Cooking: Cantonese-style Chilean Sea Bass

When I saw this Chilean sea bass (also known as Patagonian or Antarctic toothfish) while warehouse grocery shopping, I could not resist. I pondered over the weekend how to cook this tender, buttery fish and decided to steam it the way Chinese chefs do. My family always orders the whole steamed fish when we dine out at Chinese restaurants. However, I don't have a steamer though I could just prop the fish over an empty tuna can. I decided to bake it. I grated ginger and garlic with my microplaner. Sliced scallions on the bias. Coarsely chopped cilantro.

And set out all my stainless steel pots, a small one for boiling jasmine rice, my Turkish pot for heating oil, and my stockpot for boiling the bok choi which I forgot to add to my Thai tom yum goong. I put soy sauce and sesame oil in the bottom of my foil packet and set the fish on top and then the garlic and ginger on top of the fish. I reserved some of the garlic and ginger and soy sesame sauce for my bok choi vegetable side.

I fortunately remembered the bok choi I bought at the Filipino grocery store and cleaned it for boiling--just 2 minutes in boiling water in which I threw a small handful of salt and sugar.

Our Chinese dinner looked and tasted so good that we tucked into it before I could take a picture. Oh well. 

I want to return to Costco and find some more of that Chilean sea bass. Luckily there's leftover rice for Spam and fried rice if I get stuck on what to make for dinner plus some rice to eat with the leftover fish.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Where does the title of this posting even come from?  I first heard the phrase from the hubs. And so of course I googled it: The exact origin of the phrase winner winner chicken dinner is disputed, but it may have come from gamblers. The most popular origin story of the term is that a chicken dinner at a Las Vegas casino used to cost $2, the same amount as a standard bet. So, if you won a bet, you won a chicken dinner.  However, David Guzman, author of a book on craps lingo, has said that the term comes from back-alley gamblers during the Great Depression of the 1930s. These desperate gamblers would bet whatever they had in hopes of winning a chicken dinner. The phrase gained mainstream popularity thanks to its frequent use in the 2008 casino heist film 21. And so I know that must've been where my husband heard the phrase, plus he used to gamble. I used to have a boyfriend who also liked Thai food, and we used to trek to Berkeley to a Thai grocery store to buy the curry paste and the tea--and that's all we cooked: some kind of chicken curry, either green or red (panang I think)and buy sweetened condensed milk to drink that orange milky tea with lots of ice cubes. Anyway I love, love, love Thai food which is not the hubs is favorite. We don't go out, and so obviously I have to make it myself at home. And I love all the complexity of sweet, sour, salty and the herbaceousness of Thai cuisine. I went to our community garden to pick Thai chili peppers and also gathered mint, Italian basil, Mrs. Burnham's basil--which has a lemongrass flavor I think, Thai basil. I'm reserving the mint for shrimp salad rolls.

And the hubs who has at times has a kid's palate, I planned on serving leftover macaroni and cheese (because he's always bugging me to consume leftovers) and chicken nuggets.

My chicken meal on the other hand was going to be a Thai soup even though I had never cooked a tom yum soup. I knew I wanted the creamier version called tom yum goong. And looked at several recipes online and bought a Thai paste along with straw mushrooms at the Filipino grocery store. And set out as many Thai-like ingredients I could find in addition to the herbs I picked that morning. Lime. Coconut oil for sautéing the shallots and garlic. Scallions. Fish sauce. Lemongrass. Coconut milk. Leftover rotisserie chicken.

Going from memory of reading the recipes I found online, I winged it by sautéing the aromatics and then adding the chopped red bell pepper and green Anaheim pepper and mushrooms. I had also bought baby bok choi and forgot all about it, but the soup still looked beautiful and vibrantly colored to me, which is why I decided to reserve the fresh herbs and lime for the very end. 

Voila! His and hers chicken dinners...

I used to get a little offended that Patrick would not share in some of my food adventures and loves, but now thank goodness I find it amusing.

Cooking: BBQ Pilipino Pork Skewers

Remember how I went online for a recipe of BBQ pork skewers that my friend Cecilia cooks?  How I found a recipe online and marinated two nights ago my pork ribs in coconut vinegar, fermented black bean chili sauce, Coca Cola (because I didn't have Sprite), banana ketchup (Which my neighbor Cecilia gave me), oyster sauce, soy sauces, chopped garlic and black pepper? Which I put in the refrigerator overnight?

