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Dinner, Japanese style 2007-06-14 06:18:41
Here’s a little Japanese
inspired dinner we had the other night: Avocado and green leaf salad with sesame-miso vinaigrette, steamed edamame, and a chirashi style California roll.
I first saw this style of sushi preparation at a local Japanese supermarket, Nijiya Market. They served their versions in a small container with a bed of rice on the bottom covered with the toppings of your choice; popular varieties included California, Spicy Tuna, and Spicy Yellowtail.
I figured I would add a little extra presentation to mine by using a ring mold and piling the ingredients on top. I used a layer of sweetened rolled omelet, shrimp, avocado, and topped the whole thing off with mayo and sriracha.
The eater poured a glass of crazy milk, unfiltered sake served chilled, which completed our pseudo Japanese dinner.
Read more:Dinner
A fish best served cold 2007-07-01 22:06:17
No, I’m not talking about taking revenge on sea life; I’m talking about what we ate for dinner. I first made this dish back in my culinary school days in Cambridge. At the time, I thought it was very strange to be to go through all the trouble of cooking something only to later eat it cold, but I was wrong.
I served up this cold dish with a cilantro herbed polenta that I first cooked like normal polenta and then grilled it up in preparation for the tilapia. The polenta was also delicious cold, so there’s no real reason why this whole dish couldn’t be prepared a day or two ahead of time.
The eater also wanted to note that the tart, vinegar-y goodness of the raisin and nut mixture is very difficult to stop eating for long enough to get any leftovers.
Marinated Tilapia with raisins and pistachios
1 lb tilapia filet
flour to coat fish
½ c onions
½ c carrots
½ c celery
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp red pepper
½ c raisins
½ c pine nuts or pistachios
1 ½ c
Hey hey, it’s Pineapple Sorbet! 2007-07-06 04:30:57
Laura over at eatdrinklive is hosting up HHDD#13 and this time it’s Sorbet
. I really have no idea who this Donna person is, but I’m always ready for another challenge. The goal was to come up with a sorbet and we’ll all be judged and prizes will be awarded. Anyways, here’s my entry: Pineapple sorbet.
I have a real soft spot for tropical fruits and pineapple is no exception. I could easily peel a pineapple and eat the whole thing in one sitting, yes I love pineapple. On a recent trip to Hawaii I was lucky enough to find local pineapples, on sale, for ONE DOLLAR! Needless to say I had about a dozen pineapples during the week and probably should have smuggled a few in my luggage, just in case. Even after all of that pineapple, it is still one of my favorites.
This recipe is everything you’d want in an easy summer sorbet: minimal ingredients, easy prep, and PINEAPPLE! I decided to add rum at the last minute to keep the sorbet a bit soft, since pure fruit sor
Bye Bye San Diego, the kitchen is closed 2007-07-13 10:17:06 The eater, the dog, and I are heading out of San Diego
tomorrow; the kitchen is all packed up and we’re packing up the truck today. Our four plus years in San Diego
were excellent but we’re moving back to Boston to new jobs, old friends, and the possibility of a house with a yard.
We’ll be shutting down for about two weeks, now is the time to subscribe to the RSS feed (if you haven’t already), read the archives, or just click madly on our links while we’re away. I hope to have some sort of exciting tales for everyone before the end of July.
See you on the right coast!!!
Read more:Bye Bye
A daring cake 2007-07-30 21:02:07
Here’s one of the last pastries I dared to make in our San Diego kitchen before our east coast relocation. This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was to construct a strawberry Bavarian with a strawberry mirror glaze. Like any DB, I accepted the challenge.
The cake wasn’t too hard to make and only comprised of a few basic parts to assemble: genoise, strawberry Bavarian cream, and a strawberry mirror glaze. Probably the hardest part of the whole cake was the Bavarian; although it may seem daunting to some, it really isn’t much of a hassle either.
