Wintermelon Soup and Steamed Chicken

Steamed chicken with Tibetan wolfberries and golden lily buds



Wintermelon soup with tiger shrimp and tofu

La Fermiere Yogurt

I recently went to the Made in France warehouse sale. It is a sale where many of the items are made in France, very popular with ex-pats. I tried the La Fermiere yogurt and was blown away. This yogurt is much different than the ones we get in the states. It is much thicker, like cheese, and the yogurt cultures aren't as tart. The yogurt is very creamy and it almost feels sinful to eat something so rich without it being really fattening.

I bought both the natural flavor and the honey one. Both are excellent. I enjoyed the natural flavor with a dollop of apricot jam. Delicious. My only regret is not buying more yogurt.


The other perk about this yogurt is that each is packed in a terra cotta container. You can re-use the container in a number of ways. I will have 4 of them; I wonder what I should put in them ...

Chicken Pot Pie

I'm not very familiary with chicken pot pie except when I had the Pilgrim's kitchen version of it, which I wrote about here. That chicken pot pie was so flaky and the filling was full of flavor. After that experience I wanted to have chicken pot pie again, but homemade so that I could control what went into it.

Last night I made chicken pot pie from scratch and it turned out very well. In the beginning I had my doubts since the filling didn't quite taste flavorful enough and tasted too thick. My fears were put to rest, however, when Ming came home and said that it smelled wonderful outside the house :)

The chicken pot pies turned out lovely and I'm looking forward to having another batch in the near future.

Chicken Pot Pie Prep


Chicken Pot Pie


Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken and stock ingredients
1 (3 1/2 pound) chicken
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
1 small onion, halved
2 teaspoons salt

Pie crust ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup chilled unsalted butter, diced into 1/2-inch cubes (best to chill cubes in the freezer for at least 15 minutes before using)
3 to 4 Tbsp ice water

Filling ingredients
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 large onion, diced
1 lb carrots, diced
4 celery stalks, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cups milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
3/4 cup green peas
1 Tbsp parsley
3 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 c chicken stock

Chicken Stock
1. In a large stock pot, add the vegetables into cold water. There should be just enough water in the pot to almost cover the chicken (but not completely). Bring the water to a boil and then add the chicken. Let the water barely simmer for 1 hour.
2. After 1 hour, remove the chicken and let it cool. Allow the rest of the stock to continue to simmer.
3. Remove all the chicken meat from the chicken carcass and dice it. Discard the skin. Place the chicken carcass into the stock and let it simmer for another 2 hours.

Pie Crust
1. In a food processor with the dough blade attachement, pulse the flour, salt, and butter together. Pulse the ingredients together until the butter is in pea-sized pieces
2. Slowly add the ice water to the food processor, pulsing after each tablespoon. Only add enough ice water until the dough starts to come together
3. Remove the dough and refrigerate until cold. This dough can be kept for up to 2 days in the refrigerator

Filling
1. Melt the butter. Add the onion, celery, and carrots. Simmer together for 10-15 minutes, until onion becomes translucent
2. Slowly add the flour and mix thoroughly so there aren't any clumps of flour
3. Add the chicken stock slowly, stirring well to incorporate it.
4. Add the milk and cream slowly. Let mixture simmer for 10 minutes on low heat, stiring to ensure it doesn't stick to the pan.
5. Add the chicken, thyme, parseley, salt and peper. Stir together and season again if necessary.
6. Add the peas and stir. Remove from heat.

Assembly
1. Place the filling into 15 oz ramekins
2. Roll the pie dough to 1/4" thick and place on top of ramekin. Use a decorative cookie cutter to cut a hole in the middle of the pie dough and place dough on top of ramekin.
3. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes or until crust is golden

Turkey Brine

Two years ago we discovered the wonders of brining. Brining makes foods incredibly juicy and gives the food a wondeful aroma if you add aromatics into your brine. Our Thanksgiving turkey always comes out moist and we can't get enough of it. When you brine a turkey, the white meat tastes just as flavorful as the dark meat.

Brine
7 qts water
2 c kosher salt
1 c brown sugar
8 bay leaves
1 T pepper corn
3 pieces of dried tangerine peel
5 pieces star anise
2 T fennel
8 slices of ginger

Boil 1 quart of water and add the aromatics and sugar and salt. Let the mixture simmer for 15 minutes. Add the rest of the the water in and let the brine come to room temperature.

Place the turkey into the brine mixture and let brine for 24 hours.

