Hurricane brunch

Hurricane Irene is a real party-pooper. It’s just wet and miserable looking outside. Crappy enough that no one wants to go out, but not dramatic or exciting enough to tweet endlessly about. The worst of the storm so far was at 10am, right before my planned brunch with friends at 11am. Seeing the weather, I decided to cancel the brunch. However, I had already prepared everything, so I had no choice but to sit down and eat all that delicious food myself. I know, my life is soo hard.

I was primarily motivated to host a brunch because I’ve been craving a bloody mary. Mike makes a really killer mix with tomato juice, grated horseradish, tobasco sauce, Worcester sauce, and black pepper. This time the mix literally cost Mike and I tears to make though. We saw fresh horseradish at the supermarket so we decided to grate our own. It turns out, if you pulverize horseradish in the food processor and then lean over it to take a big sniff, your stomach will churn such that you nearly vomit and your eyes will feel like they are endlessly bleeding tears. At least now I know what my substitute is for pepper spray. What is that, rapist? You want to rape me? Please hold on while I whip out a horseradish and a grater from my purse, grate it into a bowl, and then throw it your eye. HA! TAKE THAT!

On the menu was a quiche lorraine with caramelized leeks, diced ham, and a egg-y filling topped with melted swiss cheese. The quiche came out very well, though sadly a lot of the filling leaked out. I used Michael Roux’s recipe for my tart base last night. He suggests forgoing using any instruments and making the whole crust by hand. I found it actually very therapeutic to spend the evening creaming butter and eggs on counter with my fingertips. And there’s something very relaxing about quietly kneading and rolling out dough.

Mike and I recently invested in a stand mixer and I wanted to prepare something yeast-y for brunch that wasn’t just boring old bread to get more use out of our stand mixer. Hence we decided to make our own pecan rolls. Using the stand mixer, I made the dough last night and let it rise overnight.

Pecan rolls, right before I popped them into the oven

In the morning I rolled out the dough and slathered butter, sugar, and cinnamon on top. Then I rolled up the dough and cut it into 1″ thick slides. I spread a glazing, consisting of an unspeakable amount of butter, brown sugar, and pecans, at the bottom of a pyrex dish and then carefully placed the rolls on top. I popped them into the oven at 350F for about 35 minutes, pulled them out, and immediately flipped the rolls over on a rack. That was the trickiest part because I didn’t have muffin tins and only some of the glazing and pecans stayed on top of the rolls. That was better for me though because I find glazings and toppings too sweet anyways. The dough came out great though! Really fluffy, light, and bread-y — just what I wanted.

Finished pecan rolls

Finally, we served (ourselves) all this with a bloody mary with a healthy dose of vodka for our lonely, guestless brunch. We still have half a pitcher of the mix left! But I’m sure that won’t last long. Hope everyone is staying safe and dry through this hurricane!

Risotto with leek and bacon

Ben Bloomberg and Evie came over tonight for dinner, and we made a delicious risotto (recipe courtesy of this month’s Bon Appetit) with a poached egg on top. I loved the risotto, and I must keep this recipe in mind for another time! I poached a couple of eggs for the first time ever, and it was tons of fun! The trick is to many a little “tornado” in the simmering water before you crack and drop in an egg. The tornado of the water will keep the egg whites in tact as the egg cooks gently.

Evie liked the citrus salad I posted last week on this blog, so we recreated that salad along with some cubed feta and roasted beets. Poor Evie spent nearly an hour painstakingly fleshing out the citrus fruits. For desert, Ben made his first ever cake — a rum cake from David Lebovitz’ “Ready for Desert” book. He soaked the cake in a rum syrup and topped it off with a heavy cream and brown sugar glaze with toasted coconut flakes. It was quite deadly…but oh so delicious!

It was a wonderful night of great company and great food!

I still like food

My busy schedule in the past two months has really reduced my eating habits to near-pathetic. I rarely cook and spend most of my meals eating out and overpriced sushi places or mediocre cafeteria food. When I do make my own dinner, it’s usually ramen or frozen foods or leftovers from a week ago.

