Thanksgiving Leftovers 2: The Curry That Saved Christmas

Aaaand now it’s Sunday. Day three after the holiday, and the last of that turkey had. to. go. If we threw that final, symbolic half pound away, then an innocent beast would have died in vain, the abundance of the holiday would have been dishonored, and we would have been spitting in the face of our Pilgrim ancestors who would have called up Santa and baby Jesus all ornery-like to instruct them to fill our stockings with weasel droppings and Justin Beiber novelty pens.  

So for the final push, here it is, The Curry That Saved Christmas.

Today I am grateful for keffir lime leaves, coconut milk, and the fact that this dish tastes like all of the things that don’t remind me of Thanksgiving food.  

Turkey, Kale and Sweet Potato Curry     

2 tsp vegi oil

½ onion, sliced

2-3 thai chilies, chopped fine

4 tsp red thai curry paste

1 ½ cups chicken broth

1 cup coconut milk

1 tsp soy sauce

2 keffir lime leaves, torn

1 ½ cup kale (or ½ lb of green beans, or other leftover greens)

½ lb cooked turkey, cubed

2-3 cooked sweet potatoes, cubed (festive marshmallow and/or fruity topping scraped off).*

White rice, for serving

In a large pot, heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Add onions and thai chilies and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or so until onions are soft.  Add curry paste and fry, stirring, for 1-2 minutes. Add broth, coconut milk, soy sauce and kefir lime leaves and bring to a simmer. Add kale or other greens. If greens are raw, simmer in the curry for 4-5 minutes until cooked through. Add turkey and sweet potatoes, and simmer for another 2 minutes, just to heat. ** Serve with rice, hot pepper flakes, and lime wedges.

*This only works if you make sweet potatoes like my mother-in-law. That is, not mashed but cut into halves and baked with sweet stuff on top.  Otherwise use raw sweet potatoes, peeled, and added just after the broth and coconut and cooked for 5-10 minutes until tender. Leftover pumpkin or other firm winter squash will work just as well.

** Should your sweet potatoes have, like mine, been sitting on the counter for three days instead of in the fridge like they were supposed to be, boil vigorously for 2 minutes to kill whatever questionable bacteria might be present. Unless your great-great-grandparents came over on the Mayflower, in which case the USDA advises that you are of such hearty and resilient stock that the potatoes are safe for you to consume either way.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Black Bean Turkey Pot Pies and 5-Spice Cranberry Sauce

The Pilgrams were fortunate. They didn’t have access to Asian food, and therefore didn’t experience the withdrawal symptoms that yours truly has been subjected to thanks to the onset of Thanksgiving.  We have just concluded 5 days of family entertainment, culminating in the traditional annual celebration of white person food. My dairy consumption is off the charts, and this morning’s blood test revealed a soy sauce level that is dangerously low.  I have grown two inches taller, and have developed a Minnesota-shaped rash on my right arm.  Coincidence? I think not.

Yet there is an issue of leftovers that must be resolved. Since my cookbooks have more to say about pickled mustard greens than mashed potatoes or turkey, I must find a way to transform the pounds and pounds of leftover Thanksgiving food into something Asian-y. 

Update: Zao Jun the Kitchen God has smiled on me today and helped me to create damn good Asian Turkey Pot Pies. Google doesn’t turn anything up in this particular category, so perhaps we’re starting something here. This made a dent in the leftover turkey, gravy, veggies, biscuits, AND cranberries. Thanks to all the cooking that actually took place on Thanksgiving day, this was an easy 10 minute assembly. There is real heat in the cranberry sauce, so add cayenne and taste as you go, yo.  

Black Bean Turkey Pot Pies and Five-Spice Cranberry Sauce

Pot Pie

1 can Pillsbury or other oven-bake biscuits

1 cup green beans, cut to ¼ inch dice, or 1 cup peas

1 cup mushrooms, diced

1 cup onion, diced

1 cup cooked turkey, diced

1 T fresh ginger, grated or finely diced

2 large garlic cloves, diced

1 ½ cup brown, mushroom, or turkey gravy

1 ½ tsp black bean sauce

1 T vegetable oil              

Soy Sauce

Preheat over according to directions on can o’ biscuits. Grease 8 muffin tins.

In a wok or large skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onions and sauté until they start to soften. Add garlic and ginger, sauté 1 minute. Add beans and mushrooms, cook 2 minutes or until just starting to soften – leave them al dente. Add turkey and gravy and remove pan from heat. (Unless you are Emeril or Oprah, that turkey is probably already dry, so don't cook it anymore, for pete's sake.) Stir black bean sauce in and mix all to combine.    

Roll each biscuit into large, thin rounds between two pieces of wax paper. Place one into each muffin tin, with the edges folded out like flower petals. Fill each cup with pie filling, and fold edges of dough in toward the center. Filling will not be completely covered – just make sure the edges of the dough don’t creep back down into the cup.

