cookingeatingdurham

I made the watermelon rind chutney as described here.  The recipe is originally from Gourmet, I believe.  Check out that blog, by the way, she’s great!

My friend C and I were looking for somewhere to eat last night that wouldn’t be flooded with Duke students - it’s move-in weekend.  We settled on Palace International, a Kenyan restaurant in the same strip as Broad St Cafe, Watts and The Green Room.  I’d been meaning to try the place out ever since it opened over a year ago, but somehow never ended up there…

We started off with one veggie and one meat samoosa.  The meat was a little on the bland side, but the veggie was packed with lovely spinach among other things and was yummy.

For my main course, I had Nairobi Beef - tender beef cubes in a delicate spicy red sauce with an unusual spice combination I had a hard time putting my finger on.  It came with slightly crispy yellow rice and more of that spinach, though you can get a variety of sides.  Me, I just love spinach!

C had the oxtail - less spicy, but with a similar combination of flavors.  It seems there’s a pretty standard Kenyan spice set that’s used in a few of the dishes at Palace.

The meal was washed down with a Kenyan lager called Tusker.  Nothing exceptional, but it complemented the food nicely.

I really enjoyed the meal and will be back soon.  I’m glad I finally got to try this place!

Review over, now for something somewhat different…

Our meal set us back about $25 each.  This isn’t a huge amount of money for Durham restaurants, but given that we shared a starter and had one entree each, plus a couple of beers, it’s probably more than it should be.  Our entrees were $13 and $16 (and many others were in the $14-$17 range) which is in the same league as places like Watts.  While the food was excellent, I don’t think that’s the idea price range for this sort of place.  C said that when he’d been at Palace previously, the prices were lower.

The reason behind the price increase was clear: we were the only customers in the place on a Saturday night, Duke move-in weekend.  Apparently Palace International has had a hard time attracting customers, and so the owners have had to raise prices.  As I said, the place is great, but competing with Watts Grocery isn’t the way to go, in my opinion.

A few months ago, I had a chat with the chef-owner of one of my favorite Durham restaurants.  He told me that he finds it a real challenge to keep his prices in the range dictated by nationally-recognized places like Magnolia Grill.  Entrees at Magnolia are priced in the mid-$20’s, whereas restaurants of similar caliber in NYC are charging low to mid-$30’s or even more per dish.  He doesn’t consider his restaurant to be in that league, so he keeps his prices in the high teens and lows $20s, like many of the midscale restaurants in Durham and elsewhere in the Triangle.  This is really quite challenging, especially given rising food costs in the last few months.

It’s sad for me to see excellent places like Palace International being forced into pricing in a way that is unlikely to attract more customers, given the diversity of fashionable food in the area.  With yet more midscale restaurants opening in the next few months, I fear that places like this will be forced out and that we’ll lose diversity.  Don’t get me wrong - I love the various Modern American, Southern, French/Italian and other fashionable genre restaurants, plus the explosion of real Mexican food, but that’s not always what I want.

I wish more diners in the area would head to places like this.  What I don’t want to see is the raising of prices across the board.  I won’t be able to afford to eat at Magnolia even once a year, or at Watts, Vin Rouge and the like very often at all if that happens.  That would really suck pretty badly!

What are your thoughts on this?  How do you think restaurants like PI should react?  What about the fancier places?  How can we - as diners - help keep Durham’s food diversity?

Anyone know where I can get some? We want to make watermelon rind pickles, and this stuff is required to keep them crispy.

Watermelon Rind Pickles

Might also try to make some watermelon rind chutney…

Yesterday, I made braised short ribs with a chocolate-rosemary sauce, plus grilled winter squash with reduced balsamic vinegar for dinner. The former was based on this recipe from Epicurious.com, and the latter was my idea.

It all turned out lovely, here is some serious food porn (click on the images to see these in a much nicer format):

If anyone wants details on how I changed the original recipe, or on the winter squash prep, let me know!

Wha? Who’s DurmOnion? Yeah, I’ve been the silent partner for many months. But it’s a new year, I’m blogging in my professional life, which I guess also has to stay confidential, for the CED anonymity thing, but nonetheless gets me more in the mode of thinking “publicly,” which is very much not my norm as a human being. So after you’re done analyzing or skipping over that previous sentence . . .

