Hot and Spicy Beeb-em-bap

B used to work in a Japanese restaurant, and they served bibimbap there, but this being Indiana, it was only refered to by the above name, Hot and Spicy Beeb-em-bap. Either way, korean Bibimbap was the inspiration when I took out my wok to tastily dispose of tuesday’s hot pot leftovers.

Basically I just individually stir fried each ingredient in the wok: pea vines, oyster mushrooms, onions, tofu (I used chili oil here instead) and beef, then fried the egg. I placed it all in a circle over rice, topped it with the egg and then dabbed gochujang, Korean red bean hot sauce around the edge. The thing is, it is mostly greens, but I was worried it would look too green, so I buried them a bit, but down below here, where I have the mixed picture you can get a better idea of the ratio.

Hot Pot: A Pictorial

Sliced oyster mushrooms, fresh pho noodles, sliced eye of round beef, chopped pea vines, long cabbage, sliced chicken, chopped tofu and in the center is the most amazing peanut sauce, I think I’ve finally figured out the key. This was so good B and I were about to start spooning it straight down our throats! I used about a tablespoon of soy sauce, like a half cup of peanut butter (Adam’s Chunky, of course) and then just poured and mixed in coconut milk until it was smooth, creamy and dippable.

I’m glad I posted this the second time I made it not the first. Lesson I learned between the two times? Last time I spent about two hours slaving over the broth, trying to perfect it, worrying it didn’t taste right, etc. and it just ended up tasting only like szechuan peppercorns. This time I forked over 75 cents and bought a packet of hot pot mix. It was perfect. I hate short cuts, but this was about a hundred times better.

And of course, the after math. Delicious, delicious aftermath.

Seattle Food Tour

One of the most enjoyable elements of our trip to New York was that we were given a self guided walking tour of food place on an online message board. Extending it and adding our own interests, we ended up spending a day walking–we totaled it up to about 12 miles, and eating. It was an amazing experience, and I felt that I had truly gotten to know the city, walking the streets and eating just a small nibble at each place. We ended up often eating between the two of us, about half of each item, then giving the other half to the nearest hungry looking street-person. So we even added a little civic duty in.

It was so wonderful, such a great experience, I decided to design a mini version for Seattle. So, tourists, please feel free to try this and report back, Seattlites, please give me feed back–what should be added?What subtracted? I tried to include things that stood out as unique to Seattle as well as that are representitive of the larger food culture. So here it goes:

