Kale Chips!

Twenty minutes or less. Such a theme brings up a number of ideas for dishes, and it also makes one think up a variety of possible loopholes to exploit, especially since this week’s theme stipulated it was twenty minutes that starts after you assemble the mise en place.

So what about preheating an oven or a pot of oil? Or perhaps I was “assembling” my bread dough before baking it, or just “putting together” the batter for tempura before frying?

However, I don’t really like lawyers or exploiting a turn of phrase, so for this week, I decided to do something in twenty minutes, including the amount of time it took to put the things together…. Kale Chips. All in all, from start to the completion of the first batch took 16 minutes, including the time spent taking photos.

I suppose you could say there’s some exploitation involved since I was using non stick spray and a microwave, neither of which are involved in my usual cooking methodologies, but when beating the clock, you gotta do what you gotta do.

First the assembly of everything I’ll need. A large mixing bowl for washing and dressing the kale, one bunch of kale, a large plate that will fit in the microwave, parchment paper, and some ground sea salt. So far, two minutes elapsed.

Next, the Kale is washed and dried, shaken vigorously in the backyards with a swishing motion that makes people who haven’t seen it before wonder why you are throwing your vegetables on the ground, but say “ooh” when they realize what you’ve done.

Six minutes in total elapsed.

Tear the kale vigorously into smaller pieces with your hands quickly.

Spray quickly with non stick spray, then sprinkle on sea salt and get hands into it, ensuring non stick spray or oil and sea salt has coated all the surfaces of the kale. Nine minutes in total elapsed so far.

Spread a layer of kale on a dish lined with parchment paper. Ten minutes.

Microwave four minutes and test chips, decide they need one more minute. Scramble to hit the timer again. Sixteen minutes elapsed.

First batch of microwaved kale chips, not bad at all.

Place in a bowl to allow to cool a bit while finishing out the rest of the kale. The whole bunch obviously took a bit longer than twenty minutes, but if you cut out the cleaning and drying time with adequate preparation before hand, it will easily fit into twenty minutes.

Here’s my second batch. I have to say I was surprised at just how crispy and satisfying the kale chips were. I may have eaten most of an entire bunch of kale on my own in one night. I’d like to experiment with curry powder or other spice mixtures in the future.

Microwave Kale Chips, adapted from a bunch of different sources on the web.

• One bunch kale, washed and well dried
• Non stick spray or olive oil
• Finely ground sea salt to taste
• Ground pepper and other spices to taste

1. Tear kale into medium sized pieces, discarding the thick stems, and place in a large container.
2. Spray with enough nonstick spray to coat every piece of kale and sprinkle on a little sea salt and extra seasoning if using.
3. Mix well with hands to ensure even coating and seasoning.
4. Place kale on a large dish lined with parchment paper in an even layer. You probably can only do a third of the bunch or less per batch.
5. Microwave for 4 to 5 minutes.
6. Carefully remove kale chips from microwave, as the dish can get very hot. Pour into a serving bowl and repeat until all the kale has been turned into kale chips.

Fancying it up–Gateau de Crepes

French food week on 52 weeks of belated cooking posts. I mean 52 weeks of cooking. The week of the best cuisine in the world, at least if you subscribe to the theory that French food is the best food. I haven’t eaten enough or done enough comparison to make that judgment myself, but there is definitely a reputation there.

Then again, maybe there isn’t such a reputation anymore, depending on who you ask. That’s all I’ll say on that matter for now.

On a more personal level however, as a Vietnamese American, it is hard to deny the influence of the French upon our cuisine. The introduction of baguettes led to the now well known banh mi. Custards, potatoes, and onions are also a few of the many other introductions they made to Vietnamese cuisine, and I certainly have no complaints with these items at all.

And while it would be fairly easy to show off a French influenced Vietnamese dish, I shall try to be a bit more French leanings with the Gateau de Crepes, literally translated into a Crepe Cake. It may also be called a  mille crepe, or thousand crepes, but given that it is either 20 or 30 layers typically, wouldn’t it be better to call it the vingt or trente cake?

Horchata!

It’s rice week on Reddit’s 52 Weeks of Cooking, and I could have totally taken some more intrinsic routes, given my +2 to making Vietnamese rice dishes as a Vietnamese person.

