Brunch. with our without coconut water. February 5, 2011
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentI love brunch. And I mean Real Brunch. People sitting around at a table enjoying each others company. There is egg involved. And maybe meat. And definitely OJ and bagels. That’s brunch. Everything else is just accoutrement.
And when I say the word “brunch” I’m not talking about what some girls refer to as “brunch”. Because “girls brunch”, which is really just eating anything on a Sunday when hungover, is not really brunch. it’s just a meal that falls during a time when restaurants display brunch menus.
And for those not familiar how a “girls brunch” develops – (all via BBM of course…no one speaks until they get to “brunch”) here’s a brief synopsis:
“ohhhh my god! Last night was Ahmayzing! but now I’m totally dying! Soooooo hungover!!! I must have drank like 7 vodka tonics! Ahhhh! Did we take shots? Did I do anything stupid? I probably did! Oh my f’in god I’m looking at pics on my phone! We’re we in a limo? LOL! OMG I’m literally kissing our cab driver! Ugggg i am struggggzzzz. I need coconut water. Like right now. Coconut water makes me feel sooo amazing. Yeah like amazing enough to stand up. then i can puke and I’m like…75% normal. Ok! Let’s get brunch!”
So Brunch is supposed to be leisurely and fun and can either be about extending the fun from Saturday night into Sunday(whatever genius coined sunday funday is a genius) or about closing out the weekend. But there are certain essentials you need to include to make it a brunch:
Bagels - if you don’t have bagels at your brunch you are an idiot. This isn’t like in school where there are no dumb questions. “Should I have bagels at my brunch?” is a dumb question because the answer is unequivocally yes. Bagels are amazing with deli meats, eggs, cream cheese, jams, tuna fish, tomatoes, cucumbers,hummus,mustard, lox, peanut butter, regular butter, toasted+ dry… I’m like Bubba gump right now. Bagels are the Blake Griffin/Penelope Cruz of brunch. Sure, they are amazing on their own, but surround them with some talent and watch the fuck out.
An Egg Dish – You’ve got guests coming over but you’ve got a lot to do and need to just pop something in the oven for brunch? Fritata. Set it and forget it. Omelets to order a bit pretentious? Fine… I’ll slum it and eat a quiche if I have to. Ohh Kugel? Way to go all Jewish on this brunch. Personally, I haven’t eaten eggs after 11am for years, but if you are a late sleeper…I say get your sunny side up on all hours of the day. Also here’s a scrambled egg tip. Mix in some whole mix with the eggs as you beat them. Add salt and pepper. And beat them pretty hard and fast. Then turn the heat to 1/2 of what you usually cook your eggs at. Then cook them slow and constantly move them. You are going to have the lightest fluffiest eggs you’ve ever tasted.
Jam/Cream Cheese – You know what’s kinda bad ass when you have people over? Making something and not just buying everything. Jam or a cream cheese dips are so easy it’s kind of like cheating. I made apricot jam last week by taking a bunch of apricots, removing the pits, adding a mess of sugar, boiling the apricots then adding Certo fruit pectin. Then I jarred it and let it cool on the counter. Popped it in the fridge overnight. Jam. Bam. Did I measure anything? Of course not. This isn’t for a cookbook or something, just me jamming out. Was it messy? Ehh maybe a jammy jam stain here or there but no biggie. Took all of 4 minutes. For cream cheese, just buy some green olives, some lox and some chives. Buy a big tub of cream cheese and divide it into 3 dishes. Allow it to soften slightly on the counter. Dice the olives, lox and chives. Place each dice item into an individual container of cream cheese. Voila. 3 homemade cream cheese dips. 2 min. classy.
Fresh Squeezed OJ – Huge $4 bags of oranges are readily available at any Farmer’s Market in CA so if you live on the west coast, you have no excuse not to do the fresh squeezed routine.Now I realize if you live in Chicago the idea of trekking through 8 ft high snow drifts then taking the L to the store and then dropping $15 on oranges so you can yield enough fresh squeezed for a table is not such a logical thing. BUT…it MAKES THE BRUNCH. Just trust me on this one. Sure you can throw Tropicana in your Brita and plop it on the table. but making fresh squeezed OJ says “I spent some time making this brunch. Let’s sit and talk, and take our time and enjoy this.” It shows a bit of class, a bit of effort and makes your guests feel special. (Watch out Martha, I’m dropping mad entertaining tips on these suckas. Pretty soon I’m gonna be doing posts on homemade napkins holders. Watch ya back).
Fresh baked bread - Bread is not hard to make. It takes a few ingredients and can be a show stopper. The best part is…you can toss anything into the bread (dried fruit, nuts, chocolate) to elevate it to a whole different level. Below is a picture of the Cranberry Almond bread I made last weekend. Was it totally delicious and awesome? Uhhh was Abraham Lincoln assassinated? Enough with the dumb questions.
It’s time for brunch.
Can someone pass the fresh squeezed OJ.
We’re out of it?
Fine…I’ll drink some goddamn Coconut Water.
Top Ramen, Eat Your Heart Out August 8, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentSometimes, great recipes just come together. Any chef will tell you “it’s all in the ingredients.” This dish is a true celebration of that statement.Here are a few rules for executing this dish. It’s quite emotionally laborious (you will need to face a lot of demons to make it) so that’s why there are a few pre-requisites.
1) You must be in an insanely lazy mood. I mean, so lazy you do not even want to google a restaurant to deliver food to you. Driving is simply out of the question. You are in a “Barely able to change the channel off the Sat night TNT movie” mood.
2) You must be kinda to very broke. The idea of spending $10+ on delivery is literally sickening.
