inuyaki

Froot Loops Cereal Milk Philippine Ice Candy

arnold — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 18:16:20 +0000

Confession: The subject of this latest Kulinarya challenge is completely new to me!

I had never heard of Philippine Ice Candy until Jun Belen brought it up to me as we were discussing this month’s challenge. I was born in California and didn’t grow up eating Philippine ice candy. I grew up on Popsicles and Fudgesicles, Push-Ups and the occasional Otter Pop when I was at a friend’s house. Oh…and Thrifty ice cream. Remember when triple scoops of Thrifty’s legendary Chocolate Malted Krunch were 15 cents? Yeah…I’m that old. :)

Ice candy is typically made using long plastic bags that are tied at the top. These bags are usually 1½x10 inches and from what I hear, can be found in the US in Filipino markets. I didn’t have a chance to get to my usual spots, but I found 2×10 inch bags on eBay, which produce a thicker ice candy, which was just fine with me. Use your favorite popsicle mold if you can’t find the bags.

While doing research for this challenge, I loved seeing all the different ways ice candy is served in the Philippines; the use of fresh fruits is pretty mind-boggling. But if I was going to do this challenge any justice, I’d have to draw from the memories of my own American childhood.

Fruity Pebbles Ice Candy (center) guarded by Froot Loops Ice Candy.

Cereal milk has always been an indulgence, especially when artificially flavored fruity or chocolately cereals are involved. It’s analogous to the icing on the cake; an extra reward after finishing off something delectable and sweet. Over the past few years, cereal milk’s popularity grew when it became a drink and a featured ingredient at David Chang’s Momofuku Milk Bar. Bottles of cereal milk, cereal milk soft serve ice cream, and cereal milk panna cotta — along with Milk Bar’s compost cookie — made Momofuku pastry chef Christina Tosi famous, and the official Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook was released in October 2011.

You don’t really need to follow the recipe in the book…cereal milk is made by simply steeping cereal in milk and then straining it. Tosi adds a little brown sugar and salt after steeping to balance flavors, but your own taste buds will let you know if you’re satisfied with the flavor after steeping. Tosi’s recipes use toasted Corn Flakes, Fruity Pebbles, and Cap’n Crunch, but you can use whatever cereal you want. Serious Eats has a fantastic post about the best chocolate cereal to make chocolate cereal milk (they preferred Cocoa Puffs and I concur with them that Cocoa Pebbles are generally awful.

Making a batch of Cocoa Puffs cereal milk.

For this version, I used Froot Loops because they were my favorite fruity cereal when I was a kid (and I was always kind of a Kellogg’s loyalist). My first batch of cereal milk was made with Fruity Pebbles using the Momofuku recipe. I liked it a lot, especially for the color, but it was really sweet. I made a second batch with Froot Loops, which I freestyled, and was really happy with the results. Froot Loops aren’t as sweet as Fruity Pebbles, which I preferred, but you’ll miss out on the pretty peach pink color. The Momofuku cereal milk recipe is below, but feel free to make your cereal milk however you like. :)

Fruity Pebbles Cereal Milk (from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook)

2 cups (100g) Fruity Pebbles
3¾ cup (825g) cold milk (I used 1%)
2 Tbsp (30g) tightly packed light brown sugar
¼ tsp (1g) kosher salt

Crush the Fruity Pebbles with your hands until it’s the texture of coarse sand.
In a large pitcher, add milk and crushed cereal and stir vigorously. Steep mixture for 20 minutes at room temperature
Strain milk into a bowl using a fine mesh sieve
Whisk brown sugar and salt into the milk until fully dissolved. Store in a glass pitcher or milk jug, refrigerated, for up to one week. (I doubt it will last that long!)

Cereal Milk Ice Candy (inspired by Busog Sarap)

2 cups cereal milk
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup sugar

Place all the ingredients in a bowl or blender and stir to combine.
Use a funnel to fill the bags leaving enough room so you can tie them off at the top. Tina at Pinay in Texas has some really good instructions on how to do this.
Place ice candy on flat on a tray or plate and put them in the freezer for at least 8 hours. When they’re ready, the ice candy will be firm but not rock hard.
Cut the knot off the ice bag and enjoy! :)

You can join the Kulinarya Cooking Club too!

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Tocino and Blue Potato Hash

arnold — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:32:36 +0000

This is my first post for the Kulinarya Cooking Club, a collection of Filipino food bloggers that celebrates Filipino cuisine every month. This month’s theme was the “Colors of the Philippine Flag,” which doesn’t sound hard until you consider that there isn’t a lot of blue food from which to choose. The rules did allow for garnishes or dishes to be used to represent the color blue, but I wanted it to be a main component of the dish.

My original idea was to do tocino chilaquiles, but I thought that was a little too easy since I would’ve simply bought a bag of blue tortilla chips. The hash idea evolved naturally from there, and blue potatoes was a natural choice. I wanted to tocino to represent the color red, and I used Jun Belen’s tocino recipe. I’ve been experimenting with tocino recipes for awhile, but I wanted to try Jun’s recipe because I like its simplicity and his use of red beet powder as a coloring agent. I added red bell pepper at the end for a more “pure” red color, since the tocino’s redness would diminish a bit when cooking. To round out the colors, I used a sunny egg for the yellow and white, which also fairly accurately represents the sun on Philippine flag.

For the technique, I pretty much followed the steps for the corned beef hash at Simply Recipes. It’s really straightforward and easily adaptable. Thanks, Elise!

I think I should’ve maybe used some yukon gold or other light-colored potato to maybe help the blue potatoes stand out more, but in the end, it was delicious and that’s all that really matters. :)

Tocino and Blue Potato Hash

(adapted from Simply Recipes.)

1 lb. cooked tocino, finely chopped
1½ cups cooked blue potatoes, diced
½ cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
½ medium onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. butter
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Heat butter in a large skillet (preferably cast iron) on medium heat. Add the onion and cook a few minutes, until translucent.
Mix in the chopped tocino and potatoes. Spread out evenly over the pan. Increase the heat to high or medium high and press down on the mixture with a metal spatula.
Do not stir the potatoes and tocino, but let them brown. If you hear them sizzling, this is good. Use a metal spatula to peak underneath and see if they are browning. If nicely browned, use the spatula to flip sections over in the pan so that they brown on the other side. Press down again with the spatula. If there is too much sticking, you can add a little more butter to the pan. Continue to cook in this manner until the potatoes and the tocino are nicely browned.
Remove from heat, stir in chopped red bell pepper. Salt and pepper to taste.
Top with fried or poached eggs for breakfast.

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A Pie for Mikey…and Moses

arnold — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 18:01:58 +0000

I’m one of those people that’s on my iPhone all the time checking Facebook, playing Words With Friends, scanning through tweets, etc. Most of the time it’s the rhythm of my online addiction that causes me to pull out my phone and start rapidly swiping and pushing on my touchscreen, sometimes not knowing where I actually want to go or what I’m trying to find. On Twitter, I’m following so many people that staying current with my Twitter feed is a real challenge. But last Sunday, amidst the river of tweets I watched speed past my eyes, this tweet interrupted my flow…

I assumed the worst when I first read it, but my gut reaction wasn’t confirmed until Wednesday when I saw that Gluten Free Girl retweeted Jennifer’s tribute to her husband Mikey.

I don’t know Jennifer very well at all. We first met at BlogHer Food 2009 when we sat at the same table for lunch. It wasn’t my first food blogger conference, but I remember being really intimidated about being at my first BlogHer event because I am, after all, a man. :) Both Jennifer and Gina von Esmarch immediately made me feel at ease, and we suffered (and laughed) through the trainwreck of Rocco DiSpirito’s keynote lunch presentation (where conference sponsor Bertolli thought serving a room full of food bloggers their line Frozen Classic Meals at the St. Regis Hotel was a good idea). After that, just like with many other bloggers I’ve met, we’d exchange random thoughts via Twitter every once in a while. A year later, I ran into Jennifer in an elevator at BlogHer Food 2010. I stuck out my hand to greet her and reintroduce myself and she said she remembered me, as well, which I really appreciated.

Of course, you don’t have to be directly connected to Jennifer to understand the devastation and grief she and her two young daughters are experiencing following Mikey’s death — you merely have to have a heart.

