EatingAsia

Misty Water-Colored Memories: A Pork Sandwich Like No Other

Full frontal: the RoliRoti porchetta sandwich

It's painful to write this knowing that it will probably be a year until I'm again face-to-face with this sandwich. 

This stack of slow-cooked love is, as any pork-loving, Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market-going San Franciscan knows, Thomas Odermatt's epic porchetta sandwich, served at farmer's markets in various locations around the Bay Area from a mini fleet of awesome rotisserie-equipped trucks.

Rotisserie master Thomas Odermatt serves up the goods

We first posted on Thomas' porchetta two and a half years ago. His business has grown since then, but we're so happy to report that quality has most certainly not suffered as a result. Eating something you love just once a year can be risky; so often reality doesn't live up to memory. Not so in this case.

It's all about attention to detail. When Thomas builds sandwiches he makes sure that every single one gets a share of the burnished crackling that encases each pork roast.

He slices the seasoned, opulently marbled meat thickly -- just fine, because it's so tender you could cut it with a spoon. Then, wasting not an ounce of porky essence, he sops up the meat juices that have bled onto his wooden cutting board with the soft inside of the bun. (It's an excellent mini white loaf, by the way: lots of wheaty flavor, a crackly crust, and sturdy enough to stand up to a hefty pile of protein.)

He smears a generous blob of the housemade condiment on hand -- fennel jam this day, I think -- onto the meat, and then adds a handful of shrubbery, which also varies by the day.

I once relished a RoliRoti porchetta sandwich garnished with delicate chervil; on this occasion it was arugula, a perfect peppery counterpoint to the almost obscenely -- but never, ever regretfully -- fatty meat and sweetish jam.

Do I even need to add that this is one insanely delicious mouthful?

 

We visited Thomas' truck, appropriately, on the way to Napa to attend CIA's Street Food Conference and arrived -- foolishly -- close to lunch hour. The queue was much too long, and we had to hit the road in order to make it up there in time for the conference's opening.

We reconciled ourselves to forgoing the sandwich, but not a 'hello' to Thomas -- who wouldn't hear of us leaving empty-handed. We stood to the side of the truck as he prepared a sandwich for us then and there.

I'm sure a few folks in line were casting the evil eye our way, and if you were one of them and are reading this I do apologize (and I empathize; I hate line jumpers). But to be honest my guilt pangs disappeared at first bite.

Another satisfied RoliRoti customer

After finishing we stopped back at the truck to say 'good-bye'. In lieu of a handshake Thomas offered a piece of crackling. But only one.

I don't hold that against Thomas. Because I'm pretty sure that piece of crackling was meant to be shared, Dave.

(Thanks Thomas -- we'd love to take you up on your invitation next time we're in town! Many thanks also to Jen Maiser for helping us to coordinate this rendezvous.)

RoliRoti also serves rotisserie chicken and potatoes basted in the chicken's dripping fat, as well as -- be still my beating heart - lamb. But we haven't tried either. That darned porchetta won't let us. All week, all over the Bay Area -- contact them to find out what's on the menu when and where.

It's All About the (Goat) Girls

If you ever find yourself feeling ignored, unwanted, unloved, under-appreciated ... quick, get thee to a goat farm. I swear, no adulation or adoration in the world can match the intensity of that radiating from a gaggle of girl goats.

We got a dose of it a little over a year ago when we visited New Mexico's South Mountain Dairy. We met owners Donna Lockridge and Marge Peterson at the Saturday Santa Fe Farmer's Market, where they sell goat cheese made from milk sourced from their own goats. We asked if we could visit and watch the process.

What we didn't bargain for was falling in love with the 'girls'.

Unfortunately our timing was off; by the time we arrived much of the cheesemaking was finished. (The drive to Edgewood however, made up for that -- you never tire of looking at those vast expanses of turquoise New Mexico sky and a horizon of nothingness when you live in an Asian metropolis).

When we arrived Donna was cutting curds for chevre, which she would ladle into sieves and leave to drain for twenty-four hours (The whey collected in the process is given to feed a neighbor's pigs; in return, each year Donna and Marge get a whole butchered hog.)

We followed her around as she inspected her 'blooming rind' cheeses -- a brie and Mallapie Mist (above, similar to Humboldt Fog), and painted wax onto a cheese unique to South Mountain Dairy, a Dutch havarti-style semi-soft round called Chevarti (the wax inhibits mold and keeps the cheese moist).

