the other night, i was having a hankering for sushi, but, of course, it was monday, and kotobuki was closed. (see? mondays = most businesses closed). so what was my fix? takeout sushi from wasabi. [flash-attack warning: it's really annoying when you just want to see the menu, find out the location, etc., but you have to wait for the pages to load. imo, it's a really obnoxious site.]

since it's by cavin's work, he picked some up from the takeaway menu on his way home. he picked up a medium mix ($12.00), and a salmon, avocado & capelin caviar roll ($3.00 for 4 pieces). the medium mix included (2 pieces each): (cooked) shrimp nigiri, salmon nigiri, tuna nigiri, small cucumber roll, small tuna roll, and an inside-out salmon, avocado & sesame seed roll. and, of course, they supply you with the wasabi, soy sauce, and pickled ginger.

it was just ok. the salmon, avocado, sesame seed roll was the best. to be honest though, i think it was the best because i have an affinity towards rice and sesame seeds, and i think the sesame seeds contributed most to the flavor. the biggest problem i had was with the nigiri. there was simply too much rice, and the rice was rather hard and not moist at all. it really didn't even taste like sushi rice, but more like undercooked jasmine white rice. the salmon and the tuna tasted as fresh as takeaway sushi could have been - i had a feeling that the sushi was prepared a few hours before cavin picked it up and ended up on our table. i think "legitimate" takeaway sushi places should write the time the sushi is made and packaged on the container (unless it's made to order like at kotobuki), so the diner has an idea what she is getting into. but alas, no such timestamp at wasabi.

we had only gone to wasabi once before, when it first opened earlier in the year. here was my review:

wasabi

i dunno. i wanted to like it. and, i did like the salmon, but unfortunately, that is the only standout thing i can really remember, taste related. i do remember being trumped by the family of 5 the entire time. it was like being at the airport baggage terminal, but standing at the end where the bags return to the land of arms and gloves behind the black flaps. well, sort of, not really, but similar to that. they call it kaiten-style, where the sushi comes out on a conveyor belt. the plates are each a different color to signify the price. i think we saw at least a few dishes that never quite made it around to over where we sat because the family snatched them up. if we hadn't sat so close (we sat in close proximity to them, but on the other side of the loop, where the plates are almost done their catwalk and go back to the dressing room), we wouldn't have seen what we were missing (some kind of hand roll i think, a dumpling look-a-like, etc). but yeah, the salmon was pretty fatty, and melted in my mouth when i ate it. i tasted this chicken dish - it was essentially a japanafied version of a goujon with hot mustard sauce as the condiment. also, and now that i think about it, the yellowtail sashimi with a cilantro-based puree was pretty tasty (ok, so i take back what i said about the salmon being the only standout thing).

i was on the website reading up on the man behind wasabi, and i read that he wasn't japanese, but had a latin background. i thought to myself, hmmm, how is this guy going to pull this off? here's how. he has robots making his sushi! that's right. ROBOTS. i read that they were hiring, and in the description for one of the positions, it talks about how they need people to CUT the sushi. not PREPARE it. it said something like, "we have robots make the sushi, so we need people who can cut up the rolls." wha? why not just have robots cut the rolls too? in fact, why not just get rid of all humans and just make it the first restaurant ran by robots?

oh, and while on the subject of websites. i'm sorry, but the wasabi website is just plain awful. the flash is so slow, and it takes forever for the page to load. not to mention there is no menu. they claim to have a menu, but all it is a generic decription of the types of foods you might find.

anyway, back to the food. there was another chicken dish that i can't quite remember the taste. it wasn't that memorable of a dish to me, except for the fact that it was served on rice and was spicy. oh, and there was a crabstick avocado (i guess california roll?) that was ok. and also a herbed tuna roll. it had some dark leafy green in it, maybe spinach, or maybe it was watercress. i don't know. it was an interesting idea, but i didn't quite get it. but maybe that's just me.

we let a lot of dishes go by - there was a salad, some flounder that had undergone the same treatment as the yellowtail i described above. an asparagus roll. tuna sashimi. miso soup. we tallied up the plates (all from $2-$6 a plate, but most closer to $4 and above) and our bill came to 50 bucks. eh. a little too pricey for me, especially for the selection. i guess i don't mind trying it out the first time. but this will probably be the final time i go back unless, 1) i sit by the beginning of the conveyor belt; 2) have a better selection of food; 3) they post a sample menu on the website and cut out the outrageous flash; 4) fire all the humans and bring in the robots.

so why the hell did we go back to wasabi? i'm not sure. i think my stomach won out in the battle vs. my brain, because there are still humans working there, and the website is still really awful. but after we finished, we were a tad bit hungry still, so we decided to try the hot sausage (we got two types: hot and sage) that we got from the butcher in our pork order.

i was a little bit worried, because looking at the package (and the crappy picture i took this morning) it seems that the pork wasn't thoroughly mixed enough with the seasonings. i didn't want to be eating ground pork with pockets of flavors - i wanted hot flavors throughout! i was so tempted to season the sausage, but cavin convinced me not to. how were we to know what the sausage tasted like as-is? of course, he was right. so against my desire to re-season the sausage, i pan fried it in a non-stick pan, no oil.

