Not Your Everyday Soup and Salad...

It's Wednesday, which means Top Chef is on. So a few episodes ago, Grant Achatz said that you can judge how good a chef is by their soup. So I decided to do a soup and salad tonight for dinner.





I've been really fascinated by the parmesan crisp as soon as I saw it from Thomas Keller's "The French Laundry" cookbook. I think one can really see the brilliance of Keller's interpretation of the cheese component in a salad through the crisp. I decided to do a simple blood orange & arugula salad with blood orange vinaigrette since blood orange season is just starting. The result was amazing.

For the soup, I have been eyeing this cream of celery recipe I ran across but I decided to add a crème fraîche component to it - it paired perfectly with the smooth and silky cream of celery!!

Blood Orange & Arugula Salad
1.5C Arugula
2 Blood Oranges - Supremed, Juice Reserved
3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt & Pepper - to Taste
1C Shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with a silpat, evenly distribute shredded parmigiano-reggiano into "chips". Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Remove from oven and cool.
2. In a bowl, stir in extra virgin olive oil to reserved juice. Then stir in balsamic vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Toss arugula, blood orange, and dressing together. Plate with a piece of parmesan crisp on top.

Bœuf Bourguignon

I've been wanting to make Bœuf Bourguignon (I'm told it's "braised beef in red wine" in French, but I don't see how 2 words can mean all those things...) for awhile now... When I was watching Top Chef the other day, I finally felt inspired to get my feet wet with "The Complete Keller" cookbooks that I bought last month. This recipe is from the Bouchon cookbook. Since this is something that I made straight from a book, I am only going to talk about the steps generically - I am not going to post the recipe. If you're interested, you're more than welcome to borrow the book from me or buy your own copy.

I've made braised short ribs before. But I've never seen a recipe this detailed and, more importantly, this demanding. If you compare the other versions of this dish to Thomas Keller's, you will see why Thomas Keller is the only one with not one, but two (French Laundry & Per Se), Michelin 3-star restaurants here in the US.

I was initially a bit worried about this recipe seeing how it was 3 page long. One of the things that Keller talked about was that the "primary technique of Bouchon's Bœuf Bourguignon are those of refinement--removing the impurities at every opportunity". The wine sauce, for example, was made from simmering a bottle of cabernet with vegetable particles for about an hour to reduce almost to a glaze. Then the beef was seared and then braised in the liquid with a cheesecloth "nest" under a parchment lid. Then the liquid was strained 3 times and then the fat was skimmed off the ensure a very refined sauce. It's little things like this that put Keller's version above the rest. The most impressive thing to me, however, was that Keller insisted that the vegetables be cooked separately and added on at the end to prevent discoloration. For one dish, this was by far one of the most labor intensive dishes I have made.

In the end, food is about two things: presentation and taste. Most people don't realize this, but you actually "eat" the food with your eyes before you actually taste it. The carrots, pearl onions, fingerling potatoes, and mushrooms provided an amazing bed of "garnish" underneath the beef. The sauce was flavorful and most importantly clean and not greasy - it looks more like soup than sauce.

I would have never thought about separating the cooking of all the components like Keller did, but then again I don't have 2 Michelin 3-star restaurants... If you've ever gotten a chance to enjoy Thomas Keller's food, I'd highly recommend this recipe. A fair word of warning though, this is one of those "labor of love" dishes. I would never bring this to a pot luck. So if you got a chance to eat this, consider yourself loved. =)

Let's Catch Up...

It's been far too long since I've cooked in my own kitchen. It's been even longer since I've blogged here. First of all, my dear friends, let me apologize for not blogging and share here more often. Central Market has kept me busy the last month or so. But my arsenal of recipes have grown exponentially the last month (I now have a 2 binders full of recipes!!!). I'm looking forward to sharing some of my favorites with you in this space. There is, however, one thing that I'll ask of you... I want you to leave me a comment and let me know how something went after you tried it. If you read an entry here and don't try it, no big deal. But if you do decide to try it, I would love to hear how it worked out!!

