Hello gentle readers! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and Happy Whichever Additional Holidays you've celebrated (Yule, Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Rendlesham Forest Incident Day); we hope all of them were happy, and that your forest stayed UFO-free and peaceful. It's Brian again, bopping along to disco on a Friday night as the four of us wash off the grime of a long work week (mental grime--it's not like we're covered in diesel fuel) by cooking Asian food!
But more about the Asian food: Alex has leapt into gear by making a yummy dipping sauce before we even got here, blending up chickpeas and adding ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, sriracha and ninety-nine other ingredients, turning them into something that looks like hummus and tastes like what cats think catnip tastes like. YUM. I'm on it like a history geek with the new Churchill biography by William Manchester, which is volume III and covers his life between 1940 and 1965, which--ten year gap between Volume II and Volume III, people,
Volume II ended just as WWII was about to start and *talk about a cliffhanger*, so...what's that? I'm getting too nerdy even for
this blog?....it's a very, very good dipping sauce, is what I'm saying.
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| True fact: 2/3 of all babies look like Winston Churchill to me. |
Anyhow.
We're heavily in Asian comfort food mode tonight, with faux-pork ('faurk'?) dumplings from
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/steamed-pork-buns-char-siu-bao-10000001734314/, real-scallion scallion pancakes from
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/04/extra-flaky-scallion-pancakes-recipe.html, pho (faux-pho, we call it, because it's hella fun to say out loud) from
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/noodles-spicy-lemon-grass-broth-10000000653548/, and for dessert, well, we started out with the intention of making fried bananas with vanilla ice cream and a saffron-infused caramel, but by the time we got past the dumplings and pancakes and pho we realized we'd have no room for dessert. It's a holiday miracle!
Deb's been assigned the dumpling role, though she's helped along by having the faurk already simmering away on the stove.
It hits us--we bought extremely gourmet tea last week, and extremely gourmet tea would go really well with this meal!
Opinion poll time: for a spicy broth we have three peppers, a banana pepper, a serrano, and "a red one"...which to put in? All of them?? It's decided to prep them, have a little taste test, see how hot they are, put burn cream on our tongues and then go from there. Red is three times spicier than the others, we determine. With just a tiny bit of work we could turn this into a Sesame Street skit. About BURNING.
"If the recipe has 'spicy' in the name, then it should definitely be a challenge for Bri."
Jim is making the pho, which has involved prepping lemongrass, and now chopping up cilantro. Alex is getting started with the pancakes; Deb is making anti-French recipe remarks and hastening to explain that it's not the FRENCH part she dislikes, it's the recipes themselves. She's not xenophobic, folks, she's recipophobic. While she does that she's chopping a metric ton of ginger, which makes Alex want to share the fact that he recently heard about 'figging', which....look it up, folks, just look it up. It's something they do to bulls when they want them to move more quickly. That's MY story and I'm sticking to it.
Since we're already past a PG rating for this entry, parents reading this, let's talk the whole Elf on a Shelf phenomenon. You realize that this is the stuffed animal version of your own personal Catholic saint telling St. Peter about your childrens' sins, right? If you're cool with that I am. But what are you doing now that Christmas is over? Will the Elf be reporting to the Groundhog, so that every time your kids misbehave winter lasts a little longer?
We're still talking about ginger, which leads to wondering if medieval folks used it for figging, which leads to Jim calling on his SCAdian past, which leads to Deb hearing the word as Acadian, which leads to massive confusion and meanwhile, we're still eyeing the ginger dubiously. (It "tingles". Suuuure. THAT's the sensation, I'm so sure.)
"Salt salt salt, oh my god salt?"--someone who is not Deb being asked to taste test something.
We discover, to our sadness, that the Mog "Disco (Chansons Inspirees Du Film)" channel is not, actually, French disco. Still, they're doing an upbeat dance mix of "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", so we can't get too sad.
"Roll the pastry up like a jelly roll, then coil it into a spiral, then flatten back into an 8" disc--then sprinkle scallions, roll it up AGAIN, and coil it into a spiral AGAIN, and then flatten into a SEVEN inch disc!!"--Alex is boggling at this hitherto-unexpected scallion pancake instruction. I confess, I don't associate scallion pancakes with spirals either. But us? Mock a recipe? It is to laugh!
