Kiki’s Dinner Service

Posted on 27 November 2009 by christao408

Funny how two and a half days in a city can take a week two blog about. We’re nearing the end, though. More telling, perhaps, is that Andy is just catching up to the first day of our trip. Of course he has many more pictures than I do plus had been in Taipei for a week before we arrived.

The final day in Taipei followed the bleak and misty pattern that had been the tone of the weekend. We took the subway to the north end of town, out past the suburbs, really, to the Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf and the nearby market area. From the terminal station of the subway (Danshui) we strolled along several streets that had many of the same foods and items for sale that we had seen at the night market.

The mist was just enough to get you wet if you weren’t using an umbrella but not enough to keep us from enjoying browsing the shops. We had just eaten bao at Din Tai Fung so there wasn’t a lot of room left for snacking. That didn’t keep me from looking at all the interesting things to eat.

Two types of noodles! And the vendor’s arm as she stirs them.

Stuffed tofu skins. Not sure what it is stuffed with but I’m sure someone will tell me in the comments. Pretty sure that isn’t mozzarella cheese on top, though.

I did buy some grilled mochi (pounded rice). The proprietor’s daughter was running the stand and took my order, grilled the mochi, figured out which bottle had the sauce I ordered (she sniffed them), took my money and made change. Very cute.

We then got on a ferry to the Fisherman’s Wharf. Looking at the map, we probably could have taken a bus or walked there just as easily. The Fisherman’s Wharf is “D” on the map and the shopping street is “A”. As the boat approached the mouth of the river and made the turn around the breakwater to the entrance to the wharf, we were rocked with some pretty strong waves. Strong enough to crash across the bow and onto the lower windows, which is where we were sitting.

The big attraction at the wharf is Lovers Bridge, shown in both the above pictures. By this point the wind was really blowing and the mist was growing heavier. As Sugi and I posed for a picture, her umbrella was caught by the wind and snapped like a twig. I’m sure Andy will have a picture of that for you soon.

Tawn smartly stayed in a coffee shop, taking a nap, while the rest of us wandered about, sacrificing umbrellas to the winds.

That evening, after some gift shopping (pineapple cake!) at Sogo, we met Andy’s parents for dinner at Kiki Restaurant, a Szuchuan restaurant that’s been around for nearly twenty years. If you ask me, Szuchuan may be the tastiest of all the Chinese cuisines.

Tawn, Andy, Andy’s parents, Sugi and me in front of the restaurant. I think Andy has his mom’s nose and eyes and his father’s forehead and chin. Let’s discuss…

The restaurant had wonderful lighting for taking pictures. If you are designing a restaurant, please spare a thought to food bloggers and install halogen lamps over the tables.

Braised tofu. Had my mother made tofu this way when I was growing up, I would have learned to love it much earlier.

An elaborate version of drunken chicken.

Bitter melon with salted duck egg.

Morning glory stir fried with garlic and fermented tofu.

Boiled pork with thick, sweet soy sauce.

Dan dan noodles – served with ground pork and bok choy.

Tripe and duck’s blood stew in a spicy chili sauce. We got into a discussion of what tripe is. I had always thought it was intestine but, as I’ve since learned thanks to Wikipedia, it is stomach. There you go.

So called “water wok” beef – a stew with bean sprouts and bamboo shoots. The type of chili in here isn’t spicy so much as it numbs the tongue for several minutes. Seriously, the front half of my tongue was numb after two servings.

Last but not least, yes we did try stinky tofu. Here it is fried up in a dish with dried chilies and spring onions. Actually, pretty tasty.

The meal was excellent and a bit thank you to Andy’s father for treating us. It was an excellent end to the trip as we headed to the airport shortly thereafter. But not before some dessert!

Stopping at a local dessert chain we encountered some Engrish. “Garss jelly” and “Retrospective tea” were two of my favorites. It would seem that “old-fashioned” might be a better translation. Note that in addition to English we have Japanese. Ah-ha! More proof that there are lots of Japanese tourists here.

Last but not least, here’s a photo Andy took while I was filming my tasting of salted plum stuffed cherry tomatoes dipped in candy coating at the night market. Superb shot.

Din Tai Fung Dumplings

Posted on 25 November 2009 by christao408

Perhaps the best of all the great food we ate in Taipei were the dumplings and bao at Din Tai Fung. Before we headed there, we received many recommendations to try the xiao long bao, Shanghainese steamed buns, from this famous fifty-year old chain. Since I love Shanghainese buns, I was excited to try.

