le blog de tranny

yummykins mcderish

Month: December, 2010

December 31, 2010

holiday musings: stuffed pork loin


[our baby rosemary tree, which my dad and i plan on planting in the backyard so that we can have a live outdoor christmas tree for future christmases]

On Christmas eve I made stuffed pork loin for my parents. I’d been pondering what to cook that evening throughout the week prior, and ultimately decided against cornish game hens (been there; done that) and a roast chicken (perhaps too austere?) in favor of a dish from my archive of childhood memories — stuffed pork loin. Growing up, my dad used to bring home prepared stuffed pork loin from the Albertsons down the street from our house. Pre-seasoned and pre-stuffed, the loin only needed some time in the oven, and my dad would make mashed potatoes and green beans to go on the side. It was pretty good for a supermarket stuffed pork loin, but maybe my palate was less sophisticated back then. Anyway, Albertsons stopped carrying the pre-stuffed pork loins while I was in high school, so it’d been a while since I’d eaten this beloved meal. My dad even resorted to buying pork loin and stuffing on the side because I missed it so much, but it just wasn’t the same.

Preparing the stuffing was pretty straightforward. Instead of using chunks of bread, you want fresh bread crumbs since there’s only so much you can stuff into that little loin. With a fine, granular stuffing (as opposed to a chunky one) you get a more even distribution of stuffing flavors in each slice of pork loin. I made my stuffing with rehydrated porcini mushrooms, sauteed shallot and garlic, parsley and s&p. I used a mixture of mushroom soaking liquid and veal stock to wet the stuffing.

[porcini, shallot and parsley stuffing]

Dan Dan stopped by to see my parents’ new digs.

[doing a demo for dan dan]

Fresh thyme smells pretty good. Freshly picked thyme (my parents bought me live herbs!) smells fucking AMAZING. It’s crazy how shriveled the leaves on fresh thyme are in comparison to live thyme.

[live thyme]

For the veg side I took a page (or rather, three recipes combined) from Deborah Madison and braised some carrots and leeks with thyme, celery seed, parsley and bay leaf in a mixture of honey, water and cider vinegar.

[sauteing the carrots and leeks before adding the braising liquid]

I decided not to butterfly and tie the pork loin because that seemed kind of complicated compared to Mark Bittman’s straightforward method of stabbing the pork loin through the middle with a sharp knife and using your fingers to widen the opening.

[stuffing the pork loin]

After stuffing the pork loin I rubbed the outside with a paste of minced garlic, fresh rosemary, fresh sage, olive oil and salt.

[prepared pork loin]

I browned the pork loin on all sides (including the ends) over very high heat in the cast iron skillet. This gave it a nice herb crust.

[browning the pork loin]

Then I transferred the skillet to the oven and baked it at 375 degrees F for about an hour, until the internal temperature of the pork reached 160. When I removed it from the oven I transferred the pork to a serving platter and tented it with foil. While it was resting I removed some of the more charred bits from the pan then deglazed it with BRANDY! (Ina Garten says brandy and pork go well together. I have to agree.) Then I added mushroom soaking liquid and a little bit of chicken broth (since the “fresh veal stock” I got at Bristol Farms was bland as shit). I seasoned it to taste with s&p and reduced it into a nice gravy.

[deglazing the shit out of that pan. creem freesh.]

Squirting out some stuffing. I like that.

[stuffed pork loin]

I also made a quick dessert while all of this was happening. My dad had requested blueberry pie so I made a pretty good one using a simple technique that I think I’ll use for all fruit pies from now on. The entire point of baking the filling in the pie is if you want to have a top crust, right? Well I don’t really give a shit about that, so I made an open-faced blueberry pie! It’s really easy: all you have to do is pre-bake the crust (which I bought in the frozen food aisle — oops!) and then make the filling separately and then pour it in the crust and let it set. Basically I took half of my blueberries and made a sauce out of them by simmering them with sugar, cinnamon and fresh orange juice. I thickened it up with some corn starch + water. When the sauce had reached the consistency I wanted, I stirred in almost all of remaining fresh blueberries (reserving a few for the garnish) and cooked them in the sauce for just a few minutes so that they still had their blueberry structure.

I let the filling cool a little bit then poured it into the pre-baked pie crust and let it sit at room temperature for a while.

I also started making the same salad I made over Thanksgiving, at my mom’s request. It’s a riff on the salad Caro made for our friend Thanksgiving, but different. I started off by simmering some cranberries with some sugar and water until they started to fall apart a little.

