Friday Five for January 26, 2024
From thefridayfive, you know i can't resist a food meme.
1. Do you cook regularly or does someone else cook for you?
I cook every day. The number one best thing about not traveling is cooking your own food. It's sad to me when i meet people who aren't travelers who eat out or order in all the time, it seems like they're neglecting a key benefit of having a house to begin with.
2. Which are you better at making: sweet or savory foods?
Savory. I don't make sweet foods at all, unless you count cutting up fruit in the mornings.
3. If you had to work as a chef in a restaurant of your choice, which restaurant would best complement your current culinary skills?
This is the question i really wanted to answer. There was a reasonably long period of my life, in the time where i still dreamed of moving to the US, where i wanted to own a roadside diner. The kind of cooking i love to do, and the kind of cooking i love to eat, is short-order. I have no interest in making roasts or stews or soups. If it takes longer to cook than it takes to eat, the dish is a fail. Especially having a full-time job already that isn't cooking, fuck if i'm going to waste time prepping an elaborate meal for one.
My dream kitchen is a setup which sells fresh, affordable, cooked-to-order food to everyday people. You got someone on garde manger chopping ingredients, keeping the mise-en-place stocked. Maybe they switch out to dishwashing as needed. You got someone on wok or flat-top duty. Rice cooker if needed. Base sauces, tofus and noodles/pastry/etc should come from specialists at the market, no need to prep that stuff in-house, just fire it and go. It's just one step up from mom'n'pop kitchens where the couple preps mise in the morning and then when it's open for business one of them cooks while the other takes orders. This is how restaurants should be. Simple, down-to-Earth and you see what you're gonna get.
It was a bit disappointing traveling through the US how few diners are still diners in the classic sense, with a griddle along the back and someone cooking eggs just how you like them, right fucking there. That's what i would want, if i had my fantasy restaurant in America, the classic diner. But instead of (or in addition to) eggs, tomatoes, hash browns and sausages, it'd also have greens, beans, fungi and tofus. You'd get dishes to go wrapped in a tortilla or 煎餅 jianbing, and dishes for here served on rice or noodle, with plenty chili, cilantro and Sichuan pepper to taste. Bottomless tea and coffee, of course. It would be glorious.
4. What is a cooking tip that you know, but other people generally aren’t aware of?
If you have a drip coffee machine, you can cook hotdogs in it. If you have access to hot water, you can cook any thin noodle, not just packets of instant ramen. You can make porridge without heat if you leave the oats to soak long enough. I suppose these tips are more useful in hotel rooms or on the road.
I don't think anything i do when i have an actual kitchen available is all that unique. I mean, it's just sticking stuff on a fire, we've been doing it for millions of years. But let's see...
If you never started a stir-fry with peanuts then you're missing out on some crispy goodness. If you sauté with olive oil instead of something with a higher smoke point, you'll struggle to get anything properly crispy. Olive oil is better on bread, you'll never need butter again. Salt is delicious and perfectly fine to add to everything. Soy sauce is a convenient salt and MSG combo. Dark soy sauce is better than light soy sauce. Small chilis are better than big chilis. Whack the garlic with your knife to get the peel off easier. Ginger is as important as garlic. If you have lime, a squeeze of it in anything will make it more delicious. This is unfortunately not true for lemons. Fried banana can go with a savory dish and i will die on this hill.
