Writing With My Mouth Full

recent posts

    • Kona Kampachi With Coconut Cream Sauce

      Out of all the recipes I tried to make use of the kampachi batch that Kona Blue Water Farms generously sent me, this was the simplest, but also the most complicated in taste. The coconut cream was wee thick, but the kaffir leaves and the lime juice squirted in the end made the fish lighter. I remembered a cauliflower pilaf to serve with this and a 10-minute prep made an impressionable dish.

      Ingredients:
      2 fillets of kampachi
      1/4 cup of coconut cream
      1/4 cup dry white wine
      a knob of ginger, peeled, julienned
      1 shallot, thinly sliced
      1 clove of garlic, minced
      a handful of basil leaves, chiffonade
      a handful of kaffir lime leaves, chiffonade
      juice from half a lime
      butter
      salt, pepper, oil

      1. Using a small pan, heat butter and cook shallots and garlic without browning. Add white wine and deglaze. Add the coconut cream and the rest of the ingredients and simmer for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
      2. Sprinkle a little bit of salt and pepper on the fillets. In a separate skillet, heat some oil and sear fillets, about 4 minutes per side. Remove to a serving plate and top with coconut cream sauce. Squirt with some lime juice for some kick.

      Related post/s:
      This will be awesome with cauliflower pilaf rice
      Don’t waste that fish head
      Read more about why Kona Kampachi is good for you and buy from their Web site

    • Kona Kampachi Paksiw, Filipino Vinegar Stew

      Paksiw, or what I would translate as Filipino vinegar stew, has got to be my father’s favorite dish. Filipinos, especially those from the northern part of the country, love anything with vinegar. We can cook and stew almost anything in sour goodness and make an honest meal out of it.

      My father loves fresh seafood paksiw the best because he grew up in a farm where the family didn’t own a refrigerator. He’s told me about heading into the nearest town very early in the morning to buy the morning’s catch and consuming all of them before they went bad, usually before the day ended. Meat was expensive and hard to come by.

      The traditional paksiw recipe uses milkfish, or bangus, but Kona Blue Water Farms sent me a whole kampachi and I wanted to use every part of it. It would have been a waste to throw away a perfectly good head. My father happily cleaned and gutted out the fish. I used the entire head for this dish with a small steak from the body. My favorite part is crushing the pepper after the entire thing has reduced: the sourness has a touch of spiciness to it that will make the skin behind your ears crawl.

      Ingredients:
      kampachi head with some fillets
      1/2 cup white vinegar
      a small knob of ginger, peeled, crushed
      1 green Serrano pepper
      salt

      1. In a nonreactive pot, bring all ingredients to a boil with 1/4 cup of water, uncovered.
      2. When boiling, lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, covered, turning fish head once to evenly cook. The liquid should have reduced, making the vinegar and water combination more concentrated. If you like, crush the pepper a tad to release some spice into the stew.

      Related post/s:
      Try Kona Kampachi with a watercress and pear salad
      If you buy a whole Kona Kampachi from Kona Blue’s Web site, you wouldn’t throw the head either

    • Kona Kampachi With Soy-Ginger Sauce

      I felt bad searing the Kona Kampachi fillets from Kona Blue Water Farms. It was enough that I baked it with butter the first time. I felt blasphemous to be ruining such a good fish with heat. But when seared, Kona Kampachi turns into the Cinderella of fish: an oomph was added to what would have been a very simple flavor. It became richer and meatier, as if the oil plumped it up. The soy-ginger sauce actually took the fish a notch down. A tarty watercress and pear salad with crumbled blue cheese and a glass of dry white wine made our dinner complete. We made it way past midnight.

      Ingredients:
      2 fillets of kampachi
      a knob of ginger, peeled, julienned
      1 shallot, thinly sliced
      a jigger of soy sauce
      a splash of sherry
      oil

      1. Make the soy-ginger sauce. Combine all the ingredients, except the fish and oil, in a small bowl and let sit until ready to serve.
      2. Using a skillet, heat some oil and then sear one side of the fish for about 3 minutes. Gingerly turn it using a heat-resistant spatula. Sear the other side for another 3 minutes. Transfer to serving plates and spoon soy-ginger sauce on top of the seared fillets.

