The other great part of my trip to Grand Rapids after Rose's Restaurant and the beautiful fall colors, was a visit to a little spice shop called Spice Merchants East. As soon as I walked in, I was hooked. I had to buy something. I didn't know what, but some interesting spice or spice blend was in order. I ignored the common spices - the cayenne, cumin, turmeric, and ginger. I gazed in fascination at the meat rubs and curry blends, wondering at the difference between the Butcher's Blend and the Steak Rub. I almost bought some Bamboo Rice before I decided it wasn't going to be that good just because it was green. But I wanted to buy something different and unique, with flavors I didn't normally consider. Then I found it: Ras el Hanout. It's a Moroccan spice blend with the following ingredients: Nutmeg, rosebuds, cinnamon stick, mace blade, galangal, chili pepper, green cardamom, black peppercorn, allspice berries, anise seed, brown cardamom, cloves, coriander seed, cumin seed, sesame seed, lavender, and turmeric. Who would think to put those things together? Oh let me just dry some rosebuds and throw them into the pot...
How does one cook with Ras el Hanout? There were directions on the mix but I found a simple recipe on Cookinglight.com for a beef tagine dish. See below. You can also replace the Ras el Hanout with some other Moroccan spice blend. The recipe is quite simple other than that - I made it on the stove and used dried cranberries instead of plums. Reduce the honey if you don't like things too sweet.
Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 3/4 cup beef mixture and about 2 1/2 teaspoons almonds)
Ingredients
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 2 teaspoons Ras el Hanout
* 1 1/2 pounds boneless sirloin steak, cut into 1-inch cubes
* 2 cups chopped onions (about 2 medium)
* 1 cup water
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 (14-ounce) can less-sodium beef broth
* 1 1/2 cups pitted dried plums
* 3 tablespoons honey
* 1/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted
Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°.
Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add Ras el Hanout; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Add beef; cook 3 minutes. Add onions, water, salt, and broth. Cover and bake at 425° for 1 hour. Stir in dried plums and honey; cook 15 minutes. Sprinkle with almonds.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Made it to Cincinnati!
David and I made it to Cincinnati today. We brought most of our clothes, some food and the animals things. We are staying with David's parents until we find a house. So if you need my new address here, let me know and I can e-mail it to you. My cell number is still the same for now; the only way to get a hold of me because David cancelled our house number today. We are planning on going to check on the house in a couple weeks. I start work on Thursday. Not looking forward to starting so soon, but we need the money.
My teeth are doing better. I am still numb on my chin and a little swollen in my bottom lip/chin area. The actual incision areas do not hurt much, just my jaw and chin. I am ready to get back to normal. I can eat most regular things, just chew on one side. I only had one taken out on my left side, so that is where I can chew. I am still on antibiotics for a few more days and have a special mouth rinse I have to rinse with after I eat.
Things are moving a long I guess; please pray for my sanity!
My teeth are doing better. I am still numb on my chin and a little swollen in my bottom lip/chin area. The actual incision areas do not hurt much, just my jaw and chin. I am ready to get back to normal. I can eat most regular things, just chew on one side. I only had one taken out on my left side, so that is where I can chew. I am still on antibiotics for a few more days and have a special mouth rinse I have to rinse with after I eat.
Things are moving a long I guess; please pray for my sanity!
Escargot
Escargot IPA: [ɛs.kaʁ.ɡɔ] is French for snail; it is related to Occitan escaragol[1] and Catalan cargol, which, in turn, may derive from a pre-Roman word *karakauseli[2].
Not all species of snail are edible, but many are. Even among the edible species, the palatability of the flesh varies from species to species. In France, two species native to France are normally used for preparing escargots. One of these, the "petit-gris" Helix aspersa, is common in temperate climates worldwide.
Wait a minute, i wasnt very little when i did that, i remember doing it a few month ago.
The french people love to eat escargot and they have find ways to actually cook this annoying creatures that spoil your garden by eating all of the vegetation in it. They transformed it to an appetizing delicacies, usually served as an appetizer.
Anyway, the escargot the french people loves to eat very much, actually does resembles the siput babi we have in our garden but it is nothing near that species because it is cleaner and hopefully it will not discharge any mucus when we put salt on it.
