Cuy

Growing up in China, I have seen my fair share of bizarre food. Of course, definition of "bizarre" is quite relative. Through out history, people have been eating what is available to them to survive, from roots of plants to every part of an animal. Hey if it taste good, why not?

I have long heard the "mystical" cuy in the Andes and I just couldn't wait to try it. During my stay in Cuenca, Ecuador, I asked my Spanish teacher about cuy. The answer I've got is not something that I was expecting. So here it is, my experience about cuy.

Q: What is cuy?

 A: Cuy is a guinea pig on steroids. It is much bigger than the ones we see in the pets store and yes they are rodents first being domesticated by the Incas in the Andes in South America.

Cuy - Before

Cuy - After

Q: Why do people eat cuy?

A: Before the Spaniards, cuyes were one of the few animals domesticated for food by the Incas. As time passes, it became a tradition.

Q: When do people eat cuy?

A: Cuy is expensive in the Andes. A roasted cuy cost $20 on average. My normal lunch (roasted pig platter) costs $2, which is considered pricy here in Cuenca. For a rodent with not much meat on it, you can't really eat cuy everyday. Although my teacher told me that a cuy can feed 2 to 3 people. I find that hard to believe. My host family told me that usually they have half a cuy per person. Their son can eat a whole cuy by himself. Hence, people eat cuy only on special occasions. When we were at the restaurant,  there were another group of people there celebrating a birthday. 

Q: How do you cook cuy?

A: You roast it over fire until the skin is nice and crispy.

Cuy on a stick

Fire roasted cuy

Q: What does cuy taste like?

A: It tasted like roasted rabbits with very little meat. Maybe because I only had one of the front legs, I can not give a decent description of cuy's taste. It is on the greasy side. The skin is very crisp. The meat that I had was not dry at all. I didn't taste any gaminess in the meat but someone mentioned to me that the meat on the hind legs tasted gamey to him.

Q: What other dishes do you eat with cuy?

A: My teacher suggested a slew of typical dishes to be eaten with cuy. Here they are:

Canelazo, an herbal drink typical of the region. It is made with cinnamon, sugar, lime juice, and ataco, a local herb that gives the drink its vibrant color. According to my teacher, it helps to digest the cuy.

Cuy con papas y huevo is a very typical cuy dish in Cuenca Ecuador.

While waiting for the cuy, my teacher suggested habas con queso. Habas is  broad bean or fava bean. It is simply boiled with little salt. The cheese is fresh. I believe it is made with cows milk. The orange sauce is called aji. If made correctly, it is very tasty and spicy.

Yuka fritas and mote sucio while waiting. Mote is local white corn or hominy. The kernels are huge. Mote sucio is a very typical dish of Cuenca Ecuador. Apparently the brown color comes from burnt grease. 

Having cuy is having a feast. It is about sharing with your friends and family. It is about tradition. This experience was one of the highlight of my trip to Ecuador and I will gladly do it again. :)

Happy New Year

So it is has been a while since my last entry. It is Chinese New Year. The year of the dragon. I was born in the year of the dragon. There are a lot of tradition involved in New Year. I can't remember too many of them. For those I do remember, they have been passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me.

I remember Grandma used to make "December 8th porridge" 腊八粥. A mixture of rice and beans and some other dried goods slow cooked together. It signified the beginning of the new year celebration. My mom would make it on the regular basis after migrating to the US. The porridge has this beautiful burgundy red color that come from the chinese red beans and black sweet sticky rice. While the porridge is cooking, the aroma of cooked dates, chestnuts, and lotus seeds permeates the whole house. It is really not that difficult to make. You mix whatever nuts and grain you can find in your pantry with lots of water. Bring it to a boil and simmer until they are thick. I stopped making them not because it is too much work or anything. I stopped because I will eat the whole pot in about 2 days. We are talking about stock pot here. If I am to keep my girlish figure, I have to give up something. I gave up carbs. Yes, I am a very bad Asian.

Another tradition that I like a lot is that according to my grandmother, on New Year's day, you are not supposed to use the stove. The reason is that the stove god (灶王爺) works everyday of the year to help feed people. New Year's day is the only day he has it off. I worship the stove god! He gets his day off.

Twelve years ago i.e. the last year of the dragon, my mom send me a red belt. She told me to wear it all year to avoid bad luck. Apparently you supposed to wear red on the year you were born. So if you were born on the year of the rabbit, you supposed to wear red on every year of the rabbit. I don't know if it is true or not. I wore it. It can't hurt.


