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For this week’s theme, I wanted to make a Malaysian feast for some of my law school friends. I started with this chicken curry recipe because I liked the fact that it had a ton of different and interesting ingredients (coconut, curry leaves, lemongrass, etc). This was delicious and intense, but the lemongrass chunks got scattered throughout the dish and made it a little hard to eat. I would definitely tie them into knots (like in the rice dish) next time. To go with that, I had to make nasi lemak, a coconut and lemongrass flavored rice. I found the recipe for this in Cradle of Flavor, an Indonesian, Malaysian, and Singaporean cookbook I borrowed from my parents for Week 34 (Indonesian) inspiration. It was a little undercooked, but it is the closest I have come to successful rice on the stove so far. I liked the coconut and ginger and lemongrass flavors that were subtle but persistent in the dish. From my reading, nasi lemak is usually served with, among other things, fried peanuts and some kind of pickle. I made these fried peanuts because they were simple but delicious looking. They turned out really well, though some got a little over-fried. I also made pickled cucumbers, carrots, fresno chilies and shallots with a turmeric-ginger flavoring (also from Cradle of Flavor). These were delicious and a refreshing counterpoint to the richness of the curry and the rice.

For my MetaTheme, I made this Malaysian Negroni. I’m not normally a huge Negroni fan (a little too bitter for my tastes) but I didn’t have a ton of choices available to me. Malaysia is 80% muslim and buddhist so the cocktail culture is pretty limited. I liked that the recipe incorporated some classic Malaysian ingredients in an interesting way. I infused the chili into the Campari for about 4 hours and the lemongrass into the vermout for 3 days. When I tasted the Campari straight, the spice wasn’t super prominent but it really came through in the final drink. I think the Campari was too bitter for me to taste the spice. The lemongrass added a really interesting herbaceous note to the cocktail that I liked a lot.

This dish turned out awesome--it's definitely going into the rotation. I expected it to taste a lot like pad thai as the ingredients were quite similar but the flavor profile was actually pretty different thanks to the caramel-based sauce and lack of tamarind/lime.

Recipe is from the excellent cookbook Hawker Fare by James Syhabout which has a mix of Lao & Thai recipes. I modified it slightly to reduce the amount of oil, increase the amount of fish sauce & shallots slightly, and incorporate meat & broccoli/veggies to make it a complete meal.

RECIPE: I recommend halving this unless you are cooking for a crowd. Plus half the recipe cooked up perfectly in a regular cast iron skillet.

Ingredients:

OMELET (KHAI JIAO)

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon fish sauce

2 teaspoons canola oil

NOODLES

0.5 lb chicken, pork, or 1 block tofu (optional)

any other vegetable you want to include

24 ounces dried medium-wide rice noodles

1/4 cup canola oil

100 grams granulated sugar

1/2 cup sliced shallots

2 tablespoons finely minced garlic

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

3 tablespoons Gold Mountain brand seasoning sauce (can sub soy sauce)

1/3 cup fish sauce

1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce (I subbed regular soy sauce)

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon MSG (optional)

2 cups mung bean sprouts

1½ cups scallions, in 1-inch pieces

GARNISHES

Sliced omelet

2 tablespoons Fried Shallots (optional)

½ cup chopped cilantro, stems included

1 cup mung bean sprouts

CONDIMENTS

Prik phong (ground toasted chile) or Sriracha

Directions:

MAKE THE OMELET: Crack the eggs into a small mixing bowl and add the fish sauce. Beat with a fork, as if making scrambled eggs. Add the oil to an 8-inch nonstick sauté pan over medium heat. When it’s warm pour in the egg mixture and tilt the pan to ensure the egg covers the bottom. Continue to cook over gentle heat for about 3 minutes—you’ll notice the top of the omelet firming up. (If it starts to color it means the pan is too hot; remove the pan from the heat.) Once the top is firm, flip and cook over low heat for another minute. Slide the omelet out of the pan and onto a plate to cool. Slice into ¼-inch by 2-inch slivers and reserve for garnishing.

MAKE THE NOODLES: Cook the noodles according to package directions, but undercook them by a minute or two as you'll finish cooking them in the pan.

If adding meat or other vegetables, stir fry them now then set aside.

Add the oil and sugar to a saucepan with a wide diameter and mix well; set over medium-high heat. As the oil gets hot the sugar will caramelize. Cook until the caramel turns a deep amber.

