Hello! My name is Twonny, and I run this food blog, Shokudou Boogie! I hail from a bit north of Seattle, and I like to talk about food and create my own recipes!
Alright, now that I've had some of the dust settle, it's time for me to write this out.
About a week ago, I was inspired by a TikTok that I saw where this person made a scallop crudo. I thought the idea was genius, so I thought I'd give it a try. Seemed easy enough, and it would be a fun way to "revive" the blog by posting something fresh.
I'm corny, but you should already have known what you signed up for.
You'll have to forgive me though. I don't remember the exact measurements that I used for this dish, but I can list out the ingredients with a rough measurement. List of ingredients and instructions at the jump link below:
Ingredients:
3 fresh scallops, raw
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
1 sprig of tarragon, finely chopped
1 tbsp. fresh-squeezed orange juice
1 radish, thin slices
Microgreens (optional)
Steps:
Take your scallops and remove the "foot" of the scallop from the meat. The foot is a little square flap attached to the meat of the scallop.
In a small bowl, combine cold water, 2 tbsp. of salt, and sugar to create a quick brine. Add the scallops to the brine and leave in the container for about 15 minutes for the scallops to firm up.
While the scallops are sitting in the brine, grab a small bowl and add the olive oil, salt, tarragon, and orange juice, and mix enough so that all the flavors are bonded together. Set aside.
After 15 minutes, pull the scallops out of the brine and pat dry. Once the scallops are dry, turn the scallops on its side and slice thinly. You should be able to get at least three thin slices from your scallops.
Arrange the scallops on a cold plate. After plating the scallops, lay the radish slices on the scallops, and pour the olive oil and orange juice mixture on top of the scallops. If you want, add some microgreens on the top.
And that's it!
I don't really have any closing statements for this, but it's just a nice spring/summer dish to make. Perfect for impressing guests.
I don't even know if anyone really uses Tumblr anymore, but here I am, updating you all with a text post.
A bunch of life events occurred that kept me away from writing. Going off of the last post too, it's been over a year since I wrote something.
It's also fun looking back at some of the posts that I've made. Been just reading some of these recipes and how they've been written or "photographized" and saying to myself, "I think I could have done these better."
I do feel pretty bad for being away for such a long time. After a few life events that have drastically changed my life (for better or worse), it sucks that I had to push this aside. This was truly something that I loved updating whenever I had the opportunity.
I mean, I wasn't even waiting for the opportunity to happen. Food blogging was something that I actually made time for. I just wanted to share with friends and family the things that I was making, and talk about why I wanted to make it, or what makes whatever I made special.
There was always something about working "in the lab" when it came to cooking, taking pictures, and writing everything for this blog, and it's a feeling I do miss terribly. But I've caught myself wondering WHY I did try to keep up with blogging.
Like, did I actually care about the food blogging community? Was there something that I was trying to get out of blogging about food? What exactly was I trying to do? This funny joke-turned-fun project for me turning out to be not so funny, and not so fun, because of "keeping up with the Joneses"
One phrase that I've been keeping in the back of my mind is that "comparison is the thief of joy" and wow did I start to catch myself comparing myself to literally everyone, even professional chefs. I don't even remember the last time I stepped foot in an actual restaurant kitchen, so why does it even matter? Has social media brain rot really got me that bad? Answer: yeah it has. I wouldn't call it embarrassing, but I'm a little annoyed that I'm realizing that way later than I wanted to. Trust me, I've had so many dishes sitting in the back of my mind, but no motivation to make anything because I kept asking, "well, what's the point? Who gives a shit?"
Turns out that I, in fact, still do give a shit.
And that's why I'm posting now. It's gonna take a minute for me to get back into the swing of things to keep everything updated, but even writing out all of this makes me feel like my heart is in the right place.
I can’t remember how long it has been since I last foodposted, but here I am, foodposting.
Lots of big changes happened this past year, some bad, 90% all really good, and I thought that I’d hop back on the wagon and try posting again now that I have my own kitchen space.
Feels pretty good to be cooking and taking photos again. But man, I’ve been so out of it that I feel like I need to practice. I think it’s time to start motivating myself to cook stuff and bring people over so they can eat all of it. Also definitely need to up my photography game.
Anyway, I passed by a recipe for Nordic salmon soup and I thought I’d give it a shot. Had to kind of wing it for most of the recipe, but overall this was super quick and easy to make, except for maybe peeling the shrimp. It’s also been a while since I’ve worked with shellfish, and whew was I legitimately mad when I discovered that half of the mussels I bought were no good.
Thankfully they were cheap, but I wanted to put a TON of mussels in this soup, so seeing a bunch of floating corpses in the ice water bowl I put them in was pretty upsetting.
I also had to wing a few things as well. I think it would have been better if I used fish stock instead of chicken stock. Don’t get me wrong, it was just as good with chicken stock, but I personally like to stick with a theme as much as I can, if that makes any sense.Â
(Thinking out loud: it does not make sense, but whatever).
Also I didn’t have any sauvignon blanc wine on hand, so I thought I’d kind of improvise by using mirin and yuzu extract. The recipe called for 1/2 cup of wine, but I used a few tablespoons of mirin and yuzu. I didn’t want it to be overpowering, especially since yuzu extract can be pretty strong if used incorrectly.
Oh yeah, I didn’t have any creme fraiche on hand, so I just used sour cream. A totally acceptable substitute. It has less fat content and a bit tangier, which is fine with me. Didn’t make the soup weird at all.
Overall, good soup. I really like creamy soups, and I love salmon, so this hit all the right notes with me.Â
Here’s the link to the recipe if you want to give it a shot: https://food52.com/recipes/86788-nordic-salmon-soupe
There is no coincidence why I’ve decided to make chicken adobo today. Although I didn’t plan on doing this, I needed to clear my mind, and cooking was the only thing I felt that could help fix that.