 Your tour begins with a little breakfast at 5th avenue and Blanchard (2124 5th Ave). Top Pot Doughnuts are now sold in Starbucks nationwide, so they are a little less special, but here you can have a look at where it all started. If you are fearing overfulness, this is not a hard stop to miss, as you are going to get doughnuts at the next stop too. Leaving Top Pot, take a left out of the building and then cross the street and head west (a right) up to 4th ave. Take a left on to 4th and at 2001 4th Avenue, you’ll find your first bit of lunch. Dahlia Lounge was the beginning of Northwest Cuisine. Chef Tom Douglas is our homegrown celebrity chef, and this is the restaurant in which he exemplifies what that cuisine is about. My personal favorite here is their seafood cobb, but the menu changes and I would reccomend any dish, especially seafood. His crabcakes are famous, but most anything will give you a good idea of the style. For dessert, be sure to order the doughnuts. Now you get to walk this off a little bit. Walk south on 4th about 2 blocks to Stewart, then take a right on to Stewart and walk all the way down to Western (one street past 1st). Take a left onto Western and you will see a beautiful view if it is a nice day, and a whole lot of homeless people either way. At the south end of the park, Western splits off down the hill and if you stay uphill, you are on Pike. Do that. Walk south on Pike in to the Pike Place market. At 1526 Pike you have the Mee Sum Pastry. Please follow directions here to avoid disaster. Only order the humbao. Preferrably the baked. And really it is the curry beef one that is amazing, though the chicken one is quite good. But whatever you do, do not try to flesh this out with say, a potsticker. This place has amazing hum bao, and the Curry beef is very good and very unique. I used to save up my allowence as a small child to get there. But the rest of their stuff is sub par. Keep going down this side of the street and at 1912 Pike you will find the original Starbucks. If you are a coffee drinker, you should probably order something so you can say you made the pilgramage. Then cross the street and witness the chaos that is the Pike Place Market. Now you get in to the true Northwest stuff. Stop at Jack’s and try some market fresh seafood cooked up to order. Pike turns there, and you can stop and watch them throw the fish if you’d like, but a better idea is to sample the fresh fruit across the street at the produce stand on the corner. Pike will dump you out onto 1st, take a right and walk down 1st ave. Anytime in the next 8 blocks, you can take a left up to 2nd and keep walking south. After Yesler, 2nd starts to go diagonal, and when 2nd crosses 3rd, you are at Salumi. Timing here is pretty important, as Salumi is only open tues-fri 11-4. I’m hoping if you started this tour around 11 with doughnuts and lunch at Dahlia, you’ll be here around 2 or 2:30 and the lunch crowd will have faded. You might end up with an hour or longer wait if you end up here anytime before about 130. It’s hard to say what to order, it is hard to go wrong with any of the meats. I love the Finocchiona personally, but they are all amazing. Order a sandwich, split it. You’ll be more than well fed. Pick up some extra meat to bring home and give as gifts and pretty much for anything else you can use meat for. After you leave Salumi, continue to the corner of 2nd and Jackson, and go east (left) on Jackson, then take a right onto 6th avenue. About two blocks down, on the corner of 6th and Weller is Shanghai Garden. Here you order the Barleygreen hand shaven noodles chow mein. They are amazing. If you can fit anything else in your stomach, they do great food here, but the noodles are what is most impressive. And then you are done. If you want to do some non-caloric shopping, there is a very cool asian bookstore attached to Uwajimaya across the street, and at 6th and Jackson a very cool asian kitchen supply store, called Pacific Range Hood (ok, not really, but that is the sign over it).

An Amazing Discovery: The Dong Hing Market

When I left my house yesterday to go grocery shopping, I had no idea where I was going. It was late enough I didn’t feel like heading north to the American shops: QFC, Safeway, fighting the crowds of people picking up their microwave meals for the night. Uwajimaya is always an option, but I have a tendency to some how leave there with far lighter pockets than I arrived with. Viet Wah seemed the appropriate answer, but by the time I got their the shared parking lot with Tamarind Tree was already getting crushed with customers stomping on each other to get at that delicious food. Not that I can hold it against them, I just didn’t feel like facing them. Across the street (1001 S Jackson St ) was my answer: The Dong Hing Market.

Beautifully laid out, well organized, cleaner than Viet Wah, I was able to get in and wander out with everything I needed plus a few other things that had caught my eye. Used to Uwajimaya, I ponied up to the register expecting to be lightened of a good $50. Nope, my grand total was $19.67. I stared in disbelief. The prices were unbelievable. $2.49 a pound for eye of round beef (it was good, too!). A dollar for a huge chunk of tofu, under $3 for two mangos. I could go on. This place is ridiculously cheap. I am not sure how they can afford to stay in business, but I promise they will be seeing more business from me. As I wandered, I wondered: what do $3.69/dozen oysters taste like? If its anything like how good the beef is, I’ll be buying a lot of those!

A ‘Touching’ Meal

Last night I had a wonderful meal at an extremely fun restaurant. I hesitate to resort to hyperbole and compare it to Momofuku Ssam Bar in New York, but I think they share many elements, from the generous use of offal to the tendency to overdo dishes, rather than let the delicious components shine alone. Our service was impeccable, my only issue was a personal pet peeve.

