Speaking of 660 Curries (I never seem to shut up about it, do I), I recently tried a recipe from the back of the book, where he puts the curry accompaniments. It was a basic chapati, or roti, recipe, but with the addition of fenugreek leaves. These are one of those specialty items that we bought some time ago but then seldom used, so I was thrilled to find something new to do with them. And I was startled at how good it was – the leaves perfume the chapatis with a fresh green scent, and also seem to make the dough softer and better to eat. Amazing. I make chapatis all the time, but this variation is going to become part of the regular rotation.

I don’t measure too carefully when I make chapati. To make breads for the two of us (about 6 small chapati) I generally use about a half cup of whole wheat flour, a half cup of all-purpose, a pinch of salt, and maybe half a cup of warm water, then adjust with more flour or water as necessary to make a smooth dough. For the fenugreek breads, I added 1/4 cup of dried fenugreek leaves, soaked in cold water for 15 minutes then drained before mixing into the dough. If I had fresh or frozen leaves (which I’ve never seen anywhere), then it would have been half a cup of chopped leaves. I kneaded the dough for a bit, rolled it into a ball and let it rest about half an hour under its mixing bowl.

When the rest of the dinner was ready, I cut the dough into six pieces, rolled them out into thin circles, plopped them onto a hot griddle, turning once, then put them directly onto a gas flame to poof them up. We usually just cook them entirely on the griddle, but since I had a spare burner available I thought I’d try the direct-on-flame approach, and it worked really well. So often when we cook Indian food, though, every burner is in use, so this may not happen again soon.

The breads rested in a basket lined with a clean dishtowel while we set the table, and were perfectly soft and chewy. It was difficult not to overeat. Plus the house smelled wonderfully of fenugreek all evening.

We went over the mountains to my parents’ house this weekend for band practice. When my father and I put our heads together to come up with an interesting but soothing dinner, this is the recipe that turned up: chicken legs rubbed with cardamom and other spices, pan-fried with onions, then braised until tender. If you don’t care for cardamom, avoid this one, but if you like its fragrant pungency as much as we do, then by all means try it. Yet another winner from the book 660 Curries, this is a great thing to do with cheap drumsticks – although it would also be swell with boneless chicken thighs. The sharpness of the cardamom could be quelled a bit by adding some yogurt, cream or other dairy product.

We seeded cardamom pods by hand, then blitzed them to powder and mixed them with other spices. This got rubbed all over skinned chicken drumsticks, which then marinated for half an hour.

The chicken went into a large skillet with diced onion, bay leaves and cinnamon sticks, and we sauteed it until the onion was soft and the spices were all sticking to the bottom of the pan. We added water, covered the pan and let it all simmer for half an hour.

We tossed a handful of fresh cilantro in, then lifted out the chicken legs, bay leaves and cinnamon and set them aside.

We cooked down the liquid a bit, wilted baby spinach in it, poured everything over the chicken, and voila! A warmly fragrant dinner for a February day.

Cardamom-scented chicken legs

adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

• 2 Tbsp fresh ginger, microplaned
• 1 Tbsp garlic, pressed
• 2 tsp cardamom seeds, ground
• 1/2 tsp cayenne (half of what the original recipe called for, but it was plenty spicy)
• 1 tsp salt (we actually forgot to add the salt, but it hardly needed it)
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 8 chicken drumsticks or thighs, skin removed
• oil
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 4 bay leaves, fresh or dried
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 Tbsp cilantro, chopped
• 8 oz baby spinach (optional)
• yogurt or heavy cream (optional)

Combine the ginger, garlic, cardamom, cayenne, salt and turmeric and smear the resulting paste over the chicken pieces. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Heat a few spoonfuls of oil in a large skillet with a well-fitting lid. Add the onion, chicken, bay and cinnamon. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and the chicken has browned, about 20 minutes.

Add a cup of water, scrape the pan bottom to deglaze it, bring to a simmer and cover the pan. Cook gently about 30 minutes, stirring once in a while. Stir in the cilantro.

