Stove-top Popcorn with Olive Oil and Cracked Pepper

Fresh stove-top popcorn is the only kind you'll get in our apartment

Despite the rapid popularity of microwave popcorn during my lifetime, stove-top popcorn wiggled its way into a single memory from my 1980′s childhood.  My great-grandmother stood next to our stove, melting butter in a big pot and I stood next to her on tip-toe, trying to catch glimpses of the golden pool. She opened a big plastic bag of popcorn kernels, pushed me away from the stove and poured in half the bag. I still remember the high-pitched “whoosh” of all those little kernels hitting the metal. Then came the first “pop.” Then the next. Then it seemed as if the popcorn would pop right off the stove.

The memory ends there, although I’m sure I enjoyed this buttery snack while watching Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, happily nestled between the sofa and the coffee table, cross-legged on the floor.

Store unpopped popcorn in a bug-proof container

Shortly thereafter microwave popcorn appeared on the scene, and stove-top popcorn — along with Irish beef stew and creamed tuna on toast — was catapulted into the magical realm of “things Dema used to make” which is something like a museum for food memories from my early life.

Start with two or three test kernels in the pot. When one pops, its time to add the rest.

Raphe and I rediscovered stove-top popcorn together in the early months of our relationship.   I was in school, completely broke-ass and living with two other broke-ass student types in a tiny two bedroom plus large closet that lacked, among other things, a microwave.  Raphe suggested a movie-night on chilly winter evening and my mind went back to that  memory of Dema standing in front of the stove with a bag of unpopped popcorn.   So, Raphe and I ventured into the well-stocked dry good section of the local grocery store, picked up a bag of Goya popcorn and have never gone back.

We like to use a pot with a clear lid so we know if we need to remove some of the popped corn, Also, it's fun to watch.

Stove-top popcorn is now our go-to snack for lazy Saturdays and has made appearances at the dinner table on even lazier weeknights.  We leave large bowls of it out at parties, where it disappears long before the hummus or cheese platter. The popcorn is crisper than the microwave version, avoids imitation butter and takes only a few minutes to make.  Instead of melted butter, we drizzle our popcorn with rosemary olive oil and season it with sea salt and cracked pepper.  Sometimes we add a touch of hot pepper oil  or Old Bay seasoning to mix it up.  For your first batch, we recommend keeping it simple so you can appreciate just how good stove-top popcorn is.

Blue Corn Tortilla Chips

Blue corn chips from Eastern Fruits and Vegetables

It can be hard to cook this time of year.  The heat outside seeps in the windows and even the fans can’t keep it at bay after a time.  The last thing most of us want to do in this weather is firing up the oven.  We power through it, though, when it’s chips and salsa time.

I feel in love with blue corn tortillas when I lived out west.  And what’s not to love?  Bold color.  Fresh, earthy flavor.  Soft, chewy texture (especially if you can get one hot off the griddle).  We keep our fridge stocked with tortillas for quesadillas and tacos.  For a quick snack, I like mine toasted with just a little bit of unsalted butter (a trick I picked up in Santa Fe).

Kensington’s Mexican population ensures the availability of corn tortillas at every bodega and grocer – it’s like heaven.  Most of the tortillas are even made right here in Brooklyn. Our  favorite are made by Los Hermanos in Bushwick.

When it gets warm out, we pick up an extra pack of the blue ones just for chips.  We use the chips to scoop up Raphe’s roasted pepper and pear salsa or my corn and black bean salsa.  Bake the chips at night when it’s cool and give your kitchen a few hours to recover.  It’s worth firing up the oven.

Fil-Am Pulled Hamonada Sliders

This is a submission to the Kulinarya Cooking Club April 2011 challenge.  The theme, “decadence” was chosen by Lala of This Little Piggy.  For more information, visit the Kulinarya Cooking Club blog.

Fil-Am Pulled Hamonada Sliders: Heaven on a Bun

When it comes to home-cooking there’s a fine line between decadent and wasteful.

It feels just heavenly to set out food for 30 when you have 10 guests. But what happens to the 3-layer devil’s food cake after the guests leave? What happens to all those expensive fresh herbs and vegetables that don’t make it in to the Easter roasts and salads? What happens to the 10 pounds of leftover ham?????

This hamonada sat in our fridge for 6 days. No way we were letting it go.

As it turns out, those leftovers can come together to create something even more delicious, something even more visually stimulating, something to satisfy cravings for salty, sweet, bitter, sour and savory all at once.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

Remember this bad boy?

Last weekend we shared a lovely hamonada with new friends and old. You see, if all we wanted was savory, sweet and caloric we could have stopped there. What’s not decadent about a rich, fatty cut of ham, slow-roasted in sweet pineapple and apple juices? What’s not indulgent about chunks of fall-off-the-bone tender pork served over rice and drizzled with a syrupy fruit juice reduction?

Adding ketchup makes the pineapple BBQ sauce

But we wanted more. More flavor. More texture. More heat. More pineapple sauce dripping down our palms with each rich, tangy bite.

