Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 258
Thursday, July 17, 2014, 09:35 PM
We made lobster pho. We had leftover lobster tail shells from a while ago that we froze. We made the rest roughly based on Emril's recipe though we also did a lot of different techniques. For example, we broiled and blackened some of the onions and the ginger. We sautéd the garlic separately and then added that. And we did some fennel seeds and anise instead of an anise pod or star anise. We also had a lot less lobster than he called for (and without out meat too). That may be why there wasn't really any lobster flavor, but, it did still have a pho-like flavor to it. We also poached shrimp right into it (though only 1/2 a lbs since we weren't doing lunch).
We served it with Meredith's home-grown thai-basil plus some garlic scapes and other accouterments. And we used fresh rice noodles (as opposed to the dry ones). We want to explore making pho some more. This was a good start.
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Original WP Post ID: 7936
Original WP Pub Date: 2014-07-17_213541
Wednesday, July 16, 2014, 09:35 PM
Meredith and I made a Thai Green Mango salad. It was based on the recipe for Som Tam Thai on page 38 of Pok Pok by Andy Ricker.
Som Tam is, by definition, green papaya but we wanted to use green mango instead. We bought green mango over the weekend, but by the time we went to make this, our green mango turned into ripe mango. So, we had to, at the last minute, run out of buy new green mangos. We bought 4 large ones and have a HUGE amount left which we froze.
We basically followed the recipe otherwise. We used a drink muddler to bruise everything. And we added shrimp.
The meal was very good. Green mango has a bit of a strange texture but it was fine. There was a lot of flavor. And it was a pretty light meal in general.
Recipe from Pok Pok page 38. Local copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7931, 2014-07-16_213538
Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 08:35 PM
Meredith and I made Bulgogi with pickled red onions and zucchini noodles with thai peanut sauce.
The bulgogi and the onions were from the prior recipe(2013-11-18). We use about 1.4 lbs of skirt steak instead of the 1 lbs of flank since it was a lot cheaper and looked good. I trimmed the fat (leaving about 1.25 lbs). We 1.5x the recipe to have extra sauce to really coat. We let it marinate overnight. To cook it, we broiled it for about 3 minutes, attempted to flip the pieces and then did another 4-5 minutes. It was nicely cooked. Not too chewy and not overdone.
Despite noting last time that the red onions were too salty, this time we used the same amount of salt but actually used the exact one she recommends. The onions, which pickled overnight, were really good. Lots of flavor and a little kick.
Finally, we again madezucchini noodles with a thai peanut sauce. In addition to the noodles, we added some sliced cucumbers. We also topped them with some chopped peanuts, some garlic scapes, scallions, and cilantro. They were very good!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7927, 2014-07-15_203529
Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 09:06 AM
Meredith and I made BLT Corn Salad from the Joy The Baker recipe (also below). We didn't exactly follow the recipe but used it as a guide. We made more (4 stalks of corn, more avocado, more bacon). We actually went nearly 4x on the bacon BUT, we used Center-Cut bacon which is much lower calorie and fat (75x4=300 calories for all of the bacon). We did the corn in the broiler instead of on the stove. We also baked the bacon (without a drip tray but then we drained it and let it dry).
Other changes include a can of black beans, garlic scapes (stems of the garlic), and a single (very) hot pepper from Meredith's garden. We also used mini-lettuces to make lettuce cups instead of lettuce wraps.
Overall, we very much liked the meal. It was easy though not really fast given that we had to roast the corn and bake the bacon. It also made a lot of food giving us two nice-sized lunch portions as well.
Photos:
(INSERT LATER)
(from Joy The Baker)local copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7923, 2014-07-15_090636
Tuesday, July 08, 2014, 09:15 PM
We made white bean eggplants like we did before. Our original plan was to grill the eggplant but the rain made it difficult. We broiled it instead. I sprayed them with coconut-oil pam (all I had) and salted them. I broiled them well but maybe too well since they were mushy.
We made the white bean stuff kind of like before. We marinated two cans of washed white beans with balsamic vinegar. We added some colorful tomatoes and fresh basil that Meredith grew in her garden.
Like I said, they were pretty good but very messy since the eggplant basically dissolved with the beans on top.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7918, 2014-07-08_211511
Monday, July 07, 2014, 09:10 AM
We're still in our hotel because of the flood but they had a grill so we grilled something easy. We bought pre-marinated carne asada (from Trader Joes) and grilled corn. The steak was not amazing. It was a bit fatty, inconsistently sized and overcooked (the latter was from us). It was hard to figure how much to cook it on that grill. Kind of boring but it was nice to "cook" again
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7914, 2014-07-07_091005
Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 09:00 PM
I am writing this two weeks after the fact so I do not have a great memory. The general idea was from this Joy The Baker post. The general idea is you pulse the cauliflower in a food processor until it is "rice" consistency. Then you heat it in a pan with a bit of oil for 6-8 minutes until it is softened and a bit more cooked. Next time, I would use the grater blade to give more evenly sized pieces. We made too much making it difficult. I think the grater would be better.
Anyway, when it was finished and cooled a bit, I added a lot of chopped cilantro and some fresh lime juice. I tossed it all together.
For toppings, we broiled some pre-marinated chicken (from Wegmans). We then had chopped tomatoes, more cilantro, some lettuce, guacamole and some heated and seasoned black beans (not pictured)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7909, 2014-06-25_210034
Monday, June 16, 2014, 08:05 PM
Meredith had made this for herself the other hips day and we decided to make it for dinner.
It was a lobster tail that we split and "grilled" in the cast-iron grill pan for about 8 minutes. We spread some cilantro sauce which was the cilantro stuff from the cilantro egg-drop soup we made a while back. Meredith had been wanting to use it as a sauce for seafood. We spread some on toasted french bread, put the lobster on it, topped it with a fried egg, and then some more sauce (mixed with a bit of butter).
We used a fried egg this time since it is faster and easier but a poached egg would have been better.
Still, it was really good. Lots of flavor from the lobster and the sauce. It was also very easy with little cleanup (because the cilantro stuff was already made).
And we were able to give it a fun name...
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7902, 2014-06-16_200557