This cake turned out to look very pretty, but made it on neither the eater’s nor my top ten lists for cake flavors. The eater reported that the Bavarian cream was the weak link. It was a bit gelatinous and heavy for her taste and made up too large a portion of the cake. I, on the other hand, thought the flavor was good, but the texture of the Bavarian just wasn’t as good as I hoped. I was expecting more of a mo
Mostly settled… 2007-08-23 13:31:36 It’s been almost a month since my last post. In that time I’ve: started a new job, got a new house, and moved in&hellip
;mostly. I’m still unpacking what seems to be hundreds of boxes with no end in sight. The good news is that my kitchen is almost completely unpacked and ready to go.
Things are finally settling down and I can get back into making my regularly scheduled meals. I’m officially tired of eating take-out, going out to eat, and not eating the food I cook. I know, it’s a sad day when eating out doesn’t make me happy, but I really crave some good food cooked at home. While I have appreciated getting back in touch with east coast food, home cooking is what I’m craving.
With that, I’ll leave you with a teaser shot. I made this dish for a good friend of mine for his birthday. I didn’t have all the tools I wished I had or all of the ingredients I was looking for, but this dish still managed to put a big smile on his face.
Read more:settled
8 Things you may not know about Haymarket 2007-09-22 23:32:54
Haymarket is the quintessential old-Boston market. A melting pot of people, food, and cultures all nestled on a small back street right next to Faneuil Hall. If your only experience with buying produce is at the supermarket Haymarket may frighten you a little. There’s a few nuances that seem to be unknown to the public. With that in mind, here’s 8 things you may not have known about Haymarket. (and may just help you out along the way)
Haymarket is not a farmer’s market. The produce you buy here is surplus produce that is sold to local supermarkets that you may already visit. The produce may come from halfway around the world or right down the street; if you care, ask.
Don’t touch the goods. The vendors are more than happy to choose and bag your produce for you. I know this sounds scary, but they aren’t trying to sell you bad items, they just want their displays kept nice.
The vendors may seem scary but they are actually quite nice. Take a minute to tal
The Apple of My Eye 2007-09-20 03:59:12
Saturday was the eater’s 30th birthday.
The eater gets to try many of the desserts I make, and from experience, I was pretty sure she didn’t want a cake for her birthday. I tried to think of something interesting to make, but I was just drawing blanks, so I did what any normal guy would do, I asked. She thought long and hard about different things I made and finally mentioned puff pastry; at that moment I instantly knew what to prepare.
I decided to make a variation of the classic Napolean or Mille-Feuille that I saw a classmate of mine make back when I was in pastry school; an Apple
Puff Pastry Pyramid. This dessert is comprised of three major building blocks: puff pastry, calvados cream, and apple compote. The finished pastry looks rather striking, and, if you can cut it, makes for a wonderful presentation on the plate. The separate layers of pastry, apples, and cream form layer after layer of visual delight.
I followed the recipe in The Professional Pastry Chef pretty
Tag, I’m IT. 2007-09-13 14:31:07 There’s firsts for everything, this time it’s the first time that I’ve been tagged for a meme. I’ve been tagged from the other side of the globe by a young girl from Singapore. (foodgeek has made it to Singapore, pretty amazing.)
So here’s the deal:
- Players must list one fact, word or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of their first or middle name.
- When players are tagged they need to write their own blog-post containing their own first or middle name game facts, word or tidbit.
- At the end of their blog-post choose one person for each letter of your name to tag.
- Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
I get it pretty easy since my 3-letter name was tagged, so here goes:
J - Judgmental. This is especially true for food, people’s work attitudes, beliefs, dreams…ok, just about everything. I wouldn’t say it is one of my better qualities, but it is somethin
A Polenta Feast 2007-09-07 01:34:23
Sunday I had guests over for an impromptu dinner. I was mulling over what I should serve, trying to come up with something a little more fancy than pasta or burgers, when the eater suggested we have polenta. While this is a rather vague and wide-open suggestion, I had just the thing in mind with her suggestion: baked polenta with broccoli rabe and sausage with a side of confited tomatoes.
