BrowserMetrics

I felt that I wanted some soup this weekend.

My work mate bought me 2 lbs. of chicken backs from the local farm on a whim. I did ask for some in a joking manner not expecting him to buy it, but he did. So that night I threw it into the pressure cooker to make stock: garlic, onions, peppercorns, the chicken. Cook it for 90 minutes. Voila!

Now I had to figure out what soup to do. I ruled out ramen right from the start because I think I need a more richer broth than chicken stock. I fell upon Wonton soup.

Pork wontons. First, I bought the ingredients: ground pork, some green onions, ginger, garlic, and wonton wrappers. I got those at the chinese grocer by work.

I combined ground pork, chopped green onions, minced garlic and ginger together in a bowl. Drizzled a little bit of sesame oil and then mixed it all up.

I didn't cook the wontons with the broth, but before that. Dropped a few into well salted boiling water waited for them to float to the top. Scooped them out and then onto the broth.

Took the chicken stock, some more green onions, ground white pepper, and some paprika and brought it to a boil. Added the wontons back in and let simmer for 15 minutes. Done.

Not too bad. The pork is a little bit dry though and could use some salt, but I like the broth.

Yummy!

Labels: cooking

Wandered around the local grocery store at 10 PM. I'm writing this after I got back.

It was all quiet. Peaceful.

I went in really for some frozen salmon. Earlier this evening I cooked the last I had for dinner. It was as an accompaniment for a salad. I used Chef John's Miso Honey marinade as the flavoring. It turned out delicious. Afterwards, I wanted to replenish my freezer with some frozen salmon. Off to the grocery I went.

I also picked up a few odds and ends. I usually do that. For you see, I don't really cook too much at home. Salads for lunch. The occasional soup. Breakfast of oatmeal. So that's all I have. Dinner is... salad if I'm lucky. Or out. So when I shop for groceries, it's usually weird stuff.

I bought a jar of jalapeños. I plan to make some jalapeño focaccia.

I bought lots of SweeTarts. I think I'm already sick of them.

I bought some frozen cod to go along with my frozen salmon.

I'll be cooking some of it up this weekend. Let's see if I know what to do!

Labels: commerce, cooking, hunh?

久しぶり!

Long time no see!

I had too much seafood in my freezer. There was some shrimp. Some fish balls. Chicken stock, too. And there was some ramen. I guess I'm making seafood ramen for dinner!

It was to be my own recipe. Maybe I should open a ramenya.

Started off with onions and garlic sautéing in EVOO with a pinch of salt, some ground pepper, and some red chili flakes. I was gonna make the tare like a clam sauce. When the garlic and onions were browning after 10 minutes in went a can of chopped clams. Reserve the juice for later.

I let that cook while I got water boiling for the ramen.

Oh. I also bought some scallops. It was my first time to make fried scallops. Over medium heat, with EVOO and some butter, fried them up. It's really easy to mess up scallops. I think I burned one. But I tried to get them off the pan so they don't dry out. Maybe 3 minutes a side. Even if they weren't cooked through I expected them to get a bit cooked when they sit in the broth.

To the clam tare I added a quart of my chicken stock. Brought that to a boil and then added some fish balls and the reserved clam juice. I have no idea what type was in this. They were bought at H-Mart in January. They need to be used.

I made a mistake with the noodles. I did not defrost them enough so that as I cooked them I had to do them for longer because they were somewhat frozen together.

First the noodles. A good base I started with some shrimp paste. In went the noodles. Then dumped the broth in. Almost spilled out the bowl. Added the scallops and the shrimp. Done.

It was nice. Lots to eat. And fishy. I still have shrimp and fish balls and I didn't use all the clam tare. Maybe more ramen soon. Except I'm out of noodles!

Labels: better late than never, cooking

Sitting in my freezer for weeks on end are a bunch of frozen stuff. There's frozen fruit for smoothies, frozen chicken breast, a frozen pork belly, frozen soup stock, and some frozen salmon. One of these days I'll use all of them. Today it's the salmon.