That is what i was hopping for and keep telling myself, it is not siput babi, it is not siput babi, and babi is not actually related to a siput,
Because i just ate one yesterday.
No actually i ate 4 of them, because when baked with cheese and garlic is just fucking delicious (although, if you look very carefully the snout side of the escargot resemble some very black clitoris after it was baked, but you don't really mind because you don't have any experience with clitoris that black, or any clitoris for that matter)
Its finger fucking licking good.with RM 27 for a dozen, you can now eat like the french.
p/s : While eating it, i was reminded of Gary, spongebob pet's snail.
p/s: i browsed the internet for clinton and accidentally stumbled upon a picture of clitoris (period. don't ask any further question)!!!
A setup in search of a punch line
October 13
“An AIG employee walks into Death & Company...”
Or should it be: “An AIG employee walks into Death & Company and orders vodka...”?
I know there’s a joke in there somewhere. There just has to be. Ben Schmerler thought so, too. If only we could figure out the punch line.
He and his business partner, Michael Gitter, threw a little gathering on behalf of Champagne Delamotte last Friday at the Thompson LES hotel. They held it on the 15th floor, in two suites, at twilight (6-8 p.m.), affording really lovely pink-hued views of the New York City skyline that I didn't even attempt to capture with my camera. I think unless you’re a really great photographer (which I most certainly am not), beautiful views just have to be enjoyed in the moment.
It was very elegant, very tasteful, very much in line with what Ben and Michael usually do.
And topping it off, chef Susur Lee was serving food — possibly for the first time, ever, to the public at the Thompson LES hotel. He didn’t actually come to the party, but Ben and I saw him in the hallway, unmistakable signature ponytail dangling from the back of his head, looking after some detail or other. His first restaurant in the United States, Shang, is scheduled to open in that very hotel soon. Maybe this month. The food at the party was Southeast Asian-influenced Chinese, sort of: Duck confit nibbles with Asian aromatics; shrimp and lobster croquettes; tofu skewers with Thai basil, pineapple and "Phuket peanut" sauce and “Singapore Slaw” with apricot ume dressing all were passed around.
I caught up with the folks at Eater and Grub Street.
By the way, Daniel Maurer tells me Grub Street is still looking for a replacement for Josh Ozersky (who is of course now at Citysearch). It would be quite a sweet, potentially high-profile job for someone who likes following the New York City food scene.
I also caught up with Ben, and told him the story about the AIG guy who tried to drink vodka at Death & Company. He was the one who thought it was a great setup for a joke.
I also chatted with the always chatty Akiko Katayama, who gave me suggestions for Japanese food in the East Village.
I thought I had a late-night party to go to at 5 Ninth that evening, but in fact I had read the invitation wrong. Thinking I had time to kill, I wandered the East Village in search of a place to sit, and maybe to try some food I hadn’t had before, or, barring that, walk over to Rhong-Tiam for Thai food, because the food at Thompson LES was delicious, but one should not try to fill up on party food if a long night lies ahead. Long hours of drinking benefit from a full belly, if you ask me (although it depends).
I walked by Kurve, the crazy restaurant of Rhong-Tiam chef-owner Andy Yang, designed by the, oh, let’s call him mercurial Karim Rashid.
At a little after 8pm on a Friday night, Kurve was almost completely empty, and didn’t look particularly inviting, but I do like Andy’s food a lot at Rhong-Tiam, so I popped in.
I feel like describing the place in some detail. Click here if you’d like to read about that.
Otherwise, let me finish up with my other weekend activity.
Thinking I was supposed to be at 5 Ninth and realizing I was mistaken, I ended up strolling back nearby Fatty Crab and who was outside eating dinner but Allen Katz of Slow Food (and the snail pin on his lapel proved it), and Laren Spirer, soon to be formerly of Gothamist (the 15th is her last day). So we caught up, I offered my setup for the punch line, and Allen called Death & Company the best bar in the country. I’m going to go ahead and assume that Allen’s been to every bar in the country. He does get around.
Cocktail maven and all around excellent person Audrey Saunders did not think it was funny at all. Being a small-business owner herself, she doesn’t think business calamities are funny. And she’s right.
But the joke still could be.
