6-9gW144nE/s1600-h/b6_mixed.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579240031250418" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJ2S555_I/AAAAAAAAAE0/M6-9gW144nE/s320/b6_mixed.JPG" /></a> I looked at it, and gave it a few squelchy little pokes, trying to decide if it was right or not. Should I have let the peas get mushy, maybe? Would that have been better? Maybe the eggs were too small? Or perhaps this is how it's supposed to be?<br /><br />Ah well. Time to shout for the Princess again.<br /><br />"Ah, just throw in a couple more eggs," she said after a glance. "It'll be fine."<br /><br />Well, there we go. My speculation was right. Eggs enough to make a noticeable binder, that's the premise here. It's not a hard rule, just a building block. I can work with that.<br /><br />Two more eggs it is:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJzLHLVpI/AAAAAAAAAEs/vbla62YRiIU/s1600-h/b7_mix%2Begg.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579186399827602" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJzLHLVpI/AAAAAAAAAEs/vbla62YRiIU/s320/b7_mix%2Begg.JPG" /></a> Also, as with the previous kuku, I was instructed by the recipe to put some oil into the cooking dish, and to heat the oil and the dish together in the oven, before adding the kuku mix. When I did it the first time, I wound up with way too much oil, probably (I'm guessing) because I was trying to halve the recipe. This time, I followed the directions as written. And wouldn't you know, the proportion of oil looks correct now:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJvUGZxQI/AAAAAAAAAEk/B8xcWfrHyfE/s1600-h/b8_oilincass.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579120093021442" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJvUGZxQI/AAAAAAAAAEk/B8xcWfrHyfE/s320/b8_oilincass.JPG" /></a> Amazing, when one simply does what one is told, yes?<br /><br />So the kuku goes in the oven, and I check out the meatballs. I'm not going to try to turn them over; they're too delicate for that. A little of the cooking broth spooned over the top is all they need.<br /><br />And then, a little while later, the meatballs come out of the broth to rest, while the broth gets reduced a bit further, making it into more of a sauce:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJrWKJoFI/AAAAAAAAAEc/SKMQXpzF4mI/s1600-h/c1_ballsout.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373579051926134866" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJrWKJoFI/AAAAAAAAAEc/SKMQXpzF4mI/s320/c1_ballsout.JPG" /></a> A little while after that, the kuku comes out of the oven, and looks like it's supposed to look:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJnE4Py8I/AAAAAAAAAEU/HPu3PmNuXA0/s1600-h/c2_kukudone.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373578978568162242" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJnE4Py8I/AAAAAAAAAEU/HPu3PmNuXA0/s320/c2_kukudone.JPG" /></a> Cutting into it, the peas are firm and bright green, and the dill is wonderfully aromatic:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJi4SgtgI/AAAAAAAAAEM/QMc5XThumcM/s1600-h/c3_kukucut.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373578906469185026" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJi4SgtgI/AAAAAAAAAEM/QMc5XThumcM/s320/c3_kukucut.JPG" /></a> And a few minutes later, the meatball broth is reduced, the meatballs and the kuku are served, and the sauce is spooned over the meatballs. And here's dinner:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJa96Ha9I/AAAAAAAAAEE/tbeKRWwkcUA/s1600-h/d1_fooddone.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373578770538523602" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SpLJa96Ha9I/AAAAAAAAAEE/tbeKRWwkcUA/s320/d1_fooddone.JPG" /></a> Apologies for the blurry picture, but the Princess insisted on tickling me while I was trying to hold the frame. I took three shots, each one less focused than the last. I'm hardly better than an amateur photographer, but even Ansel Adams would have trouble keeping his images sharp if he was dealing with a hot chick gettin' all grabby.<br /><br />So how'd it taste? It was nice. The meatballs were subtle, with a soft, almost buttery texture; they'd be especially great for somebody transitioning back into solid food. Interestingly, the kuku had more bite to it than the meatballs did, since the peas were barely blanched, and still had some chew. Both the meatballs and the kuku were even better the next day, after the flavors had matured and mellowed. I'd definitely make these again.<br /><br />Next up: Give me some tongue, baby.<br /></span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-45693866815469563652009-08-06T13:11:00.000-07:002009-09-10T15:17:07.160-07:00Serkeh khiar, kuku-ye jujeh — or, starting simple<span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">For the first couple of recipes, I decided to keep things fairly straightforward.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">See, I figured it'd be smart to begin with something that would be easy to plan, and that would come together quickly. That doesn't mean I'm saving the really hard stuff until the end; putting off the really challenging dishes would create an increasingly looming burden, probably leading to procrastination, which is why I'm going to be knocking off some of the tough recipes sooner rather than later. But there's no sense trying to climb a mountain right out of the gate, either.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">A kuku, therefore, fits the bill.</span><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Kukus are egg-based concoctions (alternate English spellings: kookoo, koo-koo, and sometimes ku-ku), commonly likened to quiches, omelettes, or souffles, or maybe </span></span><a href="http://oneblockwest.blogspot.com/2008/12/frittate.html"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">frittate</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">. Less commonly, they might be compared to </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clafoutis"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">clafoutis</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">, or </span><a href="http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/398071"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">sformati</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">. The </span><a href="http://www.irantour.org/Iran/food/Kuku.html"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">kuku</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> is indeed related to all of these, in that you have an egg matrix holding together a filling of some sort. However, none of these comparisons is exact; the kuku is definitely its own thing.<br /><br />Quiches, for example, have a crust, while kukus don't; omelettes are cooked egg folded around a filling, whereas the kuku's ingredients are mixed evenly throughout; if souffles are light and airy, kukus are more dense; kukus aren't soft and custardy like clafoutis; and so on. In general, what sets the kuku apart from all the rest is, basically, that egg is not the forward flavor, or even a minor player. Instead, the egg is simply used as binder, as the delivery structure for whatever filling you're using. That filling is what you taste when you eat it; the egg is far in the background. In this, they're probably closest to the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortilla_de_patatas"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">Spanish tortilla</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> (<em>not</em> the same as the Mexican variety), which </span><a href="http://www.finecooking.com/articles/how-to/spanish-tortilla.aspx"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">traditionally</span></a><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> starts with cooked onion and potato, the egg being added at a later stage simply to hold everything together.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">I've made all of these things over the years, so this seemed like a good place to start — familiar ground, so to speak. It should be like picking up a closely related dialect of a language I already know, rather than learning a whole new tongue. That, I thought, would be a good launching point for the project.<br /><br />Plus we had some leftover roast chicken in the fridge that needed to get used up. I hate throwing away food, so that right there was the pragmatically compelling argument. And thus did I settle on <strong>kuku-ye jujeh</strong>, or chicken kuku.<br /><br />Thing is, though — the book calls for twice the amount of chicken we had available. The recipe indicates an option, right at the beginning; you can cook your own chicken (with directions provided), or you can start with already-cooked chicken. Check, got that. But, again, only half of what we should have. All right, so I'll adjust the recipe to make two servings instead of four.<br /><br />If you've read the first couple of posts, you might be aware that I'm already violating my rules about making the recipes exactly as written, with no questioning or tinkering. But, hell, it's just adjusting proportions; I do it all the time, so this should be no problem. At least, I <em>thought</em> it wasn't going to a problem, but ... well, you'll see.<br /><br />So let's get started. Here's the collection of ingredients.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><p></span></p><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntMb7Rnn9I/AAAAAAAAABc/iNdZrpReYGk/s1600-h/a1_mise.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366967423593848786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 150px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntMb7Rnn9I/AAAAAAAAABc/iNdZrpReYGk/s200/a1_mise.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> Eggs, onion, lime, chicken, baking powder, saffron, oil. Not shown, salt and pepper, which are assumed. (The beer isn't an ingredient in the kuku; it's on the workspace because I usually enjoy a tasty beverage while I cook. This is a product of a </span><a href="http://www.traderoutebrewing.com/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">local brewery</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">, which makes tasty beverages indeed.)<br /><br />First task is to prep everything. That means chopping the chicken and cutting the veg. And for that, I'm grabbing my favorite knife.<br /><br />A word about knives: I'm regularly amazed by what I find in people's kitchens when I visit. Your knife doesn't have to be fancy, and you don't have to spend a ton of money on it, but it does have to be <em>sharp.</em> A dull knife, as many have said, is a </span><a href="http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=596"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#cc0000;">dangerous knife</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">. And in my experience, a larger, heavier knife is, perhaps counterintuitively, easier to use for most tasks than a smaller one. A heavy knife has significant mass, and thus inertia, and therefore needs only a smooth and steady application of force to work, thereby enhancing control. A small knife, or a dull knife (or, worse yet, a small <em>and </em>dull knife), requires continuous adjustment, a constant back-and-forth yerking of power and direction, to cut, which is exactly what leads to accident and injury. A big knife takes a little getting used to, true, and it isn't appropriate for every task, but it makes a positive difference in most situations.