Hatch Chiles are Here!

'hot' hatch chiles from the venerable Renton Fred Meyer

I was so excited when I got my big grocer's ad featuring hatch chiles.  Once only available regionally, near Hatch, New Mexico, these peppers are only available for about 6 weeks each year.  Hatch chiles do not refer to one specific species.  Hatch chiles vary greatly in heat and can represent anywhere from 6-15 varieties
http://www.hatchchilefest.com/
More importantly, these peppers are delicious.  They each have their own character, and all pack lots of flavor.

Fortunately,  many national grocers including Kroger, Safeway, and Whole Foods  sell Hatch peppers.  Unfortunately, they treat them in much the same way they sell heirloom tomatoes.  The tomatoes are all specific varieties(cultivars) each with their own unique characteristics, and yet the grocery stores set them all out together randomly, which sort of misses the point of wanting heirloom tomatoes.  With Hatch peppers, they do a bit better.  Most stores identify according to heat level.

The reality, however, is that there are at least 6 different varieties of hatch peppers that have their own characteristics.  This includes: Big Jim, Barker, R-Naky, New Mexico #20, Sandia, and New Mexico 6-4.

What they have in common is a generally similar appearance to anaheim peppers(a bit darker), or occasionally, very large jalapenos. They tend to be 6-12" in length.

I regret that I have not made a post sooner.  I have been spending most of my time since last Wednesday hunting down these peppers, quizzing grocers, buying them, roasting them, sweating, peeling and preserving them.  These are some really great peppers and I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy them during this short season.  If you happen to shop in south Seattle or Renton and can't find these peppers, I probably owe you an apology.

Chili and Roasted Peppers

Chili

Ingredients:

Canned beans

Canned tomatoes(stewed or chopped)

Onions, roughly chopped

Roasted Chiles(See Below)

Ground Beef

Garlic flakes

Onion powder

Cayenne/Habanero powder

Chili powder

Black pepper

Oregano

Unsweetened Cocoa

Worcestershire

Liquid Smoke(NOT stubb's)

I roughly use 1 can of beans(drained) per one can of tomatoes.  For beans I usually use kidneys which are most traditional plus pintos to lighten it up a bit.  I tend to make it super meaty, like the beef making up like half of all the chili.  For the best quality, I go to safeway when top or bottom round roasts are on sale for around $2-2.50 a pound and take it to the meat counter and ask them to grind it for me.  I combine them all in a crock pot and then add the following: Onions, roasted chiles, garlic flakes(ground down), black pepper(lots), Cayenne or Habanero powder, to taste, Chili Powder(it has no heat and lots of flavor, use generously), oregano.  The three ingredients that give it the most depth and character are liquid smoke, worcestershire(hello, umami), and unsweetened cocoa(think mole).  I have never used a strict recipe, just seasoning to taste.

Roasted Chiles

This can be done to any fresh pepper, but Pasilla and Anaheim have great flavor and minimal heat.  First place a large sheet or roasting pan on the bottom rack of the oven.  Place peppers directly below the heating elements on the highest rack.  Set oven to broil, leaving the door open so the thermostat doesn't kick in.  Let the peppers roast until the skin of the peppers burn and pop, then continue turning them until all the skins are popped and blackened and the peppers are tender, then rest inside a paper sack(plastic could do if you don't mind cacinogens).  Then remove the skins, chop cut and clean.

Special Bonus: yours kitchen and house smells like roasty heaven.

Veggie Carbonara is Magic, Too!

Lately, I have been enjoying making vegetarian versions of some much loved foods that tend to rely quite heavily on meat.  I tried a meat free version of pasta carbonara with friends and it turned out quite well.  So well that, after my friend called wanting the recipe so that he could make it again, I decided this must be a sign that I should make this my next post on my long neglected blog. to replacing the bacon is by using oyster mushrooms and crisping them up.  When done well, they end up salty and crispy with that wonderful mouth feel that I used to think could only be achieved by cooking bacon to about medium.
The secret
Vegetarian Pasta Carbonara
Note: This is a combination of recipes originally found here and here.

For the veggie bacon:
About 1lb oyster mushrooms
Kosher Salt
Red Pepper Flakes
Olive Oil

Carbonara:
1lb pasta
1/2 cup Parmigiano Regino
2 Large Eggs
Fresh Ground Pepper and Kosher Salt, to taste.