Anyways, if you hang around my place enough, you'll know that I usually cook for all the roommates on Sunday nights. And like my presence on this blog, I've been MIA the last few weeks. So today, I decided to come back with a bang. Before I share with you how I made what I made tonight, I want to share with you on why I decided to do this:

Having never received any formal culinary training, my "self-taught" nature will tell you (honestly too) that ANYONE CAN COOK. I truly believe that, I just think that one just need to be guided towards the right direction when they start and they'll enjoy this. Of all the things that I've came across, nothing fails to amaze me as much as hearing about how someone came up with the concept of a dish. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to volunteer for Chef John Tesar, Executive Chef of The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, who was in town teaching a seafood class at Central Market. One of his dish was "Butter Poached Lobster with Corn Three Ways". Even though the dish that he made tasted like no other lobster I've tasted before, I was so much more impressed with the conceptualization of the dish than how it tasted. (The story was that he was challenged by a colleague to create a new dish and he was inspired by his childhood memories of eating boiled lobster with butter sauce and corn on the cob. So he decided to totally deconstruct the dish and came up with poaching the lobster in butter and then making the most incredible corn pudding, corn truffle foam, and a corn veloute.) 

Having grown up in Hong Kong, I think I took for granted the awesome food that was available to me. (I remember my first meal in Dallas with my uncle at his favorite Chinese restaurant was disappointing at best.) But I know that one of my favorite things that I had when I was a kid was when my mom made beef tongue. While I'm sure 90% of you are thinking that I've lost it and gone down the deep end, I can reassure you that I am completely sane - I just wanted to bring back a few slices of my childhood.

I knew I wanted to make this in the middle of the week. I didn't have the time (and more importantly didn't have the audience) to make something like this. But while I was researching, I didn't find a single recipe that I liked. So I did the next thing that came to my mind - I made my own recipe. =)

Before I share the recipe, I should confess that in order to "play it safe" I took A LOT of shortcuts. I won't do this next time. 

Braised Beef Tongue

1 Beef Tongue

2 Onions, rough chopped

4 Carrots, peeled & rough chopped

1 Daikon, peeled & rough chopped

4 Star Anise

2 Cinnamon Sticks

20 Peppercorns, whole

2 Tbsp Oil

1 bottle Soy Sauce Marinade (Can be bought at most stores, if not use dark soy sauce and add a bit of sugar)

Beef Broth

1. Tie star anise, cinnamon sticks and peppercorns into cheesecloth.

2. Heat oil in a oven proof pot (I used an enameled cast iron casserole) to sweat onions.

3. Remove onions and sear the outside of the tongue (leave the outer layer of the tongue on).

4. Once browned, remove and deglaze with marinade.

5. Add sweated onions, then the tongue, carrots and daikon.

6. Bring liquid back to boil, then braise in a 250 oven for 2 hours. If marinade does not cover everything, add beef broth until everything is covered.

7. After 2 hours, take tongue out and slice off and discard the outer layer (the whites).

8. Put the peeled tongue back and continue braising for an hour - hour and a half. Check to see whether the tongue is tender. It should not be tough at all and melt in your mouth.

9. Serve over a bed of rice or a bowl of noodles. 

Red Braised Spicy Sirloin with Potatoes

I decided to try out some homemade braising, sans any recipes, make it up as I went along.

In a large deep pan, I first mashed up one big red chili pepper with 4-5 cloves of garlic. Sprinkled it into the bottom of the pan. Took slabs of sirloin and placed it on top of the garlic-chili blend and press down to make it stick. Flip and repeat.
Lay sirloin in the pan, pour dry red wine (don't need to use anything expensive), 2 tablespoons of sesame oil, and 1/4 cup of soy sauce (I used kikkoman for milder less saltier taste). I also grinded coarse sea salt and some pepper onto the steaks.



Slice onions and place into the wine bath and on top of the sirloin. Place fresh washed red potatoes around pan. Put broiler on high and broil for 30 minutes or until steak reaches desired heat.
Serve with white wheat toast and fresh mashed avocado.

Xiao Long Bao - My Version

As I've mentioned in my previous post, I've found, by far, the most comprehensive and detailed XLB recipe from Jaden's Steamy Kitchen. I've made XLB before so I decided to take a few "shortcuts". I have no doubt that Jaden's recipe work, but you gotta twist a few things around to make it your own right?? =)

The Soup - I pretty much did everything Jaden did, except 1.) I only had 1 meat in there: pork hocks.. 2.) I used twice as much water and I reduced the broth til it was reduced by half. 3.) I used unflavored gelatin - I have no idea where to start looking for agar-agar.

The Filling - I skipped out on the shrimp and I forgot to buy white pepper

The dough - I made 2 batches - one according to the recipe and the other with high gluten flour. From the feedback that I got, it didn't really make that much of a difference. I'd use high gluten flour if I were to make it again though. Oh and I didn't beat it with chopsticks, I just used my KitchenAid stand mixer - And I didn't knead it as much either, I used the dough hook for a little bit to lighten up my load. =)

The pleating is impossible for my hands, so I suggest that you invite a few friends over and see who's best at pleating. =D

Hope this helps, please let me know how your XLBs turn out!!