When you are ready to cook the turkey, stuff the cavity with lemon, carrots, celery, onion, apple, rosemary, and bay leaves. These extra aromatics really give the turkey a wonderful flavor as it cooks.

Jasmine Rice

Jasmine rice is characterized by its fragrant aroma. It is the rice most normally served in Asian restaurants. Everyone has their own favorite brand and it's debatable which one is the best.

My go-to brand had been the three ladies brand. I really liked it because the individual grains were separate from one another and it had a very fragrant and lovely aroma. Many people, however, recommended the Golden Phoenix brand. They really liked it so this past weekend I had run out of rice and decided to give the Golden Phoenix brand a try.

I found that I actually don't like the Golden Phoenix brand as much as the three ladies brand. The Golden Phoenix brand isn't very fragrant and is more chewy. Each grain of rice is almost too pronounced, causing the rice to almst be chewy to eat. The three ladies brand of rice is much more pleasing to my palate and my lesson is to not switch rice brands in the future.

Murg Makhani (Butter Chicken)

I love butter chicken, or murg mahani, whenever I go into an Indian restaurant. Yes, I know that it isn't true Indian food. I am, however, Chinese and my taste buds are sadly weak when it comes to spicy food. Murg makhani is one of the few things I can eat without breaking a sweat.

I was first introduced to butter chicken when I went to an Indian restaurant while vacationing in Canada. I can't remember the city now ... it was either Quebec or Toronto or Montreal .. but either way I picked it off the menu and I was delighted by the dish.

For the uninitiated, butter chicken is basically a roasted chicken in a sauce made from butter, tomato sauce, and cream. The flavors meld together wonderfully and the taste is pure, indulgent bliss.

I had been wanting to make murg makhani for some time now but never dragged myself over to the Indian grocery store to buy the requisite garam masala. All of the other ingredients are pretty easy to find in a normal grocery store except that particular spice. I finally got around to go going to my local Indian grocery store this past weekend and now I'm all set to begin to make my butter chicken.

You need to marinate the chicken overnight. Marinating it overnight helps to tenderize the chicken. If you have a meat tenderizer you can use that too to help infuse the flavors.

I made the butter chicken and .. well, it didn't turn out as I had hoped. The curry itself was way too thick. The recipe called for 1 cup of cashew butter which was way too much. Unfortunately I didn't realize how thick the 1 cup of cashew butter would make the curry until too late. The sauce was very thick and there was no way you could eat it. I had to dilute the curry just to thin it out .. and when it was thinned out the flavor was lost. :( At the end, the taste was just ok. It could have been much better were it not for the watered down curry.

I might try to make it again one day .. but right now I am of the opinion that murg makhani may just be better off eaten in a restaurant!

General Tso's Chicken 左宗堂雞

General Tso's chicken is a favorite dish of Americans. It is ordered a lot in many Chinese-American restaurants. I think that it has to do with the love of fried food and a goopy gravy-like sauce.

Fuschia Dunlop recently did research on the origins of General Tso's chicken. It was reprinted in the NY Times. I made the recipe last night and I was very disappointed. The taste wasn't what I was expecting at all and even Ming didn't like it -- and he's very forgiving when it comes to food. Many people have raved about the recipe so it was doubly disappointing to discover that it's not something I care for at all. The flavor was very sour and, for lack of a better descriptive word, the gravy lacked soul. There wasn't any body nor depth to the gravy; it was primarily sour and hot. It was missing something crucial. I know that this recipe was the original but, in this case, I think that some tweaking of it would most definitely benefit the diners. I made this recipe exactly as stated, something I rarely do with Chinese recipes, and I think that I would have been better off doing my normal a little of this and little of that.

I have made General Tso's chicken in the past and I much prefer that taste over this one from Fushia Dunlop's original version. I use a recipe from Food Down Under but I've tweaked it.

My General Tso's Chicken
Ingredients :
4 Chicken legs, skinned & cut
2 Egg whites
2t Cornstarch
1 T rice vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 T shao xing wine
2 t Sugar
1 t Cornstarch, mixed with water
Peanut oil for frying
3 Dried red chili peppers
1 Scallion, chopped (separate & green parts)
Knob fresh ginger, minced
1 Garlic clove, minced
2 t Sesame oil
1 piece dried orange peel
1 T oyster sauce

Vigorously blend egg whites and cornstarch; add chicken pieces and toss to coat. Heat oil in large wok and add chicken pieces in batches, cooking each until golden, about 3 minutes, then drain.

