Rex Roof

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  Rex 9:15 pm on February 6, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Bacon Apple Pie 

  Just to be clear, this blog is mainly for me to document what I did, when. I’m not really writing it to provide other people with the means to recreate anything, nor am I suggesting that anyone would WANT to recreate anything I’ve made. I just want to have a document to refer to when I’m trying to remember how I made something that I vaguely remember from months passed.

  

  Now: Bacon Apple Pie. Never have I been struck with a sense of “you know what this really needs? …” as I was last week when I tasted a slice of Granny Smith apple pie that my classmates had made. Maybe it was because I had just sampled some of Benton’s Smokey Bacon a few days before, but I immediately thought of how well some of that bacon would go with this pie. I couldn’t shake the idea, so I had to go with it.

  I have to say, every time I’ve attempted to put bacon in baked goods in the past, it has been a dismal failure. A batch of bacon fat swedish cookies from the NYTimes magazine were a particular failure. I think I personally have a strange physiological aversion to bacon fat. Not bacon itself, but the fat. If I eat bacon, I’m happy; if I eat something with bacon fat in it, I feel weird in my brain. I already had an idea of how I wanted to accomplish bacon apple pie, but looking on the internet to see what other people did came up with some really gross concoctions that would be filled with bacon fat. (See this and this) (More …)

   

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  Rex 9:18 pm on February 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Ginger Fried Rice 

  This recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s Minimalist column in the New York Times. I love just about everything that I’ve ever made of his. This recipe didn’t look that impressive when I saw him make it in his video podcast, but I had some rice to use up, so I tried it. My pictures all suck, but the food was incredible.

  First off, I used Momofuku’s slow poached eggs in my dish. This involves getting some water to 145°, adding some eggs, and keeping it just barely above 140° for 40-45 minutes. I quick fried them in some of the oil for this dish just before serving. Skip this if you just want to use regular fried eggs.

  I prepped all these things last night while I was cooking other things: 1 leek, julienned, 2 Tbs each ginger and garlic, chopped into small bits. You don’t want the garlic and ginger to be too fine, but they need to be small. 2 cups of rice or other grains, cooked. I used wild rice mix that I had in the cupboard. I simmered it in a big pot of salted water, then strained it, like pasta.

  Get a good layer of peanut or other oil in the bottom of a large frying pan and put it on medium heat. When the oil is warm put in the garlic and ginger bits. Toss them around until they get fairly brown. Be careful not to burn these. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Toss a little salt with them. Add the leeks and a little salt to the oil and cook them until softened, just a couple minutes. If you think you have a bit too much oil, pour a little off, reserving it for later. Toss in your rice and turn the heat on high. Stir-fry the rice with the leeks until the rice is warmed through and it’s good and, um, fried. If you want to use the same pan, reserve the rice and leek mixture and use this pan to fry your eggs. They should be sunny-side up, and use some of the reserved oil if you need it. Like I said, I used the Slow-Poached eggs, I fried them in a little bit of this oil.

  To serve: Put some rice/leeks in a dinner bowl, egg on top, sprinkle garlic/ginger bits over the whole thing. Season with soy sauce and sesame oil. Amazing.

  Adapted from Mark Bittman’s post on nytimes.com: Ginger Fried Rice

   
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  Rex 2:13 pm on January 28, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  MP3! Elizabeth & The Catapult 

  Testing audio here.   I recently discovered this album on a randomly-loaded ipod.  I like it, mostly because of the word Catapult.

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

  Blake is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Blake 3:09 pm on January 28, 2010 Permalink

    I can dig any song if you throw enough LA LA LA’s in there.

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  Rex 11:48 pm on January 27, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cooking (12), potatoes   

  Cornish Game Hen & Fingerling Potatoes 

  

  A few things came together to make dinner tonight. 1) I had a cornish game hen in the freezer from class last semester. 2) I’d been reading What Einstein Told His Cook and saw a recipe for a cornish game hen basted in soy sauce. 3) I had the Tare from the Momofuku book in the fridge and figured it would be well-served in that basting liquid. 4) I saw that video from goop.com earlier this week where gweneth paltrow cooks some fingerling potatoes in a very similar style to Heston Blumenthal. It involves a pre-boil and a long roast to get crispy baked potatoes. kinda.
  Peeling fingerlings is a pain in the ass, it gave me cramps in my hands. I peeled the fingerlings and boiled them in some salty water for about 8 minutes. Then I strained them and beat them around in the colander to give them some rough edges. Then I tossed them in olive oil and threw them in a square pyrex baking dish to serve as the base for my cornish game hen.

