eG Foodblog: jkonick - Mild Mannered Student By Day...

[SheenaGreena]

Sheena, I think you've inspired me to make some takoyaki in the next few days. Also, try okonomiyaki with kimchi, it's good and sort of Korean.

how about takoyaki with a little chopped kimchi mixed in the batter? or maybe with just the kimchi juice - to spice it up and add a nice color

[Abra]

It's so fun to see Viet Wah, one of my favorite stores, in a blog! Jkonick, you're making so many things I really like that I assume we have a lot of the same taste in food. If you haven't already, I encourage you to have the Szechuan crab at 7 Stars Pepper and the green mango salad with crispy shrimp at Green Leaf. Oh, and the Indian Rojak at Malay Satay. Three of my favorite dishes in the ID.

[jkonick]

Lifetime are great, they're probably my all time favorite band. Hello Bastards is a near perfect album.

Ok, enough off topic music talk.

Abra, I have tried one of those three (the salad at Green Leaf) and it is indeed great. I'll have to try the other two - I love the szechuan whole fish at 7 Stars, I'll have to try the crab.

Tonight was back to work, and I took some pictures.

Here's something I bet you don't miss, sazji, the rain

Here's a quick intro to the staff. Martin and Derek, pizza cooks

Alex, the GM

This is our oven, which is fueled by applewood

We do more cafe business during the day, here's the coffee stuff and menu

The dish pit and walk in. These are the only things in teh back of the restaurant; we have an open kitchen, which is pretty small.

Beware of the office...

Four nights a week, for seven hours a night, this is my home. Welcome to the pantry station

This is one of our pizzas, the Pinocchio. This one was a little burnt so the staff got to eat it

This was my dinner for the night, the cheese plate. Prosciutto wrapped pears, gorgonzola cheese, marcona almonds, chevre and arugula, parmagiano reggiano with reduced balsamic and olive oil, and fresh mozzarella.

It was a busy night and I got tired so I decided to take a nap on some towels...

Tossing dough

Catching dough

Whoops, missed that one...

And that's an average night at Mioposto. When I got home, I made myself some bulgogi... I got a picture but I'll upload that tomorrow.

[SheenaGreena]

so what's in that pinnochio pizza? looks yummy, its only 3:44 am and yes I am hungry.

can't wait to see how you made your bulgogi and what you ate with it.

if you didn't consume kimchi and rice with the bulgogi, I will drive to seattle and personally beat you up

[SuzySushi]

So, did you know how to make (and toss) pizza before you started working at that restaurant, or did you learn on the job?

[jkonick]

So, did you know how to make (and toss) pizza before you started working at that restaurant, or did you learn on the job?

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Nope, I learned on the job. My only previous restaurant experience was Subway

[jkonick]

For some reason imagegullet isn't acknowledging that I uploaded any new pictures so you'll all have to go with just text updates for now.

This morning I remade the har gow, this time using both tapioca starch and wheat starch. The recipe said the tapioca starch would help make sealing the dumplings easier, but I didn't notice much of a different. I rolled them out thinner this time, so the consistency was better but I"m not sure whether or not that had to do with the additon of tapioca starch.

For lunch, I met up with Shalmanese, and we went out to an Ethiopean restaurant in my neighborhood called Saba. For those of you who haven't had Ethiopean food before, it's pretty similar to Indian food - a lot of heavily spiced stews and curries, many based on lentils. Collard greens are also used pretty often, as is lamb and beef.

When we went they had a buffet set up, with three different kinds of lentil stew, an okra dish, a lamb rib dish, a spicy baked whole fish thing, and a raw beef dish. To eat along with it, we got injera, which is a kind of Ethiopean bread that is somewhat sour, and very thin, almost like a crepe. It is used to pick up the food instead of utensils.

After lunch we headed over to Viet-Wah to look for various things, where we found a bull's penis and testicles (don't worry - there are pictures). Then another trip back to Uwajimaya to pick up some more things I probably didn't need.

I still don't have everything I want together for the shawarma, so I don't think I'll be making that in this blog, but when I do get around to it I'll post on the Middle East forum. I have a few things up my sleeve planned for dinner tonight, so hopefully I'll have enough room in my stomach for all of them.