3) You have to have basically ZERO groceries in your house. I mean, you have to be able to see every single inch of the back wall of your fridge. The weird circle ring stain from the soy sauce bottle is about the only think separating your fridge from it’s original factory specs.
4) You don’t even have time to make real rice. Correct. You only have instant rice. (who even owns instant rice? Ahh yes -the super delegates of the lazy party).
5) You don’t even have any meat to add to the dish. You only have 5 baby carrots from a basically empty veggie platter that may be like 2 weeks old.
RECIPE:
1) cook instant rice in tupperware. Cook 3 min or until fluffy.
2) cut up old baby carrots and add to the instant rice.
3) cover in soy sauce/Hoisin sauce.
4) serve with cup of tap water.
Congrats you are either the poorest SOB alive, the laziest SOB alive, or just trying to push the boundaries of really using everything up before going grocery shopping. Either way, you are a true food connoisseur.
Super-Pulled-Pork-Party February 9, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Cooking, Events, Recipes, Updates , 2comments
Ok – that picture of coleslaw sucks. I knows it. But hey, you try starting to drink at 1pm while cooking and entertaining 40 people and then trying to remember to take picture of the food. Yes, the coleslaw recipe will be in this post…but wait…we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s rewind to Saturday evening around 7.30pm.
I went up to my favorite place to buy meat - Marconda’s at the 3rd street Farmer’s Market (http://www.yelp.com/biz/marcondas-meat-market-los-angeles) to snag 8 lbs. of beautiful fatty pork butt. Little known fact - Jews actually learn how to spot a good cut of pork butt while studying for their haftorahs. And…now that we’ve offended several dozen people with that joke let’s move on.
At Marcanda’s I had a good conversation with a guy next to me at the counter who was buying 20 lbs of pork butt for his Super Bowl party (ok, showoff Mcgee). He and HIS buddy had gone halvsies on a $500 smoker and were going to town starting it at 5am (oooo la-fuckin la, Im SOOO impressed early risers).
Since I had just drank an orange pop, which to my sensitive system might as well be made out of adderall,water and orange food dye, and since I wanted to knock this guy off his meat high horse, I told him I was starting my pulled pork THAT NIGHT bc I’m that dedicated to my craft. I then did some side to side finger snaps, told him to talk to the hand and took a huge bite out of a raw steak to let him know a) I’m crazy b) don’t step to this bull bc he WILL get the horns. Supposedly he was just trying to make casual conversation, but I was way too much in the zone.
I got home at about 8ish, cleaned some of the fat off the top for the (heart attack alert)pork fat sauteed onions and then put a nice dry rub all over the PB. The dry rub consisted of Salt,Pepper,Onion powder,Paprika,Brown Sugar,Cayenne Pepper,Cumin and Garlic Powder. I seared the pork belly and cut off a small hunk to make a pork sandwich for that evening cuz, dudes gotta eat.
Then I put the remaining butt in the dutch oven with the braising liquid, which consisted of – apple juice,ketchup,grey poupon mustard,more cayenne and a whole yellow onion. Into the real oven set at 220, I placed the dutch oven ever so gently and waved goodbye.”When I see you again you’ll be pulled pork!!” I said. It was as emotional as it sounds.
At 1.30am as Ashton Kutcher continued to be consistently unfunny on SNL,I knew I needed to taste the PB and make sure this train hadn’t gone off the rails on the way to flavortown. I pulled the pork using two forks,my massive triceps and all the personal will i had to not gobble it all down right then and there. The aroma wafting up was like if Albert Einstein built a special BBQ in heaven for Julia Childs to make God’s BBQ lunch. I put the shredded meat back in da dutchie,closed the oven door and let it do it’s damn thang.
Still awake at 3.30am, I made an executive decision to not leave the oven on all night for fear of liquid evaporation and separated the pork from the liquid allowing both to cool faster. At around 4.15 I put it all in the fridge. The next morn at 10am it was back in the 220 degree oven cooking away till 2pm. By mid-party, the sun still high in the sky, discouraged party guests were left with nothing else but the ability to wipe clean the sides of the dutch oven to gather the last tasty morsels of liquidy porky goodness. 8 lbs taken down in no time. Save your clock/portion management mumbo jumbo for someone else.To me, THAT is party success.
In addition to the coleslaw and the slow cooked pulled pork I made a variation of German potato salad with pork fat onions and bacon and then a sample pack of handmade donuts. Here’s a shot of the donuts
from L-R : M&M encrusted, Vanilla Frosted, Almond and Vanilla, Caramel coated.
Overall the Super Bowl party was a slambash of epic proportions. Half a keg, 100+ beers, a handle of Johnnie Walker, 8 lbs of pork, 5 pounds of slaw and 10 pounds of potato salad. If you were to tell ME that you left hungry, I would tell YOU that you also left a goddamn liar (or perhaps you just came a vegetarian…)
Jalapeno Coleslaw
1 head green cabbage, quartered then sliced into strips.
2 medium sized jalapenos,cut in half lengthwise then sliced on a mandolin
1 whole carrot, grated
1 red onion, quartered, sliced nearly paper thin on mandolin (while drinking Gin)
juice of 1 lime
2-3 tablespoons mayo
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 cloves of raw garlic diced fine
salt and pepper to taste
OPTIONAL – 1-2 shakes Cayenne pepper (this will obviously make it spicier)
Cut all veggie ingredients. Mix well.
Add mayo and gently toss.
add vinegar and lime juice.
salt and pepper. Mix well.
Taste it.
if you want it to have more of an acidy flavor (more bite) add another 1/2 tablespoon vinegar until its where you want it.
Remember that as this sits overnight, the flavors/spice will intensify
