Rourke was out of town for a few days, so I was on my own for dinner. Left to my own devices, I generally do one of two things:

• Experiment. Sometimes this has led to tasty things, and sometimes this has led to awful things that immediately needed to be thrown out.
• Scavenge. It is amazing what you will put together when you are too lazy to cook or go out for food. Cheese and crackers + can of tuna + a few carrots = a somewhat balanced meal?

The thing that I end up cooking often, though, is fried rice. Easy, quick, and a good way to throw together odds and ends that you might have in the fridge. For me, you need just a few basic ingredients for fried rice: leftover rice, eggs, scallions, white pepper, salt, and sugar. That’s it.

You might notice that there isn’t any soy sauce in that list. Cantonese fried rice doesn’t need soy sauce. You could maybe drizzle a small amount on if you really want to. But the stuff that you buy in a lot of the open kitchen, chinese take out spots where the fried rice is brown from soy sauce? Not it.

A few tips when making fried rice:

• The most important thing is that you use chilled, leftover rice. Freshly cooked rice has too much moisture and will result in a mushy, gluey mess.
• If you are adding meat or vegetables, you need to cook everything separately. This is done so that each individual ingredient retains its own flavor rather than tasting like everything else in the pan. You would cook in order of most delicate flavor to heaviest flavor. For example, eggs, then vegetables, then meat.

In the above photo, I had some lap cheong, which is chinese sausage, in the fridge so I added that to my fried rice. Here in the Bay Area, Wycen Foods makes excellent lap cheong.

Fried Rice
- serves 1 –

canola oil
1 cup of leftover rice
2 large eggs
2 scallions, sliced into rounds
kosher salt
granulated white sugar
ground white pepper
pre-cooked lap cheong, diced (optional)

1. Heat a medium non-stick skillet with approx 1 Tbs of canola oil over medium high heat.

2. When hot, crack the eggs directly in the pan. When the whites start to set, use your spatula to scramble the eggs. When the eggs are about 85% cooked, remove to a plate and season with a pinch or so of salt. The eggs end up looking more marbled than scrambled. If you prefer, you could scramble the eggs in a separate bowl before cooking in the skillet.

3. Add the scallions to the pan (add a touch of oil if pan is too dry) and stir fry until fragrant, usually about 30 seconds. Remove scallions to the plate that is holding the eggs.

4. Add the rice and lap cheong to the pan.* Add a few pinches of salt, sugar, and some ground white pepper and mix into the rice. Spread the rice across the bottom of the skillet and cover. There is no need to add water to the pan. As the rice heats up, there will be just enough steam to cook it perfectly. Cook until the rice and the lap cheong are heated through, usually about a minute or two.

5. Remove the lid and add the eggs and scallions to the rice and mix. Cover again until the the eggs and scallions are also heated through, usually about 30 seconds or so. Taste and adjust seasoning and serve.

* Since the lap cheong was already cooked, I just needed to heat it up, so it made sense to add it at the same time as the rice. If you wanted to add shrimp, chicken, or any other meat that wasn’t already cooked, however, you would cook the meat after the scallions had been removed from the pan. Once the meat was cooked, you would remove the meat from the pan before adding the rice, and then add the meat back to the rice at the same time that you added the eggs and scallions.

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So the readers have spoken and here is the first recipe challenge I’ve decided to tackle: cassoulet.

Making cassoulet is a long but uncomplicated process. I feel making cassoulet becomes complicated as there are many recipes out there that attempt to accommodate the different regional variations of this peasant style dish. In my attempt at this dish I combined several recipes and used one pot to cook the dish in its entirety. I served the cassoulet for Christmas dinner and everyone loved it. Here is what I did:

Score, salt & rub one skin on duck leg with chopped thyme. Refrigerate overnight.

In a large heavy pot or cassoulet place 3 cups of great white northern beans along with 1 halved carrot, 1 halved onion, 2 celery ribs, 1 bay leaf & 1 ham hock. Cover with water & simmer until just done. Drain beans, remove all aromatics and the ham hock. Reserve liquid. Pick meat from the ham hock.  Set aside.

Heat the pot & add 1 Tb of duck fat, place duck leg in pot & slowly render the fat off the skin & thoroughly brown it. Remove from pot. Add another 2 Tb of duck fat & brown 1/3 lb of cubed lamb, 1/4 lb cubed pancetta, the ham hock meat and 1 thickly sliced garlic sausage. Set aside all the meat.

In the same pot lightly brown 1/2 chopped yellow onion & 10 finely chopped garlic cloves. Right at the end of cooking the vegetables add 1/2 a bunch each of fresh finely chopped parsley, thyme & oregano. Season with salt & pepper.