5. Do you have a recipe you would like to share?
I don't really use recipes. I do remember one of the favorite things i cooked which i haven't done in a while now that i eat vegan at home was my personal take on pad krapao, my favorite Thai dish. You need:
- oil (peanut oil or rice bran oil)
- chilis (spicy ones, like pointing at the sky chilis or mouse poop chilis)
- garlic (4 or 5 cloves)
- ginger
- ground pork (around 125g)
- Thai basil (holy basil is more authentic but harder to find)
- sweet soy (Indonesian brand ABC kecap manis is best)
- egg
- rice (long grain/jasmine)
1. Wash and roughly chop the basil, more than you think because it gets smaller once you cook it
2. Finely chop the chilis, garlic and ginger in approx equal quantities
3. Add oil to a small fry pan on medium/high, just enough to cover the bottom when hot
4. Whack the chilis, garlic and ginger in the pan
5. When the garlic start to turn gold, toss in the ground pork and stir-fry
6. Add basil once the pork starts to brown, the mix should be about half greens, half meat
7. When the pork is almost cooked through, pour in some soy, enough to turn everything brown but not so much it makes your pan sticky
8. If you did it right, the moisture from the basil, the fat from the meat and the sweetness of the soy should combine to make a jus, you want to stop now before it evaporates
9. Tip it all onto a bowl of rice, which you cooked earlier
10. Crack an egg in the pan and fry it normally, adding oil if needed, then slide it on top
11. Nom
I have tried to make this with vegan ingredients but never quite succeeded because in the process of cooking tofu down to ground pork consistency you lost the freshness of the other ingredients, and trying to find an oil which emulates pork fat is tough. Lao Gan Ma 豆豉 black bean version does an okay job to bring oiliness and MSG boost to most dishes, but it also steals away some of the sweet soy flavor which is important to this dish. And then what you can do to replace the egg? Normally you can use silky tofu to replace egg, but if you already used that or a similar tofu to replace the ground pork then the balance is wrong. And anyone who say well you should make pad krapao with chunks of meat (or mock duck, seitan nuggets etc) instead of ground pork can go get fucked. I don't care if you went to Thailand and that's how they did it there. This is my pad krapao, damnit. It needs that ground pork texture or it doesn't taste the same. In my version the basil is the main chewing component of the dish.
Since this is a food post, here are two pictures to explain why i haven't posted any pictures recently.
This is a 肉燥飯 stewed pork rice that i had when i was in Kaohsiung last year. With rice, bok choy, eggplant, dry tofu and a fried egg.
This is a dish of greens, mapo tofu and a piece of fish that i got from the canteen up in Bali a couple weeks ago. The problem? A while back i was on a bike ride and somehow dropped my phone on the road, and the camera lens smashed to pieces. It still works, but every photo comes out over-exposed. I suppose i should see if i can get it fixed, or perhaps just buy a new phone, but i never get around to it, because work sucks and it's freezing cold. But that's a topic for another post.
1. Do you cook regularly or does someone else cook for you?
I cook every day. The number one best thing about not traveling is cooking your own food. It's sad to me when i meet people who aren't travelers who eat out or order in all the time, it seems like they're neglecting a key benefit of having a house to begin with.
2. Which are you better at making: sweet or savory foods?
Savory. I don't make sweet foods at all, unless you count cutting up fruit in the mornings.
3. If you had to work as a chef in a restaurant of your choice, which restaurant would best complement your current culinary skills?
This is the question i really wanted to answer. There was a reasonably long period of my life, in the time where i still dreamed of moving to the US, where i wanted to own a roadside diner. The kind of cooking i love to do, and the kind of cooking i love to eat, is short-order. I have no interest in making roasts or stews or soups. If it takes longer to cook than it takes to eat, the dish is a fail. Especially having a full-time job already that isn't cooking, fuck if i'm going to waste time prepping an elaborate meal for one.
My dream kitchen is a setup which sells fresh, affordable, cooked-to-order food to everyday people. You got someone on garde manger chopping ingredients, keeping the mise-en-place stocked. Maybe they switch out to dishwashing as needed. You got someone on wok or flat-top duty. Rice cooker if needed. Base sauces, tofus and noodles/pastry/etc should come from specialists at the market, no need to prep that stuff in-house, just fire it and go. It's just one step up from mom'n'pop kitchens where the couple preps mise in the morning and then when it's open for business one of them cooks while the other takes orders. This is how restaurants should be. Simple, down-to-Earth and you see what you're gonna get.
It was a bit disappointing traveling through the US how few diners are still diners in the classic sense, with a griddle along the back and someone cooking eggs just how you like them, right fucking there. That's what i would want, if i had my fantasy restaurant in America, the classic diner. But instead of (or in addition to) eggs, tomatoes, hash browns and sausages, it'd also have greens, beans, fungi and tofus. You'd get dishes to go wrapped in a tortilla or 煎餅 jianbing, and dishes for here served on rice or noodle, with plenty chili, cilantro and Sichuan pepper to taste. Bottomless tea and coffee, of course. It would be glorious.