      Related post/s:
      Try Kona Kampachi with apples
      Read more about why Kona Kampachi is good for you and buy from their Web site

    • Kona Kampachi With Coconut, Apples, Ginger and Basil

      One of my father’s specialties during the holidays is pichi-pichi, a grated cassava dessert cooked in milk and sugar and eaten with fresh coconut. I was delighted to find leftover shredded coconut in the fridge when I was exploring different ways to cook the Kona Kampachi sent to me by Kona Blue Water Farms.

      Kona Kampachi is known as Almaco Jack in the wild and Hawaiian yellowtail in most kitchens and sushi restaurants. Kona Blue nurtures its Kona Kampachi from hatch to harvest, making it a sustainably-raised fish that has no detectable levels of mercury and is completely free of internal parasites. Kona Kampachi is also good for you–it is rich with healthy Omega-3 fish oils–and the fat content makes it one of the most flavorful fish available in the market today.

      One of the most interesting recipes from Jean-Georges’ cookbook, Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges, involved halibut, but I can’t imagine how it could be any better than when I used the kampachi. The fish itself is mildly sweet–you can taste its natural flavor without any of the dressings. To dress it even seemed a waste to me because it’s good on its own, sashimi-style. But Kona Blue was extremely generous and I had a lot of fish. I wanted to try different ways of cooking it.

      Ingredients:
      kampachi fillets
      a knob of butter

      For the salad topping:
      1 cup shredded coconut
      half an apple, thinly sliced
      a small knob of ginger, peeled, julienned
      1 shallot, thinly sliced
      fresh basil leaves, thoroughly washed, patted dry, chiffonade
      juice from 1 lemon
      Thai chili, seeded, chopped
      a knob of butter
      salt, pepper, oil

      1. Prepare the salad that will go on top of the fish while you preheat the oven 275º. Combine all the salad topping ingredients together in a small bowl. Drizzle with lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.
      2. Butter a baking sheet. Lay fillets and bake for 15 minutes.
      3. When serving, top the fish with the coconut salad. Drizzle with some leftover lemon juice.

      Related post/s:
      Read more about Kona Kampachi and buy from their Web site
      Get your own copy of Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges

    • Momofuku Noodle Bar

      171 1st Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets
      212/777-7773
      about $58 for two, with one beer, with tip
      ♥ ♥

      Updated: My bad. Momofuku Ko is still under construction in what used to be the original space of Momofuku Noodle Bar. Thanks, Zach.

      Is there a stronger English word than savory that can describe the taste that is Momofuku? What I’m looking for is the translation for malinamnam, the Tagalog word for something really flavorful and delicious at the same time. What was Momofuku Noodle Bar is now a much larger and brighter space with more items in the menu that do not involve noodles. They needed it too, with all the accolades chef David Chang and his restaurants have been receiving the last couple of years. But that more-than-savory taste is still there.

      A bowl of grilled baby octopus was tender. Julienned carrots and some seaweed were mixed in and made the dish more interesting. I thought the sesame seeds were a nice touch. They were out of the Brussels sprouts when I visited, so we ordered the Manila clams instead made pretty with slivers of celery.

      I could have stopped there but every time I’m visiting one of the Momofukus, I can’t help but stuff myself. Even at more than $10, the big bowl of pork neck ramen with a beautifully-poached egg is a must-have. And it was as malinamnam as I remembered it from two stores down.

      Related post/s:
      I bought baby octopus before and cooked a Mario Batali recipe
      Momofuku Ssam is still on the same spot

    • Sweet and Sour Pork Picnic

      One of my New Year’s resolutions is to eat at least one fruit a day, everyday. It’s been difficult with the small selection of fresh fruits this winter, so the sale of canned pineapple chunks at my local grocery store caught my eye. I rarely buy anything canned, but three cans of pineapple for $2 seemed like a good deal to me. I thought of making a sweet and sour sauce with the pork picnic, or lower part of the shoulder, I picked up from Chinatown. Slivers of pork belly would be a good substitute, but I opted for the meatier part of the pig here. A melee of colorful vegetables made this the perfect Sunday lunch with family.

