Food photography tips from Evi Abeler

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Evi Abeler

Evi Abeler answers blogger questions at TECHmuch NY

At today’s excellent TECHmunch blogger conference, food photographer Evi Abeler shared some ideas to make our photos more appealing from an appetizing and artistic perspective. Evi has a strong academic background, credentials with many familiar food websites and magazines, and a five-year stint as staff photographer for a museum in which her job seems to have been finding ways to make statues look interesting. Here are some of her tips:

  1. Use a tripod. This frees you up to compose the shot and adjust lighting. Even better, a tripod with an extender which allows overhead shots. A tether which connects the camera to your laptop is also useful because you get a better preview of the shot and instant results for review.

  2. The best lighting can often be found in a windowsill. White and off white plates make good backgrounds for food, as does wood and stone. These are typically neutral or dark colors and do not have a busy pattern to distract from your subject. Another good background: the back of a well used sheet pan. (As in this photo for Kewpie Mayo.)

  3. Take pictures of leftovers. They help tell your story and may end up being your best shot. Also, take pictures with fingers in them (they can be arranging, selecting or holding the food). She first did this by accident, now it is part of her standard repertoire.

  4. To make white rice look interesting (apparently the ultimate food photographer’s challenge) use your hand to arrange it into a pattern, or “make poetry” with sauce poured over it to guide the eye.

On Burnt My Fingers, we do try to take passable photos though we are sometimes too hungry to keep our hands off the food. (You can tell which photos are our favorites because, in general, those are enlarged in the posts.) Depending on the circumstances we shoot with either an iPhone 4s or a Canon SX280 HS. The latter is the latest of a series of Canons; we like this brand because its present color balance is particularly kind to food. We will definitely apply some of Evi’s tips to improve our own photos.

You can see Evi Abeler’s work at eviabeler.com. She also has a blog she does with a pastry chef friend, called Whip [as in using a whisk) and Click. It’s inspiring stuff.

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Gwa Kao (Chinese Taco Buns)

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Gwa Kao with Jones ham, hoisin and pickled ramps

Gwa Kao with Jones ham, hoisin and pickled ramps

Gwa Kao, sometimes labeled Taco Buns, are found in the cold case with the noodles in my local Asian market. I bought them to serve a Momofuku-type pork belly, but have discovered they have other uses as well. Pop a Gwa Kao in the microwave for 30 seconds and it will emerge steaming hot but still well formed and not wilting or sticking to itself as an American bun would. The secret is probably the undefined “emulsifiers” listed on the ingredient list.

Anyway, I have been employing these to make leftover ham mini-sandwiches with my Jones Dairy Farm ham and pickled ramps. Squirt on some Sriracha and hoisin and you’re good to go. They’re about half the size of a burger bun, so takes two to make a meal.

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Recipe: Chinese Buffet Green Beans

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Chinese Buffet Green Beans

Chinese Buffet Green Beans (I added a bit of the sauce from the General Tso’s)

If you’re cooking up some General Tso’s Garlic Shrimp you might want a vegetable to make it a complete meal. Chinese Buffet Green Beans are quick and easy. Serves 4-6.

Ingredients:
Peanut oil
Garlic, 3 cloves or more, sliced thin
Ginger, piece the size of your little finger, peeled and sliced thin or chopped or grated
1 lb frozen green beans, cross cut
Sesame oil, dollop (maybe 1 t)
Hoisin sauce, good sized squirt (maybe ¼ c)

Method: sauté garlic and ginger in a little oil in a saucepan until they become aromatic but not browned. Add beans and sesame oil and toss to mix. Cover and cook over low heat until beans are tender, about 5 minutes. Add hoisin sauce, taste and correct the seasoning. You might feel like adding a bit of soy sauce or red pepper flakes.

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Recipe: Buttermilk Onion Rings

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Buttermilk onion rings

Buttermilk onion rings

Buttermilk onion rings are sweet and delicious when made with giant Vidalia or Texas 1015 onions. Buttermilk is used as the batter component instead of eggs, so you need really thick buttermilk.  Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1 large Vidalia or other onion (about 1 lb)
all purpose flour
salt
1/2 c buttermilk
cornmeal or polenta
oil for deep frying (I prefer peanut)

Method: Peel onion carefully, to preserve as much of the exterior as possible. Cut crosswise into slices about 3/4 inch thick. Separate into rings; save the smaller ones for another use and soak the larger rings in buttermilk, mixing occasionally with your hands to be sure all pieces are equally exposed to the liquid. While onions are marinating preheat frying oil (2″ deep if using a kitchen pot) to 375 degrees. Remove the onion rings to a dry plate. Mix 1/2 c flour and 1/2 t salt in a shallow bowl; mix 1/4 c flour and 1/4 c polenta in another shallow bowl. Place the buttermilk between them on your work counter.