Remove the chicken to a platter and boil down the sauce in the pan until it thickens a bit. Toss in a pile of spinach leaves to wilt, if you like, and perhaps a half cup or so of plain yogurt or cream. Serve the greens and sauce with the chicken legs and some steamed basmati rice.

I haven’t had much experience with curing, souring or fermenting things at home – I tried making preserved lemons once but it didn’t work particularly well – and it’s something I’ve been wanting to learn more about. Hunanese salted chiles, a key ingredient in the cookbook I’ve been working through, sounded like a good way to ease into things – sort of a lazy girl’s kim chee. It’s nothing but chiles and salt, does not need special attention or preserving techniques, and is very good to eat. It ages for two weeks in a cool place – I just stuck the jar on a pantry shelf in my basement, which stays near 55° all winter – then keeps indefinitely in the fridge. Although I can tell our jar of chiles isn’t going to have the opportunity to stick around very long.

It really is a simple recipe. The hardest part by far was actually getting hold of a pound of ripe red chiles in the middle of winter. We had to wait until we made a trip to the produce section of Uwajimaya in Seattle, where they had an excellent selection of what they called “red jalapeños” but most stores just refer to as Fresno chiles. They’re not an extremely spicy pepper but they’re very sweet and fruity, and all these flavors really came out in the preserving process. The final product is actually quite spicy, but also sweet and surprisingly silky in the mouth. I think they’re wonderful – hot, sour, salty and sweet, all in one condiment. This will become a pantry staple for us.

Hunanese chopped salted chiles

from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province by Fuchsia Dunlop

• 1 lb fresh red chiles
• 1/4 cup salt

Cut off the stem and tip of each chile and coarsely chop them, including the seeds.

Combine the chopped chiles in a bowl with 3 ½ tbsp of the salt, mix well, place in a very clean glass jar and top with the remaining salt. Seal and put in a cool place for a couple of weeks before using, then refrigerate once opened. Will keep for months.

What to do with the chiles once they’re done? As far as I can tell, anything that you would use either fresh chiles or chile paste for. I used them in place of fresh red chiles when I made red-braised tofu a couple of weeks ago, I threw a spoonful into a bowl of dan dan noodles, and last night I made a Hunanese dish of pork and tofu that really showcased the chiles.

I’ve made this recipe twice so far. The first time I didn’t have the salted chiles so I doubled the chile bean paste (as Dunlop suggests), and I used fresh shiitakes instead of dried. This time I did use dried mushrooms, and was frankly amazed at the flavor they gave to the sauce. I’ll need to keep dried shiitakes on hand from now on. And while the recipe was good with just the chile bean paste, it was worlds better with the salted chiles – more depth, sweetness, heat and just generally tastier. I nearly licked out the wok.

Homestyle Bean Curd

adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province by Fuchsia Dunlop

• 2 dried shiitakes
• 1 block tofu, cut into slices or cubes (whatever type of tofu you like – I only use silken these days)
• 1 boneless pork loin chop, cut into thin slices
• 1 tsp Shaoxing wine or sherry
• 1 Tbsp chile bean paste
• 1 Tbsp chopped salted chiles
• 1 Tbsp chopped garlic
• 1 cup stock
• 1/4 tsp soy sauce
• spoonful of cornstarch mixed with two spoonfuls of cold water
• 3 scallions
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• peanut oil or lard

Soak the mushrooms in hot water 30 minutes. Drain, remove the stems, and thinly slice.

Mix  the sliced pork with Shaoxing wine in a bowl. Set aside.

If you want the tofu to be a bit firmer, fry the slices until golden in a bit of peanut oil or lard. Set aside. I sometimes skip this step if I’m in the mood for soft-textured tofu.

Heat a bit of oil in a wok until very hot. Stir-fry the pork until the pieces separate, add the chile paste and salted chiles and stir well, then the garlic and mushrooms. Pour in the stock and bring to a simmer.

Add the tofu and soy and bring the liquid to a boil. Stir in the cornstarch mixture and cook until it begins to thicken, then add the scallions and sesame oil. Serve with plenty of rice to soak up the sauce.

