Post Mort Yum

Korean Fried Cauliflower

2020-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

Made a batter and sauce roughly based on recipe from Serious Eats. Instead of vodka and water I used 1 and 1/2 cup beer. I didn’t have coconut flakes or baking powder, and used red chili flakes instead of gochugaru.

Instead of frying in a wok, I air fried them at 350F for 18 minutes.

I tried a batch at 400F for 15 minutes. It turned out way browner.

What learned?

The sauce flavor turned out really well. The cauliflower were crunchy, but the batter didn’t feel airy. This is likely because of my lack of baking powder and vodka. Also, 1 and 1/2 cup beer was too much, the batter was a bit too thin. But 1 cup was too late, so should be somewhere in between.

The 400F batch didn’t really taste that different mostly because the sauce overwhelms all taste of the natural cauliflower, but I’d assume the browning would mean more maillard reaction and therefore flavor.

To learn

Try again with batter either using a bit less beer or following recipe with the vodka.

Küpsisetort (Estonian Cookie Cake)

2020-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

Made some Estonian Cookie Cake! Not the prettiest, but one of my favorite desserts to make. I learned the recipe in France while studying abroad from an Estonian friend, and have since made it many times because it’s so easy and tasty, and relatively healthy as far as desserts go. As it doesn’t involve any baking, I even got to share it with a lady in India who wanted to make a cake for her daughter’s birthday, but didn’t have an oven in their house!

This time I made it with pretty standard ingredients: box of graham crackers, tub of sour cream, strawberry jam, bananas, some chocolate chips. Since we no longer have milk in the house, I dipped the graham crackers in hot water, and melted down the chocolate chips with oat milk.

Instructions:

Dip graham crackers in hot milk/water very quickly, then lay onto tray. Do them one at a time as they get soggy very fast. Lay them one next to another, no space in between. Make a square or rectangle out of the graham crackers, according to how big you want it and how many graham crackers you have. You want to make a minimum of three layers, but more is better if you have enough graham crackers.
On top of the first layer, spread an even layer of sour cream. If you only have enough crackers for 3 layers, also add a layer of sliced bananas. If you plan on making more layers, you can separate the bananas and sour cream with another layer of crackers.
Add another layer of dipped graham crackers on top of the bananas.
Add a layer of sour cream and jam, similar to the sour cream and bananas, can be separated by crackers or together.
Add one last layer of dipped graham crackers. This is the top. Again, if you wanted more layers of stuff in between, feel free to have added them.
Melt down chocolate chips with a bit of milk to liquify it, then pour it on top of the cake, spreading it into an even layer.
Put it in the fridge for a bit to cool the chocolate and stiffen the graham crackers.

Here it is as a whole:

The procedure is pretty similar to tiramisu but not as fancy / particular in ingredients you use. Ingredients are super flexible and quantities are not fussy! You can replace just about anything you’d like in it. In the India case just about everything was changed but it was still just as delicious.

What learned?

I used semi-sweet chocolate chips and I found it not too sweet, which is great. Makes it feel healthier. And using oat milk / water made it closer to being vegan. That didn’t seem to affect the taste.

Since I didn’t have any other use for sour cream at home, I used the whole tub in this. We found it to be too much sour cream. It could also have been because I only made three layers, so the sour cream layers were very thick. Might have been better spread out.

To learn

Ideally I’d find a vegan replacement for sour cream as well so that it becomes fully vegan. Need to research that.

Next time I also want to try not dipping the bottom layer so that it stays crunchy. The flavor does taste cheesecake-like, would be interesting to see if this would make it similar to the cheesecake crust.

Tempeh

2020-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

As part of being more plant based with our diet, we figured we’d give tempeh a try for protein. We had an amazing dish with it in Bali but I have no idea what to do with tempeh or how it even tastes on its own, so I made it a couple different ways to test it out.

All of them were cut into cubes, coated in a bit of oil, cooked, then salted. Separately I made a peanut sauce (peanut butter, soy sauce, sesame oil) for actually consuming them after.