October is Filipino American History Month. October was chosen to celebrate Filipino American History Month to commemorate when the first Filipinos arrived to America in October 18th, 1587.
Although Filipino American History Month is mostly focused on the the history of Filipino people, I’d like to use this month as an inspiration to gather inspiration and use it as a way to share my experiences growing up Filipino.
So yeah, this blog entry might turn a bit wordy, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.
Chicken adobo is a Filipino household staple. You can ask any Filipino person about adobo, and I guarantee you that they will immediately get hype and talk about the adobo they ate growing up. Almost every Filipino have their own variation of adobo that they call the best adobo that they’ve ever had. It only makes sense that they’d claim that their adobo is the best because it’s what they grew up eating. They’re familiar with it. It reminds them of home.
Adobo always reminds me of home too. Although my parents aren’t like culinary geniuses or whatever, some of the food that they’ve cooked for my family are dishes that I think any restaurant can replicate. I think a lot of other Filipino folks can say the same about the dishes they had growing up. I guess that goes without saying for a lot of home-cooked meals.
The adobo that I’ve made is based off of what my uncle taught me when he visited America for the first time. I went to visit my parents when my uncle was staying here, and I ate the adobo that he made. The biggest difference that stuck out to me was that he added a bit of calamansi juice, and some crushed red pepper flakes. I felt like those additions were next level.
So I asked my uncle, “hey, what goes into your adobo?”
He just looked at me, shrugged, laughed, and then said, “I just kind of guess!”
Alright, that’s good enough for me. Just means I have to do some research into what makes adobo, adobo.
But hold on just a second, adobo? Isn’t that a spicy pepper sauce marinade kidn of deal? Yes! But it is also a Filipino dish!
You lost me. I’m sure I did! So, the method of making adobo is actually an indigenous cooking process, but when the Spanish invaded the Philippines, they noted that the cooking method for what we call adobo today, is (hardly?) similar to Spanish adobo.
With that aside, I took a bunch of recipes and compared them to each other to get a better understanding of how to make adobo. The things that I’ve read, plus matching it with patches of memory of watching my parents make adobo, I was able to come up with a basic adobo recipe. Adding the calamansi juice and crushed red pepper flake is my uncle’s spin on it. Thanks Tito Jun for the inspiration.
Vinegar is a major component to adobo, and any kind of white distilled vinegar will do the trick just fine. However, I forgot I bought this giant bottle of Datu Puti white vinegar that had a bunch of peppers sitting in it. This vinegar in Tagalog is known as “sukang maasim” which “sukang” is vinegar, and “maasim” is sour.Â
What’s special about this vinegar is that it’s made from sugar cane. It’s more mellow like malt vinegar with a hint of freshness. It’s less harsh-smelling and feeling that regular white vinegar.
There isn’t an actual reason why I decided to go with this particular type of vinegar. It’s more of, “oh yeah, I forgot I had this.” Looking at the picture now, I have no idea if this is the special cane sugar vinegar. Whatever, it still tastes good.
Anyway, I’m sure you’re all just dying for the recipe, so hit the link to read the recipe!
Ingredients
2 lbs. chicken leg parts (thigh, drumstick), cut into serving pieces
3 dried bay leaves
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 of yellow onion, thinly sliced
7 garlic gloves, minced or crushed
1 1/2 cups water
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. whole peppercorns
1 tsp. lemon juice (or calamansi juice)
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper
Optional tip: Some recipes I’ve read request that you marinate the chicken in the soy sauce and garlic in a large bowl, and let it marinate for an hour. Honestly, this is a really good idea and you should do this, but I’m gonna type out how I prepared the adobo.
Required tip: Cook a pot of rice before serving. You’re gonna need rice for this.
1. Season the raw chicken pieces with salt and pepper, making sure that you get both sides evenly.
2. In a heavy-bottom pot, heat up your vegetable oil on medium-high heat.
3. Gently place the chicken into the oil and cook both sides of the chicken, 2-3 minutes on each side. You may have to cook the chicken in batches, depending on the size of your pot. Remove the chicken and place on a plate, and put it aside for now.
5. Put the chicken back into the pot, and then add the soy sauce, vinegar, water, peppercorns, bay leaf. Bring the pot to a boil, and then turn down the heat and reduce it to a simmer. Place the lid on the pot and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
6. After 15 minutes, add the red pepper flakes and lemon juice to the pot. Stir the contents a little bit to let the pieces flip over in the pot, making sure that it fully cooks and all of the chicken gets nice and tender. Once the chicken is tender, it’s pretty much ready to serve.
I bought some green onions and made long diagonal slices to garnish the adobo with. Just thought it would be a nice touch to hit it with some bright green colors.
But yeah, this is something that you’ve definitely gotta have a fresh pot of white rice for this. While the adobo I made was something I didn’t grow up with, like the recipe isn’t my parents, it’s something I’ve made my own that I hope that I can share with everyone else to bring into your home. I’m happy with how this turned out.
Hey all! Hope you guys are hanging in there during these hard times. I’ve finally had a few days where I could finally cook something, so I did just that.
Took some notes from one of the Bon Appetit special magazines that cover cast iron recipes, which I’ve been making a lot of, but this one I made a few adjustments of my own, only because I had way too much meat for cooking.
Normally, it’d be like, “too much meat? More like.. NOT ENOUGH”
But, ha, I initially had nine chicken thighs for this, but only seven could fit into the pan. Whoops!
While this is a pretty easy dish, and you can get most of the ingredients at one store, you might have trouble finding one particular ingredient. One of the ingredients that you may have trouble finding for this dish is harissa paste. You might be asking, “what is harissa?” Well, let me tell you!