Last month, my cousin Moses died suddenly. Like Mikey, he was only 51, which is far too young, especially with three beautiful daughters, grandkids and an extended circle of family and friends that are still reeling from his loss. I met Moses for the first time in March—he was a lot closer to my parents—and found him to be as funny and magnetic as my mom always said he was. I wish I met him sooner because he was a fun guy to be around.

Moses with his daughters Faith, Hope, and Joy.

Jennifer said Mikey loved her Creamy Peanut Butter Pie, and she posted the recipe in her tribute post with one request:

For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there’s no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on.

So here’s my pie for Mikey. I’d like to think that Moses would’ve liked this too.

I pretty much followed the recipe to the letter, but I swapped out the 8 ounces of chocolate cookies with 4 ounces of Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams and 4 ounces of Newman-O’s sandwich cookies (sans creamy centers, of course.) When I got home from the store with all the ingredients, I realized that I forgot to buy peanuts, so I harvested some from two individual-sized packs of Costco trail mix that we have in the house. :P

Creamy Peanut Butter Pie
adapted from Jennifer Perillo of In Jennie’s Kitchen

Serves 10 to 12

4 ounces Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams

4 ounces Newman O’s sandwich cookie pieces (repurpose creamy centers at your peril)

4 tablespoons butter, melted

4 ounces finely chopped chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup chopped peanuts

1 cup heavy cream

8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup creamy-style peanut butter

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 – 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Add the cookies to the bowl of a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs. Combine melted butter and cookie crumbs in a small bowl, and stir with a fork to mix well. Press mixture into the bottom and 1-inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave. Pour over bottom of cookie crust and spread to the edges using an off-set spatula. Sprinkle chopped peanuts over the melted chocolate. Place pan in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Pour the heavy cream into a bowl and beat using a stand mixer or hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Transfer to a small bowl and store in refrigerator until ready to use. Place the cream cheese and peanut butter in a deep bowl. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in the confectioner’s sugar. Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Increase speed to medium and beat until all the ingredients are combined and filling is smooth.

Stir in 1/3 of the whipped cream into the filling mixture (helps lighten the batter, making it easier to fold in the remaining whipped cream). Fold in the remaining whipped cream. Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan. Drizzle the melted chocolate on top, if using, and refrigerate for three hours or overnight before serving.

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Eating London – Day 2: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

arnold — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:00:44 +0000

The first place many eaters think of when they’re making restaurant reservations in the UK is Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in Bray, and I was no exception. The Fat Duck is one of the world’s best restaurants and serves a fun and experimental menu that showcases Blumenthal’s creativity alongside his culinary expertise. And this is the guy who used a hot tub as a waterbath to sous vide a whole pig…why wouldn’t we want to eat there?

Cost was definitely a factor, especially at £160 (approx. $260) per person and the US Dollar being so weak, and we didn’t want to spend a huge chunk of our eating budget at one restaurant. Plus, we weren’t too keen on traveling all the way out to Bray from London just for dinner when we already had other day trips to Oxford and Warwick on our schedule.

Then I heard that Blumenthal opened a new restaurant, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, at the tony Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge, and I focused my efforts on getting a booking there. The only problem with this plan was that Dinner is one of the hardest reservations in London and was booked solid till July…or so I thought. I gave the restaurant a call and snagged a booking for a Saturday lunch, which was fine with me because we had full access to the menu (there’s a set lunch menu Mon-Fri), and in the daytime the natural light in the restaurant is good for pictures. :)

The focus at Dinner isn’t a multi-course, avant-garde tasting extravaganza but simply the modernization of classic British dishes, and on the menu, every dish has a date next to it signifying the approximate year it originated. I was glad to see this because I wanted to believe that British cuisine had been maligned by cliché stereotypes, and I was confident that Blumenthal could dispel these aspersions.

Two of Dinner’s most talked/written/blogged-about dishes are on the starter menu. The Meat Fruit looks like a mandarin orange, stem and all, but when you cut the mandarin gel “skin,” a creamy chicken liver parfait is revealed. Spread the parfait on toast and you’re in business, and don’t forget to include a little bit of the mandarin skin for a subtle citrusy note.

Meat Fruit (c.1500)
Mandarin, chicken liver parfait, grilled bread

The Salamagundy is made up primarily of chicken oysters, bone marrow and horseradish cream. The original dish was what passed for a salad back in the day, and the name generally means a hodgepodge of disparate items. In this case, these disparate ingredients make a tasty appetizer.

Salamagundy (c.1720)
Chicken oysters, bone marrow, horseradish cream

My wife ordered the Cod in Cider, a relatively modern dish compared to the rest of the menu. She said it was “the best-cooked fish I’ve had since Le Bernardin” (approx. three years ago) and liked the way the acidity of the cider complemented the cod.

Cod in Cider (c.1940)
Chard and fired mussels

I ordered the Sirloin of Black Angus with mushroom ketchup, red wine juice, and triple-cooked chips. The steak was outstanding on its own, but the dollops of bone marrow topped with bread crumbs and chives on top of the steak took it to another level. The chips were some of the best fries I’ve ever had.

Sirloin of Black Angus (c.1830)
mushroom ketchup, red wine juice, triple-cooked chips

Dinner’s desserts are also getting a lot of buzz, especially the Tipsy Cake, which is basically brioche infused with creme and served in a cast iron cocotte alongside a piece of spit-roasted pineapple. If you’ve ever had grilled pineapple, I think spit roasting is much better because it’s a slower process that produces a deeper caramelized flavor.

Tipsy Cake (c.1810)
Spit-roasted pineapple

We also had the Baked Lemon Suet Pudding, which is a suet cake filled with lemon caramel pudding. I love lemon desserts, so this one was also a favorite.

Baked Lemon Suet Pudding (c.1630)
Lemon caramel & jersey cream

Service was casual and generally attentive, but they kinda forgot about me when I wanted tea at the end of the meal. I ended up just asking for coffee and the check. One really cool thing was that when we had to pay, we had the option of paying in US Dollars, which gave us the best exchange rate and eliminated at least one credit card foreign transaction fee. I assume this is because the restaurant is in a big international hotel; we didn’t get this option at any other place during our trip.

We liked Dinner a lot and would definitely go back if we had another opportunity, especially because the one dish I really wanted to try, the 72-hour sous vide short rib dish known as the Beef Royal, wasn’t available, and you know how much I love my short ribs. Still, despite outstanding meals from two of London’s most acclaimed (or overhyped?) restaurants within 24 hours of each other since our arrival, little did we know our best meal was yet to come…

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park
66 Knightsbridge
London SW1X 7LA (map)
44(0)20 7201 3833
Web site

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Eating London – Day 1: Fryer’s Delight and St. John Restaurant

arnold — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 23:54:28 +0000

After spending Six Hours in Boston, we hopped on another red-eye to London. We arrived in Heathrow at around 7:15am and hadn’t really slept in two days. But after finally getting into London at around 9:30am and settling into the Russell Square flat where we were staying, we went looking for food.

One of my eating missions for our trip was to find a chippy for some proper fish and chips. I’d read a lot about various chippies around London, but when I learned that The Fryer’s Delight was walking distance from our flat AND fried everything in beef tallow, it immediately got on our “must” list. I ordered the haddock and my wife had the cod. We got it with a side of forgettable mushy peas, but you can’t really go wrong with this as a first meal:

Fried Haddock and Chips at The Fryer’s Delight

Energized by fried food, we walked our way through Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, and Camden until we ended up at the British Museum, a welcome (and free) sight since it was drizzling outside and my wife doesn’t like the rain.

The main hall at the British Museum

After looking at mummies and other artifacts that were stolen from Egypt, we went back to the flat to rest before for our dinner at St. John Restaurant, Fergus Henderson’s shrine to nose-to-tail eating. The restaurant is in Clerkenwell, which wasn’t that far from the flat, so we walked to dinner. We walked a lot in London, which is funny because at home, we normally drive to places that are much closer than many of the places we walked to in London. I hope this changes now that we’re back.

St. John still mineral water by Hildon

We met one of my wife’s friends at the restaurant, which meant there was going to be more food to sample. :) We started with the Roasted Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad, which is just about as classic as you can get. I loved that there was still meat on the bones for us to gnaw on along with the marrow and toast.

