Recipe: Favorite Pad Thai

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers
PadThai

Pad Thai with the fixin’s.

Pad Thai with just the right balance of sour, sweet and salty. Adapted from the long out of print Thai Home-Cooking from Kamolmal’s Kitchen (Plume)

Ingredients:
¼ lb dried rice noodles (flat ones not “rice sticks”)
Hot water
2 T fish sauce (I use TiparosRed Boat)
3 T sugar
3 T white vinegar
½ t paprika*
4 T peanut or other vegetable oil (not olive oil)
1 T or more finely chopped garlic
4 oz. or more protein (optional): shrimp, chicken or tofu
4 fat green onions sliced on the bias into 2” lengths, including some green
1 egg
½ lb bean sprouts
Cilantro leaves (for garnish)
Finely chopped unsalted peanut (for garnish)
Lime wedges (for garnish)
Chili pepper flakes (for garnish)

Method: Soak noodles in hot (not boiling water) until they are flexible but not limp, about 15 minutes, then drain and set aside. This is a critical step: if you oversoak your noodles here, you will end up with mushy pad thai. Don’t do it.

Mix fish sauce, sugar, vinegar and paprika in a jar or cup till dried ingredients are dissolved.

Heat oil in wok until very hot; add garlic which should brown quickly without burning. Add optional protein and stir-fry till barely done. Add green onions. Break the egg into the wok and quickly stir with a wooden spoon to distribute as it cooks. Add noodles and flip a few times to coat with oil and egg. Add sauce liquid and boil until sauce has been absorbed by the noodles. (If they are still crispy after all the liquid is gone, add a bit more water.)

Add bean sprouts and toss in the noodles briefly; the heat of the dish will cook the sprouts. Serve with a garnish of pepper flakes, lime, cilantro and ground peanut.

Serves 2 as an entrée, or 4 as a side dish

*You can substitute tamarind, which is the traditional tart ingredient but a little more work. Pour 1/2 c hot water over 1/4 c chunk of “seeded” (it isn’t) tamarind and allow to soften and cool for a few minutes. Rub the tamarind between your fingers and remove seeds and large pieces of pulp. You’ll end up with about 1/4 c of tamarind gravy which should be added at the same time as the vinegar/sugar/fish sauce mixture.

THIS RECIPE HAS BEEN UPDATED as of 10/13; I realized I wasn’t using enough oil initially to separate the noodles.

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The Cornell Chicken and the Egg

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers

My friend and fellow food blogger Deanna Fox wrote a great piece a while back on the origins of Cornell Chicken. This is a serving method and chicken marinade that was created at Cornell University in the 1940s as a way to promote the consumption of locally raised poultry. Deanna was kind enough to share the Cornell Chicken Pamphlet which was distributed at the time; it includes not only home and food-service scale recipes but example seating charts for a church supper or other occasion where the bird might be served.

I first encountered Cornell Chicken at a “Brooks Barbecue” in my wife’s home village of Speculator, NY. It was promoted several weeks in advance, and locals would wait in line at the pavilion on the ball field for their half-chicken dinners. The chicken was tender and tasty, though I bristled at the “barbecue” part since no smoke was involved. Deanna’s article explains that the Brooks family is from the Ithaca area, hence the Cornell connection, as are the proprietors of Giffy’s, a once-popular local chicken place which has fallen on hard times.

But here’s the thing. The marinade contains a raw egg! Doesn’t that just invite food safety issues since the chicken is likely to hang around for several hours before it is cooked, possibly without refrigeration? And why is the egg in there anyway? Deanna and Tom Gallagher, the Cornell Extension educational coordinator for our area, both felt it was an intuitive addition because if you’re promoting chickens, you might as well promote eggs while you’re at it. And Tom, who’s made the recipe himself many times, agrees that it helps to emulsify the ingredients.

But won’t you run the risk of salmonella poisoning… especially if, as the booklet suggests, you save unused dressing in a jar in a cool place for several weeks? For this I turned to Sandra Varno, a Cornell food safety expert. Don’t worry, she said, the vinegar in the dressing will keep the dressing safe even for that few weeks in a cool place (which she interprets to be a refrigerator). But it has to be virgin dressing that has not been contact with the chicken–otherwise all bets are off. This safe chicken barbecuing article tells more.

Whew. So it’s safe to make and eat Cornell Chicken. See the recipe here, or use the link above to download the PDF of the original  pamphlet from the 1940s.

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Recipe: Easy Baked Beans

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers
BakedBeans

Baked Beans (they should look like this when done, with all liquid absorbed/evaporated)

Supermarket baked beans are pretty boring, but it’s easy to amp them up to something delicious. Makes 6 1/2 cup servings; just increase everything proportionately if you buy a bigger can of beans.