We sampled cabre al vino, a semi-hard cheese soaked in red wine for 48 hours (below, and delicious), sqeaky-fresh goat cheese curds ("an accident," according to Donna, and a tasty one at that), and South Mountain's creamy, mild, and not-too-salty feta, which is handrubbed with salt instead of brined in salt solution.

Somewhere along the line Donna confessed to an aversion to strong-flavored cheeses -- no brie or Mallapie Mist for her.

It's obvious that Donna truly enjoys the cheesemaking, and the being-an-artisan parts of the business, like knowing by touch, rather than measuring PH level, that the Chevarti is dry enough to take the wax without absorbing it.

But she also made it clear where this business' priorities lay: "'We're doing the dairy just so we can keep the animals."

The title of this post, in fact, is also South Mountain Dairy's motto: "It's all about the girls."

The dairy, when we visited, had fifty 'girls' producing about 60 gallons of milk a day. South Mountain started in 2005 with 13, and Donna figured they'd be up to 64 by this year ("That's capacity -- determined by how much our equipment can handle," she told us.)

Like those cheese curds, the dairy was a bit of an accident.

Ten or so years ago Donna and Marge bought a couple of male goats as weed-eaters; later, they decided to raise pack goats.

They bought a couple does to build a herd, bred them, and bottle-fed the kids (they'd learned early in that the best pack goats are fed by bottle).

One problem -- the does produced too much milk for the babies to consume. What to do with the rest? Well -- make cheese, of course. But the milk made more cheese than Donna and Marge could eat, or give away to friends. So... years later, here they are.

After our tour of the product, we went out to meet the milk producers.

"Happy goats make happy cheese," says Donna. If judged by sheer conviviality South Mountain's goats must surely be among the happiest in the world.

As soon as we walked through the gate we were surrounded by curious beady-eyed beings. They teemed, their desire to be near us palpable, but not threatening. Exuding a sort of calm urgency, the girls got as close as they could, touching our hands and legs and arms, nudging but not butting, positioning their heads under our palms so we'd have no choice but to touch them.

 

"They're very sociable," Donna had told us. If anything that was an understatement. The girls didn't want anything from us but to be near us. I've never felt so popular in my life. When it was time to leave we had to tear ourselves away.

It was a pretty wondrous encounter, and we understood completely how owning two lawn-mowing goats could lead to a goat farm.

Not even Donna's sweet hound Butter could match the girls for loveableness.

South Mountain Dairy, 48 Katzima Road, Edgewood NM. 505/280-5210. Donna and Marge sell their cheeses at various farmer's markets around the state. NOTE: In the spring, when farm's bursting with cute little babies, they open up for tours. One dollar buys you a bottle and a chance to feed a baby goat.

Just the Thing for a Cold: 'Oregano', Tea, and Turmeric

I brought a whopper of a cold home from Vietnam. This seems to be par for the course when we're traveling and cramming a lot of work into a relatively short space of time. It might also have had something to do with the fact that we arrived in Hoi An unprepared for cool weather and lots of rain. Lacking a rain coat - or any warm clothing, for that matter - I spent the better part of 5 days in a locally-purchased rain poncho that resembled a garbage bag with sleeves. (Dave assured me that if I wore the same in San Francisco it would quickly become must-have wet weather garb for the city's fashion divas. Ahem. Nice try, Dave.)

When my cold started to rear its ugly head I wished for something I was drinking quite a lot of exactly a year ago, while battling an even nastier cold while on assignment in Pampanga, Philippines. When a string of early mornings (as in 3am, for dawn mass) and non-stop days lay me low the kitchen angels at our host's home boiled up batch after batch of tea made with an herb growing wild outside the house. They called it 'oregano' (pictured below, and above - same name, two different leaves - two varieties, perhaps?). It eased my sore throat, cough, and general feeling of unwellness.

This 'oregano' is actually Indian borage (Plectranthus barbatus), a fuzzy, fleshy-leafed herb thought to be native to India that's also found in Australia, where it's known as five-in-one (thanks to once-prolific EatingAsia commenter RST for this link and others related to the herb). In India the tuberous roots are also used as a spice or prepared as a pickle. 