I made salmon in a bag for dinner. It's a simple recipe so I just threw it together real quick with whatever I had in the cupboard.

In a parchment paper, I sliced up a fingerling potato and some carrots and onions. I layered them in the paper with some olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Overtop went one salmon fillet. Then some more olive oil, pepper, and salt. I closed up the paper into a bag and cooked in an oven pre-heated to 375F for 20 minutes.

Voila! Easy-peasy dinner.

Was it delicious? Somewhat. It needs some herbs the next time. O, there will be a next time because there is still some frozen salmon in the freezer.

Labels: cooking, mmm

I had some kimchi in my fridge. It's been in there for little bit more than a month.

I had some Brussel sprouts in my fridge. They've been in there for the better part of a week.

Looking for some dinner tonight, I decided to forgo eating takeout and decided to make a Frankenstein's monster of a dish: Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Kimchi.

First, I quartered the Brussel sprouts before tossing them in olive oil with salt and fresh ground pepper. It wasn't a whole bag, but six or seven tiny heads of them. I threw them in my toaster oven broiler for about 10 minutes. Not that long really more like 8 minutes. I didn't want to overcook them and start smelling the stink. I was just looking for a little browning on their edges.

With the kimchi, I just chopped it into smaller pieces, the better to eat them. When the sprouts were done, I just tossed both in a bowl along with left over fried tofu.

That's it. It's alright. I know that I should've put it on top of some fresh rice. That would've been even better.

I'll still have some sprouts in the fridge.

Labels: cooking

I have some of the Sun Noodle ramen noodles in my freezer again. I also have some beef bone marrow and trotters in there as well. They are going to be aged really well so I better use them before they truly expire. Like how long do I have for these things? Months? Years? Some have been there that long so, like I said, I better get to using them.

I was thinking about making some tonkatsu ramen. Slow cooker using my Instant Pot? Okay. Perhaps I should use it as the pressure cooker that it was meant to be? Maybe. We'll see.

On a sheet pan go the trotters and the beef bone marrow bones. This goes into a pre-heated 425F oven for 15 minutes just to give them color. No idea why.

As those roast, I chop up one onion, a handful of green onions, dried shiitake mushrooms, and two carrots. They go into the pot along with some ginger, some garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Then the meat. Fill with water and set slow cooker to go over night.

Of course, this isn't turning the broth into the classic creamy tonakatsu because 1) not enough trotters and pig fat 2) not boiling and 3) the mushrooms turn it dark. I think I was making that but then I really wasn't. It's just another soup base.

Hopefully, this broth is good. I'm looking to make my own homemade ramen in a cup for workday lunch. Let's see how it goes.

Labels: cooking, NewsRadio quote

I've been watch Chef John from Food Wishes cook. I like this guy, because he has cooked a lot of soups. I like soup. It's an easy thing for beginners to cook. Even Chef John says so. I must've seen twenty of his soups and it makes me feel like I could step up my soup game. Maybe I will. Maybe I will.

Let's all go cooking!

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com

Labels: cooking, lotd

I was not in the mood for cooking. Plus, I don't know what I want. All I knew was that I had mades some chicken stock last night and had too many eggs in the fridge. On the drive home, I thought I should've gotten a burger, but then I figured I would make some egg drop soup. I used this recipe atGimme Some Oven as the basis.

First, I had to figure out how to thicken the soup. That's how I ended up at gimmesomeoven.com. I guess duck duck go put it there for me. It's thickened with corn starch before heating the stock. I didn't have giger, so I skipped it and used white pepper. Not too much.

After it boiled I took some scrambled eggs and drizzled it in. I went too fast and I didn't get any of the strands of eggs. Sad.

Finally, I added some corn and some chicken along with the sesame seed oil.

Soup is good.

Labels: cooking

I'm finding cooking to be less of an exact science and more of an art. How you combine ingredients and their proportions can help define the dish.

