zoramargolis

Sorry, Zora, but......slushy beer? Yuck. Ice cold.....sometimes acceptable.... slushy? No excuse. Heat or not.

A bit hyperbolic on my part--there were some ice crystals in the foam. But, yikes, one would think that I had been extolling the virtues of Bud Lite. I'm afraid that I am not welcome to play in the same league as beer connoisseurs like you and Brian. Oh well. The terroir-is-next-to-god, old-world-only burgundy-philes look down their noses at me, too.

"Sirloin tip" is the sort of amorphous name that leaves you wondering. I'd think of it as similar in texture and cooking requirements to boneless leg of lamb.

The very tastiest method I've found for preparing boneless leg of lamb involves some prep, and waiting a few days to cook and eat it. I make a marinade with plain yogurt, onions, garlic, ground cumin, fresh mint, parsley, thyme , rosemary and bay leaves and citrus peels (go easy on the lemon juice or the marinade will be too acidic). Put the meat and marinade in a ziplock bag, moosh it around and put it in the refrigerator. Moosh it around and flip the bag a couple of times a day.

Yogurt is the one marinade-base that won't turn meat to mush, because the lactic acid in the yogurt is much gentler than wine, vinegar or lemon/lime juice. It will tenderize the meat and give it great flavor--I've had lamb in this marinade for as many as five days with good results. Even a day or two works well.

Take the meat out of the bag, scrape off the herbs and some of the yogurt and grill over charcoal. The meat you bought sounds like you could cut it into chunks before marinating, if you chose to, and skewer it for kebabs.

I first tasted lamb cooked this way in the mid-70's at a very high class Moroccan restaurant in West Hollywood called Dar Maghreb. It absolutely blew me away. I asked for the recipe, and I've been cooking lamb like this ever since. Whenever I prepare lamb in this way for guests, someone invariably says: "That's the most delicious lamb I've ever eaten in my life."

I've never really seen the appeal of Blue Moon when compared to the widely available Allagash White, or even any other US brewed Begian-style wheat beer.

Do you know of anyplace that has great food and serves Allagash White on draft in iced glasses, so cold that there are shards of ice in the beer? I'll be sure to order it, if I go on a hot summer afternoon. I rarely drink beer--though I did once buy a six-pack of Allagash. I vaguely recall that it was good, but neither of us liked it enough to buy it again. My husband hated Hoegaarden, the one time I bought it in bottles. On a steamy summer day, a Blue Moon semi-slushy was totally refreshing. In other situations, other times if the year, with other options offered, I might not order it.

For the vinaigrette, I use a basic 2:1 ratio olive oil to vineagar (balsamic).

START WITH:

1/3 cup good balsamic vineagar

1 tsp. dijon mustard

2 tsp honey

THEN ADD:

Stream in slowly with wisk: 2/3 cup olive oil

S & P to taste.

*********************************

*go ahead and experiment with any fresh herbs you may have on hand. Try minced garlic or shallot. Add lemon pepper....

After you've made the dressing with the 4 main ingredients, it's yours to personalize!

**To make things easy, I just make this is a canning jar, throw all the ingredients in, put the lid on and shake. Store in fridge and reuse from same container.

This is a terrific recipe. The only comment I have is that you should add salt first, before you put in the olive oil. Shake up the vinegar mustard, honey and salt together, then shake it again with the olive oil. The salt dissolves in the vinegar, but doesn't dissolve in oil. (Don't take that just on my authority--I was told that in a cooking class I took in the late 70's taught by Wolfgang Puck. I always figured he knew what he was talking about.)

Dupont today was a mob scene. Why aren't all these people at the beach?

I must have missed you in the crowd. I did have a nice chat with Mrs. Giantshrimp, who, it turns out, lived on my street when she was a teenager. Small world.

Bev Eggleston overslept and hadn't made it to the market when it opened, so I did all my other shopping and swung back at around 9:45 when they were setting up his booth. I overheard a man saying that he was there to buy meat for the first time, because he had read Michael Pollan's book. I wish Bev a lot of success--I just hope that demand doesn't so overwhelm supply, that those of us who have been customers from the get-go are cut off. I did get a cute little chicken, but things have been seeming slimmer there for the past few weeks. Summer doldrums, I hope?

Elsewhere in the market, I got Aracauna eggs, organic beans and Ice Queen corn, heirloom tomatoes, Blue Ridge mozzarella, munchkin potatoes, W. VA peaches (of the various peaches on offer this morning, I thought they were the most flavorful) basil, and sunflower-flaxseed bread for breakfast toast.

