Tajine, San Francisco

They love my photos, they really do! Those of you who ate with me in San Francisco know that I love Tajine, a hole in the wall restaurant on Jones in the Tenderloin. One of the first times I ate there, the owner caught me snapping photos and asked me to e-mail them to him. So here they are, looking all shiny and new on the website: Tajine Restaurant.

However, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is that Tajine has closed at their old location. I don't know why, and am especially confused because the owner just spend a lot of time re-doing the inside and adding new seats and fresh paint to the place. Leasing woes, perhaps?

The good news (hopefully) is that they seem to be looking for a new space. Maybe they'll find a bigger, better location in a better part of town! Even if it means they have to raise prices, I think the food is good enough that he's attracted a customer base that will follow him anywhere in SF.

Korean Grilled Squid

This started out as a big gamble of an experiment, but turned out exceedingly well!

Get a large squid at a market. Make sure it's fresh, and make sure it looks like the one below. There are so many kinds of squid, I don't know which will or won't work with this type of preparation. You can freeze the squid until you need it. Ours was in the freezer for about a week and tasted fine.

Rip off the tentacles and clean out the inside of the squid without ripping it. You'll want to remove all its guts as well as the clear plasticky internal shell (which some call the spine). Dry the squid as best you can. Spread two tablespoons of Korean red pepper paste (gochujiang) over the inside of the squid. I just held the opening closed and squished the paste around the inside. Don't worry about the outside. Lightly smear the tentacles with paste as well.

Heat a tablespoon or two of neutral oil in a cast iron skillet over high heat until it's smoking. Put the squid in carefully, and let it cook for about 30 seconds before turning the squid over and putting it under a preheated broiler. After four minutes, flip the squid over. Cook for another four minutes. It's hard to overcook squid, but 7-10 minutes is a good amount of time to cook it unless you have a very weak broiler.

With kitchen sheers, cut the squid's body into thin rings, and separate all the tentacles. We love the grilled squid that comes as a side dish at many Korean restaurants. Of course, we weren't able to approximate the charcoal flavor at home, but we still ended up with a tasty treat.

Tenderloin Roast

We had a friend from SF visiting last night, so we had surf n' turf:

Dungeness crab salad topped with fish roe, crab claw, horseradish sprouts, and corn. My on the fly creation turned out surprisingly well, and looked super fancy molded into a square.

Tenderloin roast is always a winner when cooked an internal temperature of no more than 135-140 degrees.

We also had baked potatoes, broccoli, portabella mushrooms, corn on the cob, and snap peas, but only the greens made it into the photo. Dessert was beer at Ye Olde King's Head pub in Santa Monica, courtesy of R.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Busy busy, but I leave you for the weekend with two photos:

Seasons Eatings, Everyone!

A Few Simple Meals

Had to constrict the stomach and wallet after Sunday!

Stir fried a-chai (Chinese lettuce), J's Shandong cold mix, and peanuts boiled in star anise and five spice powder. This is actually a pretty typical Chinese meal, since we grilled up half a fish to go with it.

I made some mushroom, spinach, and basil marinara tonight with lots of red wine in it. Mmmm! I baked up a loaf of my new favorite bread. Look at the air holes in it! Bigger holes=more light and airy. And the crust was cracklin' delicious. I was going to boil pasta, but the bread was so good we just dipped it in the sauce. Sort of like the Vietnamese dip baguettes in beef stew.

I still had snack, though. Bought some Dr. Bob's Scharffen Berger Works ice cream. It has 70% chocolate, 62% chocolate, and Scharffen Berger's famous cacao nibs. It's pretty bitter for an ice cream, but I like it. The flavor is so intense I don't need more than a little to feel satisfied. My only beef with the ice cream is that it has carageen. Why, Dr. Bob, why? I hate the foamy texture carageen gives ice cream. Sure, ice cream without carageen freezes into a solid rock and melts quickly. So what? It's natural!

Sushi Bonanza

Had a great sushi lunch this Saturday. Here's the photo lineup!

Sashimi plate. The top/right row from top down: snapper, a sushi roll with mackerel in the middle and pickled daikon instead of seaweed as the wrapper, salmon, and giant clam. The bottom/left row is toro, yellowtail, and escolar. Escolar is SO GOOD! It's sometimes called white tuna, and has a smooth fatty texture that sort of pops in your mouth.

