Curry Mussels and a Little o' Bacon

Curry Mussels and a Little o' Bacon

mussels, ready for a steamy night

When you go to a restaurant, mussels always seem to be a moderately pricey dish. But apparently, making it at home ends up being extremely affordable, "cheap" I might even say. From a $3.99 bag of mussels, came a dish made for kings! So, Jared has recently been adding bacon to our sauteed greens for the saltiness and smoky flavor it imparts; he figured he could use the same type of sauces with the mussels. And let me tell you, it yielded unbelievable results!

Many people don't like to prepare seafood, mostly because it smells fishy or feels slimy. But mussels are actually quite simple to prepare and super easy to clean. When you're ready to cook them, open the bag of mussels and place it in a big bowl with water. Most of the time, the mussels are cleaned, so there is no need for heavy scrubbing. Jared usually pulls a few out and rubs it with his fingers and runs it under some water. If the beard is sticking out of the mussels, pull it out.

At this point you want to start picking out the dead mussels (there's bound to be a few). While you are cleaning them, it's ok to keep around the closed-shell mussels. There's about a 50/50 chance that they are still alive. Keep the closed ones and move onto the next. If the shell is opened, you can give each shell a gentle squeeze. If the mussel is alive, it will clam up or move a little. If it doesn't move at all, toss it. You shouldn't risk eating dead mussels- one bad mussel can ruin the whole dish! Also if the shell is cracked, toss it. Now all the mussels in your bowl should be closed. When you're cooking the mussels, each one should open up if they were alive going in. If the mussels remain closed after cooking, then toss those too.

And without further delay... the recipe for curry mussels with a little o' bacon!

Ingredients

1 bag of mussels (cleaned and de-bearded)

1/2 onion (diced)

2 strips of bacon (chopped)

1 tsp curry powder

1 cup white wine

2 cloves garlic (minced)

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tsp sugar

Salt & pepper to taste

1 handful of baby spinach (optional)

Parsley (Chopped)

Recipe

• In a sauce pan, heat on medium heat and add the chopped bacon
• Render the fat out of the bacon
• Remove the bacon and set aside
• Spoon out the fat, leaving about 1 tbsp worth
• Add the diced onion and curry powder and sautee until the onion is translucent
• Add the mussels, garlic, spinach and deglaze with the wine and turn the heat to high
• Place a lid on the pan and steam the mussels for 7 mins or until the mussel opens up
• Add the cream, sugar and season with salt and pepper to taste
• Serve the mussels in a big bowl and sprinkle the bacon bits and chopped parsley on top

And as usual, every time we make mussels, we grilled some French bread and used it to sop up all the mouthwatering sauce. Oooh la la.

Note: if you don't plan on eating the mussels right away, store in the fridge with a damp paper towel over it. Putting them in a bowlful of water will drown them and leave you with a bowl of stinky dead mussels. It should be able to keep in the fridge a day or two.

Memories of Korea: Hodo Kwaja 호도과자

Memories of Korea: Hodo Kwaja 호도과자

It seems like it's been a nostalgic couple weeks for us here in the Zhao household. Today's photoshoot took me back to my time in South Korea, where I spent a few months teaching English several years ago at a university in Jinju. This past Thursday, I had been having a terrible day and Jared, being the loving husband that he is, picked up some of my favorite Korean snacks from H-mart to cheer me up. As much as I wanted to eat them right away, I decided to savor the sweet walnut cakes until today so I could take a couple photos first.

While I thought about how to set up this shoot, I remembered I still had one of the few souvenirs that I saved from Korea. One of my students' fathers was a famous potter in the region. One Saturday, she took a few of us teachers on a field trip to her father's art studio where we spent the afternoon relaxing, eating and painting designs on cups that her father would later glaze and fire for us. And to our surprise we also got a bonus gift: bowls that were hand painted and stamped by her father to take home with us. It was one of the more special moments of my time spent in Korea and I thought it would be perfect for this nostalgic shoot.

a closeup of his insignia, his last name, Ahn

Hodo Kwaja (호도과자), literally "walnut pastries", were one of my favorite street vendor snacks. Inside these little walnut shaped pastries is a filling of either sweet red bean or mashed potatoes and crushed nuts. They're best eaten when it's fresh out of the griddle mold and still warm to the touch. It was the perfect snack for the two of us when we were walking around Seoul that winter. So I thought it was incredibly sweet of Jared to pick these up for me. I spent this afternoon reminiscing over my short stay in Korea and all the good times I had being mistaken for a native Korean yet only knowing how to communicate in hand motions and a 30 word deep vocabulary, most of which consisted of food terms and phrases like "how much is this?", "too expensive!" "more kalbi, please". To this day, I still get random emails from old students in incredibly incomprehensible English. But, it warms my heart every time. *sigh*

If you'd like to make this at home, I found this recipe for hodo kwaja. However, I think these are one of those things I'd rather just purchase and enjoy.

