Thai Chicken Massaman Curry

I had eaten Pad Thai, Noodles in Thai Peanut Sauce, and Satay. It was not until the early 2000’s that I started going to Thai restaurants. Part of the reason was there were two Thai restaurants nearby, one in Newberg, Oregon, the Golden Leaf, and one in McMinnville, Oregon, Thai Country. Before that most of the Thai places were 40 minutes away. I have frequented the Golden Leaf more often. Typically I have the fried squid and either a curry or a Thai fried rice dish. The two curries I typically buy are the yellow curry and the Massaman curry.

Massaman curry is one of my favorites and I decided to make my own in January 2016. This has been a trend lately. I have preferred to make my own if I have eaten the dish before. Massaman is an antiquated term for Muslim in Thai. This dish is the Thai interpretation of either a Persian dish or this dish comes from southern Thailand where it was influenced by Indian and Malay cuisines. There are multiple theories as to the origin of this dish. It is typically made with chicken, but duck, beef, goat, and mutton are common. I have had this with shrimp, squid, and seafood. The pork version is the rarer, since pork in forbidden in Islamic dietary laws.

Chicken Massaman Curry

Typically, I have had this with a thin curry sauce with onions, potatoes, and carrots. I found a recipe online for this. I decided to go with a canned curry paste instead of making my own. The recipe did not include carrots but I wanted them in my dish.

On January 30, 2016, I made Thai Chicken Massaman Curry. The ingredients were olive oil, Massaman curry paste, ginger, chicken, honey, fish sauce, tamarind paste, peanut butter, potatoes, coconut milk, lime juice, and carrots. I replaced brown sugar with honey as I tend to do. The sauce was very thick, which was great by me. The sauce was a little on the sour side. The tamarind paste had seeds and other inedible plant material (parts of the pods, stems and so on). When I make it again I will cut the amount of tamarind paste and lime juice. It was not as spicy as I like so I may add more curry paste and possibly a Thai chile. I served it over jasmine rice. It was a very successful dish.

Chicken Massaman Curry

Puerto Rican Arroz con Gandules

Puerto Rican Arroz con Gandules is a traditional Puerto Rican dish of rice (arroz) and pigeon peas (gandules). I have a long and storied history with rice. On my first day at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, I discovered the cafeteria always had a rice cooker full of rice for lunch and dinner. Back then, I ate it with butter, or soy sauce, or both. When I did this, the Hawaiian and Islander kids laughed. They said I was like them. My Aunt Gloria taught my mom how to cook rice and how inexpensive it was. It became a regular staple in our diet. My mom would buy fifty pound bags of rice at least every six months. When we moved to Oregon full time, she would get looks every time she went to an Asian market. They had never seen a Caucasian lady buy so much rice.

A friend of Puerto Rican descent gave me a Puerto Rican cookbook, A Taste of Puerto Rico by Yvonne Ortiz, for my birthday in 2015. They had given me suggestions on what to order when another friend and I went to a local Puerto Rican restaurant. This was at the top of the list. This is the friend who gifted me the cookbook’s favorite dish. This dish was an adventure. The recipe called for recaíto, it is a green base sauce for many Puerto Rican dishes. I found it pre-made in a jar by Goya. It had some preservatives I wanted to avoid and my cookbook included a recaíto recipe. The recaíto calls for cubanelle peppers (also called Italian frying peppers or aji cubanela) and a sweet peeper. I decided banana peppers would b my sweet pepper of choice.

Finding cubanelles and banana peppers in Oregon, specifically the Greater Portland metropolitan era, is difficult as can be. Finding Mexican chile or peppers is fairly easy. I did find online some substitution options, Anaheim chiles for cubanelles and pepperoncinis for banana peppers. Due to my mom’s issues with cilantro, I substituted that with parsley. I decided to buy the pre-made recaíto. The idea was to make the homemade recaíto with substitutions, then taste the pre-made and homemade to see which I liked better. The other unusual ingredients I found fairly easily. One of the local Asian supermarkets had the cultanro and the Mexican markets had the annatto (achiote in Mexican Spanish).

Arroz con Gandules

My mom preferred the fresh homemade and I preferred the pre-made recaíto. I figured I would use half of each. On January 13, 2016, I made my first batch. I burnt the bottom of the dish. I misinterpreted the directions. The flavor was good, but the burnt flavor over powered that. My friend, the one who gifted me the cookbook, asked how the pegao was. The pegao is the crunchy bottom layer of the dish. I told them it was black as night. They said, “It was Batman. You do not want your pegao to be Batman (Dark Knight).”

My second batch was made on January 18, 2016. Once again I misunderstood the directions and overcooked the rice to a porridge consistency. I now know what to do. After making this twice in the same month I needed a break. The pegao was perfect. My mom loved the pegao. The idea of the pegao comes from Spanish paella. Most Latino and Hispanic rice dishes come from paella. It is made in a huge pan and one of the goals is a crispy and crunchy bottom layer of rice.