Ingredients:
28-oz can house-brand baked beans (the cheaper the better)
2 T cider vinegar
1/4 c brown sugar plus 2 T for topping
1 t dried mustard
1 T Worcestershire sauce
2 slices bacon, cut up into 6 pieces total
1 medium onion, finely sliced
Kosher salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Method: Dump beans and their liquid into an oven-safe bowl and add vinegar, 1/4 c brown sugar, dried mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Allow to sit a few minutes so mustard flavor can develop, then taste and add salt and pepper as desired. Cover top surface with sliced onion then bacon; sprinkle 2 T brown sugar over everything. Cook in 300 degree oven for at least 2 hours until the top is brown and crispy and the liquid has cooked down somewhat. Serve hot, warm or cold.

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Are food trucks over-rated?

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers
OffTheGrid

Off the Grid food truck party in San Francisco

I’ve been eating at a lot of food trucks recently… at a local Food Truck Rodeo here in Saratoga, at the annual Eat Real event in Oakland, and at the weekly Off the Grid party in San Francisco’s Fort Mason. And my conclusion is that while food trucks have their place, not a few are coasting in neutral, taking advantage of the trend to sell mediocre food at prices that would never stick in a terrestrial establishment.

OddDuckFarmtoTrailer

Mind blowing food truck cooking from Odd Duck in Austin

I’ll start by saying that ome of the best meals I ever ate was from a food truck: a grilled romaine salad with soft boiled duck egg and cured duck breast at Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, a sadly defunct institution in Austin. (You can read my adoring review on Yelp.)

That was food truck eating at its finest: a meal as good as you could get in a restaurant, but with the added seasoning of a chef who’s figured out how to deal with the challenges of cooking in a very confined space with minimal prep area, refrigeration and storage. As I recall the meal was also an excellent value, which makes sense because there are no dishes or tablecloths to wash, no rent and utilities to pay.

And then there’s the gritty entrepreneurship of food trucks: not everybody can open a restaurant, but it seems more doable if you’ve been told you’re a good cook to hit the road in a food truck serving a limited menu. In fact, the more limited the better because the confines of a food truck allow you to specialize in one thing and do it well. (In the Bay Area, the “original” food trucks were taco wagons that still line up along Oakland’s International Boulevard, serving simple perfect edibles that last but a minute from stove to mouth.)

But that doesn’t excuse the thorough mediocrity of the endless repetitions of pork belly sliders at Fort Mason (or the current craze, sisig tacos) or just plain pizza or sandwiches that are supposed to be special (and command a higher price tag) when you buy them from a truck. Food truck wannabes, please have a raison d’etre before you ask me to stand in line in the heat, cold or rain. Otherwise, get a room.

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Five most unappreciated recipes from Burnt My Fingers

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers

Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it was a bad day with a lot of distractions going on. But several really excellent recipes have been published on Burnt My Fingers that received very few page views. Yes, publishing a recipe index will fix that and I’m on it. But here are my five top unappreciated recipes in the meantime.

  1. Funny Bryan’s BBQ Sauce. OK, that’s my fault for naming it with a play on words on a place that nobody except Dallas medical students and patients knows about. Should have called it “Easy Texas BBQ Sauce” because it is. In well under 10 minutes, you can have an excellent topping for smoked meats (after tasting them sauceless, of course) and burgers.
  2. The Colonel’s Three-Bean Salad. KFC made an excellent bean salad but not enough people bought it so it was discontinued. I found a recipe on the internet and tinkered with it till it was a dead ringer. Am I the only person who likes bean salad? Come on, folks, give it a try.
  3. Pizza D’Oh! Another unfortunate naming choice, I guess. This no-brainer recipe produces a high quality crust very quickly and easily, thanks to the large amount of yeast. For best results use Richard and Nair’s Pizza Topping, also an underappreciated gem
  4. Caesar Salad. Really? Noody cares about making a classic Caesar with anchovy fillets and raw eggs? Or how to sous vide those eggs so they stay liquid in your dressing yet won’t kill you? Taste this this and you’ll never order an anchovy-less, egg-less Caesar or pour on bottled Caesar dressing again.
  5. Bonehead BBQ Chicken. Should have called this one “Wishbone Dressing Barbecue Chicken” because that’s all there is to it. Cut up and dry a chicken; douse with an 8-oz bottle of Wishbone Italian Dressing; marinate several hours; grill in your usual manner. Dedicated to the memory of my mom, who taught me things don’t have to be fancy to be good.
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Favorite recipes from Burnt My Fingers

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers

How many recipes has Burnt My Fingers published? Certainly over a couple hundred. Here are my personal favorite recipes among them.