I ran into Audrey at the after party of Sweet, the gigantic dessert event of the New York Wine & Food Festival. I mostly avoided the festival, stopping into the eater.com blogger lounge to say hi, and then wandering off to the Grill Club, a periodic gathering of friends who like to grill competitively with one another. Michael Park, who's a friend of my friend Sara Bonisteel and sometime writer for Epicurious, asked me to be a judge, and I agreed.
To the left is a picture of me judging along with Annie Kim (on the right) and Judy Kim (no relation to Annie, both are simply Korean-Americans). On the left is our moderator and MC, "Tater" Read.
After the judging (Sara’s team won for her ribs, served with cherry compote and a nice barbecue sauce she made for us, along with a shot of bourbon), I was going to leave for Sweet, but instead went with them to Mars Bar, the worst-smelling bar I have ever been in, and I’ve lived in China. But for six bucks I got nearly a tumbler full of bourbon, which drove away the really unacceptable urine smell that dominated the place.
Then I took my leave and attended the tail-end of Sweet, catching up with Oceana pastry chef Jansen Chan, John Fraser of Dovetail, Pichet Ong of P*ONG and various others in quick succession, before heading upstairs for much drinking and hilarity.
Jean Georges pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini tried to introduce me to Audrey Saunders, but we already knew each other. That's when I tried my setup on her, and it didn’t work at all, but we still had a nice time.
I met the wife of French Culinary Institute dean of technology Dave Arnold. He introduced her as Jen, and she reintroduced herself as Jennifer, so Jennifer it is. The two met in college at Yale. She went on to be an architect and Dave didn’t go on to be a stock broker or investment banker or whatever. Instead he became one of the coolest food-tinkerers in the world. His folks should be really proud.
A highlight of the party was my brief chat with Travel + Leisure bigwig Nilou Motamed, because it is always a highlight to chat with her. She’s without a doubt my favorite Iranian Jew, and she recently became an American citizen and will be voting for president for the first time.
Oh, what else? Dancing with liquor publicist Ana Jovancicevic and others, catching up with the representative from a chef uniform company. You know, typical Saturday night post-dessert after party stuff.
“An AIG employee walks into Death & Company...”
Or should it be: “An AIG employee walks into Death & Company and orders vodka...”?
I know there’s a joke in there somewhere. There just has to be. Ben Schmerler thought so, too. If only we could figure out the punch line.
He and his business partner, Michael Gitter, threw a little gathering on behalf of Champagne Delamotte last Friday at the Thompson LES hotel. They held it on the 15th floor, in two suites, at twilight (6-8 p.m.), affording really lovely pink-hued views of the New York City skyline that I didn't even attempt to capture with my camera. I think unless you’re a really great photographer (which I most certainly am not), beautiful views just have to be enjoyed in the moment.
It was very elegant, very tasteful, very much in line with what Ben and Michael usually do.
And topping it off, chef Susur Lee was serving food — possibly for the first time, ever, to the public at the Thompson LES hotel. He didn’t actually come to the party, but Ben and I saw him in the hallway, unmistakable signature ponytail dangling from the back of his head, looking after some detail or other. His first restaurant in the United States, Shang, is scheduled to open in that very hotel soon. Maybe this month. The food at the party was Southeast Asian-influenced Chinese, sort of: Duck confit nibbles with Asian aromatics; shrimp and lobster croquettes; tofu skewers with Thai basil, pineapple and "Phuket peanut" sauce and “Singapore Slaw” with apricot ume dressing all were passed around.
I caught up with the folks at Eater and Grub Street.
By the way, Daniel Maurer tells me Grub Street is still looking for a replacement for Josh Ozersky (who is of course now at Citysearch). It would be quite a sweet, potentially high-profile job for someone who likes following the New York City food scene.
I also caught up with Ben, and told him the story about the AIG guy who tried to drink vodka at Death & Company. He was the one who thought it was a great setup for a joke.
I also chatted with the always chatty Akiko Katayama, who gave me suggestions for Japanese food in the East Village.
I thought I had a late-night party to go to at 5 Ninth that evening, but in fact I had read the invitation wrong. Thinking I had time to kill, I wandered the East Village in search of a place to sit, and maybe to try some food I hadn’t had before, or, barring that, walk over to Rhong-Tiam for Thai food, because the food at Thompson LES was delicious, but one should not try to fill up on party food if a long night lies ahead. Long hours of drinking benefit from a full belly, if you ask me (although it depends).