it was good! surprisingly, it was seasoned throughout, and it left a bit of heat on my tongue afterwards! even though it was hot flavored, it still had a slight sweetness to it. and i bet if i had seasoned it more, it probably would have been too salty (good work cavin).

we didn't cook all of it (the picture shows the remainder), and either tonight or tomorrow we'll prolly try to make this stuffed mushrooms recipe that i saw on epicurious. normally we just saute whatever veggies we have in the house, add some breadcrumbs and cooked sausage and stuff the mushrooms and bake them. but while bored one day i came across this recipe and since over 300 people tried it "92% would make it again" i figured i'd also give it a try. it's got a lot of cream cheese, which i will probably cut down because cavin doesn't like cheese too much. i'll make sure to post about it in case you want to try it at home (that is, if it's as good as most people are reporting).

Labels: pork, sushi

Labels: filipino, philly, random

hee been
6231 little river turnpike
alexandria, va 22312
703.941.3737

hello, my name is sachi and i'm addicted to korean food. (chorus: hi sachi)

yesterday after discovering at 4:30pm that eastern market was closed, i was demoralized. why is it that most places are closed on mondays? more importantly, why are most places i want to go to on mondays, closed?

eastern market being closed yesterday created a problem for me, strictly because i wanted to pick up beef short ribs a day in advance, so that when i left work early today, i could go straight home and start cooking them and not be up all night due to the many hours it takes to braise them. but my plan was foiled by the case of the mondays. so what's a girl to do? get cavin to drive me to h-mart all the way in virginia! and, since we were already going out that way, why not stop in annandale (aka koreatown) and get korean food?

we've been able to try four different korean restaurants in the area thus far, but our go-to korean is hee been. i can't exactly remember our first experience there, but i do remember the first time i saw it. when you get off 395 onto little river turnpike, it's right there on the left hand side, which i happened to notice sometime last year when, in fact, we were driving to another korean (buffet) restaurant, il mee, which is further down the road.

when we first started going to hee been, they only had buffet during lunch. so occasionally on a weekend when we were going to h-mart, we would try to hit the lunch time buffet. the buffet wasn't just prepared foods that were sitting there for diners to take, but it also included korean bbq, so you could load up your plate with raw meat like kalbi, shrimps, bulgogi, pork belly, etc. and have it cooked at your table. it was quite better than il mee, whose quality of meat i sometimes questioned in the past. almost one side of hee been's buffet is dedicated to different panchan dishes (marinated cucumber, kimchi, spicy fish strips, bean sprouts and more) which was great because a korean meal is not complete without the panchan!

in the middle of the summer though, we noticed a big banner advertising dinner buffet as well. cavin and i were psyched about this (or maybe i was just psyched for the both of us) so as soon as we had the chance, we went there in the summer for the dinner buffet. while it was still great, the price was not so awesome. while lunch on the weekends was $16.95 (14.95 m-f), dinner was $26.95 (24.95 m-th) - dinner buffet was putting us back over 50 bucks!

the next time we went to hee been though, we came to our senses. when we eat at the buffet, we normally just get the bbq, and panchan. if we don't buffet and just order the bbq off the menu, it's so much cheaper! since then, we've just ordered off the regular menu (with much success) and our bill is at least 10-15 dollars cheaper than if doing the buffet.

on a recent visit, we decided to try something different. we ordered the bo ssam ($19.95), which in my many korean experiences have not yet had. described as "steamed pork belly served with spicy radish and sailted [sic] cabbage to rapped with," we were quite excited. here are some descriptions of what came out: perfectly stacked salted napa cabbage; spicy matchsticks of daikon radish piled high in the middle of the plate; steamed pork belly fanned around the perimeter of the round plate; raw oysters set aside on the opposite side of the plate from the pork belly.

eating bo ssam is similar to eating kalbi: pile the different components of what's on the plate onto the leafy green (be it cabbage or lettuce), roll it up, and eat it like a little package. i have to say that while it wasn't the best thing i've eaten there, it was interesting and i would perhaps in the future try it again. some complaints: the cabbage was a little bit too salty for me, which is sometimes hard to do because i love salty things. while i do understand that they weren't going to include fancy kumomoto oysters on the plate, somehow everytime i ate an oyster, there was a voice in my head telling my stomach to "hang on tight!" because i wasn't sure where these raw oysters came from or how long they were sitting out (they tasted ok, and i didn't get sick...mind over matter). some highlights: the pork, while fatty (i mean, come on, it is pork belly!) and only steamed, had great flavor. the spicy radish complemented the salty cabbage, and i discovered some raw oysters gems inside the nest of radish, which was fantastic because they somehow marinated in the kimchi-like flavor of the daikon.

last night though, we opted for the special kalbi ($20.95) which we had them cook back in the kitchen instead of on the table top grill, and kimchi jigae. i think that when you order off the menu, the quality of meat is better than what you get at the buffet. when our kalbi came out, the meat looked rich and thick and was still stuck to the short rib bone, which our server cut into pieces for us with scissors. the kimchi jigae wasn't as spicy as some i've had in the past at other places, but it was still delicious. the only complaint was that the bowl that the kimchi jigae came in was a bit smaller than i've seen before, yet the price was still $10.95.