If you’d like, here’s a short video (less than two minutes):

What you might notice first at the branch of Din Tai Fung located in the basement of Sogo department store are the large plate glass windows that let you and everyone else look in on the kitchen. This has to be the ultimate sign of confidence for a restaurant for poor sanitation or hygiene, sloppy techniques and poor quality would become quickly apparent with such visibility. Certainly, this served as a visual promise of what was to come.

We took Andy’s parents’ recommendation seriously and ordered basically every type of dumpling they offered. The order taker looked a bit skeptical that the four of us were going to eat so much food. But who could possibly resist?

The lovely food we tried. Each dish is named in the video above. The key item is the lower left-hand dish – this is the famous xiao long bao, the Shanghainese style pork “soup” buns. They are called this because when forming them the cook places a small cube of gelatinized soup stock into the wrapper with the seasoned pork. When the buns are steamed the stock liquifies. The goal is to pick up and eat the buns without tearing the skin and, thus, spilling the soup.

Sugi didn’t know this the first time she tried to eat them, eliciting cries of anguish from her fellow diners as they watched the soup spill onto her plate.

Funnily enough, the restaurant provides a laminated sheet with directions in both Japanese and English (lots of Japanese tourists here) about how to properly enjoy your bao.

I’m pleased to announce that next time I fly through Taipei I will be scheduling my flights so I have a layover long enough to allow a trip into town to eat at Din Tai Fung. Oh, but the good news! There are some three dozen locations of the restaurant including several in Japan, Singapore, throughout east Asia and a branch in Los Angeles and Sydney. Even if I don’t get to Taipei I should be able to enjoy these dumplings much more often. When does the branch open here in Thailand?

Shilin Night Market – Taipei

Posted on 25 November 2009 by christao408

The food adventures continued on Saturday night when, after a day wandering around the malls adjacent to Taipei 101, we rode the subway to the north end of Taipei to visit the Shilin Night Market. This is the largest night market in Taipei.

Foods we enjoyed at the official food section of the market (as opposed to the endless rows of street vendors scattered throughout the rest of the market) included these dishes:

What did we eat? I’m afraid I didn’t take careful notes, especially while we were inside the food portion of the market. But from the upper left, clockwise, we have fried noodles with a ground pork mixture, a fried “pancake” that seems to be mostly made from corn starch with pickled cucumbers on top, an omelet with shrimp and greens with a thick sweet sauce, and steamed rice with another ground pork mixture.

The food in the indoor portion of the market was, honestly, a bit bland and a lot oily. Corn starch and oil were two of the main ingredients. The food was certainly interesting but the blandness, combined with the overwhelming smell of stinky tofu (a fermented tofu the smell of which some compare to death boiled over) from adjacent stalls, drove us back outside where we continued our hunt for food from the street vendors. Full story in the video.

Focusing my energies on video, I ended up not shooting pictures of the wide variety of interesting food available at the food court in Taipei 101’s shopping mall. See Andy’s entry to enjoy those pictures.

Breakfast in Taipei

Posted on 22 November 2009 by christao408

Saturday morning we met Andy and Sugi in the lobby of our hotel (Park Taipei Hotel – highly recommended) and walked to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. The section of Fu-Xing South Road near the hotel has many restaurants well-known for their breakfasts, some of which serve 24 hours a day. Andy took us to Yong He Dou Jiang (永和豆漿) at the corner of RuiAn and Section 2, Fu-Xing South Road.

The first sign that this would be good eats was the queue stretching out the front door and onto the sidewalk. There were two, in fact: one for food to-go (many people in that line were carrying their tiffins or, as I believe the Singaporeans call them, their tingkats) and the other for dine-in.

The kitchen is right at the front of the shop, open-air under with a glass wall and window facing the interior dining area. This is a busy and efficient kitchen with each person performing their tasks in a compact area; no wasted motions here. The menu has variations of no more than a dozen items, if that, so it is more of a production line than anything else.

Our basic breakfast was four bowls of warm, sweetened soy milk, sesame pastry with fried “donut” inside, rice rolls (hidden under the sesame pastry), steamed Shanghainese style pork dumplings called xiao long bao, and some fried turnip cakes (not pictured).

