Feeding Umi

When I finally got off my butt to make some basbousa the other day, I not only picked up some rose water, but I picked up some orange blossom water. I remembered reading about these beautiful Earl Grey Muffins with candied oranges. Although I didn’t top my muffins with anything fancy, I tried to recreate those Earl Grey muffins and they came out GREAT.

I used 2% milk instead of almond milk and all whole wheat flour, because I could not find any quinoa flour in my neighborhood Associated Supermarket. Also, instead of vegetable oil, I used butter, because I didn’t have any vegetable oil.

• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup brown sugar (I had to microwave it to soften it up a bit)
• 1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 of butterstick
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1tbs orange blossom water
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 earl grey tea bag

It was really easy to make. I basically heated up some milk on the stove top, and soaked the Earl Grey tea bag in there for 5 minutes. (Next time I will use 2) Then, I microwaved some brown sugar and butter, to soften both up. I mixed them together and it melted the brown sugar. Then I beat some eggs, pour the mixtures together, added the milk, orange blossom water, and sifted flour w/ baking powder and soda on top. Just mix, add the vanilla extract. Mix. Pour into muffin pans, or in my case, cupcake molds for mini muffins!

They are absolutely delicious as a snack without anything on it. It would have been amazing with a dollop of butter cream or vanilla with some candied oranges. Mmmm. And it was whole wheat. I guess other than the butter, it’s not that bad for you.

This post is a long time coming. Ryan’s father decided to get us MEAT… just because. We were discussing how the cast iron skillet cooks great meat and we just cleaned out our freezer and he decided that was going to get us an awesome Omaha Steak Special. The way it happened, though, was Ryan told me his father was sending us something and asked for my work address (since no one would be home in the apartment if it was delivered during the day). I gave it to him and asked what I should be expecting. Ryan fwded me an itemized list, basically this list down here. DO YOU SEE IT? OVER 100 OUNCES OF RAW MEAT. I kid you not, the package was called, “AMERICAN SPLENDOR.” My response was, “seriously?”

Itemized: 4 Filet Mignons, 4 Top Sirloins, 8 Gourmet Franks, 10 Beef Steaks, 4 Pork Chops, 2 Stuff Sole Fillets w/ Crabs, 10 Potatos Au Gratin, and a 7 piece cutting board. Like what?

I laughed about other coworkers getting inappropriate packages at work, such as Victoria’s Secret, weird food stuffs, and cases of wine, but I think I take the cake for inappropriate office delivery. HUGE PACKAGE OF RAW MEAT. How was I suppose to get this home?!

In the end, the office handyman and comedian fashioned Ryan a tape strap so that he can carry the icebox home. (You didn’t think I was going to lug this sucker home, did you? I called him to pick it up at my office and to bring it home. He did. We ate meat.)

So, we made the Filet Mignon, broiled in our oven with a port reduction sauce. Yum. The top sirloin, I encrusted with chopped rosemary, pressed garlic cloves, and thyme overnight. An hour before cooking, I took out of the fridge and did a salt crust all over it… like a salt lick. Covered it up with sea salt. After an hour, I washed everything off completely, patted it completely try on a paper towel, and cooked in the cast iron. It was herby, garlicky, and nicely seasoned.

I like my meat almost bloody.

We also made chili dogs with some weekly chili we like to concoct. It was pretty good topped with Japanese mayonnaise. I liked it, because it was beefy with a hefty texture. It also had a good meaty taste. Ryan says that he still like the Hebrew National smokiness and flavor. In the end, I think I prefer the latter, but the “Gourmet Franks” were huge and filling. It was pretty good. Especially in a chili dog.

For $60, I would certainly recommend this package. It’s beautifully packaged in flash frozen airtight plastic that you can easily pull apart. Each meat is then individually boxed. Like Ryan says, it’s as far from a live animal that you can get raw meat to resemble. It’s almost amazing and no messy cleaning. Also, if you’re in a hurry, you can submerge the whole plastic package in water to thaw, because it’s vacuum sealed.

Menkui Tei
63 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10003

Although my fire for Ippudo burns bright like the sun, I can’t always indulge or look at it directly, for it will burn my retina and balloon my weight back to 200lbs. No joke.

