SaltShaker

 My new pig out food is Indian food. I eat Indian food like three times a week. It’s so good.”

- Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress/singer

Buenos Aires – A few weeks back I’d been wandering around Las Cañitas looking at one thing or another, and I noticed a new restaurant done up with some sort of Taj Mahal-ish facade. I stopped for a glance and discovered it’s a new Indian vegetarian restaurant. On to the list it went for checking out soon, and this week I got back there for what turned out to be a completely delightful lunch. With our western Indian dinner coming up this weekend (and filled up, we may even open an extra day), it seemed a good moment for inspiration. Opened just four months ago, Namaskar, at Benjamin Matienzo 1616, 4772-0276, is turning out delicious north Indian vegetarian fare with a flare. Beyond just the comfortable, casual dining room, attended by the owner of the restaurant, I was won over completely when as I placed my order the first thing he asked was did I want the food spiced for local palates, medium, or Indian hot. I chose the latter, of course.

Now, I’ve had hotter, but they did themselves proud, and I even broke a sweat on the main course. I was thinking about ordering one or a selection of their breads – they offer up a trio of different types on the menu, but the owner suggested that since I was solo it might be a bit much, and he’d just add an extra paratha to the basket that’s served after you order. Excellent paratha I might add, and served up with a trio of dipping sauces – not the NYC standards of tamarind, tomato onion, and mint – but a spiced potato puree, carrot, and a sweet-spicy tomato dip. Then I dug into a trio of wonderfully light and flavorful vegetable pakoras – each basically a floret of broccoli surrounded by a paste of other vegetables and then deep fried. While admittedly deep frying anything makes it taste great, I wasn’t complaining.

I could smell the chilies and onion on this one as he set the steaming bowl down in front of me. Aloo gobi is a favorite dish – I love cauliflower, I love potatoes, I love spice – what’s not to like here? I dipped in and was instantly happy – a blend of spices, both hot and savory – really well balanced. Perhaps a minor complaint that I found the vegetables a little overcooked – texturally the dish was pretty close to mush, but that aside, I’m already trying out recipes here at home – sometimes it takes a reminder to pull out the offbeat cookbooks at home.

I decided to take his recommendation for his favorite dessert, laddu, which are sort of caramelized toasted chickpea balls – and his “exquisite” was pretty much dead-on. One thing I think is a shame – three of the four desserts on the menu are served as a trio of balls – just with different ingredients – why not offer up a “sampler” of one of each. They do have a dessert sampler platter, but it’s all four desserts and only comes in a portion for two people. Regardless, I was completely happy with what I had, and a complimentary cup of chai on the side hit the spot.

Namaskar isn’t cheap – this three course lunch, including a bottle of water and large glass of mildly sweet lassi, a favorite yogurt drink (and a perfect foil for spicy dishes), came out to 76 pesos. On the other hand, they serve up easily the best Indian vegetable dishes I’ve had since coming to Buenos Aires.

 Capt C. killed 2 bucks and 2 buffaloe, I also killed one buffaloe which proved to be the best meat, it was in tolerable order; we saved the best of the meat, and from the cow I killed we saved the necessary materials for making what our wrighthand cook Charbono calls the boudin blanc, and immediately set him about preparing them for supper; this white pudding we all esteem one of the greatest delacies of the forrest, it may not be amiss therefore to give it a place. … it is then baptised in the missouri with two dips and a flirt, and bobbed into the kettle; from whence after it be well boiled it is taken and fryed with bears oil untill it becomes brown, when it is ready to esswage the pangs of a keen appetite or such as travelers in the wilderness are seldom at a loss for.”

- The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806

Buenos Aires – For whatever reason, it seems that my boudin blanc from last weekend’s dinner has generated much interest. I’ve received a dozen e-mails asking questions about it, ranging from simple “can you describe how it tasted?” to requests for clarification about the process of making it. There’s even a discussion about it going on amongst several folk on Facebook. Who knew that such a pale sausage could elicit such passion?

