Last week in our neck of the woods, we beat cold temperatures of the North Pole. This week, the blizzard of the century promises 2 ft (more than half a meter) of snow and 50 mph (about 80 kmh) winds. New York mayor issued a travel ban on city streets tonight into tomorrow — no cars, no trucks, no e-bikes.

Meanwhile, warm and sunny Panama is on our table.

The Center of the Americas, the Crossroads of the World, Panama appropriately soaked up and adapted culinary influences of all the peoples surrounding it.

Choosing between hearty soups and stews, fried and roasted meats, rice and beans, we zeroed on fish ceviche. In Panamanian version, along with lime, fish was flavored with grapefruit and habanero. This added some softening sweetness to the dish without making it sharp.

Paired with green plantain patacones it made a nice light dinner.

#food #cooking #panamanian #ceviche #corvina #fishceviche #inmykitchen #myhappyplace #latinocuisine #patacones

For saucy recipes, I do love Chinese cauliflower. Its moppy florets — they look like someone stuck cauliflower into an elect outlet — catch sauces so much better than tightly packed ordinary ones. At the store, I always try to get the biggest head — I can live on cauliflower.

This is Cauliflower Manchurian from Hetty McKinnon’s Tenderheart. This recipe is perfect for a complete dinner entree. It satisfies even a die hard carnivore like me.

Battered in a mix of cornstarch and rice flour that is spiced with Kashmiri powder, light soy sauce, and black pepper, cauliflower florets are fried in a neutral oil sort of shallow deep fry style.

And once they are done, then there is a sauce to toss them with that has strong Asian flavors: ginger-garlic-Thai dragon-scallion whites sautéed with chopped red pepper, celery, and dressed with a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar, ketchup, and white pepper.

We did not have any rice or roti as the recipe advises. It was perfectly fine and filling as is.

#food #cooking #cauliflower #vegetarian #asianflavors #homefood #inmykitchen #myhappyplace

Old school New York winter. Colder than Alaska. And I want to cook more than I want to eat. Looking for long slow recipes and lots of prep.

This aloo gosht from Zareen’s Pakistani Kitchen saved me on the coldest day of the winter when, as good luck would have it, our house lost heat.

Made with goat meat, lots of onions, garlic, ginger, and potatoes, spiced with cumin, coriander, garam masala, and Kashmiri chilies it raised the heat inside and outside.

#food #cooking #curry #pakistanifood #coldweather #inmykitchen #myhappyplace

I’ve never made Julia Child’s beef bourguignon and I’ve always wanted to make Julia Child’s beef bourguignon. And now I think I will never make Julia Child’s beef bourguignon.

It was a perfect day for a long slow cooking venture. Day off from work. Cold and snow outside. Nagging to-do list was more or less completed. All the ingredients were on hand. But some of the directions in the recipe were dragging me down. And some of the ingredients — like pearl onions.

And then Ruth Reichl’s newsletter dropped in. It contained a couple of suggestions to see us through the stormy weather. Beef, Wine, Onion stew was one of them.

The description — it was not a recipe — was a definite variation on the famous beef bourguignon but so liberating. No timing, no quantities — just a splash, a squirt, a pat, and as many as you feel like. And whatever. And no pearl onions.

I jotted down the plan on a sticky note and put a movie on my iPad.

Here’s what was on my note (sans the stuff in brackets):

STEP 1 — TO BROWN
— pat of butter
— lots of onions (I had 5 large ones)
— good bacon, lardons (there was a 7 oz chunk)
— carrots (I had 3)
— lots of garlic (I used 10 cloves)
— thyme (huge 5-finger pinch of dried)
— squirt of tomato paste at the end

STEP 2 — TO BROWN
— oil & butter
— beef: salt, pepper, flour (I had 3,5 lb chuck, 2”-cubed)
— deglaze with brandy

STEP 3 — 300°F, 3 HOURS
— good red wine (whole bottle)
— celery stalk
— bay leaf

STEP 4
— brown mushrooms in butter, mix in at the end (2,5 lb, quartered)
— boil potatoes to serve
— parsley to garnish

Amazing, amazing, amazing result!

For the movie — HBO put Mad Men back on. I’ve never seen it but read about it and wanted to give it a shot. Honestly, it watches like horror series.

#food #cooking #beefstew #beefbourguignon #inmykitchen #stormyweatherdinner #myhappyplace

Lamb flaps — popular street food in Papua New Guinea. Unwanted in the Western world inexpensive cuts became a delicious PNG classic.

With my recent discovery of fry bread in Arizona, its history and meaning, parallels with flaps are obvious — people are making silk purses out of sow’s ears all over the world.

No mumu or oil-drum on a snowy afternoon in the northern US of A.

We spiced up the bits with chili, curry, turmeric, soy sauce and stewed them with corn, carrots, green plantains, and kaukau.

Served PNG street style with loads of green herbs they presented a nice dichotomy with the snowflakes dancing outside the window.

Working on the bones warmed us up. Tasty and interesting!

#food #cooking #lambflaps #streetfood #papuanewguinea #inmykitchen #cookingtherapy

Pasta is not my favorite thing which makes my restaurant trips easier — I skip huge sections of menus without looking. I don’t like how pasta fills me up so fast leaving no room to try things.

One exception is pappardelle rolled to a certain width and thickness. Rarely I can find it at the store or even a restaurant the way I like it. With that, if I want pappardelle I have to make it myself.

My favorite things to go with drapery slippery ribbons are squishy charred mushrooms in Madeira or Marsala creamy sauce. During colder months, addition of sausage doesn’t hurt either.

#food #cooking #pasta #pappardele #cream #madeira #mushrooms #sage #inmykitchen #cookingtherapy

Yotam Ottolenghi’s beef stroganoff meatballs from Comfort. The flavor is different from what I am used to but nevertheless excellent. No
complaints.

It is the first time I saw smoked paprika and Stroganoff in the same sentence.

Albóndigas Estrogonofe?

#food #cooking #meatballs #beefstroganoff #ottolenghi #cookingathome #inmykitchen

Odjakhuri — traditional Georgian family roast of meat, potatoes, and some other vegetables. Flavored with khmeli-suneli, utzkho-suneli, and a punch from hot paprika it is also heavy on herbs — basil, cilantro, parsley.

Satsebeli, a light but flavorful sauce of roasted peppers and tomatoes is a perfect accompaniment to this hearty dish.

Odjakhuri is customary cooked on a ketzi, a roasting clay dish. I found something similar in Turkish markets of Paterson — same slow even heat distribution and great retention of it that preserves moisture and opens flavors in a different way. The food is cooked with minimum fat, doesn’t burn, and stays hot at the table for a long time.

Fun to make, fun to eat. As, for me, the impossible to replicate suneli aromas transport my mind to the perfect place in time.

#food #cooking #georgianfood #odjakhuri #meatroast #inmykitchen

December in my kitchen started with November traditions. We had a proper Thanksgiving after all.

A little bit of forward planning with a lot of past experience and what used to take months to accomplish, this year, came together in one day — turkey, stuffing, gravy, sides, and all. Slightly modified but still delicious, memorable, and special, here’s our December Thanksgiving table.

Interesting coming back while moving forward. Is that what they call spiral dynamics?

#food #thanksgiving #traditions #inmykitchen #cooking