No Bugs for me thanks!

I don't hae any personal wonton soup stories to regale you with. Sure, I have had it and enjoyed it, but not being a big soup eater to begin with I would not put them on my must-have dishes list. So, let me give you some of their history instead:

A wonton is a type of dumpling, but the main difference between wontons and other dumplings is the thin wrap. The word “wonton” translates to clouds in Cantonese, so named for the appearance the floating wontons take in the broth. They are served with the soup spoon at the bottom, the wontons next, garnishings such as chopped green onions, and then noodles. After this has been stacked, an aromatic broth is poured over it. Some restaurants also place the wontons and noodles on the side of the bowl of soup so that you can eat them separately if you prefer.

Wontons date back as far as the Qing Dynasty in 1644, during which wonton soup was enjoyed by the rich families of nobles and merchants. That was the case until the end of World War II, which is when it became more and more popular. As China saw improvements to its own economy, the dish became more and more popular and was even brought to Hong Kong where many stalls opened up to serve the dish to the working class. The dish slowly adapted, with medicinal ingredients often incorporated into it. And then finally, Chinese immigrants to Canada brought the dish along with them, opening up restaurants that introduced it to Western cultures. A lot of versions of this dish in the west now incorporate other ingredients, such as broccoli, carrot, and mushroom. Egg noodles are also used in Western versions of the dish.

Found on the website of the Ricebowl Deluxe.

INGREDIENTS

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FOR THE WONTONS ¾ pound ground pork ½ pound peeled and deveined shrimp, finely chopped 4 green onions, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger 1 small garlic clove, minced 1 teaspoon cornstarch ½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper 12-ounce package square wonton wrappers

FOR THE SOUP 6 cups chicken broth 1 tablespoon minced ginger 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon dry white wine 1 tablespoon sesame oil 4 to 6 leaves bok choy ½ pound shrimp, peeled and deveined 3 scallions, thinly sliced

INSTRUCTIONS

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Imagine my surprise when I found out just before posting this that Carrot Cake is not American invention! For some reason, I was so sure that it was. Turns out that the modern carrot cake most likely descended from Medieval carrot puddings enjoyed by people in Europe and also by Arabs:

"In the Middle Ages in Europe, when sweeteners were scarce and expensive, carrots were used in sweet cakes and desserts. In Britain...carrot puddings...often appeared in recipe books in the 18th and 19th centuries. Such uses were revived in Britain during the second World War, when the Ministry of Food disseminated recipes for carrot Christmas pudding, carrot cake, and so on and survive in a small way to the present day."  

 

_ Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press: Oxford] 1999 (p. 141)

Teee heee... I have a special request! My dear old friend Cheryl Hajjar wants to know if I have a decent receipe for a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich anywhere on this blog.

Now this is a coded request, and in order to explain what she is really saying, I need to go back some 40 years to a time when Cheryl and I were doing our MFAs at Pratt Institute. Right across the campus, on the corner, was the coffee shop 'Mike's', and this is where we - the two of us and our darling friend Dina - would meet for lunch pretty much every day. Sometimes there were others too, but the three of us formed the central core of a wider group. So, we would sit there, putting the world to rights (not that we were terribly aware that there was anything amiss with it), endlessly discuss our menfolk, gossip about all and sundry. And also, not to forget, Mike's daughter Angie was usually a part of the confab, chiming in from behind the counter. All of it accompained by grilled cheese sandwiches.

OK - let me be honest here - mostly grilled cheese sandwiches for Cheryl. Dina and I would be just as likely to sit behind mountains of pastrami on rye platters or cheeseburgers or BLTs; and when we had the grilled cheese sandwich it would just as likely be a bacon and chesse concoction. Cheryl is a vegetarian, and was one all the way back then. A real one! One who really did stop eating things that came from creatures that had been alive at some point because she felt awful doing it. Dina and I hugely admired her for it, but did not take the plunge ourselves. Let me put it like this: You would not know that she was a vegetarian until you actually sat down to eat something with her. And back in those days, it wasn't a cool thing to be a vegetarian or anything like that, anyway. No one inspired her to do it. It wasn't her world view or anything. She just didn't eat meat.

In recent years I have become a sort of half vegetarian myself. I still eat meat, but only if I know for certain that the meat comes from a creature that was not factory farmed. That lived a normal animal life out in the meadow, or scratching around in real dirt, or swimming in free flowing water, or whatever. And it isn't just meat - I also do not eat factory farmed dairy products or eggs, only free range stuff. Which, thankfully, here in Turkey is still available, although far more expensive, of course.

Anyway, back to those olden golden days. I am not particularly nostalgic. The future has always interested me far more than the past. But, I do have to say that "those were the days". The fun we had. The cameraderie. And how carefree we were. How self assured. But all that I only realize now, looking back. The carefreeness and the self assurance. Back then, of course, we fretted endlessly about this that and the other. Made endless mountains out of what I now can see very clearly were nothing but molehills. At least in my case, that is what they were. The joys of an inexperienced youth. Jeez...

Munching on our Greek Diner deligths, puffing on our cigarettes. Man - those really were the days!


INSTRUCTIONS

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Here in Turkey we call this Özbek Pilavı, but funnily enough it is not a dish that has ever become widely eaten. We know of its existence, and you can get it in some special, rather fancy, restaurants, but it is not common fare at all. My guess is that it is probably a bit too rich for our idea of a meat and rice dish - although we do have some complex rice dishes for vegetables.

