Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Berg Beef Spring Rolls!

So my girlfriend is a little obsessed with spring rolls. By a little obsessed, I mean my barely tips the scale above 100 lbs girlfriend can put down 12-15 spring rolls the size of a Hooot-pocket in a sitting and will probably dip into the fridge and make a few more later on that day... and for lunch the next day and as a "snack" while I'm making dinner.

Basically I'm just saying we tend to eat a lot of spring rolls. This is probably the best spring roll I've had to date. We start off with my brother-in-law's secret family recipe for Berg Beef. I can't tell you exactly what's in it but here is a picture of the ingredients.

And here is the caption, from the left along the top, skirt steak, dark brown sugar, sesame oil, Teriyaki sauce, dijon mustard, white sugar, and at the bottom green onions and garlic. OK so the recipe may not be as secret as I led you to believe.

This is a picture of the beef rubbed with the mustard garlic and green onions.

Here is a picture of the liquid marinade made from a whole bottle of teriyaki, a cup and a half of sugar and brown sugar mixed together, and a couple tablespoons of sesame oil.
We marinated the steaks for a few hours and broiled it in the oven.(why the F are we broiling things in the summer heat in NYC)(because I'm stupid - more on this later!)

Now we've gotten our Berg Beef out of the oven and let it rest for 20 minutes. The resting is immensely important a juicy succulent well cooked piece of meat can be utterly ruined by cutting it too early turning it into a dried out tough hunk of flesh.
After we've properly rested our meat we assemble the other ingredients for the spring rolls. My girlfriend is also very assiduous about washing all the veggies since it will be eaten raw, I think she's a little nuts, but I've never had e-coli poisoning and I think I'd like to keep it that way.

Julienned carrots cucumbers and sliced green onions, lettuce, arugula, parsley, rice noodles and rice paper wrappers. I tossed the rice noodles in oil and the juice from the bottom of the pan I cooked the berg beef in. The hot sauce is Yank Sing XO sauce, soy sauce, and sesame oil.
You dip the rice paper wrappers into some hot water and try to toss it onto your plate before they melt and fold up into a big ball. Stack everything on your wrapper and fold it up into a neat little package. (some people are better at this then others, I'm not naming any names, but my sister might not be employed at our spring roll cart anytime soon. she makes them the size of a football, talk about high food costs!

Spring rolls are a great mixture of cooked and raw ingredients, I actually love them, but don't tell my girlfriend I'll never be able to eat anything else!



To be honest the Berg Beef was so good I volunteered to help clean up the cutting board I used for the meat. I had to use an improvised sponge. Yumm cleaning up can be soooo Tasty. I mean rewarding. yeah mom, rewarding.

-NOM!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Dinner at Tamara's

My sister bravely allowed me and Jessie to come stay with them in NYC. This is one of the meals we prepared to thank them.

Jessie is a master sangria maker we stopped at the market and bought some fruits and berries, wine gin and ginger ale.
Delicious mango, apples oranges and blackberries.

I brined a chicken with thyme and garlic and green onions for 2 days and the baked it at 450 degrees for one hour in 90+ degree heat(this was a really bad plan. I'm pretty stupid when it comes to amazingly delicious food)
It came out well pretty well nice golden skin and moist delicious meat (it's the salt not any doing of my own)


A few days before this me and my girlfriend had stopped in the park to eat an ice cream sandwich. I decided that commercially made ice cream sandwiches you buy from a guy in a truck while delicious, kinda suck. So I decided to make my own! I made a sheet of brownies on a cookie sheet so it would be as thin as possible. Then I cut ice cream sandwich sized chunks out and filled them with delicious vanilla ice cream.


Shazam! Ice cream treats! They were very tasty but I'd like to get the brownies even thinner. Using vanilla ice cream instead of the shit( cool whip)? they put into a normal ice cream sandwich made it LOADS better though.

Pretty tasty, there were also some sides. Mashed potatoes and sauteed asparagus but so I want you to form a picture in your head of creamy fluffy mashed potatoes with lots of butter and cream and garlic and some decadent dark green spears. Sorry I know that's kinda lazy but you know what mashed potatoes and asparagus looks like and I didn't take any pictures.

-NOM!



Saturday, June 19, 2010

Berlin's snacks

So we've been in Berlin a little under a week. This is just a few little tasty tidbits that I have had in Berlin!

This is a go-to snack that I have in the fridge. Leberwurst(liverwurst) with cornichon(tiny french pickles) on some brot(bread). Sure you can get liverwurst and cornichon in the states but shit I got a huge jar of Cornichon(79c) and a half a tube(yes it comes in tubular sausagelike plastic) of liverwurst(1.29) for under 2 euro. This is like 10 meals for 2 Euro. Berlin is one cheap city. Yumm I love liverwurst. It's basically just German Pâté. Maybe the germans are just worse at marketing then the french. Liverwurst is cheap and Pâté is very expensive.

