The 2017 quince harvest and a few old baking books

My quince stays yellow -- was it ripe? It looked ripe.

Watching the news from Houston has been so sad. It’s inspiring and heartening to see ordinary people being decent, even heroic, in a crisis, but also, as I said, sad. Every citizen in a boat rescuing dogs and old women in Texas has been demonstrating more concern for fellow countrymen than that petty, divisive gargoyle in the White House. Every middle-class American who picked up a phone and donated $25 to the Red Cross is more generous. Our leaders are beneath us.

And then Kim Jong-un has to go and fire a missile over Japan. Isabel texted me that it was a beautiful day in Seoul and no one was “freaking out” and I told her I’m not freaking out either, which is true. Not thrilled, though.

In lighter news: Our quince tree bears more fruit every year and we got about ten pounds of knobby, fuzzy yellow quinces this summer. If you’re not interested in the culinary uses of Cydonia oblonga, with some asides about old baking books, you might want to sit this one out and spend a few minutes here instead.

I made three dishes with this year’s quinces and can recommend them all:

-Quince ginger cake from Jim Dodge’s American Baker. Dodge was the pastry chef at the Stanford Court Hotel in San Francisco for many years, and I’ve baked the hell out of his books, which I guess you could now call vintage. They’ve seldom disappointed me. American Baker is great, but I’m also going to plug Baking with Jim Dodge, which you can buy for peanuts on amazon. Worth every peanut and then some. The first recipe I ever made from Baking with Jim Dodge was a rhubarb-cherry meringue pie that I carried across New York City to a party in the summer of 1992. I was so excited — I’d tasted the filling and everyone was going to be in awe. I vividly recall sitting on the subway, peeking into whatever inadequate contraption I’d devised to transport a pie across Manhattan on a hot day, and watching the meringue leak, collapse, melt. The pie was soup by the time I got to the party. I was shocked that it hadn’t survived. I am now shocked that I was shocked. Meringue pie? On the subway? In summer? Bonehead.

Anyway, the recipe for the quince ginger cake comes from The American Baker. You shouldn’t go out and buy quinces just to make it, but if you’ve got a tree, you’ll enjoy this simple, brown, gingery cake. The recipe is here. I substituted Lyle’s golden syrup for the molasses, used fresh ginger rather than powdered, replaced buttermilk with yogurt. Not saying you should do any of those things, I just personally dislike molasses, prefer fresh ginger, and didn’t have buttermilk.

-Honey-stewed quinces from Richard Sax’s Classic Home Desserts, which is another treasure of a book, fat and friendly, packed with enticing vintage recipes. In fact I’d put this title just a notch above the Jim Dodge books. I flipped through my ravaged copy of Classic Home Desserts this morning and discovered I’ve made 72 recipes from its pages since the mid-1990s. What’s even more impressive is that there are at least 72 more that I would like to try. Omaha caramel bread pudding. Iowa custard pie. Jam roly poly. English brown bread ice cream. My favorite recipe from the book, an easy apple cake that I’ve made a half dozen times, is here.

Back to quinces: To stew them, you peel and core them, cut them up, saute in butter and some sugar, add white wine, honey and lemon juice. Simmer until tender. My quinces required quite a lot less cooking time and a bit more sugar than called for, but once I got the sweetness right they were great. Like cooked apples, but with a tangy bite. I ate some of the stewed quinces on yogurt and the rest I used to make. . . 

-The Coach House quince tart. This recipe, also from Classic Home Desserts, originated at the legendary Coach House restaurant in New York City, supposedly a favorite haunt of James Beard. (It closed in 1993 and was replaced by Mario Batali’s Babbo.) The Coach House was famous for its corn sticks, black bean soup, and mocha dacquoise, in addition to this quince tart. To make the tart, you spread some honey-stewed quinces over a rich, buttery crust, top with lattice strips, and bake. Serve with whipped cream or honey ice cream. I took this pretty dessert to my sister’s house on Sunday for family dinner and unless they were just being polite, everyone loved it. 

Mystery: James Beard also published a recipe for the Coach House quince tart, but it is completely different. 

Bonus: I hope it tastes good because this is one ugly quince dessert.

Every Day with Rachel Maddow

Next time you see short ribs cut like this, buy them.

When it was reported a few years ago that anchorman Brian Williams had disgraced himself, I didn’t even know who Brian Williams was. Brian Williams. Peter Jennings. Tom Brokaw. I couldn’t tell them apart. A blur. I never used to watch TV news.

That’s changed in recent months. I try (and often fail) to avoid Twitter for most of the day because Trump makes me insane, but as a reward I now let myself turn on the TV at six p.m. for one big bolus of news. Sometimes if I’m tired I turn on the TV at five, but usually I stay off the sofa until Rachel Maddow. I love Rachel Maddow. I know she’s not impartial and I can see how her mannerisms and discursive wind-ups could drive a person nuts, but that person isn’t me. She’s brilliant and incredibly energetic but at the same time she appears to be friendly and nice. If it is an act, it’s a great act. 

So I sit there and watch the first chunk of Rachel Maddow which goes on and on and on before any commercial break. That’s the best part of the show, the first 20 minutes. Eventually she cuts to an ad for a hepatitis 3 or psoriasis drug and I run into the kitchen and chop some onions and get the kimchi out of the fridge. When I hear her voice again, I run back to the sofa and watch until the next commercial break, then back to the kitchen to start the rice cooker, back to the sofa, and so on. It gets tiring towards the end because MSNBC seems to run commercials every 90 seconds in the latter half hour of their shows. Did TV news always backload the ads?

By the time Mark walks in the door at seven, dinner is on the table and I have lots to to talk about.