There's hushed consultation about the lemongrass broth, which just is tasting bland. We ponder adding salt and maybe more lemongrass
"I like chunky dumplings!"--Deb, either talking about the food or planning her Hobbit Name. (Myself, I favor 'Peach Pureleaf').
I jump onto Google to try to help the broth by seeing what OTHER people have done to improve it. cursedvegan.wordpress.com added basil....okay, they added a LOT of funky things, but basil's the only ingredient we actually have here. So in it goes. We think about the blandness of the tempeh and add lime juice, then a tiny bit of brown sugar for sweetness. We ponder some more, then remember it's going to taste amazing when it's surrounded by dough. Then Alex thinks of honey, which kaZAM is the ingredient that works!
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| All of these ingredients AND MORE can improve a broth. Hypothetically. |
None of the fresh noodles have the word 'pho' attached to them, because it was a Chinese grocery, so we have two types of packaged noodles to choose from: 'lomei', which is quite thin, or 'Twin Marquis Plain Noodle (thick)', which is about 2-3 times as wide. Deb and I vote for the thicker one.
Our talk gets personal as we discuss two people who've recently broken up, who were apparently together for ten years despite, or maybe because of, both being named Dave. (People told them apart by calling them "The Dave We Like" and "The Dave Who Talks Through a Puppet, And We All Had To Address the Puppet Like Another Guest In the Room, Wow That Was Weird"). Dave, if you're reading this, it wasn't you, it was ANOTHER Dave with a puppet.
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| I typed 'disturbed man + puppet' in Google, and this came up. |
"It's lost the tempeh flavor, and that's good. Now it tastes like something else."--Deb, evaluating the tempeh---"She doesn't like it! But she doesn't know why!"--Alex, evaluating Deb. We're now adding five spice powder to the tempeh, which works...we think...again, we're pinning some of our hopes to the deliciousness of the bun.
Deb moves on to the fry batter for the banana....and then reveals that she tossed out some of Alex's ginger because how much MORE could he possibly NEED, bwahahaha!....and sheepishly offers to replace it, since he actually needed it to make the dipping sauce.
Talk turns to freaky religious backgrounds. I have my 'evils of rock and roll' Sunday School story where the minister lectured us on backmasking and subliminal messages (readers too young to remember LP records, google it), but Jim tops me with his tale of how he got invited out for "roller skating" by an evangelical youth group, and spent 3/4 of the time sitting down in the middle of the rink with all the other kids, learning how evil hellbound girls wore "The Devil's Paint!" on their skin. Hot Topic, feel free to use 'The Devil's Paint' as a new product name. You're welcome.
Alex is working on the scallion pancake by spiralling, then pressing, then scallioning, then rolling again. The broth has lost the lemongrass flavor entirely, Jim reports with dismay. Deb thinks there's still a hint of it.
Rommy reports, with desperate urgency, that there is a CAT. In the HALLWAY. And we need to take DRASTIC ACTION. We take this under advisement. He despairs for our souls.
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| Rommy wards off danger with his mental powers |
"It's gonna look great once it's fried up!"--Deb, doing her best to be positive as she watches Alex's pancake.
The tofu for the pho is in the oven on 350. Which means, yes, we are now working on TOFU FOR FAUX PHO. Alex has created his scallion pancake and has walked away in disgu...um, has decided to give each of us a turn to create our own personal pancake. Yes. That is the story. RIGHT, SHELF ELF?
The disco channel has gotten into a Donna Summer medley, btw. It makes an odd backdrop to Jim lamenting the fiendish and deceptive timer of the online test he took for Organizational Behavior this week as part of his course. He went 33 minutes over, with 1 point off the test for each minute, and meanwhile "Celebration" is playing as he tells us this. Bad DJ, bad.
...and now we've got a Village People medley. "You Can't Stop the Music" indeed, people.
My turn comes to make my own scallion pancake. By flouring the heck out of it and mayyybe putting a little less oil and scallions than Jim and Alex, I wind up with something that...well, it's a LITTLE different. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad one. I've never seen a scallion pancake that looks like a giant comma before, is all I'm saying.
