Lunch! What'd ya have? (2012–2014)

[huiray]

Sushi today.

No pics, I was sitting at the sushi bar. Asked for omakase nigirizushi from Iwamoto-san. ("Feed me") Got nice stuff - usual suspects mostly but good stuff. Maguro, hamachi, sake, unagi, uni, ikura, ika, ama-ebi, shiro-maguro (nicely dressed, w/ some bonito shavings as well), hotate, etc. Asked for another hamachi and unagi; plus a tamago for last.

Oh, plus agedashidofu to start.

Nicely "thick" green tea.

Yum.

[basquecook]

Had lunch out today.. Portuguese Food.. A huge plate of pork and clams and a larger glass of vinho.

Served with rice and fries:

And a very large glass of wine and awesome bread: One glass and I am ready for a nap.. Especially when the one glass is a pint glass. I had two espressos but, the dessert brandy did not help. I am pretty sure this is why cigarettes were invented.

[rotuts]

basquecook

you are very lucky!

[SobaAddict70]

Short ribs braised in red wine, with tomato and onion-filled empanada, and spicy chicken Thai noodles, and a bottle of ginger ale. For $13.

[huiray]

• Pork & cabbage w/ XO sauce "shui kow" in wonton stock w/ sliced soft tofu, chopped scallions & cilantro.

• "Kon lo" wonton noodles - tossed w/ a sauce formed w/ chopped de-skinned pork belly ("sam chang yook") sautéed w/ chopped garlic in peanut oil; quenched w/ a mixture of light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, Red Boat fish sauce, sesame oil, ground white pepper, MRT Ryori-shu mirin.

• Blanched "yow choi sum".

• Pickled chopped long hot green chillies.

[naguere]

huiray How elegant. Here, brown rice, white beans some tinned pork (Polish)with a good stroganoff sauce topped with a sliced scallion and some greens that were nuked to preserve all vitamins. (it did not look as pretty as your display I must profess) .

[huiray]

• Leftover Hainanese chicken (at RT, w/ gelatin) and reheated chicken rice (w/ a half-ladle of chicken broth) from last night (http://egullet.org/p1902527), w/ sliced sweet red mini-pepper, cilantro & scallions.

• Chopped chicken liver & shallot sauce**.

• Chicken broth, w/ sliced asparagus & chunked de-seeded de-skinned cucumber.

Plus rest of last night's chili sauce. (not shown)

** Finely sliced shallots, small amount (1 clove) of garlic, sliced; gently sautéed in veggie oil till just beginning to brown; chopped chicken livers added and the mixture tossed. To this was added: Worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrin), dash of good light soy sauce, some good fish sauce (nước mắm), a bit of sea salt, and a few small chunks of rock sugar. Stir, simmer; water added, cover & reduce on a slow simmer.

[huiray]

Naguere, thanks.

Tinned Polish pork - some details, please?

What stroganoff did you you have?

Edited December 24, 2012 by huiray (log)

[heidih]

huiray - I am intrigued by the chicken liver sauce. How was it eaten - just dolloped on the rice, mixed with the chicken? It sounds good on it s own just with freshly steamed rice!

[huiray]

heidi,

I eat that liver sauce with the rice ("dolloped on"), with the chicken, with chicken + rice, and little spoonfuls of it by itself. It is true I tend to make this and variations thereof only when I do Hainanese chicken rice (although I've done it at other times), using the livers from the whole chicken, on occasion supplementing those with more chicken livers from those small tubs of chicken livers you can get. I've even done it admixed w/ "ordinary" duck livers if I had them. Still, I doubt any two preparations have been exactly the same. I wing it each time but with certain constants - sautéed sliced shallots and finely chopped livers being the "base". I've never used ordinary onions for this, I've always used the smallish red shallots** for this, the sort that is used for those deep fried shallots you can get from Chinese groceries and the sort used for the "rempah" in Nyonya, Malay and Indonesian cooking.

Sometimes, when I did make it outside of the "Hainanese chicken rice" association, I might add some madeira or sherry to it during the prep. For some grilled or pan-fried duck breasts, for example, in the Western idiom. Otherwise, I might add some alcoholic mirin to it (but NOT Shaohsing or equivalent) in the context of "Hainanese" (or otherwise) chicken.

** "chung1 tau4" (Yale ; Cantonese); 蔥頭 . Also called "Bawang merah", in Malay.

Edited December 25, 2012 by huiray (log)

[huiray]

Oysters stir-fried w/ julienned ginger, smashed garlic, lots of trimmed scallions, sliced hot long green chillies, and salted soya beans.

Steamed Thai Hom Mali jasmine rice.

[gfweb]

Christmas Lunch

Salmon mousse in endive leaves.