I walked by Kurve, the crazy restaurant of Rhong-Tiam chef-owner Andy Yang, designed by the, oh, let’s call him mercurial Karim Rashid.
At a little after 8pm on a Friday night, Kurve was almost completely empty, and didn’t look particularly inviting, but I do like Andy’s food a lot at Rhong-Tiam, so I popped in.
I feel like describing the place in some detail. Click here if you’d like to read about that.
Otherwise, let me finish up with my other weekend activity.
Thinking I was supposed to be at 5 Ninth and realizing I was mistaken, I ended up strolling back nearby Fatty Crab and who was outside eating dinner but Allen Katz of Slow Food (and the snail pin on his lapel proved it), and Laren Spirer, soon to be formerly of Gothamist (the 15th is her last day). So we caught up, I offered my setup for the punch line, and Allen called Death & Company the best bar in the country. I’m going to go ahead and assume that Allen’s been to every bar in the country. He does get around.
Cocktail maven and all around excellent person Audrey Saunders did not think it was funny at all. Being a small-business owner herself, she doesn’t think business calamities are funny. And she’s right.
But the joke still could be.
I ran into Audrey at the after party of Sweet, the gigantic dessert event of the New York Wine & Food Festival. I mostly avoided the festival, stopping into the eater.com blogger lounge to say hi, and then wandering off to the Grill Club, a periodic gathering of friends who like to grill competitively with one another. Michael Park, who's a friend of my friend Sara Bonisteel and sometime writer for Epicurious, asked me to be a judge, and I agreed.
To the left is a picture of me judging along with Annie Kim (on the right) and Judy Kim (no relation to Annie, both are simply Korean-Americans). On the left is our moderator and MC, "Tater" Read.
After the judging (Sara’s team won for her ribs, served with cherry compote and a nice barbecue sauce she made for us, along with a shot of bourbon), I was going to leave for Sweet, but instead went with them to Mars Bar, the worst-smelling bar I have ever been in, and I’ve lived in China. But for six bucks I got nearly a tumbler full of bourbon, which drove away the really unacceptable urine smell that dominated the place.
Then I took my leave and attended the tail-end of Sweet, catching up with Oceana pastry chef Jansen Chan, John Fraser of Dovetail, Pichet Ong of P*ONG and various others in quick succession, before heading upstairs for much drinking and hilarity.
Jean Georges pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini tried to introduce me to Audrey Saunders, but we already knew each other. That's when I tried my setup on her, and it didn’t work at all, but we still had a nice time.
I met the wife of French Culinary Institute dean of technology Dave Arnold. He introduced her as Jen, and she reintroduced herself as Jennifer, so Jennifer it is. The two met in college at Yale. She went on to be an architect and Dave didn’t go on to be a stock broker or investment banker or whatever. Instead he became one of the coolest food-tinkerers in the world. His folks should be really proud.
A highlight of the party was my brief chat with Travel + Leisure bigwig Nilou Motamed, because it is always a highlight to chat with her. She’s without a doubt my favorite Iranian Jew, and she recently became an American citizen and will be voting for president for the first time.
Oh, what else? Dancing with liquor publicist Ana Jovancicevic and others, catching up with the representative from a chef uniform company. You know, typical Saturday night post-dessert after party stuff.
understanding Kurve
October 13
Andy Yang’s Thai restaurant Rhong-Tiam opened quietly about a year ago and no one noticed. It did gradually get the attention of Southeast-Asian food connoisseurs and then finally of The New York Times, and now it’s a successful, thriving, business concern.
Andy’s other restaurant, Kurve, was anticipated with great, well, I don’t know what. Schadenfreude maybe, or skepticism, or perhaps just curiosity. It sat there, glowing in pastel colors with squiggly lines, plasma screens pulsing with undulating patterns more suitable to a dance club in the Meatpacking District, or Las Vegas, than a restaurant in the heart of the East Village, on the northwest corner of Fifth Street and Second Avenue.
The restaurant opened furtively in July, then closed again, then opened again, and then closed. Sometimes it was serving a limited menu, sometimes just drinks. It was hard to pin down.
