Mamey Milkshake

So Ben over at What's Cooking recently did a post on mamey, or sapote, or zapote. I had never had it before, and it looked interesting, so I checked out one of the many Mexican & Central American markets in my area to see if I could find any.

Not only did they have frozen bags of cut-up mamey, they also had whole frozen ones. Into my cart it went.
















Once thawed, I cut it open. What a seed! Took a taste...hmm...not sure if I like it...so into a milkshake it went, a can of evaporated milk, a little less than 1/4 cup of sugar, and the pulp (recipe courtesy of Nestle). Blend and chill in the freezer.














Taste...nope...still don't like it. Oh, and hey! I'm allergic! It's nice to finally be allergic to something I don't care for.

Peppers Stuffed with Jambalaya

So I was the lucky recipient of a whole boxload of stuff from Zatarain's, courtesy of a tip from The Passionate Eater.

I was also lucky enough to have 2 Italian frying peppers from the farmers market. So I deseeded the peppers, stuffed them with the jambalaya mix and some colby-jack cheese, toothpicked them closed, and simmered in tomato sauce until tender.

No pictures, sorry. Only 2 peppers, and we ate them before I thought of the camera...

Potstickers

I made my first dumplings today, aren't they cute?















OK, they're a little mis-shapen. Shut up. And yes, I know the word is 'misshapen', but that just looks weird. Like my dumplings.

I'm not sure if they're jiaozi, gyoza, or fried har gow, but whatever you call them, they were delicious.

I based my recipe on Jaden's, minus the pork, bamboo and salt. Measurement-wise, I just glugged and chopped until it looked good. I also used wonton skins, because that's all that was available in my market. Because of that, I had to moisten the wrapper to get it to stick together, which made it impossible to only pleat one side like Jaden was miraculously able to do.

So, yeah, they look funny. But they didn't leak, and they were great cooked up per Jaden's recipe (fried, steamed, fried again), and dipped in a mix of soy sauce, black vinegar, rice wine and sesame oil.

The best part is that I now have a bag of dumplings in my freezer for a little snack whenever I want. No, I take that back. The best part is that Hubby doesn't like them, so they're all for me.

What to do with barbecue leftovers?

You make a sandwich, of course!

I took a 4-inch piece of baguette and cut it in half, scooping out some of the insides because I like to taste the filling, not just the bread.

Then I reheated some of the pork ribs and steak barbecue from our Labor Day meat-fest.

I made a coleslaw loosely based on this recipe from Kristin at The Kitchen Sink - I say loosely because I used mayonnaise instead of buttermilk, didn't measure anything, and only made enough to top my mini-sandwich.

Assembly: Bread, barbecue, slaw, dip the top bread in the sauce from the barbecue, and place on top.

I'm happy.

New Farmers Market

I stopped by the new Farmers Market way out in Valley Center today, and this is what I came home with:













2 cucumbers, 2 Italian frying peppers, 2 cayenne peppers, 5 kalamansis (or calamondins), and an Asian pear.

There was of course the ubiquitous and omnipresent (for this time of year anyway) offering of tomatoes and zucchini. Lots of potted herbs (I thought about buying purple basil, but I know I'd kill it), avocados, tangelos, lemons, peaches. I saw a couple bunches of collards and some arugula too.

Oh, and I tried a Persian lemon, which has absolutely no sourness whatsoever. My first thought was "where's the rest of the flavor?" Strange.

Labor Day Barbecue

Hubby informed me yesterday morning that he wanted to do a Southern barbecue for Labor Day. Who am I to argue?















Hubby learned barbecue from his friend James, who spent a good chunk of his life in North Carolina. The barbecue sauce consists of a sweetish tangy bottled sauce, apple cider vinegar, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, hot pepper flakes. E&J Brandy or Jack Daniels is a nice addition. He mixes up a large batch in my roasting pan, and brings it to a simmer on the stove.















While that's simmering, he tosses the various meats in a little apple cider vinegar, and lights the coals. Various meats = chicken (any part), steak (boneless, usually tri-tip), pork ribs cut in 2-3 rib sections, and hot links. When the fire goes out on the coals, grilling starts. A nice char is the goal, with the meat almost cooked through. When each piece has a good amount of blackening, it goes into the simmering sauce. The whole pot simmers on very low for about an hour, with water added to thin it if necessary.















The result is an incredibly tasty falling-off-the bone protein-fest. Served with grilled corn and cole slaw.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

I had come across numerous recipes for Hainanese Chicken Rice, touted by Wikipedia as a national dish of Singapore, also very popular in Malaysia, and originally from the Hainan province of China.

Having absolutely no clue what I was doing, I followed Chubby Hubby's recipe, except for the rice. The chicken, poached in water but never allowed to boil, turned out moist and tender. The chillie and ginger sambal was a winner, made with serranos from my garden.

The rice, however, I wasn't too impressed with. I used a shortcut, Hangchong Hainanese Chicken Rice Mix, that I got from AsianSupermarket365. I used my jasmine rice, which is supposedly the same thing as the Thai fragrant rice called for on the jar, and it cooked up okay, but I just didn't dig too much on the texture. The rice had an almost slimy-mushy coating of what tasted and felt like chicken fat (the ingredients of the mix include soybean oil and chicken powder). Maybe I should have followed Chubby Hubby's recipe for the rice, but I don't know what a pandanus leaf looks like, let alone where to find one.




















That being said...here's how I served it: Put a mound of rice in a bowl, pour some broth (from poaching the chicken) around the rice, sprinkle with sliced green onion, and top with some poached chicken slices. Serve with dishes of soy sauce and chilli ginger sambal on the side, along with diced cucumbers.

I would have loved to have a picture of the finished dish - but there's no way in hell I could get a decent picture of white rice and white chicken in a red bowl to turn out.

When the rice was mixed into the broth, it lost some of the texture that I found unpleasant. The soy sauce and sambal livened up the deliberately mild-flavored chicken. All in all, I was pleased with the dish, but I wouldn't go through all the work again. Chubby Hubby's recipe uses a 1kg (2.2lb) chicken - I couldn't find a chicken under 4 lbs to save my life! Granted, it was a sustainably raised, antibiotic free chicken on sale for 77 cents a pound, but that sucker weighed 4.64 pounds! So instead of poaching for a hour, it was more like 2 hours, having to reheat more than once. I'm sure if there were such a thing as a decent-sized chicken around here, I could've done it in a hour.

Then there was the whole carving-the-chicken thing, something which, to be blunt, I suck at.

So I guess what it comes down to is: try this dish if you make the rice from scratch, have a small chicken, and don't suck at carving.