My Last Supper

Cookie Bouquet

Ericka sent me these instead of flowers to celebrate a special day.  What a great idea!  They taste really good too.  This bouquet is from Cookies By Design.   I think that this is The.  Cutest. Thing.  I.  Have.  EVER.  Seen.    Thanks Ericka!  I wuf you too.

Punchline

What happens when an American cook selects a Filipino recipe from an Italian cookbook and serves it to a Peruvian?

Chicken adobo and happy bellies!

Mulling over dinner options on the way home tonight, I visualized the contents of my refrigerator.  The week is halfway over and the pickings are slimming down.  It was either chicken---AGAIN---or scrambled eggs and bacon.   Since breakfast for dinner doesn't yield great leftovers for lunch, I racked my brains over potential chicken recipes.   Looking over my cookbooks, I realized I had yet to crack open one of my Christmas presents - the first English edition of The Silver Spoon, otherwise known as "the Bible of Italian Cooking."

I perused the chicken recipes and compared the ingredients to the contents of my cupboards and refrigerator.  Philippines Chicken was the only match.   Thanks to my California multicultural sensitivity, I recognized the recipe as Chicken adobo.

My first taste of chicken adobo occurred in 1991 at my first job here in San Francisco.  Our floor was having a potluck dinner and recipe contest.  One of the women from the other side of my floor brought a dish of caramelized chicken wings.  I swooned after the first taste and loaded up my paper plate.  "What is this?" I asked her.  She replied, "Adobo.  It's really easy," and listed the ingredients; soy sauce, garlic, vinegar, pepper and garlic.  Unsuprisingly, she won the contest.  I later tried the recipe at home, but was unable to reproduce her results.  It just wasn't the same.

Fast forward to 2006.  The Silver Spoon recipe boasts a short-list of ingredients, an easy method and a delicious outcome.  I will make this chicken again and again and again.  I think it is now my favorite.  I did fiddle with the proportions to make more sauce.

Chicken Adobo
adapted from The Silver Spoon Cookbook

3 chicken thighs
3 chicken legs
2 Tbsp. canola oil
ground black pepper
7 Tbsp. white whine vinegar
5 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 bay leaf
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
8 crushed black peppercorns

Sprinkle both sides of the chicken with ground black pepper.  Heat the oil in a heavy pan (I used my oval Le Creuset) and brown the chicken over high to medium-high heat for 5 minutes on each side. Meanwhile, mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl.

Once the chicken has browned, remove the chicken and drain off most of the fat.  Add the vinegar and soy sauce into the hot pan and scrape the browned bits off of the bottom.  Lower the heat to medium and add the chicken pieces back to the pan.

Cover and cook for 30-40 minutes, turning every 5-10 minutes to ensure the chicken gets done.

Serve with rice.  Pour the sauce over the chicken and rice if desired.

Enjoy!

An Extravagant Evening - Michael Mina

Last Tuesday was Ericka's 280th birthday (dog years) and a celebration was in order.  For such a momentous occasion, we decided on Michael Mina in the lobby of San Francisco's Westin Saint Francis. 

I did some research before our visit and found mixed reviews.  The traditional media (the Chronicle's Michael Bauer and the like) raved, but fellow food bloggers, on whose opinion I am more likely to act, were not that impressed.  After surfing the internet, I wasn't sure what to expect.....only that it seemed wise to avoid the lobster.

Coincidentally, the amuse bouche was............lobster!

Believe it or not, I have never tried lobster.  I am not counting the one bite I had in second grade from my brother's plate at the Sizzler circa 1974.   We lived in Twin Falls, Idaho and the nearest Sizzler was in Salt Lake City.  Because our television signal came from there, we had been bombarded with advertisements for steak and lobster dinner.  When we took a family vacation that summer, my brother turned out to be putty in the advertiser's hands.....even though he was in kindergarten, he ordered a steak and lobster dinner.  I had one bite and although I remember being not that impressed, I do not remember the actual taste.  Plus, I assume that tasting lobster at Sizzler in Utah is like judging shrimp from Skippers.....it just isn't the same beast.   