Cooking methods:

Pictured top I first steamed it for 10 minutes, then patted it dry, then air fried it for 11 minutes at 375F. I’d read online that steaming it first makes it less bitter.

Pan fried for a few minutes

Baked for 30 minutes at 375F

Air fried for 11 minutes at 375F

What learned?

Pan fried turned out very uneven in browning. The more burnt bits were extra bitter. Air fried was pretty evenly crispy on the outside, pretty good. Baked was better than pan fried but not as evenly crispy as air fried. The middle was still a bit raw tasting, which seems to be what gives it the bitter taste.

Steamed then air fried was by far the best. Steaming it actually made a big difference. Tasting the just air fried vs steamed first side by side, the steamed was nuttier and crispier. My guess is the steaming cooks the inside so there’s no rawness, which makes the nuttyness come out stronger.

Overall, tempeh is pretty interesting. Definitely more flavor on its own than tofu, but I like that tofu takes the flavor of what you make with it, and I like the texture of tofu more.

To learn

I’d still like to learn how to make the version I had in Bali. It was much more crispy, almost chip-like. Next time I’ll try shallow fry and cutting it into smaller pieces for more crisp. And I need to look at other sauces to go with tempeh.

Tteokbokki and Soon Tofu

2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Before I had assumed that all the red colored Korean dishes would have similar flavor profiles, but it seems soon tofu gets its primary flavor from kimchi juice, while tteokbokki gets its flavor from gochujang. Korean dishes use a mix of different pepper sauces like kimchi, gochujang, gochugaru (which I didn’t have).

I used my homemade vegetable stock for both dishes instead of anchovy juices, roughly following the recipe from here.

Tteokbokki turned out pretty authentic tasting but too salty, likely because I used a bit too much gochujang.

Soon tofu didn’t quite taste like what we have in the restaurants. I’m lost on how to improve the flavor since I still have too little understanding of the profiles of Korean dishes. The internet hasn’t been too helpful as different recipes online all called for different ingredients. Will have to try at a restaurant again with deeper analysis to see what I’m missing / read more online.

Plant Based Valentines Dinner

2020-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Since we’re now trying to eat plant based, I attempted a fancy Valentine’s dinner using mostly vegan (cheated a bit with butter and cheese) ingredients:

Appetizers: air fried sweet potato fries and stuffed dates
Main course: air fried marinated tofu with soy ginger glazed veggies on a bed of sweet potato puree. Vegetable stock based sauce on top
Palate cleanser: the vegetable stock used for sauce / cooking veggies in

Overall meal was tasty but imbalanced, there was too much flavor that got a bit overwhelming. Dates + sweet potato puree both very rich. Sauce added strong flavors. Should have had something lighter to cut through the richness.

Notes on each part:

Vegetable stock - soaked kombu and shittake and their water, baked button mushrooms, kombu, miso, onions, carrots, celery, radish for half an hour at 350F. Mix all together and cook in pot of water for an hour. Does not taste that good on its own, but made into a sauce (+ soy sauce and roux) was really nice. A bit bitter, might be because I didn’t take out the kombu when cooking the stock. Baking definitely intensified taste, but might actually be better without it.
Air fried Sweet potato fries - did not turn out. Not crisp at all, though the darkened bits tasted very caramelized, pretty good
Sweet potato puree - 500g sweet potato thin, 100g water, 100g butter, 4g salt. Cook til water almost all evaporated. Blend. Tasted really nice texture-wise, a bit too buttery
Green beans + carrots with a soy ginger sauce. Tasted okay. Color got really dark, which isn’t great for plating Air fried tofu with a soy + sesame oil marinade. Quite good
Stuffed dates - take out seed, add in parmigiano + almond. Almond adds really good texture, parmigiano flavor went well with it

Carne Asada and Fish Tacos

2020-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Took my learnings from working at 11 Westside and tried to do a home cooked version of the tacos.

Hand made flour tortillas: first tried with vegetable oil instead of pork lard since I couldn’t find it in stores here. The dough came out way too wet following same ratios, was not usable. Remade dough with vegetable shortener. Turned out almost same as with pork lard, except not as flavorful, which sounds to be expected.

