Feeling Just a Little Steamy

Big John made my coffee and was handing the cook a roll for my breakfast sandwich. I had an open menu before me, and as is my compulsion when I see printed words, I started reading it.

There is a section in the menu dedicated to nothing but stuffed French toast and suddenly I wanted to sample each version (especially the Nutella one).

You can get a recipe for the Nutella-stuffed French toast here.

“I want one of these, and one of these, and one of these,” I said playfully.

He smiled as he realized what I was referring to and began to tell me that some customers would order burgers for lunch and some the French toast, “I guess they just think about it since breakfast and they finally break!”

Stuffed French toast is an excellent excuse to do brunch on a weekday, at work.

I continued to examine the menu and saw that they offered steamed veggies. The item had a large V printed next to it—which I took to mean Vegan given the level of hipster gentrification going on in the neighborhood.

Next to the V there was also a big H.

“So, what’s the H for?” I asked, stumped in my non-caffeinated state.

“Healthy,” Big John told me.

I think he smirked, but that may just be my perception (colored, as it were, by coffee deprivation)…

I considered this for all of two seconds, and then we laughed and we laughed and we laughed.

Of course we love all the deep fried, bacon-wrapped choices in life, but steamed does not have to be boring! Healthy can still be tasty and delicious.

I inherited a tiny bamboo steamer from my grandmother and my kitchen is better for its presence. I highly recommend adding a steamer as one of your go-to pieces of equipment – no matter what level expertise you may have in the kitchen.

Most bamboo steamers will cost between $10-50. They are low maintenance, easy to clean (warm soapy water), and store. Cooking requires little preparation and you can eat healthy dishes (without sacrificing taste, if you don’t want to). Food retains its shape, nutrients, and a clean (almost unadulterated) flavor. Better yet, cooking in a steamer is incredibly easy and relatively fast.

We are lucky to live next to a pretty large Chinatown so we have quite a few specialty stores with a lot of great dim sum – perfect for the little steamer. Also: you can serve dim sum in the little bamboo baskets.

You need not limit yourself to dumplings and such treats; you can steam vegetables and seafood, marinated meats and even rice. You also need not cook unseasoned foods because you think this is the only way to prepare steamed foods. That’s not palatable and the reason most people shy away from the idea unless they are perpetually on some diet or another.

Making red snapper with ginger, red pepper and scallions in a sake/soy sauce.

Keep these tips in mind:

• Always arrange foods in a single layer and do not crowd food items to ensure the steam reaches it in its entirety and cooks evenly.
• Always use liners when steaming, and you can use parchment paper, cheesecloth, lettuce or cabbage leaves, or banana leaves (sold in specialty markets, some supermarkets and online).
• Using a wok or a large pan is acceptable, but do keep an eye on water levels. Better still, use a deep pot but make sure that the baskets fit neatly and won’t fall in.
• Make sure the foods that will take longer to cook are placed in the bottom basket.
• If you season the water you’ll steam your foods in, it will add to the flavor and, in some cases, you can use the resulting broth in finishing and dipping sauces.

If you don’t have a steamer: get one! You’ll love it. Go explore all the links provided. 

http://www.canadianliving.com/food/menus_and_collections/brilliant_bamboo_steamer_recipes.php

http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/12/how-to-steam-in-a-bamboo-steamer/

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/articles/detail/bamboo-steamer

http://tipnut.com/bamboo-steamers/

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/how-to-steam-in-a-wok.html

For more, check out this awesome Pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.com/xemsxx/bamboo-steamer/

The Final Word on Escabeche

Escabeche is a gift that keeps on giving because the longer it sits, the more depth the dish develops. Flavors mesh and meld and mellow. It's alchemy in its most delicious form.

If I've done my job well, you've learned in the last few nights that escabeche can be made in a variety of ways, but basically it is an oil and vinegar pickling sauce that also seasons and marinades.

You can make it with vegetables, meats, fish, or a combination thereof. Once refrigerated, you can keep for weeks – though it may not last that long...

I've made serving suggestions, but by all means, add it to a sandwich if that makes you happy! Top a bowl of ramen with it! I encourage kitchen anarchy.

