Jimmy's Test Kitchen

My cousin and I came up with an idea to have a competition of sorts.   We're going to take turns choosing a universal ingredient to cook with.  She will make a sweet application to the ingredient and I will make a savory application for it.  We'll choose an ingredient on the 15th of the month and post the blog sometime in the first week of the next month.

Our little competition is open to anyone.  Unfortunately, there is no prize but think of it as a way to show your creativity.  My cousin and I will both post any pictures that you take of your food.  There is no money involved and no entry required other than telling us you wish to participate.  We'll start off with some fairly easy ingredients then we'll progress to some harder ones.

Happy Cooking!






Allez Cuisine!

-Jimmy

So I'm back from NY and I have so many stories.  I can't fit it all in one blog.  In fact, I think you'd have to meet up with me to hear them all!  So give me a call and hang out with me!   What??  O.k. Here's one food story for you!  
My first weekend in NY my cousin Lillian who is the mastermind behind Sweets By Sillianah invited me along to meet a few of her Foodie friends in NY.  I met a married couple Andrea and Jeff who blog on High Low Food Drink, I also met Justin who owns Just Cook NYC and Hazel who blogs on Tasty Pursuits.  

I've never meet an online foodie in real life before.  Sure, I've met people online during my MMORPG days, but this is different.  We actually have something other than video games to talk about!  FOOD!!  We went to Pio Pio and they had this delicious Peruvian Roasted Chicken with a creamy green sauce that tasted spicy, salty and so fresh!   There were so many discussions going on around the table, but the one thing that kept popping up was.  What's in this green sauce? 

On the train ride home, i told my cousin that I think I can duplicate the sauce and she challenged me to do it.   So I figured, Let's just look to see if it's online first.   There were some versions of it and some of them looked good while others didn't.   Some post a chimichurri as the "light green sauce", WRONG COUNTRY PEOPLE, while others were just baffled.    I found one that looked fairly close and I tried it.  My recipe is an adaptation from a lady at Serious Eats . 

• 1 Large jalapeño, including seeds and ribs
• 1 whole Aji Amarillo Pepper (the store didn't have paste)
• 10 sprigs cilantro leaves and stems, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons cotija cheese 
• 2 medium garlic cloves 
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Squeeze of Meyer Lemon (I forgot to buy limes =( )
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise

It tasted so good though, I decided to make a steak sandwich and pan sear some chicken on the spot to eat with it.  Can you say, "Food Coma?" 

Chuck Steak Sandwich with Cilantro, Roma tomatoes and lettuce

Pan seared chicken breast with Peruvian green sauce

Thanks for reading - Jimmy

I know I've been slacking i my posting as of late.   I've been neglecting my wonderful fans.  (all 7 of you.  There's not many of you and that makes you all more precious!) 
Anyways this post is just an update about what i've been doing and what I'm going to do.   I've been doing some gardening as of late so I have some fresh veggies and fruits to work with.  That has taken most of my time.  I started 2 types of home based business.  Pampered Chef and I'm also in the healthy chocolate business!  I lost 10 lbs so far eating chocolate can you believe that? 

And .....   I'm going to NY!  I will be gone for 12 days.  You can see all the wonderful food and activities on my facebook acocunt!  I'll keep updated there!

The answer is ... One..... Two ..... THREE!!!  Yep, That's right it took me three times to get it right.     After failing at my hand pulled noodles, I wasn't about to post another failure!  I had to get this right!

I fell in love with buffalo mozzarella ever since I worked in on the line at Rainforest Cafe back in 1999.  It has such an amazingly soft texture and the taste is so pure and milky that if you haven't tried it before, you should. 

Since I don't have any buffalo to milk in my backyard, I had to settle for cows milk.  My first try was with store bought whole milk.  Pasteurized and Homogenized.  When I failed using that milk, I scoured the Internet for reasons why I failed.  Some blogs stated that the Homogenization process deprives milk of natural calcium content, that I should add some calcium chloride or use raw milk.  The cheese came out to be a little like glorified cream cheese. 

I wasn't about to use calcium chloride (that just doesnt' sound tasty to me) so I went in search of Raw Milk.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to find.  I did a search on google for where I could find raw milk in the East Bay area.  I got a few hits at natural food stores and then I saw that Whole foods carries a brand from Straus Family Creamer can be used.  I'm sorry but I don't remember the websites that i used my research in.  Straus has a pasteurized un-homogenized milk for $4.39 per half gallon at whole foods.   I figured it'd be worth it especially if I succeeded.

