Feb 18 2008
I originally wanted to test out a dessert experiement for my mom today, since she’s the big chef of the family. She ended up asking me to cook a full dinner. I ended up preparing a three course meal. It was very last minute. I planned the meal Saturday night after Katelyn’s second birthday. Continue Reading »
Feb 11 2008
This past week was filled with big dinners because of the Chinese New Year. My parents did a lot of cooking for us. So last night I decided to cook a nice dinner for them. I made soupe au pistou. It’s a French vegetable soup with pistou. Pistou is similar to pesto. It was nice a hearty and tasty. I also made a leeks vinaigrette salad. The vinaigrette turned out amazingly well. The tangy red wine vinegar was perfectly balanced by the egg. I definitely would make it again. Both the soup and salad are Anthony Boudain recipes. His book, Les Halles, hasn’t failed me yet.
For the main course I made poulet cuisses maison (chicken thighs). It’s basically seared then cooked on medium heat. A vinegar based sauce is made from the chicken fat afterwards. This is the first main course recipe I tried from Jacques Pepin. I have made a couple vegetable dishes from his recipes before with great success. This dish was no different. I got it from his book The Short-Cut Cook. This was a quick and simple recipe with big payoff.
I uploaded photos of the food on my Flickr account.
Jan 19 2008
I have successfully returned to cook at the restaurant without burning the place down. Bonus. I definitely was not rusty like I thought I might be. It went smoothly. There wasn’t all that much to cook. Yes, it was twenty trays of food, but a commercial wok is quite large. It felt good to cook over such a big fire again. It’s a bit of a power rush and I enjoyed it. I ended up smelling like teriyaki sauce. Could be good or bad I guess.
Jan 18 2008
My family just asked me today to help cook for a catering job this Saturday morning. My dad and I will be cooking food for a wedding party of, I think, two hundred guests. That’s roughly 20 trays of food. This will be my first time in three years cooking in a commercial kitchen. It will be interesting. I’ll probably tire my arms out. Sad. My arms used to be in such great shape when I was working the wok all the time.I guess I’ll get to see if I still have what it takes to work in the kitchen.
Nov 23 2007
Holy frick! This new recipe blow my last roast turkey straight out of the water. Hands down, this is a superior recipe. This was an amalgamation of four different recipes that I found. I need to write up a final recipe of what I actually did so that I can use it again. It was just ridiculously good. I only messed up the skin a little bit. Nothing I can’t change next year. Damn. I think I may have finished a third of it by myself. The last two roast chickens I made recently definitely gave me some ideas in this recipe. I’m glad it worked out. I ate a lot today and I think I’m going to pass out now.
A few things that I am thankful for:
I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving 2007 Photos
