SIGN WITH AN E

Or is it?

It’s well known that the US is a nation of overstatement. This was confirmed to me yesterday during my first day here as a human being (fed and slept, that is, after a thirty-two hour journey: Cape Town to Dubai, surely one of the richest places on the globe, but full of the world’s poorest travellers; Dubai to New York; New York to DC; finally a one hour drive to Maryland).

First, the usual amazement at how BIG everything is: the (super)stores, the SUVs, the houses in this particular neck of the woods (Howard county is apparently one of the wealthiest in the country, and so, little sign of a country in recession here). We travelled behind one big car speeding patriotically along with the stars and stripes attached to its roof. At a red light we got the full spectacle of their rear window: a large sticker proclaiming “Our son serves so that we can be free”, complete wth a picture of said son in uniform. It had that sinister Missing Person feel to it, despite (I suppose) the best intentions of the parents. But as the philosophe pointed out, they (clearly Republicans) have to shout out to make some sense of it all. I wonder, though, if “making sense” of it includes hoping to convert people idly picking their noses at the red lights, or whether it occurs to them that they simply look like fools squealing angst under the dubious cover of “pride”.

At Bertucci’s, the philosophe, his father and I shared a large pizza with pepperoni, artichokes and tomay-do. It was a pretty good pizza, but the best, I think, were the pre-food hot little rolls made out of pizza dough which came with a plate of a very good olive oil-and-herb dipping number. I had a glass of white zinfandel which turned out to be pink, and rather riesling-gewurtztraminer in taste, which was just right for lunch. When I pointed out that they had overcharged us for the wine on the bill, our good waitress saw to it that it was removed entirely. That’s what I call that good service. Also a good idea is their plan of setting up and serving the pizza from a collapsable camping-style table next to the actual table. This means a two-person table can have a large pizza and elbow room. Ingenious.

For dinner I was treated to home-smoked and barbecued ribs. These were very really good (I polished off an entire small rack, which I was assured before we started eating was “not that much meat”, but the same portion sated even the three men at the table, so I think that’s pretty good going). But more interesting is the story of the beans from Famous Dave’s which we had driven many a mile earlier in the day to collect especially for the occasion.

Curious as I always am to discover what makes something worth the drive, or vaut le detour, as the Michelin guide calls it, I had to have a little taste of the beans before they joined the ribs in the barbie for a final heating. According to my father-in-law and his wife, what makes Dave’s beans is the addition of smoked bacon, but the morsel I tried contained what I was sure was sausage, not bacon. This naturally led to a round-the-table tasting and debate as to what exactly is in the beans, with some standing by their conviction that sausage was definitely NOT supposed to be in there, and it therefore simply couldn’t be, despite the obvious appearance, taste and texture of some of the non-bean bits.

The obvious next move was Google, and there I discovered two identical recipes for Dave’s Wilbur Beans which confirmed that the famous flavour in fact comes from a combination of bacon and twice-smoked link sausage and strip steak. This was a surprise to all, and there was a suggestion that since they’re not posted on Famous Dave’s site itself, these recipes may simply be variations, trying to approximate what is surely Dave’s well-kept secret.

If only it were so. In this age of anti-liability, where even the most obvious of things need warning signs (car interiors are full of stickers warning you that if you drive like a fool, you may crash and die), there is no space for secrets. True, Dave doesn’t post the actual recipe on his site, but you will find the obligatory list of ingredients there, which confirms that, indeed, the Wilbur Beans contain beef. Even the Sassy BBQ sauce, which could be the magic ingredient, has its guts laid bare for all to see.

What a sad day for Colonel Sanders that must have been. What have you fantasised about the 11 secret herbs and spices all these years? Coriander, cayenne, cumin, etcetera? Think again. Or don’t. Sometimes ignorance is much more fun. I can’t remember the last time I ate KFC, but I’m sure as hell gonna try some of the new Smoky Chipotle while I’m here. Besides, I’m willing to bet that whatever chemicals create the famous “herbs and spices”, they are no more malign than some of the things in your own kitchen. (People who put Aromat on your popcorn: I’m talking to you).

