Mrs. Yi's Fried Green Tomatoes

Often, Mrs. Yi tends to make up dishes as she goes along. Her instincts are good. So it was with this fried green tomato dish with curry mayonnaise that she whipped up just the other night. Over many years, I've enjoyed fried green tomatoes prepared scores of ways. To my palate, these were the best yet.

Green tomato season is happening right now.. So it's been ever since the tomatoes in our back yard stopped growing in mid-September and began to redden sparingly. For the dish we're about to share, we plucked four small green tomatoes. They yielded about 15 one-third inch slices.

Here's the recipe:

MRS. YI'S FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

TOMATOES


4 small green tomatoes, or perhaps 2 large, or 3 medium
1 cup flour
1 3/4 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt
Canola oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup yellow corn meal


CURRY MAYONNAISE

1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon Indian curry powder
healthy squirt of lemon juice

Slice the tomatoes into 1/3 inch slices. Season 1 cup of flour with 1 1/4 teaspoon of Lawry's Seasoned Salt. Dip tomatoes in flour so they're well coated and put on a plate. Save the remaining flour. Meanwhile pour canola oil into a frying pan until 1/4 inch deep and place over moderate heat. Beat 2 eggs with a teaspoon of water. To the flour that's left, add the 1/2 cup of cornmeal and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of seasoning salt. Dip floured tomato slices in egg and then in cornmeal making certain they're well padded. Then fry them up in the heated oil til light golden brown and sure to be crisp, about 7 minutes, turning and testing as you see fit. Rest on a double folding of paper towels to drain. Mix the the three ingredients for the curry mayonnaise to be served on the side.

Returning with Lamb Ribs

The last and most recent post at Unique Culinary Adventures, entitled "New Directions," happened eight months ago in November. As promised, we traveled while growing a non-food related business to critical mass. We anticipated being there in four months, it took eight, and the travel continues. Through this period we initiated and have faithfully maintained weekly posts at a new blog . Rather than being about food, it relates to that non-food business and is more about heralding the aesthetics of radioactive rocks than stalking scrumptious edible delights.

So now, Unique Culinary Adventures returns with a post and will continue posting if and when the urge strikes. It strikes full force here in mid-July, for sure the best time of year to enjoy the diversity of real food in this part of America. Notwithstanding, we resume with a post that would have been more likely to appear last winter had Unique Culinary Adventures been active. That's when I purchased lamb ribs from Virginia Lamb at the DuPont Circle Farmers Market in DC. Somehow they got lost for a few months in the back of our freezer. I suspect they're the Denver Style spare ribs featured on Virginia Lamb's web site, but our package simply read "lamb ribs.

Looking through plastic encasing them, it would appear nine or ten single ribs were inside. Enforcing this misperception were part of the instructions from a recipe on the Internet that practically made me drool. These instructions said to place the ribs on skewers if grilling them. I didn't understand. They were cross-cut so that approximately a dozen little one inch bones blocked the path of of every skewer. Forgetting the skewers, however, many ingredients and some of the techniques from this mouthwatering Cooks.com recipe contributed to one of the most killer main platters I've enjoyed all year. Here's the scoop:

Lamb Ribs

1 pound lamb ribs, cut crosswise across the bone

1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon grated onions

1 clove garlic, sliced fine

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/8 teaspoon thyme, crushed

Pinch of seasoned pepper

Paprika for dusting

Chives and lemon wedges for garnish.

Mix lemon juice, grated onion, garlic, and a mixture of salt, dry mustard, chili powder, cumin, thyme, and seasoned pepper. Pour over lamb in a large shallow dish or pan. Cover and marinate in refrigerator 6 to 8 hours; turn occasionally. Remove spare ribs from marinade and place on rack in shallow roasting pan. Dust with paprika. Place in hot broiler 5 to 6 inches from the source of heat and broil for 16 minutes, turning 4 times and basting with marinade juices or until desired degree of doneness. Garnish with chives and lemon wedges to serve.

Serves 2.

New Directions

For three years, Unique Culinary Adventures has been pretty much committed to publishing a post a week, and that's about to change. One reason is that a busy travel schedule over the next few months will make it unrealistic to offer a weekly "perspective from Baltimore, Maryland, on what's new, unusual, undiscovered, overlooked, or forgotten regarding food and drink."

This travel is necessary for growing a small nonfood-related business enterprise until it reaches a certain "critical mass." The expected time frame is four months, but who's to say, when you consider current economic conditions?

A blogging hiatus will also free up time to review the 260 features currently posted at Unique Culinary Adventures and polish up those occasional rough spots that make us cringe from time to time.

Just as likely, the Unique Culinary Adventures blog will resume sometime in the first half of 2009 with features very similar to those of the past three years.

