Has it really been two months?! I'm horrible...

Yes, I'm still alive.

I think part of what has delayed me in posting again is the sheer volume of things I want to write about and the somewhat irrational fear of writing *too much* and losing my three readers. ;-)

I've been thinking about restaurants a lot lately for a few reasons. First, it seems that every time I cook for a group of people, the inevitable question is when I'm going to open my own restaurant. Having read Anthony Bourdain's memoir "Kitchen Confidential" and plenty of other similar materials, I have to respond at first that the idea of working in the food industry is of small interest to me. This not chiefly because of my fear that cooking for a living would kill my passion for it, although that is why my father never became a professional pilot and why I tend to look beyond my hobbies and interest for professional aspirations as a general rule.

The food industry just sounds rough ... it's really as simple as that. The common statistic for failing restaurants is 80% within 5 years (or is it 2?), but that's the general failure rate for new businesses, so it does seem that you have as much of a chance to make it as a restaurateur as any other entrepreneurial type.

A big part of me, though, feels that if I were to pop out of high school right now with the mind I have, I'd go straight to culinary school and give it my best shot. And while you don't need culinary school or anything else, really, to open a restaurant, I think the marketing becomes much more difficult if you're just some dude running a restaurant rather than some dude with credentials.

So, the solution has to be partnering with another chef with these credentials, from where I sit today.

Another view I have, though, is that people really shouldn't be going out to eat anywhere close to how much they do. I get so much joy out of cooking for myself and others, and think that once you get used to your kitchen, get set up with some proper tools (should I do a post on this, dear readers?), and branch out into whatever cuisines you enjoy the most (Indian and Thai is no more exotic than anything else once you're used to it...), it can add immeasurably to your life.

I do, of course, understand time constraints, and with my current massive level of free time, I can afford to play around a lot more here. But, really, people who never cook should really get over it and watch some Food Network. (not that I have great love for that channel at this point, but back in the day I picked up so much from them)

More thoughts on this topic, I'm sure, at a later date.

Last weekend I cooked for both my parents and my girlfriend's parents. Made the Irish meal I blogged about in January for mine and carne asada for her parents. And afterwards, I began to wonder about whether there is any viability in a freelance chef service. Hmmmm...

I also got my espresso machine running again this weekend. And in hindsight, I waited too dang long. Drinks are as good as I remember out of that stainless goddess of caffeine.

And speaking of which, it's off to make my morning cup. Feel free to stop by.

St. Patrick's Day in January!

So, I've had this vacuum sealed corned beef brisket in my freezer for awhile, and have finally decided to use it. Found this page which seems to be as good a guide on how to treat this beast as any, although I've also employed this mustard recipe (the more I cook, the more I realize that buying condiments of any sort pre-made is a terrible waste of money ... mustard's yet another example, and this stuff is gooooood)

Best part to all this is the days and days of leftovers...

Just spending Sunday doing what every red-blooded American male is doing with their Sunday.

Making duck stock. And cleaning up the house.

Why duck? Got a hair up my posterior the other day at the Asian market and bought a duck, probably leftover from a local Chinese restaurant's New Year's Eve celebration meal ...

The only worry is that since it was already cooked with a mixture of star anise, ginger, soy, and who knows what else (and this is just a minimally educated guess) that it might make for some odd stock. On the other hand, I'm sure that even if it's strange for normal usage, I could come up with something interesting and Asian themed.

Anyway, considering how delicious the bird was and how little meat there actually was on the thing for the money, it seemed a waste to toss the bones.

Two other things I picked up today, and I'm interested in any suggestions for using them. I've becoming a colossal fan of corn tortillas and decided to just buy my own 5 lb. sack of prepared masa for $2.62 and make my own. Was thinking about tamales as well, but they scare me ;-) ...

Portobello mushrooms were cheaper than white buttons at the same store, so I picked some of those up. Probably headed for a grilled 'shroom sandwich of some sort. Definitely be interested in any tips regarding that particular adventure... although it can't be that complicated.

All the best,
Brian

Green stuff (EWWWW!!!)

