Shifaffa can be whatever you want
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- July 13, 2018
- 1442
"I don’t want French fried potatoes, red ripe tomatoes. I'm never satisfied. I want the frim-fram sauce with the ussin-fay with shifaffa on the side."
These lyrics from the 1945 Nat King Cole Trio song, “The Frim Fram Sauce,” always had me stumped. It’s been recorded by numerous artists over the years, and I’m just dopey enough to think it referred to some jive hep cat dish in New Orleans or something.
How cool would you have to be to saunter into an all-night hash house on Bourbon Street and ask for ussin-fay with shifaffa on the side? Way cooler than I, no doubt.
But it’s just gibberish. The fellow in the song is asking for made-up food to stall the waiter while he drinks up the free water, which is why he came into the place — thirsty. The spelling I’ve used here travels well with the theory that "frim-fram” is from "flim-flam” (nonsense), and ussin-fay is pig Latin for “fussin’.” Shifaffa can be whatever you want.
Now that the Fourth of July is behind us and we’re in the stretch with no long weekends until Labor Day, I’m starting to look for alternatives to grilling. This is a particularly hot summer in Ohio, and it becomes a coin toss whether to stand out in the sun over a hot fire or inside in the air conditioning over a slow-simmering burner.
This one is on the menu this week because I’m seeing tomatillos showing up in local stores. They’re the things that look like green tomatoes with a dried, leathery husk. Alone, they are quite tart, but they make a delicious, spicy green sauce that you might easily pass off as frim-fram if you have some jazz in the background.
The sauce gets much of its flavor from the charring process early in the recipe. You could, of course, char them on the grill if you want to stand out in the heat awhile, but that’d be some unnecessary fussin’.
PORK IN GREEN CHILI SAUCE
(Chili Verde)
1 pound pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes.
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, unpeeled
3 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 poblano peppers
2 jalapeño peppers
1 green or red bell pepper
1 pound (or so) tomatillos, husks removed
1 small bunch cilantro, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
Arrange all of the peppers, garlic, tomatillos and onions, unpeeled, on a baking sheet and place under the broiler with the oven door ajar. Keeping a close eye on the vegetables, roast them until they are evenly charred, turning as needed. If you have a gas range, you can do the peppers over a burner flame.
Remove the vegetables from the oven, transfer the peppers to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for 10 minutes. They will steam and soften a bit, and their skins will slip off easily. Carefully remove the skins and seeds from the hot peppers and chop them into a medium dice.
Peel and mince the garlic and peel and chop the onion into a medium dice. Cut the tomatillos into chunks.
Heat a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven and add the oil. Brown the pork evenly in the oil and then add the reserved onions, garlic and peeled peppers. Add the chicken stock, cilantro, brown sugar, tomatillos, oregano and cumin.
Simmer 30 minutes and taste the sauce, adjusting if the tomatillos are very tart by adding more sugar, and add salt and pepper as desired. Simmer until the pork is quite tender, one hour or more. Serve with white rice.