Vietnamese Spring Rolls-Epic Meh!

I had planned on making a simple pasta with sauce last night, but the weather was so pleasant that I opted for Vietnamese Spring Rolls instead. While in Berkeley Bowl, I scared up a recipe from allrecipes.com and it looked simple enough…cooked shrimp, vermicelli rice noodles, and a blend of chopped lettuce, cilantro, mint, and basil.

The actual rolls took a few oopsies to get right, but even then, the rolls were relatively flavorless, though mildly aromatic from the herbs. Not a great start.

Two dipping sauces were suggested, one a mix of hoisin sauce and crumbled peanuts and the other a clearish blend of water, lime juice, sugar, garlic, fish sauce, and one other ingredient–hot chili sauce. Epic meh. The hoisin and peanut dipping sauce was tasty enough in that they came from but the dipping sauce, well… We might as well have dipped them in water for all the flavor present.

This doesn’t mean I’m giving up on this item, but as my wife isn’t generally keen on fresh Vietnamese spring rolls (ask her about fresh lumpia, though–the Filipino take) so it may be a while till I attempt these again.

The recipe was on allrecipes.com which has its hits and misses.

Tortang Talong and Blueberry Muffin

Last night after preparing a potluck for my wife to take to work, I broiled a couple of Filipino eggplants in order to save time this morning when I prepared Tortang Talong for breakfast.

This is a staple comfort food for many of my wife’s side of the family. Essentially one takes eggplant and bakes or broils it to doneness, remove the skin, mash it flat with a fork, then drizzle it with beaten egg, salt, and pepper in a skillet. It ain’t rocket science, but every time I’ve made it for her, she appreciates it, acknowledges the effort, and says ‘Closer this time,’ and I look up to the ceiling where the ancient Filipino gods look on in judgment and implore them for guidance.

Eggplant.
Egg.
Salt.
Pepper.

I do realize that I’m competing with an ideal in her head from her youth that I may never be able to match so I’m not overly concerned with success–as it may be impossible. Still, it looked pretty good on the plate.

PS–the ever ubiquitous sweety drop peppers adorn her plate as edible garnish. She will add these to any dish to improve it (IHHO).

My Attempt To Be Manly–(yeah, I’m a baby at the grill)

Traditionally the BBQ and the grill are the province of the male in the home…probably because its outdoors, it deals with big slabs of meat, and…and…it’s dirty. And I don’t have the tools. I don’t ha the experience. It’s all such a hassle.

But if anyone knows me, they know that impossible is not a word in my vocabulary when it comes to food (not that I haven’t basked in failure prior to achieving my goal). I mean, how hard can if be? When I cook a steak on the stove, I heat up the skillet, sear the meat, and things cook to where I want them. But here’s the difference–I turn a knob on the stove.

With a charcoal grill, I tear up newspaper, shove it in the bottom of a chimney ‘thing’ and put charcoal briquettes into it. Then light a fire, watch from a distance to watch…and wait…keep the smoke out of my eyes…till the charcoal inside looks reddish and ashen (ten minutes or more).

Is it supposed to do to look like this?

And then you dump them into the charcoal…thing and replace the grate. Are the vent holes open in the bottom and the top? I think they’re supposed to be open. Right?

Then you wait another ten minutes. Is it hot enough? How do you tell? But then I plop my plancha grill on top of the charcoal grate, but its cold as iron. Now how long will it take to heat up? Ten minutes?
l

I just put those pieces of skirt steak down. Nowhere near ready. Hey, that’s the same pic! #%$&!

These skirt steaks are thin and usually only need maybe a couple of minutes on each side to get to a happy medium rare, and while they are searing ok…it’s been several minutes on just the one side, so its my guess that these pieces are going to be closer to shoe leather if this goes on.

So much to consider, so many variables. Types of charcoal, how much charcoal, and what is being grilled. Aargh. But I like a challenge. These turned out flavorable enough though a bit tougher than one would prefer, but I learned something.