Roasted Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad

Our other starter was simply called “Terrine” on the menu and contained Middlewhite pork, duck, rabbit offal, foie gras and some other awesome stuff I don’t remember.

Terrine

Our friend ordered the Turbot, Fennel & Samphire, which she liked a lot, and we all learned that a samphire is a “sea green bean.”

Turbot, Fennel & Samphire

I ordered the Roast Tamworth, Carrot & Aioli, a simple and delicious roasted pork dish that came with a nice surprise…a little chicharron. I always appreciate a little fried pork skin when it’s made available to me. :)

Roast Tamworth, Carrot & Aioli

Speaking of fried pork skin, my wife ordered the Pig’s Cheek & Dandelion, which features one of the best parts of the pig and also contained some fried bits of pork skin and crunchy breadcrumbs for texture. This was our favorite entrée of the night.

Pig’s Cheek & Dandelion

St. John may be a mecca for meat lovers, but their desserts were also outstanding. The Poached Peach & Vanilla Ice Cream was the best peach dish I’ve ever eaten and is one of my favorite desserts of all time. I love peaches, but I’ve never eaten anything this pure before. Simply stellar.

Poached Peach & Vanilla Ice Cream

My excitement over the peaches didn’t malign my impressions of the other two desserts we ordered. The Chocolate Mousse & Crème Fraîche was a decadent combination, and the Strawberry Ripple Ice Cream was a great showcase for the season’s freshest strawberries.

Chocolate Mousse & Crème Fraîche

Strawberry Ripple Ice Cream

You have to order the Madeleines at least 15 minutes in advance, which we did, and they were a great way to end the meal. They’re pretty hefty and we ended up taking a few home and eating them for breakfast the next morning.

Madeleines

My only regret was that I didn’t order the Ox Heart, Beetroot & Horseradish, but overall, I think we had a pretty good first day of eating in London. We returned to the flat to rest up for day two, which featured more English culinary royalty…Heston Blumenthal.

The Fryer’s Delight
19 Theobalds Road
London WC1X 8SL
44(0)20 7405 4114

St. John Restaurant
26 St. John Street
London EC1M 4AY (map)
44(0)20 3301 8069
Web site

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Six Hours in Boston

arnold — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 01:01:53 +0000

It’s been a long time, huh? I’m still around but took a little break from blogging (as you might have noticed). :) I fully intend to start writing again, and I’ve been working on some things that I really want to share with you. But before we get to that, l’m currently on vacation in London, and we head to Paris for a few days next week. I vowed before we left that I would use the trip as a vehicle to start writing again, so Inuyaki is going into travelogue mode for the next couple of weeks.

Our outbound trip consisted of two consecutive redeyes—one of from SF > Boston and then Boston > London. There was a 12-hour gap between these two flights, so we decided use that time to explore Boston’s colonial heritage, as well as some of its more modern treasures.

One thing I loved was the water taxi service from Logan Airport to Rowes Wharf. It was a clear day and we had a great view of downtown Boston from the boat. There are several water taxi services available, but we picked Rowes Wharf Water Transport because they were the only water taxi service I could find that offered luggage storage.

Downtown Boston from our water taxi.

After disembarking, we headed straight for Flour Bakery for breakfast. A couple friends recommended Flour Bakery to me, but it was my old Asian American studies professor Emily Lawsin who let me know that it was owned by Joanne Chang and that she beat Bobby Flay in a sticky bun Throwdown. That information was good enough for us, but this picture is pretty convincing evidence, as well.

Flour Bakery’s famous sticky bun.

We also ordered one of Flour’s bacon, caramelized onion and bleu cheese biscuits and a couple glasses of milk, and afterwards, we really needed to go for a walk, so we headed towards Boston Common. There was one specific reason I wanted to go up there, and it wasn’t to enjoy the park. It was to pay tribute to the movie “Glory,” a movie that my wife and I both love. “Glory” tells the story of Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first all-black regiment to fight in the Civil War. There’s a monument dedicated to them in the northeast corner of Boston Common, and we had to check it out.

“I love the 54th.”

We continued walking west on Beacon Street because there was a place I just had to go. A place “where everybody knows your”—nevermind. ;)

“…and they’re always glad you came.”

We continued through The Public Garden and we had a little fun taking pictures of the George Washington Statue.

We were going to hop on the T and go to Fenway Park for a tour, but we decided keep walking. We walked down Commonwealth Avenue and admired the neighborhood, and then we worked our way past the Boston Architectural College and the next thing you know, we’re in front of Berklee College of Music. Fenway was close and in sight. We trudged along, walking down Boylston Street and then Ipswich until we saw the back of Fenway Park. Now, I’m not a Red Sox fan, and I’m not even the best baseball fan in the world (especially with my Dodgers in a state of disarray), but I still love baseball history and Fenway’s full of it. My wife could care less about baseball, or sports in general, but she’s been a great sport after dragging her on a tour of old Yankee stadium and now Fenway.

This sign is on a wall near the back entrance at Fenway.

The tour guides at Fenway lay the Red Sox propagand—er…history on thick, and they’re not shy about taking shots at the Yankees either. I don’t remember the Yankees stadium tour guide ever mentioning the Red Sox, but when you think about it…why would they? :) Rivalries aside, if you love baseball and remember the feeling you got the first time you walked into a baseball stadium and saw the field, those feelings are exactly the same when you walk into Fenway.

And the view from the The Green Monster is pretty sweet, too.

After the tour, we were starving and hopped on the T to Boston’s North End to have Lobster Rolls at Neptune Oyster. We had one hot with butter and one cold with mayo dressing. They were both really good, but we preferred the cold lobster roll…probably because it was 86F and muggy outside.

Lobster Roll (hot with butter)

Lobster Roll (cold with mayo dressing)

Our last stop before heading back to the airport was Mike’s Pastry for cannolis. This place is crazy busy and their cannolis are gigantic. We had a limoncello and a chocolate ricotta cannoli. I liked the chocolate ricotta better, and it was also the better of the two pictures I took, so here you go…

Chocolate Ricotta Cannoli

I really wish we had more time to explore Boston, but I think we did a pretty good job considering our time restriction. I hope we make it back to Boston soon with more time to really experience it. And maybe next time, I’ll make it more interesting by wearing Lakers gear around town. :)

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Puto Bumbong

arnold — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:52:21 +0000

Puto Bumbong is a Filipino delicacy that’s traditionally served during the Christmas season in the Philippines. It literally translates to steamed glutinous rice (puto) cooked in bamboo (bumbong), and it’s a staple at my best friend’s house, where we gather for Noche Buena at midnight on Christmas Eve. The purple color comes from the mixture of sweet rice and black rice (pirurutong), but I’ve seen recipes that call for purple food coloring, which is obviously cheating! Puto bumbong is served with butter, sugar and freshly grated coconut on top. I asked my friend’s mom if she would show me how to make puto bumbong, and she was happy to oblige.

Dave Chappelle says “I want that purple stuff!”

Cooking puto bumbong is fairly quick but preparing the rice is a three-day process. On the first day, you take a mixture of equal parts of sweet rice and pirurutong and soak it overnight. On the second day, you take the mixture and grind it in a blender. (In the Philippines, you’d traditionally use a grinding stone of some kind.) Then the mixture is placed in a cotton sack (like a flour sack) for another day in order to drain any excess water. Since it’s generally warm at Christmastime in the Philippines, you’d simply hang the bag outside and let gravity do the work. With the colder winters here in the States, better results are obtained by putting a heavy weight on the bag to force the excess water out.

The rice mixture should be ready the next day, and it should be moist, not dry. The next step is to use your hands to mix it up and break up any clumps.

Clumps are bad.

To cook the puto bumbong, you need a special steamer. This one has three holes on top so that the steam can escape and cook the puto in the bamboo. The cloth wrapped around the bamboo helps prevent burnt hands.

Simply fill up the bamboo with the rice mixture and put it on top of the steamer. You can tell when it’s done when the rice turns dark purple and kind of shrinks into the bamboo.

Clockwise from top: almost done, just started (light purple), and finished (dark purple).

Before you remove the puto bumbong from the bamboo, hold the top of the bamboo over the steam to finish cooking the end that was farthest away from the steam.

Finish off the tip.

To remove from the bamboo, hold the bamboo in your left hand…then hit the pinky side of your left hand against your right palm by the base of your thumb. The puto bumbong should plop onto plate.