The place I come from, originally, is called Irmo, South Carolina. I guarantee you someone reading this is from Irmo, because it has been the experience of my siblings and me that even though no one outside of South Carolina has ever heard of us, WE ARE EVERYWHERE. Anway, it may interest you to know that the town of Irmo (pron: UR moe) was named for two gentlemen whose names may ring a bell if you live in Durham. Well, one of the two gentlemen, actually, will resonate with Durmites: Mr. Iredell and Mr. Moseley. Well, at least they didn’t call the town “Irmo (pron: IRE moe),” huh?

inflatable okra man

And the okra? Yeah, that’s the best part. Every town has its annual festival, if it wants to call itself a town. A festival is a way of creating a town brand, an identity, however freakish (and so often delightfully so!) the annual event may be. So Irmo, as you’ll read on the signs when you enter the town limits, is the proud “Home of the Okra Strut.” That’s right, folks, the last weekend of September of every year, we celebrate okra. Parade, Little Miss this and that, street dance, carnival, the works. You can get your okra fried, dipped in chocolate, or a ridiculous number of other competitively weird ways. There’s an okra eating contest as well as an okra growing contest. And the annual 10k “Dam Run to Irmo” takes place on the Saturday morning before the parade. The race starts on the Lexington side of the Lake Murray Dam and ends in the heart of Irmo.

So okra’s always held a special place in my heart, even before I considered it edible. Still not a fan of boiled, but fried, oh yeah, and curried, as Durhamfood demonstrates in the previous post, definitely. The ever helpful SC tourism department can help you plan your trip if you just can’t resist the lure of that fuzzy green pod and must get yourself to the 2008 Okra Strut. Oh, and remember: South Carolina doesn’t have a motorcycle helmet law! Yeehaw!

–DurmOnion

We got pound of okra from our CSA yesterday. A pound of okra is a lot of okra, it turns out!

I’m going to be pickling some - I’m a pickling virgin, so this should be fun (Note: a pickling virgin, not a pickled virgin - that’s a completely different thing ) - and I’m going to make some for our weekly potluck tonight. I’ve been reading all over the web, and many people advise washing and completely drying the okra, then wiping the knife off after every cut. Bittman and Beard, as well as many web pages have very similar recipes, involving corn and tomatoes. I’ll pick one of them by this afternoon and let y’all know how it turns out. Pictures to come, I hope.

Anyone have any okra-related thoughts this lovely gray Wednesday?

Update: OKRA COOKING!

Here are some pictures, recipe to follow (probably tomorrow)

Okra, all fresh'n'shit

Okra. In Bits.

Tomatoes, Peppers and Onions, the other white meat

In da' skillet...

And it's done (except for the corn)

All done, with the corn

….and it’s not slimey!

Update morning after: Sorry about that last pic, it’s far too dark. I took it in a hurry on the way out to potluck. Oh well.

Anyway, the stew was good. Maybe next time I’ll spice it up a little more, as this time it just had curry powder. Also, using fresh tomatoes and corn would have made a big difference, but alas corn season has just passed and our tomato plants are in between fruiting weeks - lots coming next week, or maybe this weekend.

Here’s how I did it, based on Bittman, but changed around, espeicially technique-wise:

Summer Veggie Stew with Okra

Ingredients:

• 1/2lb okra, all 3″ or shorter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 red, orange or yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 can plum tomatoes, chopped (or just diced from the can - or fresh, if you have them)
• a little neutral oil (canola, peanut, etc)
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Chop the okra into 1/2″ rounds, wiping the knife with a paper towel very often.

Heat up the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Don’t let it get too hot.  Add the onions, pepper and garlic, plus some salt and freshly-ground black pepper.  Saute for about 10min, stirring occasionally, until peppers are a little tender.

Add tomatoes, chili powder and okra and continue cooking uncovered, stirring occasionally for 5-8 minutes until okra are just tender.  You will see a few stringy slimy bits.  Don’t worry.

Add corn, cook until heated through and serve.

Since Joe has now discovered all your opinions regarding Durham burgers, I felt like doing the same for our wonderful tacquerias.  So here’s the poll.  You can choose up to two answers each.  I’ll try to get it working in the sidebar too.

Update: sidebar poll working!

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Making Tortillas at La Vaquita

I haven’t written anything in forever.  I don’t really know why, just haven’t found the motivation, I suppose.  I’m sitting here in our new house (DO bought it a few months back, we moved in May), the kitchen is clean and we have wonderful stuff from the Durham Farmer’s Market and from our Brinkley CSA waiting to be cooked.  We’ve been eating ridiculously well recently, and mostly local to boot.  That’s something we’ve drifted into rather than an ideological commitment, but it’s sure been tasty.

