Seven Days of Alton Brown #2! A Dashi of Irony plus a Bonus!

Welcome to day two of my adventures into the world of Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Today we’ll head to the orient, which I’m sure will amuse you. I think I can actually say it is ironic since I rarely have the inclination to pursue Asian cooking, in spite of having very close familial resources to learn from, and now that I am pursuing it, I am taking my cues from a white guy. Moving on now!

Today’s application is making Dashi which I’ll be using for another recipe later. With the leftovers from the dashi I’ll make a little bonus dish. Here are the exotic ingredients: Kombu seaweed and katsuoboshi, also known as bonito flakes.

Some special things that you need: Cheesecloth and a strainer.

Special things that would be helpful: A kitchen scale.

The kombu was purchased from a Korean market, and the sheets of seaweed were huge!  Only need two four inch pieces for this application, so some handy scissors will trim those out.

Wipe them down with a damp cloth to get this lovely silky sheen.

And drop them into a pot with 2.5 quarts of water. That’s ten cups people.

Put the pot onto a burner set to medium heat. Bring the water up in temperature to 160 degrees F. Don’t mind the word beef, there’s no beef in this recipe.

While that’s going we can measure out the bonito flakes.

There we are, half an ounce of bonito flakes.

If you don’t have a scale, it is about two cups, pressed down ever so slightly.

I missed the shot, but at 160 degrees, take out the seaweed sheets and save them for another purpose. Then bring the water up to a boil.

Once it reaches a boil, turn off the heat then toss in the bonito and give it a stir.

Yum right?

After ten minutes of simmering on low heat, drain it through some cheesecloth.

Then  you’ll have a lovely bowl of dashi, with which to make some miso soup, which will be tomorrow’s application.

Now for the bonus! After straining and pressing out the bonito flakes for the dashi you are left with… this lovely mass of fish stuff. I know, not the most appealing sight. We’ll fix that in a jiffy.

Very simple layout if you’ve got the stuff. From the top left and clockwise: 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds, 2 tablespoons of mirin, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, half a teaspoon of sugar and the leftover bonito flakes.

If your sesame seeds are already toasted, great, if not, lets get to it.

In a non stick pan over medium heat, toss the seeds in. Swirl steadily with a wooden implement until they start to change color.

It’s subtle, and perhaps I could have made them slightly darker, but this works.

The sugar and wet ingredients can be incorporated by the way. No need to dirty all these bowls unless you were planning on taking photos to blog about.

Next start cutting up the bonito flakes back into, well flakes. In my case I could roll them up and make several thin slices.

And slice across those to make some fine pieces.

Get your non stick back up to medium heat and toss in the fish flakes.

They’ll start to dry out correctly in a few minutes, and you can tell they are drying out when a few flakes start to move from the heat like paper fans in your skillet.

This looks about right. Now be really ready for the next step. I highly recommend you not do this with a camera.

Pour in the mirin-soy sauce-sugar mix.

Pause the briefest of instants to admire the bubbling of it.

And start moving things around like crazy.

Keep going, seriously.

When the bottom gets sticky  I think it is time to move on. Turn the heat off and move off.

Add in the sesame seeds and start working them into the glazed flakes.

Spread them out onto a plate to cool.

Then enjoy with steamed rice, or perhaps with fish.

These flakes are packed with flavor.

Tomorrow, miso.

Seven Days of Alton Brown #1: Hoecakes!

In case my tendencies towards the geeky side of cooking wasn’t clear enough, let me state it now. I am a huge food geek. And having said that, it should be little surprise that I absolutely loved the show Good Eats and Alton Brown’s scientific delving into all sorts of dishes, episode after episode.  This is not to say that all food geeks love Alton Brown or Alton Brown fans are food geeks, but I’ll own up to both readily.

So it was an absolutely amazing moment to actually see the man in person, shake his hand, and get my book signed.

Be jealous. Very jealous. (Good Eats 3, I highly recommend it, and if you like it, buy it from this link!)