This was followed by a camera break as we ate tuna, yellowtail, and spicy scallop nigiri followed by grilled snapper. I love charcoal grilled fish because of the smokey charred bits.

Live uni. The chef actually showed it to us live and wiggling its spines, then killed it and scooped it into nigiri. Lesson of the day: one large uni=three nigiri.

Conch on fire! They cut up a live conch, stuff it back into the shell, stew it on a charcoal grill, and serve it on a bed of salt with some sterno (which is the solid alcohol in gel form, usually used to light caterers' buffet trays).

Matsutake mushroom soup. The mushroom is cooked in a clear broth with kababoka, shrimp, and chicken. It was very light and refreshing.

Spider handroll, in case anyone was still hungry.

And no, I'm not going to post the name and location of this spot, because I promised I wouldn't. I know it's stupid, but I promised!

Simple Sunday Supper

Nothing fancy tonight, just a nice dinner for two:

J made a Shandong side dish his grandmother makes. It has bean sprouts, dried shrimp, mung bean noodles, cilantro, garlic, salt, and white pepper. It looks harmless, but it actually packed quite a lot of heat because he put so much garlic in. We had some spinach and a broiled snapper as well.

Army of Appliances

Oh, how I've longed for this day...

It's finally happened. They're mine. All the small kitchen appliances after which I've always lusted. Today, I completed my collection with a Waring Pro blender, Cuisinart food processor, and Salter kitchen scale. Together with my Melitta coffee grinder and KitchenAid stand mixer, they complete me.

I don't own a rice cooker or a microwave, but these things I'm not willing to live without. Heehee. Sigh...so happy. Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

And as if it weren't enough that I got the appliances for a steal, someone gave me free frozen yogurt this afternoon! Not a free dixie cup, a free real cup. It's a good day.

Alpine Loaf

Mmm, cheese bread:

So far, the Alpine loaf is the only amazing thing I've tasted from The Bread Bar. This is actually the $1 mini loaf, which is great for a snack. The full loaf, which is big and sort of shaped like a football, has a LOT more crusty Emmenthaler cheese oozing off the edges.

Here's a random bowl of noodles I threw together. J made the meat, which is marinated and slow braised beef shank. The recipe's sort of Szechuanese, and is flavor packed enough that tossing it with some plain noodles and spinach makes for a good meal.

Spaghetti Bolognese

I felt well enough to go wander around the farmers' market today!

A lot of delicious autumn things in the markets, including a gorgeous assortment of tomatoes and the last of the summer basil. I got a pack of fresh pasta and made myself a nice lunch with some bolognese left from last night's dinner. I love big flat pasta; this isn't quite pappardelle, but it was the closest I could find. It's fresh from Pasta Mia in Huntington Beach, so it was extra tasty compared with dried pasta.

The nice flower lady gave me a rose as I was walking by today. I think some stems broke so they were giving them to female passerbys. It was a very lovely gesture, all the same.

Atole

I had some maseca (corn flour) left from making tamales, so I looked up some recipes for a traditional Mexican drink made with milk and corn flour. It's called atole, and the chocolate version is champurrado. Basically, it's a super thick hot chocolate. Almost like pudding, actually. It's hot, frothy, and delicious, but don't make too much because it's hard to finish a lot.

There are variations in the recipe, but I heated up a big mug of milk (a cup and a half of liquid, esaily) in a saucepan, then added enough dark chocolate, cinnamon, and brown sugar to make it taste like a good hot chocolate. Ther are no rules, just mix to taste. Meanwhile, put 1/5 cup of corn flour in a blender jar. Vary the corn flour in the future if you want a thicker/thinner drink.

When the milk comes to a light boil, turn on the blender and slowly pour the boiling milk into the corn flour. Be careful, and slowly blend it for at least thirty seconds to cook the corn flour and get a good froth going. I think this would also be fantastic with some real vanilla beans instead of chocolate.

Hot Tamales!

Tried my hand at tamales for the first time, and it turned out pretty well!

I'll have photos of one opened up and ready to eat a bit later.

The process is pretty long and involved, but not more so than making dumplings. I'll post it later when I have more time. I'm battling the last stages of a cold and don't feel like typing.