Tried rolling them out and that was hard to get them big enough. Pressing them with a pan bottom worked better, but as soon as they start cooking on the griddle they shrivel up. Keeping them on the parchment paper I pressed them onto helped a bit, but they still turned out way too small.

Salsa Ivy said was best salsa she’s tasted. Really simple, followed spicy salsa recipe but with jalapeno peppers. Tomatoes and peppers I broiled both to get them charred and smoky.

Pico de gallo I ended up making the kind with tomatoes and used it for both carne asada and fish. Didn’t make gaucamole since I didn’t have avocados, really tasted the difference of lacking in creaminess.

Carne asada was cooked just right, very flavorful.

Beer batter fish turned out well. Air frying makes it not as juicy and batter isn’t that thick, still tasted quite good though.

Lacto Fermented Mushrooms and Tomatoes

2020-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Fermented shiitake mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes per recipe from Noma Fermentation book. Tomatoes came out tasting like an over-ripened carbonated tomato. The juice also had over-ripe flavor, but was a good amount of acidic and umami.

Shiitake I put in way too little and there was barely any juice. King oyster mushrooms juice was super umami and tasty. The mushrooms themselves tasted very slimy which was not great.

Tomatoes after puree I used in a tomato sauce. Couldn’t really tell the difference when mixed with actual tomato sauce.

Shiitake I used in a stir fry with cabbage, turned out okay, not huge difference. King oyster mushrooms made a soup and I couldn’t stand the texture, but the soup came out just the right amount of acidic and umami.

The mushroom juice I combined with some cremini mushroom confit oil and fermented tomato juice and put on as dressing for scallops. Tasted quite good.

Also used some tomato juice in a cucumber salad. Couldn’t really taste it.

Used mushroom juice in a pork rib soup and it tasted great! Everyone loved it, very rich and umami.

Baguette and Focaccia

2020-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

Breads can actually be quite simple. Ciabatta is 80% hydration, baguette is 65%. Both are just flour, water, salt, yeast! That’s all the ingredients!

Recipe I used for baguette: https://stellaculinary.com/recipes/baking-pastry/baking/bread/basic-baguette-recipe

Recipe I used for focaccia: https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/ligurian-focaccia

Baguette you put in ice cubes on the tray for baking to make it steam to get a darker color. Don’t completely understand why. Baguette had a huge bubble rise in one spot, is that a weak point? Didn’t knead it well in that case. Resting made it taste more salty, though also should have salted a bit more.

Overall texture turned out decent, look was good, taste was okay. Very bland and boring.

Focaccia is 75% hydration, and has honey to feed yeast a bit more and olive oil for flavoring. Primary fermentation is almost a whole day whereas baguette is just two hours. You do a salt brine on top of the dough which is pretty interesting. Don’t completely know why. Focaccia I used half the recipe but then didn’t do half sized pan, so it came out way too thin.

Texture was too crunchy since too thin, look was good, taste was off. Might be because olive oil wasn’t a great one.

Gyudon

2018-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

First test tried eggs two ways – sous vide vs pot boiled. Sous vide we did at 167, supposed to take off after 15 min or so. Both sous vide and pot boiled we forgot about them and left them on too long, turned out overcooked in both cases

Meat we tried three ways – fresh eye round, frozen pre-sliced eye round, frozen pre-sliced ribeye. I cut the fresh eye round way too thick.

Second test redid eggs with both methods, both turned out much better. Sous vide on 145 for 45 min is foolproof method, timed boiling correctly this time and that also turned out similarly good – bring water to boil, take off heat, add 1/5 cold water, put in eggs, sit for 13 min.

Also got even higher quality meats – sukiyaki/shabu prime ribeye, wagyu ribeye.

Sauce was from serious eats the second time, didn’t have mirin and had dashi, and we mixed in the sugar + ginger into the sauce this time.

What learned?

Cutting the meat by hand is hard to get to thinness desired.

