Cold mie noodles marinated in beet-ginger juice with blanched broccoli and snow peas, spring onions, carrot tongues and flash fried rice noodles. I doused this cold noodle and vegetable configuration liberally with tamari after taking the photo. Then, of course, I ate it. Please note that this was taken some time ago with my old camera, which did not really do the colors justice.
There are men who walk the streets of Zagreb bellowing “Krumpira!” at the top of their lungs. They are potato hucksters, and some of them may also offer onions (”Krumpira! Luka!”). When two of them cross paths in the same territory, their ululations remind one of a call-and-response field holler. I asked a woman in the Trešnjevka-Voltino neighborhood of Zagreb if there is an affectionate term for these potato-mongers, such as ‘krumpirac’ (potato man) or another colorful nickname signifying the community’s affection. She answered in lovely English, “No, he’s just that fucking guy who wakes us up yelling ‘krumpira’ on Friday mornings.”
How better to flood the system with pure warmth, energy and fortification than an Irish breakfast? What you see above is black pudding and champ.
Black pudding is a simple blood sausage found throughout most of the UK. I made a batch last week from pork blood, steel-cut oats, onions herbs and spices. You make a viscous glop of those elements, stuff it into sausage casings and poach it for about an hour. The sausage is then cooled and dried, and possibly smoked for a while. I haven’t smoked mine, but I may do so with what remains of this batch when I fire up the smokehouse tonight. Once you’ve got a firm sausage, though, all that’s left to do is slice and fry it. You can fry or grill it in links as well, but it’s tastiest when most of your surface area has a crisp caramelization to it. Pork blood contains a lot of fat, so it’s extremely rich eating. Good thing for the oats to soak some of that up…
And the champ? Well, it’s really just boiled potatoes and chopped kale, all mashed together with butter, cream salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
I’m definitely full of calories now, and ready to tear into the day.
The Alaskan salmon available in the Pacific Northwest is off the chain these days, and I’ve been doing a bit of curing and smoking. The bagel pictured features gravlax made from Alaskan Sockeye salmon that was handed to me on the street as a gift from a random fisherman (this happens to me on a somewhat regular basis), but the orders I’m fielding this week are actually being made from Alaskan Silver Coho, which I actually prefer despite its lower fat content. And the Alaskan Chinook I saw when I placed my order at the market? It was made for gravlax. No one in their right mind would cook such a sublime slab of protein.
Not much else to say. Just wanted to share the pretty picture with you.
