Food Lab: Celebration of America

We had another plan for a Food Lab for Saturday, January 23, but Mad Kitchen Scientist pointed out that it felt like it should be more of a celebratory thing, drawing from the heritage and background of our new President Joe Biden (Delaware, Ireland) and Vice President Kamala Harris (California, Jamaica, India).

We decided on the following menu:

Kerala hurricanes

Crab cakes with cilantro chutney and champagne

Fried plantains with mambo sauce (tostones because they weren't ripe enough to be maduros) 

Oxtail stew

Curried collard greens

Naan

California cabernet

"I cannot tell a lie" cherry pie

Irish whiskey

The table, decorated for Mardi Gras bien sur!

Although we didn't plan on it, we did end up doing a little labbing in the process.

The hurricane is a much-maligned drink, in part because too many people have only experienced it as red kool aid plus cheap rum. That is NOT a hurricane. A real hurricane is a sophisticated tiki drink that requires a variety of fresh juices, including passion fruit. What made it a "Kerala" hurricane? The addition of local DC Pratt Standard True Ginger Syrup, Kerala being the region of India where ginger was first grown commercially.

The crab cakes were a nod to Joe's Delaware roots. The key to a good crab cake is to have as little non-crab binder as possible. Chef Spouse generally goes with the minimum amount of panko bread crumbs and mayo that will allow him to form the cakes. Mad Kitchen Scientist had brought along some shrimp, which is another direction you can go: shrimp puree. We had a few extra, so we fried them up as a topper.

The plantains are a staple across the Caribbean, with the addition of Mambo sauce as a shout-out to Kamala's years at HU (You Know!). We ordered them from Baldor Foods, so of course the minimum 

order was 10 pounds. The only difference between tostones and maduros is the level of ripeness of the plantains, and with a 10 pound order, you would THINK that would be plenty for us to wait until some were completely ripe so we could try both kinds, and you'd be right, but we've had to intentionally restrain ourselves from frying up the last two. 

The oxtail stew was where we got into the labbing. Speaking of Baldor, that's also where we got the oxtails: 15 POUNDS of oxtails, and they did NOT come sectioned. Chef Spouse started with the cleaver, and quickly realized that was not going to cut it (see what I did there?). Fortunately, we remembered our Food Lab: Butchering lessons and immediately reached for the hack saw. 

Chef Spouse started with the Jamaican oxtail stew recipe from the NYT Cooking column, and it mostly worked well, although we did have a few notes. 

One, it takes MUCH longer than the three hours they list as a cooking time. Two, it should really be made over two days. On day one, take it up to the place in step five BEFORE you thicken the sauce. At that point, take it off the heat, remove the oxtails, let them cool, remove the meat from the bones, and chill the whole thing overnight. On day two, DEGREASE, reheat, and THEN make the water (or stock) based slurry to thicken the sauce. DO NOT DO IT AS A ROUX - which we did - because, trust me, it does not need any more fat added. 

Even day of, it was delicious - although greasy - and we were able to degrease some the next day before having the leftovers, although since we'd done a roux as a thickener, a lot of the fat did not separate to allow for degreasing. Oh, and it's DEFINITELY a "better the next day" type dish.

On the side, we had curried collards and naan (which was a throwback to our last lab), and accompanied the main meal with a lovely California cabernet. All of this, of course, in tribute to MADAM VICE PRESIDENT. 

Finally, in honor of a return to truth and accuracy to the White House (and to bad ass woman, White House press secretary Jen Psaki), a cherry pie made with a little Ginja cherry liqueur and MORE of the 40 pounds of sour cherries from our last Baldor order (there's a theme here) and a tot of a lovely gift from Mad Kitchen Scientist and The Executive Committee (which I think is also now the official house Irish whiskey) Writer's Tears.

Welcome, President Biden and Vice President Harris! You have NO idea how happy we are to see you!