Wham! Biff! Keema Pau

Plus: Craig's Birthday Dinner at Kato, Enchiladas, and Apple Pie.

Hey everyone,

Did you have a restful weekend? I hope you did. We’re actually gearing up to go to Puerto Rico tomorrow for Craig’s cousin David’s wedding to his wonderful partner Herald. It’ll be nice to go back to PR since my last trip there in 2009. If you have any suggestions for things to do or, more importantly, things to eat, share them in the comments! We’ll be staying in San Juan.

So: I made a dish that totally dazzled me for my podcast. My guest, Karan Soni (who you may know from Deadpool or Miracle Workers), urged me to make the Keema Pau from the Dishoom cookbook and I had no idea what to expect.

You can hear our whole conversation about it here:

The gist is that you cook onions, garlic, ginger, and coriander seeds in oil, then add yogurt until it separates (!), ground lamb, and an herb paste made with cilantro, mint, and chilies. Served with grilled paratha, this is one of the most lively meat preparations you’re likely to encounter — I compared it to an Indian Sloppy Joe.

And now that I’m blogging again, you can get the WHOLE RECIPE HERE. Give it a try. It’s a dazzler.

It was Craig’s birthday last week and I used it as an excuse to go to a restaurant I’ve been dying to try… and one that I knew he’d love too: Kato, in the Arts District.

Having just seen The Menu recently, we were slightly wary when we saw the tasting menu printed out and the 800-page wine list (well not really, but it was huge). However our server couldn’t have been more down-to-earth (he’d seen The Menu too) and the food wasn’t pretentious at all; it was gorgeously presented and soulful — a Taiwanese take on seafood.

I mean, check out our first bites: raw scallop, raw yellowtail, and geoduck — all presented like beautiful works of art with surprising flavor combinations.

The milk bread gave Parker House rolls a run for their money.

And then there were dishes that boggled the mind with their complexity — like this abalone chawanmushi.

And look at the painstaking detail that went into this dish of caviar.

But the most surprising bite of the night — and our server’s favorite — was this little doughnut filled with a salted egg yolk custard.

(They even wrote a birthday card for Craig, if you look above the plate.)

So if you’re in Southern California and you’re celebrating a special occasion, get thee to Kato for one of the best meals you can eat right now in L.A.

But Craig’s birthday didn’t end there! We invited our friends Ryan and Jonathan over on Friday and I made enchiladas using Craig’s mom’s recipe with some twists from Ali Slagle’s NYT recipe. I may blog about this later this week!

And for dessert, of course I made Craig’s favorite: apple pie. You can read this post all about it which links to a post with Craig’s dad’s recipe, which is iconic.

This time around, I upped the spice quotient so I mixed the apples with 1 cup sugar, then a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon, a heaping teaspoon of allspice, a heaping teaspoon ground ginger, plus orange zest and lemon zest. Even Winston wanted a bite.

Now for this week’s links:

• The Sam’s Club hot dog vs. the Costco hot dog (LA Times);

• Per Se chef opens a wacky cake spot in Flushing (Eater NY);

• I’ve got one thing to say… sasha, flambé (NYT).

That’s all for this today, folks!

If you missed Thursday’s paid subscriber’s only dispatch, you missed my first rack of lamb, Alison Roman’s garlic bread, and kooky chocolate chip cookies with malted milk powder in them.

As mentioned, I’m headed to Puerto Rico tomorrow, so we’ll see if I’m able to write Thursday’s newsletter. If not, I’ll see you back here next week!

Your pal,

Adam