we've also ordered the dol sat bi bim bap, which is quite standard fare for us. only the last time we ordered it, there was no fried egg on top (maybe the dol sat doesn't come with the egg, yet the regular bi bim bap does? i didn't think so, but i wasn't complaining - i'm trying to watch my cholesterol). our favorite part of the dol sat bi bim bap is eating the crisped rice stuck to the bottom of the hot stone bowl.

it would be remiss of me not to mention the panchan. of the four korean restaurants that cavin and i have been to in the dc metro area, i think the panchan at hee been is the best. they usually don't skimp, and last night was proof. soon after we ordered, our panchan was brought out. there were about 10 different panchan, including kimchi, bean sprouts, mashed potato with hard boiled egg on top, blanched green beans and bell peppers, marinated cucumber, fishcakes, and rectangles of (acorn?) gelatin covered with soy sauce and scallions.

i know i've mentioned that this is our first choice for korean in the area, but we have yet to try a few other places that i've read about (yechon, annangol, mandu). the dishes are obviously not perfect, and to be quite honest (and i guess pessimistic), i don't think cavin and i are going to find a restaurant in the area that we will be raving about for years to come, especially after we've been exposed to kimchi hana, which is, hands down, the best korean/japanese restaurant we've ever been to.

if you are in the new brunswick, nj area, please do yourself a favor and visit!

kimchi hana
6101 hadley road
south plainfield, nj
908.755.0777

Labels: restaurant

Labels: pork

Labels: beef, cooking, filipino

back in october, it was brought to my attention that there was going to be a discussion with Anthony Bourdain, Jose Andres, and Michel Richard, talking about how they learned to cook:

Smithsonian Resident Associate Program
Location: US Dept. of Interior, 1849 C Street, NW (Main Entrance)

$25, general admission; $15, members; call 202-357-3030
Every chef has to learn how to cook -- whether in grandma's kitchen, at a professional culinary institute, or perhaps both. This evening, chefs Anthony Bourdain (Brasserie Les Halles in New York), Jose Andres (Jaleo, Cafe Atlantico, Oyamel), and Michel Richard (Citronelle) recount their first experiences in the kitchen, the miraculous moments that made them want to cook forever, and the unexpected epiphanies that occurred just when they thought they knew it all. Book signing follows.

well, last night was the night, and i have to say, my entire night was pretty great.

cavin and i decided that it wasn't worth going home after work and going back out, so we agreed on going out for happy hour for food & drinks before, and then walking down to the department of interior (doi), which is near the mall. but since the talk began at 6:30pm and the doi is still a 6-7 block walk from the nearest metro, we needed to find a place that would cater to our early happy hour needs. so we ended up going back to taberna del alabardero for their quite awesome happy hour.

we first went to taberna back in january 2006 for our first dc restaurant week. i distinctly remember that it was just general, despite the fact that it was touted as "the best spanish restaurant outside of spain" by the spanish government, named by Washingtonian magazine's "100 very best restaurants" and was one of the "50 best restaurants in the country" by conde nast traveler, among a slew of rewards. i didn't quite agree that first time around. here is my review of the restaurant:

Taberna del Alabardero

I was a little nervous going into DC's (semiannual) Restaurant week (Jan 9-15 2006). I've been living here for almost 6 months but yet I don't feel like I've gotten a representative sense of what DCers are really like. Do DCers really know about food or do they only know about politics? If there is one thing I hate, it’s people who say food is first-rate because of the price tag, or because that's what everyone else says. I was hoping these and other questions would be answered after one week of going to DCs supposedly finest restaurants.

The first day of Restaurant Week, CB and I had reservations for the extravagantly priced Taberna del Alabardero. I thought to myself, "We should be getting a deal out of this: $30.06 per person for three courses, when usually one entree is on average around $30!" When we were seated promptly for our 5:30 reservation, the restaurant seemed moderately empty, although there were a few scattered tables throughout with other "early birders". My first impression was that TDA’s ambiance felt warm - red hued walls with white molding, candles on each table, and a red pomegranate on each of the crisp, white tablecloths. We were seated in a round corner table, with our seats being cushioned benches along the wall with pillows propped up all around us. It had been a long day, so we started off dinner with a glass of white wine to relax and get us in the mood of the supposed “best Spanish restaurant outside of Spain.” Not before long, we were given the house appetizer: aceitunas and pan con ali-oli (olives and bread with an aioli sauce). While we munched on this, we perused the menu and unfortunately noticed that the restaurant week menu dishes were not on TDA’s normal dinner menu. This was my first tip-off that perhaps we weren’t getting as good a deal as I had originally thought.

CB and I ordered everything on the restaurant week menu, to make sure that we were able to taste as many dishes we could for the price we were paying. CB ordered the Crema de Lentejas con Pato y Zanahoria (warm lentil soup with duck and carrot brounoise), while I ordered the Pastel de Puerros, Gambas y Bacon con Manojillo de la Huerta (leek, shrimp and bacon tart with field green salad). CB much enjoyed the soup – it was a bit creamy with pieces of duck throughout, while I thought the description of ‘tart’ was a little misleading. I was expecting more of a traditional tart, but instead was surprised with a pate-like dish. Even though it wasn’t what I expected, the dish was pleasant to eat – I enjoyed the jelly-like texture and the subtle flavors of leeks and shrimp, though, I didn’t seem to taste any trace of bacon in the dish. Regrettably, these dishes were the highlight of our dinner, with everything else proving to be just mediocre.

