My brother is a picky eater. He knows what he likes and everything else he dislikes. When he and my mom visited me while I was studying abroad in Spain, we spent a lot of time looking for restaurants with dishes we thought he would like. In the end, he ended up eating a lot of hot dogs while we enjoyed amazing tapas with Spanish beer and wine. One of the most hilarious moments during the trip happened when the señora I was living with cooked an elaborate meal for us. He couldn’t get himself to eat all the Spanish dishes she had made, but he couldn’t bear hurting her feelings by not touching any of the food. So he secretly passed morsels of food under the table to my mom, who in turn had to eat two portions of everything. Even thinking about it now makes me laugh out loud. My poor mom left a fabulous meal with indigestion.
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November 06 2009 | Asian and Beef and Recipe and Thoughts | 6 Comments »
Yesterday, I shared with you a great way to use leftover, stale rice. Today, I will tell you about the side dish I ate it with: soy braised burdock! Burdock is a root most commonly used in Japan where it’s called gobo. In Korea it’s called woo-ung, 우엉, and it’s mainly used in kimbap, 김밥, a dish similar to the Japanese sushi roll. Burdock has a sort of sweet, earthy taste that disappears when cooked. After it’s cooked, the texture is similar to the potatoes in this dish.
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November 05 2009 | Asian and Recipe and Side Dish and Thoughts and Vegetarian | 4 Comments »
September is such a fresh and exciting month. It’s the start of fall, a new school year, and the beginning of a marathon of holidays. I find this month to be very festive in a non-holiday related sort of way, if that makes any sense. There’s a very pleasant golden glow to everything, which makes me feel very hopeful.
In preparation for the future parties/get togethers you may hold for Halloween, Monday night football, cold weather birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even New Year’s, I thought I’d share with you a great party food. Drumsticks! Not fried, but baked!
My mom makes really tasty soy glazed drumsticks but I didn’t have time to call her so I tried to come up with a marinade from memory. It didn’t turn out exactly the same, but it was good in its own way. The drumsticks were very tender and juicy, with a nice salty touch from the soy sauce. A lot of people don’t like to cook or eat chicken because it gets really tough and dry, but there’s a secret method to keeping it nice and moist: soaking in milk! It sounds odd, possibly even icky, but trust me it works. There is absolutely no dairy aftertaste, if that was what you were worrying about. My roommate let me in on the secret and I have never skipped this step since.
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September 21 2009 | Asian and Poultry and Recipe and Thoughts | 4 Comments »
This dish takes me back to hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Korea where people are sitting elbow to elbow, slurping noodles, while escaping a gloomy day of rain. There’s a level of comfort that can’t be found in a gourmet, five-star restaurant. It’s a dish you can make for just one for a dinner in front of the TV, or for a group of people on a night spent in. The dish is familiar, comfortable, and very homey.
These noodles are a marriage between a stir fry and noodle soup. A broth is made by boiling the shrimp in water which is later added to stir fried aromatics and oyster sauce. The stir fried bean sprouts also let out a little bit of juice which really deepens the flavor and gives it a sophisticated lift that is desperately lost in instant noodles.
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September 15 2009 | Asian and Noodles and Recipe and Seafood and Thoughts | 6 Comments »
Here in New York it already feels like the beginning of fall. The mornings are crisp and the evenings are cool. There were a couple days of rain, but overall I’ve really been enjoying the weather. However, despite the cooler temperatures, it is officially still summer. So to celebrate the last few weeks of bright sunny days, I thought I’d share with you a nice refreshing dipping sauce.
The recipe comes from a cookbook called Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson with Lindsey Bareham. Hopkinson is a well known British chef and food writer. In 2005 this book was given the title of “most useful cookbook of all time.” I bought Roast Chicken about a year ago and read it during commutes on the subway. The cookbook is resourceful but also exceptionally entertaining. Throughout the pages, Hopkinson shares little anecdotes and thoughts that allow a greater appreciation for food. The chapters are divided according to ingredient and the beginning of each section is adorned by witty illustrations by Flo Bayley. I have yet to read his follow up book Second Helpings of Roast Chicken but am sure it is just as delightful as the first.
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September 13 2009 | Asian and Cookbook and Dips and Poultry and Recipe | 4 Comments »
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