Tonight, I share with you recipes that I have gathered from the Web and which I believe have great potential.

I found two interesting red onion escabeche recipes. I cannot tell you which is the authentic Yucatecan version, but I suspect each will make a great and unexpected condiment at any table.

The Heart of Ardent: Escabeche de Cebolla – Pickled Red Onion

Latino Foodie: Red Onion Escabeche or Yucatán Styled Pickled Onions

Pickled jalapeños will become a staple in some of your homes once you try it. It will be awesome on Mexican night, but if you enjoy a little heat in your life, this can easily become a side dish to a variety of dishes.

No Recipes: Pickled Jalapenos (Escabeche)

La Cocina de Leslie: Jalapenos en Escabeche (Pickled Jalapenos)

Vegetables in escabeche are great side dishes, served as cold or room temp salads:

http://hotcheapeasy.com/2011/02/05/super-bowl-yuca-en-escabeche-a-bold-alternative-to-potato-salad/

http://www.leahcookskosher.com/show_recipe.php?id_recipe=198

Fish loves the pickling sauce and you can top rice or pasta with it for a very quick mid-week dinner.

http://perudelights.com/fish-escabeche-a-summer-appetizer-with-spanish-roots/

Rick Bayless: Tuna Tacos with Jalapeño Escabeche

I love these recipes because the first is a whole meal and the left-overs must be divine, and the second comes from Frida Kahlo (which is really cool):

Yummly: Chicken Escabeche with Cilantro Black Beans

American Buddha: Frida's Fiestas – Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo: Chicken Escabeche

The meat-lovers also get a few gems (including a couple of recipes from Bobby Flay and one for the crockpot):

Saturday Evening Post: Cuban Skirt Steak with Tomato Escabeche and Mango Steak Sauce

A Passionate Plate: Chile Lime Pork with Carrot Lime Escabeche

These are only a few recipes to get you started, to get you experimenting on your own versions. 


UPDATE: If you enjoyed this article and the recipes in it, you can link to its companion piece, a dedicated Pinterest board you can refer to any time.

http://www.pinterest.com/amapolapress/food-goddess-escabeche/

Puerto Rican Escabeche

Escabeche can be used to “pickle” fish (as in last night's recipes), and vegetables (the Mexicans do wonderful things with peppers). 

My personal favorite is escabeche with chicken gizzards and green bananas, a Puerto Rican delicacy that made its way to our plates for the Xmas holidays.

Gizzards are a high in protein delicacy that doesn't get a lot of culinary play with Americans. Actually, in the US most internal organs get ignored and the faces made by children of all ages when these are mentioned are priceless.

If you have never made or had gizzards, there is an informative piece in the San Francisco Gate.

Try them first as Southern Fried Chicken Gizzards and snack on them and get used to their texture and taste. It's a smoky taste – as opposed to the flavor associated with white or dark meat. It is not as strong as chicken livers. Gizzards are chewy but less so than hearts.

In fact, if you like the fried recipe above, you may set some aside for the escabeche.

The other component of the dish is green bananas. In Puerto Rico and parts of the Caribbean, there is a breed of tiny bananas that are perfect for this recipe. However, these are not as easily available in the continental US. You may use regular bananas. They must be green, though – ripe bananas change the texture and flavor of the dish and it won't work.

The dish may be made with only bananas (if you prefer not to use gizzards). You may also use only the gizzards, but the joy is to have both in one plate.

To prepare the green bananas, cut the tips off and make a slit lengthwise on the skin of each banana. Place in a pot with around four quarts of salted water and boil for at least 15-20 minutes. The skins will darken as it cooks, and the bananas will firm up and start to grow out their skins.

Remove from water, use a fork to remove the skins off and discard skins. Let bananas cool (you may put in a bowl with cold water to firm them up and stop the cooking). Cut in 1/2” slices, place in a glass or porcelain container and top with escabeche sauce.

Make sure you do not overcook the bananas. You can test their doneness by stabbing lightly with a knife. The knife should stick through without much resistance but the banana will not fall apart.

The green bananas, like most starches, require seasoning because they are pretty bland on their own. A head of garlic, sliced and cooked until golden in olive oil will add depth to the dish. Top with lots of peppercorns for heat. Red onions are also great with this version of the sauce.