Soy milk is not something I generally enjoy drinking but for some reason I find that when I have it in Asia, it is much more enjoyable than when I have it in the US. It isn’t chalky and there’s no artificial vanilla flavor added to it. It is especially nice when using it to dip the pastries.

The pastries, referred to colloquially as “Chinese donuts”, are thin strips of unsweetened dough that are fried up. In Thailand, these are generally shorter pieces but here in Taiwan (and most other places I’ve had them) they are a good ten inches long. The ones we had were wrapped in a thin sesame pasty. You dunked it in the soy milk then took a bite.

The dumplings (in the background) are one of my favorites, although this particular restaurant’s were underseasoned. They are made with a ground pork filling that has a small cube of gelatinous broth put inside the wrapper and then are steamed. The broth liquifies and when you bite into it, you get a generous burst of “soup” with the meat.

The other thing we had were rice rolls (kind of like sushi) wrapped around a Chinese donut and stuffed with a dried, shredded pork and pickled veggies. Very tasty!

This proved a tasty and filling start to our drizzly day.

Frosting a Cake

Posted on 19 November 2009 by christao408

Never one to shy away from publicizing my failures, missteps and adventures in the kitchen, I decided on Monday to film my attempt at frosting a layer cake. Having only done this a few times before, it was … quite a production. But as long as I can learn lessons from the experience (and eat the mistakes!) then that’s the important thing, right?

The cake turned out looking okay, if a little lopsided.

The reason for the cake was my birthday, which I share with several other people. I celebrated in conjunction with Jason, an Australian friend who turned thirty this year.

Our little dinner party group. From left to right:Benji, Matt, Kobfa, me, Jason, Bundit, Zenya and Tawn.

Jason and I have blown out the candles and prepare to cut the cake. Speaking of the September Issue, you can probably tell that one of us is a bit more of the fashionista.

Oh, the sad thing is that I made a mango coulis to go with this, poured it into a squeeze bottle and placed the bottle into the refrigerator to chill, subsequently forgetting to serve it with the cake. D’oh!

Finally Success with Buttermilk Parmesan Biscuits

Posted on 9 November 2009 by christao408

After a few attempts at making Buttermilk Parmesan Biscuits to serve as little brunch sandwiches, I finally arrived at a recipe I like. May I share it with you? The original attempts, based on a recipe shared with me by W, resulted in very soft, somewhat oily spoon-drop biscuits, shown below.

For subsequent attempts, I reverted to using my favorite buttermilk biscuit recipe as a starting point, based on a recipe my mother gave to me. Finally, I got the recipe to a point I’m happy with for a brunch this past weekend. I made little round scrambled eggs with some fried pancetta on top, added some spinach leaves and made a biscuit sandwich out of them.

I bought a pair of non-stick steel rings to form the eggs. A few chopped green onions and some cream cheese mixed in with the eggs make them nice and tasty. The pancetta was from the market, sliced thin to order and then fried for just a few minutes to crisp it up.

The end result were these lovely, flaky sandwiches. The only thing I forgot was to add some chopped green onions to the biscuits themselves. Here is the recipe for the biscuits. I’ll let you figure out the sandwich part on your own. You can also use smoked salmon as a filling instead of pancetta.

Buttermilk Parmesan Biscuits
Makes 10 biscuits (more or less, depending on cutter size)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp granulated sugar
1/3 cup vegetable shortening, chilled
2 Tbsp butter, chilled
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp minced green onions (optional)
Preheat the oven to 425 F.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and thoroughly mix. Cut the butter and shortening into the dry ingredients, forming pea-size crumbs.
Combine the shredded Parmesan cheese into the mixture, ensure that it is evenly distributed.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk. Mix with a fork until combined. Be careful not to over-mix; the goal is to make sure the ingredients are just combined. If desired, mix in the minced green onions.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and fold the dough over on itself five or six times, forming layers. Pat the dough to an even thickness of about 3/4 inch (you can make it thinner or thicker depending on how thick you want your biscuits to be) and use a biscuit cutter to cut the biscuits. When you cut the biscuits, don’t twist the cutter. This seals the edges of the biscuits and retards their rise in the oven. Better to just cut by pressing straight down.
Place biscuits on a baking sheet (no need to oil it although you can use parchment paper if you like) and bake immediately in a 425 F over for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and serve while still hot.