There were two choices for the second course (entrée): Salmon con Escalibada de Verduras y Vinagreta de Aceitunas (salmon with roasted vegetables and olive vinaigrette) and Lomo de Cerdo Relleno de Pimientos y Queso (Pork loin chop stuffed with cheese and peppers). Because CB doesn’t care too much for cheese, I ordered the pork, while he went with the salmon. My pork was a little bit overdone – most of the pork was a little bit dry. Although the cheese was oozing out of the pork, the cheese was mild enough to not overpower the dish, though, I do wish that there were more peppers stuffed inside. It was served with mashed potatoes and grilled yellow and green squash, which I thought had an excellent grill/smoked flavor. CB’s salmon was just ok – the olive vinaigrette was really overwhelming, and made the salmon almost taste like it had been marinating a little too long in the vinaigrette, almost reducing the salmon to a canned-tuna consistency.

Dessert was the worst, in terms of originality. The two desserts were Natillas (traditional cream custard) and Mousse de Chocolate con Crema Castanas (chocolate mousse with chestnut cream). The cream custard was served as room temperature soup, which had good flavor, but lacked anything spectacular. The mousse had so much potential, but ultimately, failed. Technically, the mousse was prepared perfectly. The chestnut cream, while having an excellent chestnut essence to it, sat at the bottom of the mousse and was devoid of any flavor if eaten with the chocolate in one bite – the chocolate mousse seemed it would have overpowered anything it was paired with.

Our total bill, including tax and gratuity, came out to be around $100 (for two people). My first thought is that I don’t think I would go to Taberna del Alabardero again. Although the service was quite good, we paid about $50 for mediocre food and I would be very angry if I had paid the normal menu prices and had a similar food experience. It is really too bad because I don’t feel like the 2006 January Restaurant week menu was characteristic of the type of cuisine normally found here. This is partly the reason why I am willing to give TDA a second chance, but this second chance probably won’t occur for some time, as I am more willing to spend money on restaurants that not only tout they are outstanding, but also deliver.

i believe my review was spot on, but i also believe that in some aspects restaurant week (RW) is amateur hour, in the sense that most people that don't normally go out to restaurants all come out from under their rocks, and so the restaurant has to cater to all these non-epicureans, perhaps not performing to its standards (but this is not always the case). also, i believe that restaurants are sometimes limited in what they serve on their RW menu, so the diner doesn't necessarily get a representative sample of what she might normally get if she visited any other time of the year (which probably was the case with my first experience with taberna).

so it was about 6 months later that we finally decided to give taberna another try, be it only for the happy hour special. and i think it was the service, the spectacular sangria, the authentic (half price!) tapas and the dignified atmosphere that keep us coming back for more. unlike most happy hour places, taberna isn't filled with college-aged kids trying to get their "pre-game" booze on before they move on to bigger and better things. it is really a refined establishment, and every time i go, be it for dinner or happy hour (i've gone 4 times now), i really do feel like i've been transported out of dc and am sitting in another country. the past two times we've gone, we've sat next to non-english speaking tables and i actually feel more at home in an atmosphere like this, rather than one where i can overhear the rowdy table of young professionals bragging about how they hooked up with so and so, and how the party this weekend is going to be so "kick ass".

but, this is not a review of taberna. i just wanted to make it known that despite my first visit to taberna, each successive time i've gone has been more fantastic, last night being no exception. (oh, and did i mention that their happy hour is from 3-7pm? you gotta love the spaniards!)

after we got our fill of salmon marinado con esparragos (marinated salmon with white asparagus), tostada de escalibada y bonito (country toast bread, roasted vegetables and bonita tuna), and falda con patatas alabardero (certified angus beef flank steak with house potatoes), and of course the $12 pitcher of sangria, we headed down to the doi.

it took us a little bit longer than expected to walk down there because it had been storming all day and the leaves were quite slick, thus causing me to walk a bit more slowly. so we didn't arrive until 10 minutes before the event started. as soon as we walked in though, the auditorium was at least 80% filled to capacity. we were able to locate two seats on the left side, pretty far back, maybe 30 rows back from the stage. (i'd say that the auditorium holds about 500 people?)

colman andrews was the moderator, and started by introducing the chefs, one by one, as they came out on the stage. i knew it was going to be a great discussion because as soon as jose andres came out, he was carrying a plate of food, as well as a bottle of wine that the three chefs were to drink throughout the 1.5 hour discussion.

c.andrews started off the discussion asking the chefs how they first started getting into cooking. m.richard noted that he had many siblings and would be the cook for the family when his mother would be out working. when he was merely a teen in france, his mother would give him 2 dollars for him to buy food for the family, and he would make horse steaks and make fries in the horse fat. a.bourdain, of course, started off as a dishwasher, living the party lifestyle of a chef, until he realized that he loved what he was doing and wanted to move ahead.