And Indian borage is found in Vietnam, where it's known as hung chanh, tan la day, and thom long. We first noticed it at a Hue/Hoi An market in Saigon; the vendor told us that it's not for eating, but for boiling into tea when you have a sore throat or cough. According to the link above it also grows wild in Malaysia, where it's known as daun bangun-bangun. We've not seen it in the market here, yet.

The herb smells a bit like Italian or Greek oregano but, to my nose, even more like sage or thyme. In Pampanga I asked if the herb was used for cooking; the response was 'no'. Yet something called 'oregano' is perhaps part of a dried herb mix called sangkot-sangkot that's added to a Philippine stewed meat dish called apritada.

According to that link above Indian borage is added to fish or goat meat curries in Malaysia and on Java (thus one of its Indonesian names - daun kambing or 'goat leaf') and, according to my Vietnamese herb book, there '...young leaves are cut into small pieces to enhance fish or meat as a seasoning before cooking'. (A similarly fuzzy, fleshy, and odiferous leaf, the name of which escapes me at the moment, is cooked with dog in Vietnam to mitigate that meat's distinctive odor.)

Intriguingly, the herb is also used in cooking in Cuba and the Caribbean, where it goes by the name of 'Cuban oregano' or 'French oregano'. In this 2005 Miami Herald article chef and cookbook author Maricel Presilla writes that the plant made its way to Latin America during colonial times. Which begs the question - from where and via whom? From the Philippines with the Spanish? Or from southern India or Malaysia/Indonesia with the Portuguese? Or...? And how did the herb find its way to Vietnam?

Filipinos, Australians, Indians, Malaysians, Vietnamese - anyone familiar with this herb - do you cook with it? And if so, how do you use it?

But back to Hoi An. I searched for Indian borage tea in vain but I did find, bubbling away over a wood fire in a corner near the seafood section, a vat of che tuoi, or 'fresh tea'. The leaves used for this tea are indeed unfermented and, from the looks of it, pretty old.

Branches, berries, leaves - everything goes into the pot and the vendor, who's been pouring cups of che tuoi in the market for over thirty years, gives it all a good boil for a couple hours. This isn't meant as specifically a cold remedy but its slightly bitter, grassy flavor and warmth was most welcome on our misty Hoi An mornings.

My cold, by the way, is pretty much vanquished, and in just over ten days. That's a record for me; these things usually seem to hang on for weeks. I don't know whether to attribute my quick recovery to che tuoi, thoughts of oregano tea, the handfuls of vitamin C tablets I began swallowing at regular intervals as soon as my symptoms appeared .... or candied turmeric.

Candied turmeric is sold alongside candied ginger all over Hoi An's market. Before I even got sick a vendor told me it's good for a cough and sore throat. I bolted at least a half a bag at the first sign of a sore throat and then continued to snack on the astringent treat for a few more days.

What's your (non-Western pharmaceutical) cure for the common cold?

Lunch at the Meat Counter

Much in the way that a seafood vendor's stall makes for the perfect setting in which to partake of kinilaw, meat may well be best enjoyed in front of a butcher counter. That, anyway, is what we took away from our lunch at Carniceria Santa Fe, a stubby Pepto Bismol-pink butcher shop cum sundries store just off Santa Fe's Cerillos Road.

Finding great food in spots that fly under the radar is about keeping your eyes open when traversing landscapes that you'd otherwise be tempted to snooze through. Cerillos Road is an unattractive strip mall-lined antidote to Santa Fe's adobified American Southwestern charm. It does not overtly broadcast the presence of good grub. But it was past noon, and we were hungry. Whether because it was tantalizingly hidden on a side street or because its plastic tarp signage suggested newcomer status, Carniceria Santa Fe held promise. We've no doubt that many similar eateries don't deliver on said promise, but this one did.

Carniceria means 'butcher' in Spanish, and while the front of Carniceria Santa Fe is crowded with shelves weighted with canned beans and chipotles en adobo, Mexican herbs and spices, tooth-achingly sweet candies, and plastic toys for the kids, its beating heart lies in back where a meat-filled display case, two tables, and a short counter front a dimunitive cooking area dominated by a table-sized griddle. Tacos, tortas, and burros (burritos) are on offer - choose your filling in its raw state from the meat case. There's also menudo and barbacoa and a daily platillo, the main component of which bubbles away griddleside on a single burner.