So, here comes the 2nd try.  I thought I did fine with making of the curds but it wasn't like how people explained.  The curds should look like soft tofu when mine looked like stringy ricotta.   Well, the second batch looked like it was stretching and I tried to incorporate the first batch with the 2nd batch.   WRONG!  It became one huge mush.  I tried to add more acid to coagulate the curds a bit.  It became so broken up that I KNEW I absolutely failed there.  2 batches down the drain.

I wondered, What am I doing wrong?  Why doesn't my curd look like the videos that I'm seeing? Well partly because one of the recipes I was following told me the rennet would take 5 minutes to set. I got impatient and thought my rennet wasn't working. So I added more and more acid. Turns out all I had to do was wait 40 minutes not 5!  The video below helped me the most.  Take a look at it.  

Okay!  Enough Talking!

My Third try was a success!!!!You can see my curds look like soft tofu! The Video helped me heat and work the cheese too.  Here is the recipe.

1 gallon of pasteurized un-homogenized milk
1 1/2 Tsp of Citric Acid Mixed with 1 cup of un-chlorinated water
1/4 Rennet Tablet  Mixed with 1/4 cup of un-chlorinated water
1 bottled water.  (for my un-chlorinated water
sea salt to taste.

In a 5 Quart Heavy Bottom pot mix the milk and the acid and slowly bring it up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  I used a meat thermometer hanging from one of those binder clips.  (multi-tasking at it's best, Alton Brown would be proud)  When the mixture reaches 90 degrees add the rennet solution and gently stir to get it incorporated.  DO NOT over mix.  Mix once or twice then take it off the heat, cover and let it sit.  Wait 40 minutes and you''ll get a solid custard like curd.  Cut the curd into 1/2 inch cube as best you can.  stir and break up the curd some and you can remove the curd and let the whey drain out. 

Put the curds in a microwave safe bowl and set it on high for about 1 minute.  Drain the the liquid, mix with a spoon and put it back into the microwave for 30 seconds.  You'll continue to do this 2 more times for 30 seconds in the microwave until the cheese becomes almost too hot to touch.  Once you can stretch and knead the mozzarella you'll see that it'll go from being grainy to being glossy and smooth add your salt to incorporate it in.  Congratulations you have mozzarella!

I suggest eating it warm.  If you put it in the refrigerator it's not as tasty.  Use it for pizza, it will be delicious. 

I'll leave you with the two videos that helped me the most.  Hopefully it'll save you guys some heartache.  I will be perfecting my technique.  This isn't the last of me!


The first Video helped me make the mozzarella.  The second video I got the idea for tying it.  Good luck, have fun and don't give up!  - Jimmy

I was so excited to try hand pulled noodles for the very first time!!! I never made noodles before and I have always wanted to.  Hand pulled noodles have a great bite and chew to it that can only be achieved by making them by hand.  So I used a recipe by this guy.  Yep, it's the same recipe adapted by Tiny Urban Kitchen

I thought I had followed the recipe perfectly. I weighed all the ingredients, mixed them together and started kneading.

The kneading process by hand took me almost 2 hours worth to even get it somewhat stretchy I had to keep adding little bits of water so I could get it to stretch right.  It kept drying out but the dough looked good.  When I tried to make the noodles, it always would break and there would be some fat parts to my noodle.

So I made them into little noodles one strand at a time and decided to boil them.  They  did not come out good at all.  It's hard to describe the texture since at this time I was crying in the corner at my countless hours wasted working my forearm muscles.  Needless to say, my first attempt at hand pulled noodles was an EPIC FAIL!   I was such a sad panda =(

It's a good thing I had made a Dragon Fruit Sorbet on Monday.  I went to the freezer with my best pouty face and scooped myself a large helping of Sorbet.  You can't feel bad if you have a frozen treat in front of you.

So, I leave you with this recipe:

Dragon Fruit Sorbet:
3 Ripe Dragon Fruit (halved)
3/4 Cup of Water
1/4 Cup Sugar
2 Tbsp Meyer Lemon Juice (about 1 lemon)

Take a spoon and scoop out the inside of the Dragon Fruit.  Reserve the skin by placing in a bag and freezing it to use as bowls.  Put everything inside a blender or a food processor.  Blend till smooth and  place the mixture in an ice cream maker.  Mix for up to 30 minutes till you get a slushy consistency and put it inside the freezer to let it set.