i had pulled out some paper to write notes to cavin during the discussion instead of talking and making noise (it was already hard to hear j.andres and his spanish accent). there must have been some sort of telepathy because immediately after cavin wrote, "i want someone to ask if they like rachel ray," a.bourdain starts going on a rant about rachel ray (and sandra lee, later on). it's pretty clear that a.bourdain, and j.andres (not so sure about m.richard, though) despise rachel ray. my favorite quote of the night came from a.bourdain regarding rachel ray's $40 a day show, and how she is able to eat 3 meals a day on such a low budget. "try tipping, bitch!" was his emphatic reponse, and the crowd erupted in cheers! it was great to be in a room full of rachel ray haters.

colman andrews prepared some great questions. here are some of them and the chef's responses:

which ingredient have you never used in your cooking?
MR: "cilantro"
AB: "i won't use white truffle oil again" (?)
JA: "anything not from spain"

what 3 ingredients would you take with you if you were on a deserted island?
MR: "prosciutto, bread, butter"
AB: "pig, toro, butter, salt" (yes, this is four)
JA: "spanish cheese, crackers, wine"

colman also asked the chefs what other career (non-food) would they be in if they weren't a chef. a.bourdain's answer was best, "the bass player of parliament funkadelic!"

one last highlight was when colman asked a series of either/or questions. "martha stewart or nigella lawson?" (duh!) all three chefs agreed nigella lawson, and showed their love for the voluptuous woman! apparently everyone loves nigella, as a.bourdain recounted a story about how he and a bunch of other male chefs were trying to gross her out by telling her weird things they've eaten. they fell in love with her more when nigella said that she had eaten an aborted pig fetus.

after the discussion and the audience questions, the chefs sat down in the front of the auditorium, ready to sign the books of the many people standing in line, which wrapped around the side of the room. i checked out the books, but i wasn't in the market for a new food book (i just bought molly steven's the art of braising.) so cavin and i left and caught a cab home. (oh, and apparently cavin informed me when we got home that the cab driver violated some law where he/she cannot ask the prospective riders their destination before getting into the cab. cavin got the cab driver's id number and reported him.)

it was a great evening, and i only regret not going up to the mic and asking the chefs if they thought it was necessary that one get a culinary degree to make it in the business (i was thinking of myself, naturally).

Labels: event, wine

since our pork pick up was a bust, and we were going to stay in the area last weekend, and we were driving from va to dc, we decided to stop by our favorite asian store in the area, h-mart. our fridge, which is normally full of goodies, was pretty sparse, save for the many condiments on the inside of the door. so we decided to make the stop, despite the fact that it was early afternoon on a saturday and this is prime time for shopping.

when we got there, it was more crowded than i've ever seen. there were flavor profile samples everywhere. i'd guess that there were at least 25 different tables set up with asians cooking samples of food for passersby to taste. miso soup, dumplings, kimchi, korean pears, persimmons, plum wine, the list goes on. there was even two guys cutting up this huge tuna (i would guess like 50 lbs?) right next to the seafood department, cutting up samples and leaving them out for people to try. i have to say, some of these older asian ladies just don't give a crap: i saw one lady pick up a toothpick, and spear almost every piece of (raw) tuna, dip it in the spiced soy sauce, and devour it! there were only scraps left for the rest of us to try. it was as if she had fasted the night before just so she could come to h-mart to feast! un-freaking-believable.

so as we were shopping around, i picked up some asian long beans and some pork belly (i know i know. we're getting pork soon, but i wanted to pick just a little bit up to make adobong sitaw), some organic miso (which i've never bought before, so i was anxious to get some home and use it), and all the things we normally get: scallions (6 bunches for $1 - what a steal!), cilantro, italian flat leaf parsley, sage, and other herbs, etc. but this time, instead of passing by this large flower bud looking thing, i picked it up, bagged it, and threw it in the cart ($1.99/lb, and the one i chose was .87lbs). ah, the banana flower!

while perusing the other items, i called my mom and asked her if she knew anything about it. she thought i was talking about dried banana flower, and was mentioning kare-kare. i didn't feel like making kare-kare, and honestly, i haven't yet built up the courage to make it, though, i think in the near future, i'll give it a try (but no tripe please). my mom wasn't sure about the fresh banana flower, but that didn't stop me from taking it home and figuring out what to do with it. this is where the rest of the story goes downhill.

once we got home, i did a brief search of banana flower recipes on the interweb, and based on the ingredients we had in the pantry, i decided to prepare it this way.

i chopped the banana flower as Aparna did on the website above. i let it soak in aciduated water for about an hour. then, i sauted sliced onion and the spices until the onion softened a little, then added the chopped (strained) banana flower. i think i let it cook for 40 minutes or so, but when i went to taste it, eck! not only did it have no flavor whatsoever, despite me adding more salt and more spices, but it had a weird texture. i can only describe it this way: it's like eating the inside peel of a banana, the part that is fragile and stringy that connects to the banana. yeah, something like that. i mean, it kinda makes sense because i'm describing how it is similar to the inside of a banana peel, and well, it is from the same plant. but, needless to say, i didn't think cooking it longer would have helped so we ended up tossing it. (hmph.)

