Dim Sum Dynasty-Christmas Dinner

We don't cook the big family feast for Christmas much anymore ever since we began enjoying the "special menu" dinners at this tasty establishment. For Christmas, they had some special menus to choose from and this is some of what we decided to eat. Yum! We were completely stuffed!

We started off with fresh shrimps, shell on, in two ways. One portion (bottom half of plate) was sauteed with green onions and shallots and maybe some ginger. The other was simply boiled but served with a soy sauce mix. The shrimp were fresh tasting, but the size was not uniform which meant some were the tiniest shrimp. Overall, it was a nice contrast between heavy and light on the palate.


More shrimp, except I don't know the variety. The translated "name" is something like peeing (urinating) shrimp. The story behind that is something like they pee when bothered as a defense mechanism. They have very large clubbed, front appendages and a flat, hammer-like head. These were fried with a light coating of flavored batter. Nicely crisp, though the flesh was a bit on the chewy side. I found the best way to eat them was to really yank 'em out of their shells. Once you got the hang of it, you could rip the entire length of meat in one shot.



A bland soup of a very simple seafood concoction for those who were afraid to drink the "real" soup. Basically, it was for the kids and the less daring. It was nasty.


The real soup! I was told it's a kind of fish, but I think it was a turtle. =( It was very meaty tasting and oh so slightly herbally (as in chinese medicine herbal) because of some of the ingredients that was put in. It's supposedly very healthy for you.


My bowl of the "fish" soup. The skin was very thick and the meat was not fish like at all but more like an amphibian...like a....turtle??? And doesn't this look like a turtle to you? Sorta flat like those soft bodied ones? Poor turtle. =( I even had articulated bones too like that of a turtle...NOT fish.


Here's a pork dish that is very good and tasty. We love getting this dish because they do a good job of it but I don't know it's name. I can't tell you how it tastes because I've never eaten it. =P


Er...beef dish that was also good but again, I didn't eat it. =P


Oyster casserole with ginger and green onions. Yum!!! The oysters are melt-in-your mouth awesome and huge. Perfectly cooked so it's wonderfully soft and heavenly. The flavor combination of ginger and green onions just tied it all together! Plus, the green onions were nicely soft (not chewy) so you could eat it all up. Mmmm...it wouldn't be complete without the sauce either. It was great over rice.


Sticky rice cooked with crabs. The rice was supposed to have been infused with the crab flavor, but it didn't quite work right. It was not particularly flavorful (bland really) and the crabs were overcooked. What a waste of crab. It was a nice idea though.

Sweet potato leaves sauteed with roasted garlic. It's very similar to pea shoots yet different enough. I found that the leaves were silky soft while the stems had a slight crunch. It was an nice contrast and tasted pretty good too. I also thought they were more delicate than pea shoots.


Save room for dessert! Sweet red bean soup with sesame rice dumplings. Yum!!! They make great red bean soup here where the red beans are cooked just right so they fall apart, yet aren't completely obliterated. With the addition of quality rice dumplings, it was just great!!! To super indulge us, they should have plopped a dollop of vanilla ice cream in to make it creamy. Ha! Now that's how i eat it at home! =9~

Filipino Cookies!

Ah, the season for sweetened fat and flour has arrived! Yes, that's right! The end of the year rush to bake and devour delectable indulgences called Christmas cookies is a must! This year, we received something unusual. Within the typical white bakery shop box were individually wrapped shapes in a spectrum chosen from the nightmare of color blind person. So what were they? Something intriguing from Christine's Bake Shop in Bergenfield, NJ. They certainly look like fun. They certainly smell like potential fun. If it smells buttery, how can you go wrong? Yet, I still had no idea what was in store for my tastebuds. Here's a sample of some of the box contents:


Let's eat the white wrapper one first! On the inside, it's a slightly yellow block that doesn't taste like what it smells. It's almost like eating those chewy White Rabbit candies except with a bit of salt. I can only presume they used salted butter? Texture-wise, it's like a dry paste...not powdery nor hard as it's semi-soft...almost like paste but not so wet. It has a buttery-milky and white rabbit candy flavor. Very interesting. It also appears to have a white powdery substance all over. Flour? Nope! Sugar! Just a hint of sugary sweetness as you pop it in your mouth. I'd love to get my hands on the ingredients list. Does anyone know what i'm eating?


