Scattered

So. Yeah. That's brussels sprouts, rosemary potatoes and fish masala. on my camera phone because I'm tired.

and I got a little distracted.

but THIS FISH MASALA IS DELICIOUS. My kingdom for some cilantro though. This is inspired by a dish at Himalaya that I love.

Start by sweating a medium sliced onion in a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of oil. Add a couple of slices of ginger toss around for a few minutes, the onion will still be pretty sturdy. add two cloves of chopped up garlic. Add a tablespoon of garam masala, pinch of cinnamon, pinch of fenugreek, pinch of coriander and as much spice as you like. Stir to combine. add a 14 oz can of tomatoes. simmer for 10 minutes. Place fish in mixture and poach for about ten minutes or until done? I used barramundi, but any mild white fish will work well.

serve with addled side dishes. or you know. rice.

Chicken Adobo

Ok, so I've made my friend Mike's pork adobo before and it is addicting and porky and salty and sweet and all the bad things for you in life. I'm actually making it right now using the excuse that the oven will help keep the house warm in this unseasonable Texan cold snap.

But the NY Times posts this article about the ADOBO WARS and publishes a chicken adobo recipe. This recipe is amazing. It winds up tasting like a clean curry. The sugar caramelizes slightly on the chicken skin. I just poured the left over sauce on leftover rice and ate it alone, but it also goes well with other meats. If it makes it that far.

So I took one camera phone picture of my bowl before I devoured it and most of the rest of the chicken. I made this recipe with a whole butchered chicken (thighs, drums, tenderloins, breast, wings) and it worked fine. It's not going to be as sinful as an all dark meat version, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Served with stir fried bok choy.



Also yes. This is the only pretty set of bowls in the house. Stephanie bought them for me years ago and they are still trucking as the happy part of my odds and ends plate collection.

Fried Rice

I'm sorry. I haven't been around. I've let this fallow. BUT. On this day, where I am the most tired, I am going to show you what I cook when I am the most tired and have to deal with fridge leftovers and have just enough energy to cut an onion and sausage and stuff into pieces.



It took me more time to import pictures, half heartedly tweak, upload, write, than it did to make this.



And it's all thanks to this stuff. Which was on sale in two giant packages for 8.88. This is hilarious. Trust me. It's this sweet concentrated dried Chinese sausage which is all garlicky and I don't know, it's crack man. The best part is that it lasts forfreakingever in your pantry and is perfect for omigodtired days like this. But feel free to use any protein you like. Tofu. Chicken bits. There is a fine tradition of making fried rice with cheap hot dogs.

So I had an eighth of a week old cabbage, half an onion, CRACKSAUSAGE, garlic, some sad carrots and half a thing of rice that was a couple of days old from the last time I made this (emergency food for our group of friends after a showing of "Handmade Nation")

Chop about as finely as you feel like. I didn't really feel like.



order was oil hot, sausage hot, onions carrots cabbage, shove around for five minutes, crumble rice into pan.



My sad little rice pot.

Oh eggs. Shove everything to a side. leave a bit of space. crack eggs into space. You can scramble them if you want ahead of time. I like the different colors. also I don't want to wash another bowl.



And then remembered there was some leftover cooked chard in the fridge.



Yay green things.

Really anything goes here. I mean. After this I splashed in some chinese wine, a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, a splash of fish sauce and a little white pepper and sesame oil. And tossed it around on high heat for a while. the burny crunchies on the bottom are a bonus and not a failure.



Yay and there's enough for tomorrow for when I also don't feel like making dinner.

I got home at 7:00 pm. I let the dog out (who. who who. who who) and fed the cat. And then embarked on this quest. It is 8:00 and I am eating this food and posting this debacle of a blog post. See, I love you. I could have been depressingly watching Hoarders.

FRIED RICE

ingredients:
day old rice
onion
garlic
carrots
stuff from your fridge
asian product (soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, hoisin, white pepper, whatever you have handy)
eggs

heat up pot. Add protein of choice, lightly brown. Add onions and and garlic and carrots and whatever raw vegetable matter you have chopped up. stir around for five or so minutes. crumble rice into pot with hands. wash rice off your sticky hands. mix around for a few minutes until rice is warm. shove all this stuff to one corner. crack eggs if you want into the open pan area. stir until set. mix all together.

add Asian Product by the tablespoon for flavor. Not as much soy sauce as you would think. I like a couple of tablespoons of soy, a couple of tablespoons of rice wine, a tablespoon of sesame oil, and a touch of fish sauce and seasoning with white pepper instead of black. your rice, your call.

mix together, add anything that doesn't need cooking but just needs warming up.

let sit on medium to high heat for a couple of minutes if you want a crust to form which is actually delicious. eat.

