Adventures in Cooking: Raviolo

Posted on 24 April 2013 by christao408

At a friend’s recently opened Roman style restaurant (about which I will write), I enjoyed a “raviolo” – singular of “ravioli” – a single, large filled pasta. His version has an egg yolk in the middle and it is cooked to just the right point that as you cut into the raviolo, the egg yolk pours out. Very dramatic presentation. I decided to try my hand at the concept and make my own raviolo.

The end result, which looks pretty enough, is about seven inches in diameter. Truly, I did make “ravioli” as there was one for Tawn and one for me. I just like saying “raviolo”. All things considered, it was a bit of a misadventure due to lack of experience and finesse on my part. But we learn from our mistakes, right? Well, I try to.

The filling was made of braised spinach and chicken, seasoned liberally with garlic, rosemary, and chili flakes.

I used Thomas Keller’s seven-yolk pasta dough recipe, which is my go-to recipe for pasta. Instead of pulling out the KitchenAid mixer, I hand rolled the dough. First mistake, as I couldn’t roll it nearly as thin as I should have. That may be because I didn’t let the dough rest long enough after kneading. It was getting late and I wanted dinner on the table before 9:00.

A good-sized portion of the filling was placed in the midst of the dough and an egg yolk was nestled on top. This was my second mistake. I separated the egg yolks at the same time as I separated the egg yolks for the pasta dough. In the intervening hour or so, the yolks formed a slight skin on them, so when I tried to pour them onto the filling, they tore. That ruined the effect of having a nice soft-cooked yolk to cut into!

Mama-mia! That’s a meat-balla! Well, actually, just a raviolo. Quite large and a bit of a pain to cut because I had no cutter large enough. Instead, I traced around a saucer with a sharp paring knife.

After about six minutes boiling (they were a pain to flip!), the ravioli were ready to serve. I put a simple homemade tomato sauce on top, sprinkling a bit of mozzarella cheese. As you can see, the egg yolk is hardly discernible as it has melted into the filling. The pasta skin, as I mentioned, was a little thick especially around the edges. All in all, I think it was an okay first attempt and was definitely a learning experience. Next time, I’ll make them a bit smaller, roll out the dough using the pasta machine, and separate the egg yolks at the last minute. The one thing I was pleased with was the filling. While it could have used more spinach (the darn vegetable just shrivels up to nothing when you cook it!), the flavor was very good – salty, garlicky, and slightly spicy.

Cooking with the Smoking Gun

Posted on 20 April 2013 by christao408

On my recent trip to the United States, I stopped by Williams Sonoma and purchased a kitchen gadget called the Smoking Gun that I had been looking forward to trying. Made by PolyScience, the company behind much of the kitchen equipment used in molecular gastronomy, the Smoking Gun is an easy way to smoke food at home, without the need for a barbecue or smoker. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to put it to the test at my friend Nat’s house, where he, Chow, and I prepared a four course meal. Each course contained a smoked element.

This video shares the whole story but photos are below, too.

The Smoking Gun is more or less a battery powered hair dryer with a smoking chamber. You put the combustable substance in the chamber, turn on the fan, and then light the substance. Air is drawn through the smoking chamber and the smoke it blown out a spout to which a rubber tube can be attached. This makes it easy to direct the smoke where you want it. The Smoking Gun is easy to use and about thirty seconds is enough to produce as much smoke as you need.

The smoke can come from wood chips (four types are sold directly by PolyScience), herbs, spices, tobacco, etc. and can be used on meats, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and beverages. The key is that you need to trap the smoke in the cooking vessel or some other container and allows the food to absorb the smoke compounds for at least five minutes. Here, some pieces of sushi-grade salmon are smoked in a zipper-lock plastic bag.

Here are the finished dishes with some notes:

The meal started with sashimi grade salmon which had been smoked (I used a different type of wood with each dish but don’t remember which I used) and then served very simply with creme fraiche and a chiffonade of shiso leaves. The lemony flavor of the herb and the tanginess of the creme went nicely with the salmon. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like the salmon was as good quality as I wanted and it warmed up a bit too much during plating. Other than that, it was tasty.

