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ProfessionalHobbit

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  1. I'll keep that in mind. I have been to #6 on Eater's list several times. Good lunch spot. ETA it's Hon's Wun Tun House for those who are curious.
  2. Lamb meatballs with barberries, yogurt and mixed herbs (parsley, mint, chervil). We have a ton of leftovers, LOL. Oh well, I suppose that's a good problem to have. Anyone who wants to fly to SF is welcome to take some of this off our hands.
  3. The Mongolian beef wasn't my order, that was what B wanted. If you read the review, Bauer says that the chicken jook had an intense flavor. I wasn't in the mood for chicken, so I tried the duck jook. I'm also Chinese (family is from Fujian and some relatives are from Canton), so I know what to expect when it comes to jook. I found myself dosing it liberally with the pot of chili paste they had on the side. ETA @huiray -- I expected there to be some level of flavor. You know, like if the cook seasoned the jook with ginger or with white pepper or whatever. After all, jook is just rice porridge with toppings; it's the liquid the rice is cooked in that contributes part of the flavor. What I received was just not very exciting as far as congee/jook goes. One other thing that I almost forgot. The waitress asked me if I wanted a fried doughnut to go along with the jook. I said yes, of course. Well, when the order arrived, the doughnut didn't come. On second thought, maybe it was good that they forgot the order because we realized we ordered too much at that point. And since you bring up the point that they're a Cantonese restaurant, very little of what was available was what I would expect from a Cantonese restaurant. No steamed fish with scallion and ginger, no seafood or roast meats other than the rice plates, hardly any food along the lines of what you usually post. Most of it, since you saw the menu, was fried rice, noodle dishes and Americanized renditions like sweet and sour pork and beef with broccoli. A touch disappointing, but whatever. Maybe I should have gotten the pork jook with preserved egg, but something tells me that if the duck jook failed, the pork with preserved egg wouldn't have been good either. Call it a hunch. Or maybe we ordered wrong. We only went because I had heard so much about it, and also because it's #13 on Eater's list of places to eat in SF's Chinatown. For what reason it's #13, I have no idea. It was worse than the most forgettable Chinese takeout I've had in this country.
  4. We have a dinner party tonight so there won't be much in the way of pix. B is definitely Mr. Organized. Lamb meatballs with barberries, to be served with yogurt and mixed herbs -- from Ottolenghi's "Jerusalem", page 199 Most of what will be served tonight was made in advance, hence the photos of food in Tupperware. Saffron rice with pistachio and mixed herbs, from "Jerusalem", page 105. Poached pears in white wine and cardamom, from "Jerusalem", page 267. Here are two vegetable sides for tonight: Scarola con fave, olive e mozzarella -- escarole with fava beans, olives and mozzarella Fagiolini con pomodoro -- Romano beans braised with San Marzano tomatoes
  5. BTW, these aren't edible according to a remark I overheard. today: Summer Lady peaches from Froghollow Farm, San Marzano tomatoes, Romano beans, fava beans, strawberries, escarole, mozzarella cheese, applewood-smoked bacon, lamb chops
  6. Buttermilk biscuits, with creamy scrambled eggs, heirloom tomato salad and applewood smoked bacon. #brunch #foodphotography Good morning!
  7. It's rare I shoot pictures of lunch -- what you're looking at is a plastic tray that I brought from Delica back to my office. The only reason I had my camera with me was because I went to Sam Wo with my hubby after work.
  8. Oh, it was ok. I get their stuff occasionally. Perfectly fine for what it is.
  9. A lunch bento box from Delica, a store in the Ferry Building. Clockwise from right: Japanese rice with goma (sesame seeds); daikon root stir-fry; shrimp croquettes with tartar sauce; hijiki and soybean salad. Coupled with a salmon roe onigiri, this cost $18.
  10. B and I went to Sam Wo, a so-called San Francisco institution whose claims to fame were one extremely rude waiter and crowd-pleasing food. The restaurant closed a few years ago after having failed a DOH inspection and then reopened last year at a new location. Hong Kong-style iced milk tea Duck jook. Was as average as you could imagine a bowl of porridge to be. Mongolian beef. It was as unexciting as it looks. Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce. The stems were tough but the leaves were not. I'm learning to distrust any review written by Michael Bauer (restaurant critic of the SF Chronicle). Salt-and-pepper chicken wings. This was billed as a "must-get" item, and while I don't know about that, it was easily the best thing we ate last night. And now that we've been to Sam Wo, we don't ever have to go back again. I suppose I could have posted this in the California subforum, but I thought I'd spare y'all the disservice of an entry. Sam Wo 713 Clay Street (Kearny Street) Chinatown San Francisco
  11. Last night: roast chicken, roasted asparagus with Parm-Reg cheese. Tonight (Friday), B and I are going to explore SF's Chinatown. We've decided to go to Sam Wo -- I hear they re-opened recently at a new location so will report back, with pix.