  

  The game hen was brined in a quart of water with a 1/4 cup of both brown sugar and kosher salt. I left it in the fridge for about an hour. Meanwhile I threw together 1/4 cup of tare plus a little bit of soy sauce, 1Tbs or so of peanut oil, about 1Tbs each garlic and ginger, roughly chopped. I put all this together in the cup that came with our immersion blender and blitzed it up good. It came out opaque and creamy looking. the ginger and garlic pieces totally disappeared. You can barely see the bits on the surface of the raw game hen. I rinsed the game hen and stuffed it with some random fresh herbs. sage, rosemary and thyme, I think. I put the cornish hen on top of the potatoes, breast side down, and brushed it with the tare/soy mixture. Into a 400° oven it went.

  Every 10 minutes I opened the oven and basted on more of the soy & tare mixture. After 30 minutes I flipped the bird breast side up and basted it again. Repeat this process until the bird looks like it might start burning, or an hour has gone by. I also put a 1/4 cup of water into the dish if the juices in the dish were burning, or starting to. Normally I’d check the temperature, but after an hour at 400°, this bird is cooked. I removed the bird and let it rest on a plate. I tossed the potatoes a bit in the pan and put them back in the oven to crisp up a bit more while the meat had a rest.

  

  Actually, I didn’t love this meal. The flavor of the skin was a bit overwhelming. Way too much salt/soy flavor going on, and this is from someone who loves salt. The potatoes weren’t crispy, but they were excellent. The cornish game hen did have just about the perfect amount of meat for me, but it seems like a ridiculously tiny bird to bother cooking. This dinner needed something green, I think. But a dinner cooked is a good dinner.

   
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  Rex 9:49 pm on January 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cooking (12), momofuku   

  Momofuku Taré (yakitori sauce) 

  

  In my attempt to create Momofuku Ramen from the Momofuku cookbook, I first had to make taré sauce. This sauce involves roasting bones and then simmering them in mirin, sake, and soy sauce. The final product was meaty and delicious. The momofuku recipe calls for roasting chicken backs, I didn’t have any but I did have a duck carcass and a turkey backbone, so that is what I used!

  Chop up the bones from 2-3 chicken backs, or use duck parts or turkey parts or whatever poultry bones you have. Extra meat and skin is good, too. Put them in an oven-proof saute pan or pot. Roast in a 400˚ oven for 45 minutes or so. You want the parts well browned, but not black at all. Take your bones out of the oven and put them on the stovetop over medium heat. Splash about ½ cup of sake into the pan and use it to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Once all the brown bits are up, add another ½ cup of sake, 1 cup of mirin, and 2 cups low-sodium soy sauce. Stir this into the pan, kick up the heat, bring this to a boil and then reduce the heat to a slight simmer. Let this cook for an hour. Pick out the bones and strain through some cheesecloth.

  

  I used some duck parts so I had a bit of extra fat in the sauce that I needed to pour off.

  This stuff is salty and amazing. I can’t wait to use it.

  Cornish Game Hen & Fingerling Potatoes « Rex Roof is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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  Rex 5:36 pm on January 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cooking (12)   

  Cinnamon-Nut Granola 

  

  Take 4 cups oats (old-fashioned rolled), 1 cup chopped almonds, 1 cup dry roasted peanuts, 1 cup flaked coconut (unsweetened) and toss it together in a really big bowl.

  Melt 1 stick of butter and stir in 1-1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2tsp salt and 1/2 cup honey. Pour this over the oat mixture and toss it all together by hand. Put this on a rimmed baking pan and put it into a 300 degree oven. Stir this on the pans every 10 minutes or so, until it is a nice even golden brown, probably 35 minutes.
  While it is cooling, roughly chop the dried fruit: 1/2 cup each of golden raisins, apricots, cherries, and cranberries.
  Once the oats are cooled, toss it all together in your big bowl and store in an airtight container. Eat it with milk or yogurt or ice cream.

