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A Bargain Lunch in Monterey Park

Can't read Chinese? It doesn't matter. You can still get one of the best lunch bargains around at My Way Deli in Monterey Park.

The blackboard (at top) lists four dishes. Reading from the top down, they are beef, pork, chicken and fish, which come with soup, a couple of vegetable dishes, rice and tea, all for $6.25.

I chose beef, and this is what I got: Taiwanese stewed beef with carrots, daikon and green onions, scented with star anise. The clear soup contains egg shreds and seaweed. Fried green beans are naturally sweet.

Chinese eggplant with ground pork (above the beef) is as good a rendition of this dish as I've had. Perhaps the accompaniments change from day to day, but these came with my order.  

My Way Deli draws local people, Chinese seniors and others who want good, economical food.

The regular menu includes Taiwanese dishes such as beef noodle soup, fried rice with Taiwanese sausage (above) and Taiwanese style porridges. 

The restaurant is in the same mall as a 99 Ranch Market, a bakery and other places for shopping after lunch.

My Way Deli, 735 W. Garvey Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91754. Tel: (626) 282-8997. Closed Thursdays.

Upscale Downhome Help for Cooks

If you sneer at cooking with canned soups and packaged seasoning mixes, "Upscale Downhome" is not for you.

But if you're a busy mom carting kids around, juggling schedules, maybe working too, you will love this book. And so will anyone forced to get food on the table fast, figure what to take to a potluck and desperate for something easy to serve guests.

Rachel Hollis (at the top)  fills her book with encouragement, like celebrate every day and entertain no matter how humble your living space. "I think that the dinner table is sacred. I think that's something we've lost," she said, when she came to Melissa's Produce to sign books. "I never just cook dinner. It's always a sort of event."

This doesn't mean getting pretentious. Hollis says to assemble bargain china from closeouts, the Goodwill, yard sales and the 99 Cent Store. In one of the photos in the book she's wearing a shirt from Walmart that cost $1. "It's one of my proudest purchases," the caption says.

There's no false pride in the book. Hollis praises a commercial frozen pot pie, then gives her own recipe for hamburger pot pie, made with store-bought crust and frozen vegetables. Hot dog taquitos require only three ingredients plus oil for frying. Here's one of her tips, "When in doubt, add bacon."

How is she qualified to write such a book? Experience. In 2004 Hollis founded a party planning company called Chic Events. Now she dispenses food and fashion advice on the Chic Site. Check there for recipes, 13 ways to style a scarf and a link to buying the book through Amazon. 

"As soon as I could stand upright, I was cooking," she said. The subtitle of the book is "family recipes, all gussied up," meaning dishes from Hollis's family. "When I start to miss them, I cook their food," she said.

A mom with three kids, Hollis was asked to write the cookbook after the success of the Chic Site. It's her first cookbook. Before, she wrote historical romances. 

This is the plate I assembled at Melissa's from a buffet of dishes that are in the book. 

I ate three helpings of this spicy corn dip. The dips chapter "is maybe my favorite," Hollis said. "If you don't like dips, I don't know if we can be friends."

Along with dips, chapters cover snacks, casseroles, the slow cooker (which is the most popular category on the Chic Site), potluck and leftovers. Each recipe comes with step by step photos so that the outcome is no surprise.

This turkey chili is "the first thing I learned to cook as a newlywed," she said. Lucky husband.

I ate two of these sticky ham and cheese sandwiches.

And two of these BLT bites.

And some of this fresh green bean salad.

Dessert was cookie pudding pie (refrigerated cookie dough, instant pudding, frozen whipped topping), layered in a Mason jar. Hollis loves presenting food in jars. It "makes things a million times cuter," she said. Here, she is assembling the pudding. 

The food in her book tends to be rich. "If you are on a diet, this is not the food for you," Hollis said, surveying the buffet at Melissa's.

That didn't stop me from overeating the corn dip. Here is the recipe, which is one of the most popular on the Chic Site. 

