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...