Garryowen Irish Pub (Gettysburg, PA)

For the Fourth of July this year, Noah and I decided to take a bit of a mini-vacation and spend the weekend at a B&B near Gettysburg, about 30 miles away from where we live. When we mentioned this to my parents, who visit Gettysburg a couple times a year due to my dad's job, they suggested an Irish pub in town that was very good--but they couldn't remember the name. Not a problem, because a Google search for "Irish pub Gettysburg PA" essentially brings up a full page on only one restaurant--the Garryowen Irish Pub.

Garryowen boasts an impressive menu of traditional Irish fare, as well as a strong beer list and a whopping selection of 55+ different kinds of whiskey to try. We sat at the bar even though there wasn't a wait, which might have been the right choice; not ten minutes after we sat down customers started pouring in, and suddenly customers who arrived not long after us were faced with upwards of half an hour's wait. Service was still friendly and moved at a good pace, and customers who arrived later were directed to another, upstairs bar where they could wait.

For dinner, Noah had bangers and mash, and I tried the fish and chips. Both were excellent--I remember Noah's meal being particularly strong, but I also thought the fish and chips were well above average, especially the quality of the fish and the fact that it wasn't completely fried to a crisp like many fish and chips can be. For me, though, the standout was when we got to dessert. Instead of having a traditional dessert, I opted for an after-dinner whiskey. I love whiskey, but have not had the chance to try many different brands. Because of this, I know how to describe what I like, but not how to pick the best whiskey that fits the description. Garryowen's whiskey menu helpfully gives descriptions of each whiskey, but since whiskey appears to be what they do here I asked the bartender for help. I like to drink whiskey that is not too smooth; as I described it, I like "a whiskey that kind of punches me in the face". One of the whiskies I was considering was the Jameson Gold Reserve, and after consulting with Noah and with the bartender we settled on that as the best option. I haven't had many different whiskies over the years, but this one was the best I've had; it starts out with that nice hit (the "punch you in the face" feeling I requested), but afterwards the flavor of the whiskey bloomed really nicely. Drinking it was definitely a pleasurable experience. It's an expensive whiskey to buy, but not so expensive that it wouldn't be appropriate for a special occasion...like a Christmas gift. *wink wink*


Garryowen Irish Pub
126 Chambersburg St.
Gettysburg, PA
717-337-2719
Open 7 days/week, 11AM-2AM

An Easy Sauteed Spinach with Creamy Yogurt Sauce (plus Leftover Yogurt Sauce Mashed Potatoes!)

Your drive-by recipe of the week: I sauteed an entire bag of spinach with a few cloves of garlic (instead of putting raw garlic in the sauce; raw garlic induces an upset stomach in some people), then made the rest of the creamy yogurt dressing from this recipe as written. I've been very into putting plain yogurt into everything lately! I've also been very into putting a fried egg on everything lately, which may have been partially spurred on by the fact that we participated in a meat CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program this winter and were thus given 3 dozen eggs a month...

There was a lot of yogurt sauce left over from this recipe, which got recycled into these a few days later:

The yogurt sauce just gets used in place of milk or whatever other liquid you would mix into your mashed potatoes at the end. I think I still used a little bit of butter to soften things up as well.

Delicious experiments with Hainanese Chicken Rice

I have wanted to try Hainanese Chicken Rice for quite awhile now, after seeing it on lots of travel shows and reading about it on lots of food blogs. Since there are approximately zero restaurants anywhere around here that serve something like that, we decided to go ahead and make it ourselves.

We used this recipe, in combination with some other recipes we found around the internet, and the results were great. Hainanese Chicken Rice seems like such a simple dish, but just under the surface it is more complex and delicious. We used lots of ginger flavors--in the chicken, in the rice, in the dipping sauce, and everything was kind of permeated with this gingery goodness. The gingery rice was so good that I was eating it with everything, and I used all the leftover ginger dipping sauce finding new and exciting things to dip it in. Plus the different preparation helps guard against any Roast Chicken Fatigue that we local eaters might have experienced in a long winter of lots of meat and not many vegetables.