About Ryleigh's Oyster

"But when it comes to oyster bars, Baltimore is reviving. That renaissance took a huge leap forward with the the birth of Ryleigh's Oyster in 2007."

From Rowan Jacobson in an addendum to his definitive book The Geography of Oysters.

Despite the Chesapeake Bay oyster harvest's tragic decline, this is how Rowan Jacobson describes the way Baltimore is reclaiming its stature as an oyster mecca. The establishment known as Ryleigh's at 36 East Cross Street, which Jacobson credits with boosting forward that "renaissance," had been operating as a watering hole with food in the space where Sisson's previously evolved into Baltimore's first brew pub. The decision to reinvent itself as Ryleigh's Oyster proved auspicious.

The transition began a little over a year ago after Patrick Morrow (at right in the picture above), formerly a sous chef under Chef Chris Paternotte at Towson's now closed Vin, became executive chef and focused on oysters enough for the name change to Ryleigh's Oyster. Ever since, Chef Morrow has seen to the availability of at least eight of the 72 different branded raw oyster varieties served up here over the past year. Most are raised on oyster farms where the temperature and salinity of the waters in which they grow are subject to rigid control.

A couple good examples are the deep, firm, salty, and flavorful Glidden Points from Maine and the very salty, yet flavorful with sweet finish Raspberry Points from Prince Edward Island. Selections of each were shucked and presented to me to photograph by oyster bartender Josh Foti (pictured at left in the photo above). All too soon, they had become my first "comp" on behalf of Unique Culinary Adventures after I slurped them down before remembering to do the photograph.

Oysters have long been strictly seasonal in Bawlmer---limited to months bearing the letter r, when the harvest of wild Chesapeake Bay oysters is legal. That seasonality has continued in recent years despite the emergence of aquaculture and increased year-round availability of oysters from disease-free waters often in more northerly latitudes. All too often, between May and August, most oysters available in Baltimore at retail as well as in many restaurants, taste horrible.

The presence of Ryleigh's Oyster has significantly raised local awareness that things can be different. "We sold more oysters in the summer than we did in October," says chef Morrow. He also made a point of noting the delectablility of many oyster genre during May. That's because they're farmed in or harvested from waters that have yet to warm up so soon after the passing of winter. As a general rule, the colder the water, the better the oyster.

Very importantly, the variety of raw oysters available year-round has no less do do with the phenomenon Ryleigh's Oyster so quickly became than what has sprung than the bounty of its kitchen. One item by which I was very much taken was Panko Encrusted Fried Oysters-adobo aioli "mini cobb salad, (served with all its ingredients cooked on the half shell) . Having personally tasted and photographed the entries of all nine finalists in America's National Oyster Cook-off for each of the past three years, I have yet to sample a preparation that more intrigued me. "Is the recipe proprietary?" I asked. Patrick agreed to share it, after noting: "We kind of teach each other how to do it. Nothing is really written down." Having just slurped down instead of photographing a dozen Glidden Points and Raspberry Points, my instinct was to spare the likely disruption in the kitchen and additional block of Chef Morrow's time that teaching me would require.

Quite auspiciously, however, as we were discussing those "Panko Encrusted Fried Oysters-adobo aioli"mini cobb salad" Chef Morrow shared two tips about how to bread oysters of which I was unaware after years of frying them at home according to a myriad recipes. The first presented itself as Chef Morrow explained how he dredges his oysters directly into panko after removing them from their liquor. The rationale is that to first dip them in a wash such as eggs and/or milk ultimately detracts from a delicate oyster flavor profile. The second tip emphasized the importance of first opening an oyster's "lip" in order to bread not only the lip's exterior, but also its interior. Otherwise, during frying, the lip is likely to expand and open enough to detach a significant amount not only of breading, but also flavor bearing fluids. For me and I would suspect quite a number of oyster cooks, these tips could prove to be quite valuable.

Piri-Piri Makes Its Way

You're looking at piri-piri chicken from Nando's (which uses the "peri-peri" South African spelling) with sides of spicy rice and excellent cole slaw. Nando's is a modern family type restaurant at at 810 7th Street NW in Washington, DC's Chinatown. It also sells five different versions of it own peri-peri sauce in bottles and enjoys a substantial carry-out business. Nando's is an international enterprise that originated as a restaurant opened during the 1970's in South Africa by former Portuguese colonists from Mozambique, where, as in the former Portuguese colony of Angola, piri-piri is much like curry is to India.

In the United States, awareness of the piri-piri flavor profile seems to be making its way in recent years from obscure older cookbooks toward the fringes of our culinary mainstream. Major credit goes to Nando's. My first encounter with Nando's peri-peri was at their booth during New York's National Association of Specialty Food Traders (NASFT) International Fancy Food Show the summer of 2006.

