Mmm dinner...

Its been a while, I know... I just quickly want to share a couple recent dinners....

Mmm... Moroccan spiced rack of lamb



And, homemade carnitas! I liberally spoofed two recipes, here and here. I made them much more spicy, so good!

Which mixer to buy...

[I apologize that I have not posted very frequently recently. I've lived in 3 different places in the last 2 months as I slowly make my move to Champaign, IL. So if you made it here from FoodieBlogroll, never fear! When I get settled into my new kitchen, I will be posting away. So follow me, bookmark me, whatever... Stay tuned!]

I need some input... I've decided that my cooking just cant continue to advance without adding a stand mixer to my kitchen :) So I was wondering... Does anyone have input on which Kitchenaid to get? The Pro Line Series? The Professional Series? The Artisan Series? I know I want one who's head tilts back, and I can tell that the Artisan has this feature, but I cannot tell for the others.

Any advice?

Cool Brunch Spot- Perennial

Our farmers market trips also led us to discover a new brunch spot. The very first time we headed to the market, we showed up as all the farmers were packing up. As we were walking to hail a cab to take us to Whole Foods, I spotted this place Perennial that I had read good things about. I audibled for brunch there and am I glad we did.... modern takes on classic breakfast foods served in an open, breezy space on a lovely Saturday afternoon :) It was good enough that we went this Saturday after the market too!

A good bloody mary is enough to please me and this one is too cool! I don't normally drink my bloody marys with beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.... (hehe-anyone?)



Mike ordered the biscuits and gravy both times, which looked so good even I tried the sausage gravy (two things I do NOT eat). I ordered the french toast made on some sort of almond baguette with spiced apples and creme.

Dinner from the Farmers Market

Mike and I have been frequenting the Green City Market in Lincoln Park on Saturday mornings. Given how much of my time I have spent reading about the horrors of industrial agriculture between last year's debate topic and my new job, I am excited to get to shop for local and organic produce. This particular farmers market does not require all of its vendors to be organic... yet. They have set 2012 as the date their vendors have to make the transition. So you have to wander around a bit and talk to the farmers about what they are selling.

I do a lot of cooking with onions and garlic, so these were natural pickups... I was psyched to buy my very own green garlic that has been popping up in recipes this season (and to try to cook something more delicious with it than the green garlic soup I had at Blackbird- fail).



We got there late two weekends ago, and all the meat vendors were out of beef. That was OK with me because I have been craving lamb. We got 2 chops each, which we seasoned with garlic. (I apologize for the way this picture looks. It came out of the camera looking funny, and it still looks wrong after my attempt to doctor it up)



Here is the final product, with fried rice made by Mike... also with local garlic and onions...



I was a little apprehensive about how the chops would turn out since we didn't have any cumin or other lamb-friendly spice (sigh, the tiny kitchen)... but the Natures Seasonings did the trick. Obviously, I don't know why I doubted it.

The taste...

I wish I had taken more pictures at the taste. But its kind of hard enough to carry around food and a drink dodging through thousands of people without having to worry about a camera too. I did catch a quick snap of what turned out to be my favorite selection... the fried potato chips from Harry Carrys, I got them each time we went....



By the way, this is the AFTER picture... it used to be a huge mound about a foot tall :)

Yes, I love the deep fryer

Ok, are you seeing a trend here? We like to deep fry things.



These onion rings are a casually followed version of a Barefoot Contessa recipe.

But really, we don't discriminate against any type of frying... Mike is getting good at the rice.

A couple new things

I know I haven't posted in a while... there hasn't been much cooking done in the little kitchen in the studio "apartment" (its really a dorm) that we have. But I do have a couple of pictures to share.

First, before we left Champaign, Mike and I made creme brulee. I don't know why, we were bored, and with a Meijer 200 yards away, why not. Why yes, I can buy ramakins and a flame thrower 5 minutes from my house.



One of them didn't set, but they turned out nicely overall. I want to flavor them next time.



We also made some fried olives.



Mmmm.



Next time, I really would like to do black olives or at least fresh ones... these tasted very briney.

Speaking of Beef Jerky...