Pour off all but 1 TB of hot oil from wok. Add peppers and stir-fry for 15 seconds; add green scallion, minced ginger and garlic and stir-fry for 15 more seconds. Add mixture of vinegar , soy, wine, sugar, oyster sauce, and orange peel stirring until heated through. Add cornstarch and water mixture and stir until mixture is thickened. Off heat, stir in sesame oil, garnish with scallion greens, and serve.

Turkey Chili Mac

I'm trying to clean our our freezer right now. Our freezer generally resembles a meat locker. We've got a ton of different types of meat in it and sometimes I forget exactly whats in there. Thanksgiving is coming up and in order to make room to freeze a turkey (or two) we need to eat up some of the food in the freezer. I found ground turkey in the freezer and decided that would be a perfect item for dinner.

Cheese is not a popular item in my household. In fact, we rarely have it in the house. I decided to make a turkey chili with macaroni to use up the turkey in an easy, fast way. Since beans are as popular as cheese in my household, we skipped the beans in the chili too.

The turkey chili turned out really tasty and it was quick to make.

Turkey Chili Mac
16 oz ground turkey
4 Aidells chicken apple sausage, cut into pieces
2 8oz cans tomato sauce
1 c water
1 T salt
1 T pepper
1 T cumin
1 T chili powder
1 t celery seed
1 T chili based spice rub (optional)
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves
1 lb elbow macaroni

1. Brown turkey in a saucepan
2. Add onion and garlic to saucepan and continue to brown
3. Add bell pepper and sausage to sauce pan. Cook for 5 minutes.
4. Add seasonings, water, tomato sauce to sauce pan and stir. Season to taste.
5. Simmer 30 minutes. The goal is for the chili to not be too runny.
6. Cook the macaroni in boiling water for 8 minutes. Cook until al dente. Drain well.
7. Add macaroni into chili and stir (heat off.)

House warming

This weekend we had my family and extended family over for a house warming party. I decided to try to cook as much food as possible. Ming and I spent 4.5 hours prepping for the feast and we were really efficient. We each tackled a different dish and finished much faster than I thought we would (I had originally thought we’d take 5.5 hours for prep work.)

The menu for the house warming party is as follows:
- caramelized onion, shiitake, and goat cheese on fluffy puff pastry
- jumbo sea scallops over bok choi
- jap chae (Korean noodles)
- gal bi (Korean BBQ short ribs)
- silver wrapped chicken
- macadamia nut and white chocolate cookies
- watermelon agua fresca
- barley tea

Unfortunately we didn’t get to take pictures of everything. Once the party started it was impossible to take pictures of the food since we were so busy socializing with everything. I am happy to report that everything went very smoothly and we don’t have left overs of very much . To our dismay, all of the silver wrapped chicken disappeared in record time and we didn’t have the foresight to save any for ourselves for another meal. We’ll have to make another batch of the silver wrapped chicken soon so that we can satisfy our craving for it.

Prep for the Jap Chae


Scallops cooking on the grill


Silver wrapped chicken


Gal bi


Jumbo sea scallops over bok choi


Caramelized onion, shiitake, and goat cheese on fluffy puff pastry

Adult Thumb Print Cookies

With dinner there must be dessert. I've been craving thumb print cookies lately so I decided to make Dorie Greenspan's adult thumb print cookies. Let's just say the cookies were such a hit that he could have eaten them all in one sitting. This is a keeper and I'd definitely make it again. Finely ground hazelnuts in the dough really help to give that extra "oomph"

Thai Style Fish Stew

With all the fish I had I had to figure out how to eat it all. I decided to make a Thai Style Fish stew. It may not have been completely authentic but it sure was really tasty and it helped to use up many of the items in the fridge. The fish stew was spicy and sour at the same time, yet also savory.

Fish Stock
Head, Tail, bones from fish
3 stalks of celery
8 qt of water
1 whole onion, chopped
1 T whole peppercorns
3 bay leaves

Fish Stew
1 fillet of firm white fish
2 stalks of lemon grass
1 lime
1/3 can of coconut milk
cherry tomatoes
zucchini
1 T fish sauce
3 jalapenos, chopped

Begin by making the fish sauce. Boil all of the ingredients for the fish stock together for 45 minutes. Strain the mixture through a cheese cloth.

