Things wot I Made Then Ate: March 2018

Egg, ham and cheese on English muffin

It's a large English muffin. Perhaps too large.

tempura, shrimp and vegetables

Shrimp and vegetables that I have on hand. The red bell pepper has its skin sliced off because its waxy texture does not hold the batter

1/2 flour and 1/2 corn starch and salt. First to dust all the vegetables and second to add beer (or anything carbonated) for batter.

The dipping sauce is:

* 1/2 cup kombu and bonito dashi

* 1 teaspoon fish sauce

* 2 teaspoons mirin

* 1 shallow teaspoon sugar

* 2 teaspoons rice vinegar

* 3 teaspoons soy sauce

And that turned out very nice.

warm salad

In the fashion of stir-fry. This time I used a potato precooked in the microwave, because I like potatoes, and they soak up the sauce very nicely. No rice and no noodles, just one small potato.

The dressing is the usual Japanese flavor elements.

* 1t fish sauce

* 1t toasted sesame seed oil

* 2t mirin

* 1t sake

* 1 level t sugar

* 2t rice vinegar

* 3t soy sauce

I love this combination so much that I have it several times a week. Variations of this go with everything.

The red bell pepper is ex-kev-isit.

potatoes 2 ways

Chipped and fried, spiraled and fried.

The potato is rotated while being cut resulting in irregular wedges that fry unevenly.

A potato on a wood skewer is cut while rotating for one long continuous cut. Judging how much to move along is a bit of a trick to get slices thin as possible. Mine are both too thick and broken in places. Maybe you can do better at this than I do.

My sushi knife automatically moves to the left while slicing. It's perfect for trimming oranges. Maybe that would work better for this. And maybe it would create the opposite problem of continuously fighting to move too far. I don't know why they beveled only one side. It's weird.

risotto, mushroom and parmesan

Napa cabbage stir fry

In a small bowl the following flavor ingredients are mixed.

* 1 teaspoon fish sauce

* 1 teaspoon mirin

* 1 teaspoon sake

* 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seed oil

* 1 teaspoon sugar

* 1 teaspoon rice vinegar

* 3 teaspoons soy sauce.

It doesn't mix very well. The oil stays separated.

I don't care for the daikon tops. I'm tossing the rest. I really like Napa cabbage. It's delicious raw. Nothing at all like regular cabbage. The thick white part on regular cabbage is gross, but on Napa cabbage it's the best. It's watery and delicious. And its liquid mixes very well. The sauce that results from the vegetables wilting combined with the flavor elements is outstanding.

French fries with cheese sauce

milk,

nutmeg

hot red chile powder

microwaved 40 seconds

fried 2 stage method

stage 1.) fried 250℉ until bubbles slow

stage 2) fried 350℉ until darkened and crisp and bubbles nearly stop

I wonder why cheese sauce or delicious green chile isn't more desirable than catsup.

A long time ago, a friend who's a grown man said, "French fries are just a vehicle to deliver catsup."

And I'm all, "W-h-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-t?"

Catsup is a cop out. Some-one ended up with a ton of tomatoes and wondered what he could do with them before they all rot so he thought and thought and finally decided to boil them all down, sift out the bits of skin and seeds and process the mass to puree. Then he goes, you know this isn't so bad. We can jazz it up with some contrasting sugar and vinegar and turn it into tomato sweet/sour sauce.

Then he goes, "Let's put some ginger and garlic in it."

But he couldn't get a loan for that. His backers said it was too complicated.

Then he goes, "Let's put chile in it to make it more interesting.

And his backers go, "Too uncertain. Too unreliable. If customers want that they can put it in themselves. We should make it appeal to the broadest number of people."

So the guy goes, "Okay fine. But it could be a lot better."

Then he goes, "Let's call it Tomato Sweet & Sour Sauce."

"No wait. Let's call it Catch Up."

"No wait. Cat's Up."

"No, wait, wait, wait. Ketch-sup!"

"No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I got this. I got this. Wait. Catsup."

And everyone in the room goes, "Alright. Alright, already. Jesus, Heinz, just call it whatever you want. Just don't add anything to make it more interesting. Quit talking about curry and tamarind or any other kind of aromatic seed."

And that's how they profited from the sudden tomato glut that occurs every year. Meanwhile in Spain they get rid of their sudden annual surplus by having a huge tomato flight involving the whole town. Americans are appalled at the waste. Tomatoes are an American thing, and the Spaniards are very disrespectful of origin. Although it's a lot of fun and they blow off a lot of pent up steam, they have no idea how offensive this is to fundamentally conservative people. Plus it invites flies and vermin.

lemon jiggly cake

* 2 lemons, zest and juice

* 1/4 cup milk

* 4 oz butter

* 4 oz cream cheese

* 4 oz ricotta cheese

* 1/4 teaspoon salt

* 1 + 1/4 cup sugar

* 1 teaspoon vanilla

* 13 egg whites

* 6 egg yolks

* bake 25 minutes at 325℉

* bake 1.5 hours at 280℉

Mine did not rise very much so it doesn't jiggle :-(

It tastes delicious. It's so lemony it'll make your jaws squeak.

[I used the massive Nikon 14-24mm wide angle lens and had to get 2" away from the cake or else the lens would scoop up the whole kitchen and make the cake tiny. And I didn't want that. Close up it does this wild thing with perspective. It's fun. But it's also very tricky]