Words Words Words (like escabache, for instance)

I Am Not Wikipedia

Wikipedia provides fairly succinct and straightforward definitions of both escabeche and vinaigrette. Feel free to use those to describe your own recipes if that's your thing. I have my own definitions. I think mine are a little more practical than the Wikipedia definitions, which are more concerned with the historical significance of the terms.

So, when I say vinaigrette I mean any simple acid-based sauce or dressing. The acid can be any vinegar or citrus juice. Vinaigrettes usually contain one or more oils and some combination of herbs and spices. As far as I'm concerned, hot and cold vinaigrettes are still vinaigrettes. (I realize that "one or more oils" might sound a bit odd, but flavoring oils— like sesame, lemon, or hazelnut oils—and some infusions—like commercially available chili, basil, and garlic oils—tend to be a bit too stout to use as the sole oil base in a vinaigrette.)

When I add vegetables to a vinaigrette and cook the mixture to produce a sauce that I will use to marinate or dress a protein, I call it an escabeche. I could call it lumpy vinaigrette, but it just doesn't sound as appetizing. I know, strictly speaking escabeche is used only for fish, and it's usually chilled before use. I don't care. I need the term and choose to co-opt it in this fashion. So sue me. (Litigious pedants should note, however, that the Persian root for escabeche is sikbag, which means simply "acid food.")

What "Chicken" Means at My Place

A few years ago, while experimenting with ways to make grilled chicken breasts taste more like food and a little less like charred paper, I came up with a fortuitous pairing of a sweet chili marinade and a tomato and onion escabeche that I originally intended for use with red snapper. My daughter liked it so much that she began asking for it every week. Originally, I'd come home from shopping for groceries and answer her, "What's for dinner?" with, "Chicken on escabeche." Later, she started recognizing some of the ingredients and would ask, "Are we having chicken?" Occasionally, she has asked, "Can we have chicken for dinner tonight?"

The first time she asked that question, I countered with, "How do you want it," and was answered with a dumbfounded stare. "You know, the sweet one with the tomatoes." I'm not certain where the transition occurred, but at some point chicken came to mean that specific dish. Any other chicken dish—even a plain old roasted chicken—required an adjective to distinguish it from chicken, which implied the exclusion of non-breast meat and the inclusion of one specific escabeche.

Chicken (grilled marinated chicken on escabeche)

Yes, that's on, not en. Serves three.

dramatis personae

three chicken breast halves

the marinade:
one cup water
one quarter cup white wine vinegar
one quarter cup Sauvignon blanc
three chilis arbol, crushed
one quarter cup light brown sugar
one tablespoon salt (or one teaspoon—see preparation notes)

the escabeche:
one third cup extra virgin olive oil
one small white onion, chopped
pinch of sea salt
three garlic cloves, minced or crushed
one chili arbol, seeded and minced
one large or two small bay leaves
one quarter cup cheap balsamic vinegar
two tablespoons apple cider vinegar
one teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
one pint cherub tomatoes, halved

quality of ingredients

I usually buy split, boned, skinless chicken breasts. If they have chicken at the butcher's counter, I can occasionally find chicken that has never been frozen. Otherwise, I try to find the packages that are still frozen with no signs of having been previously thawed. Sometimes I just have to settle for the least freezer-burnt meat I can find. Freezer burn on chicken breasts creates whiter portions on the edges of the meat, usually where the breasts are thinnest.

Cheap Sauvignon blanc is a good generic marinating wine. It's available in most grocery stores, is fruity, mildly sweet, and not too tart.

The escabeche cooks long enough that it really doesn't matter what type of onion you use. After simmering in hot olive oil for ten minutes, onions all taste pretty much the same.

Use fresh bay leaves. You'll get ten times the flavor over the bay leaves. Dried thyme is strong enough but I find the taste of dried thyme a bit metallic.

See quality of ingredients under Composing a Symphony for guidance on garlic.

preparation notes

The marinade will be plenty effective in about forty-five minutes if it contains enough salt. One tablespoon should suffice. If you plan to marinate the chicken overnight, cut the salt down to a teaspoon to keep from oversalting it. Mix the ingredients in a ziplock bag (no need to seed the chili, you'll be throwing out the marinade once it's done its work). Trim any excess fat from the chicken breasts and drop them into the marinade. Express the air from the bag, seal it, and put it in a large enough bowl to catch the liquid in case of an accident. Refrigerate the marinating chicken for forty-five minutes. Remove the chicken breasts to a plate and discard the marinade. Blot the breasts dry with a paper towel and cover them with plastic wrap while you make the escabeche.

Heat the olive oil over a medium flame until it just starts to shimmer. Pour in the onions, garlic, chili, and bay leaf and sauté until the onions just start to reach translucency. Turn down the flame to low and allow the mixture to simmer for about ten minutes.