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| Not how you picture a scallion pancake at any point |
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| Bun, undone |
We're ready to make the buns and steam them! Deb's having a little bit
("squelch!") of trouble with her pancake, which is sticking to table, rolling pin, her hands and somehow even itself as she tries to prep it.
Jim sends me the recipes, though we note that Alex has changed ALL THE THINGS! Which starts up a conversation about how good Hyperbole and a Half is (hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com), and how we hope that its creator, who has dropped off the face of the earth, is doing well. (And might someday see this while she's Googling. Hi there.)
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| Not quite the quote, but still very relevant |
We get ready to steam, using Jim's bamboo steamers. While he's digging them out he finds wasabi peas, a relic from the last time we made steamed buns! There is great celebration. It, like Proust's madeleine, inspires a flashback in Alex as he remembers the buns we made...it was one of our very first meetings of the club, and the first week he had his Smartphone and he went nuts taking pictures and videos, and life was good.
"I love it while you're doing kitchen things, and as you're doing them you think 'Oh No! This is a stupid thing! Stupid thing!' but it's too late and you can't stop"--Alex. It's a little bit too long to be the new name of this blog, but it's so tempting...
Alex is taking the tofu out, and we're preparing to boil the noodles--interestingly, they get boiled first and THEN added to the broth. (He leaves the tofu right next to me to cool. FOOLISHNESS. I just have to wait until their backs are all turned....oh for another tiny kitchen fire...)
The combined group talks me into trying the wasabi peas. Which...are not bad. WHICH IS BAD, because now they're *encouraged* to get me to try even stranger foods in the future, aggh. Should! not! give! them! positive! reinforcement! "Hey Brian, put this thing that looks like yak fur in your mouth. No, don't ask what it is, just do it." Argh. This is now my inevitable future.
We realize the missing ingredient in the broth--it has no fat! The hunt begins for a vegan fat that is suitable (leaving the tofu unwatched A CUBE IS MINE), and a dollop of coconut oil gets mixed in. Jim suggests bacon grease, but the vegetarians just smile and shake their heads sadly. (razzinfrazzin vegetarians razzin...) Alex finds butter, which also hops into the broth. He ponders dried mushrooms, which also find their way inside...now it's less adding fat and more just 'futzing with the recipe'. It's 8:33, peoplez, LESS FUTZING MORE PUTTING FOOD IN MY PIEHOLE.
We remember the snow pea pods! Hello side dish we're just thinking of now! Deb begins to get some garlic ready for a quick sautee.
One quick departure for a dog walk, during which the other three folks here act like effin' Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker and....a third witty person. Robert Mitchum? Wait, was he the guy who dared you to knock a battery off his shoulder in the old commercials? Anyhow, apparently I missed a big Stevie Wonder-inspired quest to figure out which crime show opens with the bass line for "Living for the City". We YouTube Hill Street Blues, Homicide, NYPD Blue and CSI--apparently the answer is "frickin none of them", until we finally find "Law and Order"...which is credited to Mike Post. We wonder if Stevie Wonder got paid anything. (If Stevie Wonder googled himself and found his way here, hello. They owe you $$$.)
While all this research is going on, the scallion pancakes and the buns are all getting actually cooked! The hot broth is ready to have the noodles go into it, and the supply of tasty tasty tofu cubes is slowly dwindling nom nom nom nom.
The (lack of ) salt in the broth is pondered. It's pointed out that there's soy sauce, which should do the trick. We hope.
Besides musical research, the non-dogwalkers apparently also hit upon WHY this cooking club exists: we're trying out recipes for Alex's hypothetical future food truck. Deb's going for "would people buy this for lunch?" I immediately leap to "could this be cooked in a limited space without going insane?" and start making plans to have little barricades up at MY next cooking night that we can't step outside of, just to recreate the full 'cooking in a food truck' experience. (I can also use them for our THE KITCHEN FLOOR IS LAVA theme night.)
