So after reading the few comments people gave me on my last entry, and spending all of my downtime at work yesterday doing research, I went home last night and decided I was just going to nip this thing in the bud and dive right in, trusting primarily to intuition and the information I'd gleaned over the course of the day rather than following a recipe. So after all the dinner dishes were cleaned and put away, I shooed my boyfriend off to the living room to play video games and took over the kitchen.

I ended up going with my original plan to use a combination of mango and pineapple, and since I could quite get the idea of that sesame seed chutney out of my head, I brought in a few of the elements from that recipe as well (namely the sesame seeds and fresh cilantro). The results? Absolutely unbelievably delicious. Slightly spicy, very sweet, and a little tangy, with the little chunks of fruit still a teensy bit toothsome and the extra nutty crunch from the sesame seeds, the melding of flavors and textures was damn close to what I had envisioned.

Seriously, I think I could just eat this stuff with a spoon.



I think that next time I might toast the sesame seeds before adding them to the chutney, because the sesame flavor didn't quite come through as much as I'd hoped... and I think I might also cut back on the sugars a bit and up the proportion of onion and garlic to fruit in favor of a more balanced flavor over all, as this batch came out primarily sweet with the tang and spice sort of hanging out in the background. I'd like a more evenly sweet-sour-spicy chutney, I think, though the levels of flavor in this one make it quite a fun experience to eat. It makes you want to sort of mull it around in your mouth a bit to experience every little nuance of flavor, which is a quality I appreciate.

( recipe and another photo behind the cut )

For the uninitiated, kimbap is the Korean counterpart of Japanese futomaki -- seaweed wrapped around rice with goodies in the middle and sliced into rounds.

My question is, what's the difference (as it pertains to preparation and procedure) between using vinegared rice and using unseasoned rice? I've had it with plain rice, but most of the recipes I'm finding say to vinegar it like sushi.

I know I can call on you in my hour of need...

Ok, so it's not quite as desperate as all that. I'm cooking tomorrow night for my boyfriend's family, and i'm still working out the details.

I'm making stuffed marrow, which used to be a speciality of my grandma (though i'm really just using the basic outline; her seasonings were always a little bland for my tastes). I plan to cut the marrow into thick slices and take out the seedy centre leaving 'rings'. Into the middle of these i'm going to put a beef mince mixture, probably with garlic. I'll either add passata to the mixture before filling, or perhaps serve alongside a rich tomato sauce, I haven't quite decided yet. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, the query regards what to serve alongside this. I was thinking wild rice, because rice generally goes nicely with this dish. But it can be a little boring, so i'm wondering what your opinions are on ways to jazz it up a bit? I've got vague ideas involving red onion but i'm really not sure. Boil the rice with seasonings? Fry up afterwards? Any ideas for exciting rice welcome! (Or equally, let me know if you think it'd be fine as is!)

For reference, to start i'm going to attempt spicy sweet potato and red pepper soup, which currently exists only in my head!

Oh, and no dairy please.

Thanks muchly!

Thanks to everyone for their input about Chinatown. A successful endeavor it was, indeed.
I bought plenty of Japanese candy/snacks as well as glass noodles, a bamboo steamer (WONDERFUL!), fermented black bean and garlic sauce, Pearl River soy sauce (HUGE thing for $3.95), Sriacha sauce, yam noodles, Furikake.. and loads of other stuff I can't recall at the moment. :D Again, thank you all so much.

Afterwards, I went to the Malaysian restaraunt, Penang, for some Roti Canai (mmm...) The picture is copyright Penang's website, but I thought this post would be better with some delicious food to drool over :)




I have one more question...

**What is the number one Japanese cookbook you would recommend?**

I would like to go out and buy one, but I need recs for some first, thanks!

--Rachel

There's chocolate cake, and there's chocolate cake. And then there is this - the best chocolate mud cake in my repetoire. Click here for the recipe and more photos :)

So here is the panna cotta I was making that I asked for suggestions. I had little to work with since the produce walk-in was pretty much wiped out. I had to use frozen raspberries....But yeah I made it an orange flavored panna cotta, with a raspberry compote and candied orange zest on top. Then pulled sugar with some orange segments. I wasn't too thrilled with the presentation, it's okay.
( Read more... )

I had baked this cake to make for practice and than my friend called and invited me over to watch Grey's Anatomy tonight at her house since I don't get TV channels here at home and would have had to wait to download it. She called me at 8 o'clock. Forty minutes later I had the cake decorated as you see it here and left to go to her house. It's a chocolate cake, filled with cookies 'n cream filling, iced in buttercream. All decorations are buttercream.

( My latest cake. )

Rachel