Should take about 4 hours to set fully.


Let me go cry in a corner now!
-Jimmy

This past weekend I decided to try  my hand at smoking.  Let me start off by saying this is my first time smoking anything AND my first time making this dish from scratch with no real recipe to pull from.  I searched and searched for an Asian pulled pork sandwich recipe and I didn't find anyone that suited what i was looking for.

I have, however, watched countless hours of food shows about smoking and I might have even pulled the coleslaw recipe from a show I've seen but I can't be too sure.  I made so many mistakes this first time around but the result was actually pretty tasty as a few people can attest to.  So, without further adieu, here are my adventures!

I got myself 5lbs of pork.  This was a mistake!  I went to Smart and Final (think a smaller version of Costco) and all they had was Sirloin.  So I figured I'd give it a try.  The Sirloin is way too lean and requires a REALLY long time to get to a decent consistency for food.  Definitely get a butt if you want to smoke.

I got some Hickory wood chips from Home Depot and soaked it for 30 minutes before getting them started.

I then started with a dry rub.   I don't have ratios (super top secret recipe) but here are my ingredients:
Garlic powder
Onion Powder
Paprika
Cayenne Pepper
Chinese Five Spice
Salt
Pepper


Rub the mix onto pork 1 hour before smoking.   I have a Charbroil Red grill.  It's a gas grill that uses a U Shaped bin to amplify the heat.  It was a perfect place to put the wood chips for smoking.  It has 3 Gas controls so you can shut them off and on f your smoke is too hot or too cold.

I scoured the Internet for a good pizza dough and sauce recipe and here's are my results!
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Add the water (about 90-105 degrees Fahrenheit), sugar and yeast together in a large mixing bowl and stir.  Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes for the yeast to activate.  (if you use instant yeast you can skip this step but you still need the same amount of water)  The mixture may start to foam, don't panic!  And if it doesn't, Don't panic either! As long as your yeast is fresh, it will work.  If your yeast is over 2 years old, buy new yeast.

After 10 minutes, mix in the rest of the ingredients and stir with a heavy spoon.  As the dough comes together, you'll see that you can start to work it with your hands.  If the dough sticks to your hands add more flour.  The dough should be soft and easy to work with.  Knead the dough for 10-12 minutes.   Split the dough into 3 small balls and place them in oiled bowls and cover.  Refrigerate if using the dough the next day or leave it at room temperature for 2 hours to bloom.  Your dough should double in size.  If it doesn't your yeast wasn't activated properly or you need new yeast.   This recipe makes enough for 3 12" pizzas.

Next, I made the sauce.  The sauce I found was very easy and didn't need much tweaking.  Recipe I found here.

Ingredients:
1 28 oz can of whole peeled tomato
3 large sprigs of basil
2 cloves of garlic
pinch of red pepper flake
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion peeled and quartered
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Start by burr mixing your tomatoes into a sauce.  You can leave it chunky depending on how you like it.  Add the oil and butter in a pot and start over medium high heat.  When the butter is melted add your garlic, onion and spices and cook for 3 minutes.  Be careful not to burn the garlic.  Add the tomatoes, basil salt and pepper.  When the mixture starts to bubble, reduce the heat to the lowest setting and let it reduce.  Cook for 30 minutes to an hour. Afterwards burr mix the whole thing.  Add more salt, pepper or sugar to taste.  If you don't have a hand mixer you can use a blender.  Be careful when blending hot liquids as it can splatter and explode on you if you don't let the steam out.

Time to build!!!

Form your dough to as thin as you can get it.   Flour a pizza peel or cutting board and place the dough. Spoon sauce over the top of the pizza and add your toppings.  I kept it simple with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil.  You can add extra spices if you wish, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder or whatever you like.

To cook, I preheated the oven for 500 degrees for 30 minutes to get my pizza stone nice and hot. If you don't  have a pizza stone you need to get one.  You CANNOT make good pizza without it. You can get one from pampered chef.  Here is a link.

Carefully slide your pizza onto the stone and lower the heat to 400 degrees. Bake for 10-12 minutes.Viola!  You'll have a deliciously crispy thin crust pizza.


Make this on your first date and I guarantee you, love will be in the air!

Buon appetito! -Jimmy