Some Like it Hot

I have no excuse. I wanted to post this a little earlier than I had planned but thats Okay. I needed to recover. Dad had his birthday wish, a nice thick steak for his birthday. A grilled porter house that covered his plate. We had boiled sweet potatoes, cooked spinach with smoked bacon, fresh corn on the cob, rice, bought and home made kimchi, and I forgot what else, but I knew that I didn’t get to grill the zucchini from the garden.

Now cooking and setting up for the party wouldn’t have been so bad if; A) We hadn’t gone out with some friends on friday night, and DH was slightly hung over. B) I was sleep deprived, and had been shopping and cooking since 11 am and we did not eat till almost 7 p.m.. C) If I was smart enough to make sure that the butcher had enough porter house steaks for 8 people. Alas Birthday Boy received his porter house but the rest of us had to do with another cut of meat. Don’t ask me, Dh knows what kinds of meat he grilled and it was fantastic. Jo, and the family had prior engagement so they came later.

I wish I wasn’t so tired to take pictures, but Mike’s (Jo’s husband)eyes grew huge when he found out the steak DH grilled for him was larger than the plate. He finished the whole steak which was really amazing. I was told by Jo that he was commenting on the steak the day after.

For dessert we had vanilla ice cream with warm chocolate pudding cake (that had to be scooped out of the pan) with peach syrup aka Peach Poop. While the rest of the family and friends sang happy birthday loudly and off key, my mother had food coma and couldn’t join in the fun and festivities. As we finished dessert, my mother woke up and asked “when are we having the chilled watermelon?”. So for our second dessert we had chilled water melon. DH was commenting that we were eating like hobbits. So, by the end of the party sometime around 11 p.m., the Birthday boy and family and friends rolled out of our house into the night to find their beds and pass out. I didn’t do anything for the next 2 days. If Jo hadn’t helped me in the kitchen, I might have needed another day to recover. Thanks Jo.

I’M GLAD YOU HAD A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY DAD! I HOPE YOU HAVE MANY MORE!

Here is the only picture of the Birthday party food. Don’t complain I was busy and everyone was ravenous! If you are squeamish you might not want to look at the picture. I warned you!

DH and I were driving down the El Camino, when both our stomaches growled “Feed me for feel the wrath of the Stomaches!”. We were quaking in our boots, but nothing seemed to jump out at us, until we saw Nam Noodle House. It is located in the old Bob’s Big Boy building, in Sunnyvale.

Cutting three lanes and hurtling over speed bumps, and barely parking between the lines we had arrived at Nam’s Noodle House. Now, we had been there before, but we couldn’t remember if we had enjoyed ourselves or not. We bravely entered the door, and the hostess greeted us, and we were seated in the busy wing of the restaurant.

This is not the busy end of the restaurant.

The inside looks a little old, but clean. We both ordered the same item, Seafood Pho, and ice lemon soda. Two tall glasses appeared with sugar on the bottom, and lemon juice in the middle, and then the top layer club soda.

It was really good, but it took awhile to dissolve the sugar. I think I would have been happier if we were given sugar syrup, but other than that it was enjoyable. Then our seafood Pho arrived.

Look! Not one speck of cilantro in my pho, and lots of green onions! Yeah!

The soup had succulent shrimps, and some sort of white fish. It was delicious. The broth had a hint of anise, but it was subtle and not over powering. I don’t remember how much we paid, but DH said it was worth whatever we paid. I remember that they had kimchi on the menu, and the menu is written in 3 languages. It is a good place to get your pho craving over with. I am still looking for a pho place that serves raw meat at the tables. We will have to see about that.

One of the best things in this life, from my point of view, is getting fed a good breakfast and not having to cook. Usually on the weekends my DH is so sweet and makes me breakfast so I don’t lift a finger except to grab my fork and eat something scrumptious. I never know what he will come up with, and this is definitely a winner!

You may look at this and think what it is just a plain omelet, but you would be so wrong. It isn’t just a plain omelet, but a special one.

No spinach or cheese graces the interior of this omelet, but what could it be?

