February 2010 Archives

(Photo: TPC's Grilled Jalapeño Poppers with grilled Hot Wings. For Julie's take on my bacon cooking "prowess", click here.)

Tim Love says the bacon craze has gone too far:

To professional and amateur chefs alike, it has become more than just a potent tool for infusing fat and flavor. It has become a ubiquitous ingredient in everything from cocktails to crockpots, used by chefs a bit too liberally in favor of that big, familiar taste you've known since Mom first put it on your plate before school. Bacon coffee, bacon cereal, bacon ice cream--America, cut it out!

I hope Biggles and Chilebrown don't figure out where he lives.

Popular Science has a cool article for the gadget geeks. It's a infrared radiant fryer that sounds very promising:

It's essentially a glorified heat lamp, using 10-12 infrared emitters with different wavelengths. Each has a different purpose -- some cook the middle, some heat the surface, and so on. Jalapeno poppers work well because the inside can be cooked at a much lower temperature than the exterior, for instance. "We just literally change the dial on our emitter setting," Keener said.

Even if it's years before we can have them in homes, as someone who's drained a lot of fryers, I'm all for it!

It was pizza night again tonight, and thanks to the pizza dough I portion and freeze regularly, it's a fairly simple process. It's taken me a while to come up with a technique that optimizes taste and simplicity, but I think I'm closing in on it!

The bottom got so beautifully browned, I didn't even have to finish it outside of the pan:

If you ask nicely, I'll post the recipe some day...

Oops, forgot the beer. Be right back.

This was the huge chocolate chip cookie I made for Julie last year. This year's menu:

Nouvelle Caesar Salad with Homemade Croutons
Cioppino with Cod, Scallops and Shrimp
Homemade bread
A dessert to be named later

Have a great day no matter what you're eating!

I generally associate oyster sauce dishes with beef, but it was terrific with chicken. Although we gravitate towards the spicy Sczechuan stuff, this was a nice change.

Bravo has announced, via NRN, the chefs that will be competing this year. Some familiar names, but lots I don't know.

I finally was able to unpack a few boxes of cookbooks and kitchen notes, and came upon a treasure:

Recommended to me 20+ years ago by my good friend Steve-O, who used to teach Chinese cooking classes in the Seattle area, it's a classic. There's copies available for a penny, so if you have any interest at all in Chinese cooking you'd be nuts not to pick one up. It's not a pretty book in terms of photography, at least the 70s version I own, but it's full of useful information and great recipes, which is what I look for in a great cookbook anyway.

Here's a few dishes I made this week, customized from the original somewhat to make them standalone dinners:

Chungking Chicken with Brocolli and orange peppers:

Sczechuan Eggplant with Chicken:

Am-Ko Market has been an wonderful resource to restock my oriental sauces after the move, and having a properly stocked pantry is key to making faithful versions of your favorites.

Fire up your wok and go for it!!