So, apparently I don't know how to cook rice

For tonight's dinner, I decided to make rice. I hadn't really made rice in a pot before, but I figured it shouldn't be too difficult. I followed the instructions on the package and put my pot on the burner. When my timer went off, there was a surprise waiting for me! My rice had stuck to itself to form a sort of rice cracked! And I had over-salted it, so it tasted like a rice cracker too. 

Luckily I had delicious leftovers to eat with the rice: indian food doggy bag boosted with cabbage and tomato. And I'm glad the rice did not stick to the pot.

Goat Curry

My roommate and I share a passion for grocery stores. That's a normal interest, right? I kind of want to add "Grocery store enthusiast" to my "about me" section.

So, on our way back from work one evening, we couldn't resist exploring the grocery store that we had passed by a couple times. It seemed pretty standard, but with some slightly exotic produce such as taro and chayote. It also stocked goat meat. In a stroke of "great minds think alike", we both immediately concluded that goat curry was going to happen.

After some research to find a recipe using few different spices, we found this recipe on indiansimmer.com, which asked for cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, and bay leaves. We got these spices in ridiculously large portions for ridiculously cheap from the local international market.

The curry is pretty simple: sautée the spices in oil, add the onion garlic and ginger, add the goat meat, add the tomatoes and salt, simmer for 25 minutes.

The resulting dish was good, but not perfect. The goat meat was rather tough. We each attempted to eat with our respective favorite utensils (fork and knife for me, chopsticks for my roommate) but these quickly proved to be useless. After agreeing on a no-judgement policy, we ended up ripping meat from the bones with our hands and teeth. 

Also, the meat was not at all seared and the dish was too greasy. The recipe says to sear the meat after adding the onions, but (at least in our pan) there simply isn't space to do so. So, my roommate and I thought that a way to fix both problems could be first searing the meat without oil and rendering some of its fat, and using that fat (rather than extra oil) to sautée the spices and onions.

A study on Ginger and Saffron

My family recently went to the "molecular" restaurant Beaumé, and one dish there that particularly interested me was the turbot with turmeric cream, chanterelles, and pickled kohlrabi. Beaumé cooked the turbot "sous-vide" and placed it in the bright yellow sauce. The pickled kohlrabi added a nice bright touch to the soft dish.

Beaumé's turbot

Inspired by this dish and by the saffron my family received as a gift, I decided to make a variation on this recipe. I was curious about the combination of ginger and saffron, so I put together a menu using both spices.

The Menu:

• Cod poached in ginger, kefir lime leaves, and lemongrass
• Colorful vegetables in dashi and ginger broth
• Saffron rice pilaf
• Saffron and Ginger bechamel

The cod and vegetables turned out well. For the vegetables, I found a bundle of heirloom carrots (purple, red, and yellow) to which I added leeks and celery. I boiled some water with dashi granules, ginger, lemon grass, and kefir limes leaves to make a flavored broth for both the vegetables and fish, and I added more ginger to the vegetables as they cooked. 

The carrots

The vegetables

The rice did not go as smoothly. I bloomed the saffron in boiling water to try to get the flavor and color out of it, but the rice did not end up becoming yellow. My mother says that I should have have ground up the saffron with a mortar before blooming it. Well, now I know! And even though the rice was not yellow, it still tasted of saffron.
To make the pilaf, I sautéed some leeks in a tbsp of butter, then added the riced and sautéed it for a couple minutes as well. I made a broth of saffron juice (saffron + boiling water + kefir lime leaf + time) and a cube of vegetable bouillon. Per traditional pilaf method, I added enough broth to cover the rice, brought it to a simmer, and then stirred/added more broth as needed until the rice cooked through.

The Bechamel was tricky. I heated some milk with saffron and ginger to get flavor. In a saucepan I cooked 1 tbsp flour in 1 tbsp melted butter for a couple minutes and then added the milk a little bit at a time, stirring well after each addition, until the sauce was the desired thickness. Because I don't have much experience, my sauce ended up a bit curdled, so I strained it to remove the bits. Like for the rice, the sauce was not yellow because I had not ground the saffron before infusing the milk.

To replace the kohlrabi, I made some pickled ginger (this recipe, it was a bit too salty)

And here is the final plate.