The most important tradition is that on new year's eve, you make dumplings and eat them. I don't know how the tradition started, but ever since I was little, my grandmother had always made dumplings on New Years eve. It was a communal effort. The entire family gathered around, cooking together. This year, I had that in my house. I invited my friends over for New Year's celebration, dumpling making included, just like New Years eve I had back home. Of all the ones we made, only 2 left. My mom said that you must leave some food uneaten. It will give you good luck (年年有余). I guess based on the left over I had, I will have a lot of luck this year :) (In addition to dumplings, we had pastry, hot pot, a whole fish and 2 deserts.)

Here is a fish dish that is simple to make:

1 whole flounder 1 to 1.5 lbs. Cleaned and descaled. Keep the fish as intact as possible
Salt to taste
2 Tbs Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
2 Tbs mild flavored oil (such as canola oil, sunflower oil, or vegetable oil)
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut to matchstick size.
1 scallion, white part only, cut to matchstick size.
1 tsp szechuan peppercorns

1. Place the fish in a heat proof platter, season both side of with salt to taste, add cooking wine, and scatter the ginger and scallion on top of the fish. Let it marinate for about 10 to 15 minutes at room temperature.
2. In a steamer large enough to fit the entire platter, add enough water to the steamer (1" deep minimum) and bring it to a rapid boil.
3. Place the plater with fish in the steamer, cover, steam for 8 to 15 minutes depend on the size of the fish and the power of the stove.
4. While the fish is steaming, in a small skillet, heat the oil with the szechuan peppercorns. Remove from heat when you can hear the peppercorn sizzle.
5. Remove the fish plater from the steamer, pour the oil over the fish. Serve hot.

Note 1: If you don't have a large steamer, use a large roasting pan across two burners. Cover the roasting pan with aluminum foil. Seal it well!
Note 2: I strongly recommend that you over cook the fish a bit unless you have a nice powerful steamer. You don't want to serve the fish raw to your guests (which I did).

Hang on, little tomato

Ever since I started my "indoor cat stepping out" project, I always plant a tomato or two (or 10 or 20) in my ever expanding garden. Every year, I made caprese salad and/or panzanella, an italian bread salad. Last year, with my over abundant tomatoes, I experimented with tomato sauce. I roasted them in a pan on the grill, then push them through a food mill to remove seeds and skin. Sometimes I even throw in a couple chili peppers to make hot ones. The result was something simple yet amazing. The fire brought out the sweetness in the tomato. The sauce or puree has very very intense tomato flavor (sometimes heat too if I accidentally put in too many peppers) with a light texture. I never liked smooth sauces so I didn't send it through the blender. During the winter month, I can dress up the sauce anyway I like, or keep it as is for a simpler taste.

Fast forward to this year. I planted more tomatoes. This year, I decided to add color to my caprese salad so I planted cherry and grape tomatoes in every color of the rainbow, from orange to black to yellow to green. Still excited about my tomato sauces, I wanted yellow tomato sauces, so I planted a row of yellow tomatoes. I was so looking forward to my harvest. I staked all of the plants, covered the garden with black plastic for weed control, bought a timer and soaker hose to water the garden regularly. I watched them grow from seeds to tall plants. I smiled every time time I saw a flower opening on the plant. I giggled at the sight of tiny tomatoes forming on the vine. I waited and waited for the day when all the tomatoes suddenly turned from green to whatever color they supposed to be. I waited and waited and waited.

mellow yellow

This year was unusually dry and hot. It seems no matter how much I water the garden, the plants were still thirsty. As I was waiting, I noticed that something was picking at them. It doesn't help when a friend of mine started telling me in July that his tomato plants were producing so much that he couldn't keep up. I wanted to cry! Finally I started seeing some yellow dots on one of the plants. Days later. I saw orange and red ones. They are only a few, but never the less, they are coming. As I was picking the tomatoes, I would see a perfect little yellow tomato and then found out that something has already picked a little hole on the other side. The damn crows! Then I saw the most horrendous thing, a perfect yellow beef steak tomato half eaten!!!!!! Last night, husband ran into the house exclaims:"I have something to show you!" By the time we finished dinner, it was too late to go out to see what he wanted to show me, so he told me:"I saw the thief in your garden! It is the groundhog, you know the one who used to live next to the wood pile. It moved. I guess it is looking for a more convenient location that is closer to the supermarket." I didn't laugh. Instead, I put a bounty on its head. THERE!

Back to tomatoes. This year, I saw quite a few good tomato recipes on Bon Appetit. As usually, I have to try them. I made a tomato terrine and tomato jam. It came out quite well. Now I have more use for my tomatoes. Here are two versions of tomato jam. One from Bon Appetit, one from my friend Marc. The one from Bon Appetit is more of a ketchup consistance, the one from Marc is more jammy. I have yet to make Marc's version because I ran out of tomatoes. I made the first one with yellow and green tomatoes. The jam has this golden apricot color. It taste heavenly.