Stuffed Piquillo Peppers with Oxtail and Goat Cheese

Stuffed Piquillo Peppers with Oxtail and Goat Cheese

Back in 2005 our group of foodie friends took a trip to Barcelona. It was my first international vacation and my first foray in experiencing real food in a foreign country, completely unadulterated by Americans (heh). Looking back, we realized we probably should have taken the time out to do a lot more research as to which restaurants and what foods to try. I mean there is nothing wrong with a restorante Chino in Barcelona (hahaha we were desperate and wanted to be full). But at the very least that trip introduced us to Spanish tapas and Iberico Jamon....mmmh, which to this day we still love and thoroughly enjoy.

As Jared was making his rounds for groceries, he stopped by H-mart. The had a special on fresh oxtail in a bin that you can pick from for only 3.99 per lb. Usually, when you buy the packaged kind, they throw in the small ends with more bone than meat. But when you get to choose the oxtail yourself you get to select all the big meaty pieces. Jared usually buys oxtail to make soup, but the stuffed piquillo pepper dish suddenly came to him in his sleep last night. Seriously! Actually, this dish has been on Jared's mind for a while now ever since he had it at a tapas restaurant years ago. So today was the perfect opportunity for him to start putting together his version of stuffed piquillo peppers. I have to say that the result was pretty dang awesome.

The creaminess of the goat cheese, the sweetness of the roasted pepper and the tender oxtail with the demi-glace melds into something magical in your mouth. I had one bite and I was a believer. We also dipped slices of grilled bread and into the chili garlic oil that made it all the more addicting. Its that good people. I know this recipe is pretty involved, but if you have the time do give it a try. You will not be disappointed.

Stuffed Piquillo Peppers

Ingredients

1 can or jar of piquillo pepper
Shredded oxtail meat
1/2 medium onion (cut lengthwise)
2 cups oxtail stock (below)
1 tsp flour
1 clove garlic (minced)
Chili garlic oil (below)
Goat cheese
Parsley
Salt & Pepper

Recipe:

• In a sauce pan, add the oxtail stock and reduce until it is 1/4 of its original volume.
  
• In a small dish, add the flour and 1 tbsp of water to make a slurry, add it to the sauce pan
• Stir the sauce and it should thicken and become nice and velvety. Set aside
  
• Season with salt to taste
• In another pan, heat on medium high and caramelize the onion with a few tbsp of oil
• Once the onion is caramelized, deglaze the pan with some oxtail stock
  
• Add the shredded meat and minced garlic and cook on high heat until all the liquid has been evaporated
• Season with salt and pepper to taste
  
• Warm up the pepper on the grill for a nicer presentation
• Stuff the pepper with the meat and some goat cheese
• Pour the chili oil onto a plate, and place the stuff pepper in the center.
  
• Drizzle the sauce around the plate and garnish with chopped parsley

Be sure to soak up the chili oil with a nice slice of a crusty french baguette and wash it all down with a nice glass of red. Ahh if I close my eyes, I can imagine us being back in Barcelona...

(the wine glass in the back from our trip to barcelona. we saw lots of bars serve their wine in similar glasses and found these at the 1 euro shop. european dollar stores are way better than American ones!)

Oxtail Stock

Ingredients:

Water
2 cups red wine (something dry, like a Merlot)
3lbs oxtail (or substitute with short ribs)
1 large onion
2 stalks of celery
2 carrots
A few sprigs of thyme (de-stemmed)
1 bay leaf

Recipe:

• In a stock pot add 5 quarts of water and bring to boil
• While the water boiling, peel and rough chop the vegetables
  
• Once the water is boiling, add the oxtail and bring it back to a boil. boil for 5 minutes
• Remove the oxtail and rinse under cold water to remove meat impurities
• Rinse and dry the stock pot. Add a few tbsp of oil in the stock pot and sautee the vegetables
• Add the oxtail, wine, thyme and bay leaf into the stock pot
• Add enough water to fully submerge the oxtail.
• Bring the soup back to boil and reduce the heat to a simmer
• Skim the foam off regularly
  
• Simmer for 3 hours or until the meat is falling off the bones
• Remove the oxtail and strain the soup through a sieve
  

NOTE: You can make the stock in advanced and freeze the extra.

Chili Oil

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp chili flakes
2 garlic cloves
Salt

Recipe:

• In a pan, heat the olive oil and chili flakes on medium heat. High heat will cause the oil to smoke and burn
• Cook the oil until it is nice and golden, about 10 minutes.
  
