Coconut Shrimp

No this is not the deep-fried version coated with shredded coconuts. But it is just as satisfying. Good with pita, bread or just served over the rice.

I think the task I was facing when creating this dish can be a (quick fire) challenge for Iron Chef/Top Chef or any sort of cooking reality shows. How can u create a South East Asia-influenced dish WITHOUT using curry, licorice, cardamom, chili, cayenne, ginger and peanuts/peanut oil? There's a long not-eat/cannot-eat list shared among us:
(TripleQ) Peanuts, peanut oil, curry paste (some does contain ground peanuts or peanut oil),licorice, cardamom.
(Baby Martini) Nuts, eggs(except in baked goods), anything peppery or spicy.
(MIL) Meat (so there has to be at least one vegetarian dish on the table)
(Myself) Green onions (clearly no one cares), leek (again I just have to pick it out myself), goat cheese.

Sometimes I feel there's nothing I can make other than tofu and veggie stir-fry in teriyaki sauce.

Anyhow. Life goes on.

Ingredients:
Shrimp, mixed vegetables, cilantro, green onions, garlic, coconut milk(1 can roughly 400mL), sesame oil, olive oil, soy sauce, cooking wine, rice vinegar, salt, sugar, corn starch (optional for thickening).
Yes, I did cheat:

• Tiny bit of Chinese five spice. So it acts as "undertone" flavor.
• Ginger, grated. Strain with a sieve in the coconut milk mixture.
• Tiny bit of white pepper, stir thoroughly

Process:

• Shrimp, shelled and deveined. Marinate in salt and cooking wine.
• Slowly warm coconut milk in a deep pan, stir in spices.
• Sautee vegetables, garlic and green onions with sesame oil and olive oil in a separate pan, season with salt. Make sure the green onions are cooked through but not burned to bring out the sweetness. Pick out garlic before it burns.
• Move the vegetables to the pan where coconut milk simmers.
• Sautee shrimp with sesame oil and olive oil. Season with salt. Deglaze the pan with cooking wine.
• Move shrimp to the coconut milk pan. Toss in cilantro. Serve.

P.S. I think I added a splash of rice vinegar at one point. I don't remember when though. It is important to have vinegar to balance the richness of coconut milk.

The verdict:
A keeper. Baby Martini likes the shrimp. TQ also enjoys it; he thinks it's quite addictive (because of the rich coconut milk and seasoning?).

Vanilla Cheesecake with Berry Compote

As usual. I was going through the prerecorded TV shows while running like a hamster on the elliptical machine. This recipe from Gordon Ramsay's "The F Word Restaurant" caught my eyes. It looks pretty straight-forward and we happened to have most of the ingredients at home.

The process
I did few things differently from the original recipe:

• Used a rolling pin to crush the cookies instead of a food processor
• Replaced vanilla pod with vanilla extract
• Replaced digestive cookies with graham wafers
• Used only strawberries for the berry compote since we didn't have blueberries
• Used a stand mixer for both whipping the cream and cream cheese mixture. Gordon used a hand mixer for the cream and hand-blended the cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice. I'm too lazy to dig out the hand mixer from our kitchen.

Things I wish I have done differently:

• Use a food processor to generate finer crumbs
• Use a stainless steel pan instead of nonstick to make caramel. I know the sugar melting point (around 160C/320F) is way below the max temperature a Teflon pan can handle, I still feel uncomfortable to do so.
• I should have dumped out the crumbs instead of letting it sit in the frying pan and cool on the rack. Heat wasn't dissipated fast enough and they were a bit burned.
• Only make the berry compote right before serving, otherwise it discolor.

Results:
We all love the outcome. Baby Martini didn't like the crispy crumbs but she finished the cake in lightening speed. All the ingredients are pretty generic but it's the trial and true formula. I find that the sugar caramelisation before adding butter (for the crisp) and strawberries (for the compote) is a nice touch. So is to deglaze the berry compote with creme de cassis.

Another Cooking Channel report from Globe and Mail

This article was published late February (and yes, I have been going through newspapers slowly). Personally I have no problem with another food channel (the more the merrier, as long as they are not just re-runs). We have PVR so a 24-hour channel really doesn't matter to us.

