On cooking

I’m not a very big fan of Mexican food. In fact, I’m not a fan of Mexican food at all, and it’s only over the past two years – out of necessity, you might say – I learned to be OK with it. I also discovered all these Cozumel home-style eateries, so it’s much more manageable for me now. Yet once in a while I feel like I’ve just had it. I look at the menu and think, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hell no! Argh, still no…”

The problem with Cozumel is that there’s no cuisine variety on the island. Naturally, most of the restaurants are Mexican. And the only other good option that is well and deliciously represented is Italian. Which would be great, except I don’t like Italian that much either. No, wrong. It’s not that I don’t like it, I just cannot consume a lot of it – it has too much carbs for me. And it’s not about gaining weight (I’d actually appreciate that right now), but since I was a child I really never could eat a lot of pasta or bread or anything doughey. The only carb I’m in love with is potato. How cliché. What else do you expect from a Russian?

I’ve had it for the past couple of weeks and after turning my nose away from every meal on restaurant menus, I finally decided to cook at home. I’m a gadget person, so I feel like I cannot just cook in a pot or a pan – I need a device. It was a slow cooker in NYC, but since here electricity is pretty expensive (which could be totally overlooked by the way if only I found a slow cooker in any of the Cozumel stores) I bought a pressure cooker. I discovered that every American or Mexican has memories of their grandmother pressure cooking something delicious. I have no such recollections – Russian grandmothers never used anything like this, and the first mention of the healthy pressure cooked meal appeared with Zepter after the Soviet Union collapsed.

I googled some recipes. Not that many came up. I emailed my cooking advisers; they didn’t have a ton of recommendations either (but they both sighed nostalgically, “Ah, I remember my grandmother made this delicious…”). It looks like the art of pressure cooking is getting lost.

So I decided to experiment. After doing some research on cooking times for different meats and vegetables, I set out to modify some of my slow cooker recipes for my new pressure cooker. Surprisingly, it worked! And it came out as delicious as out of my slow cooker! The only sad thing is that the apartment doesn’t get permeated with delicious smells like with a slow cooker – there’s just not enough time, I guess (7 hours in a slow cooker is about 30 minutes in a pressure cooker). And the noise is spectacular. In the manual it says to start counting cooking time from the moment the pressure control starts to jiggle. Sounds pretty harmless. Sounds like the pressure control is going to do a little dance, actually. But whoa! Is this hissing, shrilling and whistling what is called “jiggle”? But now I’m used to this “jiggling” and can take it for 30 minutes without running to hide behind a couch in fear that the pressure control is going to pop out of the lid and fly straight into my head like some champagne cork. And these fast meals are really yummy. My favorite, so far, is beef stroganoff.

Beef stroganoff for pressure cooker

Serves 6-8

1 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth
1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms , rinsed and patted dry
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 onions , chopped fine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup white wine
1/3 cup soy sauce
4 pounds boneless beef chuck stew meat cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces (see note)
1 pound white mushrooms , cleaned and quartered
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill leaves
Salt and pepper

1. Combine ½ cup broth and porcini in bowl and microwave until steamy and mushrooms have softened, about 1 minute. Line fine-mesh strainer with one paper towel and strain porcini, reserving liquid. Chop porcini fine and set aside.
2. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Cook onions and tomato paste, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Stir in wine, soy sauce, remaining broth, chopped porcini, and reserved porcini liquid, scraping up any browned bits with wooden spoon. Bring broth mixture to boil, then transfer to pressure cooker. Add beef and white mushrooms to pressure cooker, cover, and cook on medium flame until meat is tender, 30-40 minutes.
3. Skim fat from surface. Transfer 2 cups sauce from pressure cooker to large bowl and whisk in flour. Stir flour mixture into pressure cooker and cook, covered, until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream and dill and season with salt and pepper. Serve.

When Liang and I lived in our Villa Fontana house we had a full kitchen. And we used it fully, except maybe the oven. No, the oven wasn’t used too often, maybe three times during all the six months we were there. In this apartment I don’t have an oven, just a stove. And naturally, all I want now is to cook something in the oven! Fortunately, there’s an electric oven of a decent size here, so game on! I decided to start with something simple and fast to cook (I haven’t seen the electricity bill just yet – in Cozumel you have to pay it every two months – but just in case I feel like I should be on the conservative side with all my appliances). Mustard pork roast, for example. I’ve never made it before, but it sounded pretty simple. And Cindy brought me a meat thermometer at some point, so I can be totally precise with my cooking time. Oh my god! I don’t think I know any other dish with the same deliciousness vs simplicity ratio. Well, I do now – it’s the pork roast marinated in Montreal steak seasoning. Anybody can make it (yes, Jennifer, you can make it too, just try!). And nobody will regret they tried.

Mustard pork roast

• Pre-heat the oven to 375F.

• Take the pork out of the fridge so that it reaches room temperature before you put it into the oven. Pat it dry with a paper towel.

• In a small bowl, mix grainy mustard, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and garlic.
Proportions: 2 tablespoons mustard, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 2 tablespoon olive oil, 3 garlic cloves minced for 1 pound of meat.

• Coat the roast liberally with the mixture from the small bowl, stick a meat thermometer in the center part, place the meat in a pan (preferably with a rack) and stick it in the oven.

• Cook until the meat reaches 170F. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, no worries, based on my experience 1.5lb roast is done in 1 hour and 2.5lb roast is done in an hour and a half.

• Let the roast sit for 15 minutes before cutting it.

• Send me a thank you email.

Pork roast marinated in Montreal steak seasoning

The same exact principle as above, but for marinade use 2 tablespoons Montreal steak seasoning, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.

I have also made A TON of homefries for the past two weeks. You see, I have always loved the homefries my mother makes. They are just so delicious, and truly nobody else can make them like she does (and I’ve tried a lot of homefries in my life). When I go to Russia, I literally ask her to make homefries for me every single morning – yes, this is what I eat for breakfast over there. When I was little I spent a lot of weekends and school holidays at my aunt’s place, and her homefries were so different! The secret of my mom’s homefries is LOTS of butter and very thinly sliced potato. My aunt used to make it regular thickness and used canola oil – way too healthy to be good. I loved my aunt and always enjoyed weekends with her: she was a lot of fun and she cooked so well. But I always dreaded her homefries.

For years, I’ve struggled with trying to make the perfect homefries myself. I even bought a mandolin for perfect slicing. But I had never had any luck with the outcome. Until now! Finally, I’ve done it – my mom’s fries on my table in Mexico while my mother is in Russia! What made it possible I’ll never know. Maybe Mexican butter is the same as Russian butter. But this is irrelevant. The important fact is that now I am enjoying my food here so much. It’s kind of pathetic, but I actually moan every time I take the first forkful of homefries into my mouth, “Mmmmm, this is simply delicious!” I just have to remember to make an appointment to check my cholesterol soon.

Ah, and I'm forgetting my obsession with charlotte apple pie (well, at least in Russian it's called sharlotka). It has been my favorite pie since childhood and it's extremely easy to make. Beat 3 eggs with 1 cup of sugar until homogeneous and white; mix with 1 cup of flour; add a bit of baking soda tamed by lemon (of course, here I have to use lime, but it's OK); slice apples; mix it all together; stick in the oven for 45 minutes or so at 375F. Deliciousness!