Our Picks

Made the master brioche (50% butter) recipe yesterday, left the dough in the fridge until this morning, took it out, shaped and baked (made a double recipe so I did a tray of rolls and also a pan loaf). Marvelous, decadent bread. (Brushed the tops of the rolls with a confectioners sugar/egg white glaze for some added sweetness - breakfast of champions, really).
 

Seen today on Facebook:

@Anna N Never too late to reply. Well I have found a method for making lemon curd in a blender (Vitamix or blender of it's kind) which can be made in about 6 minutes. The Vitamix does all the cooking. I usually use a recipe calling for whole eggs and which brings the curd to a simmer for a minute to two and tweaked it for the Vitamix. Bloody genius. The finished product needs to be stashed in the fridge to set. Yummmm. See "thekitchn.com for the method. Use what ever recipe you like and tweak it to fit. 

I have just bought a very fresh Turbot. It is my first one. I'm asking for cooking suggestions for what I understand is one of the best fish in the world. TIA D

 
A personal favorite: https://www.mitierracafe.com/
 
Loud, Crowded, and Fun! And not expensive! You may have to wait a bit for a table.
 
I love their Michoacan Special: Carnitas de Puerco. Baked Pork Tips marinated with Oranges and Spices. Served with Guacamole, Pico de Gallo, Refried Beans and Spanish Rice
 
Now I want to go back!
 
Photo of my meal from last year.
 

 

On a whim I purchased a package of frozen mussels meat from Whole Foods.   They've been sitting in the freezer and I'd like to get some suggestions on what to do with them.   No experience with mussels outside of cooking  raw in the shell mussels a couple times.  Since this is just under a pound of shelled mussel meat I know I need to use them up quickly once thawed.  Your suggestions and thoughts on best prep and use age would be appreciated 
 

Chocolate mud cake with Valrhona Caraïbe chocolate, filled with salted caramel, frosted with ganache, and topped with toasted macadamia nuts, macnut toffee and a brittle with more macadamia nuts, and Hawaiian lava sea salt. For my 14-year old’s birthday. Served with passionfruit sorbet  . 

I've mentioned this before.  I keep a sewing gauge in my knife drawer.  Handy to measure thickness of fish, rolled doughs or slices of anything.

Another year, another visit to Cape Cod.  I am in Chatham for work until tomorrow then back in Wellfleet for 10 days of vacation.  Yesterday my husband and I had lunch at the Chatham Squire.  Raw clams and oysters, and shrimp cocktail
 

 
and a split plate of fried shrimp
 

 
Dinner was at Pisces, a small seafood focused restaurant.  Bread with white bean dip
 

 
Sautéed calamari with arugula salad
 

 
Oyster spaghettini
 

 
Spinach risotto with local flounder
 

 
Sunset
 

 
Breakfast this morning was at the Captain's Table
 

 
Blueberry bread pudding
 

 
Bagel with smoked salmon
 

 
more later

I have just returned home to China from an almost two week trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. To get there I first travelled by train to the provincial capital, Nanning. The local airport only does domestic flights, whereas there are direct flights from Nanning. The flight time required that I stay overnight at the Aviation Hotel in Nanning, from which there is a regular direct bus to the airport.
 
The trip to Nanning is about an hour and a half and passes through some nice karst scenery.
 
 
After booking into the hotel, I set off for my favourite Nanning eating destination. Zhongshan Night market is a well known spot and very popular with the locals. I had forgotten that it was a local holiday - the place is always busy, but that night it was exceptionally so.
 

 

 
It consists of one long street with hundreds of stalls and is basically a seafood market, although there are a few stalls selling alternatives.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Filled myself with seafood (and some of that blood sausage above), slept soundly and, next morning, flew to Ho Chi Minh City.
 

 

 
The rest of my trip can be seen here:
 
 

Fried noodles (炒面 chǎo miàn) with pork (marinated in Shaoxing wine), shiitake, cabbage, coriander leaf, garlic, ginger, chilli, scallions.
 

 

 Little cooler last night so Shrimp and Grits last night.

Finally success with round ravioli!
 

