GeezerGourmet.com seeks to foster a renewed interest
in home culinary arts among experienced home cooks
The GeezerGourmet (brief bio) caters to
clientele who have life-long experiences in home cooking and now, as empty
nesters and retirees, have the time to renew their love of good food and
its preparation. The Geezer Gourmet assumes
that you routinely cook for one or two people; eat out quite often;
still like to entertain and are experienced at it; have adequately equipped
kitchens; and enjoy life and good health.
If you have some of the above attributes but are not a geezer nor even
approaching pre-geezerhood, thank God for that, press on regardless, and
welcome.
This is not a Website for food phobics or wellness hypochondriacs
Still More Snow
More Snow in Northern Virginia
In this Momofuku Era, Kimchi is Flying
Off the Market Shelves
David
Chang, chef/author of the best selling cookbook, Momofuku
(see below), likes kimchi, and so too his readers. Well . . ., the
Koreans have been serving it most meals since the 16th century. Kimchi
is combination of cabbage, other veggies and bold seasonings pickled in
vinegar and then fermented to produce a pungent spicy hot condiment.
It serves well also as the supporting ingredient to wok-prepared or stir
fried meat and fish dishes. It likes rice. Recipes for the stuff
abound: "winter" kimchi is hot, "summer" kimchi is more fresh and
light. In the West, it comes in glass jars and is often make with
napa
cabbage and spicy but not flaming hot peppers, ginger and garlic.
It keeps forever in the fridge.
So, while reading and thoroughly enjoying Momofuku, TLW
found a kimchi and pork recipe there and also in the latest issue of Fine
Cooking, (they read the book too). "Let's have a couple over and
make this in the wok fired on the Blue Star," said she. Here we have
the results inspired by the book and magazine recipes. This dish
is best prepared a la minute with guests watching
the show. Have courage! Do it. It takes about five minutes, if you
have your mise en place.
Wok Stirred Pork and Kimchi
For four
(See abbreviations, if needed)
1 pork tenderloin,
cut in quarter inch slices and then into half inch strips
2 T soy
sauce
4 T grapeseed oil or peanut oil
8 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed
and hand-brokened into quarters
8 scallions cut
in 1.5 inch lengths, white and green
16 broccoli, small flowerettes
(not shown in photo--after thought)
1 T garlic,
pureed
3.5 C kimchi, drained and coarsely chopped
4 T mirin (sweetened sake) or white
wine and some sugar
1/2 t sesame oil (for aoma--not taste)
1/4 C beef or chicken broth
2 T white and black sesame seeds,
toasted
1. Prep pork, toss with a tablespoon of soy sauce and set aside
2. Prep mushrooms and veggies and have them lined up ready to
pop into the wok
3. Add 2 T of oil to the wok, heat gently and swirl carefully
up the sides
4. Heat the oil to shiny hot and then add the marinated pork
(don't splash)
5. When pork strips break free of the bottom, stir or toss until
pork is whitened but still rare
6. Scoop out the pork and hold in a clean container (not the
one used to marinate)
7. Add 2 more tablespoons of oil and when very hot, add the scallions,
mushroom, garlic and broccoli,
in that order--about three minutes for this
step
8. Add the kimchi, another tablespoon of soy sauce, a few drops
of sesame oil and toss or stir
9. At this point, if the whole mess looks too dry (no sauce for
the rice), add some broth and BTB
10. Serve immediately in heated bowls over rice with maybe a
side of
Asian Cucumbers
11. Garnish with the toasted sesame seeds
How to Peel a Pineapple and Not Waste
so Much of it

Pineapples are usually peeled by slicing off the skin with a deep cut
that removes the skin and all the eyes. OK, its quick but a layer
of edible pineapple is tossed out with the skin. A better method
is to slice off the skin with a shallow cut, leaving most of the eyes.

Notice that the eyes have a pattern to them that can be lined up to
cut out, 3 or 4 at a time, with a sharp paring knife making v-shaped trench
cuts.
This method leaves more pineapple on the pineapple.

Then quarter the fruit, trim off the hard part, dice and place in containers
to cool. A $4.75 pineapple yields two nice containers of chunks that
go for $4.50 each at the market.
Waste not, want not . . .
Can Spring be Far Away?
Paella a la Mclean has been Revised
(go here)
On a recent trip to Williamsburg, Virginia our friends took us to a
store that purveys Spanish food and culinary items. We had received
a catalog from these people, had looked it over thoroughly, but had not
noticed that they were located in Williamsburg, of all places. Since
the paella dinner was already on our calendar, we were excited about this.
The company is called La Tienda. It is a neat store with nice people
selling real authentic stuff--from bota bags and wine to put it them, to
ham, rice and pots and pans. We left--after exchanging paella recipes--with
lintils, beans and Bamba--the short grain, hyper-absorbant rice used
in Paella. We also bought some Spanish Chorizo. They have a very nice Web
site at www.tienda.com. It's worth a look.