Thoroughly coat each ring in the flour/salt mixture; dip in buttermilk, dredge in flour/polenta; lower into hot oil (carefully, so you don’t splash oil on yourself). Fry a few rings at a time until golden brown (like in the photo). Repeat until all onions are fried, replenishing the dredging ingredients as needed. Hold in a warm (300 degree) oven on paper towels until ready to serve.

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Recipe: Pickled Tripe

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Pickled Trip

Pickled Tripe. (The red is from some very dark carrots we’ve been buying, not from beets.)

Apparently in Pennsylvania’s Dutch/Amish country you can buy pickled tripe right off the grocer’s shelf. What bliss. Luckily it’s very easy to make at home. About 1 pint (serves 8-12 as part of an assortment of pickled items).

Ingredients:
1 lb precooked honeycomb tripe
2 carrots (plus more if desired to pickle)
1 medium onion (plus more if desired to pickle)
1/2 t Kosher salt
half a dozen peppercorns
1 bay leaf
water
1/2 c cider vinegar

Method: Cut the tripe into 1 1/2 inch squares. Peel the carrots and cut into 2-3 pieces; peel the onion and cut in half. Add to a medium saucepan with salt, pepper and bay leaf and cover with water (about 1 cups). Cook for 45 minutes until vegetables are tender. Remove ingredients from the saucepan and strain, reserving the cooking liquid. Discard the carrot and onion and seasonings; transfer the tripe to a 1 pt canning jar. Return 1 c cooking liquid to the saucepan and add 1 c white vinegar. Bring to a boil and pour over tripe. (Add more vinegar and cooking liquid on an equal basis if needed to cover the tripe.) “Put up” according to safe canning directions or else refrigerate and eat within one week.

NOTE: If you’d like to have some pickled carrots and onions to eat with your pickled tripe, peel a fresh onion and 2 fresh carrots; cut the onion into quarters and the carrot into 1 inch chunks. Place these in the drained cooking liquid (after removing tripe and the original carrots and onions) and simmer for 15 minutes, then add vinegar and pour over tripe. (You’ll need a bigger canning jar if you do this.)

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Food for Thought: So Delushious

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
[Update November 2016: I’m leaving this post up for archival reasons since it still gets quite a few clicks. However, the links have been removed because the So Delushious blog appears to be inactive. (Maybe because Chrissy Teigen wants you to buy her cookbook?) If you want to check it yourself the URL is sodelushious dot com.]

I ran across the So Delushious blog while comparing Caesar Salad recipes. Turns out the author is Chrissy Teigen, a swimsuit model who has an intense relationship with food. (Or, as she puts it, “a girl who loves bacon and can’t be fat.”) This contradiction has given her quite a bit of angst, along with a potty mouth to rival David Chang’s.

There’s plenty that has nothing to do with food and may actually cause you to lose your appetite, like the post that’s currently on her home page*, but if you breeze past that stuff you will be rewarded with some solid recipes and food reviews.

*Alas, Chrissy’s gone mainstream since this post was written, what with the TV show and new baby and all, and the more colorful stuff has been scrubbed from her blog.

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Recipe: Pickled Ramps

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Pickled Ramps

Pickled Ramps

Ramps are a wild leek that’s plentiful in marshy areas and farmers markets in early spring, where I live in upstate New York. They’re small and delicate so I use the green parts as well as the bulbs for pickled ramps. Drape a few over a pork chop, slice and serve in salad, or present as part of a pickle plate.

Ingredients:
A big bunch of ramps
1/4 c sugar*
½ c water
½ c cider vinegar
1 ½ T pickling spice
1 t salt

Method: clean the ramps by cutting off the roots, removing any dried outer husk with your fingernail, and cutting off any wilted areas from the tops. This process will take quite a while. Have ready a bowl of ice water; blanch the cleaned ramps quickly in boiling water then plunge into ice water where you can leave them while you prepare the rest of the recipe. Heat sugar, water, cider vinegar and pickling spice to a boil, cool slightly, then pour over drained ramps in a wide mouth canning jar. Keeps 1 month in refrigerator.