As usual in the foodgeek household, when I want something different and interesting, I have to make a trip to the supermarket to procure all the goods. Sometimes this is a bad thing. You see, when my creative juices start flowing I tend to start adding extra dishes, coupled with the fact that I’m often hungry when I go shopping for these impromptu dinner parties, I buy way too much. Yes, I did it again. So to go along with the polenta and the tomatoes, I also picked up four pounds of mahogany clams, a side of pollack, and half a pound of prosciutto.
While I was waiting in line for a price on th Read more:Polenta
, Feast
LOBSTAH! 2007-09-06 01:21:40
Long ago (four years, to be exact) when I lived in New England, I never paid much attention to the bounty of seafood that was available here. I never noticed all the haddock, pollack, and cod to eat nor did I ever think twice about the wonderful clams, scallops, and not to mention, lobster. Coming back from California, all of this seafood was amazing to see. My cravings for lobster finally got the best of me and so starts my lobster adventures…
This may be hard for everyone to believe but, I lived in Massachusetts for 27 years and have only eaten a whole lobster once in my life. Sure I’ve had my share of lobster rolls, lobster pot pie, and lobster salad, but I’ve only had boiled lobster only once! Someone contact the food police! What is even more scary, I’ve never actually cooked a whole lobster. I couldn’t believe that when I realized I spent more than two years in culinary school and managed to never boil a whole lobster.
I had to right the ship (lobs
Swedish cookie time 2007-10-13 01:18:25 I know this may sound crazy, but chocolate chip cookies are over rated. While I do enjoy them, I think that most people just make the because they don’t appreciate the huge number of cookies that are out there.
Take for example this example above. These cookies are called Spritz Rings. My pastry teacher, a proud Swede, writes that no cookie platter would be complete (in Sweden) without these cookies. It’s not hard to figure out why, either; these cookies are buttery, crispy, and delicious. Topping it all off, they use a minimal amount of ingredients and are easily piped into any shape you desire.
These cookies used the same exact recipe as above but were piped into figure-eight patterns and filled with jam. Same buttery, crunchy goodness, now with more jam! Who doesn’t like cookies and jam? That’s what I though.
These last beauties are called Cocoa Cuts. Everyone should know how to make these cookies. Throw a few ingredients in the mixer, form into a long dow Read more:Swedish
Choux…Surprise! 2007-10-05 22:24:24 Here’s a quick pastry I made from leftover puff pastry, pastry cream, and choux paste. It makes for a great breakfast pastry and a good way to use up your leftovers. There isn’t much recipe here but I’ll give you some pictures to show you how it is done.
Roll out some puff pastry about four inches wide and about the length of a half sheet pan. Prick the dough all over so it doesn’t rise all that much. The goal is for a flaky texture not a tall puff. Spread the pastry cream over the entire pastry in a nice thin layer.
Place the choux paste in a pastry bag and pipe out figure eights down the length of the pasty. Try to keep the eights close to each other but don’t have them touching. Pipe a nice think line of jam down the center of the pastry where the eights overlap.
Combine sliced almonds and some large-crystal sugar together and spread over the entire pasty. I left the center jam portion uncover just for presentation purposes. Bake at 375F for about 20 Read more:hellip
, Surprise
Bostini! 2007-10-29 23:17:05
I cut this Daring Bakers Challenge close. I waited until the last day and pretty close to the last hour to get this cake made and posted!
This month the bakers took on the challenge of a Bostini Cream Pie. I’d probably classify this as a restaurant version of the classic dessert; it is small, loaded with eggs and cream, and intended to be made in individual servings. If you check the recipe, you’ll see that the recipe is actually from a restaurant so my initial impressions were correct.
As is true with many pastries, this one is easily broken into several basic parts: chiffon, pastry cream, and ganache. I chose to make a few (allowed) adjustments to the recipe: using coconut milk in place for orange juice, only making a half recipe of pastry cream, and coming up with my own presentation. I was surprised to see how much pastry cream there was leftover even with half the recipe; I’m sure I can find a way to make it disappear though.
I served this to the eater and my p
Happy Fish Day 2007-11-03 02:32:40
My parent’s birthdays were Sunday and Tuesday respectively. I thought it would be nice to celebrate both days together so I invited them over to my place for a nice dinner. I already planned on serving them my Daring Baker’s dessert, the Bostini Cream Pie, but I didn’t have a main dish to serve. After talking with my mom about the plans, she mentioned she’d like to have seafood. This seemed like a quite wide open answer but I decided I could take yet another challenge and come up with something.
