What's this, fish?

So much for updating on a regular basis...

The week before Thanksgiving Break, Ben came over for a home-cooked meal. We decided to compromise between meat and veggies and go for fish. Soooo, I present thee with:

Ginger and Soy-Sauce Glazed Salmon


Ingredients:

• 1/2ish C tamari
• 2ish tbsp maple syrup
• a splash of salt and pepper
• 1ish tsp fresh grated ginger
• sesame seeds to top

I apologize for the -ish measurements, but it was a bit ago and I don't recall. Also you can't really go wrong with such things...except to make it too syrupy. Don't do that.

How to:

1. Preheat oven to ~375 deg F.
   
2. Mix the tamari, maple syrup, salt and pepper. Coat both sides of the fish (I bought two fillets in total 1.5lb) with this glaze.
3. Spread grated ginger on top of each fillet, spoon excess glaze over the ginger. Let sit if you so desire. I put mine in a shallow dish and let them sit until Ben arrived.
4. Top with sesame seeds (merely for looks).
   
5. Bake salmon (watch carefully) until cooked to your desire ~5-12 min.
   

We served ours with a tomato, arugula and goat cheese salad and some of the previously described Mediterranean bruschetta. Ben insisted on taking a not-so-attractive picture of the place setting:


And there you are. A lovely Friday (?) meal at 80 Bristol.

Attempt #1: Tofu

So I'm a fish-eating vegetarian, and I have to admit that before this week, I had never cooked tofu. Chelle and I adventured to Whole Foods (mostly for free sampling) and were instantly perplexed by this vegetable they call Bok Choy.

Bok Choy Stir-Fry



Ingredients:

• Rice
• 1 head of bok choy, washed and chopped
• 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• (Extra) firm tofu, cubed
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1/4 C. tamari
  
• 1-3 tbsp olive oil
• Ginger (we only had powder, but fresh would be tastier)
• Sesame seeds (for prettiness)
• Salt/pepper to taste
  

What to do:

0. Prepare rice according to directions on bag/box.
1. Sautee onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat. We don't have a wok, but if you do, power to you.
2. Add pepper, stems (white part) of bok choy, tamari, ginger, and salt/pepper to taste. Cook until bok choy is nearly tender, then add the green leaves of bok choy.
3. Continue to cook until leaves of bok choy resemble cooked spinach.
4. Remove veggies from pan, add tofu. Still on medium heat, allow tofu to brown on each side-flipping every few minutes (about 8-15 min total). Season if you so desire (I added some more tamari, some sketch teriyaki sauce left here by who knows who, and some more ginger).



5. Top cooked rice with veggie/tofu mixture. Sprinkle a few sesame seeds on top and then eat!!

Playing ketch-up.

Sometimes it's best to ignore Chelle and her admiration for juice. In other news, the bottle is pretty sweet. And since the week of Orgo is finally over, perhaps it is time to ketch-up (ahahahah. I amuse myself) on what we've documented but failed to communicate.

The week mostly consisted of eggs out of a pan.





However, we did manage to whip out some fancy hors d'oeuvres.

Mediterranean Bruschetta?



Ingredients:

• Sundried tomatoes
• Bread (I used Rosemary Parmesan)
• Roasted red peppers
• Goat cheese
• Fresh basil (from our kitchen!)

Preparation:
1. Cut up tomatoes and peppers.
2. Toast the bread, spread on thin layer of goat cheese.
3. Top with tomatoes, peppers, and basil.
4. Enjoy!

Check out the fancy apple juice

Perhaps not quite yet the Queen of Tarts.

Embarrassingly, the only sections of the New York Times that I usually read are the obituaries, the theatre reviews, and the food articles. Sometimes I read the travel section, but that's only on special occasions. One day, months ago, I found this recipe and attempted to make it. While my version ended up a little differently, it was nonetheless delicious. I do wish they came out prettier. Do not be turned off by the picture which is rather unflattering. If it tastes good it doesn't have to be photogenic.

So here is what I did differently:

- I did not use Stilton cheese, because I had never heard of it before and was surprised to discover at the grocery store that Stilton cheese is blue. I immediately decided that there was some sort of mistake and that another type of Stilton cheese must exist, a cheese that closely resembled Brie cheese is flavor, texture, and appearance. Therefore I concluded to use Brie cheese instead. Not an altogether bad decision, but I wonder what the difference would have been if I'd actually used Stilton and think it would be worth a try.

- I did not use the correct pastry dough because I accidentally bought pastry biscuit shells instead. This was a very confusing discovery and the best solution I came up with was the roll the dough out to be thinner and places the toppings on top instead of folding them into the dough.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Hi everyone! I'm at the other end of the 400 miles from Jordy and Chelle and apparently am also being coerced into documenting my experiments with cooking. I'm going to try and catch up with some things I've made lately, the first of which is fried green tomatoes.

I went to the farmer's market and saw that one of the farms I normally buy from - Master Peace Community Farm - was selling large green tomatoes. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to make some fried green tomatoes (ever since an attempt this summer by one of my housemates that left something to be desired - sorry Anna), I bought several. I hadn't fried anything before, but I read my Alton Brown and dived in. Here's how I did it.

Ingredients:

• Several fried green tomatoes
• Millet flour
• 1 egg
• Whole milk
• Sunflower oil

Preparation:
1. Combine milk and egg in one bowl and add flour to another.
2. Cut tomatoes into thin strips... about 1/4" worked best for me. Too thin, and they won't really need to be flipped and thus might get overcooked a little, and too thick, and flipping them won't cook them all the way through.
3. Dredge tomato first in the milk and egg combination, then the flour.
4. Set aside to fry!

Now for the actual frying:
1. Add enough oil to a pan to cover the bottom. This is pan-frying, not deep-frying, so you don't need as much oil. You also should use a better skillet than the one I used. Something heavy and suited for frying.
2. Heat the oil until little ripples form. I forget the temperature recommended... I used a digital thermometer the first time to check but you just need to make sure it's hot enough but not too hot -- if it gets too hot it will start to smoke and then catch on fire, and you don't want that to happen.
3. Add a few of the battered tomatoes at a time. Wait a few minutes, and then flip them. Remove after a few more minutes to a mesh drying rack, if you have one. I didn't, do I used a combination of plates and paper towels to try to absorb some of the oil.

I still haven't quite mastered the art of battering tomatoes -- the batter is key to prevent them from absorbing the oil. These were kind of oily, and I could tell also because the amount of oil I recovered was less than the amount I put in. They tasted good, though.

Also, make sure your pan is completely dry before adding oil. If not, it will pop as the water evaporates, potentially spraying oil in your face.

"tallies of iridescent kale"

After doing some reading, I noticed that kale is not a completely ignored vegetable.

James Joyce describes kale as "iridescent" in Ulysses.

Yes people, you read right.

IRIDESCENT.

This is one green leaf that deserves respect.