[simmering cranberries with sugar and water]

I let the cranberry mixture cool completely before continuing to work with it. My mom has this really delicious sweet thick balsamic vinegar (which you can make by just reducing regular balsamic vinegar on the stove), so I thinned it out with some of the cranberry liquid and then whisked in some dijon, s&p, then some extra virgin olive oil to make a vinaigrette.

I tossed some butter lettuce in the vinaigrette then added peeled chopped apple and persimmon, crumbled blue cheese, coarsely chopped walnuts and some of the cranberries, which I extracted from the liquid with a slotted spoon. My mom loves this salad. Hopefully this is enough of a recipe for you, ma!

[persimmon, apple and cranberry salad with walnuts and blue cheese and cranberry-balsamic vinaigrette]

I decided to try out some new herbs for my braised carrot and leek side dish, which already boasted some flavors I don’t normally cook with. So I had my parents pick up some fresh tarragon and marjoram.. The tarragon smelled kind of like soap to me, which was a turn-off, but I ended up chopping some of each and sprinkling it over the carrots and leeks. It tasted fine!

[live tarragon and marjoram]


[braised carrots and leeks with fresh marjoram and tarragon]

My dad makes his mashed potatoes using the Cuisinart, which makes them very gluten-y but I like that sometimes.

[mashers]


[herb crusted pork loin with porcini stuffing]

The gravy, which I thought was a little on the salty side when I was tasting it, ended up saving the day! I think the pork would have been a little bland on its own despite my zealous seasoning.

My dad accidentally dropped the leftover pie on the floor and ended up inventing a new dessert — upside-down blueberry pie! I have no idea what physical forces resulted in the crust overturning so cleanly, but there you have it. Upside-down blueberry pie. Special equipment required: a clumsy dad.

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December 30, 2010

holiday musings: hospitality

On Christmas day I went over to my dad’s house for dinner in Garden Grove. My step-mom had cooked up a delicious feast that happened to be comprised of many of my favorite things. She had apparently been cooking gradually over the previous two days. Talented, talented woman that one. Not only did she escape Vietnam, while pregnant, on a boat that was thrice attacked by pirates, she started her own successful business in the States, sponsored her brother’s family and her parents so that they could come to America too, and is a bad-ass cook who often cooks extravagant Vietnamese meals for the entire family (~20 people) on a regular basis, usually by herself.

She also makes artistic jello using a spoon and syringe to make flower shapes by hand.

Srsly though. When I was over at their house for Thanksgiving, she fed me soup, threaded my eyebrows and sent me home with artistic jello.

Lunch is served.



[shrimp wrapped in ham and green onion with the typical vietnamese rice noodle salad]
She marinated the quail in soy sauce, ginger, sugar and a few other things, then deep fried them! Delicious.

[deep-fried quail]

This soup had a roulade of sorts in it, made of cha lua (steamed pork roll) and pork skin.

[cha lua soup ?]

Crab, the Chinese way.

[crab!]

Hu tieu xao, one of my favorites! Thick flat rice noodles stir-fried with everything you could think of, typically shrimp, beef and squid.

[hu tieu xao]

[deep-fried quail close up]

They loved the shopping cart full of miniature plastic food that I got for them. See, I told you — kids love that shit.

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December 28, 2010

fusion?

Do try this at home, but be advised that I was cooking for (a leisurely) 4 hours. I don’t know why it took so long — perhaps because I had to use much of the same cookware twice and was experimenting as I went along. This is what I choose to do while on vacation — I save partying for the work week. :D



[sophie in her burrow]

A TRANNY’S ATTEMPT AT FUSION
~
PAN-ROASTED HALIBUT – lobster tail, taro puree, spinach, oyster mushrooms, miso broth, snow pea shoots, bacon
~
FRESH LONGANS – mango sorbet, raspberry coulis
~

Yes; I, girl who loves to hate on asian fusion, attempted (kinda asian) fusion. Allow me to explain. It was Christmas eve and I was walking through Bristol Farms with my mom (my parents have moved to a new house (with a sick ass kitchen) in a new town, where the grocery offerings are much more favorable to an uppity young adult who’s been spoiled on Berkeley Bowl such as myself). There was one final thing on our shopping list — fish. We were standing in front of the fishmonger and I asked my mom what kind of fish she was getting, what it was for, would I be eating it, etc. Per her suggestion, I phoned my dad, who didn’t know that I would I would be home for dinner on the night of the 25th. We established that I would indeed be present (such ridiculous confusion can only arise when a person has two sets of parents to see over the holidays), and the next thing I said was “Why don’t we do pan-roasted halibut steaks.. with lobster?” I’d officially hijacked the meal. I could’ve sworn I’d eaten a pan-roasted white fish with lobster meat in an asiany broth while out somewhere recently, but after asking Paul I guess not. Maybe I was thinking of the faux shark’s fin soup at Benu? But anyway, I got some fresh miso thinking I’d make a broth. I won’t even mention the hassle I was subjected to by the idiots at Bristol Farms in obtaining the miso. Or I guess I just did. SMD Bristol Farms.