Combine all the above mentioned ingredients into the pot & just cover with the reserved bean liquid. Cover with seasoned bread crumbs & throw into a 350 degree F oven until a nice brown crust forms.

Enjoy!

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1. Oven-Braised Duck Legs with Five-Spice Powder
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Most cookbooks I own have the same format: a list of recipes organized by protein, starch, or vegetable. Sometimes there might be a section dedicated to breakfast or dessert, but by and large it’s very straightforward. The one cookbook I own that doesn’t follow this format, however, is A Platter of Figs by David Tanis. This cookbook laughs in the face of such organization and instead groups the recipes first by season, then as a collection of menus. Thankfully, the index is as it should be, but organizing the book in this fashion had the effect of a food diary, where previously I had treated my cookbooks as recipe encyclopedias.

His recipe for Five-Spice Duck Legs is one of my favorites. And though it’s listed as part of a Spring menu, I think the heartiness (read: fattiness) of duck makes it appropriate for cold weather as well. While the duck did turn out as well as I expected, what took me by surprise the first time I made this were the onions. Oh, the onions. Meltingly tender and laced with the duck fat, they are ridiculously addictive.

When I made this the other night, I tweaked the recipe a bit since I have some kind of weird aversion to following recipes to the letter. For a faithful representation of the original recipe, look here. Served with bacony brussel sprouts and a crusty baguette, I started thinking how great this would be as a panini. Spread a layer of the onions on a roll, top with shredded duck meat and a final layer of the brussel sprouts. Drizzle with jus and maybe a splash of balsamic vinegar or some orange zest to brighten it up. I suppose you could add shredded gruyere but it would certainly be rich enough as is.

Hmmm…maybe I should double the recipe next time to have leftovers.

Oven-Braised Duck Legs with Five-Spice Powder
Adapted from A Platter of Figs by David Tanis
- serves 2 -

2 duck legs
2 medium onions, sliced into 1/4″ rounds
1 teaspoon minced ginger
4 garlic cloves, smashed
2-3 cups chicken stock
1-2 teaspoons five-spice powder
sugar
salt and pepper

1. Trim the duck legs of excess fat and season the duck with salt and pepper. Sprinkle generously with five-spice powder and massage the seasoning into the mix. Cover and refrigerate the seasoned duck legs overnight.

2. Heat a dry frying pan over medium heat and when the pan is warm, place the duck legs skin side down. When the skin is browned (about 8-10 min), remove the legs and set aside.

3. Adjust your oven rack to a lower middle position and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

4. Add the onions to the pan. Cook for about a minute and season with salt and a pinch of sugar. Continue cooking onions until translucent and starting to turn golden, then add the ginger, garlic, and some salt and pepper. Cook for an additional minute until the garlic and ginger are fragrant.

5. Put the onions in a casserole or other roasting pan that will snugly hold the legs. Lay the duck legs skin side up over the onions in a single layer. Put the casserole, uncovered, in the oven and roast for 10 minutes.

6. While the legs are roasting, heat the chicken stock to a simmer.

7. Add the stock to the casserole, until the stock is about half way up the sides of the legs, taking care to leave the top skin exposed. Continue cooking until the stock comes back to a full simmer (a few minutes).

8. Cover the casserole, and reduce the heat to 375 degrees F. Cook for 40 minutes.

9. Uncover the casserole and spoon away some of the liquid if it’s covering too much of the skin. Continue cooking for an additional 20 minutes to let the skin crisp up a little. Note that I wouldn’t call the skin crisp, but uncovering the casserole prevents the skin from being soggy. The next time around I may experiment with cooking the duck uncovered the entire time. The duck is ready when the legs are tender when prodded with a paring knife.

10. Remove duck legs from the casserole and cover loosely to keep warm. Strain the onions and the liquid (jus) in the casserole with a mesh strainer over a bowl. Let the jus stand for a minute or so and then skim off the fat.

11. To serve, place a duck leg over half the onions and spoon some of the jus over.

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Back to the miso. I know it’s fermented soybean paste. But I didn’t know that there were so many varieties and that it also could be made from fermented grains like barley and rice. And, although the store sells two varieties, I never bothered to compare the two. Until now!  The two types sold there are pretty common (from what I’ve read): white miso (shiro miso) and red miso (aka miso). The packaging of the red variety actually says “tezukuri miso,” which, if the Internet can be believed, colloquially means “authentic” or “homemade.” A bit of marketing there, though lost on the non-Japanese speaker!

According to a cookbook I have, miso provides protein as well as other nutrients, like B vitamins. It’s traditionally fermented four to five days and then aged for two or more years – except for the white or shiro miso, which is used right away after fermenting.