It was French night at Supper Club.

We started off with two different French aperitifs: Lillet Blanc and Pastis. There were salmon rillettes made by Linda, topped with pink peppercorns and served with cornichons and caperberries. Georgiann’s herbed goat cheese tart was a great success, made with Gothberg Farms chevre. If there hadn’t been so much good food to come I could have happily made a meal out of just these two dishes.

Our first sit-down course was made by Jenise: a delicate vegetable terrine and a small pastry that turned out to contain a mushroom stuffed with foie gras. Good lord.

While the foie gras pastry was rich, salty and knock-your-socks-off good, the terrine was beautifully subtle as well as gorgeous to look at. One layer had pureed watercress, and another had mushroom duxelles to connect it to the pastries. Carrots and snap peas adorned the center. It was served on a light salad with a shallot dressing, I think.

The next course, made by Roger while we ate our terrine, was crevettes a la provencale: prawns on a bed of tomatoes and olives. A nice change of flavor from the first course, bold and rustic, it went well with the French red country wines that had been opened and led us into the main course.

This was chicken ballotine, roasted beets, and petatou. Linda and Mike made the ballotine, boning out two whole chickens and stuffing them with bacon, spinach, croutons and gruyere, then tying and roasting them. A real showpiece of a dish, it was fun to look at as well as eat. Georgiann did the beets, which were tossed with champagne-raspberry vinegar and orange juice. And Jon made the petatou, which was a major production but well worth it.

We found the petatou recipe in Tony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook (a hilarious read as well as a great reference for classic bistro cooking) . Essentially a potato and olive salad topped with goat cheese and broiled, it made a fabulous side dish with the chicken. It was enriched with reduced cream and egg yolk, which helped bind the potatoes together for molding, but I can see that it would be wonderful simply made up to the point of adding the cream and served as a cold salad instead of the broiled timbales. This was one of the most delicious things we’ve ever done with potatoes – I’ve copied out the recipe below if you’d like to try it yourself.

Linda also made some carrots with olives, from a Jacques Pepin recipe. Like everything else on the table, it was beautiful.

Finally, everyone found room for a slice of my tarte tatin, which we washed down with pineau de charentes and coffee. Apparently I ate my slice without even considering taking a picture, but I did do a post on it a while back. This version was made with an extra-short buttery pie crust and Jonagold apples. There were no leftovers.

Petatou

From the Les Halles Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain. The recipe claims it makes four servings, but we doubled it and (using a 2″ biscuit cutter) got close to 15 servings. Depends on what you’re using for a mold and how tall you make them, I suppose. Leftovers are delightful.

• 2 pounds red potatoes
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1/2 pound nicoise olives, drained, pitted and chopped
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup cream
• 1 egg yolk
• 4 oz fresh goat cheese (chevre)

Cut the potatoes in half, place in a pot and cover with water. Add 2 Tbsp of salt and bring to a boil. Cook the potatoes until tender (about 20 min), drain and cool. Remove the skins and dice the potatoes, putting them into a large bowl. Add the olives, thyme, olive oil, and the vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste and toss gently.

Put the cream in a small pan and bring to a boil – watch out, it boils over fast! Reduce it by half, stirring to prevent scorching. In another bowl, lightly beat the egg yolk. When the cream is ready, beat it into the egg, whisking constantly. Add all but 4 Tbsp of this mixture to the potatoes.

Preheat the broiler. Using a biscuit cutter or other ring mold, form the potato mixture into cylinders and arrange them on a baking sheet. Cut the goat cheese into circles and lay a piece on each potato tower. Drizzle the remaining cream mixture over the top, and broil until golden brown. Serve with parsley oil (below).

Parsley oil (for garnish)

• 2 Tbsp parsley leaves
• 2 Tbsp olive oil

Chop the parsley quite fine, and put it in a bowl or jar with the olive oil. Stir or shake well. Spoon around or over the finished petatous before serving.

