MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS
A dressed-up rice vinegar lively with the tastes of serrano chili and lemongrass. Shop for Marukan rice vinegar with the green label (unseasoned), which is easily found, or the harder to find but equally good Mitsukan.
Those who avoid chili can simply omit it here.
3 cups unseasoned Japanese rice vinegar
½ cup quarter-size thin coins fresh ginger, smashed
1 fat or 2 thinner stalks fresh lemongrass, pounded, then cut crosswise into finger lengths
6 green and/or red serrano chilis, tipped and halved
1. Combine all of the ingredients in a non-aluminum pot, then bring to a simmer over moderate heat. Remove the pot from the heat and let stand until cool.
2. Store the mixture in an impeccably clean glass jar. If you wish, you may strain out the solids before storing, but do not press down on them while doing so. Another alternative is to leave only the chilis in the jar for color. The vinegar may cloud, but its flavor will not be affected.
Moonspeak is the zany combination of Chinese, Yiddish, English, and pidgin that permeates our kitchen communication. Some of it has to do with my own fascination with language and the love of a verbal tickle. But a lot of it is the necessary oral shorthand that guides any frantic business that relies on humans and their words. Here, then, is a guide to Moonspeak in semi-random order:
MOONS: Wedges of things that have the shape of a half- or crescent moon. Applies to onions, leeks, water chestnuts, and whole pastry turnovers or cookies.
COINS: Rounds or oblong slices of otherwise round things. Applies to carrots, zucchini, Chinese eggplant, water chestnuts, and so on.
RINGS: Highly specific to green and white scallion rings, used ubiquitously as an aromatic and as a garnish.
DIAGS: Highly specific to diagonally cut rings of scallions that are used frequently as a garnish.
THREADS: Shared turf between scallions and ginger. Green and white scallion julienne (called “silk threads” in Chinese, hence the abbreviation) are used often as a garnish. Ginger threads are either strewn raw, typically on top of a fish to be steamed, or are deep-fried and used as a garnish or in salads.
SQUARES AND STRIPS: Applies to vegetable cuts for stir-frying. To cut an onion into “squares,” you halve it through the root end, cut each half lengthwise into 2 or 3 wedges, then cut the wedges crosswise into rounded squares. To cut a bell pepper into squares, lop off the top and bottom, slit the pepper lengthwise, then open the pepper and remove the seeds and ribs. The denuded flesh can then be cut into neat squares approximately ¾ inch in size.
BUTTS: Highly specific, in our non-sexist kitchen, to the bottom ends of bell peppers. These are cut along their natural crevices into thirds or fourths, and used primarily in sandpots.
BATONS: A thick julienne. Used in our kitchen to apply exclusively to carrots. Instituted as menu lingo by the owner (a failed junior high majorette), upon discovering that you could sell a lot more carrot sticks if you called them by their French name.
BIND: A verb. Refers to the last step in the stir-fry dance, whereby one adds a mixture of cornstarch and cold stock or water to the simmering sauce, binding it to the main ingredients.
BINDER: The mixture that makes this happen. The wok cooks keep binder on the stovetop in plastic squeeze bottles (the kind that houses mustard and ketchup).
SQUEEZE BOTTLES: See binder above. These containers are also used by the cooks to hold and apply (or ziggle, see below) all of our vinaigrettes and cold sauces.
SCHLEP: Yiddish. Refers specifically to the steep staircase that separates our large downstairs prep kitchen from the tiny upstairs finishing kitchen, and the need to carry all the food upstairs twice daily. Schlep, in English, means “to haul, moaning and groaning, things that if otherwise trained would move on their own.”
ZIGGLE: As a noun, refers to a back and forth dashing (wiggle) of sauce on top of a dish. Can also be used as a verb, to ziggle, implying the act itself of ziggling.