Tag: cooking

I feel like making some lunch before I go to work, so this past Sunday I craft a menu in my head. A feel like salad so how about one with a tomato mango salsa. Then to get rid of the bacon in my icebox, how about a BLT. Finally, let’s just make some tuna salad.

First up is the tomato mango salsa. I get a mango and dice it up. The tried chose one of the more fibrous variety of mango not the silky kind. I also tried to chose a less ripe one, but my fingers are always selecting one that is ripe. Having a less ripe on makes the mango pieces slightly hard so that it adds a crunch. I also dice up two tomatoes, then add half a red onion also diced. I mix all this up in a bowl with a squeeze of lemon, a dash of fish sauce, and a pinch of salt. When it came time for the salad, I used plain iceberg lettuce freshly cut from the head and add the tomato mango salsa on top.

You might not need any salad dressing, but I threw some on just for more flavor. A regular vinaigrette except I grated some fresh ginger into EVOO/red wine vinegar plus another squeeze of lemon and fish sauce. I like how that turned out.

Tomorrow is the BLT. I think I’m gonna add a couple of slices of avocado to it.

Does anyone have a nice tuna salad recipe?

What I’ve been calling a Spanish Tortilla has always been an Italian Frittata. Who knew? I thought they were the same. The Italian version finishes off the cooking in the oven. The Spanish version you just finish on the stove itself. I just finished finishing cooking up the Spanish version. I’m letting it sit until lunch time before diving in. While I wait, here’s how I did it.

I sliced 5 Yukon Gold potatoes into half slices. That’s cutting each potato in half and then slice them thin. I salted the potatoes with 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt and then put them to the side. I diced 1 sweet onion and unfroze 1/2 a package of spinach to be a part of the filling. I’m also adding 1/2 a package of artichoke hearts. I figured that these are good enough flavors.

I fry up the potatoes in a pan of oil. This is a difficult task as it takes some movement to get all potatoes in the oil. I don’t think I am doing this right. After the potatoes are cooked — they come apart at the touch. I take them out and then start the sautéing of the other vegetables. Once these are done. I put more oil in the pan, add a little butter, and put the potatoes and vegetables back into the pan.

For eggs, I use 6 eggs which I scramble with some pepper and tabasco sauce. I then pour this mixture back over the vegetables in the pan. I let this cook for about 8 minutes then flip it over. You do this with a plate over the sink. Then you slide the tortilla back into the pan and cook for another few minutes. Flip it back out onto a plate and let sit to soak up the flavors.

This sounds good and easy. You know I had to mess it up. First, I left it too long in the pan. It’s burnt, but not too far that I don’t want to eat it. I also used too much vegetables and potatoes. Perhaps it should be 1/2 an onion and only 3 potatoes like I did before.

Welp, that was it. Let me go see if it was all a success or not…

As always, steamed vegetables for lunch isn't enough. It's not filling and it's not tasty. If it's either of those two, then I would rather get something else.Sitting on my desk at work is a Korean cup noodle. I have stayed away from it for the last two months. It was given to me by a co-worker, but I stayed away because of my high blood pressure. The package says 1021 mg of sodium per serving which it suggests a serving size of 1/2 the bowl. So it really contains 2042 mg of sodium, as much as the recommended daily allowance is. That's not good news if I cooked it up.I did. Today I ate it.But I changed it up so as to minimize the cup noodle's sodium content. First, I cut the noodles in half. I thought most of the sodium came from the seasoning, but packaged ramen noodles are notorious for being high in sodium. Then, because of it came in a separate packet, I was able to use a miniscule amount of seasoning perhaps less than an 1/8 of a teaspoon. Finally, I threw my steamed vegetables into the bowl to add some more "flavor" and substance to the soup.It turned out alright. It tasted mainly of the noodles, but there is a slight hint of the original flavor from the packet in the broth tastes. It was a nice meal. Unfortunately, I still feel like it had too much sodium.

On my ongoing quest to eat some decent ramen, I just had to go synthesize my own ramen recipe.

As the previous post showed, I made some dashi for the soup broth. It was quick and easy. I’m not sure if it turned out alright. Perhaps I should’ve used a smaller piece of the kombu because it tasted more like the seaweed and on occasion the fish that is the bonito flakes. Overall it was stronger than I expected. What can I do to cut this down?

Next up came the poached egg. I poached the recipe from the Momofuku book. Basically, you poach the eggs in shell by stewing them in a 145 degree water bath for 45 minutes. Easy-peasy.

Usually, in the restaurants around here, they serve chicken katsu with your bowl of ramen. I wanted originally to have tofu, but I changed my mind once I went grocery shopping this afternoon. I picked up some chicken cutlets, flour, and panko. My cupboards are now filled with junk. Need to cook more. With the chicken, it’s your usual frying. First, I flatted out three pieces of chicken. I don’t have a mallet, so I mashed it down with the heel of my hand. Next the chicken went into the pan. I need to put more oil in because after the second piece went in, there was hardly any oil for the last piece which didn’t get the beautiful golden brown fried color. Once done with the chicken, I set it aside and concentrated on the soup.

I took the dashi I had made in the morning and boiled it. Before the noodles go in I added a teaspoon of light soy sauce — I’m calling this shoyu ramen. I added the noodles, cheap store bought package noodles, into the boiling broth. I let it boil for a bit, but then took it off the flame and let sit for a couple minutes.

Sounds just like I was doing package ramen!

Of course, I then put it all together. The ramen soup gets scooped into a bowl. I crack a poached egg into it. Then to finish it off, a dash of more soy sauce, some wakame seaweed, and some pepper.

How’d it turn out? Okay. I guess I need to figure out the dashi. Next I have to find some good ramen noodles.

Sunday morning finds me making dashi following this recipe. It’s nice that I don’t have to boil vegetables for hours. Just soaked the kombu and then boiled with some bonito flakes. I was done in half an hour.

I have about 4 cups cooling in the fridge ready and waiting for the ramen noodle that I will be having for dinner tonight. I will add a poached egg and maybe some wakame seaweed, plus a touch of soy sauce. We’ll see how it goes.