Seafood Laht Nah

I got Seafood Laht Nah the last two times I was at Noodle Planet. I like it, so I decided to recreate it. It’s kind of similar to Pad See Ew, with the rice noodles and the chinese broccoli, (regular Laht Nah is made with chicken) but it comes in this gravy. There is so much gravy that it’s almost a soup. (In my version you don’t see this because apparently I didn’t mix enough sauce.) Well, I know what to do with the ingredients (fry them), but I didn’t know what goes in the gravy. I loosely followed this recipe.

Ingredients

Rice noodles, chinese broccoli, whatever seafood you want for the toppings, fish sauce, soy sauce, and cornstarch (you’re suppose to use tapioca flour but I don’t have any).

Actually, they didn’t have any chinese broccoli at Ralph’s, so I looked in the greens section and selected what I supposed was the closest thing (in other words, the projection of chinese broccoli onto the set of what is available XD). What’s in the picture is something called “rapini”. History has proved that in fact, I have made a good decision. It tastes as much like chinese broccoli as it looks, which is a lot.

I begin by marinating the clams in what will become the sauce–about 1Tb of soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, cornstach, and some water. I also added some oyster sauce for shits and giggles. The shrimp is decapitated, skinned, and marinated in salt. Also the noodles have been soaking. Why is there so little shrimp, you ask? Because… because they looked bigger before I deshelled them :shobon:

In a nonstick pan, I fry the noodles. Near the end I added a splash of soy sauce mixed in some water, for color. I was wondering whether I should separate the sheets of noodles before I started frying them. I started to separate some clumps, but quickly grew bored, and figured that they’d come apart by themselves once I started cooking. This appears to be a mistaken notion…

The clam meat is taken out of the sauce and fried with some garlic. Here is another mistake–I should have added the shrimp first. They are larger and therefore take longer to cook. Live and learn.

Curiously, fried clam smells like scrambled eggs.

Then, the sauce is added. Here my camera ran out of memory, so I couldn’t take any more pictures until I finished cooking and had time to delete some pictures. After the sauce boils, I added the noodles. A short time after, I added the stems of the rapini and cooked the mixture for about a minute, then adding the leaves and turning off the heat.

Another moneyshot:

Was this delicious? Is orange a color?

I’d add this to my regular rotation, but I don’t have a constant sauce of rice noodles. It will soon be time to buy a car…

All White Dinner #1 (Chilean Seabass)

Moneyshot:

When my dad was here we went to Ami Sushi, and the Chilean Seabass was the most expensive thing on the menu, so I had it. I liked the flavor, so when we went shopping at 99 Ranch, and i saw that they had Chilean Seabass, I bought some. Or rather, I had my dad wait in line to buy me a piece while I went to look for loot. I had wanted a filet, but I guess they only had steaks or something.

Since it was fresh, I didn’t want to freeze it. Since I didn’t freeze it, I needed to act fast. So I cooked it for dinner tonight.

I had gone out looking to buy a nice fancy plate (because this is kind of a fancy fish–I mean usually when I do fish it’s tilapia or salmon), you know, like those square plates that are tipped up at the edges, but couldn’t find any. So, I figured I’d use the black plates. Which led me to think that I should do an all white dinner. Then it would look really cool, like… like a tuxedo.

Ingredient: the seabass, ample parsley, white mushrooms, and soybean sprouts. Then I changed my mind and nixed the sprouts, because I am fickle, like women.

King Oyster mushrooms. They are 10$ a pound at ralph’s, but much cheaper at the asian supermarket, so I bought 2 packages. I should also mention, that the seabass cost $10.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the fish. Well, what I had at Ami was pretty simple, I think it was a simple pan roast. I decided to just season with salt and pepper and sear.

Moneyshot again. The fish is on a bed of parsley.

I tried to make a white sauce, because then it would look even cooler, but half ‘n half keeps curdling. I tried 3 times, and the last time I even tried to reduce the half ‘n half first. Epic fail.