<br /><br />Okay. Sermon over. Now I have an excuse to show you my favorite knife.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntL_MTVg0I/AAAAAAAAABU/PzJj-s7gclw/s1600-h/a2_knife.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366966929948246850" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntL_MTVg0I/AAAAAAAAABU/PzJj-s7gclw/s200/a2_knife.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> I know, you don't have to say anything. That knife is <em>bad ass.</em><br /><br />And hey, it doesn't just <em>look</em> awesome, it cuts things, too.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntNAsDe7-I/AAAAAAAAABk/w3rv2IQmBqE/s1600-h/a3_chicken.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366968055163187170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntNAsDe7-I/AAAAAAAAABk/w3rv2IQmBqE/s200/a3_chicken.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> Chicken is prepped, followed by the onion...<br /><br /></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntNEF0FamI/AAAAAAAAABs/0aNKGpafFpg/s1600-h/a4_choppedonion.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366968113617529442" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntNEF0FamI/AAAAAAAAABs/0aNKGpafFpg/s200/a4_choppedonion.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">Now let's get the onion cooking.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntNiPuQqfI/AAAAAAAAAB0/m3F-Laz9U4I/s1600-h/a5_sauteonion.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366968631673530866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 150px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntNiPuQqfI/AAAAAAAAAB0/m3F-Laz9U4I/s200/a5_sauteonion.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> Pretty standard step: brown the onion in oil (or butter, which I'm choosing not to use here, because the Princess has issues with dairy). So far, so good.<br /><br />I'm also making a saffron tea to go into the kuku.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntN9ZyewfI/AAAAAAAAAB8/ILEYuhyCmU0/s1600-h/a6_saffron.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969098232054258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntN9ZyewfI/AAAAAAAAAB8/ILEYuhyCmU0/s200/a6_saffron.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> Man, I love me some saffron. This being a kitchen well-stocked with Iranian ingredients, we have plenty of it. It's a common luggage-stuffer, apparently, when people return from visiting the old country — a safe gift, something everyone can appreciate. Point being, no more spending thirty dollars at the grocery store for a test tube containing a fraction of an ounce, thankyouverymuch.<br /><br />So let's check on the onion...<br /><br /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOA77tUXI/AAAAAAAAACE/lry92I0DCOM/s1600-h/a7_brownonion.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969158937170290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOA77tUXI/AAAAAAAAACE/lry92I0DCOM/s200/a7_brownonion.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> Whoa, best keep an eye on your heat, there, cowboy. Let's get that out of the pan, and stir everything together...<br /><br /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOENH4VjI/AAAAAAAAACM/-h1cXA7d0qQ/s1600-h/a8_allmixed.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969215091234354" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOENH4VjI/AAAAAAAAACM/-h1cXA7d0qQ/s200/a8_allmixed.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"> Note here what I was saying before, that there isn't very much egg relative to the rest of the dish. The predominant ingredient here is chicken; if anything, the texture of this is like a really loose meat loaf. A little different, but still recognizable.</span> <p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">Next, though, is something unusual.</span></p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><p></span></p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOQN8I3dI/AAAAAAAAACU/1Q9C7ELW8SM/s1600-h/a9_oilinbowl.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969421468851666" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOQN8I3dI/AAAAAAAAACU/1Q9C7ELW8SM/s200/a9_oilinbowl.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000000;">The recipe calls for the cooking fat (here, oil) to be placed in the cooking vessel, and for the oil and the dish to be put into the preheated oven for a few minutes. Once they're hot, the kuku mix is dumped in, and then back into the oven it goes. I've never seen this technique before, though I can see how it would work in principle.</span> <p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">So that's what happens. The kuku mix sizzles a bit when it hits the hot oil, and baking commences.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">I set the timer, and while the kuku is in the oven, I'm going to work on the side salad.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">As above, in the interest in keeping things simple, I've picked a straightforward option, something I can put together quickly while the kuku is cooking. Although it isn't strictly accurate on the Persian table to serve a side salad with a main dish, it does balance the meal in an American fashion, and it also knocks off another recipe out of the book.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Anyway, I'm doing cucumber-and-mint salad, aka <strong>serkeh khiar</strong>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">The ingredients:</span></p></span><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><p></span></p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOVoHqc6I/AAAAAAAAACc/yvWbpqJjNyM/s1600-h/b1_mise.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969514395857826" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOVoHqc6I/AAAAAAAAACc/yvWbpqJjNyM/s200/b1_mise.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"> Cucumber, shallot, mint, vinegar.</span> <p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">By the way, while we're on the subject of authenticity, you'll note the above is an English cucumber (semi-seedless), a standard offering in the Western grocery. We did have, and I could have used, these:<br /><br /></span></p></span><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><p></span></p><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOadtiU3I/AAAAAAAAACk/ucfJncOWlWA/s1600-h/b2_cuke.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969597501264754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOadtiU3I/AAAAAAAAACk/ucfJncOWlWA/s200/b2_cuke.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">That may look like a lot, but actually they're pretty small.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOexGHplI/AAAAAAAAACs/kAMqFBaTTtE/s1600-h/b3_size.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969671424124498" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOexGHplI/AAAAAAAAACs/kAMqFBaTTtE/s200/b3_size.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">I take it back; they're not small — they're <em>wee!</em> Aren't they cute?</span> <p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">Anyway, I could have used them, but this bad boy was in the fridge, and already cut, no less. So per the above, using up available resources, I made the substitution.<br /><br /></span></p></span><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><p></span></p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOjuGyaJI/AAAAAAAAAC0/MUQLlP75xT8/s1600-h/b4_badboy.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969756520966290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOjuGyaJI/AAAAAAAAAC0/MUQLlP75xT8/s200/b4_badboy.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"> Another change: how I handled the onion. The Princess doesn't much care for the taste of raw onion, so I swapped that for a shallot, which is milder. In addition, I let the chopped shallot and mint macerate in the vinegar for a little while, to take the raw taste off.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOpIMWEMI/AAAAAAAAAC8/S_A8VfeXKdA/s1600-h/b5_relish.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969849422942402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOpIMWEMI/AAAAAAAAAC8/S_A8VfeXKdA/s200/b5_relish.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Mentally, I'm begging the author's forgiveness as I do this, but these are the compromises we make when we adjust our recipes according to the preferences of those for whom we're cooking. Also, part of me is standing aside a bit, doing some badgering about the rules: <em>okay, you can tinker here, because it's sort of necessary, but the next time you do this, stick to the basics, bucko.</em> Yeah, yeah.</span> <p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Interesting side note: there's no oil in the salad. There was a fair amount in the kuku dish, with more to come, so it's not like Iranian food doesn't have oil. The salad, though, is vegetables and vinegar only.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">At this point, the timer goes off, and I need to attend to the kuku. According to the recipe, I'm supposed to take it out of the oven, add more oil over the top, and return it to the oven to finish cooking. I speculate: is this because the oil will have soaked into the kuku? or is this to fry the top golden and/or crusty? I'm not really sure, because again, I've never seen this method used before, and I'm not clear what it's about. Plus, the amount of oil I originally had in the dish, per the picture above, seemed like quite a bit to me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">But that potentially confusing speculation is why I made the rule: don't question the recipe. Until you understand why you're doing something, just do it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">And then I pull the dish out of the oven, and I find this:</span></p></span><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><p></span></p><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOttvjANI/AAAAAAAAADE/0JnwXd0vVZ4/s1600-h/c1_kuku.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969928222179538" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOttvjANI/AAAAAAAAADE/0JnwXd0vVZ4/s200/c1_kuku.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"> The top of the kuku is drowning in oil. You can see it bubbling around the edge:<br /><br /></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOx0bMJxI/AAAAAAAAADM/U55SkZYAeUE/s1600-h/c2_oil.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366969998735320850" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntOx0bMJxI/AAAAAAAAADM/U55SkZYAeUE/s200/c2_oil.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Here's a closeup:<br /><br /></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntO1sKXd1I/AAAAAAAAADU/5dfQ5DhYA2M/s1600-h/c3_bubble.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366970065236752210" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntO1sKXd1I/AAAAAAAAADU/5dfQ5DhYA2M/s200/c3_bubble.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"> I know I told myself I wasn't going to question the recipe, but I really, really don't want to add more oil to this. I suppose it's <em>possible </em>that the technique here is, in fact, to submerge the kuku in the fat, and essentially to poach it, like a confit; but I've eaten kukus, and I don't remember them coming out like that, or being so greasy.</span> <p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Nervous, I bail out, and call upstairs for advice.