Don’t touch me. I hate when wait staff touches me. Our waiter took an order from the table next to me and then on his way to put it in lightly brushed my shoulder and said he’d be back for our drinks. I bristled. I am not a prickly person, I give hugs out like they’re candy, but for some reason I find it creepy and fake when I’m touched by waitstaff. B was excited to place an order for the Fishtail IPA on tap and I ordered a glass of Monastrell. He coursed our dishes perfectly, starting with the seared foie gras. Topped with bacon and perched over brioche french toast, I was perfectly happy, even with the superfluous gastrique anchoring it to the plate. Like I mentioned above, I found the dishes all to be impeccable, save for overzealous plating and garnishing.

“And here is your marrow bones topped with onion compote” our waiter put his hand on my back as he placed the dish on the table. Would he do that to B if it were he on the outside rather than me? Was there a need to do that? And why in God’s name would you top the delicious meatiness of marrow bones with such an overwhelmingly strong flavor as onion compote. He even suggested that if we wanted to get to the meat we scrape it to the side. But onion compote aside, the marrow was amazing, spread on toast bits (we had to ask for more) with sea salt and frisee, which cut the richness. In all fairness, the onion compote was flavorful and pleasing, I just did not want it mixed up in my marrow. I ate it later, sprinkled with the sea salt.

The meal continued like this, the waiter touching me, our delicous meats being anchored with overwhelming sauces (tete de cochon glued to the plate with a citrus something or other, oxtail and gnocchi with some sort of cheese paste). Over all it was a great meal accompanied by otherwise inscrutable service. The olives were forgotten and we recieved a comped dessert in return. Then, as we recieved our check a to-go box of olives was dropped, as they were “unmissable” according to our waiter.

I left pleased and achingly full. I wouldn’t hesitate to reccomend this place to anyone else. But my true question is, when is it okay for my waiter to touch me?

A Few Good Meals without any Pictures

Years ago, when traveling in South America, I had just taken some amazing pictures of a guy I met who was training to be in the circus. His name was Jaime, and he was practicing in the hall of my ‘hotel’ (in quotes because it resembled more of a prison). The pictures were beautiful and inspiring, showing the great drive he had to learn the skills, but also the hard work of training. The next day my camera was stolen on a bus through Northern Peru. I was, of course, devastated at the loss of all the pictures, especially those of Jaime, which would never have been recreatable. As I got over the loss of the camera, though, I realized it just meant I had to step up my verbal descriptions of the scenes that I was writing about. I may not have a picture of the old lady at the bus stop telling me you could tell the peacock was abused because of the notches in its tail, but I could describe the sorrow in her face as she watched it wander the restaurant garden. To me, this would be my ideal for a food blog. I am not a photographer. I nearly didn’t graduate high school because I was failing photo class. I try, but my photos do not show the beauty of the food, they do not capture the flavors that I can describe. I am a writer, not a photographer, yet for my blog to be successful, I understand that the blog-reading public wants pictures. And so I try and I struggle, but every once in a while, indulge me and read a post that lacks pictures, such as this one.

On Monday night I took a hint from my (imaginary) friend Tony Bourdain and made what he claims he would like for his last meal. After purchasing a marrow bone from the Pike Place Market (they chopped it in 4 pieces for me), I went home and roasted a root vegetable mix of a turnip, two parsnips and a pile of fingerling potatos. I doused them in olive oil, added a few cloves of garlic and a spring of rosemary and put them in the oven for 20 minutes at 400. After that 20 minutes, I put the oven to 450 and added the bones, each sitting on top of a toast triangle to absorb the juiced that came out. While that was going on I made the parsley salad: parsley, capers, half a small onion, lemon juice and olive oil. Made some toast and after 20 minutes in the oven, pulled out both the bones and the root vegetables. The root vegetables were a reminder of the simple cooking of winter, virtually unadultered, these were delicious and golden with hints of garlic and rosemary. Then there were the bones. The only way to describe marrow to someone who doesn’t understand is that it is meat butter. Somewhere between eating pure fat and the most perfect piece of steak, there lies the flavor of marrow. As I had my tongue up inside the bone, B looked at me like I was a nutcase. Perhaps I am, but I think there was a little tiny piece of rich, meat flavored deliciousness left in there!

