i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
It’s no secret my kids are fiends for sushi so I often make handrolls at home for them—usually avocado and smoked salmon or some California since they keep well. They also love steak tartare so I always have some nice sirloin or skirt in the …
Mugwort—just the name drives gardeners into a fearful frenzy because of how insanely invasive it is. From just a small root grows a dense, waist high perennial that covers the ground in a span of a season. It’s difficult to get rid of once established, …
We had a quail processing day (guide to raising quail) which is always a somewhat somber and work heavy day. A friend of mine (follow her on her Instagram @maisonmelimelo) who has accompanied me on such adventures like eating silkworm pupae and puffer fishing, wanted to learn how to process poultry, so she came over and we started working. The scalding and the plucking took the longest and by the time we were finished my back was aching.
However, working outside in the warmth of the new spring sun felt invigorating after being stuck inside all winter long. With my husband on the air rifle (beheading with a cleaver is also an option, but I am not confident that I wouldn’t chop my or anyone else’s fingers off), and each of us taking turns catching and holding them still, we managed to finish everything in about 4 hours. As always, we thanked the animal for providing us with food and had a refresher in remembering the weight of the work and life that goes into our meals.
About 24-36 hours later, rigor passes and it can be cooked however you’d like (cooking during rigor makes a tough meal.) Quail is delicious and can be used in any application you wish to use chickens in, its flavor falling somewhere between duck and chicken. Late at night, my friend sent me (curses!) a post about quail and waffles, like chicken and waffles, and unfortunately for me I don’t have a waffle maker. I DO have a taiyaki maker though, so I decided to do a Japanese spin on this American classic.
Karaage is a quick marinated fried chicken, crispy and hot, while taiyaki is pancake like and dense with sweet red bean paste, custard, or chocolate in the center. You can use taiyaki mix, pancake batter, or Korean egg bread batter. I’ve made a lot of different taiyaki variations, each as delicious as the last so you can use any recipe for that part. I use this pan over a flame. Unfortunately you can’t use the pan over an electric stove but there are electric taiyaki makers.
For the quail, I quarter and marinate while waiting for rigor to pass so it’s ready to use in the morning. You can tell when rigor has passed by bending the wing and leg joints—if it bends easily, then it’s ready. Karaage quail will fry darker because of the soy sauce and quail is darker as a meat to begin with.
Yes yes, this dish is normally done with chicken or fish, but I’ve been experimenting with vegetables and seafood to delicious success. Nanbanzuke is the Japanese version of escabeche, a Spanish and Portuguese dish of cooked fish marinated in a spiced vinegar sauce which was …
My kids love potatoes in most, if not all forms—so warm, crispy Japanese potato croquettes disappear quickly in this house. It’s pretty easy to make with a rice cooker that can steam the potatoes, and also easy to jazz up by mixing in different things: …
Well that’s a mouthful… quite literally! Today is Chinese New Years Eve and since my parents and sister are in Costa Rica, I won’t have as much to do (nor as much to eat)—so I decided to treat us and make a quilt bento. I have some gorgeous wagyu short rib trimmings in my freezer, so what better way to use it up than tartare? (My 8 year old agrees too as tartare is one of her favorite things.) Quilt bentos are quite lovely, to both look at and to eat—the main point is to make it colorful in a checkered pattern, so each bite is a different experience. I do nine checkered squares, but you can easily do more if you’d like.
I love both pupusas and arepas (but must confess I didn’t really know the difference until recently)–they’re both corn cakes made from corn flour, but pupusas are stuffed before they are grilled, while arepas are stuffed after. They also use different flours, with pupusas using …
Persimmons are a fun fruit to grow, the trees get pretty big and loaded with bright orange fruits and remain productive for decades. In the Fall when they drop their leaves, the fruits stay on, looking like bizarre Christmas ornaments against the bare branches. There’s …
A single lobster goes through many iterations in my household, until every last drop of flavor gets extracted from all its parts—lobster bisque being the last stop on that train. The first of which was ganjang lobster (soy marinated tail meat and tomalley, raw), next was the claw and rest of whatever meat I could get from every nook and cranny (including the legs) for a delightful lobster salad, and last is this bisque produced by pulverizing the shells, boiling it, and straining it into a broth packed with lobster flavor (and a hint of bourbon from the Blanton Distilling Company that was a gift–Adam may kill me for using a $200 bottle of whiskey for this but NO RAGRATS.)
The straining part is probably the most time consuming, but the bisque is simple in that it doesn’t need much to make it delicious. Instead of boiling, I had steamed the pieces instead (when making the lobster salad) so all of the juices had been collected in the bowl as well and it didn’t lose flavor to the boil. I am not fond of celery so I don’t add much—you can if you would like.
Not to brag or anything but I do make a mean lobster salad, lightly dressed with mayo, with herbs from the garden, a hint of Old Bay, and some salt cured lemon for when I’m having that hankering for a lobster roll. It’s cheaper than …