[MarketStEl]

Sheena - you've been approved. Once you get a handle of facebook you'll realize its superiority.

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For those who actually want to join the official eG Facebook group, "I Post on eGullet" you're going to have to go to facebook.com, then go to "my groups," then go to the bottom of the page, then do a search for "i post on."  For some reason typing in "eGullet" doesn't come up with any matches.  Follow these instructions and you'll be among the coolest cats on Facebook.  Then again, Facebook is so lame.

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Reasonable people may disagree, but IMO Facebook's design is far more elegant, and its servers are far more reliable -- no mysterious errors when you execute routine requests. (I suspect that's because its code is better.)

BTW, Jeremy:

<MySpace>Thanks for the add!</MySpace>

The food so far looks lovely, and the pizzeria where you work looks like it's been around a while. Which leads me to ask: What kind of oven does it have?

[SheenaGreena]

ethiopian food is so delicious. I have only had ethiopian food once in west philly (when I used to go to college there back in the day) and it was divine.

what did you eat? vegetarian or non vegetarian?

eta: whoops, don't answer

Edited December 22, 2006 by SheenaGreena (log)

[mizducky]

I've been busy most of this week and have only caught up now. Great blog! And great to find another data point in my informal study of the American Jewish fondness for Asian food. Though I too would at least gently kid you about your attitudes toward eastern European Jewish cuisine--especially when you're definitely on top of the latke game.

And I always enjoy virtual tours of Seattle, especially some of my old stomping grounds in the ID and the CD. Though I fear I severely neglected the Ethiopian restaurants when I lived in Seattle.

Any chance you might be persuaded to take a swing by Thai Tom before the blog is over?

[jkonick]

Ahhh!!! Still no go on imagegullet, so use your imaginations here folks.

MarketStEl - no problem, you're welcome! The restaurant actually hasn't been around too long - only since March. Our oven is wood fueled only, and we use apple wood. I don't know too many other specs, ask me if you have any other questions though.

MizDucky - glad to give you a taste of your old stomping grounds. And ok ok, I like latkes... maybe matzoh ball soup. But come on, kishka? Borscht? Blech. It's true though, we Ashkenazis love our Asian food. My obsession is in part to the numerous dim sum trips with my Jewish side of the family I had as a kid.

I too have ignored largely Seattle's Ethiopean restaurants, but living up the street from a few, I've got to take advantage. Miser wot, a red lentil stew, is one of my favorite foods. I could eat it for days. Don't forsee a Thai Tom trip though, I don't make it out to the U District when school's not in session.

I went over ot my parents' house again tonight to help wrap Christmas presents, and ate a fair amount of peanut butter fudge in the process. A few peppermint nougats too. I'll take pictures but I'm not going to upload them until later, but I'm about to make some soon dubu (still no kimchi, sorry SheenaGreena!!) and takoyaki.

Soon dubu is a kind of Korean tofu soup (dubu = tofu in Korean). It is mainly tofu, broth and red pepper powder, and people usually add seafood or meat in too. I don't have any of that, so mine's just plain. I also like to add a little kochujang - Korean fermented hot sauce - in for an extra level of spiciness.

Takoyaki is sort of similar to okonomiyaki. The batter is more or less the same, and so are the toppings, but instead of being a pancake, it's cooked in a special pan with half circle indentations, to create little things that look like donut holes. Instead of cabbage, there are pieces of octopus inside (tako = octopus in Japanese). However, I like my takoyaki with cheese and mochi in the middle instead, it's a nice gooey combo. So I guess it's chiizumochiyaki?

[jkonick]

Ok Finally got the pictures figured out.

Here's the bulgogi (sorry if this + others are a little blurry, I'm borrowing my parents' camera and I'm still getting the hang of it)

Second, and more successful attempt at har gow. I need a rolling pin though (I just used the flat side of a cleaver to smash them down).

Ethiopean lunch. I don't know the names of all these dishes, but the rolled up thing on the left side is injera, the big thing in the middle is fish, and going from top to bottom, the stews are collard greens, miser wot I believe, okra, yellow lentils and more collard greens or some other type of greens at the bottom.

