Salsa Verde is the new Buttermilk!

There's an elementary school in my neighborhood that maintains a little vegetable garden. Last summer, massive amounts of squash grew, the vines grew through the fence onto the sidewalk, and along the arms of those vines grew their best fruit (in my opinion), the blossom. At that time I had never cooked squash blossoms before and they're such spiky little flowers I was never prepared to pick them anyway. And THEN I conquered the first part ....

Well now ... they're back! And I'm prepared. And they are beginning to bud along the sidewalk again. So I picked one. IT'S PUBLIC PROPERTY!

I wanted them to have a heavy batter since I only had the one and it was lunch but I didn't have an egg and I didn't want to use milk. So I used salsa verde. I know - it was adventurous but that's the whole point, right? I cleaned out the stamen, stuffed the body with some white cheese, dipped into the flour, then the salsa, and then the flour again. Now instead of deep frying, I poured a little vegetable oil in my cast iron skillet and I held it up at an angle so the oil could form a puddle. I held it in that position with the stuffed blossom in the oil, and flipped it when one side browned. This took MAYBE a total of 45 seconds.

And .... it was delicious.

Dry Aging Meat

There's a reason ordering dry-aged meat at a restaurant is so expensive. The meat sits in a controlled temperature room of 34-37 degrees for around two weeks. The outside of the meat actually begins to spoil and forms a thick crust of the spoiled part. When the meat is going to be cooked in a restaurant, all of the spoiled part is cut off and the inside is still red, unspoiled meat. But only about 50% of the steak is actually salvageable which explains why a rib-eye or piece of wagyu seems to cost twice as much at dinner. You're essentially eating the cost (no pun intended) of the aged meat.

That doesn't mean it's not the most delicious way to serve a steak and that you can't do it yourself at home for a fraction of the cost and 100% of the juicy meltiness. Keep reading ...


To test this, buy a ribeye. Don't buy a flank steak or go overboard with a filet mignon. Just splurge on a nice ribeye. I don't eat a lot of fat so I trim most of what I can without totally dismantling it. Then prepare your dry-age seasoning ...

Dry-age Seasoning:

1. 1.5 tblsps Salt
2. 1 tbl brown sugar
3. 1/2 tsp pulverized red pepper
4. 1 tsp paprika
5. 1/2 tsp of garlic powder

Mix it up with your FINGERS. Don't do what I did above in the picture and use a spice blender because I feel like it obliterated the stickiness and color of the brown sugar and paprika. When I use just my fingers it's a lot better. (Although this was still extremely good).

LEAVE IT IN YOUR FRIDGE FOR 72 HOURS. If you absolutely cannot wait that long then you MUST wait for 48 hours or this is useless. Don't wait for more than 3 or 4 max. Then grill it as you would any steak. It's amazing.

Ama Ebi (Fried Sweet Shrimp)

A certain someone I know has a penchant for biting the heads off of whole shrimp after they've been deep fried. I'm not into it myself but I was definitely up to the challenge. My local J-Town market sells the shrimp whole, heads on, in the shell.

I actually grilled these first in a cast iron skillet with s/p and turmeric because I don't deep fry a lot and I wanted to make sure they were cooked thoroughly. I didn't want these super battered, so I just coated them in a dry flour mixture. As soon as they were all crisped up, I drained and served. And, to my relief, they were a big hit.

Spicy Tuna Temaki

Yum. I love spicy tuna tamaki (handrolls) when they're made at home. I don't like them in sushi restaurants though for some reason. The good news is they're so easy to make. When you're buying your nori, you should see special temaki sized nori. They may be listed as "half sheets."

To prepare, line up your sushi rice, spicy tuna mix (for spicy tuna mix, see Spicy Hamachi Gunkan-Zushi), julienned cucumber, and a bowl of water (you should mix white vinegar in the water to kill bacteria but it isn't necessary).

Hold the temaki in your left hand *rough side up*, and with your wet right hand, clump up some rice in a golf ball size. Stick it in the far left middle, flatten it a bit, put on some cucumber and spicy tuna, then roll it by wrapping the bottom left corner over and rolling it in a spiral fashion. Use a little piece of rice smushed to hold the end of the nori to the handroll. It takes practice. Mine obviously aren't perfect.

* TIP! To keep your temaki from getting soggy, fan it over a flame to crisp it a bit before making your roll.

Hot Poblano Tamales w/ Poblano cream*

I love tamales. Who doesn't? It's kind of the one hearty food I can eat without missing the meat. There is definitely a technique to them, but they aren't the hardest thing in the world to make at home and still be HEALTHY. It's important to note here that any tamale you eat in a restaurant and/or that are prepared in the home contain LARD. Yeah, I said it. Lard. I don't even know where you can buy that, it's so foreign to me. I use vegetable oil in mine because the mono fats are OK! and there aren't the trans and saturated fats to worry about.

I get my husks from a Latin market and I don't think I've ever seen them at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's so I don't have any recommendations if you don't live near a Latin market (other than the innernet, of course).

How to Make? (Made about 10)

1. Soak your husks in hot water for 30 minutes to rehydrate them.
2. 1 cup corn tortilla flour, 1/2 cup cornmeal, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt. Mix the dry ingredients together.
3. Add 1.5 cups of water and stir well. It will thicken.
4. Add 1/2 cup of canola/veggie oil and mix REALLY well

MEANWHILE:

1. You pick YOUR filling. It just needs to be in small bits so you can fill your tamale. It can't be like a hot dog, you would want to dice the hotdog. I'm not suggesting you use hotdog but now that I think about that it kind of sounds good. But I digress ...
2. I used 2 roasted poblanos, a jalapeno, 2 shaved corn cobs, and a small white onion.
3. Whatever your filling tastes like is what your tamale tastes like. Other than yummy corn goodness, the bulk of the flavor will be the stuffing so add salt/pepper/cumin/onion powder, etc. Whatever seasoning combo you like. You could use NO seasoning at all and be all purist about it.
4. Cook it all together in a pan w/ a little oil until it's soft and yummy.