Over the course of my life, it was very common to have rice twice a day, or maybe even three times a day, with a breakfast of fried rice from last night’s leftovers. Not to mention the uses of glutinous rice as well in desserts, celebratory dishes and so on.

It also usually involves a contraption like this. Asian people don’t need to know how to cook rice, since we have these fabulous machines to do it for us!

But when it comes to cooking I try to avoid the road more traveled, at least with cooking challenges. So I opted to take the rice I had on hand (from the traditional 50 pound bag most Asian households have) and made Horchata! Very glad I did too, it is super easy and delicious. Unfortunately she was not around, and was very jealous.

The First Comic Cooked on Comic Booked

A heads up for those who want to be in the know but are not yet, I thought I’d give everyone notice that I’ve been a writer for the comic book focused website, Comic Booked.

Mostly my focus has been on webcomics, but I’ve been given the freedom to start up a new column, Comic Cooked! For the first time around, I am doing a homage to Iron Man, and the man behind the armor, Tony Stark.

So if you like the idea of the Iron Manwich, please head over to Comic Booked and check it out!

“A Deconstructed Grilled Cheese,” Or In a Less Artsy Fartsy Way–Fried Cheese Filled Bread Balls

Few of the foods I have loved from my childhood evoke more ire and disdain from friends and celebrated food icons than the much maligned processed cheese food, also known as American Cheese, the boldly orange stuff found in convenient individual plastic wraps. Often considered a lowbrow food, it must be admitted that it is a much used ingredient by harried mothers everywhere seeking to make something quick and satisfying for their children after a long day of school and a great way to shut them up for a few minutes which they scarf down their white bread and American cheese while watching the afternoon cartoons.

Before then, I actually did not know what a true grilled cheese sandwich in this form was for a long time. My family had always simply placed the cheese on bread slices, and toasted them in the toaster oven, and I had liked it just fine, and still did after learning the proper way. Truth be told, I still enjoy this as a quick snack when I can get away with it. But when I witnessed my friend’s mother butter the sides of two pieces of bread, slide not one but two pieces of American cheese between them, and them grill them between the plates of a George Foreman grill did my perception of how grand a grilled cheese could be was truly elevated. Perhaps that experience was one of the contributing elements to my love of cooking and its abilities to transform food.

So it is this memory that I pay homage to for this post, and with love that I transform it into this. I really hope I’m not using the word deconstruction incorrectly when I call this a deconstructed grilled cheese. It seems more like a reconstruction, but obviously I haven’t watched enough Top Chef to figure it out.

So behold my creation of love and quick thinking, a “deconstructed grilled cheese,” which is now in the form of homemade bread dough, studded with chopped garlic, stuffed with American cheese, and fried to doneness.

I Hope You’re a Big Flan of Asparagus Custard.

Actually, I’d understand perfectly well if you were not, I won’t be offended really. That said, if you’re into asparagus, custards, and are adventurous enough to see what the bizarre love child of mingling the two would be, I would suggest you consider this admittedly somewhat out there recipe.

Ah, yes, by the way, this week’s theme is asparagus, not custard, but no one is keeping score I don’t think.

I originally had intended on doing something a bit more commonplace, such as roasted asparagus, a regular favorite in the household, but it being a challenge I decided to challenge myself. A tickle in the back of my head reminded me that there was something one could do with asparagus and eggs that was mentioned in Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio so I took a look and there it was, Asparagus Custard.

A bit taken aback, I had to beg my family to allow me to foist this upon them.

Molding issues aside, it had a really nice green color at the end of it. Oh and don’t worry, this isn’t a dessert at all, but it is certainly cooling. Read on if you haven’t been scared off!

No Knead to Fuss: One Pot of Bread

All right, I will admit that I’m stretching the definition of “one pot meal” a bit here. When someone says a one pot meal, they mean an actual meal pulled together into a pot, typically a soup or stew full of goodies. And while I did have some ideas for the typical one pot meal, my family was a bit full up on soup this week and I wasn’t going to press my luck trying out a new soup recipe.
Instead, I opted to try out no knead bread, a baking application which has been on my mind since I read about it in The New York Times (online). It also involves an enameled cast iron pot, which if one uses as the mixing bowl as well, could justify my claim that this is indeed a one pot meal. Plus a towel and table. Details. And whether some slices of delicious bread and butter constitutes a meal.