East to West Eats: Tacos

After reading Greg's post today and mentioning tortillas it left me craving tacos. Fortunately, I had to go downtown today and I knew just the red truck to stop at on my way home.

I ordered two tacos, one chorizo and the other carintas. I love this truck because of how quick it is and how delicious the tacos are. Generous portions of meat, delicious corn tortillas, lime and salsa picante take me back to the time I was in Mexico City and had the best tacos of my life off of the street.

It only took 10 minutes out of my day and $5 out of my pocket. No wonder I love this place.
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Greg Responds:

This reminds me! A few weeks back Hannah and I were in the Mission district of San Francisco for Carnaval. For lunch, we stopped into a busy tacqueria that had been along the parade route and ordered one of each of the following tacos: al pastor, pollo asado, lengua, and cabeza. It was the first time I've tried cabeza -- head meat -- and I expect that I'll be ordering it whenever I have the chance to in the future. Just imagine incredibly tender chunks of pork!

Quesadilla with the kitchen sink

Fresh food expires. As it idles in my fridge, its biological clock ticks down with the passing of every hour. So it's always my goal try to use any leftovers or open ingredients before they grow fuzz or rot.

Meanwhile, Hannah and I attended Oaklavia on Sunday, an open-street festival in downtown Oakland. There, we popped into a busy Mexican restaurant to check it out. While Hannah went to the counter to order some horchatta, I was attracted to the grocery in the back of the restaurant, which stocked fresh corn tortillas cooked in Oakland earlier in the day. They were still warm! $1 for a dozen and we were back in the street to enjoy the rest of the festival.

We had some tasty black bean tacos with the tortillas later that afternoon, but that's not what I'm getting at here. Yesterday for lunch, I rounded up what remained of an old block of cheddar, a few slice of salami, some chickpeas (from the can I opened for the pasta dish below), and some tomatoes. Then I constructed a quesadilla using the still-incredibly fresh tortillas and fried it in the cast iron pan with grapeseed oil. I salted the finished quesadilla and ate it with some plain yogurt. What needs to be said: the freshness of the tortillas made for a super crispy and flavorful meal. Not a bad use ingredients that were just waiting to go bad.

Quick Friday night dinner?

By Friday night, I usually have to get creative when it comes to feeding myself. I venture into the pantry trying my best to use up ingredients that have been sitting in the fridge all week. This past Friday was no exception.

I ended up falling back on a recent favorite quick meal which I have yet to have the chance to write about: pasta with garlic, bacon, and fried chickpeas.

Fried, whole, chickpeas (garbanzo beans, whatever) are a recent discovery of mine that I made on a whim a few weeks ago while search for some accompaniments to pasta. I didn't much care for the texture or flavor of the bean straight out of the can, so I figured I should just fry it up along with some garlic.

Wow! The chickpeas, fried in a combination of olive oil and bacon fat that had rendered from cooking the bacon, were crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and had a great beanie taste to them. This dish has quickly become a go-to dish when I have nothing sitting around but pasta, garlic, bacon, canned chickpeas, and some Parmesan cheese. When I made it last Friday, I served it with some steamed broccoli.

Beer-glazed black beans

So I would have posted Tuesday night's dinner of pork chops and polenta, but I forgot to take a picture. Then I thought my lunch yesterday of the leftovers would make a cool post about reheating food without a microwave. But a second look at that photo made me realize that polenta with corn doesn't photograph well on a Blackberry. Let's say it didn't look very appetizing.

So after the Gucci pork chop dinner, I went for a more economical meal centered on beans and rice. I thought I would make just a normal rice and beans sort of dish, but leafing through How To Cook Everything, I came across an interesting variation on that: beer-glazed black beans with bacon and tomatoes served over rice. I used canned beans, so it was a pretty quick meal, done in under an hour. Satisfying and hearty, too.

Mexican Eats

For the past week I haven't blogged as I was in Palenque, Mexico. The best meals I ate were those that were out of the hotel and at little spots in the town. This is one of those meals. We ordered a lot of food including chicken enchiladas with mole and a torta with steak milanesa. Also ordered were delicious tostadas, guacamole, and a friend plantain dish which made an amazing dessert.

