Global Cuisine

porkcarnitasIf I had to pick my favorite type of food, when it comes right down to it, it would have to be Mexican. I do enjoy so many types of food but the fresh flavors of the salsas, onions and avocado, homemade refried beans and I could just go on and on. I just love it.

Living in Southern California for over thirty years gave me countless opportunities to enjoy Mexican cuisine. Celebrating Cinco de Mayo every year on May 5th was always a tradition. We would usually go out for dinner on this festive night, but this year, with the outbreak of the Swine Flu or excuse me the H1N1 Influenza A virus (which is what they want us to call it now and that really rolls off the tongue right, sheesh), I am not too keen on having other people prepare my meals. I'll make my own dinner right here at home thank you.

Anyway, this meant finding a carnitas recipe I knew would taste good and be easy to prepare. I was lucky enough to come across these Pork Carnitas, from Martha Stewart of course, and man it was as good as it was easy.

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cucumber salad 012When I was growing up, my mom often made two different cucumber salads. For each of the salads, she sliced fresh cucumbers into very thin rounds. In one salad, the cucumbers bathed in a clear vinegar-water solution seasoned with sugar and lots of black pepper. I always liked that salad. My favorite, though, was the salad made of thinly sliced cucumbers swimming in a delicious sour cream sauce with sugar and vinegar stirred in along with thin, delicate threads of fresh dill weed.

During the last couple of weeks I’ve been able to purchase English, or seedless, cucumbers at my local farmers market. These long, slender cukes are not really seedless, but the seeds are so small and insignificant compared to regular cucumbers, they seem seedless when they’re being eaten.

Last night I served the Sour Cream Cucumber Salad with grilled pork chops, potatoes and beans. This is a salad that is good with everything. My Hungarian mother always served Sour Cream Cucumber Salad with a traditional meal of Paprika Chicken and tiny homemade dumplings. Since my mom taught me how to make this salad, I often refer to it as Hungarian Cucumber Salad.

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Oven-Baked-Pulled-Pork-Flautas-1This recipe as a weapon of mass deliciousness. It’s easy to make and serve for a house full of your friends and family.

I have always thought of flautas as a specialty dish, one I would only order at a Mexican restaurant. Somewhere along the line I convinced myself flautas were complicated and I didn’t want to deal with the deep-frying. It’s not that I’m opposed to deep frying, but I knew it would be difficult and time-consuming to fry dozens of flautas for a large gathering.

However, I recently changed my mind and started working on perfecting baked flautas at home. I wanted the meat seasoned properly with traditional Mexican flavors. But most importantly, the flour tortilla had to have the perfect crunch. Anything less wouldn’t be right. I was looking for a flaky texture, similar to the deep-fried flauta.

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ImageCongee is rice served "wet" in a broth with vegetables, tofu, meat, seafood, or poultry.

Congee is the Asian equivalent of Jewish chicken soup, perfect when the weather is cold and damp or you're fighting off a cold. Served in a variety of ways, depending on the country of origin or what's in season, the basic dish is made with cooked rice, a liquid, and flavorings. You'll find dozens of authentic, regional recipes in cookbooks and online, but in our kitchen "congee" is another way of saying repurposed deliciousness.

Whatever we don't eat at a Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai restaurant we bring home. Invariably, a container of rice is included along with the kung pao chicken, tempera shrimp and vegetables, stir fried beef with broccoli, or sweet and sour pork that we couldn't finish.

Reheating these dishes at home is one option, but transforming them into congee is better. For example, converting vegetable and shrimp tempura into an aromatic, deeply satisfying and delicious congee is one way this simple technique can turn left-overs into the best comfort food you've ever eaten.

Tempura Vegetable and Shrimp Congee

Serves 2
 
Time 30 minutes
 
Ingredients
 
2 tempura shrimp, tail removed
4-6 pieces tempura vegetables
1 cup cooked rice
1 garlic clove, skin removed, finely chopped
4 cups spinach leaves, washed to remove grit, stems and leaves finely chopped
4 shiitake mushrooms, washed, tips of the stems removed, thinly sliced
1/2 cup corn kernels, fresh or from a can
2 cups water or miso soup or a combination of both
1 tablespoon olive or sesame oil
Sea salt and pepper to taste
 
Method
 
Cut the shrimp and tempura vegetables into bite-sized pieces and set aside.  Saute on a medium-low flame the garlic, shiitake mushrooms, and corn kernels until lightly browned. 
 
Add the cut up spinach and water or a mix of miso soup and water. Raise the flame and simmer 10 minutes.
 
Add the cut up tempura vegetables and shrimp to the broth. Stir well and simmer 10 minutes.
 
Add the cooked rice, stir well and simmer a final 5 minutes.
 
 
David Latt is an Emmy-award winning television producer who turns to cooking to alleviate stress. He shares his experiences with food and his favorite recipes on his blog Men Who Like To Cook.  

mise-en-placeYesterday afternoon, I was lost in a meditative moment of nothingness while pleating dumpling skins around mound of shrimp filling.  A gentle fall breeze had been blowing through my kitchen window, transforming the room from a sweaty summer dungeon to an autumn playpen.

A podcast of This American Life was playing in the background and it would drop in and out of my consciousness as I prepped my food for the day.  My fingers danced through my mise en place bowls, filled with carefully prepped components of the dish I was focused on.  It all came together in perfect harmony, with me paying very little attention.

Do you want to know a secret?  Cooking is the easiest thing I do.  I don’t mean that in a nasty “Pah ha, I’m so awesome at my job” kind of way.  I just mean that, once I’ve made it to the actual cooking part of my job, I know that my mind (body, soul) knows what to do.  By the time I’ve arrived in the kitchen, I have spent hours working with the client to specify the preferred regional cuisine, protein specific, dietarily proactive meal of their dreams and formulated a procedure and plan to carry out said dream meal. 

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