Boil 3 quarts of the fish stock in a separate pot. Add the juice of the lime and the jalapenos. Bruise the lemon grass stocks, chop them in half, and add to the fish stock mixture. Next add in the zucchini and bring to a boil. Add the coconut milk and cherry tomatoes. Salt and cut the fish fillet into pieces. Once the fish stock soup has come to a boil, add the fish fillet pieces and simmer for 3 minutes or until fish has cooked.

Voila, a satisfying meal that can be served with rice or noodles. I opted for noodles.

A Monster Fish

Yesterday I blogged about filleting my own fish for the first time. What I failed to mention is that I also bought an 8 lb fish that I cleaned too. Here's a picture of what an 8 lb fish looks like:

Adventures with Fish

This past weekend I decided to take on a new challenge: fish. I've bought fish pre-cleaned for me or simply the fillets. What I have never done is cleaned a fish on my own or done anything with it that requries me to actually cut the fish (other than scoring it.) I watched a YouTube video on how to fillet a fish and looked really easy. The guy said all I needed was a sharp filleting knife and I'd be all set. Check. Filleting knife is one of the many knives that I have in my knife block so all I needed to do was practice on a fish.

I bought a whole fish that was previously live, squirming and all. I did ask the fish monger to kill it since that is one part that I'm still a bit squeamish about -- it's a 6lb fish flapping around and a bit intimidating to do in my small kitchen.

I was able to successfully fillet the fish and, in the end, I got to be pretty good about it. I got faster since I started to know what to expect and I ended up being really proud of myself. I filleted a 6 lb ling cod and cooked it up for dinner. Mmm.. I put a miso glaze on it and it was quickly consumed during the meal.

My lesson is that filleting a fish isn't that hard and is something anyone could do. It's no harder than cutting up some beef for a stir fry. I even went so far as to clean the fish's guts so that I could use it to make fish stock. Tomorrow's dinner will be fish stock-based. ^_^

Where's the beef?

Hamburgers are one of those sinful foods that you try not to eat too much of but, because it is the summer, we find ourselves eating more hamburgers than normal. Hamburgers taste great on the grill and are quick and easy to make. I love my beef hamburgers. You don't need to add too much seasonings to make it taste good. There really is no such thing as messing up on a beef hamburger.

Because the supermarket had turkey on sale, I decided to try to make a turkey burger. I've never been a fan of turkey except at Thanksgiving when I can have slices of the breast or thigh so I had some pretty dubious doubts about the turkey burger. I figured if the turkey burger turned out horrendous we could always make an impromptu trip to have some takeout for dinner.

To my surprise, the turkey burger turned out really well. I threw just about every single seasoning in the kitchen I could find into it and it was delicious. It was flavorful, moist, and left me craving more. I'll add the turkey burger to the repertoire of recipes and make it again.

Turkey Burger
20 oz ground turkey
2 T olive oil
minced cilantro
minced shallots
cayenne pepper
paprika
salt
pepper
seasoned salt
rosemary
thyme

Mix everything together, form patties, and cook the burgers for 7 minutes on each side.

There is no such thing as over seasoning a turkey burger because the turkey itself is pretty flavorless. Add in whatever seasonings you have in the pantry.

Midnight Chicken Nugget Cravings

It's nearly midnight on a worknight and my husband has cravings for chicken nuggets. How do you satisfy those cravings when you are in your PJs? You make some home made panko crusted chicken nuggets of course!




Making these chicken nuggets were a lot easier than I thought they'd be. I took some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut them up into bit sized pieces. In another bowl I mixed together panko crumbs, salt, pepper, garlic salt, chili powder, thyme, and melted butter. I tossed the chicken pieces into the panko mixture and then baked everything for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

They definitely helped satisfy my husband's craving and he'll go to bed happy tonight.

Kalua Pork

We are in the height of summer and what do you do when it is time to cook? You BBQ of course! It is really hot in the house and you don't want to turn on the oven, thereby making the house even hotter. The best cooking method is BBQ because you don't warm the house up with any additional heat and you still have a satisfying meal.

I love Kalua Pork. It is a dish of hawaiian origins but the first time I had it I was stateside. It is basically shredded pork which has a hickory/smokey flavor. My aunt made it for me and once I had it, I knew I'd eat it again and again.

The recipe is really simple and there isn't a reason why you shouldn't make it.

Kalua Pork
7 lb pork shoulder
2 T liquid smoke
2.5 T salt
banana leaves

Cut a few shallow slits into the pork shoulder. Pour the liquid smoke and salt onto the pork shoulder and rub it in. Wrap the pork shoulder in banana leaves. Once it is wrapped in banana leaves, wrap that in foil,making a packet.