I went to the opening party in July, stopped in at another time for a drink, and last Friday as I walked by a little after 8 p.m. it looked like it might be open, and possibly even serving food. Indeed it was.
Here’s the thing about the food at Kurve: It’s well thought out and quite creative (I am, of course, biased, as Andy is a friend of mine), but much like the restaurant itself, I wonder if it belongs where it is.
Because Kurve feels like a club, and the food is intellectual, and not just intellectual but intellectual for people who get Thai food.
Take the “salmon-wrapped larb duck.” Larb (or laab, as I prefer to spell it), is a highly seasoned northeastern Thai dish of minced meat with spices, herbs and khao khua, or crushed roasted rice. This particular version doesn’t taste right (or grom glohm, as Thais say it — meaning all of the flavors blend together and are well balanced) unless you eat it with the salmon — wild king salmon, which is all that Andy uses at Kurve. The salmon adds an unctuousness that doesn’t really belong in laab, but that I thought worked in this variation of it. It’s sort of like what I hear Alan Wong does with Hawaiian food: He’ll take classic loco moco or a plate lunch and serve it as an upscale joke that locals appreciate.
I also had what the menu called "Thai risotto" with kurobuta pork belly, but it was really more what Thais would call joke (pronounced just like the English word for something funny) and that Malaysians, Singaporeans and quite a few Americans would call congee, a thick rice porridge. Kurve’s is made, quite unusually, with both jasmine rice and sticky rice. The belly is topped with ginger, scallions and other aromatics that you would put in congee. Break up the belly and mix it all up, and it tastes like a good joke. Otherwise, it’s a belly surrounded by rice goo. People who don’t know congee won’t get it.
Andy also sent out some appetizers, including skewers of tender kurobuta shoulder with a fairly typical vinegar-chile dipping sauce, and "crispy salmon cups" which were a combination of two classic Thai snacks. Those cups will likely amuse Andy’s Thai guests.
I wonder if the food at Kurve is intended for white folks, or if the setting is intended for the East Village’s typical denizens. Most of the people in the restaurant on Friday (it started to fill up at around 10 p.m.) were Asians, part of a private party. I think they were speaking some sort of southern Chinese dialect, like Cantonese or Hokkien, but I couldn’t really tell. Others appeared to be visiting from Murray Hill.
Everyone working at Kurve is wearing old-style hats, like the one you see Andy wearing here on the right. He said this was meant to imply an old-school style of service to go with the old fashioned drinks that are being served at the bar.
But the drinks — a Piña Colada with hand crushed pineapple, a ginger Caipirinha, a chile Margarita, all developed, so I’m told, by Sasha Petraske — aren’t old fashioned, and even if they were, what do hats have to do with it?
The hats are kind of cute, though. If nothing else, they have curves.
Andy Yang’s Thai restaurant Rhong-Tiam opened quietly about a year ago and no one noticed. It did gradually get the attention of Southeast-Asian food connoisseurs and then finally of The New York Times, and now it’s a successful, thriving, business concern.
Andy’s other restaurant, Kurve, was anticipated with great, well, I don’t know what. Schadenfreude maybe, or skepticism, or perhaps just curiosity. It sat there, glowing in pastel colors with squiggly lines, plasma screens pulsing with undulating patterns more suitable to a dance club in the Meatpacking District, or Las Vegas, than a restaurant in the heart of the East Village, on the northwest corner of Fifth Street and Second Avenue.
The restaurant opened furtively in July, then closed again, then opened again, and then closed. Sometimes it was serving a limited menu, sometimes just drinks. It was hard to pin down.
I went to the opening party in July, stopped in at another time for a drink, and last Friday as I walked by a little after 8 p.m. it looked like it might be open, and possibly even serving food. Indeed it was.
Here’s the thing about the food at Kurve: It’s well thought out and quite creative (I am, of course, biased, as Andy is a friend of mine), but much like the restaurant itself, I wonder if it belongs where it is.
Because Kurve feels like a club, and the food is intellectual, and not just intellectual but intellectual for people who get Thai food.