Lots of butter is very important!

To finish, slather the puto bumbong with butter and then top it with freshly grated coconut and sugar (either white or brown). In the Philippines, puto bumbong is sold by street vendors after Mass during Christmas week and is wrapped in banana leaves so customers can take it with them. Since we normally enjoy these at home, we just eat it fresh from the steamer…no banana leaves required.

Thanks to my Tita Lety for showing me how this delicious Christmas treat is made. It’s always great going to their house on Christmas Eve for Noche Buena just a few hours after finishing our own Christmas Dinner.

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Thanksgiving Turkey with Kikkoman & the Sous Vide Supreme

arnold — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:00:31 +0000

Kikkoman-brined Sous Vide Turkey

I don’t think I’ve ever written a post on this blog that directly promoted specific products, but my attendance at BlogHer Food ’10 a couple months ago in San Francisco netted me a couple opportunities from Kikkoman and Sous Vide Supreme that I couldn’t really pass up. Writing about Kikkoman products wasn’t a problem for me because I was raised on Kikkoman soy sauce, and it’s also the only shoyu my wife allows in the house.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I’ve been sous vide cooking for a few years now and that I’ve had issues with the immersion circulators I’ve owned. I’ve been in the market for a replacement since my latest stopped circulating and the Sous Vide Supreme is an option I’ve been considering. I recently received a demo unit of their new Sous Vide Supreme Demi and decided to sous vide some turkey that was brined using Kikkoman’s soy-sauce-based recipe.

Instead of buying a whole bird, mainly because I didn’t want to break it down into parts, I bought separate turkey pieces: two each of legs, thighs and breasts. I deboned the thighs and breasts and removed the skins so I could make turkey chicharrones. That’s right…turkey chicharrones.

Turkey Chicharrones

If you’re curious, I basically followed the same method I used in my fried pork rinds post to make the turkey chicharrones. They’re not as crispy and delicate as pork chicharrones, but they’re still tasty.

After brining the turkey overnight, I turned on the Demi and set the temperature to 65C. As the Demi was heating up, I rinsed the turkey pieces and then bagged and sealed them using the Sous Vide Supreme vacuum sealer. Since dark meat takes significantly longer to cook than white meat, I put the legs and thighs in the Demi at around 9am and went to work. At around 5pm, I called my wife and asked her to take out the legs and put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process and quickly bring them to a safe temperature. The legs were replaced in the Demi by the breast meat. Dinner was at 8:30, so this was plenty of time to cook the breast meat.

When I got home around 6pm, I took the legs out of the ice bath, cut open the bag and set aside any juices in the bag for gravy. I put the turkey legs on a rack with an electric fan pointed at it to dry out the meat. My plan was to fry the turkey legs in oil to crisp up the skin, so the legs had to be as dry as possible. The legs sat on the rack for a couple hours alongside the turkey skin that I had been drying out since the morning. (Chicharrones fry up nicely when the skins are completely dry but since I didn’t have a food dehydrator handy, I used the electric fan method.)

When I was ready to get dinner plated, I filled a cast iron skillet with enough oil to fry the turkey legs (about halfway up the side) and heated it to 350F. While the oil was heating up, I removed the thighs from the Demi and finished them by searing them a separate pan with a little bit of oil for a couple minutes on each side until the turkey was nicely browned. When the frying oil for the turkey legs reached 350F, I fried the legs for about five minutes—turning them as necessary so they didn’t burn—until the skin was brown and crispy. The legs and thighs were more than enough to feed the five of us, so I didn’t bother finishing the breast meat and saved it for later. While the turkey legs were frying, I assembled the gravy heating up the bag juices in a small pot then mixing in a little butter and flour until it thickened.

We saved the breast and ate it two days later after reheating it
in the Sous Vide Supreme Demi.

The finished turkey was juicy and the flavors were well balanced. The soy sauce didn’t overwhelm the turkey but merely enhanced all the other flavors around it, and it helped give the turkey a nice brown color. I think the goal of Kikkoman’s marketing campaigns the last couple years is to show that soy sauce can break out of its Asian sweet spot and be used to enhance the flavors of any genre of food, and this turkey brine is proof of that.

So if you haven’t figured out how you want to cook your turkey or you want to try something new this year, Kikkoman’s soy sauce turkey brine is easy, and you can cook the turkey any way you want—fry, roast, sous vide—the choice is yours. Here’s the brine recipe to get you started. :)

Kikkoman Turkey Brine

2 gallons cold water
10 ounces Kikkoman Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce
½ cup kosher salt
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons dried sage
2 tablespoons dried celery seed
1 tablespoon dried thyme

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA

arnold — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:30:53 +0000

Cafe Gabriela has been open for around seven months and it’s a couple blocks from my office, but I never thought about going there until my friend Luis told me they served a pulled pork adobo sandwich. After I read that tweet, I immediately left the office to go get some lunch.

The adobo is cooked long enough so that the pork pulls apart easily, and flavorwise, I really liked that you can actually taste the vinegar. It’s served topped with onions and any juices are absorbed by a perfectly toasted baguette. Owner Penny Bee, who named the business after Philippine heroine Gabriela Silang, developed the recipe herself and says she’s gotten several requests for a chicken adobo sandwich, as well.

Aside from their signature adobo sandwich, Cafe Gabriela’s other menu options include a turkey cranberry sandwich and an heirloom tomato salad. They also make a point to showcase some of the East Bay’s best businesses, including The Bread Workshop, Blue Bottle Coffee, Arizmendi Bakery, and Pepples Donuts.

I’ve been desperate for Filipino lunch options since I started working in downtown Oakland in February. With Cafe Gabriela and the newly opened No Worries vegan Filipino restaurant just a few blocks in the other direction, my Filipino lunch cravings are finally satisfied.

Cafe Gabriela
988 Broadway
(between 9th St & 10th St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 763-2233
Facebook

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Ad Hoc Block Party on Oct. 9 to Benefit Clinic Olé

arnold — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:10:11 +0000

Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc restaurant in Yountville is throwing a block party fundraiser on Saturday, October 9 from 5–10pm. There will be live music, a BBQ pit, wood-fired pizza oven, an Ad Hoc Open House, and four courses of food paired with wines.

All proceeds benefit Clinic Olé, a community health organization that serves low-income and uninsured residents of Napa County, and the ticket price is tax deductible.

Tickets go on sale September 1 and pricing is as follows:

$49 (admission only)
$75 (admission + limited-edition t-shirt)

For you bloggers out there attending BlogHer Food ’10 in San Francisco, this is on the same day as the second day of the conference, so plan accordingly if you want to attend. If you’re not attending BlogHer Food, then come out and support the cause!

If you have any questions, let me know and I can find out answers for you. Otherwise, call Ad Hoc at 707.944.2487 for more information or to buy tickets.

Hope to see you there!

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IFBC, Seattle Food Porn, and the iPhone 4

arnold — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:17:32 +0000

Grilled Octopus with Chickpea Panisse and Preserved Lemon at Bastille in Seattle,
taken with an iPhone 4.

I was in Seattle last weekend to attend the 2nd annual International Food Bloggers Conference (IFBC), but I was a very bad food blogger because I forgot to bring my trusty Panasonic Lumix LX-3 with me on both days. This meant that the only camera I had on me was my iPhone 4. Since it’s always with me, my iPhone 4 is the most convenient camera that I own. When light is plentiful, the iPhone 4′s built-in 5-megapixel camera takes beautiful pictures. The new built-in flash helps in low light, but you really have to work to get a great shot.

As much as I love the idea of owning a fully loaded digital SLR, I don’t want one because they’re bulky and heavy, and I like to travel light. The LX-3 is a fantastic point-and-shoot camera that’s great in low light and has a 24mm ultra-wide-angle lens that makes it easy to capture fully composed plates of food at restaurants. It also has a ton of manual features, but in general, I just put the thing in “Food” mode, flip the “Macro” switch and go to town. We bought it as our restaurant camera before our trip to New York last year, and nearly every picture on this site since late 2009 was made with that camera.

One of the first questions budding food bloggers ask about cameras is something along the lines of “which digital SLR is the best for food blogging?” While a good camera definitely helps and you’ll need one to take your pictures to the next level, if you don’t have a good eye, then the camera doesn’t matter.