Xiao Long Bao

Let me first begin by giving credit where credit is due. I found the most detailed Xiao Long Bao ("XLB") recipe EVER on a blog that I've been following for awhile, Jaden's Steamy Kitchen. If you've never checked out her blog, you should definitely check it out. I'd say that it's one of my favorite food blogs simply because you can see her passion both in food and in photography in her blog (Can anyone say HOT?!?).



If you've never had XLB's before, you should know that it's my #2 most favorite food of all time (I'm sorry XLB, but you can't beat paella dish if it's properly done). One of my more favorite childhood memories is going to this shanghai restaurant every sunday (incidentally that's the day our domestic worker was off) night with my family - a dozen or so XLBs with Shanghai fried noodles is pretty close to culinary heaven for me.



If you're in Shanghai you MUST make a trip to Nanxiang Mantou Dian, I made my pilgrimage to the "Mecca" of XLBs earlier this year and I've got to say the XLBs there are in a class of their own. If you perfer to stay on this side of the pond, I would highly recommend Joe's Shanghai in NYC's Chinatown.

But I digress... The closest attempt I've gotten is getting the XLBs to look like this:



This was after Lawrence and I figured out some of the tricks like using agar-agar (we just used unflavored gelatin) and the glutenous flour. But I'm super excited about this recipe that I found this morning. I am more than willing to bet that I'll be testing this recipe out this weekend, I'll let you know how it turns out. In the mean time... Enjoy this awesome recipe!!

Link

EDIT: Just found this on YouTube, Anthony Bourdain visits the Mecca of XLB

What to do with leftovers...

I had Tony and Tiffany come over for dinner on Sunday as they're visiting from Lubbock and, more importantly, getting ready to move to Austin. I made a very simple meal that started off with Bruschetta, then we had Linguini with Mussels, and then we finished the night off with Angel's Food Cake with Macerated Mixed Berries.

One of the things that I've gotten better at is finding ways to "reuse" food. So let's see what I came up with from some leftover chicken breast (I've also been buying whole chickens at $.83/lb from Sam's and doing the butchering myself at home), tomatoes, basil, and fresh mozzarella.

On Tuesday, I wanted to play with my knife (I am getting a new one soon!!!) so I made a salad with grilled chicken breast over arugula, navel orange (blood orange is out of season, I'd recommend using a blood orange or a grape fruit), tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella tossed in a homemade orange vinaigrette dressing.

The "Leftovers" Salad

(Serves 1)

For the Salad:

1 Blood Orange (or Grapefruit), Supremed

1 Chicken Breast, Grilled and sliced

Approx. 1.5 Cups of Arugula

1 Tomato, Seeded and roughly chopped

1 Tbsp Fresh Mozzarella

For the Dressing:

Juice squeezed from the remains of the orange after being supremed

Olive Oil

Dash of Balsamic Vinegar

Dash of Lemon Juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Except for the olive oil, put all the ingredients into a bowl and start whisking with one hand while drizzling in olive oil with the other until the dressing starts emulsifying.

2. Except the chicken, toss all ingredients from the salad into the emulsified dressing.

3. Plate the salad, leaving excess dressing in the mixing bowl. Top off with chicken.

Yup, it's that simple!! The best part is you get to work on your knife skills!!

So tonight, I found that I still had more of the same ingredients. So I made what I'll now call Spaghetti Bruschetta with Chicken

Spaghetti Bruschetta with Chicken

(Serves 1)

1 Chicken Breast - Grilled and sliced

2 Roma Tomatoes - Blanched, peeled, and roughly chopped

A Few Basil Leaves - Chiffonade (ribbon) cut

1 Clove Garlic - Finely diced

1 Tbsp Fresh Mozzarella - Diced

Olive oil

Salt & pepper - to taste

Spaghetti or other long pasta

1. Marinate tomatoes, basil, garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper.

2. While tomatoes soak in oil, cook pasta until al dente

3. Dump pasta into mixing bowl with the marinated tomatoes, toss with fresh mozzarella.

4. Plate and add chicken over pasta.

There you go - Simple and yet delicious. More importantly, you've now found a way to use your leftovers. For any recipes, you can easily substitute one ingredient for another if they've similar texture/taste (For example: Spinach for arugula in the salad). Don't waste food!!