This day the scent of costilla en salsa verde (pork ribs stewed with green chilies) slapped us silly the moment we darkened the entryway. It was served with smoky pork nubbin-studded pinto beans and interestingly masa-flavored rice steamed with corn kernels (opening photo). We supplemented with an order of tacos discada, which is the name for both the dish (chopped meats cooked with tomatoes, chilies, herbs - whatever the cook wishes to throw into the mix) - and the traditional flattened wok-like pan it's usually cooked on. Our discada, pulled right from the meat case, was - like everything else save the platillo - cooked on the griddle.

Purists (you know who you are) will rue the presence of lettuce on these tacos but we who come from the land of Sad-Imitations-for-Mexican-Food Restaurants cannot be so choosy. At any rate, the discada (pork? beef? other? we were too busy oohing and aaahing to parse it) was crumbly, fatty in just the right way, satisfying. Even better was the costilla en salsa verde, the ribs so porcine and tender, the sauce not exactly spicy but smoky and even a bit sweet from the roasted green chilies.

'My favorite of our platillo,' is how owner Luis Guzman describes it. He's a native of Chihuahua who works in construction but stops into the Carniceria every weekday to say hello to his wife (behind the cash register) and lunch with his pre-school-age son.

That may explain why the costilla was still on the menu when we returned 24 hours later. No matter. It gave us an excuse to try the torta, carnitas (roast meat) for both of us. Chunks of pork of varying degrees of griddle-infused charred-ness lay on a pillow of chewy grilled bun spread with a layer of guacamole, more lettuce, a sprinkling of chopped jalapenos, a couple slices of tomato. No sour cream, no mayo, red or green salsas on the side only if you wish.

Seated spitting distance from the griddle and a few steps from the butcher case, we ate our meaty Mexican sandwiches gazing at mounds of raw animal flesh while swaddled in the comforting hug of cooked meat aromas, serenaded by the grinding of a bone saw out back.

It seemed, somehow, very right.

Our regret is that we discovered Carniceria Santa Fe late in our New Mexico stay, which left no time to become acquainted with its other platillo or to explore the menudo or barbacoa, let alone the tubs of alluringly creamy, snow-white queso fresco imported from Mexico in the refrigerator case.

Carniceria has been open only 4 months, but it already draws a steady stream of lunchtime traffic, and Luis says it's packed with families on the weekend. The welcome is warm, the food says 'made with love'. Highly recommended.

Carniceria Santa Fe, Felipe Street (at corner of Cerillos Road - a side street just across from the El Rey Inn), Santa Fe New Mexico. 505-983-7281.

 

Americana

Abandoned trailers in the vicinity of Bishop New Mexico

Now, while at least half the US is still wrapped in the warm, fuzzy glow of change/hope/yes-we-can, seems the perfect time to post some Americana.

Vintage Cadillac, Espanola New Mexico

Last month we spent three and a half weeks in the US - our longest stay since we moved to Bangkok seven years ago. We split our time between three very different parts of the country: the San Francisco Bay Area (where we resided happily for 8 years),

Kite and hills at sunset, Emeryville California

Michigan (where we both grew up and earned our undergraduate degrees),

Draft horse demonstration, East Lansing Michigan

and northern New Mexico, where my parents have lived for twenty years.

El Santuario do Chimayo, Chimayo New Mexico

Everywhere we went America's 'America-ness' announced itself. Foreigners - and Americans - cleave to so many cliched images of our country. Yet without even trying we bumped up against those images again and again. Postcard-perfect pictures of America.

High school football practice, Berkeley California

Historic Ingham County Courthouse, Mason Michigan

Little Man, Abiquiu New Mexico

Maybe we've been away so long that we've begun to view our own country as foreigners would, seeing the odd, unusual, beautiful, or extraordinary in the ordinary.

Giving a Clydesdale a bath, East Lansing Michigan

Certainly traveling with a camera (or with a photographer) leads you to search for often overlooked images.

A bar owner with a sense of humor, Holt Michigan

Dog tunnel, Abiquiu New Mexico

No doubt being in the US during the lead-up to a national election heightened our awareness of our country's uniqueness.

Obamanos, Santa Fe New Mexico

There's no denying that America is overflowing with vistas you won't find anywhere else in the world.

San Francisco Bay Bridge

Abandoned house, Edgewood New Mexico

We know a North America-resident writer-photographer who spends a chunk of every year in Southeast Asia. When he's back home in NA his camera stays in its bag. Lack of inspiration, he says. We can't imagine it.