On to the next item! Actually, it's the next two items. Not surprisingly, these two only differ in their wrapper's color. These "tartlets" had a buttery crust while the filling was surprisingly chewy with a taste of fruit...what sort of fruit, I can not put my finger on it. It has a foreign flavor in that it reminds me of a tropical fruit, but not the fragrant type such as mangoes or passionfruit. Rather, I want to say tamarind as it is in that class of tropical fruits. It would also lend that slightly chewy texture. Overall, it's an interesting cookie. Thus far, I like that these cookies are not too sweet.




This next item appears to be just like the above except with a "whipped" topping. Again, I was pleasantly surprised though the crust appears to be the same. This one was even more chewy and more of that fruity flavor, thus similar yet different. As these flavors are quite foreign to me, I'm finding it most difficult to describe these flavors. The topping was a meringue-like concoction as it was light and airy with a bit of sweetness.


After having such interesting flavors, the next one was mundane in comparison. The butter theme continued though. I would describe this round cookie to be an extravagent butter cookie. It crumbled easily upon nibbling, and felt dense in the mouth as it took on saliva. The buttery flavor that these cookies share was quite pronounced in this one. Most likely due to the lack of other flavors to interfere. This would make a delightful cookie for tea time.


And finally, the last cookie! Also a round one but in a red wrapper. What better way to end this entry than with Christmas colors. ;) So, is it the same as the green wrappered one? Not quite, but almost. It's got the same buttery cookie base but the little black speckles throughout adds a slightly different flavor (but not texture). I'm going to guess it's based on black sesame seeds. It's not actual ground sesame seeds as I tried to dissect it but more like the same buttery cookie base made with sesame seeds and then mixed into the regular cookie base to create this speckle effect. Very interesting! Overall, these were an enjoyable snack that goes well with tea. Yum!

Cream Cheese & Rocks

I wish I could say cream cheese and lox, but alas, my first venture into producing bagels yielded dense bread better known as rocks. They're surprisingly easy to make especially with the bread machine and smelled wonderful whilst baking! However, the lack of a good rise should have been my first clue as to what was in store for me. But no! The show must go on! I must see it to its conclusion, though I knew the sad ending in this oft-scripted baking fiasco. Afterwards, a test for my suspicion of lackluster yeast proved true. Nevertheless, these miniature bagels were still rather cute all lined up! At least they were edible. I've made worse bread. ;) Though the recipe came straight from the bread machine's recipe booklet, it's not bad! Not exactly the best bagels I've eaten, but better than some store-bought junk that only resembles bagels in shape and name. I'll have to try a better recipe next time, and I've already got my sights on a King Arthur (the flour company) recipe. Stay tuned! Hopefully, you won't be hearing thunderous rolling of yet more bagel rocks...

Marbled Fish

Or is it garbled fish? There's babblefish! None of the above. I'm doing some time travel while I eat leftovers and create nothing new. I enjoy sushi-the higher quality the better. My current favorite Japanese restaurant is Sakura-bana in Ridgewood. Everything is good there, but particularly the sushi. Sometimes, though, I just get some sushi grade slabs from Mitsuwa in Edgewater (CA and IL have stores too) and slice it up myself (though you can ruin a good piece by slicing it wrong...not to say I know how).

Earlier this week, I devoured a small slab of yellowtail that I got from Mitsuwa. Yellowtail is one of my favorites whether raw or grilled since it's wonderfully fatty. For me, the fattier and stinkier the fish, the tastier. Ya, I'm one of those... Now and then, I'll buy a slab of salmon (one of my other favorites) and an onigiri from Mitsuwa and devour it all in the food court with the help of my trusty pocket knife. My high school friend introduced this idea to me a while ago, and I find it a tastier and cheaper alternative to the pre-made sushi boxes in Mitsuwa. They used to have a sushi bar in the food court, but it disappeared with the market's renovations.

I digress. So I bought a nicely marbled fatty piece of yellowtail to eat at home for lunch the next day. Honestly, I don't know how to best pick the raw fish nor slice it properly. It cured my hankering for sashimi though. Here's a photo of them looking quite perky with the pattern of the coloration. They remind me of buoys or the end of a dog's "paint brush" tail.


