Life-Changing Thing of the Summer: Wafels & Dinges Spekuloos spread. It’s like Nutella, but gingerbread flavored. GINGERBREAD FLAVORED SPREAD. Which means anything you spread it on…TASTES LIKE GINGERBREAD! I AM FLIPPING OUT! MIND BLOWN! $7? WORTH IT!
We wrapped wontons! Can you tell I’m homesick like crazy?! It’s been over two months! Okay, that’s not that long, but still!
Filling: ground pork, onions, green onions, shrimp, powdered chicken bouillon, salt, white pepper, sesame oil, corn starch. (I called my momma!) I added chili…
hman:
Imagine that.
This implies that there are some foods out there that aren’t better with sriracha on top. I don’t buy that AT ALL.
AH SAID GAHD DAMN
After suffering from lack of energy and motivation, I finally decided to get myself one of these Bodum French press coffee makers. It’s really quite simple: you put coarsely ground coffee into it, followed by near-boiling water, and stir. Then let the coffee steep for about 10 minutes, and you have yourself a surprisingly good cup of coffee. My current schedule requires that I wake up at 6:30 every day, and the coffee this thing makes has been the fuel that keeps me running until I go to bed.
Despite its simplicity, a French press makes coffee superior to that of a drip coffee machine in many ways. For one, it utilizes a stainless steel mesh filter, eliminating the need for paper filters, and the coffee never comes into contact with plastic parts unlike a drip machine, producing a better, less acidic, and less paper-like tasting coffee.
The model I bought is the Bodum “Brazil”, and cost only $20. It makes up to 1 liter (a little over 4 cups) of coffee.
I’m pretty new to this whole “making your own coffee” thing, and it’s pretty exciting. I’m quickly finding out that it can be very fun to make coffee, but also very expensive if you want the best of coffee you can make. People I’ve been talking to tell me that the right grinder can make a huge difference, as well as roasting and griding your own beans. I have my eyes set on this grinder at the moment.
Expect more coffee updates in the future!
Morning! First post of 2011, hope you like it. This was a valentine lunch I prepared for my girlfriend and I. Also hope you like the video!
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Egg Salad-
To some egg salad is no more than an ugly slop of hard boiled eggs mixed with a spoon full of mayonnaise served on slices of faceless bread. But with the right amount of enthusiasm you can make something spectacularly delicious in a very short amount of time. To me it’s all about the texture. I try to keep the yolk as moist as possible, push it to the limit of becoming completely hard boiled. It’s not just hard boiled eggs on bread. It’s an opportunity to design a rainbow of sensations that will leave you wanting more.
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Ingredients:
- 6 small eggs
- 1-2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon of mustard
- 4 slices of bread
- butter
- cheese
- salt and pepper for taste
Remember ingredients are just the structure of the recipe. Think of ways to improvise for different flavors and sensations. If you want it to be more solid and savory try adding bacon. If a crunch is what your looking for, try chopped celery or corn. What to add some heat? a spoon full of wasabi will do the job.
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Directions:
Let the eggs sit out for a while to reach room temperature. This will help you cook them more accurately. Put them in a medium pot and fill the water just a little bit above the eggs. I always use my fingers to measure water height so about 1 finger nail high. Bring it to a boil and turn off the fire. Let it sit for 5-7 minutes. This depends on the amount of energy there is in the water, so use your best judgment. I was in a little bit of a rush so they only sat for 5 minutes which wasn’t enough for my eggs. But its ok! IMPROVISE! Move the eggs from the pot to a bowl of iced cold water and let it sit there for 5 mins to stop the eggs from cooking any longer. Crack and peel the eggs. Place them in a large mixing bowl and add mayonnaise, mustard and salt and pepper. Mash with a spoon or fork, just don’t get to crazy you want to leave a pleasant texture. Adjust taste as needed.
Now what I did to fix the under cooked eggs was move the whole mixture to a large pan and under low heat corrected the consistency of the eggs and had the opportunity to add some more flavor with some butter and a few dashes of smoked tabasco.
I buttered the slices of bread and grilled them on a griddle. I like to use unsalted butter for bread. Add cheese so they melt. Remove the toast when they are nice and golden.
Now assembly is up to you. I simply topped the cheesed toast with the egg salad and finished with the second piece of toast. Then halved the sandwich diagonally.
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Thats it! Hope you had as much fun as I did. This makes 2 sandwiches, one for you and the other for your lover. Let me know what you think and how your sandwich goes.
-RW
To get food with the green and fruity flavor of good olive oil, it seems more economical and effective to fry with an inexpensive refined oil and drizzle on a little fresh olive oil after cooking.
– Harold McGee thinks it’s time for an oil change in the kitchen. We couldn’t agree more! (via saltandfat) Via Salt & FatBland Burgers & How to Fix Them
It’s been a while since my last post! According to Tumblr, about 8 months since anything has been posted here. This is an unfortunate result of my not being active in the culinary sense, adhering to a strict budget, and worst of all, the lack of good grocery store choices here in Daytona Beach.
But fear not! I’ve been getting back on the ball and having many more food adventures now that I’ve made a group of friends that enjoy my enthusiasm about cooking. I’m planning to help make a Thanksgiving dinner next week, so there’ll be plenty for me to talk about and hopefully followed by lots of pictures and instructions.
On Thursday, I had the pleasure of grilling burgers over charcoal for my friends. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to create a custom mixture of meat for patties and used frozen 75/25 1/4-inch thick patties instead. Adorning my yellow Kitchenaid apron and brandishing a stainless steel spatula, I gained many compliments despite the unremarkable patties.
