Food

I made another try at these blondies, with some hints from this attempt and a little influence from the Momofuku cookie. The result was almost perfect. I think next time I won’t bother with chocolate-covered pretzels, just using plain ones, and I’ll add espresso beans or chocolate-with-espresso-beans for a little bitter kick.

Ingredients

8 tbsp butter, melted
1 c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 c flour
1 c walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 loose cup dark-chocolate-covered pretzels, very coarsely chopped

Directions

Chop the walnuts, then toast them in the oven on a baking sheet at 350 for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter (about 1 minute in microwave). Mix with sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and mix. Add the flour gradually until completely mixed. Briefly fold in the walnuts and pretzels. Spread in a buttered 8×8 metal pan and bake for 18-25 minutes at 350. Center should still be a little gooey when removed. Cool on a wire rack. The flavor is best once they’ve cooled, who no one will blame you for eating them hot and gooey.

This is based on E’s basic lentil soup recipe. I wanted to alter the flavors, and went a little Indian influence and a little Ethiopian.

Ingredients

1/4 lb bacon, diced
2 c diced yellow onion
2 carrots, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 c cauliflower, chopped
7 c chicken stock
1/2 tsp berbere
1.5 c black lentils
salt, pepper

Directions

Saute the bacon on medium until crispy. Remove it from the pan. Saute the garlic, onion, carrots, cauliflower, and 1/2 tsp berbere in the bacon grease on medium-low, covered, for 25 minutes. Add in everything else but the bacon, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer 40 minutes. Puree half of the mixture, add in the bacon, and serve.

I tried this recipe except without the sauce, since I like dry chickeny chicken wings without too much sauce. Unfortunately, dry is what I got — the results were dry and hard; some of the thicker pieces are edible, but none of them is what you’d call a great chicken wing. Might try again with a shorter grilling time (I went for 75 minutes) and something to baste with, or maybe a brine.

Ingredients

Baguettes
Paté
Vietnamese grilled pork
Pickled jalapenos
Pickled cabbage

Directions

Slice the baguettes open along one side. Spread one half with paté. Add jalapenos, pork, and cabbage. Eat.

I followed this recipe. I used boneless country ribs (aka pork butt), sliced to about 1/4″. I also haven’t yet found a “meat cage” the right size (might have to make one), so just laid them on the grill. I also cannot for the life of me mince lemongrass properly; I’ll try it with lemongrass paste next time. It came out great, perfect for banh mi or just as finger food. It would also go perfectly in a vermicelli bowl.

Ingredients

2 lb boneless pork country ribs, sliced 1/4″ thick
1 shallot, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalked lemongrass, minced
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp vegetable oil

Directions

Mix together all the non-pork ingredients in a large bowl. Add the pork and mix thoroughly with hands, until the pork is completely coated. Cover and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator. Heat grill to medium-low. Lay pork on grill and cook with cover closed until they begin to char. Turn over and cook until done. Serve in banh mi, over vermicelli and salad, or just eat by hand with some nuoc cham for dipping.

I used the below pickle recipe on cabbage and green beans.

Ingredients

Pickle juice
1 c water
1 c rice wine vinegar
2 c distilled white vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp soy sauce
6-8 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp sichuan peppercorns
1/2 white onion, sliced thin

Stuff to be pickled
One handful napa cabbage, shredded
One handful green cabbage, shredded
One handful green beans

Directions

Put the stuff to be pickled into jars (I kept the two kinds of cabbage separated to see how each one did) along with the garlic, peppercorns, and onion. Put everything else in a saucepan and bring it to a simmer. Pour it into the jars, filling to the top. Put the tops on the jars. Let them sit until cool and then refrigerate. Let pickle for a few days then eat.

I used this recipe to pickle radishes and jalapenos earlier this week. They came out pretty good. The radishes turned pink.

Ingredients

Pickle juice
1 c water
1 c distilled white vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp soy sauce
2-4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp coriander seeds
seeds and ribs from one jalapeno

Stuff to be pickled
One bunch of radishes, cleaned and quartered
Several jalapenos, tops chopped off, ribs and seeds removed, sliced into rounds

Directions

Put the stuff to be pickled into jars along with the garlic, peppercorns, coriander seeds, and jalapeno seeds. Put everything else in a saucepan and bring it to a simmer. Pour it into the jars, filling to the top. Put the tops on the jars. Let them sit until cool and then refrigerate. Let pickle for a few days then eat.