My informal taste test revealed that to me, the shiro miso has a tangy, sharper taste than the aka miso, which has a smoother, rounder flavor. Which makes a lot of sense now that I know about the aging process. I like the aka miso best for this soup. I’ll have to experiment more with this ingredient for marinades and salad dressings. I also read that some cooks smear miso paste directly onto fish, which is then baked or broiled. Seems to me that it would either be too salty (if you used too much) or not have a lot of flavor (if you used just a little bit). This is something I’ll have to explore for a future post!

Quick Miso Soup
- serves 2 -

32 oz. chicken broth (I would like to try using dashi, broth made with seaweed)
8 oz. firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 green onions, sliced
7 oz. instant noodles (I get instant Chinese wheat noodles* that are yellow – yay, Yellow #5! – and say “pancit canton” on the package. These are soft and sold in the refrigerated section. If you buy fresh, be sure to cook them first, otherwise they will soak up all the broth and turn your soup into mush.)
2 Tbsp aka miso
2 tsp soy sauce
Potstickers

In a pot, whisk aka miso into chicken broth and soy sauce and heat gently (I knew you weren’t supposed to boil it for some reason, and found out that boiling can kill the active cultures in the miso – like in yogurt – which are good for you).  Add green onions, noodles and tofu and heat through until noodles are tender. Ladle into bowls, top with cooked potstickers.**

* Another interesting find as I searched the Interweb for information (and then called my Filipino friend) – “pancit canton” seems to be a typical Filipino dish made with “Chinese” noodles and other Chinese-influenced ingredients.

** I buy frozen potstickers so that I have them on hand – Trader Joe’s has some decent ones. To cook, add a few tablespoons of water and a tablespoon or so of canola oil to a non-stick pan. Bing to a simmer, add frozen potstickers and cover with a lid. The water will evaporate, steaming the potstickers, leaving oil to fry them in. I have found that it’s best not to flip them often, as they stick (hence the name!). Just leave them to fry on one side until crispy – then flip.

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I first came up with this recipe after buying a pound of goat meat from Marin Sun Farms at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market on a lark. I started searching on-line for recipes for goat stew, goat curry, Jamaican goat, etc. Then I wrote this up based on everything I’d read. The balance of the heat from the habañero and the cayenne with the creaminess from the yogurt and peanut butter is perfect.

Goat Stew
- serves 4 -

For marinade:

1/2 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. corriander
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp. cloves (or 10 whole cloves)
1 tsp. allspice
1 Tbsp. minced ginger
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 bay leaf
1/2 C. Greek yogurt

1 lb. goat stew meat*

2 Tbsp. butter
1 large red onion, diced
2 large carrots diced
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 habañero pepper, seeds removed
3 oz. (1/2 of of 6 oz. can) tomato paste
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
2 C chicken stock
1/4 C. creamy peanut butter
2 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. Greek yogurt

1. Mix all of the marinade ingredients to form a paste. Add the meat and stir to coat evenly. Marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

2. In a medium saucepan, melt butter over high heat. Brown the meat on all sides. It may be necessary to do this in batches. Remove the meat and set aside.

3. Add the carrots, onion, and salt to the pan. Lower the heat to medium and cook until slightly soft, but not browned, about 7-8 minutes.

4. Add the habañero pepper, tomato paste, and diced tomatoes. Stir into the carrots and onions and cook for about a minute.

5. Turn the heat up to high. Add chicken stock and browned meat. Bring the stew to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer.

6. After about 10 minutes, remove the habañero.

7. Simmer, covered, for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

8. Stir in the peanut butter, flour, and remaining Greek yogurt. Simmer for about five minutes to thicken.

Serve over rice.

* Not sure where to get goat meat? I’ve tried this with chicken breast meat and chicken thigh meat, and both work, but the red meat is better. If you can’t get goat meat, try lamb.

If you’re in San Francisco, start with Marin Sun Farms at the Ferry Building on Saturdays. On one occasion when we wanted to make this but didn’t have goat on hand (imagine that), I called around. Whole Foods Potrero and Falettis sounded like they thought I was nuts. Bryan’s in Laurel Heights said they didn’t stock goat meat, but could get me a whole goat with two weeks notice. When I called Bi-Rite Market, the woman I spoke with said they were out of it, and she was bummed, and asked if I knew of anywhere else to get it! If you can’t make it to the Ferry Building on a Saturday, I’d start by calling the stores on the Marin Sun Farms Places to Buy list.

The Chronicle hopped on the goat bandwagon over a year ago: Fresh goat meat finding favor on upscale menus. They even include a list of places to buy goat in the Bay Area. In addition to Bi-Rite, they suggest Café Rouge in Berkeley, a great source of specialty meats, and a handful of farmers’ markets and halal butchers.

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