Our finished product (garnished with some raw turnip slices). Deeeeelicious.

Squash soup

Just a short post to share a recipe and a few pictures of a squash soup we made last month. We used a recipe from Laylita's Recipes, a blog that I have been following for years. The only substitution we made was that instead of using tomatoes we used a bunch of tomato sauce that we had made in the height of summer and froze to break out in the dreary winter months.

My Master Grocery List

To tide you over while I prepare some restaurant reviews and a few new recipes, I thought we'd take a peek at the master grocery list I created a while back. I was at that dubious point of no return where I had pretty much no food left to cook with, and it occurred to me that it would be great if I went through my recipes and made a list of the ingredients I would need to cook most of them. So, what ingredients do I use most in my cooking (besides spices and baking ingredients)?

Potatoes
Onions and scallions
Garlic
Lemon juice
Beans (chickpeas, lentils, pinto beans especially)
Peanuts
Tomatoes
Peppers
Cilantro or parsley
Coconut milk
Carrots
Mushrooms
Ginger
Chiles and/or hot sauce
Asian seasonings (soy sauce, fish sauce, etc.)
Bread
Plain yogurt
Green veggies (especially cabbage, kale, and spinach)
Celery
Rice
Pasta
Cauliflower or broccoli


So what have I been eating lately? Have a link to a recipe before I go:
Maple Sticky Biscuits from Dinner with Julie

Enjoy!

Chili beans, Texas-style

I tend to value authenticity in my cooking. If I want to cook adobo, I'll look for a Filipino recipe. If I want to make rendang, I'll look for an Indonesian (or Malaysian, I suppose) recipe. If I want to make chili, I'll look for a Texan recipe. I know there are a lot of versions of chili, but Texans seem pretty adamant: no tomatoes, no beans. Usually, I can agree with that--we made a great pot of all-beef chili a few weeks ago. But now it's Lent, and Florence isn't eating meat, so chili beans it is! (There are no pictures because my camera is out of batteries, and I haven't quite mastered the clunky uploading setup yet).

Chili Beans, adapted from Homesick Texan

Ingredients
1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound (~2 cups) dried pinto beans
4 dried Anaheim chiles
2 ancho chiles (dried poblanos)
1 chipotle chile, dried or canned
Dark chile powder
Oregano (preferably Mexican)
Cocoa powder
Hot chile powder (Cayenne powder and Korean pepper powder are good options)
Salt
Cornstarch (since I have no masa harina)

Directions
Core and seed the dried chiles (especially the chipotle) and toast them in a cast-iron skillet. Open a window or get a fan, since the chiles will smoke and it will burn your nose and throat. When they're blistered or you can't stand the smoke anymore, fill the skillet with water and cover it for 20-30 minutes.

While the chiles are soaking, brown the diced onions in a Dutch oven in bacon grease or neutral oil (not olive). When they're turning reddish-brown, add the garlic and turn down the heat so nothing burns. Drain the chiles (discard the water) and purée them in a food processor with enough fresh water to make it smooth. Add the chile purée to the onions and garlic, and turn the heat back up. Sauté it all together for a couple minutes, then add the beans and four cups of water, or enough to cover the beans by 1-2 cm. Season with about four tablespoons of dark chile powder, one or two tablespoons of oregano, and two tablespoons of hot chile powder to start. Don't add salt yet, since the beans will take longer to cook if you do.

Bring the beans to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes. Taste and correct the seasoning, and add a tablespoon or so of cocoa powder. It sounds weird, but it's not sweet and it will give the chili a great depth of flavor. Cover the pot again and simmer until the beans are as tender as you want, probably 1-2 hours. Add salt if necessary, although I didn't have to. Scoop out 1/2 cup of stew broth and mix with 2 tablespoons cornstarch until smooth, then set aside. Turn up the heat on the beans and boil until the water is about level with the beans, then turn off the heat. Stir the water/cornstarch mixture into the chili beans--the stew will thicken as it cools down.