Place the pork in a foil pan and pour 2 cups of water into the pan. Place pan over indirect heat in the BBQ, maintaining a temperature of 350 degrees.

Cook for 5.5 hours. Replenish the water in the pan as necessary. The pan should always contain some water.

Once finished cooking, unwrap the pork and shred it with two forks. Their should be plenty of cooking juice from the pork. Don't waste it!

Kalua pork is terrific on its own or eaten with Hawaiian rolls, any type of bread, in tortillas, over rice ... the possibilities are endless!

The banana leaves are essential since they help lock in the moisture and also impart a delicate flavor to the kalua pig.

Ernest Weil's Love To Bake Cookbook

Late last year I had the pleasure of eating a Coffee Crunch Cake. It was absolutely delicious and I wanted the recipe to try to duplicate it at home. Through research I found that Ernest Weil was the original creator of this amazing cake. What was even better was that he had a cookbook called Love To Bake which had that recipe plus many more.

I'm too young to remember the Blum's bakery and all the wonderful creations which came out of it. One of those creations was the Coffee Crunch Cake and it's a sacred cake mentioned with lots of fond memories by those in the Bay Area. I was lucky enough to score a copy of this cookbook and, when I got home, I realized that it was signed by Mr. Weil himself.

The book itself is a good read. It isn't like the modern cookbooks with tons of food porn. Instead, it reminds me of the older cookbooks with simple, no nonsense recipes with a few pictures here and there. It is a cookbook that could have been created 50 years ago and you'd never know the difference.

Unfortunately the cookbook is no longer available in print form. Apparently it has sold out everywhere and the only way to get it now is via PDF. I feel very lucky to have been able to get a copy of it.

I still have not made anything out of the cookbook yet but I am more motivated to do so now than ever since I know I have a limited edition cookbook

Chicken Pot Pie

Ming loves the crust on pies whereas I always discard it. I generally prefer the filling over the crust. We tried a new place called Pilgrim's Kitchen in Belmont this weekend because they are reputed to have good donuts. They didn't let me down and I quickly gobbled up my donut for breakfast. They also had homemade chicken pot pie. When I told Ming this he immediately had me buy one.

Neither of us have ever had homemade chicken pot pie (only the frozen stuff) so we were excited to try it out. It ended up surpassing our expectations and was really good. the crust was so light and fluffy that even I ate it all up. The filling was just right with big pieces of chicken and freshly cut up pieces of carrots.

Even though I didn't make this pot pie it was good enough that it warrants a post to talk about it.

July 4th Feast

For July 4th this year we decided to have prime rib. I had never made prime rib before and Lunardi's had a sale on it. Ming wanted to have plenty of leftovers so I bought a really big piece: 11lbs worth! We BBQed it and it turned out amazing.


All 11lbs of prime rib in its naked glory


Coated in an herb crust


Let's eat

I got the recipe from here: http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/ribroast1.html
I'll definitely make this recipe again. The fresh herbs and the wonderfully marbled meat were an exquisite combination. We also had a very tasty Peju cabernet but I forgot to take a picture of it before we finished the bottle.

More photos can be found here: http://mingandcindy.smugmug.com/gallery/3104480#169797519

First Wedding Anniversary

I haven't gotten around to writing about my celebration of my first wedding anniversary since I hadn't uploaded the photos until now. We celebrated our first year of being wed by Ming cooking a fabulous dinner for us. He cooked a red wine reduction steak, medley of sauteed mushrooms, and hainan rice.


We started off the evening by drinking some wine and eating some really amazing chocolate. You could say we went to Jamaica and Madagascar for our anniversary.


The flowers he surprised me with


Ming making dinner


The sauteed medley of fresh mushrooms (both crimini and shitake)


Dinner


The top tier of our wedding cake. It didn't taste like it had been frozen for a year. It still tasted fresh and it was quickly devoured

More photos can be found here: http://mingandcindy.smugmug.com/gallery/3104514#169801670

Post Ortho Surgery Cooking

Ming had dental surgery this week and I've had to modify our eating habits to accomodate for his inability to chew or eat harder foods. I never realized how hard it is to find tasty foods which require minimal amounts of chewing.

Last night's dinner consisted of
- meatloaf
- sauteed zucchini
- rice
- Treat ice cream

Dinner went very well, judging by the amount of leftovers we had. Stand-bys around the house are oatmeal and congee (for non-dinner meals.)