SPICY CORN DIP
From "Upscale Downhome" by Rachel Hollis

2 tablespoons butter
1 yellow onion, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3 cups corn (frozen or fresh)
1 1/2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded pepper Jack cheese
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1 large bunch scallions (green onions), chopped (about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons hot sauce, or more to taste
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the butter in a large skillet. Add the onion, garlic, bell pepper and corn and saute over medium heat until the onion is soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream cheese until well combined.

In a large bowl, mix the remaining cheeses, mayonnaise, cilantro, scallions, chipotle chiles, hot sauce, salt and pepper with the veggie and cream cheese mixture. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

Pour into a baking dish and bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the edges are bubbling.

Serve hot out of the oven with chips or chopped vegetables.

Makes 8 to 12 servings. 

Photos by Barbara Hansen

Updated Indian Food at Anarbagh

When I heard that Anarbagh in Beverly Hills is part of a chain, I thought, oh no, more of the same old stuff--how much chicken tikka masala can anyone eat?

With such a location, flavors would probably be mellowed for people used to five-star dining but not to Indian food. Well, you can slap me with a slice of naan, because I was wrong.

The Beverly Hills Anarbagh does have a standard menu--chicken tandoori, chicken tikka masala, saag paneer and the rest. But It also has an inventive and ambitious young chef (meaning he wants to be on the Food Network).

He is Dalwar ("Dello") Yahhia, 34, a smiling charmer from Bangladesh who should do well if he gets on a show. And he cooks dishes you won't find anywhere else. You can't walk in and ask for them. They're on tasting menus that have to be ordered in advance. What's really nice is, the tasting menus aren't just for large groups but for as few as two people.

All the Anarbaghs have a single owner, but this one is partly owned by Yahhia and Kashruz Zaman, and this leaves Yahhia free to try out new dishes. 

His samosas (above) are light and pleasant, with a creamy potato filling. They're a nice change from the usual starchy, heavy samosas that fill you up so you can't eat much else.  

Lamb chops for his tasting menu get a dash of sugar so they will caramelize. When Yahhia says they're seasoned with curry powder, he means curry seasonings combined at the restaurant, not yellow powder from a store. 

The tart mango salad underneath in the photo above was so delicious it almost outshone the chops. Yahhia cuts paper thin slices from medium-ripe mangoes, then dresses them with lemon juice and olive oil, mixing in cilantro, garlic, carrots and green bell pepper.

He does a masterful job with tandoori salmon (above). This is not surprising because Bangladeshis are experts with fish. Here he serves the salmon with subtly spicy vegetable biryani. 

Short ribs braised with red wine and curry seasonings (above) came on top of yellow mashed potatoes. Yahhia boils the potatoes with curry spices, then mashes them butter and heavy cream. He spoons sautéed mushrooms and onions over the meat, then adds a sunny side up egg.

For what he calls "a meal for a king," Yahhia boils lamb shanks for hours with Indian seasonings and aromatic vegetables, then whisks the cooking liquid into a sauce that goes on top of the shanks while they steam for another hour. The shanks (above) will be on the new menu that he is working out.  

As a change from chicken tikka masala, he suggests butter chicken (above). The creamy sauce contains pureed cashews as well as butter and is seasoned differently from chicken tikka masala. 

The food at Anarbagh Beverly Hills is halal. For kids, Yahhia can make lamb burgers. For adults, there is a small wine list including a Prosecco he chose because he thought it went well with Indian food.

Yahhia's food is traditional but with a touch of his own, and he says: "I want to be different, not the same as other restaurants."  
Anarbagh Indian Restaurant, 138 S Beverly Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Tel: (310) 888-4011. 

Making Pretzels with an Expert

I was thrilled to get an invitation to make pretzels with Hans Rockenwagner.  

Rockenwagner (above) is a superb teacher as well as a great baker, and he patiently coached the small group that gathered at his bakery cafe in Culver City.   

Following Rockenwagner's example, we stretched already-prepared yeast dough into long, thin rolls, tapering them at the ends.

Then we formed each roll into a U, crossed the ends twice and folded them back over the main part of the pretzel.

Here is the completed pretzel. 

