Until 3 or 4 years ago, I had an aversion to lamb. My father hated lamb, so we never ate it at home. My first experience with lamb (that I can remember) was at a Greek restaurant in Boston when I was a teenager; I ate a decidedly unfresh hunk of meat that left a horrible aftertaste for hours. After that, I swore off lamb. And Greek food.
Fortunately, after college, I decided I needed to expand my culinary horizons. In The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten writes about how moderate exposure to hated foods is the key to getting ride of aversions. He creates a 6-step program to dealing with a bunch of his own food phobias, including kimchi, Indian desserts, and yes, Greek food, by trying everything 8 to 10 times. I can't say my own culinary enlightenment was this organized, or steadfastly recorded for publication. But I do know that over the years of going out of my comfort zone I have come to love anything Greek I used to loathe, including olives and feta. And especially lamb.
Lamb has become, quite possibly, an addiction. Cooking at home or dining out, I can't help but crave the gamey taste of this meat. (Of course, Steingarten also writes that repeatedly eating the same foods is also as bad as specifically avoiding certain foods. Let's hope I'm not one of those people.)
Living in Beijing has made me develop a severe addiction to 羊肉串 (yángròuchuàn), otherwise known as lamb skewers. The intense aroma of cumin- and chilli- coated lamb on a grill makes me salivate like nothing else. And the heavy Mongolian and Xinjiang influence on Beijing's foodscape means that 羊肉串 is everywhere, on the street, in regular restaurants, in chuan bars.
If you're nowhere near Beijing, or want to satisfy your lamb-and-cumin craving at home without a grill, this stir-fry is the next best thing. Mark Bittman, who writes The Minimalist column in the NY Times' Dining Section, is a pro at translating mouth-watering dishes into simple recipes for home cooks. He based this stir-fry off the same lamb skewers I often dream about. It's a good dish to serve on busy weeknights or hectic dinner parties, because all the prep is done beforehand. Once you're ready to cook, take the lamb out of the fridge, toss it in a hot wok, and you have a mouth-watering stir-fry in about 5 minutes.
To get the most out of this dish, it's imperitive to use fresh cumin seeds. Ground cumin has nowhere near the aroma or bite of just-toasted seeds. For the garnish, Mark Bittman suggests cilantro. I didn't have any cilantro on hand, so I heated up some fresh red chillis in a wok until they're blistered.
If I had to make a list of my top favorite comfort foods of all time, mapo doufu would be at the top along with lamb curry, roast chicken, and anything in a clay pot. I almost always order it at Sichuan restaurants, despite that voice in my head pushing me to try something new. But the craving is too hard to resist. Thinking about the mala taste, the thick sauce that wraps sublimely around white rice, and the silken-ness of the tofu contrasting with the slightly crispy pork all make me surrender to the tried-and-true.
Fortunately, mapo doufu also very easy to make at home. This recipe is adapted from Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop, one of the very few Western food writers to delve deeply into Sichuan cuisine. I highly recommend this book if you're looking for not only recipes but also great writing that brings the sights, smells, and tastes of Sichuan province to life.
The first time I ever had dan dan mian was years ago in New York's East Village. It was one of those insanely hot and muggy July days, and my friend S and I were walking on St. Mark's Street, sweaty even in tank tops and skirts.
"Where do you want to have lunch?," I asked.
"Anywhere with AC," was the reply.
We ducked into the St. Mark's branch of Grand Sichuan and sure enough, there was a generous amount of AC, along with a particularly surly waitress. We ordered quickly just to get her to go away.
We ate about 4 or 5 dishes, but I don't remember any except the dan dan noodles and cold cucumber salad. I remember the dan dan noodles because they were some of the spiciest things I had ever tasted, at that point. I remember the cucumbers because, despite also being spicy, they tamed the heat in my mouth from the dan dan noodles.
I gulped about 4 or 5 glasses of water during the meal. The food was actually pretty good, but I, being a newbie to Sichuan food, couldn't fully appreciate the complexity of the Sichuan peppercorn. Years later, having had many 4-alarm Sichuan meals, I actually miss and crave the mala sensation (numbing spiciness) if I don't eat Sichuan for a week or more.
What to do when you crave meat with a rich-tasting sauce, but not the feeling of heaviness afterwards? One of the tricks all Chinese cooks use for stir-fries is to mix in a little cornstarch. And cornstarch can be used for more Western-style pan sauces too.
A few nights ago I made pork medallions with a raisin ginger sauce. The dish was easy to whip up; just brown the meat, toss it in the oven to roast, and make the pan sauce while you wait. The sauce is the key to this dish, a nice sweet and tangy alternative to the savory sauces that usually go with roast pork.