 Tuesday night B and his buddy were in a bit of a hurry to get out the door to see Buckethead (head hung in shame) so I wanted to cook them something easy that they could eat while taking their shots of JD and running out the door. Using a left over piece of pita to make bread crumbs, I combined that with one egg and a pound of ground lambe, some minced onion and a tad of parsley and made lamb meatballs. To wrap them with, I made tofu shirataki noodles and sauteed mushrooms, spinach and onion. Then I gave them butter lettuce leaves to wrap with and some sambal oelek to add a hint of spice. Not only was it delicious little bites of lamb, but I saw a girl do something very similar last night on Top Chef. Coincicdence? I think not.

Food and Family

The other night at dinner with some old high school friends, the topic of food books came up. I know I’m obssessed with food, but neither of these girls are, so I was surprised to hear them tossing around names like “Julie and Julia” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemna”. I was excited to have people to talk to about the books and immediately inquired about borrowing them, when an interesting pattern arose “Oh, I loaned that one to my mother,” M said of her copy of Omnivore. I mentioned my mother had just loaned me “Heat” by Bill Buford (a great read, might I add). K said that her mother had just bought the new “Fortune Cookie Chronicles” and would put that into rotation amongst us shortly.

Yes, we are all young, well educated women in our twenties who are close with our mothers, but it stood out to me that food literature was such a markedly shared point between ourselves and our mothers. No longer do young women stand at their mothers apron strings learning the foodways passed down among generations, nor do they share a kitchen through their entire lives with either their mother or their mother-in-law. Yet, could it be that the kitchen, in both its literal and figurative meanings, has become a sacred space for the bonds of mothers and their daughters. In our culture, where the modern kitchen is supposedly the domain of both sexes (and all too often becomes the domain only of the local chinese restaurant), that it truly has remained a place for the bonding of female generations? If chauvinism is what kept women at the stove for so many years, why is it that we choose to spend our time sharing books about foo with our mothers? We all surely share other books with each other, but less so with our mothers. Food is the universal uniter, it can be related across generations, as has been shown in traditional kitchens for thousands of years. I just like to see that it hasn’t faded from view. That mother and daughter will still bond over a biscuit recipe, or perhaps in my case, a good bowl of Singapore noodles.

A Tasty Piece of Fish

This was a weekend of old favorites. We had hot pot at Seven Stars Peppers on Saturday night, and Sunday we visited the old ‘hood for our favorite sushi at our favorite price: Shun. Without a doubt, in my mind, Shun is the best value sushi in town. Prices are very reasonable and food is exceptional. I love Maneki, though I need to feel patient and rich to go there. I have tried other lower priced options, but Shun is where I return. We actually ended up spending a bit more than expected this time, but that was because they were serving exactly what I wanted to eat.

As I bit into my salmon nigiri, a wave of thoughts washed through my head, crashing into shore and scattering grains of sand all over my head. It was foggy, like looking through the murky water. What was so wonderful about this piece of fish? I smelled it first, it had been nestled next to a lemon slice, so I had a clean breath and a refreshed palate when I took the bite, luckily the lemon was not present in the taste, as that would have interfered with the natural beauty of the salmon. The slice was a perfect salmon color, with the lines in the flesh perfectly visible. It was almost too perfect, shouldn’t a living creature have imperfections? Appearently not when destined for nigiri at Shun. Everything about this fish was exactly as I wanted it to be, just enough fish to overwhelm the rice, just enough rice to hold up my fish. The perfect salmon richness washing over my mouth. An undetectable amount of wasabi, that I only know was present to hold the fish to the rice by the clean feeling in my mouth when I finished chewing. Wow. And as quickly as the wave came in, it washed back out, and I was left with an empty plate, a single lemon slice, lonely on the shore. But like the waves on shore, I know just where to find another of these. Waitress?

