I like pie.

Pad Si Iew

Michelle — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 02:33:00 +0000

We had Thai food for dinner tonight. We had rice paper rolls, though with the Vietnamese fish dipping sauce, and pad si iew, accompanied by Thai iced tea. Then for dessert we had mango with coconut sticky rice. I only took a picture of the pad si iew though.

Recipe:

Pad Si Iew is probably my favorite Thai noodle stir fry. There is one basic recipe that is floating around online, so I don't know the originator of this recipe, but the recipe I've posted here is based on it. Here is one of these recipes. I have used basically the same ingredient quantities except that I added some regular soy sauce to the stir fry sauce to add a bit more saltiness and have included how to make the dish with dried rice noodles, since they are easier to acquire and keep on hand. I usually use the widest dried "banh pho" (Vietnamese rice noodles for soup) I can find.

The key to the taste is in using sweet dark soy sauce. It is thick and syrupy and is part of what gives pad si iew its sweetness. Healthy Boy is a common brand, it looks like this.

If you do not have palm sugar, brown sugar also works, though palm sugar does have a distinctive taste.

I have written the recipe using beef but you can use any other meat if desired. Tofu can be used and fish sauce substituted for more soy sauce for a vegetarian dish.

I have listed the dish as serving 3 but if you have appetizers or any sides it can serve 4.

Marinade:
3—5 garlic cloves, minced
1 T fresh ginger, ground
1 T green onions (white portion), chopped
1 T shallots, chopped
1 T rice wine
1 T fish sauce
3 T sweet dark soy sauce
2 T oyster sauce
1 T palm sugar
1 T cornstarch, mixed in 1 T water
1 tsp sesame oil
1 T chiles, thinly sliced (optional)

Stir Fry Sauce:
1 T fish sauce
2 T sweet dark soy suace
2 T soy sauce
2 T oyster sauce
1 T palm sugar

The Rest
8 oz beef, thinly sliced
8 oz wide rice noodles, dry or fresh
1 egg
1/2 lb chinese broccoli (or regular)
2 T green onions (green portion), chopped

Mix together the marinade and marinate 8 oz. of thinly sliced beef for an hour. If you double this recipe the above amount of marinade works just as fine for a pound of meat, though I do double the aromatics, just not the sauce. For 8 oz. of meat I often use a little less than the above listed amounts.

Mix together the stir-fry sauce (this I would double if I'm making a double recipe).

Cut up the broccoli into 1-2 inch lengths. If using Chinese broccoli, steam the thicker stems for a few minutes or blanch them. You may want to slice the stems in half if they are very thick. For regular broccoli steam both the stems and florets. You want the vegetables to be mostly cooked to your liking, and they will finish in the stiry fry. The leafy portion of the Chinese broccoli does not need any cooking beforehand and will cook in the stir fry.

If using dry noodles, place the noodles in a large bowl and pour hot to boiling water to cover it. Let it soak for 20-30 minutes. It'll get soft but won't be cooked all the way. You can also cook the noodles in a pot on the stove like you would pasta if you want to do this more quickly, but you have to be careful not to let the noodles cook all the way or you'll end up with mushier noodles in your stir-fry. You want the noodles to be in a state where they still need to absorb more liquid so when you stir fry, they absorb the sauce. If using fresh, they are ready to go as is, unless they came in big sheets that you have to cut into noodles.