One of the cool things about driving across the country is getting to eat all the cool food along the way. No, not Cracker Barrel... my two favorite things are side-of-the-road fruit stands and the regional selections of beef jerky at gas stations.

Driving through Lexington, we stopped to visit Brandi and Reuben, and sharp had this totally awesome beef jerky. I made two stops at gas stations before I found that the Shell stations sell this particular brand made in Kentucky. Mike thought I was crazy until we tried it... and quickly regretted only buying 3 bags.

I found that you can buy it online. We got the hot and the spicy cajun and both were really good.

Burn on Gordon Ramsay

I really like Gordon Ramsay's two shows on BBC America.... the F Word and Kitchen Nightmares (the American version on FOX is ok, but the BBC version is better... trend?). These were staples on the DVR at my house this year and are pretty entertaining.

But bollocks... according to Restaurant Magazine's new rankings of the top 50 restaurants, his are falling. Tom Colicchio lost his Michelin star at Craft after a couple years on TV. But its not like either of those guys work themselves at those restaurants anyways... they hire executive chefs. There definitely seems to be annoyance with those chefs who become TV stars... everyone hates Bobby Flay and Rachel Ray. I used to dislike Tyler Florence. He was that obnoxious guy on the TGI Fridays commercials. Then I tried several of his recipes and they were really good.

I'll just have to go to one of Gordon's restaurants to try it myself :)

Mmm Beef Jerky

I found this recipe for homemade thai flavored beef jerky. I definately want to try to make this asap.

Garam Masala Roasted Chicken

For dinner tonight I am making Garam Masala Roasted Chicken, which is my variation on a Food and Wine recipe. First, I don't mess with making their fig jus. I'm sure its delicious and all, but for someone who usually eats this chicken right after carving it and still standing over the pan, I can't even make it that far in the recipe. Second, if you stop with the amount of seasoning they recommend, its turns out pretty bland.



My spin on the recipe:

2-3 lb. whole chicken
1 cup garam masala
1/2 cup jerk chicken seasoning
1/4 cup cumin
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon each of salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

I didn't take pictures of the prep for this one, cause well, there isn't really anything interesting to show. Rinse off the chicken and remove anything inside the cavity. Place in a roasting pan.

Mix the seasonings together in a small bowl with the olive oil until it becomes a spreadable paste. I know it's probably some culinary crime to combine garam masala and jerk seasoning, but whatever... it tastes awesome.

Today, I did not have enough garam masala left to complete the recipe so I improvised by including some of its components that I had on hand into the mix. I added some ground coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, allspice (I know, a loose fit), and then some chili powder, garlic powder, and black pepper (which aren't close at all, but they fit the flavor profile close enough that my roommates wouldn't know the difference). I also upped the cumin because I love it, but I understand there is already alot in the recipe :)

I digress. After you make a paste, rub it all over the chicken, including in the cavity, giving it a nice liberal coating. I like to give it another sprinkle of salt and pepper here too.

Cook the roast at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Then turn the temperature down to 350 and cook for an hour, basting as needed. Raise the temp back to 425 for another 10 minutes. Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temp (about 165), then take the chicken out and let it rest.

Mmmm... this chicken makes your house smell awesome. I am writing this as its roasting because I can't stop thinking about it. At least I am turning that time into something productive.

Done! And ok, I do this every time... I forget that the brown sugar in the jerk spice burns if you turn up the heat again at the end. I need to remember to cut that step... its not necessary to cook the chicken, and the skin gets crisp enough as it is with the regular cooking time.





Don't ask about the biscuits. Seriously... something went horribly wrong. They tasted really funky. I need to stop trying to bake in a kitchen that doesn't have baking powder or cream of tartar... or shortening... or powdered sugar... or vanilla... sigh.



Ugh. They looked like they had so much potential.

Anyways, the best part of this endeavor: this left over chicken makes an awesome sandwich. I can't wait till lunch tomorrow. (Chicken + caramelized onions + bacon + lettuce + ranch + toast = COBLT mmm)

Homemade pasta

I have been wanting to make my own pasta for a long time. Partly because its something I eat everyday and partly because I have this dorky desire to learn how to make more italian food from scratch. And partly because it feeds my need to buy more kitchen gadgets. But I decided to take a stab at it now even before acquiring a pasta maker. I've been trying to cook at home more and I ran out of things to cook. I was staring down another night of pasta, so I thought, what the hell...