Serve with rice, or (more authentically) cornbread!

The bounty of late summer

This is the time of year when the farmer's market is stuffed with vegetables. It gets to the point where I have a hard time choosing what to buy, because everything looks so amazing. But I knew that we wanted caprese this week, so I went for (among many other items) the tomatoes and basil, and fresh mozzarella from the Italian grocery next to the market.

First up we have beautiful Juliette tomatoes. They look like Romas, and I was told that they are similar - Juliettes also have (comparatively) low water content, so they should be great for oven-drying. I got a bucketful.



For caprese, you definitely need some basil. This is some of the prettiest basil I've seen all summer - huge, bright green leaves, and what an aroma!



Fresh mozzarella is expensive (around 11 dollars a pound), but so worth it! It's not chewy at all - it's soft, light, and incredibly fresh tasting. It really tastes like the milk it comes from.



Put all of this delicious food on a plate, and here you go! This eventually made its way onto what passes for a bagel here in KC, and made for a fantastic lunch.



As I told gingerrose tonight over dinner, I'm always conflicted over whether I prefer summer cooking or winter. I usually lean towards winter - I'm a stew kinda guy. I love meat, beans, roasted and braised vegetables, all that great stuff that comes with winter cooking. But sometimes you just can't resist summer's fresh bounty.

One last item: this morning at the market, I saw some peppers I'd never seen before. They were long, somewhat wrinkled, and the same dark green of poblanos. I inquired, and was told that they were called pasillas, were slightly spicy, and had a sweet, smoky flavor. I promptly bought several, and was even given two bright red serranos for free by an extremely friendly farmer. He told me that atypically, this year his red serranos were very sweet, and I should give them a try! I'm very much looking forward to it.

Vietnamese corn salad

Corn is one of those things that does not keep well in the fridge. It won't exactly go bad, but it just doesn't taste the same when you take it out again. Nope, corn has to be eaten as fresh as is humanly possible - it might be the ultimate seasonal food (although that could also go to tomatoes). Thus, the farmer's market is the logical destination, and ours has been absolutely brimming with corn for the past several weeks. We're talking pick-up trucks stuffed full of ears here. Of course, it's also a tricky thing to buy (you can't see the condition of the corn before you buy it), so getting those good ears is a matter of trial and error. We lucked out this week (although of course I didn't take any pictures) with six beautiful ears of a cultivar called "Montauk". We boiled two for corn-on-the-cob, and made the rest into Vietnamese corn salad - adapted from Viet World Kitchen's recipe.

I would have taken a picture, but it really just looks like a pile of corn. I promise.

Ingredients
Four ears of as-fresh-as-possible corn
1-2 fresh red chilies (we used Thai, but I'm sure cayenne work fine), seeds removed and chopped
1.5 tablespoons or so of dried shrimp (shrimp paste works too, or you can just use extra fish sauce), chopped
Fish sauce to taste
2 small onions or a few scallions, chopped

Directions
Use a large knife to cut the raw corn off the cobs, and scrape out all the remaining pulp and juices. Discard the cobs. Heat a few tablespoons of neutral cooking oil (not olive) in a large pan over high heat, and add the chilies, scallion/onion, and dried shrimp when it starts to shimmer. Stir-fry this mixture for 30-60 seconds, or until everything's aromatic and the scallion/onion becomes transparent. Turn the heat down to medium, add the corn, and stir everything together. Cook until most of the juice evaporates and the corn is cooked through - add the fish sauce until there's a nice balance of salty, sweet, and spicy.

