It came in the mail yesterday. It’s the Fall 2016 issue, technically #20. Literally, the third installment of the Lucky Peach spotlight on Cooks & Chefs, also dubbed the Fine Dining issue. I still do not have my own kitchen, but stay tuned…there is real potential for p.139, Fried Chicken: Hawaiian Chicken with Spam Fried Rice!
Page 18 – Lucky Peach #17 – The Breakfast Issue
Something amazing happened. I cooked a Lucky Peach breakfast in my Mom’s kitchen. Yes, I’m still homeless but her guest room has been mighty comfy lately. After a short gig at Kitchen Mouse in Highland Park (my first ever real restaurant experience, and it was lovely, the peeps there are all fantastic), I have taken up copywriting at an ad agency while burning the midnight oil on my own work (forever). Recently, my friend Bobbo visited from Cordova, Alaska where he’s a forest ranger in the Chugash. He interrupted all my shit and so I decided on his way out we’d have some cocktails while I cooked a warm meal for him and a few other friends. So, here are Brooklyn chef Stephen Tanner’s Bologna Cups, aka the Albany Cafeteria Breakfast. From what I gather from his photos in the LP article, we’d get along fine – smoking and southern boys are right up my alley.
AND I hustled my friend/rad photographer Micah Slay to shoot the pics and drink with us.
Don’t let this breakfast fool you, it’s a juggling act and after I got through my first Capt & Coke, I whipped my crew into shape and put them to work. The bologna cups are easy to make, but I recommend you do them at the end actually, since they take seconds to curl up in a hot saute pan and you want to serve them caliente. By the way, I learned that in L.A. it’s not so common to get bologna sliced at the deli. I witnessed it in some shitty part of Massachusetts with an ex-biker boyfriend I had and thought they did it everywhere, but not so much. Oscar Meyer still rules most deli meat aisles (probably ’cause this stuff is nuclear), but there are many varieties to choose from. I chose the pork & chicken combo over the beef, because after all, bologna is really Italian mortadella sausage. It’s actually a much fancier breakfast than you thought.
It’s the hash browns and salsa verde that take real prep and patience. So, just get right into that. Boil the potato for 9 min, grate it, and then form little piles on a griddle. Put 2 T butter (YEP) on top of each pile on med heat, and let the butter melt all the way through that puppy and then flip it. Add cheddar on top and dream. Tanner reveals that this is his infiltration of the Waffle House hash browns, and holy fuck, he’s got that right.
In the meantime, get someone to make you a drink and then get on the salsa verde. It’s nt the season here in L.A. but since there’s so many Mexicans, you can’t sneeze without finding tomatillos and jalapenos in stores still. Boil the jalapeno for 1 min, then add the tomatillos and turn off the flame. Let them cool, then drain.
Add them to a blender with chopped onion, garlic, cilantro, and salt. I say add as much as you like of all those things, taste it and make it exactly how you like, everyone is different on their salsa code.
The real trick is once you have a buzz, make sure someone else wants to do the poached eggs because they take up most of your attention. Tanner gave us a fancy scientific prop instruction involving a cup. The homie Chris was on it, and a 3 min poach was perfect.
Get that slice of bologna hot and curled into a cup and add the cheddar hash browns first, then the poached egg, and top with your salsa verde.
That my friend, is da bomb diggity. Super tasty and pairs wonderfully with Capt. Morgan’s and Coke – and a visit from Ranger Bob.
It’s been a long hot endless summer on the road of life. Partly due to a heatwave, but also because I’ve had no real place to call my own since July. I had to leave my cool vintage apartment in Silver Lake before it fell down, literally and emotionally. The building is known for a famous murder in the 1930’s and sweethearts Kurt & Courtney lived there once, so you can just imagine the pain in the walls of that laundry room (plus the electrical pre-dated grunge by decades). I fortunately left somewhat unscathed and found places to dream at night while day-writing: Mom’s spare room, back of my Subaru, hotel rooms, friend’s couches, etc etc…but a home is on the horizon! Which means, you guessed it, a kitchen to call my own. A tiled cook’s dream. A place to cry over onions. A room to cut myself slicing habaneros with no gloves on and then rub my eyes. A space to fulfill one of my destinies (you can have more than one): TO COOK EVERY RECIPE IN LUCKY PEACH!
Thank you for waiting.
photo credit: “Hitchhiker I” by Sleep Weasel
Time to put away your Halloween decor. It’s officially the holidays. My first suggestion is Horchata and Hennessy on the rocks – the Hennchata!
