Feeding Umi » Original Recipes

Cooking Green Curry at Kris Saebo’s

umi — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:02:42 +0000

Kris suggested that we come over and Ryan make his famous green curry. It’s surprising how many people struggle with it, when all it is is fish sauce flavoring and palm sugar. That’s it. That’s the secret. Anyway, it was a great opportunity to see the latest addition. Little Lulu! Kris saved her from a local pipe outside of a hospital. She was a tiny thing mewling, he took her home and cleaned her up. I think she’s taken up residence here ever since.

She’s a bit shy, but really playful. She was a sweetheart and the boys cooed over her. Of course, this gave Ryan the opening to mention what a hellion my cat was. Well, I didn’t say this right then and there, but since I am a bitch, I will say it here. Kittens are cute. They are also quite harmless. My cat was a quiet kitten that ate, played, and slept. He slept with me at night and was an angel. This all changed once kitty adolescence hits. I think my cat’s issue was that he had too much energy for us. Either way, he quickly learned that nipping my mother’s ankles was a prime way of getting her to chase him. He trained my family well.

Not saying that Lulu will be a hellion, but you need to instill good habits in them now. I digress. And WE DID NOT EAT THE CAT. Mwa ha ha… err. Perhaps I should do a feature where I display the animals alive, then go through the steps of cooking, and TADA! Dead chicken! Anyway.

3 cans of coconut milk
chopped green and red peppers
can of bamboo shoots
chicken breast cut into bite size pieces
green curry paste
palm sugar (brown sugar is an okay substitute, try to find palm sugar, though – available at wholefoods)
fish sauce

Making green curry is EXTREMELY easy. EASY PEASY. Seriously. Now, if you were to go around shaving coconuts and squeezing out the milk, which Sophea’s mother does, that gets to be a bit labor intensive. Also, if you mix your spices, that gets to be a bit labor intensive, too. Still, for the regular folks out there that is fine with mixing his own paste with green curry mix and coconut milk, here it is!

Saute the peppers so that they retain their color, once thrown into the pot. You can toss them in the frying pan right before they start to get tender. Get a large saucepan and pour 2-3 cans of coconut milk. You should note that we used 3 cans of coconut milk to feed 4-5 people who had seconds. When Ryan and I make it, we usually make 2 cans, though. Spoon out 4 tablespoons of curry, mix, allow to boil, simmer for 5 minutes and add the chicken and allow to come to a boil. Add the peppers and bamboo shoots and allow to simmer for around 45 mins to an hour. To finish, taste the curry, and note the lack of taste. Add in around a tablespoon of palm sugar and fish sauce. Taste. Adjust taste to your liking by adding additional green curry, fish sauce, or palm sugar. The green curry adds fragrance. The fish sauce is the main taste/salt component. The sugar balances out the saltiness. We usually add an extra tablespoon of green curry and an extra tablespoon of fish sauce to taste. Simmer for an additional 2-3 minutes and you’re done!

Couple this with some custom home-made brewed beer, and it’s heaven! (Kris brews beer at home. Yes. And the IPAs are fucking delicious.)

For dessert, we were treated to Kris’s creme caramel. (We got into this discussion of the difference between flan and creme caramel. Kris claimed that they were not the same. There really isn’t any difference, I think, except the context of what is served. You can call it Leche Flan, Creme Caramel, or Custard Caramel Pudding, like the Japanese.) It was yummy, creamy, and decadent. Kris’s roommate cut us up some really sweet mango.

Mom’s

umi — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:21:20 +0000

So, we went to go visit my mother. We try to make the trip once a week and of course, we get fed. She puts out SO much food. It’s almost unbelievable. For example, this one particular time, she put out, from left to right: Oden with variety of fish cakes, konyaku (root noodles), bamboo shoots, and potatoes; Sashimi with uni, salmon, and hirame; Ozoni, which is a light broth with grilled mochi in it, accompanied by naruto fish cakes, hakusai (Japanese cabbage), shitake mushrooms, and chicken; and the main course of wagyu beef negi-maki. Oh yeah, and a desert of custard pound cake and milk tea. Always expect some milk tea, if you’re coming over to my Mom’s place. This doesn’t include salad, pickles, miso shiru (soup) and rice, my friend.