Last Saturday we left San Francisco eager to return to our home in Kuala Lumpur yet wishing we'd had more time in the US. And maybe even appreciating the US more than we ever have.

Cochise, Abiquiu New Mexico

We'd like to know it better. Next time, maybe a road trip.

On the road in Espanola, New Mexico 

Vintage Buick, Hell Michigan

Tommy on the run, Abiquiu New Mexico

Today's the Day

Today Americans take to the polls, exercising their right to choose ... anyone but that other candidate

But seriously - if you're eligible and haven't done so already .... vote! The right to cast a free ballot that actually matters is not one that everyone in the world enjoys. We shouldn't waste it.

Tortas Rainbow

As recently as two weeks ago we believed that Vietnam was home to the world's best sandwiches. But no more. We've been torta-fied. 

A torta is a Mexican sandwich comprised of any one of a number of fillings nestled between the halves of an oval roll called a bollilo. I've long known of the existence of torta, but never thought to actually try one. To tell the truth, until I caught banh mi fever in Vietnam sandwiches just seemed so pedestrian, so American. If you're going to eat Mexican food, I thought, why eat a sandwich?

Then one day last week we were trolling for lunch in Espanola, New Mexico. Route 584 is not a pretty stretch of road (at least not the part that runs through Espanola), but it is nonetheless intriguing for its large number of what I like to call EWPs (eateries-with-potential). You know, the sort of exceedingly plain-in-appearance restaurants and strip mall holes-in-the wall that can be surprisingly good - or horrifically bad.

Tortas Rainbow falls into the former category. It's a strip mall corner shop EWP staffed by a couple of cooks from Durango and a stone-faced auntie who sits behind the cash register. We entered assuming we'd order burritos, but then our eyes fell on the filled-to-bursting buns in the hands of a couple of patrons near Tortas' entry. Ordering burritos was suddenly out of the question.

Rainbow's torta selection is large. There's pork many ways, chorizo and egg, ham and cheese. Dave quickly decided on a carnitas de puerco torta while in the heat of the moment I quite uncharacteristically went for the deep-fried option: torta with a filling of chile rellenos, or cheese-filled roasted green chilies, breaded and fried. (It's roasted green chile season in New Mexico - more on that later.)

The tortas come with a choice of red or green salsa and are accompanied, if you wish, by roasted whole jalapeno peppers. We added an optional garnish of pico, a fresh 'relish' of chopped jalapeno peppers mixed with chopped tomatoes and onions.

My torta, oozing cheese and redolent with the smokiness of the green chilies, was gone before Dave could capture it on camera. His boasted tender pulled pork. Both included a spread of refried beans carpeted with avocado slices on the bollilo's bottom half and a mound of shredded lettuce, chopped coriander, and sliced tomatoes piled atop our respective fillings. They were spectacular.

What really makes a torta special is the bollilo - soft but not mushy, chewy but not tough, and substantial enough to hold up to a hefty filling (and lashings of salsa) without falling apart in the hands. Bollilo, in fact, would make excellent hamburger buns. Before assembling our torta the cook crisped up our bollilo halves with a quick lieabout on the griddle.

I can't believe it took us so long to come around to the torta. It may well prove to be the Mexican specialty that finally lures us to Mexico. It's certainly a sandwich worth planning a detour from New Mexico around.

Tortas Rainbow, Riverside Drive (Route 584) near the intersection with Fairview (across the street from Fairview Plaza), Espanola, New Mexico.

Seek and Ye Shall Find, By Accident

We didn't intend for this trip to the US to be a multi-state search for Mexican (or Mexican-inspired) fare. But somehow, over the last couple of weeks, that's what it's become.

First came the squash blossom quesadilla, carne asado tacos, and grapefruit-and-jicama salad at Mijita, an ever-so-slightly precious, rather pricey, but very attention-to-details purveyor of undeniably delicious Mexican dishes in the San Francisco Ferry Plaza. Then came our brief guided tour of Oakland's taco trucks, serving more down-to-earth and considerably cheaper (but no less tasty) food. A few days later, we landed in the vicinity of East Lansing, Michigan, home to our undergraduate alma mater and Dave's parents.

