Cooking Thai Food: Pomelo Salad

It's hard to name a favorite Thai dish, but I'm pretty certain that Pomelo Salad (yam som-o) gets my vote for #1.  Unfortunately it isn't one that is served widely outside of Thailand. Sad, because it's one of those dishes that blends together all of the flavors and textures into a well-balanced delicious dish.

If you want to try the real thing, Baan Khanitha in Bangkok makes the best one I've ever had. Then again, they make almost everything incredibly well. I highly recommend a feast there!

As with other Thai "salads," this is a main dish that you enjoy with your other dishes family style, not a side salad in the US/European style. It's great with some satay and a fish dish.

These days pomelos are available throughout the US and Europe, and the other ingredients all are readily available at any Asian grocery store.  When it's just Herr J and I eating it, I take a few shortcuts, since peeling the pomelo is enough work: buy roasted chicken from the deli counter and buy the fried garlic and shallots rather than cooking them anew each time. You could also fry up batches and store them, which is what I do with roasted peanuts and toasted coconut.  Except for the meat, fruit, and herbs, you can keep most of the ingredients on hand in the pantry.  Unless I'm going to use a whole can of coconut cream cooking something else, I usually cheat a little and mix up some from powdered coconut milk.  It works fine where used as a flavoring, but I would recommend using the liquid for curries and other coconut milk-based dishes.

Though it's an impressive tasting dish and a daunting ingredient list, it's a surprisingly simple dish to make and one that requires no real cooking.

The first step is finding and peeling the pomelo.  You can find them in Munich at the Semmel (Edeka) on Einsteinstrasse or at Galleria Kaufhof, as well as in many Asian markets.  In the US they'll be in most Asian or Hispanic markets.  They're a bit larger than grapefruit and usually slightly oblong.  This one was green, but they often are yellow and wrapped in orange netting like this:

If we were in Thailand, we could just buy the peeled pomelo sections in the store. I'm ashamed to admit that about 3 years into living in Bangkok I asked, "What kind of fruit is that?" because I had never seen pomelo in its natural state. Once you try to peel one for the first time, you'll understand why someone does the work for you.....  But I've found a pretty efficient method for peeling them (I do the same with grapefruits):

1) Slice pomelo in half:

2) See how thick the peel is?  

3) Now slice off the bottom, just to the beginning of the meat:

4) Trim off the sides

5) Trim most of the remaining white stuff off the bottom (so that the sections are all open at the bottom)
You'll be left with two cores of meat and a big pile of peel.  The peel makes one of the best deodorizers in existence (much better than baking soda).  Take a few of the bigger pieces and stick them in your fridge for a couple of days. 

6) I often use a regular or butter knife to help with this part.  Split the pomelo in half and then start pulling the sections of meat out from their sections.  Pomelos usually come apart pretty easily, but the knife can help slip in between the membrane and the meat.

7) And finally you'll have a bowl of pomelo meat (and the dividers to throw away). The hard work is done!

Pomelo Salad (Yam Som-O):
(adapted from David Thompson's Classic Thai Cuisine)  

Salad
1 pomelo
5-10 (depending on size) cooked, shelled shrimp
shredded, cooked meat from 1 large chicken breast 
3 Tbsp roasted, shredded coconut
1 tsp fried, sliced garlic (or 2 cloves, if you slice thinly and fry yourself)
2 Tbsp fried, sliced shallots (or 3 shallots, if you slice thinly and fry yourself)
1-2 Tbsp coarsely ground roasted peanuts (unsalted)
2-5 fresh small chilies, thinly sliced (start with 1 or 2 if using prik kii noo or other really hot ones. And be careful with the cutting! Serrano chilies also work well)
4-6 mint leaves, torn
2 Tbsp chopped coriander leaves

Dressing

1.5 Tbsp fish sauce (can substitute light soy sauce) 
4 tsp palm sugar
2.5 tsp lime juice
2 Tbsp chili jam (nam prik pao - I recommend Pantainorasingh brand, which is widely available in US and Europe) 
4 Tbsp coconut cream

Put all the salad ingredients in a bowl with the pomelo chunks. Stir together the dressing ingredients, adjusting as necessary to have a salty/sweet dressing.  Pour dressing over salad and toss to mix well.  Be careful not to break up the pomelo too much.  As with most Thai dishes, you can adjust the spiciness to fit your tastes.  The sugar and coconut will help reduce spiciness, the lime will add sour, and the fish sauce will add salt.  There will be a little spice to the chili jam, but your real heat will come from the chilies, so choose them (and the quantity) according to your tastes. 