On the other hand, they were really, really good. And I had a small amount of sausage stuffing leftover – or sort of returned, since it was basically a couple of sausages that burst while I was tying them off and I simply put the filling into the refrigerator rather than going to the trouble of stuffing more casings. And next morning that led to one of the best breakfasts I think I’ve ever had. Really.

I took the remaining sausage meat and mixed in one extra egg to help it bind together – possibly not necessary but I didn’t want to take a chance that it would fall apart. I patted it into a couple of patties, and simply sauteed one in a mix of butter and neutral oil. When it was cooked, I set it aside on some paper towel to drain, and slipped an egg into the same pan, cooking it until the white had just set and the yolk merely quivered with anticipation. I trimmed the egg, slid it atop the boudin. I drained most of the oil out of the pan, leaving just whatever didn’t easily pour out, and into that I put a handful of chopped green onions, cooking them over very high heat until they’d just started to soften – only about 30-40 seconds. I deglazed the pan with a fruit vinegar, cooked it another 10 seconds or so, and spooned the sauce over the boudin and egg. I added a little fresh cracked black pepper and a sprinkle of coarse sea salt, and sat down to feast. Let’s put it this way, it was so good, that although I’d planned to do something else with the other patty at a later moment in the day, I went ahead and made another one and ate it.

 The absolute neutrality of Switzerland as a political principle is generally dated from the year 1674, when the Federal Diet declared that the Confederation, as a body, would regard itself as a neutral state and intervene on neither side in the war which had just broken out.

Edgar Bonjour, Swiss Neutrality, Its History and Meaning

Buenos Aires – Like the multi-function knife that the country is famous for, the cuisine of Switzerland is noted for it’s varied influences. Sandwiched in a mountainous region where it is bordered by Germany, Italy, France, Austria, the local cuisine picks up techniques, elements, and ingredients from all of those, making for a mix of interesting dishes. Now, did we offer up a fondue? No. Not even a raclette, though I gave it serious thought. Instead, I tried to pick a variety of dishes from the different regional styles of Swiss cookery. Interestingly, the dinner, held on the weekend of Switzerland’s independence day, attracted three visitors from the country (separately); so I had to apologize for any changes I might make to their grandmothers’ recipes in advance.

We started off with a truite au bleu, or chilled poached trout. I poached the fillets in a simple court bouillon – water, red wine vinegar, slices of lemon, carrot, celery, and onion, sea salt and black peppercorns. Then I chilled the fillets and topped with a simple fresh dill cream – sauteed shallots in butter until soft, deglazed with Torrontés (rather than Riesling), and then pureed that with cream and lots of fresh dill. Be careful at this point – the second night I ran the blender too long and the cream turned to butter – so we served the trout with a quenelle of dill butter atop.

As usual, the soup was pretty much the hit of the evening (maybe we should just open a soup restaurant?). I found only a few references to a Chalet Soup, but what I found sounded delicious. The original recipes called for an herb and onion infused milk into which were later placed vegetables and ham. I decided to go for dairy-free, given that there was alot of cream and cheese in other parts of the meal. From there, it was roughly equal parts of diced ham, leeks, carrots, and onion all sauteed together until just starting to turn golden. I added diced red potatoes, skin on, and chopped spinach, topped it off with water, added freshly ground black pepper, and let it cook until the potatoes were done, then added just a small amount of small round pasta here called municiones, cooked until they just started to swell and let the whole thing sit off the heat for an hour or two to blend the flavors. Reheated for service, seasoned to taste, and a little grated gruyere on top of each serving.

A simple dish, but really, really good… blanched and shocked swiss chard leaves, then wrapped them around a scoop of cream cheese (homemade of course) that I’d pureed with sauteed bacon and garlic. Then for service, baked the packets in the oven to turn the cream cheese molten, and drizzled the plate with green lemon oil.