Inspired in part by my fellow IFBC attendees and Saveur Magazine photographer Penny de los Santos, whose images and overall dopeness in the photography session inspired all of us to starting “making” pictures instead of taking them, here are some of my favorite iPhone 4 pictures from the weekend.

Pre-IFBC Eats

We arrived Wednesday night and went to Wallingford for ice cream at Molly Moon’s and burgers at Dick’s Drive-In. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of ice cream because I was too busy eating it, but here’s a picture of the Dick’s Deluxe Burger, shot using only the typical available lighting you’d find at a burger stand at night. It’s not the most attractive burger, but it’s a pretty good macro shot considering the circumstances.

Dick’s Drive-In’s Deluxe Burger

The next morning, my wife and I walked from our friend’s house to Anita’s Crepes in Ballard, and I had one of my favorite things on this trip, the Lemon Sugar Crepe. Fresh lemon juice and the crunchy bruléed sugar made it seem like I was eating candy for breakfast. In this picture, sunlight was coming in from all around but mostly from the right.

Anita’s Lemon Sugar Crepe

After Anita’s, we headed over to Top Pot Doughnuts in Queen Anne for my favorite doughnuts in the world. I played around with the composition a little here with my Ovaltine latte and lemon old-fashioned in the foreground and my wife’s cup of soy milk in the back.

Top Pot’s Lemon Old Fashioned

After crepes and doughnuts, we needed to walk around, so we headed downtown and ended up at Pike Place Market where I spotted these colorful hanging peppers being sold by a street vendor (presumably to tourists). :)

Colorful Hanging Peppers at Pike Place Market

We headed up to Woodinville to partake in one of The Herbfarm’s 100-Mile dinners. All the good dinner pictures were taken with the LX-3, but I did manage to get a nice picture of The Herbfarm’s sign before we went inside for the meal.

The world-famous Herbfarm

On Friday, we went to Ballard’s Lunchbox Laboratory, a place that destroys any expectations you have of burgers, fries and shakes. The burgers might be excessive and messy, but they’re delicious, and the perfectly fried tater tots with sea salt and pepper are killer. I paired the burger below with a dark chocolate and orange milkshake.

Lunchbox Laboratory’s “Homage to Dick’s” burger
with 1/2 pound dork patty (duck/pork) and tater tots

IFBC Eats

You’d expect us to eat well at a food blogger’s conference, and you’d be right. On the first day of the conference, some of Seattle’s best chefs came out to prepare lunch for us. The marinated octopus dish below is the similar to the dish at the top of this post, which my wife ordered the next evening when we went to Bastille with our friends.

Marinated Octopus with Chickpeas, Preserved Lemon and Chorizo Vinaigrette
by Chef Shannon Galusha of Bastille

Beef Tartare by Chef Daisley Gordon of Campagne

Salmon Carpaccio by Chef John Howie of Seastar

I wasn’t sated after lunch, so I skipped a session and joined an IFBC splinter group that ventured up to Paseo Caribbean Food on my suggestion for some of their famous sandwiches. I was a little late to join the group, and they had already ordered when I got there, but one of them inexplicably (and thankfully) ordered two separate dishes and offered to share her food with me. We took our food down to the Buckaroo Tavern, a Harley bar a couple doors down that’s closing after 72 years in business, so we could sit down and have a beer. The table was crowded and filled with food and beer, but I managed to get off a quick shot before scarfing down half of this incredible grilled pork sandwich.

Paseo’s Grilled Pork Sandwich with a Black Butte Porter

I ended up tweeting this picture, which got more than a few conference goers a little jealous. :) And FYI, if you’ve been to Paseo but haven’t tried their Smokin’ Thighs dinner plate, make sure you order that next time you’re there.

Some of Seattle’s best food trucks served us lunch on Sunday of the conference, which partially made up for the fact that I missed the Eat Real Fest in Oakland that was going on concurrently. I was really happy to see Skillet Street Food there, but I forgot to buy a jar of their famous bacon jam before I left.

Snake River Farms slider by Skillet Street Food

Kaosami Thai Food served up Larb Gai in a Thai taco, something I’d never even I’d never considered before. I thought the Larb Gai was good but it was served on a dismal corn tortilla that made it seem like an afterthought. Despite this, I chose this picture because I’d been inspired by all the overhead shots Penny showed us in her slideshow.

Larb Gai Taco by Kaosami Thai Food

Hallava Falafel seemed to have some logistical issues to sort through when lunch started (in otherwords, their line was slow), but they made a pretty good falafel. I like this picture because it shows that the iPhone 4 camera actually has some depth-of-field capabilities.

Falafel by Hallava Falafel

I left IFBC after lunch to meet up with my wife and friends and have an early dinner at Bastille (the eating didn’t really stop for five days). Aside from the octopus we had at the top of the page, two of the more photogenic dishes were the Pork Cheek Terrine and Grilled Heirloom Eggplant.

Bastille’s Pork Cheek Terrine

Bastille’s Grilled Heirloom Eggplant

Final Thoughts

Most of the pictures I posted above were taken in the daytime in broad daylight or in restaurants where we were seated by a window. This is essential if you’re taking pictures with a mobile device like the iPhone 4 because a lot of light is required to properly expose the picture.

An hour after I posted this, Apple announced support for HDR photos in its iOS 4.1. In a nutshell, it takes three pictures—one normal, one underexposed, one overexposed—and then merges them all together. Wish I had that feature this weekend. ;-)

As mobile devices get more advanced, they’re likely to include some form of built-in high-resolution camera, which makes them ideal for the food blogger on the go who might not have their camera with them at all times but wants to take a good picture. Since I’m so forgetful, I definitely fall into this category.

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Street Cart Wars to Benefit SF Food Bank

arnold — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:21:38 +0000

UPDATE: THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT! YOU CAN STILL DONATE BELOW OR AT SFFOODBANK.ORG IF YOU’D LIKE TO SUPPORT THE CAUSE.

The blog’s been on hiatus for a few months, and I definitely have some fun things I want to write about, but right now, I’m promoting the annual fundraiser for the San Francisco Food Bank known as Eugeapalooza. The fundraisers were started by my friend Eugene Lee in 2005, and last year’s event, known as PigEat Fest, raised more than $2500 (equal to approximately $24,500 in food for the food bank).

Held at Lake Merced in San Francisco, this year’s event is known as Street Cart Wars and will showcase creations by some of the Bay Area’s most ambitious home cooks. It will also feature Ad Hoc Executive Chef Dave Cruz, who will be donating his time and culinary mastery to help the cause and feed attendees.

Pre-sale tickets (via PayPal) are $20 for adults until the end of day on Tuesday Aug. 10 and are eligible for a raffle for prizes that include a signed copy of the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, bottles of wine, and more! From August 11–13 tickets are $25 for adults, and the price goes up to $30 on the day of the event. Children’s tickets (ages 10 and up) are $10 and children under 10 eat free. Each entrant will receive 12 tickets good for one plate of food at the following booths:

63 Degree Sous Vide Egg; Canape; Roasted Bone Marrow & Sangria by s+s gastro grub (featuring Ad Hoc’s Dave Cruz)
Adobo & Lumpia by Sinigangster
Bacon Cheddar Sliders & BBQ’d Corn Dogs by Meat-Cheese-Bacon
Banh Mi Four Ways (Shrimp, Beef, Chicken, Wheat Gluten) by Banh Mi Gently With A Chainsaw
Banh Xeo by The Sizzling Pan
Buffalo Wings by Euge
Burmese Tea Salad by Singh Ki Dukaan
Chicken Tikka Masala by Kafe Kevo
Mac & Cheese by i (heart) chez
Midwestern Dessert by Fat + Sugar
Pulled Pork Tacos with Ancho Chili Sauce & Slaw by Cocina Bronia
Tandoori Ground Lamb/Beef Kebab with yogurt sauce by The Trashy Tandoor!

You might be wondering why Inuyaki isn’t listed as one of the vendors at this event. I had planned to participate, making either my Tocino Sliders or Korean BBQ Tacos, but I have family in town this weekend and didn’t have the time. I will be at the event as an eater, and I’ve also extended my support to my friends (and neighbors) Seb and Simone as an official sponsor of their s+s gastro grub booth.