Serve immediately after assembling. This dish is best served fresh while the textures and flavors all play off one another.

Sit back and enjoy, possibly with some cold Singha beer.

You can play around a bit and make it artistically beautiful by cooking the shrimp with the tails on and carefully sprinkling the herbs and shallots.  In this case, we couldn't wait to eat it!

As a little bonus, pomelos on the tree in My Tho, Vietnam. Sometimes it's really cool to see something in its natural state!

Lobster Cocktails

Friday evening Herr J whipped up an ad-hoc version of a classic summer appetizer - Lobster Cocktails.

In the really strange world of coincidence, Thursday night I dreamed about chasing a lobster across a front lawn. One of those pretty blue-spotted French lobsters they have here, but with two big claws that featured in the chase scene! I didn't tell him about this odd dream, but Friday afternoon he called and offered to swing by Nordsee and see what good seafood they had. We don't often eat lobster - and I've only once dreamed of lobsters -  so this was a very bizarre coincidence.

We didn't plan to celebrate anything, but it ended up being a wonderful celebration of Herr J making it through a super stressful week, of me getting a contract extension (yay!), and of FINALLY having an evening where we could eat outside.  

So, we set the table on the balcony, cooked up some Steinbeißer fillets with a light Asian-style marinade, opened a bottle of Macon Village chardonnay, and added some fresh green beans to compliment the main event - the lobster cocktails.

Very tasty and light, and fun to serve.  Here's the first recipe, below. We had an extra lobster tail so we experimented with it on Saturday, too.

(And most importantly to me, it was a delicious mayo-free seafood salad!)

Herr J's Lobster Cocktail Recipe:

• Use 1 medium lobster tail per person.  Broil, bake, steam, or boil until cooked.  Let cool to room temp.
• Cut into small pieces, place into bowl.  Add just enough olive oil to barely coat the pieces.
• Sprinkle generous portion of kosher (large grain) salt.
• Grind szechuan and pink peppercorns together and sprinkle over the mix (regular black peppercorns would work too if don't have szechuan and pink - they just add a different twist and flavor).*
• Add 1/2 tablespoon of your favorite spicy mustard, or mix your own.
  (We used a "grill" mustard which contains paprika, a little white wine vinegar, and a little garlic.)
• Add a splash of lemon juice and turn over with spoon until evenly coated.
• Should NOT be a heavy sauce - the lobster pieces should barely be covered.
• Cook's prerogative:  test and add mustard etc. to taste if it needs adjusting.

* I keep a jar of szechuan and pink peppercorns that have been ground together to add a little zest to simple seasonings. Neither actually are true peppercorns, but they have a nice subtle flavor. More complex flavors and don't overpower a dish the way black pepper can. We use this mix often for a quick seasoning to grill shrimp or something else where you want to add a little flavor but let the taste of the meat come through.

Nutella-filled Waffles

I was curious to see if we could make waffles stuffed with Nutella, so we tried it for an Easter brunch. Special occasion, special breakfast, right?

All you need is Nutella, waffle mix (any kind will do), and a waffle maker.

Step 1: Mix up your waffle batter. We used the "just add water and shake" kind available in German supermarkets, but you can make your own or use other mixes.

Step 1a: Warm the Nutella slightly so that it flows a bit better. Not too much, or the chocolate breaks down. But there's a reason the crepe makers keep Nutella in a warm water bath.

Step 2:  Spray the waffle plates with PAM or oil.

Trust me, this one is important! Because you're pouring the waffle in two layers, it will be much more likely to separate when you open the waffle maker if you haven't greased the plates.

Step 3: Pour on a layer of waffle batter, slightly less than you'd use for a regular waffle.

Step 4: Quickly drizzle Nutella (or drop bits, as we did here) over the bottom layer of batter. Be fast so that it doesn't cook yet.

