Wednesday, September 23, 2009

100 Chinese Foods to Try Before You Die

While we're listing goals...

I didn't do quite as well on this one.

[ETA - I'm updating this after my 2 1/2 months in Indonesia & SE Asia. Unsurprirsingly, there's a lot to add.]

  1. Almond milk
  2. Ants Climbing a Tree (poetic, not literal, name)
  3. Asian pear
  4. Baby bok choy
  5. Baijiu
  6. Beef brisket
  7. Beggar's Chicken
  8. Bingtang hulu
  9. Bitter melon
  10. Bubble tea - my favorite
  11. Buddha's Delight
  12. Cantonese roast duck
  13. Century egg, or thousand-year egg - not so bad, actually.
  14. Cha siu (Cantonese roast pork)
  15. Char kway teow - Indonesia
  16. Chicken feet - a little chewy for my taste
  17. Chinese sausage
  18. Chow mein
  19. Chrysanthemum tea
  20. Claypot rice
  21. Congee - (aka bubur ayam, in Indonesia. Pretty sure I also had it at a Vietnamese pace in Philly once.)
  22. Conpoy (dried scallops)
  23. Crab rangoon
  24. Dan Dan noodles
  25. Dragonfruit
  26. Dragon's Beard candy
  27. Dried cuttlefish - no, but I saw a vendor with a cart of them
  28. Drunken chicken
  29. Dry-fried green beans
  30. Egg drop soup
  31. Egg rolls
  32. Egg tart, Cantonese or Macanese
  33. Fresh bamboo shoots - picked 'em myself in Laos
  34. Fortune cookies
  35. Fried milk
  36. Fried rice - the only Chinese food I'd eat until age 10 or so, when I discovered wonton soup.
  37. Gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
  38. General Tso's Chicken
  39. Gobi Manchurian
  40. Goji berries (Chinese wolfberries)
  41. Grass jelly - I think so.
  42. Hainan chicken rice
  43. Hand-pulled noodles
  44. Har gau (steamed shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers)
  45. Haw flakes
  46. Hibiscus tea aka jamaica aka Red Zinger
  47. Hong Kong-style Milk Tea
  48. Hot and sour soup
  49. Hot Coca-Cola with Ginger -????
  50. Hot Pot
  51. Iron Goddess tea (Tieguanyin)
  52. Jellyfish
  53. Kosher Chinese food
  54. Kung Pao Chicken
  55. Lamb skewers (yangrou chua'r) - street vendor in Flushing
  56. Lion's Head meatballs
  57. Lomo Saltado
  58. Longan fruit
  59. Lychee
  60. Macaroni in soup with Spam - eew?
  61. Malatang
  62. Mantou, especially if fried and dipped in sweetened condensed milk
  63. Mapo Tofu - my current favorite thing ever
  64. Mock meat
  65. Mooncake (bonus points for the snow-skin variety)
  66. Nor mai gai (chicken and sticky rice in lotus leaf)
  67. Pan-fried jiaozi
  68. Peking duck
  69. Pineapple bun - (the Indonesian variety)
  70. Prawn crackers - krupuk udang, served at nearly every meal in Malang
  71. Pu'er tea
  72. Rambutan
  73. Red bean in dessert form - once, as a child, thinking it was chocolate - never again.
  74. Red bayberry
  75. Red cooked pork
  76. Roast pigeon
  77. Rose tea
  78. Roujiamo
  79. Scallion pancake
  80. Shaved ice dessert
  81. Sesame chicken
  82. Sichuan pepper in any dish - Sichuan pepper in every dish!
  83. Sichuan preserved vegetable (zhacai)
  84. Silken tofu
  85. Soy milk, freshly made
  86. Steamed egg custard
  87. Stinky tofu
  88. Sugar cane juice - with lemon in a Singapore hawker center
  89. Sweet and sour pork, chicken, or shrimp
  90. Taro like a cross between a potato and an apple, except delicious. Helped harvest them in a little village in Java.
  91. Tea eggs
  92. Tea-smoked duck
  93. Turnip cake (law bok gau)
  94. Twice-cooked pork
  95. Water chestnut cake (mati gau)
  96. Wonton noodle soup
  97. Wood ear - I'm pretty sure
  98. Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings)
  99. Yuanyang (half coffee, half tea, Hong Kong style)
  100. Yunnan goat cheese

Another goal to aim for...