Start salted water to boil in a large pot.  Cut the oyster into bite sized pieces and spread them evenly on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle with kosher salt, red pepper flakes, and drizzle with olive oil, then place under the broiler, checking frequently, until fairly dry and crisp.  Once the water boils, add the pasta and cook for the prescribed amount of time.  In a large mixing bowl, crack the eggs and stir until yolks and eggs just combine.  Once the pasta is done, strain it, then quickly add it to the bowl with the eggs and stir.  Add the Parm, veggie bacon and black pepper.  Enjoy.

Pumpkin Pie, From Scratch!

On my way into the grocery store this week, my eye was caught buy some festive Jack-O-Lantern-type pumpkins outside that were priced at a mere 29 cents per pound.  Thinking that I could could toast off the pumpkin seeds for a snack, I bought a couple of them.  After I got them home, I noticed that the two pumpkins I had grabbed were definitely different species.  One of them was, in fact, a jack-o-lantern pumpkin.  The other one was a rather large sugar pumpkin that is meant for cooking. Naturally, it occurred to me, this is a sign that I should make a pumpkin pie.
I asked my SO (Significant Other) if he would like to try it, since he is the only one of us with a sweet tooth.  Oh no, I only eat the pumpkin pies from Costco.  I don't like homemade pumpkin pie.  "You may not have liked other homemade pies, but you know that I am a good cook" (I am the same person that decided five years ago to take on a full Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, which included a giant turkey, with all the fixings, and somehow managed to have all 6 dishes end up almost picture-perfect).  I guess I would try it.
Armed with the meekest consent, I set about figuring out how I am actually going to do this.
Fuck, most of Gourmet magazine's recipes for pumpkin pie call for canned pumpkin.  If the most prominent authority on food suggests just skipping fresh pumpkin and just going for canned, maybe I should just give up.  Oh well, here is a recipe for fresh pumpkin puree.  That worked well enough.

At this point, it is time for bed.  I scoop out the flesh from the five pound pumpkin and put it in the fridge for the next day.
I start the morning out by going to the grocery store to buy the ingredients that I don't already have from this recipe.  Unfortunately, it seems that my local 24 hour grocery store is populated by crackheads at 5 in the morning.  As I am waiting in line to pay for my purchase, I get to listen to this exchange:
"Did you steal hair dye?", "Um, what man? no", "So if we checked your pockets right now we would not find a box of hair dye?", "No", "Debit or credit?", "I don't know", "If you don't have ID, it needs to be debit...it was declined, you entered the wrong PIN", "What, isn't it the same as the expiration date?"
I am not typically the kind of person to confront people, but it is early in the morning and I am just trying to pay for my pumpkin pie ingredients, yet I can't, because a klepto crackhead doesn't know the right PIN.
"YOU CLEARLY DON'T HAVE AUTHORIZATION TO USE THAT CARD.  YOU NEED TO LEAVE!"  "huh?" "YOU NEED TO LEAVE."
The crackhead grumbles a little bit before leaving without her energy drink(but probably with her purloined hair dye).  "I  didn't know that you get such nutjobs at this time of night," I tell the cashier.  "You have no idea," he responds.

Armed with my ingredients, I start to prepare my first pumpkin pie.

Unlike most reasonable people, I feel the need to use a whole cinnamon stick and a microplane to constitute my teaspoon of cinnamon.

 Incidentally, the scent of freshly grated cinnamon can be quite intoxicating.
When I have all my pie fillings nicely blended, I pour them into my store-bought pie shell. My pie goes in the oven for the prescribed amount of time, then I pull it out to cool on a rack.
The result:

It may not look like the pumpkin pie that you could buy at Costco, but I swear it is better.  Creamy, rich, and spiked with fresh spices, it beats the hell out of some pie that has been made by rote.

Actually, I would prefer a rabid squirrel!

Pedestrian Gourmet,

I can do Wednesday at 1:00pm. We pay a flat compensation of ---- an hour for starting servers. Let me know if you still would like to meet.