Notes:

You can substitute 1/2 cup of the unbleached flour with whole wheat flour for a healthier, whole grain biscuit. They won’t puff up quite as much so row them a little thicker than you otherwise would.

If you don’t have buttermilk available, you can substitute regular milk. Before you make the biscuits, take 3/4 c of milk less one tablespoon, and mix in one tablespoon of white vinegar. Let sit for ten minutes and then stir. The milk will have thickened a bit, producing a similar texture and taste to buttermilk.

Enjoy! Feedback always welcome.

Italian Almond Cake

Posted on 7 November 2009 by christao408

After a few attempts at baking macarons, my refrigerator still holds a good supply of almond flour. How to use it? How about some Italian almond cake? This rich, dense cake uses ground almonds instead of flour, making it gluten-free. The seven eggs make it even richer.

Unfortunately, the recipe calls for a 9-10 inch springform pan. I didn’t realize that my springform pan is only 8 inches. This caused an unanticipated problem. The cake was supposed to finish baking in about 30-40 minutes. After 50 minutes, a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake was still coming out with uncooked dough attached.

The cake was so deep that it wasn’t cooking through!

I finally gave up and pulled the cake out of the oven at an hour and ten minutes. After letting it cool, I sliced it open and, sure enough, the center was still very dense and not entirely cooked. The outside edge was a bit overdone.

Serving it up with some fresh mango, the cake was still tasty, but I had to eat around the undercooked part. I’ll have to try an alternate recipe, maybe one that makes use of a little flour. I’ll also have to either not fill the pan so high or will need to buy a larger springform pan.

Pulled Pork Butt

Posted on 5 November 2009 by christao408

Hankering for some barbecue but lacking the proper facilities, I decided to instead make pulled pork butt. This painstakingly slow (but, oh, so simple) technique produces wonderfully flavorful and tender meat, perfect for piling on a toasted french baguette and eating as a sandwich.

Original recipes I considered were for mighty large crowds – feeding six or seven was considered a small number! Thankfully, recipes like this scale up and down pretty well, so I went to the butcher and bought the smallest pork butt I could find.

Let’s take a moment to be clear: pork butt is not the same as pork ass. The butt is actually the upper shoulder from the hog, a wonderfully well-marbled cut that works beautifully for “low and slow” cooking. That is, cooking at a relatively low heat and a relatively long time. Think Crock Pot and you’ve got the idea.

Unfortunately, the butcher did not have the bone-in butt, only boneless. I think cooking the butt with the bone in is nicer. There is more flavor and the bone serves as a conduit to direct heat into the center of the roast, reducing cooking time.

Pork in Thailand is significantly more flavorful than the bland “other white meat” that American animal factories produce. Nonetheless, it still benefits from an overnight bath in a brine, a solution of salt, sugar and spices dissolved in water.

The next day I rinsed the pork shoulder and patted it dry, covering it with a spice rub that contained cinnamon, cumin, cardamom and chili powder along with a bit of salt, brown sugar and black pepper. Searing the butt on all sides in my Dutch oven, I then added some cooking liquid (red wine, beef stock and onions), slapped a cover on it, and put it in my oven at 280 F / 145 C.

It took about five hours for my relatively small roast to reach an internal temperature of 220 F / 105 C. “220 degrees!?” you’ll exclaim, “But pork only has to be cooked to 160 and already it risks drying out.”

Roasts, which are filled with fat and connective tissues, will be very tough if you take them out of the oven at 160 F. However, if you keep on cooking (with liquid – remember we brined the butt overnight and also have some liquid in the pot), as the temperature passes 200 F the connective tissues and fat dissolve. This makes the meat so tender that it literally falls apart as you handle it. This also bastes the meat in the fat and juices from the dissolved connective tissues.

Taking the pot out of the oven, I let the butt sit in the covered pot until its internal temperature had reduced to 170 F / 76 C before putting the meat on the cutting board and shredding it with two forks.

As you can see, it pulled apart into very nice little shreds. This makes the perfect vehicle for various types of dressing. In the Carolinas, a vinegar-based dressing would be the flavor of choice. In the midwest and Texas, the dressing will be tomato based and sweeter. In this case, I used a combination of some of the leftover cooking liquid (the red wine giving it a more acidic note, similar to the vinegar-based dressing) and a little bit of KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce that was sitting in the fridge.