Once it has reached the desired color turn off the heat, carefully add the shallots and garlic, and give it a stir with a spoon to sweat the aromatics—at this point your kitchen should smell very good. Sweat the aromatics for 1 minute, deglaze with the water, and stir well. Add the seasonings (oyster sauce, seasoning sauce, fish sauce, sweet soy sauce, black pepper, and MSG, if using) and mix well.

Return the saucepan to medium heat and bring to a simmer. Add the drained noodles and cook, stirring constantly with a pair of tongs. Move the noodles as if tossing a salad—they’ll wilt and slowly soak up the sauce. When the noodles have absorbed all the sauce and the pan is dry, with no residual sauce remaining, turn off the heat and fold in the bean sprouts and scallions, again like tossing a salad. Season to taste with additional salt, soy sauce, and/or fish sauce. Top with the omelet slices, fried shallots, and chopped cilantro, with a side of extra mung bean sprouts. Serve with prik phong or Sriracha.

Although I am not an avid book reader and don't crack open books as often as I'd like to, I was recently recommended the book Julie & Julia 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen and since I had from free time from work I figured I would check it out. I haven't seen the movie (although I do now), but the book was just fantastic. I loved reading about the author's culinary journey, which is similar to trying to commit to cooking specific dishes 52 weeks in the year. ;)

In order to honor this book, I found a French dish to cook. If I was able to get my hands on the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1, which is the book the author tries to go through in her own journey, I would have made a dish from that. Unfortunately I couldn't but I did have another book I was reading through at the time that goes over the fifth taste of Umami, so I found a French dish from this book to cook.

The lamb was delicious and the Merlot sauce they have you make with it was phenomenal; we used that as a dressing for the pasta noodles. The only thing I didn't nail was the coulis; I couldn't get it pureed down enough. I left some of the veggies out of the processor to serve with the coulis to help add some texture to the dish. Overall, 10 out of 10, would try again!

____

Julie & Julia 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen

The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami - Colorado Lamb Loin on Ratatouille Coulis, Topped with Green Onions and Merlot Sauce

Basic Recipe from Book (in case you want to cook this):

• 2 Lamb Loins - rub olive oil and fresh crushed thyme over the loins and marinate for at least 6 hours.
  
  
• Dice up eggplant and saute in pan. When soft, remove and then dice up 2 green squash and saute in pan. When that's soft, remove and dice up an onion and saute. When that turns yellow, add in 1 crush garlic, 1 peeled, seeded, and diced tomato, and saute for 5 minutes. Then add everything back in an top with 5-7 leaves of julienned basil and 1 tsp of fresh thyme. Salt and pepper to taste, and then pour in blender and blend until smooth, set aside.
  
  
• Take 4.5 tsp olive oil and warm up. Add 18 green onions, dices 1/4" thin, and saute until just warm. Add 4.5 tsp heavy cream, stir, add salt and pepper to taste, then set aside.
  
  
• Cook lamb on stove to form a nice crust on each side, then take out of pan. Add 1 medium diced onion and 1 diced carrot to the bottom of the pan and saute until starting to get tender. Add lamb back on top and cook in over for 6-8 minutes at 425 degrees. Take out of oven, remove lamb, add 1/4 cup Merlot, and cook until almost dried out. Add in liquid from plate from the resting lambs, and then add 1.5 cups chicken broth and 1.5 tsp cornstarch. Bring to a boil, and then reduce.
  
  
• To serve, place coulis down on plate first. Place veggies from lamb dish off to the side. Place lamb on the coulis, and then top with the green onion compote. Enjoy! (we added some spaghetti to the dish and it was amazing with the lamb-veggies and sauce!)
  

If you feel like doing a deep-dive, I'm a total taco nerd! I have a couple posts here on them:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/IWantToLearn/comments/bl2d21/iwtl_how_to_makecook_tacos/emmb5wz/?context=3
  
  I buy the lard (leaf lard) for my homemade flour tortillas here: (these days, I just buy them pre-packaged in the one-pound bags & then freeze them to extend the shelf life)
  
  
• https://fannieandflo.net/products/1-pound-leaf-lard
  
  You can use the lard for other stuff, like these amazing carnitas:
  
  
• https://www.afamilyfeast.com/carnitas/
  
  If you don't want to go the lard route, this is a good technique that uses warm milk for no-knead tortillas:
  
  
• https://sometimesyouneedtocook.com/the-best-no-knead-flour-tortillas/
  
  For homemade corn tortillas, I use this nixtamalization process:
  