Page 18 – Lucky Peach #11 – All You Can Eat
That’s right, I made a quite a comeback. Not only was I dying to get up on a recipe, but I decided to probably do one of the weirdest LP has printed thus far. It’s not the first time I’ve made bread from scratch, but this kind of bread is odd. It’s made with a starter that has cornmeal and boiling milk. That’s not normal, people. The deal with bread is that it’s fermented (in case you’re new). Usually you want some good old fashioned bacteria to get up in your starter and then you use that to make your dough, it rises, you bake it, yadda yadda yadda. Well, in this case, the welcome pathogen is Clostridium perfringens, and as our science-loving-foodie-writer Harold McGee explains, “Its cells can divide every ten minutes, a handful turning into trillions of hydrogen makers overnight. The hydrogen gas can leaven dough just as yeast-generated carbon dioxide does. The result is something known as ‘salt-rising bread.'” As far as the All You Can Eat umbrella goes, he attributes this recipe to “the far shores of edibility.” The situation here is that the bacteria produces acetic, lactic, propionic, and butyric acids. That last one contributes a sharp smell of aged cheese, and the one right before it is typical of Emmental-style swiss. Yeah, trippy, more on that later.
It took me much longer to make this bread then it should’ve, but I attribute that to the fact that the key to the whole deal is the temperature. From the get go, the starter needs boiling hot milk, then the starter and sponge need to kick it at like 100 – 110 degrees, while the dough also needs to rise in a warm environment. The recipe suggests a warm oven (mine doesn’t go that low) or a water bath. I said, ‘Fuck You,’ politely and used my dehydrator (the ol’ Excalibur). To be honest, I don’t really know if it worked, but a day and hours later, I made the bread, so there. Ironically, it was like 90 outside here in Silver Lake when I was doing this, so at one point I actually put the sponge outside because I swear the dehydrator didn’t seem warm enough (yes, it has a temperature gage, but shit…).
I followed the recipe to the tee and then went off-roading (not literally). I made my starter, let it sit in my dehydrator for 10 hours, took it out and it didn’t seem as fermenty or what I like to call “hooch-like,” but I just kept at it. I added the necessary ingredients to the starter to make the sponge, let that sit for 4 hours in the dehydrator, but it never looked as bubbly as I hoped, so that’s when I put it outside for a few hours, then finally caved and brought it in and made the dough. It looked and acted like bread dough at that point though, so bombs away, I spread it in the loaf pans and left it to rise (again, in the dehydrator, which usually is a really good place to proof shit). 6 hours later it didn’t look good, nothing Easter Jesus like about this bread dough. I went out, tried to forget about it, came back by midnight and it had risen! Amen!
Of course, it was now midnight and I really didn’t want to bake the bread, but I did. After about 27 minutes, it looked pretty brown on the outside, but wasn’t done on the inside. I let it go the full 45 minutes and pulled it. The outside was really crusty and I knew it would be hard, I don’t know if it was the cornmeal, but it was just a bit rough around the edges, if you know what I mean. But the insides were perfect. Here’s how it went down in a much quicker time span than the trauma I went through.
The bread has a curious taste. When I took it out of the oven, my house smelled like a funky cheese. Since we don’t hang out that often, you don’t know that I hate funky cheese, meaning blue or anything veiny or gorgonzolaesque. Fuck that shit. I do love feta, gouda, munster, swiss, cheddar, mozzarella, and even brie – but no blue cheese, YUCK. But the smell was mild, and it was cheesy, which made me believe I did something right since it obviously had that lovely blend of acids I mentioned earlier. The bread does kinda taste cheesy too. I can’t put my finger on an exact way to describe it really. It’s like a thick, creamy tasting bread. It’s rich but not actually that salty to me. It tastes like cheese bread, but there’s no cheese! Sharon, my trusty neighbor really couldn’t wrap her head around it either, but we both ate it up. I actually think it was even better like 2 days later, when I had it with my breakfast.
*Note: Do NOT eat the raw dough or lick the spoon while preparing this recipe – the microbes in this bacteria are actually associated with food poisoning – told you this was weird – but none of the strains actually produce toxins (thanks to the baking process bacteria and toxins are inactivated).
**One more note: The recipe also appears on Popular Science.
Pg. 149 – Lucky Peach Issue #5
This is a great side dish or it can be a meal – I ate it for dinner myself. Start with finding yourself some fresh Napa Cabbage. I went to my local farmer’s market and bought one that was pretty much all white, but many are like a light green and white. Napa Cabbage is a Chinese cabbage and is lighter in color than any of the other Chinese cabbages.
The recipe is courtesy of culinary anthropologist Naomi Duguid. She has written a book about the food culture of Burma and in Lucky Peach she explains that this recipe is “Chinese-inflected but still firmly anchored in the Burmese tradition (hence the turmeric and dried red chiles, as well as the overall balance).” She also shared that a common base for Burmese dishes starts with shallots cooked in a turmeric-scented oil. Let’s talk about turmeric for a second here. It’s a fantastic orange colored spice that’s part of the ginger family and a native of southeast Asia. It’s common in curries and mustards because of its slightly hot peppery taste. Good stuff, people. Buy some, use it in this recipe and then experiment – it’s really good on chicken, and in rice.
