There is so little information available about Burma (or Myanmar, depending on how you rock it) that after the inevitable Wikipedia entry, the CIA World Factbook is the second item that appears in Google’s search results. This anonymity is largely due to the military dictatorship that has kept the country under lock and key for much of the last 50 years. Even typhoon Nargis, which smacked into the Burmese coast in the spring of 2008 killing 130,000+ Burmese, shamefully failed to change the government’s secretive operations in spite of a large international relief effort.

Burma has not always been so mysterious. During the latter half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th, the country was annexed to the British Raj of India (mostly to arrest the expansion of the French across Indochina from Laos and Vietnam), and quickly became an integral part of the British Empire supplying a rich abundance of jewels, hardwoods and spices to global markets. Indeed, the British, favoring the temperate north of “Upper Burma” over the fetid, malarial Rangoon (now Yangon) in the south, made the previously small, provincial town of Mandalay their capital, opening up that previously undeveloped area in so doing. It was during these heady days of fortune-making, steamy nights and opium dens that the sense of exoticism and opulence surrounding the city of Mandalay developed (which the Vegas casino Mandalay Bay riffs off, despite the fact that Mandalay is more than 500 miles inland).

Indians, Chinese and Anglo-Indians, their businesses and their foods, flooded Burma under the British, as the new rulers exploited Burma’s natural wealth and pushed railroads deep into the Burmese interior. Prior to this period, native Burmese cuisine had contrasted sharply with its neighbors. It had few of the complex spices of Indian cuisine and lacked the fiery heat of Thai food or the sophisticated salty, sour, sweet characteristics of Chinese cuisines, tending to rely on more subtle flavors and simple techniques. Things changed considerably during British rule, and the Burmese adopted or adapted many of the more generic dishes these foreign groups brought with them, so that contemporary Burmese food, while still distinct, displays these recent influences.

Perhaps the most popular dish in Burma though, is a traditionally Burmese dish that has been eaten to celebrate marriage throughout the ages. Own-o Kow-swear (or Own-o Kow-sway/swea’) is a chicken and coconut milk stew flavored with turmeric, garlic and ginger and served over wheat noodles, that due to its bright yellow color is thought to bestow luck on the marrying couple. It is also supposed that the enlivening flavors of ginger and turmeric offer a little extra oomph, shall we say, to the consummation.

We first wrote about this dish back in the very early days of this blog — apparently before lighting was an issue in our photography (or retouching, for that matter) — having enjoyed it at one of the (then) only two Burmese restaurants in New York, not to mention one of the very few such eateries in America. Sadly, this restaurant, Village Mingala, closed earlier this year, leaving its sister restaurant on the Upper West Side to fly the flag for Burmese cuisine in NYC, and so to mark its passing, we decided to give home-making Own-o Kow-swear a bash.

Of course, as my opening line suggests there isn’t much available on the internet about Burmese food, so we turned instead to the only Burmese cook book readily available in English — The Flavors of Burma/Myanmar — written by Susan Chan, a Burmese-Australian woman of Chinese heritage. From her we learned that since chicken (and other proteins, except fish) have typically been (and, to an extent, still are) exorbitantly priced in Burma, this dish came to be served at weddings as a demonstration of the hosts’ generosity and largesse. We also learned, very interestingly, that these days it is also often served — to those who can afford it — as a breakfast dish because Burmese weddings are most commonly celebrated in the morning, with the celebratory meal served around brunch time.

It is hard for us to contemplate eating anything with chicken in it before noon, let alone a bowl of fragrantly-spiced stew and noodles, but, happily, it also makes an excellent lunch or dinner instead. Do not be dissuaded from giving this dish a try, especially if you’ve been nervous hitherto about making Indian or Thai food at home due to the number and/or availability of some of the ingredients. Much of what you need for Own-o Kow-swear can be found in even the most badly-stocked grocery store, and in terms of skills, if you can make a regular beef stew, you can make this blindfolded.

Since, for most of us, visiting Burma or even finding a Burmese restaurant is largely impossible, unless something miraculous happens there politically, this dish is about as close as we’re ever going to get to experiencing the unknown pleasures of that exotic and mysterious nation. The really frustrating thing is that once you’ve tried this dish you just want to taste and know more and more about Burma and its food. Here’s hoping that one day, the government’s iron grip will relax, or be cast-off entirely, and the country and its fabulous cuisine can once again by enjoyed by Englishmen (and people of all countries) like me.

Do you ever wish you had a secret power? I don’t mean like some stupid superhero who can fly, make it rain, or look great in a unitard. I mean like a gerbil’s ability to store tasty bits in its cheeks for later, or a tiger’s ability to eat 30lbs of wild boar at a single sitting, that kind of thing. No? Hmm, well, I do, and sometimes, in my more reflective moments, I find myself wishing I was blessed with a gizzard. After all, would not my diet be expanded and my ‘intestinal transit’ made smoother if I possessed a specialized second stomach that enabled me to grind up and enjoy commonly indigestible foods?