  1. Easy Blender Gazpacho. This is everything that Burnt My Fingers stands for: it’s easy, cheap and delicious. No reason to eat somebody else’s gazpacho when you can make this in your kitchen in minutes for pennies.

  2. Carnitas. Another very easy and delicious recipe. Get a pork butt. Cut it up. Put in a big pot and cover with water. Cook for hours and hours until the water is all gone and the meat crisps in the rendered fat. Done.

  3. My Brisket Recipe, Revisited. Follow this very simple recipe and you will have brisket that is vastly better than 99% of the stuff foisted off as “Barbecue” or “BBQ” or the shameful and disrespectful “’Cue”. Actually I’m surprised it didn’t make my readers’ top 5 in popularity.

  4. Vincent’s Garlic Cole Slaw. I love cole slaw and have published an inordinate number of cole slaw recipes. This is my personal favorite, along with everybody else’s. It’s quick and easy and made with ingredients I usually have around the house and you should too, like lots of garlic.

  5. General Tso’s Shrimp with Garlic Sauce. I missed the shrimp with garlic sauce at Taiwan on San Francisco’s Clement Street and tried to improvise my own. To my surprise it ended up better than the original with an excellence balance of sweet/hot/sour.

Next: we’ll wrap up with five recipes that deserve a lot more attention than they’ve received. There’s still time to vote for your favorites, if you like… just comment below or email.

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My Five Most Popular Non-Recipe Posts

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers

In honor of Burnt My Fingers’ second anniversary, I’m revisiting our most popular posts of all time. Here are the top five non-recipe posts:

  1. The Sauce that Made Mr. Durkee Famous. This was originally posted on my marketing blog, but didn’t gain any traction till it was re-directed here. I am so happy so many people are curious about my obsession with this product and its provenance.

  2. Turkey Joints from Nora’s of Rome, New York. Another food provenance post, this about a regional upstate New York product. Who says there isn’t interest in our emerging food scene?

  3. Can I Reuse Pickle Juice? I expect this is a question lots of people type into the Google search box, and I am happy to provide the answer. (Short version: no.)

  4. Red Boat Fish Sauce… da Shizz! Red Boat is good stuff, especially the small bottle of concentrated sauce that I dole out so carefully I’ve hardly made a dent in it. Read why and you’ll never buy Tiparos again.

The next two pageview winners are for “About” and “Stuff to Buy” but those are technically pages not posts, so the final spot goes to:

  1. Noonday Onions. A very simple ode to an unassuming but delicious varietal from Texas. I’m surprised to see it rank so high; guess a lot of people are curious about the origin of the peculiar name. Read it and find out.

Next: my personal favorite recipe posts.

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The five most popular recipes on Burnt My Fingers

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers

As this blog passes its second anniversary (the first post was An Ode to Poundability on Sep. 20, 2011 though there are earlier posts redirected from my marketing blog), it might be interesting (to me, anyway), to review the most popular recipe posts. Here they are.

  1. Wilted Kale Salad. Although Burnt My Fingers is hardly about healthy living, this well-balanced salad can’t help but make you feel better and live longer. Good choice.

  2. Sizzling Chicken Sisig. If we revisit the list next year, this simple Pinoy bar snack will be #1… it was published in March of this year and already has over 2000 pageviews. The search engines in the Philippines must like it for some reason. Oddly, another Pinoy riff, Adobo Carnitas Style, hasn’t gotten the same traction.

  3. Vincent’s Garlic Cole Slaw. A lot of people would like to have the correct recipe for this intensely garlic-y slaw served at a classic Dallas restaurant, and here it is.

  4. Squash Casserole a la Highland Park Cafeteria. Another Dallas classic, made sweeter by the restaurant’s refusal to publish the recipe and my daughter’s success in sussing it out. (Read carefully: a key ingredient is the broken but not crumbled saltines.)

  5. Vinegar Cole Slaw. This is a surprise to see in the top 5 because it’s so simple. But it’s good. Try it.

Next: the top 5 non-recipe posts.

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Why I’m not buying a Sansaire sous vide device

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers
Sansaire

Sansaire Sous Vide Cooker

The Kickstarter for the Sansaire sous vide device has taken the world by storm. It’s far surpassed its funding goal and now will include the “reach” of a 220V version, a reference towel included in orders, and a choice of colors for the display. A lot of the love in the culinary community is derived from the fact its inventor is Scott Heimendinger, the Seattle Food Geek who’s now part of the Nathan Myhrvold skunkworks and showed us how to make a sous vide device for $75 with readily available components.