      Ingredients:
      1/2 pound of pork picnic, trimmed of fat and excess skin, chopped
      1 zucchini, thinly sliced
      1 cucumber, julienned
      a handful of string beans
      1 red bell pepper, julienned
      1 yellow bell pepper, julienned
      1 red onion, thinly slice
      2 cloves of garlic, minced
      a small bunch of chives, chopped
      a dash of sesame seeds, toasted
      salt, oil

      For the sweet and sour sauce:
      1 can of pineapple chunks, drained
      3 tbsps sugar
      a jigger of red wine vinegar
      1 shallot, thinly sliced
      1 clove of garlic, minced

      1. In a small pot, combine all the sweet and sour ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes while occasionally stirring to avoid sticking.
      2. In a large wok, heat some oil and cook pork pieces until evenly browned.
      3. Add green beans and stir-fry for 8 minutes or until tender. Add the rest of the vegetables and stir-fry for 5 minutes.
      4. Pour in the sweet and sour sauce and toss. Season with salt to taste. Sprinkle with chives and sesame seeds before serving.

      Related post/s:
      Sweet and sour taste with fish
      Celery granita for dessert

    • Pig’s Ears Salad

      The new year has just begun and I already have a favorite cookbook: Stéphane Reynaud’s Pork & Sons from Phaidon. I immediately wanted it when I saw José Reis de Matos’ pig illustrations and Carlotta’s hand-written curly titles bounded in baby pink and white gingham checks, but I held off from buying yet another cookbook. In Austin’s Bookpeople, it was sold at a discounted price; I finally walked away with it.

      The front page has “for the love of sausages” written on it and there are drawings of pigs in hammocks, on bicycles, wading in mud and even pole dancing on the cover of a chapter called “A Piggy Party”. This book was made for me! If not to make your own sausages or cook this pig’s ears salad from page 186, just buy it to squeal–pun intended–at the illustrations.

      As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew how it was going to taste and feel in my mouth. The pig’s ears will be gelatinous and the cartilage crunchy; the ginger and the shallots adding a kick while the spinach tames everything down. I loved the pig’s ears appetizer at El Quinto Pino and I could imagine this being served there as well. I would even try this with some flat parsley leaves or spicy arugula if I don’t have spinach handy. It’s good with a glass of white wine, but even better with cold beer.

      Ingredients:
      3 pig’s ears, thoroughly washed
      half a bunch of baby spinach
      2 shallots, thinly sliced
      1 small knob of ginger, peeled, julienned
      a handful of fresh chives, chopped
      a few jiggers of red wine vinegar
      salt, oil

      1. Cook the pig’s ears in boiling water for 1 hour. Drain and let cool.
      2. In the meantime, combine the shallots, ginger, chives and some canola oil in a bowl.
      3. When the pig’s ears are cool enough to handle, slice thinly.
      4. Heat some frying oil in a skillet and cook the ears until golden brown, while stirring occasionally using a wooden spoon to scrape off the gelatinous stuff that sticks to the bottom of the pan. Splash with the red wine vinegar and cook for 2 more minutes.
      5. Remove to a plate lined with paper towel to drain the oil a little bit, and then transfer to the bowl with the spinach and shallot mixture. Toss and season with salt.

      Related post/s:
      You owe it to yourself to have a copy of Pork & Sons
      Odd cuts and guts cooking, Filipino style
      I bought 5 pig’s ears for $2 at Deluxe Food Market in Chinatown
      El Quinto Pino

    • Baked Egg Appetizer with Vegetables

      I loved this Mark Bittman recipe from The New York Times. I liked the idea of serving egg as an appetizer, but I loved that each guest was getting his own ramekin on the table even better. But for my first try, sans ramekins in our rental house in Austin, I buttered up a small baking pan to pull this off. I used some random vegetables we had in the fridge. When I served them, I just cut out each cooked egg with a spatula and served them on plates. It was a new take on eggs for our New Year’s Eve dinner.

      Ingredients:
      5 eggs
      2 tomatoes, sliced
      3 asparagus stalks, blanched, chopped
      1 cup of white mushrooms, chopped
      a handful of fresh basil
      knob of butter
      salt, pepper

      1. Preheat oven to 375º. Coat the inside of five ramekins with butter. Put one tomato slice at the bottom, then top with the vegetables. Two basil leaves per ramekin will do. Break one egg into each ramekin and season with some salt and pepper.
      2. Put the ramekins on a baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes or until egg is set. Because the ramekins retains heat, the eggs will continue to cook after you remove them from the oven, so it’s best to undercook them slightly.

