Doodad

Mise in place. Slow cooking things in the oven. Knowing I have four burners and four different things with four different times and temps that all need to finish at the same time including restings, sauces etc. 20 minutes of fury.

We use the cleaning wipes on a daily basis especially to cut any grease or spills and then break the whole thing down on the weekends and put all in the dishwasher. After the years on this stove some new grates and trays are in order soon.

What gets me is how they all copy each other's ideas. Not confined to cooking shows, it appears in reality type shows ie pawn shops. When I saw the ad for Restaurant Impossible......how many times has that schtick been done?

Man, I had forgotten all about Ritz mock pie which is killer good in a very unnatural way. Back of the can for me is Thai Curry. But, that is pretty simplistic.

I don't use teff and that may be one of the problems I don't know. It is basically unleavened bread with soda water to make the bubbles. Mine tend to come out more like crepes or something. In the restaurants it is more like a spongy flatbread with a texture sort of like chinese steam bun. I use some cookbooks, but let me see what I can find online. The two main dishes are doro wat and yebeg wat.

Darienne, find a cookbook or pull a recipe up online. Etiopian is awesome, best beef stew (of any others) hands down in my opinion. It is all based around berbere sauce. And it is served on a large piece of a spongy bread called injera. Smaller flats of injera are how you pick up the food to eat with your hands. Ok, now I am hungry.

On a whim last night I made a sort of hash brown casserole with turnips as my wife is on a diet. Just small cubes of turnip, chopped onion and topped with gruyere and cotswald cheese. Baked in the oven until the cheese was brown while our steak rested, about 10-15 minutes. Holy Cow! We licked the bowl clean.

Ethiopian. Thai second, but I can replicate Thai pretty well. Ethiopian I get so close, but never really nail it. And my injera bread is way off the mark. And I just love having a plate and napkin that are edible.

My grandmother had one of these and the result was called hobo sandwiches.

Those rice/gelatin cakes in the Korean grocery store. They looked so pretty and sounded good. No, they were colored tire rubber with a hint of flavor. Not disgusting, just pointless and not sweet.

Pan seared catfish with mango/habanero sauce, veggie curry in lettuce wrap, pickled mango and blood orange, mixed veggie salad with tangerine vin.

Waterfall when the thing is over sauced and making a mess.

I just finally learned that what was labeled sesame in the Korean grocery is what I was looking for...shiso. I kept looking at it and thought it was the same, but had to research to find out.

I also found it at Super H Mart labeled as homemade bacon mix and is the Por Kwan brand.

Decided to make my dieting wife shrimp and "grits" last night to see how it might work. I used the blitzed and microwaved cauliflower method, but added chicken stock. I nuked and mixed them three times with salt and pepper. They were not half bad; my wife loved them. With a little cheese they would pass for cheese grits as well. I think next time I will hit half of the pot with a stick blender and recombine for a more creamy texture.

My daughter and I still cook together and I told the story about Martin Yan in my other thread. She can make some mean dumplings. One of the most valuable lessons in cooking is the math and science. She was able to understand fractions and how to add/subtract them due to lessons with measuring cups and graduated cylinders from my work. Visually performing math is a great teacher.

Not so much cooking as going out. We finally have a Vietnamese restaurant very close by and it is their grand opening. We want to support them.

Best episode I have seen so far this season. Despite the horrible drama of Etch. What was the question that Blais asked of the chef at Le Bernadin? Why not cut on the bone or something? I had a sleeping wife and could not turn up to hear over the usual infernal music and background noise they include on TC. So I did not understand the question and answer.

I ordered some ingredients from American Spice for a Christmas present for my daughter. I had never used them, but they were one of few sources for some interesting flavored powders such as hickory powder, lime powder, red wine powder, bacon salt. They were fast, told me when to expect it and the gift wrapping I opted for was much more than I expected for the money. I will order from them again.

The books are pretty much dedicated to cooking. Each recipe typically has info on the origin of the dish or an anecdote from Yan. The recipes are solid too; I have never found any mistakes or confusion in using them. The man taught me mise so that alone has helped over the years.

Yep A Wok for All Seasons was my start along with the cleaver. My book is a mess and appropriately Szechuan marinated.

Glamorizing salt? Oh well, more for me.

Another thread got me thinking of him for the first time in years. I grew up eating very basic chinese due to a fortune of circumstance despite a southern background. Almost 22 years ago as a new husband I wanted to cook better food for my wife and pending baby. Martin was my go to because I could watch his show, buy his books and actually buy most of the produce that it required in a growing city. I learned all I could and my first real knife was a cleaver that I can use pretty darn well to the point that I have used them in pro kitchens with some amazement from others. My daughter was very young when Chef Yan made a promo stop at a local kitchen store in a mall. We all went. I had no idea my daughter had been absorbing all she had done watching; when Yan came out my daughter of 3 or so began shouting Yan Can Cook Yan Can Cook to laughter and my embarassment as it went on a bit. Yan, clever guy, said something about how well she talked for her age and proceeded immediately into making an apple into a bird shaped garnish and handed it to her. Problem solved for all and the show went on. My daughter cooks asian very well now as a result of this incident which she remembers.

Or tomatoes which were thought to be poisonous. Southern food is full of examples like this that come and go in fashion. Black eyed peas became a staple while in the north they were fodder. I see dandelion greens in the store now selling for a large price when in the past 40 years they have been a pest in the yard.

I have a unique perspective on this from my childhood. My grandfather was a trader with China in a small western NC town. Mostly decorative pieces, but in the late 40s and 50s it was more than unique. It earned him the nickname Trader. They learned a good deal about Chinese culture and my grandmother being the great cook that she was, experimented with the food as well. I don't know if they ever got food goods shipped, but I grew up eating rudimentary Chinese food when you were lucky to have one Chinese restaurant in any town in NC or many other rural southern places. I don't remember much more than the soy sauce, duck sauce and mustard being unique other than of course the cooking methods and mise prep. Fast forward to this morning as I am shopping specialty asian seeds to plant in our garden because we cook so much asian food. My grandmother would be so envious of the produce I can buy in a short drive that she could only read about in books.