the other evening, as the sun set beautifully behind the olympic mountains, as some relentlessly poppy music blared from my speakers, and
as i zen’d out in the chopping of an impressively large pile of scallions, i
started pondering: from where did my love of cooking spring?
i thought about photoshopping a bunch of scallions into this pic, but reconsidered.
it's zen enough without it. i could cook anything to this view.
i seem to remember always loving food. of eating voraciously the smoked haddock and
the roast dinners my mum made when i was but a wee bairn. i remember starting university and being
relieved that it was self-catering accommodation, so i could eat whatever the
hell i felt like eating, any night of the week.
of course, back then my repertoire consisted of about two dishes, so
clearly something had to give. amidst
crazy socials and pub crawls, and even the occasional lecture on post-1900
american literature, i decided that in order to eat, i needed to learn how to
cook. i got my hands on a couple of
cookbooks (no doubt delia smith), and got to studying.
this was the book i grew up with in my childhood kitchen.
the "joy of cooking" for the british people.
love delia. always have, always will
i was an English major, this was nothing new:
read the text, devour the words (if you could not yet devour the food), break
down the prose, formulate a strategy, and boom.
now i had a game plan (and now i was really bloody hungry). i set about steaming artichokes, exploring local
seafood choices, and attempting to perfect a piccata sauce. what in fact eventually evolved into a deep
love of cooking for others, for the somewhat selfless giving of love on a
plate, first began as a completely selfish endeavor. it was just me: a team of one. only i ate it, only i congratulated the chef
on success, only i sent back what was crap.
but i held the remote. i had the
control.
(a cherry bomb of control, if you will. more of that to follow...)
it struck me a day or two later (perhaps in the midst of a
similarly massive pile of scallions.
truly, they are the most reflective of alliums) that maybe one of the reasons
i still love cooking so much (aside, of course, from my appetite) is perhaps that
control. in somewhat of a maelstrom of a
life, of 3 busy menschkins with varying degrees of school and activities (and
varying degrees of manners), with various house projects and life projects,
with curious and occasionally aggravating medical mysteries, with figuring out
what the hell to do with my life once i grow up, there isn’t a great deal of
control. do not misunderstand, this is
not a plea for acceptance, nor one for sympathy. no, no.
merely a train of thought leaving the station, for which you lucky four
readers are in fact unwitting passengers (choo choo). cooking, for me, has become a different kind
of comfort. a therapy. something that is all me. something that i, for once these days, am in control
of. and that, my sweet four readers, is
a rare and precious thing.
last night i found myself craving the sweet-salty-sour-hot
taste sensation that is southeast-asian cuisine. enter my new favourite culinary tome, diana
henry’s “a change of appetite.” she has
a recipe for vietnamese chicken lettuce cups that ticked all of the craving
boxes. so i took control. i told charles he was no longer in
charge. i told tony danza he most
certainly was not the boss. i took back
the night from JT. i raised my spatula
high up into the sky and shouted “they may take our knives, but they’ll never
take our kitchen!!” and then, after
chiding myself for being overly dramatic and referential, i cranked the peppy
music as the sun set once again over those glorious mountains, and i grabbed the
scallions…
mama-feels-like-cooking-vietnamese-chicken-lettuce-cups (adapted from “a change of appetite” by diana henry)
2 lemon grass stalks, outer leaves removed, inner core
chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
salt & freshly ground pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp thai fish sauce
2 ½ tbsps canola oil
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
use a small food processor or blender to finely chop the
lemon grass and garlic. season with salt
and pepper. (diana uses a mortar and pestle, which all
sounds very zen and lovely, but i have not the time nor the hand strength these
days for that. if i need zen, i have my
scallions.)
add sugar, fish sauce and oil, pulse a few more times to
blend.
put chicken in a bowl and cover with marinade. place in fridge to chill (lllliterally) for a
few hours, or even overnight.
i told you it would return. this is a cherry bomb pepper,
which i used for this recipe. ridiculously adorable. so cute, so hot.
i'd pop them by the bushel load, if i didn't think that it would kill me.
for sauce:
6 garlic cloves
2 red chiles, trimmed (& seeded if you don’t like the
spice. i shan’t judge you)
¾” piece of fresh ginger, peeled & chopped
2 tbsps sugar
juice of 1 juicy lime, or 2 if they’re crummy ones
3 tbsps thai fish sauce
soy sauce (optional)
put all sauce ingredients into a small food processor or
blender. blend (scraping sides down a
few times) until everything is finely chopped and fully incorporated.
(i added a little soy sauce as my kids go nuts for it, but
you certainly don’t need to. also, as 2
of 3 menschkins aren’t great with heat, i blended the sauce without the chiles
first, portioned some out for them, then blended the remaining sauce with the
chiles for the rest of us. 2 sauces, almost
no extra work. win/win.)
toppings. any combination of:
1 slightly underripe mango, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
½ cucumber, cut into matchsticks
1 cup bean sprouts (already matchstick-sized! lucky you!)
scallions, thinly-sliced
fresh mint leaves
fresh basil leaves
1 head of butter lettuce, leaves separated but left whole
remove chicken from marinade and place on either a preheated
grill or a ridged grill pan on the stove.
grill on both sides until cooked through.
clearly this depends on the heat of your
grill/pan, also the size of your chicken breasts, but roughly 20 mins
total. obviously check for doneness and
don’t sue me if it’s still pink in the middle:
that's right. pink in the middle.
boom.
time to serve. place
some of the sliced chicken and whichever of the vegetables and herbs you fancy
in the middle of a lettuce leaf and roll up.
dip, or drizzle with sauce, and away you go. and if you fear the absence of carbs, some
steamed rice goes brilliantly.
we're eating a rainbow, people!
enjoy with a sense of great personal satisfaction, and
preferably with “take back the night” playing in the background.
