Author: foodnerd

not about food, at least not much

OK, so i finally watched the Project Runway finale last night. I’m not going to spoil anything, but i do have one general comment.
If fashion seems to think that hips need to be bigger, to the extent that we embrace and praise poufy bubble-shaped miniskirts and tailored pencil skirts that deliberately extend away from the waist under their own power, then perhaps we ought to consider standards of beauty that include girls who actually HAVE hips. Dang.
Also, I cannot abide the girl or the rest of her collection for even a second, but i grant Kenley the right to continue existing on the strength of that feathered wedding dress, knockoff or not.

china pearl dim sum

we’ve eaten dim sum twice in the past week, which is delightful, and i’ve run across a couple of new treasures that should be documented here. we didn’t take photos, sorry.
pork-n-peanut dumplings: little white rice dumplings with pork, waterchestnut and peanuts. crunchy & savory.
black sesame jelly rolls: squishy, quivery black sesame jelly in a thin sheet, rolled up into a log. perfect dessert after a bunch of fatty savories. hard to spot, tends to be on the lower shelf of the mixed dessert/savory bun cart.
shrimp & chive dumplings: more rice-wrappers, stuffed with what seems like a 50-50 mix of flat chive pieces (maybe 3/4″ long) and chopped shrimp.
donut wrapped in rice noodle: deep fried oil stick (crunchy donut) wrapped in fresh white rice noodle, then topped with cilantro & soy sauce. Even though the donut loses the crunchy, it’s still insane yummy goodness.
shrimp & lychee in a deep-fried crunchy noodle wrapper: another hard-to-find item. they’re easy to see — the yellow fried flat-noodle clumps are distinctive — but we found them enclosing the shrimp/lychee filling on visit 1, but on visit 2 the insides turned out to be crab claws, shell and all.

scrambled eggs with chanterelles and parmesan

tallasiandude is feeling a little under the weather today, and he really wanted eggs for breakfast. so I whipped some up, but I figured I’d chuck in some of the leftover chanterelles, sauteed in butter, and then put a little parmesan on top, because he’d asked for cheese.
i got a little bite of this, because it smelled awfully good, and holy moly: THIS is a flavor combination that really works. The mushrooms come through very clearly, and the other nutty/creamy notes around it really show them off beautifully.
I am so making some more for myself later on for lunch. YUM.

mushroom, MUSHROOM

holy crap. my brother went chanterelle picking yesterday, and this has arrived on my doorstep via Fedex.

he says it is my birthday present, and i think it’s one hell of a present. let’s take another look:

he claims that when they are this fresh, they give off enough liquid to reduce separately into a gravy with a light roux. he did say that the batch he made last night were drier than usual, so i guess we’ll see how these turn out. i think i am going to just saute them, make however much gravy I can with their juices, and put them over toast.
damn. it’s weird seeing so many of them all in one place. weird but GOOD.

instructions for mushrooms

Open the box and spread them out on some trays, a table, oven racks,
whatever. Just don’t leave them mashed up in the box.
DO NOT WASH THEM. They are sponges, essentially. Just brush/blow them
off. An old toothbrush or paintbrush works well. Sorry for any slugs,
sticks, bugs, or spiders. It goes with the territory. Cut away anything
you don’t like the looks of. This makes quite a mess, by the way. I do it
over the sink.
I cut them into bite size pieces lengthwise, the small ones I leave
whole. You can also chop them for recipes or gravy. The first night, I
usually make them in a pan with butter gravy. Here are the steps.
In a medium saucepan or frypan, heat maybe half a stick of butter over
med/low heat. Let the water bubble off. Add about an equal amount of flour
and keep stirred until golden brown (the color of the raw mushrooms is a
good guide). You want a light roux, so not too much flour.
At the same time, heat the largest frypan you have over high heat.
Add a little olive oil when hot, then the mushrooms. A mountain is ok, they
cook way down. It will be a little freaky at first, some squeaking,
sticking, etc. Soon, they will release their water and the pan will quiet
down. Soon, they may even be swimming. At this point of high water, dump
off all the liquid you can into a bowl. Continue frying the mushrooms until
they are soft and dark. You can even continue until they start to brown.
This is pretty much to taste, I don’t worry too much about overcooking
them. You may have to add more oil or butter, or adjust the heat at some
point.
Once the roux is golden, add the mushroom juice and simmer until the
desired thickness. If needed, you can stretch it with stock or water or
whatever. Salt well, and add a little fresh pepper. Serve when the
mushrooms are finished.
I have used them to stuff chickens, put them in scrambled eggs, on home
made pizza, in ravioli, on the bbq, and in many soups and stews. You can
also dry them. I have a feeling they won’t have a very long life span.

harvest time

Fall Colors

Fall Colors

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude

it is that time of year when it gets dark earlier, the weather gets sharper even when it’s still warm, and we get inundated with season-end produce that needs to be eaten immediately lest it perish.
so i’m playing catch-up in the kitchen these days, figuring out how to use as many tomatoes as possible — and i’m finally resorting to cooking them, which is how i know that autumn is nigh. Under normal circumstances I would never allow heat to touch a garden tomato — they must be eaten raw, with salt and pepper and oil, or possibly in a sandwich with mayonnaise and toast.
but i just cut a particularly vulnerable specimen into my bean-corn-beef stew, and i am drying bread cubes for scalloped tomatoes. and I have to tell you, scalloped tomatoes actually do ease the sting of oncoming winter, because they are just so darn tasty: roasty tomatoes, toasted bread cubes, Lawry’s seasoned salt, hot from the oven. Yum.
then i have to figure out what to do with the last few watermelons now that it’s cold enough that we don’t actually feel like eating watermelon any more. i am thinking agua fresca…
[for Christi: this is the recipe i liked best when testing versions for the drink we had at the wedding: Watermelon Agua Fresca]

putting into numbers what one can guess instinctively

A coworker forwarded this today, about how world consumption overshoots natural resource regeneration capacity each year: World Overshoot Day
It more or less boils down to the idea that since 1986, we’ve gone further and further into natural resource debt each year. Which i suppose explains why it feels like the world has been going steadily down the tubes without letup for my entire adult life. I do not like it, no sir, I do not like it at all.

more chicken burgers – spicy korean style

Just a note to say that chicken burgers are also good made with:
1 lb ground chicken
minced onion (1/4 onion)
minced shiitakes (4, rehydrated in a bit of hot water and some teriyaki sauce)
tbsp of korean spicy soup paste
the rest of the mushroom hydrating liquid (there was as little as i could get away with)
and then sprinkled with a little salt once they’re in the pan.
I made li’l mini-burgers, inspired by Just Bento, and they do seem to make it a little easier to eat smaller amounts of food. I had them with a scrap of leftover white rice and a pile of sauteed chard last night for dinner, and they was yummy.