Okra-Corn Maque-Choux

Lots of fresh corn, okra, tomatoes, & peppers are available now in KCMO.

Two links of italian sausage, skinned
one chopped medium onion (I used red onion) {one could use shallots, I reckon}
two crushed cloves of garlic
1 tbs olive oil
Cut corn from 3 ears of fresh sweet corn
1 cup of chopped okra
1 cup of chopped tomatoes
1 cup of chopped peppers ( I used red & “yaller” peppers and about a tbs of minced jalapeño, or more, si tu quieres)
1 tbs Mexican oregano
1 bay leaf

Chopping okra

Aerial view of maque-choux

 

 

c’est fini!

Serve with rice.

 

End of Two weeks in Kansas City.

Well, the high point turned out to be during the 4.5 hour layover in DFW where I got to meet one of my culinary heroes. I was at a gate in the D concourse where my Richmond flight was to leave after a flight to Mexico City left. It turned out the flight to Mexico City was delayed and an elderly lady sat down across from me. I noticed that DSK was inscribed upon her rolling duffle and she looked familiar. I went over to her and said:

“Pardon me, are you Diana Kennedy?”

She said she indeed was Diana Kennedy and we had about a 10 minute chat where I told her that I had most of her cookbooks and had really appreciated her work. She told me that she’s working with a couple of ethnobotanists on a huge volume on chiles and that she and José Andrés are planning to do a presentation at the Kennedy Center on the Deiz y Seis de Septiembre.

I asked if I could take a photo of her and she said “Get someone to take one of the both of us!” So here it is..

Una encuentra con la maestra!

After this, I had to check the departure screen and had to hoof it to concourse C.  I heard some guys saying that they’d seen Roger Staubach in the concourse.

Roger who?

~~~~~

The two weeks in KC were quite good, BTW.  I saw my wife,  and my son and his wife (for a few days on their way back to Toronto) and my mother-in-law, who had arrived Tuesday from Oregon.

We ate asian dumplings at BLUE KOI

Pork dumplings at BLUE KOI (we ate there three times!)

Great mezze at LITTLE EGYPT (sorry, no photo but here’s one of the Farmer’s Market which opens at 5:30AM. These guys aren’t “hobby farmers“! No sir!)

Kohlrabi

Samosas, kebabs, & rooh afza (a chilled & delicious pink rosewater & milk drink) at CHAI SHAI

Lamb kebab & rooh afza (we ate at Chai Shai twice)

and I made the rounds of various taquerias getting a fix of serious Mexican food which is not to common around here, except at LA MILPA

La Guacamalera (they make guacamole at your table in some places)

And several BOULEVARD ales were quaffed. BTW, BOULEVARD has joined up with DESCHUTES brewery from Bend, Oregon and they will be in the KC area in a few months. Be still my heart.

Real tabbouleh!

Too much bulgur , Herr Mozart!

Traditional Lebanese tabbouleh here, folks. Accept no substitutes.

More green, less grain!

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2011/06/tabbouleh-recipe-anissa-helou/

Olio: Dec 22 — Gigot a la Sept Heures! Dec 27

No one’s written up the ER meet up at Olio a week ago. Here goes..

The Wine Lady had a tasting of Central California zinfs and a wonderfully jammy bottle from Amador County.  I’d like to get some more of that, for sure.

Answering questions about tasty wine.

Some folks bought food to share. Jason (our host) got a Pizza margherita and I ordered a nice platter of French cheeses.

quel fromage!

I had to leave before it ended.  Oona was coming in from KC and we’ve had a lot of work to do, getting the townhouse ready to put on the market. No rest for the wicket.

~~~~~

On the 27th, I cooked a Belmont Butchery piece of boneless leg of lamb. It turned out wonderful.

Gigot a la Sept Heures!

Belmont Butchery's boneless lamb

I roasted this for 6 hours on a bed of garlic, rosemary, bay leaves, savory, & thyme at 300 F.

