Curried Away!

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I have been cooking and I'm excited to share them with everyone!

I recently made seafood yellow curry with enoki mushrooms, but there's not many photos because once I got in the zone of cooking, I forgot to take photos. My bad!

Making curry is super simple and you don't need a lot of ingredients to make it good. For the curry base, I used Mae Ploy Thai Yellow Curry paste which you can find in any Chinese supermarket.

I first sliced and diced up my staple ingredients: garlic, shallots, onions, and I added ginger (not a staple ingredient). I sauteed them in the pan until they became tender to release their oils and added the curry paste and melded them all together. Then I added half a can of full fat coconut milk, let that simmer for 15 minutes, and added ground black pepper, garlic powder, and a tablespoon of sambal (chili paste). Since seafood and enoki mushrooms can overcook easily, I dropped them in at the last minute when I turned off the stove.

I love this mix. I can eat it raw!

Scallop, shrimp, and calamari seafood! The calamari was whole and I had to clean them, that was pretty fun. I did have an accident when one of the eyes popped and ink? splattered all over.

My aunt had given me a few packages of quinoa and brown rice mix and I decided to pair the curry with that.

Yellow seafood curry with enoki mushrooms on a bed of quinoa and brown rice garnished with green onions.

I like using all different types of Mae Ploy's curry pastes because it's super aromatic and spicy! It makes making curry way easier at home and better than most restaurants.

I forgot to slice the calamari, but they were super tender whole. Yum!

I love leftovers because I can turn them into another meal by pairing it with another carb or vegetables, and it's like a whole new meal! Which is exactly what I did with the curry!

Curry udon!

I had leftover curry but no more quinoa mix, so I decided to make curry udon and added some yellow corn kernals. All I did was boil 2 packages of udon, heated up the curry with the udon and added corn. It was sooo good. The curry had much more flavor and heat. The udon was a great vehicle for it.

I added black sesame seeds with some spicy Japanese seasoning my friend got me!

Until Next Time!

CheFelicia

Pig goes LARB!

I admit it, I did something I normally don't do - follow a recipe. And it was hard. The recipe was easy to follow, but I felt SO WEIRD. I told myself if I was going to follow it, I was going to do it right and right felt so wrong (in a good way). Whose recipe did I follow? Well, it all started when one of my greatest friends and largest supporter of this blog told me she had gifted me 3 meals for 2 from Blue Apron. She's a regular customer of Blue Apron and her food ALWAYS looks amazing.

What is Blue Apron? Located in New York, they are a weekly subscription service that delivers fresh, portioned out ingredients to your door with colored recipe cards with photos. You can choose vegetarian or meat and fish options. A subscription plan may sound scary, but there is no commitment to it meaning you can skip any week. I think for $9.99 a meal is a great price because you receive fresh produce, protein from places that practice sustainability, and speciality ingredients you may not have worked with before so it allows you to try new things! Besides the great food, Blue Apron offers FREE shipping, which can cost A LOT. My box was 19lbs!! I love free shipping. 

My box! Blue Apron shipped it out on Monday and it arrived Wednesday still ice cold!

Now onto the food! For this post, I made their pork larb with coconut rice. Larb is a dish normally seen in Thai restaurants, but it's the national dish of Laos. Larb may sound peculiar, but it's really a salad of minced meat with fresh vegetables, that's it. I commend Blue Apron for recreating a Southeast Asian dish because Southeast Asian cuisine is hard to mimic correctly. There are a ton of different spices used, layers of flavor like sweet, salty, tangy, umami - something very hard to get. I must say, I was quite impressed with their simplified version of the dish but it still packed a lot of flavor, however, I would've liked more heat and an amplified level of sourness (Not their fault though, I'm Malaysian Chinese, so I can handle more heat and sourness than most). The coconut rice accompanied the larb well and it was easy to make!

Ingredients for the larb!

Ingredient list so you know what to pick out from the box! I love how everything is individually packaged and labeled.

Recipe card! It's in COLOR and there's PICTURES. What's not to love?!