Jalapeno cornbread madeleines

Smoked turkey salad with candied pecans and slivered grapes.

Spinach with cranberry/bacon vinaigrette.

[huiray]

Salmon & Leek soup.

With misc veggies as well.

Trimmed & washed leeks, cut into rounds. De-stringed celery stalks, cut against the bias. Peeled carrots, cut into rounds. De-ribbed collard greens, chiffonaded. Salmon fillet, de-skinned, cut into 1/4 to 1/3 inch slices. Chopped parsley. Rubbed thyme. Bay leaves. Good olive oil. Salted chicken stock, good gelatin content. Water.

All veggies except collards sautéed w/ olive oil. Stock + water + bay leaves added. Simmer. Add thyme. Add collards, simmer. Add parsley. Add salmon, return mixture just to boil, shut off heat. Leave covered for just a few minutes. Ladle out, eat.

[huiray]

Chicken in aspic.**

With marinated mushrooms, artichoke hearts, baby corn, sun-dried tomatoes, olives. (from a local store's antipasto bar).

Sesame seed Lavash crackers.

** Shredded leftover Hainanese chicken (poached w/ ginger) [Prior dinner & lunch], tossed w/ chopped cilantro, scallions, celery; interspersed w/ hard boiled egg slices and the mixture set w/ aspic made from chicken stock (from the Hainanese chicken carcass + leftover poaching stock + leftover meat + residual ginger pieces + some water, simmered for a while, then strained) pluss additional unflavored gelatin.

[rod rock]

NIce lunch, i like that combo!

[cookalong]

I've been dying to eat proper orange chicken since the last time I visited the US. Haven't got around to make it at home before, this is my first attempt. Pretty tasty.

[rotuts]

the OC looks delicious! thanks for the reminder. I used to get this at an old chinese restaurant in Chinatown BOS for the longest time. theirs had whole red chili's in it and was crispy and perfect.

I might have to move this up on the To Do list. the one I used to get had dried orange peel in it.

[huiray]

Pork & Shrimp wontons.

Chicken & Shrimp wontons.

Chicken soup stock.

Fresh shiitake musrooms.

Chopped scallions, fried shallots.

Gai Lan (Chinese "mustard greens") blanched in oiled boiling water, shocked in cold water, plated w/ the wontons.

Skinny wonton noodles.

Romaine lettuce, blanched in oiled hot water, drained, drizzled w/ Ponzu sauce & several grinds of white pepper.

[heidih]

huiray - I am not familiar with the hot oiled water blanching technique. Can you give a brief description of proportions, and when & why one uses it?

[huiray]

Heidi,

This "hot oiled water blanching" that I talk about is just wilting and cooking lightly any veggie one desires in a pot of boiling water to which has been added a bit of oil, usually veggie oil. One brings a pot of water to the boil, adds some oil (not too much, the oil will coat the veggies, but the oil also provides a "smooth" textural component to the blanched veggies - omitting the oil affects the "mouth feel" of the blanched veggies), then one adds in washed & trimmed veggies and depending on what it is and how cooked you want the veggies to be one waits for the water to return to boiling and/or fishes them out before it does so, or let it come back to a boil and let it boil for however long is needed or desired. It depends on what the veggie is and/or how cooked one wishes it to be and/or how much crunchiness one wishes to retain.

I don't usually use olive oil for this process. It "colors" the flavor and the resulting blanched veggie is oddly "greasy" and cloying when olive oil is used.

The idea is to make the veggie "not raw" and in the process give it this slightly altered taste profile ("semi-cooked") but still retain almost all its previous character. It's one of the most common techniques in Chinese (Cantonese?) cooking. I would consider that even stir-fries of "meat + veggie" in effect does this, albeit the veggie may be "parboiled" or "blanched" in water in the wok over that 35,000 BTU flame without oil, to be fished out and recombined with the rest of the dish later on when there is sauce and oil in the whole.

I do it with almost any leafy veggie I want, both E/SE Asian or Western, within a kind of "taste/texture" profile. Typical would be Gai Lan, Tong Ho (edible chrysanthemum), Spinach of various sorts**, lettuce of almost any kind†† (including the Romaine I described in the previous post) both Oriental and Western, Choy Sum (Yu Choy), etc. However, I would not do this for things like Seng Choy (edible amaranth) or Kai Choy (Chinese "Mustard Greens", Brassica juncea) which don't turn out well with this technique.

With many of the leafy veggies the volume is, of course, greatly reduced after blanching and I'm sure you can imagine which ones those might be.

It also works well with broccoli or cauliflower - as an alternative to steaming them, which would be a well-known Western way with those "harder" veggies. It also works well with stuff like kale - but not really so much collard greens. Western mustard greens work, if you limit the hot water exposure.