Harissa is a hot chili pepper paste that comes from Tunisia, a country that’s located in North Africa. It’s a staple paste that’s used in various North African and Middle Eastern dishes. Like most things, there are different variations to harissa, but it generally includes roasted hot chili peppers, garlic, olive oil, and a mix of herbs and spices like caraway, coriander, and cumin.
Sounds good right? Well it is. However, it can be a little tough to find. I went to a local specialty food store (and the paste cost a pretty penny, ungh). You could probably have an easier time finding it at a Middle Eastern market, or online.
If you absolutely struggle trying to find harissa paste, just use your favorite hot sauce. As far as famous brands that I think of immediately, give Louisana Hot Sauce a try.
Now that I’ve given you the tech and knowledge, let’s get to creating this.
Ingredients
7-8 chicken thighs, skin on, bone-in
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 15.5 oz cans of chickpeas, rinsed (also called garbanzo beans, in case you get lost trying to find this)
1/4 cup harissa paste
1/2 low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 parsley, chopped
Kosher salt and ground black pepper
1 lemon, cut into wedges
1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.
2. While your oven is pre-heating, heat up the olive oil in your cast-iron skillet on medium-high heat.
3. Season your chicken thighs with the salt and pepper. Place 4-5 chicken thighs skin down on the heated cast-iron and then it cook. About 5 minutes on both sides. Remove the chicken and place on a separate plate, and then cook the remaining chicken the same way, cooking skin side down first.
4. There’ll be some excess liquid in the pan that you’ll want to remove, but save about a tablespoon of the good stuff.
5. Add the onions and garlic into the pan, stirring until the onions and garlic get soft. You’ll want to keep the mix moving so you don’t burn the garlic. Once that softens, add the tomato paste into the onions and garlic and keep stirring for about a minute or two, or until the mixture darkens a little.
6. Next, add the chickpeas, harissa paste, and the chicken broth. Since the pan is hot, and you’re pouring a bit of liquid in it, it’ll start to boil immediately. Turn down the heat and let the broth simmer for about 30 seconds.
7. Spread out the chickpeas on the pan so it’s a nice even layer, then nestle the chicken thighs on top of the chickpeas, skin side up. Put it in the oven, and let it cook for about 20-25 minutes.
8. Once it’s done, pull the pan out and sprinkle the chopped parsley on top of the chicken. Serve the chicken with the lemon wedges, which you and your guests can squeeze over your servings.
And that’s it! The boldness and spiciness from the harissa paste gives this dish some robust flavor, and it’s seriously difficult to stop eating it. I ate three chicken thighs myself and felt like I could eat more. Alas, true warriors understand their limits, but will work at surpassing them.
If you’re afraid of the spice, reducing the amount of harissa paste should be sufficient.
Anyway, time to think of more things to cook. I hope y’all enjoyed this recipe! Take care.
It’s funny, I feel like this is my best plating that I’ve done in a while, but I actually thought this pesto was only okay.
I thought I’d give Massimo Bottura’s pesto recipe a shot since it was very different than a traditional pesto recipe, but I’m actually unsure if I like this one or not! Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for pasta in this hot weather.
I did make a few blunders of my own while preparing this. I accidentally drained all my pasta water, and the ratios of the ingredients were kind of off. Another thing that I tried doing was imitating how Chef Bottura made his pesto in the video below.
I just couldn’t nail that bright green color, and I was starting to realize things were going badly.
As far as the taste went though, it certainly was a pesto alright, but the mint was pretty overpowering, and felt like it balanced the pesto all weird.
I’m definitely in no place to argue with someone that owns the best restaurant in the world. I can only think that there was something that I did wrong. It tasted good, and it was different, but like I said earlier, it wasn’t something that I expected.
Why did I write about this though? Thought it would still be fun to write something brief about a thing I made that didn’t turn out to my standards.
Maybe I’ll have to give this another shot some other time, or stick with tradition, haha.
If you can’t tell already, I’ve been watching so many Munchies videos. Watching all these chefs on the Munchies channel has been inspiring me to cook more, and these chefs having such a chill personality are definitely another factor that makes me get up and cook.
But yeah, I made butter chicken following Matty Matheson’s recipe! Matty is one of my favorite chefs and I really like his energy and his recipes (and his fashion sense!)
Here’s the video below:
This was a super fun recipe to follow, although I actually followed the recipe Matty provided on Vice’s website, and whew, was it a recipe to follow.
I’m gonna write about this, so if you wanna just watch the video and look at the picture, you can stop here, haha.
One of the things that he doesn’t specify in the video is controlling the heat. The blended vegetables in hot ghee was like creating napalm. It was bubbling a ton and splashing all over the place. In that state where you’re cooking the blended veg, you don’t need to have it super hot.
Let me tell ya, having hot ghee’d up vegetable mix splash your arm was not a pleasant feeling, and that was the whole butter chicken experience.
After adding the spices and deglazing with water, it also turned into hot magma and it became a point where I had to use the pot lid as a shield. Then I realized I could turn down the heat, put the lid on, and then turn up the temperature and let it boil a little bit. Just enough to draw out the flavors that Matty was describing.
Here are some pics from the cooking process! I’ve used some cheap collage-maker to show a little bit of the cooking process. Some of the ingredients that I needed were such a ball-ache to find initially. Thankfully, I was able to find a store that provided a lot of the things that I needed.
Note to self: stop trying to buy spices at non-Asian grocery stores.
It was a bit of a mental struggle for me too. The whole time I was assembling and brining things together, I was wondering if it was actually coming together. But once I’ve added the chicken, cream, and butter, everything started to come together and my confidence shot up. This was really fun to make!