Hmm yellow tomatoes from Jo’s garden.

An imperfect picture of a half eaten omelet. AHA! Can you guess the filling?

Yes, it is heirloom tomato and roast beef hash omelet. I have to say it was quite delicious! Dh made another one later on in the week, with red shallots, tomatoes and roast beef hash, and I cannot for the life of me decide which was better. Sorry to say it was so good, and we were ravenous that no pictures survived (neither did the omelet).

Roast Gooey

In the deep dark forest, the hunter was tracking his ever elusive pray. The wild Gooey. The marks of the Gooey are easy to see on the lower bark of the Perillawood tree. As the Gooey marks it’s territory it leaves the unmistakable smell of sesame oil as it lifts it’s leg to leave a small sprits of puncheon.

The hunter searched around a clearing in the forest for the Gooey’s bedding place (basically a huge charcoal grill…)

That little segment was brought to you by the letter R and the letter S and the number 86. Well actually by my DH who really does like this dish a lot.

This is an easy Korean meal when I don’t really feel like cooking. Funny thing is that it is eaten for celebrations or for special occasion or taking guest out to dinner. For me it is a quick meal to prepare and it is outstanding. Well actually let me rephrase that. This meal can turn into a lot of work (with making your own banchan and making it outlandishly good) and cooking but I was lazy one very WARM (aka HOT) day, and did not feel like cooking. It is worth making your own banchan, but when you’re not in the mood or too warm in the kitchen, it’s nice to just go to the store and get a couple banchan, and eat like Kings. Well ok maybe not kings just maybe some poor aristocrats…The main star is the banchan and the unmarinated meat dipped in sauce with sesame oil, salt and pepper. So anyways here is the meal we had just recently.

Really lazy Roosu Gui recipe for two people

1 lb. of rib-eye or galbi meat sliced thinly
Kimchi for two people
several banchan from the store
1 head of red leaf lettuce
two bunches of perilla leaves
black pepper
salt
sesame oil
Cooked rice for 2 people or more (depending how hungry the diner is)

SamJang sauce:

3 tablespoons of kochujang(korean spicy bean paste)
1-2 teaspoons of sesame oil
2 tablespoons of dwenjang(korean miso)
1 clove garlic chopped thinly or finely diced
1 green onion, green and white parts, sliced thin as you can.

Mix all the samjang ingredients together in a small bowl. Make sure everything is incorporated well. Set this aside. Take lettuce and separate the leaves and wash and dry, and then set aside on a plate. Do the same with the perilla leaves. Take the kimchi and place on a serving plate or bowl. Take banchan, (if lazy leave it in the banchan container just open the lid) and place each in a separate bowl for serving. On a small (I mean small) plate place a 1/2 tsp of salt and pepper(to taste) and sesame oil just to cover. Do this for each diner. Cook the meat (preferably over charcoal or gas) on the frying pan, until done. Scoop out rice for each person into a rice bowl and place all plates and bowls on the table. Say grace. Take a lettuce, and then a perilla leaf and place a scoop (about tablespoon or more) of rice on top. Then scoop up some of the samjang to taste (not a lot here folk its salty, and then there are the wimpy mouths but we won’t go into that here.), then take the meat and dip it into the sesame oil dip and place on lettuce leaf. Place whatever else you like, and then try to wrap the lettuce and shove it in your mouth and chew. Do not choke, but it is easy to do when you are GREEDY, and over stuffed your lettuce leaf!!! Drink some water before you die, and lick your lips and start again. This meal was really good, for the amount of work, and if you put a lot more work than I did, the meal will usually much better. Unless you are really prone to causing culinary disasters, or you just happen to have terrible misfortunes at the table. Please enjoy this meal. If you don’t have a quick place to get banchan than too bad for you, you are SOL or you can put a lot more work into it, and make an outstanding meal.

And here we have the headless man, directing our attention the lovely fluffy rice in a bowl, and the table ready for the two diners.