Heat a wok or large skillet and heat up some oil until hot. Toss in your beef and stir it around to brown. Let it cook partway but not completely, since you'll be adding more stuff (I often do cook all the way, remove it, and add it back at the end so as not to overcrowd the pan). Add the broccoli, then noodles, then lower the heat to medium (here is where I diverge from what the restaurants probably do since my stove does not get hot enough to cook everything in a flash, so I go with a lower heat since everything will be cooking longer). Keep stirring. Stir in the egg and the stir fry sauce. Keep stirring the mixture, which can be a little difficult if you don't have a big pan like a wok but are using a skillet (I believe in a restaurant they would be cooking each individual serving portion separately). In five minutes or maybe a little more, the noodles should have absorbed enough of the sauce so that they are soft. Keep tasting until the noodles reach the proper texture. You can also adjust for seasoning, adding more of anything if you think it is needed. The tricky part is not overcooking so that the noodles turn to mush and it is also important to have enough sauce that the noodles remain nice and wet. Add more sauce if needed or even a bit of water if things are salty enough. This adjusting takes a bit of practice.

Recombine everything if you took out the beef. Garnish with the chopped green portion of the green onions.

Napoletana-Style Pizza

Michelle — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:50:00 +0000

Since I could only cook two pizzas at a time in the oven, I made up a little insalata caprese atop fried polenta as a starter while we waited for the pizzas to cook.

This attempt yielded a puffier crust than last time. I was also a bit daring and tried tossing one of the pizzas when shaping. I made just one toss probably not even a foot into the air and no mishaps. Perhaps next time I'll try and go full out.. that was scary enough hah.

Bacon

Michelle — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:56:00 +0000

A couple weeks ago, Greg's dad, Bob, and I were watching Food Network when we saw the Good Eats episode about making bacon. We thought it sounded like quite the good idea, so within a few days, I had acquired some pork belly and started the brining process, putting us on our way towards homesmoked bacon.

I rubbed both pieces with a good deal of coarsely ground black pepper. One of the bellies was then submerged in a brine of apple juice, molasses, salt, and sugar. The other belly was more generously rubbed with pepper, then rubbed with molasses and salt and sugar.

Into the fridge they went for three days.

This morning I rinsed them both off and patted them dry. I placed them on a rack and let a fan blow across them to dry off the surface.

While the pork bellies dried, we went about putting together the smoker. We placed an electric stove at the bottom of a trashcan and set a cast iron pan over the burner to form our smoke generator.

Construction consisted mostly of using duct tape to form seals where the smoke would flow.

On the far end, we taped a plastic bag around the edge of a fan, then cut a hole in the bag and fitted into the hole some aluminum tubing so that the air flow would move through the tube.

The tube coming from the fan fed into the trash can, our smoke generator. A second tube leaving the smoke generator led to the smoke box. The idea was that air blowing into the smoke generator would force the smoke to move through the second tube, into the smoke box. Though not shown, some mesh was placed over the tube coming from the fan so that any debris or insects that made its way through the fan wouldn't end up in the smoke generator.

A flap on the lid of the smoke generator allowed easy access to the cast iron pan for the purpose of adding more wood chips when needed. We used hickory today.

Here's the tubing from the smoke generator feeding into the smoke box.

There's pork in there! And some gouda.

Here's the entire setup.

It's our first time cold smoking so I don't know if this was a bad idea but we made a little slit in the side of the smoke box in order to keep a pan supplied with ice. It was a fairly hot day so we were concerned about keeping the temperature below 80 or 90 degrees F. I think it worked.

Six hours of checking on the temperature and smoke later, we had bacon! Here is the molasses black pepper.

Slicing the apple molasses bacon.

Mm, bacon.

We had a little trouble with cutting the slices evenly so had a little trouble cooking everything to a good level of crisp, but it turned out with just a bit of extra carbon.

I baked some rolls for dinner.

The day's work was celebrated with mini BLTs with bonus smoked gouda, Bob's pasta salad, and some fresh peaches.

Bacon is good.

Focaccia

Michelle — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:06:00 +0000

The Bread Baker's Apprentice continues to be awesome. Last night I made the focaccia and it was just perfect. It had a very light, airy crumb and was very flavorful from a generous drizzling of herb oil.

It was a bit thicker than I anticipated but cutting it in half makes for a perfect thickness of bread for a sandwich.

