Time to Get Crackin'!

The new quarter has started-- after a realization last quarter that this will in fact, NOT be my last year of college, I am definitely resolving to make the most of my remaining time in San Diego. That is, I will go forth and eat as much good local food as I can between now and the next year.

This blog so far has been mostly recipes, but it is supposed to be a record of my adventures in San Diego, after all. This should absolutely include the food that I didn't make myself!

Last night, D and I went to Crab Hut, your typical Vietnamese-Cajun dive where crawfish and shrimp are served by the pound in plastic bags. I'm told it's rather reminiscent of LA's "Boiling Crab" or OC/LV's "Rockin' Crawfish". It may seem kitchy at first-- fake netting and fish all over the walls, and the servings can be hardly attractive in appearance, especially once you start cracking and peeling those little guys open with your hands. But the mess and the work is all worth it!

We started off with some oysters and garlic bread. Tuesdays are $1 oyster days, so come have your fill of creamy, succulent bivalves!

This is not Man vs. Food-- do NOT power-shoot your oysters!

D and I got one pound of crawfish and one pound of shrimp in medium-spiciness "Full House"-- which just means, a combination of all of their sauces. We were skeptical at first, when we saw the steaming hot bag with its murky-reddish contents full of claws and tiny legs, but Yelp recommendations have rarely steered us wrong. Once we dug in, it was all over! And literally... all over our hands. They give you a bib for a reason-- so make sure you use it!

We're so ready for this!

The sauce was mind-blowing-- such an amazing blend of flavors! The heat was surprisingly stronger than expected for a "medium" level dish. I really enjoyed the familiar Asian flavors and the way that the Cajun tones mixed in so well.

I think part of the enjoyment of this kind of place is a security in knowing that EVERYONE AROUND YOU is eating just as messily as you are. There are no plates-- there are just tables covered with butcher paper with a giant roll of paper towels. Definitely not a great place for a first date (unless you like that sort of thing, of course). Be prepared to feel somewhat savage, peeling and sucking on seafood shells, but it's all a part of the experience...

"Holy Crab!"

All in all, a great adventure was had and many napkins had to die at our service. Apparently you can ask for gloves to wear while you eat, but where's the fun in that? I hope we get a chance to go again soon-- I think I found a new food addiction!

Carrot Soup - Good and Good For You!

When I was a kid, one of my favorite TV shows was "The Magic School Bus". I remembe one episode where one character ate nothing but carrots for a week and so, his skin turned orange (a condition officially called "carotenemia"). In truth, this can actually happen (mostly in your palms), and it can take up to 30 days for your skin to return to a non-carrot color. (Fellow fans -- did anyone else feel bad that ALL of the bad stuff always happened to Arnold? Seriously. The kid was just the show's whipping boy.) But don't let this possibility deter you, folks. Carrots are so nutritious and naturally packed with so much flavor that cooking with them hardly requires anything fancy to make something delicious.

I've made a variation of this soup before, with potatoes and ground ginger. Personally, I'm not a big fan of potatoes, so I like this version best-- the carrot flavor is perfectly balanced with the creaminess of the soup, and it's only made better with crispy ginger on top. C.Ly, DT, and I feasted last night on this soup and it was supposed to just be the appetizer!

Thanks to my good friend Bill for the photo-- I didn't have my camera with me when I made the soup, but luckily he decided to try it and took a picture of this half-eaten bowl. Yoink! :]

Carrot Soup (serves 6)

2 lbs carrots, peeled and chopped

1 medium onion

4 c vegetable stock

1 c half and half

1/4 c butter

1 t ground cumin

1 tablespoon fresh ginger (optional, but so worth having!)

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the vegetable stock in a large pot and bring to a low boil. Drop in your carrot pieces and let that simmer for a while. The softer the better, so there's no such thing as "too much" for this recIpe.

2. Chop your onions and sauté in a bit of oil until they become slightly translucent. Add the cumin powder and some salt an pepper slightly before you take the onions off the heat.

3. Add the onions to the simmering carrots and broth. Simmer some more.

4. Heat up oil in your skillet again and drop in julienned ginger. Fry until golden brown and let that drain on a pape towel. Sprinkle a little salt on top for extra flavor.

5. Once your carrots are nice and soft, pour the broth and vegetables into a blender. Add in the half and half and purée the mixture until it's a smooth, gorgeous orange color.

6. Put the purée back into your pot and add the butter. Stir until melted and well-integrated into the soup. Heat to desirable temperature again (if necessary).

7. Serve with the fried ginger sprinkled on top.

Be careful-- this soup is so good, you just might turn orange from eating too much!

Bacon is nature's perfect food.

Last week was DT's birthday, so as a present, I made dinner for him! Bacon wrapped asparagus and crispy garlic-ginger fried rice. The rice didn't turn out as well as I had hoped it would, but the asparagus was absolutely divine! But whatever does one do with all of that bacon grease after cooking? The plumbing at my place is shoddy as it is, so there was no way I was dumping any of that down the sink. I poured the fat into a jar and saved it until I could think of something appropriate to use it in.