The second course was cod fish. This, too, was smoked and then pan-fried in an oil that had been infused with Thai “tom yam” herbs. The fish was accompanied by a garnish of the fried tom yam herbs including shallots, garlic, lemongrass, and chilies. The smoke flavor was less noticeable on this dish. If I was to do it again, I would fry a second batch of herbs to serve as a garnish, instead of using the herbs that had infused the oil with flavor.

The third course was beef tenderloin, smoked and then cooked sous vide. Afterwards, the beef was briefly pan seared and served with a broiled butter leaf lettuce, roasted, carrots, and air fried potatoes. Again, the smokiness was pretty subtle but the beef was nicely tender. The broiled lettuce was a real treat, lending a lot of complexity to an otherwise simple vegetable.

For dessert, I fired up the butane torch and burned some sugar. Where there’s smoke, there must also be fire, right?

Vanilla creme brûlée with meringue, smoked Granny Smith apple compote, and raspberry coulis. The smoked apple compote was very successful – I used both wood chips and cinnamon in the Smoking Gun – and the meringue was a nice touch. I must admit to being proud of thinking of a way to use the leftover egg whites and browning the meringues with the torch made them very attractive.

My overall impression of the Smoking Gun? It is an easy to use tool and effective for adding a subtle, superficial smokiness to food. It isn’t the same as smoking pork belly for twelve hours to get bacon, but it also requires a lot less space, so the trade-off is worth it. I’ll have to think carefully about what items to smoke and would like to experiment with using herbs and spices. Hopefully, that means more videos!

Get Them Started Early in the Kitchen

Posted on 25 September 2012 by christao408

One of my friends with whom I regularly cook, has an almost three-year old son who loves to play in the kitchen. A favorite activity is to open the spice drawer and pull out each individual jar and pretend to pour it onto the stove. This was great fun until the lid of white pepper came off and spilled all over.

Later, he sat with Uncle Tawn, using a pair of tongs to pick up appetizers and move them from pull to another. All fun and games until I caught him picking up a spear of asparagus, briefly chewing the end of it, and then putting it back on the platter!

I’m glad he enjoys cooking so much, though. When he grows up to be a famous chef, we’ll be able to say that we knew he was destined for the kitchen, even when he was just a little fellow.

How about you? Were you welcome in the kitchen when you were a child? I remember being in the kitchen “helping” when I was no older than kindergarten and I was scrambling my own eggs by six or seven years old.

Breakfast and Lunch in Honolulu

Posted on 26 June 2012 by christao408

One corner of Honolulu that we found ourselves returning to throughout our two-day visit was Kapahulu Avenue. This neighborhood runs from the north side of the Honolulu Zoo (which is at the south end of Waikiki) to the H1 freeway near Chaminade University of Honolulu. The approximately two-kilometer distance is gentrifying nicely, with lots of long-time shops rubbing shoulders with a new Safeway supermarket. On our visits there, we ate a breakfast and a dinner.

Breakfast: Sweet E’s Cafe

Located in a small shopping complex kind of hidden off Kapahulu Avenue near the H1 freeway, Sweet E’s Cafe is one of the higher-rated breakfast places on Yelp.com. To be certain, I take Yelp reviews with a few large grains of salt. That said, it looked like a good bet for a decent Saturday breakfast before we started driving around the island.

Arriving early, we found the dining room less than half full. From the reviews, I get the impression that the restaurant is very crowded later in the morning. The interior is pleasant and the servers were helpful, if not exactly warm.

Poached eggs with Kalua pork. My big beef with lots of places is that their poached eggs are overcooked. This time, the problem was that the eggs were undercooked. In my mind, the perfect poached egg has solid but not rubbery whites, with runny yolks. When I cut into the first egg, the whites were still watery inside. It was right on the line between “worth sending them back” and “not worth sending them back,” so I didn’t. As the watery whites soaked my English muffins, though, I regretted my decision. The pork and the sauce were tasty, so points there, but the potatoes were bland and would have benefitted from some herbs or spices.

