melissaguyre

Today I made Lentil Meatballs with Lemon Pesto as seen on Marin Mama Cooks.

Fig Pig Jam with Camembert!

Last night we watched "This Means War" (it was OK) and made "Fig Pig Jam" from the blog Feeding My Folks. Since the hot chocolate mix I used was very non-sugary as it was home made by a friend, we also added two soup spoons of Dalmatia Fig Spread to sweeten it up.

I grew up eating and loving Chinese steamed fish with scallions and ginger paired with a lovely soy and oil sauce. Every time we made it, my mom had to keep reminding me to "not eat the fish with the rice" as she was scared of me choking on bones. The trouble was that the sauce and fish went so well over rice it was really hard not to.

Recently I was given Modernist Cuisine or, as I like to call it, "the most expensive cookbooks ever" and I decided to start with something familiar that tapped into my asian pantry and did not require me to order a bunch of lab ingredients.

I chose:

Microwaved Tilapia with Scallions and Ginger from book 3, page 115 (the recipe can be found on Modernist Cuisine's website)

Microwaved Sichuan Bok Choy with pickled mushrooms and spicy sauce from book 3, page 313

My conclusions:

If I want to try steaming fish this way again, I will need to play with my microwave settings a bit more to figure out how not to overcook or explode the fish.  

Given that I know how to make chinese steamed fish the normal way, I would most likely try sous vide poaching the fish next time and then trying the hot oil over ginger scallion technique as a finisher. 

The bok choi was OK considering only water was used to cook it. However I can make some really good bok choi with a little oil, ginger, and garlic in a matter of minutes on the stove so I'm not sure if I would do it this way again.

In any case, it was fun to try something from the books. I think my next targets are the Gruyere Spheres in Oxtail Consomme with Onion Puree and Rye Crisps in book 4, page 190.

This week we made Kitchen Circadia's Korean Fried Chicken Recipe and it was quite tasty as well as my first time working with Gochujang. I used Annie Chun's brand Gochujang because it was what Whole Foods happened to have.

Changes to the original recipe:

As I mentioned my previous post, I used the sous vide method on the chicken to lower my risk of over cooking the meat and also so that I did not have to purchase a vat of peanut oil to execute the recipe. Specifically, after 24 hours of brining, we rinsed off the brine liquid, vacuum sealed the chicken, and then put the vacuum bags in a water bath at 77°C for 3 hours (a good range is between 2 and 4 hours).

If you do not have sous vide equipment, I suggested the quick fry and then bake method which Cook's Illustrated promotes; an adapted version of this recipe is found at The Obessive Chef's blog.

Another deviation was that we didn't pull the ginger out of the sauce before blending it. This was more of an "oops" but we figured what the heck, we like ginger.

We otherwise followed the recipe exactly with double frying the chicken, blow drying it on the cool setting, and then saucing it up with a brush. 

Thanks to Kitchen Circadia for the awesome blog!! I look forward to trying other things.

Finally, here is a picture of me with the blow dryer!! ^_^

Umeboshi Onigiri making (japanese rice balls filled with pickled plums) - We grilled them with soy sauce to turn them into Yaki Onigiri. Then we wrapped them in nori (seaweed sheets) and ate them all before I could take a picture of the finished product. :) (Taken with instagram)

I cooked the rice using dashi broth versus water to impart some extra flavor into our rice balls.

Recipes I consulted before diving into rice ball fun:

How to make Japanese-style plain rice and sushi rice - Just Hungry

Onigiri (Omusubi) revisited: An easier way to make Japanese rice balls, step by step - Just Hungry

Chawan Mushi (japanese savory egg custards) with chicken and shrimp cooked using a Sous Vide Supreme water bath set to 82 Celcius. Cooked for about 1hr and 20 min. (Taken with instagram)

I've made chawan mushi in the past using a number of recipes from the blogosphere and Gourmet, but my current favorite is from "Tess's Japanese Kitchen". We first tried this using chicken broth and then with dashi; I definitely prefer the dashi version although but both were very good. 

Star Ruby - Fiona brought this wonderful hibiscus tea infused gin cocktail to our tea party. It accounted for most of the "tea" which was imbibed and is delicious. ^_^ She mentioned having made it with Star Buck's Passion Tea which has hibiscus flowers. 

Scrambled eggs with chive blossoms, bordeaux spinach, and a bit of white truffle oil on top.

Before I start on my first blog post which, by special request from a few Tumblr users who pointed me at Tumblr, dives into the world of combining truffle products with tasty scallops and brioche, I have a quick story on the topic potentially going over the top with one's truffle habit.

At some point Darrell and I were sitting at the bar of Lavanda, a local Palo Alto restaurant, when the couple next to us generally says to the waitress "That is ok if you cannot truffle that dish, we carry our own bottle of truffle oil everywhere with us so we can truffle everything we eat". On the way home I said that if I ever got that ridiculous about a food item to please point out that I had gone too far.

After cooking this dish once or twice, I have decided that treating one's self to a bit of truffle madness once in awhile is definitely OK. However no bottles of truffle oil will be sneaking into my purse any time soon....could you imagine getting the truffle smell out of your bag if it broke open?

In any case, if you attempt this, happy truffling. This was actually my first time cooking a scallop and it was quite tasty.

Recipe: Seared Scallops with Truffle Salt and Champagne Cream Sauce over Truffle Butter Brioche