Tonight's dinner will be on the Asian side and will include tofu. I'll have to see how creative I can get with meals since we're not sure how many more days of soft foods we'll need.

Need Good Chocolate Cake REcipe

I bought some amazing chocolate by Amedei and I want to use it in chocolate cake. I need a really good recipe though to take advantage of the chocolate. Does anyone have a really good one?

Pomi Tomato Sauce

I have discovered a brand of tomato sauce called Pomi. I made a tomato sauce with it last night and I cannot stop raving about it. The tomatoes that Pomi uses are perfect: not too much acid and great taste. I generally need to add sugar to a tomato sauce to round out the flavor and to battle the acidic nature of the tomato. This time I didn't need to add sweetener. I am a believer of Pomi brand tomatoes and will only buy this brand in the future.

Previously I had thought that Del Monte was a reputable brand for tomato sauce or even the Safeway brand but all tomatoes are not made equally. I have learned my lesson and all my pasta sauces, lasagna, etc will be made with Pomi.

You can buy Pomi here

Food Budget

How much do you spend a week on food? The Pennywise Eat Local Challenge (SF Gate article) claims that the average is $10 per person per day. For a couple that means it is $140 for the week allocated to food. That amount seems a bit excessive to me. If I assume that you cook every day of the week (which in itself is unrealistic due to special ocassions, etc) then $140 seems like a lot of money. Our current food bill for the two of us hovers around $70-$100/week, depending on how much meat or seafood we buy. I wonder how the the budget of $10 is determined ... If we ate $140 a week (all purely cooking) then we'd never save money to go out to eat, go on vacations, etc.

Meat Tenderizer

I received my Jaccard meat tenderizer as part of my Christmas loot and it has quickly become one of my favorite items. It is easy to use and produces a noticable difference when you use it versus when you don't.

Last night I was too lazy to get the meat tenderizer out to use on a chicken breast. I proceeded to season it as a I normally would and pan fried it. It was a huge mistake on my part not to use the meat tenderizer. It was very hard to evenly cook the chicken breast (due to the uneven size of it) and when it cooked up, the shape wasn't very appealing. The thicker side of the chicken breast was splitting apart from itself and the thin side of the chicken breast was woefully overcooked.

I immediatley pulled out another chicken breast and used the meat tenderizer on it. Using the meat tenderizer made a world of difference. It made the chicken breast have an even thickness all the way around and when it cooked, the chicken breast did not become overcooked on any one side. The marinade penetrated more deeply throughout the chicken breast and it was overall pleasure to eat.

I don't particularly believe the meat tenderizer reduces cooking time but I do know it makes it
1. easier to cook since it evens out the meat thickness throughout the entire piece
2. allows the marinade to deeply penetrate the meat
3. the cooked meat has a more pleasing look than the untenderized meat.

My Jacard meat tenderizer has a special place in my kitchen and I couldn't imagine living without one.

Baked Potato Wedges

I like french fries but I dislike deep frying in the house. I try not to deep fry because deep frying isn't very healthy for you and it also makes the house smell. I had a bunch of potatoes and I wanted to eat them like french fries. What was the solution? The solution is to make them baked wedge fries.

Potato wedges are thicker versions of french fries and they satisfy my craving easily and quickly. It was really easy to make and Ming happily pronounced that the potato wedges were suitable substitutes for french fries.

Potato Wedges
potatoes
seasoned salt
black pepper
paprika
olive oil

Cut each potato into wedges. For a normal potato I get anywhere between 8 - 12 wedges. I like my wedges to be smaller so that each wedge ends up being very crunchy. Place the wedges onto a baking sheet (single layer) and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle the seasoned salt, black pepper, paprika onto the potato wedges. Place the baking sheet into a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes. Halfway through the baking take the sheet out, flip the wedges, and reseason with seasonings and olive oil. Rotate the pan before placing back into the oven.

Morning Coffee

I like my coffee with cream only. I don't like it when there is sugar in it nor black. I have a hard time drinking coffee in my office, however because no one takes it with cream. We don't have any cream in the office and if I want coffee, then the only way for me to take it is black or with sugar; I prefer it black than with sugar.

I do, however, like Vietnamese iced coffee. Vietnamese iced coffee is very strong coffee mixed with condensed milk and served over ice. In Hong Kong many people drink their coffee with some type of sugar, generally condensed milk. I have found that I actually like coffee with condensed milk and no milk. The condensed milk is creamy enough that adding milk to it would be overkill.