Sunday was another big pork day, mostly unintentionally. We had some maple pork sausages from the co-op for breakfast, with fresh buttermilk muffins studded with dried apricots and candied ginger. Then we had bowls of udon in chicken broth for lunch, topped with a handful of Chinese barbecued pork from the grocery store. And then we had a big piece of pork shoulder slow-roasting in the oven all afternoon for indoor pulled pork. Given how disgusting the weather was that day, this all seemed entirely appropriate.

The pulled pork was from Cook’s Illustrated (you can find the recipe here), which promised to duplicate the effect of a long slow barbecue. It did seem to me that they were a little excessively hung up on the idea of smokiness, and I chose not to add liquid smoke to any part of the recipe. I did do the two-hour brine before roasting, and I did use smoked paprika in the rub (also used hot Dijon instead of yellow mustard, because there’s no way I’m buying yellow mustard), and I have absolutely no complaints about how the pork came out. After four-plus hours in the oven the meat was tender and juicy and the crust was incredible. One problem: there were no “cooking juices” to mix in with barbecue sauce, as the recipe claimed. It all burned onto the pan bottom, which was then a total bitch to wash.

We piled the warm pork onto potato rolls with Pendleton barbecue sauce and a mix of beet greens and chard, with some soupy pintos on the side. It was the best pork of the day.

I tried making creme caramel for the first time, from Tom Douglas’ recipe in Seattle Kitchen (if you’ve ever been to one of his restaurants, this is almost always on the menu, along with coconut creme pie). Ten egg yolks, four cups of heavy cream, with sugar and vanilla. Serves 8. Yes, it was every bit as rich as it sounds.

I have no pictures of the final product. We were able to unmold the custards, with some difficulty, but they all got eaten, practically within seconds. Then people took the emptied ramekins, poured Cardamaro inside, and scraped them out with spoons. There was no remaining evidence.

Our last trip to Seattle’s International District yielded a number of interesting ingredients, many of which I have yet to try. I did pull out the package of deep fried bean curd last week, and tried out another recipe from – can you guess? – Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. It was extremely delicious, even though I have a feeling the fried tofu I bought somehow isn’t quite the right kind.

It was in the refrigerator case at Uwajimaya, next to the bean curd sheets. It seemed to be the right product until I opened it, but instead of puffs, the tofu was sort of in layers. It had a way cool chewy texture, though, and nice bean curd-y flavor. We were also really pleased with the sauce, which was completely simple to make and had a surprisingly rich taste, with lots of zing from the ginger and chile. It was rather soupy and made a delicious porridge in the bottom of our rice bowls. I totally want to do this again with the puffy tofu, if I can find it.

Also, this was our first foray into the jar of salted chiles I’ve had fermenting over the last couple of weeks. They were excellent – I’ll tell you more about them soon. You don’t need them for this recipe, though, it actually just calls for fresh hot chile.

Zhangguying red-braised bean curd puffs

Adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

Dunlop mentions that the recipe could be started by stir-frying pork slices in the wok before continuing with the other ingredients. I bet a little ground pork would be excellent here as well. But it makes a great meat-free meal.

• 2-3 Tbsp lard or peanut oil
• 9 oz deep fried bean curd puffs (or whatever kind of deep-fried tofu you can find)
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 3 cups stock (I used homemade chicken stock)
• soy sauce (to taste)
• 1 fresh chile, sliced (I substituted a spoonful of salted chiles)
• 5 scallions, cut into lengths
• 1 tsp cornstarch and 2 tsp water

Cut the tofu into bite-size chunks. If it’s very oily, pat it a bit with paper towels.

Heat peanut oil or lard in a wok, add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry briefly, then pour in the stock. Bring to a boil and add some soy sauce and the tofu. Reduce and simmer gently for 5-10 minutes. Add the chile and scallions and cook for just a moment more. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Mix the cornstarch and water in a small bowl, bring the sauce in the wok to a full boil, and swirl in the cornstarch mixture. When the sauce has thickened slightly, remove from the heat and serve with rice or noodles.

The past few days have all been surprisingly full of pork and sunshine – both very good things.