Drying tomatoes

I love sun-dried tomatoes. They have all sorts of flavors that regular tomatoes just can't compare to - they're slightly bitter, very earthy, and have much more pure tomato flavor than a regular (80%+ water) tomato does. However, sun-dried tomatoes are very expensive. I can get regular tomatoes here for $2-3 per pound at the farmer's market, but if I could find sun-dried tomatoes anywhere for sale (which I can't), it would easily be several times that. Solution: dry my own! The oven works brilliantly for this. Simply slice your tomatoes through the middle (not through the stem connection), turn your oven to about 200 degrees, and put the tomatoes on a baking sheet or roasting pan. (Make sure to use parchment paper!) After 8-12 hours, they'll look like this:



I could have kept going, but by then it was about 11:30pm, and I had to go to sleep soon. These took ten hours - they weren't as dry as sun-dried tomatoes usually are, but they were chewy and delicious and homemade! We here at From Bach to Stock have a serious penchant for do-it-yourself cooking adventures: our current project is vanilla extract*, if that says anything. Here's another picture of a beautifully shriveled tomato.



I love how the skin deflates as the water evaporates. Several of these tomatoes were chopped up and thrown into baingan bharta the other night. There are no pictures of that, as I was too busy making sure my eggplants didn't burn up in the oven...although also, baingan bharta isn't really that pretty.

*We're infusing vanilla beans into a bottle of Bacardi. After two days it's already turning brown and smelling like vanilla! I've been told it takes several weeks to properly mature, though. I can't wait!

Adobo!

I've been reading about this dish called adobo for several weeks, and then last week I couchsurfed with some wonderful people in Dayton, and they made bison adobo for dinner. Well then, of course I had to try it for myself! Adobo is a Filipino dish of meat braised in soy sauce and vinegar, and it's pretty damn delicious. Pork is probably the most common meat to use, but I had bought some chicken thighs earlier in the week, so that's what went in.



Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the finished dish - that's the meat waiting to go back into the sauce. If I remember tomorrow, I'll take a picture of everything on my plate.

Ingredients
Meat - I used about a pound and a quarter of bone-in chicken thighs
Vinegar - I combined balsamic and red wine, but I would have used rice vinegar if I hadn't dropped my bottle on the floor the other day *grumble grumble*
Soy sauce - I combined regular soy sauce and kecap manis to counteract the vinegar with some sweetness
Black pepper, cracked or ground - grinding it will save you the trouble of picking out peppercorns in the finished dish
Bay leaf
Onion, thinly sliced - I used one, but two would be better
Garlic, minced - four or five cloves

Cooking
In a Dutch oven or other large pot, quickly brown the chicken on all sides, then add the garlic and onion. When the onion softens (just a few minutes), add the vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaf, and black pepper, bring to the boil, and then simmer until the meat is cooked through. Reduce the sauce until it thickens slightly, and serve over rice.

Believe it or not, that's the basic recipe. I went further and fished out the chicken, then cut the meat off the bones and diced it into bite-size pieces, then added it back to the reduced sauce to glaze it. I just didn't want to be bothered with slicing meat off the bone while I was trying to enjoy my dinner!

As I noted above, I only used one onion tonight, but it gets so deliciously caramelized while simmering in the sauce that I'm definitely using two next time. The only problem with this dish as I made it tonight is the saltiness, brought on by all that tasty soy sauce. Next time I'm going to slice a potato and add it with the liquid, as I'm pretty sure potatoes can be used to absorb salt and then discarded.

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Something else that I don't have a picture of is a great broccoli stir-fry that I made a few days ago. I used garlic, ginger, sesame oil, and doubanjiang, which is a Sichuan paste of fermented broad beans and chilis. The brand I have is Ming Teh, and it is pretty fantastic stuff.

Broccoli stir-fry
Heat a wok or cast iron pan (I don't have a wok) over high heat, and add about a tablespoon of oil - something with a high smoke point, like peanut or canola or corn. When it shimmers, add some minced garlic and ginger, and a couple tablespoons of doubanjiang. Stir-fry for about a minute, then add broccoli florets and stir-fry for another two minutes or so, until it's coated in the sauce. Turn off the heat, toss with a bit of sesame oil, and eat!