Here's a lamb rib stew. SheenaGreena, what does this remind you of? The minute I saw it, I thought "hey! Ethiopean kalbi!"

Shalmanese with said bull parts

Now I'm off to meet up with Eden for lunch at the famous Salumi...

[jkonick]

Ok, picture catch up time. Last night I decided not to make the soon dubu, but made some nasu dengaku, or eggplant with miso sauce. Dengaku is the method, used with other things like tofu, of spreading a miso sauce on top of something grilled, then broiling it with the sauce. Sometimes there is a flavoring added to the miso sauce. For mine, I added some of this seaweed and mushroom paste that I picked up on a reccomendation from Shalmanese. It gave it a nice subtle seaweed flavor.

This is the sauce. It has miso, egg yolks, mirin (sweetened sake, traditionally made from glutinous rice, but now mostly made synthetically and sweetened with corn syrup), sake, dashi (Japanese seaweed and fish shaving [same stuff that was on the okonomiyaki] broth) and a little sugar. I added in the seaweed paste at the last minute.

All put together

Now for the takoyaki. Like I said, I like mine with mochi and cheese, cut up into little squares and put in the middle.

Here they are naked, fresh out of the pan

Can you spot them beneath all the toppings? Same stuff as okonomiyaki, plus beni shoga (the red stuff, pickled ginger).

This morning I went to Salumi for lunch, a place which has probably been featured in every Seattleite's food blog. They make some of the best cured (and non cured) meats in the world, and today was their last day open before Christmas. They open around ten or eleven, and at one o'clock, the line was still out the door. When we left around 2, it was still just as long.

Specials of the day

Usually this case is full of all sorts of hanging meats, but as you can see, most of them are boxed up and ready to be shipped out as gifts.

Specials of the day, and a few last lonely meats. I meant to get the rum cake, but in my excitement over the hot meat plate, I forgot...

This was my lunch, the hot meat plate. From right to left: meatballs, cotecchino which is, according to Salumi's website (www.salumicuredmeats.com) "A traditional product of Emilia Romagna and Northern Italy. This is made from pork meat and the skin of the Pig - flavored with salt, and spices including vanilla." It's also delicious , grilled lamb and porchetta, one of my favorite things at Salumi, roasted pork. Also came with bread and a roasted red pepper. Somehow, I managed to finish the whole thing. Eden had the porchetta sandwich, which I didn't get a picture of, but it's the same thing as my porchetta but with more bread. I also had a Limonata, not pictured here.

On my way back I stopped at a grocery store in Chinatown (Salumi is on the outer edge of Pioneer Square, which borders on Chinatown) and picked up a can of Thai tea. This brand is my favorite, it's the most creamy and has the best flavor. Plus it comes in these giant cans

I just got back now from a five mile run, and I think I've sufficiently attoned for my porcine sins. After some last minute Christmas shopping, I'm going to make dinner, two ingredients four ways: kabocha steamed and made into korokke (Japanese croquettes) and mackerel with ginger and salt grilled.

[Hiroyuki]

Good going, but do me a favor: Show us your takoyaki grill!

[jkonick]

Good going, but do me a favor:  Show us your takoyaki grill!

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Here are some pictures of my takoyaki grill in action with some mochi cheese takoyaki, but from a couple months ago actually:

This batter, as you can see, had tenkasu (those little tempura batter balls) in it, the lumpy stuff

[jkonick]

If you're interested in any of the specifics of Japanese dishes I've posted in this blog, check out this cookbook, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, which is where most of my recipes come from. it's probably the best Japanese cookbook in English out there.

This is what went into the korokke, satsuma imo (Japanese sweet potatoes) and kabocha (Japanese pumpkin)

Mackerel preparation #1: marinated in soy sauce, sake, mirin and grated ginger then deep fried. As you can probably tell, almost all Japanese foods and sauces are based around only a few flavorings: sake, mirin, soy sauce, dashi and miso are some of the most common. The thing I love about Japanese food is that it has so few ingredients, yet it takes advantage of all of them, letting everything shine through in its simplicity.