Other sponsors of the s+s gastro grub booth include:

These companies’ sponsorship of s+s gastro grub for this event are helping offset costs for Seb and Simone so they can make a larger personal donation to the SF Food Bank. I’m honored to be in such prestigious company to help out this cause.

For more information on this fantastic event, go to the official site or their Yelp Events page.

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Tocino Sliders with Atsarang Mangga

arnold — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:34:37 +0000

After making a large quantity of tocino in my previous post, I could’ve easily portioned out what I had on hand and kept the surplus in the freezer, but a friend was having a barbecue and sharing it was a much better plan. I started thinking of other ways to serve tocino since I wasn’t going to make my friends breakfast, and sliders were the first thing that came to mind.

When I Googled “tocino sliders,” I discovered that they were on the menu at Purple Yam, Chef Romy Dotoran and Amy Besa’s new restaurant in Brooklyn. Besa has said that Purple Yam’s tocino sliders, served with pickled persimmons on mini housemade purple yam pandesals, were inspired by Vietnamese bánh mì, which is simply grilled meat, pickled veggies, and fresh bread. This idea is fairly common—Momofuku Pork Belly Buns and Korean BBQ Tacos, and brats with sauerkraut also come to mind. My friend Steph (a.k.a. urbanfoodie), recently visited Purple Yam and said she liked their tocino sliders.

Purple Yam’s Tocino Sliders (Photo by The Village Voice)

Although the tocino slider is a fusion concept, I wanted to keep the components as Filipino as possible. I love that Purple Yam uses mini pandesal for the bun, so I picked some up at the market instead of using the more obvious King’s Hawaiian Rolls. For the pickled vegetables, it was only natural that I make atsara (a.k.a. achara or pickled green papaya) to dress the sliders. The funny thing is, I had never eaten atsara in my life. In fact, I always hated pickles when I was a kid, but as an adult, I’ve grown to love other pickled vegetables. (Sauerkraut ended up being my gateway pickled vegetable.)

I knew I could’ve bought some atsara at the store, but I wanted to make it from scratch (recipe below). Luckily, Marvin at Burnt Lumpia has a great atsara recipe, and I would’ve followed it to a T if I didn’t buy the wrong papaya at the market. Atsara calls specifically for green papaya, and in my haste, I bought a couple ripe Hawaiian papayas that were ill suited for atsara. I didn’t realize this till around midnight, and the Asian supermarkets aren’t open that late, so I picked up some unripe green mangoes to substitute. I’m not sure if mango atsara is an actual “thing” in the Philippines, but it ended up being a great substitute. I’ll definitely use green papaya next time I make atsara.

Mango was a nice twist to this atsara.

Since I had access to my friend’s grill, I grilled the tocino instead of pan frying it, and I think grilling is definitely the way to go. It will still be good pan fried, but if you can, grill them. I gave them a good sear for a couple minutes on each side and then finished them off on a cooler part of the grill.

Grilled tocino is a good thing.

Assembling the sliders is easy. Cut the pandesal in half so they look like buns and then toast them to your preference. Put a slice or two of tocino on the bottom half of the bread and then top with the atsara.

Atsarang Mangga (pickled mangoes)

(adapted from Burnt Lumpia.)

2 cups cane vinegar
½ cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon salt
1-inch piece ginger, peeled and julienned
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2-3 unripe mangoes (about 1½–2 lbs.), peeled, seeded, and julienned
2 small carrots, peeled and julienned
1 small onion, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper, to taste
Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)

Directions

In a medium saucepan over high heat, combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, ginger, and garlic and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring to ensure sugar and salt have dissolved. Remove from heat and allow mixture to come to room temperature.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, then drop the julienned mangoes into the pot for 1 minute. Remove mangoes from the boiling water and place them into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Drain the mangoes and place in cheesecloth or paper towels, squeeze to remove any excess water.
In a large bowl, combine the mangoes, carrots, and onion. Pour the room temperature vinegar mixture over the vegetables and season with salt and pepper and red pepper flakes. Mix well, cover and refrigerate overnight.

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Homemade Pork Tocino

arnold — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:46:19 +0000

A few weeks ago, I got this urge to make my tocino, the sweet cured pork that’s a staple Philippine breakfast meat. It’s probably most commonly served as tosilog, which is portmanteau of tocino, sinangag (garlic fried rice), and itlog (eggs). (I discuss “silogs” in my Best Breakfast Ever post from a few years ago.)

Tosilog — the breakfast of champions (from Cherry Garden in Fremont, CA)

My first attempt at tocino used the simple salt/sugar/achuete cure from the book Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Chef Romy Dotoran and Amy Besa of New York’s famous-but-now-closed Cendrillon. but that recipe didn’t work for me at all. The tocino ended up being way too salty, and it was almost inedible. (There’s a good chance that the recipe’s failure was my fault, so I’ll have to revisit it one of these days.)

While discussing my tocino plans with a couple other food bloggers on Twitter, Mark Manguerra of No Special Effects said that he’d always want to try Simply Anne’s tocino recipe, so I decided to give it a shot. In short, the recipe is good and with a few adjustments, the tocino was exactly what I wanted.

Pork Tocino

(adapted from Simply Anne’s.)

3 lb. boneless pork shoulder roast
1¼ cups pineapple juice
½ cup ketchup
½ cup lemon-lime soda
1/3 cup light soy sauce
2 cups brown sugar
1 Tablespoon garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Freeze pork shoulder roast for an hour or so to firm it up so that it’s easier to slice. Cut 1/4-inch slices of pork shoulder and place in a one gallon zipper-lock plastic bag.
Mix the rest of the ingredients in bowl and then add to the meat. Seal the bag, doing your best to remove excess air. Let the pork cure in the refrigerator for a 4-5 days, flipping over the bag every day or so.
After curing, you can either cook the meat or portion them off into smaller bags and freeze them.
To cook the tocino, add a little water, marinade and a few slices of meat to a skillet. Over medium heat, let the liquid boil off and then fry the meat for a couple more minutes to caramelize it. There’s a lot of sugar in the marinade so make sure you don’t burn the meat.
You can also grill the tocino, which is my ideal method, by searing both sides on a grill over high heat and then letting them finish cooking over low or indirect heat. You can replicate this method indoors using a grill pan to sear and a low oven (around 250F) to finish.

Pan frying tocino is traditional, but I prefer it grilled.

There’s a lot of tocino in that picture, isn’t there? I’ll show you what I did with it in my next post… :)

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Eating Downtown Oakland – Cam Huong and Battambang

arnold — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:13:38 +0000

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve written, and I could offer any number of excuses for my hiatus, but I’ll go with this one…

After more than five years of working in the sleepy suburban town of Livermore, CA, I started a new job in downtown Oakland last month, and this change of scenery has led to several adjustments to my daily life. I no longer drive my car to work and am happily commuting via BART. This requires both my wife and I, who are notoriously late risers, to wake up a lot earlier than we’re used to so that I can catch the train every morning. While the drastic reduction of our overall fuel consumption has been good for the soul, my new office has been excellent for my stomach. It’s location at Oakland’s 12th Street City Center puts me blocks away from dozens of great lunch options, a world away from the limited options available to me in Livermore.

Before my first day of work, I began compiling a list of recommendations from friends who knew the area well and I combined them into this Google map.

Downtown Oakland’s all about options. (click to open map).

I was most excited to be near Oakland Chinatown, which is smaller but generally better than the larger “tourist trap” Chinatown in San Francisco. Ironically, my two favorite places in Oakland Chinatown aren’t Chinese.

Cam Huong

Cam Huong is a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese deli that serves up a variety of hot and cold Chinese and Vietnamese dishes, but I go there for the bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwiches) and fresh spring rolls. I went back the other day and got the #1, which is a cold cut combo with pate (hold the cilantro because I can’t stand the stuff). With the fresh bread, delicious meats and the pickled veggies inside, this is a perfect sandwich.

Cam Huong’s #1 is aptly named.

I always supplement my sandwiches with a three-pack spring rolls, and I really like the variety pack with goi cuon, bo bia and bi cuon (summer roll, sausage roll, shredded pork roll).

A spring roll three pack.

The sandwiches are all under $3, and when you include the spring rolls, I get out of there for just under $6. This makes the Subway $5 Footlong look like a bad deal. Next on the agenda is the grilled pork and cha gio bun, one of my all-time favorite Vietnamese dishes. I hope there’s a table open next time I’m there.

