We’re still sick. It’s not too bad, really–just a cold. But the timing is not so good. I had big plans for this week, big plans. Now my plans consist mostly of making an increasingly impossible to-do list for next week. On the plus side, though, I get to drink rum whenever my throat hurts–day or night–so there’s that. I did manage to rally this afternoon and get some chicken stock going with frozen thighs,…
Category: Asian
I was out of town for a few days, visiting Providence and Boston. Most interesting culinarily was a trip to a Burmese restaurant in Brighton (or Allston, maybe) right near where the greatest Vietnamese restaurant in Boston used to be back in the 80’s. Viet Huong (in Allston) had about 4 tables, seated 8-9 people at very most, and had a lovely old couple who did everything: she cooked, he served. It was freaking genius.…
I took the bone from Sunday’s lamb leg and put it in our huge stockpot with some aromatics with a goal of producing many quarts of some highly flavorful and polyvalent stock. I love lamb with phở flavors; since there’s significant overlap with many Moroccan spices there’s a natural sympatico with the rich, gamy meat. So to the pot I added the following: a charred onion, a charred thumb of ginger, a carrot, some fresh…
We ordered a luscious fuchsia yellowfin steak for our weekly fish delivery, and I tried to make a dinner that did justice to the beauty of the flesh of this fish. With sashimi-grade gorgeousness, especially a big hunk like this, my normal policy is to break it apart and do different things with it to avoid plate fatigue. Even melt-in-your-mouth fish or Wagyu beef can get lose its heavenly edge after five or six bites,…
I have a bunch of posts to get to, but I hurt my back making bread–yep, disregard everything I said about it before, it’s DANGEROUS and should be avoided at all costs–and then managed to get a flu-ish thing at the same time, so it’s been a pretty lame week. Today I felt halfway normal. Last night I did make dinner, and it turned out remarkably well, probably because I wanted so badly for it…
We went to the city for a night, for a real live date–including dinner at WD-50, which I may write about–made possible by my Brother coming up to hang out with Milo so we could stay at his place. On our way back, we got some fish in the Chelsea Market so we’d have something to eat for dinner. Milo really has a thing for yellowtail sashimi, so I bought a one-pound block of sushi-grade…
The induction burner that I bought to cook on while I waited (with less and less patience) for the new stove has now transitioned from being the bootleg bachelor construction kitchen to being a useful appliance that now allows us to enjoy something I’ve been hankering to have for quite some time: shabu-shabu. Cooking at the table is fun, and customizing the doneness of every morsel makes for an excellent eating experience. Good broth is…
The kitchen is almost done. As I write this, I have one more day of serious work before it’s going to be fully operational, wanting only a day or two of cosmetic finish work (molding, trim, and paint). The new stove is like a Lamborghini; everything that used to take meaningful portions of an hour now takes mere minutes, countable on the hand without the spoon. It came in on time, and within acceptable budgetary parameters–meaning that various material/hardware expenses (and I went to the hardware store and/or lumber yard every day) didn’t exceed 5% of the total.
To celebrate, even though the island is still just covered in 3/4″ A/C plywood, we made a feast from some of the bounty acquired at Mitsuwa, where we stopped for lunch and a big shop on our way home from Newark airport. We got lots of Washugyu beef and Berkshire pork for future meals (see tomorrow) and tons of staples in the form of bottled and dried ingredients. And sake.
Last night’s dinner was in three courses, because I was energized by both the sight of the finish line and the quality of the new goodies. To begin, some luscious, artisanal tofu that I would tell you all about but for the fact that every single thing written on the label was in Japanese. Fresh, silken circles of delicate deliciousness, it was. I made a sauce using fresh sea urchin puréed with usukuchi (light soy sauce), rice vinegar, a tiny dab of smooth peanut butter (since I find that uni have a slightly peanutty flavor) and sake with the alcohol burned off. It made for a very pudding-like, seductive dish, especially for those members of the family (everyone but me) who do not love sea urchin. It’s funny, but “slimy orange invertebrate gonads” aren’t that much of a selling point. Go figure.
Fresh on the heels of another fish delivery, and despite being pretty thoroughly covered in grout, I got giddy with the potential in our box of seafood and tried to make it into something befitting its freshness and quality. To begin, a dozen more oysters. I didn’t photograph them, because they disappeared too quickly. John stopped by to pick up his order, and had a couple, and I polished off the rest. Next up, a…
Tonight I’m going out, so I made a quick dinner for the family: a kind of variation on saag paneer using tofu in place of the cheese. To compensate, though, I cooked the chard (and the last spoon of pesto) along with half an onion and spices in about two cups of whey to add stealth cheesiness and play wonderfully with the similarly tangy taste of the tofu. I puréed the greens and then added…