Bento #1: Hoisin salmon, spinach, carrot kinpira, and sushi rice

Sooo I started my job this week, but my job does not have a physical location, so I work whereever I want to. Today I decided to work at the library, so I made myself a bento lunch. I had been wanting to try making bento for a while (I was especially inspired by justbento.com; I even bought her cookbook!)
In today's bento I put some leftover hoisin glazed salmon and vietnamese spinach that I had frozen last week. I also had about 3/4 cup of "sushi rice" (read more to learn why I put quotations there) and some carrot kinpira, blanched bean sprouts, and "pickled" cucumber from the Just Bento cookbook. I had prepared the carrots and bean sprouts last friday, and they were fine today, although not as delicious as they were fresh on Friday. Especially the carrots, those were really darn good. The salmon was a tad dry, but the spinach was good.

The rice, however, kinda failed. It was mushy and the flavor ratio was off. I think one issue is that I put too much water in the rice cooker because I was trying to cook only half a cup of rice but the rice cooker does not have half cup markings. I also was not sure how much vinegar mixture to put into the rice. Well, with practice I'll get the hang of it.

As a sidenote: this recipe looks delicious.

Backpacking food

I am now officially in College (with a capital C). Classes started a couple weeks ago and I am already quite whelmed by homework (but not yet overwhelmed). But before classes started and before orientation started, I went on a Pre-Orientation Hike offered by my school that consisted of a 40mile / 5 day backpacking trip in Yosemite.

Of course, what else would I do on a five day trip but take pictures of all the food! But this ain't no five star restaurant, ok? Be prepared; all this food must be able to be cooked with just a titatium pot, water, and a burner. But after hiking 6-9 miles with a pack, it sure tasted like a 5 star meal.

For breakfast we would generally boil water in our pot and pour it in a bag of instant oatmeal, but on the last day we had granola with dried milk powder and water so we could start hiking earlier.

Doesn't that look delicious?

For lunch we would alternate between cheese, sausage, and crackers or nutella, jelly, tortillas, and flatbread. 

That kraft yellow cheddar and this white rustic cheddar were the best tasting cheeses I had ever had. I can't even imagine how delicious actually good cheese would have been.

As for the nutella and tortillas, well, nutella makes everything delicious! 

(and yes, I am using my knee as a plate. I was too lazy to get my bowl out for lunch)

Dinner was where we had the more interesting meals because we could actually cook stuff. Unfortunately, titanium does not conduct heat well, so attempts at cooking generally turned out somehow both burnt and undercooked. The night after the first full day we used the leftover orange cheese from lunch to make burnt and undercooked cheesy rice. Yum!

We also had Chicken and Orzo  made with weird packaged chicken

But the best meal was the one that required the least cooking: Couscous! Our last dinner was a box of coucous with a curry spice packet, and it was actually legitly delicious. Especially with Sundried tomatoes and pine nuts in it.

Arroz con leche (my version) and Jicama salad (improvised)

In Spanish class, my teacher decided to have a restaurant "project". In other words: make groups of 3-6, bring food from a specific Spanish-speaking country, choose a waiter, and eat! I was in a group of 3 with Annabel and Jonathan, both of them Sophomores I don't know very well, but generally pleasant people. We chose Mexico as our country and I volunteered to bring dessert and appetizer, Annabel brought fruit salad and drinks, and Jonathan brought his dad's tortilla soup. The drink was Sprite, but the fruit salad was tasty; it included apples, grapes, and oranges. The tortilla soup was strange. It tasted good, but the texture was like liquid goo... I don't know what went inside the pot, but I think cornstarch gives this kind of texture.
Anyways, down to the most important part: Me! As a starter, I decided to make Jicama [heekahmah] salad. I had bought pre-cut jicama during the weekend, but I needed more than just that. I looked in the fridge and I found packaged pre-cut lettuce and grated carrots. I just tossed everything together and put it in a Tupperware. Done!
The Arroz con Leche (rice pudding with cinnamon and raisins) was more complicated. The problem with rice pudding is that you have to stand in front of the pot stirring constantly. This was a problem because I had homework and I can't concentrate if I have to get up every five minutes to stir. Earlier in my life, I had made rice pudding in the oven, and I wondered if I could adapt the baked recipe to arroz con leche. I boiled milk with a cinnamon stick, sugar, and raisins. When it started to bubble I poured it into a buttered oven dish and added the rice. I gave a quick stir and cooked it in a 250 oven for 50 minutes. After that amount of time, it wasn't done yet, so I mixed it again and put it back in for another ten minutes. When I brought it to school it was pretty good, but on the dry side. As there was a large quantity of leftovers, my family and I ate some for dessert for dinner. My dad had the great idea of adding some milk to the rice in his bowl. I followed suit, and I agree that it gives the pudding a better texture. Maybe adding more milk to the rice before cooking it would eliminate the need for this, but I don't know yet. If I ever try this recipe again, I will attempt to fix this problem.
Also, the rice pudding was brown instead of white, probably because the raisins were there the entire time. Most recipes instructed adding the raisins during the last fifteen minutes, but I wanted them nice and plump. The color was not bad, just surprising.
Now for the recipe!

