December 2, 2013 In All recipes, Meat, Vegatables

ANDY WRECKER GREEN CURRY MEATBALLS

Let's all be honest here. Yes. Including those of us who say we love to cook, and would ferociously defend the legitimacy of home-making Turkish kofta platter, Taiwanese gua bao, or even Italian duck prosciutto, once in a blue moon at least, let's not kid ourselves. In practicality, the song and dance of travelling to exotic and exhilarating corners of the world through a dialogue in our own kitchen is, most of the time, only romantic in theory. At the end of the day, if you are any lucky, the flaming urge for such adventures mostly gets put out by a take-out menu amidst a stack of its own kind, that quietly settles in a kitchen drawer with can-openers and plumber-contacts. Authentic, or not authentic. Good, or no good. Doesn't matter. That's what normal people do. I used to be normal. Yes. I used to be normal in the sense that I too, raised healthy curiosity for all things exotic and delicious, which perhaps could even develop into a moderate ambition to dissect and tackle in my own kitchen. Perfectly normal and harmless because ultimately, just like any other sanity-abiding citizens,

0
November 28, 2013 In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Sweets, Top Posts In 90 Days

TIRAMISU CHURRO + WARM COFFEE CUSTARD

The problem with me as a recipe dreamer hallucinater during the still-ongoing Thanksgiving carnival is that every year, in utter rudeness, I always feel like leaving the table even before the turkey makes it out of the oven.  Evidently from my premature and inappropriate blabbering of the X'mas blend coffee bars in last November while the whole town was still chattering about tweaking pumpkin pies to death, to now this uncooperative side-tracking dessert that doesn't even rhyme with "ies" and " akes", it is obviously true.  I have no table-side manners.  Now before I leave, pass me the damn stuffings. If you think that I have zero patience, nor the skills to time a topic in order to be well received, you're

1
November 26, 2013 In All recipes, Snacks, Vegatables

LAMINATED POTATO CHIPS

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of effort in the kitchen, not just on the usual manual labor I do driven by unknown impulses, but on trying to draw the very blurred line on practicality/doability when it comes to home-cooking, which I have slowly come to realize to having a very different definition than the general public.  Well, I suspect not having a day-job has something to do with it, but really though, what do people consider worth-the-effort when the grunt work is to be done by their own hands in their own kitchen? Since I have proclaimed to be an extremely biased and unrepresentative judge on such matters, you can understand my mental struggle while I was putting this together yesterday.  I mean, there's a reason why the corner of this recipe in Thomas Keller's French Laundry Cookbook has been folded for years without due until yesterday when I was struck by temporary insanity.  I thought, who else in their right state of mind would want to do this?  The same amount of time and effort spent on slicing potatoes super thin, laminating it with a sprig of herb then baked until golden brown and crispy, is only publicly

0
November 22, 2013 In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy

THANKSGIVING ROUX BREAD

For the innocent sake of running an adequate food-blog, I've been slowly sucked down to a rabbit hole passing the disorienting stage of flying pies and falling biscuits, deep down to the world of cultivating gas-farting micro-organism on my kitchen counter (quite deep when you actually think about it).  My falling journey has brought to you and myself, things I wouldn't even think of doing just a little shy of 2 years ago, things like palm sugar brioche, dreamy Hokkaido milk toast, Taiwanese gua bao, Roman Bonci's pizza, creamy carbonara pizza, clarified butter English muffin, pillow beignets and this rocking potato roll. If I look into the mirror right now I wouldn't recognize myself. But however close I thought I was getting to the end of it, being awaken to the real world where people actually just buy this stuff (yeah

0
×