Tag Archives: dinner

Corn Pancakes!

Followed this recipe. Made a couple of modifications:

3 large ears of corn, boiled for 3-5 minutes, then cut off the cob
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups water
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup finely chopped scallions, didn’t taste these at all — can probably be skipped
1/4 cup canola oil, for frying
2 ounces triple-cream cheese, such as Cowgirl Creamery’s Mt. Tamor St. André, cut into 1/2-inch pieces — I used brie
chopped chives for sprinkling over the top

I cooked up the entire batch, which was very filling for two. The leftovers kept surprisingly well in the fridge.

Soup-erpower!

Here is a delicious bowl of soup Shamiq made.

Kale (de-ribbed), potatoes (quartered), pre-seasoned Adobo Chicken from Safeway & lots of spices from the cabinet.

Served with bread for extra noms (and carbs).

Bolognese Sauce

Apparently bolognese is also a kind of dog.

1.8lbs 20% fat beef (delicious fat…)
1 small onion
2 sticks of celery
3 cloves of garlic
a heavy shaking of black pepper
several pinches of fennel seed
a few pinches of herbs de provance
1 bay leaf
a heavy shake of chili powder
water
1tbsp chicken broth powder things (original recipe used red wine, but I had none, so instead I used broth)
2 small cans tomato paste
some quantity of salt
pasta (duh), parmesan cheese (optional)

1. Puree the onion, celery and garlic. Brown in olive oil. Until brown. (Probably 10 minutes)
2. Add beefs! Brown again. (15-20 minutes)
3. Add tomato paste, then broth/wine
4. Add herbs and salt
5. Simmer for 4 hours. As it reduces, add small amounts of water

Total cost: ~$13
Feeds: 8 meals

Cauliflower Mac & Cheese

I’m behind on posts… But above is the cauliflower mac and cheese I made a couple weekends ago.

Recipe is originally from Serious Eats, with some modifications:

1 head cauliflower, roughly cut
2 cups chicken
12 ounces macaroni
1 cup cup grated cheese, such as cheddar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese + 1/2 cup cheese of the type above
1/2 cup panko

1. Preheat the oven to 400F
2. Boil the cauliflower until soft, 15-20 minutes (don’t overboil or it starts to smell funny…) then move it to a food processor
3. Cook the macaroni for 5 minutes (partially cook)
4. Puree the cauliflower with cheese, oil, mustard and nutmeg. Add stoc to make a thick sauce. (Mine was a bit too thick…)
4. Transfer pasta to a 9in square baking dish, pour califlower sauce over
5. Top with breadcrumbs, parmesan and any extra cheese
6. Bake until brown and bubbly, approx 30 minutes

Sous Vide 7 Bone Roast

Last weekend, 3lbs of “7 bone roast” was purchased. Apparently it’s named as such since the bone resembles the number 7, not because it contains 7 bones. Mine did not, and I was confused.

What was done:
– Chop up into smaller pieces, put in 3 zip locks
– Sear
– Sous vide for 24 hours at 140F
– Resear

Eaten as:
– Thin sliced, seared & salted
– Seared in chunks, eaten like steak

Thoughts:
– This is awesome. I love the gristly bits of rib eyes, which this has lots of, but is much cheaper.
– Next time: throw a little salt in the bags, or perhaps before the first sear
– Perhaps sous vide at a lower temp? Maybe try 135F

Will try again.

Rich Table, Part II

Olives

Sardine Chips

Porcini Donuts

Brandade, Chicken Skin

Asparagus and chicken liver on flatbread

Lamb sausage with a sour orange sauce

Chicken giblet sausage and dandelion greens

Truffles. And butter.

White chocolate begniets

Caramelized sugar chocolate cake, jasmine rice icecream, kimquats

This is what happens when you ask your dad to take a picture of you.