On to the main course, to which one of the Swiss visitors proclaimed “finally, a real Swiss dish” – he’s from the German influenced part of Switzerland. Boudin Blanc – a blend of chicken breasts and pork loin, in roughly equal proportions, medium grind, along with a pureed blend of cream that was heated and infused with white onions, orange peel, fresh thyme and parsley, powdered bay leaf, cardamom, salt and white pepper. Then I mixed in a bit of breadcrumbs to that and let them soak up some of the liquid. I mixed the whole mess together and added a couple of beaten eggs. Then I used the hand blender to really blend it together well (a food processor would work too, in batches, depending on how much you’re making). I stuffed the casings with the mixture, then poached them until just cooked through in salted water. Finally, for serving, browning them in a hot frying pan and then putting them in the oven to finish cooking through. I served them up with slices of roasted potato and an onion and prune compote – sliced onions cooked in butter and oil until lightly browned, then the prunes, black pepper, a splash of vinegar, and chicken stock added and let the whole thing cook until most of the liquid was evaporated.

And, finally, I took a shot – not that I don’t often take shots, but in this case, I’ve actually never seen nor tasted this dessert – though certainly some similar ones. No credit for the recipe, I followed this one for Engandiner Nusstorte to the letter and it turned out beautifully. My only touch was a little powdered sugar sifted over the top. Absolutely delicious, and I’m glad to add another dessert to my repertoire! Comments from the three Swiss folk – “this is exactly what engadiner nusstorte should be” and “I don’t usually like most engadiner nusstortes, but if they were all made like this I would – this might be the best one I’ve ever had.” Kudos to the recipe author!

 The people? They are the dust you draw your circles in. THOSE are the people! Sicilians are hopeless. I mean exactly that! Nothing changes here… EVER!”

- Abbot Manfredi, in The Sicilian (1987)

Buenos Aires – As I mentioned the other day, I found myself walking around Plaza Sicilia, on the chance of sighting a Statue of Liberty replica that the city’s database asserted was there. As long as I was mucking about and checking out statues, I figured, why not cover the plaza? Part of it I’ve mentioned on occasion – the Jardín Japonés, though it occurs to me I’ve never really done a writeup on it – not that it’s a particularly outstanding one – it’s about what one might expect going in. Perhaps one day… back to the Plaza as a whole – it’s more or less bounded by Avenidas Libertador, Sarmiento, Alcorta, and Casares, at the far eastern edge of Palermo and the Parque 3 de Febrero. There’s a long, narrow traffic island running along the Alcorta side, and smack dab in the middle of it is what appears to be the sort of launching point for the plaza – this little dias with a Persian Lion (that strangely seems to be diagrammed for butchering), followed by a towering pedestal with two bulls’ heads atop, called the Column of the Persian Temple (a replica of the column at the Palace of Persepolis), gifts of the Iranian government to the city of Buenos Aires. I’m not even sure that these are considered part of Plaza Sicilia, given that they’re on the traffic island. One of the two plaques in front of the lion has been removed, the other is the Iranian coat-of-arms.

From there, entering the plaza proper, the next encounter is with the Caperucita Roja, or Little Red Riding Hood. The sculpture dates from 1937, and is by French scupltor Jean Carlus. Originally the work was located in Centro, in the Plaza Lavalle, facing onto Av. Córdoba, but was moved to this spot in 1972, where it balances atop a piece of concrete removed from the first site. More than once in its history, the bronze plaque that sits in front of the statue (and that of most of the monuments in this park) has been stolen and had to be replaced – whether the plaques (and sometimes whole busts or statues) are being stolen for their sentimental or historical value, essentially souvenirs, or as sources of scrap metal, is up for debate.

The standout statue, at the corner of Sarmiento and Libertador, at least as far as guidebooks are generally concerned, is the Rodin sculpture of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, seventh president of the Republic of Argentina. He is perhaps best known for his progressive outlook on education, and is generally credited with the implementation of the free and open admission educational system and library system here in Argentina. The statue is of note, besides being a Rodin, with its interesting pedestal details of Mercury emerging from the Gates of Hell, is that the statue is erected precisely on the spot where Sarmiento’s arch-enemy, Juan Manuel de Rosas, had his home. In fact, the entire plaza was constructed on the grounds of the home, which, with great fanfare, was dynamited to the ground. The statue is also placed with its back to a small acacia tree (you can just see it to the left, inside a low black fenced square) that bears a plaque at its root, commemorating the Aromo de Manuelita, the spot where Rosas’ daughter used to rest under the trees to escape the tyrannies of her father, according to her memoirs. (Of additional note, a monument to Rosas is located cross corner and defiantly facing Sarmiento’s statue, placed there later by his supporters.)