Cam Huong Cafe
920 Webster Street
Oakland, CA
510.444.8800

Battambang

Battambang is a Cambodian restaurant just a few blocks down the street, and it’s already one of my favorite lunch spots. This is the dish that got me hooked…

Moarn Aing – grilled chicken skewers.

…and this is what I ordered on my return:

Lunch Combo – grilled chicken, beef, and shrimp skewers with fried rice.

I haven’t had a lot of Cambodian food, and I’m sure there’s more to the cuisine than grilled meat, but I’d seriously consider forsaking all other skewered meats to settle down with either of these dishes. If I had to choose, I’d stick with the combo for variety and the fried rice, but the spicy lime sauce it’s served with really pulls both of these dishes together. When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be similar to Vietnamese nuoc mam, which is one of my favorite things, but I really like the spicy lime sauce a whole lot more.

Looking over their menu, there’s a lot of other dishes I want to try, but the grilled meats keep me happy for now.

Battambang
850 Broadway
Oakland, CA
510.839.8815
Web site

—

I’m thinking of making Eating Downtown Oakland a running series, and there are a bunch other places around here that are worth discussion. Cam Huong and Battambang were fast favorites, and I can’t wait to see what else I can find in my new urban playground.

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Blog Away Hunger / Help Haiti

arnold — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:23:05 +0000

I may be on vacation, but that doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention to what’s going on in the world. The earthquake in Haiti has devastated the country, and the world’s eyes are currently transfixed on recovery, rescue, and relief efforts there. I’ve already donated money to Artists for Peace and Justice, and my wife donated to both Doctors Without Borders and OxFam America to help support their relief efforts in Haiti.

But after being inspired by Marc at No Recipes and his Help Haiti campaign (part of his larger Blog Away Hunger initiative), I’m going to triple my ad revenue total for the month of January and donate it to help the cause. Since ad revenue is paid based on the number of clicks within a Web site, you can easily increase the amount of my donation by clicking and reading the posts on this blog.

If you’re a food blogger with an ad revenue stream and want to participate, go to the Help Haiti site for more information. I’d also love it if you tried to match or beat my pledge to donate triple my January ad total to the cause.

If you want to make a donation on behalf of Help Haiti, you can give money directly to the Friends of the World Food Program. Make sure to select Haiti Disaster in the drop-down menu when you donate.

If you choose to donate to a different organization, that’s fine too. Anything you can do to help Haiti get back on its feet is a worthwhile endeavor.

Thanks!

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Ted’s Bakery – Sunset Beach, HI

arnold — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:26:47 +0000

When people talk about Ted’s Bakery, they’re usually talking about one thing: chocolate haupia pie. I’ve had Ted’s famous pie before, and you can get their pies at almost any market on Oahu, but on this trip, I wanted to get one directly from the source. But Ted’s has a lot more to offer than just pie; their selection of bentos and sandwiches is pretty impressive too.

Let’s start with the pie since I ate a slice while I was waiting for the rest of our food to arrive. It’s a simple pie crust with chocolate filling on the bottom, a layer of haupia in the middle and topped with whipped cream. The consistency of the chocolate filling is somewhere between pudding and mousse; it’s light but sturdy enough to support the denser haupia on top. Aside from the flavors, the texture contrast between the chocolate and haupia might be the best thing about this pie. The pie crust is forgettable so it’s only real purpose is to provide structure, but it’s blandness also lets the rest of the pie shine.

Ted’s Famous Chocolate Haupia Pie

My wife ordered the Crab and Bacon Combo off the Hot Foods menu. It’s basically a crab salad and bacon sandwich served on a hamburger bun and served with fries. This sounds weird on paper, but it’s a brilliant combination.

Ted’s Crab & Bacon Combo Sandwich

I ordered the Ted’s Bento, an amazing array of Hawaiian plate lunch standards—teriyaki beef, fried SPAM, fried mahi mahi, and fried chicken—served inexplicably over four scoops of rice. I only ate half the rice and think the folks at Ted’s would really be onto something if they went with two scoops of rice and then topped this bento with a fried egg or two on top. Doesn’t that sound perfect? ;)

Ted’s Bento

If you’re on the North Shore and looking for a great alternative to all the shrimp trucks that roam the area, look for Ted’s. They’ve got a lot going on besides those famous chocolate haupia pies. My only regret was that we didn’t get there in time for breakfast.

INFORMATION
Ted’s Bakery
59-024 Kamehameha Highway
Sunset Beach, Hawaii 96712
808.638.8207
Web site

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Know Your Ribeye, a.k.a. New Year’s Eve at Ad Hoc

arnold — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:23:47 +0000

I know we were just at Ad Hoc 11 days before, but I made our New Year’s Eve reservations way before they put grilled short ribs on the menu the same day we were going to The French Laundry. And I certainly wasn’t going to turn down a special end-of-2009 dinner of Prime Ribeye and Maine Lobster with Truffle Butter.

Prime Ribeye and Maine Lobster with Truffle Butter

I’ve had ribeyes at Ad Hoc before, but this was the first time Ad Hoc was allowed to serve the calotte (ribeye cap) alongside the ribeye. Normally, the calotte is trimmed from the rib roasts and sent up the road to The French Laundry where they serve it like this:

The French Laundry’s Calotte de Beouf Grillée (12.08.08)

You know how prime rib has that ring of meat on the outside that tastes way better than the middle? That’s the calotte. If you’re a real fan of beef, you already know that the calotte is considered the best part of the cow because it’s tender and loaded with flavor, and chefs have been known to save the calotte for themselves.

Ad Hoc Blowtorch Prime Rib

Here’s the ribeye broken into separate components.

Anatomy of a ribeye, from left: rib bone, the eye, and the calotte.
Picture from Ideasinfood.com.

Everything at Ad Hoc is served family style, but they portioned each platter so that everyone at the table got two pieces of calotte, two pieces of ribeye, a whole lobster tail and a whole lobster claw. It was served with steamed broccolini and Carolina red rice with black eyed peas. I don’t mean to besmirch the meltingly tender lobster—the whole claw fell out of its shell when it was picked up—the perfect medium-rare ribeye, or the accompaniments, but really…this meal was all about the calotte. It was especially gratifying to find out that the calotte and lobster tail were separate courses on The French Laundry tasting menu that evening, as well.

A full plate of food to close out 2009.

Normally, you can ask for seconds at Ad Hoc and they’ll oblige, but not on this night. It wasn’t a problem because my wife gave me some of her calotte because she was getting full and saving herself for dessert. The Chocolate Bombe was a dark chocolate hazelnut mousse served with caramel sauce and hazelnut brittle, a lovely way to end 2009.

The Chocolate Bombe was the bo— nevermind… ;)

Here’s pics of the rest of the meal:

And here’s Cibo Matto’s – Know Your Chicken on YouTube to ring in 2010!

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The French Laundry (with an Ad Hoc chaser)

arnold — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:55:44 +0000

We went to The French Laundry last year around this time and didn’t think we would be back so soon. But when our friend Simone said she had a reservation for four to celebrate her boyfriend Seb’s birthday on December 20 and asked us to join them, the only real answer was, “Hell, yes!”

Seb and Simone (S&S) are a great couple to know because aside from being two of the most generous people we know, when it comes to food, they’re hardcore, balls-to-the-wall omnivores and cooks. This was their second trip to The French Laundry, as well, and while we both knew what to expect when we walked in the blue door, none of us had any idea how awesome this day was going to be.

The blue door beckons…

Since it was right before Christmas, the restaurant and grounds were decked out with holiday flair, including a Christmas tree in the garden with clothespin ornaments.

We were seated upstairs by a corner window with a view of The French Laundry garden across the street. This location was great because there was lots of natural light for pictures. (It’s also right by the restroom, which is helpful when you’re going to be sitting for a few hours.)

S&S and I got the Chef’s Tasting Menu and my wife opted for the Tasting of Vegetables, which isn’t vegetarian but gives prominence to vegetables. S&S both opted for the wine pairings and the truffle course, while I did a non-alcoholic pairing featuring a selection of by GuS and DRY Sodas and my wife stuck to the complimentary NORDAQ-filtered water.

I don’t want to go into every dish of this meal, but here are some of the highlights. You can also view a slideshow of the full picture set below.