Greatness in Seattle

I wanted to quickly call attention to two great works of food research that are currently being done in Seattle. Over on Mouthfuls, a group of culinariacs are working their way through the lunch offerings of the Pike Place Market. See their research here. Seperatly, but in a related vein, the group over at MSG150 is blogging their way through the food of the international district. You can see their work here.

 Both groups are systematically working their way through a food community, trying everything, despite warning signs of bad food to come. This is brave eating, and I cannot express the reverence in which I hold both these groups. I can only hope that someday when in a job without free food and in a more intersting food zone, I can contribute to the cause of researching all of Seattle’s food zones. (Summary of my area: watered down Thai food, watered down Indian, Indian trying to be a steak house, watered down Thai. Wow, and I haven’t even made it a block…)

 Seriously though, these two works are the building blocks for a city wide eating guide. Anyone want to take on Pioneer Square? The 3rd avenue food courts? The “Mall Zone” at Westlake/Pacific Place? What about Little Saigon at 12th and Jackson (ooh, me! me! I volunteer!).

 Thanks guys, you do good work. Let me know if you ever need a spare mouth to feed!

Topping Top Chef

As all you culinariacs (my new favorite replacement for the word ‘foodie’) know, this wednesday was the premiere of the new season of Top Chef. I love TC because it really is fun to watch. I like the food, I like the drama, I like the format. I like pretty much everything except Padma. She weirds me out. In preperation for the premiere, I invited a few friends over for some snacks…I thought I would share these tasty treats with you all.

This is a parmesan crisp: bake shredded paremsan on greased baking sheet or silpat at 350 for about 10-20 minutes, until crisp and brown–but still maleable, then drape over spice jars to ge a vague cup shape. On top of this I put a piece of spinach. It was supposed to be arugala, for the addition of a little spice and flavor, but they were out and I wanted this delicious fresh spinach instead. Should have gone with the arugala, the blandness of the leaf really was unfortunate, though the leaf was a necessary buffer between the crisp and the egg. The egg is a sunny side up quail egg sprinkled with pepper–no need to salt, as the saltiness of the parmesan is plenty. I loved these and will definetly make them again.

I didn’t get a picture of the other snack because they disappeared too quickly (and I only got the very last quail egg). These were bacon cups stuffed with egg. I made the bacon cups by cutting strips of bacon in half then wrapping them into a (mini) cone shape. I secured them with a toothpick and baked them on a tinfoil wrapped baking pan in the oven at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. I made the eggs like an empty omelet, mixing the egg with a little water and frying. I cut these into small strips and stuffed them into the bacon. I had planned on adding mushrooms too, but these were so cute, I thought the addition of the mushroom would hamper the appearence.

Then I made two dips. The first was totally off the cuff, no recipe, no holds barred.

 

I roasted a head of garlic: wrap in tinfoil, add olive oil and salt, bake in oven at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. I roasted 2 red bell peppers: hold over fire of gas stove for 5-10 minutes, rotating occaisonally, until all skin is black and blistered, then let cool and peel skin. I chopped the red peppers fairly small, mixed with garlic, added berebere (Ethiopian spice, available at your local Ethiopian food store), then melted about 2 tablespoons of Nitter Kibe (Ethiopian spiced butter) over low heat and poured it over while mashing lightly in the mortar and pestle. This blended all the flavors with out giving it spread consistancey, but more a dip one. It is resting on a black pepper La Panzanella cracker.

 

This is the Edamole, resting on a tortilla chip (Solena, the best kind). I made this just like I do my basic guacamole, subbing in about two cups of edamame in place of the two avocados I use. I mashed the edamame a little bit with the mortar and pestle, but I wanted to keep the bit of snap in the beans, so mostly the just fell in half, so I left them like that. I added lime juice, olive oil, minced onions, minced jalapeno and cilantro. It worked perfectly. Topped it off with some cumin and a few dried red pepper flakes in order to add color. This was fantastic.