chez pim

Thyme Flower Ice Cream - glace aux fleurs de thym

There is something magical about herb flowers.  Don't you agree?  They are like a softer, more feminine, and altogether prettier version of the herbs themselves.  It's a pity they are not used more often in the kitchen.  That might perhaps be because they are not easy to come by, if you buy herbs at the store you probably wouldn't see the flowers.  Most commercial growers - or even the more diligent of home gardeners - snip them right off as soon as they appear, to prevent the herbs going to seeds and die.  But if you're one of the lucky ones with an herb pot or two growing by the window, or better yet a patch of herbs in your garden, try letting a few go to flower, you'll love the results.  Rosemary flowers are great sprinkled over meat dishes, especially the ones cooked with the herb already.  I love using cilantro flowers in salads, they work wherever I'd use regular cilantro leafs.  And my current favorite, thyme flowers.  

Most people think of thyme as a rather strong herb, suitable for something equally strong, like lamb chops.  I beg to differ, use judiciously, thyme can be subtle and don't overpower more delicate dishes like fish or even -wait for it- ice cream.  Yes, ice cream.

I'd take credit for coming up with this brilliant idea but, as Goethe purportedly said, there's nothing new under the sun.  I remember having an ice cream made with thyme flowers in France years ago.  I also remember tremendously enjoying the deliciously creamy, old-fashioned custard-based ice cream and being delighted by the unexpected and savory flavor of thyme in it.  

So, when my thyme bloomed this year, I set out to replicate that ice cream.

Pad Krapow Moo - spicy stir-fried pork with Thai holy basil

 

I have Bai Krapow growing in my garden.  They are called Holy Basil around these parts.  I put two itty-bitty starts in the ground four weeks ago, and they now look so happy and thriving I've decided it's time to harvest some.  So last night I did.  I made a favorite fast Thai dish, Pad Krapow, which is basically a spicy stir-fry with the holy basil as the star flavor of the show.  

Pad Krapow is a ubiquitous fast food dish in Thailand.  You can walk into just about any food shack on any street corner and ask for Pad Krapow, they'll make one for you.  You can also have it with just about any protein you want, pork (minced or cut into bite size chunks), chicken (ditto), beef (yup, ditto too), or even tofu.  Some people like to add cut up onions or sweet bell peppers to add a little more interest to the dish.  But the best thing about it, besides being really delicious, is that it's so simple to make you hardly need a recipe.  So I'm not going to give you one.  Instead I'll tell you how you can easily make it at home.  If you can't find Bai Krapow or Holy Basil, you can even use the regular Thai basil you can find at any Asian markets near you.  In which case you'll technically be making Pad Horapa (Stir-fry with Thai Basil) instead of Pad Krapow (Stir-fry with Holy Basil), but it'll be good just the same.  

Lard, your fat of choice?

Going through the pictures I took in New Orleans, I stumbled upon this cute sign inside the fantastic Kitchen Witch bookstore in the French Quarter.  It got me thinking about lard.  Even with renaissance of our love affair with pork, I don't hear much about lard as the fat of choice in our cooking.  I myself love lard.  When I was growing up in Thailand, there was always a crock of home-rendered lard right above the gas stove, from which our cook would scoop up the semi-congealed fat by the ladle every time she stir-fried or deep-fried something.  If I had a choice, my last meal would be crisp Thai-style omelette fried in lard, on top of fragrant steamed Jasmine rice with lots of Sriracha (see-ra-sha) sauce.  It had to be lard, of course, because other fat would not fry the eggs as fluffy and as crisp.

What about you?  Are you, too, happy because you eat lard?  Or are you afraid of it?  What's your fat of choice in your cooking, and why?

New Orleans Pralines

You didn’t think I forgot I had a blog, did you?  Well, I almost did.  With all the trips and the non-piggie Flu I picked up along the way, I’ve been neglecting the space here for quite a while.  (If you’re following me on Twitter you’ve heard it all before.)  Sorry.  But I’m back, and I brought you a pretty cool souvenir from the road, an amazing (and amazingly easy) recipe for true New Orleans pralines.  For me, one of the best things about traveling is learning how to cook local specialties so that I can bring that taste home with me and recreate it when I want to.  So imagine my delight when Ms.Linda and her husband Peter (my friend Josh's dad) invited me over to their place to make pralines with them.

First, we must get something straight.  I don’t care where you are in -or even out- of the country, you’ll need to learn how to pronounce the word right - and by ‘right’ I meant the way they do in New Orleans.  Repeat after me.  PRAA-leans.  Not praa-LEANS, or PRAY-leens.  And definitely not PRAA-lynes.  Got that?