The simplest, home-made style foods are often

the most delicious. There was nothing fancy about this meal and the food was great.

New York Italian, Via Chicago

Greetings from the Midwest! At Greg's request I am doing a bit of a guest post since I've had some free time recently. In this free time I've been getting into working out, and as any athlete knows, the best way to get your energy back is stocking up on carbs... delicious carbs! If I learned to make anything growing up in Staten "Italy," New York City's most Italian borough, it is tasty pasta. So, behold, the most decadent and delicious classic, Penne Vodka.

Hardcore chefs will take the time to carefully choose and chop each tomato, but since I'm more about the eating and less about the preparing, I simply use a 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes. This is surprisingly easy to make, actually. Simply melt some unsalted butter in the pan (2-3 tbs), then toss 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic on there and brown. Next, throw in the tomatoes and some crushed red pepper if you like things on the spicy side, and simmer for about 5 mins. Add about 1/2 cup of heavy cream, simmer for a minute or so, then about 1/4 cup of vodka, and simmer for a few more minutes. You can add some salt to taste here too if you like. After that, toss with your pasta (I used whole grain to rationalize that this was "healthy") and some parm cheese and you're done. Delicioso!

Another baking success: Sourdough...ciabatta?

A while back, I mentioned that I had started a sourdough starter along with my attempts to brew ginger ale and bake a more straight-forward yeast bread. Fast forward one failed starter attempt over about 10 days later, and this morning, my first sourdough loaf was ready to go into the oven.

After my first starter attempt, from How to Cook Everything, failed to impress me, I did a little Google research and found a much more detailed explanation of sourdough with more thorough instructions. Unlike the HtCE method, this method didn't use yeast in the starter, only water and whole wheat flour. I let these two starters go side-by-side for a few days until the HtCE starter looked mostly dead and the new starter was starting to come to life.

After about a week, the starter finally began to thrive and would, as advertised, double itself shortly after a feeding. After a couple days of feeding it twice a day in this state, it appeared to be ready to bake with. Also, my new digital scale had just arrived in the mail, and I was excited to try it out.

Staying with the same website for a recipe (hey, his starter worked, so his bread recipes probably work, too! Also, there's value in consistency, since his recipes are based on using his starter), I went for a classic San Francisco-style sourdough. However, something may have gone awry during the mixing. The dough was pretty wet, and I had to work with it a good twenty minutes before seemed ready to use. And it was very messy.

I wasn't too worried, though, since some reading on bread-making suggested that some of the better types of bread are made with a wet, difficult-to-handle dough. In fact, I was originally tempted to make the ciabatta recipe on the website, but decided against it as too complicated for my first sourdough.

Why do I mention that? Well, after giving the dough some time to rest, I shaped it into a boule, and let it rise overnight. And this morning, it had risen...err, more horizontally than vertically. Was the wet dough too heavy to gain any height? I was a little worried, but was already realizing that I might have accidentally made a somewhat ciabatta-ish loaf, and decided to roll with it.

Well, it came out of the oven about an hour ago, and my verdict is: amazing. It's a little flat, but its horizontal rise did give it a light density, and as you can see to the right, there are some good air pockets throughout the loaf. And the sourdough flavor -- though I'm no connoisseur -- is delicious. The crust is a little crispy, but I expect it to get even better after a few hours exposed to the air. Best bread yet! And as long as I keep my starter alive and happy, there will be more to come.

Fatty - Definitely, Awesome - Not So Much

Friday night I went out to dinner with a friend who was in town and always picks a new trendy restaurant (the only exception to this is Peter Luger's which is awesome). The place we went to this time was Fatty 'Cue in Brooklyn.

We ordered a good portion of their menu as there were 4 of us and we probably ordered about 6 dishes. Unfortunately they were not spectacular which left me with the feeling it was overpriced - they have Manhattan prices in Brooklyn. If the food were exceptional I wouldn't have minded so much. Some of the dishes were ordered was the bacon appetizer (no comparison to Peter Luger's bacon

around the corner) the ribs, rabbit shoulder, and duck. Of those dishes my favorite was probably the duck, it had a great crispiness to it and had just the right amount of salt. The buns were a delicious accompaniment to the brisket, but the brisket was unfortunately underwhelming. The restaurant tried something interesting with asian influenced bar-b-que, but ultimately was uninspiring.