The recipe actually yields a ton of servings, so be prepared to cook a lot of rice so you can have a ton of leftovers. I legit have lunch for the rest of the week, and then some.
Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed the frequency of posts! I’ve got another post that I’d like to work on soon! Hopefully I can crank out another one in a day or so.
Hello! Back at it again in the kitchen! Funnily enough, it turns out I don’t really need any fancy lights right now since I recently discovered that with my roommate’s fancy Hue lights that we’ve got set up in the house, I can actually set up like a really bright white light over the kitchen table, so.. yeah! Expect a ton of cooking posts soon since I feel like I’ve caught my second wind!
But yeah, I’ve decided to try cooking another Isaac Toups recipe, which is his chicken and andouille gumbo.
I know I already made something with chicken and andouille, but my initial cooking plans were ruined since I was having trouble some of these ingredients.
Another fun video by him, which covers the same basics that were in his other video about jambalaya. I’m honestly not sure why I opted for just gumbo this time around, but I did really enjoy making it! Made sure that my ratios for my flour and oil were alright, since I was incredibly paranoid about it during my jambalaya cooking session.
Making this holy trinity sweat as it’s making me sweat.
But yeah, I don’t really have a whole lot of information to share since it’s all in that video provided. It’s been very relaxing to do all this cooking lately though, despite how hot it has been.
Hopefully I’ll be able to find the ingredients I need for the next thing I want to cook! Gonna be waking up early and looking up places to check out. I understand why it’s difficult to find spices right now, but sheesh, I didn’t think it was going to be that hard.
Absolutely beautiful. I have so much left over.
Can’t wait to be eating this for a remainder of the week.
Anyway, if you guys wanna give this a shot, check out the video above. If you’re more of a recipe-follower, you can find the recipe here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z489zy/chicken-and-andouille-sausage-gumbo
Overall, it was easy to make, and I’m satisfied. I have to fight the urge to eat more since I’ve already have had several servings.
Uh, I don’t really have anything to talk about really! However, I’ve been watching a bunch of Munchies videos on YouTube, and I watched an episode that featured Chef Isaac Toups and he makes a really easy jambalaya.
I think I’ve watched about this episode once or twice a day for about two weeks that I eventually memorized how to make it. Here’s the video if you want to watch it!
It was really fun to make! Although I think I might have to actually find a whole leg instead of just the thigh and leg pieces. And maybe I’ll need to get a fancy cast iron stock pot like in the video. And maybe sear the chicken a little harder..
I’ve got a lot of ideas! Anyway...
I had some friends over (don’t worry, I confirmed that they are clean) and they tried it and they said it was pretty good! One of my friends was like, “Dude this is basically like a Popeyes side!”
Nothing like a big ol’ pot of jambalaya to treat your guests with.
Anyway, yeah, I just copied Isaac Toups word for word, action for action, making this jambalaya, so I don’t really have anything to input. So uh, here you go! Another picture for you guys!
I’m on a cooking roll right now, so hopefully I’ll have another post to write about soon!
I was inspired to make this from reading this Bon Appetit issue that covered cast iron recipes. I did make a few changes to the recipe, and to the procedure since I actually hated how it was written out.
I also thought that I don’t eat a lot of vegetables, and this is a sure-fire way to get me to eat my greens.
Anyway, this is a phyllo pie, basically. Not really a spanakopita since it’s not folded over and cut. Also doesn’t use spinach.
I’m guilty of ripping on my friends that abide by kale’s superfood qualities, but after making this a few times, I have respect for kale. I mean, I’ll still joke about it, but I really should be eating this regularly.
Making this initially was a pain in the ass because phyllo dough is weird to work with, with it being very delicate. Also had to make sure that my pan was cool enough for me to layer the phyllo. The first time I made this, I layered the phyllo dough into the hot/warm-ish pan after cooking everything and the dough started to stiffen and become really brittle. No bueno, and it was a pain to clean up.
Not a whole lot to write this time around. No anecdotes or anything this time around. So I hope y’all enjoy this recipe!
Ingredients
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil with some set aside for brushing
2 medium-sized red onions, finely chopped
1 lb. butternut squash, peeled, chopped into small cubes
1 1/2 tsp. fresh thyme, chopped
3/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 bunch of Tuscan kale, ribs and stems removed, sliced thinly crosswise
3 eggs, beaten
3 oz. grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. lemon zest
8 oz. phyllo dough, thawed
4 oz. goat cheese or feta, crumbled
Salt and pepper
1. First thing’s first is to have your thawed phyllo dough out, brought up to room temperature. Also, put your oven rack on the lower third of the oven. This is important.
1b. (Optional) Put the butternut squash cubes in a bowl and drape a damp paper cloth over it, and microwave the butternut squash for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. This’ll help make the squash kinda soft so it’s easier to cook to tender in the skillet.
2. Take your cast iron skillet and add the 3 tablespoons of the olive oil to the pan and heat it up using medium heat.
3. Once the pan is hot enough, add the chopped onions and cook them until they are softened, but not browned. Next, add the butternut squash to the pan and cook. Stir occasionally. The onions will be slightly brown, and the squash should be tender after cooking.
4. After cooking the onion and squash, add the chopped thyme and pepper flakes and mix gently, incorporating the thyme and pepper into the mixture.
5. Take the contents of the pan and put it into a medium/large bowl, and let it cool. Wipe out the contents of the skillet and set aside. Make sure to let the cast iron skillet cool too.
6. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
7. After the onion and squash has cooled, add the kale, eggs, Parmesan cheese, and lemon zest to mix, mixing everything gently, and adding 1-2 pinches of salt and a pinch of fresh pepper to the mix. Set aside.