Gratuitous photo of snack: more bread, blue cheese, and olive tapenade.

Vegan, The Pei Way

"Vegan" is such a gross sounding word, but I can happily eat a vegan meal if it looks like this:

Potato leek soup is as thick and creamy as any dairy-based chowder. I did cheat with chicken broth (darn, just realized the meal's not really vegan), but it's delicious with vegetable stock too.

The salad is steamed brussel sprouts and pearl barley, both chilled and tossed with an orange olive oil and champagne vinegar vinaigrette. Brussel sprouts have a bad reputation, but if you score the bottom and steam for exactly four minutes before chilling in an ice bath, they're slightly crunchy and sweet like cabbage.

We also had some olive tapenade and sliced heirloom tomatoes so I could show off...drumroll...homemade rustic wheat bread! I'm going to be experimenting more with the recipe and posting a detailed post, but I had to get in a few pictures of the bread.

...like this. Sorry the bread photos are blurry. I was literally giddy and shaking at the prospect of biting into it, so you know.

Whole Food Haul

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

Yes, these are a few of my favorite things--from Whole Foods, that is. They are, in no particular order of preference:

• Low sodium chicken broth. The broth is a decent substitute when I don't have a whole bird to stew, and it's low sodium enough to sip on its own.
• Agave nectar. This is just one of the brands Whole Foods carries, but agave nectar is great for mixed drinks. Especially margaritas, since limes and 100% agave tequila really benefit from the light fresh flavor of agave nectar instead of sugar syrup.
• Ciao Bella blood orange sorbet. Their blackberry cabernet is fantastic as well, and I hear good things about most of their sorbet flavors. Their creamy flavors don't tend to be anything special.
• Vanilla Rooibos tea by African Red Tea Imports.
• Brussel sprouts; on the stalk! They're fun to look at, and to carry around. But mostly, I'm hoping they'll stay fresh longer than sprouts off the stalk.

Chicken Fat Rice

That's right, chicken fat rice. Look how it glistens.

In Chinese we call it chicken oil rice, but why use euphemisms? The fat's what makes this rice good, and the fat deserves all the credit. I just soaked my regular white rice in water, then substituted out a cup of the water for homemade chicken stock. I added a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of chicken fat, stirred the whole thing really well, and set it over low heat in a heavy bottomed pot for half an hour. You could, of course, put the rice in a rice cooker instead.

Rice is perfect for mabo tofu. We just use a spice packet for convenience, but I always kick it up a notch with chili oil, Szechuan peppercorn oil, and plenty of cayenne.

The healthy portion of tonight's dinner: watercress and daikon cooked in a homemade stock of chicken and pork bones.

Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

Last night, a Mexican themed meal.

I don't know why the corn looks giganto in the photo; it really wasn't very big. Maybe it's photogenic? Anyway, we had chicken enchiladas, fresh tomato salsa, three beans (pinto, black, and kidney) cooked and mashed together with some hot sauce, and boiled corn. It looks unhealthy because we associate Mexican food with lard, but the only fat in this meal comes from the chicken and cheese in the enchiladas. I did NOT add lard to the beans. Not because I didn't want to, but because I had none.

I don't have a recipe for enchiladas. It's like lasagna: meat, carbs, cheese, and lots of tomatoes get poured into a pan and come out like food. But look how crispy!

Best Compliment Ever

Thanks, emilee!

I quote: "You have groomed me to be a food snob so I can only imagine that their inferior tastebuds can't tell the difference between soul-less and soulful dimsum."

(In reference to a meal at Yank Sing in San Francisco--bleh).

Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake Pie

The name's a mouthful, but it smells simply delicious!

I followed the epicurious recipe pretty closely for this one, so just click here for the recipe.

Don't make fun of my pie crust! I was too lazy to crush the gingersnaps into a fine meal, so they're more like cookie crumbles. Not my finest work, but who cares. Sometimes desserts can be ugly and tasty.

Mixed Berry Muffins

This week's breakfast:

Sometimes I get really sick of eating yogurt and toast for breakfast, so I bake a batch of muffins. We have a houseguest this week, so there's someone to help me eat down all the sugary goodness. These are really light, moist, and almost have texture of Malaysian honeycomb cake. They didn't taste sweet as an after dinner dessert, but were quite sweet when I ate them first thing in the morning.