The Vol au Vent de Legumes D’Automne was the second course of the Tasting of Vegetables and it was one of the most beautiful dishes of the afternoon.

Vol au Vent de Legumes D’Automne
Romaine Lettuce, Sugar Snap Peas, Fennel Bulb, Radishes and Port Wine Reduction

My third course was the Grilled Pavé of Japanese Toro, and they showed us the slab of fatty tuna they were using before they brought out the dish. It looks just like my favorite luncheon meat in a can! :)

Toro or SPAM? Either way, it’s all good.

Here’s the final plated dish:

Grilled Pavé of Japanese Toro
Satsuma Mandarins, Eggplant, Fennel, Nicoise Olives, Arugula, and Pimenton

I’m so happy that Seb & Simone ordered the truffle course because I’m wouldn’t normally break down and get the truffles. These were white truffles from Alba grated over a bowl of risotto, and as you can see, it was a generous helping. (photo by Simone)

Risotto with White Truffles from Alba
Brown Butter

In lieu of a big bowl risotto and truffles, we were presented with a White Truffle-infused Custard with Black Truffle Ragout and Chive Potato Chip, served beautifully in a hollowed at egg.

White Truffle-infused Custard
Black Truffle Ragout and Chive Potato Chip.

Coffee and Doughnuts are a French Laundry classic. This isn’t on the menu, so make sure you request this when you make your reservation or ask the server when you arrive to see if it’s available.

Coffee and Doughnuts
Cinnamon Doughnuts and Coffee Semifreddo.

After the Coffee and Doughnuts, we took a short break to visit the kitchen before the dessert courses started. When we first sat down at around 11:15am, we asked if Thomas Keller was around, and our server Mischa said she hadn’t seen him. It was around 4:30pm when we got to the kitchen, and the first thing we saw when the kitchen door swung open was Keller expediting dishes. It had been two weeks since the four of us first met Chef Keller at the Ad Hoc at Home book signing (S&S were our guests). S&S met him again the next day at Omnivore Books in San Francisco because Seb wanted to buy a signed copy of Under Pressure and get the Keller-authored pamphlet included with his new Polyscience Immersion Circulator signed by chef, too. Ahhh…stalk— I mean fanboys. :)

Reunited and it feels so good…

We reintroduced ourselves to Keller, and he said he remembered us from the book signing(s), which made three out of the four us giddy. Keller gave us a brief overview of the kitchen as Seb and I drooled over the half-size hotel pans fitted with immersion circulators and filled with butter—this is where lobsters spend their final moments.

See those pans filled with butter on the left? That’s where the best lobsters go to die.

There are many cool things in kitchen, but one of the best is the live video feed with the Per Se kitchen in NY. This allows Keller to keep an eye on things at his restaurants, and I read somewhere that a video feed from the Bouchon Beverly Hills kitchen is in the works.

The Eye of Keller is on Keller Earth (i.e. the TFL and Per Se kitchens).

I received the daily Ad Hoc menu email during the first part of our meal, and we started joking about going there for a “dessert” of grilled short ribs. We were going there anyway because I had to pick up a couple prizes for Menu for Hope, and when I mentioned this to Keller he seemed surprised yet fascinated by this plan, but I don’t think he thought we would follow through.

We returned to our table jazzed at meeting Keller again and ready to polish off dessert so we could head down to Ad Hoc. We were celebrating both Seb and my wife’s birthdays, so their desserts got an little extra flourish. Here’s Seb’s:

Gateau Saint Nizier Au Manjari
Mango Chili Relish, Valrhona Cocoa Nibs, Lime Foam, and Coconut Milk Sorbet

And here’s my wy wife’s birthday opera cake:

Opera Cake
Praline Namelaka, Milk Granité and Coffee Ice Cream

The mignardises included a pecan pie with creme chantilly, a selection of chocolate truffles, and some amazing toasted macadamia nuts that were rolled in chocolate and caramel and dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

Mignardises

As we left the restaurant we were presented with menus signed by Keller, some French Laundry shortbread cookies, and the birthday kids got a package of French Laundry chocolate bars—think Nestle Crunch but 1000x better.

Parting gifts…

While our first trip to The French Laundry was an amazing experience, I think I got caught up in the mystique of the restaurant and was really nervous and uptight the whole time. This time I went in with a really laid-back attitude, and it made the experience a lot more enjoyable and relaxing.

Here’s the complete set of French Laundry pictures:

The Ad Hoc Chaser

We left The French Laundry happy and sated, but we weren’t that full so we headed down to Ad Hoc. After being welcomed by Ad Hoc General Manager Nick Dedier and the rest of the Ad Hoc crew, we took our places at the bar and ordered two a la carte orders of grilled short ribs (one for each couple) and four ice cream sandwiches, you know, just to finish off the day with something sweet.

Ad Hoc’s Grilled Short Ribs
TFL garden tokyo turnips, French round carrots, red radishes, baby leeks, Colorado rose potatoes

As we were waiting for our food, Keller showed up to drop off a bottle of wine for another party that was dining there. Keller saw us sitting at the bar and said, “Oh, you’re here!” and bid us good eating. Ad Hoc Chef de Cuisine Dave Cruz came out a little later and said, “Not bad. Twice in one day.” (Simone is now convinced that Keller stalked us!)

As I was finishing some of the best short ribs I’ve ever eaten, Nick came over and said something to the effect of “I’m so proud right now.”

Ice Cream Sandwiches
Chocolate Chip Cookies and Vanilla Ice Cream

Seven hours later, we finally left Yountville a little “food drunk” but blissful and elated at how an unassuming December day unfolded into truly memorable one.

Happy New Year and all the best for 2010!

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Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib

arnold — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:49:02 +0000

When I first saw the Blowtorch Prime Rib recipe in the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, I knew I was going to make it for Christmas dinner. But this technique is so easy, there is no reason to save it for special occasions.

Blowtorching meat is fun!

Of course, the first step is actually buying a blowtorch, and there are several options available. My first choice was the Iwatani Professional Torch Burner because it’s compact and just plain looks cool. The butane cartridges are proprietary, but with all the Asian markets near me, they’re not hard to find. Being the chronic procrastinator that I am, I had to settle for what was available down the street at Lowes. The BernzOmatic TS3000 was cheap (~$26), came with a big can of propane called the “Fat Boy,” and I love the name BernzOmatic. :)

The lovely blue flame produced by the BernzOmatic TS3000.

Roasting the prime rib can be broken down to three steps. I used a 2-bone, 4½-pound standing rib roast that easily fed 6 adults, but you could use this technique with any size roast.

Place the rib roast on a rack in a roasting pan and sear the meat with the blowtorch until it starts turning gray and the fat starts rendering.
Season the rib roast with generous amounts of kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper.
Roast in 275F oven until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 128F. For our 4½-pound roast, this took about two hours. I use a digital probe thermometer so that I can monitor the temperature of the meat without opening the oven.

The blowtorch jumpstarts the development of the crust
that’s characteristic of good prime rib.

Roasting the meat at a low temperature ensures a beautiful shade of pink all the way through the meat. Rest the meat for at least 30 minutes before cutting into it.

Perfect medium rare after resting for 40 minutes.

Since everything at Ad Hoc is served family style, the prime rib is cut into thick chunks instead of more traditional individual slices. I think this allows a smaller rib roast to serve more people and cuts down on wasted meat, especially if there are light eaters at the table who can’t finish a whole slice of regular prime rib.

To serve the meat, cut the roast in half down the center and put the meat cut side down on the cutting board. Then cut each half into ½-inch slices. I think serving the meat this way is great because each piece is thick and has a lot of crust. Before bringing the meat to the table drizzle it with a little fleur de sel or kosher salt and some coarsely ground pepper.

Blowtorched prime rib with horseradish cream

The low cooking temperature means that there’s hardly any drippings in the bottom of the pan to make jus, but you don’t need it. The meat’s beefiness comes through loud and clear, and it goes beautifully with this horseradish cream.

Horseradish Cream (adapted from Ad Hoc at Home)
½ cup very cold heavy cream
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
¼ cup drained, prepared horseradish
½ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

Put the heavy cream and vinegar in a bowl in a medium bowl and whisk until the cream and holds a soft shape (just before soft peaks). Whisk in horseradish, salt, and pepper until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for up to a week.

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