Un-pea pea soup

I have never really been a fan of pea soup. I've found it to be too thick, too sludge-like for my taste. It would cling to the insides of my throat as it went down, leaving me feeling like I'm choking while I'm eating it.

As an adult, I've found that perhaps I can enjoy pea soup, but only if I make it my own way, with plenty of other vegetables in them, and the special addition of fresh or frozen peas. Personally, I like the fresh/frozen peas simply because it gives the soup an additional fresh flavour to it, to counteract the sludge feeling I don't like. I also add in plenty of other fresh vegetables like carrots and potatoes to break up the thickness of the cooked peas.

If you want to try it, here's my recipe:

Cut up a small ham hock into chunks and place into a large soup pot. Add 4-5 cups of water or stock, along with 1 cup of dried split peas. Bring to boil and let simmer for an hour. Add 2 chopped celery stalks, 5 carrots cut in large chunks and 3 potatoes cut into quarters. Let it simmer for another hour or so, or until the potatoes and carrots are softened, but still retain their shape. Turn off the heat and add in a few handfuls of frozen peas, mixing to let the residual heat warm the peas.

You can use any vegetables you feel like adding... I usually slip in a parsnip or two, but I forgot to add them this time.

Carnivorous Cravings

Julie mentioned her carnivorous cravings, so I figured I'd make a brief post on that subject since I'm a devoted carnivore myself.

My birthday was a few weeks ago and I decided I wanted a really good quality steak. There is a top-notch butcher called John Dewars that my wife passes on her way home from work, so she went and picked me up a prime-grade T-bone that weighed in at nearly two pounds.

Olive oil, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper were all I seasoned it with. Four minutes on each side on high heat and that was that.

Not my best photo ever, but you get the idea. It was still nice and rare in the middle. I ended up gnawing the meat off the bones when I was done.

Seared Ahi Tacos & Blood Orange Shrimp Skewers

Who needs surf and turf when you can have surf and surf! That's right, guys. Since B is a pescatarian, I'm always looking for satisfying meat alternatives. I grew up in a household where vegetarianism meant chicken or smaller pieces of meat, so it's taken me time to adjust my diet. I love my vegetables and all, but sometimes I just can't help but to give into my carnivorous cravings. We'll save that for another post. :)

Now back to the subject at hand. Where were we? Aww yes, I remember. First we have our yummy seared ahi tuna cubes and chunks of creamy avocado wrapped in a sprouted corn tortilla. I'm really loving the Food for Life brand of tortillas currently (same company that makes the Ezekiel bread). And to accompany our tacos, we have broiled shrimp skewers marinaded in a mix of blood orange juice, olive oil and chili powder. The blood orange juice gives the shrimp just the slightest pretty pink stain. Surf's up dude!

Morning coffee

Most mornings, I make myself a good cup of coffee. The beans of choice this week were frantically picked up on Sunday at Molly Stone's in Pacific Heights. These beans are Newman's Own, medium roast, organic, and fair trade. I've never been one for the dark roasts, even though I like to drink my coffee strong. Those dark roasts seem to make the coffee itself too bitter for me. As other coffee drinkers may agree, strong is not the same as bitter.


On Buying Beans

I had run out of beans late last week and had been putting off buying a new bag, not being able to decide where to go. Since we're still relatively new here, I've been trying to buy different coffee beans every week. I usually try to get fair-trade coffee because it makes me feel a little better about my consumer-centric life, but it usually doesn't hurt too much if I don't. I also try to buy local since the coffee itself will be freshly roasted (usually in house at the coffeeshop) and I like supporting local businesses (down with the Bucks!). I'm not so silly to think that smaller is better, or that fair trade produces better coffee, but it soothes my conscience, so it's worth it.


On Making Coffee

To be sure, I am no connoisseur of coffee, but I do enjoy a nice cuppa. What's a nice cuppa to me? It can't be too bitter, but it has to be strong and easy to drink. Oh, and I drink it black. I always seem to forget that other people drink their coffee with milk and sugar, and we never seem to have milk in the fridge in case people stay over. Too bad for them right? We keep some Korean coffee mix (Maxim) on hand in case people stay over and they require the light brown kinda coffee.

Every morning, I set a pot of water on the stove and measure out the coffee beans into my hand-grinder. That's right: I hand-grind my coffee. Why? To be honest, I just like to do a little manual labour in the mornings. I don't mind it, and I much prefer the subtle crunching in the hand-grinder than the loud buzz of an electric grinder. I don't know that one method is better than another, but my hand-grinder takes just long enough to grind the beans while the water boils. I got my hand-grinder from REI and it's actually meant for camping coffee addicts, but it does a decent job in the comfort of my own home.

Once the water is boiled and the beans are ground, I toss everything into the french press, steep, plunge, and enjoy! It's really a nice easy method of making coffee, with minimal energy used (just the heat for boiling the water), and it makes for a nice morning ritual. God knows I like rituals in my life, and my morning cuppa is just my own little way of starting my day.


An additional note that has nothing to do with coffee

As an aside, I am really enjoying this multi-author blog! It's really fun to see Jeff's entries here. We don't have a lot of traffic, but it's still fun, and I think the traffic will come in due time.

Chu-toro and other goodies.

Yesterday was so nice that I decided to head down to the Charles River to see if the sakura near the Hatch Shell are in bloom yet. They aren't, but it was a nice walk and left me with a hefty appetite, so I headed to Porter Square and got a nice hot plate of katsu-kari at Cafe Mami.