My favorite brand of condensed milk is the Longevity brand. It doesn't contain a slew of strange additives and isn't too sweet. I have to go to Asian grocery stores to get it but since I go there weekly, it's easy to pick up.

My mornings are now enjoyable at work since I can have my coffee in a manner that I enjoy.

Sauternes and Apple Tart

I first had the pleasure of drinking a sauternes when I was at a friend's house for dinner. He served a sauternes with foie gras. The combination of the sweet and the savory was amazing and it was truly a wonderful match. Since then I've had the lingering memory of the sauternes and how lovely it was.



One day Ming and I happened to come across a 1990 sauternes in a wine store and we immediately knew we had to have it. One amex card later it was in our car and on its way to its new home. Not only did we both know we'd enjoy the sauternes but 1990 was supposed to be an exceptional year for sauternes as well.

The next biggest dilemma we had was what occasion to drink our prized wine at. I received a call from my mom telling us that we were all to have dinner at my aunt's house one day. I immediately recognized that this was to be the occasion for the sauternes. My uncle was a wine connoisseur and everyone at the table would enjoy a dessert wine.



The next question was what to pair the sauternes with. Since dinner was already taken care of, dessert was the next logical choice. After consulting with various internet sources about what the best pairing should be, I decided to make an apple tart. Cheese, while another really good accompaniment to sauternes was out of the question since no one at the dinner really appreciates cheese. I decided to make an apple tart and blended two recipes together. I made the tart's base using Dorie Greenspan's pate sablee recipe, which I used to make my french pear tart. The apple topping was simply taking 4 apples, slicing them and placing them on top of the partially cooked pate sablee. I stuck the whole tart into then oven for about 1 hour at 375 degrees.

The sauternes and apple tart were magical together. The sauternes was beautifully sweet and the apple tart was slightly crunchy and salty (from the buttery crust). It was a dessert that was well received by everyone and one not to leave my memory anytime soon.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Making perfect light, fluffy, and tall biscuits seems to be one of the most difficult items people struggle with -- I am no exception. A perfect biscuit seems to be one of the holy grails of cooking. It is delicious but oh-so-difficult to attain. Ming happens to love biscuits and is forever encouragine me whenever I mention that I'd like to, once again, attempt another batch of biscuits.

I don't have a biscuit cutter and I don't really want to go out and buy a set of biscuit cutters when I really only need a single one. I have improvised and, instead of buying a set of cutters with sizes which I will never use, I have used a plain tin can.



I have used upside down glasses before and they never really seemed to work. They always squished the biscuit dough, thereby making for squattier biscuits which weren't as tender nor delicious. Since I know that mothers and grandmothers back in the 1800s never had fancy stores like Sur La Table to buy biscuit cutters, I am sure they must have used sometihng similar to an old tin can to shape their biscuits. I still cannot make myself create square biscuits -- that still seems too sacrligious.



White Lily Flour is another ingredient that will help you create perfect biscuits. The flour is light and will help your biscuits since it contains less gluten. Gluten is what prevents biscuits from being tender. Using white lily flour makes a huge difference with the biscuits. The dough feels so much lighter and more airy.

The recipe came from Dorie Greenspan's book, yet again. The biscuits were light and fluffy. Ming pronounced the biscuits fit for consumption and both of us promptly began to eat them for breakfast.

Simple Dinner: Baked Pork Chops and Stir Fried Sinqua

I was tired from a long day of work and I decided that a simple dinner was going to be on the menu tonight. My freezer looks like a meat locker since we tend to buy our meat in bulk and freeze it so that we always have ready access to some kind of meat, regardless of the day of the week. A meat locker freezer also allows us to buy the meat without worrying about when we will have time to cook it up for a meal.

I had a nice pack of pork chops in the freezer and decided that pork chops is one of the easiest and quickest items to make for dinner. To accompany the pork chops we had a nice sin qua melon waiting to be eaten.

Sin qua is a Chinese vegetable and has a spongy texture when eaten. It has ridges on it and the skin is very tough so it must be thoroughly removed. I believe it is part of the cucumber family. More info

I have a fondness for any dish prepared in the HK-Western fashion. When you go to HK-style cafes it generally means the dishes are chinese dishes but with a decidedly western influence. One such example is the macaroni noodle soup. All Chinese restaurants offer a noodle soup. A noodle soup is some long kind of noodle (generally a long, slender noodle) in a rich broth. The HK cafe will serve this noodle soup with elbow maraconi, which blends the western culture with classic Cantonese favorites.