Take the “salmon-wrapped larb duck.” Larb (or laab, as I prefer to spell it), is a highly seasoned northeastern Thai dish of minced meat with spices, herbs and khao khua, or crushed roasted rice. This particular version doesn’t taste right (or grom glohm, as Thais say it — meaning all of the flavors blend together and are well balanced) unless you eat it with the salmon — wild king salmon, which is all that Andy uses at Kurve. The salmon adds an unctuousness that doesn’t really belong in laab, but that I thought worked in this variation of it. It’s sort of like what I hear Alan Wong does with Hawaiian food: He’ll take classic loco moco or a plate lunch and serve it as an upscale joke that locals appreciate.
I also had what the menu called "Thai risotto" with kurobuta pork belly, but it was really more what Thais would call joke (pronounced just like the English word for something funny) and that Malaysians, Singaporeans and quite a few Americans would call congee, a thick rice porridge. Kurve’s is made, quite unusually, with both jasmine rice and sticky rice. The belly is topped with ginger, scallions and other aromatics that you would put in congee. Break up the belly and mix it all up, and it tastes like a good joke. Otherwise, it’s a belly surrounded by rice goo. People who don’t know congee won’t get it.
Andy also sent out some appetizers, including skewers of tender kurobuta shoulder with a fairly typical vinegar-chile dipping sauce, and "crispy salmon cups" which were a combination of two classic Thai snacks. Those cups will likely amuse Andy’s Thai guests.
I wonder if the food at Kurve is intended for white folks, or if the setting is intended for the East Village’s typical denizens. Most of the people in the restaurant on Friday (it started to fill up at around 10 p.m.) were Asians, part of a private party. I think they were speaking some sort of southern Chinese dialect, like Cantonese or Hokkien, but I couldn’t really tell. Others appeared to be visiting from Murray Hill.
Everyone working at Kurve is wearing old-style hats, like the one you see Andy wearing here on the right. He said this was meant to imply an old-school style of service to go with the old fashioned drinks that are being served at the bar. But the drinks — a Piña Colada with hand crushed pineapple, a ginger Caipirinha, a chile Margarita, all developed, so I’m told, by Sasha Petraske — aren’t old fashioned, and even if they were, what do hats have to do with it?
The hats are kind of cute, though. If nothing else, they have curves.
The Butterfly Award!
I would like to thank dear blogger Kitchen Flavours/Yummy Food Blog, for passing this award to me and to 9 nine other fellow bloggers.
I myself would like to pass to 10 other blogs and they are:
- Culinary Couture
- Passionate about Baking
- Canary Girl
- Farida's Azerbaijani Cookbook
- Hooked On Heat
- Fig & Cherry
- Mimi Cooks
- Ya Salam Cooking
- The Left Over Queen
- Food Stories
And now the awarded bloggers can kindly pass it to 10 other blogs :)
PS; For some reason blogger.com is not showing the links that I've added to the winning blogs. I guess it's a small problem that it might get fixed soon, however all these blogs and their links are on my list of favorites (right bottom of my blog) so the links are working from there. Sorry about that, hope it'll be fixed soon!
Sheer Awesomeness - Molecular gastronomy in the home
Of all the culinary fads and fashions and phases and phenomena, molecular gastronomy is perhaps the one that excites me most. Of course, I adore and pursue simplicity in much of my cooking and gastronomic pursuits but there is something so wondrous, so exciting and almost ethereal about re-imaging food in way propounded by Heston Blumethal, Ferran Adria, Hervé This et al.
Molecular gastronomy is oft misunderstood and seen as over-complicating cooking purely for the sake of it, merely for showmanship and bravado. Its deriders see it as a pointless addition or fleeting distraction from the tried and tested elements of classical cuisine: a bastard off-spring of that much parodied style nouvelle cuisine.
Granted, in the wrong hands, this form of cooking can lead to gross misrepresentations and laughable creations. I dare say that there are a number of enthusiastic young chefs who feel as if they can forego learning about the base elements of cooking and move directly into the world of culinary alchemy with some horrendous Dr. Frankenstein style creations ensuing. Words like ‘deconstructed’ and ‘emulsified’ appear on menus as chefs allow their egos to pollute their food.