Food's coming out! Our pancakes are in various stages of brown and crispy, the buns are PUFFY, and there's a heck of a lot of green leaves floating in the tofufauxpho (if they were alive, there'd be tofufauxphophotosynthesis...okay, I'm done). The buns are actually SO puffy it's hard to get them out of the steamer until we turn the whole thing upside-down and shake. (I've worn pants like that, so I can't judge.)
"Oh, this is going to be one of our best meals! I don't think we've ever made anything this good before!"--Hungry Deb, right before the meal. Alex and Jim DEMAND this quote be documented so we can contrast it to Full Deb's grades in a half hour.
The grading!
BUNS
Jim: A+! I was really pleased with how fluffy the dough was, and the tempeh was sweet and tangy just like a barbecue pork bun.
Alex: B+...the first bite of the first one that I had made me so pleased, because the bun came out just right. But the second bun--I'm not sure if it was because I was more full, or the bun was cooler, but it was just like, I got a little bit more of the bitterness of the tempeh in that one. Tempeh's such a struggle! So I would make it again but with something other than tempeh.
Deb: It's annoying going after Alex cuz I would have said that too. I'd give it an A, but that tempeh is not perfect.
Brian: A. We need to use that dough again and again. And I have a high tolerance for tempeh!
SCALLION PANCAKES
Deb: Those were good, but I can't remember them. A little bit hard and could be fluffier; I liked that they weren't too salty. Probably A-.
Jim: A-...they were flaky, a little chewy, and I didn't taste a lot of the sesame. But they were pretty darn good.
Alex: A! I thought they were delightful. They were salty and crispy.
Brian: A-...mine could've been cooked a tiny bit longer to make it crispier; the chewiness kept it from an A+.
FAUXPHO
Alex: I'd give it an A-. I thought the broth was quite delicious; the noodles were tasty, everything was good. It's best if you don't call it pho; it tasted like a very nice vegetable soup.
Jim: We probably should have done the skinny noodles, and even they might not've been the right ones. A-...I realized as I was eating it that one of the recipes I looked at suggested charring some of the vegetables before adding them to the broth, and that might have added a nice smoky flavor that this one was missing.
Deb: I'd give it a B, because I didn't like the tofu. I liked everything else, though. I loved the broth, the noodles were too thick...I did eat this last, though, and was already pretty full. If I was starving this would be an awesome soup.
Brian: B+/A-...eating a soup with big thick wet noodles using chopsticks? Challenging! Filling! But very tasty.
PEAPOD STEMS
Deb: I ate a lot of them. I didn't like them! C-.
Jim: They were too acidic. Not enough garlic, not enough oil. B-
Alex: C+...what they said.
Brian: Abstain! (I actually forgot they were here)
TRUE BLOOD Season 3, Episode 1, Bad Blood:
Brian: Werewolves! Cast scattering off in all directions! It feels like a lot of ingredients, but I'm not sure how they'll gel. B+?
Jim: I think this had some of my favorite one-liners ever. I'd give it A-.
Alex: I'll give it a B+. There were good scenes, we had a big reveal, we got to see Jason's "conscience off, dick on!" motivational scene,
Deb: I guess it was a B+...it wasn't terrible, it wasn't exciting.
It's worth noting that a) this was the most carb-heavy meal we might have ever made, b) this meal got EVERY dish in the kitchen dirty, and I'm escaping the clean-up by blogging this, and c) we've decided that the dough was so good that our imaginary hypothetical food truck should be nothing but different flavors of dumplings. Since they're called Bao, the names Take a Bao and Bao Bao Wow are proposed..."or we could be all abstract and call it 'Curtain Call'" says Jim, which, as names go, is still better than the tequila bar off Copley Square named Lolita's. (If someone from Lolita's is googling their name and sees this...dude. DUDE. Ew.)
"Or it could be a goth lunch truck, and we could call it DisemBAOeled!"--Alex, getting the last word.
Deb is chopping mushrooms on this cutting board, which is worth mentioning for two reasons. First off, this cutting board is designed for persnickety chefs like myself who say things like "No! I said brunoise! Come ON!" and has a little chart of what things like brunoise mean along with graph paper (graph cutting board?) with little measurement squares. Second, Deb apparently learned how to chop backhand, which is something I didn't even realize was possible. Way to go, Deb!