You may substitute and use green plantains instead.

For the traditional recipe, cook the gizzards in a rolling boil for about an hour. They will become tender (they're like velvet!). Clean them by removing the yellow tendon-like parts. After they cool off, you can cut them in small, bite-sized pieces and add to escabeche sauce. 

UPDATE: If you enjoyed this article and the recipes in it, you can link to its companion piece, a dedicated Pinterest board you can refer to any time.

Fish in Escabeche

Fish escabeche was a dish that was made year-round, but it especially made the rounds around Lent because my grandmother held quite steadfast to no-meat Fridays.

The dish has its charms and it is very refreshing in warmer weather – especially because you can cut the cooking time to less than 10 minutes (if you choose to marinade in extra virgin olive oil and vinegar sauce without slow cooking the sauce). Preparation is not excessive either.

Last night I gave you options on how to prepare the basic escabeche sauce. Tonight I am going to give you a few other suggestions, because I believe that the beauty of kitchen alchemy is finding a way that speaks to you so that you can make gastronomic art and lets you express yourself through your cooking. Yes, indeed.

There are some fish options I want you to consider when you try this dish.

Red Snapper

Chillo, aka red snapper, is quite possibly my favorite fish. Snapper appropriates seasoning and its meat is firm has a mild but lovely flavor.

Start with 1 ½ – 2 lbs of fillets, season with salt and pepper and a dash of lemon, dredge with cornstarch and sear in olive oil until fish is golden brown.

You have the choice of seasoning the oil by sauteing garlic and onions before adding the fish to the pan. Depending on how crunchy you prefer your peppers, you may saute or not julienned slivers of red and yellow peppers.

You can leave the fillets intact and top with the escabeche sauce, and serve over rice or pasta.

Let the fish marinade overnight and serve cold or at room temperature the next day. The cornstarch will create a crunchy crust that will absorb some of the marinade.

Tilapia

Tilapia is milder and flakier than snapper (also less expensive). You can start with about 1 ½ lbs of fish and dredge in seasoned flour (garlic salt, pepper, maybe some oregano). Saute in medium high flame with 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil until golden brown. Remove from heat and flake it using the back of a fork.

You can serve the flaked tilapia and escabeche sauce over baked potatoes, microwaved sweet potatoes, or boiled yucca.

Salt Cod

Bacalao was probably the first fish I tasted, and it is staple in Puerto Rican cooking as well as Spanish cuisine. Here preparation requires that you place the salted fillets in water for at least 24 hour to desalt it or you can boil it for some 10 minutes to remove the salt off it.

If you boil, you will flesh it out into flakes. If you let it sit in cold water (refrigerated), you can cut it into cubes.

The flakes can go into the sauce without any additional preparation. The cubes get dredged in flour (no additional salt needed), and flash fried until golden brown. Then you place in the glass or porcelain container and alternate sauce and fish.

Other fish you may consider includes haddock, tuna, mahi mahi, and swordfish. You may use any white fish, but you can grill or slow poach shrimp and add it to the mixture overnight and use it as a topping to a leafy salad. If you prefer a smokier finish, grill red onions and top the shrimp with it.

UPDATE: If you enjoyed this article and the recipes in it, you can link to its companion piece, a dedicated Pinterest board you can refer to any time.

Basic Escabeche Sauce

The basic escabeche sauce that I learned to cook is very easy to make. This is the version from Carmen Aboy Valldejuli's Puerto Rican Cookery (a staple cookbook in our house). I usually use a small saucepan or, if you have a small/mid-sized Dutch oven, that would work too.

Your ingredients are as follows:

2 cups of olive oil

1 cup of vinegar

12 whole black peppercorns (or more)

½ teaspoon of salt

2 bay leaves

1 ½ pounds of onions, peeled and sliced*

*onions vary in sizes so this will be approximately 4-5 medium sized yellow or white onions, or about 3 cups of slices. I usually do a thin slice, about an eighth of an inch.

Add all the ingredients to the pot, and cook over a low heat for one hour.