I couldn't wait to do this at home, but then came the catch. Pretzels have to be dipped in a lye bath before baking or they won't have the correct color and flavor.

This sounds scary. However, food-grade lye is available online in small amounts, and if you cover up correctly, there's no danger in using it. There's no risk in eating the pretzels either. The baking process neutralizes the lye, Rockenwagner explained.

To show this step, he laid the pretzels on a rack in a trough of lye solution (above). Then came my thrill of the evening. He allowed me to turn the handle that tipped the pretzels onto their other side. The pretzels were then drained and taken away to be baked. 

As Rockenwagner lectured, we drank what you should always have with pretzels--beer. In this case, it was Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat beer, released as an autumn special. This beer "has a fresh bakery pretzel taste with an aroma of buttered sourdough," the literature we were given said. 

"Buttered" is appropriate because Germans eat pretzels with butter, said Rockenwagner, who is from southern Germany. We were each given the pretzel we had made to take home, and three people were singled out as having made the best pretzels. I was not in that group.

As I left with my pretzel (above), Rockenwagner told me to split it and put butter inside. He was right. It was wonderful that way.

Rockenwagner has been making pretzels professionally since 1990. His bakery turns out about 2,000 a day. "Pretzels are our signature thing," he said. 

An updated recipe appears in "Das Cookbook," his latest book (above). The ingredients are simple, just bread flour, water, salt, butter, yeast and the lye wash (2 tablespoons food-grade lye to 1 quart water).

Here is something easier, the mustard he served for dipping the pretzels. 

SHOCK TOP BEER MUSTARD

1 cup yellow mustard seeds
1 1/2 cups Shock Top Belgian White
1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
4 teaspoons honey
4 teaspoons brown sugar

Wash mustard seeds with warm water. To extract the bitterness, blanch the mustard seeds 5 times, each time using fresh water, 

Combine the beer, vinegar, salt, turmeric, honey and brown sugar in a saucepan. Add the blanched mustard seeds and bring to a light boil. Cool for 3 minutes. Turn into a blender container. Add the warm mustard seed mixture and start slowly blending. Gradually blend to a paste or mustard-like consistency. Refrigerate, stored in an air-tight container. 

Take a Cooking Class in a Garden

What a beautiful place for a cooking class--a sunny garden at the foot of a hillside where thousands of ranunculus will bloom in the spring.  

This is the Kitchen Gardens at The Flower Fields in Carlsbad.  A popular venue for weddings, concerts and tours for children, the site now has an outdoor cooking school. 

 

 

The two chef/teachers are Debbi Dubbs (left) and Mary Platis--check their web pages to see how accomplished they are. A week before classes started they held a preview--a tour of the grounds, then class and lunch. 

They taught from a rustic handmade wooden table in a shaded pavilion looking out on gardens where Mexican parrots chattered in their cages.

Tables surrounding the teaching area were set for lunch, which would not be shared platters of tastes but full plates of food for each person, served at the tables and not from a buffet.

The two chefs will alternate at the weekly sessions. At the preview, their dishes were fresh and timely, delicious and appealing. Procedures were clear-cut, and nothing required unusual, hard to find ingredients. Nevertheless, what they made would be impressive on a dinner table.

Platis started the class by discussing cheese pairings with apples. Guests had already sipped freshly squeezed apple juice. Then they were given plates that paired Honeycrisp apple with aged Cheddar, gorgonzola with Granny Smith, and a triple cream cheese with slices of Gala apple.

Dubbs (above) then took the stage to show how she makes pork cutlets Parmesan, a recipe good for chicken Parmesan as well and for vegetables too, she said. Sliced from a pork tenderloin, the cutlets can be pounded ahead of time and stored in the freezer, ready for dinner in a hurry.

Autumn slaw with apples, grapes, jicama, carrot and chopped pecans went with the cutlets (above).

Here's Platis chopping nuts for the slaw.

Platis then made a roasted root vegetable salad (above) to serve on a bed of arugula. What made the salad really tempting was a sprinkle of spiced sweetened pepitas.