  12. Turkey meatloaf and quinoa-stuffed pepper. Peaches for dessert. No pic because I forgot, plus when it's 10 pm after a 12+ hour day, pix are the last thing on my mind.
  13. If I don't have the ingredients for it on hand, I either don't make it or don't call it "carbonara". Most of the time, I go without. I have a rather rigid view of what the dish entails. Works for me.
  14. I have definite opinions about what constitutes carbonara. The dish I made last night fits that to a T. But if someone wants to include cream and garlic or cream and bacon or cream and chicken, I'll bite my tongue and look the other way. Been there, done that. "De gustibus" is the rule of the day.
  15. @huiray -- this is the rule I go by these days. I have preferences like anyone else, but I don't mandate that others follow them. Make sense? Now if the question is 'what do you think of carbonara with cream' ... well, I'm sure you can figure out what my response would be. Old habits die hard. But really, it's all good whichever way one decides to go.
  16. The recipe is in the "My Kitchen in Rome" thread.
  17. Clockwise from lower right: 1 egg; 2 1/2 ounces guanciale; black peppercorns; 1/2 cup freshly grated pecorino cheese; 1 egg yolk. Like many minimalist Italian pastas, carbonara requires attention to detail to do well. The less ingredients you have, the harder it is to mask any mistakes in either technique or sourcing. That's why it's important that your ingredients be the best quality that you can afford. Warm 1-2 tbsp. olive oil in a skillet. Add guanciale and cook until fat has been rendered and guanciale is crisp. Remove from heat. While your pasta is cooking, whisk together the egg yolk, the egg and cheese. The egg mixture will become a light golden cream. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Remember that the cheese is salty and ditto for the guanciale, and if you cooked your pasta with lightly salted water, it will also be faintly salty. Therefore, you might want to go easy on the salt. Pictured is a scant pinch of kosher salt, barely 1/8 tsp. Cook your pasta until it's al dente. Just before you drain the pasta, ladle out 1 cup pasta cooking water. Return the pan you cooked the guanciale in to the stove. Warm guanciale until its fat is hot. When hot, transfer all but 1/4 of the guanciale to a plate. Drain pasta and add it to the pan. Twirl pasta with a fork until strands are coated with the guanciale drippings. Then, working quickly, add the egg-cheese mixture and a little pasta cooking water until a light, creamy sauce is formed. You'll know it's right when the sauce enrobes each strand of pasta and coats it seductively like a second skin. Add guanciale to the pasta. Generously grind black pepper over all. Serve immediately. This recipe has been sized for 2 people (original is for 4 servings) and is adapted from "My Kitchen in Rome" by Rachel Roddy, pages 138-140.
  18. Spaghetti alla carbonara Recipe and method here: https://forums.egullet.org/topic/153434-cooking-from-my-kitchen-in-rome/?do=findComment&comment=2063690
  19. If you saw the 2nd episode which was all about making "biscuits", that wonderfully British term for cookies, do you think the right person won and the wrong person lost? Curious about your thoughts. Incidentally, B and I plan our Friday nights around this show. We had dinner at a neighborhood cheapie Chinese restaurant and didn't get home until 9 pm, thinking that we had missed last week's installment. Much to our surprise, it came on a minute or two later.
  20. Miriam's Kitchen: https://www.amazon.com/Miriams-Kitchen-Memoir-Elizabeth-Ehrlich/dp/014026759X There's also Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine by Lidia Bastianich: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_24?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=lidia's+mastering+the+art+of+italian+cuisine&sprefix=lidia's+mastering+the+art+of+italian+cuisine%2Cstripbooks%2C293 and Inside the California Food Revolution by Joyce Goldstein: https://www.amazon.com/Inside-California-Food-Revolution-Consciousness/dp/0520268199 Just finished a biography of Julia Child.
  21. ProfessionalHobbit

    Carp Roe?

    Looks like the pale white cousin of shad roe. Typically, I prepare shad roe by frying it in a little butter, seasoned with salt and pepper. Squeeze of lemon on the side. I don't know if that would work here. ETA that Crepes has already addressed this issue. Good luck and pls let us know how it tastes.