I forgot to take a photo of the rice, but all I did was put 3/4 cup of jasmine rice, 1 cup of water, 5.5ounce of coconut milk, some salt in a pot, heated it up, placed the cover on, reduced the heat and let the rice cook for 20minutes (rice and coconut milk provided by BA).

Then I started mincing the garlic, ginger, lemongrass, slicing the red onion, plucked mint leaves off its stems, chopped cilantro, cut the birdseye chili, and slice the cucumber. Included was a carrot, but I'm allergic so I omitted that. I also kept the fibrous layers of the lemongrass for my own for soups! I never worked with lemongrass before, but it wasn't scary! I always thought you pound the stem and stick it in stocks, but there's a pliable core! 

Garlic, Ginger, Lemongrass, Red Onion, Cilantro, Mint, Birdseye Chili, Cucumber (full portions not shown for the cucumber and red onion) It smelled SO good.

After I prepped everything, I heated up the pan with some olive oil and added the ground pork. When the pork started to brown, I added the garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chili, and kaffir lime leaf and stirred it around until the ginger and garlic became fragrant. 

There was a lot of steam and I couldn't get a photo without steam!. Pork, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chili, and kaffir lime mix

I stirred in the cucumber and red onion to the mix and let the other ingredients flavor them for a few minutes. Then I added the palm sugar and ponzu sauce and let everything simmer together.

I was blowing the steam away when taking this picture! Added red onion, cucumber, and ponzu and now letting everything blend together. YUM!!

The last step was to add the mint leaves, cilantro, and lime juice and stir. I checked on the rice and it turned out very well! It was light, fluffy, and had a great coconut aroma. 

The final product! Pork larb with coconut rice with black sesame seeds on top! Can you spot the lettuce heART?

In all, it was a great meal! The larb had developed flavors I was not expecting in the short time it took to cook. It was sweet, salty, tangy and went well with the freshness of the bib lettuce and the coconut rice. I could've eaten the rice with excess juice poured on top and that would've been great! I added sambal, a chili paste with seeds to mine because the heat wasn't there for me, but other than that, it was a homerun! 

Larb is typically eaten with sticky rice, but this coconut rice is a great sub! And if you add sugar, you can turn it into a sweet coconut rice and eat it with mangoes! 

I would never attempt to create a Southeast Asian dish at home because there are just so many different ingredients that isn't available where I live, so I'm glad Blue Apron simplified, yet still kept the traditional flavors of larb alive with this meal. 

In all, I'm a HUGE fan of Blue Apron! They let me try different ingredients and cuisines I normally may not cook at home. Perhaps next time I may "follow" their recipe while also adding my own spin to the dishes! ;)

If you want more information about Blue Apron, you can visit their website by clicking here. *I have no affiliation with Blue Apron, but I'd love too! =)* I'm just here spreading the love!

I know this post has been long, but I have a favor for the readers! If you haven't done so, please vote for my photo for the Santa Barbara News Press Food Photo Contest! It would mean a lot! Voting ends tomorrow 9/20! Please click HERE to vote!! 

In case you missed the link above, click HERE to vote!! I appreciate it! Thank you!

Until Next Time!

CheFelicia

Santa Barbara News Press Contest!

Hello Everyone!!

It would mean so much to me if you guys would kindly vote for my photo for the Santa Barbara News Press Food Photo Contest!

Please click HERE to vote! And if you can spread the word, that would help tremendously!!

Voting starts today and ends Friday, 9/20!

1st place wins dinner at different Santa Barbara restaurants and 2nd place gets a cooking lesson at Williams Sonoma!

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!

Until Next Time!

CheFelicia

Mollusk Mania!

I love checking out the local seafood markets in Santa Barbara and this weekend was no exception! (Especially since I had a 30% discount to use ;)) This market had a larger variety of fish than other markets, but I was in the mood for scallops. They had beautiful diver scallops and I grabbed 1.5lbs which came out to be 13 pieces. 

13 big scallops!

Look how thick that is!

The weather has been a bit hotter and I wanted to make a lighter meal, so I paired the scallops with a fresh mango, tomato, and corn salsa (I plucked the kernals off the cob myself), and brown rice.