In 1998, on the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, that nation gifted a bust of Mahatma Gandhi to the city of Buenos Aires, and it is positioned along Libertador not far along to the east. The statue is a work by Indian sculptor Ram Vanji Sutar, who also sculpted the bust of Gandhi that sits at East 21st Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan, along with many statues that grace government buildings throughout India.

A few steps further on is one of my favorite statues, a bust of Nobel Prize winning Italian poet and author Luigi Pirandello, donated to the city by the province of Agrigento, in Sicily, his home region. The work is that of Sicilian sculptor Giuseppe “Pino” Cirami, and was placed here in 2003.

Finally, we’re back at the edge of the Japanese Gardens, and on the corner of Libertador and Casares, is this flower-ringed statue of Carlos Tejedor, who was a congressman, and then foreign minister under Sarmiento’s presidency, and later became the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, and was noted for his staunch opposition to federalism and led the fight against the idea of an autonomous federal capital, the city of Buenos Aires itself.

 How was my weekend? Meh. The mehness of it is indescribable. Just one big, fat meh. If you are an old-media kind of reader, “meh” won’t mean a whole lot to you. The word has appeared in the national press three times in the past year. If you gain new vocabulary from conversation, it is probably unfamiliar. If you can’t be torn from the web, however, you will almost certainly know it, and its meaning. Meh means rubbish. It means boring. It means not worth the effort, who cares, so-so, whatever. It is the all-purpose dismissive shrug of the blogger and messageboarder. And it is ubiquitous.”

- Michael Hann, The Guardian UK

Buenos Aires – My friend Barbara is on a mission. It has various facets, but among them, and the part that holds most interest for me, is her intent to try out all the kosher (and I suppose non-kosher) Jewish restaurants in Buenos Aires. My feelings about kosher food are mixed – there’s certainly some sort of deep-rooted draw based on cultural heritage, and, depending on whether we’re talking ashkenazi or sephardi, some comfort food warm and fuzzies; but there are also negatives – the non-mixing of meat and milk (from my perspective a complete over-extension of the actual scriptural prohibition), the fact that the meats are generally much drier (both from the method for kosher butchering and the insistence on cooking things until they’re well done or close to it), but most importantly, the lack of creativity. Now, that’s not to say there’s no such thing as a creative kosher chef – in fact, I spent a whole day working with one at Levana in New York many years ago, with an eye towards a sous chef position – but on the whole, kosher restaurants seem far less creative than… well, any other type of restaurant I’ve ever been to. They’re cookie cutter versions of some sort of universal standard – some better, some worse, but all with virtually identical menus (with only the variation of the two cultural branches noted above – respectively, eastern European, and Mediterranean, more or less).

And so, it came as no surprise that Sucath David, Tucumán 2349 in Congreso, 4952-8878, garners such winning commentary from reviewers that translates as “not horrible but not dazzling”, “devoid of all decor”, and the equivalent of “diners who like this sort of food will like this sort of food”. Meh indeed.

The place is long and narrow and looks, more or less, like a fancied up school cafeteria. No lines to stand in, but it just has that air. We arrive early, only a duo of bearded men in earnest scholarly conversation are present, speaking in a loud mix of Yiddish and Spanish. Over the evening the room fills, with a cacophony of those idioms, plus English and Hebrew. When we ask what an unfamiliar dish is on the menu, rather than simply describe it in Spanish, our waiter insists on sending over some youngster whom he drags out of the kitchen, who offers us English menus, but not a description of the dish. We decline and move on – deciding on a mixed appetizer plate – small size – to share, plus a couple of the open-faced empanadas – this is a sephardi style restaurant. The mixed plate, a train wreck of presentation – with its smoked eggplant mayonnaise (not quite babaganoush with the mayo…), tomato-ey tabouleh, bland hummus, vinegary chambota (olive oil soaked grilled vegetables), and a few desultory olives thrown on for effect. It’s heaped high, and plenty to share, perfectly edible, and completely devoid of interest. The empanadas, the lehem hayim, spark a little more notice, with a sort of barbecue topping that’s actually got some flavor to it.