At Black's in Bethesda.

Blue Moon on draft, served in a beautiful frozen glass with a slice of orange. It doesn't get any more refreshing than this on a hot day. I first had Blue Moon on draft in Frederick a few years ago, and went gaga. Black's Blue Moon on draft is SO much better because of the ultra-chilled, attractive glass.

Honey can be very good, eaten with sheep milk cheese.

p.s. At one time, I didn't really like honey either. I had only ever tasted supermarket clover honey when I was growing up. Later,when I tasted wildflower honey and apple blossom honey, I realized how limited my experience had been. There is such a wide world of flavors to discover. Start with paler honeys--they are more subtle in flavor.

4)A wine list that puts any other in Monkey County to shame for their limitations and prices.

Have you seen the wine list at the newly renovated Black's in Bethesda? You may want to moderate the above statement after you see it.

Last night I made the recipe in Wednesday's WaPo Food Section: the shrimp with the commercial "Simmer Sauce." I took one for the team. Don't bother, unless you like really bland pseudo-Indian food.

I've been using Patak's Rogan Jhosh and Korma sauces for many years, to make an easy meal, and I've always found them to be very tasty. The Korma is mild, with coconut milk in it--I usually make vegetable Korma for my veggie-teen daughter, with chickpeas, potato, winter squash or carrots, green beans, mushrooms, peas, whatever combo I've got, or divide the pot, and put some chicken in for us. The Rogan Jhosh is quite spicy--I often make meatballs with ground turkey and poach them in the sauce. Of course, there are other quick and easy dishes to enhance the meal-- basmati rice, dal Makhani from Tasty Bite, raita, and a spicy fresh chutney with coriander and chiles, and Patak's eggplant pickle, which is plenty spicy. For a "semi-homemade" supper, it has always made my family happy. I haven't tried other brands, except Trader Joe's, which is eh, I stick with Patak's. Their Vindaloo is even spicier than Rogan Jhosh.

Moving is going to suck, but there's an upshot: I'm going to have a basement. It's going to be ON!

Watch this space!

As long as it doesn't flood in the next deluge--that's the downside of having a basement. I comfort myself with that thought when my neighbors are frantically trying to get rid of water and mold in their basements during and after bad storms. It helps me deal with the frustration of having so little storage space in my kitchen cupboards and no place to put a wine storage unit or an extra refrigerator.

-I'm getting a little better with charcoal grilling-entirely unorthodox, I use a combo of match-lite briquettes & hardwood charcoal.

You'd be better off investing in a charcoal chimney and just use regular charcoal. All serious grillers use them for starting charcoal. It's really easy to use - just three crumpled pieces of newspaper and a match gets the charcoal going. Then you don't have the extra expense of Match-lite and the yucky smell/taste of petroleum associated with your grill.

More importantly, has anyone had the cold soba? I assume it comes with a dashi based dipping sauce?

I haven't had it there, but zaru-soba (cold buckwheat noodles) is one of my favorite summer meals, and is not easy to find. The chilled noodles are sprinkled with a chiffonade of scallions and nori. The cold broth that you dip the noodles in is dashi-based with rice vinegar, soy sauce and ginger. Very refreshing on a hot day.

-Orange Marmalade: only tried once, and it was a colossal failure (didn't gel) and a huge batch (of then unusable orange syrup/sauce/meh).

-Sauerkraut: as mentioned before on this thread, except the two times I tried it, I don't think I shredded the cabbage finely enough, as it didn't quite leech out enough moisture to submerge the cabbage in its own juices, and the smell of the rotting/fermenting cabbage made my kitchen reek to high heaven. Will be trying again soon, again for Oktoberfest party.

-Cheese: in the past, everything from brined cheeses, cheddar infused with oak barrel stout, and simple fresh cheeses. lately, been working on Gouda, trying to get the moisture level right since I recently got a cheese press. Once I work out the moisture level kinks, I'd like to mostly just make Gouda and age for 1yr+. I brought a block of 2mo old gouda to the spring picnic.

Did you use a candy thermometer when you made the marmalade? Generally small batches work best, because you have to get the whole volume to a pretty high temperature and sustain it to get it to thicken. I think the sugar syrup needs to get to soft ball stage, at least. I generally use pectin when I make preserves, because I think the fruit tastes better when it is cooked less. I've only made marmalade a time or two. Try again with a smaller volume and use pectin. Better luck next time.