Now I had planned to post this earlier but I hadn’t the time, but now is the perfect timing, mainly because we’re having roosu gui at Jo’s house. I talked Jo (ok twisted her arm and bit her ankles)into doing this because she wanted something tasty but not too horrendous to cook. Well look forward to our nest post on my site and on Jo’s web Blog Truly Thankful. It will not be for terribly lazy cooks, but the banchan should be better since it will be home made. Same bat address and not the same time…See You Next Time…Er Type at you next time…Oh whatever!

Kirk, at MMM-YOSO wanted the recipe for Sujonggwa. It took me awhile but I dug up the recipe. I haven’t made this since last winter, so I went and made it without the pine nuts and dried persimmons, just to make sure I have the measurements right. So with no further ado here is the recipe.

Sujonggwa

1 oz of cinnamon sticks broken into 2 in pieces
1 oz thumb sized pieces of fresh ginger
1 cup of sugar(you can use honey)
pine nuts
dried persimmons
5 pints of water

Peel ginger and slice thinly. In a sauce pot boil water with cinnamon and ginger for 1/2 hr to a hour.

BOIL DARN YOU BOIL!!!!

Then lower the temperature to medium and simmer for 15 minutes. Take out the ginger and cinnamon sticks, and dissolve the sugar/honey into the sauce pot, and boil briefly. Chill the punch. De-seed the dried persimmons and replace the seeds with pine nuts,(I am not overly fond of pine nuts so I usually don’t add them) and then soak them for 1/2 hr before serving. Place one persimmon in a small bowl and pour sujonggwa over the persimmon, Float a couple of pine nuts on top and enjoy.

The day started out like any other friday. I did the dishes folded the laundry and received a call from Jo.

“Hey Milly, wanna get a breakfast pastry at Fleur De Cocoa, a coffee, and then head out for Vietnamese sandwiches for the guys?”
“Hmmm…I don’t know, I have to pick up DH in two hours.”
“Well, it should only take about half hour for Fleur and then another half hour for the sandwiches. Come on Milly, I can’t let Mike miss the sandwiches.”
“Ok, but let me clean the kitchen the maintenance guys should be here sometime to fix or replace my stove.”
“Sure, no problem I have to get the boys dressed and I will come pick you up.”
“Bye Jo. I will see you soon.”
“Bye”

TICK TICK TICK TICK…. AN HOUR LATER …TICK TICK TICK

I dialed Jo’s Phone, “Hey Jo I guess you left already, but it is kinda getting late. Well, I will wait for you to arrive.” Click.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

“Heya Jo, it is kinda late already…”
“We can do this Milly Come On!”

Next thing I know we’re on HWY 85 and then Hwy 17, and exiting on Lark. Hmmm where are we? There we were cruising up and down Lark street in a bright red van with two kids and two adult females, who were going to scream because we were lost. I mean lost, (Did you hear me? We were lost with a capitol L!) and frustrated because time was trickling away…30 minutes later we decide it is hopeless, and decided to head for Vietnamese Sandwiches (review coming shortly). But wait, we have to find a bank. No problem, we’ll go down this street, ok how about this street? Oh, look another street, there has to be a bank here. Hmmm…No Bank. We looked frantically about, as we went up and down strange looking streets, in cities that blend into one another. Where are we? You guessed it we were lost again! By this time I called my husband, and told him I would be an hour late. We finally found an ATM, and headed for sandwiches. WOOO HOOO.

“Jo, go down this street there should be an outlet for HWY 280 over here somewhere.”
“AHA! There is the sign for the entrance for the freeway.”

….10 minutes later…

“Where is the entrance for the freeway?!!!”
“Jo, Oh there it is!”
“Whew finally”

Thirty minutes later and Jo, and I had our sandwiches and I barely had time to pick up DH. We said our farewells and went our separate ways for lunch.

2 hours later.

“Hey Jo, do you want to try to go for Fleur De Cocoa?”
“OH BOY HOWDY!”