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
"Here’s what I want you to do:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating."

Keeping in mind that I haven't eaten seafood or (corn-fed) beef in about 10 years...
[ETA - also updated after Indonesia etc. Not much longer, but way more badass.]

1. Venison - got some sausages in my freezer right now
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich - probably tried one at one point. I hate peanut butter. Jelly too, actually.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart - long long ago...
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle - it was on a terrible dish of macaroni & cheese.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - wine tasting in CT. Strawberry. Not terrible.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes - mmmmmm
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras - in Italy I was served some sort of liver - foie gras? pate? - rolled up in pork. Way too rich - I couldn't eat it.
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda - I've taken to eating the Northern Italian version, with olive oil, tomatoes, salt, pepper, & herbs on a good baguette. Fantastic in late summer.
31. Wasabi peas - yuck
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
X 38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O X - never tried a jello shot in college, though they were common. I'd like to think I've got the good sense not to do it now.
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail - sup buntut, an Indo specialty
41. Curried goat - no, but I did have goat satay
42. Whole insects - grasshopper tacos in New York, fried tarantulas in Cambodia, fried crickets in Laos, and silkworm larvae & a giant water beetle in Thailand. Tasty little buggers, for the most part (pun fully intended).
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk - goat cheese and yogurt yes, never straight milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - Octomore
X 46. Fugu X - I'm not willing to risk death for a piece of fish. Sorry.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - at the Modern Languages Dep't party senior year of college, the same professor who'd just introduced me to Barolo offered me one of these. What a cruel trick.
53. Abalone - New Zealand, in fritter form.
54. Paneer - had some for lunch today, in fact.
X 55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal X
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine - Melted cheese & french fries... yum.
60. Carob chips - tastes like raisins.
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian - Durian cake from Singapore, actually; the beginner's version of the fruit. Kind of like the inside of a Fig Newton, but denser, stickier, and made of durian. Tasted like onions. ETA - had a durian shake in Malang. Fruit really shouldn't taste like onions.
66. Frogs’ legs - very tasty.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - all of the above
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe - I have a bottle of absinthe that I bought in Switzerland. Is it louche? I don't know.
74. Gjetost, or brunost
X 75. Roadkill X
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail - If rubber bands and dirt had a love child, it would be a snail. The garlic butter was good though.
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - does rabbit count?
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
X 91. Spam X
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa - definitely harissa. Not sure if it was rose or not.
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake - cobra. First I drank its blood and bile from a shot glass, then ate the stir-fried meat for dinner. A little chewy, but not bad. And yes, I have pictures to prove it.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Speaking of Thai...

Thai recipes & ingredients: http://importfood.com/recipes.html

Friday, August 14, 2009

RIN Thai

A quick review of my lunch yesterday at RIN Thai:
DO go for the lunch specials. Really, go. $8 gets you an appetizer and an entree big enough to make two meals. Seriously, I had my leftovers for lunch today. The chicken prik khing was excellent. The pineapple fried rice was excellent. The sangria ($20 for a pitcher) was really really excellent.
DO go to the bathroom, whether you need to go or not. It's cooler than the dining room. And the dining room's pretty cool. Think pebbles, Buddhas, and fountains.
DON'T order the steamed vegetable dumpling appetizer. It was so overcooked it fell apart in my chopsticks before I'd lifted it 2 inches off the plate. And then it was nearly flavorless. I was not amused. But seriously, the sangria's awesome.

RIN Thai
265 W 23rd St
(Btwn 7th & 8th Ave)
(212) 675-2988
www.menupages.com/restaurants/rin/

Not For Vegetarians

This guy ate a different animal's meat every week for a year, from cow (boring) to scorpions (less boring) to python (pretty neat). As of writing I've tried 14 or his 52 critters, plus whatever was in that Namibian Biltong (aka unspecifiedwild game jerky) I tried once in college - "ingredients may include springbok, kudu, wildebeest..." This may set off a quest a la my strange and unusual fruits obsession - I'll keep you posted.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Mickey D's gets a makeover

This is beyond amazing: www.fancyfastfood.com/ Still wouldn't want to eat it, but it sure looks pretty.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Stuffing myself in NYC