just now i was looking up more recipes and maybe when i'm braver i'll try making it again. i saw something about people cooking it in salted water first (or a pressure cooker, which is on my list of things that i don't yet own but want), some people use it in salads, some peel all the leaves (i peeled most of the purples leaves, sorry i don't have more pictures). i also didn't remove the pistils from the mini flowers within each layer of the banana flower peel, and i seem to recall tasting it and pulling it out cause it was inedible. so, all in all, i really botched up the banana flower. i think next time i am going to try this recipe.

i'm a little bit disappointed in myself because i didn't do enough research before i started chopping the banana flower, to make sure i understood which parts could be eaten, which parts would be bitter, (i read that some people say that the outer leaves are bitter and one should peel them off before chopping), etc. i guess this is just a lesson for me to do my homework before delving into such an exotic adventure. oh well. if anyone has experience with the banana flower, please leave me a comment and give me some tips!

Labels: cooking

so i've mentioned this half hog briefly before, but i thought that i'd take the time to explain further what the heck is going on, and then segue into my not-that-awesome banana flower story.

let me back up a little bit though. this past summer, cavin and i were part of a csa (community supported agriculture) subscription where for 20 weeks, we got all of our veggies from bull run farm in virginia, about 40 or so miles from our beloved (but cramped) tiny apartment in dc. (for a 2-person share, 20 weeks of veggies was $420, and i should note that each week we would just have to go to dupont circle to pick up our veggies, and they would usually last us more than a week, so we were always in abundance of fresh vegetables.) leigh, our farmer, shared with all his subscription members some of the honey he raised from his worker honey bees, the black walnuts that had fallen from his trees, extra seedlings from the greenhouse that did not make it into his garden plots, and of course, the source of his protein.

leigh usually goes to a butcher close to his house. he sent out an email asking if any of us wanted to put an order in for meat. the choices were 1)half hog 2)whole hog 3)quarter cow 4)half cow 5)whole cow. after discussing with family members ("your tito tony wants beef! what are you going to do with all that pork! can you order the beef AND the pork?"), cavin and i decided on the half hog (~90lbs) because we wanted to participate, and i think eating over 100 lbs of red meat in a year or so might be a little bit hazardous to our health. plus, since this is just the first time, and because the butcher isn't some guy who does this in his kitchen, we can always order from the establishment in the future if all goes well.

we were told to fill out a cut sheet for the half hog (i finally understand that saying "go whole hog" now!) and return it to him about a month before the little piggy cried all the way home to our freezer. i don't know if you have ever filled one of these out, but let's just say it's not the same as going to your grocery store or meat market and picking out pork chops, ribs, shoulder, etc. we had to specify if we wanted the front shoulder as steaks or roast (boston butt) [we chose the latter for braising purposes]. do we want pork chops or pork loin, and if pork chops, how thick do we want the chops? whole side or short ribs? plus a plethora of other specifications. cavin and i got a good lesson in the different cuts of pork, though we were still a little bit unclear about the ribs so we checked both boxes (whole side AND short ribs), but someone from the butcher called cavin earlier this week and told him it's either or, not and. so he picked the short ribs, and now i'm curious to see if pork short ribs are similar to beef short ribs (i.e. cut across the rib bones).

anyway, leigh is great and even set the pick up for us: he would pick up everyone's order, bring it back to the farm for everyone to pick up on saturday, november 11, instead of everyone having to drive out to the butcher, where we don't really know where it is.

saturday morning came, and our plan was set in motion. we didn't want to go out and buy a large cooler because we wouldn't have space for it in the apartment, so our workaround was to use one of those many gallon tupperware containers that we had used for moving, clean it out, line it with bags, drive to the farm stopping by sheetz for ice, stuffing it full of our pork (which he mentioned would be vacuum-sealed and frozen), and then drive straight to philly to hand out our pork presents to the fam.

it was a great day, not just weather-wise, but also driving-wise. we usually take 66W out there, and the road is always chaotic. the last time we drove out to the farm to pick our pumpkins and glean the fields (we ended up with so much freaking eggplant and peppers, it was awesome) it took us over an hour because of all the jerks on the road. but this time, it was like no one was out driving, and those that were knew how to avoid causing traffic. (don't break! decelerate by letting go of the gas, man!)

we stopped at the sheetz, picked up a bag of ice, and drove the few miles down to the farm. everything was going as planned, or so we thought. the farm is on a road that doesn't see many cars go on it, except for those who live in the woods back there. the road is not paved and only one vehicle can go down it at a time, so if you are in a situation where another car is coming, one of you needs to pull over onto the side of the road (aka the woods) to let the other car go by, which is something that frequently happens on our previous visits to the farm. but something was suspect this time around: no cars were passing us on the road. in fact, it was quite dead. so as we pulled into the long driveway up to the house, we knew something wasn't right. we only saw one other car and two ladies walking on the road by the chicken/hen/turkey house. that's it. and we weren't there early either.

we pull up and leigh is not outside. his white van is parked neatly near the house, and finally after we park, we see him coming outside. he greets us and tells us that it wasn't ready when he went to the butcher earlier that morning. (!?!?) because the day before was a holiday (veterans day), usda didn't go to the butcher to inspect the meat, thus, they did no butchering and the meat wouldn't be ready until a week later! AGH!