Yes, my mother really has no idea how much a normal person eats. This was probably due to my father’s influence. Apparently at some restaurant, he took the prize for eating the most bowls of curry rice, something in the double digits. I also have a HUGE appetite that can accommodate eating contests… and I obviously got that from him. Living with us, my mother has such a skewed idea on what a normal portion is. I think we finished the sashimi, and negi-make, and had some oden. I finished the ozoni, of course, because I didn’t have rice and I can’t say no to ozoni.

My mother, she can cook. And she appreciates variety. Now, if only she will learn what a proper portion is… and maybe scale it down a bit.

Last week’s dinner – South East Asian Cold Udon Noodles and Crimini and Port Risotto

umi — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:06:14 +0000

Last week was a pretty busy week without much cooking. We just wrapped things up with our usual cold Udon noodles in a Southeast Asian garlic lime sauce, with a pinch of dashi. I just topped that with shiitake mushrooms and boiled vegetables (sansai) blanched in thick dashi, soy sauce and mirin. All in all, it took less than an hour to prepare, I would say.

The one thing I LOVE and have been craving even before going to Cambodia is risotto. The thing is, I never really had much risotto before. When Ryan and I first met, Ryan made me some risotto and it blew my mind. It was soft, warm, savory, and comforting. It encompassed everything I loved about soups and curries.

Then, he introduced me to mascarpone cheese. DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MASCARPONE?! Why did you not come into my life sooner, oh delicious cheese. It can be sweet or savory, coupled with soups and in this case, risotto, or desert. After meeting this life changing dairy, I FREAKIN’ PUT IT ON EVERYTHING! I put it on toast w/ jam, on Eggo Waffles, on soups, on breakfast, on any desert, and anything that can use an extra “Oomf!” of creaminess… which is always. I had to ease up on it and go cold turkey for a while… because it got really out of hand. I would love to just take spoonfuls of the stuff and shovel it in my mouth. (Then again, I also liked to eat bits of butter as a child – butter is one of the top words in my twitter cloud for a reason!)< / This concludes my praises and this whole paragraph dedicated to one of my favorite buttery cheeses/creams >

So, Ryan made me a whole box of risotto, cooked in 2 boxes of chicken stock, port, and crimini mushrooms. It was decadent. He put a bit too much of port, I thought, but once I put some freshly cracked peppers and truffle oil on top, it was PERFECT. It was a decadent treat that I enjoyed the next day for lunch!

Kobe Beef

umi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:50:15 +0000

(I finally get to post all the backlog of food entries I’ve been meaning to talk about)

So, last weekend we went to Mitsuwa. I was being an airhead or a ravenous beast (pick only one) and forgot to take pictures, but the details were: Autumn Japanese Food Fair. We went and looked around various Japanese dish shops, then went to the main fair and got some Shrimp, Cheese, and Sardine Satsuma-Age, Kaiseki (Salmon, Tuna, Fluke, and Ikura) Futo-Maki, Crab and Mackerel Chirashi Sushi, and Kake Udon (Cold Udon with tarako caviar). Man! I was just hungry. I ate and ate and then shopped. Seriously, I don’t know why there are no pictures.

I used to go to Mitsuwa all the time, back when it used to be called Yaohan, under different management. Their food court was always my favorite thing and I would always get their child’s ramen lunch set or tarako caviar spaghetti. I would stock up on Mitsuya Cider and various Japanese pastries, like sugar toast bread (which is literally bread toast with milk and sugar crusted on the edges, which is DELICIOUS. My mother would travel to NJ weekly to feed my father and myself. Sometimes I would tag along to get the weekly Japanese comic Ribon and Japanese imported candies. Love it.