I ate them with the requisite soy sauce and wasabi plus a bowl of hot rice. Yum! I wish I had purchased an onigiri as well (I suck at making them taste as good as store bought...will remedy that in the future...watch for it!) but plain rice would do. My favorite fillings for onigiri are mentaiko (spicy cod roe), seaweed, sansai ("mountain vegetable") and sake (salted salmon). If you haven't eaten these rice balls, you should try one if you stumble across them. Simple but really tasty with a nice crunch from the nori. No pics sorry.

While on the subject of raw fish, Mitsuwa had a demonstration in early November of how sushi chefs properly reduce (slice) a whole fish into sushi and sashimi. More specifically, it was a huge 400lb bluefin tuna flown from Spain, never frozen. Ya, it was that fresh. It's head was almost as large as a barrel! They were selling the cut pieces at a great price! While I enjoy regular (akami) tuna, I'm not a huge fan. However, this stuff tasted incredibly clean, fresh and 'sweet'. Maybe I'm usually served yellowfin tuna. It's definitely a step above what I usually get. I bought a slab of its chutoro which was specially discounted. Mmm...fatty tuna. It is the middle of the road fatty though since the highest fatty cuts are more expensive. Chutoro would suffice and yes, it was nicely marbled with fat. Ah, fish bliss...I think I bought a not so great cut, or I sliced it improperly because it had some chewy membranes in it which made it not so blissful. Check out the fat in this photo! And yes, it's the same dish I used for the yellowtail. That's because it has a fish motif! ;)

Artery Cloggers

After much chatter, I've finally started a food blog of what I cook, and what I stumble across while out! What better timing than during the scarfing of the holidays. I've made much food in the past few days but have only photographed half of them. Stomach first, photos second. Crumbs don't make for interesting imagery unfortunately. Nevertheless, I hope this blog proves useful in seeing what dishes come out of the chaos of the kitchen (when I'm in there that is). Yes, my poor poor victimized family members. That's how much I love my family. I'm making them stronger through mild poisoning!

So what dishes have I whipped up to torture the family? For lunch, I made beurek which are "savory cheese-filled pastries" out of the Sundays at Moosewood book which is great. Though I had been gathering the ingredients to make them (it's been on my list of things to cook), by the time I had the chance, the parsley had died and the mozzarella was nearly gone. This required substitutions. I added extra muenster for the loss of mozzarella (this made it too salty) and used dried parsley instead. I also used Parmesan-Reggiano instead of the feta called for, however it is a recommended substitution. I thought it would be like a calzone, and it is yet it isn't. The dough is light and airy rather than chewy like the pizza dough in calzones. This made all the difference for me because come leftover time, I will enjoy this much more than trying to gnaw through hardened pizza dough. My mom was the opposite. She likes the crispness of calzones more than the soft texture of these. The ingredients also included garlic and basil which is a great combination with the cheeses. This was easy to make especially with the Kitchen Aid mixer and its dough hook attachment. I love my kitchen appliances. Sigh. Rating: =9 =9 =9 Here are the puffs of joy:


For dinner, I made fish tacos. Mmmm...tacooooossss...I enjoy eating the fish tacos at Badlands Tacos particularly for the white sauce smothered all over the cabbage. A quickie search for fish taco recipes turned up Baja Fish Tacos from Fisherman's Market and Grill in FL. I used AB's fish and chips recipe for the battered fish (which is tasty especially with Bass Ale) because I was really after the white sauce. Having made AB's fish before (using Michelob...bleh), I was content with this decision. The verdict? It was ok. The folks liked it but my search for a similar white sauce is still on as it was quite mayo-ey in flavor. I must say, squeezing lots of lime juice on really made the white sauce taste much better with the shredded cabbage and battered fish (yes, I assaulted some fish). Other substitutions included using catfish instead of endangered cod, as well as flour tortillas instead of corn. What?!? I did what?? I don't think I get corn tortillas at the restaurant though they are soft tacos 'shells'. I only see the regular corn tortillas at the market so I used flour ones instead that I threw on the stove for a bit (this dish is so violent!). As for the catfish, I don't think it made much of a difference tastewise. Rating =9 =9 =9 Here is a slapdash photo of the assembly:


And so at the end of the meal, I was horribly filled with fat from the cheese at lunch, the oil from fried fish and the mayo in the white sauce. I had my second cup of tuocha (the first was after lunch) to help get the grease out and then polished the meal off with some citrus. Oh, those clementines never tasted more refreshing.