Eats/Reads

Tokyo diner food, at home. katsu: 2 chicken fillets 1 egg flour 4 tbsp vegetable oil 1 slice white bread sauce: 3 tbsp ketchup 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp sake 1 tsp sugar 1 clove garlic, minced 1/2" fresh ginger, minced 1/4 tsp dry red pepper flakes Start by making panko bread crumbs (panko is a japanese brand for white bread crumbs). Don't buy them, they're pointlessly expensive. Whiz the bread in a food processor until it's small crumbs, then bake in a dish at 150C for about 10 minutes. Beat the egg. Roll the chicken fillets in flour, coat them in egg, then press them into the bread crumbs until they're covered all over. Heat the oil in a wok and fry the chicken for 4-5 minutes per side at medium heat. I used high heat and they were done on the outside before the inside; we rescued them by baking at 150C for 10 minutes (which worked fine). Meanwhile, make a tonkatsu sauce, which is a hilarious mixture of ingredients but tasty. Slap all the ingredients int...

SWC wanted coffee cake for his birthday so I cracked open the wonderful, ' Classic Home Desserts ' by Richard Sax cookbook and made the Quintessential Coffee Cake. It's not what I think of as coffee cake - I think of a white, fluffy, moist cake with thick brown streusel on top. This cake was made with brown sugar so was more molasses-y. And I messed up the streusel by putting the sugar-butter-flour mixture in the food processor, so when I put it on the cake, instead of nice little buttery-sugary chunks, it was like dusting the cake with flour. Yuck! I saved it by applying copious quantities of butter and sugar to the top of the cake about 5 mins before it was done baking. So the result was nice. A very moist, soft cake. The topping was crunchy and sweet enough, with no flour chunks - a decent save. But next time: do the butter cutting with knives and make sure the streusel is chunky before applying to cake. Also may want to investigate other coffee cake recipes in order to ...

This was an attempt to cook all of the parsnips and carrots we've been hoarding from our veg box - we had nearly three weeks' worth on hand! On that count, it succeeded. On the tasty count, it was pretty good. The gravy/broth was nice but there wasn't enough of it. And it was a little too sweet for my tastebuds. So... next time add more water as it cooks. And use fewer parsnips and carrots, and instead add some potatoes, and some frozen peas at the end for greenness. Might try substituting beer for wine to make it less sweet. As for all those parsnips and carrots, next time they stack up, try to make a dedicated soup for them which can handle their sweetness (I'm imagining ginger and curry spices will be needed). Also: The meat was good but I'm not convinced we need to dust it with flour before cooking - doing away with that step might make this recipe even easier. All our parsnips All our carrots 4 small onions, quartered 650g stew beef Olive oil Butter Thyme Orega...

Just finished this last night. Still ruminating on it. It had a sympathetic narrator, a strong first-person voice, some good storytelling. I was heartbroken by the unfairness to the main character, and liked how the way it was told - with two competing explanations for past events - made me think about the validity of memories. I was slow to invest, though the writing at the beginning was sharp, but by halfway through I was caught up. Then - the ending. Too much clean wrapping up of the mysteries the story held. A coincidence which seems more and more lame the longer I think about it. I was hoping for some solid hints at what *really* happened but more of it left open and unclear. I have this suspicion that an editor asked for more to be resolved at the end, or the author wasn't sure how to accomplish a more mysterious ending. I dunno. Still thinking about it, eager for the book group discussion next week.

Another variation on the simple Thai-esque stir fry. 1 lb sausages 2 eggs 2 large leeks 2 tomatoes, cut in 8 wedges each 2" fresh garlic, minced 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 chili pepper, sliced thin 2 tbsp vegetable oil 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp fish sauce 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp toasted sesame oil Prepare the sauce in a bowl by mixing together the soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and sesame oil. Cut the sausages into pieces such that each piece is about as long as it is wide. Any sort of nice sausage will do; I've used sweet chili pork, Cumberland, venison, anything good. Heat the oil in a wok and add the sausage. Stir occasionally, cook until the sausage is firm and brown on all sides. Beat the 2 eggs with a little water in a bowl, as if you were making an omelette. Move the sausage all to one side of the wok and pour the egg mixture in. Move the sausage into the egg mixture and let it cook until the egg starts to firm, then stir. The result should be egg-coated sausage bits. Remove the s...

4 duck breast fillets 2 leeks 1/2 lb mushrooms (we used chestnut mushrooms) 4 cloves garlic, minced 2" piece of fresh ginger, minced Thin Chinese egg noodles Put 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a wok, and heat it until it's nearly smoking. Add the garlic and ginger, and stir fry for about one minute. Add the mushrooms and stir fry until soft. Add the leeks and continue to stir fry until they're wilted and soft. Store the result in a convenient bowl. Score the skin of the duck breasts with a sharp knife, taking care not to cut the meat underneath, but cutting all the way through the skin. Score the entire breast, with lines about 1/2" apart. Salt and pepper the duck, using a bit more salt than you think, and rub the result into the skin. Heat a skillet until it's very hot (normally we would use an iron skillet, but we used an All Clad instead because we needed the extra space, and it worked fine - we added a drizzle of vegetable oil to the All Clad, which we wouldn't h...

Just finishing up Little Women. Got this at the library because I'd somehow never read it and was looking for something light and fun for the trip to the States. Must have forgotten I was travelling with a toddler and thus didn't crack the book the whole time I was away. Cute and classic - very readable for something written in the 1860's. Quite moralistic but that's par for the course for girls' stories esp of that era. Didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Wasn't swept away by the characters and story. For a girls' classic my money is on 'Anne of Green Gables'.

In a quest to add Even More Meat to an already delightful spread on Christmas Eve, I made a triple portion of these meatballs using a mix of the Cook's Illustrated recipe and the Marcella Hazan recipe. The real key to these is to get your 13-year-old niece to do all the work. Don't use veal, as it's too bland. 2 slices decent white bread (we used Pepperidge Farms potato bread) 1/2 cup buttermilk 3/4 lb ground beef 1/4 lb ground pork 1/4 cup grated Parmesan (we used Asiago because it was purchased by accident, worked fine) 2 Tbsp minced parsley 1 Tbsp minced onion 1 Tbsp minced garlic 1 egg 1/2 tsp salt ground nutmeg ground black pepper Tear up the bread and combine it with the buttermilk in a large bowl. Mash it with a fork until it's a fairly even paste. Add all of the other ingredients to the bowl and mix with a fork at first, and then with your hands, until evenly combined. Use a light touch, as too much pressure will create hockey pucks instead of meatballs. Shape t...