You may remember I did some experimentation earlier this year with the SideKIC, a similar device invented by Duncan Werner (who, yes, was inspired by the $75 plans from Seattle) and reported on my own early efforts. The device has proven reliable and interestingly, our most regular use is to sous vide eggs so they are safe enough to be eaten “raw” in a Caesar salad or can be quickly turned to poached or uniquely fluffy fried eggs.

The Sansaire and the SideKIC work the same way: each hangs over the side of a water-filled container (which can be a cooking pot or a Coleman cooler—the bath never reaches a temperature which would affect the plastic). An electric coil heats the water and a fan circulates it to create an even temperature. The third and final element is a thermostat. That, plus vacuum sealable bags, is all you need for various magical preps in which food is held at a precise temperature for a long time until taste and chemical transformation occurs.

Sansaire has something the SideKIC doesn’t: a cool lighted LED display. (The SideKIC has an old-school color LCD.) It DOESN’T have something that both the devices could use: a timer that will turn it off when you direct. (Update: SideKIC inventor Duncan Werner said it was a design decision; “it’s generally safer to keep the temperature up then to let it drop. If for some reason you left something for an extra hour or so, it might overcook; but it would still be safe. For some things, like eggs, this might ruin it; but better safe than salmonella (so to speak).”)

Sansaire costs $200 and will be available in October-November. SideKIC is available now, from FatLaundry, for $170. Sansaire admits on its Kickstarter site there are still lots of QA and regulatory hurdles ahead. SideKIC is a proven product with a track record of a couple of years. I’m sure mine will give out eventually and then I’ll take a look at Sansaire but for now, I’m sticking with SideKIC.

UPDATE: Scott Heimendinger contacted me to point out a difference I missed: the Sansaire has a 1000W heater vs 300W for the SideKIC. “300W is not a lot of power – it’s just enough to maintain the water temperature in a smaller container, but it’s not quite enough to heat and maintain the temperature in larger vessels. For reference, it’s the same wattage as one of those immersion heaters you’d use to warm up a single cup of coffee. The Sansaire, by contrast, uses a 1000W heating element that can heat and maintain up to 6 gallons of water.”

Actually, I don’t use the SideKIC to heat my water because that seems inefficient. I use the stove to get it near the proper temperature then fine tune it with the thermostat on the device. 1000W seems a lot for a home electrical system. I’ve asked Scott to comment here if he likes… stay tuned.

P.S. In updating my knowledge I ran into this Reddit Q&A with Duncan Werner. Worth a read.

ANOTHER UPDATE: As of January 2015, inventor Duncan Werner may have stopped supporting the SideKIC. It’s no longer available on Amazon or FatLaundry, and the SideKIC website looks not to have been updated in a while.

My SideKIC still works fine and I’ll continue using it till it kicks the bucket. But if you want to buy a Sansaire or another sous vide device, be my guest.

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Finding bargains at Healthy Living Market in Saratoga

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Burnt My Fingers

Healthy Living, the great new Whole Foods-like market in my town, is having its grand opening today from 11 am-2 pm in the parking lot outside the store. Lots of demos, activities and best of all food samples, all for free.  I’ll be there, for sure.

Healthy Living has achieved the nickname “Wealthy Living” from some who’ve compared its prices to other stores. If you’re budget conscious, this may not be the place to shop for kitchen staples. Yet finding bargains at Healthy Living is entirely possible if you know where to look. Here are my favorites:

1. Dry roasted peanuts in the bulk aisle at $3.79 a pound. Best peanuts ever!

2. Turn those peanuts into peanut butter, still $3.79 a pound. The machines are pre-loaded with peanuts and other nuts at the far end of the bulk aisle; hold a container under the spout, press the red button, and don’t forget to turn it of before the container overflows.

3. Cheese remainders in the end cap of the cooler aisle. HL’s cheese selection is excellent and in general priced below cheeses of similar quality at other stores. You can sample and put together a cheese plate for almost nothing with the ends-and-pieces in small chunks which are often around a dollar or two.

4. Bulk Red Star yeast in the dairy department. A small bag, enough for a dozen bakes, will cost you almost nothing and it’s fresher than the Fleischmann’s packets as well as far cheaper.

5. Judicious selections from the olive bar. $8.99 a pound for olives is average for a store like this, but I focus on the little peppadews, cipollini onions and caper salad. You can put together a small antipasto for under $3 which is a generous one-person appetizer on its own or can turn into a salad when tossed with lettuce and a squirt of good wine vinegar.

 

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