If you imagine that the United States is a homogenous whole, try tracing that same path - from San Francisco and the East Bay, where the crowds jamming the entryways of all the anything-but-economy restaurants appear oblivious to the latest financial headlines, to Lansing, where it seems at least two front lawns on every block sport 'For Sale' signs (and at least two more houses are 'For Rent'). The streets of Lansing's attractively restored Old Town are nearly empty, many storefronts vacant. Driving me past the Oldsmobile plant where he earned astronomical sums as a college student - or what remains of it; demolition is in progresss - Dave remembered the days when you couldn't find a spot in its football-sized parking lot. Economic doldrums don't begin to describe the state of things in this part of Michigan.

But we found, quite by accident, a local story of economic success. One morning, after following a few Mexican food leads that ended up leading nowhere at all, we happened upon Handy's Mexican Deli. The sign that opens this post spoke to us. It said, 'Get your fix here.'

For thirty-six years Handy's Mexican Deli was Handy's Market, your average mini-grocery with a deli counter. Then a year or so ago Carlos (above right) and a friend purchased the place and turned it into a Mexican grocery cum takeout joint. The friend's wife Claudia (above left) signed on as cook and cashier. Handy's shelves are now lined with cans of Goya black beans, nopales, huitlacoche (corn smut, a rude name if ever there was one for something so deliciously earthy tasting), dried corn husks and pinto and black beans, masa Mexican brown sugar and pinatas.

 

The refrigerator case stocks tubs of Claudia's zesty red and whallop-packing green salsas, made fresh every couple of days. And the deli case displays all manner of burritos and tacos and tamales and enchiladas and even plastic containers of menudo to take away or eat standing or sitting in your car out front (for now tables are just a twinkle in Carlos and Claudia's eyes; we hope for major progress on that front within the next twelve months). The original owners of Handy's, who weren't ready to retire when they retired, are still around. Peek through the door behind the checkout counter and you'll see them in the back, chopping jalapenos or tending to other chores. Handy's old and new owners seem like one big happy family.

Business, Claudia says, is great. That has something much to do with the food, we know - but also, we suspect, as much to do with the new owners. When we walked into Handy's, full from a pretty decent but not 'wow' kind of lunch, we found them were ready to talk Mexican fare in Lansing. We bought a couple small items - a dulce de leche bar and a coconut treat, and Carlos shared his recommendations for decent Mexican in the area (Mongo's on Saginaw, he says, has 'good authentic food'. Unfortunately we couldn't fit Mongo's in on this trip.) Then Claudia asked if we'd like to try her salsa. When we responded in the affirmative she handed over a gallon-sized ziploc bag of housemade chips and a cup each of red and green.

'Um, can't I pay for this?' I asked.

With a great cook's confidence she replied, 'That's OK. You'll be back.'

And so we were. Business was indeed great - when we entered we found a thicket of patrons waiting in front of the deli counter for their orders.

With chips still left over we grabbed some red salsa (Claudia was fresh out of green, but obligingly dumped a pile of chopped jalapenos into our tub of red) and settled on a pulled beef burrito and a couple of servings of menudo. Plain and simple best describes the burrito, and that's not a bad thing. Tender, intensely flavored shredded meat combined with onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and chopped jalapenos - no cheese, no sour cream (though they're available on request) - filled this soft, thin flour tortilla wrap, and it was spectacular.

And I couldn't help thinking, as I spooned up Claudia's menudo, that this was a dish a pork-eating Malaysian could love. Except for the posole (pleasingly chewy kernels of dried corn), all the ingredients are familiar: chilies, cumin, cloves, cilantro, pork, and tripe. Its fragrant brick-colored broth, not overly fiery but just nipping at the tip of the tongue, married flawlessly with the the tripe's subtle funkiness. Spare parts poetry in a cup.

Thank the God of Good Mexican Grub for serendipitous finds.

Handy's Mexican Deli, Willow Street (near Walnut), just up the road from Willow Plaza Shopping Center, Lansing, Michigan. 517-482-1156.

Meals on Wheels, Oakland (CA) - Style

This morning I craved laksa asam. I really hadn't given Malaysian food much thought since we left KL a week ago Thursday, but when I woke up I was seized by a longing for something soured with tamarind and spiced with chilies, with a saucer of belacan stinkiness on the side. I know I won't find it here (in Michigan where we are now), or in New Mexico, where we're headed next. I know I'll have to wait till we're back home.