Thoughts? Once again, the donuts were fantastic. The pastas, which I didn’t try many of last time, were mixed. The truffle one was delicious… as truffles tend to be. All the pasta noodley bits themselves are pretty good, but the chicken pasta was on the salty side… the lamb pasta was unusual, but I liked it (sourish pasta sauce?). My dad thought it was gross.

The dessert begniets were surprisingly unairy, given how good the porcini donuts are. The caramelized sugar chocolate cake was well flavored and I really liked the different textures — cake, toasted rice, icecream, kumquats.

Izakaya Yuzuki

I had dinner at Izakaya Yuzuki last night. It’s my third attempt at booking a table and making plans… and this time it happened! Overall, the meal was light and the dishes were interesting, but I felt like the menu wasn’t large enough and the food was unique but generally underwhelming. I ordered all the things I was interested in, but it wasn’t quite enough food, so we had to order some other dishes.

Disposable chopsticks ftw. Also, they have valet parking if you ask. It’s a secret.

I’m not sure I really understand this “koji” thing…

Housemade tofu. Best with a pinch of salt.

Seasonal veggies. From the left, yam with sesame sauce, asparagus and a slightly spicy burdock root.

Firefly squid over pickled cucumber and seaweed. A little fishy, but one of my favorites of the night.

Beef and tendons. Fatty and underseasoned.

Chicken meatball skewers. Not bad, nothing special.

Yuba and uni chawan mushi. I love chawan mushi. :3

Fried seasonal veggies. Not bad, but somehow I think it’s slightly underfried. Not as crisp as I’d expect?

Karaage. I’d read about this dish and was disappointed. I’ve found better karaage without too much difficulty.

Abalone sashimi. From the right, the frilly bits deep fried, liver mixed with soy and the muscle, thin sliced raw. The thin slices dipped in the liver mixture were great — the crisp raw shellfish and the rich salty sauce.

Seasonal rice — clams and tobiko. I’m not sure what they did to this rice to make it special, but it was pretty good. I could see eating a bowl of this as a rice heavy meal.

Ginger sorbet. One of the most memorable parts of the meal — a ginger sorbet that seems barely sweetened and has the throat-attacking spice of raw ginger. Pretty awesome.

Things I would order again:
Firefly squid
Abalone Sashimi
Ginger sorbet
Maybe the chawan mushi and rice

Satellite Republic

Dinner last night was at Satellite Republic, a Georgian food pop-up by Boris Portnoy. Google stalking reveals that he was the pastry chef at the Restaurant at Meadowood.

Woo poppies. I didn’t eat these. They were decoration.

Fenugreek spiced chicken liver, rye toast
I love liver. This liver had more of the “livery” odor than I’m used to tasting at western restaurants, but I really liked it. Also, more people should use fenugreek.

Imeretian Khachapuri, sourdough stuffed with cheese, adjika
NOM NOM NOM. I want to eat this everydayyyyy. I took a picture of the four spices together, like a small pizza, but it was a bad, blurry picture. So here’s a picture of the side oozing delicious cheese.

Badrigani Nigvzit, spiced eggplant, walnuts and pomegranite
Whatever the green stuff inside the eggplant was, it was delicious.

Pxali, minced beet greens and walnuts, moped tone bread
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t beet greens, but beet roots. Delicious nonetheless for those of us who like beets. Could’ve been served with more bread though.

Yogurt with pickled chanterelles, shiso, sesame
Want moreeee. We all ended up licking our bowls clean for this one. Or using our fingers to get every last bit of the yogurt/sesame/shiso mixture. Chanterelles were easy to grab with a fork.

Mount Lassen Trout, blood orange and fennel, sea grapes
This was a very orange trout. I wonder what it ate? Also a very well cooked trout. Just a smidge above rare, with a crispy skin. I wish it didn’t have bones though.

Duck tabaka, pickled green alliums
Duck and green things. Less unique than the other dishes, but still very well executed. I like alliums, I might be biased.