My aunt & uncle just spent the weekend visiting here in NYC, and while they're not foodies/hounds/pick your label of choice, they do enjoy taking poor little unemployed me out to dinner at places I might not otherwise make it to. So here's an account of our Big Weekend of Eating in New York:

-Thursday lunch: DB Bistro Moderne. This was actually the day before they arrived, but close enough. In honor of restaurant week and prix fixe menus at places I could otherwise never afford, my boyfriend and I went for lunch at DB Bistro Moderne. Apps were great; I got the Alsatian flammenku"che (listed as "tarte flambee" on the online version of the menu) with bacon & onions, and he got the sweet corn soup with shrimp. Boulud knows his produce (cf also our desserts), and the corn soup had a great clean pure corn flavor. As for my tarte, bacon, cheese, & onion happens to be one of my favorite flavor combinations, so I was happy. For the main course we both got the couscous, which came with a piece of lamb, a chicken thigh, and merguez sausage, along with some diced veggies & chickpeas. Good but not outstanding; if I were to do it again I'd order the risotto instead. Dessert brought it back up to a higher level - I got the peach & nectarine crisp, which had the most incredibly intense peach flavor. I wish all peaches tasted like that. The BF's chocolate hazelnut cake was delicious and rich without being overwhelming, and had a wonderfully silky texture. We both ordered orange spritzers ($5) to drink, which were nice and refreshing but nothing special. Verdict: I'd go back for sure.

-Friday dinner: More restaurant week reservations at Mia Dona. They're offering basically the same prixe fix menu they offer at lunch all year, extended for restaurant week to dinner as well. I started with the Mia meatballs, which were fantastic (the big piece of cured pork - sauteed prosciutto? pancetta? guanciale? - in the sauce with them certainly didn't hurt). Main course was the rigatoni alla Norma. In all a successful dish, but the smoked mozzarella in it seemed excessive - it already had smokiness from the eggplant and salty/cheesy richness from the grated ricotta salata, so the mozz was a little redundant. But aside from a few chunks of cheese I happily cleaned my plate. My uncle enjoyed his cod quite a bit, but since I didn't taste it I can't report in detail. To get some veggies in there we ordered a side of sauteed haricots verts for the table - buttery, garlickey deliciousness, topped with dill & fried breadcrumbs. Desserts were also quite good; my vanilla panna cotta was strangely jiggly (maybe a little heavy on the gelatin?) but delicious, and my aunt's tiramisu was the first thing on the able to go. I should also mention the bread basket here, which includes some fantastic foccaccia alongside the more traditional bread slices, and a head of roasted garlic. Again, worth another visit.

-Saturday lunch: Co. I've been here several times before and loved it, and this visit didn't disappoint. We skipped the apps entirely and just ordered 3 pizzas: a margherita, a ham & cheese, and a popeye. I'd never had a margherita here before, and I thought it was really fanastic. Perhaps my new favorite pizza at Co. Ham & cheese was a repeat for me, and with that much prosciutto draped across the top, how can you go wrong? The caraway seeds are a nice touch too. I wasn't as crazy about the popeye; some bites had great flavor but some were slightly bland. That was also the one pizza out of the three that was charred enough to taste burnt to me. Verdict: So happy I live on the same block as this place.

-Saturday dinner: Szechuan Gourmet. I love this place. Apps were steamed vegetable dumplings (good if not terribly exciting) and dan dan noodles (quite possibly my favorite thing to eat in all of New York, even if they went a little light on the szechuan peppercorns this time). My aunt, who doesn't like spicy foods, ordered the chicken & broccoli, and my uncle got General Tso's chicken. Both were sweet & sticky but better than what you get at a lot of American Chinese places. After smelling it at a neighboring table during my last visit, I had to order the crispy lamb fillets with chili cumin. The lamb was slightly greasier than I would have liked, but deliciously cuminy, with just a little kick of spice and a great crunchy/tender texture. As were were walking down the block to the subway afterwards our waitress chased us down outside to give me back my sunglasses, which had fallen out of my bag at the table. Verdict: Bruni was right about them.