On the sauerkraut, it sounds like you may not have used enough salt. And you have to weight it down with a plate, with a brick or two on top. Also, the kitchen may have been too warm a place to make it. It's a cool weather project to do "down cellar" in a cool space, if you can find one. It may not be appropriate for an apartment.

I liked your gouda. I'd love to make aged cheeses, but I don't have appropriate refrigeration to do it, and no space for another fridge at my house.

You seem like my kinda guy... Except you're probably not too much older than my daughter. How about if I just adopt you?

Seafood stew, with fresh shrimp, scallops and monkfish in a long-simmered tomato base made with shrimp shell stock.

Fennel slaw

Sliced peaches with blueberry compote and vanilla ice cream

2005 Turkey Flat Rose

That sounds really good! Wish I could get Creole garlic here, which would probably be perfect for this.

Bought some Chinese garlic today at Super H that has red streaks in the skin sort of like Creole garlic but peeled smells the same as white Chinese garlic.

Maybe I can talk my dad into sending me a care package!

(BTW, Super H today has really lovely collards, on the tender side and well washed.)

I once made about year's supply of ajo en escabeche with a mongo container of peeled Gilroy garlic from Costco. I put a lot of chiles, carrots, celery and onions in with it, so it was really verduras en esabeche. That stuff is addictive! I haven't made any in a while, because I don't have enough room in my refrigerator, with all the other oils, pickles, preserves, concentrates I've got in there. But now that you've got me thinking about it...

there is really nothing wrong with the tacos al pastor except that you have probably had better someplace else, maybe at guajillo in the days when it was in its prime. small tips of beef on shaved pineapple, another motif in the cooking here, are also satisfying and disappear in a quick few bites.

Early on, the tacos al pastor at Oyamel were made with braised oxtail. Later on, they were made with duck. I'm not sure what meat they are putting in it now. Traditionally, tacos al pastor are made with thin slices of spice paste-rubbed pork that are stacked with pineapple and skewered and cooked on a shawarma-type of vertical grill. The outside layers are shaved off as they cook. Taqueria Poblano was the first place in the area to offer "real" tacos al pastor, and they were good. Oyamel's oxtail version was tasty, though I wasn't sure why they called it al pastor, other than it had pineapple in it. The duck version was sort of tasteless, and by that time, an order of tacos had gone from three to two, for the same price. And I'm not really in love with Oyamel anyway. Sigh.

I have been wondering how Koreans make pickles, since I just started making pickles myself. Only cucumber pickles, using a recipe from the Ball canning book, but with lots more garlic than they suggest.

Do Koreans use Ball-style jars with the two part lids? Or refrigerator pickles? Or fermentation?

Inquiring minds want to know . . . .

I can tell you how Mexicans make pickled garlic--ajo en escabeche.

Make a brine with 1/2 cider vinegar, 1/2 rice vinegar, diluted with a small amount of water, (enough to cover the amount of peeled garlic cloves you have) with enough salt to make it mildly salty. Add chopped carrot and celery, a few sliced jalapeño or serrano chiles (depends on how much garlic you're starting with and how spicy you like it), bay leaf, oregano, whole allspice berries and black peppercorns. Bring it to a boil and then turn off the heat, and let it sit until it has cooled. Transfer to a jar and let it sit for a couple of days in the fridge before using. Will keep in the fridge for months.

Wonderful timing here, since I happen to have a fair number of tomatillos on hand, along with some onions and cilantro, and a few pounds of leftover roast pork. I suspect this will become a fairly large amount of salsa for two people. Can we expect a longer shelf life with either the raw or cooked versions? Is either approach suitable to freezing (I've never tried canning, and this just isn't looking like a good week to start)?

Cooked salsa definitely has a longer shelf life. Raw salsas start tasting very tired by day 3, in my experience. As far as freezing goes, I would say cooked is fine. Raw? I'm not liking the texture of it after it's thawed.

Hunter S. Thompson was reincarnated as a food writer even before he died--as Anthony Bourdain. I'm reading _The Nasty Bits_ and Hunter Thompson oozes from every page.

5 days seems to be a bit long for curing and might be the cause of the chew. My Swedish stepmother insists that gravlax should cure for 24 hours. It is a matter of preference, but less cured has shorter shelflife and salt/sugar proportions will affect the final product -sugar will counter the hardening effects of salt. Cure for my "gravad laks" (about 1/3 weight of wild sockeye salmon) was 150gm coarse sea salt, 250 gm sugar, 30 gm toasted coriander, 20 mg black pepper, zest of lemon/lime/orange and their juice. Placed them skin down in a non-reactive pan, covered with cure and let them sit in their brine for 36 hours.

