Chile Lime Yuba, Jiaozi, Others

Since the last post, I've intended to do more cooking with chemicals. It hasn't happened, really. One experiment in making some form of ice cream (hemp milk, xantham, versawhip) was met with success but  that isn't exactly impressive; ice cream is fairly trivial to make (though it is nice to not need a machine to do it). In the mean time, most of my meals have been simple ingredients with involving preps. For instance, I made a yuba stir-fry that involved making steamed buns, cleaning a rather lot of mushrooms and snap peas, carmelizing onions, and using a mortar to grind a sauce from jalapeno and basil. Yet the end result was just interesting; maybe something to work on, but nothing extraordinary. In fact, what I've described is basically the recipe if you add some lime to the sauce and some soy sauce to the stir fry.

For recipes that I can give, there were some definitely delicious dishes cooked in the past weeks. For instance, this mujaddara from food52 was phenomenal and simple. Cooking the rice in the oven was something I had never considered though it now makes perfect sense. The trick to really good sushi rice is ensuring it cooks by steaming, not boiling. Putting it in the oven is like the too-lazy-to-buy-a-rice-cooker man's solution to this problem. We topped it with oven-roasted carrots and broccoli, a dish that E has been knocking out of the park lately.

Another is a repeat iteration of "peas with horseradish", from Momofuku. That is it, really. Oh, it is from Momofuku so you have to add some butter. But, yeah, that is it. Heat some butter in a cast iron. Add some sugar peas, or snap peas, or really any pea that cooks quickly until you think it is done. When it is, sprinkle on some salt, shave some fresh horseradish on, toss it, plate it, and shave a little more horseradish. Consume, quickly. The flavor on this one diminishes quickly.

And, finally, a glorious dish: jiaozi (or, chinese dumplings). E kicked ass on this one, basing the recipe on the first hit on Google (note for later: searching for ethnic food recipes by their ethnic names yields better dishes). We subbed "Gimme Lean"-brand vegan ground beef substitute for the real thing and used store-bought wrappers. It took a while, considering how cramped my steamer became. One batch was boiled; I wouldn't recommend that - steam these puppies. They are awesome.

Tomato-Radish Lentil 'lenta

In a shocking turn of events, the weather turned cold for the weekend. The (relative) heat of last week made cooking difficult, as did a rather packed schedule. I managed a round of bagels, on which the yeast did not activate. To follow that up, I cooked a dinner of which none of my photographs turned out. Cell phone camera, combined with low light, strikes again. But, I'll still provide the recipe because it was highly edible and a great foil for the cold weather. The dish was partially influenced by a brunch item at Gather - the lentil and polenta. It was a great breakfast food that I wanted to fashion as a dinner. I mostly failed, because I don't season things enough. More following of recipes may be in my future. So, yes, the flavor could stand to be improved but everything else about the dish was good. Have at it (or don't).

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Lentil 'lenta

Serves 2

1 standard size can of lentils or lentil soup

2/3 cup dry polenta

2 cups water

bunch of radishes (15 or so)

2 flavorful tomatoes

1 shallot

1 tbsp olive oil

spices other than what I used (cumin, dill, and cayenne) or in larger quantities

salt

(optionally) butter or cheese

So, lots of things going on at once with this recipe. Take 5 radishes and dice them, reserve a single radish, then slice the rest in half. Toss the halved radishes in the olive oil and salt, then place in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Once they are in the oven, dice the shallot and sautee it over medium until it has yellowed and lost some flavor. Cut the tomatoes into 6-8 slices each. Put one of them, as well as the diced radish, in with the shallot. Place the other tomato in a pot with the water and bring to boil while making sure the pan doesn't burn. You can, if you want, add some butter or cheese to the pot of water.

Once the water is boiling, add the polenta, reduce heat, and stir. Add the can of lentils to the frying pan, season it, then alternate between stirring the polenta and lentil mixture. You are aiming for a runny polenta mixture, which takes 5-10 minutes of cooking. This should be timed for the radishes coming out of the oven. Serve in a bowl with polenta put in first, the lentil mixture spooned into the center, and top with the baked radish. Slice the single, reserved radish for garnish.

