How I Learned to Cook in a Small Kitchen

I recently made the move up to the Metro DC area for grad school. I feel like this goes without saying but, the housing prices are a little bit on the higher end in this part of the country. I was fortunate enough to score a lease for a basement efficiency apartment in a house in suburban Maryland, all for a reasonable price.

Of course- you get what you pay for. This place is just right to meet my needs, but maybe not all of my desires (to have a top-notch kitchen at my disposal!). As a result, I am have had to learn how to cook again. What do I mean? Well, tight quarters and limited equipment requires a little rethinking to the cooking process. I've got a fridge, electric range, small sink, and a microwave. Here is one angle of the setup:



First impressions: the oven knob says it can go up to 500 degrees, there is only *one medium* size burner, and the sink is about the size of one that you would find in a wet bar. The oven does have a broiler and it works fine (made a tuna melt yesterday). The 500 degree option will be good later on for making pizza and for searing off meat. The small burners are difficult to deal with because that means you can really only have one major project going on at one time. The smaller burners means I have to keep an eye on the temperature dial. I have to usually crank the knob to high to get any large pot up to temp, but once it's there, I have to turn the knob back just a little to prevent things from burning. Size constraints limit action on the stove to probably one big pot/pan and maybe a small sauce pan. This means I'll have to adjust my recipes/cooking style to more one-pot meals or meals that I can make in stages. When I mean "in stages," I am referring to a process where you cook one part of the dish, dump the contents in a bowl or a storage container, wash the pots and pans, and then work on the next part. Luckily, I also brought a standalone rice cooker (it's the Asian in me) which frees up some space on the stove.

The small sink and lack of a dishwashing machine means I have to hand-wash and dry everything that I use. I have one of those plastic drying racks and draining boards that I keep next to the sink usually. When I am doing my cooking prep, I move it on top of my fridge, where I bought a cheap metal wire rack from one of those discount surplus stores. This rack is great because I also have my cutting boards stashed up there. Maximizing space efficiency is key in a kitchen like this.



So- last night I got my first taste of actually cooking in this kitchen. I made a variation of the please-all summer pasta I posted about earlier. For this recipe I used white wine in the sauce, no canned tomatoes (fresh grape tomatoes instead), and added some diced spring onion and parsley. As you can see in the picture, the dishwashing rack is out of the picture (on top of the fridge). I made a mini-assembly line. I've got my diced veg next to the sink. I toss the food scraps in the garbage can to my right. I toss the first round of vegetables to saute (onions) in a separate bowl. My pot is heating up. My wine glass is full for personal consumption (verrry important). Things go quite smoothly because of the organization. After the veg is sufficiently cooked, I toss everything back into that glass bowl, wash the pot, fill it with water and salt, and then boil the pasta. When the pasta is done, I drain it (with a little reserved pasta water), and toss the veg back in. Presto! Perfect pasta! The lesson of the day- even the smallest of apartment kitchens can be setup to crank out the same quality of dinners as a larger household kitchens.

Off the Shelf- Brew Dog Bashah + Tokio Beer

I decided to bring home a few micro-brews to my father, a long-time beer drinker. By "long-term beer drinker" I mean that he has little experience in the world outside of the mainstream beer companies. Growing up, there would be a variety of Miller Lite or Busch in the fridge awaiting him after a hard day's work. Although, I do give him some credit: in recent years he has become a regular drinker of Yuengling, which is a fine everyday lager. Yuengling being designated as "America's oldest brewery" and NOT captured by the Big-3 beer companies (Busch-Miller-Coors). I had 4 beers on the informal tasting menu: Paulner Lager (Germany), Hoegaarden Wit Beer (Belgium), and 2 Brew Dog beers from Scotland. It's the Brew Dogs that I'll concentrate on my review today...



Now, I have had the Brew Dog Punk and Hardcore IPAs before. I highly recommend both. They are slick and well-balanced. The two beers that I put forth to my father were a little "out of the ordinary" for his palette, and for anyone else's for that matter. The first is called the Bashah. It is labeled as a "Black Belgium style Double India Pale Ale." Additionally, the bottle brands the Stone Brewing Company winged demon because it is a joint collaboration between the two international brewers. The Bashah is quite nice. It pours a dark brown and has a good roasted coffee aroma up front. The first taste to hit your tongue is indeed like a Belgium sweet flavor. However, it is quickly followed by a pleasantly bitter IPA flavor that leaves a nice dryness on the tongue. When drinking this beer, I couldn't help but be reminded of Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale...a beer that I reviewed on this blog years before. The difference is that the collaboration is a little tamer- a little less coffee nose and a little less hops. At 8.6% ABV this beer is no minor leaguer, but the higher alcohol content is well blended and not very noticeable.