I will make most assuredly this again. One idea is I may need to grow my own cubanelles and banana peppers. I used to help with my mom’s garden, but that was over three decades ago. I love my rice dishes and this is great.

Salumi Pizza

This was a comedy of errors dish, my salumi pizza. Salumi are Italian cured meats, salumi literally means salted meats. Specifically on this pizza were prosciutto, Genoa salami, capicolo, and pepperoni. I tried to make this on January 8, 2016. I also put on the pizza mozzarella, Parmesan and homemade marinara sauce. I washed the surface I was using to put the pizza together and then placed the pizza shell on it while it was still wet. Due to that it stuck the oven rack. I got it loose and was transporting the pizza to my rooms, when I dropped it.

I still had one pizza shells left, but in removing the shells I tore one, the one I did not use at first. I decided to use a baking sheet. The pizza stuck to that. I then removed half and tried cooking the other a little longer. The half I cooked longer became too done. First, I have never used the whole grain thin crust shells before. Second maybe I need thicker shells for these wetter pizzas. I had issues with sogginess with the veggie pizza. Since this was the first time using whole grain shells, maybe I need to avoid those. It tasted good, what I ate of it. I was upset because this was a rare cheat dish. Some of the meats were not on the cheap side. I do one dish a month that could be considered a cheat.

Salumi Pizza

A few days later I tried to make it again. My mom saw how upset I was with the issues I had with this dish. She helped out with getting the ingredients for the third and fourth attempts. I used foil and olive oil Pam both of those times. The third attempt taught me I needed to lower the rack. The fourth attempt taught me that I went too low. I was trying to find the Goldilocks zone for this dish. I did not use the whole grain or whole wheat pizza shells on either of these attempts.

January 2016 was the fourth month in a row of pizza. I decided I needed a break from it. I also had finally used all of my homemade marinara sauce, and did not feel up to making a new batch at that time. When I get a place of my own, I will look to making my own dough again. I know how to properly toss pizza dough. I have also thought about the possibility of buying a pizza stone too. For now I will take a break from pizza.

California Roll Nachos

In December 2015, I was surfing the internet came upon a lift of recipes. It was the best cheese recipes from each of the fifty states in the U.S.A. I was really intrigued by the California entry, California Roll Nachos. A few years ago I appeared on the In One Day Radio Podcast. They asked me their 5 questions, one of those questions was did I prefer pizza or nachos. For me that is a no-brainer, nachos. California Roll Nachos consists of crab meat (fresh lump or imitation preferred), Kewpie mayo, sliced green onions, salt, freshly ground pepper, tortilla chips, cheddar cheese, avocado, nori (seaweed) strips, and sriracha.

I have eaten seafood nachos before. La Casuela is a defunct restaurant that existed in Newberg, Oregon. One of their signature dishes was Nachos Casuela, which was bay shrimp with Monterrey Jack cheese. California Roll Nachos hits my sweet spot of merging two of my favorite cuisines, Mexican and Japanese. I saw ways to make this more Mexican and more Japanese. More Japanese would be replacing tortilla chips with thin rice chips, no cheese, adding sesame seeds, adding some pickled cucumber, and on the side pickled ginger and wasabi. In order to be more Mexican replace the cheddar with Mexican blend, or Monterrey Jack, or with some Mexican cheeses, replace the mayo with Mexican crema (sour or regular), no nori, and replacing the sriracha with a Mexican style hot sauce.

California Roll Nachos

The California Roll is one of my favorite sushi dishes. I was first introduced to sushi at a Japanese all you can eat buffet in Oxnard, California on Channel Islands Boulevard. I do not believe it is there anymore. The last time I was there was 30 years ago. As a kid I never was afraid of trying anything new. I was told if I did not like it to not eat it again. However, I was also taught you had to finish what you ate, even if you did not like it. Since going to that buffet I have a love of Japanese food, there are holes in that knowledge. I have not had udon. I finally had true ramen at Boxer Ramen in Portland, OR on October 31, 2016. I have also had ramen in the brick or cup of noodle formats, but to me that is not real ramen. Like a frozen convenience store burrito is not a true burrito. I by no means consider myself an authority of any of the cuisines I love. In the past have I said things that were stupid that may have indicated such? Yes, I am human and I have said stupid and ignorant stuff.

I made my first batch on January 7, 2016. I added sesame seeds and replaced cheddar with a Mexican cheese blend. I took the picture before remembering to add the sriracha. I forgot to put the half the green onions on top and forgot the avocados completely. I still loved the flavors. On January 8, 2016, I made my second batch. This time I did not miss anything. The flavors on this were perfect. Both times I used imitation crab. It was what I could afford at the time. The crab and it fishiness worked well with the brininess of the nori. The creaminess of the avocados offset the heat from the sriracha. I was pleased with this dish and will make it again.

California Roll Nacho Recipe