Country Style Ribs and Corn Bread

Michelle — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:55:00 +0000

I made the corn bread from Bread Baker's Apprentice to go with some ribs Greg's dad, Bob, grilled today. Mm, what a great combination. This corn bread is so great.. perfect sweetness and the added bits of corn were little bursts of sweet corny goodness. The soaking of the corn meal really did bring out its flavor. The bacon wasn't even needed to make it so good. On the side we had vegetables wrapped up in the foil that the bacon was cooked on and tossed on the grill.

Chicken Papillote

Michelle — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:36:00 +0000

I was by myself today for dinner so went with ease in preparation and clean up. I just mixed up a simple Cajun sort of seasoning blend and rubbed it on a chicken breast, put the chicken on an oiled piece of parchment, topped with sliced carrots, onion, and celery, a douse of wine, wrapped it up, and into the oven it went. I ate it with some rice and in retrospect I probably could have thrown the rice right into the pouch when it was time to eat instead of using a plate. Little clean up indeed!

I swear there's chicken under there.

Homemade Marshmallows

Michelle — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 03:09:00 +0000

When I was eight or so, I saw a recipe for marshmallows in a cookbook. I thought that sounded really cool so I tried to make it, but results were inedible. What I ended up with was a layer of sugary syrup topped with a layer of watery gelatin. Today I gave it another try and I don't know how this recipe differed from the one I first tried but I imagine I did not actually heat the syrup to the proper temperature and did not drizzle it into the gelatin slowly enough to incorporate it when I was a kid. But today.. success!

Lots of Cake

Michelle — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 01:15:00 +0000

This weekend was my little brother's birthday so he got a nice and chocolatey chocolate cake. The cake contains both cocoa and chocolate and the icing is chocolate caramel ganache.

It was also my friend Josh's housewarming party so I brought a coconut cake iced with Italian meringue buttercream. I've never made that sort of icing before and I am now hooked. So smooth and rich and not too sweet. I was very nervous about the buttercream breaking as I've heard that can be an issue but I used the warm up the bowl with a hot towel if it starts to curdle trick and it worked like a charm. Whew! It was great mixed with some toasted coconut. Leftover chocolate caramel ganache was used to sloppily spell a silly message on top (I was running late).

Cookies and Bagels

Michelle — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 17:21:00 +0000

I did some baking this weekend. Before we went to the beach I tried out a chocolate chip cookie recipe that featured ground up oatmeal to form a sort of oat flour in addition to regular flour. What a wonderful recipe.. thank you shakerpenguin from the Goons With Spoons forum on Something Awful! The cookies are fat, soft, and have a wonderful touch of cinnamon. I made huge ones and they were so dense and filling that after dinner, we'd take one cookie and pass it around the table as a communal dessert. I felt it was time to make the cookies again, this time around a bit smaller.

Then I tried a hand at making bagels for the first time. It was pretty successful though the bagels were a bit flat.. I was aiming to make smaller bagels but ended up shaping them a little too large.

Similar Dinner

Michelle — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 01:55:00 +0000

We still had some ricotta left from last week and needed to use it, so I made a similar dinner of baked spaghetti with meatballs. I made it a bit less cheesy and used turkey for the meatballs this time around.

Tommy Makes Ziti

Michelle — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:12:00 +0000

Tommy set out to make dinner and I directed him in making a nice little Italian dinner featuring baked ziti with meatballs. I made some garlic and parmesan breadsticks to accompany the meal which turned out a bit fat but still good.. I need to remember the size increase during proofing! Italian cream sodas were served to drink. We pureed blackberries and made a syrup to which we added soda water and cream.

I like pizza.. pie.

Michelle — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:02:00 +0000

I haven't been cooking much since I got back from San Diego because I'm living with Greg's family so dinner is usually taken care of. I've started baking breads and rolls to accompany dinner which I haven't taken pictures of sadly but I'll try and remember the next time I make a loaf. I do miss cooking though, so I've been volunteering to cook more often. Today I made pizza, nice thin Napoletana style.. my favorite.