The second Brew Dog selection is a high roller beer: the Tokio. At $12 for a 11.2oz this beer is certainly for special occasions only to most beer-drinkers. It is labeled as an "intergalactic fantastic oak aged stout, ...brewed with cranberries and jasmine." Wow. That's a lot going on. I haven't got to the most shocking part: an ABV rated at 18.2%. Yeah, that's right- 18.2%. There is nothing subdued about this beer. This also includes the flavor. The beer pours a dark brown, with a reddish-orange tint to the dark beer. The cranberry flavor is most present. It's in the nose and hits the tongue hard. With the first few sips, it's almost a cherry elixir sort of flavor. The high alcohol content doesn't really help as it amounts to a flavor that's sure to throw you back to those restless nights when you were a child and your mother gave your Dimetapp for your cough. After you get past the cranberries, there is a slight oak finish. I could not find the alleged "jasmine" flavor really anywhere in the beer. There might be a slightly floral aroma to the beer, but that is quickly swamped by the cranberries and alcohol. Overall, I wouldn't necessarily give the beer a standing ovation. Compared to the other Brew Dog beers, this bottle is not quite as balanced. However, if you are looking for a pleasant way to get a great buzz without drinking a sixer of Miller Lite, or a case of Natty for that matter, then try it out! One of these little bottles and you'll be set. In fact, I am writing this blog post BEFORE I finish drinking the rest of the bottle, lest I fall out of my chair and black out without any recollection of how this beer tastes.

A Pizza Story

For those of you who were in direct contact with me last week, you probably knew that I was teaming up for with my long-time, best friend and fellow foodie, Nathan, for a little test of our culinary prowess. It's been no secret to our close circle of friends that over the past year Nathan has tested his pizza recipes through various forms. I feel like I have been there along the way to offer my opinions, make suggestions, and learn a little bit about the ancient tradition of bread-making. Just think about it- the basic staple of a large portion of the world's diet is made up of just water, flour, and yeast. To join in this practice is to contribute to a lineage of bakers, both amateur and professional, in order to advance the flavors and textures of a food that many of us take for granted.

Pizza is a perfect site to explore the wonders of this trifecta of ingredients. Just think about it: who doesn't like pizza? No one I would trust, most certainly. Of course we have all had bad pizza here and there. Hell- some of us might have been so weened on bad, commercially stamped-out pies that we might not even know better. There are certainly pizzas that are simply fit for consumption and basic sustenance when we most need it (For example, Chanello's or Assantes here in Richmond). Then there are pizzas that surprise us with interesting new flavors that break the boundaries of conventionally-held thoughts on pizza (I suppose the Wolfgang Puck movement and California Pizza Kitchen would fall under this category). Regardless of what type or quality of pizza people it is (generally) a communally-eaten food. Where there is pizza, there are usually people. Pizza is great because it is one of those foods that is capable of bringing people together that span various age, demographic, and tastes.

That last paragraph might seem like a digression from my core story, but it's not. It actually situates the events that culminated over the past past week quite perfectly. Ya see, my buddy Nathan signed on to a pizza tour. The pizza tour is sponsored by a group of Richmond foodies called Pamparius. In essence, the group is headed up by two bikers with a blog and a belly for pizza. Participants of the second-ever Pamparius Richmond Pizza Crawl payed a flat fee to cover the cost of the pizzas at 5 of Richmond's newest and/or best pizza places. From what I heard, the final count was about 50 people who were willing to spend their Saturday night biking up and down the streets of Richmond in search of the city's best pie. There's this post's theme- pizza bringing people together. Something like this doesn't come out of thin air; I give major props to Pomparius' Grant and Andy for pulling this thing together and making sure things were planned precisely.

On the other end of this pizza tour, there was another pair of guys- Nathan and I. With the blessing of his roommates and significant other, we spent the last couple of days before Saturday's crawl working out some last minute details. We took Thursday's dinner to take a test run on some last minute variables. However, some loose ends presented some difficulties: Do we need a new pizza peel? Yeah, we should get one. Which mozz is best from the results of these test pizzas? Damn, this one is too dry and just flares up in the oven. This mozz has too much liquid; it'll probably just turn into a pile of goo. Wow! -This cheese is perfect, we should rush back to Kroger and buy the rest of it up before it's gone. Can we grow enough sourdough starter to make 8 pizzas in time? How are we gonna accommodate 50 people into a city apartment? Or worse- how do we accommodate 50 people INSIDE if it rains?



