Cooking emergency

As many of you may have heard, my refrigerator broke over the weekend. When you stockpile enough food to feed an army at any given moment, as I do, this is a PROBLEM. Fortunately, with a lot of damage control (giant bag of ice in the freezer, my landlords inexplicably keep a mini fridge running on the back porch) it was not a tragedy. I got it back up and running on Monday (not fixed, but running and, more importantly, cooling), but while I didn't lose much, the vast quantities of meat in my freezer were thawed, meaning they needed to be cooked right away.

If I hadn't been so overwhelmed by the amount and variety of meat to cook in such a short time, this would have been an excellent opportunity to do something crazy for this blog. But I just didn't have the time or mental energy to put together a cohesive meal or find any exotic ingredients. So why are you telling us this, you ask. Well, it was kind of funny. Except for some [delicious, thanks to Kenny] barbecued country-style boneless ribs and a vat of chicken stock, nothing I made was 100% American. Peruvian-style chicken kebabs, Hungarian goulash, osso bucco, pork chops with Senegalese onion-mustard sauce, carnitas, and dijon-garlic chicken. None of it except for maybe the carnitas was necessarily authentic (Peruvian chicken is supposed to be rotisserie, the pork chops were supposed to be lamb, I didn't have the fresh ingredients to finish the osso bucco, etc.), but it was all delicious and made almost entirely from ingredients I had on hand (Kenny brought rib supplies, skewers, and sides to grill). My major goal in starting this blog was to become a better, more versatile cook, and there's no way I could have hacked such a diverse smorgasbord last summer without obsessing over every recipe and buying a lot of stuff. So I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

If anyone wants recipes, I'll provide them where I can (or at least give you an idea of what I threw into the marinade). But I hope this will inspire you to pick a flavor or cuisine you enjoy and wing it yourself! I'd love to hear how it goes.

Costa Rica

Costa Rican cuisine is relatively typical of the Central American region, with some notable exceptions. Spicy food is less common, although food tends not to be entirely bland. Cilantro, sweet peppers, and onions are common flavoring agents. Rice and beans are common, as are potatoes and plantains.

According to a video we watched in my introduction to sociocultural anthropology class, tamales are an important Latin American Christmas tradition. Women get together and spend hours making hundreds of tamales. They're made of cornmeal batter filled with meat or vegetables, wrapped in corn husks and steamed. The Costa Rican version uses banana leaves tied up and boiled, but as I came down with my annual plague on Saturday I was in no condition to seek out a Latin market to find them. The Costa Rican version also uses rice and potatoes as filling along with shredded pork. I thought they were tasty, but could definitely have used more seasoning. I added a bunch of chili powder, paprika, salt, and cumin to my leftover pork. I probably won't make tamales again, as they take hours! To accompany the tamales, I made a black bean soup with boiled eggs (boiled in the soup, incidentally) and a heart of palm salad. The soup was a little bland, but a liberal addition of salt and pepper made it better. It might have been better with dried or fresh beans, but I took the easy way out (and cut off several hours) by using a can. I also forgot the garlic. I think the salad was my favorite part of the meal, although I'm happy to have soup leftovers now that I'm sick.

Armenia

Armenian cuisine is fairly typical of the Mediterranean and Eastern European regions. Fresh ingredients are usually more important than spices, and common elements include lamb, bulghur, rice, yogurt, apricots, nuts, zucchini, and stuffed fruit and vegetables.

I planned to make zucchini fritters, a pilaf with bulghur, and apricots stuffed with beef. I was pretty sure this meal was going to be an epic disaster. Here is a list of the things that went wrong before I even started cooking:
1. I got home later than expected and had about an hour less to cook than I had hoped for.
2. Trader Joe's did not have bulghur and I scraped my car on a pillar in the parking garage (pretty sure this was divine punishment for stopping there on the way home instead of parking at home and walking the two blocks over).
3. I didn't think to label the ziplock bags of meat in my freezer and accidentally thawed pork instead of beef (hello, cultural inaccuracy).
4. Shoppers didn't have apricots to stuff with said pork, so I turned to zucchini. Unfortunately, they also only had tiny zucchini. So I figured I would just have to deal.