THIS PART IS A BITCH:

1. Hold the husk in your left hand, pointy side away from you, spoon a glob of the dough in the wide part of the husk. It will EXPAND so smear sparingly.
2. With your right hand, add a little cheese and your filling in a line up the middle of the dough.
3. Then take the right side of the husk and fold it over, slightly tucking on the left.
4. Fold the left side over and then fold the empty pointy part over.
5. When you STEAM these, the open side is going to be facing up so the stuff doesn't spill out.
6. Don't waste your time roping them up with twine, it's unnecessary for this small scale.

OK now hopefully you have a proper steamer. I don't (I know) so I did something stupid that I won't go into but, hey, at least my tamales got steamed. They need to sit upright in a fashion that will keep them upright.

STEAM FOR ONE HOUR. The dough should be fluffy and pull away from the husk nicely.

That's really it. You can top with whatever the heck you want but they're so good by themselves. I made a poblano cream in my food processor since I had a jalapeno and poblano left over.

*gluten free

Traditional Japanese Philly Roll

This is a traditional roll in Japan. I kid. I kid. These are the makings of a smoked salmon Philly roll. Sushi rice, nori, smoked salmon, cream cheese, and green onions (because I didn't have chives on hand). Leave an inch of nori plain so when you roll the sushi, starting with the part closest to you, it can connect with the plain nori and create a seal to finish your roll. I can't really explain further than that today.

Spicy Hamachi Gunkan-Zushi

You people know how much I love my hamachi. All 5 of you. Well I really love it - and most recently - I love it in my spicy tuna mixture. It's really easy but you need to eye the ingredients to suit your own tastes. Just dice up hamachi (yellowtail) and mix with kewpie (japanese mayo), sriracha, chili oil, soy sauce, yuzu, and add salt and pepper.

You can buy Kewpie in any Japanese market. It's a squeeze bottle with a red lid. Yuzu itself is either really expensive or hard to find so I use a yuzu citrus vinegar that is way more citrus than vinegar. Try looking for a "Yuzu Ponzu".

Sriracha should be in every cupboard and chili oil is my favorite to cook with, especially when making Kim Chee Gyoza.

Put in the liquid ingredients a little at a time because you don't want your mixture too runny with soy sauce and yuzu.

Also to wrap, just make a small oval of sushi rice (like you would for nigiri) and wrap a strip of nori (seaweed) around it leaving a negative space on top and then spoon in your topping.

Hamachi Nigiri

Growing up we ate rice every single day. And if I didn't like what was on the table, at least I got rice. I was perfectly content with heavily buttered, soy-sauced rice. Hey, that's how white people eat it.

When I moved out of my mom's house, I never had room or enough of my own space for a rice cooker. I learned to make rice in a pot on the stove but, other than basmati, all other rice dishes tended to be on the soggy, crusty side. Persian people pay a lot for the crust, and when they do, it's called Tadiq. The soggy? Not so prized.

I love making sushi but it's always been ... eh ... because of the rice. Too dense, too sticky, doesn't hold. So I bit the bullet and bought a rice cooker. It's the best decision I ever made. My nigiri are a significant percentage better and I aim to keep improving.

It's nice to buy a $9 bit of hamachi that makes 10 pieces, rather than a $12 order that yields 4 pieces.

Salmone Fresco

This post is for no other reason than to capture this image. This is a wild salmon steak purchased from the seafood stand "J&P's West Coast Seafood" at the Hollywood Farmer's market. I cooked it as usual - smoked salt, pepper, and turmeric on the skin side with a little olive oil.

You have to get your pan suuuper hot. Every time I tried to cook salmon skin side down I had some trouble. The skin stuck and I had to scrape it off while not disturbing the meat too much. And it's not very pretty when the skin has been scraped up in its shriveled form.

So now I turn the fire on medium, wait until my pan hits the smoking point, put in the olive oil and once it's hot and coating the pan, put the salmon in skin side down. If you did it right, it won't really stick when the salmon is ready to turn. Season the other side with the same smoked salt, pepper, and turmeric.

Post-Market Monday

Last night I crossed my cooking threshold with the squash blossoms so Farmer's Market Sunday became Post-Market Monday. I bought a small bag of potatoes, a bunch of kale, and this giant piece of trout that was hardly discernible from salmon. Apparently they're in the same family.

The pork chop is organic but not from the Farmer's Market. I brined it for a few hours with apple cider vinegar, pepper flakes, salt, water, and brown sugar. Since I'm cooking for two, I try and find common complimentary ingredients for both the fish and meat so we each get what we want.

On top of the trout is a mixture of Meyer lemon, shallots, oil, salt, and pepper. You can see at the bottom of the trout how crispy the skin is. I finally got it down.

When I first started trying to cook fish with skin, it always turned into a painful mess because the skin stuck horribly to the pan and I had to scrape it while trying to keep the fish in tact. I finally learned to get your pan to a smoking point and then add in the oil. I wasn't getting my pan hot enough. And keep it on medium-high. Once I know the skin has crisped enough, I flip it and put the lid on it with just a little air escaping. I don't know if that's conventional for cooking fish but it helps keep the smoke and oil in and I find it helps keep in the moisture too without overcooking while I am plating.