Off we went. We were smart this time we, had in our hot little hands the directions to Fleur De Cocoa. Los Gatos was beautiful, the sun was shining, but we were not inside Fleur De Cocoa, but at Williams and Sonoma, being seduced. Yes thats right seduced! I mean by the time we left Jo, had fondled place mats and man handled platters. I was running my fingers against smooth glass, and romanced by pasta dishes. Both our hands were covered in lotion, promising to make our hands smell fresh and make them divinely soft. WE HAD TO LEAVE, NOW!!!!!

Well we traipsed up the road and looking high and low for Fleur, and yet it wasn’t in sight. I had 3 hours when we first started out on this trip again, but now time was ticking away.

“It has to be here somewhere!” The frustration in Jo’s voice was growing. I just happen to turn my head to the right and look across the street,

“Jo! It’s over there! It located across the street!” By now I am jumping up and down and I didn’t care. Cars be Darned! I was going to make it across that road! Whew, the vision of the arcade game Frogger comes to mind at this time, but we safely make it across the street. I opened the door, and my first instinct is to yell out. “HERE’S MILLY!” But they were lucky I refrained.

I cannot confirm no deny what happened next inside the store, but the few facts I can divulge are…

Tory and Milly (YAY my name *smiles*) were awesome servers and had a sense of humour.

The dessert Jo had was decadent, but light. Made of chocolate and Marion berries, her dessert had disappeared before I had even taken my second bite from my Tart au Citron. She was kind enough to give me a piece of her dessert and the option to lick her butter knife. *wink* Never did lick off the butter knife, oh wait she scraped the chocolate off later.

My dessert was wonderful. I hate most commercial lemon desserts but I just have to try them anyways. I love lemon desserts if they are tart and sweet all at once, and Fleur de Cocoa, had attained what I thought wasn’t attainable. Fleur proved me wrong, that a commercial bakery could produce something I have only had at home, and I loved it. The Tart au Citron, had lovely strands of zest, and pungently lemony curd, and the crust was mild and crumbly, like short bread but tasted slightly buttery. It was heaven, and I was kind enough to give a bite to Jo, and then it was ALL MINE…my precious…my precious.

Well this is what the desserts looked like before they disappeared…

This is the small infinitesimal piece I grudgingly shared with Jo…*wink*

Check out Jo’s website to read the rest of the report of Fleur De Cocoa.

Truly Thankful

Well, it started off with Kirk asking an innocent question about the dried file fish snacks at the Korean grocery store. He wanted know to how they are eaten and prepared. You can eat them as is, but I perfer to cook them. Well here it is a small. tutorial.

The beginning…

Take out one disk like file snack. Place file tile on the burner, and set the burner to medium heat. If using a gas burner set it to the lowest heat setting first then place file tile on the burner. If it doesn’t seem to curl and heat on the gas stove set the burner a little higher.

The file tile should start to curl, and smoke a little. Watch it very carefully. It can burn really fast. Some burnt areas are welcome, but we don’t want a disk of charcoal.

Take chopsticks or tongs etc. (whatever you have for grasping the tile without burning yourself) and flip the file disk. Watch it curl and smoke on the second side and quickly take it off the burner and place on a plate or paper napkin.

Turn off the burner. Going along the grain rip off pieces of file, and eat. Try not to burn your fingers or mouth in the process.
If you are successful you will be rewarded by sweet salty taste of the fish.

Going

Going

Gone.

You can do this on the BBQ grill, charcoal or gas. Same procedure watch it curl slightly and flip, and repeat on the other side. It takes some practice, but you can do it! When it is warm it is much easier to rip pieces off and eat. The cooler the fish the chewier. Oh, you should open the windows and have the over head fan on. Sometimes it can get really smokey in the kitchen. You don’t want the neighbors calling the fire department. GOOD LUCK! I’ll update on the toaster oven experiment later.