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">The Princess comes and takes a look. "Oh, that's definitely too much oil," she says. "You can go ahead and pour it out."</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Really? I ask.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">"Yeah," she says. "Cooks used to fry kuku on the stove, so this sort of makes it fry in the oven. But you don't need that much."</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">But, I say, slightly defensively, this is what the recipe asks for. I didn't use any more than that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">She shakes her head. "Well, I never use that much."</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">And then it dawns on me, as it has doubtless dawned on you, that this is likely a result of my having halved the recipe. In order to do that, it was necessary to use a smaller cooking vessel than otherwise. Smaller dish = different volumetric relationship between width and depth = oil spreads differently = the current "oil bath" situation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Duh.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">Okay, I say, and pour most of it off. I check that it meets the approval of the Princess, and she says, fine, looks good. And back into the oven it goes.<br /><br />And a little while later:</span></p></span><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><p></span></p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntO6GjU0PI/AAAAAAAAADc/t3dB5xNb1o4/s1600-h/c4_cooked_color.jpg"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366970141040234738" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntO6GjU0PI/AAAAAAAAADc/t3dB5xNb1o4/s200/c4_cooked_color.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"> The aroma, following the comparison above, is of a slightly exotic meat loaf. The tartness of the lime has mostly faded, but the saffron is still definitely perceptible.</span> <p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">So now we're ready to eat. I turn the kuku out onto a plate, stir the cucumbers into the pickled shallot, and this is dinner:<br /><br /></span></p></span><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><p></span></p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntO-JhAmAI/AAAAAAAAADk/32iYMl7Cf6Y/s1600-h/c5_alldone.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366970210555303938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntO-JhAmAI/AAAAAAAAADk/32iYMl7Cf6Y/s200/c5_alldone.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"> Cutting into it, the kuku is, texturally, fairly similar to meat loaf, lightened with a lot of egg. Because, indeed, that's exactly what it is. I take a couple of bites. Mmm, tasty. Again, very much like an off-kilter meat loaf, in terms of how it tastes and chews. The salad's also pretty good; the mint flavor is pronounced, and adds a note of freshness to the otherwise sort-of-bland cucumber. Makes me wonder how the Persian version would have been.</span> <p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">"Wait," says the Princess, as we settle into dinner. "Let me show you how you're supposed to eat the kuku.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">"First, get some </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavash"><span style="color:#cc0000;">lavash</span></a><span style="color:#000000;">." We didn't have any, but a whole-wheat flour tortilla makes a rough equivalent. (Lavash is one of the recipes in the "pastries and bread" chapter of <em>New Food of Life</em>. So sooner or later, I'll be baking that from scratch as well. First, though, I need to get a baking stone. The Princess teased me a little bit: "You're only doing this so you can buy more stuff for the kitchen!" No, I'm not. Well, not entirely. Heh.)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;">(But back to dinner.)</span></p></span><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><p></span></p><p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntRLXQvKkI/AAAAAAAAAD8/d0mFwP1bUQw/s1600-h/d1_howtoeat1.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366972636606704194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntRLXQvKkI/AAAAAAAAAD8/d0mFwP1bUQw/s200/d1_howtoeat1.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color:#000000;"> "So," explains the Princess, "you cut some kuku, and you put it on the lavash, along with fresh tomato, and some </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torshi"><span style="color:#cc0000;">torshi</span></a><span style="color:#000000;">." Torshi basically means pickled thing (coming from a root word meaning "sour"), and it's an accompaniment to basically every Persian meal. You can pickle pretty much anything (and based on the relevant chapter in the book, Iranians do). Here we have gherkins, aka miniature cousins of cucumbers, which you probably know as </span><a href="http://www.philippeprimeurs.be/img/news/547"><span style="color:#cc0000;">cornichons</span></a><span style="color:#000000;">, a staple feature of well-stocked American salad and sandwich bars.<br /><br /></span></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntPGd53uSI/AAAAAAAAAD0/Zbcju0OH_-s/s1600-h/d2_howtoeat2.JPG"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366970353467242786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SntPGd53uSI/AAAAAAAAAD0/Zbcju0OH_-s/s200/d2_howtoeat2.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Assemble, wrap, and nom nom nom. Delicious, and a good opening act for the project.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">"One more thing," says the Princess, as we eat. "It's good and all, but next time, it should be thinner. The dish you cooked it in? Too deep. It'd cook better if you use a different dish."</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">So I have gathered. Another lesson, and another good reason for pursuing this project.</span> </p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;color:#000000;">Next up: another kuku, and meatballs.</span></p><p><span style="color:#000000;"></span></p>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-23146157149737197152009-07-27T22:48:00.000-07:002009-09-10T15:16:21.746-07:00In which I lay out the plan<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">In the previous entry — the first of this blog — I set out, at considerable length, a description of who I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />The Princess read it, and liked it, and then she said ... uh, it's pretty long, isn't it?</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />Yes, dear, I know.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />I see it like this: Nobody ever reads the first few posts of a blog when they're initially written and posted. Well, unless the writer is a celebrity of some sort; in that situation there'd be some built-in readership up front. Say, if Ryan Seacrest were to start a blog, nobody would read that either, because I'm talking about </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >celebrities</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. Ha! Ha! Don't cut me, baby.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /><a name='more'></a>(For the record, the Princess is a fan of the Idol. I will attempt to restrain myself but I can't promise it won't be mentioned again.)</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />The important bit is, nobody's reading this yet, so there's nobody to be scared off by a couple thousand words of verbal diarrhea. People come to blogs (if they come to them at all) midstream. You're curious about a topic, so you do a search — or you're emailed a link because someone thinks you'll find it interesting — and, a couple of clicks later, you find yourself reading an entry from somewhere in the middle of the blog's archives. With luck, you're engaged by what you read, and you start hopping backward and forward, looking at other posts. And if you're <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> excited by the material, you scroll to the bottom of the archive, click on the first post, and begin reading from the start.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />If that's you, and if you're reading this now because you happened across another entry in the blog and have been browsing further, then welcome, and thanks. And thank you especially if you plowed through the entirety of that epic first post, and are now plowing through this one. I knew there was a lot I wanted to put out there, right at the top, about my background and the intentions for this blog, so the reader (as Commander Adama says about Admiral Cain) "understands the context." And I figured, per above, that the safest place for it would be the first couple of entries, serving as a sort of introductory prologue.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />(By the way, I also can't promise that references to </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Battlestar Galactica</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> won't randomly appear as well. I am legion, I contain multitudes.)</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />So now that I've taken care of the who and the why, I need to address the what. Specifically, the what-comes-next stuff, in terms of what I'm planning to do, how I'm planning to present it, and what I hope people will get out of it. Which means, if you'll bear with me a little longer, just a few more words here at the outset, where they will sit as something like a foreword, waiting to be unearthed by inquisitive visitors.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />And I promise, regular posts won't be nearly as long as these first two.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />Okay, so. As described in the previous entry, I have known for a little while that I want to add Iranian cooking to my culinary repertoire. This is partly in service to my girlfriend (who per the previous entry has asked to be called the Persian Princess) and her large and welcoming family. Iranians love to get together and party, and they love to lay out amazing feasts. I've already cooked for many of them, in my own style, but I feel I'll be an especially gracious host if I can serve them their own food, made authentically and correctly. In Iranian culture, the host takes his or her social responsibility very seriously; this will, I hope, be a significant gesture of respect on my part.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />And, of course, it's partly in service to myself, because I am, by nature, compulsively curious. Now that I'm aware there's something significant I don't know, I will be consumed with the need to study, to learn, until I feel I've got a handle on it. Not to mention that, from a practical point of view, it'll make my cooking better, in general, to become familiar with the underpinnings of a cuisine very different from the norm.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />While I've been pondering that goal, I've also been fielding the urgings of the Princess to begin a blog on some topic or other. She respects my interests and opinions, she says, and she seems to believe I would have interesting things to say. I know, to some extent, she's being nice to me, and flattering me, because while she's a strong and capable woman she's still quite girly in many ways, and she needs to keep me around so I can deal with big scary bugs in the house, among other man-related responsibilities. On the other hand, she really does seem quite determined about getting me a project where I can express myself.