To commemorate this momentous occasion in my life, for the next seven posts (hopefully in seven consecutive days,) I shall be posting a recipe, or should I say an application, from this wonderful tome of cooking.

The first application I have opted to try is the hoecake. With six ingredients including water, and the most exotic one being corn, it seems a great place to start. The book recipe actually titles it a dutch oven hoecake since you can use a dutch oven on coals to make these, potentially making this a great camping dish. But for the everyday, I’ve opted for the cast iron skillet version.

Mise en place: some corn (half cup, fresh or thawed if frozen), kosher salt (1.5 tsp), one egg, corn meal (1 cup), baking powder (2 tsp) and water (3/4 cup).

Assembly of the ingredients doesn’t get much simpler. First, the corn meal.

Then the salt and baking powder.

Drop in the egg.

Water.

And stir together!

Once that’s done, add the corn meal and stir again.

Heat a skillet or griddle over medium heat, then brush with vegetable oil. Once it’s ready, dollop about two tablespoons of the batter onto the surface. This takes about two minutes to three minutes. In my case, I only needed two minutes a side.

It really starts to firm up quite nicely over this time period.

Ok, it’s ready to flip now.

There it is on the left, and I just started another hoecake on the right. Maximize the use of  your cooking surface folks!

After two more minutes I took the first one off and flipped the second.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to take a bite. What immediately struck me about this dish is how buttery it felt, in spite of not having any butter at all. A great cornmeal texture too.

Work quickly or keep them warm in a 200 degree oven. Really, these are best right off the pan, letting them hang out is not optimal in the least.

And who can resist right?

More!

MORE!!

AB suggests that these are great with maple syrup.

They really are. Just a great application of corn meal folks.

In fact, I would have to say it is definitely…

Stay tuned for more AB and Good Eats applications!

Restaurant Rundown #1: Spin A Yarn Steakhouse, post Kitchen Nightmares filming!

I’m not typically one for reviewing restaurants. I like to learn about recipes, from cookbooks or other blogs, and try them out in my own kitchen. But when I found out that an upcoming Kitchen Nightmares was filmed in Fremont I had to check it out, and a visiting friend who was into cooking shows gave me an excuse to go.

The restaurant in question is Spin a Yarn. Note: I don’t think I’ll do anything like give number rankings to anything, since those are pretty arbitrary. Just good honest descriptions here folks. Now to the review. (TLDR summary at the end folks)

I tried to make a reservation, but after I heard the phone pick up, no one answered me for several long moments, so I just gave up and decided to take my chances.

The trip to the location made me realize at least one of the reasons why this place needed Ramsay’s help: Location. While reasonably close to the important Mission Blvd which links two major freeways, being a half mile away from the major intersection down a path that seemed quite industrial doesn’t seem to inviting to passing traffic.

It seems luck was with me, as they were able to seat us right away. That said, this place definitely was benefitting from the buzz generated from the Ramsay visit, as the rather expansive parking lot was packed, and the restaurant was filled with the not unpleasant sounds of tinkling silverware and wineglasses over relatively muted conversation. However, the ambiance I felt didn’t quite hit the mark for me. It was darker than I’d have liked and gave an almost foreboding feeling of the color brown, in a somewhat old fashioned way. And not the good kind of old fashioned.

The tables were neatly laid out and well spaced. And the menu was very concise, in the usual Ramsay fashion. Here it is for your reading pleasure. What immediately struck me is that sauces actually had prices. With relief I noted that the entrees came with a sauce of your choice, but it still was odd to see that section on its own like that. More on that in a bit. I will also say that he service was excellent, and we were continually checked upon not by our designated server but by several other staff passing by.

After some consideration, we ordered our appetizer, the Portabello Mushroom fries. They were nicely battered and had an interesting flavor if a bit soft, but much improved by the acidic mayonnaise dip. Not a bad start to the overall experience.

