Author Susheela Raghavan in The Journal News

UPDATE: Hopefully you enjoyed the article posted last week. However, it was missing a recipe for peanut satay sauce and few photos. Please enjoy the full article here.  

If you're one of our Facebook friends, you've already read the wonderful article on Susheela Raghavan and her new book Flavors of Malaysia in The Journal News. Linda Lombroso's interview shows that Flavors of Malaysia is "more than a simple cookbook — it’s a heartfelt memoir filled with photos, anecdotes and a detailed cultural history of the Malaysian people." We hope you try the recipes, and join us this weekend at Grand Central Station for Eat | Drink | Explore Malaysia Kitchen !

At Home with Hippocrene

This year marked the 200th anniversary for the Munich Oktoberfest, the harvest gathering which is the world's largest folk festival. If you haven't already celebrated Oktoberfest, this recipe from Nadia Hassani's Spoonfuls of Germany will certainly have you considering a visit to Bavaria for next year's festival. And even if you have, this delicious and hearty dish will become a go-to dinner as the temperature drops.

I have German heritage and it manifests itself in funny ways, like our tradition of sauerkraut with Thanksgiving dinner. Ironically, I live in Yorkville and had no idea when I moved to the city that it was once a working-to-middle class neighborhood of primarily German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak and Polish immigrants. After the General Slocum disaster in the early 1900's, Little Germany on the Lower East Side on Second Avenue moved up to the 80's. Although the area has changed, there are still signs Yorkville's past with Schaller & Weber's grocery, Orwasher's Bakery, Heidelburg restaurant and St. Joseph's Catholic Church all within a few blocks of each other. I purchased my bratwurst from Schaller & Weber, and load up on all the varieties of Bahlsen lebkuchen there at Christmastime.

Himmel und Erde (Potatoes and Apples with Bratwurst)

(from Spoonfuls of Germany page 160)

Lamb chops, Cabrito, and Caprettu

Hippocrene Books has recently added a new cookbook to the family, Corsican Cuisine: Flavors from the Perfumed Isle. Arthur L. Meyer "brings the rich essence of Corsican foods to life" with "simple, rustic recipes" that will have you dreaming about a Mediterranean vacation. Art is here today to share one of his favorites:

            I love lamb chops. My mom made them regularly when I was growing up in New York City. There’s something about the crisp, golden fat that surrounds lamb rib chops when they have been broiled under a searing flame, and the rich taste subtly different from beef. Whenever life’s stresses require a comfort food, broiled lamb chops with sautéed spinach and mashed potatoes appear on my dinner menu. My mom always had a set of fixed side dishes with every entrée, and she always rolled her eyes when I would mix the spinach and potatoes together. I think the mélange tempered the metallic off-taste that spinach has on the adolescent palate.
           I’ve been living in central Texas for almost forty years now, and the best culinary surprise came the first time I was introduced to cabrito, which is baby goat. Here in Texas we like to cook outdoors over hardwood coals, especially oak, pecan and mesquite. I was invited to a barbecue just weeks after arriving in Austin, and the featured dish was roasted cabrito, turned slowly over pecan wood. The first whiff of smoke as I arrived at the ranch sent me into a lamb chop flashback. It smelled exactly like the smoke emanating from my mom’s oven broiler when she made lamb chops. I knew immediately that this was the beginning of a love affair with all that is goat meat. To this day, when visiting friends in south Texas near Mexico, they know to plan a trip to Nuevo Progresso for a visit to La Fogata, a small restaurant specializing in roasted whole baby goats. The kitchen is a twenty foot long trough filled with glowing coals, with about thirty goats splayed out on skewers, slowly turned by the grill man, in succession, as he walks the perimeter of the trough. The skin of the cabrito becomes just like the fat surrounding my beloved lamb chops, with a flavor almost identical to them.

At Home with Hippocrene

It is now officially fall--the kids are back in school, the days are getting shorter, and, like creatures preparing for hibernation, we start to crave heavier fare. The supermarket displays of watermelon and fresh berries are replaced by apples, pumpkins, and a variety of squash. I decided to pick a hearty, but simple dinner that would be a good transition from summertime barbecues and fish tacos. It didn't take long for me to select Judith Pierce Rosenberg's recipe for Swedish Meatballs from A Swedish Kitchen.

Perhaps this is because my previous experiences with Sweden's national dish have taken place at IKEA, their unofficial ambassador to the world, usually getting items before school starts. The trip for a new bookcase or chair is always made better by a meal of meatballs in thin gravy with red potatoes and lingonberry preserves. And of course, you can stop by the market on the way out and get the gravy mix, frozen meatballs, a jar of preserves, and perhaps a box or two of gingersnaps. But with this recipe that would be a terrible waste! However, hopefully you have a jar of those preserves lingering in the back of the fridge. If not, Rosenberg recommends substituting whole-berry cranberry sauce or red currant preserves. When forced to do without, I  prefer the latter.

Swedish Meatballs (Kottbullar)

(from A Swedish Kitchen page 141)

At Home with Hippocrene

Both previous editions can be seen here.

After work one day I went to the farmer's market in Rockefeller Center (that will unfortunately be ending soon!) and tried to get some ideas for dinner. There were several different farms and businesses there, selling everything from homemade soaps and pies to fresh herbs and produce. After wandering around I eventually came up with spaghetti after spotting fresh basil and fried chicken with corn on the cob, and some tomatoes and cucumber for salads. One seller had okra, and after passing by a few times, I helped myself to a bag and started filling it up. I'd never made okra before but sometimes you just have to go for it!

So I hunted through the indexes of our cookbook library, trying to decide what kind of okra dish would be my guinea pig.  Previously we've enjoyed main entrees from the Philippines and India, so I wanted to try an altogether different cuisine. I discovered that okra is sometimes called "bride's fingers" in Afghan Food and Cookery, and that Greeks call them bamia in Regional Greek Cooking, but so do the Jewish-Iraqi (Mama Nazima's Jewish-Iraqi Cuisine).But I thought this simple preparation from Cooking with Cajun Women would go well with the fried chicken dinner I'd begun to fantasize about. They're in season from July to November, or until the first frost, so enjoy them while you can!