Add in the vinegars and bring the mixture to a boil. Mix in the thyme and tomatoes. This is your escabeche. Remove the escabeche from the flame and pour it into a bowl. Cover the bowl with a plate.

Unwrap the chicken breasts and bias cut them into 3/4-inch strips. I usually cook these in a grill pan (over medium high heat, about two minutes per side), but you could also grill them on an actual grill.

Pour the escabeche into a large serving platter and either remove the bay leaves and discard them, or set them off to the side (nice looking but inedible). Arrange the strips of chicken on top of the escabeche.

Serendipity—Salmon and Tomatoes and Orange Juice

Actually, the experiment was a combination of items that I know work together. The sum total of these combinations, however, left not only me but also my wife doubting the choices. The result was one of those fortuitous combinations that somehow manages to be more than the sum of its parts: sweet, rich, and savory with just enough acid to be bright without being downright sour. We all enjoyed it (Girltzik complimented the dish several times during the meal and twice afterward.) All in all, I have to say this was another first-time success.

As is often the case, this particular experiment began with me shopping for one thing (the ingredients for the chicken dish described above) and finding an attractive other. In this case, the grocery store whose aisles I was perusing had some beautiful sockeye salmon fillets on display. Bright, gelatinous, incarnadine—I have no will power where such things are concerned.

Because I was already shopping for the chicken dish, I had escabeche on the brain (not as uncomfortable as that probably sounds). Rather than completely revising my shopping list, I began mentally calculating changes I wanted to make to accommodate the richer, sweeter flavor of pan seared sockeye salmon. I immediately shifted from chili arbol to chipotle. The transition to orange juice and mexican oregano also seemed like obvious choices. Some of the other modifications I made to augment these initial transitions. Ultimately (right up to serving time), I was a little nervous about the combination of orange with tomato. My experience said both ingredients (in separate dishes) would work with salmon, but I honestly couldn't imagine how well the tomato-onion-salmon combination would marry with the orange-chipotle-salmon combination. For the life of me, I couldn't think of a dish I'd ever tried that contained both tomatoes and orange juice.

Charred sockeye with tomato-orange escabeche

This was just enough salmon for the three of us, but the quantity of escabeche would have been okay with enough salmon for four (translation—I threw out about a half cup of escabeche after dinner).

dramatis personae

one pound sockeye salmon fillets (skin on)
one quarter cup plus two tablespoons olive oil
two or more chipotle peppers, seeded and halved (see preparation notes for quantity)
two cups orange juice
one quarter cup white wine vinegar
two tablespoons light brown sugar
sea salt
one small onion, coarsely chopped
three garlic cloves, minced or chopped
one large or two small bay leaves
one pint cherub tomatoes
two teaspoons dried Mexican oregano

quality of ingredients

If the filets don't glisten, they've dried out. Sockeye salmon should be vermilion approaching red. If the salmon smells fishy or if the flesh is beginning to separate, it might be too old. This can be misleading with salmon. If the fishmonger has carefully removed all the bones, the meat might have separated along the rib line. If the meat is beginning to separate into flakes; however, it's definitely past its prime.


Chipotle peppers are the only choice. Anything else is just wrong. If you can't find them in your produce section, buy the canned chipotles.

Mexican oregano (which is actually more flavorful after drying) is pretty easy to find in Texas grocery stores. I'm not sure if that's true elsewhere. If not, substitute a teaspoon each of fresh minced peppermint and oregano.

preparation notes

I haven't separated these ingredients into marinade and escabeche sections because this preparation involves a bit of crossing over.

Place the filets face down in a wide bottomed bowl and pour a cup and a half of the orange juice over them. To the remaining one half cup of OJ, add the white wine vinegar, the light brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Pour half of this mixture over the salmon filets, too, and set aside the remainder for later.

The fancy-shmancy foodie word for this ingredient will be infusion. We're going to make a quick chipotle infusion with the olive oil. This is incredibly simple. In a non-stick sauté pan, heat a quarter cup of olive oil over medium heat until it just begins to shimmer. Place the seeded chipotle chilis in the oil, insides down. Two chilis (three, if they're from a can) should be enough to just taste a little smoky bite in the final dish. If you like your chipotle dishes to be more assertive, use four chilis (six, if you're using canned chilis). Let the chilis infuse the hot oil for about ten minutes, and then remove (I use chopsticks) and discard the chilis.

Turn up the flame to medium-high and add in the onion, garlic, bay leaf, and a pinch of salt. Sauté these until the onions just start to reach translucency. Turn down the flame to low and allow the mixture to simmer for about ten minutes.