Spring lamb stsvadi gripped over grape vines, sour plum sauce
Soft chunks of tasty lamb with a sauce. I liked the smokey flavor, but Shamiq thinks it was under flavored.

Honey and coconut cake with milk jam
Milk jam == dulce de leche? The cake was good, but too sweet for my tastes. Probably my least favorite dish of the meal, but still not bad.

And a second order of the khachapuri because it was so tasty. (And because Shamiq smiled nicely)

9 courses for $50 + tax (I thought pop-ups didn’t charge sales tax, but maybe that’s just in San Francisco?)

The verdict? The food was great, but it felt like a series of starters. I was full enough by the end of the meal, but I didn’t feel like I’d eaten a whole meal as much as had a series of very tasty snacks. The last serving of the flatbread helped, but more bread served with the lamb or maybe just on the side would have made this much more filling.

The Forge, Oakland

I love pizza. And The Forge is a great place to acquire pizza. I went the opening weekend (over a month ago. Man, I’m behind) and it was crazy busy, but it seems to have calmed down some. I tried the fried cheese curds (absolutely delicious!), the potato skins (nothing special) and a pizza. In particular, I had a pizza of nettles and potatoes, it was everything I want in a pizza — a chewy but flavorful crust complemented by interesting toppings. Pizzaiolo and Delfina Pizzeria both tend to have long waits and lines, so I’m excited to have a tasty alternative.

I am excited. And silly.

Rich Table

Porcini Donuts with Raclette. These were amazing. Light fluffy chunks of fried dough dusted with powdered porcinis, served alongside whipped raclette. Super rich, but not as heavy as it sounds.

Sardine chips & Horseradish. I’d read about these sardine chips, but wasn’t sure what a “sardine” chip would be… Turns out to be a potato chip with a sardine tucked into it. Personally, I liked the porcini donuts more and I’m not sure how these get written up more… But they were also pretty interesting. The horseradish is great at offsetting the greasy, rich flavor of the sardine chip.

Here is a closeup of a sardine chip. I wonder if I can make bacon chips.

Next up was lamb tartare, with biryani spices and fried pita bread. The seasoning was great, and I was very happy to find that the pita were fried, and not toasted. I’m not a big fan of pita. Also, raw onionssss. I usually hate onions, but these were sliced thinly enough that they were a nice clean taste to offset the richness of the lamb and the grease of the pita.

Chicken lasagna with popped sorghum, wheatgrass puree and spring onions. The waiter suggested we get the chicken lasagna, mentioning that the chefs were particularly strong with pasta. Sadly, I found this dish underwhelming. It wasn’t bad, but it paled in comparison with the previous dishes. I thought it was a little mushy and, while the popped sorghum was really neat (probably my favorite part of the dish), it didn’t feel like a cohesive dish.

Poached rabbit with mole. The mole sauce was delicious. Strong, but in small dabs, delicious on all the bits and pieces of this dish. The poached rabbit was moist, and not too gamey, pairing well with the strong mole. My one complaint about this dish was that the chunks of rabbit were wrapped in rabbit skin, which I found rubbery… But I’m not a big fan of chicken/fish skin either.

Dessert! Sourdough bread pudding with pomelo curd, pistachio tuile. The bread pudding itself (the light brown goop in the middle) was nice, but I found the curd a bit too sweet. I tried a couple bites with a little bit of everything, then found that I liked just the bread pudding and chunks of pomelo together the most.

And our check! $89 for all that food was more than worth it. I want to go back and try more of the pastas… And just stuff myself with the porcini donuts.

I forgot to take a picture of the bread… But it’s worth mentioning. Unlike most restaurants that serve complimentary bread, Rich Table charges $4 for two hefty slices of their Douglas Fir Levain bread and house cultured butter. The bread is served toasted, and is delicious. The aroma of fir is pretty mild, but it goes well with the toasty bread and rich butter.

I’ve got another reservation to take my parents at the end of the month!

raccoon*

adventures of a cosmic procyonid