Shrimp and Garlic Chive Flowers

Had leftover shrimp from making spring rolls and bought chive flowers at the market.



Shrimp:

marinate in chopped garlic, grated ginger, a little salt and about a tablespoon or two of corn starch. I also added the bottoms of the chive flowers chopped up fine and a tablespoon of chinese cooking wine and a little white pepper. mix together, should be a little ooblicky. Basically this sits around while you cook the chive flowers or whatever veggies you're having that day. Stir fry for about 7 minutes or until pink on the outside.

Chive flowers:

Chop into manageable strips - 2 inches? um. Stir fry all but the tops. salt. pepper. uhhh until tender. 5...minutes? add tops and cook about two minutes more. om nom.

Nostalgia Dinner

Apparently I get the urge to make Hong Shao Rou about once a year. This time I fried up the pork belly in caramelized sugar and oil and it really brought out the color and sweetness I remembered.

So along with the pot of porky coronary failure are the little side dishes.



Chinese broccoli. Steamed for about five minutes with a little garlic and then topped with oyster sauce. They have delicious crunchy stems and well. Sometimes you need veggies.



Braised eggs. Softboil eggs, peel carefully, and then tuck into the braising liquid of the pork. They get all brown and porky and delicious, and if you keep the braising temperature low enough, they don't get all chalky in the middle.


Bao! Because sometimes you need something to dip into the pork belly sauce or make a pork belly sammich.

I think the recipe I used was

1/2 c warm water
1 packet's equivalent of yeast
about a tablespoon of lump sugar
3/4 c milk
1 T butter
3 c flour (or enough flour to make a smooth dough)

combine warm water, yeast, sugar milk and butter. Let sit for 10 minutes. Mix in flour. Knead until smooth. Let rest for an hour and a half. Punch down. Let rise another hour. Form into little buns. place in steamer. Let proof for 15 minutes. Steam for 10 minutes. Eat.

I lay down moist paper towel and spray with pam in the steamer. Helps with the release. traditionally napa cabbage is used, but I didn't have any on hand.







Now have lunch for a few days, a little vat of cooking fat, and HI I THINK WE'RE BACK.

Hot Pot pt 1 (broth)

Okay. Tonight I am starting the hot pot broth and I will kick myself later if I don't write this down right as I'm doing it. In this bigass pot I have

1 lb pork soup bones (lots of knuckles and neck)
2 large fat carrots cut into diagonal chunks(4 or 5 normal sized ones, these were the freak asian market ones)
1 lemon grass stem cut into diagonal chunks
2 inches of galangal root sliced thick
a half dollar sized knob of ginger sliced thick
half a head of garlic
1 tomato, sliced into wedges
2 stalks of celery
1 onion sliced into half moons
1 Tb Szechwan peppercorns
2 Tb salt
1 Tb sesame oil
2 Tb chinese cooking wine
water to the top of the pot

let simmer overnight and reevaluate.

This morning I added another large knob of galangal, more salt, an extra lemongrass stem and another inch or two of ginger.

Asian slaw

uh. hi. Yeah I know I've been bad. But I've been trying to cut down on dishes that are bad for me and cream heavy and meat heavy and I finally made something delicious that boys will eat that is also delicious.

I hated cole slaw. Forever. I mean. It was just scary. Turns out, more mayo issues! So we had this at our friend's parent's house and it was delicious and I made a version out of whtaever leftovers we had.

Essentially, if you ever feel like slicing things up really thin



Or just grating things for a while. make this.

I used half a cabbage, a large carrot, 4 sprigs of green onion, two crimini mushrooms and a handful of peanuts for the slaw itself. And the shredded leftovers of a roast chicken from earlier in the week, but this can be omitted to make this a vegetarian dish.

For the dressing i used 1 garlic clove, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, a teaspoon of black vinegar, a tablespoon of rice wine, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and blended it all together. I'm going to have to play around with these ratios, but it should make enough to toss the slaw in. you can also vary ratios to taste. I tend to like things a little soy saucey and a little tangy. Ginger is good if you have it and a little black pepper. You can add a touch of sugar if you want, but i think the vegetables work well for sweetness on their own.