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />So I've accepted the compliments, and I've kept the notion on a back burner, but I haven't really taken it seriously enough to plan anything, for a couple of reasons.<br /><br />First, something like this is a metric buttload of work. I keep myself busy, and I don't exactly need another drain on my time. If I'm going to launch a major project, it had better be something I'm interested in, and that I think matters.<br /><br />Even so, the second reason is more important: As I said at the top of the first entry, the world doesn't need another generic food blog. There are thousands and thousands of words being troweled across the virtual landscape, many for no purpose beyond the desire of their writers to make digital noise.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />They're basically of two species — look-what-I-cooked, and look-what-I-ate.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />In the first, the blogger makes a dish or a meal, sometimes strictly according to the recipe(s), more commonly working with a more or less freely adaptive hand, or occasionally making up an original; then the blogger writes about it. Maybe it's interesting, and maybe it isn't, but there's no point of view, no </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >adventure</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, to lead you into other entries — to get you interested in the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >story</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> of the writer's experience. </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://cookingwithamy.blogspot.com/2005/02/asparagus-risottorecipe.html">Right here</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> is a good example of an average blog of this type; it's inoffensive, and the recipe is competent and conventional. But why would you go back and keep reading? (And that's apparently one of the better ones. I don't want to be mean and pick on anyone, but look at </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://cookingnurse.blogspot.com/">this</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. I'm sure she's very nice, but come on.)</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />The second variety is more common, and, at least in my view, far more irritating. In this type of food blog, somebody goes to a restaurant, eats, usually takes pictures of the plates, and then writes about it. There are lots of these, and they mostly come off as amateurish nonsense, like kindergarten gourmands who desperately want to be taken seriously as famous and powerful restaurant critics. </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://foodhogger.wordpress.com/2006/08/28/inerja-inraje-inreja/">Check out a representative example</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, where the blogger manages to write two hundred words or so without saying a single thing of meaningful interest, despite having as his subject one of the world's most unique and fascinating cuisines.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />And the worst thing about this second type of blog, in my opinion? All those pretty pictures with which the entries are larded, like tourist shots at Disneyland. Just imagine, you're sitting in some high-end restaurant, enjoying the food and the conversation with your companion, and then the nitwit at the next table hauls out his Coolpix and starts snapping away at his plate. He thinks he looks sophisticated ("ooo, check </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >me</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> out, I'm a </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >food</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> blogger"), but really he's just a distracting rube. (I like taking pictures of food; but I photograph my </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >own.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">) Now, to be fair, some blogs of this species are </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.alifewortheating.com/france/paul-bocuse/">very well written</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, but I just can't get over the whole self-important-blowhard nature of them, where any jamoke with internet access can set himself up as some sort of </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://ulteriorepicure.com/2009/01/25/review-m-to-the-g/">authority</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />But there's another kind of food site — perhaps, rather, a subset of the first species — which has come to be known as a "cook through blog," or just a "cook through."</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />The first of these, or at least the first to achieve prominence (my research assistant is either on sabbatical or doesn't exist; you decide), was the </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/13/dining/a-race-to-master-the-art-of-french-cooking.html">Julie/Julia Project</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, in which a lowly white-collar drone in New York gave herself a year to make everything in Julia Child's first cookbook, and wrote extensively about the experience as it happened. That was more of a prototypical blog, a stream-of-consciousness exercise where the food was largely a </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin">MacGuffin</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> driving the writer's journey of self-exploration; only rarely did the blogger go into detail about what she was cooking, and how it went. Nevertheless, despite an inconsistent focus on the food, Julie/Julia established the genre, and prompted </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121193539466324749.html">other writers</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> to attempt the same feat, using different cookbooks as their inspiration.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />The gold standard of these is the work of Carol Blymire, who began working through Thomas Keller's incredible </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >French Laundry Cookbook</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, and writing an accompanying </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/2007/01/gazpacho-with-balsamic-glaze.html">blog</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, in 2007. She has since finished that project, and </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.alineaathome.com/">moved on</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> to an even more daunting challenge: the cookbook for </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/">Alinea</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, Chicago's temple of cutting-edge experimental cuisine, considered by </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://gourmetfood.about.com/b/2006/10/02/alinea-best-restaurant-in-america.htm">some</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> to be the best restaurant in the country. Her blogging stands apart for its accessibility combined with its ambition: She knows she's doing something insanely difficult, and sometimes she loses her footing, but she </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >enjoys</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> the challenge and successfully conveys that enjoyment to her readers. And best of all, the food is front and center. She rarely digresses into personal confession; her blogs are focused solely on the experience of the cooking, which she communicates with what seems like almost effortless wit, charm, and energy. If you like food writing, I can't recommend her sites highly enough. Just be warned, if you get hooked, you'll find yourself staring blearily at the clock, wondering how the last several hours evaporated.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />(There are other cook-through blogs besides Blymire's. In addition to those named in the WSJ article linked above, you can find a roll-call </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://cookthroughblogroll.blogspot.com/">here</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. Some of them are quite good, and I invite you to poke around. But as far as I'm concerned, Blymire's are the best.)</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />Anyway: I was aware of, and already reading and loving, Blymire's blog when the Princess started suggesting a food-related writing project to me. Since I was keeping the general idea at arm's length, I wasn't pondering my options in any depth, so the notion of attempting a cook-through blog never occurred to me.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />Then, a few weeks ago, we got to see an advance screening of </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Julie & Julia</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, the movie inspired by the Julie/Julia blog described above. The Princess liked the movie a lot; I thought it was half of a good film. Meryl Streep is simply miraculous, playing Julia Child during the years she discovered food in France and began transforming herself into the most famous cooking teacher in the world. Without exaggeration, every moment Streep is on screen is transportingly joyful. Her performance is pure magic, and the story is engaging and moving, especially the purity of the loving relationship between Child and her husband, played marvelously by Stanley Tucci. Unfortunately, this half of the movie is welded, in a sledgehammer-subtle parallel structure, to the story of blogger Julie Powell discovering herself through Child's cookbook. I like Amy Adams, but she's let down badly by the material. Where the Julia Child story is luminous and lovely, the Powell story is obvious and shallow, quintessential Nora Ephron twaddle. </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Julie & Julia</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> is absolutely, unquestionably worth seeing for Meryl Streep's performance, but be prepared to wait patiently through some flavorless pap whenever she's not the center of the film.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />And there concludes this brief resumption of my former career as an online movie reviewer. (Yeah, this isn't my first blog.)</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />The point here — and yes, I do, eventually, get around to the point — is that in the wake of seeing the film, I suddenly put the pieces together, and I knew what my food-writing project needed to be. I wanted to learn to cook Iranian food, and I had a template for how to do this, and write about it. I could do a cook-through.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />And best of all, there's a perfect book for the project: </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >New Food of Life</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, written by </span><span class="statustext" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Najmieh Batmanglij, and published by <a href="http://www.mage.com/cooking/new-food-of-life.html">Mage</a>.