Brian's Night: Just Keep Truckin' On (Cooking Club, June 30, 2012)

Greetings, earth people Susan*!

Deb here, live blogging Brian's Chef night. I've decided tonight's blog theme has to have something to do with this parody of Dora the Explorer, because it is awesome and I need to work it in somehow. Sister Susan: I know you will enjoy this, but don't show the kids, 'cause it will blow their little heads.

Brian here, being not-at-all-defensive as I explain my TRUE inspiration:  my last theme night was dedicated to having us attempt to re-create another menu from an amazing local Boston food truck, Mei Mei's Street Kitchen.  To top that, tonight we're attempting to create a meal using one more food from Mei Mei's...but we're ALSO doing foods from a local cupcake food truck, Kick**s Cupcakes, and an empanada food truck from Austin, Texas!  That's right, folks, we're going national!

And now, back to Deb...

Trucking, exploring...you can see the mood we're in tonight. 

Before we begin cooking, we hold a taste challenge. 

Jim was kind enough to bring over his last medallion of homemade goat cheese for Brian to use in his empanada, which led to a taste test where we challenged Jim to see if he could recognize his own goat cheese compared to a store bought variety we had in the fridge. The verdict: he could. Man knows his cheese, and his tastes better.

True fact: did you know paprika is made entirely out of peppers, which have been dried and ground?

 

 

 

The Appetizer

We begin tonight by foraging for appetizers to fortify ourselves for another night of slooow cooking. I leave out 4 carrots in hopes that I can convince someone to try my white bean dip ...wow that whole sentence sounds a lot racier than I intended. It's like one of those jazz songs where you think they're talking about carrots and bean dip, but then you realize years later that you were so, so wrong. Know the feeling? But in relationship to This Dip, I'm really just talking about the dip and anyway, it was quickly decided that maybe I should have not thrown in everything but the kitchen sink in an effort to make it taste like anything exotic, especially not that pickle juice, that was really just too desperate. I mean, really.

You don't want that recipe.

The Making of the Real Menu

In keeping with tonight's theme, we've been doing a lot of exploring. Namely to Trader Joe's TWICE to pick up ingredients we forgot.

Our menu tonight involves the following challenges:

 1. Somehow recreate the cold noodle dish on Mei Mei's menu board, having never tasted the dish and using nothing but our imaginations...well, and some food, of course.

2. Make mmmpanadas using this page as an inspiration, keeping in mind we've got to keep it vegetarian.

3.  Kick*ss Cupcakes occasionally sells a cupcake made with espresso and marshmallow fluff and Brian wantssss it. He's going to make it tonight, again Having Never Tasted The Real Thing! Booyeah!

The Nitty Gritty

Cold Sesame Noodles with Tofu

"Was the egg really supposed to go IN the sauce, someone asked dubiously."
"Hey, there is no 'supposed to' in Brian's homage to food trucks style of cooking," is the reply.

So the egg is going in the sauce and the sauce is going on the noodles and the whole thing takes a ridiculously short amount of time to make and it's in the fridge before we realize Alex has hidden it away. We note that he skipped the pickles because he hates them with a Colorado-is-burning kind of emotion. Basically the dread can be felt from miles away. Similarly, the arugula was "accidentally" not purchased by our head Chef, who we've heard complain about arugula in the past. Head Chef Bri is also allergic to peanuts, so we had to jettison every delicious sounding recipe that involved luscious, tasty peanut butter. Not that we were bitter or anything. To pare this recipe down to its absolute bare essentials even further, I think perhaps somebody forgot to actually show Alex the Mei Mei sandwich board...because I don't remember any sesame seeds or 5 spice powder in that dish, either...

Yeah, so basically this was our recipe for Cold Sesame Noodles: we took cooked rice noodles, added sauce (ginger, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, agave) and added SCRAMBLED EGG. It was pointed out to Brian that this dish is normally made with udon, but he claimed he couldn't find any.

Recipe for Marinated Tofu: We marinated extra firm tofu in the sauce above. Nope, we didn't bother to press it first and you know, it all ended up ok.

Mmmpanadas!

Brian put together the Empanada dough using a recipe he found on this page. Empanada dough (3 cups flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 6 oz butter, 1 egg, 4-5 tbs water, mix, roll into ball. fridge for 1/2 hour, roll out).

Empanada innards: Alex sauteed some onions, mushrooms and spinach. Then he made a roux, then very slowly added the juices cooked out from the mushroom mixture. To make it tastier, he added ketchup, agave, lemon juice and garlic.

You know, if it wasn't over 90 degrees in Boston today, I was thinking that we could recreate the stop-motion meme. Have you heard of it? Check this out:

We could have done this. If only it weren't so hot.

"Oh, man, the heat. That wok frying......"  and those were the last words of Deb before she wandered away from the laptop and then got distracted figuring out whether forest rangers, in fact, fight forest fires. What *was* Smokey the Bear's exact role, anyhow?  HI FOLKS!  Brian here, taking over the blog [stealing the cushy job, he means-Deb].

"It's my job to CREATE drama!"--Deb.

Let's see, where are we...the cupcakes are in the oven, the empanada dough is ready, and we're now guesstimating how much goat cheese should go in the filling.  Hungry Deb is helping Jim cook by describing a delicious mushroom sandwich she ate the other day.  And Alex is checking the "tofu jerky" that's drying out and getting tasty in the toaster oven.