  • This amount of sugar will give you a mild sweetness to offset the oniony notes, but not as much as in bread and butter pickles. You can reduce the sugar if you like, or just leave it out.
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Recipe: Chinese Tripe Stew

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Chinese Tripe Stew

Chinese Tripe Stew

This is a master tripe stew recipe that’s good, but can be made better with your tweaks. I started with some guidance from my Yelp friend Chen Z then began adding stuff. Serves 8 as part of a dim sum meal, or 4 as an entree.

Ingredients:
2 lb honeycomb tripe
1 lb fibrous vegetables such as daikon, turnip, kohlrabi, rutabaga
1 c Fujain cooking wine (or Shao Shing)
3 c water
2 packets Spice for Spice Foods made by Oriental Mascod (or 1 T five-spice powder)*
2 star anise
2 cloves garlic
1 piece of ginger the size of your little finger, peeled and cut into three pieces
3 T soy sauce
1 T sugar
One bunch of scallions, chopped, green parts included
1 t salt
1 T sesame oil (optional)
2 T cornstarch

Method: boil tripe for 10 minutes; drain; rinse with cold water; cut into bite size pieces (approximately 1 ½ inches square). Add aromatics to wine and water in a 2 qt saucepan and bring to boil; add tripe. Cook 20 minutes. Add root vegetables and cook another 20 minutes. Fish out aromatics and add soy sauce, sugar, scallion pieces, salt and optional sesame oil. Return to a boil; spoon out a few tablespoons into a serving bowl and mix with cornstarch, then return this slurry to the pot and cook until well combined. The tripe should be tender and the vegetables firm but not crunchy. Serve in a bowl by itself or over rice.

Spice for Spice Foods by Oriental Mascod

Spice for Spice Foods, including deconstructed packet

* Spice for Spice Foods is a spice mix readily available in Asian markets. You get 4 bags stapled to a cardboard for under $2, and each bag contains two spice packets. Label says the ingredients are fennel (they mean anise), cinnamon, cloves and zinziber which is ginger. I tore one apart and found some fibrous stems that must be ginger stalks along with the other more recognizable items. If you can’t find it, substitute five-spice powder.

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Recipe: Mom’s Green Bean Casserole

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Green Bean Casserole

Green Bean Casserole in cast iron skillet

Mom food from the 1950s. I  followed the green bean casserole recipe from the French’s coupon insert but it was pretty bland so I doctored it up a bit with some ingredients that were probably present in the original. Serves 8.

Ingredients:
1 can cream of mushroom soup (Campbell’s preferred)
¼ c milk
¼ tsp black pepper
3/4 t salt*
1/4 t MSG*
1 lb frozen green beans, French cut, cooked according to package directions and drained
1 can (2.8 oz) French’s French Fried Onions=

Method: Dump the soup into a cast iron skillet and add milk, pepper, salt and MSG; stir until blended. Mix in green beans and all but ¼ c of the fried onions. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes then sprinkle remaining onions on the top and heat 5 minutes more. Serve from the skillet, on a trivet if you bring to table.

*If you don’t want to use MSG, you can get the umami effect by adding 1/4 c parmesan cheese (preferably from the green Kraft shaker, like mom used) and 1 T soy sauce; if you do this omit the salt and MSG.

French's French Fried OnionsI generally do my own hacks of the prepared ingredients in a recipe, but French’s Fried Onions are hard to duplicate. Somehow they manage to coat each tidbit without making it heavy and greasy. These are often on sale around holidays and they last just about forever (in spite of what the “use by date” on the can might say) so stock up.

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Recipe: Broccoli Slaw with Red Onion and Cranberries

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Burnt My Fingers
Broccoli Slaw

Broccoli Slaw with optional almonds and bacon (you really don’t need them unless you happen to have some around)

It’s pretty hardcore to bring a sweet slaw with onions to a neighborhood potluck, but this broccoli slaw works beautifully. (And it’s great with ham which is why I’m publishing the recipe this week.) When the perpetrator would not identify him/herself I had to invent my own. Serves 8.

Ingredients:
1/2 c mayonnaise
1 T honey
1 T cider vinegar
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
12-16 oz shredded broccoli* or 1 package “broccoli slaw”
1/3 c dried cranberries
1/2 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped (about 1/4 c)
1 strip bacon, cooked till crisp and crumbled (optional)
1/4 c slivered almonds, toasted (optional)

Method: Combine the first 5 ingredients in a serving bowl and mix well. Add broccoli and cranberries and onion and optional nuts and bacon and mix well. (Be sure the honey is well dissolved and combined.) Better if it sits an hour or so before serving; if longer, refrigerate.

*Actually I used kolhrabi for most of the bulk in my prep. It’s very easy to shred with a mandoline and has a broccoli-ish taste.

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