Other things you can add if you have it: cilantro, mint, bean sprouts, sriracha, citrus juice.

Toss all together. can sit around let the flavors meld but man I just ate it two minutes after I was done mixing it and it's way too tasty for raw cabbage.

Making chinese bbq pork buns

Okay. For years. I have not been able to replicate how the hell my mother made these completely delicious pork buns. I've looked up recipes online, I've experimented, I keep winding up with passable, but not great buns.

I called her today and finally asked.

Okay. For context. The usual recipe is this:

Warm water 1 cup
Active dry yeast 1 (1/4-ounce) package
Flour 1 cup
Sugar 1/4 cup
Shortening or oil 2 T
Water 1/2 cup
Salt 1 1/2 teaspoons
Flour 3 to 3 1/2 cups


Right?

My mother, instead of oil or water - uses butter and milk. And adds an egg.

My mother has been putting bbq pork into steamed brioche for years.

Pictures and recipe to follow. I have some weirdass mashup of French Quarter Redneck pulled pork bbq buns going on here.

Sometimes you have to move cakes

And if you're me, you don't own anything that actually encloses or protects a cake or keep it from moving.

But you sure do have packing materials from a tv.

It's FALL

I'm so excited. I am much more comfortable with fall foods - the squashes and the potatoes and the soups and stews and braises and GREENS that are growing again (oh Houston). Brussels sprouts and kale are back - I just sowed a new batch of kale and a batch of spinach.

Last night we made chicken pot pie soup and biscuits. We've also had an influx of cream - which we have been making into CREAMFEST TWO - oh my god we need the join gyms. Clotted cream, cream scones, creme brulee, aforementioned soup and bisques oh my.

and the PUMPKINING. Yes there will be pumpkining. One of my goals is to get a sugar pumpkin and process it down into pumpkin goo just to see how it's done. Pumpkin gnocchi and more brown butter than we should ever be allowed.

I did a bad bad thing

I've had this idea kicking around in my head. It's one of those things you're not supposed to listen to lest you wind up committed or at least with some kind of mark on your person that warns other people "this person is not well".

So you know scotch eggs right? Take a hard boiled egg, coat it in sausage, deep fry it. It's fairly horrifying.

Well, why not make a dessert version of it.

WHY NOT

Ikeaaaa meatballs, tasty

Steph and I made our quarterly trip to Ikea to check out the new catalog stuff and wander the store and pretty much be terrible people. I'm trying to outfit an office out of a spare room and wanted to test drive their sofa bed stuff.

ANYWAY, these trips always wind up with us taking home a bag of meatballs.

I suck, once more, at the picture taking before devouring food - but this recipe is for the cream gravy. Not the packet from Ikea.


You need:

1 tablespoon of oil
1 bag of Ikea Meatballs
1 onion - chopped
garlic - however much you like. start with two cloves minced
1 T butter
1/2 cup of flour
2 or so cups of milk
beef bouillon cubes to taste, start with one or two
1 T dill
pinch coriander
salt pepper

Take large pan. Add a tablespoon of oil. Heat. Add meatballs, frozen is okay. Brown.

As they brown, juices come out. Add a chopped up onion.

Add a few chopped up cloves of garlic. Fry till onion translucent.

Add a tablespoon of butter and half a cup of flour.

stir until everything is pretty much covered in buttery flour.

Add two cups of milk. Maybe 2 and a half. depending on how thick you like your gravy. Sometimes I want gravy. Sometimes I want sauce. Stir and bring just to a boil

I add a couple of beef bouillon cubes and a tablespoon of dill and salt and pepper and a little coriander.

simmer until everyone's ready to eat. Honestly, you can just kind of let this one sit around a bit and the sauce gets beefier. Serve over pasta or rice or with potatoes or you know. Whatever. And of course you can do this with homemade meatballs, but it's Ikea day.

Maybe I will take a picture of the leftovers if I remember before I eat them.

Breakfast for dinner

It was just one of those days.

Charoses sausage (Pork, apple, walnut, cinnamon and sweet red wine) from this really lovely man at the farmer's market in midtown. 2 egg omelette Julia Child style (beaten eggs with a little salt and pepper and milk, poured into a hot nonstick pan and shaken like a polaroid picture) (shake it. shake. ..ok I'm done) The how to is here! And cut up sweet potato from the CSA.