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />New Food of Life</span> is the revised edition of the earlier <span style="font-style: italic;">Food of Life</span>, and expands on the first book with more recipes and other information, and many pages of color photography. The book also includes excerpts from poetry and Persian stories, as well as some concluding sections about customs and ceremonies (and, of course, the accompanying food). It's a highly regarded book, nicely designed and clearly written, containing (according to those who would know) pretty much the complete list of old-school, traditional Persian cuisine. The Princess and I have other Iranian cookbooks on the shelf (plus a wider array of Mideast-related titles), but if you had to get just one, it would be this one. It is, almost certainly, the definitive book of classic Iranian food in English.<br /><br />So what better way to learn to cook the food than to cook it according to the number-one book about it?<br /><br />(Incidentally, while I'm thinking about it, I probably need to explain my use of the terms "Persia," and "Persian," versus "Iran" and "Iranian." It's a digression, but it's important, because I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression. To be strictly accurate, the two forms are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_people">not interchangeable</a>, and despite misconceptions, "Persia" is not an "old" name for Iran. Historically, Iran has pretty much always been "Iran" for the Iranians. The word "Persian" comes from a word in ancient Greek that may have been a corruption of an Iranian word describing the border. As a result, while Iranians have, for over 2500 years, consistently referred to the place they were, and are, as "Iran," everybody else labeled the region Persia. Then the 20th century happened, and the two competing terms began accumulating political baggage; eventually, some people, after leaving the country of Iran, started choosing to describe themselves as "Persian" to make some point or other. In my experience, meeting the Princess's family and circle of Iranian friends, and asking, gingerly, about this issue, no two people will agree precisely on the appropriate usage of the two terms. They'll agree that "Iran" is the historically accurate local term, but beyond that it's a crap shoot; the bottom line is that folks label themselves according to individual idiosyncracy more than anything else. Since I have no interest, in this blog, in getting into the minutiae of Iranian political semantics, which I'm not really qualified to analyze anyway, I am electing to ignore all the complications and use the terms interchangeably, as if they're exactly synonymous, even though I know it's sort of wrong to do so. Please keep in mind, I don't mean anything by it.)<br /><br />(Oh, and it's pronounced "ih-RAHN," and "ih-RAHN-ian." If you say "eye-RAN," and "eye-RAIN-ian," you sound like a doofus. Just so you know.)<br /><br />I mulled over the idea for a day or two, and then I proposed it to the Princess. She stared at me for a moment, and then she started to <span style="font-style: italic;">beam. </span>She became so immediately happy — so bouncingly, squealingly, clap-handingly <span style="font-style: italic;">giddy</span> — that I knew I'd finally hit on something with real merit. We talked about it (or, rather, I should say, I talked, and she <span style="font-style: italic;">bubbled</span>), and after some discussion of logistics, we were settled. This would be my project.<br /><br />And there we have it. I'm going to cook every recipe in <span style="font-style: italic;">New Food of Life</span>, and write about the experience as I do.<br /><br />It's not that simple, of course. Let's refine some of the parameters, establishing what I will and will not be doing.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Cook every recipe — </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >yes</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">. </span></span>That's pretty straightforward. However, where reasonable and appropriate, I'll be making substitutions if approved as optional in the book. For example, there's one recipe for a whole stuffed lamb, which is crazy-making just to think about. For a few minutes, I considered digging a huge firepit in the back yard, but then I saw that the recipe allows a leg of lamb to be substituted, so the shovels will stay where they are. On the other hand, the recipe about cooking the whole head? Totally making that.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Publish the recipe — </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >no</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">. </span></span>This is a tradition among cook-through bloggers. The point is to relate the experience of cooking the food, not to reproduce the cookbook. That would be a violation of copyright, and since I take intellectual property extremely seriously, I won't do it. And besides, since part of my purpose is the promotion of Iranian food, and of the book I'm cooking from, it would defeat that purpose if I simply gave you all the recipes. If you're interested in this food, either now or after reading about my experience, I want you to go get the book. (For the record: I am not associated in any way with Mage, the publisher.) I will follow the model already established by other cook-through bloggers: I'll talk about, and usually show, the ingredients, and many of the steps, but without measurements, temperatures, cooking times, and other specific details. You want the recipes, you'll have to acquire the cookbook yourself.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Treat the recipe as gospel — </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >yes</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">.</span></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> </span>As I'll be working from this specific book, I won't be deviating much from the recipes as written. I may, from time to time, compare other versions of the recipes, either for clarification or simply out of curiosity. Besides <span style="font-style: italic;">New Food of Life</span> (and the prior edition, <span style="font-style: italic;">Food of Life</span>), we have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Cooking-Nesta-Ramazani/dp/0936347775">this</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Persia-Peckham-Persepolis-Sally-Butcher/dp/190301851X">this</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sofreh-Modern-Persian-Cooking-Kamarei/dp/0979145910/">this</a> on the shelf, along with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Cuisine-Traditional-Regional-Modern/dp/1568591918/">this</a>, originally issued in separate volumes but now combined into one book, plus an only-in-Farsi book not normally available in this country. Between them, there's a lot of redundancy in recipe description. And as I discussed in the prior post, because this cuisine is truly ancient, and has been refined over the centuries into classic preparations, there isn't a lot of variation in approach for a given dish. The recipes in the other books, therefore, are quite similar to <span style="font-style: italic;">New Food of Life</span>. Still, that's my master source, so those are the recipes I'll be following. Where there's a discrepancy, <span style="font-style: italic;">New Food of Life</span> governs.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Question the recipe — </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >no</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">. </span></span>I have a fair amount of experience in the kitchen, and I'm pretty good at reading recipes. Give me the formula for an Italian or a Thai dish, and I can tell just from the recipe essentially how the food will come together and taste. I don't have that yet with Persian food, so my natural impulses are out of whack. I've been doing a little bit of preliminary planning work, and already I'm having to fight the inclination to tinker with the recipes: "this doesn't seem like enough eggs," say, or, "I could add lemon juice," or whatever. That would torpedo the whole enterprise, of course, so I'm going to stick to what's written. I do reserve the right to adjust proportions of the whole, depending on ingredient availability and serving context (cooking for two versus cooking for twenty), but as long as I'm cooking the book, I'm not going to mess with flavors or textures.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Deal with the meat problem — </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >yes</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">. </span></span>One of the distinctive things I've noted as I start my planning is just how meat-centric the cuisine really is. If Persian food is known in the West for anything, it's for kebabs, succulent morsels of savory meat — beef or lamb, whole or ground, or chicken — impaled on distinctively flat skewers, and grilled. But the focus on meat doesn't end there. A striking majority of the recipes in the book include at least some meat component; even the chapter titled "Vegetables" is all about hollowing out the produce and stuffing it with animal products. This will pose a bit of a challenge, not in cooking, but in <span style="font-style: italic;">eating.</span> We're going to be having this for dinner at least a couple nights a week for a very long time, and we need to put a variety of things on the plate, not just for health but also for sanity. I don't want to exhaust the handful of salad recipes in the book and then start repeating, for that way lies madness. Thus, I reserve another right: to go off-script on the vegetable component, and braise some green beans or chard or something as is necessary to round out the meal.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Digress — </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >yes</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">, briefly and occasionally. </span></span>While this blog will primarily be about working through <span style="font-style: italic;">New Food of Life</span>, I'm still a foodie, after all, living in a great city with great restaurant options. As such, I'll want to eat out on a semi-regular basis. Also, the Princess and I are tentatively planning some vacation travel to a couple of food meccas, where top establishments will be patronized and (hopefully) glorious food consumed. I may want to say a few words about our experiences, as much to maintain discipline and stay in the writing habit as anything else. But I won't be trying to do full-fledged formal reviews, and I will <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>be pulling out a digital camera at the dinner table, because I am not an enormous flaming douchebag. (Hush, you.)<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Remember the readers — </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >yes</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">, emphatically yes. </span></span>I'm doing this for myself, but I'm doing it in public, making it a writing exercise, so people besides me can get something out of it. And speaking of which, I should probably clarify who I would like to see as the blog's demographic.