And on to the moment when it all stumbles and falls down, not that it wasn’t lurching along anyway. The dried out meat. Indeed. A mixed brochette plate – a few cubes each of chicken and beef, inter-skewered with peppers and onions and charred until usable as briquettes for the next asado. A kibbe and a salayan, distinguishable only by form, both with a near crunchy blackened exterior, and a, shall we say, well-cooked interior.

Sucath David offers little in the way of beverage that might perk up the meal – water, sodas, local beer, and a few over-priced and basically undrinkable wines (and nothing by the glass). The bakhlava for dessert was swimming in rosewater, and could simply have been laid out on a table in place of potpourri. The one possible final glimmer of hope, the offering of traditional Turkish coffee, is only a vestige on the menu of times gone by – all that is available is “regular”.

So, meh. It wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t wonderful. It was pretty much what I’d expect, and probably meets the expectations of the average kosher diner. Still, wouldn’t it be exciting to find a kosher restaurant where they actually cared about the food?

 The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

- Thomas Jefferson

Buenos Aires – It’s one of those quirky little things that somehow or other doesn’t even register. I’ve wandered through the parque Barrancas del Belgrano (the Belgrano Barracks, which is what used to be on the site of this park prior to 1892 when it was redesigned as a park by Carlos Thays, remember him from a few posts ago?) quite a few times, but just hadn’t noted the little grove of trees along the La Pampa side of the park, and the statue in their midst. Yes indeed, it’s a mini-replica of the Statue of Liberty – some local friends who live out that way mentioned it and so I went looking – not hard to find as it turns out. The replica is maybe 15-20 feet high, including the stone pedestal. It’s not the oxidized coppper blue-green that we’re used to (the original statue is composed of a steel framework with sheets of copper hammered in place over it); it’s more of a rust red, not surprising since it turns out it’s made of cast iron.

I’ve done a bit of digging, and there’s, not surprisingly, contradictory information out there. Some things aren’t in dispute – this replica was actually designed and cast under the guidance of the original designer, Frédéric Auguste Bertholdi, and was arranged to be brought to Buenos Aires by the French artistic foundation “Du Vall d’Osne”, whom are also responsible for many works of art and fountains throughout the city that were created by French artists and gifted to Buenos Aires at various points. As best I can determine, this was not the original intended site, though the information is a bit sketchy. In 1888 the construction of the new Palacio de Correos (Central Post Office) along Av. Alem in the Centro area was begun, though it was not completed until forty years later in 1928. The original plans called for the facade of the building (designed by French architect Norbert Maillart, who also designed the Palacio de Justicia, or Federal Courthouse, more commonly called the “Tribunales”; and the CNBA, or Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires) to be crowned by works of Bertholdi, replicas of his famous sculptures from other parts of the world, including the Statue of Liberty as its centerpiece. That never came to pass, as over the four decades the plans were repeatedly changed.

The data in the government online catalog is clearly incorrect – it lists the location of the statue as being Av. Berro between Av. Sarmiento and Av. Casares, which is essentially the back of the Japanese Gardens and part of the Plaza Sicilia end of 3 de Febrero Park. I took a walk along there, though I was fairly certain there was no Lady Liberty hidden away in a grove there, and indeed she’s not – in the center of the plaza, more or less, there is the workshop for the city’s Monuments and Artwork Department – where, since 1985, statues and such have been sent to be repaired – possibly at the time of the entry in the database the statue was in for its 1986 refurbishing. The data also indicates that the reproduction is 152 feet in height – not likely, that’s the height of the actual statue on Liberty Island in the Hudson River. Though I can’t find a date that the statue was originally placed in Barrancas del Belgrano, it’s likely it was right around the time of the park’s inauguration in 1892 or shortly thereafter, based on when Bertholdi would have been around, when the foundation was doing most of its work, and dates of some of the other statues in the park. The statue is clearly once again in need of at least a bit of cleanup as it is covered with graffiti.