Tawn ordered a basic waffle with maple syrup. It was pleasantly crisp, cooked to just the right point.

We also ordered French toast stuffed with cream cheese and blueberries. The toast itself was nicely done but the blueberries inside the toast were tough, leading me to conclude that they use frozen blueberries for the stuffing and only place fresh berries as garnish for the plate.

Overall conclusion: Sweet E’s didn’t show such a sweet face for us, at least as far as quality. It has the potential to be very good and if we lived there, we would give it another chance to redeem itself. But if you are just visiting, I would suggest you search out Boot’s & Kimo’s in Kailua.

Dinner: Sam’s Kitchen

On Friday evening, we found ourselves looking for a tasty dinner that didn’t involve a lot of expense or effort on our part. Turning to Yelp.com, I searched for “cheap seafood dinner” in Honolulu. Sure, that’s probably the last place you want to eat – somewhere serving cheap seafood – but we got a result whose high ratings were accompanied by thoughtful reviews: Sam’s Kitchen.

Located on Kapahulu Avenue right across from a new Safeway shopping center, Sam’s has a slightly retro dive bar appearance. When we arrived about 8:00, we were charmed by its exterior but baffled (and slightly worried) by its almost vacant state.

We entered and found only a half-dozen customers (if that) listening to live Hawaiian music. I felt a little conspicuous walking in during their performance – after all, it wasn’t like we could sneak in unnoticed. The lady behind the counter was welcoming, though, so we figured out the menu and placed our order.

Sam’s is about as “Hawaiian” as you can get, a fusion of flavors that represent the different cultures that make up the local population. There is a heavy Japanese bent (and it seems that their original Waikiki location is wildly popular with Japanese guide books), but other cultures are represented, too. Dishes are mostly either rice bowls or bento boxes and their garlic sauce is apparently “famous.”

Tawn tried the spicy garlic shrimp rice plate, which came with a salad and a half-ear of corn. This was good food – the shrimp is tender and sweet and the garlic packed a punch – and stayed with us for the next day.

I had the fried mahi mahi with macadamia nuts. The fish was very fresh, lightly breaded, and the sauce was tasty. Both dishes were simple, inexpensive, huge, and excellent. So much so that on Saturday night, our second and final night on Oahu, we decided to visit Sam’s again.

This time we stopped at the original location on Royal Hawaiian Avenue in Waikiki. This location is take-out only, although it does offer some self-service tables if you can’t wait to get back home to eat. The menu is the same and the customers were mostly Japanese.

Tawn ordered a combo plate (left) with the same two items we had the night before, but half a portion each. On the right, I ordered a garlic steak plate. The steak was tasty, although pretty tough.

With two small bottles of wine from the convenience store downstairs, we celebrated our last night on Oahu with a sunset dinner on our balcony.

Los Angeles Farmers Market

Posted on 9 June 2011 by christao408

Saturday morning we headed with our high school friends (who came down for the weekend to visit us) to the LA Farmers Market. The market, located at Third and Fairfax near the CBS studios, dates to 1934. This was my first visit and I was impressed with the range of different food stalls. I didn’t look around the entire market, but my impression is that there aren’t really that many farmers offering their wares. Here is a look at some of the food we tried.

There are lots of seating areas, mostly in the shade. You can order from different vendors and still sit at the same tables, which give you a lot of flexibility. We were there by 10:00 Saturday morning and it wasn’t very busy, although by the time we left things were notably busier.

Hard to tell the breakfast from the desserts! Crepe with chocolate, strawberries, and bananas.

Belgian waffle with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. Someone’s husband didn’t wait until I took the pictures to begin

Ran into a place called Moishe’s Village, which serves Middle Eastern food. My attention was caught by the borekas, a flat bread with toppings cooked in a brick oven. Basically, oblong pizzas without tomato sauce.