I assured my friend Anika that there was excellent pizza only a few minutes away if it all proved inedible, but ended up being pleasantly surprised. The pilaf turned out pretty delicious with rice instead of bulghur, and the fritters were excellent. I didn't keep the leftover stuffed zucchini (the recipe didn't say to cook the rice beforehand, so I didn't...and maybe I should have? It was crunchy and I did not find it delicious), but we each ate one.

Thailand

Thai cuisine is based on strongly aromatic ingredients like chile peppers, ginger, and lemongrass. Each meal is supposed to be composed of sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and optionally bitter flavors. Regional cuisine is influenced by neighbors including Malaysia, China, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma. Traditionally, one would serve more dishes than there are guests at the table. Staples include rice, noodles, fish sauce, and curry.

I'd certainly had Thai food before, but it's never been one of my favorite cuisines. I've never been able to find anything that excites me. So since I didn't expect to love this meal, my major priorities were nutrition and low hassle, which included easy ingredients and fast preparation. I left out the spiciness and bitterness, but I did serve three dishes for the two of us. The won-tons were easy (although the oil spattered like no other!) and tasty enough even without a dipping sauce. The curry (which was a last-minute addition after I realized I had half a can of coconut milk left over from Cameroon) was reasonably inoffensive, and if I make it again I might even use more curry paste. The noodles were downright tasty, and I'll definitely make something like that again. Blair agreed.

Mexico Bonus Round: Carnitas

When I was at H Mart the other week, I came across a package of pre-cut pork shoulder chunks for stew. My mind immediately went CARNITAS. Because I love carnitas, but let's face it, dealing with a giant hunk of pork is a chore. These chunks were small enough that making it was not nearly as much of a process as I thought it would be (as the recipe said it would be). I'm making quesadillas with them for dinner, but the preliminary word is that they are absolutely delicious.

Sweden

From my recipe searches, Swedish cuisine appears to be centered on meat, cookies, and sweet breads, with some potatoes thrown in for good measure. Wikipedia tells me that traditional Swedish cuisine includes local ingredients such as berries as well. I guess the latitude is a good reason for the lack of vegetables other than potatoes. There are also fish dishes such as pickled herring, but I'm definitely not adventurous enough to touch that yet. I am REALLY not adventurous enough to try Lutfisk, fish cured in lye. As one of my coworkers told me, friends don't let friends eat Lutfisk.

In case you needed proof that there's no particular order to these countries, I picked Sweden this past weekend because I read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last weekend and the bacon pancake sounded good. Unfortunately, I got to the bacon pancake after I'd left my parents' house outside Philadelphia - and the Ikea I drive past to get back to DC. Consequently, I was worried about finding lingonberry anything, especially after the red currant jam issues. And I definitely couldn't make Swedish food without lingonberry! So my plan was to try World Market first, then Harris Teeter and Whole Foods, and settle for the boysenberry I used for Austria if I couldn't find it. Luckily, World Market came through!

While I was traipsing all over NoVA, I decided to check out Penzey's Spices in Falls Church to pick up white pepper. Great decision! They had almost everything I could have wanted (no vanilla beans that I saw, but they did have vanilla sugar), and I'll definitely be heading back there. Everything was cheaper than the supermarket, there was way more variety, I could usually get smaller quantities, and I'm pretty sure the quality is higher. As a bonus, they have descriptions of many of the more exotic spices or varieties posted so you know what you're buying.