I finally grilled it last night. That is, I took the marinated pork out of the refrigerator, trimmed off fat and skewered with bamboo sticks, tore butter lettuce, mandoline sliced cucumbers and red cabbage, denuded Anaheim peppers of their membranes and seeds, chopped scallions for a final sprinkling of herbs, and prepared my mise en place.

I fired up my grill and put the Anaheim peppers over the indirect heat of the goals because I wanted them to cook slowly and have a bit of crunch to their chew. Once my coals burned down some more, I placed the skewers of pork in the center. The recipe I viewed called for making a glaze of banana ketchup and sesame oil, but I had a lot of the marinade in the bowl. I remember how my dad used that liquid to baste the meat on the grill, and so that is what I did.

Peppers done, and yeah I like them simply prepared to eat like a vegetable rather than stuffing with cheese and meat and slathering with sauce. They are delicious.

My meat however needed more tender grilling and a slight charring and caramelization of the sugars in the marinade. This was the hard sweaty part, hovering over them and slathering more liquid marinade as well as constantly turning them over so they wouldn't burn. But you know what?

I'm glad I grilled them low and slow--cutting the meat in such small pieces also assures them of cooking long enough to get tender. And this dinner has become one of my all-time favorites.

Filipino barbecued pork skewers are so evocative of my childhood. I'm sure my dad used only soy sauce, white vinegar, garlic and sugar for his marinade because ethnic ingredients where my siblings and I did some growing up in Rockville, Maryland was limited in availability. I don't remember going to a Filipino grocery shop in that city. Most if not all of our food came from the weekly trip to the U.S. Navy military commissary, where families could buy groceries at cost. Luckily, as a Filipino in the U.S. Coast Guard, my dad and our family was able to find items like the 50 pound bags of rice because military families who were briefly stationed overseas and grew to like ethnic foods would request such items to be stocked. And because food was so cheap at the commissary, we always had lots of meat in our freezer. On weekends, my dad would take my mom and siblings and me to a park like Rock Creek with a dish of the marinated meat on metal skewers and a rice cooker bowl full of steamed rice. While my brothers and I played on the swingset or seesaws, my dad would squat and grill the skewered tenderized meat on our little hibachi or stand before the public grill in the park. I've such fond memories from some of my cooking in this pandemic that now I want to find a vanity publisher to record recipes and reminiscing in a bound book.

Midweek Slump

I suppose a pandemic is the excuse for everything I intend to do but don't. Really all I sometimes want in my life are books and flowers and the sea. I've a bouquet from a few days that is still looking lovely.

And the weather even in mid October has been so very warm that all I could do for dinner last night was a Cobb salad. Which I almost forgot to put avocado on.

And I really need to change up my rotation and am going Asian this week. I found this recipe for Filipino BBQ Pork Skewers, which is probably now how most Filipinos like my neighbor Cecilia makes it and who gave me Jufran banana ketchup. What drew me to this recipe were all the ingredients that I already had on hand like the Datu Puti coconut vinegar, soda (I used cola instead of lemon lime), the banana ketchup, fermented black bean chili paste, oyster sauce, garlic, and brown sugar as well as the pork shoulder ribs I defrosted.

I chopped the garlic and then almost forgot the soy sauce: I used the Filipino brand and the less salty supermarket brand. It's marinating in my fridge to grill tonight.

And last night's salad supper yielded a leftover avocado half. That means an evening snack of avocado toast.

I'm already salivating for tonight's Asian-themed dinner.

Weekending with Handbuilding & Sketches and Leftovers & Paella

I had been so excited about my bisque fired pots out of the kiln and so excited about having celebrated a birthday that this weekend was rather anticlimactic. And my pots are speckled buff. Big pause. I find it hard to make speckled buff look pretty. Really only gloss white would look good on that clay body; however, my hand building skills are rather nominal, and so white gloss would just highlight my mediocre pots. And then I saw this picture of glazes.

And so I'm gonna take my time glazing my bisque pots. I was also disappointed with a smooth red pot that I had glazed with Meral's glazes of sand and sea and lemon yellow. You've got to be really judicious. It bears slowing down and doing it right. And I threw out the smooth red butter dish I made and re-made it. And turned to my sketchbook.