      Related post/s:
      A memorable salad with egg in Washington, D.C.
      Eggs, the Chinese way

    • Rack of Lamb with Apricot-Lime Chutney

      We went crazy in Central Market when we were in Austin. Every produce aisle should look like theirs. After Cameron pushed the cart to pick up the ingredients she needed for her salads, we bought a $50 rack of lamb. I knew I wanted something savory for our New Year’s Eve dinner, so I went to the spice aisle and happily weighed some loose curry powder and bought it for 45 cents. With iPhone on hand, I Googled a chutney to match the Indian flavor. Because we were expecting a couple to join us for dinner to make us five, I wanted to do something low key as well. In fact, I was able to prepare the lamb in between courses; only the chutney was done before our guests came in. Cameron’s spinach salad peppered with blueberries, cranberries and almonds and roasted fingerling Peruvian potatoes were nice sides with this.

      Ingredients:
      rack of lamb
      garlic cloves, minced
      a small knob of ginger, peeled, thinly sliced
      curry powder
      salt, pepper, oil

      For the apricot-lime chutney:
      6 fresh apricots, pitted, chopped
      juice from a lime
      lime zest
      honey
      a small knob of ginger, peeled, thinly sliced

      1. Preheat oven to 350º. Make small slits all over the lamb using a sharp knife. Insert garlic and ginger. Cover the rack of lamb with the spices and let sit for half an hour or until ready to cook.
      2. Place all chutney ingredients in a saucepan, add water and bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add a little water if it begins to dry when simmering. Allow to cool before serving.
      3. Using an oven-safe frying pan, brown one side of the rack in hot oil. Transfer in the oven and cook for 25 minutes or until medium-rare. Let rest on a wooden block to finish cooking before slicing and serving.

      Related post/s:
      Another Indian-inspired dish using fruit chutney
      Salsa verde recipe good with either beef or lamb

    • Mandu Gook, Korean Soup with Dumplings

      I had a dozen dumplings in the freezer and a cold, so I could only think of making myself a big bowl of hot and spicy soup to combat the sniffles. I was too lazy to go anywhere to buy ingredients. I had to make do with whatever I could rummage in the pantry. Arugula? Check. Baby carrots? Check. Cabbage? Oooh, check. I found a small jar of dashi to make the broth taste like miso, and of course, there is a jar of kochujang paste to make it spicier.

      Koreans call dumplings mandu. Included in a soup using clear broth, it becomes mandu gook. Most restaurant mandu gooks come with rice cakes, or dduk, and therefore called dduk mandu gook. And that’s enough Korean lesson for today. Here’s my Filipino version of the soup that helped keep the medicine away.

      Ingredients:
      12 dumplings, thawed if frozen
      8 dduk, thawed if frozen
      a small wedge of cabbage, roughly chopped
      a handful of baby carrots
      a handful of arugula
      1 shallot, halved
      1 tbsp kochujang paste
      2 tbsps dashi granules
      1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
      salt

      1. In a stock pot, boil 8 cups of water with the dashi and the shallot. Turn the heat to medium-low when boiling and add the vegetables until the carrots are tender.
      2. During the last ten minutes of cooking, add the dduk and the dumplings to soften. Season to taste with salt and kochujang paste.

      Related post/s:
      Make your own dumplings
      Make other soups with dashi

    • Dovetail

      103 West 77th Street off Columbus Avenue
      212/362.3800
      $70 each for four, with two bottles of wine, with tip
      ♥ ♥ ♥

      A week into its opening, and chef-owner John Fraser, previously of Snack Taverna, already showed his guns. With ‘Cesca and Telepan, I am glad that I live close to the upper west side and have access to civilized dining without trekking all the way downtown. I will be completely jealous of the neighborhood residents when the restaurant starts serving its $38 suppers a la Lucques of Los Angeles. Judging from the dishes I had during opening week, I know it will also do well when it opens for brunch this new year.

      Four of us met at Dovetail to celebrate the end of the year, but one had to run in the rain on her way to the restaurant. Needless to say, she was very unhappy when she couldn’t find the faintly lit door on 77th Street. We all felt we had to apologize to the maitre d’ for her initial reaction, but the staff instead went out of their way to make it up to her.

      We immediately started drinking a bottle of Argentinian Malbec while we waited for our orders. An amuse-bouche of caviar and fried capers were served in artsy spoons on top of lentils. Back in my younger days when I volunteered to work in the Bryant Park fashion shows, I had my share of caviar snubbed by the models backstage. Liking caviar is an acquired taste and I’m sorry to say that I still don’t have it especially if they’re served with capers. Nothing to fret over, of course, because the appetizers started coming in.