Images courtesy of Brian Oh

Pizza doesn't have to be perfect

After gaining some dough confidence, and running low on food, I decided it was time to try making my own pizza dough. Also, since I didn't have enough flour left for more bread, pizza dough was the next best thing.

I stretched out the pie super-thin, topped it with some fresh tomatoes, weeks old mozzarella which I had to cut off many a mold spots from, basil, and olive oil.

The end result wasn't glamorous. It wasn't perfect. The tomatoes were only okay, the cheese was old, and the basil was on the sadder side of fresh. But the crust was thin and crispy, and the sum of its parts were entirely satisfying. And I think that's the point of homemade pizza. You don't have to be good at it for it to be worth your while. I've made 5 or 6 pies since I've been out here, and all of them have been delicious. You can't go wrong.

Tuna sandwich on fresh-baked whole wheat

After the success of my first loaf -- half of which we gave away -- I baked another whole wheat loaf (the sourdough starter is still a work in progress) which was even better in most regards. (A little impatience got the best of me during the final rise, resulting in a funny shape in the oven)

Anyway, I made some tuna salad with leftover yogurt-onion dip in lieu of mayo, cut up some pepper jack cheese, tomatoes, and cucumber, and served it on some of the fresh bread. And yes, that's my ginger ale in the background.

What Makes a Sandwich?

I recently had this sandwich - a pulled pork panini with fontina cheese and roasted garlic aioli. It got me thinking, what makes a great sandwich? The aforementioned sandwich was so simple, yet so delicious.

Clearly great bread and great meat / main ingredient for all you vegetarians is critical... but after that it's not so easy. Most of the time I think it's important not to over complicate things with too many ingredients, but I often do that. Maybe bland deli meats call for over complication to add flavor to an under flavor inspiring dish. But when you have something as simple and delicious as the pulled pork in the sandwich shown, it really doesn't call for much else. Some of the best sandwiches out there are the simplest, a philly cheese steak, a B.L.T. Is 3 the magic number for sandwiches? Keep the number of ingredients under three and you'll be golden?

A warm day in Oakland calls for some cool gazpacho

East Bay weather is notoriously warmer than across the Bay in San Francisco, and the afternoon sun tends to warm up our apartment. It was probably in the high-70s this weekend (eat that, east-coasters!) and Hannah was craving some gazpacho. It wasn't long before I was informed her mom would be joining us -- I was even more excited to make some gazpacho for a crowd.

Armed with an enticing recipe from the internet, I spent my Saturday afternoon by making a trip to Berkeley Bowl, chopping up all the vegetables, and constructing a cool, refreshing gazpacho. Garnish consisted of the remaining chopped vegetables that didn't go into the food processor, croutons from what remained from my first loaf of bread, and some shrimp sauteed in olive oil and Spanish paprika. We drank my ginger ale and some fresh mojitos, and after we cleaned up, Hannah baked some fantastic oatmeal raisin walnut cookies.

It worked!

After two days of brewing and a few hours in the fridge to chill, the ginger ale was a success! Not wanting it to be too sweet, I went easy on the sugar (I think 2/3 cups for 1.5L of water). So it tasted more like a gingery spritzer. Next time I might use a little more sugar, and try to up the spicy ginger flavor, which I love. But more importantly, the fermentation was perfect. It's like magic -- two days ago, it was water, and now there is carbonation!

As for my other projects, I grew more positive about the whole wheat bread, which is now all gone after giving some away. The sourdough starter might be dead. I've started another using a different technique, and giving the original one some time to come back. We'll see what happens. In the meantime I might have to make more of the other bread!

Into The Oven! (Updated!)

Documenting my first-ever loaf of bread here. It's ready to go into the oven now, which I'm waiting for to preheat. My anticipation is high, but my expectations are tempered.