[79 cent black fungi, among other things]

After an amazing Christmas day lunch at my dad’s consisting of several dishes cooked by my step-mom, I stopped by the supermarket in Little Saigon to grab some oyster mushrooms and scallions and ended up getting a few other things too. One of those things was taro, which I’d never cooked with. I’ve really been on a puree (and broth, for that matter) kick lately, and this evening was no exception. Since I was trying to incorporate asian flavors into the dish, I decided I wanted to plate the fish on top of an asiany puree of some sort. Potential puree candidates that I came across were naga, this potato-like veg I’d never even heard of, and daikon, but I finally gave in to my mom’s strong urging that I use taro. The sticky texture of the taro ended up being perfect for making a puree. It didn’t take much fiddling to get it nice and creamy.


[taro!]

The Puree
Luckily the taro was already peeled. Apparently raw taro irritates the skin so I made sure not to touch it while I was chopping it up. I boiled about 1 ¼ cups worth of cubed taro with half a peeled russet potato, also cubed, in some water and chicken stock. I seasoned the boiling liquid with salt and dropped whole sprigs of thyme, rosemary and parsley in there, along with some lightly smashed cloves of garlic and chunks of shallot. I simmered the taro, covered, until it was tender and then removed the lid to allow the liquid to reduce slightly. I blended up the taro and potatoes in a blender with some of the boiling liquid (herbs/garlic/shallot removed, of course), adjusting the texture by adding more of the liquid and a drizzle of olive oil. (If you run out of boiling liquid you can always quickly heat up some chicken stock.) I would have stirred in a drop of white wine vinegar at the end but my parents didn’t have any.




[taro puree infused with thyme, rosemary and parsley]

The Lobster Tail
I had to defrost the lobster tail. The best way to do this is to submerge it in cold water and change the water periodically. Once it was sufficiently defrosted I used kitchen scissors to cut the shell in a straight line along the back of the tail, from the top all the way down to the tip of the tail. I pulled the shell back a little bit to expose some of the skin on either side of the opening, then poured a mixture of melted butter and lemon juice into the opening. Then I steamed the lobster tail (about 8 minutes for ¾ to 1 lb) til it was bright red and ran it quickly under some cold water to stop it cooking. Then I asked my dad to remove the lobster meat from the shell.



[steamed lobster tail with butter and lemon]

The Miso Broth
I’d bought dehydrated “black fungus” at the asian supermarket expecting to use the mushroom soaking liquid in the broth, but the black fungus ended up smelling like pee and the soaking liquid tasted like nothing, so I’m not sure how much flavor it added to the broth. That’s probably why it was only 79 cents for the entire package. Next time I’ll go to a regular supermarket and get dried porcinis. To make up for the blandness of the mushroom soaking liquid, I fried two strips of bacon, diced, in a heavy-bottomed pan with a drizzle of sesame oil, removed the bacon once crisp, added chopped green onion and stir-fried it for a bit, then deglazed the pan with some mushroom soaking liquid and water, to which I added the miso paste after bringing the water to a boil. I stirred the miso in til it dissolved and let the broth reduce a bit, adjusting the miso and mushroom soaking liquid for taste. Once it was to my liking, I strained out the green onion.


[miso broth]

The Halibut
I’m not gonna lie; the reason I was so eager to try pan-searing halibut then finishing it off in the oven is because I saw them do this (or try to and fuck it up) so many times on Hell’s Kitchen Season 8. While I was scouring the internet for cooking times, I found a recipe purporting to be Thomas Keller’s pan-roasted halibut recipe from Ad Hoc At Home. I couldn’t follow it exactly because my halibut fillets were like the thickest effing fillets I’ve ever seen. Luckily my dad has a digital meat thermometer (just bought myself one of those babies at Williams Sonoma yesterday!) so I just tried to shoot for an internal temperature of 140 degrees F when I was finishing the fish off in the oven. The fish ended up being a little dry because I took it out too early and had to re-fire it. Grrrr! Luckily the fish sat in a miso broth so it didn’t really matter much. Here’s how you’re supposed to do it: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Heat a heavy bottomed skillet (like a cast iron) with some canola oil and a little butter in it until it gets really hot, almost smoking. Brown the halibut on the presentation (nicer looking) side on medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes, then lower the heat to medium-low and cook for a few more minutes. Transfer the pan to the preheated oven and keep it there until just cooked through (or til the temperature reaches 140 degrees F if you want to avoid the risk of worms). Remove the pan from the oven and “kiss” the other side of fish on the hot pan for about 30 seconds. Serve immediately (that shit don’t need to rest)!