Before I get to the Chipotle chicken, I have the famed Chesapeake crabcakes on the menu for today, to be taken on the deck of a boat with a beer in hand. Some time in the near future, an evening of lobsters, to eaten wearing a bib. Maybe some pulled pork along the way, or a little crawdaddy. I can’t wait, and only hope not to find nutritional information served with all of this. Might there still be a little intrigue in this big country? We shall see…

So someone gives you a bag of oranges and they aren’t your favourite fruit, what do you do? Make marmelade, naturally. I’ve made jam once before – strawberry, I believe – and remember the wonder of watching it turn from fruity porridge into jam right before my eyes; another one of those kitchen wonders, like beating eggs and sugar till they turn almost white and marshmallowy, or more obviously, watching bread and cakes rise (and for those lucky enough to have experienced, souffles and muffins).

My orange marmelade was less spectacular in showmanship than the strawberry jam, which I put down to my decision to use less sugar than the recipe stipulated (the oranges were already super-sweet, which also motivated my decision to add lots of fresh ginger in the mix), and not adding pectin to the pot. So I missed the big jelly moment, but when it cooled down, it was indeed marmelade, albeit a little more runny than conventional types. The mix of ginger and orange spoke well for itself on a slice of toast with cheese the following morning, even if half of it did end up on the philosophe’s trousers (his fault for not holding the toast at a perfectly horizontal angle!).

The question, then, of what next. I had my sights on some sticky marmelade (pork) ribs, but when I got to the shop all they had were beef ribs (who eats beef ribs?). Nevertheless, I seized them, and the day, and set to work trying to find out what to do with them. Rib recipes generally advocate the barbecue method, which I am told describes not just a cooking method, but can refer to a particular dish (complete with side stuff), or a whole occasion (not unlike our braai, I want to believe, but apparently I’m wrong. I plan to investigate this phenomenon more seriously in a week or two when the philosophe and I hit New Orleans, and have been duly directed to the famous Mother’s Restaurant). Given the Cape’s slow descent into winter (no good for outside fires no more), and my lack of slow-cooker or smoker, I had to go with an oven method, and found a recipe for braised beef short ribs.

I more or less followed that recipe, which sadly involved no marmelade, but I did substitute the veal stock for freshly squeezed orange juice, with the result – as Glen the sailor pointed out – of a very Daube tasting sauce (think slow cooked meat in red wine and orange juice). I’m not sure I can describe in any way that do them justice how those short beef ribs turned out. They were tender. Not fatty at all. Tender. Sweet Baby Jesus were they tender! They will be back on the table, oh yes they will.

(Isn’t it amazing that you can forget something you never even knew?)

Less amazing, but adequately good was the chicken I baked along with them, because it had this delicious sauce of … marmelade (and garlic and chilli). It had to get in there somehow, and so it did. And just like that, I made sure six of us (including one bun in the oven) got a righteous dose of Vitamin C: set for winter, at the hands of your good doctor.

A lesson from The Washington Post:

The first clue that something might have been wrong was when a car pulled into a parking lot in with a “No Parking” sign and post stuck to the front end.

It was only a matter of time before I had to try my hand at chilli (aka jalapeno) poppers. I remember the very first one I tried, now many years ago, at the Fat Cactus in Mowbray. Given that South Africa had lived in relative shelter from “real” Mexican food for many years (I’m quite sure the Aromat-sprinkled nachos at the die-hard Panchos in Observatory don’t count), biting into my first chilli popper was memorable. Imagine sinking your teeth into a perfectly crispy batter, and then through to a hot, spicy, melting inside (not to mention  washing it down  with a really fine classic margarita). It was like hearing a really good metaphor for the first time.

Alas, in the way of the best metaphors, the chilli popper soon made it onto many more menus than it deserved, and finding one that is worth eating has become something of a mission. Unless you make them yourself, that is.

For the first experiment, I of course had to try three different variations: crumbed and deep-fried; crumbed and baked; battered and deep-fried. I started by blanching and then stuffing the chillies with a home-made cheese (same recipe as for paneer: heat milk, add lemon juice, wait for curdle, drain to separate curds from whey, and stop when you have a cottage cheese consistency. Then add taste: chopped rocket, anchovies, lemon zest, garlic, salt and pepper). Then I froze them for a couple of hours so none of the coatings would get inside. The ones heading for batter stayed in the freezer until the last moment, but I coated the others in eggs and crumbs twice (once, then freeze for an hour or so before the next coating) before that point. It’s quite tricky getting the crumbs to stick to such a smooth surface, and I think next time I’ll follow Glen the sailor’s advice to lightly score the skins first. The batter was a tempura variation: a mixture of rice and cake flour, seasoning, and beer (no egg or soda water).