What bothers me is certain terms used in the article, especially the phrase "food p@rn". I find it extremely offensive. Since I can't even bring myself to type this term, let's just call it FP.

I don't understand why some people think the current food tv is flooded with programs which only show you the fancy food you can not make at home. If you are content with frozen food, sure, that's out of your scope. When I was a student, I lived on KD just like many others. However, if you are interested in food and hand-on, it just comes naturally that you want to learn more about cooking. For me, it's so much easier to watch TV than to follow a recipe book; you get to see how to execute each step and how the food should turn out (e.g. Consistency of the sauce).

Obviously you can't learn much from reality shows such as Iron Chef America. You can, however, learn to prepare food from shows such as "Chef At Home", "Ricardo and Friends" and "Tyler's Ultimate", just to name a few. Those shows cover a lot of basics with interesting recipes. Actually the most informative shows by far are "Cook Like A Chef" and "Good Eats", some episodes do make me wonder "Who's going to do that at home?" That being said, I enjoy watching all those shows and get inspired to experiment in my own kitchen.

Now to think about it, if cooking something "out of ordinary" is FP, Ms Julia Child ought to be "the first lady of FP" in North America history because her work encouraged so many of us to fantasize about food. There are super FP stars who are known for their uber-cutting-edged, artsy creations. Examples are Ferran Adrià(El Bulli), Grant Achatz(Alinea) and Heston Blumenthal(The Fat Duck). Let's just say that the tools and substances they use and the complexity of their work discourage the mass from trying. Like the real p@rn which cater to different audience, there are FP stars who are classically-trained, they emphasize that things need to be "done properly" for the ultimate pleasure. Oh and of course, there are tv hosts who show you how to cook at home. They always like to tell you just relax and enjoy it.

Can we get any more DISRESPECTFUL than this? There are so many people who devote their life on perfecting their skills, to make delicious food (and pleasant for the eyes). They go through vigorous training, long hours of shifts with relatively low pay. Without the passion for food, I doubt this is a desired career path.
In my opinion that article doesn't provide any valid information; just a collection of quotations from various sources. Maybe that's why the author was eager to use provocative words to draw our attention, be it good or bad.

My battle with heels

FROM

TO

...in one month.

Pictures are from Aldo website.

Alright. For many women, that's no big deal to wear the second pair. For me, a person who normally runs around in loafers or all-things-three-striped, that is a HUGE obstacle to conquer. But I will have one month to practice until the big day. I might be able to find tutorial/videos online to teach people how to wear heels, walk and stay upright.

I never understand why women are willing to wear skinny stiletto heels. Is it like carrying weapon legally? If so, that's a weapon which tends to backfire as it hurts/immobilize the owner. Granted, in some horror (horrible) movies men can be killed by having a heel hammered in their heads. In most cases, it's the women who suffer.

Actually now to think about it, there are men who wear heels. Just do a quick search on the internet.

Food Network Canada Mobile app

I must say this is a really sleek app; Clearly a lot of efforts were put in designing the interface. I especially like the 3-tabbed layout. When you read recipes online, ingredients are first listed followed by the instructions. With the tabbed layout, you don't need to scroll all the way down on a small screen.

Pros:
- Recipes from Food Network Canada shows.
- Sleek and efficient GUI (user interface).
- This app also saves your laptop/desktop keyboard from being covered by sticky or floury finger prints!
- Pictures of recipes from the Rubino brothers' Made To Order look stunning!

Cons:
- Some units in the ingredients section don't show up properly. E.G. # of eggs. This is definitely a high-severity defect for a recipe app! How are we supposed to bake a cake if we don't know how many eggs it calls for?
- Some recipes don't show up after clicking it.
- Not all the recipes are included. E.g. No recipe from people such as Alton Brown, Gordon Ramsay, James Martin ("Sweet Baby James") and Tyler Florence.
- Why's Michael Smith's name in all capital letters? That looks odd.

The Food Network Canada Mobile App can be downloaded from
m.foodnetwork.ca

Five-spice roast chicken

We use this Staub pot so frequently it is really no point in counting.