My version of Mexican Style Baked Rice Pudding (Arroz con Leche)

• 5 c. milk
• 1 cinnamon stick with a lot of flavor, or add a little powdered cinnamon as well
• 1/2 c. raisins
• 1/2 c.–more to taste sugar
• 1 1/4c. uncooked rice

Pre-heat the oven to 250F. Put everything except the rice in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring regularly. While the milk is heating, butter a oven-proof casserole-style pan that can hold more than 5 cups. Taste the milk and make sure it is sweet enough (it will taste less sweet when it has been absorbed by the rice). When the milk mixture starts to boil (it may take a while) pour it into the dish and mix it with the rice. Put the dish into the oven for 50 minutes. After this time mix it well and oven-ify it again for another 10 minutes. Serve with milk or cream on the side.

Virginie's Paella, Yum!

Last weekend, Virginie, my friend Olivia's mother, made a delicious paella for us in Tahoe. For those of my dear readers who have not encountered a paella yet, it is basically rice cooked with saffron and olive oil with various seafoods , chorizo (Spanish spicy sausage, SSS!) and chicken. Sometimes it can include peas or onions. The one Virginie made used chicken, chorizo, calamari, mussels, shrimp, onions, and yellow bell peppers.
Traditionally, paellas are supposed to be cooked in a paella pan, a large, shallow, flat pan, but it worked out fine in a dutch oven and a big pot!
Anyways it was a great paella, and an interesting experience to see raw, whole calamari.

My brother's Birthday Dinner!

It was my brothers birthday Monday, but we celebrated it Sunday with some family friends. We ate my mom's pumpkin risotto with my dad's whole roasted chicken, and for dessert... a Mango-Pineapple-Ginger-Chocolate-Upside-Down-Cake-Thingy!!!!! (I made it) I got the recipe from this really cool book I have named I Want Chocolate by Trish Deseine. It's a very tasty book. The cake I made was in short mangoes and pineapple chunks covered with chocolate cake batter, baked, and served upside down. It good, but didn't taste as gingery as I thought it would. We served with fresh pineapple and mango on the side with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
My mom's risotto was also tasty as usual, the pumpkin was soft and sweet, and the rice was smooth and oniony. I love onions.
My dad's roasted chicken is actually very easy to make, and comes out beautiful and moist. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the chicken.
Here are some recipes:
Chicken
buy a whole chicken and a chicken stand.
Trim off excess fat, and place thin, flat pieces garlic underneath the skin.
Place chicken on stand and bake for 45ish minutes at 350F.
Risotto
Cut up some onions and start cooking them with olive oil.
Add risotto rice to pan and stir for a while.
Add chicken broth and put pumpkin cubes on a baking sheet and in the oven until they are brownish.
Add all the other stuff for risotto.
When everything is done, serve with pumpkin on top of rice.
Mango, Pineapple, and Ginger Upside-Down Dessert
Cut 1 mango and 1/4 pineapple into cubes.
Melt 6 oz dark chocolate chocolate with 1/2c butter.
Beat 1/3c sugar with 2 eggs, then with choco-butter mix that you melted until frothish.
Fold in 2/3c flour, 1tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp chopped preserved ginger,and 3 oz choco chips.
Place fruit in a 9x9 or similar sized greased pan (you could try using the parchment paper technique) and pour cake batter over them.
Bake for 30 minutes in a 350F oven. Then take out cake, cover with foil and put it back in for 15 minutes (that makes 45min total)

* * *

Before the dinner, we found some cool looking drink: Sparkling Ginger Drink. This was not your old Canada Dry Ginger Ale, it actually had GINGER in it! It was tangy and yummy. I made a very good "ginger float" by putting a scoop of ice cream in it. (Notice the bottle is empty)
P.S. It was non-alcoholic