So the famous lobster corn dog is what I consider my first bite of lobster.   And oh, what a bite.  It was sweet and rich and buttery and the the corn dog batter was a surprisingly appropriate sidekick.  Because of that one bite, I spent the entire next day dreaming of lobster corn dogs.   It was absolutely delicious.  I'm not sure how the other lobster bites were prepared.  One of the problems with Michael Mina is the noise level.  Situated in the main lobby of a busy hotel raises the decibels and I was unable to read the waiters lips.  They were tasty too, but the lobster corn dog was the main star.

Michael Mina is all about choices.  There are two initial options - a 3 course  prix fixe or a multi-course tasting menu.  We opted for the prix fixe and then had to chose between seasonal dishes or classics.  My sense is that the "classics" are dishes Michael Mina became well known for back when he was at Aqua.  The seasonal dishes offer one food prepared six ways.

I chose "scallops" for my appetizer. 

The top three are ceviche, the bottom three are pan-seared.  From left to right, both ceviche and pan-seared are dressed respectively with; Meyer lemon and oestra caviar, butternut squash and beet.  My favorite was the first.  Besides lobster, this was also my first experience was caviar.  I liked it so much that once my scallop was finished, I chased every single microscopic fish egg to the edge of my plate with my dinner roll.  So that's restaurants are able to charge so much for caviar!  I ate left to right, but really should have eaten right to left because the one on the right with the beets was my least favorite.  Lately, beets taste like dirt to me, so you can imagine what I thought this scallop tasted like.  With this one exception, the rest of the scallops were delicious.

My main course was a "classic."  Miso glazed cod.

The cod comes to the table surrounded by vegetables and crab claws resting on a bed of Israeli couscous.  At the table, the waiter pours black pepper crab consomme over the top.  The consomme has been steeping in a tea pot with black pepper corns.  Very interesting and slightly flashy as well.  I didn't really notice the pepper corn flavor until the end.  Even though it quits steeping after the waiter pours the broth, the flavor seems to continue to bloom.  This was quite delicious as well.

Here's my dessert - Citrus.

I only know what 2/3rds of these are, thanks to the noise level.  The ice creams are from left to right: ginger, creme fraiche in Meyer lemon syrup and saffron.  On the bottom are a miniature lemon meringue pie, a cheese cake and a napoleon.  The creme fraiche was my absolute favorite.....good enough to flag down the waiter and ask again what it was I was eating.  The ginger was nice, but I didn't care for the saffron.  For some reason, saffron tastes like dirty dishwater to me.  The lemon meringue was also nice.  The cheesecake was so sour that my mouth puckered and refused another bite.  That was OK, because I was so full at this point I was nearing the border between feeling content and feeling pain.

Ericka's options were foie gras, Kobe beef, and the cheese plate.  (These pictures are a bit blurry, but click on them if you are curious to see an illustrated example of what drinking a wine pairing with each course does to eye-hand coordination.)  They were also gracious enough to bring a special birthday dessert.   I had another first this night.... a bite of foie gras in a vanilla-infused sauce......yum!  Delicious!  It will not be my last.  So this is why people eat force-fed goose liver.  Ericka was tremendously happy with all of her choices.

Opinions obviously vary, but after this meal, I am a fan of Michael Mina.  Yes, it was horrendously expensive, but the food was  good enough that I didn't feel like money had been wasted.  The prices make this restaurant a place for the independently wealthy or those with very, very special occasions to celebrate.  Since I turn 280 myself later this year, we might just have a good enough excuse to come back.

Michael Mina
Westin Saint Francis
335 Powell Street
San Francisco

Cream of Potato Heart Soup (Sopa de Papa de Corazon)

After the excess of the holidays, this first week of January has been all about eating in.
We happily stocked up at the farmer's market last weekend and have been enjoying healthy, homemade meals.  Some were blog worthy, but it's hard to convince oneself of traipsing upstairs to fetch the camera when hot pans need attention and again when it's time to eat.  A few of the recipes I tried this week are definite keepers and I'll try to be disciplined and blog about them when I make them again.  Two of the best were a take on spanakoriso from Marlena Spieler's Chronicle column  and hashed Brussels sprouts based on a recipe in  Orangette.  Mmmmmm.

It's Friday now and the proverbial cupboard is nearly bare, yet we have promised to not leave the house.  This is the time when it's fun to use one's creativity and try to invent something tasty.  Mentally, I scanned the contents of the larder.  I still had a few French Red potatoes which I had intended for some soup, but I had been holding out until I had bacon.  Then I remembered the hunk of prosciutto a co-worker had given me.   Inspiration hit.