  
• https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/04/how-to-make-fresh-nixtamalized-corn-tortillas-from-scratch.html
  
  I buy my flour & corn in 25-pound bags. I store them in 5-gallon food-grade pails with a twist-off lid: (I use OXO Pop containers for smaller quantities in the kitchen, plus a scoop to reload those containers as needed)
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Gamma2-4120-Gamma-Seal-Lid/dp/B007KAZ1W0/
  
  I use a monster 10" cast-iron press: (expensive, but it's a lifetime purchase, re: /r/BuyItForLife, and works for both big & little tortillas)
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QDZRCCY
  
  I use this microwaveable warmer to keep the tortillas warm for serving:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GVNH7YV
  
  Internet Shaquille has a great video on why restaurant burritos are better than homemade & what to do about it:
  
  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osv72OeCpR0
  
  Quick-pickled onions are a really great taco topping to try out, here's a couple recipes:
  
  
• https://cookieandkate.com/quick-pickled-onions-recipe/
  
• https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/quick-pickled-red-onions/
  
  That may seem like an overwhelming amount of information for mere tacos, but having the equipment, supplies, and recipes already setup in my kitchen means that it's a piece of cake...I've got tons of flour in my big bucket & use that to refill my Pop containers in my kitchen, then I can grab some flour, whip up some no-knead tortillas, let them sit for 30 minutes, smash it on my press, cook it in a skillet, and keep it warm in the fabric warming disc. Homemade tortillas are a huge step up in quality, taste, texture, and functionality over store-bought ones, and you can do so many things with them that it makes setting up an nice little workflow at home worth doing if you're into tortillas!

I had a lot of fun blasting 80's music and rocking out while cooking dinner tonight! I was only alive for one year of the 80's but I love the music, the movies and in high school I was very inspired by the fashions too! Never really thought about the foods of the 80's before now though, more new things that wouldn't have happened without this challenge.

I made the vodka sauce recipe from the Veganomicon cookbook, substituting cashew cream for immersion-blended almonds. It was so good!! This will definitely become a regular dinner!

The walnuts were simply cooked with some brown sugar.

The raspberry vinaigrette is from the Vitamix website and was easy to make and pretty good I substituted apple syrup and agave syrup for the honey in this recipe.

"Blackened Aspargus" might not actually be a thing, and it's really just sauteed in olive oil with salt and pepper and no cajun spices at all, but I thought that one more 80's element would really round out the meal!

Stewed Rabbit: "You'll eat Rabbit, or you won't eat. Roast rabbit on a spit would be quickest, if you've got a hunger. Or might be you'd like it stewed, with ale and onions." Arya could almost taste the rabbit. "We have no coin, but we brought some carrots and cabbages we could trade you". (A Storm of Swords). Very good but very plain. Most certainly felt like a hearty stew that I'd want to be greeted with at an Inn after a long day of travel.


Sansa's Lemon Cakes: "Later came sweetbreads and pigeon pie and baked apples fragrant with cinnamon and lemon cakes frosted in sugar, but by then Sansa was so stuffed that she could not manage more than two little lemon cakes, as much as she loved them" These went away so quickly! Family was grabbing them off the cooling rack before they'd even been iced. I now understand why they are so often pilfered from the King's Landing kitchens. Again, very simple, but packed with sweet, tart lemon flavor. I should note that when I prepared the recipe as instructed the dough was very, very dry, and that I had to squeeze in a lot of lemon juice to get it to the right consistency.

Both of these dishes were taken from A Feast of Ice & Fire. While each dish also had a more modern recipe, I decided to go with the more traditional approach.

Biscuit top for 4 ramekin pot pies:

• 31⁄3 egg whites
  
• 200 ml (100 g) almond flour
  
• 11⁄3 tbsp (10 g) oat fiber or half the amount of coconut flour
  
• 40 ml shredded mozzarella cheese
  
• 2⁄3 tsp (3 g) baking powder
  
• 1⁄3 tsp salt
  
• 1⁄6 tsp xanthan gum (optional) (I threw in some psyillum husk instead)
  
• 2 tbsp butter
  
  

1. Use a hand mixer to beat the egg whites until frothy, but not stiff.
   
2. Add in almond flour, oat fiber, mozzarella cheese, baking powder, xanthin gum and salt and mix well with the hand mixer.
   
3. Add in butter and beat with the hand mixer until well blended. Use the batter to top the chicken pot pie filling.
   
4. Once the filling is ready, drop the biscuit dough on top of the pot pie filling, covering the filling. Bake the dish at 350°F (175°C) for about 25-30 minutes or until the biscuits are browned and not doughy underneath.
   