The first thing I did was wash the scallops and hand dried every single piece of them to get rid of the excess water. I heated up some olive oil in my Le Creuset nonstick pan, placed the scallops in the pan and left them untouched for 90 seconds to let them create a golden brown crust. I was actually a bit scared to make scallops because if you don't pay attention to them for a few seconds and they overcook, they're done. Rubbery scallops suck. And these were larger and thicker which only increased my anxiety. 

The quality isn't that great, but it shows what I'm doing.

I feel bad for the scallop to the left...someone mishandled him and it wasn't me. But a great crust is forming! It smelled so good in my kitchen!!

To pair with the scallops, I made a simple mango, roma tomato, and corn salsa seasoned with fresh lemon and lime juice, green onions, ground black pepper, garlic powder, parsley, and red chili flakes. 

I've been trying to make my plates look nicer and I thought the plating of the scallops is one of my best yet! 

The finished product! 

To show the thickness of the scallops

If I do say so myself, the crust I created is amazing. I'm proud!!

SUCCESS! Not overcooked, perfectly cooked scallops.

I did not use any salt in this dish because I don't like cooking with salt and because this dish didn't require it! The scallops had a naturally sweet and briny taste to it that was enough for the entire dish. The salsa paired well with the sweetness of the scallops because of the acid I put into it. The brown rice made the meal a little heartier. I like the contrast between hot and cold and the cold salsa paired well with the hot scallops. For my first time, I'd honestly give myself an A for not making rubbery scallops and I really like the plating! I can't wait to make more!!

Until Next Time!

CheFelicia

Salami-yami

I'm back! I haven't been cooking as much since I've been traveling a lot. After rummaging through my empty fridge, I managed to make a delicious and easy meal to share!

I found leftover frozen tortellini, an opened jar of tomato sauce, lean ground turkey, white onions, shallots, garlic, and a large log of salami that was leftover from the beach house. I know the first six ingredients go together, but I wanted to incorporate some of the salami into the dish. My first thought was to crisp some up in the pan, but I'm not an avid fan of salami; I need to be in the mood for it, but my other half loves it.

First, I diced up the white onions, garlic, and shallots. Those are must haves in every dish I make...I love the aroma!

Great colors and aroma!

I sauteed the onions, garlic, and shallot in olive oil until they started to brown and then added the ground turkey. Seasoned it with ground black pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder, parsley, red pepper flakes, and thyme.

Turkey browning in the pan with the onions, garlic, and shallots

Once the tortellini finished cooking, I put that in the pan with the ground turkey and added the tomato sauce. Tossed it around, added some more seasonings and that was it! For my other half, I cut some salami up and topped his bowl of tortellini with the salami.

The tortellini had an umptious and lush feel because the cheese oozed out, the sauce had a hint of sweetness, tanginess, and spiciness. The ground turkey was juicy and full of flavor. I had a bite of the dish with salami and it was good. I had crisped it up after the photo was taken, and it was a good contrast for the soft tortellini and gave the dish a good saltiness.

The finished dish! I added Cholula hot sauce to give it a little spice and to tame down the sweetness of the sauce. The salami was crisped up after this photo was taken!

Hoping I will be able to update more often!

Until Next Time!

CheFelicia

Lobster Guts

Before I begin, I want to say Happy, Happy Birthday, Julia (Child)!! Without you, French home cooking techniques in the U.S. may still be a mystery. 

I am celebrating by watching "Julia and Julie" as I write this post! A coincidence that this post is about lobsters on Julia's birthday because cooking the lobsters remind me of the scene where Julie is terrified to death about killing them! 

There was another sale for live Maine lobsters at our local fish market, so we had to grab a few and made it into a big feast (that will be another post). I try to use every part of an ingredient because I hate wasting food and I think that was accomplished with leftover lobster (shells and all). After I boiled the lobsters and detached the abdomen (you're not really eating the tail) from the head, I saved ALL the liquid and "good stuff" aka gunk and lobster caviar from the head and the shells (for a stock). 

Doesn't look like much but it's lobstery goodness! The bottom layer is the salted water from my pot and the top layer are the thoughts the lobster had in his/her head. So much great natural flavor: salty, briny, sweetness. I could drink it by itself..