Stir-fry/Steamed Asparagus

Two weeks ago at the market, I bought some asparagus, and was told that it was the last harvest of the season. I wasn't surprised, as it wasn't the best-looking asparagus ever (a bit thick), and was also the only bunch I saw in the entire market. Well, that was apparently false, as this past week there was asparagus everywhere. At least five farmers were selling it, and it was all the beautiful thin kind. So I bought some. Last week I sauteed mine with ginger and new potatoes and it was delicious, so I decided to try a variant on that today.

I don't know if "stir-fry/steaming" is a real technique of any sort, but that's my name for what you do when you first stir-fry a vegetable, then add a small amount of liquid and cover the pot to let it fully cook by steaming. I debated just using water, but I wanted to infuse the asparagus with some flavor, so I added just a bit of soy sauce and vinegar.

Ingredients
1 small bunch thin asparagus (twelve to fifteen stalks)
1 small piece ginger, minced
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
Light soy sauce
Rice vinegar

Directions
Heat about one tablespoon of vegetable oil in a pot until shimmering, and add the garlic and ginger. Stir-fry for about thirty seconds, and add the asparagus. Stir-fry for another minute or two, then add about a tablespoon of soy sauce, a dash of rice vinegar, and just enough water to cover the bottom of the pot evenly. Cover the pot, turn the heat to medium-low, and steam for three or four minutes - this happens pretty fast. When the asparagus is as tender as you like it, uncover the pot, turn the heat back to high, and cook until the water boils off. Serve with rice!

Speaking of rice, I bought some new rice at the Chinatown market. It's a short-grain black rice called Gao Den, so my guess is it's Vietnamese. I tried making a batch today - I had no idea what proportions to use, so I tried six ounces of rice and ten ounces of water. That was a little too much water, since it was done in 25 minutes and there was still water in the bottom. I'll try nine ounces of water next time. The rice turns the cooking water an amazing dark purple, and the rice is delicious - not sticky as I thought it might be, but slightly nutty and flavorful.

No pictures of either yet, but some may be forthcoming if I can persuade myself to take them before I devour everything. :)

Three Cups Swiss Chard, Modified (plus extra pictures)

A couple of weeks ago, I read a recipe for Three Cups Chicken on Appetite for China. It looked quite tasty and easy, so I saved it for future reference - it's a Taiwanese recipe that involves braising chicken in equal parts sesame oil, rice wine, and soy sauce. Then today, I picked up some great-looking red chard at the market, and was fishing for a way to season it up. I decided to try the three cups seasoning, although I remembered it as using rice vinegar instead of rice wine. So I tossed some ginger and garlic in a hot pan, then added the chard to wilt it quickly, added soy sauce, vinegar, and oil, covered the pan for about ten minutes, and the results are below. It was delicious! The vinegar taste balanced out by the slight sweetness of the sesame oil, and the soy sauce just added a slight earthiness to the whole dish.



This next picture is of a quick stir-fry I cooked up last week when I needed dinner on short notice. I don't remember exactly what was in it, but it was definitely at least onions, green onions, cilantro, garlic, and some seasoning sauces.



On to baking! These are some beautiful corn muffins I made, based on my mom's recipe. Here's my version:

Ingredients
1 cup AP flour (160 grams)
1 cup or 190g cornmeal
1/3-1/2c or 100-130g sugar depending on how sweet you like it
2-3 tbsp or ~70g vegetable oil
1 egg
1c milk or water (~240g)
2-3 tsp baking powder (12-18g)
1/2 tsp salt

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl. Beat the egg and mix with the oil and milk/water. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing until they're just combined - lumps are fine. Don't overmix. Fill six muffin cups evenly and bake for 20-25 minutes depending on the consistency of your oven - start toothpick-testing at 20 minutes.




Up next: scones! This is a recipe I made just as Baking Bites' recipe described*, so go there and check it out! They were fantastic - slightly crumbly but moist, and very peanut-buttery.

*One addition I made: I stirred an extra tablespoon of peanut butter in after adding all the liquids. It made for an almost-swirl of peanut butter in the finished scones, since it wasn't completely incorporated, and it was a very good flavor boost.