And so I'm also gonna be more thoughtful about what hand built pots I'm gonna bisque fire. Back to my other relaxing past time: creating meals. A Greek salad using peppers and tomatoes and herbs from my garden and Persian cucumbers and yellow onions from the store.

I continued the Mediterranean route by prepping eggplants for grilling and turning them into Baba Ghanoush. And poached chicken thighs and removed the bones for my bone broth and made macaroni and cheese for a Southern Saturday supper.

The last time I made Alabama chicken, I broiled the chicken and thought it really needed that smoke from charcoal to impart a better flavor. On to the grill went the chicken. And then the eggplant(because I was not gonna go to all the trouble of lighting a fire without cooking at least two dishes).

And out came the leftovers of potato salad, roasted Brussels sprouts and carrots, slather the barbecued chicken with Alabama white sauce and take out the macaroni and cheese from the oven. 

Onward to Baba ghanoush and bottling my bone broth.

And then it was Sunday. I decided to rectify my disaster of the paella I cooked outside for my birthday party. I wanted to do it so much better and more deliciously. The other half of the ingredients I had prepped last weekend: chopped onions, peppers, garlic and defrosted mussels and clams and sliced chorizo PLUS a little more salt and hot smoked paprika to impart some FLAVORTOWN.

Much, much better and deserving of a glass of wine with lunch.

And then it was almost dinner, but way too early for the BLTs using the last of the tomatoes. Leftover guacamole, leftover chips, and leftover grated cheese means nachos and a margarita to accompany.

And now it's back to business, back to making a living as well as financing my hobbies.

Back to Basics, Back to Clay

Yesterday was a slog with a two hour meeting after the work day, and again a meeting today even though it's Friyay. I decided the kiln was full enough on Wednesday and let it fire. As my colleague, Zan was explaining the ramping up and cooling stages, I asked isn't this all in a textbook? And yep we were both thinking of John Toki's textbook, which she's letting me borrow.

And so I quote, a cone 05 bisque-firing program for pottery and sculpture 1/5 - 3/8 in. (7-10mm)shows that the entire firing requires 22 hours. In theory, the firing begins at zero degrees.

• Segment 1: Preheating the ware takes 4 hours with the kiln lid propped up 3 inches and all the peepholes open. The kiln temperature is programmed to rise at a rate of 60 degrees Fahrenheit/16 degrees Celsius per hour until 250 degrees F/116 degrees C is reached.
• Segment 2: The temperature rises at a rate of 100 degrees F/38 degrees C. The entire segment occurs over an 8-hour period in which the kiln temperature rises to 1040 degrees F/561 degrees C.
• Segment 3: The temperature rises at a rate of 65 degrees F/18 degrees C per hour over a period of 4 hours until it reaches 1300 degrees F/704 degrees C.
• Segment 4: Temperature rises 133 degrees F/56 degrees C per hour over a period of 3 hours until reaches 1700 degrees F/927 degrees C.
• Segment 5: Temperature rise per hour is 72 degrees F/22 degrees C for a total of 3 hours until 1915 degrees F/1046 degrees C is reach at which point the kiln is turned off and left to cool.

Except we didn't lift the lid or open any of the peep holes. And Zan showed me ergonomic lifting of the kiln shelves and which were the clean ones to use as well as using the clean or side of the shelf which had no kiln wash or glaze drips as well as rotating the kiln posts and scraping against the shelf for smoothing if a shelf seems wobbly. And I believe we used 3 posts per half round. The next time I watch Zan program the kiln, I'll remember to bring my clay journal and to log the firings.

Like I mentioned, yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind at work, and I so longed to cook and not just reheat leftovers. I was also craving steak and a baked potato loaded with lots of butter, sour cream and green onion. And vegetables! And so I roasted brussel sprouts and heirloom colored carrots. And despite all that dinner and more leftover birthday cake I wanted a breakfast burrito this morning. 

But truly the reward to my fin de semana were all the bisque ware.

And so I'll be glazing probably Saturday and Sunday.

I recognize the sandstone (or maybe it's speckled buff) that I had left in the Central Park studio, but the salt crock and bonsai platter is a smooth red clay body.

I definitely want to throw some bowl bottoms on which to adhere slabs for soup vessels or make more greenware for another bisque firing soon as well as glaze my bisque pots. Oh the surface possibilities!