. Now that the cast iron has cooled down, start layering the phyllo dough on the cast iron skillet and then start adding the kale mixture to the pan. After putting all the contents into the pan with the phyllo dough, sprinkle the goat cheese (or feta) on top. Fold the sides of the phyllo on top, but making sure to expose the center of the pie.
8. Brush the edges of the pie with some olive oil, and then bring the skillet back to the oven and heat up the skillet for about 3 minutes on medium heat.
9. After heating up the skillet and the contents, put the pan in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Basically until the the phyllo is golden brown.
10. Remove from the oven, and let the pie cool for about 15 minutes before serving.
That’s it! Pretty easy to make, and filling too! Although honestly, this lasted me for about 2 days since I kept eating it for my meals.
I’ve got a few more things that I’d like to cook, so hopefully I can get around to that.
Hey, it’s been a while! I say this every post I think. Oops, haha. I wanted to put this out way sooner, but I had an issue with my camera and SD cards and unfortunately this was all I could salvage from the photoshoot.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about Korean tofu soup, soondubu jjigae after watching a certain scene in this K-Drama called Itaewon Class. Best K-Drama I’ve ever watched. It’s on Netflix if you want to want to watch a good revenge story.
But I digress.
I went out to H-Mart to find myself a dolsot, which is this Korean stone pot used for making all sorts of Korean dishes. I found one to my liking and took it home and was ready to go to work.
However, I wanted to do things a little differently. The night before, I made a ton of awase dashi because I had a lot of leftover dried kombu and katsuobushi (dried bonito flake) in my pantry and I didn’t feel like searching for dried anchovy. So yeah, this isn’t 100% Korean, but I think it still turned out okay.
With all that said, let’s get down to making this delicious dish! This recipe will require a stone pot, but if you’re feeling more brave than I am, a regular saucepan should do.
I’ll provide a link to making awase dashi, since I lifted everything I know about making dashi through Just One Cookbook. Here’s the link: https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-make-dashi/
1 tube of soft tofu (it’s an actual tube, you can find this in most asian grocery stores)
1 egg
1. Before we start cooking, go ahead and mix the gochugaru and sesame oil in a small bowl.
2. Next, heat up the dolsot stone pot on medium-high heat for about 4 minutes. Once the pot is hot enough, carefully put the vegetable oil into the pot.
3. Add the chopped white onion and minced garlic to the pot and fry it for about a minute or two. Until the onions are soft, and the contents are really aromatic.
4. Next, throw in the the pork belly into stone pot and let that cook for a few minutes, until the pork loses the pink color.
5. Next, add the chopped kimchi and let that cook with the stuff in the pot for about a minute or two. Then add half of the cup of anchovy stock or awase dashi to the stone pot and let it come back up to a boil. Add the salt and sugar, and mix it into the contents.
6. Once the contents start to boil, reduce the heat to about medium, and put the stone pot lid on. Let it cook for about 7 minutes.
7. Once the 7 minutes have elapsed, add the soft tofu to the pot and break it up a bit with a wooden spoon. Next, top the soup with the chili paste that you’ve made earlier. You don’t have to add all of it, if you desire. Let the soup cook for another minute.
8. Crack an egg into the soup and cover the pot for about another minute. Once the egg cooks, you’re all set! Turn the heat off and transfer the pot to a heat-safe tray, like a wooden tray, and you can top off the soup with the sliced green onion.
But yeah, doesn’t take too much effort and I think the quality really relies on what you do for your stock options (hahahaha) and kimchi. Using awase dashi kind of gave the soup a bit of a light smokiness that I definitely thought was delicious.
And don’t limit yourself to what you could possibly add to it! There are other places I’ve been to for soondubu where they add other traditional items like shrimp or clams, or some of the wilder ones like cheese?! Really good stuff.
But yeah, the pictures were from the third time I’ve made this soup, and I’m definitely putting this on heavy rotation when I want something hearty to eat!
I hope you all enjoyed this post. See you next time!
Oh! Before I forget, if there’s anything confusing about what I wrote, please feel free to reach out to me! I like talking to people, haha.
I recently bought a mandolin slicer and I’ve been playing around with it. I mindlessly sliced up a ton of garlic cloves and realized, “oh no... I’ve sliced up too much garlic”
After lounging around trying to figure out what to make, an idea was pitched to me via text, “why don’t you make that garlic and parsley pasta? You know, the one from Chef?”
Good idea. Let’s do that.
If you guys aren’t familiar with the scene (or the movie for that matter), let me provide you a clip with the scene that I’m referencing.
I don’t want to go into details about the movie, but you see Jon Favreau’s character making a simple pasta dish for Scarlett Johansson’s character. Olive oil, garlic, spaghetti, parsley, salt, pepper. That’s it. That’s all that is.
You can also see Jon Favreau and Roy Choi (who was a co-producer of the film) make the same pasta on their Netflix show titled “The Chef Show”
Anyway, uh, I’m not really sure what else to add here, except that this dish is easy as hell and anyone can do it.
I’ve come to learn that plating pasta is really hard and I think I’m gonna need to do some more food styling research.
You can find the recipe is easily accessible on the show’s website. In fact, I’ll link you to to the recipe now:
https://thechefshow.com/recipes/scarletts-pasta
I do have some tips that I might want to add here that I’d like to do a little differently for next time:
MORE PARSLEY. I feel like I didn’t use enough. Maybe 1 1/2 cup (or 2 cups if you’re daring) of chopped parsley to put more green on the pasta.
Use exactly 1 tbsp of red pepper flakes that the recipe calls for. I put a heaping tablespoon in the oil and.. that might have been a little too much. I also let it cook too long in the oil and the olive oil got pretty red.
A pound of dry spaghetti is a crapton of noodles. If you’re just trying to make some for yourself, definitely cut the recipe in half, but maybe keep the amount of garlic the same.