 Savoriness or umami is the name for the taste sensation produced by the free glutamates commonly found in fermented and aged foods. The additive monosodium glutamate (MSG), which was developed as a food additive in 1907 by Kikunae Ikeda, produces a strong umami taste. Umami is also provided by the nucleotides that are naturally present in many protein-rich foods, including dried Bonito flakes and in high concentration in dried Shiitake mushrooms, used in much of Asian cooking…. Umami is considered basic in Japanese and Chinese cooking, but is not discussed as much in Western cuisine, where it is sometimes referred to as “savory” or “moreish.” The Japanese name for the taste sensation literally means “delicious flavour.”

- paraphrased from Wikipedia

Buenos Aires – How could we pass up the opportunity to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of glutamate? I mean, break out the party hats and noisemakers! Yes, indeed, July 25, 1907, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, clearly bored to tears with whatever task the department chair had given him, decided to analyze the ingredients in his daily noodle soup bowl, and figure out why grandma’s tasted better than mom’s. With great glee, given his obviously poor relationship with his maternal parent, he announced it was because nana used more konbu seaweed and bonito flakes, and he even declared the chemical he isolated from those two ingredients was the source of umami, or “delicious taste”. This founded an entire industry and also got him out of having to go home for Sunday lunch visits.

I started off figuring that I had to make some form of dashi – a quick trip to chinatown yielded up some konbu, the bonito flakes were already in the pantry. Instead of infusing them into water, I decided to infuse them in a cream and milk mixture (we don’t have half-and-half here), spice it up slightly with some shichimi, or “seven spice” powder, a touch of salt, and thicken it up in a double boiler with a couple of egg yolks. Now, what to put that on… Salmon, yes that’ll work. And a cream sauce, how about a pasta? So, fresh salmon, put through the coarse meat grinder, some fried onions, and the grated rind of some lemons, oranges, and limes, along with a splash of their juices and some salt – makes a great little salmon burger… oh, a basic egg pasta dough, filled giant raviolis with the salmon mixture, left to dry slightly, cooked off, topped with the cream sauce, sprinkled with chive batons, and yes, that’s got umami in spades.

Dried, aged, tomatoes, cheese, cold and wet days – how about a steaming bowl of tomato soup. Remember those Campbell’s soup ads for a bowl of tomato soup on a cold wintery day? Soup and sandwich, soup and sandwich… soup this good just has to be Ca… mmm, mmm, good. Oh wait, where was I? Ahh yes, a big pot, a liter of milk, about two of water, a whole bunch of sun-dried tomatoes, a couple of onions, some garlic cloves, fresh parsley, cloves, black pepper, thyme, bay leaf, all simmered together for about half an hour, then pureed, strained through a coarse strainer, a little salt… and what atop? Why yes, a parmesan crisp… just a scoop of freshly grated parmesan cheese sprinkled with a little smoked paprika, melted and browned on a silpat, and left to cool and crisp up. Float that right on top of the soup.

Found ‘em. English muffins. The recipe that works. Since I’ve been on this baking kick recently I’ve started reading various baking sites. And who knows more about norteamericano baking than King Arthur’s Flour company? And, lo and behold, English Muffins, and the recipe turns out perfectly. Really. Look at them. Try it.