The Rest
So when I was plating this monstrosity, I first put down a bed of the taro puree on each plate. Using my tongs, I submerged the spinach in the hot miso broth so that it would wilt ever so slightly, then piled that on top of the puree. The oyster mushrooms, which I sauteed with some butter and garlic until lightly browned, lined the plate along with the lobster meat. The fish went on top of the spinach/puree and on top of it I sprinkled the cooked bacon bits (this was impulse decision). I finished it off by pouring in some miso broth to form a little moat around the halibut and haphazardly sprinkling chopped scallions and fresh snow pea shoots all over the plate. This is the first time I’ve ever cooked something where I’ve actually given the plating any thought. Looks pretty ridic yet endearing, non?


[oyster mushrooms with garlic and butter]

[plating pt. 1]

All in all I’d say this dish delivered a really nice balance of textures and flavors. After the initial presentation was disturbed the taro puree kind of just.. became one.. with the miso broth, turning whatever components were left on the plate into a stick-to-your ribs porridge-y seafood stew thing. In a good way.

The Dessert
My step-mom had sent me home with some longans earlier that day, so I decided to make use of them in that evening’s dessert. Unfortunately the only mango sorbet I could find at the asian store was this disgusting radioactive orange variety manufactured by some sketchy Chinese company. (What could we do? All the white people stores were closed for Christmas day.) I did mango sorbet with fresh longans, peeled and seeded by my mom, and a raspberry coulis. Martha’s favorite raspberry coulis. (You simmer some raspberries and sugar and water together until it reaches the appropriate consistency then blend it up then strain out the seeds. Who knew coulis was so easy?!)


[straining the coulis]

[longans!]

[peeled and seeded]
The radioactive sorbet was awful.

[mango sorbet with fresh longans and raspberry coulis]
The raspberry coulis was great though! By the end of the night we were dipping guava in it.

The dessert, redone with Haagen Dazs mango sorbet the next day.

[win]

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December 27, 2010

um

Am I this bad? I’m gonna go with no. I believe that great food and knowledge about great food are meant to be appreciated and above all, shared with others, and I know at least one other person (little J) who feels the same. People (myself included) use haute cuisine as an excuse to glorify their gluttony, so the fact that some try to hold their foodie street cred over other people’s heads seems perverse to me. As someone who started their blog well after all the big blogs out there, but well before a lot of other people, I can safely say that food blogging only became annoying once everyone started doing it. As I said in an angry tweet to Ruth Bourdain while I was drunk the other evening in response to he/she/it? saying something along of the lines of “amateur home cooks should have Myspaces instead of WordPress accounts because they’re easier to ignore”: FUCK YOU for being so elitist. You wouldn’t even have a following if it weren’t for self-proclaimed foodies and aspiring home cooks. As long as there is good food to be had (or even if there isn’t, as was the case in Cambridge), I’ll be blogging about it til the end. And hey, maybe the fact that more people in America care about what they’re eating these days might someday benefit someone other than the dSLR industry, perhaps by undermining the gigantic processed food industry that drives the disgusting obesity epidemic in the US. Ever think of that? Methinks this Christopher Borrelli fellow needs a lesson in self-awareness. Perhaps part of the reason he lashes out at the food blogging community is because they are doing his job for him for free. As eloquently put by Eater National:

Is he suggesting that his food-blogging coworkers also lack “self-awareness” and are privileged because they participate in and encourage these misbehaving foodies? Is he (gasp) talking shit about his coworkers? And since he knows he’s part of the problem, will he do his part and stop food blogging now? Because if anything reeks of “elitism and hypocrisy and silliness,” it’s a blogger complaining about other bloggers.

Fuck food snobs (you’re only a snob once you start to make other people feel bad about their own food knowledge/choices), fuck upstart gourmands (you’re only an upstart once you start telling a restaurant what ingredients to use when you don’t even work in the industry) and fuck you harder, CB.

Is this food blogging business really “just a bubble”? Because I’m only getting started…

Anyway, I’m really excited for the 5 course prix fixe at Bar Ag for NYE (organized by yours truly) and my birthday dinner at Coi in a few weeks. Expect LOADS OF PIX.