Add in the reserved orange/vinegar mixture, and bring the mixture to a boil. Mix in the Mexican oregano and tomatoes. This is your escabeche. Remove the escabeche from the flame and pour it into a bowl. Cover the bowl with a plate.

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil to the smoke point (just a wisp, not a black cloud). Place the salmon filets in the oil skin side up. Do not towel off the orange juice; it's going to caramelize. The trend in upscale dining establishments in the past decade has been to serve salmon medium rare. Personally, I don't see the appeal. I like raw salmon in some preparation, but not in the middle of my cooked salmon. With that in mind, cook the salmon filets for five minutes on the flesh side, turn them over, and cook the skin side for four minutes. While the flesh side is down, do not lift or move the filets as this will cause the just-forming caramel to flake off.

If you prefer medium-rare filets, cook the filets for three minutes on the flesh side, turn them, and cook them for another minute on the skin side.

Place the filets on a platter skin side down. Pour the tomato-orange escabeche over the filets. Remove the bay leaves and discard them or place them to the side of the platter. This is a damned fine looking dish already, so you don't need to bother with any extra garnish.

Composing a Symphony - king crab curry

Beethoven's Ninth versus Nirvana Unplugged

I used to make a variation on lasagna bolognese that tended to go over well at parties and pot luck gatherings. In my lasagna I substituted a layer of spinach leaves for every other layer of noodles, substituted hot Italian sausage for ground beef, and incorporated five cheeses: mozzarella, provolone, ricotta, cottage cheese curd, and reggiano parmigiano. My lasagna sauce was a thick concoction of tomato sauce, tomatoes, mushrooms, roasted red bell peppers, onions, garlic, oregano, and basil. In several years, I only received two complaints about the dish. One was from an acquaintance who didn't like mushrooms. The other came from an aunt of mine who tried a few bites and then pushed it away.

"I'm sorry," she explained, "it just contains too much stuff. It's too many flavors for me. My taste buds don't know what to concentrate on."

I shrugged it off: de gustibus. Still, the criticism has stayed with me all these years, and I occasionally find myself thinking much the same thing about overly complicated dishes. I've seen many fine dishes ruined by the addition of one too many stout ingredients. I stopped visiting one of the local Italian restaurants because they insist on putting garlic in everything but the drinks and desserts. Their bread sticks, salad dressings, red sauces, white sauces, and pestos all contain raw or sautéed garlic. Garlic is good where garlic is good, but not every savory dish needs garlic or even benefits from its presence. (Of course, it doesn't help that the restaurant in question uses too much garlic in every dish. After a few bites of any entrée, you can't even taste the parmigiano.) I've seen similar effects in various restaurants from unnecessary addition of balsamic vinegar, chilis, corn, sun dried tomatoes, ginger, citrus, and even cheese. After experiencing this problem enough, it's easy to conclude that a dish can have (to crib from Amadeus) too many notes.

How then do we explain curries? A good curry can include as few as a half dozen or as many as two dozen strong aromatics, and most curry cooks employ cooking methods that enhance the strength of some of the aromatics. Balance of flavor elements is the key. Achieving that balance in a curry—or any complex recipe, for that matter—just takes a bit more thought. The problem in unbalanced dishes isn't too many notes—it's too many clinkers.

For any dish to be a success, every flavor in the dish has to balance with every other. One strong element can overbalance all the rest. Even the best desserts contain some tart or spicy or even bitter contrasts to their essential sweetness. Generally, I want my meals to present a spectrum of flavors and textures. That means sweet elements have to be matched with spicy or bitter offsets, tartness has to play against salt, and buttery tenderness needs a contrasting crunch. You can enhance the sweetness of some items with other sweet items, but then you have to be doubly certain that the dish (or an accompaniment) provides something to achieve a balance. Otherwise, you get a cloying sense of sweetness. If I serve lobster with a peach gastric, for example, I would likely balance the sweetness by plating the lobster upon or against a bit of salad that included endive, cucumber, or celery (perhaps all three) for contrast.

Where this methodology usually goes awry is in adding one strong element too many or just too damned much of one strong element.

Consider, for a moment, two quite different but generally well-received musical presentations: Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as conducted by Herbert von Karajan and Nirvana's MTV Unplugged presentation of "Come As You Are." The former production required the cooperative interaction of the one-hundred plus members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Vienna Singverein Chorus, four other singers, and von Karajan. The latter required a three guys playing two guitars and a trap set. Yes, the differences in these two works are vast, but in some ways the similarities. Both of these works are complex, moving, and satisfying pieces of music thanks to the artful employment of harmony, melody, rhythm, and dissonance in balance. Each presentation contains strong elements capable of overwhelming the music if they're not properly controlled. Each work elicits a strong, positive emotional response from its aficionados. The largest difference in these works is a matter of order of magnitude. What Nirvana accomplishes by balancing three instruments and a single voice, von Karajan pulls off with twenty times as many elements.