I knew I wanted to try and make something my parents weren’t expecting so I decided to take some inspirations for the halibut dish I made a while back. I was pretty sure that my parents, being from New England, would expect their seafood deep-fried or broiled since that’s the norm around these parts. Going against the grain, I decided to go with pan searing, as I was sure they weren’t expecting it.
I made my way over to the local Whole Foods to see wha Read more:Happy
Choux, many ways 2007-11-09 03:30:24
Choux paste is one mighty useful item. It is one of those recipes that can be transformed into so many different things. The French flavor it with savory ingredients and pipe small bits of it into boiling water and call it French Gnocchi. In southwestern US long strips are piped with a star tip into boiling oil then covered with cinnamon sugar and called churros. The French also give it a similar deep-frying but with cheese added to the paste and call them gougeres. The most common of uses is probably baked goods like chocolate eclairs. Here’s a look at several variations on the baked good which may or may not be familiar to you.
Profiteroles are the classic sphere-shaped choux puffs that are split in half, filled with ice cream, and topped off with chocolate sauce. These lovely pastries usually pop up in French restaurants and bistros and they’re easily reproduced at home. This example was put together with some leftovers I had in the kitchen: frozen choux puffs, chai te
Kitchenaid Brioche — step-by-step for Amanda 2007-11-18 01:52:23 A long time ago a fellow San Diego blogger was gifted a Kitchenaid stand mixer and asked me for a mixer-friendly brioche recipe. This is probably a few months late but….
Brioche
is an enriched French bread with a large amount of butter and eggs that gives this bread a soft, sweet crumb. Brioche are formed into many different shapes but the brioche a tete is probably the most widely known. They’re usually cooked in small fluted pans with an extra small bun on top.
You can see here that I had my best go at the ‘a tete’ variety. I didn’t have access to the small fluted pans so I used a large muffin pan and tried and stay with the theme. They don’t quite look as beautiful without the fluted sides but the muffin pan worked in a pinch and produced a reasonable facsimile.
What many people don’t know is that brioche is made into other shapes including plain old loafs of bread. It seems like brioche should deserve a better fate than a normal loaf, bu Read more:mdash
, Amanda
Hearty Noodles with Butternut Squash 2007-11-16 01:58:29
A monthly event dedicated to food photography.
CLICK is theme-based. Each month, entries will be invited based on a culinary ingredient or concept. This month’s theme is noodles. I tried my best to come up with something original yet photogenic as well. While I think the pasta came out much better than expected, my photos came out just average. The dish was good enough to talk bout so here’s the story.
A few weeks ago at the local farmer’s market I picked up a butternut squash, just because. I really had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I knew it would keep for at least a month while I decided its fate. While I was thinking about what I could do for this month’s CLICK I came up with the idea to make a twist on butternut squash ravioli.
The raviolis are usually filled with cooked squash puree that is mixed with a light cheese like ricotta and some select spices. They’re quickly cooked in some salted boiling water and then served with a light sa Read more:Butternut
Potato Bread 2007-11-27 01:27:24
This month the Daring Bakers tackled yet another yeast-based product, potato bread. I didn’t participate in the last yeast challenge (sticky buns) so I figured I should step up and complete this one.
It’s no secret that I was disappointed when I saw a basic bread recipe. I was hoping for some intricate pastry or a recipe with a high degree of difficulty, but this is what we got. Since I complained a little, I really needed to finish this one and make sure I didn’t screw up.