-Sunday Brunch: JoeDoe. Final meal of the visit. We came by at about 11:15 (they open at 11 on sundays) and were seated immediately, but by the time we left around noon they were full up, so come early for good seats. We chose JoeDoe for brunch based on the recent writeup in Time Out New York's brunch issue and my hankering for chilaquiles, which I fell in love with in Mexico this winter and hadn't had since. We weren't disappointed. First off, the biscuits with honey butter they brought to the table were just so good. Biscuits were big and moist and the honey butter was a creamy salty sweet pot of addictive deliciousness. I gotta find me a recipe for that. My aunt got the challah french toast with fresh fruit, which was (I kid you not) about 2 inches thick and delicious. My chilaquiles were nothing like those I had in Zihuatanejo, but utterly delicious nonetheless. Instead of crunchy tortilla chips topped with sauce, melted cheese, and bits of meat & veggies, this was a puffy tortilla, topped with a mound of scrambled duck eggs, crumbled chorizo, beans, guacamole, crema, and sauce, more like an unrolled breakfast burrito. My uncle finished every last bite of his eggs benedict, but I didn't get to taste. I liked the ambiance, definitely trendy but in a Brooklyn sort of way, very low-key. Verdict: Can't wait for more relatives to visit so I can finagle another meal here.

Sunday dinner through the foreseeable future: I'm about ready to swear off food for good. So full. But totally worth it.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Fruit-o-mania

Just finished The Fruit Hunters by Adam Leith Gollner - great book. Now I'm scouring Whole Foods (and, more successfully, Chinatown) for all the strange fruits I've never tried before. So far on my list:
-jackfruit (in a shake): tastes kind of pineapple-coconutty.
-guanabana (aka soursop) in a shake: a little sour but good.
-kumquats
-kiwiberries
-real kiwis
-atualfo mangoes
-asian pear (underripe - yuck)
-longans
-lychees
update:
-rambutans
-cherimoya
-dragonfruit
update 8/3/09:
Just went to the produce place in Chelsea Market. For $22 ended up with:
-goldenberries (aka Cape Gooseberries) - delicious, citrussy. Related to tomatillos.
-passionfruit
-ugli fruit (tastes way better than it looks - reminds me of a clementine)
-fresh figs (a little underripe, I think)
-guava (maybe not quite ripe? kinda bland and grainy, but not bad)
-golden kiwi
-pepino melon
-fresh almonds
-starfruit (aka carambola)
-prickly pear fruit (I think?)
-quenepa (aka mamoncillo) (not much there to eat, and really slimy texture, but tastes good)
plus some blueberries & plums. Excellent spot for good, cheap produce.
Will keep this list updated as I try more.
This is kinda cool, while we're at it: http://fruitspecies.blogspot.com/

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Leftover Soup

Next up in Easy Recipes I Like:

Pappa al Pomodoro

At its simplest, this is an easy, cheap, delicious soup and a good way to use that stale bread that you'd otherwise throw out. If you wanna get fancy, it's a catchall for all your leftover bits and pieces. The basic recipe comes from my semester abroad in Italy; the variations are whatever I ate the night before.

-Stale Italian bread, sliced thin
-olive oil
-butter
-onion
-garlic
-chopped herbs (marjoram, oregano, parsley, basil, whatever)
-chicken broth
-canned tomatoes
-salt & pepper to taste
-pinch o' cayenne (optional. but then isn't everything?)
-grated parmeggiano or romano cheese.

1) Chop the onion fine and saute it in oil and butter til it's translucent. Add the garlic and saute til it smells good.

2) Rip the bread into small pieces and add it to the pot. Swirl it around until it's soaked up lots of oil and garlic.

3) If you've got crushed or diced tomatoes, pour them straight into the pot. If they're whole, chop them up first. Add a cup or two of chicken broth, the herbs, and cayenne.

4) Let it cook, stirring occasionally, until everything's nice and mushy. Add the cheese and S&P to taste. To smooth it out, put in in the blender or a food processor, put it through a potato ricer, use an immersion blender, or try a potato masher. Or just eat it lumpy; that's good too.

Variations:
After blending, add:
-cooked pasta (for extra carbs)
-cooked rice (ditto)
-cooked ground beef/lamb/turkey/pork/whatever
-cooked sausage or little meatballs
-leftover meat, chopped up
-the juices from said leftover meat
-spinach
-white beans
-other veggies
-and/or whatever else you need to get out of the fridge

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

What I ate yesterday

I'm unemployed. It's cold out. I'm bored. Hence, I cook. In an effort to keep track of some of the more delicious things I've made (let's be honest, who reads this thing but me?) here's the first in a series of tasty things I've made.