A good curry works a lot like a well-orchestrated, well-conducted symphony. Too much of any one aromatic can overwhelm the dish. I've had bad curries. Sometimes the problem is just timing: overcooked or undercooked elements. Overcooking is a common problem in restaurants where many curries are prepared at the beginning of a mealtime and lift to simmer for a few hours. More commonly though the problem is too much. Too much cumin or garlic or ginger or cloves makes that particular ingredient stand out. Too much powdered spice makes the concoction taste and feel dusty. Too much curry relative to the main protein component kills the flavor of that component. If the dish is supposed to be curried shrimp, you should be able to taste shrimp.

I've experimented with a number of pre-mixed curry powders over the years. The biggest problem with them is that no single combination of aromatics can match with every possible protein. You can't expect a curry powder that matches well with shrimp and coconut milk to work with chicken. In composing my own curries, I have more success dividing my aromatics into two batches: a dry spice mix (masala) and a curry paste that combines dry and moist aromatics. This allows me greater control of the flavors of the ingredients. The ingredients in the masala are enhanced by a little extra cooking. The ingredients in the curry paste will be ruined if they cook too long. The crab curry I've listed here is one that I originally concocted for use with lump blue crab meat, but I found that—although the paste worked just fine with lump crab—the dry masala overwhelmed the crab. I decided that I needed a sweeter crab: stone crab, king crab, or snow crab.

King crab curry

The Girltzik (my step-daughter) returned from a summer visit with her father on Sunday night (July 29th). I served this dish over basmati rice. The crab proved itself perfectly capable of sharing the stage with my apple-pie spice masala. Everyone ate too much.

dramatis personae

one tablespoon peanut oil
one Fuji apple, cored and diced (skin on)
one quarter of a sweet onion
(optional) one quarter cup chopped snow peas
one pound of king crab meat
one half can of coconut milk

for the apple-pie spice masala:
one quarter teaspoon cinnamon
one quarter teaspoon ground cloves
one half teaspoon ground allspice
one half teaspoon ground cardamom

for the paste:
three tablespoons chopped ginger root
two tablespoons chopped garlic
one teaspoon ground coriander seed
one teaspoon ground turmeric
one quarter teaspoon cayenne

quality of ingredients

I would have liked to include a handful of snow peas in this curry, but the snow peas in my local supermarket were horrid: yellowish, hard as wood, and blighted with little brown speckles. Snow peas, if you plan to use them, should be bright green and pliable but not so pliable that they won't snap if bent too far.

The apple should be smooth, fresh, and crisp. This is usually not a problem with Fujis. I wouldn't recommend the double-sized Fuji apples sometimes sold as Hugey Fujis. They're inconsistent, and some of them are a bit light on flavor. If you cut into the apple and see any brownish flesh, throw it out. If, on the other hand, you see any translucent, lemon yellow, crystallized-looking portions, consider yourself lucky. The crystallized Fujis are sweeter, crunchier, and all around better tasting. As far as I know, there is no way to spot the crystallized apples until you cut them open.

The king crab should be as described in Keeping Cool - the crab course.

The ginger root, once peeled, should be bright yellow, juicy, and have a sharp, clean, lemony aroma.

The garlic should be fresh but not beginning to sprout. Sprouting garlic is bitter. If your garlic is sprouting and have no alternatives available, cut the cloves open and remove and discard the green center portions .

preparation notes

Mix the masala in a small bowl or ramekin and set it aside.

Place the paste ingredients in a food processor and pulse it until you have a uniform consistency with no outstanding bits of garlic or ginger. I have a small (3 cup) food processor that's ideal for small jobs like curry pastes, pestos, and ingredients for vinaigrettes. If all you have is a large food processor, you might find it more convenient to triple the ingredients and put two thirds of it in the freezer for later use.

Heat the peanut oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Once the oil begins to shimmer, pour in the masala. Let the spices steep in the oil for about five minutes. This allows oily aromatic compounds in the spices to leach out and blend in the peanut oil. It also makes the kitchen smell terrific.

Stir in the apple pieces and toss them to thoroughly coat the apple. Continue to cook the apple, tossing occasionally, for three to five minutes. This will allow some caramelization of the apple without softening the fruit too much.

Stir in the onion (and snow peas, if you have them) and the curry paste. Thoroughly mix the ingredients in the pan and continue to cook them until the onion is translucent and beginning to soften.

Stir in the coconut milk and the king crab. Continue to cook, stirring or tossing constantly, until the coconut begins to thicken.

Serve the king crab curry over basmati or kasmati rice and with your favorite chutneys on the side.