Sweet potatoes and kabocha are done cooking, and have been mashed up with butter and a little milk. They are then coated with egg and panko, and deep fried

Kabocha preparation #2: simmered in soy sauce, dashi and mirin. In Japanese cooking, a lid is often put over food while simmering that doesn't cover it all the way, but rests on top. I don't have one, so I made an impromptu one out of tin foil.

Here are the two finished dishes, with my fanciest presentation (although really how fancy can korokke be?? )

I like to keep a little of the skin on the squash, because it's edible, and it adds a nice color and texture contrast. I don't know if it's traditional or not, but I also like tonkatsu sauce on my korokke. I love the sweet and salty combo, hence why I also love kabocha korokke.

Here's the mackerel. One is deep fried, the other is salt grilled. Sprinkled a little salt on it and let it sit for about 20 minutes, then washed it off. Broiled for about five minutes on each side. Served both mackerels with ponzu, a citrus/vinegar sauce/dip/dressing... thing. Whatever it is, it's great with mackerel

[Hiroyuki]

I don't have an "otoshi buta" either. I use paper towels instead.

Was it just a coincidence or did you make kabocha dishes deliberately? I mean, yesterday (Dec. 22) was the winter solstice, and it is quite customary in Japan to have a kabocha dish on this day and put a yuzu in your bathtub. We say, "If you eat kabocha on the winter solstice, you won't catch a cold." (Of course, it's just a superstition.) My family did them both, like millions of other households in Japan.

[jkonick]

I don't have an "otoshi buta" either.  I use paper towels instead.

Was it just a coincidence or did you make kabocha dishes deliberately?  I mean, yesterday (Dec. 22) was the winter solstice, and it is quite customary in Japan to have a kabocha dish on this day and put a yuzu in your bathtub.  We say, "If you eat kabocha on the winter solstice, you won't catch a cold."  (Of course, it's just a superstition.)  My family did them both, like millions of other households in Japan.

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I didn't know that! Well, I was a day late so maybe I'll just get one cold anyway

[Eden]

Wow, that looks almost exactly like an Aebleskiver Pan.

So if you were using Tilsit or Danbo for your cheese would those be Japanese-Danish fusion?

I think the korroke look great.

[jkonick]

This week has gone by so fast, it's hard to believe I'm already on the last day of this blog.

This morning I met up with some other eGulleteers for dim sum at Jade Garden, which in my opinion has the best dim sum in Seattle.

I got there a little late (set my alarm clock for 10 PM instead of AM... whoops), but I caught up pretty quickly

Starting from the dumpling on teh top and going clockwise: har gow, which are the same things I made earlier this week, shumai, spare ribs in black bean sauce, cha siu (roasted pork) in flaky pastry, cheung fan, which are rice noodle sheets steamed and filled with shrimp, and tripe with jalapenos. Not pictured are some turnip cakes, which I ate before I got my camera out.

This is an interesting dim sum item. It was fried tofu, shrimp and enoki mushrooms wrapped in seaweed. It was pretty good, although it kind of fell apart and I don't care much for the wet seaweed texture.

More dim sum (sorry for the dark pictures): tofu and crab wrapped in cabbage, chicken feet and more spare ribs.

Seaweed wrap, steamed cha siu bao, chicken's foot and xiao long bao, which is a very interesting dumpling. It's filled with pork and ginger, along with a broth which is in gelatin form when it goes in, so it turns back to liquid when it's cooked and pops in your mouth. These were great.

These are the same as the shrimp and chive dumplings I tried making

Congee, a Chinese rice porridge, with green onions, pork and 100 year eggs

After lunch, we went to a tea place down the street, I think called Seattle's Best Tea (Connie - correct me on any info if I'm wrong here). We tried about ten diffeerent teas and were there for about an hour and a half. It was quite a marathon, and one of my first forays into the world of "real" Chinese tea. If you haven't tried high quality tea, I would encourage you to do so. The differences in types, growing regions and seasons are just as varied and complex as wine, as is the fragrance and flavor.

This was a winter high mountain tea, that had just come in.