Wide selection of borekas.

I chose the sausage and egg and asked the lady to cut it into pieces. She scolded me, saying that I should have ordered scrambled eggs so it would have cut more prettily.

Another popular spot is Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts.

Yeast donuts. Very tasty, although I’m not a huge fan of donuts.

Tawn in his market gear.

Loads of fresh fruits, especially the peaches, apricots, and nectarines. Stone fruits are my favorite reason to come back to the US during the summer.

Close up on the beautiful artichokes.

Afterwards, one of my friends insisted that we must try Littlejohn’s English toffee.

The picture doesn’t do justice to the toffee, but it was pretty good. Not as hard as a lot of toffee, so much easier on the teeth to eat. Well, except for all the sugar.

We were going to go cherry picking afterwards but when we called ahead to the farm, we learned that thanks to the cool weather, cherries are coming in a few weeks late. Sadly, no cherry picking this trip.

Immersing and Blending

Posted on 18 August 2008 by christao408

Now that I’m all caught up on my blog entries, you’ll be disappointed because there isn’t any fabulous jet setting about which I can write. Just normal, everyday entries. Prepare yourself for the mundane!

After discovering that the NY-style pizza place was closed, I decided to walk across the street and try Mes Amis Cafe, the “down market” location of the nearby upscale Mes Amis French restaurant. To call the cafe “down market” is a bit of a stretch: white tablecloths, attentive waiters, high prices – it is still relatively upscale.

The food was good, though. Pretty authentic (for Khrungthep) French cafe food. I had roast chicken with a side of vegetables and mashed potatoes. Looks beautiful, no?

One of the waiters seemed quite intrigued by my ability to speak Thai and he kept engaging me in conversation. Or, more accurately, he would keep thinking of additional questions to ask me, which resulted in an uncomfortable (for me) desire to be able to read my book and eat my lunch in peace. Finally, dessert arrived so I had an excuse to stop answering questions.

On my trip back to the United States, I bought a Kitchen Aid immersion blender. This is an addition to my stash of kitchen appliances that I have been considering for two years, so it wasn’t an impulse buy by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve found that using a traditional blender is not very effective for things like pesto and hummus, and is downright messy and even dangerous for blending soups.

Additionally, I’ve previously owned a food processor and found that I rarely used it because of the amount of clean-up necessary. Unless I’m chopping and slicing for a dinner for dozens of people, it is faster to do the prep work with a knife.

But I have been reading how an immersion blender makes quick work of soups, pestos, hummus, and sauces – as well as how it can be used in the pot or container the ingredients are already in. Talking with several people who use them, I realized that the immersion blender would be a very handy addition to my kitchen. As for which model, I settled on Kitchen Aid because of the very high review it was given by Cook’s Illustrated magazine, who rated it their best value.

Thankfully, Macy’s had them on sale for $20 off the regular price, so only $49.99. Oddly, they only had red and black in stock although Kitchen Aid does make a white body as well. Sadly, no yellow to match my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

Inspired by T. Susan Chang’s NPR story about chilled summer soups, I made some chicken stock and then prepared this roasted tomato and pepper soup. It was very easy to make, although I had to substitute the broiler for a grill as we don’t have a grill. This led to a less smoky flavor, but it was tasty nonetheless.

Before and after pictures, below:

Tawn isn’t a big soup person to begin with and there was a bit of cognitive dissonance as the expectation (soup=warm) and the temperature (cold) did not match. Still, he liked the flavor. I thought I could dial back the peppers a bit and find some more flavorful tomatoes. Tomatoes in Thailand aren’t as tasty as summertime tomatoes in the United States. Maybe I can enrich the soup with a little tomato paste.

Worth reading: Sonny shares a funny, true story about his trip to a Starbucks to get one of their mango-banana blended drinks, where he had to contribute the banana because the store was out of them. Link here.

christao408

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

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