How much goat cheese? Too much goat cheese!

  

We take this relatively quiet moment to check in with Alex about his housing co-op; there are so many people living under his roof and there's so much moving in and out that it's as hard to keep track of who's living with him as who's currently in Menudo.  (Wow, that joke dates me...for those of you born after 1990 just substitute "Backstreet Boys" in there...but that dates me too, doesn't it.  "Smashing Pumpkins"?  Agh).

We taste the empanada filling.  "Oh man, it's so much better than I expected!", says Deb.  I preen, very proud of how well my idea is going despite the fact that I really just gave Jim and Alex a six word description and set them loose.  

As a Texan, Jim has been imposed upon all evening to be the empanada Expert.  (I dread the turnabout supper club when they assume that as a Mainer I'll know how to do a clambake, or when Deb as a Northern Virginian makes...um...makes a large glass of gin?  I got nothing, folks). [Hey! We're known for ...stuff.]  Jim's risen to the occasion, as you can see.

 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluff

Oh dear...the cupcakes have come out of the oven and the little chilled balls of Fluff, which I'd hoped would stay in the middle and be tasty surprises, have instead risen to the top of the cupcake and...let's just say they don't look pretty.

"The fluff's ejaculated!"--Alex

Deb declares that she doesn't have an artistic temperament because artists need to work quietly on their own and she's too much of a people person.  Alex, to his credit, does not drop the pan he's holding.

In figuring out how to fry the empanadas I refer to Jim as "Houston", and that sends us into a brief frenzy of figuring out nicknames for each other.  Deb tries out "Virgina" and decides it's too virginal and uncool. So she wants "The Jew."  She asks Alex whether he wants Tampa or "California Boy", but Alex doesn't want either. Since he's the only real Jew in the room, he wants "The Jew." Deb has to gracefully concede that having Jewish ancestors in the 13th century on her father's side, PROBABLY doesn't qualify her for that nickname. She settles for "The Sicilian". [Bri, of course, is and has always been, "The Mainer".]

"As long as they're frying it's good, and as long as they're smoking it's bad--we want it somewhere in the middle."--Alex, dropping empanada-frying knowledge. "How do you say 'they're burning' in Spanish?"--Deb, trying to bring us back to her Dora-themed idea.  [Estan quemando!]

 We have an injury!  Deb's finger got hit by some oil during the frying process, and now she's hanging back and giving it ice cube treatment.  Here she presents her advanced first aid technique.

Deb ices while everything burns...

Goat Cheese/Nutella/Cookie Butter Frosting

In place of cream cheese for the frosting, we're going to try some of Jim's homemade goat cheese!  Adventure!  We're going to be mixing it with Nutella, Fluff, and Trader Joe's "cookie butter" spread (which you really need to try, if you have a TJ's near you--it's like sunshine in a jar, really). We do....and it's AWESOME.

"I'm not a hands-on leader.  I'm more like, 'Fly, my hawks! Bring me back a fat duck!' "--Brian, using a falconry metaphor to describe his leadership skills tonight AND demonstrate what a big nerd he is.

She's in Aruba?!

We field a call from Deb's mom (Hi, Mom!) checking in and expressing worry about Deb's siblings who were in the big storm that hit the MD/VA/DC area yesterday and may or may not be without power.  We do NOT express any worry about Deb's sister who's in Aruba, which may not be fair because when you think about it, drinking rum from a coconut while you're climbing into a hot tub can be tricky.  Hrmph.

 The empanadas are fried, the noodles come out of the fridge, and it's time to plate the food up and eat. Call it: Time of Food, 8:57pm.

From top, clockwise: empanadas, cold sesame noodles, marinated tofu, extra spinach empanada filling.

*Every week we dedicate our blog to a listener who leaves us a comment, either here, Facebook, Google+, at work, on the street, via telephone....

The scores:

	Brian	Jim	Alex	Deb
Empanada	A meat empanadas would have gotten an A+ crust was ok, if I do say so myself, construction was awesome. Alex’s dipping sauce was a great die.	A. crust was awesome. filling delicious. dipping sauce was better on noodles	A-.  Crust was flaky and wonderful, filling was rich and flavorful, it was well executed, but not very adventurous.	A-/B+ crust was amazing. spinach was a little stringy and the cheese was overwhelming. i wanted more of a mushroom taste, less cheese. But they were damn good.
Noodles and marinated tofu.	A. Marinated tofu was delicious. Noodles were just the right consistency	B+ I think we needed a little more vinegar.	B- They were ok, It tasted like a pad thai that we didn’t fry, where it would have been better if we fried it. It may be that I don’t like any cold noodles. I REALLY like using agave in these recipes. It’s such a light sweetness and it’s not gloppy like honey.	A What Brian said. I thought they were perfect. I like that they were light. Could have been a touch less oily. Just a bit.
Chocolate Fluff cupcakes with Nutella Cookie Butter frosting.	It is a little bit drier than I was hoping for, but considering how we were just winging it from start to finish, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.	Mine is a little overcooked, and the frosting is a bit goat cheesy-but the combination of the frosting and the cake is really good. I can taste the cinammon! The taste was delicious	I think this might be the best cupcake we’ve ever made. Some of the chocolate bits are hard and not well integrated into the cake	There’s goat cheese in the frosting. :(