I hosted a (in my estimation) immensely successful party a couple nights ago, featuring 11 of my closest friends and a menagerie of Indian foodstuffs. I won't prattle on about the events of the evening cookingwise at this point, other than to say that if there is one thing I didn't do enough of and would recommend to all of you, it's that at all points when constructing a dish which relies heavily on spice mixtures for its magic, make sure you taste that sucker and adjust. I'd love to say that the chicken vindaloo, braised eggplant/potato curry, and potato/lentil curry that I made the other night was perfect, but that's far from the truth - one dish definitely needed more salt, and the vindaloo didn't have the immense beauty of flavor it did the first time I made it, which I blame in part on the fact I didn't use bone-in chicken as a gift to my guests and their clean hands...

On the other hand, nothing was bad, and the chutneys etc. I served with it all turned out nicely. I'm always discounting the quality of my cooking, regardless of how good it was in the minds of others. Additionally, the whole point of something like this is not the food, it's the company...

Anyway... I thought I'd post a recipe for a green chutney that several people fawned over and that I think is something worth making and keeping around regardless of whether you plan to cook anything Indian at all. I ate it with breakfast tacos yesterday, and it was awesome. It'd make for a great base for a salad dressing, probably. And it'd be awesome with any sort of grilled food, especially a really meaty fish like swordfish or tuna, or a steak.

This recipe is taken from Neelam Batra's 1,000 Indian Recipes, and is (or some version of it) something referred to many times in Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", which is a large part of the reason I decided to try it out. Batra refers to it as universal in Indian homes and as one of the country's best loved condiments. It really did complement the richness of the chicken curry quite well, and one guest in particular was nearly to the point of eating it with a spoon straight from the container.

This recipe should keep quite well, as it contains a lot of acid ... but it probably won't last long once you try it. The only ingredient you really need to get at an Indian market is the Chaat Masala, which contains ingredients hardly ever found at the local WalMart.

Dhania Chutni ("Cilantro-Lime Chutney")


Shopping List:

• Fresh Cilantro
• Fresh Mint
• Ginger
• Green Onions
• Fresh Green Chiles (I used serranos)
• Green Bell Pepper
• Limes or Lime Juice

Notice that all of these things are nice to have around in general ... and this recipe becomes a really great way to use this stuff before it goes bad. I've wasted so much cilantro in my life...

And when you have mint and limes (and rum and fizzy water), you've got an excuse to make mojitos...

I digress. This recipe is for 2 cups worth.

You start by dry roasting 1/2 tsp. of whole cumin, and then grinding them into a coarse powder. You could, of course, use preground cuming, but the flavor is more interesting if you use whole and roast fresh. You can find bags of whole cumin for ridiculously low prices at Indian markets. To roast, I've used two methods - placing the seeds on a plate in a toaster oven and monitoring to make sure they darken but don't burn, and the more accepted way, which is to toss them in a pan on medium-high heat, stir them around until they turn a dark reddish brown and become fragrant and then immediately scrape them out of the pan into a bowl. This only takes about a minute. Use a coffee grinder, or blender to grind them afterwards and set aside.

Cut 3-5 green chiles into smaller chunks, and coarse chop the green parts of 5-6 green onions, the bell pepper, and 3 cups of cilantro with stems included (almost 2 bunches, and make sure to rinse this stuff well ... I dump it into a bowl, fill it with water, and lift and separate... dirt falls to the bottom ... wash, rinse, repeat). Toss the peppers and onions into a blender or food processor, along with 4 quarter-size slices fresh ginger, and get it to a fine mince stage (this'll be pretty much pureed later, so don't worry if you overdo it a little).

Add the cilantro and 1/2 c. fresh mint leaves and continue to blend until it is a puree with a little bit of rough texture. While blending at this final stage, drizzle in 2-3 tbsp. lime juice ... this will also help the blender or food processor along... I used a blender and it was a bit hard to work with initially but by this time all the water from the cilantro etc. brought it all together.

The final step is to add in a tsp. each of salt and sugar and 1 tsp. chaat masala. I bought a box of it for 2 bucks that will last me a couple years, probably, and the ingredients involved in making it yourself are pretty specialized even by "Indian cuisine vs. American spice rack" standards. It's a spice mixture that smells heavily of sulfur because of the black salt (volcanic halite) in the blend, but this socially awkward odor doesn't translate to the flavor ... I suppose without it the mixture would be just fine, but I really do think that the unique sour and salty elements in the chaat masala are well worth incorporating.