One such dish that is always on the menu at a HK-style cafe is baked porkchop. This dish generally contains a piece of deep fried pork chop covered in a tomato sauce gravy and baked with (optionally) melted cheese. I altered the recipe a bit to be more health conscious and skipped the cheese and deep frying.

warning: I never measure anything when I cook Chinese food so all quantities are approximations and should be altered to suit your own tastes

Baked Pork Chop with Tomato Sauce
Marinade:
salt
pepper
garlic powder
paprika

Tomato Sauce
3 cans of tomato sauce
2 T oyster sauce
5 shallots (or 1/2 an onion), chopped
3 T ketchup
2 t soy sauce
4 T sugar
pinch of white pepper

6 pork chops (ones which have lots of nice marbeling)

Mix the ingredients together for the marinade and pour on top of the pork chops. Let the pork chops marinate for at least 30 minutes. Lightly pan fry each pork chop just to get a nice sear on each side. Do not cook the pork chop all the way through. Once all pork chops are seared and removed from the pan, add the shallots into the pan. Stir fry the shallots until they are translucent. Add the oyster sauce, ketchup, soy sauce, and white pepper and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and sugar to the skillet and stir until the sauce thickens and begins to bubble. Add the pork chops back into the skillet, making sure the sauce completely covers each pork chop. Place the skillet into a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes.


HK Baked Pork Chop and Stir Fried Sin Qua

French Pear Tart

I have Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours book and I love it. It's a great book to leaf through and look at the pictures. It contains a ton of easy to follow recipes from simple recipes to more elaborate ones, suitable to bring to a party.

I decided that it was time to make the french pear tart. The french pear tart contains a lot of almonds and the two are very complementary together. It turned out that this tart was really simple to make and one I'd make again. It contains three components:

1. Pate Sablee
2. Frangipine
3. Pears

The pate sablee is the crust and it has lots of ground almonds mixed into it. This was very simple to make, especially since I had my trusty food processor to do all of the heavy lifting for me. I particularly liked working with the pate sablee because I didn't need to roll it out. I simply made the dough and pressed it in the pan with my hands -- what could be easier?

Frangipine is the almond filling for the tart. It contains an egg, ground almonds, and butter. It's sinful but very delicious. Again, my food processor mixed everything all up in a jiffy.

It is March and I didn't think that pears were in season so that put me in a bit of a dilemma: how do I get nice, juicy, sweet pears at this time of year? Luckily for me, Dorie recommends that you use canned pears instead of fresh pears. Canned pears? Really? I don't like canned fruit but I was willing to give it a shot. If the author endorses it for the recipe then it must be adequate.

I made this in two days rather than a single day since I've got a day job and I must do something to pay the bills. ^_^ The first night I blanched the almonds and ground them up. It was my first time blanching almonds before and it was really easy to do. I forgot to take a picture of all the discarded hulls but it was quite a large amount. I had Ming to help me with the almonds and we blanched >1cup of almonds in 15 minutes. I made the pate sablee and the frangipine and put them in the refrigerator. The second day I assembled everything and put it in the oven.

As you can see, my results didn't look wonderful (I need to work on my pear arranging skills) but it was very tasty. This recipe is a keeper and I'll be making it again in the future


Side view of the tart


Close up

Goose Fat

I received a jar of goose fat over the holidays and didn't open it until yesterday morning. I have heard lots of good things about it and know that people rave about french fries cooked in duck fat. I was eager to the goose fat out on my breakfast potatoes. I cubed 3 potatoes and cooked them in a skillet for breakfast. I didn't know how much goose fat to use so I used a mere 2 tablespoons in a 16" skillet. The potatoes came out wonderful but I didn't notice any difference in flavor from cooking them in the goose fat compared to when I cook them in normal vegetable oil. When I put the goose fat into the skillet I immediately smelled a bit of the gaminess that goose has but that smell quickly dissipated.

At the end of the meal I was still left with the question: What is the big deal with goose/duck fat? I still hadn't been able to reproduce the sinful aromas of what makes some people's hearts beat faster and eyes close in bliss. I think I must continue to experiment with using this animal by-product to see what all the fuss is about. Preliminary testing seems to indicate that when used in small amounts, goose fat performs the exact same way as normal vegetable (normally peanut or olive oil in my kitchen) oils. The next test will have to include much more fat (much as my weight cringes at that thought) to see if that will help to produce lovely, intoxicating aromas.