Five Foods You Should Know About!

1. Meyer Lemon

Is it a lemon or an orange? I am a big fan of cooking magazines so there are always ingredients that I stumble upon that I am not very familiar with. I found a recipe that required a Meyer lemon so I went out to find one. First stop, Whole Foods. I asked the man in the produce section if he had any. He kindly replied that there are none left and went off for a second. He came back holding a lemon and orange in each hand. He rubbed the two together like you would rub rocks to start a bonfire. Then he said " smell this." " This is what a Meyer lemon smells like, a cross between a lemon and an orange."
I was determined to find this citrus mystery so I went to the Pike Place Market and searched all the stands. There it was, the beautiful citrus treasure. I took it home and started to put together a vinaigrette until I felt compelled to taste it first. I expected it to be sour like a lemon but it tasted more like an orange with the slight bitterness of a lemon. I peeled it into segments and ate it like an orange. A citrus delight!

More about Meyer Lemons

2. Elephant Garlic

Elephant garlic is garlic for the garlicky challenged. It looks hefty and is elephant like in size but is light on taste. It's the Eau de Toilette of garlic, the light version of this smelly kitchen basic. It is not exactly a garlic but more like a type of leek.
See the description here
Each clove is enormous in size and closer to the size of regular bulb of garlic. You only have to give the the garlic one whack to uncover an oversized chunk of garlic. So for those who want a subtle hint of garlic, this may be what your looking for. This may be less potent, but no promises that you won't stink!

3. Bubble Tea

My girlfriends are all bubble tea girls, we never go out for coffee but we are always up for bubble. Originally from Asia, bubble tea is a tea that comes in many flavors, filled with little pearls made of tapioca. These tapioca balls, otherwise known as Boba or Pearls have a gummy texture and can be found in different flavored teas, from sour apple flavor to green tea with chocolate. These chewy balls are sucked through enormous straws so that each pearl can plop into your mouth individually. This tea, usually found in Asian cafes can be flavored with a milky sugary mix and can be made hot or cold.
As Bubble tea is becoming increasingly popular, the pearl can be found at juice bars all over the Seattle area. If you are a bubble tea virgin, your first encounter should be with cold bubble tea at an Asian cafe. It may taste akward at first but it becomes addictive after a few slurps.
More on Bubble Tea

4. Pho

Pho, pronounced fa is a Vietnamese soup , that is served in big bowls with heaps of noodles and your choice of protein.
The broth is a clear brownish color garnished with green onions and an assortment of herbs such as basil, mint and even white bean sprouts. The soup is served with thin white rice noodles and hoisin sauce. The amazing thing about this soup is that it is a full meal in one bowl. Usually after a bowl of this, you can hardly think of ordering anything else. It is also fairly inexpensive. For under 6 dollars, you can dine out and be very full. More about pho


5. Panko Bread Crumbs

Panko bread crumbs are a Japanese type of bread crumbs that have invaded the cooking world and made regular bread crumbs seem like they need to get a life. These extra coarse bread crumbs are usually irregular in shape and will promise a crunchier, non soggy breading on anything from fried vegetables to fried chicken.

Five Things I learned Since I Started Cooking

1. Mise en Place
As a French speaker, it is an expression that I understood right away. Mise en place means putting everything in place. This is the entire organization of your workplace before starting to cook, including chopping all your ingredients and setting them up in little bowls or neatly organized on a big chopping board. This means to saute or do anything that it says to do in advance. This way when you start cooking your recipe, you do it quickly and effectively and you don't end up burning one thing while looking for another. It's one of those cooking terms that you probably hear all the time on cooking shows but have never really paid attention to.

2. How to Chop
For many this is the most tedious, time consuming task to be done in the kitchen. I used to cut my salad in all different shapes and sizes, which made it not only unsightly but hard to eat. You need to take a class and get a good chef's knife for this(see number 3 for a better explanation). If you are going to invest in any cooking class it should be a knife skills class
because there are certain things you just have to learn hands on. There are also many sites that can help.
Click Here to Learn How to Chop an Onion
Most people hate cutting onions, but learning the onion cutting technique can make chopping them a lot of fun. I have heard from quite a few chefs that chopping onions is their cutting preference.


