September 2011 Archives

There is a serious trap that is easy to fall into when cooking Asian style noodles. A little too much of one thing or another and the dish can quickly turn into what I like to call "Generic Asian". Its usually delicious, and can taste vaguely Thai, sorta Korean, or even kinda Chineese, but when you end up with generic Asian noodles it's never really a win. These noodles were anything but. I set out to make a sour noodle after having a crazy sour broth at a Thai place last week. I dressed these noodles with a bunch of lime and a little sriracha and they came out sour and delicious. Thanks to a bit of a scheduling mistake, the chicken recipe isn't going up till next week, but trust me it's worth the wait!

Inspiration can hit at strange times. It was 945 on a weekday morning when I realized I hadn't eaten yet. I had been at work since 7 and I was starting to lose it. I was on the road so I quickly veered into a fast food establishment. Driving a lot for work, combined with being in a hurry most of the time means this can happen occasionally, and it's not something I am ashamed of. While stuffing a hash brown into my face and washing it down with iced coffee, something beautiful happened. I stopped for a brief moment amidst the chaos of my morning to enjoy a flavor combination I have never experienced. We've all had coffee with hash browns in the morning, but today, with both things on my tongue at the same time, the fried almost burnt potato was playing perfectly with the bitter black iced coffee. A flavor combination I needed to recreate only 2 days later at home.

It's not taking me too long to introduce some exotic spices to my new roommates palates. Apparently "curry" is a red flag, but "chicken parm with an Indian twist" is acceptable. Not only acceptable, but hugely successful. Everyone loved this meal! And why not? It's basically a twist of the British-Indian Chicken tikka masala, using crispy instead of tikka.  Baby steps people!

Ok, i'm not normally one for cheesy recipe and post titles, but for this I couldn't resist. I'm delirious. I worked 13 hours yesterday. 5am - 6pm. Never really stopping, eating on the run. What fueled me through was the knowledge that if I completed all my work yesterday, I wouldn't have to go in to work today. You would think that after working all day I wouldn't want to come home and cook, but all I wanted to do was unwind and make a nice big bowl of broccoli soup. But I kinda also wanted to make mac and cheese. Unsure at the store, I bought ingredients for both, and in the end just tossed everything into one dish. This mac and cheese features 3 huge heads of broccoli and munster cheese hence the title.

Welcome to the all new TFimB where it's all sweets all the time! No not really, but it feels like it huh? This candy was actually a byproduct of the awesome dessert I made for the New England Dessert Showcase. We had a great time at the event as you can see from this write-up. After I finished candying all of the habaneros for the dessert, I had this big pot of hot habanero symple syrup! I sat there wondering what to do with it. Should I use it to make cocktails like Amber suggested in a comment? How about bottling up a 6 pack of habanero soda? But this syrup had it's own plan in mind. You see, as I sat there debateing what I would make with it, I didnt realize I had left the burner ON! The syrup was becoming caramel before my eyes! I just chilled and let it do it's thing. Tossed in some butter and cream and threw it in the fridge. The next day I took it out and wrapped up individual candies.

Oh, hello there. Didn't expect to see me? Yes, this is the rarest of posts of TFimB. Not only is it on a Saturday (something I've only done once before), but it's also the second dessert post in a row! You see, a few days ago, I was invited to the New England Dessert Showcase to help run a booth with my friends at Just Add Cheese. They weren't planning on having any desserts, so I thought it would be nice to make something real quick and bring it along. This is the resulting dish! If you happen to be at the showcase today, be sure to find me and say hello!

Recently I was lucky enough to dine with 8 of the coolest bloggers in the area at Lil Vinny's in Somerville, Ma. Thanks Boston Brunchers!  It was a great night with course after course of tasty Italian food and fun conversation.  You can see lots of good pics of the food on Rachel's site, including an awkward pic of me.(is there any other type?)  Lil Vinny's did something to me that night that is rare for a restaurant to do. They left me remembering the dessert more than any other course! Normally I'm not the biggest dessert guy, but their vanilla panna cotta was really good. I've always wanted to make panna cotta, but eating theirs brought this dish to the top of my list. I finally made one this week and was shocked to see that it's insanely easy!  If you have ever made jello shots, (And I have.  Many many many times) then you will be right at home.

I took a little poll of my new roommates last week. Do you guys like Indian food? No. Thai? Ehh. Sushi? Definitely not. Any fish at all? Nope. Spicy stuff? It's ok but I can't take too much heat. How about lamb? Never had it. Vietnamese? What's that? South American? Is that like quesadillas and shit? We're done here.  So as you can see, I have my work cut out for me trying to adapt my cooking style so that my friends can eat my food. Don't worry though, I like a challenge! Hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle, and who knows, maybe some of those nos will turn into maybes and even yeses after a few months. One thing I do know that my roommate Joe loves is honey mustard. He was a bit of a honey mustard connoisseur back in college. For the first meal I cooked for everyone I decided to make a honey mustard risotto filled with tasty chicken, spinach, tomatoes and swiss cheese.

As the summer winds down, my obsession with late summer corn only grows. Most of my corn ideas pair it with a chile of some sort, and this time is no different. I wanted to do something with tamales and I started thinking how it's a shame that the corn husk gets thrown away. What about some sort of edible tamale container? The tamale ravioli was born.

Duck Carnitas has been on my list for about 6 months. I even was ready to make it one day but couldn't find any duck and had to put it off. Carnitas is traditionally "confit" (meaning slowly poached in it's own fat) and duck legs are the most common confit thing around, so this seemed like a perfect fit. That being said, I dont normally confit my carnitas, I like to marinade it in the standard mojo, then slow roast it until it's falling apart. I did the same technique on the duck and it came out great!

It's moving season in Boston. Because of the large number of students in the city, everyones lease seems to be up on Sept 1. I'm not the only Boston food blogger who moved this past month. Any new kitchen deserves an inauguration. A first meal to help you get your bearings. Something you can cook in your sleep, but exciting enough to set the tone of future meals. I chose a simple stir fry to get things going here. Spicy, savory, and very filling, this dish definitely got me started on the right foot. At first I was worried that the move to an electric stove would be a major downgrade for me, but they have made huge leaps in electric stove technology! This thing is FAST and HOT. Way hotter than my last gas stove got. It boils water in half the time, has 5 burners and even has a convection oven. Not only that, but my freezer has a built in blast chiller. Yes, a blast chiller. Like on Iron Chef. I work at a gelato producer, and we don't even have a blast chiller!

This installment of cooking across the state brings us to Worcester, MA where I stayed with some friends for a weekend. In a series of emails the morning I was heading there, I asked what kind of delicious burgers I should make. I kinda wanted a riff on surf and turf, so I first brainstormed an idea that involved a patty made from ground tuna and ground beef mixed together. This idea grossed me out, so the next idea was "ballin burgers" topped with a fresh lobster salad. This was immediately embraced by everyone and it was quickly decided that that would be the meal.

This may look like a normal chili, but the taste is something different. It's infused with fresh summer corn flavor, from the kernels in the chili to the deep corn essence in the broth. This meal came about when I was visiting my chile-head friends and one of them pulled out some red savinas grown in his friends backyard. The red savina chile is a type of habanero that is much hotter. It was at one time the hottest chile in the world until it was overtaken by the ghost. The weather was cloudy with a chance of Irene so a chili was the perfect choice for dinner. I wanted to pair the habaneros with corn and pork to create the base flavors for the stew.