I came up with four variations of the theme: A boule, focaccia, a four-braid loaf, and a decorative piece made from some remaining dough. The basic dough could take a few additional ingredients like olives, onions, garlic, or herbs. As usual, I waited until the last day to make this so I wasn’t prepared to modify the recipe with anything extra. The recipe works as is and won’t throw any curve balls at you. The resulting product is a light-airy bread with a decent crumb and a nice crus Read more:Potato
, Bread
Where’d December Go? 2007-12-20 21:01:33 I can’t believe December
is almost gone. It has been almost a month since my last post! I think I have some excuses I can use…
My dogs were sick
I’ve been eating nothing but ramen and take-out
my camera is in the shop
There’s no food in my house to cook
I was buried under 100ft of snow
While some of these things may be somewhat accurate, the truth is I’ve just been kind of lazy. I’ve found a flaw in my posting system and I’ll try and remedy it for the future. I’ve spoken with the eater and I will not let this happen again. Everyone should bookmark this post and send it to me 100 times if I even go two weeks without posting again.
Enough with the excuses, now how about some teasers?
New daring bakers post coming up for this weekend. (here’s a hint, holiday goodness!)
I’ve been growing some green things in the dead cold!
More macarons
Cookies!
Candies!
Cupcakes! (oh my!)
Even more good things to come in the new year, too. P
A late baker 2008-03-02 19:47:56 Late again?I hope this doesn’t become habit forming…
This month the Daring Bakers chose a recipe by Boston’s own Julia Child: Baguettes. This recipe was probably 3 pages long and very detailed. I’m not listing it here, but I’m sure you can find it on another Daring Baker’s site.
While mine did not come out as perfect [...]
Whoa! What happened? 2008-03-02 01:14:53 Sorry about the unplanned outage.
Last night we upgraded Wordpress to version 2.3.2. We were a bit behind on updates and wanted to get things back (close) to the current version. We had to create a new site for testing just in case there was a disaster. Once we got everything working properly, we cut everything [...]
It has come to this… 2008-02-23 02:42:44 The long cold winter is sucking my will to cook anything new and exciting. In the meantime, I continue to eat pizza and buy expensive produce from California.
Is it spring yet?
Banm Mi - I’m bringing spicy back! 2008-02-08 01:45:33 Shortly before I moved away from San Diego I discovered this Vietnamese bakery that sold some of the best sandwiches. Crunchy baguettes filled with just the right amount of lettuce, barbecued pork, pickled vegetables, and cilantro; these little sandwiches were not only tasty they were very cheap - about THREE BUCKS! We had these sandwiches [...]
Birthday Cake 2008-01-15 03:22:53 A few weeks ago one of my co-workers asked me if I could make her a birthday cake. There was much discussion on what kind of cakes, flavors, toppings, icings, decorations, everything. Conversations went on for what seemed like hours before we decided on a cake, and then at the last moment, the cake changed [...] Read more:Birthday
A wicked nice surprise 2008-01-04 01:40:56 A few weeks back I saw this picture on a fellow blogger’s site.
Chris, the fellow blogger, got her hands on about 50 of these mini brioche molds for an amazing deal. She happened to obtain these tins just about the same time I was making my kitchenaid brioche. In a flash I shot off a [...]
Daring Christmas 2007-12-26 20:21:41 I’m a few days late with my DB post this month, but I got it done in time for Christmas
Eve.
This month our daring assignment got a holiday themed recipe: Yule Log. This is one of those recipes that may make you cringe a little bit when you first look at it; a cake, frosting, [...] Read more:Daring
Was I too good for Cupcakes? 2008-03-18 01:23:14 Random fact: I’ve never made cupcakes. I’m not quite sure why, but I usually shy away from them. Maybe they seemed too basic, maybe I just didn’t see all the fanciful flavors of cupcakes out there these days, or maybe I just never had a decent reason. This week was different.
Usually I like to try [...]
Taste and Create VII - Toovar Dal 2008-03-24 01:07:25 In an attempt to get some more cooking inspiration, I signed up for Taste and Create VII. The idea of Taste and Create is you are randomly paired up with another food blog, find a recipe listed on their site, make the recipe, and blog about it. I thought it would be a great way [...]
Yikes! 2008-04-21 04:50:26 OMG! I went another whole month without showing off any food! I’m not sure what’s going on these days, the food gets eaten before I get the camera out! I even got a point and shoot camera to try and remedy my loathing of photoshopping all these pictures, I guess it backfired.
I promise a new [...]
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