<br /><br />Although I will naturally welcome the widest possible audience, I will be keeping three groups foremost in mind as I write up my experiences. First: Americans (and other English-speaking Westerners) who are interested in ethnic cuisine generally or Iranian food specifically, either cooking or eating, and who would like to learn from the attempts of a food-savvy American to master this largely-unknown culinary tradition. Second: Iranian transplants who have grown up on a daily diet of American food (or another Western country's), and who want to get back in touch with their roots, starting from a place of unfamiliarity. And third: Iranians who already know their food well, and will recognize everything I'm doing, and can respect (or be amused by) this foolhardy American's march off into a mysterious culinary world. It's this last group that I really hope shows up here; I won't mind some teasing and laughter if I screw something up, but I could also use the advice. I have the Princess, of course, and her mother, as resources, but they won't always be available, and even then, they can't know everything. So any infusion of additional knowledge would be welcome.<br /><br />And the final rule:<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Enforce a time limit — <span style="font-style: italic;">no</span>. </span></span>Estimating the number of recipes in the book, if I can manage four a week, the project will take about two years to complete. That seems long, and I'll try to be more aggressive than that, but I'm not going to punish myself to get it done. Life has a way of, y'know, <span style="font-style: italic;">happening</span>, so I need to give myself room to deal with anything as it comes up, and not add pressure. This is supposed to be <span style="font-style: italic;">fun</span>, right? That said, I will be buckling down for the marathon, and intend to publish at least once per week, if not more often.<br /><br />All right, so, that's the scoop. That's who I am, what I'm doing, and why and how I'm doing it. If you've read all of this, you have my respect, and my thanks.<br /><br />I should also thank, in advance, the Persian Princess, who has already been very patient with me as I've gotten the planning underway, and who will no doubt be generous with her time, helping me through the next months and years. I also need to thank her mother, a sweet, kind, and tough-as-a-knife-fight woman, who is equally supportive of, and generous to, her loved ones, me now included. And I'm sure at some point I'll probably have to lean on someone in our wider circle, for research, procurement, or some other form of assistance. Something like this doesn't get done without a lot of people behind the scenes, and I appreciate knowing the Princess and I have good people around us who can be counted on. All of these people have the expertise I currently lack; it's with their assistance that I intend to remedy that.<br /><br />The bottom line is, anything I get right, I will probably get right because I'll have help; and anything I get wrong, it'll almost certainly be my own fault.<br /><br />And that, as they say, is that.<br /><br />So, what's first?<br /><br />I'm going to start simple. First up, a cucumber and mint salad, and a "koo-koo," which is a Persian quiche. Stay tuned.<br /><br /></span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750411400865899647.post-4608956014766319022009-07-21T14:11:00.000-07:002009-09-10T15:15:11.883-07:00Wherein I begin my very long mission statement<span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Okay, so, here's the deal.<br /><br />First question: Does the world need another generic food blog? In other words, a bunch of entries saying, "Today, I cooked such-and-such from the latest <span style="font-style: italic;">Food and Wine</span>. It was pretty good. Here's a picture." Or, alternatively, "Last night, I went to Bob's Steakhouse, and ha</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >d rib-eye. It was pretty good. Here's a pictur</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >e."<br /><br />Yeah. Not so much.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I read a lot about food, but I have to say, I'm always looking for something more than just description and narrative. </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >The food writers I follow and enjo</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >y</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > all have eit</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >her a point of view, or a sense of mission, or both. They want to <span style="font-style: italic;">accomplish</span> something </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >—</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > or help their readers to do so.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>It's one thing to say, "I made the lemon cupcakes in <span style="font-style: italic;">Cook's Illustrated</span>, and was happy with how they turned out," or, "Woo hoo, I pulled off a tough one from <span style="font-style: italic;">The French Laundry Cookbook.</span>" It's another thing entirely to write about what was involved in converting the lemon cupcakes to lime, and then trying to <a href="http://sugarandwool.blogspot.com/2009/04/lime-with-bite-cupcakes.html">boost the tartness</a> wherever possible, or to describe exactly how difficult it is to <a href="http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/2008/05/head-to-toe-part-two-pigs-head.html">saw an animal's head in half</a>, and the tools required to do so. I love reading about people <span style="font-style: italic;">learning</span> thing</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >s, studying and experimenting and <span style="font-style: italic;">expanding</span> themselves, and in </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >the process teaching their read</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ers the same things.<br /><br />To take one example: M</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ichael Ruhlman</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > is a very smart man. He knows his stuff, and has a lot to teach. Still, hi</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >s essays are </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >most engaging when he takes a shot at a new recipe or technique, but screws up, at which point he either has to fix something to get back on track, or wing it and </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >improvisationally </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >transform the food into something else entirely rather than lose the dish completely. We can feel him <span style="font-style: italic;">thinking</span> his way through the work, and coming out smarter and more experienced on the other side. And by extension,</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > we do as well.<br /><br />That's the experience I value as a reader, and it's my goal for this blog. Specifically, I am going to try to learn something, and</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > I'm going to do it in public so people can follow along.</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Okay, what are you going to try to learn?</span> Aw, I can't say just yet. I mean, I have to keep you in suspense for a little while yet. Just chill for a second.</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br />All right, so, who am I?<br /><br />I'm a reasonabl</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >y accomplish</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ed hom</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >e cook. I'm not really interested in being a professional (ridiculous hours, repetitive work), but I really enjoy cooking for family, friends, and, of course, myself. I read extensively about food — books, magazines, online — and I cook several times a week. Usually the meal is simple, throwing things together in an hour, and sometimes it's more elaborate, occasionally comically so. I live in a great</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > food city, and I eat a highly varied diet;</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > in any given week I'll enjoy Chinese, Italian, Thai, Indian, "new American," Spanish, or just a hambu</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >rger. As far as my personal background goes, the mother's side of my family is ivory-white, while my father's side is a little more toasty-brown. Plus, </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >m</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >y aunt is Vietnamese, which has put a lot of interesting food on the table from time to time.</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br />I make an effort to eat new things as often as possible, and I try to cook them as well. Sometimes I nail it on the first try; usually there's room for improvement; occasionally it's a hopeless disaster and I have to call out for pizza. For the most part, though, I know what I'm doing</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >, and there's a decently straight line between my intent and what winds up on the plate.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Just for grins, here are a few of the things I've mad</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >e over the years. Sure, there's a little bragging involved, but I am very aware, and you should be too, that these are just the successes. I have regular failures, no question; a few days ago I tried to turn store-bought corn tortillas into tostada bowls and wound up with squat. By featuring these examples, I'm not trying to show off or pretend I'm some sort of genius chef, because I'm not. It's more about setting the context of who I am as a cook.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Firs</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >t up, on the simple side, this is an oil-poached salmon, based on something I read</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZHRP3guuI/AAAAAAAAAAU/pw8Neyx6AjQ/s1600-h/salmon.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZHRP3guuI/AAAAAAAAAAU/pw8Neyx6AjQ/s200/salmon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361050768073865954" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > by Cha</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >rlie</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Trott</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >er, i</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >f I remember correctly. The basic approach: At a very low temperature, I i</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >nfused a couple of basic aromatics into olive oil for an hour or two (leeks and garlic, I think), then verified the oil was at the</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >correct f</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >in</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ishing temperature, and added the salmon. While it was cooking, I pan-roasted the </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >new potatoes. I also used the aromatic confit as the basis for a </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >sauce, and also julienned some </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >fresh leeks and deep-fri</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ed them until crispy, to garnish the salmon. The advantage of the oil-poaching method is that it's almost impossible to overcook the protein; it's sort of like a sous-vide technique. You don't want to leave the fish in the oil too lo</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ng, of course, but as long as you're reasonab</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ly engaged it's </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >nearly foolproof.