Pasta water will help make this dish more silkier and not dry. Definitely keep some pasta water aside after you boil your noodles.
Those are the only tips that I can think of right now. But yeah, it’s a pretty easy dish to make, and it’s just full of flavor that people will not shut up about. Definitely give it a try to impress whoever you want to impress, or to impress yourself.
What’s up guys! Hope you are all doing well out there and staying safe! Me? I’ve been cooped up at home and I’ve finally got the ball rolling on organizing my kitchen so hopefully this means more cooking posts and streams from me soon!
I don’t really have a thought-out post for this. Basically, I remembered about a pasta dish I had when I was visiting a friend in Vancouver and how I was so moved by the dish that I bought a pasta roller while I was up there. On top of that, I’ve been talking about Italian food on-and-off with my partner.
Realizing how bored I’ve been, and not having the desire to play video games like usual, I thought it would be a good idea to put some good ideas to use.
More to read, and a recipe to follow after the jump.
To be honest, I had some kind of post all thought out in my head, but I completely spaced out and now I can’t remember what I had planned.
Uh, boredom and inspiration just kind of collided with each other and gave me the kinetic energy to get up and do something about it. So I masked up and went to the grocery store to pick up things to make the pasta and ragu.
I thought that maybe trying to make the sauce first before blogging about it just so I can get my memory jogged would be a better way to go, but I thought, “hey this could actually be really fun to stream”
So I streamed myself making the ragu, and the fresh pasta from scratch.
Here’s proof of me making the pasta. One of my friends watching the stream managed to get some screenshots.
Did the well method and mixed everything by hand, and cut them myself. Wanted wide strips, so I went for making papardelle noodles, which are perfect for meat sauces. I had a bit of a battle with the pasta roller, and after ending the stream, I realized I could have just moved my laptop to point at another table where I could have clamped the pasta roller to. Oh well, haha.
As far as the recipe that I used for making the pasta dough, I’ll just link the recipe that I used. Maybe I’ll cover pasta making in a future post since it’s actually super fun, but I had to use a reference to making pasta dough from scratch because I couldn’t remember it. Here’s the link: https://tasty.co/recipe/fresh-pasta-dough
The flour I used for the dough was just some regular ol’ AP flour since the store I usually frequent for fancy things was out of 00 flour and semolina flour. Whoops. Just means I had to use more eggs, which is fine.
(This post is all over the place, I apologize. It’s been a while)
Anyway, the focus of this post is the ragu. I forgot where I learned it, but for some reason, I just remembered about it. So, going off of memory, here’s the recipe I used.Â
Note: you’ll need a food processor for this.
Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef, 85/15 fat ratio.
1/3 lb. of ground pork
1 medium sized carrot
1 medium white or yellow onion
1 stalk of celery
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
24-26 oz. of crushed tomatoes. Plum tomatoes are preferred
3-4 large cloves of garlic, cut into big chunks
1. Chop up your onion, carrot, and celery into large chunks and put them in your food processor. You’ll want to blitz the vegetables until it basically becomes a nice puree.
2. In a large stockpot, pour a little bit of the olive oil into a medium-high pot, then add the blitzed vegetables to the pot. You’ll want to let the vegetables simmer in the oil, until it starts to become really fragrant. About 10 minutes.
3. Once the vegetables become fragrant, add the beef and pork, letting it brown with the mixture. Once the meat becomes brown and starts releasing fat, add the tomatoes, the remaining olive oil, and chopped garlic.
4. Get the pot up to a boil, and then reduce to a low bubbling simmer. Cover the pot with a lid and let it simmer for at least 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally, and adding salt and pepper to taste.
5. Take some of the ragu and heat it up in a separate pan, and mix it with your favorite pasta noodles, like a tagliatelle (because I’m dictating what your favorite noodles are). Mix thoroughly, and plate it and serve it.Â
While I realize these pictures do not really showcase the ragu, I can tell you that it’s pretty good. The fat collected in the sauce is what really drives home those really strong meaty, hearty flavors for the pasta, and it really helps the sauce stick to the pasta. As far as pasta goes, I used papardelle because I wanted BIG noodles.
I topped mine with some red chili flakes, some shaved Parmesan and Fontina cheese, and a sunny-side up egg, as a homage to the pasta I had at Ask for Luigi, the restaurant I visited in Vancouver.
I’ll have to make another pasta post talking about making fresh pasta, but for now, feast your eyes on these pictures.
I’ve got a doozy of a post here, so it’ll be pretty long. Might have some coarse language as well, so just a heads up.
I woke up this morning thinking about mozzarella. I’m not entirely sure why, but nothing really inspired me or prompted me to make mozzarella. I just thought, “hey, why don’t I try making mozzarella?”
I recalled how simple it is from watching Ugly Delicious on Netflix, so I thought that I’d give it a shot since I was up early enough.
It’s safe to assume that everyone knows about mozzarella. It’s a cheese originating from Italy, and it’s traditionally made from buffalo milk. I don’t have any access to buffalo though, so whole milk was the next best option.
After going through a wild goose chase trying to find citric acid and rennet, I was able to buy everything else that I needed to make the mozzarella.
Doing some research on making mozzarella, it seemed pretty easy enough, and doesn’t take long at all, so I felt pretty confident that things would turn out okay. It was, however, the complete opposite, and I have never felt so nervous making something like cheese from scratch.
Hit the jump to read about my experience, and a recipe.
So, the recipe was simple enough, and only called for a few ingredients. Whole milk, preferably pasteurized, not “Ultra Pasteurized” or whatever it was called. Some rennet, citric acid, and salt.