Sometimes, when I am feeling a bit more frugal, I opt for Setagaya, which is delicious and right within that 5 block radius on St. Marks. However, more often than not, I go to Menkui Tei, because it gives me warm fuzzy feelings about being back in Japan. It looks like the casual college ramen shop meant to stuff post-adolescent growing college boys. It has a HUGE collection of ramen. I recommend their spicy Tan Tan Men (shown above) or their hot Yuzu Men (with spicy Yuzu sauce). They also have awesome spicy hot wings special with a pitcher of Kirin (always get Kirin) for $16, which is a DEAL. They have awesome Japanese curry, curry ramen, and all sorts of other sides tapas style.

The food is solid, fills you up, and comforts. It’s not a religious experience like Ippudo.

If you feel like the $13 ramen at Ippudo is a little steep… and more often than less, you can’t wait on line for an hour to taste delicious ramen, then GO TO MENKUI TEI.

Just so we are clear: Menkui Tei, Setagaya, and Ippudo = YES. Minka = No.

This post requires no introduction. Teenage MUTANT (really) Ninja Turtles, Bacon in a Half Shell. Turtle Power?

If you’ve been reading us for a while, then you know that we are BIG brunch people. We needed to reign in our habits of eating out, but we like to eat well. A typical brunch for us is pancakes, eggs, and bacon. For the past two weekends, we’ve been going through this gourmet cured bacon that Jay brought us. DELICIOUS!

I would also like to report that our cast-iron skillet is fully seasoned and the eggs just slide off. No more messy yolks when plating. I like to leave my eggs sunny-side up, so if the eggs stick, the yolks sometime break.

This particular sunday, we had left overs of the bacon, our last two eggs, and some french toast from the day before. (With bread that I made earlier that week!) We needed to have a good foundation before we went to the sake tasting. I mean, I doubt that is something you want to experience on an empty stomach.

New York Vintners
21 Warren Street
New York, NY 10007

NY Vintners is where my company held their holiday party… two years ago. It was a rowdy time of wine tasting and TONS of hor d’orves, and a beautiful space. Chef Christopher Meeker is great, preparing food in abundance and supplying a lot of character to match. They have this large mobile shop, where the back room can enlarge (push back the shelves) or shrink, with a state of the art kitchens! It’s pretty amazing and they hold free wine tastings and other paid food/alcohol tasting classes. They regularly hold a “Sake and the Mediterranean” tasting event, but this particular one was advertised as “Taste a $1,000 Bottle of Sake and Meet Mr. Jihei Isawa, VP of Katsuyama Brewery.” He was in NYC for his launch of Akatsuki brand sakes, and we got to taste three new labels.

Separate from those three glasses, we got a little history of sake brewing and tastes of different junmai, non-junmai, aged, some Oregon brand, and nigori-shu. It was generous and paired with various tapenades, couscous, some delicious fresh made crostinis. Some of our favorite mid-level sakes were the Tokubetsu Junmai (literally “special Junmai,” which means there were no additional alcohol added to create this) Yuki Kage sake and Katsuyama Genroku Aged Junmai, which was aged for 3 years into a beautiful brandy like color and taste, both of which we purchased.

I wasn’t so much of a fan of G Genshu Joy, an Oregon brand sake. It was all right, just lacked some mild flavor that I like in sake. The “Jokigen Junmai Ginjo,” which is a Ginko Junmai, using more polished grains of rice than the Yuki Kage, was delicious. And the “Momokawa Pearl Nigori Genshu,” is nice, if you like Nigori sake.

The three new labels from Katsuyama brewery, the “Modern Shudo” types, are “Katsuyama ‘Ken’ Junmai Ginjo,” “Katsuyama ‘Akatsuki’ Centrifuge Drip Junmai Daiginjo” and “Katsuyama ‘Gen’ Junmai Daiginjo Genroku.” The “Akatsuki,” yes you’ve read that right, uses a centrifuge to separate and filter the sake. It also uses 35% polished rice, which is apparently quite literally, unheard of. That is the $1,000 bottle of sake, my friends. It was delicious. Loved it, there is no question about it. The Gen, is also delicious, really resembling a desert sake. It was very delicate. Ken was airy and delicious as well, although at that point… the Akatsuki was main show stopper. It’s hard to compete with a $1,000 bottle of sake.

And the brewer was very sweet and spoke a few words, clearly passionate about what he did. The store people were telling us that originally he wanted to do the tasting with sake cocktails. And it freaked the store people out that you would do that with such premium sake. The thing is Japanese people love their sake with some water, some ice, and some sake-tinis. And after the tasting, we went up to him and thanked him… then he proceeded to give us glasses of mixed Akatsuki cocktails. (Just with soda and a twist.)