Chives with Pressed Tofu

I decided that the first thing to get cooked should be the chives, because they will go bad the quickest. This is a very simple dish that needs only salt as seasoning, because the ingredients are already pretty flavorful.

These are the only ingredients. The mushrooms are not necessary, I just decided to add them because I have a bunch, and they will also go bad, so why not eat them while they’re still fresh? I mean, there is no way that adding enoki is going to REDUCE my enjoyment of this dish, so. I was also going to scramble up some eggs with this, but the eggs are buried under layers of stuff in the fridge and I don’t want to dig them out… ever.

Chives: chives are like leeks, only smaller (cuter?), flatter, and more flavorful. They can be used as herbs, but they can also be used as leafy vegetables.

Pressed tofu: … is tofu that has been pressed, so it is much firmer than even the firmest grade of tofu. It’s also been… processed with deliciousness. I’m not sure how this is done, I think they cook it or bake it in some kind of soy sauce mixture with spices.

The chives are coarsely chopped and the tofu is thinly sliced. Also discard the wilted parts of the chives, as well as the discolored parts (like any leafy greens, moisture and time will make it gross). When cut into, it should make a nice crunch. I reserved a few stalks to use as herbs.

Tofu gets a head start in the wok.

Then the chives are added, followed by the mushrooms.

I think I left the chives in there for too long. The whole point of stir frying is to preserve the texture of the vegetables. Oh well… Why am I such a noob T_T

Loot

Here is a nice soup I made last week with fishballs, seaweed, enoki mushrooms and egg. Parsley + sesame oil is a very good combo!

My dad was in town today to visit, and he took me shopping at an Asian supermarket, so now I have tons of loot. I spent $160 on this! There is so much loot, that it could not be documented with only one photograph. I am pretty excited, now we can make all kinds of shit!

Chinese sausage, various kinds of pressed tofu and fried tofu, a steak, some pork ribs, clam meat, 3 pounds of shrimp and a filet of Chilean seabass.

Enoki and king oyster mushroom, Chinese okra, chives, long bean, soy bean sprouts, TWO kinds of vinegar (because they didn’t have the kind of vinegar I was looking for… I decided to give this “red vinegar” a try), two kinds of black bean sauce, and some bamboo.

A package of tamarind soup mix (I couldn’t find any tamarind, which you need to make Pad Thai, so I was wondering if I could just use this… I mean it only has some other harmless ingredients like ground pepper, which might not be so bad in Pad Thai), some chilis (to make Kung Pao chicken… XD I wonder if this is the right kind), tapioca balls (to make my own boba), conpoy (dried scallops… this shit is expensive! The package cost $10), various flat rice noodles (to recreate the dishes from Noodle Planet), various normal noodles (soba, somen, and udon), dried shiitake, a weird kind of fungus that grows on bamboo (does it have a name in English?), and anise seeds (for MEAT).

Not pictured: dried persimmons, a taro flavored cake, and a giant jar of kimchee.

Oh, and I bought a roast duck. This thing is huge!

It is time to get to work!

Mussels

I didn’t want this blog to become dominated by fob cooking, and I haven’t had shellfish in a while, so today we made mussels, roughly following this recipe that’s French, I suppose. I actually bought them yesterday, but Justin’s friend who was here had made dinner, so I postponed my mussel plans, betting that you can keep them overnight with impunity.

[Edit: I was not violently ill up to 48 hours after this meal, so in fact, you can.]

Ingredients:

Apple cider, basil, parsley, shallots (and garlic), apple, and, oh, yeah, a fuckton of mussels! Actually, one fuckton turns out to be 1.5 pounds.

I scrubbed the mussels for almost half an hour. I guess this recipe is for you if you are good at cleaning and not good at cooking, because it is muy easy. 3 of the mussels turned out to be dead, which is about a 9% death rate.

