An Amateur Palate's Lent Season

It's lent season for this amateur palate.

What is the lent season? It's the period of time for Roman Catholics between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. During this time, you make preparations for Easter Sunday by praying, repenting and sacrificing.

And in terms of sacrificing, you'll find Catholics around the world denying themselves of pleasures or habits. Some give up smoking, others give up drinking.

I decided to go through the lent season without eating food from a restaurant, deli, fast food chain, or wherever. This means that I can't grab a quick bite to eat during lunch at work, I have to bring something I made at home. If I'm out and about throughout the day, I can't stop by a street vendor and grab a small snack. Everything I eat must be bought at a grocery store and prepared at my own home.

It sounds simple, but it isn't. I live in New York City where food from different parts of the world are offered in a wide range of prices. Food in this city is convenient, fun and varied. This will be a difficult lent season for me, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

This will allow me, of course, to share more of my amateur cooking hours with you.

Wish me luck!

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Potato and Aubergine Curry

by Milesh Gordhandas, Amateur Palate guest blogger from Brussels, Belgium

I'm a Portuguese-born Indian and a vegetarian. I have been an "amateur chef" since September 2001. At that time, I left my family in Lisbon to start a new life abroad--first in London to study and work, and now in Brussels. Indian food is not cooked everyday as it takes some time and energy. Here is a report of one of those evenings where suddenly I had a lot of energy and drive to produce this amazing--yes, it tasted really good, so why be modest?--yet simple curry. It was, of course, my Mum who taught me this recipe.

This humble potato and aubergine curry serves one pretty well. You need one potato and one aubergine of these sizes, half of this onion, and one garlic clove...

In a saucepan, put some oil, heat it up, chop the onion and saute them until they are crisp brown. Cut the potato and the aubergine in cubes, and add them in the saucepan.

This is the "critical part." Spread one teaspoon of curry powder blend onto the pan. My Mum made this powder from a mix of spices. These include red pepper powder, saffron and cumin. You may get this in your local supermarket, but you'll find a better range in specialty Indian shops or grocery stores.

Cover the food in water, and cover the pan with a lid. Let it cook on high heat for half an hour. Half-way through, you will need to put some tomato sauce. You can either put two big spoons of tomato sauce or--like I did--grate half of a tomato onto it. This helps to add colour and consistency. Cover it again and let it cook for the remaining time.

Have the curry with some nice, warm Indian breads, like chappatis or naans. And, of course, eat it with your hands! At the end of the dish, you can have the curry with rice.

Enjoy your meal (cooking and eating it) by listening to some nice Bollywood beats!

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Chinatown's Soup Dumplings

An absolute must during a bitter cold winter is a trip to your local Chinatown for soup dumplings--warm pork dumplings with steaming broth inside. This is comfort food at its finest.

If you're in NYC, go to my favorite joint, Shanghai Cafe on Mott Street, where you'll pay $8.00 for eight large dumplings. Another local favorite is Joe's Shanghai on Pell Street, though there is always a long wait for a table.

Stay warm!

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The Art of Cooking in New Brighton

Ah, news of me and my amateur palate is spreading. When finding out about this blog, a colleague of mine gave me a cook book that the lovely ladies from the church of his home town in New Brighton, PA created. It features fun recipes from Eastern Europe, and his Croatian grandmother contributed a few.

I received permission to share one recipe on An Amateur's Palate, courtesy of my colleague's grandmother.

Enjoy!

Chicken with Sour Cream
2 1/2 or 3 lb. whole spring chicken, cut or already cut selected choice pieces.
1 c. of diced onions
1/2 c. shortening (or butter)
1/2 c. diced green pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black or white pepper
1 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper-optional
1/2 c. sour cream
1/4 tsp. marjoram

Saute onions in shortening. Add cut chicken, salt and pepper. Fry slowly covered for about 1/2 hour. Add diced green pepper and saute all for 10 minutes. Add paprika, cayenne pepper, marjoram and sour cream. Keep uncovered and fry 10 more minutes. If you desire you may add about a 1/2 c. more or less of boiling water for gravy.

Give it a try, and let me know how it turns out.

This blog write-up is dedicated to Daryl G. Grecich (1966-2011).

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Skip Salt Bar in Manhattan

I recently dined at Salt Bar in downtown Manhattan. Salt Bar is a typical lower east side hang out that draws in neighborhood folks by offering $1 oysters. But unless I'm in New Orleans where oysters are abundant, I'm skeptical of any oyster offered at $1, especially if there is no information provided about its origin.

So, I opted to try their main menu instead. I ordered their poached flounder curry with carrots and spinach, which was priced at $19. It should have been priced at $2.

The "poached" flounder was actually a defrosted fish fillet. It had a bland, watery taste, which led me to believe that it was a few days old. The carrots sticks were taken straight from the snack bag. They were lazily thrown in the curry and were served raw (yes, raw!). The sauce itself had potential, but it was diluted by water from either the spinach or fish.

I couldn't believe that they offered a dish that received little to no care. Salt Bar is located in a neighborhood that offers very good food. If it doesn't reexamine the quality of its food and the execution of its dishes, I'm afraid it won't survive Manhattan's cutthroat restaurant industry.

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Chicken Adobo

Chicken Adobo is one of the most popular dishes in Filipino cuisine. The recipe to make it is also one of the most versatile, which the New York Times so eloquently reported earlier this month.

So, I thought I’d share my version of the dish, which I learned from my mother. It’s salty, sweet and sour—encompassing all the typical flavors of Filipino food. Here it is:

Ingredients

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 of a yellow onion

1 cup of water

3/4 cup of soy sauce

1/2 cup of white vinegar

2 bay leaves

4-5 large chicken breasts

1 tsp. of sugar

Sauté the onion and garlic until they sweat. Then, in high heat, put in the water, soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves and sugar. Gently place the chicken breasts in the pan. When the mixture is boiling, lower the heat to medium and let it simmer for 45 minutes. Do not stir or mix the liquid while it’s cooking.

You’ll know the dish is finished when the liquid turns cloudy and the chicken is cooked. It’s best when it’s served the next day with white rice.

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Teeth Cracking Eye of Round Roast

I hosted my first holiday dinner this year. While I've had a high batting average on new dishes, this particular dinner was not a hit.

Without doing much research on different cuts of meat, I took a trip to Costco beforehand and bought a six-pound hunk of eye of round roast. For those who don't know, the eye of round roast is taken from the cow's upper hind leg where there is a lot of muscle. As a result, the meat is tough, and doesn't have the same marble as you'd see from a softer cut (such as a rib eye). This is what makes the cut less desirable, and thus, less expensive.

And what you save on price, you pay in embarrassment. Even though I marinated the beef for 28 hours and left it medium rare, it remained tough enough to break a few plastic forks and stress my guests' jaws from chewing--an unfortunate result given all the hard work put into the dish. I couldn't help but apologize for the cut and pour more wine in their glasses.

My guests did enjoy the taste, which was a result of the marinade and seasoning. Here's what I did:

1) Mix 1 cup of vegetable oil, 1 cup of whiskey, fresh thyme and dried basil. Marinade the beef in this for about 24 hours.

2) Pat the beef dry and lightly season it with salt and paprika. Heavily coat it with black pepper.

3) Cover the meat with bacon, then roast in your oven to your desired finish.

Give it a try. Just don't buy the eye of round roast.

Happy holidays, everyone.

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