Into a large pot went leftover chopped onion, a fat and stubby yellow carrot and a few slices of prosciutto, diced.  I sauteed the above in some good olive oil and then sprinkled a few teaspoons of rice flour over the top.  Once the rice flour melted into the onions, carrots and prosciutto, I added a can of chicken broth and a can of water.  While that came to a boil, I added a bay leaf and the potatoes, which I had cut into smallish chunks (this included the heart shaped potato above which I must admit, broke my own heart a little bit).   Force me to guess, and I'll estimate I had about 1 pound of potatoes.

After simmering for 15 minutes, I added about a cup and a half of milk and blended everything together in the blender.  Once smooth, it went back into the pan with enough milk to bring it to a nice, creamy texture.  After it was hot again, I ladled it into big purple bowls and snapped very blurry and unappetizing pictures of my finished soup which I will not post here.  Oh alright, here it is.

This soup was perfect for a cold (California's version of cold), January night and was surprisingly filling.  We ate it with steamed artichokes, dipping the leaves and hearts into our soup and filling our bellies with "leftovers."  Tomorrow, we'll return again to the farmer's market and I will pore over the bin, looking for more potato hearts.  The week will begin again.

Last Supper of 2005

Tonight is New Year's Eve and Ericka and I are maintaining our tradition of staying in and having a nice steak dinner.  This year, we discovered the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market which has made 2005 a "good eats" year.   Although it was a holiday, a few vendors attended the market this morning, so we got up early and gathered the ingredients for an "Eat Local" New Years Eve.

First up was the  salad.

Sprinkled atop this  "sweet mix" lettuce are purple radishes, orange carrots and yellow beets from Mariquita Farm  and slices of hard-cooked egg from Marin Sun Farms.   Before trying these eggs, I always thought that I hated egg yolks.  Turns out that I just never had a good one.  These eggs are worth what you pay for them and their yolks are worth their weight in gold.

For the main course, we had steak with mashed potatoes made from the Best Potatoes in California (I can't say on Earth because I am from Idaho and Ericka is from Peru and our pride in our respective heritages will not allow those words in this blog). 

The steak came from Prather Ranch.  Here's a before and after shot.

BEFORE

AFTER

We have walked past this ferry building shop many times, but never stopped for a purchase.  Since it was a special occasion, we picked up 2 New York sirloins.  We asked the man behind the counter if the steaks were really good and he smirked at us and said, "You'll be back."   After tasting this steak, we will be back.......for special occasions.  The price is steep, but on the other hand, less than what you'd pay a a really good steak house.   I seared the steaks in a combination of butter and olive oil (ahem....it is a holiday) and then roasted them a 450 degree oven for 6 minutes for medium.

The potatoes are Carolas, a German variety that is very dense and concentrated.  I make my mashed potatoes by boiling them for 20 minutes.  Then I plop in some butter (less on a regular day, more on a holiday) and break them up with a fork.  Never, I say never, does a masher get near my potatoes.  A long time ago, I read a book called Heartburn by Nora Ephron.  I don't remember the plot, but I do remember the main character makes potatoes by pushing them through a ricer.  I don't have a ricer, so I use a fork.  It's fussy, but fewer cell membranes are ruptured so you get less starch in the finished product.  Potatoes that are mashed (or God forbid, whipped in a mixer) have too many cell membranes ruptured and the result is pasty potatoes, or, in the worst case scenario, glue.

Anyway, back to my fussy mashed potato recipe.  After I've broken them up, I add salt until they taste good and milk until they are the right texture.

That's it for the last supper of this year.  See you in 2006.

The Accidental Turkey

Disclaimer:  Due to illness, today's blog entry of Christmas dinner was cooked by guest chef Ericka.

What a rotten time to develop a severe, knife-stabbing, bellyache that does not allow you to lie down and only thoughts of 13 hour waits in the emergency room keep you from driving to California Pacific in the middle of the night.  Christmas is a rotten time to be sick, especially when you have already ordered your turkey, purchased your potatoes and invited your guests

By actual Christmas day, I was feeling better, but still in no condition to cook.  We had cancelled our company late Christmas Eve afternoon, but Ericka decided to go ahead and make the turkey anyway.  We found a recipe that doesn't call for a complicated brine here.  Ericka then banished me from even looking into the kitchen (calls me territorial) and 2 1/2 hours later produced the beautiful, mahogany beast you see above.