Let it cool and add enough to cover the bottom of a deep, glass or porcelain dish. You may use it as is, or add fish, chiles, chicken, or vegetables to it – alternating sauce and the added (cooked) ingredient.

Over the years, we have tweaked the recipe and instead of regular table salt, we have played with Kosher and sea salts. You can also lower the salt and add pimento stuffed salad olives, or little capers. We've added sliced garlic. More pepper! We've also added peppers, and chiles, and paprika.

It begins and ends with the dynamic duo that is oil and vinegar: that is the balance you need to protect to make this sauce work for you. Too oily will be repugnant, and too vinegary will be inedible.

I have also sauteed the garlic and bay leaf in olive oil, over medium-high heat, remove from heat and add the other ingredients (and you can use extra virgin olive oil as well as any variety of vinegar you wish). It's just as tasty, and it retains a playful tanginess without the effort.

If you want to get fancy, you can use shallots.

It is important that you use glass or porcelain because it's a non-reactive surface. Plastics will absorb the smell and taste – and some people find that bothersome. My grandmother had a big glass jar she used for this purpose, but I have not seen one of those since I was a kid.

Whatever you choose to put in the escabeche needs to be cooked separately and marinaded in the sauce overnight, then served cold or at room temperature.

Also, if you are not afraid of such things, you can sop up with bread and it goes well with a good, dry white wine or beer.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about fish and veggie variations. 

UPDATE: If you enjoyed this article and the recipes in it, you can link to its companion piece, a dedicated Pinterest board you can refer to any time.

Escabeche not Ceviche

When I was a little girl growing up in Puerto Rico, I used to confuse and often think that ceviche and escabeche were the same things. It may have been that last –che syllable. It may have been the fact that both dishes often included fish…

Back then I had a love/hate relationship with fish. I hated bacalao (salted cod), and I especially hated when they made the whole fish and served it with its tiny mouth half open, its tiny little teeth still slightly menacing and the dead eye staring at you from the big platter.

I used to eat the eyes because I thought it was funny, and it grossed out my grandmother -- but what I really hated was the other stuff on the platter (and that usually meant a variety of over boiled vegetables that had been overcooked together and both smelled and tasted exactly the same: overcooked).

I grew to hate the poor fish too. It smelled, it was too fishy...

My antipathy for the dish grew as my grandfather and I emotionally distanced from each other. I lost my stomach for his favorite dish just as he became ever more disappointing a parent and human being.

I outgrew my culinary prejudices eventually. I also learned the difference between one dish and the other.

Ceviche is all the rage now that Anglos have “discovered” it. The dish originates from Peru, is popular in coastal regions in Latin American and the Caribbean (passed along each colony by Spaniards). It consists of marinating raw fish in a citrus juice base and spicy heat of chilis and letting it “cook” in the juices. It requires fresh fish, and it is generally made shortly before it is served. It is served cold or at room temperature.

Escabeche is another thing altogether, and a lot more fun because it is a flexible recipe. It originated in Spain under the influence of the Moops (it’s a Seinfeld reference, live with it!).

When I was a kid it generally meant fish, chicken, or sliced tiny green bananas that were served cold from a giant jar in which they pickled in a delicious sauce. This was served over white rice or alongside vegetables, usually boiled tubers and pumpkin.

The short version is simply this: you start with poached or fried fish, and marinade overnight in an acidic base (oil and vinegar usually, some use watered-down and spiced vinegar), onions, peppers and herbs.

In Puerto Rico, escabeche is also made with chicken gizzards and green bananas. In Mexico, the sauce is made with chiles (pick your heat level and go wild), and served over rice, in soups, over meats and fish, with tamales…

The result is a savory, tangy sauce with mild sweetness (usually from the onions), and heat (from peppers), and a complex combination of flavors and textures that is both light and yet filling.

To make up for leaving you foodless for three weeks, I will run a few escabeche recipes in this space starting tomorrow, so come back. 

Thanks for sticking with me!

UPDATE: If you enjoyed this article and the recipes in it, you can link to its companion piece, a dedicated Pinterest board you can refer to any time.

http://www.pinterest.com/kaliamandab/food-goddess-escabeche/