Dessert was Platis' apple spice cake with buttercream brown sugar frosting and a dried apple slice on top.  Go to her website, California Greek Girl, for her description of the preview. 

In addition to watching the cooking demo, guests sampled fresh apple vinegar, pickled apples that Platis had made, and they strolled among tables where guest artisans showed their ware. These included Temecula Olive Company, JR Designs, Melano Flowers and Art by Debra. Melissa's Produce contributed a display of fall fruits and vegetables.

Classes are now in session. They started with Dubbs teaching pan roast chicken with porcini bucatini, panzanella bread salad and chocolate biscotti.

On Oct. 12, Platis will feature pears in dishes such as mahi mahi fillet with pears and endive and a crispy pear strudel.  

Pulled pork sandwiches follow on Oct. 19, with Dubbs teaching. Platis will do a vegetarian class on Oct 26 in which she will make Mediterranean fall vegetable brown rice bowl and a golden brown pine nut tart.

Classes are $45. They take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and include lunch, printed recipes and displays by local artisans. Click on Eventbrite for complete menus, registration information and a map showing the location. 

Photos by Barbara Hansen

For Tacos in Turkey? It's Bogazkoy

If you're in Gaziantep and crave a taco, there's just one place to get it--Bogazkoy.

This city, regarded as Turkey's culinary capital, is so addicted to its own cuisine that people aren't interested in foreign interlopers such as taco stands, Thai restaurants, sushi places and Korean BBQ.

It took a bright young chef to make a difference. Kerem Ozatay, 31 (above), realized his creativity didn't fit local tastes. Therefore, he opened Bogazkoy away from the heart of town in a new area, near the University of Gaziantep, which provides an open-minded customer-base. 

Students come for burgers, pasta, pizza--and tacos. The 11 tacos are made with ground beef or chicken and accompanied by Mexican style rice. Ozatay buys corn tortillas and makes flour tortillas at the restaurant.

Istanbul tacos (at the top) are filled with tomatoes, cream cheese, corn, onions,  jalapeños, roasted peppers, and meat.

Above are California tacos, stuffed with Cheddar and mozzarella, mushrooms, pickled jalapeños, roasted peppers, onions and guacamole, plus meat.

A Manhattan taco has blue cheese. There's curry in the New Delhi taco and spicy tomato sauce in an Antep taco, because people in Gaziantep like fiery flavors. Others are named for Capetown, Sydney, Milan, Naples, Shanghai and Mexico.

Ozatay put the tacos on the menu in May.  A taco meal appeals to students because "it's very cheap," he said. Chicken tacos, three to an order, are under $7, beef tacos a dollar more.

Ozatay is by no means only a fast food chef. His serious dishes include Asian style salmon (above) that would fit right in at a Korean or Japanese restaurant in California.

The salmon, from Norway, is seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, ginger, honey, sugar, roasted red peppers and oyster sauce. The noodles on the plate are Asian-flavored too.  Ozatay orders specialty ingredients from Istanbul. The tossed greens on the salmon plate came from Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast.

Ozatay describes his food as mostly international, with some Turkish. An example of the latter is open-ended stuffed grape leaves, filled with fine bulgur, lamb and Halloumi cheese. They sit on a base of roasted eggplant with yogurt, butter and garlic.

Back to international--Ozatay turns out a killer gazpacho shooter. But he's most proud of his souffles, the only chef in Gaziantep making them, he said.  Rather than classic French, the one above was influenced by the Turkish desserts baklava, katmer and kunefe but is lighter than any of them.

Its components include delicate Antep cheese, white chocolate and pistachios. That's goat milk ice cream on the side. Called Bogazkoy Fistiklisi, it's his signature dessert. 

Born in Ankara, Ozatay grew up in Gaziantep and returned there after working in Istanbul. He opened Bogazkoy three years ago.

If you go there for tacos with beer or margaritas, forget it.  Bogazkoy is too close to a mosque, the beautiful  Anadolu Tevhid (one of its turrets is at the right), to sell alcohol. But if you insist, there's bira on the menu. That's Turkish for beer, but it's non-alcoholic.   

Photos by Barbara Hansen