My parents have been making Swedish meatballs since I was little, but theirs are just basic meatballs in a simple beef gravy. I wanted to see what the real thing was like. The recipe I used had all this stuff like roll the meat carefully into balls, dip in flour, freeze so that they stay together better. I didn't want to deal with all of that, so I made little patties using spoons. They're not the most baller meatballs I've ever made, but they were also fast, and I fried them in so much butter that they were in no danger of sticking to the pan and coming apart. I also knew I wanted to make that bacon pancake, but the recipes I found were for a large souffle like the Salzburger Nockerl, and souffles do not make good leftovers. So I made a third of the recipe and baked it in two personal-sized ramekins until they were golden brown and delicious. It worked well, although the actual pancakes were a little eggy for my taste, and I didn't think the bacon flavor was as integrated as I wanted it to be. I was at a loss for a vegetable recipe - I'm trying to eat a little healthier, and potatoes do not count as vegetables. Finally I found a creamed mushroom recipe from Jamie Oliver Does Sweden. I don't know how authentic it was, but it worked. It was supposed to be made with chanterelles, which are allegedly common in Sweden, but I had shiitakes. The meatballs and mushrooms were really tasty, if incredibly fattening from all the sweet, sweet butter.

The first recipe I found that I decided I wanted to make was glogg, a mulled wine. This recipe was unique because it also included white rum and bourbon, and was supposed to be SET ON FIRE. Unfortunately, my landlords are not fans of temperature moderation, so between the blasting heat and slaving over the stove, oven, and skillet, I was just not in the mood to mull anything, much less set it on fire.

South Africa

South African cuisine is influenced by many different cultures. One very popular dish, from the indigenous people of the area, is called pap, similar to grits or polenta served with flavorful sauces. Indo-Malaysian cuisine is common as well, since the people frequently served the European colonizers of South Africa. Finally, the Dutch (Boers) and English colonizers had a strong impact on the cuisine as well.

One tradition particularly dear to the descendants of the Boers is the braai, or barbecue. Families and friends get together and cook on a grill over an elaborate charcoal fire - the braai. One's braai is typically a point of pride. Common dishes include skewered meat and vegetables, grilled sandwiches with cheese, other grilled meat, and skillet breads. Men in particular frequently cook a pot of stew over the fire, called a potiejko.

My original plan had been to break out my own charcoal grill and have a braai of my own. But my dinner partner had to cancel, there are still mosquitoes, and it got a little chilly for me to want to grill alone. So I ended up just roasting most of the food and skipping the griddle cakes in favor of leftover bread from Trader Joe's, and skipping the beans entirely. This left me with braised peri-peri chicken livers, marinated vegetable skewers, and ribs.

I'd only had chicken liver once before, and while I wasn't a big fan of the experience, I thought a flavorful sauce and more adventurous palate would make a difference. It didn't. I also learned that buying the peeled and sliced butternut squash from Trader Joe's is more than worth the extra couple of dollars, which was extra unfortunate because the squash was definitely the weakest part of the vegetable skewers. But on the plus side, the ribs are delicious - I'm looking forward to eating them all week with the rest of the vegetables. And my apartment smells pretty fantastic. Finally, I remembered to put foil down on the pans before putting the racks on, so clean-up should be pretty simple. Thank goodness!

Burma

Burma (or Myanmar) is located in southern Asia between China, India, Laos, and Thailand. The country's current military government has promoted the name Myanmar since 1989, but the US government still uses the name Burma. Burmese cuisine is heavily influenced by China, India, and Thailand - not surprising, given its location. This means that fish sauce, clear noodle soups, and curries are all common elements. However, curries do not use curry powder, relying instead on turmeric and chili powder for flavor, as well as onions, garlic, and ginger.

I made the curry and the cucumbers while I was making the Bissau-Guinean stew, since both needed to simmer for hours and my schedule's a little hectic this week. The cucumbers were meant to be served cold, and I couldn't imagine that curry wouldn't reheat well. I thought the coolest part of the recipe was processing the onions, garlic, and ginger into a paste to get the flavor without the chunks. Of course, the friend hanging out with me pointed out that onions are *really* strong when they're processed into a paste; his eyes were watering from across the room! I made the coconut rice when I was actually ready to eat the meal (accidentally burned it, so I had to scrape off the unburned parts and just eat them - oops), and all in all, I was impressed. The rice was very mild, but the flavor went well with the curry. The meat was relatively tender and the curry was delicious; flavorful without being spicy. The cucumbers were...a little weird. But generally enjoyable.