But this is not what molecular gastronomy is about. It is about understanding. It is about breaking things down to see why they work, how they work and how they can be improved. How flavours, textures, tastes can be made better and new combinations created. It is about finding how much truth there is in kitchen folklore, such as should you salt your steak before cooking and does searing meat help retain juices (the answers are yes and no, respectively). It is an exciting and wonderful way of cooking that utilises new techniques and complicated sounding ingredients which has thus far been the preserve of chefs and scientists and unavailable to the home cook
Until now.
Ferran Adria is one of the founding fathers of molecular gastronomy. As the chef/owner of El Bulli, deep in the heart of Catalan country close to Spain’s northern most tip, he has been the recipient of the prestigious ‘World’s Best Restaurant’ award no less than four times. His 30-some course tasting menus have become legendary and it is close to impossible to book a table at this place of gastro-pilgrimage during the six months of the year that it is open.
For the second half of the year, Adria and his team of chefs spend countless hours in the restaurant’s lab kitchen creating new dishes, refining old ones and conjuring up exciting new techniques to stay ahead of the game. They use a selection of weird and wonderful ingredients to achieve the remarkable techniques that they showcase in the restaurant: airs, jellies, spheres, caviars and numerous others. And they’ve recently made them available in quantities suitable for home use.
I had no idea that they were available until I picked up my (fabulous) girlfriend from work on Friday. She was clutching a box wrapped tightly in bubble wrap and smiling a broad and slightly cheeky smile. ‘I’ve got you a present’ she announced. I had to wait until we got home and we were sat down before she would let me open it, which was probably a good job because I might easily have fallen over had I not been on the sofa.
It was a sleek black box with the words ‘Minikit Sferificacion’ picked out in stark white lettering on the front. Although not immediately obvious what I was holding, the words ‘Albert y Ferran Adria’ made things clearer. Cut into the cardboard housing were five round holes, each offering a tantalising glimpse of the contents.
I’d previously only read words like ‘lecite’, ‘algin’ and ‘xantana’ in This’s books and on sites like Ideas in Food. Now I had five intricately packaged tins on my lap each containing one of these magical ingredients. This was exciting stuff, seriously exciting stuff. As well as the powders, the package contained a set of precision measuring spoons and a plastic syringe.
All those amazing creations I’d admired and read about are quite suddenly within reach. Spheres, jellies, airs, foams, suspensions and other intensely flavoured delights are no longer in the realm of impossibility but available to any enthusiastic home cook.
This is where the line between cooking and science becomes very blurred indeed and I cannot wait to start experimenting with these strange and alien additions to my kitchen.
Molecular gastronomy is oft misunderstood and seen as over-complicating cooking purely for the sake of it, merely for showmanship and bravado. Its deriders see it as a pointless addition or fleeting distraction from the tried and tested elements of classical cuisine: a bastard off-spring of that much parodied style nouvelle cuisine.
Granted, in the wrong hands, this form of cooking can lead to gross misrepresentations and laughable creations. I dare say that there are a number of enthusiastic young chefs who feel as if they can forego learning about the base elements of cooking and move directly into the world of culinary alchemy with some horrendous Dr. Frankenstein style creations ensuing. Words like ‘deconstructed’ and ‘emulsified’ appear on menus as chefs allow their egos to pollute their food.
But this is not what molecular gastronomy is about. It is about understanding. It is about breaking things down to see why they work, how they work and how they can be improved. How flavours, textures, tastes can be made better and new combinations created. It is about finding how much truth there is in kitchen folklore, such as should you salt your steak before cooking and does searing meat help retain juices (the answers are yes and no, respectively). It is an exciting and wonderful way of cooking that utilises new techniques and complicated sounding ingredients which has thus far been the preserve of chefs and scientists and unavailable to the home cook
Until now.
Ferran Adria is one of the founding fathers of molecular gastronomy. As the chef/owner of El Bulli, deep in the heart of Catalan country close to Spain’s northern most tip, he has been the recipient of the prestigious ‘World’s Best Restaurant’ award no less than four times. His 30-some course tasting menus have become legendary and it is close to impossible to book a table at this place of gastro-pilgrimage during the six months of the year that it is open.
For the second half of the year, Adria and his team of chefs spend countless hours in the restaurant’s lab kitchen creating new dishes, refining old ones and conjuring up exciting new techniques to stay ahead of the game. They use a selection of weird and wonderful ingredients to achieve the remarkable techniques that they showcase in the restaurant: airs, jellies, spheres, caviars and numerous others. And they’ve recently made them available in quantities suitable for home use.