How to serve this pulled pork? I think it is best as a sandwich. Split and toast a length of a French roll or baguette, spread with mayonnaise, pile on the pork, add some roasted red peppers (and grilled onions, if you like), garnish with dill pickles, barbecue sauce and, if you like, mozzarella cheese. Then put the whole thing under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp up nicely.

That’s good eating!

More Loaves and Fishes – with Recipe

Posted on 1 November 2009 by christao408

I just sent the recipe for this no-knead bread to chow and it occurred to me that there’s no reason for me not to share it with you. So, my apologies for reposting but if you’re interested in the recipe for this bread, you’ll find it below.

The oven rarely cools down as I turn out another loaf of bread every few days. I’m becoming comfortable with the pale ale pot boule recipe in “Kneadlessly Simple” and am experimenting with the recipe a bit (after I mastered the original recipe, Sheldon) and am now mixing in small amounts of rye flour, corn meal and oats. It makes for a very interesting, flavorful bread.

Before and after shots of one of my recent loaves. It turned out beautifully. We’re having panini at least one night every week and toast with our oatmeal every morning.

Have I explained the no-knead process to you? It is tremendously easy. You stir the ingredients together in a bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and then allow it to rise in a cool temperature (we’re placing it right under the air conditioner so it is at about 70 F) overnight or until doubled. You can precede that rise with a rest in the refrigerator of up to eight hours, which gives the dough more time to develop flavor.

You can then shape the dough into whatever shape or pan you want it in, let it rise at normal room temperature until it has almost doubled again, then bake it. Start with a very hot oven and then cool it down after putting the loaf in. This gives you a big initial “poof” in the loaf, then allows it to finish cooking through without burning the exterior.

Added content below:

Here’s the recipe with a few process modifications based on what I’ve learned. The original recipe comes from the book “Kneadlessley Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads” by Nancy Baggett. No-knead breads gained some interest after Mark Bittman wrote a column about them. CI did a follow-up recipe in which they came up with some improvements (less in the recipe than in the technique). I’ve incorporated those into Baggett’s recipe for a crusty pale ale pot boule.

Crusty Pale Ale Pot Boule
Yield: 1 large loaf, 12-14 slices

4.5 cups (22.5 oz) all-purpose white flour
3 T granulated sugar
Scant 2 t table salt
3/4 t instant yeast
1 bottle (12 oz) well-chilled pale ale or beer (I use Singha)
1/2 cup ice water or more if needed
Vegetable oil or oil spray for coating dough top
3 T sesame or poppy seeds (optional)

In a large bowl, thoroughly stir together the dry ingredients. Vigorously stir in the ale and water, scraping down the bowl sides completely and mixing until the bubbling subsides and the dough is thoroughly blended. If it is too dry to mix together, gradually stir in just enough more ice water to blend the ingredients. Don’t over-moisten as the dough should be stiffer than normal bread dough.

Brush or spray the top of the dough with oil. Tightly cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for 3-10 hours. Then let rise at cool room temperature for 10-18 hours or until a bit more than doubled. If convenient, vigorously stir once about halfway during the rise.

Gently lift and fold the dough in towards the center, shaping into a boule. Place on a long (about 18-inch) length of parchment paper placed in a cake pan or pyrex pie plate so the dough doesn’t spread too wide. If necessary, spray/brush the top of the dough with oil and loosely place plastic wrap over the top to keep the dough from forming a skin. Allow a 1.5-2.5 hour regular rise at warm room temperature or until doubled.

About 20 minutes before baking, put a rack in the lower third of your oven. Put a heavy metal pot or Dutch oven (with cover) on the rack and pre-heat to 450 F. While the oven is preheating you can slash the top of your loaf with a sharp knife. You can also add the optional seeds, spraying the top of the loaf with water and then sprinkling the seeds generously.

Once fully heated, remove the Dutch oven (working carefully – HOT!) and transfer the loaf to the pot by lifting the corners of the parchment paper. Gently shake the pot so the dough settles. If it is a bit uneven, that’s okay – it will work out during the baking. Give a good spray or two of water on top of the loaf then put the cover back on, placing the pot back in the oven.

Reduce the heat to 425 F and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid of the pot, reduce the heat to 350 and bake for about another 15 minutes or until the internal temperature of the loaf reaches 208-210 F on an instant-read thermometer. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan on a wire rack for about ten minutes before removing the loaf to cool on the rack.