At this point, blend for a few seconds to incorporate it into the chutney, taste it, add some more salt or sugar if you like, and then pour into a bowl or tupperware container. Mix a little of the cumin we prepared earlier into this mixture, sprinkle the rest on top, and serve or store. Batra's take is that it lasts about 10 days in the fridge, but it can also be frozen...

Happy New Year's everyone!

Buying donuts. Just say no.

So, today I decided to try making donuts, something I'd always wanted to do, had done once back in the 5th grade, and seemed like the perfect Sunday late morning treat.

So...easy...

You really should try it.

(Don't these guys to the right look yummy? Oh, they are...)











Three (or 4) steps and 10 minutes of effort. First,  take a cup of warm water (about 110 deg. ... any higher and you risk killing the yeast), toss in a tablespoon or 2 of sugar depending on how airy/sweet you want the dough (yeast eat sugar ... more sugar = more dough expansion), and a teaspoon of yeast. Mix that up until the yeast dissolves.


Pour this over a mixture (in a large mixing bowl) of 2 cups of flour (I used all purpose, but I've heard a combination of cake flour and all-purpose gives you a more Krispy Kreme type texture ... ours were kind of chewy which we liked quite a bit) and 1.5 teaspoon of salt (or, alternatively, go with 1 tsp. and add a bit of salt to whatever you're putting on top of them later on... powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, etc.) ... cover with plastic wrap and let sit for an hour and a half to two hours in a warm spot in your house.

Find your deepest pot (I used an electric wok) and fill it up with enough oil (2 inches deep or so... canola or soybean) that the doughnuts will have room to float around, heat it to approx. 375 degrees (small bit of dough will turn brown in about a minute when the temperature's right) and drop tablespoon amounts of dough in. They'll end up being kind of round blobby shapes, although you could employ a biscuit cutter of some other round cutting implement if you want perfection... and you can use a plastic lid from a bottle to cut holes out if you like... I wouldn't bother.

Anyhow, let them float around in the oil, using a slotted spoon to keep them from sticking to each other while still doughy, until you see that the part in the oil is golden-brown. Flip, and cook the other side to the same level.

While they're cooking, toss some powdered sugar in one paper bag, and some cinnamon sugar (about 4 to 1 ratio sugar to cinnamon) in another. Or make glaze. Or get out the ketchup! Just kidding. Please don't.

Pull them out with a slotted spoon and let them drain on paper towels. While still hot, toss them into the paper bags, close 'em up and shake to coat.

Devour with your morning coffee or beer.

50 cents (maybe) worth of ingredients. 10 minutes of your time. Wayyyy better than store bought.

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope Christmas was merry :-)

Ciao,
Brian

The point of all of this, inadequately worded, some book recommendations, and the glories of Carne...

(Seriously, I need to start including graphics ... at 2:45 a.m., though, I'm just going to post it sans pretty pictures and worry about it later. And this is really an incredibly long post, so for anyone that actually reads the whole thing, I am in your debt.)

I did not, fortunately, have guests for dinner last Thursday evening. Fortunately, because I was exhausted from 6 finals this week.

Fortunately, because a lot of my originally envisioned guests couldn’t make it for one reason or another and the ever-diminishing guest list began to teeter dangerously close to that edge dividing a nice group of folks who don’t feel particularly compelled to speak if they don’t want to (as someone else probably will) from a group that is small enough to suddenly feel like a family dinner where everyone’s under the spotlight. Certainly if everyone knows each other already and has plenty to share, this isn’t an issue... but as much as I’d love to have a circle of friends like that, I don’t. But getting a group together who all may not know each other but *should* is sort of the point of hosting things like this, yes?

And fortunately, because I simply couldn’t see myself enjoying organizing and cleaning the house, cooking for a few hours, and entertaining until the late evening. Probably would’ve been ugly...

As it stands at the moment, this fabled Indian dinner will take place some time between Christmas and New Year’s. I think I’m going to stop worrying about getting everyone on board, set a date, invite a bunch of people, and see who shows up. Considering most of my friends have some combination of jobs with weird hours and children, this might in fact be the best route in all cases.