Pasta dough:
2 cups of flour
3 eggs
1/2 tsp of salt

I emptied my flour out on my wooden cutting board and made a cup for the eggs in the middle. After adding the salt, you use a fork to slowly fold the eggs and flour together. My board was too small so I quickly moved to just working the dough with my hands. I didn't know what texture I was looking for, neither the Mario Batali recipe or the other one I was consulting said much other than "dont let it stick to anything." Ok.

I kneaded the dough for 4 or 5 minutes until it kept as a firm ball. Then stowe it away in a bowl under a moist paper towel for 15 to let it rest. Batali says the kneading and resting are key parts of the pasta process, so I'm gunna listen to him on that.

After the wait, I brought out a larger cutting board to roll out my dough. I didn't have a rolling pin (college house = hodgepodge collection of cooking utensils) so I used a clean wine bottle, a helpful hint a read somewhere. Well, I had to separate the dough into 3 sections in order to roll it all out to then hand cut into strips. It was a little thick in some parts and some of the pieces broke while drying. The recommended drying time varied widely amongst alot of the recipes I came across... I went with about 15-20 mins, or about the amount of time it took me to finally roll and cut the whole batch.

When the pasta was just sitting in the strainer ready to go into the pot, it looked like a pathetic amount of food. When I tossed it in the boiling water, it all immediately puffed up huge and slimy. My roommate that was helping me looked at me clearly thinking "gross, I do not want to eat that anymore."

Well, I figured, why waste it... let it cook and see what happens. I let it go for about 3 minutes before trying it and thought it was done on the first try. After straining it, I served myself a rather small portion, a little worried about how it would taste. I doused it in olive oil, red pepper, black pepper, salt, and some italian seasonings. OH and the best part... a lot of bacon. I fried up a whole package because we ran out of plastic bags to keep the extra in (again, what happens in a college house). This also helped me bribe Sean to eat some of the pasta with me.

It was GOOD. Looked like hell, but tasted awesome. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. I assumed it wouldn't be even worth writing about. But thats OK because it will encourage me to try it again very soon.

Next time I gotta roll the pasta thinner... and come up with some interesting way to dress it.

First round playing with the molecular gastronomy cookbook

Here is photographic evidence to support my decision to broaden the scope of blog :)

From the get go, we realized this was going to be difficult. The measurements in the recipe (pg. 55) from the kymos collection were in grams. So we had to weigh out our liquids on a scale instead of using measuring cups.

250g cranberry juice



We then mixed the setting bath according to the recipe. Mike has all this crap in his apartment that ended up being really useful- little sauce cups to hold the different chemicals, an immersion blender, and tons of chop sticks.

setting bath:
500g water
2.5g calcium chloride



Then we mixed the cranberry juice with sodium alginate to make the "caviar" gel... the texture was off-putting. It looked like one of those smoothies that has too much protein powder in it.

Cranberry mixture:
250g cranberry juice
2g sodium alginate



We put that mixture into the dropper from the kit, and slowly tried to create the little spheres that look like caviar. The first attempt went OK.



That is, they looked ok... They tasted like nothing. But with a really strange consistency...



The second try failed. This time I tried tomato juice, but I clearly did not adjust the pH balance correctly. I also am clearly a beginner at this because I forgot to take pictures of the steps where we added the sodium citrate to adjust the pH to the right level to set in the bath. We had to adjust the cranberry juice too.



The last batch produced the nicest spheres. They make for the prettiest picture at least. Too bad I don't remember what kind of caviar it is... potentially my Dr. Pepper batch...



Alas, we stopped messing with it for now. I think this summer I will get some real recipes to try my hand it.

Post 2... or, oh yeah, that blog i was going to start...

I finished my thesis so now I can turn my time back to seeing if I can actually enjoy writing. I'm skeptical, but we'll see. I am also "relaunching" the blog. I originally thought it was going to be mostly about molecular gastronomy, but our first try at that went so poorly that I just don't think I could sustain talking about it (let alone attempting to do it) for very long. So ignore that first post really. Its long and boring, but I don't want to delete it... so its going to just sit there out of place.