I’ve stopped going these days, because, it’s such a journey. And although they have tons of stuff, it isn’t really any cheaper than NYC Sunrise Mart. It’s nice to go once in a while, for the whole experience, though. You get a bus at Port Authority, pay $3 one way, and shop. Next door there is a strip mall with Bed Bath and Beyond and Target. ; )

We scored these beautiful ceramic bowls ,3 for $10. Ryan fell in love with them and they go with our white plates pretty well. They have a hand painted lapis lazuli colored circle, which is quite beautiful. I wanted a ridiculously saccharine mug with a big frog on the handle to bring to work with me, you know, so I can sip on that during some important board meeting. I can run off some numbers while stroking my CUTE widdle froggy poo! That’s how I roll. But it was something ridiculous like $12 bucks and I couldn’t spend more than $5 on something to amuse other people. I guess other people’s happiness isn’t worth more than $5 to me! :P

Back to the topic at hand… food… the real booty here is the meats. They have great organic pampared beef cuts flown all the way from Japan. They also have FRESH sashimi grade fillets. They also have first crop rice grains, which my mother covets like a crazy person. I think she got another HUGE bag of Tamaki Gold First Crop rice. She’s like a rice hoarder… Just like I hoard fresh laundered towels from Ryan.

But seriously, the beef are pampered… they’ve been massaged, cared for, groomed, and they party with Paris Hilton. No joke. With the piece of bovine carcass I bought, I am that much closer to the covered in pink socialite! Score. So we bought a packet of modest slices of Kobe beef. (You see that plate, that’s what you get for $8) I gave Ryan a hard time about it, “WE ARE GOING TO EAT THIS! It’s a sin not to! We are not going to let Paris’ BFF get freezer burn in our awfully full back-hole of a freezer.”

So last week, a day or after, I put Ryan in charge of grilling it on our frying pan seasoned with just salt and pepper. And it was DELICIOUS with stripes of flavorful fat and tender meat. It seriously needs no marinading, and we were in heaven. We really don’t eat beef more than once a week if at all (usually consumed in delicious burgers), so it was a nice change of pace. Ryan cooked delicious rings of onions that we topped on our rice. (I think he used butter, salt and pepper… maybe some garlic powder?) It was SO good. Love the onions.

What did my lazy butt do? (HEY! I had a LONG day at work…) I cooked rice. And for the record, it was awesome. I cooked it this time in chicken stock and dashi. (you might want to add a little more liquid in this case) So there.

We also had an appetizer of the fishcakes/Satsuma-Age that we got at Mitsuya’s Autumn festival. We ate the cheese there, but we had the shrimp and the sardines and they were pillowy, soft, and good.

Thursday Morning Breakfast of Leftovers!

umi — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:20:17 +0000

Yesterday I worked from home. I didn’t feel like toast or oatmeal. Seriously, I couldn’t taste most things and I wanted something flavorful!

I had a smidgen of green curry left, so I mixed it with my mother’s fluffy rice cooked with matsutake. (The rice itself as a little bit of bonito dashi, sake/mirin, and cut matsutake mushrooms.) It was amazing. Through the green curry, you still tasted the earthiness of the rice, and the green curry was just warm, flavorful, comforting and spicy. On top of the matsutake mushrooms in the rice, the curry had bamboo shoots, scallions, and chicken.

It was a surprisingly delicious way to start my day. (I just nuked it all) I definitely see this as a must-have future coupling for himeji mushroom (for when mastutske is unavailable) rice or takenoko (bamboo shoots) rice and green curry!

Handcut Homemade Pasta Part 2

umi — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:40:02 +0000

Read Part 1 Here

I had a mild flu or a bad sinus cold, because yesterday I was forced to work from home. Unfortunately, Thursdays are crazy for me in the office, so I didn’t get a chance to upload anything from Wednesday night. I literally worked straight from 8am to 4pm, when I finished email campaign deployments and fell into bed until Ryan came home. We had delicious Mexican from our favorite bodega.

On Wednesday night, we boiled the pasta I made the night before (and froze) and boiled it frozen in the pot, using chopsticks to gently loosen the noodles. The noodles made the water in the pot turn a cloudy white, probably from the generous amounts of flour. I was afraid that we would too easily overcook fresh pasta noodles. However, maybe because it was frozen, but it took a while to soften them. In fact, in the end, we cooked them for good couple of minutes over what we would cook dry pasta. The pasta was still aldente.