A couple of days later, I remembered a fairly recent trip to the La Jolla Farmer's Market with CB and NV. A local bakery was handing out samples of gourmet cookies and I was pleasantly introduced to the "Morning Pancakes" cookie-- an innocent looking cookie that tasted just like a fresh stack of pancakes with bacon on the side. I was enthralled! And so, with the reemergence of this food memory, I decided to make cookies with my leftover bacon fat. Definitely crack the windows open for this recipe!

I apologize to my friends who have given up both meats and sweets for the Lenten period-- I promise to make another batch after Easter. :-)

Morning Pancakes Cookie
6 strips of cooked bacon -- crispy, but not cardboard-like in texture.
1/4 c BACON GREASE (oh Lord help us.)
1/2 c butter, softened
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c maple syrup -- do yourself a favor and get yourself a bottle of the REAL stuff.
2 eggs
1 T vanilla extract
2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1 1/2 c chocolate chips (optional-- but why wouldn't you??)


1. Fry up the bacon. Honestly, every stove is different. Bacon is just one of those things that can go very wrong very quickly, so keep a good eye on it and don't try to multi-task while it's cooking (ie, talk on the phone, feed the cat, do the dishes... like me). When it's a nice, light crispiness, remove the bacon and let it drain on paper towels. Save the grease in a separate container and let it cool in the refrigerator. Chop your bacon into small bits and set aside to continue draining.


2. After the grease has cooled, add it to the butter and cream until they are nicely integrated together. Once that's done, beat in the eggs, sugars, maple syrup, and vanilla.


3. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Slowly mix in the not-quite-liquid mixture and work it until well-combined. Fold in the bacon bits and chocolate chips and distribute evenly. Let the dough cool in the refrigerator for a while. These cookies bake best if the dough has been thoroughly chilled, otherwise you'll end up with a very flat cookie. 


4. Once the dough is ready, preheat your oven to 350°. The nice thing about this dough is that there is no need to grease your cookie sheet beforehand (myself, I like to use tin foil just to reduce cleanup). Yay for self-greasing cookies! 


5. Drop the dough onto the sheet with a tablespoon and space them approximately an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. After baking, remove from the oven and allow to cool before serving.

Close your eyes. It's breakfast time!

Senior Year

Psst. Guess what?

After a long summer of what seemed like one homework assignment and project-worth-30%-of-your-grade after another, I went back to LA for two solid weeks of lazing, getting fat (Thanks Mom and Dad, for feeding me so well!), and visiting with old friends I hadn't seen in quite some time (Kevin, you are so awesome.), here I am back in San Diego, with a stark realization:

School starts tomorrow. Oh yes. Time to jump back into the cycle. But what to do with my very last day of summer vacation?

After a disappointing interview on Tuesday with the Charter School of San Diego, Nikki, who was visiting for a few days, and I packed a lunch and made our way over to the San Diego Zoo. For those of you who are in the San Diego area, buying a dual-membership for you and a friend is practically a steal-- at $42 per person, you can get an annual pass for both the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park, with discounts on attractions and food included in your membership. Mind you, a full-priced ticket runs for $35 now, $30 for students. Plus the purchase goes toward the Zoological Society, so your purchase is technically a donation that is tax-deductable! OK, that's enough plugging for now. Just go-- the elephants will thank you for it. :]

It was the first time Nikki had been to the SD Zoo in a while, so we tried to see as much as possible. It's amazing how many times I've been to the zoo in the last year and still haven't gotten tired of it. Animals are so fascinating and majestic in their individual ways.

*Smooch* :]

If you're a San Diego local and haven't been lately, you've missed out on a lot of awesome new things. A new exhibit, "Elephant Odyssey" is the 7-acre new home of the zoo's elephant herd, along with a few new additions from the Wild Animal Park down the freeway. It is absolutely phenomenal. Truly, SDZ deserves to be considered one of the world's greatest zoos for its extensive work in animal husbandry and enrichment. Not only does the exhibit house the elephants, but a pair of African lions, a regal Secretary bird, and an impressive (but no less ugly) flock of California Condors, the once extant species of California bird that was re-introduced into the wild several years ago after years of captive breeding at the CRES facility located at the Wild Animal Park (an equally fascinating area that offers tours to the public. Two words: Frozen Zoo.)

Also, with equal excitement, I'm happy to inform you that a panda recently gave birth to a healthy male cub and that a polar bear is possibly expecting (it's hard to do ultrasounds on a 700 lbs female with a healthy storage of winter blubber).

*Sniff* Smells like mine...

Well, that's all for now. Here's to the new school year: my last (full) year in undergrad! Woot!

