027: Gobble Gobble Me
Tablescape solutions for your intimate super spreader event
(JS) I’ll spare you all the Thanksgiving soapbox; you’ve likely heard it argued from folks far more eloquent and impassioned than me, but suffice it to say it’s a problematic holiday rooted in colonial violence and lies. For many, it’s also quite difficult to not see your family, biological or chosen. Two things can be true at the same time! What I will offer instead is the novel suggestion to whip out Oprah’s gratitude journal, reflect on what you’re thankful for this week and, if you have the means or energy, pay it forward just a bit. Personally I am grateful that I can enjoy some of my traditional fourth Thursday in November favorites regardless of party size: chilaquiles for brunch; bloody marys with dilly beans; onion dip with warm Cape Cod chips; a post dinner viewing of The Sound of Music, replete with what we beguilingly call “tryptophan-induced” but is really just a drunk nap.
As for paying it forward, Eater has compiled a lengthy roundup of mutual aid groups, volunteer opportunities, and hunger relief organizations, as well as worker and restaurant relief projects (that link sends you to the New York roundup, but they’ve published similar lists for other cities as well). I’m setting up donations for the Indigenous Kinship Collective and Bed Stuy Strong, and also looking for opportunities to cook — friend of the newsletter Natalie has been dishing out hearty vegan delights to those in need through Home-y Made Meals out in LA, and I’m eager to find a similar project here in New York. Please reach out if you have suggestions.
A few things I’ve eaten recently:
A couple very loosely “Asian” recipes: BA’s mushroom larb and a sweet and crunchy ramen salad familiar to most Jewish mothers of the 1990’s (something like this, sometimes with bok choy, other times with Napa cabbage, always with a heavy hand of slivered almonds and toasted ramen sprinkle)
From the evergreen Meera Sodha archive, Keralan prawns, delightfully heavy on the usual suspects (coconut, garlic, ginger), and a couple easy sweets that would make excellent holiday gifts
This banana cake I’ve definitely shouted out before. The penuche icing is a hit but may skew a tad sweet for some. I love it with chocolate sour cream frosting. This time I tried to make something like a mocha buttercream. Frankly I’ve done better.
(SB) I suspect that many of you, like me, might be feeling pangs of the end-of-year exhaustion that the holiday season typically stokes, allays, and thrives on all at once. Like Jake, I’m going to endeavor to spare you hand-wringing about the appropriateness of any latent attachments to Thanksgiving, be they rooted in food, family, or collectively acknowledged leisure-time in our capitalist hellscape. Reflection about the ongoing project of settler colonialism that we’re all implicated in remains worthwhile, but others are far more equipped to guide you through that. I’ll just say that it seems like it’s prime time to let the soft animal of your body have what it wants (unless it wants to travel or gather in large groups, bad animal! You’re going to get us all killed!). Maybe that means it’s time to break out the after-dinner Irish Cream! Maybe that means you can let yourself enjoy the relief you might be feeling about wrapping a turkey leg in bacon and calling it an afternoon. Maybe you’d like to schedule an entire afternoon of romantic comedy viewing.
I’m personally looking forward to crumbling some thick-cut bacon from the co-op onto my butternut squash soup leftovers for lunch, alongside a hefty dollop of sour cream and chives. I am also, more impatiently, eagerly anticipating finally being admitted into the Rancho Gordo Bean Club closed Facebook Group (something that I have… created a new, burner Facebook account exclusively for.) And finally, I plan to give myself the gift of taking the next few days off from not only working, but also from feeling guilty about what I have left to get done. If you have the means to make a donation this season, may I suggest finding your local food bank here and throwing them some cash or making a donation to the Street Vendor Project in NYC.
Some things that I’ve been eating this week:
I’ve made the most out of my weekly carcass-to-bone-broth ritual with an improvised cranberry bean stew (you might use something like this as a guide) and stand-by roasted butternut squash soup (here, another loose guide.)
Exceptionally tasty fish moilee/ molly from early-lockdown recipe exchange. Friend-of-friend Amy Joseph’s recipe to be featured soon, but you could use this if you can’t wait.
A new combination, courtesy of the Tannatians, of smoked salmon and cottage cheese with toast.
