Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2019 i SAVEUR

EVERY REFRIGERATOR IN HAWAI‘I HAS AT least one batch of chile pepper water in it. When I was a kid, in the town of Hilo, on Hawai‘i’s Big Island, my dad and I would save old glass jars or cool-looking whiskey bottles for making and storing our own. Around the dinner table, my father and uncles would take little gulps of it from a shot glass, or else sip it from a ramen spoon in between bites of the meal. Somewhere between a condiment and a chaser, chile pepper water can be drizzled over food like hot sauce, but most people prefer to sip it alongside rich dishes, like local-style beef stew or lau lau—a steamed roll of pork or fish wrapped in taro leaves. Chile pepper water originates from…

NO SINGLE ENGLISH WORD IS sufficiently lyrical to represent what “wonton” means to the Cantonese. Loosely translated as “swallowing cloud,” wontons are a style of jiaozi, or dumpling, but with thinner dough than the dim sum served in Chinese tea parlors and a smaller amount of filling proportionate to the wrapper. These ethereal parcels first appeared in the Pearl River Delta port of Guangzhou during the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), then followed the Cantonese diaspora, drifting east to Hong Kong. Here they landed next to egg-based jook sing noodles floating in a “supreme” broth known as shang tang. A street vendor from Guangzhou, Mak Woon-chi, has been credited with popularizing wonton noodle soup, or wonton tong meen, but the dish first achieved star status in the former British colony. (Woon-chi’s…

“Wonton noodle soup is the ultimate comfort food. This is a dish that will elicit sighs of nostalgia, hunger, warmth, and home.” Some recipes call for a final topping of minced scallions or leeks, but chef Chan Yan Tak floats seasonal brassicas such as choy sum or gai lan in the broth for his personal flourish. Gai lan, also known as Chinese broccoli, has a fresher green flavor than the Western cultivar too often used as its substitute. Simmer the leaves and trimmed stems until just cooked through before adding one or two to each serving bowl.…

PEOPLE OFTEN ACT AS IF there is a holy grail of banh mi authenticity. But like a lot of Vietnamese dishes, these sandwiches are very casual and flexible, hard to mess up or interpret too loosely. You can stuff practically anything in one, which is more or less how they were invented: Good bread, butter, pâté, and Maggi Seasoning (a European umami-laden condiment) came to Vietnam with French colonists; porky fillings like char siu crossed the border from China; and local cooks ran with these new ingredients, adding their own vegetables and herbs to create something uniquely Vietnamese. You might already know the classic dac biet (or “special”) banh mi, a sandwich that originated in Saigon and is sold by many street vendors today. It features pâté, cold cuts like…

Bells of the Ball In western Switzerland, traditionally crafted bells help dairy farmers distinguish prized cows IN THE PASTURES OUTSIDE OF Fribourg, Switzerland, gently undulating fields of green rise up to meet pure blue sky at the horizon. Rugged mountains reach upward, craggy peaks white with snow. As far as the eye can see, huge dairy cows with their black-and-chestnut-colored markings dot the fields. Standing nearly 5 feet tall and weighing up to 2,000 pounds, these gentle giants lazily graze on lush grass and wildflowers. Their resulting milk—harvested twice a day—is transformed into some of the world’s greatest dairy: Dense and nutty Gruyère AOP cheese comes from the canton of Fribourg, as does thick double cream and exquisite milky-sweet butter. Hanging from each cow’s massive neck is one of the…

WHEN I FIRST MOVED OUT of my childhood home, only a week went by before I found myself craving my mother’s cooking. Specifically, I missed Persian rice with tahdig—the prized golden, crispy crust at the bottom of the rice pot. Rice is the crown jewel of Persian cuisine, and Iranians have elevated its preparation to an art form. Whether we’re serving a simple saffron rice or one of the many variations in which it is mixed with other ingredients like meat or lentils, a cook’s reputation practically rests on their ability to turn out perfect, fluffy grains and an evenly crisped and bronzed layer. For all its seeming simplicity, rice with tahdig takes a surprising amount of knowhow. Ideally, each grain should remain separate and long when cooked, not sticky…

