Found at: http://www.anguillaguide.com/article/articleprint/3167/-1/126/
|
Liming Under Pressure by Chef Daniel Orr
|
By: Chef Daniel Orr
Although most of us have about 30 seconds a day to spend in the kitchen, there are those rainy days and Sundays when you should give yourself the gift of a good, slow-cooked meal. Stews, braises, and pot roasts warm a place deep inside – a primal place that a cup of ramen noodles just can’t reach no matter how much fresh cilantro and minced chiles you doctor it up with.
|
|
Chef Daniel Orr
|
No, these are times to bring out the pressure cooker and lime. Lime is Caribbean for “chillin,” – relaxing, and letting the time go by. Your worries will still be there when you push away from the table, but you may have a fuller perspective.
My granny had a pressure cooker on her farm in southern Indiana. I don’t remember her using it much, but it looked well worn. I think by the time I was old enough for memories my gran had renounced “those foods,” the odd and tough cuts of meat that sustained her family and farmhands during the depression. Oxtails, old roosters, pig tails and tripe went into the back reaches of the recipe file as chicken breasts and tenderloins moved to the front. The pressure cooker was a souvenir of the past that made her remember times she didn’t want to relive.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. New Yorkers now relish oxtails, beef cheeks, salt fish, and tripe in their fancy-schmancy restaurants. For them it’s an adventure, not a hardship, and restaurateurs are raking in the profits from the “mystery meat” section of the menu. The good news for the home cook is that most of these ingredients are inexpensive, and the recipes easy. The pressure cooker cooks them up faster and intensifies flavors, pushing them into every fiber of the food. You will be eating up a bit of history and folklore of the Caribbean that I promise will be extremely satisfying.
The dish that follows is made for “lime’n.” Nothing is precisely cut, weighed or measured. The recipes are guidelines. Some of the ingredients in slow cooked dishes do require advance soaking such as beans, salted meats, and fish, so make sure you plan ahead. Once you’ve got it in the pot, though, you can commence with the “lime’n.” Turn on the ball game, read a book, open a good bottle of wine or rum and relax with your family and friends. Let the aromas drift throughout the house. Heck, open the windows and make all the neighbors jealous too.
Spicy Caribbean Tripe Stew
For gutsy gourmets only. This is one of those deliciously slurpy stews that take both time and passion to prepare. Tripe, now one of my favorites, took me a while to appreciate. I knew the great chefs of Lyon would order up bowls of it after shopping in the great markets of the city, but it took me some time to learn to coax the humble ingredient to give me its best without becoming overly aggressive or totally chewy. I love it served with cornmeal fungee (Caribbean for polenta) or with plain white rice and a salad. This is soul food with a Creole accent.
Note: This is even better reheated.
2 pounds tripe, sliced thinly (this is easily achieved if semi-frozen)
1/4 cup olive oil
5 large cloves garlic, sliced thinly
2 large onions, coarsely sliced
4 large tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped
½ Scotch bonnet chili pepper (or your favorite chile, depending on how hot you like it) seeded and sliced thinly. Remember you can add more, but you can’t take it out once you add it!
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
2 strips orange zest, cut into thin strips
1 teaspoon Kitchen D’Orr Sweet Season (or Chinese five-spice powder)
2 branches fresh thyme, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1-1/2 cups tomato juice
1 large red pepper
1 large green pepper
1 large yellow pepper
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
3 scallions, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
Cut the tripe into thin ribbons, removing any fat that may be attached. Place in a pressure cooker and cover with water. Cover and seal and bring to a boil. Cook 30 minutes and turn off heat. Once the pressure cooker has stopped hissing, carefully remove the top. Place a colander in the sink and drain. Rinse under cold water and repeat. Drain and rinse again. The tripe should be tender at this point.
Rinse pressure cooker and dry well. Return to stove and heat well over medium high heat. Add olive oil and garlic. Cook until garlic starts to color lightly and smell wonderfully nutty. Add onions, tomatoes, chili, ginger, orange zest, spices, thyme, salt and pepper, and sauté until onions start to become tender. Return tripe to the pot and add the tomato juice. Cover and cook over medium low heat for 30 to 45 minutes until tripe is meltingly tender. Turn off heat and allow the pot to stop its hissing.
Carefully remove the top and add the three colors of sweet pepper. Stir to incorporate. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper if needed. Return to the stove uncovered and cook, stirring, over medium low heat for 15 to 20 minutes until peppers are tender. Turn off fire and adjust seasoning. Garnish with cilantro and scallions.
Note: I like to make this even more of a meal by adding a can of well-rinsed white beans or garbanzos to the stew at the same time as the sweet peppers. Hominy kernels may also be used.
Provisional Wisdom
Provisions are the starchy vegetables beloved in the Caribbean. Things like the common sweet potato, boiling potato (known as “Irish potato” in the region), yams, dasheen, green banana, casaba, breadfruit, and pumpkin. These ingredients are often boiled and served along with many stews and boiled dishes like fish water or goat stew, or used in recipes to add “fillers.” Provisions are what “keep you going” and get you through the day. They are inexpensive and can make “a bit o’ pig tale” into a meal. Caribbean cooking is really all about provisions. They are the staff of life and feed the belly of industrious peoples of the islands. Next time you visit your local bodega or Caribbean market make friends with those strange knotty vegetables in the produce section.