I combined a lot of recipes and substituted a lot to use up things in my fridge, but here's my Franken-recipe:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (lower in calories, higher in fiber!)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt (1/2 if you want less)
1 large egg
3/4 cup sugar (I'll try even less next time, and using some honey as well)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter melted (might try extra light olive oil next time)
3/4 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1/2 cup nonfat cottage cheese (the cheese and yogurt was supposed to be 1 1/4 cup sour cream, but you could any of the three)
1 1/2 cups frozen berries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk the egg and sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy and holds a ribbon. Add the melted butter, and then the yogurt and cheese.

Combine the dry ingredients. Drain the berries and toss the berries in the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. You should get a dry, scraggly dough. Do not overmix or you'll get hockey puck muffins.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Be careful not to overbake.
I made 19 cupcake sized muffins with this recipe.

I calculated 112 calories per muffin, which isn't as low as an equally stomach-filling apple, but way lower than a reguar muffin. My goal is to (quite easily) drop the calorie count below 100 by reducing the sugar and replacing the butter. And maybe up the protein somehow.

Food as Non Food: Baking Soda

Okay, so it's not really a food, but you know what I mean. Baking Soda is usually kept in the kitchen, but this past week I've found two great uses for it:

-removing sweat stains. It's AMAZING! You just mix the baking soda with enough water to make a fairly watery paste, then use your fingers or a toothbrush to scrub it into a wet piece of clothing. Let the whole thing sit for awhile to let the baking soda work its magic. Websites say half an hour, but I let them sit most of the afternoon before throwing the clothes in the laundry machine. I managed to get out sweat stains I'd thought were so hopeless I was going to throw away otherwise fine shirts. I'd tried a lot of commercial products (Oxy, Spray n' Wash), but the baking soda did the trick.

-stopping itchy bug bites. Again, make a paste with water. Just smear it on your bug bites. I found that plain yogurt works too. I think that anything more basic than the bug venom stops the inflammation and itchiness. I hear if you put it on early enough and before you scratch, the bite disappears within a few hours.

-exfoliating. I mix half a teaspoon with my facial cleanser twice a week, and it makes my face and chest skin feel incredibly smooth without drying it out.

-burns. I haven't tried this yet, but read that a baking soda and water paste lightly covered in gauze will stop burning and prevent scarring.

So there you have it, a few more uses for something that you have to buy a big box of, but which usually turns hard and crusty or picks up funky odors before you can use it all up.

Chocolate Cupcakes

I've finally found my go-to chocolate cupcake: Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes.

I know I already posted about these yesterday, but these tasted so good over the last three days that I feel the need to elaborate. Here's why these will now be my go-to cupcakes:

1) They're incredibly easy to make.
2) I usually have all the necessary ingredients in my refrigerator.
3) They're relatively healthy if you use nonfat yogurt and olive oil instead of the more traditional fats.
4) They don't require butter, which makes them very inexpensive.
5) I baked them Friday and so far they've had a great shelf life. In fact, they tasted a little moister after a night on the counter than they did fresh.
6) They're incredibly chocolatey, and using a 70% chocolate for the ganache made it a real chocolate lovers' dream. One thing I noticed is that these have an intense aftertaste.
7) The crowd agrees: we had some chocolate cream filled cupcakes from the vaunted Clementine the other night, and my friends agree that these cupcakes (in addition to not costing $3 a pop) are more tasty than storebought.

Here's the recipe, with my changes in parenthesis:

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (might use half whole wheat pastry next time)
1 1/2 cups sugar (only used one and it was plenty sweet)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt (kosher)
2 large eggs (room temperature!)
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup buttermilk (used nonfat Greek yogurt instead)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (will use extra light olive oil next time)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
(will also add a teaspoon or two of espresso powder next time)

This batter puffs up quite a bit in the oven so fill the cupcake tins 1/2 way for cupcakes as tall as mine, or 1/3 for cupcakes that just break the top of the paper liner. You can make about 20 if you make them like mine, and 24 if you make them smaller.