That's not to say we haven't been taking advantage of all the delicious things easily found in (parts of) the States, that we can't eat in Malaysia. Sweet, juicy, heirloom tomatoes. Cheese - blues, cheddars, buffalo mozzarella, goat cheese in various guises - sold at prices that won't send us to the poorhouse. Interesting Italian wines that we can afford. Big glasses of cold skim milk (sorry - I happen to love skim milk). Porchetta. Good artisanal breads, many made with sourdough starter. Pizza and wonderful handmade pastas. And tacos.

Earlier this week we hooked up with a blogger based in Oakland (formerly Bangkok). After I read his most recent taco truck post I dropped him a line: Hey, want to take us to an Oakland taco truck or two? That's how friendships are forged, over common interests. These days, more of our friendships have been made via food blogs than not. (Is that weird?)

We started at Tacos Sinaloa, two trucks situated in a parking lot on International Boulevar at 22nd. One truck specializes in meat and meat product tacos etc., the other in seafood. The fish tacos were fine, albeit not transcendent. A noted that the edges of the tortillas were dry. The fish was nicely smoky and seemed fresh enough. Coming from Malaysia, with its dearth of taco trucks, we were a bit more appreciative of the basics than most California taco connoisseurs probably would be.

We also popped for a shrimp cocktail, which arrived as a sort of michelada (Mexican beer cocktail) with large, perfectly-cooked shrimp and chunks of avocado in it.There was the tomato juice-y base, the bit of Worcestire, the lime. Lots of chopped cilantro and tortillas on the side. This we were impressed with. While it could have used a bit more chili bite for our taste (yeah, we're chili addicts), the shellfish were surprisingly plump, fresh, and plentiful. After we finished dipping up solids with our tortillas I drank the liquid down, wishing I had a Negro Modelo to add in.

We saved the best - A's favorite taco truck - for last.

Tacos Alonzo's menu offers a whole host of meaty options, but we were really there for the tripe tacos.

And they were excellent - fried till cripsy and golden, a masterful blend of texture (crunchy and chewy) and just enough funky tripiness to keep the taste buds interested. Easily our favorite taco of the day.

Of course, one is never enough, so cabeza (head meat) - meltingly soft, a bit fatty, very meaty tasting - and spiced pork chunks (pastor) also found their way onto our taco platter.

All well and good (Alonzo's pickled carrots are a cut above, by the way), but it was the tripe that we talked about on the way back to our respective abodes (by way of the Berkeley Farmer's Market and the Phoenix's incredible macaroons).

We've heard tell of a Tex-Mex taco truck somewhere in the vicinity of Lansing, MI. Further investigation will be warranted.

Thanks A, for the all-too-short taco truck tour.

 

Got Your Goat

This dish has absolutely nothing to do with Asia, other than the fact that I cooked it in my Malaysian kitchen, but sometimes a good recipe should be shared whether or not it fits the theme of the food blog.
And a dish this rich and meaty is probably not going to appeal right now to most of our in-the-grip-of-summer North American readers, but I know that somewhere in the world it's daube weather.

I cooked goat for the first time just a few months ago, in a spicy coconut milk-based goat curry. The dish was delicious and got me wondering what else I could do with the other red meat.

It was Dave who suggested goat daube (a daube is wine-based stew). He'd been thinking about the string of Decembers we spent in a rented farmhouse in Piemonte. Not surprisingly (it's Italy after all, and this was before the precipitous drop of the US dollar) those weeks were all about eating and drinking and cooking and the sporadic sightseeing that occurred on the way to and from open markets and shops and osterie and trattorie and restaurants. One of our most memorable Christmas Eve meals was a Provencal daube made with bue grasso beef that we purchased from the local butcher. The daube recipe was one I'd followed a bunch of times at home, but made with Piemonte's exceptional beef it was an altogether different - and tastier - animal. Bue grasso tastes stronger, more minerally, and, for lack of a better word, beefier than American beef.  That Christmas Eve daube was so good, in fact, that I never made  the dish again, unless we were in Piemonte.

