four-ingredient comfort food

tonight, i wasn't particularly hungry. i craved a taste of something sour, so i ate some takuon pickles. doing so opened up my appetite. no clue what i wanted to eat. i was tired of dairy (this week's been filled with cream sauce pasta and that damn cheesecake that's still sitting in my fridge).

inspired by one of my suitemates, who came up and made some sort of ramen with canned corn and eggs, i decided to break out the last of my rice and make my favorite favorite comfort food: a lightly fried egg over plain white rice. i'm not adventurous enough to eat tamago kake gohan, especially not in the states, where our eggs are kept in refrigeration for god knows how long. so i compromise and make this:


despite the simplicity of this meal, it is one of the most insanely delicious and satisfying dishes one can prepare. (also, supercheap) the four integral ingredients are as follows: a fresh bed of plain white rice, an egg (two if you like), kikkoman soy sauce (preferably from a packet) and a sprinkling of very thinly sliced scallions.

rice must be cooked perfectly, as always. so many of my friends love nishiki rice, but my fav is the kokuho rose brand (available at any chinese/asian grocery, i believe). nishiki is a little too sticky and doesn't have as much bite to it.

image found on the internets

eggs, too, must be cooked perfectly: get a non-stick wok or a frying pan very hot and add about a tablespoon of oil. all is lost if the egg sticks to the pan and the yolk springs a leak. over high heat, crack your egg into the pan (or crack the egg into a small bowl then slide it into the pan, if you tend to break eggs), making sure the yolk is neatly cradled in the center of the white. fry, uncovered, only until the bottom of the egg is solidified enough to be flipped. cook the other side briefly, less than a minute.

transfer your perfect, still-wobbly egg onto a bed of rice and stab open the yolk with chopsticks. sprinkle (don't splash) 1 soy sauce packet over the egg and toss some scallion bits over it. enjoy warm.

[optional] sometimes i toss a light layer of toasted sesame seeds and/or nori flakes over top. it adds an extra oomph of umami

my first deep frying experience!

i bought my first gourmet magazine. i never bothered to before since all their recipes are available online, but i needed something to read on the train down to jersey. i got the xmas issue. i really love it, even if it's all about cookies, cookies and hors d'oeuvres. there were a couple of really insightful egg preparations, mostly notably the deep fried poached eggs:

image from epicurious.com

despite the fact that the recipe seems somewhat troublesome, it's really not all that intense. poaching-->breading-->deep frying. no biggie. my poaching didn't work out so well: the whites were overcooked while the yolks were incredibly runny. the water was boiling a little too hard. god, i really hope i don't have salmonella. i just bought the eggs today so hopefully they were safe enough.

man, i love deep frying. it's so much fun! you just pop something in there for a couple seconds and watch it turn golden brown. it's all bubbling and crispy and delighful. not greasy at all. i was quite pleased. i think i'll make potato chips next!

also, the creamed spinach was delicious. frozen spinach + cream + shallots (onions and garlic for lazy, cheapo me) = a super rich vegetarian dish. full of dairy fatty fat fat.

(mine doesn't look as crispy delish cuz i didn't do the deep fried serrano ham bits)

my freshly re-sparked affair with bread

random poster found on the internets

so the "bread baker's apprentice" doesn't sit so well with me. every review i've seen of the thing is so approving. but for me? it's a little... much. too much detail. too involved.

furthermore, recipes take forever to complete:
making pate fermentee.............1 hour + refridgerating overnight
unchilling pate fermentee..........1 hour
kneading................................10 minutes
fermenting..............................2 hours
proofing..................................1 hour
actual baking...........................20 minutes
cooling...................................40 minutes

PLUS, the confusing wording: "ferment at room temperature for 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size. if the dough doubles in size before 2 hours have elapsed, knead it lightly to degas and let it rise again..."

i don't get it. with my previous experience with bread, i know for a fact that there has to be 2 fermentations: the primary and the secondary. so... do the instructions suggest that you just ferment just once for 2 hours? what if the dough doesn't double in size before the 2 hours? god, i'm so nitpicky. but still! you have to degas! you simply must!

all in all, the bread came out pretty well. my kneading skills could use some work, but my dough came out pretty well. a lot softer and more pliable this time. blending all-purpose flour with bread flour makes the kneading much easier. i also did a lot better on my windowpane testing this time around.

