As I'm typing, the world outside is getting blanketed with the first snowstorm of the season just six days before Christmas. The streets are quiet with the occasional sounds of snow plow trucks doing what they're supposed to be doing; families are huddled in their houses, enjoying the reprieve provided by Mother Nature with simple pleasure of doing nothing & spending some time with their loved ones.
Smells of baking holiday cookies and mulled wine entwine together with the scent of a freshly decorated Christmas tree to create an intoxicating fragrance of sugar, woods & spice, a warming scent that just screams...HOLIDAY!! It's wonderful and simply one of the best times of the year.
On this incredible day, it is a call for me to do one of the things I love most but rarely have time to do: cook. But before I lose myself in the pleasures of my favorite topic (food!), let me introduce myself: the displaced cook.
I grew up hopping around from city to city within the tri-state area after my family moved to America from Taiwan thirty years ago. My family was looking for a better life in a country where they had no close relatives nearby. My mother had to stay home and care for me, leaving my dad responsible for bringing in money for the family. It was a difficult time for my parents who had to rebuild their lives again in a place where they had neither friends nor family. Not so different from the millions of other immigrants who had left their home countries with nothing more than a dream of offering their children a better life with ample opportunities.
My first memories of America was our first residency at a moderate hotel in Manhattan's Upper West Side while my dad worked as a line cook in a restaurant to support us. I was happy there. My mother took me to the park daily along the Hudson River and I made friends with the doorman at our hotel and treated the hotel as my playground. It was a little Eloise of me, but without the pure exorbitance of the Plaza. Memories of sledding in Central Park, Bloomingdales, the pure energy of the city, and the pigeon that pooped on me in Battery Park (and my mother's tale that it was good luck when it landed on my head to ease my distress) have always stayed with me. It was my first taste of city life and I loved it.
We eventually moved to the suburbs of Connecticut and then upstate New York, before settling in the glory of New Jersey. Despite my having lived in four different towns & homes by the time I was six years old, I was happy. By this time, my little sister had also been born so I had a playmate of my own. Having moved so often, I was outgoing and made friends easily. While it was difficult leaving a town, I knew I was onto my next adventure in the next with new friends to be made there.
The days of my family moving finally ended when I was 14-years old in a town in Central NJ known as "Little India" for the very large population of Indian immigrants who had settled here and created a small enclave of Indian shops & boutiques. Within this town, there is also a large East Asian community where my parents felt comfortable living. My four years at the North Edison high school (which I called the 90210 of NJ) were good and I made some great friends who are to this day still a good part of my life. It was the longest time I had ever been in a town.
By senior year, I was itching to get out from my mother's domineering hand and leave the humdrum suburban life. I vowed to leave NJ and never return to the hell of suburbia. I found my haven in our nation's capitol, Washington D.C. and wheedled my parents to agreeing to allow me to leave home & their protection to matriculate at the George Washington University. It was one of the best decisions of my life and a strong part of what makes me who I am today.
DC & GW is a melting pot of all cultures that I had never experienced before in my suburban bubble. It introduced me to a plethora of foods and ingredients that I had never heard of, especially as my parents enjoyed eating only the regional cooking of our native country. It was the start of my love for food where I was able to experiment after freshman year when our dorm rooms were outfitted with their own kitchens. Thankfully, my roommates (whom are still some of my dearest friends today) were lovers of food as well so there was nothing more we enjoyed than cooking a home-cooked meal when we had time between exams, papers, extracurricular activities, our internships, and just the busy social college life.
After college, my skills cooking grew and I started to find my own personal style of cooking which was a blend of my Chinese background and the foods that I loved (French, Italian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean). But it wasn't until I finally moved back to NJ and into a shared apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that my cooking started to flourish. I drowned whatever time I had reading cook books, magazines, devouring recipes on online cooking sites such as epicurious.com, and finally Food Network. It was my escape from the hectic life I led and my job running one of the many showrooms in New York's fashion industry. My roommates learned that when I was cooking up a storm in the kitchen, it meant I was either percolating or trying to relieve some stress. Where others found cooking to be difficult and stressful, I found it to be my sea of calm.