On Friday we went for a walk out at Washington Park near Anacortes. The sun was out but the wind was howling across the water and through the trees on the headland. It was fresh and deeply invigorating. We went home and made steamed bao, stewed kale and a pork roast marinated and braised with hoisin sauce, loads of garlic, scallion and ginger.

The pork was remarkably flavorful all the way through. We sliced it thinly and made little sandwiches with the pork and kale on sliced bao, with the sauce from the pork as a dipping jus. I may have eaten too much of this.

New Year’s Eve was Neapolitan-style pizza with friends, featuring spicy coppa and bits of leftover Christmas ham. We drank many bottles of Prosecco, Cava and homemade cider. I made onion dip and it turned out really, really well. A good time was had by all.

New Year’s Day is when we make cassoulet. I did a simple one, based on the version we learned at Duckfest. White beans, brined overnight then cooked with onion, bay, garlic and epices rabelais. Toulouse sausage from the Paris Grocery in Seattle, and a package of duck confit from our co-op. I got a great crust on it this year (still no breadcrumbs, mind you). A salad of baby arugula and a bottle of St Cosme made for a perfect, low-key evening.

Our fridge still seems to have a lot of pork in it.

On the plus side, the weather was very mild for us this Christmas. It snowed a little, not amounting to much, and the roads melted clear before we had to leave. The sun even made a few appearances. I read the entire Dark is Rising sequence, sitting near a roaring woodstove with a cat nearby. We had some great food – my father and I made fresh pasta for lasagna, there was salumi and good cheese, fresh grapefruit and satsumas, and piles and piles of Frangos. For Christmas dinner I made sweet bao dough and a pork-bean sprout filling, and my father made a cucumber salad with fresh ginger and the ma la oil we made for him.

On the not-so-plus side, my husband and I both came down with bad colds, so I couldn’t go visit my grandfather, and on Christmas day a family member became very ill and needed to go to the ER. That evening was spent cooking the hum bao we had started earlier in the day, keeping the woodstove going, and waiting anxiously for the phone to ring. I don’t really recommend it. The best thing about it was that hum bao and cucumber salad are both really ideal when you have to reheat food at midnight for people who have been sitting in a hospital for five or six hours.

We’re really hoping next year is an improvement on this one.

Another recipe from the Hunan cookbook I’ve been working through. It was quite a lot blander than I had expected, with very little vinegar kick – maybe I need a rice vinegar with more oomph? But we’ve been trying to eat lightly during the week and this certainly fit the bill. One nice side product was the broth from poaching the chicken. Part of it went into the final stirfry, but I also used it to cook chard for a side dish, which made for wonderfully flavorful greens. I also froze some of it to use later.

This struck me as a good “gentle” dinner to make when you’re feeling a bit frail.

Dong’an chicken

from The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

• 4 chicken thighs (bone in, skin on) or one small chicken cut into pieces
• 2 inch piece ginger, cut in half
• 3 scallions
• 1 fresh hot chile
• 3 dried chiles
• 2 tsp Shaoxing wine or sherry
• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tsp whole Sichuan pepper  or Sichuan pepper oil
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp cornstarch stirred into 2 tsp cold water
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Bring a quart of water to a boil and add the chicken pieces, half the ginger and one scallion (lightly crushed). Reduce the heat to a simmer and poach 10 minutes. Remove the chicken from the liquid and cool, then shred/cut into long pieces with the grain. It won’t quite be cooked through. You can add the bones and skin back into the poaching liquid to make stock.

Sliver the fresh chile and remaining ginger and scallions. Heat a spoonful of peanut oil, add the fresh and dried chiles, ginger, and Sichuan pepper and cook until fragrant but not burning. Add the chicken and stir-fry, splashing wine around the edges, then add the vinegar, Sichuan pepper oil (if using) and salt. Pour in a half cup or so of the poaching liquid. Bring to a boil, turn down and simmer. Add the cornstarch and scallions, cook briefly to thicken, finish with the sesame oil and serve with rice or noodles.