the bread was pretty good. not even my addition of butter to the dough could make it taste richer. keeping the pate fermentee overnight really developed some good flavors. so yeah, peter reinhart knows what he's doing, but he's too advanced for me. i'm but a petit, naive little baker:

who produced this in only 5 hours flat:

appliances that i greatly fear

a couple of kitchen items out there just freak the hell out of me. i used to REALLY dislike microwaves and any cooking involved with microwaves. mostly because:
1) microwaves turn food into rubber (how can anyone suggest cooking eggs in a microwave? that's insane!)
2) i HATE the smell of microwave popcorn (the SMELL, it just won't go away! it permeates EVERYWHERE)
3) does anyone actually know how it really works? (+1 if you remember that episode of pinky & the brain)

i've been more approving of the microwave lately. however, i will only use it to reheat rice (there's really no other way of doing this), defrost things and melt butter. i may just add make microwave popcorn to the list since i met some hawaiian girl last night who introduced me to the delicious wonder that is hurricane popcorn:

this delicious treat is popcorn with nori and little rice crackers. created by the island people, it, of course, is a world of delicious.

but back to my fear of kitchen applicances: i don't believe i'll ever invest in a toaster oven. i fear the high probability of losing flesh to it. not so much like , but more so
+ NOT PAYING ATTENTION =

my ex had one and never used it cuz the outer surfaces would get ridiculously hot. several minor burns taught him that it was better to just go with a regular toaster. still, it's real nice for making pizza bagels and bruschetta and the like.
>>would i ever buy it? hmmm, only if i built a non-heat-conducting safety case around it.


another kitchen thing i fear is the benriner. aka the mandoline, lots of pros endorse this thing because of the ease with which you get uniform slices and shreds and juliennes. however, every single customer review i've read of this thing warns against how dangerous it is and how someone's spouse lost a finger or something. what's the point of having perfect cucumber slices when you look like you just got in a fight with edward scissorhands?
>>would i ever buy it? only if it comes with a free pair of chain mail butcher's gloves

* all images in this post courtesy of the internets

food loves your attention

i've found that when trying out a new recipe/technique/ingredient, one should really focus all of one's attention. like, devote one's attention on the new addition to the family and ignore all the little snot-nosed demons on the side.

i really thought i could multi-task and attempt to cook brussel sprouts + handle george foremanning a salmon burger, making a lemon-pepper sauce for it, heating up frozen corn and unloading & loading the dishwasher (incidentally, one of my all-time favorite activities). didn't seem like such a daunting task... until i noticed that my brussel sprouts had sat in the fridge a bit long and i had to remove the outer leaves off all of them, trim their stalks & split them in half... while my salmon burger dried out.

i roughly followed the one brussel sprout recipe offered in the Gourmet but was suspicious of its instructions to cook the sprouts (cut side down) for 10-15 minutes. uncovered! i stuck through for 8 minutes, then got discouraged and hit the pan with a little water + covered to steam. they came out real dry anyway. and a little scorched. maybe there wasn't enough butter. maybe it was the terrible terrible generic brand butter (more on this later). sigh. i don't think sprouts are best when "roasted" in a nonstick pan. i think i prefer them smothered in butter with pearl onions and root veggies. mayhap i'll try that next.

my lemon-pepper sauce (more like a glaze) tasted real nice though. the corn... well, it was just boil-heated frozen corn.


in other news, i made scones again and they came out wonderfully. winning remarks from all who tasted them (cept myself, i thought the frosting/glaze that ran down the side/bottom got a little burnt). even though i had no distractions (no other dishes to take care of), i'm pretty sure it's the forgiving nature of scone-making that resulted in such a good end product. again, they were todd's mom's recipe (i'm taking so much credit for this woman's recipe filtering).

preheat oven to 425F

combine:
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar

add 1/3 cup butter (cut up) & do that rubbing the fat into the flour thing til you get small pea-sized butter-flour pellets.

mix in ½ yogurt (low-fat, full-fat, whatev), 1 egg, 2 tsp lemon zest (i microplaned a whole lemon's worth of zest, yum!) & knead into a dough.

shape dough into 2 rounds & cut each into 6 wedges or go nuts with your own shaping of choice. transfer to a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil (dull side up! i can't believe how many people don't know this!). oh, best to butter up that foil, too.

whisk together 1 ½ tbsp lemon juice with 1 cup confectioner’s sugar to make a frosting/glaze. brush a thick layer of the frosting onto the tops of each scone (taking care not to get any on the foil, where it will caramelize, glue the scone to the foil and/or burn).

bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden/pretty/edible-looking.

my precious little cooking library: a topical review

1) i've been randomly reading the "williams-sonoma kitchen companion" lately:

it's an amazingly thorough but succinct guide for amateur cooking enthusiast like myself. just for fun, i'll flip to a random page and read up on what a cherimoya is. flip to another and i'll learn that escarole and endive (those unfamiliar greens in your "spring mix" salads) are part of the chicory family. another page will tell me that an opened carton of heavy cream can stay fresh in the fridge for 4 days. the best feature of this tome is that it has sections on selecting, storing & preparing that offer expert accounts on the handling as well as the serving of foodstuffs.