Before we jump into our regularly scheduled programming, we’ll humbly suggest you to hop on over to the Lunch Group feed for a peek at our TRL video (read: Instagram story) debut; thank you friend of the newsletter Dani for this generous opportunity to share our particular brand of chaos
TMYK: Myulchi Bokkeum
(JS) In late September Eric Kim penned an ode to banchan, arguing the myriad of Korean small dishes are not just admirable competition for the spotlight against heftier mains, but treasures in their own right. The category is loose, encompassing a broad swathe of traditional recipes and more contemporary takes (e.g. his gojuchang-braised eggplant with fried scallions, my least stressful and most rewarding eggplant frying experience in recent memory). Often served as appetizers or sides, banchan recipes may vary from one cook to another. Some are made to order, while others benefit from a bit of rest — historic methods of preservation have produced a variety of cured and fermented gems. The key to banchan cookery, according to Eric, is planning ahead: take a “cumulative” approach, preparing one or two dishes at a time and accumulating leftovers in your fridge. After a few days work, you’ll have a veritable collection, a quick and hearty meal to enjoy with a simple bowl of steamed rice.
Those that keep well are especially worth scaling up, whether for yourself or a lucky beneficiary. When friend of the newsletter April visits her parents in North Carolina, she’s guaranteed to return bearing some of her mom’s signature banchan and Korean pantry staples. The usual haul includes a few tupperware of Kim Rim’s fresh kimchi at minimum. Sometimes she’ll throw in some pickled perilla leaves or braised burdock root. I’ve been the lucky recipient of piquant gochugaru, made from peppers grown on the family farm, and funky homemade ssamjang, aged a year or more. But my favorite treat hands down is her myulchi bokkeum, a stir-fried anchovy snack quite unlike anything I’d ever tasted. A lesson in contrasts, her recipe is at once both sweet and salty, chewy and crunchy, with just enough heat and the satisfying savory taste called gamchilmat in Korean. I assumed these layers of flavor would take hours to achieve, but this most impressive dish comes together in just a few minutes.
A quick google search echoes the aforementioned point that banchan recipes vary from kitchen to kitchen; nearly every version of myulchi bokkeum includes the tiny dried anchovies (myulchi, easily obtained at H Mart or your preferred Korean e-tailer) and a splash of neutral oil, but the precise makeup of the sweet and spicy sauce can vary considerably. Some stick to regular sugar while others reach for honey, brown rice syrup, or even maple. Kim opts for agave, tempered by a multidimensional cocktail of mirim, gochugaru, soy sauce, and black pepper. She brings these to a boil and adds a splash of tuna extract, an umami-rich Korean fish sauce sometimes used in lieu of soy. Stir in the tiny anchovies, walnuts, and pinenuts, and cook over medium heat until the liquid evaporates and the mixture takes on some color. Off the heat she adds sesame seeds and craisins for a sour note and contrasting texture, while a touch of sesame oil rounds things out. Myulchi bokkeum is best served at room temperature, but it keeps in the fridge for a month at least.
HOLIDAY CHIT CHAAT: Sweet Potato Golgappa
(SB) By now, readers, you’re well aware that the Indian subcontinent is a land of many regions, languages, and degrees of flexibility regarding beloved foods. If you yourself happen to be Indian (or, perhaps even broadly South Asian) you are likely familiar with the fact that mercilessly (playfully?) roasting how someone makes, enjoys, or names a dish is also the primary way that we relate to each other across these differences (JS: right, of course). You know, cultural chauvinism, but make it lighthearted. This habit is perhaps most pronounced in the realm of street foods and chaats, where regional variations abound and the heart and palate continue to want what they want: exactly what they remember the chaatwalla making on their childhood/college/first workplace street. Alas, the following improvised recipe is guaranteed to be none of those things, but it is a fun little piece of fusion for a holiday table.
For those that aren’t familiar, chaat (and there are many varieties!) is basically the perfect snack food: a mixture of sweet, spicy, salty, crunchy, and — in the case of golgappa or pani puri, wet — ingredients. Unless you’re in an area like Jackson Heights or Fremont, it’s not easy to find great chaat in most cities. Usually served street-side, there are several dozen spots that specialize in chaat dotted around this country. A few years ago, after getting very into investigating the various chaat purveyors in the Bay Area*, my dad got pretty into making his own golgappa, using store bought puri shells, a mixture of boiled potatoes and kala chana (lol) seasoned liberally with salt, kala namak, chaat masala, chopped red onions, and cilantro, and topped with a semi-homemade jaljeera. It is delicious and I demand that he make it every time I visit.