I was finally at a point though where I wanted my own apartment. If anyone has lived in Manhattan, they will know how difficult it is to find a livable, somewhat spacious apartment without spending roughly 75% of your monthly salary. I may have been running a showroom, but the fashion industry is not known for its lucrative pay. So a few days after Christmas I found myself in a very spacious, but dark 1 bedroom apartment on 168th in Washington Heights with my white dog Tyler and my white cat Valentine. I lasted about 6 months before calling it quits from my very noisy Dominican neighbors and the roaches that started coming out once it started getting warmer. Unable to bear hunting for an apartment again and succumbing to the stress and travels of my newest job, I decided to suck it up and move back home to get out of debt and save some money.
And so I found myself, the displaced cook, back in NJ after my childhood vow of never returning to the chains of suburbia. After the first few months, I grew to appreciate the convenience of living in a town surrounded by 2 malls, 2 Walmarts, 1 Costco, 3 movie theaters, 1 Target, 2 Marshalls, and several supermarkets (Asian, Indian & American) all within a 10-mile radius. My more unusual and fresh market ingredients I hauled back from the city after I got out of work with trips to Whole Foods, Trader Joe, and my beloved Union Square Farmer's Market. In the past two years, my jobs have started taking me internationally and I've begun to devote a good amount of my travel expenses on bringing back ingredients from my travels rather than the typical tourist junk I used to collect. Confit de canard from Paris, Maldon salt from the London, jamon from Madrid, etc. On the weekends and the rare weeknights that I find myself home, I immerse myself in cooking and experimenting.
And tonight on this cold snowy winter night in December, I decided to use the boneless beef chuck roast in my refrigerator to make one of the ultimate winter comfort food: beef stew. Below is the recipe that I concocted to warm me up tonight after shoveling the driveway of roughly 5-inches of snow. It is extremely simple. Recipe can be adjusted according to taste and heat. I like just a little kick in my spice and I find chile powder to be perfect for what I was looking for. It can always be amped up by a serrano chile or increasing the amount of chile powder. I loved the balance of sweetness and spiciness from the stew.
SWEET & SPICY BEEF STEW WITH YAMS & PRUNES
Serves 6-8
2 lbs boneless beef chuck roast cut into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes
1 tbsp flour
1 1/2 tsp chile powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup beef or chicken stock
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Worchester sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 small cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
8-10 peeled white pearl onions
3 medium sized yams, peeled & cut into 1 inch cube
1/2 cup dried prunes, halved
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped roughly (optional)
DIRECTIONS
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, coat beef with flour, 1/2 tsp chile powder (reserve 1 tsp for later), cumin, salt & pepper. Make sure meat is well-covered. The flour will ensure that the beef stays moist and works as a stew thickener, while the spices make sure it is seasoned well.
- On medium-high heat, add olive oil to large Dutch oven. Brown beef for about 10-15 minutes, turning every so often for all sides to be browned evenly. While waiting, peel & chop yam and peel pearl onions.
- Add garlic and saute with the beef for a minute. Then add next seven ingredients into the Dutch oven, mix and bring to a boil.
- Once it comes to a boil, bring the heat down to a simmer and add yams and pearl onions. Cover and let the flavors of the stew come together for 2-3 hours.
- Add halved prunes to the stew a half hour prior to you turning the heat off stew. This is important to do as the prunes will fall apart in the stew if left in simmering too long.
- Remove cinnamon stick and serve beef stew with a flourish of chopped parsley to bring a fresh herb taste to the dish. BON APPETIT!!
*NOTE: The flavors of the beef stew will only get more intense over the days. This is a great option for an impressive weekday dinner party. It can be made on Sunday and then reheated later on in the week when needed. Serve with crusty slices of bread and a light arugula/endive salad. The stew can also be frozen in individual Ziploc bags and then reheated when needed.
I hope that you will take some time to make this delicious stew and share it with your loved ones. While the combination might sound a little strange, I promise you that you will enjoy it! Always experiment, that's what cooking is all about!
Looking forward to sharing my future cooking endeavors! Feel free to leave comments or send me a message if you have any questions.
The Displaced Cook
