I’ve had a standard stir-fry recipe for many years that can fit either chicken or beef depending on the stock/broth used and other variations. I don’t think lemon juice goes with beef, for instance, so I substitute sherry. It’s served me well, but recently I’ve become interested in developing a good homemade version of kung pao chicken. When we lived in Falls Church, VA, we ate a number of times at the Peking Gourmet Inn, a restaurant less than a mile from us that was a favorite of many celebrities, including the George W. Bushes. The walls are lined with many framed and signed photos. Gideon especially loved their kung pao chicken, saying that it wasn’t like any other version he’d ever tried. I loved their egg rolls, and sometimes for lunch I’d call in a takeout order (with extra garlic sauce), swing by and pick it up, and consume the two scrumptious, golden, packed-with-filling rolls in about five nanoseconds. Heaven! (Well, nearly.) In homage to that memory I made some egg rolls not too long ago that weren’t bad, although I didn’t deep fry them. Too messy! Then I decided to make a run at the kung pao. While the end result wasn’t really much like the PGI version, I have to say that the results were pretty gratifying. You know you have a hit on your hands when people keep taking seconds . . . and thirds. There was a tiny portion left. (Which I ate for lunch today, and it was just as good as freshly made!)
I wanted to make a substantial version of tabbouleh for vegetarians. You can do pretty much what you want with this. I give a list of possible ingredients and you can add or subtract at will and to taste. Most tabbouleh recipes are very heavy on the chopped parsley, almost as if that ingredients is standing in for lettuce, but you don’t have to add that much. You could even, if you wanted to, add some shredded cooked chicken, if you have any sitting around that you want to use up, but this is such a good dish for vegetarians (and even vegans) that it’s probably good to leave it meat-free.
Sunday evening was a big get-together over at my in-laws’ house in celebration of four birthdays (mainly my father-in-law’s) and as a farewell to my son Gideon who is leaving for his internship in Seattle at the end of this week. Jan, my mother-in-law, was making pulled pork and various other things and wanted me to make something with sweet potatoes. I am on record as being totally opposed to sweet sweet-potato dishes, especially for Thanksgiving, as I think that they’re too much like dessert. (I always end up being overruled on this at Thanksgiving and people always love what Jan makes; what can you do?) But for this meal I got to choose, so I went looking for a savory sweet-potato dish. The following has been heavily adapted, so I have no problem with posting it as mine. The original recipe called for pancetta. Well, I thought, I’ll use bacon. Then I realized, far too late to do anything about it, that all of my bacon was in a solid block in the freezer. So I left it out. And I have to say, as a committed bacon lover, that it doesn’t need it. It’s also supposed to have a lot of fresh sage, which I didn’t have, and a lot less crumb topping. Gyp! So I doubled the crumb amount and put in more butter. That should make up for any calorie deficit from leaving out the bacon. This is really, really good. I promise.