I like spicy brownies, and often make them with cayenne, ginger, salt, and other spices. This time I decided to experiment with chili-lime, since it’s one of the world’s great flavor combinations and I thought it would work with chocolate. Final result is pretty good; I think I ended up with a little too much lime and not enough of the balancing salt and chili, though I wouldn’t want to add much more. Next time maybe something else to balance the lime a little, like a hint of ginger.

Ingredients

4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
2 c sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter
3 eggs
1 c flour
juice of 1 lime
zest of 1 lime
1 tsp kosher salt or sea salt
1/2 tsp flaky sea salt, for garnish
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Directions

Heat oven to 350 and grease a 9×13 baking pan. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large glass bowl in a microwave for 2 minutes. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Mix in sugar. Mix in eggs. Gradually mix in flour. Add salt, cayenne, lime juice, and lime zest to taste (flavors will be slightly stronger in brownies after cooking and cooling than they are in batter). Pour into the baking pan and sprinkle with a little flaky sea salt. Bake for about 30 min, until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs; err on the side of underbaking.

These are sweeter than the cookies, since I just went with what was in the house (leftovers from the cookies and other projects), but it’s hard to go wrong with this kind of recipe. Though it turns out this was too many marshmallows; they kind of screwed up the structure of the brownies, and the ones at the top bubbled and then popped, leaving a sort of igneous-rock texture. They also didn’t contribute that much to the deliciousness, having sort of melted into goo. Next time I’ll drop the marshmallows and add in some nuts, espresso beans, dark chocolate, potato chips, or whatever.

Ingredients

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 ½ sticks butter
2 c sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
½ c all-purpose flour
½ c white whole wheat flour
¼ c butterscotch chips
½ c mini marshmallows
¼ c whoppers, coarsely chopped
¼ c mini pretzels, coarsely chopped
1 tsp kosher salt

Directions

In a glass bowl, melt the chocolate and butter in a microwave on high for two minutes. Stir until the chocolate completely melts. Add the sugar and stir until combined, then the eggs, then the vanilla. Gradually add the flour while stirring. Fold in the other ingredients. Transfer to a buttered and floured 9×13″ baking dish and bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean (around 25 min, but better to underbake than overbake). Let cool, then cut and enjoy.

This is a slight variation on the Cook’s Illustrated chicken stock recipe, intended to end up with meat that can be put into soup. Again, it’s good because it’s quick, but the chicken-hacking is a fair amount of work (and this one is more work than the other, since you have to extract the breasts and hack up a whole chicken rather than just cut up some backs). As with that recipe, I also leave out the bay leaves or replace with ginger slices. I might try doing this recipe with chicken backs and bone-in breasts to save some of the work.

Ingredients

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, medium diced
1 whole chicken (about 4 lb), breasts removed, the rest hacked into 2-inch pieces
2 quarts boiling water
2 tsp salt

Directions

Heat the oil in a large stockpot or dutch oven on medium-high. Add the chicken breasts and saute until browned on both sides, about 5 minutes. Remove and set aside. Add the onion and saute about 3 minutes. Remove to a large bowl. Add half of the remaining chicken pieces to the pot. Saute until no longer pink, 4-5 minutes. Remove to the bowl with the onion. Saute the rest of the chicken. Return the onion and chicken pieces (excluding the breasts) to the pot. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook about 20 minutes, until the chicken releases its juices.

Meanwhile, bring the water to a boil. Increase the heat to high. Add the boiling water, the chicken breasts, and the salt. Bring to a simmer, then cover and barely simmer about 20 more minutes.

Remove the breasts and set aside to cool. Strain the rest into a container. When the breasts are cool, shred the meat by hand. Optionally, shred any meat on the remaining pieces as well (though it’s more work for less meat). Refrigerate the stock overnight, then skim the solid fat from the top (fat can be skimmed without refrigeration if you want to use the stock the same night, but it’s easier when it’s cold). Makes about 2 quarts of stock.