She even had a hand in our side dishes these mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts.   I was very proud of her!   We sat down for dinner about 3:00 with mouths watering.  I grabbed a knife an started to carve......and ran into a problem.

During the roasting process, I had noticed that this turkey seemed a bit scrawny.  The butcher had warned that free-range turkeys were smaller, so I chalked the skinniness of this bird up to that comment and thought nothing of it.  After putting the turkey on a platter, sticking a knife into the top of it and running into nothing but bone however, I intuited what was wrong.  I had nearly done the same thing with a chicken a few weeks ago.  This bird had been put into the oven upside down and what we had before us was a golden, perfectly roasted turkey back.

We took the platter back into the kitchen and I turned the turkey over to confirm my theory.  Sure enough, once uprighted, there was a flaccid, pale turkey breast with and aha!..... there were the drumsticks too!   We stuck the meat thermometer into the breast and the top of one leg...... a cool, salmonella-friendly 140 degrees. 

So back into the oven the turkey went until the temperature was a safer, 170 degrees.

40 minutes later, we sat down again and took a bite of Ericka's turkey.  It was great!   Juicy, flavorful......way better than the Thanksgiving turkey I spent hours brining, preparing, and  roasting back in November.   I think that thanks to the inadvertent upside down roasting, the turkey was cooked perfectly.  My Best Recipe book actually has you cook the turkey upside down for the first part of roasting to protect the breast and keep it juicy.  I had never bothered, because that seemed too fussy and like too much work, but it works great!

From now on, Ericka will be in charge of holiday meals.  I have always known that there was a good cook in there somewhere and turns out I am right!

Jean, Your Lemon Meringue Pie Awaits You

Start: 4:30.   End: 10:00.
Now I know why my grandma made these only rarely.
And why she started them in the morning. 
Without a KitchenAid!
Anyway, it's here, at my house.  Come and get it.

A Midwinter's Night Salad

For the time being, My Last Supper is still My Last Supper.  Lime Juice has already been claimed. I am thinking about other names, but if anyone has some suggestions, feel free to post them in the comments!

It's been slow around here lately.....in terms of blogging.  But I have still been doing a lot of cooking.  Above is a salad I made for Thanksgiving with seasonal November items from the farmer's market.

It's simple really.  Peeling the pomegranate and separating the ruby seeds from the husk is the most complex and time consuming part task.   This salad is an example of letting fresh, seasonal produce spark  your inspiration.  There was no recipe, simply an idea based on what the farmer's market unleashed in my imagination.

Midwinter's Night Salad

1 ripe pomegranate (the redder and heavier, the better)
2 Fuyu persimmons (choose the darkest orange)
spinach
young lettuces
goat cheese
salad dressing (I imagine a homemade vinaigrette whisked together with walnut oil and Tuscan olive oil, but I was running out of time and used Brianna's poppyseed dresssing)

Separate the pomegranate seeds from themselves and set aside.

Slice the persimmons into thin slices.  Showcase their inner stars if you are able.

Mix together the spinach and lettuces.

Pull the goat cheese into small pieces with your hands and scatter throughout. 

Arrange the persimmon slices as haphazardly or as orderly as you prefer. 

Sprinkle pomegranate seeds atop.   

Sparingly drizzle your choice of dressing, careful not to obscure the jewel-like fruits.

Taste and give thanks that you live in Northern California.

Taco Runner Up

Don't forget, My Last Supper turns into Lime Juice......sometime this week!  See you over at the new url.

After a long weekend with a touch to much Mexican food, it was a full two weeks before I could face a taco tasting again.  I saved the best for last, though - Mar y Tierra, a funky little Guadalajaran joint in a Redwood City strip mall.

Saying that Mar y Tierra is the best is a little bit of a tease.  I imagine that you think I mean that Mar y Tierra has the best tacos. Sadly, this is not true.  However I will award them with runner-up.   To your right is the Mar y Tierra taco special:  three carne asada tacos with beans and rice.  The beans and rice are hands down the best I have ever tasted.  I would gladly make a meal of them alone.  The tacos are, alas, second place.  They are dressed simply with onions (not as sweet as Tonayense), cilantro and a fresh lime wedge.  Ericka ranks them as number 1, but for me, they are the bridesmaid, with Tonayense being the blushing, beautiful bride.

