Plate #3: Caesar Salad

I'm, like, really really into caesar salads. Peppery and creamy, and you don't feel completely terrible about yourself because it's still a salad, after all. I also get pretty embarrassed ordering them in restaurants because they're so ubiquitous and cheesy now. The Uggs of salads. The ironic moustache of salads. The cosmopolitan of salads.

Lucky for me, I can just make the dressing in the comfort of my own home, averting shame for one more day.

Jenny, pup. Sara, roommate. Both irrelevant to salad making.

The main components of caesar dressing are as follows: egg yolks, lemon juice, garlic, black pepper, olive oil, and anchovies.

I'm so artsy, I can't even handle it.

Okay, anchovies. I know they're terrifying. Little fish in a can. Kind of stinky. But really delicious! Once upon a time when I first made this dressing, I thought anchovies meant being true to the original recipe. (It's a rare occurrence, but I was wrong.)

Regardless, I got over the fact that you can feel their tiny edible bones crunching when you chop them into a paste (um, don't worry, uh, you will too!) and embraced anchovies for their yummy umaminess.

These came wrapped around capers, another one of my favorite
unsung salty heroes.

Also, sort of terrifying: raw eggs. If you are pregnant or a wimp, coddling the eggs is a way to kill salmonella. But let me say, the bacteria is only found in less than 1 in 20,000 eggs, so I shall live on the edge dammit! I'm crackin' my eggs with one hand and I'm eatin' those yolks raw.

Once you've overcome your fears, it's time for assembly.
Into a bowl: some of those mashed anchovies, a few of those raw egg yolks, as much minced garlic as your breath is willing to brave, several turns of the pepper mill, and lemon juice squirts. Mix them around, let them mingle.

The next step requires moderate to advanced ambidexterity, or a friend. (I used the latter.) While constantly whisking the contents of the bowl, slowly drizzle in olive oil. The slower the drizzle, the creamier the end result. Something about emulsions.

Emulsions in action!

All right, great! Congratulations. Pats on the back. You have made an unexpectedly dangerous dressing. Now for things to be dressed.

Romaine lettuce, obviously.

Parmesan cheese. Some people like to grate this into the dressing itself, but I prefer big salty shreds.

Chicken, optional. I grilled it. That's all.

Croutons. I won't deny the ones that come out of a box, but I made my own pretty easy. Slice up a baguette, rub that mother with some garlic, drizzle with olive oil (you're a pro!), and stick it in the oven until crunchy and toasted.

My garlicky little soldiers.

And there you are, a shame-free caesar salad. Feel free to eat while wearing Uggs and/or getting your moustache sticky with spilled cosmos.

Eat me.

Caesar Salad Dressing (makes 1 cup)
5 cloves garlic, minced
5 anchovies, mashed
3 egg yolks
1 ½ lemons, juiced
Black pepper, to taste

¾ cup olive oil

Romaine lettuce
Parmesan cheese
Grilled chicken

Whisk ingredients. Slowly drizzle olive oil into base until creamy. Dress romaine lettuce, parmesan cheese, and grilled chicken.

I tried to get fancy with my plating. I'm not sure how well I executed it.
I ate it all anyway.

Plate #2: Stuffing

Thanksgiving, I'd argue, is the perfect yin and yang of holidays. On the one hand, there you are surrounded by relatives, the drunk kind and the loud kind and the politics-at-the-dinner-table kind and the ones who tell you you've gained weight and the ones who ask why don't you have a boyfriend.

This is a turkey made out of ginger snaps, a donut hole, and an orange
tic tac. Maybe you don’t have a boyfriend because you're too busy
eating things like this.

On the other hand, it is a holiday wholly and absolutely devoted to food. My God, and slap me if it isn't the best kind of food. Mashed potatoes! Pumpkin pie! Sweet potatoes covered in freaking marshmallows! A turkey the size of a two year old!

Since moving to New York about five years ago from the best coast (yeah, I said it), I've had my share of vagabond Thanksgivings. This year, I not only hosted my first orphan lunch, I also made my first honest to goodness homemade stuffing.

My initial plan was to recreate my mom's sausage and apple stuffing, but my new found appreciation for mushrooms lead me in a different direction.

First order of business, stale bread. On Thanksgiving Eve, I bought a crusty loaf of sourdough (pre-sliced to aid with the cubing process). The recipe called for 8 cups, which to me sounded like an outrageous amount. Instead, I dumped my chopped bread into the casserole dish that my stuffing would one day (the next day) call home, and I stopped once it was full, level with the top edge of the dish. I suppose if you're actually stuffing a bird, you should chop more bread accordingly, but this year wasn't my year yet for performing a full turkey cavity search.

The sourdoughs were nestled all snug in their beds / While visions of
mushrooms danced in their heads

There, the bread spent the night, getting stale, preparing itself for the next morning when it would fulfill its stuffing destiny.

Next day! Saute diced celery and onions until translucent and fragrant. 5 and 2, respectively. I tossed in 4 cloves of minced garlic too because I literally do not know how to cook anything without it. My fingernails smelled awful for most of my young adulthood until I learned the stainless steel trick.

Meanwhile, toast a cup or so of walnuts on a baking sheet in the oven. 350° for 10 minutes, or in my case, until you start wondering God, why is the kitchen so hot all of a sudden and where is that awesome roasty smell coming from.