A follower of my blog (thanks to everyone already reading it ... all two entries of it) mentioned that the thing they hate the most about most blogs is that they end up becoming a little too focused on self (“navel-gazing”, in her words). The difficulty with this is that people only have their own point-of-view to really reference, and so all blogs inevitably end up being centered around what is important to the author.

So, is what’s important to the author passing the “bus test” (credit: Jared, fiction writer and winner of Creepfest ’08 ...) and causing us to care if the subject crosses the road and gets hit by a bus in the blog entry’s next sentence?

I truly do believe that if written properly, what affects self ends up being impactful on others, and I think the only blogs that spin out of control completely are those that seek only to report daily minutiae in the blogger’s life. Few of those out there any more, although I certainly don’t go looking for them.

With this long-winded introduction (which probably violates most of its own assertions :-P) in mind, I think it’s worthwhile to explain at this point my rationale for starting this project.

The focus is on food, but food of a sort many people don’t ever explore, and food in ways that hopefully puts it into a larger context. First, a story of how I came from a typical young bachelor’s diet of fast food and frozen dinners to where I’m at now, with a pantry stuffed to the gills with ingredients few people have ever used and a fridge/freezer threatening to explode at a moment’s notice (I know now why my parents have three of ‘em).

When I was working at DirecTV as a customer service representative in my early- to mid-‘20s, there was a Burger King conveniently located 3 minutes away from work, and for around 2 years, that was my regular spot for lunch. To shake things up, maybe an adventurous trip to Jack-in-the-Box or Taco Bell. Woo! And while that stuff will keep you alive and often hits you in that primal salt/sugar/fat center of satiety, 30 pounds later and way too much money sent the way of fast food executives convinced me, finally, that the reason I felt like s*** wasn’t only because I didn’t particularly love my job and probably needed to find my way to a gym more often.

If you’ve ever seen Morgan Spurlock’s entertaining film “Super Size Me”, that was basically me. All of it.

As I realized that this sort of daily diet wasn’t doing me much good and began to shift toward making my own food, I realized just how quickly those half-a-dozen extra love handles drop off when you stop sucking down double Whoppers and gargantuan Cokes every day.

At the time, I was living in a studio apartment with a hilarious joke of a kitchen, and with bizarre work hours and a general lack of enthusiasm with life, my dinners were quick, convenient, and uninspired. Lots of packaged frozen stuff. Hardly any “real” cooking. But at least I was stepping away from the fast food.

Eventually, I moved away from the hovel and into a place with a much larger kitchen, adult-size refrigerator, and (*gasp*) a dishwasher. My mother’s words were prophetic in that the big boy kitchen would become the best part about my new place. Bah, I said! Big deal! Look at all the extra space!

Always heed your mother’s words. Depending on your mother.

My job situation changed, and I made it back to school to finish my degree (the path to this is a boring story not worth repeating). I cooked a good percentage of the time, but didn’t really find a passion with a particular type of cuisine until I discovered Indian food.

I started with this cookbook with little in the way of real instruction for the uninitiated but reasonably straight-forward recipes, and eventually worked up the courage to explore the volume, discovering in the process that it wasn’t as daunting as it first seemed.

One of the biggest hurdles was finding a good ingredient supplier (esp. in the realm of spices, because you do NOT want to buy spices at a supermarket), but once you’re set up with the 20 or so lasts-forever-in-pantry ingredients, the magic with Indian is with a minimal of fresh ingredients you can make just about anything your little heart desires.

If you’re interested in the cuisine already, I recommend a trio of books. Check your public library for them as they are pretty popular. This set will, in my view, give you more than enough variety and guidance to make just about anything from the Indian subcontinent...

660 Curries: I heard an interview with Raghavan Iyer, who is a chef, writer of cookbooks, and, most importantly, award-winning teacher of Indian cookery. His book is the definition of an inspiring text which makes you want to try everything once. Terrific supplements to the main point of the book, including some guidance on developing your own spice blends, a guide to take with you to Indian grocery stores to translate from Hindi to English, and plenty of guidance on how to use ingredients independent of their particular recipes. This is my go-to book at the moment.

1,000 Indian Recipes: Neelam Batra’s massive tome includes scads of chutneys, pickles, breads, drinks and desserts ... categories that are a not a bit weak in Iyer’s text. It would not be a very good volume to use if it was your only resource, but with the Internet it’d be doable. But I’d recommend Iyer’s first and this as a terrific companion.

Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors: This is a terrific book for learning about the history that led to what is considered Indian food today. It’s an incredibly readable volume and packed with interesting stuff, including the discussion of the British introducing tea to India, to the British introducing Indian cooks to frightened British palates, to the British introducing the concept of “curry” as an all-encompassing term which, to ... well, you see the pattern. To be fair, the British were far from the only influences on the cuisine we know as Indian food. They just left last. Anyway, it’s a great read.

The point of all of this is that the reason I got into cooking, and cooking stuff that I never had growing up and see poorly represented in the “average American diet” is that I decided at one point I was tired of shoveling soulless food into my mouth simply to subsist. And as I got more comfortable in the kitchen and started taking chances, I found that not only was it worthwhile for my own purposes, it gave me an outlet for building relationships with other people in my life.

***

Now, on a completely different note, here’s my two-minute explanation on something which I used to make just about every week until I burnt myself out on it.

Carne Asada!!! (mmmmmm)

As I’ve read from fairly unreliable sources on the Intertubes, the concept that it’s marinated steak combined with a garnish pile of cilantro, avocado sauce, pico de gallo, and lime juice is mostly an American concept. Hard to argue with that combination, though ;-). The best starting point recipe-wise in my worthless opinion is this page, which is what I based my general process on. Carne’s a great way to make a whole bunch of food at the start of a busy week and always have something ready to go...

I usually go to the store and buy the cheapest roast I can find, even though most recipes will call for skirt, hanger, or flank steak. But at around 6 bucks a pound for flank and s little bit less for the others, if you can find that 7 pound $1.50/lb. bottom round, you’ll still end up with something really lean, really economical, and still really tender by the end. Tends to be more satisfying as well, even though logic would dictate that its lack of fat is a drawback.

Grab a gallon plastic bag and pour in a combination of olive oil, lime juice, chopped cilantro, chopped serrano or jalapeno peppers, minced garlic, ground cumin, a little vinegar ... okay, basically the marinade at this link. Feel free to make adjustments, of course. Slice the roast into 1/4 inch or so strips of any length that you can manage on your outdoor grill/cast iron grill pan/George Foreman grill and add those to the bag. Zip and shake it around to coat the meat, then place it in the fridge for at least an hour (after about 3 hours I’ve found that the meat tends to start breaking down from all the powerful industrial acid you’ve added).

Once you’re reading to cook, heat up your grilling surface, shake your meat slices of extra marinade, and cook away - I like to leave them a bit pink on the inside, but this isn’t an exact science and doesn’t matter that much. They usually only take a couple minutes on each side if it’s sliced thin. Salt and pepper each side as you cook each batch, and set in a large platter of some kind with aluminum foil over the top to keep them warm.

Serve inside corn tortillas (best friend a bit in olive oil if they’re store-bought...) with whatever you feel like. Cheddar, cotija, more lime, avocados, salsa, more cilantro, grilled onions (do ‘em at the same time as your steak!), with rice and beans on the side. Or not.

This stuff keeps really well, and I usually just reheat the steak slices in a non-stick...

This entry exploded into something way longer than I’d originally planned. Shorter entries will be the pattern in the near future. I think a series on spices is in order...

As always, feedback is more than welcome.

It's ... alive!

I’m having guests for dinner tomorrow... I’ll avoid for now the obvious Lecter jokes that are on the tips of my typing fingers, begging to inspire groans ...


Finals are coming to an end (Praise Jeebus!), and with the welcome break comes more time to waste in the kitchen when I should really be finding jobs, preparing for graduation in May, and preparing for post-graduate studies. One still needs to eat, though, yes?


Without really thinking about the fact that the time spent this past Sunday morning would lead to being able to enjoy something other than junk food and coffee as I anxiously worked my way through six exams and portfolios, I made huevos rancheros. The original source for this delicious creation was taken from a recipe found on Simply Recipes. I can’t claim to any particularly unique spin on it, but this is the essence of a simple dish that simply works.


And, believe me... the first time you order huevos in a run-of-the-mill Mexican restaurant and are served a plate of overcooked egg, warmed over canned sauce, and absolutely no soul ... you’ll realize it’s much better to make than it is to buy.