San Diego is Treating Me Well

Michelle — Sun, 28 May 2006 09:51:00 +0000

My expectations for good Vietnamese food were met right away with my first meal in San Diego at Nhu Y restaurant, my grandfather's favorite. We had goi ga (cabbage chicken salad), xuong kho (ribs), ca kho (fish braised in a clay pot), ca chien (fried fish), and canh chua (sour fish soup).

I haven't had other Vietnamese meals so far except for some awesome silken tofu in ginger syrup, one of my favorite desserts. I did, however, eat at Kabob House which was tasty.

Tonight was Sophia's wedding and we had an amazing meal: asparagus and seafood soup, appetizer platter of pork, chicken, and jellyfish, fried shrimp with candied pecans, tea-smoked chilean sea bass (or shall I say tea-smoked Patagonian toothfish), lobster sauteed with spicy garlic sauce, stir-fried abalone and vegetables, filet mignon and asparagus in bird's nest, Peking duck, seafood fried rice, and dessert which was some sort of peach gelatin or pudding.

Then, of course, was cake, and one quite fitting for Sophia and Steve.

Sesame Chicken

Michelle — Thu, 04 May 2006 00:41:00 +0000

Today's dinner was sesame chicken with rice and steamed broccoli. I love making Chinese food because restaurants tend to make some of the dishes overly sweet for my tastes. At home, I use much less sugar.

How to make it:

The batter: Mix together equal parts of soy sauce, water, flour, corn starch. Add some white wine for a little more flavor (about a half part). Add a few drops of sesame oil to taste, a third part of canola or other vegetable oil, and optionally some baking soda and baking powder. When I'm making two servings worth of food I use 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and 1/8 teaspoon each of baking soda and baking powder.

The chicken: Dice it into bite-sized cubes, about an inch or so. I like to stick the chicken into the freezer so it's a bit hard and easier to cut. Stick the chicken in the batter and let it sit.

The sauce (measurements for a serving for two): Measure out 1/2 cup water or chicken broth (I use about a 1:2 ratio for water:chicken broth). Set aside a little bit of it and mix the rest with 1 Tb vinegar, 2 tsp soy sauce, 2 tsp sesame oil, and 1 tsp minced garlic in a small pot over medium high heat. Take the water/chicken broth you set aside and whisk in 4 tsp of cornstarch to make a slurry. Once the mixture in the pot starts boiling, stir in the slurry to let the sauce thicken, and lower to a simmer. Now add sugar and hot sauce (sriracha or sambal) to taste. Measure out about 1/3 cup of sugar and add slowly, tasting. I usually only add about 1/2 to 3/4 of it.

While the sauce is simmering, get some oil heated for deep frying to 375 degrees F and put the rice on to cook. Once the rice is five minutes from being done, fry the chicken in whatever size batches as depends on the size of your frying vessel, about five to seven minutes until the chicken is done. Set aside to drain and keep the fried chicken warm in the oven if you are making a lot. Once everything is done frying, plate and pour the sauce on top, then sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds. Serve with your rice and any vegetables or other things you have prepared.

If you can't deepfry, you can pan fry, making sure to turn the chicken to fry on all sides. You won't get as much of a coating as with deepfrying but it'll still be good.

San Diego

Michelle — Wed, 24 May 2006 19:19:00 +0000

I moved out of my house yesterday.. cooked my last dinner in that house on Monday night. I repeated the sesame chicken and steamed broccoli as the last meal since they were all ingredients we had to use up. I'm going to miss that kitchen. I'd say it's been only in the last year that I've started to cook a lot more diversely and trying new things and I definitely made a lot of firsts in that house. Bye Delaware Avenue!

I am now in San Diego to visit family and for my cousin, Sophia's, wedding and I can't wait to eat all the delicious Vietnamese food I'll be seeing in the next week and a half.