The most elaborate piri-piri delight I ever encountered was this Grilled Shrimp piri piri baby romaine garnished with cilantro, red onions and who knows what else. That was at Merkato 55 in Manhattan's Meatpacking District in conjunction with a dining experience shared in our September 24 post here at Unique Culinary Adventures.

Piri-piri is the name of a hot pepper, known also as the African birds-eye pepper, which is ubiquitous throughout the central African continent. A bit of research, however, has convinced me that just about any fiery hot red pepper will work just as well.

Cayenne in particular comes to mind. The chicken piri-piri at left was inspired by a recipe from The Africa News Cookbook that went so far as to cite everyday cayenne powder as suitable. Another unusual aspect of this recipe that especially pleased me was the idea of adding melted butter to a fresh batch of marinade ingredients for basting and then for dipping once the chicken has been grilled. Here's how I went about it:

CHICKEN PIRI-PIRI

1 Chicken, cut into serving pieces

8 Crushed red peppers or 4 heaping teaspoons of cayenne

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cloves of garlic: crushed

12 sprigs parsley, chopped

1 cup butter to be melted

Juice of two medium sized lemons, juiced separately

Combine the chicken in a bowl with the juice of one of the two lemons half of the crushed peppers or cayenne, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, 2 cloves of the crushed garlic, and 6 sprigs of the parsley. Stir around to mix well. Marinate for two hours at room temperature, or better refrigerated and covered overnight. Remove the chicken and combine any marinade remaining in the bowl with the melted butter and remaining peppers, salt, garlic, and parsley. Baste the chicken with the spiced butter and broil---or better grill---to desired level of doneness, basting occasionally. Serve with remaining spiced butter as a dipping sauce.

Marinade and sauce prepared according to instructions from The Africa News Cookbook, Copyrighted in 1985 by Africa News Service, Inc., Published by Penquin Books, New York

Pizza with Duck Cracklings in Alexandria

The idea's been crackling away on my backburner ever since our March 24, 2007 post about Dominican Chicharrones de Pollo. When researching chicken cracklings on the Internet, I encountered a site that had nice things to say about a pizza spot in Manhattan which offered chicken cracklings as a topping for pizza. Though I never encountered that site again, a more recent search uncovered that the menu at Rustico, 827 Slaters Lane in Alexandria Virginia, offered something yet more intriguing: "duck confit and crackling pizza." Duck cracklings was one of the first items Unique Culinary Adventures ever covered, and word that an Alexandria restaurant was topping pizza with them, inspired me to drive south at the next available opportunity.

I was in for a treat. The duck confit and cracklings pizza was great, and so was Rustico and everything about it. Its beer menu features 50 draughts and 500 different bottled beers for which plenty of information can be had as to how best to pair them with food. Even better, the prices are extraordinarily reasonable. The cracklings and confit pizza that's pictured was $12. Notwithstanding very reasonable prices, Rustico's ambiance and space are plenty upscale, the latter graced by huge windows, intricate glass mosaics, marble tabletops, and more.

Soon Rustico will be cloning itself in Washington, DC. Should its management ever decide to do the same here in Baltimore, my prediction is that such an undertaking would almost immediately become one of the most popular restaurants in town and remain so indefinitely.

National Oyster Cook-off 2008

Below are pictured the entrees ranked first second and third in each of three categories in the 29th National Oyster Cook-off, which took place on Saturday, October 19, 2008, at the St. Mary's County Oyster Festival in the St. Mary's County, Maryland Fairgrounds.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER AND ALSO

FIRST PRIZE HORS D'OEUVRES CATEGORY

Oyster en Brochette with Remoulade Sauce

from Brendan Cahill, Lusby, Maryland

HORS D'OEUVRES CATEGORY SECOND PLACE

Grilled Oysters with Prosciutto Brandy Butter

from Antoinette Leal, Ridgefield, CT

HORSD'OEUVRES CATEGORY THIRD PLACE
Southern Maryland Oysters Cafe
from Loic Jaffres, Leonardtown, MD

SOUPS AND STEWS CATEGORY FIRST PLACE
Oyster Barley Soup

from Michael Strejc, Milwaukie, OR

SOUPS AND STEWS CATEGORY SECOND PLACE

Oyster Etouffe

from Judy Armstrong, Prairieville, LA

SOUPS AND STEWS THIRD PLACE

Golden Oyster and Potato Bisque with Crispy Prosciutto and Chives

from Lisa Grant, Cherry Hill, NJ

MAIN DISH CATEGORY FIRST PLACE

Oyster Sandwiches with Lemon Tahini Sauce

from Michaela Rosenthal, Indio, CA

MAIN DISH CATEGORY SECOND PLACE

Burrito Style Ostiones Fritas

from Dawn L. Brown, Rosedale, MD

MAIN DISHES THIRD PLACE

Manicotti Stuffed with Oysters in Lemon Caper Cream Sauce

from Jack Campbell, Clackamas, OR

Culinary Bliss with Chinese Sausage

Chinese sausage is a delight for which I have a serious propensity. It dates to my teenage years, when, lured by curiosity, I brought some home from a small ethnic Asian market near the corner of Maryland and North Avenues here in Baltimore. Unable to locate any cookbooks that offered information related to Chinese sausage, I fried some up (which isn't what you're supposed to do) and took a liking. My next experience with it was about 20 years ago when the menu at Bangkok Place on York Road in Govans featured it as the principal ingredient in one of several preparations of Yum.