My girlfriend and I both feel this is absolutely our favorite breakfast meal, and it’s one I wish I had begun cooking a long time ago. The first step to get started on is the sauce, and here’s how I do it (keeping in mind this is going to give you about 6 servings worth of sauce, if not a bit more):

Pour a bit of olive oil into a pan (I use cast iron for most things, but in this case I’d recommend using a deeper-than-average metal saucepan because the sauce incorporates a lot of acidic ingredients that love to eat cast iron seasoning) and heat it over medium. Once the oil has developed a sheen indicating it’s hot enough, toss in 1/2 to 1 onion, chopped, 1 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped, and a pinch of salt. Sauté this for a few minutes until the onions start to turn translucent.

At this point you have lots of options. I like a mixture of green bell pepper (1/2 a whole) and whatever hot peppers you have on hand (3 to 4), along with a seasoning blend of ground cumin, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, a dash of cinnamon, a bit of oregano, and something to add a slight smoky flavor (smoked paprika, chipotle peppers, charcoal... maybe not that last one). Add the peppers and spices to the garlic/onion mixture and cook for a couple minutes, and then toss in your a 14 oz. can of tomatoes, chopped. Bring this all to a boil, stirring once in awhile to avoid it sticking and burning, and then let it simmer for about 15 to 30 minutes or longer.

The sauce is important, but I think for the dish to really sing, it’s got to have a nice balance brought to it by the other components. The writer linked above at Simply Recipes explains the preparation of egg and tortilla very well, so I won’t rehash it here. Definitely check that out.

There are certainly quite a few people who have an aversion to refried beans (having not made my own fresh, I’ll have to plead ignorance on their potential glories...) I’m also not a gigantic fan of refried beans in most cases but I think they’re vital here, and corn tortillas are vastly superior to flour (plus often they’re the only ones at most stores without a strange preservative taste you get with most flour tortilla brands). I like to put the dish together in layers, starting with 1 or 2 corn tortillas, some refried beans spread over the tortillas, a little bit of sauce, a fried or poached egg, a little bit of cotija and/or cheddar and/or jack cheese, a covering of sauce that spills out over the plate, and a topping of cilantro and sliced green onions. Sometimes I like a little sour cream...

The result is a dish that combines some crispy textures from the corn tortillas and veggies in the sauce and topping, an interplay of spicy, sweet, and tangy in the sauce itself, and creaminess with the beans, cheese and egg. Wonderful with a side of rice and orange juice. Eat two of these things and it'll probably be nap time.

If you make enough sauce (which keeps wonderfully in the fridge, as acidic tomatoes take a long time to go bad), you can repeat this dish with about 10 minutes worth of effort during a busy weeknight or 3 a.m. return from the bar (Scratch that. Don’t cook when drunk. Trust me.). It certainly kept *me* alive this finals week. I’m trying to forget that meal of gummy bears and potato chips at the moment...

It seems silly to write all about the food I'm serving my victims guests tomorrow evening, and then write about it again. So for now I'll give you a preview...


Chicken in a Vindaloo style coconut milk/malt vinegar based sauce, with the normal accompaniment of Indian spices and a bit of heat. Probably my favorite curry out of the 20 or so I've prepared so far. I kind of hate that it's such a generically recognizable Indian item, but the taste... oh my.


Either eggplant braised in a tomato based sauce with various other things that escape me at the moment. Or a potato curry with a red lentil puree, roasted whole cumin seed, lime juice, and cilantro.


Rice pilau of some sort. Involving spices. Surprise!


An accompaniment similar to Tzatziki sauce called a raita. Cucumbers are a no-no when combined with yogurt in Ayurvedic medicine, but whatever... sounds plain, but I eat it like pudding. Ginger, lemon, garlic, etc. ... let it sit in the fridge for a bit to meld flavors. Great to put out the fire.


Homemade Indian flat bread (chapattis). Three or four chutneys ... Rice pudding and/or Diwali treats! If I feel like it... otherwise dessert is going to be more beer.






There are, in fact, many reasons that I'm putting this menu together and that, in general, Indian food is my favorite cuisine. Certainly more on that in a future blog, posting sooner rather than later.


Ciao,
Brian