Here's the whole set up - lots of different tea pots for different teas, and all sorts of other tea utensils

In between each tea the cups were rinsed out with hot water

I forget which tea this was... but it was good! We tried each tea several times, noting the differences in steepings - most teas were steeped four or five times, and the flavor changed each time. Some became more floral after a couple steepings, others more astringent.

This is jasmine bead tea. Those little balls are tea leaves that have been infused with jasmine, and they unroll as they sit in the hot water.

This is another Jasmine tea that starts off as a big ball. Watch as it blooms into a flower. It's very cool to see; it took about two minutes to fully open. The flavor was interesting - not a heavy tea flavor, very floral with an almost creamy vanilla flavor.

This last one was I believe some sort of fermented tea (oolong maybe?). It was very good. It had a burnt/coffee/chocolate smell to it, very rich, and flavor was similar but surprisingly sweet.

[Hiroyuki]

With your high level of obsession with Japanese food, I'm tempted to ask, "So, what do you eat all those dishes with?" All of the wonderful Japanese dishes you have presented here so far are "okazu", in other words, mere accompaniments to rice and soup (often miso soup), except okonomiyaki and takoyaki (although many Kansai (Western Japan) people can eat okonomiyaki and takoyaki as okazu with rice, to the surprise of Kanto (Eastern Japan) people).

Another question: What are your favorite alcoholic drinks? Do you ever drink sake and shochu?

[jkonick]

With your high level of obsession with Japanese food, I'm tempted to ask, "So, what do you eat all those dishes with?"  All of the wonderful Japanese dishes you have presented here so far are "okazu", in other words, mere accompaniments to rice and soup (often miso soup), except okonomiyaki and takoyaki (although many Kansai (Western Japan) people can eat okonomiyaki and takoyaki as okazu with rice, to the surprise  of Kanto (Eastern Japan) people).

Another question:  What are your favorite alcoholic drinks?  Do you ever drink sake and shochu?

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I pretty much always have rice going in my rice cooker, it's my major form of starch (I can't remember the lasat time I even bought bread). I make miso soup from time to time, but I don't eat it as often. I don't know why... There are some Japanese eating customs that I just don't do, like eating soup and rice with everything. In America, a meal is usually just a couple of main dishes, nothing like rice or soup that always goes along with them, and I think that influences how I eat Japanese food, I tend to eat more in the American style

As far as alcoholic dirnks go, I haven't had that much experience with sake, so I can't really say. I prefer European wine to sake, although really good sake that's very smooth and has an almost floral smell to it is great. I like ume shu a lot. I haven't had shochu before though. I'm not 21, which is the legal drinking age here, so I don't have too much experience. I do like Japanese beer too, especially Sapporo.

[jkonick]

Eden: I've actually made aebelskiver in that pan befor,e they turned out pretty well! In fact, when I bought it, my mom asked why I bought an aebelskiver pan.

[MarketStEl]

Now for the takoyaki. Like I said, I like mine with mochi and cheese, cut up into little squares and put in the middle.

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First off, you have excellent taste in cheese. Then again, for you, Tillamook is local. The co-op must have expanded production greatly, though, for it's now easy to find Tillamook cheese here in Philadelphia. Can you get Cabot cheese (the best mass-marketed Vermont cheddar) in Seattle? (FWIW, I'm a big ol' cheesehead--so much so, I ought to live in Wisconsin.)

Those packages don't look too large, though. How big are they? Eight ounces? Smaller? Larger?

And what's cheese doing in a Japanese dish? I usually don't associate dairy products of any kind with Asian cuisines.

[Pan]

This week has gone by so fast, it's hard to believe I'm already on the last day of this blog.

This morning I met up with some other eGulleteers for dim sum at Jade Garden, which in my opinion has the best dim sum in Seattle.

I got there a little late (set my alarm clock for 10 PM instead of AM... whoops), but I caught up pretty quickly[...]

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I'm glad that didn't really bite you in the behind this time, but I learned the hard way: Set your alarm clocks to 24-hour time, always! I have both my alarm clock and clock radio set that way. It's really helped me.