Tonight (or I guess technically last night. It’s 4am and I’m having trouble sleeping…) I came home to one of the best meals I’ve had in a really really long time: citrus salad with seared steak and sauteed mushrooms. Mike made all of it so I have no idea what went into any of it. When I asked him what was in the marinade for the steak, he replied “Asian.” So…ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. MMmm, I love me some Asian!

The citrus salad consisted of blood oranges, regular oranges, and my new favorite fruit, pomelos. Pomelos are big and juicy like grapefruit but taste closer to an orange. They’re also super fun to eat, because I love the feeling of peeling the skin away and only picking out the pulp!

While I’m uploading pictures of food, I found this gem from a while ago when Mike made me tea eggs. You can find the recipe yourself online because I’m too damn lazy and I pride myself in having the world’s worst food blog. He puts star anise, cinnamon sticks, orange peels, and possibly five spice in the soy sauce/tea mixture.

 

All of this reminded me that, yes, I still do love food. And my boyfriend for cooking it for me.

Pretzels and Bagels

First round: bretzel rolls. Didn’t bake for long enough perhaps, so the color isn’t as deep as I’d have liked, but the taste is all there. I look forward to making tasty sandwiches out of them!

Round two: Sesame bagels. We didn’t do as good of a job shaping them. They sort of look more like croissants…but I assure that they’re scrumptious with cream cheese.

Round three: Preztel-shaped pretzel/bretzels.

Camera Gear

It’s a little sad when you peruse my collection of pictures on my computer. There are a few folders of people on vacation, but the vast majority of my pictures are pictures of food — mediocre pictures I promise to myself I’ll post on this website and share extensive recipes. But then grad school, research, life gets in the way and I forget. So I thought to myself: what if I just spent a ton of money on fancy gear that would make my pictures better? That will solve all my problems!

This is where you come in.

I simply can’t friggin’ figure out the tech talk. Basically, I want to be able to take nice pictures in low-light/indoor situations. I have a tendency of getting up close and personal with my food so something with a decent depth of field and could do macro/focus on close objects would be nice. I have a Nikon D40 and the lens that came with it (18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G)

1. Can I buy lenses/flashes from brands other than Nikon?
2. If I just want to be able to take brightish pictures that don’t all look orange because of the poor lighting in my living room would it be savvier to buy a flash (I’ve been suggested this one) or to invest in a lens with a low max f-stop (like f/1.4 or 1.8…?)
3. Why is the Nikon 55mm f/1.8D only $150 whereas the Nikon 55mm f/1.4D is almost $400?
4. Any other suggested products?
5. Or would you suggest that I just don’t know how to take pictures and that the lens I have should be fine for what I’m doing? (I will not be offended if you answered yes to this question)

Thanks everyone in advance for the advice! Also, in case you’re wondering what my mediocre pictures end up looking like at this moment, here are some pictures of my dinner tonight: Crispy fried pork belly sandwich with melted swiss cheese and an over-easy egg. It was pretty much the best sandwich I’ve ever had. The pictures look sort of ew though (fault also in poor food presentation and lack of photography skills…)

Picture taken under fluorescent kitchen lights

Picture taken under kitchen fluorescent lights

Picture taken under dining room halogen track lights

Waffles!

Crispy on the outside…

Belgian waffles, shown here with a reduced peach glaze

Belgian waffles, shown here with poached peaches

…and fluffy on the inside

My favoritest boy in the world made these for me yesterday morning, after I slept for 12 hours, recovering from a self-induced all nighter with some friends I met at a conference. Recipe for Belgian Waffles from Joy of Cooking (you can see the transcribed instructions here, because I’m too lazy to type them up myself). Pears were poached in mostly orange juice (diluted with some water) with two cinnamon sticks, vanilla extract, orange liqueur, sugar, and honey. After the peaches were done, he took them out and reduced the sauce to yield a syrup-y glaze to pour over the waffles in place of maple syrup. Yum yum!

Buns!