I was in a hurry so I cooled my cupcakes on a rack for five minutes and then thre them in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. While they were slightly warm I dipped them in a ganache and put them back in the refrigerator. Like I said in the post below, my ganache recipe isn't exactly refined and my last minute dipping was far from perfect. I'll post an exact recipe when I get that figured out.

T's Celebration Cupcakes

Congratulations, T!

Also, I rock so hard it's not even fair to mere mortals. Look what I did in an hour.

My friend finally got a job that she wanted, so improptu chocolate cupcakes were in order. I know I finished these in about an hour because I started them after I started laundry and the cupcakes were done before the load was dry.

Thank you, Martha Stewart, for one-bowl chocolate cupcakes. This recipe was fantastically easy, and didn't require any softened butter or other time-consuming or special ingredients. I substituted the buttermilk with equal parts fat free Greek yogurt (who has buttermilk sitting around in the house all the time, anyway?).

Ganache on short notice was a little trickier. I combined half a cup of boiling hot half and half (no heavy cream on hand) with about three quarters cup of chopped chocolate. I whisked in a quarter cup of powdered sugar, a tablespoon of light corn syrup, and a teaspoon of vanilla. My big mistake was not taking three extra seconds to sift the powdered sugar. My sugar's been sitting around for awhile, so even after intense whisking it was slightly lumpy. Oh well, I'm really not going for beaucoup style points tonight, just chocolatey goodness!

Kabocha and Oden

When I have my own restaurant, this is how I'll serve kabocha: stewed in ginger and sugar, with a shot of the stewing liquid on the side.

I love that the weather's getting cold and I can find kabocha for 99 cents a pound everywhere
I go. My favorite way to eat kabocha is in ginger soup. It's really easy, and incredibly soothing. I cut a kabocha into big chunks. The skin can stay on, as long as any rough patches and the stem are removed. I'm the only one who likes it, so half a two-pound kabocha is what I cook at a time. I put it in a two quart (very small) pot, cover with water, and add tons of ginger. I would say I added easily two chunks off the root, or fifteen thick slices. Everything simmers together until the kabocha starts to become soft, at which point I add brown sugar to taste (I would say about a loose quarter cup). When the kabocha is fork tender, it's ready. And yes, you can eat the skin too. If you don't add too much sugar, the gingery soup is good as a soothing "tea."

The main course was a 9 quart Le Creuset duth oven teeming with Japanese treats: mochi stuffed tofu skins, kababoka fish cakes, squid/fish/vegetable cakes, cuttlefish cakes, yam flour noodles, carrots, daikon, maitake mushrooms, and potatoes. Oden base is a mix of stock (fish or chicken), sake, soy sauce, and sugar, and everything is served with a dollop of karashi (Japanese yellow mustard).

Espresso and Crosne

I had a long leisurely morning to explore Santa Monica today because I had to take the car in for a routine inspection and had over two hours to kill.

First I stopped by Caffe Luxxe, which was recently listed as one of the best coffeehouses in LA by The Los Angeles Times. The latte art was beautiful, the space was cute, and the prices were fine ($3 for my 12 oz. latte). I would stop by again if I were in the neighborhood, just because I know coffeehouses have good and not so good days. But was it fa-bu-lous? No.

Ritual Roasters in San Francisco and Anna Bananas in Portland both easily beat out Caffe Luxxe in terms of having a sweeter espresso and tighter smoother foam. The madeleine was also fine, but nothing special. I appreciate that LA is trying, but it's got a long ways to go before it's a coffee powerhouse. And yes, that's a sissy Fitness magazine that I shamefully allowed in the photo. I have nothing to say to defend myself. I was weak. I know. Real women read Hers Muscle & Fitness.

The Santa Monica Farmers' Market is in full fall swing. I picked up some apples, squash, leeks, and onions (bypassed the persimmons for now). The most interesting thing I saw by far were these little tubers. They're called Crosne, and they're the weirdest looking things ever. When eaten raw they're extremely juicy and crunchy the way a good jicama is, and I tasted the very faintest trace of ginseng in the initial bite. It was so faint it might have been my imagination.

Finally, I stopped by the library and picked up two cookbooks I've been wanting to read: Land of Plenty by Fuscia Dunlop (a Sichuan cookbook by an American who studied abroad there and fell in love with the food) and Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, a best selling all purpose guide to Mexican food.