Iranian Pasta

Probably not Iranian at all, but vaguely Middle-Eastern, and "Iranian Pasta" sounds good. You don't like it, get your own blog.

2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1/3 pound lamb
garam masala*
half a zucchini
half an eggplant
half a cucumber
plain yogurt
feta cheese
1/2 box of spaghetti or any other pasta
cayenne pepper to taste

1) Chop the onion and garlic very fine and saute for a minute in olive oil. Add the lamb, a generous amount of garam masala, and some salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the lamb is no longer pink. urn off the heat and let sit until you've finished everything else.

2) While the lamb is cooking, put the pasta on to boil.

3) Also while the lamb is cooking, slice the eggplant thin, salt it, and set it aside. Slice the zucchini thin, salt it, and grill it. I used a George Foreman oiled with olive oil; a real grill or probably even a hot skillet or toaster oven would work. When the zucchini's done, grill the eggplant the same way. Chop it all up into chunks.

4) Peel the cucumber and chop it into small pieces.

5) When the pasta's tender, drain it and put it in the serving bowl. Add a few dollops of plain yogurt, a handful of feta, the veggies, and the lamb. Mix it all up until the pasta's coated with the sauce. If you want more sauce, add more yogurt. Add cayenne and salt to taste.


*Garam masala is (roughly):
1 tbsp cardamom seeds
1 2-inch stick cinnamon
1 tsp cumin seeds
3/4 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 of a nutmeg
1 tsp cloves

Grind it all together in a (clean!!) coffee grinder until smooth. Or just buy a packet at the store.

And they say we don't have an "American Cuisine"

Not sure if this site makes me hungry or nauseous.
http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

Saturday, February 7, 2009

another site

This guy's a hoot:
www.thegutsygourmet.net

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Some neat sites

I recently came across these two sites and thought they were worth sharing. Appetite for China is a blog (mostly) about Chinese food, with recipes to go along. I'll be trying their Sichuan Cucumber salad today. TasteSpotting is "visual representation of something delicious," gorgeous food-porn photos linking to the stories and blogs where they came from. Both are definitely worth a look.

Monday, January 12, 2009

I <3 Sausages

There's been a lot of talk around about Dogmatic Gourmet Sausage Systems, the sausage place that opened up about a month ago right near Union Square. After two lunches there, I'd say it's deserved - this place knows their dogs. A sausage, poked into a hollowed-out baguette and doused with sauce is $4.50, a damn good deal for just about any neighborhood.
The first time I was there I had a lamb sausage with sun-dried tomato-feta sauce. I'm happy with just about anything that's got feta in it, but this went beyond just satisfying my Greek cheese fetish. The lamb was flavorful without being gamey; the sauce was a reminder that before sun-dried tomatoes became a '90s cliche they got popular for a reason; and the bread... they should win awards for that baguette (baked at "artisanal bakeries such as Pan D'Avignon," according to the website. Fresh, hot, crusty, chewey, carbiferous goodness. The one downside was that, while the hollow-out-a-baguette-and-stick-a-sausage-in-it design means that when you take a bite out of one end, all the sauce-covered insides don't squirt out the other end - they squirt back towards you, dripping orange gunk down your coat as you walk through Union Square. So consider yourself warned, and take some napkins.
On my second visit I ordered the pork sausage with truffled gruyere sauce. I was less impressed this time around - the pork was a little hot-doggy, and the gruyere sauce added a lot of richness but less flavor than I would have liked. Still, it was hot, gooey, and filling, so I'd say I got my $4.50 worth.
Also on the menu are tortilla chips (with your choice of the same sauces that come with the sausages), handmade sodas, and some frozen desserts. I tasted a sample of the chocolate soft-serve and found it too sweet for my taste, but the ginger soda ($2.50) was great, with a recognizable ginger taste and a little bit of kick. Mmm. I'll have one of those with my dog any day.

Dogmatic Gourmet Sausage Systems
26 E. 17th St (just west of Union Square)
eatdogmatic.com