Mash potatoes is a relatively easy dish to make: boil potatoes until tender, dump in a bowl with butter/cream, mash until done. That's the steps most every recipe I've seen has outlined. It's in between the lines where you can come up with something different. The type of potato, how much butter/cream, skin on or off, extras added. Your mileage may vary but as long as it ends up tasting good then it don't matter how you got there.

So I bought a bag of potatoes last week which I intended to make mashed potatoes with. I have no idea if these are right for the job. I bought them because they were in a sack which was convenient to carry. This sack had assorted colored potatoes, purple, reds, golds. I took these potatoes washed and removed the dirt on them, threw them into a pot, covered them with water, took it to a boil and then let them cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.

I had also bought bacon. I love bacon on my baked potatoes so I figured I'd throw them in mash potatoes. I crisped up the bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven at 385 for 15 minutes. Usually, I would throw them on top of aluminum foil to make cleaning up easy, but this time I wanted crips so I put them on the bare metal pan. Now, I've got to figure out how to clean up a bacon fat congealed pan, but at least they came out crispy. I set the bacon aside to degrease, then chopped it up.

Finally, the garlic. I used the microwave trick. I minced three cloves and placed them in a ramekin with some of the bacon fat. I microwaved them on half power for a minute and a half, stirred them once, and set them in the microwave to finish in another 15 seconds. I forgot to set the power to half. They were almost burnt. Just more dark than I wanted.

When the potatoes were done, I drained them, then started mashing them in a bowl. I don't have a potato masher, so I used a wooden spoon. I added some salt at this time. Also, some heavy cream and butter which I had heated up in the microwave. I reserved some of the water from the pot to also aid in creaming the potatoes. Sprinkling some salt along with the bacon and the fried garlic, I continued mashing the potatoes until done. I think I went to far as they are a little bit too smooth.

One thing to note is that the purple potatoes were also purple flesh so it looked like ube in there. But they still taste like potatoes.

I guess I'll be having this for a few lunches before getting sick of them.

Labels: cooking

I bought a 3 lb. bag of onions a couple weeks ago for my chicken stock. I only used a couple, then I was left with a sack of onions that may be going bad in my root cellar AKA the bottom drawer of my kitchen cabinet. So I needed to use all the onions fast. The only recipe I could think of was French Onion Soup.

I've never made it but if its a soup its got to be easy: onions, broth, bread, and cheese. Now how to you put it all together? I took my inspiration from the Pioneer Woman's recipe for French Onion Soup, Serious Eats' recipe for the Best French Onion Soup, and Good Dinner Mom's French Onion Soup.

Caramelizing the onions is the key to this soup. I followed the Pioneer Woman's suggestion and roasted it in my dutch oven in the oven. Serious Eats is correct when they say that enameled cast iron doesn't brown the onions. I was lucky that the sack onions was yellow onions as Good Dinner Mom recommends. So I started the onions on the stove top with a mixture of EVOO and butter.

I sliced them in my hand mandolin, threw them in the pot with some pinches of salt, and let cook for about 30 minutes. I wanted them to start going translucent while I heated the oven to 400F.

Once at that temperature I put the whole pot into the oven for a cooking time of about an hour. Half-way through I stirred the onions because they were starting to get burnt in spots.

At the end of the hour, I finished it off on the stove. I would spend another 10 minutes getting the onions to be brown. I turned off the stove and added a cup of cooking sherry to deglaze the bits and pieces stuck on the bottom of the pot. I would reduce this mixture and I added 3 gloves of minced garlic and some fresh ground black pepper. This would take another 10 minutes to reduce.

Actually, while all this was going I was heating up whatever chicken stock I had in my house. There was stock I had made a few weeks ago and I had some other in the cupboard. It was only 5 cups, so I finished it off with three extra cups of water to make it 8 cups or 2 quarts of broth. As I heated it up I added some ground pepper.

When the onions looked ready, I added the broth into the pot. I used it to deglaze the pot again so that all the good bits and pieces were in the pot. I added a few twigs of fresh thyme and a bay leaf and let it simmer for 30 minutes. I also added the secret ingredient of few dashes of fish sauce.