It also requires a pretty deep pantry: some sort of jaljeera powder, the right chana, kala namak, chaat masala, and ideally, some sweet and spicy chutneys as well. The good news is, once you’ve assembled all of that, you’re good to go! I have particularly enjoyed getting into the seasonal spirit by subbing in sweet roasted yams for the potatoes, and topping my puri’s with a a smattering of pomegranate seeds and serving golgappa as a first course for our Thanksgiving meal. It’s good! Trust me.
*In case you are curious, my parents say that Chatpatta Corner in Fremont, CA makes the best golgappa in the Bay Area.
DADDY LESSONS: Honey Mustard Glazed Corned Beef
(JS) What we’re not going to do here at this newsletter is rehash the question of whether or not turkey is even good (SB: I am available for this conversation in a private forum, however). What we will do instead is highlight the second protein always on the Stavis family Thanksgiving table: glazed corned beef. Affectionately referred to as the Kosher ham, this dish requires only three ingredients, and, save for the slicing, quite little in terms of active time from the cook. The resulting corned beef is deeply flavorful, never dry, and the leftovers are exceptional for sandwiches or a hearty breakfast hash. The recipe comes from a dear friend of my grandparents, Art Ellis, a heartfelt tribute to his Jewish New England roots, and I’ve transcribed it almost verbatim from a printed, forwarded 2005 email, photographed and texted to me by my aunt. The original text speaks to me, an aspiring corned beef connoisseur, simultaneously pointing to my adolescence (the Yahoo email interface) and my future (peppered with Yiddish and condiment brand loyalty). Art’s geriatric blend of nonchalance and confidence is inspiring, particularly for those new to the salt-cured brisket game: if your corned beef comes with seasonings, “throw that in,” if not… don’t sweat it! Nor should you worry about “all the ‘schmutz’ that floats to the surface during cooking (It is supposed to help with flavor and I wash it off at the end).”
His method is rather simple: gently boil your beef for a few hours, then slice and bathe in the golden glaze. Honeycup mustard is “essential,” but the honey and corned beef brands are yours to choose. You could chef it up a bit by curing your own brisket, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. In recent years my dad has taken to cooking his corned beef sous vide then glazing per Art’s recipe, but I’m partial to the more traditional texture achieved by boiling. FWIW, I think he might secretly agree with me, but he loves the technical finesse and small details of precision cooking (to give you a sense of his priorities, upon reading last week’s stromboli feature, my dad told me “it looks like you’re biting your cuticles”). The point he will no doubt concede is that it’s easiest to slice your meat when cooled. After you’ve boiled the beef, give it a quick rinse and place it in the fridge to cool. The cold meat will slice more neatly and evenly, which is crucial to even glaze distribution.
PERMANENT ROTATION: My (SB) mom loves her Bailey’s Irish Cream and concedes that this homemade version is better. It’s a holiday season staple, for me. My (JS) mom loves Tito’s but I don’t have a recipe for it.
WISH LIST
(SB) I am known to give almost exclusively books as Christmas gifts. This is partially because I love to be in book stores and buy books and also because I have no real religious attachment to Christmas as a holiday. I’m skipping my annual marathon-shopping stroll around The Strand this year, but abolitionist and activist extraordinaire Miriam Kaba’s book is available for pre-order at Bluestockings. It looks beautifully designed and is sure to be a wonderful read.
(JS) One of my gouty-er early quar’ purchases was a Tasty Duck sampler kit from Joe Jurielewicz and Son (“America’s Tastiest Duck”). The duck was indeed extremely tasty and the customer service, top notch. If you’re thinking about alt birds for tomorrow or the upcoming weeks, give duck a chance.
(SB & JS) It’s no secret that we are 4 quart Staub La Cocotte evangelists here at this newsletter (honestly we should start collecting commissions for this pot). She’s the perfect everyday Dutch (French?) oven for all of your braising/baking/heavy-bottomed (😈) needs. Get yours while they’re a cool $99 at the Food52 shop.
Get the featured recipes from this issue here
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I will be roasting a chicken and attempting my partner's yiayia's stuffing recipe this year. What back channels do I go thru to get the elicit turkey opinions? Also I know Club A does free cooking for folks in Brooklyn if thats the kind of project ur looking for