On the side, Ryan sauteed olive oil, garlic, and tapenade into a simple sauce, which he covered the cooked noodles with. Ryan mixed soft garlic and pepper goat cheese we had, which added a nice subtle creaminess and depth of flavor. (We didn’t have any hard cheeses that night to grate over it)

The noodles I cut were around 7 millimeters by 2-5 milimeters, since I cut the noodles by hand. It also didn’t help that I didn’t have a rolling pin and I used a long large salt bottle. I got the whole dough as thin as 5-7 millimeters (thicker in the middle) and cut as thing as I could, around 2-3 millimeters each. The pasta ended up expanding quite a bit, as you can see in that picture. The texture was still chewy and springy. The noodles became the size of udon noodles, actually. If at all possible, I would cut them even smaller. (or roll them thinner)

Since the pasta itself had a lot of character, using some garlic, tapenade, and cheese was the perfect solution. I wouldn’t make any caviar (tarako) pasta with these noodles. For that sauce, I would make pasta with extra yolks, so the whole thing is creamy and delicious.

Umi: It has Rosemary, minced garlic, and thyme.
Ryan: Look at you and your fancy shmancy pasta!
Umi: That’s how I roll!

Pork Tenderloin Stir-Fry

umi — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:15:59 +0000

Last night’s dinner was Ryan’s stir-fry using pork. We didn’t mix any veggies into the stir-fry, itself, but you can put whatever you desire. It was really nice and porky, since we got nice tenderloins from the Japanese market.

It was basically a very simple recipe. Cut the pork in manageable strips, lightly salted and peppered. Then cover them with flour and fry in oil. We like to use grape seed oil. Brown the strips and lay them out on a plate with a paper towel on top. Then Ryan mixed the sauce of soy sauce, mirin, ginger, garlic, and reduced the sauce in a pan over high heat, stirring constantly. It will bubble and reduce into a thick thick sauce. Then, mix the pork and reheat until the pork is done and serve over rice.

The stir-fry results in delicious golden nuggets. I prefer this with pork tenderloin, but it’s great with chicken, as well. Feel free to mix in blanched crunchy string beans or broccoli. If you add more fresh garlic and We ate this with tons of rice and a side of left overs.

Crusty Crumbled Baguette French Toast

umi — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:06:44 +0000

I had some left over baguettes, today, so I decided to make some french toast. It was quick, easy, and delicious. The bread was pretty hard, so cutting it crumbled some of the pieces into large chunks. That produced really fluffy nuggets of eggy french toast.

I had around half of a large baguette left. Since I left it to absorb A LOT of egg, I used three eggs in total. For three eggs, I splashed some 3% milk, added around 3 tablespoons of sugar, beat the mixture, and added 2-3 drops of vanilla. I also added a small splash of Johnny Walker Black (I didn’t have bourbon). Sprinkle some cinnamon too, if you have some. I was out.

Let them soak in the egg and then heat up the pan. I like to let them soak in there for a while. Flip the bread in the egg mixture. Butter up the pan generously and place the bread gently on the pan. Line the pan and fit as much as you can on the surface area. Use medium heat so you don’t burn them too quickly. Let them cook in the butter and become fluffy. I also liked to top the bread off with a little bit of the mixture. When they brown and puff up, flip once. Brown the other side and then take off the pan. Serve with maple sugar and some more cinnamon to taste.

You can top it off with anything you like, but I prefer good ol’ syrupt for my french toasts. Confectionery sugar or a crumble of brown sugar might also be nice. (I would also recommend rolling them in brown sugar right in the pan, right before taking them off.) You can brown them a little more if you like the outside crispy, but be sure not to burn them or the butter. If you are doing more than one batch in the pan, try to wipe the pan clean with a paper towel before putting the next tablespoon of butter in the pan.

This is seriously the perfect way of serving older hardened or stale bread. Delicious. Just give the bread enough time to soak in the egg.