Grated gruyere and well toasted sourdough bread finished off the soup.

I must say the time it takes to make this soup -- about 3 hours -- is worth it. Hopefully, it tastes good at lunch tomorrow.

Labels: cooking, mmm

On Sunday I went to the grocery store for this week's meals. Now, I know I bought too much, and I didn't have any idea of the menu. I just haphazardly shoved stuff into the cart. I knew I wanted to make a salad. I left the groceries with romaine, red cabbage, onions, plum tomatoes, and carrots.

I made a salad earlier in the week which featured these ingredients. It was delish! But now I have too many vegetables in my fridge. I need something different.

So with the cabbage and carrots, I made a coleslaw. I'll have some for breakfast, some for lunch, and maybe some for dinner. Now I have too much coleslaw in the fridge! (And still too many vegetables!)

Labels: cooking

I followed the roasted carrot soup on Food52 to make lunch tomorrow. I didn't follow it faithfully. I used it as the guide to making the soup. Why?

I thought I had enough carrots in my fridge. I was wrong. The recipe calls for 6 to 8 large carrots. I had 5 small carrots! I tried to cut down the amount of broth to fit, but I still kept to the steps.

I broiled the carrots in olive oil for about 20 minutes. I boiled the stock (chicken stock in the fridge!) with piece of ginger and a pinch of dried thyme leaves. I sautéed the onions and garlic until transparent. When the carrots were done, I threw it into the sauté then dumped stock into the pot. I brought it to a boil then backed off and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Finally, I puréed it in my blender.

Now I'm letting it sit to cool before putting it in the fridge to keep over night until lunch tomorrow.

The recipe says it's a serving for four. Tonight it came out to be about 3 cups. Is that a serving for three? Tomorrow it will be a serving for one!

I did taste it during the puréeing process. It tasted good. Let's see tomorrow.

Labels: cooking

Over the weekend, I made some chicken stock for soups. Basically, I used my new pressure cooker's slow cooker function to craft some chicken stock. It's a standard stock of whatever I had in my fridge: leeks, celery, carrots, onions, garlic. I just threw them into the slow cooker with 1 1/2 lbs. of chicken wings, set it to 10 hours on low, and let it cook overnight to its heart's content. Afterwards, I pulled out the chicken and shredded it, cooled the stock and removed the fat. That's it.

For the soup, I'm just going to sauté onions and carrots, because I still have some on hand. Then throw in the chicken. Now the chicken was shredded so the chunks aren't really chunks of chicken but small particles of chicken. Unfortunately, this doesn't look to appetizing, but it is the chicken I got from my stock. I added 2 quarts of the chicken stock and another quart of water.

For seasoning, besides a pinch of salt, I added 1 tsp of thyme and dried basil, 1/4 tsp of white pepper, and a 1/4 tsp of fish sauce (patis).

For noodles, I'm using whole wheat fusilli. I know I put too many in so that it turns into a mushy stew. Hopefully not. (Cross my fingers.)

I took this to a boil then dropped it to low to simmer for an hour. I'll let you know if it is any good. (Cross my fingers.)

Labels: cooking

Tried my hand at making onigiri, rice balls. It's a simple thing to make -- cooked rice, a savory filling, a piece of seaweed -- formed into a ball.

First the rice. It's a Japanese rice usually sold at the supermarket as sushi rice. You should use this style because it balls up really well. Somewhere I read that using another type of rice like jasmine or Chinese rice won't do, because those types don't ball up well.

Second the filling. Usually there is a filling, if you must know. You could make it without one, but then it won't be as satisfying. I used tuna. Just a scoop.

Finally the seaweed wrapper. It's nori! They come in a package of 10. I won't get anywhere close to using the entire package. It may take me years. I snipped a sheet into 2 small pieces then wrapped the rice balls.