Now onto the entrees. My friend ordered the lamb chop with a green peppercorn sauce accompanied by roasted root vegetables. I had the scallops with along with the braised Swiss Chard. I selected Chimichurri after turning down the recommendation of hollandaise due to my distrust of that sauce.

Here’s my one recommendation for Spin a Yarn here that will probably be in stark contrast to the teachings of Ramsay. While a trim menu is good, the sauce section should have more text. If it is going to stand out on its own like that, having descriptions of each sauce and their traditional pairings would be an interesting read and helpful to curious clientele.

The food was decent if a bit pricier than I would have liked for the taste. With the emphasis on sauces it seemed to me that the food alone lacked the seasoning that I expect from dining out. The sauces did improve the dishes, and perhaps I should have tried the hollandaise. The sides were quite disappointing. While the texture was fine, both the root vegetables and chard were not seasoned enough, and lukewarm in temperature. My friend enjoyed the lamb considerably, but I’ve had better at what I’m sure was a better price elsewhere in the neighborhood (several years ago).

As one of the few “iconic” Fremont restaurants with a bit of history behind it, I hope that this place can kick things up a notch and really sell it, but I’m not sure all of the ingredients are in place.

And I definitely look forward to seeing the Kitchen Nightmares episode.

TLDR Summary: A dark décor and somewhat pricy menu in a restaurant well off the beaten path, with a fine dining feel without the fine dining taste. With excellent service I wish this place the best, but their trim menu could use better execution in seasoning and timing for the sake of temperature.

First Guest Post! Martin’s Mac and Cheese!

Cast Iron Therapy Note: Today’s post is brought to you by my good friend Martin, who I met initially through online gaming, but is also quite the aficionado of good food. You know your blog is successful when you’ve inspired someone like this to want to guest post on your site! With my last post being a while ago and the weather being suddenly cold and wet, it seems appropriate to have a friend’s home-style Mac and Cheese recipe gracing the blog. So without further ado, enjoy Martin’s guest post!

Have you seen the stuff this boy makes? Yakisoba bread? BLACK BEAN BROWNIES? Come on now, that is some crazy shit right there. Me, I don't cook like that; I keep it dumb in the kitchen, and I'm here to show you a delicious, basic dish you can get creative with. What's up to bat? MAC AND CHEESE.

WITNESS!

This is a pretty different take on the soul food classic, and one that'll impress those yammering cunts at the next neighborhood house party (or wherever your frenemies dwell). It's different because the cheese sauce isn't saucy: it's fluffy. That's right, FLUFFY; no gooey molten cheese or drippy forkfuls. Blasphemy? Perhaps. Delicious? OF COURSE. Let's get to work.

Spy the secret ingredient? It's bacon.

This is a pretty flexible recipe, but the essentials are a pound of pasta, 8-12oz of a strong cheese, milk, butter, flour, pepper, onion, and Worcestershire. Extras you can use include bacon, other pig-meats, crème, fancy cheeses, and bread crumbs.

Start by boiling the pasta and preparing your ingredients.

Salting the water for pasta? Essential.

Look at the massacre. Onions everywhere!

Chop half an onion into fine bits. Then grate the cheese, unless you bought it pre-shredded: rich bastard. About 10oz of cheese is what you want (a small bowl). One great thing about mac and cheese is that you don't need to be exact about anything, so feel free to eyeball everything. I did!

Now, prepare to cook. First, start pre-heating the oven to 350. Now heat up a pan (or two if you're in a hurry) and fry up some delicious bacon. 4 strips is ideal; I'm making five because my bacon is really, really cheap and fatty, and I'm only going to use the meaty part.

Economy bacon's got fat for days.

Once the bacon is done, remove it to let it cool. Now clean off the pan with hot water and put 2 tablespoons of butter in (if you heated up a second pan do this next part simultaneous with the bacon). We gonna sauté some onions. The longer you sauté, the sweeter and softer the onions will get; we don't want to burn them though, so use your judgment.

Sauté is fancy chef speak for PAN FRY IT IN BUTTER.

The onions will look like this when they are done; soft and clear.