Step 5: Pour more batter over to cover the Nutella bits

Step 6: Remove per your waffle maker's instructions.

Enjoy your hot waffles filled with Nutella!

There aren't many pictures of the results....we were too excited to eat them and forgot about the taking pictures part of it.  They were so good! With this sweeter waffle mix, they were like crepes in a different form.  

We tried a few different ways - the small drops of Nutella, the big clump, and drizzling it in a spiral (not shown here). I'd recommend either the drizzle (you'll have small threads of Nutella througout each bite) or the smaller drops (you'll have yummy pockets of hot Nutella in most bites).  The one big clump concentrated the Nutella too much and also didn't cook as well. You want to have both waffle and Nutella in each bite!

Enjoy!

American Beef + German Beer

What better combo??

In general, American beef is EXTREMELY expensive in Germany (unless you have access to a military base). It's also not found everywhere. However, German beef is usually quite good for roasts, ground beef, and other uses, and Uruguayan and Argentine steaks are quite good.

But when I saw ribeyes at the store for insanely low prices, I had to give them a try. They were the perfect way to christen the grill Herr J had put on my balcony while I was away (he knows the way to a southern girl's heart!).  Yes, the label really does say my beef was "Born in the USA". In Germany, when you can get 3/4 of a pound of American ribeye for less than the price of a maß of beer, it's celebration time!

Herr J put a nice cajun rub on these big boys and then set them out to grill:

You'll have to ask him what was in there, but it was really tasty.

We made a nice salad (heavy on the pine nuts and parmesan, of course), and had a good German pilsener - this time a Bölkstoff. What a great dinner to end a week of hard work!

Mmmm....Mexican Food

Food in Munich has been a pleasant surprise - Not only is Bavarian food quite tasty, but Munich also has an incredible variety of cuisines available. There is great Thai, Afghan, Persian, Italian, French, Vegetarian, Spanish, and even some good old American burgers and ribs.  There is not, however, much good Mexican. There are some Mexican restaurants here, but they are most loved for their cocktails - the food is only a side to help absorb the sugar and alcohol.

El Gordo Loco has always been pretty good and authentic, and if you ask nicely, they'll make frozen margaritas from scratch. Luckily, we have a new Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood - Milagros, between the Viktualienmarkt and Isartor. It's great food and very authentic Mexican - and the margarita menu is impressive. Both restaurants are Mexican, not Tex-Mex. And I recommend reservations....they're small, and fill up quickly.

For the most part, however, you just have to cook Mexican or Tex Mex yourself. Finding the ingredients, however, is not easy....we have many Asian markets carrying almost everything you could want, but I've only found two Mexican stores: Mercado de Mexico near Donnersbergerbrücke and La Tortilla out in Unterschleißheim. I asked the lady at the cheese counter if she could suggest a cheese that I could use in cooking Mexican food or for quesadillas. She just looked at me, frowned, and said there are none. I highly doubt that, but I got a similar reaction from the butcher when I asked what cut of beef he would recommend for satay. He informed me that you cannot make satay with beef, only with chicken.  Much of Thailand and Indonesia would disagree, but...he's the expert, right????

Herr J gave me a great cocktail shaker at Christmas, so margaritas were a good first test.

I came home from Mercado de Mexico overjoyed at finding queso blanco, tomatillo sauce, canned and dried chiles, and homemade (frozen) white corn tortillas. Using some rotisserie chicken, white cheddar, and tomatillo sauce, i threw together some tasty enchiladas verde, topped with queso blanco. Yum, and so easy! Using some extra chicken and cheeses (we had some yellow cheddar left from cheeseburgers last week and some chips from turkey taco salad), I threw together some chicken nachos as a snack. A tasty treat, and very cute served in cazuelas.

We started with the classic margarita recipe of 3 parts lime juice, 2 parts tequila, and 1 part Cointreau. Perfect! Using up the last of the lime juice, the second ones were a little too limey and tequila-y, so we added a splash of Licor 43 (the secret ingredient to our traditional Dallas Easter Sangria). A very tasty twist on the classic margarita! And it will sweeten it and cut the tequila taste.