How to shape them? I followed a trick that I read on the net. I used a tea cup and some plastic wrap. I put some plastic wrap on a tea cup then placed some rice on it. I put some filling in and enclosed the rice in my fist. Then shaped it. I shaped it into the traditional triangle. Or at least I thought I did.

One final thing, I used some furakake to add some flavor.

That's my onigiri. I hope you try it too one day.

Labels: cooking

I had some Sun Noodle ramen in the freezer so I made some ramen this evening. It was some kind of shoyu ramen with chicken. I threw in a soft boiled egg. It was a cooking adventure!

Cooking. Me cooking. I am a mess, because I am an amateur. There's a lot to juggle to make dinner especially if you are hungry. You have to get everything to cook within minutes.

It was the first time I had 3 burners on the stove going. And I also had the pressure cooker going.

Let's start with the pressure cooking an egg. I usually steam my eggs after I found out how easy it is to get to the proper cooked state. Hard boiled is just about 6 minutes. Soft boiled? I put it in for 4 minutes, but I think it should be slightly longer. When I peeled it, it came apart. It wasn't a perfect egg, but it was perfectly soft boiled.

Next the chicken. I fried it. But I suck because I used a regular frying pan. I don't think I got the oil hot enough. After breading it, I dropped the chicken into the pan cooking it on each side about 5 minutes. When I took it out and sliced it, the chicken wasn't done. In it went again. I over cooked it. But it's okay. It's fried!

The noodles. These are great noodles. I bought the "kaedema" style which is just a smaller package of ramen. I think. The way to cook the noodles is to just get a pot of water boiling, drop the noodles in, and cook for about 5 minutes. Maybe more or maybe less. I got it done enough that I pulled it out of the water early and let sit for a bit in a strainer waiting to go into the broth.

The broth. It's a combination of store bought chicken broth and my very own mushroom vegetable broth. I made it in my pressure cooker! I just combined both in a pot and brought it to a boil. I added 1 tablespoon of shoyu (soy sauce), a dash of mirin, and a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce. Pepper to taste.

A word about the chili garlic sauce. Scrumptious! It's my favorite flavor to add to a soup, because it always seems to make the broth so better.

Mmm. Mmmm. Good.

I'm going to keep cooking ramen especially. I just need to use those fresh noodles from Sun Noodles. They are the best.

Labels: cooking, mmm

Bookstore Haul: Volume 11 -- This Is The End of NewsRadio Quote Month

Why did I have to leave work early? Now I had to find some place to kill time. And I went to my favorite hang. Fudge. I bought some stuff. Again. Why? I haven't even cracked the other stuff I bought the other times. This is getting to be ridiculous.

Also, the end is neigh for NewsRadio Quote Month. One more into the books. Shit. Another year. And more around the waist.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu as translated by Ken Liu. Science fiction. I haven't taken a look at fiction in a while. Let alone sci-fi. I hope this is good.

Sushi: Taste and Technique by Kimiko Barber and Hiroki Takemura. There's dashi maki tamago. I need to eat less sushi. And make it more.

Labels: bookstore haul, cooking, NewsRadio quote

I like making soups. I want to make them all the time for dinner. It’s just like how my mom does for almost any and every dinner.

Tonight was miso, mushroom, barley soup - a very comforting combination of flavors.

I got the idea from Mark Bittman’s book, The Kitchen Matrix. There’s a section in the front for quick and easy broths. I followed the one for the mushroom broth. Then threw in the one for miso as well. Two for the price of one.

It’s one pound of mushrooms in six cups of water. Bring it to a boil then simmer. He recommends that these easy broths be done in about 5 to 10 minutes. I let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

The mushrooms I used were white buttosn, brown criminis, and shiitakes. I could’ve done without the shiitakes as they don't boil very well. But I chopped about 1 1/4 lbs of mushrooms and threw them in the pot.

I seasoned with 2 pinches of salt. Maybe I shouldn’t have as the miso would take care of the sodium content later, but I figured that would make the mushrooms at least a bit tasty.