   For the filling I just used a standard chicken pot pie recipe and just removed any flour additions.
   
   ​
   
   Actually **I found this too much a bit too much for 4 ramekins - so maybe do 6!

This week we went back to eclairs. Our last ones tragically deflated, and the cream was eggy, and the chocolate a mess. In comparison, these were amazing!

For Christmas I received this cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Patisserie-at-Home-Melanie-Dupuis/dp/0062445316/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=C61K2GF8TTX5QQAR714M, which is quite good. It has "Learn" and "Understand" sections about the various recipes. Additionally, the recipes are all for the individual components (creams, pastries, techniques, etc.) and so composition is quite easy.

The recipes all included good tells for knowing when components were cooked enough, particularly the choux, which had a nice crackling noise to listen for.

They took a very long time but were definitely worth it in the end, and a huge improvement over our last effort!

That picture up there is a huge serving. Eyes were way bigger than the stomach this week.

http://www.carascravings.com/2011/01/spicy-west-african-braised-kale-tofu.html

This was a really good week! Turns out we really like tomato paste and peanut butter based stew. And the directions for how to prepare the tofu? Use them. Seriously. It's been my favorite texture for tofu so far.

The pinkish stuff in the picture is FuFu made from this product we found on amazon. https://smile.amazon.com/Tropiway-Cocoyam-FuFu-Flr-24oz/dp/B00FKOAD9E/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1473297699&sr=8-2&keywords=fufu It tastes very very much like instant mashed potatoes, which, to be fair, is how I would describe taro. If that doesn't sound like your thing I'm sure their plantain variety would be different.

I first tried this out when i was camping last summer and it turned out great, the original recipe below fed about 8 people, so i halved it for my wife and myself so we could have lunch leftovers. Unfortunately, after moving, i no longer have a backyard or the ability to use charcoal, so i had to make this indoors, but the instructions are for camping.

Disclaimer: If you are going backpacking or real-people-camping that isn't essentially getting drunk around a campfire and sleeping it off in a tent, then this is not feasible. Definitely a car-or-cooler-camping or cabin-type recipe due to some of the ingredients being perishable.

Also, believe it or not, biscuits and gravy is INCREDIBLY HIGH CALORIE, so if you're on a diet like me, make sure you have plenty of calories remaining. My plate was two biscuits, half the gravy (from a half recipe), and 2 eggs, ended up at 1161 calories.

Campfire Biscuits and Gravy

• 2pkgs grands biscuits
  
• 1.5lb breakfast sausage
  
• 1/2 cup AP flour
  
• 4c whole milk
  
• 1tsp dried thyme
  
• 1/2tsp crushed red pepper, or to taste
  
• Salt and black pepper
  
• Butter, if necessary
  
  Place the biscuits in a cast iron dutch oven and cover. Arrange some rocks so that the dutch oven is slightly elevated from the ground, and place hot coals underneath it and on top of it. If using charcooal, should be about 9 coals underneath and 12 on top. Keep them free of ash and replenish as necessary to keep the heat up, check on the biscuits now and then. They are done when they are puffy and browned. Remove from dutch oven and wipe clean.
  
  Brown sausage in dutch oven over hot coals, if <6tbsp of drippings are in pan, add butter to compensate.
  Whisk/stir in flour and cook until light brown, about 1min. slowly whisk in milk, add thyme and pepper, bring to a boil. Simmer until thickened. Season with S&P to taste.
  

I use this one. Pricy and big for something that's effectively single purpose, but zucchini spaghetti is awesome. And healthy. And cheap.

More info about Eccles Cakes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccles_cake

Eccles Cake recipe from Tea at Fortnum and Mason: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0082B7AJI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Rough puff pastry recipe from here: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2403/roughpuff-pastry-

They would have been perfect if I'd remembered to do the two slashes on the top before cooking!

Back! Burger is a recipe like this one from Veganomicon, a simple black bean patty with vital wheat gluten to bind.
I just served with a mound of avocado, fried onions, and bbq sauce (mix of tomato paste, water, white vinegar, maple syrup, worchestershire, liquid smoke, chillies, and salt simmered).

I used this, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. I'm sure it'll get easier to use once I'm used to it, but it's still kind of difficult to julienne the whole vegetable with it. If you look up spiralizers you can check the reviews for different types. This is the one I see recommended most often, but it's also one of the more expensive brands.