  Taken from the King Authur Whole Grain Baking book.

   
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  Rex 10:00 pm on January 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: breakfast, Cooking (12), food cooking   

  Chocolate Steel Cut Oats 

  This steel cut oats recipe from thekitchn interested me. I usually eat steel cut oats using this recipe from Mark Bittman: Coconut Oat Pilaf. Normally when I make it I wish there weren’t so many ingredients and that it didn’t turn out so awesome, justifying all the work. This one is simpler, and almost as delicious, just in a totally different way.

  Bring almost 3 cups of water to a boil. I use less, I like my oats dryer. Dump in 1 cup steel-cut oats, some salt, 2 teaspoons each espresso and cocoa powder. Stir and bring it back to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until done. Maybe 20 minutes? Once most of the water is gone you can just turn it off, cover it, and let it soak up the rest of the water. It is also great to do the night before, it keeps in the fridge for more than a few days. Oh, once it’s all finished cooking, stir in 1 tablespoon of sugar. More if you like it sweeter. Or use honey. or whatever you like that is sweet. Eat this in the morning, plain or with nuts or coconut in it. Totally awesome.

  Based on this recipe: Mocha Crunch Oatmeal.

   
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  Rex 9:16 pm on August 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cooking (12), Everything (28)   

  Chickpea-Carrot-Olive salad 

  

  This comes from Once Upon A Tart…, the cookbook, and the restaurant. Erin and I happened upon it when we were looking for breakfast in New York. We ordered some quiche and tart and this salad. I took a cameraphone pic of the book and could only decipher the ingredient list, so here is what I did with that:

  
  Grate 3 or 4 medium carrots into a large bowl. Take a handful of mixed olives (about a cup, with pits) and pit and rough chop them and add them to the bowl. Finely chop almost a full bunch of cilantro and two scallions, into the bowl. Rinse and drain two cans of chickpeas, mix into the bowl. Stir this up really well, making sure all the ingredients are well distributed.

  For the dressing, in a smaller bowl: One or two cloves of garlic, finely minced. the zest and juice of one lemon. 2Tbls ground cumin, 2tsp paprika, a strong dash of red cayenne, 2tsp salt, generous grind of pepper. Whisk this until combined. Whisk vigorously and add in 3Tbs of olive oil.

  mix the dressing into the salad, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for an hour before serving.

   
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  Rex 11:23 am on May 19, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cooking (12), Everything (28)   

  Pork Chow Mein 

  6oz medium egg noodles (I used flat rice noodles)
  12oz pork fillet (I used a chop)
  2 Tbs frying oil
  1tsp sesame oil (I used hot sesame oil + regular sesame oil)
  2 garlic cloves crushed
  8 spring onions (I used a finely sliced leek)
  1 red bell pepper, chopped
  1 green bell pepper, chopped
  2 Tbs dark soy sauce
  3 Tbs dry sherry
  6oz bean sprouts
  3Tbs chopped flat leaf parsley
  1Tbs toasted sesame seeds

  1) cook noodles until almost done, drain and rinse cool
  2) slice pork, cook in frying oil in high heat until cooked through
  3) add sesame oil(s) with garlic, leek, and peppers. cook over high heat for 3 minutes, peppers should soften.
  4) reduce heat and add noodles with soy sauce and sherry. stir-fry for 2 minutes
  5) add beansprouts and continue to cook for 2 minutes. add water if noodles start to stick.
  6) stir in the parsley and serve with toasted sesame seeds on top.

  This is from a Thai & Southeast Asian cookbook I bought at Borders on clearance. It was delicious. I’m really glad I used spicy sesame sauce, it added the heat that I expect from any asian dish. And I probably wouldn’t use a pork chop in the future, it was a bit too tough. Maybe if I would have cut it properly, against the grain.

   
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  Rex 4:39 am on March 24, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Coding (3)   

  movie time 

  creating an mpeg from a series of jpg images:

  ffmpeg -f image2 -i ‘%03d.jpg’ -sameq -f mpeg2video file.mpg