2) another of my favorite texts is the ever indispensable "gourmet cookbook". i got it as a christmas/winter solstice gift from a baking friend and have put it to good use every time i decide to cook something new:

i just did a search on amazon.com and the new 2006 version (which comes with a dvd!) is selling for only $26.40 (list price is $40). seriously, this is the best $25 bucks a foodie might ever spend. at 1000+ pages, it's quite the collection. it also includes several useful inserts about ingredient handling and prep techniques. not to mention there's more than a thousand straightforward, lovingly drafted recipes. i made a very well received upscale mac & cheese from this book: "the best macaroni & cheese i have ever tasted in my life. in my life!"

also, i used it to make hard-boiled eggs today. the gourmet touts the following as its "perfect" method:
1. place eggs into a large heavy pot & cover with 1 ½ inches cold water. partially cover & bring to a rolling boil.
2. reduce heat to low, cover pot completely & cook 30 seconds
3. remove from heat & let eggs stand in hot water (covered) for 15 minutes
4. run eggs under cold water to stop cooking

i never really understood why the green/grey ring around the yolks was such a big deal. still, this method did execute perfect hard-boiled eggs: it delivered on the “bright yellow velvety yolks” that were promised, plus the whites were very tender (no hint of rubbery-ness at all).

3) because i'm thrifty, an eager consumer, and easily attracted by shiny things/pretty pictures, i can't help but buy cookbooks like this:

i'm sure you've seen it before in bargain book displays at your local barnes or borders. i love it for the illustrations; love how every step has a little photo to guide your progress. in terms of recipes, it's decent. not always perfect, not always gourmet, but you should play around with these recipes and supplement them with insights from other cooking guides. all in all, a good deal at $6.

4a) lastly, a remnant of my brief flirtation with bread baking (which i will be sure to nurture into a full on affair once i have the time), a nice little book i should've stolen from my roommates last year:

using bernard clayton's "new complete book of breads," i made a couple of somewhat decent loaves (adding butter to dough adds a delightful richness). i also tried out the recipe for a french baguette using egg white, but i don't think it really made the bread all that more light. then again, bread's a difficult animal entirely foreign to my regular stovetop world.

4b) i purchased this highly recommended/reviewed book at the strand, but have not yet had the pleasure to test out recipes yet.

i have flipped through it in its entirety and it is full of high quality illustrations + detailed (ugh, sometimes so detailed i got bored) explanations of each microscopic step of bread making. i'll get on recipe reviews once finals are over.

* all images in this post courtesy of the internets

tea accessories

i’m not too big a fan of my pretty little cast-iron (tetsubin) teapot. sure, tetsubin are stylish, maybe “sophisticated,” but too trendy and a touch pretentious unless you’re mr. miyagi.

its selling point is that it keeps tea “extremely” hot. but i haven’t observed that. ceramic does the job just as well. plus, it requires less upkeep and is more sanitary. with ceramic, i can see the brown tea residue left and get at that with a sponge. but a black enamel-coated interior… that’s about as unpredictable as a korean girlfriend. tetsubin need to be dried out completely to prevent rust from forming.

on the other hand, i’m sure it’d be a bitch and a half to clean a gorgeous pot like this as well:

photo from met museum of art

an electrical teapot is an essential that i would recommend for any and every kitchen. i use it every opportunity i get: for tea, for boiling water to prep pastas & noodles, even for personal hygiene when the hot water in my building goes out (this happens rather regularly). of all my kitchen appliance children, i’d characterize this one as my reliable firstborn. i got it for $32.99 during one of amazon.com’s many excellent bed, bath & kitchen sales ($25 off $125 + free shipping, how can you say no?).

i use this thing several times a day. it’s incredibly fast and convenient. trust me, you NEED it in your life:

image from amazon.com