I browned the sausage, and then dumped the chunked sweet potato in the fats and juices of the sausage. The sweet potato chunks get caramelized and then the whole mess gets covered. It steams in the juice of the sausages and the small chunks cook quickly. It all finishes at about the same time.

A new ...leaf?

A friend commented that we should post our more vegetarian friendly recipes - it's true. Our more grand food schemes tend to involve meat. And I tend to lean on cheeses a LOT.

Challenge for today was a vegany dish with not very much prep time and well. Not much in the fridge. BUT, I did have a CSA box that came with a bunch of nummies including a few organic lemons and a bunch of parsley. Also, it's Houston and it's flipping hot.

Took half an onion and a few carrots and cooked them on high until they were all nice and brown. While those did their dansen I boiled a couple of cups of israeli couscous.

Here's the trick. after draining the hot couscous, add one pressed/minced/beaten to death clove of garlic while still hot. dump the hot carrots and onions in there too. That'll take the edge off the garlic.

Added a couple of glugs of olive oil and the juice and zest of a lemon, a little salt and pepper and a generous chopped handful of parsley.



It's tasty and tangy and if you have good parsley, green. Really good cold too. I wish I had time to soak beans because chickpeas would go really well with this too in order to make it a more complete dish.

And you know what. After a few bites, I remembered I had some chevre from The Blue Heron Farm and added a chunk to the salad. I am a failure at the veganism, but man. Those happy pampered goats and their mom make some incredible cheese.

@#(&*@#

PIE POPS

Chicken Kentuckily Fried

It all started with this article which is very charmingly British about the entire concept of deep fried chicken. But it also has the breakdown of the ELEVEN SECRET HERBS AND SPICES

"1 teaspoon ground oregano
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground sage
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons Accent (MSG)"

MSG is not an herb. nor a spice. But okay whatever.

For perspective's sake, when I make fried chicken, I marinate in buttermilk for 24 hours, I salt and pepper the flour, and if I'm feeling REALLY WILD I add a tablespoon of paprika. But like, hoo, I'd have to sit down after that.

So for this project I quested and procured these SECRET HERBS AND SPICES.



Please note the giant mound of MSG. This is probably the dirtiest thing I've done in a while.

Ground it all up and you get this



Which I mixed with two cups of flour. Then realized it was still REALLY FFING SALTY. And added another cup of flour.

The chicken strips have been patiently bathing in buttermilk, a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of sugar and some pepper.



They've been there for about a day, but as long as they marinate for a couple of hours, you're good. It's small strips of meat, they absorb flavor quickly.

Highly recommend double dipping these. Straight out of the buttermilk into the flour, back in buttermilk, flour. Deep fry.



Incredibly sinful. The buttermilk makes them tangy, tender and juicy. The msg makes them a shock to the system. Like the article states, it's like the crystal meth of chicken. And granted, I'm not convinced that the exact herb and spice combination make that huge of a difference. The biggest difference is that if you fry properly, you get a good shattering crust without the crazy flour tumors that come with commercial KFC. Eaten with Bob's cornbread recipe.

If I were to make the recipe again, I'd add more paprika and some coriander and reduce the msg to a teaspoon if not eliminating it all together. Though, granted, if you're eating fried chicken, there's not really a reason to not make it completely naughty.

Chili

The power of suggestion is exponentially so for me when it comes to food. Sometimes it's that Sonic commercial with the chili cheese tater tots that just sound like a really good idea at 2 in the morning. For me, it's usually something I've read - the stews and breads in the accursed Wheel of Time Series, butter or candy making from Little House or the Thai food and such from every damn chapter of Time Traveler's Wife. The point to this, is that I never really cared for or really wanted to make chili until I read this:

Laura made a great chili. She used lean meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice and a pinch of fresh dill, and finally, measure out and add her chili powders."
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman

It goes on, but I think that's about the limits of fair use. And it's basically a passage that is burned into my mind and my ideas of making chili all derive from that one paragraph.

So here's the gist of my chili. I'm a spice wimp, but I love the flavors of different peppers. I refuse to thicken with anything but tomato paste and ground meat. I prefer a deep and smokey but slightly sweet chili. I prefer beans, but I make them separately and add them in to my own dish since there's the GREAT CHILI DEBATE and I'm motherflippin Roger Sherman.