I tried it after three days, and the flesh was still raw and the salt had not yet penetrated to the interior. Perhaps I did not layer sufficient cure mix between the filets that were face to face, or weight it enough. I'll try your method next time.

Two problems I see with that reasoning:

1) Virginia itself may be primarily Republican, but Northern Virginia typically leans Democrat

2) Maryland is south of the Mason-Dixon line (which is just the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania), contributed a number of units to the CSA (as well as to the Union), and had a number of Confederate leaning officials during the Civil War. While Southerners wouldn't claim Maryland as their own, Maryland wasn't exactly a staunch Union state either during the American Civil War.

That having been said, I do feel like there is a marked divide between Maryland and Virginia (as evidenced by the fact that we're even having this discussion of why people tend not to cross from one to the other), just that the two reason above just don't quite cover it for me.

This was how the origins were explained to me, when I tried to understand how the residents of two states divided only by a river would turn their backs on each other. Northern Virginia now is a heterogeneous place, but it wasn't when this all got started. And the rest of Virginia is not like the DC suburbs. Cultural patterns persist, old habits die hard. And they are passed on to succeeding generations when the rationale no longer makes sense.

I was fascinated by the MD/VA divide when I moved here. It's about a lot more than just restaurants--I worked in DC with MDers who NEVER went to VA for any reason. And VAers who crossed a bridge to go to work and no other reason, and NEVER went to MD. And knew NW DCers who NEVER went to the 'burbs, if they could avoid it. As a Californian, who'd drive 50 miles for a meal in a Hong Kong live seafood place, I couldn't understand it at all. Exploring the underlying issues, I learned that the roots run deep--to the Civil War and probably earlier. VA is a Southern state, and primarily Protestant and (now is) Republican. Maryland is a Northern state, primarily Catholic and Democratic. I know, I know, there are lots of non-Protestants and Democrats in Northern VA, but the Potomac is a big cultural divide around here. I'm with Stephen B--I live in NW DC, overlooking the Potomac near Chain Bridge. Except at rush hour, it takes me ten minutes to get either to Arlington or Bethesda, and I am in VA as often as in MD. But then, I'm not from around here.

Louis Martini Barbera 1975 (original price $2.30 at Trader Joes)

[/u][/b]

What a blast from the past! This was our "house red" back then, because it was both cheap and good. Amazing that it has survived. You must have good storage. I have a few bottles from the mid-70's that I have kept for nostalgic reasons, but I'm sure that they are undrinkable.

This morning, I unwrapped and started slicing and eating the second of two filets of gravlax I made, week before last, from wild Alaskan salmon I bought at Costco for only $8.99 a pound.

I made a cure blend of brown sugar, kosher salt, pepper, coriander and allspice. Salted all of the surfaces and laid the filets meat side to meat side with fresh dill and extra black pepper sandwiched between them, wrapped it in heavy foil and put it in the refrig with a weighted platter on top. This stayed for about five days, then I opened the package, rinsed off the filets, dried them well and wrapped them in plastic wrap. I've been eating and serving thin slices of the gravlax, on toast or bagels, with cream cheese or moscarpone, with slices of cucumber or tomato. The texture is slightly chewy--most lox is made from farmed salmon, which is fattier and softer. I love the salty sweet-peppery-dill notes and the assertive flavor of the salmon. My husband doesn't like it--says it is "too fishy" for him. But then, he tends to shy away from strong flavors. Everyone else who has tasted it, including my pesca-vegetarian daughter and several of her friends, loves it.

It would be even better if I'd had the ability to cold smoke the salmon. I used to make gravlax with hickory smoked salt, but I don't have any more of it...

What's the difference in taste between Zora's cooked sauce and golden's regular salsa? Zora, can I use your version as a regular salsa?

There is a significant difference in flavor between a cooked and raw salsa. Raw salsa tomatillo is tart and "green" tasting, and is excellent as a table salsa to dip chips in or spoon onto tacos--the flavors are more pungent because the onion is raw as is the cilantro. A cooked tomatillo salsa, where the tomatillos are roasted or stewed, is mellower--the acidic nature of the tomatillo is tamed somewhat, especially if the salsa is cooked with some chicken broth. The onions are cooked, the garlic and cilantro are cooked. Different texture--raw salsa is chunky, cooked salsa is pureed.

As far as using cooked salsa as "regular" salsa goes-- I presume you mean to use as a table salsa, with chips or on tacos. Sure, why not? I just don't like dipping chips into warm salsa.