RUM PRODUCTION ON MARTINIQUE TRADITIONALLY wraps up by the first week of June, just before the arrival of the rainy season, but Habitation La Favorite was still running at full steam when I arrived on the 12th of the month this past year. The distillery, a ramshackle cinder block and corrugated metal structure, is tucked into a ravine at the end of a dirt drive in the lush hills above the island’s capital, Fort-de-France. When it is running, you smell it before you see it: acrid smoke and the sickly sweet vapors of fermenting sugarcane juice. The cane-growing season had been troubled and lateripening, partially on account of the previous year’s record-breaking hurricane activity, and owner Paul Dormoy was scrambling to make up for lost time before the Caribbean’s summer…

The smell of the morning’s pan-roasted coffee still lingered as a late lunch was hurried up the stairs from the kitchen in hot terra-cotta pots. On the second floor, home of the elegant and matriarchal Senait Worku, in Addis Ababa’s upscale Bole neighborhood, the dining room was set for an Easter feast, Ethiopia’s most anticipated meal of the year. Downstairs, the family kitchen doubles as a production space for their restaurant, Antica. For Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, Easter—the most sacred of holidays—also marks the end of the year’s longest and most arduous fast. Adherents rigorously abstain from eating meat, cheese, butter, eggs, and animal fats for not only their 56 days of Lent (known as Hudadi) leading up to this holiday, but some 200 days total each year, including most Wednesdays…

“I USED TO EAT IT IN SOME FORM ALMOST EVERY DAY.” THE ERKUAI BAO YOUTIAO LADY COMES to Luofeng Street every morning. She sets up her cart across from the elementary school and begins grilling round tortilla-like pieces of erkuai, a tender rice cake that is a beloved specialty here in Yunnan, China’s southwesternmost province. First she toasts each piece over homemade charcoal, carefully flipping them until they are hot and blistered all around. Then she slathers each with sauce—either a spicy paste made from fermented beans and chiles, or one made from a mix of ground sesame seeds and peanuts. Finally, she wraps the erkuai around a youtiao, a long piece of fried dough, and pops it into a small plastic bag. (The bag is so thin, you have…

Spiced Clarified Butter (Niter Kibbeh) MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP Total: 25 min. When butter is clarified—cooked until the water has evaporated and the milk solids have separated—it becomes a brilliant yellow oil that can be stored for 2 months without spoiling. Ethiopian cooks simmer a range of fragrant spices, onions, or garlic into their clarified butter before filtering it and using the clear liquid in various dishes. In his recipe, chef Yohanis uses dried lemon thyme and dried basobela, an Ethiopian basil similar to Thai basil. But regular dried thyme and basil can be substituted. 1 lb. (2 cups or 4 sticks) unsalted butter4 cardamom pods, lightly smashed1 tsp. coriander seeds, coarsely crushed1 tsp. fenugreek seeds, coarsely crushed1 tsp. long pepper, coarsely crushed1 tsp. nigella seed½ tsp. grains of paradise…

1 Injera at Home Teff, an ancient grain, is the basis of Ethiopia’s daily bread THE SOURNESS OF injera, Ethiopia’s fermented flatbread, balances the spice of the stewed meats and vegetables it’s typically used to scoop up (see “Around the Injera,” p. 92). It requires only four ingredients, and teff flour is the main one. The flour comes in dark and light varieties, but either will work in this basic recipe, meant to turn out enough for two to four diners.—Kat Craddock Injera MAKES FIVE 10-INCH FLATBREADS Active: 30 min. ● Total: 1 day Most injera batters ferment for two to three days to achieve their signature bubbles and tang. This one can be made in about one day, thanks to a bit of baking powder. It’s adapted from a recipe by…