My Kingdom for a camera! I of course forgot my camera the day my friend J (not Jo) decided to to head over for Malaysian food at the Banana leaf restaurant. Man that place was crowded, but we squeezed into the bar, and ordered roti prata, and ice cendol to start off. As we were waiting for our appetizer we were given a small bowl of sour spicy soup. The soup was very thin with a large tomato and slivered onion in the bowl. It was tangy and tasty. The roti prata, was sublime. It was airy and crunchy and slightly chewy all at once, the curry looked like yellow or coconut curry (I forgot to ask), but it was mildly spiced, which allowed you to taste the roti. The Cendol was divine. It was cool and refreshing and near the bottom red beans and jellies hid under the shaved ice and it was heaven in a glass. The taste of coconut was so delicious and it went down so lovely since the outside weather was 90 degrees.

J ordered Siam Prawns, and I ordered Chow Kueh Teow, and I told the bartender to not to make it mild (i.e no spice at all). J’s ordered arrived first, and it was heavenly. It was coated in a gingery sweet spicy sour red sauce. It had nice fat prawns, and slivers of ripe mangoes. It was served on-top of a 5X6 inch piece of banana leaf, on a white plate. The contrast with the red sauce, banana leaf, and the white plate was beautiful. The thick red sauce and nice white rice just melted into your mouth, and the prawns…Oh the Prawns were so masterfully done, they were perfect.

Just as I had tasted a little of J’s dish the Chow Kueh Teow arrived, and it looked good. J’s first response was “I need to learn how to make that” It was good. The bean sprouts were crunchy but not raw, and the noodles chewy, and there was some green string like vegetable that reminded me of spinach, but it was clearly not. ( I forgot to ask what it was! *sigh*) There were only sadly two prawns and J and I had one each, and yet again the prawns were done to perfection. The spiciness was medium, (it wasn’t what i would call spicey) but just perfect for the noodles. The portions looked small, we had ordered through the lunch menu, but by the end of the meal we were so very full. The bartender asked if we would like dessert, and of course we had to at least look at the menu.

Well we did more than look we ordered Ice Kacang. It was presented to us in a lovely bamboo bowl, with two cherries on top. It was lovely in its red, brown, and whiteness, we held our breath as I scooped out small portions. The ice was much finer than a previous ice kacang I had tried. It had green and white jellies, and peanuts, corn, but sadly lacked the palm seeds. It was good, not too sweet and perfect.

As I was eating the icy delicacy, the bartender asked, “Excuse me but have you been to Malaysia before?”
I was in eating heaven so it came to my ears as “excuse me blah blah blah Malaysia.” I shook my head and asked him to repeat.
“Oh no, I haven’t been but I would love to go sometime.” I replied.
“Well you seem to order a lot of the traditional Malay foods.” I.E. foods that most Americans don’t want to try.
“Oh thats because I have had friends report back and pick out their favourites from Malaysia.”
“That is pretty nice, yeah most Americans don’t ask for Cendol or ice Kacang because if its color. They look at the color and they get something else.”
“Well that is their problem, I like to try everything and they lose out because both cendol and ice kacang are very good.” He smiles and excuses himself to serve another customer. The two people next to J and I start asking me a million and one questions about the dessert. Whew! Well by the time we rolled out of there we spent $45 dollars including tip, and we had to take a long walk because both really needed to digest. We had eaten way too much food. J had finally tasted Malaysian food, and we were given excellent service from the bar, and the other staff. Everyone at the bar were very friendly, and everyone had a peek at each others lunch. Not to mention the round robin of questions. I would go back and try some of their other dishes too, hell I will eat through their menu if I could afford it. I don’t know if it is authentic, but I do have to say I really enjoyed myself. Oh they also do Tea Tarik ( I asked the bartender hehehe…He said he’s not as good as the people in M’sia but if you specially request it they will make it for you. He was very surprised that I knew what it was *sigh* LOL)

McCarthy Ranch . 182 Ranch Drive . Milpitas, CA 95035
Tel: 408.719.9811 Fax: 408.719.9810

Opening Hours:
Monday – Thursday: 11 am-3 pm, 5 – 9:45pm
Friday: 11 am – 3 pm, 5 -10:30 pm
Saturday: 11 am-10:30 pm
Sunday Closed

http://www.bananaleaf-usa.com/