Another thing about german food. Hühn is chicken the animal Hühnerfleisch is chicken the meat. Schwein is pig and pork is Schweinefleisch. The meat is all named Chicken flesh and pork flesh and human flesh. I think the German food might be bigger around the world with some better marketing.


Turkish market!
These I got from the turkish market. I really can't resist any cultures version of doughnuts. These were pretty awesome. They looked a lot like a churro but the dough is a lot more gummy. they maintained a nice crispyness even though they were throughly soaked in a simple syrup of sugary caramel-y goodness. I couldn't just eat one. I had to eat them all. Jessie had a few and decided they were too sweet. I managed to pass up the Turkish delight which I have sampled in the past... but I can feel it pulling me back to the market next Tuesday. I don't really understand how they managed to keep the dough so hard and crispy while the whole thing is soaked in sugar syrup. But, more power to the Turks!

-Nom!

Peking Duck House!

Welcome to part one of the peking duck feast, The peking duck. This was at the Peking Duck House in chinatown 28 Mott St. NYC



I would rate this peking duck at about a 9 on the standard scale to 12. The skin was a little tough rather then the melt in your mouth crispy that I have come to expect in San Francisco but the meat tasted great and the fixings included cucumber in addition to the standard spring onions.

All in all not the best duck I've ever had but it was free(thanks Sis) so who am I to complain? What is that you say? I always find something to complain about food? No, no it's all just constructive criticism.

The rest of the meal was awesome. I love NYC chinese food more then San Francisco Chinese food even though in SF it is supposed to be more "authentic" but the heavier darker more flavorful sauces are really phenomenal in NYC. I guess I'll just have to tour around china for the final vote... Damn, the sacrifices I make for you, the reader.

-Nom!

Friday, June 18, 2010

God save the Thomas Keller: Bouchon

MMM Max likes Thomas Keller. French Laundry GOOOOD.. Ad Hoc GOOOD. Yum yum Bouchon! Thomas Keller food without the six month wait(technically since I new someone who knew the reservation girl, I didn't have to wait at all for The French Laundry but I don't want to brag... Wait no I am totally bragging, don't you wish you were me?) Anywhoo, I went to bouchon bakery in NYC. Well... to be totally honest I had to go back the next day too... and well I had to take my sister there right? SOOO maybe I went to Bouchon three times in a week OK? Nothing wrong with that! Right?

Right?


This is a Pain au Trois (bread of three(three chocolates that is)). Basically chocolate puff pastry, stuffed with chocolate gonache drizzled with chocolate. This was Jessie's favorite. Go figure a woman who loves chocolate... now that's something to blog about.


NOM!

This was my favorite a pecan sticky bun the size of my head, ooey gooey goodness so top heavy with pecans it would topple in a stong breeze. Layers of buttery dough not quite caramelized sugar syrup running through the whole thing... this is Heaven people!


Focaccia bread toasted with tons of butter on top coated in some amazing creamy cheese(goat?) then topped with amazing crispy bacon heated to order. This was pretty awesome but not as awesome as the Wagyu beef sandwich(not pictured as I ate it too quickly to film or see with the naked eye) P.S. The milk they use is GAF Seelig milk, im not sure if they get the butter from there too but the taste of the butter in the pastries really comes through. Basically I want his butter guy. I also tried a Croissant. While I have tasted better baked croissant(I like the really high heat well browned croissant) I have never tasted a better butter used for a croissant.

-NOM!

The best head at Reykjavik bus station

Sheep's head that is. When we were at the Blue lagoon in Iceland we met another American who actually lived a half a block from Tartine bakery, my favorite bakery in San Francisco. He told us that in Reykjavik he had gotten drive-though sheep's head. Basically a half a sheep's head with mashed potatoes and turnips on a Styrofoam platter that you pick up in a drive through. Immediately I knew I needed to eat this collision of old and new, rough country food and convenience.

He was pretty sketchy about the location of this culinary delight, but showed us a great video of him eating the eyeball and a picture of the billboard out front.



After visiting the Pearl, a large touristy lookout point on a hill we talked to some locals about where to get some good head. Apparently the only place they really knew about was at a bus station right by the airport. Low and behold, HERE WAS OUR DRIVE-IN! We ordered a half a sheep's head which came with a nice cauliflower soup, mashed potatoes and mashed turnips. I couldn't help myself but to dive right in.