And then! Time to get the star player into its party clothes. Brown a pint and a half of diced button mushrooms with a few tablespoons of finely chopped sage leaves. When they've got a nice tan, theoretically you should add half a cup of dry white wine. And while I am a huge proponent of booze in food (and vice versa), I was plum out of wine at 10am on Thanksgiving day. (This was not the case several hours later.) As a substitute for that depth of flavor boost, I bathed the mushrooms in chicken stock spiked with a splash each of balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce.

Ta da!

When the wine/chicken stock has mostly cooked off, it is time for assembly. In your biggest bowl, combine the stale bread cubes, celery and onion, mushrooms and sage, and walnuts. Glue it all together with one more cup of chicken stock and two lightly beaten eggs.

Replace the whole gang back into your casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes at 400°.

We're ready!

Mushroom Walnut Stuffing (makes 8 servings)
adapted from Martha Stewart

1-2 onions, diced
5 stalks celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ pints mushrooms, diced
2 tablespoons sage leaves, finely chopped
½ cup white wine (or chicken stock with balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce)
1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
6-8 cups of stale sourdough bread, cubed
1 cup chicken stock
2 eggs, beaten

Saute onions, celery, and garlic. Saute mushrooms and sage. When browned, add white wine or chicken stock. Cook until evaporated. Add sauteed ingredients and walnuts to bread. Toss with chicken stock and eggs. Bake at 400°, 30 minutes.

Please excuse this crooked photo. I was way too excited to stuff my face with food to worry about making things look pretty.











Hooray Thanksgiving! Hope yours was as lovely and gut-busting as mine.

I made other food too! That's my blurry sister in the corner. See, she went
straight for the stuffing.

Plate #1: Lumpia

If you’re not in the know, let me educate you on lumpia.

A classic Filipino party finger-food, lumpia is, in my humble and completely biased opinion, the best version of egg rolls the entire continent of Asia has to offer. Ground pork, carrots, onions, and garlic are packed into paper thin wrappers and deep fried to a golden crisp.

The recipes vary by region and family, like every dish passed down through the generations on a faded index card (or at my house, on a KFC napkin tucked between the pages of a composition notebook), but there are a a few standards. I went with the wonderfully meaty Shanghai style.

But before we get into logistics, a quantity warning.
Lumpia is not a single serving food. It’s not even a family-of-four food. Lumpia is something you make for the masses, for your bunker after the nuclear fallout, should your bunker come with a deep fryer. Our batch churned out 225 lovely little lumpia.

First, the fillers. The Philippines is crazy for piggies, so naturally, we begin with 5 pounds of ground pork.

Oh, yeah. Pork, yeah.

Add to this shredded carrots, minced green onions, minced water chestnuts, and minced garlic. Like I said earlier, recipes vary a lot. Green onions can be substituted for regular onions. Water chestnuts can be omitted. Shredded cabbage can be mixed in for weight. Throw in whatever your deep fried loving heart desires. I glued it all together with soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, but the same rule applies here. Partial to hoisin sauce? Want to get crazy with a few tablespoons of patis? Run with it.

Once everything is good and combined, it's time for rolling. Lumpia is packaged in thin, square spring-roll-esque wrappers that are usually found in a frozen block in the freezer section of your local Asian grocery store. Defrost the wrappers before you peel and separate, but make sure you don't dry them out. Otherwise, they'll crack and tear when you roll.

There's a fancy proper way to roll with pretty tucked in edges, and there's the lazy way. Naturally, I went with the lazy way.

Scooping action shot!

Simply scoop some pork filling along the bottom edge of your lumpia wrapper, and roll forward tightly.

Sealing action shot!

Before you reach the end, seal the top edge of the wrapper to the roll with something sticky and flavorless. Water and flour mixed into a paste works wonderfully.

Considering you'll be making upwards of 200 of these suckers, you'll need to drag in some manual labor. I lured some friends by telling them they'd get famous on my blog (like I said, suckers). Perhaps you can lock your friends into your fallout shelter and force them to roll. Either way, lumpia requires group effort and ideally lots of gossip.

Once you and your little workers have gotten through all your wrappers, slice each roll into thirds and toss them into the deep fry hot tub!

Hot tub lumpia machine?

Voila!

Lumpia Shanghai (makes approx. 225)

5 lbs. ground pork
6 carrots, shredded
Small bunch green onions, minced
20 oz. can of water chestnuts, minced
Half a bulb of garlic, minced
½ cup soy sauce
¼ cup rice wine vinegar
Salt and pepper, to taste

75 spring roll wrappers

Mix all ingredients. Wrap. Deep fry until golden brown.

IMPORTANT FOOTNOTE:
When making lumpia for your nuclear fallout rager, it is imperative that you serve them with sweet chili sauce for dippings. Pictured to the right is my preferred brand, but if you're scared of the Asian grocery store, I know even Trader Joe's sells it these days too. (Although if you're scared of the Asian grocery store, where the hell did you find lumpia wrappers?)

Also, a belated shout out to Claire, dance party starting extraordinaire, the executive producer of this whole lumpia shebang, without whom the ordeal would have spontaneously combusted. Are ya happy now?

Nice to Meet You!

Hallo there! My name is Tina. I'm a Libra and I live in New York. I like crossword puzzles, sunshine, and my dog.

This is my dog. Her name is Jenny. She likes licking toes and trying to beat up the other dogs in my building.

This is my blog, One Hundred Plates. It's a record of my grand adventure, cooking my way through a list (this list!) of 100 things I like to eat. There will be fancy things and there will be tacky things. There will likely be my roommates starring as guinea pigs and sous chefs. There will probably be more pictures of Jenny than of the food.

Wish us luck!