Another Tex-Mex fave of mine is Brisket Tacos. I have to order them every time I go to Taco Diner or Manny's in Dallas - no point in even looking at the menu.... 

So, a couple days later, I decided to use some more of the tortillas and give brisket tacos a try. Homesick Texan recently published a great recipe on her site, and it looked pretty good. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly! I still hadn't found fresh chiles to roast, so we just went with the meat, gravy, and queso blanco. They were soooo good! I'm definitely going to make them again. No changes needed to this recipe - for those of you in Germany, the tafelspitz cut of beef is the closest match to brisket. I used a hunk of tafelspitz and a hunk of rinderbrust. Both cooked perfectly, but the rinderbrust has too much fat running through it.

The cooked meat will also freeze well, to pull out for a very easy impressive dinner.

After the empandas, tacos, and enchiladas, I'm inspired to try some other new dishes. Borracho beans (in the crockpot) are high on the list, and I'd like to experiment with some other taco fillings and make some homemade tortillas.  There is a defintely a Cinco de Mayo party on the horizon this year!

Empanadas

I've been wanting to try my hand at empanadas for a while, so last week cooked Argentine food.

We had rosemary steak, with 3 types of empanadas. We'd planned to do a chocolate tasting after, but were too full from the tasty dinner. Look out for an upcoming post as we try to discover (the fun way) what is the optimal cacao percentage.

Empanadas are a great meal to make in big batches and then freeze. I froze the filling in separate bags, then froze a couple balls of dough. They've been great to pull out of the freezer quickly and assemble for a warm comforting meal in this snowy weather!      

The steak was delicious and a nice change from the usual.  I haven't yet been to Argentina, but supposedly this type of steak is served widely.

Rosemary Steak:
Mix together in a bowl 1 sprig fresh rosemary, 1 tsp of salt, and 1 cup of red wine. Let the mixture stand at room temperature for 2-3 hours. (We also marinated the steak in the mixture for the last 30 minutes).

Cook the steaks in a skillet, then remove from the skillet and wrap in foil to keep moist. Pour the wine mixture into the skillet and let boil for a minute until thickened. Serve sauce over the steaks.
source: grouprecipes.com

Potato, Pepper, and Chorizo Empanadas:

3/4 cup (3 ounces) finely chopped Spanish chorizo - I put it in food processor to chop

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 onions, finely chopped (2 cups)

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, finely chopped (1/2 cup)

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp dried oregano, crumbled

1/2 pound yellow-fleshed potato such as Yukon Gold (1 large)

Cook chorizo in oil in a 2.5- to 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring, 2 minutes, then transfer to a medium bowl with a slotted spoon. Add onions to saucepan and cook, stirring frequently, until golden and very soft, about 15 minutes. Add garlic, bell peppers, bay leaf, salt, and oregano and cook, stirring frequently, until peppers are very soft, about 15 minutes. Peel potato and cut into 1/2-inch pieces, then stir into onion mixture and cook over moderately low heat, covered, stirring frequently, until potatoes are just barely tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Add potato mixture to chorizo and stir to combine. Cool filling to room temperature and discard bay leaf.
source: epicurious

Simple Chicken and Cheese Empanadas:

1 cup shredded cooked chicken

1 cup grated cheese (white cheddar, Monterrey Jack, or similar mix), plus some extra for topping

1 jalapeno pepper, diced

optional: chopped roasted sweet peppers

1/2 onion, chopped and caramelised

2 cloves garlic, minced and browned

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, after garlic and onions have cooled fully.  When assembling empanada, top mixture with extra cheese before closing.

Beef Empanadas:

1/2 medium onion, finely chopped

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

3/4 pound ground beef chuck

2 tablespoons raisins (i used white ones)

1 can (14 oz / 400g) whole tomatoes in juice, drained, reserving 2 tablespoons juice, and chopped

(The traditional recipe also includes 2 hard boiled eggs thinly sliced, and 1 1/2 Tbsp chopped pimento stuffed olives. I excluded both, but the olives are added along with the raisins and the slices of egg are places atop the meat mixture when assembling the empanadas)

 
Cook onion in olive oil in a heavy medium skillet over medium heat, stirring frequently, until softened. Add garlic, cumin, and oregano and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Stir in beef and cook, breaking up lumps with a fork, until no longer pink, about 4 minutes.