Further Research into Popped Loaves of Bread, and Others

It has been a while since my last post. Shortly after coming back from vacation-vacation, I went on a week-long work-vacation to attend PAX, visit my family, attend a wedding, and work out of every coffee shop I could think of drinking in in the neighborhoods of Seattle that I know. To name drop: Victrola, Vivace, Verite, Fiore, Trabant, Solstice, Ladro. I did a tiny smidge of cooking by introducing my grandparents to the wonder that is dinosaur kale and by making them a loaf of bread. I did a rather lot of eating out, some of it even at new places. And now that I'm back, I've done a bit more cooking. All of these things in due time.

First, the bread. It looks like some other popped loaves I have prepared. This had a few things in common with the first loaf - that it used normal flour and it was cooked in an oven that was not my own. The oven is most likely older than I am, and probably approaching as old as my mother. It doesn't like being told what temperature to cook out; I set it to 425 and it gladly sat at 450 for long enough to call it stable; yet, when I checked ten minutes later it was sitting at 475. This gave the bread a somewhat scorched flavor, but it still had an odd taste which I will attribute to the use of normal flour. My grandparents found it delicious but I found it simply average. Lesson learned, don't use normal flour for bread. Moving on from this bread, I cooked dinner with E last night and made, roughly, this

It was pretty good, though we did make a few substitutions. Noticeably, we have figs where the recipe called for dates (we both read figs, and local figs where available). Less noticeably, although very apparent when tasted, we left out the serrano pepper and put in chili powder in its stead. Not enough, though. E commented that the sauce tasted like herbed cream cheese and that it belonged on crackers or bagels; I would recommend making sure it has a kick, and, if you are using a mortar and pestle in place of a food processor, cutting the amount of oil in half initially and building from there. Still, a delicious meal that was, roughly, one pan. Especially so if you leave out the mint sauce.

And, lastly, the notable places I went to in Seattle much in the style of my fellow food friend

• ThaiTom because that was a large part of my college cuisine. Cheap Thai food ready in 5 minutes, seating right next to the woks where the magic happens? Sign me up!
• Solstice because ditto, although the coffee-and-bagel portion.
• Paseo. Yes, I was just in the Caribbean. No, they did not have sandwiches anywhere near this level of goodness.
• Palace Kitchen, which was an excellent meal for a good price (as always). We had an appetizer and split the burger; I would recommend the same.
• Tilth; I felt like spending a chunk of change on a good meal. This was definitely a good place to do it. We went with the smaller tasting menu and enjoyed every dish.
• Facing East (on the Eastside, but not too far out of the way). Something about this place was delicious; I don't know if the food was truly good or if it was simply the sauces.

Two Simple Meals

Having been a little under the weather recently, nothing extravagant has been prepared in my kitchen. I'm currently working from home, resting, and very full. From what, you ask? None other than the perfect "lunch for the common cold".

Sometimes, a simple meal is all you really need. Here we have some orange-like thing from the grocery store (tangerine?), Jarlsberg toasted cheese, prepared the proper way, and tomato soup from a can, with a dash of cheese and dill sprinkled on top. How to prepare grilled cheese the proper way? Well, your cheese should be sliced thin and layered only one slice thick. A very tiny pad of butter should be placed on the top and bottom of the bread. Place it in a frying pan, then turn on the heat to medium-low. After a minute or so, slide the bread around by shaking the pan by the handle (to spread out the butter). Every 30 seconds or so, peek into the cheese - once it starts melting even the slightest bit, flip the whole thing over and continue cooking until the cheese becomes a little gooey; at that point, give it a firm press with a spatula, a flip, and another minute or so of cooking.

It is also possible to cook a lazy, healthy dinner to make up for the gluttony of holiday meals and desserts, without using any energy that would be better spent slothing around the apartment.

Here we have Israeli Couscous cooked with chopped carrots and broccoli, spiced lentils with bell pepper, and steamed carrots and broccoli on the side (as well as on top, obviously). The lentils came from a can, plain, and spices were added. To cook couscous with veggies in it, simply chop the veggies into the water before boiling it. They will add a little bit of flavor (you can add broth or spices as well) to the couscous, as well as cooking fully.

Hopefully my sickness will fix itself soon, allowing me to get good and thoroughly hung over for New Years and possibly cooking something before then.