I have taken up the habit of cooking something for at least one of the meals of the day and I've gotten bored of cooking the same old stuff all the time. I'm planning to use this space to log the things I attempt to recreate myself in my kitchen.

Next post: uploading some pics I've been too lazy to put up for a while...

The start of the Cooqing blog....

I decided to start this blog after developing an interest in molecular gastronomy. Now, if you are a devoted Food Network/Top Chef/No Reservations fan like myself, you've no doubt heard of the likes of Spaniard Ferran Adria and El Bulli, Grant Achatz and Alinea in Chicago, or Wylie Dufrense and wd-50 in New York, just to name a few. S. Pellegrino and Restaurant Magazine rate the 50 Best Restaurants in the world every year, starting in 2002, and El Bulli has pulled of the hat trick, taking the #1 spot in 2008, 2007, 2006. In 2005, El Bulli came in 2nd to The Fat Duck, also a restaurant that explores the world of molecular gastronomy.

Hervé This, the "father" of molecular gastronomy, wrote in Nature in 2006 attempting to clarify the goals of molecular gastronomy that are necessary to understanding what ultimately drives the genre...

I will define molecular gastronomy, because there is still much confusion in the media about the true meaning of this term, in part because of mistakes Nicholas Kurti and I made when we created the discipline in 1988. But I will start by distinguish between cooking and gastronomy: the first is the preparation of food, whereas the latter is the knowledge of whatever concerns man's nourishment. In essence, this does not concern food fashions or how to prepare luxury food—such as tournedos Rossini, canard à l'orange or lobster orientale—but rather an understanding of food; and for the more restricted 'molecular gastronomy', it is the chemistry and physics behind the preparation of any dish: for example, why a mayonnaise becomes firm or why a soufflé swells.

But then isnt all cooking molecular gastronomy by this distinction? Baking at its core is about mastering the chemical reactions between ingredients, healthy cooking is all about proper nourishment, and any home cook that ventures beyond frozen food or ramen seeks some sort of understanding about food. So there must be something more to the science-y part of the cuisine....

Hervé This explains that while science of food is not new (some historical examples are presented in the Nature article), his colleague Nicholas Kurti (a professor of physics at Oxford) noticed a lack of focus on food amongst the scientific disciplines. In 1988, they decided to create a branch of chemistry devoted to the "chemical art" of food. Serious to develop their new idea, like all academic disciplines, they held a conference to bring experts in chemistry and cooking together for the first time.

We organized the International Workshop on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy in 1992, held at the Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Italy, and invited chefs and scientists from all over the world. The success of this first meeting led us to repeat it every two years. In 1995, Jean-Marie Lehn, who won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Donald Cram and Charles Pedersen, invited me to create the first Group of Molecular Gastronomy in his laboratory at the Collège de France, and in 1996, I presented the first PhD in 'Molecular and Physical Gastronomy' at the University of Paris (This, 1996).

What has caught on as the most trendy and cutting edge form of cooking actually started in the academy. Who knew? Those of us out there who also consider themselves to be academics will be happy to know that there is now evidence that "Yes, something we do is relevant to the real world." And... its delicious.

So as not to bookishly drag on too much about history, I'll just say that anyone interested in the genre's development from the academy to where it stands now at the frontier of gastronomy should read the rest of that Nature article. The spread of interest in the process across Europe and then the rest of the world seems fairly well documented.

Though this first post is mostly a history lesson, my general idea for the blog is more to document the adventures that Mike and I are about to embark on experimenting with molecular gastronomy ourselves. What I've noticed so far in my preliminary research is that there isn't a ton of freely accessible information on how to DIY. The guys at Khymos have put together a free molecular gastronomy cookbook (pdf here) which will no doubt be our main source for recipes at start. Though I thoroughly enjoy reading about the adventures of cooking from the El Bulli cookbooks over at Hungry at Hogstown, I don't have the ability at this point to buy them at over $200 a pop. The best (free) information seems to be coming from food blogs, written by professional chefs and home cooks alike, where people share their trials and tribulations playing in the kitchen.

Whether or not we can be a beacon of culinary help remains to be seen (yeah right). But hopefully we can put up good pictures and some funny stories to go along.