Ribeye was significantly better than eye round. There wasn’t any fat in the eye round, while the ribeye had decent marbling. Makes a huge difference it turns out!

Sukiyaki is a bit thicker and it wasn’t as good as the shabu. Wagyu was actually similar goodness as shabu prime ribeye, and it was more so the thinner parts of it tasted better! so past a certain caliber of meat, it’s more the thickness that makes a difference and less the actual meat

Both times sauces were decent, doesn’t seem to hugely affect it

Technique for egg doesn’t really matter as long as it’s done correctly to get the right consistency. Egg makes it taste much better when done right.

To Learn

How can we cut the meat to the right thinness if doing by hand?

Cacio e Pepe

2018-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

Made cacio e pepe with pre-ground pecorino, fresh whole peppercorn, and fresh spaghetti. First made the spaghetti, making sure to salt the water properly. Then ground + roasted the peppercorn, added in pasta water, added in pasta, mixed pasta water with pecorino, then mixed that in as well.

What learned?

Don’t salt water as much as you would regular pasta water. Normally salted pasta water infuses pasta with enough saltiness, but here we’re using a lot of the water itself, so it imparts too much saltiness if salted the same as normal.

Don’t add too much water to the sauce. About ½ cup total. Add more peppers. Crushed with knife is good size.

Sauce wasn’t thick enough. Pasta was over cooked since after taking off heat kept cooking and also cooked in sauce. Should way under cook in water.

To learn

Try with dry spaghetti. Might make more sense for this since we need the longer cook time. Or hand make fresh spaghetti + dry it.

How do we serve the dish hot without having it be over cooked?

Kombu Dashi

2018-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

Made kombu dashi, agedashi tofu, miso soup, but the focus was on kombu dashi.

Kombu made from three different brands - Emerald Cove, Maine Coast, Hokkaido Mitoku - each soaked for about 9 hours each in 1.5 cups water. Turned out that after soaking, they bloomed into different sizes / weights, should have weighed up front. Emerald Cove was 14g, Hokkaido 27g, Maine Coast 36g. Experiment didn’t work that well since the more weight kombu ones had way more color. Surprisingly though Emerald Cove although much lighter in color did taste way sweeter than Hokkaido. Hokkaido had similar umami to Maine, Emerald Cove was much less.

Hokkaido one also did a batch sous vide at 149F, 28g. Both the other taste testers thought that one was better in blind taste test. I couldn’t really tell a big difference.

What made the biggest difference was after adding salt and soy sauce to any of them, it tasted much better.

Recipes were from:

https://www.seriouseats.com/2017/03/dashi-japanese-stock.html

http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=3040.html

Miso soup was dashi + 4 cups water + 3 tablespoon miso + tofu cubes. It tasted alright, but not as complex or savory of flavor as in a restaurant. Not sure what could be done differently.

Agedashi tofu we covered in breadcrumbs and shallow fried. Coating didn’t stick too well but was crunchy, tofu very bland. Next time should definitely salt the tofu before (and maybe after) breading. Dashi, soy sauce, green onions added okay flavor. Chili oil was very good but made it not taste Japanese.

What learned?

Sous vide is probably better technique to do for dashi, given general consensus, but it’s really not a huge difference. It also only took 1 hour, much less prep time.

Weighing ingredients beforehand is very important for a balanced test.

To learn

Test katsuoboshi differences in dashi.

How do we get the cloudy look and complex taste of restaurant miso soup?

Ochazuke

2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

Round 1:

Pan seared salmon skin side down + basted, made matcha tea and combined with dashi. Put some rice in, topped with chives

Round 2:

Added lemon – flavor turned out too strong. Makes it taste like fish and chips in a bad way. Maybe that’s why they use yuzu which is softer in citrus?

Just matcha with no dashi. Way less complex and flavorful

Also salmon was thinner this time. Didn’t taste nearly as good. Need the fattiness from the thick cut.