Tomato Jam

Pair this bespoke ketchup with Grilled Rosemary Chicken.

Makes 1 pint.

Recipe by Kevin West

August 2011

Ingredients

• 4 pounds plum tomatoes, peeled, halved crosswise, seeded, chopped
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika

• Ingredient Tips

  Smoked paprika is available at better supermarkets, at specialty foods stores, and from latienda.com

Preparation

• Mix tomatoes and sugar in a large wide shallow pot. Let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, occasionally stirring gently. Boil, stirring often, for 15 minutes. Stir in salt, pepper, and paprika. Cook until thickened and reduced to 2 cups, about 10 minutes. Ladle into a clean, hot 1-pint jar. Wipe rim, seal, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Marc's Tomato Jam

1 lb of ripe tomato, seeded, coarsely chopped
2 cups of sugar (adjust according to the ripeness of the tomato)
1/2 cinnamon stick
peel of 1 lemon

1. Place the chopped tomatoes over a sieve to drain as much water as possible. Save the tomato water for another use.
2. Place all ingredients in a sauce pan cook until the mixture has a texture that resembles honey.
3. Pour the mixture in a clean jar. Store in the fridge.

My next year's endeavor - CANNING!

Western Gourd

I went to visit my parents yesterday. My mom decided to make steamed buns for me. "Bao zi"as it is called in chinese, is a steamed empanada for lack of better words. The wrapper is similar to a pizza dough, made with yeast, water and while flour. The filling can be anything and everything. This time, mom filled the buns with zucchini, scrambled eggs, and chopped rice noodles. The size of the bun varies greatly from size of a ping pong ball to size of a fist. The spongy outer skin often catches the some of the juices squirting out of the bun when you bite into one. Like empanadas (topic of another post), the buns are easy to carry around. It is self containing. Of course, like (almost) everything, they are the best to be eaten as soon as they are out of the steamer. If you are reading this post and hoping for an recipe of buns, I have a sad news for you. I am not going to have a recipe of buns in this post. Why? Because I can't get the wrapper right. I am still working on all yeast based recipes. Be patient with me. Instead, I am going to post a little salad that I made the other day involving zucchini and squash.

Zucchini is called western gourd in chinese. I don't know why that is the case, but I do know if you don't pick zucchini everyday, you will end up with ones that are size of your upper arm.

Roasted Zucchini salad

1 lb zucchini, sliced into 1/2" thick half rounds
1 lb yellow squash, sliced into 1/2" think half rounds
1 medium onion, diced
2 Tsp of chopped fresh tarragon
2 Tsp of chopped fresh parsley
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 Tsp of extra virgin olive oil plus more for roasting
1 Tsp of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a roasting pan, place all vegetables in a single layer, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, roast the vegetables at 350 F until tender and some edges are browned.
2. Transfer roasted vegetables into a large air tight container, add the herbs, oil, and vinegar. Add more salt and pepper to taste, stir or shake to combine.
3. Let the salad stand for about 30 minutes, allowing the flavors to mix.
4. Serve

Green beans + Pork

Ever since I started gardening, I plan out what to grow next year before this year's crop is ready. This year's garden was no exception. The planing stage stared in the fall of last year. In addition to my usual suspects (tomato, cucumber, zucchini, peppers, and eggplant), I decided to grow beans. I realized that I am not particular fond of beans, but for some reason, I wanted beans. Not just any kind of beans, but the kind that my grandmother used in her sautéed green beans with pork. The dish was not a fancy one. Whenever green beans were in season, I would find a plate of green beans cooked with pork at the lunch table almost everyday. Those beans were bit flat with a thick layer of flesh. They weren't really sautéed either. They were braised in soy sauce just long enough to make them tender. After all the research, I have decided last winter that this season, I will be growing pole beans, the purple kind.

After months of watering, weeding, and waiting, I finally picked enough beans to make this sautéed "green" bean with pork dish. So I did and it tasted great! The purple beans actually turned green after cooking. As I was looking up a comparable Italian dish to blog about, I came across this recipe that uses Italian style green beans (pole beans). Talking about my Italian connection.