Eventually, most of these concerns resolved themselves by the day-of (except for the 35% chance of a thunderstorm by late Saturday night). Saturday morning, the whole apartment woke up. Some cleaning and rearranging took place. Nathan and I cleared out any extraneous items from the kitchen and cleaned the surfaces. The giant batch of hand-mixed dough had sat overnight in a cool place to rise and ferment. The first success: the dough smelled and looked great. It smelled like fresh cake and was the real sticky-icky, ooooh-weee! Nathan portioned the giant mound of dough into 8 balls of 330g apiece using a digital scale. Then- each ball was shaped and allowed to proof again at room temperature.



In the meantime, we brainstormed a menu. We knew that this was a rare opportunity to spread some buzz around Richmond if we ever decide to wade into the local restaurant pool. I came up with a menu design based around Nathan's pizzas. We ventured off to get them printed off (thanks to his girlfriend). At first site of the printed-off menu, we thought, "This operation looked legit." Lastly, we stopped off at the Carytown Ukrop's...errr Martin's to pick up some arugula for the last pizza. Kroger's arugula looks closer to baby spinach. Martin's has the right stuff, it's just that it's mixed with baby spinach. Thus, some manual separation was necessary. If anyone from Martin's is somehow reading this blog: get the Nature's Promise brand of baby arugula in every one of the Richmond-area stores! If some guy who is making arugula pizza in his home kitchen doesn't buy it all up, I'm sure some yuppie transplant from Ellwood's or Whole Foods will graze on it. Anyways- by 5:00pm or so, everything was prepped. The dough balls looked like oversized freshwater pearls, the arugula was separated from its leefy brother-in-prepackaged-arms, the mozz was sliced and diced, the garlic was chopped, the basil was picked, etc. etc. As Tony Montana would have said, "We were ready for war."


The crowd arrives

From about 5-9pm, we indulged in a few Sierra Nevada Summerfests as we enjoyed the quiet before the inevitable storm. The crowd wasn't planning on showing up until 9:30pm, but they left their first stop a little late. We thought we had more time to chill. At around 9:10p, Nathan gets a text from the pizza crawlers: "On our way from Stuzzi's." Stuzzi's is the latest place that is trying to bring authentic, Neapolitan pizza from the former site of 1 North Belmont. It also happens to only be about 3 blocks from Nathan's house. We had to get workin' fast.



So, Nathan stretches the first dough ball. We begin to work in tandem, like a dance in the kitchen. He works the dough, while I tango line back and fourth between the oven and the fridge pulling ingredients. We struck an instant harmony. Before we knew it, two margheritas were ready to go, wrapped in foil, and waiting for their hungry patrons. As soon as the second pizza popped out of the oven, about 35-40 bikers with their strobing headlights pulled around to the backyard. It was an adrenaline-inducing sight for us. Nathan's roommates went down to greet everyone and try to bring them up. Instead, they chose to hang out in the backyard. Fine by us- less people inside to crowd our space. Grant and Andy of Pomparius came up and were excited to serve Nathan's pizza. They have sampled it before and loved it. However, their fellow pizza crawlers didn't seem too enthused about the other Neapolitan-style pizzas that they had tried earlier. Both of them were concerned that they would also be turned off by Nathan's pizza.


However, the first round of tasters were pretty impressed that there was pizza ready to go. The other four stops were all restaurants; we were the only house on the stop. Our dough was hand-mixed, not blended in an industrial sized mixer. Our dough was naturally leavened, and wasn't proofed in a commercial box. All of these other places had an entire staff of prep cooks and people on their ovens, whereas we had two. There was no D.O.C.-certified wood-burning oven or large, gas deck oven at "Chez Dooley." We relied on the apartment's old Gibson-brand electric oven. All of this David versus Goliath thought was something that was deeply in our minds, but it wasn't apparent in the pizza crawlers. As we were spitting out pizzas, in and out from the kitchen, we had a few people who came up to see what all the fuss was about. One person said, "Grant told me I had to see the oven. Where is it?" I said, "It's right in front of you." Their reply, "You gotta be kiddin'. I dunno how you got THAT oven hot enough to make crust like this."


Where all the action happens

And the complements boosted our momentum as the night went on. We got compliments that the pizza was the best they've tasted that night, or ever for that matter. The last few pizza crawlers that stuck around until the end of the crawl were rewarded with the Rucola, one of the house's favorite pies. Nathan shoved the last piece into my mouth and the mouths of all his roommates, who had graciously dealt with the madness leading up to the event. It was a taste of accomplishment, commitment, and of spicy, meaty arugula! After, we slammed a few whiskey shots down and headed to a bar down the block to dance in celebration of the night.



