Animal cracks

After dinner, Iris said, as she so often does, “Iris would like one aminal cookie.” She also tends to insist that we have one, too.

I got a tiger. Laurie got a camel. Iris got…well, let’s let her tell you.

> **Iris:** That’s a rhino! Rhino got a bottom. For Iris to eat! [*crunch*]

Incidentally, unless your kid is still toothless, avoid Barbara’s animal cookies. They’re so crumbly that the vast majority of cookies end up broken, and what kid wants to eat a headless monkey?

That’s a rhetorical question.

Oats so hardcore, we call them steel-cut

In the beginning, there were groats.

Actually, in the beginning, you have to grow some oats. I don’t know about that part. I do know that at some point you end up with groats, which are whole oats, shaped like grains of rice. You could cook them into porridge at this point, but you’d get something more like risotto than breakfast.

So oats are generally processed further. They can be rolled between big metal rollers to make the familiar Quaker oats in a paper can. If they’re rolled ultra-thin, those are quick-cooking oats. They can also be rolled relatively thick, and then you get something like Snoqualmie Falls or Bob’s Red Mill (these are both Northwest brands; I don’t know if they’re sold nationally, but if not, you probably have a similar local product). Thick rolled oats aren’t too bad.

At the top of the oat heap, though, are steel-cut oats, which are just groats sliced into small chunks. There are two problems with steel-cuts, though: they’re expensive and they take a long time to cook.

I’m going to put on my consumer advocate hat (“consumer advocate” is such a nice way of saying “cheapskate,” isn’t it?) and offer the answer to the first problem. The most common brand of steel-cut oats is McCann’s Irish Oatmeal. It comes in a white can and it won a prize for uniformity of granulation in 1893. I have no reason to believe that McCann’s granulation is any less uniform today, but the price is outrageous–sometimes as much as $8 for a 30-ounce can.

Instead, head to your local health food store, the hippier the better, and look in the bulk bins. Mine carries organic steel-cut oats for 89 cents a pound. Alternatively, try Trader Joe’s, which sells McCann’s but also another brand of steel-cut oats that goes for about $1.25/pound.

As for the cooking time, McCann’s has a page of tips, but none of them really seems like much of a timesaver unless you can remember to soak the oats the night before.

Instead, use Alton Brown’s recipe. Part of the experience of eating oats, it seems to me, is in the anticipation, watching them bubble for half an hour before you even get to taste.

This morning at breakfast I gave Iris a little bowl of brown sugar so she could sprinkle it on her oats. Naturally, she ate the sugar with her spoon.

Pound for pound

We had breaded pork cutlets for dinner, on buns with coleslaw. Why is coleslaw so good on a sandwich? I don’t even really like coleslaw, but when it’s on a barbecue sandwich, or a breaded pork cutlet, or a sausage sandwich like at Shultzy’s, or even a burger, it’s perfect.

Once Laurie said to me, “For a person who doesn’t like coleslaw, this is some really good coleslaw.” I just use the scallion-cilantro coleslaw recipe from Cook’s Illustrated.

Iris was very interested in the pounding of the cutlets. HP Sauce was served. Later, during bathtime, Iris grabbed my hand and started mashing it against the side of the tub.

> **Iris:** Iris pounding Dada’s finger. Like the meat.

How do I know when it’s larb?

It had been way too long since our last larb.

Larb is a dish that inspires heated and instant devotion. I can’t explain why. It has a funny name and looks like a pile of meat, which it is. It’s easy to make but messy to eat. All of these things are also true of sloppy joes, but sloppy joes never inspired a 20-page thread on eGullet with quotes like “It is spring, and this woman’s thoughts are turning to fancies of larb.”

Larb is a Thai meat salad. The Thai word isn’t actually pronounced “larb,” so much as “laaaap,” with the pitch of your voice falling during the vowel sound, and the final consonant unvoiced. I’m sure you wanted to know that. Anyway, I spell it “larb” in English because it’s the funniest of the common romanized spellings.

You can larb chicken, fish, pork, beef, lamb, tofu, or pretty much any protein that cooks up crumbly. Here’s how I make it. Improvise at will.

**LARB GAI**
Serves 4 as part of a Thai meal, fewer otherwise

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs (or ground chicken, if you can get decent ground dark-meat chicken, like at a butcher shop or Whole Foods)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots
1/4 cup lime juice from 1 to 2 limes
2 tablespoons sliced scallions
1 teaspoon crushed red chile flakes or minced fresh Thai chiles (more to taste)
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 to 3 tablespoons roasted rice powder (see note)
cabbage leaves (optional)
sticky rice (optional)

1. If you’re using chicken thighs, place them in the food processor and pulse them until well ground but not quite paste, about ten one-second pulses.

2. In a bowl, combine the ground chicken, fish sauce, shallots, lime juice, scallions, and chile. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high. Add the chicken mixture and cook until no longer pink, about five minutes. You’re not browning the chicken, just poaching it in the lime juice and fish sauce.

3. Turn the chicken mixture out into a large bowl. Drain off a bit of the sauce if stir in the cilantro and rice powder to taste. I like a lot of rice powder. Serve hot or at room temperature, optionally with sticky rice and cabbage leaves for making little larb wraps.

**Roasted rice powder:** Heat a stainless skillet over medium heat. Add a handful of Thai long-grain sticky rice (also known as glutinous rice or sweet rice). Toast until golden brown, 5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Transfer to a plate and let cool. Transfer to a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Keeps for weeks in an airtight container at room temperature.

Scary potato

I was putting away some onions in the root cellar when I found this:

Potato

Aren’t sprouted potatoes great? Most foods, when they go bad, either get disgusting or boring. The potato is the only one I can think of that becomes unequivocally cool.

Iris did not agree. Now, Iris is generally not scared of anything. She’ll try to pet a snarling dog. She’ll fling herself down the big slide. She invented a game called “spooking” where I hide in her bedroom in the dark and then jump out and grab her.

But a sprouted potato? Terrifying. I waved it at her and she cowered like I was holding a deadly weapon. Then I showed her it was safe. I patted it. I told her the sprouts were smooth. “Do you want to touch it?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Iris. She inched closer. When she got about five feet away, she retreated into the living room and said, “No.”

So I put the potato on the couch and let the matter drop. Later I saw this:

Potato

This is not the first sprouted potato incident around here. I am a serial potato sprouter.