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UPDATE

And here is the finished product. My contained expectations were heightened as I watched the bread bake beautifully in the oven. However, my original tempered attitude was probably justified. But it's not a bad first loaf, either! As you can see from the close up, the density is about that of a sandwich loaf, and the crust has a nice chew to it, but is lacking in crunch. The flavor is nice- I used some whole grain flour with the all purpose flour, and the long resting time I gave it (from about 7pm last night to noon today) seems to have imparted a nice flavor.

Meanwhile, my sourdough starter is looking like a horror movie prop in the most fascinating way. It bubbles! It's alive! I looked forward to baking sourdough bread in a few days with it.

And the ginger ale is also looking tempting. There's gradually more and more sediment collecting at the bottom of the bottle, so I'm assuming that means the yeast is working its magic. I might try to get some root beer going in a second bottle.

Crabs!

They other day I went to this great little restaurant that I frequent quite a bit, Fish. I went for lunch and AYCE Maryland crabs. They were delicious and as you can see, plentiful.

Greg was kind enough to send me The Food Labs technique to making gyros. I'm obsessed, and am going to have to attempt these soon.

When Life Hands You Yeast...Ferment!

I've had a lot of time to follow through on various food projects that I have been long itching to get around to. Today, I put three of them into motion. The first is home-brewed ginger ale. I bought some yeast specifically for the purpose of making this. As I was sitting around this afternoon, I thought to mysefl, "Greg, I have an open packet of yeast, plenty of flour, and a food processor. I should make bread!" So I made a batch of french bread dough which I'm letting sit overnight, and also a batch of sourdough starter, which should allow me to bake some sourdough bread in a few days. The ginger ale should be done Saturday afternoon. I will make sure to update when each of this projects come to fruition.

I'm also thinking about curing some meat, but I need to do some more research into that first.

Reformatted Leftovers for Lunch

Just as Scott had an excuse for not posting in several days, so did I. On Friday, my cell phone (Blackberry Tour) decided to stop working, and because of the holiday weekend, a new one didn't arrive until yesterday. And since I use my phone to upload pictures directly to the blog, that meant no more pictures of meals (with one exception which I'll get to later). Add to that, I was moving into a new apartment with Hannah on Monday, and we were rather busy. For most of that time, my meals were rather unspectacular- simple, quick, and filling to keep things going.

Finally, I cooked our first real dinner last night. And I guess in the excitement and fun of eating on our dining room table for the first time, I forgot to take a picture. We had stir fried cabbage over rice, and boiled pork and cabbage wontons with a soy-ginger dipping sauce. I had never made dumplings before -- it turned out to be rather tricky and time consuming. The entire batch gave me 55 (!) wontons, and we cooked up 20 of them for dinner in a pot of boiling water. When we finally sat down, the work appeared to be worth it -- the wontons were as tasty wontons from a good Chinese restaurant.


On that note, for today's lunch, I fried up the leftover cabbage stir fry and rice, along with some leftover broccoli, with an egg to make a simple fried rice dish. To go along with it, I fried up a small batch of the leftover, uncooked wontons. Fantastic! They were superbly crispy on the outside and didn't taste very greasy. Even better than our first batched of boiled ones.

After dinner, Hannah baked up some lemon bars using Meyer lemons we picked from the tree in her mother's backyard in SF on Sunday. Speaking of Sunday, Hannah and I had lunch at a Mission tacqueria, which I snapped a picture of. Maybe I'll get around to posting it at some point.

Refreshing Summer Meal

Work has been crazy the past week hence the lack of posts on my part, but I finally get to post about a meal I made a week ago. I have been complaining about the difficulty of excessive heat from the kitchen combined with no ac making my apartment incredibly hot. This meal is a perfect cool, summer meal.

In the middle of the afternoon I cooked a steak on my grill pan - perfectly rare. I then let it rest and put it in my fridge and left my apartment (I had errands to do, and the place needed to cool off). When I was ready for dinner, I simply had to put together a little salad, a balsamic vinaigrette and slice the steak and was good to go.

So refreshing, so tasty.