As for restaurants, there have been many in the last few months.  On the fancy side, we’ve discovered Panciuto in Hillsborough.  It’s a marvel to find genuinely great Italian in the Triangle, but it’s comes at a price: entrees are all over $20.  We went for our second anniversary back in late June, and will be back when we’re feeling wealthy.  I strongly recommend it for a special occasion.

We’ve also been back to J.Betski’s in Raleigh.  It was recommended to me by Matt Kelly of Vin Rouge fame as the best place to eat meat in the region.  I agree.  It’s downright fantastic East European fare, with loads of lesser-known beers to match.  You know you’re doing something right when you order bratwurst with grape mustard as an appetizer!  The first time we went, the desserts weren’t great, but this last time, the meal was absolutely perfect.  At around $50 a person for three courses plus (lots of) booze, it’s also not super-expensive, but a great once-in-a-while treat.  I strongly recommend going with a crowd (we’ve been seven each time), so you get to try most of the menu.

On the cheaper side, there have been a few new tacquerias opening over the last few months in Durham.  Overall, I’m not too impressed.  The pastor at Chubby’s is very good, but the rest of their offerings are pretty mediocre.  The new menu at Lopez is just not that good.  On the good side, we tried Best Burrito yesteday and found their chorizo excellent and smoky.  It’s home made apparently, and quite different from many others I’ve tried.  However, I must say La Vaquita is still the best stuff in town.  I’ve never been disappointed there, not once.  Their Conchinita Pibil is gorgeous, and the huge chicken tamale is dreamily creamy and just wonderful.  The tacos are great too, but it’s in their other fare that they really shine.

So anyway, I’m back, at least for now.  Just for kicks, here’s a recipe for a yummy tomato/pepper sauce I threw together the other day with tomatoes from our front yard:

Tomato Plants in our yard

Sweet Pepper and Tomato Sauce

Put this over pasta, preferably orriechette.  Add a few sauteed eggplant cubes and serve with a fresh saussage grilled over charcoal.  This also goes great over poached eggs for a special weekend brunch.

Ingredients

• 1.5lb fresh ripe tomatoes
• 3 sweet peppers (preferably one red, one yellow, one orange - no green!)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• Salt and pepper
• Fresh sage, marjoram and a few bay leaves
• Good olive oil

Put a small pot of water to boil on the stove.  Cut a cross at the bottom of each tomato.  When the water is boiling, throw the tomatoes in for a few seconds, fish them out, peel and chop off the top, then cut each tomato in half.

In the mean time, broil the peppers under high heat (if you happen to have a charcoal grill going, that would be even better).  Keep turning the peppers until all sides are charred and blistered.  Remove from oven/broiler/grill and put in a ziplock bag.  Close up your container and let the peppers steam for 15min.

Heat a good quantity of robust olive oil in a heavy pan over medium-low heat.  Sautee the onions and garlic slowly, letting them get sweet.  Marvel at the wonderful smell - I always do!

Remove the peppers from your container and peel carefully.  They should be very easy to peel.  Remove the stems and seeds and cut into 3/4″ squares.

Add the peeled tomatoes to the pan and increase the heat to medium-high.  Cook until the tomatoes are completely dissolved, then add the herbs and bay leaves.  Throw in the peppers, reduce the heat back to medium-low, salt and pepper to taste.  Let the whole thing cook, barely simmering for about 20min.

This post is long overdue, really. Sorry about that. It’s been a busy week, plus I’ve spent ages tweaking the photos.

Anyway, we went strawberry picking last Saturday at Lyon Farms near Creedmoor. At $1 a pound, it’s incredibly good value. DO and I picked nearly 12lbs of strawberries in less than an hour. It’s pretty easy work, and with the weather as good as it is at the moment, there’s no excuse not to go get some lovely fresh berries:

On the plant…

And in a box!

OK, so you’ve gone to some pick-you-own place (there are tons of them around) and you’ve picked your large box of strawberries. Now what on earth are you going to do with all that fruit?

I decided to make preserves. Recipe and pictures follow. The recipe and sterilizing procedure may look long and daunting, but it’s really not hard. Once you’ve done it a couple of times, it becomes very routine and quite fun. Give it a go!