Round 3:

Tried focusing on the broth. Blind taste test 1:2, 1:3, 1:5, 1:10 matcha to dashi broths. 1:3 and 1:5 taste the best in terms of mixture. But when we mixed in larger quantity for actual salmon, it tasted a bit too bitter and not seasoned enough

Fish we did sous vide vs pan seared. Pan seared skin was crispier, fish was a bit tougher. Sous vide fish was very creamy, but skin wasn’t done as well. Pan seared some of it we also burned and that hugely took away from everything else.

Rice we tried cooked with chicken bouillon vs not. With chicken bouillon was better, but might just be because broth wasn’t salty enough.

Round 4:

Took the best from all our learnings and it turned out quite good. We also added confit garlic that we had on top. Goes really well with it.

What learned?

Make sure broth is hot. Makes a very big difference!
Flatten fish so it cooks evenly.
Salting all sides much better than just salting skin.
Chives is a great garnish for this. Green onions is a bad one.
Basting the oil on top very good for cooking it through more evenly. Don’t do too much or it gets tough on the top. Even better is sous vide though, and just searing a bit at the end to get the skin crispy.
Need the matcha with the dashi in the broth for most complex and flavorful, but also need to be careful about ratio.

To learn

Much to learn about dashi. Our version just follows what we’ve heard from different people, not really knowing why, a lot of conflicting information online, and we don’t really understand what makes a good dashi.

Try yuzu in the future for some acid that’s not as intense.

Try rice crackers for more crunch and salty umami.

Final recipe

Salmon Skin on Fillets (higher quality is better)
Garlic Oil (from Garlic Confit)
Confit Garlic Cloves
Rice
Kombu
Katsuoboshi (Dried bonito flakes)
Chives (chopped, for dressing)
Sesame seeds (for dressing)
Seaweed

Let Kombu soak overnight in water. 35g to 1.8L water, more kombu if you want more seaweed taste
Salt the Salmon on all sides
Sous Vide salmon at 120F for 1h15m, more if there are more pieces of salmon
Cook rice
Heat Kombuwater to 80F, then take it off the heat. Strain out the Kombu and add Katsuoboshi (35g)
Allow to steep in residual heat for about 15m, then strain out the katsuoboshi as well.
After sous vide, remove salmon and pat dry
Use garlic oil in cast iron, sear salmon skin for about 1m
At the same time as the salmon sear, brown the confit garlic

To plate:

Heat earthenware pot with lid in Oven at lowest temperature, just to keep it warm
Place a portion of rice in the bottom of the bowl
Pour about a teaspoon of garlic oil from the cast iron into the rice
Salmon, skin side up, on top of the rice
Pour the dashi broth around the side of the salmon so it doesn’t ruin the crispness of the skin
Top with sesame seeds, chopped chives, and seaweed

Pasta Cooking Night

2018-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Experiments ran:

Crushed vs puree for tomato sauce - texture difference is just preference, taste didn’t really make a huge difference
Fresh mozzerella vs shredded - shredded is lower moisture, which is how it can shred. fresh tastes much better, but harder to disperse evenly through food
Parmigiano reggiano vs parmesan - most recipes recommended parmigiano and I wasn’t sure why. turns out parmesan is like a knockoff parmigiano. parmigiano is from a certain region of Italy, made to certain standards that have to be met for what kind of cow, what kind of milk, etc. Parmesan is the same process of cheese making but can be made with whatever quality products. Parmigiano was almost unanimously voted as better. It’s a richer flavor and texture is softer. Parmesan has some bitterness to it
Adding vodka to tomato sauce - at high concentrations it binds to aromas and prevents them from being released into the air, but at lower concentrations (1% or less) it actually helps it release - this proved to be true. From blind taste test everyone thought the vodka one was brighter in flavor. One person came late and the sauce had gone cold and he couldn’t taste a difference. Seems temperature matters a lot.

Separate from experiments, we also made a butter sage sauce. Literally just butter and sage. Made the pasta taste like popcorn. Very interesting, but not really my style. We also made some meatballs - fennel seeds, ½ ground pork, ½ ground beef, chili flakes, breadcrumbs - the fennel seeds made it taste really good.