Baby steps.

Arrachera al Tequila con Cebollitas Asadas

In Spain in the springtime, there are large festivals celebrating calcotada, or fresh spring onions laid out on the grill,charred beyond recognition on the exterior but soft and delicious on the inside. In Mexico it appears they have a similar predilection, though instead of spreading romesco sauce on them, they will often simply add salt and lime juice.

Here…look at these onions…gorgeous! Next time I will halve the heads to assure they are cooked through.

The skirt steak is marinated in a combination of corn oil, tequila, garlic, lime juice, and onion for about 30 minutes, no longer as it might make the meat a bit tougher than it needs to be.

Then–onto the plancha, that cast iron grill I got at the Spanish Table.

Cooking it indoors, I have just been told, is no longer an option. Grills are smokey mothers, and in our little house we need to close our doors to the hallway, open the front and back doors, and in addition to the overhead oven fan, we turn on a blower fan, as well.

Wifey do not like smoke inna house.

In any case, most of the meat cooked up pretty swell and I only needed to further cook up perhaps a handful of the pieces which were too thick to cook through to medium rare. That was the work of a minute (more smoke) and then these lovely spring onions were grilled while the meat took its 10 minute rest…and my wife retired to the front porch to escape the smoke.

Along with the lime and tequila marinated skirt steak I had prepared a very delightfully creamy peanut and arbol chile salsa (even with a bit of creamy peanut butter) which was a taste sensation for the ol’ buds in the mouth. Enough heat to let you know it’s there but not to kill any brain cells in the process. Angela took a micron’s worth of it to discern its flavor and agreed that it was sweet and smoky…but too hot for her tender ol’ self.

Here it is before it went into the food processor.

Here are the dried arbol chile peppers which give this sauce its gumption.

All in all, despite the smoke problem, a very successful meal. The meat was cooked nearly perfectly, the salsa was spot on, and we nary indulged in carbs much as I only heated up a few corn tortillas, eschewing the fried chips (much as we enjoy them–and they would be dastardly addict ing with the salsa de cacahuate y chile de arbol…oh, yesssss……

All recipes were adapted from Antojitos: Festive and Flavorful Mexican Small Plates from Ten Speed Press here in Berkeley.

Berry And Citrus Calamansi Terrine

Had some vestigial discomfort from my lower back today (gotten much better) and went out for a couple of hours while some gelatin thickened a bit–but we got back too late. Thick as a brick. So I simply combined the fruit with the gelatin a bit earlier and trusted to nature and chemistry.

Worked just fine. Haven’t tasted it yet, but like I’ve said before (and been proven wrong), how can you go wrong with sugar and fruit…er…and gelatin?

Note that this is only a half-loaf pan and is only about six inches long and maybe three inches wide. Small package but impressive-looking regardless.

Asparagus and Goat Cheese Pasta SAVED by Kale Chips

I found a recipe for Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta which was FULL of problems– bland and uninteresting. So I tricked it up– I roasted the asparagus rather than boil it in the pasta water, got special peppery cheese, and…I had nothing.

BUT…I had just made kale chips…and did you know? When crunched over the pasta, it really wasn’t that bad! To my utter surprise and delight, my lovely wife simply grabbed them in hand from the center of the table and sprinkled them over her pasta, Shazam, gurl! So sassy. (I had had the same notion, but I had not expected it from her–so sweet).

Note–when making kale chips, the little crisps shrink and so does the salt, contracting the salt as well to rather condense the sodium. Lightly salt your kale chips.

Kale chips. Goooood.

We Love Popovers (PO-PO-vay)!!

These breakfast treats are the perfect canvas to add whatever flavors float your boat. Eggs, melted butter, milk, and salt and flour give a thin pancake-like batter which is then poured into super-heated popover molds (as seen here) or even muffin tins. Cooked at 500 for 20 minutes, then at 350 for another 10.

They pop up just like soufflés but retain their shape. Add jam, jelly, butter, or eat with a nice piece of cheddar.