Strawberry Preserves
(lightly adapted from Pickles and Preserves by Marion Brown)

Ingredients:

• 8 cups strawberries (measured after cleaning, stemming and cutting off green bits)
• 8 cups white sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp vinegar (I used red wine vinegar, you can use pretty much anything)
• 2/3 cup water

Clean berries!

Equipment:

• Wooden spoon
• 1 large pot (I used my Le Crueset, but anything of similar size - 5.5 qt - will do fine)
• 1 shallow metal tray for cooling purposes
• 12 4oz canning jars (available from Food Lion and elsewhere)
• Tongs (preferably with silicone tips for a good grip on those jars)
• Metal ladle
• A few clean kitchen towels
• A clean cloth for wiping syrup off jars

OK, got all that stuff? That’s a very large amount of sugar, so go get a 5lb bag or two…

Put the sugar, water, vinegar and butter in your pot and turn heat to medium-high. Stir constantly. It will be hard to do at first, but as the water heats, the sugar will begin to dissolve into a very thick syrup. There will still be crystals, but it will look and feel like a liquid. If you have a thermometer, you want the solution to be between 145F and 150F

The first time I tried this, I heated the sugar too slowly, eventually evaporating the water and getting the sugar to melt, rather than dissolve. This is not good. It will result in a seriously overcooked jam, which will harden to a pretty nasty jello-like substance when it cools.

Add your clean berries to the pot and stir gently, but well. The strawberries should be coated in sugar crystals. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally:

Berries almost boiling!

Once the mixture is boiling, set a timer for 15 minutes and reduce the heat closer to medium. Be careful! The mixture tends to overflow, spilling sugar onto your burner and making the kitchen smell awful. This is not good. You want your kitchen smelling like strawberries, not burnt sugar! Stir the mixture down if necessary, and keep a close eye on it.

When your timer goes DING, turn the heat off, move the pot off the hot burner and let it rest for a minute or two until the foam settles.

Pour the hot preserves into your cooling tray and put the tray somewhere safe (like the oven) to cool. This will take at least 4-6 hours. I just left them to cool overnight.

Preserves in cooling tray

Good morning! Today we will learn how to sterilize jars and can our preserves!

First thing, make sure those hands of yours and all your equipment are clean. Wash everything with lots of hot water and soap. Those new jars may look clean, but it’s worth scrubbing them anyway.

Fill your large pot with water, place six jars with their screw-tops (not the lids!) in the water and set the pot on the stove over high heat. Fill another, much smaller pot with water and do the same. The smaller pot will be used to sterilize the lids, which are not supposed to boil, as the high temperature would denature the sealing compound. Heat the small pot to 180F (just sub-simmer) and put the lids in. Reduce the heat to medium-low to keep the temperature steady.

Once the water in the large pot is at a full boil, put in your tongs and ladle. Set your timer to 10 minutes and have a cup of coffee. Seriously, have a cup of coffee. You’re going to be handling very hot glass and sterile equipment that cannot touch anything. You will have to concentrate. Drink coffee. It helps!

Lay out kitchen towels in a few layers on the table or counter top. Do this as close to your stove as possible. Take the cooled preserves out of the oven and place near your towels.

Once your timer goes DING, grab an oven mitt, pick up the tongs from the boiling water, being extremely careful not to touch the silicone. Use the tongs to pick up one HOT glass jar and place it carefully on the clean towels. Put the tongs back in the boiling water and pick up the ladle.

Under no circumstances should you touch the the inside of the jar or any of the metal parts of your equipment, nor the lids with your fingers.

Carefully ladle some of the preserves into the jar. You want to get mostly strawberries and not too much syrup. Almost fill the jar, leaving 1/4″ gap at the top. Put the ladle back in the boiling water.

Using a clean cloth, carefully wipe any syrup off the threads of the jar.

Using the tongs, pick up one of the lids from the smaller pot and carefully place it on the jar. Pick up a screw top with the tongs, place it over the jar and screw it finger-tight.

Repeat with each of your six jars.

Using your tongs again, carefully place each of the jars into the boiling water. You may need to top up the evaporating water. I kept an extra pot boiling on the side for this purpose. Set your timer to 20 minutes and drink more coffee.

Using the tongs once again, carefully remove each of the jars and place it on your towels. Each jar should go ‘pop’ as the temperature drops and the seal completes.

Completed preserves!

Repeat the whole procedure for the other six jars.

Once your jars are cool (4-6 hours), you may place them in a cool, dark place where they will keep for up to two years. You now have lots and lots of preserves. Be nice, give some to your friends!