In a separate and smaller pot, I threw in 1/4 cup of barley. Then when the broth was done, I added 2-3 cups of the mushroom broth. I didn’t add mushrooms at that time, although if some had gotten into the broth when I scooped it, I let them go into the soup.

I boiled and simmered this mixture again for 10 minutes. I assume that, like rice, barley takes about that long to cook. Of course, YMMV but I was also going for a slightly al dente feel to the barley.

Finally, I added 2 tablespoons of white miso and chopped scallions into the simmer, stirred it around, then let it sit for another couple of minutes.

When I put it into a bowl, I added mushrooms and some black pepper. Mmm.

It made about 3 servings.

I was full on the 2nd.

Don’t have coke with this combo. Have tea instead.

The miso was purchased from South River Miso, a Vermont farm making organic miso. I bought the sampler. Their white miso is sublime.

Labels: cooking

I'm trying my hand at slow cooker pulled pork. This is the first time I've done this so we'll have to see how it goes. First off, I referenced these two pulled pork recipes: Shutterbean's slow cooker pulled pork and the easy oven pulled pork. I pulled the slow cooker style from shutter bean but went with the flavoring found at serious eats.

It's cooking right now on low. I'm going to check on it in 4 hours, then flip it over and maybe cook it for another 4... overnight.

I made a rub for it. Cumin, garlic powder, paprika, white sugar, fresh ground pepper, kosher salt. I rubbed this on a 2 pound pork shoulder/butte. I bought this cut of meat in a 5 pound version with the bone in it. That was the original size, but it doesn't fit in my slow cooker. So I butchered it down to 2 pounds without the bone. I did that this morning and rubbed it down also with salt and pepper before refrigerating for the afternoon.

So, after I applied the light rub, I decided to sear it just like the serious eats version. I did this on my stovetop in my trusty dutch oven. I only took it to 2-3 minutes a side until they developed some cover.

I prepped the slow cooker. I chopped up an 1 1/2 onions and laid some in the slow cooker. My slow cooker is taller than it is wide. I also chopped up some garlic. I threw it in the slow cooker like the onions and turned the cooker on high to begin the slow, slow heating up.

When the meat was slightly seared, I transferred it to the slow cooker. I poured in about 16 oz of store bought, low sodium chicken broth enough to cover half the meat. I then poured a little more into my dutch oven to deglaze whatever was burnt onto it. I poured this liquid onto the meat in the slow cooker. I then added 1/2 teaspoon of some liquid smoke and 3 bay leaves. The bay leaves I put in because if bay leaves are good enough for pork adobo it should be good enough for pulled pork. I finally covered the rest of the meat with a little more onions and garlic.

Cross your fingers that this turns out edible.

Labels: cooking, step-by-step

I was thinking about cooking hot dogs for dinner tonight. That was before I heard on the radio on the ride home that it was National Hot Dog Day.

YAY!

Four Nathan's franks boiled on the stove with mustard and onions.

YAY!

As ol' Brent Steinberger said, "I never met a hot dog I didn't like."

Labels: cooking, mmm, picture

I have many different Asian noodles in my cupboard. I don't know what to do with them. I usually put them in soups, but maybe an occasional stir-fry. I need to know which noodle to use. I need to cook more.

Speaking of which, I did make a soup yesterday with noodles. It's a simple recipe I got from my mom. Whenever she has some meatballs leftover, I get a few and make this soup. To start, fry some garlic in oil, and then add the leftover meatballs. Let that cook for a bit then dump in your broth. I used the rest of the chicken broth I made plus a few more cups of water. Finally, when it boils dump the noodles in, and bring it down to a simmer for about half an hour.

Simple, right? But I forgot: add salt and black pepper to taste.

Here's where today's link helps out. From some of the pictures, it looks like I'm using somen noodles! Wow. I did not know that. I just used the bunch that I also got from my mom. Now that I know, I'll can find it in the store myself.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/08/asian-noodle-shopping-guide.html

Labels: cooking, lotd