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December 24, 2010

a surf ‘n turf christmas

Merry Christmas from the Hummer-Tran abode! As an expression of our gratitude for the presence of our other stinky housemates, Caro and I made plans to cook a huge dinner for everyone — a Christmas gift of sorts and a chance for us to all be together in our home (as we so rarely are) during this holiday season. We considered roasting a goose or having a multi-course Italian menu, but in the end wanted our menu concept to be grounded in the sentiments of gifting our housemates (i.e. having a decadent spread with special ingredients) and expressing our love through food. Hence our menu ended up being very hearty and traditional American, quite reminiscent of this Mad Men post I did:

Old-fashioned cocktails
Cheddar fondue with Acme bread
~
Caesar salad with croutons
~
Wine and champagne
Surf ‘n turf – Top sirloin with red onion pan sauce and dungeness crab with lemon and butter
Scalloped potatoes
Crimini and portobello mushrooms roasted with garlic and butter
~
Flourless chocolate souffle cake
New York style cheesecake with strawberry-blackberry compote



[Caro making old-fashioneds]

Guess who headlined what? C’MON GUESS. If you said Caro – SALAD (and fondue and crab and chocolate cake), Michelle – POTATOES (and mushrooms and steak and cheesecake), you’d be correct! I suppose those are our relative strengths? Double-teaming the prep for this feast was all the easier with a steady flow of cocktails. Considering how extensive the menu was, it was actually not very time-consuming at all.


[Caro's homemade croutons]


[giving the romaine a caesar dressing bath]


[Caro's chocolate souffle cake, fresh out of the oven]


[cheddar cheese fondue]

I took a page from Smitten Kitchen and tossed the mushrooms with chopped capers, minced garlic, canola oil and s&p (not too much salt! — the capers are already salty) before topping them with chunks of butter and roasting them in the oven. When the mushrooms came out I squeezed lemon juice over them and sprinkled some fresh parsley over the top.


[mushrooms roasted with garlic and butter]

I did the scalloped potatoes with parsley, chives, swiss and gruyere cheeses, nutmeg, s&p and half and half with butter and parmesan over the top. Pretty straightforward though I let the potatoes brown before cooking them, making the dish less visually appealing.

[scalloped potatoes]

For the cheesecake topping, I combined quartered strawberries and blackberries in a saucepan with sugar, fresh orange juice and some cherry brandy. I simmered it for a while and used some cornstarch + cold water to thicken it up. (Discussion of how I made the cheesecake itself is forthcoming in a separate post.)

[strawberry-blackberry compote]

My partner(s).

No-No inspects the beef.

The salad, plated and lookin’ mighty fine.

[Caro's take on a caesar with croutons]

You know what’s funny, is that I, of all people, had only ever cooked steak once or twice before (and not necessarily well). That is ridiculous, considering that more than a few people consider my love of steak to be one of my defining characteristics. So I actually did a fair amount of research beforehand because I wanted the steak to be impeccably cooked. I borrowed the methods of The Amateur Gourmet and Gordon Ramsay, who I’m seriously obsessed with at the moment. (Over the weekend I discovered “Masterchef” on Hulu and ended up watching the entire season in a day and a half. Last night I discovered “Hell’s Kitchen” and watched the entire season that night and this morning. I just can’t get enough of GR’s apeshittery. I think he might even be more entertaining than Anthony Bourdain. D: ) I was going to go for a NY Strip but the butcher told me the top sirloin would be more flavorful and could be cooked the same way I was planning with great results. Plus it was a pretty good deal for USDA Prime.

I let the steak sit out at room temperature for a few hours before cooking it. I also made sure to preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Before throwing the meat on the pan, I seasoned it liberally with s&p on both sides. (We only have kosher salt in our kitchen these days, which was a good thing in this case.) In a cast iron skillet, I heated up enough canola oil to cover the pan for 3 minutes on high. (I should’ve actually probably let it heat up for a few more minutes). I threw the steak on and browned it on both sides (a nice caramelized brown, not grey), about 3 minutes per side. Using my tongs, I also browned that fat strip on the side of the steak a bit. Tipping the pan, I spooned the juices over the steak for a minute or so before throwing some butter in the pan and popping it in the oven for about 3 minutes before checking it for doneness. At this point I was pretty wasted and realized that neither Caro nor I had any idea where the meat thermometer was. So I judged the doneness of the meat by touch — the firmness of the soft skin above where your thumb and index finger bones connect indicates medium-rare (back of the hand when your hand is relaxed). Does this not make sense? Watch the videos. I was pretty fucking lucky that I got the touch right though, for cereal. Sometimes I think it’s better to cook after downing a few because you follow your instincts more.