In all, 8 of the best pizzas I've seen Nathan make were pulled out of that oven that night. The whole production was a team effort from the guys at Pomparius to everyone at Nathan's apartment. The pizza gods smiled down on us with good weather, perfect pizza, and great company. I'm so damn proud of him and I feel nothing short of pure bliss whenever I get a chance to work in the kitchen with him. Moments like that remind us all why we love food. The passion, the torment, the climax, and the resolution. A good food story is much like a great movie or a great novel for all of those reasons. Hopefully, that night will only be the end to one chapter in this Richmond-based pizza story. And that my friends, will have to be continued...

Pizza Party + What's Wrong w/ Your Bread?

I've been spending a few weeks back home in Richmond, VA. My days here are rarer and rarer, which is unfortunate because my best friends still live in the city. But-- nothing brings us together like food, drink, and a good time. Last weekend, my buddy Nathan put on a fantastic, 6-pizza feast for us. This guy has spent the past 2-3 year perfecting his recipes, trying to get as close to the best, sans-woodfire grill/homemade pizza possible. For long time TtW followers, you will remember a long streak of posts (now archived on this blog) that I devoted on my experiments with homemade pizza. Well, you all can blame Nathan for that.

Anyways, what's Nathan's secret? Here are just a few things I've picked up from him (hopefully he doesn't mind!):
-For his sauce, he uses canned (Cento-brand) whole tomatoes that have been rinsed, seeded, then crushed
-He uses a sourdough "starter" made from imported yeast from some old mill, bakery, or something like that in Italy: this gives his crust a more developed, sourdough taste. This step isn't for everyone, but it's worth the investment if you make a lot of bread
-For cheese- water content matter: too dry and the cheese burns, but the balls packed in water just turn into goo unless they are wrapped in a paper towel for a little while in the fridge
-No olive oil in the dough mixture (it burns at high temps)
-Lean towards recipes that create more of a "wet" dough: this simply means a a higher proportion of water to flour

-Don't punch down the dough after it has proofed initially, contrary to a lot of common pizza dough recipes
-To get your oven and stone as hot as possible, preheat it to the max temperature for at least an hour before cooking
-Use the broiler setting when actually cooking the pizza, and if you can turn the broiler on independently of the bake setting then use both when cooking the pizza
-Rotate the pizza with your peel during the cooking process to ensure even cooking



The result is a thin crust pizza with just the right amount of dark, blisters on the bottom of the crust (a characteristic usually only found on pizza made in HOT wood-fired, brick ovens). The toppings are the time-tested compliments to the main star of this pizza: the crust! Speaking of- the crust has the taste and chewiness of a a good sourdough loaf, with plenty of airy bubbles. Yum! In addition to the traditional margharita-style, he also made a red pizza (no cheese), white pizza (no sauce) with and without garlic slices, and the crowd favorite- a white pizza that is topped with baby arugula and lemon juice after it comes out of the oven.

Just in case you were wondering- we had a mixture of drinks. I bought a French rosé from the Rhone Valley ($8 on sale) that I quickly grabbed and chilled at my neighborhood Kroger. This wine wasn't too bad: it had a slightly sweet strawberry initial taste on the tongue with a dry finish. I recommend the other rosé I have reviewed on the site. Go ahead- utilize the "search this blog" feature and type in "Tavel" or "rosé". My other buddy, James, also scored us a mini-keg of Bell's Oberon summer ale. I highly recommend the Oberon as a crowd-pleaser.

With the "itis" kicking in full force, Nathan showed me a few interesting links related to the topic of the night's featured, epicurean indulgence. The most interesting one was related to the health benefits of REAL sourdough bread. When I mean REAL, I mean the kind that takes hours to proof. This is in contrary to a lot of mass production bread that is churned out in a bunch of chain store bakeries or on the shelf in most major grocery stores. The easiest place to find the real stuff is in your own kitchen, where YOU made it. "Fast" bread may contribute to a lot of wheat intolerance in Americans because our bodies are incapable many parts of the wheat germ without the aid of yeast. The yeast break down the wheat and makes bread easier to digest and the by-product gives a better flavor to the bread. Anyways, the health benefits from slower bread are numerous beyond wheat intolerance, including possibly preventing diabetes. Like with red wine, I don't need a justification to consume homemade sourdough other than the fact that it tastes good- BUT it's nice to know you can enjoy a fine homemade pizza like Nathan's without a side of guilt. Right?