Cold Udon Southeast Asian Style

umi — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:30:18 +0000

This is a doctored version of a lime garlic dipping sauce used by Sophear in her parents’ Cambodian cooking. This is also very similar to the thai salad papaya sauce. This salad in particular is like a deconstructed noodle salad piled on top of one another.

Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic. I like to put more, rather than less…
Juice 1-2 limes
Mix the garlic, lime juice, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and splash some Asian fish sauce. The tricky thing here is that it’s all the taste. You might like the whole thing with less fish sauce. If you’re vegetarian, you can opt out the fish sauce for soy sauce… but go lighter with that. If you want it spicy, chop a single thai chilli pepper and toss in, seeds and all. Let it marinade in there. Let the mixture sit as you make the rest of the salad.
Boil some udon noodles, drain the water, and toss with cold water to stop them from cooking. I keep them in a drain over a bowl to get the last of the water. It’s optional, but I did this to deepen the layers of flavor. Toss the noodles lightly with some tsuyu (store bought is fine and you can get it seaweed, bonito, or shiitake based).
I julienned some asian cabbage (raw) and tossed with a sprinkle of salt and a small splash of apple cider vinegar. Plate this.
I tossed some romaine lettuce with salt n’ pepper, balsamic vinaigrette, and olive oil. I piled these greens on top of the cabbage/slaw. Make sure the dressing on this is really light.
Pile the noodles on top of the greens, pour the lime-garlic mixture on top to taste.
Top and/or garnish with generous amounts of chopped spicy chorizo (or in this case, also pre-cooked merguez), cilantro, and green onions. If you want it a bit spicier, add a little bit of red onions.

It’s easy, refreshing, and done in under 20 minutes.

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

umi — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:03:22 +0000

After my last batch of pancakes, I wanted to make some lemon ricotta pancakes. I used to get these amazing little pancakes at Henry’s, on 105th st. and Broadway on the upper west side. My friend Daniel used to say, “they are like a little burst of sunshine in your mouth.” They were light, fluffy, delicious. This time, I wanted to make something comparable… and avoid making monstrously large things. ; )

I always like to make sure that I am going about this right, so I consulted the internet. I found A Good Appetite, and her recipe for homemade ricotta AND lemon ricotta pancakes. Their site is a wealth of information that I’m going to enjoy going through. Fortunately, I bought some ricotta the other day. However, in the future I really want to try making it. It doesn’t require anything special, other than a thermometer, milk, and cheese cloths.

I read through her recipe and confirmed that you just need to juice and zest a single lemon, and I figured that would work well for my purpose, too. For the rest of the recipe, I used my good ol’ handy pancake batter.

Microwave 2-3 tablespoons of salted butter
Separate 1 large egg and beat the whites until it foams. I like to create peaks and make sure they stay put. Beat in the yolk.
Mix butter, 1.25 cups milk, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract into egg mixture.
Sift 1.5 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 3 teaspoons of baking powder.
Fold liquid mixture into the flour mixture.

Into that basic mixture, I just added ricotta and blueberries, last time. (I put the blueberries on top of the mixture in the pan) This time around I eyed around a cup of ricotta cheese into the mixture (I wasn’t very precise). Then I grated the zest of the whole lemon right in. I cut the lemon into wedges and squeezed in. It was a large/medium lemon. Then voila!

The consistency was great. This time, I used a 1/4 measuring cup to measure each pancake. I used two pans and buttered the griddle and sides of each pancake. The taste was a tarter than the ones at Henry’s. It was great with maple syrup, but I can’t help think that maybe it could have used some more sugar. Of course, one thing this needed was some confectionery sugar right on top. ; ) In that case, no additional sugar needed.

Ryan loved them, though. Loved as in, not because he likes pancakes or when they are made for him, but loved as in preferred these to my regular pancakes AND the ricotta and blueberries pancakes I made last time. That was a surprise. I, personally, really liked the blueberry pancakes. Next up: Mixed Berry Pancakes. (And, of course, home made ricotta cheese, and home made mozzarella cheese.)