Years later, I learned that rather than "fry up" Chinese sausage, it's best to steam it for fifteen minutes, let it cool, and slice diagonally prior to mixing and sometimes sauteing it with other ingredients.

Pictured above is a recipe from the July, 2007 Food & Wine for Lemongrass Salad with Chinese Sausage and Mango (and also watercress, cilantro, shallot, Thai chili, ginger, etc., etc.) As best I can determine, this is the first image of this dish to appear on the Internet. Its creator is the now legendary young chef Zak Pelaccio, whose cutting edge Malaysian culinary sensibilities contributed Fatty Crab and 5 Ninth to Manhattan's dining scene. No other Asian salad that I've ever tasted pleased me as much.

Jerk Pork

This jerk pork was killer. It was promised in our post of September 10, and bears meek resemblance to the version referenced therein that Caribbean American Gourmet on West Lexington Street was dishing out from behind bulletproof glass. Thirty years have passed since I've tasted jerk pork as good as this. That was in the hills of Jamaica where scores of locals were gathered around a pimiento wood fire burning from a hole in the ground over which huge chunks of pork were grilling away. For this dish the Kingsford in our back yard would have to suffice, and it worked.

I'm convinced that considerable disillusion abounds about jerk pork and suspect some of it could have originated in Jamaica where numerous Rastafarian ideologies passionately condemn the consumption of any kind of red meat, particularly pork. In the United States, the disillusionment relates more to the misconception that that pork loin works as well as shoulder. Presumably that's because loin is leaner and healthier. Perhaps that's why jerk chicken and jerk fish have pretty much become mainstream United States staples, while jerk pork has not. Jerk is all about seasoning, and when the right mix of ingredients is blended, the flavor is hard not to like. My contention is that that pork butt is the best cut to bring up that flavor.

I've prepared numerous jerk recipes over the years, and this one from RecipeZaar easily surpasses them all. OK, the lemon wedge and scallion garnish were my own decorative touches, and yes I did substitute a couple of Thai peppers for the Scotch Bonnets just because we had some growing in the back yard, but so what? Here's a link to the recipe at RecipeZaar.

Fried Red Spanish Eggplant

These red Spanish eggplants were purchased this past Sunday at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market in Washington, D.C., which which is open Sunday morning year round. As an habitue of our own downtown Baltimore Farmers Market since its incipience 20 or so years ago, making the run all the way to D.C was a stretch, but everything about the whole scene made the trip worth it. Totally upscale and very crowded though much smaller, The Dupont Circle Market reminded me more of San Francisco's Ferry Terminal Farmers Market than any other such market I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. The Dupont Circle Farmers Market is run by Freshfarm Markets, which is also responsible for seven other farmers markets in the Chesapeake Bay region, including the one at our own Harbor East on Saturday mornings. It's Freshfarm's largest with about 30 vendors, all of whom are regional producers. The prices, while a tad higher than here in Baltimore, are commensurate with the top-notch quality.

The red Spanish eggplants, of which I purchased a box of five for $3.50, were a treat I'd never before seen or heard of. Prior to posting, I did some research on the web and came up with very little beyond a couple of posts by bloggers who were as fascinated as they were curious about how to cook these beautiful vegetables. I cooked them according to the same basic recipe I would go with for any relatively small eggplant, and it worked great. Their red skin crisped distinctively and beautifully. The taste, flavor, and texture of the flesh was like that of any other small eggplant similarly prepared. Here's the recipe I've been using my whole life:

JAKE SLAGLE'S RED SPANISH FRIED EGGPLANT

Red eggplants--however many you need

flour

salt and pepper

oil

Slice eggplants into 1/4 inch slices, place in a bowl or on a plate, sprinkle with salt, toss, and then wait 30 minutes for them to sweat. Dry with paper towels and coat with flour that's been seasoned with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a skillet. Add the eggplant slices and fry over medium-high heat, turning once, so that the flesh on each side is browned but nowhere near burned. Remove with a spotted spatula to a plate or shallow pan covered with a double thickness of paper towels for a minute or two and serve.