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Next: blanched asparagus, topped with lemon risotto. The risotto</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > is actually</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZIm9-xRVI/AAAAAAAAAAc/3WIqd0q9Rc4/s1600-h/asparagus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZIm9-xRVI/AAAAAAAAAAc/3WIqd0q9Rc4/s200/asparagus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361052240741221714" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > a bit of a h</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ybrid; I parcooked it, as you would if you were preparing it ah</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >ead of time, and then instead of finishing it with the remaining stock, I used the stock to make a Greek-style avgolemono, tart with lemon and thickened with egg, which I</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > added to the risotto to complete the cooking. The result is richly aromatic and luxurious to the point of unctuousness, beyond the normal </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >creaminess of standard risotto. It looks simple on the plate but it'</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >s </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >a real kicker on the fork.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Tomato-truffle sformato. If you don't know the term, a sformato is</span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZJ2P07xWI/AAAAAAAAAAk/E8AsqRf_8As/s1600-h/sformato.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZJ2P07xWI/AAAAAAAAAAk/E8AsqRf_8As/s200/sformato.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361053602741470562" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> an Italian egg dish, sort of like a quiche, but crustless; it's heavier than</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> a souffle but lighter than custard. They can be made in a big dish and cut, or prepared individually in ramekins and unmolded,</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> as I did here. (The name "sfo</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">rmato" comes from the Italian term for unmolding a formed food, as I understand it.) There's myzithra cheese mixed in, and it's finished with basil oil. This is sort of the opposite of the dish above</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">: whereas that one looks fairly straightforward until you eat it, this one looks (and smells) fancy, but is comforting and familiar to eat.<br /><br /></span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Semi-traditional Korean bibimbap. Why not traditional? I don't have the heavy stone serving bowls, which are heated so when you add the</span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZLavJPQ4I/AAAAAAAAAAs/EIo1CXM8eS4/s1600-h/bibimbap.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZLavJPQ4I/AAAAAAAAAAs/EIo1CXM8eS4/s200/bibimbap.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361055329135051650" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> cooked rice,</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> a brown crust is created around the sides and across the bottom. Other than tha</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">t, this is pretty muc</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">h the way you'd get it in a Korean kitchen. It's humble home cooking, designed to get rid of leftovers: a little bit of p</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">ickled vegetable, sliced or shredded meat, some of this, some of that, with an egg yolk stirred in for mouthfeel. There's also a bit of kimchi on the side, for crunch and spice. At a fast-food stand, the egg may be cooked (often scrambled) for safety reasons. The meat here is duck breast.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This is probably the most elaborate single plate I've made recently, one of several courses for a feast I created for my girlfrien</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">d's mother's birthday.</span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZMghZ20hI/AAAAAAAAAA0/Oe3DOK8HVAc/s1600-h/crabsalad.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZMghZ20hI/AAAAAAAAAA0/Oe3DOK8HVAc/s200/crabsalad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361056528037499410" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It's basically a crab salad, but there are several twists. First, the two layers of crab (which includes creme fraiche, chive, and lime, plus jicama for texture) sandwich a layer of soft salsa, made with avocad</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">o, cucumber, and peach; there's also a dusting of crushed and toasted almond on top of the salsa. The red is a relish of roasted red pepper and pickled shallot; the green garnish is a daikon sprout. On the right is a radicchio salad, dressed with a vinaigrette whose main component is tomato water. I was really happy with how this one came together.<br /><br /></span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Now a couple of desserts:<br /><br /></span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This is your classic black rice pudding, familiar to anyone who's eaten</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> a lot of</span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZOIlm8bZI/AAAAAAAAAA8/_l3LQiuwsoA/s1600-h/pudding.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZOIlm8bZI/AAAAAAAAAA8/_l3LQiuwsoA/s200/pudding.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361058315872529810" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> Thai food and its relatives. You can find variations on this dish all over Southeast Asia; my use of pandan leaf to sweeten the rice makes it (mostly) Indonesian. (I'm fortunate to live in the Pacific Northwest, where the proliferation of Asian markets makes it easy to find pandan and other kooky ingredients.) It's finished with a bit of coconut milk, a combination of equal parts heated and unheated to get elements of both. There's some palm sugar as sweetener in both the rice and the coconut. And yes, the flowers are edible.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">And finally: I described this to my guests as "tiramisu, rephrased." I love the flavors of tiramisu (sweet chocolate, creamy mascarpone, bitter coffee), but I'm tired of</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> the conventional arrangement: gummy cake, predictable layers, you know</span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZPfngRMBI/AAAAAAAAABE/Nh7EAQGYSbc/s1600-h/tiramisu.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8dncivq7dm0/SmZPfngRMBI/AAAAAAAAABE/Nh7EAQGYSbc/s200/tiramisu.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361059811030020114" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> how it goes. It's one of those desserts that's relatively easy to throw together, which means it's easy to make badly; it's rare to get one that's as transcendant as it's supposed to be. So I've made a small speciality out of coming up with different</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> ways of taking the dish apart</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> and putting it together in alternate configurations, emphasizing one or another variable element. As one example, I've stuffed profiteroles with coffee ice cream and a rum-mascarpone sauce. (I called this combination "tiramichoux," har har.) Here, I started with a variation on a Moroccan-style crepe (called a baghrir, made with semolina), spread it with a thin layer of coffee-chocolate ganache, rolled and filled it with a vanilla-infused creme patisserie, and dressed it with a rum-and-mascarpone sabayon. It's thick, heavy, and chewy, and, fortunately for me, absolutely delicious.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You've probably noticed by now, I'm a bit restless. I don't like to be confined to one style, and I don't like to repeat myself. I'm always looking to try something new, something different; I like adding taste and texture combinations to the repertoire so they can be thrown in, mixed and matched, as needed. I think of it as a toolbox, a knowledge base out of which different things can be pulled. I've ranged all over with my cooking, and I feel like I can dip comfortably into a lot of varying traditions as I work.<br /><br />So — and here, patient reader, is where I finally get to the freaking point — it was with some surprise, and not a little excited anticipation, that when I started dating an Iranian woman several months ago, I realized there was a whole area of the world whose food I had, until that point, barely explored: the Mideast.<br /><br />I mean, it's not a total blank: I know a bit about Turkish cooking, and Lebanese; I have a number of books (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arabesque-Taste-Morocco-Turkey-Lebanon/dp/030726498X">this one</a> is excellent), which I've read or skimmed, and from which I've done a bit of cooking. I also took a class in Turkish food a while back, which was mostly recipe-based, but which provided a little grounding. In addition, I know something of the tastes of Afghanistan, thanks to a <a href="http://www.kabulrestaurant.com/">wonderful restaurant</a> here in town. Then there's Morocco, which some people consider part of the Mideast, because of the Arab influence. I'll agree it sort of counts, though when I really look at the food, it strikes me as more of a cross between Spanish and North African traditions. But the region's other cuisines are largely a mystery to me, so it's not like I have solid reasons for thinking that.<br /><br />There are two things I definitely lack, when it comes to Mideastern food. First, and most important, is a grasp of the foundations, both in preparation and flavors. Yeah, you can eat something and say it sort of "feels" Mideastern; everybody knows hummus, for instance, and the sesame-taste of tahini can be recognized in other dishes. Also, if you've ever had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastilla">bastilla</a>, you will know how the pronounced flavor and aroma of cinnamon sets the food apart, so you can't mistake the dish as coming from anywhere else. And, of course, there's the saffron. But these are just ingredients; I'm talking about building blocks, traditional combinations, like tomato-basil-cheese-and-olive-oil in Italy, or bonito-kombu-miso in Japan. And if you've cooked any Thai food at all, you know that while fish sauce goes into everything, it isn't used in exactly the same way from dish to dish. That's the kind of information a cook really needs to succeed in a cuisine.<br /><br />Which leads to the second thing: a sense of the distinctions of regionality. Again, in Italy, you can't really call yourself knowledgeable unless you can recognize the difference between a Tuscan red sauce and its Roman equivalent, or unless you know that pasta in the south is typically made with flour and water, whereas the northern version also includes eggs. As an even more extreme example, there's a world of difference in the cuisines of India; in the West, we tend to see a sort of rolled-up generic hybrid of the various traditions in our unspecifically-labeled "Indian" restaurants, a hybrid that combines the rice and vegetables of the south with the meats and tandoori of the north, and maybe some of the seafood treatments of the west, in a way you'd never see at their source. But Mideastern food? Right now, as I write this, I couldn't even begin to explain what separates, say, Egyptian food from Syrian, because I have absolutely not the first clue. And with Mideastern food being largely unknown in the West, not only was I clueless about it, I didn't know I didn't know it — which is to say, I wasn't aware of it as a knowledge gap.