On my way out I quickly walked through Kotobukiya to grab some onigiri and other goodies. They always have fresh, sushi grade fish for sale so I gave it a quick look and noticed chu-toro, which you rarely see for sale like this. It was about $8, but much cheaper than you'd ever find it in a restaurant so I grabbed some along with some salmon and maguro for dinner.

I didn't realize until I got home that I had no soy sauce in the house (it spilled all over the inside of the refrigerator) so I improvised and used soba dipping sauce instead. It worked out OK.

Ippudo Ramen, New York City

About a 10 minute walk from my dorm in Tokyo was Ippudo Ramen. (fyi if you click the link turn off the annoying music with a tiny little button on the bottom of the page, middle-right)

Ippudo is a small chain in Japan with about 30 or so shops around the country. I can remember checking their website and seeing a note that they were planning to expand and open a shop in the US, but no timeframe was given. Since it's impossible to get that quality of ramen in Boston, I was forced to forget about it lest I torture myself unnecessarily.

As I prepared to head to New York and visit with some college buddies, I figured I'd be able to find some ramen that would at least compare to what I'd found in Japan. I fired up Yelp and searched New York for ramen. I was shocked when Ippudo was near the top of the list. They had literally opened on Monday (March 31st.) I counted my blessings and headed there for lunch shortly after arriving.

By necessity and culture Ippudo is different in New York than it is in Tokyo. It's much bigger and roomier. Americans probably would not tolerate being seated as closely as Japanese are accustomed. Unfortunately my beloved gyoza (pork dumplings) are not on the menu though I hope they will add them soon.

Ippudo1

We started off with the chicken karagge, essentially battered fried chicken. The Japanese tend to like dark meat, and there was no exception made here as the chicken was moist and juicy and had a very spicy sauce on top.

We both got shiromaru ramen with a side of rice. Mine was topped with cod roe, seaweed and some mayonnaise. It was quite good and the stickiness of the rice was perfect.

The ramen itself was very good. Soft but still with a good bite. The broth was exactly as a remembered, rich and fatty and delicious. In Japan they offer you an option of firm or soft noodles, I hope they add this as well as the only difference is in cooking time.

The only disappointments were the pork slices. I think that perhaps they are using a less fatty cut of pork here and it was a bit dry. I would also like an option to pay more and get more pork slices. In Tokyo you could go from two slices to six for another Y200. I'd like to see this option here as well because honestly, who isn't willing to pay a small sum for extra pork?

I can't wait to come back and try Ippudo again!


And just for reference's sake, here are some shots of Ippudo ramen from Tokyo with six slices of pork

Luu Noodle

Ah, Luu Noodle... it's a fast-food noodle shop with plenty of tables, a waitstaff with dead spirits, and fast service. I mean, fast. I'm almost positive that everything is pre-cooked in the back and they just pour some hot soup on top to warm it up. But...... it's still a good place to have a quick meal during a day of shopping.

We were in the mood for noodles, so we stopped in one hot afternoon during a shopping trip to Daiso (yay, Japanese 100Y store!). The place was crowded with people having a late lunch, steaming bowls of noodles set on the table before them. Yes, it's a noodle-shop, the most generic kind of noodle-shop there is around here, packed with families and people looking for a cheap meal. The place might not be the cleanest or highest quality, but they do a decent job for mass-produced food.

Luu Noodle, Mountain View.

Weinerschnitzel

We don't eat a lot of junk food, but we've had some friends visiting us, so I've been eating my share of junk food that they enjoy. One of my friends really adores hot dogs, so we decided to head to Weinerschnitzel (at the intersection of 4th and Taylor, San Jose) for a hot dog fix after a morning spent playing at the pool.

Much to my friend's horror, I have never been to Wienerschnitzel before, even though we live so close to one. Of course, they were stunned and amazed by all the wonderful beautiful options at the store and ended up trying a lot of items. Together they managed to eat:

• Two original mustard dogs
• Italian sausage (bottom right)
  
• Chicago dog (top right)
  
• Pastrami dog (bottom left)
• One order jalapeno poppers
• One order mini corn dogs
• Small fries

They're both pretty amazingly thin for the amount of food they can pack away. They both proclaimed Weinerschnitzel their new favourite place, and lamented the fact that there are none located near them. In fact, if you go to the Locations Page, they don't even bother including the east coast on the map. What's pretty interesting is that there are none in Boston (where my friends are from), but they have a franchise location in Guam (of all places!). Hmm... I guess they could always take a vacation to Guam and have Weinerschnitzel there if they really wanted to.

I ate a pastrami sandwich, which was pretty good, but the meat was super fatty, which isn't so wonderful. It also wasn't so photogenic, which explains why there are no photos of it.

Chives pancake

The other day at the Korean store, I found a package of Kimbo Brand frozen chinese chives cakes. It said it was easy to pan-fry, so of course I gave in to my impulse buy and decided to get it. You never know when you're going to have a chives pancake craving when all the Chinese restos are shut.

The directions were pretty simple: heat some oil in a wok, brown one side with 2-3 Tbsp of water, and repeat on the other side. Actually, the directions told me to "make brown side" on each side of the pancake before serving (I love Engrish!). Easy-peasy, right? Well, it actually was pretty easy to cook, which was a big relief. I'm always worried about these packaged foods not coming out as easily as they claim.

The pancakes themselves came out quite nice, with a very nice browned outside, and plenty of chives on the inside. I only wish the dough wasn't so doughy and thick. It was otherwise a wonderful (MSG-free) snack for our friends.