A diary post…

I guess since this is a blog, I’ll write a diary entry today. This could be boring to you guys, so I won’t be hurt if you skip it. Here goes nothing:

Brett, my freshman-year roommate, always talks about he would walk around the city alone sometimes. “Just exploring,” I think is what he called it. I never understood. First of all, I would be scared of walking around West Philly alone. Second of all, this city is boring.

Call me a europhile or whatever, but I can completely imagine (in fact I have done this, and I often drea of doing it forever) just wandering around aimlessly in some European city, town or village, whether it’s a cultural explosion like Paris or Florence or a sleepy little place off in the countryside somewhere. Something about the life there is just so fascinating to me. I’m sure it’s not like this, but I fantasize of waking up (gray skies are a must…I find Europe more romantic that way for some reason), hopping on my biciclette or bicicleta or whatever it may be, heading down to a bakery and just sitting around absorbing. Here I’d get shanked for lookin’ funny.

Today though, I had to go into Philadelphia alone. I was going to get some fresh produce at the farmer’s market in Reading Terminal Market (also known as “the amish market”) , and along the way I stopped in Hausbrandt, a café that my friend from work moonlights (weekendlights?) at. Between the cool 71º and the free subway ride I got (nobody was watching!), I was in a pretty good mood. After I talked to my friend (so that I can namedrop in the future, his name is Steve) and drank my Iced Tea, I walked to the market. It was really fascinating seeing peddling artists, music players, sidewalk cafés and (for some reason I noticed these for the first time) fascinating churches burried at random intersections. I’m not trying to say Philadelphia is the next Gruyère, but at least it’s not as barren as I thought it was. I should note that I was walking through the gay section of town (marked by rainbows below the street signs), which could explain the artsiness. Whatever.

So I finally got to Reading Terminal (henceforth RTM), and headed to the farmstands. Along the way (these are always in the back for some reason) I saw some of the best looking fish and meats I’ve seen in this city. If I had a car (I’m not going to carry an icebox full of meat through the subway past the groping hands of hungry homeless), I’d have gotten so much stuff. I saw truffles and lobster mushrooms for sale for the first time, I saw the purple potatoes I went for (but they were small and expensive, so I passed), I saw the bright red radishes I bought, and beautiful heirloom tomatoes (which were ridiculously expensive, so I passed here, too). Basically my catch was a bunch of radishes, some tarragon, some dill, and Fuji apples. There were no Kaffir Limes, no Meyer Lemons, no ridiculous things I’d heard of, really wanted, but never seen before. But maybe another time! I’m going to have to start paying attention to growing seasons a lot more now. I always appreciated flavors of seasons, but now specific produce is going to have to be on my mind. Oh and by the way, How I Met Your Mother got it 100% right. Farmer’s Markets are totally a couples thing. I felt sort of out of place there.

For lunch I got a roast pork sandwich. Some people say this should replace the cheesesteak as the philly sandwich. Having finally tried one, I wholeheartedly agree. It’s really juicy, slow roasted pork, garlicky and spicy broccoli rabe, and sharp provolone cheese. The flavors work well together, it’s a lot healthier, and it’s a lot less boring than cheesesteaks.

I walked down with my single bag of produce from 12th to 17th, where I stopped by Di Bruno Bros. Think of it as Trader Joe’s on steroids. Or Philly’s Dean and Deluca (for New Yorkers out there). This place is seriously amazing. The free samples today included aged goat gouda, romano cheese, a crab dip (meh), and, of all things, a $50 bottle of 20 year old Balsamic vinegar that was so unbelievably round tasting that I was almost tempted to buy it. Thank god I didn’t, I think my parents would have killed me. Instead I got Maldon Sea Salt (a flaky salt from England that not only tastes very clean, but adds a wonderful texture to proteins…chefs swear by it and now I can see why), and some Mirin (no reason, but they don’t sell it near me so I figured why not?).

I walked back to 15th and took the subway home and started cooking. We’ll always have Philly.

P.S. – I saw an asian guy with a mohawk today and he did NOT look like maddox! Baishi take note: the secret is in the thick, sick ’stache.

More cooking…

Weekends I cook. It’s become my hobby, I guess, and I feel like I’m getting better. I stopped following recipes a while back, because I think it’s cheating. Anyone who is paying attention can make a good recipe turn out well.

So anyway. Last week I used Thai/tropical flavors against my salmon, but this week I wanted to try something else out. I spent a lot of my downtime at work doing ingredient research, and came up with a lot of different flavor pairings until I finally decided to both play with the fattiness in the salmon, and cut through it. To play, I chose pine nuts, which are fatty nuts (lol). I also chose Fuji Apple (after not being able to find Asian Pear…I am two weeks too early for its local growing season according to the Fair Food Farmstand at Reading Terminal Market) because it’s sweet and tart, which met both of my goals wih the dish (play with and cut through the fat). I pickled the apple to play up the tartness with some acidity and to introduce some spices into the mix for a deeper flavor. I picked radish for some crunch in the dish, as well as for its zing (actually, to be honest, I picked it because I was seduced by their redness at the farmstand). Radishes get that zing from a combination of glucosinolates and myrosinase (an enzyme), which come together to form allyl isothiocyanates, also found in mustard! So I obviously wanted a sharp mustard in there to complement the radish, but I didn’t want too many elements on the plate, so I mixed it in with the pine nuts. I also put some tarragon in there because I wanted the anise-y tarragon somewhere in the dish to complement the anise in the pickled apple. I’ll stop babbling and get to the recipe:

Pickled Fuji Apple Sheet

3 Fuji Apples, sliced

2 inches Peeled ginger

5 whole Cloves

3 Star Anise pods

2 cups Cider Vinegar

2 tsp Sugar

2 tbsp Agar Flakes

Half the spice

Bring Apples, Vinegar, Spices and enough water to cover apples to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 more minutes, or until apples are soft to the touch.

