I wanted something more visual than usual.
The zucchini was super easy and only took 30sec of blanching before assembly.
The chicken was cooking sous-vide style
Then I briefly grilled it
And made the sauce using my frozen chicken fond
And voila :)
At some point I’ll need to buy additional plates because it’s becoming quite repetitive to always plate using the same…
It’s slightly different in that we don’t get sick from it…
The eggplant had to go back for about 20 more minutes to get super melty but it was initially sharing the same baking sheet for a while :)
Go ahead it’s quite easy if you break everything down. The only tricky-ish thing is the humus ; it can get bitter on a whim I assume due to the quality of the tahini or the amount of it. And add some ice cubes to it at the start of blending, it helps with the texture. And also adding baking soda to the chickpeas. The rest was mostly just shove it all in the oven with some spice mix.
It’s kind of snowballing I feel. A few months ago I would have been thrown in food jail for what I did. Now that I have started to build some techniques and repeatedly made the same recipes a lot of times and added more and more small building blocks I am getting more confortable.
Getting personal with the knife, oven, forcing me to adapt acidity before salting…
Now though I see all my limitations and I can safely say that si won’t ever be able to run the little yatai-style food cart I was once dreaming about.
This one is indeed related to our objective of having at least 2 meals full vegetarian a week. It's actually super succesful especially with the kids.
Started with a craving for hummus, ended with a bit more in the plate. All was more or less cooked in the same batch in the oven so not complex or overly messing.
Easiest thing ever.
Either use a mandoline (left portion) or use a knife to cut strips
Then mix 4 parts mayo, 2 parts light soy sauce, small part of dark soy sauce, 1 part of rice vinegar, sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds to taste.
Adjust for acidity and if you use low sodium soy sauce like I do add some salt to the cabbage a tad before adding the sauce.
Works well with carrots added to the cabbage.
Doesn’t look super fancy but it sure was a tasty bomb.
All in all an easy process which started by deboning a very local chicken and dicing it
Followed by a 2h marinade in the typical garlic / ginger / soy sauce / mirim
This time I went with potato starch with a bit of usual flour in it - it was much more crispy with this tweak
I went with double deep frying so here a first pass
And the second pass
We have kids that don’t take the sauce when fully loaded with goshujang so I served the sauce in separate bowls for kids and adults instead of dipping all in the kitchen.
Et voilà :)
As much as I love my EV I’ll keep my horse au naturel…
I tried this sorte to change from the pulled porc I usually do.
The buns - now it’s a no sweat step
Prepped the meatballs and all based on custom 80/20 mix of porc and beef
And grilled over the flame
All in all very good with a custom pickles / câpres / mayo sauce.
Long story short is : don’t bother.
The added wrap doesn’t add anything worthy taste-wise and is additional unnecessary calories honestly.
Even glazing them didn’t cancel the blandness of the wrap.
Next time I’m back to the usual Kefta skewers that are proven to be absolutely delicious.
I tried a middle-eastern filling which was delicious alone;
Honestly the best part was the accompanying sumac tomato salad
And the homemade flat bread
Though for next time I need to find a version of flat bread more buttery and layer-y if that makes sense.
Miso is a crazy addition to braise cabbage. I used the same mix into the glazing for the pork to avoid competing tastes. Delicious.
First time I’m doing the buns.
I typically don’t do baking - it requires too much precision - but a very talented colleague shared with me a recipe I had to test.
Let’s just say that if I need to sustain myself this way I would need to dramatically improve my skill at this sort of fishing.
It’s soothing though.
As I said last post I’m looking into puréed veggies. Peas this time with lemon and olive oil. I should have learned cooking sooner this is much funnier than my day job.
Beef Bourguignon, roasted and pureed cauliflower and pickled red onions.
The beef and the pickled onions were things I’ve done already a bunch of times but the cauliflower was new on both accounts.
Not sure I’ll do the roasted version again but the puréed version was a blast. Next time I’ll try the zucchini purée.
Most cyberpunk read today.
How that shit is not illegal is beyond me. Gambling is already predatory but outside of sports and in fucking armed conflicts is abhorrent.
For me it’s a tale about loss of ownership in a dematerialised world. No one is going to cut a piece of my dining table because I own it and physically have it entirely at my side.
I’ll never own (my locally installed) Spotify nor the songs I listen to. Though for the later I have vinyl alternatives which no one is touching.
Not that actually doing it isn’t absolutely horrible but wait till you have children, at about 7yo they invite 8 of their friends in your house and it’s pouring outside.
The idea of sedating them will eventually come in mind. Then obviously you’ll discard it.
And come the moment of cleaning the mess they inevitably leave you’ll wonder if you should have done it.
As an outsider I fail to understand why the reason to close shops is so critical. Can’t they just say « fuck it we’re done here » at any point in time? What’s the point on pinning the closure on fictional crime level?
For the zucchini’s I tried the mandoline, knife and potatoes peeler; go for the peeler. Don’t bother with the mandoline unless you have maybe a high quality one.
Use quality olive oil because that’s basically all the taste you’ll have on them.
Serve them room temp or slightly higher but don’t go re-heating them too hot otherwise it’s all turning to mush.