1. First, I tried to make smoky hot chicken stir-fried with dried red chillies and green garlic chives. I saw this on a show by an Australian chef and chinese cooking-show host, Kylie Kwong, that the 'People and Arts' channel shows down here on cable. I really like her and her show (which is unusual because food show hosts usually grate on me--perhaps it's my envy of their food super-stardom). Perhaps it was my inexperience with the wok, but this was kind of dissapointing. It wasn't bad, kind of lighter and more herbal tasting than I was craving that day--it definitely did not turn out all caramelized and beautifully browned and smoky like hers. At any rate, I think that my skills have really improved as I've used my wok more and more and maybe I should try this again. The better my results have gotten, though, the more I feel compelled to up my game. I am totally set on buying a pit stove when I get back to Boston for good next year. They sell them at the Taiwanese grocery where I bought the wok in Paraguay for only $25-$50. Hopefully they are not much more in Boston's china town (and hopefully it's not a fire-code violation or anything). It's basically bowl-shaped iron burner you connect directly to a gas tank (like a barbecue) and it lets you get the wok much, much hotter and apparently lends food a special flavor that only the 'breath of the wok' can give. I'm sure it would also cut down even more on the cooking time.
2. My second attempt was soy braised baby bock choi with sausage. They sell little dried pork sausages at the agroshopping that I think make a pretty good stand in for chinese sausage.
3. These sausages were especially good in what I would consider my first wok success: dried sausage fried rice. I don't remember any more, but I think there may have actually been shrimp in there too, in addition to eggs, beansprouts, and green onion.
4. This was kind of the tail end of the Persimmon season. We still get them at the supermarket sometimes, but they are all mushy and kind of wierdly Styrofoamy (like winter tomatoes) now.
5. Not realizing the season was over, I bought way too many not very good persimmons that sat in the fridge forever. Finally, I made this persimmon cake from them, where they worked very well. My grandmother devoured the majority of it.
6. I didn't use the wok for this Tom Ka Gai (Thai coconut chicken soup), but it did continue with the asian theme. It used up a lot of stuff we had, including some coconuts that were lying around (they don't always have them at the supermarket and so whenever they do I buy them just in case), some chicken legs and thighs that were in the freezer, and baby corn I bought on a wok-inspired whim. It may surprise you, but Paraguay actually produces a lot of lemon grass. It is a different variety than the southeast asian one, called cedrón kapi'i here, but shares many of the essential oils and the same flavor profile. The annoying part, for me, is that it is only used in tea here and not to cook with, so mostly you can only get the thin blades from the top of the plant and none of the lower, tougher stem that you use in cooking. So every time I'm in the market I examine all of the cedrón and try to get some of the coveted stem. I've had some luck a few times, like when I made this soup. But my hunt is finally over because just this week we planted two plants in our own herb garden.
7. A few times when I've been out in the field I've had really fantastic interviews, with farmers that are really enthusiastic about organic farming and their success with it. These farmers are not only extremely generous with their time and information, but sometimes even with their produce. I'm sorry I didn't get a good picture in the field, but the boiled mandioca here was from one of those farmers who brought out two very thick roots to show me how using green manure had really increased his yields. In his formerly nutrient poorer soil, he had only produced thin, fragile roots for him and his family to eat. Seeing how impressed I was, he offered the roots as a gift. The cheese here, queso paraguay, a crucial and unsubstitutable ingredient in traditional Paraguayan cooking, is also from a sugar-cane farmer whose wife makes cheese from their family's cows (though I had to purchase this one, it's a little scarcer than mandioca), and who, incidentally host a very nice peace corps volunteer with whom I had a long chat about the community.
8. These ingredients found their way into a very traditional dish of mandi'o chyryry, or fried mandioca with eggs, cheese, ham, and onion, cooked in a very untraditional wok. I promise a recipe for this and other paraguayan specialties will eventually make it on here.
9.We had a tenderloin festival a while back when I saw an Argentine cooking show where they were preparing one for beef carpaccio. I went to the butcher down the street and asked for their freshest beef tenderloin, explaining that I intended to eat it raw. He brought out a plastic-wrapped tube from the freezer, which had a decent color, but didn't really convince me. After getting some help to clean it up from youtube, it looked much better, but I chickened out in the end and, after freezing the cleaned tenderloin, I very quickly seared the outside on a cast iron pan before slicing it. Here it is served up with arugula, cherry tomatoes, capers, a lemon vinagrette, and spicy mayonaise. It was truly delicious, and aparently completely safe.
10. The next day we had another round of tenderloin, this time (slightly less) quickly seared, marinated in a mixture of soy, sugar, and sherry (I had no mirin--japanese cookign wine) and served cold with pickled onion, and chili-daikon relish. This is one of David's absolute favorite dishes. It is really delicious, flavorful, and rich, without being at all heavy.
11. Out of the leftover tenderloin and some cabbage, I threw together a quick beef teriyaki in the wok. In the back is a avocado, arrugula, and cherry tomato salad.
12. Also using the wok, I made some braised red cabbage, with lardons, orange peel, and green apple, to serve alongside the left over sundried tomato and mascarpone ravioli that had been in the freezer. This was a really excellent wintery meal for the cold weather we were having.
13. Finally, I made some orange pork, hoping to redeem my earlier attempt at smoky chile chicken. This was a little better, though the pork was a really horrible, barely edible quality. I won't be buying pork from the supermarket any more. But as future posts will attest, I have found an excellent source of really fresh organic pork grown buy small-holders and made some good pork dinners since. Notice the new rice bowls in this picture too. We were eating so much asian food that we decided it was worth getting some bowls for rice. We still need noodle bowls, but I haven't found quite the right size and shape yet.
Their is a colony of Japanese immigrants in the south of Paraguay, near Encarnacion, that grows Japanese-style, short-grain rice that is pretty good. It's texture is a little mushier than the real Japanese stuff, but it has a really good clean flavor and has been indispensable to making all of these asian-inspired dishes. I buy it at the Taiwanese grocery near the main public market in Asuncion.
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