<br /><br />That is, of course, until I began a relationship with a woman from Iran, who will be known in these entries as my Persian Princess. (Don't laugh, that's what she asked me to call her. And if you make fun of her, she will cut you. You do not, repeat <span style="font-style: italic;">not,</span> mess with a Persian girl.) She is, absolutely, a sweetheart, generous and kind and funny, as well as being very smart and ambitious and professionally capable. She's also beautiful, with thick curly hair, huge dark eyes, and smooth olive skin. I have no idea why she's giving her time to a smart-ass like me, but she is, and my life is immeasurably richer for it.<br /><br />She's also tiny, just a hair over five feet. She's like an exotic leprechaun, looking up at a world of regular-sized people. Just kidding, baby. Ha! Ha! Don't cut me.<br /><br />Anyway.<br /><br />One of the first things we discovered we have in common is a passion about food. She cooks Iranian classics, of course, but also appreciates what other countries have to offer. If it tastes good, she likes it. She boasted a little bit about Iranian food, and said she'd cook me a traditional meal. I said, okay, that sounds interesting, sure; I don't know anything about it and would love to try it. I had no idea what it really meant, because, again, my basis of understanding was essentially null. But it was an opportunity to learn something, not to mention being a way to get to know this cutie-pie with the diamond-bright smile, so, hey, I was up for it.<br /><br />Little did I know, a world was about to open up.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I made a mistake: I cooked for her first, before she could cook for me.<br /><br />I don't remember everything I made that night, but I do know I pulled out a few of the stops. Not all of them, because I didn't want to seem like I was trying too hard, but I definitely did want to impress her. I know I made lamb chops, with a dab of minted yogurt sauce, and zucchini on the side; and I think I made something with squash, a soup maybe. I remember being happy with the results, though, and she was impressed.<br /><br />Too much so, actually — she said she was intimidated by what I'd made, that she was worried I might be better in the kitchen, and now she wasn't sure she wanted to cook for me.<br /><br />And I said to myself: well, shit.<br /><br />This meant I didn't get to appreciate an authentic home-cooked Persian meal until I after met her mother, who laid out an amazing feast on one of my early visits. Since then, the Princess has, thankfully, overcome her nervousness, and started cooking for me, with great success. Seriously, she didn't have anything to be anxious about. Between her and her mother, and a number of other friends and family, I've enjoyed a variety of different dishes, and started to get a handle on what the food is all about. It's been an eye-opening, and delicious, experience.<br /><br />It has also, I should admit, been a bit of a challenge.<br /><br />Because here's the thing: Persian food can be described a lot of ways, but one thing it is not, certainly, is <span style="font-style: italic;">obvious.</span><br /><br />People in the West, especially in America, have been hungry for novelty for a long time. Starting with the rise of the Chinese restaurant (however bastardized and diluted the food might be, compared to the original), through the expansion of Italian and Mexican and Indian and Greek and other restaurants, to today's explosion of Thai and Ethiopian and sushi, we've shown ourselves quite accommodating to a variety of flavors from around the world. Spain is very hot right now; tomorrow it'll be Vietnamese (pho is just the tip of the iceberg) and Brazilian and Korean and who knows what else.<br /><br />But one thing all of these food traditions share is that the flavors <span style="font-style: italic;">pop</span> in some way. There may be layers of construction to the taste, undercurrents that are perceived only with time and reflection, but there's a bright and immediate character to each bite, something to hook you right off the bat.<br /><br />Persian food, based on the several months I've been exploring it, doesn't really have that. It's got a reputation for blandness, for being boring and underseasoned; Rick Steves, the public-television travel host, loved the country of Iran when he visited recently, but called the food "<a href="http://www.ricksteves.com/tms/article.cfm?id=143">not very exciting</a>." I disagree, for reasons I'll explain below, but I can see why people would say things like this. The lack of the aforementioned <span style="font-style: italic;">pop</span>, I think, is a big part of it, and a major reason why the food hasn't really caught on.<br /><br />When we eat a foreign dish, we expect to put it in our mouth and <span style="font-style: italic;">experience</span> something. Maybe we'll like it, maybe we won't, but we expect to have a reaction of some kind. The food of Iran doesn't give us anything to which we can immediately respond; it's subtle and reserved. Not only that, but because of the culture in which it was developed, the dishes share many creative elements, which can trigger a feeling of sameness, of repetition, as you continue to eat. So even if you like the first few things you try, you may feel like you've exhausted the potential of the cuisine fairly quickly, and begin to get bored. I know I had a bit of that reaction; in the second or third month, I was asking myself, "Is this all there is to it?" This, I think, is where Rick Steves, and those who share his view, are coming from.<br /><br />It's understandable, but it's also not fair, I think. Persian food, again, is not obvious, but it's also not bland, either. What it is, I would argue, is <span style="font-style: italic;">sophisticated.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span><br />(You want bland? Try Hawaiian food. The best thing that ever happened to the local taste buds was the invasion of all the foreigners. Sorry, islanders, no offense, but your food? Sucks.)<br /><br />One of the facts you have to keep in mind when thinking about all things Persian is that the culture is <span style="font-style: italic;">old.</span> Not old like the downtown movie palace from the 1920's, which draws predictable editorial lamentations on its demolition. No, I mean, really, <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>old. More than 1300 years ago, when the Arabs rolled into town bragging about their newfangled monotheistic system, Iranians had already been following the teachings of the single-god prophet Zoroaster for nearly a millennium. By the time of the Roman Empire, the Persians had already built and lost two massive dominions, one more than half the size of Rome at its peak, and another that was more than half again larger. So not only was it probably the biggest ancient empire ever, it also predates everything else of significance. And even as these authorities have risen and fallen, as the people wearing the crowns and stamping themselves on the money have shuffled in and out, the Iranian culture, in terms of its identity, has remained fairly stable and continuous. This is a people that knew who they were, creating music and architecture and government, when the West's Northern-European forebears were still grunting and hitting each other with rocks.<br /><br />So, yeah. <span style="font-style: italic;">Old.</span><br /><br />The point, obviously, </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">is</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> that there have been thousands of years for the various aspects of the culture to be refined and polished, and the food, the more I've been exposed to it, clearly reflects this. It's not the first time I've felt this way, either; I had a similar sense of history when I got the chance to visit Tuscany a couple of years ago. I was deeply struck by the food, and distilled my response to two basic observations.<br /><br />First, it felt as though the food had very nearly been perfected, <span style="font-style: italic;">finished</span> even — that these people had been living here continuously for countless hundreds of years, generation after generation working with the same raw materials, and had figured out, over all that time, the ideal methods for handling their ingredients and preparing their food. And second, from household to household, from cook to cook and table to table, there wasn't a lot of variation in approach, that everybody made their meatballs and their lasagna and their grappa pretty much the same. Sure, the locals would argue that assertion, pointing out that <span style="font-style: italic;">this </span>woman makes her pasta with purchased eggs but <span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>woman uses eggs from her own home-grown chickens (and debate with one another about whether or not that actually makes a difference; Italians love to argue). From an outsider's perspective, though, these differences can be found in a fairly narrow band, compared to how people outside Tuscany make the same food. It's as if they've already done their experimentation, and have collectively arrived at the perfect recipes, so there's no need to look any further. And having been blown away by the meal I had my very first day in Italy — hell, by the very first <span style="font-style: italic;">bite</span> — I can't see as how I would question that conclusion.<br /><br />I've been having an equivalent reaction in my (so far) limited experience with Iranian cuisine, though with a somewhat different slant. Its merits have not been as immediately obvious as they were with Italian food; there, I had a basis for comparison, a lifetime of experience with Americanized versions. "Oh," I said after a couple of revelatory swallows, "so <span style="font-style: italic;">that's </span>what it's supposed to taste like."<br /><br />But the food of Iran? I have, again, no foundation. It's good, without question, and the more I eat it the more I come to appreciate it. It is, to repeat the adjectives from above, refined and sophisticated. It's not marked by a single assertive characteristic; rather, each dish is a balanced blend of flavors, a distinctive whole that sums up century after century, lifetime after uncounted lifetime, of culinary refinement. The food doesn't assault your senses: it's restrained, calm, graciously elegant — almost <span style="font-style: italic;">polite</span>, if you get my meaning. And while with Italian food, as noted above, I had something with which the idealized original could be clearly contrasted, for Iranian cuisine I am lost in terms of tradition and comparison. I mean, I know it's different, certainly, but ... different from what?<br /><br />Which is, in the end, the circuitously long explanation for why I've decided I need to learn how to cook it.<br /><br />In the next post: my plan of attack.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>The FoodNinjahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17547714900466540979noreply@blogger.com2