Here's a photo of the chicken and Spanish chorizo fixins for the paella
How to Puree Garlic with your Chef's
Knife (revisited)
One of the more popular pages on this Web site, year after year, concerns
pureeing garlic with your knife. It was posted quite sometime ago
without photos, so I've added some to make the process more understandable--hopefully.
Read the whole thing here
A Brief Salad Amusement
For a Christmas
Day dinner salad we wanted something light and amusing, since the entree
was Osso Buco Milanaise with Butternut
Squash Soup and mashed potatoes and parsnips--all pretty heavy
stuff. So here we have fresh tender watercress simply dressed with
sugared rice wine vinegar. On top of that is one small just-sauteed
crab
cake, piped with a spicy hot raspberry wasabi mustard dressing.
Nice contrasts here: bitter watercress, sweet rice vinegar, seasoned
crab cake and spicy hot creamy dressing.
I always use ring molds to shape crab cakes. You will find 80mm
and 60mm stainless steel rings molds in good kitchen supply stores.
Both sizes too big for our purposes here. So at the hardware store,
buy a length of PVC pipe with an ID of 40mm. Take it home and cut
it into rings about an inch high. One pound of crab meat prepared
as crab cakes yields four 80's or six 60's or twelve 40's.
Tilapia Stuffed With Crabmeat
We
had a little canned crabmeat left over from Thanksgiving and an unfinished
container of tabbouleh, both of which we got at Costco. Though vacuum
sealed, the crabmeat had to be used soon. Tabbouleh is a tasty low
fat Middle Eastern spread made with bulgur wheat and finely diced tomato,
onion, cilantro, mint and lemon in EVOO. It goes great at room temperature
on taco chips, crackers or bread points. So what to do?
Make a fish dish.
Tilapia is a major food fish, farm raised. It is fine textured and low
fat, a bit more so than flounder. Cheaper too. So we seasoned the
crabmeat with a few ingredients from our crab
cake recipe and layered it onto one tilapia fillet and topped it with
another and tied them off, as shown. The fillets were seasoned with S/P
and EVOO. I then dumped the tabbouleh into a buttered dish, plopped
the tied fish fillets on top and baked the whole mess in a 400F oven for
about 30 minutes. The fillets were 3 inches thick stuffed and
tied. So, using the ten minutes an inch rule, 30 minutes was right
on.
How'd it come out? The tabbouleh got a little too crispy in the
baking process and lost the individual tastes present when served uncooked.
But it was OK. The crabmeat did not come through, as distinct from the
talapia, as I had hoped. Recipes abound for crab stuffed sole with
the crabmeat usually fattened up with cream or mayo, which I didn't do.
Since the cost of the lump crabmeat is greater than fish, there are better
uses for it. Why not do crab cakes one day and fillet of tender sweet fish
the next?
But we're talking leftovers here. We agreed that it was a nice
dish and an interesting use of tabbouleh, but we would not brag about it
at the bazaar in Marrakash.
New Waffle Maker
After
30 years of faithful service, batter stuck to the plates of TLW's old waffle
maker unless they were bathed with a lot of oil, which made the unit really
messy over time. So we got a new 2 square Belgian waffle maker by
All-Clad and took it for a test drive Sunday morning.
We turned the thing on: It has a seven heat levels, a light that
indicates when its ready and another that flashes and beeps when the waffles
are done. It has a clever overflow tray. The box included a
nice buttermilk waffle recipe featuring whipped egg whites folded into
the batter. They came off the un-oiled plates cleanly. Even the recipe
was good, producing a light and lofty waffle. This is not your mom's
waffle iron.
This is a Cook's Cookbook
Would
you believe that over 3200 cookbooks will be published this year, up from
2800 last year? If there is any hidden meaning in that, it escapes
me (recession, home vs restaurant, etc...., bah). One of these cookbooks--forthcoming--looks
promising.
A young fellow named David Chang is a "hot chef" these days according
to the foodie media. An early review of his forthcoming cookbook caught
my attention because a) he's grounded in French technique, b) combines
Asian with American, c) likes pork, d) hasn't dumbed down his recipes for
a book contract and e) is a restaurant chef versed in that world's grueling
work and not a TV star where line cooks do the mise off camera.
(His penchant for profanity might save him from TV fame.)
He's cooked in Japan and in NYC where he opened his first restaurant,
Momofuku Noodle Bar. Since, Momofuku Ssäm Bar and Momofuku Ko both
high end restaurants have opened, with rave reviews. Chang and his
cookbook, of course named Momofuku, got a nice
enough review in the Wall Street Journal to prompt me to order it.
It's due out next week.
So wait, there's more...
------------------------------------------
Got the book today, here's the photo (new camera: Canon G-11).
At second glance: well edited, good photography on coffee table grade
paper, heavy on commentary regarding the art of cooking and the trauma
of making it pay, with recipes at the margin--all very well written and
nicely presented. Awful introduction. Contents are organized by Chang's
restaurants: Noodle Bar, Ssäm Bar and Ko.