Thanks,

-----

Hi ------,
Thanks for getting back with me.  I am actually surprised that you bothered to contact me about the position in the first place.  As my resume indicates, I have over a decade of experience as a skilled professional in this industry.  As a result of this, I know that the wage that you are offering "for starting servers" is only a small fraction of the service charge that you take in on each event.  Rather than an interview, I feel that my time might be better spent being attacked by a rabid squirrel.
If ------ ever changes their policy of unfair labor practices, feel free to get in touch with me.
Regards,
Pedestrian Gourmet

Banh Mi-ssfire at Tamarind Tree

First off, this is not a review of Tamarind Tree.  This is a snapshot of a single dining experience put in the perspective of a larger view of the restaurant.
Tamarind Tree has a special place in Seattle's food scene as a sort of Shangri-La.  The whole process of reaching this place, which is jammed into a very no-nonsense working class ethnic strip mall.  Only after passing by the nail place and the generic grocery store with cases of produce stacked right in front at it's "loading dock" do you enter this magical land with tranquil fountains drowning out the urban decay.  You get a tidy, packed dining room with nice lighting and a minimalist decor.  The last thing that sets this place apart from other very good asian restaurants is one more detail-it is patronized by more people who are not of Vietnamese heritage than those that are.  Tamarind Tree is so hyped because it has great food-interesting, thoughtful, with plenty of small plates of well executed food with shockingly good sauce pairings.
On a recent visit, Tamarind Tree showed that its east meets west approach can also be its Achilles Heel.
I arrived with a friend around 7 on a Tuesday night and was brought to a table fairly quickly, the hostess apologetically saying that she owes me a menu because they don't have enough. Glancing at the next table over, I could see there were 2 menus waiting for members a larger party that had not yet arrived.  Even though I have been in this industry forever, I really don't like to bring attention to myself when I eat out, so rather than grabbing the menu that was clearly not occupied, I waited meekly for our server.  When he did finally arrive, he wanted to know if he could get me something to drink.  "Actually, I would love to have a menu!"  He scrambled to find a menu and ended up taking the menu that I had already been eyeing... oh well.
We ended up ordering the mushroom satay, the prawn satay, the grilled la-lot leaf rolls, the crispy prawns baguette, and the bean sprout mushroom. The mushroom satay were great-shiitake mushrooms were marinated in a very worcestershire-like concoction that really adds the fifth flavor that the Japanese describe as umami.  The prawns were overcooked, as they tend to be if not watched carefully, but they also came with a sauce that was described as a tamarind fish sauce that was bright and really brought out the seasonings on the prawns.
We continue to enjoy our food and cocktails, but something weird happens.  Our server never returns.  My companion has been waiting for his Tamartini to arrive, and the rest of our bigger plates don't come.

"I'm not eating that," are the words that  I blurt out when the Banh Mi Tom Bot Chien, also called Crispy Prawns Baguette is placed before me.  Banh mi is a simple, fresh, even pedestrian food.  Some of the best ones are produced by places that only serve one thing - banh mi, with different proteins.  A french baguette filled with fresh cilantro, cucumber, jalapeno, other veggies, and a seasoned sauce, it is the opposite of haute cuisine.  So when a monstrosity of hunks of baguette topped with one prawn each and then given a tempura-type batter and deep fried, lazily topped with sriracha straight from the bottle (that is the best you can do? I am looking at you too, Toulouse Petit) and some hoisin sauce arrived, I was naturally surprised.  It seems the term Crispy Prawn Baguette was not only referring to the prawn being crispy.  Banh Mi is a term many people know, and when you see it on a menu, one naturally expects certain things. Perhaps the menu should explain that quite plainly or, even better, remove this awful dish altogether.
In the end, Tamarind Tree ended up missing on all the points that has made it  so successful.  Eating there is usually a special experience where you feel pampered.  Good service comes together with interesting food at a reasonable price.  When they fall short on just one of those points, the artifice of the restaurant starts to show.  When they fail on both food and service, one quickly starts to wonder why they bothered going there in the first place.

A Late Summer Day's Harvest

Wouldn't that be awesome?  The tomatoes are from Safeway

My harvest for one day actually looks like this

Tomatoes, strawberries, and radishes(the green tomatoes came off when picking redder ones)

It has continued to be a miserable summer for my garden.  So far this year, I have picked just barely over three pounds of tomatoes from my 12 plants.  When I look at my record from last year,  I had already picked well over 9 pounds of tomatoes by September 15th, and that was with 6 plants!  Almost everyone I have talked to who is growing tomatoes in the northwest has had the same experience unless they are using a hothouse or green house.
I will no doubt end up spending much of this fall and winter trying to devise a way to get a giant harvest from a small amount of space.  Most likely, I will have to make a structure to insulate them and keep them dry.  Does anyone have some mad scientist ideas on how to get some good tomatoes in our unreliable climate?  I would love to hear what other people have tried!