Ok, now that we know how to pronounce it properly, it’s time I confess something.  This recipe makes textbook-perfect New Orleans pralines, yes, but it’s actually not from New Orleans!  Ms.Linda -she’s a proper Southern Lady so it’s Ms.Linda to you and me- said she got the recipe from “a Greyhound Man in Mississippi”.  I was hoping that she would say she got it from a man she met on a grayhound bus in Mississipi, wouldn't it be such a fun story?  Alas, no, she just got it from a man who worked there.

Still, the recipe makes pretty perfect New Orleans pralines, and I learned it when I was New Orleans, so it’s New Orleans Pralines to me.  (Oh, and, yes, if you bought any marmalade from my last batch on Etsy, you got some of these tucked into the box.)

The recipe is so easy you won't believe me until you try it yourself.  

The best chocolate chips cookies ever?

 

Once in a while, along comes a recipe that changes the name of the game.  Jim Lahey's no-knead bread recipe published by Mark Bittman in the NY Times two years ago was one.  It got so many cooks - who hitherto dared not touch yeast bread - to fashion themselves a veritable French boulanger, baking loafs after loafs of crackly, crusty bread, and even turning more than a few of them into petty thieves.  Then, a few months ago, the Times struck again, this time with a chocolate chips cookies recipe that purported to be no less than perfection itself.

The key to that recipe?  A little patience, said the indomitable David Leite who penned the piece.  Let me just tell you that it was quite an understatement.  Unlike the good Mr.Leite, I don't live in a world where restraining oneself from devouring, entirely raw, the whole batch of chocolate chips cookie dough during the 36 hours called for in the recipe constitutes a little patience.  And not just any chocolate chips cookie dough, mind you, but one so rich, so deliciously salty-sweet, and so -ever, ever so- tempting.  In my world, chocolate chips cookie dough can speak.  And it's calling my name - the whole, half a box of scrabble's worth of alphabets in my name.

So, did I give in, you asked?  Of course I did.  Although not entirely, I should give myself credit.  I waited 24 hours before I baked my first small batch, and the rest managed to last the 36 hours required.  And, no, no, that little elf that kept sneaking into the fridge to steal mini bites of the cookie dough was not me.  Not me at all.  It must have been my cat Ella, in her human/elven suit.  True story.

no recipe apple tart

Can you bake without a recipe?  Most of you are probably shaking your head no...no, no, no, no.  You've all been scared off by that culinary truism that refers to cooking as an art and baking as a science.  I don't think it's true at all.  And I think most good home cooks who are afraid of baking are missing out a whole lot.  The same is true with bakers who religiously follow recipes.  If baking is rigidly following a recipe, you're missing out on the improvisation, the play that makes cooking so much fun.

Of course, it's true that you need to learn a few basic recipes.  Learn how to do a pie/tart crust, for example.  Any good food writer/blogger worth their salt can teach you one. Yes, I even have one in my book (which of course you must wait for.)  But once you have that, you can bake just about any fruit tart or fruit pies that your heart desires and you mind imagines.

Thai scallop ceviche - Yum Hoy Shell

I'm calling this dish Thai Scallop Ceviche.  The "Thai" descriptor here is for the ceviche, as in Thai-style ceviche.  And not for the scallops, as in, these scallops are not from Thailand.  They are from the Northeast, actually, Nantucket Bay Scallops, to be precise.  Yes, yes, I know full well ceviche is a Peruvian preparation, but we do a very similar thing in Thailand.  We call it Yum.  Or Yum Talay.  And true to the name, it is quite yummy too, and easy besides.

The idea here is the same as the regular ceviche, that is to say the seafood takes a nice, long bath in lemon or lime juice to "cook".  Let us not be confused though.  There's no cooking happening here.  The citric acid in lime or lemon juice just change the texture and look of the seafood so they appear opaque and slightly firm and generally look like they've been "cooked".  So I wouldn't suggest this dish if you're afraid of germs or parasites or all that peevish nonsense.  I read somewhere that if you're afraid of raw ceviche you could get away with cooking the seafood very breifly in boiling water just to "cook" them slightly before making your ceviche.  Frankly I'm more than a bit dubious about this advice.  To a germ or parasite, passing just a few seconds through boiling water is like having a day at a Japanese Onsen.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to deal with germs that have just had a restorative day at a germ spa. 

Boozy Bitter Chocolate Truffles, or, I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR VALENTINE!

Nor do I want you mine.

I think it was that pink Rice Crispy Treats I was subjected to one sad Valentine that ruined it for me for ever.  Or perhaps it saved me.  Depending on your perspective.  In any case, if I saw another heart-shaped cookie or pink cake I might just scream and go sew black buttons over my eyes and then build traps for unsuspecting children or misguided lovers.  I just might.