I have however eaten Özbek Pilavı several times, once even cooked by an Uzbek who knew his way around a kitchen and who was one of my neighbors at Bilkent University, where he was empoyed as a violin instructor at the Conservatory there. And based upon my recollections of the dish I have added something that the good people at whats4eats seem to have left out, and that is a good handful of black currants. I am completey certain that there were plenty of them whenever I ate it. Hell - I can even see some in the top photos that I have on this post. And, although I am not as certain about those, I think there were raisins as well. Those I am erring on the side of caution and leaving out, but you shoud definitely include the currants. And then of course the carrots. They are what makes the dish, which is very tasty indeed. I think they also make this with lamb, but I have always had it with beef - which was a very good thing since lamb meat, together with Okra, is one of the 2 things in this world that I do not enjoy eating at all.

One final thing about this dish that I remember, and that I really liked, was the whole garlic on top which is cooked whole with the rice and then gets divided among the guests and sucked out. So, don't forget to do that!


INGREDIENTS

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3 tablespoons Cooking Oil 1 1/2 pounds stewing beef, cubed 2 Onions, thinly sliced 4 Carrots, cut into rounds or thick sticks 1/2 cup currants 1 tablespoon Paprika

2 teaspoons Cumin 1 teaspoon Turmeric 6 cups Water or stock Salt and pepper to taste 3 cups Basmati rice 1 Whole head of garlic

INSTRUCTIONS

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As far as I know, the true ingredients of this are a well kept secret, but when I read the ingredients below they did make sense to me, remembering what the sauce tastes like.

I am saying "remembering" because I haven't had the sauce in years, since I can never trust the level of happiness that the creature who provided the steak enjoyed in its lifetime. I have always eaten this in restaurants, and very fancy ones at that. But the fanciness of the restaurant is no guarantee that the steak comes from an animal that grazed on a meadow, moved about freely, had a good time while it was alive. All of that, one can only be sure of when one buys the meat from speciality butchers who do guarantee that. So, that means home cooking only, and that means I will probably not have Steak Café de Paris in a very long time to come, since I would never be able to pull this one off at home. Not the grilling of the steak, and certainly not the sauce.

The recipe below is only for the sauce. There are plenty of pages online on how to grill a decent steak that you can look at for that part, of course. In my experience, whenever I have had this, the steak has been accompanied by thin french fries which also get doused with the sauce. In fact, they only pour a little bit of the sauce on the steak itself, more goes on the fries. And then they leave a sauce boat with more on the table so that you can keep adding.

Oh and - the sauce has to look curdled, so don't try to make it something smooth like a mayonnaise. The author of the recipe calls it "broken", and that is a very good description for it.


INGREDIENTS

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250 g of Unsalted Butter 1 medium Onion 1 tbsp Tarragon, chopped 2 tbsps Parsley, chopped 4 Sage leaves (or Basil) 1 tsp Ground Nutmeg 5 Walnuts 30g of Anchovy Fillets in salt and oil 10 small Capers 2 tsps Ground Pepper (white or black) 1 Egg Yolk

1 tbsp Mustard 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar (or Lemon Juice) 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce Salt, if needed What do you need: Saucepans Blender A whisk or electric mixer Bowl with cool water Pouring or Measuring Cup

INSTRUCTIONS

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Now that I have found out that the literal meaning of quesadilla is “little cheesy thing”, there is no way that I am not going to be using that for the post title, is there?

I also found out that the southern regions of Mexico are where the first use of queso and stringy cheese-filled quesadillas came about. The Aztec people were very familiar with corn tortillas and would often stuff tortillas with squash and pumpkin and then bake them in clay ovens as a sweet dessert. Today, quesadillas are to be found everywhere - not least here in Turkey where they fit the local menu quite nicely as but a new fangled sort of "pide" which is a welcome addition.

The original quesadillas were filled with various ingredients such as cheese, potatoes, mushrooms, chorizo, chicken, chile poblano, and epazote, a pungent Mexican herb. However, as they have travel across the globe quesadillas are nowadays stuffed with everything from sautéed onions and peppers, spinach, mushrooms, seared vegetables, mango sauce, shredded chicken, black beans, fresh corn, grilled steak and queso.


INGREDIENTS

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QUESADILLAS: 6 - 8 flour tortillas (20cm/8") 2 cups (200g) shredded Cheddar cheese 3/4 cup roughly chopped coriander/cilantro 1 cup corn kernels QUESADILLA SPICE MIX: 1 tsp each onion powder, dried oregano, salt 2 tsp each cumin powder, paprika 1/4 tsp each black pepper, cayenne pepper (optional) CHOOSE ONE FILLING BEEF FILLING: 1/2 tbsp olive oil 2 garlic cloves , minced 1/2 onion , finely chopped 500g / 1 lb ground beef / mince 1 small red capsicum/bell peppers, diced 2 tbsp tomato paste 1/4 cup (65 ml) water

CHICKEN FILLING: 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil 500 g/1 lb chicken thighs , skinless boneless 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 small onion, quartered and sliced 1 small red capsicum/bell pepper, diced VEGETABLE FILLING: 2 tbsp vegetable oil 1 onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 can of black beans, drained (400g/14oz) 1 capsicum/bell pepper, diced (any colour) 1 cup corn (canned drained or frozen thawed) 1/4 cup tomato paste 1/4 cup (65 ml) water

INSTRUCTIONS

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INGREDIENTS

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For the Eggs: 2 English muffins 4 large eggs 4 slices bacon Vinegar, just a splash

For the Hollandaise sauce: 4 Tablespoons butter 4 egg yolks 2 teaspoons lemon juice 1 Tablespoon heavy whipping cream salt and pepper (to taste)

INSTRUCTIONS

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