Key in the cognition

01:47 pm - Tony's spicy scrambled omelette

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
  
• half of a small onion
  
• 4-6 large crimini mushrooms
  
• a tablespoon of sun-dried tomato strips
  
• a handful of shredded cheese
  
• half a teaspoon of paprika powder, cracked black pepper and crushed red pepper
  
• garlic (half a teaspoon if powdered or 2 pressed cloves if fresh)
  
• a teaspoon each of powdered coriander (replace with a tablespoon of finely chopped leaves if freshly available) and cumin
  
• a dash of cayenne pepper and ground sea salt crystals
  

1. Slice & dice onion & mushrooms, then sauté them in oil with cracked red & black pepper until the 'shrooms have relinquished most of their water content.
   
2. Add a little more oil and reduce heat before pouring in the eggs while stirring contents of pan around.
   
3. Add in the spices and mix well.
   
4. When egg is no longer liquid, add shredded cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.
   
5. Cook on low heat for a few more minutes.
   

Current Mood: amused

01:25 pm - Culinary experiments with veggies

A few weeks ago I signed up to have a box of locally-grown organic vegetables delivered to me each week. As expected, many of the vegetables I received were ones with which had no prior culinary experience. Faced with this situation, I looked up some simple recipes on the Internet and began to experiment.

The chard and kale tasted terrible raw so I boiled it, which made it rather bland. Fortunately, sprinkling a little grated parmesan cheese on it fixed that. I baked potatoes in their jackets, sliced them and sprinkled on some lime juice to create a delicious snack that keeps well in the fridge. I also baked some yams, although peeling them afterwards proved to be quite annoying, as it was for the beets, which I boiled. The taste of these snacks more than made up for the effort of peeling them though.

I had absolutely no idea what to do with the leeks until elizar told me I could discard the green part, then slice and sauté them. Sadly, leeks seem to make my eyes water in the same way that onions do so I was only able to get through half of them before I was reduced to a blubbering wreck and had to stop. Wanting to avoid frying my food in oil, I used my awesome Joyce Chen wok to fry the sliced leeks sans oil and threw in some mushrooms for good measure. Sprinkling a wee smidgen of chopped garlic onto the result made for a delightful first lunch.

Current Mood: pleased

09:49 pm - Tony's Tilapia

I've been experimenting with various ways of cooking tilapia and have now perfected my recipe so I shall share it with you here:

Ingredients:
1 tilapia (bereft of skin and bone);
cracked blacked pepper;
ground cumin;
ground coriander;
paprika powder;
ground cardamom;
2 corn tortillas.

Apparatus:
a flat-bottomed non-stick frying-pan;
a flat-bottomed frying-pan;
a plastic spatula.

Method:
1. Place the tilapia in the non-stick pan and begin heating slowly over a medium flame.
2. Sprinkle the aforementioned spices over the tilapia in quantities to taste.
3. Flip the tilapia over and sprinkle spices on the other side.
4. When the tail end of the tilapia begins to flake slightly, flip it over again and slice it along the spine into roughly symmetric halves.
5. Once the exposed area loses its translucency, flip the two pieces over again.
6. Heat each tortilla up on the other pan, flipping them over part-way through so that they get heated evenly on both sides.
7. Turn off both stoves.
8. Place each piece of tilapia onto a tortilla and fold the tortillas over in half to cover the tilapia.

Observation:
this meal should probably be supplemented by some vegetables.

Current Mood: full

07:37 am - Iron Chef

Yesterday I participated in an Iron Chef competition. There were 3 teams of 9 people and we were given 2 hours and $70 as resources. We had to prepare a 3 course meal with pumpkin as the "secret" ingredient in each.

We decided to make pumpkin soup as an appetizer, pumpkin polenta with chicken cooked in wine as the entrée and pumpkin fritters in chocolate sauce for dessert. After a quick run to the local grocery store, we got to work using the kitchenware that we'd brought with us. I made the fritters.

( my recipe for pumpkin fritters )

While we were cooking our food one of the other teams realized that their stove wasn't actually producing much heat so we offered to let them share ours. Once most of the food was ready we cleared out a space on our table and laid out all the food, including a lovely hand-crafted menu, for the judging panel to evaluate. Here's a great shot of us posing with our meal. Ironically, after spending 2 hours preparing food, we ate pizza while the judges sampled the meals.

One of the other teams actually made their own ice-cream from scratch. They also won.

Current Mood: contemplative

12:19 am - Fun with food

Today was my turn to cook dinner at Hamm. I made chilli and tacos with mashed sweet-potatoes and honey for dessert while my extremely capable assistant chef Alda made pork ribs and salad. I was supposed to have 2 assistants but the other one was very late because he missed a bus. Fortunately we were able to finish on time thanks in part to help from another Hammie. Since I needed to provide a vegetarian option for the beef tacos, I fried some shitaki mushrooms in Tabasco sauce. I also improved upon my standard "mashed tuber with syrup" recipe by adding cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon and allspice to it.

Later on stangerous and I tried the spiced hot-chocolate drink called SpicyMaya at a local coffee shop. It's indistinguishable from "the drink of the gods" that I used to enjoy at Soma in TO so I think I'll be returning there. Keith, OTOH, was less enthused by the burning sensation in the back of his throat as he swallowed his drink.

Meme: my PersonalDNA™ Report

Current Mood: sleepy

10:31 pm - Dumplings

Today I learnt how to make dumplings. My friend Annie's mom is visiting her at Hammarskjold from Beijing this week and volunteered to teach a bunch of us how to make dumplings. We made two kinds of pork-based filling; one had minced chives and cabbage while the other had carrot pureé. We made the dumplings by placing a bit of filling in the middle of a flour disc, folding it in half and sealing it by squeezing the edges together. Then we boiled some and fried the rest. Finally, we all sat down at a big table with floating candles for light and ate dumplings dipped in vinegar and sesame oil. It was a good dinner.

Current Mood: satisfied