I think the most important thing is that the pan needs to be really hot when you put the steak on in order to get a good sear.

[nice and brown, could be browner]


After determining that the steak was probably (?) medium rare I tented it tightly with tin foil and let it rest for 5ish minutes (maybe I should’ve waited longer but I just couldn’t!). The interior was looking pretty red but the meat cooked up to a perfect color after I spooned some pan sauce over the top of it. Better too rare than not rare enough! My housemates and I agree.

I added some red onions and bacon fat to the pan then deglazed it with two buck Chuck before adding some veal (!!!) stock and reducing it. I know, I’m a bad girl. It was sinfully delicious and I used the pan sauce leftovers in some chili later in the week.

[red onion pan sauce]

Meanwhile, Caro was on crab duty. Whole Foods only had cooked crabs, which was kind of lame, but also delicious. Besides we ended up cooking/eating (or I guess watching someone else cook) live crabs the following afternoon lol.

[the ol' crab reheat]

[butchering the crabs]

Finally we were ready to sit down to dinner.

[Caro's glorious table setting]

[oh hey Chandon souvenir flute!]

[that sauce was the shit]

Dessert course.

[the devil's cake]

Truly a feast fit for kings. Tomorrow I’ll be making a stuffed pork loin for the nuclear family. Do stay tuned.

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December 16, 2010

starbelly crab feast 12/07/10


[dungeness crab bisque]


[family style; chef and winemaker in tow]

[dungeness crab, yukon gold potato, housemade sausage, little gem caesar]


[second helping]

[sierra bounty apple cobbler]

[the single greatest threat to sf's crab population]

[the wine was free flowin']

’nuff said.

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December 14, 2010

my christmas wishlist

In case anyone’s wondering…

~
A full body massage.

A bigger Cuisinart!

A Le Creuset braiser!

A cazuela dish that doubles as a baking dish and serving platter!

A set of ramekins suitable for French onion soup!

Aperture 3 to enhance my photography skillz!

A food mill – I can use it for gnocchi, mashed potatoes, duchess potatoes, and even sifting (because a coarse sift is better than no sift and I usually can’t be bothered to sift at all!)

A mandoline.

Some nice bottles of red for the old ticker! Namely:
2007 Patz & Hall Sonoma Pinot Noir
2004 Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino

Dinner at Commonwealth, SPQR, Gitane, Cafe Zuni, Halu or Ippuku (or all of the above).

A weekend trip. (Must be mindblowing.)

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December 12, 2010

a tale of two brodos

Okay, so, I’m pretty into this idea of, instead of having a sauce, having a broth (or brodo as I’ve douchily been calling it lately). This brodo concept is closely tied to meals I’ve eaten at nicer restaurants for one (obvi), and my embarrassingly recent realization of what deglazing actually is for another. Plus you know, nowadays when I buy a $5 bottle of wine at the corner store for the purpose of cooking with, I’m compelled to use the rest of it for cooking because I can’t bring myself to drink it (to think — I now have standards as to what I imbibe!). A far cry from my drinking standards as recently as a year ago, that’s fo sho. To cut to the chase, I now present to you a tale of two brodos — one red and one white.

The red one was born first, out of an attempt on my part to fancy up a simple, hearty and not terribly sophisticated dish — cannelloni. At least that was the original idea. Kale cannelloni in a tomato brodo with sauteed thick wedges of portobello mushroom (I had to get the meaty mouth-feel somehow). I even wrote out a recipe, based on bits and pieces of other recipes that I lifted from the internet. But I ended up changing my mind last minute when I realized that I still had leftover wonton wrappers. So Nina and I instead made dino kale tortellini with portobello mushroom in tomato brodo. Sigh — I would not recommend making tortellini out of wonton wrappers. The texture and flavor are a bit off — the dough is thinner and less starchy or egg-y or something. The final product was very much dino kale wontons in tomato brodo. Which is quite funny and worked in its own weird way — I guess I could pass it off as some kind of fusion interpretation (wonton soup but with Italian flavors?) but this was definitely not my original intent. Anyway no harm done — just use real pasta dough or make cannelloni if you try this — the recipe is essentially the same.