The last recipe is matzah brei! The recipe I used is almost ridiculously easy, and here it is:

Ingredients
Two pieces matzah
One egg
Water
Salt
Brown sugar (optional)

Directions
Crumble the matzah into small pieces and soak in cold water for a few minutes. It should be soft but not disintegrating. Drain the matzah by picking it up in clumps and squeezing as much water as possible out of it. Beat the egg and combine with the matzah, using a fork to mix them together evenly. Heat 2 teaspoons or so of butter in a pan and add the matzah-egg mixture, then pat it evenly into the pan with a spatula. You're trying to end up with a matzah brei cake like in the picture below. Slicing the cake into the pieces in the pan will make it easier to flip - brown the cake on both sides and you're done! Garnish liberally with brown sugar and salt. :)

Cabbage, two ways

Argh! Another month has gone by, and FBTS languishes by the wayside. I suppose that's what happens when you have a recital, a band trip to the CBDNA conference in Texas (which was fantastic!), and then a paper to write when you get back from Austin. But we're back, with more delicious ways to make...cabbage?


Cabbage often gets a bad rap, blamed for stinking up the house. I'm here to tell you that it can be a subtle, crunchy, and delicious vegetable, as long as it's cooked properly. "Properly" in this case mostly means "not for too long" - the odors start to arise when it's cooked for too long.

But last week when I woke up on Sunday, I realized that there were no groceries in the house (as we had returned from Austin by bus late Saturday night), and I had also missed the local farmer's market. So off it was to get groceries at Thriftway for the first time in weeks, if not months. Just on a whim, I picked up a cabbage, figuring it was cheap and could make a nice stir-fry. Little did I know! Cooking shredded cabbage over relatively low heat with a couple tablespoons of olive oil gets rid of most of the pungency, and gives you a crunchy, slightly sweet, delicious veggie! The "two ways" up top is just different ways of spicing it, as I used the same cooking method both times.



The first way is Indian-style, more or less. To prepare the cabbage, first cut it in half through the root end (I used one half for each flavoring style) and cut out the core. The core is much more pungent than the rest of the cabbage head. Then put your cabbage half face-down on a cutting board, and slice it into strips about a quarter-inch wide. Thinner would also work, but I wouldn't go wider.

Now, flavorings! Garlic is important. Chop three or four cloves of garlic and set it aside for a moment. Put 2T or so (I didn't actually measure anything) of olive oil into a large skillet and set it over low heat. Add an anchovy and mash it up - when it starts sizzling, it will dissolve into the oil. Add a pinch of cumin, a pinch of mustard seed, a dried chili or two (optional), and your garlic, and cook them slowly until the garlic is getting soft. Add the cabbage and toss with a pair of wooden spoons to get everything coated with oil, then just let it cook. If the pan's getting dry you can add a bit of water. If you used chilies, make sure to fish them out when you're done.

Style two is more Indonesian than anything else. No picture, but it looks the same as the first version except that it's a bit more brown (for reasons that will be revealed shortly). It starts the same way: chop three or four cloves of garlic, heat 2T of olive oil, add an anchovy, etc. This time you can use belacan if you want, but last time I tried that my apartment smelled like a fishing pier for the next day or two. It has a much deeper flavor, though.

Add a teaspoon or so of sambal balado (it's potent stuff), and a drizzle of the real magic: kecap manis. This wonderful stuff is Indonesian sweet soy sauce - it's made with palm sugar. Regular soy sauce won't quite substitute, but if you have good brown sugar on hand adding some of that might do the trick. Molasses could work too. The flavor is an intense combination of sweet caramel and saltiness, but it really mellows out with cooking. Stir that around for a second and add the strips of cabbage. Cook the same as last time - add water or more sambal or kecap manis if you think it needs more flavor. The end result this time is slightly sweet, not too salty, but with a wonderful depth of flavor that's the closest I've gotten to a "restaurant" taste so far. This definitely calls for more kecap manis experimentation!