• Cut the garlic crosswise into chips
• Turn off the heat and add the garlic to the oil. Cooking the garlic from the beginning will cause it to burn and become bitter

Jared also decided to turn this dish into a canape of sorts and layered each item over slices of grilled crusty french bread. Then we drizzled the demi-glace over the shredded oxtail. 'Twas a good dinner. Ok fine, I have to finally admit that it's really good to be married to this guy ;)

A New Love: Entremets by Vanille Patisserie

A New Love: Entremets by Vanille Patisserie

As much as I appreciate the pastry world re-embracing homebaked goods and elevating the cupcake to some sort of golden pedestal, some days I crave an expertly crafted pastry created by the hands of a master french pastry chef. No, seriously. Neither Jared nor I have a sweet tooth, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for a delicate mousse. Last weekend, we checked out the new Chicago French Market for the first time. (More on that later). Tucked into a side entrance of the market was a Vanille Patisserie counter. The pastries were so gorgeous we couldn't help but to stop and stare. We picked up some croissants and the following vanilla entremet. The croissants were buttery and chewy. Jared likes to judge all pastry chefs based on their croissants and so far, this one passed the test with flying colors! And though this vanilla entremet was not as photogenic (I kept calling it a visual biscuits and gravy), it was so light and full of vanilla and white chocolate goodness all on a crumbly crust.

We loved the last entremet so much that we kept thinking about the smooth whipped vanilla cream. We checked out their website and found that it was run by the husband and wife team of Dimitri + Keli Fayard, both with a long list of accolades to their names. They opened shop in 2003- sometimes I wonder how places like these have escaped me for so long! It only means that we must have so many more places yet to try.

This past weekend, we decided to visit the main pastry shop located in Lincoln Park. We picked up a few more entremets and took them home with us to sample. And we figured that while we had them, why not put them through a photoshoot to practice a new lighting technique. And ladies and gentlemen, these babies were ridiculously photogenic.

The first one we tried was what we described as a sophisticated and refined version of a Reese's peanut butter cup. Digging into the soft chocolate shell, we found a layer of whipped cream, a peanut butter caramel, and a Reeses peanut butter-like crust with peanuts.

Then I saw this in the window and also had to have it! The mango shell enveloped a passion fruit mousse. It reminded me of an extremely light cheesecake. You can tell this entremet not only looks good, but the ripe scent of mangoes filled the air as we opened our box and put a smile to our face. Too good for words.

And finally I saw this one and my eyes suddenly became way bigger than my stomach. It was a coconut entremet, with a coconut mousse that was so incredibly light and airy topped with an amazing passion fruit coulis. Inside the mousse was also a passion fruit creme with pineapple chunks spread over a shredded coconut base. And when all of it is eaten together, it was the perfect combination of sweetness.

We've only tasted these entremets, but Vanille Patisserie also offers cakes, petit fours and macarons, as well as custom designed wedding cakes. The economy may be down right now, but this is where I'll be getting my pick-me-ups! I've already added this to my personal "must-see" food list for people visiting Chicago.

Vanille Patisserie

Dimitri + Keli Fayard

2229 N. Clybourn Ave

Chicago, IL 60614

773-868-4574

Soboro Donburi: Seasoned Ground Meat over Rice

Soboro Donburi: Seasoned Ground Meat over Rice

Ok I have to tell you, I am SO proud of this set of quail egg photos. This photo just became my new desktop background. This set came out way cooler than I anticipated and it pushed us to try something new. One of my new year's resolutions was to take our food photography to the next level. And this was definitely our first step in doing so!

Back to the dish at hand, Jared had a similar version of Soboro Donburi while on his trip to LA last month... when he ate at Yakitoriya without me... sigh. Soboro Donburi is essentially seasoned ground meat and egg (usually scrambled) over rice. It's an extremely simple dish and it makes for a fantastic and quick mid-week meal. You can use any type of ground meat for this recipe, but I consider ground chicken thigh to have the best flavor. The version they served at Yakitoriya had a raw quail egg cracked on top, so Jared though he'd recreate it at home.

(we used pork this time)

Soboro Donburi

Ingredients
1lb ground chicken (pork/turkey/beef)
3 tbsp tsuyu (Japanese seasoned soy sauce)
1 tbsp mirin
1/2 onion (minced)
green onion (chopped)
roasted seaweed (shredded)
sesame seeds
egg yolk (optional)

Recipe

• In a skillet, heat on high until the pan is really hot. Add 1 tbsp of oil and add the ground meat
• Spread the meat in the pan and leave it alone for a few minutes to create a nice sear
• Break apart the meat clumps to bits
• Add the minced onion and cook for a few more minutes
• Add the tsuyu and mirin and cook until the liquids are almost dried up
• In a piping hot bowl of rice, sprinkle the green onion, sesame seeds and seaweed.
• Then quickly layer the meat on top of the rice.

Note: As an option, you can add a raw egg yolk on top of the rice. Stir the rice/meat/egg yolk together so the hot rice and meat will cook the egg yolk a little. If you would like the egg to be fully cooked, place the whole bowl in an oven at 350 F until it is done. As we said earlier, it is usually served with a scrambled egg.

I especially love this version with the layers of egg yolk, seaweed, ground meat, chopped scallions and sesame seeds over rice. It's the perfection combination.

and a bonus image...

does this not look like a cookbook cover? hahaha.
i change my mind, THIS one gets to grace my desktop. :)