so that was that. what else could we do? leigh said there were some apples left and we could help ourselves (which we did, because we needed fruit for lunch and i didn't want to drive all the way out there and come back empty handed). because of the weather, he said that most of the veggies that were still growing out in the fields died, so there wasn't much else but sorrel, and i wasn't feeling the sorrel this time around, so we passed on the sorrel, and then we drove back.

i called my mom and told her we wouldn't be coming, even though 2 hours before that i said we'd be in philly in the afternoon. i think she was a little bit disappointed because she was looking forward to seeing what this half hog business was about. i was also a little bit disappointed not only because we drove out there and didn't have the pork, but also because i wanted to go back to philly to see my parents, especially because my dad is now back at work, and my mom is recuperating from her meniscoscopy (sp?). but i guess i'll just have to wait one more week (actually, 3 more days).

...which leads me to the banana flower (see part 2).

Labels: chaos, pork

so last night i knew that we were going to roast a chicken for dinner. we had bought 3.71 lb chicken at the store the other night, and it was patiently awaiting its demise.

normally i would have chopped up a mixture of the herbs we currently have in our fridge (sage, italian parsley, thyme, cilantro), made herbed butter (or rather, herbed smart balance), and slathered the chicken (under the skin and on the skin, of course) with the butter and s&p, and then thrown it in the oven for about an hour. but i decided to try something different, something so simple i had my doubts, and it turned out to be quite awesome (it yielded a crispy skinned chicken, yet moist, perfectly cooked meat) and one of the easiest things i've done for dinner (besides eating leftovers).

i found a recipe on epicurious supposedly by the famous thomas keller (of the famed bouchon, the french laundry, and per se, none of which, i have eaten at yet *hint hint*). if you check out the recipe on epicurious, you might notice that the recipe looks rather long for something that i am claiming to be so easy, but if you actually read the instructions for mon poulet roti, you will notice that t.keller also instructs you on how to eat the bird as well. (if you are like me, however, you probably don't need any instruction on how to eat. hihi)

here's a quick summary of the recipe and what we did last night. i should note though, that i did not baste the chicken once it was done with the thyme and the chicken juices as the recipe says to do, which probably would have lessened the skin's crispiness.

first, pre-heated the oven to 450F (i know, high, right?). meanwhile, cavin washed the chicken (inside and out) and dried it extremely well with gobs of papertowels. the key is to get the bird as dry as possible so that no steaming will occur once the chicken is in the hot hot oven, resulting in crispy perfection. next we trussed the bird with some cotton string, and then generously seasoned with s&p (inside and out). t.keller says he "likes to rain salt over the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin (about 1 tablespoon)." (i'm a salt addict so i added a little bit more when cavin wasn't looking.) then we put the seasoned chicken on a roasting rack in our pan, and threw it in the oven, and kept it there for about 40 minutes (didn't baste, didn't look).

after 40 minutes, i just wanted to check to see what was going on, because it was at this point we started hearing splattering noises coming from the oven. cavin checked the temperature near the thigh, and it was around 150-155 degrees, so we threw it back in. lots of splattering was going on, but we weren't that concerned because when we checked the temperature the first time, the skin was getting deliciously crispy, so we knew we were doing something right.

about 20 minutes later at the 1 hour mark, we checked the temp again at the thigh, and it was in the high 170's, so it was time to take the bird out. carefully, cavin pulled it out (our oven door is constricted by a shelf, which, btw, really sucks, so anything we do in the oven has to be done with lots of care) and let it rest for 10-15 minutes. while it was resting, we noticed that we could see the salt baked into the chicken skin, as if the two had combined forces to defend someone from getting to the meat. we were quite excited.

finally it was time to eat. t.keller suggests eating the middle wing joint first, which we did, and it was salty (but not too much!) and crispy, and moist all at the same time. (it's kind of like discovering a perfectly roasted lechon for the first time!) then i cut the leg and thighs off and we devoured that with our leftover quinoa from the night before.

i was worried that the breast meat would dry out, and although we didn't eat the breasts last night, while packing it up, i tasted it and it was very moist! the one thing that wasn't awesome was the underside of the chicken, which wasn't able to crisp up as much as the top. i suppose having a convection oven might do that, but i was prepared for this and didn't eat the bottom skin. and i know i know. i'm trying to watch what i eat, but good god man! how could you not eat the flavor profiles of the salted skin? (don't worry though, i only ate the least fattiest parts of the skin.)

i should also note that before cavin and i embarked on our mon poulet roti adventure, he lined the bottom of the oven with two layers of aluminum foil, because we had read the reviews on epicurious and a lot of people complained about smoke alarms being set off and what not. we did not have anything of the sort happen to us, and when we make this again, we probably won't use the foil. though, i will say that for the last 20 minutes of cooking, there was a lot of splattering going on, so your oven might be need a little cleaning. (but don't ovens clean themselves these days? ah, the wacky technology.)

i almost saved the carcass for chicken stock, but then remembered that we still have a few cartons of organic chicken stock, and we are trying to reserve space in the freezer for the pork (4 more days).

so, to sum it up, here's what you need to do if you want to roast chicken the t.keller way:

1. preheat oven to 450F
2. wash and completely dry chicken, inside and out
3. truss bird (in my opinion, this isn't totally necessary, but it makes for a nice, compact bird, with no arms and legs flailing about)
4. generously season with salt and pepper
5. cook bird until thigh meat reaches about 175-180
6. rest bird for 10-15 minutes, then eat
7. be amazed at how something so simple can be so delicious

Labels: chicken, cooking

since the 90 lb. half hog is almost here (5 more days!), i wanted to steer clear from any pork dishes that i might be tempted to make (adobo, pork estofado, etc). i was having a hankering for some wild salmon, but whole foods didn't have any, not even frozen. and the only other wild (read not farm raised) fish that was there was cod, chilean sea bass (don't eat it!), swordfish, and rockfish.

with my wallet about $20 lighter, i was determined to have a healthy dinner. what was on the menu? rockfish, quinoa, and edamame.

so first off, what is quinoa (keen-wa)?

"Quinoa was of great nutritional importance within pre-columbian Andean civilizations, being secondary only to the potato, and followed in third place by maize. In contemporary times this crop has come to be highly appreciated for its nutritional value, and the United Nations has classified it as a supercrop for its very high protein content (12-18%). Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete foodstuff. This means it takes less quinoa protein to meet one's needs than wheat protein. It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is also gluten free and considered easy to digest. Because of all these characteristics, quinoa is being considered as a possible crop in NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long duration manned spaceflights."

woah nasa!

to make it, just remember the ratio of liquid:quinoa is 2:1. cavin made it last night and i think he used 1 cup organic chicken stock, 1 cup water, and 1 cup quinoa. on its own, the quinoa has a little crunch (not like nestle bar crunch, but kinda like al-dente pasta) and a very mild nutty flavor. if eating it plain, i usually add a little salt and pepper. you can eat it cold or hot, it doesn't matter - you can make a quinoa salad with some diced veggies and some vinagrette, or eat it as you would rice or couscous. to be honest, 1 cup of quinoa was a little bit too much for 2 people. if you are cooking for two and are eating other things, i would only make half quarter of a cup, unless you don't mind having leftovers.

last night though, while cavin started making the quinoa (i think it takes about 20 min or so), i sliced a large onion and caramelized it over low heat. in the time it takes to carmelize the onion the quinoa was done (obviously, i could have caramelized the onion for a lot longer, but honestly, i just didn't have the time on a monday night). and all you have to do is fluff the quinoa, mix in the carmelized onion, season with s&p, and you're done!

and because we need ample freezer space for the pork, we boiled some frozen edamame for another nutritious side.

as for the fish? i cut the rockfish fillet into two pieces, seasoned with s&p, pan seared in some olive oil, and then added some of the water that the edamame cooked in, covered, and let it finish steaming for another 5 min or so.

while the fish was steaming, i mixed up some of the organic miso cavin and i picked up at h-mart this weekend, with the honey we got from our farmer, leigh, and used it as a glaze on top of the fish once it was done. que fantastico!

it was really tasty and easy to prepare. tonight we are going to roast chicken for dinner. stay tuned!

Labels: cooking, seafood

Labels: work

i am learning how to blog.

edit: i'm doing pretty well i think, with this whole blogging thing. i've upgraded to the "beta version" and i've been able to pick up more html coding. my blog may look a little different than when i first started. i guess this is to be expected. change is a good thing.

Labels: blogging

i am feeling less depressed about my sprained ankle (some torn tendon that connects my fibia and tarsal or something). the dr told me that it was normal for it to still be a little swollen 5 weeks after i injured it. i have a new "boot" to wear instead of robo-cop. it feels much better when i walk.

for the past 2 weeks or so, i hadn't seen much improvement, and it really pained me to see people walking around, or even running, because i started believing that i wouldn't ever be able to do those things again, where i once took them for granted. and then i noticed more and more people getting around with the aid of some device, be it a cane, or a wheelchair, or crutches. i started to feel a little bit saddened - maybe 45% enraged, 35% saddened, and 20% scared (is there a word for this?). and then i started thinking back to that time in thailand when i saw a man on a motorcycle get hit by a bus and lose his leg - right there on the street. i imagine it would have to be so hard to comprehend that you just don't have a leg anymore. you can't ride your bike, you can't walk to the kitchen and cook, you can't just walk up those two steps to get into that building, and if you were in a wheelchair, what if the building doesn't have a wheelchair ramp, or you are taking public transit and you need to find a way to get from subway to street level, where is the elevator? is the elevator working? oh, sure i'll come over, oh, but you have lots of stairs?

...there are a million things that usually go on in my mind. [what else is new]... i should stop taking my body for granted. i am an able bodied person, and i should try to keep myself healthy. and not because my doctor tells me that i should watch my health, or because my family tells me that i'm getting fat every time i visit, but because i want to take advantage of what my body still has to offer me, and you know, i want to be happy and being a person who has been getting sick a lot recently, i really enjoy life much better when i'm not sick.

all this sounds so cheesy and hokey. but it's what i need to help me to get motivated why i want to get off my ass and eat healthy (not healthy portions) and exercise. it took me some time to think it through, and it's obvious that i'm still thinking things through and won't ever stop, but i think it's a start. something needs to change. positive thinking goes a long way.

Labels: random