Bake according to directions on biscuit can, or just remove from the oven when they look ready to be bitten.

Serve with soy sauce to drizzle, ma nizzle.

Cranberry Sauce

½ cup leftover cranberry sauce

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

¼ tsp Chinese 5 spice powder

Mix all to combine well. Serve alongside pot pies

Where to find Asian Ingredients in San Francisco

Hint: Not at the misleadingly named Cost Plus “World Market”.  Not only will you NOT find lemongrass there, you may awake from a retail-induced fog to find you have purchased a wicker elephant “figurine”.  Don’t do it.

Sure, you can buy oyster sauce at every Walgreens in SF, but other items are harder to find here than a registered Republican.  Lucky for you, I’ve done the heavy lifting. Three month long sleepless, peyote-fueled quests for puya chiles, miles run through the Sunset with long-sought pandan leaves defrosting in my hand… I’ve done these things so that you don’t have to.

Here’s a guide that will help you spend less time driving all over hell and half of Georgia, and more time crushing Soju shots.  First, organized by ingredient, then organized by market, so that when you’re on-site you can stock up on all that is inconveniently essential.

*Check back for updates!

New May Wah Market  - 707 Clement St, San Francisco, CA 94118

Keffir lime leaves

Thai eggplant

Thai Basil

23rd and Irving Market 2101 Irving St 94122

Keffir Lime Leaves (cheap! $1/pack)

Thai Basil

Shishito Peppers

Kukje Supermarket 2350 Junipero Serra Blvd, Daly City, CA

Shishito Peppers

Huge bags of ground peppers for kimchi

Manila Oriental Market 4175 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94112

Dried Puya Chiles

Spice Ace 1821 Steiner St, San Francisco, CA 94115

Dried Puya Chiles

Dried Thai Chiles

99 Ranch Market 250 Skyline Plaza, Daly City, CA 94015

Thai Basil

BY INGREDIENT:

Keffir Lime Leaves

New May Wah Market  - 707 Clement St, San Francisco, CA 94118

23rd and Irving Market 2101 Irving St 94122

Puya Chilies (dried)

Manila Oriental Market 4175 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94112

Spice Ace 1821 Steiner St, San Francisco, CA 94115

Shishito Peppers

Kukje Supermarket 2350 Junipero Serra Blvd, Daly City, CA23rd and Irving Market 2101 Irving St 94122

Thai Basil (real Thai basil, not some other similar versions found in most Asian stores)

New May Wah Market  - 707 Clement St, San Francisco, CA 94118

23rd and Irving Market 2101 Irving St 94122
99 Ranch Market 250 Skyline Plaza Daly City, CA 94015

Thai Chilies (Dried)

Spice Ace 1821 Steiner St, San Francisco, CA 94115

Thai Eggplant

New May Wah Market  - 707 Clement St, San Francisco, CA 94118

Buddha Beer - Bow Down!

Americans love pickup trucks.  We love liberty.  We love Coca-Cola and bikinis and cherry lip gloss and handguns.  And Americans love… Buddha.   Think about it – we do!  We f-ing LOOOOVE Buddha.  Or more like buddha, with a small “b”.  Put him on yoga mats, stickers, t-shirts, little garden fountains, hipster tchotchkes of any shape or size – we gobble them up.  Now, some brilliant person has put Buddha together with the thing that Americans love most of all: BEER. 

Where do they sell this earthly delight?  At Target.  I know, it just gets better and better, right?  Strolling through the familiar, well-lit aisles, I glanced to my right and saw these little beauties staring back at me:

This is a clear indication that we view eastern religions with a certain irreverence.  Have you ever seen “Jesus Beer” in the supermarket?  I think not.  There are loose, internet-specific threads connecting the son of God with brewskies (like this little gem):

http://www.spunk.org/texts/humour/sp001521.html

…but this idea is not ready for the mainstream.  When it comes to Siddhartha, on the other hand, we’ll put it right out there.  Target is such a squeaky clean company that it may as well be Disney.  So my take-away is that Isaac Mizrahi, Target, and Disney all think Buddha is a big fat joke.  And that everyone else out there is OK with that. 

Yet I say thank you – thank you Mr. Mizrahi.  Because this bottle is more than adorable enough to justify drinking the mediocre adult beverage contained within.  Mmmmm… beer and religion in one affordable 6-pack. 

"Sharing Stir Fry": A cunning ruse resulting in involuntary vegetable consumption by minors.

This is the bloody tale of how two children fought to the death – TO THE DEATH! – in my kitchen, over a plateful of vegetables. Sound like a dream? One less child to worry about; only the strongest offspring left standing, flaming chopsticks raised in triumph, fueled by roughage, newly prepared to carry the family name on with pride and voracity? Read on. 