3. Get a Good Chef's Knife. This is probably the one thing that any chef or instructor has recommended to me. Yes, you have to spend a lot of money for this! Of all the things that I bought for my kitchen, this is one investment that I feel that I got the most use out of.
The brands that I have been recommended are Henckel or Wustoff but I am sure that there are many out there to choose from. A good knife should cost anywhere between 30 and 100 something dollars. There are better ones of course for more. Just make sure to take good care of the knife and never ever for any reason in this world put it in the dishwasher.

4. Don't Get Fancy on Your Friends. Picture this scenario. My friends are over for a dinner party. I decide to make homemade pasta. I make it in advance. My mise en place is ready and I am ready to toss the pasta in a pan for each one individually. They are waiting, they have already eaten the appetizers and are practically eating the furniture. Then, I realize I don't have enough plates. So I serve three people because some is ready and then continue sweating and grunting obscene swear words while trying to make the rest of the pasta. In the end, I join them after they have all finished eating and my sweating forehead and flustered cheeks reveal that this dinner was not as much fun as it should have been for me. Keep it simple. Make whatever you can in advance because when you have a dinner party, that's what it should be, a party. Even for the host.

5. Your Ingredients Count. If you are making quick meals for dinner just to feed the starving kids or find no pleasure in the act of cooking, then ignore this. I have come to the conclusion that Parmigiano Reggiano is not just a flashy name for a type of cheese, cheap olive oil is a lot of the time tasteless and fresh herbs really do taste better than powdered spices.
It's unrealistic to buy everything fresh all the time but spices like fresh rosemary, basil and thyme go a long way. When I do buy spices, I prefer to buy them at specialty spice stores or in bulk because you never know how long they have been sitting on the shelves of the supermarket.

Funniest Girl Ever!

Whenever I want a laugh I watch this video.

Squirt and Swirl

Do you need a new trick to woo your guests? Do you want to add some flavor to your soups? Flavored oils!
You can make flavored oils by mixing any fresh herbs with olive oil in the food processor.
My favorite is rosemary but you can do it with any fresh herbs. It adds taste without being overpowering.

Rosemary Oil Recipe

1. Pull leaves off a few sprigs of rosemary.
2. Place in food processor with a bit of olive oil.
3. Process for a few seconds and then transfer to a squirt bottle.
Use the squirt bottle to squirt a nice swirl design in your soup or decorate your mashed potatoes.
The only downfall with flavored oils is that they go bad quickly. So keep the oil in the fridge for a day or two. I tried to research this, some internet sites say that it is good for 3-4 days but I wouldn't take the chance.

I found a recipe on Emerill's site for cilantro oil.
His voice kind of annoys me but his food always looks so terrific!

This recipe for lemon oil looks really interesting too.

Have fun squirting and swirling your oily designs!

Will be Away for a Few days...

I will be away for a few days. I am going to San Francisco.
Any suggestions?

Art of the Table

Seattle foodies come together. The Art of the Table has a great restaurant concept,
communal dining.

The Weekend Supper Club
A dinner with guests sitting together. Every supper has a different theme. A great
way to meet other guests who like to eat while savoring a dinner composed of local ingredients.
48 dollars for a four course meal.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

Softest Salmon Ever

I am trying to eat more salmon. I need to get some omega 3. All this hype about omega 3 is scaring me. It's some guilt thing. The media makes me feel like I will croak if I don't eat omega 3. My hair will fall out, my teeth will drop like the coins on a Vegas slot machine and I will be an old woman in a rocking chair in the next 5 years. Okay, okay I am sucked in. I will eat some fish!

In a cooking class I attended at The Art Institute, we made poached salmon with a royal glacage sauce (a creamy sauce that took quite a long time to make) but tasted heavenly. We poached the salmon in Ziploc bags.
We stirred up a hot mix of liquids and then poured it into a bag with the fish. The fish was ready in 10 minutes.
Shocked at the simplicity of this, I bombarded the chef with questions. Are you sure it's okay to eat? What about salmonella? Don't you think we should leave it in longer? The chef calmed me down. No, there is no salmonella in salmon (how ironic!).

I decided to try the salmon in a bag technique at home. I thought I would try a different recipe, one that I found in an old issue of Food and Wine magazine. The salad was mediocre, but the salmon was unbelievable. It was flaky, tender and moist.

Poached Salmon Salad with Lettuce and Asparagus