Having recently questioned a sample group of poultry, reptiles and fish (the only three genera of animals that possess gizzards) about this, I can tell you that 9 out of the 10 chickens surveyed credited their gizzards with giving free reign to their more fibrous dietary proclivities. In the course of my survey, I also learned that while addiction and dependency issues brought on by knowingly being bred for slaughter are a big problem for young roosters, the greater worry among concerned hens is the utter disregard for their gizzards demonstrated by the carnivorous public.

“That’s my son’s (second) stomach they’re throwing them away!”, cock-a-doodle-doed one plump mother of 700 chicks, while another squawked that, “they (humans) should be so lucky to have a gizzard of their own. Ingrates!”

Chastened by these plaintive cries, and encouraged to make a salad we ate at a fabulous gastropub in Lille, France, over New Year’s, we recently explored the potential of confit-ing chicken gizzards. We found that nothing could be easier and more delicious, nor could this preparation be more suited to making the best out of what is a potentially tough part of the giblets.

We served our gizzards and some similarly confit’d chicken livers over a green salad with some boiled eggs, just as we had eaten it in Lille, but an alternative preparation typical to the Dordogne region of France, especially the town of Perigeux/Perigord, serves the gizzards over a lettuce salad with walnuts and croutons, which would be just as good, no doubt.

On our honeymoon, almost exactly two years ago today, we arrived in the fair city of Verona thoroughly pissed off. And then things got worse. It wasn’t as if the day had started badly either: waking in Bologna; leisurely sipping a doppio espresso; before strolling along Via Pescherie Vecchie to buy a small, crusty loaf, a giant, but sweet tomato, an immoderately-sized leaf-wrapped burrata, and a serrated knife; then, wandering into the Piazza Cavour to make ourselves nearly sick with buttery cream cheese curds washed down with a half-bottle of bardolino. All in all, a pretty reasonable opening gambit.

I don’t even recall at what point things began to go west, but the supposed simple hour and a half drive between the two cities took us more like four. So, in late afternoon, we lurched into Verona hot, tired, stiff, and needing to pee. And then we couldn’t find our hotel. Another hour of angrily trawling the Veronese streets in our banana-hued rental car, grinding gears, and now with excrutiating pee pains, we finally found it – closed. No amount of banging on the door, honking of the horn or screaming at the windows produced a response. Despairing, I relieved myself copiously in the hotel’s flower bed and, looking up with an air of contentment, spied a large pink elephant beaming at me from across a field. Salvation arrives in many guises, and drawn towards it, things immediately improved.

With a free bottle of valpolicella, a purring welcome from a friendly ginger tom, a pair of iridescent peacocks puttering outside, and a room for the night with breakfast, Hotel Elefante saved us from sleeping in our car and, perhaps, from premature marital counselling. Having regained at least partial equilibrium, we made for the city center dressed for the theatre.

Skirting the wholly-invented balcony of the wholly-invented Capulet family, we ducked down Via Portici and into a restaurant filled with lovers pawing each other under the table and, like cartoon dogs, sucking-up the same strand of spaghetti. Still too flustered to entertain any romantic notions, we ordered what turned out to be a vast portion of fegato di vitello alla Veneziana or Venetian-style calves’ liver, which, with its heady richness of garlic, sage and cream, would have rendered senseless even the most amorous couple. Things continued to improve after dinner as we shuffled onwards to the arena di Verona and, cooling our tails on its ancient bleached limestone blocks, watched an epic performance of Puccini’s La Bôheme that somehow provided much-needed perspective on the day’s minor tragedies.

Periodically, we’ll laugh (or grimace) at our haplessness that day, but as time passes, we’re more apt to remember the liver than the liverishness. During a recent lunch at the very respectable Aperitivo here in Park Slope, Brooklyn, we ate a delicious adaptation of that dish over linguine with a nice dry Valpolicella that was reminiscent of our pre-opera meal in Verona. Here it is, recreated for your visual pleasure. Feel free to eat it on a balcony or at a banquet for quarreling clans, just don’t expect to be feeling frisky afterwards.

Recently, I’ve been noticing many, many food blogs posting recipes utilizing a certain brand of pre-made “fresh” pastas: nothing like a Foodbuzz promo to bring the best out of the food bloggers. Many came up with very creative recipes using a store-bought, pre-made pasta (a difficult compromise for many hardcore pasta lovers). [In case you were wondering, no, Foodbuzz didn't send us any Buitoni products, and yes, you do detect a hint of bitterness.] A prize of All-Clad Copper Core pots and pans is a pretty damn good prize to inspire the Sandra Lee in all of us. (An Aside: Speaking of Ms. Sandra Lee, has anyone seen that horrid “Kentucky GRILLED Chicken” commercial?  We wonder if she is going to take a bucket of that chicken, open up a bag of arugula, throw on some Seven Seas Italian Dressing, and then craft one of her cleverly-branded “tablescapes” featuring giant papier mâché heads of the Colonel?)

