Jan. 28th, 2009 09:43 pm
Food from afar
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muckefuckWell, I managed to fix a tasty dinner tonight with losing anything, burning anything, or forgetting my boyfriend's name. Go me! In fact, it may have been the best seasoned sauerkraut ever. I started off by frying up some of the fattiest chunks from the ham ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu made last weekend before tossing in the apple slices and caraway. And just before covering the kraut to steam, I mixed in some leftover carlins and sweetened it with a little cranberry juice. Yummy! It no doubt helped that the sauerkraut was homemade, a gift from a co-worker whose mom makes it herself back in Michigan. The veggies were a simple sauté of two kinds of summer squash, including a variety I've never heard of before called "lita squash". It looked very zucchiniish and, sure enough, some gourmet sites describe it as being like zucchini only "sweeter and milder". I actually had the opposite impression, so I'll try it again in summer when it hasn't had to come so far, and perhaps that will be true.
monshu and I are currently on a mission to try new things. In Chinatown last weekend, I picked up a package of some 鴨梨 yālí "duck pears" from Hebei. (Yes, foodpoisoningsf, we had an earnest discussion of their carbon footprints.) They are, in fact, pears, but I was intrigued by their pale-as-white-peaches skin. I found them very crisp and delicate, almost like a cross between an Asian pear and jicama; monshu loved them so much he went out today and bought more. No explanation yet for the "duck" in the name, but the importance of pears to Chinese New Year is that 梨 lí "pear" is a near miss for lì "profit".
And then earlier in the weekend,monshu fixed a new dish called धानसाक dhaansaak, a Parsee Sunday stew. He got the idea of putting lamb in it without even realising that that was in fact the more traditional recipe. It's might tasty, but sadly too spicy for me to eat much of, except perhaps as lunch on a Saturday.
monshu made last weekend before tossing in the apple slices and caraway. And just before covering the kraut to steam, I mixed in some leftover carlins and sweetened it with a little cranberry juice. Yummy! It no doubt helped that the sauerkraut was homemade, a gift from a co-worker whose mom makes it herself back in Michigan. The veggies were a simple sauté of two kinds of summer squash, including a variety I've never heard of before called "lita squash". It looked very zucchiniish and, sure enough, some gourmet sites describe it as being like zucchini only "sweeter and milder". I actually had the opposite impression, so I'll try it again in summer when it hasn't had to come so far, and perhaps that will be true.monshu and I are currently on a mission to try new things. In Chinatown last weekend, I picked up a package of some 鴨梨 yālí "duck pears" from Hebei. (Yes, foodpoisoningsf, we had an earnest discussion of their carbon footprints.) They are, in fact, pears, but I was intrigued by their pale-as-white-peaches skin. I found them very crisp and delicate, almost like a cross between an Asian pear and jicama; monshu loved them so much he went out today and bought more. No explanation yet for the "duck" in the name, but the importance of pears to Chinese New Year is that 梨 lí "pear" is a near miss for lì "profit".And then earlier in the weekend,
monshu fixed a new dish called धानसाक dhaansaak, a Parsee Sunday stew. He got the idea of putting lamb in it without even realising that that was in fact the more traditional recipe. It's might tasty, but sadly too spicy for me to eat much of, except perhaps as lunch on a Saturday.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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This is delightful: dhansak has been a mainstay of British Indian restaurant menus for decades... although there's no guarantee that it's the same dish.
The Parsee connection is one that I'd missed, though: I wonder if that's why it's such a typical part of the British experience?