In all cases the veggie is blanched to the desired "done-ness", drained (colander) or just fished out; then either eaten as-is (works with flavorful veggies) or dressed with some sauce - such as (Chinese) oyster sauce, or Ponzu sauce, or just soy sauce, even Worcestershire sauce - plus ground pepper or not as one wishes. Some tangy sauce. A classic restaurant dressing for Gai Lan (for example) done this way would be garlic sautéed in oil and quenched w/ oyster sauce (plus other stuff, maybe) then the mixture poured over the blanched vegggies. At home I often simply drizzle oyster sauce straight from the bottle (Lee Kum Kee is my usual brand) over the blanched drained veggie and grate some white or black pepper over it.

Hope this helps.

** Spinach requires a very short blanching time. Often I would simply have the spinach in a large container, pour oil over it, then pour hot (boiled) water over the whole thing and let it simply steep in the oiled hot water (i.e. not on a fire/on the stove over heat) for a short while before draining. With the stout-stemmed "winter spinach" I might do the blanching on the stove over heat barely bring the water up to a boil again.

†† Depending on the lettuce ("robust"/"harder" to delicately soft) the blanching time is adjusted and also whether it is done "on the stove" or "off stove in a container".

Edited December 29, 2012 by huiray (log)

[huiray]

Bak Kut Teh.

Sautéed snow peas (very hot pan, some "wok hei").

Steamed white rice.

For the Bak Kut Teh today I used baby back ribs (pork); generous amount of shaved "Tong Kwai" (當歸; Yale: dong1 gwai1; "Radix Angelica Sinensis"; Angelica sinensis) and "Yook Chook" (玉竹; Yale: yuk6 juk1; Polygonatum odoratum (Mill.) Druce); a handful of "Hung Chou" (紅棗; Yale: hung4 jou2; Chinese red dates; Ziziphus ziziphus) and a few large pieces of "Chan Pei" (陳皮; Yale: chan4 pei4; dried tangerine peel); two-and-a-half whole heads of garlic; later on, several whole star anise plus 4 sticks of cassia bark plus a small handful of whole cloves; then light soy sauce, thick dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Then, towards the end, slices of firm tofu and tofu puffs; and the garlic heads are squished with a wooden ladle to release the soft garlic "meat" into the soup. Simmered for about 1 1/2 hours in total.

[huiray]

Dim sum lunch at On Time Restaurant.

“Phoenix claws” a.k.a. chicken feet w/ homemade sauce (醬汁鳳爪)

Fried shrimp balls (炸蝦丸)

Stuffed bean curd skin w/ oyster sauce (蠔油鮮竹卷)

Stuffed eggplant/aubergine (百花釀茄子)

Shrimp dumplings, “Har Gow” (蝦餃)

Shrimp rice crepe (鮮蝦腸粉)

Beef tripe w/ ginger & (green) onion (薑蔥牛柏葉)

Po Lei tea (Pu-erh).

[bloomingmom]

Hiuray, is this the Hour Time restaurant in Indianapolis? I've been curious whether it had good dim sum.

[huiray]

bloomingmom, I don't know of an "Hour Time" restaurant in Indianapolis. There is an "On Time" Chinese restaurant (no website) in Indianapolis, where I had dim sum today, off Lafayette Rd on Commercial Drive just N of Saraga International Market in that same "strip mall-like area". Is that what you meant? If so, the dim sum is decent/OK, not fantastic, but is about as good as what one can get in Indianapolis.

This place used to be called "Great Garden" some years back; it was shuttered briefly, then reopened as "On Time Seafood Restaurant" which morphed into "On Time Chinese Restaurant". BTW Googlemaps has it as "On Time Seafood" and places it S/SW of Saraga both of which is wrong.

There *is* an American cuisine restaurant in Lafayette, IN called "Hour Time Restaurant" - might you be confusing this one with "On Time Restaurant"?

Edited December 31, 2012 by huiray (log)

[huiray]

Late lunch on Monday:

• Teochew-style** steamed black sea bass (2 small fishes).

• Chinese okra (or 'Angled luffa'; Luffa acutangula) soup - with fish balls, pork balls and snow fungus (Tremella fuciformis) in chicken stock.

• Steamed Thai Hom Mali rice.

** using tomatoes, sour plums, sliced hot long chillies, sliced pickled sour mustard ("Harm Choy" or "Hum Choy"), sliced scallions & ginger, a little light soy sauce, a little oil.

If one is interested, compare this with the Cantonese-style steamed big mouth bass I posted about here: http://egullet.org/p1901465

Edited January 1, 2013 by huiray (log)