Always whisking…

Remove apples, let cool, puree in a food processor and strain into a sauce pan. Add approximately 1 cup of spiced cooking water/vinegar. Add agar, and soak for 15 minutes. Bring up to a boil, whisking constantly, reduce heat, still whisking, and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour a little onto a large, flat surface, spreading as thinly as possible with a spatula. Set in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

You gellin’?

Pine Nut Mustard

3.5 oz. Pine Nuts

3 tbsp Dijon Mustard

Tarragon leaves

This rounds the flavor of the nuts. Also, like my red pan?

Toast pine nuts in skillet and move to a food processor, tear in a few tarragon leaves, stream in a little olive oil at a time until a paste is made. Transfer to a bowl, fold in Dijon Mustard.

Pinenut Butter!

I cooked the salmon exactly the same way as last week, only I topped it with some Maldon Sea Salt I found today (see next post). Delicious salt, that.

I hope this plating is a little more acceptable to my critic out there. It’s aight, not exactly how I wanted it to turn out. I accidentally ripped the gel, and I didn’t want to re-heat and re-set it because my dinner would have gotten cold.

That dill is just for you Joy, it has no other purpose here.

Anyway, that was fun. Let me know what you guys think. Would any of you even eat this? I loved it, but who am I to judge?

Open threads

In the future, I’ll do these every once in a while so people can comment about things I’ve recently tumbl’d (See: right).

Salmon, et al.

Well I guess since this is basically all I do other than work these days, it’s fitting that my first real post is a cooking one. Salmon is basically the only seafood I can trust around here (well not even around here…I got this at Costco which is at least half an hour away), so I bought a giant thing of salmon fillet.

All day yesterday, I sat around wondering what I could do with it. Most salmon recipes choose to play off its fattiness and meatiness, which is why you often see mushrooms, cream sauces and butter with salmon dishes. I didn’t want to do that, seeing as this is the dead of a disgusting summer in Philly, so that’s what I did.

All fish goes likes acid acid, so I started with Salmon and lime. From there, maybe it was that song, but I decided I was going to go with Lime and Coconut. Coconut really opened the doors for me. Coconuts go well with a ton of things, like tropical fruits and spices, but I didn’t want to do a basic curry, because I’m Indian and that’s stereotypical. I’m all about breaking through racial barriers, or something.

So while I woke up this morning thinking about cumin and tamarind, I ended up only using coriander as far as savory complements to the salmon go. I wanted something orange to play off the bright red fish (I was stunned by the color initially, and equally stunned that it didn’t really fade when it was cooked), so…I bought oranges. From there I went for kiwis because limes and kiwis are roughly the same color (and I wasn’t going to eat plain lime pieces…they don’t sell kaffir limes here), I love kiwis, and kiwis worked well with the coconut when I tasted them, and with the dish because of their tart sweetness. (I realize now that I should have documented the cooking progress to make this more interesting, but I didn’t. Next time, I promise.)

The idea of making the sauce a “gel” came from this article featuring a recipe by Chef Grant Achatz of Alinea, in Chicago. He didn’t invent the concept, but I read it there first a long time ago, so that’s who I’m crediting (turns out, he also did a coconut ribbon, but for a dessert, and it looks way better than mine does). Agar is well known to those of you who work in labs as a gelling agent. It’s flavor-neutral, so “molecular gastronomists” use it in just this way to thicken sauces. As Achatz describes it, it’s easy to make a liquid out of a solid (purée it), and a solid out of a liquid (freeze it), but it’s a challenge to make a liquid out of a liquid. Using agar puts you right in between.

So I put the lime (juice) in the coconut (milk), added the agar, brough it to a boil, brought it down with gentle heat (all the while whisking whisking whisking), and poured it into a container to set in the refrigerator. My first mistake was pouring it too thickly (by that I mean it was maybe a quarter of an inch thick when I poured it in, but it should have been paper thin). Then I coated the salmon with a little bit of olive oil and salted generously and popped it in the oven at 250ºF for around 20 minutes. Garnishes aside, that’s all there is to it! Onto the recipe:

Salmon Coconut Kiwi Orange Mango

Coconut-Lime ribbon

1 1/3 cup coconut milk

1 tablespoons agar agar flakes

Juice of 1 lime

In a pan on medium heat, constantly stir ingredients. Bring mixture to a boil, still stirring, and reduce heat to low. Pour a thin layer into a container, refrigerate until it sets.

Slow-baked Salmon

1-1 1/4 inch thick Wild King Salmon Fillet

Olive oil

Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 250º F. Coat the salmon lightly with olive oil and season with salt. Place in a casserole dish and cover tightly with foil. Cook for no more than 25 minutes, prefereably 20 or less, depending on desired level of doneness.

Garnishes

• Cut the Orange and kiwi
• Find nice leaves of coriander
• Mango powder (amchur) can either be made with a dehydrator and a mortar/pestle or bought at an indian store.

Assembly/Presentation

Place a kiwi slice, an orange segment, and the salmon filet in a line diagonally across the plate. Drape the coconut ribbon over the three plated elements. Garnish.

By popular demand

I now have a commentable blog.