Great sources of umami… bacon or similar cured meats… meaty sorts of mushrooms like shiitake and portobellos… cheese…. How about a sort of McMuffin kind thing? Split those English Muffins we just made. Top with a slice of crispy prosciutto (okay, modern chef’s trick here… you’re gonna love this… get two plates of equal size… lay a square of kitchen towel paper on one… lay strips of prosciutto, pancetta, bacon, whatever you like on the paper, not touching each other… lay another square of towel paper on top… put the second plate atop to press it all together… stick in the microwave on high power for 50 seconds, no more, no less… you tell me), top with some thickly sliced portobellos that have been briefly sauteed in butter, grate some cheese over the top, something that will melt well, I used a cheese called fynbo that has a sort of nutty character to it. Broil. Drizzle a little glaze of reduced soy and balsamic vinegar around it. Eat.

One of the things that I get asked alot is a sort of “where did you get that idea?” usually referring to some sort of strange sounding combination. Much of the time I have no idea, these things just come to me. But this one I know, and I forgot to mention it when I posted about my blue cheese sauce back on the evening of our Sherry Dinner. It was from Tony Bourdain. Now, not anything the man cooked, because my past experience with his cooking is, well, less than favorable. But I do occasionally enjoy watching him traipse around the globe – not because I enjoy listening to him prattle on as if he actually has the “street cred” he thinks he does, but because he often ends up in front of someone who’s whipping up something really cool. In this case, it was a drink. A martini. I think it was a show on India, and he’d gone out to some floating bar in the middle of a lake, where the bartender prepared him what he declared was the best martini he’d ever had – it was garnished with an olive filled with blue cheese, onion, and mint. It got me thinking, and that’s how I ended up with a sauce made from gin-deglazed shallots, melted blue cheese, chopped black olives, stock (lamb for this evening), and finished with freshly chopped mint. You can follow the logical progression, no? The sauce this eve was ladled over seared and roasted lamb loin, which was atop brown butter miso sauteed chinese cabbage. An umami bomb, in the best sense of the word, basically.

Chocolate isn’t an umami sort of thing, but then, few dessert items are. Some beans are. Adzukis for example, so what about adzuki bean paste? And what about sandwiching it between that cocoa crust and chocolate ganache I’ve been playing around with over the last couple of months? It comes out like a dense, really interesting fudge kind of intense dessert. Maybe a little over the top. Maybe.

 The first time you buy a house you think how pretty it is and sign the check. The second time you look to see if the basement has termites. It’s the same with men.”

- Lupe Vélez, actress

Buenos Aires – I like celebrating people’s 100th birthdays or similar events for Casa SaltShaker dinners. They basically give me free rein to do a lot more interesting dishes, you know? Now, we’ve hosted some fairly famous centenaries here over the last many months, and I thought it would be fun to stretch the envelope a bit and celebrate a life that was over far too early. María Guadalupe Vélez de Villalobos was born in 1908 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to a colonel in the Mexican army and an opera singer. When old enough for school she was sent to San Antonio, Texas, to be educated in a convent, but she ran away to Mexico City to learn to dance when she was 13. Despite being hauled back to the convent, she continued her “tempestuous ways”, and eventually found her way to Hollywood in 1926, where, over the next 18 years she appeared in nearly four dozen films (save a brief interlude in a Cole Porter musical on Broadway), generally playing the beautiful, volatile girl opposite such comic stars as Jimmy Durante and Leon Errol. Though she never really rose above the “b-movie” level, she was well known for her very public private life as a party girl, and had tabloid covered affairs with a number of actors, including Gary Cooper, eventually married Johnny Weismuller (Tarzan), divorced, and an affair with a young actor named Harald Maresch. She got pregnant during this affair, and rather than have an abortion or bring an out of wedlock child into the world both of which she felt were the ultimate sins against the catholic church, she committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills at age 36. Adultery, sex outside of marriage, divorce, suicide… aren’t those against the rules too? Methinks there was more to it…

So there I was, with Lupe Vélez’ ghost hovering about and wondering if I was going to do something cool for her birthday or not. I have to admit, San Luis Potosi is not the first region of Mexico I tend to delve into when I cook Mexican food, so this gave me all the excuse I needed to do so. Turns out there are some pretty interesting dishes….