      The pork belly with warm hen’s egg was delicious. The savory porcini mushrooms was a nice contrast to the runny yolk. I love, love, love runny eggs with my dishes! I wasn’t too keen in ordering the gnocchi since I just had them at Bouley three days before and again at Bacaro a week ago, but my friends really wanted to try the veal short ribs that came with it. With black truffles, prunes and shavings of Pecorino, it was an absolutely indulgent and hearty dish. I could eat this in a bowl on my lap any winter night with a glass of full-bodied red wine.

      The beef tartare on top of lobster meat was a good combination. Served cold, I thought it was a nice opposite to all the warm plates. I also couldn’t have enough of the Brussels sprouts leaves with Serrano ham. It was very simple; dressed so appropriately with cauliflower and pears.

      Into our second bottle of red, this time a lighter Grenache from Australia, we talked about how everything so far had been very satisfying. We have settled on our warm seats and my lone grouchy friend was no longer. The four of us continued to show our carnivorous sides with the beef sirloin, duck, lamb’s meat and tongue. The sirloin was served with beef cheek lasagna and chantarelle mushrooms. I can now get my favorite Babbo dish uptown! The duck, sent complementary by the chef, tasted like really good and juicy beef steak. They disappeared from the plate before I could get a second piece. The lamb, with a nice tabbouleh wrapped in grape leaves, was jazzed up with Indian spices, mint and yogurt. There just shouldn’t be any other way to eat lamb but medium-rare. The lamb’s tongue was an appetizer, but served with our main courses, it was a bit of an anomaly on the table–I ate on my own after my companions focused their attention on the other meats. The parsley leaves were a good distraction to the powerful offal-olive taste.

      As for the desserts, Dovetail’s pastry chef matched Fraser’s performance in the kitchen. The citrus came with a cookie and white chocolate. I’ve previously declared my love for desserts with a combination of tart and sweet, but my friends preferred the rich butter pudding with rum and bananas.

      As my first post in 2008, I am very satisfied with Dovetail. I hope this means the rest of 2008 will be even better. Happy eating!

      Related post/s:
      ‘cesca is in the neighborhood
      And so is Telepan

    • Dduk Bok-kee, Korean Beef Sauté with Rice Cake

      Koreans usher in the new year eating dduk, or what we non-Koreans refer to as rice cakes. Rice flour is used to make dduk and the end product is dense and sticky, like the Japanese mochi and the Filipino kalamay. I can only assume that Koreans eat dduk during the new year for the same reason Filipinos and Chinese eat noodles: for long lives, and well, “many children”.

      There are different kinds of dduk eaten as a snack or as dessert, but what I like are the cylindrical ones used in this hearty recipe. If I encounter this in a Korean restaurant, it’s usually sans meat, but having perfected my Korean bibimbap earlier this year, I thought that adding beef in it won’t hurt. Instead of a soup, though, I made a sauté with the beef lightly seared. Serve this with Korean store-bought banchan, or side dishes.

      Ingredients:
      a handful of Korean dduk
      1 small red bell pepper, julienned
      1 yellow squash, chopped
      1 bunch of scallions, chopped in 1/2-inch pieces
      1 tbsp soy sauce
      1 tbsp brown sugar
      1 tbsp sesame oil
      2 tbsps kochujang, or Korean red pepper paste
      1 tbsp peanut oil

      For the beef marinade:
      2 slices of lean beef
      1 tbsp soy sauce
      1 tbsp brown sugar
      1 tbsp sesame oil
      1 tsp mirin, or rice wine
      1 clove of garlic, minced

      1. In a small bowl, marinate beef while you prepare the dduk.
      2. In a small pot of boiling water, cook the dduk for 5 to 7 minutes. They’re done when a fork easily pricks them. Remove from the water using a slotted spoon. Set aside.
      3. Heat peanut oil in a sauté pan. Sauté scallions until soft. Add the red bell pepper and the squash and cook until tender. Move the vegetables to the side to make room for the beef. Add the beef and sear for 2 minutes per side. Remove the beef using tongs onto a chopping board.
      4. Remove the pan from the heat while you slice the seared beef against the grain. Turn on the heat again and add the beef back, the dduk and the remaining ingredients. Toss until completely combined. Add more kochujang paste if you want your dduk bok-kee spicier.

      Related post/s:
      Korean bibimbap recipe
      Kochujang sauce and sashimi
      Han Ah Reum has all the Korean ingredients you need