A fascinating lesson in anatomy:

The beard is apparently attached to what seems to be a stalk coming out of the heart of the mussel. The only way to kill a mussel is by stabbing it there with a silver cross. But it’s interesting that in the live mussel, the meat covers the entire surface of the shell. I’ve only ever seen it cooked, where it’s all shrunk up, but I guess this makes a lot of sense!

[Edit: This was a dead mussel. Don't do this with the ones you actually want to eat!]

Shallot and garlic in butter. Mmmmm

Then, some wine and apple cider is added, as well as the apples.

It simmers for a while, et puis the mussels themselves and the parsley.

Finally, the moneyshot:

Bonus! More foods!
Breakfast from a few days ago:

Herpey New Year!

Well, I still had something like 40% of the pineapple left, so, taking the suggestion of a friend a random hobo, I made something with pineapple, chicken, and coconut milk.

Moneyshot:

The ingredients:

Red onion, pineapple, chicken, coconut milk, oyster mushroom (because I had some and they needed to be eaten), green onion, basil (and garlic and thai chilli). Basil goes well with chicken, that’s why.

I looked up some recipes to figure out what to put in the sauce. Well, one recipe called for fish sauce, which I don’t have. But I thought, well, I have oyster sauce, and I’m using oyster mushrooms, so… Sauce consisted of oyster sauce, soy sauce, and half a can of coconut milk.

The chicken boob is cut into cubes and salt and peppered.

Das ist a nice brown! I was muy proud of myself for that one.

I added the garlic, green onion, and basil at the half way point rather than in the beginning, because otherwise they cook for too long!

Everything has been added, including the sauce.

It’s kind of hard to take pictures and cook at the same time. I mean this kind of cooking goes tres rapidement, as we say.

Another moneyshot:

Epilogue: It was really good! I should use coconut milk more because it is fucking delicious! Well, I do have half a can left. Maybe I will make some kind of Thai curry.

Pineapple Meatballs

Most people don’t know that pineapple is meatball’s secret BFF.

Moneyshot:

Ingredients:

Actually we’re missing a few things, like soy sauce and garlic.

I started to do something cool with the pineapple, then decided “fuck this, I want to eat today”. Yes, dear reader, we are dedicated to bring you our most half-assed attempts.

Since I knew I was going to have extra pineapple left over, I went ahead and made some guacamole, just as planned. I always look forward to this because taking the pit out of the avocado with the knife is so much fun!

I played mashu-mashu with the avocados… And I won!

Added some pineapple, onion, garlic, tomato, and TWO chilli peppers, because one is not hot enough for me.

Some lime and another enlightening game of mashu-mashu later, and we are done.

Onwardly, to the entree!

My balls are browning.

While this happened, I cut up my pineapple.

Oooh, the colors!

For the sauce, I made a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, vinegar, salt, sugar, and cornstarch.

Another moneyshot, but with flash. I’m not sure if this looks better than the first moneyshot.

Update: have a moneyshot of guacamole.

Epilogue: it was ok. Pineapple is already sweet and sour, so making a sweet and sour sauce made it a little overpowering. Salt is the way to go in such a situation! As for the guacamole, I don’t think pineapple goes so well with it. Maybe mangoes?

So, It Begins

I have thought long and hard about what to call this blog, and I believe this is the best name anybody has ever come up with in the history of good names. Yes, this blog has a theme song.

Welp, not much to explain here. My old blog was hosted on my school account, and it was deleted after I graduated. I’ve decided to start a cooking blog to document my delicious adventures, although it may grow to include my other endeavours.

Today, avocados were on sale at Ralph’s for 69 cents each. Wow, what a great deal! I bought 6, and that means this week is guacamole week. I also bought a pineapple, so maybe my guacamole will be a little fruity. I also picked up some vegetables for stir-fry while I was there. And my wok is seasoned! What great timing! So that’s what’s coming up tomorrow. Stay tuned!