Initially I was thinking about the local dish cecina de res for a main course, but it’s basically salt beef, nearly beef jerky (Henry exclaimed “charqui!” which is the quechua term for it, as he was digging into a slice or two), that’s been only slightly reconstituted. Sometimes it’s even just served more or less as is. I just figured the saltiness would be too intense as a main course portion, and decided instead to offer it up as a first plate. The traditional method of making it with long air-dried and salted strips was a bit more than I have the setup to start doing, so I started the beef off with a “buried in salt” sort of cure, more or less the same as I do when I want to make gravlax. I thinly sliced peceto, or top round, coated both sides in a mix of orange and lime peel and juice, and dried oregano, all buried in a mix of salt and sugar. I left it in that for about 30 hours – 24 would have probably been enough. Then I scraped the mixture off, and laid the pieces out on racks set over drip pans, and brushed them with a mix of orange and lime juice, turning them after about 12 hours and doing the same thing again. I left them to air dry for another 24 hours, which ended up the perfect consistency. To serve, I sauteed the slices in a good amount of oil with garlic and onions, and served them with a fresh guacamole and a hot sauce made from vinegar preserved jalapeños. It was a little saltier than I’d have liked – a shorter cure if I do it again, or maybe even soaking the slices in the orange/lime mixture for a little while to draw out the salt before air drying. However, with the foil of the guacamole and hot sauce it worked really well.

Next up a sopa verde de elote, or green corn soup. The corn isn’t green, it’s simply a pureed soup of corn, peas, fire-roasted poblano peppers, onion, cilantro, a good amount of pre-cooked tomatillos (I finally found a source for fresh tomatillos, yay!), lettuce, and chicken stock, all then cooked together for just a short time – 15-20 minutes or so on simmer – seasoned to taste and served with some freshly chopped cilantro.

While the name of this dish, huevos en rabo de mestiza may have given “my boys” a giggly fit, the dish was my favorite of the evenings and that of several of the guests. (Since I know someone will ask rather than looking it up for themselves, let me just give you the translation – “eggs in a half-breed girl’s ass” – don’t ask me, I haven’t come up with anything.) It was also the most fun dish to make. I fire-roasted some jalapeño chilies, then sauteed them with thinly sliced white onion. I threw a bunch of plum tomatoes under the broiler until they were lightly browned, pureed them, mixed them with the chlies and onions and a little salt to taste, ladled the mixture into little cazuela dishes, and added a splash of water just to thin the sauce out. For serving, I heated the dishes with the sauce in the oven, then slipped an egg into the center of each and draped a slice of cheese over the top. Back into the oven for just long enough to set the whites and leave the yolks soft, out of the oven, sprinkled with chives, and served. This is generally considered more of a brunch type dish, but it sounded so good, and it’s not unheard of to serve it at dinner, and so I did.

The main course was pollo en ajo-comino, or chicken in garlic and cumin. In a big saute pan I sauteed a mixture of cumin, garlic, ancho chili powder, and salt until it was nice and aromatic. Then I added chicken breasts to the mixture and cooked them until lightly browned. Earlier, I’d reconstituted some dried ají panca, the red sort, as dried Mexican peppers aren’t available here (anchos would have been the way to do it right), peeled and seeded them, and then pureed them with their cooking liquid. Once the chicken was browned, I added this puree to the pan (if there’s not enough liquid to cover the chicken, add a little water), covered it and simmered them until cooked through, about 20 minutes. Sliced and served atop freshly made wheat tortillas. Simple, but quite good.

Cajeta is the Mexican name for what here is called dulce de leche, or milk caramel. I made a batch. Then I cut up some fresh pineapple, papaya, and kiwi and simmered them in a little sugar syrup until soft. I made some tart shells out of overlapping squares of phyllo dough brushed with butter and then browned in the oven. To serve, I warmed the cajeta and the fruit, filled the tart with the former and topped with the latter, and served. Once again simple, but really good – and although the tart idea isn’t traditional, the fruit and cajeta mixture is a classic way to end a San Luis Potosi meal.

I wonder if I can find any copies of the old Mexican Spitfire films around…