Ingredients and preparation:

• Chicken brined over night, rinsed and dried (same as in this).
• Coating: sesame oil, olive oil, ginger, minced garlic, five-spice and soy sauce.
• Stuffing: lemon (juiced), cinnamon, cardamon, licorice, garlic and green onions
• A bed of vegetables: celery, onions and carrots. Seasoned w salt and coated with olive oil.

Cooked the chicken the same way as in this post.

Lessons learned:

• We found that even after it reached 160F the chicken juice didn't come out clear. Not sure if the probe wasn't inserted at the right place or we need to re-calibrate it.
• The vegetables were cooked at various speed so not a good combination. Carrots and potatoes will work better.

Final verdict:
The licorice or cardamon was too strong for TripleQ; he's never a fan of it. The flavor reminds me of the roast chicken I had when I was young (in Taiwan). I am kind of proud of myself that I was able to replicate the flavor (well, close enough) by memory of the taste. But since TripleQ isn't fond of it, ("I still prefer lemon garlic chicken") I won't have chance to perfect it.

My Perplexing Lemon Butter Emulsion Shrimp Pasta

Perplexing in a way that at the first glance, those ingredients don't go well together. I didn't have a clear idea what the dish should be, just tried to use ingredients available. Flavor was developed along the way.

Ingredients:

• lemon juice (leftover from making lemon curd)
• green onions (whole bunch of them for making Chinese scallion pancakes)
• garlic, sliced
• asparagus (another item to be used up ASAP)
• shrimp, peeled and deveined
• Chinese flat noodles which look like linguine
• salt, sugar, cooking wine, oil, butter

What happened:

• Marinated shrimp in salt and cooking wine
• Green onions + garlic + olive oil + butter in a frying pan, cooked until the green onion flavor mellowed. Seasoned with salt.
• Shrimp, in the same pan. Removed from the heat as soon as the shrimp was just done
• Prepared noodles according to the instruction on the package. Drained. Reserve a little liquid for later use.
• Cooked asparagus (more details below)
• Used the same pan which cooked the shrimp, added lemon juice and sugar mixture, added butter, gently whisked until uh...it looked good
• Tossed everything in a pot. Served.

The verdict:
Overall the response was quite positive. TripleQ requested less butter next time (again, I was just trying to use up the butter so I did put in a bit more butter than usual).

The what-was-I-doing moments:

• tasted the shrimp right after it was cooked. I had a bite and realized it was too hot. Just when I said "Hot!" it slipped down my throat. OUCH!
• instead of blanching asparagus in the pot, I dumped it in the pan which I was planning to prepare the lemon butter sauce. It turned out ok but really didn't plan to do so.

Lemon Chicken Simply Ming

I watched this episode of Simply Ming then decided to try the recipe.

Recipe is available on his website: http://www.ming.com/foodandwine/recipes/season-6/lemon-chicken-with-ginger-wild-rice.htm.

I absolutely do NOT want to pre-heat my Staub pot at 525F; instead, we first cooked chicken at 450F for 20 minutes, cover with foil and roast at 400F until the thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh reaches 160F.

Instead of making the wild rice, we got lazy; just had root vegetables on the bottom to suck up the chicken juice/grease.

While chicken was resting, I deglazed the pot with wine, reduced and thickened. Vegetables, back in the pot. Stir and coat with the jus. Done.

Lessons learned:

• It is important to brine the chicken, overnight preferably. It adds a lot of flavor.


• We will season the carrots and potatoes and drizzle with olive oil before they go in the oven with the chicken next time.


• Some burned garlic bits were stuck on the chicken skin. We will try to use garlic-infused olive oil or mash the garlic next time

Birthday breakfast

I finally understand why TripleQ said, "You ate part of your birthday present!"

Normally I start my day by getting ready for work, packing breakfast/snacks, finishing cafe au latte then heading out. Today TripleQ asked me to take breakfast at home. And this was what awaited me.

Link on Twitter

Eggs Benedict! My all-time favorite breakfast!! Poached eggs topped with shredded cheese and HOMEMADE hollandaise on waffles. Eh, waffles? I took the last two English muffins to work the day before..me BAD...

It will be nice to have smoked salmon and cream cheese but again it will be just the icing on the cake. The fact that I received this as a birthday present makes me in good mood the whole day. Thank you, TripleQ, for getting up early to make this!