Now, onto what Mar y Tierra does best.......NACHOS MARINOS!!!!

Seen at the top of this page is a serving of Nachos Marinos; 12 crispy tortilla chips topped with ground shrimp ceviche, shrimp halves, beans, cheese and lime juice.  The first time I ever tasted these, I stopped in my tracks.  Had I been a Valley Girl, I would have said,  "Oh..........my............GAWD!"  Being simply a San Franciscan, I merely rolled my eyes in ecstasy and vowed to stop by Mar y Tierra whenever possible.  Nachos Marinos are........that........good.   For sure........awesome.

Mar y Tierra serves many other tasty things as well.  The tacos are not bad.  I've seen a mean looking shrimp cocktail on many tables.  Classic carne asada is delicious as well.  And the rice and beans are simply the best.

Served up by a family of 4 brothers hailing from Guadalajara Mexico, Mar y Tierra is cheap and good.  Every time I go there, I can't believe that they haven't been discovered.  Oh sure, they have a crowd, but it is primarily a Mexican expatriate crew.  That's always a good metric to measure a restaurant by, but I have never seen even a hint of a foodie.

I'm a little hesitant to publish my little Mexican-food secret to the world, but it's so good I can't keep it to myself.

Mar y Tierra
1475 Broadway St.
Redwood City, CA
(650)369-2201

Taco Mediocrity

Reminder:   For all 5 of you regular readers out there, My Last Supper will soon be turning into Lime Juice.  So one morning when you're checking it out and it's gone, try www.limejuice.typepad.com

When last I updated, I had blogged about what was simply the best taco I had ever eaten.  It was the taco that showed me what tacos were all about.  The taco that allowed me to understand why people order and eat tacos in the first place. 

You may also recall that this  best-taco-ever was also the first taco in a long weekend devoted to taco-eating.  I was so enamored of this taco that I was willing to try another highly-recommended taco joint - The Flying Fish Grill in Half Moon Bay.

 Also featured in this years Bargain Bites (which Ericka and I am utilizing heavily to help satisfy our desire to eat out, yet still have money for the mortgage payment), Flying Fish Grill was purported to have fantastic fish tacos. 

I'm sorry to report that on my visit,  Flying Fish Grill produced only so-so tacos. 

Seen above is the salmon taco and the shrimp taco.  Flying Fish Grill's fish tacos come dressed with cabbage, guacamole and secret sauce.  When I asked the waiter to describe the secret sauce, he surprised me by revealing, "ranch dressing."  Maybe ranch dressing dresses up fish tacos beyond mediocrity, but I hate ranch dressing so I asked them to hold the secret sauce.

The tacos weren't bad by any means, but they illustrate my original (and disproven by the Toyanense Taco Truck) thesis.  Most tacos make no cohesive point. This taco was like most other tacos.....a tortilla, a protein and some extras.  There was nothing to tie it together....nothing to make it greater than the sum of it's parts.

Also recommended (and much better, in my opinion) were the sweet potato fries.   Ericka was very excited at the prospect of these skinny, orange beauties.  They evoked memories of  pan con camote frito - fried yam  sandwiches that her grandmother used to pack for her lunch.  A staple in her household, these sandwiches were made of crunchy, deep-fried slices of camotes (yams). 

Brought to the table last, these fries were hot, crunchy and sweet, but lacked a little something.  A sprinkling of salt from the shaker at the table improved them immensely. 

Flying Fish Grill is a bit of  a trek from San Francisco.  I can't say that it's worth the drive.  I'm not even sure I would qualify it as a bargain.....these tacos were between $4 and $5 dollars each. 

Sadly, a weekend dedicated to a taco trek ended here.  After tacos for lunch on Friday and tacos again on Saturday, the idea of our intended visit to yet another Bay Area Mexican restaurant on Sunday did not sit well with our stomachs.   Having sampled a whopping 2 taquerias in 2 days, the Tonayense Taco Trucks is the current winner for best taco by a landslide for me.   A quick glance at the internet tells me that my opinion is in the minority, so if you happen to be in Half Moon Bay, try it for yourself.  Perhaps ranch dressing lovers will find something in their tacos that I don't.

Flying Fish Grill
99 San Mateo Rd
Half Moon Bay, CA
(650) 712-1125