After seeing all these different recipes utilizing store-bought pasta (and upset at having been left-out of this Foodbuzz freebie), I was reminded that the average American still thinks that making homemade pasta isn’t possible, and I was determined to prove them wrong. Although I do understand that there is a time and a place for store-bought stuffed pasta and Semi-Homemade/Sandra Lee nights, I also believe that creating homemade, fresh, stuffed pasta is much, much easier than most people think.

The key is in the stuffing. If you can make a delicious stuffing for ravioli, agnolotti, tortellini, cannelloni or any other shape of stuffed pasta your little heart desires, the hardest part is over. If you don’t have a pasta roller (or a rolling-pin), buy some wonton wrappers and do it that way. The key is that you’ve done it – you made it, the stuffing is fresh and includes zero preservatives. You get to control what goes in the stuffing. Get creative ’cause the possibilities are endless.

Although I did make my own pasta for this dish, the star was the stuffing. It was super simple, quick and very easy to make. We happened to find fresh porcini’s in our local market (a freaking miracle) for about $35 a pound, so we bought two ($8!) and decided to blend those with some rehydrated dried ones and a bit of good old (and too often underappreciated) white button mushrooms. A bit of butter, some fresh parmigiano, garlic, shallots and sage, and you’ve got a fab-u-lous, fresh filling for pasta.

Bottom line, if you haven’t tried making your own stuffed pasta, give it a try. Please. Just try.

This is the way we are with a dish we call “lidia’s lamb”. I’ve no idea what the real name for it is since I’ve never looked up a recipe for it and I’ve only watched it being prepared once, on TV, by Lidia Bastianich, on her show Lidia’s Italy, but that’s what we call it. Essentially, it’s lamb shoulder chops braised in a sauce made from dijon mustard, anchovies, garlic and chicken stock, but such a description belies its richness and savory flavors and, if you’re crazy and you don’t like anchovies, it will put you off. So, just take it from me, you need to try this dish. It’s virtually impossible to mess up, it’s delicious and you can make it from scratch in under an hour, making it perfect for a weeknight meal, or if lamb is hard to find or expensive where you live, a good option for a dinner party because it’s so easily scalable for larger numbers. Plus, once you’ve made it the first time, you’ll be having cravings for it a lot.

Lidia’s Lamb
(recipe serves 2, but for more just scale the recipe up. You’ll probably need more than one pan too, but you can figure that out yourself)

Ingredients
2 lamb shoulder chops (4-6 oz each)
approx. 2 pints chicken stock
2-5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced (depending on your tolerance for the stinking rose)
1-2 shallots, finely chopped
2-4 anchovy fillets (the salty ones in oil, you know what I’m talking about) (add more of less depending on how squeamish you are about anchovies – see final note below)
6-8 tbsp smooth dijon mustard (we prefer Maille, but Grey Poupon is fine. Don’t even think about using American yellow mustard! Save that for your hot dog.)
2-3oz plain flour
2 tbsp olive oil
black pepper to taste

Recipe
Heat a large skillet to medium-high heat. Dredge chops in flour and shake off excess. Hit pan with the olive oil and add the chops.
Cook chops for about three minutes per side, or until golden brown. Make a hot spot in the pan and add the shallots and garlic.

Allow these to saute for a couple of minutes until softened and fragrant, then add the anchovies. Stir anchovies vigorously around the pan until they start to disintegrate. After about another minute or two, add enough stock so that the liquid is at the same level as the “top” of the chops. Using your tongs, scrape the crusty bits off the bottom of the pan and turn the chops over. Add about half the mustard at this point and stir it in.

Reduce heat to medium and allow chops to braise in simmering liquid for about another 25-30 minutes, turning chops occasionally. Keep an eye on the level of the liquid and add more stock whenever it falls below the “top” of the chops. Meat should have begun to pull away from the bones after about 30 minutes.

Taste the sauce at this point. It should taste like it needs more mustard. Add some or all of the remaining tablespoons of mustard according to your taste. Increase heat to medium-high and allow sauce to thicken for about another 5-8 minutes. When it’s done the sauce should be around halfway up the chops and be of a medium thickness, with a pleasant sheen to it. Check seasoning and add black pepper to taste before serving.

We often serve this with some roasted potatoes because they usually take approximately the same amount of time to cook as the meat, providing you cut them reasonably small, parboil them first, and slap them in at least a 400F oven. We also often serve it with some asparagus, kale or broccoli di rape on the side. It sounds kind of heavy I know, but it’s really pretty well-balanced and very satisfying. I promise you, you’ll like this one.

And, just a final note, if you’re worried that the people you’re cooking for don’t like anchovies, I will be amazed if they can tell this dish contains anchovies. All the anchovies do here is add a salty, umami-ish flavor to the dish that brings it all together. You’ll notice that I don’t add salt to the recipe – that’s why. So, please don’t exclude the anchovies because the dish will not be the same without them. Again, just trust us on this one.