 
 
The Norpro dished exactly the right amount for my 50 mm ravioli cutter.  Thereby proving Bugialli correct.  I was not pleased that the Norpro pinched my hand.  I like Zeroll scoops much better.
 
 

 
 
The result plated with sage butter.  (Store bought sage, as my poor dear sage plant is looking somewhat threadbare at the moment.)  Enough thujone to sate the lust of the most degenerate absinthe fiend.
 
Humorously I neglected to add salt to the pasta water.
 

 
I have eaten doggoned nearly every kind of game there is. I have eaten possum. It's nasty. Almost as nasty as coon. I will stick to venison and elk.
 

We've now got them here in Nova Scotia - I think they showed up on the 24th of May.
My batch looked like this:
I boiled them for ten minutes, add salt and then melted butter. They'd probably be even better with less time cooking but there has been stories of bacteria in the fronds. Better safe than sorry.
I recall a post from mid 2007 where someone in Ontario was thinking of pureeing fiddleheads for a catering job - along with pickerel I think - and I replied how I simply couldn't bring myself to liquefy such short lived beauties. Now I have a new answer . . . trim off the stem for the puree and keep the tight coils intact.

Brussels sprout salad, fried shrimp and frog legs
 

More oddities I'm rather eager to try.... 

@Kerry Beal  brought me some rhubarb from her garden and while we were out together yesterday we saw some strawberries and so:
 
 

 
 Strawberry rhubarb crumble.

February 2018. The cuisine here was so memorable and the venue and service so self-indulgent that henceforth each time I visit Paris I hope to eat here. My best dish was the Fricassee de Homard.

Was up early yesterday morning so I baked. 
The first Rhubarb Pie of the season.

Threatened harm to anyone that cut it before I got home from work.

We had Pie for dinner. 

 I listened to Ed Levine's Serious Eats podcast interview today with Maira Kalman and Barbara Scott-Goodman discussing their new book Cake. https://soundcloud.com/user-306003081/special-sauce-artist-and  My initial reaction was that though they are interesting people "Cake? - really?". But knowing how I can be dismissive without giving things a chance, I listened and reflected, and realized I had a deep history with cakes though my cultural sweets experience is Austro-Hungarian pastries. I'll share my memories and would love to hear yours.
 
My first significant cake baking experience was at around age 10 when I was driven to make the  Enchanted Castle cake from the Betty Crocker Boys & Girls Cookbook for my sister's birthday.  Scroll past the bunny salad  https://popgoesthepage.princeton.edu/tag/betty-crockers-new-boys-and-girls-cookbook/  I used a box mix and improvised on the decorating but it was essentially as shown. Suprisingly I was not pained when the first cut was made; just delighted that she and others were delighted.
 
The next wow cake was when my mom made a tunnel cake with dark cherry mousse for a dinner party. It seemed magical. This was in th 60's before they were a "thing".  (see attached image of recipe from Good Housekeeping magazine found in mom's recipe binder)  
 
I'd started baking in general and became the designated cake baker for the sweet my dad took to work for lunch. This was the era of bundt cakes and pudding cakes. I unearthed some of the recipe cards and came upon:  the poppy seed cake from the olo can, carrot cake from Blue Ribbon Recipes, apple cake with orange juice, pistachio pudding cake, sauerkraut chocolte cake & mashed potato chocolate cake, Maid Heatter's Royal Viennese Walnut Torte- list goes on
 
One Christmas Austrian friends sent us a Sacher Torte complete in its adorable wooden box from the Hotel Sacher. Anticipation was high; disppointment was deep. Dry/boring! - though I did like the apricot jam under the chocolate glaze.
 
In the 80's a Vietnamese friend introduced me to the less sweet style of Asian cakes with light fruitiness and a whipped cream & crushed fruit filling.. Around that time I also became enamored of a roulade cake flavored with pandan from the big Chinese market (99 Ranch). 
 
There  was a big "cake lull" until I recently baked an olive oil cake with tangerine zest when the pantry was bare. In fact I think I'll make it again tomorrow
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

My sorrel plant.  Looks like it will be a good year.
Just made some Italian Wedding Soup using last year's frozen sorrel.
The lemony flavour worked very well.