This is a French Laundry type cookbook that takes the reader into the
head of another innovative chef and his crew. In the book at
least, these concepts drive Chang:
-
"Serve food with integrity at an affordable price. That is, undersell,
over deliver.
-
...do not subscribe to the idea that there's one set of blueprints that
everyone should follow.
-
. . . you take it, cook it, make it delicious . . . elevate it, honor it,
lavish it with care and attention.
-
when you start to cook on autopilot, when you stop paying attention to
details--not to mention big things like seasoning--no amount of press will
make up for it. What is the point of cooking at all if you're not gonna
do it right?"
More than enough recipes here, and a lot of them have recipes inside of
recipes or demand a commitment to Asian ingredients. As I read, I have
a habit of pencil-checking recipes in cookbooks that are of interest to
me, in theory or practice. Quite a few got a check--simple things, innovative
ideas or old war horses cooked differently: ginger scallion sauce
and scallion infused oil, the whole section on pickling, maple syrup and
yogurt, his fried chicken and pan-roasted rib eye, his bánh mì
sandwich, fingerling potato chips and shaved frozen foie gras.
This cookbook is an important addition to the literature and it's a
fun read.
PS: A reader asked where "Momofuku" came from? Chang says
that one of the most important events in the history of food was the invention
of instant ramen by "Momofuku Ando." Best read the book for the origins
of Ssäm and Ko.
Instant Hand Sanitizers (Update)
When I posted this article on hand sanitizers in 2003, they were used
in kitchens and hospitals and nowhere else. And not very often then
or there. I've used the stuff for years. A weird habit for a non-hypochrondriac.
Ah, but now scroll forward to 2009, the flu season and H1N1. Bottles
of hand sanitizers are to be found on every counter from supermarkets to
flower stores. Sales of the stuff are through the roof.
We have, of late, spent a lot of time at the National Institute of Health
(NIH) in Washington DC. At the door frame of every room there is a racked
bottle of hand sanitizer. At other clinics, the stuff is ever more present
than a couple of years ago.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hand
washing is the single most important means of preventing the spread of
infection. Food inspectors spend a lot of time assessing the effectiveness
of kitchen staff hand hygiene practices because data show that a very high
percentage of foodborne illnesses are hand transmitted. They also
know that properly washed hands are as germ free as any other ‘tools’ in
the kitchen.
But keeping hands clean is difficult. Cooks know to wash their
hands before leaving the bathroom and also are trained to wash-up between
tasks. Easier said than enforced, however. How many times have
you worked with food in the kitchen, then went off to change the channel
on the TV, do something for the baby or go down to the pantry to get a
box of Japanese bread crumbs, then return to the task at hand in the kitchen
without washing up again? The problem is time and availability.
There is
another hand wash media out there that you should consider adding to your
daily routine. Instant hand sanitizers. They are nothing more complicated
than ethyl alcohol in a squeeze bottle—a big one on the counter, a little
one in your pocket, chef's toolbox, car glove compartment, purse, backpack,
wherever. It solves the time and availability problem with flying
colors since it's ready-at-hand and takes five seconds to use. This
stuff is available in all drugstores and supermarkets. Purell is
market leader with some soap manufacturers offering products as well. We
now favor 3M's Avagard D which NIH uses by the truck load. Maybe
that's why we can't find it the drug stores. Google or Amazon it
and buy it online. It's more pricey then Purell.
Here is how it works: Hand sanitizer fluid is 62% ethyl alcohol
and added moisturizers. You squirt a quarter size dollop in the palm
of the hand and wash thoroughly with it. Purell claims that, before
it completely evaporates, the stuff kills 99.9% of the germs that may cause
illness. It kills good ones too, but so does soap and water.
(A fringe of the wellness-hypochondriacs has a problem with that.
But scientists state that their concern is misdirected in that ethyl alcohol
is not among the anti-bacterial products that remain on the hands with
theoretical adverse affect.) Ethyl alcohol had been used for a 100
years. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers have been around in one form
or another for 15 years. I'm never without it.
Let's hope that, with the passing of the flu season, folks will continue
to use hand sanitizers.
Try it, you'll like it.
Its refreshing too.
A New Cookie Paradigm?
When is a cookie done?
In school we were instructed to look
for a trace of browning around the edge of the cookie. Corriher
says the same thing. Reichl says 'until
golden.' I'm now convinced that waiting for evidence of browning
results in an over baked cookie: one that dries when cooled and gets
hard when stored. The 'until golden' works better for white sugar
than brown sugar'd cookies. The conundrum is compounded in a convection
oven, which shortens baking time by 20%, for sure, and maybe more.
Which also means that the time to take out the cookies comes sooner and
passes faster.
So . . .
I just baked a batch of Pantry
Cookies and a batch of my new Nut, Coconut
and Health Bar Cookies. I took them out when they appeared
set. That is, when they were fully shaped, with a dry surface
top and with edges sharply defined and not clinging to the silicone pad.
No evidence of browning. The result: moist, chewy cookies!
This is heavy...but a change is required
on all my cookie recipes. Got to do it.
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