Took my last final of the year yesterday. I have officially survived through my first academic year of grad school. In celebration, I made some steamed pork-and-daikon buns…

…and scallion buns (hua juan) (花卷)

<3 my life!

Kung Pao Chicken

I’ve posted a recipe using the sauces previously, so now I’m going to post a recipe using some of the Szechuan dried ingredients. Namely, the dried chili peppers and SiChuan peppercorns.

Hereby I present to you the famous and popular SiChuan dish: Kung Pao Chicken! Sweet, spicy, and a little sour…tender chicken matched with the crunchy peanuts…I mean really. What more can you ask for in a dish? Well, I guess you could ask it to look a little more appealing. Sorry for the un-tasty looking picture. I promise the dish itself it scrumptious!

Recipe after the jump

Beef stir fry

Now that I went through the great pains of going over everything that’s in my pantry, I thought I could introduce a use for some of those sauces. I felt slightly guilty about not divulging my family dumpling secrets, so I’ll divulge this one secret family recipe to appease everyone. There’s a fair bit of prep work that goes into this dish (unfortunately true for many Chinese dishes), but I think the end result will be worth it.

The carrots add a little bit of a texture juxtaposition with the tender beef slices. I like to dry them out over night first, so they can really soak up the juices and the oil in the pan. It’ll still taste good if you don’t have the time to leave them out though. The key to this dish, and any stir-fry beef slices dish, is to cut the beef as thinly as you can. The thinner you make your slices, the quicker you cook your beef. The quicker you cook the beef, the more tender it will be. I hate tough, chewy beef slices! It takes patience and skill and preferably a sharp knife. But trust me, you want to put the effort into this part.

Recipe after jump.

Essential pantry items for Chinese cooking

People ask me all the time: what do I need to keep stock in my pantry for oh-ten-tik Chinese cooking?

Okay, that’s a lie. People don’t ask me that all the time. In fact, no one has ever asked me that. But I know you are just DYING TO KNOW, right?!?!?! All right, here it is then, split into three main categories: sauces, dried goods, and liquids.

Sauces

I bought almost all of these sauces in one day when I was trying to make some Szechuan cuisine (四川菜). I don’t think we use such strong flavors where I come from, which is across the Chang Jiang river (长江) from Shanghai (上海). (I’m not really sure why I feel compelled to include the Chinese characters for everything I say in Americanized Chinese, but somehow I’ve convinced myself that I’m validating my Chinese credibility this way. Makes me seem a lot more intense, don’t it?) I’m also not sure why I’ve decided to number the sauces from left to right, except that in Ancient China people read that way. Again, establishing my street cred here. Without further ado:

1. Fermented Bean Sauce or Chili Bean Paste (豆瓣酱): Essential for stir fries, adds saltiness and depth. Depending on the brand you buy, it may be spicier or darker in color. I haven’t experimented much between brands yet.

2. Fermented Black Beans: (豆豉): Intense and fragrant and soaked in oil. I love adding them to my stir-fries. I find them more flavorful and less intrusive than the fermented bean sauce.

3. Lao Gan Ma (老干妈): My friend who was over last night for dumplings asked “who is that person on the jar and why does she look like a man?” I have to agree that she is quite unattractive and also looks very unhappy in that picture. How typical of the Chinese to use a picture of an overworked woman instead of a happy, jolly woman (think Aunt Jemima). But god damn, that woman makes good sauce. Fermented black beans in chili oil is like heaven in my mouth. I add it to marinades, soups, and dipping sauces, especially for dumplings.

4. Pixian fermented bean sauce (郫县豆瓣酱): Like the other fermented bean sauce, but spicier. I think I like this more.

5. Sweet bean sauce (甜面酱): I don’t know much about this, except that it’s sweet. I’ve only used like half a tablespoon of it before and I’ve never used it since. I’m just glad I took it out for a picture because I just noticed that the due date was 10/15/2009. Gross! And I’m pretty sure I bought this less than two months ago. Damn Chinese supermarkets…just can’t trust ‘em.