 
OK, I was over in the same area later this afternoon and popped back in to pick one up. I ended up with two. My husband wanted to try the shrimp quality and I wanted to try a vegan option. Not that I am a vegan or even interested in becoming one, I just find it interesting to see how appealing they can make vegan kits. I was thinking of making the Black Bean Cakes as a starter, followed by the Shrimp Scampi, but decided the Shrimp would suffice. 
 
Here are some pics and details...
 
The packaging is quite good. The boxes are all the same size, a fairly long and narrow box, good for fitting into the fridge. Info on the box shows if a meal is gluten-free, vegan, etc and the shrimp was labeled as a dietitian's choice. Time to cook is given (are they all 20 mins or less?) as well as level of spiciness and whether you have to do a bit of chopping or none at all. The plastic window lets you see at least some of the ingredients. 
 

 
Here's the contents of the shrimp dinner. It's only 10 oz (less than 300 gms) of shrimp and the other ingredients are very simple, so the quality of the shrimp and the cooked (!) fettuccini will be key. The onions are already diced, the garlic and parsley minced. Pats of butter included. 
 

 
Here's the contents of the Black Bean cakes - instant corn grits, cooked basmati rice, black beans, diced red peppers, cumin, sriracha, salsa verde, diced squash and minced garlic. 

 
The recipe card for the Bean Cakes:

 

 
And for the shrimp:
 

 

 
 
 

Little recon around the room to see what's up
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
B and I went there last year in 2016. How time flies!
 
We found our experience not as good as it could have been.
 
We arrived early, and they didn't seat us until 50 minutes later, 20 minutes past our reservation time. When I asked what was taking so long, I was told "Well, you arrived early." That's not the point -- we had a reservation time of 9 pm and it's now 9:20 -- does everyone who comes here get seated late? Strike #1.  Furthermore, we were seated at the bar and no staff came by to alert us; I had to get up to go speak to the host.
 
On to the food...
 

 
"Thai soup" -- while it reminded me of tom kha gai and hit all the right flavor notes, I was asking myself why are we eating pseudo-Thai food in this restaurant? 

Not exactly an auspicious beginning. Strike #2 was that it took nearly 5 minutes *after* being seated before we received the menus, and when they brought us the menus, they also brought us the first amuse-bouche. It felt like a weird combination of: (1) we're being rushed and (2) we're being punished.
 

 
Buckwheat blini, salmon, osetra caviar.

Well-made blini -- perfect, actually. Like butter-flavored clouds.
 

 
Seared foie gras, caramelized onion, poached rhubarb.

Plating doesn't exactly inspire confidence, a theme you will see repeatedly throughout. Was prepared well though from what little I tasted.
 

 
Figs, arugula, fennel, Gorgonzola cheese.<br style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#353c41;font-size:14px;"> <br style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#353c41;font-size:14px;"> Average salad, nothing special.
 

 
Seared scallops, morels, English peas, Madeira.<br style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#1d2129;font-size:14px;text-align:left;"> <br style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#1d2129;font-size:14px;text-align:left;"> Excellent flavor, from the bite or two I stole off of B's plate. Sear on the scallops poorly executed though.
 

 
Lamb loin with farroto, Medjool dates, carrots and chermoula.

The lamb was well-cooked. The plating sucked, the sauce was oversalted (basically, if you can taste it, it's too much), and the accompaniments slapdash.  At this point, I was starting to become irritated. This is a restaurant that is supposed to be in the vanguard of San Francisco dining and for the prices that are being charged, everything should feel like perfection from the moment you step inside to when you depart.
 
This was not it. Ixnay on the square plates.
 

 
Cheese cart.
 

 
Sauternes.
 

 
Louisiana butter cake, peaches, huckleberry compote, vanilla ice cream.<br style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#353c41;font-size:14px;"> <br style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#353c41;font-size:14px;"> Amateurish plating. Cake itself was "fine". Maybe I ordered wrong.
 

 
Flourless chocolate birthday cake.
 
I suppose it might have been a good restaurant -- in 1995. You can do better in the City.