This was simply due to my ability to cook the patties well. The Salt & Fat post I linked in the previous paragraph gave me many tips in addition to the knowledge I already had about grilling burgers. Read up on it to find out how to grill properly.
One of the best piece of advice I can give to someone using ordinary store-bought patties is to season them. Since the meat isn’t extraordinary on its own, you can add a lot of flavor by using spices. A favorite of mine is sprinkling dill weed on the one side of the patty before grilling it, which I learned from a certain Mr. Flegal some years ago. Other good choices are garlic powder, chili powder, and of course salt, pepper, and/or Worcestershire sauce. Some more unconventional choices may also work well, such as dry thyme or sage, paprika, or even curry powder. Don’t be afraid to experiment with a patty or two (though you may want to limit eating it to yourself until you find out whether or not it tastes good!).
That’s all I have for now. Thanksgiving is right around the corner, so be prepared for some new recipes and cooking advice from Ristorante!
—Johnson
Steak Salting pt.2
OK, so… dinner has been over for 4hrs now and I’m ready to show you my findings.
My GF went and bought a “Round Steak London Broil” 2.14lb $10.68. A very affordable piece of steak! I halved it and it was still a GOOD portion for some big eaters. Anyways, I cleaned and dried the steaks, then used about 1 tsp of salt each side and left it for about 30 mins. After the 30 mins I came back to check on the steak to find it in a pool of water! Awesome, the salt did its job. Rinsed it clean and dried them again and found that the texture of the surface was much more solid and rough. Also the color of the steak was more richer. I then added some black pepper and covered them for when it was time to grill. Sadly all I had was a old convection top stove so I could not get the heat I needed and the steaks came out cold and rare. Also the salting was too much, the amount/time needs to be cut in half at least. BUT I will say that the thinner parts of my steak were perfectly amazing.
Im going to go at this one more time, maybe tomorrow! But on my good ole charcoal grill.
I’ll revise the instructions tomorrow, but for now here are some pictures from tonight.
did you say steak..?
Well, it’s been a while but I’m back..! Anyways, skip all the blah blah filler story and straight to the point. Tomorrow is Friday and I’m cooking with my GF and a few friends of mine, like double dating sort of. Whats on the menu? STEAK! At least for me… Now were all low on money but big on taste, and a steak dinner isn’t exactly cheap. I have a solution! SALTING. Yes, salt.. not just any salt but Kosher or Sea salt (as JT would say, “IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE”). Steak, though fresh will retain lots and lots of water which dilute the meat separating all the fat and juice between the fibers of protein. For those who season there steaks right before the cook them, you don’t notice but you’re most likely just steaming the steak because it’s probably waterlogged. If you look at the most complex expensive steaks today, they are all aged steaks. The flavor is not so much by how fresh the steak is or how well the marbleizing is but how the meat is actually prepared. In my case I’m going to salt the steak for about 30-40 mins to help draw out all the moisture in the steak and also improve the over all texture, taste, and tenderness of the steak. After salting, you simply wash the salt off and pat very dry (very important). Season it, and now it’s done and ready to grill.
Ingredients:
STEAK, big portion 1.25”+ thick, 5-6” across, any kind will do
(tbone, porterhouse, sirloin, ribeye, etc.)
Kosher or Sea Salt
Herbs, Spices, etc.
Instructions:
1. Clean Steak
2. Dry Steak; pat dry
3. Salt Steak; 3/4-1 tsp per side, 30-40 mins
4. Rinse Salt Off
5. Pat dry; very dry, extremely important
6. Season; fresh ground pepper, no salt
7. GRILL; to your liking, for me no more then 5min per side
I’ll update this tomorrow after dinner, let me know how it works for you! Enjoy!
—Rocky W
UPDATE! 3/12/2010 11:31 AM (from work)
Forgot to mention that the amount of salt and how long it sits depends on how large the steak is. For large steaks follow the instructions above, but for say a smallish steak, 1/2 a tsp of salt each side and 15 mins will do!
I’m a big fan of desserts, and I personally think it takes lot of guts to become a dessert chef and dessert connoisseur. There are certainly a lot of sweet tooths out there, and I’ve found one who has just absolutely fallen in love with finding the very best desserts. Her name is Namada Metabo; with her cute glasses and SLR camera, she sets out across Japan in search of desserts.
Her blog, namabolic, documents her adventures around the urban centers of Japan like Daikanyama, Shibuya and Harajuku, which apparently is dessert central for residents and tourists alike. What I like most is that, while the blog is written in Japanese, I can still get a grasp for what she is raving about through her wonderful pictures of the dessert. Of course, I still resort to using Google Translate to get a gist of her words, but unnecessary to take in the full beauty of her pictures. Namada updates quite often, so readers can get their fair share of eye candy, so to speak.
For any of you planning on visiting Japan in the future, it would be a great idea to use Google Translate to sift through her posts for dessert shop locations. If you’re not really familiar with the names of Japanese prefectures or districts, I recommend consulting Japanese tourist booklets as a quick reference. Namada also posts links of the dessert shops she visits if it exists, which should make it easy to track down good locations to visit. Yum!
JT
About Me
Two aspiring chefs, food critics, and people who just love eating to bring you the world's best food.If you have any questions, feel free to ask us here on Tumblr. All other comments can be sent to:
ristorante.tumblr [at] gmail.com