They were all successful in the sense that none of them failed or fell apart. The crumbed ones fried really well, and the resulting crust was complete (first order of success: make sure the coating creates an impenetrable casing that basically steams the chilli inside), golden brown and crunchy. Baking the same one (about 35 mins at 180) aso gives a good crispy casing, but in the heart-healthy way that baking operates, it was much more bready/cakey, and didn’t come as close to the ideal popper. (Having said that, the baking method is certainly a good idea if you don’t want to stand by a pot of hot oil and would rather be mingling: they are still good).

The beer batter didn’t expand as much as I had hoped; it didn’t expand at all, in fact, meaning that the surprise element of the popper was lost (the chilli was very thinly veiled). So that needs work/another recipe. But it was crispy.

What I really need to do is find the perfect chilli. The ones I crumbed were, according to Pick’n Pay, pimentos, and “perfect for stuffing”. But they had very little chilli bite. The battered ones were, according to Woolworths, jalapenos, with a “heat factor” of 6-7 (10 is hottest). Amazingly, the philosophe – who routinely boasts that he can eat food hotter than mere mortals can handle – found them too hot.

So, they worked, in the way that dead metaphors work. But the quest continues for the perfectly articulated chilli popper, and I am glad to say that yesterday’s various successes mean that I have removed all pressure from the glut of “Mexican” eateries in the city to fulfill that ideal. Now the pressure is on in my own kitchen, as it should be.

On another note, following the (inevitable) re-listing of El Bulli as the “world’s best restaurant”, it is heartening to see that some people remain sceptical of what a list like that means. Read the perpsective of one of the judges in the Independent.

And now I must go gamble. Adieu.

I believe I hit on something righteous last night while whipping up dinner for a band of gamblers at our kitchen table (in truth, it was training session for my benefit, as I’ll shortly be trying my luck at a casino in the fair Cape town of Worcester, but more on that later).

The main event was sesame-crusted seared tuna, but since I’ve become a friend of the hot oil, I couldn’t resist adding some crunch, and I hadn’t yet produced onion rings. The plan was to tempura them in a wok: also my first hot oil adventure without the deep-fryer and all its reassuring temperature control. So far, so good, and nothing particularly special about onion rings in a tempura batter, I hear you say. But what about slivers of fresh ginger in the same batter?

I have no idea why no one has thought of this before. (Hello!!!!!). If you google “ginger tempura” all you get is ginger as one ingredient in something else. But this little root deserves its very own parcel of crunchy goodness. They were like excellent little spicy nuggets, the slight burniness of fresh ginger perfectly tempered by the half a minute or so that they got to steam inside a rapidly crisping batter.

If the world has any sense, this number will find it’s way onto people’s plates in the very near future. Just remember where you heard it first, on this day of this year.

For those still looking for a tempura batter that works (and that means it goes real crunchy and stays that way even when it cools down), try this:

- 100g rice flour

- 1 egg white

- about half a cup of cold soda water (this depends on how thick you want the batter: some vegetables do well with a very thin coating, and you don’t mind if they aren’t completely immersed, while something like ginger wants quite a thick chunky batter to be completely sealed).

Go ahead and throw a teaspoon or so of Chinese five(/six/seven) spice into it to get some flavour going.

And here’s another tip I learnt (through error): if you tempura in a deep-fryer, don’t lay the vegetables into the basket and then lower that into the oil: the batter will grow into/around the bottom of the basket, and you’ll end up with stuck tempura. Make sure you lower whatever you’re frying directly into the oil, so the batter has space to grow; it should come floating up pretty much straight away.

Try the ginger. You will not be disappointed. (And how about whole garlic cloves? Or pre-roasted whole garlic cloves? Or that great Chinese ginger candy? Molecular gastronomists of the world, watch your backs! One of these days someone is going to deep fry soup in my kitchen).