Tuesday, July 31, 2012

This is a miniature we saw at a local Pho restaurant.  It was really well done!  It looks real!  Real good.

So Susan and Andrew had us over again for a BBQ/Picnic.  Everyone brought something.  I brought my chicken bucket. 

pressure fried chicken 

cant go wrong with that!  

It turned out to be a very beautiful sunny day.  HOT HOT HOT!!!

Then the next day we did family dinner in San Jose.  Yup more BBQ!!!  BBQ overload this past weekend.

Nyla says hi!!!

and after making three of these DIY sous vide machines....

I finally graduated to a professional one.  My new Haake E2 immersion circulator.  

Its strong.  Maybe too strong.  The water circulating makes a lot of noise.  Not just in this tiny pot but even in big tubs.  I aint complaining!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Delicious dinner

Is it better to put the captions under the picture or above?  Ill try below and you guys tell me which you prefer.  Lucky us got invited to Suz and Drews again for dinner.   Another delicious dinner from the two of them.  Here are pics!  First chicken liver mousse.  Soooo gooood.  offally good!

Then a sweet corn soup with dungenes crab soufle.  Suz hand picked the meat out of a fresh crab for us.  Thats food made with love.

 fried zucchini blossoms filled with ricotta served with tomato confit.  Drew if Im butchering all this please let me know.  My memory is shot from all the booze.
 
 Delicious rib eye topped with a blue cheese butter, salt baked potatoes, and spinach.  Was already so full but couldnt stop eating. 

Deep fried twinkies??? now this was overkill but man deep fried there you get this weird citrus flavor in there. 


We brought macarons.  These are so sweet maybe too sweet.  Diabetes bombs.  

We went to our friends studio warming party.  Check her stuff out!  http://www.tinafreydesigns.com/

 Cute stuff


 Her dog


 I just found out this shit...

Is made by Mizkan the people who make ponzu.


Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Im going to teach you how to make Kimchee

This is the easy way to make kimchee.  Its not going to taste as good as Moms but it will be good enough and I think it tastes better than the crap you buy at the grocery stores or costco.  Best of all its super duper cheap to make versus buying a small jar for $5 bones.

Get a head of napa cabbage.  Shits 39 cents a pound at the chinese market

Cut that ish up.  This is about half of a head in a big salad bowl.  Get some sea salt.  You can probably use kosher salt but dont use table salt.  Well I guess you could but definitely dont use iodized salt I think that might alter the flavor.  Anyhew take about a third of a cup of salt and sprinkle that shit in and mix it up.  If youre using kosher or finer salt use a quarter of a cup.

after a few beers the salt will start to leech out the water from the cabbage

after about a six pack shit will be nice and wilty and salty!!!  (about an hour for you non drinkers)

Heres the hardest part of making kimchee my way but also what makes it somewhat fail safe.  Add enough water so that the brine is salty.  How salty?  about as salty as you would want your kimchee to taste.  If its tool salty add more water.  If you added too much water then put mo salt.  See you cant realy f that ish up!
Leave it alone to get all salty and even more wilty.  6 hours to a day is fine you cant really screw it up at this point.  Youre almost done!

So the next day continue by dumping out almost all of the water.  Now chop up your green onions 

grate about two tablespoons of ginger

and about the same amount of garlic.  Lucky me I had a big ol tub of pureed up garlic that I stole from my moms fridge.  Shes in heaven so she doesnt need the garlic any more so I took it.  Sandy and Sue took some too.  Mom had a ton of garlic already pureed.  I think she was in love with garlic.  Poor Dad didnt have a clue.

so add that shit up!  if you want more garlic add it!  if you want more ginger add it!  

then more seasoning.  Sugar, fish sauce, and probably the most exotic ingredient in the recipe korean red pepper flakes.  This bag is crazy.  I took it from Moms house.  Again I dont think she needs pepper powder up in the clouds.  Anyhow for some reason this bag of flakes is the hottest bag Ive ever worked with.  Its so damn spicy I think it must have been some special burn the butt batch.  Maybe thats why it was stashed away in the cupboard. 

anyhow about 3 tablespoons of sugar, same amount of pepper flakes, and two tablespoons of fish sauce.
These are rough measures since you have no real way of knowing how much napa I have in these pics.
Just add a tablespoon at a time of each ingredient and mix and taste.  It should taste delicious enough to eat straight away and be just salty enough that you can eat it by itself but only a few bites before youd want some water.  Sugar is also subjective.  I like it somewhat sweet.  Make sure you can taste the sweetness.  When the kimchee ripens the sweet will transform into sour.  

pour that ish into a container.

Leave it out for another day or two until it starts to sour a tad.  Then store in the fridge for up to a few weeks. The older it gets the more sour it gets.  When it gets really sour you can make stews with it.
Youve just made a batch of kimchee for around a dollar something.  
Its so easy please do try and make it yourself.  If youre Vegan you can leave out the fish sauce.  If youre adventurous you can add raw oysters or tiny shrimp things.  This is roughly the same method I use to make radish kimchee.
THE END

Monday, July 16, 2012

Dinner at home is always fun when you try to be a little fancy.  Frozen shaved foie.  I took the leftover chunk of torchon out of the freezer and tried to slice myself a really thin piece to eat and it came out shaved.  Said F it and shaved some more to serve at dinner.  Happy mistakes.  Kinda like my first child.

Deep fried cheese polenta cake.  Man I really do take shitty pictures.  Oh well.  Its a polenta cake with mushrooms on top and gravy underneath.

squid and beans.  this one was dry and not so tasty.  someone help me make a good squid and beans dish

 the main was a cured and smoked pork tenderloin served with a slice of cranberry jelly ha!  take that thanksgiving.  It came out pretty good.  I was aiming at something ham like in flavor and it was close.  Tenderloin was cured in salt/sugar/pink salt for a few hours and then smoked in the stovetop smoker before being cooked sous vide for 3 hours.  Came out tasty and tender.

We finished with salted caramel ice cream from Bi-Rite.  Shit was way too airy and not dense enough.  As soon as it hit the room temp bowl it melted.  I think they are chincing it at Bi-Rite.  A holes.

got new tires on the motorscooter!  halfway there.

and done!

My moms soy pickles.  They look so gross and phallic in the tub.  Its such a bittersweet thing to eat whats left of her food.  I miss my mom.

and the other night we had uni custard at lot7 restaurant.  It was good so I am posting a pic.  Topped with uni, ikura, some sort of tobiko and some sort of caviar caviar.  Yum-O and out of focus is how I do things on this site!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The best sandwiches near work are from the Rincon market.  No fancy meats or crazy fillings... just a clean sandwich with the essentials.  BIG ASS SANDWICH or small ass hands?  probably both.
 Is Carbonara a suitable breakfast?  Its got eggs and bacon so YES.
 We did weird Japanese night again. 
 Then the next night we got invited to Andrew and Suz's for BBQ dinner.  yum-O
 we brought a variety of these things for dessert.  they were awesome but not $3something each awesome!  Jesus we coulda bought 20 McDoubles for the price of 6 of these badboys.  Thats how I measure value.  Gas is 4 McDoubles a gallon.
 THEN we get invited over for steak dinner at Joes!!!  SuperJoe starting his bbq with a freaking flamethrower.  How manly is that?!?!  Too many for this shitty blog.
 We had smoked steak with a foie topper.
 Amina went nuts and took foie topped steak and topped it with marrow.  Jebus thats decadent.