I wanted to use the lobster liquid in a simple way so the natural flavor of the lobster wasn't hidden. Then it hit me while I was looking around in my kitchen...DRY LOBSTER NOODLES! (with Japanese spicy instant noodle packages) and made in my electronic wok! This was my first time attempting this so I hoped that it worked and it did!

I plugged in the wok and set the temperature to 400 degrees. While that was heating up, sliced up some fresh garlic and chopped up green onions and tossed them into the wok to toast them out to bring a deeper flavor for the broth. Once toasted enough, I poured the broth into the wok, waited it to bubble then added the ramen noodles and poured a package of the spicy seasoning the ramen came with over the broth and noodles. Put the lid on top and waited  (hoped) this was going to work. After 7 minutes, I took the lid off and the aroma was AMAZING. I literally put my entire face into the steam for a lobster facial. I used my tongs, gave the noodles a swirl and put the lid on for a few more minutes until all the liquid had evaporated.

Garlic and green onion toasting in the wok

Electronic wok. It's not as deep as a traditional wok, but works well!

This isn't the most appetizing of photos, but the noodles are cooking in the broth. 

After the liquid evaporated, I shut the wok off and added 2 leftover lobster tails to warm them up and topped it off with more fresh green onion. And that's it! 

A few minutes later this happened! Ok, still not looking that appetizing, but all the liquid has evaporated and the noodles soaked it all up! 

The final product!

This looks pretty appetizing to me! The noodles cooked perfectly in the broth...not too al dente or overcooked; noodles had the perfect bounce per bite and juicy for "dry" noodles! One criticism I would have is that it was a bit too salty for me, but I can just add water to dilute the broth next time. The natural lobster flavor was at the forefront, so delicious! I loved finding bits of lobster meat and caviar within each bite. The green onion gave it a great freshness and crispy element.

This meal is a great way to utilize the entire product because the lobster gave its life to you. So, the next time you think about only eating the claws and abdomen (the tail are the 3 little fans at the end of the abdomen) and discarding everything else, try this recipe! I froze my shells and will use them soon as a stock.

Until Next Time!

CheFelicia

Pi and Hum

I've been really bad. Ever since returning from Vegas a month ago, I've hardly cooked! (so good, yet so bad). But, that kind of changed last weekend. One of my dearest friends, Salinasaur came to visit me in person (we normally use Google+ Hangout to hangout). It felt like forever waiting for her to arrive because things kept popping up and cockblocking her weekend getaway to Santa Barbara. However, she came, she saw, and she conquered Santa Barbara, although there's really not much to do here.

I wanted to surprise her with a pizza dinner. When I went up North to visit her, she took me to Tony's Pizza Napoletana for the Cal Italia pizza which has prosciutto di parma, asiago, mozzarella, gorgonzola, parmesan reggiano, drizzle of sweet fig preserve, and a balsamic reduction cooked in a 650 degree gas or 700 degree electric brick oven. It was honestly the best, best, best pizza I ever had. The gorgonzola, asiago, and parmesan are strong cheeses but the taste wasn't overwhelming, the prosciutto gave it a nice salty, briny complement to the cheeses and the balsamic reduction and fig preserve gave it a wonderful sweetness to offset the saltiness. It really is the best bite ever. My friend tempts me by sending photos of the pizza when she gets it and all I have are photos and my memory that takes me back to when I had it. 

Salinasaur surprised me with pretty gerber daisies and Cal Italia pizza!

Cal Italia. Makes me salivate every time I look at the photo.

Because Salinasaur surprised me with the Cal Italia pizza, I wanted to reciprocate, but nowhere here makes it, so I wanted to make it for her! As you may know, I'm not a fan of cheese, so when I found out about the 4 different types of cheeses I freaked out a little. Shopping for them was a pain because some markets would have 3/4 of them or other variations and I just wanted 1 market with ALL of them. I thought the Trader Joes near me would carry them but they only had half of what I needed. I went to another Trader Joes and they had everything! Just smelling the cheeses, especially the gorgonzola, a type of bleu cheese, made me not want to make the pizza, but I had too! I also bought 2 packages of Trader Joes prosciutto, pizza dough, and a package of black figs. I called 4 markets around me and they didn't have any, and Gelsons had them for $6.99/lb. I called Trader Joes 4 days in a row and they told me their shipment was stalled. Then I called the Trader Joes where ALL the cheeses were and HALLELUJAH! They had black figs for $3.79/lb!! That was the highlight of my week. 