I took a gallon of whole milk and poured it into a large 6-quart dutch oven, then poured in my citric acid and water mixture. Simple enough. Then I heated the milk up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
Devil number for funsies
After I removed it from the heat, I added the rennet and water mixture to the milk, stirred it in, and then the waiting game began. This is where the nervousness began to set in, because a lot of recipes called for a five-minute waiting time for the milk to stiffen up, almost like soft tofu.
However, I was not experiencing that at the moment. I even posted an Instagram story with the frustration that was starting to come through.
About ready to give up at this point. But at the same time, giving up was not an option.
I waited five minutes, then I waited another five. Still not getting the soft-tofu like curds to show up yet. I’m starting to get worried because I was not thrilled with the idea of pouring a bunch of milk with a bunch of crap in it down the drain.
So this time, I waited another 10 minutes, and then out of desperation, when I tried to cut the curds, it turns out I got that soft-tofu that I wanted!
YES
From there, I put the pot back on the heat so I can heat up the curds to extract more whey out of it. Up to 105 F, the whey started to separate from the curds, and it was looking more like what I saw on the YouTube tutorials.
Yuck. But YESSSSSSS.
After working it a little bit, I scooped out the curds with a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl. It was now time to heat up the cheese in a microwave to get it up to 135 F so I can shape the cheese and get the mozzarella to it’s deserved glory.
I was a little off-put by using the microwave, but almost every recipe I looked at kept mentioning the microwave. I’m no expert on cheese, so I’ll take any advice that I can get.
Slop time, baybee
I didn’t think I was going to yield that much cheese. I think I got about a pound of mozzarella. I didn’t think of it that hard though, since I wanted to make as much cheese as I could. The fact that I’m making my own cheese was exciting enough.
After warming up the cheese in NOT the bowl pictured above, I salted the mozzarella a bit to draw out the taste, and started folding, stretching, and working the cheese. However, it was kind of cold in my kitchen, so working the cheese was a little difficult, and I couldn’t really see how stretchy we could get the mozzarella. I think that’s something to ponder the next time I make this.
But this is what I was left over once I pinched off my small mozzarella balls.
Oh my god, what am I going to do with all this...
The experience of making my own mozzarella was fun, and I think there are going to be a few times where I make this, but I might try different things with it. For starters, I might use a different kind of rennet, since the one I used was something that no one recommended at all and that I should avoid (oops).
Overall, this was really fun to make. But enough of my rambling: here’s what I did to make this mozzarella.
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups of water
1 1/2 tsp citric acid
1 Junket rennet tablet
1 gallon of milk, whole
1 tsp. kosher salt
I’d like to note that you NEED a thermometer for this. Do not attempt to wing or ballpark the temperature. You will screw it up.
1. Take one cup of water and stir in your citric acid until it dissolves. Take the remaining water and put it in a separate bowl/container and dissolve the rennet tablet in there.
2. Pour your gallon of milk in a non-reactive pot (like a ceramic dutch oven) that’s about 6-7 quarts. Stir in your citric acid solution into the pot and then set the pot over medium high heat, heating up the contents up to 90 F.Â
3. Once the milk is 90 F, remove the pot from the heat and then stir in the rennet solution and start counting to 30. Once you get to 30, put the lid on the pot, and leave it alone for 5* minutes.
* I’d just like to note that if it’s still liquid-y, let it sit for another 5-10 minutes. I waited almost 20 minutes until I started getting the soft-tofu texture.
4. After the milk has set, cut a grid into the curds, cutting horizontally, then vertically, and that you’re cutting to the bottom of the pan. Once you’ve cut the curds, put the pot back onto medium heat, letting the curds reach a temperature of 105 F, while stirring gently.
5. Once the curds reach the temperature of 105 F, remove from the heat, and stir gently for another 4-5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the curd and place into a microwave-safe bowl.
6. Microwave the curds for about a minute and drain off any excess whey. Fold the curds together so they hold together a little bit. You may want to use food-safe gloves so you don’t burn the heck out of your hands.
7. After folding it together a few times, stick the bowl back into the microwave for 30 seconds to heat up the cheese, and check the temperature. If it’s 135 F, the cheese is ready for stretching and shaping. If not, stick it in the microwave for another 30 seconds. You want the cheese warm enough so it’s easy to stretch and fold.
8. The more you work the cheese, it’ll become smoother, more firm, tighter, shinier. Once you get to that point, you can start pinching off balls of mozzarella in any shape that you want. Me, I pinched off four small balls so I could use it for my plating.
And... that’s it!
For my mozzarella balls, I’ve topped it off with some salt, some fresh ground pepper, and garnished it with basil and olive oil.
Everyone says that it’s good right away, and you can store it in a small container with some of the leftover whey with salt so that it doesn’t dry out.
With how easy this was, I’m definitely going to have to do this again. It’s so easy and it’ll save so much money, and now I can brag to people that I’ve made my own cheese.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this new format where I’ve tried to take pictures of the cooking process. I don’t know if I’d ever do that again, but I’ll admit it was fun. If I had another person with me that could take pictures, that would be ideal, but... yeah. *shrug*
Because of the long weekend that I’ve mentioned earlier, I thought I’d make a few extra things yesterday to kick this post off.
I’ve been reading Aaron Franklin’s book, Franklin Steak: Dry-Aged. Live-Fired. Pure Beef, and I learned a few new things about cooking steak, and the ideal ways to cook certain cuts of beef.
I’m no stranger to making steak at home, but learning about other techniques, origins of grilling techniques, and even places to order meat online, was pretty cool. Near the end of the book, Aaron brings up some recipes for sauces and other accompaniments that go well with steak, and I decided to do the one featured on the cover: the salsa verde.
The beef in all it’s glory.
It’s pretty simple to make, and although it was packed with flavor, it was really refreshing to eat, and paired so well with the steak. Might have to do with the acidity of the lemon zest and capers in the sauce. I think the flavor really comes through because of the chopped anchovies.