Notes:

Regarding the flour, I regularly mix in up to a cup of whole grain flour, usually rye, with good effect. I’ve also added up to a 1/4 cup of cornmeal which also adds a nice texture.
If you live in a warmer climate or it is summertime, for the second rise after shaping you could use the refrigerator for a rise of up to 24 hours, setting out just at the end.
I place a baking stone in my oven to help keep the heat stable when I open the oven door.
I’ve tried baking this without the Dutch Oven and the crust doesn’t turn out as nice, even if I put a dish of hot water at the bottom of the oven. If you want a softer crust, though, then feel free to bake it in another container or directly on the baking stone.
If your Dutch oven doesn’t have a tight fitting lid, it is a good idea to put a sheet of foil under the lid. This keeps the moisture inside the Dutch oven, creating a steam environment and making for a nice crust.
The timing will depend on your oven. Sometimes after the initial thirty minutes I will remove the loaf from the pan and cook it directly on the baking stone.

Continuing with the original post:

Some of the employees at the coffee shop at which my Thai tutor and I have been meeting for more than three years, Bitter Brown on Soi Asoke, have a talent for latte art. This isn’t a normal occurrence but the other afternoon I was about to add sugar to my latte when Khru Kitiya (“Teacher” Kitiya) pointed out the fish. Cute, isn’t it?

French Fries – Cold Oil Method

Posted on 29 October 2009 by christao408

There are certain cooking techniques with which I am not very familiar. Deep frying is one of them. Part of this is because all I have is a small condo kitchen. There is not a nice outdoor kitchen for “heavy duty” cooking, the type that imparts a lingering smell in your furniture, carpets and draperies. Lack of familiarity doesn’t quiet my curiosity, though. In fact, it heightens it.

That is why, when Cook’s Illustrated published a recipe for “Easier French Fries” using a cold oil method in the July/August 2009 issue, I was intrigued and eager to try it.

Conventional wisdom holds that to make good french fries you need to rinse the cut potatoes to remove excesses starch and then fry them twice, once at a lower temperature to cook the potatoes and a second, more brief dousing in the oil to form a crisp crust.

That is a lot of work. Frankly, I’ll just walk down to McDonald’s instead of going through that much work. As the author of the CI article explained it, they broke with conventional wisdom and achieved exceptional results along with a few added benefits.

Their first break with tradition was to abandon the Russet potato, which they found to be too dry and starchy for this single-fry method. They chose instead the Yukon Gold, which is waxier in texture. Our local markets don’t identify the different potato types by name but I picked up some that looked like Yukons. Squaring the sides, I cut them into batons about 3/8″ wide. No peeling beforehand and no rinsing after.

Next, place the potatoes in a Dutch oven or other heavy, deep pan along with the oil. Peanut oil was recommended but as that wasn’t readily available here, I used canola oil. I also added a few tablespoons of duck fat left over from a previous cooking project. A little duck fat or bacon fat will add more flavor to the fries. How do I know this? Because they add flavor to anything!

This cold oil method is attributed to a recipe from Jeffrey Steingarten, a food write whose approach to food (and life) and style of writing appeals to me. It was attributed to the method of Michelin-starred chef Joel Robuchon.

This is where the process really breaks all the rules. You put the pan on the stove top and turn the heat to high until the oil is boiling. During this time you do not stir the fries at all. After the boiling starts you continue to cook for about fifteen minutes or until the potatoes are limp but the exteriors are starting to firm up.

It is only at this point that you start to stir the fries, gently unsticking any that have caught on the bottom of the pan or each other. After the fries are golden and crisp you can pull them out and drain them on paper towels, paper bags, newspapers, or whatever else is handy.

The resulting fries were very tasty, if just a little overcooked. But who is going to complain when you have freshly made french fries sitting in front of you?

I mentioned that the author of this method discovered a few unexpected benefits. Not only does this cold oil method result in a lot less splatter and, subsequently, a lot less “fried food” smell inundating your house, it also results in fries that absorb a lot less fat. Based on some scientific analysis, the CI lab found that fries cooked by the cold oil method contained about one-third less fat than the conventional twice-fried method: 13% versus 20%. When I went to pour the oil back into the bottle, I was surprised to discover that it refilled the bottle nearly to the top. Only a few tablespoons had been lost in the entire process!

Now, I don’t know that I’ll be making french fries again anytime soon. But I’m glad I gave them a try.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

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