Dried goods

1. Dried mushrooms (香菇): Extremely versatile and indispensable. Soaking them in water makes stock (including great vegetarian daishi stock for Japanese dishes) and are great in soups/noodle soups. Can also be used in buns or stir-fries. I used to put them in dumplings, but I now avoid them because I find them slightly overpowering in my dumpling mix.

2. Seaweed (紫菜): These are a great and incredibly fast addition to soup that can make a crappy bowl of ramen taste like a million bucks. Okay, maybe not a million bucks, but at least $2 more than it actually cost you. One of my favorite soups also uses it: 紫菜鸡蛋汤 — seaweed eggdrop soup. Simple, but very satisfying.

3. Dried shrimpies (虾仁): For me, minced shrimpies are essential in my dumplings. I’m sure people out there have been DYING to know what sort of magic I put into my dumplings to make them so incredibly awesome and better than you’ve EVER had before. Here is the secret! These dried shrimpies add “unami.” I also like dried shrimpies (or “dried shrimp” if you aren’t feeling the cuter term) stir fried with napa cabbage. Just make sure to soak them in water first, because sometimes they tastes like feet at first.

4. Wood ear (木耳): I love using wood ear in stir fries. They don’t have much of a flavor, in my opinion, but they’re texturally great for many dishes, including pork sliver stir-fries. You’ll also need them if you ever want to make hot and sour soup (yum!!)

5. Dried chilies: If you ever want to add heat to your dish, just heat oil in a pan and snip up some of these guys and throw them in. It’ll smell great and add spice to your stir-fry.

6. Sweet potato starch (or any other form of starch): You know how and when to use starch. I’m not sure why I felt the need to put it in the picture. I guess I wanted some symmetry with #9 (secret ingredient whose identity I won’t reveal until you scroll down! DUN DUN DUN)

7. Star anise (八角): Love it for braising stuff, like braised pork belly (红烧肉). Also great for tea eggs!

8. Szechuan peppers: Szechuan cuisine is known for being spicy and numbing (麻辣). These peppers contribute to the numbing portion. You use them like the dried chilies: drop them in some hot oil before a stir fry. I like using them to stir fry potatoes (very thin-ly cut potatoes).

9. Secret ingredient…drum roll….wait for it, wait for it MSG!!!!! (味精): I never use exorbitant amounts, but a little unami never hurt anyone. So chill out, Americans! It won’t kill ya.

Liquids

1. Soy sauce: I hope this one is pretty obvious. Kikkoman is my favorite.

2. Mirin: Not Chinese, but essential for Japanese cooking. I use it to make that sauce mix I love so much in both cold soba and katsudon.

3. Black vinegar: Make sure you get it from Zhen Jiang, the only place in China where I found the legitimate vinegar. Black vinegar is more flavorful and slightly more sweet than your everyday acetic acid vinegar. It’s like a milder and sour-er version of balsamic. I always dip my dumplings in vinegar. I also love vinegar in my noodles…

4. Dark soy sauce: Great for braising or anytime you’re going for that deep, dark, red color. Thicker and much saltier than regular soy sauce. Use with caution!

5. Sesame oil: MMMmmmmmmm soooo goooood. Some of my favorite recipes call for nothing but sesame oil and salt. Try cutting up some small pieces of cucumber and mix it with sesame oil and salt. Or take a quarter of a block of raw tofu, mash it with a fork, add sesame oil, salt, and finely cut scalltions (green parts only). It’s really the best.

6. Chili oil: Self-explanatory. I do like it in my dumpling dipping sauce, though.

7. Cooking wine: Absolutely essential. I always use it for any meat dish either as part of the marinade or during stir-frying. It adds depth and great flavor. Always buy “Shao Xing” or “Shao Hsing.”

P.S. Upon re-reading this entry, I’ve noticed that I talk about dumplings a lot. I loooove dumplings. I would make a blog post about how to make dumplings, but I’m pretty sure I’d be giving out family secrets. And that leaves no honor! Foh familie!

P.P.S. I love how I keep saying that something adds depth to a dish. Here’s a secret…I have no idea what that means. I just didn’t know what else to write about it. But I guess you would have never guessed. MUAHAHAHHA