South Indian Cooking Night

2018-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

We made coriander chutney and dal fry following recipes I learned in India. The rest were from the following recipes:

curry leaf chicken: http://www.foodvedam.com/curry-leaf-chicken-curry/
yogurt rice: https://werecipes.com/curd-rice-recipe-thayir-sadam/
lemon rice: https://www.padhuskitchen.com/2009/09/lemon-rice.html

Dal fry I got several different kinds of lentils to compare and contrast, but due to time constraints we couldn’t execute the test fully and ended up cooking them all together in one pot.

Coriander chutney was very easy and delicious!

Spices mixed with water makes a good flavorful gravy - is that what was intended though?

We blended the spices because there wasn’t enough flavor from them. Yogurt rice and lemon rice both really tasty but yogurt rice was too yogurty (1:1 rice yogurt ratio, actually less than what was in the recipe) and both were too crunchy from the spices. Shoul dnot have blended. Lemon rice not as yellow - not enough lemon? Not enough turmeric?

Didn’t use right the chili’s. Didn’t have hing. Were these what made it not taste quite Indian? Spices were quite strong and delicious tasting though.

What learned?

Coriander is cilantro!!

Different lentils cook at different times. Taste slightly different too, but didn’t have enough time to thoroughly explore.

Spices should not be blended. Left intact and either leave in as garnish that’s easy to pick out, or take out when serve.

Can’t temper spices as too high of temperature or else browns them too fast.

To learn

Explore lentils more thoroughly. What time to cook which ones, what tastes different about them.

How do we extract more of the flavors from the spices without blending?

Experiment with hing.

Experiment with different countries’ chilis

红烧肉 (Braised Pork)

2018-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

Round 1:

First browned pork. Then used same oil to caramelize sugar, instantly turned into a black goop. This is why you use cold oil to start!

Took fresh oil and caramelized some sugar. Once it became brown, added cold water. It instantly cooled into a piece of rock candy. Stirred some until it broke up - this is why you add hot water!

Added soy sauce, salt, bay leaf, ginger, star anis. Added meat, let simmer in liquid. Tasted 45 min in - Meat is tender but not flavorful enough. Also it tasted a bit gamey, should have added shaoxing wine. After 1 hr 15, flavor seeped in more, still pretty tender, but not melt in your mouth tender.

Round 2:

Tried four different batches.

#1:

Bay leaf star anis, cooked meat in caramelized sugar. Color is quite red. Still a bit gamey. Cooked on small pot. This batch was mix brined.

#2:

Didn’t add star anis. Burnt it by forgetting to turn down heat! Seems leaving lid on doesn’t do much for keeping water in. Cooked on big pot. This batch was brined overnight.

#3:

No bay leaf. Star anis a bit stronger. Bay leaf rounds flavor? This was cooked on small pan with no lid. Turned out most red. This batch was not brined overnight. Sauce was much sweeter, tasted better like this Meat was tougher though. What makes it tough / not? Was it the brine? Smaller pieces? Open lid?

#4:

Mixed brine ones. Tasted more tender but all of it did, so unclear if brine did anything. Did not glaze, everything else same. Color came out very different, more bland, not as sweet

What learned?

Add sugar to cold oil to let it heat up to caramelization, then add in hot water to dilute it.

Bay leaf seems to round out the flavor some?

Experiments can’t test so many different variables at once, or else it’s hard to have actual conclusions.

Get more same sized pots for experiments.

To learn

Experiment more with bay leaf and star anis.

What makes rock sugar different from regular sugar?

Stuffed Chicken

2018-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

Round 1:

Deboned 2 chicken wings (took 12 minutes to do first one, 8 minutes for second), stuffed with a mixture of 1 lb pork, 1 tbsp lemongrass, 1 tbsp ginger, 1 Makrut lime leaf, small box of oyster mushrooms, 1 onion. Heavy sprinkling of garlic salt outside wings, baked at 425F for 20 min.

Found it to have too much filling – each bite was basically just pork, outside could be crunchier, stuffing didn’t have enough flavor. Whenever a bite had lemongrass in it, it tasted much better. Garlic salt on the outside gave it a nice contrast.