Rosemary, thyme & garlic.. pre-roasting

The roasted garlic cloves were like candy. Sorry I didn’t get a picture of the finished dish until we had devoured part of it. We served this with an Albariño and a bottle of Fin du Monde.

We served the lamb with roast brussel sprouts, asparagus, a green salad, and white beans. It was wonderful.

Out on the town in a minimalist way.

The son of an old Austin buddy and I were going to have dinner Thursday, going out for Indo/Pak.  The weather made us push it to Friday and we went to Malabar by way of Patterson & Lauderdale since we wanted to avoid the chaos of Short-Pumpitudia.  Had a fine meal of samosas, channa sag & curried fish (too bad it was that mudfish, tilapia). We talked about his folks and how they were coming up this week in an RV. Tres honkey.

channasaag

 

Then we went for a beer at Commercial Tap House.  I had a Blue Mountain Full Nelson and Jacques had a Victory 4-y.o. barleywine (10% ?) both of which were excellent.

Their Full Nelson Pale Ale is GREAT!

 

I was home by 8:20,  sensible person that I am.

Cooking for one…

Since Oona has taken work in Kansas City, I’ve been batching it. Soups are great for that. Especially this one, CALDO VERDE, a Portuguese kale & potato soup.

CALDO VERDE

• 3/4 of a pound of potatoes, diced (you can peel them if you are fastidious)
• 1 onion, peeled & thinly sliced
• 2 shallots, peeled & thinly sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled & crushed
• 1 tbs of olive oil

Heat oil in a heavy soup kettle, saute onion/shallot/garlic until translucent; add potatoes, adding

• 1.5 quarts of chicken or turkey stock
• some chopped parsley
• 2 bay leaves

Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer. Cover and cook until potatoes are tender. Remove bay leaves; mash potatoes or liquify in a blendor. 

Cut 1/3 of a pound of kale in a fine chiffonade and add this to the soup. Simmer for a bit and add salt & pepper to taste. Slices of fried chorizo may be added for a garnish.

Roasting Hatch (NM) Chiles

I was in the Huguenot Road Fresh Market Thursday and saw they had some Hatch chiles. I bought a couple of pounds and today I roasted them and will peel them, use some tonight,  and freeze the rest.

chiles on the grill

Here they are after being turned once.

The smell is exquisite. Back in the civilized world, you'll buy a tow sack or two of these and they will roast these for you in a revolving mesh cage over propane.

They are in a plastic sack now, sweating, and getting ready to be peeled. These are fairly mild chiles. Pity, that.

Chiles en repose.

Red or green?

Real Farmer’s Markets

I’m in Kansas City. They open at 5:00 AM. Richmond’s Farmer’s markets are for lazy slackers.

Another good thing about Martin’s

They have the nicest okra in town.  Krogers & Food Dog okra always looks beat up and why the hell do the folks at the Farmer’s Markets let ‘em get so damn big?

Making pesto & pasta on the Fourth

We had planned to make pesto yesterday and cut a bunch of basil while it was still cool and put it in the fridge. I made it using the Marcella Hazan cookbook (The Classic Italian Cook Book: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating: 1973) with pine nuts and Palestinian olive oil in our old reliable Cusinart. The two resulting batches came out to about two cups.

basil from our front garden

Ruhlman’s RATIO (Ratio: 2009) book was consulted for a basic pasta recipe. Instead of the recommended Italian pasta flour (which we did not have on hand), we used semolina flour. Easy to work and has great flavour.

pasta roller

We decided on a rustic approach: hand cutting.

lining the knife

We laid the cut strips on a platter lined with waxed paper. Next time, to facilitate drying, we will not stack the layers of pasta.

getting ready.

Cooking semolina pasta takes longer than conventional flour pasta. Taste-testing is obligatory!

pasta boiling

Here is our dinner. We also had a home-made chilled zucchini soup, sliced tomatoes with tapenade, and mushrooms sautéed with shallots.

4th of July dinner

Alas, we had forgotten about dessert. Pity, that.