Pork Medallions with Raisin-Ginger Sauce
Adapted from Food & Wine
Serves 2
1 lb (450 g) pork tenderloin, cut into 4 medallions
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup (120 ml) apple juice
1/2 cup (120 ml) chicken broth
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 tablespoons golden raisins
1 teaspoon ginger, freshly grated
1/4 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 teaspoon of water
Preheat the oven to 350° F (175° C). Season pork with salt and pepper on each side. Heat oil in a large heavy skillet and cook pork over moderately high heat until browned on both sides, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer the pork to a baking pan and roast in the oven for about 7 to 8 minutes, or until the pork is firm when pressed down.
This winter has been brutal in China, and no part of the country has been spared. Even in Zhongshan in the south, about the same latitude as Florida, it has been so cold that I have to wear a down coat. The same down coat I wear up in Beijing. According to my father, last year it was so warm during Spring Festival he could wear a t-shirt out. Not so this year (and we have global warming to thank) Although it's about 15 degrees Celsius warmer here, the dampness creates a bone-chilling type of cold, the same type of cold you get in London, Paris, and Shanghai.
Cold weather makes me long for piping hot dishes, like clay pot braises. Last night I decided to make clay pot chicken, and adapted a Vietnamese-style braise from Chef Charles Phan of San Francisco's Slanted Door. One of the major changes I made was the amount of fish sauce. The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons, which I would not recommend to anyone hoping to keep a decent-smelling kitchen. (See Vietnamese Caramelized Pork.) I reduced the amount to 1 teaspoon or a few drops, which is plenty for enhancing the flavors of the dish.
You can also make this dish both mild or spicy. I tossed in seeded Thai chilli, which added a mild tinge; for more spice, just leave the seeds in.
Clay Pot Chicken
Adapted from Chef Charles Phan, via Epicurious
Serves 4
I never thought I would have trouble finding fish sauce in China. Growing up, many of the Cantonese dishes my mother cooked contained fish sauce. In New York's and Boston's Chinatowns, Squid Sauce and other varieties of nam pla were staples in every market.
Even though fish sauce is hardly used in northern Chinese cooking, I didn't think it would be hard to find in Beijing. Even if Thai, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asian cuisines aren't too popular here, various Cantonese dishes aren't hard to find. But of the 3 supermarkets in my neighborhood, none carried it. I then scoured the Lotus Center in Wudaokou, thinking that with the neighborhood's large Korean population the supermarket must carry all sorts of fish sauce.
Well, I did find it, but not in the sauce aisle. Rather, there was just one kind, amongst imported goods like mirin and shochu. Guangdong province really is like another country.
With fish sauce in hand, I was able to try the Vietnamese Caramelized Pork recipe I found in the NYTimes. It's a good recipe except that it calls for 1/4 cup of fish sauce. That is madness. The point of fish sauce is to use just enough to bring out the dish's other flavors. The first time around I lessened the amount and still my apartment reeked for hours.
Sī guā is a common vegetable used in Chinese cooking, but comes with a rather sinister English name: snake gourd, for the long, spindly shape. Despite the exotic name, I've seen it in both New York and Boston Chinatowns. (Sī guā is the long skinny gourd with bumpy ridges running the length of the outside.) The flesh is about as soft as a winter melon's, which means that any cooking method longer than a quick stir-fry will render it very soft.
Snake gourd goes well with a red meat that also cooks quickly, like lean pork. I add some green peppers, onions, and scallions, but keep the companion veggies to a minimum so the sī guā and pork stand out.
Even with a rough exterior, sī guā peels easily. So no need to exert more force than peeling, say, a carrot. My mother likes to cook sī guā with a concentrated abalone extract, which has the smell and texture of oyster sauce. Of course, good 'ol oyster sauce always works too and is much easier to find. Just don't cook melons or gourds with soy sauce or else your finished product will have a sour flavor.
Pork and Sī Guā Stir-fry
Serves 4 to 6, as part of a communal meal
The Cantonese often go ga-ga over Hainanese chicken, a dish prepared by boiling a whole chicken in pork and chicken stock. It originated on the island of Hainan, became a national dish of Singapore, and is enjoyed anywhere on the globe where the Cantonese dine.
Chicken without sauce allows you to taste the freshness of the skin and meat, much like eating shimp with nothing but a spritz of lemon. But no offense to Hainanese chicken - sometimes your tastebuds just cry out for something savory that just melts off the bone.
Soy-braised chicken is a simple casserole dish can be whipped up within 30 or 40 minutes. An earthenware casserole dish is ideal, but a medium sized pot also works. (My mother once said that moist-cooking methods with a lot of soy sauce is bad for metals...maybe any food scientists would like to explain why?)
Soy-Braised Chicken
Serves 4
500 mL (2 cups) soy sauce*
750 mL (3 cups) water*
1 piece ginger, peeled and sliced
45 mL (3 tablespoons) sugar
10 mL (2 teaspoons) cinnamon
5 mL (1 teaspoon) star anise
4 pieces chicken, thighs or wings or combo
1 scallion, roughly chopped
*More if needed to cover chicken at least 3/4 of the way, but maintain the 2 parts soy sauce to 3 parts water ratio.