My stepdaughter’s 9 year old cousin is visiting from Bangkok.  In Bangkok she enjoys riding astride Tuk-tuks, kicking rats and roaches in the streets, and picking tourists’ pockets.  She mostly likes to eat weird fish and chilies belched out of the devil’s own throat.  My 7 year old stepdaughter isn’t really allowed to cross the street by herself yet.  She enjoys going to Catholic school, knows all the words to “Party in the USA”, and is a badass soccer player. She mostly likes to eat chicken nuggets and anything that looks or tastes like cornbread.  Making dinner just got complicated. 

Veggie stir-fry seemed like good culinary middle ground, and also a way to get rid of whatever was starting to colonize in the crisper drawer.  Foreseeing that there would be items in this dish that one rugrat or the other would find repulsive, I started them horse trading with each other.  You don’t like your broccoli?  Trade it for daikon radish. If you have kids you’ll know they’re easy to trick.  My plan was to manipulate them into at least tasting one bite of everything to figure out what to part with and what to hoard.  Things were going well.  But I underestimated the competitive nature of young ladies. And I underestimated, too, the sweet, green, crunchy Helen of Troy that is the snow pea. 

Sparing the details, the desire to monopolize every available snow pea drove these two into a lethal spiral that no force could reverse.  A tragic ending… Parenting is difficult, even when one has the best intentions. I’m sure you wouldn’t be insensitive enough to ask who won the fight. Either way, don’t let this battle have been waged in vain. Use this recipe wisely. You’ve been warned. 

Fight! Fight!

"SHARING" STIR-FRY RECIPE:

3/4 lb chicken, pork, beef or shrimp, cut to bite-sized pieces

1 egg white

1 T cornstarch

1 1/2 lbs mixed vegetables, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 T minced or grated ginger

Sauce:

2 T cornstarch

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 T soy sauce

5 T oyster sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

Scramble egg white with corn starch.  Pour over meat and refrigerate 30 minutes or more.  Make a slurry with the cornstarch and water, then add to remaining sauce ingredients. 

Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a wok over med-high heat.  Add meat and stir fry quickly until cooked through.  Remove meat from wok, wipe clean, and return to heat.  Heat 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil.  Add garlic and ginger, fry for 20 seconds, then add vegetables.  Add longer cooking veggies first, such as carrots and daikon, followed by quick cooking veggies like snow peas and bok choy.  

Stir fry vegetables until lightly cooked but still crunchy.  Add meat and sauce, cook until heated through.  Serve with white rice for guaranteed east/west kiddie palate satisfaction.  

"Pork and Beans" ...Asian Style (Chinese Long Beans with Chilies and Garlic)

Chinese Long Beans with Chiles and Garlic

Sometimes home cooking can induce just as powerful a craving as your favorite restaurant dish.  Logic would imply that we’d usually crave the MOST outrageously decadent and delicious things we can get our hands on, but I think you’ll agree that’s not the case.  And thank god.  Constantly coveting blue cheese-stuffed foie gras with bacon sprinkles would leave us all fat and broke.  Well, some people are fat and broke without the foie gras, but that’s beside the point.   Cravings are mysterious.  Even those of us lucky enough to have access to the exotic cuisines of the world (delivered in 30 minutes or less) can find themselves obsessing about the simplest things.  That’s how this dish is for my sweetheart and me - sometimes nothing else will scratch the itch.   When it’s that time, there’s a 2PM text that says something like:  Hey! How about that spicy pork thing tonight?  The answer is, without variance: Yes.

This recipe was adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s version.  I bumped and tweaked the seasoning and reduced the liquid.  You can adjust for taste.   This one is hard to mess up (unless you burn the garlic, in which case your kitchen will bequeath the resulting smell to your progeny and to theirs after them). 

1 lb ground pork

1 – 1.5 lbs Chinese long beans

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

7 - 8 large cloves garlic, peeled and diced finely (if it looks like way too much garlic, you’re on the right track)

3-4 serrano chilies, seeds included, diced or sliced very thinly

1 ½ tsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp. fish sauce

2 Tbsp. soy sauce

¾ cup water

1 tsp paprika

SUBSTITUTIONS: You can substitute Thai chilies, red jalapeños, whatever you like.  Just adjust the amount added for the heat of the chili. We like it spicy so I leave in the seeds.  Instead of Chinese long beans you can use regular green beans.  However, the long beans are worth getting for their extra-crunchy texture and woodsy flavor.

Heat oil in wok over medium high heat.  Add garlic and chilies and stir a few times until garlic is just barely starting to brown.  Add pork and cook, breaking into small pieces, until it is just cooked through.  Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.  Cook on high heat, turning over 3-4 times, until most of the water has evaporated, about 5-6 minutes.  Serve over hot rice. 

EASY, RIGHT?   Let the cravings begin. 

Let's play "Where's White Girl?"

This map of the Bay Area popped up all over Facebook last week.  Wanna venture a guess at my neighborhood?  


Thankfully still close to the Mexican border, because fried rice cravings can only be rivaled by taco cravings.  Oh, and near the GayTown border where I go to work out, unmolested, at my nice clean gym.  God, life is grand.