Kale-Stuffed Pasta with Portobello Mushrooms in Tomato Brodo

You need:
- parmesan cheese
- lasagna noodles or other stuffable pasta
- 1 container ricotta
- 1 large can diced tomatoes
- 1 container chicken stock
- kale, stemmed and torn
- portabello mushrooms, stems separated and reserved
- fresh thyme
- white wine
- 1 shallot, medium slice
- garlic, minced
- 1 small onion (or less), small dice

- Preheat the oven to 350 F if you’re making cannelloni, cook the pasta al dente etc.

Make the pasta filling:
- Wash and chop the kale (if you’re making cannelloni a rough chop is fine; if you’re making tortellini you’ll probably need to chop the kale pretty well before you cook it, and then super finely after you cook it). Saute it with a *very scant* amount of olive oil with finely diced onion (very finely for tortellini) and minced garlic. Season with s&p.
- Once kale is cooked, chopped to desired fineness, then cooled a bit, add the ricotta and a good amount of grated parmesan. You can eyeball the proportions — I know I did! Mix well then assemble your tortellini or cannelloni.


Make the brodo:
- Mince the mushroom stems. Saute them with the shallot and some garlic in olive oil until browned. Add ½ a cup or however much white wine and scrape up the brown bits while on high heat. Add the broth and the diced tomatoes with their juice. Mash up the tomatoes and add whole sprigs of thyme. Season with s&p and simmer for a good while, until it reduces by half or however much you want.
- Strain the brodo when you plate the pasta.

Cook the pasta:
- If you’re doing cannelloni make sure you layer the bottom of the baking tray with some brodo and that you moisten the top with either olive oil or brodo so it doesn’t dry out. (Bake covered, seam side down, for 45 minutes. Or if you’re doing tortellini boil those bitches then set them aside, not overlapping because you don’t want em to stick.)

Do the mushrooms:
Take the thick slices of portobello mushroom cap and brown them on each side in butter. Season with s&p. When almost done cooking, throw in some minced garlic and toss the mushrooms with the garlic for a minute or two.

Arrange the plates with brodo as the base, followed by the mushies then the cannelloni or tortellinis. Pour brodo over the top right before serving. (Did you notice that if you substitute veg broth for chicken broth, this entree is vegetarian? Maybe I should start having a “vegetarian” tag, since I now actually have more than one vegetarian-adaptable recipe on here.)


(Do you like my subtle garnish? I think it looks like a little shrub lol.)

Olive Oil Poached Cod in Carrot and Potato Brodo with Parsley Salad

The other day I was watching the Anthony Bourdain holiday special, where he and his buddies cook up the greater part of a cow. In one scene he prepares this roasted bone marrow appetizer, and he makes a parsley salad with whole leaves of parsley picked from their stems, mixed up with capers, shallot, lemon juice and olive oil, to go with it. I loved the idea of a salad like this, because when you think about it, the flavor of whole leaves of parsley isn’t really that intense compared to say, arugula, so why not make it the base ingredient of a salad? I thought it’d be a great topping for some olive oil poached cod (which I’d been itching to attempt since I got my oil thermometer), but parsley salad works as a starter too.

I wanted the cod to sit in a clear, light brodo (like this olive oil poached cod I had at Commis a while back). My plan was to add some carrots and potatoes to the broth, to get some aromatic action going and to thicken the broth a bit with the starch from the potatoes. Then once it’d reduced sufficiently, I’d decide whether or not to puree the vegetables. I ended up pureeing the vegetables with my immersion blender, turning the broth into a really smooth puree (so, not clear at all basically). I ended up adding more chicken broth after I did this because I wanted it to be more broth-like. So maybe I should really call this a puree — but whatever, semantics. It’s a brodo or it’s a puree depending on how much broth you add/whether you decide to puree the vegetables.

You need: (for two peeps)
*for the fish*
- 2 cod fillets (In retrospect I would’ve gotten rock cod or halibut instead of black cod aka butterfish. Olive oil poaching makes the fish really tender and moist which butterfish already is.. and I was left wishing the end product was slightly firmer rather than melting on the fork before it even reached my mouth. I also would’ve gone for thicker fillets. Should’ve done my research.)
- olive oil (I cheated and mixed in some canola oil because I didn’t want to ass rape our olive oil reserves. I mean if you have mostly olive oil the flavor is still there.. I maintain that this is fine if you’re working with extra virgin olive oil which I was — but if I had to do this again I would get cheaper non-extra virgin olive oil at the store and just used 100% of that.)
*for the brodo/puree*
- 1 small bunch of carrots, peeled and diced
- 2 red potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1/2 a shallot, minced
- garlic, minced
- chicken broth
- white wine
- butter and/or bacon fat
- thyme (I used dried but fresh is obvi preferable.)
*for the parsley salad*
- Italian parsley
- capers
- 1/2 a shallot, minced (the other half of the one used for the brodo)
- extra virgin olive oil
- lemon juice or white wine vinegar


[Bacon fat and yellow carrots.]