Round 2:

Deboning now averaged 6-7 minutes! Stuffed less filling into each wing. Added Thai chili to the stuffing to give it more kick. Broiled a bit after 17 min baking.

Outside was a bit crispier but still not what I expected. Thai chili complemented flavors well, but it was more of an after taste than initial hit as we hoped. Stuffing was still pretty dry and not enough flavor.

Round 3:

Kept Thai chili in it, added green onion, more lemongrass and lime leaves, pan seared instead of baking.

Turned out much juicier on the inside, crispier on the outside, and more flavorful overall!

What went well?

Learned how to debone chicken wings. Learned what lemongrass and lime leaf taste like / how to work with them – as their name implies, they’re both very citrusy! Adds a nice refreshing yet herbaceous taste to it.

Consistent with previous learnings involving meat, pan searing gives a better browning / ends up with juicier meat. Ended with a pretty solid first try at this!

What could go better?

In order for this dish to work well, both the stuffing and chicken have to be stellar. Otherwise, you could have just used dumpling wrappers instead of chicken, and you could have just kept the juicy chicken meat instead of supplementing with stuffing.

Our last attempt was much better than our first, but it’s still not quite what I hoped for though. I suspect deep frying would be even better for maintaining juices while giving it the crunchy coat I wanted. And I want to try other types of fillings.

Perhaps something more similar to dumpling stuffing? Or other types of meat? Ground beef could be eaten at a lower temperature, so maybe it’d work better for deep frying. In general, need something with more upfront flavor.

Chicken Stock

2018-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

New attempts:

added kombu (1 pack of 50g) straight into simmering pot
used wings (3 lb) + leftover chicken scraps from previous cooking

Tried and true steps:

standard aromatics diced - 3 onions, 6 stalks celery, 6 carrots, 1 bunch parsley
~6 quarts water
threw everything in, let it boil, then brought down to a simmer for 2 hours, left to cool overnight

What went well?

incredibly umami! kombu is a great add for sure. you can taste it distinctly (not sure if that’s good actually), but it doesn’t overpower the chicken
stock was lightly colored, much better than using sautéed aromatics
didn’t salt until consumption, was able to get it perfectly seasoned
I had lots of ziplocks on hand, was able to freeze most of it for prolonged use - writing the date on the bags is a great idea I’m finding

What could go better?

tried following recipe that was 1 lb meat per 1 quart water, but because I used a lot of scraps, it was hard to tell the exact weight. should get it more precise next time to find best ratio
still don’t have a good understanding of what ratio of ingredients is ideal
can’t really tell what the aromatics add. should try making small batches each without one of the aromatics, see how the flavor differs
still don’t really understand kombu how much should I use
is it necessary to soak it first
is it bad to throw directly into hot water
Rodney Wages told us for his burnt onion soup he uses kombu in the stock (like I did this time) instead of what we tried last time of soaking kombu in stock - what difference does that make?

Meal Prep

2018-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

What happened?

New attempts:

Beets! Half of batch pre-salted and half not. Both had half pre-cut into slices and half left whole. Wrapped in foil and baked with the chicken

Tried and true:

Chicken breast brined overnight, baked at 450F

When I pulled out the chicken, it was registering 140F on the thermometer, but I got lazy so I just packed it as is, figured microwaving would fix it. Turns out that is not the case – even after microwaving it tasted rubbery. Completely inedible.

I baked the rest a second time the next day, this time to 160F, but now the chicken tasted hard and leathery. Turns out you can’t re-bake chicken to attempt same results.

The beets did not taste that great and were a bit much in such large quantities (each meal I had ~2 whole beets), and some of them were bitter. Also it made everything that exited my body turn red.

What went well?

Ended up trying many different experiments in this one batch

What could go better?

Basically everything.

Cook chicken right the first time
Mark which beets were in which batch. Some of the ones I ate were bitter but I couldn’t tell which it was from so I don’t have a clear conclusion
Mix beets with something else instead of just serving it as is. It’s too much on its own for a meal