Until a month or so ago, when Dave suggested I substitute goat for the bue grasso. It's not a true substitution, of course - goat is a bit gamey and awfully tough. But, we thought, tamed by the overnight soak in red wine that this recipe calls for and stewed slowly for a good, long time, it might give the daube the sort of extra 'edge' that it gained from the Piemonte beef. Long story short - we were very happy with the rich, uber-meaty daube, in which goat and dry red wine played off each other beautifully. We ate half the day I made it and stuck the rest in the freezer. Leftovers, eaten for dinner Sunday night, were even tastier than the first round.

Most every KL wet market has a mutton and goat vendor (or five), and that's where I purchased the goat meat. I told the butcher I was making curry and asked him to leave the bones in when he chopped up the meat. Ten years ago I might have found eating a dish made with bone-in meat a pain in the rear, but living in Asia has inured me to the hassle of negotiating my way around bone bits; I've also come to realize that the extra flavor bones lend to slow-simmered dishes are more than worth the effort of dealing with them at the table. If I really don't want bones in a stew or soup I remove the meat from the finished dish, let it cool, and then add it back in after I've deboned it. But for cooking, bones stay in.

This goat daube must be started 24 hours ahead, so the meat can soak overnight in (a whole bottle of) red wine. Also in the drink are carrots and onions, freshly ground pepper and salt, fresh thyme and rosemary branches, bay leaves, garlic, and a couple strips of fresh orange peel.

When it's time to cook the daube, remove the meat from the marindate and pat it dry, so that it will brown well. First, chopped onions and minced garlic are sauteed in vegetable oil or, if you wish, pork fat. After they're removed the goat is added and browned off, then removed from the pot and set aside.

Flour is added to the fat left in the pot and cooked and stirred until it browns,

and then in goes the marinade.

Once the pan's been deglazed - bits clinging to the bottom scraped up and incorporated into the liquid as it's brought to a boil - in go the other marinade ingredients, to which are added the sauteed onions,

the browned meat,

some water and, finally, a few dried mushrooms (porcini or cepes).

The stew is simmered, covered, on the stove (it could also be placed in a hot oven) until the goat is tender - which took about 3.5 hours this time around. From pulling the marinated goat from the refrigerator to putting the cover on the pot to simmer took maybe 45 minutes max. Once it's cooking away you're pretty much golden ... not much to do except check the stew every half hour or so to see that it's at a gentle simmer and that sufficient liquid remains to keep things from sticking.

Daube with a (goaty) difference - we like it served with a grind of pepper and a mash of potatoes and winter squash.

Goat Daube with Dried Mushrooms (adapted from The Food and Flavors of Haute Provence by Georganne Brennan)

2.5 pounds bone-in goat meat (or about 2 pounds off the bone), cut into 2 to 2.5-inch pieces
2 yellow onions
3 carrots
8 or so thyme branches
2 rosemary branches, about 6 inches long
2 dried bay leaves
salt
freshly ground black pepper
5 cloves garlic
2 strips orange zest
1 bottle (750 ml) dry red wine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup water
2 ounces dried mushrooms (cepes or porcini), some broken up and some left whole
1 cup water
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley (optional)

1. Trim and discard any large pieces of fat from goat. Place it in a non-reactive bowl, add 1 onion (quartered), carrots (peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces), 2 cloves of garlic, herbs, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon pepper, and orange zest. Pour the wine over all and turn to mix and immerse the ingredients. Cover and marinate overnight in the fridge, stirring occasionally to make all ingredients get a good soak.
2. To cook the daube heat 2 tablespoons oil (or pork fat) in a large heavy casserole or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the remaining onion (diced) and garlic cloves (minced) and saute till their translucent, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
3. Drain the meat and reserve the marinade. Pat the meat as dry as possible and then add to the pot a few pieces at a time to brown (don't overcrowd the pot or the meat will steam). Saute for about 5 minutes, turning to brown all sides, then remove with a slotted spoon and continue till all meat is cooked.
4. Add the flour to the pan and cook until it browns, stirring often. Raise the heat to high and slowly pour in the marinade liquid, deglazing the pan by stiring up any bits clinging to the bottom. Add the rest of the marinade ingredients, then the onion, goat, 1 teaspoon salt, and more ground pepper to taste. Throw in the dried mushrooms, pour in the water, and bring the mixture to the boil. Reduce the heat to very low, cover with a lid, and simmer until the goat can be cut through with a spoon, 3-4 hours.
5. Once the daube is cooked skim off some of the fat and serve sprinkled with parsley (optional), with pasta or a mash of potatoes and sweet winter squash.