Grandma's Green Beans and Pork

1 lb Italian style green beans (pole beans), cut into 1 in pieces
1/2 lb of boneless pork sirloin, cut into 1/4 in thick slices
2 Tsp Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
1/2 Tsp corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tsp canola oil
1/4 cup of soy sauce
2 Tsp chopped scallion
1 Tsp finely chopped ginger
2 cloves garlic

1. Mix pork, cooking wine, corn starch and salt together, marinate for 30 minutes; stir periodically.
2. Turn the heat to medium high, heat 2 Tsp of oil in a pan until hot
3. Add the pork, cook until all meat changes the color, stir constantly;
4. Move the pork from the pan to a separate bowl.
5. Add the remaining 2 Tsp of oil to the pan, heat the oil until hot, add scallion and ginger, stir until fragrant, 1 minute.
6. Add green beans, cook for 2 minutes.
7. Reduce heat to medium low, return the pork to the pan, add soy sauce with 1 cup of water, cook until the beans are tender and the sauce has reduced to 1/3 of a cup, stir periodically.
8. Serve with white rice.

Candy

Growing up, sweets was something very special. Unlike my parents' generation or older, I actually had sweets fairly regularly. Of course, "regularly" is a very subjective term. I remember having chocolates, candies, even pastries and ice creams. But more likely, I would have some sort of fried dough soaked in stick sugary syrup. "Sugary ears," they were called. There used to be a stand between school and home where I can grab one as a after school snack. Not that I was or am addicted to sweets, but once in a while, it was a nice little treat.

Chinese was/is not known for its sweets. Desert is definitely a western idea. Of all the traditional Chinese "pastry" that I have tasted, very few contained dairy. Almond tofu, it was called, is something that I was introduced to right before I left China. When my aunt made it at home, it was made from a powder. She then added milk, brought it to a broil, chilled, and served. I remember her teaching me how to make not only almond tofu, but chocolate tofu using corn starch as the congealing agent. You can still buy almond tofu powder in Chinese supermarkets, or you can make an almond panna cotta. I have come to the conclusion that they are the same thing. Here is my version:

Almond Panna Cotta

2 cups half and half
1 envelope of gelatin
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp almond extract
2 Tsp cold water

1. Place the water in medium bowl and sprinkle gelatin over, let gelatin bloom for 15 minutes. Add more water if necessary 1 tsp at a time.
2. Heat the half and half in a small sauce pan until scolding hot.
3. Pour the hot liquid into the bowl containing bloomed gelatin, whisk until all gelatin has dissolved.
4. Add almond extract.
5. Pour the mixture into serving containers, chill the mixture until set and serve.

You can vary the recipe in many ways. Last year, after I gave this recipe to a friend of mine, she made 4 or 5 different flavored ones. If you like something creamier, replace the half and half with heavy cream. If you like something acidic, you can use butter milk or yogurt. If you like something firmer, add more gelatin. There is no rules. I even made a version with butternut squash soup. Well it didn't taste too good, but it worked. You can also spray ramekins with non-stick spray and serve the panna cotta on a plate without a container. The possibilities are endless. The only thing I would like to mention is that if you would like to make lemon and lime flavored panna cotta, use the zest not the juice.

Summer

Growing up in China, beginning of summer was always marked by two things: watermelon tent along side of the road and mound of peaches grandma used to bring back from the market. It was a simpler time. Often, I was send off with 50 cents in my hand to get a watermelon for "desert" from a particular vendor. The size of the watermelon wasn't particularly big. Seedless watermelon was unheard of. I still remember the thrill of hearing the gentle sound of the watermelon crack as the knife sliced it into halves. Grandma always cut the melon in perfect wedges that looked like red sails glistening in the setting sun. And if we were very lucky, we would find the watermelon with the golden yellow flesh. Maybe this is why I have this obsession with growing ice box watermelons, specially varieties from Asia.

My memory of peaches in China is always associated with gluttony. Yes, my gluttony. Peaches I grew up with were always the white ones. They were the size of my fist. When bitten, the sugary juice gushes into the mouth, then dripping down the chin. Needless to say, I have ruined quite a few shirts/dresses that way. I always had a heap of peaches in my room. Usually, it lasted me 2 days max. Here in the states, I can find the white peaches in local market, but somehow they don't quite match those from my childhood memory.

Going back to watermelon. I remember watching a TV cooking show LONG LONG time ago while I was still in China. The host was making some sort of watermelon custard. Well, I haven't tried to make watermelon custard yet, I guess I really should try it sometimes. Here is a simple recipe for watermelon granita that anyone can make, perfect for a hot summer day.

Watermelon Granita

4 cups of watermelon (enough to fill the blender to the top)
1/2 cup of sugar or more to taste
1 Tsp of lime juice
chopped mint for garnish

1. Blend the first 3 ingredients together until smooth.
2. Freeze the watermelon puree for about 40 minutes. Scrape the mixture and break up the large chunks of ice crystals
3. repeat step 2 until everything is frozen.
4. Garnish with chopped mint and serve.

So the recipe is super simple, unless you forget to scrape the mixture every 40 minutes or so. If that happens, just break up the solid to small pieces (hammer required) and throw them into the blender.