Photos may not be used or reprinted without permission

(c) A. Nguyen 2009

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza! My first food blog :D

Mamma mia!

Since Lent started last Tuesday, I decided to give up meat (except fish) again as moral support for my roommate, HK. I'm not actually Catholic, but it's just good to lower your intake of meat once in a while. Last year I did this and I was in the healthiest blood composition of my life. Anyway. I don't want to keep limiting myself to just pasta and tofu stir-fry for 40 days, so I've been more daring about what I make for dinner. My latest adventure was in homemade pizza, complete with dough made from scratch. Let me tell you something-- it's not that easy, but it's really easier than it sounds. But the end result was delicious. Tomatoes, basil, bell peppers, and mozzerella, with Black Forest turkey on one side for DT. He reaps the benefits of my kitchen whims so often...
 
Pizza dough, adapted from Peter Reinhart's Recipe. (Makes six 6-ounce pizza crusts.)
4 1/2 c all-purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 t instant yeast
1/4 olive oil (optional)
1 3/4 c water, ice cold (40°F)
Semolina flour OR cornmeal for dusting

1. Stir together the flour, salt, and instant yeast in a 4-quart bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer). With a large metal spoon, stir in the oil and the cold water until the flour is all absorbed (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment), If you are mixing by hand, repeatedly dip one of your hands or the metal spoon into cold water and use it, much like a dough hook, to work the dough vigorously into a smooth mass while rotating the bowl in a circular motion with the other hand. Reverse the circular motion a few times to develop the gluten further. (Here's my weekly workout. I've burned enough calories doing this to eat the whole pizza myself!) Do this for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are evenly distributed. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet and doesn't come off the sides of the bowl, sprinkle in some more flour just until it clears the sides. If it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water. The finished dough will be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50 to 55F.

2. Sprinkle flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Prepare a sheet pan by lining it with baking parchment and misting the parchment with spray oil (or lightly oil the parchment). Using a metal dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you are comfortable shaping large pizzas), You can dip the scraper into the water between cuts to keep the dough from sticking to it, Sprinkle flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Lift each piece and gently round it into a ball. If the dough sticks to your hands, dip your hands into the flour again. Transfer the dough balls to the sheet pan, Mist the dough generously with spray oil and slip the pan into a food-grade plastic bag.

3. Put the pan into the refrigerator overnight to rest the dough, or keep for up to 3 days. (Note: If you want to save some of the dough for future baking, you can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag. Dip each dough ball into a bowl that has a few tablespoons of oil in it, rolling the dough in the oil, and then put each ball into a separate bag. You can place the bags into the freezer for up to 3 months. Transfer them to the refrigerator the day before you plan to make pizza.Myself, I did the math and cut the recipe to make only one pizza.)

4. On the day you plan to make the pizza, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator 2 hours before making the pizza. Before letting the dough rest at room temperature for 2 hours, dust the counter with flour, and then mist the counter with spray oil. Place the dough balls on top of the floured counter and sprinkle them with flour; dust your hands with flour. Gently press the dough into flat disks about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches in diameter. Sprinkle the dough with flour, mist it again with spray oil, and cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap or a food-grade plastic bag. Now let rest for 2 hours.

5. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone either on the floor of the oven (for gas ovens), or on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Heat the oven as hot as possible, up to 800F (most home ovens will go only to 500 to 550F, but some will go higher). If you do not have a baking stone, you can use the back of a sheet pan, but do not preheat the pan.

6. Generously dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with semolina flour or cornmeal. Dip your hands, including the backs of your hands and knuckles, in flour and lift 1 piece of dough by getting under it with a pastry scraper. Very gently lay the dough across your fists and carefully stretch it by bouncing the dough in a circular motion on your hands, carefully giving it a little stretch with each bounce. If it begins to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue shaping it. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss as shown on page 208. If you have trouble tossing the dough, or if the dough keeps springing back, let it rest for 5 to 20 minutes so the gluten can relax, and try again. You can also resort to using a rolling pin, though this isn't as effective as the toss method. (Don't worry-- I suck at this part. I just roll and flatten it out with my hands)

7. When the dough is stretched out to your satisfaction (about 9 to 12 inches in diameter for a 6-ounce piece of dough), lay it on the peel or pan, making sure there is enough semolina flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide. Lightly top it with sauce and then with your other top- pings, remembering that the best pizzas are topped with a less-is-more philosophy. A few, usually no more than 3 or 4 toppings, including sauce and cheese is sufficient.

8. Slide the topped pizza onto the stone (or bake directly on the sheet pan) and close the door. Wait 2 minutes, then take a peek. If it needs to be rotated 180 degrees for even baking, do so. The pizza should take about 5 to 8 minutes to bake. If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone to a lower self before the next round. if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone for subsequent bakes.

9. Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Wait 3 to 5 minutes before slicing and serving, to allow the cheese to set slightly.