Read about the health benefits of sourdough for yourself

The Perfect, Please-All Summer Pasta

Mid- to late- summer means harvest time for a bunch of delicious vegetables. When the temperatures start to peak around 100 degrees, I crave less meat and consume more heartier dishes in my daily life. This dish is my favorite dish to cook in the summer- it's colorful, healthy, hearty, and versatile. It pleases your vegetarian friends. Slap some grilled shrimp or a chicken breast and you've got something for meat-lovers. There are no specific measurements or prescriptions for what vegetables to use, so just use my template as a guide. Enjoy!

**Summer Harvest Pasta

-Base flavors:
Diced onion
Minced Garlic
Bell pepper
Red chili flakes
Lemon zest
Olive oil

-Choose your vegetables:
Summer squash
Zucchini
Fresh tomatoes

-Choose your pasta:
Farfalle
Rotini
Linguine
Spaghetti

-Marinara Sauce (optional)

-Flavor enhancers (pick one):
Basil (chiffonade)
Lemon thyme
Parsley
Rosemary

-Cheese:
Mozzarella
Pecorino
Parmesan (-o Reggiano)

Get your pasta water rolling. Don't forget to salt the water!!! While that pot is boiling, dice your vegetables. For the squash and zucchini, make sure that they are cut thick enough to be a little chunky, but not so much that they don't soften enough when you cook them.

After your pasta takes the plunge, get a a big saute pan out. Heat the some olive oil, and red chili flake on medium heat. Add the onions and garlic. Once they just begin to soften, add the peppers and the rest of the vegetables. Salt and pepper. Saute the vegetables until the squash/zucchini are al dente and have just a little crunch left. If you have a jar of marinara hanging around, you can add a few spoonfuls just to add a little moisture to the whole veg mixture.

Combine pasta and vegetables. You can add a little bit of olive oil if you need to loosen up the mixture. Certainly add a featured herb and some grated cheese. Pecorino is a sharp sheep's milk cheese that is a little saltier than parmesan, which is a little nuttier. Either is great. I like to grate them with a vegetable peeler in order to get a larger surface area of flavor. Mozz gives you that gooey, stringy cheese effect with each mouthful. Finish it off with some lemon zest if you've got the fruit on hand. Congrats!- You've got summer in a bowl.

The End of Tuna?

Here is an interesting article that was posted in the NYTimes Magazine. How will the Gulf oil spill and dwindling fish stocks affect global tuna consumption?

From the Travel Files: Tsukiji Fish Market- Tokyo, Japan

Today I am blogging about one food find from my 5 week post-graduation trip through the Asia-Pacific region. The first place I visited was Tokyo. Tokyo is a major food center of the world. I can think of no other place that is more symbolic of Tokyo's love for food than the Tsukiji fresh seafood market. The largest of its kind, Tsukiji is a huge facility that is crammed with the freshest seafood harvested from the wee hours of the morning. Thus, the market is most active from before sunrise until about lunch time.



From the outside, the market does not really look like anything unique. However, inside is nothing short of organized madness as vendors strive to pack the seafood in ice and styrofoam. The fish is then loaded on big trucks using these small gas-powered trucks whose drivers probably graduated from the Fast and the Furious Driving School.





Outside of the market are rows of vendors that sell all sorts of vegetables, fruits, and kitchen tools and accessories. In addition, there are many little sushi shops that utilize the freshest catches of the day from the adjacent market. Which leads me to lunch...



To save money and maximize my fresh fish experience, I bought a few fresh chunks of tuna from the vendor above. The above tuna cost me about USD$5! I then took my tuna outside and browsed the streets until I found a little place that grilled up some teryiaki eel parts. I ordered the grilled eel fillets and was convinced to get some eel organs on a stick (I think they were livers). I indulged in my seafood mini-feast. The tuna was unlike anything I'd every had. "Fresh" tuna in the states is very clean tasting to the point where there is no flavor characteristics. That's fine and all. I don't want smelly tuna. BUT- this tuna had a clean and fresh flavor that still had the flavors of the ocean within it. It was something a little like when you breathe in the salty ocean air when you are near a beach. My friend from the eel shop was also nice enough to give me a little packet of wasabi and some soy sauce. A-mazing. The eel was salty, sweet, sticky, and the skin was crispy from the grill. I'm sure the sushi places are great but in my opinion, hold the rice and cut right to the chase. Overall, Tuna + eel + green tea = a wonderful lunch in Tsukiji.