Both ground meat and cubed meat. I used lamb and ground beef and some leftover pot roast chuck cut into quarter inch pieces. The cubed meat is for chewing and the ground meat is to add texture and thickness. Yes, you're thickening the tomato meat stew with more meat. Brown the cubed meat first, remove it, and then cook the ground meat in the released fat. Drain ground meat and set aside with the cubed.



Peppers. I used poblanos and fresnos. I seed these and put the seeds aside for those who can eat a much spicier chili than I can.



The poblanos and one of the bell peppers get roasted at 450 degrees while the meat cooks, or about 20 minutes. They should look like this when done



Back to the meat pot. Mirepoix time!



Have you had enough pictures of mirepoix to get the point? I used two onions, three stalks of celery and two large carrots. Sweat for about 10 minutes. To this you add the seeded and diced fresnos (or whatever you want to use), the poblanos and bell peppers.

And then this.



No. This ALL goes in the chili. Don't balk, it's delicious. Chop roughly and add to the sweating mess. Salt a little here to help release moisture.

Add the meat back to the vegetable mixture. Add two 14 oz cans of tomatoes, juice and all, and a beer. I use Shiner Bock, but use any beer you like to drink. Because I add a beer and a splash and proceed to drink the rest.



Then the seasonings. Teaspoon of cumin, coriander, hot paprika, oregano, touch of dill, chipotle and red chili, salt and pepper and a little bay. Let this simmer for a bit, the peppers in the chili will start integrating and the liquids will keep releasing and it will get very meaty. Taste again after half an hour and adjust your spices accordingly.

At this point, I thicken with tomato paste. And then taste again. And again. And again. Right before serving, I add the juice of a small lemon to brighten the flavor.



As with all things, use the peppers you like the flavors of. I'm not a huge fan of jalapenos, so I tend to avoid them and my wimpy spice tolerance prevents me from using more robust peppers. Same with chili powders. I obviously trend towards the smoky and the sweet, but there's a whole wide world of tasty out there.

LIVEBLOGGING

or you know, blogging in the middle of the meal. WHAT

So tonight is trying out this Foodie label Chardonnay.



It's. really. um. Fruity. Not buttery. Little acidic. Not a lot of character but I imagine that it's supposed to be accessible, cheap and to pair with food? WHATEVER. It keeps me company while I cook.

TONIGHT. Our meal will be Israeli couscous and chicken and whatever the hell was big enough to pick in my garden.



You poor bastards. Made the mistake of growing up big and tall and now I will eat you. It's some chard, oregano, english peas, snap peas and thyme.



Thing is, you're supposed to pick often to encourage fruiting, but at the beginning, there's just not very much. Hence the mishmash of tonight.


,
So, there's defrosted chicken thighs, leftover chicken broth from a previous experiment and the israeli couscous.

First toast the couscous in oil.



It's pearly and kind of weird to see, but I think it's sorta neat.

Then cook the chicken.



This cat thinks she's getting chicken. Um. No.

Chicken cooks with some onion, some garlic and gets deglazed with a little of the wine. Add the couscous back and the chickenstock - two cups to every cup of couscous. And a can of tomatoes.



It looks like a mess but I'm going to let it cook uncovered for a bit. Plans are to let it cook up and add all the green things at the very end. People just called and confirmed they were coming over for dinner so i just threw in more couscous and hoped for the best. MORE SOON

St Patrick's Day

Yeah that guy. Sweet. I am the opposite of Irish but you know what. An excuse for this



Makes me happy.

Ok. SO. On Saturday we bought a giant piece of beef and parcelled it into three chunks and marinated it in a solution of sugar salt and random pickling spices that I think are cloves allspice cinnamon and mustard and stuff. I guess you can nitrate it. but. yes



to this three days later



And one got braised in



and one got baked



It is dotted with cloves and has dijon mustard spread on it and then covered in brown sugar. The whole mess is bundled up in foil and baked at 350 for a couple of hour. and then uncovered and broiled until the sugar bubbles up.



And to go with the corned beef is colcannon! Which is my favoritest thing to eat. Because it's um. Mashed potatoes. With bacon and sauteed cabbage. all mixed together. it's what irish second graders eat. oh and a stick of butter. that usually helps.


CABBAGE

Cabbage cooked with bacon and a little salt!


And then you take potatoes


And you mash them and you put the bacon and the cabbage in them and get this mushy stuff that's awesome


And now I am tired and blowing a .05 so it's time to sleep I think. Carbomb cupcakes from Steph later. OH OM NOM