4. What is a cooking tip that you know, but other people generally aren’t aware of?
If you have a drip coffee machine, you can cook hotdogs in it. If you have access to hot water, you can cook any thin noodle, not just packets of instant ramen. You can make porridge without heat if you leave the oats to soak long enough. I suppose these tips are more useful in hotel rooms or on the road.
I don't think anything i do when i have an actual kitchen available is all that unique. I mean, it's just sticking stuff on a fire, we've been doing it for millions of years. But let's see...
If you never started a stir-fry with peanuts then you're missing out on some crispy goodness. If you sauté with olive oil instead of something with a higher smoke point, you'll struggle to get anything properly crispy. Olive oil is better on bread, you'll never need butter again. Salt is delicious and perfectly fine to add to everything. Soy sauce is a convenient salt and MSG combo. Dark soy sauce is better than light soy sauce. Small chilis are better than big chilis. Whack the garlic with your knife to get the peel off easier. Ginger is as important as garlic. If you have lime, a squeeze of it in anything will make it more delicious. This is unfortunately not true for lemons. Fried banana can go with a savory dish and i will die on this hill.
5. Do you have a recipe you would like to share?
I don't really use recipes. I do remember one of the favorite things i cooked which i haven't done in a while now that i eat vegan at home was my personal take on pad krapao, my favorite Thai dish. You need:
- oil (peanut oil or rice bran oil)
- chilis (spicy ones, like pointing at the sky chilis or mouse poop chilis)
- garlic (4 or 5 cloves)
- ginger
- ground pork (around 125g)
- Thai basil (holy basil is more authentic but harder to find)
- sweet soy (Indonesian brand ABC kecap manis is best)
- egg
- rice (long grain/jasmine)
1. Wash and roughly chop the basil, more than you think because it gets smaller once you cook it
2. Finely chop the chilis, garlic and ginger in approx equal quantities
3. Add oil to a small fry pan on medium/high, just enough to cover the bottom when hot
4. Whack the chilis, garlic and ginger in the pan
5. When the garlic start to turn gold, toss in the ground pork and stir-fry
6. Add basil once the pork starts to brown, the mix should be about half greens, half meat
7. When the pork is almost cooked through, pour in some soy, enough to turn everything brown but not so much it makes your pan sticky
8. If you did it right, the moisture from the basil, the fat from the meat and the sweetness of the soy should combine to make a jus, you want to stop now before it evaporates
9. Tip it all onto a bowl of rice, which you cooked earlier
10. Crack an egg in the pan and fry it normally, adding oil if needed, then slide it on top
11. Nom
I have tried to make this with vegan ingredients but never quite succeeded because in the process of cooking tofu down to ground pork consistency you lost the freshness of the other ingredients, and trying to find an oil which emulates pork fat is tough. Lao Gan Ma 豆豉 black bean version does an okay job to bring oiliness and MSG boost to most dishes, but it also steals away some of the sweet soy flavor which is important to this dish. And then what you can do to replace the egg? Normally you can use silky tofu to replace egg, but if you already used that or a similar tofu to replace the ground pork then the balance is wrong. And anyone who say well you should make pad krapao with chunks of meat (or mock duck, seitan nuggets etc) instead of ground pork can go get fucked. I don't care if you went to Thailand and that's how they did it there. This is my pad krapao, damnit. It needs that ground pork texture or it doesn't taste the same. In my version the basil is the main chewing component of the dish.
Since this is a food post, here are two pictures to explain why i haven't posted any pictures recently.
This is a 肉燥飯 stewed pork rice that i had when i was in Kaohsiung last year. With rice, bok choy, eggplant, dry tofu and a fried egg.
This is a dish of greens, mapo tofu and a piece of fish that i got from the canteen up in Bali a couple weeks ago. The problem? A while back i was on a bike ride and somehow dropped my phone on the road, and the camera lens smashed to pieces. It still works, but every photo comes out over-exposed. I suppose i should see if i can get it fixed, or perhaps just buy a new phone, but i never get around to it, because work sucks and it's freezing cold. But that's a topic for another post.