  22. Very timely thread. One big project which I'm looking to do and photoblog about it here on eGullet is making tuna confit for things like vitello tonnato and salade niçoise. It'll be sometime within the next two weeks. This upcoming weekend we have a dinner party that will take up most of my energy, LOL.
  23. Before I get to the main event, I'm walking you through a recipe for breadcrumbs. This is a pantry staple that gets used in anything and everything from pasta sauces to filler in meatballs and meatloaf. We buy bread or make our own fairly regularly, and this is a great way to use up leftover stale bread that would otherwise get thrown out. Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut up a heel of some stale bread into 1" thick slices. Trim off the crusts, then dice into cubes. Blitz the cubes in small batches until they resemble coarsely-textured or finely-textured crumbs. Transfer the crumbs to a baking sheet. Occasionally, I'll flavor the breadcrumbs with herbs or garlic or both. You can hand-chop the herbs or blitz them in a food processor. Pictured are a 1:1:1 mixture of Italian parsley, oregano and thyme that got minced, then mixed in with the breadcrumbs. Stir herbs into crumbs and spread out in a thin layer. Bake until golden brown, remembering to stir the crumbs every so often so that they color evenly. 4 ripe heirloom tomatoes, cut up into chunks. 1 lb. green beans, trimmed. Thinly slice 1-2 garlic cloves. Pour 2-3 tbsp. olive oil into a large pot. Add garlic to oil. Warm oil over medium heat. Add the tomatoes and 1/2 cup water. Season with salt and black pepper. Eventually tomatoes will begin to break down into a loose tomato sauce. Once you've reached that point, add the green beans. Stir a few times, then cover the pot and reduce heat to low. Braise the beans for one hour. During the last 10-15 minutes of cooking, partly cover pot so that the liquid reduces. Beans are done when the sauce has mostly evaporated and the beans are softened yet still retain some texture. Taste for salt and pepper, drizzle some extra-virgin olive oil if you want, then serve. Fagiolini con pomodoro ("green beans with tomato"). Clockwise from center: 2 tbsp. lemon juice; 3 tbsp. unsalted butter cut into cubes; 1/2 cup pinot grigio; 3/4 tsp. kosher salt; 1 lb. shrimp that had been trimmed, deveined and butterflied; 4 thyme sprigs; 1/4 cup chopped shallots; 1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley; 4 crushed garlic cloves; 3 tbsp. sourdough and herb breadcrumbs. Not shown is a glass bowl with 1/3 cup olive oil. Blitz 3 garlic cloves along with 2 tbsp. olive oil and all of the shallots in a food processor until you obtain a finely-textured paste. Transfer paste to a bowl. Spoon 3-4 tbsp. olive oil into a cold skillet and add remaining garlic cloves. Warm oil over medium-high heat. Tip: If you add the garlic to cold oil as opposed to already heated oil, the garlic will infuse the oil more than if you added them later. Let garlic sizzle for a minute or two, then add half of the shrimp, all of the thyme sprigs and season with a pinch of salt. Saute the shrimp until it's seared but not cooked, about 2-3 minutes. I had B butterfly the shrimp and only realized about a minute after this point that butterflying the shrimp was totally unnecessary. D'oh. Oh well. Transfer shrimp to a plate, then repeat with the remaining shrimp. In the same pan you used to sear the shrimp, add 3-4 tbsp. olive oil and all of the garlic-shallot paste. Cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic-shallot paste begins to dry out, about 5 minutes. This is about right. Quickly add the wine, the lemon juice, 1/2 cup water and a pinch of salt. Whisk in half of the butter cubes. Reduce the sauce until it's reached 1/3 of its original volume. Once the sauce has reduced (around this stage), whisk in the remaining butter, then transfer shrimp back into the pan. Stir in chopped parsley. If the sauce is too thin, stir in breadcrumbs until desired consistency has been reached. Serve. Scampi in umido, from "Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine", pages 274-275 by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali. B pronounced it "the best shrimp scampi I've ever eaten in my life". High praise indeed.
  24. Broccoli tops and spinach, with prosciutto and caramelized onion, served with couscous. 1 1/2 onion, thinly sliced and cooked down in olive oil for 40 minutes, to which was added shredded prosciutto and deglazed with pinot grigio, then added cooked chopped broccoli tops and spinach. Seasoned with salt, black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Think of it as an imitation straccetti di manzo except I used prosciutto instead of lean shredded beef and broccoli instead of arugula. B and I are on a sort of "reduced carb diet". We're trying to minimize our intake of potatoes, pasta, rice, bread and sugar -- which is difficult because I sure do love my carbs.
  25. Apricot season expired last weekend I'm afraid. It'll be another year before they come again.
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