Hold onto your shit for this next bit; we're adding flour! Add it in a spoonful at a time and stir it until all the butter is absorbed into a paste. It'll be very sticky, and the onion-butter-flour mix will form the basis for our unique sauce.

The resulting mix!

Next step is simple: pour in a cup or more of milk, a good amount of Worchester sauce (3 tbsp), and plenty of pepper. Stir it all together and heat it back up. The milk has the side effect of diluting other flavors, so err on the side of more seasoning. You can always dilute it back out.

A big weird-looking mess.

Once the milk is hot, start adding most (80-90%) of the shredded cheese in slowly, stirring constantly. It can be a little slow to melt, so don't lose your cool if it takes a few minutes to homogenize. You can add more milk here if it gets really thick and difficult (it should be gooey by the end of this step) but go easy on it, for aforementioned flavor dilution is a threat.

Saucy! I added some shredded parmesan we had lying around for fun!

Now take that bacon that's been sitting to the side, tear the fat off of it if necessary (very necessary with my bacon), and throw the meat in with the sauce. The fat tastes gross, and will make the whole package unpleasantly greasy. This is also why we want a clean, non-bacony pan for the onions in the sauté step.

 

Now your pasta will, at some point during this process, be done. Remove it from the stove and drain once it is al dente (even if you don't like al dente, do this. It will soften in the last step). Leave it until the sauce is ready.

Rigatoni: because macaroni is for plebs!

Now pour the pasta into a casserole pan, then put the sauce on top. Mix it around, paying special attention to get sauce into the corners. Once that is done, sprinkle any remaining shredded cheese onto the top as well as bread crumbs (optional) to form an extra delicious top coat. Throw that mess into the now-heated oven for 20 minutes.

Pre-oven shot, bread crumbs included.

And out! Hot damn that looks good.

That's it; simple, easy to throw together, and something that will surprise people a little. The flavors here are massive: richness of the dairy, sweetness of onion, savoryness of Worcestershire, smokiness of black pepper, it has it all. And it is a little lighter on the palette thanks to the flour and baking time!

HOLIDAY VARIATION - Replace the milk with crème, use really good thick-cut bacon, a 50/50 mix of gouda and extra sharp cheddar cheese for the sauce, and cheddar and panko for the top.

I've made mac and cheese both ways, and the holiday variation is definitely most decadent. It is also much richer, and honestly, more tiring in large quantities. I prefer the normal-style for a typical dinner, but the holiday variation is perfect if you're making this a side dish in a potluck/kingly feast.

Around and about–Photos of things

I haven’t had much time lately to make something new and exciting and cohesive as a post lately. Hopefully that will change sometime soon. In the meantime, here are some photos from the week, which will hopefully entertain you enough to continue being the semi-frequent visitors that you are.

First off, it’s our resident guard hummingbird. This rather arrogant chap has taken to roosting near our feeder and chasing off any other potential diners. He’s kind of an ass like that.

We call him “Boss.”

Ah, such simple clean ingredients. Bean sprouts. Onion. I rather liked the way this photo came together. Unfortunately I didn’t take that many afterwards. So for now, you can wonder what exactly I did with these.

An experiment. Root beer barbecue sauce with chicken. The taste was good where the sauce was, but the meat itself needs a good amount of brining to maintain balance throughout the dish.

This is half of a jackfruit. It might somewhat resemble a durian, but at the same time it is not at all, aside from being a somewhat spiny tropical fruit that offers a credible threat as bludgeoning/piercing damage.

Unlike the creamy interior of the durian, what you have instead is an array of convenient “bulbs.” The smell is much less offensive than the durian, but I hear that some people still dislike it. I have no problems however, and the often firm sweetness of the jackfruit is a winning combination in my book. You will need a good thin knife and a healthy amount of oil if you don’t want this fruit to make a “sap” out of you though. It’s a real sticky situation.

Finally here’s Fran, who refused to give me a cute face. Instead, it’s trollface for all of you!