We wanted… a sandwich.

We turned that leftover hamonada into pulled pork in pineapple BBQ sauce by adding our homemade ketchup and Habanero oil for heat.

Halfway between pickles and cole-slaw. No mayo. Extra ginger.

We raided the last of the red cabbage and carrots (previously seen in our Easter lumpia) and marinated them in rice vinegar, sugar and ginger for tang and crunch.

Not-quite gluten-free rolls.

We rolled out a glorious bunch of golden rice-flour buns with tender crumb and crunchy crust.

Pretty. And pretty spicy.

Then, we sent these sandwiches over the edge with just a few crumbles of creamy bleu cheese and Habanero slices soaked in olive oil.

This, my friends, is the making of decadent and, dare I say, orgasmic, Filipino-American Pulled Hamonada Sliders. Not only are these delicious, but they required absolutely no additional grocery shopping and made effective use of what was already sitting in the fridge.

80% re-purposed leftovers and pantry items. 99% homemade. 100% decadent.

Yes. I ate six of these for dinner.

Notes:

1. As this isn’t our usual kind of “from scratch” recipe, we don’t list local sources for some of the items below. Instead we’ve provided links to our inspiration or previously posted recipe.
2. Yes, the bleu cheese is necessary.  It’s the bleu cheese and hot peppers that tie the sandwich together.

*****

Fil-Am Pulled Hamonada Sliders
makes 16 sliders with leftover meat and cabbage (delicious over rice)

Ingredients

Pulled Hamonada in Pineapple BBQ sauce
1-2 lbs leftover hamonada (recently posted here)
1 cup hamonada pineapple sauce (cooking liquid from the same post)
1/2 c. ketchup (we recommend homemade or low sugar, like Trader Joe’s)
Hot pepper oil to taste (once again, we recommend homemade, like this one from Ms. Adventures in Italy.)

Ginger Red Cabbage Slaw (inspired by Munch+Nibble)
1/4 large red cabbage, thin sliced
1 medium carrot, grated
1/2 c. rice vinegar
2 T. sugar
1 T. minced garlic
2 t. powdered ginger
1 t. salt

Sandwiches
Pulled Hamonada
Slaw
Bleu cheese, crumbled or sliced
Habenero slices in oil
Rice flour rolls

1. Bake Rolls

• I used rolls similar to these from Art of Gluten-Free Baking, but without dairy and cut like pandesal.

2. Make Red Cabbage Slaw (inspired by Munch+Nibble)

• Shred cabbage and carrots. Mix vinegar, sugar, ginger, garlic and salt.
• Pour vinegar mixture over cabbage. Mix well.
• Refrigerate until needed.

3. Bake pork

• Combine pork, sauce and ketchup in an 8×8 baking dish. Bake at 300 for 1 hour.
• Pull pork apart with forks.  Mix well with sauce.

4. Assemble Sandwiches

• Slice rolls. Layer pork, then bleu cheese, then slaw.   Top with Habanero slice and oil.

Red Cabbage Lumpia

A testament to tastiness: we devoured more than half of them before I remembered to take a picture.

The best part of growing up in multicultural family is the exposure to so much delicious food.  Family holidays always include the classic American roast turkey or ham, but are never complete without my mom’s “egg rolls.”  Mom would make dozens – sometimes even hundreds – of lumpia depending on the size of the gathering. 50 for an intimate Easter. 100 for a large family Christmas. 200 for my little sister’s high school graduation. Regardless of how many she made, they would all disappear and the crowd would clamor for more.

To recreate the experience, Raphe and I had a few folks over to taste test a traditional non-traditional Easter menu

• Hamonada (pineapple braised pork)
• Rice
• Vegetable lumpia (spring rolls)
• Super-experimental sweet potato fritters (inspired by ukoy)

The lumpia, as usual, stole the show.  We decided to keep them vegetable only to balance out the large hunk of meat sitting in the oven.  My mom’s lumpia (Filipino fried spring rolls) are filled with seasoned ground beef, garlic and (usually) vegetables. Occasionally, she’ll make all-meat lumpia. For some reason, I embraced an all vegetable version when I started experimenting in my own kitchen.   This does not, however, mean that they are vegetarian. I slipped in a little fish sauce and bacon grease to round out the flavor.

American influence or no, this is Filipino food we’re talking about.

Ready to go into the fryer

Garlic Fried Peanuts and Baseball

South Bronx's Hot Corner

Batting Practice

It’s opening day for the baseball world and Raphe’s celebrating over at ….drawing walks; not only is baseball awesome in its own right, but it means springtime and warm weather to come (if not today).

Crunchy, salty and garlickly all at once.

If you can’t make it to the field due to the rain (or, say, work), catch the recorded game after work, pop open a cold beer and make yourself some garlic fried peanuts for a Filipino twist on a classic baseball snack.  Tim Lincecum would approve.