Okay, so here’s what you’ll need:
I’m so lazy. I think it’s hilarious that I’m offering you a photo of the ingredients. Really, what a lazy ass.
And so, get your cabbage, chop it up and put it all in bowl of cold water. Scrunch through it a bit with your hands to make sure it gets completely cleaned and then strain it and set it aside.
Combine the water and oyster sauce. You’ll add this into the stir-fry later.
Chop up your shallot, mince your ginger and cut your dried red chiles. I had some dried anaheim peppers from my garden so I used those. I think your best bet is anything you know is spicy and will give you the kick you like. Of course, any Asian pepper would probably tip this off in the right direction too.
Put the peanut oil in a wok – or large skillet in my case, since I DO NOT HAVE A WOK. I know. Let’s revisit this later. Keep the heat at medium-high and add the tumeric to the oil, then throw in the shallots, ginger, and dried chiles.
The turn the heat up, and add the cabbage and the salt and wok it up. That means stir-fry!
Continually toss the cabbage and press it to the side of the pan even, for about 2 – 3 minutes and then add the oyster sauce mixture and bring it to a boil and continue stir-frying. Give it like 15 – 20 seconds and it’s done!
This tasted terrific. The turmeric gives it this rich spicy aromatic flavor and the chile peppers add a good kick. The oyster sauce is a nice dark sweet compliment. I’m adding this dish to my normal routine – it’s easy, quick, and very tasty. Plus, it reminded me how much I NEED A FUCKING WOK AGAIN. Long story, I moved and lost it. The End. Okay, more like short story. I recommend a dark red malbec to go with this party of one.
Pg. 147 – Lucky Peach Issue #5
That’s right, Issue #5! This Jamaican – Chinese recipe is from the latest and greatest issue – CHINATOWN. I couldn’t help but jump ahead to this issue, and well, we got another instant ramen dish, so I feel like we’re on a roll here. Dinkinish O’ Connor provided it for Lucky Peach – from my quick web stalking, looks like she contributes to the Miami New Times, likes wine, and has even been called Drinkinish. We’d probably get along fabulously.
First, I’d like to come clean on a few things. I deviated from this recipe in a few small ways – I couldn’t find the exact Jerk seasoning suggested locally (it is on Amazon: JCS Reggae Country Style Boston Dry Jerk Seasoning), so I got my own Blackened Jerk seasoning from The Spice Station, a cool herb/spice store in my neighborhood. I also chose to use ground allspice instead of the 5 spice powder alternate. AND, OMG I couldn’t find any Scotch Bonnet peppers nearby so like a good Chicana Angelino, I used a habanero! They kinda look the same and both have the same effect when while chopping you happen to touch your nose or lips at all – so don’t do it! Here’s what the for realz recipe looks like (I told you I’m too lazy to type this and apparently focus it this time):
So, let’s be real. When I went through the Chinatown issue and got to this recipe, my heart stopped. Two things I love – the short rib and instant ramen. It’s kismet. But it takes awhile to do this, so don’t think you’re coming home from your day job and just gonna whip up this number. Nope. Ain’t gonna happen.
First off, you gotsta prep the marinade for the short ribs. First time I ever used Morton’s Nature Seasonings, good stuff. Use fresh thyme too, don’t skimp on your ass, you deserve it.
Then combine your short ribs and the marinade in a ziploc baggie.
And put in in the fridge for at least 4 hours and up to 24. Mine was in for about 16 hours.
When you take it out the next day, remove the marinade but set aside in a bowl, and then pat the ribs dry. Then get a big pot that can fit on your stove top and in your oven. You’re gonna brown the ribs in there, fat side down for 8-10 minutes.
Then add the marinade and enough water to cover 2/3 of the meat and put that pot in the oven. You’re now gonna let the ribs braise (a French technique that involves dry and moist cooking) for about 1.5 hours, or at least until the meat is tender, but not totally soft.
LUCKY PEACH ISSUE #5 CHINATOWN
Everybody and their mother knows this is out now. Get it or you’re dumb. After about 5 seconds thumbing through it, I realized I can’t just keep going in chronological page order on this quest. I’m going to skip around and there’s a damn good recipe in this new issue that involves instant ramen (and beef short ribs) so I’m gonna start my stray there most likely. But no worries, my faithful food porn companions, I will still go through all the journals thus far! We ate the instant ramen crusted skate last night, that post will be up shortly.
Eat a Lucky Peach 