Although you see a little bit of it on the steaks, I’ve completely forgot to take pictures of the actual sauce and the process of making it since I wanted to show it off. Again, super simple, and I’ll out how I went about making this. You can read more at the jump!
Ingredients:
2 bunches parsley, flat-leaf
4-6 cloves garlic
3 olive oil-packed anchovy fillets
1 tsp. fine salt (sea salt is what I used)
1/4 cup small capers, drained
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. honey
1 tsp. rice vinegar
1 lemon
Pro strats: If you want to make this, make it hours in advance, or even overnight, before you make your steak.
You want the flavors to sitÂ
1. Pick the parsley leaves from the stems and throw away the stems. You’ll want to collect all the leaves, and then finely chop the parsley. Once that’s all chopped up all nice and fine, set it in a bowl.
2. If you’ve got a mortar and pestle, throw the garlic and the salt into the mortar, and grind the heck out of the garlic and the salt to make a paste. If you don’t have one, you can use the back of your knife to smash the garlic. Salt the garlic, and then continue to chop and flatten with the back of your knife until you get a nice paste going. Rubbing the mixture with the back of your knife will help with the paste process too.
3. Once you’ve got your garlic paste, chop up the anchovy fillets and add to the garlic paste, and doing the paste process again. Once your paste is ready, go ahead and add it to the bowl of parsley.
4. Next, you’ll want to finely chop your capers. Add the capers to the bowl.
5. With a zester, zest the lemon and add it to the bowl with everything else. If you’re like me and don’t have a zester, use a vegetable peeler to peel the lemon, cut into thin strips, and then chop it all up, so you get zest-like pieces to add to the bowl.
6. Lastly, add the oil, honey, and vinegar to the bowl and mix it well. Store it in a container with a tight cap, and let it sit overnight so you can let all the flavors of the ingredients come together. You’ll want to bring it to room temperature when you’re ready to serve it.
Really easy to make, and really goes well with almost everything. I even made some potato wedges and was adding a little bit of the salsa verde on them. I think it would go great on fish and chicken.
Definitely recommend this recipe to y’all, and the book as well, since it’s got a lot of cool info about... well... everything about beef! It’s more of like a really friendly science textbook than a cookbook. I’m still going through it, but I’m having a blast reading it.
Here’s a link to a Barnes and Noble page where you can buy the book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/franklin-steak-aaron-franklin/1129798712;jsessionid=0083AD1EA6663970F09D2187359F7FC0.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781984857125#/
(Don’t worry! I don’t benefit from the link! I just wanna share some good info!)
Hey all! It’s been a while! Been really busy lately with some life things, as usual, but I thought I’d knuckle down and actually try to cook something.
Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to cook anything, and I feel like I’ve gotten kind of rusty. Thankfully, with this long weekend, I’ll have plenty of opportunity to practice.
Anyway, I visited my parents the other day and they gave me a ton of cooked brisket. I’m not really sure why, but it tasted pretty good, so there isn’t any reason I should say no to it. Naturally, when you have a bunch of leftover meat and rice at home, you make fried rice.
I used the “golden fried rice” method since my leftover rice didn’t dry out enough. The golden fried rice method is when you beat an egg or two and pour the beaten egg over the rice. This helps separate the grains so that there’s no clumps. However, I screwed up and used whole eggs, instead of just the yolk, so the deep golden yellow color is absent here.
To add a little bit more flavor, I sliced a few cloves of garlic and fried it in olive oil, and also chopped up some Thai chili peppers to add a little bit of heat to the rice. After removing the garlic and chili, I put the brisket in and let it cook in the chili garlic oil.
I extracted the meat from the wok, and then put the rice in, trying to loosen any remaining clumps, and then I threw everything else into the work and let everything cook.
Despite my several attempts at making fried rice, I feel like there’s always a better way to make it, and I’m always exploring that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this short read. My photography has gotten rusty, and I’m nitpicking the little things in the pictures that I took, but I should be able to get the hang of everything again. Consistency is key!
Didn’t think I’d make a post so close together did I?
Well I did!
This time around, I’ve decided I wanted to make my own spin on a popular Japanese dish, roast beef don. After many failed attempts at making roast beef with my very limited knowledge, I told myself, “screw it, I’m just gonna sear a steak and slice it thin and go from there.”
More reading at the jump below!
Honestly, I’m a little floored with how well this turned out! While I feel like I didn’t really get the taste I wanted, what I got away with is still delicious. For the steak, I picked up a New York strip since it was on sale at the local grocery store, and followed Gordon Ramsay’s advice on cooking a steak. Haven’t seen the video? Well, here you go!
And as far as slicing the steak, I used a damascus steel slicer that my friend in Japan gave to me as omiyage! I was really excited to use it since it would be the first time I’ve used a special knife to perform a task. The knife is a general slicer, which helps cut things like meats and fish really thinly and precisely due to the long slender blade.
After I cut the steak nicely, I thought it would be nice to pile on the steak slices on top of rice, spiraling it upwards, and making a little divot for the egg yolk to rest.
To dress it up a little more, I thought I’d add a small bunch of radish shoots, and a dollop of horseradish to complete the look of the bowl. Last roast beef dons I’ve had had this kind of onion relish on it, but I have no clue where to even look on how to make it, so I’ll be saving that for another day.
Overall, this was another easy dish to make, and while it wasn’t reminiscent of what I had in Japan, having something close enough works for me, and I can spin it as my own creation.Â
Always gotta take a sexy broken yolk picture, right?
Anyway, a short and sweet post. I’m happy that I got another post out, and that I’ve been more in the mood to cook more stuff and take some time and effort to take pictures. I have a lot more ideas on the horizon and I can’t wait to share them with you all.