I had no idea that they were available until I picked up my (fabulous) girlfriend from work on Friday. She was clutching a box wrapped tightly in bubble wrap and smiling a broad and slightly cheeky smile. ‘I’ve got you a present’ she announced. I had to wait until we got home and we were sat down before she would let me open it, which was probably a good job because I might easily have fallen over had I not been on the sofa.
It was a sleek black box with the words ‘Minikit Sferificacion’ picked out in stark white lettering on the front. Although not immediately obvious what I was holding, the words ‘Albert y Ferran Adria’ made things clearer. Cut into the cardboard housing were five round holes, each offering a tantalising glimpse of the contents.
I’d previously only read words like ‘lecite’, ‘algin’ and ‘xantana’ in This’s books and on sites like Ideas in Food. Now I had five intricately packaged tins on my lap each containing one of these magical ingredients. This was exciting stuff, seriously exciting stuff. As well as the powders, the package contained a set of precision measuring spoons and a plastic syringe.
All those amazing creations I’d admired and read about are quite suddenly within reach. Spheres, jellies, airs, foams, suspensions and other intensely flavoured delights are no longer in the realm of impossibility but available to any enthusiastic home cook.
This is where the line between cooking and science becomes very blurred indeed and I cannot wait to start experimenting with these strange and alien additions to my kitchen.
Pies
Persimmon Pie
2 eggs separated
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 cup persimmon pulp
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 can condensed milk
1/2 cup milk
Dash of vanilla essence
Mix everything together . Beat egg whites till stiff. fold into mixture. Pour into pastry shell.
Bake at 230 for 10 mins. Then Bake at 190 for 30-40mins
Pumpkin Pie
1 1/2 cups of pumpkin gulp(I used half a squash)
1/2 tin of condensed milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of all spice
1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Bake at 210 for 15 mins then at 190 for 45-60 mins
Pie crust
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup of frozen butter
dash of lemon juice
pinch of salt
1/3 of a cup of ice cold water.
make breadcrumb like mixture with flour, salt and butter . Add Lemon juice and water . Add the water slowly. Once you have a ball of dough . Place in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge or 15 to 30 mins
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup of frozen butter
dash of lemon juice
pinch of salt
1/3 of a cup of ice cold water.
make breadcrumb like mixture with flour, salt and butter . Add Lemon juice and water . Add the water slowly. Once you have a ball of dough . Place in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge or 15 to 30 mins
Cinnamon Tea / Saenggang Cha
"Cinnamon, the brown bark of the cinnamon tree, is a common spice for cooking and baking, it is also well known for its healing properties. Cinnamon is regarded for its medicinal properties for everything from blood sugar control to aiding digestion.
Cinnamon is one of the oldest known spices, in fact it has been reported that in ancient Egypt, cinnamon was once more valuable than gold."
Korean Cinnamon Tea / Saenggang Cha
Honey
Ginger
Cinnamon
Water
Other suggested ingredients are Jujubes ginseng and dried persimmons
Insam cha -ginseng tea
Dunggule cha- made from dried root of Solomon's-seal.
Daechucha - made from jujubes
Maesil cha green fruits of a maesil and sugar is added to water, and then fermented for a month or so. Be careful not to produce alcohol.
More info here
Best tea I have had in Suncheon is in Mung Gi Won where I ate
Maesil cha green fruits of a maesil and sugar is added to water, and then fermented for a month or so. Be careful not to produce alcohol.
More info here
Best tea I have had in Suncheon is in Mung Gi Won where I ate
Gwangyang-Sutbulgogi In Suncheon ...
You get it after you meal ...Fast Food Update.....Lotteria...
Shake shake chicken is good especial with the sour cream of onion powder. ( to me its only good with a hangover) But this new Stake burger with mushrooms is not so good at all.Gamsikcho (persimmon vinegar) update
You May Know I love Drinking vinegar from here. I also know many of my friends have become huge fans .So I found out last week that most of the Drinking vinegar are full of sugar. But this one in has no sugar and has the highest amount of actual juice.
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