But there is hope yet.  A distressed signal sent over Twitter to my crowd received in reply dozens of also-dissenting voices, reassuring me that even in my most misanthrope moment, I am, alas, not alone.  In the dark, lonely corners of Twitterverse we plotted to bring down valentines.  "Do the Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic", sang the Tweet-chorus.  "Cook everything that gives you gas", cried a petulant - or perhaps flatulent - voice.  Another pointed to a gnarly - if absolutely delicious - Dim Sum staple, braised chicken feet.  One even suggested a bottle of cheap booze and a hammer, I dared not ask why.  I supposed another that might do is that dish with a poetic name, Pissed-off Prawns, I ate earlier this week at Michael Chiarello's new Bottega up in Napa.

Then an aha moment arrived.  What fun is bitterness without booze?  There you have it.  I'll make chocolate truffles, dark and bitter chocolate truffles, and I'll make it boozy.  Rum perhaps.  No, Armagnac, better yet, Armagnac with some prunes soaked in it. 

And just in case you're wondering.  No, no, the cause of my bitterness is *not* because my otherwise-sweet valentine is at his restaurant cooking a very special meal for everyone else's valentines.  And, no, it hasn't been like that every year for the past four valentines we've had together.  And, really, no, I don't plan on wallowing in my bitterness tomorrow night with a bowlful of these boozy bonbons and all those monster movies marathon on Sci-fi.  I don't plan on doing that at all.

Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Bites

I've got a soft spot in my heart for first cookbooks.  It's not because my own first book  is coming out later this year, ok -not just because of that- but I love the earnest and unabashed enthusiasm that every writer put into their first project.  Cookbooks that come later in their career may perhaps be more polished, or even altogether far better, but they are often missing that je ne sais quoi that first books possess.

If you're a regular reader of Chez Pim, I'm sure you're a fan of my dear friend David Lebovitz's as well - you might even like him better, which is, of course, totally cool with me, just don't tell me!  And if you're a fan of his, you must also know that he's not only an über-blogger, but a prolific cookbook writer, with many successful books under his proverbial belt.  But the one that had my heart, and still does, is his first, Room for Dessert.  A number of recipes in that book have made their ways into my baking repertoire, and the book has coffee, butter, and molasses stains to prove that too.

The cookies I made last week is one of those recipes from this book.  He calls it Black and White Cookies, made with ground almond and bittersweet chocolate, rolled in powdered sugar.  These cookies are cute as buttons, and just about the same size too, absolutely the perfect size for just a bite or two of something bittersweet with your coffee.  I must also admit that I don't quite know how to leave a good recipe well enough alone, so I made mine with hazelnut instead of almond.  The effect was really quite lovely, sort of like Nutella cookies for grown-ups.

Crab feast and Thai seafood sauce

It took me a good long while before I got over my silly fear and tried dungeness crabs.  No, no I wasn't afraid of eating crabs.  I spent every summer of my childhood in Hua Hin on a diet composed almost entirely of crabs and prawns - in fact I'm rather surprised I haven't developed an exoskeleton by now. 

My fear was of pre-cooked crabs, actually.  In Thailand - ok, perhaps not the entire country but at least my family - we never ate dead crabs.  No, we don't eat crabs while they are alive - I only meant we don't eat crabs that had been dead before they were cooked.  If you go to wet markets in Thailand, you won't find a lot of dead crabs for sale.  You will, on the other hand, find crates of still alive (and sometimes crawling) crabs for shoppers to buy and take home to cook.  This is understandable, I suppose.  Dead crabs deteriorate quickly in the tropical heat, by the time you get them home their flesh have broken down into nothing but fishy, smelly mush - we say it's "gone back to sea" in Thai. 

This proved a bit of a predicament for my buddhist "kitchen mother" (that's how household cooks are referred to in Thai).  I still remember her sitting on the floor over a wooden chopping board with an ill-fated crab on top, her eyes closed, one hand in a half namaste while the other holding a sharp cleaver high over her head, her lips moving, quietly (and rapidly) reciting a pray begging the crab's forgiveness before quickly lowering the heavy cleaver to sever the crab in half.  Saturday Night Live can't make that skit up. 

Anyway, that's a rather long-winded way to explain why it took me a good many years to try one of the Bay Area's local specialties, the Dungeness crabs.  And now, when the season is high and the crabs sweet, they are one of my favorite things to eat, especially when dipped into spicy, garlickyThai seafood sauce.  Every time we have a crab feast, I make this sauce for myself and make sure there's drawn butter and even cocktail sauce for others.  But then everyone ends up stealing my sauce and I have to get back to the mortar and make more.  Luckily it's so easy, you hardly need a recipe.