Make the brodo:
- Saute the shallot, carrots and potatoes in melted bacon fat and butter. (I just happened to have some reserved bacon fat from the last time I cooked bacon and it’s really proved indispensable so far. For example, with this preparation, I cooked the vegetables in bacon fat because I needed something to deglaze. I’m sure it would kind of work with just butter but honestly if you don’t have bacon fat on hand I’d either fry up some fresh bacon and maybe even throw bits of that in the broth or I wouldn’t bother.) Season with s&p and fresh or dried thyme.
- Once the vegetables have browned and there’s a good layer of brown bits at the bottom of the pot, add some white wine and scrape up the brown bits on high heat. Once I did this it was lookin’ pretty good and gravy-like.
- Add the chicken broth and more white wine if you please.
- Simmer until reduced by about half. Allow to cool for a hot sec. Season to taste. Puree the vegetables with an immersion blender if you want. You could also try pureeing half the vegetables and leaving half of them in chunks. Perhaps this is what I should have done. (If the puree is too thick add more broth and bring to a simmer again.)


[A lovin' spoonful of bacon fat.]

[Pre-pureeing.]

Cook the fish:
- Season the fish on both sides with s&p.
- In a pot, heat up enough olive oil to cover the fish to around 120 degrees F.
- Submerge the fish in the oil for 3-5 minutes or until just cooked through.

Make the parsley salad:
- Rinse and dry the parsley. Pick some leaves from their stems.
- Mix the parsley leaves in a bowl with some coarsely chopped capers and finely minced shallot.
- Just before serving, toss the parsley salad with olive oil and lemon juice or white wine vinegar. Season with black pepper.

Plate the cod on top of some broth/puree. Top with parsley salad.

Mmmm but you know what’s especially awesome about this broth/puree business? This morning I heat up the leftover puree on the stove and whisked in some butter, cornmeal and freshly grated parm. Voila — breakfast polenta/grits type thing! Eaten with Italian pork sausages and a poached egg (which I kind of botched.. should have left it in longer — it was my first time poaching eggs, after all), it was the best thing ever. (Another testament to the usefulness of bacon fat — I cooked the sausages in some!)

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December 10, 2010

mad about mad men

I know it’s kind of an odd time to be posting about this, but I just miss Mad Men so goddamn much! Plus it gives me the opportunity to make use of photos I never got around to posting. I’ll admit I was a skeptical towards all of the Mad Men hype up until a few months before the premiere of the fourth season. I’ve no idea why. I think I thought it would be boring or something when in reality it’s like, the best show ever. Don’t worry though; I’m all caught up now ;) . Oh Don, what an asshole.

I remember first being faced with the question of what people ate in the 1960s when I was trying to come up with a dish to make for Jane’s Mad Men Season 4 premiere party. I surveyed the Mad Men dinner party guides on the web and found most suggestions to be either gross (finger foods featuring gag-inducing ingredients such as cheese whiz and canned pineapple), lame (trite gazpachos or unimpressive onion dips and crudite platters) or expensive (shrimp cocktail and lamb kebabs). I ended up making some canapes with a crushed pea/fava bean/goat cheese puree, prosciutto and shaved parm, the most authentic part being the cookie cut-outs of sandwich bread I used as the base.


It’s a good thing Jane had pulled out all the stops with pretty deviled eggs and a delicious caesar salad, prepared the traditional way with anchovies and raw egg yolks, probably my favorite of the spread.




[Mad Men Season 4 Viewing Party at Matt and Jane's, Emeryville, 2010]
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December 7, 2010

something to tide you over

Hi. I have a post in the works but probably won’t get it out the door until tomorrow, as I’ll be gorging myself at Starbelly’s crab feast this eve. But in case you’re craving some tasty reading, I thought I’d share The Atlantic’s article on ”The 10 Biggest Food Stories of 2010” (I highly recommend clicking through to this extremely disturbing article about Austin “Jack” Decoster, the man behind the huge egg recall that happened this year), and my new favorite blog, The Accidental Wino. Why is TAW my new favorite? Well, because his recipes are super creative (read: CASSOULET PIZZA), he writes about wine (which I’m eager to learn more about), and his posts are a good mix of recipes and other stuff (pure recipe blogs, while useful, make for less than interesting reading at work I find).

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