Trader Joes haul! Items for the pizza and hummus.

To make the fig jam, I cut the figs in half (used the entire package), added a cup of water, some spoonfuls of honey (instead of white sugar), I added balsamic to the jam instead of making its own reduction, and ground black pepper. The heat was on high until I got it to bowl and then I lowered it to a simmer so it'll slowly reduce. 

Figs sliced in half

Fig jam in the making!

Fig jam reducing

While that was cooking, I prepared the dough I had bought from Trader Joes. I split the dough in half and let them set on a lightly floured board for 20 minutes then rolled out the dough. I tried to get the dough as thin as possible since the one from Tony's is a thin crust. My oven only goes to 500 degrees, so after I rolled out the dough, I placed it in the oven for a 5-7 minutes and took it out to place the cheese on. I put the crumbled gorgonzola on the bottom and sliced up mozzarella on top. I had bought the log and my friend used the entire log for the 2 pizzas. It was a TON of cheese...I was worried the dough wouldn't hold up. I placed the pizza in the oven for 15 minutes at 500 degrees for the cheese to melt and boy was it cheesy (I got a little scared by seeing all the cheese). I took the pizza out and sprinkled the parmesan/asiago mix on top and topped it off with slices of prosciutto. I put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes, but decreased the oven to 450

degrees. When the sides started to brown and bubble, I took it out. My kitchen had an intense aroma of bleu and parmesan cheese (I wasn't a big fan of it but my other half said it smelled good). I let the pizza cool for 15 minutes and then topped it off with the fig jam! 

My odd shaped dough...it's unique! (After I took it out of the oven to pre-cook it)

Placing the prosciutto and asiago/parmesan for the final bake!

The final product out of the oven!

A slice of my version of the Cal Italia pizza with the fig jam spread on top! Yummy!

The pizza turned out great, not Cal Italia, but everyone enjoyed it! There was a bit too much gorgonzola for me, (the taste is too intense for me) but the other cheeses blended nicely together, the prosciutto was crisp and had the right amount of salt, and the jam was sweet and tangy. The crust was also cooked well. I was worried there was too much cheese for it to handle, but it wasn't soggy at all. It was crispy on the edges and just enough chewiness in the center. In all, it was a great replication of Tonys, although not as pretty. However, whenever I am up North, Tony's will still be #1 on my list! 

I also wanted to make some dip for when she came, so I also made a roasted garlic and red onion hummus. I love making my own hummus because 1. it's cheaper 2. I can control the amount of oil and ingredients that go into it and 3. it's super simple to make. 

I start off by placing whole cloves of garlic, sliced red onion, some olive oil, and ground black pepper, cayenne, and smoked paprika in tin foil and roast them in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 450 degrees. I enjoy the taste of raw garlic so I roast it where it's still kind of raw. Then I take a can of garbanzo beans and wash them in a colander to get rid of the salt/liquid they were sitting in. The beans go in my blender with the olive oil roasted garlic/red onions and I season it a little more and add fresh squeezed lemon juice and blend until smooth. Taste, adjust, and blend again until it's up to my liking. And that's it! I make pita chips with it by getting the whole wheat pitas from Trader Joes, cutting them into triangles and baking them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. I enjoy them half crispy/half chewy. And that's it! The blender does all the work!

Roasted garlic and red onion for the hummus

Garbanzo beans and roasted garlic/red onion about to be blended up!

Hummus! Topped with a sprinkle of smoked paprika and my homemade pita chip!

I know this was a long post, but I hope you enjoy it!

Until Next Time!

CheFelicia

PS. I want to thank Salinasaur for coming to visit me! Hope you enjoyed your stay, and can't wait to see you soon!! xoxox.