True to my word, I’ve cooked only Korean dishes since Isabel left for Seoul and it turns out that you can prepare an outstanding, simple Korean meal, start to finish, during Rachel Maddow’s commercial breaks. I’ve done it more than once. It helps if you have a rice cooker.

So here’s what I’ve made:

-a fiery red pork stir fry (dwaejigogi-bokkeum) from Maangchi’s Real Korean Cooking that I think I’ve recommended before. I will recommend it again. Maangchi’s online recipe isn’t identical to the one in her book, but it’s close. 

-the galbi (short ribs) from Robin Ha’s Cook Korean! (a.k.a. the adorable Korean comic cookbook) were a big hit and I’m trying another galbi recipe tonight. The gist of galbi: marinate short ribs, cook on a hot skillet or grill, serve with a dipping sauce. More on galbi in a future post. Unless you’re a vegetarian, they belong in your repertoire.

-another dish that belongs in your repertoire: Korean sloppy joes from Koreatown. Just the meat part, though, so I need another name for this dish. Instead of serving the meat on buns, I served it on rice and topped it with chopped peanuts. When you want to lose 15 pounds you should always find ways to incorporate peanuts into your pork entrees. Recipe for this irresistible dish at the bottom of the post.

-for mysterious reasons, leftover rice has been accumulating in our refrigerator and kimchi fried rice (kimchi bokum bap) is one delicious way to dispense with it. You could improvise your fried rice obviously, but I used a recipe from Eating Korean by Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee that calls for just a little fresh pork to bulk it up. I’ve made this before and thought it was my favorite, but I just spotted the the kimchi fried rice recipe in Koreatown that uses slab bacon. I’m going to like that better. 

-Unless you absolutely hate kimchi, you must try making kimchi stew (kimchi jjigae). IT IS SO EASY. The classic version I made last night from Cook Korean! consists of little more than storebought kimchi, pork and tofu, simmered together briefly in a pot. Big, satisfying flavor. (This recipe is slightly more elaborate, but it looks perfect.) You can put whatever you want in your kimchi stew if pork and tofu do not appeal. Maangchi has a version that uses canned tuna. 

There have been a couple of duds during this second Korean phase, but I’m not going to waste your time with those. 

Here’s the thing: I’ve been making the same handful of straightforward beef and pork dishes again and again and avoiding everything that intimidates me in Korean cuisine. Which is a lot. Next week that’s going to stop. Here’s what intimidates me in Korean cuisine: Beltfish, bellflower root, fernbrake, dried pollock, octopus, dried sweet potato stems, burdock, jellyfish, water dropwort, fermented sardines, raw crabs, fermented skate, pine needles, ox hooves, mung bean jelly, beef heart, aralia roots, fatsia shoots. I’ve also steered clear of the soups served with ice cubes and the cold noodles in soy milk. I’ve mostly avoided the porridges.

Beef heart is a nonstarter, but I don’t see why I couldn’t learn to love, I don’t know, sweet potato stems?

Isabel hasn’t reported on what she’s been eating in Seoul, though today on Snapchat she posted a video of her visit to a cat cafe. A cat cafe tops my list for our Thanksgiving trip to Seoul, right after the raccoon cafe and the DMZ. 

Korean Ground Meat (please help with that name)

This is fantastic. It’s very similar to a Korean ground turkey dish in Nigella Kitchen so I’m 150% confident that ground turkey would make a tasty and healthy substitute for the pig. I’ve made Nigella’s dish a bunch of times and added peas (as she calls for) and spinach (which I prefer) with great success, so you could get some vegetable in there. This recipe comes from Jiyeon Lee and Cody Taylor of the Heirloom Market BBQ in Atlanta by way of Koreatown by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard. Slightly adapted by me. 

1 pound ground pork

1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated

6 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

5 tablespoons gochujang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gochujang)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil 

1 tablespoon sugar or honey

1 tablespoon soy sauce

big pinch black pepper

1 onion, chopped

1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil for cooking

rice for serving

chopped peanuts for garnish (optional)

1. In a large bowl, mix pork, ginger, garlic, gochujang, sesame oil, sugar, soy sauce, and black pepper. Let marinate in the refrigerator for as little as an hour or as long as overnight. 

2. Cook the rice however you cook rice.

3. Heat the oil in a heavy skillet and saute the onion until soft. Add the pork and cook, stirring occasionally with a spatula, for 5-10 minutes until the meat is done. Serve over rice with chopped peanut garnish. Enough for 4.

Isabel's autumn adventure

Isabel flew off to Seoul, South Korea this morning to spend the semester studying at Yonsei University. I drove home to Marin County to spend the semester popping horse tranquilizers. 

I’ll just spit it out: I didn’t want her to go. I thought Seoul was a great choice back when she applied in the winter, but recent events and our idiot president’s rhetoric changed my mind. While I know the likelihood of war on the Korean Peninsula remains low, it wasn’t low enough for me. What was wrong with Shanghai? Taipei? Thailand?

Isabel and Mark were unconcerned. I litigated this. I lost. I am gracious in defeat.

It’s gonna be fine. She’s going to have a wonderful time, learn to love kimchi, speak a little Korean, drink soju. We’ll visit her at Thanksgiving. In the highly, highly, highly unlikely event the president starts a war with North Korea and something happens to my daughter, not to mention the 26 million other people living in the Seoul metropolitan area, I will make it my life’s mission to personally poison his chocolate ice cream. 

Joke. Duh. Like when he jokes about how cops should manhandle prisoners. Sidesplitting.

In the car going to the airport, I told Mark and Isabel that I was going to start cooking Korean food again so I’d feel close to Isabel while she was away. I said I was thinking of making a beef and daikon radish soup for dinner tonight.

Isabel said, “Sorry I’m not going to Rome, Dad.” 

That’s my girl.