Add raisins, salt, pepper, and tomatoes with reserved juice, then cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced but mixture is still moist, about 5 minutes. Spread on a plate to cool before assembling.
source: epicurious

Empanada Dough:
I tried two different recipes - one with eggs and a small amount of shortening, the other with no eggs but with large amounts of shortening and butter.  The butter one makes a very tasty and flaky dough, but would be better used for meat pies or something similar. It was difficult to handle (sticky to roll out, but hard to get the empanadas to seal) and the (good) taste of the crust overpowered the filling.

The first dough was easier to handle and more appropriate taste for empanadas, so I'll only post it here. I have used the buttery dough since for making really tasty calzones....just roll out and fill with cheese, tomatoes, and meat. I cut up some homemade meatballs that I'd frozen and they were great! If i can find italian sausage here, I'll try for some sausage and pepper calzones.  

• 3 cups flour (plus a little more for kneading)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 3 Tbsp shortening

In a bowl, beat together water, egg, egg white and vinegar, then set aside. 
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Cut the shortening into the flour mix with a pastry blender or two butter knives (or pulse in food processor).
Make a well in the center of the flour mix and pour the liquid ingredients from the first bowl into the center.  Mix with a fork until it becomes stiff.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead just until all the flour is incorporated and the dough is smooth. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, but never more than 24 hours. (Freeze the dough if you're going to keep longer than 24 hours)
source: About.com

Making the Empanadas: It's pretty easy to figure out how to assemble them, but there's a good step-by-step at About.com. Roll out into 6 or 8 inch circles. Place filling in middle and lightly wet the edges of the dough. Fold over and crimp edges tightly, then crimp with the tines of a fork. You can brush with a light egg wash to make them look nice, but it wasn't necessary.

Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Alternately, you can fry them.  

German Beer Wars - Kristallklar Weissbier

This was a new one for us...the Weissbier Kristal type. Basically, it's a wheat beer that is then filtered to remove the yeast and other sediment. We had no idea what to expect, but it sounded good to me. Looks like a light beer, tastes like a wheat beer...at least that was my guess. 

The Unertl was not a beer we knew, and it was definitely not a Kristall Weissbier. It was, however, very unusual. But in a good way. You can see how dark it is in the picture below, and I was expecting it would not taste like a Weissbier. It was much darker than the Dunkles Weissbiers we had tried. The taste, however, blended together the good spices of a dunkelbier and the sweet yeasty taste of a weissbier.

Unertl is a brewery in Haag, which is about 45 minutes due east of Munich. They've been brewing weissbier since the early 20th century, which makes them a very young brewery in comparision to others. In addition to a few varieties of weissbier, they make bierschnapps, which I think are exactly as it sounds. This could be a good afternoon excursion in the spring!

Then we have the Franziskaner Kristallklar - so clear you can read the "Weiss" on the label through the beer!

The Franziskaner was very good - light and crisp, with the light taste of weissbier. But the Unertl was so different and tasty that we had to give it the win.

We paired these with a delicious Asian dinner...miso-glazed salmon, pork dumplings, and cocktail shrimp with spicy Thai seafood sauce. Yum!

After tasting the Franziskaner we thought all of the Kristallklars would taste the same. Erdinger and Paulaner proved us wrong...The Erdinger tasted more like a sweetened Pils. It just was a little odd...the hops didn't seem to belong in a weissbier, let alone a filtered one.

The Paulaner Weissbier Kristallklar blew us away...it was great. It wasn't too sweet, but had a great tangy flavor with the spices and sparkle of a weissbier and the lightness and clarity of a helles. Great beer!

The Unertl - Paulaner matchup was a tough one...they were both truly excellent beers, but so different that it came down to a matter of taste. We just really enjoyed drinking the Paulaner Kristallklar, and so it goes on to the Sweet Sixteen, Paulaner's third berth so far! (Paulaner Salvator and Paulaner Original Münchener Dunkel will meet in the Dunkel regional semifinals, guaranteeing Paulaner at least one spot in the Elite Eight).

Two new great beers discovered...a good night's work!